Bacchus and Benjy

Chapter 4

“Who are you?” a young male voice asks.

I slowly wake up and yawn.  Ugh must have passed out on the front lawn.  I look up and see a purple baby dragon in front of me.

I shake my head a bit to clear my thoughts.

“Can I help you?” I reply a bit angrily.

“Yeah, what are you doing in front of my house?” he snarls.

He does realize I could hurt him by accidently falling on him right?

“No offence meant my friend; I’m a friend of Twilight’s.  She took us in after Applejack accidently knocked me out at the train station.”

He calms down a bit before reluctantly letting himself into the library.  I follow.

“So what’s your name?” he asks.

“I’m Bacchus, and what’s yours?”

“I’m Spike, Twilight’s assistant.  In fact, I think it’s time to go check on her. ”

He speeds upstairs as I walk into the next room to see… my eyes widen in terror.  The couch is empty.  My heart starts to race and I hold my breath.  CELESTIA BANISH HIM!  Time slows as I turn my head and stare up the stairs waiting for the inevitable scream.

The scream doesn’t come.  No screaming, no yelling.

There comes a voice from upstairs, “That smells delicious!  What’s for breakfast?”

My heart stops.  I run into the kitchen and find Benjy cooking an apple pie for breakfast.  My heart starts beating and I exhale.

Benjy looks over to me.  “Good morning Bacchus, was the front lawn nice and soft?”

I smile.  “It was lovely; does Twi have anything to drink?”

“Yeah, I think we still have all that punch that Pinkie brought over.” He responds.

I go to the kitchen table and find the punch bowl left out from the night before.  I spoon myself and drink a bit of it and gag.  How does one pony put that much sugar into punch?  I poor my cupful of punch back into the bowl and go to get some water instead.

Benjy looks up from the oven as I walk back into the kitchen.

“Punch not good?” he asks.

“Those cupcakes she made for last night were wonderful, I just wouldn’t trust her to make any drinks though.” I reply.

“Well I guess that’s why we’re here!” He says happily.

“You know it!  Anyway, that pie almost done?  I’m bucking starving.”  I smile heartily.

“Almost, you should go tell the girls it’s time for breakfast.”

“I don’t think I have to, Twilight’s assistant, Spike, went up there to check on her.”

Almost on queue the baby dragon walks in with the three mares.

“…I’m just saying, I didn’t know you guys liked each other in that way.”  Spike said and laughed at Rainbow and AJ as they blush.

Everyone but the two embarrassed ponies laugh.

“Alright, whose the wisepony that put me and Rainbow Dash in the same bed!?!”  says Applejack accusingly.

I lift my hoof up, “You’re welcome” and start laughing again.

We all sit down at the kitchen table and wait for the pie to finish.

“So what can you tell me about this Apple family?” I ask the group.

Applejack laughs, “Oh just about everything.”

I look at her with a questioning look.

“Well you see,” she continues, “that’s mah family!”

I facehoof, Applejack!  Of course it’s her family.  I feel rather dumb.

“I can take ya’ll over there after breakfast if ya’d like.”

“I’d really appreciate it.” I say with a weak smile.

“It’s done everypony!” yells Benjy from the kitchen.

He brings it to the table and serves it up and we dig in.

“That’s a mighty fine pie Benjy.”  Says Applejack

Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Spike look up and nod vigorously with a mouthfuls of pie.

We finish and Spike and Twilight get up and start to pick up the dishes to wash them.

“You don’t have to do that!  I don’t mind doing dishes to say thank you for taking us in.” I say hurriedly

“Really?  That’s cool, get to work!”  Responds Spike.

Twilights glares at him for a bit.

“No you have to go meet the Apple family; we should be fine cleaning this up.”  Says Twilight.

“Well thanks for letting us stay the night; it was very kind of you.” I smile

“Yeah, thanks” says Benjy.

“Well boys,” says Applejack, “let’s get on our way.”

I go outside and hitch the cart up with the remaining barrels of cider and begin to follow Applejack to Sweet Apple Acres.

It’s not too long of a walk from the library, but it gives me some time to pump Applejack… for answers.  (you sick bastards, this ain’t a clopfic)

I find out she has 4 ponies in her family; her, Big Macintosh, a little sister named Applebloom, and the head of the family Granny Smith.

As we reach the farm, I see a stallion hard at work that I can only assume is Big Macintosh.  It’s rather surprising to find a pony as big as me.  I approach him and he notices me.  No words are said at first.  We size each other up.  I’m a bit darker in colors and I’ve got some weight on him.  The life of a cider maker has been easy on me, making me a bit squishy; the life of a farmer has crafted him into solid muscle.

I slap on a fake smile, “Nice to meet ya, Big Macintosh!” I stick out my hoof.

He could so kick my flank so hard.  I better rethink hitting on his sister.

He returns the hoofbump, nods, and goes back to bucking apples.

We reach the farm house, and Applejack rushes ahead to go find Granny Smith.  “GRANNY!  We got some fellas that wanna talk to ya about a few business opportunities!”  She yells.

We’re invited in and get sat down at a table to discuss business.  Granny puts in what she describes as her “negotiatin teeth” and I must admit they are quite intimidating.

She samples some of our wares, and in return I sample some of theirs.  These ponies make some of the sweetest apples I’ve ever tasted.  Right then and there I knew I needed to make this deal.

Granny Smith seemed to come to the conclusion I made.  We come to an agreement with a clause that says Granny gets the first few barrels from every batch.  I smile and agree.

Now to figure out the warehouse situation.  I ask AJ if she knew a place that would work.  “There’s some land about halfway from here to Ponyville.”  She says.

“That’s way too convenient.” I say surprised.

Benjy and I acquire our new property after a quick talk with the Mayor and some negotiation on the price.  The Mayor isn’t half the negotiator that Granny Smith is, it must have been the teeth.

Benjy, using his artistic ability, gets to work drawing up the blue prints for our new warehouse.

“You know, we should put a bar on the front of the warehouse.”  He says without looking up from his blue prints.

“That’s a brilliant idea; it’ll let us get some income coming in and give this town a much needed party scene.”  I say.

He smiles, proud of his idea.

“You think we can run it on our own?”  He asks.

“What else do we have to do?” I question.

“No, I mean. Do you think we can keep up with the cleaning, dishes, and bartending?”

“We’ll try, if we can we can.  If we can’t we can hire someone.”  I say.

Construction goes fairly quickly, a month after breaking ground we have our warehouse and bar completed.

A newly painted sign hung over the door.

“The B&B Bar” written in Benjy’s best handwriting with a picture of a tankard with an apple inside of it.

Inside, there is a bar with 6 barstools pulled up to it.  There are tables set up all around the room and in the corner there is a record player with a few albums.  Mostly Benjy’s old records when he was trying to be a singer and pianist.  He was actually pretty good, I thought.  It didn't go anywhere for him; I guess I was the only one that appreciated his music.  Behind the bar was a door to the warehouse and upstairs from the warehouse was Benjy and my respective rooms.  We decided to just live in the warehouse to cut down on costs.

Benjy and I are standing outside the bar admiring our new home and livelihood.

“This is gonna be fun” states Benjy.

“I believe so” I respond happily.

We both smile.

We enter the bar.

The lights flick on by themselves as a whole bunch of ponies yell “SURPRISE!”

I fall back on my haunches and Benjy takes to the air.

It doesn’t surprise me to see Pinkie in charge of this operation.

“Were you surprised? I bet you were surprised.  Benjy looked like he was going to fly off!”  Pinkie says in half a second.

“Yes Pinkie, we were both surprised.” I inform her in a low tone.  “Did you invite everyone in Ponyville?”

“I sure as sugar did!” she responds happily.

Well then, it’ll be good to get the name out that we’re here and ready to start selling.  A crafty business pony as always I guess.

I get up on the bar and yell, “Thank you everypony for coming to welcome us into town!  This is the B&B Bar and as of tomorrow afternoon we will be ready to serve your alcoholic needs.”  I give a bow and smile as everypony cheers.

I get down off the bar and start searching for one pony in particular.  I find her at one of the tables near bar laughing with Pinkie.

“Thank you so much for throwing this party Pink!” I yell over all the other ponies in the room.

“No prob!  It’s what I love doing!”  She yells back.

I sidle up to Applejack.  I haven’t talked to her much since the negotiations.  The business had to come first.  That’s what we were here for.

“Havin fun AJ?”  I ask trying to make small talk.

“Yup, Pinkie’s parties never disappoint” she responds happily.

…

An awkward silence ensues

“I’m glad the bar is finally done.”

“Yup didn’t take much time at all I reckon.”

“Well, I better go find Benjy before he gets into trouble.” I say hoping to break the tension. “It is good to talk to ya again.” I say hoping to get a positive reaction out of her.

“It’s good to talk to ya too, sugarcube” she smiles as she responds.

I find Benjy in story teller mode.  Holding lots of mares attentions with his speaking skills and giving heroic gestures and poses during the telling.  He could always spell bind a group of ponies with his honeyed words.  I see Rainbow Dash and Twilight in the group listening to his stories.  I’ll let him have this one I guess.  I slink off to meet some new ponies; I’ve got to build a rapport with my new customers.

The party lasts a good while before ponies start breaking off and leaving for bed.  The last to leave are the six ponies I had that party with a month ago.  Pinkie is asleep on one of the tables; she must have gotten into one of the barrels in the warehouse.  Everpony else is talking and joking, I’m sitting in between Applejack and Rarity, Benjy is sitting across from me in between Rainbow and Twilight.  He’s retelling a story that I thoroughly enjoy, the story of us becoming in friends.

“So there I was, a young colt just discovering how to fly.  Flying all by lonesome when one of my wings goes out”  The girls gasp, “I couldn’t stop my dive, no matter how much I tried.  Until finally I smack,” WUMP he hits the table for effect, “I land right on top of that big lug there.”  He points a hoof at me, “he saved me from certain doom by catching me.”  I smile.  Not because it’s the beginning of our budding friendship but because I hadn’t been trying to catch him, he just landed on me.  We both spent a couple months in the hospital afterward and during that time together we became the best of friends.

I wasn’t gonna say anything though; it’s a better story the way he tells it.  Also, brownie points with a certain orange mare for my heroics are a big plus.

The mares start to leave after the story.  Fluttershy and Rarity are the first to leave; they both wish us lots of luck with our business.  The rest of the ponies get ready to leave.  Twilight picks up Pinkie with her magic and floats her along.  I stop AJ from leaving with the rest.

“Did ya have a good time?” I ask her tentatively.

“Sure did sugarcube.” She responds happily

“Well I’m glad I got to spend some more time with you.” I smile

“Me too.” She returns the smile before exiting the bar.

“Ugh, that was soooooooo painful!” exclaims Benjy when the girls had left the bar “Just ask her out already!”

I smile.

“Eventually”