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// What Do You Love Doing Most? Meeting the Cutie Mark Crusaders 
// Story: A Pear and Apple Through and Through 
// by SweetCookie 
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Apple Pear stood in front of a well-kept but old-looking house that had a slightly faded sign on the front door, one that read 'Cutie Mark Crusaders! Knock before you enter!'. Apple thought about her other options for trying to get her cutie mark, and considered the fact it was close to sunset too. Maybe she could just go back home and tell her parents about it so that they can maybe help her instead of having their daughter stay past sunset away from the farm.

After much hesitation, Apple gathered up as much courage as possible and knocked on the door with her right hoof, standing there waiting for a response. She collected hearing hooves inside the worn-out building, but no other sound came from within. The door opened and there stood a purple colt with orange hair and orange eyes. He had wings on his back, and behind him was a yellow mare with a horn on her head, a colt with colours similar to Shining Armour, and a green and red mare that was an Earth Pony just like her.

"Welcome to the home of the Cutie Mark Crusaders! I'm Skating Blitz, great-great grandson of Scootaloo herself, and these two are my friends Sweet Cookie and Tenor Rhythm. They're not descendants of anyone special really. What's your name?"

"Um, my name is Apple Pear and I guess I can say I'm the great-great granddaughter of Apple Bloom herself."

"Really?! Why didn't you come by before?! Come right in, make yourself at home!"

Apple Pear, taken back by the sudden excitement of Scootaloo's great-great grandson, clumsily make her way into the house and sat herself beside the Earth Mare. Upon observing the mare further, Apple realised that she had no cutie mark, making the Apple Child more at ease with the situation. Sweet Cookie trotted towards Apple and sat herself in front of the mare. By observation, it seemed that the unicorn was just a little older than Skating Blitz, if not just a bit younger than Tenor Rhythm.

"What's your family background Apple Pear? Other than the fact you've descended from apples."

"I've always been descended from apples. My great-great grandmother just randomly came up with Apple Pear for reasons not even my grandfather Tapple Apple can disclose to me."

"You do know that every name has some correlation to one's cutie mark. Take me as an example, my mother is a chef pony and my father was a technician. While my cutie mark derived from my love of music, it correlates to how I love to cook and my involvement in technology and magic. My name also kind of gave me some ideas about cutie marks being correlated to names, but not a strong one."

"I guess that makes sense..."

Cookie smiled a warm smile before Tenor trotted towards them and sat down with them, clearing his throat.

"What do you enjoy doing the most? You'll get a better understanding if you know."

"I don't really know...I've tried everything on the Apple Farm, but no cutie mark."

"Then your destiny does not lie with the Apples."

"What?! How can you say that?!"

"Well, you did say so yourself that you've done every job on the Apple Farm and yet no cutie mark. I reckon you need to get out of family pressures first if you want to find that cutie mark of yours."

"You really think so?"

"Positive. I mean, look at Marmalade over there, she's a Pear Foal who hates working on the farm in Vanhoover."

"Wait, she's a Pear?!"

Marmalade, who was talking to Skating Blitz, spun her head towards Apple Pear's direction with a hint of disgust at how she had been called out. Getting up, she made her way towards the Apple Mare and looked at her menacingly, something that made Apple Pear shudder with discomfort and concern.

"What's so bad about Pears, Apple?"

"What are you doing out here in Ponyville?"

"One of my relatives works in that Pear Shop in Ponyville that you most obviously despise working at. Yeah, don't think I don't see ya there every now and then."

"Look, I don't want any trouble, I haven't seen a Pear Farmer my age trotting around."

"Funny, cause I see your kind trotting around everywhere with your plastic smiles."

"Both of you, calm down! This is not what you both are here for! Under my advice, alongside Cookie's and Tenor's, you'll both have to come to terms with each other before you attempt to find your cutie mark, understand?"

Both mares looked away from each other, but both nodded in agreement after much hesitation. Smiling, Skating Blitz cleared his throat and spoke with a loud voice about his plan of action to get Marmalade and Apple Pear a cutie mark on their rumps, saying he'll do so by sundown tonight. Both mares looked at him with confusion plastered on their faces, but were told to sit down by Tenor and to not say anything as it might make the situation more confusing for them. With the sun setting low, Apple Pear had to make her way home before she got in trouble again, the Cutie Mark Crusaders bidding her farewell and asking her to come back in the following day.

For the next couple of weeks, both Apple Pear and Marmalade were forced to work together with the CMC in order to obtain their cutie marks, trying various things such as cooking, cleaning or teaching. As the month drew close to an end, Apple Pear and Marmalade made a silent agreement that maybe coming over here might have been too much of a stretch to make, what with trusting strangers with getting their cutie marks. One night during one of their meetings after trying out entertaining as a potential destined career, Skating Blitz looked at both mares and walked towards Apple Pear first, much to the slight dismay of Marmalade.

"Young Miss Apple Pear, I'm going to ask you a simple but challenging question. You'll have to answer with your great-great grandaunt's honesty though. Promise you will?"

"I promise."

"Good! Then answer me this: What do you love doing most?"

"Huh? Why ask a question I don't have an answer to?!"

"You promised to answer honestly PearPear!"

"Please don't call me that..."

"Answer the question~"

Apple Pear sighed, turning her head away from the pegasus in from of her. It was a challenging question for her since she never really sat down to think about it properly. Sure, it graced her mind with its presence every now and then, but it had done nothing to make her stop and evaluate its purpose. Now that she needed to evaluate that thought, it didn't seem to come to her at that moment, making her blush from the awkward silence that had filled the room.

"What I love doing most?"

"It isn't a hard question if you really think about it not from your mind but from your heart as Scootaloo once told me!"

"Well, what I love doing..."

Looking around the room, Apple Pear looked at the faces she had grown to trust over the month. Sweet Cookie with her new ideas and optimistic standpoint, Tenor Rhythm with his encouraging and 'challenge yourself' demeanour, Skating Blitz with his never-ending positive energy, and even Marmalade as a growing friend despite their indifferences caused by their families. Closing her eyes, the young Earth Pony thought long and hard about what she loved doing the most. She thought of her friends, she thought of her Pear Job, she thought of her family, but the most she lingered on was both the Pears and the Apples.

"What I love doing, no, what I love being involved with..."

She thought to her chores on the Apple Farm and her part-time work at the Pear Shop. Honestly she had loved doing both, since one that is less stressful evens out the other full of family expectations, and she had once tried to combine apples and pears together. After much consideration, she opened her eyes and looked Skating Blitz directly in the eye.

"What I love being involved with are Apples and Pears."