She walked down the dirt path that lead from the main road back to the house. Her joints ached and creaked as she plodded slowly back towards her beloved rocking chair and warm fire. A cold wind gusted over the farm, sending a wave of shivers through her body. "Ohhh boy, this reminds me of that one time during the winter harvest. All of them trees were a'wiltin in the cold and we had to buck all of the little apples from the trees. Oh that was some hard work. I still have them pegasi who moved them snow clouds on a list back home. One day I'll get back at them for those days." As she talked to herself, she heard the steady cracks of trees being bucked for their apples. Good to hear my kin doing some nice, hard work. The house was much closer now, positively looming in her vision. She hobbled up the wooden stairs, which creaked as much as her body did sometimes, and pushed open the door.
Warmth washed over her frail body, sending relief flowing over the painful parts of her legs and hips. She made her way over to her cushioned rocking chair and plopped down on it. She leaned back and started to rock it slowly back and forth, letting out a small contented sigh before dropping off to sleep.
Applebloom walked down the cobblestone street, her two fellow crusaders by her side. All of their heads were low to the ground as they slowly plodded towards the library. "Cutie Mark Crusaders Sap Wearers... Why'd we agree to go climbin' trees?" Applebloom muttered under her breath. "All of our plans jus' end up with us getting nothin' but dirt and stuff on us." They all continued in silence towards Carousel Boutique to make use of Rarity's large bathtub.
"Yeah, sorry girls. Looks like we can cut off THAT talent from the list." Scootaloo said a little dejectedly. When both of the other fillies glared at her, she corrected herself. "Uhm, better idea; let's take out anything to do with trees in general."
Sweetie Belle sighed and looked up at the looming Boutique in front of the three small ponies. "Rarity is NOT going to be happy. She's gonna give us all a hard time." She breathed in deeply as she moved to open the door. "Get ready girls." When she placed a hoof on the door and pushed it open, the predicted shout was sounded out in the afternoon air but not in the direction she had expected.
"SWEETIE BELLE! Whatever did you do to your mane!? And your coat too!? You three go upstairs this INSTANT and get cleaned up!". By the time she had finished she was snorting at them angrily, her horn shining with magic that was fueled by her anger.
Sweetie and the other crusaders did the wisest thing, and galloped up the stairs to leap into the bathtub. Sweetie gripped the faucet and twisted the knob, sending warm water gushing into the tub. Even with the water running, they all could hear Rarity slamming the front door and grumbling to herself as she stormed past the bathroom and into her room upstairs. Sweetie Belle looked over sheepishly at her friends, her mouth open to make an apology.
Scootaloo stopped her by holding a hoof up to her mouth. "Save it Sweetie, we already knew how your sis' is.". They all giggled to themselves as the tub finished filling. After Sweetie closed the knob, Scootaloo shot out of the water and back down again, causing a small splash and a bit of water to fall off the edge. "I just got an idea!"
"What is it Scoots?" They asked in curiosity, though Sweetie's version was worried rather than excited. Scootaloo gestured for them to closer, and she whispered in their ears. All three of them giggled to themselves and prepared to put the idea into action.
Rarity lay on her posh bed, relaxing her frayed nerves as she sank into the soft bedding. Oh that Sweetie Belle! She just makes me so...irritated! She rolled over and screamed into her pillow. Why couldn't my sister be like me? Why would you curse me so Celestia? As she realized what she had just thought, she shot up from where she lay and promptly smacked a hoof across her own face. She stared into a mirror, looking deep into the reflection's eyes. "No Rarity, she isn't a curse she is simply a...uh...burden. Yes yes, that's right! Sweetie Belle and her friends are just a...burden." She placed a hoof on her aching temple, rubbing at the pain that throbbed there. If only fabulosity would get rid of this headache!
A crash sounded out from downstairs and she snapped her head to look at the door. She found herself galloping most unlady-like towards the door, but she didn't care. It was her house after all. She bucked open the door and stomped down the stairs. She stopped on the landing outside her bathroom, grabbing the door with her magic and shouting to the air as she ripped the door from its hinges. "SWEETIE BELLE! CELESTIA HELP ME IF YOU ARE UP TO ONE OF YOUR-" Her shouting was replaced by a scream as she took in her former bathroom. Blackness crept at the edges of her vision as she fell over to the floor, losing conscousness.
Her eyes snapped open, or rather they would have if there weren't cucumbers over them. She felt at her face with a hoof and touched a smooth mixture that stuck to her hoof. She put her hoof to her mouth and licked the strange substance. She spit it out almost immidiately. MUD! Oh that tastes awful!. She rubbed her other hoof on her tongue, trying to be rid of the strange taste that it had. She felt a glass being pushed up against her lips, and she drank the water greedily. She murmered a soft thanks as the glass was pulled away. There was no response to her words except for the dripping of water in the backround. Hmm, am I im the Spa? I think I must have...dozed off. Yes, that's it. There's nothing wrong with the girls and absolutely mothing wrong with my bathroom either. She shuddered a little as she remembered the disaster zone her bathroom had been. Oh if those girls had done something to my bathroom, I don't know WHAT I would have done. Oh, I shouldn't think about that kind of thing! I'm at the spa after all.
As if on cue, her treatment really began. A file scratched along her horn gently, filing away all of the uneven bumps that had grown that week. Another file ran across her hooves, firmly removing the dirt and uneven scratches from their surfaces. A set of hooves dug into her back, sending relief through her as they worked away at the knots that had built up over the stressful week. She threw herself into a blissful abandon as the ponies worked at her body, somehow releasing all of her tension and leaving behind only a refreshed happiness. All too soon, the sensations faded away and the hooves were removed. A feminine voice rang out in the silent shop as Rarity stood and stretched. "Was it good?
"Oh yes darling, it was simply divine! I feel like a new mare! I feel like I could-" Her next words were drowned out by an ear-splitting yell.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SPA WORKERS YEAH!" She jumped up and ripped the dried-out fruit from her face.
"Gosh Sweetie, I didn't know that your sister could shatter windows like that." Applebloom felt her heart drop as she looked back to the semi-destroyed building that had once been Carousel Boutique. "That was an awful big bit of magic your sister did. Hopefully nopony got hurt."
"Yeah! That was pretty cool! Not Rainbow Dash cool but still pretty cool. I didn't know your sis could blow things up like that. Just a bolt of light and then BLAM!" Scootaloo's voice cracked as she let her excitement get the better of her, like it always did. She flapped her wings a little too quickly, and the scooter that they were riding on pitched to one side. Losing control, Scootaloo worked frantically to right the awkward course of the vehicle. Her efforts were for naught, and the out-of-control scooter launched all three of the fillies into the air to land in the dirt.
"Oh no! I got dirt on my coat again!" Sweetie Belle caught herself on the verge of squealing like her sister did. "Uh, I mean, ouch that hurt."
"Uuuh, Sweetie, you just pulled a Rarity there didn't ya?" Applebloom felt a wide smile spread across her face. "I didn't think you'd be like her in a million years. Oh well, you ARE sisters after all, only makes sense that you'd be like her."
"Nu uuuh!"
"Does too!"
The two fillies began bickering back and forth, trading "Nu uuuh"s with the "Does too"s constantly, as well as a few insults. A clod of dirt was thrown by Applebloom, causing Sweetie Belle to leap at her in a fury. Now instead if trading words, the two crusaders rolled in the dirt, tugging at each other's hair and trying to beat the other one to a pulp. Their grunts and screeches were halted as a despairing wail came from the side of the road. Applebloom pushed Sweetie Belle off of her and stood up, looking over at the source of the noise.
Scootaloo was sobbing over something between her hooves. Applebloom walked over to look at what her friend was so upset about, figuring that she had run over an animal or something. In Scootaloo's lap lay the splitered remains of the scooter's base board, and the bent handlebars were held in her hooves. Tears peppered the ground as Scootaloo cried. Applebloom rolled her eyes. "Cmon Scoots, it's just a scooter."
Her friend leapt on her and pinned her to the ground. "It was NOT just a scooter! It was my first ever friend! It has been with me for as long as I could remember!" Her voice was filled with rage and sadness as she shouted at Applebloom.
"Well, you can always replace it Scootaloo. I mean, scooters aren't that expensi-" Sweetie Belle cut off as Scootaloo directed her glare towards her.
"It was NOT just A scooter. It was special. You can't just REPLACE it!" The anger in her friend's voice made Sweetie Belle back away quickly. "How could you just SAY that something can just be REPLACED like that?" Scootaloo moved away from Applebloom and stomped towards Sweetie Belle angrily. "YOU THINK THAT I COULD JUST REPLACE YOU LIKE THAT? I KNOW, I'LL JUST GO TO A BOOKSTORE AND PICK UP A DICTIONARY!" She teetered on the edge of leaping at her friend, shaking with grief and wrath. Hoofsteps approached the three of them from behind, but they were all too absorbed to notice the pony until a purple glow grabbed and lifted them into the air.
"Hi girls! I suppose you're the source of all the commotion in town recently?" They spun in their magical spheres to look at their captor. The face of Twilight Sparkle was smiling brightly at them, although her eyes held a small bit of irritation. "Let's go inside and have a nice talk." The Cutie Mark Crusaders cowered at the way Twilight said "talk" and glanced at each other. Before Scootaloo could cry out about her scooter, Twilight lifted its remains carefully and levitated all four of the magical balls inside. She deposited them on the floor and closed the door with her hind leg slamming it shut, cutting off all hopes of escape.
"Are you three CRAZY? First you tip over some trees in a logger's mill! Do you have any idea at how lucky you are that none of you were hurt?" She paused for a breath, still stomping angrily back and forth in front of them. "And THEN you all manage to get Rarity's boutique turned into a disaster zone! What in the world were you thinking trying to give her a spa treatment? You should all know by now how picky she is about that! And NOW I see all three of you in the streets, fighting amongst youselves and shouting on the side of the road, irritating any and everypony around you!" She inhaled deeply, panting for air by now. "What would Celestia say about all of this nonsense? Oh if she saw you, she'd blame me for not watching you! And if she blamed me, I'd get banished, or thrown in a dungeon, or banished and thrown into a dungeon at the place where I was banished to!" Twilight galloped over to the windows and pulled the blinds shut.
"Uh...Twi?" Twilight looked back over at Applebloom, her left eye twitching and her hair in dissary. The three fillies recoiled away from her as she stepped closer.
"Okay girls," her voice dripping with hysteria, "what is the problem here? What is the friendship issue?"
"Uh...uh...well...we...uh...that is to say..." Sweetie Belle stammered out, terrified of Twilight's "new" personality.
"Hurry up girls, clock is ticking. Clock. Is. Ticking!" Twilight reached out towards the three crusaders with her hooves, grinning maniacally as she approached.
"It's about my scooter Miss Twilight! It...uh...broke!" The three crusaders squeaked as Twilight stopped moving, looking at them with a large grin that slowly faded away into a normal one.
"Oh! False alarm then! Wait," The three fillies watched as one of her eyebrows climbed higher, "are you serious? You were fighting over...a scooter?" They all nodded vigoriously, happy to have the normal librarian back and eager to keep it that way. Twilight narrowed her eyes at them and they all braced for the explosion. "Okay then! If that's all you wanted, you could have just asked."
"B-b-but Miss Twilight, I don't want to replace it!" Scootaloo's eyes filled with tears again. "It just wouldn't be the same scooter to me! W-w-what will I do without havi-" She stopped speaking, her mood changing from sad to confused as Twilight patted her head in a consoling manner.
"Oh Scootaloo, you forget who you're talking to here." Twilight waved her horn in front of Scootaloo's face and smiled at the look of hope dawning on it. "I AM the Element of Magic after all. A simple repair spell is all we need!" She lit her horn and grasped a leather-bound spellbook from its resting place on the shelf. She read it in midair for a moment and then cast it aside. Putting on a look of deep concentration, the purple mare stared at the scooter as if it were the most important thing in the world. With a loud snap, the scooter came back together seamlessly. Twilight staggered backwards, suddenly weak from casting the spell. She staggered again as a ball of orange tackled her in a hug.
"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankou! It's PERFECT Miss Twilight!" Scootaloo's voice was muffled by Twilight mane as she nuzzled into it, crying small tears of joy.
"It was no problem at all Scootaloo! Sometimes I wonder how the Earth Ponies in this town had lived in those hundreds of years without magic." Scootaloo fluttered back over to her now-whole scooter, prodding and pressing at where it had been broken to check if it really was repaired.
A sudden realIzation flickered to life in Applebloom's mind as Twilight's words registered in her brain. "Wait a sec Twi, you mean to say that Ponyville is hundreds of years old?"
"It sure is! And they never used magic for ANYTHING for the first hundred years! Can you imagine?" Twilight shuddered as she contemplated a world without her magic.
"Yeah, imagine that..." Applebloom's voice held a thoughtful tone, and Twilight had noticed.
"What's up Applebloom?" Her tone was that of a concerned older sister. "Something wrong?"
"Naw, it's nothing Twi. Thanks for fixing up Scoot's scooter for us!" She jumped into the wagon that was attached to the back. "Cmon girls, we got some crusading to do!" The rest of the crusaders jumped onto their respective positions on their usual mode of transport.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS GO!" They screamed their motto as they shot away from the library going top speed. Applebloom turned around and waved goodbye to Twilight, who wore a bewildered expression on her face.
"Hey Scootaloo! Can ya take us to the farm? I have an idea!" Applebloom had to shout to be heard over the loud flapping noises that came from Scootaloo's fluttering wings.
"Allrighty! One trip to Sweet Apple Acres coming right up!" Scootaloo shouted back at her, veering the scooter onto the main road, which lead out of town and towards the bright-red farm buildings in the distance.
She was galloping away from the dark forest, the snarls of the beasts behind her getting closer and closer. She heard their heavy paws land on the ground again and again, driving her to keep running back home. Oh! These apples had better be worth it! She saw the edge of the forest approaching, and she put on a fresh burst of speed. Not stopping to think, she grabbed the pan they used to boil peas and banged it against the large stewpot repeatedly. The harsh clangs echoed back to her from the forest, and the beasts hesitated before crouching low and moving closer. She squealed as the lead wolf leapt on her, his saliva dripping onto her face and his hot breath washing over her. The wolf opened his mouth wide.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ALARM CLOCKS YEAH!"
She looked up at the wolf confusedly, rubbing her ears. "Did I just hear you say-"
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ALARM CLOCKS YEAH!"
She rubbed at her eyes now, looking up at the wolf and reaching tentatively to touch it with a hoof. As she touched its bark-covered chest, it opened it's muzzle towards the sky and howled.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ALARM CLOCKS YEAH!"
She shot up from the reclining position she had been in, only to collide painfully with a wall of red hair tied with a bow. She looked around confusedly, disoriented by the pain. "Hzzat? What's goin on now? Is the barn on fire?" She leapt from her chair and slowly started moving towards the door. "BIG MAAAAC! APPLEJACK! The barn's on fire!" Her old voice barely made it into the next room, much less out towards the fields where the two farmponies were working. As she made her slow way towards the outside, she heard giggles bubble up from her right. She looked over and saw Applebloom and her filly friends laughing against one another. "Come on girls! This is no time for laughin! Didncha hear? The barn's on fire!"
"Uh, Granny? The barn ain't on fire." Applebloom trotted easily over to where Granny Smith had managed to walk to. Granny saw the silly filly trying to surpress a grin as she threw a hoof over her old shoulder and steered her back into the house.
"It ain't? Then what did you three young fillies come and wake me for?" She asked it with a small drip of irritation in her voice, confusion took hold of her mind as she walked slowly back towards her comfortable chair. When she flopped back down on it, Applebloom walked up to her and kicked at the floor. "Go on ya silly filly, tell me what's under yer seat."
Applebloom toyed with her bow for a moment, obviously playing for time as she considered her response. Granny Smith had to surpress a sigh as she waited for her grand-daughter to speak out. "Uh Granny, I got a question." She looked towards her friends for help, but they only watched her.
"Go on then, ask away!" She waved a hoof dismissively, sweeping Applebloom's hesitation away.
"Well uh...erm...uh...How...how old are ya Granny Smith?" She cowered away, seeming to expect some sort of explosion. Granny Smith only stared at her with a dumbstuck expression. How could she possibly want to ask me...that? When the explosion didn't come, Applebloom looked back up at her grandmother with curious eyes. "Uh, Granny you okay?"
She shook herself and huffed a large sigh to calm her fluttering heart. "Well Applebloom, that's not somethin' you go 'round askin' other mares. Y'see, some mares can get mighty offended by that there question."
Applebloom turned her large eyes towards her grandmother and Granny Smith felt her resolve melt as those begging eyes gazed at her. "But, I thought that you wouldn't mind a bit Granny, cuz you are my...well...Granny..." She dropped her head to look at the floor. "But, you don't have to answer if ya don't want to."
Granny Smith ruffled her grandaughter's hair, chuckling to herself. "Don't ya worry little Applebloom, I'm not one to mind it. But I do gotta ask this, why would ya wanna know how ol' your granny is?"
The red-maned pony looked at her friends, and she seemed to grow braver. "Well Granny, we were Twi's house today, an' she told us that the ponies who founded Ponyville were earth ponies, and that they didn't use any magic."
"Well she is perfectly right! We didn't have any of that new-fangled magic to wrap up winter or do anythin' round these parts back in my day." Applebloom's face was still downcast, and she was biting her lip. "I know that face, what's the matter Applebloom?"
"Well, back a while, you told that story bout how ya helped found Ponyville when ya were younger." Granny Smith tilted her head, wondering at what her grandaughter was getting at. The filly sighed dejectedly. "Twi said that it was for hundreds of years ago that they didn't use magic. That'd make ya be hundreds of years old, and that'd just be silly."
Granny Smith looked around nerviously, sweat beading on her brow as she stepped backward away from the inquiring look of Applebloom. "Uh....well....y'see little filly....um...." She collided with the wall behind her and the three fillies crowded closer to hear her answer. She pushed them all back weakly with a hoof. "All righ' All righ' I'll tell ya, but only just cuz you won' leave 'till I do." She waited for them to back away before taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry Applebloom, but I lied that day. I didn't actually tell the story of this here town, but just of our farm." The yellow filly looked devestated. "I only changed it a bit because your sister Applejack came in one day yellin' about how Applebloom didn't respect her family. Of course, I asked her about what in tarnation she was yellin about, and I came up with that story so I wouldn't embarrass ya none. I hope ya didn-"
She cut off as the filly tackled her and hugged her tightly. "Thank ya Granny! An' here I was thinkin you was hundreds of years old. I'm just a silly filly. Thanks Granny!" Applebloom waved her friends out the door and they all jumped onto that new-fangled scooter thingy. The orange pegasus filly flapped her wings and they shot back towards the town. The old Apple family pony walked over to the window, where she could see the three fillies speeding along the road. Oh Applebloom, I did lie, that's the truth, but I wasn't truthful about the lie. Let's hope ya never have to find out.. She shook out her large wings and cast a calming spell on herself. She looked in the cracked family mirror, sighing at the cracks that spread along the length of her horn.
Sometimes lies are preferable to the truth, because I don't think my kin is ready to hear THAT story just yet.
