Chapter 2 - Baths
At a spreading rock farm just outside of Ponyville stood an impressive house, all the more imposing for the three wings that were obviously additions to the original structure, a small farmhouse. In one of the wings little Suzie Pie was peering into a large granite bathtub, poking in a hoof.
“Mom, it’s too hot!”
Her mother was behind her, using her own foot to tap at the marble flooring impatiently. “It’s not too hot, you’re just dawdling. And how can you tell with just the tip of your hoof?”
“Can’t I bring in something to read?
“Suzanna, this isn’t going to be the full salon treatment, I just want to scrub you and wash your mane and your tail and get you ready. We’re going to be late as is!”
The filly looked on the edge of the tub and noticed something.
“You’re going to need my scrub-brush then, I’ll go get it!” and she backed off from the tub and galloped around her mother.
“Get back here and get in!”
But her foal trotted right back with a thick wire brush in her mouth, and spat it into the water.
“All set now, Mom! But can’t I let it cool off just a bit?”
“Suzanna if you don’t get into that tub right now, no PlayStallion 3 all week!”
(PlayStallion 3 is a registered trademark of PonySony, all rights reserved. It’s also not nearly as risqué as it sounds.)
Suzie dipped in her hoof again, then appeared to turn part-snake, as she slithered segmentally into the bathtub, until her head was completely covered and small bubbles floated to the surface.
******
Over on the Ponyville-Cloudsdale highway, which at its one terminus is quite a high way indeed, stood a dilapidated cottage, inside of which Dinky Hooves was dipping a hoof into a porcelain bathtub.
“Mommy, it’s too hot!”
Derpy stood tall and tried to put on a mean look, which on her face just made Dinky smile. “It has to be hot, because tonight for dinner I’m making Dinky soup! And I can’t make Dinky soup without Dinky, so get in!”
“But we need more, mommy! We need carrots and onions and those other things that are always in soup that might be celery but you can never quite be sure.”
“We don’t have any of that.”
Dinky looked to her left for a second in thought, then said, “Well, how about bath toys then?”
Derpy chuckled. “OK, but hurry up with them. You’ve got just four seconds to be in that bath, or no dessert tonight. One!”
The little unicorn raced off to her room and returned bulldozing a small mountain of floating rubber in various shapes. She had been gone perhaps two minutes.
Derpy tried her mean look again. “Two!”
Dinky began carefully mouthing her toys into the water in alphabetical-chronological-size order, making sure each was at the correct spot before it floated right next to all the others.
“Dinky, what comes after two? Mommy forgot.”
“Three, I think.”
“That’s it! Threeeeeee.”
The last of the toys were going in.
“Three and a haaaaaaalf!”
Dinky wiggled her rear end like a cat about to leap up onto an unsuspecting lap.
“Three point nine repeating!”
And with that the little filly jumped and belly-flopped into the tub, splashing the room and sending waves back and forth within the bathtub itself.
“I made it, mommy! I still get dessert!”
Derpy was trebly happy. Firstly because Dinky was in the bath at last. Secondly, because Dinky had answered the counting question so quickly. Her filly was smart, and she was never sure if she was allowed to hope that a mare who everyone called stupid could raise a smart child.
And lastly because she was firmly indoctrinating that smart child into believing that point-nine-repeating was NOT equal to one.
******
Suzie was squirming in the bath as her mother continued to scrub her hide with a wiry brush.
The gray pony was exasperated. “I don’t know what possessed you to go into that sandpit. Didn’t you think that you would get dirty?”
“I usually wouldn’t, but another filly was there and invited me.”
“And if another filly jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?”
Suzie thought about that. “Well, not if it was a pegasus, because they would have a reason to jump off, they’d be practicing flying. But she was a unicorn.”
“So you would follow a unicorn?”
“Jumping off a bridge into the sandpit? Sure, that would be fun!”
“No, I meant a higher—never mind. So who was this filly?”
“She was super-fun and knew fun games and shared her toys with me! Her name is Dinky Hooves and her mother is—hey! Her name is almost like yours, mom! Dinky, and Inky!”
“That’s not my name. Only Aunt Pinkamena and Aunt Blinkwina call me that. My name is Inkara. And you call me dam.”
Suzie ducked her head below the water and said through bubbles, “What’s wrong with ‘mom’?”
“It’s that modern pony-lingo, and if the old words were good enough for your Grandsire and Grandam, they’re good enough for us.”
“Grandma lets me call her Grandma,” said Suzie, but by that point she had dropped her head so low that all Inkara heard was, “Glub-blub lets me blub-blub Glub-blub.” She ignored her and scrubbed harder.
Idly she reminisced about the conversation with her parents that had set her life on its present course.
”Inkara dear,” Sue Senior said after sitting her down, “Your sister Pinkie has just told us that she’s moving into Ponyville proper. She’s has an offer to work in a shop and tells us she doesn’t want to take over the rock farm.”
“Really? Will she be able to make it there? Pinkamena’s always been rather. . . flighty, if you’ll excuse me gossiping.”
“She’s no pegasus, but you’re right, she is flighty. All the more reason why she’s better off working for someone else instead of running a farm. Her bosses will be the Cakes, at Sugar Cube Corner, and they’re good, level-headed ponies who’ll hopefully keep her in line.”
“I think I’ve met them once or twice.”
“You’re awfully level-headed yourself, and I’m not just talking about how flat your mane lies. That’s why we want to know if you’d like to be trained to run the farm.”
Inkara was taken aback. “But I don’t know anything about rocks!”
“No, but you’re a hard worker, and that counts for more. And just between you and me, there’s not a whole lot to know. They’re rocks. You don’t have to milk them or feed them or shear them. You would think we wouldn’t even have to farm them when they’re lying all over the place, but most other ponies don’t know that, so we’ve got a good racket going. But in any case we’ve also found an experienced farmhoof to help you out. He’s a nice mustang from Espoña.”
Just then Suzie kicked and reared, splashing her mother in the face and jarring her out of her reverie.
“Mom, watch it!”
“I’m sorry, dear, did I scrub too hard?”
“No, but when you flashback the wavy lines make me all dizzy!”
Inkara bristled. That was something like the silly things her older sister would say, that or something about sticking her head out of frame, when there weren’t even any picture frames around that she could see.
******
Derpy was taking her time bathing her filly, gently brushing her coat and scrubbing her with a washcloth while Dinky squeezed a rubber duck, alternating between doing so underwater and in the air.
“So being as you made it in time for dessert, what would you like this evening? Do you want a cookie?”
“No, mommy!”
“How about a slice of cake?”
“We never have cake!”
“Really? What about some nice pie?”
“Dessert’s got to be muffins!”
“Muffins? I’m not sure I have those.”
“Then it’ll be the first night we don’t.”
“Well, then I’d hate to break a streak.” Derpy put down the washcloth and squirted bubble bath into the water. “Does your new friend like muffins?”
“She never said. Actually we just played until her mommy came. She was awful mad.”
“Why’s that?”
“I think Suzie isn’t allowed to play. Her mommy mentioned something about her daddy not liking it.”
Derpy said nothing for a minute or so, just idly brushing her daughter’s mane, then, trying not to sound serious, asked, “Dinky, are you sad you don’t have a daddy?”
Dinky didn’t pick up the question as anything significant. She kept playing and idly said, “Not one like Suzie’s. He gave her a lot of names. She’s going to be the last in class to learn how to write her full name. If I had to be Dinkywinky Scoobydooby Bibbidy Bobbidy Hooves, I’d never get through telling ponies all that.”
Derpy took a few steps back and let Dinky play with her toys. The motion of the bubble-bath would do the scrubbing fine on its own. She sat down on the floor, and a memory came into her head.
”Derpy, I’m sorry, I did love you, maybe even still love you, but we can’t live together, we’re just going to keep fighting over and over.”
“But I can change, I can stop being such a ditz.”
“It’s not that, it’s not about you. I don’t think I can change.”
“But what about Dinky? She made you different.”
“Not deep down. I love her, but I love other things too.”
Derpy didn’t have an answer for that. From the moment she first held the filly and saw a tiny horn poking out from the swaths of a hospital blanket, Dinky had been the center of her life. It was funny, she thought, that two ponies could say the same words and mean the exact opposite. She could have said, “I love other things too” and mean that everything else was secondary to her love as a mother. He had said it in the passing of a death sentence on a marriage.
“If you feel that way, then I won’t stop you. It’ll be hard to bring her up alone, but I’ll manage.”
“It shouldn’t be alone. I’ll still want to visit her, and I’ll send money whenever I can.”
Derpy from long experience understood her husband’s methods of speech. She knew that the last three words he had said cancelled out the three before.
“No, dear. I agree with you that it’s better off for you to go, but going is going. You can’t have a daughter on weekends and holidays.”
“Mommy, look!”
Derpy was jerked back to reality. She looked in the tub and saw that Dinky had gathered up the suds and stuck some of them onto her flank.
“We have the same cutie mark! I’m just like you, mommy!”
Derpy dove forward and landed in the tub with her forelegs embracing her daughter and gave her a wet, sloppy kiss, not caring if she got wet or if the bathroom got messy. Dinky giggled at how silly her mommy was acting. Derpy was just glad that with the rest of her head soaked, her filly wouldn’t notice any particular moisture in her eyes.
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Oh, dear. I can see a problem on the horizon and its name is Inky........
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww......this whole chapter was made of d'aaaawww--both the cute and the sad types.
This was really fun to read. Dinky and Derpy bonding make for the best stories ever. Poor Suzie! I guess Inkie Pie's as big a stick in the mud as her parents huh?
Heh, the wavy lines remark was really funny! Kudos!
D'awwwwww. That was so sweet.
Why do the best stories have to go by so fast? 
Moar please.
As the previous few comments said...
DDDDDDAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWW!
Thank you for giving my day some much needed D'awwww
Inkara? I AM A MARE
(PUNCH)
What is wrong with you man? Are you trying to kill people with DAWWW
overloads? Because it's WORKING!!!!
Hey wait a minute...if Pinkie Pie's involved in this storyline, then why isn't she part of the list of characters at the title of this tale ?
I really love how you showed the differences when they take a bath,