In a backyard surrounded by a tall wooden fence, a mare sat back on her haunches. She reached out with both forelegs, gently cradling a stork's head. She rubbed the stork's feathers gently, massaging its forehead and its cheeks. The stork closed its eyes, and made soft cooing sounds.
Throughout the darkened theater, ponies stared at the screen. Was THIS how Mr. and Mrs. Cake had convinced the storks to bring them so many foals?
Carrot Cake approached the mare and bird. He carried a bowl in his teeth. "Honey," he said, "I made the special formula. You know, the SECRET one."
"Did you make sure to use one tenth sea eel?" she asked. "And plenty of lemongrass. The lemongrass is essential."
He chuckled. "You KNOW I did. I would never leave those out." He set the bowl down on the grass.
Cup Cake grasped the spoon's handle in her mouth, and scooped up a bit of mush.
Through one side of her mouth, she said, "Open wide!"
The stork opened its beak eagerly.
The screen went black, and the movie went silent.
Applejack's voice shouted in the darkness, "Now this just ain't right!"
"I quite concur!" somepony else said. "We were just getting to the good part. I want to find out the rest of the formula! How else can I be sure of getting a wonderful little foal of my own, when the time comes?"
"That's not what Ah meant at all!" Applejack struck a match, and lit a candle. Carrying the candleholder in her mouth, the farmpony walked forward to the theater's stage.
Applejack turned to face the audience. She said, "What we just saw are very special, private moments...between two ponies who want to be parents together, and their stork. It's about love and dedication and hard work. It ain't somethin' for fillies tryin' to get a 'movie makin' cutie mark' to spy on, or for other ponies to gawk at on a movie screen."
Rarity sniffed. "I quite agree. How many years of work did Mr. and Mrs. Cake put into developing their secret formula? And here we are, an entire theaterful of ponies just stealing the recipe like it was nothing."
"Aww!" Sweetie Belle whined. "But we DIDN'T steal it! We still don't know the other eight tenths! And--"
"Not another word!" Rarity scolded. "The more you make excuses, the more you admit you KNOW you did something wrong. You can't win." Rarity looked down at the floor for a moment, her cheeks hot with embarrassment. "What pains me most about this is...it's not just that my own sister was part of this. But also...I'm ashamed on my own account. I should have suspected you three might be up to no good, but I trusted you." She shook her head. "I suppose I was wrong, to let you run around doing whatever you wanted without more adult supervision."
Somepony turned on the room's lights. Of all the ponies who had come to see the 'nature film,' nopony else spoke up. Ponies blushed, and looked awkwardly away from each other. All the grownup ponies in the audience were too busy feeling ashamed of themselves, to say even one word in the Crusaders' defense...or even in their own.
No! One pony cleared her throat.
Applejack asked, "What is it, Mayor Mare?"
She grimaced. "There's a difference between the little foals, and the rest of us here. THEY might not have known any better. But WE...we should have done something sooner, to stop them from making such a movie. The foals at least have the excuse of ignorance. But the rest of us...we're supposed to be more mature, and more responsible."
She shook her head. "And I should have checked this film myself, before agreeing to let it be shown in Town Hall."
Mayor Mare sighed. "All I can say is...thank you, Applejack. Thank you for standing up to stop this, before it got even worse."
The Mayor looked around the room. "I think the show is over. Let's all go home, and think about what happened here tonight, and how we can keep it from ever happening again."
***
The next day at recess, Apple Bloom said, "Ah just WISH they would give us a simple, quick punishment and let it be over with."
Scootaloo snorted. "Or at least give us a better explanation of what we did wrong?" She shook her head. "All I know is, I'm afraid to even try to make a movie ever again."
Sweetie nodded. "I guess that's the point."
Apple Bloom remarked, "Ah was never so GLAD before, that we have to go to school. Because if it wasn't for school, maybe we wouldn't be allowed to talk to each other at all."
"I hate being grounded for every minute I'm not at school," Scootaloo whined. "Are you two grounded too? Have they told you for how long?"
Apple Bloom shook her head. "They said they're still tryin' to figure out how they went so wrong in raisin' me, and what it might take to even TRY to fix their mistakes. But until then, they're afraid to let me set hoof off the farm."
"I don't know for how long yet either," Sweetie concurred.
"We really stepped in it," Scootaloo lamented. "My aunts said if my mum and dad knew what I did...well, they said it's good my parents weren't here to see what happened. Because now, Lofty and Holiday say, there's at least a chance to think about how to break the bad news gently."
Sweetie narrowed her eyes. "Apple Bloom, I heard a rumor. Is our clubhouse really chained shut now, with double padlocks?"
"Yep. Ah don't know if they're EVER gonna let us use it again. They burned our movie making stuff too! But all we were doing was trying for our cutie marks!"
Scootaloo nodded. "That's something every foal HAS to do. We practically had no choice! Don't our parents even WANT us to grow up?" She shook her head. "Sometimes I think they'd rather we didn't. They want us to be babies forever."
Apple Bloom sighed. "Well, Ah guess maybe things ain't QUITE as bad as they could be. Ah mean, one terrible thing hasn't happened to us, at least not yet."
"What do you mean?" Scootaloo wondered.
"At least Ah ain't heard anypony talk about making the storks take us back."
Author's Note
(I made minor dialog edits 2024-07-17 or so.)
