Chapter 4
Embers and Emeralds
“Memorial Garden?” said Dinky Hooves, reading the letters in the cast iron arch over the gateway through which she and her mother passed. “Why would they call it that?”
“I guess it's because you're supposed to come here to remember,” said her mother, thinking of how much she, herself, did not want to remember. “You know,” she said, “to remember ponies that have... passed away.”
It was Hearth's Warming Eve, and they were walking along a cobblestone path between the many gravestones of the Memorial Garden, Headed towards a place Derpy had never before taken her daughter. The sun was sinking low on the western horizon.
“Well,why are we here?” asked Dinky.
“Because,” Derpy began, and she was tempted to say that there was no reason, and to just walk her daughter home. But she did not.
“Because this is where your daddy is buried, Dinky,” she said.
“Oh,” said Dinky, slightly confused.
“I should have brought you here a long time ago,” said Derpy.
“What for?” asked Dinky Hooves.
“Because you deserve to know,” said Derpy. “You should know where he is and who he was.”
Mercifully, Dinky did not respond, and the snow continued to fall gently around mother and daughter as they moved along the path towards a particular corner of the graveyard – one that was not well-lit nor especially high on the hillside.
By and by, they reached it, and Derpy was pleased to see that the groundskeeper had bothered to keep the tombstone and grave site clean since her last visit.
When was that?
The question bit at her heart more deeply than the cold at her muzzle and wingtips – it must have been five years, at least.
“There he is,” said Derpy, pointing a hoof at a headstone. “That's where your daddy is buried.”
Dinky waddled up to the gravestone, and sat down, right on top of where her father lay beneath her. Derpy did not scold her, or tell her to move. It was the closest he would ever come to holding his daughter, after all.
“Emberwisp?” asked Dinky, looking at the tombstone curiously.
“That was his name,” said Derpy, choking up a bit to hear her daughter say the word. “He was a unicorn, like you. He's why you're a unicorn – why you are what you are.” She swallowed a lump in her throat, and in the cold, it hurt. “He was better at fire magic than anypony, or that's what everypony used to say, anyway.”
“What happened to him?” asked Dinky.
“He had an accident,” said Derpy, flatly. “Turns out even the best can make a mistake. Sometimes, the world just doesn't care who everypony says you are, I guess – or who you think you are.”
“Is he why I'm good at fire magic?” asked Dinky.
“I'm sure he is,” said Derpy, proudly.
“Then I'm glad he was my daddy,” said Dinky, “because if he wasn't, I wouldn't be good at anything.”
Derpy felt her heart seize up, like the cold itself had seeped into her to take hold of it. She wanted to bawl like a baby at her daughter's words, but she absolutely would not allow it. She held fast, imagining herself to be made of iron – cold, blackened iron that was rusty, jagged, and pitted with age – and utterly still.
She did not cry.
“I'm glad,” said Derpy, grinding her teeth, momentarily. “I'm glad, too,” she said, and she gasped in several breaths of cold, cold air, using them to keep herself stolid and stone-faced.
“Emberwisp Hooves,” said Dinky. “That's a good name.”
“Absolutely,” said Derpy, still taking deep breaths of the frigid air as quietly as she could manage.
“Do you think he'd be proud of me?” asked Dinky Hooves.
“Dinky,” said her mother, “he'd be so proud of you that he wouldn't know what to do.”
Dinky stared at the tombstone for a few seconds longer, and then spoke.
“Why'd you fall in love with him, Mommy?”
Derpy Hooves racked her brain, and then laughed quietly, realizing that she had no answer. She smiled down at the little unicorn who faced her father's tombstone, and having been asked a question, she answered truthfully.
“I have no idea,” she said. “I don't understand why I felt what I felt.” She sighed. “Maybe that's why I was able to feel it, at all.”
“Huh?” Dinky grunted.
“Don't worry,” said Derpy. “I think you'll understand, one day.”
The snow began to pick up, now, and the wind whistled loudly. The weather patrol had gone out of their way to get the clouds started on a thick blanket of snow for the next day's many celebrations.
“Come on, Dinky,” said the pegasus, “It's really cold. I'll bring you back here another day, if you'd like to visit again.”
“Okay,” said Dinky, and she stood up from where she had sat upon her father's grave.
They moved back through the graveyard, Dinky walking close beside her mother, who kept her tucked under a wing to keep the little unicorn warm.
As they crested the hill, they were surprised to see, of all things on a day so cold and snowy, another pony. It was a pegasus stallion, and as they drew closer, Derpy recognized him as the same stallion she had met in Sugar Cube Corner on the morning she had left to deliver Queen Chrysalis her package. He was sitting on his haunches, looking down at a pair of gravestones, one much smaller than the other, situated beneath an old oak tree. He looked up, and recognition shot briefly through his expression, followed by embarrassment. He quickly diverted his eyes, turning them back to the two gravestones which had earlier occupied his attention.
She almost passed in complete silence. She almost said nothing, and that would have been so easy. Yet Derpy Hooves spoke to the near-total stranger.
“You don't have to be ashamed, you know,” she said.
He lifted his head, looking totally perplexed.
“It's good of you to come here, especially on such a cold day.”
He gave a dismissive wave.
“I'm fine,” he said, raising his voice barely enough to be heard above the wind. “Cold is what I do, remember? What I am.”
“I remember,” said Derpy, “but you said you didn't like it.”
“I did, didn't I?" he sighed.
Derpy stood there for a moment, uncertain of what to say or do.
“Is that your daughter?” asked the stallion, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Derpy said, rubbing at Dinky's side with her wing in an effort to warm her a little. “I wanted her to see her daddy's grave. She'd never seen it before.”
“Good of you to bother on a day like this,” said the stallion.
“Well, he died around this time of year,” said Derpy. “We had just found out I was pregnant, so he never got to...” she said, her words trailing off. “It just seemed right.”
The stallion nodded. He gestured just once at the tombstones, and his hoof fell limply back down.
“Six years ago this same day,” said the stallion, clearing his throat to maintain his composure. “She was always sickly,” he said. “She got pneumonia. Can't help seeing it as my own doing in a way, but everypony always has to have a white Hearth's Warming, you know?”
“Cold is what you do,” Said Derpy, flatly. “It's just what you are. No need to regret it... to change it.”
He gave a quiet, raspy. “Hmm,” and that was it.
“What about the little one?” asked Derpy, nodding at the tiny headstone.
“Nopony buried there,” said the Stallion, gesturing at the smaller headstone, “She was pregnant. It's just for show; not even a name on it.”
He reached out, and brushed the snow away from the face of the little headstone, which was indeed blank, but for a simple, florentine carving.
“Emerald Flicker,” said Derpy, turning her eyes towards the name on the larger monument. “That's a pretty name.”
“I just called her Emmy,” whispered the stallion, but Derpy's ears caught it.
“What's your name,” said Derpy. “I never asked.”
“Chill Breeze,” he said.
Dinky nudged at her mother.
“Mommy, I'm cold,” she said.
Chill Breeze smiled down at the little unicorn,
“Take her home,” he said, looking back at Derpy. “She'll catch her dea...” He stopped himself, and cleared his throat.
“It's cold,” he said. “Too cold for little fillies.”
Derpy laughed a little to herself.
“Oh, she's got more fire in her than you'd think,” she said. “But we better get going anyway.”
She squeezed the little filly tight against her side, and was about to take a step when a thought crossed her mind.
“What are you doing for Hearth's Warming?” she asked the stallion.
“Me?” he said. “I usually just sit at home and watch the snow. She, eh... She loved the snow.”
"That's terrible," said Derpy. "That you just sit at home, I mean. You should come and have dinner with us. I haven't done much for Hearth's Warming in awhile, but I could give it a try, for once."
“Really?” He smiled, and it matched the sorrow that Derpy had seen in Queen Chrysalis' eyes for its subtlety. “I might just do that,” he said.
“Tack street,” said Derpy. “The plate on the door says 'D.D.H.'”
“And what's that stand for?” he asked.
“Ditzy Doo,” she said. “Ditzy Doo Hooves.”
“Ditzy Doo,” he said, and he laughed a little. “That's cute.”
“Well, everypony calls me...” she began, but she stopped herself.
“Hmm?” he grunted, raising an eyebrow.
“Ditzy,” she said. “Just call me Ditzy Doo.”
finem