If You Have a Little Hope...

by Quillamore

Song Four: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

After ten days of flitting around Equestria, Babs was beginning to understand why so many singers wrote songs about the toll tours took on them. At this point, even after Coco’s eventful birthday festivities, Babs still couldn’t bring herself to remember where they were going at any particular time. It all seemed the same to her by now--drive towards a city, spend a few all-too-short days there, and then pack up and head someplace else. It was the sort of hugely predictable pattern nopony should associate with vacation, and if she and Coco ever got the chance to see the world again, Babs decided she’d rather pick one city and stay with it.

If it was any comfort to her, though, many of the ponies on the tour bus seemed to feel the same way. They hid it a lot better, as she’d expected famous actors would, but fatigue dominated their surroundings nonetheless. As the days went by, more and more of them began to talk about their home and tell stories of the city they’d all become so entranced with.

One more stop after this one, they’d say. Applewood, then Ponyville, and finally back to Manehattan. It’d been on their minds so much that a couple days ago, when Silver Phoenix landed in Las Pegasus, few ponies went all out. A few rounds of sparkling cider, a few rides and games, and everypony else was too tired out by then.

With all this in mind, Babs chose to stare out the window at the landscape, an activity that had become less of an adventure than a way to stay awake. Meanwhile, as she drifted off into her own world, Scene Stealer went by, handing everypony the latest letters. Since the tour dates were common knowledge to anypony who followed Bridleway, anypony who wished to send news to the cast would mail letters to the latest hotel Silver Phoenix was staying at. The correspondence had dried out a little as the novelty of sending letters to Bridleway actors wore out, but sure enough, Babs could already see that Coco had received a letter.

Before she could think any further, there was already one on Babs’ lap, too. And the minute she saw it, she knew Scene hadn’t examined any of today’s letters, because if he had…

Anyway, all she needed to do was look at the address to know it belonged in the nearest trash receptacle. For some inexplicable reason, somepony from Applewood had not only decided to send her something right before she entered the city, but that somepony also had the misfortune of being named Wild Orange.

Babs may not have known this pony, but she knew what happened to ponies who got letters from the Oranges. If there was one thing the Oranges were passionate about, it was recruiting ponies into their family like it was some sort of prestigious club. A few months ago, she and Coco had been targeted, and by the time it was all over, Babs had ended up with a fake Orange cutie mark on her flank. It was all part of the matriarch Midsweet Orange’s plan--separate the two of them for long enough to get Babs off by herself, only to foalnap and indoctrinate her into the perfect daughter she’d never had. Though, at times, Babs swore the elderly Orange had seen her more as a new pet than anything else.

Either way, just thinking about her time with Midsweet was still enough to make her shudder. Any news the Oranges gave would bring them straight into another trap, so opening it was the absolute last thing Babs wanted to do. And yet, somehow, morbid curiosity brought her to do so anyway.

That, and the image of the utterly desperate Manehattan Oranges practically begging her, Coco, and the rest of the Apples for assistance. Apparently, if what her therapist told her was any indication, these sorts of vengeful delusions at least meant she was getting somewhere in her trauma management process.

So, without further ado, she tore open the letter, and as she did so, Babs could distinctly feel Coco breathing down her neck. Either she’d been too scared to open it or was waiting for her daughter to do so, but now that the envelope was open, a look of confusion and fear came across her face.

“It’s fine,” Babs said, pretending the news hadn’t affected her every bit as much. “I mean, the Oranges aren’t even recruiting ponies from other families anymore. I have no clue why they’d want to send us anything else, but whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what we got before.”

I hope, she thought to herself as she said it.

Midsweet’s plan had put a damper on all the Orange recruiting and forced the family to take a long, hard look at themselves. For a while, some of the Apples had even stayed in Manehattan to help with the restoration process, if only to teach the Oranges what real family looked like. They’d found a new leader in the process--Mosely’s daughter Bambi, which would have freaked Babs out significantly more if Bambi didn’t also happen to be Babs’ half-sister and near-constant fillyhood companion. That, at least, was one comfort--with Bambi’s job, if anypony tried to hurt Babs again, they’d end up on the front cover of the Manehattan Times.

Finally, after several seconds of consideration, Babs slowly lifted the letter out of the envelope, only to find that it lacked the Oranges’ usual stationery. In fact, it was barely large enough to be a letter at all, with a huge logo taking up most of the space.

Seville Orange Spa and Wellness Studio
If you or a loved one have encountered our Manehattan family branch, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Exchange for one FREE spa treatment and meditation session!

The address was printed on the back in equally intricate writing and was conveniently located a mile or so away from where Silver Phoenix was staying. While she couldn’t help but think the Applewood Oranges could have avoided the whole deal by giving everypony on set coupons instead of singling out her and Coco, she had to admit one thing was better about the other branch.

Babs still wasn’t sold on whether or not they really repented for their relatives’ actions, but at least they had a good sense of humor about it.

Coco, however, seemed far less impressed. She’d turned to ask Limelight, one of the actresses behind her, about whether or not the coupon could be trusted. However, right when Limelight was about to respond, the mare next to her cut in. Unfortunately for everypony involved, that mare also happened to be Suri Polomare.

Suri wasn’t super high on Babs’ hate list--not anymore, at least--but she was still up there. Back when Mosely had her on factory duty, Suri had been one of Babs’ top customers--and hence top tormentors. And that was on top of the fact that she’d actually dated Mosely before Coco had, and on top of all the things she’d done to her mother throughout the years. The fact of the matter wasn’t that Babs hated her any less as much as that she’d found herself having to hate other ponies more. Compared to them...at least Suri was just a minor annoyance.

“I’m not so sure I’d trust them,” Suri began. “I met up with the Applewood Oranges ages ago, and it wasn’t such a good time. I’d say they’re almost as bad as our Oranges, just a lot better at hiding it.”

She stared at her hooves casually and admired her pony-pedi before turning back to Coco. Babs could tell that, as much as Coco doubted any kind of Oranges, in that moment, she doubted Suri even more. Her normally warm eyes almost turned ice blue with all her skepticism.

“And where did you learn that? Was that something the Manehattan family told you?”

Even when she was calling somepony out, Coco’s voice never felt too bitter or barbed. Babs had almost never seen her lose her composure, and this time was no different.

“No,” Suri scoffed. “I met one in the flesh, mmkay? They’re a bunch of hippies who think they can control everything. They’re into relaxation services now, and they were into cosmetics when I saw the Applewood Orange I found. This was way before I met Mosely, by the way. Anyway, one just randomly came up to me on the street and told me I had really pretty eyes. Of course, I completely agreed with him, but that’s beside the point, mmkay?”

Babs felt herself tuning out of the conversation for a minute. Even if Suri wasn’t quite the bad pony she used to be, she could still drone on for hours without getting to the point. Again, this time was no different.

“...so after a few minutes, I figured he was flirting with me, and I let him keep talking. But the next thing I know, he pulls out this brown eyeshadow palette and tells me it’d really compliment my eyes. So on top of everything else, turns out he was just giving me a sales pitch the whole time.”

“Sounds like you’re just bitter that you didn’t get a date,” Limelight teased.

For probably the nineteenth time, Babs marveled at how she could sit next to Suri this whole time without facehoofing.

“I’m not, okay? And then he told me that his company doesn’t test on animals.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Coco asked innocently.

“We are animals, Coco! Ponies are animals! He tried to pawn a completely untested product on me!”

Babs had never stayed in Ponyville long enough to carry on an extended conversation with Fluttershy, but she was still pretty sure that wasn’t how it worked. If all else failed, maybe she’d ask this Wild Orange tomorrow and, if he was really a bad pony, she could at least catch him in the act.

But, just like always, the open road ran on and on, and by the time Babs could collect her thoughts much further, Silver Phoenix was already in Applewood.

****

Even as suspicion surged through Babs’ heart, a strange side of her actually wanted to see this place. At the very least, just to make sure it wasn’t another Orange scam, or perhaps out of some other misplaced hope.

Throughout her life, she’d met many terrible Oranges. But she’d met just as many good ones: Bambi, Valencia, even Cameo, the birth mother she was still getting to know. If she could trust in them, and if they were good on the inside, maybe not all Oranges were tainted by their lineage.

Maybe this would become yet another act of closure.

Coco, for her part, seemed to agree, though she did warn Babs that she was mainly doing this because she hadn’t planned any other activities in Applewood. The second things got suspicious, the two told themselves, they would make a run for it and head to the next safe and normal tourist destination. And so, as the clock struck ten, they trotted into battle.

They said a quick farewell to the theatre ponies, who were all practicing in the hotel ballroom. Babs suspected that, if they weren’t so famous, the hotel staff would have surely run them out for all the noise they were making.

This would be the hardest part of the whole thing--while they were used to taking excursions on their own by now, they couldn’t tell Scene or anypony else just who had summoned them. Coco had harped on this especially, knowing that Scene would stop all production to escort the two of them if he caught wind that Orange hijinks was about to ensue.

Babs had almost pointed out that her mother was all too used to doing such things, keeping secrets so other ponies wouldn’t know what she was going through, getting herself into trouble far too many times. But then, she recalled all the times she’d done the exact same thing.

“Come on, everypony!” she could hear Scene say in the distance. “You can’t spell ‘improve’ without ‘improv!’”

As they moved towards the spa center and left him behind, Babs supposed that was yet another reason fate had drawn her and Coco together.

****

Babs had never been an expert when it came to spa treatments, but she was pretty sure this wasn’t how they were supposed to start. Namely, with a white pony in an orange mohawk trying to teach an entire room how to breathe.

She knew that all this yoga and meditation stuff was just another way to differentiate the Orange business from the millions of other spas out there, but honestly, she couldn’t wait to get it over with. The massages and hot tubs at the Ponyville spa always looked like far more fun than any of this, if only because trying to think hard enough about something she did naturally was the most annoying thing in the world.

“Inward through your nose,” the stallion droned in his almost comically relaxed voice. “Out through your mouth. Imagine your diaphragm expanding and contracting as you breathe your sorrows away.”

She wished it was that easy, but it seemed like the more she thought about all this stuff, the more restless she got. It may not have been another Orange trap, but she was still a Cutie Mark Crusader. She couldn’t just lay around and breathe for a half-hour straight! She was made to move around, explore Equestria, discover herself--

“You’re supposed to suck your stomach in when you breathe out,” Coco whispered as Babs was thinking this. “I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it’s not how ponies normally do things, but it’s helping me.”

At least one of us is gettin’ something out of this, Babs thought to herself. Just for that, she made a special effort to do everything Wild Orange the meditation coach told her, but she couldn’t get the weirdly contradictory advice out of her head. One minute, he’d told his class to breathe naturally, without thinking about it, and then he went around and told them to focus on their breathing. The very fact that ponies paid for such things made her wonder if part of Suri’s story had been true after all.

They definitely weren’t like the Manehattan Oranges, that much was for certain. But with every breath, Babs couldn’t help but wonder if they were scammers all the same.

They almost had to be. There was no way in Equestria that anypony, let alone an enemy family, could just clear up her life in an instant. Not only that, but she was naive for even thinking they stood a chance of doing that.

Another ten minutes of breathing went by, but it might have well as been a thousand years to Babs. Still, by the time she got back onto her hooves, a feeling of relief crossed her stomach. Her lungs hadn’t ached so much since she’d worked in the factory, yet that thought never came to her mind. Instead, all she could feel was a sort of calm power emanating through her, something she hadn’t felt since she could remember.

She’d barely done anything, and yet somehow, in that moment, everything just felt okay. Then again, that could just as easily have been because she’d spent so long letting her anger out inside her head. As the coach directed them through yet another series of exercises, she kept that thought inside her head and tried to keep in control.

If the breathing was a calm control, then this had to be far stronger, the sorts of things Babs imagined royal guards trained through. Rearing up, laying back, kicking hooves into all sorts of positions she wasn’t even sure she was capable of. Coco struggled a little bit more with this sort of thing, and she was never able to hold the poses as long as everypony else. But Babs could tell that her mother spent that time standing back, admiring her daughter, the way her strength and flexibility flowed inside and out.

Slowly, more and more ponies left the session until it was only the two of them and the Applewood Orange and for the first time all day, Babs’ body began to tense. This was it. Any chance the Orange had to trick them, swindle them, anything, would come at this very moment. The Oranges knew better than anypony else that the best way to get to them was to take everypony else out of the equation, and it was a trap that Coco and Babs had always fallen into.

This time, Babs swore, would be no different. The time they’d had with him was relaxing, sure, but even that could be twisted for an ulterior motive. Just before talking with them again, he’d spent several minutes outside the room, as if he’d been desperately searching for something suspicious. And, as if her past experience with Oranges didn’t confirm it enough, Wild took out the absolute last thing she was expecting to see. It was a box of essential oils, no different than the kinds she’d seen Rarity use occasionally, but the name stamped on the pack was enough to make her stop in her tracks.

Flynn Skim.

The pony who’d started all of this, Babs thought to herself. My father.

Between his early death and her own kidnapping, Babs never really had a chance to get to know him. He’d been an aromatherapist many years ago, but his ties to the infamous Flim Flam brothers had kept him from getting too far in the business. As if that wasn’t enough, Mosely had never really forgiven Flynn for stealing his wife away from him, and he’d sought to continue that revenge with Babs. That was about all Babs had ever known about her father, and most of that had come from the night Mosely had been exposed in the first place.

But, somehow or another, this pony, this Orange knew even more. Even though she’d never felt particularly curious about Flynn before, Babs felt her eyes widening as her father’s handicraft lay in front of her.

“There’s no way,” she said, almost to herself. “H-he never sold anywhere but Manehattan, and his workers haven’t made any new scents since! This has to be a trick!”

Instead of answering, though, Wild Orange simply shot her a mischievous smile. After a few short moments, though, he said the first non-instructor words she’d heard out of him all day.

“I guess I could say that you’ve learned well. It’s best not to believe anything any of the Oranges on the other coast say. I can’t pretend I’m any better or worse than them, any more than I can say I’m better or worse than anypony else. But I can at least tell you this: my family here has vowed for years that they’ll never turn into those Oranges. And I think this is the best way I can get you to believe me.”

As much as Babs tried to maintain her composure, her green eyes were still shocked enough to practically fall off her head. Just seeing that her father had gone into the world and created something that others still used was enough to chase away any grief she might have had for a pony she barely remembered. Finally, after a few moments, she urged herself towards the set, as if to confirm its existence.

The labels were peeled, and the oils inside were already beginning to discolor. But the scents inside them were beautifully pungent all the same, taking her to places she’d never even been before. The years had taken Flynn Skim, but they hadn’t taken his products.

As if to confirm, Wild Orange said, “Aromatherapy oils can actually get a little bit better with age. The best kinds of ponies are the exact same way. I never got to know your father very well, but I suspect he was the same way, too.”

For the first time all day, Babs could see just how young Wild really was. He’d always seemed different from the straight-laced Oranges she’d known, but just seeing the gleam in his eye was enough to tell her. He was barely any older than Coco, barely old enough to know her father. And yet somehow, for the briefest of moments, they’d met. She could only hope it had been a better experience than the one Mosely had given him.

“If you could excuse me,” Coco interrupted, staring at the spa pony somewhat self-consciously, “you never did answer the most important question we had. Where did you find these, and why did you call us? It’s no secret that you didn’t invite the rest of the ponies on set.”

With a toss of his hair, Wild continued with the sort of Orange swagger Babs suspected was the one thing that brought the two halves of the family together. Whether Manehattan or Applewood, no Orange lacked confidence. To the best of her knowledge, though, the Applewood Oranges just seemed to use it for better purposes.

“I’ll admit, this box was a good chunk of the reason for that last part. Ever since I started this business, I’ve had so many of these sets lying around, I’ve lost track of them all. I guess I could call myself a collector more than I could call myself an aromatherapist. Anyway, I figured with all the trouble my family’s caused you, it’s only right for it come back into Skim hooves. We can’t take back everything else our relatives did, but we at least owe you this much.

“Plus,” he said with a wink, “since most ponies go to us for orange crops nowadays, our health and wellness division’s been taking a massive hit. I figured having famous ponies like you around would get at least some business back here.”

Babs simply shook her head. Once an Orange, always an Orange. But, for once, she could at least tell he was kidding about the business stuff. And, even though she never really thought much about being called a famous pony or a Skim, somehow she didn’t mind it so much right now.

To her knowledge, this box had been the one piece of Flynn’s life that hadn’t faded away to time. Though she couldn’t claim she would ever remember the stallion enough to form a connection to him, or that she’d ever use the oils for their intended purposes, seeing them comforted her nevertheless. In a small way, she supposed, that probably was their intended use.

As the day went on, Wild told the two of them everything he knew about Babs’ father. He had appeared at a small perfuming convention in Applewood before Babs was born, and since he normally only sold in Manehattan, his sets had been “extremely limited-edition,” in the Orange’s own words. Back then, the Applewood Oranges had pooled most of their business into the burgeoning wellness industry, and they’d come to the convention as a sort of business retreat. Wild had been a teenager then, and according to him, Flynn had been a visionary. The pony who’d led him to research relaxation treatments. About to hit the big time, very nearly at the top of his game…

...but not quite. Not enough for Manehattan to start seeing him as more than just Flim and Flam’s brother. But still apparently enough for ponies on the opposite side of Equestria to appreciate his craft.

Babs got the feeling that Wild was exaggerating a little, playing it up for his idol’s daughter, but for once, her father felt like more than just another plot device in her life. Either way, thoughts still streamed through her mind as their spa treatment began, as she allowed herself to soak her aching body into the warm hot tub.

“Ponies are at their best when they relax,” her father had said years ago. “When there is no longer stress in the world, there will no longer be evil. I know it’s an impossible dream, but with my products, I hope I can bring at least a drop of purification to ponies’ lives. Because to feel relaxed is to feel redeemed.”

Flynn may not have been able to fulfill those dreams, but the minute Babs saw the cutie mark on her flank, she realized that she could do so just as easily. It would have to be another part of her potential hairstyling business, sure, but she could use those oils the way they were meant to be used. Relaxation, purification, relaxation.

It may well have been a passing dream for her, but she would fulfill it to its very end--for the mother who trotted by her side, and the father who watched over from the stars.

Author's Note:

Before you ask about how this part was released awfully close to Father's Day, a short disclaimer: the part with the oils actually came out of the blue. It wasn't part of the "original plan" for this part, but I enjoyed writing it all the same. Babs' father is a character I've wanted to explore for a while, and he may or may not get a whole prequel series dedicated to him at some point. I think of him as similar to Coco--well-intentioned and naive at times--except he never got the chance to learn the truth about Mosely.

(That bit about him being similar may or may not come into play later in this series. )

Also, our next part will take us back to Ponyville and to this series' first "real" plot arc. Rarity will confront Coco with a decision she may not be able to refuse...so look forward to it!

Comments

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

The pony who’d started all of this, Babs thought to herself. My father.

An iredeemable bastard.

Another great chapter! I can’t wait to see what happens next!

[Quillamore]

8987665

If you’re talking about Babs’ father, he wasn’t Mosely. He was an aromatherapist related to the Flim Flam Brothers. If you’re talking about Mosely, then call him that by all means.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

8987682
Oops .

[Quillamore]

8987687

He wasn’t brought up in a while, so it’s cool. Glad you enjoyed.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

8987695
Sure did .