“Muffins, I'm here!”
Like a shot of adrenaline injected directly into her heart, those three words caused Muffins to bolt upright, spilling an entire bagful of letters onto an unsuspecting Minuette.
“Hey, watch it!” The toothpaste maned unicorn spat out a postcard and shook herself like a dog to unbury herself from the pile of misdelivered mail. Her criticism of the postal service died on her lips when she saw the look of pure horror wash across Muffin's face. Normally a bright and vibrant gray with a creamy blond mane, Muffins was pale enough to startle a ghost.
“Bubble Drop... She found me...” Barely audible, almost a squeak, those were the only words uttered before she flew off like a bat out of the scariest cave in Equestria.
Minuette was buffeted by a dust cloud. She clenched her teeth against the hostile wind and had to rub her eyes to force the grit out. By the time she could see clearly again, there was nopony on the path in either direction. “What the hay was that all about?”
~o0o~
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Panting, hyperventilating, and generally sweaty, Muffins slammed the door to the schoolhouse. Everypony in there jumped in place at the sudden intrusion.
“Uh, Muffins,” Cheerilee said in a slow voice, much like one reserved for misbehaving foals, “class is in session right now. Could you please come back lat—”
Heedless of the admonishing teacher, Muffins dove under Pipsquak's desk, causing the calico colt to go tumbling like a bowling ball. “Help! You have to hide me!” She trembled in place.
Much of the classroom erupted into giggles, and Cheerilee's ears drooped. She sighed and dropped the chalk. It was clear that her lesson plan was ruined, so she might as well do what she could to limit the damage. Walking around, she first helped Pipsqueak to his feet and made sure that he was okay before addressing the wayward pegasus.
“Okay, what is this about?” Cheerilee furrowed her brow and snorted steam to vent her frustration.
Irritatingly, Muffins relaxed upon seeing this. Well, looked less panicked, anyway. “It's, w-well... Bubble Drop's here and—” Her voice trailed off and her ears swiveled around.
Seemingly acting of its own free will, the chalkboard eraser jumped up to wipe off Cheerilee's notes. Several pieces of chalk floated up behind it, dancing around to sketch out a symbol of three bubbles falling.
“HER CUTIE MARK!” Muffins shrieked and ran right through the wall with a horrendous crash. The wind whipped up by her lightning-fast egress sucked up a vortex of loose papers, pencils, certain headpieces, and scattered a trail of school supplies behind her as far as the eye could see.
“My bow!”
“My tiara!”
Cheerilee groaned as two of her problem students glared at each other, as if each one was daring the other to make the claim that her accessory was the more important one.
“Class, I need to get this wall fixed, so that's all for today—”
There was much cheering.
“—but come back Saturday. We have half a lesson plan to make up.”
There was much groaning.
After the students had filed out, Cheerilee stared at the blackboard. That wasn't a cutie mark that she'd seen before. Just who was this Bubble Drop and why did she scare Muffins so much?
~o0o~
It was a calm and pleasant day in Ponyville, perfect weather for a disaster out of nowhere. The ponies in the streets were woefully unprepared as a missile of sheer panic tore through town. It knocked over carts, shattered windows, scattered a flock of geese, tore up gardens in great furrows, rubbed cats the wrong way, and generally wreaked havoc and mayhem as it bolted from place to place, trying to hide, but never staying put for more than a minute.
As quickly as it had come, it was gone, leaving much sorrow and distress in its wake. Rarity watched in horror as her latest, frilliest, dress line got caught in a vortex and yanked straight off the rack. Pinkie Pie gaped as her party banners and streamers ripped off the walls in the wake of the monstrosity. There was so much wreckage in general that Roseluck and the flower sisters were at a complete loss over which specific thing that they should scream and faint over. They drew straws, and wound up screaming and fainting over a pitcher of spilled milk.
All throughout town, ponies were murmuring amongst themselves. Just who was Bubble Drop, and why was Muffins so terrified?
~o0o~
Away from town, there was one place of serenity left, and a pony snoozed peacefully on her personal cloud. Not for long...
“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!”
“Hungh?” the cyan mare wiped the sleep from her eyes. Down below, a little tail-wagging, hopping, madly-grinning pegasus filly smiled back with wide, cheerful eyes. “Scootaloo? Shouldn't you be in school now?”
“Hey, Dash, it was the like the most wicked thing ever! Muffins came in and tore through the classroom, literally. Through the wall and everything! You've got to teach me how to blast off like that because that was a—”
A whistling noise caught Dash's attention, and her jaw dropped as a gray blur and entire month's worth of wind hurtled towards her. Caught in the vortex was an entire thatched roof! Rainbow Dash let out a very girly shriek, ducking and covering her face with her wings.
The gray blur embedded itself under her in the cloud, and Dash was buffeted and whipped and slapped by innumerable things in the air. Her cloud spun about, but once the wind died down, she beat her wings to stabilize it and pushed it back to the meadow, which was now littered with debris.
“See, just like that! That was awesome!”
If anything, Scootaloo was even more enthusiastic and hyper than before. Rainbow Dash made a mental note to ask her doctor about tranquilizer darts. “Uh, squirt...”
“Why didn't I think of it before? I'll just hide in the clouds! She'll never catch me up here!” A gray head popped up right in front of Rainbow Dash, causing her to shriek again. Scootaloo snickered and started laughing.
“Muffins? What do you think you're doing!?” Dash yelled.
Muffins' golden eyes pointed away from each other, one of which was still rolling around in her head. Had this been anypony else, Rainbow Dash would have thought that she'd gone crazy. For Muffins, however, this was normal; that mare was always crazy.
Before she could answer, Dash leaned over the cloud and glared at the still-giggling filly. “And what are you laughing at?”
“It's just so funny the way you shriek like a girl when you're scared.”
“Hey! I was not scared, I was just, uh, complaining about how sissy and girly this dress is.” Rainbow Dash's eyes popped open, and she looked down at herself. Somehow, when stuff was flying at her, she wound up actually wearing a dress. It was an ungodly pink thing with frilly white lace and big, blue buttons. She let out a shriek even girlier than her last two. Scootaloo rolled over on the ground laughing.
“Uh, It's Bubble Drop.” Muffins finally stopped trembling and found her voice. “You see, she's—”
“—right above you. Cloud-walking spells are all the rage these days. Try as you might, you can run but you can't hide from me!”
Another cloud descended towards them. From below, all they could see was a silhouette. Muffins panicked, bolting off like a personal injury lawyer after an ambulance. This time, Dash was knocked off her cloud. With the dress inhibiting her motions, all she could manage was to hit the ground in a controlled tumble. She growled and tore the stupid thing off with her teeth.
Dash glared up at the sky. The extra cloud was gone, and the sky was blue. “Of all the—! Just who does that Bubble Drop think she is!?”
Scootaloo was reverently collecting the torn shreds of the dress and sealing them in little, plastic bags. “I dunno, but she went that way.” An orange hoof pointed at a large pine tree, and sure enough, there was a wisp of cloud behind it.
“Oh she did, did she?” Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes and snorted.
~o0o~
Bubble Drop, as it turned out, was a perfectly ordinary looking unicorn. She had a moderate blue-gray coat, very curly amethyst colored hair, gold eyes, and she really did have a cutie mark of three bubbles falling. The style was very similar to that of Muffins', whose seven bubbles were free-floating. Her mane was frazzled in places, and she probably would have done something about that, if she weren't so tightly bound to a chair in Sugarcube Corner.
Her eyes darted around the room full of irate ponies, and lingered on a selection of delectable cupcakes. She licked her lips.
“Okay...” Rainbow Dash stepped in front of her, glaring at her and causing her to lean back with the little wiggle-room that she had. “A lot of ponies here want to know: just who are you, and what do you want with Muffins?”
The bound mare sighed. “Well, my name is Bubble Drop, and I'm just here to visit. I didn't mean to cause such a ruckus.”
“Just visit? You're terrorizing her! What kind of 'just visiting' is that!?”
Rocking her chair slightly, Bubble Drop shifted her eyes back and forth before swishing her tail and staring back at Rainbow Dash. “Oh, well, we may have a teensy tradition that we do each year, and it may have gotten a little out of control this time. It was supposed to be a harmless prank. Honestly, I thought we were just having fun. I didn't realize it was going to be such a problem for everypony else. Really, Muffins is a good girl. Don't blame any of this on her.”
“She dumped everypony's mail on my head!”
“She disrupted my class and damaged the schoolhouse!”
“She ruined an entire line of dresses!”
“She made us cry over spilled milk!”
“And, she embarrassed me in front of Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash growled.
Bubble Drop gave a weak chuckle. “Oh, well, on second thought, blame everything on her.”
“You still haven't told us what this is about.”
Bubble Drop leaned back and shifted her weight. The chair scooted a bit. “Well, at this point, the details don't matter. If I'm not free to catch her, then she'll keep running forever, and you might never see her again. But! Since I'm tied up here, it should be an easy matter to convince her that it's safe to see me. If you really want to know the answers, you'll do that.”
“Would that really be such a bad thing if she ran away?” Rarity asked. “I put a lot of work into those dresses.”
There were murmurs of agreement, but Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof. “Hey! Don't talk about Muffins like that. As much as I hate to say it, she is a valued member of our community, and we can't just turn our backs on her because of some rivalry thing or whatever this is. If she has some problem with Bubble Drop, then we should at least give her the chance to face her fears in a safe way.”
Bubble Drop grinned. “Excellent. You should be able to find her hiding in the old treehouse in the apple orchard.” When other ponies raised their eyeborws, Bubble Drop added, “What? I was chasing her, after all.”
~o0o~
Muffins had come willingly, but after entering the room, all she did was stand there, staring at Bubble Drop. The crowd glanced back and forth, waiting for something to happen. The tension grew so high that bets were placed on who would be the first to speak.
After an eternity, Bubble Drop spoke, “Muffins, please, won't you at least say hello to your mother?”
There was much grumbling and many bits exchanged hooves. One young stallion even lost his virginity. In retrospect, that was a very stupid thing to bet.
“Mom, I...” Muffins shuffled her feet. “It's nice to see you, but...”
“Dear, I know we've had our differences, but I wouldn't come to visit if I didn't care about you.”
“Well, that is true...” Muffins turned aside. One eye stayed on her mother, while the other appeared to scan through the glass case at the confectionery delectables sold at Sugarcube Corner, when it wasn't pointing at the ceiling.
“Oh, don't be that way. Aren't you going to at least give your old mare a hug?”
Muffins suddenly tensed up, and the crowd hushed as well. “You're... not going to do that thing are you?”
Bubble Drop laughed, throwing back her bluish-gray head. Her amethyst curls shook with mirth. “Dear, I'm tied up at the moment. I couldn't even do that if I wanted to. And besides, all this nonsense has gotten us both in trouble.”
Muffins smiled. It wasn't a big one, but it was like a strobe light compared to the darkness and gloom that had been her expression since she entered. “I guess you're right. Perhaps this once, we can enjoy a family moment without my having to worry about my cranial integrity.” She reared up, spread her hooves, and leaned forward.
At the last moment, Bubble Drop jerked in her chair, scooting it sideways. She leaned back, tipping it, and her leg caught her daughter's ankle. Muffins shrieked, flipped over, and there was a dull thud as she landed on her head.
Everypony gaped at the sight while Bubble Drop burst out laughing.
“OW! MOM! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT!? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DROP ME ON MY HEAD!? WHY CAN'T YOU GIVE ME CAKE OR PRESENTS LIKE ANY OTHER NORMAL PARENT ON MY BIRTHDAY!? WHY!?”
Once Bubble Drop managed to quiet down, she said, “It's a fine family tradition that started way back when the nurse slipped. Muffins, dear, I love you very much, but I always get the drop on you. Always.”
