//------------------------------//
// Chapter 31 
// Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

With his dream still fresh in his mind, still vivid, with every detail still burned into his synapses, Sumac attempted to apply the lesson of the dream: calm control. Standing on trembling legs, he ignored Pebble and Megara’s quizzical expressions and focused instead on control. Even though his neck ached and his knees banged together, the colt tried not to let it worry him, knowing and understanding what was holding him back now. No fear of falling, nor anxious anxiety. He did his best walking when he was distracted, and not thinking about it.

The first step was always the hardest, the worst, because so much dread went into making it happen. Princess Luna, with Fluttershy’s help, had shown him the way. No fear, no dread, no lip biting, it was time to cast those things aside. Just breathe, he told himself. Perched on the edge of the table, Boomer’s frills rose and fell with each breath she took, her eyes never once leaving Sumac.

Each breath was visible, a cloud of steam, and the kitchen was quite cold. Everypony was still waking up and the morning struggle to make tea and coffee was underway. Sumac took one step, wobbled a bit, took another, and fought to remain upright. On the third step, he grunted, frustrated, reminding himself that quadrupeds did not move one leg at a time, and that he was being stupid. Holding his head high hurt, it hurt a lot, but this was good because the pain helped to keep him focused.

Without realising it, Sumac stumbled into walking. There was a delay in his legs—a problem to be certain—but he ignored it for now. Queen Chrysalis had broken his neck, she had shattered him, but that was not the end of him. The sound of Lemon Hearts fretting over him was distracting, and he wished that she would stop, but she was Lemon Hearts. Telling her to stop fretting would be like suggesting that she should stop breathing. The sound of running water caused Sumac’s ears to perk, and for some awful reason, he thought of a bath being filled.

Just as he had gained control in the dream, having achieved a state of lucid awareness, so too did Sumac do the same with walking. Perhaps the issue with walking had been a mental one, or maybe he had hit a stage of rapid healing, but Sumac enjoyed his newfound state of control. Pebble followed after him, taking short, tiny steps so she would not overtake him, and Megara followed after Pebble, taking swipes at her sibling’s swishy tail. It was almost like a parade, but there was no marching band.

“Look at him go,” Trixie remarked as Sumac led his procession around the kitchen table. “So, Tarnish, what is on your agenda for today?”

Standing near to the enormous sink, Tarnish turned his head and replied, “Gingerbread. Pinkie Pie graciously stayed up late last night to make an enormous stockpile of gingerbread and everything we need to make a holiday village. She has to go to work today, but she made sure that we’d have enough for our fun.”

“Just doing my part.” Pinkie, not quite awake, seemed startled when her father, Igneous, smooched her on the cheek without warning. In response, she gave her father a fierce hug and squeezed his neck until his eyes bulged from their sockets. “All of you have lotsa fun without me, okay?”

“Having to work sucks—”

“Pebble!” Cloudy, Lemon Hearts, Pinny Lane, and Octavia all said the filly’s name in a scolding tone.

“Well it does,” Pebble whined as she followed along after Sumac. “Stupid parents having to work and they go off on trips around the world, leaving me behind, and I’m always stuck wondering and worrying if they were going to come back. Even worse, sometimes they’re gone for a bloody long time and I hate it.”

Most of the ponies in the room were about to all say something at once, but Tarnish beat them to it. Drawing himself to his full, commanding height, he raised his voice and said, “Leave her be. I mean it. I’m putting my hoof down about this. She needs to be more expressive of how she feels so she doesn’t hold stuff in, and if all of you pile in on her all at once, that won’t help things at all. So… not a word or you’ll have words with me. Just, lay off for a bit.”

Stunned, Pebble went still, save for blinking her eyes, and it took her several long seconds to recover herself while Sumac continued his walk around the table. Megara stepped around her, following Sumac, and after regaining her senses, Pebble broke away to go over to where her father was. Upon reaching him, she stood there, looking up at him with an expectant expression upon her face, and Tarnish, mindful of the fact that Pebble did not like to be lifted, lowered himself down to the floor with her. In silence, she scrambled up onto his back, clinging to his long, skinny neck, and when he stood back up, she made herself comfortable on her lofty seat.

Sumac, who watched all of this in silence, knew that he and Pebble shared a common struggle, and that was dealing with parents—adults—who wanted to do what was best, but had a tendency to do those things at the worst possible time. Inopportune adulting was the shared bane of he and Pebble’s existence. Pebble, who had a hard face to read most of the time, now wore an expression of relief that even Sumac could see. The steady clop-clop-clop-clopping of his hooves against the stone floor was reassuring and uplifting for Sumac, and things worked best when he ceased being so anxious and stopped thinking about them.

Standing next to the counter, Twinkleshine began cracking eggs into an enormous bright green mixing bowl while Lemon Hearts minced some potatoes. Unbeknownst to Sumac, the two mares were exchanging furtive glances with one another while also watching his progress. With a blank, deadpan expression, Maud looked upwards at her daughter, and though she said nothing, there was some sort of meaningful silent exchange.

Left to her own devices, Boomer ransacked the bowl of mixed nuts on the table. She pulled out her first victim—a walnut—and using both her claws and her almost beaklike snout, she made short work of the protective shell. With her tiny, dexterous fingers, she ripped out the walnut meat, cast it aside on the table, and then gobbled down the shell while making smoky, pleasurable grunts. A hazelnut was her next victim, and like the first, she ripped the meat out and then devoured the shell, a most peculiar habit.

In a stunning display of claw-eye coordination, Boomer hurled the hunk of hazelnut meat at Megara, who was quite startled when it bounced off of her ear. The manticore spawn whirled about with a growl, just in time to get hit in the snoot with a chunk of walnut meat. In what could only be described as a feline response, she batted at the offending bit of nut with her paw and then gobbled it down with a loud gulp.

Then, the provoked felinoid went after the hazelnut, which had rolled close to the fire. Meanwhile, Boomer was gutting even more nuts, ripping out their innards with ferocious glee so she could eat the shells. The tasty meats, which she did not seem to care for, were thrown at Megara, who lept and pounced to catch them.

“I wish Twilight was here to study this,” Trixie remarked to nopony in particular. “No doubt, she’d have something witty or meaningful to say about this friendship between two species of mortal enemies out in the wilds.”

“Mortal enemies?” Limestone looked up from the pile of potatoes that Lemon Hearts was chopping.

“Manticore poison is especially effective against dragons.” Trixie’s eyes narrowed for a moment and she peered at Boomer, who was lining up a shot. “I only know a little, and that comes from all my travels. But I’ve heard stories about them fighting and have had warnings from fellow travellers that danger waited down the road.”

“It’s our fault.” Tarnish’s voice held a keen hardness to it and Sumac stopped to listen. “We’re destroying their habitats. The wilderness is shrinking in many places. I suspect that under normal circumstances, manticores and tree dragons, being perfect enemies with one another, would give each other a wide berth, but with the wilderness shrinking, they are now in direct competition with one another. They have no choice but fight over what territory is left.”

“Perfect enemies?” Sumac asked, curious by what Tarnish meant.

“Evenly matched,” Tarnish replied, and his expression revealed that he was thinking of his next words. “Tree dragons breathe fire, which manticores are vulnerable to, and manticore poison tends to be fatal to smaller dragons. The stingers will punch right through even the toughest metallic scales. They are both the apex predators of their environments.”

Possessed with a mind that needed to understand everything around him, Sumac stood in one spot and let the gears of his mind run full tilt. It didn’t take him long to pose a question, a good question, he felt. “So how are Boomer and Megara friends?”

In response, Tarnish shrugged. “They’re not having to fight for resources? Everything they need has been provided for them? We ponies are naturally communal, so a little bit of that might have rubbed off on them? I have no idea.” With a thoughtful expression, he watched as Boomer pelted his daughter with shelled nuts.

“Naturally communal?” Sumac shuffled closer to the fire, so that he could warm his backside.

“Ponies are naturally communal.” Maud’s response was delivered in her usual deadpan. “We’re a gregarious herd species and our survival is based upon the strength of the herd. Our instincts are all about keeping the herd strong. We forgive quickly, share what we have, and we are quick to make friends, or even lovers. All of this benefits the herd.”

Hesitating, Sumac pressed his lips together, as he didn’t want to say that Maud was wrong, but in his experience, Maud was wrong. So it was with some caution that he said, “But I’ve known ponies who are greedy and took more than they need. I’ve seen how hard it is for some ponies to forgive.” Saying this, he glanced at Trixie for a moment before he continued, “And tribalism tore our species apart, separating us and making us weak.”

“Sumac, darling…” Octavia raised her hoof and made a circular gesture with it. “Sumac, there are instincts, and there are learned behaviours. What Maud said is true, but also by the same token, what you have said also has a grain of truth to it. Our instincts compel us to behave in one way, but our learned behaviours can cause us to act in another. It is possible to go against instinct, and sometimes, this is beneficial to our species, rising above our primitive selves. At other times, however, it is a detriment.”

Sumac wanted examples, but he said nothing. His brows furrowed in a thoughtful way and he had himself a good think about everything that had just been said. Of course, he had instincts, but he couldn’t recall a time that they had compelled him to do anything in particular, so he supposed that like himself, his instincts were quiet and reserved.

“It is a measure of a stallion…” Igneous cleared his throat and then looked down at the floor while he spoke. “It is the measure of a stallion on how well he reins back his instincts. He can listen to a mare tell him ‘no’ and maintain his good behaviour. He can be trusted to do the right thing, to be honourable, to be good. Like Tarnish and Limestone—Tarnish values his relationship with Limestone… so much so that he chooses to see her as a sister, and he stands by that. This makes him a good pony.”

“But instincts might tell him to do other things with Limestone?” Sumac watched as Limestone squirmed, and he felt bad for her, but the question had already escaped.

With a slow nod, Igneous shuffled on his hooves. “Yes. Sometimes need overcomes reason and rational thought.”

Turning to look at Boomer and Megara, Sumac thought about instinct and learned behaviour. Friendship was, perhaps, an instinct among ponies, to keep the herd strong, but for others, it might be a learned behaviour. This in turn, made him think of his dream with Fluttershy, and the pretty, pretty butterfly. Instinct had told him to panic when falling, it had robbed him of reason, it had caused him to freak out and lose control of himself. His learned behaviour though, to be calm, to have control, his ability to override his instincts had allowed him to save himself.

And so it was with an immense feeling of satisfaction that Sumac realised that he had learned something.