“In?” Big Mac says, trying to stay confident. “But, after what ya said about us here Ponyvillians…”

“Oh, that?” Cherry Blossom snickers, brushing off his concern with an easy smile. He immediately regrets saying anything that might encourage her to leave. “I’m so used to playing the face, I thought I’d give playing the hock a spin. It’s fun and all, and I love hamming it up. But honestly?” She leans in close again. “You Ponyvillians are so kind compared to the Manehattanites I normally chum with, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already forgiven me.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac can’t help but agree. They are a forgiving bunch. His ego isn’t bruised, no more than his coat. And, surprisingly, he’s still nice and glossy. He glances over at six approaching ponies - Rainbow Dash and Misty Fly, Doug and Marble Pie, but also Rarity and Twilight, the latter two at whom Doug directs a goofy grin and wave - while the crowd disperses to their preparations.

“Great success?” Doug greets with a fond ear scratch to the alicorn, Rarity quick to get in on the action that leaves her tongue lolling and eyes rolling to the back of her head.

“Met up with the families, saw Cadance and my BBBFF, listened to Radiant Hope and Tempest Shadow.” By Doug’s grimace and the slow of his hand Big Mac can tell Doug is more than a little concerned. Twilight quickly continues, already missing his ministrations, “But everypony is doing well; they might even be coming to Ponyville!”

“Err,” Big Mac stammers, trying to covertly scan the crowd for anypony showing too much interest. “You don’t happen to have any sisters, do you?”

“Me?” Twilight frowns for a second. “Twinkleshine and Minuette.” She motions behind Big Mac, her pleasant smile reasserting itself. He doesn’t have to look to recognize the names, the unicorns having moved into town several years ago. Twinkleshine, pink mane and white coat with a cutie mark of three blue stars, often comes by the stall late in the day after she wakes up for her job as night warden. Minuette, dark blue and gray mane with a light blue coat and a cutie mark of an hourglass, is more esoteric, helping the musicians with their timepieces and keeping everything running. Both are proficient casters, which makes sense given their pedigree, and neither has interacted beyond occasional pleasantries. Twilight’s smile broadens, perhaps knowingly, yet alarmingly so all the same. “Why?”

“...Curious,” Big Mac finally says, dreading the outcome of meeting them. He knows Rarity has a few sisters; except for young Namby Pamby and her dam Niminy Piminy they all moved to Canterlot with Hondo Flanks. Would they come back too? Would he… want them to come back?

“How’s the foreleg?” Misty Fly asks during the lull in conversation, Rainbow Dash right behind her. She must have taken his look of mental discomfort for something physical. Misty Fly gently takes his hoof after the slightest wait, giving it a minor twist. “Any pain?”

“Ee-nope.” Well, there’s a little, but nothing more than the soreness anypony would expect.

She looks at him, like she can detect even the merest hint of dishonesty. He gulps, then gives a slight nod.

“You have to be careful,” Misty Fly warns, setting his hoof back on the ground. She gives it a light tap, and a smile. He likes her smile. Why would he do something that would wipe that smile away? “You wouldn’t want to injure your leg, would you?”

“That would make your mark harder to fulfill,” Marble Pie adds with a firm nod.

Big Mac glances at Rainbow Dash, who seems stuck halfway between a smile and a grimace. Granted, the pegasus (and most of Doug’s herd) did help out with his half of the applebucking after her ‘trick’ left his leg broken, but it sure wasn’t the best week for either of them. “Eeyup.”

“Now, hold on,” Cherry Blossom says, affronted. Big Mac doesn’t like seeing her - or the other two - out of sorts. “Just because he might be injured doesn’t mean he shouldn’t try something.”

“But,” Marble Pie argues, “if it takes away from his mark?” She pointedly looks at Cherry Blossom’s cutie mark of a cherry blossom. “He wouldn’t be able to focus on that.”

Cherry Blossom scoffs. “There are more things in life than just your mark.” She turns to Big Mac, head cocking to the side. “What do you think?”

There are, but they all fail to live up to the joy he gets from farming. The mares all make good points. He doesn’t want to disappoint the others by agreeing with one. How can he possibly choose between them?

He gulps, looking every which way for some way out of this that won’t upset any of them.

He spots Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie Pie is suspiciously absent from the establishment this close to party time.

“Ah, ah, ah think Ah better go check on the food,” he says, backpedaling as fast as he can without them getting too suspicious. He doubts he succeeded. “Make sure the, um, pies are done right. For the herding. Announcement.”

Misty and Cherry look at Marble, but by the time they look back he has galloped halfway across town, head lowered so he doesn’t accidentally make any eye contact with Twinkleshine or Minuette. Or anypony else for that matter. He’s not sure if they are following him, he doesn’t want to look back and check, but at the same time worries how they took his departure. He hopes they took it well.

The door to Sugarcube Corner swings open easily, the store deserted and uncharacteristically bare for an imminent party. Young Meringue staffs the counter, the light yellow filly only able to see above by utilizing a series of stools. She’s setting out a number of pies of questionable quality, at least judging by the discounts and the… pungent odor. They smell like crust, an overcompensating amount of butter and a lack of… something. Something vitally important, something no baker would think to exclude, yet there it isn’t.

The filly stares at him with an expressionless visage, mulling over something.

“How’re the, um, pies?” Big Mac asks. There’s no way they are serving something like that for any party, let alone his own, right?

“Poor essence. Little value.”

“Oh.” Big Mac frowns, inspecting the pies closer. It’s not like Pinkie Pie to let any sort of substandard cooking pass the counter. Except that time Applejack baked a whole bunch of baked bads with sour gummy worms. They weren’t that bad, come to think of it, just not up to the Pinkie Pie Party Guarantee he’s come to expect. Is she too busy setting up the three, or maybe four (or even more!) parties? “Ya need help?”

“Preparations inadequate. Must improve. Assistance… appreciated.”

Big Mac chuckles to himself as Meringue prompts him to enter the kitchen. He doesn’t talk because he needs to make sure he listens, while Meringue tries to be as efficient as possible with her language. Not that she gets her point across any faster than Pinkie Pie, she just uses a tenth of the words.

The kitchen is no better than the counter. The smell of burning assaults his nose as soon as he walks inside the kitchen. Not the good burning of a wood oven, or the distressed burning of an overdone pie, but the burning of… plants?

“Big Mac!” Sweetie Belle screams from next to her bowl of charred lettuce and extra-crispy greens. “Thank Celestia you’re here! You gotta help me!”

“Eeyup.” He’s not sure how the young mare burned a salad, only that this isn’t the first time. Did she use her horn again? Why would she be doing that? His nose wrinkles as he walks over, cautious of the contents bursting into flame, and calmly takes the bowl away.

Sweetie Belle sighs a huge sigh of relief. “Thanks, Mac.” She points to the other end of the table at a lovely pink unicorn mare with a curly dark purple mane and a cutie mark of a heavily frosted cupcake topped by a cherry. She’s obviously struggling, but why eludes him. He would think a mark like that would be at home in the kitchen. “I was helping Sugar Belle with her mark, but when I tried to demonstrate it got a little, erm… incendiary.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac walks over to this Sugar Belle, wondering what’s wrong. He stops next to her, by an opened but unused bag of sugar. She has several filled bowls, everything ready to be mixed, but for some reason hasn’t been.

The mare jolts as Big Mac walks next to her, though she doesn’t seem at all afraid about him being there. She’s clearly distraught over something, though. Cutie mark related? Why would a baker - he assumes a cutie mark of a cupcake would make somepony a baker - struggle with baking? She bites her lip, her nose scrunching up. He doesn’t care for seeing anypony’s nose scrunch up like that, especially hers.

“Sugar Belle,” Sweetie Belle cuts in, eager to explain. “This here’s uncle Big Mac!” The pink mare cautiously looks at him out of the corner of her eye. “This is perfect! He’s a much better baker than me; he can help you!”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac says with a firm nod. He doesn’t like to brag (Applejack would glare at him if he said that out loud), but he is a good baker. One of the best in the family! (Applejack would also glare at him if he said that out loud. It’s a good thing he keeps his mouth shut most of the time.)

“I’ll leave so you can work on this together,” Sweetie Belle says, stepping away. She returns to add, scowling and pointing at her eyes and then his, “Alone. Together.”

Big Mac frowns at the impertinent young mare. She skitters out of the kitchen, only to peek from around the swinging door. What is she worried about? It’s not like he’s going to look into her eyes, and see her smile, and fall head over hooves in-

He turns back to Sugar Belle. She’s still standing there, looking at him with the same dread that he had when thinking about having more mares chase after him. Wait, no, she’s not looking at him, she’s looking at the bag of sugar next to him.

Whew.

He takes a step back, to make sure her focus stays on the bag of sugar and not him.

It does. He’s not sure why, he feels like he should be relieved that she doesn’t find him distasteful. Yet a part of him wishes the revulsion in her gaze was directed at him, because then he wouldn’t have to worry about yet another mare trying to insert herself into his life.

“‘F’raid that sugar’s gonna leap out at ya?” Big Mac quips, chuckling at his joke. His laughter dies off as she takes his joke with deadly seriousness, the grimace in her gaze intensifying.

“It’s not getting into my hooves that I’m worried about,” Sugar Belle says, keeping her hooves pointedly planted on the floor. “It’s getting it out.”

“Yer worried about usin’ too much?” Big Mac sidles up to the distraught mare, wanting more than anything to comfort her. And not just because she has a set of half-starved flanks that could really use an apple - a whole cartload of apples - to fill out. He gently takes her front hooves and lifts, placing her on the counter and ready to work. “Ya can’t be afraid of usin’ some ‘cause ya might use too much.”

She goes along with his motions, putty in his hooves, though this putty is jiggling worse than a jar of apple jelly. “But what if my mark wants me to add more? And more and more and more and-”

“When Doug started bakin’,” Big Mac interrupts, much to the mare’s relief, “we had to write down a bunch of family recipes that we normally would’a passed by word’a mouth. An’ if there’s one thing that human likes, it’s havin’ things hashed out.”

“Sweetie Belle told me about the wheat farming,” Sugar Belle says, a hint of a smile teasing at the corners of her mouth.

“Then ya haven’t heard the half of it,” Big Mac says, trying to hide the fact that he’s avoiding her gaze by searching the lower part of the counter for a measuring cup. Except he can’t find any among the pots and pans and baking sheets. He belatedly realizes his mistake, that the cup is already by the mixing bowls.

“Am I missing something?” she asks.

“Here, try this,” he says as he comes up with a cheesy grin, trying to play this off like he meant to do that, and to his relief finds her not the slightest bit amused by his antics. “The crust is nice and ready, but we need to fix the fillin’. Ah find six to one sugar to flour works best, so lets try fillin’ two cups over here. That way ya can put the bag down, an’ won’t feel pressured to add more.”

“I guess I can try that,” Sugar Belle says, reluctantly stepping next to him. She takes the measuring cup, holding it as far from her as she can. She lifts the bag of sugar, a low moan emanating from her throat as she pours. And pours. And pours, heaps of sugar cascading from the mound on top of the cup.

And then she grits her teeth, rights the bag, and takes a deep breath. She grabs a nearby knife and carefully slides the excess back into the bag before dumping the requisite two cups of sugar into the mixing bowl.

“I did it,” she breathlessly exclaims, staring at the bowl. “Now I just need the filling. Like peaches, blueberries, or rhubarb.” He spots a teasing smirk on the corner of her crinkling muzzle. “Something sweet.”

He can’t help himself. “Something like… apples?”

“Those would be sweet.” She mimes looking all around the store. “Do you have some?”

“Eeyup.” He would have sworn Sugarcube Corner would be well stocked with apples, but he can’t see any. He hopes this isn’t like the measuring cup. “Ah’ll, err, Ah’ll go get some.”

“Thanks, Big Mac.” She coyly looks at him, smiling. “You’re pretty sweet, yourself.”

Big Mac finds himself falling in those cerise eyes, lost in her wrinkling smile. Why did he want to avoid her gaze? Her flanks don’t need apples, they need an Apple, and-

“I’m back!” Lemon calls as she enters through the front, a heavy bag of apples on her back. The yellow mare is swiftly filling out, larger than the slim Sugar Belle if a touch shorter. “Sorry it took so long, nopony was at the farm, so I-” She cuts off as she spots Big Mac and Sugar Belle, the two longingly gazing into each other's eyes. She squeals in delight, scampering over and jumping onto the counter. She takes one whiff of the pie filling, grinning from ear to ear. “You did it!”

“She did it,” Big Mac hastily explains. He doesn’t want to pull away from Sugar Belle, neither of them do, but she finally does with a certain look in her eye that promises that what he sees now will be waiting for him when he returns.

“We did it,” Sugar Belle insists as she takes one of the apples from Lemon’s bag, paring the skin with a deftness that leaves Big Mac shivering in anticipation. Yet her eyes never leave his, not even as she slices the apple apart, and especially not when she pops the core in her mouth, trapping it between her front teeth before letting it fall back and swallowing the core whole.

Big Mac shudders, only for her to start peeling another apple. “Thanks, Lemon,” he says, barely sparing the young mare a glance.

But that’s enough to see her smile, and get lost in the ocean of her eyes. Sure, she’s young, but she’s old enough, she’s been through one heat, and-

“Ee-nope, nope, nope,” Big Mac mutters. He frantically backpedals, eyes growing as large as the apple pies Sugar Belle is quizzically looking up from.

It’s not that Lemon’s smile grows unnaturally, spreading from ear to ear in a grotesque mockery of a filly. It doesn’t even reveal jagged teeth or a tentacled tongue. Her perfect smile merely grows a touch of concern, piercing into his heart and throwing his entire world into disarray.

“Big Mac?” the too young, too cute, too perfect mare asks innocently.

“Nope,” Big Mac says one final time, unable to look away. He fumbles for the latch on the storeroom door, finally opening it, and stumbles inside. How has this happened? Why has his entire world been thrown into disorder? Or, one might even say…

“Discord.”

“At your service,” says the hunched-over draconequus, clad in a white lab coat. He closes the door behind him, breaking the effect. “Is everything all right?” He peers over a set of spectacles Big Mac doesn’t remember being there before. “Do you require… assistance?”

Next Chapter: Ch. 183 - Omen on the Winds, Part Five Estimated time remaining: 3 Hours, 12 Minutes