Imagine, if you will, a match flame. Scratch!
Such a warm, bright little thing. Filled with joyous and promising hope while its dance reflects in your eyes. A delicate wonder, flitting and shivering in the cold wind, struggling to cling to its thin post. Easily taken for granted—easily forgotten. Well, that is what this story is about. You can find such a small flame on the busy street corners of an old town in Equestria, and she is the little match mare.
Kindle Dawn was a thin, cream-coated filly, keeping a smile on her dirty face going from pony to pony, trying to offer them matches. The little tray hooked around her neck was full of six boxes, since she had not sold any today. The unicorn turned left and right to every passerby, grinning as she used what magical strength she had to try waving an open box at potential customers to entice them with healthy red match heads.
A gust of wind howled against her and she squinted. Her tattered brown cloak flapped wildly as her straw-brown tail untangled. When Kindle opened her eyes she saw the matchboxes and their contents scattering. These were her only means of making even a silver bit, and they seemed to tease her in a game of tag as they skipped across the ground driven by the wind.
She broke into a run, doing her best to collect them all. Her golden eyes were awash in tears as one of the boxes fell into a drain, and another two were found floating in a pile of slushed snow. Kindle had count the losses in favor of the others that weren’t soaking wet. She turned to the street and hunched over to inspect a box when a carriage raced up. The two stallions in tow shouted a warning and she dove out of their way.
As the carriage passed, Kindle looked to see the box was smashed and its matches were being destroyed by the busy traffic. She turned this way and that trying to spot others. Kindle saw another box was found by a passing stallion Unicorn wearing a top hat and fine clothing. He used his magic to pick up the box and upon seeing the matches, he grinned and put them in his coat. The little match mare screeched to a halt upon reaching him, lowering her ears shyly and debated if it would’ve been worth to argue with him for that one, or to search for another box that may be reclaimed.
Kindle Dawn saw one not far from where she lost them. She reasoned that the matches with the stallion were safe and she could return to it. Mind made up, she darted for this one by the corner. But as she bent down to scoop it into her tray, an Earth pony colt put his hoof on it. She gasped slightly and took two steps back. The boy was in plain clothes and a tattered scarf, not looking much better than she except for a cleaned face.
When the colt realized that the matches were hers, he reached into his scarf and pulled out a picture, a black and white sketch of what appeared to be his very large family, no father but several foals. His ears lowered and he whimpered like a pup. Kindle Dawn’s eyes shimmered with the thought of losing another box of matches but after a few seconds her ears raised and she winked with a smile, allowing him to take the box for free, giving up what little she had for the sake of a fellow poor foal.
Kindle turned back towards the edge of the street and saw that the well-off stallion who claimed her box of matches was getting ready to enter a carriage. Running to retrieve her box she tripped on a crooked cobblestone and knocked into him. He turned up his nose at her. She persisted and started to hang on the edge. With the blue glow of his magic, he pulled out one of her matches, struck it on the side of the carriage, and put it in his pipe.
One of the Pegasi carriage ponies stepped out and with his wing he divided her from his passenger by gently pushing her away. With a tip of his cap he returned to the front and the two Pegasi were on the move, trotting a short ways before lifting to the sky.
Kindle’s ears lowered and she hung her head. With a sniffle she began to tear up but then she saw the last box of matches that had been sitting under the carriage, dry and whole. She wiped away her tears on her cloak, using her red-tinted magic to rub her face on the box like it was her precious only child, and she put her matches back in the tray where they belonged.
She had to find a way to sell this last box; she bit her lip—at the price of six. Her father would be very angry if she came home empty-hooved with no money and he would probably make her sleep out in the shed if he learned she lost all her matches. Thinking of this, Kindle Dawn became mindful of the bruised scratches on her flank, ears and face and the memory reminded her of where they came from.
The little match mare looked up at the street lamp and jumped on it, using her magic to wave the box around at ponies passing by. But this only served to irritate them. An Earth pony mare dipped her head under Kindle to lift her up and place her on the ground. When she saw the lamp lighting pole in the mare's mouth, Kindle beamed with hope—she was a lamplighter watchmare! After shutting the glass cage protecting the flame now lighting the street, the watchmare turned to see the smiling filly holding up her box of matches.
The watchmare puckered her lips to the side and turned, showing her assortment of specialized matches tucked in the pockets of her work coat. Kindle Dawn frowned and began to walk to the closest alley. Now that the sun was setting and the city colder than ever, the few ponies that would be out in the frost would have spent most of their money, especially on Hearth’s Warming Eve. Kindle sat down in the shadow of the alley, gently waving her box of matches every time a pony came within view. As the darkness grew, eventually no ponies walked by.
A hard wind shrieked, spraying snow in Kindle’s face and she got up to move deeper into the alley. She walked into the bathing light from a window. She perched up and there inside was a merchant’s family. The Earth pony had a bright smile on his face as he greeted his three children and wife. He passed out presents to them and they were opened by the large fireplace, brilliant flames so hot Kindle could feel a tinge of warmth on her hooves against the glass.
As she looked around, she saw the shining smooth table on the right filled with an abundance of food and an elder pony who could only be a grandmother beckoned the family for dinner. They had to pass by a large evergreen tree with pictures of the children’s drawings on it, visible under the sparkles of a dozen candles.
Movement nearby caused Kindle to hide. One of the maids closed the curtains, hiding the wonderful sight. A spiteful howl blew into the alley, kicking up her cloak, mane, and tail and Kindle Dawn fitfully sneezed. She sank to the ground and shivered like a rattle. She angled the tray to her right in an attempt to block some of the wind and held her one box of matches with her magic, motherly protecting it in the crook of her body as she curled up in a ball and rested her straw-brown tail on it.
She might go back home, but the shed her father would lock her in was little better than this alleyway. She cried, her sobs replying in echo between the brick walls, her wet tears making her face all the colder; salty texture burning at the little cuts from a sore on her right cheek. But there was little it seemed that could help her ignore the clawing hunger hurting her stomach.
Kindle Dawn gently stroked her box with the tip of her tail and with a sputtering cough opened it up and looked at the dozen within. They were like her children, all twelve of their reddened heads neatly arranged together like a school choir. She pulled up one of the matches and looked it over before placing it by the wall of the home behind her. With her tear-laden eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritting, she raked it against the brick.
Scratch! And bursting into life was a tiny flame. She brought it close, protecting the delicate fire with her tail and tray as it danced for its surrogate mother. Kindle’s ears perked up as she stared, and out of the brightness came a stove. A warm, open stove showing its glowing embers. Her golden eyes reflected the glow and she rubbed her cold, wet, cut hooves as close as she dared. Then, the stove disappeared in a wisp as the match burned out. All she could see was the wall to the building on the other side.
So Kindle Dawn took hold of another match—one more couldn’t hurt—scratch! Another brilliant fire sparked to life. In thankful gratitude, the shining flare seemed to bow before bringing forth from its blaze a great evergreen. Kindle grinned wide as she observed the tree to be a hundred times her size, the star topping its peak so high it appeared to be part of the night sky itself. She beheld a thousand candles and a thousand pictures. There were toys, bright-hued string, tinsel, and cookies on every branch. She reached out a hoof to touch it and it broke away from her, twisting into oblivion as the match that brought it died.
The little match mare shivered once again, the cold seemed worse than ever when recently out of the warmth. Scratch! She lit another match. The torchlight waved in the wind, arms up in a panic and Kindle gasped and quickly brought it low. When the flame steadied it brought to her a feast. Kindle couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten a warm meal, a few days and last week were all the same, but that mattered not, for the buffet here was on a table greater than the one in the home behind her, and it was overflowing with variety that spanned all the major cities of Equestria. She used her magic to pick up a red delicious apple, and as she bit into it, the food and table vanished into smoke.
Eager for more, she took the remaining nine matches. Scratch! The blazing inferno of lights came together in one great congregation, appearing to talk amongst themselves what special gift to bring. And dancing together in a circle, they opened a portal and Kindle saw her grandmother. She was the only pony who ever loved her: sheltering her, feeding her, keeping her warm. She wasn’t dead anymore, but alive and well! Kindle Dawn gasped at the sight and giggled in laughter. Just seeing her at all was greatest gift her little matches could bring. She listened to her grandmother read stories, telling her about the shooting stars signaling the end of a good, generous life to join the others in the sky and grant wishes to those below.
When the fire sputtered and the sticks were shriveled and black, Kindle Dawn could no longer feel the cold. The aching hunger gnawing away at her thin body no longer clawed for attention. Whether by magic or numbness, she didn’t know and didn’t care, for as she looked up and reached out with her right hoof, she finally touched her vision—her grandmother—who bid her to come.
In the early morning, just as the sun rose, a family of ponies, a mother and many foals but no father, gathered in the alley. There, stiff, cold, and huddled by a dozen burnt matches was Kindle Dawn. The colt from the previous day nudged her smiling face, but there was no response. He looked at his mother and she shook her head and tsked, rubbing her head on her son who brought the box of matches for them.
Like any flame when it dies, there is something left behind. And so as the family turned away, the long scratch on Kindle Dawn’s flank faded and gave way to a cutie mark—a trio of matches forming a triangle, each lighting the points where they met. And faintly overhead barely visible in the morning was a shooting star. A good and generous life had come to an end, to become a beaming match flame in the night sky.
