Her mind raced as she shared at the illustration. Was she imagining things again, or was it really an illustration in the book? It wasn't a muffin, but she knew that smile, and bread was pretty similar to a muffin. "Strawberry! I need you!" She yelled. If the pegasus saw it there as well, then it had to be real.
The red pegasus came hurtling through the door, flapping her wings as she flew into the room. "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Do we need a doctor?"
Cheerilee pointed at the book. "Can you tell me what you see there? Is there really a drawing of a smiling loaf of bread, or am I having another hallucination?"
"What?" Strawberry replied in confusion as she touched her hooves back down on the floor. She then walked over to the book and looked at it. "That's a smiling loaf of bread, alright-" Strawberry turned her head towards the closet. "It reminds me of-"
The pegasus let off a surprised yelp, as Cheerilee ran right up to the book and pulled it close to read with her magic.
Grain Sprites
Native Habitats: Unknown, possibly farmland for growing grains in zebra lands.
Known magical abilities: Unconfirmed, see full notes.
Population numbers: Unknown, either extinct or purely mythical.
Threat level upon encounter: Unknown, see notes.
Likelihood of encountering in the wild: Essentially nonexistent, see notes.
Notes: All knowledge of grain sprites come to us through zebra folklore, as there has never been a confirmed sighting of the creature. What is gathered by zebra oral tradition is patchy, and unclear, with conflicting information on their effects.
What the zebra generally agree on is this-- grain sprites are typically formless, invisible spirits. Grain sprites, as their name implies, are very fond of grains such as wheat, oats, rye, and barley, although it is unconfirmed if they somehow eat these things or simply love being around them. While a grain sprite is formless, the grain sprite is capable of taking possession of a grain or grain product, with many zebra insisting that upon possession the grain or grain product will display a smiling face.
Purportedly, grain sprites are especially fond of baked goods made from grain, such as bread. Though also fond of beer, and grain based alcohol. They will take up residence in their grainy home, and at this time is when they become dangerous. The grain sprite will defend its new home with magic, it is said. When a creature tries to eat or drink the grain sprite's comfy home, while failing to notice or disregarding the smiling face, they find themselves at the mercy of the grain sprite's magic.
The actual effects and nature of this magic have conflicting reports from zebra; with effects ranging from causing their attacker to hallucinate to causing nearby magic items and spells to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. Other effects that have been claimed to happen are confusion about identity, having intense visions of the past, and physical transformation; It should be noted that these are all conflicting reports of what the effects are, rather than a list of things that will happen to the unsuspecting victim. Some zebra insist that magic is said to be extremely potent, and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to dispel; while others insist that it can easily be dispelled with common means-- again, the reports are often conflicting.
Zebra are deeply superstitious in regards to grain sprites, and terrified of them. Oral tradition says that bands of zebra would abandon areas they were living in at the sighting of a grain sprite. There have been no reported cases of this happening in modern times, but there have also been no purported sightings of the mythical creature as well.
Given that the grain sprite's effects could mimic a side effect of being consuming certain molds, which may grow on grains; it is this pony's humble opinion that the creature is purely myth, used to explain ancient zebra reactions to this mold exposure that they otherwise didn't understand at the time. While there are many little known magical creatures, many that exist only in stories are merely constructs to explain other natural phenomenons. It can be safely assumed this is merely a superstition that has persisted from a time when knowledge and understanding of mold on food was not understood.
This had to be it! It was so similar to what Candy was experiencing with the muffins-- smiling face on a grain product, hallucinations, even the intense visions of the past and confusion about identity could be a link. Didn't they say zebra used to inhabit this area, and left very suddenly with no explanation why? Grain sprites could be the reason, instead of the Everfree. If they were few in number, all deep in the Everfree, and normally formless and invisible, that might explain why nopony had ever stumbled upon them.
"This is it!" She explained excitedly, passing the book to Strawberry. "This is what the second rogue resonance has to be, a grain sprite's magic!"
Strawberry grabbed the book with her wings and looked it over. "Um, the book says these things are a myth to explain being exposed to mold. Are you saying you-- or Candy anyway-- was exposed to mold? You did have a closet full of moldy muffins, so I suppose that makes sense."
Cheerilee lit up Candy's horn and pulled the book back."No! I'm saying these things must be real, and Candy must have read this entry not long before I showed up. It says here that some zebra said that the magic could be dispelled through common means-- that's why she was trying to make that potion, she was trying to use the common dispelling methods that zebras would use."
"I don't know, it seems kind of far-fetched," Strawberry replied, then gave a sad frown. "But, then again, everything about Candy's situation seems far-fetched. It's too late to be doing anything tonight. We'll take this book to Starlight Glimmer first thing after breakfast tomorrow. She can decide if this is worth looking into. Go ahead and get some sleep. I'm going to tuck Caramel in and then I'm going to bed too."
She wanted to go see Starlight right now, but it was late, and there wasn't going to be enough time to do anything tonight. It was just that tomorrow was basically all the time that she had to fix Candy's problem and avoid her being kicked out of school. Maybe they could get her back into school after being kicked out, but if Spoiled was determined to keep her out then it was best that Candy never get kicked out to begin with, that would give Spoiled too much of an advantage in keeping her out. She couldn't let that happen. It was all the more personal to her since she was the one that had been the final blow. No student was going to get kicked out of school over something she did.
She did sleep, but she took forever to fall asleep, and she was up and down over the course of the night. When the sun peaked through her window she through off her covers and immediately headed straight downstairs.
Strawberry was in the kitchen already, preparing more oatmeal, along with toast. The pegasus looked over to her as she hurried in and flicked her ear. "I was planning on getting the two of you up shortly. I wanted to let you be well rested today. I'm pretty sure Caramel is still asleep. It took a long time to settle him down last night."
"I just wanted to get things taken care if as soon as possible, there isn't much time left before that school board meeting," Cheerilee explained.
"You have time to eat breakfast and for Caramel to wake up and do the same," the pegasus replied, wiping some butter on toast with a knife held in her wing. "Rainbow has already been by this morning, in case you're wondering, at least for a minute or so. She said Applebloom is going to be off her hooves for a few weeks to recover, but she should be otherwise alright. Ma and Applejack are going to be helping her with the triplets until she's up to doing things herself, and her husband should be arriving on the train back from Canterlot today."
Cheerilee let off a relieved breath. "I'm glad it isn't too serious." Her ears then dropped. "Did they clarify what happened? It wasn't because of how busy she's been the last few days, was it?"
Strawberry smiled, as she carried over a bowl of oatmeal and a plate of toast with each wing. "Don't blame yourself. One of the colts ended up getting tangled up in his cord, and with his siblings as well. Applebloom was awake long enough last night to name him, even if she hasn't named his brothers yet. She named him Tangle Bloom, which is after some plant in the Everfree, because he came into the world all tangled up in her."
She was actually familiar with that plant. It was used as an old pony remedy for treating heartburn and upset stomachs. Her mother used to give It to her whenever she had a tummy ache. It was bluish green, and tasted dreadful; it did however do the trick at relieving indigestion if you chewed on it for a few minutes, it just left you wanting to wash the bitter taste out afterwards. Her mother used to tell her the taste wouldn't kill her, and she'd feel better once it was done. Maybe that was a sly double meaning on Applebloom's part-- Tangle didn't kill her, and she felt much better after he was finally born. A little morbid, but she had heard even more morbid stories behind pony names.
Caramel came wandering into the kitchen, bleary eyed, and blindly wandered to his chair. Strawberry fetched food for the young colt as well. As Cheerilee looked up she noticed that the kitchen was surprisingly clean, and she wondered how long Strawberry had been up last night cleaning, or how early she had gotten up to do the task. In either case, the pegasus couldn't have gotten much sleep.
She finished off her breakfast quickly, and then was forced to sit impatiently waiting for Caramel to finish eating. It was slowed further by Strawberry taking the time to reiterate the news about Applebloom to the colt. This did seem to wake him up, but he couldn't seem to listen and eat at the same time, as if one or the other required his full attention, and news about his aunt and new cousins was too much to ignore.
A knock sounded at the door, and it was she who went running to answer it; it might be Starlight with news, and if it wasn't, then she didn't want to do anything that would further slow Caramel from finishing his breakfast.
She opened the door and was greeted by a yellow blob jumping on her and knocking her over. It took a moment to register this was Cheese. The androgynous colt seemed extremely pleaded to see her. Looking past him, she could see Pinkie Pie standing in the doorway, looking exhausted.
"Hiya, Cheerilee-- you are Cheerilee right now, right?" Pinkie greeted with a yawn. "I know Ma is helping with your stuff right now, but I need her to watch little Cheese. I've got a lot of cakes to bake today. Pumpkin is having herself a good cry today, and taking the day off. It's good for her, because she needed it; it's bad for me, because I have to do all her work."
Strawberry walked out of the kitchen. "Ma's not here right now. She went to-" the pegasus caught herself, and seemed to reconsider telling Pinkie the news. "She went to take care of something important. Is it just Pound at the shop by himself right now?" It was probably for the best to delay telling Pinkie about the new foals and Applebloom. There was no telling if Pinkie would drop everything and go running off to the hospital.
Pinkie gave a tired nod. "Until I get back, anyway. We shut the store down for today, and the two of us are going to get all these cake orders done, somehow. Pumpkin isn't going to be allowed to set a hoof into the kitchen. She needs to take a break, and just let herself cry it out. I guess it is a good thing, because she finally realizes she can't be doing this every year. She's really sweet, when she isn't under too much stress. It will be good not having herself stressed out from now on."
Strawberry gave the yellow colt a quick glance. "As I said, Ma isn't here right now, but I suppose I can watch him too. We're going to be going over to the School of Friendship in a few minutes to deal with something important. He can tag along."
"That's fine," Pinkie said in a subdued voice. She then bent down and hugged her son, then gave him a kiss on his head. "You be good for Strawberry Surprise. I'll come back and get you tonight. I love you, my little whoopie cushion."
Pinkie then reached up into her mess of a mane and pulled out a rubber chicken, passing it to Cheese. Cheese took it eagerly and placed it on his back. The party pony then turned and started heading back into town; just walking, instead of pronking as she might normally. Whatever had gone on this morning with Pumpkin must have been completely exhausting for the mare.
"If you haven't eaten yet I have a little breakfast leftover. When we have you all fed we can head off," Strawberry explained.
The colt nodded and headed into the kitchen. Another delay, but an understandable one. Cheerilee just took a deep breath, and reminded herself it was just a few more minutes, then she went back upstairs to fetch the book.
"So… little things that live in bread made this all happen?" Cheese said in confusion. "That's kind of silly."
They were walking to the school, and Cheese had been quite the chatterbox the entire way. She sighed, and looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she walked. "They can live in anything made out of grains. Muffins are a grain product."
"So they are all over town? Why've I never seen one?" Cheese asked.
She frowned. "I'm guessing that they aren't all over town. I think that is just a hallucination, they aren't really there."
"But you just said-"
"The ones around town are hallucinations, there must have been a real one in the Everfree," she replied quickly. "My best guess is Candy took muffins with her to eat when she ran away, and one of those muffins picked up a grain sprite while she was in the woods. They must be deep in the woods, off the regular paths. Maybe there aren't many of them, that's why nopony has ever been unlucky enough to bring something that they could make a home in to where they are at."
"I guess that makes sense," Cheese said thoughtfully. "It still sounds silly, but it makes sense."
"Or Candy just read that entry and started imagining the things," Strawberry cut in, as she continued leading them to the school.
"Then why would I be seeing them too?" Cheerilee countered forcefully. "I didn't read that entry until last night."
"Why only you might be a better question," Strawberry countered. "It seems strange that none of the others, except Candy, ever saw these things. I've lived here my whole life, and I've never heard of a grain sprite before. It sounds like the author said, a reaction to mold, not a real creature. You opened up that closet and got a great big whiff of mold. Maybe that's why you see them and none of the others did."
Cheerilee flicked her tail irritability. "I don't think just smelling mold is how that works, and Big Mac, Bright Pear, and Ma all stuck their muzzles in that closet too. Big Mac even tried pulling them out with his mouth, and he isn't having any hallucinations. Why am I still struggling to make ponies believe me? I thought we were passed this."
"It just sounds absurd, little creatures that make homes in muffins. It sounds like something you tell a foal younger than any of you," Strawberry replied. "But I'm not really dismissing it. We're going to tell Starlight Glimmer, and she'll decide if it is worth looking into."
Applebloom might be the better pony to ask in this case, given Applebloom was the pony most familiar with the Everfree. Of course, Zecora had never found these things, otherwise the zebra would have known what caused her ancestors to flee the area. The book said zebras were terrified of grain sprites, and would abandon areas over them. It all fit together perfectly. It had to be a grain sprite; a grain sprite's magic plus poison joke turned into all this somehow. The stories said the grain sprite's magic could make other magic behave strange and unpredictably, it must have warped what the poison joke did.
They were right that it didn't fit that she saw these things and all the others didn't, she could admit that, but everything else fit. It might not be the whole solution, but it was potentially enough to fix this problem. They just had to get a sample of poison joke, and somehow catch one of those grain sprites. Now that they knew grain sprites were in the Everfree somewhere, and what they were attracted to, then it should be easy enough for them to find and catch one.
They reached the school and saw a flurry of activity going on outside. Ponies and other creatures were erecting bleachers and a large wooden stage. This must be preparations for the graduation. There was no sign of the Cutie Mark Crusaders; Applebloom was clearly not going to be here right now, and she guessed that the other two were close by their friend. Starlight Glimmer was present, trying to direct activity. Flurry Heart was helping out as well, although Starlight seemed to be keeping an extra close watch over the alicorn. There was no sign of Luster.
Starlight caught sight of them and waved them to come over to her. When the reached her the unicorn gave them an inquisitive look. "Why are you here? We don't have any tests scheduled for today. I need to get this place graduation ready." The head mare whipped her head around towards where Flurry was working. "Flurry! If you are going to help, then do it right! Make that trim even! I know you can do better than that. You're too good with magic to be that sloppy."
"Luster Dawn isn't helping," Flurry complained with a visible sulk.
"Luster didn't volunteer to help, you did. Neither of you were required to help, since neither of you are part of the staff. I'm happy that you took it upon yourself to volunteer, but I need you to do things correctly." Starlight turned back to them. "What were we talking about again?"
Strawberry stepped forward and passed the library book to Starlight. "Cheerilee found an entry near the back about something called a grain sprite. She seems pretty sure that must be the source of the second resonance."
Starlight grabbed the book with her magic and examined it. The unicorn flipped open the cover and gave the checkout card a brief glance. "I'm glad Twilight isn't here, this book is overdue. She still goes into nervous fits about overdue library books. Her ministers had to beg her not to make having an overdue library book a punishable crime."
"There would be a lot of ponies in the Canterlot dungeons if she did," Strawberry mused, then blinked. "Does Canterlot have dungeons?"
"It's got no dungeons, but it has a lot of old mines that can be used in a pinch," Starlight replied, then rapidly flipped through the book towards the end, stopping on the entry for grain sprites. The mare sat reading the entry for a moment and gave a lopsided frown to the book. "I can see where you could think this has something to do with it. Unfortunately, I've never heard of these things. I will definitely check into it the day after tomorrow."
"But tomorrow is the school board meeting!" Cheerilee protested. "If Spoiled kicks Candy out of the school it will be an uphill battle trying to get her back in, even if things get fixed."
Starlight flashed her horn and the book vanished. "I just sent that to my study. I can't help you earlier then that. I have a responsibility, as headmare of this school, to see that graduation goes off without a hitch. It would take time for me to map out and arrange teams to go looking for this creature, if it even exists. If it does exist I need to make sure I have something in place to protect the creatures searching for it, just in case they get blasted by its magic too. I simply can't do all those things and take care of my duties I have here. I also need Applebloom for any search of the Everfree, at least to help with coming up with where to search so we don't have creatures wandering into a timberwolf den or something. She's in no shape to be doing that just yet, even if it is just paperwork."
Cheerilee started to cry. It wasn't fair. She determined what they needed to look for. "But-"
Starlight put a hoof up to Cheerilee's mouth. "I get it. If you are Cheerilee, the idea of a student getting kicked out of school on your watch has to be hard. We can get her back in. It might not be easy, but we can do it. You're going to have to face that school board tomorrow without this all being fixed. The good news is that Candy has the best possible pony she could have in her body if she needs to argue with a school board. I'll do everything I can to fix this, but right now the pony Candy needs is already in her head. Be the strong and passionate educator, and argue Candy's case to those creatures. If there is a reason Candy needed you specifically to show up in her body, this is it."
She was still crying, but she nodded. What Starlight said was true. She wasn't sure what she was going to say tomorrow, but she'd say it with all the passion and commitment of a mare who had dedicated her life to helping foals find success in theirs. Right now Candy needed her to be that, and she'd make sure she didn't let the foal down.