//------------------------------// // Bonus Chapter: Sisterhooves Social // Story: Ocean Blues // by TalkingToMyself //------------------------------// Spring Meadow yawned softly, not because she was tired, but because her last task for today was rather boring. It was a slow day at the hospital (which was a good thing, since that meant nopony fell sick or got hurt today), so she’d agreed to help Tenderheart and Rhyme file in all the paperwork so it could be put into the hospital’s archive. Not the most exciting job, but with Rhyme and Tenderheart, she’d at least have somepony to chat. Rhyme immediately took Spring’s yawn as an open invitation to start chatting, while she was putting lids on the full boxes with the help of her magic horn. “So, got any plans for the weekend?” Tenderheart grumbled something about Sunday morning shifts, which had Rhyme and Spring giggle. Even though Tenderheart wasn’t too thrilled about working on a Sunday, they all knew she wasn’t too bothered by it. Spring thought back to the times when she had been a nurse-in-training at Canterlot in the human world, when she had to do double-shifts on a regular basis and nearly every weekend as well, just to barely make need’s end. Compared to that, working in Ponyville Hospital was a breeze, especially since she also had nice colleagues on top of it all. Said colleagues were grinning at her by now, so Spring Meadow knew she must have been staring at the wall again, lost in her own thoughts. It didn’t happen as much anymore, but when she slipped the others would always tease her about it. All in good fun, of course. Spring Meadow blushed and ignored the tittering from the other two as she finally answered Rhyme’s question “I’ve got nothing planned so far. But there’s going to be nice weather, so I’ll maybe take a stroll through town. I heard there was going to be a festival this weekend.” Rhyme and Tenderheart nodded, glad to hear about the weather. Ever since Spring Meadow’s sister had started working for the weather patrol, Spring Meadow always knew the schedule ahead of time. Rhyme seemed especially excited about it “Oh, of course, I should have figured you’d be going to the festival with your sister!” Spring froze up at that, and Tenderheart tilted her head, oblivious to Spring’s near panic attack “With her sister?” “Of course! Don’t you know what festival this is? The Sisterhooves Social!” Tenderheart laughed and shook her head “I completely forgot. I still remember last time, when Big Mac dressed up so he could compete with his little sister. Has it really been a year already?” Rhyme and Tenderheart laughed heartily but stopped abruptly when they heard something hit the floor. The file Spring Meadow had been holding had slipped out of her hooves, and now the sheets of paper were scattered all over the floor. Spring clenched her eyes closed and tried to apologize, but she only got a few words before her voice failed her. She didn’t dare open her eyes again, afraid of what she might see when she looked at her colleagues. She felt as if paralyzed in fear. Until a pair of hooves pulled her into a hug and held her. Spring felt her stiff limps loosen up enough that she could peek open one eye, and see that it was Tenderheart who was holding her “Easy now, Spring Meadow. Take a deep breath, okay?” Tenderheart inhaled deeply and Spring found herself following her example, holding her breath for a couple of seconds before they slowly exhaled together. While Tenderheart held her and Spring tried to get her breathing back to normal, she noticed that the papers glowed and floated back into the file, then into one of the boxes. She turned her head and saw Rhyme who had taken care of her mess and now smiled calmly at her. She needed a couple of minutes before she felt safe enough to trust her voice again “Thanks.” Tenderheart smiled and slowly pulled away from the hug, leaving Spring Meadow standing on her own hooves again. “Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I could help.” Spring turned around to thank Rhyme as well, but she was already back at boxing the last few files as if nothing had even happened. Spring picked up the nearest box, and for a few minutes they just worked silently. Until Rhyme addressed her again “So, you want to tell us why the Sisterhooves Social is such a big deal for you?” She kept her tone casual, so that Spring could just deflect the question if she wanted, but Spring could also hear that barely hidden undertone which told her that Rhyme wasn’t just looking for a juicy piece of gossip, but really cared for her friend. Spring smiled involuntarily. It still felt strange to think of her colleagues as friends, but Tenderheart looked at her in a way that meant she cared for her just as much as Rhyme did. So instead of acting like nothing had happened, Spring began talking instead. “It’s really dumb, you know? I don’t even know if she’s into that kind of stuff.” Blue was clearing out the skies for the weekend, and Cloud Chaser and Flitter were working with her. As usual, the work wasn’t too hard, so they had more than enough chances to chat. Naturally, they came to talk about the festival, since the Sisterhooves Social was the reason they were clearing the skies in the first place. “Why you think she wouldn’t like it? I mean, it’s a festival, right? Everypony likes having fun at a festival.” Blue rolled her eyes and busted another set of clouds “It’s not like that. Festivals are okay, but she’s not the most social type on a good day.” Flitter chimed in “But wouldn’t that mean it’s the perfect opportunity to break out of her shell? I mean, it’s the Sisterhooves Social! It’s the perfect day for some sisterly bonding.” Blue winced just at the sound of that “Spring has never really been much of a bonding type.” “What do you mean by that?” Blue sighed and shook her head “There’s been stuff like that before, you know? Excursions with the school, fairs and stuff… what’s it called? Family appreciation day? Spring’s never been a part of any of that.” “Really? But, why not?” Blue shrugged and tried to look like she didn’t care. She knew of course why Spring never had time for teacher-parent-meetings or school festivals or even a shopping trip to the mall. She had to work, sometimes two jobs, to get food on the table and keep the heat running. Even when they had lived in that girls’ hostel for a while, Spring had been fighting to become Blue’s legal guardian so they wouldn’t end up in an orphanage. She knew all that, but she wouldn’t ever tell Cloud Chaser or Flitter, or anypony about that. Cloud Chaser seemed to know that he wouldn’t get any more out of Blue, but Flitter didn’t give up hope quite yet. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to just ask. I mean, worst case she just straight-up says no.” Blue let out a laugh, but she hated how bitter it sounded even to her “Worst case is we’ll be at each other’s throats and stop talking to each other for another week.” “For another week?” Angry about her slip-up, Blue flared her wings and flew over to the next set of clouds, kicking at them with more force than was necessary. Cloud Chaser and Flitter followed slower, and less certain than before. Still, Cloud Chaser picked the conversation up again after a minute “You know you don’t have to go to the festival if you don’t want to. And you don’t have to go with your sister if she’s just going to be mean about it.” “Hey, shut it. My sister is not mean about anything.” “Really? It sounds like you two fight a lot.” Blue gritted her teeth and swallowed down the angry lump in her throat. Cloud Chaser didn’t know better, so exploding in his face wouldn’t change anything. Instead, she grumbled “Those fights are usually my fault. You know, bad temper and stuff.” Cloud Chaser nodded and asked “So you really want to go with your sister, but you’re not sure if she wants to come, because you never asked her before because reasons.” “Pretty much, yeah.” Cloud Chaser and Flitter looked at each other before they turned back towards Blue “In that case, you should just ask.” “But I don’t even know if she wants to go to a festival. She’s always been grumpy when she was talking about school festivals and things like that.” Tenderheart nodded and pushed her box back into the shelf “But you also said she’s been a grumpy teenager in general. She’s been at festivals before, right?” “Yes, but only with her friends. That’s the next problem. Maybe she wants to go, but just not with me.” Rhyme laughed and shook her head “Sorry, but you can’t really believe that. Wasn’t the whole of moving to Ponyville so the two of you could stay together?” Spring Meadow sighed and nodded “Yes, it was. But things changed since we came here. She’s got a job now, and friends all over town and…” “But she’s still living with you, right?” Spring let out a deep sigh “Yes, she is.” “So that means something, right? She’s finally growing up, but she’s not growing apart of you. Maybe she’s got a new life now, but she clearly wants you to be a part of it.” Spring looked between Tenderheart and Rhyme, still very uncertain “So you think I should just ask her?” “But what if she does say no? What if she really doesn’t want to go there with me, or at all?” “Then you talk about it. That’s how these things work, you know? She says no, you ask her why not, and she explains. You understand each other a little better, and if you still want to go, you can always just meet up with your friends. Pretty sure Pinkie Pie and Applejack will be around, maybe even the whole six of them.” Blue sighed again and nodded. They had sprawled out on the last three clouds in their section, but right now work was the last thing on Blue’s mind. Flitter chimed in once more “And, you know, there’s still the chance she says yes. Wouldn’t that be great?” She could say yes. We could go together and have a good time for once. Yeah, I think I’d like that. Blue smiled to herself, but Cloud Chaser and Flitter noticed of course “So, are you gonna ask her?” Spring Meadow walked into the apartment and listened for a moment. It was quiet, so she knew Blue wasn’t home yet. Spring knew that her shift would still be a while, but work at the weather patrol was a bit sporadic at times, so sometimes Blue’s hours were all over the place. Not that either of them minded, of course. Spring rummaged in the fridge, gathering things for a snack, when the door opened. Blue walked in and looked kind of surprised when she saw her sister “Oh. Hi.” “Hi Blue. You’re off early.” “Yeah. Kinda. Slow day?” Spring nodded and focused back on fixing her sandwich. Blue, like her, wasn’t the most talkative of ponies on a good day. Still, she stayed in the kitchen with her, so Spring got the impression that maybe Blue wanted to say something after all. But since she didn’t, Spring could at least give her a reason to stay, and make the situation less awkward “Want one too?” “Huh? Oh, sure. Thanks.” Blue sat down at the kitchen table while Spring fixed another sandwich for her. Blue still liked cheese like she had in the other world, while Spring had switched to daisy sandwiches as her favourite snack once she had turned into a pony. Luckily, the fridge had enough of both. Blue just nibbled on her snack, which told Spring that she wasn’t really hungry and just took the opportunity to hang around, just like she thought. Spring was hungry though, so while she waited for Blue to find the things to say, she made quick process of her sandwich. She was almost finished when Blue finally did speak up “So, um, you don’t work this weekend, right?” Spring shook her head “No, still free. Unless something unexpected happens.” Blue nodded, and her right wing twitched. That storm had come out of nowhere back then, so it was a fair thing to say. Blue took another bite, to buy some time, before she picked up the conversation “So there’s a festival this weekend.” “I know. The Sisterhooves Social, right?” “Yeah. It’s a big thing over at Sweet Apple Acres. Most of the town will be there, I think.” Spring just grinned “Feels like they have a festival every other week, but they still get excited every time.” “Yeah. Guess they do.” Blue’s wing twitched again and she still didn’t know what she wanted to say, but Spring could at least guess that the festival was involved now. Which was enough for her to not press any further right away. Was it a good sign that Blue had thought about the festival, or a bad one? Should she tell her she’s been thinking about it too? Finally, Blue bit the bullet and more or less blurted out “You going?” “Huh? I guess. Might be nice.” Blue nodded and finally looked up “We could go together, you know. Like, as sisters.” Spring froze up for a moment, but she could almost hear Tenderheart’s voice chiding her in her mind “Aren’t you going with your friends?” Blue shrugged and nodded “They’ll be there, I guess. But, I just thought, you know.” She turned her head away, probably blushing, so she didn’t see that Spring was as well. After a minute of silence, Spring finally replied “Yeah. Sure.” Blue’s head snapped back towards her “Really?” “Yeah. Could be fun, right?” “Right.” They smiled at each other, and let the awkwardness of the moment pass. They had never really had any big bonding moments as sisters before. But they also had never been ponies before. So much had changed already, so what’s another change on top of that all? Saturday morning, Spring Meadow and Blue walked into the festival grounds late morning, like most of the ponies from town. Most of the fillies they saw seemed excited and dragged their older siblings to some activity or stall, but the older sisters all smiled as well, so the feeling was mutual. And there were tons of things to do. Horseshoe throws, seven-legged-races, recitals and singing contests, all in all a lot of side contests and, of course, the big Sisterhooves Social main event with a talent show and an obstacle course. Not that any of the two former humans cared too much about that. Spring Meadow wasn’t really the sporty type and Blue wasn’t very competitive either, so they just grabbed some festival foods and watched whatever caught their interest. A few ponies who knew them waved or stayed to share a few pleasantries, but most of the focus stayed on the big competition. Applejack and her little sister where in a grudge match against Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo it seemed, and Pinkie Pie was commentating with Spike, which kept the crowd going. Spring didn’t say much, which was normal, she and Blue never talked much to begin with, but Blue could see her smiling whenever she looked her way, so she guessed that her big sister had a good time. And so did she, even if they just walked around together. Still, all the events going on around them had her wings twitch. “You wanna join in on something?” Blue turned surprised to Spring who had a glint in her eyes just as much. Blue glanced around, but since this was an event for kids mostly, there wasn’t too much they could join in. Well, technically they could since they were sisters, but two adults going against foals didn’t seem like a fun thing to do. “Yeah, kinda. But, you know.” She waved her wing at a horde of foals that ran by, and Spring shook her head and pointed at a sign a few stalls over. Blue’s eyes widened and then she broke into a grin “Seriously?” “Yeah, why not? Come on, could be fun.” Blue still grinned and followed her sister to the big tent that announced a hoofwrestling competition starting soon. As expected, there were no foals competing on this one, so they signed up as the seventh team of eight. Half an hour later, a barrel was set up in the middle of the tent and Big Mac spoke up, his voice booming over the crowd “Alright fellas, listen up. You’ll be going team versus team for the first round. If you lose a match, you’re out. Both of your team lose, team’s out and winner moves to the next round.” There was a rather big crowd by now, who cheered when the first two teams met for the first match and bumped their hooves. The matches didn’t take very long, but each win called out another wave of cheers from the audience. Blue and Spring were called up next, and their opponents were Daisy and Rose who ran the flower shop. Blue grinned while Spring gave them a super-serious look to throw them off their game. Either way, they didn’t last very long and both Blue and Spring won their match without breaking to sweat. Only to be pitted against a pair of buff looking earth ponies in the next round. Spring lost her match very quickly, while Blue struggled to beat her opponent in a match that went almost for five minutes. Of course, that meant she had to go against Spring’s opponent next, who quickly finished her off now that she had run low on fumes. It didn’t matter too much though. Spring had been cheering her on throughout her match and they both laughed a lot. They dropped out in fourth place, which meant they wouldn’t get a ribbon, but neither of them cared much. The competition didn’t last very long, and the crowd dispersed to the next event, along with Spring and Blue, who were still talking about their match “I still can’t believe you beat her. That girl looked like she could lift a truck.” “Yeah, felt like it, too. Guess I’m tougher than I look, huh?” “Sure are. Though I always knew that.” They laughed and walked on, now far more at ease than they had been before. Then Blue’s nose picked up something and she changed direction, leading her and her sister to a stall with an absurd number of pies, apparently fresh from the oven. Spring grinned and nudged her “Hungry?” “Yeah, kinda. That match made me work up an appetite for sure.” They laughed again and Spring addressed the pony at the stall “We’d like one blueberry, please.” However, the mare shook her head “No can do, Miss. These pies are for our pie-eating competition that’s about to start.” “Pie-eating contest?” Before the mare could explain, they heard a voice from behind them “Hey look at that big sis, looks like these guys wanna lose again!” Spring and Blue turned around, just to see the team that had beat them at the hoofwrestling competition. They had their blue ribbons for winning pinned on, and a smug grin plastered on their faces. Blue noticed the signs, her wings twitching and her body switching into a more aggressive stance, so she was about to just leave before she got too angry again. However, she was stopped by Spring’s hoof. “You guys want a rematch? You can get it.” Blue just couldn’t not grin when she heard that tone in Spring’s voice. It was a tone that had been missing for a long time. Everypony who knew her always thought she was the always calm, always collected big sister while Blue was the wild, out of control child with a knack for getting into trouble. And while that was true, Spring had just as much of a knack for charging in head-first, like back when she had been fighting to get custody over Blue while she was still only a teenager. Sure, she had toned down a bit over the last few years, but that drive was still there. After all, Blue hadn’t just picked that up out of nowhere. So when the two just grinned at them, that was enough for her to go all out with Spring by her side “Bring it on!” By the time the pie-eating contest was about to start, about ten sister teams had taken their spots at the long table. Spring and Blue sat opposite of their rivals at the end of the table, all four of them grinning in anticipation. They even drew in an audience around them, and Blue grinned even more when she saw some ponies starting to bet who would win. Granny Smith finally approached the mare who was handling the pies and nodded “Listen up, youngins! Rules are simple: Everypony gets a slice and when it’s empty, you get a new one. The team with the most finished pies wins! Now, on your marks, ready, go!” The mare, a unicorn, had just been waiting for the sign and placed a plate in front of every competitor with her magic. Blue dove right in and started with big bites, much bigger than she could do as a human but with her pony body she could almost swallow a whole slice in one go. She finished her plate at the same time as her opposite, and they received a new piece immediately. Spring followed soon after, while most of the other ponies were still busy with their first one. Spring and Blue shared a look and Spring nodded. This was about speed as much as endurance, so she paced herself through the next pie, just like Spring, while the other team kept scarfing down theirs. At the sixth slice, it was only Spring, Blue and their rival team left. The other teams had all given up, but nopony left and kept watching the match for first. The other team was ahead by a count of two, but they had to slow down while Blue and Spring still kept going at the same pace. Soon they had caught up and while one of their rivals just stared at their full plate, Blue finished another one “Next!” The crowd got a bit antsy when Blue suddenly stopped and the other team could catch up, but luckily Spring knew exactly what to do. She slapped Blue on the back, and Blue let out a mighty burb, so much that the stack of plates in front of her started jiggling. A moment of silence, then part of the audience cheered even louder than before (except for Rarity who was fainting dramatically), especially when Blue and Spring set down their empty plates at the same time and screamed “NEXT!” The festival was almost over by now, all that was left was the talent show that finished the main event, so everypony gathered around the makeshift stage. Spring and Blue also made their way over, but slower than everypony else, and leaning heavily against each other “Oh… I can’t believe we ate twenty-four slices of pie…” “What do you mean, we? I barely made it through eight, the rest is all on you.” “Yeah, but guess what?” They grinned at each other and raised their hoof, showing off their shiny blue ribbons “We did it!” They called out together and tried to bump each other’s hoof, only to miss and collapse against each other, which only had them laughing more. They reached some of the backseats and watched in silence for a while as the sister teams performed and got scored. Blue felt like her whole body had to be made out of pie by this point, and wondered if she would ever be able to fly again. “You think we gonna regret this tomorrow?” “Nah. This was totally worth any aching tummy.” Spring laughed and nodded, with that smile she had all day long “Yeah, totally worth! Can’t wait to defend our title next year.” Blue grinned, but it wasn’t the idea of defending her title. It was the thought that next year, she’d get to visit the Sisterhood Social again with her sister. “You know, there’s another festival coming in like ten days.” “Does that one have pie-eating contests as well?” “Don’t think so.” “Good. I don’t think I could take another one.” They laughed and Spring put her hoof around Blue, a little bit like she used to do when they were younger “So, you wanna go check that out together?” “You bet your butt I do!” And suddenly, Blue didn’t think anymore that having a festival every other week was that weird. And suddenly, Spring Meadow found herself looking forward to the next one.