//------------------------------//
// Big Mac 
// Story: Crumbs 
// by daOtterGuy 
//------------------------------//






Once upon a time, there were two foals named Bright Mac and Pear Butter who lived with their parents; a woodcutter and a housewife.



The house wife told the woodcutter to take their foals into the woods and leave them there as they could not afford to keep them. Overhearing, the foals took several baked goods with them and left a trail of crumbs behind to follow back home.



Unfortunately, the crumbs were eaten by birds and Bright Mac and Pear Butter were lost. Wandering the woods without direction, they came upon a cottage owned by a witch.



The witch tried to eat them, but Bright Mac and Pear Butter managed to trick the witch and return home.



The woodcutter, left alone by the loss of his wife who had died earlier, welcomed them back, glad they were safe.



Then they lived happily ever after.






Big Mac crunched through the snow, each hooffall leaving behind a deep pit. He’d had another growth spurt and he now towered over nearly all of his peers. He hated it. It was also cold out, the kind of cold that burrowed itself under a pony’s fur and chilled them to the bone. He hated that too. Also! His baby sister had been crying all morning for no reason and with AJ off in Manehattan which meant Mac had to handle it. He didn’t hate Apple Bloom, but he definitely hated how bad he was at caring for her. 

It was pretty obvious to Mac that his life wasn’t all that great between dealing with the deaths of his parents and the general requirements of being a farmer. Having to trudge through snow piled up to his fetlock was not helping matters, but, admittedly, at least it wasn’t bucking farmwork.

The panic induced worry he felt was just an unfortunate addition to his reprieve from mundanity. 

A mundanity that had no end in sight. He never had time to talk to anyone anymore let alone hang out with and he was annoyed that he didn’t have an easy target to blame for this turn of events. Sure, there were two notable ones, but that was a line he wasn’t willing to cross no matter how bad his life got and he knew that if they were still around, they would never have chosen to inflict this kind of pain on him. 

Mac released a startled shout as he tripped over a taller than average snowbank, creating a Big Mac sized hole in the ground. He mentally cursed up a storm as he growled at the snow falling in from the edges and burying him in white.

Teach ya for getting caught up in your own darn head, ya doofus, Mac thought. 

For those that had known him, Big Mac becoming near mute was not something that would have ever been expected of him. His total word count had gone down to barely three sentences worth in the last few months and his mental speaking had risen higher than when he’d been a chatterbox. He didn’t want to speak so lightly, but he just… didn’t want to talk aloud either. 

Clambering out of the hole and cursing his stupidity for not putting on any outerwear before racing off into the White Tail Woods, he happened to spy a strange sight past the snowbank he’d tripped over. It dipped into what seemed to have been a path prior to the snow fall and was littered with specks overtop small careful hoofprints. Moving his head closer to the ground to inspect, his eyes widened as he recognized the pieces as crumbled pie crust.

Invigorated at finally finding what he had been looking for, Mac galloped down the path, following the trail. Puffs of white blew from his nose and mouth as he pushed himself to catch up to his quarry before he lost them.

Just as his lungs began to burn and his legs began to weaken, he came upon his tightly bundled target. 

“Mac?” Granny Smith said, startled as she dumped a pile of crumbs from her saddlebag onto the ground. “What are you doin’ here?”

Without answering, Mac trotted past his grandmother and planted his hooves on the other side of her, breathing heavily as he caught his breath and regained his strength.

“What are you plannin’?” Granny narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

Lowering his head, he pushed into his grandmother’s side with a loud grunt, slowly moving her back the way she’d come down the path.

“What in tarnation?!” Granny exclaimed as she failed to keep her footing in the face of Mac’s raw strength. “Mac, stop it!”

In lieu of an answer, Mac snorted.

“Oh, you varmint!” Granny whacked Mac over the head with her saddlebags, spraying pie crumbs all over. “Knock it off!”

“Ow,” Mac noted, rubbing the welt on his head with a hoof. He pouted.

“Oh, don’t give me that look!” Granny reprimanded. “I didn’t raise you in a barn! You don’t move your elderly grandmother like a cart that got stuck in a mud hole, ya doofus.”

Rolling his eyes, Mac pointedly glared at Granny then the saddlebags on her back.

“What—” Granny sighed in exasperation. “Not this again! I don’t need you racing after me every time I want to go outside. ‘Sides that, how do you expect Bright and Pear to get back home if I don’t leave’em a trail to follow?”

Mac felt his body stiffen as he heard his parents name, as he did every time Granny told him her purpose for being out in the woods. She had been doing it consistently every Sunday since the funeral and it was driving Mac mad with worry.

But that wasn’t important. What was important was that he got Granny back home before Thunderlane got bored foal sitting at the house, took Apple Bloom off “adventuring”, and got them both covered in tree sap. Again.

Bringing himself up to his full height, Mac glared down at his Granny releasing a heavy snort.

“What exactly do you think that’s gonna do? I’m not going to be intimidated by my own grandfoal.” Mac deflated. “And I’m not going home until I finish off this batch. Gotta renew the trail since—” Granny noticed her empty saddlebags. “Oh, consarnit! Look what you did! How am I supposed to make the trail now?!”

Scrunching his face up into something between a pout and a glare, Mac jerked his head back down the path toward home.

“Nice try, but I’ll just do what I can with what I got.” Granny huffed. “Honestly, it’s like you don’t even want your parents to make it back.”

Mac recoiled, his face screwed in pain. Granny ignored him, and adjusted her saddlebags back into their original position to be better able to spread crumbs.

“Now, you can either go back by yourself or ya can stay and help me get this one,” Granny stated. 

He frowned at Granny’s ultimatum. She shouldn’t even be out in this cold. Not with her hip. Not with her age. Not when there was still so much to do at home and he was only one stallion. But mixed in with the frustration was a disgusting undercurrent of hope. A horrible part of him that wanted to believe Granny and throw pie crumbs around the woods so his parents would come back. 

But it wasn’t true. It was wrong to believe it.

Life was hard enough as is and there was no sign of it getting better. Things sucked and they would for a long while, potentially forever. This whole endeavor was a waste of time and no number of pies was going to fix it.

Despite all of this and with no small amount of disappointment with himself, Mac grabbed one of Granny’s bags and sowed a decent spread of crumbs about him.

“Thank you kindly.” Granny smiled. “Now, let’s get this done so we can get you home. Not sure why you think you have the coat of a yak, but next time you should wear some clothes if you’re gonna come out here in this weather.”