“Applejack, are you alright my dear?”

Applejack looked up to see Blueblood giving her a look of concern, causing her to nuzzle him in reasurance before speaking. “Ah’m alright Blue, just concerned is all, Ah mean Ah known that both Appleloosa and Dodge City need this, but Ah cant help but worry that their going tah be really resistant to the idea.”

“And they may be,” said Blueblood, “but the same could be said for the old cities back when Equestia was still a young nation. But I have no doubt you will succeed, for you my dear are an apple, which means I have not doubt you will be able to out stubborn even the most hardiest of frontiersman, that and that tree you brought for the Appleloosa orchard should help smooth things over a bit.”

That got a giggle out of the mare, but she soon stopped as she felt the train car they were in jolt to the side. “What the heck…?”

Both she and Blueblood looked out the window to see a heard of buffalo had surrounded the the train, and seemed intent on driving it off the tracks.

“And here I was hoping this trip would not involve a national incident.”

He then quickly removed his clothing, getting a curious look from Applejack which caused him to speak, “These cloths are not meant for combat love, and I cant risk them getting torn if I get thrown off the train, but I need to see if I can drive them away from the train.”

“Well you ain’t doing that without mah help,” said Applejack, “Ah may not have your fancy magic, but Ah can use my lasso to trip them up if they get close.”

Nodding, Blueblood followed Applejack as they used the upper hatch to get to the roof.

Taking a quick read of the situation, Blueblood began targeting those who he knew were leading the charge, while Applejack began using her lasso to trip up those buffalo who got to close to her.

While they were successful at keeping the buffalo from getting close to them, they could not be everywhere at once, and as they were heading to the front to defend the engine, Applejack heard the sound of a car being disconnected from the train, the mare turning around to see the end car being lead away by the buffalo, the end car that held the tree she had intended to give to the Appleloosa Orchard.

“Their taking Bloomberg!” cried Applejack, making to chase after them only to be stopped as Blueblood grabbed her with his magic.

“Applejack get a hold of yourself,” said the stallion as she shot a glare at him. “We will be able to recover Bloomberg, but first we need to find out why the Buffalo attacked the train, and to do that we need to make it too Appleloosa.”

Applejack wanted to argue, but she knew he was right, but she didn’t have to like it.

*

The rest of the journey was uneventful, and so they pulled into the station without any more mishaps. However, as Applejack and Blueblood left the train, the mare found a sight that made her worry.

Her cousin Braeburn was their to greet her, along with the sheriff and the mayor of Appleloosa, but they were glaring at the other ponies who had also come to greet her, who she knew from Celestia’s letter that she had received on the trip their.

One was Dessert Facets, the Mayor of Doge City, and standing next to him was Cherry Jubilee, who was the head of one of Cherry Hill Ranch, which made her one of the most important members of the community.

“Lady Applejack,” said Dessert as he kissed her hoof, “so wonderful to meet you, and my I say how thankful I am that somepony has finally taken up the position of Baroness over the Macintosh Hills, for I have been saying for years that…”

“Ah cut the crap Dessert,” said the mayor of Appleloosa, a mare Applejack knew by the name of Widow Maker, “You save that suckin up for someone who matters, specially seeing’s how this mare wont be in her position for long.”

“Is that a threat?” growled Blueblood, the stallions horn lighting as he took a protective stance near Applejack.

Widow Maker just smirked, “All I’m sayin pretty boy is that she ain’t the first pony that them blowhards up in Canterlot have sent to govern us, but we can take care of ourselves just fine, so why don’t you do us all a big favor and scram!”

She then spit at Applejack’s feet, followed soon after by the sheriff before they both stormed off, leaving a very mortified Braeburn behind along with a surprised Dessert and Cherry.

“Ah’m so sorry cousin,” said Braeburn.

“Kinda was expecting worse to be honest,” said Applejack, “but it is good tah see yah cousin, and its nice tah meet yah Mr. Facets, and you to Mrs. Jubilee.

“Wonderful to meet you to sugar,” said Cherry with a smile, “also don’t mind Widow much, its just that she and the sheriff have never really liked the nobility much.”

“That line she said earlier seemed to imply something else entirely,” said Blueblood.

“Well it’s no secret that the position is cursed,” said Dessert, “their have been no less then five nobles who have attempted to take up the position of Baron of the Macintosh Hills, and of the five, the longest one only lasted a month.”

Blueblood looked like he wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Applejack decided to stop him, “look, we can talk about that latter, right now we got bigger fish tah fry. Braeburn, we got attacked on the way here by a heard of buffalo, and they took the tree I was bringing for the orchard.”

Braeburn dawned a look of concern, “did yah say Buffalo?”

Applejack nodded, causing the stallion to sigh before speaking. “Those buffalo came into to town three days ago and demanded that we uproot all our trees, and when we refused they said we had a week to decided and then they were going to remove the trees for us.”

“Did they say why they wanted the trees removed,” asked Blueblood, falling immediately into his role as a diplomat.

“Some hooey about us having planted on their sacred stampeding grounds or some such, but for tha life ah me ah don’t know what their talking bout, for if this was their land they haven’t been doing anything with it.”

Blueblood could not suppress the sigh that escaped his lips, causing Braeburn to glare at him before speaking. “And who are you supposed tah be?”

“Prince Blueblood of House Evening Star,” said Blueblood as he looked at the stallion, “Royal diplomat of her highness's Princess Celestia and Luna. And I have to ask, do you know anything about Buffalo culture?”

Applejack looked like she wanted to intervene, but Braeburn spoke before she could, “Can’t say Ah do, why?”

“I will but first tell me, did you find any bones when you were digging up the ground to plant your trees?”

“Yeah we found a bones, gave em ah proper burial out in the cemetery near the edge of town.”

Blueblood sighed again, “Well if you knew anything about Buffalo culture, you would know that the Buffalo bury their dead all across their stampeding grounds.”

“That’s sounds a little barbaric,” said Cherry.

“To the uneducated may be,” said Blueblood, “but the buffalo believe that when one of their own dies, they should be buried in the place they die, which is often along the stampeding grounds. In this way they are returned to the earth to join their ancestors, and by being buried on the grounds which their descendants continue to tread, it is said they can still hear them as they travel, which allows them to rest easy within the after life.

He then turned to Applejack and spoke, “Applejack, it is really good I decided to come with you, for as a diplomat I am required to intervene in matters such as this. I am going to locate the Buffalo and see if I can get their chief to come here so that we can speak, what I need you to do is try and get the mayor and sheriff to agree to the meeting, for unless we can get both parties to agree to things peacefully I will have no choice but to alert Celestia to this issue, which is the last thing I want to do.”

“Ah agree sugarcube,” said Applejack, “now you get going, Ah’ll take care of things here.”

He nodded, kissing her on the cheek before heading off to find a pony who knew where the Buffalo made camp, meanwhile Applejack turned to Braeburn and spoke.

“Braeburn, take me to the overlook of the orchard, and get someone tah have that pegasus sister of yours meet us there as well.”

“What,” said Braeburn, “why?”

“Because I just thought ah something.”

*

It took Blueblood a while to get the location of the Buffalo’s camp, and even longer to reach it, but now he was approaching the camp at a steady pace, for he knew he had already been spotted by their scouts.

“Halt,” said one of the camp guards, “what business have you here pony?”

“My name is Prince Blueblood, royal Diplomat of her highness’s Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, and I have come to speak to the Chief of this tribe.”

The guard seemed to hesitate, he stood down as a young female buffalo stepped out from behind one of the tents, the cow looking him over before speaking. “My name is Little Strongheart, and I am the daughter of Chief Thunderhooves, if you will follow me, I will take you to him.”

Nodding, Blueblood followed the young cow to the central tent, the stallion taking a seat and waiting patiently, before bowing his head as the chief exited the tent.

“Is it true you are the diplomat to the pony princesses?” asked Thunderhooves.

“It is Chief Thunderhooves,” said Blueblood, “and I have come to see if I can help with this issue between you and the Appleloosan’s.”

The Chief nodded his head, before taking a seat by the fire and speaking. “What do you know of our situation Prince Blueblood?”

“I have been told by one of the residents of Appleloosa that three days after they finished planting their orchard you arrived in town and told them they needed to uproot all the trees, as they had planted them upon your stampeding grounds. The first thing I would like to ask is do you have a map of your stampeding grounds that I could look at?”

The chief nodded, gesturing to one of his tribe to get the map before looking back to Blueblood as the stallion spoke. “I know it is a weird request to make, but I think it will help us in the long run in making peace with the Appleloosan’s.”

“I hope you are right,” said Thunderhooves, “for the only reason I am talking to you is because of the fact you work for Princess Luna, for she was the one who gifted our people this land in ages past.”

“”I don’t suppose you have keep the original deed with you, for Princess Luna has only recently returned, and thus it is highly likely anything penned by Luna in our records may have become lost.”

The Chief nodded, “it has been passed down from chief to chief over the years, for the moon princess told us to keep it safe, in case ponies from her kingdom attempted to take the land.”

“I see,” said Blueblood, “and is there any particular reason why you did not show this deed to the Appleloosan’s?”

“We did,” said Little Strongheart, cutting into the conversation and thus drawing Blueblood’s attention. “But the mayor said our paper meant nothing because it was so old and the Princess who wrote it wasn’t a princess anymore.”

“She also added the fact that Princess Celestia had given them rights to settle the land,” added Thunderhooves, “so even if the paper was legitimate, the ruling of the sun princess overruled it.”

Blueblood kept his facial features calm, but inside he was fuming. “Do you have something I could write on, for I have a message I need to send?”

*

In Canterlot Castle, Celestia was enjoying a quite meal with her two new lovs, though in truth, one of them was an old love and one she was happy to have back.

“I still say you should have let me cook Celestia,” said Velvet, “though I do admit this food is lovely.”

“I wanted to make sure that our first proper dinner together was special,” said Celestia, “plus I will need to monitor you first before I let you use my kitchen.”

Velvet raised an eyebrow at that, but was saved asking questions as Nightlight spoke. “It’s nothing personal honey, but after Diamond Glow nearly burned her kitchen down, she has been kinda paranoid as to who she lets cook in their unsupervised.”

“I mean seriously,” said Celestia, “how does one cause water to combust on its own?”

Their giggling was interrupted as a letter appeared next to Celestia, the mare grabbing it in her magic and opening before smiling, “Ah, a letter from your son Blueblood, wonder what…”

She stopped speaking as she scanned further down the page, before face hoofing as she reached its end, “bugger!”

“Celestia, is something wrong?”

“Oh nothing, just an old mare having giving away something in its entirety and having forgotten that part of it was already given away.”

When she noted the looks of confusion, she sighed, before speaking plainly. “Your son is with Applejack in Appleloosa, and it seems that part of the land I gave them was actually part of a buffalo stampeding ground, one which was gifted to the tribe by my sister long ago.”

That got a shocked look from the two, though Nightlight was first to speak. “But Celestia, surely you would of remembered something like that, or one of your advisors would have brought up that part of the land was already claimed?”

“My memory is not infallible and you well know it Night,” said Celestia with a smirk, “but you are also not taking into account that after my sisters banishment to the moon, all records of the laws and deed that were passed by her were burned, which I only found out fifty years after she was gone.”

“I bet that made you mad,” said Velvet.

“It did, but by then the culprits were either dead or so old that what I had planned for them would have been a mercy.”

She then turned to Nightlight, “Night, could you get my diplomatic stationary, I need to pen a letter to the Mayor of Appleloosa and I want it to look as a official as possible.”

Nightlight nodded, heading off to her office while Celestia turned back to Velvet, “I buy various qualities of paper and organize them depending on importance.”

“…I have the strangest mareboner right now.”

All Celestia could do was look surprised before she found herself tackled to the floor by a very excited mare.

Author's Note

First of the chapters dealing with the girls settling into their roles. As always if you guys have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them on by, I love hearing from you guys.

P.S.
For those of you wondering, yes, this is based on Over a barrel, but with my own tweaks due to the fact that Applejack is going their with only Blueblood in tow.