Applejack wanted nothing more than for this day to be over. Granted, she’d probably wake up to a tomorrow where she’d still get sick from apples, but at least it would be a new day—anything than this nightmare of a morning she was experiencing. Though morning wasn’t even over yet, she was tired. The lull of sleep was assisting her, closing her eyes and making her warm and snug under her covers as a relaxing breeze drifted under the dense curtains that were keeping the sunlight out of her room. As the thoughts and worries began to escape her without her even realizing, Applejack was almost under the calming spell…
“Soooo…” a high-pitched, feminine voice hummed loudly, only inches away from Applejack’s left ear, “What’re we gonna do today, Jackie?”
All of sleep’s hard work had just gone to waste, and the long and hard journey into a dreamland was abruptly stopped short and rewound back to square one as Pinkie had come into Applejack’s room to greet her. Knowing already that ignoring the pink pony would be a lost battle before it started, Applejack opened up her eyes, but she didn’t look at the happy pony gawking at her on her left—instead, the farmer kept her eyes steadied on the ceiling, acknowledging Pinkie’s presence, but not welcoming her friend to more conversation.
Pinkie backed her outstretched neck from Applejack’s face and promptly tilted her head in confusion. “You okay, Applejack?” Her head slowly followed an imaginary line that went from Applejack’s eyes to the spot on the ceiling she was so focused on. “What’re ya looking at?” she again, the same cheery tone not leaving her voice.
“Ah’m a little worse for wear, Pink,” Applejack admitted. “If ya don’t mind, could ya please leave me alone for now?” She tried to sound annoyed when she asked, but she felt so drained that it came out as a tired plea instead. Her eyes hadn’t moved away from the ceiling, though now they were focused on a small divot in the drywall overhead that was casting a shadow in its crater.
“Jackie,” Pinkie began her sentence, the pet-name making Applejack cringe slightly, “I’m here to take care of you while Twilight and Big Mac go get that Dreamsnatcher or whatever her name was. And you don’t have to worry about me not being a good caretaker,” Pinkie said, planting her rear onto the floor and holding her arm towards her chest, “I’ve proven myself to Mr. and Mrs. Cake,” she explained with a smile, continuing her pledge-like stance. “If I can take care of two little babies, you should be no problem at all!”
Even though Applejack knew it wasn’t intended to be an insult, she couldn’t help but get irked by Pinkie’s remark. “Ah don’t need anypony to take care of me, Pinkie. Ah’m just feeling sick, alright? Nothin’ a little sleep won’t handle.” She took her attention off from the divot on her ceiling and closed her eyes, resuming what she knew was a futile battle to try and go to sleep. For a moment, Applejack didn’t hear a peep from Pinkie; for a moment, she was foolish enough to think that Pinkie had actually given up.
“You haven’t eaten a single thing in since forever!” Pinkie scolded, though her discipline lost a lot of its effect when she spoke in such a happy manner. “Every time you ate something, it only came back up later! If you eat the food but don’t digest it, you aren’t absorbing any of the goody nutrients inside!” As the pink pony continued to explain, she leaned in closer to her friend and rested her arms on the edge of the bed.
“Thanks for the medical lesson,” Applejack remarked. “Ah’m not hungry at the moment, Pinkie. If Ah’m not hungry, Ah’m not gonna eat.” She took a deep breath, held it in for a second, and exhaled through her nose, trying to bring back the peace and tranquility Pinkie had so rudely interrupted.
Pinkie cocked an eyebrow at Applejack from what she had just said. “I always eat when I’m not hungry! If I ate whenever I was hungry, than I’d always eat too much food to fill me up; if I eat when I’m not hungry, I’ll never get hungry because I’m constantly full!”
For the first time since Pinkie entered the room, Applejack opened her eyes and leaned on her left side to look straight at the pink pony. “How in tarnation is eating constantly better than eating only when you’re hungry?” she asked plainly. “That would only make me fat.”
“I’m not fat, silly!” Pinkie retorted. “If I were fat, then I’d go drifting off into the sky like one of my party balloons!”
“…what?”
To give a visual, Pinkie prodded the slight outward curve of her belly, and then squeezed her flexed forearm; “Fat’s lighter than muscle!” she explained.
“…But it ain’t lighter than air, Pinkie.” Applejack had warmed up just slightly, and any hint of spite that was in her voice earlier was now gone.
“Wait!” Pinkie yelled suddenly, making Applejack jump, “I was wrong—it’s not lighter than air, it’s denser!”
The surprised expression on the orange pony’s face had already gone back to annoyed boredom, and it didn’t change after Pinkie finished her sentence. “Amazing,” Applejack spoke sarcastically.
Pinkie’s face lit up as she recalled something she once heard. “Hey! Hey, Jackie, I got a puzzle for you!” she exclaimed while lightly bouncing up and down.
“Pinkie, Ah’m not really in the mood—”
“What weighs more: a thousand pounds of hay or a thousand pounds of rainbows?” Pinkie shoved her face into Applejack’s while she waited, on-edge, for her friend to answer, making the tired earth-pony reel backwards from her leaning position.
Applejack had heard this one before…but not with the objects Pinkie was talking about; the blonde mare’s face scrunched as she thought about the question for a second. “Uhm, Pinkie? If Ah’m not mistaken, rainbows don’t weigh anything. It’s just light.”
Pinkie cocked another eyebrow in Applejack’s face, though this time the party pony’s expression was much more amused. “Jackie…if rainbows don’t weigh anything, then how come they don’t fly away into the air?” Considering her own words, Pinkie’s sly smile became a stark frown. “But—Dashie can fly, and she’s ‘Rainbow Dash,’ but that must mean she doesn’t weigh anything—but what if she eats something? The food would be a big weight in her stomach! No—I’m thinking about this all wrong…” Pinkie got off the bed and turned away from Applejack and started to pace back and forth across the wooden floor. “Are rainbows weightless because Dashie can fly, or can Dashie fly because rainbows are weightless? But—not just her, all pegasi can fly! Maybe they use fat to keep them afloat? Are pegasi just fatter than regular ponies?”
Pinkie’s usual antics had finally drilled through the cold cobblestone that had crusted over Applejack’s heart over the past few days. The farmer smiled and slowly shook her head in amusement over Pinkie’s dilemma—was that a high-pitched giggle that just came out of her mouth? Applejack pushed away the covers of her bed and leapt off the mattress; Pinkie returned to the real world when she heard the clop of the hooves on the floor, and she looked up at Applejack.
“If Ah were you, Pinkie,” Applejack began, walking over to her friend and slinging an arm over Pinkie’s shoulder, “Ah wouldn’t ask or even mention that to Rainbow. Not unless you wanna get yerself into a rumble, that is.”
“But they have to be fatter!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense! …But then where do they put all that extra fat…?”
Applejack made a snorting noise when her laugh half-escaped through her nose and sealed lips. “Let’s talk about it over a meal, shall we?” Pinkie’s look of pondering and philosophy wiped clean off at the word “meal,” and was replaced by her trademark smile and the rapid bobbing of her head in agreement. Applejack took her arm off from around Pinkie and the two made their way downstairs to the kitchen. “Ah could really go for somethin’ to eat right now…”
The view of Canterlot was becoming clearer and clearer as the Friendship Express continued its trek up the rails, placed smack between the broad face of the mountains on the right, and a deep crevasse on the left. Twilight was sitting in the window seat of one of the passenger cars, staring intently on the city in the distance; Big Mac, on the other hand, was staring at the swirling circular patterns on the carpet placed in the middle of the car, trying his hardest not to look outside.
Twilight happened to glance to her right, and she noticed how intently Big Mac was watching the floor. “Are you holding up alright, Big Mac?” Twilight asked, concerned.
“Eeyup,” the stallion replied.
Not convinced by his wavering tone, Twilight asked, “Have you ever ridden a train before?”
“Eeyup.” He wasn’t taking his eyes off the floor.
Twilight realized immediately that he must have ridden a simple train at least once in his life. It was the main way of getting around Equestria. “Have you ever ridden a train through rough terrain?” she asked a third time, and being more specific.
The train hit a small bump, and the entire passenger car jerked; the large red stallion quivered slightly. “Nnope,” he finally said after regaining his bearings.
Twilight decided to spare Big Mac the shame and looked back out the window to view the incoming city. “We’ve just about arrived. Hopefully, I’ll be able to contact Dreamcatcher quickly and we’ll bring her to Sweet Apple Acres without a hitch. Like I said before, if anypony can fix Applejack, it’s her.”
“Hopefully she’s willin’ to help, though,” Big Mac said in a sigh as the train passed the gates into Canterlot and came to a slow stop as the brakes screeched against the tracks at the station. “If not, then we’re pretty much outta luck.”
Twilight, trying to stay optimistic, suggested to the stallion, “If anything, maybe she could give us a few pointers on how to help out AJ. Anything will be better than nothing, really.”
The two stepped out of the train car and took a quick glance of the surrounding area. Big Mac, being a soft-spoken country-man, had never even seen Manehattan in his life, so the sight of Canterlot was quite a sight to behold for the stallion. “Golly,” he said humbly, trying to take in the entire view.
Twilight wasn’t as enthusiastic, and she immediately started off into the streets. “C’mon Big Mac,” she called behind her, “Unfortunately, we don’t have time to dilly-dally! Even if we don’t make it to the Celebration in time, we need Dreamcatcher’s help!” Twilight paused at the front gates of the train station for Big Mac to catch up to her. As the stallion galloped quickly to her side, Twilight began to walk again, and continued to speak as she looked around at the different sights, if only for the sake of looking at something. “I’ve tried everything I can think of for poor Applejack, and yet barely any progress was made. It was my idea to drag her into Sweet Apple Acres…” the unicorn said guiltily, “I have to fix the mess I caused, for her sake.”
Big Mac was barely listening. Had he not been such a large pony, one could have mistaken him for a young kid gawking at all the rides at a carnival; his eyes were sparkling, and he had a large open-mouthed smile as he continued to watch the entire city. “Eeyup,” he answered to Twilight absent-mindedly.
Twilight glanced back at Big Mac and his goofy expression. “Why did you come along, again?” she asked.
The stallion took his eyes off the sights for a moment and replied to Twilight, “Ah called dibs on second.”
Twilight shrugged at the response—a good an answer as any other, since the topic really wasn’t important now. Returning her attention to the castle up ahead, Twilight spoke, more to herself than anyone else, “I have the clearance to go pretty much anywhere in Canterlot Castle that I want—found that out the hard way. Getting to Dreamcatcher will be the easy part. It’s convincing her to go out of her way for your sister that’ll be the hard part.”
“Eeyup.”
Applejack let out a relaxed sigh of content. She was feeling better right now than she had for the past three days. Probably because she had actually eaten food for once. Or maybe because she wasn’t trying anymore psychological tests.
“That was absolutely delicious, Pinkie,” Applejack said to the pink pony cleaning their dishes in the sink; the orange mare was sitting back in her chair with her arm rested over her plumper-than-usual belly. “What were those things, anyways?”
“A chimicherrychanga,” Pinkie replied casually in her jolly tone. “After Rarity and I got back to Ponyville from trying to bring you back to Ponyville, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I went ahead and made one! Though, this is the first time I didn’t end up cooking an ip-her-kack.”
“Ah think it’s pronounced, ‘ipecac’ Pinkie,” Applejack replied. Her friend’s last comment had put her at unease, and Applejack’s casual pose in her chair, with her back hooves rested on top of the table, had stiffened up. “Let’s just thank Celestia that this wasn’t the case this time…”
“I KNOW, right?” Pinkie replied as she wiped off her cleaned plate and placed it down on the kitchen counter. Turning back to Applejack, she continued, “But I figured that this would be the best time to retry it, since you’ve been throwing up everything you eat anyways.”
Applejack’s eyes narrowed at the oblivious pink pony taking a seat at the kitchen table next to her. “You sayin’ Ah was yer guinea pig? Frankly, if Ah’ve been so sick lately, making somethin’ that’d make me more sick isn’t the best of ideas.”
Pinkie didn’t seem fazed by Applejack’s criticism. “Well, since we’re both still alive, so I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Anyway, what’s next on the list of things to do?”
“Things to do?” Applejack questioned. “There’s nothin’ left to do—not for me, anyway. Ah can’t really help outside with the Celebration, since, y’know, mah sickness and all…”
Pinkie lightly slammed her hoof on the table in disbelief. “You say that like there isn’t anything to do inside!” she exclaimed.
Applejack only shrugged at the gawking pink pony sitting on her right. “Mah entire livelihood depends on me being outside to buck apples. Ah rarely choose to stay inside the house.”
Pinkie thought on her friend’s words. “Well then, what do you do on a rainy day—when you have to stay inside?” She spoke like an interrogator that was already onto something.
“Ah usually just looked outside the window at the fields and the apples,” Applejack stated plainly, looking at a window on the adjacent wall as she spoke. She could see that a few of her relatives had already arrived for the party that was tomorrow—the distant relatives that had to sleep at the farm overnight. Some were helping with applying banners to high wooden posts, others were already mingling with friends they hadn’t spoken with for over a year. While Applejack was happy to see all her relatives’ smiling faces outside, it also pained her to know that her chances of being outside with them tomorrow was a long shot.
A silence fell over Pinkie after Applejack’s answer; she was obviously trying to think of a counter to her friend’s apparent disregard for the indoors. “What kinda board games do you like to play?” she asked half-heartedly with a shrug.
“Board games?” Applejack repeated. The intrigued tone in the farmer’s voice had obviously piqued Pinkie’s enthusiasm, as she smiled broadly and nodded her head rapidly. “Ah’ve never been all that good at board games, Pinkie. Just never was mah thing.”
Pinkie’s smiling mouth opened and breathed in a small gasp of delight. “Great, me neither! C’mon, let’s go play a fun board game!” She grabbed Applejack’s arm and dragged the blonde mare into the center of the living room; Pinkie sat the farmer down slowly and proceeded to dart around from room to room in the house. Applejack was having a hard time keeping track of the pink blur zipping around her.
“What’re ya talking about?” Applejack asked the speedy pony cautiously. “Ah’ve seen you play board games before—they’re practically your forte, what with it being part of yer parties an’ all.” She heard a small clacking noise and looked down at the two die that had suddenly appeared before her—they landed next to several playing cards, a rubber bouncy-ball, an empty bottle of nasal spray and what appeared to be a small wooden mallet. She became aware that a new set of items fell to her feet every time Pinkie zipped by her. Finally—after the pink pony had added, among other things, twelve bottle caps and metal spoon—Pinkie stopped her marathon around the Apple Family house and sat perfectly still, opposite of Applejack on the round green carpet in the middle of the living room.
“I’m not good at every board game!” Pinkie exclaimed with a massive grin on her face. “In fact, I’m absolutely no good at this one here!” she said, extending her hoof out to show off the pile of scrap in front of her and Applejack.
Applejack stared at the junk, trying to remember if she’d ever seen this game—or even anything REMOTELY similar—being played by Pinkie at any one time. “You’ll have to jog mah memory, Ah’m afraid,” Applejack admitted. “What exactly IS this game, Pink?”
Pinkie threw her arms into the air and proudly announced, “I have NO IDEA!”
“Wah?”
“That’s the idea of the game, Jackie!” Pinkie explained excitedly. “Since I’m so good at board games, I got you all this stuff so you can make up one of your OWN! Make up your own rules and everything—that way, you have a super-duper-huge chance of winning!” Finished talking, Pinkie proceeded to bite her lower lip in anticipation, watching a confused Applejack with starry eyes as she waited for her friend to create a new fun game for her to play.
Applejack looked from Pinkie’s face, back down to the heap of junk at her feet. “You…you don’t honestly expect me t’ make up a game on the spot, do you?” Seeing that Pinkie’s giddy expression didn’t change, she realized her friend meant business. “Uhm, okay…uh…” She noticed a red circle jutting out from the bottom of the pile, and taking it out, saw it was an apple-themed fridge magnet. “…First rule, uh: the object of the game is to finish while in possession of the apple. If you finish the game without the apple, you don’t win.”
Pinkie bobbed her head in agreement, looking trance-like as she listened closely to Applejack’s every word about the game. “How do you ‘finish’ the game, then?” she asked modestly.
Applejack hummed in thought and placed the apple magnet down to her side, examining the other items again for her next plan of action. “Well…oh! The game is finished after all twelve bottle caps are gone from the…” she paused in her directions to push the junk aside and align the bottle caps into a circle between her and Pinkie, “…from the circle. And…each bottle cap leaves when you successfully land the spoon on the…”
Pinkie’s undivided attention was on Applejack and the game pieces, each one that Pinkie had brought becoming somehow significant in the confoundedly complicated game the orange mare was coming up with on the spot.
Twilight walked as casually as she could into Canterlot Castle’s Specialist Wing, where the “higher ups” resided. While the tall ceiling and pale tile floor sung the same tune of royalty that the rest of the Castle did, there was a certain air professionalism to go along with the kingly feel. The stained-glass windows lining the left side of the hallway were nowhere near as energetic, instead keeping simplistic patterns for the sunlight to shine through. At the mouth of the long hallway was a middle-aged mare sitting at a wooden desk, wearing a pair of reading glasses so she could see the book sitting on the desk in front of her.
The mare didn’t notice Twilight and Big Mac as they entered the small room with the desk, the opposite wall lined up with cushions to act as a waiting room for other ponies; two were currently seated already. Twilight lowered her head, trying to make eye contact with the mare looking down at the book she was reading. After the attempt to get her attention failed, Twilight resorted to speaking up. Abruptly clearing her throat, Twilight said, “Excuse me.” The mare looked up from her book, bored. “Would the unicorn Dreamcatcher happen to be here?”
“As far as I know,” she replied, looking slightly amused for a second after noticing the rural-looking Big Mac standing behind the unicorn. “Do you two have an appointment with her?”
“Uh, no, actually,” Twilight stuttered, “But we were wondering if we could take a few minutes out of her time to speak with her.” Twilight’s heart was propelling her blood throughout her body, it was pumping so fast. The moment of truth—actually, Twilight was already going through plans ‘B’ through ‘H’ in her head, in case they were about to hit another wall.
“I don’t think she’s with anypony right now…but she might be,” the mare replied, looking down the hallway as if someone were to come out and confirm her suspicion. “You should probably wait for her to come out if you wish to speak with her. Don’t want to barge in on a patient now, would you?” The mare looked back down at her book and waved her hoof towards the cushions on the other side of the room. “Just take a seat for now. If nopony comes out in twenty minutes, I suppose I can let you go ahead in. Just as long as I’m not held responsible for any consequences.”
Twilight pouted at the answer; what she wanted was to get this done as soon as possible. Sitting and doing nothing for twenty minutes would be torture for her. She wanted to say something to the mare at the desk, but Twilight figured that since she was already being this lenient with her and Big Mac, it probably wasn’t best to provoke her. “Okay,” Twilight replied, and trudged to the worn-out red pillows secured to a small wooden platform for elevation, “thanks.” She plopped into a seat next to one of the ponies already seated; a seafoam-green unicorn mare that was sitting in her cushion in the strangest form Twilight had ever seen. The unicorn was sitting on her upper flank—practically with her back laying flat on the cushion—and her legs were sticking out over the floor in front of her instead of tucked in on her sides behind her forelegs. Twilight noticed the pony had a lyre depicted on her flank.
The mare noticed out the corner of her eye the purple pony staring at her, and she turned to see Twilight, who turned red from being caught. “Oh!” Twilight exclaimed, “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to stare at you, it’s just…why are you sitting like that?” Big Mac, who had sat on Twilight’s right, looked over her shoulder to see the pony she was talking to.
“I dunno,” the mare replied with a shrug, “It’s just one of the things I do. A quirk of mine. I’m quirky.”
Twilight still questioned the reasons for sitting with one's head up against the wall and belly sticking out. “That certainly looks uncomfortable, though,” Twilight replied.
The mare only shrugged again. “That’s what Dreamcatcher said the other day, too. I overheard your conversation just now, and yes, she’s with somepony right now. I’m next afterwards, though,” she quickly added for the sake of clarification. She stuck out an arm towards Twilight, not moving from her awkward sit. “I’m Lyra. I go to Dreamcatcher sometimes to discuss my little ‘quirks.’ Nothing too bad, but Bon Bon has been complaining about how I do everything recently, so I decided I may as well try and do something about it.”
Twilight grabbed Lyra’s outstretched hoof with her own and gently shook with the mare. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. I came here with a friend of mine,” she leaned over to show to Big Mac to Lyra, to which she gave a wave of her arm, and a nod from the stallion, “because we need Dreamcatcher’s assistance with his sister,” she said, pointing back to Big Mac.
“Really?” Lyra asked, intrigued. “What’s wrong?” She scooted up a few inches into a more proper sit—considering how she was currently sitting, that is.
“To make a long story short, she’s an apple farmer that now gets sick to her stomach from anything involving apples. An accidental conditioning that makes her body now think apples are poison.” Twilight attempted to sound as defeated and heartbroken as she could while explaining their predicament; if she was lucky, Lyra would have the heart to let her and Big Mac talk with Dreamcatcher first. Twilight didn’t want to be deceptive, but she really wanted to get this over with. “I’ve already tried everything I could; if Dreamcatcher can’t fix her, I don’t know what the poor mare will have to do with her life…” Her lip quivered slightly as she looked down at the floor with puppy eyes.
Lyra put a hoof over her mouth. “An apple farmer that can’t work with apples? That sounds terrible.” The unicorn paused and thought for a moment. “Y’know, why don’t you go ahead and head my session. Just slip in first thing and hopefully do whatever you can. Bon Bon’s been paying for these, so it doesn’t really matter to me if I don’t get the whole experience or not.” She slumped back into her initial ‘sit.’ “I take it your friend's not here because she’s feeling sick?”
“That doesn’t even begin to explain it…” Twilight said, half to herself as she mentally hit herself on the head; bringing Applejack to Sweet Apple Acres was not one of her crowning moments of intelligence.
“…So, what exactly are you planning on doing, then?” Lyra asked quizzically. “What can Dreamcatcher do other than give you advice?”
“Hopefully she can give me a spell I could use on my friend’s mind for the next few days,” Twilight answered. “While it’s best that we fix the problem rather than cover it up, we need a quick fix for a family get-together she’s supposed to go to tomorrow.”
“I see,” Lyra said, nodding slowly. She sighed loudly before rocking herself off the cushion and onto all four hooves. “Make sure you tell Dreamcatcher that Lyra Heartstrings is alright with you coming in in my stead.” She began for the door out, when Twilight called back to her.
“Wait!” the purple unicorn exclaimed. “Where are you going?”
“Meh,” Lyra replied. “I’ve lost the mood to go in that room anyways. And all this talk about apples has made me hungry.” Her horn glowed with magic, as did the door; she opened it and was almost through it when she paused and peeked from behind the doorway. “Good luck with your friend, Twilight Sparkle,” she said and walked through the door, closing it behind her.
“Wow, Jackie!” Pinkie exclaimed from inside the small, cramped cabinet-space underneath the kitchen sink, “You found me AGAIN!”
Applejack chuckled at Pinkie’s gusto. “Ah’d actually forgotten how fun hide-and-go-seek was. Probably be better if it wasn’t just th’ two of us, though. Ah spend prob’ly three times longer waitin’ for you to find me than Ah spend lookin’ for you!”
Pinkie slowly crawled out from the tight spot, her mane springing outward after breaking free from the sink over her head. “You’re just better at using your senses than I am! Oh, it’s your turn to hide now!” Pinkie hadn’t closed the cabinet yet, and instead went into a physical rewind, going flank-first and head-last back into the cramped cabinet and closed the door behind her. “You go find a hiding spot while I count to fifty—or until I get tired of counting!” her muffled voice said from inside the woodwork, echoing through the pipes and out the sink.
“Pinkie, we’ve hid in every dang nook an’ cranny in this house at least twice,” Applejack stated plainly. “How’s about we find somethin’ else to do now?”
The farmer mare jumped when Pinkie popped out of a cabinet on the wall behind her, shouting “Okay!” and leaping out onto the kitchen floor next to Applejack. Pinkie didn’t understand why her friend looked so dumbfounded at her. “Something wrong, Jackie? Feeling sick again?”
Applejack shook off her surprise and regained her composure. “Uh, no, Ah’m fine, Pinkie.” The two began to walk around the house together, trying to find something new to do to pass the time. “Ah can’t believe you’re not good at hide-and-go-seek, though.”