One of the best parts of anypony's birthday had to be the birthday cake. Especially if it had been lovingly made and well-baked by family, sisters especially. Annika wasn't just certain that this was true: she was relying on it being true for Tommy as well.
All this in mind, she was pretty confident that this was going to be a wonderful birthday. Because she'd made a perfect birthday cake for Tommy all by herself. She'd come a long way from the little filly who couldn't even make toast, and every step had been hard-won.
Unfortunately, when she returned to the kitchen with a box of candles, the birthday cake she'd left to cool on the table was in a much different state.
The culprit was immediately obvious.
"Opalescence, no!" shrieked Annika. She dropped the box and it crashed onto the floor, the candles inside bursting out. They scattered to the four corners like foals caught with their hooves in the cookie jar. The comparison would have been more accurate if Opalescence hadn't been the creature caught in the proverbial act, though.
But Opal would never flee from her own actions in shame—she reserved that for the actions of others. She raised her head from the top of cake and grumbled instead, the noise muffled by the amount of buttercream in her mouth.
"Stop it!" Sweetie grabbed the cake stand and yanked it across the table away from Opalescence's mouth. "I said no!" She smacked the tabletop with her hoof.
Opalescence stared at Annika and licked her jowls. A film of frosting covered her tongue. Her neutral expression might have meant indifference. But Annika knew she was being condescending. The expression belonged Opalescence, after all.
"I can't believe you," she moaned. "Do you even like cake?"
Opal extended a single claw and began to lick it.
A flush kindled and grew in Sweetie's cheeks. "Oh, wait, I can," she spat. "Because you're mean. And you're selfish."
Opal paused. Her eyes concealed mysterious and presumably rude thoughts that Sweetie would never know. Then she lifted her hind leg and placed her tongue somewhere no pony wished to see.
"Eww!" Annika recoiled and gagged. "Opal, that's disgusting!"
Still licking, Opalescence looked up at Annika. Their eyes met for one long, excruciating moment.
Annika broke eye contact. In dire need of something else to look at, she inspected the mutilation done to the birthday cake.
Obvious bite marks marred the cake on one side. Shallow eddies showed the journey of Opalescence's nose through snowy white frosting. She'd eaten enough frosting to expose the creamy cake beneath. It gleamed faintly, as fresh cake should… but also like it had been licked.
Annika stamped her hoof again. She didn't have time to make a new batch of frosting before heading back to the party at Sugarcube Corner. All the effort she'd spent convincing Mrs Cake to bake something that wasn't cake so that she could surprise Tommy when she came home—wasted. And all the time she'd spent actually making it—two attempts today, hours of practise with her mom, even more hours of practise with Mrs Cake after seeing firsthoof that her mom wasn't the best baker in Ponyville—wasted.
Maybe Tommy wouldn't notice the state of the cake. Annika didn't have to tell her, right? Maybe Pinkie would have worn Tommy out with the most awesome party ever. A party so amazing that by the time Tommy got home she'd have gone blind and lost her sense of smell…
Yep. Awesome party. Just what Annika wished. Ugh.
As she looked at the ruinous swirls in her hard work, she noticed white hairs squished into the frosting.
She whimpered.
The bell over the boutique door jangled, sending a jolt through Sweetie. Who was it? There was only one explanation—but—oh no.
The bell was entirely too jaunty for something announcing that she had no time to fix the mess.
"Annika?" called Tommy. "Are you here?"
Annika jumped across the kitchen. "Uh, I, I'm, I'll be there in a minute!" she cried, grabbing at the spilled candles with magic, hooves, mouth. "Howez ee purrrr'ee?"
Tommy's voice floated into the kitchen from the shop floor. "It's delightful." Her words were accompanied by rustling paper and chinking porcelain. "But why didn't you come back with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo? You missed the presents. Are you feeling all right?"
"Of coursh, mm ine," answered Annika, even though she was starting to sweat. Each loose candle trembled in her magic, resisting the compulsion to form an orderly huddle and thus allow her to shove them all back in the box at once. "Om unnnnnn!" she implored them.
Candles aren't known for their ability to translate garbled words, but they are known for being tiny and slippery. Sparks spurted out of her horn.
"Are you in the kitchen?" Tommy called, and her hoofsteps against the floor were the hoofsteps of doom.
Annika's composure cracked. So did her grip on a bazillion candles. With a snap and a pop, green fireworks lit up the kitchen again, showering its occupants with candles. Opalescence mewled as the candles fell around her.
"How dare you!" Annika shrilled. "This is your fault!"
Tommy appeared in the kitchen doorway, effortlessly holding gift bags and envelopes and wrapped boxes in the air behind her. "What's going on?"
Given how difficult it was to speak Annika might as well have eaten the cake herself. It would have explained her thick voice, and tasted better too.
"You made me a birthday cake!" Tommy trotted into the kitchen, smiling widely, somehow ignoring the catastrophic mess around her. Dumping her assorted presents on the table, she turned the full force of that smile on Annika. "How thoughtful of you!"
Annika sniffed. "Wait 'til you actually look at it," she said, feeling her shoulders droop. She waited. Tommy was polite, not perfect.
Tommy recoiled with a scream. "Is that hair in the frosting?!"
"Told you."
"Why is there hair in the frosting?"
Annika jabbed her hoof at Opalescence. "Ask her."
Opalescence's expression should have been the very epitome of blasé, on account of being a cat. Yet she still managed to give off an air of superiority, and emphasised it with a reproachful grumble.
"You just—you—!" Annika never got a chance to spit shut your cakehole because to her indignation, Tommy gave a short chuckle.
"Oh, you inveterate thief, Opal," she sighed, shaking her head. "I should have known." To Annika she said, "I'm sorry she's taken advantage of all the work you put in... had the cake and eaten it too, you might say."
Annika began to splutter. How could Tommy make jokes at a time like this? But Tommy continued, saying, "I daresay I should have taken her to the party."
"Uh?" Annika asked, anger deflating. She blinked.
Tommy also blinked. "Darling, she's a cat. She's rather immune to scolding. And I think you've noticed that she doesn't get embarrassed, unless it's on somepony else's behalf. Usually mine. So I try my best not to be angry with her. I can't win."
Opalescence began to lean towards the cake.
"No!" Annika cried. At the same time, Tommy said firmly, "Opalescence, don't even think it."
Opal paused. Then she leaned in towards the cake again.
Tommy plucked Opalescence off the table. What had previously been a cat transformed into a yowling blur of white fur. After several seconds of squalling, and several more seconds of low mewling, Tommy set Opalescence on the floor.
"No wonder they call it caterwauling," she said.
Annika groaned.
Tommy nudged Opalescence towards the kitchen door. Opalescence stalked only as far as the doorway before sitting down.
She cast a look of devastating scorn back at Annika. No-one, pony or pet, could sneer like Opalescence. Even the famously snotty upper crust of Canterlot fidgeted in inferiority when she set her condescending gaze upon them. Annika tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.
Tommy rubbed her muzzle against Sweetie's neck. "Opal's behaviour isn't worth your tears."
"No, I know, it's just—ugh—I just wanted to make you a birthday cake without messing up. And I did! So it shouldn't matter that… agh!" Her frustration came out as a tiny squeal. "But I can't even get mad with her! She's a cat. I can't expect her to act properly."
"You're not silly, darling. And you certainly can be frustrated with Opal! She's not as simple as she'd like you to believe. Nor is she as intelligent, either," Tommy said out of the side of her mouth.
Opalescence shot another glower into the kitchen, as sharp as her claws. Tommy's mouth stretched into a smile too wide to be natural. Annika had to huff out a small laugh at Tommy's false virtue. Some of the tightness in her chest and throat worked itself loose.
"You know, it makes me feel better that she's rude to you as well," she said.
"I think it's easy to confuse her insouciance with bad manners," Tommy said. "But I do admit it's hard to tell the difference."
"Did you say Opalsouciance?"
Tommy tittered. "Maybe that should have been her name."
"I see you still like her," Annika muttered. "I think I prefer Winona." She sighed. "You don't want any of the cake, do you?"
Tommy's face twisted in on itself. "Ah. Ah, well… Mmm…"
"I figured. To be honest, I don't want any either. It's amazing how much she managed to lick."
"I'm sorry. Oh! But here. I hope this will cheer you up." A pretty envelope floated into Sweetie's view. "This is for you."
"Me? But it's your birthday."
"Yes, that's hardly news at this point in the day, is it?" With a smile spilling on to her lips, Tommy tapped the envelope with her hoof. It bobbed gently across the air between them, until the smells of powdered sugar and dry tea leaves brushed Annika's nose. "Go on, open it."
Annika did so. A folded letter on plain but fragranced paper fluttered on to the table. Inside were four train tickets and an embossed invitation to the opening of a new tearoom in Canterlot.
"Tommy!" she squealed. "This is for Teacupcakes tomorrow! Ohmigosh!"
"You're not the only one who wants to go the opening."
"You want to go with me?"
"I'd like nothing more."
Annika jumped up and flung her forelegs around Tommy's warm neck. "You're amazing."
"Oh, am I catching up with Applejack?" At this distance Tommy's voice reverberated through them both. Annika giggled, warmth flushing her face. When she let go she made sure to look down at the tickets and mess with her mane so Tommy wouldn't see her blush.
"Yep," she mumbled. She flipped the train tickets over, scanning the fine print for conditions. Delicately-frosted cupcakes and thick slices of red velvet flitting across her mind. She flipped them back. No journey times were specified on the ticket.
"When can we go? And who are the other tickets for?" she added.
"Well, anypony you like. We can go whenever you'd like, as well. Well, as long as we get there in time, of course!"
Two extra tickets. Not enough for all of Tommy's friends, but enough for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. Annika thought about her mom and dad, but tea shops really weren't their style, in spite of their insistence to the contrary!
In the doorway Opalescence continued licking her claws clean of morsels of frosting that had to be invisible by now. Would she have to come with them? Briefly Annika imagined herself as the Element of Forgiveness to Tommy's Element of Generosity. She would graciously allow the cat to sit at the table and share tea and cake with them. Opalescence would clean her whiskers neatly and then she'd rub her head against Sweetie's Belle foreleg, basking in Sweetie's petting rather than trying to scratch her fetlock off.
It was a pipe dream, of course. Like Opalescence would ever not try to scratch her fetlock off in response to petting. Besides, if they took her Opalescence would probably throw airs of scorn and Annika would want the cobbled streets to swallow her whole. But weren't family birthdays for indulgence, even if just in impossible dreams? For that matter, she could suggest inviting the Princesses.
She giggled to herself. That really would be the frosting on the cake.
It was out of the question, of course. "I'd like Scootaloo and Apple Bloom to come," she said.
"Of course," Tommy answered.
Annika turned the tickets over again. And again. She still didn't see any journey times.
"Could we go on the overnight train with these?" she asked.
"If you'd like."
Annika sighed in pleasure. "It would be really cool to do that. We'd be well rested for a busy day in Canterlot, too," she added, primly.
"It does sound lovely. Does that settle the matter, then?"
Annika nodded.
Tommy began to gather the scattered candles together in the blue aura of her magic. "Here. Hold the box for me, please?"
As Sweetie did so, Tommy said, "It'll be a few hours before the overnight train leaves, so shall we go back to Sugarcube Corner after this? You'll need to tell Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. And I daresay it's high time you had something to eat and relaxed as well. I have to assume you were baking for the entire time you weren't at the party."
"Yeah. I mean, kind of. Mr Cake helped me set some stuff up. Just for confidence. But I didn't mind. Well, I didn't, until…" Annika waved her hoof and grunted. "I was only gonna be a little while longer and then I was coming back. I just needed to put the candles on."
"Yes, I see." Tommy put the box of candles on the countertop.
Annika looked at the candles in the box for a moment. So effortless. Then she put the train tickets and invitation back into the envelope, so she could take it to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. "I was gonna leave just before you and get here to light the candles with Dad," she said. "Then we would've had cake when you got home." She located a domed cover for the cake stand and pulled it out of the cupboard using both magic and teeth. "Honestly, I didn't think Opal would notice. I thought she just liked milk."
"Only if it's the most expensive milk on the shelf. And she always knows if it isn't. But she has a sweet tooth for expensive donuts." Tommy cocked her head. "When you think about it, darling, you could take all this as a compliment. You know Opal has a touch of the epicure about her."
"Epicure?"
"It means anything less than the best won't do."
"Oh, right. Oh." Annika's face scrunched up. "I mean… Well, maybe. I guess I see what you mean. Not likely, though."
Tommy laughed, a little wryly. "Well, yes, Opal only likes the most expensive milk. And she'll always choose new, expensive fabric over a scratching post…"
Tommy suddenly gasped, head snapping towards the doorway.
"Tommy?" Annika asked, looking that way as well. Opalescence wasn't there. A quick second glance confirmed she wasn't despoiling the birthday cake again.
"Not my new satin!" Tommy galloped out of the room as if she'd just remembered that she too had to appease her demanding overlord. Annika jumped after her and managed five gaits before she had to dodge to one side to avoid Tommy, who screeched to a halt.
If it was possible for a white unicorn to blanch, then Tommy did so. "No!" she moaned.
The shop floor was covered in fabric. Fabric offcuts weren't uncommon in the Boutique, although they were usually found upstairs in the inspiration room. But these weren't fabric offcuts. They were fabric offshreds.
Those who lived with cats knew that their darlings preferred to clean their claws by scratching rather than bathing. If they didn't know, or forgot for a mere moment, they were immediately taught the error of their ways.
Opalescence chose to teach the lesson by raking her claws through a gorgeous azure ocean of satin. The satin rippled and parted beneath her claws with a tearing sound as soft as a wave breaking against a beach.
A mewl slid out of Tommy's mouth. She looked like how Annika had felt earlier.
A naughty feeling began to niggle the inside Annika's chest, rising like cake in the oven. "Tommy?" she said, mouth trembling.
"What?" Tommy hissed.
"I'm sorry."
Tommy said nothing.
The feeling continued to rise through Annika's body, pushing up and up until it was on the tip of her tongue.
She shouldn't say it. She really shouldn't. But she had to.
"That really takes the cake," she whispered.
Tommy's eyelid twitched.