The brown earth pony could hear the bits in his bag jingling all too merrily as he walked towards the counter.

He was a baker, and the owner of a bakery known in Canterlot simply as Grain’s. When ponies entered Grain’s, the first thing they noticed was how the owner would greet his customers. His smile and ease of temper lent and air of homeliness and simplicity to the small bakery. He was a pony who commanded respect, simply because of the steadiness and integrity with which he conducted sales.

Whole Grain knew that this was how things should be. He knew that he was a family pony, and he knew only few could rival the fierce and loyal spirit with which he wished to look after his son and wife. He also knew that he was a terrible stallion for the job.

Before Rough Grain had called himself a baker, he had been a gambler, and he had gone by a different name; Lucky Split. What a dumb name that had been, and what an unfortunate association it was now. When he baked, Rough Grain wore an apron, so that nopony could catch a glimpse of his cutie mark, and wonder if they really wanted to buy bread from a pony, whose special talent was represented simply by the image of two freely falling bits on his flank. Aside from the odd corrupt noble, only gamblers and gangsters had bits on their flanks. Bakers definitely did not.

Rough Grain’s wife had been the biggest, and also the scariest, gamble of his life. He had stolen her away from another, the day before her wedding. She had been happy with the engagement, Rough Grain was certain of that, but through near perfect courtship, or perhaps just by incredible and uncanny luck, he had managed to woo her in the last moment before the ceremony. They had run off together and started a new life. When Rough Grain had asked her, why she chose him, over the admittedly hunky guard she had been engaged too, she answered that it was because she loved him.

Love. Could it be that simple? That she loved him, and that all he needed to do was to love her back? Whole Grain thought about all the ponies around him, all the normal ponies he knew. Rough Grain had tried, he really had. He had tried so hard to be like them. For her sake, and for the foal.

The best days for him were when he could make it through without even thinking of the two little bits on his flank. When he could forget, that he was a gambler, and pretend to be a normal baker for a while. He loved making the bread, and decorating the pastries, not because making bread or decorating pastries was a fun creative challenge or anything like that. He loved it because it made him feel normal. He loved it because he could go home, hug his wife tightly, and smile at his colt, without feeling as if he was a terrible and deceitful pony for it.

The worst days were days like today. Days where he found himself standing outside the Wonderbolt’s betting track, carrying a bag heavy with bits that he knew he had no right to spend, in front of a bookie, he had no right to talk to. Days where he came home late with a sorrowful expression on his face, because he knew he had that itch, and he knew that the itch only ever got worse, unless he satisfied it. Maybe he could have fought the itch, If he hadn’t had two shining coins on his ass, reminding him that no matter how hard he tried pretending to be a baker, his destiny would always be to be a worthless good for nothing bastard, who gambled with the things that he held nearest to his heart.


The brown stallion reached the booth and glanced quickly at the charts. “Put it all on Fleet Foot” He mumbled quietly, almost apologetically, and laid the bag of bits on the counter.

The bookie, a young unicorn mare, nodded and swept the bits away. “Why don’t you go have a seat, lucky?" She asked. "The race is about to start.”