Yuletide Extra Sneak Peek Of Chapter 38 · 8:49pm Dec 24th, 2015
I wanted to have this chapter finished in time for Christmas. I really did. Unfortunately, there's still a few more scenes to write. This chapter's been difficult for me in a lot of ways… but I am plugging along, and I will finish it. Thank you all for your patience and have a very Merry Christmas.
Platform horseshoes.
Applejack closed her eyes, Much to her chagrin, she found herself welcoming the urgings of her Muse. Welcoming them! Welcome was the last emotion she thought she’d be feeling towards her Muse. Especially… especially since...
...Well, with everything that’d been happening these past couple days, what with her and Sweetie Belle and Spike going out to where the Diamond Dogs were, her Muse had fallen mercifully quiet. When her Gem Hunches had reawoken inside herself, it’d felt like a good omen. By the time she’d gotten all her bejeweled dresses up on those ponyquins, she had been convinced that this just might’ve silenced it for good!
Platform horseshoes. Platform horseshoes. Platform horseshoes. Platform horseshoes.
And then, just moments ago… that troglodyte of a walk-in customer! Plucking her jewels off that dress she’d labored so hard to sew! Like grapes off a grape stem!
Now she had a good-for-nothing baby dragon wailing and hammering his fist on the other side of her boutique’s door, begging to be let back inside. Wanting to lead her to another soul-crushing failure.
“Please, Applejack, please!”
So at this moment, it was a rare relief to have her Muse back inside her head. Taking the reigns. Monopolizing her mind. Drowning out all other distractions, loud as ever…
You will make a line of platform horseshoes designed to enhance their wearer’s height by three feet and ten inches. Except for that of the left foreleg; that one shall be four feet, one inch, making them always in a dynamic pose! You shall use hobnails, all glued together, to make these horseshoes of yours, for a standout statement that will have heads turning and tongues wagging.
“PLEASE, AJ! Don’t shut me out!” the voice of Spike begged from outside. Applejack’s door rattled from the pounding.
Platform horseshoes. Platform horseshoes. Platform horseshoes are what you will now focus on making. You will now make platform horseshoes. Hobnails will be what you will use for these horseshoes. You will find glue.
“We can still make this work!” Spike was yelIf you have run out of glue, you shall need to leave the house for a brief timespan and shop at the store and buy more for the sake of making these platform horsesh“Don’t give up on yourself like thi!You will use this glue to unify these many hobnails together into horseshoe shapes. And then you will glue more hobnails onto this base and “Don’t give up on MEEEEEthen paint all the right foreleg platform horseshoes and left hindleg platform horseshoes to be boysenberry-colored.
Applejack felt like a pincushion welcoming the pins back inside her as she rose up, away from Spike and towards her storage room. She was pretty sure she still had enough boxes of hobnails left over from the time her Muse had her make pantyhose.
Whilst the right hindleg platform horseshoes are to be colored cinereous. The left foreleg platform horseshoes are to be left unpainted. Twelve tablespoons of milk of magnesia are to be stirred into each can of paint you use for the platform horseshoes, for an ultra-modern finish with serious it-girl flair.
Three-seventeen came to Applejack before she even knew it, and with it came her sister, Sweetie Belle. She didn’t even respond when she heard her store’s bell jingle, though when her little sister called out, “Applejack! Hey, Applejack!” Applejack stopped and looked up as Sweetie entered the room.
“Did ya have an okay school day, Sweetie?” she asked.
But the look in Sweetie Belle’s eyes wasn’t that of a filly with school on the brain. “Why’s the Carousel Boutique’s sign You will focus on your workbeen switched to CLOSED?”
She blinked, shaking her head, attempting to push away the muse’s interruptions and focus for a moment on her sister. As she shrugged out of her school saddlebags, there was so much disapproval Sweetie Belle was affixing on her. Applejack steeled herself, stopping from flinching or frowning at the audible venom.
“Cuz customers ain’t welcome jest yet,” She said with a haughty sniff. “Not that that’s any concern of yers, Sweetie.”
“Ain’t…” After an eye roll, Sweetie Belle restarted her sentence, “...didn’t any of Spike’s dresses sell?”
Now, that cut. Applejack did allow her irritation to show as a scowl crossed her face. She picked up one of the hobnailed horseshoes and dropped it in one of the cans of boysenberry-colored paint. Hobnails were absolute murder on the mouth.
“Ah’ll have yew know them dresses were mine. Mah design. Mah making! Mine from the start! That dragon baby just had a dumb notion.”
“But did the dresses sell?” Sweetie asked, eyeing all the ponyquins closest to the storefront windows. They were all bare, these ponyquins, none wearing a bejeweled dress.
“All a’ ‘em sold,” the elder sister had to admit. “But You will wrap up this insipidly unfashionable conversation. that ain’t the point.” She twitched slightly.
“That’s… Funny,” Sweetie Belle said, with what had to be the unfunniest, narrowest look of watchfulness her eyes were capable of. Aimed at the platform horseshoes Applejack was making. “I figured that was the point. Selling dresses. Not just making them, but selling them. Since you’re running a business. And no one will see them outside of your shop unless someone buys them. And and Spike helped you to do that. Super-unselfishly. But now, where is he?”
Applejack wasn’t liking this at all; no, sir, no ma’am. The longer she and Sweetie talked, the more Applejack felt like she was being cross-examined in a courthouse. Or grilled by a police detective.
The silence hung in the air. “You’re avoiding the question, AJ.” Sweetie stated, with a stamp of her little white hoof. “Where is he?”
“Ah don’t believe Ah’m liking the tone a’ yer voice, li’l lady.” AJ let her know, as she bent down and retrieved the horseshoe she’d dropped inside the paint can. Boysenberry-colored paint dribbled all down her muzzle.
A happy hammering on the door drew both sisters’ attention away from each other.
“Sorry! We’re closed!” Applejack called to the person outside, dipping her muzzle quickly into a large bucket of clean water.
“We ain’t here ta shop, Miz AJ!” answered the voice of little Apple Bloom. “We jest wanna pick up Sweetie Belle!”
AJ’s younger sister unlocked the door for her friends. The other two Cutie Mark Crusaders scampered in.
“Yew fillies look like yer goin’ butterfly catching.” Applejack noted, screwing a look of pleasantness onto her face. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom certainly had those sorts of nets strapped to their saddlebags. Sweetie Belle’s own net had to be the extra one sticking out of Apple Bloom’s saddlebags.
“Butterflies, grasshoppers, inchworms… any kinda awesome-cool insect will do!” Scootaloo declared, grinning like a Wonderbolt.
“We’re gonna get our cutie marks in bug catching!” agreed Apple Bloom. “Ya ready, Sweetie?”
The younger and elder sister traded looks. Applejack was honestly of half a mind to forbid it from happening; to tell Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, ‘Sorry, but Sweetie Belle’s been disrespectful to me, so as punishment, you two are gonna have to go have fun without her.”
Instead, Applejack said, “Ah think some time outside with yer friends sounds like jest the ticket! Maybe a good seven hours, Ah’m sure that’ll git yer cutie mark on ya! Go on! Git yerself some crickets!”
It wasn’t a long look, but the look Sweetie Belle gave her was both scornful and pitying. Then Sweetie’s attitude brightened as told Apple Bloom, “You bet I’m ready!”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER BUG CATCHERS! YAY!” they all exclaimed, before galloping out to whatever swamp the bugs were thickest. Applejack wouldn’t know herself. She was far too urbane of a lady.
Before she stepped out and closed the door, Sweetie Belle glanced back. “We’ll talk about this later.” She said in a tone that reminded her of their mother when she was particularly disappointed in one of them. Before she could respond, Sweetie was out the door.
Why, that disrespectful little filNew idea. New inspiration. interupted Applejack’s Muse, about three hours into producing her platform horseshoes. Quelle idée merveilleusement ingénieuse cela est.
Applejack sat herself down and listened, because what other choice did she even have?
You will now create an elongated georgette maxi skirt. The pattern on the maxi skirt shall be inspired by expressionist frescoes painted on foreign continents. A larger number of them will be faithfully recreated onto the garment to the absolute fullest extent of your artistic talent and intermingled with crayon scribbles worthy of preschool coloring books and large soup stains, as the contrast will bring out the most of both! Around both the neckline and the end of every sleeve, you shall stitch in well-remembered mottos from anti-Celestia revolutionaries. Except that every time the letters P, W, B, or N occur, they are to be switched with one another at random, for an innovate, unique addition to the wardrobe that oozes preppy appeal.
She dragged herself upstairs. With her Muse’s voice ringing in her head, every muscle and thought felt forty years older. Forty years weaker.
Applejack did have a little library of her own. It was nothing next to Twilight Sparkle’s vast collection, but it suited her personal purposes. She went over herself to her bookcases, and she found something on painters, in between all the fashion and sewing books; and yes, it had a pretty lengthy chapter on expressionism. However, being a mare who loved her princess, she had no such books on “anti-Celestia revolutionaries.” What incredibly bad luck; this she’d have to go to visit Twilight’s library. Where Spike would be.
Memories of the little dragon made Applejack’s stomach burn and her heart sink. She tried to shoo away these thoughts.
She must have spent about two hours in her bedroom reading up on expressionism. How it differed from impressionism. The philosophers and playwrights who served as its precursors. It took the book’s author a while before she even got to any actual artwork. At least the paintings were nice to look at. A mare without a Muse like hers would’ve skipped right TO the pictures of the paintings. But Applejack didn’t want to risk her Muse objecting for whatever psychotic reason.
Eventually, though, she had burned the images of the expressionist paintings into her mind. It was almost a shame that it was now time to fetch her stock of georgette. Maybe the book’s writing had been dull, but it had been so relaxing on her aching limbs just doing something passive like reading. With a smile, Applejack’s thoughts drifted to Twilight Sparkle. More than once, she’d tried to rope her and the other four into joining into a book club.
“It’ll be like being study buddies, only better!” Twilight had proposed to her and the other four. “We’ll read for fun!” And right now, that was sounding mighty tempting. Applejack missed Twilight. She missed everypony, so badly. But... Twilight would still be in that library of hers, same as ever. Maybe she should drop on by, say hi and they c…
Her. Elongated georgette maxi skirt! Damn. Elongated georgette maxi skirt! Cutie. Elongated georgette maxi skirt! Mark. Elongated georgette maxi skirt! Went. Elongated georgette maxi skirt! Epileptic.
So yet again, Applejack’s only choice was to gather up her all her equipment, haul it up into her bedroom, and plunk her hindquarters in front of the sewing machine, once more. And georgette certainly wasn’t the easiest fabric to work with, either. So slippery and delicate; hard for a mare to pin down with her hooves, and easy to rip.
This would’ve been so much simpler if she’d been born a unicorn. It wasn’t something Applejack was proud of, but a corner of her brain had always pined for a magic horn like a phantom limb. (For some reason, the diamonds on her flank tingled weirdly anytime Applejack had such thoughts.) Hooves were such oafish, indelicate things to have at the end of your limbs. Might as well be rocks. And after a while, using your mouth to handle everything got a little messy.
She and Sweetie Belle should’ve almost been born as each other. Most days, Sweetie might as well not have a horn at all… Applejack just knew in her heart that she’d’ve been taken to magic like a pegasus to the skies.
And speak of the devil… AJ could hear Sweetie Belle downstairs, right now. Had enough time passed for them to finish their insect-hunting venture? Opening the door and letting herself in... saying goodbye to Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Applejack rose off her chair to go down and give Sweetie a proper welcome back…
You are absolutely forbidden from stopping your masterpiece midway, over such a triviality. To do so would be to jinx yourself beyond every concept of misery and lucklessness, and then every day can be elongated georgette maxi skirt day!
...There were times where Applejack wondered when her Muse would stop beating around the bush and let out insane cackles after saying stuff like this.
But it was right: She couldn’t afford to lose her inspiration. She got to it. It was starting to get late; but she’d be able to at least put a good dent in the consarned maxi skirt. Downstairs, she could hear her little sister fix herself dinner. Maybe she should take a break and join…
You ate an enormous breakfast this morning, Applejack. Eat any more today, and you shall surely grow fat. Fashionistas must never be porky. More importantly, each bit of money you save on food, is money you will use towards buying more sewing supplies, with which you’ll bring this whole countryside into high-end fashion!
...What a pain it was when her Muse made so much sense. What had she eaten for breakfast this morning? She couldn’t remember anything. Oh well, she’d definitely eat something tomorrow, and Sweetie would have to eat alone tonight. Hey, maybe it’d be a good idea to send Sweetie to fetch a book on anti-Celestia revolutionaries! That way…!
Applejack’s ears flicked. What kind of noises were those, coming from downstairs? Chains being dragged across the floor? Couldn’t be, could it?
“Sweetie Belle!” Applejack called up. “What kinda horseplay are ya up to?”
That heavy-sounding scraping...
“What’n the name a’ glitz ‘n’ glamour’s goin’ on down there?!” she shouted. “Answer me!”
No answer came from downstairs..
“Don’t yew make me come down there!” Applejack barked, rising out of her chair.
Sit down at once! boomed Applejakc’s Muse. The night is oh-so-very young, and you have so many sartorial triumphs, weeping to be made real!
Aw, horseapples.
* * *
The next morning, Applejack awoken to find the grayest, dreariest downpour beating at her boutique she’d seen in quite a long while. Peering through the window, past her property line, she could see that the rest of her neighbors were enjoying a very sunny day. Rarity was surely upset at her for how she’d treated Spike. Truth be told, Applejack was feeling more than a bit upset at herself, now that she’d had a chance to cool down and sleep on it. She wished she could take it back, but what was done was done.
For breakfast, Applejack had one of Sweetie’s sugary cereals. She ended up eating two bowls, though the marshmallows stayed stale, even in milk. This would turn out to be the only remotely nice thing that would happen to her that day. The real trouble began when she went into her supply closet to fetch more georgette fabric.
All the cabinet drawers and chests where she kept her sewing things were chained up and had padlocks on them.
“SWEETIE BELLE!” She hollered out, fully furious with her sister. “AH AIN’T LAUGHIN’ AT THIS HERE PRACTICAL JOKE A’ YERS! AH’M GIVING YEW TA THE COUNT O’ THREE TA GIT ON DOWN HERE! ONE! TWO! TWO AND A HALF! TWO ‘N’ THREE QUARTERS! THREE!”
No Sweetie Belle. Applejack couldn’t even hear the patter of her little hooves from any part of the house.
“Suit yerself! When Ah find yew, Ah’m whupping the pelt offa ya, lil’ missy, and that’s a promise!”
She still didn’t come. With a snort of anger, Applejack set her teeth upon one of the chains and got to work trying to yank it off, as though it were a weed in her garden. But after a while, it showed no signs of giving, and her teeth were feeling sore.
Kick it! Break it! Her Muse demanded. You must have access!
Applejack reared back her leg and aimed for the largest drawer. Neither the chain nor the padlock got in the way of her smashing it in. But in addition to the crunch of the wood, AJ also heard a brittle, glassy shattering noise she knew she shouldn’t be hearing from this drawer.
Applejack worked the busted drawer open. Her last roll of georgette fabric lay inside, and it was crawling with bugs, so very many BUGS!
What?! Where did these vermin come in from?!
By the look of things, it was from the glass bottle which Sweetie must’ve slipped inside this drawer before chaining and padlocking it up. Applejack could still see creepy-crawlies squirming their way over the glass shards towards her costly fabric, to join their friends.
She recognized what kind of bugs these were, at once. They were loathed by every tailor, seamstress, and clothier within the whole fashion industry, just as rats were loathed by restaurant owners.
Large, brown and maggot-like, with the speed and stomachs to rival those of parasprites. Except that where parasprites had a bottomless hunger for regular food, these guys craved fabric.
They were known as ‘clothchompers.’ And already, they were making a big buffet out of her roll of georgette. Had she been a unicorn, Applejack would probably have burned it with magical flames. But she was an Earth pony, and there wasn’t enough time to get a safe, mundane fire going. So, running fast as her hooves could carry her, Applejack grabbed herself a shovel and a big plastic garbage bag.
Scooping the georgette roll into the garbage bag, and tying it tightly, she raced outside into her backyard, dug a hole, and buried the infested thing.
“Wanna know the biggest thing that’s been standing in the way of your success?” asked Sweetie Belle, stepping out into the backyard. “You, Applejack. You, yourself.”
“Where did… when did…” she stammered in flabbergasted fury.
“Yesterday, when I was bug-catching with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, I stumbled upon this mother lode of clothchompers out in the fields,” Sweetie Belle explained. “I scooped up a whole bunch of them in this really strong container, and brought them home with me.”
“Eeeewww.”
“I know. It was gross.” Sweetie still had the decency to look sheepish before her attitude hardened again. “From there, I transferred those clothchompers over to a bunch of weaker, super-fragile glass bottles I’d made when I tried becoming a Cutie Mark Crusader glassblower. Then I taped a bottle inside each and every one of your supply drawers, so that it’d be sure to break apart if you tried to force it apart, and then chained and padlocked them all shut.”
“Where’d ya get all them chains ‘n’ padlocks, anyway?!” Applejack asked.
“I took apart that chains-and-padlock sweatpants you’d made a while back,” Sweetie told her.
Applejack bristled as her own stupidity, for not simply leaving her room last night and stopping her sister when she’d heard her, loud as thunder. Meanwhile, Sweetie was turning around and picking up some kind of notebook in her mouth.
“Did you even know those padlocks still had their lock combinations all stickered to the backs of them?” Sweetie asked, speaking through the book. “Of course, I’ve already torn all those stickers off, but I copied the combinations down in this little notebook of mine!”
“Gimme that!” Applejack ran up and snatched the notebook from Sweetie Belle, who didn’t offer any real resistance. She brought it inside the house, set it on the nearest table, and peered through it. The first few lines read:
LOCK #01 = ???? ???? ????
LOCK #02 = ???? ❀ ????
LOCK #03 = ???? ???? ????
LOCK #04 = ???? ???? ????
LOCK #05 = ♡ ???? ????
On and on it went. Feeling in a daze, Applejack looks over at some of the padlocks. There were no cutesy symbols on any of them. Just numbers, one through thirty-nine.
“Nice code, huh?” asked Sweetie. “Came up with it myself, when me and my friends tried being Cutie Mark Crusader Cryptographers! Only I know how to read it.”
“...Why?” asked Applejack, in a shaky breath. All those many, many times that she’d looked to the heavens and prayed that her little sister might grow some real competence, why now? Why with THIS?! “Just… why, Sweetie Belle?!
“Don’t get me wrong,” Sweetie said softly. “I didn’t WANT to have to do this. I’m not a bad girl at heart. But you’re out of control, Applejack. First you mistreated me so horribly, I had to move in with Mom and Dad, and now you drove Spike out of our house! After he did nothing but bend over backwards to help you! So you forced me to resort to extreme measures.”
“Spike… the thing with Spike… he might’ve helped make us some money, but… well…”
He had only been trying to help.
“Apple Bloom’s sister went through a similar problem to what you’re going through,” said Sweetie Belle, sounding like a principal at a parent-teacher conference. “Pinkie Pie just suddenly couldn’t farm right, the way you suddenly can’t sew right. But then Lero went and told Apple Bloom she’d need to become the ‘big sister’ for Pinkie for a while. And that’s what fixed Pinkie. So now it’s clear to me that I’ve got to become the big sister for you.”
Inside her, Applejack could hear fearful, puppy-like whimpering from her Muse.
“So now, AJ, I want to hear you say, “Sweetie Belle, I promise I’m going to let you take over for me as big sister until I’m better. And I’ll be good and do whatever you say until I’m ready to be responsible and mature again.”
Applejack was breathing so heavily, her shoulders were bobbing up and down. It felt like some very ancient force within her was uprooting itself from deep inside herself. When she spoke, her accent came thicker than ever.
“If yew think fer one apple-picking minute Ah’d agree ta somethin’ like that…!”
Do it! Right now! sobbed her Muse. Not only was Applejack experiencing a spastic, spasming clenching around her cutie mark… the same clenching was happening to her throat muscles. Capitulate to her demands! You cannot risk losing all your precious fabrics, that’ll be the end of everything! All your dreams! All your hopes! Everything your cutie mark stands for!
“...Then yer absolutely right, as it turns out.”
Her heart and her shame had never felt heavier as she removed her hat and held it over her heart. As though for a lost loved one.
“Sweetie Belle, Ah promise Ah’m gonna let yew take over fer me as big sister until Ah’m better again. And Ah’ll be good and do whatever yew say until Ah’m ready ta be responsible and mature again.”
Applejack’s eyes were squeezed shut in humiliation as her tiny younger sister came over and gave her a warm nuzzle.
“This really is for your own good. Don’t worry. We’re going to beat this horrible Muse of yours that you’ve always been talking about. You and me, little sister.”
* * *
Feels like she could have easily snapped and hurt someone.
3641040
You mean Applejack?
3641386
Yes. Her swapped thoughts titter the edge with the crazy mantra and near outburst of her stuff being locked up.
Epileptic -> apoplectic
Wrong disease. Although, epileptic seems amusingly appropriate too. Perhaps her cutie mark is having a grand mal.
3651018
It's a little of both, actually!