//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9 
// Story: Spring Broke 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

Love. Perhaps of all of life’s great mysteries, love was the greatest. It had been lust, not love, that had been the force of creation for Esmeralda Verde. His fling with Cielo del Este was just that, a fling, a conquest, a meaningless act done to satisfy juvenile pride. It was the worst sort of sex, done for the worst sort of reasons, and while it had felt good at the time, it was ultimately unfulfilling—unrewarding beyond the sense of conquest.

Two things had come from this act of lust: bragging rights—a reward squandered, rendered meaningless, pointless, due to newfound maturity—and Esmeralda Verde. The moment that Copperquick had encountered his daughter, he had no choice but to love, and what a love it was. Young, carefree, Copperquick had spent far too much time loving himself and looking after his own needs. Like so many his age, he was oblivious to the needs of others. Self-focused, he lived and acted as if he was the only pony who existed.

But with the arrival of Esmeralda Verde, all of that changed. Copperquick was forced to acknowledge that other ponies existed—they existed, had needs that were sometimes contrary to his own, and in the case of little Esmeralda, she was utterly incapable of looking after her own needs. Understanding these needs, anticipating these needs, it required a certain amount of empathy, of understanding, it demanded awareness, patience, sympathy, mercy, forbearance, and ultimately, love, which was the root of all of these things, the wellspring, the source.

Not that these things were impossible without love; but they were things made far more difficult and limited without love as a motivating force. Such as it was, Copperquick was forced to feel love for another, and this had been an awakening. In feeling these first few moments of love, when it was its most tender, most fragile, Copperquick became a creature compelled by love to act in the better interests of another.

This in turn, perhaps as a fickle twist of fate, put him into contact with another who was compelled by love to do extraordinary good; a one Buttermilk Oddbody, who had given over the entirety of her life to the service of others, asking nothing in return. In opening his heart to his daughter, to feel and experience love for her, he had unknowingly primed himself to feel and experience love from others.

Love communicates in strange ways, odd ways, manifesting itself in the most mysterious, most cryptic of acts: in this instance, it was Miss Oddbody following her Moomy’s advice and fixing hot buttery toast with cheese. It was a question, an invitation, a means for the love within to make a query, and Copperquick had responded.

And so it was, Copperquick had opened his heart to experience and feel two profoundly different types of love, forever altering his life, his outlook, and his future. The switch located deep within his heart had been flipped from ‘selfish’ over to ‘selfless’ and this could be seen in his actions, his interactions, and his reactions to the world around him.

Copperquick became a devoted, fervent servant to the whims of love…





With a gentle tug, Copperquick tried to pull the hovering pegasus a little bit closer, but to no avail. His insistence encountered resistance: when he tried to pull her in for a sweet little smooch, her wings buzzed and she held back. This wasn’t a no by any means, she had his fetlock held tight in hers and at any time, she could let go, but her grip on him remained strong.

She smelled of cinnamon and sugar, an inviting, almost intoxicating perfume that tickled his nostrils while inciting his desire. He pulled again and once more there was resistance to his insistence. Copperquick had no hold on Buttermilk whatsoever, other than perhaps his eyes, and the game continued to play out.

The movie was an older black and white film, Sinister Dark Versus the Despicables. Copperquick gave the movie very little attention, and that was only during the beginning. Sinister Dark was a wizard from House Dark, with a front left hoof that had a prominent deformity: she had been born with a dreadful case of clubfoot. Sinister Dark was barking mad, as it was claimed that the Darks tended to be, and she waged a one-mare war against a cabal of nefarious no-goodnik wizards who were rather keen on taking territory from Equestria.

Said wizards were just not prepared for the wrath visited down upon them and the film was a bonanza of special effects. No amount of magical might was a match for the sheer stark raving madness that Sinister possessed. The wizards, who had come to filch territory, were losing in a bad way and Equestria’s borders were expanded during this historical conflict.

But Copperquick paid very little attention to any of this, so focused was he on the pegasus maid flitting around his head. Esmeralda lay on her back on the blanket, dozing, somehow sleeping even with all of the noise. Nor did he notice how Butter Fudge and Mighty Midge were watching every bit of interaction between him and Buttermilk. They had ignored the film to watch a far more interesting show.

Buttermilk’s hazel-green eyes were aglow with inner-fire and Copperquick was thoroughly bewitched as he gazed into their depths. Her grip on his fetlock grew tighter and he noticed for the first time that her touch was just a little bit sweaty, even on this somewhat chilly spring night. Once more he tried to pull her in, and this time he had success. She was still pulling away, and he had to work for it, but pull her in he did, only stopping when their snoots bumped together, leaving him dusted with cinnamon and sugar.

The entirety of her body vibrated with her buzzing wings. She clung to him and he could feel her hot, heavy breathing against the tender, sensitive pad of his snoot. His lips reached out for hers like a drowning pony hoping to snatch their rescuer and once more, she pulled away, but only just a little, remaining teasingly out of reach. When she giggled, his ears rose, fell from disappointment, rose again, and then quivered from his frustration. He wickered, expressing his consternation, and she whinnied in reply.

“Beezy,” Butter Fudge said and then she began to chuckle a bit, “don’t be teasy.”

Blinking, Buttermilk became aware of the fact that her mother was watching, and her cheeks darkened. She darted in, undeterred, and planted an affectionate smooch right on Copperquick’s outstretched lips. For a brief second, the drone of her wings lessened, but then resumed speed and volume as she pulled away with a wet pop. Copperquick was left stunned by getting exactly what he wanted and he sat there with a now vacant stare, a blissful, stupid expression.

“Well, that does it Mighty Midge, we’ll have to talk with Beezy about the birds and the bees now.” Husky, rollicking peals of laughter erupted from Butter Fudge, and the mountain of a mare shook with her mirth.

Overcome with the giggles, Buttermilk let go of Copperquick, flitted about to and fro, and then reached down to brush away a bit of sweetness she had left behind. “The birds and the bees? I am a bird and a bee! Whee! Look at me!” Then, humming a merry tune, she took off with lightning speed, off to secure more sugary treats to satisfy her sweet tooth.





The film wasn’t quite in focus, it was a little blurry, a little grainy, but that didn’t matter. It was also damaged in places; again, that didn’t matter, a dedicated projectionist kept it repaired and held together. Being an old film, it had no sound, no voices, no nothing—but that didn’t matter. Being a clever, industrious community, they took great pride in their makeshift orchestra and a great many voices read the ornamental text boxes when they appeared on screen. If anything, the audience interaction added to the film.

In short, the movie, and by extension, the float-in theatre, was more than the sum of its parts. It became an experience, a rallying point for the community, a community that very much like the float-in theatre it had created, was more than the sum of its parts. There was a certain localised pride here—a culture of doing things for oneself and making do with whatever one had. The theatre, the vehicles, the houses, the buildings, even the very sense of the community itself, it all spoke with a voice of independence.

Copperquick heard this voice, though he did not realise it, and it had a profound effect upon him. As the film entered its final act, as Sinister Dark stormed the very gates of Tartarus itself, preparing to make the most noblest of all sacrifices, Copperquick held his half-awake daughter in his forelegs, trying to soothe her.

The screen had his attention now, but so did Esmeralda, who had just had a bottle and hadn’t yet decided what sort of mood she was in. Kicking and squirming, it was almost as if she was protesting the fact that she was not the center of attention. Copperquick rocked her and made wordless shushing noises in an attempt to appease her.

Meanwhile, Sinister Dark suffered in a manner most horrendous. The worst of the wizards was a unicorn known as the Golem Lord; he had mastered the dreadful trick of living without a body, and he jumped from one creation to another, having created an army of bodies. But Sinister had tricked him—the Darks were many things, but they were mostly mad and boxing clever—and she had fused a golem core within her own body.

Now, the Golem Lord was trapped within her and the very gates of Tartarus opened before her, yawning like some terrific abyssal maw. Copperquick watched, shivering, trying to understand this level of sacrifice. She was laughing, laughing fit to split, and though the film made not a sound, Copperquick could still hear it somehow, the mad, barking, gloating laughter as she reveled in her own smug superiourity.

One simply did not walk into the open gates of Tartarus, and neither did Sinister Dark. No, she pranced, limping on her lame leg, but still somehow making a jaunty entrance. Copperquick was certain that he could hear the creak of the massive, black iron doors being shut, the squeak of old hinges. Just before the door was shut completely, the hands of some otherwise unseen entity put a heavy iron collar around Sinister’s neck and secured it into place.

Then, the doors shut and the credits appeared in slides that had no movement, no animation.

Well, that was kind of a downer… ignoring the credits, Copperquick gave his daughter the attention that she craved. When he looked down at her, she perked up almost right away and had the promise of a far more pleasant mood if she could just get what she wanted. He thought about Sinister Dark, and though he hadn’t paid much attention to the movie, her sacrifice stood out for him. That had seized his attention, his imagination, and now, as a father, he wondered how much he was willing to give for the sake of his daughter.

Potentially, everything.

“Cold, Esme?” he asked and he gave her a bit of a squeeze.

“I’m sad!” Buttermilk blurted out and she pressed her front hooves into her cheeks. “I hate the story of Sinister Dark… I don’t like stories that don’t have happy endings! I don’t like them!” Frantic, she began to fly around in tight, frenetic circles around Copperquick’s head while making distressed whinnies.

“Mama?”

The words, little more a murmur that might have been lost in the sea of noise all around them, made Buttermilk halt and her ears perked. It also made Butter Fudge halt and the big mare turned her head to look as her own daughter flitted down. Buttermilk plucked Esmeralda from Copperquick’s embrace and pulled her into a tight, snuggly hug.

“I know what you want,” Buttermilk said to Esmeralda as she swooped about. “You want your Daddy and I to cuddle you together, don’t you? What little routine you have has been broken and you hate that, don’t you?”

“Herd bonding.” Butter Fudge spoke in a wise, knowing voice. “If that’s actually what she wants, that means she’s healing a bit. You need to stay on top of that. Now you settle down, Beezy, and you get to cuddling, right now, this minute.”

“I try, Moomy, but everything has been so stressful and then all of this stuff happened and we came home and we went to the movies and I was having a wonderful time right up to the point where the movie ended because I don’t like movies with bad endings and—” Buttermilk inhaled with a near wheeze but all of her words died when her mother snorted.

Copperquick wasn’t sure what was going on, but Butter Fudge had this most curious smile. A secretive smile and a merry twinkle could be seen in her eye, or maybe it was just the dazzling electric lights. Buttermilk plopped down to earth, landing on the blanket just in front of Copperquick, and with one swift motion, he pulled her close, somehow having her mother’s approval to do so.

Right away, Esmeralda brightened and began to babble, making nonsensical foal-talk.

Buttermilk, totally glitzed and blitzed on sugar, had trouble sitting still. She squirmed a bit, squeezing Esmeralda, and wiggled a little closer to Copperquick. Blinking a few times, she focused her bespectacled stare upon her mother, and she had this to say: “It’s really tragic, Moomy, but foals raised by a single parent are less socially adjusted than foals raised by two parents. And foals raised by herds… those are some of the most gregarious foals of all. I’ve been studying the data, now and again, and when I go for my doctorate, and I am going for my doctorate, make no mistake, I plan to have my doctoral thesis focus on this issue.”

“Beezy?” Butter Fudge looked absolutely baffled.

“I have a plan to create a support group for single parents… a sort of pseudo-herd… a social network of disadvantaged parents who can help one another. They can interact with one another and their offspring, and it is my hope that the pseudo-herd has a positive impact on the social development of the foals within a group. If I can get them all interacting enough, it should mirror the beneficial herd structure of extended families, and it would also give the parents a helpful network of other like-minded parents in similar situations that would understand the troubles, trials, and tribulations of being a single parent, which has problems that are greatly magnified in animals with a deep, innate herd-mentality such as ourselves.”

“Beezy… I’m sorry… but it’s like you’re speaking a different language. I only understood about a half, if even that, of what you said. Slow down and try to explain this to me, because I want to understand.” Butter Fudge’s ears sagged and there was a look of deep concern in her eyes. “I can’t abide by ignorance and I feel like there is a lot that I don’t know at the moment.”

In the distance, another film was being loaded into the projector and there was quite a rush to get more snacks from the vendors. Copperquick, looking a bit serious, wrapped a foreleg around Buttermilk and gave her a reassuring hug, which made Esmeralda babble even more.

“Beezy,” Mighty Midge said to his daughter, “if you don’t mind me asking, what brought all this on?”

“Copper,” Buttermilk replied without hesitation. “About a week or so after meeting him, when everything fell apart, when all of the trouble really began to pile on, when I began to feel the very real fear of losing a client and somepony that was dear to me, I was… motivated. I saw how ponies fell through the cracks and so I began to wonder how do these cracks appear in the first place, and then there was a lot of questions, and I talked Mrs. Velvet’s ear off, and then I wore out Princess Cadance’s ear, and then after that Princess Celestia and I had a conversation that lasted for all of about… I want to say, twenty or so hours? And I listened to her because she’s been alive for a bloody long time and she has a lot to say on the subject and then after that I began to arrive at my conclusions.”

“And those are?” Mighty Midge leaned in and his ears were angled out over his curious, serious face.

“Family and herd structure decay.” Buttermilk blinked behind her thick glasses, sniffed a bit, and gave Esmeralda a squeeze. “Take Ripple Rusher… she is most obviously a single parent. She is also ostracised… shunned in laypony terms.” Here, Buttermilk paused and gave her parents a meaningful raised eyebrow. “She is raising her foals in an environment detrimental to their development, one that is not conducive to them making healthy, well-adjusted herd-connections. These foals are going to grow up into adults that have compromised herd-connections, and these conditions will be passed on to their future offspring. This is already happening and we can see the evidence of this by a number of problems already present in society. By slut shaming and shunning Ripple Rusher, no matter what awful things she might have or might not have done, we are placing the onus of her punishment, the millstone around her neck in laypony terms, around the necks of her foals as well, and all of society will suffer for it, and not just Ripple Rusher.”

Butter Fudge’s lips pursed into a tight, sour pucker, but she said nothing. Mighty Midge was also quiet, musing on his daughter’s words, and both of them suffered from some intense bewilderment. As for Copperquick, he reflected upon Buttermilk’s words, understanding them well enough and appreciating the fact that she had courage enough to challenge her parent’s beliefs. He also had immense pride that he had fallen in love with an intellectual who was eloquent and impassioned enough to challenge his own beliefs.

“Daddums, could you please go and get me a drink? I ate too much sugar and salt and I’m really, really thirsty and right now, Esme needs her cuddle time.” Batting her eyelashes, Buttermilk spared no mercy and gave her father a hopeful smile.

Grunting, the blue pegasus rose into the air, then went buzzing towards the concession stands, as Copperquick began to wonder about the mysterious power that daughters held over their fathers.