A Hearth's Warming Tale

by kudzuhaiku

A date in a cemetery

With a grunt of effort, and with her tongue dangling from the corner of her mouth—a silly display of youthful concentration—Lime Tart shoved all of the snow off of the buried tombstone. It wasn’t a standing tombstone like some; no, those were far too costly. This was a simple headstone that lay flat upon the ground, and as such, could be covered by snow. Which was a problem. More than a problem, even. It was a source of much distress for Stargazer, who came out to the cemetery every single day to unbury the headstone.

This was one of the many things that made Stargazer sad. His father was already buried, and the tombstone was all that the sad colt had left. To hear him speak of it, every time the headstone was buried with snow, it was as if he had lost his father all over again. While Lime Tart didn’t understand it—she couldn’t even pretend—what she could do was be a good friend, and that meant making the long walk to the cemetery with Stargazer every single day.

These walks were now the most important things in her life. They gave her time to think, to clear her head, and to sort out the sort of pony that she was becoming. A profound change had come over her since she’d ditched her old friends. She was happier now, with both herself and life in general. No longer did she live with shame, nor did she feel that constant pang of guilt. Somehow, with all that had happened, she’d become incredibly good friends with her mother, who’d always been her friend, but Lime Tart had failed to appreciate that until just recently.

“It’ll be Hearth’s Warming soon,” Stargazer said to her while she slurped in her exposed tongue. She turned toward his direction, to see his face, to look into his sorrowful eyes.

“Yeah,” she replied.

“I don’t want it to come,” he said rather sulkily. “My mom is miserable. She cries almost every day now. It’s our first Hearth’s Warming without him, and I don’t want it to come.”

It was one of those days. These were not good days when friendship was easy, no. This was one of those days when friendship was hard. Not hard in a bad way, like with her old friends, when she had to pretend to be dumb, petty, and vicious—all of which took quite a toll. No, this was hard in a different way, and truth be told, she looked forward to these days the most. These were the days when she truly felt good, that she was the very best pony that she could possibly be.

A snowflake fell, and then another. These two were just the vanguard, and as Stargazer began to sniffle, the poofy clouds overhead let go. The fluffy white flakes were especially brilliant against Stargazer’s Princess-Luna-blue pelt, and rather looked like stars. His pale sky-blue mane was a little long now—he needed a trim—and his forelock almost hung over his eyes. Snowflakes clung to the bristly hairs found within his ears and Lime Tart felt her heart go pitter-pat while she studied his cute face.

After some internal debate, she decided to let him be sad—for now. This was a cemetery, a place for ponies to be sad. A place for grief. Her mother said that Grief was the second filly in their relationship, and while little Lime Tart wasn’t quite sure what her mother meant by that, she supposed that she had to share Stargazer with Grief. Getting upset about it certainly wouldn’t solve anything, and would probably hurt Stargazer.

Sometimes, adults said things that made no sense.

“I hate how happy everypony is.”

Uh-oh, somepony was both sad and grumpy. Lime Tart knew that he really didn’t mean that—at least she hoped so. Stargazer was a pony that worried a great deal about the happiness of his baby sister and his mother. Why, he fretted over it constantly. He was looking down at his father’s tombstone with a mournful expression that Lime Tart almost could not bear. Should she glomp him? Probably not. That only worked sometimes, and when it did work, it only distracted him because he would complain about the invasion of his equinal space.

“I hardly even knew my father.” Ears trembling, the colt closed his eyes and then poured his heart out. “I mean, I knew him, but I’m not old enough to know him. He was my friend, and I know he loved me. But he worked, and I had school, and we only saw each other for a few hours a day, and that’s all the time I had with him, and it’s not enough. It wasn’t enough. My mother keeps talking about him, and how he was, and the things he liked… and while I like to listen to her tell me stories, I also hate hearing it all. She got a chance to know him, and I didn’t, and when she talks about him, it hurts. It all hurts so much and I am so tired of always hurting.”

Unable to bear what she heard, Lime Tart chomped on her upper lip, which stretched the skin on her snoot. She wasn’t going to cry today; this morning, she made a promise to her reflection in the mirror. No boohooing. Today, she was going to be the strong one. No snotting, no sniffling, no getting weepy-eyed. The last thing she wanted was snotcicles hanging from her nose, because those were gross. Plus, when she yanked them away, they usually took a few hairs along with them, and that made her eyes water. Which was bad; watery eyes were awful, because the frigid cold made them sting.

“Oh look, the crybaby losers!”

At the sound of Treacle Tiramisu’s voice, Lime Tart closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Of all the things that could have happened right now, this was probably the worst. Why would they come here, to the cemetery? It was a long walk. She knew why. Her old friends had come to torment both her and Stargazer. There were no adults here, no grown-ups around to enforce the rules. Disappointed with herself, Lime Tart should have seen this coming, and she hadn’t.

“Check it out, Upside-Down Cake… crybabies crying.”

Yep, Treacle was just as stupid as she ever was. This was bad—no, this was beyond bad. There were no words for how bad this was, how awful it was. How could a pony do this to another pony? To disturb them in a cemetery of all places. This was supposed to be a place of quiet. For perhaps the first time, Lime Tart understood just how terrible her former friends were, and it pained her. No, worse than that, she was ashamed. She might have joined them. Oh, she didn’t want to believe that, but it was possible. Over time, it became easier and easier to do truly icky things, so she might very well have done this—or worse.

Though she could not imagine anything worse than this.

“I should be a good pony, and wash the crybaby’s face—”

“Go away, Treacle.” As Lime Tart turned to face her former friends, her ears splayed out away from her stubby horn that peeked out from her messy mane. She pawed at the snow with her hoof and swallowed several times because her mouth had gone dry.

The immense earth pony filly made her slow advance, with Upside-Down Cake just behind her. Lime Tart (who had no concern over society’s imposed gender roles) placed herself between her former friends and Stargazer. Every breath was hot on her tongue and she felt strange arcane energies flowing through her horn. Stargazer was silent; he was always silent and he just wasn’t the sort to fight back, which she used to tease him about but now she admired.

“It’s the season of giving,” Treacle said as she trudged through the snow. “And I came all this way to give the crybaby a good white-washing in the snow.”

“Go away, Treacle. Or else.”

“Or else what, Tart?” Treacle spat out the word ‘tart’ in a particularly unpleasant way.

“Leave us alone,” Lime Tart said to her former friends.

Quite suddenly, Upside-Down Cake halted in the snow, and stood about a yard behind Treacle. She flapped her wings, shook her head, and then turned to look at a tombstone poking up out of the snow. Almost whining, the pegasus filly said, “This don’t feel right—”

“Shut up, Dump Cake, you coward.”

Ears down to show submission, Upside-Down Cake went silent and began to back away.

It was something that Lime Tart was far too familiar with. She’d suffer a pang of conscience and then Treacle would either say rude things or be scary. Or both. Sometimes both. No doubt, Treacle was about to be a bully, and bad things were going to happen. Only things were not going to turn out as Treacle expected, because Lime Tart wasn’t going to let this happen. Not in a cemetery. Stargazer was supposed to be safe here. This was supposed to be a tranquil place, not a schoolyard. Though, it shouldn’t happen in the schoolyard, either, and the adults didn’t do much about it, because foals will be foals.

“We should go,” Stargazer said from behind her.

“Do you really think I’ll let you leave without your Hearth’s Warming gift?”

Treacle had an infuriatingly stupid look on her infuriatingly stupid face. She never was a bright one, but right now she appeared particularly dumb. Something about her smug expression that suggested that, even with as stupid as she was, she knew that she would get away with this, at least for now. Treacle was too thick-headed to think about any sort of consequences, and she had trouble thinking five minutes into the future. For her, there was only the now, and the future might as well not exist. Lime Tart had learned the hard way that Treacle could not be reasoned with, or made afraid of some future punishment, because she would be too busy having fun right now.

This was a confrontation a long time in the making, and little Lime Tart wasn’t sure what to do.

“I’m failing in school now because of you,” Treacle said as she assumed a stiff-legged stance just a few yards away.

There was a lot that Lime Tart wanted to say about this (mostly hurtful cracks about how stupid Treacle was) but she held her tongue. With each passing second, the situation grew more and more dangerous, because this was how Treacle did things. She would talk, she would say things, the tension would build, and then she would strike when it was least expected. While Treacle wasn’t smart at all, she was gifted at bullying, a sort of idiot savant for schoolyard terror.

And Lime Tart felt diminished for getting sucked into it.

How could she be so stupid?

“As for you,” Treacle said to Stargazer, “you need to get over it. Your dad was weak and dumb. That’s why he died. And one day, you’ll probably die too, just like he did—”

“Shut up.” The burning in Lime Tart’s ears was a painful, stinging physical sensation that was almost unbearable. There was a horrible droning sound that echoed inside of her ears, and painful twitches in her muscles made her body jerk.

“Make me,” Treacle replied, and she grinned with smug superiourity.

This is what Treacle wanted, what she craved, what she lived for. A fight was what Treacle was after. As for Upside-Down Cake, she stood near the gate, fretful and afraid. Lime Tart actually felt bad for her; the pegasus filly probably would be fine if she could escape Treacle’s influence. That was easier said than done, and Lime Tart knew this from her own experience. It was tough to ditch friends, even the bad ones.

She would not win with words; Treacle, true to her namesake, was too thick to be reached with words. Lime Tart demanded that her brain offer a solution, and perhaps because of the crisis, her brain provided. This time, anyhow. Reaching out with the mysterious power of her magic, she snatched and broke off a huge, scary icicle from the black wrought iron fence. It was heavier than she expected, and she could not recall ever lifting up anything with so much weight.

It flew through the air while trailing glittery sparks behind it. The thrum of magic was almost deafening in Lime Tart’s ears as she brought the yard-long icicle to bear and leveled the sharp, pointy end at her former friend. There was no smug smile on Treacle’s face, only startled astonishment, and the massive earth pony filly whinnied in alarm. Before Treacle could react, Lime Tart launched the tremendous icicle like a spear.

Treacle barely had time to turn tail, and she scrambled in the snow to get away. The icicle grazed her generous backside, but drew no blood, caused no injury. Before the icicle had even tumbled into the snow, Lime Tart had already armed herself with a second one. Squinting, she took careful, steady aim, and she hurled the icicle at the rapidly retreating earth pony filly. It flew true, remarkably so, Lime Tart actually frightened herself with her scary accuracy…

It struck Treacle in her tail, she yelped in terror, the icicle spear shot between her hind legs and buried itself into the snow. Lime Tart already had a third icicle plucked from the fence, and ready to go. But she did not fire. Treacle was bawling now—the bully was actually crying. She was a big crybaby herself. Lime Tart did not expect this, not at all, not even in the slightest, and she wasn’t sure how to respond.

As she neared the gate where Upside-Down Cake stood, Treacle shouted, “I’m telling! You used your magic to hurt me! You’ve gone evil, just like Nightmare Moon!”

“Go and tell, you big dumb idiot!” Lime Tart hollered back. “Go and tell about how you tried to pick a fight in the cemetery, you big, fat, stupid, loud-mouthed dummy! I’ll go and tell everypony about all the yellow snow you left behind you, you big, thickheaded dolt!”

There was, indeed, a visible trail of yellow in the snow that went halfway across the graveyard.

As her two former friends ran away, galloping through the snow to head back towards town, Lime Tart was overcome by heat. Her skin burned. It felt as though her ears were on fire. There was a fire burning on the inside that was horrid and unpleasant. It made her skin feel too tight and too itchy. She was cooking and she couldn’t stand it. Snorting out huge jets of steam, she yanked off her blanket-coat, tossed it down into the snow beside the grave of Stargazer’s father, and then Lime Tart threw herself to the ground.

Steam rose around her head when she buried her horn in the snow, and her ears ached from the contrast between the heat inside and the freezing cold of the snow. She rolled around, this a-way and that a-way, not caring that Stargazer might be watching. Everywhere she rolled, the snow melted, and in seconds, she was thoroughly soaked. Drenched even, just as if she’d just climbed out of the bathtub. Everything was too hot, her anger scorched her, burned her up from within, and no matter how much she rolled around, she could not seem to cool off.

Plumes of steam rose from her body, her legs, and the tip of her horn actually sizzled a bit when it touched fresh snow. All four of her legs flailed and thrashed about while she flopped on her back, all in a vain effort to get cooled off. She almost felt sick because she was so hot and she did not like the jitters that tugged at every muscle. After rolling around, thrashing about, and making a real mess of herself, she looked up and saw Stargazer looking down at her.

A single tear rolled down his nose, lingered for a bit, it clung to him as if it did not wish to let go, then fell and struck her on her nose. What did she look like right now? Not pretty, not cute. Lime Tart made a dedicated effort to be cute, pretty, and right now, she was neither of those things. She didn’t want Stargazer to look at her, and yet he was. Even worse, it was the sort of stare that wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t end. An awkward, piercing stare that left Lime Tart feeling vulnerable and weirdly naked.

Was he scared of her?

He didn’t seem to be.

Another tear rolled down his nose and struck her, which caused her whole body to jerk.

Everything changed; it only took a moment, an eyeblink. Eyes locked, Lime Tart knew that something happened between them, but she didn’t know what it was. Something profound, maybe even something mystical, or magical in nature, but she didn’t know enough about those things to understand them. All of her magical education came from her mother—which wasn’t much, really.

He touched her, which caused her body to tremble. Rage and jitters gave way to something else at his tender touch. Stargazer was so careful, so cautious. She knew this because of how he was with his baby sister and his mother. He was mindful not to hurt her with the hard edge of his hoof, but he used his bent fetlock to wipe away her soaked strands of mane that clung to her face. His fetlock was soggy from standing in the snow, but it didn’t matter. Something about his touch still warmed her, while it also cooled her off. Hot anger gave way to something else, a sort of pleasant warmth that made her insides feel delightfully squishy. She even enjoyed the tingles that went shooting down her spine, which was pressed against the hard, frozen earth.

She rolled, got her legs beneath her, stood up, and then gave herself a good shake. Did she look atrocious now? Probably. She felt twigs, bits of grass, and other things stuck to her soaked pelt. Already, the cold was creeping in, and she shivered in anticipation of the dreadful chill to come. He still had his eyes on her, his mouth hung slightly open, and she could hear him breathing. What might it be like to kiss him right now? She was thoroughly grossed out by the very idea, yet still intrigued by the prospect. Just like in that movie that she saw, or like what happened in her mother’s books. The two lovers looked into each other’s eyes, something magical happened, and then they tried to gobble up each others’ faces.

Gross.

So horribly gross.

Yet appealing.

“Thank you.”

His words were unexpected warmth on her cheek, and for the first time, she realised just how close he was. They’d been close before, she glomped him on a regular basis just because, but this was different. This was scary and it caused her heart to pound against her slender, delicate ribs. She should probably say something, but she found herself quite tongue-tied at the moment. A new heat blossomed in her tummy, and traveled almost to her neck.

“You saved me.”

“You saved me first,” she blurted out.

He stood silent.

“Twilight was right. I have my mark because we’re friends. I found myself because of you. Since becoming friends with you, my mom and I are friends now. Better friends. I feel good about myself. Feel good about life.”

“You should put your coat back on,” he said to her.

Lime Tart could not help but feel a little disappointed. She’d just poured her heart out. There was a battle to defend her coltfriend. Impressive magic had been done. Her heart and soul were on display, and his response was to tell her to put her coat on. That was so very like him, quiet and practical, a concern for the little things that had to be done in life. She exhaled her disappointment and inhaled a bit of good cheer.

There was no finer colt to share a telescope with.

“My dad, he’s not here to tell me what to do with fillies. I get scared sometimes.”

Did he sense that he’d done something wrong? That something was amiss? She lifted her blanket-coat from the snow, slung it over her back, and then buttoned the sleeves around her front legs. Even damp, the wool would keep her warm. Stargazer’s coat was too small for him, didn’t cover much of him, and was coming undone in several places. His mother’s mindful mending just didn’t hold up for very long—Stargazer was too large and his coat too small.

Sidestepping, the slush sloshing beneath her hooves, she stood side to side with him. It felt very grown up and to press up against him thrilled her. It almost didn’t matter that a fight happened, or that things had gone horribly wrong, because right now felt good. She leaned a little bit closer, and found that she didn’t mind the smell of boiled cabbage, which he ate an awful lot of. Of course, he had nice things to eat too, mostly because of her mother.

“Before we go home, I want to talk to my dad, and say goodbye… maybe you could say something as well.”

“You take all the time you need,” she whispered back to him. “Don’t hurry and don’t rush.”

Author's Note:

And unlike previous attempts, this one was actually released on the holiday.

Comments

[Typist Gray]

I guess the reason that there aren't any comments on this one is that this just seems like too much of a private, personal moment. It'd be rude to intrude.