Big MacIntosh pushed his shovel across the fields of Sweet Apple Acres, scraping away the snow and exposing the fertile earth. The keening cries of the orchard echoed up through his hooves, and a wistful smile played across his lips. It was like piglets squealing for milk from the sow. He looked behind him, and smiled at Caramel casting the seeds. Every toss of the stallion's head silenced another crying patch of ground, while every step Big Mac took made their keening louder. It was the perfect cycle for Winter Wrap-Up, a cycle both vicious and beautiful, unfolding and collapsing in on itself until it became flowers and yet ashes and then apples and peaches and every fruit under the sun except for pears because if this soil ever grew pears again then all would be fire and ice and eternal chaos worse than anything Discord could plan would descend upon the orchard...

Big Mac stumbled on something. Torn away from his ramblings, he stopped for a moment and looked down at the ground. The thing that had thrown off his rhythm was a rock, one of the rare ones that could stand up to the advance of his shovel. It had slipped under, used the push of the snow to bury itself partway into the soil. He went to kick it away, but he found himself scuffing the earth around it instead. He decided he would let this rock sit. It was a clever rock, dodging his shovel like it did. Maybe it would stand up to the other challenges that the year would throw at it. Big Mac smiled at that thought, and scuffed a little circle of dirt around the rock so that Caramel would know not to knock it aside. With his latest nemesis singled out, Big Mac took another lumbering step forward, and wondered what kind of rock it was.

Marble would know.

Big Mac stumbled again, but this time it wasn't because of any rocks underhoof. The face of the grey mare was suddenly staring back at him from the snow. The faint eddies of wind blowing over the drifts seemed to etch out a thousand tiny traceries of her, smiling, blushing, hiding, leaping towards him with legs spread wide, or lying down with...

He shook his head, and doubled his pace. He ignored Caramel's squeak of surprise, electing instead to try and work his way through these feelings. All the shoveling in the world did nothing to stop his imagination, though. With every step, Big Mac remembered the dust in her coat, the luminous purple of that one unveiled eye, the adorable way she tucked in her chin whenever she realized somepony was looking at her. He wondered what she was doing for Winter Wrap-Up.

Marble Pie brought her hoof down, not as a hammer but as a feather. She felt the earth below the snow, and without a single word spoken, she whispered to it. The ground heard the call of the farmer, and parted before her like the clouds before a pegasus. A hundred thousand tiny fissures, so small that they would never be seen on their own, spread out from Marble's hoof. She looked up, and smiled as she watched the snow disappear into the earth. Deep beneath anything that normal ponies could see, she felt the crops shift, felt the tiny echo of snowflakes bouncing off of tiny ledges, heard the thankful shouts of the next month's crop. The moisture from the snow would erode the rocks, just enough that as the crop grew closer and closer up to the air, just enough of the tiny imperfections would be sanded off that it would make the sort of naturally smooth rocks that fetched such high prices, even from casuals.

Marble always loved to make the spring pebbles. She worked so very hard at them, directing rainfall into hidden little reservoirs all year, and letting it out in little rivulets at just the right times. Gems came and went, and there were plenty of staple stones that served as fallback crops, but to Marble, the most dependable crop in a very dependable business was the spring pebble. Ponies always wanted them. Ponies always bought them. And ponies always had such big, scary smiles on their faces.

The fissures had spread quite far now. The snow had slipped out of sight, tumbling and trickling ever downwards, and a faint outline of the cracks could be seen. Marble let out a breath, and tapped her hoof against the earth again, sending a different message. The cracks closed up, the earth smoothed over and became the uninterrupted vista that had been waiting beneath the snow for all of winter. Marble smiled proudly and began her slow walk back to the house. If she took her time, and cleared as much snow as she could on the way, she would arrive just as Limestone finished up the hot drinks she always made for Winter Wrap-Up.

It took somewhere between one and two hours for Marble to make her way back to the house. As she neared the threshold, Maud stepped out the door and nodded to her. Marble nodded back, and tried not to blush too deeply as she watched Maud's eyes slowly scan the farm.

"You've cleaned up a lot of the snow." To the uninitiated, Maud's deadpan might have seemed sad somehow, but Marble knew her sister well enough to be able to notice the subtle signs of pride and congratulations in that short sentence. She gave her own short and sparing answer to the heartfelt praise. "Mhm." The sisters shared another nod, then Maud walked away and Marble stepped inside.

The warmth of the house, sparse as it was, came as great relief after several hours outside. The weather teams usually took a long time to bring in the warm front to the Pie farm, and this year did not look to be any exception. Marble made her way ever closer to the strongest source of warmth, which was the kitchen. She smiled as she found Limestone, sitting in a chair, sipping from a cup and smiling.

Marble expected her sister to react the moment she set hoof in the kitchen. The kitchen ranked just below Holder's Boulder in the hierarchy of Limestone's territorial instincts, and even Marble's catlike tread was usually enough to set her off. Today, though, Marble was able to make it halfway towards the stove before Limestone noticed her. And it wasn't with a harsh snap of the neck and a beady gaze, either, but a slow turn and a slight widening of her smile.

"Hey, Marble. Clearing going okay?"

"Mhm." Marble turned towards the stove, and noticed a pot with wisps of steam still wafting up from it. She raised an eyebrow, and took a few steps closer. The smell coming from the pot wasn't that of the usual Winter Wrap-Up hot coal, but something... softer.

"Oh, yeah. I'm trying a new recipe this year. Something Applejack showed me."

Marble froze just as she was stretching out to grab the ladle. The name of Applejack had jogged her memory, brought her surging back to another name. A name she had been mumbling into her pillow ever since the train rolled out of town on Bucking Day. A name she now did her best to shrug off as she ladled some of the drink into a cup of her own, and took it to the table. But as she took that first sip, the name came roaring back.

It was apple cider, sprinkled with serpentine. Marble could remember drinking this on Hearth's Warming, leaning into him as she pretended to be far more tipsy than a few small sips should have made her. She remembered giggling, and remembered how the Apples had all given her such adora-struck looks that she had blushed as red as his flank. She remembered making a plan to play up the drunk angle and use it as an excuse to kiss him, and getting her cider taken away before she could get drunk enough to do it.

She didn't notice she was crying until she felt Limestone's hoof on her shoulder. "Hey, Marble, are you feeling okay? And don't tell me it's allergies, because you and I both know I haven't let chalk anywhere near my kitchen." Another hoof crossed over Marble's chest, and for a moment she thought about leaning into the hug and letting it all out.

Then she thought about him. She thought about how he barely ever said a word, barely even seemed to change his face, but so clearly had so much going on. She pulled out of the hug and left the house. There was a lot more snow left to clear.