She, Ma, Bright Pear, and Caramel left the school to return to the farm. Applejack and Big Mac had no intention of leaving their little sister's side until the foal was delivered, and Rainbow decided to stay with them, to be ready to rush to the farm when the news came that Applebloom was going to deliver. Sweetie Belle said she'd be gathering Scootaloo up as soon as she got word to her husband that she'd probably be out all night and tomorrow, and that he'd need to make sure their son was fed. It was a small shock to hear that Applebloom was not the first Crusader to be a mother, but a lot of information just didn't come up in conversations. The depressing thought struck her that she'd never heard anything about a husband or foals for herself, everypony always talked about her future self as a lone agent in running off, not running off with any family in tow. She seemed destined to never have that need filled, and it was heartbreaking to consider.
It shamed her to admit it, but she was jealous of her students, who all seemed to have such wonderful lives, but her future self was without family, and possibly senile. It felt like a cruel joke. Everypony got a happy ending but her… and maybe Candy, who might lose her happy ending because of a mistake Cheerilee had made. Candy deserved better than her, but it seemed Candy had gotten another string of bad luck. The little filly couldn't catch a break.
They were taking their time walking back. Strawberry was apparently going to be out late, as the pegasus planned on heading back to her parents' house after work to start packing some things from her room to move over to the farm. Bright Pear and Ma were talking quietly a few pony-lengths ahead of Cheerilee and Caramel. She couldn't hear much of the conversation, but gathered it had to do with Bright Pear and his bride-to-be, since he kept blushing, and the one thing she did hear clearly on-and-off was Ma gently scolding him for being embarrassed to be discussing these things with his mother. She did partially hear something about getting Bright and Strawberry a bigger bed, and something about how many rooms the new Pear house was going to need, but never enough to follow the conversation. It was a discussion that clearly had nothing to do with her, so she didn't fret about not hearing it well.
Caramel walked over to her and rump bumped her. "Hey! Want to play a game, maybe hide and seek, or racin'?"
She gave him a raised eyebrow as they continued walking. "You did hear that I'm not actually your sister, and that normally I'm a grown adult, right?"
The purple earth pony colt nodded. "Oh sure, but you're'a foal right now, ain't ya? Ya don't have to be a borin' grown-up right now."
She stopped in her tracks. "I'm not boring," she protested. "Do you think future me is boring?" That actually struck a nerve in her. Was she boring? Was that why in twenty years she never found her special somepony?
Caramel rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Well… Principal Cheerilee sat in her office a lot, and seemed real excited-like whenever she got to fill in for any of the teachers. I think she got bored sittin' in her office all the time."
"I love teaching, of course I'd be excited to get to fill in for the teachers," Cheerilee replied, then thought about her future job more, and brightened up a little. "I'm guessing my position as principal gave me an opportunity to interact with all the students equally. I want to be involved with all of you, and help all of you blossom."
"But ya still don't gets to run around and play," Caramel said, then his ears sagged, and he turned away. "I get it if ya don't want to play. I know ya ain't really Candy, but I miss her, and it'd be nice if I could pretend ya were her."
She blinked, and looked up ahead. Ma and Bright Pear had paused and were watching them. She looked back at the disappointed colt sitting beside her, and she made a decision.
"Tag! You're it!" She yelled out, as she tapped Caramel's side, and took off at a run towards the adults.
The colt seemed confused for only a moment, before taking off after her with a squeal of glee. She ran by Ma and Bright, and Ma gasped. "Candy, is that you?"
"No," Cheerilee yelled back. "Still Cheerilee, but making the most of a bad situation!" She then did a sharp turn so she and Caramel wouldn't get too far from the adults.
"Um, okay…" Ma said in a befuddled voice. "Just keep in my sight, I guess."
She dodged around Caramel for a minute or two, but going at full speed was becoming a little much for her, and she slowed down slightly. That led to Caramel planting a hoof on her side. "Tag! You're it!" He then took off at a pace she had no way of catching up with.
She got a devious idea instead. As she followed him back past the adults she instead quickly gave a soft pat on Ma's flank instead. "Tag! You're it!" And scurried away quickly.
Caramel stopped running and looked back at the adults as if unsure how this was going to play out. The way Ma was looking at the pair of them made it seem she was uncertain as well. The unicorn mare looked back and forth between Cheerilee and Caramel, then turned and looked at Bright. She then booped his muzzle. "Tag! You're it!" Then the mare hurried away from her eldest son, with a snorting chortle. Bright Pear narrowed his eyes, then joined in.
Their game of tag was right in the middle of a busy part of town, and foals and other young creatures that were passing by with parents or older siblings pleaded with their guardians to let them join in. One set of very eager earth pony fillies were even trying to haul their own parents into joining in with game. Cheerilee actually recognized this set of parents as some of her younger students from her own time, Haiku (who had back then just recently changed her name from Kettle Corn) and Skedattle. Her two former students seemed hesitant at first to be joining in a foal's game, but broke down under the powerful pressure of the two pleading sets of eyes.
The game grew in size, and although some passersby gave the adults playing along smirks, nopony made any complaint about the fact that there was a large game of tag going on in a busy area. If anything, most onlookers seemed to find the fact that there were adults playing along with the foals endearing. She even spotted a few ponies that she could tell had their own secret desire to join in. She found that she was enjoying herself far more than she thought she would, and this game was no longer something just to help cheer up Caramel, but something that she had needed as well. She could perhaps blame her underage brain for it, but she had a feeling that even if she were her correct age she'd still be having fun-- the current adults all seemed to be.
Eventually most of the participants tired themselves out, and the game came to an end. A number of the nearby vendors sold food, and found themselves with a wave of new customers. Ma took a minute to sit and relax, before directing her two sons and Cheerilee that they needed to be back on their way home. The experience may not have solved any problems, but it did at least loosen the small group of them up, and relieved them of a load of stress they had all been carrying.
When they arrived back at the farm they found Strawberry in the kitchen. The poor mare was in tears, and there was a mess of epic proportions on the stove and everything else. Bright Pear immediately ran over to her to see if she was alright and to comfort her. The smell in the kitchen was gag inducing, and Caramel quickly retreated out of the room.
Strawberry, still sniffling, looked over to Ma. "I'm sorry. I got home much earlier than I thought I would, and found your note about how you might be out late. I thought I would be helpful by trying to make dinner for everypony, but everything that could go wrong went wrong, and I'm pretty sure a few things that couldn't go wrong went wrong anyway."
Ma surveyed the mess in her kitchen for a moment and tried to take a deep breath-- only to end up gagging on the smell. She looked upward at the ceiling. "How did you manage to get a tomato-" The unicorn shook her head. "Don't worry yourself about it. Let's get a window open to start airin' this place out. Since it's just the five of us tonight, I think it would be a good night to go eat out, somewhere nice. You and Bright can have your own private table, and make it a date. Order what you want as a treat from me. Get yourself cleaned up, and we'll be on our way."
Cheerilee couldn't think of anything she could really accomplish at Sweet Apple Acres. Sadly, she couldn't think of much she could accomplish to help Candy at all, other than stay out of trouble. Hopefully this restaurant wouldn't serve muffins. She'd need to put Marble's laughing treatment to the test if they did. She might get some funny looks for laughing at a muffin, but it was better than another panic attack and surge.
The restaurant they went to was on the far side of town, close to the Everfree. The forest had actually covered this area in her own time, but it had been cleared and pushed back to where the treeline was now a good distance away from it. She wished that the town had grown enough to just push the entire forest out of existence, but it took a lot of work and upkeep to keep it at bay in her own time, and while Ponyville was far larger in this time, it wasn't large enough to do that. With the way the forest behaved it might never be able to fully be pushed away, as it seemed to have a will of its own, and it was a big enough fight as it was keeping it in check.
She'd learned about this particular restaurant on the walk over. It was owned by Rumble and Pina Colada, who were apparently a couple. They two controlled separate aspects of the restaurant; Rumble had control of the main business and kitchens, and Pina had financial and managerial control of the bar area and everything associated with it. Rumble's older brother, Thunderlane, worked as both a chef and matredine, and another former Wonderbolt, Misty Fly, worked as a greeter as well. The draw of having not one, but two former Wonderbolts, combined with higher end meals and a full bar made the establishment one that attracted even high class patrons from Canterlot, and it was considered one of the place in town that tourists needed to eat at once during their stay. A pair of new mid-sized hotels flanked the location, and made it all the more enticing for tourists. Tourism had always played a small part in Ponyville's economies, going back to the days zap apple jam drew tourists, but it seemed that in the last twenty years that industry had become the dominant one for the town.
"Do the Apples still make zap apple jam, and apple cider?" Cheerilee asked, as the thought occurred to her.
"E'yup," Ma replied, with a smug grin. "Applejack takes care of most of the preparations for those, but she taught me what needs to be done."
"And Ma and aunt Applejack are teachin' me, so I can take care of that when I'm older," Caramel said cheerfully.
Ma nodded in pride of her youngest son. "I might have married into bein' an Apple, but I'm an Apple to my core, and will make sure our traditions carry on long after I'm gone." She giggled. "I'll tell you a secret. It's the natural way I speak now, but I actually trained myself to have a slight country accent. Relatives have expectations out of the matriarch of the family."
Strawberry giggled. "I'll keep your scandalous secret safe, but don't expect me to do the same. If I pick up anything, it will be just because it happened."
They walked into the restaurant and were greeted by none other than Thunderlane himself. The pegasus was in a proper tuxedo, and had a single iron grey streak going through his mane. He gave them all a big smile as they entered. "Welcome!"
Ma shuddered. "Sorry, that particular greetin' brings back bad memories."
Thunderlane immediately looked embarrassed. "Oh, sorry about that. Former Our Town resident, right? I should have thought about it. We don't get many if those. Let's just try hi then." Cheerilee blinked, she'd forgotten Ma was from there, despite Ma sharing her past. Actually, at this point she was almost forgetting that Ma's name in her own time was Sugar Belle. She could almost imagine if she walked up to the Sugar Belle in her own time she'd accidently call her Ma Apple by mistake.
"That would be better," Ma said with a thankful nod. "I'm pickin' up the bill for all of us, but you can seat Bright and Strawberry at a private table or at the bar." She turned to the pair. "Just don't go drinkin' too much. I'm gettin' the bill, so I'll know how much you've had."
"Wouldn't dream of getting drunk, Ma. Never been drunk, and don't ever intend to," Bright replied, and Strawberry nodded along.
"Didn't think you would, but still felt like warnin' you just in case you got placed at the bar," Ma said with a firm nod.
"Which they probably will be," Thunderlane said. "We're pretty full, with all the parents and relatives who've come into town for the graduations. A private table for two is not going to be available, but we have a few spots open by the bar. I have at least one or two family tables open for the rest of you."
He led the group into the restaurant proper. It was filled with low to the ground tables with pillows for seating. The entire place was dimly lit. Each of the tables had a small candelabra in the center, with three lit candles burning softly in each, and this seemed to be the majority of the lighting in the restaurant, aside from some softly glowing firefly lamps on each wall, and a more brightly lit bar area. There was a stage on the far side of the room which had a band playing classical music, with spotlights put on each of the members. The atmosphere really did give off a very high class vibe.
She, Ma, and Caramel were seated at a table, and Thunderlane informed them that a waiter would be with them shortly, before leading Bright Pear and Strawberry away to the bar area. There were plenty of other occupied tables around them, but the combination of dim lighting and the backdrop of the music somehow gave each table it's own feeling of being private. The smells of various different foods permeated the air, and increased her appetite.
"Go ahead and start readin' the menus to decide what you want. I think the foal menu is on the back," Ma instructed, as she floated her own menu in front of herself.
Cheerilee used her own magic to turn her menu over to read. Foal menu, it had been a very long time since she'd ordered off one of those for herself. With how hungry she got each day she half considered insisting she eat off the adult menu. Her perceived appetite might be bigger than her stomach, she had plenty of experience treating foals to meals and learning that was very often the case.
The waitress, a young unicorn mare who couldn't have been out of elementary school more than a year, came over to them with a smile on her face and pad and quill floating in her magic. "Hello, I'm Blueberry Tart, and I'll be your server for tonight. I'll be taking your drink orders right now, and when I come back with those I'll take your regular orders."
Ma glanced at the menu and scrunched up her nose. "Do you have anything non-alcoholic other than water?"
Blueberry nodded. "We have a separate tea menu, if you look further down-- it's in small print. We also have light versions of all the other beverages that barely have any alcohol in them."
"Caramel can't stand tea," Ma said, and let off a small frustrated whinny. "I'll take a regular peach cider, if it isn't too stron' then they can have watered-down versions of the same. It isn't stron' is it?"
Blueberry shook her head. "Not at all. I've had it straight up before, and it didn't leave me feeling any effects. I think it is weaker than your famous apple cider. You'd need to drink two or three full mugs before you started feeling anything. Though I wouldn't recommend a straight mug for smaller foals, the lighter version is still recommended for them."
Ma nodded. "Okay then, they've both had some apple cider during cider season, and done alright, so that sounds fine. We don't go out to places like this much, so they can be treated with somethin' a little different." Cheerilee wanted to say that she was perfectly fine with tea, and a nice soothing ginseng might be nice right about now, but decided to keep quiet. She was trying to keep a low profile, and the less she spoke up the better.
Blueberry wrote down their orders and then said she'd be back shortly with their drinks. Cheerilee went back to looking over the foal menu, and trying to convince herself that the portions on any of the listed items would be enough.
"This is a surprise," came a familiar and very unwelcome voice.
Spoiled Rich had walked over to the table and was giving them all a condescending look. "Ma Apple, I would have thought you would be trying to determine what your arguments for the school board were going to be, not treating your little menace to a special night out. I suppose it might be too much to ask for you to be doing the sensible thing, considering you clearly haven't done right thus far."
Just once, she'd love to box that snide mare right in the face. If she could get away with it just once she'd die happy. Ma looked like she shared the same opinion.
"What happened yesterday was not my little Candy's fault, and it has been a very stressful time for her and she deserves to relax," Ma said in an even tone. "We've been talkin' with a lot of experts, and we've determined what is happenin' with her, mostly at least, and we're workin' on gettin' it fixed."
Spoiled raised a doubting eyebrow. "And what, pray tell, is your excuse for her being an ongoing threat to the education of the rest of Ponyville's youth, and able to get away with all the other things that she has done? Please say, I need a good laugh."
"She has some sort of magical problem that copies the minds of other ponies and creatures into hers for periods," Ma answered confidently. "It ain't actually my Candy doin' any of that stuff. I know it sounds far-fetched, but we've got expert testimony and evidence to prove it."
"Is that so?" Spoiled said with a smirk. "My dear, naive, farm mare, you're just telling me that she is even more of a menace than I first argued. I'm aware of several of those personalities she's had, and they are from individuals that have no right being around other foals. It was bad enough saying she was pretending to be Sombra and some of the others, but now you are saying she actually was these creatures? Is letting Sombra around Ponyville's youth what you'd have us do? Who is she supposed to be right now?"
"Cheerilee," Cheerilee answered before Ma replied. "And I'm going to do everything I can to help Candy, just like I've always done for every other foal."
Spoiled looked at her and then burst out laughing. "Cheerilee, really? Oh my, that is too precious. I think that just reinforces that Candy has yet another unstable pony in her head. I had always thought Cheerilee was not truly mentally up for her job, with how ridiculously lenient and soft she was in terms of discipline, and she seems to have finally lost it and taken off this year to prove I was right to think she was mentally unfit. Now you're claiming Candy is being possessed by that mentally unstable excuse for an educator, with some who knows what mental disorder, another pony's mental disorder piled upon Candy's, and this is supposed to make it better? I said I needed a laugh, and you have not let me down."
She was clenching her jaw and grinding her teeth together so tightly that it hurt. The only thing that was keeping her from bucking Spoiled in the face was the fact it would end up coming back on Candy, the ONLY thing. Ma seemed so beside herself with rage that she couldn't even form words, and Caramel looked like he was on the verge of doing what she wanted to do.
Spoiled grew serious again. "I do apologize that it must come to this, separating a foal from her mother, even a poor excuse for one, is a sad thing that I should not seem to make light of, but it's for the safety of the students. We can't have a student with such unbalanced personalities in a place where they can harm the others, or anycreature else for that matter. She isn't just a school menace, but a public one. I'll be leaving you in peace. Please, enjoy your meal. You won't get such nice food in the asylum."
The mare turned and walked away, leaving three very angry ponies in her wake, but also hanging dread that the rest of the school board and other authorities might see things the same way.