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Birthday Marzipan rested under a tall tree and sweat dripped down his brow. Today was a rough day. His father, Tiggs the former Care Bear, had dragged him to yet another birthday celebration. This was the third such celebration this week. BM was positive he couldn't stand to sing "Happy Birthday" one more time. That song was infectious. Too infectious. Even now, he couldn't get it out of his head.

"Happy birthday to you...." he mumbled as he poked a few stray leaves around with his hoof, "happy birthday.... happy birthday... RAAARG!" Stomping and snorting, BM vented his frustrations for a moment.

He was out of shape, there was no way around it. Panting, he laid down and tried to rest and cool off. Getting worked up wasn't good for him, and was honestly a bit unusual for him. Usually, BM would just go with the flow yet make snide and sarcastic comments here and there to amuse himself, but this was frustrating! Off all the dads he could have been born to, he got stuck with the cheeriest horse around for miles.

BM put his head down, and slowly fell asleep in the shade as his thoughts drifted away from him.

Salcia gave a small yawn, then snorted and shook her head, feeling rather tired. It was unusually warm and it was causing her to feel quite tired for some reason. Seeing a dandelion growing hear by, she walked over and bent down to nibble on it. However, just as she'd plucked the flower from it's stem, her ears picked up some strange singing coming from a tree farther up.

"Curious..." Furrowing her brows a little, she trotted towards the tree, wondering who could be there. As she closed in, she could hear the word 'Birthday' followed by a rather frustrated sound. Finally reaching the tree, she walked around and blinked, seeing the male there seemingly asleep. Tilting her head, she wondered if she should wake him; he'd seemed rather upset earlier.

Lost in his dream world, BM ran as an anthropomorphic birthday cake chased him. He ran, and he ran, and the cake still gained on him. Wax dripped off the candles and onto his back, singeing his fur. The smell was horrible, and his fear was growing. Then, the unavoidable happened, and the cake sprung on him, and he found himself underneath it. The yellow moistness soon enveloped him.

"AHHHHH!" he screamed as he woke up. Quickly looking around, he saw that there was a female standing over him. Right over him. Shocked at this, he stoop up and backed away quickly, stumbling over his own legs a bit.

He tried to regain some composure; this wasn't the way to make a first impression. "Hi.... h-hi," he stammered while trying to give his best smarmy smile.

Giving a small yelp in surprise at the scream the other had made, Salcia quickly backed up a little, her eyes wide in surprise and her ears pressed back. Noticing the male stumble, she relaxed and let her ears perk back upright.

"Good day..." A small, kind smile came across her face. "A bad dream?"

Relived to see that she was just as confused as he was, BM relaxed a little.

"Bad dream? More like a bad life."

Oh. That didn't come out right at all.

Backtracking, he continued, "Yeah... it was a bad dream. Did you ever have one of those days? You know, the type of day where it has the audacity to ruin your night too?" He walked closer to her, getting a good look at her features. He kept his pace slow, approaching until he was right facing her, and then BM leaned in whispering in her ear, "the horror of life can so plaguing until something comes along and breaks the night".

He backed out of her personal space, "my name is Birthday Marzipan, but I prefer to go by BM." He let out a long sigh, "I'm not keen on the whole birthday thing."

"Well, I believe we all have our own fair share of those days; such is the way of life. But it's those days that allow us to truly appreciate the fantastic ones." Ear flicking at the whisper, Salcia blinked a couple of times, unsure just what he was referring to.

As he backed away and introduced herself, Salcia gave a bow of her head. "It's a great pleasure to meet you. I'm Salcia. Pray tell, though, if you're so against Birthday, why do you sing of them? I... couldn't help but over hear you singing." She gave him an apologetic expression.

Salcia, eh? She seemed nice enough, and pretty sharp, and just... well, just pretty.

A panicked expression came across his face as she said that he heard him singing. "Um... um.... yeah. About that. See, I just came from a birthday celebration. We sang the song. I just kept singing it."

Words just kept pouring out of his mouth, "My dad, he likes birthdays. It's his thing. It's what he does. He goes and sings to every. Last. Foal. Born in the village."

Noting the panicked expression, Salcia frowned a little; she hadn't wanted to cause BM any unease. Especially not after what he'd just woken up from. She listened as the male spoke, then gave him a warm and gentle expression. "I see, it sounds like he's a very kind Stallion." It also sounded to her like BM wanted nothing to do with his father's work.

Pausing for a moment, her face gave to an even brighter smile. "How about we leave this behind for now. It's a rather warm day, and there's a river near by with slow, cool waters. Would you care to accompany me?"

BM liked this proposed stroll. He liked it a lot. "Yeah sure, I mean, yes I'd like to accompany you." Blushing a bit, BM crossed over to stand next to her, "lead the way!"

He wanted to forget his problems, he really did, but sometimes it's a lot harder than it seems to do that. He didn't know why he didn't like his father, he just didn't. It was the way it was.

BM drew in a long breath, and cleared his thoughts. "So, what about you? What's your story?"

A soft giggle escaped from the mare as she began walking towards were she remembered the stream to be. As she was asked about her story, she cast a glance at BM. "Well, there really isn't much to it. I live with a young girl right now as well as with a few other Mares; one is another Usdia like me, the other two are a mother and daughter Soquili."

Looking back to ahead of her, she shook her head and let it move down her neck, causing the few stray curls of her mane to flop around a bit. "I grew up alone, though, so it's nice to be taken into the group, small as it is."

BM's eyes were fixed as Salcia let her stray hairs draper around her. He quickly looked away, hoping she didn't see.

"It's good that you found a nice group to live with. No one should have to be alone." He stared off into the distance, "Someday, I'll have my own heard. Someday.... I'll show them all...."

Blushing, he caught himself, "Sorry. I forgot. Forgetting about problems. Just call me Mr. No-Problem."

Unaware of the Stallion's gaze, Salcia gave a small flick of her head to get the remanding hair out of her eyes. His words caught her attention and she looked over to him. "A heard? Would you be wild, or would you find a human to share your life with?"

She was curious, because she was more than happy with her life with the human; she was certainly well taken care of, even if the girl allowed all of them to run where they pleased. Her human had a stationary home, one that didn't move from the specially chosen place, and Salcia knew it that, in her life time, it would always be there.

"Well, I lived with my father and his human for a long time. Then, I struck out on my own. I'm with another human now, she's nice, but it's just me and her. Sometimes, humans just can't, you know, relate."

He saw the stream up a head. "Life... man, life is strange sometimes. It's like this river. It just picks you up and takes you someplace else without you even knowing it. You just drift along.

I don't know where I'm going. Will I ever? I hope so. For now, I just want to share the journey." BM looked back at Salcia. He knew that he probably came off as crazy, because well, he was crazy. Deep below, he had heart; it was just a lot of work for him to get past everything and excavate it out.

"Life certainly is bizarre at times, although with enough time, you start to find yourself through the hard times and find others through the joyous times. And sometimes there's a few stray encounters that change your life forever, and other encounters that seem for sure slip away in time." Salcia paused for a minute, then giggled. "Sorry, I tend to have too much time on my mind; I like to think and my mind sometimes uncaps itself. You must think I'm slightly insane."

Nearing the small river, Salcia too a deep breath of air, enjoying the scent of the fresh water.

Without thinking, BM replied, "You got that right. Um, I mean the part about stray encounters. Yeah." He chuckled a little, and the galloped down right next to the stream. All the sweating he was doing earlier made him thirsty, and some cool water sounded good.

"She thinks she comes off as crazy?" he thought, "Of course, she as to be just a little crazy just to talk to me... here she is talking about chance, and I'm thinking about fate. Play it cool, BM. Play it cool, and don't mess this up."

He raised his head from the stream, and motioned for Salcia to come over. "You sure know how to pick a good watering hole!" he said with a cheesy grin.

Salcia walked up beside him and bent her head down and took a few long drinks from the flowing water, enjoying the sweet freshness that filled her mouth. Lifting her head, she smiled. "Actually, this stream is a favorite of Caramel, the other Usdia I live with."

Feeling the sun on her back, she couldn't help but give a rather playful grin to him, and jump into the water. It wasn't like her to be like that, but the water just felt so good against such a hot day.

Water splashed up and hit his face. He squinted his eyes and turned away instinctively. When he opened them up again, he saw Salcia playfully enjoying the water. Her smile beckoned him to join her, and he obliged and jumped in.

The water was shockingly cold on his skin, and he shivered a bit from the temperature change. This was not as fun as it looked!

Shaking slightly, but not wanting to get out, he came over by Salcia, and with a strong swish of his nose he splashed water onto her face. "Two can play at this game!" BM joked.

"Oh! It feels so good!" Blinking when the water was splashed at her, she shook her head and looked at BM curiously. "What game would we be playing?" She clearly hadn't meant to get him wet at all, she'd just been excited to get into the cold water.

"The splashing game!" BM said and then splashed her again. This was the most fun he had had in a long while!

Although, he could tell that Salcia wasn't really as into it as he was. BM stepped out of the river, and shook the water off of his fur, which caused the little droplets to fill the air for a moment before hitting the ground.

The air was colder than the water was, and he looked around for a sunny patch he could go and dry off in.