The Donutier

by Hap

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “I prefer the term ‘unofficial biographer.’”

Sparkle did not prefer that term.

I sighed and held up my hooves. “Well I didn’t take any of the pictures. And most of the information I have came from your mom. All I had to do was knock on her door and say, ‘Hi, my name is Twilight, tee hee.’”

“I suppose I’ll have to have a talk with her about sharing too much information with strangers.” She turned to write in a little notebook. “For all she knew you might have been a villain.”

While she had her back turned, I conjured a mustache onto my upper lip. One of the black, curly, waxed kind. The ones you twist when you’re coming up with an evil plan. The kind I’d seen Pinkie wear in some of the photos in my binder. How could I not teach myself that spell? “Or perhaps I am a villain after all!”

Sparkle turned back around and looked at me. I assumed she’d seen too many Pinkie Pie mustaches for it to have much of an effect on her. “This isn’t a joke!” she said, waving a hoof in the direction that Copper had disappeared. “Until yesterday, she was planning to overthrow a princess of Equestria. This isn’t funny, this is my life!”

“Uh, no, it’s my life. She didn’t show up at your castle to overthrow you, she showed up at my donut shop to overthrow me.” I sat down and folded my forehooves across my chest. “You’re the one who’s not taking it seriously.”

That little speech probably would have had more impact if I hadn’t been wearing a mustache. My lip tickled as I let the thing dissolve into nothingness.

“Oh, no.” She waggled a hoof at me like I was a troublesome youngster. “You’re not going to change the subject. This is about you and the creepy amount of information you’ve compiled on me, my friends, and innocent foals.”

I shrugged. “Every bit of that information is publicly available. Newspaper articles, books, personal interviews.”

“Reading a newspaper article is normal. Keeping clippings about particular ponies—especially those who aren’t public figures—crosses a line. It is not normal.”

“Neither is being accosted by villains, favor-seekers, and suitors every day.” I’d been saving that one.

“And how exactly is an extensively detailed dossier on myself and my friends supposed to help you stop this harassment?”

That kinda cut down my argument, and, honestly, I didn’t have much left. I stood up and trotted over toward a comfy-looking couch in what I assumed to be a public reading area. Maybe this conversation wouldn’t feel quite so confrontational outside of her personal little office. I climbed up on the couch and lay down as Sparkle took a seat on a cushion across the little coffee table.

Nope. This was still definitely her territory. I sighed and shook my head. “At first, I just wanted to know who this Twilight Sparkle was. She just kind of appeared out of nowhere a few years ago, and suddenly everypony wanted a piece of her. Except… they weren’t coming after you, they were coming after me.

“So I did some research. This was before you became a princess, and there wasn’t much about you. A few articles here and there in some royal gossip mags about Princess Celestia’s reclusive favorite student. I found a snippet in the royal archives about your defeat of Nightmare Moon, but most of the information was about Princess Luna.

“I mostly just pointed interested parties toward Ponyville. That is, until you became a princess and your pictures started showing up in the papers and gossip magazines. Now, everypony knows what you look like, and when they see me, they won’t let it go.”

Sparkle nodded. “So, how do you deal with them when they show up?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Violence. Glazed, chocolately-creamy violence.”

“And this is how you subdued Copper Crown, too?”

“Yeah.” I wondered how Copper was doing with the Crusaders. “And now she’s living on my couch, apparently.”

Sparkle giggled. “And in your bathrobe.”

I briefly pondered whether I looked like that when I giggled. I concluded that I don’t giggle much. “She just kind of took over my entire life since yesterday.”

“That’s funny,” Sparkle said with a grin. “She said that you are the one who ponynapped her.”

I rolled my eyes and laid my head down on the couch. I mumbled because my muzzle was half-buried in the cushion. “So I physically placed her unconscious body on a train. Big deal. Ever since she showed up, every moment of my life has been about her. Her destiny.” I glanced at Sparkle. “About you.”

She put a hoof on the table and just kind of stared at it. “Sounds like you were already obsessed with me.” Without looking up, she took a breath and tilted her head to the side. “Why didn’t you come here before?”

“I have a donut shop to run. Dozens of ponies count on me for their breakfast, and I cater sweets to half the fancy parties in Canterlot. I’m not being conceited when I say that Canterlot night life would fall apart without me.” I could feel the eyebrow, even without looking. “Okay, I exaggerate. There would be some parties with substandard desserts.”

“Hmmm,” Sparkle said. If ‘Hmmm’ is a thing you say. Grunted? She made a noise. She hmmmed.

I lifted my head and looked at her. “You hmmmed. What does that mean?”

“Oh,” she said, putting her hoof back on the ground. “I was just wondering. If you’re so busy, why didn’t you just drop her off on the train, and go back to your shop?”

“She—” I froze. This was beginning to sound suspiciously like a friendship lesson. “Listen here, Sparkle. I don’t need friends and I don’t need your help. Well, I do. But not that way. I need you to get rid of all these weirdos who keep showing up.”

Sparkle chuckled. She legit laughed at what I had just said. “You’re trying to change the subject! One thing at a time. Why did you come with Copper instead of just leaving her on the train?”

Well, yeah, I was trying to change the subject, but that was due to a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest. “Okay, this is going to sound unnecessarily, uh, friendly, but she needed my help. That’s all.”

“I don’t see why you’re so against the idea of being a friend and-slash-or having a friend. It seems to me like you’re a pretty good friend already.”

She was being tricky. With her tricks. I didn’t really know what she was doing, but I felt like I needed to be on my guard. I’d read so much about her friendship lessons and friendship crystals and friendship lasers and…

“Are you okay?”

I realized that I was hyperventilating. I rolled my eyes, if for no other reason than to convince myself that what she’d said was silly.

Which thing she’d said? That I was a good friend? I was having a hard time remembering what else she’d said. Her words echoed in my head until the very sounds themselves became meaningless. I swallowed hard and wished that Copper was here to say something dumb so I could roll my eyes and feel justified for having done so. To have somepony sillier than me. Because I suddenly felt very exposed, all alone in front of the Princess of Friendship.

“Thank you, Spike.”

I looked up to see the little dragon holding a tray with two mugs of hot cocoa. Sparkle floated one over toward me, which I took in my magic and held close to my muzzle. There were seven marshmallows floating in it.

She said something, but it didn’t register in my brain. She’d given me something I didn’t ask for and didn’t deserve. I knew it sounded lame, but I felt like I had just realized what it was like to have somepony looking out for you. Then I immediately felt guilty for emotion-assuming that I provided for Copper without getting anything in return. Then I kind of got angry when I realized that Copper actually hadn’t given me anything in return. Of course, then I felt like a jerk for trying to quantify friendship in transactional terms.

“Hey! Twilight Sprinkle!”

For once it was nice to hear her voice instead of my own thoughts.

“What are you thinking about?”

Aaaaaaand it was over. She was back to being annoying. I growled and set the steaming mug on the coffee table, untouched. “I don’t like this friendship stuff. It’s complicated.”

Sparkle giggled again. That noise was beginning to seriously grate on me. “It gets less complicated when you live it out. Just be her friend.”

I rolled over onto my back and groaned. “Life was so much simpler when I just ran my donut shop.”

She didn’t giggle, but I could tell she wanted to. “If you had the choice, would you go back and make it so you’d never met Copper Crown?”

I had to think about that one for a bit. I listened to the sound of the library. And by that, I mean the terrifying sound of nothing. Sparkle’s breathing was the only thing my ears could detect at all. If a library could have a soul, it would be Twilight Sparkle.

I missed the noise and bustle of Canterlot. My internal clock was ticking, reminding me that any second now a gaggle of construction workers would trot through the door. The repeated dinging of the shop door’s bell tickled the edges of my imagination. The scruffy one would order his coffee black even though I know he likes it with cream cheese frosting swirled in. Trying to look tough for the mare with a jackhammer cutie mark.

So many ponies whose names I scrupulously avoided learning. And then she showed up and announced her name. Well, sort of. I knew that Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer both had the ability to do a time travel spell that could erase Copper from my life. Nothing apocalyptic like what Starlight had tried to do. Copper only showed up yesterday.

Wow. I met Copper barely twenty-four hours ago. Without her, I’d be serving donuts to a couple-in-the-making and dozens of other ponies right now. How had she turned my life completely upside down?

If I did go back in time, what would I do? Just kick her out with a chocolate milk carton impaled on her horn, and go back to slinging pastries? Seems like kind of a jerk thing to do. I’ve not always been the nicest pony, but I didn’t like to think I was a jerk.

So, she had needed somepony right then. Is that all it takes to build a friendship? One pony who needs something, and another pony to provide it? Aaaaaand I was back to that train of thought again, treating friendship as a one-sided transaction.

“No,” I was surprised to hear myself say.

I didn’t bother to listen to what Sparkle said. I supposed that some part of me remembered wishing that Copper was by my side. I shook my head and couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Well,” Sparkle said as she stood up and smiled back at me, “we can finish talking about that binder later. Why don’t we talk about your situation with the, what was it? Villains, favor-seekers, and suitors?”

“That’s it. Thanks for—”

Sparkle froze, her lips pursed and one eye twitching. She squinted at me. “Suitors?”

Comments

[Julian the Dreamer]

Sparkle froze, her lips pursed and one eye twitching. She squinted at me. “Suitors?”

I was wondering if she'd talk about that particular one XD

[Rune Soldier Dan]

Remember kids: if Celestia won't solve your problems for you, you can always try Twilight.

[QueenMoriarty]

Weird that Sparkle freezes up about suitors when it was literally her who said that word two seconds ago. Seems like odd word-choice.

[notme]

8120795

Sprinkle used it first, She is just quoting her.

[Greenhorn]

Sparkle nodded. “So, how do you deal with them when they show up?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Violence. Glazed, chocolately-creamy violence.”

Should work with the changelings. They love chocolate and anything sweet.

[Bugsydor]

8120787
After all, it's what Celestia does.

[Jake Witt]

Wow... Twilight Sprinkle struck a chord, there.

"Too mean to deserve friendships." That the topic of my crisis.

[Swan Song]

”Why don’t we talk about your situation with the, what was it? Villains, favor-seekers, and suitors?”

“That’s it. Thanks for—”

Sparkle froze, her lips pursed and one eye twitching. She squinted at me. “Suitors?”

The construction in this set of interactions feels a bit unnatural. Sparkle perfectly recalls the list of things, then Sprinkle begins speaking, but Sprinkle’s speech is interrupted by Sparkle’s freezing(🤔???), which happens because she re-recalls the last item on the list of things that she already recalled.

It’d probably flow better if it went more like this:

”Why don’t we talk about your situation with the, what was it? Villains and favor-seekers?”

“And suitors,” I finished for her. “Good idea. Thanks for…”

I trailed off, noticing Twilight had frozen with her lips pursed and one eye twitching. She squinted at me. “Suitors?”