((Prompt: Why is Applejack crying?))
Applejack hated this part.
She stood at the counter, puffy red eyes fixed on her work. No matter how she tried to stop them, tears continually overflowed the corners of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. In the next room over, Twilight perched on a chair, her nose buried in a book.
“Where—” Applejack coughed, fighting back the tightness in her throat. “Where's this thing gonna be?” she asked.
Twilight did not respond. Her attention remained locked on her book.
“Twi?”
“Hm?” Twilight blinked. “Oh, sorry, Applejack, I wasn't paying attention.”
“That's a real surprise,” Applejack muttered under her breath. Another hot tear stung her cheek.
Twilight perked her ears forward. “What did you say?”
Applejack raised her voice. “I asked where—”
“The park,” Twilight said. “It'll be at the park.”
Applejack nodded. She sniffed her runny nose. “An', uh, who's gonna be there?”
Silence. Applejack turned to see that Twilight's attention was back to her book again.
“Dangit, Twi!”
Twilight's head snapped up. “Sorry, sorry! Uh, you asked who to expect there, right?”
The farmer nodded, her hooves still busy with her work. “If it ain't too much trouble for ya.”
“Well, Pinkie will be there for sure,” Twilight said, tapping her hoof on the end-table. “Fluttershy and Rarity said they would be late, but they would make it. Rainbow Dash... well.”
Another tear trickled across the sensitive hairs on Applejack's cheek. “I understand. Five of us, huh?”
“Looks like.” Twilight put a bookmark in her book and shut it. “You almost done in there?”
Applejack smiled and wiped her knife off. “I never much liked onions, but this oughta be enough for five sandwiches.” She wiped the moisture from her eyes with a hoof. “When Rainbow gets back from her big Wonderbolts tryouts, we'll have to have another one of these.”
“Picnics just aren't the same without her,” Twilight agreed.
Oh that is genius. Why does this remind me of an old cartoon called Hey Arnold so much? I do like these, and I'll have to find the time to read the other for the first half of the mane six.
Would you do more of other characters once this one has been done, if I may ask?
3393153
There's Celestia, Luna, Spike and I think Discord could also be an option...
3393153 I've been debating whether to move beyond the Mane Six after I'm done with Twilight. See, there are a lot of prompts that specifically deal with just the main cast, so it would be much harder to do thirty days of, say, Celestia.
I dunno. I will probably at the very least take a month or two off of the thirty-minute stuff after Twilight in order to focus on some of my longer stories that have, unfortunately, fallen by the wayside while I did these. We'll just see where we are after that.
Glad you're enjoying them, though!
3393517 It's up to you in the end. It would be cool, though, if you did do one for Celestia. Best Princess need more loving
Meanwhile, back at the library, Spike cries as he wonders why he never gets invited to picnics with his friends anymore.
Kinda funny, though, by the time I was at "No matter how she tried to stop them," my brain yelled "Onions!" at me. But you definitely got me last chapter. I was thinking that Fluttershy and Twilight were hiding the fact that they went to the spa together.
By the way, I sympathize with AJ's annoyance here at Twilight tuning her out. I know someone who's so good at that, if there's a newspaper or anything nearby, I've gotten in the habit of asking for an acknowledgement before practically every sentence I say. Seriously, I don't understand how anyone can say something to you, then manage to tune you out already in the tiny pause between the end of their sentence and the beginning of your reply.
Hah! You only half-got me this time!
*Grins* i did wonder about onions of some sort. Very nice. I wonder about doing 30 days of random bg characters. perhaps earth ponies and unicorns or canterlot ponies or some sort of theme.
3512636 I'm hesitant to go beyond the Mane Six for two reasons: One, there's quite a few prompts that specifically address the Mane Six or individual members thereof, so the difficulty of fitting all the prompts rises dramatically. Two, while these thirty minute prompts have been great at getting me to write every day, they have taken over much of my writing time; I've made very little progress on any of my larger stories in the last six months. I would like to get something more substantial published before I consider coming back.
That said, the idea of going as broad as "Thirty Minute Unicorns" and the like could be a good solution to problem #1 there. It'll be a while before I swing back around to it, but perhaps I'll have to keep it in mind.
STOP IT!! THE TWISTS!! THEY´RE TOO MUCH!!!