In some ways, it was inaccurate to say that Mr. Cake lived in Ponyville. Mr. Cake lived in Sugarcube Corner. Ponyville just happened to be where the bakery was located, and this was about to give him a certain amount of trouble. Because Mr. Cake felt he understood Ponyville, had become used to its oddness, eccentricities, and all of the other polite terms which could be used to substitute for 'total insanity'. He didn't, he hadn't, and because he was at least moderately sane, he never fully would.
It could be argued that it wasn't really his fault. Running a bakery as a three-pony operation... that wasn't exactly a minor commitment of hours. Tradition and shop hours alike dictated that the bread rose with Celestia, and that meant the baker had to get up quite a bit before that. A typical day would see the Cakes start their labors well before Sun even considered touching the horizon: there was no other way to completely fill the display cases (from scratch!) before opening the door. It took hours, and those labors were just enough to get them through the breakfast rush while also covering the pre-dawn commuters. One pony would be selling goods at the front of the shop while two others were frantically kneading dough in the back. A group drenching of wake-up juice saw them through lunch, and then things would typically slow down enough to let them prepare the third selection, because ponies who had boarded that early train were eventually going to come back. And they were going to be hungry.
Also, you had Pinkie or rather, a large part of the time, you didn't. The mare who was effectively eldest daughter of the household was a full-time employee: it was just that she was one who got one half-day per week and multiple palace-assigned missions per season. You couldn't say no to the palace and while a student baker would be sent to work in Pinkie's stead, the Cakes never knew what they were going to get or whether it had actually bothered to open a recipe book during the last semester. It could leave the proprietors fixing a lot of mistakes, which was time away from the sales counter and main ovens and children. Because there were also foals, and full-time foalsitting wasn't always available. So when they weren't checking mixes or decorating cookies or trying to explain just why a shop which had just opened wasn't in a good position to make change for a thousand-bit coin, they had to take care of Pumpkin and Pound. It was something they did willingly, as good and loving parents, and the fact that raising the twins was something which had led to the bakery effectively having its own disaster relief budget was just part of having a family in Equestria.
A normal bakery, run by a three-pony crew which was also attempting to take care of two foals, could reasonably expect an endless succession of fourteen-hour workdays: holidays would bring the option for twenty. (It was fairly well-known that a baker's mark included an enhanced sense of taste, the ability to determine exactly how hot an oven was running just by basking near the open door for a second, and the capacity for saying 'I'm awake!' at least twelve times per day.) And Sugarcube Corner was located in Ponyville.
Ponyville wasn't normal.
Mr. Cake felt he was used to working with that, and it wasn't so much a matter of lying to himself as it was one of skewed perspective. Because he would venture out into town for shopping and supplies and the occasional extra-careful group trip to the train as the first stage in reaching the baking contest, but he lived in Sugarcube Corner. So when the weirdness began to truly escalate, he had three typical means of dealing with it: strange customers were kicked out, odd events were locked out, and the most frequent epicenter was generally just told to head into the attic and go to bed.
He generally didn't deal with the citizenry: he dealt with customers. There was a crucial difference. And for a stallion whose priorities for sorting out exactly what was weird to begin with had been steadily, invisibly warped through years of living with a fully armed & operational Pinkie, it could take just a little too long to realize when things were about to go Saddle Arabian.
In Ponyville, anything could serve as a focal point for the town's collective crazy, and Mr. Cake didn't fully understand that. He didn't recognize that simply going out into the town was like casually trotting across a pasture where one in every ten thousand blades of grass was set to randomly trigger a landmine.
He didn't live in Ponyville: he lived in Sugarcube Corner. And so it could be said that he'd had no true way of anticipating what his simple act would ultimately do. All he could do was watch the pieces come down from the sky.
The other original option had been putting up with the smell.
It was a simple fact of life: you couldn't be in the bakery all the time, and it was one of the facts which occasionally made Mr. Cake question the relative sanity of existence. (The majority of the remainder were a few hours away.) But eventually, everypony had to go outside. And in this case, it was for his children or rather, it was currently for one of them. The Cakes had agreed that it would do the foals some good to gain a little more experience of the outside world and with the bakery temporarily closed for post-Bearer-incident repairs (lost sales were compensated by the palace, whose accounting department occasionally seemed to feel he was working in Appleloosa), the opportunity was available. So each parent had taken a child, because allowing their foals some time as individuals was supposed to help develop their personalities and realistically, the twins also did less damage that way. In fact, it was the first time they'd had their offspring outside as singletons, and that with all the moons since the birth: the bakery just took that many hours out of their lives.
It was a pleasant spring day: warm with a slight westerly breeze. Sun was high in a clear sky, flowers were blooming, and many of Ponyville's citizens were happily wandering down (or above) its streets, enjoying the simple pleasures of being alive. In fact, there were so many of those citizens about that Mr. Cake was having some trouble in steering the solid carriage, which was difficult enough with something that was hooked up behind him.
He glanced back just in time to see light stream through the trees, dappling his daughter's form in green. The little foal blinked, twitched a hoof through a patch of color, stared at the altered hues.
"Having fun, Pumpkin?" the good father smiled.
She cooed, and he laughed. Several passing ponies smiled at the gentle interaction.
He had laughed, because there were times when raising a child was a joy. But there was a mandatory followup to laughter, and so he breathed.
Yellow features twisted. He sniffed the air and a lantern jaw managed to wrinkle with disgust, which was actually rather hard to do.
"Oh, Pumpkin..." he sighed. "What did you eat?" Well, it was a natural part of biology, not to mention a typical consequence of taking an infant anywhere: all things considered, he was just lucky she hadn't found a way to wriggle out of this one. In the best case, he would have been hosing down the carriage: 'theoretical worst' involved Barnyard Bargains and a very visible trail.
His daughter stared at him for a second, which was the exact amount of time required for the smell to drift into the ground and airborne traffic lanes. Multiple snouts contorted, and did so at the same moment when Pumpkin began to cry.
He sighed again. "Well, there's no help for it," he announced to himself and, incidentally, the world around him. (The words had really been meant for his daughter, but he was aware she couldn't understand them yet. Prior to the events which were about to be set off, he would have had rather more of a comprehension expectation for the adults.) "Before this gets any worse..." He had to reach the most recent deposit before it had a chance to smear into her fur.
Mr. Cake was a good father, and so even with lack of experience in public excursions, he had prepared. The carriage had drawers built into the lower portion, ones which could easily be opened by mouth. The storage areas were packed appropriately.
"Shall we?" he offered. And then he opened the nearest drawer, checked to make sure the contents were clean, and began.
A few ponies, all of whom had noticed the smell, also spotted the movement. They quite naturally took a closer look, trying to see what was going on.
Then they watched.
They kept watching.
Still more ponies, sensing that the attention of the herd was focused, turned to see what everypony else was looking at.
Mr. Cake, lost within the total concentration required to complete his task, completely missed all of it, including the part where several of the observers frantically rushed towards various bushes. He nearly frowned at the sound which followed, but managed to suppress it. Frowning would have meant a chance of having his teeth slip.
That's an odd noise. And he gave it no more mind than that, because he had no way to identify what the sound had represented. It was something he'd never heard before, but it was happening at a distance, he didn't feel it was a threat, and so he continued at his task. Once it was finished, he decided to pull the carriage down a side path, one which was mostly unfamiliar to him, allowing them both to explore. It also offered a little more privacy (especially since nopony wanted to be anywhere near him now), and it got him away from that unfamiliar, ongoing sound.
It was natural for him to have never heard it before, at least not with the overlapping harmonics which came from having the event occur in bulk. Ponyville didn't have a vomitorium.
He reached home safely, got past the construction crew, met up with his wife, found that Pound had done nothing worse than sending a minor dust devil through a soccer game -- the referee had refused to count the goal -- and eventually went to bed. Nearly all of that activity was conducted on the upper levels of Sugarcube Corner, and so he completely failed to notice the sheer number of ponies who were glaring at the building from the outside.
(This included the pegasi. It was generally considered rude for flying citizens to peek through windows, but glares seldom respected privacy and Mr. Cake was too busy with reading to his children from something other than a recipe book.)
All five members of the little family slept. And while relative sanity rested, crazy stayed up late. Insanity always had things to do, and so the sounds of arguments, debates, and occasional passed-along nausea resounded through the night. Because wild bursts of lunacy can happen more or less at random, but true madness requires planning and, ideally, at least one committee.
Also, there was hoof-hammering, and there was a lot of it.
Mr. Cake got up early, mostly because he didn't have much of a choice. His mind accepted that it would be another day or two before Sugarcube Corner reopened, while his body didn't know what to do with that much time off. And no matter what the situation was with a kitchen that still vaguely smelled somewhat like a swarm of slime-coated breezies had recently flown through it (mostly because smells had a certain insistence on accuracy), he had two foals who weren't quite at the point of sleeping all the way through the night, but were firmly in the center of continuing to foul their diapers before Sun was raised. And so he gently kissed his snoozing spouse on her forehead before wearily heading towards the nursery.
Diapers. They were the inescapable part of foalhood, and it was a sign of how much Mr. Cake loved his children and spouse that he didn't fantasize about making a gallop for it on more than one day in two. Typically, that would be the day when he had diaper duty: the couple tended to switch off, as the needs of the profession required that one of them possess a snout which hadn't recently tried to shut down in self-defense.
He did what had to be done, spent a few futile minutes in rinsing out his mouth while knowing it did nothing to the memory, and sleepily ventured down the ramp. What to do today, when there was no real work to be done? He would have the operational portions of the kitchens to himself for a while, as the construction crew wasn't due to arrive for another -- he glanced at a wall clock -- four hours. With Sun-raising still some time away and Cup sleeping in for as long as her body would allow, which was at most another thirty minutes...
The proper thing for a good husband and father to do was have breakfast waiting for his family, and so Mr. Cake got to work. But it was hard not to keep taking glances towards the front of the bakery, with every instinct insisting that the temporary-stilled timer which counted down how long he had until ponies headed towards the first train was still running. Feeling that he had to be doing more than this, especially whenever his sight line went across open space and through the front windows, giving him a glimpse of the street outside. Of ponies passing by.
...actually, there seemed to be an unusual number of those. And it wasn't as if he was the only pony up at this hour: some delivery carts trundled through town while the residents were still sleeping, and shop owners had to be awake enough to count the fresh inventory. Police officers patrolled throughout the night, while at least one Canterlot newspaper tried to have fresh-off-the-press copies on Ponyville stoops before the ink stopped stinking. Mr. Cake was familiar with those whose shifts straddled Lunar and Solar hours, and often passed little samples out the back door to those who simply wouldn't be awake when the front locks were undone. But he knew those ponies, even as subconsciously-registering shadows flitting across the windows. Most of the current shapes felt unfamiliar.
Then he thought he saw the same silhouette go by for the third time.
And then the first words reached him.
They weren't very loud words: it was too early for that, and the ponies voicing them were still trying to find the right rhythm. But Mr. Cake, even as a baker with but a single employee to his credit, was a business owner. And there are very few things which get the attempt of a businesspony like a chant.
"...what do we want?"
His blood froze. The temporary paralysis took his attention off the bialy, which instantly sensed the opportunity and began to char.
Yellow ears strained, but couldn't quite manage to pick up the next part. All he could register was the inevitable followup, which was naturally "When do we want it?"
"Never again," a stallion firmly stated. "We never want that to happen again. That's why we're here."
"No!" a mare protested, which struck him as an entirely appropriate way to describe her manner of speech. "Now! We always want something now!"
"Do we have to do 'now'?" another mare's shriller voice questioned. "I think there's better than just 'now'."
"Like what, exactly?" the first mare irritably asked.
The second female presumably thought about that for a while.
"Yesterday," she finally said. "Yesterday would be a real improvement. Didn't somepony say the librarian knows a time-travel spell?"
"It only works once for each pony," expounded a rather imperious stallion. "Are you sure you want to use it on this?"
More (falsely presumed) thought.
"You're right. It's impractical."
He was starting to move towards the front doors now, and none of his four legs were actually under his direct control. Mr. Cake's entire being was currently being operated by morbid curiosity, and it really wanted to know what was going to happen next.
"Exactly," the stallion said.
"Because," the mare considered, "we could have missed any number of previous incidents. We're only taking out the one we know about." She nodded hard enough to make the resulting atmospheric disruption audible. "We need to learn --"
Which was when Mr. Cake opened the door.
The streetlights in the bakery's part of town were currently running at low thaum pull, and Moon had waned just about all the way down to new. It gave him just enough light to make out six separate shadows: four on the ground, two in the air, and all of which turned to stare at him.
"What's going on?" he rather directly inquired.
A mare's outline made direct eye contact.
"We," the shrill voice declared, "are boycotting you!"
He blinked a few times. The shadows remained in place. Whipping his tail into his right flank stung just enough to wake him up and through failing to do so, regretfully proved that he wasn't asleep.
"We're closed," Mr. Cake tried.
The outline immediately turned smug.
"Well, it's working then, isn't it?"
He stared at her. The shadow didn't blink.
"We're closed for repairs," he tried. "We've been closed for --"
"-- so I guess you'd better mend your ways," the mare snootily (and snoutily) declared. "Because we're not leaving. Until you act like a proper pony. Or you leave town forever." She fiercely nodded to herself. "Either way would be good. Really, it's completely up to you. But mending your ways would be much easier. And if you started selling again, you might even make enough bits to cover the class-action lawsuit."
"There's going to be a lawsuit?" a previously-silent hovering stallion asked. "Nopony said anything about a lawsuit."
"There will be," the shrill mare smugly decided. "Because I've just said so." The shadow peered at Mr. Cake. "Incidentally, just to pass the time, where did your parents meet?"
"...Baltimare," he eventually said. "My family is from Baltimare. And so am I. Why?"
"All right," the mare considered. "Now: what was the exact date, time, and location? And do you happen to know if there were any heavily-shadowed pony-sized cubbyholes in the area?"
Mr. Cake closed the door.
He didn't really think about what he had just seen, because there were times when rational thought was exactly the wrong way to go and this currently seemed to include a moment which had a mare angrily declaring how rude he was for not giving them the information required to alter the flow of history. Instead, he trusted to his instincts. The inner guidance granted to him by years of experience.
His legs began moving again. They knew where to go.
Pinkie was staring at him from her bed. While not approaching anything near what Fluttershy was capable of, Pinkie had a rather penetrating stare, especially when it emerged from the depths of confusion. It was a stare which could pierce fog, and it was currently trying to look through Mr. Cake's skull in the hopes of finding something operational within.
"I didn't do anything," she quickly said, with blanket shifts indicating forelegs which were wriggling in gestures of protest.
Mr. Cake's mouth began to open again.
"We didn't do anything," Pinkie hastily added. "At all!" More thoughtfully, "Well, not that would make anypony mad. I just spent the day with Applejack. We were going around the Acres together. And singing. I guess the singing might have been offensive? Because there were some birds who didn't seem to like it, but I'm pretty sure that's just because we weren't hitting the same notes. Plus Fluttershy said birdsong is language and most of what birds talk about is sex, so maybe we propositioned a pigeon by accident and his wife got mad."
"Pinkie --"
"It would explain why we had to keep dodging all the way back! Because we had the wrong song! Actually, do you think pegasi proposition in song? Because some ponies say pegasi chirp when they're happy, even though Rainbow doesn't. But maybe she's just never been the right kind of happy?" Worried now "Or maybe that's why she's always so annoyed when I start singing near her. Because she thinks I'm going to, and she doesn't want me to, and I've never really thought about that before, not with Rainbow, but if she doesn't want me --"
"Pinkie."
"-- then what did I do wrong? I have to find out! Because we're probably never going to do it and I'm still not sure I want to, but if we aren't going to, then there has to be some reason why and it's probably all my fault --"
Like most (effective) parents of a mare Pinkie's age, Mr. Cake was fully aware that his eldest had a sex life, and he was fully aware that he never, EVER wanted to hear her talk about it. "Pinkie!"
She stopped. Her forelegs hooked over the edge of the blankets.
"Maybe Rainbow doesn't like curls?" Pinkie tried. "I could wear my mane straight for a while. Except that everypony gets all worried when I do that now. But maybe that's worried enough to cuddle?"
He took a breath. It provided the required amount of oxygen, and very little in the way of additional perspective. "So it was just a normal day on the Acres."
"Yes," Pinkie nodded. "Only with a really mad pigeon and lots of emergency mane shampoo. I swear."
"I believe you," Mr. Cake finally said, because he loved her and so he did. "And I'm sorry." (She smiled.) "So we'd better figure out what's going on. Together."
His eldest nodded again, shifted out of the blankets and moved to the attic's window.
"They're still down there," she reported. "Only you said -- six?"
"Yes."
"You're sure? Because there's more of them now."
"How many?"
She squinted. "More than -- six? They're mostly shadows still, and they keep moving around, so there's some overlap. But I think there's at least twelve. Not counting the three who just flew in near the streetlight, so that would be at least fifteen. Is there a bialy burning?"
A baker's mark included a certain understanding of patience: rising dough couldn't be rushed, and certain things needed to happen under Sun. Sugarcube Corner had already been closed for repairs, so no immediate damage was being done to a business which was shut down. Cup had to be briefed, and that took a while. Also, his children's diapers had been changed, and that meant it was time to feed both foals and adults, as nopony should be dealing with any of it on an empty stomach. It meant that by the time he opened the front door again, Sun had been raised.
It was typical to find thirty or more ponies in front of the bakery when the door opened: the first train out had quite a few commuters looking for something to eat. It was, however, rather unusual to spot one hundred.
"Good morning," he told a familiar-looking outline, which Sun had granted light green fur, black mane, and a permanently-upturned snout.
"We'll see," the shrill earth pony mare said. "Incidentally, we'll probably be chanting in a few minutes. We would have started earlier, but somepony pointed out you had neighbors and while they should know all about your sin, they probably didn't want to be woken up by it. Or sickened, at least before they'd had breakfast. They'll be sure to join us if they learn about you after they've eaten."
"...really," Mr. Cake tried.
"That's why I joined. Because I'd already eaten, and then Roseluck told me." A fierce tail lash indicated the mentioned pony. "And then I had to eat again. Because of you."
Because of -- him? It was just always Pinkie, except when it wasn't. But it had never been him. Yes, he'd been known to kick out the occasional customer or rather, get rid of a pony who was never going to be one: that was the price of doing business. And some of those ponies had tried to spread gossip which turned him into the instigator while completely failing to mention their own predilection for free samples, also known as 'waiting until I think nopony's looking, then sticking my head in the display case and hastily swallowing the first thing I can reach.' One had even cursed him after he'd saved her from choking, and done so with her very first freed breath. But such had never led to anything like this.
He had to ask, and wished he didn't. (This was about to change.) "What did I do?"
"Clearly you don't know!" the mare shot at him. "Or you never would have done it!"
"-- what's your name?"
Black eyes focused on him.
"Why?"
"We've never met," he honestly said. "I'd like to know."
"Loomer," she eventually declared. "Ms. Loomer to you."
"Thank you," Mr. Cake lied. "So, Ms. Loomer -- what did I do to offend so many ponies?"
She pulled herself up to what, on a larger pony, would have been full height. In her case, it gave her the rough outline of an undernourished timberwolf with a serious moss condition.
"You," she stated, "changed a diaper. In public! And so you must either also change your ways or be banished from Ponyville. Forever!"
This explanation changed things. For starters, he was now wishing he hadn't asked.
"So," Ms. Loomer helpfully added. "You're about what, three years away from middle age? Five? Help me narrow it down. With a date. Now, I understand most Baltimare hookups take place in the harbor district --"
He shut the door again, and it was almost fast enough to cut off the 'WELL!' Quickly trotted towards the kitchen and his waiting family, then glanced out the still-clear back door.
"Pinkie," he softly said, "go to the police. Or Town Hall. Anypony who can tell us what our options are. Try to make sure none of the ponies out front see you."
"So what are they?" his eldest asked, already moving for the exit.
Insane crossed his mind first, then set up camp. But he finally went with "Upset. Hurry."
Pinkie had exceptionally good ground speed, especially when she was distressed. She also happened to have every back alley in Ponyville memorized, because she had just about everything memorized. It allowed her to move quickly, quietly, and stealthily at need, to the point where some of those who had been through the full "SURPRISE!" experience finished their scream in the hospital. But when trying to accompany an entourage, she could only move at the speed of the slowest pony in it and in this case, that pony happened to be the mayor.
The Cakes watched as the town's duly-elected leader slowly, carefully worked her way through the three hundred chanting ponies who made up the protest line. (Most of them watched, and virtually none of them stopped chanting. The only ponies who didn't seem to be chanting at all were his neighbors, most of whom had been intermittently glaring at him through the back door.) The elder earth pony mare eventually reached Ms. Loomer, spoke to that party for several minutes while six weary-seeming police officers and a very upset-looking Pinkie listened. And finally, the elegant hooficure knocked on his front door.
Good, thought Mr. Cake. The government is here to help. (He would look back upon that thought later, and then he would very carefully never have it again.) He went to let her in.
Marigold Mare politely nodded to him as she entered. "Carrot," she calmly greeted. "Close the door, if you would? Ms. Loomer is going to grant us privacy." He did, and the click was immediately followed by "By which I mean that we should move away from the door, because she is about to have an ear pressed against it. Ms. Loomer believes in privacy as a right and like so many ponies who repeatedly state that they truly believe in that right, she sees it as a singular."
"I don't --"
"It's her right," the mayor smoothly cut him off. "But not yours. Shall we?"
They took a few mutual steps towards the center.
"This is the situation as I understand it," the mayor told him. "Yesterday, you changed your daughter's diaper. In front of witnesses. Why?"
"...because she's a foal," Mr. Cake eventually tried. "Because she isn't trench-trained yet. Marigold --"
"-- and you did so by mouth."
Staring at her wasn't helping either.
"I'm an earth pony," he finally said. "You're an earth pony."
"So noted," the mayor dryly replied. "And both of us have professions which require the use of our mouths. However, in my case, that means talking, and I generally carry a small supply of mints at all times. Carrot, you are a baker. Multiple citizens saw you manage a diaper with the same teeth which carry ingredients. So not only did they witness a pony putting snout and tongue near manure, something which can turn the strongest of stomachs -- they are now mentally mixing that manure with flour. Which means Ms. Loomer is considering leading a class-action suit against you because as far as she's concerned, every single thing you've ever served was contaminated, and so every illness in this town can be laid at your hooves. Also, she wanted to know if you had anything she could eat, because she's been out there for hours and she's getting hungry."
"...but if I give her food," Mr. Cake realized, "she'll pretend she's sick and sue me?"
"Good," the mayor observed. "You're learning quickly, even though this is your first experience with Ms. Loomer."
"Yes," he managed. "I'd never seen her before today --"
"It's my twelfth," Marigold interrupted. "The twelfth in the five moons she's been living here. After having been kicked out of her last town. And the one before that. Also, quite possibly, the one before that. I've been trying to track the trail to its origin point, but I'm starting to suspect that somepony soaked her paperwork beyond recognition when they dropped her through a cloud."
"...oh."
"She hoofcuffed herself to the front door of my office last moon," the mayor said. "After I told her that while she could see the minutes of the staff meeting, she wasn't allowed to rewrite them into what we'd so clearly been covering up. She was there for three hours, mostly because she was under the expectation that I would have her arrested and allow her the publicity of being dragged into the police station, screaming about government injustice all the way."
"And what did you do? I never heard about --"
"I used my door," replied the older mare. "Repeatedly, for three hours. She's not particularly strong for an earth pony, and having her buttocks shoved across the floor eventually become wearying. Also abrasive. And she truly didn't understand why nopony was feeding her. But that time, she was alone. On this occasion, we have several hundred ponies. So --"
"-- I use mouth guards!" Mr. Cake frantically protested, instinctively adding a desperate forehoof gesture to the attempt. "And mouthwashes! Like just about everypony does, like every earth pony and pegasus! We have to! There's no other way to do it! You've got a daughter, Marigold: I've seen her, I've sold to her! You changed her diapers, by mouth, just like everypony --"
"-- yes," she cut him off again. "But not in public. Celestia's heated hooves, Carrot, it's like the old joke about two stupid ponies seeing a manure pile in the street!" And upon spotting the arrival of desperate blankness upon his features, "They tell themselves it can't be manure, not in public. So they look closely at it. They smell it. They taste it. And once that final test conclusively proves it to be manure, they congratulate each other for not having stepped in it. I don't know how ponies behave in Baltimare, although the ratio of bars to every other establishment might provide a few clues -- it is still one to one, correct? But in Ponyville, we don't change diapers in public, by tradition. Admittedly, there was no law against it --"
"-- oh, good," Mr. Cake tried, and was relieved to find the words emerging without sarcasm. "So at least I'm not under arrest."
"-- or rather," she finished, "there may not be until I reach Town Hall again. If we can't settle this peacefully. Which in this case, would mean your taking a very solemn public vow to never do such a thing a second time, followed by my leading health inspections through the bakery and proving that you use mouth guards and mouthwashes." She paused. "There will also be random follow-up visits. They can drop in frequency after the first three moons. I'm expecting Ms. Loomer to insist on accompanying them, and I suggest you watch her very closely to make sure she doesn't steal any food, largely because she will then accuse you of having planted it in her mouth. So can we go out there together and settle this?"
He was frozen. He couldn't speak. His brain seemed to be locked within a shell of sickly icing, and that was why it was an exceptionally good time for his spouse, who had heard everything, to step out from the kitchen.
"Marigold," the love of his life weakly protested, "this is crazy. All of those ponies out there are crazy. They're coming after us for something they do..."
The mayor softly sighed.
"Yes, Cup," the older mare wearily said. "They are crazy. Just about everypony in this town is crazy, did you notice?"
"Yes," piped up Pinkie, who had just emerged from the back.
"Most of those who believe themselves sane suffer from a rather common delusion," the mayor continued. "The one which says they're normal. But they're crazy, all of them. But you, Carrot..." and this emerged with a tired smile, "You're saner than most."
"Then do the sane thing," Mr. Cake desperately asked as he failed to push away the image of inspectors poking through his flour. "Go out there and tell them I was just acting as a parent, that everypony knows my goods are clean --"
"-- you're sane," the mayor went on, "and that sanity counts for exactly one vote. They are crazy, and their madness is a very special thing, because it's the madness of the majority. So as a duly elected official who wishes to remain so -- whose wishes should I obey?"
And now they were all staring at her.
"The sane ones," Pinkie frantically declared. "You need to listen to the Cakes, because they're sane! If you know they're right, then you need to have the courage to stand against the majority, no matter what might happen! Or what are you?"
Marigold Mare's head briefly dipped. Blue-grey eyes half-closed.
"A politician," the elder female wearily stated. "One who, if the madness continues, may need to use arrest as a form of protection. Because the citizenry is the second authority to whom I must answer, and they are... not happy. If you'll follow me, please?"
He did, and he wasn't sure why.
He'd done the right thing. He knew that. His daughter had been in minor distress and as a parent, he'd taken care of her. It was what anypony would have done. The fact that he hadn't slipped out of sight first... that was just time in which her fur could have become smeared.
But he followed the mayor out, and did so without being fully aware of what he was going to do.
A thousand ponies glared at him.
"Disgusting!"
"Foul!"
"Why should anypony ever eat here again?"
"Remember when you refused to tell me your secret ingredient on the double-dark Lunar cake? I bet I can take a guess --"
"Enough," the mayor declared, and the mob temporarily fell silent: that was part of the power inherent in a political talent, especially when the herd believed that authority was about to agree with them. It was quiet enough to pick up the sound of approaching cart wheels, at least until she began to speak again. "I've just finished speaking with Carrot Cake. And so he has a vow he wants to take, in front of everypony here. Mr. Cake, if you would?"
He felt his legs move him slightly forward, again without conscious consent. There was a curious sensation of words pressing against the back of his teeth, and he couldn't quite make out the shape of them. He was about to say something, and it was as if his own thoughts had no interest in telling him what it was.
They were staring at him. All of them were, although Ms. Loomer was doing so with something of a smirk.
"I --"
"Everypony, stop!"
The world has a special way of responding to the approach of purest lunacy: it stops whatever it's doing and watches. After all, it isn't a really good accident unless somepony's rubbernecking.
The approaching unicorn was something of a mystery to most of those present, as he was a fairly new arrival in Ponyville. Very few had gained any chance to know him, and that was with just about all of them having spotted him. He was rather hard to miss. For starters, he was a metallic, and his arrival had put Ponyville's total population for that rarest of fur traits at two. Under normal circumstances, light would bounce from his coat as if it had just hit a highly-polished surface. In the current ones, beams mostly sagged to the ground as they reflected from the fur of a pony who had not only clearly been up all night, but apparently believed that the best way to stay awake was through regular coatings of grease.
He had dark blue eyes, (usually) golden fur, and what normally struck ponies as an oddly complex mark: the last was something which was currently blocked from sight. It was a mark no local had ever seen before, and one which nopony had been able to work out, even when several of its components were visibly numbered. He was also towing a heavily-laden cart, and that effort was serving to both exhaust and clean him as sweat fell from the front portion of his body. There were boxes on that cart, and they were stacked up to three times his own height.
"I've solved everything!" the unicorn beamed, with more sweat dripping from his chin. "Because it had to be solved! Mr. Cake is innocent!"
The baker, very aware that he had just gained an ally (and one who was standing proudly against the massed disbelief of the herd) and even more aware of Marigold's recent words about everypony being crazy, could do nothing more than wait for the rest of it.
"All he did was take care of his foal!" the unicorn declared. "And yes, it's sickening, changing diapers! Nopony should ever have to change diapers! Not a single one of us, not by mouth or by horn!"
The mob was looking closely at him now. At where the mark had been covered, along with quite a bit else. But all of the unicorn parents were doing so with a distinctive, frequently-duplicated wince.
"So I --"
"-- not by horn?" asked Mr. Cake, who was surprised to find he'd intended to say that. "What's wrong with doing it with your corona? It can't be the weight: any unicorn could lift a diaper! How is a horn --"
The new stallion was wincing now.
"Um," he said, with enthusiasm temporarily ebbing. "Um. Well... this isn't something which unicorns exactly talk about much, but..."
Five ponies, all with horns, abruptly oriented on the nearest greenery and broke from the herd.
"...everything has a -- texture, right?" the metallic continued. "You can touch that with your tongue, when you pick an item up in your mouth. And when we pick something up in our coronas, we -- get the texture. Only instead of our tongues, it sort of embosses itself in our heads. So when I pick up cotton, my whole brain feels sort of soft and fluffy."
"Oh," said Mr. Cake, and followed that by doing the same thing as the rest of the herd: namely, arriving at exactly the right conclusion one second too late.
His face twisted. A lantern jaw, acting in empathy, did its best to fracture itself. And that was among the least of the slow horror which was working its way through the earth ponies and pegasi in the mob.
"And when we," the unicorn forced himself to go on, "pick up -- a full diaper --"
The mob's size instantly dropped by a fifth, which made for some very crowded bushes. A few ponies, presumably realizing just how bad the crowding was going to be, personally resolved the problem by tending to business where they stood. Those with stronger stomachs just spent a lot of time dodging.
"Oh," the mayor softly said, and had to do so three times before the retching finally ended. "Oh, Celestia... I am so sorry..."
The metallic sighed.
"That's why we don't like to talk about it," he said -- and then, with eagerness surging back, "And that's why I solved it! I worked all night on it! Somepony should have solved it centuries ago, but I just never thought..."
A golden corona ignited, and some rather impressive raw lifting capacity began to move laden boxes off the cart.
"This is just a demonstration model, you understand," the metallic told them. "It'll take a few minutes to set up."
It did. Most of the crowd watched the process, as metal and gears were levitated into place. Several paid close attention to the locking of bolts. More than a few kept going back to where the unicorn's mark had been covered, and Mr. Cake was among them. But for the most part, they watched.
Then the groundbound portion of the herd began to tilt their necks back, for there was no other way to continue watching. The pegasi simply flew a little higher.
Higher still.
A few helpful pegasi were now carrying their neighbors. There were also several earth pony stacks.
"Done!" the metallic finally declared, and stepped back from his work. Gazed over it proudly, which took some real work to maintain near the top. "And now for the demonstration!"
Mr. Cake, somehow feeling there was nothing left to lose, became the one to ask.
"What's the springboard for?"
"Ah," the metallic proudly said. "I needed a lever for the weight."
"Oh. And -- the bathtub?"
"A place for the weight to land."
"And the... featureless statue of --" he struggled for a moment, and could only come up with "-- some kind of biped?"
Everypony looked at that for a while, especially in the place where the face wasn't.
"The weight," the metallic simply stated, and seemed fully satisfied with that answer.
Marigold took a slow breath.
"I can't quite figure out the cage," she admitted. "That is a cage, yes? The one which drops down the ratcheted pole?"
"Well, I have neighbors," the unicorn told them. "A few, anyway. Some of them moved. Their houses, down the road. But when I'm working, some of the remaining ones can show up to watch, and it can be dangerous to observe when there's a project underway. So the cage drops down and gives them a protected place to stand." Looking vaguely embarrassed, "I usually take that part off before I go public. It was just a long night. But this is still good enough for a demonstration. And I'm a practical inventor, everypony! I'm not going to ask anypony to volunteer their foals to try something which nopony's ever seen! I'm going to show you how it works by using myself!"
Several hundred ponies very visibly exhaled.
"So that is why you're wearing a giant diaper," the mayor said.
"Of course," the metallic frowned. "Why else would anypony over the age of two wear this?"
Seven ponies began to subtly work their way towards the edge of the crowd.
"Because..." Ms. Loomer visibly swallowed. "...because they -- like it?"
The movement accelerated and in doing so, became somewhat less subtle.
The unicorn thought about that.
"No," he finally said. "It's hot. It traps all the sweat. It's too wet, it's wrecking the lie of my fur, and I think I'm getting a rash. What kind of adult pony would ever want to wear a diaper?"
Seven ponies, all dearly hoping that everypony else was too busy staring at invention and inventor to notice them, did their best to vanish.
"I'm sure I don't know," Ms. Loomer awkwardly said and in doing so, proved herself to be a very bad liar. "So this device --"
"-- machine," the metallic interrupted. "There's no magic anywhere. So anypony can use it, any time."
"-- oh. It -- changes diapers?"
"Yes," the inventor proudly told them. "Quickly and harmlessly! But this model is scaled up a bit. It had to be, since it needs to work on an adult. Want to see how it works?"
Nopony answered, and he took the horrified silence as assent. The inventor moved to the designated space, stood tall and proud at the center, and did so while several hundred ponies quietly waited for him to die.
A grease-stained hoof stepped on the activation pedal.
A crank turned. The steel sphere rolled through the zig-zagging trail. Two buckets were knocked over. A featureless statue did a backflip. Ratcheting happened and, with a suddenness which stood out for its visual clarity, a metallic unicorn stallion completely failed to die.
One diaper was removed, briefly displaying the stallion's mark. A clean replacement went on. And that was it. That was the final result.
The inventor stepped off the center space.
"See!" he beamed. "Perfectly safe! And because it's a machine, anypony can use it! I'm willing to assemble a model for every parent in town, at only seven percent over my materials cost! Because it's fixing a problem which should have been solved centuries ago! And I am proud to be the pony who finally made diaper-changing something other than a horrible chore!"
There were nearly a thousand ponies present, and not a single one of them said anything. They just -- looked. Up and down, with most of that being up.
"...everypony?" the metallic finally tried.
The mayor cleared her throat.
"That's the adult-sized version," she noted. "You said that."
The unicorn nodded.
"So a foal version would be... smaller."
Again.
"How much smaller?"
He visibly thought it over.
"Well," he finally concluded, "some of the parts can't go under a given weight. So in order to make sure everything operates properly... about thirty percent?"
A thousand ponies looked at the structure which had been built to the right of Sugarcube Corner. It was rather easy to do and as that structure was three times the height of the building, rather difficult to stop.
A pegasus mare, who turned out to live above the same block as the unicorn, rolled her eyes.
"What do you take us for, Goldberg?" Flitter sarcastically asked. "Some kind of rube?"
The unicorn's eyes slowly closed.
"...right," he said. "I'll just -- take it apart, then." His horn ignited, and parts began to unlock themselves. "But don't worry! I'll come up with something else! And it'll have even more redundant safety features, because you can never be too safe! Of course, that may increase the number of parts --"
"-- thank you, Mr. Goldberg," the mayor awkwardly interrupted. "We all... look -- forward? Forward. We all look forward to seeing what you come up with next. And up, of course. Possibly quite some distance across... at any rate, thank you. Very much. And please regard this as our first official meeting, you and I. It's always good to know exactly what kind of pony has moved into town. Yes. Exactly. In detail. Have a good day."
The herd silently waited until the boxes had packed and loaded themselves, and nopony risked a word until the sweating pony had once again towed the cart out of sight. Given the height of the stack, that took a while.
Marigold indulged in a slow breath.
"I have to ask," she finally said. "Nopony here has ever seen that mark before. Correct?"
The herd nodded.
"In fact, nopony knew that mark existed."
Again.
"And given that, there are no means through which the Crusaders could have tried to acquire it."
A thousand ponies, some of whom had managed to come up with matching imaginary disasters, shuddered. The mayor exhaled.
"Small favors," she said. "So. Mr. Cake. You were about to tell these fine citizens something?"
The baker who lived in Sugarcube Corner looked out across a significant segment of Ponyville's population and in doing so, finally and truly recognized the town for what it was. He thought about all the customers he'd had, every last regular he looked forward to seeing. He remembered the birth of his children, something which had happened at the local hospital. He imagined them growing up. Raising his family here. And with that, the words pressed against the back of his teeth again and this time, Carrot Cake fully recognized them for what they were.
He stepped forward. He felt the presence of his spouse and children, watching him from the bakery. He knew Pinkie was there, and so a smile stretched across the lantern jaw as a pleasant, even voice told the herd exactly what he needed to say. The words which he knew would fix everything.
"Buck the lot of you," Mr. Cake smiled. "We're moving."
And with that, he happily turned around and went home.
"Start packing," he told his spouse as he kicked the door closed behind him: something which meant he only got to hear Ms. Loomer's jaw drop. "Right now."
"But..." Cup was visibly staggered, and Pinkie had half-fallen against a display case. "But...!"
"Mr. Cake!" the young mare who was his eldest daughter desperately protested, tears already beginning to fall from blue eyes as a curly mane started to collapse. "My friends... you... I can't leave you, but I can't leave them --"
He glanced back, made sure the herd was still locked in stun. His left forehoof came up and pressed against his lips.
"Start packing," he whispered. "But don't finish." He looked directly at Pinkie. "And as soon as they start to disperse, I need you to make a gallop for the library."
The angle of sunlight coming through the window had Marigold Mare's shadow falling across the display cases or, to describe it more accurately, collapsed.
"So I just received a missive from Canterlot," she told the assembled family. "But I suspect you knew that."
None of them said a word.
"And who sent it."
Total silence held up for the full duration of the mayor's patience.
"The Princess," the elder earth pony finally said, "is not happy about the prospect of having a Bearer leave. And so she has requested -- ordered, really -- the construction of multiple diaper changing stations around town. Small enclosed huts. I fully expect them to be occupied within hours of their completion and when we reach summer, that will be with young couples looking for a place to make out. Which may lead to more diapers."
Pinkie mostly repressed the smile.
"She has also advised us," the mayor continued, "to, and I quote, 'lighten up' and be a little more like Baltimare. She sent an extra copy of that part to Ms. Loomer personally, and I know that because the recipient rushed into the police station, demanding that somepony do something about scrolls which appear in her home out of nowhere. Apparently she sees that as a violation of her privacy. I told her to take it up with the sender."
Pound burped. His twin sister glared at him, presumably for having broken solidarity.
"However, in the interests of calming the town," the elder mare offered, "can we agree to one health inspection? With publicly posted pictures, which will stay on the notice boards for a single week? Nothing more intensive than would be required to retain your food service license to begin with?"
Mr. Cake nodded.
They looked at each other for a while.
"Part of a political talent," the mayor said, "is the ability to read the mood of the herd. They're rather impressed with you, did you know that? It takes a rare stallion to stand against a thousand and tell them off."
He shrugged.
"A rarer talent," the mare went on, "than mine."
Again.
She looked at him again. Up and down, back to front, with a long pause at the jaw.
"You went over my mane," the mayor said.
"About as far over as a diaper-changing machine," Mr. Cake admitted. "Yes. You said the citizenry was the second authority you answered to. So I turned to the first."
Marigold took a breath: one which gave her just enough strength for one brief smile.
"Good," she told them. "Try to avoid situations where you would need to do that again."
And she left.
Two weeks later, long after the repairs had been completed and his home was open for business again, Ms. Loomer hoofcuffed herself to Sugarcube Corner's front door. Because when it came to customer service, it was every pony's right to refuse offering said service to those they simply, justifiably didn't wish to deal with, and she failed to see how that could possibly apply to her. So one cuff went around her right forehoof, the other was placed on the base of the door's lever, and she waited for Mr. Cake to send for the police, because having her arrested would draw real publicity for her cause. Whatever that was.
But he didn't summon them. He simply continued to bake and sell, dealing with those who were actually customers, a few of whom were still thanking him for the new diaper changing stations. And if he listened closely when the door opened (and it did so over and over again), he could just about hear the pushed and dragged fur being worn away.
It was, in its way, a rather pleasant sound.
