Sweet Treats to eat.

The go to place for most of Canterlot High's alumni may be Sugar Cube Corner, but they don't know what they're missing. The Sweetstuff bakery was like a sugary oasis, mainly due to the fact that it was the last of the original shops that once made up the city's "Sweets and treats" district. Fifty years ago the street the bakery was on, had been one of many homemade candy stores; bakeries, ice cream shops, and other such places where the young old, the simple and elite alike could get something to sate their sweet tooth cravings. Times have a way of changing so much though; as many of those places had closed up and the owners moved on to greener acres in the intervening time. With only the criss-cross of sealed off alleyways, warehouses, and old train lines keeping the two shops from bring in close proximity. Never the less the Sweetstuff Bakery sat just off the corner of Holly Drive and Main, not far from would be Rival Sugar Cube Corner. With it's bricks painted the bright sugary blue of frosting, the masonry molding designed to look just like rolled fondant, in stone works influenced by clearly 18th and 19th century Old German architecture in the way the blue stones stacked up into curved arches on the roof top, add in the painted walls that had the shade one could only call banana yellow on the facade and vanilla white on the rooftop stones, and the building itself looked good enough to eat.

The owner of the bakery, Giovanni Sweetstuff, brother to one Pauli Sweetstuff. Had opened the store the same way he always had in the twenty or so years since he inherited it from his father, as he inherited in from his father's father before him. The young man next to him smiled as the door to the bakery opened and the smell that all bakeries have. Bakery air immediately fills you up with the sickly sweet smell of cooking cupcakes, crisping croissants, and the distinct aroma of dough being laid out and hand rolled. The young John Sweetstuff took a deep whiff of that smell that entices the young and reawakens nostalgic memories in the older, turned to his older uncle beside him, and said.

"It's good to be home Uncle Gio." As he gave the older Italian gentlemen a hug.

"Ah Johnny my boy; It warms an old man's heart to see his brother's kid so enraptured by the pride and joy of the family name," he said as they made their way past the black and red checkerboard tiles, the black wrought iron chairs waiting for customers to sit in them with cups of Caffè crema and Getränkter Zitronencake. (Swiss Lemon Loaf) "You know someday this little slice of the old country will be yours." He said as his nephew took his spot behind the counter, he leaned over it too him with a look in his eye that seemed to be trying to see right through the young man, like he trying to see if he had the mettle to live up to the generations of hard work that had gone into the shop.

John stood his ground as the old man's steely grey eyes locked with his from behind the the thin and wiry glasses he wore; he took a silent breath and replied. "Uncle Gio; I promise I'll take care of this place at all cost, whether some big food chain offers it to me for a million dollars or even if some other shop does better than us, I promise the family business will become my pride and joy...just as soon as I finish school." He added making them both break into bouts of hysterical laughter, but it was good laughter.

"Thar's mah boyo, say speaking of which, when are you gonna be done with school anyway?" The old man asked him before retreating to his place in the back, his days work of baking about to start.

"I...don't really know uncle, it's kinda complicated." He said as he hoped his uncle wouldn't press the issue further, its really not worth mentioning why.

"Damn it boy, it feels like you've been in school forever." He called from the rear bake house.

"It's no big deal uncle I'll be done soon I promise." He said choking on the bitterness of lying to an elder.

Meanwhile at Sugar Cube Corner

Mr. Cakes placed one arm around his lovely wife's waist as his other one felt around his pocket for the brass key to his own bakery. "It's so good to be getting back to work after a long weekend off eh dear?" He asked her as he gave her cheek a loving husband's kiss. Mrs. caked giggled at the touch of her husband's lips and kissed him back.

"Hey come on now Valentino, we got customer's waiting and orders to fill." She said blushing so bright she looked like her blueberry strawberry swirl surprise cupcakes. (the surprise being the vanilla Crème fraîche filling) Mr. Cake finally found the key and slid it into the lock on the Sugar Cube corner door, but never once did he break the gaze of Cupcake's Aragonite pink eyes. He slowly inched his mouth to her's while softly saying.

"I just...want to make each day special with you.'' He closed his eyes as did she, as their lips came in contact with...something smooth. Something clearly not each other's lips, because it tasted like bubble gum. The couple shot their eyes open to see the sides of their apprentice's (Pinkaminea "Pinkie" Diane pie) head. Pinkie had an ear to ear grin as they quickly backed away from the sides of her head they ended up kissing.

"Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Cakes, Nice day huh? Are we going to start the shift now?" She pelted them with question after question as she happily skipped and bounced around on her blue boots. The Cakes loved Pinkie like an adopted daughter; hell she in some ways kinda was just that to them, but even now they felt that her antics might be a bit much when she broke up the moments they had as a loving couple. Pinkie Zipped through the door when Mr. Cakes opened it up and took her usual spot in the back; Pinkie wasted no time in throwing on the uniform she designed herself. (and had Rarity make for her) It consisted of a blue and pink cap that looked like a hard candy, an orange bow-tie and an orange and yellow striped apron. She immediately started darting from bowl to bowl stirring up batches of various dough's; batters, icings, fondants, fillings and icings.

"That's our Pinkie." Mrs. Cake said as she and her husband looked at the mystery; wrapped in enigma, hiding in a flower pot, That's on a frog, on the bump on the log, in the hole in the bottom of the sea, that is their apprentice Pinkie Pie.

The old districts the two bakeries where in weren't as far apart as you might think; if anything their was only one thing that blocked the Sweetstuff Bakery from being just within sight of Sugar Cube Corner, and that as a bunch of old warehouses that once separated the city districts between the two streets the buildings stood on. If you only took these old warehouses away the girl at the counter of Sugar Cube Corner would be able to look a few blocks down to the blue and vanilla white German influenced facade of the Sweetstuff Bakery, as could any potential customers. If you took the old strip of warehouses away the two shops could essential become...well in direct competition to each other.

Both the aged single Italian gentleman and the young couple knew this, While the cakes didn't know much about Giovanni Sweetstuff, they where thankful the relics of the old days kept his store out of sight from theirs. The fact that most people in Canterlot City could choose either bakery without ever knowing that another one, was so close and stir up bad blood between the two stores was a blessing they all where thankful for, especially given something that had happened several years ago. It was something that made the two groups of owners while not hateful to each other, still somewhat bitter. It wouldn't exactly improve if say...a demolition crew where to demolish the old buildings and build new streets that would make the shops a bit closer to each other.

So It wasn't a good sign when the bulldozers started revving up their engines and ripping into the old walls of the derelicts, nor did it improve when the tar and asphalt trucks started mixing up the pavings for the new streets that would link the stores and houses still being used. The cakes looked across the newly opened up wastleand of construction vehciles tearing one landscape down to build a new one up. Mr.Cake looked out the store window with his wife at the facade of the Sweetstuff Bakery for the first time in many years.

"Hello Gio, Ready to see who's a bigger man in the baking bussiness?" He said cracking his kuckles and grinding his teeth, His wife took his hand and squeezed it softly.

"Now dear, we made a vow that all that between you two was over and behind us."

"It's just....I still remember how it was....for both of us when I was the apprentice around her and you where..." She raised a finger to his lips and shushed.

"No, the past is the past and there are still five long blocks of Crossed streets and roundabouts between us, if we just don't look at his store no one else will."

"You know I don't like any competion."

"Then don't make it come to you." She said before gently nuzzling his cheeks with the loving care a happy wife could give her loving husband in a bond that was meant to last forever.

"Yes dear." He said as the two bakers locked lips softly in the kiss their sweet (but wacky as all get-out) Apprentice had stolen away from them. Her lips; with the cherry blossom gloss, mixed with his blueberry mint toothpaste as they kissed; arms wrapping around their waists and the world fading away. Not even the gagging little school boy with the finger in his throat at the counter waiting to buy sweets could take the bliss away from them.

From the opposite sides across the vacant lots becoming streets; Pinkie and John looked out the windows of the respective stores only once, and it was Pinkie thanks to her enhanced and strong "Pinkie senses," did she see all the way to the boy at the other store's counter and as she does whenever she first sees someone she never has before.

"Pinkie cut that out you'll make the customers think you're having an asthma attack." Mr. cake said as he boxed up a dozen onion chive cheese bagels.

"Okie dokie Loki" She replied gasping silently inside.