Snowflakes danced in a careless frolic down. They performed their seasonal waltz in this chilly moonlit night as indifferently as they always had during the winter season. The wind rocked them in their descent to nowhere. This nowhere in particular was a sizable woodland of several acres that nopony dared to roam, just for being in the vicinity of the Everfree Forest. Almost nopony that is.
A rickety barnhouse stood above the tree line, the strength of its wood barely holding up against the tide of time and an incessant termite infestation. Even in the light breeze, it creaked considerably.
Inside the barn was an elderly earth pony of a faded lime coat and a white mane tied in a bun. Loose hairs frayed from the worn scrunchie that held them back, and the shawl around her shoulders, much like her own bedraggled fur, looked like it hadn’t been washed in ages. This made the old mare look like a hag as she sat in her once-rocking chair, the bows that allowed its rocking function long since used as firewood and for the chore she tended to now. The candlelight on the nearby nightstand didn’t help make her less frightening either, actually having the opposite effect.
It didn’t bother Granny Smith one bit though. In spite of her bad eyesight and the shrinking candlestick, she had worked tirelessly without pause. Going through the motions she had kept herself to since the sun set yesterday, she reached a hoof to the nightstand, grabbing a stick. It was the last usable piece she had salvaged from the rotting furniture and loose floorboards. Her aching joints flared in discomfort as she scraped the stick in a bucket of resin mix. With the fireplace long since extinguished and the small candle not enough to keep the mix viscous and malleable, she had only gotten flecks out from the hardened mass.
Granny Smith then rubbed them in between her hooves and used the warmth in her breath to enclose it around the stick. Though despite her best efforts, it took her over an hour to manage just one match, owing this difficulty to the night’s cold disposition.
It was a tedious process, but she eventually finished and put it away with the rest of the handful she had made in a box.
Granny Smith let out a sigh of relief which was very labored at the same time. Upstairs, the floorboard creaked and at its sound, a smile crept upon her weary face. Her granddaughter would be down shortly, and the elder mare felt eager to show the filly the fruits of her hard work. She went to move her right hoof to grab the box, but it didn’t respond. Then she tried the other hoof, and then her hind legs. She couldn’t move them, her whole body wouldn’t move anymore. Fatigue and old age had tightened its vice grip on her, as did the cold. Numb and unmoving, she sat there watching the filly descend the stairs.
“Sweet child… Apple Bloom,” she muttered finally as her vision faded when the filly’s frail and underfed form reached the bottom of the stairs, a deathly weight pulling her eyelids down. A wistful sigh was the last sound that escaped her just as the flicker of the half-inch candle petered at a soft blow from the wind.
Apple Bloom yawned and rubbed the sand from her eyes, just catching Granny Smith nod off. She tiptoed as silently as she could manage with the blanket from her room dragging on the floor. Approaching the elder Apple, she spotted the box of homemade matches, and smiled at the twigs Granny Smith had worked on all night to make.
Gently, Apple Bloom draped the blanket over Granny Smith, being careful as to not wake her up. The filly pecked her grandmother on the cheek after, the subtle warmth of the elder mare still there from working so hard.
“Thanks, Granny. Ah love you,” she whispered quietly, taking the box of matches as she went for the door.
Putting on a tattered cloak and a worn saddlebag that hung nearby, and then carefully opening the creaky door, she turned back to look at Granny Smith with a smile. “I’ll be off now.”
Apple Bloom trudged the knee deep snow that fell into layers that bedded around the Apple Family ‘property,’ a claim that nopony recognized nor contested. Two generations ago, her family had settled down here to prove the potential the area had as farmlands. But the looming Everfree had scared everypony else off, and nopony was willing enough to help. So the Apples had lived alone in their land, alone and without aid as they slowly watched their hard work crumble and decay. She thought that maybe if there had been others, a few pegasi to churn the weather and help water the crops, things might have turned out differently. She put that argument aside when the wind blew chillingly through the forest and gnawed at anything alive and warm, making it even colder.
Step after crunching step through the snow, the Apple Filly went further into the forest that surrounded her home in all directions. She had walked so far just after waking up and without a single morsel to ease the pit in her stomach, Apple Bloom even fancied the thought of eating a pine cone or a twig to sate her hunger. The filly laid this thought aside as well, lest she would miss her ride.
Apple Bloom eventually reached a pair of railroads that split the forest in two. It only seemed to get colder, and she shivered at another gust that blew by, but she didn’t have to wait long for a train to pass by. She had kept the time of its comings and goings in mind for a while now.
With the train slowing down at the layers of snow as a precaution, Apple Bloom leapt on the last cart following a sprint. Clearing the blanket of white that carpeted the balcony rail, she lay down on the metal floor, heaving a weary sigh and her features equally weary from the earlier trek.
The locomotive motored on through the snow, clearing the forest and slowly ascending Mount Canter. Midway up the mountain, the sun peeked over the horizon, casting its warm glow all over the land and over the sleeping filly. Briefly she opened her eyes to gaze at its beauty, giving it a grateful smile as she went back to sleep.
Down below in the forest, the old Apple Family house fell apart without notice, the distant echoes of its collapse masked by the blare of the train’s whistle and the moaning mountain winds.
The train made it to Canterlot without incident, though it had arrived an hour later than scheduled on account of the heavy snowfall. When it came to a grinding halt, Apple Bloom fell from the rail she leaned against, the cold slush of snow her face met thoroughly waking her up. She rubbed it off and peered over the side, seeing the hustle and bustle of ponies going to and from the train. Some of them looked fancy and high class as far as she could tell, while others were station hands who inspected and maintained the locomotive and hoof-lifted the baggage for their patrons. The only thing that mattered to Apple Bloom which they all had in common was that they weren’t paying any attention to her.
Apple Bloom leapt onto the adjacent platform, quickly hiding behind a pile of luggage set for loading on the next boarding. Once she was sure she had gone unnoticed, the filly made way for a wooden sign that bore the faded warning ‘keep-off’ a short distance away. Moving it to one side revealed a narrow walkway filled with old pipes and cut stone covered in dust and cobwebs, left untouched and forgotten by some happenstance of negligence. Putting the sign back into place, she crawled through one particularly large pipe big enough to fit her. At the end of the pipe was a set of steel steps built into the wall of a shaft, leading to a manhole above.
Going up the ladder, Apple Bloom’s nose went atingle at the whiff of exotic smells. Coming out from the manhole with difficulty over the weight of the lid, she emerged in an alleyway where the smells were the strongest. She held her breath the deepest she could and held her cloak to cover her mouth as she passed the hot air vents of a perfume shop. Other than the smell, the space was utterly bare, a stark comparison to the sunlit street of the shopping district only a stone’s throw away.
At the sight of ponies walking by, she eagerly took out the box of matches from her saddlebag and lay them on the street, hoping a generous soul would pass her by and buy one from her.
“Matches! Matches for sale!” Apple Bloom voiced her sales pitch, holding a piece up as she did. “A piece for a copper bit!”
Amongst the crowd that past her makeshift stall, only a few passersby ever gave her a sideways glance as the day grew grayer and grayer. A grumbling blue pony who wore a purple cape and hat, and was cleaning the smears of tomato juice off her face. An orange pegasus filly with a purple mane who happened to look down. She listened to the stories of a mint green unicorn with a beige earth pony following right behind them, rolling her eyes at the unicorn’s rambles. A unicorn couple, the light pink mare looking like a figure of elegance itself, and the blue-maned stallion, a refined gentlecolt in a tuxedo sporting a monocle. And lastly a small purple dragon who hefted a bag of books in each hand. He was following a purple unicorn whom Apple Bloom assumed was his keeper, her eyes glued on the checklist that floated in her magick.
All of them looked down to her with varying degrees of sympathy, but none even bothered to buy a match.
Crestfallen, Apple Bloom lowered her tired leg. She looked down the street and spied a park glistening in the sunlight that shone through a break in the clouds. Picking up her box of matches, she hoped for the chance that maybe a generous soul would be roaming about it at this hour.
Entering the powder white place, Apple Bloom gawked at the park in utter amazement. The most beautiful ice sculptures decorated the grounds, giving it a pristine sense of grace only possible in the winter. The leafless trees seemed like chilly candelabras whose carefully chiseled icicles glistened with the light of the steadily setting sun. And the only gazebo in the park simply looked enchanting with its icy shingle carvings that topped its roof in the stead of packed snow, making it look like a castle.
Hearing the sound of a chisel whittle away at ice, she spotted white unicorn mare with a purple mane. She tended to the finishing touches nearby the gazebo, creating another sculpture to stand by the structure. Apple Bloom approached the mare unnoticed, the artist’s rapt attention solely on the cheery features of her sculpture’s face. She was about to ask her to buy some matches, but somepony cut her off, getting the mare’s attention before she could.
“Rarity, dear!” a motherly sounding voice called from the elder of a pair of unicorns.
The filly of the two had the same look of amazement as Apple Bloom did, a starry-eyed gaze for the winter wonderland around her. Twirling in place to get good view of the park's entirety, she mouthed wow in admiration of her sister's dazzling creativity.
“It’s getting late, you can finish the rest tomorrow. We’re going home,” the elder pink mare reasoned.
“Aww, but mom! You said I could look at her work!” The filly complained.
Rarity finished by dusting the sculpture of excess snow. After taking a moment to keep her tools, she approached her family. “Now now, don’t fuss, Sweetie Belle. It’s the middle of winter. My creations will be here tomorrow for you to fawn over, I can assure you that."
“Not unless you keep yourself cooped in with those two, Scootaloo and Button Mash, always coming over,” her mother quipped without reserve. Sweetie harrumphed at that comment with her forelegs crossed.
“Yes, yes, that colt especially. You beam a grin as bright as Celestia’s sun at the mere sight of him,” Rarity added to tease her sister, causing their mother to chuckle.
“What was that?”
“Nothing! Nothing, Sweetie. Ehehe.”
The merriment they exuded from the casual conversation halted any thoughts Apple Bloom had to advance on them. Feeling their happiness wasn’t hers to interrupt, she remained silent and just out of notice.
The unicorns left the park, making way for the warm comfort of their home. Only the filly, Sweetie Belle, managed to notice Apple Bloom in a glance back, another sympathetic gaze that offered the starving Apple filly barely any comfort of her own.
Not a single match sold the whole day. Apple Bloom walked dejectedly back to the alley with the sun retreating behind the horizon which was also obscured by gray clouds that unknowing weather ponies let roll in. Stores in the shopping district summarily closed altogether, a few of the clerks passing the filly and not paying her mind as they made way for their homes. Ornate street lamps lit her lonely path back but left the alley way completely dark. She walked over to the manhole and tried to lift it open, but she was too weak, having had nothing to eat the entire day.
And then a whistle sounded off, the blaring sound of the train signaling its departure from the station. Apple Bloom heaved at the lid harder, trying once more to lift it up with all the strength she could muster, but there was just none left in that frail body of hers. The train whistle sounded off again as an echo, telling her that it was already too far for her to make it. Too tired to lift the lid or move around Canterlot, she stayed in the alley.
Looking up, the gray skies only turned darker as the night dawned. The clouds were too thick for the meager light of the moon and its accompaniment of stars to shine down, and even if it could, there was no warmth its light could offer. The air vents too, stopped whirling and spewing hot fumes that would have kept her warm. Apple Bloom honestly wouldn’t have minded the smell anymore.
Hours passed and the night grew darker, the wall Apple Bloom leaned on colder, and her vision hazy. The wind picked up and blew many flurries into the alleyway, tightening the cold embrace on her. Shivering uncontrollably, she looked down to her box of matches. Apple Bloom’s stare lingered on it absentmindedly for a moment, looking at the matches her grandmother painstakingly hoof-made.
“Granny Smith made these… for me,” she thought out loud.
Holding a piece up to eye level, she then struck the match to the wall, igniting it. She held it close and looked at it longingly past her scraggly mane, imagining its tiny warmth turning into a blaze. Against the darkness and the bitter cold that offered her no comfort or ease, that soft glow fueled her hopeful wishes till they became a rosy daydream.
Appearing out of nowhere, scrumptious apple confections and delicacies spreaded out on a table longer than a dozen ponies. That sweet, fresh-from-the-oven scent wafting in the air, goaded her to take a bite. And when she did, it vanished into the powdery flurry the wind sent her way.
Apple Bloom mulled over the ghost of the dream that was suddenly taken from her. Looking at the matches again, she decidedly took up another match to light.
The vision came back eagerly with the spark of the match, and Apple Bloom turned elated over its return and partook of the apple-themed buffet. Its flavor did not disappoint in any way, the sensation dancing on her taste buds for them to savor. But none more filled her with content than being with others of her kin to share it with.
Ponies she knew, no longer saw, or thought she’d seen before gathered within the large hall, conversations and songs mingling into lively babble. The mint green unicorn and her beige earth pony friend. The magician pony who wowed the audience from her stage with her flashy tricks and theatrics. The unicorn couple who gave the performer a standing ovation. The little purple dragon who raised his drink to her in merriment from the back of his adoptive pony sister. A family of unicorns, the white, young mare among them admiring the décor.
Their familiar faces repeated throughout the crowd, yet completely slipped her mind. But it didn’t matter now that she was in the company of close friends… or were they?
Two fillies approached Apple Bloom from the crowd, a white unicorn with a mulberry mane, and an orange pegasus with a purple mane. Flanking her sides with grins as warm as the party’s mood, they joined her in the festivities. They gobbled up every single treat they could find and won party games one after the other, much to their own delight as well as a bubbly pink mare’s satisfaction. Hours went by without a care in the world.
Eventually her young body tuckered out, and a suppressed yawn broke away from her mouth. As if it were a signal, facets of the celebration faded and went mute one by one.
First the music, song and buffet, then the magician and her stage, then the ponies in the mingling crowds and finally, the two fillies beside her. Everypony had vanished. All but one elderly, earth pony mare.
But just as the color of her coat began to show past the haze, the vision ended once again by the gust of another wintery flurry.
Apple Bloom had enough. Wanting badly to see that mare most of all, she took all of the remaining matches and set them alight. She appeared before her again and this time, without any more interruption. That familiar lime green coat. A fade white mane wrapped in a warm and cozy bun. And a smile as warm as a well-kindled hearth.
“Granny Smith!” Apple Bloom shouted with glee, hugging her at the moment of recognition. "Ah missed you so much!"
“Oh Apple Bloom, Ah missed you too” The elder mare replied as she returned the hugged. “We all did.”
“We?” The Apple Filly wondered, her brow askew. From the haze, two ponies came forth. An orange mare with a blond mane sporting a steston, and an apple-red stallion with a yolk resting around his neck.
“Yes, Apple Bloom,” the orange mare answered most joyfully. “We all did.”
“Eeyup,” the red stallion reaffirmed.
Held in their embrace, Apple Bloom felt the warmest and most content she had even been her whole life. Without any second thoughts, she let the specters of her family take her.
From a rooftop, Princess Luna smiled at the light the sun cast on her when the new day dawned, the warmth embracing her as her own sister would. The radiance seemed a fitting substitute for Celestia herself, who raised the sun after she awoke in the comfort of her castle.
“Dear sister, your sunrise never ceases to make me smile,” the Princess of the Night said to her sibling far away, hoping the winds would carry her sentiment all the way as a whisper.
Luna had been out patrolling the night, having been on the look-out for ne’er-do-wells or any sort of disturbances in her realm. Satisfied on a job well done, the midnight alicorn thrust her wings down and took off for the palace for a good day’s rest. Though a sudden gust caught her in her rise up, and her crown fell off her head as she took a tumble and righted herself midair. A little miffed that her own respite had been slightly delayed, she descended straight down to look for her crown.
The powdery snow billowed into the air at her landing, and she spotted her crown by the opening of an alleyway. She took it up with her magick but then stood stock still when the snow settled, seeing what had been exposed by her windy arrival.
"No... By the grace of the moon, let it not be so!" Luna yelled as she frantically approached, nearly slipping on the way.
A little filly’s head peeked from a pile of snow in the alleyway, the pale blue of her skin showing through her faded yellow fur. Luna was disbelief, her mouth wide open but her voice caught in her throat. A hesitant hoof to the filly’s neck revealed her fears to be true, the absence of a pulse and the deathly chill of the night’s embrace.
Luna’s cries were heard all over Canterlot that day. The Princess would remain morose for over a week, over the innocent who had died in her night. It would be a sorrowful image that would haunt her own dreams for years to come.
Apple Bloom was happy nonetheless, the rigid features of her face locked in a content smile.
THE END