Author's Note
This story is for a Kilala97 contest, it is intended to focus on her character Cotton Candy's poor sense of direction. I've never really done a story like this so please forgive me if I'm faltering. Have fun, and enjoy. I also added a little extra something. I got a little tired of seeing fan works based in the Kilalaverse putting Pinkie and her family up in Sugarcube Corner as place of residence, in my mind Pinkie would have moved out to have more space to raise her family, and the result is the complex I call the Party Palace, I don't get specific with it's location other than it's outside Ponyville and on another side of town from Twilight's place. Feel free to use it, and get more specific with some of its aspects, I don't mind. If you do decide to use it give me heads up, the only one this doesn't apply to is Kilala since I crafted this version of the Party Palace just for her universe, she can do whatever she wants with it without informing me.
Lost in a New Home
Lost in a New Home
by: alias on deviant art- hvgtd
“Candy,” came a sweet little voice, “can you tell us how you found out you're not all that good at finding your way around? Cloudy and I really want to know, and it's a question that's been bugging us all week.”
Cotton Candy slowly cracked opened her eyes to see a pink unicorn filly and light gray pegasus filly, the grayish blue mare gave a quick yawn, which caused the two fillies to giggle at the sound of their elder sister's unusual sounding yawn, “girls, the sun isn't up yet, and shouldn't you be getting ready for school if you're up this early.”
“One, it's Saturday,” said Cloudy in a soft voice.
“And two, our summer break from school started earlier this week.” Said Sugar Rush
“Sure, rub it in,” mumbled Candy, “you don't get such lovely breaks from work, I guess I can tell you about how I discovered my poor lack of navigation, which I've been trying to work on by the way.”
“So, where we start?” said Sugar with excitement.
“First we get breakfast, mostly because Celestia's sun,” Candy took a quick look at the carnival themed alarm clock on her nightstand, “won't be up for another three hours.”
A few minutes later the twins and Candy were trotting down the hall to the kitchen, inside the kitchen they found their mother, Pinkie Pie, busy baking so many pies that half the dining table and most of the counters were covered in a variety of the confections.
“Whatcha baking the pies for mom?” said the three in unison.
“Trying some new recipes for a party on Sunday, the guest of honor loves pies and dislikes cakes as food.”
The three gasped in surprise before Candy said, “Mom, it's a few hours from sunrise on Saturday, did you sleep at all last night?”
“Um, no,” said Pinkie, “your father is stuck in Canterlot until noon, seems the train station in Canterlot is being so heavily renovated that the earliest we can expect him back is on the noon train from Canterlot.”
“Can't he just take a carriage home?” Said Cloudy.
“Sorry girls, that's for urgent matters, and unfortunately for us the party tomorrow is considered low priority. Why you up so early?”
“The twins woke me up a few minutes ago wanting to hear how we learned I have bad sense of direction,” said Candy with a light yawn, “I managed to stall the story telling to after breakfast, which of the pies in here can we eat for breakfast?”
“Any of the ones on the table will do good for you,” said Pinkie, “but I'm not entirely sure what type they are, let me know what kind of pies your digging into and what you think about them.”
The three gave a quick series of nods before rushing to seats by the table. As Candy started digging into a chocolate and strawberry pie she noticed Sugar had dug into a potato pie with a look of disappointment and Cloudy had somehow managed to dig into a boysenberry and huckleberry pie with a strong sense of satisfaction that she had found a tasty prize.
“So,” said Sugar, "can you tell us now," before going back to her pie.
“Well,” said Pinkie, “Candy was around the age you two are now and our home had just been finished.”
“But we thought this place was always here,” said the twins with mouths half full of food, the logic of foals could be amusing sometimes.
Pinkie and Candy chuckled a bit before Pie said, “well, no girls, this place is just barely older than your sister. The Party Palace wasn't always here, Your dad and I had its construction plans started when we discovered your sister was on the way. Before then we were just living at Sugarcube Corner, what we used was my old room when I used to work there actually.”
“Yeah, this four story monstrosity of fun is one of the newer sights in Ponyville,” said Candy, “like Princess Twilight's palace.”
The twins looked the two with confusion, the cutest confusion that Pinkie had seen since Candy was that age before Pinkie said, “Twilight's palace only appeared at the edge of Ponyville after the Tirek incident.”
“Oh,” said Cloudy and Sugar in unison.
“You just learned about it, huh?” said Candy.
The two nodded energetically.
“Anyway,” said Pinkie, “it was just after the Party Palace was built and we had gotten all our furniture moved into the place and were moving ourselves, I had put a blindfold on Candy and was carrying her on my back to ensure the surprise was complete...”
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Ponyville many years prior, Candy's age at this time is around five years
“Can I remove it yet mommy,” a young Cotton Candy squeaked.
“Not yet, Candy,” said Pinkie, “we're almost there, so you can take it off soon.” Pinkie Pie, with Cotton Candy on her back, and Pokey Pierce were trotting to edge of Ponvyille.
“Why did we have it built so far out again?” said Pokey as he looked over at his wife for a moment.
“So we can have a lot of space for outdoor parties,” said Pinkie in her seemingly flawless logic, “and from here we are we can see Twilight's place without it being imposing.”
They kept walking for a few more minutes in silence, Candy said, “I'm bored, can't we play some games or something.”
“No,” said Pinkie with a giggle, “because we're here, you can take off the blindfold.”
Candy removed her blindfold and what greeted her sight was a four story building in the form of a towering four tiered birthday cake colored just like her mother's mane. Pinkie smiled as she set her daughter down and only heard, “wow, this place is awesome,” Candy ran toward the complex noticing the decorative fringes were in the color of her father's coat and the very top had what looked like candles in the exact shape and color of her mother's cutie mark, her father's cutie mark was big and present on four sides of the building at the very bottom of the building's base. “So, where are the doors? I don't see any,” she cried at the base of the complex while sitting in defeat before one of her father's giant cutie marks.
“Your dad's cutie marks on the place are doors,” said Pinkie, “it represents how he opened new doors for me,” she looked at her husband lovingly, this was accompanied by the fake gagging of a foal in opposite direction of Candy, Pinkie turned around to see Rainbow Dash and Soarin with a little Prism Bolt, “just like his mom,” said Pinkie with a chuckle.
“I don't know what you could possibly mean,” said Rainbow in mock offense, “I heard it was done and decided to see your new place, and I just couldn't leave these two alone,” she gave her husband a smirk, “they nearly burned the house down last time.”
“But you live in a house made of cloud,” said Pokey with confusion.
“Never underestimate the ability of a stallion with very little kitchen experience, and a mischievous foal,” said Rainbow with a Snicker.
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Ponville: Candy's time as an older sister
“Wait,” said Sugar, “I thought mister Soarin was a great cook,” she shoved another fork full of pie into her muzzle
“Well, he is now,” said Pinkie, “but before you two were born he was worse than your sister in the kitchen, admittedly your sister got better much faster than him. I'm still trying to figure out why she has an obsession with making quiches,” while she was saying all this Candy and Sugar exchanged pies and dug into them, the potato pie was much more in line with Candy's tastes and the chocolate and strawberry pie was much more desired by her little sister anyway. “Anyway,” said Pinkie, "after the visit from Rainbow and her family we made our way into the our new home and that's when...”
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Candy's first time in the new house, Age: 5...ish
Pinkie and Pokey opened the door, which as stated before was in the shape of his cutie mark, to reveal a massive party hall. “This,” said Pinkie, “is our main party hall, the door off to the right,” she pointed with her hoof to a door that was much closer to a classic set of kitchen doors (if you excluded that the doors were the shape of cupcakes), "is the main party kitchen." She then pointed towards the stairs, “The next floor is dedicated hosting a few more parties, mostly involving foals, and the last two floors are reserved for the family, that means the two top floors are only for our personal use and that means that's where your new room is.”
“Yes,” said Pokey, “and your mother thought that you'd like it if your room was on the top floor, we have a private kitchen next to our room on the floor below you so if you need us we'll be just a short trot down the stairs.”
“I'll take her to see her new room, I want to see what she thinks of everything I did for her,” said Pinkie as she lead her daughter up the stairs. After thirty-seven plus steps, Candy swore it was over three-hundred at the time, Pinkie said it was only thirty-seven from the bottom of the first floor to the top floor, Candy responded with saying how she was including the space between stairs.
“Why can't all the stairs be on one side?” moaned an annoyed Candy.
“Because Twilight had to approve the interior design,” said Pinkie, “and she says this way is better because it allows ponies to see more of the place and is much safer, we also have a dumbwaiter that goes between all the floors, the first three floors all have kitchens, and your room is just above the kitchen. All the kitchens are layered above each other so they can transfer ingredients between them with more ease, there's also a larger dumbwaiter system between all the storage rooms.”
“Which are also stacked on top of each other for ease of unloading supplies,” Candy stated.
“Exactly,” said Pinkie while she let the filly catch her breath at the top of the stairs. “You ready to see your new room?”
“Yeah,” said Candy with excitement.
Pinkie swung open the door to reveal a room twice the size of her old one at Sugarcube Corner. There was a trot-in closet just across from the door, perfect for storing whatever Candy wanted; her bed was now a fourposter bed with a headboard and foot board, all of which were prepared for decorating when Candy decided what to decorate her room as whatever she wanted; the bed had sheets that were done in the design of her mother's aesthetics, including a pillow in the shape of her mom's cutie mark; there was also a nightstand in the color of her mother's coat, which she still used as a place for her reading materials and her alarm clock; and all the walls were bear in a whitewash that had Candy feeling an itch to cover with her own unique sense of style.
“I left some splatter paints in the closet for you to decorate with,” said Pinkie as she left her daughter to get acclimated to her new room, “the bathroom for your level is out the door and to the right, the left is one of the rooms I decided could be either for extra storage or a place for any new siblings your father and I decide to give later on,” with that the pink mare trotted down the stairs humming the Winter Wrap up song, Candy rolled her eyes because Winter Wrap up had been a good five months prior.
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Ponyville: Big Sister Candy Time
Sugar suddenly said, “Splatter paints? Mom you know how neat and tidy Candy is, right?”
“Yes, well I was hoping that the excitement of having her own room would make her not mind being a little messy for a few hours,” said Pinkie as she shot Candy a sad look, Candy was ignoring it as she was diving into a new pie that appeared to be apple and ginger filled.
“Yes, well” said Candy putting her first fork full back into the pan where she had pulled it from so as to minimize the mess, “I almost did, mom said I was a messy eater my first month, but then I got super neat with my eating, she says it was kind of scary.”
“Foals shouldn't be that neat at that age,” said Pinkie with a shiver.
“Anyway after mom left me to my own devices I opened the closet and trotted in to find the paints, I missed the fact they were directly to my left when the door was opened and that's when the scary stuff started to happen you see...”
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Young Candy: first time in her trot-in closet, Age:5...ish
“How can I be lost in a closet,” said a scared Candy to herself, “I just walked in a straight line. How is it possible to get lost going in a straight line... unless the line wasn't as straight as I thought, oh no, mom is going be so worried about me, I'm going to be stuck in here forever, I'll grow old in here and never find my special friends, or discover my special talent,” Candy started to break down and cry.
After about twenty minutes of crying, Candy swore it had been weeks at the time. The pink and white maned filly started wondering around sniffing like a dog, “Maybe if I can find my scent I can... wait I'm so used to my own scent that I can't do that, I'm going to be lost in here forever.”
Candy heard her mother's muffled voice calling her down for lunch, it was so muffled that she couldn't figure out the direction other than it was behind her. She turned around and galloped for about five minutes before running into a wall and started crying again, this time for a few hours. She heard her tummy rumble and then a few minutes later Pinkie's voice, less muffled and to her right, calling her down for dinner. Candy once again galloped in the direction of her mother's voice and skidded to a stop with her face inches from a shelf that had her name carved into it in the distinct style of her mother's hoofwriting. She started crying again.
Still sniffling Candy had the idea of marking where she had been, reaching into her mane and pulling out some neon pink, dust free chalk (she promised herself she'd clean it all up later) she made a big cross on the wall to just below the shelf, after stepping back with a satisfied, and somewhat disappointed smirk, on her face she trotted off in in a random direction. After trotting for a few minutes she came back to her mark, again, and again, and again. By this time Candy had lost track of time and had no idea if it was night or day out.
It was some hours later that Pinkie came back to the room to check on Candy and threw open the doors to find her daughter literally six feet into the closet trying to find her way around. “Candy, sweetheart,” said Pinkie, “what are you doing?”
Candy looked over at her mom and said, “I couldn't find my way out, now I have to clean this wall because it has a mark I didn't want on it. All because I couldn't find those silly paints.”
“Why did you go so far in to begin with? All you had to do was look to the left to see the paints, after you look to the left and you'd spot them,” said Pinkie with concern.
Candy gave a little blush before saying, “I never did look over, I thought you had put them a little further in so nopony would mess with them, sorry mom. How long have I been in here? I heard you call for lunch and got more lost, then you called for dinner and I still got more lost.”
Pinkie gave her daughter a surprised look before saying, “Sweetheart, I came up to get you for breakfast, you've been in here all night? Without sleep?” Candy gave a several slow nods not wanting to say something that might upset her mother.
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Ponville: Candy's Big sister time
“And that is how we found out I have terrible navigation,” said Candy with an annoyed look at her mother, “mom said I'd probably grow out of it, especially since everything was so new, it took me the rest of the summer to not get lost on the way to the dining table and door outside, and all of my spring break that year to not get lost in the closet, I don't think I'll ever outgrow my lousy sense of direction.”
“We can always hope,” said Pinkie as she passed a broccoli and lettuce goat cheese quiche over to Candy, whom had forgotten her other pie in the midst of picking up where her mother had left off.