Stave 1-Tirek's Ghost
Tirek was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The certificate of his burial was seen and understood by many, signed by Celestia, the clerk, the undertaker, and the sole mourner. Grogar signed it. And Grogar's name was good upon change as any creature in the city of Canterlot. Grogar knew Tirek was dead. How could it be otherwise? Grogar was his sole business partner, his sole friend, his sole mourner.
Grogar never painted out Tirek's name from the shop sign, however. There it stood, for many years afterwards, hanging above the street like a Hearth's Warming ornament. Tirek and Grogar. That was what the firm was called. Sometimes, those unfamiliar with the business called Grogar Tirek, and others called him Grogar. Despite not being a centaur in the former case, Grogar answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
But he was a tight fisted hoof at the grindstone was Grogar, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old ram. His blue fur stood out amongst the white stones and bricks of Canterlot's fair streets, and his white mane was as cold as the snow that fell, his red eyes hollow and empty of all emotion, and his horns regarding the ways of the world with a casual sneer. No warmth could warm him, and no cold could chill him, as he seemed to suck the very warmth out of every place he went. Foul weather had no clue what to do with him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often “came down” handsomely, and Grogar never did.
Nocreature ever stopped him in the street and asked him, "how are you, Grogar? Care for some tea and cake at a cafe?" Young colts and fillies of all races dispersed when he came their way, nobody asked him the time, and even the blind beings would know to step aside when he brushed past, as if to say 'better no eyes than evil ones!' Grogar didn't care, however. It was exactly how he liked things. Anycreature who said otherwise was mad.
On a Hearth's Warming Eve many years ago, Grogar sat in his shop at his desk, counting coins, as was his custom. The clock on the Palace had only just gone four, but there was considerable dark outside, as well as a large volume of fog rolling in from the mountains. Most of the buildings had lights on, but Grogar's didn't, instead having a very small fire. A great draft was being produced by the open door, so that Grogar could keep an eye on his assistant, a younger green pony with a blue mane. His fire somehow managed to be even smaller than Grogar's, consisting of all but one coal. But he couldn't increase the heat, for if he were to turn on the gas, Grogar felt it would be necessary for them to part. So, the pony tried to warm himself at the candle, which did little good.
Suddenly, the main door flew open, and a dragonequus appeared in front of Grogar. "A Happy Hearth's Warming to you, Grogar!" the dragonequus said, with a smile from his toothy mouth.
Grogar rolled his eyes. "Baa!" he said. "Humbug."
"Hearth's Warming a humbug? Surely you can't mean that!"
"Oh, I do, Discord," Grogar retorted. "Out upon a Happy Hearth's Warming! What's Hearth's Warming but a time for paying bills without money; a time where you find yourself a year older but not a bit richer, a time for finding all the items in your inventory through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my way, every idiot who goes about with 'Happy Hearth's Warming' on his or her lips should be boiled with their own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through their heart."
"What a dreadful thing to say, Grogar? Why are you so miserable?"
"Let me keep Hearth's Warming in my way, Discord, and I'll let you keep it in yours."
Discord shook his head. "Keep it? But you don't keep it at all!"
"Then let me leave it alone. 'Happy Hearth's Warming' indeed! Much good may it do you. Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things that I consider good that have not returned profit for me," Discord answered. "Hearth's Warming is indeed one of them. But I, in all the chaos that characterises the world, have found Hearth's Warming to be a happy time, a special, celebrated time, a time when all creatures together are of one cause, fellow travellers to the grave, rather than myriad races bound on other journeys. And therefore, although Hearth's Warming has never put a bit in my pocket, I will keep it, and do keep it, and I say Fausticorn bless it!"
From the neighbouring room, the clerk began to applaud. Grogar's head snapped over. "If I hear another sound from you, you will spend Hearth's Warming... UNEMPLOYED!" He then looked back to Discord. "You're quite the speaker," he said. "You should consider running for Mayor."
"Oh, please Grogar, come dine with me and Fluttershy tomorrow?"
Grogar said that he would. He would indeed. He went to explain his entire position to the now perplexed dragonequus.
"But why? Why?"
"Why did you get married- to a pegasus of all things?"
"Because I fell in love, that's why!"
Grogar began laughing. "Because you fell in love!" he chortled, as if that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a Happy Hearth's Warming. "Good afternoon."
"But you never came to see us before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"
"Good. Afternoon."
"Can't we just be friends? Must we always be at loggerheads with each other?"
"Good afternoon. Can you not take a hint?"
"It saddens me to find you in such a state," Discord sighed, "for I have never been party to such a quarrel to find you so desolute. But I have made the homage to Hearth's Warming, and I intent to keep my homour to the last. So a Happy Hearth's Warming! And a Happy New Year!"
"GOOD AFTERNOON!" Grogar thundered, the entire building shaking as he did so. Discord left the building, vanishing into thin air, and two unicorns stood in his place. Both wore straw hats and blue and white overcoats and had yellow and red manes. One of them had a moustache.
"Good afternoon, sir," said the one with the moustache. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr Tirek or Mr Grogar?"
"Tirek has been dead for nine years. He died nine years ago this very night."
"At this season of the year," the one without the moustache said, "it has become a tradition to collect a charitable collection to assist the poor and needy at this time of year, as it is when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
Grogar stared him dead in the eye. "Nothing."
"You wish to remain anonymous?"
Grogar huffed. "I wish to be left alone. Since you asked me what I wish, that is what I wish. Is Tartarus not still around?"
"Tartarus still exists, yes," said the pony with the moustache. "But it is hardly the place for the poor and needy, who suffer at this present time and are in need of comforts."
"I don't make myself merry at Hearth's Warming," Grogar grumbled, "and I can hardly affort to make idle creatures merry. I support Tartarus through taxes- the place costs enough to run- and those who cannot support themselves must go there."
"But they surely would rather die!"
"If they are going to die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population," Grogar answered.
An hour later, the time to close up had arrived, and Grogar turned to his clerk. "I suppose, Sandbar, you'll want all day tomorrow."
"If quite convenient sir."
"It is not convenient, and it is not fair. If I were to stop a few bits for it, you'd think yourself mightily ill used, wouldn't you?"
Sandbar nodded.
"And yet you don't think me ill used, when I pay a day's wages- for no work."
"It's only once a year, sir," Sandbar answered.
Grogar sighed. "A poor excuse for picking a creature's pocket every Hearth's Warming. But I suppose you must have the whole day off. Be here all the early the day after."
Here, Grogar and Sandbar headed opposite ways. Grogar took his usual dinner in his usual dingy tavern (to save money), and having finished with his banker's book, headed for his home. He resided in dingy chambers that sat in a building that was now mainly in use as offices and warehouses, and Grogar was now the only person who lived there. As he approached his door, he looked at the door knocker. There was nothing particularly unusual about this door knocker, except it was very large and made of brass. So imagine Grogar's surprise when he looked at it and saw not a knocker- but Tirek's face!
As Grogar looked fixedly upon this strange sight, it was a knocker again. He threw the door open, stepped through, and closed it behind him with a bang. The sound echoed through the house like thunder, like each room had a separate peal of echoes sounding through it. He went up the stairs, adjusting his candle to save the wick. Darkness is cheap, and Grogar liked that. But nontheless, he decided to conduct a full search of his home, to be absolutely sure. The incident with the door knocker had shaken him somewhat, and so he looked about.
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready, for a small bowl of soup (Grogar had a cold). Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing stand on three legs, and a poker, for some reason.
Grogar went over to his table and emptied the contents of the basin into the bowl, and began to eat the soup. His eye was drawn to an old green bell that hung upon the wall. It dated from the days when this structure was in use as a warehouse, and it communicated with one room and another. The chain that operated had long since been disconnected, so Grogar was perplexed when it suddenly began to ring.
"Cure that Bewitching Bell!" he snapped, as suddenly every other bell in the building began ringing as well, followed by the clanking of chains and the sound of hoofsteps. He glanced back to his door, when suddenly a figure walked straight through it, and looked at him.
Tirek! The same, the very same. The gaunt face, the long, scrawny arms, his four legs, all accounted four. His entire body was bound in chains, and his skin had the pallid look of stone to it, although small strains of red could still be seen upon his person. Grogar was more perplexed than frightened.
"How now!" he asked. "What do you want?"
"Much," Tirek replied, his voice weedy and hollow.
"Who are you? Or rather, who were you?"
"In life I was your partner, Tirek."
"Can you sit at the table?"
"I can."
Grogar, suspecting he would just pass clean through the chair, said, "Do it then." But Tirek pulled the chair back and rested his enormous bulk upon it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"You do not believe I am here, do you?" Tirek asked.
"Well, I don't," Grogar answered, "For I do not trust my senses. You see, a little thing might affect them. You could be some sour milk, a fragment of cheese, a leftover of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you!" Grogar was not usually the one to crack jokes, but he did so here to keep down his own horror. Imagine his greater horror when Tirek let loose a blood-curdling shriek that shook the building to its foundations! "Mercy!" Grogar cried. "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk Equestria, and why do they come to me?"
"It is required of all creatures in this world," Tirek began, "to travel abroad amongst their fellow creatures. If they not do so, they are condemned to do so after death. These chains are the ones I forged in life for my sins, and I never roamed beyond our business house. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere!"
"You may have covered a great deal of ground in the last nine years."
Tirek either did not hear the remark or chose not to. "I came to you tonight that you may have a chance of escaping my fate. A chance of my procuring, Grogar."
"You always were a kind soul, Tirek. Thank you!"
"You will be haunted by three spirits."
Grogar's face went pale. "Haunted? Tirek, I think I'd rather not."
"If you do not, you have no chance of escaping the path I tread," Tirek warned him. "Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one. The second the next night at the same hour. The third the next day when the stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate! Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”
Tirek and his chains then vanished through the wall and out into the open air. For once, Grogar was lost for words, and upon realising his tiredness from the labours of the day, his encounters with ghosts, or the lateness of the hour, he went to his bed and flopped on it, and was soon asleep.
The most eventful night of his life was about to begin...
Stats
Page generated in 0.02 seconds
Total duration
662 users online
878,463 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Grogar is discord
Isn't Grogar like, literally the Nagash of Equus? Of all beings to be troubled or disturbed by the dead, I'd put him at the absolute end of the list.
9997709
*Points to alternate universe tag*
9997734
Fair point, but this story is an AU. Here, he's just a grumpy ram who dislikes Hearth's Warming.
Didnt the show itself already do a christmas carol adaptation is recursive fanfiction a trope
9997753
As far as I'm aware, no. However, the story has been adapted as fanfiction a fair bit.
9997754 season 6 episode hearths warning tail ring a bell
9997759
I had completely forgotten about that episode, to be honest.
The earliest adaptation I could find on this site dated from 2012-4 years before that episode aired.
9997761
Well that was more of a How The Grinch Stole Christmas take of A Christmas Carol Ponified.
9997948
Yeah with three spirits
9997737
Now we know why most of those aren't aware of the two alternate universe tags in my Cozy Glow and Pear Butter TG TF's stories because of:
1. The Cozy Glow that I transformed into is one that was never evil in the first place at all.
and
2. The Pear Butter that I transformed into is one that, along with Bright Mac, they are still alive and not dead.
Honestly though, it's like those just ignore what is in the tags of the story and just want to read it right away.
(Sorry if that's completely off-topic btw
)
9997973
Um what do you think the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future are?
9998050
A ponified Christmas Carol, that's what.
9997948
Fair enough. What did you think of this?
9998014
Erm...OK? What does that have to do with the story?
9998050
Yes.
9998112
Indeed.
9998134
I did say that btw. ^^
9998137
Yup. What do you think of the story?
9998143
Yep =3
Well, I haven't read it fully just yet, but when I do, expect another comment from me soon ;3
9998147
Sure thing.
9998149
Okie =3
9998150
Very good.
9997709
9997734
9997948
9997973
9998014
New chapter's here!
As much as I enjoy A Christmas Carol, which I finally got to reading just the other day, I would be careful of the pony novelization rule. I can't wait to see your selection for the spirits.
10000315
You won't need to wait long. Two of those chapters are already up.
10000592
Thanks.
Um, I'm confused. Why are Flim and Flam collecting money for charity all of a sudden? It's almost uncharacteristically unselfish of them.
10250429
AU.