//------------------------------// // Diary Entries: April // Story: Nurture/Nature // by TwoTrenchcoats //------------------------------// ((Note: Spelling and grammar corrections have been made for ease of reading.)) April 12th Dear Diary, Hi! My name is Apple Brandy and this is my very first diary ever! Guess what? I'm seven years old today! Momma and Poppa let me eat whatever I wanted and then we went to a dress shop and I got to pick out a dress! It's white and sparkly like the dress Momma is wearing in the picture of when she and Poppa got married. When we got home, Momma gave me this diary to write in every single day. She says it'll help me learn how to write better. But I think I already write really good, don't you, diary? I can hold the pencil with my mouth real good! It tastes yucky though. I gotta go now, but I have to tell you one more thing first! Poppa says he'll start teaching me how to buck apples tomorrow! Bye for now! April 13th Dear Diary, Hi again! I started practicing apple bucking with Poppa after school today and my legs are super tired. Who knew trees were so hard! Poppa brought me to a little bitty tree in the orchard. Its trunk was only about as big around as my leg and it had one little apple in it. Poppa told me to practice until I got the apple to fall. It took a long time because he kept stopping me and saying I was standing wrong and would hurt myself. Momma says that one day I'll be as big and strong as Poppa, but I think she's full of applesauce. Poppa is the biggest, strongest pony in the whole world. I'd rather be good at making sweets like Momma. Then I could eat cakes and pies all the time instead of waiting for Momma to make them. I don't have a sparkly horn like Momma so I can't make sweets float like she does, but Auntie Applejack says she'll teach me how to cook yummy things when she's not so busy. Auntie Applejack is always busy, though. Ever since Auntie Apple Bloom moved to Manehattan to go to a fancy school, it's mostly just Poppa and Auntie Applejack taking care of the farm. Oh, right! I never told you, I live on a great big apple farm called Sweet Apple Acres! There's tons and tons of trees here that grow so many apples I can't count them all; and I can count all the way to a hundred! And Auntie Applejack says that sometimes the spooky trees in the back orchard grow rainbow apples called zap apples that are even yummier than regular apples. I've never seen them, though, so until I see them for myself I think Auntie is full of applesauce. Every day, Poppa and Auntie go out and take care of all the trees. I don't know what they do out there, but they always come home all sweaty and stinky and dirty. Auntie Apple Bloom comes home to visit and help sometimes and so do other ponies from town, like Auntie Pinkie and Uncle Cheese. Poppa and Auntie bring big barrels of apples home and Momma makes them into yummy sweets that she sells in her shop. She used to bring me with her all the time, but now I have to go to school so I can't go to the shop anymore. I can't wait until I'm bigger and don't have to go to school anymore. Then I could help out on the farm too! Poppa and Auntie always look so tired all the time. If I had a whole bunch of brothers and sisters we could help out lots! April 14th Dear Diary, I told Momma and Poppa my idea of brothers and sisters to help on the farm and Momma looked really, really sad and Poppa told me to go outside and play. Did I say something bad? April 15th Dear Diary, Momma and Poppa had a lot to say to me after I came in from playing. They were sitting at the table with really serious looks on their faces so I knew it was important and I tried to pay attention. I don't know what all the words they said meant, but I think something really bad happened when I was born. I'll never have any brothers or sisters. April 18th Dear Diary, Sorry I haven't written anything for a while, I've been really busy with school stuff. Oh! That reminds me! I've never told you anything about where I go to school! There are two schools in Ponyville. I go to Ponyville School with all the little foals right now, but when I get bigger I'll go to Princess Twilight's Friendship School where Auntie Apple Bloom used to go! Ponyville School is okay though, and Miss Cheerilee is a really nice teacher. She was Auntie Apple Bloom's teacher too, I think. I met Triple Axel at school and now he's my best friend ever! His Momma and Poppa moved here from "Fillydelphia" ((Note: the city name is an assumption on our part; the spelling was abysmal)). He's super strong and not afraid of anything, not even the gross, moldy cucumber that Laffy Taffy brought to show and tell yesterday. He's a pegasus pony and can almost pick me all the way up off the ground; he says he wants to get a job picking up heavy things when he grows up. Do you think there are cutie marks for lifting stuff? April 19th ((The ink in this entry was smudged with water spots)) Dear Diary, I had a bad dream last night. I don't remember what it was about, but when I woke up I felt so sad I started to cry. Momma and Poppa came into my room to make me feel better, but I just cried and cried until I threw up in Momma's mane. Poppa sat with me while Momma went to wash her mane. He said that nothing I dream about can hurt me so I don't need to be scared of nightmares. But I wasn't scared, I was sad. And lonely. Like when you're playing with friends and they have to go home and then the house feels really extra big and empty, and too quiet. Like there's something missing, something really important. Are there ponies out there who feel like that all the time? Like there's a big hole in them and they can't find what needs to go there. And they don't even know what's supposed to go there anyway. I miss my horn…. What? What does that mean? I-I don't have a horn. I've never had a horn…have I?