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// 1: Seeds 
// Story: Strawberry Serenade 
// by AugieDog 
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     "Well, now!" Cherry Jubilee's jowly face lit up, her jaw chomping away. "That's mighty tasty, ain't it?" And only then, Sunrise noticed with a carefully supressed shudder, did the mare swallow. "Ain't never had a strawberry like that afore!"  

    "Thank you!" Sunrise struggled to keep smiling. If everything here turned out, she would forgive this portly prima donna her ignorance, her lack of manners, the dust that lay over her desk like a tablecloth, the way her whole podunk town smelled like nopony in it had ever heard of indoor plumbing... "Similar to cherries, strawberries pack a lot of sweetness into a small package." As always, addressing this subject solidified Sunrise's smile. "But they grow at ground level for easy harvesting, and there's no worrying about that big seed in the middle! One simple pluck, and they're ready to eat!"  

     Cherry Jubilee was nodding. "I could plant 'em along the edges of all my orchards, maybe even out among the rows." She dug into the box Sunrise had brought with her this trip and popped another berry into her gaping maw. "Congratulations, Strawberry Sunrise! You've done made yourself a sale!"

     If there were any sweeter words in any language, Sunrise had never heard them. She flipped her saddlebags open with a wing and dug out the standard contract. "Just sign here, ma'am, and we'll get the process started."  

     "Process?" A sour little whiff came into Cherry Jubilee's loamy aroma. "Ain't'cha gonna sell me the seeds right now?"  

     Sunrise's smile got shaky again. "My brother, Strawberry Roan, handles the actual cultivars, ma'am." Flexing her wings, she forced her voice to stay light and fluffy. "Roan lets me bring clouds in to water the plants, but anything more than that's just asking for trouble, isn't it?"  

     Of course, Cherry Jubilee grinned at that—earth ponies always found it hilarious that a pegasus was working in agriculture. But as soon as Ms. Jubilee had signed the contract and stamped out a bank draft for a full two years of field service, Sunrise decided once again that she could be forgiving.  

     "It's the best decision you've ever made," Sunrise said, tucking the paperwork back into her panniers. "Roan'll be getting in touch with you by the end of the week, and on behalf of the whole Strawberry Family, I thank you."  

     Down the front steps of the main house at Cherry Hill Ranch and all the way back to Dodge Junction, Sunrise let herself bask in the warmth of a job well done. Sure, this was still the back end of nowhere, but that was the task Sunrise had given herself: to spread the word about the wonders of strawberries to dim-witted yokels who couldn't hold a thought together long enough to realize that their lives were never going to amount to anything. Unless they were growing strawberries: then at least they'd be doing something worthwhile with themselves...  

     At the raggedy log cabin that called itself the local post office, Sunrise counted out the bits to send the paperwork back to Ponyville by next-day express. She'd had reason to do that three times so far this trip, but with a commercial operation like Cherry Hill now signed on, she could almost see Roan's bushy eyebrows shooting to the top of his forehead. She may have been the first pegasus born into the family in more than three hundred years, but if this didn't prove that she was just as much a Strawberry as the rest of them, she didn't know what would.  

     Actually, though, with the business she'd drummed up out here in the hinterland this past month, she finally had the bits to pursue her secret plan, the idea she'd had boiling in the back of her head for years without ever once so much as suggesting it to Roan. She took a breath, pulled a pen from her saddlebag, and forced her teeth not to shiver as she carefully wrote a quick note to slip in with the contract:   

     It's time, Roan. Time to carry the fight to the enemy. Time to go where no Strawberry has gone before. Expect a couple contracts in the mail from Appleloosa by this time next week, or I'm not your little sister!   

     She signed the note, gave it to the postal pegasus, put her pen away, and marched toward the Dodge Junction railway station.  





 

     "Aw, c'mon, Red!" With anypony else, Braeburn would've done his level best to keep that whiny tone out of his voice. But with his big sister, he found it worked more often than not. "It's my turn, ain't it?"  

     Red rolled her eyes behind those little half glasses she always wore when she was at her desk. "Any other time, Bray, I'd go with the roster and send you out on patrol tonight. But we hired them pegasi to bring that storm through, and that means there's likely to be more ponies needing help than usual."

     And even though she showed him how much she thought he was still a foal every hour of every day of every week of every year, hearing her come right out and say that she didn't trust him to do a stallion's job somehow made it worse. Maybe that whole 'whiny voice' thing hadn't been the best idea after all...  

     But he could still save this. He could pull off anything, he reckoned, if'n he set his mind to it. "I'm just asking you to let me do my fair share, Red." He took up one of his best poses: chest out, head high, the steely look in his eye that got mares sighing whenever he let himself strut a little along any street in Appleloosa. "I know I got a lot to live up to being your brother and all, but I ain't never let'cha down yet, has I?" And that's when he let his smile loose, the one that got even more sighs out and about.

     "Really?" Red never gave him her full glare over the top of her glasses, but, well, she came mighty close every now and again. "Like when you twisted your leg all up right before the rodeo? Or maybe when that pro-level buckball team you said you was gonna put together got beat by Cousin Applejack's team of a baker, a volunteer vet'rinarian, and some grade-school colt? Or maybe when you promised—"  

     "All right, all right!" Braeburn took a breath and blew all his temper out with it. Getting peeved never solved any problem, and besides, it made his forehead wrinkly. "I know I'm sometimes a little—" He searched for a word and finally decided to go with: "—flaky.  But—"  

     "But nothing, Bray." Red focused her attention back down to her paperwork. "You're gonna make some mare a wonderful husband someday, but till then, how 'bout you take tonight off and let the rest of us handle the big jobs, okay? Don't make the patrol steeds break off their duties and escort you back. 'Cause I've told 'em to do that if'n they catch you out there tonight."

     The tone of her voice told him that was the end of that. "If'n you say so, Ms. Red Gravenstein." But then he also knew how much she hated her full name.

     With the heat of her glare warming his backside, he put just a bit of a strut in his step leaving her office, but it didn't last much more'n a few paces down the hall outside. It'd taken him the better part of a year to convince Red he had gumption enough to be on the volunteer night patrol list, walking the territory 'round Appleloosa to help any travelers who might've got stranded out in the desert or even ol' Pimiento get home safe if'n he'd had one lick too many at the saloon.

     Braeburn's first two turns on patrol last month and the month before had been a couple of the best nights of his life. Sure, the most exciting thing that'd happened to him and Burled Spruce, the veteran he'd been partnered with, was getting a couple acorns chucked at 'em by a raccoon they'd had to chivvy outta the Widow Redbank's barn. But just the feeling of being out there in the dark wearing wunna them silvery vests and knowing that if something happened, he was gonna be there on the front lines helping— 

     'Cept now, of course, he wasn't. And right when they was gonna need all able hooves, too: heading for his room, he looked out the big window at the back of the house and saw the black clouds swelling up to swallow the last pink and orange bits of the sunset. He could almost hear the whistles of the weatherponies guiding the storm in, too, a seasonal mass of rain that'd perk up orchards all over the whole countryside. 

     And where was he gonna be?  

     "Out in it," he muttered, rearing back and sprinting down the hall. Pushing into his room, he grabbed a yellow rain poncho and one of his more battered hats, didn't even hardly stop to give himself the once-over in the mirror, then galloped for the back door. He'd have to keep outta sight of the other patrolers, but by Celestia and Luna, he was gonna make a difference if'n one needed making!