"HAPPY HEARTH'S WARMING!" We all called.

The throne room was covered in festive decorations. Colorful materials hung from the ceiling and the whole place smelt like pine needles and those spices people put in foods so that they can market them as 'festive'. Though these pleasant smells were being over-shadowed by the excitement building in everyone's stomachs. There was a large, decorated and very familiar type of tree sitting between the two thrones, casting colorful warped halos onto the nearby wall as it's lights pulsed and flashed in a seemingly random display.

We all, (Celestia, Luna, Chrome, Feather, Dawn, Steve, Ebony and Me), sat in a circle (in that order) just in front of the large tree. We had a small pile of six boxes in front of each of us, one from each pony, griffin, changeling and/or human. Each box was unique to it's sender. Each of us looked rather tired, but the smile plastered on each of our faces threatened to completely cover up that fact.

There were no guards in the room. The two 'big ones' dismissed them once we were all present. Allowing us to have some more private and honest interactions.

Since i was unfamiliar with this event's customs, I did some research beforehand and found out what the most common things to give in these colorful boxes were. Turns out, food and decorations are the most popular and accepted things ponies put in them, so, being the lazy thoughtful man I am, I just baked everyone a pizza each, except for Ebony. He can't really eat real food so I just used some left-over supplies from the guitars I made to make him something more... special.

After our call, we all began pulling the bows off of the boxes set before us.

I looked down to my boxes and took a second to appreciate the design each box held.

Every box from a pony had his/her cutie-mark on the side.

Chrome's: A grey-blue box with a black bow. Clearly mirroring his coat and mane colors respectively.

Feather's: A fire-red box that slowly faded to a vibrant yellow towards the top, causing a cool-looking effect. The bow was purple, the same shade as her eyes.

Dawn's: A bright pink box with a similarly colored bow. There was a pink feather placed in each knot. How she got those... I don't know.

Steve's: A mat-brown box with a dark-purple bow, reflecting the color of the tips of his wings. Seems purple bows are in season or something.

Luna's: A dark box decorated to look like the night sky, the bow seemed to flow and weave in the same way her mane... thing... did.

Celestia's: A sky-blue box with a bright yellow bow that seemed to radiate energy as I untied it.

And Ebony's: Oh Ebony's was awesome. It was a black box with a green bow. But each box had indentations in it, just like his hooves. I think we all appreciated his craftsmanship. I actually ended up keeping his box, it was too awesome to throw away.

I opened all of my boxes rather quickly. Just as everyone else had. There were 'thanks's and 'welcome's being passed around the room. So I waited for all of that settle before speaking. I noticed while I was waiting, that Ebony had not opened my gift to him. For some reason.

Once everyone had finally quieted down. "Thanks guys, for these. All of you." I said. They all beamed at me. I deftly dodged their laser attacks - get it, cus they beamed? Nevermind. Most of my gifts were food. But I had four gifts that peaked my interest. From Celestia, Luna, Dawn and Feather. "But first." I lifted the royal sister's gifts. "Really?" They both smiled sheepishly.

Celestia's gift was a model of the sun. Luna's was a model of the moon. They were clearly made by the same person, and were both supported by very intricately carved clouds. Each model was just small enough to sit in the palm of my hand and were made out of a cold, fragile-feeling material.

"We both thought they were appropriate." Celestia said, "Only a couple dozen of those still exist, be careful with them. But knowing your reputation with expensive, unique relics..." She pointed at where the carpet used to be, then to the throne-room doors, then a very quick point to Luna. Luna noticed and rolled her eyes.

I laughed, "I'll try to keep these safe. They would go well on a window-sill or something." I slowly put them back into their boxes and shifted them out of the way, for safe-keeping. I then picked up Dawn and Feather's gifts. Chrome, Celestia and Luna gasped as I held up the items. "Really guys?" I asked the two mares.

They looked at each other for a second, then looked back. "I swear we didn't plan this." Dawn said.

"It's just a coincidence, and a lucky one at that." Feather continued.

Dawn had got me a rather large knife, a rather scary one at that, while Feather had gotten me a blade-maintenance kit.

"You do weird things with that knife you have," Feather said, "So I thought you could at least keep it sharp and clean." She didn't like the fact I used it to sculpt things, like the first guitar I made. My eyes turned to Dawn, waiting for her explanation.

"I thought of you when I saw it." Dawn said happily, "I thought you'd want to complete your set."

I looked at the knife in my hand, thinking. Complete my set...? Oh!

I pulled Forge's knife out of its, now usual, place on the side of my belt, at my hip. I placed the two knifes side-by-side, they were perfect mirror-images of each other.

"Oh, awesome!" I said, making an uneducated attempt at a fighting stance with one in each hand. "Thanks, this is so cool." I said as I sat back down and placed my new knife into the other side of my belt, while putting the old one back in its spot.

Feather laughed slightly. "Dawn, I think you are going to have to teach him how to use them properly." My stance must have been horribly wrong or something.

Dawn snorted. "I wouldn't doubt him, Feather." She said, turning a little more serious, "You saw what he did with one of those right? Imagine what he could do with two! Let alone training!" Her wings flared and she had a very strangely exited look on her face. Damn, this chick really likes her blades, huh? I don't think anyone in the room was comfortable with her just casually referencing the fact I literally murdered someone.

The knifes felt a little heavier on my sides.

There was a lull in the conversation. I panicked and quickly found an alternate route.

I looked over to Ebony. "Hey, you going to open that? Or just look at it?" I asked, pointing at the box I gave him. He still had not touched it.

Ebony snorted. "Dan, I can feel the pride coming from that box. What did you do? Rig a pie to fly out of it or something?"

"Just open the damn box." I said, smirking at his suspicions.

Ebony rolled his eyes and strained his magic, lifting the box over to him and placing it in front of him. He had started to practice his magic, since he needed it to properly play the guitar I gave him, or at least allowed him to use. He unwrapped the bow and magic'd off the lid.

The lid fell as soon as he looked inside. Luckily the lid fell onto the floor. Allowing the peering ponies (and griffin) to look in as well.

Celestia gasped. Ebony was frozen. The rest seemed confused.

I had worked for hours on that chunk of wood, and that's not counting the many failed attempts. Luckily I had a lot of spare wood.

It was a very scaled down version of The Equality Hole. I had created the model by whittling at a piece of spare wood left over from the guitars. For reference, the whole thing was the size of a large paper-weight. The door/hatch to the hole being about the size of a small shirt-button and the carefully constructed human standing outside it stood at about the same height as a pin on its end.

I had included every detail I could remember. I wrote 'The Equality Hole' above the door, just like the real thing. I tried to do the lantern sitting outside the door, but I ended up cutting it off. I mean, the tiny changeling with trailer in tow even had nooks in his legs! No wonder Ebony could taste the pride, it had taken me forever and I was really quite happy with the way it turned out. Yes it took a lot of failed attempts and a lot of throwing wood in anger every time my knife slipped and I cut someone's leg off or something. But all that just made me more happy with myself, I had overcome it all and finished the model.

"So, you like it?" I asked. Ebony remained motionless. His eyes looked... strange. After a couple seconds he slowly nodded, not taking his eyes off of it.

Celestia looked to me as my expression became concerned. "I believe you have overwhelmed him with emotion."

I blinked. "How would you know that? And what do you mean?"

Celestia sighed slightly. "I looked through the archives a couple days ago, looking for anything on changelings, to see what I could get." At my surprised look she continued. "Since one was going to living here, it only made sense that I should try and accommodate them." She paused before getting back on topic, "I read something in one of those books that emotions can be bound to objects. Emotions that changelings can... taste and also drain from the object. If the emotion is strong enough, it forces its way into the changeling, regardless if it is feeding or not. As the book stated, shared by a anonymous source, that changelings avoided the crystal empire for a while after it appeared, since the statues of King Sombra were imbued with so much fear, it drove any changeling who got too close completely insane, or worse."

I thought for a second. But of course, Chrome interrupted my thoughts. "So Dan made Ebony go insane?"

Celestia waved a hoof. "No no no. That model is probably filled with more... positive emotions." She turned to me. "As I believe you have pleasant memories of that place? Yes?"

I laughed. "As much as I nearly starved, it was pretty nice up there." Again, I used the term 'up there' to through Celestia off its location. "Plus, I try to keep a modest exterior, but I am like... super-proud of that model, took me ages."

Feather walked a little closer to the model. "So... this is the..."

"The cave I spent 25 day in, yes." I finished for her. Celestia flinched slightly, me leaving was not a fond memory of her's.

Feather hummed. Dawn seemed interested. "Do I smell a survival story?" She asked in a tone way to happy for the topic.

Steve also had his interests peaked. "This, I must hear. Dan does some weird stuff sometimes. I don't want to miss an opportunity to extend that list!" He said, as they both sat attentively.

I explained what happened with Ebony, the cave and Celestia. Celestia stayed quiet.

Dawn chuckled. "Heh, that's Cel for you." She said, elbowing Celestia. "Leave for longer than she expected and she'll beg you to come back..."

Celestia, catching Dawn's self-reference, put a hoof over the pegasi's back. "I'm just glad you're safe... I'd lost al-"

"Hate to interrupt-" Chrome was cut off as everyone, but Ebony, turned and stared at him in shock.

I blinked. "Dude... You just interrupted Celestia!" I walked over to him in the silence that followed, everyone else still staring. I patted him on the shoulder. "Good job."

Luna, who had been very quiet so far today, spoke. "Chrome. Continue." That's probably why she wasn't talking. She looked, SO tired. She had clearly had enough of this.

Chrome shook himself slightly. "S-sorry. I just wanted to inform everypony that Ebony..." He trailed off and pointed at the changeling.

I looked over to Ebony, he was being very creepy. His mouth moved as if he was speaking, but nothing was coming out, his eyes were both unfocused and distant. He then nodded, as if bowing. Then took a couple steps back and lit his horn.

I found one of my hands resting on the hilt of my older knife. I quickly moved it away from there. But everyone, even the princesses backed up a bit. They knew very little about changelings and I knew even less, in some ways, so we had no idea what he was doing.

He seemed to strain for a couple seconds, lowering his horn. There was a flash of light in front of him.

I shielded my eyes. As did the rest of the them. After the light had cleared I looked up. Ebony had collapsed. The ponies around me gasped and all took a step back, seemingly readying spells and taking... defensive stances? I looked around confused.

I came to my senses within seconds. "Ebony!" I yelled as I ran for him. I heard Celestia say something, but I was too busying running to pay attention. A couple steps in, I hit something and fell over backwards. I looked up to find... nothing. I tilted my head in confusion as I stood up. "Erm... Celestia? Did you just hit me with magic or something?" I said, turning around.

They all looked at me like I was insane. "Dan! Get back here." Celestia said, sternly, her eyes shifted past me for some reason. "We apologize, state your intentions."

I blinked at her. "I... wanted to help Ebony."

They all gasped with shocked and horrified expressions. "Dan!" Celestia said, again, "You are not helping matters at all, get back here!" Her eyes shifted again. "I am so sorry, please repeat."

What is even going on right now? Eh Celestia's probably being weird again. I turned around, Ebony was a couple feet from me, still out cold. I walked towards him, only to hit something again. This time I didn't fall. "The hell..." I mumbled as I extended a hand, it impacted with something that was not there. It collided with thin air. I noticed it was slightly warm and... not a wall, like I first thought. As I felt around it became clear to me it was more of a cylindrical shape.

I turned back to Celestia, who was staring at me, completely slack-jaw'ed. "What is thi-... what?" None of them responded. "What?! What are you staring at?!" Still no response. "Guys, I don't think you realize this, but there is an invisible warm thing here. It's kind of freaking me out. And so are you, with the staring."

Celestia blinked. "Dan, look. Behind. You." I turned around. Ebony was out cold a couple feet away.

I turned back to Celestia. "Ebony's just passed out. Why are you guys freaking out about that and not this!" I said, poking the invisible object.

They all looked at me like I was insane again.

Celestia's eyes shifted. "I am so sorry about this. I don't know what's gotten into him." She looked at me directly again. "Now please, come. Back. Here. So we can discuss in peace."

"...what do we need to discuss about?"

Celestia paused. Looking at me as if I just implied the sky was red. "Dan, look behind you. Tell me everything you see." Her eyes moved. "So sorry, just bare with us here."

I looked over my shoulder and back again. "There is just Ebony passed out on the floor. That's it."

"...Dan..."

"...yes..." I said, mocking her tone.

"I think we have found yet another one of your 'powers'."

I smiled. "Really? What did I do?" I looked back at Ebony. "Is Ebony not really there or something? Can I see into the past? Is that it?"

Celestia blinked. "N-no. Not quite. Please Dan just... wait outside the door please."

I sighed "Fine." I knew better than to ask.

I walked over to the door and closed it after me. I sat against the wall as soon as I got out there. I had the feeling this was going to take a long time.

***

A nudge on my shoulder caused me to slide down the wall and hit the floor. Waking me up instantly.

"Aw fu- Aw..." I didn't bother looking up. "What?"

"You can come back in, everything's sorted out." Celestia said from the doorway.

I slowly stood. The halls were in darkness once again. The moonlight streaming in through the windows. I followed Celestia into the throne room.

Celestia stopped half way into the room and stood there for a while, then looked back at me expectantly.

I blinked. "What?"

Celestia seemed taken a-back. "You really can't see her can you?"

I looked around the room. "See who? Okay this is getting to much now. Please... just tell me what is happening."

She looked straight ahead. "Do you mind if I... Okay, thank you." She turned back to me, turning the rest of her body as well. "You want me to explain everything?"

"Yes! God yes! I have no idea what he-" She lifted a hoof, cutting me off.

She sighed. "This really is a shame. Well... you see, Dan...

Updated: 11/11/15
-Fixed grammar
-Fixed tenses
-Fixed some spellings

ALL WILL BE EXPLAINED IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! ITS CELESTIA POV TIME AGAIN!!

Look, it's like... 5am... I deleted this chapter using that stupid marco-key like 3 times this chapter. Look in my blog for a little more detail on that. But yeah, I had to re-write this. Just be glad I care more about putting this stuff out than I do about having a sleep schedule. I don't have college for a while too, so maybe I will get more done over the next week or so.