//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Trixie was back and Sumac was oh so very glad to see her. So much so that he did nothing to resist being held. He didn’t mind, not really, and his brief moments of resistance were more for show. There was a pleasing rustling sound as their pelts rubbed together, accompanied by a ticklish electric crackle. His mother smelled of ozone, of magic, and his magic sense detected that his mother had done some recent casting of the great and powerful variety.   He didn’t ask, and he didn’t care.   A cool room was better for snuggling, as Sumac didn’t mind being warm. He closed his eyes, losing himself in the moment, and with his ear pressed up against his mother’s throat, he could hear the sound of her heart beating, a most reassuring sound indeed. The warmth and the fuzziness of the embrace almost-sort-of-kind-of made him sleepy.   “How’s Adventus?” Sumac asked while he fought to keep from yawning.   “Oh, he’s much better now that Lemon Hearts checked up on him.” While Trixie replied, she caressed the back of Sumac’s neck with her fetlock. “It’s funny how she is, right? That might be the hardest part of being in love with Lemon, is having to share her with other ponies.”   Opening one eye, Sumac caught a glimpse of Lemon Hearts, who was sitting with Megara and Pebble. No doubt, she had heard. It made him happy to know that things were progressing and that, soon, they would be a family, a real one, all bound together with documents and ink. He thought about being a tease, but the moment was too pleasant to ruin it.   “You love Lemon?” he asked in a muffled voice.   “Yeah, I can’t deny that.” Trixie was silent for a moment and Sumac did not see her looking over at Lemon, nor did he see Lemon’s smug look of satisfaction. “I love her a great deal, Sumac. Just about as much as I love you.”   The sound of Tarnish’s gentle baritone could be heard for a moment, but Sumac wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. He heard Megara make a mewling sound, and then there was the sound of Octavia laughing. Almost more content than he could bear, he rubbed his cheek against his mother and delighted in the staticky warmth of being close to the most important pony in his life.   “Mom?”   “Yeah, Kiddo?”   “What’s a sissy?” Sumac felt a strange silence accompany his question. Yes, he felt it. Some silences you heard, as strange as that might be, and other silences you felt. This one was a feeler, and in the back of his mind, the colt wondered if, perhaps, he had made a mistake. His mother tensed, and he could feel her muscles tighten while she held him.   “Well, Kiddo… what do you think a sissy is?” Trixie asked.   More silence. Sumac’s ear flickered, trying to pick up on some sort of sound, but there was nothing. Even more, Sumac wondered if he had done something wrong, perhaps saying the word, ‘sissy.’ He tried not to worry about it too much, and instead, he focused on coming up with an answer, a good one. It didn’t take his brain long to come up with something, and he dredged up a memory from school.   “In school, I heard one colt tell another colt that he was a sissy mama’s colt.”   There was a sound, a sound that was brave enough to emerge from the suffocating silence, and Sumac had no doubts that it was Lemon Hearts, because she had a most pronounced frustrated huff that could not be mistaken. Sumac had been the subject of quite a number of these huffs, and he knew them well.   “Yes, I suppose that is one definition of a sissy.” It was Lemon Hearts who was speaking, and her voice had a hardness to it that almost scared Sumac. “It’s a bit of social conditioning that makes little colts ashamed of being close to their mothers, and that hurts them… in fact, it hurts all of us. Little colts that grow up being distant from their mothers tend to become stallions that are distant from their wives.”   “Okay, Lemon, let’s not have ourselves a good and proper freak out—”   “Look, Octavia, I’m just stating a simple and obvious truth.”   “I know you are, Lemon, but let’s not be upset about it.”   “Alright, fine.” Again, there was another of Lemon Hearts’ distinctive huffs, this time as punctuation.   Sumac waited and when the silence returned, he asked another question. “What do you think being a sissy means to Big Mac?” Even as he was speaking, he felt Trixie inhale, she sucked in a deep breath and gave him a squeeze. He felt weird questioning Big Mac’s motives, almost as if he shouldn’t be questioning the adults in his life and why they did what they did, but it bothered him and he had to know.   “Sometimes, Sumac, I forget just how smart you are, and then you go and give me a good reminder.” Trixie took a another deep breath, smacked her lips once, and then pressed her muzzle down against one of Sumac’s ears. “Sumac Apple, I am going to say something and it is going to be quite blunt. I’m going to trust that you are smart enough to take this the right way, okay?”   “Okay.” Sumac felt his ear fidget when Trixie’s lips brushed up against it.   Sitting in silence, Trixie didn’t answer, but remained silent while cuddling the colt in her embrace. The faint sounds of murmuring could be heard from the others, but Sumac wasn’t paying much attention, nor did he make much effort to understand what was being said. The faint prickle of tiny claws alerted him to the fact that Boomer was climbing him like a tree, and then she scurried up Trixie to perch atop her horn.   “You know, I think Lemon’s talent relates to the matters of the heart,” Maud said in a voice just loud enough to be heard with clarity. “All evidence seems to point at her keeping ponies together while maintaining healthy relationships. Wouldn’t you agree, Octavia?”   “Indubitably.”   “Octavia, must you be so posh?” Maud asked.   “Why… yes…” was Octavia’s dry, witty reply. “She’s like a gardener, but with ponies, carefully cultivating the growth of relationships all around her. It’s like she’s keen on building up families, or friendships, or something.”   “Or something indeed.” Maud didn’t quite sound posh, but she did sound rather dry.   Even though Sumac didn’t see it, Pebble gazed at her mother with wide, adoring eyes, no doubt taking everything in, as Pebble wanted so very much to emulate her mother, to be her mother. Meanwhile, Megara was making a few half-hearted swipes at her father’s tail, hoping it would move, so she would have something to play with.   “Big Mac is a very simple, very good pony,” Trixie began, and everypony went silent. “Now, I’ve heard a lot of talk about who he is and what he is, and some ponies say that Mac is a little backward. I don’t agree with that… no, Trixie does not abide by that.”   Sumac waited while his mother cleared her throat.   “A bigot is somepony that forces their views on other ponies,” Trixie said, and her emotion gave her voice a noticeable strain. “Big Mac is old fashioned, of that there can be no doubt. But he doesn’t go out of his way to force his views on others. He stays in his orchard, working hard, minding his own business, and he keeps to himself. He has good values, even if they are from yesteryear, and Sumac, more than anything, I want you to learn all of the good things that Big Mac has to teach you.”   “If there are good things, then there must be bad things too.” Sumac, with his eyes closed, inhaled to fill his lungs, stretching them until they almost stung, and then he let everything out in a slow huff. Things were complicated.   “Kiddo, when Big Mac made a whole new wagon just to keep his word, that is what I want you to learn from him.” Trixie paused, then added, “And to be honest, I don’t think picking up a little bit on his old fashioned values would hurt you. For Big Mac, I think I know what he thinks a sissy is… a shirker. Somepony who runs away from hard work. Somepony who doesn’t keep their word. Somepony who can’t pony up to do the right thing when times get rough.”   “Yeah, that fits in with what I know of Big Mac,” Tarnish said, picking up where Trixie left off. “Mac thought I was a bit of a sissy, but that’s since changed. I grew up, got responsible, and did the right thing, even when the right thing was hard, and he’s respected me ever since, even if we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.”   “Big Mac is reasonable.” Maud’s deadpan filled the room and she spoke with a bit more volume than usual. “Now, being reasonable, that’s being able to entertain an idea even if you don’t agree with it. There’s a lot that Mac doesn’t agree with, but he will listen.”   Sumac it seemed, was getting an earful.   “Maud, if you don’t mind me asking, what brought that up?” Octavia asked.   “We were talking one day,” Maud replied, “and the subject of Applejack’s ex-husband came up. As it turns out, Mac doesn’t agree with everything his sister does, but he has no intentions of making her change. He respects her, he respects her opinions, and he remains right behind her for support. You know, Big Mac could have made a life for himself, he could have done any number of things, but he stayed at home to help raise Ambrosia and Hidden Rose Apple. He stayed to support his family… and didn’t walk away like a sissy.”   Lemon Hearts scooped up Megara, who yowled, trying to clutch at her father’s tail while she was being tugged away from it. “So, we’re back to defining what a sissy is, I see.” While speaking, she gave Megara a cuddle, and the still yowling manticore spawn squirmed in Lemon’s affectionate embrace.   “For a long time, I was a sissy,” Trixie admitted, and the room went silent once more. “I ran away from everything. I ran away from all of my responsibilities, and I refused to believe that anything was my fault. I was afraid of how much it would hurt to make things right, to make right what I did, and all of the hard work that goes along with that. It was easier to pull a busted up wagon all over Equestria and try to pass myself off as something I wasn’t.” Clutching Sumac, she added, “And I hope my son doesn’t grow up to be a sissy.”   “Sounds more like cowardice,” Tarnish remarked, with the sort of bluntness that he was known for.   “What’s the difference?” Vinyl asked, speaking in Octavia’s voice. “I’m a big sissy when it comes to pain. I just can’t deal with it. Everypony has a weakness, and that is mine. I am absolutely scared of needles and things that can hurt me.”   “Vinyl, you’re one of the bravest ponies I know.” Tarnish’s voice was low, rough, and a bit raspy. “The things we’ve done together… the places we’ve been… the things that have happened. Like… when the Endeavour crashed… you seemed so fearless… or how you’ll walk into situations that even I’m hesitant to face.”   “That’s just me being cocky.”   “Cocky?” Tarnish sounded doubtful.   “The only reason why I am so damn cocky is that I know that you’re right behind me… otherwise, I’d be running away like the little sissy that I am,” Vinyl replied, still using Octavia’s voice, which made things more than a little weird.   It was all too much to take in, to understand, to comprehend, and Sumac was almost buried beneath the weight of it. Growing up was complicated, there was so much to do, to understand, and as Sumac feared, so much that could go wrong. For Sumac, the word sissy represented growing up wrong, and he resolved to do right. However, he wasn’t so sure of what right was, as just like with the word sissy, everypony had a different meaning that they assigned to it. He was certain that if he asked Big Mac which meaning was right, he would get a much different answer than if he was to ask Lemon the very same question.   He was certain of one thing though: both Big Mac and Lemon Hearts would steer him in the correct direction when offering their meanings of what right was, he knew that. Sumac, by sheer luck, destiny, happenstance, or good fortune, had found himself in the company of good ponies, ponies who did right and stuck by it, even if they might all have different meanings of what right was.   The painful memory of almost crushing his father’s head with a tombstone made him jerk in his mother’s embrace, and Sumac realised that even if doing right was difficult to define, he knew what doing wrong was. Pebble had spared him from doing wrong, and he was thankful for that. Sumac had something of an understanding that, when one went down the path of wrongness, it was difficult to return to the path of right. He thought of Starlight Glimmer and her own struggle to return to what was right.   For Sumac, the future, his future, seemed promising, and right.