Chapter 22
Leaning forwards, Trixie Lulamoon reached up with her hoof and she gestured at Lemon Hearts’ face while she replied, “Lemon, honey, you have something on your snoot.”
Going cross-eyed, the yellow mare tried to see what Trixie was pointing at while saying, “Do I? Way to ruin the moment, Miss Hearts.”
Just as Lemon finished what she had to say, Trixie leaned in, gave her a light kiss, and nodded. Lemon, realising that the kiss had been a yes, let out a soft squeal while her ears perked, and then she turned to look at Twinkleshine. The feeling of love, of affection, was palpable, and it seemed that everypony in the room was hanging on this moment.
Sumac most of all.
There seemed to be a delay and Twinkleshine just sat there, her breathing shallow, and she sat with one front hoof clutched to her barrel. All she could do was blink while turning her head to look at both Lemon and Trixie. When she became misty-eyed and her lower lip began to quiver, Sumac found it quite difficult to keep looking at her.
The clock on the mantle now read ten fifty-six.
“I couldn’t possibly miss this,” Twinkleshine managed to mutter, and then she was overcome.
A three-way hug happened, with Twinkleshine being the aggressive squeezer. She pulled both Lemon and Trixie in, and then the three unicorn mares bumped their head together, horns almost touching. While this in and of itself was a sight to see, something even more amazing happened: Lemon Heart’s cutie mark, her three little hearts, began to glow with a fierce light.
Sumac’s magic sense was overwhelmed and he began to feel light headed. Powerful magic was at work here—this was no simple spell being cast—and his vision slipped in and out of focus. The magic felt good, it thrummed through his body, and it soothed the pain in his neck. He felt so good, in fact, that it was not difficult at all to get off his cushion, get steadied on his legs, and then cross the short distance to where the three mares sat. He gave the ball a little kick while he passed—he couldn’t help himself—and he was grinning from ear to floppy ear.
It didn’t take long before he was sandwiched, and for once, he didn’t mind. Not in the slightest. He wasn’t even peeved about his earlier betrayal. All of life felt good, and he was happy. For little Sumac Apple, Hearth’s Warming had arrived early, and he had his heart’s desire. Not much else mattered at this moment.
Clearing his throat, Tarnish rose and said, “I’m going to fix lunch so we can eat before the matinee.”
Lunch was some kind of rice dish, and Sumac gobbled it down without even noticing what it was. All he knew was that there was a lot of it, and he was hungry. He was also moving better for some inexplicable reason, and he felt great. Everything felt so wonderful that he didn’t even notice Trixie, Lemon, and Twinkleshine making goo-goo eyes at one another, nor did he feel embarrassed about it.
“Everything tastes like potatoes,” Limestone said out of the blue.
Several ponies stopped eating, lifted their heads, and looked at her. Sumac, his mouth full of food, paused for a moment to listen to what Limestone had to say. Across from his daughter, Igneous waited, one eyebrow in a preemptive arch. Even Maud somehow looked attentive. As the seconds passed, Sumac began to wonder if everything really did taste like potatoes, as he couldn’t be certain. Lots of things didn’t taste like potatoes.
“Limestone?” Cloudy said to her daughter.
Wiping her muzzle with her foreleg, Limestone took a deep breath and then blurted out, “Whenever we eat something new, we say it tastes like potatoes. Think about it. Just think about how many times that is said by one pony to another. We’ll be eating something new and somepony will ask about the taste, and we’ll say it tastes like potato. Everything tastes like potato.”
“Potato chips taste like potato,” Igneous deadpanned.
Grunting with annoyance, Cloudy glared at her husband. “I’ll drag you outside, Igneous… see if I don’t!”
“I’m not getting this.” Octavia turned her head from side to side, looking somewhat confused. “If everything tastes like potatoes, I hadn’t noticed.”
Tarnish, who waved his spoon around, nodded in agreement. “Limestone is right. I just can’t say how she is right. But a lot of things do taste like potatoes.”
Megara let out a single confused meow, and then resumed eating her rice, licking it up with her long, rough, sandpapery tongue.
“This is bogus.” Pebble—with a snort of disgust—rolled her eyes and kept eating. “Aunt Motormouth is just messing with us all again.”
“Actually,” Pinny Lane began, “there might be some truth to this. Hayburgers, for example, use potato starch as a binding agent to hold everything together. So do a lot of other vegetable burger patties. A lot of processed convenience food that we eat has potato starch in it.”
“Aunt Motormouth was right, Pebby Poops!”
“Ugh! That doesn’t make you right, Limestain!”
Now, the two ponies were locked into a furious death-glare battle, with angry, twitching ears, ferocious expressions, bared teeth, and narrowed eyes. When Cloudy clopped her hoof against the table, the battle ended, but Limestone and Pebble continued to give one another baleful glances.
“They’re so adorable when they do this,” Maud deadpanned, and then she let out a sigh.
“I still remember the day I picked little Limestone out of the potato patch,” Igneous remarked, and the table went silent. “I pulled that little spud out of the dirt, washed her off, and brought her in the house. She only had eyes for her daddy.”
“Igneous.” Cloudy gave her husband a withering stare.
“All of a spudden—”
“Igneous…”
“—I was the luckiest father in the world—”
“Igneous!”
“ —until she reached tuberty—”
“Igneous, stop! There are foals present!”
“—and it was only then I realised my tuberis—”
“Igneous!”
“Daddy, it is time to abandon chip,” Maud deadpanned.
“Maudlin!” Cloudy turned her ire on her daughter. “That was awful!”
“Can a pony be incapacitatered by puns?”
“SUMAC APPLE!” Pebble’s face now had a bright reddish hue and she banged both front hooves upon the edge of the table.
Exerting the effort to shrug a bit, Sumac gave Pebble his reply: “Taters gonna tate.”
Leaning over a bit, Igneous looked at his granddaughter. “What’s the matter, Pebble? Feeling irrootatered?”
Saying nothing, the little chocolate brown filly glowered at her grandfather.
“Fry as I might, I can’t think of a good pun.” With a smug look plastered to his muzzle, Tarnish sat back and waited for the measurements on the rictus scale.
Twinkleshine, bouncing up and down in her chair, ignored the threatening looks of her two fiancées. “Game, set, and mash!” Then, her eyes glittering, she delighted in the groans coming in hard and fast from around the table. “We’re going to have a good time at the movies, I can peel it in my bones!”
“You know…”—Maud paused for a moment while she made a gesture with her hoof—“puns are only funny if I am the one making them. Otherwise, they annoy me. I hate them. I hate them so much. I wonder why that is.”
“For the same reason everything tastes like potatoes,” Limestone replied. “That’s just how life is!”
Outside, the day was beautiful and perfect. It was cold, crisp, the air had a way of invigourating all those whose lungs it filled. The skies were clear today, and the sun shone down upon all of the fresh-fallen snow, only to cause a glittering, dazzling, eye-blinding display. There was no hurry to rush to the theatre, as they had left early, and Sumac was free to enjoy both the sights and sounds of Ponyville in winter.
Megara remained close to her father, but was excited to be outside. She drew many stares, and many types of stares, but she seemed oblivious to the bad ones. Something that was almost a parade had formed, with Tarnish and Megara leading the way, and then a long line of ponies following after. As for Sumac himself, he was sitting on Twinkleshine’s back, and was enjoying the grand day out. Pebble, too short to deal with the deep powder, rode on Pinny’s back.
Tucked beneath Sumac’s poncho, Boomer slumbered and acted as a portable space heater.
Watching everything, Sumac was enraptured at what he saw around him. The long line of ponies held such remarkable variety; Igneous was broad and stocky, Tarnish was tall and lean, Vinyl was short and compact, and Pinny, Pinny was like her son, but feminine, and perhaps better described as willowy. Yet, for all of their differences, they were ponies. With the exception of Megara, of course, but Sumac didn’t let that stop him from his grand thoughts.
There was so much diversity here, not just as ponies, but as tribes. Okay, so there were no pegasus ponies present, but Megara did have wings. Every earth pony and every unicorn was different somehow. For the first time, Sumac took notice of the diversity of life, and he was enthralled.
“I wanna have foals with Pebble just so I can see what they look like.”
Twinkleshine came to such an abrupt halt that Sumac almost fell off when he was pitched forwards. Trixie stumbled, tripped over her own front legs, and went down face first into the snow. Lemon Hearts gasped and then just stood there with her mouth open. Cloudy crashed into her husband Igneous, who had come to a sudden stop. Limestone smacked into her mother’s backside, the place of her origin, and this caused Cloudy to be shoved into Igneous once more.
“Like right now?” Pebble demanded as Pinny too, almost fell over and wobbled on her long legs.
“No!” Sumac, realising what he had done, had no idea how to fix this mess.
“Well, I should hope not!” Cloudy cried while she tried to recover her dignity.
“I wanna do it later,” Sumac blurted out, and then with a growing sense of dread, he knew this had not helped him. “I mean… I mean… never mind what I mean!”
“Sumac Apple!” Pebble, now a much, much darker shade of brown, shook her head.
Sputtering, Trixie picked herself up out of the snow with Lemon’s help, and then, after turning about, she stood there, gazing at her son with a blank stare. She was joined by Octavia, who stood scowling, and Vinyl, who was shaking with silent laughter. Tarnish was avoiding the situation by refusing to turn around as he stared up at the blue sky.
“I got to looking at everypony and how different we all are and then I guess I thought about making foals with Pebble so we can see what they look like… I mean, I was curious about making foals with Pebble… I mean, not so much the making foals part, but more like what they would look like when I was finally done with her and we stopped making foals and she actually had them…” His words trailed off, he swallowed, hard, and then lapsed into silence while wondering if he could dig this hole any deeper.
“Son,” Igneous said while turned about, “there comes a point in every colt’s life when he could not possibly make things any worse, and then he somehow does. Congratulations, you’ve just experienced that milestone in your life.”
“Thanks, Igneous,” Sumac replied in a sheepish manner.
“Don’t mention it.” Igneous cleared his throat a bit and then asked, “So, do we swing by the courthouse to get these two hitched?”
“GRANDPA, NO!” Pebble buried her face in her hooves and almost fell from Pinny’s back.
“I think we should.” Igneous, looking quite serious, nodded. “This colt has a taste for Pie.”
Limestone, grimacing, chucked a snowball at her father, and hit him in the side. He ignored it, sighed a bit, and stood there, still nodding. Cloudy was now helping to brush the snow from Trixie. Twinkleshine had gone still, silent, and made no movement beneath Sumac. Lemon, who recovered from her initial shock, was now tittering, and this got her a dirty look from Trixie.
“At least he’s honest about his intentions,” Igneous said, unable to lay the issue to rest.
“Honest… Apple?” Sumac stammered, and he wondered if there was still a line left to cross.
“I am so embarrassed right now, I could just die.” Pebble pitched forwards and buried her face into her grandmother’s mane. “All of me burns… I can actually feel my skin burning, like a sunburn. It’s awful.”
“I think it is best if we just keep going, and pretend this never happened.” Tarnish did not turn around to check for consensus on his words, nor did he need to. He started walking, and the others, they started following. “So, who’s looking forward to the movie?”
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Okay that was just AMAZING! Also INCREdIBLY hilariously TERRIBLE! <3
I find it funny how you take the whole "Tastes like Chicken" and turn it into "Tastes like Potato". I have NEVER read that before, and I am quite pleased by this. Also, as someone with Irish blood, I am tickled pleased at all the potatoey goodness on here!
Sumac wants to plant potatoes
inwith Pebble.I feel bad for Pebble - and Sumach .. but I have tears of laughter in my eyes
I initially read this as "...a long line of potatoes following after."
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Tasty.
Oh man, the puns made me almost bust a gut
(tried to interject with spud or something but they all sounded slightly sexual, sorry)
Also, oh my Sumac. So bold!
Hnnnng! Oh my this chapter was gold.
Abandon earth, proceed to sky... but nobody present was a pegasi.
I think that as Sumac is growing up he was just feeling spudley. and his mind just went right to the thought of all those little tater tots he and Pebble could have.
XD
Oh my! I just died! I remember my first thoughts of possibly having kids with my fiancé. I don't like babies, but I want to know what they would look like.Sumac!
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Yukon gold.
Potatowned!
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gifbin.com/bin/reverse-g6101g671g63.gif
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Kinda reminds you of someone's eternity in Hell...
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Also:
forgifs.com/gallery/d/639-3/Potatowned.gif
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Reminds me of a true story about an Emergency room visit where someone "pleased" themselves with a potato, but it got stuck and tried to take root.
Sumac certainly has a way with words. Even when he's not paying attention he can stun, maim and scar the minds of everyone in hearing range just by opening his mouth.
Damnit Grandpa XD
Sumac couldn't reallu make it worse, then Igneous did. Good job.
At least no-pony made any unforgivably mini apple-pie jokes
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Tarnish was unsubscribing that thread so hard
Your slice of life pieces are killing me Kudzu. So awesome.
Lemon Poppyseed Love heals all wounds~!
I completely understand Sumac here, at least in the being too candid.
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She doesn’t exist yet.
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I know, just the trio expressing so much love they managed to create something akin to Cadance's healing magic made me think of the love to come.
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Cadance’s magic is still at work here, as noted. Residual healing is taking place.
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Indeed, powered by love, as it should be.
I had to pause and contemplate my life at this juncture. And stifle my giggles because people are trying to sleep, damnit!
i cannot even...
omg i can't
it was so punny!
well, can't say they are shist at least
Also puns. Fart jokes, innuendo, and puns. These are all areas in which you hold mastery.
If everything tastes like potatoes what do potatoes taste like?
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Chicken.
Welcome to the club sumac, you’ve done dug your potato hole and didn’t stop digging.
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The centaurs did that on purpose, didn’t they?