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// Foreword 
// Story: A Hearth's Warming Tale 
// by kudzuhaiku 
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Most stories begin with somepony leaving home, or perhaps a stranger comes to town. In some stories, the pony that leaves home is the stranger that comes to town. But not this story, no. This story begins with a tombstone. But this does not make it a depressing story, or a bleak story, though perhaps, it might be a somewhat sad story. The story, such as it is, happens to be about a filly coming to terms with grief. Oh, not her own grief, but the grief of another, for it makes her heart ache so to witness it. 

This filly was quite remarkable. The daughter of Blonde Roux and Pigeon Pie, little Lime Tart was a bright, cheerful, intelligent, resourceful filly, capable of doing a great many things. Quite a number of things, actually. She found that she was quite good at anything she set her mind to, with the exception of just one thing, and this just one thing rather defined the whole of her existence. No matter what she did, she could not make her best friend’s grief go away. Not with songs, not with smiles, not with laughter, not even with magic—and she had tried. Little Stargazer continued to have his moments of profound sadness, the sort that comes with grief. 

Unable to do much of anything to help, all she could do was wait with him, with the hope that the moment would pass…