Pony's Best Friend

by Brass Polish

2 Applejack Snaps

Applejack had to hold Winona down to get her to stay still, but she couldn’t say anything because Winona wouldn’t stop licking her face. Then the gamesome dog saw movement towards the fence and broke from Applejack’s grip to see who was coming.

“Oh!” Fluttershy got jumped. “You really are frisky today aren’t you?”

“And unless we brew another potion, she’ll be this frisky forever,” Twilight told her.

Spike walked up to Applejack looking apologetic, but Applejack cut him off before he could get a word in.

“I shouldn’t have provoked you. It’s my own fault. It serves me right I guess.”

“But still,” Spike’s voice was back to normal now, “I really feel bad about making such a fine dog so bad.”

“Bad?” Fluttershy looked as if she’d been insulted.

“You saw what she did to the Library,” Twilight told her.

“I didn’t see it all,” said Applejack. “How torn up is the place?”

“Well here’s the worst part,” said Twilight. “A book shelf fell off the wall and knocked over the glass case with our Elements of Harmony. Two of them, yours and Rarity’s, are lost in a pile of books.”

“We’re gonna fish them out so we can deal with the marewolf in the Everfree Forrest,” said Spike. “Then we’ll mix up another behaviour potion and give it to Winona.”

“In the meantime,” Fluttershy put in. “I thought I’d see if there was anything I could do to help.”

“Could you give her the Stare?” asked Applejack.

Fluttershy faltered. “Is that really necessary?”

“She’s gone totally loco,” said Applejack. “Your Stare might be the only way to get her to do what I want her to.”

“But what do you want her to do? You’re not herding sheep or anything today,” objected Fluttershy. “She’ll only be like this until we deal with the… the…”

“Marewolf.”

Fluttershy shivered. “Yeah.”

“What are you worried about, Fluttershy?” asked Spike. “Zecora told us it never leaves the forest.”

“How does she know?” asked Fluttershy. “She doesn’t leave the forest much.”

“She first told us about it months ago,” said Twilight. “If it ever left during that time, somepony would have known.”

“Well, we better get going if we’re gonna clean up that mess by tonight,” Spike began to walk away. “You’re sure you’re not mad at me, Applejack?”

Winona ran up to Spike knocking him over.

“Sure as sugar,” smirked Applejack.

Sadly, that was the only time that day Applejack was happy with Winona’s bad behaviour. Because Fluttershy didn’t want to use the Stare on her, Applejack sent her off and tried to retrain Winona by herself. She didn’t dare get a bag of treats because she knew Winona would never leave it alone. In any case, Winona was chewing on anything she saw. Once or twice, she gave Applejack a nip. She didn’t mean any harm by it, but she’d never done it before and Applejack really hated it. To her, a dog that bites needs some serious training. But she didn’t want to yell at Winona because she knew she couldn’t help what the potion did to her.

Apple Bloom and Granny Smith weren’t having too much trouble applebucking with Big McIntosh. What they did was take a side of a tree each, which worked for every one accept for a few when Granny Smith forgot to set up baskets.

“We doing OK, Big Mc?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Eeeyup.”

Winona had gotten away from Applejack and had just toppled Big McIntosh’s loaded buckets.

“But I sure ain’t,” he sighed.

Applejack rocketed into view streaking past her family and after the runaway dog.

“She didn’t bite none of you, did she?!”

They told her she hadn’t, but her reaction was still an angry one.

“I’d sure like to bite her back!”

“You’re just lucky she didn’t still have my teeth!” called Granny Smith as Applejack darted off after Winona.

At the end of the day, there was no improvement. Big McIntosh, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith didn’t get disrupted again and they met their quota for the day, but Applejack had lost patience with Winona.

“Stop biting!”

Winona hadn’t given up on giving Applejack little love-nips.

“Stop it!”

Applejack was trying to shut Winona up in a shed for the night. Granny Smith had left a food bowl and water dish in there.

“Knock it off!”

Winona, completely unaware of where she was going to spend the night, was still having fun with Applejack. For Applejack, that last bite was one too many.

“Stop biting right now! That’s a bad dog! That’s a very bad dog!”

And in a fit of rage, she shoved Winona into the shed and slammed the door.

“You’re not coming outta there until that potion’s ready!” she yelled. “I’m sick and tired of trying to get you to behave!”

Still fuming, she stomped away barely a minute before the battered door fell off its hinges.

“Alright!” Applejack said huffily to herself. “Did I clean up all the mess she made? Let’s see, I got all the apples she bruised in the composter, I got that other thing she did in the composter… oh, dang! I forgot to clean up the garbage.”

So off she went to the front gate to deal with the trash cans that have been lying on the ground all day. As she made her way, she began to feel regretful.

“How’s she gonna feel after Twilight turns her back to normal? Will she still be mad at me?”

When she got to the front and saw the trash cans, she was concerned to see a faint orange glow amongst the spilt garbage.

“It ain’t on fire, is it?” she said with a hint of alarm.

All of a sudden, her hint of alarm turned into absolute fright. She heard a loud growl and when she looked up, there was a marewolf.

“Holy jumping jonagolds!” she cried as she turned to run.

It was definitely the same marewolf Spike had scared off with his fire. It used its magic to stop Applejack in her tracks. It licked its lips as it walked hungrily towards her. Applejack hoped that the fire in the garbage would get bigger and scare the marewolf off, but there was no flame coming from there at all.

Then, before Applejack could call for help, Winona shot past her and stood in front of the marewolf growling threateningly. The monster growled back at Winona and its horn glowed again, but Winona darted away before it could magic her in place. Applejack watched as Winona dived into the pile of garbage and was surprised when she saw her emerge with, of all things to have in her mouth from a heap of trash, her Element of Harmony, which was glowing faintly.

“What- did you take that from the…?”

The marewolf turned towards Winona, who zoomed away from the garbage cans and stopped in front of Applejack, dropping her element at her hooves. At last, the marewolf froze Winona’s legs and advanced on the two of them brandishing its finger-like claws.

“OK, I’m going for it!”

Applejack grabbed the Element of Honesty and put it around her neck. Would it work without the other elements?

The glowing grew brighter, and brighter, and brighter. Then a streak of light stormed from the Element of Honesty and showered the marewolf in orange. Winona barked excitedly, her tail wagging copiously. They could hear the marewolf howl for a few seconds, and then the howling turned into screaming.

“Can it be?!” exclaimed Applejack. “Did I turn that marewolf back into a pony?”

The screaming eventually stopped and the light began to fade. Applejack couldn’t believe it. The marewolf was gone. In its place was a very disoriented unicorn.

“Good gravy!” Applejack knew who it was. “Lyra?!”

Lyra gave her head a little shake, peered around, then looked at her hooves.

“Aw!” she seemed disappointed that she didn’t have finger-like claws anymore.

The magic lock on Applejack’s hooves and Winona’s paws vanished. Winona was about to pounce joyfully on Applejack, but Applejack got her first.

“That’s a good girl, Winona! You’re the best dog ever! Yes, you are!”

Lyra watched with a smile as Applejack and Winona wrestled playfully on the ground. Applejack was so pleased, she didn’t mind the love-nips. In fact, she grew happier with every bite she got.

Their happy moment was interrupted by Twilight, who bustled up looking fretful.

“There’s a problem, Applejack! We can’t find your…”

“My Element of Harmony?” interrupted Applejack. “Might this be what you’re looking for?”

“When did you get that?” asked Twilight when she saw what Applejack was wearing.

“Apparently, Winona snatched it and brought it here this morning,” Applejack explained. “I guess she thought I might need it,” she added with a chuckle.

“I doubt that,” Twilight chuckled too. “Even if she did think you’d need it, you can’t use just one Element of Harmony.”

“Well she just did.”

Twilight jumped. She hadn’t noticed Lyra standing by the gate.

“What are you doing here, Lyra? It’s a bit late to be buying apples.”

“I think she had a taste for flesh instead,” snickered Applejack. “That marewolf you and Spike saw last night. That was her.”

Lyra gave an embarrassed nod. Twilight’s eyes bulged.

“I got bitten almost a year ago,” said Lyra. “I always made sure I was in the Everfree Forest when I knew there was a full moon coming. But I went out tonight because… well, now I don’t even remember what made me do it.”

“Are you OK?” asked Twilight.

“I think so,” replied Lyra. “I don’t feel like eating anypony anymore.”

“That’s good,” said Applejack.

“So Applejack, are you saying that you used your Element of Honesty to change Lyra back?” asked Twilight. “I thought it was impossible to use one element without the others.”

Applejack had a pretty good idea what made her element work the way it did.

“I kinda snapped at Winona after a whole day of her getting on my nerves. I sure did give her a telling off. And when I found my element in the trash, it was glowing.”

Twilight was quite interested. “I always knew the elements only work if the ponies who control them act upon what they represent, but now you’re telling me that those actions can make one work on its own? I gotta write to Princess Celestia about this.”

“Oh, and here’s another thing,” Twilight went on. “Now that the marewolf problem is solved, we can get to work on that behaviour modification potion.”

But Applejack said “Don’t bother, Twilight.”

“What?”

“Winona’s the one who grabbed my Element of Harmony when I really needed it,” said Applejack.

Twilight watched as Winona gave Applejack a bite. “But she’s still behaving badly.”

“That’s not behaving badly,” retorted Applejack. “That just means she loves me. She hasn’t completely changed. She still wants to be my friend. I think I can retrain her. It may take a while, but I know she wants to make me happy. So you can save your next batch for the strays.”

Winona now jumped on Twilight.

“Well, let me know if you change your mind,” she said as she was splattered with dog drool.

Applejack did not change her mind. It did take a long time like she thought it would, but as the days passed, the time she and Winona spent together became less like training and more like bonding. It wasn’t long before Applejack was able to return to her applebucking chores. Winona had learned to stay out of hers and Big McIntosh’s way while they were working. What made Applejack really happy was Winona started cutting back on the biting. Strangely though, she began to miss it by the next full moon.

“I wouldn’t mind a love-nip every now and again,” she said to Winona one evening after retraining her to herd sheep.

She stood still for a second looking around at the still night air.

“Uh, if there are any marewolves around, I don’t mean from you.”

Author's Note:

After seeing the Element of Magic work without the others in Equestria Girls, I thought it'd be interesting to explore the possibility of the rest of them working on their own.

Comments

[OmniFox]

Winona still needs to apologize to Spike.