//------------------------------// // Chapter 32 // Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Spicy gingerbread was the best kind of gingerbread and Pinkie Pie made the best gingerbread, because it sent one running for a glass of milk to wash it down. Unless you were brave, or stupid, or Sumac Apple—who was now just a little bit sweaty after eating the special gingerbread that Pinkie had made just for him. The first few bites hadn’t been so bad, but Pinkie had concocted a special recipe that had a slow burn of fiery intensity that grew with each nibble. It started off with sharp intake of breath, progressed to a reddened face, then a raised eyebrow, followed by near-panting, and eventually reached the sweaty Sumac phase. Pebble had given up with a raised eyebrow and now nursed a glass of milk. Even though the room was crowded with far too many ponies, it was still somehow quiet, though not dull. A second table had been set up and this was to be the foundation of their winter wonderland, their gingerbread village. The table had a wobble when they had started, but Tarnish had somehow grown the dead wood, giving it life, and making the table leg just a smidgen longer. It had made Sumac’s magic sense go crazy and the colt had a million questions he wanted to ask, because the magic had come from Tarnish’s hooves, not his horn. But asking questions would disrupt the blessed quiet. At random intervals, Maud snapped a picture and Sumac was surprised to learn that Maud was a photographer. He thought Vinyl was the shutterbug of the family, but he was mistaken, and Pinny Lane had showed him one of Maud’s photo albums. Maud took pictures of things she liked, so most of the photo album was filled with rocks, taken at sensible pedestrian angles, but hidden in the pages of rock photos, ponies could be seen, including a few of Pebble when she was younger. Cups of cocoa were everywhere, along with spiced cider, tea, and coffee, all of which filled the air with a confusing jumble of aromas that Sumac couldn’t keep track of. The scent of gingerbread, spicy and fragrant, the sweet smell of the sticky, gooey icing, and the enchanting smell of wood burning in the fireplace—all of this would be forever ingrained in Sumac’s mind as the smell of the holidays. It was the smell of happiness, of security, safety, and peace. When Lemon Hearts picked him up, Sumac couldn’t even find it within him to protest, and when he was pulled close he offered no resistance. Somepony laughed—a feminine sound—but Sumac couldn’t see who. Something warm and fuzzy brushed up against him, something not Lemon Hearts. After glancing around, Sumac saw that Trixie was now holding both him and Lemon Hearts. Trixie, who had a messy chocolate mustache from sipping cocoa. Looking up at Lemon Hearts, he asked, “Are you in love?” When Lemon Hearts nodded, he followed up with, “What’s it feel like?” Lemon Hearts did not reply right away, but when she did, her words came slow. “It feels funny, and strange, and I’m happy, and I want everypony to be as happy as I am.” “And you fell in love with your bully?” Sumac watched as Vinyl Scratch assembled a gingerbread clocktower. At least, he thought it was a clocktower. “Oh, she’s changed quite a bit,” Lemon Hearts replied and she gave Sumac a squeeze for emphasis. “Ponies can change, Sumac, don’t you ever forget that. Olive changed. Trixie has changed. This is why we forgive and try not to hold grudges. If I held a grudge, why, I’d be hurting myself right now, because then I wouldn’t be as happy as I am.” “What about Queen Chrysalis?” “Well, that’s a little different, Sumac—” “How so?” Lemon Heart’s sudden hesitation said much and told Sumac more than words could. The fact that she lacked a quick, snappy answer, the fact that she was thinking, it left Sumac wondering about what she might say when she finally found the words. “Sumac,” Twinkleshine began, “there is a profound difference between forgiving your school bully and somepony”—she paused, blew a brief raspberry, and tried again—“some bug that has tried to murder you. You can forgive Chrysalis if you’d like, and that would be good of you, but she can’t be trusted. There is a big difference between giving somepony a second chance and allowing more hurt to happen.” “What about Princess Luna?” Sumac asked and when he did, the gingerbread clocktower collapsed when Vinyl bumped it a bit too hard. “Sumac…” Whatever it was that Trixie was about to say trailed off. “Or Trixie… she held all of Ponyville captive.” Lifting his head, Sumac felt a powerful need to express himself. “What about my dad?” “I had to forgive the entire town of Ponyville and Twilight Sparkle.” Tarnish’s voice was rough and scratchy. “Being banished for something that wasn’t my fault hurt me more than I’d like to admit. I still have moments when I’m angry about it. Sumac, forgiveness is complicated. There are no easy answers.” “Princess Luna is forgiven because she’s shown a sincere desire to do good.” Lemon Hearts’ words did not satisfy Sumac, for some unknown reason, and he thought about his father, who was now a tree. Flam Apple now had no desire to do anything, but offer shade and was now in some weird realm that went beyond forgiveness, but Sumac lacked the means to articulate his thoughts into something meaningful. There seemed to be a line that could be crossed, and once crossed, there was no return, no coming back to good graces. Queen Chrysalis, it seemed, had crossed that line, but Princess Luna had not. His father, Flam, no longer had a chance to earn forgiveness, so he too, had crossed some line, but Trixie had not. “Forget I said anything,” Sumac whispered as he retreated within himself. “I don’t want to ruin everypony’s good time. We should talk about nicer stuff. I’m sorry.” With a sigh, he went silent so he could hear his own thoughts better, and zoned out. Much to his relief, the others gave him the quiet that he craved, and the subject, it seemed, was dropped. “Megara…” Tarnish’s words and the following meow pulled Sumac from his thoughts. The colt blinked a few times as he turned his head to have a better look at Tarnish. He’d been distracted for a while now and the gingerbread settlement had grown a good bit. Lemon Hearts was still holding him, and he was both warm and comfortable against her. “Megara, we have to do something about those tusks.” With his horn glowing, Tarnish pulled Megara to him and Sumac watched, waiting, wondering what the big brown unicorn was up to. Megara looked a little worried, maybe even a bit scared, but she was also trusting and did nothing to resist her father. And Tarnish was her father, of this, there could be no doubt. When he slipped a foreleg around her, the dark chocolate brown pelt they both shared was a perfect match. “Those tusks are a bit dangerous, Meg. Let’s see if I can fix that.” “Fix?” Megara turned her fiery orange eyes upon her father and her bristly whiskers quivered. “Tarnish—” With a wave of his hoof, Tarnish silenced Maud’s concerns and Maud, perhaps worried about whatever Tarnish had planned for Megara, leaned in close. Sumac couldn’t read Maud’s face, but he didn’t doubt Maud’s sense of motherhood. The mare’s ears were so perked, so rigid, Sumac had no doubt that they could be used as chisels against stone. Cloudy too, seemed worried, and was now watching Tarnish’s every move with a scowl. It seemed that Cloudy liked her new granddaughter just the way she was. Tarnish, unconcerned about the sudden attention focused upon him, picked up two gumdrops, one red, one green, and his lips puckered in concentration whilst he focused upon his task. Saying nothing, he pushed the two gumdrops onto the sharp ends of Megara’s tusks, capping off the dangerous points, and then, with both his eyebrows arched, he studied his work. Megara’s tail twitched as her eyes tried to focus on her new gumdrop-adorned tusks. “I like it,” Tarnish announced as he gave his daughter a reassuring hug. “They’re festive.” “Festive?” Megara wrapped her broad paws around one of her father’s forelegs. “Yes, festive. They make you look pretty. Now, both you and Pebble look pretty.” Rolling her eyes, Cloudy let out a snort and then went back to watching Limestone trying to shore up a gingerbread wall with more frosting. Sumac wasn’t sure why Cloudy was snorting, because Tarnish had done something nice and now, Megara was pretty—although Sumac thought she looked a bit silly, he wasn’t going to say it aloud. No way. Feeling warm and drowsy, Sumac yawned and wiggled his front leg until it was in a somewhat more comfortable position. Reaching out with his magic, he fixed Limestone’s wall, making it straight, and pushing all of the frosting in to secure the base. She smiled, lifted her right front hoof, and licked some frosting off the edge of it. The wall, now secured, did not budge, but stood steady with its fellow walls. Boomer, perhaps also feeling festive, snatched up a bright red gumdrop, lept from where she was sitting with Pinny Lane, landed on Tarnish’s back, clambered up the back of his neck, tickling him and causing him to shimmy while she ascended, and upon reaching the lofty heights of his head, skewered her gumdrop onto the tip of his horn. Perched between his ears, Boomer yawned, wrapped around his horn, her tail coiling tight in a secure grip, and then she promptly went to sleep. “That needed to happen,” Maud deadpanned and her eyes met several others as she glanced around the room. “Try sleeping in the same bed as a couple of unicorns sometimes. Those things are sharp and snuggly unicorns are the worst.” As Maud finished speaking, she turned her intense stare upon Vinyl Scratch, and was ignored. “There are worse things to be poked with in the bed,” Octavia remarked, and the adults began to snicker. “Like what?” Sumac asked and he felt Lemon Hearts almost drop him. “Never you mind.” Octavia’s eyes narrowed, but the corners of her mouth were pulled earwards in a wicked-looking grin. “You silly looking.” Megara twisted her upper body around in a supple, boneless manner, and with her spine twisted in some impossible way, she examined her father with a studious look of feline seriousness. Just looking at Megara made Sumac’s neck ache. Pony spines didn’t bend that way, and neither should anything else, because it was just unnatural. Cringing, Sumac tried to turn away, but found that he couldn’t, as some mysterious force compelled him to keep looking. Whatever it was, it had to be evil, because each moment spent in observance was pure torture. “Are you happy, Meg?” Tarnish tugged on his foreleg that Megara was clinging to and gave her a gentle shake. “I mean, this is a lot to take in, and the house is crowded, and you’re still adjusting to everything, and I didn’t expect for it to be this crowded, so I’m kinda worried about how you’re doing—” “Me fine,” Megara said, cutting off her father mid-sentence. “Pebble no bite me.” “Pebble doesn’t bite you?” Tarnish appeared confused for a moment and Boomer let out a smoky snort when his pivoting ears brushed up against her. “Oh… oh, right, right… your other brothers and sisters… they, uh, bit you. They were mean. Pebble’s just snarky and sarcastic, like her mother, and her grandmother—” “Hey!” Cloudy interjected as she peered at Tarnish over the top of her eyeglasses. “—but thankfully Pebble is not a biter.” Pebble, with a sleepy, or perhaps bored expression that matched her mother’s, watched this exchange but said nothing. Reaching out with her wings, the tiny thumbs protruding from her wing-knuckles flexing, Megara wrapped them around her father and clung to him, her tail making lazy slashes from side to side. The razor-sharp claws at the end of her paw-fingers extended for a moment, becoming visible, but no harm was done to Tarnish. “Sumac runt now. Megara big.” “I’m not a runt!” Sumac sucked in a deep breath, indignant, and repeated himself. “I am not a runt!” This was an outrage. He was many things, but a runt wasn’t one of them. “Megara no bite, no chew. Look after runt. Megara not bad. Megara do good?” Simmering, Sumac gnawed on his lower lip, but said nothing else. Megara was good and he wasn’t about to make her think otherwise, because who knows what that might do to her. His pride was a bitter, hard lump when he swallowed it, but swallow it he did, because it was the right thing to do. But he wasn’t a runt. Like Tarnish, he was a galloper with a lithe body made for traversing entire continents. Eyes glowing like two burning embers, Megara continued to be horrible-adorable and Sumac found it harder and harder to remain angry with her for calling him a runt. What made her eyes glow like that, he wondered. It had to be some kind of manticore magic, and it was magic because he could sense it. Megara had magic, of a sort, of a kind, but Sumac didn’t know a thing about it, only that it existed. “Megara, you’re doing just fine and you’re fitting in. I think. I’m not a good one to judge about fitting in.” Leaning over, Maud leaned against Tarnish and tilted her head down to look at Megara. “This is weird, Tarnish.” “How so, Maud?” “I love her so much I can’t stand it. Just as much as I do Pebble. I think I’m hormonal.” “Oh boy, here we go again.” Limestone ducked as her mother took a swipe at her and then turned to stare at Cloudy with wide, defiant eyes. “Look, all I’m saying is, Maud got a little strange the last time she was hormonal—” “Limestone!” “Well she did!” Limestone fended off her mother’s hoof, slapping it away, bobbing and weaving, chuckling while her mother poked and prodded at her. Sumac could see it was all done in fun. “We have visitors,” Tarnished announced as the alarm chimes sounded through the house. “I wasn’t expecting visitors. I’ll be right back.” Disentangling himself from Megara, the tall, lanky unicorn departed to answer the door with a look of deep concern that left his face wrinkled. “Who could possibly show up unexpected and unannounced? When will ponies get the hint that I want to be left alone? I swear, I’m gonna put up a sign! Salesponies will be cactused!” “Tarnish, stop conjugating nouns or you’ll set off Lemon Hearts again.” Twinkleshine too, got up and followed after Tarnish, her horn glowing with a dangerous, brilliant intensity as it charged. “She doesn’t want Sumac learning your noun conjugating ways, you chocolate ruffian.” Laughing, Tarnish got the last word as he and Twinkleshine vanished from view. “That’s not the worst thing I could teach little Sumac!”