Heart-Warming Hearth's Warming? (Rusty and Tartan) [Dead]

[Rusty]

"Sure, yeah! I will totally do that" Rusty smiled and turned his head to his father. "Our school is awsome! I mean it is pretty small, like... well really small" he said, but it wasn't really all that informative. "Anyway, it is so close to our house that I am always on time and I don't have to spent long time flying from school. Well since I got there just recently I sit in front, but I don't mind because my classmates are really kind so I don't have to worry about them trowing something at me or something like that. Well not all of them really kind... there are two girls that gives me a chill but I have no problems with them. And our teacher is awsome! I think she likes me." he added another part of his long monologue. "It is still school but it is much better than my former school here in Manehatten." he said and he meant it. This school wasn't good. One of his former classmates even left for another school just before he left for Ponyville.

Silver smiled. After all it looked as Rusty was really happy and was able to speak about school with genuine interest. That was rare nowadays. "Well I am happy you like it there" was the only thing he said. After all it was his intention to take Rusty back here. He just raised his eyebrow then Honey suddenly left.

Rusty was waiting, like there was something big coming and it was! Suddenly a bunch of pillow rained from the stairs. Rusty jumped with excitment, forgot that he shouldn't fly at home and landed on the top of the unstable pillow pile. "More than anything!" he said a started to jump, which led the pile to collapse and burry the excitment gray little colt under the deadly pile of pillows

[Tartan Lassie]

    As Honey Dust wriggled her way out of the duvet pile, a grey ball of excitement descended upon her. Rusty bounced on the pile of pillows, seemingly approving of her fort idea. Before he could say much more though, he was buried underneath the soft cushions. "Oh no!" squealed Honey, diving into the pile to rescue her brother. "You can't be defeated yet! I need your help to build the fort and defend from the enemies lurking everywhere..." She felt like she was moving smoothly into a time long past when she had lived in the house and played games like this every day with Rusty. Though there weren't many memories like this, since Rusty had been quite a young colt when the mare had left home, she held these particular memories close to her heart. Rusty was the most important pony in the world to her and she was so glad to be playing with him again.

    As the honeyed pegasus completed her rescue mission, Sandstorm reemerged from the steamy kitchen. "What's happening!" she cried "Did somepony fall down the stairs?" Being from an all-pegasus family, someone falling down the stairs was quite a rare occurrence and usually a cause for panic. But when she reached the bottom of the stairs, all she found was her two children tussling in a bundle on the floor. She laughed a little chiming laugh. "Well, at least you two are working up an appetite before dinner!" She glanced and Silver, who was chuckling to himself and then rolled her eyes and vanished back into the kitchen.

    Honey grinned and started pulling the light brown blanket towards the soft chairs in the living room. "Come on! Let's start on the fort!" She began fluttering around and tying bits of blanket to table legs, occasionally shooting playful grins at her father.

[Rusty]

Rusty was promptly rescued from the deadly avelanche of pillows! "Now that was close! What kind of epic story begin with "one of the main heroes was squished under the horribly pillowlanche" he said and pushed one of the most evil pillows away. "Well, they tried to kill me, but now they will serve us our shield against evil!" he said and quickly added quitly: "Whenever they want or not!". Suddenly Rusty felt like everything was fine in this house. This feeling was gone since the day Honey moved away.

Right then their mother arrived, worried about somepony injuring himself. "We are both fine mom, don't worry! We will protect you from those angry creatures, that want to eat our dinner... and us... and they shall not pass! Because we will fight them in the bitter end! Bitter for them I mean, since we can't be defeated!" Said Rusty, while he was collecting pillows his fall scattered all around the place.

Silver didn't comment it at all. He just gave his daughter this "You will never grow up, will you?" stare. But even he was moved by memories. It was a long time they were all at home and everything was working fine. So he just smiled back at his children playing.

"Too bad we don't have those big pillows from the old sofa, those were the best for building! Don't you think?" asked Rusty, when his attempt to build a wall from 2 large pillows and a chair failed for second time...

[Tartan Lassie]

    "Eat our dinner?" Honey froze in mid-air, flapping her wings gently to keep afloat. Her face was a dead-pan picture of horror. "Our Hearths-Warming dinner?" She swooped down and grabbed Rusty. "We can't let that happen!" Then, after a look from her father she remembered that unlike in her own house, flight indoors wasn't allowed back in Manehatten. Placing Rusty down again gently, she returned to pulling a blanket over a table. She tried to pull the blanket towards a comfy chair, but it just wasn't long enough. So the mare slowly attempted to pull the table to the desired tactical position, shooting anxious looks at Silver.



    Honey had never been reckless like Rusty, trying dangerous stunts and ending up knocking things over, but she had always been a little clumsy. She never means to break anything but she wasn't very good at judging depth or distance. As she tugged, her clumsy hooves chose this moment to strike and the table proved too strong for her and she tumbled backwards into a small set of bookshelves. She can't have landed too heavily, because only a few books toppled onto her head. Shaking her head and wriggling out from under the books she nodded thoughtfully and Rusty. "Yeah... those old sofa cushions were much more solid and made much better fortresses!"

    The mare turned back to her father and stacked the offending books carefully. "Sorry, dad. I didn't meant to knock them over." The phrase came out her mouth so easily, she'd had to say it a lot as a foal. "They're not damaged though, I don't think." She frowned at them and passed the top book over to him for examination. "How're you doing, Rusty!?" She asked, grinning playfully. "We've got to defend our dinner, after all!"

[Rusty]

"Yeah, they will never get past us as long as we are breating! But there are just too many of them, we must build a fort to even the odds!" said Rusty and finally managed to build a part of the fortress by stacking two large pillows over chair and cover it with blanket. It was a little unstable, but those new chairs were so bad for building fortresses! But this was all or nothing! If their defenses fall there will be no dinner. It was going well, but he lost his sister from sight for only a moment and then he heard loud "thud".

Silver was sitting, watching his children playing. Even though he wasn't smiling, he was happy to see them both, playing. It was just too nostalgic. His nostalgic mood was interrupted by falling books. He jumped forward, pretty fast for a stallion his age. "Are you allright?" he asked. The books were not important, he was worried, that Honey injured herself. After all getting hit by a book wasn't exactly something pleasant. "Don't worry about books, but be more careful, I would hate for you to get injured at home." he said and picked the upper book. He opened it to checked it out. He smiled and put the opened book at the table. "Now... look at this one..." he said. It was a photo album, an old one. Those were photos of old trip there were taking when Rusty was just a small foal. That book was full of old memories. "Hey! Is that me?" Rusty asked stupid question and point to small gray spot on Honey's back on the old photo...

[Tartan Lassie]

    The honeyed mare picked herself up the floor and sidled over to see what Silver was smiling at. She leaned over the side of the chair to take a look in the book. Honey was standing next to the fire now and carefully flicked her tail away, not wanting it to catch fire. It was lovely and warm next to the big old fire place and Honey was glad to see Rusty coming over to see the book too.

    Honey was delighted to see that it was a photo album they were looking at. She had always kind of regretted not taking a few photo albums with her when she left for Ponyville. It was easier now that Rusty Spikes was living with her, but before he'd arrived Honey had been very homesick in her little cottage. She smiled at the image Rusty was pointing at. "Aw, yeah. That must be you!" She squinted a little and adjusted her glasses. "I wonder where that was... I had a little bit more of a tummy then!" She joked playfully, she'd always been quite a cuddly filly. She noticed the clouds surrounding them in the faded picture and revelation hit her. "Oh, that must be Cloudsdale! That was when we went to visit Weatherlight and Auntie Snowstorm. I suppose you won't remember that, Rusty?"

    Honey pointed to the picture on the next page. It seemed to be depicting a young colt poised at the start line of a race. In the background was a family of pegasi, with a teenage mare waving a small flag. "I barely remember that. When was that?"

[Rusty]

Rusty was thinking for a moment. He remembered some visit in Cloudsdale, but he was a lot older back then. This had to be before that. "Well can't say I do... I suppose I was to young back then" he said while looking at the picture. "Hehe, you were little back then, I don't remember you like that" he laughed. It was just too bad that dad wasn't on many pictures, since he was working or taking the photos. It kinda felt like he is missing from that memories.
But then sis pointed at another picture. It was much younger photo since they were much older. But he was too young for it to be the flight camp. But clearly it was him at the start line with his family sitting nearby. But where and when was that? He was staring at the picture, before he spotted another familiar faces. "Hey, that is my old teacher here... and this leg is probably my classmate... " he said. That could only mean, that this was one of the school races! "Well no wonder you don't remember, because this race did not go well... If I am not mistake I totally crushed into one of my classmates and loose the race badly..." he said, but he wasn't sad. Mostly because that classmate he crushed into was a big bully and while the crush was just a accident he wasn't sorry for that. "And if I am right there should be me laying on hospital bed on the next picture" he said and turned the page. And there it was. Smiling gray cold laying on the bed with bowl of treats on the table nearby. "I had to stay there over night because I hit my head, but it turned to be nothing." he said. Next photo was class photo of Rusty's old school. It was weird, back then the school was just that - place for learning. But now, in Ponyville it was so much more. He had to smile about that. "Do you think, that our friends in Ponyville have a good time?" he asked.

[Tartan Lassie]

    Honey felt a little guilty at first for not remembering where the picture was from. But she felt a little better when Rusty told her that it hadn't been a good race. As he turned the page, the mare grinned at the photo he was talking about. Even though he was sitting in a hospital bed, with a bandage wrapped around his head and looking a little ruffled, he still had a cute little grin on his face. Rusty hadn't really changed much since they were little, always reckless and always positive.

    When Rusty looked at the picture of Manehatten's school and chose to talk about Ponyville, Honey couldn't resist shooting a look at her father as if to say "See? He's happy in Ponyville!" She didn't say anything however, deciding it would be rude and she was enjoying this nostalgic adventure. She instead answered Rusty's question. "Back home? I'm sure they are! Just think, Waxworks is ecstatic over this holiday, and she's bouncing all over the place with Cobble trying to calm her down a little! And I'll bet Silversky is using her artistic talents to design some decorations! I wonder is Midnight Mocha will close his cafe for the holiday..." Honey trailed off, realising she was ranting.

    She turned the page and gestured at the next photo. It was of a much smaller Honey, covered in mud. She was standing somewhere that didn't look anything like Manehatten. It looked more like a farm somewhere. Honey grinned when she noticed Sandstorm standing next to her, splattered with a little bit of mud, probably from Honey's splashing and her face was looking decidedly disgruntled. Honey realised that this must be the Junior Equestria Rodeo. It had been the only one she was allowed to go to. Her mother didn't let her go again, but she had won a blue ribbon that day. "That was from a rodeo I won. You brought me that blue ribbon when you came to live with me, Rusty!"

    On the other side of the page was a picture of two colts, one white and one grey, tussling together on the carpet in a friendly way. Honey nudged Rusty playfully. "Those colts look familiar, huh?" It was nice to see a picture of Rusty and Weatherlight together.

[Rusty]

If Silver saw what Honey was trying to "tell" him he didn't react in any way. It was pretty sure that this issue won't go away by itself. But now was not the right time for it.
"Well I kinda imagined Cobble dressing all the scary wax figures in house of Wax in some holiday clothes. I don't know why but I just see Waxy how she is unsure if she should be amused or angry." said Rusty giggling. "And somehow I think that Singularity is watching the sky even on Heartwarming's eve." he added.
"Right! I remember that ribbon now. I thought it was familiar in some way." he said and watched the picture some more. "Too bad that you couldn't go again..." he said. Then he was talking quietly "But I wonder how you managed to persuade mother to let you in the first time." he said. Their mother mostly dissaproved of those activities. Rusty himself had some trouble when he wanted to go to flight camp.
The next photo was another of those unfamiliar. "Uhm... that had to be some fight. I am not aware that there was someone taking pictures" he said and turned another page. But it was full of his old school photos. He didn't even look at all of them and rather turned another page... and there were several photos of Rusty at flight camp. Those were some nice memories. Mostly. "Did you see those?" he asked and pointed at picture of several young pegasi. Rusty was next to Weatherlight of course, but there were more ponies around them. On the other there was Rusty doing some crazy stunt and on the other Rusty was just resting on a cloud. He looked very contentedly.

[Tartan Lassie]

    Honey Dust giggled at Rusty's interpretation of Cobble spending the holiday season. It was an adorable image. She was sure the scary siblings would be making lots of time for each other. After all, that's what Hearth's Warming was all about, right? "I think you're right! We should've gotten a little present for them. Maybe we'll bring them something back."

    As they progressed through the family photo album, Honey's heart swelled with love. When she was away from home, she tended to only remember the bad parts of her home life. In reality, the good times far outweighed the bad. This was her family, and she loved them very much. She pointed to Rusty's stunt. "Oh wow! Look at that! It looks difficult." Honey was very serious. Rusty had always been the better flier, ever since they were very young. While Honey didn't regret her lack of skill in the air, she was always very proud of her little brother and used to tell other ponies how good he was.

    The photo of the little grey colt dozing on a cloud made her a little sad though. He must miss flight camp a lot. It looks like he was really happy there. She turned the page quickly and her face broke into broad grin. There was a picture there of a little skewbald pegasus leaning over the edge of a hospital crib. Sleeping inside the crib was a tiny grey pony with a little dollop of red mane. Honey had loved Rusty from the moment he was born. The very next picture was of a baby Rusty and a filly Honey lying in the grass together. They were cuddled up together with both Sandstorm and Silver Spikes standing near them. It was a beautiful family picture. It suddenly felt like a long long time since they'd all done something as a family.

[Rusty]

Rusty smiled. He hoped, that all his friends are having great time. After all, it was important, to spent time with ones family. Well, he was one of the lucky one.
"Yeah, you're right, we have to bring them something!" he said.
He remembered, that Waxy took Cobble from the orpanage. And even though their were happy together, they didn't have the option of remembering old memories of them being together, or listing through photo albums. He suddenly felt really bad for them. Having memories like those was priceles.
"You know what's funny? I think somepony dropped this album before us. I mean all those photos are put together in weird way, skipping time periods... weird huh?" he said. It was kinda obvious, but then again it was fun turning pages without knowing what oomes next.
Rusty had to laugh, when it comes to stunts.
"You know me, sis. Impossible stunt in minutes, difficult? Few seconds..." he said smiling. Sure, it was exaggeration, but it sounded funny. And Rusty was funny guy.
But looking at picture of the entire family together was so awesome.
"Do you remember... that one time, long ago, when our familly from Fillydephia as well as Cloudsdale arrived to celebrate Heartwarming's eve with us? I remember, that this house was never so lively before or after that." he said. Granted... their relatives in Fillydepthia were... strange, but it was familly nevertheless. He was going to say something else, but his stomach reminded him, that he is really hungry. "MOM? WILL THE FOOD BE FINISH? I AM STARVING." he yelled across the house, waking their dad from slumber