Sisters in Frost and Snow
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The blade of the shovel clanged hard as it hit the frozen surface of the soil underneath the thick layer of snow. Hyper Sonic wheezed, the vibration from the impact extended from the handle of the shovel to her body and went through it into both directions, down to her back hooves and up to her head. The latter was where the impact affected her the most. Her skull vibrated, hurt almost.
Hyper Sonic put the shovel down and stared at the hole she dug. A hole in the snow, but the hardest part of her work still laid in front of her. She let her eyes glide away from the hole and from the hard, dark-brown soil under it, to a large bundle that was resting to her left. It was a grey blanket, a grey woolen blanket, the warmest and softest they could find in the entire house. Its owner didn't need it anymore, she was cold forever and not even the warmest blanket in the world could taw her body from the stiffness of the frost that had her in its grasp now, everlasting and eternal.
Hyper Sonic sniffed, her hooves trembling over the sight that was so hard to take. A tear left her eye and she wiped it away. It had already become ice as it was on her hoof. She brushed it off, rubbing her hoof over her thick winter coat that clad her in protection from neck to tail to hooves. Only her head was free, a result of the haste she had started to undertake the deed with. Gooseberry was alone inside, she couldn't let her wait for too long.
Sniffing again, the filly put away the shovel and climbed out over the snow. She sunk in a few inches, it was fresh snow that had fallen only today, but it was lying on top of a harder, more solid snow layer. The hole she dug was already very deep, considering that she hadn't started to dig into the soil yet, but the snow wasn't enough to bury this body. There would be no smell, everything around her was conserved by the cold now. But the pony she was about to bury, the mare who had devoted her life to them, to her and her little sister, she deserved to rest in the ground like everypony else. And to them, she meant much more than any other pony in the whole, wide world.
Candy Wave couldn't get a funeral on the graveyard, it was locked for months now, ever since the onset of the Great Frost. Nopony had tended to it ever since and so its graves were buried under meters of snow. Their mother couldn't rest together with the other ponies there, but she still deserved to rest like they did, in the soil and under the ground, so Hyper Sonic had to do this deed for her.
Hyper Sonic reached for the pickaxe that laid ready at the side of the hole. She picked it up and hopped back into the hole, a vigor and speed unfitting for a grieving filly, but she had duties to do and a little sister to comfort. She lifted the pickaxe above her head and let it come down on the thick, frozen ground. It clanged too, sending waves through her arms, but a little dent was in the soil now. It was only a matter of removing the uppermost layer, if she dug fast enough then, she could do the rest with the shovel in a comparatively convenient way and return the dirt into the grave before the pile would freeze up. Then their mother could finally rest.....
Hyper Sonic lifted the pickaxe above her head a second time, suddenly feeling a painful tug in her chest. As she let the pickaxe come down on the ground again, she screamed.
Half an hour later, Hyper Sonic stared down into the depths of the ground. The grave was finished, deep and wide enough for a grown mare to lie inside. It went faster than she had expected, she had given all to dig this grave as quick as possible. And it was still too early to stop, there was more to do before it would be too late. Snowflakes fell into the hole and covered the bottom of it. She had to act quick.
Hyper Sonic tossed the shovel aside and turned for the dead body of her mother. Her eyes turned cold and stiff as she stared at the unmoving bundle, frozen from newfound shock. Hyper Sonic felt hesitance about what she was going to do now, the final act of goodbye for one of the most important ponies in her life who she would never see again. The thought of wrapping their mother out of the blanket and to place her on the snow like she was, so that they could at least still see her, crossed Hyper Sonic. But she forced it back into the dark, desperate corners of her mind where it came from.
Pushing herself to focus on her task, Hyper Sonic rose to her hindlegs and trotted to her mother with heavy steps. She tried lifting and carrying her, to no avail, then sank back on all four hooves and instead began to drag her mother to her grave. Her heart began aching more while she resorted to this method and Hyper Sonic had to bite down on her lips to stay focused and to prevent herself from stopping and sitting down in despair.
The shuffling sound of the fabric as she dragged the blanket over the snow was awful. For a moment, Hyper Sonic could see her mother's mane sticking out. The wrapping of her body hadn't been flawlessly executed, it was only the best they could do with their cold and numb hooves and with the shock in their hearts. It was regretful.
Pictures of happier times came up in Hyper Sonic's mind, she could see them in front of her eyes and they blanked out the grim reality as she kept pulling and dragging her mother to her resting place.
Her and Gooseberry had a day off at school, as their teachers had been summoned to Canterlot Castle to assist the princesses with something. Her and her sister had taken the first train that went to Canterlot to spend a day with their mother. She prepared a picnic for them, in a short amount of time like only she could do it, and then they were sitting outside the mountain city's gates soon after. They had been sitting on a red and white checkered blanket. Gooseberry and her came across this blanket while they searched for the best one to wrap around their mother's body and neither of them dared to use it.
Hyper Sonic remembered how Gooseberry commented on the berries she loved so much, how their mother had chuckled over the passionate, joyous remark Gooseberry made about her favourite food and how the princesses suddenly trotted past them, causing her to almost drop her own food. She felt the taste of the sandwich on her tongue and she licked her lips, unaware of the movement. It was a little more than a year ago, but the memory was still fresh.
The day had been sunny and warm, one of the first Spring days in the mountain city that was their home, and their mother was with them. Both things weren't possible anymore now, neither warm weather, nor the company of their mother.
After this picnic, Summer came, then Fall and Winter. Then it became Spring again, before it abruptly ended. Quicker than it was natural, Winter returned, something nopony could explain. It was a Winter colder than any that seasoned weather ponies could remember. And it never left again. It wasn't long until newspapers all over Equestria named it “The Great Frost”.
Now there were no newspapers anymore. No newspapers, no warm weather, no ponies chatting on the streets, no school, no picnics. The Great Frost had devoured everything that used to be a part of their lives. And now, it had devoured their mother as well.....
Hyper Sonic got thrown out of her thoughts as she stepped with a hoof over the edge of the freshly-dug grave. Confused and startled, she struggled with preventing herself from falling into it, but regained balance before it could happen. Now she had to let their mother down into her grave. She couldn't carry her, so flying down was not an option, and there hadn't been enough time to dig a slide into the side of the grave, too great was the risk that the excavated dirt would freeze up before she could use it to cover their mother with it. Bringing her down in a way that was dignified for her was next to impossible.
Hyper Sonic swallowed, the realization that she had no choice but to throw their mother into her grave crushed her heart. If only there was a rope to let her down carefully..... But they had to consider themselves lucky to have firewood at the very least and that was already hard enough to come by.
Hyper Sonic swallowed again. “Let's do this.....” she spoke to herself as much as she spoke to her mother, the first words she said since she had begun with digging. She grabbed the bundle that contained her mother's body and turned it around, so that her hindlegs faced the rectangular hole in the ground. Pushing as gently as she could, but firm at the same time, Hyper Sonic brought her closer to the hole. Her legs hung over it, then, after two more pushes, Candy Wave was pulled downwards by gravity. A loud thud pierced through Hyper Sonic's eardrums, like a knife was thrusted into her ears, before she could peer down over the edge to see how her mother had been affected by the fall.
When she did look down, the blanket was askew and her mother's cold, dead eyes stared up at her.
Hyper Sonic spit a heavy curse and ripped her wing gloves off with her teeth, then flew down into the grave and landed next to her mother. She anxiously grabbed the ends of the blanket and folded them back over her mother's face, new tears in the corner of her eyes that quickly became ice crystals on her cheeks. Her erect wings started to hurt, but the feeling barely reached her through the pain that her mind was throbbing with.
Having returned the dignity of her mother, Hyper Sonic stood still and stared down at her from half-lidded, weary eyes, biting her lips with an empty look in her face. She felt depleted. Only a sudden, sharp pain in her wing muscles brought her back to the reality of the moment.
Hyper Sonic moved fast. She dragged her mother to the middle of the grave and rested her there in a horizontal position, then she took flight and aimed for the surface. Her wings hurt so much now that she had to flap twice as hard and nearly fell back into the grave a few times, before she stood securely next to her dropped wing gloves. She hastily snatched them from the ground and looked at her wings. They were red under her feathers and the tips of them had taken on a dark, blue shade. Fear took over her face as she stared at the beginning frostbite and she clad what was the most important part of her body back into the soft and warm gloves.
It was only now that she noticed how the rest of her body suddenly felt cold, as well. In need for some new warmth in her muscles and blood vessels, but also to fill the grave of her mother before the soil would become too hard, Hyper Sonic took the shovel into her hooves and approached the snow-coated pile of dirt next to the grave. She dug into it without wasting a moment of time, felt some resistance at first, but then pushed through the thin layer of ice that had formed on the outside and was rewarded with a heap of dirt on the shovel's blade. She turned around and tossed it into the grave,where it landed on her mother and hid a part of the blanket that served as a makeshift coffin for her.
Hyper Sonic sniffed, but she wiped away the snot that came from her nose and went back to work. The warmth of her body gradually returned as she shoveled blade after blade filled with dirt down onto her mother, making her disappear in the ground more and more.....
After fifteen minutes, Candy Wave's grave was filled, the pile of dirt gone. Already, the Great Frost took care of covering the grave with a new layer of snow. As the last part of the deed of honor for her and her little sister's mother, Hyper Sonic stuck a branch into the soil before it hardened. A small piece of wood, that she had ripped off a floor plank and was just even enough for its purpose, was attached to it. The name of their mother had been etched into it by her with a kitchen knife. The letters looked clunky and were tilted, a few times she had slipped and created additional scratches on the wood that weren't supposed to be there.
Eventually, she would have to dig it up and place it onto the snow above the grave, but for now, it would remain here. The tiny sign that would inform everypony who came past their house – if any ponies came past it – that Candy Wave, the best mother in Canterlot, was resting here. It was everything they had and everything they were able to do. And Hyper Sonic couldn't look at it for too long, there would be no speech by the mayor or the princess, even she couldn't think of any honorable words during this worst moment in the ten years of her life. Everything that came to her sounded dull and not perfect enough for their mother who had taken so much on herself to raise her and Gooseberry and give them a good life.
Maybe the words in her head weren't bad, maybe her mother would still be smiling if she was able to hear them wherever she was now. But to Hyper Sonic, they just sounded pathetic, her depression didn't allow for her to see them in a good light, to see them as a worthy funeral speech for their mother, and so she failed and could only utter a few, basic words. “Goodbye, mom. You were the best.” Her voice nearly cracked and her face fell apart as she spoke them.
Her heart was longing for it to stay here longer, to at least spend her mother more company if she couldn't say more, but even this was impossible. Her little sister was sitting inside, in a much worse condition compared to her own, and she was the only one who Gooseberry had left. She had to tend to the pony who was still alive now, to save what was left of her family.
Hyper Sonic turned away from her mother's grave and brought the shovel and the pickaxe back into the shed. In front of the house's door, she hesitated, the tempo in her movement suddenly having slowed down. It was going to be a difficult conversation that awaited her inside. But Hyper Sonic broke free of her paralyzis, shaking it off like the nervousness she felt before her first flight, and pushed the door of their house open. She entered with quick steps, before anything in her mind could prevent her.
Inside, Gooseberry was sitting on the sofa and stared into the fire. Her forehooves squeezed a cushion and her hindlegs were neatly placed left and right of her flank. None of her hooves touched the floor. It was getting gradually warmer as Hyper Sonic, having closed the door behind her, approached the chimney. There was a thick carpet on the floor, as well, but it was safer to keep one's hooves away from the floor. Like herself, Gooseberry was wearing a thick winter coat that covered her entire body. She had two socks pulled over each hoof and on her head was a winter hat made of wool. Under her, two pairs of brown boots leaned against the sofa. She didn't look up as Hyper Sonic trotted past her, the flickering of the fire reflecting in her eyes.
As she had arrived at the fireplace, Hyper Sonic grabbed two logs of wood and added them to the fire. The flames burst upwards and began eating into the fresh combustible. Hyper Sonic turned around, pulled off her wing gloves, sat down and held her wings as close to the fire as it was possible without scorching the feathers. The skin was still reddened, but to her relief, the blue color had disappeared.
“Isn't it too cold on the floor?” Gooseberry's high, but quiet, voice entered her ears form the right.
She was indeed right, Hyper Sonic knew that it wasn't good to sit where the cold from outside could find an entrance and where she sat wasn't even a carpet anymore. But the condition of her wings frightened the older filly.
“I know, but it's only for a few minutes,” she responded to Gooseberry's concern. “It was cold outside.” Her explanation was dumb, of course it was cold outside. But she couldn't tell Gooseberry what almost happened to her wings, more grief and worry was the last thing her little sister could need. For a moment, Hyper Sonic missed her rhetoric.
But Gooseberry did not question the lame excuse. “Um-hm,” she said, not moving her head and not looking over at her. Despite that Hyper Sonic was sitting right next to the fire, Gooseberry's eyes somehow managed to gaze past her, like she did not exist.
Hyper Sonic looked over to the sofa and noticed with concern how unresponsive Gooseberry was. It was going like this with her for a few days now, ever since they had woken up next to their dead mother at morning. Close to the fire, huddled up, under three blankets, but nothing of this had helped. Their mother's body couldn't take the cold anymore and her soul left it.
Since then, Gooseberry was mostly silent and mostly sitting still. She only moved when it was time to eat and Hyper Sonic hoofed her a bowl of hot soup and a piece of bread or when she got ready to sleep. But even then she was doing everything silently, not attempting to start a conversation, and she always stared into the fire. Always, for an entire day, until they went to sleep here on one of the sofas in the living room, the only place in the house where it was still somewhat warm. It was obvious that Gooseberry missed their mother, but she was not crying, there never was a single tear coming out of her eyes, and this worried Hyper Sonic the most.
Minutes passed in silence. It wasn't time for soup yet, they just had a meal before Hyper Sonic went outside with the body of their mother, and so, Hyper just sat down next to her sister as her wings didn't feel rigid anymore and their skin had its natural color again. She had taken off the boots she was wearing on her back hooves. As she climbed onto the sofa, her wings were inside the gloves again, she had pulled socks over her forehooves and she was wearing a hat herself now.
With caring movements, Hyper Sonic took a blanket from the back of the sofa and placed it over herself and Gooseberry. She inched intimately close to her little sister and added her body warmth to Gooseberry's own.
Another round of silence, during which the crackling of the fire was the only sound in the room, followed. Conversation had been sparse the last few days, unlike before, the death of their mother seemed to have eliminated all motivation to talk. Still, there was a topic they couldn't avoid forever. Hyper Sonic felt, somehow, that her sister was not coping with their loss as much as it looked on the outside. She was bottling up and, eventually, there had to be an outlet for her feelings.
Hyper Sonic mulled over this and pondered the best approach for a couple more minutes, before she simply said: “Mom was a great pony.”
“Um-hm. Yeah, she was.” Gooseberry nodded to her left.
And that was all she said. Hyper Sonic frowned. It wasn't the kind of answer she expected. Of course Gooseberry had always loved their mother, and still did, but that made the short response an odd one, with how few words she was using to express how great their mother was. Hyper decided to try another approach.
Her eyes wandered across the room, almost automatically, and got drawn to the entrance of the kitchen. The room was as cold as the other ones in the house, the warmth of the fire not reaching there anymore, but she still had to go in there sometimes, to get the food that she would taw at the fire. Food that was getting low, but this wasn't what Hyper Sonic wanted to talk about now. She felt a certain smell drifting into her nose as another memory came up.
“Do you remember the cookies Mom always made?” Hyper Sonic drew her gaze away from the kitchen and looked over to her little sister.
“Um-hm. They were the best. She made the best cookies in Canterlot.” Gooseberry's nose moved up a little and Hyper Sonic could hear the hint of a sniffle. But it was impossible to tell whether it was a reaction caused by grief or if Gooseberry simply had the same smell drifting into her nose right now, elicited by the memory.
Hyper Sonic nodded. Once a year, their mom had made these special cookies, each year on Hearth's Warming Eve, with cinnamon and colorful sprinkles on top. Now it wasn't Hearth's Warming Eve, it was months away, and the holiday would be very different this year. But the cold weather, that eternal winter that had come over Equestria, made it feel like Hearth's Warming Eve a bit. Hyper Sonic inched even closer to Gooseberry, tightening the embrace around her. She stiffled a sob in the last moment.
“Can we make her cookies this year?” Gooseberry asked, still talking in the same monotonous way as before.
“Maybe,” Hyper Sonic's voice rasped. She let her eyes glide to the kitchen again. “We have to scavenge for food soon and some of the other houses are abandoned, maybe we will find the ingredients there.” It was an empty promise, the oven didn't even work anymore, but the dire situation they found themselves in required some hope to be created.
“Um-hm. I would like this,” Gooseberry responded, still staring into the fire.
The attempt to educe more than one sentence from Gooseberry had failed again. Hyper Sonic frowned once more. Was she still under shock? Was that the reason why there were no strong reactions coming from her? Gooseberry had screamed for their mother and shed tears when they found her, but she had stopped again soon and since then, she was nearly always silent and stared into the fire, without any more tears, from the moment she woke up at morning to the moment she fell asleep at night.
Hyper Sonic lapsed into silence herself, pondering what to say next, as Gooseberry suddenly spoke without being prompted.
“She built a swing for us. Outside, behind the house.” Her unmoving eyes continued to stare into the fire.
Hyper Sonic looked up. “Yeah.....” her voice rasped. “She did. Mom couldn't pay for a constructor, so she learned how to do it and assembled all the parts by herself. She was great and did everything for us.” A fleeting smile flashed over Hyper Sonic's face.
“Yeah..... She really did, Hyper..... She was the best mom ever.” A small tear finally formed in Gooseberry's eye and began trickling down her right cheek, but Gooseberry remained calm.
Hyper Sonic reached out with a hoof and wiped the tear away, gentle, but with trembling hooves.
“Where is mom now?” Gooseberry asked and swallowed a little. “Do you think she is in a good place, Hyper?”
“Yes. I think she is in the best place that's possible.” Hyper Sonic squeezed her little sister.
“Um-hm.” Gooseberry nodded. “I think so, too. Mom deserves a good place, she got one.” Another tear left her eye and Hyper Sonic wiped it away, as well.
“Can we go out swinging, Hyper? Can we? I want to play on the swings mom built.” Gooseberry didn't detract her eyes from the fire and her monotonous expression didn't change, but her voice was swaying a little now.
A thump sounded down to them from the second floor, right above their heads. Hyper Sonic ignored it and looked down, grief building on her face. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Um-mm. It's too cold outside.”
“Um-hm.” Gooseberry nodded. “I understand.” Her stoic expression remained and her voice became monotonous again.
Gooseberry's short answer initiated a painful silence. Hyper Sonic listened to the sounds of the house around them, creaking in the woodwork and the crackling of the fire. Another thump came from above and she looked up this time.
“We will never forget mom,” she then spoke, redirecting her attention at Gooseberry. She forced a smile, giving her best to make the moment less painful.
Gooseberry shook her head, slowly. “No, we won't forget her. I won't forget mom.” She swallowed again, before she finally moved her head for the first time since Hyper had left the house and looked into her older sister's face. “I want to sleep now, Hyper.”
Keeping up her smile, Hyper Sonic nodded. “Okay. I'll stay here, we still have enough firewood in the chimney.”
Gooseberry nodded, as well. She shifted a little and curled up, her body trembling now, and she hurried to bring herself into a comfortable sleeping position.
Hyper Sonic adjusted the blanket to cover her little sister perfectly. She stroke over Gooseberry's mane with her right forehoof and caressed it gently. “Sleep well, sis. I'll take care of it that the fire won't go out while you sleep.”
“Um-hm..... Thank you, Hyper.....” Gooseberry mumbled. Her mouth formed a frown now and her eyes were tightly shut. “Goodnight, Hyper. Goodnight, Mom.....”
Hyper Sonic looked down at her until Gooseberry's now slightly more fitful breathing had become steady and calm. Then she looked into the fire. Her expression resembled Gooseberry's from earlier. A thump sounded again from upstairs and Hyper Sonic ignored it again. She stared at the flames, followed their dancing and flickering, slowly getting lost in thoughts.
After a while, Hyper Sonic heard the voice of her mother ringing in her head, as the memory of a rather recent conversation resurfaced. The flames suddenly danced more violently, like they were upset about something.
“Don't worry, mom,” Hyper Sonic whispered. “I won't go onto any adventures. I'll keep my promise and take good care of Gooseberry.”
And the flames calmed down. A feeling of contentment began to fill the air.
