“But I don’t know what else we can do. It’s been a week. We said we’re sorry and now they seem to hate us more than ever,” said Apple Bloom and then her breath caught in a sob.
She’d tried talking to her sister and her big brother, but neither of them seemed interested in talking to her, not even to scold her.
“I thought for sure that writing that article would fix everything,” said Sweetie Belle and then sighed.
“Hmph, why should we even care? My dad changed the bucking locks. I mean, I can easily camp in the clouds I can get to, I prefer that anyway, but Rainbow Dash keeps kicking them out from underneath me,” Scootaloo said stomping her hooves.
“So, what, are we just going to keep living out of our playhouse?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Why not?” asked Scootaloo, turning on her friends and smiling. “Better that way. No grownups telling us what to do. No chores to take up our time, or school. We’ll be able to work on getting our cutie marks twenty-four-seven.”
“I don’t think that’ll work out well,” said Sweetie Belle hesitantly. “What if our talent is being nice to people?”
“I think we can rule that out,” said Scootaloo dryly.
“But we will need resources,” Apple Bloom pointed out. She was at the small cupboards where they stored their extra food. “We’re almost out of food, and no one will give us anything, they’re too mad. I even tried just picking a few apples from the trees, but…”
Apple Bloom trailed off, her voice choked. Scootaloo shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with Apple Bloom’s display. She’d never been as expressive as her other friends and didn’t always share their morals, if it had been up to her, they would be eating the apples off the trees and around them, at least the tree they were in. Really, it had been a fluke when she’d become friends with Sweetie Belle. It was funny in retrospect, but terrifying at the time. Sweetie Belle was quite a deadly shot when she thought her sister was in danger, even with just a slingshot. Apple Bloom, well, Scootaloo was sure the filly hadn’t even noticed them before she started obsessing over being a blank flank, and it had seemed so easily to incorporate her into their friendship.
“Well, we’ll just have to get food another way,” said Scootaloo dismissively. She quickly tried to think of something they could do. Preferably faraway from Ponyville so she could get her friend’s attention away from their family troubles. Once they stopped thinking about their sisters everything would be fine. The cutie mark crusaders were resourceful little ponies, they’d be able to survive anything together as long as they pulled themselves out of the gutter of despair they seemed to be wallowing in. “Any ideas Apple Bloom?”
Apple Bloom looked behind her at her friends before quickly going to stare at the cupboards again. She fought off the shivering feeling of sadness and fear that had been steadily growing as each apple and treat seemed to disappear from their shelves. She had been home more times than she could count, but she’d only tried to actually talk to her family three times. She’d stuck around to see her reaction to her sister reading paper, but while she had been Applejack reading it, the article hadn’t lifted her sister’s spirits. As they walked over to her sister to see if her apology was accepted, Applejack had ripped the paper to shreds, Big Mac had been crying, and Applejack had screamed at her until they were running.
` Apple Bloom hadn’t understood what the problem was. She thought their apology would cheer her sister up. Maybe not make everything perfect, but that it would a good step in the right direction to mending the relationship that she’d broken so carelessly with Gabby Gums. And Apple Bloom had been amazed to find how shallow and cowardly she was in the face of all this. She’d tried to steal from her own family for Celestia’s sake. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t even broken the skin of the apple, or that she instantly put it down when she realized what she was doing, she had still tried to do it.
Maybe her friends and her deserved to be ignored, but didn’t they deserve to starve or waste away on insubstantial grass. Apple Bloom never seemed full anymore. She’d started making sure to limit herself, because otherwise she’d just keep eating and eating until she could no longer stuff anything else in her mouth. All she wanted was apple pie, or maybe an apple fritter. She wanted to go home and feast. She’d do anything. She’d do the entire feast all by herself if she had to, just to have a moment where she could have her family around her, all of them eating a hearty meal after a day of hard work.
“Apple Bloom?” asked Sweetie Belle coming and standing right in the earth ponies face. Apple Bloom jumped in surprise and then blushed.
“Sorry Scootaloo,” she said sheepishly and then shook her head, trying to get rid of the mess that rattled in her head. Finally she just sighed.
“Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t have anyone we can turn to. No one will even trade with us, and even if we had bits. There’s a chance they’d just slam the door in our faces. We can’t get seeds, and it’s too late to plant anything anyway, and we can’t scavenge ‘cause everything is owned and we’d have to steal them,” said Apple Bloom miserably. She really didn’t want to steal. She saw Scootaloo actually consider it for a second and wanted to yell at her friend. They were better than that.
“We could go into the Everfree Forest,” said Sweetie Belle softly. Scootaloo looked over at their friend. They had forgotten about Sweetie Belle. Well, not completely. But the unicorn could be so prissy, they just hadn’t thought she’d be much good, or make any good suggestions. All she’d been harping on all week was trying to talk it out. Trying to mend things. She’d been the one in Ponyville actually trying to talk to people, trying to make things right. Yet look at them. A week later and all it had done was apparently break her spirit. “Yeah, why do we need any of them?”
“But, we’ve always been warned…” started Scootaloo.
“What, are you afraid Scootaloo?” asked Sweetie Belle teasingly. “Come on girls, we’ve been there before when trying to find our talents or when visiting Zecora.”
“Yeah, but never any farther in, and never for that long,” said Apple Bloom. Then she frowned. “But you’re right.”
“What?” demanded Scootaloo.
“Think about it Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom insisted, her tone becoming more instant. “Everything in the world relies on ponies taking care of them. Regulating them. You need connection to do anything. I mean, some ponies get lucky like Fluttershy, but even she had a mentor, I think.”
“But the Everfree Forest is perfect. No one goes in, and everything grows on its own,” said Sweetie Belle. “We even have that book Twilight gave us.”
“A book, how will that help? Does it give us a detailed list of all the dangers in that place?” demanded Scootaloo.
“Nope,” said Sweetie Belle. She trotted over and using her magic levitated a slightly paint splattered book out of a pile of pushed the art supplies. Apple Bloom trotted so she stood next to Scootaloo. They shared a look, but neither of them recognized the book. Sweetie Belle didn’t seem to be bothered and flopped the book down in front of them. “It’s a book on identifying edible plants, and some poisonous ones, especially if they look like the edible ones.”
“You’ve read this?” asked Stootaloo, raising one eyebrow and pushing the book lightly as if it was contaminated.
“I only glanced through. I was thinking about seeing if plant finding or identifying was our talent. I was going to suggest it before…” Sweetie Belle trailed off and the Cutie Mark Crusaders found themselves looking at the book. Suddenly all three of them were hungry, no, not just hungry, starving.
“I think it’ll work,” said Apple Bloom and then bit her lip. “But we’ll have more to worry about than just poisonous plants. There’s nasty things in there. Like manticores and dragons and…”
“Woah, Apple Bloom, you need to breathe,” said Scootaloo, trying to calm down Apple Bloom who had gotten more frantic as she thought of all the things that lived in the forest. “We have to try.”
“But we need a way to get home,” said Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo snorted, maybe going into the Everfree forest hadn’t been what she meant when she said they had to get away from Ponyville, but if they went in, then she was going to make sure they came out as far away from Ponyville as possible.
“What do we want to come back here for? It’s clear that they don’t want us anymore,” snapped Scootaloo. Her friends just glared at her. Scootaloo sighed and grabbed a couple of balls of string. “Here, we’ll put this on sturdy branches. The colors will show up no problem against the gloomy Everfree Forest.”
The other two looked uncertain, but then Sweetie Belle bit hard into the side of her mouth, hard enough that she felt the salty tang of her own blood. She nodded and got her pack. Apple Bloom slowly went to grab her own pack. What should she take? She knew she should leave everything nonessential at the cabin. They’d be back, and her big sister had always told her not to get too attached to anything. But, there were her spare ribbons, each one special to her in different ways. She also couldn’t leave her ball, it was small, it would fit fine in her pack. And of course she needed some paper. What if she got lost, or they walked too far and had to send a message home? And she had to bring some crayons to write the letter, and she needed some glitter and glue and the small ribbons, because she needed them to read the letters so they would have to look pretty. Anything else she would need?
Scootaloo folded her scooter and shoved it into her pack. She looked at it, and then decided that it was late, she had a completely legitimate reason to take her blanket. Scootaloo then shifted, well, the girl’s didn’t know how to camp. And they’d definitely stay in the Everfree Forest for the night. It was already mid afternoon and it’d take some doing to get food in the Everfree Forest. Plus, it would serve their families right if the Cutie Mark Crusaders disappeared, maybe then they should have realized that they were sincere and to just accept their apology. So she grabbed the other’s blankets, and then their favorite stuffed animals, because of course they’d need pillows. Then she took Apple Bloom’s bug repellent. It was fine, it was for all of them, and Apple Bloom wouldn’t think of it anyway. Now, just a few more things, this was just a camping trip after all.
Sweetie Belle knew they needed to be careful. Yeah, they went to see Zecora often, but there had also been the Cockatrice. If it hadn’t been for Fluttershy that night they would have all been turned into stone, and no one would know where they were going, and maybe none of them would care. But how could they protect themselves? But Pinkie Pie had told her that fear was easily laughed away, and that’s what made the Everfree forest was, right? It was just an unknown filled with fear because it was different. All they had to do was laugh away everything that looked scary. So Sweetie Belle put a book of jokes and a couple of gag gifts into her bag along with the book on edible plants. She also put in the book on basic magic spells her parents had given her. She’d never been interested in that sort of thing, but they needed to be able to defend themselves. She also put in her slingshot with a couple of rocks. It was old, but it would work, she was sure.
So the Cutie Mark Crusaders started toward the Everfree Forest. They were all a little nervous. The clubhouse was a little too close to Apple Acres. When they were inside, that was fine. They were as far away from anything inside the clubhouse, unfortunately outside they had to be careful to avoid any pony unless they wanted to be glared at. So they walked far along the edge of Ponyville. It wasn’t long until the fillies entered the forest.
Sweetie Belle started to sing softly under her breath. Just a small hum of something that came into her head. Her sister had said her talent was singing, but Sweetie had tried that, and then her voice had cracked while singing at the family reunion and everyone had laughed. So now she always tried to keep her songs mostly to herself, because, no matter how hard she tried, her voice always cracked. There was no way singing was her talent.
The others quickly picked up the tone were humming with her. Sweetie Belle and they walked confidently into the forest. Somehow it was a little less scary when they were together and with a song on their lips, and Apple Bloom even giggled. Humming always made her lips tickle. Still, they kept humming even as they went deeper and deeper in. Past the poison jokes, careful not to walk through them.
It was then that they actually opened the book, careful to make sure they were far away from Zecora’s tree as they could and even further into the forest. Zecora wasn’t happy with them either. Sweetie Belle had checked after it was clear that Ponyville was a bust. Well, mostly a bust. Still, they needed food, and they’d be back home in a week and everything would be fine. Well, not fine, but better in some ways.
Apple Bloom tried to concentrate on the book and the plants. On what they looked like, and what they were good for, and what plants looked like them but were reason poisonous. Maybe they’d find some zap apple trees or something. Well, maybe not zap apple trees, they wouldn’t be in season for another couple of months, but there had to be something that grew by itself in the forest that she could recognize without a stupid book. It was clear the Scootaloo also bored to tears. She started looking around and shifting from foot to foot. It was also clear that Sweetie Belle was focused on doing it right and memorizing everything from the book.
“Why don’t we do this scientifically?” said Apple Bloom slowly, the idea coming together as she talked. She then smiled brightly, the rest of the plan japing into her brain as she figured out what had to be done when she said the word ‘scientifically’. “Yeah, yeah, Sweetie Belle, you keep looking at the book, and Scootaloo and I will fan the nearby area for things that look like food. We’ll bring them back to you and you can tell us if they’re edible.”
“We can’t go far though,” said Scootaloo. “And how will we know where we got them?”
“We won’t go out of eyesight, and we’ll color code. You have the string right? And all the string everywhere will lead us home,” Apple Bloom said. Scootaloo pulled her pack off her back and out of the right pouch she took six balls of string. So each of them had six ‘sections’ and had to stay in eyesight. Apple Bloom took the orange, red, and magenta colored string, Scootaloo took the blue, bright green, and turquoise, which meant that she went into the forest and Apple Bloom headed toward the opened patch where some grass grew.
They spent a good amount of time grabbing random plants out of the ground. By the time the forest started getting dark. Apple Bloom spit out a vine that had been growing on the ground a little farther away from them then they probably should have allowed. Scootaloo lay down beside them. Sweetie Belle looked at another plant, these sort of looked like big blueberries, and then she threw them away. Scootaloo let out a moan. They hadn’t found anything yet, well, actually, the grass was okay, and it would be good for the night, but there wasn’t enough for more than a day, and half of the stuff is dead.
“The vines are moonshine ropes. They’re edible, but they’ll make us act like we ate a little too much salt, or drank a tankard of apple cider,” said Sweetie Belle.
“I don’t think being drunk is a good idea in the Everfree Forest,” said Scootaloo.
“How much until we get really tipsy?” asked Apple Bloom, going to look over Sweetie Belle’s shoulder.
“Um, well, I mean, it’d have to be a full meal, maybe less for us,” said Sweetie Belle. She tried to understand everything. But it turned into some sort of impossible code the more information she tried to narrow down. “The grass will be fine.”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason we left. We couldn’t have another lunch of grass. You know what they say it does to you if you don’t get other nutrients,” said Scootaloo with a shiver. “What does happen?”
“Depends on what you’re not getting enough of,” said Apple Bloom slowly. “Granny Smith and Red Delicious talked to us about it sometimes, but we live on a farm. We would never starve ourselves. I do know what happens when we don’t drink enough water.”
“Yeah, well, we brought water bottles right?” said Sweetie Belle. She quickly started looking through her things and even Apple Bloom looked back at her pack nervously.
“I did,” said Scootaloo. The other three sighed and then they all smiled and giggled. Together they were unstoppable group of fillies. She passed them out, and they suddenly realized how thirsty they were. Apple Bloom quickly picked some grasses and handed them out. She also got some roots; she had tied an orange string to the tallest root.
“I’m not sure Apple Bloom,” said Sweetie Belle, looking sideways at the small pile of roots that were twisted and a deep dark brown with prickles of green.
“Listen, it’s not the old days when we could get by just eating grass. I mean, we still can eat it, but, we need this stuff too,” said Apple Bloom and then she made a face at her friends. “Come on. Don’t tell me you haven’t got a little salt on special occasions. And I know you’ll line up with everyone else to have a tankard of cider.”
“Only when my parents aren’t in town,” said Sweetie Belle with a nervous laugh. “And I’ve never had salt before.”
“Really?” asked Scootaloo. “I mean, I’ve never had anything strong like an appletini or you know anything that could get me tipsy. Almost did once. Remember when we snuck into that wild party last month that Pinkie Pie threw?”
The other girls laughed.
“Twilight Sparkle swore that whatever she put in that punch wasn’t legal, and Pinkie Pie apparently had put linseed on some of those cupcakes. Though it’s a miracle she had enough of that stuff to sprinkle on one cupcake, let alone six,” said Scootaloo with a rough laugh. She also looked insanely impressed.
“You girls are really missing out. I mean, we only save linseed for when someone is really hurts and we need to give them something that will take off the edge off,” said Apple Bloom. “I only got it once when I broke my leg. But granny swears by salt. Applejack worries that she’s addicted, but it’s not like its strong. And hey, everyone one in the Apple family always has apple cider to drink before we sell.”
“Better not tell Rainbow Dash,” said Scootaloo playing with some of the roots with her hoof. “She’ll say that’s the reason she never got any cider.”
“Oh, believe me, we knew. It was a family joke,” said Apple Bloom. “And it’s fine. I mean, we all need to relax a little. And Sweetie Belle said you had to cook it right to really get any use of it.”
“I don’t know, don’t we want to be on our A game?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“But we won’t be of any use unless we get a decent night’s sleep,” said Scootaloo and then he took as big of a bite of the roots as he could. Sweetie Belle moved uncomfortably, staring at the roots but picking up a small one from the ground. Apple Bloom watched her carefully. Ponies who didn’t indulge had low tolerance for intoxicants. But it didn’t look like Sweetie Belle was going to eat much of the root. Still, they weren’t just eating the stuff so they could fall asleep; it was also the nutrients in the roots. Though, some grain would be good, but what she really needed was some salt. Salt was good, maybe not something you should eat a lot. It was something to occasionally indulge in.
Then Scootaloo started to pull out their blankets and stuffed animals and the two other girls cheered. Sweetie Belle whinnied more than usual, and she looked unsteady on her feet. Scootaloo just smiled lazily at her friends and reminded them that they would need some bug spray and then she lay down and started humming softly to herself. And then Scootaloo started singing softly under her breath. Sweetie Belle joined in soon and gave them a perfect song to sing themselves to sleep.
Sweetie Belle watched her friends fall asleep. Her head was muzzy, and the world didn’t want to quite work. She had never been properly afraid of the Everfree Forest. Like her friends, she just saw the place as the perfect area to play and be out of the way. Here they would find their talent and it would be something exciting, something worth talking about.
When would they get their cutie marks? The last week they had tried all of three times actually trying to get their cutie marks. Well, at least now they would know if their talent was depression by now. Apple Bloom hadn’t so much tried to hide it as she had avoided them and then sulked whenever she had stopped spying on her family and come back to the clubhouse. Scootaloo had spent most of her time scooter doing increasingly more reckless and frightening tricks, when she wasn’t doing that she was doing other frightening tricks and sports. Anything that kept her away from any pony who wasn’t her friend, anything that let her not think. And Sweetie Belle, well, she knew how Zecora must have felt. Every door had been slammed in her face, even Zecora and the mules, the cows had turned their backs, the pigs had charged her, and the little animals of the forest had run away.
Sweetie Belle had started to hate ponies. She had practically kicked at the running animals. Her sister made her angry on a normal day; now with Rarity looking down on her constantly, not even telling her what was wrong, what they hadn’t put in their apology. She had just acted like Sweetie Belle knew that she had done something wrong. Like Sweetie Belle herself was wrong. Gabby Gums hadn’t been anything really bad. She’d been a gossip. No one had believed in Gabby Gums in the end. Sweetie Belle knew other fillies did this. She’d heard her sister talk about the latest dirty news from Canterlot and read her gossip magazines that had nothing in them but nasty things about other ponies, including Princess Celestia.
So what they had been doing hadn’t been that bad. Ponies had just been being overly sensitive. Plus, they’d tried to write nice things, but apparently ponies didn’t want to read about nice things. They wanted to read about the dirt on other ponies. And what did any pony in Ponyville have to complain about some pony being a little harsh in the papers? Sweetie Belle had been ridiculed all the time before she met Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. Her own family had called her the sensitive bite, she had two aunts who could be especially nasty when they pointed out all the things Sweetie Belle did ‘wrong’.
Her friends and her hadn’t done anything wrong.
Still, this would blow over. It had to blow over. Sweetie Belle would get her friends to her parents when they came home. They would be scolded, but not thrown out like every other pony had done. Her parents couldn’t treat her as horribly as the rest of the town, and even her sister had treated her. Her parents weren’t like Scootaloo’s father who was volatile and prone to only talking to her daughter when she did something wrong, well there was more than that, but sometimes it was hard to see. And, well, Apple Bloom didn’t have a mother and father; she had a sister and brother who tried to be parents without really getting what that meant, and a grandmother who wasn’t as keen as she’d always been. So of course they thought it was hopeless, but Sweetie Belle knew better. She knew what it was like to have real parents who could never abandon you no matter what.
Sweetie Belle had a plan, but she didn’t know how to tell her friends that. She didn’t know what was worse. That her parents weren’t coming back for another six days, or that she was the only one who had parents who really cared and did the right thing. Anyway, they’d needed some food. Grass was good, and a week and a half of it wouldn’t kill them. But Apple Bloom had already lost a lot of weight; even Scootaloo was starting to look thin. And worse was watching them have to deal with the hatred directed at them by ponies they looked up to. They needed a distraction.
So Sweetie Belle would wait, and slowly they’d work their way back into Ponyville. They’d do whatever punishment Sweetie’s parents assigned. They’d ask how to properly apologize, and then her parents would blow up at the school board over the fact they couldn’t go to school anymore and chastise their families for turning their backs when their children needed them so badly. Maybe someone would point out that Diamond Tiara approved each article and deserved some of the blame too.
Maybe--maybe everything would be alright. They had a week, only a week and then things would be right again.