//------------------------------//
// Chapter 38 
// Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break 
// by kudzuhaiku 
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As the hot water soaked both his pelt and his skin, Sumac felt Trixie’s foreleg wrap around his neck to support his head. Without meaning to do so, he leaned back against her and could feel her already saturated pelt brushing up against his thin, delicate spine. Her thighs—now meatier since she had put on some weight—surrounded his own and Sumac lost himself in his mother’s blissful, maternal embrace while the tub continued to fill with steaming hot water. It was good to be warm, to banish away winter’s cruel chill, and to be in a place of quiet after such a long, emotionally exhausting day. Though Sumac would never, ever, under any conceivable circumstances that could be thought of, admit that this was perfect.

The water made a thunderous sound as it poured into the tub and there was some splashing while Trixie kicked out her hind legs a bit to get comfortable. When Trixie leaned her body against the angled back of the tub, Sumac was pulled with her and the whole of himself rested against her stomach, with his head held somewhere near her heart. Fumes of lavender oil dulled his senses with each breath taken, and the scent of eucalyptus left him drowsy.

“Trixie needs to be stood in a corner too.”

At this, one eye opened, but Sumac couldn’t muster the effort required to open the second. It was a strange thing for one’s mother to say, that she too needed to be stood in a corner. Thinking about Twinkleshine, Sumac sniffled a bit and wondered if his mother had done something that would leave the twinkly one disappointed.

“I was eavesdropping,” Trixie confessed, and her foreleg wrapped a little tighter around Sumac. “Pebble and I aren’t so different. I wanted a fight to happen with my mother. When I saw her, my blood boiled and my brain bubbled and I was filled with so much emotion. Trixie was distressed by the sight of her own mother. The panic set in… and then I waited for a reason. Just one little slip-up. One hoof out of line and I was going to let my mother have it. I was looking forward to the release, the sweet, sweet release that a good fight brings. And when my mother did not give me, the Sad and Disappointed Trixie exactly what I wanted, what I craved, what I deserved, I resented her and hated her guts just a little bit, Sumac.”

No matter what sort of mental gymnastics Sumac did in his mind, he could not comprehend his mother’s words, and this scared him far more than he cared to admit. His mother was being bad.

“Instead, we had a nice time, and I can’t seem to be satisfied. I told Twinkleshine and Lemon about it, and while Lemon was sweet about it in her own special way, Twinkleshine let me have it. She sentenced me to one bath and one nap with you, Sumac, and no naptime snuggles with them. She’s mean, Sumac, real mean.”

“Eeyup.”

With a nudge of her magic, Trixie turned off the flow of water, which now came up to Sumac’s chin. While the water was deep for Sumac, it was rather shallow for Trixie, which was the cost of bathing with small, dependent offspring. The rise and fall of his mother’s barrel rocked Sumac, and when he closed his open eye again he also let out a yawn. It had been a long day so far, perhaps too long, and maybe, just maybe, he really was in need of a nap. A short nap had a way of taking too long a day and cutting it into more manageable halves.

“Kiddo…”

“Yeah?”

“That eavesdropping that I did, I heard quite a lot.” Trixie lifted her other foreleg and rivulets of water poured down in a torrential flow as her sodden pelt shed excess liquid. “The Apple sisters have been giving you some grief for a while I take it, and you’ve been a good colt about it—”

“I tried,” Sumac interjected and he felt Trixie’s tail shift beneath him.

“Trixie knows.” In Trixie’s response, there was no doubt to be heard, only confident reassurance. “Now Trixie has more to ask of you. It sounds like you have a chance to get close to Ambrosia. Use this to your advantage, Kiddo. I want you to have family, even if it might not be perfect. Trixie understands that you might not have much in common with the Apple sisters, but they are your blood, Sumac. You are going to have an interesting life, and you need all the help you can get. You need family that you can fall back on, in case something ever happens to me. You need ponies who will look after you and protect you.”

“What are you saying?” Though he didn’t intend to do so, Sumac whined out his question.

“Trixie had to send you away once, and that was a painful lesson. Kiddo, you might have to be sent away again, or I might be called away to help Twilight with something. Big things are happening, Kiddo, and with circumstances being what they are, we might get separated for a while. You might end up with the Pies, or the Apples, or here with Tarnish and his family… but I want you with ponies that love and care about you, Kiddo. So I want you to be your charming self and I need you to make nice with the Apple sisters.”

“What are you saying exactly?” Sumac asked.

“Kiddo, you’re a smart Kiddo, so Trixie knows that Kiddo knows exactly what she is saying.”

Reclining on his mother’s stomach, Sumac’s right ear twitched and made a wet slap against her ribs. He thought about what his mother was saying, and she was right, he knew. She wanted him to use his influence—if necessary—to establish a good relationship with the Apple sisters. He understood the why of it all, at least in a general sense. There were special rules when trouble started and that had always been the case going as far back as Sumac could remember. Trixie was more than willing to play nice and make nice on the road, but the rules changed when he was in danger and then Trixie used not-nice magic.

Knowing what his mother wanted, Sumac resolved to do it the hard way, using his influence as little as possible, and would only fall back on that if the hard way failed. He was almost certain that things would be different now between him and Ambrosia. Though they had little in common—she was a bumpkin and he was an egghead—they were both Apples and that meant something.

Hidden Rose might be harder to win over, but Sumac was certain that he could do it.

“There was nothing to keep me at home, Kiddo, and I don’t want that happening to you. I want you to stay rooted, Sumac. I want to give you a home, and a reason to stay, and I want you to have family around.”

Sumac, hearing the pain in his mother’s voice hesitated before making his reply: “Dandy Lion is family.”

There was a wet splash and the water in the tub sloshed to and fro while Trixie shifted her body. Sumac felt a gentle squeeze from the foreleg wrapped around him, a much-needed silent bit of reassurance to let him know that his mother wasn’t angry about what he had said. However, it seemed as though she had some trouble saying something in return, and Sumac understood why.

It was complicated.

If he had to put down roots, then so did his mother, and little Sumac began to make plans to drive that point home. Anything good for him was doubly good for his mother. After all, as he had discovered, Twinkleshine had also sentenced Trixie to a bath and a nap—with no snuggles from Lemon or Twinkleshine. It was harsh, but fair. Sumac was loathe to admit it, but their little family needed Twinkleshine—really, all of them needed each other—and while he contemplated this thought, the throbbing ache in his neck began to subside.

Seeing only the inside of his eyelids, Sumac wondered what sort of fun Boomer might be having with Megara, and then felt a slight pang of jealousy. Natural enemies in the wild, the pair were now perfect friends and this made Sumac just a teensy-weensy bit envious of their friendship. Boomer wanted to play, she liked to roughhouse and romp, and Sumac was in no position to do either.

Now his thoughts meandered to Spike the Dragon, and he wondered if Spike was having a nice time tobogganing. Did Twilight get jealous when Spike spent time with other friends? Something warm and wet poured over Sumac’s body, something like maple syrup, or perhaps his overactive imagination could only think of maple syrup. With some caution, he cracked open one eye, felt the sting of the light, and saw that Trixie was squirting liquid soap on him.

Floral soap.

Twinkleshine’s dreadful vengeance was now realised and Sumac almost felt like crying.

Squeezing his eye shut, Sumac squirmed a bit but there wasn’t much he could do. The purple-blue soap smelled like mountain meadows filled with alpine wildflowers, and he had stood in such places, so he knew the scent. The squeeze bottle made a flatulent sound and he felt a gooshy glop go plop in his mane, just above his horn. It felt just like bird droppings, and Sumac knew that sensation all too well, having sought shade beneath many a tree.

“Kiddo, your socks are most noticeable after you’ve had a bath and you’re all clean and bright. Adorable little socks. It’s like you’re wearing little booties!”

Groaning, Sumac suffered a mighty, mighty cringe from hearing baby talk from his mother. There could be no doubt about it, Twinkleshine was dastardly. Sumac could feel the soap being rubbed into his scalp and Trixie’s magic was a warm, massaging tingle that caused jolts of ecstasy to go shooting up and down his spine. No point in resisting and with a sigh, he resigned himself to his cruel fate.

“Okay Kiddo, quiz time,” Trixie said while she continued her fabulous assault upon Sumac’s mane. “Fire magic comes from the Infernium, but where does storm magic come from? From whence does come the mighty magic of thunder and lightning?”

Both of Sumac’s eyes flew open, but upon remembering the eye-stinging dangers posed by soap, he shut them once more. This was a tough one and he knew the story behind it, but he couldn’t remember the name. Racking his brain, he tried to remember the complicated name, but failed. Perhaps if he recited what he could remember of the story that Trixie told him…

“There once was a mighty and proud alicorn and he contained the magic of sparks,” Sumac began, and he recalled all of the times that Trixie had told him this story, either before bed, or while they walked the many roads of Equestria together. “But having spark magic wasn’t enough, and he was greedy, so he started to roam the land so that he could steal spark magic from other creatures.”

Extreme drowsiness now crashed into Sumac like a train, and that made concentration difficult. Trixie scrubbing him was going to be his undoing, and it made it super-hard to keep going with this story. However, his excitement allowed him to keep his focus, because this was one of his favourite stories, because he had spark magic, and lots of it.

“This alicorn stole the spark magic of many and with his growing power came madness. It wasn’t enough to steal the spark magic from the lesser creatures, and so he began to steal it from the pegasus ponies, the unicorns, the griffons, and even his fellow alicorns. He stole and he stole, caring not for the broken lives he left behind him, and he was consumed by his greed.”

“Very good, Kiddo. You show some signs of being a storyteller. That’s a good use for your grift magic. Entertain others and make them happy.”

Eyes closed, Sumac beamed and almost got soap in his mouth. “After stealing so much magic, this alicorn began to change, and he was transformed by his greed and his lusk for power—”

“Lust, Kiddo.”

“Right, lust for power. He was consumed and became a monster. The other alicorns had to come and battle him, and so did the pegasus ponies, and the griffons, and even the storm dragons, because this evil alicorn had started to steal their magic too.”

“Keep going, Kiddo,” Trixie said, and her tone was one of encouragement.

“This alicorn was unstoppable and he ripped open the very sky itself. He burned away the blue and set the sky ablaze. He was too powerful, too dangerous, and every one of the creatures who had come together knew that he had to be stopped. To weaken him, they destroyed his name, and this robbed him of some of his power, but he smote them in return with a terrible fury. Too late, the good creatures found out this alicorn was now immortal and could not be killed. He was an immortal monster now and he began to ravage the world—”

“Yes, Kiddo… but what was his new name?” Trixie asked.

“I’m getting to that,” Sumac replied, stalling for time, because he couldn’t remember. “The weather of the world was broken forever…”—here, the colt paused because accounts varied about who had broken the world’s weather—“and the dead sky had turned grey. The alicorn, now a monster, had stolen the sky’s spark magic and claimed it as his own. For the good creatures of the world, defeat seemed certain, because there was no way to fix what was broken.”

Now, Sumac’s ears were being scrubbed, and his head swayed from side to side while a blissful, dopey grin appeared upon his face.

“In desperation, the creatures used powerful, ancient, forbidden magics, and they destroyed the monster alicorn’s body. To keep his body from reforming, from being reborn, they bound his furious soul into the sky itself, giving it life again, but also the destroyed monster’s fury. Now he was a monster without a body and he was called… he was called—”

“Yes, Sumac?” Trixie waited while scrubbing the colt’s ears.

In what had to be a stroke of luck or genius, Sumac remembered. “He was called ‘The Tempestatibus’ and when he was bound into the sky, it made rips in reality where strange storm magic poured out. The Tempestatibus was bound, but he was not defeated, and the pegasus pony tribe and the griffons made a sacred vow to watch the skies and to battle The Tempestatibus’ fury so that he could not return. This is why the pegasus ponies battle storms, and call them the ancient enemy, for if any storm grows too big, too powerful, The Tempestatibus might tear himself free from his prison in the sky and return to destroy us all.”

Trixie let out a hooting cry of triumph that echoed in a strange way off of the bathroom walls and Sumac could feel his heart pounding in his barrel. He had remembered, and his mother was proud. Other details percolated through his mind, coming up to the surface, and he knew that he had a special connection to The Tempestatibus, not only because he had spark magic, but because he was a sorcerer. Sumac knew that he could call a storm… and it would answer.

But calling a storm was dangerous, and using spark magic had a special danger all its own, because to channel spark magic meant to also channel The Tempestatibus’ rage. Sumac had felt it already, the fury, the anger, the choleric fits of temper. Whenever he shot lightning from his horn, he could feel it, the prickly, peppery peevishness that made him want to shoot more lightning, and more lightning, and the real challenge was learning how to hold it back.

Though it felt so good to let it go…

On hot, sticky, muggy summer days, Sumac made for a mighty fine bug zapper and it was a source of pride for him. Thinking of it, he was swept away by memory; the curious scent of citronella candles filled his nose and he thought of the sweaty summer days of Horseshoe Bay. How old had he been? He couldn’t recall, but Trixie had taught him how to swim and he had pronked in the surf. Trixie had fireballed a sea serpent that had tried to gobble him, and the charred, crispy corpse had been feasted upon by seabirds.

Those were happy times.

And so, while his mother scrubbed his dirty, scruffy ears, Sumac realised that these too, were happy times.