• Published 11th Jan 2018
  • 6,209 Views, 4,647 Comments

House of the Rising Sunflower - kudzuhaiku



Hard work is its own reward, and competence can be one's ultimate undoing.

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When shadows grow long

“Here, Nuance, take this and get to brushing. Watch out for the bandages. Be careful.”

“I don’t know if I can—”

“Yes you can. You just held him up a bit ago.”

“But I was scared. I’m very emotional right now.”

“I know, Nuance. It’s okay. Try to take all of that worry and turn it into something useful. Sundance is your friend. He’s having a hard time right now. Now do what you can, Nuance. Be the friend he can count on.”

“But nopony counts on me—”

“Well, now is a good time to start.” Silver Lining tilted her head and turned one eye down towards the small colt looking up at her. “Nuance… your brother isn’t here to put you down, or bad mouth you, or to explain at length what a failure you are. Corbie isn’t here to cheer you on and make you nervous. You don’t have to be afraid of disappointing her—”

“I’m not afraid of disappointing her,” Nuance blurted out while his ears pricked. “I don’t care about what she thinks. Not at all.”

“Sure… whatever, Nuance. Now, get to brushing. You just took command a little while ago. Why can’t you just be that pony all of the time?”

Sundance, who had remained silent, continued to do so. He saw no need to say anything, to interject anything into this conversation. His ears rang with an annoying, ceaseless chime. Feeling had returned to his legs, and he wished it hadn’t because there were four giant hearts in his hooves. Walking felt almost impossible, with the squishy, thumping hearts making his frogs tender. His back was still on fire and what he wanted right now was to be submerged in some cool water.

“When I feel pressured, I just fail.” Nuance’s naked, vulnerable honesty roused Sundance from his torpor. “I just don’t deal with it. Quiet and Corbie… they just never stop. They just praise me… even if I haven’t done anything. I get so nervous. When I’m nervous, I just fall apart.”

“Well, no pressure here. Just do your own thing.” Holding the brush in her talons, Silver Lining held it out to Nuance, who stared up at it with wide, fearful eyes. “Come on, Nuance. Have I ever led you astray? I’m like, your favourite foalsitter.”

Bashful, the colt squirmed and looked down at the ground. “You are. But that’s only because you never expect anything from me. I don’t have to do anything.

Perhaps it was the ether, but Sundance said something that he’d never say aloud under normal circumstances. It just came out, exactly what was on his mind, and had he presence of mind to react to himself, he might have felt betrayed by his mouth’s traitorous actions.

“I live in fear of disappointing my mother,” he confessed. It sounded as though he had said, “I leave in far of dish-appointing my mother.” Blinking, Sundance tried to make sense of what had just come out of his mouth, but his treacherous pie hole wasn’t done with him yet. “It’s gotta be bad for you, Nuance, because your mommy is Celestia. That’s rough. I mean, my mom, she’s just a pegasus and I live with all kinds of anxiety. Just the thought of letting her down gives me fits. Fits, I tell you. Yeah. Fits. The fear of what she might do or could do is worse than anything she actually does. I can’t feel my tongue or my lips right now.”

Nuance’s expression was nuanced; as such, it was utterly unreadable.

The silence that followed was given little time to gestate into anything meaningful, as Silver Lining also bared her heart. “I feel the same way about my father. He’s rough, and he’s gruff, but my imagination of him is worse than anything he’s ever done. I live each moment of my life as if he’s watching me… and for all I know, he just might be. So I’m mindful of everything I do, everything I say, and of my every action. I don’t know if it has made me a better griffon, but I think it has.”

Nuance, who took the brush into his telekinetic grasp, held it mere inches in front of his snoot and stared at it, almost cross-eyed. For a moment, it seemed as though he might say something, but mere seconds after his mouth opened, it closed and his lips pressed tight against one another. His tiny, thin chin jutted out, his slender neck bent, and his small hooves clicked against one another as he shuffled about.

“My father, Wormwood, he’s no princess, no alicorn, but he is a Warden. He’s scary, he’s terrifying, and he loves me to pieces. The very idea of letting him down gives me panic attacks. So I have some idea how rough it must be to have Celestia as your mother, Nuance. That’s why I try to cut you some slack and just let you do your own thing when I foalsit. I understand the pressure.” Silver Lining reached up and smoothed back the feathers on her head, which were mussed and dishevelled.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” the small colt admitted, with his eyes affixed on the brush. “Along with everything else my mind does to me, I spend my waking hours thinking about all of the ways I let my parents down. No matter what I do, I can’t stop. I get so upset that it messes up my stomach and I can’t eat and then because I’m hungry, I can’t think or get stuff done. It’s like… I fall down a hole. That’s why I like getting away from my parents… and my family. It’s like, the pressure goes away, and I can think again. Sort of. Sometimes. Not always.”

“We hold ourselves to impossibly high standards to please our parents.” Now, Silver Lining too, stared down at the floor.

“I mostly do it to impress Quiet. She… well… I want her to like me. I need her to like me.” After closing his eyes, Nuance coughed and his shuffling turned into full-blown fidgeting. “She’s being raised to rule. That’s why I have to get my act together and do right. I want to be there with her, when she’s ruling. But to do that, I have to do all of these things… and there is so much pressure.” The colt sighed, shook his head, and throughout his dialogue, his grip on the brush never faltered.

Something within Sundance’s mind bubbled and little thoughtlets rose to the thin surface film of his consciousness. He did not have a Quiet—a companion that inspired him to achieve greatness. It was difficult to think about any one thing for very long in his current state, but this stuck around. It was, after all, a necessity. He had to hurry up and establish himself a legacy. Nuance wasn’t even half of Sundance’s age, but the colt already had his eyes on a filly—a fact that brought Sundance’s own shortcomings to the forefront.

Cucumber was gone, Sundance’s barony was retainerless, there was a tiny crystal tree that needed good deeds to be nourished, and the knowledge of everything that was required of him was a sledgehammer blow to his fugued mind. Nuance, for all of his faults, real, imagined, or otherwise, had his stuff together. He had a direction for his future. As for Sundance… his fount of wisdom and advice had just died.

As his vision turned blurry, he wondered if it was the ether messing with him.

No amount of effort, no strain nor exertion held the tears back. They came as a flood, a torrent, a terrible beast of white water that turned to a deluge in the canyons of his mind. He had no idea what he was doing, and he attributed most of what success he had to Cucumber. What would he do now? His compass was gone, leaving him directionless.

No, worse than that, his friend was gone.

“No, no, no!” Nuance’s voice was almost a whine. “We just got the tea into you to sort you out!” The colt wickered, whinnied, his face darkened, and then, he too began crying.

There was a clatter as the brush fell to the floor.

“Of course, the foalsitter is left to clean everything up.” Silver Lining sighed the words as she plucked the brush up from the floor. “Okay, fine. Get it out of your systems and then I’ll wash your faces and brush you both. Go on, do as I say… have a good cry together. Just get it all out before the funeral, I guess. Guards, if you don’t mind… please, give us some privacy.”

After a brief exchange between themselves, the two guards near the door stepped outside, leaving Silver Lining to salvage the situation.


The shadows had grown long, like insubstantial, nebulous fingers stretching over the barony. Of the owlbear, the creature that had sown so much chaos and misery, there was no sign, not one feather nor hair. Even the cottage that had collapsed—Cucumber’s cottage, by sheer happenstance—had been restored. Magic was a wondrous, marvellous thing, and Sundance, addled though he was, wondered how they would all live without Cucumber.

A grave had been dug; not in the cemetery, as expected. Rather, there was a deep hole in the earth near the crystalline tree. Cucumber would be buried where the tree had rooted, a position of honour that his fallen retainer deserved—no matter what black deeds had been done. Already, there were stakes in the ground around the tree, markers for a fence yet to be built.

Princess Celestia stood near the tree and it appeared as though she basked in some unseen light. There was magic here, strange, unknown magic, and Sundance could feel it in his bones, in his marrow, he could feel it permeating through every cell of his being. Standing near the tree eased his pain, cleared his mind, and gave some clarity to his many thoughts.

Others too, remained near the tree. Some wept, some were quiet, thoughtful, and contemplative. Sauerkraut Pie and Potato consoled one another, clinging to each other while sharing muffled words of reassurance. Of Earwig and Earwax, there was no sign of them, and Sundance figured that they were with Hollyhock, who was lost in the throes of labour.

Though fearful for reasons unknown about breaking Princess Celestia’s concentration, Sundance approached with the intention of speaking to her. He was flanked by Nuance and Silver Lining, who were now something more than friends to him, but what, exactly, could not be said. But before he could say anything, Celestia, the mother, not the princess, took notice of her son.

“Nuance… you’ve been crying.”

Before the colt could protest, he was snatched and lifted into the air. Celestia pulled him close, and in full view of everypony present, began rubbing her cheek against his face and neck. He resisted, but only for a short time, and with a sigh, Nuance allowed his mother to comfort him. With his eyes closed, he even went as far as to wrap his stubby legs part-way around his mother’s graceful, swanlike neck, and he clung to her, his breathing heavy, his slight body shuddering.

Sundance had clung to his own mother in much the same way, but that was so long ago.

Too long, perhaps. He missed her now, at this moment, and he was almost certain that if she were present, he would cling to her in much the same way Nuance held on to his mother. Celestia was mom-sized to most ponies and in his current, somewhat addled state, Sundance felt foal-sized standing near her. Here she was, offering her unabashed affection in full view of all present—a sight that Sundance was sure that most ponies never got a chance to see.

“Little Nuance… with your tender heart, you are so unlike your brother. I have such high hopes for you. There, there, little one.” Swaying, the big mare continued to rub her cheek against her son, and she hummed a soothing murmur into his ear.

Emotional, Sundance’s knees wobbled and threatened to betray him, but Silver Lining kept him upright. He leaned into her; she was big, solid, and sturdy, so his weight did not budge her, not even in the slightest. She was also soft, warm, and there was something about her that brought him some much-needed comfort.

“My husband was a mama’s colt,” Silver Lining whispered to Sundance. “In general, he avoided his mothers, until he was hurt, or upset, or needed them, and then he was clingy. Maybe I shouldn’t call him clingy. I was clingy.” The chubby griffoness sighed, causing Sundance to rise and fall against her. “I guess my point is, if I was trying to make one, is that the tender, emotional types tend to be mama’s colts.”

Sundance thought about saying something, but didn’t.

“Come to think of it, my husband is still a mama’s colt…”

Author's Note:

You know, both Luna and Nuance have something in common. Both have stood in Celestia's shadow. If only they'd connect over that.

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