TPrincess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break
MLP: FiM
Romance
Drama
Slice of Life
School may be out, but the lessons continue for Sumac Apple.
Trixie
DJ P0N-3
Octavia
Maud Pie
Twinkleshine
kudzuhaiku · 129k words · 394 16 · 3.8k views

Hard at work on another chapter · 5:11am Apr 14th, 2017

The rice pudding at Sugarcube Corner was perhaps their most spectacular seasonal treat. It was an extraordinary dish, fit for royalty, and there was nothing else quite like it. Slow cooked rice pudding, with dried, dehydrated cherries for sweetness, crystallised ginger for a bit of zing, and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper for zowie. Sugar was sprinkled over the top and then burned with a torch, melting it and forming a thin, hard shell of caramelised goodness that had to be shattered with your spoon.
It was a meal in and of itself, something that Sumac knew that he could get full on.
Sugarcube Corner had decorated for the holidays a little early this year and they had gone all out. Sumac found the atmosphere to be cheerful, festive even, and his darting, inquisitive eyes took in every detail while he thought about the conversation that took place during breakfast.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” Trixie’s response was absent minded and she was far too focused on her rice pudding.
Sumac kept his voice low, knowing that this was a sensitive subject. “About you being the way you are… you had a crush on Tarnish. How does that work?”
In an eyeblink, Trixie’s face turned purple, Twinkleshine began to giggle, and reaching over with her foreleg, Lemon Hearts wiped away some dribbled rice pudding from Trixie’s fuzzy chin. Sumac found this to be no laughing matter, and he maintained his serious mien. When his mother began to splutter, one of his fuzzy little eyebrows arched, but being one shade of beige on another shade of beige, it was hard to see.
“That’s one of the things I wondered about myself,” Trixie said after she recovered a bit. “One of the things I asked Princess Cadance about in private.”
“And what did she say?” Sumac asked, still keeping his voice low.
“Well,” Trixie began, “she asked me a whole bunch of questions, like what I found attractive about Tarnish. Other than him being a pleasant chocolate colour, I really couldn’t think of anything that I found particularly appealing about him, or made me excited, and his chocolate colour is just nice to look at it but it doesn’t cause any particular feelings.”
Sumac attacked his pudding with his spoon and discovered, much to his delight, an enormous chunk of cherry. He gobbled this down and kept his attention focused on his mother, all while ignoring the burning embarrassment that threatened to set his ears on fire. Lemon Hearts insisted that their little family could talk about anything, and Sumac was ready to hold Lemon to her word.
“The only thing that we could come up with after a long talk was that Tarnish made me feel safe and secure. Princess Cadance said that I could be a little grey-sexual, and that my states of arousal may depend upon my state of happiness and how secure I feel at any given moment.”
Lemon, who smiled at Sumac, said to the colt, “Being asexual covers a broad spectrum of conditions and emotions.”
“Tarnish rescued me and he asked for nothing in return. He didn’t demand anything of me, and he didn’t try to force himself on me. In the hot spring… he just… held me… and I cried… and it was awkward… but he made me feel safe… and that sort of… well… when I thought about it later, I uh…” Trixie, her face a delightful shade of purple-blue, sat there, blinking, staring down into her pudding.
“You had something of a crush,” Lemon Hearts finished. “His kindness warmed your heart.”
One of Trixie’s ears drooped a bit, then twitched when she made it stand up once more. “Yeah. Tarnish was good to me, just like you’re good to me. I have a lot of the same feelings for you and Twinkleshine as I had for him.”
“You see, Sumac, a little goodness goes a long, long way.” With a turn of her head, Lemon Hearts smiled at Trixie. “Gentleness, understanding, kindness, and compassion. These are the things that will make you a great pony, beloved by others. Never forget that, Sumac.”