An unseen snare closed tight around the dreamer as he ascended from the realms of sleep toward those of consciousness. Invisible but inexorable, it was not a thing of true physicality, nor even born of the dreamer’s wish to linger in his recollection of the gatherings, and thrills, and smiles of yesteryear. And yet, he felt it as a weight, heavy and crushing, pressing down on his chest. Each breath grew harder as he pushed against it, until he was left only with the pressing need for air in an environment of absence. He gasped futilely as his head grew light, and groped his limbs about with desperation. He craned his neck and worked his jaw, as if doing so could either bring relief or help him edge across the barrier between sleep and wakefulness. His chest burned as his mind gave way to panic— Sharp raps came at the door. The sound helped rouse his mind toward wakefulness, and he crossed over at last. His eyes snapped open. He gasped a great breath. Sensation flooded him as sweet air filled his lungs again, and his pulse raced hard enough to make him shake. He shivered at the chill of cold sweat matting his tan coat and clinging to his great, thick, curly white beard. Another knock came, resonating through the small, cold, dingy wood-walled room. He frowned as he realized there were no longer doors leading out of the front room into the rest of the cabin; the front room was all that was left. And in that room, the bare cot he awoke in was the only solid piece of furniture remaining, save for a worn wooden coat rack standing next to the door. The room’s sole splash of color came from his fluffy red and white-trimmed coat, hanging on the rack. Through the one remaining window he could see the eternal steel-grey sky and blowing snow of his realm. That much, at least, had not changed. But in the absence of any other colors or signs of life, the cold light for once struck him as gloomy. A pounding came at the door again; harder this time, and more insistent. “Santa Hooves, you are bid to let me enter,” boomed a deep voice carrying a chill of its own. He rose with hooves like lead, and plodded to the featureless door, pausing only to recall the cards and drawings and bits of decoration that had hung on it in better days. He sighed, then opened it. Death stared at him from the other side. Or, more properly, Thanatos: a tall figure swathed in an all-encompassing black cloak, showing only the vague outlines of a pony skull with dark eyes of purple fire looming in his dark and cavernous hood. Santa frowned. “Has it really come to this, Thanatos? Have I fallen so far that you’d take me without even using your scythe?” It wasn’t possible for Thanatos to smile or frown; instead, he cocked his skull to the side. “I have no wish to claim your essence. You should know that I resist Logos’ bidding that I do so.” “I’m… grateful.” Santa looked first at the floor, then back at the dim, nigh-empty room behind him. “It’s gotten even smaller since I fell asleep. Maybe I should’ve expected that. It’s just… so strange to see. You know?” Thanatos nodded. “You slide deeper into torpor, and its clutches on you grow ever stronger. Your essence yearns to be reborn as something new and vibrant. Logos wishes this as well.” Santa laughed bitterly. “How many believers has he stolen from me since I—” “One remains.” From the depths of Thanatos’ cloak, he raised an unevenly folded piece of crinkled, heavy paper upon a skeletal hoof. “Just one?” Santa stared down at the paper with knit brows. “But… do they not still speak of me? Are there not still ‘Santas’ in each store for foals and fillies to tell what they want for Hearth’s Warming?” “Of course there are. But everypony knows that it is just a tradition, and that the parents are the ones who buy the gifts. The ‘Santas’ merely help to spread good cheer to ward away the Windigoes, which can be proven to exist. But it can be proven that there is no stallion in a red suit cruising all around the world in one night.” Thanatos shrugged. “Logos has inspired his followers to calculate the magnitude of the impossibility of such a journey, and the store-bought goods made by his followers are of superior quality to hoof-made.” Santa shook his head. “They don’t believe it’s possible.” “They know it isn’t—” “They once knew that it was!” Santa stamped a hoof. “And their belief helped make it so!“ Thanatos gestured with the paper. “Then look to the request of your one remaining believer, this Petunia Paleo. I have… perused it. I fear for her ongoing belief if it cannot be done. But I see an opportunity for it to inspire more believers, if it is done well.” Santa raised his hoof to take the paper. Thanatos hesitated, withholding it for a moment. “It is in the nature of immortals to believe their contributions are important, and it is in the nature of mortals to lend their belief to what they see as true. I feel little fear for my own continuity on the latter point, and I know my procurement of essences helps usher in new immortals on the former point. What you have done is… different. But let it be known, I have consented to deliver this because I do not wish to see you fall before my scythe. Logos would, of course, have scoffed at the notion of a filly’s letter reaching the actual Santa Hooves.” “Thank you,” Santa said, taking it at last. He unfolded it, and squinted at what proved to be a poorly spelled, crayon-scrawled note, accompanied by large, jagged-toothed drawings in the margins. Santa blinked. Then he wept at the sheer impossibility it represented. [hr] “Go fish,” Discord said, smirking across his hand of cards at the curious green pony sitting in the egg-shaped chair opposite him. Around them, whole schools of tiny flying fish darted to and fro through his living room, their tenuous ties to reality having been strengthened by the length of time that the duo had been playing. “Wow, you’re really good at this game,” Tree Hugger said, leaning forward and drawing a card from the stack in the center of Discord’s coffee table. She took visible care not to brush her hoof against its steaming black surface, given that the table still hadn’t cooled much since Discord had brewed it. “Like… if I didn’t know better, I would swear that you had to be, like, cheating?” Discord stifled a laugh. He wasn’t sure if it was funnier that the laconic pony kept playing games with him despite the drubbing he kept giving her, or that even after all the time they’d spent doing so that afternoon, her tone still carried no recognizable hints of sarcasm. “Well my dear, what can I say? Chaos has deep influences in the realm of probability, though I suppose there’s still such a thing as—” A heavy, rapid pounding at his door made Discord jump out of his seat. It was accompanied by cries of, “Discord! Discord, you’ve gotta let me in right away! DISCORD!” “Luck,” he said, letting his face slide into a frown that hung down to his arms. “Hey, no worries,” Tree Hugger said. “I think it’s really uplifting how you’ve reached out with genuine willingness to build a common path after some of the harsh vibes from that one time we met, and I’m totally open to other ponies—or other creatures—joining us.” She reached down and picked up her cup from the coffee table. After a quick glance at the empty cup, she dipped it down and scooped up some of the table’s surface. “That reminds me, we still haven’t dug up that organic, gluten-free granola that you wanted.” Discord snapped his paw, flashing a long shovel into his claw. He offered it to Tree Hugger. “If you wouldn’t mind starting on that while I deal with whoever this is, there ought to be a vein of it running next to the cupboard?” “No problem,” she cooed, taking the shovel. Discord snapped his claw and instantly flashed across the grand total of five paces separating the card game from the door. He adjusted the tie he was suddenly wearing, turned the knob, pulled it free from the door, frowned, stuck the knob back in, turned it again, and sighed contentedly as this time the door opened with it. “Discord! Oh, thank Life that I caught you here! You gotta help me!” A piece of paper was shoved into Discord’s face. He drew his head back, stretching his neck past the point where it ought to extend without breaking. He glanced over at the pony doing the shoving— “Oh. Santa Hooves?” His eyebrows climbed up and off his face as he studied the tan-coated, white-bearded figure, as well as the way the pony’s bright red overcoat hung on him. “Well, you’re certainly looking rather… svelte, there. Long time no see, eh? How’s the Mrs.? Still riding those deer?” He paused. “Sorry, I probably should have asked those in the opposite order…” “No no no, there’s no time, Discord! I need…” He bit his lip, showing white teeth just above his white beard. “I need a miracle, Discord. I’ve tried everything—literally everything—that I could think of with the… well, power level that I’ve got left. But it’s hopeless, and I’m out of time! Hearth’s Warming is in two days, and if I can’t get this filly what she wants… well, it’s curtains for me!” Discord stroked his beard with his claw. “I’m not much of an interior decorator…” “No, no! Don’t get caught up in semantics! I just need you to make me a dinosaur!” Suppressing a giggle, Discord snapped his paw. In a flash, Santa Hooves was gone; in his place was a tan-colored beast like a squat dragon with less-useful foreclaws, a heavily overbitten jaw, and a festive, ill-suited red overcoat. The creature roared and snarled and flexed its claws at Discord, who lost his battle with holding back laughter. He doubled over, howling almost as loud as the saurian thing that howled back at him. “All right, all right…” He snapped his claw again, restoring Santa Hooves to himself again, already in mid-tirade: “—not what I mean and you know it! Can’t you see that this is distressing?! I’m going to die here if I can’t get this girl a Ponysaurus Rex or something!” “Objection!” shouted Discord, suddenly wearing a slim blue suit, and with this hair in a slick black ’do that practically begged for senpais everywhere to notice it. “You’re not going to die, Santa. You’re immortal; you’ll just—” “Fine, then; I’ll be recycled!” Santa wrung his hooves. “But don’t you see, Discord? It’ll be my essence, but it won’t be me! It’ll probably be one of Logos’ would-be child entities… he’s had it in for me for ages, you know?” “Yeah… that whole logic-and-consequences, cause-and-effect, scientific-method-type schtick.” Discord blew a raspberry. “Why does everything always have to make so much sense with that guy? Where does he get off thinking everything should be so… measurable, and empirical…” “Exactly!” Discord tapped his chin. “Though, on the other claw, he’d probably argue that he’s bringing what we would’ve called ‘miracles’ in the good old days to basically everypony all the time, and that the relatively small investment that ponies have to sink into research and adoption of new things pays itself off pretty quickly in terms of quality of life and numbers of lives saved by it.” He shrugged. “Guy’s still a bigger tool than Celestia’s own ‘royal scepter,’ though; a thousand years of steady progress hasn’t made him even the least bit party-cool.” Santa took a few steps toward him. His face pulled tight with a desperate, intense look. “So can you do it, Discord? Can you—” He paused and looked to the side. Discord followed his gaze, and found Tree Hugger, now half-buried in a widening mound of granola fed by a huge jet of the stuff streaming up and out of the floor. “Hey there, Santa dude,” she said with a little wave. The two immortals exchanged a look. “She… she acknowledged me!” Santa shouted, pointing and waving. “She believes!” “Don’t get too excited,” Discord said, rolling his eyes. “She’s probably just… buzzing off your aura, or something like that?” “Right on,” Tree hugger added with a broad smile. Discord felt hooves on his chest. They pulled him into deep, close, cloying, downright uncomfortable proximity to Santa’s face. “Discord. Concentrate. This is a matter of life or death!” He craned his neck back up, looking past Santa at the howling purple madness beyond his front door. Then he shook his head. “Okay, first off, don’t tell me Life and Thanatos came with you. I mean, the more the merrier, but give a draconequus half a chance to prepare!” Santa’s mouth opened, but no words came. Instead, tears welled in his eyes, and he fell back on his rump, shaking and crying, pressing his forehooves to his face. Discord pursed his lips, then brought his claw up and snapped, bringing back the paper. He scanned it, frowning and pulling out a schoolfilly-to-common/common-to-schoolfilly translation guide as necessary. Eventually he sighed, took off a pair of reading glasses that seemed to have appeared, and stroked his beard again. “All right, Santa, let’s get real for a minute here. Much as I would revel in the sheer delicious chaos it might wreak to drop a resurrected and very hungry P. Rex smack into the middle of suburban Ponyville…” The thought made him all but shiver with antici— “You’re not going to do it,” Santa moaned. “I know, it’s not like you and me were ever really close friends or anything… I mean, you’re the last entity I thought to try…” “Killer sales pitch,” Discord muttered. “...And it’s not like I really matter in the grand scheme of things.” He brought his hooves down, revealing a face streaked with free-flowing snot and freer-flowing tears. “I can’t compete with Logos. I never should’ve tried. I just…” Santa took a long, deep, unsteady breath. “I just love to see them smile. You know? The colts, the fillies… I just… it’s selfish, right? But I love it, all the same. I guess…” He paused, sobbing briefly. “I guess the world needs more than just to make one old pony happy, right? And if I can’t have that anymore… well, maybe it really is time for me to shuffle on and make room for something new.” “Whooooa there,” Tree Hugger said from right next to them. Discord startled; he hadn’t noticed her approach. Little bits of granola alternately clung to, or fell from, her green coat and dreadlocked red mane. She squatted down in front of Santa. “Would it be cool if I felt your chakras?” The immortals looked at each other again. Discord shrugged and held his paw and claw up. “I can go do a… thing, in a place, if you guys need some ‘chakra time.’” Tree Hugger giggled. “No, like… on your temples, here?” “Oh,” Santa said, huffing. “Um, okay.” She leaned in and touched her forehooves to the sides of his head. Then she closed her eyes and hummed for half a minute or more. Santa’s brow furrowed. “Discord,” he whispered. Discord shrugged again. “Sometimes this takes a while, I think. I don’t really know because half the time I don’t pay attention to what she’s saying, but she’s touching you now and she’s fun to play cards with so we should probably just wait her out!” Tree Hugger’s eyes reopened. She placed her hooves back on the floor. “Whoa.” “Yes?” “So like… when you say that what you’re doing is selfish, I’m totally feeling that your words are coming from a place of authenticity, but like… I’ve never felt a pony whose chakras are so majorly misaligned, if that makes sense?” Santa glanced at Discord. Discord cleared his throat. “My dear, why don’t we assume for purposes of discussion that neither of us understands a word you’re saying?” “Right on, right on. It’s like my buddy Fluttershy told me about this Discord-dude here, when he got so worked up about impressing her that he, like, practically faded away.” “She told you about that?” Discord asked, frowning. “I thought that was private!” Tree Hugger rested a hoof on his back. “Hey, no worries, we’re all good, good friends here.” She turned her smile back on Santa. “You’re so like… worked-up about how much other ponies might be thinking about you. But like you said, it doesn’t matter if they see or talk about you, as long as you’re, like, centered in here.” She held her hooves up to her chest. Santa stifled another sob. “Little filly, you clearly mean well, but I’m afraid you don’t understand how things work with entities like Discord and I. We aren’t mortal… we’re embodiments of mortal thoughts and feelings.” “Concepts,” Discord added, looking distant. “Useful abstractions.” “Yes, yes. We’re useful, else we’re nothing. We’re born of mortal yearnings and imaginings, and our ongoing survival is sustained by their continued belief that we exist. And I… well… ponies don’t. Not like they used to.” Tree Hugger’s face took on a curious expression. Discord wondered if it was the look of an unflappable pony being brought perilously close to flappability. But then his subconscious knee-jerk reaction to the previous thought was to conjure a small flappy bird that went flapping past them. “Well, so what?” Tree Hugger slowly enclosed Santa in a full-bodied hug. “I don’t think your chakras care about what other ponies think, do they?” Santa hesitated, but then returned the hug, albeit a bit limply. “I… I don’t know. I guess… I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t worried about what they think. I do care, though! I care about making them… smile.” He looked down, half-smiling at the floor. “I care about being a part of their year. I care, and I enjoy that they think well of me…” “But it isn’t the main thing,” she said, still with her face against his chest. He bit his lip. “I know. But is it bad that it’s still kind of selfish?” She pulled away, and looked into his eyes. “I hate to get all negative on you, but I think the only bad thing is how much you worry about if it’s bad. Like… ponies would call you out if you overstep, right?” Santa shrugged. “I guess?” “Like Discord here saying that the P. Rex might harsh lots of ponies’ good vibes on Hearth’s Warming morning?” Discord blanched. “You set me up! I wouldn’t be the voice of reason if you hadn’t led me into it!” Santa nodded, and licked his lips idly. “So what you’re saying is that I can… believe in myself?” He looked at Discord. “Can we do that?” “Don’t look at me. I cornered the market on entropy pretty early-on, and all the Logos in the world couldn’t make that sucker stop paying dividends.” At last Tree Hugger stepped back from Santa. He looked back up at Discord with a smile. “There were lots of different kinds of dinosaurs, right? Maybe we could pick her out out something smaller than a P. Rex…” Discord reached into a nonexistent pocket and pulled out a gold-edged encyclopedia. He flipped through it before pointing a claw at one page in particular. “Here we go: small dinosaurs. Hmm… there’s Componysathus, though that one’s carnivorous and might get large enough to take a bite out of more than just crime… ah, here you go, Ponivicursor! Still carnivorous, but probably more like an insect-eater.” “So you’ll do it?” Santa’s eyes were wide and gleaming from his recent tears. After a glance at Tree Hugger, Discord sighed. “Oh, fine. But this is just a loaner; don’t go thinking you can just show up here at all hours needing dinosaurs or rubber chickens or… cups of flour?” [hr] Death paid a visit to a small filly’s home that Hearth’s Warming day. But, happily, he didn't come alone. “It does my essence good to see what you have done here,” Thanatos said, turning to his companion. Santa Hooves stood beaming from within his clean white beard and somewhat better-filled overcoat. From their unseen and unheard vantage point within a non-detection field they’d conjured in the family’s dining room, they watched as the elated blue filly darted around the living room, weaving around furniture and her own bewildered-looking parents as she chased a leg-high saurian creature to and fro. Thanatos looked at Santa, and wished that he could echo his smile. He continued: “This Fluttershy who Discord says can help to rear the dinosaur is very well-connected. Ponies of all ages will see it or hear of it. Your fame is sure to grow from this.” “Mmm,” Santa said. “That sounds nice.” “Nice? This is a hit, or will be. There are few things sweeter than achieving such success. Consider what it will do for your waning solidly, and to help stave off the torpor, and the void.” Santa nodded. "I suppose that it will do that." “It will also make for a dramatic reversal in Logos' efforts to reclaim your essence for his own purposes.” Thanatos tapped skeletal hooves against the haft of his great scythe. “Perhaps we could use this to undermine him. If we can secure Discord's silence, then the appearance of a dinosaur in modern Equestria would be difficult for him to explain rationally. Other immortals might see this and wish to lend a hoof. You are far from the first of us that Logos has sought to ‘disprove.’” His companion frowned. “Why would I want to do that? Logos brings his miracles in his own way, and ponies reap the benefits.” “Yes, but at what cost to those who lose their followers in turn? I've heard it whispered that Logos even seeks the secret to supplant me.” “I don't know.” Santa stroked his long beard. “I don't want to keep worrying about which entity is on top now, or seems like they’ll be on the ascent in the near future. I just want to be… me. I want to do this. And I don’t think it has the power to stop me anymore if nopony really knows who I am. I forgot just how glad I was to be here. I’m probably not above angling for a little recognition every now and then, but it’s not going to define me anymore. It never should have.” Thanatos nodded. “Then it seems your victory is greater even than that of Logos.” Santa smiled. “Yeah, I guess it kind of is.” [hr] [quote][b][u]Author's Note[/u][/b] [url="https://youtube.com/watch?v=MyVgtYVVxTk"]Inspiration[/url][/quote]