Don't Bring Home the Bacon
Back in Canterlot City, it was a nice Sunday morning as people filled up Sweet Snacks Café. With Pinkie Pie absent, Sunny Sugarsocks and Free Sucrose took up her workload, skating around faster and carrying more orders in the breakfast rush. The sizzles continued in the kitchen, the doo-wop music played on from the jukebox, the smell of garlic and onion pervaded the area, and there were no service problems at all; the worst that came out of it were questions about Pinkie’s whereabouts.
Sugarsocks groaned at Lyra asking the question, the spiky-haired teenager tapping the table in waiting. “She said she’s out for a field trip with her friends. Don’t know where, but Everfree’s my best guess.”
“Yeah, but why do they have to keep it a secret?” Lyra said, raising a brow in suspicion. Then, smiling, “Unless they’re gonna surprise us when they come back and post all their Manehattan pictures tonight! I’d be mad if they actually did go to the city that stays awake all night!”
The waiter clucked her tongue in a whimsical way, gesturing about with her pink arms. “You wish!” and then she rolled away, having already served Lyra her order of bacon, eggs, and lettuce—actually, a mountain of bacon beside one sunny-side up egg and some lettuce leaves.
Seated behind her were Wallflower Blush and Juniper Montage, the gardener and the movie buff holding several cards as they waited for their order. Juniper placed a few cards on the right as she fixed her film reel-hair clips on one of her blue locks.
“If you want to play in The Canterlot Society of Poker,” she started, “you’ll have to start with the most basic of all poker games: the five-card draw.”
Wallflower nodded, holding up her one and only poker chip.
“The first thing you must learn when you play poker?” Juniper shook her head, letting her slim glasses bring out her serious expression. “It’s not really a game of chance.”
Wallflower hesitated as she looked on her five face-down cards. “Aren’t they random?”
Juniper crossed her arms and nodded. “Yes, they are. What’s not random is what you do with your cards—and what your opponents do with their cards isn’t random, either.” She pointed at her own deck of five cards. “How likely is your hand more valuable than mine, for example? You can’t read my mind, but you can narrow it down to a few choices.”
“Sunset can read minds,” Wallflower said.
“That’s why she’s never allowed in our club.”
Wallflower blinked. “Oh.”
Juniper glanced out the window. “It’s not easy to enter, anyway. Entry is invitation-only, which is why I’m training you to be worthy enough to get invited.”
Wallflower scratched her head.. “Then, what’s the difference? You said you’re not playing with real money, so I might as well make my own poker club and do my own thing.”
Juniper chuckled, gave a brief glimpse at the counter to see if the cooks were done with their order. “It’s an exclusive kind of hang-out. We’re not throwing random cards around. Our sessions are intense.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice but sounding sharper. “We may not be the best of friends, but all the guessing and counter-guessing and the counter-counter-guessing—bluff upon bluff, trying to throw each other off by deviating from our ‘usual’ strategies we’ve spent days to try to pin down…it’s not for the faint of heart, Wallflower. You can’t just barge in and say you’re ready.”
Then, Lyra waved her hand at Bon Bon who just entered the diner. “Finally! You’re here! I’ve been waiting for you so I can eat!”
Wallflower then turned back to Juniper. The freckled lady picked up one of her cards on the table, held its back to Juniper’s eyes and glasses. “So...can you get to the steps?”
Juniper smiled. “Sure, sure! Let’s get that out of the way before we move on to the complicated stuff!” She put her chip down on the table, making the pot worth two dollars. “Here, each player has five cards.” She pointed at the extra set of cards on her right. “It’s weird to do it with only two people, so I set this one up as a dummy.”
Wallflower nodded, following her so far.
“The first official thing that happens in a game of five-card draw is—“
“Blech!”
The two girls stood up, looking at Lyra rubbing her stomach, a piece of spit out bacon on her plate. More than a few had stood up to see the poor girl coughing out bits and crumbs of meat from her mouth. Bon Bon was asking her if she was OK as Sugarsocks rolled back to Lyra. “What’s wrong?”
Lyra pointed at the waiter, cheeks greener than could be. “I knew it was better when Pinkie’s around! Your veggies are way better, but your bacon tastes...horrible!”
“Huh?” Sunnysocks shifted her eyes left and right, looked back at the other waiter who replied with a shoulder shrug. “We’ve done the same thing to our bacon since we opened! A-And we never added anything to our lettuce other than salt!”
“You must’ve gotten the wrong pork for your bacon!” Lyra managed. “I feel like I have to wash my tongue with detergent thanks to you!”
Sugarsocks looked at the counter, saw both of the chefs looking back at her worried. The fry cook shrugged his shoulders, too, as he held a spatula and a deep fryer with both hands.
Bon Bon took her hamburger and Lyra, dragged them out of the table and sped past the waiters against their pleas to understand and stay. She swung the door open while biting some of her burger, then slammed it shut.
Wallflower and Juniper looked back at each other.
“That doesn’t look good,” Juniper began.
Wallflower smiled though that was hampered by her quivering lips. “Good thing we both ordered burgers, right?”
Only for them to hear awkward noises. They looked outside and saw Bon Bon shielding her face from sight as she vomited into a trash can.
As Sucrose rolled in and served the two poker-playing customers their burgers, fries, and soda. “Here’s your order!”
Wallflower and Juniper gave each other cringed looks. They both shook their heads at the waiter as they pushed their burgers away, keeping their fries and soda.
Sucrose sighed as she put them back on the tray, picking up the gloves from her apron pocket. “As much as we’re told to cater to our customers, this is getting ridiculous. Principal Celestia texted us about the indigestion spell going on in the city; must have something to do with the cold these days.” Then, she rolled back to the counter, getting into deep talks with her co-workers before they rushed back to wait on other tables.
The rest of the customers there had hushed whispers; some stood up and left, leaving their food unfinished. The waiters then returned to put the plates and the glasses back into the kitchen.
Juniper picked up a fry and looked at it, that simple little potato wedge. “I’ve heard of cross-contamination and stuff like that, but I don’t think they’d be so bad to ruin this.”
Wallflower nodded as she put a fry into her mouth.
And then her eyes widened as she let out a long “Mmm!”
“Uh, Wallflower?”
She gulped it down, saw Juniper’s reaction, and blushed. “Sorry, but...it’s so good!”
“Good how?”
“It’s..it’s just good!” Wallflower smiled, her teeth blemished by chewed bits of potato. “It’s crispy, it’s tender, it’s so delicious—it’s more than just salt, but it doesn’t look like there’s more to it than salt!” She handed a fry over to her. “Try it!”
Juniper then shook her head. “Uh, no thanks. I have my own.” And she picked one up and took a bite off it.
She smiled, closing her eyes in the bliss of a wonderful trip down flavor lane.
“Hey!”
And the both of them snapped out of it, perceiving Trixie who was standing by the table. The magician picked up one of the cards from the table. She studied it intently, turning it around, then tipped her hat to both of the ladies there.
Trixie put on a flashy smile, her teeth twinkling under the diner’s lights and the sun’s rays. “I’ll show you a magic trick so unbelievable, you won’t trust your eyes again!” And she spread confetti over the table.
Spoiling the fries and the soda in the celebration.
Juniper groaned, picking up her now useless bag of fries. “Alright, Trixie. Make it quick.”
Trixie wagged her finger, then made a “gimmie” gesture with her palm. “Place your phone on the table.”
Juniper flinched. Then, she took out her phone and put it screen-down on the table.
“OK!” Trixie tapped the back of the phone with the light touch of a finger. “There! Now, you may use it again. Go through your apps, your gallery—you’ll see that Trixie has changed nothing.”
Juniper did so and opened her phone, seeing the same apps, the same pictures—there were some new messages, but they were from familiar people including one from Canter Zoom saying, Can you buy some medicine when you go home? These reports are having me worried.
Wallflower then looked at Trixie who was gathering up all the cards and shuffling them. Then, she spread them face-down on the table, tapped on Juniper busy reading her messages, and said, “Pick your card!”
Juniper rolled her eyes and picked up one card, other hand on the phone as she replied on her messaging app.
“Show it to Wallflower!”
Juniper rolled her eyes again and showed the card to her, not even looking at the card or her.
A ten of spades.
Trixie then took a few steps and was now beside Wallflower. “Get your phone and open up the first photo in your pictures app.”
“What?!” Wallflower yelped. “What does that have to do with your card trick?”
“Trust me!” Trixie said, smirking still.
It was Wallflower’s turn to roll her eyes as she put out her phone, opened her pictures app, and tapped on the first picture there.
Which was a picture of a card.
A ten of spades, to be exact.
“Wh-What?!” Wallflower screamed, recoiling and then covering her mouth as others looked her way. She almost dropped her phone into her glass of confetti-contaminated soda.
Trixie nodded. She yanked the phone out of her grasp and showed the picture to Juniper. “Is this your card?!”
Juniper looked up from her own phone. She gasped. “H-How?! Wallflower never took a photo—I didn’t hear the snap!”
Trixie chuckled and tipped her wizard’s hat. “A magician never reveals her secrets!” She returned the phone to Wallflower and bowed before them as she walked out of the diner.
Wallflower and Juniper looked at each other with bewildered expressions.
“What just happened?” Wallflower asked in a quiet and shaky voice.
Juniper saw her ruined meal again and got out of her seat. “We’re eating someplace else. I got a bunch of peanut butter praline crunch bars back home.”
Wallflower sighed as she stood up, too. “I’ll be on grocery duty again?”
Juniper rolled her eyes, walking beside her towards the exit. “Let me take care of the cooking. We already have a strange enough morning as it is.”
As they left the diner with its doo-wop music still playing, the waiters at the counter inspected the food before them, namely Lyra’s bacon, eggs, and lettuce.
“According to Haystem, this is from the same pig as Friday,” Sucrose said, putting down her phone from her ear, “and we made sure there were no rats or anything like that, so it can’t be due to lousy pest control—Hey! What’re you doing?”
Sugarsocks was holding up a piece of bacon. “What? I don’t have the cold. I’m not sick at all.”
“Lyra breathed on those things!” she yelled. “You’re gonna get sick after that!”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Sugarsocks said, dangling a piece of bacon above her open mouth—
Got it yanked from her by Sucrose’s orange hand. She chomped on the bacon. “There! I’m not gonna let you suffer—“
And spat it out on a nearby garbage bin, as she wiped the bad taste off of her tongue.
“What?!” She coughed. “But, I-I saw th-them and—“
Sugarsocks rolled her eyes as she poured the batch of bacon down the same bin. “OK, I believe you now.”
Sucrose was about to punch her for what just happened, but she refrained. As she recovered, the fresh smell of lettuce brought her back to clearer senses and she resumed her waiting duties.
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... Are people with pony-alternates gaining pony tastebuds?
9074443
People who have been to equestria with the portal closed probably are.
...Teach me your secrets, Trixie.
All the meat tastes bad while the veggies are, somehow enhanced? Seems to me like our hu-man friends are developing Equestrian eating habits. So much for bacon hair's nickname.
Hmm, effective use of magic requires three things; knowledge, power, and confidence. If a practitioner possesses two of those things, they may cause something to happen, but nothing of any real scope. Previously, Trixie possessed neither power nor knowledge, and little real confidence behind the bluster.
But now, Trixie has received knowledge from her mirrored sister, and confidence from the successful use of the same. She may not have any particular power, yet, but she can still impose some influence on the world thanks to her confident knowledge. Practice makes perfect, if she keeps this up, Trixie will become very good at achieving great effect with minimal investment. Just as any good illusionist should be.
9074472
Except that the waitresses haven't been Equestria.
9074763
Eyup, that's, that's not a good sign.
Ohhh dear. That's not good.
It's also inaccurate. Equines can and do eat meat on occasion, especially when it's cooked.
Also, HOW THE F
DID TRIXIE DO THAT?! Is she developing real magic now?
Hold the phone,
Oh dear. Too much Harmonic radiation here, I think Twilight may have closed the metaphorical barn door much too late.
So Equestrian magic makes you go vegan? I don't think I want to follow this story anymore.
GIVE ME BACON OR GIVE ME DEATH!
9074443
That's not a good news for the farmers and meat industries.
9074930
Unless it give you Griffon influence, then you safe for being omnivore. (or carnivore if you like)
9074827
I recalled somewhere that pegasus can eat fish. And why Sweet Apple Acres has pigs if nopony gonna eat it?
9075164
9074827
While equines certainly can eat meat, a horse eating the same amount of meat an average human does isn't that healthy—or, at least, if you give the horse bacon and eggs for breakfast or something like that. Their digestive system is best suited for vegetables and other non-meat stuff; just because it can digest meat doesn't mean it should.
It's been said somewhere early on in the show's run (I'm guessing by Lauren) that the Apple family keeps pigs around because they need a home and also because they like to eat truffles.
As for pegasus being able to eat fish: None as far as I know. The closest thing we got is Fluttershy feeding her animals meat and Rarity's Dad fishing in One Bad Apple which could also be interpreted as just a pastime; it doesn't automatically mean he's going to eat fish.
But, thanks for the tip of knowledge!
Looks like the "human world becoming Equestria" theory is true. People are becoming herbivores.
...Or just make her take her geode off. It's not like it's a part of her, as far as I know; it's just an added enhancement.
9075164
Pigs are also awesome garbage disposers. And the manure can be used as fertilizer.
Oh my.
originally thought all those who had been thru the portal being affected...but if it's EVERYONE, then im wrong i guess.