Smuggling Deadlines

by River Road

Rating: everyone
Tags: Other, Drama, Comedy, Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 5310

If you'd asked Twilight which of her friends would break into her castle to commit an interdimensional crime, Applejack probably would've been pretty far down on the list.

If you'd asked Twilight which of her friends would break into her castle to commit an interdimensional crime, Applejack probably would've been pretty far down on the list, somewhere between Fluttershy and Princess Celestia. But between finding several unauthorized uses of the Mirror Portal, a sudden influx of unexplained funds to Sweet Apple Acres and a sharp increase of food-based magic incidents in the human world, it's hard to deny the obvious conclusion.

There's also the fact that Applejack isn't even trying to deny the obvious conclusion.

Warning: spoilers in the comments.

Literally last-minute prereading done by FloydienSlip.

Published 2019-07-20 02:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-07-20 02:20:01 UTC

Smuggling Deadlines

Of all the ponies she knew, Princess Twilight Sparkle would have expected many of them to be both willing and capable of committing interdimensional crime under the right circumstances. After she had figured out how to reliably open the mirror portal to the human world, those circumstances went from being a mere thought experiment to being a very real possibility and inevitability. There really wasn't a question anymore on whether it would happen or not, only when it would happen, who would be the first culprit, and how to head the whole thing off or at least minimize the damage.

She was entirely prepared for Rainbow Dash to act without thinking and rush through the portal on some half-baked plan and probably end up with an assault charge some way or another. Not that she thought that her friend was stupid, far from it, it was rather that Rainbow's body was too fast for her mind to keep pace sometimes, so much of her brilliance only really got to shine in hindsight.

Similarly she ~~only sometimes~~ ~~very rarely~~ never thought that Pinkie Pie was stupid. She could be a bit absentminded or easily distracted, but mostly Twilight suspected that her pink friend just didn't put much stock in the viewpoints and opinions of the average mortal living their life in just three dimensions. She'd thought short and hard about what misdemeanors to prepare for in Pinkie's case before her brain refused to contemplate the more outlandish yet entirely in-character possibilities and really, public nudity wasn't that terrible a crime if it ever came down to it, and probably not the first on human-world Pinkie's track record.

At some point she'd simply started keeping a list of likely or possible interdimensional incidents and which pony was most likely to commit them, sorted by estimated probability. Rarity sneaking over new fashion designs from another world was a likely but ultimately harmless one. Fluttershy was probably trustworthy enough to at least ask Twilight in advance, but she also did have that mark on her record for pug trafficking with some griffon running a tourist trap near Griffonstone.

She would’ve liked to put Princess Celestia lower on the list, but experience showed that it was better not to leave her mentor in charge of portals to another world. There was Sunset Shimmer’s backstory itself, of course, as well as the incident with the mirrorworld Sombra, not to mention that she still hadn’t figured out how the portal mirror had ended up unguarded in the Crystal Empire within months of the Empire’s reappearance.

Speaking of the Crystal Empire, her brother was very likely to charge through the mirror the moment he heard anything about her infatuation with the human world’s Flash Sentry, nevermind that it lasted for less than three days, while Cadance was likely to rush over for the exact opposite reason. And CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS INTERDIMENSIONAL EXPLORERS YAAAAY still gave her nightmares whenever she thought about having to prevent that disaster (you didn't get over PCSD [Post-Crusading Stress Disorder] that easily. The "Hey, we got our cutie marks... let's go find a hobby!" incident didn't help).

The point was that Applejack was solidly at the bottom of said list, somewhere between Miss Cheerilee and Boulder the rock. She didn’t think anything of it when the diary that was her connection to Sunset Shimmer suddenly disappeared for a few days. It was a magical device that glowed and vibrated whenever there was a new message, it wasn’t likely to stay hidden for long. But when she started tracking several unauthorized uses of the mirror portal that most of her friends were accounted for, multiple expensive purchases by Sweet Apple Acres, a sudden increase in food-based magic incidents on the other side of the mirror and Rainbow Dash told her about Applejack taking several trips to Canterlot carrying large suitcases… well, it was hard for her not to draw some premature conclusions from all these data points, and once she did her natural curiosity and scholarly inquisitiveness practically forced her to investigate, if only to clear her friend's name of any potential rumors.

Fluttershy told her that Applejack had set aside a small new field behind the farmstead and asked her to help with securing it against all kinds of animals, as well as convincing the more magically inclined animals to give it a wide berth. (Then she told Twilight about the newest arrivals at her cottage, made the big soulful eyes she probably wasn't even aware of and Twilight signed the shelter adoptions for three mice and a squirrel, bringing her total this month up to nine.)

Rarity confided that Applejack had actually commissioned a business suit and two inconspicuous yet expensive dresses a while ago. (Then she told Twilight that as the Canterlot-born princess of their group she really should be wearing more dresses and that she could try out one of Rarity's newest designs or ten, it wouldn't take long at all, and Twilight replied that she would love to, really, but she'd left the stove running and still had to catch it again, haha, those come-to-life spells, can't leave them alone for five minutes maybe some other day thank you bye!)

Spike hadn't noticed anything odd about Applejack but spent fifteen minutes excitedly telling her all about the newest Power Ponies comic while simultaneously trying to avoid details on anything that could somehow be considered a spoiler. (She wasn't entirely sure what she expected either, but it probably would've been bad parenting not to ask him at all.)

Pinkie confirmed that Applejack regularly went to Canterlot and had asked her to get her into contact with some of the professors at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. (Twilight so very much wished she could be surprised that Pinkie had more contacts at CSGU than herself, for many reasons, few of them good.)

So she dusted off her Collector's Edition Official Daring Do Original Trilogy Adventurers’ Pith Helmet and the rest of her standard field observation kit and set up a stakeout in the bushes near the train station, because that’s what you did when you were trying to gather data on one of your friends. An added perk was that with Applejack she probably wouldn’t have to worry as much about doors suddenly opening in her face or random heavy objects dropping from the sky.

~~~~~

“Okay, according to the schedule I extrapolated from Applejack’s habits she should be boarding the train to Canterlot today.” Twilight poked her head out of the bushes and stared through her binoculars, sweeping her gaze over the crowd for a moment before she paused and leaned in slightly. She lowered them slightly and blinked a few times, then blushed and put them away again so she could observe more than five square inches at a time from her distance. She shook her head and looked over the mostly empty train station again, ducking back into the bushes as she spotted a flash of orange.

Applejack was acting notably more distant than usual, giving a few friendly greetings to ponies but otherwise not engaging them in conversation as she bought a ticket and quickly boarded the already waiting train, carrying two large suitcases on her back.

Twilight allowed herself a moment to bask in the success of her predictive abilities, a moment that lasted exactly up to the realization that the train was slowly rolling past her hiding spot. She squeaked and quickly scrambled over to the ticket booth, ignoring the seller's bemused glance at her hat as well as their pointed glance at the train schedule, instead simply tossing a couple of coins across the counter and grabbing a ticket for herself in her magic. Half a minute later she finally caught up to the train, collapsing in the last cart with her mane only somewhat out of shape and her tail only a little bit singed from a series of short-distance teleport jumps. Thankfully the cart was empty of ponies who might have seen her perform less than exemplary spellwork, or who might ask questions she had an entirely reasonable answer for, in theory.

~~~~~

Contrary to what most works of fiction she had read would tell her, Twilight didn’t actually spend her whole train ride watching Applejack from the next cart over. She already knew where her friend was headed after all, not to mention that there wasn’t really any way for the earth pony to leave the train ahead of the station without drawing attention to herself. So after reaffirming that Applejack was indeed on the train, she took the time to relax and review her plan again, as well as her most likely theories on what her friend might be doing with such secrecy.

That was why she could be excused for almost missing the blonde unicorn noblemare leaving the train. If there weren’t so few ponies getting off the train in the first place, she probably wouldn’t have spotted her in time at all. As it was, she had enough to do just keeping her jaw from dropping as she watched her friend from across the station. Her mane was done up professionally and her tail brushed out, body concealed by an expensive dress in Rarity’s style (expensive by Ponyville standards, admittedly, but likely a pittance compared to Canterlot prices) and the suitcases strapped onto her sides to look like a pair of designer saddlebags. The orange horn on her forehead looked entirely real unless you knew exactly what to look for, and even then Twilight had to squint to be reasonably sure she could see the faint seam of the magic adhesive.

Twilight vaguely remembered a story about Applejack’s time in Manehatten with her high society aunt and uncle, but she certainly hadn’t ever expected a transformation like this. She supposed it explained the contents of one of the suitcases, which still left at least the other one potentially unaccounted for. It certainly threw her for a loop, though, as she sat at the patio of a cafe, hiding behind a newspaper to watch while her friend seemingly effortlessly conversed with a group of expensively dressed unicorns, talking and joking over a salad and integrating herself into Canterlot rumor mill as if she had done it for years.

Twilight frowned and sank back behind her paper, keeping up a mild eavesdropping spell and a notice-me-not spell under the guise of holding up the pages as she ruminated over this development. Rarity’s name fell a few times in the conversation, but unless Applejack had made all of her recent purchases on Rarity’s money or Twilight had somehow missed a bet so big it would have been the talk of the town for days, she couldn’t imagine either of her friends going to these lengths just for a bit of promotion on Rarity’s fashion… especially now that Carousel Boutique got enough publicity through its own Canterlot branch. She simply couldn’t think of any good reason to go through all this effort and secrecy just to gossip with some mares in Canterlot.

“Hey Twilight, what are you- eeep!” Minuette let out a squeak and a giggle as she was shushed and unceremoniously pulled behind the newspaper with Twilight. “Oh, are we spying on somepony? And here’s me without my Trotson outfit.”

“Not now, Minuette. I’m trying to find out what…” Twilight blinked and trailed off, turning around to stare at the unicorn mare sitting only inches away from her and grinning right back at her from underneath a deerstalker, blowing a couple bubbles from the pipe in her mouth every few seconds.

Minuette gave her a smile so obliviously innocent as it could only be achieved by a pony who had made messing with other ponies such an integral part of their life that it had become their new status quo. That was Twilight’s current theory for Pinkie Pie at least and she was sticking with it for almost a week already.

Minuette tilted her head slightly as the silence dragged out, still giving her that guileless smile. “What? My Trotson outfit is in the wash, this is my Sherclop Holmes outfit.”

Twilight decided that her theory would probably survive another week or two before somehow going up in metaphorical or quite possibly literal flames.

Minuette finally turned her attention back to peeking around the newspaper in the general direction of the gossip group. “So, who are we spying on?”

Twilight sighed and leaned around the paper on the other side. “One of my friends from Ponyville has been acting odd, so I’m following her to find out if it’s anything to worry about.” Twilight wasn’t sure if she wanted to involve her friend in this yet, so she kept the description intentionally vague in hopes that the unicorn would lose interest.

Instead Minuette seemed to actually perk up a little more still. “You mean Applejack? Orange earth pony disguised as a unicorn, wearing a very expensive dress, a pair of suitcases of questionable content on a mission with even more questionable motives?”

Twilight slumped in defeat. “That’s the one, yes.”

Minuette nodded sagely and blew a few more bubbles. “Yes, I deducted as much. Also she left about two minutes ago.”

Twilight sighed. “Look Minuette, I’d love to spend some time with you once this is over but right now I really have to…” She paused and stared into the distance as the full sentence registered, then yelped and scrambled to look around the newspaper again, seeing a lot of mares in elaborate dresses, none of which were her target. In fact half the mares from before seemed to have either tagged out in favor of new gossipers or actually changed outfits while she was distracted. “What do you mean she left? Where did she go? Did you see?!”

Minuette nodded and pointed down the street at a side alley. “Yeah, she went thattaway. If you hurry you can probably still-” She cut off as a purple blur moved past her, the speed vacuum pulling the rest of the soap out of her pipe in one big bubble.

She blinked, then shrugged and scooted over onto Twilight’s chair, picking up the half-eaten sandwich and taking a bite.

~~~~~

It took Twilight another five minutes to pick up Applejack’s trail again through a mix of teleportation and tracking spells. When she finally made her way through one of the back gates of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns she was just in time to see Applejack dressed in the business suit Rarity had mentioned, talking to somepony in one of the smaller side buildings. She watched as Applejack was waved in and the door quickly closed behind her, frowning as she remembered the layout of the campus. This was one of the aptly named Disposable Research Buildings, not named because the research taking place in them was unimportant but because the buildings themselves were entirely disposable and could be quickly rebuilt if some experiment dismantled them, blew them to pieces or displaced them into an alternate dimension.

She frowned and waited for a few moments just to see if anything would happen, then puffed herself up, fluffed out her wings and stepped up to the building to give the door her best Royal Knock.

There was a bit of shuffling and voices from the other side before the door opened a few inches, a scrawny colt student with glasses nervously peeking out at her. He reminded her somewhat of Shining Armor’s old friends from school, both in stature as well as the estimated likelihood of ending up stuffed into a locker on any given day.

Twilight tried to follow up with a Royal Smile to put him a bit more at ease. “Excuse me? I believe one of my friends was meeting here today and I’d like to come in if you don’t mind.” It wasn’t technically a lie, which was still a pretty low standard to hold herself to while she was stalking the Bearer of the Element of Honesty, but the less fuss she had to deal with the better.

Apparently she still wasn’t anywhere near the level of Princess Celestia’s smile, because the door was slammed into her face rather rudely to the sound of more muted and frantic discussion inside. A moment later it was opened slightly again for the same colt as before, looking even more nervous if that was possible. “Uhm… I don’t suppose you have a password?”

Twilight blinked, confused for a moment before she remembered that she was a princess on a mission. She tried the Disappointed Royal Frown this time, even though that one was definitely not even close to Princess Luna’s level. “I don’t. I didn’t think I would need one. I just wanted to take a quick look around if you don’t-”

The door slammed in her face again and she could feel her frustration slowly grow as she listened to the voices inside once more. This time it took a while longer for the colt to poke his head out of the door again, although he seemed vaguely more confident than before. “I’m sorry, but we can’t let you in. Very delicate and important research, you understand. Can’t let anyone in without password.”

Twilight frowned and pushed herself up to her whole height, flaring out her wings. "I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, Bearer of the Element of Magic, Personal Student of Princess Celestia, the first Grand Magus since the last one fled this dimension in disgrace, with four different doctorates from this very school and the highest scores since Starswirl himself invented the grading system! And you're telling me I can't come in?!"

The colt backed away a bit, closing the door until only part of his face was visible. "I'd honestly rather not tell you that because you're a very scary pony and I'm getting some kinda conflicting emotions right now that I should probably figure out somewhere private, so if you could just... go away? Please? Without any smiting, if that's possible."

Twilight injected a bit of magic into her voice for a lite version of the Royal Canterlot Voice, wrapping some more around herself to slowly lift her up into the air. "Do you know who approves your funds?!"

"...the Equestrian Education Association?"

Twilight blinked, then dropped back down and scuffed her hoof in the dirt, grumbling. "Drat, I was kind of banking on you not knowing that actually."

~~~~~

“So… all of these incidents were food-related?” Twilight looked around the lab area Sunset was leading her through, repeatedly fighting the urge to poke something whenever they walked past a particularly interesting apparatus or experiment. It wasn’t actually a very big lab, but someone was obviously determined to fill all the available space with science and occasionally SCIENCE!

Since her investigations in her own world had hit a bit of a dead end, Twilight had decided to check out the other side of the mirror for clues. Apparently the increase in food-based incidents Sunset had written about was less of a funny coincidence and more of an epidemic.

“We still have some of the regular magical oddness, but the food incidents are kind of overshadowing them.” Sunset nodded, leading her over to a pinboard cluttered with notes and pictures of random dishes in the process of achieving a questionable degree of sentience. “We’ve had dozens of them already; sentient salad, meandering meatloaf, evil enchilada, pranking pasta... That last one was the worst, at least after it teamed up with Pinkie Pie.” She shuddered softly.

“I can only imagine.” Twilight tilted her head. “Somewhat, at least. Living in Ponyville gives one an unfortunately active imagination. Even we don’t get that much trouble in a day, though. How are you handling all these incidents?”

Sunset smiled and pulled out a little compact hung around her neck, about four inches wide and with a decal of her cutie mark on the front. “That was surprisingly easy, actually. Remember that magic tracker I told you about, the one your counterpart from this world built to investigate Equestrian magic?”

Twilight paused, taking a cautious step back and away from the little gadget. “...the one that was instrumental in almost destroying the boundaries between dimensions?”

Sunset gave a wry smile. “That was… mostly not her fault. Her design was actually quite impressive, especially considering she had nothing to build them on that she hadn’t analyzed herself. I helped her add some inhibitors and circuits to make sure it only absorbs magic we want it to. As for the apocalyptic destruction part, it turns out that it’s a lot easier to keep raw magic from becoming corrupted if you keep it in a friendly and wholesome environment like Canterlot High.”

Twilight took another step back, raising an eyebrow and giving her friend a decidedly unimpressed look.

Sunset huffed and crossed her arms, looking away. “Alright, so maybe Canterlot High is a cesspool of fickle teenagers, hormonal mood swings, regular popularity contests sanctioned by the administration, rampant gossip and a championship team in the standing long jump to conclusions. But it’s also the place where all our friends are, it doesn’t have Archery as a required subject and our drama club doesn’t put on whole musicals about peer pressure. I’ve seen one. They’re disturbingly catchy.”

Twilight snorted and cracked a small smile. “Fine. If I turn into some kind of Nightmare Twilight I’m blaming you, though.”

“If you do I have an excuse to turn into some kind of guardian angel spirit again. I’m still peeved that I didn’t get to keep the wings.” She paused and blinked as she found the princess staring at her with wide eyes. “What? I told you about the whole thing before and… Oh wait.” She blushed and rubbed her neck sheepishly. “I used the p-word, didn’t I? Remind me to tell you about linguistic divergences between human and Equestrian speech sometime.”

“Anyway, absorbing the magic is what we did with most of the incidents. It’s a good chance to try it out since it’s hard to feel bad about ‘killing’ a side dish. The exceptions are the pets.”

“Pets?” Twilight tilted her head. “I thought the magic incidents only affected food.”

“Well, yes, it did.” She led Twilight over to a back door and opened it to a small office room. “Then Pinkie wanted to keep that pasta. We managed to talk her down from the spaghetti to a gnocchi farm, so there’s that. Then Spike made friends with a lasagna so him and Twilight adopted that one. Rarity’s keeping some kind of high-end five-star dish that she says inspires her.”

She walked over to a small terrarium. “And I got Raysadilla here. Did you want to-?” She paused and looked around the empty room. “...Twilight?”

Twilight waved from outside the room and across the lab, voice oddly high-pitched and squeaky. “I’m fine! I just, uhh… found something really interesting! I’ll just stay over here, okay?”

Sunset watched her for a moment, then looked down at the snoozing quesadilla perched on a dry tree branch before looking to where Twilight was standing again. She tilted her head in thought for a moment, then smirked and started to saunter back over to Twilight, raising an eyebrow. “So… quesadillas, huh? Do I want to ask?”

Twilight blushed and tried to hide her face in her hands. "...you were an honor student at Celestia's School, too. Did you ever learn a really difficult spell and try to use it at home?"

Sunset immediately winced and shrunk down with a blush of her own. "Oh. Ohhh. I think I know what you mean, yes. I still can't keep from flinching whenever I see a beanstalk or hear a goose…” She paused, tilting her head and pursing her lips. “Come to think of it, I don't think I ever did learn to properly control that spell. I just barely managed to crank it down to regular overkill and then pretended it was deliberate whenever I had to cast it. Passed an exam like that once, even."

Twilight chuckled weakly and nodded. “I think they put a plaque on that tower once they’d rebuilt it, yes. Can you believe that I actually used to love quesadillas? I mean, it’s basically an excuse to eat a lot of cheese. The more cheese the better, right?” She winced and blushed again. “Until you overdo it on a spell you’re testing unsupervised at home and nearly suffocate in a living room full of molten cheese.”

Sunset winced lightly. “Won’t invite you to grilled cheese or anything like that then, got it.”

Twilight hummed. “Oh, no, I still love cheese. Just not quesadillas. I’ve always been very good at compartmentalizing my traumas, neuroses and anxieties.”

Sunset stared at her for a moment, then turned around to demonstrably stalk around the room again. “Right, moving on. Food crisis magic! I assume Applejack told you about what’s causing it already?” ...only to freeze as she felt Twilight’s glare on her back.

“So, you already talked to Applejack about this? As in, my Applejack? One of my friends who I very much and platonically love unless they jump through magic portals into another dimension without telling me?”

Sunset chuckled nervously and turned to face Twilight’s glare, slowly shuffling towards the back room and her guard dish just in case. “Aheh… So… I suppose she didn’t tell you then.”

~~~~~

Twilight softly growled to herself as she stomped her way towards Sweet Apple Acres. Her tracking spells told her that Applejack was in some distant part of the orchards which was good because it would lower the chance of witnesses. She was also a good distance away from the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse, which was good because her friends’ sisters were young and impressionable and she didn’t want them to go to her instead of Spike to ~~help some blank flanked colt or filly~~ find their calling for dragon taming. Again.

“We already know what causes it and why. The problem is figuring out how to fix the problem and prevent it from occurring again.” She remembered Sunset’s explanation and the binder full of notes and speculations she had on the phenomenon. “Considering its properties I'm assuming that it came here through the mirror like every other magic we've seen so far, but I don't remember ever hearing about it in Equestria. My best guess is that it was either already rare and was harvested to extinction by unicorns centuries ago, or that it was deemed dangerous enough that they just tossed all of it into their magical out-of-sight-out-of-mind portal where it spread out into the wild to mingle with all its new non-magical plant friends.”

Applejack seemed to have noticed her approach, not that Twilight was trying to be particularly sneaky. The farmmare had already finished up the current tree and was apparently only waiting for her now, looking appropriately nervous and already looking for possible escape routes.

Good. Not that Twilight was going to give her any, but the principle of it already made her feel a bit better.

Twilight stopped a few steps away from her, glaring for a few long moments in complete silence before finally speaking up. “...alright, where is it.”

Applejack winced, but to her credit didn’t even try to dodge the question. “Behind the barn, cordoned off a large field for it.”

Twilight took a deep breath, whether to calm herself or to stoke the flames of her frustration she didn’t quite know yet. “From what I’ve pieced together, you visited another dimension, repeatedly, without telling me, to make a deal behind my back and smuggle highly dangerous plants across the portal. Then you started to grow more of those dangerous and volatile plants, in an easily accessible area without telling anyone about it. You then started selling those plants for presumably exorbitant sums to what is simultaneously the best and the worst possible place to handle them, while also making new friends that you didn’t tell any of your old friends about so I’m happy for you but also very mad about that one. Am I on point so far?”

Applejack shuffled her hooves. “Fluttershy knew about the patch? And, uh...”

“Fluttershy knew that there was a patch you didn’t want any animals near. For all she knew you could have been planting carrots there.” Twilight felt a tiny vindictive shiver as Applejack flinched. “Want to try again?”

Her friend shook herself a little, then straightened up to pull a scroll with a familiar seal out of her hat. "Would it help ya to know that Princess Celestia personally authorized me to do this because she agreed I was the most qualified?"

"Princess Celestia is a great and wise ruler and I love her dearly, Applejack, but she also thought I was the most qualified for talking a giant dragon into moving countries after prematurely waking him from hibernation.” Twilight slowly rubbed her muzzle in annoyance. “I'm not saying she's wrong, I'm just saying she's very, very optimistic when it comes to delegating tasks."

“That’s… fair, Ah suppose.” Applejack nodded slowly. “The thing with the ponies in Canterlot was an accident. They kinda swarmed me about Rarity's dress when Ah was tryin' to lay low, Ah tried to play along to avoid even more attention and one thing led to another.”

Twilight slumped down with a frustrated groan before looking up again, still glaring at her friend. “Just… why? Why didn’t you ask for help? Or at least tell me about it?”

Applejack huffed. “Ah should have, yeah. But then y’all would’ve taken charge of the whole thing and made a friendship service out of it where none of us would’ve seen a single Bit for doing the right thing.” She held up a hoof to stall Twilight’s protests. “We both know ya would’ve, and Ah’m not sayin’ that’s a bad thing, usually. But Sweet Apple Acres has barely been scrapin’ by for years now because all the excess goes right into the Disaster Fund for when something else levels the barn again or uproots a buncha trees.”

Twilight winced slightly and deflated a little. “Okay, I didn’t know the situation was like that for you… but this is dangerous, and delicate, and interdimensional and… was the money really worth that risk, Applejack?”

Applejack sighed softly, stepping forward to gently put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder and look her in the eyes with all the quite considerable sincerity she could muster. "Look, Twi, I'm not goin' to apologise for this. That stuff needs somepony qualified to tend to it in a safe, unicorn-free environment. Sweet Apple Acres is purely, traditionally run by earth ponies and y’all can't tell me Ah ain't got more experience with weird and dangerous plant-stuffs than any other earth pony ya know. Your friends on the other side of that mirror get professional help figurin' this stuff out before even more of it acts up, the unicorn magic coven or whatever up in Canterlot gets to study a new wonderweed nopony's ever heard of before and Sweet Apple Acres gets the revenue it's been needin' for years. Ah know Ah should've asked y'all for permission, but Ah ain't sorry for what Ah did and Ah ain't gonna stop doin' it either unless y'all give me a darn good reason to.”

“Thyme is money, Twilight. Thyme is money."

Author's Note

An entry for the FIMfiction Feghoot Festival.

As all participants and in the best tradition of the contest, I'm not sorry.

Edit: please refrain from quoting the last line in the comments. It spoils it for the new readers, and everyone knows anyway why you're hitting your head on the wall or say you hate me~