I lay on the couch with my dad’s journal opened up. I slept two hours after the talk with Twilight, but I couldn’t get back to sleep after I woke up. I turn the page as I hear the birds chirping outside. I have been filled with a mixture of emotions. Sadness, joy, maybe a bit of grief. The page I’m staring at is entitled Féileacán Cúthail. It means the Shy Butterfly.
"I guess there is no good translation of Fluttershy," I think to myself. "But why write in Irish Celtic if he knew English?" I look underneath the title to see a very crude drawing of Fluttershy. Her hair was light pink with her fur light yellow. My eyes lead me to her flank, where I see a single butterfly.
“Was that on her flank?” I think as I sit up. So many questions have been running through my head all night it's hard to keep them all straight. The main question is why my dad had almost perfect, yet very bad, drawings of Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. I hear the quiet creek of the wooden stairs. I look up from the book to see Fluttershy gingerly walking down the stairs. She looks over at me and smiles softly.
“Good morning,” She says in a whisper as she walks over to the kitchen. I watch her walk into the kitchen as I close my book. I unzip my bag and place the book into it. I stand up and slowly walk over to the kitchen. Fluttershy gathers different kinds of fruits and vegetables from her cabinets.
“Do you have any bread?” I ask, turning to look at her. She looks up at me with a small smile and nods. She walks over to the cabinet in the corner and opens it. She grabs a loaf of bread with her mouth and places it on the counter. “Thanks,” I pause as I grab a slice of bread out of the loaf. “Do you mind if I take some of the vegetables?”
“Use what you like, I don’t mind,” Fluttershy says, putting some carrots into a bowl and placing it on the ground outside of the kitchen. I grab some lettuce and carrots, placing the lettuce on the sandwich as Fluttershy walks back to me.
“Do you happen to have a knife?” I ask, placing the carrot down on the counter.
“Cabinet to your right,” Fluttershy points to the Cabinet near my right leg. I open it up to see a shelf full of different kinds of silverware made for ponies. I grab a knife, the black handle is bent so a horse could grab it better. I close the cabinet and start cutting the carrots into smaller slices, placing the cut carrots onto my sandwich. Once I am done cutting I place the knife into the sink. The sink I notice has no tap for water to come in. “They must have to hall it in from a pump,” I think to myself as I walk past Fluttershy and Angel bunny glaring at me while eating from the bowl.
I sit down on to the soft couch and start eating my sandwich. Fluttershy soon joins me after feeding the animals inside her house. She sits in the other chair next to me. She bights into her own sandwich. The center of the two bread slices is filled with lettuce, tomato, and I think dandelions.
We sit in silence as we eat our breakfast. I hear a group of birds start chirping and pecking on the glass. I look behind me to see a bluebird and two red birds looking over at Fluttershy angrily as they peck the glass some more.
“It’s feeding time for the birds,” Fluttershy says more to herself than to me as she hops off the chair taking the last bite of her sandwich. I finish mine as I watch her walk outside the cottage.
I unzip my bag and pull out the notebook I was looking at earlier. I flip open to a random page. This one depicts a blue pegasus with a rainbow main and a rainbow Lightning bolt symbol on her flank. The drawing is entitled, Fleasc tuar ceatha, roughly translated into Rainbow Dash. I sit there looking through the book with more information on the world than I would ever need.
“How long was my dad here?” I think to myself as a wooden knock rings out from the door. I close the book and place it back into my bag as Twilight walks in. She looks over at me and smiles.
“Good morning Brogan, how was your sleep?” She asks, slowly walking over to me as I zip my bag up.
“It was good, thanks,” She nods and looks around.
“Where is Fluttershy?”
“She’s out feeding the birds,” I responded. “Why do you ask?”
“I wanted to talk to her about something this morning before we left but it’s fine,” Twilight says, turning back to face me.
“So, where are we starting off first?” I ask, standing up and strapping the bag to my back.
“I was thinking of going to my friend Applejack's home to start off the day,” Twilight says, walking towards the door as I follow behind. “She lives on the outskirts of Ponyville,” I close the door behind us as we walk out of the small cottage.
“She’s the one that lives on a farm right?” I ask as I try and remember the events of last night. Twilight nods, confirming my suspicion as she pulls out a scroll. She unravels the scroll and starts reading it. The scroll was only two feet this time instead of the monstrous list she had last night.
“After you meet Applejack we'll try and find Rainbow Dash, then go to Sugar Cube Corner for lunch and meet Pinkie Pie. Finally, we’ll go and meet Rarity at the boutique,” I perk up as I recognize the name Rainbow Dash.
“Question, is Rainbow Dash the one who lives in a cloud house?” I ask, remembering the description next to her picture in the book. Twilight stops abruptly and looks at me in shock. I stop and turn to her, as I tilt my head in confusion.
“How did you know that?!” Twilight asked, slightly freaked out. “We didn’t tell you that?”
I sigh and confess, “I stayed up most of the night reading my dad's notebook about you ponies. I got curious and started reading other entries, Rainbow Dash was one of the,” Twilights face turns from freaked out to neutral. She sighs and continues walking. I follow behind her by a few feet.
“Next time tell me you read it in a book before scarring me like that,” Twilight explains, looking back at me. “My first thought was that you were a changeling, but you're not,” Twilight laughs awkwardly. “You're not right?” She asks, slightly scared.
“Those awful creatures?” I say, slightly offended. “Of course not, they literally steal children,” Now Twilight looks scared and confused. I’m confused at her reaction, then realize there was a miscommunication. “Oh, Irish and Scottish people believe in mythological creatures like a changeling,” I start to explain as the expression on her face softens. “They believe changelings steal their kids and replace them with their own that look exactly alike to their kid because they can’t raise their own child,”
“That just sounds sad,” Twilight says as I try to keep up with her pace.
“Dam, she’s fast,” I think to myself. “Well, I did leave out a lot of the more..." I pause, hesitating for a second. "Gruesome bits, but it’s the gist,” I say, shrugging. I stop as I smell the scent of fresh-squeezed apples in the air. Twilight stops and looks back at me as I look around us. We were walking into the middle of an apple farm. There were apple trees as far as the eye could see. I look around amazed at the beauty of the scenery. I stand there stunted, I’ve never seen any apple farm like this before, every tree was blossoming with bright colors of red and green.
“Brogan, you ok?” Twilight asks concerningly, walking over to me. I turn to her with a big goofy smile on my face.
“This place is amazing,” I say. “No, amazing doesn't express my thoughts very well,” I try hard to think of a word that explains all the emotions I’m feeling.
“Wayul, Howdy Twilight,” a southern accent graces my ears.”So is this the thing yawl wuz talkin' bout?” I look towards the voice to see an orange earth pony about a foot shorter than Twilight. She had a stetson cowboy hat with a red bandana around her neck. Her eyes were emerald green with a smile plastered onto her face.
“Oh! Applejack, good we were coming to see you,” Twilight says, turning to face her friend. “Applejack, meet Brogan eh...”
“Even, Brogan Even,” I say, extending my hand out. She places her hoof in my hand and I give her a firm handshake. Her fur was soft but much rougher than any of the others I have touched.
“Happy tuh meet yawl Brogan,” Applejack responds as I let go of her hoof. She places it back down and turns to face Twilight. “Ah hope yawl don't mind Twilight, but I have tuh go tuh town tuh run an arena,”
“It’s ok, I need to show him around Ponyville, Is it ok if I give him a tour of the farm?” Twilight asks.
“It’s midy find with me,” She then turns back to face me with a smile. “I’ll see yawl around right?” I smile back at her and nod my head yes. “Good, I’ll see yawl later,” with that last remark she starts walking away from us back the way we came. I give a quick glance at her rump to see three bright red apples.
“Watch where your eyes are wondering there buddy,” Twilight warrens me sternly as I turn back to face her. I look at her slightly confused. “You were looking at her rump, any closer and you'd be looking at something else,” My face must have turned bright red like an apple because Twilight’s small smile turned into slight worry.
“Ok, I’ll remember that for next time I check out yall's butt marks,” I say as I walk past her. She follows me and chuckles.
“They are called cutie marks,” I roll my eyes at her.
“Of course they are,” I think as we walk up to a big arching sign leading to a farm house and a barn. The white arch is decorated with colorful apples along the top of it.
“Here it is, the apple family farm,” Twilight says as we walk under the wooden arch. I look to the big red wooden bairn to see a group of three little fillies playing near it. They had a bunch of wood and string. I think they were trying to make a tripod.
“What do we have here Twilight?” a deep voice asks. I turn to see a big red stallion standing a few feet away from us. He was the same height as Twilight with pure muscle alone. He has orange messy hair and a hay strand in his mouth. His face was very neutral as he looked at me.
“Big Mac, meet Brogan Even,” Twilight says, introducing me.
“Hello,” I say, extending my hand out. He looks at it and then looks back up at me. His face shows no emotion other than null. Then out of nowhere a small smile creeps onto his face as he places his hoof in the palm of my hand harder than normal. I wince in pain as I grasp his hoof. I give it a firm handshake and give him my own smile.
“Nice to see another male,” His voice falters for a second before continuing. “Even if it’s a tall hairless ape,”
I laugh slightly as I let go of his hoof. He looks at me and lets out a small chuckle. “Not an ape,” I corrected him. “But close enough,”
“Hey, Big Mac, You know this farm better than me,” Twilight interrupts. “Could you show him around the place? You would be better at explaining some things than I would,” Twilight keeps glancing behind me. I turn around to see nothing behind me.
“I’d be happy to,” Big Mac replies as He turns around and starts slowly walking towards the big red wooden barn. I turn back around and follow behind him and look around for the three fillies that were playing by the barn. I see a purple tuft of hair at the top of a bush by the fence.
“They must be hiding,” I think as me and Big Mac walk into the barn. “I don’t blame them,” I look around the inside of the wooden barn. It looked more like a storage unit than an actual barn. Where the normal stables would be, they are replaced by hay barrels. In the back corners of the room sit stacks of wooden boxes. On the far back wall are metals hung in a row.
I walk all the way to the back and look over the collection of metals. Most were first place bronze metals. There are a couple of second place silver metal, or I think it was silver, it also could be aluminum from how shiny they were.
“This barn is used mostly fah food storage,” Big Mac explains looking around himself. He looks over to where I stand and walks over. He looks up at the metals and smiles. “These metals are mah sisters. She won all uh them frum thuh iron pony competition,” He said every word with a hint of pride.
“Applejack?” I ask, turning to him. He looks at me and nodes.
“So you’ve met her?”
“On the way here me and Twilight bumped into her,” I say, turning around and slowly strolling to the barn door with Big Mac by my side. “She was heading to town for something,”
“She's pickin' up supplies for this summer's harvest,” Big Mac explains.
“That explains the heat,” I think to myself. “I mean, du, am I stupid?”
“Yes you are,” I heard myself reply to me.
“Great now I’m going crazy,” I think as Big Mac leads me to the house next to the barn. The house looked almost like a barn in everything but height. We walk up onto the porch to see an old pony rocking on a rocking chair fast asleep.
“Granny Smith,” Big Mac says calmly as he nudges her. She wakes up from the nap with a startle and looks around slightly frantically while yelling,
“The apples are under the cow!” After she realizes she's not sleeping anymore, she looks to her grandson. “Oh, yawl gist woke may up frum uh good nap,” Her accent is the heaviest of the Apple family I’ve heard so far. “Now who's ya friend?”
“My name is Brogan Even Mis Smith,” I say, extending my hand out.
“Yawl can call may Granny Smith. it's fahn sunny,” She says, shaking my hand very shakily. Her fur was a lot shorter than almost all of the ponies I have met.
“I guess old age does that to you,” I thought as I let go of her hoof. “Nice to meet you, Granny Smith,” I look over to see Twilight walking over to us.
“Other than the house, the rest of the farm is Apple trees,” Big Mac explains as Twilight comes to a stop near us.
“Hello Mis Twilight, whut is yawl doin' hare?” Granny Smith asks.
“I’m just here to pick up my friend Brogan,” Twilight says with a smile. “We have to go, you know,” Twilights voice falters for a second before continuing, “See more ponies,”
“Well, yawl bay awf then. See yawl soon Brogan?” Granny Smith asks. I walk off the porch and look back at her with a smile.
“I’ll be sure to swing around if I’m let go from custody,” I yell back jokingly. Granny Smith gives a good chuckle as Big Mac watches the two of us walk off the property. I turn back around and smile down at Twilight. She looks back up at me with a forced smile.
“Twilight what's with the smile,” I say. “And why were you earlier looking at nothing?” Neither question was answered as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Twilight’s face turns into panic as I hear a loud boom synonymous with a sonic boom.
I look up and see a blue streak headed straight towards me. Trailing behind it was a rainbow that originated from a ring of rainbows spreading out from the center. Out of pure reaction, I start to move to dodge as I whisper. “Go tapa,”