Very rarely in her adult life- -which was unnaturally long due to the power of the Derp- -had Derpy been so stuffed. In fact, she felt so swollen that she might be carrying two foals at least- -to the point she was concerned that all the food she ate might push out the foal that was actually inside her.
Cadence, it seemed, was fabulously wealthy, as all unicorns were. Supposedly. She had bought Derpy a great deal of food. All of it, of course, was exceedingly healthy. There had been no muffins at all. In addition to being rich, Cadence seemed to be highly knowledgeable about what was good for pregnant mares, stating repeatedly that the foods she was filling Derpy with were necessary the development of large, healthy wings. Derpy had not even had a chance to say that her daughter was a unicorn, and that if she did come out with wings, that would be a case of divine birth.
Today had been a strange day indeed. Derpy had failed to murder Fluttershy- -unless the mare had died of a heart-attack, which with how loud she had screamed was probably likely- -and then had almost got sent to the glue factory, only to be stuffed with beans and carrots by a tall pink unicorn who was weirdly hairless.
She turned the corner in her house and nearly tripped over something warm and relatively soft. She looked down to see a pale, sickly blue unicorn in a cape and hat. The unicorn stared up at her with sunken eyes and reached out weakly, trying to stand but finding herself unable. “Help…me!” she whispered.
“Oh. Hello there! You must be one of Sparkler’s friends! Let me just- -step over you- -there!” Derpy walked past the young mare and into her living room. She almost jumped when she saw Sparkler there; she had grown used to Sparkler never being home.
“Sparkler!” she said. “You’re here- -wait. What is that?”
Sparkler had tried to hiding a pamphlet, but Derpy, despite her eye condition, had seen it. She had excellent peripheral vision.
“Nothing.”
“No, I’m not falling for that again!” The pale unicorn grabbed her rear hoof, pleading quietly, and Derpy shook her off. “Nothing unusual happens in this house without me noticing!”
Sparkler sighed, and then produced the pamphlet. “It’s literature.”
“You read literature? Oh, I’m so proud!”
“Not that kind of literature, mom.” Sparkler paused, and then sighed deeply. “It’s from the captain of the soldiers that were going through town. It’s about how to enlist in the Royal Guard.”
Derpy gasped, and Sparkler levitated the pamphlet. Derpy took it, and saw that it was filled entirely with pictures and no words, apart from the front. The title was “So You Want to be Cannon Fodder”.
“Sparkler! You- -you can’t!” cried Derpy, suddenly terrified. “Why would you- -you don’t want to- -”
“I wouldn’t be able to be part of the castle guard,” said Sparkler, her eyes not wavering from her mother’s. “I’m not white. So I’d be in a colored battalion.”
“And you’d get stationed out at the border with YakYakistan! No! You can’t! Do you know what they do to mares they catch out there?!” Derpy shivered. “They’ll through you in the goulash!”
“You mean ‘gulag’.”
“No! The goulash! It’s like a big soup! Made of snow! Trust me, I’ve seen it, when I was stationed there!”
“That’s not- -wait. When were you- -”
“Up until my forties, before I went to college and had you. My little muffin!” Derpy approached Sparkler and put her hoof on the girl’s face. She was so young- -and yet taller than Derpy was by several inches. She smelled like fried food, because she worked so hard- -and thinking about that made Derpy very sad.
“Mom. I’ve done the math, and I’ve worked it all out. The diner won’t give me any more hours. I’m making at best four bits a day. I consume more than I produce. All simulations and contingencies indicate that I am an economic burden.”
“Don’t say that! DON’T!”
“Even if it’s true? If I go there, you won’t need to support me, and the money I make will be almost double what I make at the diner. I can send it back. To help you and my sister.”
“But- -but- -Sparkler! You can’t!”
Sparkler was emotionless. Or at least appeared that way. To her, this was math. It was the only option, and there was no point in feeling sad about it. Yet she did. This was not at all what she wanted, but there was no other way. “I have to.”
Derpy wrapped her front legs around Sparkler’s side. “NO! I won’t let you!”
“I don’t need your permission. Not technically. But…” She sighed. “I had hoped…”
“NO!” Derpy was crying now. “You can’t!”
“You’re hormonal,” said Sparkler. She was gaslighting, and knew it. But that was the only way to get this done. “The emotions you are feeling aren’t real. If you think about this, we can approach this calmly- -”
“Don’t leave me!” Sobbed Derpy. “Don’t leave me alone! I don’t want to be alone!”
The logical, organized hierarchy that made up Sparkler’s mind suddenly began to break down. This path was correct. She had done the math, consulted the lists- -but hearing the pain in her mother’s voice made her realize that it was also wrong. This was not something she had ever encountered before, and it terrified her.
“Mom- -”
“You’re all I have!” wailed Derpy. “Everything else in my life is horse plops! Because I messed it all up! And now I messed this up too- -and you’re leaving because of me- -and it- -it’s ALL MY FAULT!”
Sparkler slowly raised one hoof and hugged her sobbing mother. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s just the way it is.”
They hugged for several minutes, both crying. One had killed to save her family, and one would leave that family behind to try to save it.
Then a knock came at the door. Both the mares looked up, confused, and slowly walked to it, stepping over the anemic mare that Sparkler was using as a living battery, with Sparkler only stopping to move her a few feet back in the house to make sure she could not crawl her way to the door.
“I see you fixed the hinges,” said Derpy, sniffling slightly.
“Yeah,” said Sparkler, her voice sounding distant. “I managed to find some glue.”
Derpy shivered, knowing how close she had come to making glue herself- -and opened the door.
Cadence was standing there, smiling, and holding a veritable crate of healthy food in her magic.
“Hi there!” she said. “I thought you might get hungry later, so I got some extra vegtables so your daughter grows some nice big wings and- -and…” She trailed off, looking at the two red-eyed, puffy mares. “Am I interrupting something.”
“No. We were just crying,” said Sparkler. “What with our lives being destroyed by poverty and all.”
Derpy elbowed her.
“Oh,” said Cadence. Her expression fell. Neither Sparkler nor Derpy knew it, but in that moment Cadence vowed that when she finally slew Celestia and claimed a kingdom of her own, she would create a world where no pony would experience deprivation. “Oh…well…” She lifted the box. “I have vegetables? Nothing dries tears like…an eggplant…” She sighed. This was not working at all.
Yet Derpy still smiled. “Sparkler, this is Cadence. She’s a really nice pony!”
“Hello,” said Sparkler, extending her hoof. “I’m Sparkler. I’m her daughter.”
Cadence blinked. “Wow. Sparkler? You know, you look a LOT like another Sparkle that I used to babysit.”
“I know. The pervert I met earlier seemed to be implying the same thing.”
Cadence did not know what this meant, but she extended her hoof in greeting. Their appendages tapped, and Cadence immediately felt her magic falter. Suddenly, she felt extremely weak, as though something were draining her (unlimited) life-force.
At the same time, Sparkler suddenly started vibrating. Small blue sparks began to rise off her.
“What the- -no- -NO!” Her eyes went wide and she pointed at Cadence in pure terror. She screamed. “VIRGIN!”
At that moment the life force of an immortal alicorn virgin overloaded Sparkler’s harvesting spell. She sped backward so fast that she left a set of blazing hoofprints through the front hall of her house, impacting the walls of space-time with so much force that space itself buckled and snapped. In an instant, she was gone, leaving only a scent of ozone and fried food.
Still feeling weak, Cadence blushed. “Well, you don’t need to announce it to the entire town,” She muttered. Then she blinked, watching as the temporal distortion puckered back up and closed. “Um…is that normal?”
“I don’t think so,” said Derpy, watching where Sparkler had been and the flaming tracks she had left. “But she’ll be fine. She’s a good kid.”
Derpy was suddenly pushed to the side. With Sparkler gone, the blue unicorn mare was making her escape, clawing her way forward on her front hooves while the back were apparently still mostly paralyzed.
“FREEDOM!” she wheezed, pulling her way down the front stoop and pat the garden to the street. “Trixie has her FREEDOM!”
Cadence and Derpy both watched her go in silence, very confused.
“So,” said Derpy at last. “Do you want some muffins?”