Breakfast — in times of turmoil, I find it to be the one thing I can cling to.
For no matter how bad things may seem when you awake to reality, or how bad the hangover, the promise of food can just about temporarily sate even the most disgruntled or woeful creature.
I remember enjoying a morning, in particular, on one of my many travels away from familiar seas. It was in a small village in Saddle Arabia, if I remember correctly, a small collection of buildings braving the biting and searing sands of the endless desert.
I was seated on the veranda, the early morning sun reflecting off the sands like glass, and sweeping away the nightly desert chill.
The cup of coffee in my hooves was warm, the thick brew a welcoming comfort after my long and dangerous journey across the barren lands. An accouterment of fresh fruits from the shallow oasis dragged me from the depths of my exhaustion, renewing me.
My point is that the simple ceremony of breakfast after a rough night removed any fears or worries that had plagued me. Everything was once again right with the world.
Which is why my thoughts had not turned to the group of bandits who had tracked me for so long waiting in hiding outside the veranda. But that is a rambling story for another time.
Because unfortunately for Bright Shine, as the theme dictates, his dream-like aspirations of a pleasant breakfast we’re dashed as he sleepily stumbled into the break room of Sweet Dreams L.L.P.
Luna looked up from her newspaper, a bag of chips tucked under a foreleg. Gilbert and Pepper were peering into the weathered cupboards, the doors swinging on sagging hinges.
“We’ll look who is finally up,” Luna quipped, rummaging in the bag with a hoof and snatching out a heap of the oily, fried potato slices. “And I was being to think you might not wake up at all after yesterday’s incident. Sleep well?” she wondered.
Bright Shine probed the bump on his head with a hissing wince. It was still tender.
“Somewhat,” he remarked with a grumble. He wasn’t about to forgive them so soon for the business with the trunk.
“Of course you's wonders how he is doing,” a cranky voice said accusingly.
Brood limped into the room, Tiberius clinging to one of his hooves like a cement block. “But nopony ever wonders how I am doing." The bat pony paused for a moment beside Bright Shine. "I would like to point out that you snores. Like wildebeest.”
Those intense orange eyes were daggers in Bright Shine as the bat pony slinked past him, dragging the possum on his hoof.
“Now, that’s not fair, Brood,” Gilbert chirped around a snack cake, his beak dusted with high fructose-laced crumbs. “We care about you.”
Pepper slid into one of the wobbly seats around the break room table, a carrot filled pastry fresh out the microwave. “Sometimes,” she quickly added to Gilbert. “Moreso when you’ve recently showered.”
Brood bared his fangs but turned away, muttering curses under his breath as he pulled down a loaf of bread and a jar. Tiberius broke away with a heavy thump and wobbled toward Luna.
“All of you all play nice,” Luna warned with a smirk as she folded up her newspaper. “We don’t have insurance if you all come to blows. So settle it somewhere outside the property line. I would suggest the ally down the street if you’re looking to blow off some steam,” she reminded the rest. “The bums have fights every Tuesday at midnight.”
Bright Shine rubbed the sleep and exasperation out of his eyes. He really had been right, something he was not as accustomed to. These ponies were crazy.
“What—“ he simmered with a withering sigh. “What is there for breakfast around here?” he asked with a wave of a limp hoof. The thought of coffee and something warm was weighing on him.
“Check the cupboard,” Luna said, dragging Tiberius with her. “But don’t be too long. We have a patient arriving for an appointment soon, and I want you with me on this one, Bright Shine.”
“Me?” he blurted.
“Of course. The only way we are going to get to the root of your problems is if we open you up to the experiences of others, to help you see their struggles from a different perspective.”
“I think I’ve already experienced my fair share,” he gulped, remembering struggling in Bulk Bicep's ensnaring hooves.
“Either way, I think you will learn a lot from our next patient.” Luna trotted out of the dingy break room, her hooves echoing on the cracked linoleum. “She’s been a regular for a while,” she called back, her voice fading down the corridor.
Bright Shine slithered around the side of the break room, choking as he walked through a cloud of Gilbert’s ever-present feathers. The griffon was chugging down a soda while Brood somberly tucking into something slathered between two slices of bread.
The bat pony paused between several bites to down a potion from his bandolier of elixirs.
“Vitamins,” he burped loudly after the third vial, smacking his lips.
"Disgusting," Pepper groaned.
Bright Shine wrinkled his nose and opened a cabinet, checking inside for what he was hoping was cereal. Instead, he found only crumbs.
The next one beside it was stocked to the brim with sugary “Big Deborah” snack cakes, a chubby filly in a cowgirl hat embossed on the packages.
Bright Shine scoffed. Was this the only food in the building?
Finally, he turned his sights on the refrigerator in the corner. It was a hulking scrap of metal, the motor a wheezing animal that growled as if it were minutes from dying. Bright Shine gave the door a tug, but it remained firmly closed.
He bent down, eyeing a keyhole. Multiple deep scratches radiated from the lock. It looked like they were from a screwdriver. Who even locks a fridge?
“I told you it was locked that time,” Gilbert said, wiping the crumbs, remnants of the snack cakes, from his beak in a puff of feathers. “The last intern had the key on her when she disappeared.”
“Never did find her, did you?” Pepper wondered.
The griffon shook his head. “No. But the Doc says we can’t afford a locksmith.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what happened to her?” Bright Shine settles for a bag of carrot chips, the salty crisps sour on his unwashed tongue. “Or for that matter, why you haven’t just used magic to pick the lock. One of the two with any spells here is probably the most powerful pony in Equestria,” he huffed.
“We’ve tried,” Peppercorn replied with a shrug. “The Doc got the fridge from some ratty pawn shop a few blocks over. Evidently, the last owner had a magical ward. Only way in is with the key.”
Broodly looked up from his sandwich of an unidentifiable substance. His ears twitched, his eyes peering up to the dust-choked air vents. “Do you guys — ever like, hear things in the air ducts?” he asked around a mouthful.
“For stars sake, Brood.” Pepper rubbed her forehead with her hooves. “For the last time, no. You just hear things. Probably from all the fumes in that storage closet you call a lab, you disgusting thestral. Those sandwiches of your's reek," she grimaced.
“You cannots talks to me like thats!” Brood hollered, his chest puffed till the hairs stood on end. He looked like an ugly pigeon. An angry pigeon. "Always so means to me," he huffed. "You's ponies never gives me any respec—“
Ding!
Somewhere a bell interrupted the heated exchange.
“What was that?” Bright Shine asked around a mouthful of chips. They were a disappointing breakfast.
Ding, ding, ding! the bell replied angrily.
“Hello?!” A gravelly mare's voice echoed through the dream center. “HELLO!”
“Oh no’s,” Brood gulped, ducking beneath the table. “She’s back.”
“Back?” Bright Shine pokes his head out of the break room and into the hall. He could see a yellow pegasus in dark aviators smoldering behind the reception desk impatiently. “Who’s back?”
“Get back in here!” Gilbert hissed, his eyes saucers behind his thick glasses. “She’ll see you.”
“Hey!” he could hear the pony outside. “I know you all are back there. Stop hiding and get your sorry flanks out here, double-time. I don’t have time for this.”
“What do we do’s?” Broodly whimpered, scuttling from beneath the table and hightailing it atop the cabinets. “So angry, that one.”
Ding! Ding! Ding!
“Just be quiet,” Pepper warned, backing away from the door. “Maybe she’ll leave. Gilbert, did you know she would be coming in today?”
Ding! Ding! “Don’t make me come back there,” the pony in the waiting room warned.
“You’re the receptionist,” the griffon pointed out. “Why didn’t you warn us?”
Ding! “I’m going to set a new academy record for kicking somepony’s ass if they don’t stop hiding,” the mare outside warned dangerously.
“I didn’t schedule her!” Pepper pointed out. “Why would I schedule that maniac. It had to be the Doc.”
“But who is she?” Bright Shine asked again, struggling to come across to his coworkers.
Ding! Ding! Ding! the bell continued. “If somepony doesn’t come out in the next ten seconds, I’m going to prop open the front door and let in all the bums!”
Gilbert exchanged worried looks with Pepper and Broodly atop the cabinets. “She wouldn’t. Would she?”
“Hey, guys!” they heard the temperamental mare calling somewhere. “Y’all want some free shit? Come on in! Yeah, just take whatever you want, take it all.”
Suddenly the griffon was up, pushing them for the door. “Go! Go! I’ll get the Doc. Just try to calm her down.”
“But who is she!” Bright Shine puffed as he was shoved into the hallway.
“She showed up a few months ago for help with anger management,” Pepper answered.
“You’ll love her. Her name is Spitfire.”