Sun and Hearth Post-Update Blog: Chapter 5 (The Twinkle in her Eyes) · 9:53pm Feb 28th, 2017
Post-Update blog for Sun and Hearth. No real spoilers this time, just a bonus flashback scene, but you should still read the current chapter for some context.
We can still have some ending credits music:
I’m going to skip the trivia and the world building info dump this time in favor of a bit of a flashback. It wouldn’t really add anything to the story, but it’s character background for Cookie. It may eventually become part of a series of stories I have planned telling a story about the pair from each tribe interspersed with flashbacks of how they interacted before, during, and after the first Hearth’s Warming.
Actually, the main thing that stalled work on that idea is that I’d love for the Cookie and Puddinghead story to revolve around politics, but it’s almost impossible to write about a fictional political situation without seeming to comment on current politics… especially with a politician like Puddinghead in the mix.
In other words, the Cookie and Puddinghead dynamic is fictional and not intended to represent any politicians living, dead, or ones you personally wish were dead. Enjoy!
Cookie sat by himself in his dark, empty campaign headquarters. The past twenty-four hours had been one humiliation after another, first the election results, then a concession speech that only a dozen ponies bothered to attend, and when he returned to the office a brief meeting with a hay fry vendor who offered to buy his remaining campaign fliers for one bit, to sop up grease from his wares.
He was staring at the gold coin now, sliding it around the table. The wages of months of hard work.
The door opened, and he looked up to see the unmistakable bun-topped form of Puddinghead. Chancellor Puddinghead, of course.
“Did you come to gloat?”
She walked over and grinned as she leaned against the table across from him. “Well I certainly could have. Are you sure you weren’t secretly campaigning for me?”
Cookie shook his head with a sigh. “I thought ponies were reasonable. I thought they might vote for the pony with actual ideas.”
Puddinghead gave a snort. “Well there’s your blasted problem.”
“If you’re going to tell me that most ponies are base creatures who only respond to ego puffing and fear, please don’t.” He glared out the window at the bustling Girthshire street. “That idea is far too comforting right now.
“There you go, having ideas again.” Puddinghead shook her head, walking over to the window and watching the ponies outside for a moment. “Your problem isn’t that ponies aren’t reasonable, your problem is they’re reasonable about things they care for, things that affect them every day. When they don’t have the understanding to be reasonable, when you start going on about negotiation between the nations and zoning changes in the countryside, their eyes glaze and their feelings take over. They like farmers, they hate stick heads, so they vote based on that. Governing means using what ponies feel to bring them to a reasonable position, or something like it.”
An argument was on the tip of his tongue when Puddinghead went on, cutting off Cookie’s thoughts:
“And don’t dare get superior, Little Lord Stick Head. You’ve got two failed businesses behind you and a failed campaign because you can be reasonable about blasted Monoceros but not about buying flour or playing politics.”
Cookie shot her a glare. “I’d appreciate it you didn’t call me that. You know perfectly well it’s no betrayal of the tribe to try to get a better agreement from the other nations, and Monoceros is our best hope there.”
“I’m the Chancellor, I can call you what I damn well please,” Puddinghead said with a hearty chuckle.
He raised an eyebrow. “So you came here to gloat after all.”
Puddinghead walked back over to the table with a condescending smile. “No, Little Lord Stick Head, I came to ask what you’re planning to do next, and see if you’d be reasonable.”
“I have no idea.” Cookie sighed. “I’m up to my cutie mark in debt. I’ll likely go to my family, to see if I can work in somepony’s bakery and pay it off before I die.”
She nodded and leaned against the table. “Well, I’ve got a better idea, because I can be very reasonable when it comes to making things easy on myself. For as much as a disaster as you were -- and that was quite impressive, if I do say so myself--”
“Do you have a point?” Cookie asked flatly.
“You polled well with the Baker’s Guild,” Puddinghead went on in a matter-of-fact tone. “It’d be blasted useful to have them on board when the deals start flying, so I want you in my cabinet. How’s Secretary of the City sound?”
Cookie rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sure this would have been a hilarious prank at my expense, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Smart enough to know there's a catch, at least.” Puddinghead smirked. She leaned forward and looked him in the eye. “The catch is you’re not to have a single blasted idea. You do what I tell you, and if I’m not there you do what the vice chancellor tells you, and if he’s not there you do what literally any pony in the building tells you, right down to the maid. You’re not to fix anything, you’re not to improve anything, and you’re sure as blessed Tartarus not to innovate anything. And I don’t want you pestering me about those things, either. You’ll have an office, and you’ll sign papers. Not even very important papers--”
“I get the picture. You want a flag to wave at the Bakers Guild and nothing more.”
Puddinghead chuckled. “I knew you were brighter than you seem.”
Cookie considered for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I won’t be turned into your lapdog. At least in my family’s bakeries I can be useful.”
“Perhaps, but can your family pay 300 bits a month?” Puddinghead asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cookie stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “I’m to cost the taxpaying ponies 300 bits a month to sit at a desk and gain you leverage with the Baker’s Guild?!”
Puddinghead shrugged. “Not entirely. You’ll also sign a mountain of scrolls. You’ll be shocked at how many of the blasted things there are.”
“This is madness,” Cookie pointed out.
“Welcome to government.” Puddinghead chuckled.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t be party to this.”
“I thought you were an intelligent and rational pony, and now you’re thinking like a voter.” Puddinghead gave a condescending smile and went on as if she was talking to a foal, “Smart Cookie, I have drinks with a top pony in the banker’s guild, he let slip what you owe. You’re never going to pay it off working for your family, and you’re never going to get another shot until you pay it off. With me, you could pay it off in five years, if you scrimp, with five years government experience under your saddle and a respectable job title.”
Cookie frowned. “In exchange for my honor.”
Puddinghead raised her eyebrows. “I could not give a griffon’s shit about your honor. I’m offering you this because I feel bad for you. Deep in the hole and publicly humiliated when a pony ought to be settling into life… what’s your blessed honor doing for you? But I’m trying to help you.”
Cookie looked down and rubbed his forehead with a hoof.
“If I walk out that door without an answer, I’m finding myself another baker.”
He heard her turn, and her hoof steps sounded across the room.
She gave a sigh as the door opened. “Very we--”
“I’ll take it.” Cookie looked up to see her smirking in the doorway. He swallowed the last of his pride and added, “Thank you, Chancellor. It’s very generous of you.”
“There’s a good pony. I’ll see you at City Hall on Monday.” Puddinghead chuckled as she stepped out on the street and let the door slam shut behind her.
Cookie sat by himself in the darkness a while longer before he noticed the bit still sitting on the table. With a heavy sigh, he scooped up what his ideals had earned him and left to buy himself a strong drink.
Good stuff. Poor Cookie.
Ouch. Given how far he fell, no wonder he couldn't believe his fortune by the time Celestia was showing him the castle's secret passages.
Aw, but you didn't post any end-title music for that fragment there!
Never mind, my man Warren's gotcha covered:
Poor old Cookie, I feel ya: honest, hardworking, can cook up a storm, but you can't escape the feeling that you were just born wrong.
And yet you get to sleep with the lady who raises the sun. Well.