After the Credits: Marks and Recreation. · 6:44pm Aug 9th, 2018
As promised, a little blurb. Mostly trying to get into the habit of writing freely, minimal editing, focus on dialogue, silence that inner censor again.
Probably far too late and done to death, another reason to keep it blog form rather than story.
Enjoy!
Apple Bloom kept her eyes open as she approached Ponyville. Most of the campers had already left the site, but she had one participant of Cutie Mark Camp who was in need of additional counselling.
“Hey, Rumble,” she said once she saw him. “Where’s your brother?”
“Chatting with his buddies from Weather Patrol,” the colt replied. “What’s up?”
“Umm...” She rubbed the back of her head, nervous. “Can we go talk somewhere, in private?”
“What about?”
“About what happened today. Just to make sure it’s all clear.”
He shrugged and smiled. “Hey, it’s no big deal. Thunderlane already told me: I should try new things.”
“Yeah, that’s a nice-lookin’ apple cart, but I ain’t buyin’ it. Nopony changes their mind that easily just from peer pressure. And besides, even if I did believe it, I’ve got some stuff to say to you that I’d rather not say where everypony can hear. So, could we go to the park, maybe, see if we can find a private spot?”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
As luck would have it, the duck pond had very little traffic at the moment, after Weather Patrol had given it its weekly spritz. The grass was cold and wet to sit on, but that meant Rumble and Apple Bloom had the spot to themselves.
“Okay, what is it?” Rumble asked.
“Well, first of all: I wanted to apologise. On behalf of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”
His eyes narrowed. “Apologise for what?”
“For gettin’ Thunderlane to come to camp, and for basically embarrassing you into joining. We don’t usually do that kinda thing, and we all felt pretty bad about it. But we couldn’t think of anything else to do. I don’t know if you liked cooking or if you didn’t, but the way we got you to was wrong, so… sorry.”
“That’s it? That’s what you wanted to sit in private for? Ugh.” He got up and flicked his tail to dry off the moisture.
“Well, that, and to let you know our clubhouse is always open.”
“I know that. But it probably won’t matter after your camp is done. I’ll get my cutie mark before the end of the week, I guess.”
“It ain’t a competition, Rumble. And I wasn’t talkin’ about cutie mark problems, either.”
“What, you’re offering nursing now, too?”
“No. Some advice. And maybe commiserations.”
He furrowed his brow and turned to her. “What?”
“Commiserations,” Apple Bloom said again. “Somepony to talk to, who’s been through the same thing you have.”
With a snort, he said, “What would you know?”
“I know my sister almost locked me up in a padded room because she thought I was a little baby. I know she still doesn’t let me buck trees unsupervised, and I know how much it bites that she cringes every single time I go anywhere near the oven pedal. You’re not the only pony who’s trying to prove themselves worthy of their family name.”
He sighed, turned back to face her, and sat down again. “You noticed that, huh?”
“It’s kinda my thing. Well, Sweetie Belle noticed it first, actually. You should see the faces you make when everypony’s gawkin’ over your brother.”
He growled, looking into the pond’s water.
“No, not that one,” she remarked. “That one’s too angry. The face you make around Thunderlane is a little sadder.”
“So? He’s my brother. We’re family.”
“Just ‘coz you love your brother, don’t mean he can’t get on your nerves. I wouldn’t have made you go to our camp, none of us would’ve. You should know that. We didn’t want to force you. We still don’t. But he does, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah. Him and his bright ideas.”
“Well, there you go. If you want to talk about him not seein’ how awesome you are, you can ask me. If you want to talk about him overshadowin’ ya, you can ask Sweetie Belle. But ask her on a good day, or you might end up in a shouting match again. And if you want to talk about how just because Thunderlane is doing things outside of his talent, doesn’t mean you can, or how you think you’re not growing fast enough and you’re gonna lag behind, you can ask Scootaloo.”
“Why would I be worried about that?”
“Umm, for one thing, you happen to sound exactly like this young singer stallion I met a while back. Really smooth voice, great singer, totally fake. What are you on? Tune Chips?”
He fell silent, staring into the water. “Itubers. It’s extracts from some root, you can’t get it in Ponyville. You have to fly all the way to Rainbow Falls to get it. But it’s a supplement, it doesn’t hurt at all. And I sound like a baby without it.”
“Is that the only reason? Really?”
He bit his lip. “Fine. You can’t get a cutie mark in singing if you sing with a fake voice. I don’t want to risk getting stuck with one just because Ponyville breaks out into song every five minutes. Happy now?”
“It answers my question, sure.” She tapped her chin, thinking. “And that does explain how you managed to do a full song and dance without gettin’ a cutie mark in it.”
“Not a hard trick: you girls did that plenty of times.”
“Touché. It sounds a mite extreme, though.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I guess. So, umm, all that said, about tomorrow, and the rest of camp-”
“I won’t make a fuss anymore, I promise. I’ll…” he let his head hang. “I’ll do whatever you say.”
“No. Nopony wants that; if you don’t feel like it, you shouldn’t force it. We just wanted ponies to try some new things, see what comes up. But you? I think we’d have to work with you one on one, if we work with you at all. So how about tomorrow, you do that Wonderbolts obstacle course we set up, like you said you would. And after that, you can help plan some of our more… sportsy stuff. You know, set up different courses, timin’ ponies to make it look nice and official, maybe get a wing power measurement of the pegasi around.”
“You’re hiring me? After what happened today?”
She shrugged. “Technically, that was Thunderlane’s fault, not yours.” She stopped herself for a second. “And us gettin’ bamboozled. And probably a little bit of Sweetie Belle gettin’ a tad overheated. Actually, a lot overheated. Come to think of it, you two probably shouldn’t be together too often: y’all can really argue. I mean, geez, worse than mongoose and cobras, and I’ve seen Fluttershy try to manage that.”
“Apple Bloom, get to the point already.”
“I’m just sayin’ there’s no reason for anyone to hold a grudge. What’s between you and your brother ain’t our business. But if you need our help, it’ll be our business, and we will do what we can. But you have to ask, we’re not butting into that kind of thing if we’re not wanted. In the meantime, you can do all the stuff you want at camp. There’s a few ideas we can really use your input on, you can stay out of the group activities if you want, and we’ll tell Thunderlane you’ve been trying everything with the other campers.”
“Really? You’d lie?”
“It wouldn’t be lying if you did help out. But we won’t make you. This is just me asking, if you’re up for it. I mean, Thunderlane’s expecting you to keep coming.”
Rumble nodded.
“And I think, deep down, you still just want a flying cutie mark and not risk getting anything else.”
Again, he nodded.
“Then you do what you gotta do. Stick to stuff that’s close to flying, and you’d be helping us out, no problem for us, no risk for you. Might even be fun to be in charge. You’re pretty good at that, too.”
“Yeah, I think I can do that.”
“Good. Then there’s just one more thing I wanted to say.”
He groaned. “Okay, what’s the catch?”
Still he didn’t trust her. Before, she would have been annoyed. In fact, she had been, with how confrontational he was about the whole thing. Now, she felt kind of sorry for him. “If worst comes to worst, and you get a cutie mark you hate, you absolutely hate, I promise, on my Apple honour, I’ll think up some way to keep you flyin’ like you want to. You’re not gonna get stuck in a box. I won’t let you.”
“You mean ‘we’ won’t let you. The Cutie Mark Crusaders won’t.”
She looked away, blushing. “D’err, yeah, yeah, obviously. The Cutie Mark Crusaders mission statement is very clear. Imma purely here in a representative like function.”
“Right. Okay, guess I’ll go home and check my Royal Guard training manuals. I’ll let you know when I find something fun for the other campers.”
“That sounds lovely. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow. Hope you like water drills and dragging trees.”
Apple Bloom blinked as he dashed off.
Royal Guard training manuals? Water drills? As in, military drills?
“Why do I get the feelin’ I didn’t think this one through?”
Lovely to see you take on canon Rumble. Wonderful short through and through, especially how Apple Bloom emphasizes each Crusader's individual experiences.
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The voice really takes getting used to. It makes it sound like a bad dub. That said, still no complaints about the episode. Two new unicorn colts, one named. The girls getting fired up and passionate, and one boy every bit as bad as they are. It did sound like Thunderlane and Rumble were the only two pegasi in their family, though. Was that just me?
Anyway, glad you enjoyed! More on the way as brainfarts allow, trying to chip down those mental barriers faster than real life erects them.
Erects... *snicker*