//------------------------------//
// Chapter 73 
// Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

	“Kiddo, did you have a nice day?” Trixie leaned over the bed where Sumac lay and kissed him on his ear. Her lips lingered there for a moment as she inhaled, drawing in his scent, and she treasured the few precious seconds she had to bond with him. 


“Yeah.” 


Smiling, she pulled the blanket up over Sumac’s body. “Try to get a little sleep. I think a nap would do you good. It was very nice of Vinyl to get you a stuffed Cadance doll.” 


There was a hint of a blush upon Sumac’s cheeks as Trixie spoke these words. He did not respond, but laid there with his head upon the pillow. The bed was soft, it had to be the nicest bed that he had ever been in, and the pillow was like resting one’s head upon a cloud. He imagined that this is what it felt like for napping pegasus ponies. 


“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said ‘doll’ I suppose.” Trixie leaned against the bed, lifted Sumac’s foreleg with her magic, and then slipped Cadance into his embrace. She dropped his leg and then tucked the blankets around him. 


“What happened with you and your mother?” Sumac asked as he fought to hold back a yawn. 


Nostrils flaring, Trixie sat down upon the floor beside the bed and stared at the wall. Her mouth opened as if she was about to speak, but nothing came out. After a few seconds, she closed her mouth, shook her head, and her ears drooped. Drawing in a deep breath, she tried again and had this to say. 


“We stopped talking. Things were already strained between us and I dropped out of school. That caused a lot of problems between me, her, and her father, my grandfather. The Lulamoon name has a proud and storied history to it. My mother had me out of wedlock and that caused a lot of strain between her and her father. She lived and breathed for his approval, hoping to get back into his good graces again…” Trixie’s voice trailed off and she continued to stare at the wall.


“But what happened?” Sumac asked. 


“The Pathetic and Worthless Trixie dropped out of school.” Trixie closed her good eye, reached out with her foreleg, and grabbed Sumac’s leg in her fetlock. “That is what he called me. Every day I heard it from him. I was my mother’s failure. I was the ruination of the good name ‘Lulamoon.’ And when I dropped out of school, Caper Lulamoon lost his mind. He and my mother fought and I decided to leave. I hit the road and I didn’t look back. My mother hired agents to try and capture me to bring me back home. Eventually, that stopped and she gave up on me.” 


“So, on the road, you tried to become great and powerful?” Sumac looked up into his mother’s face and saw pain. He watched her eye open, her head turned, and she looked at him. The corners of her mouth twitched and one ear flopped up and down a bit. 


“I didn’t want to be pathetic and worthless. I had this plan to become the Great and Powerful Trixie and then I was going to go home, bust down his door, and I was going to show him what I was capable of. I was going to make him pay for every single time that he called me ‘The Pathetic and Worthless Trixie.’ Caper Lulamoon is one of the most powerful wizards of our era and I wanted to crush him in a duel. But all that changed. Now, I just don’t care.” 


“What made everything change?” Sumac asked. 


“You,” Trixie replied in a muted whisper. “You made it all go away.” 


“I think you’ve become great and powerful.” Sumac looked up at the mare that he called his mother. “So just how powerful is Caper, anyway?” 


“Caper is one of the few unicorns capable of slowing time down to a crawl… but now is not the time to discuss this. You need some sleep and I am aware of your tactics to avoid naptime.” She pulled her hoof away from Sumac, releasing his leg, and then she booped him on the nose with a light tap. “You’ll probably be meeting my mother soon enough, but I doubt that Caper will have anything to do with either of us. Honestly, I’d rather not have you meet him. He’s an awful pony and if he said something mean to you—well, the old plan for revenge might spring back to life and that would be terrible.” 


The most dreadful thing happened, a yawn escaped, and Sumac was startled by its ferocity. It was so sudden and so powerful that his ears popped. His mother’s shadow fell over him and he felt her kissing him on the snoot. Breathing in, he could smell her, she smelled like floral soap, tea, and the faint scent of mint. 


“If you can’t sleep, I’m going to give you some tea that might help you. We want you well rested for the wedding tomorrow.” Trixie pulled away from Sumac and smiled. “Kiddo, I love you.” 


“Mom, I love you too…” 




 


Groggy, Sumac awoke holding his Cadance stuffy. He couldn’t remember if he had dreamed or not. A powerful feeling of thirst left his mouth dry and there was an empty ache in his stomach. His body felt stiff, too stiff, and it kind of hurt to move. But move he did, as there was a powerful motivation to do so. 


He needed to pee. 


With a flick of magic, he turned on the lamp beside the bed, which filled his tiny room with light, banishing the darkness. After a few fumbles, he got his glasses onto his face. With no one around to watch him, he picked up Cadance, gave her a final parting squeeze, and then placed her upon his pillow. He didn’t know if she had helped him sleep better, but it never hurt to be thankful. 


Sitting up in bed, he looked around. His room was almost pie shaped and his bed was against the wall that was the widest part. Looking out his narrow slit of window, he saw that it was dark. How long had he slept? He flopped out of bed and almost did a face-plant. Grumbling, he forced his stiff body to behave and he found his balance as he stumbled for the door. 




 


Stiff legged, his front shoulders aching just a bit, Sumac paused and looked up at the ornate cuckoo clock on the wall. It was just a little past four—in the morning. He had been put down for a nap at about four in the afternoon. He blinked a few times as he stared up at the clock, and then he turned his head to look at the two other unicorns in the dining area. 


“Good morning,” Fox said in a subdued and tired sounding voice. 


“Morning,” Sumac replied. As he spoke, he saw Vinyl waving at him. 


“Vinyl awoke because of back pain. I awoke because of some troubling dreams involving candles being blown out. Tell me, Sumac, what brings you down here at this unalicornly hour of the morning?” Fox regarded Sumac with one arched white eyebrow. 


“My nap ended.” Sumac stood at the base of the stairs, blinking and studying Fox. 


“Well then, I do declare, I have somehow failed to grasp the obvious.” Fox made a come-hither gesture with his hoof, inviting Sumac to come and sit down with them. “Come on over here and sit with us. We have tea and biscuits to help us while away these last few dark hours.” 


At that moment, Sumac decided that he was wrong about Fox. He liked Fox. Smacking his lips, Sumac went over to the table, pulled out a tall chair, scrambled up into the chair, and then leaned against the ornate edge of the table. As he got himself situated, a glass of juice was poured, some cookies, which Fox had called biscuits were put on a plate, and Vinyl poured him some tea. 


Feeling as though he might die from thirst, he drank the juice first. Lifting the short glass, he gulped it down and discovered that it was pineapple juice. It wasn’t delicious, refreshing apple juice, but it would have to do. When his glass was empty, he set it down, and as he got himself a cookie, Fox filled up his juice glass once more. 


“This cookie is weird,” Sumac said as he examined it. Sniffing it, he decided that it smelled good, but he didn’t recognise much about it. 


“The recipe comes from far away Windia. Those are nankhatai biscuits. They’re a kind of shortbread, but spicy.” Fox leaned back in his chair and gave Sumac a nod. “I brought the recipe back with me after I traveled there.” 


Curious, Sumac focused his attention upon the curious unicorn. “What’s it like in Windia?” 


“Dying,” Fox replied in a nonchalant voice, “everything is dying.” 


“What? Why?” Sumac lifted up his juice glass again. 


“The war.” Fox placed his hooves upon the table and focused his intense, piercing stare upon Sumac. “Tell me, young master Sumac, do you understand how valuable earth ponies are?” 


“My best friend is an earth pony.” As Sumac replied, he was aware that Vinyl was watching him, which made him feel nervous for some reason. There was reason to suspect that he was being studied. 


“Well, in Windia, two factions of diamond dogs began warring over a matter of faith and religion. The elephants got involved with one side and things went downhill. Many of the ponies began to flee the sub-continent and have gone elsewhere, to more peaceful places, like the Grittish Isles and Equestria. With not enough earth ponies around, the land has begun to die in places, the rich dirt has turned to dust, and the threat of famine has become very, very real. Princess Celestia sent me over there to investigate the phenomenon.” 


“Wait, so if there are no earth ponies around, the land begins to die?” Sumac set down his juice glass and almost sloshed some of it out and onto the table. He stared at Fox as his brain tried to process this information. 


“Does this shock you, Sumac?” Fox’s ears, which were orange on the outside but white on the inside, angled forwards over his face. “You have only lived in Equestria and have seen the rich and plenty that we have here. Griffonstone is a wasteland… their never ending bickering and the occasional predation of ponies has driven our kind out of their land. The ground has died without the hooves of earth ponies to nurture it. The rains are rare and the weather is chaotic without pegasi to shepherd the clouds. Every place that we equines are driven from, the land begins to die.” 


For Sumac, this was a stunning revelation. 


“Lucerna Perpetuum has been studying this phenomenon for a long time.” Fox looked over at Vinyl and then returned his attention to Sumac. “We have theories and guesses as to why this is happening. The world wasn’t always like this. The phenomenon began after the time of the windigos when much of the world froze over. Something changed, but we don’t know what, how, or why. That was why I went to Windia, so that the phenomenon could be studied.” 


Fascinated beyond measure, Sumac crammed a whole cookie into his mouth and began to chew. 


Vinyl’s chalk squealed as she wrote down some words on her slate and when she was finished, she held it up for Sumac to read. 


Tarnish and his druids are desperate to find a way to reverse this. I am too. This affects us all. All life is connected in ways we do not yet understand. 


“World peace isn’t just a dream, it is a necessity,” Fox said in a low voice as Sumac chewed his cookie. “Earth ponies must be allowed to roam peacefully and in safety, without molestation or fear of predation. Other kingdoms are only now beginning to take notice and acknowledge the problem, like Griffonstone.” 


After swallowing his cookie, Sumac asked, “Can I help? Can I join? I want to do my part.” 


Grinning, Vinyl nodded, and she looked very pleased with what Sumac had said.


“This is why Twilight Sparkle’s school exists.” Fox poured himself a bit more tea, added some honey, and then slipped in a slice of crystalised lemon. “It is a heuristic study of friendship and harmony. The nuts and bolts of it. Friendship isn’t just magic, but survival. You see, Sumac, Twilight Sparkle has taken it upon herself to figure out why this is happening and how to reverse it. Friendship is necessary for a harmonious coexistence. And students such as yourself, well, you represent our bright and glorious future.” 


Unable to respond in a meaningful way, Sumac jammed a whole cookie into his mouth again and began to chew. By going to school, he was saving the world. Going to school was easy. All he had to do was just show up and he was doing his part. But that wasn’t enough and he wanted a bit more active role in everything. 


Feeling better about just about everything, Sumac was looking forward to being Vinyl’s apprentice.