Certain Advice
Chapter 6: Certain Advice
When Carrot slapped his forehead with his hoof, he was careful to avoid the dollop of frosting that still sat on his nose.
For the first time that morning, something had gone wrong, something that threatened their creation.
The silver package, wrapped tightly with bows and shimmering paper, stood before them on the table. This was a problem, as they had meant for it to be discovered when the gingerbread house was eaten.
In short, they both realized as they looked at one another with long looks of concern, they had messed up.
Cup Cake brought him the two long stanchions, her decisiveness coming into play. To their annoyance, their hoofwork had been too good. The foundation had already set, their prowess with the frosting working against them.
As they set the gingerbread carefully upon the twin stanchions, they made sure that it supported the structure, that the walls were now taking the entire weight of the gingerbread house.
With that, she passed him a fine-toothed knife, and he went to work removing the foundation.
Carrot's practiced hooves sat the knife against the seam of frosting that held the walls to the foundation. The entirety of the project was now on the line, and together they would have decisions to make if they were to save it.
He looked up to her. With a nod she told him to press on, and her mind went back to another time she had made a decision…
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"And we'll have browns, and reds, and oranges, and it there will be pumpkins and cornstalks and we'll go bobbing for apples and have a hay wagon ride. Oh, hey! Where are we going to get a wagon? Do any of our neighbors have wagons we could borrow? Oh! Oh, oh, oh! We could have the neighbors come too! But, wait, if they have wagons already then a wagon ride wouldn't be much fun, what could we ride instead… how about we ride their wagon and then we…"
Clyde sat at the dinner table and watched her go through yet another detailed, essentially breathless, description of a party she was planning.
They had never had a Nightmare Night party here on the farm. They had carved pumpkins, told a ghost story or two, had a few snacks… but then it was off to bed. There was work to be done, after all.
But these last few months since she had found her cutie mark had been different. Everything had become different. They were all different.
As their mother placed their dinner upon the table, Clyde was able to interrupt her implores long enough to make lead an Invoke, and soon she was once again pouring forth her ideas.
Clyde looked to Inkie and Blinkie, the two other fillies each showing supreme interest in their sister's vision.
Clyde stared down the length of the table, past where Pinkie waved enthusiastically as she named all sorts of autumnal ideas with which to festoon her celebration, and looked to where his wife sat and ate her small share of the meal.
Roxy caught his eyes upon her and gave him a small smile. She watched him give a big sigh, and soon a look of astounded exasperation went across his face.
Clyde waited as Roxy's reply came across the table, mouthed wordlessly over the continuing oration of their pink daughter. "It will be okay," she told him without words. "We'll get through it."
He smiled back to her. He knew she was right.
Still…
These last months had been happy, but it was not as though these weekly, and sometimes even more frequent, celebrations did not come at a cost. Autumn was a time for he and his fellow geoculturalists to begin gathering in their rocks, to harvest the magic of Equestria that had settled within them as the blessed sun had fallen over them during the summer.
A delay of a day may not mean much, but it did mean more work for him. And, he knew, he was not getting any younger.
Appropriately and prophetically, a single one of the grey hairs of his mane drifted down to his plate, blemishing his meal. He carefully removed it, looked at it for a second before laying it aside and returning to his supper.
The purpose of her mark, he realized, needed to reveal itself. There had to be some way for her to do so, or he would soon be fat with party food and bald from worry.
Pinkie's cheerful reflections soon faded as she ate, going up and down in time with however much food she was simultaneously trying to eat and voice her ideas.
"Pinkamena," her mother scolded in soft tones. "Now is the time for eating…"
"Okee dokee!" replied the filly, settling back into her seat as her two sisters giggled slightly and returned to their own meals.
Small conversation arose from around the table as the dry leaves of autumn floated around the farm, catching against the silo, the barn, and upon the very rocks that gave the farm its purpose.
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The city of Ponyville was alive in the warm evening as lights fell from the faces of pumpkins that bobbled with candlelight.
"Oh, look! That whole building is dressed up for Nightmare Night!" came the voice of one small pony. Carrot turned to look upon the next visitor to the shop.
He stood in the doorway; the double boiler disguised as a cauldron wherein stood the melted caramel. Apples stood impaled upon their sticks nearby, drying in the night air as he tried to find who would be the next to come and receive his offered treat.
The bakery had been dressed up. It looked more like a gingerbread house now and the change was permanent. The ploy had been Cupcake's idea of an advertisement.
He settled over three little figures that smiled at him. He looked to the older pony who was guiding them. As he did, an awareness jumped up at him.
As he removed the gauze from his face, he realized he was either looking at the very worst Princess Celestia costume in the history of Equestria or the very best Princess Cupcake costume that anypony could imagine.
He went with the latter.
He stared at the little colt and fillies who looked up to him with big smiles, then back to her. As a thousand questions shook through him, he looked to her, his puzzlement apparent even beneath his costume.
"This is Aunt Cupcake's good friend, Mr. Carrot Cake. What do you say?" she said.
"Nightmare Night, what a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!" chimed out the costumed trio. As they did, she smiled to him, her fake wings and horn bouncing around, and he back at her as the gauze once more slipped over his eyes.
"Oh, alrighty!" he replied. "Come over here and we'll make you up some apples!"
Cupcake watched contentedly as the foals gathered around him, as he showed them how to carefully cover the apple, spin it to give it an even coat.
With that he held the caramel apple up, let it sit on a nearby drying rack covered with appropriate decorations.
"So this is your shop?" asked the little colt cheerfully as he and his sisters selected their apples.
"Yup!" replied a Carrot Cake who beamed with pride. "Carrot Cake's Bakery Co., L.L.C., Inc!"
"That name's really stinko!" replied the colt.
"Careful for your apple," replied Carrot, his mummy costume hiding a scowl that he did not want Cupcake to see. She giggled as he looked to her and saw her adjusting her costume once more.
"You don't need to put the business cards on these," she said as he lifted the crown farther up her head and helped it settle, "save them for the paying customers, you know."
"Right," he agreed, his voice becoming softer as he gazed happily over the mare. "Sure thing, Princess Auntie Cupcake."
The two looked at one another and then down over the colt and fillies that jabbered excitedly as their creations came to life. Adding the business cards to the string that bound the completed caramel apple together had been Cupcake's idea, as was having him show off his confectionary skills here at his shop.
As dozens of happy Nightmare Night celebrants had trotted away from his bakery, he knew she had been right, as she had always been.
Soon the caramel apples were ready, and he wrapped them up and set them aside for the foals to pick up after the night celebrations were complete.
As the three foals met with friends who were soon to make apples of their own, Cupcake and Carrot smiled happily, each seeing how excited the foals had been.
He looked to Princess Cupcake once more and again helped her adjust herself. Their costumes were perfect metaphors. His was well done but not suited to him, hers an excellent idea but needing some touches. Between them both they knew that if the other had been involved, his practiced touch and her firm decisiveness, they would have turned out better.
"We should help each other with our costumes next year," he giggled as he lowered the gauze. "May-maybe even wear matching costumes."
"Yes, yes we should," she giggled.
As the sounds of the Nightmare Night celebration lifted beyond, the focus of the foals shifted there. At once he felt her hoof come to his mouth, dropping the gauze that stood there.
For a long second she lifted her kiss to him and then sheepishly turned to her nephew and nieces. Seeing them still distracted, she risked nuzzling beneath him, let the fake horn fall and wings shudder, and then moved out into the street again.
"You look good with kids. I mean you look like you're good with kids," he breathed.
"Yes, we do… are, I am," she answered, blushing at her subconscious selection of words.
He watched the four head off as a new group of foals gathered to his cauldron, saw her look back at him with a smile as they departed.
As he led the next group through making their apples, he thought about what she had just done. She had just introduced him to her family.
Well, kinda. She had chosen the word "friend," had not let on that they were involved. She had hidden her kiss from them. Why had she done that? He pondered this for a moment, only stopping when a shock of pain from hot caramel went up his foreleg.
Still, she had taken the risk, gone that much further. She had taken another step in "The Game of This." He searched the distance for her. As his imperfect princess disappeared into the crowd, he knew it was now his turn to give her a reason to offer more.
Time moved forward. As though it were a stage direction, time drove onward but the scene itself went largely unchanged. Only the final fall of the leaves as the hooves of the runners had pelted past showed the participants in the game that the world of the two principal actors was drawing closer together.
"Geez, mom," he whispered, "I told you she was coming…"
"I-I meant to straighten, get straightened up," began Cheesecake as she gave a small tremble and ran the brush across her coat in a worried motion. As she looked on, Carrot dumped various things into the hall closet.
"I did, did get a few things to eat, so we…so we could have a nice chat," she said, looking first to him and then back up to the door. A shadow across the nearby window showed the outline of a mare who waited patiently to be shown inside.
"It's okay mom, let me just get these put away," Carrot said as he placed more items within.
He turned to see his thin mother looking towards the door, her hoof to her mouth. Slowly, he walked to her and laid his head to hers.
"I-I don't want to embar…" she began.
"She's gonna love you, mom," he interrupted, "just be you and everything will be fine…"
With that, he opened the door, and Cupcake entered his childhood home.
The conversation went surprisingly well. Soon the two mares had made their introductions and were complimenting each other on how wonderfully their manes had been made up, how nicely the flowers were arranged, how beautiful the drapes were.
By the time they were discussing the best local hairdressers, pony pedicures, and all these other things that appealed to mares, Carrot had suddenly remembered that he was, in point of fact, a stallion. As such, that type of talk essentially made him wish for nothing more than the sweet release of death.
"I'll get us something to eat," he said as he stood and went to the kitchen. He trotted out into the old familiar space and looked in the cupboards. He found them shockingly bare. Soon, the jelly cupboard and the pantry too proved to be essentially empty.
Old worries went through his mind. In an instant he had thrown his head into the icebox.
It took him a second to realize that all that stood within was a box of baking soda, a rather old bottle of milk, and a tray of cheese with a few handfuls of crackers. He realized it was probably all that she had thought to make up.
"Oh mom," he whispered as some of the fears he had long had for her when he moved out came to life. Why was there no food? When had she last eaten a real meal?
He lifted the tray and brought it into the living room. "I'm just gonna run out for a second." he said, "Grab some things. I'll be right back."
He realized that the mares had barely even heard him. Cheesecake was far too busy showing Cupcake any number of embarrassing pictures of him as a foal from the wide selection of albums that were coming off the shelf. As they giggled, he rolled his eyes and slipped out the door.
He had intended to head for the market, maybe grab up enough produce and cheeses to make a proper meal. As he turned down his old familiar street into the fountain square, he witnessed something that made him stop and have his jaw drop open.
As ponies hurried past him in the opposite direction, a booming, rumbling voice dove down and then back up again with a call of rage. Soon, it was high in an endless stream of curses that drove even more ponies from the area around the fountain in fear.
As Carrot looked from behind the monument, he saw why.
A carriage stood there, the driver and two ponies who were supposed to be pulling it looking on in horror. They tried to get out of their harnesses as a great vast stallion circled it while foaming and hissing.
"Come out of there ya' son of a bitch!" shrieked Quarry, ramming his shoulder against the carriage so hard that it shook. "I recognized the smell of yer' damn cologne the second you crossed the bridge! Didn't think ya'd ever have to see me again did 'ya? Did 'ya!?"
Carrot shook as Quarry once more rammed himself against the carriage. He saw the huge stallion literally lift it off two of its wheels, the carriage only righting itself when the stallion skidded on the wet leaves that stood across the cobblestones.
To Carrot's horror the loud screams of a filly-foal began to rise from within.
"Never thought you'd have to see me again, huh? The way you and yer' damn little cabal sold me out of the grocery market! Thought ya'd never have to pay for leavin' me standing in the street wondering where in the Well you'd all gone off ta', not leavin' me a bit! That what you thought, you goat buckin'…"
Carrot stared on in fascinated horror as Quarry literally ripped the door handle off the carriage. As the door flopped open, Quarry fell from the running boards to the ground, crying in pain and then heaving for breath.
Carrot looked up to the carriage. Within it he saw the horrified face of a well-dressed unicorn stallion with his forelegs across a mare and a little filly-foal who screamed in fear, the stallion shielding them even as fear grew on his own face.
"Oh Celestia! Quarry, Quarry!" the unicorn stammered as though he were only just realizing who this frothing earth pony was. "That, that was years, decades…"
As Quarry rose, he bellowed, roared. At once the unicorn's magic snapped the door shut. In a rage, his eyes alive with wrath, Quarry threw the handle awkwardly at the carriage as best he could with a trembling hoof.
Carrot felt his hoof go to his mouth as he saw it strike the driver.
The poor pony fell from the seat, clutching at his forehead. Even as he fell, the two other ponies still fought to get out of their harnesses, and one now tried to reach for his fallen partner.
Quarry had climbed up the carriage and was literally ripping at the satin roof with hoof and tooth. "Come out! Come out ya' udder suckin' goat bucker!" he called as he reached within, ripping away at the carriage as long strips of satin came up around him and drifted down to settle among the leaves that littered the ground.
Carrot's heart went to his throat, his ears drumming. The sight of Quarry fishing through the roof of the carriage, the fearful shrieks of the filly within, the calls for help from her mother, the unicorn stallion calling to Quarry— these all painted a picture of Quarry in Carrot's mind that horrified him, a picture that made him shake and tremble.
"Never thought of that did ya'!? Never thought I'd have actually be waitin' for the chance tah' drag my due outta ya, huh!?" bellowed Quarry. "Now yer' in Ponyville, my Ponyville, and here ain't nobody gonna save yer'…"
At once the driver, blood streaming across his forehead, leapt for Quarry. As the driver caught Quarry, the stallion turned, kicked at him and cursed.
"Quarry!" erupted a familiar voice, one that sounded as horrified as Carrot felt.
Carrot saw Quarry's enraged features lift, and as though in desperation, a great flash of unicorn magic flashed from deep within the carriage.
At once Quarry fell backwards. He paddled through the air and went to the ground on the far side of the carriage. A quick motion on the other side betrayed the driver giving Quarry a kick and receiving a hoof to his midsection in a reply that lifted him high into the air, sent him gasping for his seat.
"Go, go!" called the bleeding driver. With that the two other ponies grasped for their harnesses and pulled at the carriage with all their resolve. With a start it went out past the fountain to the road beyond. As it went, the cries of the foal hovered over it, disappearing in a horrid soundtrack that lingered in Carrot's mind.
Carrot stood there beside the fountain looking to where some small breezes kicked leaves to where the form of Quarry lay. The big stallion lifting his head and fought to his hooves.
"Dammit, Quarry!" came the familiar voice again, revealing itself to be Ledger. As the other earth pony trotted up, Quarry stood there, fighting to breath as his friend looked him up and down.
"I don't even want to know what that was about. Damn it!" spoke Ledger in a tone like he had at the mill long ago. "The way that filly was crying I thought you were killing them…"
Carrot saw a look of shock go across Quarry's face. Slowly, the immense stallion looked to Ledger, a look of realization growing on the face of a stallion that suddenly looked a lot older than Carrot remembered him seeming.
"There… there was a filly?" he whispered.
"Aye," answered Ledger, "and his wife too! What in the Well is wrong with you, Quarry? You said that…oh, the Well, look at you… you're still breathing hard."
Carrot peeked from behind the fountain. To his immense surprise, he saw that Quarry was taking deep breaths. Even the pounding of the stallion's heart seemed almost palpable, as though his huge frame was thudding in tune. His muscles rippled beneath the tan coat, the shocks of grey among the black mane seeming more obvious as the stallion lifted his head in tune to each breath.
The autumn air sat around the fountain square as ponies began drifting through once more, some looking on as Quarry lifted his head and raised his hoof. Carrot could scarcely believe it when Ledger leaned in and let the other stallion brace against him.
"You shall soon have a heart attack, Quarry, if you don't find a way out of this rage," said Ledger in a voice Carrot could barely hear, "you'll be dead of a stroke or such, Quarry, if you can't find a way out."
Together they turned to leave the park, Quarry leaning against Ivory's father like a prize fighter being led from the ring.
"I don't… don't like bein' used, Ledger. I don't like anypony stealin' from me, plottin' against me," said the winded stallion as he walked away."I'm nopony's fool…"
Carrot walked to the other side of the fountain. To his surprise, Ledger's eyes were on him, giving him an impassionate glance. Carrot quickly nodded and began to speak. Ledger gave a quick shake of his head. Carrot closed his mouth.
Ledger nodded slightly and contemplated Carrot for an instant. Ledger then turned to Quarry and spoke as he led the larger stallion off.
"Not everypony is against you, Quarry, not everypony wants something from you…" Ledger said with a sigh. "I hope you realize that, before it's too late."
Carrot heard Quarry give a small chuckle of disbelief. He watched the two walk off, his mind lost in what he had just witnessed.
There was no time to head to the market. Instead he went back to his bakery and grabbed something he thought would make a decent lunch for Cupcake and his mother. As he did, he thought of Quarry, wondered what had made him the type of pony that would do such things… wondered if he would ever find peace.
He also thought very hard about finding any way he could to never end up on the stallion's bad side. He hoped that the treats he had been bringing him and his secretary every other week with the loan payments had been helping.
Carrot flung the food into the saddlebags and then went off once more to his mother's house. As he once more passed through the market square, he slowed as he saw pieces of satin still drifting about, the fragments catching against the fountain, mixing with the fallen leaves. In his mind's eye he saw himself under the rage of the stallion. Mentally, he checked to make sure the check was due next week, not this. With a shudder he trotted on.
Arriving outside his childhood home, he glanced in through the window to see Cupcake standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water and running some more over the serving knife from the tray of crackers and cheese.
He opened the breezeway door quietly, the inside one even more so. He began to cross on quiet hooves towards the kitchen, hoping to surprise her. He smiled as he thought of making her shriek and then gather her into an embrace. He could certainly use one after what he had just witnessed.
To his surprise, another phantom crossed on the far side of the room, past the pantry and laundry room, the mare laying her hoof on Cupcake's shoulder. As Cupcake jumped in alarm, the knife clattering in the sink, Carrot felt himself lowering into the little alcove beside the door, the one where all manner of jackets and umbrellas seemed to go unused for years at a time.
For the second time in that late morning, he watched two ponies in conversation.
"Oh, I-I'm sorry!" spoke his mother in her ethereal tone, the one that made all who heard it wonder if she was not just slightly ill. "I-I didn't mean to scare you, Cupcake! I'm sorry!"
"Oh, it's… no, I'm okay, just startled a bit, dont'cha know," answered Cupcake with a small laugh.
The two mares reassured one another, his mother's foreleg still held up to Cupcake. For a moment, she held this pose and then slowly lowered it. Her head went down with it, and with a small sound, he saw Cupcake's head tilt as though in worry.
"Cupcake," came his mother's small voice, "I-I have to ask. What-what are you hiding from my son?"
Carrot had to stifle a breath and was glad that Cupcake's gasp hid his as well.
"Is-is it that obvious?" answered Cupcake. "He-he knows! Knows that there's… reasons, reasons why I… I told him that, that there was something. Please, Cheesecake I'm doing it for both of us…"
To his surprise, his mother lifted her head and laid it across Cupcake's withers. With small motions Cupcake answered. She lifted her own head and placed it across his mother until a sigh fell from the older mare.
"It's okay," spoke his mother, her tone stronger than before, "I know. I know… I'm a mare too; we have our reasons for doing these things. We do these things to protect those we love from hurts and harm."
The mares lifted their heads and looked at one another.
"You-you don't have to tell me," the thin white mare continued, her golden-brown mane falling across her face, "but, Cupcake, don't-don't let it keep you from love… don't let it keep you from spending time in love, because it can disappear..."
Carrot pressed himself firmer to the alcove, hid himself as he felt his mother's words. Somehow, he sensed that he was about to learn things that she had never taken the time to tell him. Perhaps things she had not known how to tell him.
"I… I offered dancing and singing lessons. I had a wonderful partner I haven't seen in years when I was your age. My mark isn't for cooking, it about helping ponies find that special spark within themselves. Cheese can become a cake after all, you see. My friend and I, we would go dance at clubs and then offer lessons to the colts we'd batted our eyes at."
His mother tilted her head back and forth.
"I had this one colt, this one stallion, who kept coming back to me… kept coming back long, long after he had learned all I could teach him. We'd dance, dance long into the night. Dance until morning. We'd collapse upon one another and watch Celestia's sunrise. It was only then I realized why he was coming back… I was the thing that was special to him, he was in love."
Cheesecake's face brightened.
"I fell in love with his love, fell in love with him for loving me. I could see us together so clearly, wanted him with me forever, and he did too. We opened ourselves to one another, loved one another in mind, heart, spirit… physically. As we saw visions of our lives together, we opened up our magic and it greeted that love. Here in this house, in the room at the top of the stairs, on that very bed my Carrot was conceived."
Carrot leaned against the alcove door, swallowed hard as he tried to let the facts of what was about to be stated flow past him. He looked up to see Cupcake placing her hoof to her mouth.
"He was called back to active duty as soon as I started to show, and every day it seemed I received a letter. He would ask how I was doing, outlined plans for us, counted down the number of days until he completed his tour."
Carrot choked.
"And then one day they stopped. Just… stopped. Part-part of me wondered if he had found another pony… a different mare, but I didn't believe it. I'd think of how we'd sat, how he'd stroked me and had run his hoof across my stomach, across his foal. I wouldn't believe it."
Cheesecake lifted her head to face Cupcake, tears just visible at the edges of her eyes.
"Then after two weeks I got a letter from someone in his regiment. There, there had been an accident… he'd been dead for two weeks! He was burned up in a magical fire, a training exercise gone wrong… lost two weeks before and I didn't even know about it! Since, since we weren't married the army didn't know to tell me… and they, the members of his regiment only thought to do it when emptying his things, found my letters… Four days later I was in labor."
Carrot bit hard and tried his best not to make any sounds as the horrible noise of his mother's sniffles filled the room.
"I… I never lost the feel of Carrot's father's love, and-and Cupcake, as Carrot grew I tried to replace it. When, when I thought Carrot was old enough I started, dating… but, not dating. Tried, tried to capture the feel of love but not the pain it could bring. I-I brought stallions to this house, to the very bed…" she said, choking at the end.
Carrot bit down hard once more, struggled against the memories of "uncles" who lasted in her life for two, maybe three weeks. Some pretended to be his friend, asked about his toys and hobbies. Some could not have cared less about him. None of them were worth remembering.
One terrifying night, one had stood outside his bedroom door for an hour as he tried his hardest to pretend to be asleep, the eyes of the stranger lying upon him.
One night when he was thirteen or fourteen he had awoke to the awful, devastating sounds of one calling her… things, yelling at her to do… things.
He would have taken the staring one in a heartbeat.
"When I reached forty-five my hips started to show through my coat. Lines began to show under my eyes. The stallions stopped looking. I realized that I'd, that I'd been trying to replace love with sex. It didn't work Cupcake, it didn't work and I was just left here in this house, alone," his mother continued, voicing a truth that the teenaged Carrot had wished he would have had the strength to tell her. "But I realized that there had always been love in this house, the love of Carrot's father was still here… it was in Carrot."
He lifted his head, dared lift it a little closer to the door. There he watched as his mother raised her hoof once more, as though in pain. He watched gratefully as Cupcake gathered his mother's hoof to hers as the two mares stood there in the sun that came in through the kitchen window.
"He earned his mark down here, in this kitchen, baking for us. Making our meals. The day it came I was…up there, came down at noon to find it dry. I didn't know that the carrot cake I'd thrown away had given… given him his mark until he came home! The damn teacher and his schoolmates knew about it before I did! I'm his mother! I was right up there, next to some…"
His mother gave a single pained bawl and leaned forward, Cupcake gathering her up.
"He never stopped loving me, never gave up on me. Always stopped at the top of the stairs before going off, listening for my breath. When, when I realized that he was the love in my life, that I should be living for him, finding my love through watching him grow I turned to him…"
Cheesecake took another series of strained breaths.
"… turned to him and looked up to see that he'd already grown up, was ready to start his own life. I'd, I'd missed my chance to be a proper mother, Cupcake! I'd lost love twice! First the love of his father, then my chance to honor our love through his son!"
Carrot blinked through a few tears, saw his mother lifting herself from Cupcake's withers. His thin, worn, haggard… beautiful, radiant mother looked down into Cupcake's understanding, rosy eyes.
"I-I won't ask you to tell me what it is that you're keeping from him, or me. But, Cupcake, I can see it's hurting you. My Carrot, my son is full of love Cupcake, he's alive with love. He loves you…"
"He is, he is. Yes, I know he is. He's so wonderful," he heard Cupcake answer, her own voice tinged with tears.
"Don't miss out on it, don't waste a second of it!" said his mother, laying her head to Cupcake's. "It can disappear, Cupcake… whatever it is that's keeping you from opening yourself up all the way to him, to his love, don't let it rule you! Clear it away as soon as you can, my dear, let love deal with your fears…"
Carrot stood there as perhaps the most profound thing he had ever heard his mother say drifted across the tiles of the little kitchen where he had made so many breakfasts.
As the two mares embraced each other once more, he quietly slipped back outside. The autumn sun fell over him, golden and full. Leaves flipped down the street, and overhead, pegasi flipped from cloud to cloud, playing in the light.
They were using these last few warm, painted days to enjoy life… enjoy it before the snows were scheduled to fall.
With a single sniffle, he turned back within the house. As he did, he made sure to make the doors ring out loudly behind him.
"I'm back!" he called out, pretending that he did not notice them until the last second. "Oh!" he spoke in a falsified tone of ignorance. "You're both here in the kitchen! I brought some lunch!"
He looked upon them as his mother tried to hide one last tear and Cupcake turned to him.
He could not help but smile as the two mares he loved most in the world looked up to him with broad smiles of their own.
"It was so lovely to meet you," intoned Cupcake, leaning in for one more hug from Cheesecake, the older mare patting her on the shoulder as she did.
"Please, don't be a stranger," added Cheesecake, releasing the younger mare and looking to them both. Her blue eyes flashed with happiness at seeing them together.
Her smile only grew when her gangly son leaned down and planted a kiss upon her cheek. "Love you mom," he said. "Be sure to eat something for dinner, okay?"
With that they were off. At first Carrot thought that they were heading back to the bakery, and from there Cupcake would leave him once more, head off alone to the place that he had promised not to follow.
To his surprise, they zipped right past the bakery as though it were no more than a street side garbage pail or a mailbox.
"Ummm," he began as he turned to watch his ginger-trimmed residence and place of occupation recede.
Soon, he felt her leaning against him, asking for his strength. He went silent and followed her little turns. He caught up her offered hoof as they turned down some unfamiliar streets.
It was not that he had never been to this part of Ponyville; it was just that he had never really had any real reason to linger on roads with big houses and stately homes.
At once a thought went through him. At once worries that she had been living in some sort of flophouse or had been living in some sort of institution with curfews and rules against colts visiting, these all disappeared.
Instead, they stopped at a corner under a lamppost. As the afternoon drew on around them, Cupcake pointed to a large house that stood back from the road. Spread out before it, a long pathway led past a tall fence leading to a wide porch. The house itself was very strong and sturdy looking with exposed pillars and a low look, one that seemed to blend into the landscape rather than stand out from it.
To Carrot's surprise, the same three foals who had visited him on Nightmare Night played in piles of leaves upon the lawn as their schoolbags rested nearby.
"That, that's my house… that's where, where I live," she said, haltingly. "This is where, where I come when we say goodnight.
Carrot stuttered for a moment and then looked up to the house. It was beautiful, it was large… it was hers. It was hers?
"It, it's beautiful," he said as he took a step forward.
"No!" she cried, grabbing for him. Her hoof caught around his stifle and he tripped a little. He turned and looked at her with confusion painted across his face.
She was taking steps backwards, her hooffalls sounding out across the cobblestones. As she turned, she looked to him once more. Her rose-colored eyes flashed with thought, and he sensed things were moving behind them.
He followed silently, watched her head flashing around and peer deep within the crowds of ponies that went by.
They trotted up and within the gazebo, the same one where their first date had begun. No band sat within the space now, and only the cool breeze that battled the sun of a warm autumn day met them there.
Carrot watched he trot back and forth with a worried look. A thousand questions went through his mind as he watched her, and the worry he felt for Cupcake only grew.
"Cupcake," he asked, "why, who… why didn't you want me to know about your house? I, I was worried that you were living in a shack, or…"
At once she turned to him and laid her head against his chest once more. He recognized this pose, what she was asking of him. Slowly he sat, allowed her to move deeper into him and lay her head there more fully.
As the autumn light began to fail, she spoke. He listened as she tried to explain what was happening without actually explaining it, as she tried to detail the new twists and turns that "The Game of This" was taking.
"Carrot," she said, not raising herself from his chest, "your mother, she told me something, something that made quite a bit of sense."
He thought of the conversation that had transpired in the kitchen.
"I-I really, really want to tell you everything… show you everything, but-but I can't!" she continued, a small note of panic in her voice. "I'm sorry, I just can't! I-I don't want you to end up like the other colts… I, don't…"
Carrot ran his hoof through her mane, parted the rosy tones as she continued to lie against his chest. She leaned to him even more as he did, as though allowing some of her worry to pass to him with each gentle stroke.
He realized why she had done it, why she had shown him the house, the large house where her nieces and nephews rolled about laughing on the lawn. He had wanted her to open herself, and she had… she had as much as she thought she could.
He ran his hoof up and down her back, caressing the mare as he felt her breath. She was trying so hard, trying to reach for his love while still hiding something, still trying desperately to play the game she had set up.
At once his vision of her lying close to him, secure in his embrace as the soft light drifted over her. That vision filled him, and he longed for it. But, right now, this was all he could offer.
So, he ran his hoof across her and let her breathe.
"I know-know you're tryin' so hard to be patient," she said as she wiped her face against his chest, "tryin', waiting on me to… Please don't stop trying, Carrot. Oh, Carrot, please don't stop trying."
Of course, his body told her as Carrot drew her in closer, of course.
As the cool breeze won the contest, and great shafts of Celestia's sun faded around them, he lifted himself. He looked down to her as she looked up to him.
"Cupcake, how about some dinner?" he asked. "And, and then can I walk you… can I walk you part of the way home, maybe just to the lamppost?"
"Yes," she answered, lifting her nose and closing her eyes. "Oh, yes, I think that would do nicely."
Slowly, they rubbed their noses. He took up her hoof, and they went into the village to their dinner as the wind tossed the dry leaves across the path around the gazebo.
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Wow . . . this story is just amazing and very touching. I got misty-eyed hearing Cheesecake tell her tale. Great job, I eagerly await more!
Man, I really was expecting Carrot to somehow get involved in Quarry's 'incident' at the fountain, that could have gone really badly.
Cheesecake's story was heartbreaking.
Beautifully written, the part with Cheesecake brought tears to my eyes. Now I'm wondering, what is it that Cupcake is hiding from Carrot, and where does Quarry come into this? I'm dying to find out.
490313
Thank you so much!I really, really, really appreciate that coming from you, someone who has watched the entire MLP fandom grow from it's first days!
490543
Glad that the story is still resonating, DJ!
491205
You will find out in exactly two chapters!
489787 Very well then.
And I'm guessing the cake twins are not going to be making an appearnce in this.
I think 'Quarry' might be the previous mayor of ponyvillie before old Ivory Wig shows up and beats him in the election.
493792
...
Define "appearance"...
493879
I ain't tellin'!
...is it... is it futa cake?
How epic would it be if quarry did nothing bad the entire fic?
>Living in denial
Naw, Quarry does quite a bit... some of what he does is, in fact, the reason I had to give this a "teen" stamp.
I enjoy the scenes with the Pie family. Well done on that end.
I'm 90% certain that Quarry is Cupcake's father. It just seems right, given the way the story has gone. Also, Cheesecake's conversation with Cupcake again gives me hope that I will genuinely like this story, maybe even love it.
I'm literally almost crying.
Dang it, this story keeps giving me flashbacks to something I wrote, specifically this pair of lines.
And I can't shake the similarities no matter what. Everything seems to be there, albeit shuffled around between the characters in a different distribution.
Wow man. This was fantastic.
Cheesecake and Cupcake weren't the only ones who got teary-eyed today.
While I was reading this for the live read, I began to actually cry. I can't tell if that was my acting or you are just that good.
Anyway, I love how this part sets up a lot of things that happen later on, how it gives us a future shadow of something that much bigger on the horizon. Again, the descriptions gives us such beautiful imagery and beauty.
Reaching for his love and hiding something...
Reminds me of "The Father of my Children"