Panning Pancakes

by Glimglam

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Dinky Hooves, Derpy Hooves
Length: 1991

Derpy likes muffins. Dinky likes pancakes. Derpy doesn't take this too well. Dinky doesn't care. Who will win in the everlasting battle of pancakes versus muffins? There can be only one! ...Or can there?

Derpy Hooves has a daughter named Dinky. Of course, we all knew that, right? Derpy always calls Dinky "her little muffin", which is adorable, of course. But as it turns out, Dinky doesn't even like muffins that much! No, she has instead found solace in pancakes, instead!

How will Derpy react to this news? Is Dinky losing her mind? Are pancakes really all that they're cracked up to be? Are muffins getting stale? (Pun totally intended, by the way.) There's only one way to find out...

The not-so-epic sequel to Making Muffins, the story that no one asked for! And how 'bout that, now we have a threequel as well! Warring Waffles!

Published 2013-07-13 18:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-13 18:20:03 UTC

In Which There Is A Startling Revelation

So, it was a pretty nice day in Ponyville. Every day is a nice day in Ponyville, really. It kind of makes you wonder how these ponies can stand having nice weather all the time. I mean, really! Throw a decent storm around sometime, guys! Life is quite frankly boring when all you're reduced to doing is sitting in the grass staring at the blazing sun until your eyeballs melt out of their sockets and you go blind and stuff.

This is kind of coming from experience by the way. A friend of a friend told me about it, so it's probably true.

Anyway, on to the subject of this lil' ol' yarn of mine. Enter the town's most beloved-and-yet-still-hated-in-that-kind-of-way-where-you-just-love-to-hate-her-because-she's-a-clumsy-putz mailmare, aptly named Derpy Hooves. She was just going about her daily business, you know, delivering mail and stuff.

Ponies like to bitch and moan about the mail service a lot, but when the only ponies working for mail delivery are ridiculously slow earth ponies and utterly incompetent pegasi, then yeah, you kind of have a problem there. It's not their fault I guess, that kind of blame falls on those greedy bureaucrats who only hire chumps like those because they can afford to pay them less than a macro-increment of the minimum wage. Suck jerks, amirite?

Derpy Hooves is a happy mailmare though, and that wasn't because today no one had any horseshoes left in their houses to throw at her, no; she was happy 'cuz she had an awesome daughter. Dinky, I believe her name was.

Wait a second, this is all sounding familiar. Didn't I already narrate a story talking about Derpy and eventually her adorable-as-fuck little filly, Dinky? Yes? Yeah, I thought so. It was awesome, don't you even deny it. Otherwise I'll come to your house and stuff muffins down your throat until you beg for me to stop.

But since muffins are so awesome, you won't. You'll just keep eating them like the pig you are until your stomach blows up.

It happened on a cartoon, so I know this is true.

So as I was saying, Derpy was flying through the air on her deliveries. Since the last package (which felt really heavy and she could have sworn that she heard it ticking as well) was already delivered to the Mayor's house, she could finally go home to her precious little muffin, her daughter. And then she'll snuggle her, huggle her, and all kinds of other squee-inducing "uggle" verbs until the entire tri-state population suffers simultaneous heart attacks.

Ain't that just the sweetest thing, folks? Derpy is best mom, no questions asked. You know you're jealous.

Derpy, best known to her friends as the Derps, heads on back home, and opens the door. Right where she had expected her, there was her daughter standing in the kitchen, Dinky. But what was this? She was standing on a little stool, hunched over the stove top. What was she doing? Derpy had told her time and time again that she was not allowed to play with things that turned bright red at the push of a button!

"Muffin," she called out to the filly, "what are you doing there?"

At the sound of her mommy's voice, the adorable little blonde unicorn filly turned towards her and grinned the most adorable little grin you will have ever seen (and in the case of some people, quite possibly the last thing you'd ever see, period).

"I'm making something, mommy!" she replied in the cutest little high-pitched tone you would hear. "Come look, come look!"

And so, being the understanding and ever-so-tolerant mother that she is, Derpy walked on over to the stove to see what Dinky was making. Folks, I feel as if I need to clarify something here before we go on: This isn't the same house that Derpy had in the last story, mmkay? Y'know, that cloud house, where she tried to put that other stove in? That was her summer home. She and Dinky live in this home on the surface, because Dinky ain't a pegasus, and therefore cannot walk on clouds.

The reason she didn't just use the stove in this house, then? ...Because she forgot about it or something, hell, I dunno. It's not like I know what goes on in that mare's mind, jeez. She could be fantasizing about rabbits for all I know.

Sorry folks, my mind likes to wander sometimes. Can't help it. Back to the story, then.

Derpy walked over to the stove, and looked down at what Dinky had created. It was... definitely some kind of round, flat bread. Of some sort. A little bit plain, but it had something of a simple beauty to it. The smooth, elegant curves... the almost artistic shape... the wafting, fragrant smell of...

Of...

...

Well, whatever it was, it smelled pretty damn good.

The Derps could only watch as Dinky took a teeny-tiny little spatula and lifted up the circular mass of pastry and set it down on a plate. Her magic isn't all that great just yet, but it's still kind of cute on how she makes that little scrunchy face when she tries to light up her horn and lift stuff...

...Well, great. Now I think my heart stopped.

Oh... oh wait, never mind, I'm okay. That was close, though. Cuteness can kill, man.

They should have protective goggles for cuteness, maybe. Not like they'd do anything, but they can still look cool I guess.

Anyway, Dinky looked extremely proud of this simple bit of pastry. But Derpy Hooves couldn't help but wonder. What is it? Some kind of cake? As yummy as it looked, it couldn't hold a candle to her muffins. But being the awesome mom that she is, she humored her adorable little filly.

"It's a 'pancake'!" the heart-stoppingly cute filly exclaimed, beaming brighter than a supernova. But Derpy didn't understand. Pancakes? She had heard of those, of course. She had heard of their simple charm, their wafting scent, their soft, pillow-like texture... They were obviously stark competition for her muffins. Pancakes are the mortal enemies of muffins, clearly! She would not be having any of THOSE in HER house.

But Derpy is a loving, trusting mother. And she didn't want to upset her filly. So she calmly asked, "That does look good little muffin, but, wouldn't you rather have a muffin?"

At this, Dinky's adorable little smile fell away. Not literally of course, that would be weird. It's more of in the metaphorical sense. She played around with her hooves a bit as she looked at the ground. She then timidly spoke, "Um, but... I tried a muffin already, and... I didn't really like it. I like pancakes more."

...

"WHAT?!"

Derpy was shocked! Astonished! This could simply not be! Her own daughter had betrayed her for the enemy! Inconceivable! Lies and slander! Surely, somepony had to have put her up to this! No daughter of hers would choose pancakes over the holy greatness of muffins!

So then, a lot of stuff happened. Like, a bunch. There was red-faced yelling, screaming to the heavens, and a few pitiful sobs of regret all happening in quick succession. From Derpy alone. Tables were flipped, fine china was demolished, and subscriptions to the Equestria Daily newspaper were cancelled. All in all, a fairly normal reaction to such a traumatic and shocking revelation.

Dinky, meanwhile, just decided to ignore all that, and sat down to eat the pancake she had made. It tasted... soft. Fluffy. Warm. Delicious. Quite simply, the best breakfast item she had ever tasted in her life. She didn't even understand it; it almost tasted too good! She had found her OTF! (That's "One True Food" for the uninitiated, by the way.)

In fact, she almost didn't even notice that she had a swanky new tattoo adorning her teeny-little thighs. A steaming, fluffy-looking plate of pancakes. With butter and syrup, too! When Dinky saw this sweet new tattoo, she cried with tears of joy! She was just so happy, and didn't even know what to do after that!

...Well, she did have a few ideas, but they involved either things that were a bit hard for a filly of her stature, or required a valid credit card.

But she didn't get deterred. If nothing else, Dinky was excited! Truly, pancakes had been her true calling in life all along! Forget about muffins, those were only holding her back! No; pancakes were the OTBI! (That's "One True Breakfast Item", by the way.)

She was so happy, so adorably happy, that brave little Dinky bid farewell to her still-flipping-her-shit mother and ran out into the world, where she then got a job working at Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie was simply jovial about Dinky's discovery of the ultimate breakfast-slash-anytime snack, and worked with her to produce hundreds of amazingly flavored varieties of pancakes (which included boysenberry, cherry, vanilla, meatloaf, and bubblegum (by GOD do I love bubblegum!)).

The pancakes proved so successful, that as the years wore on and the adorable little Dinky grew up into a drop-dead gorgeous mare, she even opened her own breakfast parlor. Dinky Cakes, as they are now called, literally sell like hotcakes.

Because "hotcakes" is basically just another word for "pancakes". See what I did there? Hah, I crack myself up sometimes...

But then, one day, Dinky got a surprise visitor to her shop. She almost didn't even recognize her, but it was hard to confuse those oddly-wayward eyes with another pone, I guess. Yep, it was her dear old mum, Derpy Hooves.

No words were spoken between them as Derpy approached the counter that Dinky stood behind. She looked tired; exhausted even. Sad, too. Dinky remembered the day she had left, and how upset her mother had been when she did. It was almost enough to make her cry.

Well shit, now I'm probably gonna cry too. I need to watch some Initial D after this, man.

Anyway, Derpy then did something that surprised Dinky. She simply ordered one pancake

Just.

One.

Pancake.

Dinky nodded and stepped away, off to make the single pancake that her mother had ordered. She was done and back in less than a minute. The grown-up daughter hoofed it over to her, not saying a word.

The Derps just stood there for a moment looking at the pancake. The simple curves, the elegant shape, the wafting, oddly familiar scent... it all seemed to call out to her. A peace offering. A treaty, for all that had happened and she had been through. The whole place had gotten really quiet and stuff, so, it was pretty tense in there. I'd be holding my breath, honestly.

So, leaning forward, Derpy took a quick bite of the pancake--her pancake--and sampled the taste.

It tasted like muffins.

Blueberry muffins, at that.

...And just the tiniest hint of bubblegum, as well.

Derpy was on the verge of tears as she ate the entire pancake. Then, she looked at her daughter. Both stared long and hard into the other's eyes. And then, they both hugged each other tighter than a vice grip ever could. The entire shop erupted in a chorus of "D'awwwws" as they did, but neither Dinky nor the Derps gave a buck. They were both happy after all, so who cares? The others could go die in a fire or something.

So... yeah. That's how it all went down, really. In the end, I suppose things like these can work out after all. Maybe pancakes are the answer to world peace? We may never know.

All that Dinky knew, was that she probably ought to pay back Pinkie for all the help she gave her sometime later. And by "pay back", I meant that in the most wrong way possible.

It was indeed a "happy ending" for all involved.

U mad, non-Dinks?

~END~