//------------------------------// // Hearth's Warming Eve, Night // Story: The Story of Crepuscularity Sparkle: a Hearth's Tale of learning Friendship // by The P Co //------------------------------// Crepuscularity Sparkle woke with a start, laying in her bed, she had just had a horrible dream where her dead wife's ghost had come back to haunt her. "I'm not here to haunt you, dear, but I am here to warn you," Seasonal spoke up, her voice was somehow both louder and more gentle than when she was alive. "GAH, get away from me, demon!" the lavender unicorn shouted, flailing her hooves forwards and scooting back as far as she could. "Angel, actually, I hate to say it but the only one here that will be a demon is you." the butter yellow pegasus' tone shifted to a grim one. "What? How can that be, am I not to arrive at the pearly gates, dressed in my finest garb, ready to meet the great Faust?" Sparkle asked, her half-happiness at seeing her wife again shattered. "No, the only gates that you shall see are those of basalt, and the only great one you will meet is Luscious Light, who will ensure that you will be wrapped in chains made of your transgressions and burn for all eternity, forced to walk Equus forever, you shall have no mouth, but you shall have only one desire," she paused, taking in a large breath. "What will be my desire?" the unicorn pleaded for the answer. "Your only thought, is that you must SCREAM!!!" the deafening booming of the usually soft mare's voice obliterated Crepuscularity's resolve. "How may I make myself well again? How will I get the chance to walk the heavens with you, my beloved, oh please help me, help me help me help me," her cries for help were miserable and pitiful, tears streaming out of her eyes in thick rivulets. "Well, since you asked so nicely, and I can tell that you truly desire freedom from this cruel fate, you will be given a chance." Seasonal agreed. "Oh thank you, thank you thank you thank you," Sparkle entered the grateful mantra, planting kisses all over her wife's ghost's face. Gently pushing her alive wife away, Seasonal Wind entered a state of seriousness, her eyes becoming like things unto hypnotizing beacons of power as she unleashed the most powerful 'The Stare' she had ever pulled off. "It is ten in the evening, starting at the break of AM, you shall be visited by three ghosts, one every hour, on this night, they will show you the ways to right yourself from your wrongs and take hold of the greatest power of all, the only one that matters, the magic of friendship," she explained, her pink mane billowing on an unfelt wind. "Okay, then what?" Crepuscularity begged. "Then you keep living the life they will show you how to live until the day that you die," Seasonal cooed, running her hoof through her wife's mane, straightening out the massive knots and tangles that came with a decade without brushing it. The lavender mare calmed her trembling worry at the feeling of the caring hooves massaging her scalp. "Now sit tight and wait, or get some sleep, it doesn't matter, they will still come and they will wake you up," Wind informed, standing up and walking over to the door, trotting out and closing the mahogany construct behind her, "WAIT, who will these ghosts-" she threw the door open and saw nothing but darkness outside, no ghost of her wife, just silent snow gently falling, "-be," she finished, closing the door and turning to the fireplace. She looked at her chair, then to the fireplace, still burning bright, and she sat down in her chair. Laying back and relaxing as much as she could, she decided to wait for the ghosts. She fell asleep....... ....... darkness..... ..........*bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong* the clock struck eleven........ ................ crackling of the fire........... ...........*bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong* the clock struck twelve.............. ........................ where were the ghosts?............. .............*bong* the clock struck one............... "Did I miss them? Are they late?" she said as her half-conscious mind got worried. "Hay no I'm not late, I'm never late, in fact I'm always early, comes with the job." a brash, young sounding voice said, and the lavender mare snapped her head towards the direction it came from. "Why are you dressed like th-" she was cut off by the blue pegasus putting a hoof to her mouth. The rainbow maned mare stepped back, "I am Aurora Pass, the Ghost of Heath's Warming past, and about my clothes...... weeeeeeeell .................. "O-*crck*-kay, *hmph* I won't say any-*hnn*-thing." Crepuscularity then proceeded to burst out laughing. "Well, don't you think you were cute?" Aurora's voice came from below, and Sparkle looked down to the floor. There was herself, as a foal, staring up at her with a hateful expression, "What about your wife?" a pillar of green flame rose from her form, changing her shape from the lavender foal to the buttery mare. "Oh, how about that cute little orphan whose hopes you spread your legs and pissed all over," the ghost's tone turned harsh as she took the form of Scootaloo, even the ragged, dirty little jacket and torn up toboggan that she wore were perfectly replicated. "Y'know, for the richest and smartest mare in the world, you are one poorly idiot," the ghost spat at Crepuscularity in the unicorn's own voice, giving her a taste of the venom she so often sprayed at others. "What do you mean?" the unicorn hesitantly queried, trying to control her accelerating breathing. "And that's why you're so daft, let me show you something," the cyan mare not so much offered as commanded her. Without waiting for a response, the room took on a cyan hue, then went dark, shifting from her library's living room to the streets of Canterlot. "Look there, you greedy bitch," the spirit spat, still using Crepuscularity's voice in that harsh, condescending tone. The unicorn mare saw a little filly, herself when she was younger, running from pony to pony. "Hello sir, do you need something?" the cheery unicorn asked. "Not anything you can give properly," the stallion replied in a ragged tone, hugging her trench coat closer. "You nearly avoided an off-white Hearth's Warming there," the pegasus jeered, laughing a bit. "Oh, madam, can I help you?" she ran over to a straining mare, nearly running into her. "What can you help with? You're just a little filly, you can't help me, you can't help me at all, what can you even do? Do you even lift?" the older unicorn insulted, continuing on her merry way with a cruel laugh. "And yet you stayed happy, where did that go? Was it with your brother?" the scene changed to herself, older, she remembered this painful memory, she had just banked her first hundred-thousand when she was called home. "We formally regret to inform you, that Captain Shining Shield, was found, KIA, compensation to you for his services will arrive in three to twelve business days," her mother read before breaking down into sobs, having held the waterfall of tears back long enough to finish reading. Everyone cried that day, and Crepuscularity didn't even have the courage to give her parents her own letter, the one telling them about her and Seasonal's wedding. "Oh yeah, your wife, let's see how that went," the ghost said, now she was just being cruel, putting Crepuscularity through all of this. Then again, she had been through it once, and while it was bad, she had survived, so how bad would a second time be? Even worse than the first time, because now she was seeing her wife, Seasonal Wind, on that day ten years ago. The day she died. She was at the orphanage with a basket, she knocked on the door and gently placed the basket onto the porch, leaving a note. The only thing she could see now was the note, which read, "We offer our deepest condolences, love Seasonal Wind and Crepuscularity Sparkle." "Did she give them some food or something?" Crepuscularity asked feebly, her emotional reserves having almost dried up already. "Something, I can't say what, that's a piece of information for you to earn," the rose eyed spirit challenged before changing the scene again. Seasonal was walking through the streets, slowly and weakly, her tail wet with blood, her eyes red and puffy from crying, fur on her face dark and stained from tears. "Oh, I hope things will be okay," she muttered, stumbling out into the middle of the street. "Hey Seasonal, are you alright, darling?" it was Profit Spotter, waving the pink maned pegasus over. Wind only stared, unmoving, unblinking, before her eyes closed as she blacked out from what looked to be pain. Profit was about to shout to her friend again when a motorized chariot swerved around the corner, running the yellow mare over. A montage of images later, from picking her up and taking her to the hospital, the doctors pronouncing her dead on arrival, the wound being patched up anyways, the body being preserved while everypony she knew was informed, and finally Sparkle standing there above her wife, who looked so peaceful despite how messy she had been made by the accident. Crepuscularity didn't even know that her wife had been killed by a driver, she thought it was a mugging turned to murder. After one last kiss which drained her of all positive feelings, she turned to Profit, who was standing nearby. "I want the motherfucker who did this found. I want them found. I want them brought to me with a bag on their head. I want them DEAD! I want their whole family DEAD! I want their house burned to the GROUND! I want to go there in the middle of the night and PISS ON THEIR ASHES!" the lavender mare was fuming with rage as she imagined the things she would do to the bastard/bitch who did this. All the while, Spotter wrote down what her boss was saying, "...aaaand piiiiss onnnn theeeeiirrrr ashheeees," she read as she wrote, putting the notepad and pen away. Little did her employer know, she felt at least partially responsible for what happened. The scene faded away, and the lavender mare and cyan ghost appeared back in the former's living room. "You cannot let your wife die for the both of you. You cannot let yourself become cold and hard because you lost somepony warm and soft. You must learn to not let loyalties get in the way of living, and learn to be magical in ways not of the horn, but of the heart. You will learn to be friendly before the morning's light." the ghost began to fade away as the clock struck 'quarter till two' "Remember these words: To be better, today is perfect day to start; it doesn't matter the weight of your purse if you're poor in your heart," the Ghost of Hearth's Warming Past faded into nothingness, leaving only the slight echo of its final words. The lavender mare looked around for any evidence of the ghost's presence, no marks or damages to the floor, no scratches on the window or anything. The only evidence of the Ghost of Hearth's Warming Past's presence was herself, Crepuscularity. "Remember sweetie, two more ghosts to go, and I forgot to say before, but you look very cute in my jammies," Seasonal's voice giggled from out of sight, the lavender mare felt like she was going insane. Was she going insane? Or was she losing her insanity and seeing the light again? She stood there, contemplating that question for almost ten minutes. *bong bong* came the clock, snapping her out of her deep train of thought. Nothing, she went back to thinking. "So what's passed is past, I don't need to worry about it anymore," she thought aloud. "NOW you're gettin' it, good job Crepusky," a happy voice congratulated, and a new spirit appeared. "I'm Passion Action, Ghost of Hearth's Warming Present, let's make my lesson more interesting with a SONG!" the pink mare cheered as a strange tune began playing. "I'm not very confident in your ability to teach me something," Sparkle theorized, looking at the oddly dressed ghost in disbelief. "Shut your mouth, you silly filly, and follow me, so that I may show you what is in the now," the spirit grabbed the rich pony and tugged her off to someplace else. Sparkle blinked and was now peeking in the door of Profit Spotter and her little sister Sweetie Belle. "Oh Sweetie, I'm sorry that I can't get you what you wanted, but the ol' mare Sparkle didn't give me much to buy with," Spotter lamented as she looked at her savings, only nine bits to her name, barely less than the cost of a week's worth of food, not enough to buy a cool gift. "Oh well, I'm sure that Miss Sparkle probably forgot to give you a bit of extra money, I can go without that copper bell for a while longer," somehow the little filly was blind to how greedy Crepuscularity was. "Yes, maybe when I head down for work the day after tomorrow, she'll feel generous and give me a few extra bits," Profit sadly proposed the idea, that, while nice, she felt would be next to impossible to come true. The lavender mare, peeking in through the door, felt her head clear of some sort of haze she didn't know it had been filled with. "If I knew that they were this bad off, I would have given her forty bits," she said in regret. "Hm? Who's there?" Spotter said, thinking that she heard something. "Wait wha-" the business pony was cut off by Passion. "Oh shit I forgot," the spirit grabbed the living mare, a pink hue overlaying the latter's vision. When the white unicorn opened the door, she stared right through the pony in front of her, as though she wasn't even there. Hovering away from the HQ of the business, Action breathed a sigh of relief. "In my excitement to learn you new things, I forgot to put on the ghostly aura of lessons, we almost got caught," still the pink mare cheered as the pair flew through the sky. "So I was actually right there in the hallway, it wasn't just a vision?" the lavender mare asked, taking in the gentle sound of the wind, even in the vision, she felt the debilitating cold, though it seemed to be much less intense than usual. "Yep yep yep, that was actually happening right now, and you're about to see something else, remember what Aury said about you pissing all over Little 'Loo's hopes?" her chronically happy voice was really odd when she said things like that. "Yes, and I regret doing so," the amethyst eyed unicorn shed a tear. "Well, that little piss is about to turn into a full on shitstorm," the pink mare pointed to the orphanage. "Oh no," Crepuscularity was worried. "Oh yes," Passion was not. Descending into the dirty building, the hovering pair found a stressed out old mare writing something down. "The numbers, Miss Charm, what do they mean?" Scootaloo had entered the room and was now hanging off the edge of the table by her forelegs. "Now now, Little 'Loo, you can just call me Blooming," Blooming Charm insisted, chuckling at cute the little filly looked with her hat off and her violet mane all messed up. "Alright, Miss Blooming, the numbers, can you tell me what they mean?" Blooming continued chuckling at Scootaloo's adorably missing the point. She stopped chuckling and looked down at those wide, violet eyes of wondering with her own downtrodden green ones, "I'm sorry, I know you did your best, everypony did, but we don't have enough bits for a Hearth's Warming Day dinner this year," she apologized, though she knew that she didn't really need to, it still made the truth a bit easier to deal with. "Oh, okay, I understand," Blooming knew the tone Little 'Loo was using, it was the tone she used when she blamed herself for something. "It's okay, it's not your fault, it we had only a bit more money, about seven or eight bits, I could place the order for the food, but we're short." she winced when she realized she had said 'short', the one word Scootaloo hated as much as 'chicken', but the little pegasus didn't notice as she sniffled. "I had nine bits in the little cup I was using, but then I tried to get patronage from Miss Sparkle, and she slapped my cup out of my hoof, the cup broke and the money got lost in the snow, and she shouted at me, saying that begging would get me nowhere," the orange orphan cried. "It's not your fault, that old bitc-er, grouch is always trying to make everypony feel bad, don't let it get to you," the older mare comforted, rubbing the young pony's back and fixing her mane. Crepuscularity felt a stinging in her heart and in her face, then she realized that Action had slapped her across the face. "A young, poor, defenseless filly is crying because of you!" the blue eyed earth pony reprimanded, "Shame, all of the shame on you, you retched scum of a mare, you.... you're bad, you're just really bad," the pink mare said with a frown, leading her charge back to her home. Standing once again on the wooden floor of the library's living room, Crepuscularity felt awful. "The current moment demands that I leave you, but I will say that you need to learn to laugh WITH good things in life, not AT them, and learn to be generous to others and not yourself. I must go at this moment." the pink mare instantly disappeared. A small note was all that she left behind, it read, "Take some advice from Pasheezy: there's more to life than your work, take it easy," she read, before the note disappeared as well. Looking at the clock, the lavender mare found it to be five minutes until three AM. "Okay, I can do this, I survived the past and present, how bad can the future be?" she considered grabbing her purse and making a break for the orphanage, the zebra-fur-woven pouch was hanging on her coat-rack, right by the door, and if she galloped at full speed, she could make it. "No, no it's not worth it, I'd just be dragged back here by the final specter, I'd better just stay, besides, like I said, how bad could the future be?" she had tempted fate, and fate had a negligibly short temper *bong bong bong* the clock struck three in the morning. The air grew thick, everything was silent except for a hollow *clop, clop, clop* An icy cold hoof placed itself on her flank, another immediately on her shoulder, she looked up, seeing a pair of glowing, toxic green eyes staring down at her. She felt even heavier after the cloaked pony jumped off of her back. "W-w-w-who are you?" the pajama clad mare asked in fear. "Mah name, is Red Harvest, I have taken a break from my job as the reaper of death to be the Ghost of Hearth's Warming Future, I felt as though the two jobs would be quite similar. I am here, not to make you feel better, but to make you emotionally suffer for your crimes against friendship and harmony by showing you what lies at the end of this path you have chosen." the grayish-orange pony was backing Crepuscularity against the wall, standing tall and horrifying over the lavender unicorn. "I would normally say: I'm going to get down on the level of you 'mortal' folks," she cleared her throat, preparing something big. "I, I don't...." Sparkle was confused and afraid of this grim thing. "BOO!" Red shouted. "AAAAAAHHH!" the mortal pony shrieked. "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!" *whimper* "WITH NOPONY TO LOVE YOU AND NOPONY TO CRY!" *sob* "ALONE by YOURSELF, on THE BED of YOUR DEATH, with THE STENCH of REGRET, on YOU LAST DYING BREATH!" the spirit shouted at her with more fiery fury than the sun itself, getting only pitiful mumbles in response. "You've chosen the rotten path of a selfish fool, the innocent blood of Little 'Loo, will be forever on YOUR hooves," the green eyed mare reprimanded, she was telling the utmost truth when she said she would make Crepuscularity emotionally suffer. The scene shifted as her vision took on an orange hue, "The penance you'll pay, the one for the way you behave, will be written as plain, clear as the name on this grave." the ghost pointed to a lowly, cheap, secluded, wood-carved tombstone, with the name 'Crepuscularity Sparkle' engraved into it as neat and readable as day. "But I can't be blunt with you, so I'll show you what happened while you were dead," the spirit informed, the scene shifting to what looked like a few days prior. "I say, these sheets and blankets, they're quite soft, I'm surprised you managed to save these," a shady business pony appraised some folded up fabric creations The sheets and blankets from her bed, Sparkle realized. "Well, I mean, after that ironic death, it was hard to save anything, but we actually snuck in before, we were going to kill her ourselves, but then that thing started up and we hightailed it out of there, fabrics in tow before the heat got turned up," the first of the looters laughed, his friends joining in. "I'm surprised, they're still warm from her sleeping in them," the shady pony noted. "Then give us tenfold the price, because this is something rarer than the wonders of the world, the only warmth that Crepuscularity Sparkle ever had," the second looter jeered, earning a few harsh laughs from her fellows. "Come on, rake over the dough, oh wait, Sparkle kept all the dough in the world locked up in her personal vault, I'm surprised she didn't swim in her gold instead of taking showers or something," the third looter joked, her friends let out their own laughs, even this pawn-broker-type pony was laughing. "Well, she ain't got it all anymore, selfish bitch, here ya go, I've been needin' something pretty," the pony's tone shifted to a friendly one as he hoofed over a bag of bits. The scene shifted to some time before that event, showing a pair of police ponies looking at a huge scorch mark on the road. "So, cause of death?" the first mare asked, pencil at the ready. "Burnt to a crisp," the second mare replied, using the still-hot cinders to light a cigarette. "So, what caused the accident?" the first mare asked the hard question. "Three ponies who claim to have broken into the place before it happened claim to have stolen her beddings. Then they had gone downstairs to kill her, only to find her passed out in a sugar-induced coma. This was from trying to eat a whole bunch of food by herself, they say that she had already eaten almost everything on the table, and had her face laying on a small piece of pie. *sigh* She was still trying to eat it up, despite already having just about everything. Hehe, that sounds like a euphemism for her monetary greed as well. Anyways, apparently that was when the fireplace, which she had left unattended, sparked up and caught the floor on fire. Since this whole place was literally a huge mahogany tree, it was easy to turn it into a huge fireball," the second cop explained the huge mess. "Wow, her greed ended up killing her, what a shame, and on Hearth's Warming Day as well," the first cop sighed, putting away the notepad and starting the motor-chariot up, driving away. The scene shifted to another bit of information, to add insult to injury, she found out that Little 'Loo had died of a heart failure, and apparently she halfway looked up to Crepuscularity, as a role model no less, a role model on how to get at least somewhere in life. "Oh no, this, I don't want this to happen, not at all," she realized something, "Wait, this happened on Hearth's Warming Day? No, it can't be..." she looked over to a dinky little newspaper stand currently being manned by a little purplish-gray unicorn filly with a blond mane. "News here, get your news, nothing to say about ol' mare Sparkle, you can see for yourself over there, but the other news is over here, read all about it," the filly called out her wares. "Hey little filly, where's your mom, isn't she usually running this thing?" a light brown stallion asked, adjusting his green striped scarf, which he had tied into a bowtie, which somehow looked kinda cool. "She's at home with the feather flu, so I'm standing in for her," the little unicorn smiled in joy at getting to do a 'big pony thing' like selling newspapers. "Alright, well I'll take a paper then, keep the change," he insisted, grabbing one of the carefully folded papers and tossing over six bits. "Thank you sir, have a happy Hearth's Warming Day!" she cheered to the departing earth pony. "Right, you too." he said, before reading the paper aloud, not seeing the Hearth's ghost and technically-a-ghost behind him. "Alright, Ponyville Times, December 26, 1010..." he turned around when he heard a strange set of hoofsteps behind him, "GAH, I told you to leave me ALONE Harvest, I already learned about Hearth's Warming Eve, I don't need to see the centuries of pain and infinite lack of being ginger, so GO AWAY!" he shouted at the now-confused ghost. "Ya can see me?" she asked. "Of course I can, why shouldn't I be able to?" he queried. "I'm in 'ghost mode', partner, so I don't need you seeing me, so... stop it." the grayish-orange mare pulled out a pile of green dust, throwing it into the stallion's face. "*coughing fit* Oh dear Celestia, why does my head hurt? Oh well, let's see, Ponyville Times, December 26, 1010...." he muttered as he walked away. "I hate that guy," Red Harvest groaned as she rubbed her temples. "I wasn't paying attention to what happened in the past minute, but I heard that stallion say December 26, 1010, that's...... that's the day after tomorrow! This year!" she exclaimed. "Yes, yes it is, so listen, if you don't change tomorrow, or actually it's later today since it's about a quarter after three in the morning, then you're going to drown in sugar and die in a fire, basically," the green eyed spirit explained. "I'm not sure it will lead up to that," the lavender business-mare said in disbelief. "Well, let me illustrate this, I'm going to do an impression of you." the Ghost of Hearth's Warming Future pulled out a harvesting scythe and pulled back her hood. Everything stopped, the sun stopped shining, the birds stopped chirping, it was silent and dark, yet still cold. Crepuscularity was standing in her living room, looking down at the ground at a pile of ash, a pile of worthless ash, this was what she would become if she didn't change very soon. The ashes whisked into a gout of green flame, leaving behind a note, which read, "Learn to be honest with yourself, and others, and learn to be kind, or ponies will be just as cruel as you." it flipped over, "Take home message: These are not the things that will be, these are only things that may be, if you change your ways now, you will be saved from a death that is most ironic." it changed to a picture of a pony made of ice, surrounded by fire. That was her, she had been a cold, cruel monster, and she would burn to death for it, forced to carry flaming chains made of her sins afterwards. She broke down crying, she could feel it, the last of her foolish insanity dissolving with an uncomfortable heat in her head. Resolving to turn things around as soon as possible, she raced upstairs and got into bed, she would need plenty of sleep if she was going to fix her life later that day. As her body relaxed, she, for the first time in a long time, felt at peace, like a horrible nightmare had ended and been replaced with a sweet dream, a dream of her hopes and desires. A second first, for the first time in a long time, though she was in complete solitude in her curtained bed, she didn't feel alone. Things would get better, they had to, if they didn't, then she would make them get better. Even though it was already the next day, she felt like when she woke up, it would be a new day, a day to change everything. Tomorrow, even if it was technically 'later', she still called it tomorrow. Tomorrow would be alright. Tomorrow would be just fine.