A harsh blizzard rolls over Equestria as a result of the wendigos slowly returning due to a small pocket of ponies suddenly forgetting the spirit of Heathswarming, but are the wendigos fully to blame?
A Hearthswarming like any other as anypony can recall, as it has happened every year ever since the first tribes first dethawed and celebrated the magic of it. However, this year shall be different, as while the events and festivities and celebrations and tributes are never cancelled and postponed due to pony mistakes, it all starts with a shiver and a cold. Perhaps a growl and an angered shout, a group raising their hackles, an argument spreading where it shouldn't. And soon, a whole town is in uproar over something which brings a chill nopony has felt in decades. A chill which brings something even the wendigos did not account for as soon all those shouts of anger and malice soon turn to screams of fear as the town becomes blanketed in a blizzard that will soon spread its freezing bony fingers across the kingdom with its very inhabitants carrying that deadly cold as the temperature plumets and the frozen begin to whisper....
Luna, ever vigilant of her nightly watch over the Dream Realm, could not help as a chill ran down her spine at those words.
"We are so cold.. We are sorry for being so cold.."
Try as she might, Luna could only hear those soft words repeat again and again, the source of which remaining hidden within the Realm which Luna patrolled so thoroughly.
She felt sadness and pain within those words, fear mixed with worry, as they repeat every so often with a chilly aura from each word, yet she could never find the door which they emanated from. And with each repetition they grew softer and softer until they could be heard no longer.
Luna could normally find any door to any dream of any sleeping pony in the land, be it within the grip a nightmare or the soft tranquility of a gentle dream. Tonight gave her pause and a moment of concern as several doors seem to have disappeared since her watch the night before, an occurrence which rarely happens outside of select special occasions, yet no news of any deaths or disappearances were posted at any point that week. She figured they must have moved to another location within the Dream Realm, an event that happens every so many moons. Even so, just the mere thought gave the young alicorn a mince of worry for her ponies should it be true that a few on her watch have disappeared from even the Dream Realm, if nothing worse.
After several moments of hesitation, Princess Luna's horn glowed and within moments she finds herself back in her royal chambers, soft moonlight streaming in from the open balcony with soft blankets of snow along the railings and outer stretches of the balcony. She stepped out of bed and towards the balcony, standing beside the open doorway looking out over Equestria as stray clouds were seen in the night sky, some clouds obscuring some twinkling stars but never the moon. A look of soft worry was on her face as she looked out towards Ponyville, thankfully bathed within the calming light of her moonlight. Something was wrong this night, it itched deep within her stomach, yet she knew not why.
Seeking solace with her dear sister, Luna's horn glowed once again as she found herself within the opposite bedchamber of her sister Celestia, already awake and standing out on her balcony overlooking Equestria with Luna standing within the doorway behind her.
"Sister? You are still awake at this hour?" she asks, curiosity as her tone masking her worry for their subjects.
"You feel it, don't you, Luna. There is a chill in the air that I cannot explain." Celestia says without turning to face her, still leaning over the snowy balcony railing.
"Sister, the only cold I feel is from your balcony, it is wide open and you are standing outside in nothing but your nightgown. Please, come inside and close the door." Luna says, watching her sister stand outside with the wind softly ruffling the hems of their nightgowns.
Several moments pass as Celestia stands silently on her balcony overlooking the kingdom, a look of worry on her own face, before sighing and walking to Luna, closing the door behind her as they stepped to Celestia's bed and sat upon it.
"Is there something worrying you, sister? Are you cold? I can go grab another blanket should you require it." Luna says in an attempt to do something other than think about the cold words from the Dream Realm.
"I.... Yes, that would be alright, Luna. I would not like to catch a cold this year, unlike last Hearthswarming where I had to stay locked in my room instead of participating in the festivities, watching as all my little ponies played and bounced in the snow with their cups of hot cocoa and their scarves flying in the wind around their necks.." Celestia says recalling last years festivities with a bit of sadness, as for most of the events she was indeed stuck locked within the castle, mostly her tower, as others played about below and in the courtyard on that faithful day, Luna even participating in some with the younger fillies and colts not even half her size.
Without a moment to spare her sister nods and leaves the room to go find a spare blanket, leaving Celestia to sit and ponder as she thinks back to the voices she heard during her sleep and how chilly each one sounded as they descended further and further into what felt like a cold winter's night without so much as Luna's calming moonlight to lead where they went. Something about them sent chills down the older sister's spine, like they are a warning of what's to come without so much of a hint as to what. Time will only tell as neither princess brings it up again that night in other to not cause any undue anxiety in the other for something that may be nothing of concern to the other.
Meanwhile, in a town in a blind spot from Canterlot, ponies are beginning to come down with a mysterious illness that appears to be at first the common cold, as these specific ponies are outside for most of the day, however they are a little aggressive towards others depending on how long they worked outside and how cold they were during the waking hours of the day. Some ponies comment it among their families and friends as they go about their evening and nightly activities, attempting to not cause a blown gasket with some of the mares and stallions that are abnormally hostile towards others with a more noticeable cough and fever as they were outside the most. Others attempt to tend to their afflicted loved ones as best they can yet they cannot help but feel concern for them, thinking something must going around as the temperatures begin to plummet during the wee hours of the night, a sign of something worse to come if they are not careful this cooling Hearthswarming Week.
"You must be joking, Twilight! Sunset would be a better pony to ask then me."
Starlight was a little taken aback that Twilight had asked her this year to be in charge of setting up the entertainment and historical attractions for Ponyville, not expecting the purple alicorn mare to put such a large job onto her shoulder's especially since this year was to be the year that other representatives from other neighboring countries were to be arriving that week in that very town to celebrate Hearthswarming, something that was only brought up at last year's celebration held at Canterlot that Twilight had blurted out on "accident" while several representatives from other countries were attending mostly out of curiosity of how the pony race held festivities near the end of the year.
"I trust you to do this for me, Starlight. I know you don't really trust yourself with leadership given what has happened in the past but I have full confidence that this will be an excellent lesson for you to learn on your own not only about trusting the ponies under you but to trust in yourself to not fail them as their leader." Twilight says comfortably to Starlight, the lighter purple unicorn looking nervous and a bit sheepish at Twilight's request.
When Starlight had accepted Twilight's invitation to join her at Ponyville's town hall, she was not expecting the resident royal alicorn and harmony element to entrust her with a leadership task of historical importance that she feels she would surely mess up in some way and cause Ponyville to become a laughing stock not only by the other representatives attending but by the princesses as well, Princess Cadence and Shining Armor included with their young Flurry Heart.
"N-No, Twilight, I-I shouldn't. I-I would totally mess up somehow a-and ruin the whole festival a-and destroy Equestria's reputation with the other nations and.. and.. and..--" She gets interrupted by Twilight grabbing her by her shoulder's and shaking her gently.
"No, you're not, Starlight! I fully believe in you to make this one of the best Hearthswarming Week festivals ever. And I am also confident that you will wow those ambassadors when they get here and see how amazing it is. I have seen and heard what you have done before when you stepped up as a leader for everyone to look for guidance, Starlight. I believe in you," Twilight says in a confident and encouraging way to lift the nerves of the young unicorn.
"R-Really, Twilight? You really think I can pull it off? W-Well, i-if you really think I can do it, then I guess I can give it a try. I-I'm still going to be nervous as Tartarus but it can't hurt to give it a shot, considering you probably have more important things to do since you are a princess." Starlight says in a still nervous but growing confident voice. If Twilight says she believes in her then by Tartarus Starlight will give it her all to prove to her friend and everypony else that she can do this!
Twilight gives her a pat on the back as a sign of good faith before walking off to have a chat with Mayor Mare in her office about the festivities and other things that still needed to be prepared before and after the representatives arrive on different days of the week to attend the different schedules of the festivities. Starlight meanwhile stepped out and proceeded to walk to one of the large tents set up by town hall where each of the different teams assigned to different tasks got together in their special uniforms to talk amongst each other and decide what they were each going to do and when. Starlight headed to the tent in charge of the entertainment and historical plays, the light snow crunching softly under her boots as she approached where Applejack greeted her as Starlight approached the flap as AJ was stepping out.
"There yah are, sugarcube! Twilight's already briefed us that you'll be in charge ah us this year. She's got a lot a faith in you, sugarcube, and so do we. We've already got a few ideas as to what we can all do this year to prep for the shows and activities but we wanted ta run them by you first since you're in charge for now." Applejack seemed a bit cheerful and indeed faithful that Starlight will be able to prove herself this year that her looks aren't just for her smarts, handing her a yellow vest to wear overtop her light jacket before following along behind her to join the rest of the group waiting for them around a large table with a bunch of paper, lists, notepads and a large map of the town spread out across it a bit messily.
So far, most of the ideas that were previously been thrown about before her arrival seemed to be fairly straight forward and normal if not a bit repetitive since a lot had been done for years before due to their popularity with most ponies. With a sigh, Starlight greeted her group before requesting these ideas brought up, each one indeed sounding like the various activities she and many others have participated in many times each year. After hearing them all, Starlight decided she was going to take things for a spin and change things up a bit. While the historical shows such as the founding of the three tribes, their descent into aggressive jabs at the other tribes and finally their fall into ice sculptures before their thawing thanks to the magic of friendship, some things were going to be a bit different this year.
One such change was to move the historical founding show from the town square over to the fields near Sweet Apple Acres, a decision Starlight came to since there were to have a much larger crowd than usual so they would require a larger space to host the show, one of which seemed to put a smile on Applejack's face considering how proud she is of her family's farm. A lot of ponies in the group agreed to such a decision since the weather was supposed to be warm and not so cloudy so it was a perfect idea.
They went through several other ideas, most of which involved moving some activities and minor shows about for convenience, some of which are outside the town more towards the path towards Sweet Apple Acres while most were still in town so there was more space for the crowds and so other ponies can check out the other shops and businesses the many Earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns have built and maintained over the years instead of just crowding around the town hall.
With some requests sent out to the other groups asking to see if they were alright with some changes to their plans and some coming back stating they were fine with some of the changes, things seemed to get in motion as they started to proceed with some of the ideas that didn't involve the other groups such as prepping the stage out near Sweet Apple Acres and having the actors rehearse their lines while they wait nearby.
Within the next couple of hours, most of the stage had been constructed and there had even been some hay bales donated by the farm so ponies weren't sitting in the cold snow. As a bonus, a couple hay bale rides were even arranged with the Apple family scheduled around the shows as well so attendees can take some tours of the apple orchard and of the area surrounding the town and farm.
Despite the interruption of a rude pony over at the train station a couple hours into all the preparations, the pony being a bit hostile towards some of Starlight's groupmates and some of the vested ponies from other groups, things went fairly smoothly for everypony involved with little complications.
And when it neared the evening, Twilight approached Starlight with a grin on her face as Starlight was looking over the notes of everything they had went over and completed that day, AJ standing beside Starlight reading some things over her shoulder on the checklist as Rainbow Dash flew overhead and landed nearby with some of her group.
"I knew I could count on you, Starlight. Look at how well everypony works with you and look how well everything got done today. We'll have to come back again tomorrow but I think everypony did well today. We have three days to set everything up but based on how much you got your group to do and getting the Apple family to help out with some of the construction of the stage, you might have enough time to help the other groups with some of the things they may need help with." she says with a smile on her face.
"Thanks, Twilight. I guess I needed this to help get over my anxiety of leading others. I thought everypony would eventually hate me and all my ideas and kick me out, but they said my ideas were pretty alright and were open to some change rather than sticking to the plan that happens every year. I get that we're getting a bigger crowd this year but I wasn't expecting ponies to be open to my ideas. Thank you, Twilight. This has really helped me with getting over some things." Starlight says to Twilight genuinely as Starlight gets a pat on her shoulder from Applejack behind her as Rainbow stepped up to join the conversation.
"So you really were behind all this, Starlight. I thought Twilight was pulling my wing when she told me she was putting you in charge of something this year but you really surprised me, Starlight. You actually took charge for once and made an impressive show for yourself. Good job." Rainbow flashes her a smirk and an approving nod as Starlight blushes a bit at the compliment from her.
"You really did do good, Starlight. I have a feelin that this year will really be a year to remember by all thanks to you, sugarcube." AJ's compliment made Starlight's blush brighter, the unicorn mare trying to hide her face as Twi and Dashie chuckle at how cute she looks with a blush.
They continued to speak for a bit before finally meeting up with the rest of their little friend group over by Sugarcube Corner for a quick bit to eat, Starlight getting even more compliments from the rest of them as the Cutie Mark Crusaders had a snowball fight just outside. Even Spike was with them giving the blushing mare some heartfelt comments and praises for her work. After getting so much praise and compliments, the poor mare couldn't take her face becoming more and more red so she decided to take a quick run outside before she bumbled out something embarrassing, baffling her friends before they laugh a bit and continue chatting about the week what they were each going to do before and after the Hearthswarming festivies.
As Starlight ran out, she shakes her head and tries to calm herself down. As she passes by Rarity's Boutique, she hears a bit of a verbal dispute out back, two stallions getting a little heated with words, one being a bit upset and grumpy about something as the other seemed the same, like the two were bickering about something small but were making it bigger than it really was. She tried to walk about back to try and break them up gently but the two weren't very receptive of it, shouting at her that its none of her business. This shook her enough for her blush to wash away entirely before she walked away back to Sugarcube Corner, listening to the two as the sun began to slowly set on that productive day.