Of Youth and Growth

Chapters

Rarity
Pinkie Pie
Rainbow Dash
Applejack

Rarity

Stretching

“Rarity, are you doing your exercises?” a voice called upstairs.

Rarity rolled her eyes. In a corner, untouched, lay a set of disks and balls that she was supposed to be using for levitation practice. She never bothered using them if she could help it. After all, she was destined to become a fashionista, not a wizard. The tools of her trade were things like fabrics and sewing machines, not those silly toys. She turned to the sketch pad on the floor and got back to drawing a new wedding dress for her princess doll. She had no time for silly levitation exercises; after all, those dresses weren't going to design themselves.

“Yes, mom,” she replied, speaking around the pencil in her mouth. “I'm doing them right now.”

“Glad to hear it, because I want to see how good you're getting.”

Rarity spat out her pencil in a most unladylike fashion. She hadn't been expecting that! She ran over and dug through her practice equipment until she found the smallest ball. Focusing with all her might, she levitated it into the air and began touching it to each of the walls in her room like she had been told. Her mother walked in seconds later. She was a portly unicorn with a towering bouffant of a mane and often wore mismatched clothes. Rarity would never understand how her own mother could be so tacky.

“Oh, so you weren't lying,” her mother said. “Good.”

Rarity gave a nervous smile. “Of course not.”

“Why just one ball, though?” said her mother. “Shouldn't you be able to move three or four by now?”

“Maybe I'm just bad at magic,” said Rarity. “I guess there's no point in keeping me in training, is there?”

“If you aren’t getting better, you need more help, not less”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Mom, why do I have to go to extended training? I passed magic kindergarten just fine."

“Yes, but you need to learn finer control, especially after that searching spell dragged you across town. You have to control your magic; you can't let it control you.”

“But I don't need to know this stuff if I'm going to become a fashionista.”

Her mother came over and looked her in the eyes. “Rarity, I know you don't think it's important now, but you don't know where life is going to take you. I'm not saying you shouldn't follow your dream, but you don't know how long it'll take you to get there or what you're going to run into along the way.”

Rarity stared, uninterested. Her mother smiled.

“I don't expect you to understand all this right now. Come on, let's get some practice in.”

Her mother set the disks out on the floor, and the balls next to them.

“All right, I want you to stack the disks in a tower, biggest to smallest.”

Rarity rolled her eyes again, but did as she was told. She lifted the disks one at a time, setting them in order. They wobbled and bobbed through the air and the stack collapsed twice, but her mother wouldn't let her stop until the stack was completed. She was sweating by the time it was over. She looked up, waiting to see her mother nod in satisfaction.

But her mother did not nod. In fact, she looked rather disappointed.

“You haven't been practicing at all,” she said, frowning.

“Well, no,” Rarity admitted. “But I've been designing dozens of dresses for Princess Twinkleshine; see?”

She held up a detailed sketch of a dress and her mother nodded at it.

“That's very nice, dear, but you need to be practicing your magic like I told you.”

Rarity stared at the floor, avoiding her mother’s disappointed gaze. When she glanced up, her mother was levitating a large box. With a flash of her horn, all of Rarity’s sketchpads, pencils, fabrics, pins and other essentials flew into it. Her mother took this box, along with Rarity’s prized sewing machine, out into the hallway and set them on top of the bookshelf. After a moment, she added a few heavy books to the box and shut the lid.

“There,” she said. “No more distractions.”

Rarity was aghast. “Mom! Those are my things!”

“Yes, and they're distracting from your magic. I'm not going to take them down for you, but as long as you keep practicing, you'll be able to get them down yourself. Then you can go back to designing dresses for your dolls.”

“But, but-”

Two rooms away, Sweetie Belle woke from her nap and started wailing.

“Oh, she's hungry again.” Her mother headed into the nursery, but Rarity called after her.

“Mom, that's not fair!”

“We'll discuss this later, Rarity,” said her mother.

Defeated, Rarity slunk back to her room, ears drooping. Who cared about magic practice? Not her. And why did her mother care so much anyway? It wasn't like Rarity had aspirations of becoming some amazing wizard. It wasn't fair! And the worst part was, she couldn't even whine and yell any more. They had a foal to do that now. Whenever the foal started screaming and crying, her mother and father fell all over themselves to make her feel better, but when Rarity did it, they told her to act her age. It just wasn't fair! Why couldn't things be like they used to be, back before the foal came and before she had to learn magic?

For moment, she considered throwing a great wailing fit at the unfairness of it all, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. It wasn't ladylike at all and she would probably get yelled at again. With a sigh, Rarity threw herself on her bed, settling for sulking instead. She was determined to stay mad at her mother for taking away her stuff. That would make her mother feel bad for making her so unhappy. Then she would apologize and return all of Rarity’s sewing things. Once her mother and father saw how important it was to her, they'd never force her to practice her magic again. She even imagined they might realize she deserved all their attention and would send the foal back to the hospital where they got her.

Sulking was only satisfying for a little while and soon Rarity grew bored. She glanced over at her poster of Satin Sash's spring designs, paying attention to how the dresses were so carefully designed. Not one crooked seam nor a single thread out of place. That was how she wanted her dresses to be: perfect.

Rarity glanced up at practice work. The disk tower was a tower, but a very sloppy and unstable one. She sighed. Well, as long as she didn't have anything else to do, she might as well straighten it out.

At first, she tried nudging the disks back in place with her nose and hooves, but they just wouldn't stay put. It seemed she would have to use her magic. Focusing with all her might, she grasped the top disk and set it aside. She repeated the process until the tower was gone, then set about rebuilding it as neatly as she could. It was slow going, moving only one at a time, so she decided to push herself. Just a little; she didn't want to get good at this and forget about fashion. She focused with all her strength and took hold of two disks at once. It was much harder than she thought, but she could do it. She stacked the tower again like that, two disks at a time. But it was still sloppy when she was done.

It seemed to her that the only way she could set this tower up as neat as possible was to pick up all the pieces, put it together and set it on the ground already finished. And the disks weren't exactly light, either. Despite all this, she was determined to get it done. She planted her hooves and focused on one disk after another, until all of them were glowing with her magic. Taking deep breath, she willed them into the air. She gasped when she realized it was much harder than she had anticipated. She tried over and over to get them in the air, without much success. Finally, she gave it everything she had, no longer caring that she would get tired and sweaty. At last, every single disk came off the floor and hovered off the floor. She grinned, delighted at the sight-

“Ow!”

A sharp pain flashed at the base of her horn. All the disks dropped to the floor, followed shortly by the filly herself, rubbing her head. Where had that pain come from? It wasn't like anything she'd ever felt before. The sore spot turned into a dull ache that throbbed in time with her heartbeat. She glanced back at the disks on the floor and turned her nose up at them.

“Hmph. Just goes to show I'm not cut out for magic.”

A knock came at her door. She looked up to see her father standing in her doorway balancing a hoofball on his head. His mustache quirked upward as he smiled.

“Hey kiddo,” he said, “you wanna have a kick-around for a while?”

Normally, she would have made up some kind of excuse, but considering her alternatives and the fact that she was already sweaty, she didn't see the point. It would be a nice break from magic practice, after all.

“Sure,” she said, following him out the door. She glanced back at her room, remembering the feeling of delight when she had gotten all the disks in the air. Well, who cared, anyway? Any excuse to get out magic practice was a good one, as far as she was concerned.

Rarity and her father had plenty of fun playing one on one hoofball in their yard. She wasn't nearly as good as him; earth ponies tended to be more inclined towards athleticism, but he taught her everything she knew anyway. Although, she wasn't allowed do headers anymore. Horns and inflated balls didn't mix very well.

“So, your mother tells me you're finally getting some magic practice in,” he said.

Rarity groaned. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“Honey, you know we only want the best for you. Practicing magic might not be as fun as designing and sewing outfits, but it's important. Magic is a part of who you are and you want to be the best 'you' you can be, right?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“What do you mean, 'I guess?' I thought you knew exactly who you wanted to be.”

“I do. I want to be the greatest fashionista in Equestria.”

“So why can't the greatest fashionista in Equestria be good at magic too?”

“But it's so hard!”

He came over to her and gave her a hug. “Everything is hard at first. You think I got my own tour business by quitting after a week of pulling taxis around?”

Rarity looked at the ground. “No. But I don't see how moving things around with magic is going to be useful if I use a sewing machine.”

Her father thought for a moment. “What if you learned a spell that would do all the sewing for you, so you wouldn't have to use a machine?”

Rarity perked up at that. “I've never heard of that spell.”

“Well, it might not exist. But you could invent it.”

“A sewing spell,” said Rarity. “That doesn't sound so bad. But how would I practice it?”

Her father smiled. “I think I have an idea. Come with me.”

In just a few hours, Rarity held a board with a series of large holes drilled in it. The idea was to practice her stitching skills by passing a ball back and forth between the holes. It seemed simple enough, but keeping both of them levitating at once was still very difficult. On the other hoof, knowing she had a chance to practice something that might actually be useful to her was motivation enough to do magic again.

She burst into the house, levitating her new toys with her. Her mother sat on the couch in the den, cradling a bundle of blankets.

“Mom! Mom, look what Dad just made! Now I can learn to sew and do magic at the same time.”

“Shh!” her mother scolded from the couch. The foal was asleep in her arms, or rather had been asleep. Rarity's yelling had woken her up and she started to cry.

“Rarity, what did I tell you about keeping quiet while your sister is sleeping?” said her mother.

“I didn't know she was asleep! I just wanted-”

“Tell me later, Rarity.” Her mother whickered to the foal in her arms, trying to soothe her back to sleep. Her father came over to see.

“Aw, is she still teething?” he said. “Poor thing.”

Rarity, annoyed she'd lost the spotlight to some crying foal, brought the board and ball up over her head and began passing the ball through the holes. Her head still ached at the base of her horn, but she ignored it.

“Mom, look what I can do! Look!”

Her mother glared at her. “Rarity, not now!”

Dejected, Rarity took her toys back up to her room and tossed them in the corner. Her mother had been bothering all day about magic practice but now that Rarity was actually practicing, her mother didn't care. It was all the baby's fault. Her parents didn't care about their old baby when they had a new one to play with.

Thinking about her sister only made her more upset, so Rarity began imagining what other spells might be useful. Maybe a color changing spell, so if she made a dress, she could see what it looked like in different colors without having to make a whole new dress. And maybe a spell that made fabrics shrink and grow so she could make multiple sizes for different ponies.

She fell asleep that night still imagining new spells she could invent.

Over the next few days, Rarity took to her magic practice like never before. Her weaving board, as she called it, was still difficult to use but she could now weave the ball all the way through to the end. The disks had become easier to stack as well. Now she could stack them all at once, though not as neatly as she would have liked. Now, she could even move four balls at once and touch them into the four corners of her room, something that had seemed impossible a few weeks ago. She had not forgotten about her belongings that sat up out of her reach and every day she tried to take them down. Her mother had chosen the most difficult spot possible. The box and sewing machine sat behind a lip that ran all the way around the shelf and both of them were far too heavy for her to lift over it. They shuffled and rattled as she tried, but they wouldn't cooperate. It was frustrating, but not nearly so frustrating as the ache in her horn, which seemed to grow worse the more she used her magic.

The worst part of these last few days was the fact that not only was her sister teething, but she also caught a mild cold. Her parents were completely preoccupied and never seemed to be able to spare a minute for her. She had thought her mother would be impressed with all the magic she was doing, but all she heard was “Sweetie Belle” this and “Sweetie Belle” that. At the very least, Rarity wanted to know why her horn was hurting so much. Especially since now it was hurting even when she wasn't doing magic.

“Mom,” she said one day, as her mother searched the nursery for something, “I have a question.”

“What?” said her mother, keeping an eye on Sweetie Belle who was coughing and fussing.

“Well, whenever I try to-”

“Oh no,” said her mother. “Magnum! We're out of diapers!”

“You need me to get some?” her father called from the den.

“Yes! Go quick, please.”

Rarity heard the door shut downstairs. Moments later, Sweetie Belle started crying again.

“Oh, sorry, baby,” said her mother, nuzzling the foal. “I didn't mean to wake you up.”

She picked up the foal and rocked her gently, whispering to her. Rarity stepped forward.

“Mom, I wanted to ask-”

“Later, Rarity. Your sister needs to go back to sleep if she's going to get over this cold. Poor thing. She doesn't know what's happening to her.”

Neither do I, thought Rarity, frustrated. She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. She didn't feel a bit of remorse when she heard her sister crying again. In fact, aside from how it was making her head hurt even more, she found a strange kind of pleasure in making her sister cry. However, it disappeared when her mother started yelling.

“Rarity!” cried her mother, throwing the door open. “You know better than that. Don't go slamming doors when your sister is trying to sleep. Do you want her to stay sick?”

The combination of her mother yelling, her sister crying, all the ways she was being ignored and the pain in her head made something snap inside her.

“Yes I do!” Rarity yelled, ears flat. “Then you can take her back to the hospital and leave her there because I don't want her!”

Her mother scowled at her. “You're in time out, young filly! You go sit in the corner of the hallway until I say otherwise. How can you say something like that about your own sister?”

“It's not that hard,” Rarity muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Rarity sat in the corner and sulked. All that yelling had made her head ache even worse. The pain in her horn didn’t get any better, but it didn’t get any worse either. She sat in the corner long enough to hear her father come back from the store. He came to the nursery to drop off the diapers and she heard them talking about her.

“What's she in the corner for?” said her father.

“Attitude adjustment. I don't know what's gotten into her.”

“Maybe all the crying is getting on her nerves.”

“Wouldn't surprise me.”

Their voices dropped and Rarity couldn't hear them anymore. It was just as well. They didn't even know why she was so mad. They didn't even want to ask her about it. Well, fine. She could play their game. If they didn't care about her, she wouldn't care about them. No more magic practice. No more magic, period. She was going to get her stuff back and work on her dresses again. She didn't care what they thought anymore.

Finally, her mother came over.

“Do you have something to say to me?” she asked. Rarity didn't look up.

“I'm sorry,” she said, keeping her voice flat so her mother couldn't tell she wasn't sorry at all.

“For?”

“For slamming the door and being disrespectful.”

“You know better than that, right?'

“Yes, mom.”

“Good. Time out is over, but no more throwing fits; do you understand me?”

“Yes, mom.”

A few hours passed and her father left to take Sweetie Belle to the doctor. Rarity decided now was a good time to get her box and sewing machine back. If she dropped everything, she couldn't get in trouble for waking her sister up again.

Rarity stared up at the bookshelf. It was the same size it had been the day her belongings had been stranded there, but she had a much better handle on her magic now. After this, she wouldn’t ever have to bother with magic again. Her plan might go a little smoother without the splitting headache, but she was positive she could handle it. She most definitely was not going to ask her mother for help. Her mother didn't care about her anymore, so why even bother?

Planting her hooves and bracing herself, Rarity focused her whole mind on her target. She took a deep breath and, bracing herself for the pain, took hold of them with her magic. She felt as though a spike was being driven through her skull, but grit her teeth and bore it. The box and machine were in her control now. She pulled them to the edge of the shelf and tried to lift them over the lip. No luck. She just wasn't strong enough to lift them.

But maybe she didn't have to lift them. Maybe she could just pull them by the tops and they'd tip over the edge. Then she'd catch them before they hit the ground. Brilliant! That was bound to work. She reoriented her magic until she was gripping the machine and the box by their uppermost parts. She kept on pulling them until they began to tip over the lip of the shelf. Her whole head was throbbing now, but she couldn't stop. She pulled, harder and harder until she felt their weight shift. Not much further now. She got ready to catch them and gave just the tiniest pull.

They tipped over the edge, but she had overestimated her ability to catch them. The sewing machine didn't even slow down and it was all she could do to leap out of the way. But while she was doing that, the box crashed on her back, knocking her to the floor. Her head cracked against the sewing machine and pain exploded through her head and horn.

Rarity cried and wailed, pressing her hooves to her horn. She didn't care about magic, or sewing, or fashion or her anger anymore – she just wanted the pain to stop. But she didn't even know why it was hurting so bad and all she could do was cry.

She barely paid attention to the hoofsteps coming down the hallway. “Rarity, what was that- oh my goodness!”

Rarity felt her skin tingle. Her mother hadn't picked her up using magic since she could walk on her own. She felt herself drifting through the air, but her enjoyment of the experience was totally ruined by the pain in her head.

“What happened?” her mother asked.

“My horn hurts,” Rarity whimpered, far too injured to care about not caring about her parents any more.

“I'll say. You took quite a hit. Some ice should help.”

A cold something pressed down on her head. Rarity shivered. “It's too cold.”

“It needs to be cold to make it better. But I can get you a blanket to keep you warm.”

The pain had eased a little and Rarity opened her eyes to see that she was in the den. Her mother brought a blanket over and wrapped her tight.

“Better?”

“Not really.”

Her mother nuzzled her, accidentally bumping Rarity's horn, which sent another shock of pain through her.

“Ow! Don't do that.”

“Sorry, honey. I didn't know it was still sore.”

“It's been sore for days,” said Rarity. “Ever since you made me start practicing my magic.”

Something seemed to occur to her mother. “I'll bet you're stretching.”

“Stretching?”

“Yes. When unicorns start seriously practicing their magic, their horn has to grow so it can be more effective.” She let out a breath. “No wonder you've been so cranky these last few days.”

Rarity could feel the cold seeping under her skin, but it wasn't helping.

“How long does it hurt for?” she asked.

“Until it finishes stretching. It's like when your teeth come in; it just hurts and there's nothing to be done. But if it hurt so much, why didn't you say anything?”

Rarity sniffled, feeling her tears coming back. “I tried, but you were always busy with Sweetie Belle. And dad didn't know anything and he said I should ask you.”

Her mother sighed. “Sorry, it's not easy having a sick foal in the house. She needs a lot of attention.”

Tears ran down Rarity’s face. “But what about me? I practiced my magic like you said and I got good at it. But you didn't care. All you cared about was how much noise I was making and how I kept waking Sweetie Belle up. And now I can't even show you how good I am because my horn hurts too much!”

Rarity sobbed a little, but moments later, her mother nuzzled her tears away.

Her mother’s next words were soft and sad. “Rarity, I am so, so sorry for ignoring you. I really am glad that you decided to practice magic, but it wasn't fair of me to ignore you like I did, especially if you needed help. Forgive me?”

Her mother drew her in close and they cuddled together on the couch. Rarity smiled. It had been a long time since they'd done this.

“Yes,” said Rarity, nuzzling her back. “I forgive you.”

“Good. And don't forget that I still love you.”

“I love you back.”

A minute of silence passed as Rarity lay there in her mother's arms.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Is Sweetie Belle going to cry forever? Because if she does, I still don't want her.”

Her mother laughed. “No, she'll grow out of it, just like you did. And one day you'll love spending time with her.”

Rarity nodded. Hopefully, that wouldn't take too long. Suddenly, another spike of pain shot through her horn, making her whimper. But her mother held her tight, nuzzling her gently. Rarity relaxed, despite the pain. It would stop someday, too.

Pinkie Pie

Adjusting

Having read all the books about rock farming she could possibly stand, Pinkie Pie did her best to keep herself entertained. But, after painting her walls with rainbows and sunbeams, making her bed six times and practicing walking on two legs, she was getting tired of being by herself. And her nose was hurting from falling over on her face so often. In the end, she simply gave up and decided to go and play with her sisters.

Pinkie trotted toward her sister's room, calling for them.

“Inky! Blinky! What are you guys doing?”

The twins rolled their eyes at the sound of her voice as it echoed through the hall.

“Pinkamina, for the hundredth time, call us by our real names,” said Isabella as Pinkie entered their bedroom.

“Yeah, don't use those cutesy nicknames,” said Bellamina.

“But this way all our names rhyme! We're Pinkie, Blinky and Inky!”

“No! I don't like it!” said Isabella, folding her forelegs. “Call me by my real name.”

“Yeah,” said Bellamina.

Pinkie sighed. “Fine. If it doesn't make you happy, I’ll stop. So, what are you doing?”

“Organizing our rock collection,” said Bellamina. She swept a hoof over the table, which was covered with small rocks, books and charts. “I've been meaning to update our igneous collection for a while now.”

“Booo-ring!” said Pinkie. “Let's do something else. Like tag! Let's go play tag outside!”

“I don't want to play tag,” said Isabella. She turned her back and began sorting rocks.

“Blink- I mean, Bellamina, what about you?”

“No.” She also turned away.

Pinkie's head drooped a little. “Golly, why are you two being such grumpy-pantses today?” She suddenly perked up. “Hey, I know what'll put you in a better mood – a party!”

The twins groaned in frustration and covered their ears.

“Not another stupid party!” said Bellamina, throwing her hooves in the air.

“What?” Pinkie's enthusiasm wavered.

“Everything is about parties with you, isn't it? Don't you even care about rocks anymore?” Bellamina leaned forward, staring Pinkie in the eyes. “What's so great about parties anyway?”

“I just want to make everyone happy!” said Pinkie. “I like it when you guys smile, and I know parties are the best way to do that.”

“But you don't have to have one twice a week,” said Isabella. “We have to keep moving rocks around, you know.”

“Yeah, I'm getting sick of them,” agreed Bellamina. “Too much candy and loud music. We have to set everything up and then take it all down – it's wasting all our chore time.”

Her parties weren't making them happy? Her sisters thought they were a waste of time? Pinkie couldn't believe what she was hearing. She turned and walked out of the room, trying to hold back her tears. She hid in her bedroom and said nothing the rest of the evening.

The next morning found Mrs. Pie trying her hardest to comb her youngest daughter's mane. She often complained that it refused to stay flat the way it used to. No matter what she did, it kept popping back up into a giant curled mess. But it was a ritual they both enjoyed, no matter how troublesome it had become, and Pinkie often used the time to ask her mother questions, because here, her sisters couldn't interrupt.

“Mom, do you and Dad think my parties are a waste of time?” Pinkie asked.

“Pinkamina, we know your parties are very important to you,” her mother said, “and we're happy that you're trying to make us happy.”

Pinkie smiled a little. Maybe her sisters were wrong, after all.

“But,” her mother continued, “When you throw parties twice a week that take two or three hours at a time, it does cut into our work schedule.”

“So they are wasting your time.” The filly sighed.

“Dear, I didn't say that. I would prefer it if we had the parties less often, though. If you keep having them so often, they won't be special anymore. Because then it just becomes something you do, not something that you can look forward to.” Her mother tugged the comb through her mane again, then gave up with a shrug. “I suppose that's as good as it's going to get. Run along now, there are chores to be done.”

Pinkie scampered off, headed for the rock fields. She and her family spent hours gathering and sorting different types of rocks, moving them from place to place and carefully watching for signs of change. Every now and again, they would come across a stone with a glimmering band. The spot where it was found was carefully marked, the rock was noted in the log, then carried inside. More rocks were rotated into its place, so that the currents of magic in the earth might produce more glimmering rocks. Such rocks were prized, as they contained a special mineral that had certain properties in the presence of magic. The Pie family sold them to magic schools throughout Equestria, where young unicorns could use the minerals to practice complicated spells they weren’t strong enough to try on their own. Magical researchers also found the mineral helpful in studying magical theory. It was slow, tedious process of getting the gems to form, but a necessary one. After all, some spells couldn't happen without the specific kinds of rock gems the Pie family grew.

Once the day's work was over, the three sisters ran off. Pinkie put the idea of throwing another party out of her mind and tried to think of other things that might make her sisters happy. Nothing other than 'party' came to mind, so she decided to simply ask them. She skipped to their room and knocked on the door.

“Bellamina? Isabella? Can I come in?”

“Sure,” called Isabella. “What do you want?”

“I just want to see what you're doing. Maybe even play with you!”

The twins exchanged a glance. “Maybe.”

Pinkie joined them at their table, smiling. Pebbles of all colors and sizes sat in small groups across the surface. Notebooks and charts laid between the piles.

“Right now we're sorting the sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks,” said Isabella. “You know the difference, right?”

“One kind is from the surface, one kind is from deep underground and one kind is from way deep underground where it's so hot the rocks melt,” said Pinkie.

“Huh. I didn't think you knew that.”

“Why not? I paid attention to Dad's lessons. So, which rocks are which?”

Bellamina gaped at her. “You just said you knew the difference!”

“I do, but all the rocks look the same to me. Ooh! Maybe you should paint them different colors! That way you could tell them apart and they'd be all pretty!”

Pinkie ran to her room and came back carrying a jar of green paint in her mouth.

“No, the rocks are fine,” said Isabella, trying to block her approach.

“Jus' a li'l bit an' they'll be gor-gus,” said Pinkie, her words mangled by the jar.

“They're already gorgeous, don't-”

It was too late. Pinkie tripped over a stray pillow and crashed into the table. Green paint splattered across the rocks and charts, as well as most of Bellamina.

“Pinkamina!” she shouted. “Look at this mess! You ruined my notebook!”

“I'm sorry,” said Pinkie, setting the empty jar down. “It was an accident – I'll clean it up.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” said Bellamina, trying in vain to move her things out of the puddle of paint on the desk. “Go get a rag or something before it sets in my coat.”

Pinkie dashed out to grab the cleaning supplies. When she came back, the ruined charts and notebooks were in the trashcan and both sisters were trying to wipe the paint off the rocks. They snatched up the rags she had brought without a word and started scrubbing.

After several long minutes, Isabella grumbled something about having to replace her whole notebook. Pinkie's sharp ears caught it.

“Oh! Can I help? I can draw pretty pictures and write really neat and-”

“No!” snapped Bellamina. Pinkie flinched at the anger in her voice. “I mean, we should take a little break. Let's play a game.”

“What game? What game?” said Pinkie, bouncing with excitement.

“Hide and seek. You hide, and I'll count to a hundred,” said Bellamina. Isabella gave her a strange look, but then she smiled.

“Yeah, and hide in the best place you can think of,” Isabella added with a smirk. “Don't make it easy for us!”

“You got it!” said Pinkie. Bellamina gave a small smile, then covered her eyes with her hooves.

“One, two, three...”

Pinkie tore out of the room before her sister reached eight. She ran outside the house and glanced around, trying to think of the best possible spot. Then she saw it – the door to the root cellar. She pried it open just wide enough to jump inside, then let it fall shut behind her. Inside, the cellar was dark and scary, but Pinkie merely hummed to herself as she made her way to the farthest wall in the back. A pile of potato sacks sat near the wall and she squeezed in behind them. Perfect! It would be a long time before either of them thought to look here.

Bellamina used to tell Pinkie that a ghost lived in the root cellar, and for a long time, the pink pony had been too scared to go inside. But when Granny Pie, her most favorite pony in the whole world, taught her how to laugh at the ghosts and the dark, Pinkie found that the cellar was actually kind of neat. It was quiet and cool, perfect for if she wanted to be alone. That didn’t happen very often. Her sisters probably thought she was too scared to hide in the cellar.

Actually, it was kind of cozy behind the potatoes. The empty sack underneath her made the floor soft and she wiggled against the potato sacks to move them away from the wall. Now she felt less like she was being squished and more like she was receiving a very lumpy hug. She could wait here all day.

Pinkie’s sisters sure were happy to play with her today. Not like usual. Usually, they just wanted her to leave them alone. They used to want to play with her all the time, but ever since she had gotten her cutie mark, they didn't seem to like her as much anymore. Maybe they were just tired of parties. Pinkie scoffed at her own thoughts. Tired of parties? Impossible! Pinkie knew she would never tire of parties.

But others might lose interest. Her mother was right when she had said that parties were supposed to be special. Pinkie remembered a story her mother used to read to her about a pony who once wished it could be Hearth's Warming Eve all year round. At first, he had loved it. There had been presents and singing and plays every day, but soon it wasn't as good. After a week, there hadn’t been any presents in the stores to buy anymore and everypony had a sore throat from singing so much. Then the little colt learned that without spring, the crops wouldn't grow. It wasn't long before he unwished his wish and things went back to normal. Now Pinkie understood his situation. Just like Hearth's Warming Eve, parties were special only if they didn't happen very often. And besides, with less parties, it gave her more time to plan them.

Still no sign of her sisters. No sounds of whispers or hoof-steps approaching outside the door. Pinkie smiled to herself. They were probably going crazy trying to find her. It was taking a long time. She had really picked a good spot. Cool and dark and quiet and very relaxing. It was as dark as night in here. In fact, it was kind of making her sleepy. Maybe she could just close her eyes for a few minutes. She was a light sleeper. She'd hear anyone that came in.

Pinkie startled awake to the sound of hoofsteps outside the door. Oops. She hadn't meant to fall asleep. But the fact that she was able to fall asleep at all just proved how good her spot really was.

She readjusted the sack on the ground, trying to find the most comfortable position. She shifted until she was comfortably seated instead of lying down. She didn't want to be asleep when they finally found her. Although she was starting to wish that they had by now. This had been fun at first, but she was getting bored, sitting here in the dark. And kind of hungry, too. A snack sounded like a good idea. Like a plate of cookies, or a slice of pie or even some ice cream. But her family never had those kinds of things. Dessert was only served on special occasions. Usually they just got fruit after dinner. Fruit wouldn't be so bad either. Something like some grapes or an apple. Or maybe a banana or two-

The door to the cellar creaked open and Pinkie ducked behind the potato sacks. She peered through the gaps to see a figure slowly walking in. This was it! Inkamina or Bellamina was only seconds away from finding her at last. She held as still as she could, not even daring to breathe loudly.

Whoever it was took their time, moving slowly across the cellar. Pinkie couldn't tell which of her sisters it was, nor why they seemed to be selecting vegetables and putting them in a basket. Oh well, she'd know soon enough. The figure approached her position and Pinkie hunkered low. She was going to wait for her sister to uncover her, but she decided to surprise her sister as payback for making her wait so long. She waited until the figure was right in front of her, tensed her legs, then-

“SURPRISE!”

“WAAAGUH!”

The basket of vegetables went flying, scattering produce across the floor. Pinkie's thrill turned to confusion when she saw whom she had scared.

“Mom? I didn't know you were playing with us.”

“Pinkamina, what in Equestria are you doing back there?”

“Hiding! I'm the best hider ever – Isabella and Bellamina still haven't found me.”

Her mother glanced out the open door. Pinkie was surprised to see that the sun had set.

“How long have you been down here?” her mother asked.

“Since just after we finished our chores.”

“You've been down here all afternoon?” Her mother frowned. “Bellamina said you were out rock collecting. Said you packed some food and wouldn't be back until bedtime.”

“No, we were playing hide-and-seek. Why would she think I was out collecting rocks?”

Her mother thought hard about something, then sighed. “Well, you missed dinner at any rate. I hope you did pack yourself a meal.”

Pinkie heard her stomach rumble. She missed dinner? She never missed a meal. Why hadn't Bellamina told her? Had she hidden that well?

“Is there any dinner left?” asked Pinkie, climbing out from behind the potatoes.

“A little bit,” replied her mother, picking up the vegetables she had flung everywhere. “These are for a stew for tomorrow night. Granny Pie is coming for a visit.”

Pinkie squealed with delight. “Yay! Granny's coming! Granny's coming! I'm so excited I could-”

Her stomach let out a much louder and harder-to-ignore growl.

“- eat something!”

Pinkie and her mother headed back inside and into the kitchen. She happily devoured the remains of the meal – fruit and vegetable salad with dandelions on top – while her mother spoke with the twins. Once she was finished, Pinkie dashed up to her room and began to clean it. Everything had to be perfect for Granny Pie.

Even though Pinkie loved her parents and her sisters with all her heart, Granny Pie was the only one to whom she could relate. She was always smiling about something, or singing a song, or telling jokes. The rest of her family was nice to Granny, but it seemed only Pinkie went out of her way to make Granny feel at home. Granny always repaid her for it too, either by giving her some of her special hoof-made candy or by telling her a new joke or something equally fun. Her visits made life on the dull farm a little bit brighter. Pinkie organized and sorted her collection of toys (there weren't many), neatly folded both her pretty dresses and then swept the floor until there wasn't a speck of dust left. Perfect. Granny would love it now!

But, she knew that the rest of the house wasn't clean. Especially not her sisters' room. They had so many rocks that it looked like they lived out in the fields. Pinkie didn't understand why they were so in love with plain old rocks when they could be coloring or painting with bright and happy colors. Oh, well. At the very least, she could try and help organize the rocks again. If they were put away neatly, the room could look nice. She trotted over to their room.

“Hey guys,” she called as she walked in. “Granny Pie's coming over tomorrow and we have to make everything nice and clean for her so I came to help! Also, I hid pretty good, didn't I? You didn't find me all day! I wish you would have told me about dinner, though.”

Her sisters sat on their beds, reading books. Both of them looked up as she came in, wearing unhappy expressions. Bellamina groaned.

“We don't need your help cleaning,” she said. “Granny's not going to come up here anyway.”

“Why not?” said Pinkie. “Don't you want to show her your room?”

“No,” said Isabella. “She'll just tell us it's boring and needs color.”

“But it is boring and it does need color!” said Pinkie.

“Our room is fine the way it is. Why do you always have to make everything look all weird?”

“Colors aren't weird, they're pretty.”

“Rocks are pretty,” said Bellamina, “and if you were really part of the family, you'd know that.”

Pinkie was stunned. “What?”

Bellamina closed her book and glared at her little sister. “You don't care about rocks or our farm at all, do you?”

“I – I do!”

“Oh yeah? Then why is your cutie mark some balloons instead of a crystal or something?” Bellamina climbed off her bed and approached Pinkie.

“I don't know. It just came like that. That doesn't mean I don't care about the farm! I'm still part of the family!” Pinkie felt her eyes beginning to sting.

“Well, mom and dad's cutie marks are about rock farming and when we get ours, they'll be about rock farming, but you're the only one that's different.” Now Bellamina drew herself up to her full height, staring down at Pinkie.

Pinkie began backing away.“But -”

“You aren't really one of us anymore,” said Bellamina, moving in so their muzzles were only inches apart. “So just go away. And don't ask us to play anymore either.”

“Yeah, no weirdos allowed,” said Isabella, sneering.

Pinkie ran back to her room, her oddly straight mane falling across her face and blocking her vision. They were right. She was different. And she would be different forever and they would never play with her again. She threw herself on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

Pinkie woke up the next morning still feeling heartbroken. It was probably only a matter of time before mom and dad told her she was too different from the family. Would they make her leave? Could she find a new family? The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes. She didn't want a new family – she wanted hers to love her again!

Maybe if she cut back on the parties for a while, her family might start to like her again. Maybe she could get really good at farming and then she'd get a new cutie mark. Was that possible? Could a pony change their cutie mark once they got it?

She got out of bed and went down to breakfast, still keeping quiet. Neither her parents nor her sisters said anything over their oatmeal, but Pinkie kept a wary eye on them all the same. If her sisters talked her mother and father into making her leave the farm, there probably wasn't anything she could do to stop them. But maybe she could convince them to let her stay if she spoke first.

Her chance came a little while later, while her mother was brushing her mane.

“Pinkamina, I don't know what you did to get your mane all neat and straight again, but I am grateful for it,” said her mother. “It must feel nice not to have all those tangles anymore.”

“Mom, am I weird?” Pinkie asked.

“Weird?”

“Yeah, Isabella and Bellamina said I was weird because my cutie mark wasn't about rock farming like yours and dad's.”

“Well, I admit it wasn't quite what we were expecting. We thought that you'd find a place here and stay on, like every Pie in our family has before. Now, I don't know what we can do for you.”

“So, does that mean I'll have to leave the farm?”

“Maybe one day. If you aren't meant to be here, then you aren't. We'll just have to wait and see.”

Before Pinkie could respond to that, somepony knocked on the front door. It opened with a squeak and then her father spoke.

“Hi mom! Good to see you!”

Pinkie jumped up and ran to the front door, her sadness temporarily forgotten. In the back of her mind, she thought she heard a sound like a party horn going off, but she paid no attention to it. Her mother let out a yelp of surprise.

“Granny's here! Granny's here!” Pinkie cheered as she ran.

“Pinkamina, get back here! You're mane's all tangled again!”

Pinkie raced out to see an older light purple pony at the front door. She was old and stiff, but her eyes sparkled with laughter.

“Hello Clyde! Good to see you too,” Granny said, giving him a hug. “Now, who's that I hear calling my name? Could it be my favorite granddaughter?”

“Hi Granny!” cried Pinkie, running up for a hug.

“There's my Pinkie Pie!” Granny said, scooping Pinkie up in her forelegs. “You get bigger every time I see you. And what's- oh my goodness me, you got your cutie mark!”

Pinkie beamed. “I sure did, Granny! Isn't it cool?”

“It's absolutely wonderful! And I think we ought to have a party to celebrate, don't you?”

“Yeah! I love parties!” said Pinkie.

“No! No more parties!” cried a voice from the hall. Pinkie and her granny turned to see a very grumpy looking Bellamina standing at the other end of the room. Isabella didn't say anything, but her expression mirrored her sister.

“Bellamina!” scolded her mother. “That's enough.”

Granny leaned over and whispered in Pinkie's ear. “There's a present for you out in my wagon. Why don't you go get it?”

Pinkie gave her granny another hug and headed outside. Granny's wagon was parked near the door and covered with a checkered cloth. She pulled it back to reveal boxes and baskets of different shapes and sizes. There, near the top, sat a small paper bag with her name on it. She grabbed it and nearly ripped it in her haste to get it open.

Candy! All her favorite candies were inside – sugar canes and sugar cubes and taffy and lollipops and gummy worms – there was so much and it was all for her. She ate everything that could be chewed, then pulled the biggest lolipop free of the bag and happily started licking it. It was nearly as big as her head. She thought as she ate.

Maybe instead of parties, she could make candy. Candy made ponies happy, right? Who didn't like the taste of different flavored sugars? Especially in desserts, like cookies and pies. Maybe Granny could teach her how to bake desserts.

The door to the house swung open and Granny emerged.

“Your mom tells me you all are a little burned out on parties,” she said. “So why don't we make this a two-pony affair? You and me can have a picnic up on the hilltop.”

“Sure!” said Pinkie. “And thanks for all the candy. I love candy!”

“I know you do,” said Granny, hitching herself to the wagon. “So, what have you been up to since my last visit?”

Pinkie happily told Granny everything interesting that had happened on the farm for the last several months. How she saw a huge rainbow that stretched across the entire sky, how happy her family was when she threw her first party, and how excited they were when her cutie mark appeared. She told Granny about how she threw parties whenever she got a new idea about how to throw them – surprise parties, costume parties, holiday parties, parties-for-no-reason-at-all parties. Her tone changed from excitement to confusion as she told how her family started leaving her parties earlier and earlier, ignoring the snacks and games, how they making excuses not to come, how upset her sisters had been recently and how it seemed like the only good thing that happened the last few days was finding out her granny was coming.

Granny Pie listened patiently as she spread the picnic blanket over the ground. She pulled plates full of treats out of the wagon and laid them out, inviting Pinkie to sit next to her.

“And then Bellamina called me a weirdo because I didn't have a rock farming cutie mark like mom or dad,” said Pinkie. “She and Isabella didn't used to be so mean. They used to want to play with me all the time, but now they just tell me to go away.”

“Sounds to me like they're jealous,” said Granny, reaching for a cookie.

“Jealous?”

“Yep. You got your cutie mark before either of them did and since you're the youngest, they don't think it's fair.”

Granny set the cookie plate between them, but Pinkie didn't even reach for it.

“But it wasn't my fault. It just showed up one day. If I knew they wanted to go first, I totally would have let them.”

“It's not up to you, sweetheart,” said Granny. “Cutie marks are a kind of magic we don't understand. They appear when they appear and that's that.”

“I wish I could change it,” said Pinkie, frowning at her flank. “Then everything would go back to the way it was. Bellamina and Isabella might like me better and they wouldn't say I was weird and didn't fit in.”

Her lip began to tremble.

“I'd change it to a rock farming cutie mark right now, just like mom's. If it was a rock or something, then I'd still be part of the family and I wouldn't have to leave!” A few tears fell. “I don't want to be different! If I have to leave my family, then I don't want my cutie mark!”

She started scraping at it, as if she could tear it off. “I hate it! I don't want it anymore!”

A gentle hoof stilled her motions and another wrapped around her chest. Granny pulled her in close, shushing her.

“Sweetheart, where did you ever get an idea like that? Why wouldn't you be part of your family anymore?”

Pinkie sniffled. “Bellamina told me it was because my cutie mark wasn't about a rock. She said I didn't belong with them anymore.”

“I'm going to have a talk with that filly. Sweetie, nothing could make you stop being a part of your family. That's why it's called a family. Because you're stuck with them. Bellamina told you something she shouldn't have because she was upset. Your parents aren't going to make you leave the farm unless you want to.”

“But I don't want to!”

“Why not?”

“Because-” Pinkie suddenly realized she didn't know why. “I don't know. I'm scared, I guess?”

“Do you have any friends you could go meet if you did leave?”

“Not really. Dad says I should be in school with other fillies, but there's so much to do on the farm that it's easier if he teaches me here at home.”

Granny nodded. “I see. You're scared of leaving because the only ponies you really know are here.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the birds in the distance.

“What if you traveled around with me for a while?” said Granny.

Pinkie looked up at her granny, eyes wide. Leave the farm? Go someplace she had never been, ever? The very idea gave her a fluttery feeling in her stomach, but at the same time, she was very curious.

“Where would we go?” asked Pinkie.

“All over the place! I sell my candy to lots of different places. You could help me sell it and meet new ponies in all those towns. It'll be an adventure. What do you think?”

Pinkie, for once, sat quietly and thought about it. Leaving the farm was still something of a scary prospect, but she wouldn't be going alone. Granny Pie was her favorite pony in the world and she had already been traveling far and wide; she'd know how to handle herself from place to place. Who knew? It might even be fun to meet new ponies from different places and find out what they were like. She might even get the chance to throw them parties, too.

“I wanna go,” said Pinkie, smiling again. “I've never had an adventure before. It could be fun.”

“Oh, it is!” said Granny, hugging her granddaughter again. “We'll go places you've never imagined! We could find ourselves in Manehattan or Las Pegasus. We might even wind up in Canterlot if I play my cards right.”

“Will there be parties?” asked Pinkie.

“More than you can count. You'll make friends at every one of them.”

“And make them all laugh and smile?”

“Of course! You might even find new ways to make ponies happy aside from parties.”

Granny nuzzled Pinkie, then retrieved a tin of fudge and a sealed pitcher of peach juice from the wagon. She poured two glasses of it, then lifted hers for a toast.

“To big adventures and new friends!” said Granny. Pinkie laughed as they clinked their glasses.

“I think our first stop should be Ponyville,” said Granny as Pinkie took a bite of fudge. “There's a darling couple living there that would love to meet you. They're bakers, you know. Own their own place; Sugarcube Corner, it's called.”

Granny spoke for a while about how welcoming and cozy Ponyville was, but Pinkie didn’t hear much. She couldn’t get her sisters out of her mind. She glanced up at her granny.

“And the town library has the largest selection of recipe books I’ve ever seen!”

“Granny?” said Pinkie.

“Yes?”

“I don’t think I want to leave with my sisters still mad at me.”

Granny nuzzled her again. “It’s not your fault they’re mad, sweetie.”

“I know, but I want to at least try to make them happy. I just don’t know how.”

“Well, what do they like?”

“Rocks, but rocks aren’t fun like parties.”

“You don’t think rocks are fun, but they do. Everypony is different and likes different things. The trick is learning to make them happy with the things they like.”

Pinkie scratched her chin, thinking hard. Whatever she did would have to have something to do with rocks. But what would they like?

“Could we make a cake that’s shaped like different kinds of rocks?” asked Pinkie.

“We could, or I could teach you how to make rock candy,” said Granny.

Pinkie’s face lit up. “Candy made out of rocks? Can you really do that?”

“Not quite. It has to do with something called crystallization, or turning sugar into crystals. It’ll take a few days to do, though.”

“Crystals?” Pinkie’s grin grew even wider. “That gives me another idea!”

Three days later, Pinkie stood in the living room with two suitcases. Her mother occasionally dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as her father helped Pinkie put on her saddlebags.

“You’re sure you have everything?” he asked.

Pinkie nodded with a grin. “I double checked! I’m totally ready to go travelling with Granny!”

The front door swung open. “Hurry it up, Clyde!” called Granny Pie. “We’ve places to be, you know.”

"Coming, mom," said Clyde, hefting the suitcase out the door.

“Pinkie, promise me you’ll stay out of trouble,” said Mrs. Pie, hugging the pink pony close.

“I will, Mom. Cross my heart and hope to fly.”

As they broke apart, the twins came into the living room, wearing the same flat expression. They and Pinkie hadn’t spoken much over the last few days, but Pinkie hadn’t had the time with all her preparations. She wasn’t surprised to see that they hadn’t really changed their attitudes.

“So,” said Isabella, looking away, “have a good trip, or whatever.”

“Yeah,” said Bellamina with a shrug. “What she said.”

“You bet I will!” said Pinkie. Her father and grandmother stepped back inside.

Pinkie turned to face them. “Oh! Granny, is it ready? Is it?”

“Sure is,” said Granny, passing her a box. “It’s all right here.”

Pinkie took the box over to her sisters.

“Listen,” she said. “I know you guys are kind of mad that I got my cutie mark first.”

The twins fidgeted a little.

“But I can understand why. Anyway, I didn’t want to leave with you still mad at me, so I made you something.”

She pulled out a pair of sticks with a clumpy pink substance on the ends.

“It’s rock candy!” said Pinkie. “You boil water and sugar until it melts, then you let it get hard again around a stick. It’s pink because I like pink and it kinda tastes like strawberries.”

Isabella gave hers a lick and made a noise of approval. Bellamina examined hers but didn’t taste it.

“And one more thing,” said Pinkie, reaching into the box again. “I know I said your room was boring, and should have some color in it, but you said you didn’t want anything painted, so I had another idea.”

She pulled out two hollow rocks that glittered inside. Thousands of crystals inside the rocks caught the light and sparkled like stars. Isabella’s shone a deep purple while Bellamina’s was a rich green.

“Geodes!” said Pinkie. “They’re colorful and they’re rocks! Now your room will be super pretty! I was saving them for your birthday, but then I thought, ‘That room needs color now.’”

Isabella smiled at Pinkie for the first time in days. She sprang forward and gave her a hug.

“Pinkie, it’s beautiful!” she said. “Thank you so much!”

“Hey, you called me Pinkie! Does this mean I can call you Inky?”

Inky grinned. “Sure you can!”

Pinkie released her and turned to the other twin.

“Do you like it, Bellamina? I know you’ve always wanted one.”

Bellamina looked up. “You knew?”

“Sure! A couple months ago, you said ‘Geodes are beautiful. I’d love to have one.’ So, I started exploring out on the edges of the farm until I found a really nice one for you and Inky. It took me a few weeks, but I found two and brought them back home and hid them for your birthday, but then I changed my mind and gave it to you today.”

“You went to all that trouble for something I said months ago?”

“Well, you’re my sister. Of course I did.”

Bellamina gave Pinkie the tightest hug she could manage. “Thanks, Pinkie. And I’m really sorry about telling you you weren’t part of the family anymore. That was mean.”

“Aw, it’s okay,” said Pinkie as they broke apart. “Can I start calling you Blinky now?”

“Yeah!” said Blinky, grinning.

The sisters never noticed their parents and grandmother looking on, watching with pride as their children grew up just a little more. Pinkie turned to face them.

“Okay, I’m ready! Let’s go, Granny!”

One last round of hugs and goodbyes, and Pinkie and Granny Pie headed outside. Granny hitched herself to the wagon and Pinkie jumped on the back, waving at her family.

“Bye, everypony! See you soon!” she said.

“Next stop, Ponyville!” said Granny.

They made their way down to the main road, turning east and smiling as the sun rose over what promised to be a wonderful day.

Rainbow Dash

Listening

Rainbow Dash pumped her wings as she swung past the cloud pillar. A shorter, wider cloud closed in on her other side. The gap between them was just wide enough for her to zip through without touching, but that wasn't cool enough. She rolled sideways and kicked the cloud with all four hooves. It took all of her strength since the cloud was bigger than she was, but it broke apart and drifted away. Rainbow Dash grinned to herself. Dad said she was still too little to do weather work, but she had just proved him wrong!

“Dad! Dad, did you see me?” cried Rainbow Dash to a stallion resting on a cloud. He rose as she flew over to him, smiling a little. His mane and tail were messy like hers, but cut shorter, colored alternating shades of gray and silver. It seemed to shimmer as he shook himself. His coat was nearly the same light blue as hers, and his fully grown wings dwarfed her own tiny pair.

“I did see you,” he said. “I didn't think you were big enough to kick apart clouds, but I guess I was wrong.”

Rainbow Dash beamed, trotting happily across the cloud. When she looked up again, Dad's smile had mostly faded. She slowed to a stop.

“But I set that up as a slalom course,” he said, “Not cloud kicking.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I don't need any training, Dad. I'm already awesome!”

“You can fly fast, but you don't have any precision.”

“So what? I don't need it.”

“You do if you want to pass flight school,” said Dad. “Your instructor was very clear. He's gotten tired of you barrelling through the obstacles to the finish line and declaring yourself the winner.”

She scoffed. “He's just mad that I beat all the other students. The point of the game is to win, right?”

“It's not winning if you broke all the rules to do it.”

“Rules are dumb! All they do is keep things from being fun.”

Dad looked into her eyes. “Rules are a part of life, Dash. Sometimes they aren't fun, and sometimes they don't seem to mean anything. But rules keep things in order; and sometimes they are there to protect you from doing something dangerous.”

Rainbow Dash scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It's not like I'm gonna go hurt myself on purpose.”

Her dad gave her a gentle smile. “You can't always tell what's dangerous, Dash,” he said. “Now, what's say we give the slalom another shot, huh?”

“No.” Rainbow Dash folded her forelegs. “It's boring. I wanna go play in the park.”

Now it was her dad's turn to sigh. “Fine. What are the rules for going off on your own?”

“Why do I have to say them every time?” said Rainbow Dash.”

“Because I want to make sure you know them.”

“But I do know them!”

“Then prove it.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes again, making it clear she thought everything her dad was making her do was boring and not fun.

“Don't fly below the city, come home by sunset and stay out of the slump yard,” she recited. Her dad patted her shoulder.

“Good girl. Now give me a kiss.”

Rainbow Dash jumped into the air, flapping away from him. “Ew, no!”

“Fine, I'll do it myself.” He darted after her, planting a kiss on her cheek.

“Yuck! Gross!” Rainbow Dash scrubbed at her cheek, flying off as she did.

“See you later, kiddo!” he called.

Rainbow Dash made her way over to the nearby park, still fuming. Why did her dad have to be so embarrassing? He had to be doing it on purpose, just to make her squirm. Good thing nopony else had seen that; she wouldn't have been able to handle it.

As she drew close to the park, she suddenly spotted a white colt with a gray mane and tail flying overhead – Thunderhead, the coolest Pegasus in Cloudsdale.

Rainbow Dash leaped into the air, calling out to him.

“Hey Thunderhead! Where are you going?”

“Gonna play some stormball in the park,” he said, glancing at her.

“Can I come?”

“Sure,” he answered with a shrug. She bolted after him.

Rainbow Dash followed Thunderhead to the park where he met up with a group of his friends. Thunderhead and his friends were about a year older than her, but didn't mind her hanging around too much. Good thing too, because Thunderhead and his friends were the coolest pegasai in Cloudsdale. Rainbow Dash would have given anything to be as cool as them. They knew how to glide on thermals and never got lost or dizzy doing rolls, and some of them could even make the clouds rain. Usually, ponies had to go to weather school to learn how to do that. Thunderhead's parents were instructors at the school, which meant that he knew everything they knew. Rainbow Dash figured if she hung around him long enough, she'd pick up some good tricks and she wouldn't have to bother with the dumb obstacle course anymore.

Eventually, Thunderhead invited her over to join their game. Rainbow Dash was thrilled, naturally, and did her best to keep up with the older ponies. Despite not having their fine maneuvering control, she still managed to score a goal on her own. The others cheered and shouted for her. All too soon, though, the game was over and the players flew off. Rainbow Dash and Thunderhead stayed back, though Dash wasn't sure what they were waiting for.

“You were awesome out there,” called a filly's voice. They looked up to see a pink and purple filly flying over to them. Thunderhead smiled and straightened up a little.

“Hey Sun Dancer,” he said, sounding rather nervous. “You really thought I was awesome?”

“Oh yeah. Too bad your friends didn't stick around; we could have another game and then you could really show off your moves.”

Thunderhead smiled even wider and threw out his chest.

“Maybe you and I can just play one-on-one,” he said, stepping a little closer to her. Sun Dancer giggled and blushed.

Rainbow Dash glanced back and forth. The goings-on of older ponies were still mostly a mystery to her, but she suspected the pair was about to do something mushy and gross, like kiss. Fortunately, she was saved by something falling out of the sky and landing in a heap next to her. All of them stared at it for a moment, but the something managed to stand up and brush the clouds off its body.

“There you are,” said Sun Dancer. “I was hoping you hadn't run off. Guys, this is my cousin, Fluttershy.”

Rainbow Dash took another look, recognizing the filly from Summer Flight Camp. She still felt a little guilty for knocking the filly off the cloud, but the grown-ups found her within an hour, none the worse for wear. Still, Rainbow Dash thought she ought to at least acknowledge her, if only to hear a 'thank you' from the filly.

“I remember you from Flight Camp,” said Rainbow Dash.

Polite conversation was not one of her skills.

Fluttershy scuffed the cloud they stood on with her hoof. Rainbow Dash waited for her to say something, but Fluttershy didn't even look up.

“Hello? Can you even hear me?”

“Um... hi,” Fluttershy whispered, still not looking up. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“You're not still mad because I knocked you off that cloud, are you? It wasn't my fault! Okay, it was a little my fault, but I was only trying to teach those bullies a lesson.”

“I'm not mad at you.”

“Good. I'd be pretty mad at somepony who knocked me off a cloud. What happened to you after you fell, anyway?”

Fluttershy's whole face lit up and she proceeded to talk Dash's ears off about how she bonded with the woodland creatures on the ground and learned how she could talk with them. Rainbow Dash stared at her the entire time; she had never known Fluttershy to be anything other than quiet and timid. It was kind of weird.

“And that was when I got my cutie mark,” said Fluttershy. “I really want to bring Angel Bunny with me to camp this year, but I'm not sure a bunny can walk on clouds.”

“Hold on,” said Rainbow Dash, raising a hoof. “Why are you going to camp again? I thought you finished.”

Fluttershy kicked at the cloud again. “Well, um, they didn't think I was doing very well and I kind of, um, got held back.”

“Oh.”

Having no idea how to respond to that, Rainbow Dash turned her attention back to the others.

“So I was thinking,” Thunderhead was saying, “Since we can't play a wild game of Stormball with only the four of us, maybe we could head over to the weather factory. My dad said Manehattan ordered a huge storm for next week and they have to ship it tomorrow. I wanna check it out.”

“Cool!” said Sun Dancer. Rainbow Dash agreed. Fluttershy, however, was less in favor of the whole endeavor.

“Um, I don't know,” she started, but Sun Dancer interrupted.

“Aw, come on, Fluttershy, what's the harm in looking?”

Sun Dancer offered her an encouraging smile and Fluttershy lifted her head a little.

“I guess it doesn't sound so bad,” she said.

“Great, let's go!” said Thunderhead, leaping into the sky. The others followed quickly after him.

It wasn't a long trip to the weather factory. Being Cloudsdale's main industry, it was located at the north end of town and took up a considerable portion of the overall space. At the outermost edge of the factory sat the output line. Here clouds and storms sat in a kind of corral, waiting to be delivered. The four friends flew high over them, impressed by the sheer size of it. The storm was one huge black mass of clouds which were so dense, they looked like rocks.

“Wow! It's huge,” said Sun Dancer. “It must have taken them days to put this together.”

“I know,” said Thunderhead. “I wish we could go down there and set the whole thing off.”

Like most young ponies in Cloudsdale, all four of them had relatives either working at the factory or studying in weather school for when they would eventually work there. As a result, nearly everyone in the city, young and old, had a working knowledge of how weather was formed, distributed and used. And, as is normal for young ponies, how it could best be abused.

“Oh no, we can't set off this storm ,” whispered Fluttershy. “All those ponies in the factory worked hard to put it together. We can't wreck their work. And the storm would be so big and scary...”

“Are you kidding?” said Rainbow Dash. “It would be awesome! I've always wanted to set off an unpacked storm.”

“You know, if we set this one off right here, it would probably wreck the weather factory before it was out of power,” said Sun Dancer.

“Wow,” said Thunderhead. “That kind of makes me want to do it even more.”

“No, please!” Fluttershy begged at the suggestion. “That's just – that would be so mean!”

Sun Dancer rolled her eyes. “We're just kidding, Fluttershy. We would never do that. No matter how cool it would be...”

Rainbow Dash thought quickly. This was her chance! If she could show Thunderhead something cool for them to do, he would think she was cool too. But where could they find enough active clouds for a mini-storm? Everything was already packed up. Well, everything except-

“The slump yard!” cried Rainbow Dash. The others turned to face her. Fluttershy looked nervous, Sun Dancer didn't seem impressed, but Thunderhead was grinning.

“Yeah!” he said. “With a storm this big, the slump yard is bound to be full of cast offs. Come on, let's go!”

The four pegasai flew off to the far side of the factory where leftover clouds, unsuitable for use in a storm, sat waiting for recycling. Some drifted in erratic circles, others dripped rain in one stream rather than drops and several simply held no water. Once in awhile, one of the larger clouds let off a small peal of thunder and tiny sparks of lightning.

“Watch out for those,” said Sun Dancer, pointing to the thundering clouds. “If just one goes off, it could start a chain reaction.”

Rule number three – stay out of the slump yard.

Rainbow Dash could still hear her dad's words ringing in her ears, but she shrugged it off. As long as they weren't stupid, they could do whatever they wanted.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she said, not sure if she was disregarding Sun Dancer or her dad's warning. “Check this out!”

She flew over to one of the light gray clouds, reared and kicked it with all her might. It came apart with a soft 'poof'. Thunderhead grinned.

“Not bad, pipsqueak,” he said. “I thought you were too little to kick clouds.”

Rainbow Dash bristled at the use of the nickname she hated, but was willing to let it slide just this once.

“Hey, after pulling off a Sonic Rainboom, kicking clouds is easy-peasy.” Rainbow Dash folded her forelegs and gave him a smug smile.

“Oh please,” said Thunderhead. “Do you still think you did that?”

“I did!” said Rainbow Dash. “I went faster than any pony ever and KABLOOIE! One Sonic Rainboom, thank you Rainbow Dash!”

“That is not what happened,” said Sun Dancer, hopping on a spiraling cloud. She slowly turned in circles as it moved. “Everyone one knows it was a weather factory accident.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Fluttershy, sitting up from a dripping cloud, splashing her tail with rainwater. “Was anypony hurt?”

“Nope,” said Thunderhead. “Some idiot accidentally spilled rainbow fluid into one of the lightning generators. They dumped the generator over an empty field so it wouldn't blow anything up in the factory. It exploded before it hit the ground.”

“It was too me!” insisted Rainbow Dash. She whirled to face the other filly. “Fluttershy, you were there; tell them what really happened.”

“It wasn't a Rainboom!” Thunderhead insisted. “There's no such thing!” He turned to the yellow filly. “You read all the news reports, didn't you?”

Fluttershy glanced back and forth between the two of them, shrinking back.

“Um, well-”

“Come on,” said Rainbow Dash. “It was me and you know it! Tell him!”

Fluttershy flinched, ducking her head low. “I-I don't really want to cause an argument. Or make one worse.”

Rainbow Dash glared, but before she could argue any further, a gust of wind shoved her into a leaking raincloud. It burst as she collided with it, drenching her.

“Sorry,” said Sun Dancer, giggling. “Some of these have wind pockets in them.”

“Wind pockets?” said Thunderhead. “Cool! Let's find another one!”

Rainbow Dash shook off the excess water. “I'll bet I find it first!”

The two of them took off in opposite directions. Truth be told, Rainbow Dash was still mad that nopony believed her about the Sonic Rainboom. Her dad did, or at least, he never said she didn't do it. What was so hard to believe about it, anyway? She was so awesome that she could make legends come true! And for once, she wasn't exaggerating.

With a huff, she pushed her thoughts out of her mind. She'd prove it one day. And besides, she could be awesome for other things, too; like being the youngest filly that could control the weather. This was the perfect chance to show Thunderhead that she wasn't some silly little filly who pretended she was a grown-up. But first, she had to find one of those windy clouds. She had no idea what a cloud with a wind pocket in it might look like, but her first thought was that it might be big. She flew to the biggest cloud and yelled at Thunderhead.

“Hey, I found one! Watch this!”

She turned around and bucked the cloud with all her might. But, instead of crumbling, the cloud bounced like rubber, throwing her head over tail through the air until she managed to catch herself. She whipped around, hoping Thunderhead had somehow missed it, but no such luck. He was rolling around on another cloud, holding his sides and laughing long and loud. Rainbow Dash felt her face turning red.

“What's so funny?” she said.

“You, pipsqueak! You tried to kick the cloud and it kicked you back!”

“Stop laughing!” she said, folding back her ears. She was back to hating the nickname and it must have showed on her face. Her outburst only made him laugh harder.

“That's not how you set of a wind pocket, pipsqueak,” said Sun Dancer. Rainbow Dash felt her blush deepen. Not her too!

“You gotta hit it in the sweet spot to make it do anything,” the older filly explained. She moved over to a dark gray cloud and prodded it a few times. She gave it a swift kick just south of center and it let loose a shower of rain.

“Ooh, let me try,” said Thunderhead, still giggling a little. He poked at the cloud he had been rolling on, then gave it a kick. It let out a huge gust of wind, making the clouds jostle each other. A few spat out flickering bolts of lightning when they made contact and Rainbow Dash watched in wide-eyed amazement. But she smoothed out her expression when she saw Thunderhead watching her.

“Pfft, that's not so hard,” said Rainbow Dash. She found another cloud and poked at it. At first, it felt tough and resistant, but as she nudged it, she found a soft spot in its side. Marking it, she turned and bucked the spot hard. The cloud dissolved without a sound.

Thunderhead burst out laughing again and Sun Dancer grinned.

“You got the right idea, pipsqueak,” said Sun Dancer, “But you don't need to hit it so hard.”

Another gust blew the clouds toward the edge of the yard and Thunderhead cheered. Rainbow Dash went to cloud after cloud, trying to find just one she could get to release its payload without dissolving on her. Fluttershy sat at the edge of the yard, keeping an eye out for grown-ups who would get them in trouble. Though she might not be able to shout loud enough to warn them, Rainbow Dash reasoned. Occasionally, another gust of wind or burst of rain came from Thunderhead and Sun Dancer's shenanigans, but Rainbow Dash was too focused on her own efforts to notice. She was determined to get it right.

Finally, after what felt like hours, she got one to let out a little thunder for her. Grinning, she spun around and called for the others.

“Hey guys, watch this!”

They turned at her shout, but Sun Dancer's eyes suddenly went wide. “No, Rainbow! Not that one!”

Rainbow Dash planted a mighty kick to the sweet spot of the cloud and it let out a crash of thunder. She laughed out loud.

“Aw, yeah! Who's awesome now, Dunderhead?”

Thunderhead did not look as impressed as she had hoped. Instead, he was staring behind her, eyes widening. Something behind her rumbled, but before she could say anything, Sun Dancer raced over and started pulling her away. Confused, Rainbow Dash tried to break out of her grip.

“What are you doing?” she said, struggling. “Let go!”

“You set off a chain reaction,” said Sun Dancer. “This whole yard will be a storm in a few minutes!”

Rainbow Dash turned to see that the cloud she had kicked was sparking lightning into the clouds around it. The surrounding clouds had begun sparking as well, forming a very small but powerful storm cloud in the center of the yard. When she saw that the lightning was striking out toward the other unstable clouds, her stomach sank, making her feel twenty pounds heavier. Rain began to fall, drizzling from some clouds and gushing from others.

“We gotta get out of here!” said Thunderhead.

The rainbow filly panicked. “We can't leave it like this! I'll get in trouble! My dad hates it when I break the rules!”

She broke out of Sun Dancer's hold and flew back to the yard. “C'mon! We gotta stop it!”

By then, lightning had spread to the wind pockets and rainclouds, setting them off and kicking up wild gusts and cloudbursts. Rainbow Dash flew toward the center of the chaos, trying to separate the most volatile lightning clouds from the rest. The metallic smell of lightning stung her nostrils, making it hard to breathe, but she pressed on, trying to find the gaps between the clouds. In the back of her mind, she thought she saw two silhouettes flying away from her, but she paid them no mind. She soon found she couldn't get close without being fried by a stray bolt, so she focused on the clouds surrounding it. She twisted and bucked at every passing cloud, but nothing seemed to help.

Wind pockets burst, scattering everything and knocking her off course. Rain and hail pounded her as the lightning knocked the contents of nearby clouds loose, forcing her to fly lower and lower to get underneath. Now the entire slump yard was one huge storm and it was all she could do to stay in the air. At the edge of the yard, she thought she saw a flicker of yellow and pink, but it was gone so quick she couldn’t be sure she had seen anything.

Gusts from the pockets wreaked havoc with her flight pattern, and the drenching rain soaked her feathers, making them nearly useless. Rainbow Dash fought for stability, dipping even lower. She looked down to gauge her distance and suddenly went numb with fear. There was nothing between her and the ground now; she had flown below the cloud line. The sight of the massive expanse of emptiness below her gave her vertigo. If for some reason she suddenly began to fall, nothing would catch her before she hit the ground. She gulped and glanced back up, but the sun had set. She couldn't tell the city from the storm, aside from the occasional flash of lightning – it was too dark.

She did the only thing she could think of and flew back toward the storm. If she could find her way through it, maybe she could get back before she was lost forever. The storm surrounded her and she fought her way through driving rain and stinging hail, calling out as loud as she could.

“Thunderhead! Sun Dancer! Where are you? I can't see anything!”

Nopony answered her. The thunder was too loud. Hail fell hard and rattled on her head, and something stung her ear, but Rainbow Dash kept flying, trying to find her way above the clouds. It was impossible to see and soon she found herself dipping below the storm again, looking for a solution.

Suddenly, something struck her on the wing, making her whole joint freeze up. She screamed, flapping awkwardly, until she managed to latch onto a benign cloud drifting by. It dawned on her that she wouldn't be able to get back to the city with an injured wing. In fact, she would probably be stuck floating out here until the storm blew itself out. She shook with terror. Spending the night in the sky with an unstable storm over her head was a bad idea.

The wind blew hard, feeling twenty degrees colder than it had only minutes ago. Rainbow Dash shivered, wondering why she thought impressing Thunderhead was so important. She would never have bothered if she had known it would have led to this. The blue filly gave a pathetic sniffle. Her dad was right. The slump yard was too dangerous for little ponies. She had been worried about making him mad, but right now, she just wanted him there with her. Yelling at her, scolding her, she didn’t care; she was too scared to care.

Another bolt of lightning flashed, this time just missing her nose. Rainbow Dash gripped the cloud as hard as she could, shaking with fright.

“Somepony help me!” she screamed. “Please! Dad, help me! DAD!”

As if in response, a pair of hooves suddenly wrapped around her, drawing her in. Together, Rainbow Dash and whoever her rescuer was flew down and away from the storm.

“Dash! Thank Celestia you're alright!” said a deep and familiar voice.

The filly looked up to see her dad, relief plain on his face. She turned over and buried her face in his chest, clutching at him. He had found her. She was safe.

Rainbow Dash was so relieved, she started bawling. He held her even tighter.

“Four winds, look at your wing,” he said. “You need to go to the clinic.”

He held her gently, nuzzling her occasionally, and she watched in silence as they rose above the cloud line until Cloudsdale was visible again. Slowly her relief gave way to remorse.

“Dad, I'm sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“The storm in the slump yard. It-it was my fault. Me and some of the other fillies were playing there and we tried kicking the clouds, but then one had lightning in it and it set off the other lightning clouds and it just kept getting bigger and I was so scared that I was going to get lost and I know you told me not to play in the slump yard or fly below the clouds but it was a mistake! Please, please don't be mad at me!”

Her dad stroked her mane. “I'm not mad at you, Dash. Why would you think I'd be mad at you for all this?”

She stared up at him in wonder. Not mad? “But you hate it when I break the rules.”

He smiled. “Well, I do get disappointed when you disobey, but right now, I'm just happy you're safe.”

Rainbow Dash turned around to see that they were flying toward Cloudsdale's main district. Her dad aimed for the building with the large red cross on the sign.

“So, I'm not going to get in trouble?” she said.

“Well, you did disobey me, so you are in trouble. But not right now.”

They flew through the door and landed gently in front of the receptionist, who came around to take a look at the filly. Her dad spent the next few minutes filling out forms for the doctor while Rainbow Dash did her best to keep from jostling her wing. As they waited to be called, she asked one more question.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Your friend Fluttershy flew back to the park and found me there. She told me you were in trouble and that I had to find you. I'm not sure she knew I was your dad; I think she just told the first group of grown-ups she came across.” He smiled down at her. “She'll probably be happy to know that you're safe.”

He wrapped his wing around her and she snuggled close to him, thinking hard. Rainbow Dash had always thought of Sun Dancer and Thunderhead as her friends, but now she wasn’t so sure. They were both older than her and would have known that she needed help, but they didn’t even try to help her once she got lost. Only Fluttershy had gone out of her way to help.

I’d better say thank you the next time I see her, she thought, remembering her manners. Maybe see if she likes cloud chasing or something. I wonder if she has any friends?

She made up her mind to find Fluttershy sometime tomorrow and ask. Just then, the nurse called her name. Rainbow Dash and her father met with the doctor, who carefully examined her injured wing. Fortunately for her, the injury was minor and she was sent home with her wing in a splint. Her father had to carry her, of course, but she didn’t mind. She hadn’t ridden on his back since she learned how to fly on her own. Tonight, though, she was too tired to walk the whole way back home. Not a few minutes out of the clinic, Rainbow Dash had fallen fast asleep on her father’s back, dreaming of clear skies and a warm bed.

Applejack

Waiting

“Sit up properly, Applejack,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “Don't slouch.”

Applejack did as she was told, straightening her back and lifting her head. Auntie Brown Betty nodded her approval, but now Applejack found her oatmeal was out of reach. How was she supposed to eat breakfast and sit up straight at the same time? She thought about asking just that when she noticed that Big Macintosh was holding his bowl in his hooves. He sipped at it from the edge in small mouthfuls. Uncle Fritter was doing the same thing.

It didn't look too hard, but Applejack still wasn't very good at balancing things on her hooves. Well, this would just be a good time to practice, she reasoned as she picked up her bowl. It was slippery and wobbly, but she kept reasonable control of it and began to sip at her oatmeal. She did alright at first, but the more she tilted it, the faster the oatmeal flowed. She tried to slow the flow by tilting it the other way, but it started to slip. She overcorrected and the bowl tumbled into her lap, splattering its contents all over her chest and belly.

“Oops.” Applejack looked up to see Auntie Brown Betty frowning at her. “I'll clean that up.”

She got a rag and did her best to mop up the worst of the spill. It seemed a waste to throw away a nearly full bowl of food, but the oatmeal she wiped off herself had her hair in and she certainly didn't want anything that had touched the floor. Apple Bloom giggled from her high chair. She was just as covered in oatmeal as Applejack, but foals could get away with being covered in food.

“Sorry,” she said, sitting back down at the table. “Can I have some more?”

“You already had your portion,” said Uncle Fritter.

“But I spilled it. I didn't get to eat hardly any.”

“I didn’t make enough oatmeal for everypony to have seconds,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “There’s some fruit if you still want something.”

She passed a shallow bowl of grapes to Applejack, who helped herself to a small cluster. They were rather sour, but she didn’t complain about them. Auntie Brown Betty nodded at her.

“See? You still got your breakfast. And eating a little less won’t kill you before lunchtime, will it?”

“No, Auntie,” said Applejack.

“Thatta girl. And next time, don't be so clumsy,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “Now, go on out to the fields. Time for your chores.”

Applejack stood and left the kitchen, casting a jealous eye on Big Macintosh who was still happily enjoying his oatmeal. The back door banged shut behind her.

A visit from her aunt and uncle, who had retired from farm work a few years before, had been fun at first. But Auntie Brown Betty and Uncle Fritter didn't seem to be as nice as Applejack remembered them being in previous visits. Normally, they would only spend a day or two visiting the farm, but Granny Smith had recently had surgery on her hip. She had been recovering in the hospital for the last week and had asked the relatives to come in to keep an eye on Apple Bloom and the farm in general. Uncle Fritter worked out in the fields with the hired ponies and Applejack and Big Macintosh helped wherever they could, in between regular visits to Ponyville Hospital, of course. Although, Uncle Fritter didn't let Applejack join them when they went apple bucking. Now her job was merely moving baskets and picking up bruised apples and other simple chores.

Auntie Brown Betty spent most of her time fussing over Apple Bloom and teaching Applejack how to be 'proper.' She had mentioned that she didn't think Granny Smith was raising them with proper country manners or something. Applejack had learned plenty about being 'proper' while she had been in Manehattan and didn't want to know any more, especially since 'proper' meant not stomping through mud puddles, or playing with Dixie and her puppies or doing almost any kind of farm work. Worst of all was the fact that both her auntie and uncle had decided that snacks weren't 'proper' either. Applejack had had a big appetite since she had been a foal, and while Granny had been kind enough to leave out fruits and vegetables, and the occasional baked treat, her auntie and uncle had put a stop to her snacking almost immediately.

Well, inside the house anyway. They lived in an orchard; there was always plenty of food outside that nopony would miss. She made her way out to the western Russet orchard. The hired ponies who worked at the farm with them got up at sunrise and were already hard at work. They waved as she grew close.

“AJ, there you are,” called Taffy, one of the hired ponies. “Give us a hoof setting out these baskets, will you?”

“Sure thing,” she called, running over to him. One by one, she helped him set out the apple-catching baskets beneath the trees. She spent the next few hours doing that, along with sorting apples as they were bucked out of the trees. It was hard work and, combined with the fact that she had spilled most of her breakfast instead of eating it, Applejack was soon hungry. Once or twice, she nipped an apple out of the catching baskets; Taffy never saw her do it. More often, she'd find a slightly bruised one lying on the ground and eat it – she wouldn't get in trouble taking something they were just going to feed to the pigs anyway.

-=-

“Lunchtime!” called Uncle Fritter from the front step of the house, a few hours later. Applejack had been happily playing with the puppies once her chores were finished and had managed to work up quite an appetite, despite all the apples she’d eaten. She took the dogs back to the pen and joined Big Macintosh and the hired ponies as they happily trotted into the house. The colts reached the table first, taking their seats before a pile of grilled cheese and daisy sandwiches and a tray of vegetables. Applejack followed, but Auntie Brown Betty stepped in front of her.

“Proper ladies do not attend meals looking as if they have been rolling in the mud,” she said. “Go upstairs, wash your face and hooves and comb your mane.”

“I'm not that dirty,” Applejack protested. “'Sides, you didn't make the others wash up.”

“Don't argue with me, young filly,” said her auntie. “Off you go.”

Applejack ran upstairs to the bathroom and scrubbed off as much of the mud as she could see, then dragged a brush through her mane, frowning all the while.

By the time she came back downstairs, there was only one sandwich left. She pounced on it before Big Macintosh could gobble it up. She would have liked another one, but based on how they reacted at breakfast, it wasn’t likely her auntie and uncle would be willing go to the trouble of cooking up another sandwich just for her. Instead, she contented herself with a few helpings of vegetables. After a scolding from Auntie Brown Betty about eating neatly and daintily like a proper lady, Applejack scampered outside, eager to help again.

-=-

A farmer’s work isn’t done until the sun sets at the end of the day. On Sweet Apple Acres, it meant that the afternoon was just as busy as the morning, if not more so. The hired ponies, faithfully followed by Big Macintosh, headed off to the eastern orchards to buck down the Gala apples. Once again, Applejack did her best to convince them that she could help and once again, Uncle Fritter held her back.

“Your auntie doesn’t want you doing dangerous work,” he said.

“It ain’t dangerous,” she replied with a stamp of her hoof. “I’ve been buckin’ trees since I got back from Manehatten. It’s what I’m ‘sposed to do!”

“There’s lots of other work to be done to keep a farm running,” he said, tousling her mane a bit. “Somepony’s gotta take care of the pigs, after all. I’m sure you’ll be a great applebucker when you’re a big pony.”

Applejack glared at him. “I am a big pony!”

He paid her no mind. “The pigs need feeding, Applejack. Off you go.”

She turned and left, still grumbling to herself.

-=-

Twenty minutes later, Applejack was wrestling with the pigs in their pen. She had fed them first, of course, but watching them eat their slop wasn’t entertaining for very long. Thinking that she could train them like dogs, she had tossed apples for them to catch. She wasn’t a great thrower, though, and more often than not, the apples bounced right off the pigs’ heads. Then she thought she could get them to eat one right out of her hoof on command, but they wouldn’t listen when she told them to sit and had bowled her over in the race to get the food. One thing led to another and soon it became a game of seeing who could knock who over. But her fun was interrupted by Auntie Brown Betty calling her inside. She sighed as she climbed out of the pig pen, wondering what this was all about.

“Look at you! You're covered in mud!” exclaimed Auntie Brown Betty, seeing the filly approach the farm house.

“I was just playin' with the pigs,” said Applejack. Her auntie merely scowled.

“Upstairs and in the tub with you, young filly. March!”

Her auntie nudged her none too gently in the rump and Applejack headed for the stairs.

“Why do I need a bath in the afternoon anyway?” said Applejack. “I'm just gonna get muddy again.”

“Some of my society friends are visiting for tea,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “It'll do you some good to see how proper ladies behave, so you're going to join us.”

They reached the bathroom as she spoke. The tub was full of suds and Applejack reluctantly undid the hair bands that kept her mane and tail tied up. Before she could move, her auntie picked her up and plunked her in the tub and began to douse her with water.

“I can mind my manners just fine,” said Applejack, sputtering a little.

Auntie Brown Betty took the washcloth and began scrubbing at Applejack's coat. The filly fidgeted when her auntie rubbed too hard, but the mare took no notice.

“Hardly,” said her auntie. “Rolling around in the mud with dogs and pigs is no place for a little filly. It's time you learned about proper society manners – learn them again, I should say.” She huffed and pulled Applejack out of the tub and started toweling her off. “You spent a month in Manehattan, for goodness' sake! Don't you remember anything they taught you?”

Auntie Brown Betty paused a moment with the towel and Applejack took the chance to shake off the excess water. Her auntie stopped her abruptly by clamping the towel down around her.

“And no more of that, either!” she snapped. “Use the towel. I'm going to get your mane brush and your dress.”

“Dress? Why do I have to wear a dress?” said Applejack, blotting the water out of her coat. “I don't like wearin' frilly stuff.”

“You'll wear it because I told you so,” said her auntie, who began tugging the brush through Applejack's tangled tail. “You want to make a good impression on high society ponies, don't you?”

Tired of being told what she was going to do and going to like, she said what she really felt. “No. Sounds borin'.”

Applejack suddenly yelped. “Ow! You pulled my tail!”

“I'll pull it harder next time if you don't fix your attitude.” Auntie Brown Betty began to run the brush through her mane, only slightly more gently than she had through her tail. Applejack kept her mouth closed, not letting herself cry out as her auntie yanked her mane around. If she was just going to get in trouble every time she opened her mouth, it wasn't worth it.

After several minutes of brushing, pulling, pinning and curling, her mane was finally done. Auntie Brown Betty brought over a frilly yellow dress and pulled it over the filly's head before she could complain about the way it looked. At last, Auntie Brown Betty sat back and smiled for the first time all day.

“There we are! Oh, don't you look just precious?”

Applejack stared at her reflection in total disbelief. Her mane was pulled into looping ringlets and arranged like a crown on her head. Her tail had been braided so tightly she could barely move it. The frilly yellow dress didn't quite fit and didn't exactly match her coat or mane or eyes, or any part of her, really. The farm pony she knew and saw every day in the mirror had been replaced by one of those fancy fillies she saw around town; the ones that giggled at everything in too-high voices or the ones that complained if their carrot soup was too orange. This wasn't the look of a hard-working earth pony – she looked like some snooty, self-important unicorn, like that white one with the purple mane she'd seen around town who was always gabbing on about clothes.

“I look silly,” Applejack said. “And I feel silly.”

“Nonsense! You look like a lady,” said her auntie, beaming. “You look just like my Honeydrop the day she left for Fillydelphia. She owns her own art gallery now, did you know? She might even open a second one in Canterlot.” She sighed. “Can you imagine? My daughter, in Canterlot, where all the really important ponies are! I only wish I could have gotten so far at her age.”

Applejack frowned at her reflection, tugging at the dress with her teeth.

“This dress is kinda big,” she said.

“It was Honeydrop's, so it might not fit you very well. But not to worry – you'll grow into it!”

Applejack didn't like the sound of that – as if Auntie Brown Betty was going to stick around to see her grow up.

“When can I take it off?” she said.

Auntie Brown Betty rolled her eyes. “Later. Now come on, we need to make some tea and snacks for my friends.”

-=-

Applejack smiled fixedly at Daisy May and Lavender, the two fancied-up unicorns who had come to visit Auntie Brown Betty. They talked and talked about grown-up things while she sat still, trying not to yawn too loudly. She couldn’t help but fidget in her seat; the dress was itchy all over and she had yet to settle into a spot where it didn’t bother her. Auntie Brown Betty cleared her throat and the filly stopped moving at once.

They continued talking about nothing she cared about and Applejack felt her mind wander. Suddenly, a yawn caught her off-guard, overriding her fixed smile. She tried to hold it back, but the fact was, this was boring and she couldn’t deny it anymore. The ladies paused their conversation, and Applejack felt her face heat.

“‘Scuse me,” she said, once she’d finished.

Daisy May and Lavender shared an amused glance, but Auntie Brown Betty’s eye twitched.

“Applejack, dearest, why don’t you bring out that plate of cucumber sandwiches from the kitchen?” she said.

The filly did as she was told, grateful for even a moment away from all the boring grown-up talk.
A large plate of cucumber sandwiches, half the size of normal sandwiches, sat on the kitchen table, next to a few other plates piled high with goodies. Applejack dragged the plate to the edge of the table and began the careful process of balancing it on her head, trying not to upset her mane style.

A low voice chuckled at her from the back door. Applejack turned to see Big Macintosh standing in the doorway, grinning at her.

“You look like a pig in a wig!” he said.

“I do not!” she snapped, blushing.

“Someone's taken my sister and put a frilly, pretty pansy pony here in her place!”

“I am not a pansy pony!” She pushed the plate back onto the table, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.

He chuckled. “'Course you are. No frilly pansy pony would do any farm work. Wouldn't want to chip a hoof from apple bucking!”

“Auntie Brown Betty made me dress up like this! I can still work!”

“Oh yeah? Then where've you been all day? Gettin' your mane done? Tryin' on pretty dresses?”

“I was not! She -”

He was laughing now. “You're just tryin' to get outta doin' your chores! Lazy, frilly pony doesn't want to do any work, 'cause she spends all her time bein' pretty.”

Applejack's fluster was turning to anger now. “That's not true!”

“Pansy, frilly pony! Pansy, frilly pony!” He sang.

“Stop it, Big Mac!”

He trotted out the door, still singing. “Make me, pansy frilly pony! Or are you too scared of getting dirty?”

She trotted out to the back step. “I ain't afraid of nothin'!”

“Pansy, frilly pony! Pansy, frilly pony!”

The frustration and confusion that had been simmering in her all day suddenly reached a boil. With a yell, she tackled Big Mac, sending them tumbling into the back yard. They landed with a splat into a mud puddle. She seized him around his broad neck, forcing him to reach up and pry her off and then they were wrestling with all their might.

Big Mac was big enough to hold her off, but he was hampered by his laughter at the sight of her, snarling at him in a mud-covered dress. She, on the other hoof, was quick and small, and her anger gave her strength. She slipped his grasp, over and over, ignoring the sounds of tearing fabric.

He tried to put her in a headlock, still grinning despite the fact that she was putting up a terrific fight. The fact that he was still laughing at her only made her angrier and she scrambled to get out of his grip . With a roar, she managed to pin him at last, flat on his back and totally helpless.

“Take it back!” Applejack shouted, mashing his face into the mud. “Say I ain't no pansy, frilly pony! No pansy, frilly pony could pin a colt twice her size with all the hired hooves watchin'!”

He glanced to the side to see Taffy and the others snickering at him. She noticed he wasn't laughing anymore. In fact, he looked a little embarrassed.

“Say it!” she said.

Big Mac rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

“SUMMER JACKLYN APPLE!” bellowed a voice from the front door of the farmhouse. All of them looked up to see Auntie Brown Betty glowering over the field, and especially at the mud pit where the two siblings had been wrestling.

Applejack flinched. Where in Equestria did she learn my full name?

“You get over here right now!”

Head and ears hanging low, Applejack slowly plodded back to the house. She was in deep trouble this time, and she knew it. Rarely had she ever gotten in trouble with Granny and even then, it wasn’t this bad. Guilt and fear tied her stomach in knots and she found she was sweating.

Auntie Brown Betty’s two unicorn friends were standing on the road, headed for the gate.

“You don’t have to go, you know,” said her auntie. “I’ll just handle this and then we can get right back to our chat.”

“Oh no, we wouldn’t want be underhoof while you’re getting this wild foal under control,” said Daisy May, smiling the same way. “We’ll be on our way now.”

They walked away, chuckling at something. Applejack turned to look at her auntie, already getting ready to apologize. But before she could say a word, Auntie Brown Betty seized Applejack’s ear in her mouth, pulling her inside.

“Auntie, that hurts!” Applejack yelped. “Stop pullin’ so hard!”

Her auntie didn’t let go, merely tugged Applejack back upstairs for another bath. Once they reached the tub, she let go and began to fill it, leaving Applejack to nurse her ear.

“I have been waiting for the chance to make a good impression on those two and you had to ruin it for me!” she said.

“I thought you were already friends,” said Applejack. “Or else, why did you invite them over?”

“And look at your dress!” said her auntie, continuing as if she hadn’t heard. “It’s ruined!”

Applejack stared at the once-yellow, once-finely-crafted dress. It was now a muddy, ripped, sodden rag. Carefully, she pulled it off.

“Sorry,” she said.

Her auntie jerked her head toward the tub and Applejack climbed in without another word, until she realized how cold the water was.

“Ah! It’s freezin’! Can you warm it up?”

“No, you can deal with it like a big girl.”

Her auntie grabbed a washcloth and began scrubbing the mud out. She rubbed even harder than her earlier bath and the filly did her best not to complain. At least this would be over quickly.

“You are the most stubborn little filly I’ve ever met,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “Every time I ask you to do something, you always question me.”

“But-”

She yanked the filly out of the tub and began scrubbing her down with a towel. “And you simply have no idea how to behave like a proper little filly. Eating like a pig, running around in the mud, wrestling with anything that will fight you - you’re unbelievable!”

“But-” The towel over her head muffed Applejack’s words.

“If you were my daughter, I would have put an end to this behavior years ago. You’d be a proper lady of high society, not some ruffian out on a farm in a backwater town.”

“But I don’t wanna be proper! I wanna be Applejack!”

The second the words were out of her mouth, she knew it had been the wrong thing to say. Auntie Brown Betty seemed to grow even taller in her anger and Applejack braced herself for another round of yelling.

It never came. Auntie Brown Betty just gave a heavy sigh, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Go to your room, Applejack. And don’t you come out until I say you can.”

Her voice shook a little as she spoke, as if she were struggling to keep control over it. Not knowing what it meant, Applejack obeyed immediately. She scampered off to her room and closed the door. Moving slowly to keep from making any noise, she carefully climbed into her bed and simply waited for her auntie to calm down.

-=-

A hour later found Applejack reading a book on the bed. She had fallen asleep for a while, then woke to the sound of hoofsteps in the hallway. She sat up, hoping it was her auntie on her way to say her punishment was over. Back straight, head up, withers square - she did her very best to look like a proper young filly. Any second now, her door would swing wide open and her auntie would walk in, letting her out to play again. Any second now. Any second...

The hoofsteps continued down the hallway without stopping. They paused for a moment, then returned toward her door. When they passed by a second time, Applejack flopped down on the bed, feeling even more awful. Her auntie must have decided that she was a very naughty filly to leave her in her room for so long.

Hours passed. The shadows in the orchard grew longer and longer, until the sun sank below the horizon. And still, Applejack sat in her room, bored out of her mind, waiting for her auntie to let her out again.

Her bedroom door clicked open. Auntie Brown Betty walked in, balancing a bowl on her head. Applejack sat up immediately. At last! Now she could apologize and everything would go back to normal.

“Auntie, I’m sorry-” she began, but her auntie didn’t react. She didn’t say a word; merely placed the bowl on the dresser and walked out again. She didn’t even look at her.

Applejack took the bowl down and sipped at the lukewarm vegetable soup it held, the lump in her throat making swallowing difficult. She sniffled and scrubbed at her eyes, but she couldn’t fight it off. When was Granny coming home?

-=-

Later, much later, when the farm was quiet and the house was asleep, Applejack tossed and turned in her bed. She couldn’t sleep, not when she felt as if she was starving to death. Her stomach had been aching and growling for hours, despite the soup she’d been given. She rolled over again, onto her belly, trying to shut it out.

Why was Auntie Brown Betty so mad at her? Was the dress she had ruined extra special or something? Had she insulted her Auntie’s friends somehow?

As she lay there thinking, the pieces slowly came together. Auntie Brown Betty had told her several times that day, ‘That is not how a proper lady acts.’ In fact, she’d been saying that ever since she and Uncle Fritter had arrived on the farm. Applejack had been doing her best to try and be ‘proper’, just like her Auntie wanted, but no matter how hard she tried, she could never pull it off. She just couldn’t seem to make her Auntie happy. Did that make her a bad pony, not only disobeying whoever was in charge, but not being able to obey in the first place? The realization shook her to her core.

“I-I’m a bad pony…” she whispered. “No wonder Auntie doesn’t like me.”

A bad pony, one who couldn’t be proper enough to make her Auntie happy, one who couldn’t eat properly without spilling food all over herself, one who would never be allowed to work on the farm or get dirty ever again, one couldn’t chase the dogs or play with the pigs, one who tried to obey all those rules and hated every one of them; she was a bad pony, because she couldn’t do what she was told no matter how hard she tried.

Her stomach growled again, making her whimper. On top of all these awful realizations, she had to somehow try and sleep with awful hunger pangs. All part of Auntie Brown Betty’s punishment for her, no doubt. Bad ponies didn’t deserve food. They broke the rules and deserved to be punished.

On the other hoof, if she really was a bad pony and couldn’t do anything to change it, would it matter so much if she broke one more rule? The house was quiet and everypony but her was surely asleep by now. She could sneak downstairs and get something to eat from the kitchen and be back in bed before anypony heard her.

She sat up in bed, suddenly energized by the idea. Never in her life had she chosen to actively break a rule. And not just any rule, but disobeying her punishment. Auntie Brown Betty would be furious if she found out. Then again, it didn’t seem like her Auntie could really get any madder at this point.

Applejack glanced over at her night stand. Her clock read 1:15, surprising her. She had never stayed up this late before. Nopony did, which meant that the kitchen was bound to be deserted. Nopony would ever know she had even been out of bed.

She slipped out from the covers and onto the floor, moving slowly and carefully. Her hooves didn’t make a sound on the floorboards and she made her way to the door. She opened it just wide enough to slip through and moved into the hallway.

It was dark and quiet there too, the only sound came from Uncle Fritter snoring at the end of the hall. She crept softly toward the stairs, keeping low, making her profile less obvious. Actually, in a way, it was kind of thrilling. It reminded her of hide-and-seek tag, though, the stakes were much higher than being made ‘it’ for the next round.

Apple Bloom shuffled in her crib as Applejack passed the door to her room. It stood open so the grown-ups could hear her cry, and she took extra care to keep quiet here. One wrong move and she’d wake up the whole house.

The stairs loomed before her. Her quest was halfway complete, but now she had to find a way down without making any noise. The seventh stair creaked the loudest, she knew, but she couldn't remember if the others did. She hesitated, trying to decide the best way to make her way down, when a new idea came to her.

Moments later, Applejack dropped off the banister without a sound. She made her way into the kitchen, looking around for a bowl fruit. Moonlight filtered across the table, illuminating her goal, but also revealing something else. A plate, filled with some kind of treats. She sniffed at them.

Gingersnaps! Auntie Brown Betty must have set out the leftover treats from her party that afternoon for dessert. They smelled delicious. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled and she leaned on the table to eat one before she could stop herself. It was delicious! Sweet and spicy without being too much of either, it brought back memories of the last few days of fall, just before the snow came.

Applejack climbed up on the table. There were so many cookies that nopony would probably notice if two or even three went missing. She giggled to herself as she imagined Auntie Brown Betty coming down to find her sitting on the table, gobbling up cookies. She'd be horrified, and would start lecturing her about how cookies and sitting on the table and snacks weren't 'proper.'

Disappointing her Auntie didn’t seem so upsetting anymore, Applejack suddenly realized as she munched another cookie. After all, she’d gotten this far without her Auntie knowing. How much madder could she get, anyway? And why did she never yell at Big Mac? Was it because he was a colt? Did colts not have to be proper? Grown-ups seemed so strange. Oh well, at least the cookies were - Applejack looked down at the plate when she didn't feel another cookie. It was empty.

Oops.

She had eaten them all. There had to have been a dozen cookies on that plate and she had eaten every last one. There was no way she could make more without them hearing her, so that wasn't a good plan. But maybe if she put the plate away, they might not notice. They might forget ever having put out the cookies in the first place.

Applejack hopped down from the table and took the plate with her. She thought about just putting it back in the cupboard, but one of the rules of the kitchen was never put a dirty dish with the clean ones and she just couldn't bring herself to disobey it. Instead, she carefully set it in the sink and headed back to her room. There was no way to slide up the banister, but maybe if she kept right to the edges of the stairs, they wouldn't make much noise.

They didn't, but she was still careful to avoid the seventh step entirely. No point in taking chances now. She slipped past bedroom doors until she reached her own and softly closed it behind her. Her bed was waiting for her and she snuggled under the blankets, feeling very satisfied.

At least I ain't hungry no more, she thought to herself.

Belly full and eyes heavy, she was asleep moments later.

-=-

The next morning, she headed down for breakfast only to find her auntie, uncle and brother all seated around the table, and Apple Bloom in her high chair, gurgling and cooing. There was no breakfast in front of them. The only object on the table was the empty cookie plate. Applejack gulped, trying to keep the guilt off her face.

“Mornin', everypony,” she said. “What's for breakfast?”

“I haven't made anything yet,” said Auntie Brown Betty.

“Seems we got a mystery on our hooves,” said Uncle Fritter. “This here plate was full last night, but when we got up this morning, there was nothing on it.”

“I didn't eat any cookies!” Applejack blurted. She clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late to stop the words. Auntie Brown Betty raised an eyebrow at her.

“He didn't say anything about any cookies,” said Auntie Brown Betty.

Applejack felt sweat prickle under her forelock. “Wh-what I meant to say was, I didn't eat any cookies, but I saw what happened to 'em!”

“Did you now?”

“Uh, yeah! It was... it was mice! Dozens of 'em! They all ran into the kitchen and grabbed the cookies and balanced them on their heads like they was wearin' hats and ran back out again.”

“We don't have mice in the house,” said Big Mac. “Dixie keeps 'em from gettin' inside.”

Applejack glared at him. He was her brother – he was supposed to be on her side. She racked her brains for a solution.

“Well, Dixie's got puppies to look after! Garth, Travis and Winona can get into a heap a'trouble if she ain't watchin' them. But she barked at 'em and they all ran outside into the fields.”

“I didn't hear any barking last night,” said Uncle Fritter.

“She, uh, she barked real quiet-like. Walked up to the table and went 'woof' like a whisper and they all ran.”

“And how do you know all this?” said Auntie Brown Betty. “You know you're not supposed to get out of bed once you're in it.”

“I – I heard everythin'! The mice were pretty loud when they were runnin' around. And I got good hearin' too. That's how I heard Dixie.”

“So how did you know they ran off into the fields unless you were watching them?”

Applejack could feel sweat running down her head now. She swallowed again and tried to come up with a response. It wasn't easy at all with them all staring at her.

“Applejack, what did your granny tell you about lying?” said Uncle Fritter.

He knew! He must have figured out when she didn't answer after so long. She glanced up again to see their disappointed faces and looked down at the ground. Her head hung low and her ears drooped against her head.

“That she didn't raise no liar,” she finally said in a small voice. “I'm the one who ate all the cookies. I'm sorry, and I'm sorry about sneakin' out and I'm sorry about lyin' about it.”

The look on Auntie Brown Betty’s face made Applejack want to run and hide in shame, but she stood her ground.

“Well, you should be sorry, young filly,” said Auntie Brown Betty. “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to obey me. Just because you don't like a rule doesn't mean you can ignore it. You have been nothing but trouble for me since I arrived.”

“But Auntie,” Applejack protested, “I was so hungry I couldn't fall sleep! My tummy wouldn't stop rumblin' and I had to do somethin,’ ‘cause you didn’t give me enough soup! Why’re you bein’ so mean to me anyway?”

“That is enough out of you!” said Auntie Brown Betty, rising.

“Betty-” said Uncle Fritter, but she glared him into silence.

“You treat me with the proper respect, young filly. Do you understand?”

“No I won’t!” shouted Applejack. Tears leaked down her face, but she didn’t stop. “Not until you start bein’ nice!”

“What's all the ruckus in here?” called a voice from the living room. Everypony turned to look at the door and there stood Granny Smith, trembling on four legs but stable otherwise. Nurse Gurney stood just behind her, one hoof on a wheelchair and an annoyed look on her face. Applejack and Big Macintosh ran over to give Granny a hug.

“Granny!” said Applejack, anger completely forgotten. “You’re home!”

“Durn right I am!” she replied, nuzzling them. “They got so tired of me askin’ to go home that they let me out a day early.”

“Is that a good idea?” said Uncle Fritter.

“Doctor Lancet said it was fine,” said Nurse Gurney, “so long as she stays off her hooves as much as possible over the next week.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course I will,” said Granny Smith. “I’ll heal sooner if I’m at home anyway. Thanks for the lift, Nurse.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll drop by tomorrow with your medicine.” With that, the nurse turned and left, closing the door behind her. Granny Smith tottered over to the sofa and carefully sat down.

“Now, who wants to explain to me why a little filly was yelling at her auntie when I walked in?”

“She didn’t give me enough dinner last night,” Applejack started. “I was hungry all night, so-”

“Your granddaughter has been nothing but stubborn, rude and disrespectful all week,” said Auntie Brown Betty, cutting the filly off. “She eats like a pig, starts fights when she’s bored, steals food out of the kitchen in the middle of the night and has generally made herself out to be a perfect nuscience! I did my best to teach her how to be a proper lady, but there is simply no hope for her. My Honeydrop would never have behaved so atrociously.”

“Ain’t your Honeydrop a grown mare by now?” asked Granny Smith.

“Well, yes, and she’s a perfect lady, too! Never so ill-behaved as Applejack.”

“I-” Applejack tried to protest, but she realized that her auntie was right. She had eaten all the cookies, she had started that fight with Big Mac and she had ruined the dress. Granny always said to always tell the truth, no matter what. If the truth was that she was a bad pony, then she had to face it.

“I’m sorry for bein’ so bad, Auntie,” she said. “And I’m sorry for not obeyin’ like I should have.”

“There, was that so hard?” said Auntie Brown Betty. “You’ll learn how to respect your elders yet.”

Granny Smith narrowed her eyes. “Jackie, take a walk. I need to talk with your auntie.”

Applejack, despite her shame, made one last attempt to explain herself. “Granny, I didn’t mean to eat the whole thing! I just wanted one cookie-”

“You’ll get your chance to explain your side soon enough,” said Granny. “Now get.”

-=-

Twenty minutes later, Big Mac was calling for his sister from the farmhouse porch. Applejack rose from where she had laid under a tree, staring up at the sky, and headed toward the house. Granny Smith was waiting inside, still sitting on the couch. Her expression didn’t seem to have changed from earlier and Applejack didn’t meet her eyes. Auntie Brown Betty had probably told Granny exactly why she was such a bad little pony, and now Granny had no choice but to punish her too.

“Alright, young’un,” Granny said. “Let’s hear your side of it.”

Applejack nodded once, then began to recount most of everything that had happened that week. She didn’t really want to accuse Auntie Brown Betty of being mean to Granny. After all, she was still family. But Applejack was nothing if not honest and so she told the truth, as best as she could.

“- and then you came home,” finished Applejack. “I know I’m s’posed to love her no matter what, and I tried - I really did! - but it was so hard and she was always upset because I always did somethin’ wrong and I guess she was just mad at me for bein’ a bad pony. I tried not to be, but I guess I can’t help it!”

Tears welled up in her eyes again, but before they could escape, a hoof lifted her chin.

“Jackie, you are not a bad pony,” said Granny, staring into her eyes. “Brown Betty just misses her daughter and she thought you could take her place. You were just bein’ yourself. It weren’t right for her to get mad at you for that. She made a mistake and believe me, she’ll be apologizin’ for it soon enough.”

Applejack could only stare. Her grown-up, older, not-to-be-disobeyed auntie was wrong? Not only wrong, but owed her, a little filly, an apology?

Granny chuckled. “Sometimes, even grown-ups make mistakes. She’s got a lesson to learn.”

“So, I really ain’t a bad pony?” asked Applejack.

“Well, shoot, Jackie, o’ course you ain’t! You’ve got a heart o’ solid gold and you’re as good a pony as there ever was. And don’t let nopony ever tell you otherwise. Not even yourself.”

Applejack sniffled, but the tears that came out now were happy ones. Love stirred in her soul, bathing her heart in warmth and light. Of course she wasn’t a bad pony. Granny said so and Granny never lied. The filly hugged the elder mare tight, and the elder mare nuzzled the filly affectionately. They stayed like that, just holding each other, for a long time.