Perhaps seeking comfort or reassurance, Sumac pressed his hoof against his mother’s leg and felt the fine hairs tickle-prickle against his frog. He rubbed his hoof up and down, reveling in the sensation, his frogs were sensitive right now and the feel of his mother’s coat was a marvellous distraction from the thoughts that plagued him.
Not far away, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine were playing cards, Sumac didn’t know what they were playing, nor did he care. His body felt a little better, but his mind, not so much. There were things that he wanted to say to Trixie, but how could he say them? How could he ask? What if she became angry? What if everypony started shouting?
Sumac decided that it was a risk worth taking, and he licked his lips as he prepared to ask what was sure to be a tough question. Tilting his head, he looked up at Trixie, who was reading the newspaper. He cleared his throat a little, it felt scratchy and dry still, and he took comfort in the velvety feeling of his mother’s pelt against his frog.
“Mom...”—Sumac felt his breath almost catch in his throat and he hesitated a moment before he continued—“some things were said… about you and Flim and Flam.” As he spoke, he felt Trixie go tense and there was almost a faint whistle as she sucked in a deep breath. “That’s why I hit him, he said bad things about you.”
Lemon Hearts’ head turned away from her cards so she could look at Sumac, and Twinkleshine did the same. In the grate, a fire crackled, on the mantle, the clock went tick-tock, and the private sitting room of Twilight Sparkle filled with a noisy, distracting silence. Trixie’s newspaper made papery crinkle sounds as she folded it up and put it down on the small carved stone table beside the chair that she and Sumac were sitting in.
The colt wondered if perhaps, he had made a mistake.
“It’s true that I worked with Flim and Flam for a time,” Trixie began in a scratchy voice, “and he probably told you that. He might have said a lot of things that might’ve been half truths or things that were true but said in such a way that makes them look much worse than they are.”
Ears perking, Sumac thought of the effect of spoken magic, honeyed words and how they might influence the listener. What had his father hoped to accomplish?
“I tried several times to set myself straight, like when I took a job on the Pie family rock farm.” Trixie’s ears fell and went limp against the sides of her face as she shook her head. “And, as I’ve already admitted, when I first took you in, I did so for reasons that weren’t entirely good. Not a day passes where I don’t feel some measure of regret for that. Yes, I used you when you were little to gain sympathy and leverage.”
“Sumac, darling”—Lemon Hearts’ eyes darted from Twinkleshine, to Trixie, and then to Sumac—“Flam no doubt wanted to make you doubt the decency of your fellow ponies, probably so you would be more like him. Bitter, jaded, and cynical. Do you understand what these words mean?”
Squirming in Trixie’s embrace, Sumac shrugged, as he wasn’t entirely certain. “Distrustful?”
“Yes, Sumac, distrustful is a good start. To be cynical means that you believe that other ponies are only focused on their own self-interests, lacking sincerity and meaningful trustworthiness.” Lemon Hearts glanced over at Twinkleshine once more, her eyes worried and pleading, and then she returned her attention to Sumac, looking a little scared. “Your father wanted to undermine your faith in your fellow ponies, including your own mother. Your father probably has the misguided belief that all ponies are really just like him deep down in their hearts, and that’s just not true.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever be having this conversation with a foal,” Twinkleshine remarked as she stacked the cards together into the deck.
“He did bad, Sumac, he did wrong, but I’d like to think that he really was trying to look after you in his own messed up way,” Lemon Hearts said to the colt that Trixie held.
Baffled, Sumac felt tears coming, as he was overwhelmed and in over his head. “How?”
“This is just what I think, mind you, so it might not be true, but I think that Flam was just trying to show you how he thought the world was to prepare you to deal with it. He lived a very different life than say, Twinkleshine and I did. He saw the worst of ponies, he lived and breathed it, and it coloured his perceptions. So did your mother, Trixie. The difference is, Flam probably saw no good in anything, and so he had no desire or motivation to do good, he only looked out for himself, while Trixie is recovering and returning to decency.”
It was going to take a good think and some quiet, but Sumac was certain that he could make sense of this. Already, he had some thoughts blossoming in the fertile soil of his mind. He pressed his hoof a little more into Trixie’s leg and felt the fine hairs tickle against his frog.
“You know, up to this point, I had this weird belief that parents only had one big talk to have with their foals, and that’s the whole birds and the bees thing.” Twinkleshine slid the cards back into their little stiff cardboard box. “I always imagined it was difficult and parents dreaded it. I had no idea that a big grown up chat about equine morality would be necessary.”
“So my dad… Flam, he wanted me to see the world like he sees it, and he wanted to protect me?” Sumac’s eyes narrowed behind his tea shades and he rested his head against Trixie’s barrel. Listening to his mother’s heart, he thought about right and wrong. “It’s like he wanted me to drink poison to protect me from poison.”
A three way glance occurred between Trixie, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts. Twinkleshine nodded, then shrugged, Trixie’s ears rose, then fell, and Lemon Hearts took a deep breath as she was the moral, level-headed one of the group.
“That’s not a bad way of putting it, Sumac,” she said in a quavering voice that sounded as though Lemon was on the verge of tears. “Just a little tiny sip of poison with the hopes that you build an immunity to it over time. That’s how bitterness and being jaded works… enough bad things happen and you just stop caring. Apathy takes over, apathy meaning indifference, a lack of interest, or a lack of enthusiasm.”
Twinkleshine nodded, but looked out of sorts.
“If you don’t care, then you can’t be hurt, you won't be disappointed, you can’t be let down by your fellow ponies. If you expect the worst from them, you’ll never have your hopes dashed when something bad happens.” Lemon Hearts’ voice became a tight, pained squeak. “I try to expect the best from ponies, like, even right now, I’d like to think that your father really did want to protect you, he just went about it the wrong way. I get hurt a lot being the way I am, it’s caused me a lot of heartache, I’ve cried a lot, but I’ve never given up my belief that ponies are inherently good.”
A few tears spilled out and Lemon Hearts sucked in a deep breath. “Just like I believe in you, Sumac. Flam Apple and Belladonna weren’t very good ponies. In fact, they were pretty rotten, and it pains me to say that, but I believe with all of my heart that you are still a good pony, even with your temper. Pebble said you had a chance to crush your father’s skull and you didn’t.”
“But I wanted to,” Sumac admitted as he thought back upon that dreadful moment. The memory made him shake and he pressed up against Trixie as she squeezed him. “He called my mother a grifter and he said that I was just a prop.”
Her barrel heaving, Lemon Hearts lost her battle for control and she buried her face into her hooves. Twinkleshine sighed, shook her head, and gave Trixie a pleading look. Trixie, shrugging, held on to Sumac and unable to do anything, she watched as Lemon Hearts wept.
“Um…” Twinkleshine licked her lips, her bright orange tongue flicking in and out as she began tapping her front hooves together. “Uh, um, okay, I’m tapped out here, I can’t say the sort of meaningful stuff about morality that Lemon Hearts can, I just hit stuff really hard when I’m angry with it and I try to do good on a case by case basis. Lemon Hearts is clearly the heart of our little group.”
“Does that make you the body?” Sumac asked, his words filled with a surprising sincerity.
“I… guess… I… suppose that it does?” Twinkleshine’s words were hesitant and she said in a slow, drawn out manner. “I still don’t know my place in… well, whatever it is that we seem to be forming. I didn’t expect to be drawn in like this and I still don’t know my own feelings about this.”
“And that makes my mother, Trixie, the mind.” Sumac wrapped his forelegs around Trixie’s foreleg and hugged her tight. The colt closed his eyes, felt his stomach gurgle, and was relieved when he realised it was probably just gas building up. He could deal with gas, and the moment would pass.
It made him think of Applejack, who was a very wise pony. She had once told him that you couldn’t see the wind, but you could see the effects of the wind and its passing. Such was the way of friendship and everything unseen. It all seemed so profound, coming from her, and Sumac liked Applejack’s earthy wisdom.
“Is it too late to go out to Sugarcube Corner?” Sumac asked, feeling hungry.
“Hey, that’s a good idea!” Twinkleshine’s eyes brightened and she added, “I think it’ll help Lemon. With those soft, squishy hips of hers, you know that she eats to make herself feel better.”
“Twinkle!” Trixie’s mouth fell open and aghast, she stared at Twinkleshine.
Still crying, Lemon Hearts somehow managed to giggle, and then she choked. She coughed for a bit, sniffled, wiped her nose with her foreleg, giggled a bit more, hacked, and then with a turn of her head, she looked over at Twinkleshine, blinking away tears.
“If we hurry, we might make it there and slip in before they close,” Lemon Hearts said in a squeaky, husky voice. “I need something deep fried and drenched in chocolate.”
A blast of warm, cinnamon-scented air slapped Sumac in the face as the door opened and he started drooling right away. Disoriented, a little dizzy, and still groggy, he tried to recover his senses but was struck by a pink whirlwind that smelled of vanilla and rich-roasted coffee. He was swept up, lifted up off his hooves, and the world whirled around him, the horizon bobbing up and down in a crazy way as Pinkie Pie swung him around, alternating between hugging him and holding him up above her head in her hooves as she balanced upon her hind legs.
Twinkleshine was the last to enter, and she pulled the door shut behind her. Very few patrons were here at this time of night. There was a nocturnal pegasus hunched over a table in the corner, an odd sight indeed. In the large, comfy booth in the corner, a few familiar faces could be seen. Maud was stuffing her face with little crescent moon shaped pies and Octavia was stirring a cup of tea with a spoon held in her lips. Tarnish and Vinyl were throwing raisins at one another while Pinny Lane tried to make them stop.
“Aunt Pinkie, may I please have my special somepony?” Pebble asked as she trotted along at Pinkie’s heels.
“Nope, he’s mine!” Pinkie replied as she continued to swing Sumac around the room and give him pegasus pony rides. “You have to learn to share, Pebble.”
“No!” Pebble’s words were almost a foalish whine. “Gimme what’s mine!”
“Nope!” Laughing, Pinkie bounced away with Pebble in pursuit.
Moving together, Trixie, Lemon Hearts, and Twinkleshine went over to the corner booth, already crowded, and joined them, stuffing themselves into the already packed seats as Pebble chased her aunt around the room. Mister Cake, laughing, stood behind the counter and watched as the merry scene unfolded in his establishment. Tarnish flicked a raisin at Twinkleshine in greeting, and being a polite sort, Twinkleshine flicked it right back.
“Not much left at this time of night,” Mrs. Cake said to her guests. “Just the spicy chili pepper pumpkin pasties and Maud seems to be determined to eat all of those.”
“Want more pumpkin,” Maud deadpanned around a mouthful of food.
“And raisins,” Tarnish added as he shot his mother in the nose, and then he laughed when she stared cross eyed at the wrinkled, dead grape stuck to her snoot. “But who wants to eat raisins?”
Sumac, being flung about by Pinkie, thought about the best that ponies had to offer…