• Published 2nd Sep 2012
  • 897 Views, 9 Comments

Recipe For Disaster - fluttershywriter



Pound Cake ventures into the Everfree forest in an attempt to find his cutie mark.

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Chapter 4

The first thing Pound Cake heard when he managed to clear his mind was laughter. The thing that had landed on him had rolled off, and when Pound sat up, he saw a dazed-looking orange pegasus and Pinkie Pie doubled over in laughter.

"Pinkie?" groaned the orange pegasus, shaking her head and looking up. Her eyes went from confused to exhilarated. "It is you! We thought that you heard your voice!"

"Hi, Scootaloo!" said Pinkie brightly, smiling and holding up a hoof to shake.

"What?" asked Pound Cake, forcing himself up off the ground. His joints, which still ached from yesterday's hike, now had the fresh pain of a grown mare landing on him. "Who is that pony?" She looked vauguely familiar, but his brain was too muddled to remember where he had ever seen her.

The orange pony—Scootaloo, was it?—looked right at him for the first time. "Hey, sorry about the whole thing where I landed on you. I thought you might be a—" Her jaw dropped. "Holy—are you—" She turned her head towards the trees that she had leapt out of. "Sweetie Belle! Applebloom! Come over here!"

A yellow earth pony and a white unicorn stepped out of the thick undergrowth. Now it was Pound's turn to look shocked. "You're the pony that I landed on!" he spluttered, pointing a hoof at the unicorn. He stared at her with wide eyes, taking a step backwards. Luckily, she didn't look too injured, but Scootaloo looked ready to kill him.

The yellow pony snorted with laughter, something that Pound felt was extremely tactless in this situation. "Well, ah guess we can't hold a grudge against you now, not with Scootaloo leapin' on top o' you an' nearly knockin' you out!" She adjusted the bow in her tangled red hair. "Ah'm Applebloom, by the way." She nudged the white unicorn.

The unicorn stepped forward. "Um, hi!" she said shyly, smiling . "My name's Sweetie Belle."

"Hi," mumbled Pound Cake, keeping his shoulders hunched. "Um, I'm really sorry about landing on you yesterday. I, um, I wasn't really looking where I was going. I didn't mean to."

Sweetie Belle waved a hoof. "Aw, it's no big deal! Yesterday we went to Zecora's to get a potion that would fix my black eye, so now I've just got a few scratches that'll heal up in a couple of days. Maybe we could go to Zecora's to fix up those scrapes that Scootaloo gave you!"

Scootaloo gave her a disbelieving look. "Um, Sweetie Belle, hello? We're totally lost! It's not like we can just waltz back to Zecora's and find our way out of the Everfree!"

"Oh. Right." Sweetie Belle blushed and hung her head. "I kinda forgot."

"I haven't been able to forget," grumbled Scootaloo. "Not with dirt covering every inch of my fur and my mane in tangles!"

"At least you don't have a concert in a week!" retorted Sweetie Belle, putting a hoof up to her curly mane and bringing a few strands of it down to eye level. "My stylist will have an aneurysm when she sees my scrapes and my mane!"

"Yer assuming that we'll be outta here in a week," said Applebloom grimly. "Ah'm just not sure."

"You're lost, too?" asked Pound Cake, the last bit of hope disappearing. "So I guess you won't be able to tell us the way out of here, huh?"

"Nope," said Applebloom sadly, shaking her head. "Ah'm guessin' you won't be able to do the same for us, then."

There was a moment of grim silence in which the three young mares and Pound Cake looked miserably around them. Then Pinkie, who had been unusually quiet, spoke up.

"It's not that bad!" she said brightly, leaping to her hooves and bouncing around them as she spoke. "I've got cupcakes and plenty of water! And as long as we can find Zecora's hut, I'm sure that we'll be able to find our way back to home in under a week! Besides, we've got one another—strength in numbers, that's what Granny Pie always said! Each of us has got our own talents and weaknesses, so we'll be able to help each other out! TEAMWORK!!"

Pound Cake blinked, eyes wide open. Applebloom attempted to smile, while Sweetie Belle stood there with a mildly confused look on her face. Scootaloo, meanwhile, pretended to gag on something.

"Gross! I don't want some namby-pamby lecture on how to help one another—I want to get out of this creepy forest!" she said, rolling her eyes. She turned away and started hiking towards a path. Several hoofsteps away, she turned around with a sheepish look on her face. She found the four ponies with similar flat, disapproving looks on their faces.

With a weak smile, she nodded and said, "But, you know . . . teamwork's cool, too."


Pinkie was the only one who seemed to notice that Pound wasn't eagerly dashing off with the three mares. After several bouncy steps with the three ponies, she looked behind her and found Pound Cake sitting nervously on the forest ground. "Huh? What's wrong, Poundy?" she asked, drawing her eyebrows together.

"I'm scared," he whispered, making sure that Applebloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were far ahead of them. So far, they hadn't seemed to notice that he was far behind.

"Of what?" she asked, taking a step closer to him and nuzzling the top of his head. "You know that there's really nothing to be scared of in the Everfree forest, right?"

"I'm not scared of that, exactly," he whispered. For maybe one in her life, Pinkie didn't attempt to fill up the silence. "I'm scared . . . well, I'm afraid that . . . what if I hurt one of those ponies again?" he burst out. "What if I rip a feather out of Scootaloo's wings, or what if I hurt Sweetie's horn . . ." His voice cracked, making it difficult for him to finish the sentence without bursting into tears. The mention of an injured horn had brought memories flooding back into his head. The horror of being lost in a forest had built a dam against the memories of the accident, but a one word broke the dam and sent everything flying back into his head.

Blood everywhere . . .

A silvery residue, sizzling on the stove . . .

Screams filling the air, screams so loud and grief-stricken that you can practically taste them . . .

The cake on the stove burning and flling the kitchen with smoke . . .

A handicapped sister for life . . .

"Poundy?" asked Pinkie Pie, shaking him out of his thoughts. She seemed to sense that he had slipped back into the past. "They're getting pretty far ahead. Maybe we should catch up, huh?"

"Yeah," said Pound Cake, giving her a smile that felt as though it was made of wood. He took a few heavy steps.

"Come on, Poundy; I want a real smile!" She pounced on him and held him down, tickling his stomach and his hooves and—the most sensitive part of his body—right underneath his wings.

"No!" he shouted through giggles, falling into peals of laughter again. He forced some strength into his ticklish wings and rocketed high above her head.

"Come back here, you cheater!" she shouted, giggling and racing after him.

In the air, Pound Cake found that he was still smiling. He lifted a hoof to his cheeks and felt the round balls of skin created by his smile. Feeling ready to speak normally again, he swooped down next to the three mares and slowed his flight to match their steps.

"So, where are we going?" he asked, smiling shyly. Pinkie was just managing to catch up, and he never quite managed to feel comfortable in a social situation without Pinkie Pie at his side.

"Ah have no idea," huffed Applebloom, sighing and setting her jaw in a frustrated manner. "Ah think we should head along one of these paths and look for familiar landforms. Then we'll either be able to find our way outta these here woods or find our way to Zecora's hut."

"Zecora . . . she's that zebra, right?" asked Pound. "Pinkie's told me a lot about her. They used to talk a lot back when Pinkie was younger."

"Yeah, Miss Zecora's gettin' up there in age," sighed Applebloom. "She don't get out much these days, but she greets visitors real warmly. Ah hope that we manage to find her hut soon so that you two can meet—ah've got a feelin' that you two'll get along like two peas in a pod."

"I hope we get to her hut soon so that I can get inside a real house," grumbled Scootaloo. "I don't think that I'm ever gonna be able to go camping again."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Remember that time we thought we could get our cutie marks in wilderness survival, so we tried to stay in Applebloom's backyard for a night?"

"Ah seem to recall that we got scared by a timber wolf and ended up in my house by 10:00," laughed Applebloom, grinning at her two friends.

"And remember that time you came to Sugarcube Corner and tried to help me make cupcakes, but you started a really-really-really-really humungous fire and accidentally burned off Scootaloo's mane?"

Scootaloo blushed. "The fire wasn't that big," she muttered. "And you make it sound like they burned off my whole mane."

Sweetie Belle giggled, nudging Scootaloo. "It took, like, seven months for it to look normal again!"

"Aww, cut it out, you guys," groaned Scootaloo, rolling her eyes. "I think that we should work on finding our way out of the woods before we start telling stories about us as fillies!"

"You guys seemed kind of obsessed with getting your cutie marks," commented Pound Cake, flying a bit higher to avoid a large rock sticking out of the path.

"We were the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" exclaimed Sweetie Belle, looking at him as though everypony knew that. "Of course we were obsessed with getting our cutie marks."

"Uh, Sweetie Belle, he wasn't alive for the age of the CMC," said Applebloom, raising an eyebrow. "He was probably only a year or two old when we got our cutie marks."

For the first time, Pound glanced at their flanks. Blushing (he always felt uncomfortable staring at a cutie mark too long), he quickly flicked his eyes over their flanks. Applebloom's flank held a paintbrush and a hammer crossing over to form an X, Sweetie Belle's displayed two eighth notes the color of her mane, and Scootaloo's bore a flaming magenta tire. "How'd you get them?" he asked.

"Well, we put on this awesome show for our school's, like, hundredth annual talent show," Sweetie Belle began.

"Applebloom did scenery and costumes, Sweetie did the singing, and I did a truly awesome dance routine involving my scooter," jumped in Scootaloo, smiling in a way that told Pound Cake that she was bragging just the tiniest amount.

"And when Sweetie Belle hit her last magnificent note, these appeared on our flanks!" finished Applebloom grandly.

"Wow," said Pound Cake, and he really meant it. That was possibly the best way to get your cutie mark—surrounded by your good friends.

You don't even have friends, his mind pointed out. He brushed that thought away and focused on flying, feeling rather self-conscious of the lack of a cutie mark on his flank. Applebloom seemed to sense what was on his mind, and she jumped in with a question.

"Do you have any idea what yer cutie mark might be?" she asked kindly.

"Uh, not really," he said. "My sister got her cutie mark a little less than a year ago, so I'll probably get mine sooner or later."

"Don't let your friends sucker you into doing crazy stunts," Sweetie Belle advised him, looking pointedly at Scootaloo.

The orange pegasi's jaw dropped open. "How was I supposed to know that our special talent wasn't in ziplining?" she protested.

"Common sense?" suggested Sweetie Belle.

The two of them giggled with each other, but Applebloom looked serious. "Don't ya . . . don't ya ever feel upset about not having your mark?" she asked carefully, rubbing a hoof up and down her foreleg uncertainly.

"Not often," he said, shrugging. The part of my mind filled with bad feelings is reserved for other things, he thought, not daring to speak the words on his mind aloud.

Applebloom shrugged and looked off to the side thoughtfully. "Do ya want us to teach you how to get your cutie mark?" she asked after a few moments of pondering.

"It's not a thing than can be taught, is it?" said Pound.

"Well, if you really want to get your cutie mark—"

"Okay!" Pinkie Pie broke in, clapping her hooves together. "Well, we've been walking for a bit, and I don't think we should run out of energy. Water and cupcake break!"

The Crusaders excitedly gathered around Pinkie's saddlebags for nourishment, and the subject of cutie marks seemed to be gone. Pound ate his cupcake without tasting it. It seemed like Pinkie had wanted to stop the topic of cutie marks. Why? Was she afraid that Pound Cake would feel insecure?

Pound wished that everypony would stop making such a big deal about cutie marks. It would happen when it happened, and there was nothing he could do to make it come faster. He wasn't willing to zipline just to fit in with his classmates.

"We'd better get going," said Scootaloo, taking a final gulp of water and screwing the cap of the canteen back on.

"Right," said Pound, nodding vigorously. He had no plans of sleeping in the woods again that night. Placing his water back into Pinkie's saddlebags, he hovered a few feet off of the ground towards Scootaloo.

Scootaloo's reaction to the foal flying was astonishing. She spewed out the mouthful of water, took a step backwards, and let her eyes widen as her cheeks turned the color of overripe beets. "Y-You can fly?" she asked, looking as though Pound Cake had deeply offended her.

"Yes?" said Pound Cake hesitantly, dropping to the ground. "I've been able to do it for a really long time . . ."

Scootaloo pressed her lips together, turned around, and stomped along the path.

"Don' mind her," said Applebloom, shrugging. "She gets like that sometimes." She herded Pound a few yards away from Pinkie and dropped her tone to a whisper. "Listen, Pound," she said, "If ya ever want me to help you get yer cutie mark . . . well, let's say ah've got a few tricks."

Pound Cake felt weak as he walked down the path. Scootaloo hated him for flying, he was the whole reason that they were all lost in the woods, and Applebloom seemed intent on making sure he got his cutie mark.

What had he gotten himself into?

Comments ( 2 )

This is wonderful so far.

Well, at least they have Pinkie's cupcakes.

Until they run out of them, in which case they should start panicking.

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