Sunflower's Day Off

by Reclusive

Into a happier ending

Author's Note:

Continuity note: Barista has been retconned to male. Not for sexual reasons (mostly), but because it's a lot easier to write about two characters with unambigiously separate pronouns. This is a bit of a crutch and I'd prefer if it were otherwise (hello, editors?).

I'm also not happy with the quality of some other things here, but my edit rate has slowed to a crawl in the last few days. Publish or Perish!

And she would've just sat there, moping, if it weren't for the small bump she felt on her flank just then. It felt like a small playing card, with its soft edges poking at her voluminous plot.

Must be the back door. More annoyed than curious, she wiggled her rump rightwards to clear the way for the exit below her. Looking down with tired eyes, she watched the door open, revealing a tiny barrel inching outwards by the shoves and pushes of a teal stallion.

Tiny was a relative term. The cask was about at eye height with the stallion -- the barista, she realised -- and he seemed to be having a great deal of trouble pushing it across the crumbled streets of the alleyway. Rolling her eyes, Sunflower lazily extended a foreleg, the tip of her horseshoe separating the stallion from the barrel as the rest of her hoof eclipsed the container.

"Where'd you want it?" Sunflower's tired voice rumbled over the exhausted stallion, as she rolled the barrel back and forth on the uneven floor like an oversized marble.

Catching his breath, he replied. "With -phew- with you, of course! It has the same latte you ordered -- just bigger, and, well..." He trailed off for a bit, watching Sunflower rolling the massive concoction, effortlessly. "A bit shaken up. But I'm sure it'll taste great, service guarantee!"

Tilting her head a little, she brought the pint-sized beverage up in a haze of auburn magic, tilting and turning the pony-sized cask like a foal might inspect a piece of candy.

Having found the diminutive handle, she delicately yanked open the lid, and brought the open container to her equally humongous snout. She took a subtle whiff, and smiled.

"You made this for me? Why?" Sunflower's head turned to face the barista, and her huge horn cleaved the morning sun in two, casting a reverse spotlight over the inquired pony.

Said pony turned away from Sunflower, a reddish hue tinting his cheeks. "After all you did for us, it was the least I could do." A tiny foreleg moved to his neck in nervousness. "Who knows what kind of damage that madpony could've done?"

Sunflower cocked an eyebrow. The barista, on his part, was standing in the middle of a hoof-marked crater, shades of debris and detritus decorating the floor around him. Perhaps a demonstration...

Lazily, she tilted her frame on a lean rightwards, exposing the surface of her back (plus the rim of her panties) for the little pony to see. A visible indent of sunken asphalt was present where her body had just been. Splinters and fragments of crumpled furniture clung to her coat, with bits of flattened plastic falling from her bulk as they remembered what gravity was.

Sunflower gently lowered herself back to the earth, and the rubble shook from her descent. "Damage, hmm~?" She smirked.

The barista stood stoically, nonplussed. "Uninsured damage. The Equestrian Treasury will cover everything here, I'm sure of it." He waved a toothpick-sized hoof in dismissal.

Before the mare could respond, he continued. "And besides, it's not all about the repair work. Ponies love you! There'll be loads of traffic coming here, after the news spreads." The cafe owner waved his hooves to the front door, as if to point to a phantom crowd.

The specialist opted to ignore her budding worries about yet another tabloid, and opted to shift the conversation elsewhere. "You really think they'll come here, just because of me?"

"Well, of course! You're wonderful, the most beautiful mare in town, and..." he trailed off as he realised what was happening.

Sunflower giggled behind a gargantuan hoof. "You don't have to be so subtle, you know..."

"S-subtle?" The formerly confident pony's eyes fluttered in nervousness "I'm not sure what you mean..."

The gigantic guardsmare tut-tutted in disapproval. "Don't you know it's an offense to lie to the Royal Guard?" She loomed her head over the the small pony, as he looked around for exits from the big mare. "C'mere"

"What do you-- woah!" The stallion found his hooves dangling from the ground as the glow of Sunflower's horn dragged him to her breast.

Her soft, fluffy chest tuft cushioned his approach. White stalks of fur flattened together into a nest of rose scented hairs, and the fluff around him cocooned into Equestria's warmest maremade blanket. Sunflower brought an enormous hoof over, and smothered the stallion deeper into the safe, cozy confines of her modest, bed-sized plumage.

"You like it in there, right?" Sunflower felt a miniature, delirious moan in response.

She shifted the barista upwards through her tuft, watching as a tiny face poked out with an enormous smile. "I like it too," Sunflower leaned her snout down to nuzzle the small pony swimming in her tuft.

But, as she shifted herself, she failed to notice the way her hindlegs were moving. From a 8 foot wide hindhoof, a dangling, thousand ton horseshoe slipped. The oversized plastic cup advertising the Sunrise Cafe flattened like paper under the weight of her falling armor piece, and the sounds of crumbling concrete echoed into the distance.

Sunflower froze. If it weren't for the rumbling might of the Specialist's raw heartbeats, the pony trapped in her tuft might've been frozen too.

She let out a wince. "...oops." The silence festered for another moment before she continued. "The Guard will cover that too, right?"

The barista chuckled, and Sunflower relaxed her posture, dislodging a few extra bricks from the wall behind her. They continued to cuddle each other very much.