“Scouting daaaay!”
Applejack stopped in her tracks, the plow she was pulling jolting against her harness, and looked up. Yep, still night.
“Pinkie...I’m real sorry, but you know I can’t come this time. I’ve been saying again and again, this cold is killing these here crops, and I can’t allow that,” she said.
“But this is more important than some silly old crops! If we don’t find a way out of here, we could be trapped! Forever!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing anxiously in front of Applejack.
“Now look here Pinkie Pie; this isn’t just about my ‘silly old crops.’ If we run out of food—and we will, eventually—you won’t be complaining so hard about my taking care of them.” Applejack angled her body away from Pinkie and tugged at the plow. It moved an inch. She gave it another pull with the same result. It was no use; her momentum was gone. Why couldn’t Pinkie ever bother her when she was doing something that wasn’t crucial to their survival?
Pinkie stood still—a rarity, for her—as she considered Applejack’s response.
“What if I help?”
“Don’t be ridiculous Pinkie, you wouldn’t know the first thing about farming.” With a final tug, Applejack got the plow moving again, though at a much slower pace than before.
Pinkie blocked her path, forcing her to stop again.
“Darn it Pinkie, I don’t have time for this! Crops are dying on my watch!”
“I do know the first thing about farming! And the second thing, and the third, and maybe even the fourth. I grew up on a farm too, you know. I could definitely help you,” Pinkie Pie said, looking at Applejack with wide, hopeful eyes.
Applejack hesitated. “Well...if you really do know all that about farming—”
“I do!”
“—then alright.”
“Yippee!” Pinkie Pie burst into the air, taking out a cannon from...somewhere and firing a blast of confetti all over the place. “Oops...”
Applejack unhitched herself with a sigh. “Come on Pinkie, the sooner we get this over with the sooner I can make sure we don’t starve.”
“All righty!” Pinkie Pie said, then turned around and began hopping away from the Sweet Apple fields. “Let me just get my sextant.”
“...Sextant?”
Pinkie Pie jumped back over to Applejack. “Yes siree! It’s used for navigating against celestial bodies,” she said in a whisper.
Applejack reared back in shock. “Pinkie Pie! I can’t believe you’re talking about the Princess that way!”
“What? It’s just for if we get lost. The stars are out, so it’ll be easy to use.”
Applejack stared at her for a moment. She never could be sure whether that mare was doing it intentionally or not. “You go get your...sextant, then. I’ll be hauling this plow back to the barn so it doesn’t get all rusted.”
“Okie dokie!”
Pinkie hopped off.
Applejack sighed again. Pinkie’s ‘scouting missions’ always took a good few hours to finish. At least the extra help would allow her to catch up for lost time. Hopefully.
“We done yet?” Applejack said, glancing at the stars. It had taken a while, but she’d eventually learned how to roughly judge the time from them. Right now it was around what would have been noon, and Pinkie still wasn’t satisfied that they’d looked hard enough.
“Of course not! See that part over there? Something unexpected is going to happen sometime in the next, oh, five or six seconds.”
Applejack looked in the direction of Pinkie’s hoof. It was just another stretch of the Everfree forest.
“I don’t see nothing odd,” Applejack said.
“Waaaait for it...there!” Pinkie said.
Right on cue, a purple unicorn walked out of the forest. And then a brown earth pony, and a griffon, and...Fluttershy? And there was Lyra, and Rarity, and Rainbow Dash.
“Wha...what?” Applejack got out.
“Hello everypony, and welcome to the Inner Everfree!” Pinkie Pie said, conjuring her party cannon and sending a storm of confetti into the air. The new arrivals froze in confusion.
“Don’t worry about her, she’s always like this,” Applejack said, waving the group over. They trotted over to her, relieved looks on their faces.
“So, what brings you to the Everfree? Oh wait! You’re new! That means I need to plan you all a party with cake and decorations and drinks and presents and oh my gosh there’s only me and Applejack and no one else to celebrate—”
“Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said, putting a hoof to the pink pony’s mouth. “I think we ought to listen to what they have to say before going off and doing stuff.”
“We’re here to destroy the Everfree and save Equestria!” Rainbow Dash said.
The purple unicorn broke in. “Excuse me, but do you two know why the Everfree just...stops?”
Applejack snorted. “Nope. We’ve been wondering as much as you. All we know is that the forest keeps expanding, and the parts in the middle just...go away. They don’t really die, as such, they just kind of shrink until they’re gone, until you’re left with, well...this,” she said, waving a hoof at the forest.
“Resident eggheads, it’s your time to shine!” Rainbow Dash said.
Everyone stared at her.
“Oh come on. Radiance? Twilight? Neither of you have any ideas?”
The earth pony shook his head, but the purple unicorn looked thoughtful.
“I...might have some. But they’re just speculation. I’d need to do some tests to confirm,” Twilight said.
“Right, sure, but what is it?” Rainbow Dash said, sitting back and continuing to look expectantly at Twilight.
“I can’t just spout my ideas for everyone to hear! Then you’d all be biased and I wouldn’t be able to test my predictions, and throwing out speculation as if its fact never ends well.”
“Yeah, sure, but whatever you’re thinking right now is what’s going on. That’s how it works,” Rainbow Dash said.
“That...that is so not how science works!” Twilight said, stomping away from Rainbow Dash.
Applejack silently agreed with Rainbow Dash. Whenever she got a paper with a fancy scientist discovering stuff, it had a bunch of stuff about “error” and “uncertainty” but if it was published it always turned out to be right. They just wanted to hedge their bets so that if they were wrong they didn’t lose face.
“Why don’t y’all come over to Sweet Apple Acres? We’ve got food—for now,” Applejack added with a glare at Pinkie Pie, who continued bouncing without showing a sign that her ire affected her in the least, “and y’all can plan all your fancy strategies for saving Equestria all you want.”
“Food? I’m starving! Lead the way, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin.
Applejack turned back toward Ponyville. She was very curious about how these new ponies had gotten here, because that would mean a way out. But that could wait until dinner.