Apple Stocks and Carrot Futures
Chapter One
Apple Stocks and Carrot Futures
"It's hot today. I didn't think it would be so hot out today, you know? I could probably fry an egg on the pavement right about now."
Applejack was too busy loading fresh apples into a cart to immediately reply to Lyra's observation. The comment didn't need an immediate response anyway. Of course it was hot today. It was the middle of the summer season, and the sun was just climbing to its noon peak. If it had been cold, well that would have been something worth commenting about, but it didn't really matter. Ponies often made comments like Lyra's when there was really nothing else to say.
Small talk was part and parcel of living around other ponies. Applejack knew this, Lyra knew this, all of her friends knew it, too. In fact, everypony knew it. Talking about the weather, the latest buckball game, what Roseluck was doing out back behind the hot house with Time Turner last week, all small talk. Just little tidbits of gossip that helped keep the town a little more interesting.
Well, interesting for most folk. Applejack wasn't much of a gossip, but she played along when someone decided she had to know the latest juicy story. She'd patiently listen, and then nod her head, asking whether her customer had any other orders, and then thanking them for buying her apples.
Easy as apple pie.
Applejack tossed the last of the apples onto the cart, its cargo filled to the topmost slat, and tuned back in to Lyra's rambling.
"She found the both of them spreading rose petals over Daisy's dining room table, it was a surprise for everypony involved."
Applejack chuckled, and tapped the side of the cart with her hoof. "Well, that's whatever that is for ya. Y'er all set with these here pie apples, Lyra. Should be enough ta get th' job done, but if'n BonBon needs anymore, ya know where ta find me."
"Thanks, Applejack!" she replied, as she hitched herself to the cart, "you know we'll always come to you if we run out. It's a little bit easier to choose when there's only one apple supplier in the whole town."
The earth mare chuckled at that, calling out to the unicorn as she started pulling away. "Well, even if we had competition, we'd still grow the best apples in all o' Equestria!"
Lyra smiled and waved in reply, on her way to BonBon's sweet shop with her burden of delicious pie fruits.
She had just tossed a pouch of bits into a safe box behind the stall, when she heard a familiar voice call out to her from up and behind her.
"Watch out!"
Applejack had just enough time to dive out of the way as a cyan blur swept past her. She heard the sound of a crash, and got back to her hooves just in time to see water pouring out of the smashed barrel. Rainbow had crashed into an old, large rain water barrel sitting a few meters away from Applejack's produce cart. Applejack noticed, with some amusement, where the rain barrel had once stood, having been unperturbed and undisturbed for years, as Rainbow Dash struggled to a standing position, working to shake off the excess water, and fighting the barrel ring that had managed to entangle itself around her wildly flapping wings.
She observed the water sluicing down the grassy path, and onto the hard dirt of the market square, soil that had been tamped down over the course of thousands of hoofsteps. Within moments, the hard dirt had become a soupy muck. Applejack didn't mind a little mud. She wouldn't have been much of a farm pony if she did. Instead, she waited in silence, keeping her eyes on the events as they unfolded, which included the fresh wave of watery mud spreading away from the crash site.
Fortunately, the mess wasn't anywhere near her apple stock, but it was an unfortunate happenstance it had now started flowing right under Carrot Top's stall. Applejack's eyes went wide for a moment as she considered what was about to happen, and chose to, wisely she considered, step back behind her stall. By the time the small flood had made a shallow puddle of Carrot Top's Carrot Topped Cuties, the owner of that stall appeared outside of her stall a few moments later, not just enraged but stomping mad, and mostly stomping mud. Applejack watched silently as the carrot farmer homed in on the source of her latest woe, zeroing in on the unsuspecting target, who was still stuck with the barrel ring around her wings, and tromped up to the distressed pegasus.
"Rainbow Dash!" she called, in a tone that was mellifluous, yet tinged ever so slightly with the rage of a thousand burning suns.
"Gah!"
Dash had heard the sweet roar and, in her startlement, promptly lost her balance, falling back into the mud. Her prismatic tail, flanks, and hocks now slathered with the muck. She struggled to stand, and Applejack knew it was time to step in.
"Hold on just a sec, Dash."
Grabbing her lasso from a bent, rusty nail that had somehow managed not to fall out of the dilapidated post in which it had been driven, she swung it quickly, and looped it around Dash. With a short tug, she brought the floundering pegasus onto more solid ground, where she managed to get her hooves underneath her.
Applejack sauntered over and removed the lasso, as Carrot Top approached the pegasus, who was finally managing to remove the metal barrel ring. At that moment, she looked like a pony whose backside had been dipped in chocolate all the way up to her barrel.
Applejack turned to Carrot Top before the mare could unload her rage onto the pegasus.
"Now hold on, there, Carrot. Ah know yer upset-"
"Upset?!" came the reply.
Applejack held up a hoof, and fixed Carrot Top with her sternest gaze.
"Whoa there, filly, ain't no need fer yellin' yer head off. We all done saw what happened."
And it was true. A crowd had gathered around the two stalls, as neighboring sellers couldn't help but gaze at the spectacle that had developed before them. Granted, it wasn't a Bugbear, or an Ursa Major, but it was two well-known hotheads and that was just as dangerous. Dangerously delicious to ignore.
Applejack figured she'd take the diplomatic route first, hoping that all her time spent around Twilight had rubbed off on her.
"Now, b'fore we get inta all this here, mess. What has RD actually done?"
There, that was diplomatic like.
"What has she done?!" Carrot Top replied less diplomatically, her right eye twitching under the strain. She swung a foreleg towards the carrot stall, its foundation now sunk several hoof-lengths into the mud. "She turned my carrot stand into the LaBridle tar pits! That's what she's done!"
"Hey! I didn't put your stand right next to the old rain barrel, did I? Nope! Pretty sure that was you!" came a brash voice from behind Applejack.
Applejack took a deep breath and exhaled out her nose.
"Hold on a second, there, RD," she said, waving a hoof at the pegasus who she could now see out of the corner of her eye, approaching from the side. "Let Carrot Top finish."
"What is there to finish, except for the rest of my dreams, the ones where I'm running a successful business free of flying hazards?!" snarked the carrot farmer. "You've covered all of my inventory in mud! You've destroyed my stall! I don't even know where my keys have gone! They're probably deep in that mudslide, which you caused with your... with your..." and here she struggled with her words, before pointing an accusatory hoof at Dash and spat out "recklessness!" like an arrow from a bow.
Dash chuffed. "You do know that carrots grow in the dirt, right? I mean, they grow in the dirt. Who cares if they get a little dirty? As for your stall, it's made out of wood, so, you know, just wash it off or something, and what do you mean keys? Who locks their doors in Ponyville? This is, like, the most boring town in all of Equestria."
"You owe me an apology, at least!" Carrot Top cried, tears forming at the edges of her eyes.
"What?! I didn't do anything wrong, I shouldn't have to apologize for something I didn't even mean to do!" Dash called back, as she folded her legs, and sat on her rump, the mud from her tail sliding across her belly, though she didn't seem to mind.
"Calm down, sugarcube," Applejack added gently, slowly approaching Carrot Top while attempting to soothe the distraught earth pony with her words. "Now, t'ain't no need ta yell." She placed a foreleg on Carrot's withers. "Ah tell ya what Ah'll do," she said, making eye contact with the other mare, "Ah'll come over there an' help ya clean up yer carrot stock, and Ah can even pull the stall out o' the mud. Ya can use my space to sell yer carrots in tomorrow until the ground dries up. 'Zat sound okay?"
"What about Rainbow Dash's apology?" she asked.
Applejack turned to the recalcitrant pony. "Dash?" She asked, a note of warning in her voice.
Dash kept her forelegs folded for a good minute, sitting on the dirt, the mud on her coat hardening. Applejack figured she would have rather become a statue than issue any kind of an apology, but under Applejack's gaze, she saw Dash roll her eyes, snort, and finally mumble something along the lines of "fine, I'm sorry."
Carrot Top flashed Applejack a small smile, the tears at the edges of her eyes drying quickly. She sniffled and nodded. "You're a good friend, Applejack," she said, and gave the farmpony a quick nuzzle.
Coos and awes erupted from the crowd, along with hoofstomps. One pony in particular stomping hard, while also standing directly in the mud, a grin on her muzzle, and a spark of happiness in her unaligned gaze.
Giving Rainbow Dash a quick frown, Carrot Top turned away and began to trot back to her stall to begin the process of cleaning up.
"Yeah, she better run!" Dash retorted, standing to her hooves again.
Applejack frowned at her friend. "Rainbow, ya can't go messin' up things and expectin' me ta fix 'em all the time."
Dash scuffed a forehoof in the dry dirt underneath her hooves. She nodded.
"Yeah, I know," she began, "but when ponies accuse me I think back to when I was a filly in Junior Speedsters, and it's those bullies all over again. I mean," she shrugged her shoulders, "I forgive them and all, but it still stings sometimes when somepony calls you a screwup, ya know?"
Applejack nodded. She knew her friend was being honest with her, without needing to search with her elemental talent. Rainbow Dash was a good pony at heart, and a great friend. By tomorrow, when everything had been fixed up, it would have been water under the bridge, er, under the dirt, um, whatever. It would be done with.
"Oh!" Dash's statement brought her out of her moment of reflection, "I've got your crop reports here, AJ. That's mostly the reason why I came by."
She glanced around her, looking for whatever reports she was supposed to have brought, and began tracing her steps back to the rain barrel.
"Here they are," she said as she reached a hoof around the broken remains. A few moments later, she pulled out a soggy clump of... something.
"Uh," she began, side eyeing Applejack for any sign of a southern explosion of twangy countrisms.
For her part, Applejack just couldn't hold it in anymore. It was too much. Starting low in her barrel, and pushing up through her throat, a small chuckle could be heard ever so lightly.
Dash looked at her friend like she was crazy.
That made Applejack's chuckle turn into a laugh. Not just any laugh, but a full on belly laugh. It became so loud and so deep, she fell into the dirt, rolling from side to side, her hooves kicking up into the air as her laughter rang out, causing other the other market ponies to crowd around her stall to see whether or not she had finally snapped, while whispering amongst themselves. The odds at that moment were 20 to 1.
Finally, Applejack got back to her hooves, and shook her head. Dash looked at her askance, but didn't move as Applejack approached slowly, and put her foreleg around Dash's withers.
"Ya know, Dash," she began in her longest southern drawl, "Ah don't know what life would be like without ya. Ah gotta say, when ya make an entrance, ya really know how ta do it right."
Rainbow Dash smiled, polishing a hoof against her chest in what might have been mock bravado.
"Well, when you're as awesome as I am, right is the only way to do things."
She hesitated for a second, and then added with a little bit of humility, "oh, and sorry about your crop things. I can go back and get another copy."
Applejack smiled her sweetest smile.
"Ya don't have ta worry about it. If'n ya want, ya can bring it ta me out at the farm tonight, on yer way home."
Rainbow relaxed, an easy smile forming on her muzzle.
"Oh, that's good. I just didn't want you to be m-"
Rainbow Dash's next words were interrupted by Applejack's muzzle, because at that moment, the apple farmer was kissing her right square on the lips, her forelegs wrapped around the cyan pegasus' withers.
Dash felt her wings explode out from her barrel and stiffen in the breeze, she was aware of her blood pounding in her ears, as she became light headed, a sense of euphoria traveling all over her body, while her brain recorded every detail of Applejack's rough, but warm lips against her own. She could even feel AJ's pulse through them, and for a moment, their hearts were in sync. She marveled at the intimacy she was now sharing with her best friend. Was that her tongue?!
Finally, with the need to come up for air, Applejack pulled away from the kiss.
Rainbow Dash was standing stock still, as if in a daze. Her wings were ramrod straight out from her sides, and Applejack couldn't help but chuckle.
The other ponies around the pair had been stunned into silence, each one taking in the glorious event as it had occurred. A few moments later, shouts began to drown out the silence, as bits began to exchange hooves.
Applejack smiled, and turned away from them, and called back to Dash.
"See ya later tonight, Sugarcube," she said with a smirk, as she began to traipse up the path of stalls to help the mud besieged Carrot Top gather her supplies, and move her stall.
There was going to be a lot more polite nodding tomorrow morning, and she was going to be all ears.
~ The End ~
