S.B.

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 9: The Prince Claims Ponyville as his Own

S.B. had gotten up at three in the morning and run as quickly as he could into town under the cover of night, reaching Sugarcube corner to find that Pinkie and her employers were already awake and preparing the day’s baked goods. Mr. and Mrs. Cake were both welcoming and kind enough to give S.B. full access to their kitchen, where he was reasonably well able to work around them to assemble a large supply of cinnamon buns. The Cakes tested them, and determined them much to their liking.

Several hours later, S.B. found himself outside sitting behind a wooden desk, selling some of his cinnamon buns at a remote stand. The remainder were being sold in the shop proper, but the Cakes had decided to send S.B. out to increase sales and awareness of the new stock, as well as to get more experience with the actual sales portion of the job.

S.B. had been nervous at first, but his altered appearance worked stunningly. A few ponies who recognized him did stop to glare, but even they kept their produce at bay just in case they were somehow wrong. The rest did not seem to notice anything amiss. They ignored S.B. completely, or actually greeted him. There was no glaring, no shouted insults; to them, he was just an ordinary pony. It made him so happy to finally be normal.

Shortly after having set up the stand, though, and just as S.B. was sitting down, a pony actually approached him. This made his heart beat quickly, but he smiled as she neared. She was an eggshell earth-pony with blue and pink bicolor hair, and she smelled quite strongly of candy but with a strange hint of mint. She also looked as though she had not gotten much sleep recently.

The mare looked up at the sign that S.B. had assembled. “Cinnamon buns?” she said.

“Yes,” said S.B. “New, from Sucarcube Corner. I helped make them!”

“Is that so?” she smiled and laid a bit down on the table. S.B. stared at the coin in awe. “I’ll take one.”

“S…sure!” S.B. gave her a fresh, warm, paper-wrapped bun. The mare unwrapped it, and S.B. watched expectantly as she took a bite. Her eyes immediately widened.

“Wow!” she said. “That’s pretty good!” She gave S.B. another bit. “I’ll take another one for Lyra. But a little one, though. She’s getting to be a bit of a fatty.”

“Of course!” S.B. went through the buns and got one that was half the size of the one he had given the mare and gave it to her.

“Say,” she said, swallowing another bite of her roll. “What’s your name?”

“My name? It’s S.B.”

“S.B.? That’s an acronym. What does it stand for?”

S.B. sighed, and began to answer, but then was struck by a sudden burst of inspiration. A smile crossed his face.

“Sinnamon Bun,” he said. “My name is Sinnamon Bun.”

“With an ‘S’? That’s adorable. Also a girl’s name, but I’ll let it slide.” She leaned in close to him and smiled. “So,” she said. “How about you come by my house sometime?”

“Your…house?”

“Yeah. Lyra and I could definitely teach you something.”

“Teach…something? What kind of something?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Um…I’d kind of rather you didn’t…”

“Standing in the background, of course! With a color like that, you’re definitely not a foreground type. But you’re a swell candidate for the background. Save for the wings, but if you’re behind ponies nopony will notice. And Lyra and I are some of the best at background-standing, so we know what we’re talking about.”

“Oh,” said Sinnamon, greatly relieved. “Thank the Yellow One that’s what you meant…”

“Great. I’ll see you there,” said the mare, waving as she walked away with her cinnamon rolls.

“Sure,” said Sinnamon, waving back. “I’d like that.”

The day went amazingly. Sinnamon’s first customer- -her name was Bon Bon, apparently- -spread the word of the rolls quickly, and they had sold reasonably well. Sinnamon was very pleased with himself, and almost in disbelief that he had actually been able to do something that just a day before would have been entirely inconceivable.

He had not expected high sales, and had only stocked twenty or so cinnamon buns. So, when those sold out by the early afternoon, Sinnamon was able to close down his stand earlier than he expected. As he was preoccupied with bringing down the sign for storage, though, he heard a voice behind him.

“Hey.”

Sinnamon turned around and suddenly jumped when he came face-to-face with Scootaloo.

“Scootaloo!” he cried. “You- -you’re here.”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding disturbingly neutral toward him. “I am.”

They both fell silent, and the awkwardness grew between them. “I- -I need to apologize,” said Sinnamon at last, forcing himself to speak. “I mean, after what I did to you, I can’t even imagine, and I feel so bad- -”

Scootaloo held up a hoof. “Yeah. I know,” she said. “Twilight told me. Somebody talked you into it. Let me guess. Pink, and wearing a shiny tiara.”

Sinnamon’s eyes widened, and he was surprised greatly by the fact that Scootaloo had so quickly figured out who had pranked him.

“I’m not a snitch,” he said.

That seemed to interest Scootaloo. “You don’t need to be. I know who it was.”

“But that isn’t an excuse. I should have just talked to you.”

“Well, you’ve got that right. Do you have any idea how scared I was, and how bad I felt?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have - -I mean, I ought to- -”

Scootaloo raised her hoof again. “Just don’t do it again, okay?” Sinnamon nodded. “And if we change our minds about this in ten years? Don’t bite so darn hard.” She rubbed her clearly sore wings. “Wings are sensitive and delicate organs.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sinnamon. “I really am. Did…” He paused. “Did I cause any permanent damage?”

“I don’t think you could,” said Scootaloo. “It’s not like I can fly anyway. Not like you can.”

Sinnamon was somewhat surprised, and looked back at his wings. “What? No. You misunderstand. They’re decorative. I can’t fly.”

“You can’t?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Oh.” Scootaloo looked at him, but a little bit differently than before. She then looked up at Sinnamon’s now collapsed stand, and then at his flank. “So your cutie mark is in making cinnamon rolls, right?”

“It is.”

“Do you have any left?”

“Well…” Sinnamon went behind the stand and searched for a moment. “I was going to eat it on my way home,” he said, giving it to Scootaloo, “but I think it’s better that you have it. I really do feel really bad about your wings.”

“I don’t have any money on me.”

“Take it. Free.”

Scootaloo hesitantly took the roll and unwrapped it. She took a bite. “Mmm,” she said. “That’s good.”

“Thank you.”

There was another long pause, and then Scootaloo looked up. “So,” she said. “Twilight said you have a crush on me?”

Sinnamon immediately blushed so hard that he almost turned as red as he had in parts before Rarity had dyed him. “Um…a little?”

“Well let’s be clear. I’m not into you that way. I’m not into ANYPONY that way. Except maybe Rainbow Dash. But I think we can put this behind us and still be friends?”

“I’d like that,” said Sinnamon.

“Besides. Us flightless ponies have to stick together.” She took another bite of the bun. “Mmm, that’s good. I don’t think you need any help with your special talent.” She looked up at Sinnamon. “Hey,” she said. “There’s going to be a public concert on the other side of town tonight. Rainbow Dash and a few local Pegasi are even going to do some maneuvers. A bunch of us are going. Do you want to come?”

“R…really?”

“What, has no one ever asked you to have fun before?”

“No. Mostly they just throw rotting vegetables at me.”

“Dang,” said Scootaloo. “I know how you feel on that one.”

The two of them started walking. “So,” said Sinnamon. “Who is this ‘Rainbow-Dash’ again?”

Scootaloo smiled, and then began to explain.

The show had actually been quite impressive, at least by Sinnamon’s standards, which were admittedly quite low. There had been ponies everwhere, and music, and cotton candy, and some impressive flight maneuvers by Rainbow Dash- -who Sinnamon now knew better than he knew any other pony ever based entirely on Scootaloo’s description- -as well as a few amateur fliers, including one gray pony who had crashed into both the stage, the cotton candy, two trees, and several ponies.

Afterward, Sinnamon found himself walking back home with Scootaloo and another filly named Twist. The rest of their group- -the pale yellow earth-pony that had suckerbucked Sinnamon in the face, as well as Hondo’s younger daughter, and an adorably tiny colt with a Trottingham accent- -had all left to go other directions toward their various homes. They had to go to school the next day, after all, and Sinnamon was expected to report to Sugarcube Corner for a report on the sales of his rolls.

“And did you see her, when she did that loop, and then broke off into a barrel turn between Cloudkicker and Flitter?” said Scootaloo, who was bouncing excitedly. Whenever she hopped off the ground, her tiny wings would buzz wildly, as if her body were trying to break free from gravity. “I mean, sure, Rainbow Dash was the only REAL Wonderbolt there, but she played off the rest of the weather crew so well! And the cloud sculpture! Did you see that!”

“That wath imprethive,” said Twist, her voice distorted heavily by an unfortunate lisp that Sinnamon had come to find strangely endearing. “I’ve got to admit that.”

“It makes me wish I could fly,” said Sinnamon.

“Me too,” sighed both Scootaloo and Twist simultaneously. They looked at each other and laughed.

“Hey,” said Twist, holding out some cotton candy to Sinnamon. “You want thome, Thinnamon?”

“Sure!” said Sinnamon, still somewhat amazed that somepony was actually offering him something to eat that was not rotten fruit ‘offered’ at high velocity. “Scootaloo?”

“None for me thanks I’ve already had so much I feel like I could fly all the way to Cloudsdale and back hey I wonder if this is how Pinkie Pie feels all the time I LOVE RAINBOW DASH!!” She then ran out of air and swayed, at which point Twist and Cinnamon both stabilized her.

“Thanks,” she said.

Sinnamon reached out for some of Twist’s cotton candy, but as he did, he jumped back with a squeak.

“What ith it?” said Twist. She looked at the cotton candy. “It ithn’t a pieth of real cotton, ith it? Becauth I got one of thothe onthe, and it tathted so bad…”

“No!” cried Sinnamon. “It’s her!”

They looked to where he was pointing, and a pale Pegasus pony stepped across an alley down the street, and paused, her body casting a long shadow in the dark light. She turned slowly and glared at Sinnamon, then seemed to hiss and continue on her way.

“What, you mean Fluttershy?” said Scootaloo.

Sinnamon was quivering. “She beat me up once.”

“You got beat up? By Fluttershy? Yeah. You shouldn’t admit that. To anypony. EVER.”

“Why would anypony want to beat you up?” asked Twist in a rare sentence where she did not encounter any consonant clusters that highlighted her speech impediment.

“Because I- -” Cinnamon stopped himself. “No. You know what, nevermind.”

“I bet it was like getting caressed by fresh marshmallows,” noted Scootaloo. “No upper body strength at all. Or lower body strength. Or middle body strength. Not like Rainbow Dash at all.”

“Sheth thtill adorable, though.”

“Yeah,” admitted both Scootaloo and Sinnamon. “She is.”

They walked a little bit longer, and Sinnamon continued share the cotton candy with Twist until both of them felt quite ill. By this time it was getting a little bit darker, which made Scootaloo and Twist slightly more nervous. Sinnamon hardly noticed, though. Even with Fluttershy’s contact lenses, he was still able to see quite well in the dark. It was like his own private superpower.

Which is why it was he who saw a pony burst out from behind a building and suddenly charge toward them. Sinnamon was nearly trampled, and Scootaloo pushed Twist out of the way just in time for the tall, brown earth-pony to dart past down the street at full gallop. As he did, Sinnamon got a good look at him, and at the substantial baguette sticking out of his mouth.

“Khlebtomaniac?”

“Crusty Yeaster!” cried a voice as another pony accompanied by several others raced around the edge of the building in hot pursuit. All of them were wearing militia uniforms. “You’ll get the Chair for this for sure!”

“You’ll never catch me alive, Copper!” he said. Or at least probably said; it was not really possible to understand what he was saying through the loaf in his mouth.

They were catching up to him quickly, and withouth a second thought Sinnamon shifted his weight, positioning himself just in front of the lead militia pony. The pony immediately tripped over him, sending them both sprawling, and the other militia ponies had to stop to avoid the pile. The Khlebtomaniac apparently saw this, because he gave a wave- -both to the militia and to Sinnamon- -before he ducked into a narrow alley and disappeared into the darkness with his ill-gotten baguette.

“You tripped me!” cried the lead pony, a copper-colored mare who might very well have been named ‘Copper’. She stood up, brushing herself off, and then gasped when she saw who she had tripped over.

“It’s YOU!” she cried. “Hey, guys, forget Yeaster! I just stepped in Ponyville’s most wanted!”

“I’m wanted?” said Sinnamon, initial believing that he was ‘wanted’ as in somebody actually valued his continued health and safety. That was quickly proven wrong, though.

“Wanted for crimes against pony-kind! And caught in the act, I see!”

“What are you talking about?” said Scootaloo as the other ponies surrounded them.

“Kidnapping fillies! First you try to bite her wings off, and now you’re trying to steal her and do who knows what to her with your greasy little Mary-Sue hooves!”

“He wathn’t trying to do anything to uth!” said Twist. “We were justht walking! He didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Not to ‘us’,” corrected Copper. “To Scootaloo. It doesn’t matter what he does to you. Because nopony likes you, Twist.”

“Hey!” protested Sinnamon. “That isn’t fair! Twist is a nice pony, and she should get more attention!”

“Great,” said Copper. “Now we have to add heresy to the charges!” She took a step forward, causing Sinnamon to start cowering. “Mustard warned you. She said if you tried anything, you’d get banished. But this…this makes me SICK. You little freak. The Chair is too good of a punishment for you. Misty Marsh, the sack.”

A greenish stallion lifted a burlap sack and held it out menacingly in front of him.

“Hey!” cried Scootaloo as she was picked up.

“Put me down!” shouted Twist as she too was lifted away.

“Sorry kids, it’s for your own good. You need to be quarantined. You might have caught the Mary-Sue.”

“No! Stop!”

Copper smiled, and had the sack brought forward. “It’s time to play a game of disappearing poorly developed character,” she laughed.

The sack was growing closer, and Sinnamon froze. He did not know what to do. Like a fool, he had believed that his normalized appearance would protect him. It had not. They still knew who he was, and what he was.

That was hardly his concern, though. He was not sure exactly what being shoved into a burlap sack would do to him, but he saw Scootaloo and Twist struggling as the militia ponies carried them away. Sinnamon found himself thinking about how much fun they had had together, and how much he liked to have friends, and then about Cranky and Matilda and Twilight and the others who had done so much to help him. He finally had a future, for the first time since he had left his own kind. He was not going to let them take that away from him.

“How DARE YOU!” he suddenly shouted, trying to make his voice go as deep as it possibly could. He took a sudden step forward, which was so surprising that several ponies jumped back. The smug expression on Copper’s face vanished. “Do you have ANY idea who I am? I am Shadow Obsidian Bloodfang, Prince of the Shadowmancers! I am an immortal demon warrior born from the pits of Tartarus itself, summoned into this world by costly rituals and the fear and loathing of pony-kind!”

“What the hay?” gasped Copper as Sinnamon took another step toward her. Now she looked at least confused and possibly genuinely afraid. “Marsh, the sack! The SACK!”

“Your puny sack will have NO EFFECT! Do you even realize how powerful I am? What my immense magic is truly capable of? I could alone raise both the sun and the moon by myself! I only choose not to so as not to insult the weaker alicorns Luna and Celestia!”

“You’re lying. That isn’t- -you can’t- -”

“AND,” continued Sinnamon, “I can wield all SIX of the Elements of Harmony, all on my OWN! And even a SEVENTH Element that I created myself from the pure unadulterated HATRED!”

“But why would there be an Element of Hatred?” asked one of the other ponies. “That doesn’t even make sense- -”

“SILENCE!” cried Sinnamon, his voice cracking slightly.

“No,” said one of the ponies, a yellow stallion with green hair. “You don’t even have a horn! There’s no way you could do all that?”

“Oh really?” said Sinnamon, cocking his head and taking several steps toward the stallion, who suddenly looked nervous as though something mildly leprous was nearing him. “With my horn gone, my power is now unsealed completely! I can even- -READ YOUR MIND!”

“No way!” he said, glaring back at Sinnamon. “That’s impossible!”

“Oh really? Right now, you are thinking about…” Sinnamon leaned to the side and looked at the stallion’s cutie mark, which was a pineapple. “PINEAPPLE!”

The stallion gasped in abject terror. “How- -but- -no, no! Stay back, STAY BACK!” He clasped his head. “Get out of my mind! GET OUT OF MY MIND!” He suddenly turned and punched one of his comrades.

“Ow!” she cried. “My favorite shoulder! Why did you do that?”

“I can’t help myself! He’s mind-controlling me! Also, you stole my yogurt from the breakroom, and that was a huge jerk move!”

Sinnamon turned toward Copper, smiling sadistically. Now she looked truly afraid.

“Have them release those fillies,” he demanded. “Or I will be forced to…” He paused for a moment, trying to think of something truly threatening. Something somepony had said a while ago came to mind. “…STEAL YOUR WAIFUS!”

Every pony in the group gasped, and one fainted.

“You- -you wouldn’t!”

“I would,” sneered Sinnamon. “And for this impudence, I WILL!”

“Not Rarity!” cried one of the stallions.

“Wait,” said a mare. “Rarity’s you’re waifu too?”

“Waifu buddies!”

“ESPECIALLY Rarity!” cried Sinnamon, causing the two to jump. “All of them! Every waifu! I will take them all and assemble them into a pile, which I will then lie atop of and look down at my domain from!” At this point, Sinnamon had no idea what he was talking about. He had no clue what a ‘waifu’ was, but apparently it was something important, because as he spoke each and every one of the militia ponies looked more and more horrified. “And I may even eat a few!” he said.

One of the militia members spilled his cupcakes at that idea. Two more backed up.

“I can’t do this, mare, I just can’t! I’m out!”

“Yeah, me too!”

They both started to run away, and a third joined them. “I don’t get paid enough for this!”

“Wait a minute,” said the Pineapple stallion. “I don’t even get paid! Core this!” He then joined the others.

“Here,” said Misty Marsh, giving his sack to Copper. “You can operate the sack today. I have…my toaster…is pregnant…”

He then sprinted, and Copper looked back at them. “Wait!” she cried, “come back!” She said this, of course, while she herself was already stepping backward along with them.

“If you ever mess with me or my friends again,” said Sinnamon, glaring at her, “I will break into your house at night, and…well…you know…”

“W…what?”

“I will smell your mane while you are sleeping.”

At this point, she broke down in tears and started galloping away. “You’ll pay for this, Mary-Sue!” she called. “You can’t do this! It isn’t fair!”

Sinnamon watched them go, and when they were gone, he collapsed to his knees. “Oh wow,” he said, weakly. “My voice…I’m going to be a little hoarse after that one.” He paused, then laughed at his own pun. “Oh wait, I already am.”

“Oh wow,” said Twist. Both she and Scootaloo hesitantly approached Sinnamon. “You- -you can really do all that?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Wait,” said Scootaloo, “you mean you made that all up?”

“I had to do something, didn’t I?”

They both stared at him, and then burst into laughter so hard that they started rolling on the dirt road.

“Oh! OH!” cried Scootaloo. “I can’t believe- -the Element of Hatred- -!”

“And the deep voith, and the waifuth!”

“I can’t believe they fell for that! You pranked them good, Sinnamon! GOOD!”

Sinnamon himself started chuckling. He could not laugh outright, though, simply because he was so surprised. Never before in his entire life would he have actually stood up to somepony like that. Even a few days ago, he would not have thought that it was possible. But he had. Sinnamon Bun suddenly realized that for the first time, he truly understood what it was like to be confident.

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He Got them GOOD