Chapter 13
When Copperquick opened up the door, he heard the sounds of his daughter crying. He made his way inside in a hurry and shut the door behind him with one hind hoof. His tiny living room was dim, but not dark. Something smelled like food, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Miss Oddbody was on his beat up, abused couch, and she looked as though she had been crying.
“You look like you’ve been crying,” Miss Oddbody said, saying what Copperquick was thinking. “Have a long walk home? You’re a little late.”
“I’m fine.” Copperquick let his saddlebags fall to the floor with a thump and then he moved over to the couch so he could sit down and maybe quiet his shrieking filly.
Esmeralda seemed happy to see him, she waved and kicked her legs as she screamed, but when he held her, she did not quiet. Now in her father’s embrace, she sucked in as much air as possible and then let out an ear piercing yell that made everything in the tiny living room rattle. Copperquick bounced her around, trying what few tricks he knew to quiet her, but she seemed inconsolable.
After such a long day, Copperquick was tired, hurt, angry, frustrated, scared, anxious, and his nerves were worn thin. But he didn’t take his feelings out on his daughter. He just sat there, holding her, a thousand yard stare upon his face as Esmeralda tested the upper limits of the power of her voice.
Exasperated, he held his daughter up in front his face, her tiny body inches from his nose, and asked in a patient, loving voice, “What do you want, Esme?”
Surprised, perhaps a little spooked, the foal quieted for a moment as she beat and kicked her front legs against her father’s nose. Esmeralda made a few fussy half cries, but appeared to be concentrating. A long string of dribble spilled out of her lips and she looked over at Miss Oddbody.
“Mama?” Esmeralda looked around after she said the word, looking at Copperquick, then back at Miss Oddbody. Then, without warning, she returned to shrieking with as much volume as she could muster as her father held her. “MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
Nopony said a word. Miss Oddbody pulled her glasses off and set them down upon the battered coffee table that had seen better days. The dog-eared copy of Rarity’s Fashion Catalogue: Spring Review Edition was no longer anywhere to be found. Miss Oddbody rubbed her eyes with her fetlocks for a few seconds, then, groaning, she scooted closer on the couch.
Acting on a hunch, Copperquick reenacted the embrace from earlier today. He sat the foal down between them and pulled Miss Oddbody closer. Right away, Esmeralda stopped crying and decided that her hoof was now far more interesting. Miss Oddbody let out a sob of relief and then, without warning, she began crying into her front hooves, just as she had been doing earlier in the day.
Slipping his foreleg around her slender, supple neck, Copperquick joined her. He pulled her close and made her rest her head against his neck as he let his tears go in silence. Sandwiched between them, Esmeralda was chewing on her hoof and starting to nod off, now too tired and exhausted to keep her eyes open.
“I did very little but cry this evening,” Miss Oddbody confessed as she wept.
“I had to be excused from one of my classes… I explained things to my professor and she was very nice. I had trouble concentrating. My grades are going to suffer.” Copperquick closed his eyes and leaned a little on Miss Oddbody, who leaned right back. “I didn’t mean to make things complicated by kissing you. I don’t know what came over me.”
Sniffling, Miss Oddbody shuddered a bit and then tried to swallow her sobs. Turning her head, she looked up at Copperquick, who was a good bit taller than her, even sitting down. She reached up with her small, dainty hoof, and patted the corner of his sturdy jaw. After a few more sniffles, she wiped her eyes with her cardigan sleeve.
“I fixed beans and some cornbread.” Miss Oddbody let out a hiccup and then turned away from Copperquick. “I must look hideous. My sleeve is all snotty and I know I smell. I thought about how messy I was, how messy the apartment was, and how I couldn’t get Esmeralda quiet, and then I thought about you coming home to this and it made me cry even more.”
“Yeah, but I came home to you and Esmeralda.”
“Oh… you…” Miss Oddbody choked on her own phlegm and she started coughing into her hoof. It took her over a minute to make the coughing stop, and then she sank against Copperquick, exhausted and breathless. She closed her eyes and then remained silent, recuperating.
“All night, I’ve been second guessing myself. I keep thinking I should drop out of college. I should join the guard. I should go to Ponyville and see if I can get a job and lodging on one of the many farms there. I keep thinking about all of these scenarios over and over in my mind, and all of them fall flat and I can’t bring myself to do any of them.” Copperquick felt his neck and cheeks grow warm as he made his confession.
“Why is that?” Miss Oddbody lifted Esmeralda into her forelegs and cradled the now sleepy foal.
“Well, the main reason, in each of those scenarios, you weren’t there.” Copperquick had trouble getting the words out, and his voice cracked a bit. He felt Miss Oddbody stiffen against him and he couldn’t bring himself to look down at her face. He stared at the wall instead, and tears rolled down his now shiny, slicked cheeks. “My daughter just said her first word and I don’t know how I should feel. I’m so tired and numb and overwhelmed. I feel dead inside. I’m starving, I need to study, I’m exhausted, and deep inside of me, I’m still boiling over with rage from earlier, but I’m too tired to do anything about it. The hospital bill scares me to death, I know I’ll be taken to court over it. I keep fantasising about twisting Mister Blancmange’s head off of his neck. I’m not sure, but I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
“I keep wrestling with my master plan,” Miss Oddbody whispered in reply. “I keep thinking about today and everything that’s happened. I thought about quitting, even though the finish line is in sight, and going back home to the farm. Every time I cried, I thought about what that horrible pony said, and I felt ashamed. I kept hearing his words about how worthless and weak I am, because I have emotions. So, I’d cry and I feel worse, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop feeling… I couldn’t make my emotions just go away. For about an hour, I kept rehearsing the conversation I am going to have to have with Mrs. Velvet tomorrow, I kept trying to imagine how it is going to be like, how I am going to explain myself and my breach of professionalism. And even with all of this going on in my head, I keep wondering… is there some way to hold on to you so I can have you when the dust settles?”
“Will you be in trouble?” Copperquick asked.
“Maybe.” Miss Oddbody offered up a half shrug. “Like I said, I keep rehearsing all of these scenarios and driving myself crazy. I know I goofed, and I know that I should care. I know that I should be angry with myself. I know that I shouldn’t even be here right now, I should have gone back to the office and reported this incident right away. I’ve really messed up and I don’t know how Mrs. Velvet is going to respond. For all I know, my head might roll and I might’ve messed up my future.”
“Well, I know mine is a mess.” Copperquick let out a sigh, leaned over a bit more, and allowed his head to come to rest on top of Miss Oddbody’s. “I am just waiting for a police pony to arrive at my door and arrest me for what I said to that wretched Mister Blancmange. I know that what I did was wrong and is a punishable offense.”
“Why’d you do it?” Miss Oddbody asked.
“Don’t make me say it.”
“Why?”
“Because he made you cry, okay? Look, I feel like a huge hypocrite right now and I am really beating myself up. I have been all night. I did something incredibly irresponsible that has screwed up my life. I banged Cielo del Este and I didn’t give a damn about her. She was just a warm body for me to jam my willy in and get my rocks off. And not just her, but others. I even led one filly along and kept telling her that we had something special and then I broke it off after I shagged her because I didn’t want to deal with a relationship. I made her cry. I can’t even remember her name. I’m a right git.”
Wiggling one wing free, Buttermilk Oddbody slapped Copperquick in the face. “That’s for being a cad. I forgive you for being a cad. What you just did took guts. You didn’t have to tell me the truth, but you did. Thank you.”
Cheek stinging, Copperquick felt as though he deserved that. The pain made his eyes water all the more and he blinked away more tears. He thought about his many mistakes and the big mistake, the one that was going to cost him. His future was on the line.
“She called me ‘Mama.’ I don’t know how to feel about that.” Miss Oddbody looked down at the foal she held in her forelegs, a foal that was now asleep. “Have I messed up? Have I made a mistake? Have I become emotionally involved at a time when I shouldn’t’ve? I’m terrified that I’ve messed up my future. I don’t know what Mrs. Velvet is going to say tomorrow. Just thinking about it right now makes me want to start crying. I think about it and my stomach starts doing flip-flops.”
After a bit of a snort, she continued, “This is my first big case and I messed up. What if I’m really not cut out for this? What if Mister Blancmange is right? I don’t have the cutie mark for this. On my first big case, I screwed up and I got emotionally involved. I made a mess of things. What will this mean for my future cases? What if I mess those up too? What if I get involved and my heart gets broken? What if I can’t be profess—mmmMMMmmm!”
Not knowing how to silence Miss Oddbody, Copperquick kissed her again, just as he had seen his dad do to his mom. The kiss was distinctly snotty and tasted of mucus. There was bad breath too. It was, without a doubt, pretty much the worst sort of kiss that could be exchanged between two ponies.
And Copperquick found that he didn’t mind.
After Copperquick pulled away, Miss Oddbody asked, “Are you just going to keep doing that?”
Lifting his head, his ears perking to a more erect position, Copperquick felt no need to answer that. Smacking his lips, he couldn’t help but notice that pegasus ponies drooled a lot. Like, a whole lot. That suited him fine and he found that he didn’t mind. Lifting a foreleg, he wiped his muzzle, sniffled a bit, and wished that he would stop crying.
“Wow, she’s really out. I think that she’ll probably sleep for hours because she had to have worn herself out with all the fussing she did.” Miss Oddbody looked up at Copperquick. “I’m going to put her in her cradle and then I’m going to take a shower. You should eat something and then try to study if you can. With both of our futures so uncertain, we should at least continue with the notion that everything can be salvaged. When I get done showering, I’ll see what I can do to help you study.”
Tilting his head, Copperquick looked down at the pegasus mare beside him. “You’d do that for me?”
Miss Oddbody sniffled a bit and her face took on a very sour expression. “Logic, common sense, and cold reason dictate that we have a better chance of survival helping one another. This isn’t an emotional decision, but a practical one. I’m certainly not doing this out of any sense of feeling for you.”
“I see.” Copperquick’s eyebrow arched and he saw that Miss Oddbody was now struggling to maintain her sour expression. Her whole body shook and the corners of her mouth kept twitching. “Very professional, Miss Oddbody, very professional.”
“Indeed.” The pegasus mare snorted and then began to chortle a bit. “I think my stinky wingpits make me extra professional. Tell me, what do you think, Mister Quick?”
“Oh, quite.” Looking down, Copperquick was overcome with a flood of emotion as he looked into Miss Oddbody’s eyes. Her mascara, what little bit that she wore, had ran. Her face was snotty, both her nose and her eyes were red and puffy, and most of her bun had fallen out. In the center of her mass of mane, her hairpin stood out, a simple, understated hairpin.
He found her beautiful and he wondered what was wrong with him.
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Yea for snotty
kisses! 
Hmm. Copper, I'm fairly certain Twilight Velvet is working up a way to throw it right back at the mother.
Wait a second. I didn't have a proper rage comment about that a chapter back. Seriously, what the fucking hell? How can anyone be so fucking selfish that, despite having a high paying job, they don't pay the fucking bill and dump it on someone that can in no way reasonably pay it back? It's like having a million dollars, inviting a bankrupt friend out to dinner at a five star restaurant, and then bailing on them after ordering desert and a five hundred dollar bottle of wine. Except this example is so much fucking worse.
I suppose I can rationalize it as Cielo del Este being selfish-she wasn't described as being a good mother and was arrogant and snobby, and in her own logic and considering
TarnishCopper is the father, she probably blamed him for all of it-the expenses, Esmerelda, everything.I still want to see her reaction to going to court over this. Please let us have that. I need to see it.
Well my dear boy, you've found someone you like for their personality and mind rather than their looks. Rather jarring if you've never experienced it, to be perfectly honest.
7653053
If you recall, she just skipped town.
Also, as an aside, maybe she didn't realise that she had a bill due. Maybe she was oblivious to that fact and didn't know that Copperquick would be stuck with the bill.
She might have done what she did out of ignorance.
Or not.
7653053
Also...
We apologize for the interruption, but we regretfully wish to inform the readers a giant cabbage cell from the sky and smooshed everything, killing the story and all within it.
Terribly sorry.
In my mind's eye, I keep seeing a pegasus version of Moondancer playing the role of Oddbody. I think it's the mane.
7653070 I...
I have no good excuse. I was just thinking about Venemum Iocus when writing the comment and somehow Tarnish replaced Copper.
I'm not sure I want to change it. This could be a very fascinating twist.
7653071
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You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur Keeeng"! You and all your silly English Knnnnnnnn-ighuts!!!
7653084
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I modeled her after teenage filly Fluttershy, but yeah, Moondancer is a great visual cue as well. It's the big chunky glasses and the cardigans.
img05.deviantart.net/0254/i/2015/185/b/d/moondancer_by_magister39-d8zxn66.png
Drool filled kisses?
Been there, done that.
.-.
I am a slobbermonster, rawr.
7653098
Don't forget that your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
>"I keep fantasising about twisting Mister Blancmange’s head off of his neck."
"Tell the court what you said when the Guard found you, Mister Copperquick."
"I di...I didn't know his talent was being able to turn his head eight hundred and forty degrees!"
"Mister Copperquick, that is not what his cutie mark meant."
"Well, I didn't realize it until his head fell off! Ha, ha, haHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~"
With a start, Copperquick woke up to a nose full of stinky professional armpit.
Never again would he suggest a nap before showering to Miss Oddbody. A pony could find strange and disturbing dreams in the smells that resulted from her professional chemistry...
... Is it weird that I'm waiting for Sapphire Shores to hear about this and demand to pay the bill, and/or help in some other way?
That is the one reason i hate crying. You look like shit afterwards.
And if this is almost done, I sense a sequel on the horizon.
7653071 Cabbage Cell? Back to the lock up for you evil toy for breaking out of your cell.
bloomberg.com/features/2016-cabbage-patch-kids-battle/img/cabbage-patch-2.jpg
For the Dawwwwws...
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7653921 Hey dude, I'm not rich. My wife and I both have to work every day and we live in an 800 square foot apartment. I make 9.50 an hour and my wife makes 8.00 an hour. I was not insinuating that everybody in trailer parks was scum. What I meant was a scum bag who lived in one, although I can maybe see how it sounded like I was making a statement against people who live in trailers. My mind conjured an image of a slovenly couple in dingy surroundings where a child would be stuffed into some dark, dirty corner to be ignored. I should not have specified trailer park, but I would think the spirit of the statement would be obvious enough. And for the record, I despise the rich who look down on those who are not rich, so you're not alone there.
7653733
You don't, but there's 79 separate billings under "C-section" that add up to that amount.
Oh my.
Ehh, seems like a good course of action.