//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Beginning of a new day // Story: Wheat In The Rough // by SpiritwolfOfice //------------------------------// Celestia’s sun starts to slowly rise in the east side of ponyville, bathing the countryside with its beautiful sunlight, waking up the ponies of equestria. Along with the animals, especially with one animal in particular. A rooster on a farm about 20 miles north of ponyville, as to not cause competition between the Apple Family Orchard, cocks his head back aiming to the heavens and lets out his morning call to wake up the working ponies of the Golden Wheat farm, our main setting of this story. At the sound of the rooster’s call, a teenaged mare slowly sits up in bed and blinks a few times as she wakes up and lets her eyes adjust to the light in her room. She lets out a yawn with a small, slight squeak to it. She then moves a strand of her disheveled mane out of her face,  climbs out of bed, trots over to the mirror in the corner of the room. In the mirror she sees she is a mare with wheat colored fur, with a sandy blonde colored mane and freckles on her muzzle, under her eyes, which are staring back at her, but most importantly she has a very bad case of bedmane. The mare sighs and she says to herself, “I really need to stop tossin’ an’ turning while I sleep.” She then proceeds to style her mane in her normal braided and ponytail combo. Once she's done, her ears perk up at the sound of her mother's voice calling from downstairs, “Sweet Wheat! Honey! Breakfast is ready!” Sweet can only imagine what wonderful thing her mother has made for breakfast and she calls back, “Okay Ma! I'll be down in a second!” With that she picks up her trademark ascot and ties it around her neck, then trots over to her door, out to the hall and makes her way to the grand staircase at the end. She continues her way down, seeing her younger brother Barley Wheat scurry down the stairs in front of her, she follows behind him, until both siblings arrive at the dining table. Sweet walks over to her mother and hugs her. “Morning momma, what's for breakfast?” The older mare in front of her turns her attention from the stove and looks to her daughter. “Well I thought you would like flapjacks so I made those this morning before we all head out to the fields. Well me, you and, your father because a certain colt needs to go to school today.” Barley looks to his mother with a frown on his muzzle. “Awwwwww! But I wanted to stay and help Sweet and Pa on the farm!” He pouts as he pokes his flapjacks with his fork. Their mother comes over and nuzzles him, Barley smiles and nuzzles his mother back and hears her say reassuringly,”In time my little sprout you’ll be able to help out around here as much as you want, but for now good little wheat farmers have to go to school, okay?” After she said that she smiles lovingly to her son. He sighs and with a smile he says, “Okay momma.” He looks back down to his plate and starts eating. “Now for you, young lady,” their mother turns to Sweet now, “Hurry up and finish your breakfast  dear, your father is waiting on you in the fields.” Sweet nods, goes over to her place at the table, and starts to eat her breakfast as fast as she can without choking. After eating, Sweet makes her way to one of the many wheat fields the family has on their plot of land. On the second field she spots her father, a big brown stallion with a sandy brown mane like her own, she smiles and walks up to him and hugs him, and the big stallion who is the same size as Big Mac at the Apple farm only slightly taller hugs his daughter back. “Morning pa, so what we got today? Time to harvest?” Sweet asks with enthusiasm as she anticipates what her father wants her to do. “Well Little Grain,” he sometimes called her that on account of her cutie mark and the fact she’s still his little foal even though she’s sixteen, “It ain't time to harvest. We got another month ‘til that, but ya see our field over off in the distance, near the barn? That field needs to be plowed and cultivated so we can grow some barley this time. Think ya can do that?” He looks down to his daughter knowing that she can of course, do the job. Sweet salutes her father “Yes sir! I can do it! I'll get on it right away!” She then smiles and starts trotting over to the field. Her father watches her as she trots over and smiles to himself proudly. “Heh heh, she reminds me of myself… and a little bit of her mother.” He chuckles and starts moving hay bales to the barn. Sweet continues to trot over to the field. She looks up to the sky above and doesn't see a cloud in the sky knowing today is going to be a good day for farm work. She looks straight ahead to the field in front of her and goes over to the cultivator beside the field and starts to hook herself up to it, but she starts to struggle with one of the straps. Sweet growls in annoyance. “Grrrrr… why does this have to happen now? Ugh…” She bites the strap and starts to pull it, trying to get it over her shoulder so she can hook it to the harness she wears for the job, but the strap continues to be stubborn and doesn't move. As Sweet continues to pull, the strap goes taut and it catapults her backwards over the farming equipment and she lands on her belly and muzzle. “OOF!” She exclaims, as she lands and gets the wind knocked out of her. “Ugh… Earth ponies aren't meant to fly… and now I see why.” She starts to rise up, but when she does, she hears a voice call out from above. “Hey Sweet Sweet!” There is only one pony who calls her that pet name….and that’s her best friend Sweet Breeze. Sweet looks just in time to see her best friend come in for a landing, right in front of her. She smiles bright and hugs her friend, consequently getting some dirt on her. “Hey Breezie! I'm glad to see you! What are you up to?” Breeze hugs back and doesn't mind the dirt at all, and she smiles and gestures nonchalantly  with her hoof. “Oh you know, nothing out of the ordinary. Controlling the weather like normal pegasi and seeing what my best friend is up to.” Breeze quickly takes notice of the straps on the farm tool “Uhhh... need some help?” Sweet nods and stands in front of the tool and holds up the strap. Breeze takes the strap with the clamp, and before she even attempts to attach it she sees the strap is stuck in one of the pieces, she smirks  “Huh. You know, I saw your spectacular flip from above and I think I know why it happened.” She untangles the strap and looks to Sweet who is blushing in embarrassment. The two eventually get the cultivator attached to Sweet’s harness, and Sweet walks over to the closest end of the field and she starts walking pulling the farming equipment behind her, cultivating the field. Breeze flies along beside her as Wheat works, and both of them talk about yesterday's events. As they talk the notorious Flim and Flam approach the front door of Wheat’s parents’ home to try and talk them into another business proposition. Wheat’s father spots them and sighs and starts walking towards the house “Not these two again… well let’s see what they want”.