//------------------------------// // 11 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Both Twilight and Tress flicked their ears backwards in fright and confusion. Fluttershy had decidedly ducked behind them in fear at the sudden raised voice in their general direction by Twilights father Night. Smart saw something that made her smile, while Barb sniffed at the air and joined Smarts expression with her own; they both knew something was missing at the picnic. Twilight opened her mouth to say something in the defense of her new friend only to be cut off by Night. “Now I have to go set up another spot at the table, woe is me. You are going to help eat all those cookies I just made young lady and you are going to like them!” The stallions voice had quickly gotten more sarcastic than angry, Night winked at Fluttershy and trotted out of the room. “You can also enjoy the milk at your leisure.” Fluttershy looked so confused for a moment at being addressed in an angry tone by the stallion, then the sudden unexpected one eighty into a sing song voice about the milk to go with the cookies. She blinked once or twice and it still looked like her mind would take a while to come to grips with what just happened. Barb rushed by her with Smart flying above her and Fluttershy hardly reacted to them or anything around her. “What.” Was all Twilight could say about her father’s flighty personality, her mind just took a sudden turn into a brick wall and crashed. All the little mental ponies were lying around the wreckage in agonizing pain; this was represented on Twilights face as a slight twitch in one of her eyes. “Just happened here?” Tress continued following Twilights completely derailed train of thought, before she realized she should be angry. A slight flair of a green ring appears in both her eyes for only a split second as she calmed down quickly. “You’re back from your picnic already? Looks like you made another friend; it makes me so happy to see you’re finally making some...” Velvet was about to finish her sentence when Twilight Sparkle cut her off. “Don’t mom, Smart might hear you and I might never hear the end of it. I think she wants me to make more enchanted toys like her.” Twilight could see the pale look cross her mother’s face, she nodded at Twilights reasoning. They certainly didn’t need more Smart’s running around. “Anyway this is Fluttershy, she followed me home. So can we keep her?” “Oh she’s so adorable, look at her hiding behind her mane; I think I might have a heart attack if I keep looking at the poor dear. I see your father is already playing under his bridge again, she looks like she was just spooked by him.” Velvet chortled at Fluttershy being so shy. “You can keep her, but no forming a herd with your friends until you’re eighteen.” “Mom, we’re just friends and we only just met Fluttershy today!” Twilight blushed at the implications of forming a herd, with her friends even! Her mother was obviously over thinking things; well at least she now knew her mother wouldn’t be upset that she might have a thing for mares. “Oh you protest to much my little sparkle.” Velvet studied the pony Twilight called Fluttershy whose face had gone a bright shade of cherry red; Tress didn’t seem to get the implication of what a herd was. Velvet mentally sighed that Tress really came from a sheltered world in that comic book. “Anyway, I heard my husband mention cookies not just a few seconds ago? Why, they must be fresh out of the oven.” Twilights eyes widened as she finally took in the fact that the word ‘cookies’ was immediately followed by ‘fresh out of the oven’, as it finally started filtering into her mind. It was a good thing they did register as she didn’t want to miss out on delicious fresh warm baked goods. She immediately charged off for the kitchen. Tress followed at a more sedate graceful pace behind her friend. Fluttershy was levitated into the kitchen by Velvet, she even squeaked as soon as her hooves left the floor causing Velvet to smile. As Velvet set Fluttershy down in the kitchen, Night was pulling some cookies from the oven. Velvet took notice of the cutie mark on Fluttershy’s flank and became wide eyed, she immediately ran off to get something. “Sapphire sandies, you are the best grandpa ever!” Barb’s happy expression lit up the room at seeing the bejeweled cookies meant for her. Night wasn’t mad at the fact that she had just called him grandpa; he was even smiling about it. His smile widened even more at hearing the happy humming and crunching noises coming from his granddaughter. “Come on in and take a seat, we’ve got plenty of room for our daughters’ new friend.” Night ever the gentle stallion even pulled out a chair for Fluttershy. Sitting down Fluttershy was surprised at such a welcoming atmosphere. Looking to the platter of cookies before her, she saw a peanut butter cookie and she slowly grabbed it. It felt warm in her hoof as she saw a glass of milk being set down in front of her. Biting into the cookie she felt like there was a rush of love going into her, like she could taste the effort that went into making the cookie and that she couldn’t stop the smile that came onto her face as she started to chew it. They didn’t have desserts at the picnic and she was still quite hungry even after consuming almost half of all the food herself, she really totaled the potato salad. “It appears my little princess has a knack for finding other little princesses.” Night said amusedly. “Don’t be so modest, enjoy as many as you want. Just pile the ones you want onto your plate quickly, this is a first come first serve platter of delights. If it isn’t on your plate it’s free game.” “You know this reminds me of a time our family spent an entire year avoiding cookies altogether.” Twilight chipped in idly as she thought back to when she was five years old with a smile on her face. Her family was nice that is to be sure, but they were also certifiably nuts like the white chocolate macadamia cookies she was rendering into a delicious paste in her mouth. “Why would your family avoid cookies for a whole year?” Fluttershy's question was met with a bit of laughter from Twilight and Night. “Well it happened when Twilight was five and before her older brother left to join Celestia’s guard, it starts with Twilight here wanting a snack. So her older brother, Shining Armor, did what any loving and protective goofball of a brother would. He decided to try and bake some cookies on his own.” Night shivered at the thought of what happened that day, but it did cause him to look back on it and laugh at the hilarity of the situation. “What exactly happened? This sounds like another one of your house of weirdness tales and I’ve even lived through one or two of them since I arrived.” Tress wanted to know, since she was learning more about Radiance then she ever thought possible. The entire Sparkle family probably had a patent on the words ‘noodle incident’ by now, since they had so many problems that have happened in this household. “Oh my brother made the cookies alright; it just went badly considering they kind of rebelled against my family. They tied up mom and put her into a closet and gained a lot of intelligence in such a short amount of time. They were even already plotting to kill Celestia by overstuffing her with cake by the time we started fighting back.” Twilight after pausing for a moment started to look back on it just like Night and started laughing uproariously. “Oh gosh, even saying it out loud makes it seem like it didn’t even happen. They still tasted good even if they were bad cookies.” “You actually ate them?” Fluttershy didn’t know what to think as she bit into the gooey warmth of a chocolate chip cookie and then took a sip of some milk. She didn’t think too hard about the cookies she had on her plate or that she was still eating them. “They were still cookies, just really highly aggressive cookies.” Twilight bit into a banana nut cookie and hummed in appreciation, she swallowed and gave her father a bright smile. At least he made good cookies. Velvet rushed into the dining room area to see everyone was sitting at the table; well Smart was standing on it and listening in on the conversation. She looked at Fluttershy, she then looked down at one of the newspapers she was holding with her magic. “Oh my goodness it is you, we have a legend in the house!” Everyone looked to Velvet in a confused manner as she came up to Fluttershy and gave her a big hug. “I thought you looked familiar.” “Um... I look familiar?” This was Fluttershy’s innocent response before she thought the worst of the situation. “Oh please don’t send me back to Cloudsdale.” “What about Cloudsdale? You’re the famous Vagrant Veterinarian!” The ponies looked at Velvet in a confused manner. Barb didn’t care and continued to eat her sapphire loaded cookies and Smart really had nothing better to do since she didn’t need to eat. “You’ve never heard the legend of the mare that goes around helping the sick and injured animals of Canterlot? If a bird breaks a wing it’s quickly splinted, if a cat is having a bad day the pony knew how to cheer it up and if someone is missing a pet there’s no doubt she’d get it back to their owners, provided they are good ponies of course. She’s really popular with the little colts and fillies as well as the lower and middle class unicorns if we’re going by noble pony standards. That has got to be you, look at this!” Sliding the newspaper across the table for Twilight to read, Tress leaned over to look at it herself. Fluttershy on the other side of Twilight also looked at the picture. It was only a corner of her flank, as only of one of the butterflies marking her butt was visible. The story was about a little colt missing his pet and how the mysterious figure had returned it home, bandaged and cared for. “Huh, so your world does have super heroes.” It wasn’t that she didn’t think super heroes were possible in this world, but Tress knew this world worked on different principles from the one she came from. Ponies didn’t just put on costumes and run around saving other ponies from danger here. “Super hero… oh no, I’m nothing like a super hero!” The poor nervous mare noted that this was dated a year ago; Fluttershy was immediately denying what was written in the paper as she raised her hooves shaking them in denial. “There’s nothing really all too special about me.” “No pony that ever comes to live under the roof of this house is normal, though you wouldn't know it from Tress's griping.” Velvet put down several more newspaper articles featuring Fluttershy or the Vagrant Veterinarian as the ponies of Canterlot knew her. “You’ve been in the news several times for the past year. It's really interesting that you don’t have a home here and you’ve been seen sleeping in several trees throughout Canterlot.” “You sure you don’t have super powers or something like one?” Fluttershy looked away shyly at Tress’s question and ran a hoof through her mane. “Talking to animals sounds like one to me already and you’re completely sure you don’t have any more?” “Well I do have a strange ability; I call it ‘The Stare’.” The mere mention of that ability causes Fluttershy to shudder. She didn’t know how it worked, it just did. Whenever she needed to calm down a panicked animal all she had to do is look it in the eyes and it’d almost immediately trust her. “I really don’t like using it, but it happens when animals try to fight me when they really truly need help.” “Well what does this stare exactly do?” Not being the only one interested in the answer, Twilight noticed everyone at the table was paying attention to the squirming Fluttershy as she quietly ate a snickerdoodle. Even Barb started paying attention given they had another super hero in the house. At least a super hero that wasn’t her own mother, given her mom had powerful magical abilities and stopped a gang of thugs with a single spell. Mane-iac wasn’t a super hero, but at least she was no longer a super villain and Barb honestly liked her opinions on some things. Being a hero isn’t all fun and games, but the super powers sure were neat to hear about. “Um… well it causes animals or animalistic creatures to listen to what I have to say; whether or not they do what I say is up to them as far as I know. It really scares me that I can do something like that, that I can force an animal to stop acting entirely on instinct.” Fluttershy shivered until she felt, four ponies and a baby dragon pull her into a group hug. “Well you’re going to fit in just fine around here, though you may want to change your name to the Valiant Veterinarian. You’re not much of a vagrant if you have a home to return to at the end of the day are you?” Smart said floating in front of Fluttershy’s face. “Yeah, but she has to get a license to actually become a vet first and I’m sure Smart will help you with that. She helped my daughter get a doctorate in enchanting. Aw, you’re just so cute; it’s so hard to stop hugging you.” The shy mare found herself being snuggled by Velvet alone now. Fluttershy wondered what she had just gotten herself into and if she could even get away from it if she wanted to.