//------------------------------//
// Bumble Buzz 
// Story: AlwaysDressesInStyle's Ponyville CiderFest '23 Interactive App Stories 
// by AlwaysDressesInStyle 
//------------------------------//

Hook:Twin sisters who get along about as well as oil & water.

Story #196
Title: Bumble Buzz
Keyword: Bee
Characters: Honeybuzz & Bumblesweet
Hero/Villain





The pitter patter of rain hitting the roof can occasionally be heard over the gramophone in the corner playing spooky songs.  Nightmare Night’s less than three weeks away and your costume shop’s seeing a steady business. It’s hard to tell who’s more excited by choosing a costume, the foals or the adults.  It’s one of the former that’s your sole customer at the moment – a yellowish-orange filly with a bee cutie mark.  Unsurprisingly, there’s a bee costume nestled on her back.  What’s surprising is that she’s still shopping, despite apparently having already decided on a costume.

Maybe she has doubts. Maybe she doesn’t want to go back outside until the rain lets up.  Either way, she’s being quiet and respecting your merchandise.  Not all shoppers her age are as courteous as she is.

The record finishes and you put another on.  At this time of year you only play Nightmare Night songs.  There aren’t that many, though, and they get annoying after a while. But they add to the atmosphere, and the whole idea of a shop is for customer to spend their bits.  If mood music increases sales, you can deal with being annoyed for a few months.

Curiosity finally getting the best of you, you wander up to the filly.  “Can I help you, miss…?”  You trail off, hoping she’ll fill in her name.

“Call me Honeybuzz.”  She shrugs.  “I don’t think so.  I’m trying to pick out a costume for my twin sister.  We had a bet that whoever did best on today’s math test would get to pick our Nightmare Night costumes, and I beat her by two points.”

“Congratulations.”

She smiles at you. “Thanks!”

“What does she like,” you ask.

“Bumblesweet likes bees, same as me.  But we already look alike, so I don’t want her to dress in the same costume as me, too. Besides, she isn’t very nice to me most of the time, so I’m keeping this one for me.  But it leaves me at a loss on what to get her dressed up as.  I don’t know if I should get her something she’d like, or if I should pay her back for all the times she makes me suffer.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

Honeybuzz recounts tale after tale of her sister’s transgressions.  To hear the filly tell it, her sister’s the golden child who can never do anything wrong, while she’s the disappointment to her parents. Bumblesweet is also hypercompetitive if Honeybuzz is to be believed, and turns everything into a competition. Competitions that Honeybuzz normally loses on purpose so her sister will stop trying to compete with her at everything. That only reinforces the disappointment her parents feel toward her.

You look at the costume the filly’s been eyeing up while talking – it’s a daisy, which would complement her own bee costume perfectly.  Since Honeybuzz has already indicated that she and Bumblesweet are identical twins, it’s not hard to picture what they’d look like in the respective costumes.  ‘Adorable’ sums it up nicely.

She notices that you’ve noticed her possible choice.  “What do you think?  This flower costume is kinda cute and fits in with my costume.  Or… do you think I should be mean to her like she’s mean to me?”





[CHOICE]What should you do?

>Urge her to be the better mare and not to give in to temptation. (Hero)

>Remind Honeybuzz that her sister would do it to her, so why not go for it? (Villain)