The train wheels of the Friendship Express clattered and shook as the cars rumbled down the line. In the private carriage Rarity and her little sister Sweetie Belle had taken into, the two unicorn sisters sat across from each other using their magic to make the final touches on the two gift boxes they had brought aboard with them. One was a red clothes box with the name of Rarity's original store, the one she still ran with pride and the only one she ever felt truly happy in. Carousel Boutique, was written across the red lid in a fancy silver script with a gold glimmer effect. Rarity focused her magic from her horn to tie the strands of silver foil ribbon across the top to get the box closed up nice and secure.
"Do you think daddy will like our presents Rare?" Her little sister sitting across from her, Sweetie Belle said as she struggled to tape up her box by hoof. Her friend Apple Bloom was always the handy one, her CM a testament to that. Sweetie was more a singer and a bit of her sisters creativity on the side, but only around forty percent.
"Oh Sweetie Belle he's out father, of course he'll like what we got him." Rarity said giggling at her sister's predicament as she shook her hooves trying in vain to get the tape off. Even with her CM, Sweetie was still a clumsy little filly in so many ways.
"Hmmph! Dumb tape!" Sweetie said as she used her teeth to tear it off only to have it stuck to her muzzle, she tried to blow it off but it was stuck pretty good.
"I told you not to use DUCK tape for gift Sweetie, but as per usual you had to go and be so stubborn and do the very thing I warned you about." Rarity said as she used her magic to hold the tape and dissipate the adhesive on the back of the tape and free her little sister. Compared to Rarity's pristine and very professionally done up box; Sweetie's, while still very vibrant and colorful, (the filly had gone with a purple box with green stripes and tied with orange tape like ribbon) was almost comical in how she had decorated it.
"I just wanted to show daddy that even though I'm a unicorn, I still can be practical with my hooves...no offense sis." She hastily added with a hard blush on her cheeks.
"None taken." Rarity added giving her little sister a soft nudge as the train pulled into the Milwaukneigh station.
"Rarity! Sweetie! Oh Celestia look how big you're getting sweetie!" Cookie Crumble said as she galloped up to her daughters and wrapped her hooves around them both. The station was filled with the clatters of hooves as ponies met old parents in the celebration of fatherly stallions. Hondo Flanks however, was nowhere to be seen. The two unicorns looked around and couldn't see coat or mane of the Rarity family patriarch.
"Where's father, mother? Isn't he here to see us?" She asked looking around before putting her gift back in her side bags when she realized he wasn't there.
"Oh now Don't you worry there dearie, Hondy's back home making us fondue for dinner, a Milwaukneigh delicacy and Father's day tradition round these part's there don't ya know?"* The older mare said as the three of them got into the back of a cab waiting to take them home.
"But mom, shouldn't dad be...I don't know enjoying a day off or shouldn't we be making dinner for him?" Sweetie asked as she Took on the windmills and the city's more well populous citizens the dairy cows as the shambled home from working at the dairy's and cheese plants all day.
"Oh you know your father, so stubborn he has to make the traditional fondue for the holiday's weather its the twelve days of Hearthswarming twelve cheese one or the Hearts and hooves day chocolate fondue, he's gotta be the one to make it." Cookie said with a chuckle as Rarity looked over at Sweetie with a smug grin.
"I think I know where that went in the family mother." She said as she softly ruffled her sister's mane playfully.
"Oh put a tree in your horseshoe and leaf it Rarity." Sweetie said with pink cheeks.
"It's egg in your shoe and BEAT it Sweetie Belle." She retorted chuckling and ruffling her sister's mane harder...but not TOO hard.
The Flank's and Crumble's kitchen smelled of three different kinds of melty cheese and a hint of cooking sherry and white wine. Hondo Flanks Stood at the stove, his mane matted down with sweat over the heat of the stove as he watched the pot of cheesy goo bubble softly. He loved his wife more than anything; and he had the stomach to take even her most botched of dishes, but when it came to fondue, a treat by all means, he had to be the one to make it. He took the pot off the heat just as the cheese began to burn, and poured into a metal pail like carrier that help a double pot over a Sterno to keep it nice and warm.
"Honey, your favorite mares and filly's are home!" Cookie said as she trotted into the house, the daughter's in tow. Hondo looked up from the small table, so that they could all reach the pout equally to did the stalks of celery; the broccoli and cauliflower bunches, slices of bread, pickled gherkins, onions, and olives. He smiled at seeing his daughters home to see him for father's day.
"Girls, awww it does my heart good to see you still think about your old stallion." He said as he hugged them both happily.
"Oh Daddy darling; you're not old, you're just as spry and healthy as the stallion you were when you and mother met." She said before she placed her gift on the table for him to open. "Go ahead daddy, it's a Carousel Boutique one of a kind made just for you." She said as he smiled warmly at her and his horn glowed softly with his magic as he delicately undid the ribbon from the box.
"Well, what did you hoof make for dear little old me Rarity?" He said as he smiled at the shirt that he levitated out of the box. It was a new shirt in the style of his favorite shirts, a Hawaineigan shirt. It was royal red with white and yellow flowers and tikis on the pattern. Rarity had also thrown in a new straw hat too. It was hoof weaved in a style akin to a fedora with long bristly bits of straw sticking up.
"Well...do you like it daddy dearest?" Rarity asked with starry eyes as she watched him place the hat on his head and the shirt on his front haunches.
"I think I should open Sweetie's gift first, though I can assure you, I think I'll love the gifts from my daughters, just as I love you both all the same." Hondo said as he chuckled at the color scheme of the box Sweetie had choose and the somewhat botched up tape job she had done with it. He found it cute the way she tried to do so much without using magic. Hondo took the tape from the box, sweetie looking with her eyes lit up in excitement as Hondo took the gift from the box.
Inside was a long, cup like a mug only stretched out a bit too make it longer, there was a lid on the top like the lid on a tea pot. The cup was a little lumpy in places, but it did have the smoothness of a water protective glaze and shiny porcelain finish. "Do you like it daddy? It's a hoof made beer stein, I sculpted and glazed it myself, now you can enjoy your Old Milwaukneigh out of a mug like a real Midwestern pony!" Sweetie said in joy as she clasped her hooves together. Hondo looked from the presents to his daughters and even his wife with a warm smile on his muzzle, then he kissed all three of them lovingly on the cheeks, sans his wife who got it on the muzzle. Which Sweetie made a gagging noise at.
"I love them very much girls; now come on, let's eat." The three ponies smiled and chuckled softly as they sat down for a dinner together as family, just as they had done so many moons ago.
Author's Note
* Apologies to my Midwestern readers...I'm sooo very sorry. 
