Chapter 3
An Unwanted Role
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Pinkie sighed as she stood at the kitchen counter, preparing Pound and Pumpkin’s formula.
It had been a week since the funeral. She was learning to fill her new role as sole owner of Sugarcube Corner and the twins guardian. The Cakes had made her their goddessmother, so she’d ended up being given custody of them.
When the will had been read, it stated that very fact and that Sugarcube Corner and everything the Cakes own now belonged to Pinkie and the twins.
Pinkie finished recapping the bottles, balanced them on her back and made to head upstairs.
She could probably handle everything that had happened... if only one thing wasn’t happening now.
The twins kept asking where their parents were. Not completely, but by asking “Mommy?” and “Daddy?”
It hurt so much whenever Pinkie had to say, “They’ve just gone away for a while. Don’t worry. You’ll see them again.”
It hurt because while this was the truth, what it implied went against everything the pink party pony stood for. It meant talking about when the twins eventually died themselves, when their time comes.
Pinkie sobbed, her tears running down her muzzle and pooling little puddle on the floor by her hooves.
“Oh, Pinkie Pie,” a voice said from nowhere, sounding sad. “I’ve never seen you like this. You’re so unlike you and that never happens... well, unless you count the time I made your whole personality change, but then that was kinda a oneshot thing, wasn’t it?”
With a loud popping sound, Discord appeared, lying on the Cake’s living room couch, where he stretched out.
“What do you want, Discord?” Pinkie said, not even looking at him.
“Oh,” Discord sounded shocked. “My goodness. If our dear Pinkie Pie isn’t even going to smile at my appearance then this is serious.”
Another popping sound and he was standing in front of her. He bent down to her eye-level.
“I normally like seeing ponies miserable, but, for some reason, seeing you like this doesn’t seem right,” he stood up and put her claw to his chin, scratching his goatee. “Pinkie, I know this might sound strange, but I am willing to help you. What is making you so sad... aside from, well, you know?” He got a little uncomfortable and looked away, scratching behind his head.
Pinkie simply looked down, her tears still falling. “I just wish they’d stop asking me where their mommy and daddy went,” she choked, her body shaking from her sobs. “I don’t want to tell them. Not now. They need to be older to understand— And I don’t want you making them older!” she said sharply as Discord’s clawed fingers were about to snap.
The draconequus groaned and lowered her claw. “Well, what do you want me to do, alter their memories so they won’t ask til say... five years from now?” he was looking annoyed at how his offer of help was being dragged out so much.
Pinkie sniffed, having gone back to crying and looked up at Discord. “You... You could do that?”
Discord smiled again. “Why indeed, my dear Pinkie Pie. Just say the word and I’ll alter their memories so that they won’t ask you about their parents anymore.”
“It... it won’t hurt them, will it?” Pinkie was worried what altering the memories of foals could do to their health and she'd Pinkie Promised to look after those two.
The draconequus looked offended. “Why Pinkie Pie. I cannot believe you would ever think I’d harm a hair on those...” he made a bleah sound, “cute little heads of theirs. I promise the memory altering won’t harm them. It will only ensure they no longer ask you where they’re parents have gone.”
“Plus, a little alteration to their feeding habits for the next month or so to help you bond with them, but you’ll learn about that, soon enough,” he muttered so Pinkie didn’t hear him.
“Pinkie Promise?” Pinkie eyed him wearily, not having heard his last remark.
Discord groaned. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” he said, each thing actually happening to him as he said it.
Pinkie eyed him for a few more seconds before she sighed. “Okay,” she said quietly.
“Just remember,” Discord said, clicking his fingers and disappearing, “you’ll have to bond with them.”
As the last and, rather strange choice of his words echoed after his disappearance, Pinkie slowly made her way upstairs to the twins’ bedroom.
As she moved down the hall, she noticed her body felt a bit... weird. She couldn’t answer what it was, probably one of Discord’s jokes and dismissed it from her mind.
When she went in the twins’ room, they both smiled at her, holding out their hooves expectantly.
For the first time in many days, Pinkie gave a real smile. It was small, but it was real.
She gave them their bottles and turned to make her bed, which she’d left unmade ever since she’d... gotten the letter. In her hast to turn, she hadn’t noticed the confused expressions the twins wore when they took the bottles, before putting them in their mouths.
She’d started sleeping in the twins’ room so she could be with them should they need anything at night.
As she smoothed out her blanket, she heard the sound of spitting-up.
Pinkie whirled around to Pound and Pumpkin giving her “icky” faces, their bottles still three quarters full, the other quarter now on the floor with a few things from last night mixed with them.
Pinkie hurried over, panicking. Were they sick?
She checked both their foreheads. "No, no fever."
"Maybe a diaper change? Nope." Sniff of the air showed no sign of that.
Pinkie couldn’t understand what was happening. Why had the twins not liked their formula? They’d always liked it, even before they’d lost their—
“Mommy?”
Pinkie froze, her eyes diluting. Pound and Pumpkin were looking directly at her, holding out their hooves to say they wanted her to take them out of the crib and hold them.
“Mommy!” they said together, their reaching out becoming more insistent.
“No,” Pinkie whispered, taking a step back, her mane deflating. “No, he... he didn’t.”
Discord’s words rang through her mind.
“I’ll alter their memories so that they won’t ask you about their parents anymore.”
She slumped to her haunches.
He’d kept his promise alright. He’d made it so the twins wouldn’t ask where their parents were...
“Because they think I’m their mommy,” Pinkie whispered, then broke out into quiet sobs, her hooves over her eyes.
“Mommy?” the concerned tone of the two voices made her look up. The twins were looking at her with worried faces, wondering why their “mother” was crying.
After a few minutes of them staring at her and her staring at them, Pinkie got up, walked back to crib and helped the two of them out.
She carried them to her bed and gently lay them down on it, getting up herself and sitting there, watching the two.
“But... if you won’t eat your formula...” she whispered, seeming off in another world, “how can I feed you?”
Both twins looked at each other, giving a raised eyebrow, then crawled down towards Pinkie’s lower area and started nudging her, as if asking her to roll over.
Pinkie turned, puzzled as to what they were doing as she rolled onto her side, but gasped when they clamped their mouths onto her teats, which she now realized were bigger than they had been beforehoof, and started suckling.
She gasped again as she felt milk moving from her teats.
She’d been lactating? When? How? She hadn’t had a foal. When did she start—?
Her eyes widened. The strange feeling. That was her body lactating. Discoed had made her body start producing milk for foals.
But why? The twins could eat solid foods, so why had he—?
His last words echoed in her mind.
“Just remember, you’ll have to bond with them.”
And he was right. As the twins drank their milk, Pinkie felt like a mother feeding her foals.
“But—” she sobbed in her mind. “But I’m not their mommy. This is what Mrs. Cake would do.”
She sobbed for real, burying her face in her hooves.
After a few minutes, she felt two pairs of small hooves touching the guard around her face.
She lowered it and saw the twins looking at her with sad expressions.
They came closer and hugged her tightly. “Mommy.”
Pinkie sobbed and closed her eyes as she held them tightly.
“Y... Yeah... my little cakes,” she managed through her tears. “Mommy... Mommy’s got you—” she choked and went back to sobbing, for more reasons now.
Though she knew the twins were instinctively just trying to make their “mommy” happy again, she couldn’t begin to tell them what help the gesture really did.
P-please, she thought, her mind on the Cakes as they would no doubt be looking down on them from the other world. I-I... I didn’t mean for this. I’m sorry I made them forget.
Suddenly a warmth seemed to encompass Pinkie. A warmth much like the hug the Cakes had given her when she’d first arrived.
She could almost swear it was a hug and that somepony, Mrs. Cake, if she was right, whispered into her ear, It’s alright, Pinkie. We just want you to take care of them. If this is how it has to happen, we understand.
You can tell them when they’re older, Mr. Cake’s voice seemed to say.
The twins weren’t reacting, only enjoying the warmth they thought was coming from Pinkie.
The warmth around Pinkie faded and she gave another sob.
“Thank you.”