Apple Bloom's Morning
Apple Bloom woke to absolute stillness.
The farmhouse was as quiet as a winter night. The old timber walls, usually raucous with creaks and cracks in the slightest of breezes, were silent, as if still asleep themselves. No hoofsteps from her sister or brother echoed up the stairs, and the faint morning light creeping in beneath the curtain told her they were already awake, putting to rest the day's first chores. The only sounds were her breath and the faint thrum of blood beating in her ears.
Outside, an early robin warbled a few tentative notes. Nothing else answered.
The silence was perfect, almost sacred. Some impulse – the one that kept her from shouting across the classroom when Ms. Cheerilee was already angry with her – cautioned her against speaking now. The peace of the morning was sepulchral, and it demanded respect.
“It's summer,” she whispered into her pillowcase.
She climbed out of bed, setting her hooves down on the bare wood floor as gently as if it were eggshell. The room around her was warm already, on its way to cloying, but she knew better than to open the window. That would let in the world outside, and the perfect silence would be lost to the wind. Better to leave the window closed and trap the quiet where she could keep it for later.
Silence was rare on a farm. If it wasn't treated carefully it could break, just like the time she wasn't careful with Big Macintosh's collection of exotic fruit jams and preserves. But silence didn't turn into a sticky mess all over the cellar floor and three weeks of extra chores when broken – it was just gone, and no matter how much she yelled or stomped or cussed, it didn't come back. It had to be held gently, like baby ducks, and coveted for every second it lasted.
Breathing was too loud, so she stopped and ignored her burning lungs as she crossed the room to slip out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind her and sealing the silence inside. It would still be there at the end of the day, waiting for her, to lull her off to sleep.
But the end of the day was hours and hours and hours and hours and hours from now. She couldn't even conceive of the day's end, not when the sun had barely yet broken the eastern sky, and her friends had not yet arrived, and they had not marched round the endless world and done a million things. When they had not yet traced the orchard's rows, hiding between the moments, searching for the spot where the sun stood still and every day was the same as the one before and the one after. When the hot brush of wind on their coats drew out their sweat and melted the rough edges from the hours, blending them, until morning and noon and evening and night were all one memory with no beginning they could remember and no end they could foresee. A day – a season – defined by the single thread that stitched them together, that ran through them as the sun runs through the sky: the boundless joy that was the breath in their lungs and the strength in their limbs and carried them up and out and down, down the endless paths of summer, all of it waiting just beyond her door.
“It's summer,” she said again, louder now. She grinned, and the stairs creaked beneath her hooves as she galloped down them and out the farmhouse door.
“It's summer!” she shouted on the porch, startling a covey of doves roosting on the lawn. She laughed as they filled the air, and she chased them across the grass, down the dirt path leading out the arched gate, into the endless rows of apple trees beyond. Through the misty orchards she rode, until her legs ached and her chest burned, and all the while she could not stop grinning like a madmare.
“AJ!” she yelled, bursting into a clearing where her sister set out rows of empty baskets. “It's summer!” She was gone before Applejack could reply.
She ran again, vaulting a small stream that meandered through the trees like a tired snake. The muddy banks squelched beneath her hooves as she landed, and she stopped long enough to stomp in the muck a few extra times, just because it was summer, and she could, and there were no school desks to sit at or Miss Cheerilee to scold her for being dirty or stupid Diamond Tiaras to make fun of her bow. A bow, she realized, that she wasn't even wearing – it was still back in her bedroom, keeping watch over the silence, wrapping round it like a gift for her return.
Apple Bloom grinned and jumped into the mud again, splashing it all up her legs and over her belly. It felt wonderful.
“It's summer! Ha!” she yelled at the rustling trees. And then she ran some more.
By the time she reached the edge of the orchards, where the dirt path became a true road leading down the way to Ponyville, she was exhausted. Strands of her mane plastered themselves against her sticky coat, her legs shook, and her breath was the loudest sound on all the farm.
And she couldn't stop smiling.
She wasn't quite sure what time it was. Clock-time, that is – she knew it was about thirty minutes past sunrise, and in another hour the sun would be well clear of the trees, and just standing outside in its rays would burn the sweat from her coat and send her scurrying for water or shade. In the summer, the sun stayed up forever, and lunch was forever far away, and dinner forever further. The sun was the summer, and she worshiped it because she loved the princess like a good little filly, but mostly because the sun was summer and summer was freedom and oh Celestia how she loved that.
Applejack wasn't around to stop her, so she dropped to the ground and rolled around in the dirt, kicking up great clouds of dust that clung to her coat, turning her dun to match the mud on her legs and belly, easing the itch of drying sweat and tickling her nose. She sneezed a few times and laughed at the cloud of dust it produced.
Time passed, and she wasted it, lounging on the dirt road. Back on the farm, wasting time was a crime – if Applejack or Granny caught her doing nothing, she'd have another day's worth of chores dropped on her shoulders in a flash. But out here, on the fringes of the farm and an endless day ahead of her, there was nothing better to do with time than waste it. She closed her eyes and let the sun bathe her in its rays, giving her coat a nice toasty feel, like it was a furnace and she was just a few inches too close.
The faint clop of hooves on dirt eventually broke her reverie, and she cracked an eye open to see a white filly with lavender mane trotting down the path. The unicorn stopped a few steps away and looked down at her with curious eyes.
“Heya, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said. She wriggled her back into the ground some more.
“Hi!” Sweetie's voice was high and sharp enough to cut glass. “Were you rolling around in the dirt?”
“Yup. S'fun.”
“Applejack said you weren't allowed to do that.”
“Well, Applejack ain't here, is she?” Apple Bloom stretched her legs as far as they would reach, and then rolled up onto her haunches. A faint plume of dust billowed from her coat as she moved, which Sweetie Belle leaned away from. “Where's Scootaloo?”
“Getting the wagon. She said we might need it to carry stuff.”
That was the brand of genius Apple Bloom had come to expect from their friend – it seemed like every plan of theirs eventually needed a wagon, either to haul scraps to build something, or to ride in as they escaped the consequences of their actions. Honestly, every pony should have a wagon, as well as a pegasus with a scooter to pull them around. It just made sense.
“So?” Sweetie took a seat beside her. Upwind, but that was probably a coincidence. “What's the plan?”
“Plan?”
“Uh huh. For today.”
“Oh, like, crusading?” Apple Bloom tapped her chin with her hoof. “Well, it's summer, right? We should do something for summer!”
“Rarity says if I don't stop hanging around the Boutique, she'll get me a summer job in the salt mines.” Sweetie paused. “I don't know what those are.”
“They're probably underground,” Apple Bloom said. “What do you think a mining cutie mark look like?” Probably something cool, like a pickaxe. Way better than apples, in any event. She turned to peer at her blank hip, imagining it so.
They chatted for some time, waiting for Scootaloo. She wouldn't be long – a cloud of dust was already rising from distant Ponyville, creeping closer with every moment. A small, orange blur moved at its head, and if Apple Bloom squinted, she imagined she could see Scootaloo's purple mane whipping in the wind as she flapped her way closer.
In due time, Scootaloo arrived, just as Apple Bloom expected. She panted for breath, her mane stuck out behind her in dust-encrusted spikes, and she wore a tremendous smile on her face.
“Girls!” She kicked off her helmet and turned to grab some sort of rolled-up piece of paper from the wagon. Her wings buzzed with enough energy to lift her a few inches off the ground. “We're getting our cutie marks today!”
“You said that yesterday,” Sweetie pointed out. “We stayed an hour late to help clean the school.”
Scootaloo sank a few inches, until her hooves rested on the dirt. “Er, well, I thought we would.” She paused, frowning. “Miss Cheerilee said lots of fillies get their cutie marks by dusting erasers.”
“Anyway, what's that?” Apple Bloom asked, motioning with her chin at the paper. “Blueprints? You know my sis said we can't use her tools anymore.”
“Even better!” Scootaloo unrolled the parchment on the dirt, revealing a map of Ponyville and its environs. “We're going treasure hunting!”
* * *
Treasure hunting started with a map. Apple Bloom knew this because she read Daring Do and the Treasure of Tartarus for school, and it started with a map.
Well, she hadn't read it, technically. Scootaloo had read it, several times, and perhaps Apple Bloom had cribbed some of her book report from Scootaloo's incessant recounting of the story. But there was definitely a treasure map on the cover; Apple Bloom remembered that. There was also a dog with three heads, a pony-sized spider with vampire fangs, and a giant fire-breathing snake, all of whom were attempting to devour the titular character. With any luck, though, they could avoid those things today.
That said, what Scootaloo unrolled on the dirt before them did not look like a treasure map.
“That doesn't look like a treasure map,” Sweetie said. “It looks like a regular map.”
“It is,” Scootaloo said. “But it has an X on it, see?” She pointed her hoof at the upper-left quadrant of the map, where indeed a large red 'X' marked some spot. “X is for buried treasure.”
“Did you draw that X?” Apple Bloom asked.
Scootaloo leaned away. “I... no. It was like that when I found it.”
Sweetie Belle eyed the mark and gave it a dainty sniff. “It smells like crayon.”
“So? I bet lots of pirates use crayons!”
“Why would pirates bury treasure in Ponyville? There's no ocean here.”
“There's a creek,” Scootaloo said. She pointed with her wing toward the small trickle of water that ran through Sweet Apple Acres. “That's like an ocean.”
“It says 'Equestrian National Geodetic Survey' and 'Property of Ponyville Town hall,'” Sweetie said, turning the paper around to read the legend at the bottom.
“Well, duh.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Obviously, the mayor wants the treasure for herself.”
Apple Bloom frowned. Beside her, Sweetie Belle nibbled on the edge of her hoof, still staring intently at the map.
Above them, the sun had barely budged. How long had she been waiting on the path? Nearly an hour, at least. Maybe two hours. Yeah, definitely at least two hours. It was going to be a long day – they had all the time in the world.
“Heck, works for me,” Apple Bloom said. “Lead the way, Scoots.”
“Yes!” Scootaloo hopped in place, her wings buzzing to give her a bit of extra lift at the top. She snatched the map away from Sweetie Belle, who let out a quiet snort of protest. “Cutie Mark Crusaders, treasure hunters!”
And then they sat in silence.
“So, uh...” Apple Bloom leaned forward. “Which way?”
“Um.” Scootaloo turned the map, then spun in place, holding the paper before her as if it were a scrying dish. “Uh, top left?”
“That's not a direction,” Sweetie Belle said. “You have to plot your position on the map, shoot an angle to your target, and then use a compass to orient as you navigate toward it.”
Silence again. After a few seconds, Sweetie dug her hoof into the dirt.
“Rarity sent me to filly scouts last summer after I tried to help clean the Boutique attic,” she said. “I got my orienteering badge.”
“Oh.” Apple Bloom thought back through the mists of memory to the previous year, when Sweetie had vanished for several weeks. “Was that the time everypony got really excited and the fire ponies went to the Boutique and Rarity had to close it for several days until they finally found Opal?”
More silence. Eventually, Sweetie nodded.
“Huh,” Scootaloo said. “I wish I could go to filly scouts.”
“It was pretty fun,” Sweetie mumbled.
“Okay, look.” Apple Bloom plucked the map from Scootaloo's hooves and passed it over to Sweetie. “Do you think you can find it?”
Sweetie's horn sparked, and the map begrudgingly lifted into the air, surrounded by the faint lavender glow of her magic. It wobbled and drifted in the wind, but she managed to keep it upright, though they could see her jaw clench with effort, and a faint sheen of sweat shone on her forehead. After a moment, Scootaloo reached out with the tip of her wing to help hold it steady while Sweetie studied it.
“It's, uh,” she paused to catch her breath. “It's somewhere in your orchards, Apple Bloom.”
Apple Bloom frowned. “Where in them? They're big.”
“I don't know. The X is too big.” Sweetie Belle let the light around her horn die and grabbed the map with her hooves before it could fall. “It's almost a mile across.”
“It is not!” Scootaloo grabbed at the map and tugged it away. “It's the perfect size!”
“Girls, I'm sure X is fine,” Apple Bloom said. “Obviously, whoever buried the treasure had some special marker, and the map was just to find Sweet Apple Acres. If we find the marker, we'll find the treasure.”
“What's the marker, then?” Sweetie asked. She was back to nibbling at her hoof.
“Ooh! Ooh!” Scootaloo's wings buzzed again, lifting her briefly into the air. “I bet it's something cool, like a pony skull on a stick!”
Sweetie recoiled. “Eww! Scootaloo!”
“Scootaloo, there's no pony skulls on sticks in the orchards.” Apple Bloom said. “I'm sure I'd have noticed that by now. It's probably something normal, like a rock or a tree.”
“Oh.” Scootaloo deflated again, frowning at the map. “There's trees in the orchards, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Maybe it's one of them?”
The three sat in silence, considering that possibility. A gust of hot wind blew across the path, threatening to snatch up the map, but Apple Bloom stomped on it with a hoof before it could escape.
Was it really possible? That all these years, Applejack and Big Macintosh had been farming for apples, while a buried treasure hid just beneath their hooves? And that of all things, a tree was the special marker for where it rested? There were thousands of trees on the farm, spread out over forty-five acres of orchards. It took more than an hour just to walk all the way around Sweet Apple Acres, and that didn't count all the time she spent plucking weeds from the fence like Applejack told her to. It would take weeks to search every tree. Maybe even months.
Apple Bloom looked up. The sun hadn't moved from its spot in the sky. It was still morning – early morning.
“Yeah, maybe it is,” she finally said. “Let's look for a tree, girls.”
* * *
Trees were easy to find on Sweet Apple Acres, it turned out. They found their first one just a few steps away, a thin poplar sapling already half as tall as the barn, its silver and green leaves fluttering like shutters in the faint wind.
Scootaloo ran up to it. “Do you think—”
“No,” Apple Bloom said. “That's only a few seasons old. Pirate maps are much older than that. C'mon, I'll show you where the old trees are.”
She led the way back to the orchards, past the farmhouse and the arched gateway, past the oat and barley fields. They passed the wild woods where their tree house waited for them that evening, past the watering hole where they went skinny dipping. Hours passed while they walked, miles passed beneath their hooves, and eventually they reached the first row of apple trees. It stretched out in the distance to either side, vanishing beyond the horizon.
“These are the young ones,” Apple Bloom said. “They're too small for real apples.”
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle mumbled approvingly, and followed as she led the way past the rows. With each mile that passed, the trees grew taller, their branches closer together. The smooth trunks grew gnarled and warped, their bark riven with deep faults like parched earth, and the air around them hung in a still, foreboding hush.
“These are the grown-up trees,” Apple Bloom said. She kept her voice low, and the others had to lean in to hear her. “Applejack says I'm not allowed to play with them.”
“Why not?” Scootaloo whispered back.
“They don't like foals.”
“Uh...” Sweetie Belle hunched her shoulders, looking around furtively at the gathered shadows. “Are... are these old enough for pirates?”
“Not yet. Come on.”
Again she led the way. The rows were further apart now, and thick roots churned the soil into a maze of crags and gullies. Up and down they climbed, each row its own mountain, each path between them a valley. Above them, the towering trees leered at the interlopers.
Hours passed as they trekked deeper into the acres. Occasionally an ancient basket rolled along in the winds, its bottom rotted out and its insides smeared black with the fetid remains of apples long past. The air was hot and dry, even in the perpetual darkness of the ancient orchard, and Apple Bloom found herself starting to pant for breath.
“Are we... are we there, yet?” Scootaloo mumbled. She hopped down from a particularly tall knot of roots, using her wings to glide down the sloping earth.
“Almost,” Apple Bloom said. “Just a few more rows, I think.” She ignored their groans, and pulled herself up over a tangle of roots nearly as tall as Big Macintosh. She paused, licked her lips, and froze at the sight before her.
They had made it. The heart of the orchards. The trees here were monsters, with trunks thicker than Twilight's library and crowns that reached for the heavens hundreds of feet above. They rose like pillars from the earth, their branches supporting boughs each the size of a barn. There was no sky above them, only leaves, millions and millions of leaves, more leaves than there were stars, all combining to cast the perpetual shadow of night on the ground far, far below.
“Wow,” Scootaloo whispered. “How old do you think these trees are?”
“At least twenty years old,” Apple Bloom said.
“Wow,” Scootaloo whispered again. “That's older than Rainbow Dash!”
The three picked their way over the tangled roots of the final row. The trees before them, these ancient guardians, grew not in rows – the earth around each was barren for a hundred paces, a vast courtyard paying homage to the titan at its center. Years of wind and shadow had swept the bare dirt flat, except for the occasional divot, like a small crater, large enough to swallow one of them whole. Scootaloo stopped at the edge of one and peered inside.
“What's this? An antlion nest?”
“Nah,” Apple Bloom said. “It's from the apples. When they fall.” She pointed up with a hoof, and they craned their heads back to see huge, swollen fruits hanging from the branches far above. The smallest of them was larger than a cider barrel.
“Oh,” Scootaloo said. She swallowed audibly and stepped away from the depression.
Apple Bloom lost track of time as they walked between the trees. It was a different world. A bounded world, with flat earth beneath their hooves and a green heaven hundreds of feet above. Despite the canopy's height, she felt its weight pressing down on her shoulders. There was no sun here, nor sky, only towering pillars that held the heaven and earth apart, extending as far as the eye could see in every direction, until even their monstrous stature vanished into darkness.
“I like it here,” Sweetie Belle said. “It's very peaceful.”
“It's awful dark,” Scootaloo said.
“Shh,” Apple Bloom hissed. All three froze. “I think I hear something.”
They pressed their rumps together, each facing a different direction. Three sets of ears perked up and strained forward, itching for the slightest sound breaking the orchard's haunted silence.
Nothing. Only the faint background rustle of the leaves, far above. Apple Bloom let out breath she hadn't realized she was holding and slumped to her haunches.
“Nevermind, girls. I guess it's just the—”
“I hear it,” Sweetie Belle said. Her voice was just above a whisper, and she raised a hoof to point toward the nearest tree. “Voices, that way.”
Scootaloo bounded toward it before Apple Bloom could stop her. She cursed quietly, and took off running after her friend. As they drew closer, she heard the voices too, even over her hammering heart and the pounding of her hooves. They reached the tree and huddled together against a grasping root quite a bit taller than they were. The voices – two of them, both masculine, and bickering over something – were just on the other side of the trunk, and not quite loud enough to make out.
“Oh my gosh!” Scootaloo whispered. “I bet its pirates!”
“It sounds like colts.” Sweetie Belle frowned as she spoke.
“Well, they're not allowed on my farm,” Apple Bloom said. She huffed, took a deep breath, and bounded atop the root. “Hey, you! Pirates! You're not allowed on... hey! You're not pirates!”
Below her, huddled against the opposite side of the same root, crouched Snips and Snails. They stared up at her with slack jaws and wide eyes, and both broke out into huge smiles at the sight of her.
“Hey, Apple Bloom!” Snips shouted. “Snails, it's Apple Bloom!”
“Apple Bloom!” Snails shouted back, either toward her or toward his friend, she couldn't quite tell. “Snips, it's Apple Bloom!”
“I know!” Snips answered. “Apple Bloom! Hi!” He waved his stubbly little leg wildly, apparently trying to get her attention.
“Ugh.” Apple Bloom spun around to face her friends. “It's not pirates. It's Snips and Snails.”
“Cool!” Scootaloo jumped up onto the root as well, her hooves scrabbling for purchase on the wet bark. Eventually her wings provided enough of a boost push her over the top. “Hey, have you two seen any pirates?”
“No, they haven't,” Apple Bloom said, before either of the colts could answer. “And what are you two doing here, anyway? There's no colts allowed on Sweet Apple Acres!”
“What about Pipsqueak?” Sweetie Belle called up from the ground.
“But what if the pirates are colts?” Scootaloo asked. “Then how would they bury their treasure?”
A pair of simultaneous gasps responded. Apple Bloom looked down to see Snips and Snails staring up with wondrous expressions.
“Pirates?” said one.
“Treasure?” said the other.
“Great. Good job, Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom scowled at her. “Now everypony knows about it.”
Scootaloo at least had the dignity to blush. “Sorry. Maybe they can help us look?”
Sweetie Belle finally pulled herself up onto the root with them. The wet bark smeared dark streaks along her belly and legs. “Maybe we could get Pipsqueak to help us look?”
“No one's helping us look!” Apple Bloom stomped her hoof. “These are my orchards, and it's mah treasure!” She paused. “And, you know, yours too.”
“But—” Scootaloo started.
“No! No buts! You two are leaving,” she pointed her hoof down at Snips and Snails, who withered under her gaze, “And we're finding that treasure.”
“Aww, but—” now Sweetie Belle tried.
“No!”
“What if we told you where the treasure was?” Snips asked.
Silence followed. The three fillies stared at each other, then poked their heads over the edge.
“You know where it is?” Scootaloo asked.
“You'll share it with us?” Sweetie Belle asked.
Fools, all of them! Apple Bloom scowled down at the colts. “You're lying! You don't know where it is.”
Snips grinned. It was a sly grin, greasy, and filled with far more cunning than she was used to from him. “Maybe we don't. Or maybe we do.”
“We do?” Snails asked. His expression was as vacant as always.
“Shut up!” Snips elbowed his friend and turned back to Apple Bloom. “Ahem, we do. And if you'll split it with us, we'll tell you where it is.”
“Why would you tell us, though?” Sweetie asked. “If you know where it is, why not just get it all for yourself?”
Silence again. Even Snips looked baffled now.
“Because, uh...” He frowned down at the dirt. “Oh, because it's buried treasure! We need more ponies to dig it up!”
“Awesome!” Scootaloo jumped off the root and glided down to the colts, landing between them. “Lead the way!”
No! Disaster! Apple Bloom tried to rally her side, but already Sweetie Belle was sliding down the wet bark on her rump to join the others. They stopped and looked up at her, waiting.
Her sister had an expression for moments like these. Her eyes would narrow, and her brows draw together, and her mouth would purse to a thin, bloodless line. She would lower her head, until the brim of her hat hid all but her pupils, and that's how she let ponies know there was a problem.
Apple Bloom tried to pull it off. She squinted and scowled, but without the hat, it was all for naught. Snips and Snails gawked at her. Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. Scootaloo looked confused.
Whatever. It was good enough. “Fine, but I'm still in charge!” She paused to let that sink in. “But, uh, you can lead the way. You know, to the treasure.”
Snips beamed, now that all eyes were back on him. “Right! It's, um... uh... one of these.” He spun around in a slow circle. “There!”
He pointed, and suddenly it was obvious to them all. At the edge of their vision, half-lost in the shadows, a crooked, gnarled monster of a tree rose above its brothers. Bare limbs like a skeleton's grasped at the air hundreds of feet above their heads. Its bark had fallen off centuries ago, leaving only a pale, rotten trunk behind. The mud between its roots had sloughed away to reveal cavernous, gaping hollows leading into the earth.
“Oh, wow,” Scootaloo whispered. “Is that old enough for pirates?”
“You know, I think it is,” Apple Bloom said. They wandered closer to the giant, and with every step it seemed to grow larger. Its roots stretched out beside them, as long as city blocks. Shards of desiccated bark littered the dirt, forcing them to take long detours in their approach. A faint breeze – the first Apple Bloom had felt all morning – began to blow through the rattling branches, setting them knocking, clacking, and cracking high above.
It took hours, but eventually they reached the base of the tree, and they gathered around an opening in the earth. Showers of loose dirt, upset by their hooves, spilled over the edge and were quickly lost in the darkness. Sweetie Belle stayed back a few steps. The colts stayed behind her. Only Scootaloo and Apple Bloom dared to stare into the abyss.
There, carved into the edge of the pit, a worn spiral stair wound its way down. Faintly, deep in the earth, Apple Bloom thought she saw a spark of light, a solitary star in the night.
“It's pretty deep,” Scootaloo said.
“Uh huh.”
“Do you think it's safe?” Sweetie asked. She had sidled up beside them, and now peered into the pit as well.
“Nope.”
“Sweet! Come on!” Scootaloo jumped, landing on the stairs a few feet below the edge. Behind them, one of the colts let out a sound that was a mix between a gasp and a squeal.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders, treasure hunters!” Sweetie shouted, and then she too jumped.
Apple Bloom turned back to the colts. They huddled beside each other, looking lost.
She snorted. “Are you two coming, or what?” She turned back to the pit. Within just a few steps it had swallowed her, and the smell of dry, ancient earth and an even older darkness became her world, and she began the long slow march into night.
Ahead of her, she heard the excited voices of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as they felt their way forward. Behind her, she heard Snips and Snails' trembling steps as they followed, and she smiled.
Summer was off to a great start.
* * *
Down, down they went. The dim twilight of the orchard world had vanished above them hours ago, and now their way was lit by bulbous, glowing mushrooms that sprouted from the crumbling walls. They were blue, and stole the color from everything they touched, leaving Apple Bloom's coat a dirty gray and her mane an inky black. Gravid and tumorous, the mushrooms hung over their heads, raining down from their undersides a constant drift of florescent, dust-like spores. Their hooves left dark trails in it as they descended.
“Stop.” Scootaloo, at the head of their column, froze and held up a wing. “I think I heard something.”
“Was it treasure?” Snips asked.
A moment passed while the girls considered that.
“Uh, no,” Scootaloo finally said. “It sounded like something clicking.”
“I hear it too!” Sweetie said. “It's like... chittering?”
“Chattering?” Apple Bloom offered. She couldn't hear a thing herself, not over the sound of her suddenly ragged breath.
“It sounds like a giant centipede,” Snails said. He looked, for some reason, deeply intrigued by the possibility.
There was a pause.
“Um, how big are giant centipedes?” Sweetie asked. She glanced down at her hooves and then over the edge of the dirt stairs into the abyss below.
Snails sat and held his front hooves out, a few inches apart. “About this big?”
“Oh.” The tension drained from Apple Bloom's shoulders. “That's not so baAAAAHHH!”
The dirt wall beside them burst out in a fetid shower, filling the air with dust and mold. The chattering sound – it was definitely chattering – grated on their ears as a legion of coiling, writhing centipedes spilled from from the holes all around them. They were huge, dozens of feet long, with hundreds of spiny legs that flowed with an eerie grace, propelling them along the stairs toward their prey.
One landed on the stairs in front of Apple Bloom and reared up, until its scissor-like jaws were level with her head. It clacked them at her and reared back to strike.
Applejack had not raised a fool. She had, over the years, drilled countless lessons into Apple Bloom's head, on subjects ranging from the value of hard work to the value of hard work. She was an endless fount of knowledge, most of it unsolicited, but all of it valuable. In the abstract, anyway.
What, Apple Bloom wondered as she stared at the giant rearing centipede, would Applejack say in this situation? She imagined her big sister standing there, cowpony hat perched on her head, lasso dangling by her side. The rest of the world slowed, the giant centipedes freezing in the act of striking, while Applejack cleared her throat.
“Now listen, sugarcube,” she said. “If there's one thing you need to remember, it's the value of hard work and dedication. That's the earth pony way! Every day, doing the same task over and over, from sunrise until sunset, and then you do it again the next—”
“Ugh! Whatever!” Apple Bloom jabbed with her hoof, punching the centipede about where she thought its throat would be, assuming centipedes had throats. It recoiled with a loud crack, its chattering suddenly replaced by a high-pitched keen as it struggled to escape. She gave it another kick with her hooves for good measure, and then turned to see how her friends were coping.
They seemed to be fine, actually. Sweetie Belle was swinging a stick at a centipede, keeping it at bay while squeaking, “Ew! Ew! Ew!” Scootaloo had somehow managed to wrangle one, and was now riding on its back as it attempted to climb the walls.
“Don't hurt them!” Snails cried. “They're more afraid of you than you are of them!”
“Whee!” Scootaloo shouted. She fluttered her wings to stay on the centipede despite its frantic bucking, until at last it managed to twist and toss her away to float back to the stairs while it escaped.
“It's icky!” Sweetie Belle wailed. She whacked the centipede with the stick and followed it around, whacking it again and again until it vanished back into the crumbling hole from which it had emerged. In moments they were all gone, turned tail and fled, leaving only settling clouds of dust behind.
Apple Bloom panted, slowly recovering her breath. “Good job, girls. I bet the pirates left those as a trap. We must be getting close.”
Everypony perked up at this, except Snails, who stared after the centipedes with a forlorn look. Snips gave him a little nudge, and they scrambled to catch up with Scootaloo, who was already descending further down the stairs.
Apple Bloom brushed a bit of dirt off her chest. “Earth pony way,” she mumbled, and then she raced to catch up.
Hours passed again, and the air grew warmer around them the deeper they tread. Eventually, the stairs ended, and they came to rest on a broad plane of hard-packed dirt peppered with stones. In the very center of the pit, a deep 'X' was etched into the dirt by some unknown hoof.
“There it is,” Scootaloo whispered. She stepped up to the edge of the mark and lowered her head to stare at it, her eyes wide. “What now?”
“Now?” Apple Bloom spit on her hooves and rubbed them together. “Now, girls, we dig. And, uh, you too, colts.”
And so they dug. The sound of pickaxes and shovels breaking the earth filled the pit. They loaded huge buckets of dirt and winched them to the surface with an ingenious system of ropes and pulleys. Deeper they dug, building scaffolding as they went to keep the groaning walls at bay. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle swung from the lines, bearing torches to light their way. Snips and Snails worked the gears in the sweltering heat, ignoring the sweat pouring down their sides. And always Apple Bloom dug deeper, her iron legs and tireless, earth pony heart driving them onward. She cracked the rocks with her hooves, and Scootaloo loaded them into the buckets, and Snips and Snails pulled, and heaved, and sang away the days and weeks. Never hungry, never thirsty. All their needs had been replaced by that one desire, the promise beneath their hooves drawing ever closer, the treasure.
It seemed like they dug forever. They might have, until one day Apple Bloom's pickaxe struck not a rock but something far harder. It rebounded, and a loud clang filled the smoky air. Snips and Snails stopped the gears, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo paused among the ropes, and they all stared down at Apple Bloom's hooves.
Something glimmered in the dirt. Apple Bloom brushed her hoof across it, revealing a metal joint. Beside it, she faintly saw the lines of a wood grain.
“It's here,” she said. “It's here! It's a treasure chest!”
They scrambled to gather around, hooves pawing at the loose, hot stones, slowly unearthing the massive chest. It had sunk at an angle, and they struggled to crack the rocks entombing it.
“Hammers!” Apple Bloom cried. The pit rang with the sound of their blows as they demolished the rocks, sweeping them away to reveal the ancient oak and brass fittings of the chest.
“Tackle!” she shouted. Snips and Snails fastened canvas straps around the exposed lid, tightening them down with sharp motions. They whistled up the pit to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who pulled the ropes that led to the crane that led to the pulleys that slow pried the chest out of the earth's grasp.
Apple Bloom leaned forward. Sweat poured down her coat in the intense heat of the depths, and the air shimmered, setting everything dancing, swaying. She pressed her hoof against the treasure, feeling the tight grain of the oak bands as it finally lifted free.
And an evil, orange light spilled out from beneath it.
“Uh oh.” Apple Bloom danced away from the heat licking at her legs. It followed, flowing across the pit floor, molten, burning, brighter in their wide eyes than the sun.
“Lava!” she shrieked. “Run girls, it's lava!”
The fillies screamed, and the colts screamed too. The treasure chest dangled and fell back into the lava with a splash, but still it rose, slowly consuming the pit floor. Flames danced up the ropes, filling the air with black smoke shot through with orange embers.
They ran up the stairs, the rising lava not far behind. The entire pit began to shake, and massive boulders spilled down the walls, crashing into the steps just behind them. The world rumbled, and the stairs threatened to slide into the geyser of lava climbing with them.
“What about the treasure?!” Snips shouted. He clung to Snails' back as they bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Forget it!” Apple Bloom shouted back. She weaved around a boulder that smashed into the step in front of her. “It's gone!”
“But—”
“No buts! Just run!”
A bright blue star fell beside them, followed by another. It was the glowing mushrooms, she realized – they were getting close to the surface.
“Faster!” She choked back a cough; the smoke was so thick she could barely see Sweetie's white coat, just a few feet in front of her. “We're almost there!”
The world swayed again, and the pit shuddered as huge roots burst out of the walls. Above, high above, Apple Bloom heard an ominous creak. The smoke smothered everything, but she thought she could barely see a brightening around it's edge; daylight, however dim, finding its way to them.
Or it could be the lava, which was rapidly catching up to them. No matter how fast they ran, or how many broken gaps in the stairs they jumped, it rose faster and faster, bubbling with noxious gases that stank of sulfur and ash.
“I can hear it!” Scootaloo shouted over her shoulder to them. She was the highest, and she stopped a dozen yards ahead. “I can hear the wind!”
So close! Apple Bloom ignored the searing heat on her flanks and leaned forward, pushing Snails' rump with the top of her head. He yelped, but the extra burst of speed was enough to outpace the bursting lava, and they spilled out of the pit, back into the forest and the clean air, hacking, panting, covered with dirt and soot.
“We made it!” Snails rolled in the dirt, extinguishing the embers that still clung to his mane and tail. “Oh, thank Celestia, we... uh oh.”
“Huh?” Apple Bloom turned back, and then looked up, and up, and up.
The ancient tree was swaying. Its root popped from the ground, unanchored, and at its base the bubbling lava erupted from the ground, consuming all it touched. The earth shook beneath her hooves, like she was standing next to a racing train, and above them the giant tree began to tilt.
“Uh, run,” she said.
They screamed as they ran. They couldn't help it. Behind them, the massive trunk fell in slow motion, creeping toward the ground. A powerful wind came with it, shoving them forward. The loudest sound Apple Bloom had ever heard, a shriek of breaking timber like all a forest were dying at once, chased them across the bare dirt.
The tree landed, and the ground beneath them jumped. They flew into the air for dozens of feet, tumbling head over tail, and bounced, and rolled, and slowly slid to a stop.
For a long while, all was quiet except for five ponies' panting breath. The rest of the forest – the wind, the bird, the insects – had all been stunned into silence. New sunlight poured down on them from the hole torn in the orchard canopy by the fallen giant.
Eventually, Apple Bloom stirred. She pushed herself up onto her front hooves, wincing at the pop in her joints. “Ow. Um, is everypony alright?”
“I'm good.” Scootaloo shook her head, sending a shower of dust into the air.
“Yep!” Sweetie Belle was still upside-down. The ash and dirt had stained her white coat a dull, dirty gray, but her eyes were as bright as ever.
“Huh?” Snips seemed confused by the question, but no more so than usual.
“Those poor centipedes.” Snails sniffled. “Do you think they got out?”
“Yeah, I'm... sure they're fine,” Apple Bloom said. She gave the fallen tree a long look, then peered down at her flank.
Still blank. A bit hard to see beneath the smear of dirt and ash, but still blank. She sighed.
“Well girls,” she said. “I guess we aren't Cutie Mark Crusaders Treasure Hunters after all.”
“Aw.” Scootaloo poked at her coat. “I thought we had it for sure, that time.”
“But what about the treasure?” Snips asked.
“Eh.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “It probably wasn't much anyway. Otherwise, why would the pirates have left it?”
“Oh.” Snips looked glum for a moment, but then something shiny caught his attention, and all was well again.
“So, what now?” Sweetie asked. She had managed to right herself, and took a seat next to the colts.
Apple Bloom looked up. The sun was near its zenith, just an hour or so from noon, she guessed. “I dunno. It's about lunchtime.”
“We told our parents we'd be home by lunch,” Snails said. “Sorry about the treasure, girls!” With that the two colts stood and hopped across a nearby stream. Within a few steps they were back on the path to Ponyville.
“Pff, whatever,” Scootaloo said. “We don't need treasure for our cutie marks.” She stood and jumped onto the fallen tree, walking along its length for a few paces, until she reached the shallow hole they had dug at its base. “Come on, I have another idea!”
“Is it more digging?” Sweetie asked. “I don't think Rarity wants me to do any more digging today.”
“Nah, it's better than digging. We're going exploring!”
Apple Bloom pondered that. Exploring sounded fun – more fun than digging, at least. She stood and walked around the tree, over to the stream that separated Sweet Apple Acres from the rest of Ponyville. She walked through it, letting the cool water wash the dirt from her hooves, and then stepped onto the far side. Ahead, just beyond the row of trees, she could see the outlines of Ponyville's steeples and weather vanes against the hazy sky.
“Sounds good, Scoots. Lead the way!”
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Not sure what scene was my favorite. So many small moments mixed in with bigger ones. Gotta love Scoots though, that moment where Sweetie asks if it seemed safe only to get a no from Apple Bloom lead to some serious adorableness from Scoots. Yeah, Scoots was my favorite. Sweetie Belle's Filly Scouts is a summer I hope we see. xD
Correction, Apple Bloom getting as muddy as possible was also equally cute and her "No Colts Allowed!" reverse role sort of thing there. You know, typically it's always "No boys allowed"?
Well, just have to say it's nice to read such a well crafted summer fic. Still find it rough to think the only other filly to wear headgear in the class would make fun of AB's bow. That bow offers like +1 Def and +2 adorableness. DT's +2 Def and +2 Insight is practically on par in usefulness to a head bow. Apple Bloom, you need to stand your ground more if she's dissing the bow!
fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/194/8/9/girls_will_be_girls_by_kp_shadowsquirrel-d7qhsan.jpg
God, I know this is mainly CMC tales of summer, but I'd die for good scene like this. Summer isn't complete without at least a few throwdowns and freeze tag!
(Sweeetie Belle used as a springboard? Silver is the new Mario of flinging fireballs! (mudballs, but a filly can imagine superpowers!)
Pipsqueak? Does Apple Bloom have a thing for Pip? Or is that Sweetie Belle? That is too cute. I'm already sad to see there isn't much left to read of these summer days. But not seeing a complete yet I'll just keep hoping for more!
Well, still a third day so I best get to it! XD
Absolutely adorable. This is amazing
Btw,
*If
It's not quite dark enough to be lavender, is it?
But, her magic is green
Your writing is positively Bradbury-like when you describe Apple Bloom's realization that it's summer and that they have a whole day ahead of them.
And then, the adventures! I loved how seamlessly the girls (and Snips and Snails) move between everyday reality and the imaginary world of their adventuring.
Nooooo!
Say it ain't so! Nobody else does, but I thought you, of all people, would know the difference between "titular" and "eponymous".
5034336 But the story is cute and funny. And it's incomplete? You, Sir, get a gold star.
Hard work and harder bucking.
5032657
Amen.
So...wait, I don't get it. Was any of that treasure hunt real or imagined?
...which, with them being ponies, is a big whoop, because they're always butt naked.
I can see Sweetie Belle as a filly scout. Fits her character pretty well. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, though...well, Apple Bloom maybe, but begrudgingly. Scootaloo would only be in it for the activities, and that's not entirely what most scouting programs are about, so probably not so much for her.
I don't think I've ever read a story about children playing at adventures that narrated it all as if it were happening. Which is even trickier in Equestria, because we might think... it could be happening. But I like it.
5042320
The scary part is I can imagine it happening to me and my own friends so many (MANY) years ago. (Oh god, I feel so old now)
...especially the lava trap.
As a child, you never realize how good you have it until you grow up and leave behind those endless Summers with absolutely nothing to do and all day (and night) to do it. Mmm, especially night. We'd spend all night outside if it wasn't for the mosquitoes and dead batteries in the flashlights-- grew up in the wooded suburbs of a small town so when it got dark, it was seriously dark and hardly anything but you and creepycrawlies.
It took me far too long to realize that they were blowing things out of proportion when describing their adventure. I find myself very immersed in the story. Great job.
I'm loving this story so far. It reminds me a lot of when my brother and I were kids.
Funny how everything always seems so much bigger and more amazing when your a kid. Especially during the summer.
I can't wait until evening.
You know what this reminds me of? Calvin and Hobbes. They've got so little in common (this is prose, for starters), but you've tapped into the same spirit. I absolutely loved the hours and hours and hours on end and the shape of the proportions.
5033796
Green?
Uh-oh.
The prose is so fantastic in so many places; a poem, a song, a shout of joy, a soft whisper of sanctity...
The voices and metaphors are those borne of a child's mind, yet spoken with refined maturity tempered with fortified wisdom...
I shall not troll here, not even in light-hearted respectful jest, for to do so would be sacriledge in the presence of so grand a work.
5045356 The most surreal memory I have of a night as a child was during a family reunion in upstate New York at the farm of father's cousin.
It was early September and I went to walk out in the cool night air while all the adults chattered about... whatever they tended to chatter about. I climbed a slope up to a flatter area where a marshy area spread out as the crescent moon with Venus sitting almost within the bowl of the curve, brighter than I've ever seen it, rose and lit the silvery mist rising from the rushy pools. And accompanying the brightest stars in the sky were hundreds of little greenish stars scattered about the ground... the little glow worms who would become the fireflies of the following June.
I have that image forever carved into my memory.
It's rare to find a story that channels the essence of Calvin and Hobbes's imaginative romps. The unbounded sense of wonder, the infinite optimism teeming in hot, bustling days bursting with possibilities within a world that, for several short months, within the sun's trace of the horizon, loosens its shackles.
Ahem. Florid reminiscing doesn't become me. This is a new favorite of mine, and I'll be along for more. Fantastic job.
5046196 Yeah, me too