Crystal Note - Where life leads us

by TalkingToMyself

Moving Day - Part III

Things were packed up very quickly. The three fillies didn’t have much and all they took from their home were some necessities and a few treasured items. It all fitted easily into the small cart Crystal Note had borrowed from Sour Berry.

Sweetie Tooth and Velvet Heart waited outside as Glass Slipper took a last glance through all the rooms. At the top of the stairs, she froze up when she noticed the blank spots where the few photographs of the family had hung before. It finally sunk in that tonight, she wouldn’t be in here to see them again.
She didn’t cry, but she needed a few minutes to process the fact that she would be leaving her home, the place she had grown up in, the place she had come back to at the end of every day in her whole life.

She heard somepony coming up the stairs and Crystal Note stood beside her. She stayed quiet for a minute, before she spoke with her soft voice
“It feels weird, doesn’t it? Leaving the only home you ever knew.”
Glass Slipper only nodded. She turned her head to the mare when she felt a hoof on her shoulder
“Glass Slipper, I know it feels like it now, but this place is not lost to you forever. Right now, we all need more time to heal first. You understand why, do you?”
Glass Slipper nodded again. She had only been a little filly, but she had witnessed the last years of King Sombra’s rule. She knew why many ponies had given up their old homes. She just never expected for something like that ever happen to her.

She couldn’t put it into the right words, all that made it out was a short whisper
“I miss them so much.”
Crystal Note nodded and wrapped her hooves around the teenage filly, holding her for a couple of moments
“I know. I know you want to be brave for your sisters, but even a brave little angel like you has to cry sometimes. Even angels can get sad.”
Glass Slipper leaned into the embrace and felt tears leaking out now. She thought about rubbing them away but Crystal Note just held her. She let it happen.
“It’s okay, Glass Slipper. You can cry if you need.”
And so she did. It wasn’t a big breakdown and it wasn’t loud or messy, but for a few moments, she just let it happen.

When Glass Slipper pulled back from the embrace, she felt different. Not necessarily better, but at least lighter. Instead of loss, she was now feeling anxious about the new place Crystal Note would take them to live from now on
“We better get going or else Velvet will sneak back inside.”
Crystal Note laughed gently and agreed. Before they climbed down the stairs, Glass Slipper touched the mare’s hoof
“Crystal Note? Thanks.”
Crystal Note smiled and Glass Slipper knew she understood
“You’re welcome, Angel.”

---

Both of the twins were still waiting for them when they left the house. Crystal Note locked the doors and put away the key into her saddlebag. Then she put on the harness that was attached to the cart with their belonging and started walking.

They walked away from the familiar streets and towards the old western parts of town. Not many ponies lived there these days, most preferred homes closer to the palace and town centre.
The twins glanced around and asked a few questions, mostly details, but Crystal Note remained mostly silent. “You’ll see” was the most they got out of her.

Glass Slipper stayed silent as well and just followed behind the cart. She had been in this part of the city a few times, in fact her best friend Sapphire didn’t live too far from the street Crystal Note approached. She saw at least a few ponies watching them as they walked towards the end of the street, with a little courtyard and a fountain in the middle, almost like at their old street but bigger. The ponies waved and smiled friendly, but nopony approached them.

Velvet Heart knew that they were close now and scanned the houses that surrounded the little courtyard. Most of them were only a little bigger than the one they had left, but one of them stood out, as it was three stories tall and bigger than any other house in the street. Her eyes opened wide when Crystal Note steered right towards it
“This is it?”
Sweetie Tooth and Velvet Heart just stared, but Glass Slipper gulped. Out of all places, why this one? Why did Crystal Note chose the old ghost house?

It was more of a manor, really, since it was bigger than the other houses. There were no stairs leading up to the door, but it was made up to look a bit like the portal of the Crystal Palace. Glass Slipper ignored the stories she’d been told, but it didn’t work too well. Even the twins looked at her now and back to the big, intimidating manor.
Crystal Note, now free from the harness, put her hoof on her shoulder
“Glass Slipper, do you trust me?”
The teenage filly and both twins looked at Crystal Note and Glass Slipper only needed a moment to decided
“I do.” Especially after what just happened back home.

Crystal Note had her soft smile for them as she picked up a single box from the cart with her magic, then went straight for the door. She walked in and the twins scurried in after, followed by Glass Slipper.

They passed a small foyer room and stood in the middle of a big room. Glass Slipper saw right away that the room had been cleaned recently and light flittered in through the windows. She took in a couch like they had had at home, two armchairs and a big rug, in front of a fireplace. The other half of the room, there was a table big enough for maybe ten ponies and a small desk tucked into the far corner, a few empty shelves. The room was big enough to be a living room and a dining room at the same time.

Velvet Heart looked around curiously and Sweetie Tooth even had a faint smile
“It’s a lot less scary from the inside!”
They giggled together, but before the twins could go explore more, Crystal Note shook her head
“First things first, girls. This is important.”
She led them up a set of stairs to the middle floor, which was a long hallway with half a dozen doors and another stairway leading up. At the far end of the hallway, under a single window, an empty little table was set up.

Crystal Note walked to the table and set the small box she had been carrying down on the floor. The three sisters watched as she reached in and took out a few things. On the table, she set up three framed photographs. The Crystal Empire of old didn’t have cameras or anything similar back then, so those photographs came from a time after Princess Cadance had arrived.

The fillies watched as Crystal Note used her hooves, not her magic, to set up a framed picture of their mother. Glass Slipper remembered the day. Her mother and father had celebrated their wedding anniversary with a little ceremony. Princess Cadance, the Princess of Love, had offered this to her ponies after the initial excitement had settled down, and many couples had taken her offer.
Her mother had her mane made up in a traditional braid, Glass Slipper remembered helping her set it up. She even had some jewels woven into the strands. The twins had been only three years old back then, but they also remembered how happy their mom had been and how she had sparkled in the sunlight all day long.

The second photo showed a group of stallions in front of the mine. Their father was standing in the middle and proudly showed his newly earned miner’s badge for the camera. The fillies only knew him smiling in their memories, but that day his smile had been wider than usual.

In the middle, Crystal Note set up the third and biggest of the photographs. It showed the whole family, their father to the left and their mother to their right, Glass Slipper standing next to her and the twins in between them. They all smiled and in the background, they could see the stands from the last crystal faire. An earth pony from Canterlot had set up a camera and offered to take pictures, Glass Slipper remembered. That had been less than a year ago.

Crystal Note took a step back and bowed her head down reverently. The three sisters watched but they closed in to their caretaker when they saw Crystal Note shed tears for their parents. It didn’t take long for the fillies to cry as well, but since they were all together, none of it was as bad as it had been before.

They stayed close to each other for a few minutes, when suddenly Sweetie Tooth pulled away and ran back to the stairs. Glass Slipper was about to go after her, but Crystal Note stopped the teenage filly with a hoof on her back. She had seen the look on Sweetie Tooth as she scampered down the stairs.
She was back only a minute later and carried one of the boxes from the cart on her back. She put it down and rummaged through the content, until she had found what she was looking for. She held her mother’s favourite tea mug in her hooves, the one with the beautiful floral design her mother had used every morning, and carefully placed it on the table next to her picture.

Velvet Heart was the next who stuck her head into the box, trying to find something on the bottom it seemed. She remerged with her Dad’s miner badge between her teeth and set it down in front of his picture as well. Glass Slipper meanwhile pulled something out of her personal satchel for the table as well. Crystal Note recognized it right away, it was a betrothal necklace that looked like it was hoofmade. Glass Slipper placed it front of the family picture in the middle.

Crystal Note smiled appreciatively as each of the fillies added one of their treasured belongings to the small family shrine. They stood close to each other as before and Crystal Note hummed a song for them, the same she had sung on the day of the burial.
When she opened her eyes again, she smiled to the three fillies under her care
“Now, it’s a real home for us.”

Comments

[EchoWing]

The ending to this chapter made me smile.

[TalkingToMyself]

9614891

Glad to see you smile!