//------------------------------// // Yeeeup! // Story: Zap Apple Jam // by TheBronyRun //------------------------------// “Go fish!” Spike smirked as a young purple maned pony drew a card from an old deck. It had been a beautiful day, with the spring flowers beginning to bloom and the temperature rising. It had been a week now since the annual Winter Wrap-up, and the Pegasi were doing a wonderful job keeping the skies clear. Bringing just enough rain to keep the ground perfectly moist, and tomorrow she would help her friend Applejack fertilize the roots the family orchard. For generations, as far back as the beginning of Ponyville, the Apple family had been running Sweet Apple Acres. They sold apple products of all kinds, apple pie, apple cobbler, apple turnovers, etc. but their most famous product was Zap Apple Jam, a delicious jam made from a strange magic apple tree that was a key factor in the creation of Ponyville. Running the farm was a big job for them, and Twilight remembered what had happened the last time Applejack had tried to run the farm on her own. It ended badly to say the least. So every year since, Applejack would ask Twilight to help her plant the fertile compost into the roots using magic. It made the job quite a bit easier, and so Twilight agreed. “Spike, I think we should go to bed.” Twilight yawned. Spike had beat her three times already at the card game. “Alright. I’m exhausted now that you…“ Spike began but as usual fell asleep on queue. Twilight smiled and magically lifted the little dragon to his basket where he contently curled up and slept. “He’s got the right idea.” Twilight mumbled to herself as she turned out the light and crawled into her bed. “I need to rest up for tomorrow anyways…it’s going to be a big day.” She had no idea. *** “Spike, I’m headed out!” Twilight called as she opened the door of her library. Spike nodded and continued cleaning up the bookshelf like he had been doing as the book-smart mare closed the door and headed into the quant, yet beautiful town of Ponyville. As she walked, she smiled. She loved it all, with the fun of Pinkie Pie in Sugarcube Corner, and then Rarity’s clothing store, and she thought about the hard work Rainbow Dash must be doing and how Fluttershy was probably doing something nice for the animals. They were all great, and Twilight would say without a second thought that the place was boring without them all. As Twilight thought, she almost passed the arched entrance of the path to the farm. She laughed at this and quickly trotted off down the path. She arrived in front of the Apple house to see Applejack and her brother, Big Macintoch. He was an odd stallion, Twilight had thought. He never said anything but “Yeeeup!” or “nnnnope!” and sometimes in kind of annoyed Twilight. Her thinking was interrupted by Applejack yelling to her. “Well hey there, sugarcube! We were waiting for you!” Twilight smiled. “Sorry to keep you waiting! Having a good day, Macintosh?” She called over to him politely. “Yeeeup!” Applejack looked at twilight. “Ready for a long day?” Twilight nodded. “Let’s do it!” *** They finished the short walk down the dirt trail and looked over the hundreds of apple trees, just beginning to bloom there flowers. “Twilight, you know the drill. If you would start over in the East Section, Big Macintoch can take the middle and I will take the west. We will break at, say, noon?” “Sounds good!” Twilight replied. “Yeeeup!” Macintosh replied again. And so Twilight split with the others, rolling her eyes at Big Macintosh for his ridiculous lack of vocabulary. The three hours until noon were full of hard work, but Twilight enjoyed it because she got to test new ways to accomplish her goal. Being the scientist book-nerd she was, it was very fun for her to experiment. Whether she levitated the dirt and made the compost fly under it, or she placed it on top and vibrated the ground so in mixed in with the dirt, or she simply forced it into the ground like worms. She was just about done with three dozen trees when Big Macintosh came over. “Is it noon already?” Twilight asked incrediously. She quickly bit her words, because she realized she had just given him an excuse to say… “Yeeeup!” He replied happily. Twilight had had enough of it. “Okay, that’s IT! Why do you always say that?! It drives me crazy! At first it was just odd, but funny, but it’s become extremely annoying! Why can’t you say anything worth saying?!” She instantly felt bad. Big Macintosh looked at her, shocked. He didn’t know what to say. He never felt a reason to say anything else…there just wasn’t a reason! Was it really annoying anyone? “I….I don’t know…” He sputtered. “Macintosh, I’m sorry. It doesn’t really annoy me, its just…weird! I want to be your friend, but I know so little about you because you never say anything but ‘yup!’ and ‘nope!’ and it’s just odd.” Twilight said, hoping to fix her stupidity. “I’m…I’m sorry I’ve made you mad. I want to be your friend too, Twilight! I…I guess I just haven’t felt a need to say anything else…but I hate making ponies upset.” He said sheepishly. “Macintosh, honestly it doesn’t anger me. I don’t know why-” Twilight started but was interrupted by a confused and frustrated Applejack. “Y’all comin’ or what?” she tapped her hoof impatiently. “Yeeeu-er, Sure thing sis!” Macintosh quickly corrected and glanced sheepishly at Twilight. *** The rest of the day went well. They had finished the job, and Applejack promised to give twilight a free bucket of the first apples of the year to show her thanks. Twilight was glad to help, but she couldn’t get something out of her mind. Why was it such a big deal to Twilight that Big Macintosh never had shown any of his feelings to her? I mean, a normal pony would just have thought he wasn’t a good person to befriend and let it be. But Twilight instead kept hoping he would say something, and he only did when he was confronted. But why was this such a big deal? Why was Twilight so persistent with Macintosh when she hadn’t done anything of the sort with anypony else? This question troubled her for the entire walk home and kept her awake. There was one thought that had crossed her mind and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it to leave. Was…Was Twilight attracted to Big Macintosh? Sure, outwardly he was a nice stallion, his mane was dirty…but somehow in a good way. The red fur all over him was unusual, but it suited him. But…was there more to this then just what she thought of his looks?