Snowy was not having a fun day. Ever since the foals woke up it had been a madhouse of epic proportions. First they wouldn’t stop crying, they just cried and cried and cried and cried. She had tried everything! Changing them, feeding them, burping them, making them laugh. But nothing worked! They wanted Ivy, they wanted their mommy…and Snowy was no mommy.

After they had eventually stopped crying, Rainbow flew up into the rafters and would not come down. Not for anything. Snowy wasn’t sure if foals were capable of glaring, but she was eighty-five percent sure the little pegasus had done so.

Twilight and Applejack were both secluding themselves from her underneath of the basket…which Snowy had accidentally tipped over while trying to get Rainbow down. Pinkie and Rarity were…well…okay…Snowy wasn’t sure exactly where they were, but they were in the house! She knew that much.

The only one who wasn’t a problem was Fluttershy, who was just sitting on the couch with her little stuffed bear looking at her sisters. She didn’t even cry as much as the others, thank Celestia for small miracles.

“Aren’t you guys hungry…?” Snowy held up a bottle for every foal to see, maybe some food would get them to come out. Before she could react, a little colorful blur took the bottle from her hoof and rested in the rafters once more. “Oh come on! I’m just trying to watch after you like a good foal sitter! I-I’m just trying to make you like me…” Snowy could feel her spirits dampen. “W-why don’t you like me….?”

Snowy, finally exhausted, fell to the floor and buried her face in the crook of her foreleg. She didn’t want any of this, she just wanted to have fun and play with the foals…she didn’t want to be hated. She could feel the tears start to come on, oh why couldn’t the foals just like her like they did Ivy?

She felt a little hoof poke her shoulder, Snowy sniffled and looked up to see an icing-covered Pinkie Pie with her mane wild and covered in the sweet substance offering her the very same tub where the icing came from. Snowy took it with a hoof and smiled…then she saw all of the other foals behind the icing-covered Pinkie. Maybe it wasn’t going to be such a bad day.

--

Kringle was whittling new toys from smaller blocks of wood. His grandfoals deserved custom made toys, not any of the models he produced usually. They deserved only the best.

He had whittled a few already, right now he was on Applejack’s. The old stag was not sure what exactly he was going to whittle, he just let his antlers decide. They were the creative force, he was simply their way to get around; their supplier.

A knock sounded at the door. It wasn’t unheard of to have visitors, usually Klaus came over and they talked for a while about whatever happened to cross their minds, or perhaps it was Snowy who brought the foals back because she was overwhelmed. That’s the beauty of a knock at the door, it always holds something new.

Slowly, Kringle got up from his chair and put the half-finished toy on his work table. It could wait for now. With every step he cringed just a little, it was getting harder to move around these days…some days he just wanted to collapse and sleep wherever he fell for the rest of the day, but that was not an option. He had toys to make, foals to bring happiness to.

He pulled the door open, on the other side was a pony. A rather tall unicorn, pale yellow, shaggy red and white mane. He was also wearing a vest that Kringle thought made him look rather dashing. Behind the stallion, two similarly colored heads poked out. It was obvious they were shy, as soon as his old green eyes made contact with their vibrant emerald ones, they hid once more.

“Salutations my reindeer friend, I am Arboreus T. Sap, arborist from Hoofington.” The stallion held out a hoof, which Kringle gladly took with a smile. “I am terribly sorry to bother you, but my carriage is caught in a snow drift not far from here. I’m not meaning to be a bother, but I don’t want my boys here catching colds out there.”

“Name’s Kringle Winter, toy maker. I thought you would know better than to try and pull a carriage through snow, that’s always nasty business, Mr. Sap.” Kringle wasn’t being rude, he was simply pointing out a fact, even ponies had snow.

“Winter…? I say, would you be related to that young female out there cutting trees? Ivy, I think it was?” Kringle was about to respond when the two little ponies behind Arboreus pulled on their father’s tail. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Winter, but may we come inside for just a second? I don’t mean to impose.”

“Of course!” Kringle stepped inside. “Come in, come in. I should’ve invited you in sooner.” The trio of ponies entered the small cabin, after they entered Kringle shut the door. “Ivy is my daughter, lives here with me.”

“How quaint, I must say that I love the quality of your cabins here. They are simply marvelous. Tell me, where may I buy one?” The two little colts that followed their father immediately went to a low shelf and began perusing the wooden toys that sat upon it.

“Well we make our own houses around here, but I guess you could pay some workers to help you out.” Kringle laboriously made his way back to his chair and sat down. “But we’re a friendly and helpful bunch. Just don’t go asking the Firs for any help, alright? They aren’t too sweet on ponies.” Aboreus gave a nod then looked at how boys, who were trying to get some of the toys. The unicorn was going to stop them when Kringle cut in. “They can play with them, it’s fine. Every toy needs someone to play with it, as far as I’m concerned they can have some of them.” Within a second, the two little colts had toys off of the shelf; Trains and little wooden mannequins trapped within their magical grasps.

“Flim, Flam, tell Mr. Winter thank you.” Arboreus sat down on one of the beds gracefully, then pulled a small notebook from out of his vest pocket. With the flick of a mechanical-looking quill, he wrote something down.

“Thank you Mr. Winter.” The two voices said simultaneously. Kringle gave them a little nod and the two colts started playing with the toys happily.

“So, some foals got taken in Equestria? How many?” Kringle was curious, every time they received pony immigrants it was because something happened in Equestria. That in and of itself was a rare occurrence. Equestria was a fairly peaceful place, save all of the stuff that happened about a millennium ago.

“I believe it was six, there were a few oddities but most of them were from a small town just by Canterlot…Ponyville, I believe is its name. A quaint little hamlet, I’ve visited it a few times to study the apple orchards there. Fascinating things, can even grow these rainbow colored ones they call ‘zap apples.’” Kringle simply kept quiet and listened, this unicorn apparently had a tendency to ramble. The old stag didn’t mind, he liked ramblings. It was the sign of an energetic mind, of a mind filled with wonder and thoughts.

“You’re interested in apples?” This conversation about the foals started feeling eerie to Kringle, his mind was making connections he did not like. The implications of the conclusions he was drawing were not good.

“Oh Celestia, yes!” Arboreus sat up straight and pushed his glasses back up his face. “Apples are a fascinating fruit, simply fascinating. Why, I even developed a special kind of apple seed that may be able to grow in these absolutely frigid conditions. Why, without that little incident in Equestria I may have never come here to test them.” Kringle was interested now, only a select few varieties of fruit could grow up here…and even those were scrawny and rare. Every once in a while Ivy would come across an odd crystal berry patch or some snowdrops, but it was very uncommon.

“Well I think you have a wonderful future here, Mr. Sap.” Kringle could only smile.

--

“Okay…now how do I get the icing out?” Snowy was holding Pinkie up and looking at the grinning foal with a cocked head. Her once straight, clean mane was now a tangled mess with globs of icing caught in it. Now most creatures would suggest a bath to remedy this situation, the only problem is that getting water was a bit of a problem. There was no indoor plumbing here, the pipes would freeze…sure she could go outside, fill a bucket with snow, and then melt it. But that would mean leaving the foals alone, and Snowy already decided that was a bad idea…

“Snowy, are you here?” Snowy put Pinkie down and turned around. There was only one reindeer who would barge into houses without knocking, and sure enough he was standing in the doorway.

“Oh, hi Mr. Fir.” Snowy smiled and waved to Klaus Fir. Her parents liked to use him to check up on her when they were out of town. Snowy was kind of scared by the old reindeer, his broken antler, yellow teeth, and bad eye made him look like a witch from storybooks. In the back of her mind, Snowy was always looking for any magic spells or cursed apples.

“Hello, I see you’re watching Kringle’s chao-little ones. How is that going?” Truth be told, Klaus was just checking on the little monsters. You can never be too careful with ponies around, they were always plotting something.

“Oh, it’s fine. But I’m glad someone’s here. I need to go get some snow so I can give Pinkie a bath, do you think you can watch them for like a split second? It’s okay if you don’t want to, but Ivy will kill me if she sees this…” Snowy was desperate, sure Mr. Fir spouted a lot of hate about ponies, but he was just an old stag. Nothing but hot air, now.

“Sure I can. You go out and do what you need.” Klaus gave a faux smile, and stepped over to one of the little demons, the white one, and patted her head. With just a moment’s hesitation, she picked up a bucket and went out the door.

Klaus frowned  as soon as Snowy closed the door. He could forgive that clueless doe for cavorting with the enemy, she didn’t know better. But now that he was alone with the terrible usurpers, he kicked the white one away with his hoof and marched over to the couch. As soon as he entered he recognized the bear the winged beast was clutching, it was the same one that his wife had made for Ivy’s mother years ago when she was pregnant with Ivy.

This pony didn’t deserve it, so with a swipe he snatched the bear away and glared at the yellow demon. She didn’t even cry, she simply shied away and hid her face from him.

“That’s right, hide. Because as long as you’re here, you’ll have a reason to hide.” Klaus leaned in close to the cowering foal, his bad eye staring at her intensely. “Because I know what you are, and I know what you do…you don’t deserve this bear…” The door handle jiggled, so Klaus made his way to it, making sure to hide the bear from Snowy’s sight.

“Alright, I’m done.” Snowy was carrying a bucket full of snow on one of her antlers. “Thanks for watching them, Klaus.” He simply nodded and left, closing the door behind him firmly. Now of course he would give the bear back, but first he would need to make a small modification to it.