A Sprout to a Better Path

by soniana-draws

5. Choosing harmony (End)

After the camp scene, everyone wakes up super early to go to Briddlewood. Sprout hates every minute of it, but doesn't have any option but to follow them.

On the way he bickers with Zipp, who accidentally messed up his mane with her wings when she woke up. She doesn't seem to take him seriously, but Pipp takes his side, saying taking care of their mane in the morning is important.

This calms things down and the three of them end up sharing stories about life as the heirs of important ponies. Zipp and Pipp talk about being princesses, and Sprout about inheriting Maretime Bay’s most important factory from his mom in the future. Sprout finds himself…relating to them, and so is less afraid the more he talks to the two pegasi.

He notices Sunny smiling and whispering to Hitch when he sees the scene, and Sprout glares at her.

He ignores that, everything that's happening. At no moment he let go of his grudge. Why would he? Sure, Pipp and Zipp aren't so bad, but the pegasi in Zephyr Heights sure were eager to arrest any earth pony they saw there.

Pegasi and unicorns are evil and Sunny is delusional as she has always been.

Talking about delusional, Sprout feels as the only sane pony there when everypony has that musical number at Izzy's home.

Sprout stays apart. The song is too corny, but he does join in in a duo when Hitch starts singing about how dangerous the other races are. For a moment Sprout has fun.

…and then Hitch gives up to take Sunny's side again. The enemy’s side.

Once the musical ends, Pipp helps Sprout fix his hair. It looks good until he has to wear a fake horn with an insufferable amount of glitter over it. Izzy’s courtesy. Bleh

When they arrive at Bridlewood, Sprout is relieved but also disappointed to see the terrifying unicorns from his favorite action movies are…not action movie worthy at all. They barely move!

He mentions out loud he expected better since Izzy left quite an impression on Maretime Bay…or anywhere she went really. It wasn’t a compliment, but Izzy smiles and takes it as one.

Then in the tea shop Sunny just has to risk everything by, guess what? Betting the crystal Sprout risked his life for!

…without even knowing what it was for, but still!

Any other day that would’ve been good for Sprout, it would mean they could leave. But after yesterday- after barely sleeping thinking about their plan to return magic, and his own plan against it…

Unicorns having the two crystals who would return magic to Equestria is no good, it’s just not.

So when Sunny is losing in that dance competition, Sprout talks to her, tells her that if they really want to win, they should use a pony who actually knows how to dance, and that pony isn’t Sunny. Sunny completely ignores the insult, surprised by Sprout of all ponies wanting to help.

She’s moved, she smiles in a way that says ‘so you’re on our side’, and Sprout has to interrupt her before she can say anything corny. He ignores the awful feeling at the pit of his stomach at knowing she’s once again having way too much fate in him.

Sprout suggests Pipp for the dance off, because who else dances like a popstar there? Not Hitch that’s for sure.

They win and Sprout finds himself celebrating with the rest.

But then he remembers. He had a plan, he had thought about this plan all night, all morning.

So while everypony is distracted, Sprout steals Sunny's bag and throws the two crystals in there.

The other being discovered as non-unicorns, and Sunny staring at the deputy in shock as he stands at the door, is the last thing Sprout sees before he leaves the shop in a rush with the crystals.

Sprout runs away, he just runs. If there's a chance, even minimal, of those crystals returning magic, he can't allow it. It's too dangerous, and

he seems to be the only pony to understand that.

His escape goes well until he stumbles onto a pony, no- pegasus- the pegasus queen.

The rest catches up to him then. Sprout is trapped, has nowhere to hide.

He decides against it anyway. He's tired of hiding behind the others who keep running face first into danger, he’s done following them around while they ignore the obvious.

Sunny and Hitch try to calm him down, but Sprout doesn't have it. He says everything he had been thinking so far. How the pegasi and unicorns attacked as soon as they saw them, how the queen and princesses lied to their people, how earth ponies get nothing from this whole ‘returning magic’ thing. He reminds them of the stories of war, and how Sunny is so convinced over a bedtime story his dad made up. He tells her that no one cares, no one ever cared.

The last part, maybe the mention of his dad, gets Sunny to flinch. After years of smiles that brushed anything Sprout said away, it’s weird to see her react to Sprout’s words. She’s quiet, but clearly looks hurt.

It's Hitch who steps up for her. He’s frowning, making that one face of disappointed boss he always makes shen he and Sprout work side by side.

But right after yelling Sprout's name, Hitch’s gaze softens. He calmly asks his deputy to please return the crystals, saying he’s asking ‘as a friend’.

For a moment, Sprout hesitates, but decides against it at the end. He couldn’t be friends with traitors. Not as the son of Phyllis Cloverleaf, the pony who has done so much to protect earth ponies from danger all these past moons.

The triumph is short lived as Alphabittle takes the chrystals away by force. Sprout can just watch as Sunny puts both crystals together. And then…

Nothing.

Nothing happens. And Sprout smiles. He laughs even. Doesn't care about the ponies who glare around him. He never cared about the mission to begin with because he knew it was all useless junk.

He finally gets to see Sunny leaving all that behind and calm down for once. That Sprout, that his mom was right.

Once he calms his own laughter, Sprout finally notices the mood around him.

It’s…depressing. Really depressing.

Sprout watches Sunny leave in silence. Hitch says goodbye to the mares they met on that trip. He spares no glance to Sprout as he leaves the forest.

And for some reason, Sprout does not follow them right away. He stays still in that place he had been wanting to leave so bad less than an hour ago.

It’s not until Pipp softly calls his name in a question that he reacts. Something heavy sets on the pit of his stomach. Sprout looks back. The three no-earth mares are looking at him. Sprout wonders why- how they can even spare a glance at him after all the awful things he had just said about them.

Sprout opens his mouth. He wants to say something, but is not sure what.

At the end, he just stutters and leaves.

Sprout had been right all along, he had won.

But…What did he win exactly?

The way home is quiet. Awfully quiet.

They arrive at the lighthouse. A place Sprout liked to visit a lot when he was a foal, despite his mom telling him not to countless times.

It was a good place to play. And Mr Starshine…was a bit out there with his ideas, just like Sunny, but he had always been nothing but nice to them.

The memory of the awful things he had said about him in Bridlewood comes to his mind, and Sprout has to shake his head to keep those thoughts away.

He looks up. From afar he observes as Hitch tries to comfort Sunny. It had always been that way when it was the three of them. Sprout was never good at the comforting thing friends did.

And as awful as Sprout was at telling how other ponies felt, even he knew Sunny wouldn't want Sprout near her now.

Sunny leaves and Hitch walks away, both in defeat. By instinct Sprout follows his boss. He reflects about the trip on the way back, the talks in the fire and what happened in Bridlewood. He doesn't like what comes to his head, nor the awkward silence, so he tries to joke with Hitch. Something about everything being back to normal at least.

There's no mercy in Hitch’s glare.

Sprout gulps at the familiarity of that. It was the kind of look Sprout would get when he didn’t do things as perfectly as Hitch, or everytime Hitch had given him a chance and Sprout just screwed it up somehow.

Sprout kicked a small rock on the way. Yep, everything back to normal.

When they arrive at the town’s square, it’s completely empty. There are cameras everywhere. The only pony they find are Sweets and Toots, who run to them as soon as they see them. Both are wearing Unicorn Anti-Mind-Reading hats.

They completely ignore Hitch when he asks what's going on. They only look at Sprout.

"Sprout Cloverleaf, your presence is required in Canterlogic’s factory immediately.” Sweets informs.

“Mayor’s orders.” Toots adds.

"Wait, we have a mayor?" Hitch asks, completely dumbfounded. Again, he’s ignored.

Indeed, Maretime Bay has a mayor now. Her name? Phyllis Cloverleaf.

Sprout's mom.

Sprout is led to her factory to talk to her, alone. Hitch is not allowed near the facilities anymore nor to talk to anypony there. Something about the ‘Official Cloverleaf act’ is all the other ponies answer.

Phyllis greets his son with a tight hug and overwhelms him with questions, one after the other without leaving room for him to open his mouth. Phyllis is wearing a hot pink suit and a golden badge over it.

At the end he only manages to excuse his disappearance saying ‘he left a note’.

Phyllis holds said note up. A small paper with barely readable hoof-writing she had found over his son’s desk in the sheriff’s office.

‘Going on mission, b rght bak.’, one could read…if they narrowed their eyes.

Phyllis is not content, comments on how Sprout and Hitch picked the worst time to leave. She asks what they even did out there, and just when Sprout is about to go all show-off about how he took part in stopping magic from returning, he bites his tongue to stay quiet.

For that he’d have to tell her he spent time with unicorns and pegasi and went to how-many dangerous places, and that’s…not a good idea. His mom already made a scandal multiple times whenever he even mentioned anything about Sunny’s stories.

Sprout ends up blaming Hitch for deciding to go after Sunny, who had escaped town. On purpose he omits anything about pegasi and unicorns. Sprout simply followed the lead he says. The whole time it had been like that after all.

This makes Phyllis roll her eyes, who reveals that, for that exact reason, Hitch is not sheriff anymore. Not after leaving everypony helpless at the worst time.

This surprises Sprout. His mom never hated Hitch, she had always respected him and had fate in his job as sheriff. Though more than once Sprout ranted about Hitch not being that good at his job, Sprout’s mom never agreed with that really, just comforted Sprout telling him he was a great deputy in her eyes(Sprout always suspected that was just to make him feel better and not genuinely believing that). Just once or twice Phyllis had disagreed with Hitch, and it only was for being too soft on Sunny.

But well, Maretime Bay needed somepony after a unicorn showed up to cause chaos there, and without Hitch, it was Phyllis who the citizens looked for.

‘She had to make decisions,’ Phyllis explains, ‘make them work on methods to stop unicorns in case they returned.’

Sprout asks if she’s planning to attack the unicorns, maybe even pegasi. Phyllis is shocked by his question, and explains that despite building everything, even a giant robot, it's actually all just a hoax to keep everypony calm. ‘Earth ponies never attack, just keep their guards up’, she says.

Sprout nods, remembering how unicorn and pegasi attacked them as soon as they found out there were earth ponies there. But…didn’t they do the same to Izzy when she arrived at Maretime Bay? Not to mention out of the three tribes, only earth ponies had technology made specially to attack the others.

Technology which…didn’t really work, since there has never been magic to protect themselves from in the first place.

Sprout finds himself asking his mom if all the Canterlogic products were a hoax too, and she nervously changes the subject. She gives Sprout a silver badge, one Sprout recognizes as Hitch’s badge, and tells him he's the new sheriff now, her right-hoof.

Sprout is baffled.

For some reason, he doesn’t find himself celebrating, instead wondering what her mom did with Hitch if Sprout has his badge now. Before he can ask though, Phillys tells Sprout to accompany him. She wants her son to be with her on the stage as she gives her grand speech.

Once on the stage, Phyllis is calm while she talks behind the podium, already used to presenting herself and her products for so many moons. She has a motherly vibe even when it’s obvious she has the whole town under her control. No pony seems to mind. They see her as a light in the middle of the horrors of knowing pegasi and unicorns could attack them.

That’s it until Sunny and Hitch(who besides having been removed off his badge, is fine) arrive. Everypony calms down when the two say they don't need to fight, even Phyllis looks relieved to know they dont have magic and there would be no war...until she begins wondering out loud.

She’s not trying to scare everypony, but genuinely wonders a few things. How do they know there's no magic really? Yeah they meet a few non lethal pegasus and unicorns, but what about the rest of them? What about everything the history books said? Not everything they have known their whole lives could be just a lie…

A discussion begins with Phyllis telling how Hitch left Maretime Bay alone and set in panic for days after a unicorn showed up, all to chase after Sunny. She says the citizens couldn’t just let that slide. Sunny helped an enemy escape too. Phyllis even comments on how it looked like Sunny and her father would do anything to stop being an earth pony.

She says this not out of malice but believing everything. Deep down she can't quite blame Sunny, she was raised by a pony like Argyle after all. Argyle never understood the danger like Phyllis did.

The ponies around start whispering and exchanging looks at the things Phyllis says. Little by little, they all put their anti-mind reading hats back on.

Sunny and Hitch look at Sprout, who all this time kept quiet as he always did whenever his mom spoke. It's obvious they want his help, for Sprout to back them up on what he saw about pegasi and unicorns. Sprout would usually take his mom’s side right away, but now for the first time in his life he…he doubts her words.

Sprout thinks of his talk with the princesses, the way Izzy was so naive yet she noticed he was upset and was the only to acknowledge that while the rest focused on the mission, the camping night; how despite facing angry unicorns and pegasi in both Zephyr Heights and Briddlewood, there had not been mind control nor zapping lasers nor kidnapping from flying savage creatures.

For Sprout, nls knowing things were not like history books said their whole lives…it suddenly made his mom’s logic, the town’s logic, his own logic until this point, feel too extreme.

Sprout couldn’t believe he was agreeing with Sunny on that after so many years.

Phillys arches a brow, asking Sprout what they meant. Sprout awkwardly confesses that he did end up following Hich and Sunny to where unicorns and pegasi lived and that, yeah, the other ponies were kind of aggressive and chased after them but…

Sprout can’t say anything else before Phyllis makes a scandal over finding out his son got dragged to such a place, to meet ‘such dangerous creatures’. Phyllis takes it so personal she hears no more reasoning, directly riding the giant robot shaped like her, and goes with the rest of earth ponies to keep guard outside Maretime Bay.

Sunny and Hitch give Sprout a last look of disappointment and betrayal before chasing after her. Sprout lowers his ears.

Sprout chases after his mom’s robot too.

He's not sure why. He's not even sure what he's doing. He just feels he has to talk with his mom. He's the only one she would listen to now, Sprout thinks.

Whatever she’s planning, for once Sprout doesn’t blindly trust his mom’s decision.

When he arrives outside Maretime Bay, Sprout spots Izzy, Pipp and Zipp there along with other pegasi and unicorns. Queen Haven and Alphabittle are trying to negotiate with Phyllis inside the robot, but with her being too far away, plus some poor choice of words, lead her to believe the other races are there to cause trouble.

When Sunny and the rest go to the lighthouse, Phyllis follows them with the robot, struggling to handle it and accidentally causing chaos with the anti-pegasi and anti-unicorn weapons on the way.

Again, Sprout is scared, but he forces himself to follow her. He already dealt with days of walking face-first into danger by following Sunny and threat to an unknown fate and being chased around by pegasi and unicorns. Plus many, many glares thrown his way. And here he is in one piece!

Sprout can deal with his own mom.

He hopes he can.

He has to. After so many mistakes as a deputy and friend, it felt like this was his last chance to do things right for once.

He chases after the robot. Hitch, who is climbing over the machine with Zipp and trying to stop it while struggling to communicate with Phyllis, asks Sprout what he thinks he’s doing.

"Uh, my mom is directing a giant robot towards our friend's house, what do you think I'm doing?! Trying to stop her!” Sprout yells.

Sprout finds himself surprised to call Sunny a friend again after many years, so are Hitch and Zipp to see he’s willing to help. Zipp cheers him on, and Hitch…surprisingly seems to have gotten fate on Sprout from somewhere deep inside his soul, maybe knowing Sprout more than anypony could calm Phyllis now.

Hitch, Sprout and Zipp exchange nods before Sprout tries, as he can with his lack of stamina, to run besides the robot. He tries to call for his mom’s attention, but Phyllis tells him to ‘leave the adults to deal with this’. Phyllis genuinely thinks she’ll avoid war by stopping magic from coming back.

And, oh boy, was Sprout insane now. He stands on her way, right between the lighthouse and the giant robot coming his way. And for the first time in his life, he talks back to his mom, yells about how he's not a colt anymore and can have beliefs on his own. He has them now, and he thinks she’s going too far.

In an attempt to avoid her son, the robot crashes against the lighthouse. It all falls down, but luckily no one gets hurt.

After discovering the crystals didn’t work, Sunny gives her speech about how it was never about the crystals. It was the ponies who had to decide if they wanted to stay separated by fear and distrust, or choose love, choose friendship.

Phyllis, noticing what she had done and that even her own son shakes his head at her when she tries to check on him, is ashamed and stays behind.

So its sprout who dares to put back the last piece of Sunny and Argyle’s broken frame. He smiles, awkwardly at Sunny, a tiny tiny bit of apology for everything on his expression. Not that he’s ready to give a proper one yet, but it’s a start.

Sunny smiles at him, content with that. A 'finally you came around’ kind of smile, not meaning to be mocking but…glad she was right to have hope in him.

Then everything calms down. Every kind of pony is talking and fixing the mess around Maretime Bay. Sprout is talking things out with his mom. He decides the best way for her to apology, is to talk with the other leaders. To his logic, they are all old which meant they would all get along just fine.

Against her suggestions to not do that, Sprout presents Phyllis to Alphabittle and Queen Haven, and it’s…awkward of course. It doesn't help that Sprout doesn't even remember their names, so he simply presents them as ‘the queen who lied to her kingdom their whole lives’ and ‘the sore loser unicorn who tried to beat them up’. To Sprout’s eyes, explaining their mistakes out loud would help make his mom’s actions less bad.

A weird tactic, but it kind of settles everypony on the same ground. It was true they all committed huge mistakes during the adventure.

Sprout leaves her mom to socialize, and Phyllis apologizes to Alphabittle and Queen Haven for what happened. They three end up relating over being in charge of other ponies and end up getting along like Sprout hoped.

Hitch calls for Sprout when he spots his deputy in the crowd. He gets close to Sprout, a proud smile on his face, and offers his friend his deputy badge back. Sprout didn't even notice he had lost it during the robot chase. Sprout notices he still has the sheriff badge on his own sash too.

Sprout doesn’t find himself really caring about either badges. Not after all the action that day. He doesn't want to think about work or his career path now. He gives Hitch his sheriff badge back and doesn’t pick up the deputy badge, muttering something about talking about it later before Sunny and the rest wave at them.

Sprout hesitates, but Hitch nudges him to go with them, saying they are all friends. Sprout sees Sunny with her magical wings and horn and comments on ‘how that looks fits her’. That was a thing Sprout had said about Sunny’s alicorn costume as an insult when they were foals, but it wasn’t anymore. It was…more of a compliment.

It did make sense for her to have a magical horns and wings, as ridiculous at that sounds coming from Sprout of all ponies

Sunny chuckles and gives him a ‘thanks, your look fits you too’, referring to Sprout being covered in mud after the robot chase. To this Sprout rolls his eyes, hides his laugh.

Noticing his hidden laugh, Izzy comments on how Sprout's sparkle is bright again, that it’s green and that maybe that has to do with Sprout’s cutie mark. It was a vegetable after all, plants were green.

Sprout is left thoughtful about that comment for a moment before the rest are about to do their ‘hoof to heart’ thing. They look at Sprout, waiting for Sprout to join. Sprout is awkward for a moment, not really being too into corny friendship stuff like special hoof shakes and all, but he does end up joining anyways, pretending he doesn’t like it when in reality..he does.

As different as they are, he does like the new direction Marime Bay seems to be about to take., Sprout is not one to like changes.

The group is gathered in a picnic outside the lighthouse. The new lighthouse…kind of. It's still under construction.

They are discussing what they’ve been up to since unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies began living in harmony, and their future plans in that new life. It’s Sprout’s turn to talk.

Sprout comments on how he has been dropping on and off to the lighthouse, whenever any of the ponies from the group finds him around Maretime Bay and drags him to hang out with them, or a couple times when Sprout would drop something there that his mom wanted to give to Sunny. Phyllis chose to be in charge of directing the reconstruction of the lighthouse after she accidentally destroyed it, so Sprout ends up visiting because of that as well. Funny how now he’s forced to go there when as a foal she forced him to not go near the place at all.

Sprout is hesitant at first. He has always appreciated his alone time, but he does enjoy hanging out with Sunny, Hitch and the rest. He has never been never afraid to be rude and leave a meeting if he was bored. This was not the case. It was like old times but with some additions, that being Izzy and the princesses.

Some days Sprout drops by the lighthouse with vegetables from his own garden too. He had left his job as deputy, to 'take a break from all the action'. Something temporal he said, but with each passing day he found himself not wanting to return to being under Hitch’s shadow nor do all the hard work a pony in charge of the security of town had to do.

Instead of the deputy sash, Sprout now wears one with a green bandana around his chest. A gift from Pipp. She said he’ll look ‘more fashionable with something that matches the color of his eyes’. And honestly? She was right. Sprout didn’t notice the blue color of his deputy sash didn’t match with him at all until then.

Now that he was no longer deputy, Sprout ended up using his free time to laze around at first, but got bored quickly and ended up picking up his old hobby of taking care of his mom’s garden, since he still lives with her. It was nice having his own patch of vegetables and such. He hadn’t done that since he was a foal, not after he got his cutie mark and got angry it was a beet and not something related to being a sheriff.

It felt nice to return to his roots, gardening is fun and Sprout is good at it. He likes being good at something and he’s not ashamed to be cocky about how good of a gardener he is.

Hitch is…a bit overworked now without a deputy. Not that Sprout did a lot when he worked at that, but actually Sprout laziness did use to save Hitch’s time before in a way. Sprout used to be in charge of deciding which smaller missions were worth it and of dealing with ponies who went to complain when Hitch was not around, both of which Sprout used to discard out of not wanting to take care of them. Now that Sprout isn’t around, Hitch wants to take care of every little thing and that, plus the pegasi and unicorn being around now, clearly leaves Hitch with no energy most days.

It is sorta funny to finally see Hitch not being as perfect of a sheriff as Sprout believed he was. And Sprout felt noticed when one time Hitch mentioned he missed the company and pizza night during his longer shifts.

Just for that last thing Sprout sometimes stops by the office to chat or share fries with Hitch. Zipp tends to join them too since she likes to hang out and bother the two of them.

Besides that, Sprout also goes job hunting once in a while. He knows he’ll take over his mom’s factory in the future, whatever they decided to do with it now that anti-pegasi and anti-unicorn technology is not necessary, but in the meantime Sprout wants to explore other options. He has a lot of free time in his hooves and wants to figure out what to do with his life.

He either gets bored and or screws up at most jobs though, so it becomes a running joke with Sunny and the rest that Sprout will have a different job every time they see him.

Currently he's a pizza delivery pony. It’s the job Sprout enjoys the most so far, mostly because he gets to eat all the pizza he wants. He has heard ponies say he seems in a better mood lately, and maybe that’s true, but Sprout is still Sprout. He wants to be recognized as the best at something and have the chance to be the boss someday and in someplace, however that gets to happen. Also he’s still grumpy and too blunt giving his point of view compared to Sunny and the rest whenever they hang out. He has to. The group is way too positive and sometimes they get delusional with everything being sugar and rainbows suddenly just because there’s magic when Sprout knows there’ll be problems.

For example, Sprout thinks it’s unfair earth ponies have no magic at all. Or how things are just so…so different with pegasi flying around or unicorns making things float around. Maretime Bay’s Day is coming up soon and Sprout is sure it’s going to be a disaster with all these changes.

Still though, slowly very slowly, Sprout is changing. Sprout is considering apologizing to Sunny for all the mess even, but that…that will take him time, Sprout is not one to apologize. For now, he just treats Sunny nicely, gifts her vegetables for her cooking, eats the unicorn cupcakes she makes(he had always wanted to try them) and in general, does get along way better with her than he used to when they were foals.

Sunny seems happy with all that so far. So do Hitch, Izzy, Pipp and Zipp whenever he hangs out with them.

And Sprout? He’s pretty happy as well, though no one will catch him saying that out loud.

For now, he enjoys the picnic and wonders what the future will await for all of them. He has the feeling adventures won’t end anytime soon for him, to his disgrace(or luck?)