Ivy was waiting outside of Snowy’s door. She had done her job for the day, cutting all of the timber she could and hauling it back to town to sell. All in all, it was a pretty good haul. Almost all of it went pretty quickly, but she kept some of it for her family’s home. General repairs and fires took up a lot of wood.

“Coming!” Ivy was anxious to see the foals. All day her mind had been focused on the little ponies; were they alright? Did Snowy have any trouble? Did any of them escape? The door opened, pulling Ivy out of her worries. “Hi Ivy!”

“Hey Snowy.” Ivy gave a smile, she didn’t want to seem rude while plowing through this conversation. “They weren’t a hassle, were they?” Snowy sidestepped and allowed Ivy inside.

“Pfft. You act like I’m irresponsible or something.” Ivy shot Snowy a look that immediately made the younger doe’s ears lay flat. “I mean, no hassle at all. Of course not, they’re just six little angels…” Snowy had a terrible poker face, Ivy saw right through it but decided on not calling her friend’s bluff.

As soon as Ivy was a few feet in the house, a rainbow blur hit her, little cyan hooves immediately wrapping around her neck. Ivy sat down and hugged the little Rainbow back. It seemed as though the little pegasus was always one to stick close to the people she knew and loved, quite the loyal one.

Pretty soon, all of the other foals were gathered around Ivy and begging for attention. Of course Ivy gave it to them, but when it came to Fluttershy, Ivy noticed something. The bear was missing, Fluttershy never let go of that bear.

“Hey Flutters, where’s the bear?” Ivy raised her hooves in a shrug. “Where’s bear?” The little filly looked around the room, and then her lower lip started to quiver. “Did you lose it?” Fluttershy’s eyes filled with tears, in that instant Ivy scooped her up. “Oh my poor little pony lost her bear.” Ivy slipped into her mother voice, kind and soft. The little pegasus buried her head in Ivy’s neck, the reindeer stroked the little one’s mane. “Snowy, what happened to her bear?”

“Huh?” Snowy came back from her thoughts. They were filled with how adorable Ivy was with the foals. The surrogate mother was just as perfect as any biological one, perhaps she was destined to have these foals. It certainly seemed that way. “Oh, umm…well I’m not too sure. I looked everywhere for it but couldn’t find it…” Snowy let her head fall. “Sorry, Ivy.”

“It’s alright Snowy…it’s around here somewhere. Just tell me if you find it, alright? I have tomorrow off so I won’t be bringing them here.” Snowy felt bad…like she screwed up so bad that Ivy made up the day off thing. That’s what it seemed like…she failed, so now she was being punished. The young doe looked down and nodded, one of her forehooves swinging idly. “Now would you help me get their scarves on?”

--

A cataract riddled eye stared intently at a small stuffed bear placed on the table in front of it. The little bear simply stared back with its black button eyes, unblinking, unmoving.

Klaus didn’t trust the bear. It belonged to a pony now, it was not to be trusted! But that’s why he needed to sabotage it…he might be able to get rid of at least one of the little ponies with a little sabotage. But the question was: with what?

It had to be something undetectable, something that might be mistaken for something less dangerous. This would be so much easier if he had paid attention in school, perhaps he might have learned something. Or perhaps they would have just filled his head with more pony propaganda! Schools were not to be trusted either, nothing was.

A little light bulb went off in Klaus’ head. As dim as it was, it still shed enough light on an idea. Ice Bears. Ice Bears were magical creatures that consisted of living snow and ice, the venom that could be extracted from a Ice Bear’s fang was not deadly to a full grown reindeer…but to a pony foal? Well it might be.

And of course, Klaus was a resourceful stag. He knew someone who might be able to get him an Ice Bear fang by 2 PM. It would be a stretch, but he would get it done. He would rid his town of the pony menace that plagued it.

--

Across the continent in the shining capital of Equestria, a potential love story was about to unfold. A young colt was strolling through the hallways of the enormous castle, bored out of his gourd and more than a little depressed that his little sister was missing.

He had decided that instead of waiting in the room with his depressed parents, he would take a little walk through the halls and see what he could find to entertain his thoughts.

Sadly, every time he tried to think about something, his little sister intruded into his thoughts. He was so worried about her; was she alright? Did whoever take her hurt her? It was just so…so frustrating. Why did they take her and not him?

“Oof.” The young colt ran into something quite solid, after shaking the impact off her looked up and saw something he regretted: A long white leg with a gold adornment on the end of it…and where the leg came from was the body of a stern looking Princess Celestia. “S-Sorry..” He managed to get out through the fear of getting in trouble.

“Oh.” The Princess’ stern frown turned into a small smile. “I’m sorry my little pony. Are you alright?” The little colt could only nod. “We weren’t looking where we were walking, Little Cadenza was distracting me.” As soon as the name came out a little pink filly poked her head out from behind the monarch’s flowing tail. The colt took note of the horn. “Say sorry, Cadenza.” The filly stepped out, surprisingly a pair of wings also adorned her body…the only pony that he had ever seen like that was the Princess. Was this filly a princess too?

“S-Sorry…” The magenta, yellow, and purple maned filly stammered out as she stepped out of the Princess’ shadow.

“Now now, Cadenza. Clear and concise, do not stutter.” Celestia chided little Cadenza like a mother would her own foal. “Now introduce yourself to the nice colt.” The little filly straightened her posture and cleared her throat.

“I’m Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” As soon as she introduced herself, she shrank back. It was obvious she was new to this princess stuff. The colt wanted to say what was truly on his mind…but he didn’t quite feel like talking much. He hadn’t said a word since his little sister disappeared. But it would be rude to not return the introduction

“Macintosh.” The young red colt spoke in a deep voice for his age. His word was accompanied with a nod.

“Hello Macintosh.” Celestia smiled, then pushed the littlest Princess from behind her with her pastel mane.

“H-Hi Macintosh…” The look that the elder alicorn gave her sent her into another gear. “Would you like some company..?” It was obvious she was uncomfortable with the notion just by her posture and tone of voice, but the older princess was not going to let the issue down, so he simply nodded.

--

“I told you something would happen, dad. She lost Fluttershy’s bear, my bear.” Ivy spoke as she swung the door open and entered her home. Instead of being met with her father at his work table, she was met with that unicorn and his kids from earlier…chatting merrily with her father.

“Oh, hello Ms. Winter. How are you?” The unicorn levitated a small teacup to his mouth and took a long sip. “Mmm, chamomile. My favorite. Tell me Ms. Winter, do you like tea?” Ivy felt her eye twitch, all she wanted was a nice evening with her father. Perhaps she would harp on Snowy, perhaps she would just enjoy her time with the foals. Not now.

“No…Mr. Sap.” She answered through clenched teeth as she pulled the sled in. “What are you doing here?” She was containing herself, barely. This chatty unicorn was going to be nothing but trouble.

“Well my cart broke down not far from here, and wouldn’t you know that your home is the first one I come across. Serendipitous, is it not?” The unicorn sat his teacup down and smiled as one of his sons came over to him holding up a wooden train. “Yes, it is a train, Flim. An old steam powered one based on the design.” The tall pony commented.

“It’s a toy…” Deadpanned Ivy. Kringle shot his daughter a look, the same look that he gave her when she wasn’t using her imagination like she was supposed to. She simply rolled her eyes. “I have to feed the foals, dad can you watch them while I get the milk?” She tugged the sled in the rest of the way and kicked the door shut with a hoof.

As soon as Arboreus laid eyes on the foals, his whole posture seemed to change. He sat up straighter, his pupils shrank, and his shoulders tensed. Ivy saw this, but decided that it was just surprise based off of a reindeer having pony foals.

“Of course, dear.” As Ivy nodded and turned back to the door, she used a hoof to undo the latch that kept one side of the railings up. As soon as the pen was undone, the little fillies tottered off of the sled and over to their grandfather. All the while, Rainbow Dash and Rarity were struggling to get their scarves off.

“Excuse me, Kringle?” Kringle looked up to see Arboreus pointing a hoof at the foals, a look of shock on his face. “H-How did you come across these foals, by chance?” Krinle cocked an eyebrow, what a weird question to ask.

“They were left at our doorstep in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, why do you ask?” Kringle picked up Rainbow Dash and undid the scarf for her. As soon as her wings were free, the little pegasus flew to the rafters as usual.

“Because I have seen these foals before…they were foalnapped. All of them in one night…”

--

“Aren’t you beautiful?” Klaus Fir held in his hoof, one fang from an Ice Bear. One dose of magical venom from a beast most fierce. How did he get it? As he said, he knew a reindeer who specialized in…collecting things from dangerous animals. A hunter, one of few on the continent.

He took the fang and looked at the bear. It was quite obvious where the bear took the most punishment, the ears. The plush ears of the bear were coated in saliva and had teeth marks around the edges. Therefore, the ears would be the best place to place the poison…even if only one foal took the bait, it would be enough. Just one death would be enough to let him convince Snowy to get rid of those ponies.

Just one death was all it would take, and he was willing to do whatever it took to preserve the reindeer way of life.