Over at Sweet Apple Acres, the Loud family had just told their hosts about their shameful treatment of Lincoln over a ridiculous superstition. The atmosphere in the house became less warm and cheerful as the Five, the Crusaders, and the rest of Applejack’s family stared at the Louds in shock and disbelief. Never had they heard such an awful story. The Louds had shameful and guilty expressions on their faces.
“And that is literally the entire story,” Lori said finishing the story with a sad and remorseful look on her face.
“Y-you didn’t,” Rarity said in complete disbelief.
“Of course they didn’t, Rarity,” Pinkie Pie confidently assured her friend. The party girl in denial that a whole family could make such a ridiculous and obviously hurtful mistake. “They’re probably too ashamed to tell us the real story. Even I think this all sounds too crazy to be true. There’s no way Mr. and Mrs. Loud would’ve let something so inexcusably horrible happen to their only son, or worse been involved in it.”
Pinkie looked at the couple hoping get some confirmation to her claim. But all she saw was the two parents donning very nervous and guilt-ridden facial expressions with sweat dripping from their heads.
“Wow!” Pinkie exclaimed now utterly appalled at learning it was all true. “So much for family.”
“I have heard stories about children being abandoned by their families,” Fluttershy said. “All of them very sad.”
“Usually it’s because they can’t afford to take care of the child or just don’t love it,” Rarity added.
“But this,” Applejack spoke. “This is different. The reason behind this one is beyond unthinkable.”
“I-I can’t believe this,” Rainbow Dash said in complete shock.
“Now we know how that sounds-” Lynn Sr. attempted to speak but was soon cut off.
“ARE YOU ALL LOCO IN THE COCO!?!” Pinkie shouted. The Louds were completely taken back by her sudden outburst.
“Well to be fair, Lincoln kinda brought some of it on himsel-” Lisa tried to explain.
“It doesn’t matter what he did anymore!” AJ interrupted. “Because that’s nothin’ compared to what y’all did ta him!”
“It’s still wrong!” Fluttershy added.
“And I thought we were the worst people in the world after the Anon-a-Miss incident,” Sweetie Belle whispered to her two friends.
“What kind of folks throw out one of their own over some crazy superstition?!” an appalled Granny Smith asked.
“That’s really low,” Maud said in her usual emotionless tone.
“Eeyup,” Big McIntosh sternly agreed.
“No wonder he ran away,” Rainbow said angrily. “If I were treated like that, I’d run away too.”
The members of the Loud family hung their heads in shame at each and every disgust-filled word.
“And we can’t even contact him because my found his phone smashed to pieces in his room,” Leni said sadly.
“More rock soup please?” Lynn Sr. shamefully asked for seconds as he held up his bowl while sitting in his chair at the dining table. Maud walked over to the miserable patriarch carrying the pot that held her soup. She took a ladle full of soup and brought it over to the man’s bowl. Unfortunately, she missed and poured the hot steaming broth all over his lap. “AAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Lynn Sr. screamed in pain as the crotch of his pants was drenched in scalding hot soup. It got even worse when a big rock fell out of the ladle and onto the man’s already stinging personal area. “OOOWWWW!”
“Whoops,” Maud said. “Sorry.”
“That was on purpose, wasn’t it?!” the patriarch painfully accused.
“Was it?” the elder Pie sister responded in a suspicious and deadpan tone.
Lynn Sr. stared suspiciously into the emotionless girl’s eyes. After a moment, Maud walked away.
“I can’t read that girl,” the patriarch whispered to his wife.
“Here’s some ice for that, Mr. Loud,” Granny Smith said appearing with a big bag of ice and offered it to the man. But as he reached to grab the bag, the old lady let the big heavy bag go too early and it fell right on his stinging gender identification area.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” Lynn Sr. painfully wheezed.
“And you two call yourselves adults,” Rarity commented at the parents with disgust and disappointment.
“Look dudes,” Luna got up to speak. “We realize now that the way we treated our bro was wrong.”
“We literally became so concerned with the amount of luck in our lives that we didn’t care how much it was hurting him,” Lori spoke next.
“If I had a heart it would be aching,” Lucy voiced her regret.
“I admit I have given those who follow the path of science a bad name,” Lisa admitted clearly disgusted with herself.
“Ah’m surprised someone as smart as you, Lisa, actually fell for that kind on phony baloney,” a confused and disappointed AJ said. “But ah’m also very upset with you, Lori, cause you’re the oldest. Y’all should know better than ta treat your own family like that. Especially after tellin’ Lincoln that ‘this family supports each other’.” Lori lowered her head in shame at being reminded of her hypocritical words. “It’s clear to all of us that ya don’t truly know how to be a true oldest sibling. Right Big Mac?”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac agreed.
“Well, lucky-er, I mean, good for you, Big Mac here can give you a few tips on how ta be one,” AJ said.
“I know someone too,” Pinkie announced and then dialed a number on her phone. After listening to it ring for a moment, her call was answered. “Hi Limestone, it’s Pinkie, I’m going to need you to make a quick trip down here tomorrow as soon as possible.” She paused for a moment to listen to a response. “Yeah, I know you’re busy with the farm, but it’s really important. I have someone who really needs some lessons on how to be a good oldest sibling.” She paused again to listen to another response. “It’s a long story, but I’ll explain it tomorrow. So will you come down here?” She listened to the response. “Thank you, I Pinkie-Promise you this is very important and worth it. Bye.” Then she ended the call.
“And you, Lynn,” Rainbow said accusingly to the younger athlete and the catalyst of the entire mess. “What is wrong with you? You lose one little game and it’s all your brother’s fault?!”
“But I’ve never lost a game before in my life, I’m Lynn Loud Jr.” the arrogant athlete defended herself. “That was the first game of mine he ever attended. The game after that, he wasn’t there and I won. Then the game after that was when he snuck in disguised as our team’s mascot and I won. I believed the mascot suit must’ve cancelled out his bad luck. Why doesn’t anyone else understand that?! How would you explain that?”
Rainbow stared at the athletic Loud girl with disappointment and disgust. It was clear that despite all the recent troubles that had befallen her and her family because of their ridiculous actions, her big wall of pride still prevented her from completely realizing just how wrong she was. But she instantly formed a plan that would surely break that wall down.
“Okay, champ,” Rainbow said in a challenging tone. “How about tomorrow you prove your ‘amazing’ skills to all of us. And since your brother won’t be around, you won’t have to worry about any bad luck. Okay?”
“Okay,” a confused Lynn agreed. She had a little suspicion the older rainbow-haired girl was up to something. But her mountainous ego just couldn’t pass down a chance to show off her skills.
“Good, I’ll make a few calls and tomorrow we’ll see who’s the better athlete,” Rainbow declared. “And person.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Fluttershy quietly asked Rainbow.
“Trust me,” Rainbow quietly assured her. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, we all better get some shut eye fer now,” Applejack suggested. “We’ll set up some places fer y’all ta rest in our home.”
“And we’d better get going,” Rarity said with Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie by her sides. “With a family this big sleeping here, I’d hate for us to take up anymore space.”
As the four friends were getting ready to return to their homes and the Apple family were setting up places for the Louds to sleep, Rita walked over to one of the windows and stared out into the night. She was shortly joined by her husband.
“You okay, dear?” Lynn Sr. asked concerned.
“I miss him, Lynn,” Rita sadly replied. “I miss our little boy.”
“We’ll find him,” he said in an attempt to comfort his wife.
“He’s out there somewhere, alone, and thinking there’s no one in the world that cares about him. I can only imagine how he must be feeling right now.”
Meanwhile, at Sunset Shimmer’s home, Lincoln was just finishing telling her his tragic story.
“And so I packed up as many things as I could take, made my way to the nearest town, and here we are,” Lincoln finished. After he was done, the sad and heartbroken expression on Sunset’s face was completely replaced by one of shock and appall. The fiery-haired teenager had never had such an unfair and unlikeable tale. Lincoln stared at Sunset’s dismayed expression for a moment and then started laughing. “You should see the look on your face!”
Pretty soon, Sunset couldn’t control herself and started laughing with him. After a minute or two of laughing, the two began to settle down.
“Okay, that’s pretty awful,” Sunset admitted. She thought that even made her sad story look like a happy one in comparison.
“I know, right?!” Lincoln said with one last chuckle. “But I can’t put all the blame on them for the whole thing. I kinda helped make it worse for myself by lying and going along with Lynn’s crazy accusation. But even when I try to tell the truth, no one listens to me. They don’t realize how much I’m suffering.”
“I hope you won’t be offended by this, Lincoln,” Sunset said sincerely. “But what your family did was nothing more than a prime example of extreme selfishness and ignorance. Sure, what you did was wrong, but it was nothing compared to what they did. And the fact that they didn’t properly compensate you for everything you went through didn’t make it any better.”
“Yeah, I didn’t even get my room back the way it was,” Lincoln sadly agreed.
“And if they don’t learn from their mistakes, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble someday.”
“I can’t help but feel a little sorry for them if that happens.” Despite the unjustified treatment they inflicted on him, deep down Lincoln still held soft spots for his family. “Even after all the trouble I’ve endured because of them, I still love them. But I can’t find it in my heart to trust them anymore.”
Sunset gently pulled the sad eleven year old into a warm hug. “Lincoln, if you don’t have anywhere else to go, you can stay with me as long as you want.”
“Really?” Lincoln said surprised. “You’d let me stay with you? You won’t try to talk me into going back to my family and try patching things up?”
“After hearing your story, I think you’d be a lot happier here with me,” Sunset kindly replied. “Besides, it gets lonely here all by myself.”
Lincoln was touched. Despite the bad things she did in the past and all the unfairness she endured trying to turn over a new leaf, Sunset Shimmer was without a doubt the kindest person he ever had the honor of meeting. He could also tell that she needed him just as much as he felt he needed her.
“That just depends, if you don’t mind allowing a ‘troublesome, white haired, chipped-toothed, bad luck bringing jinx’ to live with you in your house,” Lincoln said in a sly tone. He was obviously testing her in joking manner.
“Not as long as you don’t mind hanging out with an ‘evil, power hungry, manipulative, secret stealing bully’,” Sunset replied in the same sly tone. She was doing the same thing to him now.
Both of them stared at each other with sly grins on their faces before bursting into laughter.
“Not at all,” Lincoln replied extending his right hand. Sunset gasped his hand with hers and the two shook on it cementing their newly developed long-lasting friendship.
With that, both people felt a huge relief. Like a lot of weight had been lifted off their shoulders. They had shared their sad stories with each other and developed a mutual trust of each other.
“Well, we’d better get some shut eye,” Sunset said yawning. “We’ve got a lot of fun things to plan for tomorrow.”
After awhile, they were both dressed in their pajamas and ready for bed. Sunset setup an inflatable mattress in the living room for Lincoln. She also provided him with a couple soft extra pillows and a big warm blanket.
“Good night, Sunset,” Lincoln said in a sweet and grateful tone as the teen tucked him in.
“Good night, Lincoln,” Sunset replied in the same tone and planted a little kiss on the boy’s forehead before heading up a flight of stairs that lead to the small floor almost wall-less floor that was her bedroom.
As she started to fall asleep, she took one last look down at Lincoln who was now sleeping comfortably and happily. It warmed her once broken heart to have helped a poor soul find a place where he could feel at home and it made her happy to find someone she could trust and call a friend after what she went through last Christmas. Sunset lay in her bed, closed her eyes, and fell into a deep comfortable sleep. One that she had not had in a long time.