Chapter 8
Exhausted but ecstatic, Sumac Apple stared at the pile of books in front of him and thought about the past few hours. He had helped Big Mac make the bed of the new wagon, the foundation on which everything was built. He had met the twins, his cousins, Hidden Rose and Ambrosia Apple. Both were obnoxious and funny. Looking at the books, Sumac realised that he didn’t know where to start. There was a lot to sort through. He eyed the big book at the bottom of the stack and could not help but feel a little intimidated.
Much to his own dismay, a yawn escaped his mouth. Sumac covered his muzzle with a hoof and realised that he wanted a nap. His hoof smelled like sawdust and apple pie. He sat there, in his chair, looking at a pile of books that was bigger than he was, suddenly feeling very small and insignificant. Trixie was elsewhere in the library, Sumac did not know where, and she had been acting funny ever since she found out that Big Mac was making her a new wagon. Trixie had also developed hay fever during the course of the afternoon, because whenever Sumac looked at her, her eyes were watering and she sniffled a lot. Sumac had asked if she was okay and she had told him that it was just hay fever.
Hay fever was awful.
The study was small, cosy, and quiet. It was perfect for a nap. A nap might be just what he needed. Then he could wake up and get started. Another yawn escaped him and as he covered his muzzle once more, the door to the small study opened.
In the doorway stood Pebble. Sumac was not happy to see her. She came into his study room, dragging behind her a book bag, and Sumac wondered what he might say to make her leave. He had work to do and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with a know-it-all like her. The sound of the bag being drug over the floor caused his ears to perk and he watched as she reached the chair across from him.
She climbed up into the chair, her face expressionless, and Sumac could see her heavy-lidded eyes were focused on him as she pulled up her bag and set it down upon the wooden table.
“I’m supposed to apologise to you,” Pebble said in a flat voice that held no warmth or feeling. The filly’s ears pitched forwards. “I’m sorry. I was being awful. I get like that sometimes. It is hard for me to relate to other ponies. Can you forgive me?”
Leaning forwards, Sumac studied the filly sitting on the other side of the table. He had no clue what she was feeling, what she was thinking, he could not make out a single thing about her. It was like looking at a book with no printed words. She was blank.
“It is very important that I get your forgiveness somehow. My father is very cross with me and that worries me. I feel like my world is collapsing,” Pebble said in her monotonous, droning, and somewhat nasal voice.
“You’re still doing it.” Sumac wasn’t in the mood to deal with this.
“Doing what?” Pebble’s head tilted off to one side.
“Using big words. Trying to sound smart. Acting like an adult,” Sumac replied.
“I’m not trying to do that… this is how I am.” Pebble rested her forelegs upon the table, her eyes never leaving Sumac, and the little filly took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to act around other ponies. I really am sorry. I have feelings too and right now, I’m really hurting, even if I don’t seem to show it. But I’m trying to do the right thing.”
Brows furrowing, Sumac knew he needed to be studying, not chatting. He had a lot of work to do. Perhaps it would be best if he just accepted her apology and then sent her on her way. He reached up, rubbed his chin, and wondered what the right thing to do was.
“Apology accepted,” Sumac said in a low voice. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a lot to do.”
“Can I help you, somehow?” Pebble asked.
This was something that Sumac did not expect. His eyes widened and he stared at Pebble, wondering what she was up to. Was she looking for another chance to make him feel stupid? A chance to use big words and show that she was smarter than him? Sumac did not know.
“I can help you, please, let me try to make this up to you, I’m in a lot of trouble right now.” Pebble paused, blinked once, and then looked at the big pile of books in the middle of the table. “I’ll try not to be a pain.”
“Okay, fine…” Sumac slumped down in his chair, wondering what Big Mac might do in this situation. “I’m tired, I spent the past few hours building a wagon and there is a lot of work to do.”
“Tired?” Pebble blinked again and looked at her bookbag. “Oh no, we can’t have that. I know just what to do.”
“You do?”
“Yep.”
Moving with surprising speed, Pebble climbed up onto the top of the table, dove into her book bag, pulled out a container covered in a paisley print, and sent it sliding it over the table towards Sumac. She trotted over the tabletop, skirting around the books, sat down, opened the paisley printed container, reached inside, grabbed a lump of something dark and brown, grabbed Sumac by the muzzle, and, before he could protest, crammed the brown lump between his lips.
“My grandmother’s rock hard fudge,” Pebble warned, shaking her head as Sumac’s eyes flew open. “Don’t chew it.” She put the lid back on the container, scooted over the table, shoved the books around, and began to organise everything for more efficient study. “That fudge is about five thousand calories a cube. Grandmother condenses butter and a whole bunch of other stuff down into something that resembles a neutron star. It is everything a pony needs for a quick pick me up. Wait for it…”
Sumac gasped as he felt his whole body quiver. The fudge melting in his mouth was sweet, but also bitter, almost like coffee, which Trixie allowed him to drink sometimes. Something about the taste alone invigorated him. His body trembled and he began to feel very, very awake.
“So, what are we doing and how can I help you?” Pebble asked.
“I don’t know for sure.” Sumac shuddered as he spoke. The fudge was in his cheek and he could feel it against his teeth. It was melting, and he swallowed the fudgy brown goodness filling his mouth. “I need to compare a series of numbers and show how they vary.”
“Oh.” Pebble nodded her head. “So we need to plot stuff and make a graph. That’s easy. We can do that. Just need to find the numbers we need to work with. This is census information.” The filly pointed at the pile of books. One of her ears twitched. “This is a lot of census information.”
“Yes, for unicorns,” Sumac said as he began to feel his brain vibrating behind his eyes. “About a thousand years of information and it is all about unicorns.”
“What makes unicorns so special?” Pebble asked.
Raising an eyebrow, Sumac gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that Pebble wasn’t being snobby or antagonistic. She was just asking a question. He took a deep breath and replied, “This is more about the magic that we unicorns use. A while back, I had an idea and I started to study it… or tried to. It’s been hard.”
“So what’s the big deal with the magic?” Pebble turned her head and looked at Sumac.
“If you promise not to tell anypony, I’ll show you.” Sumac gave Pebble a hopeful look, his fudge addled brain no longer thought that Pebble, a filly, was quite as icky as she had been. In fact, she was rather nice.
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” As Pebble spoke, she crossed her heart, made a few gestures, and poked herself in the eye with her hoof. “Nopony breaks a Pinkie Promise. My Aunt Pinkie will get me if I mess up. She knows.”
“Knows what?” Sumac asked.
“Everything,” Pebble replied in a cryptic monotone. “If I make my daddy angry, I can usually get him to forgive me. If I make my mother mad, she’ll forgive me, but it might take an entire geological epoch. But if I make my Aunt Pinkie angry… ugh… my life is over.”
“Oh.” Sumac wondered what could be so bad about Pinkie Pie. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Well then, we should get started and I’ll try to explain my hypothesis as best as I can. Maybe you can help me put it into better words.”
“I don’t know if that’s necessary, you do pretty good on your own. You’re smart.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Thank you, Pebble.”
“Don’t mention it, Sumac.”
“We should get to work…”
“Oh my goodness, I could just die…” Twilight Sparkle pranced around, her hooves almost silent, her words little more than a whisper. She moved to Trixie’s side and bounced in place, her mane bobbing. “Oh my gosh they’re so adorable together. Somepony get a camera. Oh, wait… I can get a camera.”
“Why does the cuteness have to hurt?” Tarnished Teapot asked as Twilight’s face scrunched in concentration. He turned to look at Twilight, turning away from the adorable sight, and saw that Twilight’s tongue was sticking out of the corner of her mouth.
“Trixie can feel her heart melting and all of her internal organs shutting down.”
“It is kinda cute,” Maud said, not sounding impressed at all.
The four adults peered through the doorway and into the study. The table was covered with papers, books, diagrams, notes, notebooks, a bag, and a paisley printed container. In the corner of the room, there was a comfortable high backed chair with overstuffed arms. In the chair, two foals leaned against one another, sleeping, little fuzzy ears twitching, little noses quivering, their little barrels rising and falling.
With an almost inaudible pop, a camera poofed into existence, held in Twilight’s magic. She pointed it at the two sleeping foals and began snapping pictures, using her magic to muffle the sound.
“So does this count?” Tarnish asked, turning his worried paternal eyes upon Twilight. He pointed at the two foals in the chair with his hoof. “I mean, this counts right? She’s made a friend… she’s passed her entrance exam, right?”
“We’ll see,” Twilight replied as she snapped another photo.
“But… but… but she’s made a friend.” Agitated, Tarnished Teapot began to bounce in place. “My daughter finally connected to another pony.”
“We’ll see,” Twilight repeated as she pulled her head away from the viewfinder on the camera. “We still have a few days. She has to make a friend and keep a friend.”
“Sumac could use a friend… I worry so much about him.” Trixie turned and looked at Twilight. “Sumac is going to learn an awful lesson about friendship though.”
“Oh?” Twilight’s eyes narrowed and her ears splayed out sideways.
“Saying goodbye. If and when we have to leave here, Sumac is going to have to say goodbye. He’s so sensitive. This is going to crush him.” Trixie’s head drooped and she closed her eyes. “This is not a lesson I wanted him to learn.”
“They can write letters… or something… or…” Tarnish’s words trailed off and he blinked a few times, his eyes becoming glassy.
“Hay fever,” Trixie muttered. “I’ve been having problems with it myself.”
“Trixie, it occurs to me that you are going to need a place to sleep tonight.” Twilight turned and looked at the blue mare that stood beside Tarnished Teapot, both of them sniffling, no doubt suffering from hay fever together. “Stay with me… we can catch up on old times.”
Lifting her head, Trixie looked at Twilight. “Do you mean that?”
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” Twilight turned away from Trixie and looked at the two foals sleeping in the chair. “You can tell me stories about being on the road with Sumac. I’d love to hear them.”
“I… I have sedimentary deposits in my eyes.” Tarnish shook his head, his ears flopping, he stepped away from Trixie and stepped closer to Maud. “Twilight needs better housekeepers, this place is dusty.”
“It sure is.” Twilight smiled at her own response, lifted the camera, and took one more picture of the two foals snoozing in the chair together. “It’s getting late. We should get them to bed and then maybe we should all catch up on old times together.”
“Old times.” Trixie sniffled as she raised her left foreleg and scratched her right foreleg with the edge of her hoof. “The three of you have a lot to talk about I suppose. Old times.”
“Hey,” Twilight said, reaching out and prodding Trixie with her hoof. “All four of us have some stories to tell. We went through some stuff together.”
“By stuff, you mean rescuing me.” Trixie reached up with her left foreleg and wiped her eyes. She stood there, not wanting to cry, her barrel hitching, feeling the need to run away. She wanted to look at Twilight, but found that she couldn’t. “I think I’ll stay at Sweet Apple Acres—”
“You know, this is just what happened the last time,” Maud said to Trixie. “You went off to sulk. You could have stayed with us. We would have helped you. Whenever somepony tries to be nice to you, or help you, you run away.”
“Trixie does not need your pity—”
“Trixie… let us be your friends… what sort of example are you setting for Sumac?” Twilight Sparkle stepped closer to Trixie. “Stay with us tonight and we’ll catch up on old times together. My mother will probably try to feed us a bunch of treats. I’ll be nice.”
“No, I think I’d rather have the quiet of my wagon—”
“Stop being a prideful, stubborn jack—”
“Maud.” Tarnish lowered his head until he was eye to eye with Maud.
“It galls me that I couldn’t save myself. I hate remembering it. Being around you makes me remember it.” Trixie squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s hard for me.”
Twilight took a deep breath, bumped up against Trixie and said, “So let us help you.”
Gritting her teeth, her jaw muscles clenching, her barrel rising and falling, Trixie did not reply. She stood there, her sides heaving, and after several moments of internal struggle, her whole body sagged. Her ears drooped, her back dipped, and her head hung low. Her tail went limp between her legs. She stood, defeated, unable to fight back.
Twilight gave Trixie a reassuring nudge with her hoof. “Come on, Trixie… let us be your friends. We only want to help you.” She looked at Tarnish, her eyes glittering with concern. “Get the foals, try not to wake them. We’ll leave everything here in the study. Sumac might have more work to do and disturbing his work would be bad. I’ll lock the door. Come on, everypony, it’s time to call it a night.”
“Trixie thanks you, Twilight Sparkle…”
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Gah i want more. Also nice to see pebble coming out of her shell.
Sumac said 'hypothesis'. Complains about big words.
Sumac, are you suffering from hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia?
How is staying at SAA running away? I bet Applejack had the guest room ready for Trixie anyway because she hadn't had time to enchant her new wagon.
6826996
See, Sumac doesn't realise that he's smarter than average. Pebble... she's smart and she flaunts it.
By the way, you'd like The Weed. I think you'd really dig Helianthus. She's just your sort of pony.
6827001
Because The Great and Powerful Trixie is fleeing from an uncomfortable situation, rather than stay and face it, that's why.
6827007
6827014
:shrug:
I like the emotional tension Trixie feels right now. I mean it sucks, it sucks bad but it makes for a good story.
Now I really want to know what that Hypothesis is. I'm taking a wild guess that it has to do either with early death to unicorns with hay fever or that hay fever dramatically affects unicorns and some how Trixie is at the center of this hypothesis because Sumac sees it soooo often.
Poor Su.
Geez Maud tell us what you 'really' think.
6827224
I thought about having Pinkie Pie burst into the scene, cram her hoof into Maud's mouth, and say, "No Maud! This fic is rated E, for everypony!"
6827234 Oh mo lord! You should have! We'd have a classic C3PO scene then.
Dramatic scene*
*Enter Pinkie Pie for well/out of place comedic relief* "MAUDIE! THIS FICS RATED E!
Magic is a finite resource, maybe?
Unicorns are dying out and their getting weaker...
6826944 I guess you could say it's her "coquina-ra"!
...
I know you're out there, I can hear you leaving.
6828094 Sorry that flew over my head
6828436 Coquina is a type of rock made out of shells. And now you know!
6828484 True I didn't know that, so I guess i at least learned something.
How many times have you tested this, hmm?
BEST LINE
6827007
Kudzu, are you trying to sell me The Weed? It's because I'm black, isn't it?
6830769
Maaaaaaaaaybe.
Hmn. Mild crush on Mac for the new wagon? Emotional reaction to Sumac helping? A little bit of both?
Fudge? Well, could have been worse.
Pinkie Pie, best/worst aunt ever.
As described, that does sound pretty cute.
6847904 that wasn't pinkies fudge. Pebble said "Grandmother's fudge"
Noooooooo, a ship got out of port! Damn, we were doing so well...
This story is all well and good, but now you've made me curious about this whole saving Trixie story instead. Either it's explained later, is a previous story of yours, or I will forever be left in the dark about this saving thing.
7080467
Venenum Iocus.
I know it's a U.S. thing but i wish you would use 'dragged' instead, keeps making my grammar gland hiccup.
Reach end of chapter: THESE DEEP & MEANINGFULS ARE MAKING MY EYES RED, KUDZ YOU FIENDISH SCOUNDREL!
7080467 venenum iocus, the name of the story with trixie a rescue, centered around maud and tarnished teapot, what is happened to her (and what I think was implied happened to her) was sad
7371552 so is the bag a narcotic
8097244 That's why I wished it would be changed, even if it is American wording it sounds off.