“Morning, Applejack. I’m Lollipop. And welcome to the Dream Coast!” The light blue Earth pony smiled at her with an intensity that Minuette would have envied. Lollipop nodded towards the shore, where gentle waves rolled in with the sound of brushed cymbals. “Not bad, eh?” Her accent was Griffish, slightly modulated by that of her adopted homeland.
Applejack looked out towards the shoreline. Nearest to her, plastering the wind-smoothed grey rocks that scattered the windswept grasslands, were splashes of green, yellow and russet brown mosses. Further out, marking the extent of the last high tide, was a dark line of nondescript brownish vegetation. Some way beyond was the sea itself, a vast turquoise pool in which darker green shapes flickered as they caught the light of the mid-afternoon sun.
“It’s mighty fine,” she said at last. “You’ll have to excuse me, though. I can’t say I know much about the seashore. Been long moons since any of my kin lived around here.”
Lollipop’s smile broadened still further. “Nopony within a thousand miles of Dream Valley will ever forget the name you carry or the lineage you represent. Even out here in the West, we know what you and your friends have achieved.”
“I’m just a silly pony,” said Applejack, and she grinned. A moment later, the two mares burst into uproarious laughter that went on for some time.
Recovering herself at last, Lollipop said, “It’s so good of you to come all the way out here to help with the Shoreline Shape Up. You can’t have a lot of spare time.”
Applejack shrugged. “I’m used to fittin’ things in. Now, how about you tell me what you want me to do today.”
“Okay. You know the three sections, right? I’m the Big Bad Boss of the Moss Team. We’re right here along the rocks. Mostly Earth ponies, since it takes a lot of strength to push the boulders around, plus – let’s be honest here – when you lose your footing and hit a rock, it bloody hurts. We need strong ponies.”
Applejack nodded. “I’m not one to brag, but I’m a pretty strong mare, right enough. I’ll start off here, I guess. But maybe you could tell me what the rest of y’all do?”
“Sure. Over along the beach are the Seaweed Team. Their Big Bad Boss is Glory there.” She indicated a brilliant white unicorn about a hundred yards away. “Unicorns generally do that work, since the seaweed gets all tangled, and levitation’s a biiig help. Between you and me, Glory doesn’t really pull her weight as much as she should these days, but the others seem to like her so we let her get on with it.”
“And what about out in the water?" She squinted. "Are they all pegasi?”
“Yep. They’re the best swimmers, I suppose because it’s much like flying. I can swim pretty well myself, but not like E there.” A slender mare was speeding through the water with extraordinary elegance, her coat seeming to change from blue to lavender as she lifted herself just clear of the surface and skimmed the waves. Applejack was captivated for a moment, before something jogged her mind.
“E?” said Applejack.
Lollipop chuckled. “Her name’s actually Ember. Named after an Earth pony, though we don’t make a big deal of that around here. But it did get kind of awkward when Dragon Lord Ember visited a couple years ago. She outranks us of course, plus she was our guest. Luckily, Ember was okay with using a nickname for a while – and in the end it stuck. She won’t have anything else now.” She dropped her voice to a mutter. “Would be great if she stopped going on about sodding kelp, though.”
Applejack sensed an old wound, scabbed but not yet scarred. She pretended she hadn’t heard Lollipop’s last sentence.
“Fair enough, I guess. Now, what’s this I heard about reservations?”
Lollipop bounced on the spot. “Ooh, my favourite subject! Well, each area is reserved by one of the sub-teams to work on – we call ‘em Divisions – and so we say they have a reservation. It’s like, with us lot on Moss Team, we have Eastern, Central and Western Divisions. We all say we’re not competing to be first or cleanest or best at the end – but yeah, we are.” She puffed herself up a little. “Eastern Division’s the best. I know I would say that, but well, I’m right.”
Applejack looked back towards the ocean. “E seems to be zippin’ all over the place, though?”
Lollipop grimaced. “Yeah, we’re a tad short-hoofed this year. Normally we have a few seaponies to help out there, but there’s some big conference going on with the hippogriffs down at Mount Aris. They’ve all buggered off down there for a bit. Which is great and all, but it means we can’t call on them for this Shape Up. Not having any seaponies around has given the pegasi one hay of a lot of work to do. So all that kelp clearing is just one reservation this time around. Good job they’ve got the water to cool them down.”
“I could go out there myself and help a spell,” suggested Applejack. “Hard work don’t have enough letters to be scared of, Granny used to tell me. Plus the sea’s lookin’ awful pretty today. I guess I’d need a boat or somethin’, though.”
Lollipop shook her head. “It’s a nice idea, but nah, we’re not going there. Unless you know these rocks and reefs like the back of your hoof, your rudder’s bound to run afoul of something.”
Applejack sighed slightly but nodded. “So, what brought you all the way out here from Trottingham in the first place?”
“Oh, I’m not from Trottingham,” said Lollipop, smiling. “Not all of us are, you know. I’m from Shirehampton, quite a bit further south.”
“Ah. Still, it’s a mighty long way to come from way out east to—”
“—way out west? Absolutely. But you know how it is when you’re young. You want to travel the world and leave home as soon as you can, you know?”
Applejack smiled. “Can’t rightly say I do. Did most of my wanderin’ before I even had my cutie mark. But I’m interruptin’. Go on.”
“Anyway,” resumed Lollipop, “the railway company had some beautiful posters up in Shirehampton station advertising places to go on holiday. Most of them were for places I didn’t have much interest in. I’ve never wanted to go to Manehattan or Canterlot. But there was this one — “Discover the Undiscovered West” — that I just couldn’t stop looking at. I’d start dropping into the station to see it, even when I wasn’t catching a train.”
“And here you are?” put in Applejack, sensing a long anecdote coming on.
“And here I am,” agreed Lollipop. “Right, enough chatting. Let’s get to work.”
Applejack reared up suddenly, whinnying joyously. “Now there’s a phrase I like to hear!”
* * *
Lollipop hadn’t been kidding about the effort needed on the Moss Team. Applejack found herself increasingly impressed by the sheer dedication put in by her team-mates. There didn’t seem to be a weak link anywhere. If there was one, she reluctantly admitted to herself, she was the weak link. Everypony else worked like— well, like ponies who’d been doing the same job for a long time, knew what they were about and took pride in a job well done.
The toughest part of all, Applejack discovered, was telling the various types of moss and lichen apart. Living so far inland, she’d barely ever seen it outside of Twilight’s books, and the Eastern Division's reservation was covered with the stuff. Every few minutes, she’d make her way carefully over to Lollipop with a question.
“What do I do with Yellow Buckshoof?”
“Can I pull this stuff up in one go, or does it need separatin’ first?”
“Where do y’all put the sticks and shells?”
“Is that rock over there in our patch or over the border in Central?”
At first, Lollipop answered these queries with her natural cheeriness, but eventually Applejack noticed her replies becoming briefer and slightly more pointed. She took care to ask some of the others on the division, though none had quite the breadth and depth of knowledge that Moss Team’s leader displayed.
Around two hours into the Shape Up, Applejack’s hoof slipped on a large patch of brown seaweed that had seemingly blown up the beach. Looking at it more closely, she saw that it was some kind of kelp, but that was as far as her knowledge went even now. She looked around her and sighed. The only pony within fifty yards was Lollipop, whose near-permanent smile became a little more fixed as she noticed Applejack’s gaze.
Not sure this is gonna help none, but nothin’ else for it, I guess.
“Lollipop!” she called. “What do you reckon I should do with this here kelp?”
There was no answer. Instead, Lollipop looked down at the cleft between two rocks, lowering her head and wrenching a large patch of moss free with her teeth. She spat them out savagely. Applejack waited for her to look across again, but Lollipop kept her head down. To Applejack’s eyes, there didn’t seem to be any more moss there.
She grumbled a little and then sighed again, just a little more loudly than she had intended.
Lollipop turned towards her sharply and stomped over, irritation evident on her face despite the shreds of moss that still clung around her mouth. She raised a hoof to forestall any further comment.
“Now look here, Applejack, this really isn’t fair. I’ve tried to be as helpful as I can, but I’ve told you already: kelp is not my speciality. Ember is the pony you want for that sort of thing, as she keeps on telling us all. So go and find her. You’re the one who was going on about boats and stuff, so I’m sure you can work it out. I’ve got enough to do up here, and it would be really great if you’d let me get on with it.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“It means I’ve got a whole lot of work to do. So have you. Hmm?”
Applejack drew her head back and raised one eyebrow. “So you’re sayin’ you’re not gonna help me with this?”
“Got it in one.”
“Well, thank you kindly, I’m sure.” Applejack pursed her lips for a moment. “Is that all?”
Lollipop stared at her for a moment.
"Yes. That is all." There was a real edge to the final word.
Applejack bit her lip to hold back a further sigh, then began to trudge away. As she went, she heard Lollipop call after her.
"The sea’s the kelp reservation, so sigh at E.”
Author's Note
https://youtu.be/HbeXL6AXmi0?t=74
I'd like to say I'm sorry for that last line. Actually, no. I'm NOT sorry. And it wasn't folly at all! It was simply glorious!
An entry for Super Trampoline's Fimfiction Feghoot Festival, since it was a good way to push me to actually write some damn ponyfic again after far too long.
