It was Hearth’s Warming Eve, and fillies were crying.

At the center of the jingle-belled, green-and-red-wreathed commotion was a lavender-coated Unicorn with a pink stripe running through her mane and a hoof in her mouth.

“What?” said Twilight. “It’s a school play. I’m trying to be educational.”

“What is going on?” demanded Cheerilee, the school teacher, striding over in a fuzzy red hat. She had organized the school pageant depicting the story of Hearth’s Warming Eve—the story, that is, which was a lot less bloody and speciesist than the history.

Twilight had been trying to explain this, which was why fillies were crying.

“She asked me what I thought of the play,” Twilight said desperately. “I didn’t know she would start crying.”

“What happened, Diamond Tiara?” Cheerilee asked the crying filly in a much kinder tone than she’d spoken to Twilight with.

The filly choked out her answer in between huge sobs that, in Twilight’s opinion, were really unwarranted by the situation. “I—asked—Ms. Twilight—if she liked—the play and—she said NO! She said—” here the filly in question sucked in several deep breaths, “that lots of p-p-ponies had DIED and our play was in—in—in—”

“Inaccurate,” said Twilight helpfully. Cheerilee shot her a glare.

Diamond Tiara struggled to catch her breath. “And she said we left out how Princess Platinum and Stormfeather the Pegasus had a fair—”

“An affair,” corrected Twilight.

“And she said when Commander Hurricane found out, she cut off his—”

“That’s enough,” said Cheerilee. “Go along now, Diamond Tiara, go blow your nose.”

Cheerilee waited until Diamond Tiara was out of sight. She advanced on Twilight until they were snout-to-snout.

“Um,” Twilight began. It was important to take charge of these kinds of confrontations.

“Do you have any respect?” Cheerilee said.

“For wha—”

“It’s a pageant for fillies and colts.” She was moving forward, and Twilight, cross-eyed, was moving backwards, somehow not fast enough to ease the pressure on her snout. “It is not about accuracy. If you can’t keep your comments appropriate and respectful, then I suggest that you keep them to yourself.”

Twilight’s back was against the wall. If Cheerilee kept moving forward, there was going to be some serious snout-on-snout damage.

“Do you understand?” said Cheerilee. Her tone was as sweet as her glare was terrifying.

“Mm-hmm,” squeaked Twilight. Cheerilee snorted and went away.

Twilight turned around and yelped. Diamond Tiara was right there.

“My daddy doesn’t like you,” the filly said. Her coat was a warm pink color, like fresh blood.

“Well….”

“He says the Daughter Bank is Canterlot control. He says Princess Celestia wants to rule everything.”

“The Daughter Bank reduces Canterlot control,” Twilight protested. It honestly hadn’t occurred to her that anypony would think otherwise.

“Daddy says ponies like you who think they can tell others what to do are going to get what’s coming to them.”

“We’re just trying to rebuild,” said Twilight. She felt confused, and sad. She had never been comfortable around fillies, but it was another thing to be disliked by them.

“Well, Daddy says Princess Celestia brought back Nightmare Moon on purpose so that she’d have an excuse to make the Daughter banks,” Diamond Tiara said. “Wasn’t Nightmare Moon her sister?”

“Leave her alone!” said a voice with a familiar Southern twang.

Her rescuers turned out to be the little sisters of her friends. There was Apple Bloom, a yellow, red-headed miniature version of Applejack, and Sweetie Belle, who had a voice that was as clear as glass and cracked just as easily. And there was Scootaloo, she of the chicken wings and nebulous relationship to Rainbow Dash. All three of them were still in their costumes: a tree, in Apple Bloom’s case, a rather overdone Princess Platinum dress for Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo wore a rather fanciful version of a Pegasus raider’s black outfit.

“Pick on somepony your own size,” Scootaloo said to Diamond Tiara, which made Twilight feel just super about herself.

“Yeah, don’t pick on Twilight,” Sweetie Belle said. “She saved the world.”

“That’s what they say,” Diamond Tiara sneered. “How much did Princess Celestia pay your sisters to stay silent?”

Apple Bloom got right up in Diamond Tiara’s face. Twilight started casting about for an adult, and then realized to her horror that she was the adult.

“Get along, children,” she said with about as much force as Fluttershy making a public announcement. They ignored her.

“Say one more word about my older sister and I’ll wallop you,” warned Apple Bloom.

Diamond Tiara was outnumbered. She started backing away.

“Daddy is Filthy Rich, and he has friends,” she said as she backed away. “They’re going to get together and vote for a new Princess. Princess Celestia and all her helpers are going to get what’s coming to them.”

She stuck out her tongue and flounced away.

“Thanks for saving me,” Twilight said.

“It’s okay, not everypony can be brave,” said Apple Bloom. “Lucky for you my sister and her friends were with you in the forest.”

Twilight agreed completely. “Could you please not tell them about this? It’s kind of embarrassing.”

They looked at each other. “Actually, we were hoping you could tell us more about the real history of Hearth’s Warming,” Apple Bloom said.

“It sounded really interesting,” Sweetie Belle added. “Until you talked about Stormfeather, I didn’t even know Pegasi had—”

“They don’t,” Twilight interrupted before she could finish.

“Because we asked Scootaloo, and she doesn’t have a—”

“Yup, I was wrong,” Twilight said quickly. She didn’t usually find it easy to admit that, but she would have challenged Nightmare Moon to a duel if it meant getting past this subject. “So, you want to know the story of Hearth’s Warming?” she asked. They nodded. “Let’s find a place to sit down. It’s long!”

Lots of ponies were eating in the big hall after the pageant. Twilight and the fillies found an empty table that was decorated with gold tinsel and red and green ribbon and sat down at it. Apple Bloom disappeared and came back with a hoofful of candy canes, which she distributed.

Twilight nibbled on the end of hers thoughtfully. “I wasn’t there, but I can tell you the story as it was told to me by somepony who was: Princess Celestia!”

“Wow,” Scootaloo said. “She’s the second coolest pony in all of Equestria!”

“Close enough,” Twilight agreed. “So, the story. Where to begin...you all know the story is about the founding of Equestria. But that’s the end of the story. It begins….

---

...once upon a time.

It was very cold. The ground was covered with snow and ice. There were no seasons. Seasons hadn’t been invented yet.

In those days ponies lived separately. Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies regarded each other as foreigners and guarded their borders jealously. I lived in the Unicorn Kingdom with my sister and our mother.

Under the rule of King Bullion, the Unicorn kingdom was entering an age of prosperity. We mined jewels and ore and forged metals and built radiant spires. We traded our gems to the Pegasi for the fresh water they farmed from the clouds, while they used our crystals to control the lightning from the clouds they lived on. This was in the days when water was still living, the oceans frigid but full of life, but water already did not refresh itself after use, and the snow was hard and unyielding, not like the soft powder you know. And every day, the Pegasi, who were nomadic, roaming wherever the clouds went, had to fly farther and farther to find fresh water.

We bought food from the Earth Ponies, who made tools from the metals we traded them and used them to cut through the deep snow. They found soil, and filled it with life, and green sprouted under their hoofs. The first time I saw dirt, I will never forget. Chancellor Puddinghead sent a container of the stuff as a gift to King Bullion. It was displayed in the center of the city for a while, until life left it. But the Earth Ponies, who lacked the flight of Pegasi and the magical protections Unicorns could muster, were the most vulnerable to windigos, whose hoofsteps were concealed in the howling winds, who walked under ice, who hunted ponies. When the windigos ravaged their fields, Princess Platinum of the First Bank of the Unicorn Kingdom lent them platinum bits at usurious rates.

Princess Platinum was very proud and cruel. She used the bank selfishly, skimming off of every transaction, quoting interest rates she chose for political purposes. Thrice she stymied the efforts of Commander Hurricane to unite the scattered Pegasi under a single military leadership. And she used this power to grow wealthy.

She did not grow popular. The Earth Ponies called her Princess Deficit. The Pegasi dropped eggs on her house. Even many Unicorns resented her—they had no choice but to use her bank, and to accept her rates.

But Princess Platinum was only the focal point of the tensions between the three races. The Earth Ponies were exposed and vulnerable when tending their farms. They suffered the brunt of the windigos’ violence and saw themselves as sacrificing their own lives to sustain the ostentatious lifestyles of ponies like Princess Platinum. Commander Hurricane was growing more aggressive in her attempts to unify the Pegasi, blaming Unicorns and Earth Ponies for their problems—the Pegasi were being assaulted by hail more and more, fillies and colts struck down on their first flights: The windigos, wraithlike in the freezing wind, had learned how to hunt in the sky. We Unicorns, meanwhile, grew more resentful of the envy and criticisms of the others, seeing ourselves as the lynchpin of the pony economy. More and more there were calls for us to close our gates to them, to forbid all trade and contact with the other races. I regret to say that I was among those calling for such things.

It was not like the peace you know now. When a clan of Pegasi….

---

Twilight stopped talking.

“What?” said Scootaloo. She had been absorbed in the story, along with her friends. “What happened next?”

What happened next was that a clan of Pegasi raided Earth Pony crops. They stole food, which was was worth its weight in platinum, even including the premium for Princess Platinum. Seeing an opportunity, Commander Hurricane offered the injured Earth Ponies her military protection. But the Pegasi sentries abused their position and took food that wasn’t theirs, and they looked down upon the Earth Ponies. A group of Earth Ponies caught two Pegasi sentries in the act of thieving. When the sentries tried to fly away, the Earth Ponies lassoed them. Then they trampled them.

Meanwhile, Princess Platinum asked her father to hold a meeting of the wisest Unicorns, which ended up being a meeting of their best politicians. She asked those assembled what could be done to protect Unicorns from the mercurial Pegasi and ungrateful Earth Ponies, and most of all from the windigos that followed in the wake of every disagreement between them. The prevailing sentiment was that Unicorns needed to be independent from the other kinds of ponies. The Unicorn Kingdom finally closed their borders to trade. Princess Platinum herself used her bank to fund Unicorns as they farmed and gathered water. But the magic to grow crops drained the bank at a steeper rate than lending it to Earth Ponies and Pegasi had. Even though Princess Platinum could control the rate herself, it was steeper no matter what she tried. The walls that her magic protected grew weaker.

War broke out between Pegasi and Earth Ponies. This was just what Commander Hurricane wanted, as she used stories of Earth Ponies lassoing and trampling Pegasi to unite the scattered cloud-clans, the powerful Cirrostrati and the heads of the Cumuloso families all falling under her wing. Chancellor Puddinghead of the Earth Ponies, probably the only fat pony in the world at the time, did something similar, assuming powers befitting a dictator and seeing to it that her foolish relatives, mostly a family of growers of Cruciferae, could grow their crops when and where they pleased, without regard for the ancient compact of crop rotation.

Pegasi were hungering, Earth Ponies thirsted, and Unicorns were doing both. Somehow, even before the added dimension of war, none of the three races could provide for themselves; the sum of their trade had been more than the whole of its parts. And this was not realized, even as Princess Platinum bled her bank dry, as Commander Hurricane burned Earth Pony crops and houses, as Earth Ponies built weapons of war to launch ice and rocks into the sky and used the shattered bones of Pegasi for fertilizer. Foals were born hungry and died hungry. Mothers began saving their thin milk for their older children, who had a chance of being able to survive, and let their hungry foals wail and wail until the cold took them. Everything was falling apart, the fragile equilibrium fraying, more threads being pulled out of its weak stitching than could possibly be sewn in.

Then the windigos attacked. The Unicorn walls collapsed. Frost grew over the soil the Earth Ponies had jealously guarded. The winds themselves turned against the Pegasi, slicing their wings apart with icy razors. And there was blood, so much blood, as the windigos had their fill of us, and hunted us like prey.

We were losing. We were dying. The forces of darkness were winning.

Twilight didn’t say any of that.

Cheerilee was right. These were summer fillies. To darken their eyes, to put ice in their hearts, it was a crime as sure as a selfish thought in winter. For though the windigos were defeated, the winds still howled over distant hills and on the tops of storm-ridden mountains where not even griffons went. Hearth’s Warming Eve was a time of warmth and gentle kindness, of friendship and family and all things good and worth protecting. It was not a time to talk about how ponies used to be and maybe still were, deep down in a part of the brain that didn’t know about comparative advantage and compound interest.

But those were lessons for a different day. A warm day, a bright summer day, when these three were older and could hear, under the sun’s golden rays, of the violence that lurked in the hearts of ponies, and what economists tried to do about it….

“Come on, what happened next?” Apple Bloom prompted.

Twilight fixed a smile to her face. “It’s just like what you performed in the play. All the different kinds of ponies squabbled endlessly. It got colder and colder, and it looked like the windigos were going to freeze everything. But then….”

---

Princess Platinum was brilliant and very selfish. All ponies were hard in those days, except perhaps my sister. She was as sweet as living water, whatever she became later. But Princess Platinum, though she still did not understand the symbiotic relationship of mutual economic dependence among the pony races, did understand that her remaining wealth would not protect her from freezing to death for much longer. This, to Princess Platinum, was unacceptable. And while I might have hoped that the deaths of many foals would have been equally unacceptable, if not more so, it remains, alas, that ponies are interested only in themselves. And so, to Princess Platinum, the cold was never really as important as her power and her pride until even the thickest blankets could not stop her from shivering at night, until the kernels of black corn that made a meal in those times reached even her dinner table.

She called a meeting of the heads of the races: herself, for King Bullion had died of sickness; the haggard and paranoid Commander Hurricane; and the gaunt, mad Chancellor Puddinghead, who laughed as others might cough or sneeze—she was truly insane, and scared me. I was by Princess Platinum’s side as her advisor, for even in those days I was a powerful sorceress and had a gift for warming. My sister, a shade less powerful and a touch more impersonal, was not there.

Commander Hurricane had brought Stormfeather, whose body was lean, but muscles rippled along his form when he moved. I am no Princess Cadance, but I sensed a change in Princess Platinum, that she was smitten with him, though Commander Hurricane only found out later, and took her revenge, for she prided Pegasi on their wings, and forbade interbreeding, lest some fliers be born out of her control.

Chancellor Puddinghead had brought Smart Cookie. Smart Cookie was as sane as Chancellor Puddinghead was not. She was deeply, deeply sane, and were it not for her presence, all might have been lost.

The meeting devolved into arguments almost instantly. Accusations and denials ran around the room. Stormfeather proposed that we kill the windigos. Commander Hurricane rebuked him for speaking—to be accurate, she struck him—which was fortunate. Princess Platinum defended his position at once, and invited me to speak, to show herself as more open-minded. I conceded that it might be done. Smart Cookie inquired how. In truth I had never thought about it. But I knew there were forces that had once tethered the Earth to its sun, and I conceived that there were spells that could join them once more. Smart Cookie asked more questions, prodding at my knowledge of sorcery and natural history, until it became clear that we could burn the windigos out.

Princess Platinum thought it was mad. This brought Chancellor Puddinghead onto our side. Commander Hurricane was taken with the idea of an assault on the windigos. And Smart Cookie, blessed be she, brought the princess to a revelation that the plan called for Unicorns to do the most important work, for which she would win the highest status. Then the three of us, the three of us who could think, drafted the plan that night, and my sister amended it in brilliant and subtle ways. We four became good friends during the preparations for the final battle. It is a shame what happened to Stormfeather, although he was no less of a stallion for it. As for Smart Cookie, she gave her life on the front lines of the battle. I would have wept for her, but the Sun was hot on our backs at that point, and I could make no tears.

The plan was this: We Unicorns used the last of the platinum to build a tether into the sky, by which we could lasso the Sun. The Earth Ponies tied the knots and made the throw, and the Pegasi monitored it in the sky, watching it past where we could not, and passing instructions for necessary corrections down to us. It worked, and we seized the Sun—though my sister and I had worked out that gold would be better for the task than platinum, and I wove strands of it into the tether.

The Sun was very far away. We pulled, and it nearly yanked us off our hoofs. At first the Earth Ponies and Pegasi were skeptical. But slowly the distant yellow speck began to grow in the sky. It would take one month in all for us to pull the Sun down to the Earth. Once we all had some experience maintaining the tether, Unicorns traded out in rotations for each other so that we could rest. Pegasi and Earth Ponies fed us, and each other, for the windigos had begun to sense the rising warmth, as we knew they would. We were preparing for battle.

Fighting had already begun on the day before the Sun would be close enough to use against the windigos, according to our calculations. We saw the bodies of Earth Ponies and Pegasi carried inside the perimeter, and we hung our heads at the lives given to protect us.

Yet we chose to celebrate. Maybe it was the impending death of all ponykind. Maybe it was a giddiness at the prospect of the end of war. Either we would all perish, or we would live free of predators and cold, those of us who survived.

A tall tree had been felled in the fighting. It was an old tree—all trees were old, young ones were not being born during the bitter cold—and we chose to bring it in and erect it as a symbol of what we were fighting for: a world of green, a world of life. Earth Ponies stabilized it and kept its leaves from drying while we Unicorns decorated it in gaudy colors, and Pegasi placed a miniature sun at the top. We gave each other gifts under the boughs of the tree, to thank each other for what they had sacrificed, and to show we knew them, and cared. That day became Hearth’s Warming Eve, as you know, and the day of the battle was Hearth’s Warming.

The Sun came hurtling down. I was on the team that met the brunt of it, beside my sister, and we felt such heat on our backs that you would not know if a dragon breathed fire over you. Some Unicorns were burned up instantly. I did not hear their cries; my senses were totally consumed by the heat and light all around me.

Our defenses failed. The windigos tore through the perimeter guarding us, but they could not approach us with the Sun so close. Snow was melting, the very ground was catching fire.

The plan was insanity. I think Smart Cookie knew that. I think she wanted to die a member of a united species, going out on their own terms. We could not control the Sun. The windigos turned and fled, quite correctly, because the Sun was dropping well below what we had calculated was the lowest acceptable point. The Sun is much bigger than the Earth. It would have swallowed all of us as easily as you swallow a single oat.

My magic gave out. I felt, but did not hear or see, my sister collapse beside me. We were going to die, and we were taking the planet with us. I, I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt that was quite unacceptable.

My eyes opened, somehow, in the fire. They did not burn. I saw, or maybe I imagined, the Earth Ponies and Pegasi still around us; they did not flee the falling Sun, not that they could have escaped it. I saw my fellow Unicorns, many of them still fighting to hold the Sun back, to balance it in the sky as we knew we must. I saw the connections and felt I understood things in that moment that I have failed to remember ever since. Things that maybe no pony but Walras the Bearded ever knew.

There was a fire inside me that was hotter than anything I'd ever felt. And I rose, and spread my wings, and raised the Sun.

There was no snow, just a steaming pool of water. The windigos were dead and gone. Many ponies were dead as well. The earth was scorched black as far as I could see. It would take us a long time to undo the damage of that day.

I remember that the tree was unblemished by the fire. At first I thought my eyes were deceiving me. But then a small red bird climbed out of a hollow in the tree and made a noise at me. It transpired that there had been a phoenix egg in the tree. A very hot fire is needed for them to hatch. The sun, it seemed, sufficed.

Our problems were far from over. I could raise the Sun, but not lower it. Without the ability to raise the Moon as well, to lower the Sun would have left our land in a timeless zone, neither hot nor cold, neither awake nor asleep. I remained awake for one month while my sister spun a tether out of silver to the Moon. The Moon is much smaller than the Sun, and there was less danger, and we were more experienced. I collapsed for a week, during which I suppose the land saw night for that whole while, and when I awoke my sister had her wings as well. After that we established a rhythm, trading off at dawn and dusk.

We celebrated, and we cried, and for just a short time, politics became easier. Princess Platinum became the de facto leader of the ponies. There were too few of us left to pretend to be different peoples, and we had learned of the danger of doing so. It was agreed that there would be no barriers of trade between ponies. This was the only law I was prepared to enforce myself. Maybe because everypony knew that, I never had to.

Other things happened. Princess Platinum rebuilt her bank. It was discovered, with a bit of trial and error, that she didn’t need to keep all that much platinum in the bank for it to work. Commander Hurricane discovered the Everfree Forest on one of her expeditions. Chancellor Puddinghead died of a heart attack, which on the whole was quite fortuitous. The major grower families who had prospered under her bickered among each other and never accomplished much.

And every year, on the same date, we celebrated Hearth’s Warming Eve under a tree, and swapped presents, and ate sweet things, and remembered the lives lost, and burned fires in our homes, and sang songs, and did everything we could to make the coldest time of year feel warm and alive with possibility.

Because once the world had been cold and dark, and it would be again, but in between was our time….

---

Twilight stopped, aware that the three fillies in front of her were crying.

“I’m sorry!” Twilight said. “I forgot, you’re fillies, don’t cry.”

“Why didn’t they make FRIENDS with the windigos?” Sweetie Belle squeaked between sobs.

Twilight hesitated. That was a good question. It was the classic Equestrian strategy. It wasn’t like the windigos weren’t thinking creatures.

“They shouldn’t have fought,” Apple Bloom said hotly. “With each other, I mean. That was stupid.”

“They disagreed about things,” said Twilight, “and, and that seemed very important. It’s, it’s hard to explain, it’s like ponies can get locked into certain ideas...or….” She sighed. “War doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless you happen to like it. Trade just beats it. So I don’t know, really.”

Twilight thought for a moment. “Actually, trading with the windigos could have worked. We could have figured out how to give mentally retarding birth defects to foals while they’re still in the womb. Then you let them breed and repeat the process, and pretty soon you have a farm of unintelligent ponies. We could have let the windigos eat them, in exchange for leaving the rest of us….”

They stared at her like she was, well, literally proposing to build a farm of mentally retarded ponies for consumption.

“It’s just a hypothetical,” Twilight said. “I, I think they weren’t eating us just for our meat, we wouldn’t have tasted as good if hey look a distraction.”

Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie walked up in the nick of time. Each of them deposited a gift-wrapped box on the table.

“Merry Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Applejack said, ruffling Apple Bloom’s mane. “What’re the tears for? Shame about you forgetting your line.”

“It wasn’t a line!” Apple Bloom protested. “It was just a cue, only Twist didn’t see it because her costume hasn’t got any per...peripheripheripheral vision. Besides, trees don’t talk.”

“They do if you listen. Open your present.”

“Wow! My very own shovel!”

“It’s proper adult sized, for you to grow into,” Applejack said, a proud tear in her eye. Apple Bloom did her best not to look horrified.

“Frankly, my costume work is gift enough,” Rarity said, pushing a box toward Sweetie Belle. “But to a good cat, a good rat, as they say.”

“No pony ever said any of the things you say,” Applejack said.

“Oh, excuse me,” Rarity said. She put on a rather abysmal attempt at the Apple accent: “To a good rattlesnake, a good rattlesnake. ‘Yeehaw.’ Gravy.”

“Knock that off before somepony thinks we're related,” Applejack grinned.

After Sweetie Belle had carefully unwrapped the layers of ribbon and exquisitely decorated paper (Twilight had learned on her birthday, after helping Rarity dry her tears, not to tear Rarity’s wrapping paper), she opened a pair of thick furry boots.

“They’re the latest fashion,” Rarity assured her. “Right from Canterlot.”

“You can make ‘em better,” Sweetie Belle said, eyeing the boots critically.

“I can’t! I can’t. Haha! Also, it’s them, not em. I see the Apple way of speaking is wearing off on you.”

“That explains where ‘peripheripheripheral’ came from,” Applejack said, sitting down next to Apple Bloom. “Side-vision’s a perfectly good word.”

“It’s a compound word, and no, it isn’t. I mean, it ain’t,” Apple Bloom sighed. “I checked the dictionary. It ain’t in there.”

“Cuz the dictionary’s wrong. I told you that last week when you thought I’d misspelled that word. Why’s environment got a silent ‘n’ in it for?”

“Cuz it ain’t silent, I told you.”

“I don’t hear it.” Applejack nodded at Scootaloo. “Whatcha got there, sugarcube?”

Pinkie Pie was positively bouncing with excitement. She usually was, but she was doing it now as well. “Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are celebrating Hearth’s Warming Eve with the weather Pegasi who are stuck making snow on the clouds for the rest of us today, but Rainbow Dash asked me to give you this.”

“A scooter!” Scootaloo said. Twilight tutted. It was clearly dangerous, and the gift did not include a helmet, but all three fillies were soon distracted admiring it and planning their first adventure with it once the snow melted.

Twilight was relieved that the fillies seemed to have forgotten all about her story of Equestria’s founding. She excused herself and went outside and found a place to sit. She looked at the sun, which was pale in the winter sky, as if it had taken cold. Could suns get sick? And when they died, what happened to the planets they looked after?

Twilight felt reflective, without really having anything to think about.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were keeping the weather Pegasi company. Twilight wondered who Princess Celestia was celebrating Hearth’s Warming Eve with. For all the time they had spent together, Twilight had never gotten Princess Celestia a present. It didn’t seem proper.

Twilight wondered if anypony gave Princess Celestia a present on Hearth’s Warming Eve.

She thought about how long Princess Celestia had borne the weight of the Sun, and how the last time she had been given a personal, sincere, present was probably over one thousand years ago. And Twilight resolved, then and there, to see Princess Celestia into retirement before long. That was probably what the Daughter banks were for. No doubt her Sisters were already working on their ambitions.

And yet Twilight Sparkle, frankly the best and brightest of them—it wasn’t bragging, her test scores proved it—was living a perfectly mundane life in Ponyville. Going to friends’ houses, eating lunches, planning minor social events. It was amazing how busy such a quiet town could keep you. It was to do with how slowly things moved. The hours oozed over into each other like syrup and fruit juice together on a plate.

How bizarre. She needed to find some ambition again.

“Excuse us? Excuse us. Twilight!”

Twilight was jerked out of her thoughts. “Oh, hello, girls,” she said to the three fillies. “Enjoying your presents?”

They glanced at each other. “Actually, we wanted to know more about the windigos. Are there any more out there?”

“Not in Equestria, I hope,” Twilight said. “But there are more creatures out there like them. There were the umbras in what became the Crystal Empire, before Princess Cadance defeated them. And in other lands to the south and across the ocean, who knows?”

“Who studies them?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Who fights them?” Scootaloo said.

“No pony really,” Twilight said. “Economists, I guess.”

“Then,” said Sweetie Belle, “how do we become economists?”

---

Princess Celestia looked out her window at the falling snow. She heard carolers on the street below, and the chime of bells from the university tower. The giant tree in the middle of the city was visible from her office, and the star that decorated its top had been personally enchanted by her. Her gift to the city this year was an efficiency-improving adjustment to the trash pickup schedule. It wasn’t as grand or majestic as many might have hoped, but she was trying to make a point about recovering from the Great Succession.

Princess Celestia always put up a small tree in her office for Hearth’s Warming Eve. This year, for the first time in a very long time, there was a present under it. The wrapping was as dark as the night sky, and there was a letter. It read, “Dear Sister, I will Destroy You! Hahaha!!! Love, Nightmare Moon.”

She hadn’t opened the present yet. It would probably explode, anyway.

She wondered what Twilight Sparkle was doing. Now that was a pony who knew how to organize a proper Hearth’s Warming Eve.

Princess Celestia remembered the flowers they had picked after the final battle with the wendigos. Orange-and-yellow-mottled with black spots, they had sprung up out of the black and scorched ground, exploded out of their seeds and budded and bloomed in a moment by the fiery sun. They didn’t grow any more, unless you were willing to set fire to a lot of things, but Princess Celestia kept a small patch of them in a private garden.

Finally, there would be an occasion to pick them again.

“One week,” she cooed to Philomena, the phoenix who was perched on her table. “I want you to do something for the celebration. I have it all planned out.”

The bird bothered the flaming feathers of one of its wings, then began pecking a toy rat.

Princess Celestia watched it smolder. After a while she got up and closed the blinds to the window and turned off the lights. In the darkness she watched the phoenix’s light burn, and remembered Princess Platinum.

Next Chapter: Twilight on the Other Side of the Bank Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 30 Minutes