//------------------------------// // Chapter 75 // Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Princess Cadance was quite large—much larger than Sumac had expected her to be—and seeing her in pony was startling. Even sitting on his mother’s back, she towered over him and with her terrifying black armor, Sumac could not help but feel a little awestruck. He swallowed, blinked, and then just sat there, staring. “Hello there, Sumac. Did you get my invitation?” Upon Cadance’s face was a beautiful, beaming smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle. Her rounded cheeks pressed up against her helmet and glittery sparkles could be seen floating around her horn. “I slept with you last night.” Mere seconds after uttering the words, Sumac knew that he had goofed. His face became a volcano ready to erupt and his neck blazed like an out of control forest fire as his mouth went dry. A squeak that only diamond dogs could hear slipped from his lips as his throat tightened. Any nearby lunar pegasi probably heard his cry of distress and he expected them to show up at any second. As Twilight began tittering, Cadance replied, “Well, I certainly hope that I was soft and squeezable. Did I help you sleep better? Twilight tells me that your sleep has been troubled. I’ve been worried. Do you think that, perhaps, you might need a little therapy? You’ve endured some trauma.” “I’m managing,” Sumac squeaked and his voice almost sounded as though he had sucked in a helium balloon. “If I need help, I’ll ask. Thank you for your invitation, but I want to stay where I am.” Cadance’s look of disappointment was both real and sincere. She stood with her head held high, blinking, and her smile was now gone. “Stay safe, Sumac Apple. Twilight and I have much to do. You and I shall speak again, but at a later time.” “Okay.” Sumac felt a little guilty for making a princess look so disappointed. “It’s complicated, Princess Cadance… I’m sorry. I couldn’t come north without my best friend Pebble… and I don’t want to leave Trixie and Lemon behind. I am just now starting to feel like I have a family—” “I understand.” Cadance clucked her tongue and with a soft touch of her wing, she shushed Sumac by placing her primaries over his mouth. “You don’t need to be sorry and you don’t need to apologise. All you need to do is be happy, because you are special and you deserve that.” “You know, Cadance, I think you’ve made it your mission to tell every foal that they are special,” Twilight said as she moved closer. “I can remember you saying that to me.” “Yes,” Cadance replied, “I have.” Reaching out her wing, she touched Pebble as well. “You too, are special. Keep Sumac safe, Pebble. I think by doing so, you will learn the same lesson as your mother.” “What lesson is that?” Pebble asked from where she sat on Octavia’s back. “I think you’ll figure it out when the time is right.” Cadance’s beautiful smile returned and she beamed at Pebble. “The discovery is a lesson unto itself.” “If you get a chance to speak to my mother, tell her I love her.” Pebble blinked once and gave Cadance a piercing stare. “And my father as well.” “I’ll do that,” Cadance promised. The balcony was a tiny affair, a private little ledge meant for the princesses so that they could look down upon the great hall and not be swallowed up in the crowd. It didn’t take Sumac long to realise that the balcony had a view of the whole proceedings that was to die for. The sitting audience would see the wedding from the tail end while he would be seeing the ceremony from the head end. Ponies and others were still being seated. There were some smaller dragons in attendance, some diamond dogs, a few minotaurs, a gaggle of griffons, one manticore, which alarmed Sumac a great deal, and a host of other creatures. Wedding crashers faced the possibility of being eaten, though he doubted that the princesses would allow the guests to eat the invaders. But his imagination was overactive and refused to listen to reason, so he was treated to some delightful mental imagery. Cautious, he peered over the rail and felt a bit of vertigo. Okay, so peering over the rail was a bad idea. He wasn’t that high up, but looking down sure did make him feel dizzy. He backed away from the rail, clambered up into his cushioned chair, and got comfortable. The chair was just about the nicest chair ever and he felt like a king. Feeling like a king was rather nice, so he leaned over, prodded Pebble, and in a low whisper, he said to her, “You can be my queen.” Alas, his words were said without giving thought to how they might be taken out of context, as he had not told Pebble that he was feeling like a king. Pebble took it well—she turned a dark, dark shade of purple brown and then squirmed in her seat as she refused to even look at Sumac. Beaming, Sumac tried to look as regal as possible while he looked down upon the few ponies already seated in the audience. Beside him, Trixie and Lemon Hearts both started snickering. Beside Pebble, Octavia and Vinyl exchanged a glance and a smile. Using her magic, Vinyl opened up the bags that Octavia had brought in and pulled out her own camera, which she then set up and focused upon the dais down below. The camera, black, silvery, and sleek, was a movie camera and just about the best camera that bits could buy. “It’s good to be the king,” Sumac announced, getting into the mood of it. “The king is not well protected,” Trixie said as she lifted Sumac out of his chair. The colt let out a worried cry, fearful that something terrible was about to happen, and sure enough, something terrible did happen. He felt Trixie’s muzzle press up against his neck, which caused tingles up and down his spine, and then he felt her inhale through her nose. Oh no. The loud honking raspberry against his throat made him want to leap away, but then he remembered that he was on a balcony. Leaping away might mean flying over the rail, and that would be bad. She got him twice more and Sumac was powerless to do anything about it. Betrayed, zerberted, Sumac allowed Trixie to hold him while he made a sour face in protest. Boomer, who didn’t appreciate the commotion, lept over to Lemon Hearts’ horn, curled up, and went still. She yawned once, blinked a few times, then, with a sigh, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. Her little tummy was still bulging from her enormous (for her) breakfast. Laughing, Trixie eased Sumac back down into his seat, brushed his mane out of his eyes, and then gave him an affectionate pat upon the withers. He was just about to say something when the door behind him opened and Fox stepped onto the balcony. “My apologies, but I must borrow Octavia and Vinyl for a time,” Fox said in an apologetic voice. “There is nothing wrong, so don’t worry, but there is a minor musical emergency.” Looking annoyed, Vinyl gestured at the camera that she had just finished setting up and then glared at Fox, who shrank away from Vinyl’s irate stare. She snorted a few times and then made a very rude gesture with her hoof that made Octavia gasp. Sumac, an observant sort, filed away the hoof gesture in his mental filing cabinet and resolved to pull it out later at another time. “We need a cellist,” Fox explained, “apparently, the stallion scheduled to play ate some bad spinach dip at a party last night. There is no way he could play right now. We’re also having some pretty severe electrical issues with the sound system and we need an experienced sound engineer to fix some sibilance issues, along with some reverberation and distortion.” “I’m tempted to just say no and see what happens,” Octavia said in a huffy voice. “Today is Princess Celestia and Princess Luna’s special day.” Pebble turned her cool stare upon Octavia. “Their wedding might be crashed by monsters. They have enough to worry about. Cut them a break.” “Fine!” Octavia whined and she let out a frustrated huff. She bowed her head down, kissed Pebble, and then turned to face Fox. “Bad spinach you say? How dreadful.” Sitting in her chair, Pebble looked over at Sumac and felt a twinge of nervousness as she looked at him. Looking at him always made her feel a little nervous for some reason, and she could feel little twitches in her muscles, little twitches that were impossible for others to notice because she held them back. If she failed to hold them back, the twitches might turn into kicks, and those would be noticed. Those would be impossible to ignore. It seemed like every day, she got a little stronger and it was a little harder to hold everything back. A part of her felt like crying but she didn’t know why, and another part of her felt like screaming. Anxiety and emotion flooded her mind, clouded her perception, and left a tight feeling in her chest. Knowing that Sumac would listen to her, she opened up her mouth to say something, but the words she wanted say, the erudite, well spoken, meaningful words, they didn’t happen. Her foalish body betrayed her and she just blurted out some words that made her cringe even as she said them. “I hate marriage and weddings are stupid.” Right away, she regretted her sudden outburst, but she could do nothing to take it back. Hunched over in her chair, she felt the sting of tears and a dull ache in her sinuses. More than anything, she wanted to take the words back but it was too late. Staring down at the floor, she didn’t dare turn to look at Sumac, Trixie, or Lemon Hearts. Deep down inside, something hurt, but she couldn’t tell if it was mental or physical that was the cause. “Pebble Pie, what has gotten into—” “Mom, don’t.” Sumac’s words held a surprising amount of authority for a five year old. “Pebble, is something bothering you? You know you can talk to me, right? Because we’re friends, and friends talk. Like we did around the fire.” “Miss Lulamoon, maybe we should let Sumac see what he can do,” Lemon Hearts suggested. Pebble, feeling ashamed and hurt, couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend. A shudder made her shake and she hugged her forelegs to her barrel. She squeezed herself, but there was no comfort to be had in her self hug. The pressure in her skull increased and she knew that if this continued, she would get one of her migraines again—then she would need to get out of the light and go lay down. “Pebble?” Sumac’s voice sounded worried to Pebble’s ears. “Marriage is stupid and I don’t see the point,” Pebble blurted out, once more betrayed by her own mouth and her foalish outburst. An intense feeling of self loathing crashed over her like a wave and she squeezed herself even tighter, so much so that she made her own ribs ache. “Why do ponies even bother with it?” “Because, it is a tradition.” Trixie’s voice was gentle now, but it brought Pebble no comfort. “It’s just something that ponies do. They marry and start a family.” “That’s not a good reason.” Pebble could almost hear the petulant whine in her voice, but she knew from experience that others would only hear a flat deadpan. She wanted to scream, she thought about it, but she held it all in. She had to hold it all in. “It’s just plain stupid. If a bunch of ponies jump off a bridge because of tradition, would you do it? Traditions are no reason to do anything. It’s just stupid peer pressure to make you conform.” “Pebble, what is really bothering you?” Sumac asked. “Everything!” Now there was a bit of volume to Pebble’s voice, she could feel it and hear it. “I can’t even figure out my own family. Octavia is going to have a foal and it is my father’s. It feels wrong… everything feels wrong. They’re not married and that bothers me. I can’t make sense of what we are. I’m scared and worried that something will happen and they will stop being friends and Octavia will go away and my father is going to lose one of his foals and it will crush him and hurt him and I’ll be losing my little sister or brother, whatever it turns out to be.” As Pebble took a few deep, heaving breaths, she heard a gasp from somepony, but she wasn’t sure who. She closed her eyes, gritted and ground her teeth together, and shook her head from side to side. “They didn’t even consult me or ask me how I feel about it. They didn’t stop to think about how this might mess up my life. Nopony bothered to ask me what I think. And I hate them for the mess they’ve created and I hate them because I’m confused and I hate them because now I feel stupid and I can’t figure anything out.” As she struggled to hold everything back, she felt Sumac climbing into her chair with her. Grunting, she resisted his embrace and pulled away. His touch, his affection, it was too confusing right now, but she was mindful of her strength and did nothing that might hurt him by accident. As her rage seethed inside of her, she gritted and ground her teeth again, which produced a dreadful sound as bits of her enamel chipped off. She would have to go to the dentist again and she could feel the horrible sensation of chipped teeth banging together in her mouth. Each touch, each tap of one tooth against another, each new chip and flake was electric and caused aching chills to run up and down her spine. “I don’t ever want Octavia or Vinyl going away and I have no way of knowing if they’ll stay together… I don’t know if we are a family or not. I hate not knowing and I just wish sometimes that they would fight and hate each other and everypony just walk away and get it over with so that I could stop worrying about it.” With a soft touch, she felt one of Sumac’s forelegs wrap around her withers, and mindful of how sore and tender his shoulders still were, she did not move or jerk away, fearing that she might hurt him. His touch brought comfort and that confused her a great deal. Her current emotional state couldn’t deal with the state of overload and much to her shame and embarrassment, she began crying. It felt awful in the worst way, even worse than grinding chipped teeth together. “I want them to stay together but I can’t stand not knowing,” Pebble whined as her throat constricted. “And I hate that marriage is necessary to show commitment… I just want them to stay together so we can be a family and I wish that marriage wasn’t needed to hold everything together.” When she felt Sumac tugging on her, she relented and allowed herself to be pulled close to him. The tension in her body caused her to be as stiff as a statue. In that moment, Pebble had something of a feminine awakening, a decidedly female feeling, an undeniable feeling of femininity as Sumac held her and she leaned against him. Something about it was reassuring, comforting—because of that, she hated it, it confused her and felt like weakness. She also hated and resented Sumac just a little bit at that moment, as she felt that he had intruded upon her stolid independence. More self loathing flowed through her as she realised the fact that she liked being held and that she needed him during this moment, which disgusted her. She was filled with feelings of revulsion and shame that galled her and shook her to her very core. But that didn’t stop her from hugging him, which she did, she clung to him as tight as she dared and she didn’t let go. He was breathing in her ear, which tickled, and made her even more overstimulated. Closing her eyes, she shut out the light and embraced the sightless darkness. Clutching Sumac, she slowed her breathing and followed through with every trick she knew to calm down. “I hate marriage,” Pebble mumbled, and then she went silent.