Wishberry

by mushroompone

Week of June 5

Strawberry Sunrise tapped her chalk against her chin as she considered the updates to her signage:

Was it funny?

Sort of.

Was it true?

Very probably.

But, most critically, did it fully and completely cover her plot on this wish-granting nonsense?

Ooh. Tough one.

She had thought about possibly removing any mentions of wishes and wish-granting from her board, but she also couldn’t help but see that as a coward’s retreat. Only a complete idiot—the type of idiot who threw themselves into tornados or strapped foals to rockets for a laugh and a few bits—could possibly believe that the sign was anything other than a joke. Hopefully there weren’t more than two of those in Ponyville on this particular Sunday morning. Or ever, frankly—but Strawberry knew that was probably asking too much.

Semi-satisfied and thoroughly bored, Strawberry set her chalk down on her tabletop and took her usual seat. Redheart had, for reasons Strawberry did not know, declined their usual weekend hang-out session at the booth. It was quite possibly due to last week’s drama (as Redheart was not fond of confrontation), but Strawberry hoped against hope it was because she had finally asked that damn Blossomforth out on a date.

Whatever the reason, Strawberry was alone that morning. Because she was alone, she allowed herself to get rather absorbed in her latest pulp romance novel. And, because she was rather absorbed, she wasn’t entirely sure how long the morning’s first customer stood there silently before Strawberry finally took notice of her.

It was surprising. An already tall mare wearing an additional few inches of tall hat, standing silent and still as a statue.

Strawberry jumped and dropped her book. “For the love of—” She put a hoof on her chest and tried to calm her racing heart. “Whew. Don’t sneak up on ponies like that. You scared the crap out of me.”

“H-howdy,” the mare said. 

Howdy.

Strawberry couldn’t quite remember what Applejack looked like, but… well, this mare was yellow.

Applejack was yellow. Maybe.

This mare was wearing a hat.

Applejack wore a hat. Probably.

Strawberry sighed. “Ugh, Applejack?” she guessed, voice dripping with obvious disgust. “What in the hay are you—”

“Applejack’s my cousin,” the mare said.

That was all.

Strawberry blinked.

The mare said nothing.

Strawberry sighed. “I mean… okay,” she said. “Who are you, though?”

The mare pointed to herself. She looked a little disappointed.

“Yeah. You.”

“I’m Fiddlesticks.”

“And… did you want some strawberries, Fiddlesticks?”

“You don’t remember me, huh?” she said softly.

Her voice was far softer than Applejack’s. Not just in volume, but in quality. There was a gentleness in it, whereas Applejack practically always sounded like she was yelling. Or at least that she was firm. Strong. Grounded.

Fiddlesticks was sort of… airy.

“When you were real little, you were in the Ponyville gardening club,” Fiddlesticks reminded her. “You grew all sorts of things. Not just strawberries. I thought that was real cool. ‘Specially since I couldn’t grow a darn thing.”

She took her hat off and smoothed her shockingly blue mane.

And Strawberry almost remembered her.

There was something there. Some half-memory of trying to help a confused filly rebalance her soil acidity. Or maybe help her tend an apply tree?

Strawberry thought that didn’t sound a bit like her.

Of course, ‘almost’ isn’t remembering. But Strawberry was already embarrassed enough, so she faked it:

“Ohhhh, sure!” She smiled through her lie. “That was, um… whew! A long time ago.”

Fiddlesticks chuckled nervously and nodded. The implicit forgiveness made Strawberry’s stomach turn.

“Did you, um… would you like some strawberries?” she offered.

“I bought some just last week, actually,” Fiddlesticks said, with a bit of pride. “They were mighty good. I was just wonderin’—well, now, I s’pose your sign already answered my question, come to think of it.”

Strawberry almost asked, but the little flush of embarrassment in Fiddlesticks’ cheeks was enough.

“Oh. That.” Strawberry offered her own pathetic little grin in response. “It was just a little fun I was having. Somepony took it and ran with it. We’re all just grist for the rumor mill in the end, huh?”

Fiddlesticks sighed heavily, wistfully. “Guess so.”

Strawberry heaved her own taut sigh.

She figured she had been wrong about the ‘idiot’ thing. She felt a bit bad about it now, actually.

“Well. Anywho.” Fiddlesticks put her hat back on her head. “Sorry to bother you.”

Strawberry straightened up. “Oh, you didn’t—”

“Strawberry!”

Shrill and sudden, followed by two snow-white hooves pounding the tablecloth. This time, it was enough to make both Strawberry and Fiddlesticks jump.

Redheart.

Beaming.

“Strawbs, it worked!” she announced.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Redheart,” Strawberry muttered.

Redheart giggled to herself. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “I just—I did it!”

“Did what?” Strawberry asked.

“I went out on a date with Blossomforth!”

Strawberry laughed lightly. “Well, hey! Good for you!” she said, giving her friend a pat on the shoulder. “So you asked her out? I told you, Red, you can’t just wait around for—”

“Oh, pfft. Not that.” Redheart waved off Strawberry’s advice for a second time. “I wished for it!”

“You—” Strawberry found herself momentarily at a loss for words. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope!” Redheart giggled again. It seemed to be completely involuntary. “I did exactly what Dust Devil said: I ate an entire pint of your strawberries as the sun was coming up, and when I ate the last one I wished that she would ask me out on a date. And she did!”

“What was that about the sun?” Fiddlesticks asked.

Strawberry stuttered something utterly incoherent.

“Oh!” Redheart looked up at this stranger and smiled. “Well, there’s rules for how to make the strawberry wishes. The first is that you have to eat a whole pint of strawberries—it doesn’t work until you eat the very last one.”

Fiddlesticks nodded sagely. “Do you gotta eat ‘em all in one go?”

“Hm. I’m not sure!” Redheart turned to Strawberry. “Do you have to eat them all at once? Or can you space it out?”

“Wh—” Strawberry shook her head. “Red, there’s no wishes! And there’s no wishing rules! You just—I mean, c’mon! It was only a matter of time before one of your crushes asked you out. You throw enough spaghetti at the wall and something’s gotta stick, right?”

Redheart stuck her snout in the air. “I disagree,” she said. “I think my wish worked.”

“You said somethin’ about the sunrise,” Fiddlesticks interjected. “Do I gotta eat all the strawberries while it’s comin’ up? That sounds, um… a tad fast.”

“I’m not sure… I think it’s just the last one,” Redheart said. “Or maybe any of them! As long as you have one during the sunrise, it must work.”

“Where are you even getting these rules?” Strawberry asked, knowing well that her question would go unanswered.

“Gee, I ought to test some of this stuff out,” Redheart said, tapping her chin. “Say, stranger: do you have a pen?”

Fiddlesticks began searching the pockets of her vest.

Redheart unzipped her saddlebag and rooted about inside for a scrap of paper.

And, with that, Strawberry Sunrise had officially lost control of her own stupid rumor.

This would all be bad enough, of course, had it been the peak of the morning’s excitement. Unfortunately for Strawberry, while Fiddlesticks and Redheart traded notes on their respective wishing experiences, a fourth mare approached the booth. A familiar one.

“Oh, no…” Strawberry murmured to herself.

Lightning Dust was in a noticeably different mood today. While the pair had parted last week in a bit of a scene, today Lightning strode towards the booth with her snout held in the air. It was a different sort of walk. Not so much a winner’s walk, but a walk of… something.

Something was different. Absolutely.

Lightning came to a swift halt before the booth, did not look at Strawberry, and said, “One pint, please.”

She tossed twelve bits on the table.

Fiddlesticks and Redheart went entirely mute, each of them frozen in the middle of their conversation to watch.

Strawberry blinked.

She waited for the other shoe to drop.

She said nothing.

Lightning Dust only stood there, similarly waiting for Celestia-knows-what to happen. For Strawberry to hand over the pint, maybe.

“Um… of strawberries?” Strawberry asked. 

Lightning spared Strawberry a fleeting glance. “Yeah. A pint of strawberries.” Then, quickly, as if she might have forgotten: “Please.”

Strawberry’s brows furrowed. “What are you trying to pull?”

“Tsk. Nothing,” Lightning smoothed a hoof over he rmane. “Just want some strawberries. That a crime?”

“From me?”

“Yeah.”

“For twelve bits?”

“For whatever you’re sellin’ ‘em for, I guess,” she snapped. “What’s with the third degree?”

Strawberry laughed, but said nothing.

Lightning Dust cleared her throat and tried to find someplace else to look. In her searching, she seemed to notice her fellow customer for the first time.

“Oh.” A blush, poorly hidden.

“Howdy,” Fiddlesticks said with a tip of her hat.

“What the hay are you doing here?”

Strawberry leaned forward. “I’m sorry, you two know each other?”

“Kinda.”

“Sorta.”

Redheart’s brows climbed up into her hairline.

Lightning Dust took a small step towards Fiddlesticks. “Did you buy some of these strawberries too?” She hissed.

“Maybe,” Fiddlesticks murmured. “What’s it to you?”

The words were vitriolic but the tone was… playful. 

Strawberry and Redheart exchanged a look.

Lightning Dust and Fiddlesticks exchanged a different look.

Fiddlesticks gasped softly. “It worked?”

Fiddlesticks looked at Redheart.

Redheart grinned at Strawberry.

Strawberry glared at Lightning.

Lightning looked up at the sky and pretended not to hear.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Strawberry stood up. “What in the hay did you wish for? That you’d get yelled at by a mare at the farmer’s market?”

“No!” Lightning shouted back, though she appeared to wish she could jam the word back in her mouth as soon as it flew out. “It’s none of your business. It’s my wish.”

“Did you eat the strawberries all at once?” Redheart asked. “And all at sunrise?”

Lightning Dust struggled to pull her eyes off Strawberry. “Uh… I only had the last few in the pint.”

Fiddlesticks and Redheart looked at one another, nodded, and scribbled that down.

“I thought so,” Redheart commented. “That must be it. You have to have the last one while the sun is coming up. Did you do that, Fiddlesticks?”

Fiddlesticks shook her head.

“Well, here.” Redheart pushed another pint at Fiddlesticks. “You’d better take some more and try it out. Don’t forget to write down precisely what happens—we’ll need a good record. Oh! Lightning Dust, was it?”

Lightning pointed to herself. “Me?”

“Were you watching the sun when it came up?”

“Uh… through my window.”

Redheart picked up the pint of strawberries and placed it in Fiddlesticks’s hoof. “Better make sure you do that, too.”

“Ugh!” Strawberry reached out and snatched the pint back. “I’m sorry, are we just giving my produce away for free now? Writing wish-scripts like hack doctors?”

“Tsk. It’s just Fiddlesticks,” Redheart said.

“You don’t know Fiddlesticks.”

Redheart made a high, indecisive sound. “She’s a member of the research team, though.”

“The—”

“Look, I already paid,” Lightning said. She grabbed another pint off the table. “I’m out.”

“Wh—”

But Lightning Dust was already gone, her newly-developed air of quiet superiority lingering in a heavy cloud over the stall. Strawberry all but physically waved it off before angrily sweeping the twelve bits of payment into her cashbox. 

Redheart coughed lightly. “Um. Anyway,” she murmured. “What are you planning on wishing for? For the sake of the test, it should be something obvious… Like, um…”

Fiddlesticks jammed her hat back onto her head. “That’s an easy one: I’ll wish for my sister to write me.”

“And who would that be?” Strawberry grumbled. “Apple Fritter? Apple Dumpling? Apple Bumpkin?” 

Fiddlesticks laughed dryly. “No. Name’s Octavia. She’s an Apple by blood, but if she don’t spend every wakin’ moment pretending she ain’t…” Fiddlesticks trailed off, then shook her head. “I haven’t heard from her in a good long while. I’m a bit too much Apple for her liking.”

Strawberry hesitated, before finally saying, “Oh.”

Fiddlesticks just looked at her. Not even a nod.

“Those are on the house,” Redheart whispered. Then, with a wink, she added, “For the team.”

And Strawberry Sunrise almost argued with that.