The Bakehouse Trio: Mouse Baker (438-500, 500-541), Lily Melon (461-500, 500-541) and Melon Pie (483-500, 500-541) · 4:22am Aug 21st, 2016
Three of the less famous inhabitants of Sunney Towne, in part because there was nothing evil in them, and in part because Ruby helped them Pass On before the end of the Century of Darkness.
Mouse Baker (lived 438-500, remained 500-541)
Kind: Earth Pony. Sex: Male. Born YOH 438. Died: 500. Rose: 500. Passed: 541.
Coat: Gray. Mane: Golden Brown, tied back in a queue. Eyes: Dark Brown.
Mark: Black-outlined mouse in a light brown loaf of bread. Talent: Baking.
Appearance: Small, sleek, mild-mannered and sometimes rather nervous seeming.
Personality: Kind, caring, a bit soft-hearted and at times easily intimidated, but loyal to his friends.
Motivation: Love for his wife and child, loyalty to friends, desire to make other Ponies happy by baking them tasty treats.
Relationships: Wife Lily Melon, adoptive daughter Melon Pie, friends with pretty much all the Ponies of Sunney Towne, especially Grey Hoof, Mitta Gift and Ruby Gift.
History: Born in Pie Towne; at age 13 in 451 earned his Cutie Mark in a baking accident that ruined a loaf of bread and ended the life of an unfortunate mouse. At 18 in 456 he married the smart but sharp-tongued Hazel Locks, but their first child was stillborn in 462 and Hazel died in childbirth in 467, when Mouse was 29.
In 476 he joined the settlement of Sunney Towne. Diffident and now in his late thirties, Mouse was not the sort of Pony who set maidens' hearts aquiver. But young Lily Melon (461-500), then but fifteen, adored the kindly baker. She had loved the sweet rolls he would bake her when she was a small filly, and as she grew to marehood she felt another sort of sweetness for him. She more or less seduced him, and in 478, when he was 40, he wed the 17-year-old mare.
Whether by accident or design, the baker put no buns in Lily's oven, though it was said he plied his spatula most diligently within. Lily did not seem to mind, but loyally loved her middle-aged husband. She continued to grow her sweet flowers and sweet produce, and gave the best of her sweetness to Mouse Baker. And the baker and his wife lived lovingly together for the remaining 22 years of their lives.
In 485, they took in Lily's orphaned first cousin, Melon Pie (483-500, 500-541); and apprenticed her to both their trades, and made a happy family for the rest of their lives. Then, in 491, he had his moment of heroism when he joined in the rescue of Mitta Gift and her daughter Ruby from brigands.
Which unfortunately was not to be very long. Things grew increasingly uncomfortable for the Marked Mouse Baker in the last few years of Sunney Towne, but he stuck to his bakehouse, back of the town with enough separation from the main houses so that no fire starting there could spread. The village needed him and his oven.
Come the Summer Sun Celebration of 500, Grey Hoof put his oven to a use the gentle baker had not contemplated in his worst nightmares. Utterly broken by what happened, he watched numbly as the celebration continued, not daring to oppose Grey Hoof or tend the oven.
It is not obvious if the sanity -- or health -- of Mouse Baker, now 62, would ever have recovered from the horrible use to which Grey Hoof had put his poor innocent oven. He made no attempt to flee the village, and Lily and Melon stuck loyally by him, tending to the shattered baker as he sat by his bakehouse.
They were, all three of them, still sitting there, when the grief-maddened Nightmare Moon annihilated them, the bakehouse, and the whole town in a few seconds of fantastic violence inconceivable to three rustic Ponies who had not even heard of the theoretical destructiveness of ionic bolts and gravity lances. And their ghosts haunted Sunney Towne ...
... until Ruby figured out how to help all three of them to Pass On.
Which is why you don't know them. They never slew anypony, nor did a single truly evil thing in their lives.
But you've all seen Mouse Baker's bakehouse or oven, if you're conversant with the Story of the Blanks.
Because that's where the last life left an unconscious Ruby Gift. And it's where, every night after her murder, she respawns.
Apple Bloom has recurring nightmares about the place.
Which is a bit sad, because in their lives, the trio made it a place of love and joy together.
Lily Melon (461-500, 500-541)
Kind: Earth Pony. Sex: Female. Born: YOH 461. Died: 500. Rose: 500. Passed: 541.
Coat: White. Mane: Long two-toned pink and red hair, worn in a ponytail. Eyes: Pink.
Mark: Adult Blank-Flank. Talent: Sweetness, extending to both growth and preparation.
Appearance: A plump, pretty, sweet-faced mare in early middle age, almost always with a warm smile. Under her excess flesh she is quite muscular -- Melon is a hard-working Pony.
Personality: Sweet, kind, loving and warm. Very much in love with Mouse Baker. Protective of her adoptive daughter Melon Pie.
Motivation: Loyalty to her husband and little family. Kindness to other Ponies. She likes to create sweetness.
Relationships: Husband Mouse Baker, adoptive daughter Melon Pie, friends with everypony in the village.
History: When still a small filly, she decided that Mouse Baker was one Pony she could always trust to be good to her. When his wife Hazel died, she decided that she would be his wife one day. She achieved this goal, giving herself to him in 477 and marrying him in 478, and since then has enjoyed a happy marriage with him. It is in part because of her obvious love and loyalty toward Mouse that he is envied in Sunney Towne.
Melon Pie (483-500, 500-541)
Kind: Earth Pony. Sex: Female. Born: YOH 483. Died: 500. Rose: 500. Passed: 541.
Coat: Light Green. Mane: Red, naturally curly and puffy, generally worn tied back in a long tail. Eyes: Blue.
Mark: Adult Blank-Flank. Talent: Sweet Service, mostly through baking pies.
Appearance: A plump, pretty and muscular teenaged filly, almost full-grown mare. Wide-eyed and rather innocent-looking.
Personality: Bubbly, friendly, maybe a bit air-headed and silly, but means well.
Motivation: Loves her adoptive parents. Wants to find the right stallion and get married, though she wouldn't mind having some fun on the way. Sadly, she will never get married in this life.
Relationships: Adoptive parents Mouse Baker and Lily Melon.
History: Melon was orphaned at 2, too young to clearly remember her real parents. She's grown up in the care of a very loving married couple and would like the same fate for herself. Neither the best judge of character nor a model of self-restraint, she lost her maidenhood to a traveling minstrel in 499, but still hopes to make a decent marriage.
Instead, she dies in 500, punished for a crime she at most witnessed in utter horror, just like the rest of her family.
Comments: These three are in many ways typical of most of the population of Sunney Towne in the YOH 500. Since then, some -- like this trio -- have passed on.
Others still drift between the trees, awaiting their final releases.
It's good to know that Ruby has some successes under her belt. I had suspected that her mission might be hopeless, at least without assistance from Luna herself, but these three show that there's a way for at least some of the Sunney Towners. And if there's a way, surely Ruby of all ponies can find it.
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Yes. This also reminds me that not all the Sunney Towne Ponies were ever truly evil. Many were cowed by the charismatic and violently-insane Grey Hoof and his worse son, Gladstone.
As FOME said, it's heartwarming to see that Ruby has convinced some of the Sunny Town ghosts to llet go of their cursed existence.