//------------------------------//
// 7. Trying Harder 
// Story: Home of the Ponies and Awesome Bronies 
// by Lady Spider 
//------------------------------//

***Still working on spacing. Please, let me know how I’m doing with that. As always feedback is welcome. And to those who address me, I am fine with Elaruki, Elise, Ela, or Eli. Really doesn’t matter. Oh, and finally reached my minimum at 2,006 words! ...yay...!***

That day became the routine for next two weeks.
Get up before Twilight or Spike.
Help Mr. Cake open Sugarcube Corner.
Get a rundown on the difference between good and Good cupcakes from Pinkie.
Bake for eight hours with an hour lunch break in the middle.
Receive payment of forty bits from Mr. Cake.
Trot slowly home while unsuccessfully looking for the only human in Equestria.
By the end of the two weeks I was up to 560 bits, (480 bits from working at Sugarcube Corner, 80 bits from helping ponies with random tasks,) and up to my horn with frustration from not seeing Ryan in two weeks. I mean COME ON. He’s the ONLY human in ALL of Equestria. Unless he went off to Manehatten or Canterlot or some other pony city without me knowing he was still SOMEWHERE in Ponyville.
Or he just dumped you for Applejack again. Shut up little voice.
Unfortunately, I had to start looking for another job. And fast. Mrs. Cake returned from Manehatten. At least Mr. Cake was nice enough to let me finish the day and receive the same payment. I know some humans who would just be like nope here’s half of whatever you usually get now get out.
I also could start looking for a house now. Or an apartment. I was never really a huge house kind of a person. But I knew I had to move out of Twilight’s. Not that I had anything against Twilight. Or Spike. Spike is adorable. But I wanted my own place. I’m stuck in Equestria. I’m not living at Twi’s forever.
Technically it would be my day off if I were working at Sugarcube Corner so I simply walked around, looking for a place that was for sale or renting.
And I bumped right into Ryan.
He grinned widely at me. “Need a job?” I nearly turned around and bucked him.
“How would you know?!” Ryan glanced up at an overhead cloud and I heard light snickering. “RAINBOW DASH!” The cloud flew away in a burst of rainbow. I sighed. “Has she been spying on me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know for how long. She did come and tell me that you need a job and a place to stay other than Twi’s.”
“Damn, lazy pegasus that a rainbow fuckin’ puked on.” I swore under my breath.
Ryan laughed. “Come on!” He started down the road.
“Where are we going?” I asked, almost galloping to keep up with his long strides.
“Sweet Apple Acres.”
I groaned.


****************


I wasn’t sure why, but that feeling of jealousy for Applejack that she had probably been spending all that time with MY ehm Ryan was like a poison seeping through my blood. 
“What have you been doing while I was busy baking with Pinkie?”
“Helping AJ and Big Mac knock apples down from trees. They’ve been happy to have an extra helper around even if I’m not a pony or a stallion.”
“Ah...” Sweet Apple Acres was sprawled before us. It was the only place in Ponyville I hadn’t seen yet. The barn and the farmhouse settled nicely into the scenery as the famous apple trees rolled back for what seemed like miles. “Wow... So... what am I doing here?”
Ryan laughed at me again. “AJ needs to help Applebloom with school and Big Mac needed to continue hauling in the apple buckets. I can’t do either so Granny Smith set me to repainting the barn. Thought you might want to help.”
I loved paint. The smell of it, the feel of it, and the look of it as it was applied onto whatever it was that needed paint... “Sure.”
He smiled over at me and we walked down to the barn together. Sitting inside the door were three large red paint buckets and four or five giant brushes. He picked up two buckets and two brushes and motioned for me to follow him. I followed him around the side of the barn and eyed the wood that had been tediously scraped clean of any cracked or chipped old paint. Ryan opened the first bucket of paint and held out a brush.
I gently took it from him with magic and dipped it into the paint. Actually, the job wasn’t all that bad. We joked and chatted all day with him reaching the low spots that were his height and me reaching the high spots with my magic. It seemed like no time had passed when we finished but the sun was moving behind us into the evening.
At about the time we finished, Applejack came out with a skipping Applebloom to see how we were doing.
“Hiya Cutie Mark Crusader!” Applebloom greeted me.
Ryan snickered. “Cutie Mark Crusader?” 
“Don’t ask.” I hissed.
“So, how’s that there paintin’ comin’?” Applejack asked.
“We’re done.”
Suddenly I had an idea. “Hey Applejack? Can I paint Sweet Apple Acres on the side of the barn in fancy letters for you?”
She looked skeptic but said, “Why, sure, iff’n ya want.”
I beamed brightly. “Thanks Applejack!”Ryan and AJ continued to talk but I concentrated on the paint. Red was the only color here. Hmm...  I pointed my horn at the bucket of leftover red paint and imagined adding enough yellow to turn it a nice bright orange. My horn tingled and I gasped as the still unfamiliar feeling of magic poured from my horn turning the paint orange.
The flow of magic stopped and I looked happily at the orange paint. I lifted the paintbrush with magic and dipped it in the paint. After a few quick swipes I realized I needed black paint as a shadow for the letters. Using the same process as earlier, I created a very nice black paint from the previously orange paint. Within ten or fifteen minutes I had painted in giant graffiti letters: SWEET APPLE ACRES across the side of the red barn.
Not too long after I had started, Applejack and Ryan had gone off to check on Big Mac. Applebloom was the only pony around.
“Wow, that’s some fancy letterin’. Ah’m sure AJ’ll love it!” She continued to talk so I just zoned out as we waited for Applejack, Big Mac, and Ryan to return. 
The light was starting to grow dim as the two ponies and human appeared again. The two Apples eyes grew large.
“Ah gotta say, yer a pretty good artist!” The orange mare turned to her brother. “What do ya say? Good?” Big Mac nodded.
“Eeyup.”
Applejack beamed. “Ah’m sure a pony like yerself could open an art business er somethin’.”
I had always dreamed of working in an art studio. But that was before I had ended up in Equestria. Just because you’re in a different universe doesn’t mean you can’t still be the artist you always wanted to be. For once the little voice was being a comfort rather than a fight.
While I was lost in my thoughts Ryan had struck up a conversation on housing.
“...at Twilight’s and I don’t want to intrude on you guys like this much longer. Know anywhere we could find our own places?”
Applejack thought a moment. “Ya know? Ah’m always so busy down here, Ah don’ know. Y’all could ask Rarity. That there pony knows everythin’ happenin’ around here!”
Ryan shuddered. “Rarity.” He looked to the now mostly dark sky. “We will tomorrow. Elise, wanna stay here so you don’t have to walk all the way to Twi’s?”
I shrugged. “Why not? Then we can head straight to Rarity’s in the morning.”
Applejack nodded her head toward the farmhouse. “There’s a spare cot in th’ basement o’ the farmhouse. Go ahead and use it.”
“Thanks AJ.”
The orange mare nodded her head yawning as she and her siblings headed for the house. “G’night everypony! Good luck tomorrow.”
Ryan turned to me. “Why don’t we go get that cot?”
I nodded. When we entered the house, the Apples headed upstairs and we could hear them getting ready for bed. Ryan and I headed to the basement and found the cot that Applejack had offered to us.
Ryan pulled it to the stairs and looked discouraged at the narrow staircase. I smiled confidently.
“I got this!” I stared at the cot and that funny feeling released from my horn as it became surrounded with light blue magic. Very carefully, I guided the cot up the narrow staircase and through the door. I followed and set it down ever so nicely in the living room.
Ryan bounded up the stairs. “Well, don’t you feel so special.” He teased. 
I beamed. “As a matter of fact, yes. Yes I feel so special.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “You can’t do that!”
He shook his head laughing. “No, no I don’t think I can.”


**************


That night was so.............................Yeah. Perfect.
I wasn’t driving myself mad thinking of what Ryan could be doing off at the Apples without me. I didn’t have to get up early and bake all day with Pinkie. And I could see the moon from where we had dropped my cot.
I [had] argued that I could’ve placed the cot in the living room or the barn but Ryan wouldn’t hear of it and placed my cot on the floor of the guest room he had been sleeping in.
If I rolled to face the room and not the window, I could see Ryan. So either way, my view was always perfect and I soon drifted off to sleep.
At one point in the night I woke and couldn’t bring myself to fall asleep again. No matter what I did. So I just lay there, fighting with myself.
Why am I so awake? I only slept for like three or four hours.
You have a lot to do tomorrow. New job, new home...
Yeah, but I’m taking care of home first with Rarity’s help.
How will you pay for home if you don’t have bits to pay for it with?
Oh shit. Maybe I should concentrate on the job first.
There ya go. The brain decided to work for once.
Shut up.
And what if you can’t find a job?
Well damn. Then I guess I would have to...
This went on for hours. Finally, in the middle of an argument about opening an art business and meeting the Princesses, I groaned loudly and rolled toward the window. There was a soft movement on the bed behind me. I had forgotten Ryan was in the room.
“Mm... Elise? Are...you awake?” He asked groggily.
I lay still a moment.
Oh just answer him.
I rolled over and looked up at his bed. “Yeah.”
He met my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh nothing.”
“Elise.” Ryan could always tell when I was lying. I hated that.
I sighed. “Just fretting about a job mostly. What if I can’t find anywhere to work? What would I do then?”
“Really, I think you should just do what AJ suggested.” He said. “Sure, she was probably kidding but even when you weren’t a pony you could out-art anyone I knew.”
I shrugged. “I don’t think I’m that good.”
“That’s because we’re always our worst critic.”
I smiled in the dark. “Can I come up there?” I asked shyly. I was personally very thankful it was dark. He wouldn’t see me blush.
“Sure.”
I got up from my cot and climbed into his bed. I lay down with my back to him, being sure my mane wasn’t in his mouth. Ryan wrapped his arms around me and let me snuggle up to him. “Goodnight Elise.”
“Goodnight Ryan.” I said as I settled down to sleep for the second time that night. Sleep decided I had thought enough for tonight as my eyes closed heavily. Somewhere in my drowsiness I felt Ryan kiss the top of my head right in between my ears. His breath warmed my mane as he whispered to me when he thought I was asleep.
“I love you Elise.”