Apple Bloom didn't know what to feel here.
She felt like she owed it to her family to visit every once in a while. She felt she owed it to her parents. But what was the point of visiting their graves when she couldn't remember them?
The wind was always colder on the top of this hill. The pegasus ponies always kept a slight fog rolling around the cemetery, and it had a surreal feel to it. Apple Bloom shivered. The fog left her just wet enough to be cold, but not wet enough to justify a jacket. Apple Bloom looked at her parents' headstones.
"So- Mother? Pa?" She started. "Ah'm no nearer t' gettin' mah cutie mark than last week. Applejack told me about when you got yours, and ah tried both tree-prunin' an' flower plantin', but neither worked."
This wasn't working either. Applejack had told her that trying to talk to her parents might help her to figure things out. For Apple Bloom, it just felt like talking to slabs of stone that symbolized what her family didn't have. Pieces of rock that just made Applejack and Granny Smith cry and Big MacIntosh work so hard he forgot to sleep. Grave-markers that made Apple Bloom wonder what she was missing.
Apple Bloom stared at the headstones. It was while before she noticed another pony was beside her, looking at another headstone.
Diamond Tiara.
What was she doing here? She knew somepony who was dead? Apple Bloom realized that she didn't know much about Diamond Tiara. Apple Bloom didn't really know anything about Diamond Tiara, except for the fact that she was a bully and had a rich father.
Diamond Tiara stared at her slab of rock and Apple Bloom stared at hers, determined to stay there longer than Diamond Tiara. Diamond Tiara stood still in the cold. Apple Bloom shivered. The silence built up, thicker than usual. Apple Bloom watched Diamond Tiara shake off the fog.
"Ah cain't remember mah parents." Apple Bloom blurted out. "Ah mean, sometimes ah feel like ah do, when Applejack tells stories, but ah don't, really. All ah can think of when ah try to picture 'em are the photographs on the mantlepiece." Apple Bloom wasn't sure whether she was talking to Diamond Tiara or herself. "Ah'm in some of the photographs, but most're taken before ah was born. Mah favorite is a picture of mother, pa, Applejack and Big Mac." Apple Bloom sighed, looking at one hoof. "Ah don't think ah would belong in that photo, anyways." Apple Bloom stopped, feeling foolish. Why was she talking to Diamond Tiara, of all ponies?
"I can't remember my mother, either." Diamond Tiara answered in a low voice. "But my dad never tells me about her." Diamond looked at Apple Bloom, her eyes watering. "There're only two pictures of her in the house, my parents' wedding picture and one of her laughing. She was really pretty." Diamond trailed off, looking at the headstone. "I think about her a lot. I wonder what she'd think of me." Diamond Tiara looked at the ground, tracing a 'D' in the wet dirt of the path winding through the Ponyville cemetery.
"Well, ya got your cutie mark. She'd be proud of that, wouldn't she?" Apple Bloom said. Diamond Tiara shrugged.
"That's what my dad said. I don't think I know him very well either. He definitely doesn't know me. He loves me, but has no idea who I am." Diamond Tiara looked at her cutie mark, then at her mother's grave. "I wonder if my mom did. Know me, I mean."
Apple Bloom didn't know what to say. Every member of the Apple family knew every other member inside and out. She didn't say anything, just kept staring at her parent's names carved in rock. Even if she'd wanted to say something, she wouldn't know what the words should be, what Diamond Tiara needed to hear.
"I've always wanted an older sister." Diamond Tiara said. Apple Bloom looked up. Diamond Tiara looked small and almost ghostly in the fog. Her pale colors blended right in. Apple Bloom shivered again, from the cold. "An older sister who could tell me about my mother, what it was like to be her daughter when she wasn't dead." Diamond Tiara laughed, a short, sad bark. "That's not going to happen." Diamond Tiara's eyes raked over Apple Bloom from head to toe. Apple Bloom shivered, not sure if it was from the fog or Diamond Tiara's gaze. Apple Bloom stared back.
Diamond Tiara stood at her mother's grave, shivering, wet, alone. Apple Bloom stood at the graves of both her parents, shivering, wet, but never alone, ever. Apple Bloom carried her family with her. She saw something that Applejack would like, or Big Mac would find funny, or Granny Smith would tell a story about, every way she looked. Diamond Tiara- Applejack had never put much thought into it, but Diamond Tiara had no brothers or sisters. Her only friend was Silver Spoon.
"What's your pa like?" Apple Bloom said abruptly. Diamond Tiara didn't take her eyes off the 'D T' she was tracing in the ground.
"He's nice and funny, I guess,but he has no real emotion. Or he's really good at hiding it. He's such a businesspony, even with me." Diamond Tiara said, slowly. "He- He loves me, I know that, but he thinks that presents can take the place of parents in a filly's life." Diamond Tiara looked at Apple Bloom, as if daring her to say 'But you have one of your parents!'
Apple Bloom didn't say anything. Diamond Tiara sighed, finally looking up. Her eyes were filling.
"He's not much of a family." She admitted quietly, more to herself than Apple Bloom. A tear trickled down her cheek. Apple Bloom stood there. She had a family. A good one. The best one. Diamond Tiara really had nothing. Apple Bloom looked down at her parents, confused. She bit her lip.
"Ah- Ah'm sorry." Apple Bloom said, looking at Diamond Tiara. She made eye contact with Apple Bloom, tears cascading down her face.
"Oh, no. Now I'm crying. I'm going to Silver Spoon's house later, and she-" Diamond Tiara glared at Apple Bloom. "Don't think anything is going to be different, just because you made me cry." Diamond Tiara said. "Bye-" Diamond Tiara stopped and considered her next words. "Bye, Blank Flank." Diamond Tiara looked at Apple Bloom for a moment then ran off, far from the cemetery. Apple Bloom stayed back, puzzled.
Since when was blank flank and endearment? Or when was it not an insult? Diamond Tiara hadn't said it the way she usually did just now. She'd said it more- more- softly?
Apple Bloom turned to her parents. "Bye. See y'all next time." She told them, before trotting home to the rest of her family. Granny Smith was making her signature pie for dinner, and Apple Bloom couldn't wait to tell her how good it tasted.
Author's Note
Hi!
This actually got a much better reception than I thought it would.
I am open to feedback, be as blunt as you want. Feedback is my BFF.
Edit: I edited it a little, did some smoothing and sanding. Still not perfect (Since when is anything) And I still love feedback!
Thank you for reading!
