//------------------------------// // Chapter 23 // Story: Spring Broke // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Almost all equines shared a common trait no matter what their equinality might be; all of them were possessed by a powerful urge to belong. With the herd instinct being what it was—the single most important factor that ruled almost all aspects of their lives—there were powerful motivations to cease being a stranger and fit in. Evolution and biology had weeded out the loners and the individualists—those who stood out—and rewarded those who grouped together. It was this very factor that Copperquick pondered as he stared at the Faucet while sharing the company of Buttermilk and her mother, Butter Fudge. His kind, his species, were friendly almost to the point of being foolhardy, with strangers never remaining strangers very long, and potential family members pulled in and adopted into family herd structures with great haste. At this moment, at this time, he was living out events that his textbooks had described in great detail, and he was fairly certain that this could only help his grades somehow if he applied himself. Butter Fudge adored Esmeralda, so much so that it was difficult for Copperquick to determine if it really mattered that there were no blood ties. Even now, the big mare was hugging, squeezing, and smooching the little tyke, and Esmeralda was devouring the lavished affection. Biologically speaking, little Esmeralda had been accepted into the family herd structure as a member, but as a matter of social mores, of sociological conventions, ritual still had to be satisfied. Equines held their rituals in high regard; each of the individual tribes had their own rituals; and then there were the rituals and customs that stretched across all of equine society, all manner of acts to mark certain occasions. The cute-ceañera marked one of the most important events in a pony’s life, but this wasn’t a custom that Copperquick was familiar with, as it was distinctly Equestrian. Then there was weddings and funerals, rituals that marked transitions in a phase of life. It was during this long, thoughtful stare that Copperquick decided that he liked sociology and equinology the most out of all of his studies, because he could digest everything that he had learned and then observe it in the world around him at large. School would be over soon, he had done his time for a two year degree and at some point, he had lost track of how much time he had left to go. But sitting here on a weird little island with a Faucet that dripped upwards into the sky, he had somehow put his head back into perspective and he had remembered that his time in education was drawing to a close. “Buttermilk,” Copperquick said, breaking his own silence, “I think that I’d like to stay in school if such a thing is possible. Maybe continue learning about sociology and equinology. Hippo studies.” In response, Buttermilk stared at him, blinking, her long eyelashes brushing up against the lenses of her spectacles. Something about her at this moment was quite fetching and he found her desirable. “Affording it will be tricky.” “We'll manage,” Buttermilk replied without hesitation. “If that is what you want, we’ll find a way. We’ll be flat out broke, we’ll work long hours, and spend even more hours studying, but we’ll manage. Hopefully Esme won’t turn out too neglected.” “I think I’ve grown up a bit more,” Copperquick continued and he wasn’t too bothered by saying this in front of Butter Fudge. “Before, I was directionless… aimless… I was content to be average and just take whatever life saw fit to offer me. My cutie mark arrived after I made a conscious decision to remain as average as possible and become a well respected member of the labour force.” “Oi, there’s nothing wrong with that, but you can do better.” Butter Fudge put Esmeralda down upon the ground and waited for the filly’s wobbly legs to steady before she pulled her hoof away. “I wish that Midge and I could help, but we’re resource wealthy and cash poor.” Copperquick felt the muscles in his neck tighten and he knew well the kindness that Butter Fudge had just shown him. “That’s very kind of you to say, thank you.” Now free to walk around a bit, Esmeralda waggled her tail from side to side, stared down at the ground while she poked at it with her front hooves, and she spent much effort sniffing at the curious earth. When she went to lift her head up, her mane remained over her eyes, and she made little panicked snorts as she tried to see. A few experimental head tosses almost toppled her over, but she somehow managed to get most of her mane out of her face. The tyke toddled around a bit and suffered the fate of awkward tiny foals everywhere; her hind legs, being longer, moved faster than her front legs, and she was forced to compensate for this unfortunate condition. After watching her for a bit, Copperquick determined that she might grow up to be a runner, just like he was. She was going to be a very attractive runner and this was going to make his life difficult, he just knew it. Esmeralda wandered a bit, sniffing about, and keeping a wary eye on the Faucet. With each sniff, her tail twitched a bit—which made her diaper crinkle—and Copperquick was fascinated by her every move. When the filly was about two yards away or so, she became quite alarmed, made an almost-pronk, somehow didn’t fall on her face, and then gamboled back to Buttermilk. “Mama.” “Good girl, stay close,” Buttermilk said, praising  the bouncy little earth pony filly. “Girl?” Esmeralda turned her disproportionately large eyes upon the mare she called, ‘Mama.’ “You’re a girl!” Reaching out, Buttermilk booped the curious, twitchy-tailed filly. In reaction to this baffling revelation, Esmeralda sat down and appeared to be having herself a think. A bit of sand was leftover on her nose after the boop and poofy tufts of her vivid green mane were starting to spill down onto her face. Her brows furrowed, forming shallow wrinkles, and this pulled her ears forwards over her face while also making more of her mane go tumbling down into her eyes. “Why?” Esmeralda asked, and Copperquick began to flog his memory, trying to recall if she had ever said this word before. To his recollection, she hadn’t, and he was filled with dread without knowing why. “Because some of us have to be girls,” Buttermilk replied, and this got a snort from her mother. “And some of us are boys, like your Daddy.” Pointing with her hoof, she gestured in Copperquick’s direction. “Boys are smelly and gross, stay away from them.” “Beezy!” With a turn of her head, Buttermilk turned a wide-eyed innocent stare upon her mother. “Do you want me to teach her to run off and play with every little colt she finds?” Rolling his eyes, Copperquick let out a huff but had a hard time refuting Buttermilk’s logic. Butter Fudge seemed to be having the same problem, with her mouth opening and closing, but no words seemed to be forthcoming. Meanwhile, Esmeralda seemed to be thinking, and was doing so with great effort. After tossing her head back again to get some of her mane out of her face, she turned, lifted up one hoof, and pointed at her father. “Smelly?” “Yes!” Buttermilk cried, blurting out the word in her overexcitement. “Your father is a boy and he is smelly! I can’t believe you put that together on your own! Good girl!” “Why girl?” Esmeralda’s solemn inquiry silenced the eye-rolling protest that her father was about to make. “Girl why?” Nudging Esmeralda, Buttermilk then pointed at the Faucet. “Look, Esme… see how it drips upwards into the sky? Isn’t that neat? There is something to ask why about, but I can’t tell you why. It is a great mystery.” “Uh...” Tilting her head off to one side, Esmeralda looked up at the stone spire, which dwarfed her. “Girl?” “No, Esme, as far as I know, rocks aren’t girls, but I could be wrong.” Tilting her head back, Esmeralda stared skyward, watching as rivulets of water poured from the stone. Her whole body wobbled, her hind legs gave way, and she sat down on the gritty ground with a soft whump. In awe, her eyes went wide, then wider, and then, somehow, wider still, until they had to be the size of saucers. Copperquick could only imagine what his daughter had to be thinking, to gaze up and see a sky that you might go tumbling into, falling upwards forever. “Sky is blue, Esme… can you say, ‘blue’ for Daddy?” With bated breath, Copperquick waited, hoping for a response. “Sky?” Eyes darting about, the little filly didn’t seem to know what the sky was exactly, and she looked at everything above her as she tried to understand the world. “Way up there, far, far above us, is the sky and that is where your Mama flies.” Copperquick watched his daughter’s eyes, hoping for some spark of understanding, some glimmer of recognition. “It’s blue and it is filled with clouds. You’re sitting on the ground… as an earth pony, the ground is very special to you, and you have a connection to it. The ground is special to us, Esme.” This was something the filly seemed to understand. Jamming one front hoof down, she poked the soft, silty soil. “Ground. Ground. Ground. Ground. Girl?” “Uh…” Buttermilk’s sentence didn’t quite form and she sat there with her mouth hanging open while Copperquick took over. “There are some who call the planet female… a girl. A she. Mother Nature—” “Mama?” Esmeralda asked. For lack of any better response, Copperquick nodded. “Yes, Esme, the ground is our Mama and we are connected… a family. We’re earth ponies.” “Erf.” “Earth.” “Erf?” “Maybe once you get past this teething you can say it better.” “Ground.” Esmeralda caressed the gritty soil with her hoof and smiled. Then, with a look of fearful alarm, the filly lifted her head high and said, “Foosh!” In all of his life, Copperquick had never even contemplated a floating ice parlour. Only it wasn’t much of a parlour, really. Ice cream boat? It was a bit like an ice cream wagon that trundled through the streets of Canterlot, blaring out tinny organ grinder music. This vessel was moored to a dock and had a small fleet of various types of crafts secured around it. It sold goat’s milk ice cream in a selection of flavours, and much to Copperquick’s shocked surprise, it was fantastic. Esmeralda seemed to think so too, even though she kept getting brain freeze because she was too overeager. It was pleasant to watch Buttermilk sharing her ice cream with Esmeralda, and it did not escape Copperquick’s attention that Butter Fudge watched every little detail. “Oi,” Butter Fudge said in a subdued voice, “it blows my mind how well she deals with travel and being out and about. Yes, I know what you told me, Beezy, but hearing it and seeing it… she is just so laid back and easygoing.” “Moomy, this is pretty much what we do, day in and day out. We go out to get things done and Esme comes with us. She really is rather good about it, and Copper and I are pretty lucky. She’s special, that’s for certain.” Esmeralda stopped licking the spoon and made a face, a dreadful face—it was as if she was going to swallow her own muzzle while her flap-happy ears tried to fly away like butterflies fleeing some impending disaster. Waving her forelegs about, she let out a bleating cry to announce that she was in pain and that life was horrible. Then, after a few seconds of recovery, she resumed licking the spoon held in Buttermilk’s primaries and acted as if nothing was wrong. “Oi, she’s a drama queen.” Butter Fudge began to chuckle as she held her waxed paper bowl of ice cream between her hooves. “She’s determined to get as much as she can though… she’s not shying away from the pain. Tough little filly.” Water—a mix of briny and fresh—left a lingering scent in Copperquick’s nose. The scent of ice cream, the sound of the ponies around him, it was in this environment that Copperquick realised that he was living his salad days, the very best and most important days of his life, the formative days that would transform him into the pony he was meant to become. Even his youthful indiscretions had worked out in his favour and aided his transition. Buttermilk would join him for his salad days, glorious days such as this one, and it was with some sorrow that he realised that these days couldn’t last. Salad days became something else. A pony changed, grew, horizons broadened and a pony adapted. What came after one’s salad days? He didn’t know, but he had some idea of what to look for. A pressing need to be responsible, to be mindful, to have some sense that there was something in one’s life that could be lost if they didn’t work hard and apply themselves. He had no home, but he had prospects, and more than anything, Copperquick had hopes and dreams. Something almost like a direction was now visible for him, and even though things were quite difficult for him right now, he could not deny that these were the best days of his life. These would be the days he would remember when he was older and looked back. Esmeralda being young and getting brain freeze. Buttermilk sorting out her relationship with her mother—and his future mother-in-law. Eating ice cream while enjoying the unique, distinctive smell of a tidal marsh. “NYUH!” Esmeralda clutched at her head with her forehooves and squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, these were the best days that he could hope for.