Alice the Reindeer: For some reason Parcly didn't get a break this Hearth's Warming. I got gossip of her preparing for a holiday that would start on Boxing Day, when the Australian cricket team plays its traditional Test match, on one hoof... but then packing winter clothing into her luggage on the other hoof. Blowing hot and cold, the hearth and the aurora, Australia or...

Parcly Taxel: Japan, yes. For the fifth time.

Alice: You also know that Hearth's Warming and Nightmare Night together constitute the biggest non-official holiday season in Japan?

Parcly: Of course – and I can sort of understand the reason why, but the similarities are too few in my opinion. However Hearth's Warming leads into the New Year, which is an official holiday in Japan, and Spindle and I will be in Tokyo by then.

Alice: Have a ramen bowl for dinner then – and I'll carry you to Tokyo too. In return I wish from you as a genie that Spindle doesn't freeze Shinjuku...

Parcly: Don't worry, Alice.

Parcly: So Alice pranced her way through the sky alongside her two reindeer friends, carrying me to Narita in a sleigh. I let my flask slurp up my corporeal self and slept inside, oblivious to presents dropping from a pocket dimension under the seat.

Spindle: She was released in time to see the sun rising from its cradle of blue and gold hues, the meaning of the name Japan. Alice's face beamed with delight, but could not stay to unbox presents with the alicorn, for the latter had to catch a ride to Matsumoto (松本) – Narita Express to Shinjuku, then the Azusa (あずさ) departing at noon. No Shinkansen involved for once (otherwise I would have missed the timeslot for a car rental at the destination).

Parcly: I only had convenience store food as lunch, which induced a few bouts of sleep along the journey. I did observe that farther and farther out from Tokyo the buildings simultaneously drew down in average height and dispersed with respect to average distance, like gas particles, until blankets of snow finally appeared around Kami-Suwa (上諏訪).

My first accommodation on this holiday was far beyond the rail network though, sitting pretty on one of the countless mountains forming the backbone of Honshu. From Matsumoto I trotted almost non-stop for an hour and a half up snaking trails, through narrow tunnels and over barren bridges, encountering from the start absolutely stunning landscapes of snow-blanketed hills peppered with leafless trees. All as raw and undeveloped as the Everfree Forest (save for one ski slope).

Spindle: Though the lonely trails require for their upkeep and viability little houses and other services for travellers, a constant presence throughout our ascent, the outposts out of necessity are subordinate to whatever towers above them. Here blows a winter of the kind the windigos bring – howling winds, thick snow and nopony around to mess the scenery up.

Indeed it started visibly snowing and getting dark once we arrived at the Guesthouse Raicho (温泉の宿 雷鳥) at 5pm. A Hearth's Warming Tail has the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet to Come tell of a future Equestria "bathed in a blanket of eternal snow"... of course that is what we work towards, and the similarity made me smile.

Parcly: I'd already done this on my previous trips to Japan, but I plunged myself into the open-air onsen – this time right next to fresh snow – as soon as administrative matters were out of the way. Later on I had beef curry spaghetti at a family restaurant down the road leading to the Raicho for dinner.