Celestia bellowed while she ran out the first exit she saw and dove into a corner in the back of the room. Trying to curl into a fetal position she shuddered and looked at her surroundings. She had dashed into the kitchen, with all the sharp knives, the oven, mommy’s slicer was sitting on the counter top above her…Nope!
She screamed even louder and ran back into the living room, past mommy and Luna, up the stairs into her bed room and leaped under the bed. There she prayed to whatever god watched over naughty fillies afraid for their lives.
** ** **
Luna watched most of her performance with looks ranging from shock at her initial reaction to utmost confusion at her instance to dart past them upstairs. Lauren was surprised at first too, then concerned and finally worried about her elder daughter. This was certainly a mommy issue, so she turned to Luna.
“It looks like Tia’s not going. You go to Chrysalis’s and have fun. I’m going to talk to your silly sister.”
“Okay. Bye mommy!” She hugged her legs and trotted out the door looking at the rainbow she had admired seconds ago.
“Don’t trip into any puddles honey!” Lauren called before closing the door.
Walking into Celestia’s room the first thing you would notice was the cloud on blue backdrop wallpaper, then it’s usually the toys scattered across the floor if Lauren didn’t convince her to pick them up yesterday. The first thing she noticed was a little white rump and pink tail sticking out from under the bed. She leaned down next to them and heard crying. “Celestia? What’s wrong sweetie?”
An unintelligible string of sniffles and wails came from under the bed. “Celestia, are you going to come out from there?”
She heard more sobbing and answered back, “Okay, I’ll just come down.” And she did climb onto her belly and poked her head under the pink throw cover to see her little girl’s hooves over her face. Celestia would never admit it but she was deathly afraid of the dark and always tried to spark her horn to give herself light. She was not doing it now, which made Lauren even more concerned. “Oh my baby.”
She wrapped her wing around Celestia from outside their hiding place and tried to draw her close. Normally both her girls willingly let themselves be pulled in like this but this time she remained stubbornly rooted in place. So she leaned closer and nuzzled her face and started humming a tune she had not sung in ages. It felt good to visit an old favorite like this, and after the second chorus Celestia had buried her muzzle into Lauren’s neck. By the time their song was done Celestia was still crying but stopped shaking.
“There, there. Mommy’s got you. Are you ready to come out from under here?”
“I-I don’t wanna make cupcakes!” Her cries were magnified much louder in an enclosed space like this. The sudden outburst caused Lauren to pull her head back and smack it against the bed frame.
“Okay.” Her ears rang and crown of head ached but she still smiled genuinely. “You won’t make cupcakes.”
“I don’t want Luna made into cupcakes either…” she explained breaking down again.
“What? Mommy didn’t understand you. What was that?”
“I’ll clean my room. I’ll stop picking on Luna. I’ll never read a book from your shelf again. Just don’t let Luna go make cupcakes.”
“Sweetie, Luna already left-“ she spoke utterly confused.
“NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Lauren bumped her head and her ears rang again. “I want her back! Don’t let her go! I don’t want Luna made into cupcakes. Waa haa haa…”
Lauren buried her into her neck again and tried to talk calmly. Her aches made that difficult. “What do you mean, ‘made into cupcakes’”?
Celestia poked her head out and slowly explained. “P-Pinkie Pie <sniff> told Rainbow Dash to help her make <shudder> cupcakes. Then she cut Rainbow up and made her into cupcakes. Like Gilda, and Silver Spoon! And I don’t want Luna made into cupcakes!” Her pitch raising the whole time.
Her eyes were overflowing with tears but she kept eye contact with her mom as she finally understood the situation.
“Oh, my poor baby.” She nuzzled her again. “Listen, look at me. It’s just a story. It’s not real. No-one is going to be made into a cupcake. Chrysalis is your friend. She would never do that to you or Luna or any-one. Do you believe me?”
Celstia just sniffed and held eye contact.
“I’m not mad at you. I’m very worried about what has you so upset. And now I’m scared that you will be hurt because of this. Celestia, it’s not real. I would never let something like that happen to you or your sister. Do you believe me now?”
Celestia nodded and again buried her head into Lauren’s neck. “I know you wouldn’t let that happen mommy.”
Lauren kissed her head again. “Good. There’s no reason to be scared now, is there?”
“But-but I still am.” Celestia cried.
Her mom thought a while then came up with an idea. “Would you like to help make cupcakes with me? Add whatever you want and we can call them Celestia Cupcakes and eat them all. Does that sound fun?”
Tia looked scared but remained silent and still.
“Sunshine, you have to face your fears. You can’t let a silly story ruin cake for you. Right?”
She whispered, “Okay.” Rising to her hooves timidly she backed up and finally climbed out from under her bed while mom had to wiggle a little bit. Finally pulling her head out into the open air she saw Celestia’s hair was full of cobwebs and hers must be too.
“Can I borrow one of your brushes?” She nodded then an aura of red magic embraced two brushes sitting on Tia’s bureau and floated to each of their heads. Celestia relaxed once knots and tangles started coming undone. She would need a bath tonight. Laruen thought about how she had not changed too much from when she was a young filly; two years old and all it took was hug to stop whatever ailment she had. She looked so peaceful right now…
With her mane looking new and free of cobwebs, she asked Celestia what she wanted on her cupcakes.
“Chocolate!”
“Sounds good. Mommy likes chocolate too.”
“And mmm…” she thought for a second. “Mmmmbananas!”
“Do you like bananas?”
“I want banana frosting!” She proclaimed as they walked down the stairs.
“How about banana cupcakes and chocolate frosting?”
“Yeah!” She darted into the kitchen and went straight for the fruit bowl where there were indeed bananas.
“Calm down kiddo. One step at a time.”
** ** **
“And now you add the cocoa powder. You could put it on them right now but with the cocoa powder the frosting becomes chocolate. And you mix it using a whip to put more air.”
“Uhh-hu.” Celestia leaned in close. The cupcakes with banana, dandelions from the yard and hot sauce were cooling on top of the hoof towels mom set out. They still needed frosting and the cherry on top, or pineapple pieces. The two of them whisked and spread the frosting across their cakes, giggled as they took turns stealing pineapple pieces and made silly faces when Celestia declared they needed pictures. Celestia never had so much fun in the kitchen; she was grinning like an addict getting their fix.
“Are they ready mommy?”
“Eat one and tell me.”
Celestia jumped onto the counter-top, light up her horn and levitated one to her mouth before biting into one. She laughed as she chewed and nearly spit it out.
“Eww. Why did you say hot sauce mommy!?”
“Why did you say yes?” They laughed again as Lauren took one for herself. Tia was right; too much hot sauce.
“Mommy, what was that song you were singing?” Celestia asked.
“What song sweetheart?”
“The song you were humming when we were under the bed. I don’t know it.”
“Hmm. Oh, do you mean this one?” She started humming the beautiful tune again.
“Yeah. What is it?”
“Well honey, it’s called ‘You are my sunshine.’ When you were born it had been raining for a week before, and it would keep raining afterwards. I flew myself to the hospital, there was no-one to hold my hoof.” She sighed. It’s always difficult to think about this time in her life. “There were a lot of things going wrong in mommy’s life. But…I had the most beautiful filly in the world in my hooves. She was the greatest thing to happen to me, and she was like the sun. It was dark, cold, lonely, but all it took was one little ray to change all that.
She hung her head, unable to look at her daughter. “No-one had made me feel so…loved and important. And a song just poured out of me. I rocked you to sleep for the first time singing it. Every-time you were hungry, crying, sleepy, or I needed a smile I would sing to you. And you have always been my sunshine ever since.” She leaned down and kissed Celestia on the forehead.
“Why don’t you sing it any-more?”
“One night you climbed into my bed because you had trouble sleeping. I tried singing it but YOU said you were too old for nursery rhymes. So I stopped. I also stopped calling you Sunshine.”
Celestia drew Lauren into a hug. “Mommy, can you teach me the song?”
She sniffled before answering, “Of course darling.”
Her soft docile tones filled the kitchen as she held her daughter close:
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away…
The other night dear, while I lay sleeping,
I dreamt I held you in my arms.
When I awoke dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried…
I'll always love you,
and make you happy.
If you will only say the same.
But if you leave me,
to love another,
You'll regret it all someday.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away.
Please don’t take my sunshine away.
Please don’t take my sunshine away…
Holding each other, Celestia had never felt as close to her mother as she did now. And mom was reminded again of the first time she held a scared filly in her hooves. They both had tears running down their muzzles by the time the kitchen fell silent.
But they weren’t the only one’s crying: an even smaller midnight blue blank-flank filly was silently watching them from the door way from the moment mommy asked what song Tia had mentioned. Luna had watched them and had been left out. Now her mind was racing with possibilities.
Tia’s her only sunshine? What about me? Don’t I make her happy? She said Tia’s the most beautiful filly in the world. Not me? Don’t I tell her I love her enough? Wasn’t having me important to her? Why doesn’t she ever sing to me? What did I do wrong?
She nearly called out to confront her mother, but decided against it. Turning around Luna skulked away, her mother and sister still none the wiser to her presence. She snuck up to her bedroom and closed the door gently behind her. Crawling onto her bed she buried her head into the pillow and cried.