//------------------------------//
// Rippling Omens 
// Story: Operation: APPLECRACK 
// by Redd Herring 
//------------------------------//

	A dimly lit room, the flickering of candles. Charts and maps and graphs, strange crystals and metals and reagents. Someone is hard at work here. Arcane tomes are stacked in towers and strewn around the small workshop. Beads of sweat roll down the young unicorn's face; she has been working here for some time. She stopped keeping track of the hours long ago, and her tea, hardly touched, has long gone cold. A serious expression is painted on her face as she dangles a faceted and fragmented green crystal over the map. Round and round and round it spins, tracing a wide circle over the ancient rendering of the land of Equestria, before the radius begins to shrink and it eventually settles over a specific point, drawn there not by gravity but by some other force. The location is plain to see, far away but not far enough for comfort. As the unicorn studies the map and the crystal that dangles over it, a red glow manifests within. The young mage stares at it in bafflement as the glow intensifies and a sound akin to a kettle on boil can be heard. The crystal vibrates, the sound and the light rising to a crescendo, before it finally shatters with an alarming pop, causing the spellcaster to flinch as shards fly across the room. She stares at the oddly-shaped scorch mark on the map, a look of horror beginning to dawn on her face, and sends a hanging globe swinging out of control as she darts out of the room and up the stairs, leaving curls of smoke to writhe and hover in the air above the table as the arcane instruments in the room whistle and hum.


*	*	*


Like most days in Ponyville, today was beautifully clear and sunny. The birds were chirping and the leaves were rustling gently in the wind as Applejack patrolled her orchard, inspecting the apples for ripeness and infection. She sung a merry tune to herself as she worked, her experienced eyes easily scanning over the shiny fruits and spotting any that needed to be removed. One bad apple ruins the whole barrel, after all. It was still May, so the apples were not quite ready to be bashed down from their stations up in the majestic trees, but the orchard was very important to the markets of Ponyville and there were bound to be many large orders come harvesting time, so everything had to be perfect. Being an earth pony, it would be difficult to carry around and write on a sheet of paper or some such thing, but Applejack had been doing this for so long that the quantities were easily added up in her mind. She was just rounding the corner and making her way down the next row of trees when a familiar purple shape emerged toward her from the treeline.
"Well howdy there Twilight! Didn't see you lurkin' around in the trees there. Hey, you doin' alright? You ain't lookin' so good."
Indeed, everything about the young unicorn's manners suggested a feeling of concern, from the bags under her eyes to the way she kept looking around as though expecting something to jump out at her.
"I'm okay, Applejack. But something's gone terribly wrong. I think everyone may be in danger."
Now it was the earth pony's turn to be concerned.
"Why? Is it another dragon or somethin'? It has to be important if yer lookin' this under the weather. Why don't we go on into the house and I'll fix you up some pie?"
"I don't have time for that. Equestria is in grave danger... I was just performing my daily tests of the atmospheric Aura and it quickly became clear that something wasn't right. My instruments kept getting hit by periodic waves of Myr, both positive and negative, as if it was being pushed out by something."
"Twilight, I'm gonna have to stop you right there and say that I have no idea what you're goin' on about. What's this mirror stuff?"
"Myr. The manifestation of the will and emotions of sentient beings."
"...You lost me again."
Twilight sighed tiredly.
"It's magic. There's a great deal of magic inherent in the very air of Equestria, and for some reason it's being disturbed. On a huge scale. It's like... it's like someone dropped a big ball into a pool, and the waves are rippling out. Except the water's not going back where it's supposed to."
"Shucks, Twilight, you know I don't know nothin' about magic. I think I kinda get you, though. So what does that mean for us?"
"I don't know yet, but without the proper balance of Myr, terrible things will start happening to the environment. Who knows what would happen if there was no Myr at all in a large area? Too much of any one kind of Myr is bad news, too. And standard Myr wasn't the only thing I was getting. I was picking up something... else... something strange, almost... blocky. No charge at all."
"Again with the mumbo-jumbo."
"Look, anyway, I tried scrying to find out what was going on, and... something is definitely up. The scrying crystal exploded."
"Not that I'm tryin' to shut you up or anything, but why are you talkin' to me about this? Shouldn't you be writin' the Princess or somethin'? I don't know how much help I can be here."
"That's the thing... I wrote to her, but she's not answering. I think she's out on some official function today. But we might not have enough time to wait for her return... this is highly unnatural."
"That still doesn't explain why you came to me, of all ponies."
Twilight sighed again.
"I don't know, Applejack. I don't know who to turn to or what to do. This is all too much for me."
"Well, you know, there IS one other pony in town who I reckon knows a thing or two about magic... if you're willin' to put up with her."
"Who..."
Realization dawned on her.
"Wait, you couldn't possibly be talking about HER, could you? She's in town?"
"Yyyep."
"Oh, geez. I don't know if I can deal with her."
"Look, if it's really important, you should just put aside yer differences and work together. That's what we're all about, right?"
"...I guess so... I'll give it a shot, anyway."
"There ain't been a single problem we couldn't solve yet, and we sure as sunshine ain't gonna give up now. Am I right?"
"...Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'll give it my best try."
"That's the spirit! And when this is all over you can come on over to my place for a bit of apple pie. Some of the apples came down early, y'see, and we're havin' us somethin' of a picnic. It's gonna be good!"
"Yes, yes, I'll keep that in mind... I am really not looking forward to this..."
Their conversation concluded, the unicorn dejectedly slumped off in the direction of town, with the down-to-earth pony staring off bemusedly after her.
"That pony really works herself way too hard."
With that ironic remark, Applejack went back to checking her orchards, singing that same merry tune.