//------------------------------//
// 7: Family Meeting 
// Story: Going Home 
// by -Mazer 
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I was high above Ponyville, flying through the air as if I were a Pegasus. I spun around in the air, twirling and spinning, doing loop-de-loops, and pulling off barrel rolls. For the first time in my life I finally understood why Dashie did what she did. Flying was all kinds of super-duper fun! I cannot remember the last time I had this much fun, oh wait, yes I do! It was last night during my Fifteenth-of-the-Month party! I throw a party on the fifteenth of every month because, obviously, the fifteenth day is the most super-swellest day of the month! After the first, of course. And the twentieth. I guess I could include the sixth. Oh! Can’t forget about the seventeenth! That day is extra keen!
I dove through a particularly fluffy cloud only to get stuck within it halfway. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the cloud was not a cloud at all, but a big fluffy, floaty ball of cotton candy! Cotton candy clouds? Is this for real? What could be better than cotton candy clouds?
As if it had read my mind, the cloud suddenly began to shower Ponyville in chocolate rain. Chocolate…Rain! I cannot believe this is happening! I needed to break free of this sticky prison in a hurry least I miss the storm of the century. Luckily I had decided to skip breakfast this morning so my stomach was extra super duper empty. Look out cotton candy cloud, Pinkie-Pie is hungry!
“Pinkamena,” a voice boomed throughout the sky. I ignored it, preparing to sink my teeth into the puffy deliciousness, but just as I was about to take a bite out of the cloud, the voice repeated my birth-name. “Pinkamena! Wake up this instant.”
I awoke from my dream to find that I had been mere seconds from taking a bite out of my pillow. I glared down upon the pillow before kicking it off the bed. Stupid pillow. How dare it not be a cotton candy cloud? “Hmph,” a soft, gravelly voice grunted. “Another one of your silly dreams?”
I looked for the source of the voice only to discover that my younger sister, Granita – or Inky as I liked to call her – was standing besides the bed. “Hey!” I exclaimed, happily. “When did you get home?” I rolled off the bed to embrace her but she didn’t share my excitement nor did she return my hug.
“An hour ago,” she pulled herself out of my hug, her dark gray eyes looking deep into my own. “Your sister is already downstairs with Mother.”
I tilted my head, confused at the tone of voice she was taking with me. “Don’t you mean, our sister?”
She sneered. “Sure, why not.” She turned around to leave the room without offering so much as a ‘Welcome Home’ or ‘Good to see you again’. I stared after her for several seconds feeling as if a chunk of ice had suddenly formed within my stomach. What was wrong with Granita?
“It has to be the trip,” I whispered while leaving the room. “She’s just tired from the trip.” I hesitated. “Wait, what trip? Where did she go anyways?” Granita wasn’t like Octavia or myself; she was never the outgoing type, preferring to work on the farm or spend time with Father whereas Octavia and I wanted to do our own things. If Granita went on a trip then it had to be farm related. Huh. I wonder where she went.
Mother was preparing us a meal of turnips and sprouts. Octavia was sitting at the kitchen table while Granita assisted Mother by fetching whatever utensils she needed. I joined Octavia at the table, looking around for any signs of Father. He was nowhere to be seen.
The lump of ice in my stomach grew.
“Morning, Pinkie,” Octavia said while I sat down.
“Morning,” I offered her a shaky smile. “Uhm, did I miss something?” I whispered.
“No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Does Inky seem a bit, I dunno, grumpy to you?”
“No more than usual,” Octavia shrugged. “Why?”   
“She just seemed angry when she came to wake me up.”
Octavia shrugged again. “She always seems angry.”
This made me stop. Inky angry? Since when? She was the more serious sister, true, but I would never classify her as angry. She just took a bit more convincing to come out of her shell, that’s all.
“Eat up, girls.” Mother set the plates down before us. I noticed that she was sitting opposite of Octavia and myself, with Inky sitting beside her. For the briefest of moments it felt as if they were both upset with us. No, that’s impossible. I’m just being paranoid. Yes, that’s it, paranoid. Returning home to the place that carried with it so many unhappy memories would be enough to put any pony on edge. Yes, that’s it. Nerves. Nothing more.
I stared at the turnip breakfast that mother had prepared for me. There was nothing in this entire world that I wanted less right now than turnips, but I wasn’t about to insult my mother’s cooking by refusing to eat. With a burst of courage, I leaned down to take a bite out of the turnips.
I heard Twilight mention that our sense of smell and taste were powerful enough to stir up memories long gone. I never really understood what she meant until this now for the moment the taste of turnip touched my tongue, a flood of memories came crashing through my mind.
I remembered waking up before the sunrise to Father’s commanding voice. I remembered the sensation of the morning’s icy air as it bit down upon my body; the ache of my muscles after a hard day’s work, the loneliness that clawed at my heart as I watched the other fillies go to school without me…
But not all the memories were bad. I remembered the nights by the fireplace, when all of us would be lying down upon the floor while Father read to us one of his favorite books while Mother sat down nearby, knitting us our own individual sweaters. I remembered how Octavia and I would make shadow ponies in the candlelight, doing our best to convince Inky to join us, and then laughing when she couldn’t quite make a shadow pony. I remembered the times when we would push our beds together to make one giant bed fort and sharing ghost stories.
It was then I realized that I had been judging my childhood too harshly. Yes, it wasn’t easy and yes it was rather lonely, but it wasn’t always difficult. My parents had done their best to raise us properly. Mother would home school us while Father would weave stories of what life was like when he was a kid. We used to spend our Sundays having picnics out in the fields and sometimes Father would even take us outside to show us the stars and constellations.
My shoulders slumped. How could I have been so unfair to my family to think that I had no positive memories of my home? My parents were never monsters – not that I ever considered them to be in the first place – but just ponies who grew up in a different time period. I thought about AppleJack and her family. She worked just as hard as my sisters and I did, maybe harder and then there was little Applebloom who spent most of her days helping AJ and Big Macintosh on the farm.
I frowned. No. There is no comparing the Apples to the Pies. AJ and AppleBloom both grew up in a community. They went to school, they had friends, they had a life. I had none of those things while on the farm. I am not blaming my parents for how I was raised – far from it, but there is no denying that what was good for them as a filly and colt, was not good for me or my sisters.
I sighed. Different times, different situations. That’s what it all boiled down too. I love them and I am so very grateful for those few precious moments of happiness and fun they provided me and my sisters, but I still cannot squish the feeling of anxiety that boils up in my belly whenever I think about the farm.
“Pinkie?” Octavia whispered. I snapped out of my thoughts only to see that Mother and Inky were looking at me. “Oh,” I blushed. “Sorry,” I took another bite of breakfast while forcing a smile upon my face. “Thank you so much, Mother.”
She nodded. “Did you sleep well, Pinkamena?”
“I did!” My smile was genuine.
“I am glad.” She took a bite of her breakfast. I noticed then that Inky wasn’t eating. She was glaring at Octavia and myself, though Octavia didn’t seem to take notice. What was wrong with her?
After breakfast Mother excused herself. The moment she was out of earshot, I turned to Inky. “Inky,”
“Granita,” She corrected in a terse voice.
I swallowed. I have never heard her take that tone of voice before in my life. “Granita,” I corrected. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, nothing’s wrong. Why would you think something was wrong?”
“Well,” Granita didn’t wait for me to finish my sentence. She bit down upon hers and Mothers’ plates and took them over to the sink so that she could start washing them. I grabbed a hold of mine and Ocatavia’s and moved to join her. “You’re acting like a big ol’ meany sour puss and I want to know why.”
“I’m not angry.” She grumbled. “Why would I be angry? I mean, I only have to breathe the same air as the two biggest traitors to the Pie family name, that’s all.”
I almost knocked over a glass that had been resting next to the sink. “What?” I exclaimed.
“Here we go,” Octavia growled while rolling her eyes.
“Do you deny it?” Inky – no – Granita snarled at Octavia. “Did you two not abandon the farm, abandon your duties, your family?”
“No!” I took a step backwards. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“She’s angry that we left the farm,” Octavia explained. “When you left to live with the Cakes, she took it rather harshly and when I left, well, you can see for yourself how she felt about that.”
She pushed herself backwards onto her back hooves so that she could begin washing the dishes. “Oh, I am not angry, not anymore. I just don’t consider the two of you sisters anymore, that’s all.”
All the blood in my body turned to ice water. How could she say such a terrible thing? “Granita…”
“What is it that they are calling you now, Pinkamena? Pinky? Is that right?”
“Yeah, but,”
“And Ms. Cleft over there…” She snorted. “Octavia, right?”
My eldest sister didn’t respond. Instead she was glaring at Granita.
“Yeah, so it wasn’t enough for the two of you to leave, but to go and change your names on top of that?” She pushed away from the sink to approach me. “Do you know just how much you hurt Father when you left? Oh, yes, he understood the reasoning behind it but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt. He was devastated that one of his fillies didn’t want to stay home and it only grew worse after she,” she jabbed her hoof in Octavia’s direction, “Left. He was never the same after that, and did either one of you bother to visit? Did either of you bother to write? No! You left and never looked back.”
She was trembling with anger now. “Tell me, Pinkie,” she practically spat out my name. “How many of your friends know of us? How many of your precious Ponyville buddies have you told about your family?”
Tears were beginning to well up in my eyes. “Only one,” I said. Yes, I had told AppleBloom and her friends but to be honest, I don’t think that they had been paying attention, so engrossed in their search for Dashie. Dashie was the only one of my friends who knew all about my upbringing whereas the others only knew bits and pieces.
“I figured. Ashamed of us, are you?”
“Knock it off,” Octavia hissed. “That isn’t true and you know it!”
“Then why haven’t you visited? Why haven’t we met any of these friends?”
“You know the answer to that,” Ocativa countered. “Father never allowed strangers on the farm unless it was business orientated. He didn’t want anyone distracting us from our work, distracting him from his work.”
“That’s no excuse!” She pounded her hoof onto the floor. “You could have come on your own; written a letter, invited us over to your homes - anything!”
“You…” Octavia started but I interrupted her. “You’re right,” I told Granita. “You’re right. We could, should have visited. I,” I hesitated then shut my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You act as if the farm was a prison. As if Father was some dictator who ruined your life when everything he did was in our best interest. Without our help, we would have lost the farm years ago. He wanted nothing more than to allow us to go out and play, to be like the other fillies. Do you really think he liked keeping you on the farm all day? Of course not but it was necessary to keep us off the streets!”
The tears were flowing freely down my cheeks. Everything she was saying was true. The experience I had while eating breakfast was proof enough of that. I had let all the negative emotions control me for so long that I had twisted my childhood into some sort of nightmare. “Granita…”
“Girls!” A sharp voice cut through our argument like a knife. We turned around to see that Mother had returned to the kitchen. Her dark eyes were narrowed as she looked upon the three of us. “Enough of this bickering. You can fight later but for now, Father is awake and he would like to talk to you.” Her eyes snapped from one sister to the other. “All of you.”
I tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat. How could I possibly face Father after listening to what Granita had told me?
Granita shoved her way between Octavia and myself to follow Mother upstairs. I looked to Octavia who nuzzled her cheek to mine, wiping some of the tears off of my cheek. “C’mon,” she whispered. “Let’s go see Father.”