Chapter 5
Silence reverberated through the long, narrow kitchen, thudding to and fro along the walls while casting its oppressive force upon those gathered around an oval wooden block-top table left scarred by the chopping of many vegetables. Citrusy-scented steam rose from the spout of the teapot in lazy curls, but lacked the motivation to rise for more than just a scant few inches before it vanished, going wherever it was that steam went.
Copperquick had never seen Buttermilk Oddbody ever look quite so miserable as she did now, and he had been with her through some rough times indeed. She had told her mother everything, sparing no detail, saying both the good and the bad, and even included the part where he had threatened to snap Mister Blancmange’s neck by twisting his head off. Everything that could be said had been said, and now, there was silence.
A short distance away, sprawled out on a spread out blanket, Esmeralda Verde was sound asleep, her mouth open in much the same way her father’s mouth tended to hang open, her chin shiny with drool. She had fallen asleep even before her body was laid down and now slumbered with her stubby little legs twitching, perhaps from dreams.
“Well,” Butter Fudge whispered as she reached up and scratched her neck with the hard edge of her hoof. “This is a proud day. My daughter came home as the mare that I hoped that she would be. Everything turned out just the way I wanted. There’s a lot to sort out and I—”
“What?” Buttermilk leaned in closer to her mother, every muscle in her body tensing, and for a moment, Copperquick feared that the tiny pegasus might explode. “Just the way you wanted?” Her voice was an angry whisper and her thin, delicate fetlocks quivered as the tendons within drew tight. “Just the way you wanted?”
Butter Fudge didn’t seem the least bit concerned by her daughter’s growing fury.
“You didn’t really want me to go to university. You didn’t want me leaving home. You didn’t want me doing a lot of things, life-enriching things, and you restricted me from almost everything. Your rules were almost draconian when I became a teenager and you picked apart almost every little thing I did and found fault with every hope and dream I had… you were downright… monstrous.”
“I see you picked up some courage and a backbone while you were away,” Butter Fudge remarked, and Buttermilk’s mouth fell open in startled shock.
So did Copperquick’s.
“I did what needed to be done.” Butter Fudge smiled, reached over to her daughter, and booped her on the snoot. “You had your head in the clouds from the moment I pulled you from my teats. You were flighty and full of daydreams and I loved you for it. If I hadn’t made this nest so unbearable, so miserable, you would never have been motivated enough to leave. I told you that I didn’t want you to go to university, and of course, you did it to defy me, which was the plan right from the beginning. It was so easy to get exactly what I wanted from you. All I had to do was tweak your nose and make you angry and then you’d do exactly what I wanted.”
“Moomy…” Buttermilk’s glasses fogged over and her cheeks darkened.
“I rode your skinny little ass right into the ground and I don’t regret it. Look at you now… educated… you have what you want in life. You’ve found yourself a nice beau. I didn’t let you throw your life away. I didn’t let you wander off into some barn with some mouth breathing hick like your little friend Ripple Rusher did and screw your life up. I goaded you into doing exactly what needed to be done so you could be the responsible young mare that you are right now and I didn’t let anything pull you away from your dreams.”
Lifting up a solid, sturdy mug between her front hooves, Butter Fudge had the smuggest of smug looks upon her face when she slurped her tea. It was at this moment that Copperquick felt some spark of affection for this enormous, vivacious mare. Buttermilk sat in her chair, her expression blank, her glasses still fogged over, her ears rising and falling like two well handle pumps.
“Truth be told, I don’t need to agree with anything you’ve done, it’s not my business, but I am still so very proud of what you’ve accomplished.” Butter Fudge’s fuzzy lips were wet and dark from moisture and her eyes glistened with a mother’s pride that could not be contained. “Beezy, you got it into your head at a pretty early age that you wanted to be educated… but you lacked the temperament for it. You did awful in school. You had a lack of focus and all you wanted to do was run around, chase bugs, and hurl mudpies at stinky little colts.”
In response, Buttermilk squeaked.
“My job, as your mother, was to prepare you for the adult life that you thought you wanted. You wanted to be educated? Fine. I had to crack down on you and make you pay attention so you’d have the grades to get accepted. You wanted to go to university? Fine. I told you that it was a bad idea and pretended that I was against it so you’d rebel against me. To make sure that you actually got a chance to go to school and not mess up your life, I had to keep you safe from the stinky little colts that you threw mudpies at. You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
“Moomy… I…” Buttermilk’s mouth moved, her lips contorted, but no other words seemed forthcoming.
“I don’t need to agree with the choices that you make as an adult. Not at all.” Butter Fudge turned, glanced at Copperquick for a moment, and then let out a soft chuckle. “I do agree with what you’ve done here, though. A pony should live their work, plain and simple. Live by their trade. I make soaps and cheeses. I wash with my own soaps and I eat my own cheeses. Well… there was that one time when you were a colicky little filly and I was exhausted and tired and hadn’t slept in a while and I tried washing with my own cheese and I ate some of my own soap. Oi.” The big mare recoiled in disgust at the mention of the memory.
A single tear rolled down Buttermilk’s muzzle and splashed into her teacup.
“You know what a bleeding heart is, Beezy?” Butter Fudge asked.
At this, Buttermilk bristled. “Moomy, we were getting along so well—”
“I’ll tell you what a bleeding heart is, Beezy. A bleeding heart is a whinging, cringing, mewling little whiner that complains about how unfair life is and will loudly protest how awful everything is. They are the worst ponies in the world, because all they do is make noise and drown out the voices of reason. You”—Butter Fudge nodded her head at her daughter—“you are not a bleeding heart and that is why I am so proud of you. No crying, no whinging, no useless bleating about how unfair everything is… you are working to fix things. You had the ways and means to save Copper here and his daughter when they were in trouble. You can either talk or do… and I raised you to do.”
Again, Buttermilk was at a loss for words and all she could do was stare at her mother.
“It feels good to let all of this out,” Butter Fudge confessed as she focused her warm, expressive eyes upon her daughter. “Beezy, I had to keep you angry with me so you’d stay motivated… truth be told, I’ve had a lot of nightmares about you hating me. It was a risk, Beezy, and your father kept telling me over and over, almost every night in fact, that at the end of it all, you’d be my friend. I was so worried that he was wrong and there were so many times that I almost lost my resolve and went soft and everything might’ve been ruined.”
Turning his head, Copperquick glanced at his daughter out of the corner of his eye and thought about everything that Buttermilk’s mother had to say. Would he go to such extreme lengths to make sure that she had everything she needed? He didn’t know. This was a colossal unknown and it loomed before him like some vast, bridgeless chasm that demanded that he cross it. Butter Fudge had sacrificed much for her daughter and even risked their relationship.
Suddenly, his own situation didn’t seem so bad. Mister Blancmange didn’t seem so bad. Being homeless wasn’t so awful. He had a job—sort of—and as Butter Fudge had suggested, he was starting to live by his trade. Learning to help others meant learning how to accept help for himself. The exact nature of his job, his position, all of that was still unknown to him, but Copperquick had made equinekind his business. A little flicker of pride flared to life within his breast, and he started to see his own situation in a new light.
“We’re going to the movies tonight. You might want to get some rest.” Butter Fudge set her mug down upon the table, reached out, and booped her daughter on the snoot again.
“What about Esme?” Copperquick asked.
“What about her?” Butter Fudge blinked a few times in response.
“I can’t take her to the movies… I don’t have a sitter and I—”
“It’ll be fine, trust me.” Butter Fudge offered up a warm, reassuring, maternal smile.
“But nopony likes a crying foal at the movies—”
“Oh, it’ll be fine.” The big mare waved her hoof to silence further protests. “Fine.”
“But—”
“Fine.”
Shrugging, Copperquick acquiesced and gave up. “Okay, fine.”
Sniffling, Buttermilk took off her glasses and began rubbing at her eyes with her cardigan sleeve. Her lips trembled and the ends of her mouth couldn’t decide if they wanted to go up or down. Ears splayed out, her nostrils flared and her thin, delicate barrel rose and fell with restrained sobs of distress. Copperquick wanted to give her a quick peck to set her right, but was fearful of Butter Fudge—he didn’t know where he stood with her, not exactly.
Not knowing what else to do, he bowed his head and began lapping his tea from his cup.
“Moomy, we need to talk about Esme and it is very important that you listen to me and take me seriously.” Buttermilk’s eyes were red and somehow, she managed to smile. It made her beautiful, precisely because she wasn’t perfect but chose to be a ray of sunshine anyway. “There are some rules, very important rules.”
“Of course, Beezy.” Butter Fudge’s ears perked.
“Esmeralda suffered some…” Reaching up, Buttermilk wiped her eyes with her sleeve once more, sniffle-snorted a few times, and then leaning forwards, she looked her mother right in the eye. “Esmeralda suffered some abuse and some neglect as a newborn. She is recovering from it, but she is not better. You cannot raise your voice and begin shouting, because that does bad things to her. She’ll just shut down and become despondent. She has some abandonment issues. You can’t just put her down and say that she’ll be fine if she’s left to cry it out. She won’t. She’s afraid of the dark and Mrs. Velvet believes that it is because Esmeralda can’t see us. It isn’t enough to hear our voices or to touch us… and don’t cover up her face with a blanket to play peekaboo because she’ll freak out and have the worst meltdown you could possibly imagine.”
Butter Fudge’s ears rose, then fell, rose again, then fell again, and then one ear stood up while the other dangled, limp and dejected. Copperquick thought she was taking all of this rather well, until he noticed the look in her eyes. His blood froze in his veins, there was a chilly, icy feeling in his groin, and it felt like something was compressing his lungs, preventing him from drawing enough air. He slurped in his tongue and his head rose away from his mug as his legs telegraphed the pressing need to run.
“You damage the herd connection and that does a lifetime’s worth of harm.” Butter Fudge’s voice was husky and was like two millstones grinding together, more of a rumble than an actual sound. “There are things that you just don’t do. You just don’t do.”
“Moomy, this is why I went to school,” Buttermilk said, keeping her voice low. “This is more of a problem than you realise. I see this every day and too many ponies just ignore it, which is why it is such a problem. Copper has chosen to face this problem head on and he remains committed to his daughter… and this is why I am committed to him.”
“If this is such a problem, why isn’t more being said and done about it?” Butter Fudge asked.
Reaching out, Buttermilk placed her comparatively tiny hoof upon her mother’s immense foreleg. “Well, Moomy, there are these whiny, bleating, entitled bleeding hearts that have been trying to tell everybody that there is a massive crisis at hoof, but nopony wants to listen to them. Ponies think they have some kind of agenda and just want to stir up trouble. They keep begging for help because they’re overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid, but ponies are content to ignore them.”
“Beezy… I… you…” Swallowing, squeezing her eyes shut, Butter Fudge found it within herself to try again. “Beezy, I’m proud of you.”
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I always hate that. When you just can’t hate someone for doing something awful.
Holy shit Buttermilk. Her mom dropped her whole 'just as planned I know what's best' and got the beez handed to her from her Beezy in one turnaround.
Goddamn, girl. Even I'm proud of you.
I have had many times in recent years that I got to tell my underappreciated stepmom that she was right.
Rather like the old, sort of a joke. "When I was eighteen I couldn't understand how my father got along when he was so dumb and clueless.Then when I turned twenty-five I was astonished at how much the old man had learned."
in some ways your prents are smarter than you. They have lived life longer after all. Albeit no one goes into parenthood with a clear idea what the bloody hell they are doing.
In my case i have parents that do not realize how things have really changed, especially in enducation. They are good people but they are waaay to prideful.
to the point of delusion.
Once had an argument with my mother, and it ended up becoming outright religious for some reason. She said 'my faith is stronger than your idiocy' when i said that Buddhism has similarities to catholic beliefs...... She refused to take in information, and worse, tried to demand i give information that her prejudices are wrong when they are factually wrong...
I don't think my parents are secretly clever. My mother at least isn't
If only. My mother is a proud and blatant, mouth-breathing moron.
Clever mare...
I also love how Oddbody is turning topics around on her mother.
I had a feeling right from when we first saw Moomy that I would love her, and it turns out that I was RIGHT! <3
I believe this little heart to heart will do good. People need to see that actions are important, but there are times when actions alone cannot solve things without words. There has to be a message, and if people ignore the message, then those trying to fix the mess cannot get the help that they need to solve it.
You've done a great job once again Kudzu, which is why I continue to follow your work <3
My parents taught me a lot about life. They are not idiots. We may disagree on some things, but we agree on most things.
I won't even get into my views on libertarianism. This site isn't the place for that.
8480028
I find it fascinating that you see them as libertarians. I never intended to for them to be seen that way. They are monarchists, as exist within the story: deeply conservative, authoritarian, and staunchly against things like voting.
This is great, really.