The Hardened Apple

by Skaltrox Defiance Knight

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Marble Pie, Romance, Big Macintosh, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Slice of Life
Length: 2120

Pinkie pie's sister, Marble, arrives to spend some time with the pink party pony. But while visiting Sweet apple acres, both Pinkie and Applejack a summoned by the map. Leaving Marble alone with Big Mac

Marble pie is known to be the quiet one of the Pie bunch. But that doesn't stop her from wanting to visit her big sister in ponyville. As they come by Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie begins to chat up Applejack. Until they are unexpectedly summoned by the cutie map. While Pinkie and AJ are gone, Marble is left in the reliable hooves of Big Macintosh.

This was a request by Calcen

Published 2017-01-17 02:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-01-17 02:40:01 UTC

The Soft Rock

Pinkie pie couldn't stay still. Well she really never has but you get the point. Pinkie was incredibly excited as her younger, by a few seconds, sister was coming for a visit. Marble pie. She was about to burst and nopony could stop it from happening; the train rolled up into the station and the doors opened with a *hiss*. Many ponies trotted out and off to their desired destinations, some ponies that also waited at the station left with either one or more of those that newly arrived. Pinkie pie scanned through the crowd and almost exploded when she saw the grey coated earth mare shyly look around for her sister.

Pinkie bolted through the crowd and towards the shy mare. "MARBLE, YOUR HERE!!!!" Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs. Despite the angered protests of others around her.

Marble just smiled and offered a hug, which Pinkie took with much enthusiasm. After they let go of each other, they began to walk off into ponyville, Pinkie carried Marble's luggage, despite Marble trying her best to explain that it was okay not to.

Pinkie began to ramble on "There is so much I want to show and talk about to you, like how..." Marble shook her head with a smile. That's her sister Pinkie pie.

After Marble's luggage was taken care of, the two sisters trotted by Sweet Apple Acres. Since their combined Hearth's warming eve celebrations, the two families had gotten friendly with each other and they would always try to visit. It became a common thing to do when one of the pie sisters or their parents arrived for a visit in ponyville, they would go and chat with the Apples.

Applejack and Big Macintosh were out in the orchard collecting buckets worth of apples. Suddenly a loud shout passes through their current location making Applejack look up at attention. "APPLEJACK!" the shout said.

Applejack looked over to her big brother and asked him if he heard the shout "Big Mac, did you hear that?"

Mac gave an acknowledged "Eeyup"

Applejack turned back towards the direction the shout originated from "I think I know who that is" Applejack muttered.

As if on cue, Pinkie Pie arrived out of no where, carrying a traumatized Marble. "Hey there Applejack. Guess who's here?" Pinkie asked.

Applejack stated almost bluntly "Your sister, Marble, you were talking about it constantly yesterday that I have it engrained in ma head."

Pinkie ignored the near bluntness "Yeah, but its still so fun to ask you, rather than just tell you."

"Where's Granny smith and Applebloom" Pinkie questioned as she began to lift anything not nailed or rooted into the ground.

Applejack explained "Granny's gone to see some old friends of hers (she won't be back till tomorrow) and Applebloom is doing who knows what with the crusaders."

Pinkie sighed "Aww too bad. Well Big Mac is here though, right Marble?" she pointed over to the large farmer stallion.

As Marble and Big Mac made eye contact, they almost on reflex blushed intensely. "Mmmhmm" Marble said, trying not to look at Big Mac.

Applejack and Pinkie were engaging in little chit chat (as little chit chat Pinkie can do that is) when a bright light flashed on both their cutie marks. The two friends stopped their talk and looked at their flanks, "Looks like the map needs us Pinkie" Applejack stated.

Pinkie jumped with happiness "Oh I wonder where we are going? I hope it's somewhere..." she then slows down looking sad. "Wait, Marble's here and I wanted to spend time with her."

Applejack pats Pinkie on the back "It's alright Pinkie, we'll just go and see what problem we need to fix and be back before you know it." Applejack turned to Marble "You don't mind if your sister has to go and do something urgent?" Marble smiles and shakes her head.

"OK, Big Mac take care of Marble until we get back. You can do that right?" Applejack pointed to Big Mac.

Big Mac went wide eyed. He looked down at Marble's smiling face then hastily replies to Applejack "E-Eeyup" he says with a sweating face.

"Good, let's go Pinkie!" Applejack pulled a sadly waving Pinkie out the orchard and towards the castle.

Once the two left, Big Mac looked towards Marble; she sat before him averting her eyes in any direction but his, while blushing redder than his fur.

Mac slowly inched towards Marble and tapped her on the shoulder to draw her attention to him. It works, too well, she looks straight at him like she had seen a ghost. Mac points towards a row of trees that still needed to be bucked in front of him and flicks his head to imply that he wanted Marble to follow him as he went and finished the rest of the trees.

For the first time, Big Mac wished he had more to do today that was work wise. He knew his crush on Marble was not a one time thing, but he just couldn't find anything to do with Marble. So that's why he wished to still have work, so that he wouldn't have to do something awkward with Marble.

Mac went to work finishing off bucking the last 5 trees of this orchard, while Marble watched with interest. Marble couldn't believe the strength in Mac's back legs as he pounded the tree stumps with such force so the apple's would fall off right into correctly placed buckets. Sure on the Rock farm the pie sisters mined rocks, things much harder than a tree, but still to Marble just slamming your legs against a tree made her legs feel sore just thinking about it.

Finally Mac had finished with the trees and gestured Marble to help him move the buckets into the barn. The buckets were quite heavy as they did hold a lot of apples, but thanks to hauling many rocks back at home, Marble was able to carry the buckets with little effort. Something that Big Mac appreciated.

Once they had carried all the buckets in Mac gave an 'Eeyup' of approval, to which Marble blushed at. 'What are we going to do now?' Big mac thought. Wavering his thoughts to board games, Mac informed Marble of his idea and with a point of his hoof towards the house, they exited the barn.

Inside the main living area, Mac scrounged through a shelf full of anything from books, tools, a spare set of Granny smith's Teeth (the usual resident of the shelf) and of course a few small stacks of board games. Gaining Marble's attention away from the bizarre amount of apple based items in the house she looked at, Mac offered Marble to choose which game she'd like to play.

Marble was slightly unsure about playing a board game, she had only ever played a variant of ponyoply with her family and that was al about rocks...so she had no clue on how to play any of the ones Mac had.

She shook her head with a confused expression, she didn't know which to choose or how to play any. Mac, after some careful thinking, decided to pick a simple one for her to try. Connect four. Using four of the pieces, Mac explains how to win a round: Marble must get 4 of her coloured pieces in a row on the grid, while Mac must do the same before she can. It's basically like Tic tac toe, but on a bigger scale.

After directing the Mare through the rules a few more times, they began to have a go. Marble went first, she placed one yellow pieces through the top of the grid and it slid down the bottom, Mac put a red one through and it slid to the bottom as well, but this was two away from the yellow. Marble placed another one on top of her first, showing that two were now in a row. Mac caught on to what she was doing and placed one of his on top of her stack of two, blocking her chance of making three in a row. Marble huffed at Mac's play. Mac gave a small chuckle at her pouting face. Marble tried again, she put another yellow piece down the grid next to her first piece, but this time it was laying flat across from it. Mac went ahead and put his next red piece on his first red piece and waited for Marble to catch on. She did, placing another of her yellow pieces on his stack of two. But Mac didn't care. Marble was confused by Mac's lack of emotion towards the play, almost like he anticipated it. Mac placed another red piece also next to his first but once again flat with the bottom of the grid. Marble ignored his play and went to place another yellow on her second ground piece. Mac placed another red on that one, 'What is he doing' Marble thought. She placed a yellow on the one she used to block Mac's stack of two and Mac...smiled. Marble didn't like the sound of this; Mac snatched up another of his pieces and placed over his first red one that blocked Marble's first yellow stack and then cheered. Marble didn't understand, how did he win?

Mac showed Marble how he used her own pieces to stack his up and make a diagonal of four. Marble completely forgot about making diagonal lines of four and she blushed at her mistake, Mac didn't care though. He was just having a good time with some pony he wished he could confess too. The two of them continued to play a bunch more rounds of connect four, Marble had managed to win twice but Mac was all over it winning six more times. 'Luckily Marble isn't a sore loser' Mac thought. Going on with the board game trend, they played several more of them, each of which Mac was happy to explain to the shy mare. It did get a little heated during a round of Jenga in which they forgot who's turn it was and both went to pull a piece. The same one. But besides that Mac found that he really enjoyed spending time with Marble and it wasn't really awkward either, Mac couldn't be more pleased with that.

Celestia was beginning to lower the sun now, Mac watched as the sky turned a magnificent orange, Applejack and Pinkie had to be back pretty soon and the Crusaders...well they would turn up eventually. Sighing, Mac peered at Marble. She was sitting on the couch softly humming a tune, Mac had to go over there and doing somethingnow!. He turned away from the door and anxiously walked up to Marble, with slight hesitance, Mac spoke up "M-Marble" he said. Marble in turn stopped her humming and turned towards him, waiting for him to say something.

"I...well, you probably already know, but I kinda have this th...Hmph?!" Mac was caught off guard with something undeniably new to him, especially from Marble. She was kissing him. Softly but still with passion to make Mac turn redder. After what felt like an hour of kissing, they parted and Mac swore he saw hearts in Marble's eyes.

She then went to his ear and whispered "Just between the two of us", Marble gave wink and Mac almost felt like he needed to faint. Marble giggled at Mac's flustered state, he definitely changed a lot when it came to some pony he loved.

"WE"RE BACK!!!" a voice shouted from just outside the house.

"Pinkie I think they heard you, not to mention everypony in town too" Applejack said.

Entering the house Pinkie rushed over to Marble and hugged her with her trade mark energy.

"So did you two have fun?" Applejack asked.

"Eeyup" Big Mac said.

Applejack continued"Well Marble looks fine so I expect nothing...different happened?"

Mac went into a flustered state again "N-Nope"

"That's super good to hear. So if anything like that mission happens again, you would be happy to stay with big Mac. Right Marble?" Pinkie asked.

Marble turned to Big Mac and Big Mac turned to Marble.

Marble smiled and replied "MmmHmm"

Author's Note

There we go. Now this again (like in the description) was an idea from Calcen. Calcen asked if I could do a Big Mac and Marble pie story so I came up with this little one shot. Now I was a little unsure to doing it, since I'm not used to writing about characters that don't usually speak, but I think I did alright with this. What do you think?