//------------------------------// // Four Candles // Story: Myths and Birthrights: Anthologiae // by Tundara //------------------------------// Four Candles By Tundara Winter had reached its height in Ponyville. Just the day before, the last snows had been brought in by teams of pegasi, leaving the hills a sparkling white. Crystal frost clung to the branches of the apple trees around Sweet Apple Acres, and from the homestead’s eves. It was pristine and beauty, and it left Applejack feeling empty inside. Her steps were quiet that morning, as they had been for the last several days since the funeral. It had been a beautiful day, the blue sky at odds with the void in her heart. In remembrance, or perhaps pity, Celestia had graced all of Equestria in unseasonable warmth that threatened to undo all the hard work of the pegasi and usher in an early spring. She’d dimmed Sol’s power as the funeral procession reached the graveyard, the princesses following behind the remaining members of the main Apple family. Faust herself lead the prayers and gave a sermon. What the queen had said was lost on Applejack. Something about never losing a pony so long as she was held in the heart? Or had it been a few, gentle words on the spinning of a cartwheel? Whatever the queen had said it’d brought tears to Soarin—though that wasn’t all that hard to do. He was such a tender, good pony, and wore his heart on his wings. It was one of the many things Applejack loved so much about him. Soarin had cried enough for both of them in the past week, his puffy eyes contrasting the hardness of her own.     She’d not been sad as the casket had been lowered into the frozen earth. She’d not been anything. An ear twitched, the motion carrying down into the corner of an eye, and for a very brief moment there it was; the guilt and grief. Then it was gone, retreating back into the shadows like a timberwolf where it would prowl around the edges, waiting to snap and strike. Moving to the window, Applejack retrieved a few matches and lit the four candles on the sill. The first two were for her parents, lost to a freak storm rolling off the Everfree. Their deaths still stung the deepest, coming as she was still so young, and had thought her parents so invulnerable. Sometimes, Applejack still woke with a cold sweat prickling her coat, once more the filly she’d been, face pressed to the window and wondering why her parents hadn’t come back from the fields.   She snorted louder and paced a few lengths, the timberwolf edger a little into the light. Closing her eyes, she thought of her husband upstairs. Of their daughters. Ambrosia was the first to come downstairs, finding her mother staring at the smoldering stubs of wax. “Mamma, you ain’t been up all night again, have you?” Ambrosia asked on her way into the kitchen. “What would Granny Smith say if she saw you pining like this?” “Ain’t pining. Ain’t doing anything.” Applejack called into the kitchen. Coming out of the kitchen with a plate of apple-toast and steaming coffee, Ambrosia gave her mother an ‘Uh-huh’ look. Setting the food on the little table in front of the couch, she jumped up beside Applejack. “I miss her too, you know.” “Course you do.” “What was she like when you were my age?” “She was the most amazing mare I have ever known.” Applejack shifted on the couch so she pressed up against Ambrosia. “Strong, kind, with a wit that could buck a tree ‘cross the field, and honest. Granny… She taught me so much about what it meant to really be an Apple. I don’t rightly know what it will be like with her gone.” “Will I forget her?” Applejack stiffened at the question, spoken so softly, and didn’t know what to say for several minutes. “I don’t think you will. Not if you live a thousand years. She’ll be with you, always, ‘Rosia. We just got to remember to do as she’d have done; laugh and keep the old ways alive. Like how you two made Zap Apple Jam last year. Things like that.” “It doesn’t seem like she’s gone.” Ambrosia shivered and glanced towards Granny Smith’s old rocking chair. “I keep expecting her to come down the stairs, joints creaking and muttering about how she should move her room to the bottom floor.” “Me too.” “Am I a bad pony because I’m not sad?” Rubbing her fetlocks together, Ambrosia dipped her head and looked away. “I keep thinking that she was in so much pain these past few months, and she weren’t in her proper mind, that maybe it is better she is gone. But that can’t be right.” “Listen, sugarcube, whatever else it may be, it’s good she ain’t hurtin no more.” Applejack’s voice clenched, and for a second the wolf darted into the light. A long, shaky breath sent it skittering away once more, and she was thankful that her voice didn’t hold a quaver when she said, “Granny is with Grandpa now in Elysium.” “No, she ain’t.” Ambrosia shook off Applejack, tears prickling her brown eyes. “I don’t know how I know that, but it’s true. She ain’t in Elysium. She… She… She’s just gone! Dead and gone and it doesn’t matter.” Applejack stiffened, and this time it wasn’t sorrow that pounced, but a hard, burning nugget of anger. “Stop that. I ain’t raised you to say things like that. Granny Smith is on her way to Elysium, and if you have any doubt of that… then…” “But I do doubt, mamma, and it makes me sick. My insides twist up and I feel bad that I don’t feel bad, or that my heart is saying Granny is just gone. I wake up and everything feels the same, but different. I miss her, but it’s not for her, it’s for me. I don’t even know what I am saying, or feeling!” Jumping from the couch, Ambrosia began to pace, her cherry red tail snapping at each turn and hooves vibrating with suppressed emotion. Applejack both marvelled and pitied her daughter on how similar they were to each other. She let Ambrosia work things out alone for several minutes, knowing that is what would have been best for her, if their roles were reversed. The clock on the mantle sticking the hour prompted her to action at last, and she got up to stand beside Ambrosia. “It’s okay sugarcube, to be confused and upset. This ain’t the kind of thing that a pony understands or processes all at once.” “But you are fine. I’ve not seen you cry once since Granny died.” Applejack knew that Ambrosia didn’t mean to cause hurt or pain, but the words still stung bitterly. “I’m sorry, mamma. That ain’t fair of me.” “Ain’t a lie though.” Applejack looked beyond the candles out on the snowy fields, not really seeing them or anything else. “But it ain’t ‘cause I don’t care, rather… I said goodbye to her a while ago without really knowing it, I suppose. Back when she started to go down hill, I knew, and so did she. Each time I brought her medicine to her I said it again, until it just sort of… stuck. I’ll miss her, ‘Rosia, but I’ve been missing her for some time now. I…” The warding glow vanished, the imaginary wolf pounced, and Applejack cried. She pressed her eyes tight so she couldn’t see the surprise on Ambrosia’s face, and let the tears fall. Not just the tears of the past week, but those kept back and buried for months. Older wounds threatened to reopen in the flood, and she had to clench her teeth tight and press her head harder against Ambrosia to keep the pain manageable. Through watery eyes she dipped her gaze to the four stubs. For a while they stood like that, neither speaking, until the tears ran their course and the floorboards overhead creaked as the rest of the household began to wake.       Wiping her eyes with a fetlock, Applejack said, “Come on, we best get on. You go help your father with your sisters while I get a proper breakfast started.” “Okay, mamma.” Ambrosia didn’t move right away though. She just looked at the candles, started to say something, and instead clamped her mouth shut. Taking a few steps towards the stairs, she glanced back, and said, “Thank you, for listening,” before hurrying away.