The library was an island of tranquility in the otherwise chaotic bustle of Ponyville. The walls, doors, and windows had all been magically soundproofed by the building’s mistress, who used the acquired silence and peace to great effect in her many pursuits of research. Twilight Sparkle was in fact in the middle of a deep analysis of the ancient edict outlining the Elements of Harmony. Loyalty is a bond of trust that transcends wayward affection and temporary infatuation; it is a unique variety of love that commits to the sacrifice of fortune, skill, time, and even destiny. Like Generosity, it is an exchange of the immaterial, trust in one’s own word and reputation, for the material services between two parties. It is also strongly tied to Honesty: if one’s reputation is found lacking in small actions of little importance, then how can any citizen expect different in the vital and physical issues of the world at large? A nation without trust cannot have loyalty. While sharing knowledge is the academic analogue for love, loyalty and its exchange is all sapient species’ expression of devotion. The appropriate way to instill this ethical mechanic follows as such: the-
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
A rapid succession of hoofbeats on the hard oak door of the library spooked Twilight and robbed her of her trance of concentration. Irritated by this intrusion, she made her way from the upstairs study area, down the curved stair case cut into the tree’s interior wall, and to the front door itself. She stopped to clear her agitation from her face, tried to put her best smile on, and opened the door. Much to her surprise, Applejack was the one who currently stood on her doorstep, and she was quick to notice that the orange earth pony was trembling slightly.
“Applejack? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked out of evident care and concern for her friend, “Are you feeling alright? You look a little sick.”
“Twilight,” Applejack replied shakily, “There’s somethin’ mighty strange goin’ on back at the farm, and you need ta see it.”
Twilight could tell this was something that had to be genuinely upsetting her friend to an enormous degree if she would reach out for someone else’s assistance, an issue of pride Applejack still had trouble with. Twilight gulped a little, and she steeled herself for what she may see, “Alright then, let’s go.”
“When Ah saw this, Ah knew there had ta be some kinda magic involved or somethin’ “ Applejack said as she looked up. “I checked for paint first though, figuring it might be a prank er something, but the color’s natural; Ah cut it open and it goes all the way to the center.”
Twilight couldn’t understand what she was seeing; while it wasn't quite as earth shattering as she'd been expecting, it certainly was bizarre. Right in the middle of Sweet Apple Acres, sitting on a hill obscured from the Apple homestead, stood one solitary pear tree. The tree itself was rather nondescript as far as pear trees went, apart from its odd placement; the fruits of the tree were what the two ponies were having a problem comprehending. Each pear had a checkerboard pattern on its surface, the two colors in those patterns alternating between the three primary colors; green, red, and blue.
“What sort of hocus pocus is needed to fix this, ya reckon?” Applejack asked worriedly.
Twilight sized up the tree from its base to its highest branch; it stood about fifteen feet high. The ground around the stump was just as uniform as the dirt around the barren Zap Apple trees around it, so it hadn’t been moved recently. Next, her horn lit up, and she began a search for any loose magic trails that could potentially lead to a spell of origin and its caster.
“Hey gals!” a certain pink party pony cheerfully called out as she bounced up the hill and onto the scene.
“Howdy Pinkie,” Applejack said with a small release of tension that was made evident by her change in tone of voice.
“Hi Pinkie,” Twilight murmured as she continue scrying for any arcane power.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked as she looked up at the strangely colored pear tree, “Are you practicing more fruit transformation spells Twilight?”
“This wasn’t me,” Twilight grunted as she concentrated as hard as she could to find any magic but her own, to no avail. Ending her spell, she began to breathe deeply even as she explained the situation, “Applejack found this pear tree without ever having noticed it before. We thought it might have been a joke of some kind, but I’ve checked and there is nothing unnaturally magical going on at all!”
“You mean ta say that so far as you can tell,” Applejack looked up at the tree with renewed worry, “That this here pear tree is not only natural, but has been here this whole time?”
“Looks like it,” Twilight said with a small trace of defeat, which was almost immediately replaced by curiosity, “I’ve never seen a pear tree like this before; not even in the Full Folio of Foliage and Fruits! We may have just discovered a new genus of pear tree!”
“There’s one pony who’ll know where this tree came from,” Applejack nodded her head with determination, “An’ that’s Granny Smith; she’s bound ta have seen this tree planted here at some point.” With that said, Applejack galloped off in the direction of the Apple homestead.
“Hey Applejack, wait up!” Twilight yelled after the farmer as she descended down the hill past the dormant Zap Apple trees.
Pinkie Pie stared up at the tree, her face screwed up in concentration as she thought about the Checkerboard Pears. In no time at all, her face lit up as an idea sizzled through her peculiar head. Reaching up, she plucked one of the many fruits available, choosing a burgundy red and sky blue colored one, placed it carefully in her mouth, and bounced down the hill, heading northward to pay Fluttershy a visit.
“Off to the market?” Applejack exclaimed.
Apple Bloom nodded as she swept up some of the heavier dust bunnies around the kitchen, “Yeah. She said she needed ta make an emergency run fer some brown sugar ta make one of her apple pies.”
“Goldarnit,” Applejack huffed in frustration, “Seems everything’s set against us findin’ out what that blasted pear tree is really all about!”
“Oh, I have an idea,” Twilight declared as she sipped the last of few drips of a cup of apple juice with her magic, “There could be some evidence of this pear tree in your family photo album! You try finding it in there, and I’ll try and run a couple more tests on the tree itself to learn a little more about it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Applejack smiled. She then looked to her sister, “You wanna help me, Apple Bloom?”
“Sure!” The little filly exclaimed, throwing the broom into the corner as she followed Applejack, “Anything ta get outta doin’ chores!”
Applejack made her way upstairs to grab the latest rendition of the Apple photo album. Once she had acquired it, she and Apple Bloom laid down in the den on some of the softer sitting pillows.
“How come ya only brought one of’em?” Apple Bloom asked in confusion, “There’s more than a half dozen upstairs.”
“True,” Applejack smirked as she opened the visual family history library, “but the average pear tree only lives for about two decades. The planting would’ve had to’ve been sometime in recent history.”
“But you said yerself that we ain’t dealin’ with the average pear tree,” Apple Bloom remarked, “What if it’s older than we think it could be?”
Applejack snorted in frustration at her sister’s continuous rebuttals, “Just humor me and be useful; help me spot the odd tree out!”
Pinkie Pie knocked a unique rhythm on Fluttershy’s cottage door which would let the shy pony know it was her. This was a specific policy that the yellow Pegasus had instituted so that she could know who was at the door without having to risk meeting somepony that she would prefer not too, namely strangers.
“Oh Pinkie,” Fluttershy said warmly in her usual demure fashion, as she softly opened the door to her home, “It’s nice to see you! What can I do for you?”
“Hey Fluttershy,” Pinkie smiled around her unusual cargo, which she took out of her mouth with a free hoof, “I was wondering if I could have a quick chat with you and your roommate? Something funny is happening at Applejack’s that I’m sure will give him a tickle!”
“A tickle you say?” a male voice called out from further in the cottage, “Is my boredom at an end? Something funny would be an absolute relief to the tedium my life is currently offering me!”
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy said with a sigh and a concerned frown.
Twilight’s mind was at its wit’s end. She had tried everything; soil samples, examining the bark and the seeds of the tree. The enigma of this checkerboard pear tree would not yield to either her magical or her scientific inquiries. At the moment, she was currently laying down in front of the tree, offering it dirty looks and internal curses against it. The sun was beginning to set in the West, so she postulated that it was now around four o’clock in the afternoon.
“I’m guessin’ you didn’t have much luck either?” Applejack asked tiredly as she plopped down next the purple unicorn.
“Eeyup,” Twilight exhaled.
Applejack cracked a smile at her friend’s impersonation of her brother. As she looked up at the tree, a frustrated frown etched itself on her face, “We looked back forty-five years, and there’s no verifiable proof of this blasted tree ever being here!”
“I checked too,” Twilight’s own visage equally mirrored her friend’s agitation, “The tree has to be at least fifty years old, but I can’t really tell anything else about it or where it came from.” She sighed and shrugged in defeat, “Maybe this is one of those things in life we’re not supposed to think about too much.”
Applejack’s mouth fell open in surprise as she looked at Twilight, “You just said a very un-‘Twilight’ kinda thing right there, sugarcube.”
“Yeah,” Twilight smiled, “but what else can we do? This tree could very well be older than Granny Smith is; maybe anypony who could tell us anything about it isn’t around anymore.”
A shadow fell over their vision, and from overhead they heard a distinct voice, “Have no fear; Pinkie’s here!”
As the two ponies on the ground watched in amazement, the long serpentine body of the draconequus Discord descended onto the grassy hill. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie disembarked from off of his back, and made their way over to Twilight and Applejack.
Discord’s mismatched eyes found their way to the checkerboard pear tree, and he grinned like a little child being offered sweets, “Oh my! Just look at this! It’s been ages since I’ve seen anything like you!”
“You know somethin’ about this pear tree?” Applejack asked sternly, as she still didn’t quite trust him even after several months of being ‘reformed’.
“Well of course,” Discord responded as he picked a green and blue pear and twirled the top end of it on one of his eagle talons, “You seriously didn’t see this and not automatically think of me, did you?”
“I knew it!” Twilight cried in victory, “That’s why I couldn’t find a magic trace! You changed this apple tree with your chaos magic to such a extent that it acted like it had always been a pear tree!”
“Not quite. In fact, not at all,” Discord replied as he slowly rotated his orientation of gravity, so that his power appendages faced the sky and his head the ground below, all while the pear he had been spinning continued doing so like nothing had changed, “You see, I created plants like this back during my early years; they’re just as much a part of the natural ecology of Equestria as any apple tree is, although they are much rarer than they used to be.”
“Discord,” Fluttershy asked with firmness in her voice, “Are they safe to eat?”
“Oh yes, perfectly so!” he smiled as he cut the pear he was spinning into five pieces, one for the each of them. He popped a piece into his mouth and smiled, “Fantastic blend of sweet and sour. You’d better eat them while they last; you never know when the next batch will come around! My Checkerboard Pear trees produce fruit anywhere between every three to thirteen years, and it’s random between each ripening.”
The girls received their slices and ate them, each getting a different reaction because of the differing ratios of sweet and sour between the slices.
“The fruit tastes super-duper fantastic,” Pinkie Pie shook her head at its sourness, “But that still doesn’t explain how this Checkerboard Pear tree got here.”
“Ah believe Ah can answer that,” Granny Smith said as she slowly made her way up the hill with Apple Bloom’s help. “This tale goes waaay back ta when I was a little filly like Apple Bloom here,” she motioned to her dutiful helper, who eased her down to the grass for a soft seat there. “You remember, Ah’m sure, ‘bout how I discovered the Zap Apples of the Everfree Forest? Well, it turns out that Zap Apples don’t grow on their own; after trying to do just that, plantin’ and tendin’um all for nothin’, Ah was stumped about what I was doin’ wrong. So I returned to the place deep in the dark forest where Ah’d found’em, and growin’ right in the middle of’em all was this strange pear tree you see right here,” she pointed up to the tree.
Twilight’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, “So what you’re saying Ms. Smith is that somehow Zap Apples and Checkboard Pears cross-pollinate with each other?”
The old mare nodded and smiled warmly, “That’s exactly what I’m sayin’ dearie, though ya have to do some really strange shenanigans to make sure the thing goes off without a hitch. Oh, and you can call me Granny; everypony else does, and I’ll be yer Granny too if you'll have me!”
“Welp,” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, cracking her forehooves as she stood up and stretched, “This mystery is solved! I win!”
“Whaddya mean ‘You win’?” Applejack asked in confusion.
“I solved the mystery first, so I win!”
“We weren’t trying to win anything,” Twilight shook her head at Pinkie’s antics.
“What that’s Twilight?” Pinkie said as she leaned over Twilight and began to moonwalk in place, “I can’t hear over the sound of my victory!”
“Ah uh uh,” Discord wagged a finger of his lion’s paw at Pinkie, “You can’t claim your victory unless you properly determine the moral of this whole escapade!”
Here Pinkie froze, and returned to all fours as she did everything she could to think of a bright moral lesson that could apply to everything that had happened.
“Sometimes, patience is a virtue when waiting fer valuable information?” Applejack guessed.
“Not everything needs a cause or a reason for happening?” Twilight tried.
“Draconequi are the solution to all of life’s problems!” Pinkie Pie blurted.
“Um, I pass,” Fluttershy quietly declared.
Granny Smith looked up at Discord and winked, “Harmony’s all well and wonderful, but sometimes a little craziness and chaos can be a good thing too.”
Discord grinned and pointed to the four Elements assembled before him, “Listen to your elder; she’s a mare after my own heart!”
“Now, Ah’m sure you young folks have all got somewhere to be,” Granny smiled once again, “But before you go, could I tempt you with some freshly made apple pie?”
There was no way any of them could possibly reject an Apple family made apple pie, especially one made by Granny Smith, so they accepted her offer with hearty thanks, and made their way back to the homestead for some that delicious dessert.
“By any chance, Granny,” Discord asked, “Have you considered making a hybrid pear and Zap Apple pie? Or better yet, I could make a bush that grows whole pies; tin and all!”
“Ah like how you think,” Granny Smith chuckled, “you should help me in my kitchen some time!”
