Thanatology
The sun was just beginning to rise into the sky when the came out from the shop. She turned around and locked the doors, then doing a quick circuit around the building to see all the windows were closed and the curtains drawn. But of course, it wasn’t on fear of somepony stealing anything, but on the fear a young foal would wander inside it an be scarred or traumatized. She really didn’t need an encore of the “Cutie Mark Crusaders Undertakers!”.
As much as she would like to chuckle at the memory of the fillies’ horrified faces at her explanation of what she did for a living, it hadn’t been at all pleasant. Rarity had been correct on it, they needed a trusted member of their families to explain to them what death was, not the one of a slightly crazed and really lonely and shy mare.
She made her way to the market, where the “early birds” were opening up their shops and setting up their stands. She just stood there for a couple of minutes, just outside the real Ponyville, watching intently at the ground, mentally preparing herself. She checked over her saddlebags, the pouch of bits, the state of her hooves, her untamed mane, before sighing in frustration of herself and just walking to where she needed. Groceries weren’t going to shop themselves, would they? Maybe she would even be able to make a friend other than Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie for once.
That was her mindset, until her gaze crossed with the one of Big McIntosh and all her resolve went to the ground. Her gray cheeks reddened and she looked again to the ground, until she recovered her courage again, only to see him going away, to Sweet Apple Acres, after leaving his sister, Applejack, attending the apple stand. Resolve completely gone, she walked to the carrot stand, where Golden Harvest sold her three dozen of her famous carrots, to which she was slightly addicted, but other than the price of the product and the “thank you, come back again”, Golden hadn’t said anything to her. Same proceedings went with almost all the sellers, and she couldn’t help but feel somewhat disheartened at her fails.
Her family had told her before, time and time again, that she was pushing herself into a corner, what with her election of career and her decision of abandoning Marexico to “find the dream” in Equestria. First thing she had done reaching Canterlot was to change her name, for the sake of her future clients. And so, “Polvo del atardecer” had died to give place to Sunset Dust. After that, she has asked to be sent to a small town, where hopefully she would be able to make friends and live a peaceful life.
The peaceful part was true. She had been able to set up shop in Ponyville three years ago, after the owner of the Funeral House had retired to live with his family in Manehattan. And everyday was as idyllic as the former, the sun shined, the birds sang, the breeze blew and everypony worked and smiled. Things looked almost as happy as Utrotpia had been, when she read that book in high school.
There had even been a very pink mare who had gasped at seeing her, and had, literally, ran away from her to ask Mayor Mare about who she was and what she had come here to do. In a place as small as Ponyville, the information traveled really fast, and by the time Dust had reached the Funeral House, she had found a really subdued young Pinkie, whose mane seemed to have deflated slightly, tearing up a bit, waiting for her outside the building, saddlebags almost bursting full of party implements.
Pinkie then had introduced herself, walked slowly inside Dust’s new house and sat down on her haunches, seemingly reliving something traumatic in her past.
They had partied in the Funeral House, just the two of them, as Pinkie tearfully remembered all good things she had done with Granny Pie, her mane going “pomf” at seeing the new mare in town smiling. Dust had discovered early in her career, one of the best ways of coping with a loss, or healing a wound, was for the pony in question to do what they loved to, to exercise their special talent so to speak. And making others smile was Pinkie’s special talent.
Remembering that, the mare smiled and walked into Sugarcube Corner, in order to buy a box of muffins and cupcakes, but the presence of patrons already inside the shop made her retreat into herself again, the gazes making her feel like that sweet mare, Ditzy Doo, and remember that other part of what Ponyville was to her.
Nopony liked to be associated to somepony who worked with death.
In such a small town, deaths were quite infrequent, making Dust grateful for the fact, not because it gave her less work and more time for herself, which she didn’t have anyway, but because death is always a painful thing, both to the pony dying, which she rarely saw, and to their families and friends, the pain she was familiar with. In the three years she had stood in Ponyville, struggling not only with her poor hang of language but with all the other problems of being an outcast too, only five dead ponies had been under her care. Three of them had been really old ponies, and their families had been grateful for her assistance and helpfulness, and most especially for her special talent. She liked to help ponies cope, she liked to comfort.
But the other two were a different story altogether, and for the families of those, a really young foal and an adult stallion, she was nothing but a remainder of the cruelty of life. It didn’t matter what she had tried to do, all the things she had prepared so they didn’t have to suffer more, she was shunned for what she was, looked as morbid and degenerate.
"Uh... Excuse me" a meek voice said behind her, making Dust notice she had been standing in front of the door for more than a couple of seconds, and she turned around to apologize, only to find Fluttershy, almost curled in the doorway.
"Oh, sorry about that" she apologized anyway and Fluttershy seemed to perk at the sound of her voice, seemingly recognizing it.
A couple of weeks after she had come to he town, she found herself in the middle of her first work. But it hadn’t been on a pony. She had been just taking a little walk near the Everfree forest, when she had seen the yellow pegasus, walking really slowly, carrying on her back what Dust could say at first sight was a dead bunny.
No explanations whatsoever were needed. Dust had run all the way back to her own house, recovered a piece of red velvet, her coat and top hat, fixed her mane the best way she could and ran back to the mare, who didn’t appear to have moved at all since she left. After that, Dust had levitated the bunny off the back of the mare onto her own back and wrapped it into the velvet. Fluttershy seemed bewildered at first, but she was smart and soon understood what the stranger meant. Both had walked solemnly to a point just outside the forest, where the pegasus was used to bury her animal friends. It was just the sad fact that their lives were way shorter than any pony’s.
Dust had used her magic to open a hole in the earth, and deposited the bunny inside it. She had insisted Fluttershy hoof a bit of soil into the hole, and after that, left all the soil she had taken out fall into the hole again, leaving a rabbit-sized mound behind. And they had spent the afternoon together drinking tea and talking about all the wonderful things that particular rabbit had done in his life.
Since then, every time Fluttershy needed to bury another friend, she knew Dust wouldn’t see it as a loss of time, and the help was welcomed. Dust had fought a lot to get the pegasus to ask for her help every time. Fluttershy hated to get in anypony’s way.
And so, Dust got out of her way. Bought her pastries and went back outside.
The sun was already up by the time she had finished her shopping, the foals in school and most adults working, and she decided to took a bit of an extended break, sitting on the grass out of the ponies’ ways.
She loved it there, where ponies didn’t care about her hemophobia, her tendency to be obsessive about numbers and counting, her sarcasm when talking to somepony; in short, where nopony cared about her defects. Of course, there was the fact that almost nopony cared about her at all, period, but in a day like that, after feeling down for most of the morning, she just stopped worrying.
"Uhmm..." a small voice said at her side, and she turned just fast enough to see a unicorn filly sitting by her left.
"Hello, little one..." she greeted, as politely and kindly as she could, almost sensing the waves of sadness this filly seemed to emanate.
The little one was a grayish shade of lilac, her mane and eyes golden-yellow. She knew she had seen her in other place before.
"You are the one who buried my nana" the filly said, matter-of-fact-ly, and Dust would have facehoofed if the situation wasn’t as tense. She had been the only filly present in the last burial, and she and a young mare had stuck her as weird, seeing all the other attendants were pegasi, and they unicorns.
"Yes, I am" Dust answered gently, trying to test how to help this filly. It was quite obvious something was wrong for her, beginning for the fact that she was not in school at school hours. "Is there something wrong?" she asked, once the silence had stretched too far for comfort.
"My mom. She had more accidents after that. I hear her crying in the night sometimes, but I don’t know if it’s because she misses my nana or because everypony makes fun of her." the filly said in a voice devoid of emotion, but Sunset Dust could still see the tears fighting to come out from her eyes. That made her cringe, not only because it was never easy to see a foal crying, but because she had taken part, as accidental as it had been, in the bullying towards the mare. Honestly, she hadn’t known her name wasn’t Derpy, it was just what she had heard everypony calling her, and even after Fluttershy had explained her that while "Derpy" was a nickname someponies used to make fun of the mare, it had been originally a term of endearment. But she still couldn’t watch the mare to the eye after calling her Derpy to her face. Nevermind her strabismus, she had had a friend like that back in Marexico and it wasn’t that big of a deal.
"And your... err... the other unicorn with you?" Dust asked, since she had seen both fillies had been together for most the ceremony.
"Sparkler?" the filly asked, looking at her for the first time since the conversation began. The mare nodded, almost sure they were talking about the same pony "My sis told me not to worry. She said mom will be alright in time."
"But you don’t believe so"
"No! And I don’t know why they won’t tell me!" at last, the filly snapped, tears finally falling down her cheeks. Dust sighed, relieved. It was way worst when ponies kept their feelings to themselves. "Dad won’t tell me, Mom won’t tell me and Sparkler won’t tell me!" by then, the filly had moved closer to the mare, as if instinctively seeking comfort, which the mare automatically gave. Pulling her close, she hugged the filly who, although stiff and reluctant at the beginning, soon relaxed and cried herself until she had no more tears.
"Do you feel better?" Dust asked the filly once she heard her sniffing for third time. The filly nodded, seemingly tired after half an hour of crying "Do you want to know why they won’t tell you?" she asked, earning another nod. "It’s because they are worried about you. Your family loves you too much to let you stop being a foal. Ponies have a lot of responsibilities they take so no foals have to have them, so foals can play and smile and be happy. But sometimes adult ponies forget the little ones are not blind, and trying to protect them, they end up hurting them worst. So, they are just trying to protect you, because you help them by being you, smiling and making them feel everything is going to be alright." Dust knew it appeared she was lecturing the foal, and that, surely, she had made a few mistakes wording that, but the look of understanding in the eyes of the filly helped her knowing the unicorn had understood what she was trying to tell her.
"But I want to help" the filly said and Dust chuckled for the first time since they had beginning to talk.
"Let me tell you a story: There was once a little filly who couldn’t do anything like it was supposed to be. She was bad at speaking, she couldn’t remember dates, she couldn’t even remember she had to pay attention to the kettle when it was over the stove. Almost nopony liked the filly, because she was useless. But she had a friend, a little colt who loved the filly as if she was his sister, and he always played with her, because nopony else knew how to take care of his pet cat but the filly and the colt.
One day, the filly ran to where her friend was, but found him crying in his room, looking at the window through which he could see his backyard. She learned the pet cat had died and his father had buried it there. The filly didn’t know what to do, so she just stood there by the colt’s side, sitting on his bed with him. The colt wanted, after a few hours, to play with the filly, and she accepted, and they played all the games they had with the cat. They raced after the mouse toy, they jumped after the feathers in a string and they had rolled on the carpets of the living room. They shared stories about the cat, how they played with it, how they had to fight it so it bathed... and by the end of the day, when the filly had to return home, the colt hugged her and gave her thanks, because she had helped him feel less sad about his cat dying. And she felt happy because she had helped him."
"The filly helped the colt just doing what she did everyday?" the real filly asked and the mare nodded.
"Yes, you just have to do what you do everyday. That will help your mom, because she will see you are fine, and that means everything is fine for all." she then looked the filly straight to the eye and smiled "I know you miss your nana too, just keep on remembering all the good things you did with her, that way you will keep her alive in your heart, remember her happy face so you can smile too and more than everything, keep on your mind that nothing is your fault" Dust said, covering up all the other points she had said to any other client before, so the filly would know them before she had to go for lunch.
The filly nodded and galloped to the borders of the town, where Dust could just see, Ditzy was waiting for her. Neither said goodbye, waved or acknowledged her before going away
"That goes for you as well" she said to the presence she had felt before behind them, which she was sure was the father of the filly.
"I don’t know what are you talking about" a stallion’s voice said, before the pony entered her field of vision, just sitting besides her where all she could see of him was a vague blur of brown.
"Of course you do, “Time Turner”" she said, barely avoiding raising her hooves to remark the quotations in her voice. "You have the gaze of an embalming student in the first year, the one that says they are done with seeing death just before they abandon the school. And I might not know how it works with you, but if I’m sure of something, just by seeing you with your family, is that things had not been your fault, but what I say will fall on deaf ears anyway until you forgive yourself." she said, before standing up and walking to her store, where she entered without looking back at the reaction the stallion had to her words.
Author's Note
I wrote this a little while ago, after one of my students lost her grandmother. This is, more or less, the conversation we had over it. After seeing death was not one of the points of a children's life the series covers, I tried to write something that could help them. But I know every person goes through a different process of mourning, so this may not apply to the reader. It's always better to search for professional help.
I would be really grateful to receive any kind of feedback. English is not my native language and it would be really appreciated if my mistakes are corrected. Thanks for reading!
