It was a very odd sensation, being back in Equestria. And yet, for Sonata Dusk, it almost felt like… coming home after a long, long time away.
“That’s because that’s literally what it is, Sonata…” the tiny Aria in Sonata’s head told her with a derisive laugh. “We have literally been in another dimension for over a thousand years! How are you this thick-headed…?”
Sonata shook her tiny head-sister out of her thoughts, and continued down the long dirt road. Despite the circumstances, it genuinely felt wonderful to be walking on hooves, as opposed to feet anymore. Sure, it wasn’t one hundred percent like when she was still a Siren, but she supposed that was a small price to pay for getting to go home.
“Not accounting for losing all your magic,” a tiny Adagio said in her mind, snorting. “Seriously, if you hadn’t tripped on that cable, we’d have left that stage behind, and Sunset and her cronies wouldn’t have captured us and sent us back—”
Sonata shook her other head-sister out of her thoughts. Best not to dwell on negativity until later that night, when she could compare her new experiences with Aria and Adagio, and report their progress in learning Friendship to the Princess.
She wondered briefly, as her eyes took in the sight of the autumn foliage absolutely filling the orchard vista around her, how her sisters were doing with their community service? She knew Aria was put up with some sort of musician couple back in town, and that Adagio was helping the mirror-universe counterpart of one of the Rainbooms work on a fashion thingie.
As for her…
“Well, howdy!” a suspiciously familiar orange mare in a brown stetson greeted Sonata with a smile that looked only slightly forced. “Now, you must be Sonata, am I right?”
Sonata took perhaps an extra few seconds to take in the image of her… warden? Parole officer? Employer? It wasn’t quite clear. In any case, this mare seemed awfully nice, just from how she’d announced herself.
“Yup, that’s me!” Sonata laughed. “Sonata Dusk, reporting for duty!”
The mare chuckled, and swept her foreleg back towards the little farmstead poking up over the tops of the trees. “Well, I’m Applejack. And, uh, I suppose I’ll be givin’ you plenty of work over the next few months, is that right?”
“That’s what the Princess said,” Sonata said, blushing only slightly at the memory of getting caught and sentenced back here. “So, ah… here I am?”
Applejack nodded, and directed Sonata to follow her. The two took off at a slow trot, down a few winding paths through the orchard. Though it was autumn, the pegasi teams were doing Ponyville a favor by not driving the colder winds through the area just yet. Sonata was thankful for once more being in a universe with civilized notions of weather.
“Mind if I ask somethin’?” Applejack’s question pulled Sonata out of her sight-gazing daze.
“Oh! Uh, sure! I don’t think I have anything to hide…”
“Except for being a monstrous fish-pony,” Adagio’s voice sighed.
“Idiot,” Aria concurred.
Sonata scrunched up her nose. At least with Adagio, she felt that comment was a little out of character for her sister.
Not that I ever complained about eating people’s negative emotions before, she reasoned. Huh. Always seemed normal, I guess. Even though it totally wasn’t. What if our magic really was affecting our judgement? Like, what if we were the magical equivalent of being drunk for a thousand years…?
“Uh, Sonata?”
Sonata heard the voice, and stopped. Or, realized she had stopped, and in the middle of the path no less. Applejack was staring at her with concern, if her furrowing brows were to be believed.
“What?” Sonata asked.
Applejack scratched her head. “I jes’ asked if it were true that you and yer sisters used ta’ be some sort o’ giant fish-pony things. And then ya jes… stopped.”
“Oh…” Sonata’s cheeks reddened. “Um… sorry. I get distracted easily. Aria says it’s cuz I don’t have any brains up here.”
She demonstrated by bopping herself directly on the top of her head. She managed not to hit too hard, having been warned that, as an Earth Pony now, she was quite a bit stronger than she used to be.
“Now, don’t you be saying nothin’ like that!” Applejack said with a cross look. “Nopony’s got the right ta say nothin’ ‘bout nopony else ‘less they proved it. An’ until y’all do somethin’ as silly as Rainbow Dash after a few too many ciders ‘round me, I ain’t castin’ no ‘spersions ‘pon ya.”
Sonata blinked a few times.
“That… was a lot of contractions,” she giggled. Then, seemingly realizing who she’d just said that to, she sucked her lips back into a grimace. “Uh… that’s to say…”
But, much to the former Siren’s surprise… Applejack just threw back her head and let out a mighty roar of laughter. She laughed hard enough for her whole body to shake. Even the trees nearby shook a little bit alongside her.
Sonata wondered if that was normal for Earth Ponies.
Finally, the farmpony wiped a tear from her eye, and said, “Nah, no need ta worry ‘bout it. I talk like I talk, an’ that’s fine by me. I know it’s funny ta someponies, but y’all didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
Sonata breathed a sigh of relief, and joined in the last few giggles her new boss let loose.
“Sorry about that,” she said, kicking the ground with her forehoof. “I usually just talk with my sisters, and… we’re all kinda… mean.”
“Well, that’s what this whole thing’s about, ain’t it?” Applejack resumed her walk, but with her head slightly turned to keep speaking with Sonata. “All three y’all are here now ta learn why bein’ mean’s a bad thing! Shoot, couple months workin’ with me an’ Granny an’ Big Mac, you’ll be right as rain, I reckon.”
The two continued in companionable silence.
For about twenty feet.
“Oh, but… yeah,” Sonata tittered, “I used to be a fish-pony.”
“An’ here’ where ye’ll be doin’ most of yer work for a spell and a half,” Applejack said as they rounded the corner of a hill covered by apple trees, already picked for the season.
Built into the side of the hill sat a low door made of dark wood. It was framed in stone, and had two heavy padlocks holding it shut. Despite the locks, however, Sonata could guess it was heavy enough such that most ponies couldn’t make the thing budge.
“Well, you’re supposedly pretty strong now,” Head-Adagio (or, Headagio?) said. “Just don’t ruin everything as usual and break your new boss’ door...”
Applejack tapped both locks with her forehoof, and to Sonata’s shock they simply fell open and clattered to the ground.
“Uh…?” Sonata tried to ask.
“Granny Smith lost the keys fifteen years ago,” Applejack said with a little blush and a chuckle. “So my Pa jes’ broke ‘em ta make it easier. But it ain’t no problem, really. Earth Ponies — especially us Apples — prefer the direct approach anyway.”
She reached out, and grasped the door’s handle in her teeth. Then, with a prodigious pull, she wrenched the door open with a grinding groan. As it swung open, Sonata could see it was actually a solid steel door, nearly a foot thick! The wood was little more than paneling on the outside.
Without delay, Applejack led Sonata into the underground room. Illuminated only by the morning sunlight, Sonata could make out a deep, pit-like chamber. All around its periphery were alcoves fit to burst with wooden kegs and barrels, plus a few smaller boxes and cases. From these, she caught the glint of glass bottles catching the light.
“What is this place?” Sonata asked, mouth hanging slack at the sheer size of the room.
Applejack chuckled, and then waved one hoof towards her products. “This here, is one of the Apple Family Cellars!
“See,” she began to explain as they reached the center of the cavern, “there’s all sorts of products the ponies of Ponyville want. Food, fashion, parties…”
“That all sounds nice!” Sonata chirped.
Applejack nodded. “But one thing that the Apple Family has provided fer decades that no pony can get anywhere else…”
She took off her hat here, and wiped away a tear of — Sonata presumed — familial pride.
“Alcohol!” Applejack finished. “The best anywhere in the whole valley!”
Sonata’s eyes lit up.
“Oh!?” she nearly squee’d. “I miss alcohol! Since me and my sisters were stuck as sixteen year-olds for millennia, we could only get some whenever the age law limits changed…”
She paused, and scrunched up her nose.
“Hang on… why?”
Applejack turned back around, and gave Sonata a questioning look.
“Pardon?” she asked.
“You said no one… er, no pony could get alcohol to Ponyville,” Sonata said slowly. “Is that because of, like, predatory monopoly rules…?”
“Ah…” Applejack, trying to work out what Sonata was getting at, started to say something but was cut off by the exuberant pony.
“... or is it like, the area around Ponyville’s so dangerous no one, er, pony wants to deliver it…?”
“Now, hold on, sugarcube…”
Sonata’s eyes widened.
“Ooh! Or is it like back during the ‘Prohib’ days, and the Apples were bootleggers, and you took control of the streets and were like--”
Sonata held up her forelegs, as if she was holding something — a crossbow, Applejack thought — and started miming.
“GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH!” she shouted, shaking around a little as she did, “and…!” then set down on all fours. She stuck her chin out, and put on a Chicacolt accent, saying, “Ey you mugs, hop a trolley before I fill yez full a’ led!”
The grim stony face fell away, and a wave of titters and giggles flooded through Sonata. After a few moments, she turned a sheepish grin over to Applejack.
“Uh… sorry,” she said. “I’m a pretty silly pony…”
Applejack just nodded, slowly. Several times, actually.
“Rrrright… you ain’t happen ta be related ta the Pie family?”
“Who?”
Applejack shook her head. “Nevermind! This here’s where we stash all our alcohol an’ let it age good and proper-like.”
“Oh, cool!” Sonata laughed, her nervous energy slowly bleeding off. “So, what’ve you got in here?”
“Plenty!” Applejack said with a smirk. She began trotting over to one of the huge shelves of product, but took a moment to look over her shoulder and say back to her latest employee, “But jes’ ta answer yer question, the reason the Apple Family is the only alcohol-producer is because we got the one product that nopony else has…”
Sonata started to follow… only to pause again.
Something… odd was happening. As Applejack’s hooves hit the floor, Sonata could almost make out a beat of some sort. And then, an accordion-like sound began to play...
But that would be crazy. Crazy! Music doesn’t just spontaneously appear out of nowhere!
You know… except for all the times it kept doing that back in the Mirror World. And Sonata supposed she once heard about how Pony magic could tap into their emotions and cause a Heart-Song to…
“Oh, it’s one of those,” she sighed to herself as Applejack began to sing.
“From Prance we get the Brandy,” she sang, pulling bottles from their chests, “From Maretinique the Rum...!”
Sonata decided to just listen, as the spontaneous, magical pony song began to play out before her. Considering the loss of her own singing voice after the Battle of the Bands, it was… kinda nice to just listen to music again.
Applejack went through a few more lines, all filled to brimming with her country charm… which also somehow sounded just a bit like pirate charm, but who was Sonata to complain?
“But the fairest of them all, my friends, the one ta beat the haaaaay!”
She took a breath.
“Is made from Apples! Up the mighty Stallionay...!”
Discord, feeling a potential copyright violation coming down on the universe he was presently residing in, snapped his fingers, distracting the readers until Applejack was done with her song.
“... on the Joli Rooooooouge!”
Applejack finished the song with a dramatic knee-slide, her breathing coming on strongly after her last long note. The last of the confetti was still airborne, as was both Granny Smith and Apple Bloom, each balancing atop a circus ball while also balancing plates upon their forehooves.
Big Mac, having taken up a background position during the chorus, finished playing on his One-Stallion-Band kit, bringing the music itself to a satisfying conclusion.
Sonata hopped up from where she’d sat on the floor of the cellar, and gave a few wild whoops as she cheered and clapped.
“Oh, that was amazing!”
The Apples all bowed under the sudden praise, except for Applejack, who instead blushed and tried to cover her eyes with her hat.
“Ah, shucks…” she said, “I… Y’all should hear Pinkie sing. She’s always better with them than I am…”
With the song over, the other Apples left quickly to return to their own chores, leaving Applejack and Sonata alone once more.
“Right,” Applejack said with a quick cough and a harumph to get things back on track. “So, that’s it then. We need somepony ta cart this stuff about ta where we need it. Especially the Joli Rouge scrumpy. Besides Zap Apple Jam, it’s one o’ our best sellers!”
Sonata gave a little salute, and made to check the corkboard on the wall bearing the products’ shipping dates. Only, as she moved towards it, an orange hoof came up in front of her muzzle.
“Applejack?”
Applejack chuckled again. “Sugarcube, it’s an Apple Family tradition ta give new hires a little… test before they start working.”
Sonata smiled, eager to prove herself to such a fun and interesting new employer. Somepony who had agreed to take her in and give her a new chance at life…
A bottle of the scrumpy set down in front of her, with two small cups.
Sonata looked up to Applejack.
Applejack smiled, and waggled her eyebrows back.
Sonata looked to the hard apple cider… and smiled.
Princess Twilight stood atop the staircase leading to her castle’s front door, with two recent arrivals following her closely. Her royal purple brow had been furrowed quite harshly in the general direction of her guests for the better part of the last half hour. In the newly-minted pegasus Aria Blaze’s case, it was because she’d been caught verbally putting down… well, everypony, and causing more than a little heartache in the town on this, her first day of parole.
And in the unicorn Adagio’s case? Apparently she’d been working at Rarity’s Carousel Boutique for just one day, and was already up on charges of embezzlement and corruption.
But now?
Now, her ire — and the two sister Sirens’ interest — was directed at the strange sight wandering… no, staggering down the middle of town.
“CaUsE tHiS aIN’t no grog, er ALE…!”
The two singing… alright “singing” voices were almost hilariously out of tune, almost screeching out lyrics. Especially Sonata’s, but Applejack wasn’t far behind.
“One… one pine…!” Sonata managed, her face a solid red instead of her usual blue, her whole body supported by Applejack’s foreleg.
Both were…
Twilight supposed that “drunk” hardly covered it.
Boiled? Soused?
“Five PinTs, BuLlY…!” Applejack belted out, just before the two inebriated ponies collapsed to one side, and began rolling through the bushes.
They just kept singing.
Aria groaned. “Why did Sonata get the cool job?”
Adagio snorted in agreement. “Typical.”
Princess Twilight, however, simply shook her head.
“Alright,” she sighed. “Looks like Sonata’s made a friend, at the very least. So that’s… progress? I guess?
“Whatever. I need a drink,” she finished, and elected to just go inside, call this whole frustrating day a wash…
… and drink.
Author's Note
Drink responsibly.
