The Trottingdale Interdimensional Studies Team, colloquially known as Trotwood, were all too happy to provide Twilight Sparkle with copies of the data they had collected, so she really had some numbers to crunch. As far as spatial anomalies go, that one had been quite a doozy. Rosy—er, the traveller had no doubt come from a world far different from their own, possibly with entirely different physical principles!
They weren’t quite as happy to agree to pack up their research equipment and ship out, but there was little they could study without any rift left, and there was little Twilight could do to help with that. The situation had certainly called for the Elements of Harmony, and despite any problems they might have caused, the Elements had been a necessary ev—a necessary act.
So Twilight enjoyed what she had, and wished the Trottingdale students well, and that was that. Finally, for her and her friends, life returned to normal. Rarity had a fabulous reopening sale. Pinkie got to planning more parties than ever. Twilight finally managed to get some sleep. Every critter was almost as happy to see Fluttershy as her poor critter sitter pony was. Rainbow Dash had to work double time to make a lot of rain, to make up for the abnormal days of sun that had been needed over Ponyville to minimize the shadow’s influence and spread. But the season evened out, and the summer was pleasant and warm, heralding a fine crop for the fall season, and a cold winter.
Winter Wrapup came and went with no signs of strangeness, danger or other forms of adventure. The animals awoke, the birds returned, the flowers bloomed and the snow melted. There were still a few of those university students around, but that was hardly unusual. They probably just saw Ponyville as a wonderful place to live and stayed, much like Twilight had done in the past.
Twilight took part in ensuring Wrapup went swimmingly well without an ounce of unicorn magic, with some help from her friends. She kept herself busy keeping Rainbow Dash and Applejack in friendly competition without biting each other’s heads off, helping Rarity and the landscape beatification team focus on quality without fixating on perfection, and demonstrating to Pinkie Pie how Twilight was still a meager ice skater at best, but very good at deciding where to score the lakes, what thin ice to avoid, and how to coordinate everypony moving at once. She... observed Fluttershy and the animal team awakening the hibernating critters, though Twilight still stayed a bit leery of that activity, as not all forest critters were cute, cuddly and adorable.
Spring came, and delicious flowers bloomed all over town, in planters and public and private gardens. Spring was truly a bountiful time for everypony in Equestria, though many of the other animals who could not subsist on grasses and flowers still struggled to feed themselves until the fruit swelled up for harvest. There was no huge crisis though. Fluttershy had even worked out a deal with the fruit bats similar to her rapport with Ponyville’s bunny population, to keep their numbers of little baby bats down to a dull roar, in exchange for help in surviving the fruitless spring.
It was all too soon that the fruit began to ripen and mature, and before you know it, it was a hot summer day, hot enough you could really feel the sunlight on your rear the moment you backed your butt half out of the shade. Even under the thick greenery of the apple trees, Applejack felt the dappled sunlight playing across her back like some kind of a summer symphony of heat and light. The tawny, stetson bearing farm pony was out in her beloved orchards bucking the early apples of the season, when a very familiar mare came trotting down the road from town.
Applejack’s orchard was a big’n these days. Every apple tree was planted with care, because it was a big investment of time and space. 12 years, 13 years, some of the most prized variants took a whole bunch of years to mature, and in all that time, little baby trees weren’t gonna be producing apples. Yet the family always managed to plant more trees than they lost, and the orchard was growing, slowly but surely, into a thing of beauty.
With hundreds of trees in their orchard, there was no way AJ could remember all their names, but there were a few who stood out, either from being ornery like Clyde, or from being sweet as a button, like Susie here. Applejack was pretty sure Susanna Crisp apples were going to be a fresh new strain in a decade or two of quality care. It’d make up for losing Golden Supremes to age and happenstance.
Applejack hopped up and kicked her two strong, orange hooves into the side of the sturdy apple tree, where they slammed with a solid, satisfying thunk. The force travelled up the trunk in an instant, spreading to each of the golden fruits hanging from its branches, and testing the strength of each stem that held them. She made sure to funnel the space above each bucket beforehoof, so the apples cascaded down from all over, but safely poured into her buckets each in a single large heap. Then it was a simple matter to get her buckets up on her back and out to the farm, where they could be used for juice pressing, baked treats, sugar production, and a whole lot of other things.
Lots of effort and knowhow went into the process behind that single buck, Applejack had to admit. She figured it would be at least a bunch of years before she had mastered apple bucking as well as her ma used to do. And little Apple Bloom was just getting started, but she was so smart Applejack figured she’d be bucking with the best of them in a score years at most. It was still a while, but that was okay. They all had plenty of time to learn.
AJ was working quickly to get through the Golden Pie varieties, wanting to get her done before yet another afternoon shower started. Towards the end of Applejack’s tree rows though, she looked down the packed dirt road that led from her farmhouse all the way to Ponyville, and noticed a mare walking along it, headed her way. Before the mare could pass by, Applejack trotted over to the low picket fence that demarcated the road here, leaning on it and saying, “Howdy pardner! Looking to buy some apples?”
The mare who approached had pretty pink hair in a curly swirl that didn’t look like it concealed a horn. Her cream colored coat was a little dirty, but Applejack saw that as a sign of somepony who might be willing to get their flank dirty. The mare had this anxiety in her deep blue eyes that was so familiar! Applejack couldn’t quite place where she’d seen it before, though.
“Oh, hello Applej... Applejack!” the mare said in a sweet voice that made Applejack feel guilty for forgetting where she’d seen her before. “I’m actually not here to buy apples,” the mare said, “I wanted to ask about the um—” Ceasing to speak, the mare then turned to her saddlebags, lipping open the flap on one side and sticking her nose in there. She bit down within and pulled out what looked like a leaflet, one of the leaflets Big Mac had gotten printed lately. It said along the lines of:
HELP WANTED: sorters, truckers, bakers, buckers
SPECIAL: Cider season’s here! Also looking for runners, bottlers, brewers, pressers
(Tasters can get in line just like everypony else.)•
• How d’ya like them apples?
•
• Ponyville’s finest, here at Sweet Apple Acres!
•
• They don’t just grow on trees though.
•
• Help make the magic happen, and bring about the tastiest darn apples in all the land!
•If you want to help out, talk to Applejack, Big Macintosh, or Granny Smith
Credit negotiable
“Well how about that,” Applejack said, looking happily at the mouth proferred flyer, “We sure are lookin’ for some help with this year’s cider pressing. It’s not very exciting, but it is good, hard work, if’n you’re interested.”
“Oh yes,” the mare said eagerly, dropping the leaflet, “I’m a big fan of your cider, and um... your farm. So I thought I’d finally just get over myself and come help out!”
“Get over yourself?” Applejack asked uncertainly.
“Oh, um... over my hesitation with helping out,” the mare said, blushing shyly. “Sorry Ap— lady Apple—Applejack, it’s just a little intimidating trying to ask to... work with you.”
Well, Applejack knew what this mare was about, being intimidated by Applejack’s reputation. Lady Apple? Whooee! Poor thing. But AJ still couldn’t put her hoof on it. It was downright uncanny. Where had she seen this mare before?
“So I decided,” the mare continued, regardless of Applejacks inner puzzlement, “With some help from my friends, to try and come help out. It’s been a big dream of mine, for a—a while.”
“Cain’t say no to enthusiasm like that, sugarcube,” Applejack told the mare, giving her a friendly nudge. “Just be here at dawn sharp, we’ll be sure to have something ready for you to do. Cider season starts next Mondee.”
Applejack’s smile became tinged with concern, as she lay a hoof on the mare’s cream colored back, and said, “And sugarcube, I know you might’ve heard I was all famouslike, but ah’m a pony, just like you. We’re both just little ponies like everypony else, and you don’t have to think ah’m anything greater than that. Just Applejack is fine, an’ don’t let anypony tell you differently.”
Applejack backed up then, and said to the mare, “Now, you know mah name clearly enough, so let’s have yours?”
“R-Rosy,” the mare said shyly, daring a worried look at Applejack, “Rosy Pink.”
“Rosy Pink!” Applejack declared in surprise, “That’s why you seemed so familiar! Put her here, pardner!”
As Applejack gave Rosy’s creamy hoof a good shake, the orange farm pony continued, “Ah haven’t seen you in a dragon’s age, not since that shadow beast back in the early spring. Didn’t you get sent back with ‘em?”
“Oh, n-no,” Rosy stated with a light of fear in the back of her eyes. “I w-w-was out of to-o-o-own,”
“Turribly sorry about that,” Applejack said, continuing to shake the mare’s hoof. “We meant to send you back home’re something.”
“T-t-t-tha-a-a-at’s oka-a-ay,” Rosy said, around the—oh... right.
Applejack let Rosy’s hoof loose.
“The Elements must’ve closed off the only way you had to go home,” Applejack said with concern to the pony who was trying to wrangle her hoof to stillness now, “Ah could go ask Twilight if you need help gettin’ back?”
“That’s okay, Applejack,” Rosy said, calming her hoof and standing on it firmly. “I was hoping to spend some more time here, anyway.”
“Well, if’n you do Rosy Pink, ah’d be mighty grateful if you helped with the cider making,” Applejack said amiably.
“Thanks, Applejack,” the mare said with a look of blessed relief. “It really means a lot to me.”
“So... you’re game?” Applejack asked.
Rosy nodded with a beaming smile, “I’m game!”
“Just show up at dawn when cider season starts,” Applejack said, “If we get her done early, ah might even be able to show you a few apple buckin’ tricks!”
The squee was audible as Rosy’s smile spread to her cheeks. “Oh that would be—!” she said in excitement, catching herself and blushing before calmly continuing, “I mean, yes, I’ll be there. Three days, right?”
“Until Mondee, yup,” Applejack replied.
Rosy giggled, saying in an indulgent voice, “Mondee, hee hee. I love your accent, Applejack.”
“What accent?” Applejack asked in confusion.
Rosy blinked at her.
“When you say eee in Mondee,” Rosy said very uneasily, “And I say ayyy in Monday?”
“Oh, mah manner of speakin’!” Applejack realized. She kicked out a hoof, crooking it confidently in front of the other, saying, “Yeap, the Apple family goes way back. We been cultivatin’ our manner of speech for generations. They say ah sound just like mah old great grand aunt Apple Top.”
“How did you learn to speak that way?” Rosy asked curiously.
“Learn it?” Applejack replied at the very unusual question. “You don’t learn a manner of speakin’,” she chided the mare. “Ah inherited it, just like everypony else. Mine is from good ol’ granny Apple Top. Not sure bout before that. But mah sister’s is from an Apple known as Applebud, who hailed from way back before Ponyville’s founding!”
The mare seemed extremely nonplussed at this terribly ordinary thing. Not like she was impressed that Apple Bloom’d be lucky to have such a rich heritage, but like she wasn’t sure that anything she saw in front of her snout made any sense anymore. Hoof lifting and everything!
“...you can inherit an accent,” Rosy said cautiously.
“That’s right,” Applejack responded equally cautiously.
“You were born with it,” she continued.
“Once you start speakin’, yup.”
The mare put her hoof down and stared forward at nothing, saying, “I... I have to think about that. Thanks for...” she focused on Applejack and gave a genuine smile, saying, “Thanks so much for the job, and for telling me that.”
“No problem Rosy, at least ah don’t think there is,” Applejack said giving her a sideways glance.
“No! No problem at all,” Rosy said with a happy little kick of her legs. “I really do thank you very much! Oh I’m so happy I could just burst! I can’t wait to go tell Goldenrod about this!”
Thinking a moment, Applejack said, “That’s Golden Harvest’s cousin, ain’t it?”
“Yup,” the mare said in good cheer. “She was the one who told me it’d be o-okay to talk to you, and nothing bad would happen. Thank you so much Applejack. I’ll be back... on... Mondee! Hee hee!” Rosy about bounced away back up the road then, singing to herself a wordless song that Applejack’d never heard before.
Applejack was starting to remember why Rosy wasn’t so much fun to be around.
Well, fun or no fun, Rosy started working on Applejack’s farm, and doing a pretty good job at it too. She’d been building her strength all year it turns out, doing delivery jobs and hauling things, and that gave her a good start. She was still pretty scrawny at first, for an earth pony at least, but she filled out quickly, and there was just nothing that could get that girl down. Chores she treated more like sightseeing tours, or something, and she had to rest a lot, but she always went back into it with an admirable enthusiasm. Rosy was just so much in love with the simple sensation of feeling herself alive and moving, that she kept doing better and better.
Their second hired hoof, Bubblegum Blossom, was more of a straightforward pony. Easy enough to understand, if a little aggravating at times. She was more interested in eating the apples than bucking them, which was fine when you needed ponies to eat your apples, but she certainly wasn’t living up to her potential with bucking them. Applejack could tell Bubblegum had an eye for detail though. She only worked in the spring, and during harvest season really. She seemed like a lazy sort of pony who spent a lot of time ditzing around town and goofing off, but she never went under quota. She did the exact minimum amount of work needed and then popped off to enjoy her life. Certainly not Applejack’s style; living on the edge like that made Bubblegum weak to schedule changes and unexpected happenings, but Applejack wouldn’t call her a lazy pony.
Their other regular Ponyville farm worker went by the name of Vanilla Sweets. Her family hailed from way down south, right underneath the course of the sun’s path. The pale green pony came up north to beat the heat, just one of those ponies who didn’t thrive in it. She came out to help in the fields around Fall and Winter, spending most of the summer living it up and partying. Applejack honestly wasn’t a real fan of her, Vanilla’s idea of a good time was a colt and a show, neither of which Applejack had time for in her life right now. Vanilla did have the cutest little manner of speaking though, from an old Andalusian lost in the mists of time. Or an “accent” if you went by how Rosy called it.
Really Vanilla was what Applejack would expect Rosy to be, what with Rosy’s time spent with that mysterious otherworldly theater production, the one that somehow duplicated the lives of Applejack and all her friends up till now. But for Vanilla, some light frippery like a club and a movie was an escape, while for Rosy it seemed more like a prison to escape from. Rosy wanted to be in the here and now, which Applejack found herself able to respect... a lot.
There was a third pony working with Granny in the kitchen now, an Apple by the name of Apple Fritter, who was a real whiz at that stuff, but Applejack didn’t know her as well, since Applejack spent most of her time out in the fields. Applejack could still bake with the best of them, but her home within her home was out among the verdancy of her orchard, kicking trees and knocking down their apples, while deep in the earth, her tastiest brews took care of themselves. Thus, most of the interaction Applejack had was with Rosy and Vanilla then, and Bubblegum to a degree.
Applejack sure appreciated the help that the ponies of Ponyville gave her, a lot more than she had in past years. That disastrous Applebucking season so many moons ago had shown Applejack the error of her ways, and now she had Rosy and Bubblegum, and Vanilla Sweets helping clear out the trees. That meant plenty of apples for all the sugar Pinkie Pie could possibly want, all the cider Rainbow Dash could drink, and time left over to tend to the grain crops like wheat and alfalfa. Applejack didn’t deal in root vegetables, but mostly because that was Goldie’s thing, and it did both of them a favor to specialize in what they’re best at, and share the extra wealth they made.
Applejack kind of started to get what was going on with Rosy after a while. She was a lot like Pinkie Pie, with a hair trigger on her emotions, and a surprising amount of intuition that made her prone to crazy leaps in logic. In comparison with Pinkie Pie, Applejack could sort of understand where Rosy was coming from. Applejack got the feeling that Rosy truly, genuinely loved helping other ponies out; she treated it more like a gift than an obligation to do so. Lots of ponies didn’t understand that they weren’t just helping others with the expectation of help in return, but also because it made life a better place to live. If Rosy understood that, Applejack had to respect her. Even if she did have some freakily accurate stories about Applejack’s childhood.
“Sorry about calling you Apple Fritter,” Rosy said once, as she and Applejack both lay on their backs, relaxing on a grassy hill, faces flushed and muscles burning from a whole lot of apple bucking and hauling, respectively. (Applejack did all the bucking. Rosy was certainly not going to learn to buck the fruit off a tree in just half a year.) “I didn’t get you mixed up with the real one. It was just a really bad joke. Y-you told Apple Bloom the story, so I thought it would be okay to tell you um... sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Applejack said perhaps not merely flushed with exertion, “That story ain’t such a big secret, just we usually keep it in the family. It’s just one of those embarassin’ things your granny likes to bring up at awkward times.”
“I wonder how Apple Fritter got her name,” Rosy pondered, “She was born eating apple fritters too?”
“What’re you talking about?” Applejack asked, slightly offended. “Apple Fritter was born just like anypony else, from her ma!”
“O-oh, right” Rosy said, lowering her ears, “Right, we... mares actually do that. I guess they just name their um... foals then, when they come... out of them.”
“Eyup?” Applejack said, her tail scrunching close at Rosy’s choice of words. Corn gravy but did that filly have some anxiety about foaling. Applejack could sympathize, to a degree. She sure couldn’t imagine herself going through something like that. Well... not outside of a pleasant fantasy at least. It just wasn’t practical now, if ever.
“Mommas name their foals,” Applejack said cautiously. “Not sure what you’re getting at exactly.”
“Well, if I were your mom,” Rosy said with a nervous laugh, “I wouldn’t want you to be called Apple Fritter. It’d be too confusing to have two of you with the same name!”
“Ah reckon it would be,” Applejack said frankly, kind of desperate to change the subject at this point. “Don’t you worry though, Rosy Pink,” she said with a hearty back slam, “Ah’m stickin’ with Applejack through and through, and if you wanna know why, you just wait until cider season. Ah can make a brew that’ll flip your tail!”
Applejack internally facehooved at the terrible choice of words that kept spilling out of her mouth now that Rosy got her all flustered about foals and stuff.
Rosy herself was kinda quiet and wide eyed at Applejack’s words, before asking in a small voice,
“Equestria has whiskey?”
Applejack said defensively, “Ah didn’t mean t’imply—” then what Rosy said actually registered on her. “...whiskey?” Applejack asked in a cautious tone.
“I-it’s a kind of fermented drink, that’s been distilled—” Rosy started to explain, looking oddly ill as she did so.
“Ah know what whiskey is,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes. “And yes, we do make whiskey here.”
Rosy just looked stunned at that. What’s her holdup about whiskey now? Applejack was glad for the change of subject away from one’s marely duties though.
“Brandy to be specific,” Applejack said smartly to the shocked farmhand, “It’s real popular in the cold months for warmin’ the extremities. Good for the digestion too, and land sakes if’n it don’t make a pony silly now and again. Ain’t nothin’ like that sissy wine stuff.”
“Sissy wine stuff?” Rosy asked weakly.
“Yeah, wine tastes different, but it really ain’t no different than juice,” Applejack replied, “Keeps forever, and someponies like the aged stuff, but it’s only got trace amounts of alcohol. If’n you want to actually feel anything, you gotta distill th’ spirits outta it.”
“So... wine can’t make you drunk?” Rosy asked in peculiar hesitancy.
“Sure cain’t,” Applejack replied curiously, “Why? Is wine differn’t in your world?”
“I’m not sure,” Rosy said uneasily, staring at the forehooves she had curled above her from where she lay.
Rosy did amazing at cider season actually. Rosy sure did have some good earth pony heritage in her, even if Applejack didn’t exactly understand how that translated to becoming a pony out of the blue. So the cider press went swimmingly, and that gave Big Macintosh a chance to buck some apples, which freed up Applejack to fill the barrels, which freed up Apple Bloom to learn the ins and outs of the scent of a good cider apple.
Applejack could’ve used some tutelage there herself, but it made her feel good to know that Apple Bloom would learn how you put the sour apples that aren’t the best for eating through the cider press, and that’s what gave the juice its signature bite, and helped it keep longer. But not too sour or you get green tasting stuff.
Cider season came and went, and once again this year, Applejack wished that those salesponies that one time had been selling something more than horn oil, but even making cider the old fashioned way, the family managed to satisfy most of the population of Ponyville, thanks to the helper ponies from around town like Rosy and Vanilla.
Rosy wanted to stay on after that, build up her reputation as a farm worker, and for good reason. She seemed to love the simple acts that most ponies took for granted. Just running was a joy to this mare, and she was beyond fascinated with the kinetics of apple bucking, even if she couldn’t direct her force to get more than one or two apples at a time. Plus she was extremely curious about Applejack’s special brew, and Applejack didn’t start selling that until later in the autumn seasons. So Rosy stuck around, and they all grew closer together.
“Welp, bottoms up!”
It was to be expected, but Rosy lost her first shot, gasping and spluttering at the touch of the fiery liquid. Applejack made sure to catch the glass before she dropped it. Rosy was still clumsy as a foal with her hooves it seemed.
Vanilla snickered, while Applejack said, “Good try, Rosy.”
“Didn’t expect it would—glah—burn so much,” Rosy replied, teary eyes squinted and tongue out.
“You need to sip it slowly,” Vanilla Sweet specified.
The three of them were down in the cellar, where the products of Applejack’s distillery were busily aging. There was a little tasting area set up, and to start off sales, AJ decided to break open a 2 year bottle and share it with the workers, especially Rosy who said she’d never even touched alcohol before. Pouring a touch of brandy in Rosy’s glass again, Applejack let the bottle out of her mouth and hoofed Rosy the glass, saying, “Go on, let’s see you try sipping it slowly. Don’t be afraid to sniff it neither. It ain’t just the smell of alcohol.
“Oh, it smells... woody?” Rosy said curiously. She was more careful with the second glass, delicately tipping its contents into her mouth.
“It is good for smelling and swallowing,” Vanilla said, looking into her own glass thoughtfully, “But perhaps not for tasting.”
“Ah dunno, you kinda get used to the taste after a while,” Applejack said, swigging the last of hers. “It’s th’ sour apples meeting with the alcohol what gives it that strong taste.”
They made conversation while they finished off the bottle. About Vanilla’s homeland, which like just about everything, Rosy was fascinated in. They had enough for roughly a dozen shots for each of them, so they were all definitely beginning to relax and warm up after the bottle was empty.
Applejack was feeling a pleasant buzz certainly, relaxed on a hay bale next to Rosy Pink. “Pretty satisfyin’ huh?” she asked the brandy neophyte.
“Ha ha yeah, I’d be so blitzed if I wasn’t a pony,” Rosy said cheerfully, with cheeks as rosy as her name. “So this’s A-Applejack, huh?”
“It sure ain’t marsh water,” Applejack replied smugly.
Rosy gave her a slow look, and asked, “So, you chose the name Applejack?”
Applejack nodded and replied, “Yup. This distillin’s kinda mah thing, so ah think the name fits. It’s a better name than Applebuck, at any rate.”
Rosy laughed saying, “Oh yeah, totally. I love your name, it’s so clever!”
“Suppose so,” Applejack said modestly. “You thought on a different name, yet?”
“Nah, Rosy is actually really good,” Rosy said nonchalantly, “Though I can’t use Rosy Stripes since I don’t gotta stripe in my hair. Maybe Rosy... Cheeks?”
Vanilla found that one terribly amusing.
“Think on it long as you want,” Applejack said. “Long as you’re here, I’ll stick with whatever name you wanna change it to.”
“What was your name, before you were Applejack?” Rosy asked curiously.
Applejack bit her lip at that, resisting the urge to turn her hat down. “Well it was just th’ name mah folks gave me, on account of mah color and all,” she said noncommitally.
“So I’m curious,” Rosy said, rolling limply onto one side to regard the tawny orange pony. “I can’t even imagine you as anything but Applejack. What was it, if it’s not too much trouble?”
Applejack blushed, looking the other way as she said in a subdued tone, “Uh... Pippin. Orange Pippin.”
After a mite, Applejack risked a look at Rosy, whose blue eyes were wide and glimmering as she exclaimed, “That. Is so. Adorable!”
Before Applejack could respond, she was double teamed by Vanilla Sweets, saying on her other side, “Oh, Applejack! You used to be a little pequeño Pippin? That is so sweet!”
“I can’t believe they didn’t use that!” Rosy agreed with a bright smile at Vanilla, “Orange Pippin’d be a perfect name for such a cute little foal!”
“Ah knewd there was a reason ah never told anypony about this,” Applejack groaned, burying her face under her hat.
It was only later that Applejack realized that—in fact—she had never told anypony about that. No reason other than it was embarassing and not really relevant, but it was still true. Applejack really wondered about Rosy. Beyond her “show knowledge” that she let slip at times, she just had a way for bringing out a pony’s secrets, and uncovering what they might have rather left behind.
Rosy was a good pony though, and a hard worker, so Applejack really had no complaints, and Apple Bloom loved Rosy to pieces, what with sharing a common unquenchable curiosity for the strangest things. Granny warmed up to her too after a while, and Rosy never took advantage of that trust.
Yep, everything was fine and dandy, until Applejack made the harebrained mistake of actually talking to her crazy librarian friend.
“And Ponyville’s never been in better hooves,” Applejack said while she had a cup of maple mocha with Twilight at the local Hayburger. “All our applebuckin’ is done, and there’s gonna be a bumper crop of hay for all sorts of delectables over the winter. And let me tell you, the maple leaves were looking mighty green. That means more sweet, sweet syrup now that they’re goin’ to sleep for the long night.”
“I am so enjoying the autumn weather,” Twilight Sparkle said fondly over her own hot, sugary drink, “This’s my favorite season really. Maple syrup, the Running of the Leaves, all the trees turning beautiful colors. Everything getting nice and quiet and restful. Nothing like a brisk autumn wind, to make you appreciate a warm fire and a good book.”
“I do have you to thank though,” Applejack replied to Twilight’s blushingly adoring description of the season. “Without you, ah’d still be bucking all those trees with just Big Macintosh, and we’d be hard pressed to even get the tree taps in the maples by the turning of the leaves. The help this year’s been more than worth it, even if they aren’t all Apples. Especially Rosy, heh.”
“Why especially?” Twilight asked with an amused smile. “Who’s Rosy?”
“Well, most ponies who help on the farm come from Ponyville,” Applejack said, “An’ last year when Vanilla came from so far south, I thought that was a pretty wild thing to do. But Rosy comes from so far away, it don’t even show up on the map!”
Twilight almost choked on her milkshake.
“What?” Twilight said, in the confusion of a pony who knows what she heard, but her thoughts are spinning so fast she can’t make any concrete observations yet.
“Yep, you know that mare of yours?” Applejack said smugly, “The one from the other verse place? She weren’t even in town when we let the Elements loose, so she got to stay in Equestria! Now she’s livin’ here and helpin’ on the farm even. Why ah don’t—”
“Where is she?!” Twilight blurted out anxiously.
Applejack blinked. “...Rosy, you mean? Ah think she’s been livin’ in town?”
“She’s been... what?” Twilight said, bug eyed.
“Look, she didn’t want me to trouble you with it, on account of she’s gonna be stayin’ here for a while after all,” Applejack said crossly. “There’s no need to be gettin’ all upset over it. What’s the problem here?”
“We need to go to the Rift site,” Twilight stated, jumping up from her unfinished milkshake. “Right. Now.”
From behind the canvas tape demarcating the impact crater, a metallic boom arm swung with a delicate apparatus fixed to it. From it, a beep sounded out at irregular intervals, as part of it bloomed and shrank in size as if passing behind a distorted lens. On the ground, the base of the instrument was adorned with dozens of very important colored lights, and a continuous ticker spat out line after line of readings fed from within by a thick roll of gossamer tempaper. A grey pony with blue hair stood by the readout, watching it carefully and occasionally scratching out a note on the clipboard floating in her blue magic.
The whole crater had been stocked liberally with research equipment and trailers. Next to hers, a pony with a hard hat and a test tube story mark was busily carrying a quartz harmonator on his back, placing it at 22 degrees north by northwest of the central anomaly, flipping a switch to recalibrate it. Another young green stallion strutted past the center of the crater, where an opaque, silvery egg shape was suspended, thin legs on all sides bracing it against the grassy soil underneath and holding it up. The antennae on top of the structure continuously transmitted readings to the nearby receiving station outside the spatial distortion zone, where in a small building, ponies busily adjusted knobs and dials and joked with each other:
“I wonder what the humans are up to today.”
“Let’s hope it’s not a hurricane, ha!”
“Let’s check their weather report. Can you get a visual on the local paper?”
“Sunny skies, it says, but you know how clueless they are about that sort of thing.”
“I can’t believe they still use barometers!”
A purple pony princess charged into the clearing, skidding to a halt at the sight of the equipment, and the ponies, and the tents, and the buildings, and the closely grazed fields, and the persistent spatial anomalies, and the friendly chatter, and the irregular beeping noise coming from somewhere, and shouted at the top of her voice, “What the hay is going on here?”
Silence descended on the clearing. Everypony stopped what they were doing, and turned to look at the princess. Ears went low, tails drooped. The only sound that could be heard was an irregular but persistent beeping.
“Busted...” somepony finally said.
“I can’t believe you would do this!” Twilight stated angrily at the closest she could find to a leading researcher of this mess. “How could you not inform any of the princesses that the Rift was still open?”
“We didn’t think there’d be a need for formal inquiry,” said the stallion known as Dr. Harness. While the brown haired, blue furred professor spoke with Twilight, everypony around them was busy scrambling to dismantle and cart away all this fascinating scientific... frippery! “We had the situation under control,” he said, “And a perfectly good research grant.”
“Which I wouldn’t have granted if I’d have thought you were going to hide this from me!” Twilight countered with a hoof stomp. “What were you even thinking, trying to sneak this by me. Do you even realize how terrible this is?”
The glum researchers and students were now under strict supervision from Canterlot, soldiers watching them carefully as they cleaned up their research equipment, shipping it off in pegasus carriers. How the ponies here were going to dismantle the semi-perminent facilities they’d constructed around this clearing, Twilight had no idea, but frankly she didn’t care. Of all the callous things to do!
“What were we supposed to do?” the professor exclaimed, glaring at her with cold blue eyes. “You couldn’t stop going on about how great it was that you closed the Rift. You wanted us to tell you huh? Well now you know, and look what good it’s done! The first thing you do when you find out about us, is shut us down!”
Twilight couldn’t believe what he was forcing her to admit to. Was she really doing this? Telling other ponies not to study and learn? But it was wrong to study this and learn that! This wasn’t a sensible, rational, predictable state of affairs at all! It caught Twilight Sparkle completely on her haunches, and it had been going on behind her back for how long?!
“How can you act like this is a good idea? Don’t you know what’s at stake here?” Twilight asked in anguish.
“Another world!” he roared in return. “Another completely different universe, with mysterious ties to our own! Don’t tell me you weren’t curious about it? And now you’re just going to cut us off from a literal entire world of opportunity?”
“No, that’s... not it,” Twilight said, chewing on a strand of mane fussily. “What is at stake,” she said tensely, “Is a traveller who has come to our world, and you stranded her here! You’re keeping her from reuniting with her family!”
“She’s hardly complaining about it,” he said in a very unconvinced tone, curling his brown tail noncomittally over his dumb blue hiney.
“Just because she’s not complaining doesn’t mean she’s not suffering,” Twilight said angrily. “You don’t understand what it’s like to lose your home, and your family!”
“Do you?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“Well... no,” Twilight had to admit, “But it’s really bad! This is objective fact!” she said with a definitive stomp.
“You’re making a mistake closing us down,” he replied darkly. “There’s so much we could do for this world, one mare just doesn’t—”
“She’s a traveller,” Twilight repeated patiently. “From a strange land, distant from our own. She has to return to where she came! You’ve seen legends like that come to pass. Haven’t you heard the tale of Tornadorthy?”
“Not everypony has the good luck to have their life full of adventure like you, Princess,” he said. “Some of these students have hardly been out of the house, and this is their first chance at something really exciting!”
“Well, I’ll tell you what’s exciting: all of Equestria in peril because we forced a traveller to never finish her story,” Twilight replied acidly. “How long before something else came through that rift? Do you know how dangerous the Void can be?”
“We had it under control, Princess,” he said wearily. “The containment chamber is specifically enchanted against incursions, and after the shadow incident, we installed measuring instruments that could detect any sign of Outsiders.”
“Well, it’s good you did that,” Twilight said, “And that’s probably why we haven’t had a total disaster... yet. But I’m afraid the party’s over. You have plenty of data collected from this... other world, and it’s time to reunite Rosy with her family again. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of other opportunities for dimensional incursions in the future.”
“From the Void yes, but this is a coherent world!” he protested. “Somepony came through to us. This isn’t just the story of a mare stranded in a strange land—well I suppose it is, but it’s still a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence!”
“It’s not something that’s supposed to happen,” Twilight insisted sensibly. “You’re not supposed to study things that aren’t supposed to happen. This doesn’t belong in our world at all. Yes I do agree it’s something I’ve never seen before, and I don’t like it!”
Twilight paused, and brushed at her coat with a hoof saying more calmly, “And what I like isn’t a concern here. What is a concern is getting Rosy reunited with her family, and returning the world to its proper balance, where everything is as it should be. Yes we will lose the Rift, but no amount of weird, different world stuff is worth risking all of Equestria over. You know what’s in the Void?”
“Frankly... no,” he said. “This is my first chance to study it. But I can assure you that—”
“Well, I’ve read extensively on the subject, especially once the traveller came over, and you should have done so yourself,” Twilight said. “One of you should have realized. As it states in Deranged Dweomer’s Dimensional Diatribe, everywhere that is a world is not the Void, and the Void is everywhere that is not a world. Consider that there might be a reason the Void is not a world. There are things which cannot exist in our world, that by existing would destroy it utterly. They don’t exist obviously, because our world is still intact, and has been so for uncountable ages.”
She mentally flipped a page and continued. “These world ending catastrophes don’t exist in any other world, either. Because if they did, then there would be no world to exist. But the Void is everywhere that is not a world. Literally anything can be in there. Something that could unravel our world into complete nothingness could be found in the Void. That is why it is absolutely forbidden to travel in it, and why things that come from it are so violent and dangerous. Refer to page bee—” she coughed.
“I think my point is fairly clear,” Twilight said, recovering her original mental checklist. “The Void is dangerous. We need the traveller to return to her world, just as if she’d been washed up on a distant shore. She had her adventure, she learned her lesson, and you all prevented her speedy return to the life she knows. I can provide you with grants for any number of subjects you can study that don’t involve world shattering danger. Have you considered studying paleopony history? Or how about a good biography? Clearmark the Fearless is a particularly good—”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to check it out from the library,” he interrupted in an acerbic tone, “I think we’re done here. I told you what’s what, and you just have to draw your own conclusions from that. But for your sake, I hope you’re right princess. I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I let an opportunity like this pass me by because I was afraid of it.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” Twilight insisted firmly.
He didn’t even dignify that with a response.
Twilight left that conversation flustered, and somewhat troubled. She knew she was in the right, right? She could objectively prove that all her salient points had been fully valid and in accordance with ethical research, and Equestrian Harmony. These research students just didn’t know how the world worked. They hadn’t seen an adventure, so they didn’t know that the proper resolution was to return home, and be safe from peril. Twilight was in the right here.
Still, she hated seeing all the disappointed, and even disgusted looks on the ponies’ faces. Like they resented what she was doing, and somehow as if they pitied her.
Well, Twilight didn’t need any pitying. She was just fine the way she is. She was a successful princess and graduate from Equestria’s highest institution, and she knew what she was talking about. Rosy’s quest resolution was somewhat delayed, but with swift, decisive action, once again everything would be back to normal, and everything would make sense again.
“Ah dunno about you, but I’ll be glad to have this behind me,” Applejack said, as part of a four and three ponies, who could be found trotting along through the White Tail Woods. “Ah had no idea you were pining for home so badly, Rosy.”
“Well, I wasn’t really all that much,” said a pink-haired cream colored mare who’d taken the name of Rosy Pink. “But I know how you feel, and... Equestria hangs in the balance, right?”
“Equestria hangs in the balance way too much, in my opinion,” Twilight Sparkle groaned. “But yes, a nice side effect of you passing through the Rift will be ensuring the safety of Equestria from otherworldly invaders, like the thing that was going after pony’s shadows.”
“R-right... that,” Rosy said, staring closely at the ground as she plodded along reluctantly.
“Aww, cheer up miss grumpy-pants,” Pinkie Pie said ineffectually, bouncing beside the worried mare. “I’m sure your family will love to see you again, even though you’ve been gone for so long that the snow is on the ground again again, and we’re all dressing really warmly. You won’t be able to keep the scarf, by the way.”
“Yes, I...” the mare smiled despite herself, tugging at the thick wool scarf around her neck. Personally horn knitted, of course. “I know,” she laughed. “It’ll be fine I’ll just... it’ll be fine.”
“You sure didn’t seem like you would be fine earlier,” Rainbow Dash said suspiciously, fluttering beside the mare and squinting at her. “You’ve been trying to dodge us bringing you here for weeks! If I hadn’t found you just now, I think you would have forgotten to show up today!”
“Oh, I just... you know, I just wanted to stay a little bit longer,” Rosy said, blushing with embarassment. “I’m not trying to hurt you um... ponies or anything. I just wanted to... just enjoy it a little. Live it up, you know?”
“You know you just spent th’ past week hauling away old, dead crops, right sugarcube?” Applejack asked uncertainly. Rosy just shrugged at that.
Fluttershy said nothing.
“Now now Applejack, one mustn’t judge another pony’s pastimes,” Rarity said coyly to her orange friend. “You can’t possibly understand my amount of enjoyment from an afternoon at the spa, after all.”
“Ah could have enjoyed it just fine,” Applejack replied grumpily. “I just liked fixin’ things better.”
“And... if Rosy enjoys, um...” Rarity paused, looking to Rosy for affirmation. “What was it you enjoyed again?”
Rosy looked at Rarity with a confused expression, but then her eyes cleared and she said, “Ponies. I think I like ponies in general. E-even pulling out the... the dead melon vines, it didn’t hurt to pull them out, and I was hardly even breaking a sweat pulling the cart. The pile was taller than my head! I just like being a... being a pony, I guess.”
“Well, as much as you appreciate the better qualities of ponyhood, such as... pulling out old melon vines,” Rarity said touchily, “I’m sure you’ll be happy to finally return home, reunite with your friends and family, and save our world on top of it!”
Rarity seemed troubled, as Rosy muttered something noncommital and looked away from them again. It was clearly because the dressmaker simply didn’t know how to deal with a mare who acted so strangely. Rarity didn’t have to worry though. Twilight had this all under control.
“I’m truly grateful for your help, Rosy,” Twilight said cheerfully, the princess strutting at the front of the group looking purposefully forward. “Equestria will be forever grateful that you returned home and saved us all from destruction.”
“Is it really going to—to destroy Equestria?” Rosy said in a very conflicted tone of voice.
Pondering, but not looking back, Twilight Sparkle said, “Well, it’s not like Equestria has been destroyed before, so it’s hard to have a good estimate for what would destroy it. But I am one hundred percent sure that the solution to all our problems is as simple as you stepping through the Rift, and returning to your home world.”
“Of course it is,” Rosy grumbled under her breath. “I just wish there was some other way,” she said a little louder, a little more troubled. “I wish that rift would just...”
Fluttershy’s hoof trembled, as she held herself away from laying it on Rosy’s back.
Rosy noticed Fluttershy’s involuntary approach though, and smiled sadly at the butter colored pegasus. “Guess I won’t be coming over for tea after all,” she said to her.
Fluttershy shrank back at that, tears coming to her eyes even at the thought of responding. Who said Fluttershy even had any right to speak to Rosy? Why was Rosy such a nice, pleasant, friendly mare? And Fluttershy was just a... a somepony who didn’t deserve anything good. Fluttershy wanted... Fluttershy was afraid to speak.
“It’s no problem,” Rosy said with a nervous smile. “I mean, I... get to go home, right? See my parents maybe. And my brother. And I guess f-find a place to work again and...” she kind of trailed off into a squeak in a manner Fluttershy rarely got to observe from an outside perspective. Looking away from Fluttershy and just staring forward apprehensively as she trotted forward, Rosy was not doing a good job of making it seem like it was no problem.
Applejack ran right into Rosy’s pink tailed rear end when the pink haired mare stopped frozen at the crater’s edge. “Whoops, sorry about that,” Applejack said, taking off her hat and backing up from Rosy’s behind. Rosy didn’t answer, just stepped forward stiff legged into the snowy bowl that was the remains of the strange crater she’d emerged from one day so long ago. Applejack wasn’t sure what that meant, but she went along with it anyway.
The silver containment chamber had been unlocked, and moved off to the side for the purposes of this event. There were a few worker ponies there, to keep the facilities prepped for Rosy’s arrival today. As a whole, they still seemed pretty disgusted with Twilight, yet also a little relieved that she actually showed up this time, without Rosy being absent again. Twilight found that punctuality did wonders for difficult pony-pony relations!
The workers trotted off as soon as Twilight and her friends arrived, leaving the Bearers to manage things. The half dozen stood by, three on each side of the Rift, while Rosy faced it alone. True to its nature, the central anomaly glowed and swelled upon her approach. It was only a tiny wormhole at the start, but once it came to her to restore the balance, it would become a full fledged portal, through which Rosy would return to her home, and the world’s balance would be restored.
Rosy approached it, while the Element bearers stood alongside it and faced her encouragingly. The Rift blossomed and spread. It distorted space as if you were looking into a crystal clear mirror, but there was no reflection of a pony in that mirror. Instead, there was another world.
There was an apartment, that looked straight out of Manehattan, except that it had broad yellow caution tape wrapped around everything, and all the furniture appeared to be covered by sheets of some sort. There was no one to be seen within, though the university ponies had gotten a good look at these strange, bipedal creatures from their surveying spells that could fit through the collapsed rift. It looked kind of like what you’d expect from a crime scene, perhaps understandable considering the nature of Rosy’s departure from that land. Rosy didn’t look at it so much with recognition though. Nor did she look at it with shock and worry, at seeing the consequences of her ill fated dimensional dislocation.
Rosy stared at it like it was a death sentence.
“Well, anything you want to say before you go?” Twilight asked with an pleased smile. She was unnerved as all heck by this thing right beside her, and possibly by this thing in front of her calling itself Rosy, too. But at last, Rosy’s story was about to be concluded, and everypony got a happy ending. It truly warmed Twilight’s heart to see everything coming together like this. Even if this darn portal felt like sandpaper on a blackboard to stand next to.
“Just um...” Rosy said, pulling her gaze away from the gleaming, eerily silent portal, to look at the others. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. Not necessarily in that order.
“Um...” Rosy said, tugging the scarf off her neck and holding her hoof out to Rarity. “Here’s your scarf.”
“Oh, why thank you dear. It would have been a pickle if we ended up with that across this terribly complicated manner of transportation,” Rarity said gratefully, taking it in the aura of her cool blue magic.
Rosy was completely naked now, though it’d be a while until she started to get cold. She was stronger, and more lithe than when she’d first appeared here. In better shape, and well fed. Her off-white coat, still lacking in its story mark, was well groomed and gleaming, except for where the scarf had mussed up her neck fur. Her pink mane just a little paler than Fluttershy’s was roughly combed, not attended to too terribly, but allowed to remain in its natural curly state. Her curly pink tail was clean of any brambles, easily held above her rear with a level of control that would have made you think she was born that way.
Rosy turned to Rainbow Dash and said, “Uh, we didn’t hang out a lot, but... I always thought you were really cool.”
Dash puffed her chest out proudly at that and said, “Yeah, you aren’t the only one!”
Rosy just laughed gladly, and turned to Fluttershy. “Um... I’m not trying to imitate you, honest. I just get so flustered when I’m... like this,” Rosy said to her. “I can understand why you’d want to be so shy and quiet, sometimes. But I’m really grateful for your support and understanding. I wish this could have gone... differently.”
Fluttershy couldn’t answer.
Rosy pointedly avoided meeting eyes with Twilight Sparkle, instead looking at Applejack, and there were genuine tears brimming in Rosy’s eyes as she said, “I’ve never seen anything quite as beautiful as Sweet Apple Acres. Farms aren’t like that in my world. Nothing is. Yours is just... it’s something else.”
And she turned to Pinkie Pie, and said, “Thank—thank you for the welcome—party—” Rosy couldn’t seem to stop crying. What was wrong? Twilight peered worriedly at the shaking traveller, whose eyes were streaming with tears. Was Rosy too happy to be going home?
Rosy looked at Twilight Sparkle, too choked up to speak. Rosy tried, shuddering there, trying to get the words out, while she looked—no, she looked at Twilight Sparkle. Struggling to speak, the creamy furred pony fixed Twilight Sparkle in an urgent, seeking stare that captivated Twilight in those deep blue irises, so full of regret, and longing... and terror.
“I’m sorry,” Rosy choked out. She turned and stumbled away—she moved one hoof after another, while the open-mouthed group of friends stared after Rosy Pink, until the little pony was galloping as hard as she’d learned how to do, away from the portal, up the bowl of the crater, and crashing into the underbrush, fleeing through the forest.
The portal closed with a snap.
...So... reading about all this time passing, it seems highly improbable that Rosy would just happen to keep missing the Mane Six (or possibly just Twilight?). I am beginning to suspect deliberate avoidance...
Nice details on Sweet Apple Acres. :)
"stetson bearing"
"stetson-bearing"?
"season, when a very familiar mare came trotting down the road from town."
(coming back from further on to type this)
Was that last clause meant to be left in? It reads to me as a holdover from an earlier version that didn't have so many following details, and its presence here left me rather confused about the chronology. If it wasn't, perhaps delete it and change "and noticed a mare walking along it" later to "and noticed a very familiar mare walking along it"?
edit having read a bit further on than that:
Oh, though perhaps just leave out the "very familiar"? I took that to mean that Applejack recognized her immediately. Or perhaps "very familiar-seeming"?
"had mastered Applebucking as well"
Was that meant to be capitalized?
"them in a score years at"
"score of years"?
"forgetting where she’s seen her "
"she'd"?
"as she lay a hoof on"
"laid"?
re the accent thing:
...Huh. :D
"fan of her, Vanilla’s idea"
"her; Vanilla's"?
"and turnip picking"
Eh? I thought it was just said that Applejack didn't deal in root vegetables, though.
...Hm. Interesting, about the alcohol...
"kinetics of Apple bucking"
"Applebucking" or "applebucking", for consistency with earlier?
Oh, also, does Rosy still not have a story mark? Does she keep that hidden, or... do people just not comment?
"eye squinted and tongue"
"eyes"?
"Vanilla said looking into"
"said, looking"?
"was fascinated in like just"
"fascinated by like"?
Ah, and it looks like her reaction may have been more human+alcohol related, rather than related to alcohol itself.
"look at Rosy whose blue eyes"
"Rosy, whose"?
"Yep, everything was fine and dandy, until Applejack made the harebrained mistake of actually talking to her crazy librarian friend."
Oh dear.
"And Ponyville’s never been in better hooves"
Slightly puzzled by why she seems to be referring to the town management here. I gather she was in fact referring to her farm's produce for the town?
"a beep sounding out at irregular"
"beep sounded out"?
"to a halt at the site of the equipment"
"sight"?
"there would be no world to exist"
"exist in"?
"dangerous, we need the"
"dangerous, and we"?
Hm. Possibly Twilight has a Thing about leaving Canterlot? ...Some big holes in it, but it's probably the best hypothesis I've had so far...
"just fine the way she is"
"was"?
"Why was Rosy such a nice, pleasant, friendly mare?"
...Well, that's some intriguing emphasis.
Also, hm. Those seem to be Fluttershy's thoughts there. Not in the... best headspace...
"asked with an pleased smile"
"with a pleased"?
Ah, so she is still markless; I guess people just stopped remarking on it. And perhaps Applejack's view was obstructed until after she'd heard Rosy's name.
"The portal closed with a snap."
Oh, hey! So... how's that threat to Equestria looking, then?
Another good chapter!
Love this story. Protip. Some really great authors have tried writing things in alternative bases. All have regretted it. Just let the translation convention do its thing.
I would like to hear more about this tab thing ponies have.
twilight seems to fail to realize that 'creature' as she so calls rosy, is a sentient being with her own thoughts and feelings,. this sin't some story that she has to dictate. rosy doesn't want to leave.
8159788
Are you kidding? It took an act of Goldenrod to get her to even approach Applejack!
World building is my most and least favorite part of storytelling, because on one hand it's incredible to put yourself in these exotic realities that still have a strange familiarity to them, making them feel almost tangibly real, and on the other hand I feel like I'm just randomly coming up with a bunch of technobabble and just making sure any self contradictions are covered up by mysteeeeeeeriousness.
I think so? It was kind of introducing what was next, so people know why I'm droning on about Applejack bucking apples. Good eye though. I have a terrible habit of leaving fragments of older versions in the worst possible blaces.
When I recognize someone immediately, I don't say, "Oh hey, you look very familiar."
Eh, if that were a hard and fast rule, then we would be making a dozen of mistakes.
Yeah that was a total fakeout. "What the hay is an accent? Ah have a funnylike way of elocutin' things, not an accent!"
Consistency... right...
Well Applejack isn't very judgemental, so it didn't feel like she'd spend a lot of time staring at Rosy's ass. Mostly I just didn't have a chance to throw in a "oh by the way the rear was blank."
Yes, I did say that, didn't I.
Fire doesn't boil in water, but it does boil water.
Snowy with a chance of Void incursion!
8159816
Yeah, it gets really tedious sometimes, because people just won't stop commenting saying "You'll regret it when all those other people get upset about it."
Me too.
I'm not smart enough to implement an actual working economic system that people couldn't easily tear to shreds. I have the gist, but the details elude me. So, I don't know how in detail I can get. That's not the subject of this story, anyway.
8159842
Twilight's problem may lie more in her failure to admit than her failure to realize.
8159980 true. all she has done since rosy showed up is try to get rid of her for w/e reason. never once considering rosy's opinion or anything.
also, a bit of a plot hole. nothing major, but she went to see bluebelle about what was going on, then suddenly a year goes by and rosy comes out of nowhere looking for work
8160021 It's not always a plot hole just because stuff is omitted. Rosy's been keeping herself busy for the year.
I always love the orthodox archetype of Twilight Spackle where he is so rigidly sure of her belief and opinions of her statues as a princess and take everything she has learn in her educations as ironclad truths to the point of she dismissing others possibilities out of hand/hoof just because they don't conform to her preconceived notions of are challenged. Great chapter it was a lot of to read. I think it is clear that Rose is probably trying to escape her old life because of some unresolved issues that she had there and was clearly not ready to go back and Twilight's insensitively pushing her to go through with it,only make her not want to go back there even more. Can't wait to see the next movie.
8159980
"Are you kidding? It took an act of Goldenrod to get her to even approach Applejack!"
Well, I didn't know that at the time, did I? :D
"World building is my most and least favorite part of storytelling, because on one hand it's incredible to put yourself in these exotic realities that still have a strange familiarity to them, making them feel almost tangibly real, and on the other hand I feel like I'm just randomly coming up with a bunch of technobabble and just making sure any self contradictions are covered up by mysteeeeeeeriousness."
You're much closer to the former than the latter, I think. Well, or, I suppose, very good at the covering-up part. :)
"I think so? It was kind of introducing what was next, so people know why I'm droning on about Applejack bucking apples."
Ah, okay. I think that the "droning" stands on its own, though, with the introduction just confusing matters (since it, at least to me, wasn't apparent at the time that that bit was actually skipping ahead, and since it seems out of place amidst the agricultural description).
"Good eye though. I have a terrible habit of leaving fragments of older versions in the worst possible blaces."
Thanks.
And, um, on that subject: "places"? :)
"When I recognize someone immediately, I don't say, "Oh hey, you look very familiar.""
Right, but this isn't Applejack saying or thinking it; this is the narration.
"Eh, if that were a hard and fast rule, then we would be making a dozen of mistakes."
...Huh. Interesting. I had not noticed that. Ah, English, the twists you take sometimes...
Well, I think it's probably still against the usual convention, but, eh, it's readily comprehensible, and it's not as if we have an Academy.
"Yeah that was a total fakeout. "What the hay is an accent? Ah have a funnylike way of elocutin' things, not an accent!""
:)
"Consistency... right..."
Oh, and actually, it looks like I gave bad advice there; sorry. I'm getting three instances of "apple bucking" to only one of "Applebucking".
"Well Applejack isn't very judgemental, so it didn't feel like she'd spend a lot of time staring at Rosy's ass. Mostly I just didn't have a chance to throw in a "oh by the way the rear was blank.""
Ah, thanks.
" Yes, I did say that, didn't I."
Sorry.
"Fire doesn't boil in water, but it does boil water."
Oh, it works, but I thought you might have been referring back to the "exist in" earlier in the sentence and left the "in" off accidentally.
""
[wants to pat and reassure the Fluttershy icon]
"Snowy with a chance of Void incursion!"
From the now-closed portal, somehow. Hm, though I suppose that, like last time, it might not be all the way closed.
"Yeah, it gets really tedious sometimes, because people just won't stop commenting saying "You'll regret it when all those other people get upset about it." "
I still like it. :)
"Me too.
I'm not smart enough to implement an actual working economic system that people couldn't easily tear to shreds. I have the gist, but the details elude me. So, I don't know how in detail I can get. That's not the subject of this story, anyway."
I'm guessing bits are used mainly for inter-town (or, in the bigger cities, perhaps inter-neighborhood) exchange? Hm, and prevention of heavy expansion (drift-driven or forced) into the local economies could be from a combination of cultural forces and ponies not wanting to bother with lots of little bits of metal just to run their errands? That wouldn't stand up to a lot of deliberate external pressure, but I'm guessing that the Princesses could keep that in check.
This system also seems like it would do a good job insulating the average pony from the delusion that money is wealth, and, combined with what seems to be a much more local economy, from a lot of market-driven problems (though there might still be significant difficulties in areas that have to import most of their food, if the actual food supply hasn't changed, the Princesses could step in there, too; that'd just leave the people who relied heavily on the bit as their personal primary medium of exchange, but they'd be a minority and able to be taken care of by the safety net displayed in this story).
(Note: I am not a dedicated studier of economic processes, history, or potentialities either.)
"Twilight's problem may lie more in her failure to admit than her failure to realize."
Which of course, raises the question: Why is she so determined not to believe it?
8160021
8160043
I believe what happened is that Rosy did find out what was going on, then decided to hide from the Mane Six.
8160838 that IS what happened, the problem is it's obvious, and twilight and everyone isn't getting it.
8160490
I dunno. How sure could Twilight possibly feel about the situation now?
OH SURE NO PROBLEM A FULL LENGTH FEATURE FILM IS IN THE WORKING
...but thanks. I hope not to disappoint.
8160838
It's sort of what was implied by "So I decided, with some help from my friends, to try and come help out."
Hmm, maybe another horizontal rule will help.
Actually bits are mostly used for consumable goods, with a one-time value. You can't really assign a monetary amount to a gift that keeps on giving, though in our world, lawyers like to make you think they can.
For economic systems that will only import food in exchange for bits, yeah.
Until Goldenrod talked her out of it. Because they're the Elements of Harmony! What could possibly go wrong?
8161204
Well, the non-Twilight members seem to be fine accepting things as they are, and the time gap may have blunted the details of their memories. Twilight clearly has some issues here.
8161206
"It's sort of what was implied by "So I decided, with some help from my friends, to try and come help out.""
Ah, sorry, perhaps it wasn't clear from the formatting: the line in question was written before I got to Rosy's appearance in the chapter.
"Hmm, maybe another horizontal rule will help."
Ah, yes, stick one after "when a very familiar mare came trotting down the road from town.", and I think that that will fix the problem. Hadn't occurred to me.
"Actually bits are mostly used for consumable goods, with a one-time value. You can't really assign a monetary amount to a gift that keeps on giving, though in our world, lawyers like to make you think they can."
...Huh. So... I'm confused. How does that work?
(I thought you were using a sort of reformed-medieval-european system where the local economies, which are mostly self-sufficient, run on informal qualitative credit and social conventions and actual money is pretty rarely, if at all, used by most of the population, being mostly the domain of travellers and large-scale private or public enterprises.)
"For economic systems that will only import food in exchange for bits, yeah."
Well, in the one I thought you were using, that would be the usual. Though urban farming might be pretty common to reduce the need for trade, once they got big enough, the high-density urban communities wouldn't be able to produce enough food within their own tab districts and would have to engage in longer-range trade. The food-importing districts would have access to the concentrated resources of cities, though, and the larger trade network, and would be able to exchange manufactured goods and high-end services with the money economy. When the money economy is running properly, the food-exporting districts, likely via a few contact-point traders, take in the bits in exchange for food gathered in the communities with tabs and spend them for imports (goods or, via taxes, services) distributed with tabs. If the money economy breaks down, the mostly-autarchic districts lose luxuries or long-lifetime goods, but the import-dependent districts lose access to things they need in the short term. That's where the national government can step in, possibly using something like district-scale tabs instead of pony-scale tabs, to maintain the flow of necessities, and the continuity of military protection for those areas that need it, until the money economy can be repaired. The money economy is presumably used, instead of the district-level tabs being the main exchange system, because it requires far less work by the government and can potentially lead to good things the government wouldn't have thought of or been able to enact (though I'd hope that the national government still does keep an eye out for bad things it needs to stop).
So... to start, I suppose, what defines a consumable good? Or a one-time value vs. a gift that keeps on giving?
"Until Goldenrod talked her out of it. Because they're the Elements of Harmony! What could possibly go wrong? "
Well, to be fair, she was quite right about talking to Applejack! That went quite well indeed. And it sounds like she might have started talking to some of the others, too. The problem was when the sixth found out... So, it was, by number of ponies, probably over eighty percent correct! Just that last twenty percent or so is a bit of a doozy.
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Bits are a supplemental economy in Equestria, more accounting aids than anything. The real economy is in your reputation.Think of it like public credit, where the punishment for debt is not Guido threatening to steal your property and pretend he's serving justice. It's ponies being aware you're not very helpful, and putting other ponies before you.
A one-time value is like, a bunch of asparagus. You eat it, it's gone. Bits can account for that, but they can't account for the worth of a schoolteacher. Cheerilee teaches foals "for free" but she can basically get anypony with foals to give her anything she needs, because she taught them or their foals useful lessons. And those without foals will help her, because the ones with foals will help them, then vouch for her. So say if she wants a wedding dress for instance, that makes Rarity look like she's helping not just Cheerilee, but her students indirectly, and their families.
Yeah, she was at least twenty percent doozier. it's more like they didn't understand the rift, than they didn't understand Twilight Sparkle.
For an example of food importing, Applejack sends her apple products to some of her friends and family in Manehattan "for free" but everypony knows that her farm does it. Ponies work for her farm "for free" because they know the industry in Manehattan will help them out with stuff they need. There's a small amount of bits exchanged, but that's mostly for convenience of purchasing stuff at the market. Sort of like universal arcade tokens.
8161909
"Bits are a supplemental economy in Equestria, more accounting aids than anything. The real economy is in your reputation.Think of it like public credit, where the punishment for debt is not Guido threatening to steal your property and pretend he's serving justice. It's ponies being aware you're not very helpful, and putting other ponies before you."
Ah, glad to hear I got that right. :)
"A one-time value is like, a bunch of asparagus. You eat it, it's gone. Bits can account for that, but they can't account for the worth of a schoolteacher. Cheerilee teaches foals "for free" but she can basically get anypony with foals to give her anything she needs, because she taught them or their foals useful lessons. And those without foals will help her, because the ones with foals will help them, then vouch for her. So say if she wants a wedding dress for instance, that makes Rarity look like she's helping not just Cheerilee, but her students indirectly, and their families."
...Hm. I... think we might not actually have been describing very similar systems, just using different words? Because I'm guessing Cheerilee wouldn't need to exchange bits for the asparagus there, if she wanted it. So some ponies would still use bits directly in the local economies, if they needed extra value for something, but a lot of them wouldn't have to (and so likely wouldn't bother)?
(Rather than there being some sort of sharp division between one-time value things which are paid for with and only with bits and other things gotten without bits; that also removes most of the importance of the question of what counts as a one-time value, since edge cases could be settled on a case by case basis by the individuals involved in the exchange.)
"Yeah, she was at least twenty percent doozier."
...That was completely unintentional on my part. :D
"it's more like they didn't understand the rift, than they didn't understand Twilight Sparkle."
Oh? Hm. The rift itself, not the rift-Twilight interaction?
"For an example of food importing, Applejack sends her apple products to some of her friends and family in Manehattan "for free" but everypony knows that her farm does it. Ponies work for her farm "for free" because they know the industry in Manehattan will help them out with stuff they need. There's a small amount of bits exchanged, but that's mostly for convenience of purchasing stuff at the market. Sort of like universal arcade tokens."
Iiiiinteresting. Hm. So this part is very unlike the system I was thinking of. My main concern there would be coordination problems, I think; close social relationships would be much less likely over those distances (as far as I can tell), meaning a lot more would have to be done by assumption. Those assumptions could drift out of alignment... but, actually, while that might or might not be a significant problem likely to arise, it could still be corrected by the national government. The reputation of the Princesses is pretty significant, after all; they could say "Okay, we'll sort out who's done what later, but for now, I'd like you to do these exchanges as a favor to us, whatever your previous issues may have been".
...Hm, also, I think I may have been overestimating the degree of disconnection between localities. Not sure, but pegasus messengers at least raise the possibility of much more common long-distance social relationships.
8162033
Or she asks someone who does make bits to help her out.
It doesn't take close social relationships to do business.
Not worse than money!
The economic system incentivizes communication between localities, so probably, yeah. All you need to know is if they're going to swindle you or not though, not their entire life story. Some swindlers do survive in such a system, but a "global" economic system such as you're living in is unimaginably, immeasurably less trustworthy.
8162764
"Or she asks someone who does make bits to help her out."
...Oh. So bits are required? Okay, that brings back up the question of just what they are and aren't required for, then.
"It doesn't take close social relationships to do business."
How, in this system?
(edit after reading further: Not sure, but this may just be us reading "close" in significantly different ways.)
"Not worse than money!"
They'd drift in different sorts of ways, I think (Money wouldn't drift out of alignment with itself as easily, but it can probably, at least in a primarily money economy, more easily drift out of alignment with reality.), but yeah, this probably isn't as bad. (I think; the above two bits have shown me that I'm still not understanding the system.)
"The economic system incentivizes communication between localities, so probably, yeah. All you need to know is if they're going to swindle you or not though, not their entire life story."
Not their entire life story, no, but you'd need some sense of them, yes? And accidental mismatches would also be possible, not just deliberate ones. Oh, small ones would be fine, as the system can easily take some flexing, but my concern is that-- ah, but I think that I'm again forgetting the communication. In the majority of cases where rising misunderstandings did start building tension, someone from one of the communities would be sent to look into it, or even accidentally look into it in a communication they were having anyway? And defuse it before things got bad. Still possible for things to build to highly problematic levels, but probably unlikely.
(My main concern wasn't a few swindlers or small accidents but two localities drifting into an exploitative relationship that became entrenched before being noticed; the ponies who originally profited from it might have rushed to correct it, but there's likely to be more of an issue with their great grandchildren.)
"Some swindlers do survive in such a system, but a "global" economic system such as you're living in is unimaginably, immeasurably less trustworthy."
Not sure why you put "global" in quotes (I can think of quite a few claims about it that are laughably false, but I wouldn't rank that as one of them.), but yeah, no argument there.
So I (again, admittedly) think I'm now getting most of this, with my main known confusion being about what bits are and aren't mandatory for (and why they're mandatory for anything).
8162891
Bits are used when it's not especially important to check how reliable someone is, like when you're selling a disposable commodity to a large number of ponies. It depends on who you do business with really, and when.
Well, money can drift out of alignment with itself, in the sense of how fluid a money economy is, but yes the stability of money is completely useless, even terribly dangerous, if it doesn't stay in alignment with reality.
Well yes, or just start doing business with other ponies. It can be quite devastating to such schemers in fact, because unlike money, friendship can't be stolen or hoarded. In our world, Trixie would probably use all the money she got from fooling ponies into thinking she's Great and Powerful, investing in a bigger act with hardly a hiccup in her operation. In the pony world, once ponies figured it out, she had... a wagon. Then nothing.
If I have something you want, I can ask you provide an amount of bits in exchange. If I do that for everything, I end up in trouble because I haven't gained anypony's trust, but if I ask for bits only over little things like cider and cherries, I can use them for my own little purchases too, without any need for a receipt. If I've abused ponies' trust in the past, my bits might not be accepted anywhere. It really depends who you're buying from, and how important the purchase is.
It's not a perfect system, I mean. The existence of bits might be detrimental to the overall economy. Something better than bits is probably possible. But that's the economy that emerged in Equestria.
8163047
"Bits are used when it's not especially important to check how reliable someone is, like when you're selling a disposable commodity to a large number of ponies. It depends on who you do business with really, and when."
Ah, ah, okay, so they are still determined on an individual case-by-case basis; thanks.
"Well, money can drift out of alignment with itself, in the sense of how fluid a money economy is, but yes the stability of money is completely useless, even terribly dangerous, if it doesn't stay in alignment with reality."
Indeed.
"Well yes, or just start doing business with other ponies."
Right, if it was deliberate and not an accident.
"It can be quite devastating to such schemers in fact, because unlike money, friendship can't be stolen or hoarded."
Eh, Starlight probably has a spell for it. :)
...And now I'm wondering if a charm person spell would count as counterfeiting in this Equestria.
(But more seriously, yes, that is an advantage. :))
"In our world, Trixie would probably use all the money she got from fooling ponies into thinking she's Great and Powerful, investing in a bigger act with hardly a hiccup in her operation. In the pony world, once ponies figured it out, she had... a wagon. Then nothing."
Oh, and word of mouth probably wouldn't just be advertising, but "currency" itself.
"If I have something you want, I can ask you provide an amount of bits in exchange. If I do that for everything, I end up in trouble because I haven't gained anypony's trust"
And people might even start wondering why you're asking for bits for everything and whether you're up to something.
"but if I ask for bits only over little things like cider and cherries, I can use them for my own little purchases too, without any need for a receipt. If I've abused ponies' trust in the past, my bits might not be accepted anywhere. It really depends who you're buying from, and how important the purchase is."
Aye, makes sense.
"It's not a perfect system, I mean. The existence of bits might be detrimental to the overall economy. Something better than bits is probably possible. But that's the economy that emerged in Equestria."
The implementation of bits here does still strike me as somewhat awkward, but I could also believe it's just one of those things that foreigners think is weird and complex and difficult to figure out and natives don't even think about.
Thanks for the discussion about this, by the way. :)
Fun story. I've enjoyed it.
What I like: HIE type story with pony body is always going to be a fun premise. I think Twilight was in character. Seemed realistic that Rose was awkward. (Being a pony would feel like walking on your finger tips and toes, and we don't have the hard-wired gates and transitions built in to our brains) The idea of the void incursion was cool. The scientists and their conflict with Twi seemed believable for sure. I liked how they seemed competent. Too many writers make it seem like Twi is the only smart one in the world.
What I'd suggest: Its a little bit of a 'best case fantasy' without a lot of drama other than the void shadow. Rose is a bit Mary Sue and probably needs more conflicts other than "I don't really want to go home" because I don't think anyone would want to. Seems a common HIE idea that the human wants to go home and I never really understood that motivation in other stories. Perhaps she's addicted to cider. Or perhaps the other ponies always hate her visiting because she persistently clogs the pony potties. Perhaps there's a 'camp' full of dimensional fake ponies that are sequestered for the sake of safety. I dunno. Perhaps have her getting hit by lightning more often than normal due to her link to the portal.
By the way I love the cover art. To some it may seem a bit simplistic but somehow the style captures a lot of character. I dunno, I just like it.
8172752
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
Well if you just plop a brain into a pony, it'll just be paralyzed and probably die, so some rewiring is necessary. I think it's up to the author if they want their human to be trotting around in seconds, or struggle at length to master their movement. That struggle is an opportunity to describe the learning process and test the character's mettle, but some people have other things they want to write about, and they're not any more justified than the rest of us. I say don't be afraid to allow the character to struggle, because you'll run out of plot faster than you can blink, but don't feel obligated to because you feel it's more realisticish...y.
Yes, that was one... aspect of the genre that I hoped to address in this story. People also like to make it seem like Pinkie Pie is the only pony who knows how to party!
Oh I think some people would have a problem with it. Sure you're a pretty pony, but there's no vidya.
We actually don't see a lot of the struggle Rosy's gone through in her adjustment to life in Equestria.
Yeah, wouldn't it be funny if someone wrote one of those stories where the human wasn't inherently motivated to go home? I wonder what kind of problems that would cause, and what the fantasy characters would think of it. If only such a story were being written...
Nah, that's Berry's job.
Incontinence would be a very good reason to return home, though.
Fortunately this sort of thing doesn't happen very often!
You might be interested in The Humans in Equestria Club.
8163262
Which really puts what Discord was doing in a whole new light.
No problem. It helps me write better, when people take time to think about these things from their own perspective.
8173440
"Which really puts what Discord was doing in a whole new light."
Hah!
"No problem. It helps me write better, when people take time to think about these things from their own perspective."
Ah, glad I could help, then. :)
Second time Twilgiht kiboshed the university team, second time this has been made known, and seemingly without anything occurring form Canterlot.
To be fair to Rose, her life is over regardless if she went home. No one would believe her; everyone most likely thought she was dead. Everyone already moved on. There would be nothing for her there.
Rosy didn't come from our world. She came from an anime. It's the only way to explain her complete inability to actually say the most critical things in any way whatsoever before everything comes to a head. She'll be doing so well, too! Then she says or does something that makes me wonder if she'll get a cutie mark for cringe. Like picking her name.
It's actually kind of jarring.
I'm not a fan of bumbling, incompetent Twilight either. She's probably not quite the cringe-generator as Rosy, but it definitely feels like she's less attentive to the important things and too engrossed in the non.
I forge onward, bracing for more misunderstandings born of extremely basic communication failures, because I feel like there's an intriguing story here anyway, and the world details you weave in without trying to belabour their explanation too much keep me guessing at just how different things actually are.
I'm really enjoying this so far. It's interesting and a nice variant on the HiE trope (especially with the slight historical variations from the show to the verse they're in). I also really like how the character is written, a very unique personality I haven't seen in the genre yet and this is helped by not having the story told from their perspective which is somewhat rare also. The world building for pony community aspects, like having a Tab and quests being almost common place, are great. Especially given that they get "story-marks" making the idea that their lives ARE in fact more story book like than our own verse is executed well.
Going to keep reading, just wanted to pause and say I was digging it after the first 1/3rd. Given how well this is written and how interesting it is, I'm surprised at the rating ratio. I can only imagine it's from people that hate the base 4 number system, had issues with HiE's in general, hate twists on cannon (like story mark or the library being part crystal but still around), or assumed the worst after seeing cover art that wasn't professional grade? No idea, but seems like a tragedy.
Well it's getting a thumb up and fav from me. looking forward to the rest of it.
9927940
I wanted to write a HiE story for a while, but never really could get a good angle on it until I thought of telling it from the perspective of the main 6, and Rosy kind of grew from there.
For how manipulative she is? Or is it her hesitation to get involved with the main 6 and their adventures? Or something unique about her trans-gender-ed-ness? That she just wants to be a normal mare, rather than being excited about it being a special thing for her, or that she still struggles with her feelings instead of finding herself on emotional easy street?
Eh, there's a lot I like about Rosy, but I'm not sure what would make her personality unique.
I love worldbuilding so much. ♥ It's all I can do not to have the characters start lecturing the reader on the specifics of Equestrian society.
Yyyyep pretty much.
You want to know what's a tragedy, it's the most magnificent story I've ever written! I'm pretty much writing it just for myself at this point, and I can totally see how it offends everybody and their mother, attracts the exact wrong audience and then drives them away, yet it's absolutely amazing in ways I struggle to describe. Definitely one of my best works.
My only hope is that it's clear enough that even in this beautiful story book world, there are characters within it who lead even more sheltered lives. Namely the big
purplelilac one with wings and a horn.You haven't even got to the most awesome part yet. Keep it up!
Thanks! And just so you know when you finish, I promise I'll get to updating the requel again very soon maybe I hope.
9928963
I'm at about 70k in atm? I just uncovered the name Bruce and had guessed at the transgender aspect after hearing Fluttershy's section of talking about the secret she's keeping for Rosy etc, so most of this was unknown for me when I wrote that comment before.
The uniqueness I meant is mostly in Rosy's reactions to the situation, the exuberant energy combined with finding herself while also being shy about certain things. Also, little touches like wanting to fade into the background, being reticent about stating her attentions clearly, conflict avoidance (which is common but not usually written in as character flaw without being over the top or being fixed quickly), and little touches like her apparently having gotten some light/shadow creature to help solve the poison-shadow crisis only for it to not matter due to the main 6 in an anticlimactic fashion. The whole package makes the character unique among the many HiE stories I've read before. So that makes this rather interesting.
Not sure about the manipulative aspect, she hasn't been called out on something in particular yet nor has the story made that obvious through a character's perception so I'm not sure if that's something on the author side or coming up later in the story. I mean, I was guessing she was just flawed with how bad she's been about stating her intentions and desires but I didn't assume it was malicious or part of an ongoing manipulation. I'm friends with a few folks that have issues with conflict avoidance that leads to more troubles so I was just assuming that aspect atm.
This is actually next on my to read list. Not sure what to make of it and I noticed the word count vs rating ratio which implied a passion/personal project but I figured I'd still take the plunge and see where the unknown took me. I guess time will tell on that one.
Well now you have me worried, but I planned to keep going so I guess I'll just have to deal with the trepidation. Currently at the part where Fluttershy and Rarity decided to not realize they're falling deeper into a cult and had to pause for a sec due to all the internal screaming.
Also, I got to the section of them watching episodes of the show. There's a ton of crack/comedy fics out there where the crew of whatever series it's set in react to their own story and I avoid them pretty stridently. So, congrats on getting me to read such a fanfic! Ya snuck it in there like a hidden pill in a treat for a dog. Well played.
That aside, quick question, for the shadow fix creature thing Rosy fetched that ended up not being needed, since the story is complete, any spoilers you're willing to give on that? Not sure if it comes up later or if it was just a one off side scene thing but I was curious if you pulled that from some other mlp verse material etc. If it comes into play later then nm of course, I'll find out later then.
Is that a reference to First Pony View?
10973320
Well, she is a brony!
I really should get around to publishing that stupid "I could totally do better than First Pony View" fic I was writing.