“Look after Tarnish, see that he is taken care of,” Maud said as she headed for the tent flap. She departed without saying another word.
Pinkie, alarmed, lept up from where she was sitting beside Tarnish and went after Maud. A growing sense of worry filled Pinkie Pie, and she could feel a pinchy sensation in her knee. Maud was angry. Pinkie Pie had never seen her sister this angry. Maud was hurting, the sort of hurt that made most ponies cry, but Maud wasn’t capable of crying, as far as Pinkie Pie knew.
Bounding through the tent flap, Pinkie Pie grabbed Maud around the neck and then dug in her hind hooves to stop Maud, bracing herself against the ground. Maud kept going, oblivious to Pinkie Pie’s efforts. Pinkie’s hind hooves were now digging trenches in the soft earth as Maud pushed forward and Pinkie redoubled her efforts to slow Maud down. Maud continued going, plowing the earth with Pinkie Pie, whom she pushed along with no real effort upon her part.
“Maud, stop, please, stop!” Pinkie Pie cried.
“No.” Maud’s voice was one of perfect calm.
“Maud, please, stop, trying to stop you is hurting me!” Pinkie Pie pleaded.
Freezing in place, Maud came to a halt, one front hoof in mid-air. “Move Pinkie. Go inside.”
“No!” Pinkie squeezed Maud’s neck even tighter. “Please, Maud, don’t do this. Please, please, please don’t do this. He’s not worth it… I don’t like seeing you angry, I’ve never seen you like this, it’s scaring me! Please stop!” Tears began to trickle down Pinkie Pie’s cheeks as she begged her sister to stop what she was about to do.
“Maud…”
Pinkie Pie pulled her head away from Maud’s neck and looked at Tarnish, who was standing half in and half out of the tent flap. Pinkie Pie kept her legs braced, just in case Maud started walking again. Not that anything that Pinkie Pie could do could stop Maud. Maud was the unstoppable force merged with the immoveable object. She was the rock.
“Maud, I need you,” Tarnished Teapot said in a low voice. “Don’t go.”
In Pinkie Pie’s embrace, Maud was statuesque, as hard and as unyielding as a stone. Pinkie Pie patted her sister on the neck. “Maud, go inside with Tarnish. He needs you. Whatever it is that you are about to do, it isn’t worth it.”
Maud blinked and took a deep breath. She let out a powerful snort and then relented. Reaching up with her already raised foreleg, she wrapped it around Pinkie. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I don’t know what came over me there for a second. I was seeing red and I feel hot all over.”
“Go inside Maud… please.” Pinkie Pie patted her sister’s neck again, and then, fearful, hesitant, she let go of Maud. Much to Pinkie’s surprise, Maud did not let go of her.
“I need ponies that love me.” Maud lifted Pinkie with effortless ease and tossed Pinkie over her back. She turned, facing Tarnish, and took a deep breath. “Let’s go inside Tarnish.”
“Looks like Tarnish isn’t the only one who likes his tea,” Pinkie Pie said, trying to stir up some conversation. She watched as Maud tilted back a teacup.
“I find it soothing.” Maud’s eyes dropped down and she peered into her teacup.
Pinkie Pie took a deep breath and was thankful that the crisis had been averted. She felt the need to talk about it, about everything that had happened, but was fearful about saying anything. Pinkie Pie, stricken with an unusual, almost uncharacteristic seriousness, wanted to express herself, her feelings, she wanted to give voice to everything that had happened, but she did not know what to say.
“How could he just be like that?” Tarnish asked, a hurt expression upon his face.
“I dunno… we’ll talk to your mom when she comes back,” Pinkie replied, eyeing Maud to see if Maud showed any sign of getting up and leaving.
“I am so angry right now.” Maud’s voice was a flat deadpan, devoid of emotion, feeling, or expression. She didn’t sound angry at all. If anything, her monotone sounded even more flat than usual, lacking even the slightest variation.
Sitting beside her sister, Pinkie Pie felt an icy cold shiver that crawled up her spine. She shuddered, feeling sort of scared. She couldn’t make her sister Maud laugh or smile, and this left Pinkie all out of ideas on what to do to help her sister. Realising that she was helpless, a few of Pinkie’s curls deflated and her mane lost some of its lustre.
“Some ponies are jerks!” Pinkie Pie blurted out and she threw herself at Maud and started crying. She slammed into Maud, who was immoveable. Maud’s tea didn’t even slosh around in her teacup as Pinkie Pie latched on to Maud’s neck. More and more of Pinkie’s mane deflated and an odd flatulent sound filled the air.
“I can’t escape it. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I just can’t escape being me,” Tarnish said, shaking his head as he levitated his teacup. “I thought things were going to get better… but now this has happened. I can understand my mother’s trouble, it was fixed and I guess that it is pretty obvious that she loves me and while I still hurt about the whole thing, I feel better knowing that it has been fixed.” Tarnish took a deep breath, held it for a long time, his whole body trembling, and then continued:
“But my dad… what’s his fu—”
“NAUGHTY! NAUGHTY! MOUTH FULL OF POTTY!” Pinkie Pie shouted.
“—cking problem?” Tarnish’s words were drowned out by Pinkie’s exclamation.
Tears still on her cheeks, Pinkie Pie stared at Tarnish, wide eyed, stunned, her forelegs still wrapped around her sister Maud’s neck. She stared at Tarnish as if he had grown a second head.
“Tarnish, not in front of my sister.” Maud gave Tarnish a blank expression.
“Your sister told me the dirtiest joke I’ve ever heard in my life,” Tarnish replied.
Maud blinked, looked at her sister, and then back at Tarnish. “That’s just not fair. Pinkie has known you longer than I have.” Maud fell silent and then took a sip from her teacup.
“Yeah, but Maud, look at him. He loves you. Look at that face. Look at those eyes,” Pinkie Pie said as she grabbed her sister’s head and made her look up at Tarnish. She squished Maud’s cheeks around, trying to make her sister smile.
“Yeah, he’s pretty special.”
“Maud, show a little enthusiasm.” Pinkie continued to squish her sister’s cheeks. “You know, we kinda have a dad that we can share. And a mom too, even though Tarnish has his back.”
Maud blinked a few times, never once looking away from Tarnish. The earth pony mare’s sides heaved outwards like a blacksmith’s bellows. Maud inhaled again, and then again, her ears pitching forwards.
“Maud, you okay, you’re scaring me again…” Pinkie Pie pulled her hooves away from her sister’s cheeks and wrapped her forelegs around her big sister’s neck. “Maudlin Persephone Pie?”
“Tarnished Teapot, do you love me?” Maud asked, ignoring Pinkie.
“In a crazy, probably unhealthy sort of way,” Tarnish replied.
“As you know, family is very important to me. I came here to Ponyville not only to straighten things out between you and Twilight Sparkle, but also between you and your mother. I had trouble sleeping at night knowing that you and your mom had trouble with each other.” Maud set down her teacup and then clutched at Pinkie’s forelegs around her neck, as if seeking support. “How would you feel about making our partnership official?”
Tarnish choked and then began coughing. His telekinetic field died and his teacup, almost empty, dropped down to the rug.
“Tarnish? Don’t break my heart, Tarnish. The rest of me might be made of stone, but my heart isn’t.” Maud could feel Pinkie Pie squeezing her, and she took comfort in the strong embrace of her sister. “We can do it now, we can just walk over to city hall and get it done with no fuss and no big to-do. My parents might fuss a bit, but they can do something nice for us later.”
“I dunno Maud… I mean, we were both pretty upset just a while ago… I’m still worried about doing stupid stuff… I don’t want to blow this… you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Tarnish cleared his throat and tried to think, but the pressure was making it difficult. “I’m kinda young, and stupid, and I don’t know that I’m mature enough… I just don’t want to make a mistake… you mean so much.”
“Tarnish, we’re both young. I might be a little older, but I’m still young. We’re supposed to do stupid stuff.” Maud took a deep breath and her eyes never left Tarnish.
“Igneous was fifteen years old when he married Cloudy,” Pinkie Pie said as she gave her sister another squeeze. “Cloudy was fourteen. Nana Pinkie and Granny Pie both thought that Cloudy was doomed to be a spinster, whatever that is. I don’t even know.” Pinkie Pie shrugged and shook her head.
“I want to give you a family, Tarnished Teapot. Sisters. Another mother. A father… cause let’s face it… that Jeff pony… he’s a di—mmmph!”
“Maud!” Pinkie Pie cried, stuffing her hoof into Maud’s mouth. Worried, with cautious effort, Pinkie Pie uncorked her hoof from Maud’s mouth. “You just warned Tarnish about saying stuff like that.”
Maud turned her head, looked at her sister for a moment, and then looked at Tarnish. “I just want you to be happy. You deserve that. I want to make you feel good because of how you’ve made me feel good. And ponies like your dad… they go against everything I believe in. I can’t bear what he’s done to you and how he’s hurt you. I want to give you something that he can’t… something that he is incapable of. Let me give that to you, Tarnish… please?”
Sighing, Tarnished Teapot realised that this outcome was inevitable. “Let’s go and try to find my mom, and then let’s go to city hall. Maybe this is the adult thing to do. Maybe this is what taking responsibility is.”
“Um, just a quick question… can I throw the both of you a teensy weensy wedding party?” Pinkie Pie asked. As she spoke, her mane regained its usual state of riotous curliness.