• Published 30th Mar 2018
  • 636 Views, 26 Comments

If You Have a Little Hope... - Quillamore



After months of personal drama and trauma, Coco Pommel and her daughter Babs Seed are finally on the road to recovery. But, with the friends they have, it just might be crazier than either expected. A standalone sequel to If You Give a Little Love.

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Song One: 99 Barrels of Oats

Coco Pommel stared out the window intently, watching the Manehattan skyline fly past as the wind caressed her mane. Less than a year ago, she would have viewed such a departure as an escape from the worst sorts of ponies imaginable, and yet somehow, she couldn’t help but feel a bit of longing for the city. It’d been one of the few places she’d ever known, and yet here she was, leaving it to the dust like a madmare. But even then, she knew that before long, the skyscrapers that’d fenced her in for so long would fade into mere memories.

She and the rest of her theatrical troupe, Silver Phoenix, had huddled into a strange-looking cart set to leave at dawn, out to spread their latest song and dance to all of Equestria. Or, at least, the seven cities they could manage to hit on a two-week tour. In any case, the director, Scene Stealer, had assured his cast and crew that this “bus” would accommodate to all their requests in a new and innovative fashion and take them places that even trains couldn’t go. Coco still wasn’t completely sold on it, but she’d learned not to doubt Scene’s instincts.

Or, as she blushed and hoped rain wouldn’t fall on her head anytime soon, that’s what she chose to tell herself. Thinking about Scene for too long gave her all sorts of conflicting feelings, ones that were often all too easily spotted.

“He’s not up here,” the pony next to her said with a scoff. “He’s on the other level, so think of him all you want and don’t worry one bit about embarrassin’ yourself.”

If it’d been anypony else, Coco would’ve wondered just how they knew what was going through her head, but that voice told her everything she needed to know. Years ago, she’d almost sacrificed her past job with Suri for this filly in front of her, and not too long ago, she’d even come close to sacrificing her life. She’d been through so much for this foal, but as the other pony blew her mane out of her eyes, Coco felt nothing but love stream through her heart.

She’d always known that Equestrian legends came with confidants, and traveling to Canterlot only made her hyper-aware of that fact. Heroes never came alone, and finding that special group would always be the first step in a great journey. One that both the Elements of Harmony, and the Pillars of Equestria before them, had faced. Just thinking about it was enough to make her feel as if she was embarking on some amazing quest rather than just a mundane vacation.

And yet Coco also knew that she would never become an Equestrian legend, or even a true hero. She and everypony else on this bus was destined to be an ordinary celebrity, never somepony who could liberate entire lands with barely a thought. But at the very least, she had a special something that wasn’t there a year ago--a family that she’d formed and fought for all on her own.

The other members of her new family, Cameo and Bambi, were off living their lives in Manehattan, probably already waiting for her return. But the one in front of her, Babs Seed, was the one who’d brought it all together. Her daughter, the one pony Coco would sacrifice everything in Equestria for.

The thought still overwhelmed her, even a year after the adoption. And yet all Babs could do was stare at her in the strangest sort of awe, wondering just when exactly her incapacitated mother could respond.

“I’m fine,” Coco finally said, shaking her head nervously. “I just can’t believe we’re actually doing this. I mean sure, it won’t be a complete party, and we still have to work on school and work stuff, but--this is actually going to be nice.”

“Yeah,” replied Babs, scoffing slightly at the way Coco effortlessly changed the subject. “Just the two of us with no real problems in sight? Doin’ normal family things? It almost don’t feel real, ya know?”

What would’ve felt like an ordinary vacation for many ponies was going to be a welcome break for the two of them. When Coco had first found her, Babs had been wasting away in an illegal factory, working hours even Coco herself couldn’t imagine. Back when she’d first adopted the filly, she’d thought she could help Babs put her past aside and live like a normal foal, but that had been easier said than done considering the fact that the Oranges, the wealthiest family in Manehattan, had been the ones to abandon her in the first place. Taking them to justice had been one of the hardest battles of both of their lives, especially considering that Mosely, the Orange who’d started the whole mess, had worked as Coco’s producer for a while. He’d even lured her into dating him for a month or so, just so he could cover his tracks.

Once she and Babs had finally worked up the courage to go to therapy, the therapist had told both of them that whenever either felt the urge to think about Mosely, they should imagine an incredibly disgruntled stallion in a orange jumpsuit, probably cleaning the first toilet of his life. Both found this strategy exceedingly helpful.

The two unlikely relatives didn’t have much time to consider their lives, though. The Silver Phoenix crew could be a boisterous bunch, and the new producer, Wright Notes, had felt the need to involve everypony in a group activity. As if his voice wasn’t already loud enough to be heard from both layers of the double-decker bus, he’d chosen to snatch a megaphone away from a particular blue stallion beside him.

If there was one thing Coco knew about Scene Stealer, the unicorn who’d helped her through her convoluted conditions on more occasions than she could count, it was that he was very protective of that particular megaphone. He was already getting along better with Wright than he had with Mosely, but Coco had a feeling that was about to change after this kind of stunt.

After a few minutes of barely audible bickering between her director and producer, Wright finally reclaimed the megaphone and announced their latest event--a team-building exercise.

“Call it what it is,” Scene muttered annoyedly, grabbing hold of the megaphone for the shortest of moments. “You’re just trying to dress up a travel game as something productive.”

“Maybe I am,” Wright responded. Coco could practically hear his eyebrows waggle. “But if I remember right, that isn’t exactly something we did on the road with the last guy. So we might as well make up for all the fun we could’ve had without that killjoy!”

Coco had heard jokes before about entire trains breaking into cheers and clapping, but nothing could compare to actually seeing it. Everypony (including herself, admittedly) hooted and hollered at Wright’s remark, even though most secretly dreaded the activity he had in mind. Although a few ponies had missed Mosely after he’d had to step down, he had a reputation for being a stick in the mud amongst the crew, a businesspony who micromanaged everything they did and who wouldn’t last a day on Bridleway proper. While enough ponies liked Coco for her to believe they took her side out of kindness alone, sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder if the Mosely grudge had been part of the equation, too.

As much as she appreciated having that much support, though, the rowdiness on the bus was already starting to worry her. Most of the time, she hadn’t had to worry about Babs running into things a filly her age shouldn’t know about yet, and some would even say that after what she’d been through, trying to preserve her innocence would be a futile affair. Yet, even though Coco had never thought of herself as a particularly prudish pony, she began to wonder what sort of whisperings her filly would hear from her troupe. She’d spent enough time trying to keep Babs from finding out too much about the legal issues her family had faced, and about the type of pony Mosely really was, that she knew her daughter could figure anything out with time. And while Coco had kept information from Babs before, it’d largely been to preserve her sanity.

With all that in mind, the idea of her picking up a bad word from ponies she trusted was trivial at most. After several minutes of thinking it over, and several minutes of everypony around her bickering about what game to play, all she could do was sigh in annoyance at herself.

Am I really making up my own problems now that everything’s okay? Coco asked herself, shaking her head in annoyance. For a slight second, she almost didn’t want to admit to that embarrassing fact, but then, right as the bus left the outskirts of Manehattan, she could hear a single sound that drowned out everything else.

She knew exactly what it was going to be before it came, before just about everypony else on the bus lifted their heads towards the sky and opened their mouths wider than she’d ever seen before. From her experiences with theatre, and with ponies in general, those signs could only mean one thing.

99 buckets of oats on the wall, 99 buckets of oats, you take one down, you pass it around, you’ve got 98 buckets of oats on the wall!

The song choice was at once unexpected and painfully obvious to everypony inside the bus, especially Coco.

These, she had to remind herself, are grown adults. The finest actors in Equestria. Ponies who make dirty jokes backstage all the time. And I was worried about them?

She stood on her high horse for about five seconds before joining in. After about five verses of the song, the cast members decided it would be much easier on them, and far less distracting to the other ponies on the road, if each pony took turns singing instead of doing it all at once. And so the song continued at the back of the bus and moved effortlessly forward.

At that moment, Coco realized that she’d never really had this kind of experience growing up. She’d been to a few cities, Ponyville included, but since her parents were small business owners, they didn’t exactly have the time for these sorts of vacation shenanigans. Most of her travel had been done when she was older, and especially once she left Suri behind. Experiences like this were things that Coco had only heard about in movies, from the friends she made in class.

When she told all this to Babs, the filly nodded in agreement, as if she was on the same wavelength.

“At least we’ll get to do this together, then,” she said. “It’s a first for both of us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Me neither,” responded Coco. “So what do you think we should do once we get there? I mean, you’re the one who’s been wanting to go to Canterlot for so long and all. We probably won’t be able to do anything tonight, since we’ll get there pretty late, but we don’t have to get ready for the play for another couple days. Any plans?”

She expected the foal to go straight into a flurry of ideas, but for some reason or another, Babs stayed silent. She scratched her chin and blew her hair out of her eyes, but the only sound that came out was still “99 Buckets of Oats,” now on 89 buckets. As if she wasn’t already flustered enough, the bus suddenly went silent, and after a few stress-filled seconds, she finally realized that it was her turn to sing.

“I, uh, don’t really know how to do this,” she answered, trying to act cool but still letting out a few nervous chuckles in the process. “Haven’t been payin’ attention. What are we on again?”

Coco practically cringed as everypony’s eyes turned towards the two of them. While she knew that nopony was going to judge them for flubbing the song, Babs wasn’t always aware of such things. Some of the first memories she’d had were of ponies confronting her over small things, whether they were her bullies at school or the criminals who ran the factory she worked at, so it was all too easy for her to flash back to those times and forget the present. So, just when Babs was about to freeze up, she felt a comforting nudge to her side.

“85 buckets of oats on the wall,” Coco sang softly, “85 buckets of oats…”

“...you take one down, you pass it around, you’ve got 84 buckets of oats on the wall.”

The shift was almost too tiny for most ponies to notice, but as Babs sang, her mother could already feel her confidence returning. Once she got out of that judgemental world of hers and back into reality, she was as much like an ordinary foal as anypony in her condition could be. By the time she stopped singing, it was almost like she’d forgotten why her fear had been so powerful to begin with.

Before she’d adopted her, Coco wasn’t sure what her dream was, but in that moment, she knew. With any hope, this would be the last time that Babs would show up during the trip, and the rest of the time, the foal would be filled with happiness. With any hope, that would become their new lives.

And so, the two kept careful watch, waiting for their next turn, and spent the rest of the time discussing all the ways they could fulfill their dreams in two weeks’ time. The time was filled with more awkward silences than either wanted to hear, but eventually, even that was broken.

“Actually,” Babs finally said, “I’ve never really thought about what I wanted to do in Canterlot. It just seemed like a place I’ve wanted to be. A place normal foals go with their parents. I never really thought about what to do there ‘cause I never thought I’d be there, you know?”

Even though she’d heard that same sort of talk from her foal all too many times, Coco’s head still sank towards the floor, as if some magnetic magic had drawn her there. No matter how much Babs was moving forward, these sorts of thoughts would always invade her mind for years to come, but Coco had sworn months before to prove her wrong every time.

She was a normal filly. And even if she wasn’t, that wasn’t what she needed to be. All she needed to be was the smart, artistic, unbelievably strong pony that she was, and the amazing pony she was destined to be. As long as she knew that, it didn’t matter how many times Coco would say those same words.

“You’re here now. It doesn’t matter if you’re like the rest, because you can become better than all of them. And you deserve every good thing that’s about to happen to you. Every friend you’re about to make, every star you’re about to see, every adventure you’re about to have. It’s because you fought to become more than what those ponies thought you were. So tell me--what does a bad seed really do?”

This had been a trick Coco had picked up from the therapist, but the words were all her own. They were some of the final words she’d told Mosely, the ones that had brought his whole world crashing down. The words that, she hoped, would just as easily rebuild Babs’ world.

“They feed on other ponies’ potential and steal it for themselves.”

“And tell me, do you do that?”

“Nope!”

Babs shook her head about as wildly as she could, another coping strategy she’d picked up over the past few months. The more the two of them made her insecurities into a game, the more ridiculous they seemed every time she brought them up. Eventually, she’d come to associate them with her mother’s support and another set of good memories instead.

The two of them both knew that would be a long path ahead, even if most of their sorrows had dissipated to the past. But, as they took in the landscape and planned out their Canterlot trip, Coco couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, the path to self-forgiveness would be far shorter than either of them realized.

****

As it turned out, the boisterous troupe of actors had taught Babs something she was far too young to know about. In the next few hours, all of Coco’s worries were confirmed. To her surprise, however, the pony who confirmed them was the last pony she’d expected.

Her coltfriend, the craziest Bridleway director she’d ever met, had been allowed the last word. And whenever Scene Stealer got such a chance, it would never go well for anypony.

Right when everypony was on the last legs of the song, singing in unison about one barrel of oats, Scene finally reclaimed hold of the megaphone and sang in his best baritone:

“Negative one barrels of oats on the wall, negative one barrels of oats…”

They were already less than an hour’s distance from Canterlot, and before the song had ended, everypony had turned to stare at Celestia’s sun, setting as near to its source as they’d ever see it. But now, that enthusiasm had clearly faded, and it was all anypony could do to groan at Scene and hope for a few minutes of peace. After a series of annoyed sighs that almost rivaled the way they’d reacted to Wright slamming Mosely hours ago, Scene finally put down the megaphone and let the song die a natural death. But the damage had already been done, and Coco knew it as soon as she realized Babs had been one of the few ponies who didn’t mock Scene.

And in those moments, she knew that the minute she hit Canterlot, she wasn’t going to be thinking about taking a dip in the hotel pool, or crashing on an extraordinarily plush bed. Because, after almost a year with this filly, she knew exactly what was going to come out of Babs’ mouth:

“What does he mean, ‘negative one?’”

The Manehattan school district was one of the finest in Equestria, and the foals who studied there learned a wide number of things before their peers even thought about them. They started learning dragon history in kindergarten. Basic STEM education in first grade. The Pony Decimal System, every second grader knew. But for some un-celestial reason, it didn’t occur to anypony to start teaching negative numbers before the first semester of fifth grade.

And so, as she wracked her brain in an attempt to both explain the concept as best as she could in less than a half hour and do so using the new math methods Babs’ curriculum taught, it took everything Coco had not to curse her director.

As the sky faded into night and the group finally arrived at their destination, a staggering group of ponies complained about how tired the journey had made them. Yet, even as she felt the most fatigued out of all of them, Coco was still able to work up enough energy to answer Babs’ final question.

“So, if negative numbers mean that you don’t have somethin’, to the point where you have to come up with new ones just to say how much of it ya don’t have...how can ya have negative one barrels of oats?”

Staring up at the sky, embracing her filly with everything she had, Coco Pommel came out of the tour bus laughing.

“You can’t. And that, my filly, is why Bridleway directors can’t be trusted with math.”

Author's Note:

Both new readers and old, welcome to the new If You Have a Little Hope! There'll be a few small twists and turns, but for the most part, it'll be slice-of-life episodes like this, so I hope you enjoy the new direction we're going in!

Let me tell you, it's really fun to go back to these two and come up with new adventures for them. I hope you continue to support this series for the next parts! They're all based off children's songs, so it should be fun to predict what the next ones are going to be. :twilightsmile: