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Junior Patty2,850 words
In Sight It Must Be Right4,270 words
Have It Your Way5,424 words

In Sight It Must Be Right

Double Patty had been running for almost two hours. For the first half an hour, it still stung; but after that, she kept running, then trotting, staying in constant motion. The burning in her legs and the heaving of her sides numbed her mind, and the last thing she wanted to do was think or feel anymore.

It wasn't until she couldn't figure out where Celestia's sun was in the sky that she started to worry about sleep.

Patty didn't remember even the longest of the field trips into the Everfree leading anywhere that looked like this. Even the trees didn't seem right: the mangroves rose out of the peaty soil like the many-fingered hands of witches, casting long ragged shadows along the path. This certainly wasn't the busy path; as she ran, she had intentionally kept herself turning what felt like 'away' from Ponyville. The problem was, however, that she now had no idea which direction was back 'towards' ponyville.

Yet another intersection met her hooves, but she wasn't sure which of the two overgrown paths was more inviting. It was a little too dark to judge which looked the safest. She finally allowed herself to sit.... and rested her head between her forehooves. Just to catch her breath. Only a moment's rest, not much longer.

Theodore (just call him Theo) lived by himself in the great bog south of Ponyville. Being a crocodile, living alone came naturally. He had no job, no responsibilities, no duties, and nobody to stop him from playing his bagpipes just as loud as it suited him. His house - really, it was more of a tidy porch with high hopes - rested on the shore of a lake, where oil lamps cast flickering light over a pond only fish disturbed. Between the difficulty of building on the bog's soil and his musical practice discouraging neighbors, it was was definately the liveliest thing around for miles. (With more practice, he hoped to constantly expand this circle of solitude.)

Theo was no great cook, himself; but any bachelor at the very least knows how to run a grill. Between the fish he had caught and the the root vegetables he had foraged, his meal for the night was going to taste good together and smell even better. But it was getting late, and he wanted to spend the rest of his night working on his latest composition.

He nearly didn't notice the small brown pony collapsed to one side of the darkening path.

"Hey - are you okay?"

He gave her a gentle nudge with her snout. She didn't move - and not even in the slow reluctant motion of a sleeper. Worse, she was cold. Very, very cold. "Oh no oh no oh no..."

The crocodile waved a clawed hand in front of her closed eyes, noticing they were still wet at the edges. They flickered. He also saw her breath quicken, so he relaxed. "Oh, good."

Setting down his backpack, he set about rearranging it - the fish baskets to the side, and laying his fishing pole at the crossroad sign (he'd return for it later), he lay the small gold filly against the backpack, the straps becoming a hook. "Well, then, little miss - seeing as you're not doing much of anything tonight, may I invite you to dinner?"

He noticed a bit more motion in her, now that he was heaving her. Her breaths were not deep, but they were regular. He also thought he noticed a kick in the straps. "Well then, by your silence I assume that was a 'yes'. We'll be at my place in two shakes." Then, he tried to take a step.

"Ooof - what do you weigh, eight stone?"

He got home well after the sun had darkened, only the moon's pale light guiding her on her path. He would have made it home earlier, but her weight added to his baskets made for slow walk. Not that he would have left her; Pappa Theo taught him better, after all.

For all his grumbling about her weight, though, once he felt her forehead, he was glad he hadn't left her to the cold Everfree nights: Patty was now burning up. Unfortunately for her, Theo definately didn't know how to help her. (After all, every crocodile ailment is treated with the same medication: stubbornness.) So he left her on the couch on the porch to rest, laid an old threadbare blanket atop her (silly warmbloods), and kept a watchful eye as he started up his grill.

It was an old brick grill, as sturdy as any castle wall and seemingly twice as ancient, blackened from long and frequent use. The lazy wind coming off the lake was just the thing to lazily stoke the flame, and the low glow cast shadows up the walls of Theodore home and over the lake. On her couch, Patty relaxed out just a little, relaxing as the heat started to warm her cold bones.

As his grill set about to warming, Theo set about about preparing the fish. They weren't as fresh as he liked, but that was unavoidable now, so he just ignored the less-than-fresh smell and turned his three best catches into six fat fish fillets. It was an easy job for a crocodile; their claws seemed custom made for the task. One swipe halved the fish; one (more careful) swipe deboned them; a final little flick cleared the entrails and sent them into the lake.

"Uhnnn..."

"You're getting up? Good, good."

She didn't open her eyes yet - she was still shivvering from the Everfree's night - but her ears flicked forwards and about, curious. "Where am I?"

"You're not freezing your little tail off at a crossroads, that's for sure," he grinned. "Now get up - dinner's almost ready."

In her defense, once she saw just how many teeth was coming off his long, pointed grin, she screamed only once. "What-what are you?"

He gave a smug little grunt. No croc mind being feared. "Your host, madmoiselle," he smiled. "Can you sit up, at least?"

"What? No, you can't possibly serve me that!"

The crocodile's low grumble became an incoherent mutter. "Well, I just did."

"No, I mean... it's meat."

"Yep! And fresh caught, too," he grinned with pride. "Got a lot of practice with snapping them up at just the right time."

"No. Really. It's meat," she said, "And I'm a pony. I can't eat this."

Theodore quirked an eyebrow. "I don't see why not, little missy. Ponies and crocodiles both, you've got a hole for one end, a hole for the other end, and a lot of acid somewhere in between. Food, you see, no matter what it is, gets ground up and boiled in that acid. So you should have no problem digesting that. And if you sit there refusing food, you're going to get even sicker and then you won't be anywhere. Or are you just picky?"

Patty looked at Theodore, stunned. "I-I'm not picky," she said, muted. Taking the fork on her plate, she looked over the fish, idly separating some layers of the fillet, investigating how the unfamiliar foodstuff seemed to come in pasty grey layers.

Watching her deflate so quickly worried him. Although he was reluctant, he laid a hand on her shoulder, claws up and palm spread. "What's got you down now?"

She was slightly startled by his touch, but looked up. "My... my mom says I'm a picky eater." It hadn't been a day, but she already missed her mother.

Theodore nodded sagely. "Well, don't you worry, miss. We'll get you home to you mom as soon as you're feeling better. Now-" he paused to flip another slice of fish into his maw - "where do you live?"

"Ponyville," Patty nodded. Theodore didn't comment on how she had instinctively lifted a forkful of fish to her muzzle. "I'm almost ready for high school now."

"Well - I have to tell you, miss, Ponyville is the nearest big town, but it's still three hours away. Just how did you wind up this far out, anyways?"

And so, Patty told Theodore the tale. Being a filly, she focused heavily on her popularity, and her issues with her weight, but Theodore said little, simply eating his fish and letting her tell the story her way.

"I have to admit, miss, I haven't caught your name. And I'm sure it's not 'Double Fatty' like your classmates say."

"Well, my full name is Patina Patience," she smiled, "But my friends call me Double Patty."

"Well, Double Patty," Theodore grinned, "You seem to be mostly done with your meal."

Looking down, Patty saw that it was true: only a few forkfuls were left of both the bass and the sweet potato.

"Oh! Well... that went by fast."

"How did you like it?"

"It... it was okay," Patty said quickly, quick to appease.

"What? What didn't you like?"

"Well, it's not that I didn't like it, but there wasn't anything to like. I didn't taste much at all. What did you season it with?"

The crocodile smiled smugly. "Nothing! That lets the natural flavor comes out-"

"-and makes it bland!" For the first time, Patty stood on all fours, slipping out of the sheet that had been in her lap. "Raw food, even heated, it's just ingredients. A single flavor is just that, single, alone, nothing. Blah. It's like raw sugar or vinegar." Her hooves were waving around more than her teacher's ruler would in a lesson. "You've got to have two flavors in contrast that make something delicious. Mushrooms and onions. Olive oil and basalmic. Kale and thyme..." She gave a shrug. "Don't you see?"

The older crocodile snorted; she was being remarkably un-guest-like for his tastes. "Well, then, miss fancy chef," he grumbled, "what would you do?"

Ignoring the dangerous tone in his voice, Double Patty trotted over to his spice racks. "Salt. Salt, peper, lemongrass to start. Ooh, you've got paprika-" She took a sniff, then reared back - "Oh, no you don't, that's turning south. No garlic or parsley, but - oooh, I like the way this stuff smells." She lifted the red vial up and asked over her shoulder, "Hey, what's this?"

"Cayenne. Now listen, I don't know what you think-"

"Get a bowl," she ordered, as she carried several of the spices over to a table. "You've got one fish left and I swear to Celestia I'm going to show you how to spice it right."

"Big talk for a pony that wouldn't eat meat ten minutes ago."

"What was that?"

This time, it was loud enough to hear - but in a very forced singsong. "Oh, will this do?"

"Perfect." She grabbed it out of his hand and started shaking spices into the bowl. With a spoon to improvise as a pestle, salt and pepper were just the thing to grind the lemongrass and release the flavor from within. As the colors mixed together, she added in the cayenne and a bit of olive oil and caraway seed she had found, until it became a thick, dark red paste. "I wish you had cilantro," she said under her voice, "But I haven't had cayenne ever, and I don't know if it and the cilantro will go well together. Here," she said, passing the spice bowl to him, "Try the last fish with some of this rubbed over it."

The croc gave a nod, lifting the iron pan with the last fillet. "Let's try it out, missy." Taking the spoon from her - and giving it a little twirl, showing off - he threw a big glop of the paste onto the fish, grinding the cayenne-heavy paste over it. "Well, I'll give it a try," he snorted, cutting himself a hunk of fish with the spoon, stuffing it into his mouth. "But I know darn well that it can't beat the natural flavor of-"

He paused.

Patty winced, concerned. She hadn't actually tasted the cayenne... maybe it was too much? "Are - are you okay, si-"

"WOW!"

The force of his joy knocked Patty over the porch railing.

"This is FANTASTIC!" Another large portion of the fish was cut off, eagerly pushed into his mouth, and noisily worked against his tongue as he actively explored every flavor. "You have to show me how to make this-"

Patty managed to get her front hooves back up and onto the porch at this point. "I... I just kind of winged it."

"Well," Theodore laughed, "you wing it so well I'd think you were a gryphon." He gave another laugh, as he finished the last fish. "Too bad you didn't get to have any."

"What? I'm sure I..." Patty looked back at her own plate, which had a fish skin and naught else. "I'm not sure what's worse: that I just ate meat for the first time... or that I wasn't paying attention."

Theodore frowned. "Well, that's too bad. There's not going to be much more fishing tonight, so no more fish. I wasn't expecting company, you know."

The gold filly nodded, and sprawled. "Well... then I'll cook for you, then. Do you have anything?"

The crocodile cast eyes over to his icebox and froze. The only entree-ish thing in there was unprepared, and the source of the meat was...

"No, no I don't. Not a thing!"

"Are you... hiding something?"

"No, nothing at all! You couldn't eat that and you definately couldn't cook that," he said. "Tell you what, I'll treat you to ice cream once we make the trek into Ponyville tomm-"

"... oh, I COULDN'T?" A dangerous glint had taken over Patty's face, and she grinned unnervingly, taking a step forwards. "I've cooked everything from pastries to pasta, from scratch, and I can guarantee you, mister," she smirked, placing his hoof over the end of his craggy maw to silence him, "That there is NOTHING I cannot cook. Now - you get me this whatever-it-is, and I guarantee you it will be the best - and I mean the best - you have ever eaten."

The crocodile gulped. He wasn't sure what he had just got himself into... but he pointed a tremulous hand to the icebox. "It's on the top shelf, miss."

It turned out there was about ten packages of the stuff, about four pounds each. Patty picked one and unrolled the paper package onto the small endtable that served as the crocodile's kitchen table. The stuff was bright blood-red with striations of white through it, and the occasional fleck of firm grey.

"I've never seen anything like this... and the fish didn't look like this. Are you sure this is meat?"

"Sure I'm sure," he said. "This is just ground up." He grinned, and took a sniff. "Nice and fatty and still pretty fresh, too."

Patty looked curious. She used the edge of her hoof to roll a small piece and brought it to her lips-

"Don't do that!" The croc had smacked her hoof away, sending the small piece of beef flying into the lake. Afterwards, he bopped Patty in the back of the head gently with his free hand.

"Meat's not safe to eat until you cook it, you goofball. It's gotta get almost hot enough to boil water."

The filly sighed. "Alright. So... do you cook the whole thing? Do you have a pan or something?"

The crocodile shook his head. "No... you roll them up into patties. No, don't look at me like that, I didn't name them." He reached out with his hands. "About the size of an onion, but flat..."

"Like this?" Before he had a chance to grab the meat, there was a nearly perfectly formed patty in Double Patty's hoof. She had rolled her hoof in a circle and flattened the beef underneath, the resulting patty slightly oblong and with a flat edge near the back - but almost the perfect width.

"Say, you're a natural!" His laugh was back, and it was deep; there's nothing like a fast learner. "But you've made the patties too thick, Patty," the crocodile chided, taking the patty from her hoof and tearing it in half. "There, flatten these back out. Try the same width but half as thick."

"I don't understand," the little filly sighed, re-rolling the meat. "What's wrong with big patties?"

"Well, the rate a material changes temperature is inversely proportional to the square of the depth, so as the patty gets thicker and thicker, it takes more energy and time to get the inside to a safe temperature, while the outside - needing less energy - is much more likely to burn, creating a patty that's nasty to eat on the outside while unsafe to eat on the inside."

Patina blinked.

"What? Don't look at me like that. They allow crocodiles at Detrot Tech, I know my physics."

Patina blinked again.

Theodore facepawed. "Thin patties cook faster, and two thin patties are easy to pair up and squeeze sauce and veggies in the middle."

"Oh! Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

It didn't take long, with two of them working together. Soon, they had just over a dozen patties made up, resting on the paper. But Double Patty frowned. "And... that's it? You heat them up and put veggies on them?"

"Well, you serve meat patties like a sandwich, but yeah, that's why I got a grill in the first place. You gotta let the natural flavor show-"

"Boring." Patty grinned, and grabbed a bowl. "Mmm, what did I say? It's complex flavors interacting that make something delicious, and I bet you only have plain old wheat bread."

"Hey! I make that myself... it's not like there's a supermarket nearby."

"Ooooh. Well, that's good... but these patties need something." Grabbing a bowl, Patty started walking down his spice cabinet, occasionally shaking something into it. "Two shakes black pepper, one shake mustard, three shakes 'cayenne', one shake garlic salt... too bad about the paprika, that and horseradish would have gone really well." She pondered. "And... regular radish-radish? Maybe cut thin on top..."

"Is this one of your sauces again?"

"Oh, no! I'm still making the cayenne sauce later," she grinned. "No, we're kneading the patties into this!" Taking the nearest patty, she kneaded it, rolling the meat in the spice mix like pasta dough. The red became brownish, the mustard and black pepper tinting the meat. "Here, let's remake them, and we can get them all properly formed..."

Soon, all of the patties had been rolled in with the spice mix, and Patty was making another batch of the cayenne spice that had gone over so well. (She really wished that she had had some horseradish...)

"Say, by the way ... what's this meat called, anyways?"

He froze for a moment. "Well, it's... burgher."

"So... how do you know when it's done?"

"Here - take this," he said, handing the turner to her. "Give each a slight press - not too hard, you want to circulate the juices in the patties to distribute the heat, not break them open and squeeze them through the grill. Now, try to turn them over."

It took a bit of work, as his spatula had been made for fingers and not hooves, but she was able to lift and tilt each patty onto its side. "See? They brown as you heat up, because some of the protiens are breaking down. To make it taste right, we need to get the heat all the way through the patty. Now, use that to pierce into the center of the patty."

Patty made a note to cook with more physics students.

"See? It's pink now, because it has that same protien as on the outside. But once the heat's gone through, it'll start turning white-ish, and combined with a bit of charring on the patty, that's a pretty sure sign that it's ready to serve."

The gold filly nodded, shifting from one hoof to another. "And the heat transfers at a rate inverse to the square, you said..." Her little head swam with figures, imagining the progression of heat as a slow glow spreading through the patty as she continued flipping them, watching each patty she turned be subtly darker than the last.

For Theodore, the sight was almost like watching a banker at work. She took to the timing quickly, and each patty was soon being turned like clockwork, effortless flips, occasionally one being pierced in order to see if the heat had worked its way through. The occasional pops of fat, the variations in the sizzling - nothing distracted her. She had this meat-cooking thing down to a science.

And any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguisable from magic. She didn't feel any different, she didn't see the flash of light (so focused she was on her task), but regardless of race, the moment a pony gets their cutie mark is the moment they are at their greatest magical potential, a small taste of apotheosis. She could see with a casual glance just when each patty needed to be flipped; just how long it would take to get the heat evenly spread; and when another little press of her paddle would help the process along, and when to leave it be. She turned her head to the crocodile, and said, "Did you say something?"

"No, but..." the crocodile shook his head. "Something appeared on your flank..."

With a gasp, the filly reared, the paddle forgotten on the table. "Really? Oh my god! I bet it's a chef's hat," she gasped, as she turned and twisted. It was dark red, but she couldn't make it out in the light... "Oh, do you have a mirror?"

"Not really, no. Except in the bathroom, but..."

He didn't even get the chance to see her run before he could hear the clatter of hooves on ceramic, trying to make her way to the bathroom's mirror. She threw the door open to get some light... and he heard a terrified whinny, as she ran out.

"What's the matter? Did you cut yourself?"

Diving back onto the couch, she hid under the quilt and bawled.

"Don't tell me you burnt yourself..."

"NO! It's... it's worse! it's terrible! I look like... oh, no. I can not go back," Patty sniffled. "I can never go back!"

Theodore felt his rage building at his guest. He had no patience for the sort of drama only a filly of her age could cause. Despite how quickly he had taken to Patty, he had to admit that some small part was strongly tempted to treat himself to a small after-dinner snack... "And why in the world not?!"

"My cutie mark! It's... it's a spatula!"

Next Time: A filly's cuteceñera should be the happiest moment in her young life - but will the guest of honor be absent from her own party? And what of Evergreen and her entourage? Isn't there something Double Patty can do to have her just desserts? Come back for the next chapter: Order Up: Have It Your Way!

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