//------------------------------// // Ch. 2, The new world and all it's glory // Story: Citrus // by Hope //------------------------------// Radin looked away from the light red pony with its long straight hair, and she looked down at the stubby sky colored thing that took the place of her hand, placing weight on it experimentally and seeing it was quite sturdy. “My name is Radin Washob.” The girl in a pony’s body said as she stood and tried to figure out where she was. “That is a silly name. It doesn’t make any sense.” The pony named Pinkie Pie retorted bitterly. “You’re one to talk, What is a Pinkie Pie anyway?!” Radin barked, only causing the other pony to step closer with a frown. “My family is the Pie family, and I am Pink. What does your name mean?” She asked. Radin shrunk away slightly, brows creased in concentration. “Something to do with the rain, okay? I think it means rain-fall’s blessing.” Pinkie snorted. “Really? That’s just lazy.” “What? My name is not lazy!” “No, not you... I... I’m calling you Rainbow Dash, okay?” The pink pony instructed, turning and walking away without waiting for an answer. “Where are you going?!” Radin called out, trying to rush after her but tripping a few times along the way. “Home, I am hungry and I have to cook my own food. I created you so you will help me cook.” “You didn’t create me!” Radin shouted back angrily. “You just pulled me through some pool.” She mumbled, finally catching up with Pinkie. “Tomatoes Potatoes.” Pinkie said snootily. Radin stopped, looking at Pinkie as though she were crazy. “What?” “Momma says it all the time, it means that one thing is enough like another it just doesn’t matter.” “I think it matters that I existed before today, don’t you?” Radin asked incredulously. “No.” The other mare replied simply, before trotting away. With an incredulous frown, the newly named “Rainbow” followed her supposed creator into the pony’s home. This building was larger than anything Rainbow had ever seen before in her life, it was easily two great huts tall, and maybe four wide. The whole thing was made of unnaturally smooth and colorless pieces of wood, the color of dried bone. “How many people do you have living here?” She asked, looking around in awe and fear at the massive structure. “A hundred?!” Pinkie reappeared right in front of Rainbow’s face, causing her to leap backwards and fall into a heap of limbs. “Ponies. How many ponies. The answer is five, stop being so loud,” she demanded, before turning and making her way back into the kitchen. Rainbow followed while looking at the odd flat surfaces that were placed around the room on stilts. One had flowers on it, another had flat objects with eerily lifelike drawings of these ponies on them, and another that was even bigger had circles of white stuff with knives and such next to them. So much room just taken up with raised surfaces. As she finally got into the kitchen, Pinkie shoved a huge cold metal thing into her arms, followed by a thin metal thing that looked like a flower of some sort. “Stir,” she demanded, before shuffling back to the bizarre equipment all around them. Rainbow sighed. This was not only far from her idea of an adventure, but it was the same sort of repetitive tasks that she had always been forced to do back at home. With a huff, she dropped the metal things with a clatter on the floor. White powder and an egg slid out of the big round metal thing onto the floor. “No.” Pinkie Pie turned around wide eyed. “What did you do?” “I’m not going to--” “WHAT DID YOU DO!?” Pinkie Pie took a flat metal thing and started scraping the powder off the floor into the round one again, wide eyed and looking around frantically. Rainbow stepped back in fear, the expression on Pinkie’s face terrifying her. “You don’t… Don’t waste food. This… This is food, you can’t waste it! We don’t have bread, ever, and I’m not going to be blamed for not having it AGAIN!” Pinkie was crying as she gathered the egg and flour back in the bowl, and carefully picked out bits of wood that had been scraped up, little bits of dirt, until it was pure white again. She then looked up to Rainbow with suspicion. “Don’t. Do. That. You stir. You move your hoof back and forth while holding the whisk. You keep doing that, I’ll add milk when I decide it’s time. Then… Then you keep stirring until I tell you to stop.” She carefully placed the things back in Rainbow’s hooves, and in stunned silence, Rainbow did exactly what she was told, stirring carefully until Pinkie added an amount of a white liquid. Then it got harder to stir, but she kept going. A bit later, more white liquid, the stuff Pinkie had called milk. Finally, as Rainbow’s arm was getting tired and starting to ache, Pinkie yanked the bowl and whisk out of her grasp and gently pushed the thick dough into a square wood frame on one of those flat wooden surfaces. She then washed the bowl and came back to Rainbow with a rock. “Here. Eat this. The bread won’t be ready to bake until tomorrow.” Incredulously, Rainbow took the rock and tried to nibble on it, but it only hurt her teeth. “She tried to eat a rock?” the old man’s grandson said in shock. “Why would she do that? You can’t eat rocks!” The man chuckled and picked up a not too badly bruised orange off the grassy ground and held it out to the boy. “She was in a world that didn’t make sense, she was a pony of all things, of course she tried. Besides, a Pie can be quite intimidating when they want to.” The boy rolled his eyes and began eating the orange as the old man continued. “I can’t… I can’t eat this,” Rainbow said meekly. Pinkie sighed and took the rock back, munching on it as easily as fruit. “Pegasus, of course you can’t, should have known you’d be too delicate.” Pinkie beckoned for Rainbow to follow her, and led her to a separate room. This room was the size of Rainbow’s whole hut back home, but the walls were covered in shelves full of things, some recognizable, some not. Quickly, she spotted the apple she had picked from the tree. “Hey, that’s mine!” “I figured we could save it, but if you can’t eat our rocks, then you might as well have it,” Pinkie said with a shrug, turning away to sit in front of a small fire in a stone box. Rainbow took back the apple and began eating it, quickly sitting taller and smiling as the juice dripped down her chin, and she ate even the core from how hungry she was. She then joined Pinkie next to the fire box. “How does the fire not burn down your house?” she asked. Pinkie looked to Rainbow, then up at the chimney, then back to Rainbow. She shook her head and sighed. “It’s magic.” “Oh.” Rainbow settled in and warmed herself in front of the magic fire.