“Twilight?”
Half-asleep, the owner of the name jerked to fully awake. The lavender unicorn shifted blearily from side to side, eyes slowly focusing, and eventually turning to find the source of the voice calling out to her; the young purple and green drake trudging uphill to join her, umbrella in one hand and something else in his left.
Curious as to why, she peered up to spot the pegasi weather team herding clouds overhead.
‘Weather Control for Eggheads’ popped up in her mind, and Twilight mentally flipped to the chapter about different types of clouds. They were shifting what looked like ‘Type C-3’s, also known as ‘light shower’ clouds. Narrowing her eyes a little more let her spot the rainbow streak zipping to and fro, working in tandem with a pair of other pegasi to clear the way ahead, keeping the roaming Everfree-generated ‘wild’ clouds from contaminating the clean white pony-made clouds as the other pegasi herded them into position.
“Well, there is rain scheduled in about half an hour.” Twilight’s number one assistant informed her, planting the umbrella into the ground while his other clawed limb moved forward to reveal what the young drake had been holding in his other hand; a picnic basket. “I got you your favorite, Twi; bread, lettuce, tomato. That ‘whitebread’ is marble-flour and sliced emeralds, so I wouldn’t recommend swapping.”
Chuckling at the long running joke, Twilight Sparkle nodded slowly as she rummaged in the picnic basket. “Thank you, Spike.”
Settling in beside her, the dragon pulled free his lunch and cocked an eyebrow, then briefly followed her long gaze to the fields where the incident dubbed ‘Lesson Zero’ had taken place.
“Its about Miss Smarty Pants again, isn’t it?”
The mare paused, surprised at her assistant’s perceptiveness just before her ears drooped down sadly. “Yeah, it is. I miss her. I didn’t know what I was thinking when I used her as... as bait.”
“You were thinking about Magic Kindergarten, I’d bet.” Spike informed her with a smug, toothy grin.
Pointedly ignoring him, Twilight was nevertheless struggling to hide a smile of her own as she bit down into her sandwich. She savored the ring of juicy tomato that she managed to fish out with her teeth. She settled into the impromptu picnic as the sky overhead began to darken.
Finishing her first bite, she swallowed and peered out onto the field where - only a short while ago - she had cast that ‘Want it, Need it’ spell. Weeks had passed, and she had all but literally combed the field, trying to find any trace of the raggedy gray doll. But nothing had turned up, except for a single surprised rabbit when her nerves had been worn raw by the constant searching and rescheduling.
The lavender mare sighed, a long and mournful sound escaping her lips. “Oh, I do hope she’s okay...”
Spike rolled his neck as he finished the last of his sandwich. “Smarty Pants will be fine, Twi. She was fine when you turned her into flash paper."
Twilight’s cheeks colored brightly at that memory. "But you went pink from having to hold your breath!"
Spike waved a claw dismissively. “And for good reason, too. I know what dragon breath does to flash paper; remember when we first got shown that by Shining Armor? I was fine, Twi, I just had hiccups and sent part of your mane to Princess Celestia, was all.”
“Was all, you say?” Twilight gasped, affronted. “The sun itself jumped from all the sneezing! Ponies everywhere would have been panicking!”
Spike swallowed. “Well, yeah, true...”
== = ==
The sun dipped down towards the horizon, the sky darkening ever so slowly as stars began to spark to life in the east. Applejack let out a long sigh as she collected a few stray apples, and tossed them into the nearby buckets. She turned to her brother, and called out to him. “Reckon its its time to head inside, Big Mac?”
“Eeyup.” The tomato red earth pony drew unshorn fetlocks over his brow, and loaded up the stack of empty buckets to the cart laden with bright red apples. Big McIntosh turned to see his sister rearing her head back as she waved her hat to the pegasi overhead.
“Hey, thanks fer keepin’ it light, fellas. Help yerself to some apples if you want.”
Wet, tired and flush with success, the weather ponies wasted no time in dive bombing the apple cart, taking a dozen or so apples off the top.
“Thanks a bunch, Apples!” Shouted one. “We got clear skies scheduled all day long tomorrow!”
“Tha’s good to hear! Stay safe, everypony!” Applejack waved one last time, before dropping her hat onto her head and turning to Big Mac. “Ah wonder where Apple Bloom is? She shoulda’ been back by now. Oh, Ah knew lettin’ her run the apple stand was a mistake...”
The larger pony nudged his sister with a smile on his face as he pointed his nose towards Ponyville. “Dun you worry, sis. There they are is right now.”
Apple stand in tow, Scootaloo beat her wings furiously as she propelled the apple stand over the hills and towards Sweet Apple Acres. On top (with helmets strapped tight) clung Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
Kicking up mud behind behind her, Scootaloo cleared the last of the hills leading to Sweet Apple Acres as Applejack and Big Mac rushed to open the gates. She missed both, entered the front yard and leaned to her left, slewing the cart around into a spinning stop just short of the main barn, launching the two fillies off the top of the cart. Both landed on their hooves, and began bouncing about around Big Mac and Applejack.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, APPLE MERCHANTS! YAY!”
“We sold a bunch of ‘em today, Big Mac!” Exalted Sweetie Belle, holding a bag of bits in her telekinetic grasp.
Apple Bloom pounced on her sister, who swung her around happily. “Made quite a lotta bits, too, AJ!”
Scootaloo whooped as she dismounted and joined the bouncing filly brigade. “We only spent some of ‘em on sweets at Sugarcube Corner!”
Apple Bloom made a pacifying gesture with her hooves as both older Apples went still and stared at her. “Only five bits, Sis! An’ we saved you some, too!”
Scootaloo went rigid in mid air. “Wait, we were supposed to save ‘em some?”
The two fillies paused, and the Crusaders shared a crestfallen glance. “Uh oh...”
“Girls...” Applejack facehoofed, gritting her teeth. Ah won’t get angry. Eenope, not gonna get angry...
Apple Bloom seemed to shrink, moving slowly towards her sister. “Aww, we’re sorry, sis.”
Big Mac chuckled, and winked at the orange mare. “Well, Ah reckon you three kin make up fer it by cleanin’ up after dinner.”
“Awwww.” Chorused the three Crusaders, before Apple Bloom perked up.
“Wait, y’mean that Sweetie and Scoots are allowed to stay fer dinner?”
Big Mac smiled, enjoying the timing as Granny Smith rang the dinner bell.
“Eeyup.”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, DISH CLEANERS! After dinner... YAY!”
Apple Bloom glared at Scootaloo, who just realized what she had said. “Ah really hope that ain’t our special talent, Scoots.”
“Eheheh... heh... oops?”
== = ==
“I miss Smarty Pants, Spike.”
Spike chewed, and swallowed. “You’ll find her eventually, Twilight.”
“Wish she could just find me...” The spoon clattered into the shallow pool of soup. “Wait, that’s it!”
Spike paused. “Huh?”
“Why didn’t I think of this before!” Twilight left her dinner where it lay and dashed up the stairs, a mad grin on her lips. “I can just use magic to get her back to me!”
“What, like Scorpion’s Infallible Lasso? But you’d need to know where she is to do that!”
“That’s why I’m going to use a different spell! Dresden’s Law of Part-Whole Contagion!” Shouted Twilight.
“If I use that and the hair, I should be able to cast Ansem’s Animal-ish Artifact Animation remotely to influence the rest of her to get her up and moving! Or, I could use ‘Potter’s Pint-sized Pony Pal Puppetry’ spell on her since she’s a pony doll to give her a way of directing herself, and with ‘Sabrina’s Sorcerous Seeker Spell’ to link her to here, she’ll walk right home to me! It’s perfect!”
“Aha!” Twilight let out a squeal of sudden joy as her bedroom door crashed open. “Strands of her hair!”
“Sure, that’s not creepy.” Spike muttered. Twilight ignored him, sweeping past. “Twilight? Wait!”
“Alright, my number one assistant! I’ll need chalk, string, and a compass, the pointy circle-kind. Catalytic magic isn’t usually my kind of magic, but when I do... this’ll be brilliant!”
== = ==
Big McIntosh closed the curtains to his room, and tapped the lamp on his desk. He reached to one of the massive books sitting on the desk. It was an old, canvas-bound tome as old as any book in Twilight’s library (perhaps...) and it wore those years well.
Much like the doll that had been sitting atop it.
“Evenin’ thar, Missy.” Big Mac grinned, pulling the raggedy doll over and resting it against his left knee. “Apple Bloom sold well today, drew in a couple hundred bits from the apples alone. Only spent a little on the sweets, too. Ah’m so proud of her...”
The doll was silent, of course, but Big Mac allowed himself a warm smile as he went for the ledger. He tried to resist, tried to open the book at the thick woven bookmark trapped between the pages, but instead nostalgia won out over his determination to finish quickly, and Big Mac flipped open the cover to find the first page.
Five hundred bit sure was a lot back then. Hay, great great great great grandpa Seed bought a whole tree with just five bits! Wouldn’t mind bein’ able to do that nowadays... McIntosh chuckled, tracing his hoof down the columns. His great great great grand-daddy had broke a leg back then, trying to apple buck like his father. That cost them... twenty and a half bits to get it all plastered up. Then came a bad harvest, where debts started piling up until a cider making company had bought out a bunch of the overripe apples. That had cleared almost everything, in fact.
“Woulda been hard, livin’ in those days, don’cha think?” He asked the silent ragdoll, who’s mismatched eyes gleamed in the lamplight. Big Mac chuckled to himself, and flipped over to the next page: “Le’s see, shall we?”
Years flowed past as he flipped through the pages, commenting on each unusual purchase over that first farming generation of the Apple family.
Time moved, until another outstanding withdrawal caught his eye. He smiled at that two hundred bit withdrawal; Wedding Earrings. That moment that followed had marked the birth of the Apple clan, right here in Ponyville.
If not, then the next withdrawal - only eight bits - certainly did: Purchase of a sign from Picket’s Signs & Fences, “Sweet Apple Acres”.
Big Mac heart warmed as he saw through the numbers and paperwork. Receipts for hardwoods became a barn raising. Rain requisition forms showed orchards planted and crops harvested. Land grants became the expansion of the Apple orchards. His ears drooped a little as he saw medical bills and funerals to show deaths in the family, even those of ponies long ago gone, only for his smile to return them to their usual place as the recorded expenses turned up weddings, reunions and other celebrations.
All the while, he could swear he saw the doll’s eyes swaying back and forth, reading with him as the dancing flame of the lamp wavered and danced.
Flipping forward a couple hundred pages, still running his color commentary to that little grey doll every dozen pages or so, Big Mac plowed through his family’s history rendered in numbers and receipts: pausing at places like Applebuck’s disaster of a foray into orange farming, and chuckling at the unusual successes such as Red Gala’s attempt into a modelling career, which ended with several massive sums and a withdrawal for ‘Medical Bill; dislocated everything, not mine. 45 b, Signed; Red Gala’.
“Ah almost feel sorry for that colt.” He commented, mental calculations noting that apple bucking harvests had jumped up a sizable amount after the return of his great great aunt.
He imagined the times flowing just as quickly as the pages. Good harvests, bad crops, zany schemes... generation after generation of Ponyville Apples had kept this book and from it a history of the happenings of Sweet Apple Acres.
The tomato red stallion could tell who was writing almost by the smell, actually: Applejack’s namesake had been custodian of this ledger some three generations ago, and he could still smell the alcohol in the drinks that long-gone Apple had distilled from whatever was left after harvest.
Comfortingly, that same smell was there whenever he breathed into his hoof after drinking some of the family’s hard cider.
I guess some things never change.
McIntosh smiled as he flipped through more pages, until he reached a few pages before his own generation had take up the Family Ledger, where another anomalous entry had been put into the records. He choked on his apple juice as he realized exactly what it meant.
Purchase of anvil, tools 45 b, Signed: Smith Apple
Wait, what?
Big McIntosh’s eyebrow shot up as he read and re-read this page.
“Granny Smith was... a smith?” The stallion asked, arching an eyebrow. He flipped over to the next page, to check for the sales of Granny’s metallic wares. But instead, he found the next few entries - dated a few days later - even more surprising than the ones he had been expecting.
Purchase of Spell: Dawn's Painless Tooth Regrowth, 5 b, Signed: Toffee Apple
Sale of anvil, tools, to Hot Iron, 40 b, Signed: Toffee Apple
Overdue fee, Oaks Library, ‘Swordsmithing for Eggheads’, 1.50 b, Signed: Smith Apple
The doll flopped over from his straightened foreleg as the story hidden by the numbers played out again in his head, and rolled once as if in laughter.
“Not for long, Ah suppose.” Drawled Big Mac, chuckling. He decided to stop there, and pulled the bookmark to bring about today’s activity. Picking up a quill in hoof, he put ink to paper as he softly whispered the words of one of the most common entries
“Sales, apple stand...”
== = ==
Twilight set down her quill, tapping a hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “This... should do it, I suppose. This is my first time doing such a complex spell. I’m mixing so many different kinds of magic with this, I might just be able to make it into a new style! Cross-style magic! Dog-latin evocation mixed with ritual magic, rhyming aria charms and my magic power it all. Not your usual spell, is it?”
“Linkus bit-sum.”
The hair shuddered, curling inwards as she poured magic into the circle. Grey chalk bleached itself white, and the imperfections in the crudely drawn circle straightened out. Spike ‘ooohed’ as he watched the mare finished the first - and simplest - part of the spell-chain by swiping her hoof across the chalk circle. A rush of magic escaped through the gap, as if it were a balloon that had suddenly been punctured.
Faintly, she could see the thread of magic that now linked this bit of the whole to the sum of Smarty Pants. Not daring to disrupt the ritual by using her telekinesis, Twilight flicked open the book to the bookmarked page by hoof. “Alright, and next should be the animation spell. Pony dolls... here.”
Her horn lit up again, and she began to chant;
“What once was lost, so as to be found;
may your stitched mouth be unbound.
Four hooves of cotton, stuffing, thread;
may they gallop and touch, tail to head.
Eyes once of buttons, so that you can see;
to you, my lost friend, a simple task: be.”
Magic pulsed as the second spell was forced into the connection, and the circle shattered as the spell surged through the link. Twilight’s eyes widened as her perception of magic traced the spell as it poured along the connection, leaving a shattered trail of the first spell behind.
Beside her, the animate hair curled up into a tight little ball, then crumbled to dust.
Twilight blinked a few times, her horn still smoking from the amount of magic she had poured through it.
“Uh oh.”
== = ==
Big Mac shifted on his bed, pulling the blanket around him as the autumn’s fading warmth curled around him. He opened one eye, and found the clock on his bedside table; the sun would be coming up in an hour or so. He’d best be getting u-
Wait.
The stallion froze in place, even his breathing halting, as he tweaked his ears this way and that.
Someone else was breathing? He felt hot breath on his mane as his bedmate breathed again. Only one candidate on who that could be. Big Mac chuckled and stroked the hoof gently.
“Apple Bloom, did’ja sneak into mah bed again?” She hadn’t done that in years, and while it made him smile a little in knowing that Apple Bloom was still the little filly she had always been, he knew she had to grow up someday.
He picked up the grey hoof and... Grey hoof?
“Uh...” Please be wrong please be wrong please be... Eyes swivelling in their sockets and carefully turning his head, Big Mac looked over his shoulder. Eeenope, I’m right.
Darn.
The grey pony who owned that leg shifted, murmuring softly as she awoke - and it was most definitely a filly. Okay, so not Apple Bloom’s size; she was a little older by a few years yet. Maybe somewhere in between AJ and AB’s age. Her hair was a tangled mess, in a way that made them congregate into large strands the size of a tomato stalk, which hung limply off her head.
Big Mac’s mystery filly opened her eyes, and he noticed how they were mismatched; one red, one blue.
The filly smiled lazily, and wrapped her forehooves around his neck while she mounted his spine with the rest of her body, riding on his shoulders as he fell off the bed. "Hi, I'm Smarty Pants!"
It was then that Applejack opened the door. “Big Mac, you alright? Not every day that I’m awake before... you... are... uh...”
Big Mac gulped as the hat fell from his sister’s mouth.
"Ah'm goin' ta jail, ain’t I?"
Author's Note
First fimfic! (Though not my first fanfic).
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed it, please give feedback, I want to know if I got the voices of the characters down well enough (especially that of the Apples).
Inspired by the pic here: http://derpibooru.org/212263?scope=scpe23861f8ddb5bc95ebe5c55cec00ef3e27f581ad7 as well as Sparknanator's 'A Little Smarty Problem' http://www.fimfiction.net/story/96799/a-little-smarty-problem