//------------------------------// // Chapter 78 // Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// As Trixie scrubbed his face, Sumac couldn’t help but think that girls were just a little bit gross. He felt justified for having these thoughts after having survived a point blank shot to the face from Pebble’s snot cannon. Snot shot. It was like getting one’s face covered in gunky, gooey, drippy pizza cheese. Thinking about it made Sumac shudder with revulsion. “So, this is what it is like being a parent?” Lemon Hearts, who was scrubbing Pebble’s face, glanced over at Trixie. “Just think… ponies have foals on purpose. I’m not sure it’s wise—” “Lemon…” Trixie’s lone word was also an exasperated sigh and she rolled her eyes. “But boogers, Miss Lulamoon, boogers. Boogers everywhere.” Lemon Hearts made a gesture with her foreleg to emphasise ‘everywhere.’ When Sumac started to giggle, Lemon Hearts smiled. “I’m starving. I wonder what will be on the buffet. I wonder what the smaller, private party will be like. I’m a ponies pony and I like being around other ponies, but a crowd that big scares me and I’ve been a little jumpy lately and sudden loud noises kinda freak me out.” Closing her eyes, now that Lemon was done blabbering, Pebble began to speak and she too, just blurted out everything on that was on her mind. “I’m not like my mother. I pretended to be like my mother because it felt right and ponies seemed to expect it from me. I just held everything in because it felt like the right thing to do but now that my life is turning upside down I can’t seem to hold everything in any longer and I don’t think I’m like my mother, at least not enough, but I think I might be more like my grandfather Igneous, but I don’t know, and it feels like I don’t know who I am any more. I keep having these outbursts and I don’t like it. I liked myself more when I was a little version of my mother.” Stunned, Lemon Hearts sat there blinking, and she pulled the wet wipe away from Pebble’s face. Lemon, being the gentle hearted and wise sort, leaned in closer to Pebble and asked, “What’s wrong with just being you? Why can’t you just be Pebble?” “Because,” Pebble whispered, and then she did not further elaborate. “That’s not much of a reason.” Lemon’s eyes narrowed and she got so close to Pebble that their snoots touched. Her ears leaned forwards as Lemon lifted up one foreleg and wrapped it around the little filly sitting on the washroom counter. “You know, Pebble, you can talk to me about anything. All of us. I think it is safe to say that we’re close enough to be like family at this point.” “I…” Pebble’s voice broke and she let out a squeak. She swallowed, then tried again. “I idolise my mother and I want to be just like her. I’ve spent every minute of my short life trying to be just like her because it felt like the right thing to do. I’m like her… I have all of this strength and rage and intelligence and I don’t know how to deal with it, but she does, so I thought if I did everything that she did, that everything would sort itself out and everything would be okay.” “But it isn’t working any more, is it?” Lemon’s eyes glimmered with emotion and she gave Pebble a reassuring half hug. “Ever since I met Sumac, I wanted to be more…” Pebble admitted, and then she closed her eyes. She ducked her head down, sniffled a bit, then went silent and still. Sumac, having listened to everything, thought about what Princess Celestia had said, about Pebble finding her alicorn aspect when she had met him. It now made sense, Pebble had some sort of inner awakening and now she was having trouble. It also made a lot more sense on why Pinkie Pie had a hard time reading Pebble, at least, for Sumac in his mind, this made sense. Pebble was trying to be a pony that she wasn’t, and this no doubt confused all of Pinkie’s senses. He thought about everything that Pinkie Pie had said, it lingered in his mind in a jumbled, confusing tangle. “I messed up, Sumac… I messed up. Nothing seems to be working. She’s so much like her mother, but she’s also not like her mother. I can deal with Maud. I can cheer Maud up. I know all of the right things to do to make Maud happy. But Pebble… I keep messing up and I think she hates me.” Sumac, whose intelligence was geared towards thinking about these things, understood at that moment what had gone wrong. If Pebble had been acting like Pebble, Pinkie Pie would most likely be able to straighten her out and make her feel better. Instead, with Pebble acting just like her mother, Pinkie had done all of the things she would do to make Maud feel better. For Sumac, the realisation was stunning, and he was just a little stupefied by his own ability to reason. “Pebble, I don’t think you’re like Igneous or like your mother.” Trixie’s voice was the soft, warm voice of motherhood. “I think you share some stuff in common with them, but you are you. Trust me, if you try to be somepony that you are not, you are going to be really unhappy and lonesome.” “How did you find yourself?” Pebble asked as she opened her eyes and looked up at Trixie. Eyes narrowing, Trixie looked at Sumac, who was lost in thought. “Twilight helped me. I guess a lot of ponies helped me. I was plotted against. Sumac… well, Sumac’s needs became more important than my own and everything I wasn’t just sort of faded away. I had to make sure that he was fed, that he was safe, and that I could provide for him. I suppose I sorted myself out on my own, as I walked the many roads of Equestria. Pulling a wagon leaves a lot of time for thinking.” “Okay, enough moping.” Lemon Hearts lifted her head high and her ears stood up. “We’re going to party… quietly and calmly. Party respectfully. And we’re gonna eat lunch. Lots of lunch. Because there is a buffet and that means we get to eat as much as we can. Now, who’s with me?” “I am!” Sumac’s outburst was loud enough to make Trixie’s ears pivot towards him. “I guess I am,” Pebble deadpanned. “That’ll have to do, I suppose.” Lemon raised an eyebrow at Pebble’s lack of enthusiasm. “Also, Miss Lulamoon, I expect at least one dance. Slow. No groping!” The crowd was manageable for Sumac, but he still had a bit of hesitation. There were a number of guards here in this smaller, more private area. He looked around the room and saw a few ponies that he knew, like Rarity, who had welcomed him and Trixie when he had come to Twilight’s school seeking entrance. Fluttershy was here as well and she looked quite nervous. “Want to sit down? I’ll get you a plate.” Trixie looked down at Sumac and waited for a response. “I see our table in the corner over there. Go on, go have a seat.” With her hoof, she gave Sumac a gentle nudge on his backside. Sumac, content with the plan, went over to the table with Pebble right behind him. He darted through the crowd and headed for the nice corner. Corners were good. Corners kept the crowd manageable. Corners were great. A large griffon stepped out of the way and Sumac had a clear shot to the table. When he was safe in the corner, he sat down upon a plush cushion and smiled at Pebble, who sat down beside him. “I’ve met that changeling and that harpy,” Pebble said in a low whisper as she pointed to another corner. “I was a yearling. Daddy came up with a poison joke potion to help him with his stink problem. It doesn’t always work. But when it does, he sort of smells like roses.” “Who are they?” Sumac asked. “Stinkbug and… nuts, I can never remember her name. She’s nice. They’re both Daddy’s friends and they were my foalsitter once when I was little. We were staying at our apartment in Manehattan and my Mama and my Daddy went dancing. Stinkbug and his harpy friend looked after me. She read me a story and Stinkbug tried to fix dinner. He wasn’t very good at it, but I ate it anyway, because he’s sensitive. It doesn’t take much to hurt his feelings.” “Oh.” Squinting, Sumac studied the pair, not sure what to make of them. Changelings had feelings. He supposed that made sense, living things had feelings, but Sumac had always heard changelings spoken about in a bad way. They were the enemy, after all. Except when they weren’t. He wasn’t sure how to think about this, or how to feel about it, so he remained silent and gave it some thought. “Do you think something changes when you are married?” Pebble asked. She looked at Sumac with a curious glint in her eyes. “Do things feel different? Is there a noticeable change? When two ponies are special someponies it doesn’t feel all that different, it just feels like friendship, whatever it is that friendship feels like. If nothing changes between ponies, if there is no special feeling, if you still feel like friends, then why bother with marriage?” Silence seemed like the only appropriate response and Sumac hunched over the table as he rested his forelegs upon the edge of the white tablecloth. He made the assumption that Pebble was thinking out loud and that his input wasn’t needed. The dream of being forced to marry Pebble and her rejection of him was still fresh in his mind. “It just seems stupid to take a perfectly good friendship and make it complicated with marriage—MEEP!” Pebble was ticklish on her ribs, just behind her front legs, and Sumac knew this from experience. All it took was a little touch of magic in just the right place to get a reaction. He sat on his cushion, watching as Pebble clutched herself, hugged herself, and tried to squirm away from the ticklish sensation. After a few more tickles, he relented and then let out a sigh. He was starving. “That’s not nice, Sumac Apple.” Pebble let out a sniff and made a dismissive gesture with her hoof. “You need to act your age.” “I just did,” Sumac replied, “and I can do it again.” “You’re awful.” “I know.” Pebble’s cheeks darkened. Eyes wide, Sumac let out a gasp when his plate was set down in front of him. It was piled high with food of all kinds, but Sumac ignored most of it and kept his eyes on the prize. The important stuff. Trixie had brought him everything he needed for the most awesome meal in the world. When she sat down beside him, Sumac gave her an appreciative smile. “Go on, Sumac, do that thing you do. I’m sure that Lemon and Pebble will love to see it.” Wasting no time, Sumac went to work. He had slices of thick, crusty bread, pats of butter, some pale white cheese, and a little paper cup full of rainbow sprinkles. Everything in life was perfect, wonderful, and good. Lifting up two slices of bread, he smeared some pats of butter on both sides, which was tricky, but he managed to do it without making a mess. He placed a single slice of cheese on the slice of buttered bread, sprinkled some rainbow sprinkles onto the cheese, placed another slice of cheese on top of that, trapping the sprinkles in the middle, and then added the the top slice of buttered bread. Squinting, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, Sumac summoned up some searing heat. The buttered bread began to brown and the cheese began to melt, which made for a wonderful smell. In moments, Sumac’s magic turned the bread and cheese into grilled cheese, but not just any grilled cheese. Rainbow grilled cheese. He tore the sandwich in half, revealing that the melted rainbow sprinkles had turned the cheese into something with riotous colours. Just as he was about to take a bite, Pebble smacked her lips and Sumac could feel her eyes boring into his very soul. “That looks good,” Pebble remarked as she stared at Sumac. Blinking, Sumac wasn’t certain what had just happened, but there was some strange compulsion at work here. Confused, a bit baffled, he dropped the two halves of his rainbow grilled cheese onto Pebble’s plate, sighed, and then picked up the ingredients to make another. As he did so, Lemon Hearts leaned forwards over the edge of the table. “I want one,” she said to Sumac in a very straight forward sort of way. “That’s the most amazing thing ever. I think that you deserve to become the alicorn of grilled cheese sandwiches.” Blushing, Sumac went to work, fixing Lemon a rainbow grilled cheese.