Lady Rarity was not happy, though she would never say so out loud, a lady was never so forward with her emotions. She might display it in a more subtle manner, such as in the way she carried herself, or perhaps the intonation of her voice, but never so bluntly as simply saying it. Her father had been immovable on the topic of this ridiculous idea that she needed to work on a farm. It didn't matter what concessions she offered or what promises she tried to make, he just couldn't be made to see reason.
It wasn't helping that she had to work along side this farm mare, Applejack. She was inordinately bubbly this morning, in a way that she believed only ruffians such as her could be at this hour. She also had somehow gotten splotches of oil all over her, from the top of her head to the tips of hooves, before the workday had even begun. “Erm, beg pardon Lady Rarity, but Ah though you said you were going to wear something a mite less... fancy?” Applejack asked, smile still plastered all over her face.
Rarity rolled her eyes, “This is Scarlet Scarf's Seasonal Show Stopper from last Fall, nopony in their right mind would consider this fancy.”
“Oh, well then,” Applejack looked the dress over, taking in the brownish-red layers of cotton, held in place with a purple midsection embroidered with gems and small brass gears, and the netting underneath that clung to the curves of her figure. Then she realized that she was staring at the mare rather openly. Blushing, she quickly hid her face by reaching down for her hat while talking rapidly, “Ah I thought that since ya might not be used to getting up this early,” one of her hooves waving at the newly risen sun, “and wasn't sure if'n you wouldn't like a bit of breakfast, or an extra breakfast if'n ya already had one.” Her spine made light scraping sounds as she bowed, offering her hat to Lady Rarity. Inside were five large, shiny Red Delicious apples.
In spite of the rather grubby nature of the hat that the apples were being totted around in, Lady Rarity levitated one of the apples out, knowing that one must never reject a gift, not matter how small. “Why thank you Apple-” she stopped mid sentence when she spotted a large oil splotch on the apple. “Err, there seems to be a bit of oil on this one.”
“Oh, well, y'all can just wipe if off on your dress, won't hurt the apple none,” Applejack replied.
Rarity's expression set into a heavy frown, “Excuse me? Wipe it on my dress?”
“Well ya, yer going to get it covered in all kinds of other things, a little oil won't hurt it none,” Applejack said, her smile fading a bit, now with a hint of confusion mixed into the expression. “Ya did say that that it wasn't all that fancy anyhow didn't cha?”
Rarity was opened her mouth to lecture her on how oil, especially cog oil, absolutely ruined the dasiycotton weave of the dress if much as a drop got on it. Then she decided against it, knowing there was no point it explaining something to somepony who just wouldn't understand. So she instead put the apple back in the hat, and rifled though the other apples until she found one that was devoid of oil.
Applejack waited patiently for her to finish her apple, watching as she dabbed at her lips with a hoofkerchief to remove any apple juice between bites. When she was done she looked for a place to put the core down, and lacking option she gently placed it by the base of an apple tree. “Ready to get started?” Applejack asked.
Lady Rarity sighed, “Yes I suppose we must. So what laborious duty are we to undertake?”
“Well we have to have these three acres bucked by sundown tonight. Don't worry about setting up the buckets to catch the apples, Ah already took care of that before y’all arrived,” Applejack swept her foreleg out across three acres of apple trees.
Rarity took in the numerous trees across the landscape, all of which had two large wooden pails underneath them. She felt a bit faint, there must have been over a thousand trees on all of that land. Rarity regained her composure and asked Applejack, “When you say, bucking, do you mean with just our hooves, or perhaps you have some kind of machine?”
“Well, I’ll have a bit of machine assistance,” she stomped her with her back legs and chuckled. “But it should be easy enough for y'all to do it. Here Ah’ll show you how it’s done.” With that Applejack walked up to one of the trees, and lined herself up with it. Next she crouched down on her front hooves, coiling herself up like a spring. Then with a sudden motion she lifted her entire body up on the front legs and with the force of a steam piston, straitened out. Lady Rarity looked away thinking that Applejack was going to split the tree in half, or that she would get hurt in some way. Then came the THUNK of metal on wood, followed by a steady stream of small thuds as apples fell into the buckets.
It wasn’t until the last apple had fallen into the bucket that Lady Rarity looked back at Applejack. She saw that neither the mare nor the tree had been harmed in the slightest, in fact it looked like not a single leaf on the tree had been disturbed, only the apples. “Ya ready to give it a try yerself?” Applejack motioned to the next tree in the line.
Rarity was most certainly did not want to give it a try, but she didn’t see any other option. So she trotted up to the tree, crouched down, and sprang into the air. However, instead of hitting the apple tree, she leapt into the air and landed flat on the ground. Applejack rushed over to the mare and offered a hoof, “Are you okay Lady Rarity?” Rarity nodded from the ground, having only damaged her pride. “Do you want to give it another go?”
Lady Rarity’s eye twitched, she didn’t want to even begin to think about ‘giving it another go’, and she most certain didn’t want to think about all of the dirt and grass stains that must have covered her dress after that fall. Ignoring Applejack’s proffered hoof, Lady Rarity got up off the ground, and daintily dusted herself off with her magic. “Thank you, Ms. Applejack, but I don’t think I will be trying that again anytime soon. Isn’t there something I could do that is less… strenuous?”
Applejack thought about that for a moment, “Well, I suppose you could haul the filled baskets back to the barn in the wagon. Heck, half of the job is just hauling all the apples back so we can start storing them.”
Lady Rarity almost grimaced at the thought of being strapped into some worn down, splintery cart, but it did sound better then falling in the dirt repeatably throughout the day. “Ah, yes, I suppose I could give that a whirl. So where is this wagon?”
The day was almost at it’s end, and Rarity’s horn felt like it was going to crack in two. What Applejack had referred to as ‘the wagon’ was an older model of a ground crawler, still in relatively good repair. It wasn’t the classiest thing on four wheels, but for Rarity it was far better then ruining her hooves in the country dirt. The problem, she soon learned, was that the Apples had next to no coal or sparking cells to fuel the boiler for the engine.
What they did have was some spent rechargeable lightening cell, the kind that were hooked up to a lightening rod, and would catch some of the power from the wild storms that came out of the Everfree. Even though it was spent, Rarity could recharge it manually with her own magic. Unfortunately each charge would only last two or three trips to the barn and back out to the orchard again, so she would have to stop and recharge the cell every couple of trips. Not to mention that the baskets of apples were heavy, far too heavy for Lady Rarity to pick up with her hooves or head, so she had to levitate them into the back of the crawler.
Then came the fact that the Applejack never seemed to take a break, or if she did then it had to always be in the ten or fifteen minutes that it took for her to haul the baskets back to the barn. Every time that Rarity took a break, she would find that Applejack was a good seven or eight trees ahead of her, making it next to impossible to keep up with the earth pony.
The only time she was able to catch a break was during lunch and dinner. For both meals Granny Smith had made so many apple based dishes that it caused the table in the kitchen to groan under the weight of the meals. Both of the meals went relatively quickly as Applejack, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom all wolfed down their food, speaking to each other around and through mouthfuls of various apple based dishes. Once they finished they went right back out, either to their farm chores, or in the case of Apple Bloom, back to the school house.
By the time that Celestia had begun to lower the sun on this day, Lady Rarity’s legs felt like they were made of custard, and the headache from her horn was almost blinding in it’s intensity. By this time Rarity had fallen so far behind Applejack that she had finished bucking all the trees and was now hauling the hefty baskets of apples back to barn alongside Rarity. While she was recharging the lightening cell, Rarity would sometimes watch as that orange earth pony lifted one of baskets onto her head, and then somehow let it slide gracefully down right onto her back. She couldn’t even begin to imagine doing that herself, and chalked the ease of motion up to some kind of earth pony magic.
Once the last basket had been secured in the barn, Lady Rarity parked the ground crawler back where she had found it, and slowly climbed down off it for the last time, so ending her first day on this dreadful farm. Applejack had wandered into the barn and went right on over to Lady Rarity, “Whew, well Ah don’t know abou’chu but I am bushed, that was a mighty fine job you did hauling all of them baskets back here.” She then cast her gaze over the small mountain of apple baskets that took up just about three quarters of the barn. “Well, Ah guess Ah’ll start loading up this hear haul into the silo. Shouldn’t take me too long.”
“Then,” Rarity interjected in case the mare asked her to help with that task, “I suppose I shall bid you Au due, and be off. Ta ta darling,” and with one last smile that was bordering on a grimace, Lady Rarity trotted off for home as fast as her aching legs would carry her.
“Ah, Lady Rarity welcome back. How was you day on the farm?” Black Tie the family butler was waiting for Rarity at the front door of the family manor. A tray with a large glass of water was levitating in front of him.
She gave him a weak smile as she pulled the glass of water towards herself and took a sip, “To be frank with you Mr. Tie, it was absolutely dreadful.”
“My condolences,” he said, as he opened the large oaken door for her. “Before you retreat to your rooms for the evening, there is a letter that I believe you would be most interested in.”
“Can it wait until later? I am going to need a long and thorough bubble bath to clean off all of the grime and road dust from today. And perhaps a nice glass of that 967 white we had at dinner last night to help with this headache,” Rarity muttered, slowly making her way to the central staircase.
“If I may Lady Rarity, I do believe you would want to attend to this matter immediately, as it is addressed from the Canterlot Royal Outfitters Committee,” he said as he levitated the letter out of the breast pocket on his vest.
Lady Rarity stopped mid-stride eyes wide. She then spun around to face Black Tie, and practically ripped the letter out of his telekinetic grasp. Giving the note a quick examination, paying particular attention to the wax seal on the back of it, she declared it authentic and read the contents of the letter. Minutes passed while Rarity read and re-read the letter, and Black Tie cleaned up the shattered glass of water.
Finally Rarity floated the letter back to Black Tie, and let out a high pitched squeal of excitement and started prancing in place, “The C.R.O.C wants me to design a dress for Princess Celestia’s Winter Collection this year!” she then gave another squeal that rang throughout the manor’s foyer. “Why, I have to get started on this immediately! I have so many sketches to make, and fabrics to pick out, not to mention gems to find!” She started up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Mr. Tie, would you be a dear and send some dinner up to my room, I’m afraid I will be up there all night and won’t have time to come down.”
“Of course, Lady Rarity,” Black Tie said with a bow. “Also, what time would you care to be woken up for your next day on the farm?”
Rarity froze three quarters of the way up the marble step. The thought that she would have to go back to the Apple Family Farm tomorrow, let alone for the next twenty days, had competently slipped her mind. She couldn’t anger her father, but this request from the Canterlot Royal Outfitters Committee was far more important than a little farm work. She stood there and pondered this predicament, then an idea came to her. “Wake me up at the same time as this morning, and have a set of saddle bags packed with my sketching supplies,” she called down to Black Tie, and continued up the stairs. Silly farm work could wait, she had a masterpiece to design.