Missing Pieces

Oh horse apples! I thought snapping my eyes open from a long sleep. I forgot to find Applebloom after her class was over. My first day into town and Applebloom was supposed to give me a tour around Ponyville, instead she had school. Maybe I should make it up to her. I pondered around in my thoughts for ideas while making while making breakfast for me and Zecora, who seemed to be fast asleep.

“I’m sorry Charger, I must go for a bit. I must make my way to Timber Pit,” Zecora said sleepily as she stood up on her hooves.

I glanced over my shoulder seeing the mare put on her pouch. “I thought you were going to sleep for a little while longer.”

“The flower only grows every month of the second week, but they will wilt once the sun hits its peak.” She continued packing her bag with various tools that seemed to be used to isolate an object in.

“Oh…well how long are you going to be gone? I’m not even sure what day it is today.” I was surprised that she was going to leave me here so soon to look for the flower, plus I’m not sure that the potion will help restore my memory. “Aren’t you going to stay for breakfast at least?” I asked.

“The way is a bit more than a half a day’s trip, so I can leave later or the flowers will give me the slip.  No worries, I will be sure to return. I will be back before the morning sun starts to burn.” With that, she ran out the door, leaving me alone in a hut that smelled of eggs. Not to mention she forgot to close the door.

“Goodbye, Zecora,” I whispered to myself watching her strips disappear into the Everfree Forest. I was thinking on bringing Zecora to Sweet Apple Acres with me to see Applebloom, but I guess I’ll go by myself. I finished my breakfast and cleaned up my mess. Now, I’m off to see the Apple Family.

Arriving at the apple farm I see a large, red stallion towing one of the empty fields. I slowly approached the working stallion to ask for Applebloom and he slowly came to a stop. “Um hi there,” I said. “I’m looking for Applebloom.”

He just kind of stared at me for a second before responding. “Y’all must be that one feller that she’d be talkin’ bout.” He pointed toward a small path made in the apple orchards. “She’d be down that way. Ya cain’t miss ‘er.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said as I trotted away into the orchards. The stallion watched me disappear into the bushes before he returned to his duties. I thought Applebloom wasn’t too far away, but it took me awhile before finally seeing an old tree house. I could it was old from the wooden planks; they looked like they were going to reduce to dust.

I heard laughter coming from the tree house. So I carefully walked a plank up to the door and knocked a few times to get their attention. Three young fillies opened the door, one of them was Applebloom. The other two was an orange pegasus and a white unicorn. “It’s Strong Charger!” Applebloom exclaimed with excitement.

“Who?” the other two asked in harmony.

“Strong Charger, the colt that Zecora found in the forest. He was didn’t wake up fer weeks,” Applebloom explained to the fillies.

“Ohhh,” the orange pegasus said. “Hey, wassup! I’m Scootaloo and that is Sweetie Belle.”

“Hi, nice to meet you both. I came to see if I can hang out with you three, since Applebloom couldn’t give me a tour around Ponyville. If that’s okay, or is this a ‘No-colts allowed’ club.” I stood on the wooden plank, hoping it wouldn’t break.

“Oh, no,” Sweetie Belle reassured me. “You can come in. In fact, you came at the right time because we ran out of ideas on ways for us to gain our cutie marks. Do you know anything we could do, preferably safe, that will help us gain our cutie marks?”

“Cutie Marks?” I asked cocking my head in confusion. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you three out on that one.”

“Aw,” the three fillies whined before Scootaloo quickly spoke up after. “Wait, you don’t know what a cutie mark is?”

“No I’m afraid I don’t. I kinda lost my memory when I woke up.”

“Oh, well, a cutie mark is pretty much the one thing you are special at over every other pony. Something about your special talent will appear on your flank resembling what that is,” Sweetie Belle explained. “Unfortunately, none of us have a cutie mark, so we are just a bunch a blank flanks. We formed the CMC so that we can hang out and find out what our special talents are together.” She paused taking a long look at me before starting again. “That’s why we asked if you know anything we can do because we have tried hang gliding, lion taming, cliff diving, zip lining…”

Scootaloo put her hoof in her mouth before she could continue you on. “Pretty much what she is trying to say is that we have tried everything we can think of, but none of them worked. So now we are stuck thinking of something to do, but we can’t think of anything.”

Sweetie Belle pushed Scootaloo’s hoof out of her mouth, giving her a quick glare before turning to me with curiosity in her eyes. “What’s your cutie mark, Mister? I bet you have something amazing.”

“Um I don’t know. You all said it appears on my flank right?” They nodded before I took my cloak off and revealed there was nothing there. “I guess I don’t have one.”

“Holy Celestia!” Applebloom yelled in my ear. “Ya don’t have a cutie mark either! Ya can join our group, and maybe we can all look fer our special talents together! Y’all can be a part of the CMC. Besides four heads are better than three, so we can all come up with different things and see what we get.”

“I don’t know if I should,” I said hesitantly. “I’m trying to get used to everything in Ponyville and all. Maybe I will later. By the way, what’s the CMC?” I asked, changing the subject.

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Scootaloo said. “You can get used to Ponyville better when you are with us anyways because we are always hangin’ around Ponyville trying to do something. Why are you carrying a sword?” Changing the subject out of nowhere as she pointed at my sword.

“Um, for protection,” I explained. “It’s the only thing I know is mine. Kind of like a ‘prized possession’ or something like that.”

“Protection?” Sweetie Belle tilted her head. “Why would you need protection in one of the most peaceful places in all of Equestria? The only real times we had a problem was when an Ursa Minor came to town and when parasprites devoured all of our stuff. Other than that, which was a long time ago, Ponyville is really peaceful, and there is never any trouble here.”

“I do live with Zecora in the Everfree Forest. I heard the place can be a bit dangerous.” I didn’t feel like standing anymore, so I went inside the tree house and found a comfortable place to lie down.

“The forest isn’t that dangerous,” the purple maned pegasus said waving her hoof. “Even Fluttershy can handle herself out there, and she is the shyest pony here.”

“I guess you’re right, girls.” I was a bit confused about the forest, realizing that I’ve never ran into any trouble on the way through the forest. I set my sword beside me. “So you three are trying to get your cutie marks by doing a bunch of reckless activities? It sounds like these ‘cutie marks’ are mostly your hobbies. I can say my hobby would be swordsmanship, since I keep carrying around this sword. But I know can do more than just that.”

“Hey,” Scootaloo said with a big smile on her face. “We could also be ponies who are good at swords. Come on Cutie Mark Crusaders, we’ve got some swords to swing.” She went to go for my sword, but Sweetie Belle jumped in her way.

“NO!” she cracked. “There will be no more dangerous acts for today. I want to do something a little less dangerous for a change. Is that hard to ask for?”

The orange pegasus shrank to the floor and swallowed back as much fear as she could before speaking. “Yeah, I guess we can do something like… coin collecting?” Scootaloo said in a quivering voice.

“Hey, that’s actually a good idea!”

“I don’t think there’s such thing as a ‘coin collecting’ cutie mark. But treasure hunting is probably much better,” I suggested moving my sword out of Scootaloo’s line-of-sight. “I think Twilight Sparkle has a few treasure hunting books in her library.”

“But we’ve already tried that,” Applebloom said with a grimace face.

“I see…what are you fillies good at anyways? Singing, dancing, building…” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Scootaloo said before taking a bite out of an apple. “Thaf why we made thif group.” That last word, she spit some of her food out on everyone.

I wiped off the bits apple from my face. “I know I lost my memory but I do remember that you shouldn’t speak with your mouth full, Scootaloo.” Everyone laughed, except Scootaloo who was blushing the whole time. I had a fun time, hanging out with the CMC. We did a few activities, played some games in the tree house. I wasn’t keeping track of time when I hear Applejack calling for the three at the bottom of the tree.

“Come on y’all, it’s time fer dinner. Sweetie, Scoot, Rarity is here t’ take ya home.” After putting my sword n cloak back on, I followed the fillies out of the tree house. “Oh, howdy there Charge. Ya was with ‘em the whole time? Ah had a feelin’ y’all were comin’ t’ town today, but ah didn’t know when.

“Well Zecora had to leave for Timber Pit, early in the morning. There weren’t many things I couldn’t do around the hut without making a mess. So I came here to visit Applebloom. Don’t worry we didn’t do anything dangerous.” I smiled to the mare as the CMC trotted passed me into the apple orchards.

“It’s mighty fine,” Applejack responded with a warm smile. “Ah never let ‘em do anythin’ too dangerous...” She stopped talking thinking of something. “Y’all said Timber Pit? The nest of all Timber Wolves? That is one brave heart Zecora has, but that is also a pretty long trip. Why don’t ya stay fer dinner? Ah reckon we got plenty ‘nuf food t’ feed all of Ponyville.”

“Great, Applejack,” I answered to her. I couldn’t say that I was hungry enough to eat a horse, since I am a horse myself. “I don’t think I had much for lunch anyways.” I followed her through the forest of orchards, before reaching an old-fashion, western-style house. “Whoa, there must be a lot of ponies that’s living in that house,” I exclaimed.

“It’s just me, Applebloom, Big Macintosh, and Granny Smith that live here. The rest of the Apples family is scattered all over Equesteria. Y’all haven’t even met Big Mac and Granny Smith yet, ah reckon.”

“Wait there is only four of you working on all these apples? This place is huge,” I exaggerated looking at the hundreds of apple orchards that surrounded the farm. She nodded before we entered her house. The first pony I saw first had to be the giant of a stallion I met earlier this morning.

“Actually it’s just two of us. Applebloom ain’t old enough t’ do really much apple buckin’ yet. Granny Smith is too old t’ do anything ‘cept fer cookin’. So me and Big Mac here do all the apple buckin’ on this here farm, while Granny Smith does the cookin’ and Applebloom is in school. Oh, this is Big Macintosh, by the way, mah older brother.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said extending my hoof out to Big Macintosh. “Sorry for not introducing myself earlier. I didn’t know you were part of the family.”

He stared at my hoof before shaking it. “Eeeyup, ah am.”

“Aw, ain’t ye a handsome youn’ colt,” an old pony spoke with a high, yet hoarse, voice as she slowly made her way to the table. It was worse that her joints let off a sound that was very similar to rusted hinges on a door with every bit of movement she made.

I guess that, in this world, I would be considered as handsome in some way. Big Mac and I joined Granny Smith at the family table as Applejack and Applebloom headed into the kitchen. Later, comes out with a huge spread, most of them were apple dishes though, but they all looked quite tasty.

“So Mr. Charger, did ya remember anythin’ yet?” Applebloom questioned. I thought about it for a moment but all I remember was the graphic scenes of going and ending a major battle. I really did not want to talk about it, because it feels wrong to speak of these things in front of the Apple family.

I had to respond to her anyways, I know Applebloom is concerned about my well-being. “It was only an image, really,” I answered. “Similar to what we are doing now. Eating together, with my family. I remember that I have a grandmother, I don’t know what condition she is in though.”

“Ah bet she’s doin’ just fine,” AJ reassured me waving her hoof. “T’ain’t no need t’ worry. We’ll get ya back t’ your family lickety split.”

“Thanks Applejack.” We all started on our dinner; I helped myself to some Apple and Blackberry Crumble while Applebloom told the family what we did today with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Watching the Apples Family gave me flashbacks of my own family:

A boy talking to his family of how his dad is teaching him swordsmanship and magic.

The same boy got scratches and bruises from training. His grandmother smiling in front of him while she bandaged up his wounds.

The father and son laughed as they took a break from practicing. His mother and grandmother stood in the background smiling at them…

“Hay Strong Charger,” Applejack shouted out. I jumped out onto my hooves quickly in alert. “Whoa there, Sugarcube. Ya was starin’ at us fer quite a while now.” I realized everyone was finished with their meal as they started cleaning up.

“I guess I’m pretty tired today.” I rubbed my temples before sitting back down. “What were we talking about again?” I replied.

“We were wonderin’ if there was anythin’ that’cha liked doin’?” Applebloom spoke up, grabbing the dirty dishes off the table.

She must’ve meant if I remember anything that I used to like. “Um I used to like training swordsmanship and studying magic with my dad. I also liked helping my grandma cook dinner.”

“Aren’t ya supposed t’ be a unicorn t’ learn magic?”Applejack jumped in, seemingly interested.

“They only know Unicorn Magic. There are many different forms of magic from where I come from. Unicorns actually appear in books. Twilight was actually the first unicorn I meant.”

“So ya used t’ live in a town of only Earth Ponies?” That question stopped me for a moment. I was human before I appeared in the Everfree Forest.

“In a way…yes. There were only earth ponies in my town.” Wow I know this much about stuff from before…but all of that was from my childhood and nothing that relates to how I got here.

________________________________________________________________________________