Back in the world of Canterlot High….
Inside her house, Bon Bon watched as Lyra helplessly forced corned beef into her mouth with her hands, ripping off the next packet or tearing open the next can whenever she spat her bite out. Precious food was wasted down the garbage bin.
As they sat at the table in the dining room, Lyra suffering and going through the lure of vomiting every half minute at the repulsive rancor of beef, even accidentally cutting her finger with the can opener—
“Enough!” Bon Bon shouted, gripping Lyra’s wrist before it could get another can of corned beef. “This needs to stop!”
“What?!” Lyra screamed, eyes widened at this supposed mistrust. “But...but I can’t let all this food rot! It needs to go somewhere and it’s going to my stomach, whatever it takes!”
“Face it, Lyra,” Bon Bon said, pushing the rest of the unopened packs and cans out of her reach; Lyra reached out for them as she mouthed her frustration. “You can’t eat meat.” Bon Bon pointed at herself. “I can’t eat meat. Just about everyone in Canterlot’s not eating meat until we all get well from this mystery sickness.”
Lyra sniffed, rubbing her nose. “B-But...what if this is some kind of pandemic?” She placed her open palms on the table. “A pandemic that’s turning all of us into leaf-eating savages?!”
Bon Bon held her snicker in at the thought of the phrase “leaf-eating savages”.
Lyra pounded her fists on the table, holding on to Bon Bon’s arm as if she’s about to faint. “Please, Bon Bon! Give me this one and only chance to brute force my way into getting better!”
Bon Bon put Lyra’s arm down on the table. “No. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself like this.”
“But, wh-what if it—“
“It won’t work,” Bon Bon answered. “It’ll aggravate your cold, and you’ll be better off hospitalized if you insist on your way!”
And then, Lyra turned to the cans of corned meat at the far end of the table, inviting her with their attractive displays, their nutritious value….
She cried on the table, covering her face with her arm. Then, raising her head to rest it on a hand: “I don’t wanna be a leaf-eating savage!”
Bon Bon rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Watch your words. Some vegetarians won’t like being called ‘leaf-eating savages’.”
Lyra plugged one ear with another hand, sobbing away at the table.
As Bon Bon walked up a road in downtown, she noticed the day was a bit shinier. She looked at the sky; sure, it was later in the morning, but the sun was still the same old sun from yesterday and the day before that.
Then, she saw a few glitters in the distance.
“Agh!”
She shielded her eyes from the glare.
Raised her arm.
Bon Bon saw that it was just a romantic couple’s necklaces, those two on a date. They were probably speaking sweet nothings that meant something somehow, if their locked gazes meant anything.
She scratched her head. “Gems can’t be that shiny…unless it’s the kind you use to blind attackers.” She smiled, rubbing her fingers on one hand.
“What?!” Bon Bon shouted in the supermarket, facing a plump jeweler with a great white beard and even greater white eyebrows as he stood behind the counter. “What do you mean you’ve never sold a single one yet?!”
“That’s just it, miss,” Caboche said in a gravelly voice, taking a few cabbages from the vegetable display behind him to juggle with. “I don’t know how those fancy gemmers got a hold of my patent, but those ‘Blinding Rings’ are mine! I made it up!”
She covered her eyes from the glare of his finger’s rings. “You’re sure you’re the first one who thought of it? Maybe someone else got there—”
“Oh, I’m sure!” he shouted, putting on a glove as if ready to fight the people who ruined his fortune before it even appeared. “I hired three lawyers in case anyone wanted to say otherwise, and so far, nobody’s said anything!”
Bon Bon wanted to raise a point about whether the average person would go against three lawyers, but she declined.
Then, she noticed Wallflower to her left, buying a couple seed packs.
“Where it stands,” Caboche went on, putting an elbow on his empty booth, “if I start selling them now, they’ll think I’m the imitator!” He shoved the imaginary for-sale rings away from his booth. “If anything, once I’m on their radar, they’ll either negotiate a deal with me to sell the patent off to them for big money or choke me out of the market if I keep resisting...and they’ll kick me out with my own creation, no less!”
Bon Bon sighed, seeing the man grumble and grouse about. “Then again, I’m just a high school student. I’ll...I’ll post your predicament on MyStable, see what I can do. OK?”
“I did that just a half hour ago!” he said, perking up. Then, pointing in the jewelry shop’s direction: “They’re onto me, but when they get to me, I’ll show them a thing or two! They think they can pay their way to success!” He threw his glove off. “I’ll take them down one-on-one and see how they like a taste of my knuckle sandwich!”
“Calm down there, big guy!” Bon Bon said, taking a few steps back, ready to defend herself with both arms. “What if it’s just an honest mistake?”
Caboche then slumped his shoulders, putting his cabbages back to the display. “Let’s see. I’ve already exhausted all legal options except actually talking to them—but...those fools...” and made two fists, “they’re sneaky!”
Bon Bon put on a smile for him. “Let’s see, indeed.”
She walked out of his sight and went up to Wallflower who was busy putting some pumpkin seed bags and snacks into her shopping cart.
“Oh!” Wallflower turned to notice her. “I didn’t know you were there.”
Bon Bon smiled. “So...saw the big ‘No Buy’ sign over there?”
Wallflower looked behind her and saw the meat section emptied and with lights out. A huge No Buy sign was smeared on the wall above it. “It’s sad. All those farmers and their families won’t be getting their money’s worth now.”
“Big losses,” Bon Bon remarked as she took a few vegetables of her own and put in her paper bag: lettuce, cornflower, spinach, turnips, and sorrel. Then, she noticed the white package in Wallflower’s cart. “Uh, what’s that?”
Wallflower smiled as she picked it up, turning it around so Bon Bon could see everything on it. “It’s the protein mix! Protein Pick-me-up!”
Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “So, what? Is it...trail mix?”
“Kinda.” She blushed, holding it up like a bedtime doll. “It’s like those crunchy peanut clusters...or something—except they’re as small as an actual peanut, so it’s a...kind of like a melt-in-your-mouth thing…?”
“Oh.” Bon Bon looked at it. “Just curious: Did you try eating meat today?”
Wallflower made a weak laugh as she put the protein mix back in her cart. “Tasted some beef jerky. Did not like it at all, but I was able to swallow it.”
“You’re better than Lyra,” Bon Bon said. She sighed, crossing her arms and tapping her foot out of pity. “Poor thing; she couldn’t even get a nibble down her throat! It’s as if she suddenly can’t eat meat against her will!”
Wallflower sighed as well, holding her arm and a part of her sweater’s sleeve. “Juniper, too.”
Bon Bon stepped closer. In a hushed voice: “What happened?”
“Tried to eat meatloaf after we left Sweet Snacks.” She closed her eyes and turned away for a bit. “Good thing she likes those peanut butter bars over everything; otherwise….”
Bon Bon did not want to hear the rest of it as she put one last bundle of sorrel into her bag. “Wanna go around with me while I get...uh, edible food?”
Wallflower giggled and, true to her name, blushed again. “Why not? It’s not like I have much to do here.”
With Wallflower’s groceries done, she parted ways with Bon Bon outside the supermarket.
It was a rather uneventful trip back to Juniper’s house which was a rather tall and lean two-story house, something that would not be out of place in a jam-packed borough like Bronclyn.
She knocked on the door.
“Coming!” she could hear from inside. Fast footfalls.
Then, the door opened, revealing a smiling Juniper wearing her work hat which looked like a bunch of film reels smashed together.
“Got the pumpkin seeds you asked,” Wallflower said, faintly smiling. “Also, some other seeds which aren’t for eating.”
Juniper gestured her inside with a spinning hand. “Come on in!”
And Wallflower went inside.
As was standard for a house like Juniper’s, the living room and the kitchen and the dining room and the lounge and the study were all on the same floor, separated only by the different furniture that signified which area was which. The television was switched on and was currently showing the movie Checkmate.
The scene? A man with gelled hair was floating along the river on a raft. A dog which was not his was wagging his tail as the man traveled through the forest, searching for his love from years ago.
“I can’t believe my uncle still lends me these early copies!” Juniper said, still smiling. Holding up a DVD case of the movie in question: “This one won’t hit theaters until next week!”
Wallflower nodded and sat down on the sofa, Juniper going next. “I-I’ve never heard of it before. Does that mean he doesn’t have high hopes for it?”
“After the Daring Do movie,” Juniper said but not without giggling at herself, “he wanted to take it slow by pursuing an indie film he wanted to make since he got in the industry. He told me that the story for it was never complete until about two years ago, and that’s when he greenlit everything else.”
Wallflower blinked at that, having put down her paper bag. “Wow. That’s some dedication...right?”
“Right you are!”
Wallflower then opened the bag of pumpkin seeds and let its mouth-watering scent permeate the house.
“Mmm! It must be good!”
Wallflower nodded as she picked up a handful of them. “Have you ever tried this at a movie night before?”
Juniper grabbed some and ate them. After a swallow: “Actually, no, but everything must have a first, right?”
“...right.”
The two girls chowed down on their pumpkin seeds and their pumpkin-flavored potato chips and their pumpkin-spiced seaweed as they watched the movie unfold.
Over the next hour, the story progressed. The journeyman got out of the forest, having found nothing and no one, most especially his love. A time skip happened which spanned several years, and the man, now reaching his forties, began his nomadic wandering across the country, which in itself spanned more than two decades. His roaming took him to Canterlot City, Manehattan, Seaddle, Hooveston, San Palomino Desert, Puerto Caballo, the Gallopinghost Islands, the Frozen North, Dodge Junction, Bone Dry Desert, Forgotten Hills….
By the end of it all, he was in his sixties, clearly wearing a wig out of fear of being bald. He had quit his quest to find his love, having resolved to live out the rest of his days in some old, isolated village in the heart of the nation.
When he arrived, the town’s local clown welcomed him with a song, complete with her home-made balloons and all, though the elderly man kept up his frown aged after an eon of disappointment and dashed dreams.
“I’ve never seen you before!” the clown asked.
“Kid,” the man said in his gruff voice, “you’re smarter than you look.”
Then, Wallflower, evidently a bit bored by the movie’s slow pace, drifted her eyes towards the flower pots beside the screen.
She gasped, surprised enough to knock Juniper’s remote out of her hand and onto the floor.
“Hey!” Juniper shouted, picking up the remote. “What gives?”
Wallflower opened and closed her mouth fast like a fish. “I-Is that...a-are those mine?!”
Juniper paused the movie while the clown was carrying a big check mark. “Of course, they are! Don’t you remember buying the seeds from the florist last night?”
Wallflower took no heed of her friend’s word and held up one of the pots which had a few little dandelions on it. “Yes...but...did you misplace them? Do you have flower pots lying around I somehow missed?”
“No,” was Juniper’s reply as she stood up looking worried at her friend. “What’s the matter?”
“Don’t you remember?!” Wallflower yelled, her voice betraying fear. “They were seeds yesterday! I remember planting the seeds in the pot! Now? They’re weeks old, and it’s only been a day!”
Juniper scratched her chin. “That’s odd. Did you get...fake flowers?”
“Why?!”
“Hey, I’m coming up short!” Juniper raised her shoulders and her hands in surrender. “You’re the gardening genius here!” Groaning, “Is it like one of those flytraps or something?”
“Flytraps don’t grow overnight!” Wallflower shouted.
Juniper fell back to the sofa, picking the remote back up, looking at her and then at the dandelions. “OK, what about we stop for a minute and try to think this through? Maybe you or I changed the pots around...or something.”
“There were no dandelions in your house until I bought some,” Wallflower said, walking up to her and looking down on Juniper. “I do my best to remember everything about this house’s plants and this is the first time I’ve seen a dandelion bloom here!”
Juniper gulped. “O...K?”
Then, her phone rang.
She picked it up, Wallflower watching her as she sat down. “Hello?”
“Dear? This is Canter Zoom.”
“We are missing a couple spotlights,” Canter said, wearing his signature vest and his signature glasses as he and a couple others were ransacking the set in the middle of downtown, holding up his phone. A couple of cars were detoured around the set as the actors practiced their lines to make the best use of the time.
“But, uncle!” Juniper’s voice shrilled through. “You think I could carry just one of those heavy things on my own?”
“Look, honey,” Canter continued, turning his head away from most of the staff opening and closing boxes in vain. “Maybe I misplaced them and they’re lying somewhere in the back.”
“There’s nothing in the closets! I checked it about a dozen times when I was thinking about what to wear tonight!”
“Maybe it’s under the sink!” Canter suggested, though he then gritted his teeth for being so desperate. “This rooftop scene needs special lighting!”
“They’re not here,” was Juniper’s firm reply.
“Ugh.” He looked around, seeing both regulars and volunteers still searching around, arguments getting heated. “Fine. I don’t know how we’ll wrap this one up before the holidays, but, as they say, ‘Improvise!’ Just...just call me if anything strange pops up, alright?” Then, one quick goodbye later, he hung up.
And was promptly bumped into by Big Mac, carrying a bushel of apples which then fell onto the floor.
Canter moaned, rubbing his head as Big Mac pulled him up. “What’s going on?” the director asked, throwing his hands up and down. “Getting distracted again?”
Big Mac nodded, refusing to say anything on the matter.
As a farmer, Big Mac did not get much out of Sundays—or weekends, for that matter. For him, the cows needed milking, the chickens needed tending to, the apple trees needed watering, and the horses needed caring.
When his volunteering work for the day was done and the missing spotlights were still not found, he drove his pick-up truck back to the Apple family house. After giving Granny Smith and Apple Bloom a hug, the first thing he did was go to the wide open pasture to see the horses grazing there.
Two horses stood around, one flicking its tail. The other was munching on some grass.
It was quite a windy day, the grass and trees swaying about. Big Mac inhaled the fresh air that only a picturesque landscape such as this could give off.
Next stop was the new small stable behind the garage, containing room for up to three horses with its three stalls. One of its stalls was occupied by the last horse feeding on her hay.
Big Mac went inside the stable, carrying a bucket of hay and another bucket of grain. He poured the food to the ground and saw the horse nicker as she finally registered the farmer inside.
With that little task done, he did some informal grooming for the mare. He combed her clean from dirt, checked her hooves for more dirt, and combed her mane a second time.
Done with the horse, he turned around—
Noticed the hay and the grain leftover on the ground.
Drawing him.
“Big Mac!” Apple Bloom called, shouting right outside the barn-like garage. “Big Mac!”
“Big Mac!” Scootaloo shouted beside her, hollering with her hands cupping her mouth. “Big McIntosh! Yoo-hoo!”
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sighed, putting their brooms and plastic bags aside.
“Where could Big Mac be?” Apple Bloom asked as they went around the barn, scratching her head and fixing the bow on her hair. “He’s not in the garage, he’s not in the backyard, he’s not in the house—“
“Have you tried checking the stable?” Scootaloo asked back, pointing at the structure as it came into sight. “It’s the only place we haven’t looked.”
Apple Bloom blushed and covered her laughing mouth. “Eh-heh...must’ve slipped my mind!”
They reached the stable, went through the first two stalls but found not a trace of him nor of any horse. They reached the third and last one, seeing the horse resting there and—
“Big Mac?!” both girls screamed together, eyes wide. “You’re eating hay?!”
And Big Mac, mouth full of hay, looked down and saw what he was eating. He swallowed, gulped it down, and grinned, teeth somewhat stained. “Uh, e-eeyup…?”
Apple Bloom sighed and smacked herself on the forehead. “Applejack knew there was somethin’ fishy with those gourmet brands Sweetie bought us!” Turning to Scootaloo: “Now my brother’s eatin’ like a horse!”
Scootaloo raised a brow and smirked. “Must be tasty!”
“Are ya’ crazy?!” Apple Bloom shrieked, flailing her arms about.
“Didn’t Miss Cheerilee say that we’re capable of digesting hay?” Scootaloo shot back.
“That’s not permission to eat hay!” Apple Bloom yelled, flailing her arms again. Turning to Big Mac and pulling him up, “Come on, big brother! Let’s get out of here before Granny sees you like this!”
Scootaloo nodded as they left the stall with the brother in tow.
Walking their way around the garage, Apple Bloom asked, “What’s goin’ on, Big Mac?”
He replied with a gulp and a glance away.
“First, Sweetie texts me ‘bout how you’re hallucinatin’ unicorns an’ now you’re eating hay? Inside a stable? For horses?!”
“You could say he’s going for CHS team spirit!” Scootaloo joked.
“Scootaloo, this is serious!” Apple Bloom said, simmering down just a teeny bit. “He’s going to attend tomrrow’s openin’ ceremonies! What if he starts eatin’ flowers?! It’d be totally embarassin’!”
Big Mac nodded, regaining some composure. “Eeyup!”
Then, the girls picked up their brooms they left by the sidewalk, Big Mac standing by the grass. Apple Bloom prodded his shirt with her broom and said in a troubled tone, “Promise us you won’t go eatin’ hay again, alright?”
Big Mac scratched his head in return. “E-Eeyup!”
Triumphant with his resolve to never eat hay again, he looked at the street.
Staring there.
His triumphant, resolute smile gone.
Seeing another unicorn waving at him on the other side.
“Big Mac!”
Snapped out of it.
“There ya’ go again!” Apple Bloom said, sounding less angry and more concerned. “Is it another one of them unicorns in yer’ mind?”
“Uh...ah,...e-ee—“
Apple Bloom looked across the street. She made Scootaloo turn her head across the street. “This is gettin’ out of hand. Can’t eat the steak Granny prepared this mornin’, and now he’s seein’ imaginary ponies while eatin’ hay!”
Scootaloo scratched her chin. “Strange cold, huh?”
“But no one else’s been doin’ that!” Apple Bloom said. “I’m not eatin’ hay, that’s for sure! The only thing they’re gettin’ is the whole ‘no-meat’ thing!”
“Unless they’re too embarrassed to tell us!” Scootaloo suggested, pointing at her with a wink.
Apple Bloom crossed her arms. “Ya’ think this whole city can keep a thousand secrets?”
Scootaloo blushed. “Maybe…?”
Apple Bloom kept staring at her with that unimpressed stare.
“I’ll...just check on Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo said sheepishly, picking up her phone to do that.
Whatever message Scootaloo had for Sweetie Belle was ignored since she was sweeping the streets clean from garbage, putting the biodegradables in the biodegradable bins and what not, all while wearing a badge that read, Happily Serving the Community! As she cleaned her way through the street, she saw Sunset’s house and sighed. “How did we get into this mess?”
She saw a couple of people leave Sweet Shoppe from a distance. She rubbed her eyes, noticing a bigger amount of green there then usual, mostly in the food.
“W-Wait...is that green spaghetti?”
“Out of the way!”
She whirled her head and saw, across the street, the Shadowbolts carrying an unconscious Sunny Flare out of a dark and bleak comedy club.
Sweetie checked the pulse on her wrist. “This is not good.”
“Ugh….”
Sunny Flare slowly opened her eyes, attacked by glaring white hospital lights.
“Is she OK?” she heard Sour’s voice ask.
“Sh!” That was Indigo. “She’s coming through!”
Flare blinked, then groaned as she rubbed her head, feeling the light as the pain quickly receded to be replaced by the acerbic smell of clinics. Then, she shot up, sat up on bed. “H-Huh?! What happened? Why am I here? Is everyone alright?!”
“You fainted,” came the voice of Principal Cadance as she entered into her vision; the other Shadowbolts sat back down on their chairs, all watching her in silence. Walking to the side of her head, “The doctor told us that he doesn’t know why it happened. From your previous check-ups, you were in tip-top shape and you certainly had no problem being in dark places before, especially with our field trip still in recent memory.” With a hand on her long pink hair, “With that, there’s no precedent for your darkness-induced fainting.”
Flare held up her hands in shock, finally seeing her bed. “Hold on...I fainted because it was dark?!”
Cadance nodded, lips tight. “It’s peculiar. It must have something to do with your eyes—“
“But my vision’s perfectly fine!” Flare protested.
“—or it must have something to do with the lighting of the comedy club,” Cadance said. “However, if that’s the case, then you shouldn’t have been the only one to faint.”
Flare slowed her breathing down, thinking through what she could remember—the announcer stepped onto the stage, Maud would be the first one to make people laugh, then the lights dimmed—
“What about we try again?” Indigo said and she flipped the light switch, plunging the whole room into darkness
“Ow!” Flare shouted. “Are you trying to burn me?!”
“OK, OK!”
Then, the lights turned back on.
Flare then sighed, rubbing her head and smiling a bit, the pain quickly receding again. “Much better….”
Cadance arched a brow and took a step back. “Further confirmation that lack of light must’ve had something to do with it.”
Flare rested her head on a raised hand. “First, this strange cold sweeps Canterlot, and now I faint when there’s no light.” She threw her hands down to the bed. “What happens when it’s nighttime? Will I go comatose?”
“Hopefully it’s just a freak accident,” Cadance assured or at least tried to.
“We all hope she’s right,” Lemon said, facing Flare.
With Sunny Flare cleared out of the hospital, the Shadowbolts went back to their normal selves as they trudged through town, avoiding the comedy club at the request of Cadance. They decided to go to the mall to see whatever they could there. Surely, with the nearly infinite amount of things to do in a mall, they could not go bored, right?
What they did not notice as they went past the entrance was Flare’s sun-shaped hair clip glowing for a few seconds.