MoonThief

"Day" 40, week 23, The following evening.

Rainbow was flying home after a long day of clearing out the dark, gloomy skies. Pinkie Pie popped up out of nowhere on an adjacent cloud.

"Goddamnit Pinkie! Stop doing that!" Exclaimed a surprised Rainbow Dash.

"Sorry Dashie. I was just wondering if you could come help us with something down at Sweet Apple Acres."

"I dunno, I'm pretty tired."

"Pleeeeeeaaasssseee!?"

"Fine, but nothing too time consuming, okay?"

"Okie dokie lokie!"

Pinkie Pie vanished and Rainbow adjusted her course 10 degrees to the East, heading for the apple farm.

Strangely enough, nopony appeared to be home.

She knocked on the door, but there was no response.

"Guys?"

Nothing. She opened the door.

"SURPRISE!" Yelled everypony.

"Wha…"

"It's your BIRTHDAY silly!"

"Oh… I guess it is. Sweet!"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Pinkie screamed right in her ear.

After her brain stopped ringing, Rainbow smiled weakly.

"So… What now?"

"Now we celebrate!"

"But… There's no food or cake or anything."

Pinkie frowned. Clearly she knew this already and was unhappy at having not been able to provide for her guest of honor.

Rainbow quickly adjusted her stance: "I mean… It's okay. We don't really need that kind of thing anyway, right? We can have fun with eachother?"

"Of course!" Pinkie's smile returned.

After dancing and chatting for several minutes, Rainbow's curiosity got the best of her, so she cautiously asked Pinkie why there was no food.

"Well, my flour and dairy suppliers have started rationing the food they give out."

Applejack continued for her: "There's a huge famine a brewin I reckon. The crops are finally dyin' on account of the lack of sunlight that they needin ta grow."

Fluttershy nodded. "Some of my animals are getting sick. There just isn't enough food to go around and keep everyone satisfied." She said softly.

"I jest can't think a what in the tarnation we're supposed to do! This whole eternal darkness thing and whatnot is makin it a damn sight harder to do mucha anythin. I hear it's even affectin the weather ponies. Have you noticed anythin strange up there in th' clouds Rainbow?"

Rainbow nodded after thinking for a second. There had been an unscheduled thunderstorm in Baltimare the other day, and the temperature throughout all of equestria was 5 degrees lower than it should be and still dropping.

Twilight cleared her throat before giving her insight.

"Logically, this all makes sense. Celestia's warming magic must finally be wearing off, which is causing 2 things. One, the drop in weather and the loss of seasonal changes. Secondly, it's preventing the plants from performing the traditional photosynthesis reaction in which carbon dioxide and hydrogen hydroxide combine with an electron excited by a proton to form Glucose and Oxygen. By removing the photon from the equation, the plants can't store any energy, so they suffer. And since animals eat plants, now they get no energy and suffer too."

Applejack interjected. "I can hones'ly say that I don' understand one fuckin' word yer mouth just said."

Twilight was taken aback by the language, and blinked. She cleared her throat, and continued in simpler terms: "But what if we could change the equation, and the way the reaction works? I might be able to devise an apple tree that doesn't require solar energy to store energy as sugar." She froze, standing absolutely still for three seconds as she had a flash of pure insight. "Gotta go!" She raced out of the building, knocking over a candle and hastily apologizing on her way to the library.

"So wait! You're going to find some eggheaded way of making plants grow without light?" Rainbow queried, clearly out of her element, but to no avail. Twilight was long gone.