//------------------------------// // Winter Woof Up, Part 4 // Story: Twilight gets a Puppy // by TDR //------------------------------// Twilight Gets a Puppy By TDR Winter Woof Up, Part 4 “ Oh man. Princess Celestia's gonna be mad...” Spike panicked, dancing back and forth on his feet.”I need to get back to the library and send an apology letter.” Spike and the CMC stood before a large area of ground that was no longer covered with any sort of snow. This was the third attempt at a snow removal cutie mark and the most successful so far. “Dunno why, that worked perfectly. Dragon fire snow clearing.” Sweetiebelle cheered. Scootaloo stood next to Spike with a wide grin on her face, holding one of her own feathers that she had used to tickle the dragon in order to get him to sneeze. “Yeah, I mean she's tha Princess of tha sun, all that snow prolly melted from yer fire too, so at worst she gets a steam bath or tha carpet gits a bit wet. Easy fix.” Applebloom offered. “Besides, she's up in Canterlot with plenty of maids and stuff to clean up after her. All we did was help with their job security.” Scootaloo snarked. “What's the worse she can do to you for sneezing? Send a strongly worded letter?” Spike looked at Scootaloo as if she had grown two more heads. And those heads wouldn't stop singing that song about a talking fox from that weird band whose name looked like a failed attempt at a scrabble triple word score. “Is it just me or is it getting darker out here?” Applebloom asked looking around at the ground around the crusaders and Spike that was currently in a ever increasing shadow. The four of them looked up just as a massive snowball landed on top of them burying them in a massive pile of snow and recovering their only successful attempt at snow removal with even more snow. A few moments later Sweetiebelle dug herself out of the pile. “You just had to ask that didn't you Scoots?” Sweetiebelle grumbled. “ You just had to tempt fate...” “Princess Celestia's got good aim.” Scootaloo admitted as she dug herself out soon after. “Let's not do that again, ah dun want a cutie mark in being a target fer orbital bombardment.” Applebloom grumbled as she pulled herself out of the snow. Spike managed to burrow out finally, spitting a rolled scroll out of his mouth that bounced off Scootaloo's head before Sweetiebelle caught it and opened it to read. “Dear Spike.” Sweetiebelle read. “Please cover your mouth when you sneeze. Signed Princess Celestia.” “Oh man........” Spike grumbled. Twilight continued on towards the farm, spotting Applejack standing on a small rise before a cliff that marked the start of the Manterhorn that Canterlot was perched upon. Her crew was already working over the fields. Twilight wasn't sure who owned this particular plot of land, but surely there was something here she could do. “Howdy Twilight.” Applejack smiled. “Nice tah see yah. You been helping out? I spect this being yer first Winter Wrap up in Ponyville yah missed tha meeting to assign ponies to their teams.” “Hey Applejack. You got it in one. What's going on here?”Twilight asked looking over the collection of ponies pushing odd covered plows around the field. “Were clearing tha farmland of snow so we ken git tha first crops of that year planted. Winter stores are still good, but they gotta last until first harvest and with more and more ponies coming round here, tha sooner tha better.” “Wouldn't it be easier just to leave the snow where it is?It would melt faster if it was spread out in the sun.” Twilight stated watching the ponies plowing. “Yeah it would, but it would make tha ground all muddy and tha seeds would rot a fore they had a chance to sprout. Plus we get all this snow dumped inta tha river now there's less a chance of flooding down river when everything else melts in a couple of days.” Applejack smirked. “That's.... not something I had considered, though doesn't the plow scrape off the topsoil?” “A bit of it when there's bumps and dips. But we got that plow blades set to leave a little less than an inch of snow. That much ain't gonna do more than make tha ground soft and most of it's melted after tha first day so tha first waterings taken care of too.” “This is surprisingly well planned.” Twilight nodded. “Course it is. Mac and Cheerilee mapped everything out a couple years ago and this part of wrap ups been running like clockwork ever since.... cept fer that year Pinkie Pie helped.” Applejack shuddered. “Mare tired her best but....... yah didn't help her with her skating did ya?” “No, I figured something was up with how she worded her assignment.” “Good tah know. Looks like Fluttershy's doing better this year too. Seen a lot of critters running around already.” Applejack nodded. “Yeah sort of.” Twilight admitted sheepishly. “So where's Rahs hiding? Yah ever git him outta bed?”Applejack smirked. Twilight frowned as a small blur of white was flung past them crashing into a pile of snow. The white rabbit burst out of the snow and hopped rapidly back across the field into a nearby treeline. A moment or two later Rahs was flung across the field to crash into the same snow bank. The Moon Dog's gray coat was already tattered, though he didn't seem to care as he rushed back across the field launching into an attack on the white rabbit. Applejack and Twilight watched a moment more as the fight moved deeper into the treeline of the forest . The heavy thud of wood filling the air as tree after tree dislodged their build up of snow as the combatants hit or were hit by the trees. “Right...... an Spike?” Applejack questioned. Suddenly something exploded near town and Applejack opened an umbrella almost on instinct as a glut of snow landed in a pile around them. Twilight frowned as she shook the snow off her mane. “MY BAD!” Scootaloo called. “Helping the Cutie Mark Crusaders still.” Twilight deadpanned. “Seems they got tha catapult working again.” Applejack sighed. So whatcha doing out here? Figured you'd be helping Rarity or tha like.” “I actually came out here to see if you needed help.” Twilight smiled. “You want tah help plow?” Applejack tilted her head as Twilight nodded. “I want to do something and I seem to be running out of options at this point. Everyone else on my list either has it in hoof, or I already screwed it up somehow.” Twilight grumbled showing Applejack the list she had made. “ With Ponyville being more an Earth pony community being good at magic kinda goes against traditions here.” “Ehh, ah think it's more we ain't never had a powerful enough unicorn round here, more than tradition any way, but whatever floats yer boat.” Applejack shrugged. “Got another plow over here yah ken use and we ken set yah up on tha south field. It ain't a priority, just in case yah somehow screw up pushing a plow. At tha very least you'll have cover from tha next explosion.” “Right!” Twilight smiled bounding off to hop into the plowing device. A quick glance around showed no brakes or any complex parts, it was pretty much a hollow covered wagon with a push bar, some minor steering ability and a large plow on front. Twilight smirked pressing against the bar. She strained a bit her hooves sliding before she managed some traction, pushing the wheels pushed free of the snow and starting the cart forward, building up a bit of snow before it rather quickly. “There yah go Twi, now head that way towards tha south field.” Applejack pointed a hoof. Applejack was rather impressed the librarian was managing to push the cart. She wasn't as good at it as some of tha others, but she was doing far better than Applejack expected. Clearly she had more muscle on her than she let on. Granted Applejack should have expected that given the Running of the Leaves, but the bookworm didn't look to have that much strength in her like most unicorns. A sudden burst of speed from Twilight and her plow surprised Applejack further as Twilight was now going as fast as some of her better plowers. She wondered if the mare had used magic, though she didn't see Twilight's horn glowing. What she did see was Big Mac pause in his plowing to watch Twilight working. “She ain't gonna last long showing off like that.” Applejack muttered turning back to the other fields to keep them organized.” Caramel yer listing to far ta tha left! Go right a little. No YOUR right! Yer OTHER right!” Applejack's ears perked up at a loud noise. Turning back, her eyes traveled up the cliff face to witness the rather maddening sight of a small white rabbit suplexing a much much larger Moon Dog into the snow bank. A snow bank that started to shudder and slide at the impact. “AVALANCHE!!!” Applejack yelled before she was swept up in the rush of snow cascading down the cliff.