Forced

"Little lady, you okay? Hey!"

Diamond Tiara blinked a few times, trying to find focus after her mind had blanked out from the image in front of her. The pony was TALL. Astoundingly so now that he stood in front of her.

Truth be told he would have been frightening, leaning down into her face as he was, had it not been for his bored and almost sleepy looking facial expression. Close up, the giant red pony smelled of fresh grains, the sweat that saturated his fur, and hints of something that reminded Diamond of trees and all things that grew upon the ground.

"Uh...you one o' Applebloom's friends?"

Diamond blinked again, this time in surprise as the name brought her back to her senses. Ugh. Applebloom.

"Yeah...I guess." The red pony either didn't pick up on the sarcasm in Diamond's voice or he didn't care enough to question it. What he did notice was the tiara tucked neatly into Diamond's mane.

"Are ya' here with Mister Rich?" Macintosh straightened his back a little with the question, careful to make a good impression on even the youngest member of the Rich family. Diamond fell into place with the question like the most brilliant of actors.

"I'm here on business with my father." Diamond stood stiffly on her legs and adopted the poker face she always watched her dear Daddy slip on when dealing with business partners. "I'm here to quality test the apples we'll be buying."

Macintosh opened his mouth to speak but he could not muster any words. The Rich family employed their members this young?

"Uhm...isn't your father supposta...yunno?" Macintosh sat back on his haunches and lifted a hoof over his face. Sure it was unlikely that this filly was here to test the apples on her father's order, but that didn't change the effect her steely authoritative voice had on him.

"Oh I'm sorry!" Diamond Tiara said in a mockingly cute voice, holding a hoof to her mouth. "I didn't realize I had such a problem with stuttering!"

"...u-uh.." The red pony's mouth gaped open a bit.

"My Daddy says stuttering can hinder employer-to-employee communication, so let me try again ok?" Diamond inhaled and fixed Macintosh with the cutest face she felt she could muster.

"If you want money, get your flank in gear." Diamond smiled widely at the stunned stallion, who stuttered an answer back quickly.

"Y-yes ma'am!" Macintosh hopped to his feet and power walked back out of the fields.

"They're in tha barn....miss!" He quickly added the last word with a smile from over his shoulder. Diamond Tiara smirked at the naivity of the adult stallion, so easily manipulated by a firm voice and the threat of unpaid labor.

The two didn't speak during the march to the centerpiece of Sweet Apple Acres. For every two strides from Macintosh Diamond made four or five, but was sure not to show her fatigue to the farm pony. Looking weak at this point wouldn't bode well for her little game.

Macintosh took the latch to the barn door in his teeth and pulled. A single ray of sunshine snaked its way past Macintosh through the the door, where it decided to rest itself on a large barrel. From the opening in the top, the sunbeam reflected off the skins of the fresh apples.

"Somepony has been busy." Diamond masked her awe at the sheer size of the barrel with the simple appreciative tone her father used. Macintosh let a small smile cross his lips as he poked his head inside the barn.

"Got the first four barrels mahself ma'am." Macintosh said proudly, looking at her from the corner of his eyes.

Four!?

Diamond Tiara's brow raising broke her poker face. The barrels were HUGE. A full grown stallion with help might could handle one, maybe two of these barrels.

Diamond Tiara shoved past the stallion's leg as she let herself into the Apple family's barn. Sure enough, there in the thin beams of light trickling from between the cracks in the boards that made up the walls stood six industrial sized barrels full of apples. Each one was roughly the height of Diamond's bedroom closet (which was spacious to begin with)  with a width to match.

"Well." Diamond turned back to smile at the stallion. "You gonna give me a boost?"

"U-uh sure," Macintosh scrambled up to Diamond Tiara and kindly held his head down for her to climb upon his neck.  The filly positioned her front hooves on the red stallion's head and swung her back legs over his neck. She smirked as she felt the sweat from the poor fellow's mane on the inside of her legs; her father's checks were made out to only the finest of laborers.

Diamond's grip tightened about the muscular neck as she was lifted up from the group, her stomach making little flips as she adjusted to the new, unstable height. Fortunately Macintosh paid no heed to the ever tightening grip and waited for her to reach a hoof out to a rather fine looking fruit poking out just at the rim of the barrel.

Diamond's hoof tipped the apple over the rim and into her grasp, where the apple made a healthy thunk. Macintosh lowered her slowly back down to the ground where she nearly tripped crawling back off of his neck.

"You know your pay depends on this one apple right?" Diamond asked with a smirk. She waited for a response from Macintosh, but he simply gulped and sat with his back straight.

She smoothed back her mane with her free hoof and casually took a bite from the delicate skin of the apple.

"Yes Granny I should come visit more often, get my mind off of things." Filthy smiled a rather small smile, but a smile nonetheless. It looked rather out of place among the baggy eyes and dried tears on his fur, but the smile hung there stubbornly.

"Well anytime you're in tha neighborhood Filthy, ya could use some fattenin' up." Granny poked at Filthy's stomach with an outstretched hoof and chuckled at Filthy's ticklish squirming before he scrambled away.

"Diamond?" Filthy called out from the porch. He shielded his eyes with a hoof as he watched for his daughter.

"Wasn't she runnin' with Applebloom?" Granny stepped up beside Filthy, a hoof coming to rest on the old wooden ledge of the porch.

"I assume so." He said before he called for his daughter again, this time cupping a hoof about his mouth. Nothing moved in the fields surrounding the Apple family farm, save for Winona chasing what looked like a mouse.

"I suppose she went followed the girls someplace-"

"Hey Daddy!" A pink filly poked her head outside the doors of the barn, she shoved the door open to reveal Granny Smith's grandson standing aside the six barrels of apples. He had an odd expression on his face, like as if he had just relieved himself of a bad stomach ache.

Diamond sprinted up to her father, nimbly jumping several of the porch steps to to stand just underneath her father.

"Did you eat?" Diamond Tiara asked as if addressing a foal younger than herself.

"Yeah, yeah I did sweetheart." Filthy gave the filly a tired smile and ran a hoof over her hair. "There is still some casserole left if you've gotten hungry."

"Nope, this stallion let me eat one of the apples you're ordering." Diamond swept a hoof over to Macintosh, who's wheat stalk dropped from his mouth.

"I-I thought-" Macintosh cut himself off as the smile crossed Filthy's face.

"Did he now? Well that was very kind of you Macintosh." Filthy stepped down from the porch and reached out to shake the stallion's hoof. Macintosh sighed and reached forward to meet his employer.

"It's no trouble sir, and it's jes Big Mac by the way." Macintosh sent a half-hearted smile down to the filly standing next to Filthy, who returned a rather toothy one of her own.

"Well Diamond I think we ought to be going, don't you think?" Filthy stepped back from the present Apple family and looked down at his daughter.

"Can we still go by the Carousel Boutique?" the filly's tail arched in excitement, eager to see the new sets of clothing she knew her father would not approve of but would buy for her anyway.

Filthy sighed and rolled his eyes up, abandoning hope that his daughter had forgotten all about those particularly lacy garments they had seen just yesterday.

"I suppose, but you had better be on your best behavior there."

"Aren't I always?" Diamond trotted down the dirt road leading out of Sweet Apple Acres. Filthy nodded apologetically to Granny and smiled, turning to follow his daughter down the long dirt road.

Big Macintosh sighed and spat out his wheat stalk, suddenly feeling quite thirsty now that the filthy had left his presence. Thirsty for something particularly alcoholic.

"Oh and Big Mac!?" The filly shouted back at him. Macintosh turned to see the filly wagging her tail at him.

"Thanks for the taste test!" And with that the filly ran back to her now chuckling father.

Macintosh snorted and marched past Granny, into the house and straight into the wine cellar.