There was a second heartbeat inside of Bucky’s right front fetlock. He glanced at the bandaged joint resting upon the kitchen table and suppressed the need to giggle. The pain was excruciating. A veritable symphony of tactile stimulation, and the symphony approached the crescendo.

The kitchen had been cleaned. There was no trace of blood anywhere.

A cup of tea was now cooling in front of Bucky and a platter full of oatmeal cookies with shredded carrot and ginger sat in the middle of the table.

Sitting at the table, Bucky waited for Violet, who was in the school, checking up on something she had deemed important. Important things required a visit from Violet in pony. Violet visits provided all the motivation needed to make sure that everything was perfect.

Things had not been perfect, hence the reason why Violet was showing up in pony.

Derpy had gone to the nursery, hoping to soothe some traumatised foals. Sukari was being bathed. Bell Heather was still crying, now well over an hour later. The mess had been cleaned up. The house was returning to a quiet state.

Bucky heard the front door open.

“You march into the kitchen and you tell him what you did!”

Bucky’s eyebrow arched. Violet sounded upset. He could hear her snorting. There was a blur of pink in his vision. Turning, he saw Piña in the kitchen archway, standing there, unmoving, a look of terror upon her face.

“You move!” Violet whacked Piña across the plot with a rolled up newspaper.

Piña let out a startled cry and stumbled forward. When she stopped moving, the newspaper swooped down and swatted her right on her palm tree. Piña bleated and darted forward.

Bucky, watching all of this, said nothing, knowing Violet always had her reasons.

“Now you tell him what you did!” Violet waved her rolled up newspaper at Piña. “I’m going back to the school… I still have things to take care of. I lost time out of my day because I had to escort you home!”

Violet went stomping off, her head high, her nostrils flaring. She left a chill in her wake, much like Bucky did when he was in a bad mood.

Bucky lifted his teacup and took a sip.

Piña stood there, tears now slipping down her cheeks. Her blue eyes were filled with fear. She reached back with one front hoof and rubbed her cutie mark, where Violet had landed a blow with a rolled up newspaper.

“Sit.” Bucky gestured at the chair beside him with his talons.

Piña turned her head and looked at the kitchen archway.

“If you run, I’ll make you regret it. You’re having a bad day now… but only a bad day. Do not make it the worst sort of day.” Bucky set down his teacup.

Piña looked at the table, then back at the entryway, and then back at the table. Then, she looked up at Bucky. She climbed up into the chair beside Bucky, sat down, and noticed the bandage. When she started to say something, she felt the cool touch of metal on her lips as one talon finger tip was placed over her mouth.

The filly remained silent.

“What happened?” Bucky asked.

Scowling, Piña slumped down in her chair and folded her forelegs across her barrel. She took a deep breath, felt the sting of more tears, and then bit down upon her lip. She closed her eyes and said nothing.

“Take a moment if you need it, but you will tell me what happened.” Bucky lifted up his teacup once more and took a sip. “Berry, leave us.”

Berry Punch, standing in the doorway, let out a soft whinny and did not move.

“Berry Punch… please… I think Piña needs a moment with her father.”

“I’ll be back!” Berry said as she turned tail and left.

Lifting a cookie, Bucky began to nibble on the edge.

“I didn’t mean it,” Piña said in a raspy whisper. “It just slipped out.”

Still nibbling his cookie, Bucky said nothing.

“I thought she was laughing at me!” Piña said, her head dropping down. “She was laughing and I thought she was laughing about what happened.” Piña slumped over the table, buried her head into her forelegs, and began bawling.

Sighing, still nibbling his cookie, Bucky fetched a teacup from the cupboard, set it down on the table, added a little milk, and then poured tea into the cup. He added a spoonful of sugar, stirred it, and slid the cup in front of Piña.

After several minutes of crying, Piña lifted her head. A long string of snot stretched from her nostril to her foreleg. She sniffled.

Taking a bite of cookie, Bucky fetched a fresh clean towel from the kitchen cabinet and then began to wipe Piña’s face as the foal sniffled and protested. Piña sneezed and Bucky wiped away more mucus.

“This has been one terrible day to be a dad. First, I step on some jacks that somepony was kind enough to leave in the hall. Then I come into the kitchen and find my daughter, whom I love more than life itself, is a real mess. It scared me. Worried me. Made my heart hurt. But as it turns out, my day was just getting started. Bell Heather and Sukari got vaccinated. Sukari bit me… right down to the bone. There was arterial spurting and everything. I had to be held down over the kitchen table and everything had to be sewn back together. And now, just when everything is calming down, the daughter that I love more than life itself is sitting beside me with a snotty nose after being escorted home by my secretary, who seemed furious.” Bucky pushed the last of his cookie between his lips, chewed, swallowed, and looked Piña in the eye. “That just about sums up my bad day. How has your bad day been?”

Piña pulled her teacup closer and drew the steam into her lungs. Her breathing was wet and raspy. She hiccuped, letting out a soft feminine sound of distress, and then hiccuped again. It felt as though something tight was bound around her barrel and it was difficult for her to breathe.

“Can I have a cookie?” Piña asked.

“No.” Bucky picked up another cookie and began to nibble on the edge.

“My bad day just got worse.” Piña watched her father eating a cookie, her eyes glittering with hurt and tears. “I had a dream about a colt I knew in school. I woke up touching myself and my sheets were all wet. I was sticky and I smelled bad. Then I acted like a half a horse when my daddy was trying to make me feel better. After that, I felt guilty and ashamed and my day went from being bad to unbearable.” Piña heaved a sigh and her mane fell in front of her eyes.

“Sounds like you were just getting to the part where you did something in school.”

Piña lifted up her teacup, holding it between her hooves, and took a tiny careful sip.

“Bad days happen Piña.”

“In school, every time I hear a laugh, I think they’re laughing at me.” Piña set down her teacup and looked her father in the eye. “Dinky was laughing with Diamond Tiara. I thought they were laughing at me. I don’t know why.” Piña’s eyes dropped and she stared down into her teacup. “I went off on Dinky. I called her a feckwitted feckfaced feckhead and then a few more words slipped out.” Piña’s voice was almost inaudible.

Bucky shook his head for a moment, sighed, and then took a sip of tea as he held his cookie aside. After swallowing, he muttered, “Shetlanders.”

“I was so angry and ashamed. I remembered how we laughed at Sentinel that one morning. And I felt so guilty and rotten on the inside knowing that I had hurt him. And then I thought that Dinky and Diamond Tiara were laughing at me because of what I did and my vision got all blurry for a moment and my hooves tingled and nothing felt right and I knew that the anger was coming out one way or the other and so I opened my mouth and the words just came out and…” Piña buried her face into her forelegs once more and began sobbing.

“And what have both Berry Punch and Bon Bon said about you saying the f-word?”

There was no reply from Piña, only more sobbing.

“Piña, I want for you to look at me.” Bucky reached out and touched the sobbing foal. “Look at me. Stop crying and take responsibility for what you have done.”

Sniffling, snot dribbling out of her nose once more, Piña looked up at her father.

Fetching another fresh towel, Bucky went to work once more, cleaning up Piña’s face. As he wiped away tears and mucus, his brow furrowed. “I am going to give you a choice. It isn’t going to be a good choice I’m afraid. But you are going to pick who punishes you. You can choose to deal with Berry Punch and Bon Bon… or… you can deal with me. But you will pick your punishment. You will choose the method of your suffering.”

Piña swallowed and felt as if there was a stone caught in her throat.

“Now, if I remember correctly, both of those mares were hankerin’ for a spankerin’. Bon Bon even bought that new hair brush with the long handle and the broad back…”

The sobbing pink foal reached down and began to rub her bottom with one hoof.

“Bon Bon has been wanting to work over your backside for a long, long time. This time, I think that Berry will let Bon Bon go nuts…”

“Noooooo…” Piña’s voice was a squeaky pained whine.

“Bon Bon spends all day whipping stuff in mixing bowls… she has those big scary muscles on her forelegs… she can whip all day long and half the night and not get tired…”

Piña whimpered and let out a long frightened whine.

“Berry and Bon Bon might even take turns.”

Piña yelped and almost knocked over her tea.

“This might be the last time you sit down for a very long time.”

“Daddy, don’t let them spank me…”

“If they spank you, it will be over quick… maybe. A few minutes, maybe five or ten minutes of paddling your little pink buns until they’re a whole lot pinker and then it will be over.” Bucky could see real fear in Piña’s eyes. “Compared to what I have planned for you, you’ll be getting off easy. Just a few minutes of spanking sounds like the easy way out.”

Piña squirmed in her chair. “What do you have planned?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Bucky took a bite of cookie and chewed with a half smile.

“I don’t want to make this choice.” Piña’s lower lip protruded in a pout.

“Too bad… what’s done is done. You have freedom of choice, but you do not have freedom from choice. You will choose. You have five minutes, starting now, to think about which choice you will make.” Bucky looked at the clock on the wall and then returned his eyes to Piña.

“What if I refuse to choose?” Piña asked.

“Then I let Berry and Bon Bon do whatever it is they have planned for you… afterwards, you’re mine. And then I get to punish you even more for refusing to make a choice.”

Dreadful apprehension settled over Piña. She turned her head and looked at the clock on the wall. She stared at it for a whole minute and twenty three seconds.

“Clock is ticking,” Bucky said.

Piña felt a cold chilly feeling in her guts. She wiped her nose with her foreleg. She looked at her father and bowed her head. “I choose you. Do with me as you will. You have always been fair.”

“Deal. Here, have a cookie.” Bucky lifted one cookie off of the plate and gave it to Piña.

“I get a cookie?” Piña asked.

“Well, I don’t want to be cruel… you’re going to need that cookie… you’re going to be pulling me into Ponyville later… today, I will be traveling in style.” Bucky smiled. “And that is only the beginning of what I have planned for you.”

“I made a bad choice…”

Author's Notes:

The horrible, lousy, no good, terrible, bad day continues.