This was surely the end of all things and a terrified Sumac awaited his well deserved fate. Tarnish, the bane of bandits, the mauler of mooks, the punisher of pirates, loomed large in the corner of Sumac’s vision, as well as a much smaller Lemon Hearts, who was somehow no less scary. Hidden Rose had gone off and tattled; now, the consequences were real. With all of his might, Sumac tried to swallow the suffocating lump in his throat, but it was impossible. With Pebble to his left and Ambrosia to his right, Sumac imagined all manner of terrible, horrible, awful, dreadful things happening as punishment.
Sumac remembered the movie perhaps a little too well.
“Look, there is nothing to be afraid of,” Tarnish said, yet when adults said this, there was plenty to be afraid of. “There are just two of us… Lemon Hearts and I… and three of you. See, nothing to be afraid of. You’re not facing a whole roomful of adults.”
This was of course, bunk, because there was more to Tarnish than three foals combined. If a herd’s strength was measured in numbers, Tarnish counted for at least three or four—adults. Sumac wasn’t reassured by Tarnish’s attempts at reassurance. It wasn’t the quantity of adults he faced that scared him, no, and Sumac felt that Tarnish just didn’t understand this simple concept. As for Lemon… Sumac shivered.
“Look, I wanna help you,” Tarnish continued with his calm voice of reassurance. “Hidden Rose told us some stuff… and I have a suspicion that she might have been exaggerating. She might’ve even been lying to me, but for me to be able to know, I need one of you to tell me what happened. Or better yet, all of you, because I’m pretty sure that all of you will have a different story to tell and I’ll have to sort out what’s real and what isn’t.”
“Right now, you are making it very hard for Mister Teapot to help you.”
Well, that was it then, there was no hope to be had. Mister Teapot. Now there was no doubt in Sumac’s mind that he was doomed. Adults only used serious adult names when real adulting was about to be adulted and at times like these, Sumac wished that he was adultless. Of course, running away to live in the woods was no real possibility, so he was stuck.
“Stay strong,” Ambrosia whispered, “don’t be a snitch.”
This set off Lemon Hearts something awful, and Sumac suffered a mighty cringe from the terror-inducing way that she inhaled. Bracing himself, he listened when she began to speak: “See, I don’t get that. It is in your best interests to tell us what happened, because if you don’t, we’re going to have to punish you based on what Hidden Rose told us, and that’s unfair. Help us make this fair for you—”
“So we can still be punished no matter what,” Pebble said, interrupting Lemon Hearts.
Tarnish lowered his head—he had a long way to go to get down to foal level—and Sumac, out of the corner of his eye saw Pebble staring straight ahead while her father’s snoot hovered mere inches from her eyelashes. Sweat began to trickle down the inside fold of Sumac’s ear and he was so scared that he had trouble sitting still. How was Pebble so calm with her father breathing on her like that?
For as bad as things were going, there was a sudden reprieve in the form of Twinkleshine, who burst into the room. Lemon Hearts now wore a sour expression and Sumac felt a glimmer of hope when Lemon turned her commanding stare upon the pearlescent white unicorn that had crashed the crime scene. Maybe, just maybe, the adults would fight, bicker, and argue. Hopeful, Sumac waited and watched.
“Tag me in, Lemon,” Twinkleshine said to the sour yellow mare.
“What?” Lemon Hearts shook her head, confused. “This isn’t tag team wrestling, Twinkle. Get out! You know Twilight’s guidelines for effective teaching, no more than two adults with small group of foals so they don’t feel intimidated.”
“Now isn’t the time to be a teacher,” Twinkleshine retorted, her brows furrowing while she extended one front hoof. “Now is the time to be a parent, and I got this. Now tag me!”
Shaking her head, sputtering in disgust, Lemon Hearts reached out and with an incredulous stare—perhaps not believing that she was about to follow through with this—she tapped hooves with Twinkleshine. Sumac’s spirits soared because Twinkleshine was a relative softy compared to Lemon Hearts and really, Twinkleshine was still a bit green when it came to the whole parenting thing. He knew a chance when he saw one.
When Lemon Hearts left the room, Sumac felt pretty confident that he might come out of this unscathed. Thinking the most awful thoughts he could think of, the saddest, most sorrowful things that he could call to mind, Sumac allowed his conjured melancholy to control his facial expressions unfiltered. His lower lip drooped, it trembled, and his eyes glazed over behind his glasses while he thought about Cloudy and her spoon collection—Cloudy who might very well be in the next room over. Sumac hoped that Cloudy wouldn’t tag in next, because that would be awful.
With all of the cold, calculating, manipulative force he could muster, Sumac gave Twinkleshine everything that he had—he even blinked a few times, extra slow to enhance the effect—and knew that soon, very soon, he would have an ally against Tarnish. Twinkleshine would protect him from the worst of whatever Tarnish had to offer.
There was a gleam in Twinkleshine’s eyes that Sumac thought to be sympathy…
“Sumac Apple”—Twinkleshine sucked in a deep breath and her ears sagged, a most excellent sign that she would soon be his—“I am very disappointed with you.”
In response, Sumac blinked, stunned, and then a ferocious fire ignited in his ears. This spread to his brain, burning him, and then to his eyes, causing them to sting. She was disappointed with him? How disappointed? What if she was so disappointed that… she didn’t want to be his parent anymore? What if she left? What if his family was breaking apart before it had a chance to come together? She was disappointed with him, and nopony liked things they were disappointed with. What if the engagement was over? What if he had just ruined Trixie’s life? What if they had to go back on the road again?
Shuddering, Sumac tried to say something, he tried to express how he was feeling, his concerns, his sudden worries, but all that came out was a bleating whimper, followed by hitching sobs, and then he began to blubber. Wailing, he began to pitch over, but Pebble caught him, and Ambrosia clung to him as well. The stern look on Twinkleshine’s face was utterly devastating and Sumac couldn’t bear to look. When his eyes blurred over too much to see, it was a mercy.
“Lady, you’re mean,” Ambrosia blurted out while she wrapped herself around Sumac. “Ain’t nice going for the throat like that. You’re s'posed to ease into these things.”
Shaking her head from side to side, Twinkleshine wasn’t having it and she began to tap her right front hoof on the floor while her ears made a forward facing pivot. “Spill your guts, filly, or you’ll be next. If you cooperate with me now, I might keep this quiet. Fail to tell me what I want to know, and Applejack will be getting an earful.”
Blubbering as he was, Sumac did not hear Tarnish say in a low whisper, “Right for the jugular… sheesh.”
“Lady—”
“I don’t wanna hear it,” Twinkleshine snapped. “Either you confess or I tell your mom that your sister lied and that you withheld the truth when there was a chance to tell it. Now spill your guts or I spill more blood.”
“Gosh, you’re mean!” Ambrosia shook her head in disbelief while still clinging to Sumac. “Mean as a constipated chimera!”
“You have no idea.” Twinkleshine’s eyes narrowed into threatening slits.
Sighing, Ambrosia’s ears sagged in defeat and she began to sniffle while she made her confession: “I was being a butt-dumpling and I wasn’t on my best behaviour and there might’ve been a little squabble that broke out and Sumac, he did the right thing and he made us stop fighting.”
“That’s not what your sister told us.” Tarnish now had a more relaxed pose and he had lifted his head back up to look down upon the three foals huddled together.
“What’d my sister tell y’all anyhow?” Ambrosia asked.
“Well…” Tarnish took a step closer to Twinkleshine, perhaps to present a united front, and his tail flicked in annoyance. “She did say that a fight started and then Sumac used the power of his voice to make you and your sister act like rabbits and cluck like chickens. Now, what I’d like to know is… how exactly did this supposed fight get started?”
“Like I was saying… I was acting like a butt-dumpling.” Peeling herself away from Sumac, Ambrosia dragged herself while in a sitting position over the floor towards Tarnish. “This is my fault. Punish me and not Sumac. He made us stop, honest. Ain’t nopony acted like rabbits or clucked like chickens. Honest Apple.” To show her sincerity, Ambrosia placed her hoof over her heart.
“That’s not true either.” Pebble, who was disgusted because Sumac was snotting all over her dress, let out a weary, resigned sigh. “I can’t let Ambrosia take all of the blame—”
“Pebble, shut yer pie hole!” Ambrosia said out of the side of mouth.
“Too late for that.” Tarnish’s head ducked down again and he stood snoot to snoot with Ambrosia to silence her. “You… you’ll stay hushed if you know what’s good for you.”
Whimpering, Ambrosia did as she was told.
“I don’t get it.” Tarnish lifted his head once more and shook it from side to side. “I don’t understand any of this. I let all of you play together for a little while to make nice and be friends, and now I am getting all of this dishonesty… all of this lying! Nopony wants to tell me anything and I am being lied to because you’re trying to protect one another. I am not getting the truth from anypony and I’m starting to get pissed off—”
“Language, Mister Teapot!”
“Sorry, Twinkle, but I am reaching the end of my patience.”
Reaching out, Twinkleshine wrapped her foreleg around Tarnish’s elbow and gave it a squeeze. “Juvenile herds, Tarnish. This is what they do. This is how they develop. Lemon and I and all of the rest of our little circle, we were all thick as thieves. We did anything to protect one another. Can’t you understand that?”
In response, Tarnish’s ears pinned back against his skull. “No. I was always alone. That’s why I don’t understand this nonsense.”
“Something must have happened,” Twinkleshine said while Sumac continued with his bawling. “You three went from squabbling to this”—she nodded at the three foals on the floor and looked at each of them in turn—“with all of you being loyal to one another and trying to protect one another. Sumac… I am going to ask you this just once… did you say something that caused this?”
Ambrosia lept up, lightning quick, and threw herself in front of Twinkleshine. “He told us to stop and that was it. He stayed quiet just like he always does! And that’s how I knew I’d messed up! He could’ve made me stop all those times I was teasin’ him before and he didn’t do anything to stop me! I called him an egghead and I was a butt-dumpling and all this time I was mean to him he could’ve made me stop and he didn’t and I’m powerful sorry!”
With a heavy, stony sigh of resignation, Pebble made her own contribution: “And I was acting like a butt-dumpling too. I was trying to get a fight started because I wanted to teach Ambrosia and Hidden Rose a lesson. Sumac made us stop. It was… powerful. He was powerful. He put a lot of feeling into it because he didn’t want his friends and family fighting. I would like to make clear that I feel really ashamed of myself right now. Sumac succeeded in that, but he wasn’t wrong for doing it.”
“Well, at least Sumac can be trusted to do the right thing.” Twinkleshine sighed, let out a groan, and her stern expression intensified. “Even if Pebble and Ambrosia can’t. Both of you are in a lot of trouble. A whole lot of trouble.”
“I should be in the most trouble because I was really egging for a fight. It felt good. It felt really nice protecting Sumac. There’s a lot that I can’t protect him from, but it felt amazing to protect him from his obnoxious cousins.” Pebble, balanced on her haunches, shifted her body to support Sumac a little better and then guided his head to rest against her neck. “It was great feeling so aggressive. Now, if somepony will take Sumac, I am going to go and stand myself in the corner for a few hours, because I am a bad pony.”
Ambrosia turned her pleading glare upon Twinkleshine and did everything she could to look submissive. “Don’t you get it? Sumac isn’t gonna say anything to defend himself ‘cause he’s afraid he’ll mess with your head. We’ve told you everything you wanna know, and I think I’m gonna join Pebble in a corner, ‘cause that’s the right thing to do.”
Squirming, Sumac managed to lift his head, but had trouble trying to turn and see Twinkleshine. He sniffled, shuddered a bit, hiccuped a few times, and then asked, “What about me? I should be punished too.”
Tarnish, speaking with a low voice into Twinkleshine’s ear, asked, “Is this one of those juvenile herd things?”
With an impossible sternness upon her face, Twinkleshine did not reply to Tarnish, but studied the three foals. “Standing in the corner is a good start, but not for you, Sumac.”
“Yeah.” Tarnish’s head bobbed up and down and he gave his daughter the hardest stare he could muster. “You are going to sit in that corner and you, Ambrosia, you’re going to sit over there in that corner, and you are going to stay.” He took a deep breath, perhaps to calm himself, and then added, “If the two of you wish to talk to one another to sort all of this out, I won’t be angry.”
“Tarnish—”
“This juvenile herd bonding is a good thing, right?” Tarnish angled his head to look down at Twinkleshine, blinked a few times, and took another deep breath. “Do we really want to discourage that? My daughter might have made a friend out of this. We want this bond to grow, right?”
Upon hearing his questions, Twinkleshine appeared to deflate and her lips flapped in a raspberry of defeat. Ambrosia began to back away with her tail tucked between her legs and her ears pinned back in defeated submission. When she bumped into Sumac, Ambrosia let out a squeak, she whimpered, and then sat down upon the floor.
“I don’t know how these things work,” Tarnish muttered, “I am still working on meaningful relationships as an adult. This stuff is confusing.”
Still weeping, Sumac found himself sandwiched between Ambrosia and Pebble again. He was a total mess now, in both the physical and emotional sense. A glimmering ribbon of snot dangled from his left nostril and swung side to side in a pendulous motion with each hitching sob. He sniffled, he snorted, but the dangling booger did not drop nor did it vanish back up his nose.
“What about me?” Sumac asked once again. “I used my magic—”
“To stop a fight.” Twinkleshine pranced in place, revealing her uncertainty. “That’s the exact right way to use your magic.”
“But it feels wrong.” Sumac was surprised to see Ambrosia’s red-orange hoof in his field of vision and was somehow even more surprised when she used her fetlock to wipe his nose. When her hoof vanished in the corner of his eye, he did not see what she did with the snot she had wiped away.
“I could’ve stopped the fight sooner.” Sumac, a little disgusted by the sound of his own whining, made an effort to get himself to stop crying, and now, a part of his mind lingered upon the fate of the snatched-away booger. It might have been out of sight, but it wasn’t out of mind.
“Let me get this straight.” Twinkleshine’s teeth clicked together when her lower jaw snapped shut and her lips puckered into a thoughtful smirk. “You feel like it was wrong to use your magic, but you also think you should have done so sooner?”
With a shivery, shuddery sigh, Sumac sank silently, seeking solace. Try as he might, he didn’t have an answer for Twinkleshine, and it occurred to him that she was still talking to him even though she was disappointed with him. Somehow, he had to convince her to punish him, so that maybe, just maybe, she would get over her disappointment. He had to find some way of saving everything he had ruined with his carelessness, because his mother’s happiness was at stake, and his own happiness meant nothing.
“There is nothing that you could do to Sumac that is worse than what he has already done to himself.” Pebble’s calm, resolute deadpan soothed some of Sumac’s sniffles and now, the tears flowed without so many of the racking sobs.
“Sumac won’t be happy unless he’s punished too, so that’s exactly what I am going to do.”
Sumac let heave a sigh of relief, and then winced at the sudden stabbing pain in his neck. While he winced, he failed to notice the worried expression that appeared upon Twinkleshine’s face for a fraction of a second and when he had recovered, the stern mask had returned.
“Sumac Apple, I sentence you to one bath with your mother, Trixie, followed by a nap.”
Right then and there, Sumac decided that he did not like Twinkleshine the disciplinarian, and in the future, he’d rather take his chances with Lemon or Trixie. This didn’t feel fair, not in the slightest, and standing in the corner would have been fairer, so he felt. But, since he was getting what he wanted, he didn’t say anything. Fearing that Twinkleshine might be disappointed with him for any opposition, he didn’t dare complain. At all. Not even whining or moaning was safe. He would suffer in silence and hope that Twinkleshine would stay.
“That’s harsh… but you is kinda snotty.” Ambrosia let go a forlorn sigh and gave Sumac a gentle nudge with her elbow. “Don’t drown. It helps if you don’t fight too much. We’ll talk a bit when you wake up, okay? If’n I’m out of the corner by then, that is.”
“Okay, you two. Say your goodbyes to Sumac and then off to your respective corners.” Tarnish gave the two fillies an encouraging nod. “Hidden Rose told me that Sumac used his magic to turn you against your sister, Ambrosia. She said that you called her a ‘thickheaded retard,’ or something to that effect.”
“Oh, that’s true…” Ambrosia hesitated for a moment and then corrected herself. “Only Sumac didn’t do that. I did that on my own. My sister was being a thickheaded ‘tard and the dirty little tattletale called me a ‘stink-drinkin’ outhouse basement dweller.’ It’s true, I swear. Honest Apple.”
“Good thing you’re no tattletale.” Tarnish focused his stern gaze upon Ambrosia and then his ears angled forward over his eyes, causing his brows to take on many deep furrows. “When your sister finally comes out of her corner, I want the two of you to make up as sisters, and you’d better mean it, or else, I will tell your mother everything I know, including the awful names you called one another.”
Ambrosia gulped, whimpered, and shrank down to appear as small as possible.
“I’m a big fan of being responsible and cleaning up your own mess, so I am going to give you a chance to do that, Ambrosia. I’m real nice like that. Satisfy me and you might even get to go to bed tonight with supper in your belly. How’s that sound?”
“That sounds right good, actually.” Again, Ambrosia gulped. “I can sort things out with my sister, even if she’s a thickheaded ‘tard.”
“Good.” Twinkleshine cast a sidelong glance at Tarnish, nodded at the huddled foals, the sternness left her face, and was replaced with a somewhat more gentle expression. “Say your goodbyes, give each other hugs, and make nice with one another. Sumac needs some time with his mama in the tub and the two of you need to get intimately acquainted with your corners.”
A sniffly snot bubble escaped when Sumac realised it was time to face the doom he had brought upon himself…