Last Hearth’s Warming Eve, I tried to undo the curls in my hair.
I tried every possible gadget, every possible potion, sitting for hours behind my bedroom mirror. I pulled so hard with my mane brush that my scalp stung. And yet the curls still sprung back. I even tried a chemical imported from some Canterlot beauty spa that was supposed to straighten manes, guaranteed. My mane just got curlier. As if it was mad at me or something.
“How long you gonna stay in there, sugarplum?” Ma called. “Uncle Banyan’s gonna arrive any moment!”
“I’m not done yet!” I yelled back.
I didn’t say “in a minute” because I thought it’d take way more than a minute. I thought I was going to sob for a real long time, seeing myself in the mirror with those thick curls that flop up and down when I walk. But no tears came out. I ended up laughing it off.
It just seemed so silly. I had spent every single afternoon for a whole month trying to make those curls go away. And they just stayed there, as if nothing ever happened.
My mother—I call her “Ma”—has a straight mane. A thick, straight mane that she combs to her left. Sometimes to her right. Ma can choose where she wants it. Right or left. My mane does the choosing for me. And it chooses a whole bunch of directions that are neither left or right: sideways, up, loop-de-loop, you name it. My friend Biscuit has a straight mane too. My father—I call him “Pa”—doesn’t have a curly mane either. My grandmother has maybe a wavy mane. Maybe. But it’s not in natural roller curls like Spur.
The only other pony in my family with a curly mane was my little sister.
Ma always got so frustrated with our curly manes when we were little foals. While my little sister was still going to the local school here in the bayou, Ma would wake her up for school first, at six-thirty in the morning. And she’d do my little sister’s mane and tail. It must have took her a really long time for her to finish, because Ma wouldn’t wake me up to do my mane and tail until eight o’clock.
But Ma always got so frustrated when she did my mane. Sometimes she’d snap at me and yell, “GODDAMN THESE CURLS! I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!” So I’ve always thought that Ma hated my curly mane more than my little sister’s curly mane.
I heard a knock at the front door. Uncle Banyan had arrived for Hearth’s Warming. With my wings I flapped out my room. With my still curly mane.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming, brother!” Ma said, and they hugged.
All the family comes back down to the bayou for Hearth’s Warming. Sure, it’s a little warmer down here than up in, say, Ponyville or Manehattan. But we still have Hearth’s Warming with all the fixings. The tree, the stockings by the fire, and the holiday punch.
Pretty much all my family are earth ponies. Aunt Sumac and her foals are unicorns. I’m only one of four pegasi in the whole bayou. We have a little tradition where we get the clouds together and give the whole bayou a little dusting of snow. It’s really a ten-pony job, so it takes us a long time and we work up a huge sweat, and the snow melts in a few hours—but what’s Hearth’s Warming Eve without a little snow?
With snow on the ground, we have a big and fancy feast in the house. We cook up the traditional grits cake, sweet potatoes, and peach cobbler. Ma makes the best peach cobbler you ever tasted. We grow the peaches ourselves in the backyard.
Since I’m almost a full-grown pony and Ma’s getting older, Ma started sharing some of her secret recipe with me. Just some of it. The peach filling needs just a touch of blackstrap molasses plus Ma’s secret ingredient which I’m not gonna tell you.
Everypony on Hearth’s Warming Eve talks about the cobbler. Even that year when our peach harvest got ruined and we had to serve apple cobbler, everypony talked about that. “Apple? What happened to the peach cobbler?” “Where’d the apples come from? Sweet Apple Acres?” “I noticed yer peach trees outside are gone. Looks like it got struck by lightning or somethin’.”
That was the year we sent my little sister off to Ponyville.
Nopony talked about the cobbler this year. And this year we served peach cobbler. “Y’know, Spur made the filling this year,” Ma said. I blushed a little.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Pa said, since nopony had said anything for a few seconds.
“I think Spur’s definitely got the baker’s touch,” Ma added. “Must’ve learned it from me, not like…” she stopped suddenly.
Ma, Pa, and I giggled a little to try to make it less awkward. There were only three audible voices in the room. But I swore I could’ve heard a fourth.
Oh golly! What lovely peaches! Growing right in our backyard!
Ha! Just kidding! Die! Die! Die, peach tree!
CRACKLE-KABOOM!
Die!
Die!
“Erm.” I could hear Ma clear her throat. “Well.”
All the chairs at the table were filled, except for next to me, there was one empty chair. That’s where I heard the fourth voice come from.
This was the first Hearth’s Warming Eve without my little sister.
I could’ve brought my pet Bloofy and had him sit at the empty chair. But Bloofy’s awful scared of crowds, even if it’s just family. He’d probably go into full destruction mode and tear apart the whole house. Not to mention ruin Ma’s peach cobbler. And my filling.
But honestly, Bloofy at the dinner table would be a lot like my little sister when she was sitting at the dinner table. It wouldn’t be that different, really. I’ve seen my sister go into full destruction mode a few times.
More than a few times.
The whole dinner table was still dead silent. Ma’s started talking a little awkwardly. “Erm…don’t…don’t y’all bother with manners, now, just…just…everypony grab a slice, help yourselves!”
The sound of chewing was louder than the sound of voices at the table. There was warm peach cobbler smell all throughout the room. I used to love that sweet smell.
It smelt sour this year. Not sour like sour cream on a baked potato. Sour like sour faces. And cold. It was so dang cold. I turned to the empty chair.
It’s ‘cause I’m not here by your side, sis.
I kept you warm.
Golly, didn’t you ever realize that, sister?
Well now you shall freeze.
Now that I’m gone.
I started regretting doing the snowfall over the bayou.
My relatives sitting at the table were staring at Ma and Pa and me. At Ma and Pa with concern. At me with…curiosity.
“So you’re an only child now. That’s no fair, now you don’t have to share your toys with anypony,” my 4-year-old cousin, who doesn’t know any better, said that to me.
It got quiet again, but I saw my cousin’s mother nudged him and whispered to him not say that kind of thing anymore.
“When’s the statue comin’ in?” Uncle Banyan asked.
“The appeal failed,” Ma said. “Princess Twilight said it’d be too risky to bring her home, in case she were to be freed by some renegade magic in the future. So, they…they took a hammer and a gravel-making machine and they…erm…well…she’s scattered across the Everfree Forest now.”
“Oh, I see. Just as well,” Uncle Banyan said.
“We shouldn’t say such things while they’re in mourning,” Aunt Sumac scolded her husband. She turned to Ma and Pa and me. “I’m…I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “She was…”
Ma started sobbing over her slice of peach cobbler. I know it wasn’t the case, but I kept thinking that it was my filling that was the problem. Did I add too much sugar? Did I burn it?
“We’re not in denial, you know,” Pa said. “Our daughter was an evil villain who nearly destroyed all of Equestria. Twice. Our daughter deserved her punishment.”
When Pa said “our daughter” I flinched a little. It took me ten seconds to figure out he wasn’t actually talking about me.
“But doesn’t mean we loved her any less,” Ma said. “We…we just wish we could’ve helped her.”
“You don’t help her by sending her away,” Aunt Sumac said, with a look of contempt.
“Didn’t you see the early signs?” Uncle Willow chimed in.
“I call it neglect,” Uncle Banyan said. “Neglect and a lack of care for that little foal.”
“Villains are created, not born, that’s what I always say.”
“I disagree. And in any case, I’m sure they tried their hardest to set things right.”
“Maybe they didn’t intend to neglect her.”
“But they still neglected her.”
“DON’T YOU TELL US HOW TO RAISE OUR FOALS!” Pa suddenly shouted. Pa’s a stallion of few words. Except when he’s angry. Or when he’s horny. Ma told me the latter part recently now that I’m old enough to understand.
Everypony was silent from shock. Except for me. I was giggling to myself. I was thinking about the “or when he’s horny” joke.
Uncle Banyan glanced at me briefly. Maybe he was looking at my curly mane. And noticing how much it looks like my sister’s.
“Do you think your sister was neglected, Spur?” Uncle Banyan asked me.
“Don’t you be talking to my daughter like that!”
“I’m already fourteen, Ma!” I said. “I’m almost a grown pony! I have my own opinions!”
Ma got surprisingly quiet after that. I guess I must’ve been real mad ‘cause Ma implied I wasn’t a grown pony. And cause of that, I looked mad at Ma. And she got scared of me.
Just like she got scared of my little sister.
I cleared my throat. “Erm…well, Uncle Banyan…I will always remember Cozy Glow as my little sister. I wasn’t there when she did those horrible things that got her sent to Tartarus, and then turned to…” I paused. “I love my sister, and I know my sister loved me, but I don’t know if she loved Ma and Pa. But I don’t know if Ma and Pa could’ve done anything more than what they already did to make my sister love them.”
“You love your sister? Even though she’s got an evil mind?”
“She wasn’t evil to me.”
“Selfish of you to say,” Uncle Banyan said. “What about all the other creatures your sister hurt? Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“Watch it!” Ma admonished her brother.
I started tearing up. I moved away from the peach cobbler so that my filling wouldn’t be ruined. “I don’t like to think my sister’s got an evil mind.”
“Why not?” Uncle Banyan asked.
“Cause it makes me scared that my mind’s just as evil like hers!” The tears were flowing out. Big time.
Uncle Banyan was quiet. He just nodded a little. I noticed he hadn’t eaten more than a few bites of my peach cobbler. Of course I’m almost a grown pony and I can think logically, but that childish part of me was still thinking that he hated me, so he refused to eat my peach cobbler filling.
I should’ve added a little more sugar. Did I remember to add the secret ingredient? I think I forgot that. My little sister forgot that too when she made the cobbler. She forgot a lot of things.
Oh, golly! I think I burned the filling!
Oh, you mean the stove shouldn’t be at high? Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Ma. I’m soooo sorry! Boo-hoo boo-hoo!
Golly, is that smoke?
Golly! Is that fire!?
C’mon sis, I guess we better leave and let the grown ups deal with the flames.
If they can get out, that is.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I excused myself early from dinner, even though Ma said I’m old enough to stay up late and join the grownups for cards and eggnog after dinner. In any case, nopony was in the mood for cards and eggnog after the argument that transpired at dinner.
Even with my bedroom door shut and the lights out, I couldn’t get to sleep. I couldn’t stop staring at my bedroom mirror. My mane. It was so dang obvious that I could see it even in the dim moonlight. Those curls. They made me nervous. They made me nervous, but it was like one of those things where it was so frightening that I was too scared to even look away from it.
Oh golly, you’re just the best sister! I like you a lot!
Wanna be friends, sis?
Wanna be friends?
Finally, I got the courage to lie down in my bed and shut my eyes. It wasn’t much better. You know, I see the image of my little sister when close my eyes. Even if I close them for a second, to blink. It’s been like that ever since she got sent away to Ponyville. So, every night, for about two years.
That’s why can I never get to sleep. I see her face. I see her face with fire all around it. The fire’s so hot, it melts her face turns it to liquid, and she flows away into the abyss below. It’s like a nightmare.
But a few minutes later, she’s gone. And I breathe a sigh of relief.
Except now when I close my eyes, I see stone. I see her face, turned to stone. And her face doesn’t melt away because stone doesn’t melt in fire. She just…stays there. Smiling at me.
She does look like me. Sometimes I think I’m the one that got turned to stone.
Ma had to wake me up in the morning, so I guess I must’ve slept a good few hours that night. When Ma walked into my room, she thought I had swamp fever. I guess I looked pretty terrible, even though I had slept.
“You don’t look yourself at all dear,” she said.
I was still half asleep. “Really?” I paused. “I don’t look like myself? Is my mane still curly?”
Ma looked puzzled. “Of course dear.”
“And my tail?”
“Of course, my little mint chocolate.” And she kissed me on the cheek. I’m mint chocolate, and my sister was swiss roll.
I sank my face into the pillow and wrapped myself real tight under the blankets and I refused to let myself free.
“Spur…do you love me?” Ma asked. She didn’t look like she slept much either.
“Well…of course I do, Ma.”
“Did I…give you all the love and care and attention that a foal deserves?” Sounds like something Uncle Banyan would say.
“Of course, Ma.”
“What about your sister?”
Come on Spur. We’re gonna kill Ma, aren’t we, sis? We’re gonna kill Ma and all the earth ponies. Aren’t we, sis?
“Like I said last night at dinner. I…I don’t know,” I said.
“Spur…did you miss your sister?”
“When?”
“When we sent her off to the School of Friendship in Ponyville.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, I didn’t miss her,” I said. “Cozy Glow was always there.” She still is.
“Where?” Ma asked.
I closed my eyes and buried my face in the pillow again.
Oh golly, sis! You’re just like me, you know that? You’re just like me.
Whether you like or not.
“Do you think I look like my sister, Ma?”
She paused for a second. “I think you’re beautiful just the way you are.”
“So I do look like my sister?”
“Your sister had an ugly heart. It didn’t matter whether she was beautiful or not.”
I was shocked. “So you think my sister was more pretty than me!?”
Ma’s eyes went all lovey-dovey. “Of…of course not, sweetie! I…” Ma hugged me tight. “Of course you’re more beautiful honey. Of course you are.”
“Nopony will wanna be my friend,” I said with my cheek pressed against Ma’s fur. “School’s gonna start soon, Ma, and they’re just gonna look at me, and they’re gonna see a monster!”
It was bad enough when the news got out that my sister got sent to Tartarus. My classmates would all sit a desk away from me. Whenever I smiled at them to say hi, they got so frightened. I wonder if it’s cause my smile looks like the smile they saw in the photo in the news. I’d bump into my classmates by accident and they’d give me their lunch money even though I didn’t want it. I tried to chase them down to give it back, but I couldn’t. They’d say, “Take it! Take it! Just go away and stop chasing us!”
“That’s their problem,” Ma said. “Not yours. They think you’re like your sister, but you’re nothing like her. You aren’t, sweetie.”
It got quiet for a while.
“Even if you are,” Ma added, “You have the power to make your own decisions. C’mon sweetie, your cousins are waiting for you so they can open their presents. I made ya pancakes.”
That perked me up. I flapped my wings and flew off my bed and almost touching the ceiling. I just love Ma’s pancakes. I hope she’ll teach me the recipe for the batter someday.
“You’re gonna be just fine, sweetie,” Ma said as we were going down the hallway.
“I just hope I don’t become like my little sister,” I repeated.
“So do I,” I heard Ma mutter to herself.