When unhappy news calls Rarity and Applejack north to spend Hearth's Warming with Rarity's extended family, the two ponies will confront their fears and hopes for the future, and for their budding romance.
Rarity always believed that she knew exactly who she was, what she wanted, and exactly how she would obtain it. Then she fell for somepony wholly unexpected: Applejack. When unhappy tidings call Rarity to the frozen North to spend the Hearth's Warming holiday with her relatives, Applejack accompanies her into the family fray.
The ponies arrive in Whinnyapolis at a time of endings, and find that relationships can be fragile things, vulnerable to the cold. Rarity will search her past for the key to her future, but the old house at Maple Cove may not hold all the answers she needs. Perhaps, though, two ponies will learn that there really is no place like home for the holidays.
Cover art provided by the lovely, talented, one-and-only WhiteDiamonds.
It was a wonderful, fortunate thing to belong to a family. Not every pony was so lucky. Still, being part of one meant living every day on a tether that could be spooled back at any time, for any number of reasons. Weddings. Reunions. Less pleasant happenings. Three days before Hearth's Warming, Rarity found herself high above the frigid earth, staring out a window at nothing in particular as the tether reeled her in.
Below, a layer of clouds seemed a more perfect expanse of rolling, snow-covered hillocks than the real thing. No half-cleared paths or patches of dirty slush marred their uniformity. Theirs was was a stylized winter caricature with all the rose-colored sentimentality of a holiday card, but none of the cold truth. The clouds were layered thick and dense because a heavy snowfall was scheduled for central Equestria in a last push to ensure a properly wintry holiday in the capital and its surrounds. Pegasus-made clouds, however, hung low and heavy, well beneath the cruising altitude of a passenger airship. Rarity saw a clear blue sky above the unsullied white, darkening quickly as the shy winter sun slipped away. Snug in her down-filled jacket, she pictured the clouds as pristine snow, longing to feel real cold or anything numbing.
“You all right?” Applejack asked. Rarity was not, but she welcomed being jarred from her reverie, and she turned away from the window. The mare seated next to her was not entirely herself, either: Applejack was an obvious bundle of nerves, her tensed muscles plainly visible wherever the flannel coat she wore failed to cover them. She was practically vibrating with anxiety. Even as she rested one hoof gently on Rarity’s shoulder, her left foreleg remained tightly wrapped around her seat’s legrest, and her vivid green eyes were wide as saucers.
“I will be fine,” Rarity answered, letting the tired syllables spill languorously from her lips. She forced herself into a more upright position, and added, “In any case, I should be the concerned, comforting one. I’ve been so caught up in my own thoughts that I completely forgot how much you dislike air travel. Goodness, Darling, you look positively spooked!”
Applejack’s chuckle was barely audible above the thrum of engines and machinery. “Well, rightly so, if you ask me. Flyin’ in the belly of a big ol’ mechanical beastie is a spooky thing for a country pony who likes to keep all four hooves on solid earth. But I’ll live: I’m just takin’ it one minute at a time, and I’m spendin’ that one minute reminding myself that you promised we’d be ridin’ the train when it comes time to head on back home.” Her expression suddenly grew more serious. “I am worried about you, though. You ain’t had much to say, basically since you told me the bad news. I hate the thought of you sufferin’ in silence when I’m right here for the talkin’ to.”
Rarity sighed deeply. Applejack’s accusation—for that was its tone—was true enough, but she had ample reason to be out of sorts and taciturn. Yesterday she had awoken still believing the two of them could look forward to a romantic Hearth’s Warming getaway spent sunning in the tropics. She had joked with Fluttershy over breakfast at Sugarcube Corner that she would work her way through so many fruity drinks with tiny umbrellas in them that she would be able to outfit all the mice in the former’s cottage for next year’s rainstorms. She had boasted to Pinkie Pie that she would spend so much time in the sun, her ivory coat would toast a golden brown. Now, instead of all that, she and Applejack were flying north, and an aborted vacation was the least of her concerns.
“I suppose I’m just not feeling terribly conversational,” Rarity finally said. “But you should know that it gives me great comfort that you are here with me, though I feel terrible for promising you pineapple daiquiris in Gallopoli and delivering the opportunity to freeze your tail stiff in Whinnyapolis instead.”
Applejack grimaced as the airship suddenly dipped, then quickly recovered the lost altitude. “Hey now, I was the one who asked to come, and there ain’t nowhere else I’d rather be,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Because I know you so well, I’m forced to believe you’re being honest about that,” Rarity replied, a wisp of a genuine smile brightening her gray countenance. “Otherwise, the hoof you are mercilessly grinding into my shoulder blade and the lovely little ears you’ve plastered flat against your head might suggest otherwise.”
Applejack retracted her foreleg like she was dodging a striking snake and began to apologize before Rarity’s gentle laughter quieted her. The Unicorn was beginning to feel just a bit lighter when the familiar loud static of an omnivox spell sounded in the cabin, followed by a mare’s slightly-distorted voice.
“Good evening, fillies and gentlecolts,” the voice announced, in the folksy drawl that Rarity decided all would-be airship captains were made to adopt from their first day of training. The captain introduced herself and the rest of the crew, announced that the designated cruising altitude had been reached, and reported that she currently estimated an on-time arrival tomorrow morning. This all prefaced a less favorable report:
“I’d also like to remind everypony that we’ll be traveling through uncontrolled airspace for the majority of this flight. We’ve had reports of a moderate winter weather system moving across our projected course, so I suggest you all take this opportunity to stretch your legs and enjoy the ship’s amenities, since we might need to ask you to strap in later. It’s looking like we’ve got about an hour left before we reach the edge of the Canterlot Weather Management Zone. Thank you, and on behalf of the crew of the Blue Horizon and everypony at the Royal Blue Line, please enjoy the flight.”
Applejack donned a pained look, and commenced grumbling. "Peachy. I’m about as fond of feral weather as I am flyin’, so combinin’ the two ought to be a hoot.” She was breathing rapidly, and leaned forward to press her forelimbs against the front wall of the private cabin, leading Rarity to worry that she was about to be sick.
The Unicorn decided that the sensible course of action was to heed the captain’s invitation to get up and move around before the cabin required cleaning. In any event, it would be nice to stretch her legs and look at something other than the four walls of their cabin. “I should like a drink, and I suspect something bracing might be in order for you as well, Applejack,” she announced. “Come with?” Without waiting on a reply, Rarity hooked a foreleg under one of her companion’s, and helped the other pony out of her seat and onto four wobbly legs.
The airship’s spacious lounge was located immediately forward of the first class cabins, so the pair did not have far to go. It stretched across the beam of the ship, affording the luxury of windows on either side, and it had been decorated for the holidays. There was even a Hearth’s Warming togetherness tree nestled in one corner, small and artificial but cheerfully decorated with tiny dirigibles and other aeronautical-themed ornaments.
Rarity wasted no time in finding a pair of stools at the polished aluminum bar and joining a half-dozen of her fellow passengers who had already come seeking comfort and cheer in potent libations. She gestured at another patron’s half-empty glass, tapped the bar twice, and watched as the dark, handsome young Pegasus tending bar wordlessly mixed a concoction of cherry liqueur and vermouth. He strained the transparent red liquid into two stemless cocktail glasses before finishing the presentation with a vibrant red cherry and a twist of orange peel. The stallion flashed a smile full of brilliant white teeth at Rarity as he set the drinks before his latest customers.
Rarity nodded appreciatively and discretely levitated a few coins into a small metal box adorned with a striped holiday bow, before proceeding to take an experimental sip. The ruby liquid’s sweetness partially disguised a medicinal astringency, but she supposed it was quaffable enough, and the color was festive. She hoped it would quell Applejack’s anxiety, and allow her own thoughts to unknot themselves.
“Cheers, I guess,” Applejack said belatedly, and took a hearty swig of her cocktail. “Hm. Cherry. Not bad.”
“Yes, cheers,” Rarity murmured. She took another drink as she looked around the lounge. In one corner, a young Unicorn mare was settling in behind a little spinet piano, constructed from aluminum to save weight like much of the shipboard furniture. She immediately launched into a sprightly rendition of “The Fire of Friendship” that almost overcome the flat tone of the miniaturized metal piano through sheer enthusiasm. Other ponies in the lounge were animated, engaged, and ruddy from an abundance of holiday spirits. Nopony appeared particularly concerned by the captain’s warning about the potential for rough weather, or by anything else in particular. Rarity envied them, even anxious Applejack, who was already asking for another round. They were all here, in this moment, while she floundered, tempest-tossed, in suffocating memories.
This year’s Hearth’s Warming was not going to be a joyous occasion. Rarity had not visited her parents’ hometown, nor even seen any of her extended family, in over two years. She had precious little in common with her own parents, or even her sister, let alone the various aunts, uncles, and cousins. She struggled even to remember some of their faces and names. Now she was dragging Applejack into the wintry mix of endless awkward introductions and plays at small talk. To really put the heart on the tree for this year’s Hearth’s Warming, the only one of her extended family she felt close to was the one who was bringing them all together this year, because she was about to die.
Silver Belle was Rarity’s great aunt—her mother’s aunt—and by virtue of seniority she was the closest that side of the family had to a matriarch. A dancer in the ballet and theater, she had retired the day she had gone south to help care for her niece’s infant daughter. Rarity’s parents had moved to Ponyville only months before, out of the necessity to find steady work, and they knew nopony in town they could call on to care for a newborn. Back then, bits had been too scarce for a nurse or even community foalcare.
Aunt Silver ended up staying eight formative years in Ponyville, and teaching Rarity many things she had learned from a career in and out of costumes: to sew, to knit, to take a pattern and turn it into a finished article of clothing, and then to design the pattern itself. She fostered her grandniece's love for finding beauty where it lay hidden and to create it from whole cloth—so to speak—when it was hidden too well. She fanned the little flame of creation in Rarity’s breast, and at the same time admonished her to share that warmth and light where it was needed. Without Silver Belle, Rarity as she was would not exist. She would be somepony else.
Rarity felt her facial muscles contract into a frown. Even after the news came that Silver Belle was sick, two years ago, it had been so easy and expedient to brush it all aside. In memories, her favorite great aunt was still the vivacious, elegant mare of her foalhood. It was easier to to think of that, and not how Aunt Silver’s letters had become less coherent, and then eventually stopped altogether. It was easier not to think of the opportunities to visit she had missed because she convinced herself she was far too busy. She had taken comfort in the fact that Silver had access to good medical care, and of course she had Aunt Glory's family to take care of her. It was ever so much easier for Rarity to pretend that life could not, and would not, treat a pony like Silver Belle so unfairly.
But Aunt Silver never got better. Yesterday, Mother had rushed into the Boutique with word that her aunt had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, and everypony was rushing to the old house in Maple Cove. Rarity’s parents had caught the first flight out, Sweetie Belle in tow, leaving her behind to make arrangements for the closure of her shop, change her previous travel plans, and then to follow as soon as possible. There was no question that she would follow.
Rarity had simply stood in her shop for a time afterward. Though she had largely refused to acknowledge Aunt Silver’s decline, the news did not shock her, nor did it draw forth any tears. She had only vicarious experience with the passing of loved ones, but she certainly understood that death was the mostly-inevitable consequence of living. This was not truly a sad occasion. Aunt Silver was quite old. She had lived a remarkable life. By all accounts, she had been happy. Even so, Rarity was troubled by some feeling she could not place, some sense of fundamental wrongness about this whole affair that defied naming. She supposed she could sort herself out up in Whinnyapolis. Barring that she would at least have the opportunity to say goodbye to Aunt Silver. She hung the “closed” sign in the front door, trotted into her workroom, and stood in silence, rooted to one spot, for another hour, wondering why she felt so unsettled that a day long in coming had come at last.
After forcing her hooves into action with great effort, Rarity’s next conscious act had been to hurry across town, through the Haymarket, out the south gate, and into the sprawling orchards of Sweet Apple Acres in search of the pony she had lately begun to call her girlfriend. When Rarity found her, Applejack was as remarkable and good as she ever could have wished for, and exactly as she expected. How grateful she had been, when the cancellation of their long-planned vacation was met with understanding and empathy, instead of anger and resentment!
She had exclaimed—shouted practically—“Yes, of course!” when Applejack asked to come along. “For moral support,” she had said, and to meet the family. It had seemed so obviously right in the moment. Of course her Applejack should be there. Now, though, a league above Equestria, doubt was creeping into the shadowed, already crowded corners of Rarity’s conscious thought.
Somepony she loved was dying. Somepony she cared for so much that it almost frightened her was about to be thrust into a situation for which neither she nor Applejack was prepared. And there was still that lingering feeling of wrongness that she could not name, that had almost cemented her to the floor of the Boutique, and now cinched and squeezed her body like an ill-fitting corset.
At that moment, while Rarity was still lost in thought, the airship violently lurched to the left with such force that several ponies in the lounge fell to the deck, and Rarity heard the tinkling of broken glass somewhere nearby. She instinctively steadied herself by clinging to the bar with both forelegs. Pressed against the metal, she could feel the entire ship vibrating, and she could hear the steam engines whining angrily as they grappled with the wind and weather outside.
“Woo doggies!” Applejack shouted, holding onto the bar with one foreleg while using the other to hoist her hat in the air like a rodeo bull rider. She turned to Rarity, even as the airship suffered another hard jolt. “Lookit, Rare! I’m the Earth Pony airship bar rodeo cham-peen! Yee-haw!”
Rarity stared aghast at the five empty glasses in front of Applejack, all precariously rolling around on the bar as the ship rocked back and forth. She would have given the bartender a dirty look for overindulging Applejack’s intention to inoculate herself with liquid courage, but she was the one who had ignored her companion, and the Pegasus was too busy collecting glasses and battening down the cabinets to pay her any mind, anyway.
After a sound like crinkling cellophane, a familiar voice filled the lounge, now almost shouting to be heard over rushing air and straining engines. “This is the captain. We recently departed the Canterlot WMZ, and we are now flying in uncontrolled airspace. As you may have noticed, it unfortunately looks like the weather is going to be quite a bit rougher than expected, right up until we reach the boundary of the North Cities management zone. The storm has already moved in behind us, and there’s no safe way to moor the ship for the night, so we’ll have to push through this weather and look for calmer skies ahead.
"The good news is that we have two of the best Pegasus weather scouts in the Royal Blue Line with us. They’re taking wing as I speak, and will work tirelessly to find us the best possible route, while keeping the worst of the weather off our backs. The bad news is that I have to ask you all to leave the public areas of the ship and return to your seats until the sky clears up. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in ensuring the safety of the crew, yourselves, and your fellow passengers.”
Even before the crackle of the voicepipe enchantment cut off, the chief steward—a tall, trim stallion with a pale green coat and a parsnip cutie mark—had trotted into the lounge and begun ushering the ponies inside back to their private cabins or public coach seats. With an apologetic look, Rarity waved him over, and the two of them commenced to half-carry, half-herd a boisterous Applejack back to their shared cabin, where the latter proceeded to whoop and holler for a full minute more, then promptly fall asleep, like a lamp with its fuel suddenly cut off.
It did not take long after that for Rarity to begin to suspect her snoring sweetheart had the better of the situation. She had previously managed to get on perfectly well in any number of places beyond the reach of Equestrian magical authority, including inside the Everfree Forest itself, but this raging winter storm seemed personally offended by the shipful of ponies that had dared challenge it, and it was making its outrage known.
It was completely dark within and without the ship now, but every few minutes Rarity could see a faint glow beyond her cabin window. The intermittent lights in the storm illuminated a blizzard so thick it seemed the ship must be more snowplow than aircraft to get through it. Even with Pegasus heartiness and Imperial-grade torch crystals lighting their way, she worried for the poor weather scouts, and wondered how they even kept track of the ship and each other in such miserable conditions. Somehow, they were supposed to chart an ideal course, but how could there be any such thing? She hoped they received hazard pay. Mainly, she hoped they all made it through this.
There were moments when she felt certain that the rivets and bolts holding the ship together would fail, or that the wind would rupture the ship’s envelope, or that the engines would no longer be able to fight the wind and they would be blown down and dashed against the ground. The unpleasant feelings in her gut churned and thrashed about with every hammering gust of wind: her guilt at the selfish and short-sighted decision to allow Applejack to come, and the unplaceable ugly sensation that the whole morbid sojourn engendered.
Eventually, Rarity realized that there was something warm and weighty pressing against her, and she instinctively produced a bright blue-white glow from her horn to see what it was. Applejack had shifted in her sleep, and was now resting her head across Rarity’s gaskins. Applejack’s hat had rolled onto the cabin floor at some point, but she was still wearing her warm flannel, and a peaceful smile. Her long blond mane was untied, and it spilled like golden silk across Rarity’s lap.
Rarity ran a hoof through the sleeping mare’s hair, shining softly with reflected hornlight. She was so very beautiful, and she was so good. Rarity determined to let go of her guilty conscience for now and simply be glad and grateful, because there was nopony else she wanted by her side.
Outside, the storm did not relent, but Rarity eventually forgot about it. Finally, she fell asleep.
My little girl as sweet as cloudcream I’ll dance again when you come home Someday Now come close Jeweleyes Let me brush the tangles out of your mane Come to me my beautiful girl
A creased sepia photograph fluttered to the floor. Rarity as a little filly smiling on a beach somewhere with the sea at her back. Muffled sobbing. Silver Belle brushed frantically, obliviously. It hurt and Rarity tried vainly to cry out, but the sound would not come.
Beautiful girl
“Beautiful mornin’, Beautiful,” Applejack said.
The discrete words fell to pieces against the sieve of Rarity’s semi-consciousness, but a pleasant sensation passed through and swept away her dream. She latched onto impressions of warmth and cooking smells, and hauled herself toward conscious perception.
“S’dark,” Rarity mumbled. Her back ached. She was upright instead of supine. She saw only blackness. She lifted a forehoof to pull away her sleep mask, but nothing covered her eyes. “Is it morning already? Why is it still dark?”
Waking normally entailed a ritual process steeped in comfortable familiarity and tolerant of procrastination, but blindness and alien surroundings precipitated a flurry of motion. Rarity fumbled and flailed, emitting pitiful cries of alarmed disorientation until strong limbs reached out to steady her. She knew them in an instant. The smell of stale alcohol hung close, redolent of misadventure, but behind it Rarity caught a heady, musky scent she had come to know and covet. It was nearly enough to bring her fully round.
“Reckon I am,” Applejack replied, so close but totally invisible. “It’s still dark and we’re still in the clouds, but I promise it’s morning.”
“A wake-up kiss?” Rarity purred. The ensuing contact was a glancing blow in the darkness, snapshot quick and a little hairy, but there was ripe fruit and a hint of wintergreen that suggested a breath mint had been consumed. The feeling was there. As a stimulant, it roused adequately. A second effort roused more adequately.
“Is it really time to get up?” Rarity asked after disentwining herself. “Somehow I had forgotten how the winter nights linger in the North.”
“Doesn’t feel like mornin’ without the rooster crowing and the smell of Granny’s coffee on the stove, or the sun peerin’ over town, but the steward’s pocketwatch swears it’s so,” Applejack said.
“Then you’ve been up and about,” Rarity said. “You must have found your air legs at long last.” She laughed lightly. “After last night’s thorough betippling, I’m frankly amazed you can walk at all.”
“It’s a well-known fact that we Apples don’t suffer hangovers,” Applejack replied curtly. Unseen in the dark, she grimaced and rubbed her left temple with the corresponding forehoof. “Too bad I’m half Orange. Anyhow, the fact we passed through that storm in one piece has helped raise my comfort level. At least we didn’t wake up in dire need of Pegasus wings.”
“Some vacation so far,” Rarity said. “Have I told you how grateful I am that you’ve come? Expect frequent reminders if only for my sake.”
“I go where you go, Missy. That’s how this thing works,” Applejack declared. “For now, how ‘bout we both go hit up the dining salon for some coffee and victuals before we get to port?”
Rarity followed into the passageway. Outside their small cabin the ship’s scanty lighting barely sufficed for tentative navigation, but now that she was awake the darkness was nothing a little hornlight could not ameliorate. On the other hoof, surmounting the narrow metal staircase to the dining salon proved daunting. The ubiquitous bombilation of the engines was louder in the thin-walled stairwell, and the sound filled her ears and buzzed around inside her skull. Halfway up the single flight, a sudden motion of the ship staggered her and she reared back to wrap her forelimbs around a thin metal banister bolted to the wall. Her breathing quickened and her light spell flickered and died.
“Come on. Up you go,” Applejack said, extending a hoof. She proceeded practically to tow Rarity the rest of the way to breakfast.
After coffee and pastry were acquired, Rarity disclosed that she had dreamed of Aunt Silver all the previous night.
“I knew she loved me dearly,” Rarity said. “Or perhaps fiercely would be a better descriptor. When I was very young we clung together so tightly it seems odd in hindsight, but then we shared an understanding of the world. Of beauty. I expect my parents were either envious or simply confused. That time feels like a dream now, like a story from some other mare’s life or from some book. So many of my memories with Aunt Silver are a jumble, but I know she played a leading role shaping my identity and setting me on the path I took. I imagine who I might have been if she'd never come to Ponyville, or if she’d never left. I can’t help but wonder which of my idiosyncrasies are merely the residue of exposure to an eccentric aunt, and which are uniquely Rarity.”
Rarity sighed, and went on. “I suppose if nothing else it is uniquely Rarity to be making the tragedy of somepony’s dying days all about me.”
Applejack laughed. “I will flat-out guarantee that you’re one of a kind,” she said. “Y’know, I think losin’ someone close makes us all turn a critical eye on the time we had with them. It’s only natural. But fixatin’ on the past is half kin to trying to change it, and that there’s a road to nowhere. Too much of dwelling on changin’ what was only ends up changin’ what is for the worse, and that’s bona fide Apple wisdom you can take to the bank.”
Rarity reached across the table to grasp Applejack’s right forehoof with both of hers. “Thank you, Dear. That’s helpful. You know I like ‘what is’ rather a lot. In the interest of preserving it I hereby forswear self-recrimination and pointless speculation. Let it be done.”
“Good luck,” said Applejack. “After all these years I’m still working on followin’ my own advice. At least you can say your goodbyes pony to pony. Ponies talk about ‘closure’ like its some kinda mystical cure-all for the heart—that’s ridiculous. Anypony who’s done a lick of livin’ is a little heartsick every day. But I reckon a proper goodbye matters.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Rarity said, staring blankly at half a danish. She had started to drift inward into the haze of foalhood memory. The photograph fluttered past again. It occurred to Rarity that she had never seen the ocean as a filly. The picture had to be a false memory, but she could see every crease and tear stain as clear as day. She remembered a flood of tears.
Goodbye Jeweleyes Just for now until we’re together again and we can dance I’ll be saving that dance for you It's a promise
Rarity knew her family had never gone to the seaside, but suddenly she felt with unshakable surety that the picture was not the product of a fitful sleep. Her subconscious had trawled the deeps of her memory and dredged up something genuine, inexplicable though it was. The captain's voice then interrupted her thoughts, also sparing her an apology for failing to respond to Applejack’s last several statements. Pertinent facts were reported: Whinnyapolis lay just ahead; the ship was descending; they should collect their things and prepare for disembarkation; it was currently fifteen degrees below freezing.
“That’s cold. Seems like somepony oughta talk to the Crystal Empire about settin' up a proper weather shield,” Applejack said.
“I think they would miss the winter dreadfully here,” Rarity said absently. “I’m looking forward to the feel of it. In any event, I’ve packed warm things for the both of us.”
A half hour later the Blue Horizon was secured to its mooring mast and the passengers in their inadequate scarves and jackets were politely but expeditiously bundled across thirty pony lengths of frozen field and into the heated skyport terminal, there to wait while a dozen brawny porters in heavy winter coats and thick wool balaclavas retrieved their luggage from the ship. Rarity saw that her parents were waiting in the arrivals lounge at the same moment her father shouted, “Heya there kiddos!” To her surprise, Sweetie Belle was nowhere to be seen. The older ponies crossed the intervening distance with astonishing speed. Flesh was pressed and enfolded. Cheeks met cheeks. Rarity's father’s mustache was as bushy and bristly as ever.
When Rarity was finally released, Applejack tipped her hat to each parent in turn. “Sir. Ma’am. It’s great to see y’all,” she said, keeping a safe pony length’s distance. It was no use, and she was inevitably bear-hugged. As always, Rarity’s mother insisted that Applejack call her Cookie. Rarity’s father would not openly admit how much he enjoyed being called “Sir.”
“Well, you two, how was the trip?” Rarity’s father asked. “I hear it’s a real mess out there. Hope you didn’t get too shook up. Never did care much for air travel.”
“We’re fine, but never mind that. How is Aunt Silver?” Rarity spoke quickly. “Our bags should be here in a moment, but we can send someone back for them if you think we should hurry on our way.” Her parents simultaneously froze like startled deerfolk before sharing an anxious glance. The look betrayed them immediately.
“Oh, Celestia,” Rarity said, barely managing to choke out the words. “We’ve arrived too late. You’ve come to break the news. That’s why Sweetie Belle isn’t here. Oh, Celestia. Oh, no.” She could not hold back her tears.
“Dear Heart, come here,” Cookie said. She stepped toward Rarity and raised a forelimb to pull her close. They held each other for long minutes, until an apologetic porter came by to deliver the travelers’ belongings. All the while, Rarity’s father stood in uncharacteristic stoic silence. Next to him, Applejack’s brows were furrowed in obvious concern. She had removed her hat and clutched it to her breast.
“She passed away yesterday evening,” Cookie said at length. “I’m so sorry you missed her.”
Rarity struggled to digest the information. The loss hurt, but it was a surge of guilt that set her knees trembling. She had missed all the years of Silver Belle’s life after she left Ponyville and now she had missed her last chance to try to make up for it. She thought of the strange photograph, and suddenly remembered how Aunt Silver had hurried to snatch it off the floor and hide it away in the depths of her big green satchel. The mystery would go unsolved. She imagined Silver Belle blank-eyed and unmoving, probably on ice by now. She knew from the last letter that there would be no embalming, no viewing, so she would never see her great aunt again. She assured herself she had responded to that letter. She was positive she had. She finally noticed that Applejack had at some point moved to stand beside her, close enough that they were touching, and she managed a grateful expression.
“Listen, Kiddo,” Rarity’s father began. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but there’s another thing you need to know before we go back to Glory’s place.”
“What?” Rarity said, looking up at him after realizing that she had been staring at a small gouge in the terminal's wood floor. “What else is there?”
“It’s about Aunt Silver’s estate, Honey. There was a real surprise there. A real shocker, you could say,” Cookie said, again sharing that anxious glance with her husband. “I guess she must have known it was going to be her time because she’d called her lawyer over yesterday morning, and he just stayed all day. He said she wanted the will unsealed and read right then and there. I have no idea why.”
“With half the ponies still crying their eyes out. Just imagine!” Rarity’s father exclaimed, shaking his head.
Rarity was certain that she could see once more where this was going. “She’s cut us out, hasn’t she? Because I didn’t keep up with correspondence as well as I should have and I didn’t visit her while she was ill. I’m so sorry!”
The deer look ensued, followed by the anxious glance. “No. That’s not it at all, Dear Heart,” Cookie said. “Actually… You see… The truth is—”
“The truth is she left every single thing she had to her name to you,” Rarity’s father finished. “It was the rest of your mom’s family that got cut out of the will. You can imagine how well some of them are taking the news, eh? Now that you know, I wouldn’t blame you if you got right back on that airship.”
Rarity could find no protest adequate to capture her shock. Twice her jaw worked open and immediately clenched. Eventually, she managed to vocalize a strangled “buh” in lieu of an articulate objection.
“Come again, Kiddo?” Her father asked.
“Bu- but this is wrong!” Rarity finally blurted out, tears flowing anew. Her face was becoming a sodden mess. The small comfort she could take in not having been able to apply mascara on the jouncing ship was outweighed by the humiliation of bawling like a little filly in the middle of the passenger terminal. She was furious that Silver Belle had the audacity to die early and deny her a chance at absolution. She was horrified at the prospect of becoming the family pariah.
A few curious travelers were slowing to gawk when Applejack spoke up. “If nopony minds the suggestion, maybe we can find someplace to sit a spell before we think about movin’ on.”
“Sure. Good thinking,” Rarity’s father said, nodding. “I saw a little pasty place on the way in, over by the taxi drop-off. Should be open by now, and it’s close enough we won’t freeze getting there. Let’s get these bags in order and go. Can you walk, Kiddo?”
Rarity nodded. With her mother on her left and Applejack to her right, she gathered herself enough to move. She could not actually see her father after he hitched himself to a flat cart piled high with her various luggage and Applejack’s sturdy wooden traveling case, but presumably it was he whom she followed. Magic would have been easier than a borrowed cart of course, but telekinesis was not permitted inside the terminal due to the proliferation of steamer trunks and injury lawyers.
Cart in tow, they trundled across the open terminal, through the vestibule, and out into the Whinnyapolis winter. At half past nine the sun had finally begun traversing its shallow winter ecliptic, and was obliquely casting its rays against a patchy blanket of low, gray clouds. It was not snowing, but everything had already been thoroughly smothered.
“Oh, I think it’s warming up!” Cookie declared with genuine-sounding brightness and a puff of condensation.
Applejack glanced sidelong and Rarity answered with a roll of the eyes and the best smile she could muster.
It was two and a half years since Rarity had last visited, but how long since she had been here in the winter? Seven years? More? The first breath of freezing air had brought on a momentary shock and a flood of memories: skating figure eights on Lake Whinnytonka, careering down the frozen hills on her mother’s battered foalhood sled, the unabashed silliness of attempting to play hoofball with her father and his old friends in snow that came up to her withers. It all ended after she withdrew inward to focus entirely on fashion, investing everything, staking everything on her incipient career, cutting old threads and leaving others to fray. She was still discovering all that those isolated years had cost her. Closeness with family. Friendships. Applejack if not for the intervention of fortune. She pushed the thought away and concentrated on taking shallow breaths through her nostrils.
“I know it looks bad, but they’ve got the main roads all panked down good and firm,” Rarity’s father said. There were only a few buildings near the terminal and little else to see in the open flatlands several leagues from the city. Three enormous half-cylinders that were airship hangars dominated the landscape, while a smattering of small buildings housing enterprises that catered to travelers crowded together across the road from the terminal: restaurants, bric-a-brac purveyors, a travel agency, a carriage rental establishment, and a staging area for the taxi services, which at this time of the year deployed enclosed sleighs in place of carriages. “Hey, there’s the place. Watch your hooves on the ice, kids. Little help with this, Honey?”
There was no prohibition on magic outside the terminal, and Rarity’s parents worked in concert to levitate the entire collection of luggage free and hold it aloft over the icy pavement. A uniformed mare apparently on station for just that purpose rushed over to retrieve the cart, then hastened back inside the terminal. Gingerly, and all mindful of the cloud of heavy bags suspended above them, the four ponies crossed the road. They soon arrived at a small free-standing restaurant set beneath an oversized icicle-draped billboard advertising “Whinnyapolis’ Famous Pasty Palace.” A gray plume of smoke ascended promisingly from a brick chimney atop the building.
Inside, the space was dominated by a long varnished hardwood countertop set in front of a red brick wall featuring two huge brick ovens. A fire blazed deep back inside one, and additional flames could be seen flickering through the grate of a pot-bellied iron furnace set against the wall in the dining area. Black metal tubes piped hot air from the furnace up to the ceiling and poured warmth over the room below. A thickset Earth Pony stallion with barn red coat and copper mane placed a long-handled tray in the front part of the oven, then turned to face the newcomers.
“I’m only making the classic this morning, no specials,” the stallion grunted. “And the coffee's mostly good for stripping paint.”
“We'll take it," Rarity's father said. The luggage cloud plopped down onto worn-out hardwood and the four ponies slid into a booth close to the furnace.
“I’m ashamed of letting you see me like this,” Rarity said after they were situated. She meant to address the table, though she could not help looking into the green eyes of the mare seated by her side as she spoke.
“There’s absolutely nothin’ to be ashamed of,” Applejack said. “You’re holdin’ up as well as anypony would under the circumstances.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t feel I am holding up at all.” Rarity turned to her mother. “I can’t wrap my mind around it. I can't believe Aunt Silver is gone already, and I cannot fathom what she's done. Why should I be the sole heir? Why not you, Pepper and Glory? For that matter, why leave out Sweetie Belle and the other cousins?”
“I don’t know, Dear Heart,” Cookie said, shaking her head. “None of us has any idea. If you really didn’t see this coming, probably nopony will ever know.”
Rarity gasped. “Of course I didn’t see it coming!” she shouted, reddened eyes blazing. “How could you even suggest that I might have known?”
Cookie did not answer right away, and was afforded a longer pause by the arrival of the proprietor with a ceramic jug of hot coffee and four cups. Paper plates followed, each with a fat steaming half-moon of flaky pastry, crimped along the curved edge to keep in the filling. He did not offer cream or sugar.
As a visibly flustered Cookie took a moment to compose herself, Applejack poked experimentally at her food, looked up at Rarity’s father, and asked, “So what is a pasty, exactly?”
Rarity’s father blinked. “What’s a pasty?” He levitated his and took a bite. “It’s stuffed. It’s good.”
“Yeah,” Applejack said, eyeing her pasty suspiciously. “I mean, I can see it. But what’s in it? Smells like turnips.”
Cookie wore an almost sheepish look when she finally spoke. “Glory found out that you and Aunt Silver were writing letters. She has it in her head that you must have convinced—”
“For the love of the sun and moon, Mom!” Rarity yelled, failing to keep her cultivated tone intact. “How can any of you think that I would hatch some kind of conspiracy to cheat my own family?” She continued over her mother's protestations. “And for what? A creaky old house an hour outside of Whinnyapolis? A music box collection? What else could there even be? I promise I don’t want any of it. Not one thing! I’ll prove it. I’ll fix this mess straightaway. The house will be sold to you three siblings for a bit, or two bits, or whatever it takes to make it an honest transaction. You can dispose of it and everything in it however you like. There. Done.”
“It’s not only the house,” Cookie said, now visibly abashed. “There’s some money, too. More than we could have guessed. She never told any of us. She never had anything flashy.”
It was Rarity’s turn to pause.
“I never have given much thought to what’s in a pasty, to be honest,” Rarity’s father said to Applejack, looking critically at what little remained of his. “But I don’t think it’s turnips.”
“I certainly didn’t know about any money,” Rarity said, more quietly now. “Dear Celestia.”
“Anyway, I’m sure Aunt Silver’s lawyer will want to meet with you as soon as he can,” Cookie said. “He seems to know much more than any of the rest of us do.”
"Another pleasant prospect I can look forward to," Rarity said.
“We’ll straighten everything out, Rare,” Applejack said, abandoning her enquiry. “I’ll be right there by your side.”
Rarity sighed. “Thank you, Darling. The filling is potato, onion, and rutabaga by the way. I know that’s a sort of turnip, but I think you might enjoy it anyway. And Mother, I want you to know that it doesn’t matter how much money there is. I have no need of it. It will go where it ought to have gone in the first place. The family will be appeased.”
Cookie looked down at the table. “You shouldn’t have this ugly mess thrust on you at Hearth’s Warming.”
"If only someone would have made that case to Aunt Silver," Rarity said. "I suppose that someone should have been me, as her apparently infamous correspondent."
“You know, I wasn’t just joking when I said we wouldn’t blame you if you flew home to Ponyville,” Rarity’s father mumbled, staring off into the distance. “You could take care of the money stuff after the fuss has died down. Let us deal with Glory now, and accept her apology later, after she’s got the bitmarks out of her eyes and come to her senses.”
Rarity pondered the possibility for a moment. If she left, she would avoid a row that would likely haunt family gatherings for the rest of her life. She would be able to divest herself of the inheritance from the sanctity of her own home and wash her hooves of the whole ugly situation. On a different hoof, she would miss the chance to reconcile. She would miss the funeral, and the opportunity to see the old house again. And what would Applejack think after being dragged halfway across Equestria, for her to turn tail and flee in the face of a little acrimony? That was the most relevant question.
“What do you think we should do, Applejack?” she asked. “No, let me rephrase that before you respond. What do you want to do?”
Applejack dabbed remnant crumbs of pasty from around her mouth before speaking. “I think I know you pretty well, Rare. I know you’re not one as like to shy away from confrontation, and I know this is a crabapple-sized kerfuffle compared to some of the tight spots we’ve been in. If you’re ponderin' leaving, I reckon it must be on account of me bein’ here. And I think you know me pretty well, and you already know what I want. This thing’s durn tasty, by the way.”
“I would never have asked you along if I had known any of this would happen,” Rarity said, mustering a smile. “I’m sure it’s not too late to make our escape to the beach.”
“Nothin’ doin’,” Applejack declared. “I’m here for you come Tartarus or tidal wave. That’s why I agreed to fly on one of them jankety airships and why I drank enough to knock out Big Mac to get through it. I’d be by your side if your family lived all the way up in a griffin’s roost another hundred leagues north and we had to scale a mountain to get there. Besides, I’ve survived enough Apple family get-togethers to develop an immunity to family drama. I know when to look away and make small talk about the food. So, if you want to leave because you honestly think it would be the best thing for you and your family, then we’ll be gone with the north wind as soon as we can get a flight. Just don’t be frettin’ about me when you make that call.”
“Fretting is in my nature as surely as tending orchards is in yours,” Rarity replied. “But I think I’m more afraid of so many what-ifs gnawing me to the bone if we leave. If you really are up for it, we shall stay and see this business through.”
Applejack wrapped a forelimb around Rarity’s shoulder and pulled her close. “There’s the girl who throws down with beasties and threatens to tear dragons limb from limb.”
“I suppose it’s settled then,” Rarity said to her parents, attempting to look self-assured while she snuggled against Applejack’s flannel jacket. “There is no reason to leave wounds to fester when I can try to put some balm on them now.”
"Of course you’re right,” Cookie said. “I thank my stars you turned out so strong and sensible.” There was an unplaceable wistfulness in the way she said it.
“If we're going, we should get going,” Rarity’s father said. “There isn’t much of a day to work with this time of year. You’d think with all the Princesses we've got now somepony could finally figure out how to fix the dayiight hours up here. Even them out across the year.”
“I shall be sure to ask Twilight to take up the matter when next I have the opportunity,” Rarity said, flicking her eyes over to catch a grinning Applejack.
“Good,” her father said. He procured seven five-bit coins from somewhere in his coat and set them on the table. “The taxi station is close by.”
In fact there was scarcely time for Cookie to remark on how it was continuing to warm up before they reached the enclosed taxi stand. An oversized thermometer hanging outside the stand read eleven degrees below zero, proving her technically correct. The dispatch clerk efficiently took stock of their number and belongings, asked for their destination, and had their sleigh pulled around in two minutes.
The taxi drivers were enormous Earth Pony stallions wearing studded horseshoes for traction and thick blankets featuring their company’s checkered livery draped across their broad backs. It happened that the pair were delighted to have been assigned the run to Maple Cove, as they both lived close by and had been granted the rest of the day off on account of all the flight cancellations. The luggage was loaded, the ponies piled in, the doors were closed, and the drivers and sleigh tore off across the packed snow covering the road.
“The trip shouldn’t take more than an hour or so. That’s what it took on the way out,” Cookie said.
“I suspect I’ll be a mite peckish by the time we arrive,” Applejack said, patting her stomach. “Think there’ll be more of those pasties, Rare?”
“Aunt Glory takes pride in setting a bounteous table,” Rarity said. “Though perhaps you should be prepared to suffer privation as the closest associate of her ostensible betrayer.”
“My sister will pull herself together,” Cookie said. “Everypony will come to their senses. Unhappy news or not, it’s almost Hearth’s Warming and we’re still family.”
“Here you go,” Rarity’s father said, levitating a pasty wrapped in parchment paper into Applejack’s waiting hooves. “I bought two extras on the way out and stuffed them in my coat pocket. They’re still warm!”
“Thank you kindly, Sir!” Applejack exclaimed, obviously ignoring Rarity’s appalled expression. “A welcome surprise makes for a nice change of pace.”
“I am going to stare out the window for a while,” Rarity said. “I choose not to witness anypony eating pocket food.”
The heavy sleigh skated on, swaying and bouncing as the homebound drivers pushed the pace. Rarity kept her eyes on the scenery even after the pasties were gone in an attempt to stave off carriagesickness. First, small farms appeared to break up the monochrome landscape. Then, naked maples, birches, and oaks appeared in increasing profusions until the road entered a proper wood that closed in tight on both sides. Maple Cove was southwest of the city of Whinnyapolis, a tight-knit little community clustered along the shore of Lake Whinnytonka. Rarity tried to remember the way, but any landmarks she might have once known now were lost in the haze of the past.
The frozen lake eventually came into view as an empty snow-covered expanse demarcated from the forest only by the absence of trees. Rarity’s father had first failed to teach her to fish on that water, a long time ago. She thought of the strange photograph again and briefly wondered if it might have been taken here, but she was certain it was not of any lake. The shores of Lake Whinnytonka had grass and rocks but never white sand and water that stretched beyond the horizon. Where, then?
“Did we ever visit the seaside when I was young, not yet Sweetie Belle’s age? A sandy beach somewhere?” Rarity suddenly asked, shattering the silence that had fallen inside the covered sleigh. She turned to see her parents sharing a look, and Applejack wearing a confused expression.
“No, Dear Heart,” Rarity’s mother finally replied. “We never did. Just the lake here, and the river back home of course. What brought that question on? Still wishing you were in Gallopoli?”
“Just idle curiosity,” Rarity replied. “I’ve been reminiscing about the early years with Aunt Silver, but foalhood memories are often little more than a blur, you know.” She hoped she disguised her shock better than her parents did, because there had been something close to panic writ large on their faces when she had asked the question. She moved to steady herself against Applejack, and was still clinging to her when the sleigh skidded to a stop and Sweetie Belle galloped out to meet them.
“Rarity! Rarity! You’re here! Rarity’s here, everypony!” Sweetie Belle sprang lamblike across the snow-covered lawn of 12 Anchorage Place, only to be caught in the cornflower blue glow of Rarity’s magic and lifted into the air.
“Sweetie!” Rarity exclaimed, stepping down from the taxi and simultaneously floating her little sister close enough to nuzzle. She let the unfettered joy on Sweetie Belle’s face work its own kind of magic against her troubled thoughts. Now that they had arrived in Maple Cove, her parents’ unsettling reaction to an apparently innocent question would have to be pushed aside.
Applejack hopped out of the sleigh and reared back on her hind legs to pull Sweetie Belle into a tight hug. Her sister momentarily indisposed, Rarity stole a moment to take in the house. It was, she quickly determined, postcard perfect. Icicles hung from the eaves like an armory of crystal swords and large evergreen wreaths festooned with red ribbon were prominent in every upstairs window. A glistening blanket of white snow lay draped across every steeply-pitched incline of the roof, while billowing smoke from two chimneys betokened roaring fires inside. She could just make out the unmistakable shape of an enormous togetherness tree through the lattice of frosted panes that comprised the big picture window by the front door. It seemed laughably incongruous that such a cheery-looking home could play host to a funerary mood. It was practically inconceivable that the ponies within, for whom she had brought bags stuffed to bursting with presents, could treat her coldly. Yet, signs were already apparent.
Even as Sweetie Belle gamboled about the sleigh, the remainder of the welcoming committee—such as it was—huddled together on the porch. Mist, Glory’s oldest, was taller than Rarity now, lean and athletic. She had always liked him, and felt a certain kinship insofar as they had both been given names that required some living up to. He was, in truth, Mistatim, and a victim of the mercifully brief fad in this part of Equestria that saw ponies assign their children exotic-sounding Wapitian words in lieu of traditional names, usually heedless of meaning. Cultural appropriation had not exactly been a buzzword of those times. To Rarity’s mind Mist wore a painful chagrined look, as if he were embarrassed by something, perhaps everything. Or perhaps it was merely teenage awkwardness Little, violently blue Gentian, youngest of the four children, pressed up against her brother’s left foreleg. Nopony else came out of the house to greet them.
“You ready for this, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked.
“Neither of us is ready, Darling,” Rarity replied. “But let us soldier on into the manticore’s lair anyway.”
At the back of the sleigh, her parents were straining their magic to extract the luggage. Rarity inhaled deeply, savoring the bracing effect of the frosty air even as it stung her throat. “I’ll get our things,” she said. “I am much recovered.” It took more effort than usual, but the haphazard swarm of bags and cases gathered around her parents zoomed away from them and dutifully rearranged itself into an orderly double file that trailed close behind Rarity like a brood of hovering ducklings. The drivers were provided with sincere wishes for a peaceful holiday and a generous gratuity, and the ponies commenced their march up the paved walk to the house.
“Hi, Cousin,” Mist said as they approached, visibly flushing beneath his dusty purple-gray coat. “You look nice.”
“Dear Mist! How you’ve grown!” Rarity exclaimed, lifting a forehoof to pat her cousin lightly on the head, which elicited more flushing. She reached down to repeat the gesture with Gentian, who clung all the tighter to her brother’s leg. “And you too, Genny Darling! But now let’s get in out of the cold, shall we?”
“Yeah,” Mist said, lowering his gaze to the planks beneath his hooves. “I’m sorry about Mom. I know it's all complicated. I just wanted to—”
“Everything will be fine,” Rarity interrupted him, then shouted “Come along, Sweetie Belle!” as she opened the front door. It was heartening that at least one of her relatives had decided that she was not entirely mannula non grata, but she would rather the children not involved in these matters at all. She wondered what poisonous thoughts and words Mist and the others had been exposed to, as they all gusted into the house like the winter wind. Mist pushed the door closed behind them.
Rarity set the bags down neatly by the door and took in her surroundings as she enjoyed the first real all-encompassing warmth she had felt since leaving Ponyville. Glory kept her house immaculate but overflowing. The walls were covered in decorations ranging from patriotic to personal; framed prints, hangings, and cross-stitched needlework, each arranged with exact spacing and hanging perfectly straight. In the entry parlor—and generally throughout the house—there were a tremendous number of tables of the sort not used for working or eating; console tables, end tables, and sideboards that displayed generations’ worth of heirlooms and sundry tchotchkes belonging to ponies long gone before anyone living in the house had been born. Glory’s home and its contents, as she oft declared, represented the culmination and continuation of an unbroken line of ponies that for seven generations had made their home around Lake Whinnytonka. To Rarity, it seemed a sort of solipsistic museum displaying items of interest only to their curator. Seeing it all again, Rarity thought she might understand a bit better why Glory was having a difficult time accepting her unexpected disinheritance.
Through a wide opening before her, Rarity could see into the great room where the togetherness tree she had glimpsed held court. Glory had trimmed it in the traditional Northern way, with gobs of cellophane-wrapped treats to be devoured by the children on Hearth’s Warming Day instead of more permanent ornaments. Candy clouds, sugar gems, and gummy leaves represented the three tribes and provided sweet recompense for the difficult sacrifice of Nightmare Night. Affixed to the highest bough, a crystalline heart glowed pink with inner light. As she fought off the sudden urge to gallop over and pluck a candy cloud from its branch, Rarity heard quick little hoofsteps approaching. A moment later, Glory Dwells turned the corner with a plateful of decorated sugar cookies floating in front of her.
Aunt Glory was the youngest sibling, just ten years older than Rarity, and seeing her had always seemed like looking into one of those fairytale mirrors that led to a parallel world. Glory’s mane—worn sensibly short these days—was a darker purple streaked through with ultramarine, her coat was one shade further from white, and her eyes were cadet grey instead of sapphire blue; still, they had been mistaken for siblings more often than not when Rarity used to visit. To filly Rarity, Glory had seemed like a vision of being all grown up and filled out, resplendent in the flower of young marehood. To Rarity as a young mare, Glory had seemed to portend a frightening future weighed down by the heavy burdens of parenthood and Northern cuisine. Glory’s cutie mark, a little house encircled by six silver stars, was fit for a Damsday charm bracelet. Rarity had always found it terrifyingly determinative.
“You made it!” Glory exclaimed, though any enthusiasm in her words was completely absent from her face. “You missed the big event of course, but you made it all the same, and that's what counts, eh? This must be Applejack. I’ve heard good things. Why don’t you ponies all move into the great room and get settled? Have a cookie and some mulled cider. You can leave your things by the front door.” She turned to walk away, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder.
“Oh, C.C., we had a stallion from the mortuary visit while you were out collecting your daughter. Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out they’ve got all backed up on account of the weather just like everyone else. So, we won’t be able to have the funeral til the day after Hearth’s Warming. I’m not sure the whole Ponyville crowd will want to stay that long.” Glory continued on into the great room, then disappeared around a corner. All the air in the foyer went with her.
In the long moment before anyone spoke, Mist quietly shuffled off upstairs. Gentian was about to follow, when Sweetie Belle seized her abruptly and began practically to drag her toward the great room. “Come on! Let’s eat some cookies before my dad gets to them!”
As if a spell had been broken, Rarity finally exhaled. She had tensed up reflexively when Glory had appeared; now it required conscious effort to relax.
“That was … somethin’,” Applejack observed.
“She’s furious,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “She doesn’t want me to be here. I can tell that if I don’t fix this now, it is only going to get worse. There is just no point in putting off a confrontation like this.” She hung her coat on a hook near the door, then trotted purposefully after Glory, ignoring feeble protests from her parents.
Rarity hurried through the great room, passing the blazing fireplace with difficulty, then through the dining room. She followed delightful baking smells into the kitchen and there found Glory, already floating another batch of cookies into the oven. Dozens more, all in various states of doneness and decoration, occupied most every available surface in the kitchen. Glory made no move to acknowledge her arrival.
“I’m sorry,” Rarity said, moving closer. She waited for any sort of response, but none was forthcoming. “I can only imagine how you felt when the will was read. I know I was shocked when Mother told me what happened.” Glory began piping pink icing from a metal-tipped bag, still studiously avoiding Rarity’s gaze. “Please listen. I give you my solemn promise that I knew nothing. I had no idea what Aunt Silver intended. She gave no hints in any of her letters. I only thought I was coming here to see her and say a final goodbye. The possibility of an inheritance never once crossed my mind.” Silently, Glory finished one Hearth’s Warming heart and moved on to the next cookie.
“I mean to make this right,” Rarity said. “I intend to take nothing from Aunt Silver’s estate. I will arrange for it to be divided into three equal partitions for her nephew and nieces. You, Mother, and Uncle Pepper will each receive your fair share, as it should have been.”
Glory finally looked up from her icing. “Wonderful,” she intoned flatly. “That’s great. I’m in debt to your boundless generosity.”
Rarity paused, then decided to pretend that Glory’s words were meant to be taken at face value. “Well, then I hope everypony will be satisfied. I only want for us to get through this Hearth’s Warming as a family. I'd like to reconnect. I want you all to get to know Applejack. And frankly, I think everypony deserves the opportunity to grieve without distraction. I haven’t even—”
“You know, Rarity,” Glory interrupted. “I’ll be busy in the kitchen for a few hours, but while you’re still in the house you might want to go track down Arbor and the rest of the kids. I’m sure they’d like to catch a glimpse of you before you move on. It hasn’t been the same for them just reading about your escapades in the papers.”
Rarity sighed. "Escapades, is it? I am aware that I have catching up to do. I …” She trailed off, then her blue eyes flashed with sudden anger as she comprehended what Glory had said. “‘While I’m still in the house?’ You had us leave our things by the door, but you didn’t have them moved upstairs. You mean to kick me out of the house!”
A blinding heliotrope flare from Glory’s horn forced Rarity to turn away, and when she looked back the entire bag of icing had been emptied, leaving an oozing pink glob where a heart should have been.
“I am given to understand that you now own a perfectly fine house just across the inlet.” Glory growled. “We already have four adults and five children here. There’s no more room at my inn.”
“For Celestia’s sake, Glory. You must understand that I never asked for it!” Rarity pleaded. “I never asked Aunt Silver for anything, and I don’t want anything. I’ve promised you your share. What more could you want from me than that?”
Glory brought a forehoof down on the kitchen island, rattling wire cooling racks and dislodging one golden bell-shaped cookie that broke apart on the floor. “Don’t play these games with me! You think I should prostrate myself in gratitude for no more than a third? You think I don’t see that you’ll end up with C.C.’s portion, and probably Pepper’s too, in the end? I know you've given up on the rest of this family, but I never thought anyone could do something like this!”
The sound of raised voices finally brought Applejack and Rarity’s parents spilling into the kitchen from wherever they had been listening in, followed by the emergence of Glory’s husband Arbor Vine. If any of them thought they would defuse the argument without a resolution of some form or another, they were mistaken. Rarity had abandoned all thoughts of surrender. “Have you gone mad?” she demanded. “I have worked relentlessly, tirelessly in service of my dream, building my brand from nothing, and I’ve had to overcome my share of schemers. But to accuse me of being one! To believe that I would snooker a dying mare for her money! Stars, Glory! Listen to yourself! And why in the world shouldn’t you be happy with an equal third?”
"Snooker a dying mare!" Glory laughed. "That's what it boils down to. And for some reason you think I should be delighted to share evenly with a sister and brother who galloped off and never looked back, leaving their little sister to take on every responsibility they left behind. I was the one to look after your grandfather, I was the one who made the little plot of land he bought into a family home, I was the one to carry on seven generations of family tradition on this lake, and I was the one pony who actually had a real relationship with Silver Belle after she moved back to Maple Cove!”
Cookie spoke up. “That’s enough now, don’t you think? Leave my daughter alone. Go find someplace to cool off.”
“Why don’t we go upstairs, Dear?” Arbor Vine suggested.
“Don’t you even start!” Glory shouted. “I will not be ordered around in my own home!”
“It’s fine,” Rarity said, waving them off. “If you've got more to say, I want to hear it.”
“I'll just bet. The thing is, while you were writing sly little notes to Aunt Silver about the secret fortune she’d stashed away, I was the one bringing her sweet rolls twice a week. I was the one keeping her garden from becoming overgrown. I took the children to visit her every month. When she got sick, I was the one who forced her to admit it. I found her nurses. I made sure she took her medicine.”
“She fired the nurses,” Rarity’s father pointed out.
“I was the first one to her bedside!” Glory continued. “You weren’t here when Aunt Silver died, Rarity, and the rest of you weren’t even here when she lived. It was always me, giving everything of myself to raise four kids in the same town where Aunt Silver and my mom and dad and their parents before them all grew up. We’re all that’s left of that legacy!"
Glory turned away to cough, then continued in a strained, thin voice. “What did any of that get us? Cut out of the will in favor of the golden grandniece Silver Belle gave up her dancing career to dote on. The pretty, posh, young one who carries on with the Canterlot Unicorns and takes tea with Princesses and spends her time flitting hither, thither, and yon all over Equestria.” Glory casually thrust a hoof in Applejack’s direction. “The one who, I’ll go out on a limb, isn’t likely to have any expensive foals of her own to care for in the near future.”
Rarity thought she heard somepony, or perhaps several ponies, groan behind her, but she was too upset to turn around to look. “How dare you?” she demanded, her voice soft and quavering. “How dare you?”
Applejack stepped forward, her expression grim, and draped a foreleg over Rarity’s shoulder. She addressed a visibly shaking Glory. “Real nice, there. I sure do hope that was worth it to you,” she said. “It’s gonna take a lot of moons passing by for me to set that one aside.”
“Mom?” That was Glory’s older daughter, Starglow Shine. “What’s going on?” All four of her children, along with Sweetie Belle, had eventually made their way into the room. Glory stared at them for a moment, then gave an anguished cry and burst into tears. A second later, she fled the kitchen through the doorway to the laundry room.
“I’m sorry,” Arbor Vine apologized as he hurried after his wife. The children, minus Sweetie Belle, followed.
The ponies left behind found themselves in a vacuum, none willing to be the first to speak. Rarity eventually gathered herself, then stepped around the kitchen island and methodically poured herself a snifter of brandy from a half-empty bottle on the counter. She drained her glass before speaking. “A warm welcome to the family, Darling. And a Happy Hearth’s Warming this is turning into. If only I could go back to Ponyville and uninvite you...”
“I recall I invited myself, and bein' customarily insistent about it." Applejack frowned. "Look, I can tell your Aunt Glory is hurtin’ way deep down inside, but it’s no excuse for what she said. You just let me know if you think anypony needs their good sense knocked back in ‘em. I could feel good ol’ Kicks McGee gettin’ restless the more she went on.”
Rarity managed a smile. “Thank you. I’ll consider it. Of course I won’t be staying here tonight. We can find out tomorrow morning when flights will be resuming.”
“Are you sure?” Rarity’s father asked. “I mean, I can’t say I blame you wanting to leave. I knew it might be bad, but I didn’t think it would be that bad.”
“You don’t have to go,” Cookie said. “She can’t really kick you out in the snow, you know. Anyway, if I know Glory, my sister will be hiding under her covers til tomorrow afternoon. We can still set up the rooms like we planned."
“No, Mother. I refuse to be an unwelcome houseguest,” Rarity said. "We will find someplace else for us to stay."
"If you really insist on leaving, there might be room at the bed-and-breakfast where Pepper is staying, or in one of the inns on Lake Street. But it won’t be easy to find enough empty beds for all of us on Little Hearth’s Warming Eve," said Cookie.
“I mean, ‘us,’ as in the two of us,” Rarity said. “You and Dad and Sweetie Belle should stay here. She doesn’t get to see her cousins nearly as often as she should, and nopony has asked you to leave—not yet anyway. And Glory was right about one thing: at the moment, it appears I own a perfectly fine house practically around the corner.”
Cookie audibly gasped, and looked completely taken aback. “Oh, no! You don’t want to stay in that drafty old place. And that's not to mention that, you know, Aunt Silver just passed away in her own bed, right there in that house. You really can't stay there!"
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You surely aren’t suggesting that the house is haunted by Aunt Silver's ghost, are you Mother? At any rate, Applejack and I have faced far worse than specters. Isn’t that right, Darling?”
“Well,” Applejack mused. “Huh. We beat ol’ Sombra, and he was kind of a spook or somethin’, at least by the time we met him. What was worse than him? I mean, there was that time you led an army of horrible moon monsters into Ponyville on a crusade to extinguish all the light from the entire world. That was pretty bad. It was probably—”
“How about Tirek?” Rarity quickly prompted. “Let’s go with Tirek, shall we?” Applejack shrugged and nodded before Rarity continued. “At any rate, Mother, we will be fine. I love you dearly, and Father, and you, Sweetie Belle, but I think I would like to have a quiet evening, away from all of this. I know the way to Aunt Silver’s house. It can’t be more than a quarter league. We won’t freeze. We're going.” Rarity watched her parents share a glance before turning back toward her with that same startled deer look she had observed during the sleigh ride.
“It’s just not a good idea, Kiddo,” her father said, shaking his head.
“And I don’t think you should be out traipsing about in this weather,” Cookie added. “What if it gets dark? The days are so short now.”
“It’s barely afternoon, and we would be traipsing through the same snow if we decided to go into town. It isn’t as if I propose to trek through the wilderness, or across the frozen lake. As I recall one merely turns right onto Whinnywend, right at Edgewater, and right again on Westonka Point Road. I distinctly recall that one can clearly see the house across the inlet from the backyard here. Go out and look, and if we haven’t gotten the lamps lit in two hours, then you can summon rescuers.”
“I’m sure there must be some room available in town,” Rarity’s father grumbled. “If you want, I could even trot on over to Lake Street and find something for you. Maybe rent a sleigh while I’m at it.”
“No, thank you. I’ve made up my mind,” Rarity declared. “Applejack and I are going to Aunt Silver’s for the night, and we will reconvene here tomorrow morning.” A sudden realization struck her that she had forgot to vet her scheme, and she turned to Applejack. “That is of course, if you want to go, Darling.”
“I’m game for a walk and a little fresh air,” Applejack said. “Besides, like I already told you, I go where you go. You can follow my lead next trip.”
“Then it’s decided,” Rarity stated.
“But—”
Cookie raised a forehoof to her husband’s lips, then physically turned him to look into her eyes. “We’ve said all we can say, Hon. It’s her decision in the end. It’ll be okay.” Then she turned back to Rarity. “I’ve still got a key to Aunt Silver's house in my bag.” Rarity’s father sighed dejectedly.
The idea of relocating to Silver Belle's house seemed more appealing to Rarity the more she thought about it, and there was also the matter of getting there before dark; they were ready to leave within minutes. Conveniently, all of their belongings were still packed, and it only required donning their outerwear again for Rarity and Applejack to be prepared for the journey. The suitcase full of Hearth's Warming Gifts was left inside the door, given they might not be returning. Perhaps it was adding insult to injury, but Rarity felt only moderate guilt about pilfering a dinner's worth of bread and cheese from the pantry, along with what was left in the bottle of brandy. Applejack, of course, had mostly filled her single traveling case with apples. Hugs were exchanged. Sweetie Belle was nuzzled again. On her way out, Rarity was surprised to find Mist waiting outside the front door, harnessed to a large wooden toboggan.
“Mom’s been upset for weeks,” he said. “I guess she just reached her breaking point, but she’ll get over it. I hope you’re not mad at the rest of us. I brought my sled so I could help move your stuff.”
“Thank you, Mist,” Rarity said, offering him a smile. “But I think you should stay here and look after your family. I have a knack for the sort of magic that keeps things floating around me in an organized fashion. I'll manage just fine on my own.”
“Actually, I’ll borrow that sled if you don’t mind,” Applejack said. “I reckon she'd appreciate a little bit of rest, and that she’ll be mighty grateful to you for it.” She gave an exaggerated wink.
“You really think so?” Mist asked, brightening. “Okay, here you go! Thanks!”
Once Mist had disappeared back into the house, Rarity turned on her most reproachful look.
“What?” Applejack asked innocently. “It’s cute that he likes you. I mean, I like you. Everypony likes you! It’s only natural that your cousin likes you. You’re a likeable sort of gal.”
Rarity sighed elaborately. “Oh, be quiet and pull the bags.”
“Hello there, ladies!” a new voice said, causing Rarity and Applejack to look up as a rangy Pegasus stallion descended and alit on the snowy lawn in front of them. His wings continued to beat slowly even on the ground, while his nostrils puffed clouds of steam into the air. Rainbow Dash had explained that while Pegasi did not feel the cold in the same way other ponies did, it was still important to keep the blood circulating and the flight feathers ice-free. “I have a message for a Rarity Unicorn at this address,” the stallion said. “Is she inside?”
“No, she is right here,” Rarity said, surprised. “You managed to catch me on my way out.”
“My lucky day,” the Pegasus said. “Here you go.” He looked critically at Applejack. “You wouldn’t be Glory Dwells, would you? I’ve got another one for this address in here.”
“Hardly!” Rarity exclaimed. “You’ll find her inside.” As the Pegasus trotted up to knock on the front door, she examined the card he had pulled from his satchel. “It’s from Silver Belle’s lawyer,” she said. “He 'humbly requests' a meeting in his office tomorrow. Hm. In the moment I had forgotten all about the official side of things, but I suppose I should meet with him before we think about leaving for home.”
“Must be pretty important business for a lawyer to be workin’ on Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Applejack said.
“I suppose it must,” Rarity admitted.
The trek to Silver Belle’s house was accomplished with little difficulty and in near total silence. The temperature had climbed, and now hovered at a basically-tolerable mark somewhere just below freezing. The snow on the roads had, by and large, been dealt with through a combination of plowing, packing, and grooming. It took no more than twenty minutes for the white clapboard house to come into view, two compact square stories huddled beneath a steep roof, looking every inch the same as it always had in Rarity’s memory. It rested precariously at the tip of the thin spit of land called Westonka Point, and was prone to flooding whenever fierce storms whipped the lake into a frenzy. Outside, the snow was covered in preserved hoofprints, and criss-crossed by deep runner tracks from one or more large sleighs. One set of tracks would have been a sleigh from the mortuary, come to take Aunt Silver’s body away. With her gone, the house seemed dead, too.
The mares left the sled with their bags in the yard for the moment, and Rarity proceeded to open the front door with the key Cookie had provided. They stepped inside into darkness. Thick brocade draperies had been drawn closed over every window, and all the lamps were off. The air was heavy, still, and cold. Rarity had braced herself for some terrible smell of sickness in the closed-in space, but she could detect nothing beyond a faint hint of old potpourri.
“Brrr!” Applejack exclaimed. “It ain’t hardly warmer in here than outside. Why don’t you stay put whilst I go turn on the gas and get the furnace goin’. Just need to throw open some of these curtains so I can see what I’m doin’.”
“Nonsense,” said Rarity. “I’ve got a working horn, and the basement windows must be completely covered by snow. At least let me go with you.” She attempted to ignite her illumination spell, but the resultant glow was no brighter than the dim light sneaking in through the open door. She was more fatigued than she had thought.
“You need to take it easy, Rare,” Applejack said, moving quickly through the space, seemingly searching for something. “That exchange would have taken it out of me. I can admit it. Here, there are some chairs in this next room, and … Aha! Candles and matches.”
Rarity sighed. “Thank you, Darling. I hope we can both get some rest here. The first door in the hallway to your left leads downstairs.”
"Thanks. Now, rest! Y'hear?"
"I do!" Rarity called back. She, however, had no intention of heeding Applejack’s exhortation. Instead, as soon as the glow of the candle disappeared down the stairs, she began working her way through the first floor, exercising her magic to open the draperies and let in the waning winter sun. This trip had been disastrous, and yet she could not help but find something exciting about finally being in this place, as if some force of destiny had meant for her to be here, to embrace and try to understand all the buried emotions and fragments of memories that had been welling up inside her. Even the meager telekinesis required to fasten the draperies to their tiebacks was taxing at the moment, but she hungrily took in everything the light revealed.
She remembered the gorgeous oil portrait of Silver Belle in her glamorous heyday hanging over the fireplace mantel. Other paintings in ornate frames depicted various scenes from the ballet, and some of these, too, clearly showed a young Aunt Silver leaping, stretching, being caught in the embrace of a strong young stallion. There were framed playbills, too, for shows all across Equestria, and some beyond. Such was the life Silver Belle had sacrificed forever when she moved to Ponyville.
Rarity moved through the hallway and opened the door at the end, leading into the spare bedroom that Silver Belle had converted years ago into her craft project and sewing room. Inside, she was surprised to find that some large and heavy piece of furniture had been moved to block the only window, and the room was too dark to make out anything clearly. She took a few steps toward the dark outline of the furniture, intending to try to move it by hoof, then bumped into something which clattered loudly to the floor. With effort, she mustered her magic just enough to see what it was. A wooden easel had collapsed on impact, spilling a large canvas and a number of brushes. Apparently Silver Belle had taken up painting. Rarity considered that her aunt might have mentioned it in one of her letters.
The painting on the floor was unfinished, but complete enough to be recognizable. A landscape. The sea. A sandy beach with crashing surf. Rarity felt her heart clench. It seemed an impossible coincidence.
“Gas is on!” Applejack shouted from somewhere below.
In a state of near panic, Rarity raced to turn the knobs on the wall sconce lamps, then stood trembling as each lamp catalyzed and ignited in turn, flooding the project room with light. Rarity’s eyes flicked back and forth, unable to focus on one thing. The walls were completely covered in paintings. Some were framed, but most not. All hung haphazardly, crowded too close together, some overlapping, most crooked. What plaster was still visible on the walls was cracked and chipped from too much hammering and too many nails. Every painting depicted the seaside. Rarity realized she was hyperventilating a moment before she swooned and collapsed unconscious onto the cold floor.
I have to go, Jeweleyes Don’t cry, Darling It’s not your fault Don’t cry Please don’t cry
Rarity could hear Silver Belle’s pleading voice, but she could make no sound in reply, could do nothing but listen to her aunt's voice and her own sobs. It was the day Aunt Silver had left the house in Ponyville to retreat forever to her cottage on the lake. Her parents had said Aunt Silver needed to be closer to her grandparents, to help take care of them and Cousin Glory, but that wasn't all of it. Details her young self had failed to comprehend were crystallizing. Something had happened. It’s not your fault. The words crossed over the intervening years to ring in Rarity's ears again.
Rarity could see Silver Belle too, but there was something wrong. Aunt Silver's delicate features were contorting. Her face was rounding out, her eyes turned the wrong color. Her horn melted away! This was all wrong. Rarity tried to reach out and take hold of the other mare, but her body was completely immobilized.
“Rarity!” Silver Belle called out, in a voice bright and brassy and definitely not her own. Rarity suddenly comprehended that it was not her aunt's, but Applejack’s face peering down at her from just a few inches away.
“Talk to me, Rare,” Applejack exhorted, softly caressing Rarity’s cheek and slowly coming into focus. “Come on, Girl, I know you’re in there. There we go! Keep those eyes open!”
“There’s no need to shout,” Rarity muttered groggily. “It would seem I fainted. That would tend to explain why I now find myself lying on this dusty, freezing cold floor.” Gingerly, she turned her head left, then right. The collapsed easel lay next to her. The unfinished painting as well. When she looked, the walls were still covered in more of the same, every painting depicting that same wretched beach now etched in her mind. Her head ached, whether from the fall onto solid oak floorboards or the cumulative effect of the day’s events she could not say. In all probability, both.
“Fainted? I’ll say you fainted!” Applejack exclaimed. “Dead away! Had me good and worried. I heard the thunk all the way down in the basement. Thought you'd gotten into the root pantry and dropped a gunny sack full of potatoes ‘til you didn’t answer when I called. I came in here and found you out colder than Cousin Apple Buckle on barrel tasting day. Are you alright now? How ya feelin’?”
Rarity was not sure she could express how she was feeling, or how to explain her reaction upon seeing Aunt Silver's paintings without appearing to be caught full on in the throes of a nervous breakdown. Even so, she resolved not to keep what she was experiencing to herself any longer. At least she could count on Applejack to be forthright if it all came across as crazy.
“I’m fine,” Rarity said. “Or I will be momentarily. I’m going to try to stand up. Would you be so kind as to lend me a hoof?” She accepted Applejack’s proffered foreleg and held tight as she was pulled onto all fours.
“I can’t say I’m all that surprised,” Applejack went on. “I noticed that you barely ate a thing all day. With everything else happenin’, and you bein’ a natural-born fainter, and … whoa Nelly!”
Rarity toppled into Applejack’s firm embrace. “Thank you, Darling,” she said, as she experimented with putting weight back on her own legs. “Excellent catch. You know, I wouldn’t need to maintain a summonable couch if I could keep you always close at hoof. It would also be cost effective, taking into consideration the three times I forgot to unlatch the adjacent window. Now, if you would care to join me, I think I could use a bite to eat." She wobbled, then righted herself. "Also, someplace to sit down.”
Applejack’s supporting shoulder helped Rarity make it to the kitchen table, where she found an old spindle-back chair to slump down into while Applejack dashed off to bring their things inside. Rarity had scrounged a wedge of hoovarti and a small caramel-colored block of brunost from Glory’s kitchen, along with a package of crisp flatbreads. She waited, resting her head in her forehooves, as Applejack returned and prepared two plates of bread and cheese. The rest of the brandy was also poured, and a tall glass of water for Rarity. The food and drink were immediately restorative, even if the apple brandy was “twice the price for half the taste of Sweet Apple Acres’ own.” She finally felt prepared to talk, but she was beaten to the punch.
“So,” Applejack began, before taking a deep breath. “You really want to leave for home tomorrow provided there's a flight to catch? We’d miss the funeral and everything, not to mention Hearth’s Warming. And I do recall you promised I'd only have to ride on one of those flyin' monsters on the way up here. I guarantee that if the trains are runnin', anything headin' out is booked solid tomorrow.”
“Oh, I suppose I did suggest I wanted to leave right away.” Rarity frowned. “But now that lawyer wants to meet with me, and, well, I have questions. There are things I would like to understand before we leave. I suppose I shouldn’t wait any longer to admit that it wasn’t merely exhaustion or hunger that caused me to faint. After the lamps came up and I saw the paintings back in the other room, it was all too much to take in."
“All those beach paintings on the walls?” Applejack questioned. “What can a bunch of amateur artwork have to do with your faintin’ spell? I'll grant they weren’t exactly Poneighs, but we've seen a whole lot worse. I mean, you managed to stay upright while my brother showed you his figure studies from that art class he took. It usually takes a whole heap of ugly to offend your sensibilities to the point of collapsin’. Like, uh, a denim ball gown.”
“I think a couture gown in denim could be very lovely, if done tastefully and worn by the right pony,” Rarity replied. “But it wasn’t that. It’s … how can I explain?” She paused to think before continuing. “It was a strange sort of déjà vu. I have seen the place in those paintings before—that very same beach—in a photograph that Aunt Silver had in her possession years ago. Oddly enough, that image has been preoccupying my mind ever since we left Ponyville. To see that Aunt Silver had been painting it; not only painting it, but painting it over and over, well ...”
“I’m not sure I get it,” Applejack said, narrowing her gaze. “Why is it so strange for her to be paintin' a place she had a picture of? Maybe she really likes that beach. Maybe she had a lot of blue and yellow paint to use up. I guess it's weird you were thinkin' of a picture of it, but I don't see what's worth hittin’ the deck over."
"Ah. My apologies for leaving out the crucial detail. The photograph I remember was different from these paintings in one respect: it was a picture of me as a young girl, perhaps a few years younger than Sweetie Belle, sitting on that same beach with the ocean behind. It's come back to me quite suddenly and vividly, though at the time I put it out of my mind. It was just before Aunt Silver left Ponyville that I saw it, and her departure was of vastly more significance to me in the moment than any odd photograph."
"Still not getting it," Applejack declared. "Why's it important that you were in the picture?"
"It matters because it is a photograph of something that never happened. I was never on that beach as a child. I was never taken to the ocean at all. The filly in the picture was the same age, or not much younger than I was when I saw it. Old enough to remember if I had been there and had my picture taken. And in the sleigh, you heard me ask my parents if they had ever taken me to the shore.”
“They never did,” Applejack said, now wearing a look of dawning comprehension.
“So they claimed. But I believe whole-heartedly that I did see that photograph. Even now, my memory is becoming clearer. Aunt Silver had accidentally let it slip from her bag and I caught enough of a glimpse to see what it was before she snatched it away. Shortly afterward, she left our home. I'm positive that I was never supposed to see it, and that I’ve remembered it now for a good reason. How was I photographed in a place I never was? Who took the picture? If I was on that beach, why can't I remember? Why would my parents dissemble? Why in the world was Aunt Silver painting that same beach a hundred times before she died? I have all these questions needling the inside of my skull, and I swear they are going to drive me mad until I get some answers.”
“Wow,” Applejack said, rocking back in her chair.
"Yes, I know," Rarity said, eyes downcast. "It sounds like I'm raving."
"No it doesn't," said Applejack, setting her chair back down and leaning forward on the table. "It sounds like you're finally bein' honest with me about what's been eatin' you up. I've seen the faraway look you've been wearin' ever since we left home. Before all the rest of the trouble we've run into. I'm glad it's just some mysterious repressed memory and not somethin' to do with me."
"Certainly not!" Rarity declared. "I feel awful about letting you think anything of the sort. You are wonderful. You are keeping me afloat. But do you think I sound crazy?"
"For havin' a memory from years ago pop up all of a sudden? Or for thinkin' there might be more goin' on here than a funny coincidence? Maybe I'd have been a skeptic five years ago, before Twilight moved to town and I got to know what crazy really is."
"And now?" Rarity asked.
"Now we live in a world where a lost empire can appear out of thin air and a twitchy librarian can become a genuine wing-a-ling Princess. My own orchard got drowned in chocolate milk. I lost a barn to a horde of Pinkie Pies." Applejack extended a forehoof and rested it on both of Rarity’s. “I fell head over hooves for somepony, when I thought it was just gonna be me and the apple trees for all the rest of my days. That's you, by the way.”
Rarity smiled. “Truly, we live in a charmed world, full of wonders and revelations. Or at least, I am thoroughly charmed, and happy to know you don't think me mad."
"Not about this, anyway," Applejack agreed, returning the smile. "But I do have to wonder if there's a riddle we can solve here. If your parents don’t know anything—”
“Or if they are concealing the truth.”
“—and you can’t ask Silver Belle about it, then what can we do about it?
Rarity looked around, at the old oak kitchen cabinets, the positively ancient iron kettle on the stove, framed newspaper clippings yellowed from the sun, and was struck by a thought. “What if the photograph still exists?" she asked. "What if it's here, in this house? You’ve seen Glory’s place, and just look around you; the ponies in my family hold onto things. If we search the house perhaps we might find it, or at least some sort of clue that would tie the paintings and the photograph together. Some other old picture, maybe.”
Applejack nodded. “It can’t hurt to look around. And it’s not like your aunt will mind us riflin’ through her things.”
“I have been led to believe that they are, for the immediate time being, my things,” Rarity observed. “I feel much better, now that I have some food and drink in me and the weight of a secret off my chest. Not to mention that it's finally starting to warm up in here. Let's rifle."
Rarity and Applejack proceeded to search the house room-by-room, beginning with the project room. The lamplight revealed it was a heavy roll-top desk with a tall hutch that had been moved to block the window. The roll-top had been locked down, but the lock hardware quickly succumbed to the precise magical manipulation of a handy bobby pin. There were, however, no photographs inside; merely a few financial records and draft letters that were destined never to be sent.
A survey of the living room turned up no meaningful secrets, though Rarity found a relatively recent photograph of Aunt Silver and Glory stashed in the drawer of a side table, its glass perhaps tellingly cracked. Applejack reported the basement dusty, full of cobwebs, and cluttered with sandbags, a sensible thing to have in a house prone to flooding. The accidental discovery that a few of the bags were actually full of caustic lime almost ended badly and discouraged further poking around, though Applejack declared she had seen enough to feel confident there were no photographs stored down there.
Up the creaking staircase, Rarity noticed that the second floor landing was missing two beautiful hoof-crafted wooden rocking chairs and a table she had long admired, likely already claimed and squirreled away by one of the slighted family members. Together, the mares searched the guest bath and bedroom. They agreed that the feather bed looked inviting and that there were absolutely no hidden photographs to be found.
“I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed," Rarity said, standing at the threshold of the master bedroom. "There was no reasonable expectation that we would find anything."
"We still have this room left to check," Applejack said.
"Yes. I suppose this is it." Rarity gazed into the darkened room. "It feels so strange being here again. I used to spend hours in Aunt Silver's chambers when we would visit her at the cottage, after she left Ponyville. I learned right away that she had kept her relics from her life as a dancer here even while she lived with us. She had all those portraits and paintings downstairs, of course, but up here she still had a few of her gorgeous costumes, and I remember feeling utterly fabulous pretending to be out on the stage leaping and twirling for the crowds. And she had a dressing room fit for a star! Bright lamps and gilded mirrors, always a little tray of bonbons, and it seemed to me there was every sort of makeup a girl could imagine. For those visits, this was my Elysium.” She sighed deeply. “Until this morning I thought I would find her here, and we would celebrate one more Hearth’s Warming together. Instead, it's as though I'm chasing her ghost.”
“Let’s go on in,” Applejack prompted. Without waiting, she walked through the doorway and began turning on the lamps.
Inside, everything was in good order. Somepony—Cookie, Rarity guessed—had remade the bed with fresh linens. The floral quilt was turned down and the pillows were fluffed. A crocheted throw, one of innumerable examples Silver Belle had produced over the years, rested on an armchair upholstered in purple sateen. The walk-in closet was as capacious as Rarity remembered, and filled with a trove of decades worth of fashion. Unfortunately, the only surviving dance costume was moth-eaten and all the chiffon was badly frayed.
“Huh,” Applejack grunted. She had gone to examine the ensuite bath and the adjacent dressing room, and Rarity quickly tracked her down.
“What is it?” she asked excitedly. “Did you find something?”
“Sorry," Applejack replied. "Didn't mean to get your hopes up. It’s just that usually when you call somethin’ fit for a star, well, it is.”
Rarity looked past Applejack into a small, poorly lit space. There was a narrow wooden counter, painted gray and set in front of a framed wall mirror. A single sconce provided light. Two padded stools were set before the table, on which rested a decently-comprehensive makeup assortment and related accouterments. The selection, though, was less elaborate even than what Rarity traveled with. Unable to help herself, Rarity laughed; a harsh, solitary bark that echoed throughout the house. “Goodness,” she said. “This is a bit more modest than I recalled. It's been so many years since I played with Aunt Silver's makeup and danced in her clothes. I suppose I was young enough that every ordinary thing seemed very grand. Certainly I must have been much smaller to think this little room large!” She moved past Applejack, into the dressing room, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Perhaps all of my memories are as embellished and untrustworthy as these. Or perhaps my mind is already fading. All things fade with time, don’t they?”
"No," Applejack replied. "Not everything fades, Sugarcube.” She moved closer, and pressed her cheek against Rarity’s. "Some things do. A lot of the bad, thankfully, or we wouldn't be able to keep goin'. But not everything."
Rarity gently pulled away, and as she did she could feel her eyes welling. “Oh, Darling. I must seem like a lunatic, conscripting you to hunt for a phantom recollection of something impossible and inexplicable, and here my own memory is as tattered as Aunt Silver's old costumes. There does not need to be any great mystery. I'm sure my poor parents merely thought it odd that I would want to stay here. And it is odd! Aunt Silver only just passed away. What in the world am I doing?"
“Maybe you're just dealin’ with a hard time as well as anypony could,” Applejack replied. “Leastaways, that’s how I see it.”
“Am I? I don’t know. I don’t think I handled anything particularly well today. I haven't been giving you the attention you deserve. I ran away from my family problems. Glory is right to be upset about the inheritance mess, and if I am not able to resolve it in a way that makes everypony happy, it may tear my family apart. I'm embarrassed, frustrated, and exhausted."
“We're both tired,” Applejack said gently. “We've been goin' all day. Maybe we should just call it an early night and get some sleep. There'll be time to set things straight after we get some shut-eye.”
Rarity nodded gratefully. "Yes, I suppose so. We may as well unpack our things. I don't believe we will be leaving right away."
Bags were opened and unloaded, and the guest bedroom was thoroughly taken over in short order. After completing an abbreviated version of her nightly ritual, Rarity stood on her chosen side of the bed, watching Applejack dubiously eye the quilt and bedsheets.
"I don't know how to go about this," Applejack said. "Those covers are done up awful particular."
“You may take comfort in knowing that if there were ever to be a night on which I would not get persnickety about blankets, this would be that night. Do as you will. I intend to be asleep before I'm able to get worked up about anything.”
“Well, if it's alright with you then, I'll just hop on in,” Applejack said. Then she grinned, and in a half-whisper added, “Maybe tomorrow night I can manage to get you worked up about something.”
Rarity laughed lightly in spite of her tiredness. “Ooh,” she cooed. “Now I have at least one thing to look forward to on this trip.” Applejack winked, then pulled down the covers with her teeth and crawled into bed. Rarity avoided thinking about untucked corners as she shimmied in after, then magically turned off the lamps and slid her silk sleep mask over her eyes. A few minutes later, she was asleep.
It turned out to be a minor stroke of good fortune that the two mares had gone to bed so early, because Rarity was relatively well rested when sounds of movement on the floor below startled her awake. A quick touch confirmed that Applejack was still beside her, and any residual tiredness was instantly chased from her body by a flash flood of adrenaline. She was not afraid—what intruder could she and Applejack not deal with together?—but she was very cross about the likelihood of having to involve the local constabulary in her ongoing debacle of a family holiday.
“Applejack,” Rarity hissed, prodding her lover ungently in the back. “Somepony is downstairs.”
“I know,” Applejack whispered, keeping perfectly still. “Must be somepony with a key, because I didn’t hear ‘em break anything to get in. That, or it’s the Chimney Sprite come early.”
“Har, har,” Rarity whispered back. “You mean to suggest you've been lying here awake while we've been being burgled?”
“Not for long. I've just been tryin’ to make sure there ain’t a whole passel of ‘em down there. Far as I can tell by listenin', it’s just one pony.”
“And there's two of us. Let’s get the drop on them, shall we?” Rarity suggested.
“That ain’t gonna be easy once we set hooves to hardwood, not to mention all those creaky stairs. How’s your teleportation?”
“Har, har, again,” Rarity whispered. “This is serious!”
“Okay. Okay. I don’t suppose you feel recovered enough to try floatin’ me downstairs, then? I think our mystery guest is in the back of the house, so he wouldn’t see the glow.”
Rarity considered the idea. Certainly, she was magically capable. At this particular chemically-charged moment she felt she could raise the whole house off its foundation if she had to. The chief obstacle was the need for fine control in the predawn darkness. They could not very well maintain the element of surprise if they started turning lamps on, so she would have to maneuver a floating mare down a narrow staircase she could not see, all with a racing heart and a body that presently threatened to vibrate itself out from under the covers.
“I’ll try,” she whispered. “I think I can do it. Get up on the bed.”
Applejack extricated herself from the covers with more care than was her custom and stood up. "I'm ready," she whispered. "Just wish I'd thought to pack some good strong rope." A diffuse blue glow enveloped Applejack and slowly, carefully, she rose into the air. After a brief wobble and a quarter-length drift to the left, she remained hovering perfectly still.
"I can do this," Rarity whispered, as much for her own benefit as Applejack's. "Out the door, left into the hall, and quickly down the stairs. The business of apprehending will be up to you. Be careful!" Without further ado, she floated Applejack out through the open doorway, carefully turned her to face the proper direction, and began moving her down the hallway. Now she could not see and had to rely purely on memory—something that was proving far from perfect these days.
There. She could picture the second floor landing and the top of the staircase. Rarity was unwilling to risk bodily harm to Applejack by trying to lower her blindly over the edge of the high landing, so the stairs were the only option. She pictured their angle, the length, and the ceiling drop-down halfway to the bottom. A little further ...
Rarity heard the click of hooves on wood. A shout in the darkness: "Hold it right there, varmint!" A sound like a small explosion. A yelp of surprise, and a loud crash. Rarity flew out of bed and raced headlong down the stairs, her horn blazing brightly. She found Applejack standing at the bottom, rubbing her eyes with the side of one foreleg.
“He got away,” Applejack muttered. "Or she. I didn't see a durn thing. Blinded me the second I turned the corner into the hallway. I fell flat on my face while the rascal got by me and bolted out the back door. I’m okay now; just sorry I wasted that neat magic trick you pulled off."
“Forget about that. Thank Celestia that you're alright!" Rarity exclaimed. "I should have gone with you."
"Not your fault. It was a fine plan. Just came up a little short on the execution."
"I suppose at least we know it was a Unicorn," Rarity noted. She extinguished her hornlight and began turning on the lamps. "It must have been a flare spell that blinded you.”
“Nah.” Applejack shook her head. “You gettin' that metallic smell? I’m usually the one who ends up handlin’ the family photography, so I know what a burnt-up camera flashbulb smells like."
“A flashbulb!” Rarity repeated, settling on her haunches and throwing her forelegs up in exasperation. “That's absurd. What sort of burglar breaks in to take pictures?”
“I have no idea." Applejack shook her head. "But I have to admit, Rare, this trip has been anything but boring so far."
"Would that it could have been," Rarity grumbled. "Really, this is getting ridiculous. On top of everything else, are we to play amateur detectives?"
"Um. Aren't we?" Applejack asked.
"Of course we are," Rarity replied. "That was more-or-less rhetorical. At the very least we should have a look around before we talk to the police."
"It's barely five o'clock," Applejack noted. "Gonna be another long, cold day."
"Yes. Happy Hearth's Warming Eve, Darling." Rarity sighed. "I admit a part of me is prepared to accept the inheritance, cash out of my business, and spend the rest of my days hiding out from my family in a resort somewhere warm and far away. I hope you will visit me, but you cannot tell anypony else where I've gone. It's hard to believe, but even I have a limit when it comes to drama. No more, I beg. I would like to enjoy a little peace!"
Before Applejack could respond, both mares jumped at the sound of a gentle rapping at the front door.
