//------------------------------// // Stallion of Sweets // Story: Making the Sun Shine // by The Fiery Joker //------------------------------// “T’was a long time ago, longer now than it seems, in a place perhaps, you’ve only seen in your drea-” “Mommy, I don’t think that’s the right story,” Sunny interrupted, raising a hoof. “What?” Pinkie blinked, removing her hooves from her cheeks. “Oh, oopsie! Sorry, Burton tends to bleed together in my head sometimes.” “Ber-tin?” Sunny inquired. “Oh, don’t worry your cute little head about that,” Pinkie quipped as she ruffled her daughter’s yellow mane. “Anyways… It wasn’t too long ago. Probably about a year or two before you were born. Give or take.” Pinkie gazed upwards. "Candy Mane began with a single store on Cherry Street, but even then, all of Equestria wanted his candy…” ~10 YEARS AGO~ “Hmmm..." A light tan earth pony leaned forward in his chair, staring at a sheet of paper and humming to himself. "No... no that won't work..." he mumbled. "Blast it, why can't inspiration come whenever it's convenient for me?" The chair gave a soft moan as the pony leaned backwards and sighed. He stared at the ceiling, scanning it for some sort of answer to his creative exhaustion. Suddenly, his mouth began to taste bitter, like metal. “Blech! Why did I have to be born an earth pony?!" the stallion whined, spitting the pencil out from his mouth. "Disgusting! I'd be be perfectly fine with pencils if they just tasted decent, but noooooo, rubber and lead have taste like sh-” The pony froze. He shot the pencil up to his muzzle, slowly waving it to and fro across his face. His eyes and smile grew in size as the seconds passed. “A pencil... that tastes good...” His eyes twinkled in epiphany and he thrust the pencil towards the sky like a saber. “I think I'm about to be brilliant!” he sung. He ripped off the squibbly sheet of paper on his desk and placed it on a side table next to him labelled “To Do Later.” Now with a clear head and a blank slate, he began scribbling on the blank sheet, drawing elaborate chemical diagrams and physics equations. “Oh goodness the children will loooove it...” he mused to himself. “Now if I can just figure out a good lead or graphite substitute...” After a pregnant pause, he snorted and erased half the page. “Nah, that would make it too brittle... Hmm, maybe if I neutralize the sugar during the gestation period, perhaps the chemical structure would remain stable enough...” The door slammed open, shocking the candymaker out of his focused passion. The stallion recoiled and fell backwards out of his chair, and yelping in pain. A mare burst through the door, the wind blowing the sheets off of the desk and burying the stallion in paper. "Mister Mane!?" the mare squeaked. "Are you okay?" Mr. Mane threw a hoof back onto the desk and hoisted himself up with a hoof. With the other, he straightened out his ebony black top hat. “I asked you to stop calling me that, Pinkie!” the earth pony whined, quickly gathering the scattered pieces of paper. “You’ve more than warranted informality with the way you work! Oh, never mind! Continue!” "Okie dokie artichokie Candy!" Pinkie Pie beamed. "It's a good thing you're okay though because it would be super duper bad if you weren't around to fix today's problem! We’re out of Whipplescrumptious Fudgemallow Delights! They flew off the shelves a minute after we opened up! “A minute?” The earth pony scratched his curly black mane. “Hmm. Slow day. Golly, Tuesday’s are the worst...” “What are we going to do!?” Pinkie cried, rolling her head back while swinging a hoof to her head. “There are a lot of ponies out there that really really really really want to eat some yummy chocolate and we can't do anything about it! I've tried giving them the Nutty Nutsomaniacaliscious bars but they said nooooooooo! One wanted Whipplescrumptious and another wanted a Carouselamel Sweet Treat, another wanted Mintal-" Candy Mane smiled as Pinkie continued her theatrics. He always enjoyed listening to Pinkie ramble, partly because he was one of the few ponies that could keep up with whatever she was saying. "-another wanted a puppy, and another wanted a Red Rider BB Gun! And that's when they asked me to come down here and make you make more and I just don't know what to do!" “Well..." Candy Mane stared at his desk and put his hoof to his chin, contemplating this latest development. There were a lot of hungry and apparently crazy ponies wanting more of his candy as usual. And as usual, he could barely keep up with demand. As much as a shortage was a good problem to have, it benefits no one. There had to be some way he could speed up production... His eye twinkled and a mad grin spread across his face. He flipped a sheet over and shot his pencil across the paper, as if he were a pretentious artist painting a picture with exaggerated brushstrokes. “Well, we’ll just have to make some more!” ~PRESENT DAY~ “Candy Mane reminds me a lot of Mommy...” Sunny thought to herself. “It was the best job ever!" Pinkie continued. "Eventually he got so much money, he opened the biggest, most fantabulous chocolate factory in the whole universe!" Sunny glanced out the hole in the wall. Sure enough, there was Candy Mane's enormous factory in all its splendor and glory. To think that the small shop on the street grew to be that kingdom of confectioneries and sweets. That large palace-like building brought such visions to her mind, visions of magical treats and candies too wonderful to comprehend. She had to know more. "What was it like in there?" Sunny asked, scooting up closer to her mother. "Oh, there was a hugermoungous ton of stuff that Candy Mane made! He was such a super smart smarty pants candymaker that he made ice cream cake that never melts, even on a hot day! Or or or the time he made jawbreakers that kept all the yummy flavor and time, but you could chew them and your teeth wouldn't break! Althooooough…” Pinkie leaned in closer to her daughter. “I did pitch him some ideas every now and again, like candy balloons, edible candle wax in case you want to eat a whole cake in one bite, and bags of chocolate chips that were actually pieces of chocolate in the shape of potato chips!" "Those were your idea?!" Sunny gasped. “Yepperooni!” Pinkie beamed. “Though he was a bigger smarty pants than me. And I mean extra large super chubby fat sized pants! Oh but he wasn’t fat, he’s actually kinda skinny, which is weird because he’s a candy maker, and you would think he would be fat! But that doesn't matter because he was such a super duper awesome friend and boss!" Sunny leaned in closer. "Was he nice?" she asked. “No... he was super DUPER nice!" Pinkie smiled, looking up. "He was a fun friend, unlike some snooty sticks-in-the-mud. He’d always find time to spend with us.” Sunny grinned. Candy Mane's factory sounded... perfect. There was no other word for it. A nice, smart pony who cared about others running the largest and most amazing candy factory in the world? It was perfect in every way. Sunny would give anything to see inside that factory in which her mother used to work. Used to work? A curious thought entered her head. “Why aren’t you still working for him?” Sunny asked. Pinkie’s smile faltered, and the normally radiant look in her eyes vanished. Pinkie grunted and began to rub her brace, hissing in pain. Sunny immediately regretted asking the question, wondering whether or not it was her question that caused her pain. “M-mommy?” Sunny peeped, scooting away and pulling the covers up to her mouth. "Hey, there's nothing wrong, sweetie!" Pinkie chirped. "It's just sometimes my leg acts up! These metal bars aren't really the comfiest thing in the world!" Sunny lowered the covers, giving off a hesitant smile. She stole a glance at her mother's leg and sat, waiting for her to continue. Pinkie stopped rubbing her brace and continued. “Candy Mane was a great chocolatier.” Pinkie’s tone dropped in pitch, further unnerving Sunny. “Too great, so much that other candy makers became big mean jealousy jealous pants of him. They began sending in spies to steal his super secret recipes.” “Spies?” Sunny asked, wide-eyed. “Eeyup,” Pinkie said deeply. “Not like the spies with nice manecuts and black suits; they looked like normal ponies but really deep down they were just mean and greedy ol' spies.” Sunny couldn't believe it. Why would anypony be so mean to a pony who just made good candy? All Candy Mane did was make children happy. It made no sense to her. And ponies that looked normal but were really spies? Sunny shuddered at the thought that maybe some of her classmates might even be spies. “Wouldn’t Mr. Mane notice?" Sunny asked. "I mean, doesn’t he know all of his workers?” “It’s the biggest chocolate factory in the world.” Pinkie shrugged. “Big factory means big number of ponies need to work there, and that’s a looooot of ponies to keep track of. I mean, I was friends with everypony in Ponyville, but even then I wasn’t FRIEND friends." Pinkie looked down. Her gaze drifted towards the metal bars binding her leg and remained there for an awkward amount of time. Pinkie let out a deep sigh and rested her head on her hooves. “Besides, Candy Mane loved other ponies." Pinkie said, a small smile creeping back onto her face. "He was very generous and trusting, always believing in the best of other ponies... so the spies had a really easy time doing their dirty thieving. The other mean candymakers kept stealing and stealing and stealing and stealing some more from Candy Mane. It got so bad that one day, he… he…" ~9 YEARS AGO~ “WHY DID YOU STEAL MY RECIPIES, PINKIE???” “I didn’t, Candy!” “You will address me as Mister Mane!” he snapped. Pinkie shrunk in her chair, horrified at her friend’s outburst. “And you really expect me to believe that? My security camera shows that you let a green unicorn in yesterday!" “Oh yeah! That nice pony!” Pinkie squealed. “He said he forgot his I.D. and gave me a piece of candy to not tell you about it because he would’ve been so embarrassed to-" “Traitor!” Candy Mane screamed, slamming a hoof down on his table. “What else did he bribe you? More candy? Cash? An executive position? How much have they paid you to steal my life’s work?! How much have those parasitic copycats paid you, huh?! ANSWER ME!" “No, Can-Mr. Mane! I wasn’t paid anything! I promise! Cross my heart, hope to fly-“ “No, Miss Pie!" Candy Mane interrupted. "You’re fired! You’re all fired! Everypony now who works here is fired! If I can't trust you, then I can’t trust anypony anymore!" Pinkie's heart stopped. “B-but… Candy…” “I don’t want to hear another word of it!" Candy Mane slammed his hooves on the table, "Pack your things Miss Pie and get out of my factory!” “Please… don't-” The desk in front of Pinkie upturned, wood coming apart with loud snaps as it crashed into the floor. Papers danced across the room, bright yellow squares obscuring Pinkie's eyesight. In the midst of it all, Candy Mane stood behind the shattered desk, his murderous eyes aflame with anger and tears. “GET… OOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Pinkie wasn't sure what happened next, as her body began galloping out the door, barely dodging papers and pencils being thrown at her. Pinkie didn't care that she bumped into Snickerdoodle or trampled Cream Whip; her body and mind reacted on pure instinct, just telling her to run away. Other workers dived out of the speeding mare’s path, trying their best to escape the same fate. Pinkie closed her eyes and began releasing choked sobs, forgetting that she had to look where she was going. She burst out the front door into the cold city air. Her hooves slid across the ground, no longer making stable contact with the ground. Realizing she had no balance, she flailed her hooves around trying to catch herself. Her front hoof met air followed by her face meeting concrete. “Ooww!” Pinkie yelped when she landed on the street. Icy asphalt stung her skin as she slid across the ground. Pinkie lay there, still dazed and trying to process what just happened. The floodgates reopened as she remembered what happened. Candy Mane- "Look out!" she heard someone cry. Pinkie tilted her head towards the sound, wondering what it could possibly be. She lost her breath as her eyes made out a large wooden carriage headed by two frantic-looking drivers. Pinkie willed her legs to move, but they wouldn't respond. The carriage-pullers began to swerve, horrid wooden grinding sounds scratching Pinkie's ears and quickly getting louder. Pinkie closed her eyes, silently hoping that she wouldn't die. An infernal pain stabbed her knee and seared up her left side. Pinkie wanted to scream, but not a second later, another painful stab assaulted her leg accompanied by a sickening snap. Pinkie threw her forelegs around her leg, but quickly pulled away after a phantom pain shot up her leg again. Her instincts fought for dominance, only causing Pinkie more anguish. Unable to do anything, Pinkie spasmed and jerked on the icy ground, each spasm moving her broken leg and sending more fiery pain up her body. The snow began to eat away at her skin, numbing the feelings of everything around her. Her mind entered a bleary trance, the crushing mental and physical pain sapping all of her strength. Through gritted teeth, Pinkie mustered the strength to open her eyes. Her tears blotted out the gray silhouette of the giant gray factory. Her strength ebbed, and the factory faded out of her sights leaving nothing but black. Pinkie hiccuped and sobbed, the crushing reality of her situation beginning to sink in. Pinkie had lost one of her friends. No matter what she tried to say, he wouldn't believe her innocence. The job she loved and wouldn't trade for any other was now forcefully ripped from her because of the bleak, jealous, and greedy world around her. She had nothing left... She was alone… alone and broken...