Cranky Doodle had found his life’s love, Matilda, and learned how to smile after a life spent working in a gristmill upriver a few miles from Ponyville. Sometimes it seemed as though she had descended through the parted clouds of heaven to console him when one of his habits was upset by chance or clumsiness, or to remind him of his better nature when he chided a server. In fact, he had been reintroduced to her thanks to a stranger who had taken a morbid curiosity in him. The whole event had weakened the hold of his prejudices, and, during quiet hours, swelled him with such a sense of awe and serendipity that he began to wonder about his long-lost son, Roofus.

“Are you certain?” asked Matilda, as though she had misheard. “Were you a mule of… worldly enjoyments… when you were younger, Doodle?”

“Not at all. The sexes were carefully divided where I went to school, and kept separate.”

Matilda swilled her teacup. “Oh. Well then, was it another jenny that you were with, before me…?”

“Don’t be silly, dear. I kept my nose down. We were told the jennies were in the mill, though we were all mules in those days, you understand.”

“Why in Equestria do you think you have a long-lost son named Roofus, then?”  

He reached over and pet her wrist. “It would be the grandest thing for him to come home and stay with us. Think of it. We could fix the plumbing in the bathroom, and clear those pesky trees in the back so that we would have a better view of the mountains. The septic needs to be dug up, too.”

He went to Ponyville each day in to find someone that would not understand him, but would always return dejected by the rapport and good will that he would meet with there: Carrot Top had once worked in a mill herself, and could commiserate with his waxing physical frailty; in Mayor Mare he encountered a creature who was desperately afraid of aging; and even The Great and Powerful Trixie had known the bitterness of an emotionally avoidant father.

“Blast it!” he scolded himself one night. He whipped a mason jar at a wall in his cabin where mosquitoes were getting in. “Somehow, I’ve turned into the most approachable and quietly compassionate mule in town… I’ll never find my son at this rate.”

He was ready to give up his search, when one afternoon a mare the size of three mares arrived at his doorstep. Her name was Whoa Nelly and she was selling candles on behalf of Nelly Industries, a subsidiary of Pip Incorporated.

They talked about handicrafts, the perks of multi-level marketing, and dresses that might look good on Nelly, for a delicious hour. With each exchange Cranky became more and more convinced that he hadn’t met a pony with whom he shared so little in common, and whose presence he detested so indubitably.

At the end of their conversation, he was nearly in tears of gratitude for her appearance. “The only way I’ll buy one of your candles,” he said, “is if you bring me my long-lost son Roofus.”

The next day she called on him again, this time with Fluttershy in tow. 

“Hey… [i]Dad[/i],” the latter said, greeting Cranky Doodle as he opened the door. “Say… Do you think there’s anything more relaxing than the smell of sandalwood, after a long day of hauling cargo…?”

“P’tooey! What kind of fool do you take me for?” said Cranky with sharp indignation. “Why, you aren’t even a stallion!”

“Well… no,” said Fluttershy. “I am not. But I think, maybe, sometimes… if we can just pretend that things are how we’d like them to be… I’m the CEO of my own company, now, you know… isn’t it easier to make friends than move merchandise? Or grain? Perhaps things, though coming up short in reality, will make us a little bit [i]kinder[/i] to each other… and isn’t that what makes the world a better place… to begin with?”

A gloom came over Cranky Doodle; he heard Matilda’s lilting voice calling to him from inside.

“Doodle, honey… Who is it?”

He bit down on his lip.

“…Just the wind, dear.”

He closed the door, gazing at them to the last sliver, as though he was shutting a coffin lid.

When he was gone, Fluttershy spun in the air and turned excitedly to her selling partner. 

“Oh, this is fun! Um… More candle-selling, please.”