“I’m never eating any muffins that pony offers me *hurk* ever again.” Page quickly grabbed a basin being offered by Nurse Redheart before emptying her stomach for the fourth time that afternoon. “I will never look at any muffin for the rest of my life.”
“Sorry…” whined Pinkie Pie from her own gurney. “I didn’t mean to hand out those baked bads.”
“Sorry about the delay, Miss Page Turner,” apologized the doctor who came over to her gurney. He and one of the nurses began to push her towards an examination room. “We’ll have you up and at ‘em in no time!” She let out another painful groan as her stomach felt like it was trying to tear its way out of her body. “Uh, let’s get started on pumping your stomach.”
“Twilight Sparkle!” The mentioned Unicorn jolted in shock as the local author stormed up to her. It took a while, but she managed to track the mare down to Sweet Apple Acres. “I’ve got a bone to pick with your friend Applejack. Where is she?!”
She looked slightly ashamed as she let out a nervous chuckle. “Sorry, Page. She’s currently working herself to the bone and won’t let anypony help her.”
“That doesn’t excuse giving me food poisoning!” snapped the irate Unicorn. “Either do something about that pony or I’m going to the police for attempted poisoning.” That said, Page turned to leave and return to her store.
“Please don’t do that!” begged Twilight as she teleported in front of the leaving author. “She’s just a little stubborn about doing the applebucking by herself. She wasn’t trying to hurt anypony, I swear!”
Page lifted Twilight up with her magic and moved her to the side. “It’s poisoned muffins today, Twilight. But what’s next? If that pony doesn’t cut it out or get help, I will go to the authorities for this.” Done with the conversation, she stormed away from the farm. Stupid Earth Pony pride. Stupid apple farmer. Stupid food poisoning. Had to be closed almost all day. Celestia knows how many customers I lost today because of that mare. As she made her way back into Ponyville, she turned her thoughts to how stubborn Twilight had been in defending Applejack. More importantly, why the heck was Twilight so adamant to defend her? Is that what their friendship is like?
Friendship wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to her, as she had made friends with ponies all over Equestria from the number of times she had moved over the years. Of course, those friendships were all short lived and incredibly cautious as her primary concern had been making sure nopony found out who she was. Of course, the several aliases she’d had to use over the years didn’t help things. Ponyville was the most relaxed she had been considering it was the most rustic place she had lived in since leaving home. But… did she have real friends?
Page quickly shook her head to stop that train of thought. Knock it off, she told herself. You’re here to work, not worry about your social life. Besides, she knew she had at least one friend considering Pinkie Pie prided herself on being everypony’s friend. At the moment, however, her primary concern was getting back to her store and reopening after being in the hospital for most of the morning.
I’m half tempted to just skip going to the authorities and just deal Applejack myself, she thought angrily as she stormed back to Sweet Apple Acres. While launching Rainbow Dash into the library was a problem (one she only just found out about after this most recent incident), the stampede of bunnies tearing through town was another thing entirely. Sure, she wasn’t as affected as everypony else, it was still a problem brought about by the farm pony’s current trend of causing mayhem.
As she walked through the gate to the farm, she immediately made her way into the orchard, following the path of cleared trees. As she marched through the orchard, she quickly organized her list of grievances for yelling at the mare. Much to her confusion, the one clearing the trees wasn’t Applejack. Rather, it was Twilight and the rest of her friends. “Excuse me,” she called to the five mares. They quickly turned to look at her. “Can somepony please tell me why you five are doing this and Applejack is nowhere to be found?”
“Hello, darling. She’s currently laying down,” explained Rarity. “We finally managed to convince the poor thing she was working herself to the bone and was finally able to see reason and get the rest she so desperately needed.”
“More like she collapsed and we picked up the slack while she was brought home,” chimed in a raspy voice. A cyan Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail flew down with a bucket full of apples in her hooves. “So, we decided to lend a hoof and pick up the slack.” Setting her bucket down but not landing, she extended a hoof. “I’m Rainbow Dash: the best flier in all of Equestria.”
Rolling her eyes, Page shook the mare’s hoof. “Page Turner: Small time author and owner of the local book store.”
“Wait, you’re the pony who runs that place?” she asked. “I thought that was some boring shut-in of a Unicorn. If you run that place, what the heck are you doing out here?”
“First of all, I’ll have you know I actually get out quite a bit in my spare time since nopony can stay in their home or job indefinitely,” she explained while giving Rainbow a flat stare. “And second, I’m here because I was going to yell at Applejack if she was here for causing more problems.”
“Page was one of the ponies who got food poisoning the other day because of Applejack,” explained Twilight as she came over to join the conversation. “You… didn’t go to the authorities already, did you?” she asked nervously.
The red Unicorn shook her head. “Fortunately for you all, no. Apparently the mayor has all of them helping with taking any complaints or damage reports from all of those bunnies.” She looked around at the mostly cleared orchard. “However, now that I can see she’s finally stopped being so unbelievably stubborn, I think I’ll let it slide so long as you five keep her from doing something that stupid in the future.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this all under control!” the librarian declared with a smile on her face. “I’ll also make sure Applejack learns from this.”
“Good.” She turned and began to trot away from the mares. “I’m going home. Have a nice evening, girls. And don't forget to keep this from happening again.”
“BYE PAGE!” yelled Pinkie.
Another week had gone by for the author, and she was currently doing some much needed cleaning around her store. With all the mayhem that seemed to have been springing up around Ponyville lately, a bit of dust had begun to accumulate around her store. Currently, she was walking up and down the aisles with a feather duster, eliminating any and all spots of dust she found lying around. As she finished up the mystery section, there was a knocking on the door.
“You know, one of these days everypony will realize they don’t need to knock on the door to a freaking store,” she muttered under her breath. Setting down her feather duster on the sales counter, she went to the door and opened it up, thinking there was a delivery or something. Instead, there was absolutely nothing out there. “Stupid foals,” she muttered with a shake of the head. Closing the door, she picked up her feather duster once more before noticing a patch of dust on the end of the sale counter. “How did I miss you?” she asked.
Extending the duster with her magic, she went to brush it away with her duster only to instead see a streak of white paint on the counter where her duster brushed. “What in the name of Celestia?!” Her shock was interrupted when she heard laughter from two girls. Running to one of the open windows, she saw Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash running off with a small can of white paint while laughing to themselves. She wanted to be angry, but was well aware of the pink pony’s love of pranking everypony. So instead, she merely chuckled a little before tossing the paint-filled duster in the garbage.
After that little prank from the two mares, she resumed her cleaning with a dusting rag for another hour before deciding she was done cleaning. As she finished up with her task, she grunted it suddenly felt like there was a nail going through her brain. “Damn, not again.” She staggered over to her counter and tried getting her trusty bottle of pain killers. “They never get this bad.” Not even bothering with her magic on account of the pain, she practically tore the cap off before pouring a couple into her waiting hoof.
Quickly swallowing them, she let out another grunt as the pain only sharpened. Dropping the bottle in the process, she held her forelegs to her head as she tried to get the head-splitting pain to go away. She wasn’t sure if it was a delusion from the pain or herself, but she could almost hear a soft hissing as the pain seemed to reach its limit. She panted as the pain began to decrease much faster than the pills should account for. “This can’t be normal.” Once she recovered enough to be able to use her magic, she quickly grabbed a broom to clean up the mess her headache had caused.
I should really get looked at by a doctor, she thought to herself as she finished getting the mess cleaned up. Especially since they’re getting more common. It’s almost as bad as being brought to the clerics of Yak’Shek to commune with their God, Lord... She stopped her train of thoughts at the comparison she was about to make. “Where the heck did that idea come from?” As she tried to remember or figure out where the idea of clerics of some strange sounding place came from, she instead started thinking of an entire city lost to the sands of time.
As all this began working out in her mind, she sighed when she realized what she was thinking of. “Great… I just thought of my next book.” Shaking her head, she pulled out a notebook from under the counter. “Good thing I keep this on hoof in case I get ideas like this.” Sitting down behind the counter, she quickly began jotting down notes about the city of Yak’Shek and the cleric lords who ruled over it in the name of an Eldritch being they called their god. The notebook itself was well-used, and often saw use immediately after one of her death-headaches. Usually since they somehow got her thinking about new ideas for her books. As she began writing a few ideas about the city’s history, however, she stopped when she started writing the approximate location of where the city would have been. “Is there even anything in that area of Equestria?” She pondered the approximate geography but wasn’t certain. Deciding to solve this before moving forward with the writing process, she quickly put the notebook away before heading to the door.
Putting up a sign that she was on break, she quickly made her way to the Golden Oaks library. Along the way, she began to feel the pain killers from before kicking in as she felt a dull numbness began to settle on her. When she arrived at the giant tree, she quickly knocked on the door. Come on, Twilight, she thought to herself, hurry up and open the door.
“Hello?” The door open, revealing a soot-covered Twilight who looked like she just got caught in an explosion. “Oh, hey Page Turner. Need something?”
“I didn’t cause… that,” she gestured to the other Unicorn’s face, “did I?”
She giggled at the implication. “No, it’s just the result of a prank from Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. They swapped my ink with invisible ink and while I panicked my experiment blew up.”
Page Turner let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank Celestia.” She gently moved past the purple mare and into the library. “But to answer your question, you can help me. I’m doing some drafting for a new story of mine, and I was trying to remember the details of Equestrian geography. You still have the atlases of Equestria, right?” She was quickly scanning the shelves trying to remember where the map books were kept.
“Of course,” she replied cheerfully. She quickly went to a shelf on the left wall and pulled a heavy volume out of the middle shelf. “Atlas of Equestria by the Royal Canterlot Geographical Society, fifth edition.” She placed it on the table in the middle of the room for the other mare.
“Thank you, Twilight.” With a nod to the librarian, Page began flipping through until she could find the section of Equestria she was looking for. Alright, southern Equestria… page 30…
“So Page, I really have to thank you for suggesting those Hoofcraft books to me.”
“Uh huh,” she muttered as she flipped to the page she needed.
The purple Unicorn continued on, without acknowledging the non-answer. “It’s just so well-written. I thought it was going to be just another horror story after another, but the amount of depth in them is breath-taking.”
“Uh huh.”
“I only just finished reading Cries of the Ether and started Tales of the Void, but there’s so much lore wrapped up in those books!” she enthusiastically continued.
Page didn’t hear what came next as she stared at the map in front of her. While Equestria having a roughly hewn coastline was nothing unusual, the southwestern coast of the continent was a large cliff standing over the ocean. What startled her, however, was the notes and photographs of the coast itself. Not only did the book mention how divers occasionally found old artifacts at the bottom of the ocean, but the pictures of the cliff face itself showed the roughly hewn surface. What concerned her was the properly rendered coastline. Even with erosion taken into account, it still looked like something took a bite out of the coast line. Something that doesn’t belong in Equestria… she thought to herself.
“Um… Page? Are you okay? You look a little pale.” She realized Twilight had stopped her ramblings and was looking at her in concern. She probably was concerned about her staring at the map for so long.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine Twilight,” she replied after forcing a smile to her face. “Just… thinking about how I can work geography into my story. Heheh…” She really hoped her chuckle didn’t make the other Unicorn suspicious.
“Well… If you say so, I guess.” She seemed a little hesitant in her reply but wanted to give the other Unicorn the benefit of the doubt. “Anyways, about those books you suggested to me-”
“Sorry, Twilight. But I had better get going. I’ve got a bookstore to run and a draft to start up.” She quickly closed the atlas with a slam before moving to the door. “Thanks for letting me use that atlas.”
“Um… no problem… I guess.” She watched as the red mare left before looking at the atlas wondering what the other pony could have been looking at that got her bent out of shape.
Ok, how could I have possibly been thinking about that coast? I don’t study geography! As she made her way back to her shop, she was racking her brain trying to think of how that particular coast came up as a detail for her stories. It wasn’t like she studied geography since she was a foal. That’s it! That headache probably made me remember something from when I was in school! That had to be it… right?
Gotta admit, nothing distracts me from my worries like a Pinkie Pie Party. It had been a couple days since the problem headache, and Pinkie Pie had decided to through a party to welcome Rainbow Dash’s friend, a Griffon named Gilda, to Ponyville. Currently, Page was in a (relatively) quiet corner of Sugar Cube Corner enjoying a piece of cake and a glass of punch. Resting on the table next to her was a fresh notebook she was using for writing notes and drafting her newest book.
“Um… do you mind if I sit here?” came a soft voice. Looking up from her food, Page saw a soft yellow Pegasus with a long pink mane and tail with three butterflies as her Cutie Mark. “That is, if you don’t mind that I sit here. If you do, I can find somewhere else to sit.”
She waved off the concerns. “Don’t worry, it’s fine.” Giving a nod of gratitude, the mare sat down on the opposite side of the table. “I’m Page Turner, I run the local book store. I’ve seen you come in to get a couple of books on animals every so often, but I don’t believe we’ve ever actually met.”
“Oh, you’re right. I can’t believe I was so rude,” she softly muttered. “My name is Fluttershy.” She hesitantly extended a hoof towards the Unicorn.
“Nice to meet you, Fluttershy.” She gently shook the offered hoof. “You’re friends with Twilight and the others, right? I certainly see you spending time with them.”
“Oh yes,” she happily replied. “They’re all my very dear friends. The absolute best!” Realizing how excited she was getting, she blushed and looked almost ashamed of herself. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I was getting awfully worked up there.”
Page chuckled at the mare’s embarrassment. “It’s fine, Fluttershy.” The two mares heard a peal of laughter from the main proper of the bakery. “What the hay is happening over there?” The two got up from their seats and went to investigate the commotion. Once they made their way through the crowd, it was in time to watch Rainbow Dash and Gilda have a falling out before the Griffon stormed off. There was an awkward silence until Rainbow went to Pinkie Pie and apologized for the way she had apparently been acting.
As the group of six convened on the two mares, Page couldn’t help but smile at how close the six ponies were. A fashionista, a racer, a quiet Pegasus, a hyper active party machine, a farmer, and a librarian. Can’t say I’m not amazed those six are all friends. There’s almost nothing in common between all six of them, but I guess that’s friendship for you.
Once the six had reconciled over problems the Griffon’s presence had apparently caused, the party kicked back into full swing, and Page allowed herself to join in some of the dancing and games with all the other townsponies. It wasn’t until the next day when she realized something that happened during all of the merrymaking.
Her notebook was gone.