Lil' Cheese sighed to himself as he threw the doll he had been playing with onto the floor. He had spent the day cooped up in his bedroom at Sugarcube Corner, again, while his parents were out entertaining a young pony and her friends at a birthday party. He had asked them several times to take them, but his father always said that he was too young and that there wouldn’t be enough room in their wagon for him and Boneless 2.
Now he was lying around on his bed, alone with just the cheery songs playing on the radio he had put on his night stand, with Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake staying back to watch over him, and eating gummy worms from his snack bag like there was no tomorrow.
The bright yellow colt sat up and looked around at his big room. It was pretty bright and cheery- after all, he was the son of Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich- with yellow walls and sparkling posters of superheroes on the walls. The purple carpet in front of his race car bed was littered with different toys and knick knacks his aunts had loaned him, which weren’t very entertaining, and were mostly rock-themed, but they seemed to like them so much, at least according to his mother, so he decided to spare their feelings.
Still, Lil' Cheese found it was incredibly boring just sitting around in his bedroom all day with nothing to do and nobody to play with. He needed some kind of entertainment. "Hey, Pumpkin!" He called out. No matter how sad he was feeling, his voice always had a happy giggly sound to it. Pretty soon, Pumpkin Cake appeared at his doorway, munching on a muffin. "What is it?" She asked, sounding like she didn’t even care.
"I want to play!" Lil' Cheese cried excitedly as he bounced up and down on his mattress. "You wanna play a round of Ogres and Oubliettes? Dragon Pit? Ooh! How about we get Pound and play some buckball or hoofball, or...?"
Pumpkin rolled her eyes. "Come on, those are games for babies. And I never played them- and I was a baby for eight years!" At that moment, her peach-coloured stomach growled loudly and she raised a hoof to pat it. "Man, these muffins aren’t very filling. You want one?" She asked as she started to turn away. Lil' Cheese groaned. "No, I’m not very hungry."
As soon as Pumpkin left, the colt's bright pink mane deflated and he sat down on his bed and wished he had someone to play with. "I wish Mom and Dad would come back." He muttered. "I wish I had some friends to play with. I wish..."
He paused as he glanced over at a picture on the wall of Pinkie and Cheese having a romantic dinner on top of their giant pet crocodile Gummy. Lil' Cheese gasped and jumped in the air as a sudden realization hit him. "That’s it!"
***
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich were walking back to Sugarcube Corner together, covered in food and glitter from the wild party and giggling their heads off. It was late afternoon by now and they were ready to kick back and watch their favourite movie, National Lampony's Hearth's Warming Vacation.
"Man, That was a great party!" Pinkie said, picking some confetti out of her well-kept mane. "I haven’t had that much fun since Twilight's after-party after her after-coronation party." Cheese chuckled. "I know! I didn’t think Boneless 2 was gonna make it! Right, buddy?" He looked at Boneless 2, who was slumped over on the front of the wagon, with most of his skin torn up and dripping stuffing after all these years.
Pinkie sighed as the bakery came into sight. "I hope Lil' Cheese isn’t disappointed he couldn’t come! " She said with a frown. "Yeah. He'll probably wish he had come along after he hears about all the fun we had!" Cheese said, elbowing Pinkie in her side to make her smile again.
Suddenly, the two heard a loud explosion coming from the building. "What was that?!" Cheese cried. They started to run towards the shop, but a minute later Lil' Cheese flew out the front door and tackled his surprised father to the ground. "DADDADDADDAD! I want a pet! I want a pet!" He cried as he jumped up and down on Cheese's chest.
"Ow! Hey! Calm down, champ!" He said as he pushed his son off him and then bounced to his feet in such a silly way that it made both Pinkie and Lil' Cheese laugh.
"Now, what was it, sweetie?” Pinkie said as she reached down and tousled her son's hair. "Ow! Mom, quit it!" Lil' Cheese said as he giggled. "I want my very own pet!" He said excitedly, and started jumping around and chanting, "I want a pet! I want a pet!", oblivious to his parents shocked faces as they looked at each other with obvious concern.
***
"But whyyyyy?" Lil' Cheese whined, making sad puppy dog eyes at his mother as she set down some Mac and Cheese as his breakfast the next morning. "Becaaaaause," Pinkie Pie said, mimicking her son's words to make him smile, which didn’t work. "You’re only five years old. And I just don’t know if you'll take very good care of it." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You might not know, but there are some pretty bad creatures out there." She wrapped her son in one of her big loving bone-snapping hugs. "And I don’t want anything happening to my Lil' Cheese..."
Lil' Cheese rolled his eyes as he pushed away from his mother. ”Come on, Mom, I’m VERY reprehensible. Besides, you and your friends have re-framed-"
"Reformed, sweetheart."
"Re-farted, all kinds of bad villains in Bezestia-"
"Equestria.”
"Celeryestia. And they’ve always turned out okay, like that Reddit guy-"
"Discord."
"Twitch. So maybe I could do try doing that too."
Pinkie Pie laughed and shook her head. "Sorry, sweetie. Maybe when you get older. I don’t exactly want a giant bufogren running around this place."
"Buuuut, in the meantime..." Cheese Sandwich said as he slid out of the kitchen, balancing yummy-looking cakes on his front hooves and his curly bouncy hair."How do you like the sound of bufogren-shaped pancakes?"
Pinkie laughed and patted her belly. "Sounds yummy in my tummy, Cheesie-pie!"
Lil' Cheese groaned. Soon he was sitting on the front doorstep, frowning and watching his parents journeying off to cater to a party in Las Pegasus. "We’ll be home before dinner, champ. Don’t burn the place down while we’re gone." Cheese said with a laugh. "...again. Thank goodness we’re taking the gas-scented confetti with us now.”
"And make sure you play with him, guys!" Pinkie called out to Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake, but as Lil' Cheese gazed up at their bored expressions it became obvious that he was alone again. He ran upstairs and collapsed on his bed, wishing there was some way he could find his own pet.
Fluttershy's sanctuary? No, she’d probably mention it to Pinkie and he'd be in trouble.
Zecora? She’d probably create some demon spawn from Tartarus that would kill him. And Pinkie. And then he’d be in trouble as a ghost.
Then he thought of Discord. Pinkie always wanted the goofy draconequus to stay as far away from her son as possible, even though he had promised to be more careful now that he and Fluttershy were married. But that was in the first few months after Lil' Cheese was born. He was, like what? Twelve now, or something?
Before he knew it, he was on the front of his bed, calling the villain's name. He wasn’t expecting him to actually show up, but soon there was a flash of light and there he was, towering over the colt and tapping his dinosaur hoof on the green floorboards impatiently.
"What? What is it? Make it, snappy, kid! We’re smack in the middle of the new Snoutlander season." He growled.
"Oh, uh, sorry to bother you, Mr. Discord." Lil Cheese squeaked, clapping his hooves together nervously. "But I was just wonder if if you could, uh, create a PET for me. My dad and mom both have pets, and so I want one too! Then I could maybe, er, show it off to my friends." That was a lie, as the colt ironically didn’t have any friends.
He was expecting Discord to just groan and disappear again, but instead the draconequus burst into fits of laughter as he started teleporting around the room and hugged Lil' Cheese's stuffed toys. "Are you kidding me right now? You, with your scruffy pink hair and your squeaky voice..." He poked the colt all around his body as he hovered in the air. "I’m no idiot! You clearly don’t have any friends."
Lil' Cheese closed his eyes and felt like crying. Why did the bad guy always have to be right?
Discord saw how sad he looked and sighed. "Oh, okay, fine. You really do seem like you could use a friend, and Pinkie Pie would love another little friend in the bakery."
"Oh, uh, actually, Mom doesn’t really know-" But before Lil' Cheese could finish his sentence, Discord had snapped his fingers and spawned the thing into the room. "Ta-da!"
It was a small, pink, gorilla-like creature, with sparkling stuff lining its arms and legs like it had been covered in glitter. It’s fists and feet were purple and it’s eyes were a bright orange as it looked up at Lil' Cheese and wagged it’s sticky furry tail like a dog and let its tongue hang out. It had red horns like the Devil and it had a long fur-covered purple snout.
"Woah." Lil' Cheese said as the creature meowed like a cat and rubbed against the headlights on his bed. "It’s like a combination of different animals, just like you." He gazed up at Discord, who just scoffed like he did stuff like this every day. "Yeah, and it’s a total freak-show, like your family. Sayonara!" He muttered, before quickly snapping his fingers and vanishing into thin air.
Lil' Cheese looked down at the animal sitting in front of his bed and giggled. "I don’t think you’re a freak, Mr. Sprinkly-covered thing." He gasped as he suddenly thought of a name for it- Mr. Sprinkles!
The colt left his room quickly, ran downstairs, and got a piece of cardboard to write its name down. Then he trotted back upstairs and hung it around it’s neck and smiled. It clearly read Mister Sprinkles in big letters. Lil' Cheese clapped his hooves. "Yippee! You’re officially a part of the family. Let’s go outside and play."
Lil' Cheese ran down the stairs again, and his new pet followed closely behind. Upon entering the font yard, Lil' Cheese took a candy cane from the counter and started throwing it for Mr. Sprinkles to catch, which it was good at, except for the times when it ran into a tree. Lil' Cheese laughed out loud. He would worry about his parents when they got home. For now, he just wanted to play catch with his new pet.