//------------------------------// // Chapter Four // Story: How Far Away You Roam // by Ponydora Prancypants //------------------------------// “Rarity! Rarity! You’re here! Rarity’s here, everypony!” Sweetie Belle sprang lamblike across the snow-covered lawn of 12 Anchorage Place, only to be caught in the cornflower blue glow of Rarity’s magic and lifted into the air. “Sweetie!” Rarity exclaimed, stepping down from the taxi and simultaneously floating her little sister close enough to nuzzle. She let the unfettered joy on Sweetie Belle’s face work its own kind of magic against her troubled thoughts. Now that they had arrived in Maple Cove, her parents’ unsettling reaction to an apparently innocent question would have to be pushed aside. Applejack hopped out of the sleigh and reared back on her hind legs to pull Sweetie Belle into a tight hug. Her sister momentarily indisposed, Rarity stole a moment to take in the house. It was, she quickly determined, postcard perfect. Icicles hung from the eaves like an armory of crystal swords and large evergreen wreaths festooned with red ribbon were prominent in every upstairs window. A glistening blanket of white snow lay draped across every steeply-pitched incline of the roof, while billowing smoke from two chimneys betokened roaring fires inside. She could just make out the unmistakable shape of an enormous togetherness tree through the lattice of frosted panes that comprised the big picture window by the front door. It seemed laughably incongruous that such a cheery-looking home could play host to a funerary mood. It was practically inconceivable that the ponies within, for whom she had brought bags stuffed to bursting with presents, could treat her coldly. Yet, signs were already apparent. Even as Sweetie Belle gamboled about the sleigh, the remainder of the welcoming committee—such as it was—huddled together on the porch. Mist, Glory’s oldest, was taller than Rarity now, lean and athletic. She had always liked him, and felt a certain kinship insofar as they had both been given names that required some living up to. He was, in truth, Mistatim, and a victim of the mercifully brief fad in this part of Equestria that saw ponies assign their children exotic-sounding Wapitian words in lieu of traditional names, usually heedless of meaning. Cultural appropriation had not exactly been a buzzword of those times. To Rarity’s mind Mist wore a painful chagrined look, as if he were embarrassed by something, perhaps everything. Or perhaps it was merely teenage awkwardness Little, violently blue Gentian, youngest of the four children, pressed up against her brother’s left foreleg. Nopony else came out of the house to greet them. “You ready for this, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked. “Neither of us is ready, Darling,” Rarity replied. “But let us soldier on into the manticore’s lair anyway.” At the back of the sleigh, her parents were straining their magic to extract the luggage. Rarity inhaled deeply, savoring the bracing effect of the frosty air even as it stung her throat. “I’ll get our things,” she said. “I am much recovered.” It took more effort than usual, but the haphazard swarm of bags and cases gathered around her parents zoomed away from them and dutifully rearranged itself into an orderly double file that trailed close behind Rarity like a brood of hovering ducklings. The drivers were provided with sincere wishes for a peaceful holiday and a generous gratuity, and the ponies commenced their march up the paved walk to the house. “Hi, Cousin,” Mist said as they approached, visibly flushing beneath his dusty purple-gray coat. “You look nice.” “Dear Mist! How you’ve grown!” Rarity exclaimed, lifting a forehoof to pat her cousin lightly on the head, which elicited more flushing. She reached down to repeat the gesture with Gentian, who clung all the tighter to her brother’s leg. “And you too, Genny Darling! But now let’s get in out of the cold, shall we?” “Yeah,” Mist said, lowering his gaze to the planks beneath his hooves. “I’m sorry about Mom. I know it's all complicated. I just wanted to—” “Everything will be fine,” Rarity interrupted him, then shouted “Come along, Sweetie Belle!” as she opened the front door. It was heartening that at least one of her relatives had decided that she was not entirely mannula non grata, but she would rather the children not involved in these matters at all. She wondered what poisonous thoughts and words Mist and the others had been exposed to, as they all gusted into the house like the winter wind. Mist pushed the door closed behind them. Rarity set the bags down neatly by the door and took in her surroundings as she enjoyed the first real all-encompassing warmth she had felt since leaving Ponyville. Glory kept her house immaculate but overflowing. The walls were covered in decorations ranging from patriotic to personal; framed prints, hangings, and cross-stitched needlework, each arranged with exact spacing and hanging perfectly straight. In the entry parlor—and generally throughout the house—there were a tremendous number of tables of the sort not used for working or eating; console tables, end tables, and sideboards that displayed generations’ worth of heirlooms and sundry tchotchkes belonging to ponies long gone before anyone living in the house had been born. Glory’s home and its contents, as she oft declared, represented the culmination and continuation of an unbroken line of ponies that for seven generations had made their home around Lake Whinnytonka. To Rarity, it seemed a sort of solipsistic museum displaying items of interest only to their curator. Seeing it all again, Rarity thought she might understand a bit better why Glory was having a difficult time accepting her unexpected disinheritance. Through a wide opening before her, Rarity could see into the great room where the togetherness tree she had glimpsed held court. Glory had trimmed it in the traditional Northern way, with gobs of cellophane-wrapped treats to be devoured by the children on Hearth’s Warming Day instead of more permanent ornaments. Candy clouds, sugar gems, and gummy leaves represented the three tribes and provided sweet recompense for the difficult sacrifice of Nightmare Night. Affixed to the highest bough, a crystalline heart glowed pink with inner light. As she fought off the sudden urge to gallop over and pluck a candy cloud from its branch, Rarity heard quick little hoofsteps approaching. A moment later, Glory Dwells turned the corner with a plateful of decorated sugar cookies floating in front of her. Aunt Glory was the youngest sibling, just ten years older than Rarity, and seeing her had always seemed like looking into one of those fairytale mirrors that led to a parallel world. Glory’s mane—worn sensibly short these days—was a darker purple streaked through with ultramarine, her coat was one shade further from white, and her eyes were cadet grey instead of sapphire blue; still, they had been mistaken for siblings more often than not when Rarity used to visit. To filly Rarity, Glory had seemed like a vision of being all grown up and filled out, resplendent in the flower of young marehood. To Rarity as a young mare, Glory had seemed to portend a frightening future weighed down by the heavy burdens of parenthood and Northern cuisine. Glory’s cutie mark, a little house encircled by six silver stars, was fit for a Damsday charm bracelet. Rarity had always found it terrifyingly determinative. “You made it!” Glory exclaimed, though any enthusiasm in her words was completely absent from her face. “You missed the big event of course, but you made it all the same, and that's what counts, eh? This must be Applejack. I’ve heard good things. Why don’t you ponies all move into the great room and get settled? Have a cookie and some mulled cider. You can leave your things by the front door.” She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, C.C., we had a stallion from the mortuary visit while you were out collecting your daughter. Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out they’ve got all backed up on account of the weather just like everyone else. So, we won’t be able to have the funeral til the day after Hearth’s Warming. I’m not sure the whole Ponyville crowd will want to stay that long.” Glory continued on into the great room, then disappeared around a corner. All the air in the foyer went with her. In the long moment before anyone spoke, Mist quietly shuffled off upstairs. Gentian was about to follow, when Sweetie Belle seized her abruptly and began practically to drag her toward the great room. “Come on! Let’s eat some cookies before my dad gets to them!” As if a spell had been broken, Rarity finally exhaled. She had tensed up reflexively when Glory had appeared; now it required conscious effort to relax. “That was … somethin’,” Applejack observed. “She’s furious,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “She doesn’t want me to be here. I can tell that if I don’t fix this now, it is only going to get worse. There is just no point in putting off a confrontation like this.” She hung her coat on a hook near the door, then trotted purposefully after Glory, ignoring feeble protests from her parents. Rarity hurried through the great room, passing the blazing fireplace with difficulty, then through the dining room. She followed delightful baking smells into the kitchen and there found Glory, already floating another batch of cookies into the oven. Dozens more, all in various states of doneness and decoration, occupied most every available surface in the kitchen. Glory made no move to acknowledge her arrival. “I’m sorry,” Rarity said, moving closer. She waited for any sort of response, but none was forthcoming. “I can only imagine how you felt when the will was read. I know I was shocked when Mother told me what happened.” Glory began piping pink icing from a metal-tipped bag, still studiously avoiding Rarity’s gaze. “Please listen. I give you my solemn promise that I knew nothing. I had no idea what Aunt Silver intended. She gave no hints in any of her letters. I only thought I was coming here to see her and say a final goodbye. The possibility of an inheritance never once crossed my mind.” Silently, Glory finished one Hearth’s Warming heart and moved on to the next cookie. “I mean to make this right,” Rarity said. “I intend to take nothing from Aunt Silver’s estate. I will arrange for it to be divided into three equal partitions for her nephew and nieces. You, Mother, and Uncle Pepper will each receive your fair share, as it should have been.” Glory finally looked up from her icing. “Wonderful,” she intoned flatly. “That’s great. I’m in debt to your boundless generosity.” Rarity paused, then decided to pretend that Glory’s words were meant to be taken at face value. “Well, then I hope everypony will be satisfied. I only want for us to get through this Hearth’s Warming as a family. I'd like to reconnect. I want you all to get to know Applejack. And frankly, I think everypony deserves the opportunity to grieve without distraction. I haven’t even—” “You know, Rarity,” Glory interrupted. “I’ll be busy in the kitchen for a few hours, but while you’re still in the house you might want to go track down Arbor and the rest of the kids. I’m sure they’d like to catch a glimpse of you before you move on. It hasn’t been the same for them just reading about your escapades in the papers.” Rarity sighed. "Escapades, is it? I am aware that I have catching up to do. I …” She trailed off, then her blue eyes flashed with sudden anger as she comprehended what Glory had said. “‘While I’m still in the house?’ You had us leave our things by the door, but you didn’t have them moved upstairs. You mean to kick me out of the house!” A blinding heliotrope flare from Glory’s horn forced Rarity to turn away, and when she looked back the entire bag of icing had been emptied, leaving an oozing pink glob where a heart should have been. “I am given to understand that you now own a perfectly fine house just across the inlet.” Glory growled. “We already have four adults and five children here. There’s no more room at my inn.” “For Celestia’s sake, Glory. You must understand that I never asked for it!” Rarity pleaded. “I never asked Aunt Silver for anything, and I don’t want anything. I’ve promised you your share. What more could you want from me than that?” Glory brought a forehoof down on the kitchen island, rattling wire cooling racks and dislodging one golden bell-shaped cookie that broke apart on the floor. “Don’t play these games with me! You think I should prostrate myself in gratitude for no more than a third? You think I don’t see that you’ll end up with C.C.’s portion, and probably Pepper’s too, in the end? I know you've given up on the rest of this family, but I never thought anyone could do something like this!” The sound of raised voices finally brought Applejack and Rarity’s parents spilling into the kitchen from wherever they had been listening in, followed by the emergence of Glory’s husband Arbor Vine. If any of them thought they would defuse the argument without a resolution of some form or another, they were mistaken. Rarity had abandoned all thoughts of surrender. “Have you gone mad?” she demanded. “I have worked relentlessly, tirelessly in service of my dream, building my brand from nothing, and I’ve had to overcome my share of schemers. But to accuse me of being one! To believe that I would snooker a dying mare for her money! Stars, Glory! Listen to yourself! And why in the world shouldn’t you be happy with an equal third?” "Snooker a dying mare!" Glory laughed. "That's what it boils down to. And for some reason you think I should be delighted to share evenly with a sister and brother who galloped off and never looked back, leaving their little sister to take on every responsibility they left behind. I was the one to look after your grandfather, I was the one who made the little plot of land he bought into a family home, I was the one to carry on seven generations of family tradition on this lake, and I was the one pony who actually had a real relationship with Silver Belle after she moved back to Maple Cove!” Cookie spoke up. “That’s enough now, don’t you think? Leave my daughter alone. Go find someplace to cool off.” “Why don’t we go upstairs, Dear?” Arbor Vine suggested. “Don’t you even start!” Glory shouted. “I will not be ordered around in my own home!” “It’s fine,” Rarity said, waving them off. “If you've got more to say, I want to hear it.” “I'll just bet. The thing is, while you were writing sly little notes to Aunt Silver about the secret fortune she’d stashed away, I was the one bringing her sweet rolls twice a week. I was the one keeping her garden from becoming overgrown. I took the children to visit her every month. When she got sick, I was the one who forced her to admit it. I found her nurses. I made sure she took her medicine.” “She fired the nurses,” Rarity’s father pointed out. “I was the first one to her bedside!” Glory continued. “You weren’t here when Aunt Silver died, Rarity, and the rest of you weren’t even here when she lived. It was always me, giving everything of myself to raise four kids in the same town where Aunt Silver and my mom and dad and their parents before them all grew up. We’re all that’s left of that legacy!" Glory turned away to cough, then continued in a strained, thin voice. “What did any of that get us? Cut out of the will in favor of the golden grandniece Silver Belle gave up her dancing career to dote on. The pretty, posh, young one who carries on with the Canterlot Unicorns and takes tea with Princesses and spends her time flitting hither, thither, and yon all over Equestria.” Glory casually thrust a hoof in Applejack’s direction. “The one who, I’ll go out on a limb, isn’t likely to have any expensive foals of her own to care for in the near future.” Rarity thought she heard somepony, or perhaps several ponies, groan behind her, but she was too upset to turn around to look. “How dare you?” she demanded, her voice soft and quavering. “How dare you?” Applejack stepped forward, her expression grim, and draped a foreleg over Rarity’s shoulder. She addressed a visibly shaking Glory. “Real nice, there. I sure do hope that was worth it to you,” she said. “It’s gonna take a lot of moons passing by for me to set that one aside.” “Mom?” That was Glory’s older daughter, Starglow Shine. “What’s going on?” All four of her children, along with Sweetie Belle, had eventually made their way into the room. Glory stared at them for a moment, then gave an anguished cry and burst into tears. A second later, she fled the kitchen through the doorway to the laundry room. “I’m sorry,” Arbor Vine apologized as he hurried after his wife. The children, minus Sweetie Belle, followed.