“Hello, sir, would you like to buy one of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s Great and Powerful Turnips?”
The stallion, whose name doesn’t really matter, stared at Trixie with her bags of turnips. “I’m not buying produce from someone who doesn’t have a table,” he said as he walked over to Strawberry Sunrise’s table. Trixie glowered at him so hard in an attempt to detonate his brain.
It didn’t work.
Trixie sighed and bowed her head down for a bit, then raised it and puffed her chest. Mares who felt sorry for themselves didn’t sell turnips.
Her eyes caught a young filly walking by, with red hair and a yellow coat. She vaguely knew her name. It was Apple… something. She scanned the filly’s countenance for further clues on her nomenclature. She spotted a bow. There was a pretty good chance the word bow was in her name.
“Would you like a turnip, Apple Bow?”
Apple Bloom jerked her head around in the way which one does when they’re vaguely aware that they’re being addressed.
“Apple Bow, there’s a turnip with your name on it!” Trixie shouted as she pulled a turnip out of her bag and waggled it.
Apple Bloom blinked a bit, then faced Trixie. “Y’talkin’ to me?” She asked.
Trixie nodded and waggled the turnip vigorously, hoping that she’s bite it like a fish and force payment.
“Name’s Apple Bloom.”
Drat, Trixie thought, how could I get her name so wrong?
“But you should know that, seein’ as how you sleep in our orchard.”
Trixie’s sales grin morphed into a grouchy frown. “Trixie only lays in your orchard to watch the stars. If she falls asleep it isn’t her fault.”
Apple Bloom shook her head and trotted over to Trixie. “It’s whatever. I don’t really care.” She took a whiff. “It has been a moon’s age since I’ve had good turnips. Lemme see your stock.”
“That’s better,” Trixie grumbled as she held out the turnip to Apple Bloom, who gently snatched it.
“Hmm.” Apple Bloom hefted the turnip in her hoof. “What’s this, about a pound?” She looked at Trixie. “Pound an’ a half?”
Trixie flourished a hoof. “Sure.”
Apple Bloom shook her head. “You can’t just say ‘sure’ when I ask you about the net weight of a root vegetable. Do you know how much it weighs?”
“Would an approximate value be fine for the fruit of a flowering tree?” Trixie asked with a roll of her eyes.
“Nah, I mean, I’m specifically asking about the weight of a root vegetable so the fruit of a flowering tree don’t account into this.”
Trixie growled. “Trixie is just positing whether or not you apply the same value to root vegetables as you do to fruits.”
Apple Bloom sighed. “Well, not exactly, ’cause we usually convert them into a salable form before we start calculating prices.” She exhaled. “So it’s usually more about how much it is per unit rather than either a net or gross weight of individual fruits.”
“So what you’re saying,” Trixie said with a sly grin, “is that you don’t account for net weight per apple because you cut your product before sale.” Trixie stood up and waved her forelegs around. “Not all of us are in a position to filter our produce in such a manner before sale as to extract the maximum profit per unit of produce as your family is, yet you have the gall to suggest that somehow my Great and Powerful Turnips are worth less than your apples because I didn’t convert them into turnip juice or turnip jam before I sold them!”
A small crowd was forming around Apple Bloom and Trixie as Trixie finished her harangue. Apple Bloom heard whispers and grumblings of oligarchic practices and hostile market exclusion, which made her rather uncomfortable, as you could probably imagine.
“Trixie, I jus’ wanna buy the turnip.” She hissed. “How much.”
Trixie grinned. “Ten bits.”
Apple Bloom growled. “That’s highway robbery and you know it.” Apple Bloom looked around as the whispers grew to murmurs, then twitched her head back to Trixie. “I’ll buy it for five.”
A twinkle gleamed in Trixie’s eye. “Surely you can afford more than five bits for such a rare commodity in this marketplace, especially considering the special arrangement you have with various buyers in town,” she said, addressing the audience more than Apple Bloom. “Surely you could support local, start-up businesses and find it in your heart to pay me eight bits for this turnip.”
Apple Bloom looked back around at the crowd, then back at Trixie, a devilish smirk and a subtle grin on her face. She then shuffled a hoof into her saddlebags.
“Tell ya what,” she said, “I’ll buy ten of your great and powerful turnips—”
“Great and Powerful Turnips.”
“Yeah, those.” Apple Bloom pulled a whole load of bits out. “I’ll buy ten turnips off of ya for seven bits each, which equals seventy bits. We gotta deal?”
Trixie looked at the bits, then her bag, then at her bag again. She pulled out nine more turnips.
“Trixie… supposes, that would be acceptable,” she said as she put the turnips into Apple Bloom’s saddlebag, and Apple Bloom put the seventy bits into Trixie’s saddlebag in return.
“Fine,” Apple Bloom hissed as she put the final turnip in her saddlebag, “I’d say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but that would be a lie.”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not one enjoys the art of business,” Trixie said, “as long as it is done fairly across both partie—”
“I don’t wanna hear it.” Apple Bloom snorted. “Good day, Trixie.”
Trixie tipped her hat at Apple Bloom. “Good day to you, too.”
Now with that done, Apple Bloom walked off as the throng dissipated, the excitement subsiding for now. Trixie scanned the market for another poor soul to unload her wares off onto. It took only a moment until she found another filly whose name she vaguely recalled.
“Sweetity!”
