Timed Ramblings

by Midnight herald


Afterschool

Sugarbee let her heavy saddlebags thwump onto the floor with a relieved sigh and breathed freely for the first time since she’d left the schoolyard. The warm scent of baking buttermilk scones filled her nose and set her stomach growling, and she trotted towards the kitchen with a bright smile on her face, her ears perked up and her chest feeling lighter than it had all day. But as she peeked through the doorway and into the warm, sweet-smelling room, her spirits fell just a little, and the familiar knot of worry tied itself up in her chest again.

Every conceivable surface was covered with a cluttered layer of baked goods. Muffins sat atop croissants, entire pies wobbled on pillars of brownies and sweetbreads. And over by the sink, Mama Pinkie was busy scrubbing out a cupcake pan attacking the burnt splatter marks with a terrifying single-minded focus. This wasn’t a surprise baking, a warm welcome home from the first day of finals. Mama Pinkie was baking her feelings, and from the looks of it, her feelings were bad. Sugarbee trotted over to the sudsy, spitting sink, to her muttering, glowering mother, and caught her in a surprise hug from behind.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” she asked, nuzzling at mama Pinkie’s tense shoulders. Mama Pinkie just sighed and worked even harder at scrubbing the cupcake pan clean. Sugarbee winced at the silent treatment. Mama Fluttershy had told her once about how mama Pinkie didn’t like talking much when she was sad, because she didn’t like other ponies seeing it. Suddenly it hit her, why mama Pinkie was baking quite so much today.

“It’s because Auntie Twilight couldn’t make it to her birthday, isn’t it?” Mama Pinkie flinched slightly and kept on scrubbing at the cupcake pan, even though it sent little speckles of the afternoon sunlight dancing ‘round the rafters with each forceful pass the old dishrag made over its sudsy surface.

A bowl full of batter sat in the midst of the chaos, thick and bubbly and alluring. Sugarbee sniffed at it curiously. Dark chocolate and … almond? Sugarbee sighed a little bit. Almonds never made it into cupcakes unless it was serious. “You know she wouldn’t have missed it if she could, Mama,” Sugarbee continued, turning around to watch as her mama kept scrubbing at one spot on the pan. “She just had to go save the world again, like she’s always doing. You know she woulda been here if she could, right?”

Silence spread between them like icing on a cake, thick and heavy, as she waited for an answer. But there was nothing but the running water in the sink, grating on her ears and on her patience as she waited for her mama to turn around and say something. Finally, she turned towards the oven and opened the door to look at the scones inside. She inserted a knife that came away clean, with only she slightest coating of steam and melted butter on its silvery surface, so she pulled out the cookie sheet and looked for a place to set the hot scones down.

Something else occurred to her as she balanced the steaming tray of scones on the flour canisters. Auntie Twilight had sounded a little bit worried in the letter she’d sent along yesterday. Sugarbee shut the water off and took the sparkling clean cupcake pan from her mother’s tense hooves with a little smile. “She’s gonna come back, y’know,” she promised around the handle of a ladle, as she put the batter into the greased indentations. “She always does.”
Then she took the pan over to the oven and set it inside, and adjusted the tempurature.

--TIME LIMIT--
Sugarbee turned around and walked into a tight, warm hug, surrounded by her mama’s wonderful smell. She grinned and hugged her back just as tightly, just sitting in mama Pinkie’s strong arms, feeling the little quivers that ran through them, the ones that meant she was trying really hard not to cry.

“Mama?” she asked around a faceful of fluffy, crushing mom-hug. “What are we gonna do with all this food?” Mama pinkie gave a little rumbling sigh, the thinking kind, and then a little snortle, and then her little chuckles broke out and fell around them like rain, like the teardrops that landed in Sugarbee’s mane. And Sugarbee couldn’t help but smile a little bit more, because her mama Pinkie would be ok, soon.