Birthday Bios: Wheat Harvest · 4:09pm Sep 15th, 2016

You know, today’s focus being on some peasant farmer from olden time would be odd, given that’s not the usual focus unless they’re about to become some important knight or King Arthur or something. Wheat Harvest doesn’t become anything like that—he was just a farmer, and later a solider fighting in a war that nopony really knew was for.

But strangely enough, he does end up having an indirect impact on Equestrian history…

Wheat Harvest was born long ago, a couple of centuries before Luna’s banishment. As the firstborn of a large family, he was responsible from a young age and learning skills regarding farming and trade when he was but a little four-year-old. While his siblings were many degrees of mischievous, none of them could compare to Wheat’s immediate younger sister, Jamberry.

She was a strange sort of character. Wheat was forever bewildered with her various antics, which by all accounts should have been impossible for an earth pony such as she. Playing a game of tag was nearly impossible due to her teleporting away when he took his eyes off her. She was getting fancy food out of nowhere, only to juggle or throw them at others and thereby wasting it, which angered Wheat and their parents a lot. And by Celestia’s flowing mane, where did “Jammie Sense” come from?

Nevertheless, that last one was a useful tool for him, as he and his parents were always prepared when a beast came to raid their crop. Between Wheat’s conventional methods and Jamberry’s creative ones, they were saving most of their crop, which would serve them well in trade and their own meals.

Naturally, Wheat’s aptitude for growing food got him his cutie mark, and he was quite content with that. As long as everyone behaved for the Royal Guard patrolling the village, Wheat can live his simple life growing and selling food, and maybe even get entertained by his sister as well. He expected the biggest changes to be him and each of his siblings taking spouses and some of them moving to other farms. It seemed to go that way when he married his wife upon reaching stallionhood.

Then, a young unicorn named Wayer Rune came to town, specifically for the purpose of studying the peculiar earth pony mare that the Royal Guard had been talking about—which, of course, was Jamberry. And much to Wheat’s chagrin, Jam invited Wayer to stay over on their farm.

While Wheat and his wife lived in their own hut near his family’s house, he still felt like that Wayer was trespassing on his territory. Not only that, he had the sense that he was moving in on his sister, waiting until the time was right to have his way with her before leaving. While Wayer assured him that he was just studying the phenomenon that was Jamberry Harvest, Wheat still watched him with suspicion. As far as he was concerned, there was no way a unicorn mage from the Royal City would ever hold a simple earth pony peasant in high regard.

Wheat also felt a bit inferior to him. As far as unicorns went, Wayer was powerful and could fight off beasts much faster than Wheat could get the tools to fend it off. The unicorn had spells for every occasion, which entertained the younger siblings, but only served to make Wheat jealous. His resentment of Wayer had him being the last one to learn how to read and write.

It wasn’t until one of his youngest siblings recounted the story of Hearth’s Warming that he realized that he was being foolish. The entire time, Wayer was kind and respectful toward everypony, which was more than can be said of others of his rank. So, Wheat finally swallowed his pride, and he started off his apology by helping Jammie with teaching him how to bake a loaf of bread.

It wasn’t long before the two would be playing simple sports together between Wheat’s chores and Wayer’s studies. Snowball fights in the winter were a blast, hitting whatever targets they set up in the woods made good practice for when the next beast would come, and Wayer was happy to help Wheat and his wife with their newborn daughter. They mourned the death of the Harvest parents together, with Wheat and his wife taking on parental roles for his siblings, and Jammie and Wayer were second-in-commands. And seeing Wayer treat Jamberry like a queen made Wheat wish there wasn’t a stigma against mixed marriages.

Wayer had to return home, but he was willing to take Jamberry for a tour of the Royal City before returning her to the farm. Wheat saw no harm in the deal, and expected Jammie to gone about a month. Imagine his shock when a sheepish Wayer returned and explained that Jammie became the Royal Sisters’ new jester, and that they had been willing to bless one of the first mixed-marriages in Equestria.

Wheat was not happy with the turn of events, and didn’t like having to start a new farm closer to the Royal City, but he wanted to see his sister more than stick with the family farm. He rarely ventured into the city, as he didn’t like very many of its inhabitants. Still, he did end up starting a little town there, and made new friends with fellow settlers.

Years passed, with Wheat still tilling the land and passing on his knowledge down to his children. He and his wife also taught them to read, as well as teaching other ponies in the village. His sister and brother-in-law would come and show the townsfolk tricks, as well as let their foals play with their cousins and the neighbor foals. All the while, the parents would be talking about what’s been going on in their lives and laughing about silly things that had happened.

Wheat and his family had been celebrating the birth of his grandson when the news of war with the Minotaur Kingdom broke out. Along with many others, Wheat had volunteered to fight for Equestria, and was alongside his beloved brother-in-law in marching off to war.

Granted, Wayer’s skill in magic had him put on a higher rank, but that didn’t deter their brotherly relationship. Fighting together made their bond stronger, and any down time had them still behaving like they did back home—with joking, telling stories about their kids, and simple games.

However, there came a point where they wondered what they were fighting for. Nopony quite knew what Celestia was waging a war for. Did the Minotaurs raze a village? Were they kidnapping ponies and committing horrible atrocities on them? Had they been threatening an attack? Surely whatever it was, it had to be for a good reason.

Wheat was frustrated by the lack of answers, while Wayer had to tell him to calm down and trust in the princess’ judgment. Even so, Wheat could clearly see that after a couple of years, the battles were taking a toll on Wayer’s sanity, made apparent by the fact that he was seriously considering using dark magic to give them an edge to end the war as quickly as possible. Wheat talked him out of it, saying that it’s not worth corrupting himself with the magic over.

Unfortunately, Wheat wouldn’t be able to keep Wayer anchored for much longer. One particularly nasty battle had Wheat gored (to the point of impalement), right in front of Wayer’s eyes. He couldn’t even cough out his last words before dying.

Wheat’s family was devastated to learn about his death, and his wife, children, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and neighbors would hold a vigil for the beloved village founder. Even after the village was destroyed (and would be replaced with Ponyville years later), his descendants still bear strong genes of farming and baking, with the Bread and Apple families being a couple of examples.

However, still during the war, a grieving Wayer decided that he was going to do all he could to end the war. And thus, spurred by the death of one of his closest friends, Wayer used dark magic to create a curse that altered ponies in body, mind, and spirit. And thus, the werewolf was born.

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