Snowed in on Hearth's Warming Eve

by GoneGuy

9: "A Hearth's Warming Carol" Part 6

Icy Heart fell down into a bow as the final spirit approached him. It was dressed all in a black cloak. All you could see of it was a single spectral hoof and two glowing eyes underneath it's hood.

"Are you the Ghost of Hearth's Warming Yet to Come?"

The spirit nodded his head once, and beckoned with it's hoof to follow him.

Icy Heart did as he was told and followed him into a funeral home on the street's corner.

"It will be a cheap funeral, if anypony comes at all."

"I will come, assuming a lunch is provided to me."

"I'm sorry, our funeral home does not offer lunch. Only the final part of life to any pony and to his or her mourners."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, as is my stomach. But, seeing as there seem to be nopony mourning his loss anyway, I suppose it is for the best."

Icy Heart stood in shock staring at the casket before him. The body of the pony in the casket was covered in a cloth so that nopony could see him.

"Spirit, who is this poor pony who has nopony to mourn him?"

The spirit began to reach for the cloth, but Icy Heart implored him not to remove it.

The spirit beckoned again to another building across the street, and showed him the same dead pony's belongings being sold at auction for sheer change. No one wanted to buy this pony's belongings.

"Spirit, can you show me anypony showing emotion of this poor soul's death?"

The spirit and Icy Heart appeared in a misty graveyard, and saw a couple of ponies.

"Well, my dear. We are no longer indebted to the demon in pony form."

"Thank Celestia."

"No...this is not what I wished to see... please, show me some tenderness with death."

The spirit pointed across the graveyard, and Icy Heart went to see the five ponies standing near a grave.

"No....it is....it is... Stricken Poverty.... no.... has Tiny Tim...."

The spirit nodded.

"No......"

The spirit pointed it's hoof once more, across the graveyard back to the first grave. The miser looked at the grave and read the inscription aloud.

"Icy Heart....Unloved by All....No spirit! Please, give me another chance! You must! Let us assume I may change myself, to live an altered life!"

The spirit removed it's hood, revealing naught but a skull of a pony, and startled the miser, falling back into his own grave.

"No!" Icy Heart sat up in bed.

He trotted to the window and threw up the sash, and seeing a young colt, shouted to him.

"Young lad! What day is it?"

"Why, it's Hearth's Warming Day, sir!"

"Then I still have time.... Oh thank you spirits! Thank you for another chance!"