//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

	There was no raisins on his raisin toast, much to Sumac’s dismay. It was, for all intents and purposes, just cinnamon toast, sans raisins. He didn’t even care for raisins very much, but something about all of this left him grumpy. Or maybe, everything else had left him grumpy and this just made everything want to come out. Somewhere, in the depths, a tantrum lurked. Sumac could feel it, and he feared it. 

“There’s no raisins in my raisin toast,” Sumac said to the three mares having breakfast with him. “Just cinnamon and butter.” 

Twinkleshine, leaning forward, narrowed her eyes while looking right at Sumac. “Now I have to punish you.” 

“What?” Sumac blinked. “Why? What’d I do?” 

“Because, I need practice being a mom. It’s time I punished you for no raisin.” 

“Twinkleshine!” Trixie’s voice was shrill and her nostrils flared while she turned to give her breakfast companion a baleful glare. “That was awful!” With a snarl, Trixie hurled her half-eaten toast to punish the punster, and of course, it landed butter side down, right on Twinkleshine’s snoot. 

“I think I found all of Sumac’s raisins,” Twinkleshine said as she went cross eyed to get a better look at the toast sticking to her muzzle. “Why are you looking at me like that, Lemon? I thought we were friends!” 

Sumac laughed, and down in the deep, dark places within himself, the temper tantrum fizzled out with a promise to return later, when conditions were more favourable. He watched as Twinkleshine pulled the toast off of her nose and began eating it, all while Trixie began buttering up another slice of raisin toast for herself. 

Sighing, the colt strained against his bonds, hating them. He was tied to his chair, there was no other way of putting it, he was secured in place with straps to keep him from falling over. While he couldn’t move, at least he had magic, and his magic was getting stronger from constant use. His head was tilted off to one side, the corner of his jaw resting against the cushioned neck brace that held him up. He hated wearing it, and only had to wear it while eating. Fighting against it was making him stronger though, so it wasn’t all bad. 

With his eyes, he looked over at Trixie and Sumac said, “Lemon Hearts told me that you are asexual.” 

“Lemon!” Trixie paused her buttering to look at the yellow mare sitting across the table. “How could you?” 

Looking just a little ashamed, Lemon’s ears pinned back against her skull. “I told you I would do it if you procrastinated. Sumac deserves the truth. He might be five, but he’s mature for his age and he worries about you. He wants all of the same things that other foals his age want, like happy parents!” 

“Don’t be mad at Lemon.” Sumac willed the pitcher of apple juice to rise and he poured some into his cup without spilling a drop. He put the pitcher down, it sloshed, and he took a slice of leftover coffee cake. 

“You’re… not… bothered… by this?” Blinking with astonishment, Trixie stared at her son. 

“Why would I be?” Sumac asked, and he blinked right back at his mother. 

“Because… because of all of the troubles and problems my own mother had… your grandmother… all of the heartache—Sumac, you wouldn’t believe the sort of scenarios I kept constructing inside of my head and all of the ways this would make you unhappy or cause you grief.” Trixie’s brutal, unflinching honesty caused the jovial mood to vanish. 

“I told you so.” Lemon’s ears rose just a little in early-stage defiance, but remained pointed backwards. “Trixie, the stuff you make up in your head isn’t true to what ponies actually think of you. Especially Sumac. You’ve gotta start trusting him… you need to start trusting us, or there will be a problem. I’ll make it a problem.” 

“It’s hard, okay?” Trixie’s ears dropped and assumed a more submissive posture. “I keep having bad dreams… really awful dreams where I lose you—” 

“That’s not going to happen!” Lemon’s voice had considerable volume. “Sometimes, being with the pony that you love is more important than the sex that might come with it!” The yellow mare’s ears rose to a full stand and pivoted around to face Trixie. “I am committed to you! You’re hung up on sex because you seem to have this misguided idea that commitment and dedication are only offered as rewards for sexual gratification! You need to sort out this confusion!” 

Now, it was Trixie’s ears that were pinned down flat against her head. “You’re right. I do. Before it hurts Sumac.” Trixie, her eyes glimmering with excessive moisture, looked over at the colt, blinked a few times, then turned away to look out the kitchen window. 

“Um…” Sumac looked around, not knowing what to say. 

“We want you to grow up with a healthy sexual outlook,” Twinkleshine said to Sumac while she wiped butter from her snoot. “I’m messed up, but I’m getting better, and I wish that my parents had been this open with me. Trixie is in some in-between place right now, and we’d all be in a real mess if it wasn’t for Lemon Hearts keeping us in line.” 

“I’m still not understanding this whole asexual thing,” Sumac admitted, hoping to draw Lemon’s attention away from Trixie. His statement was true—he didn’t understand it very well—and the idea of sex of any sort just made him feel icky. Kissing, as an action, that was still pretty gross. 

Hearing these words, Lemon’s head turned with an abrupt suddenness, and she seemed game to try again. “Sumac, being asexual has a lot of misunderstandings associated with it. It doesn’t mean that they hate sex, or don’t want sex, or can’t have sex—” 

“For me,” Trixie said, cutting in with a soft voice, “it is about mental attraction, not action. I like the closeness. I like the snuggling. I just don’t get much from the act itself and I don’t feel much in the way of physical attraction, which is really confusing when you want to be close with somepony.” 

Taking a deep breath, Sumac felt his ears grow warm, and he stared down at his plate, rather than look at any of the mares at the table. It was easier this way. A hot flush crept up his neck and the inside of his cheeks went dry, causing them to cling to his teeth. Bracing himself, he drew in another deep breath and said, “So you’ve done stuff together… grown up stuff. That’s good. That’s how it should be.” As he spoke, terror welled up from within him and he worried that he might have let slip the wrong words. “It’s good to know that nothing is broken.” 

“Yes.” Trixie nodded, then she coughed and stared down at her own plate. 

“Sumac,” Lemon began, her tone gentle. “Everything works on your mother. Nothing is broken. She is capable of having happy, healthy, normal sex and the release that goes with it. She can become aroused, to a certain degree… she just has to take a different avenue to get there. It isn’t a physical act for Trixie, but almost entirely a mental one.” 

After hearing all of this, Sumac struggled to understand it, because he wanted to understand it. He wanted his mother—no, his mothers, to be happy with one another. He swallowed, filled his cheeks full of air to make them stop sticking to his teeth, and after screwing his courage to the sticking place, he looked at Trixie. 

A nervous wicker slipped out, and Sumac swallowed again. He really wanted some apple juice, but that would have to come later, as a reward, maybe. “It sounds like to me,” he said, and his voice became an awkward squeak, “that you never really developed a like for colts or fillies, but you can still love them if you look past those parts.” 

Smiling with relief, Lemon Hearts’ head bobbed up and down in an enthusiastic nod. “That’s a very good way of putting it, Sumac. I’m proud of you. We’ll talk more later, okay? Trixie and Twinkleshine both look a little overwhelmed, and so do you.” 

Sumac was, in fact, overwhelmed, and he began slurping down his apple juice, glad that this was over. 



 

Once more, Sumac Apple found himself staring out the window, watching as the world went by. He missed Boomer a great deal, and his window watching was done with the purpose of spotting Twilight Sparkle and Spike. Boomer needed a check-up and a physical, and the doctor was in Canterlot. It was difficult for Sumac to travel at the moment. 

Dragons were born, had a quick rush to a state of maturity where they could care for themselves, and then slowed down. Dragons like Spike slowed down a whole lot, while dragons like Boomer had lifespans similar to ponies. Spike would be a tyke for the next century, while Boomer would just grow old and eventually pass away while Spike approached adolescence. 

Such was life. 

Life wasn’t fair, but there were consolations to be found, if one looked hard enough. Friends, family, loved ones, and simple pleasures. Sumac had been enjoying the simple pleasures, perhaps a bit too much, and he had a feeling that he needed to start hitting the books again if he wanted to keep his mental muscles. 

His magic lessons with Vinyl had been delayed, due to the sudden increase in family size. The colt was curious, anxious, because there had only been brief mentions of Megara, who was said to be half-manticore and half-pony. It was almost certain that he was having withdrawals from Pebble and he wanted to see her more than just about anything. 

For a brief moment, he heard Lemon’s voice coming from the bedroom, and he hoped that the three of them weren’t fighting. For some reason, this was a constant fear, that a fight would break out and then all of this would be over, it would end. Sumac feared the end, he had awful nightmares about it, and more than once, he had seen Princess Luna vanishing through doors within his dreams. 

Family was the only thing that Sumac wanted. Not wealth, not fortune, not riches, not stacks of comic books or the latest, greatest toys. None of those things mattered to him, and in a more long-term sense, he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted from life. He wanted what Pebble had, a large, bustling family, and for him, it started with the three mares who looked after his every need, embarrassing or not. 

Outside, the snow was coming down sideways and the skies were grey. The house was warm, cosy, and secure. Sumac loved this house, it was everything he had hoped for. He had the upstairs to himself, and he even had his own bathroom. The living room had a great view though the windows, the kitchen was large, even larger than the living room, and there was a fully enclosed solarium in the back of the house that would be finished soon. Well, the room was already done, but the plants were still being planted. It was an activity that they all did as a family. 

Ears perking, he heard voices again, this time Twinkleshine and Trixie both talking at the same time. His stomach muscles tensed and for a moment, Sumac almost hated the irrational fear that threatened to overtake him. Whatever the conversation was, it was one that they couldn’t have in front of him, and that worried him. Now he understood some of Pebble’s seeming paranoia and why she always fretted about her parents. 

When one was a foal, everything felt so important, doubly so when one was used to having nothing. The house, having stuff, having a family… anything that came along that might be a potential threat, it felt like a major crisis just waiting to happen. Everything felt so precarious. Their last house had burned down and everything had turned to ash with it. Lemon Hearts wanted to propose marriage, but it seemed that there was still an awful lot to sort out, and sorting stuff out might lead to fights. 

And fights… fights might mean the end of everything. It was a terrible, terrible fact of life. Sumac was helpless, defenseless, and oh so dependent upon those three mares. Now, he found himself straining to listen, and even considered using a cantrip to eavesdrop. He could do that, for whatever reason, he was gifted at what Twilight called the ‘sneaky spells.’ They came to him as naturally as breathing, much to everypony’s concern, and he understood why. 

Flam Apple, that’s why. 

Much to Sumac’s relief, he heard laughter coming from the bedroom, real, actual laughter, not nervous laughter, or fearful laughter, but happy, belly-busting laughter. The tension that had made all of his muscles go tight let go, and he was able to draw in one deep, shuddering breath before he began sobbing with relief, the tantrum from earlier manifesting as a powerful need to cry. 

Alone, on the couch, staring out the window, Sumac had no choice but to let everything out.