Apple Bloom coughed as she carefully trod along the rafters of the family barn. Given that it had only recently been rebuilt, she hadn’t expected it to have already gathered this much dust and debris. Then again, farming was, by definition, a dirty occupation, and all the rummaging around she’d been doing probably hadn’t done her any favors, either. This had, unfortunately, been necessary, since this was the place where the Apples stored their ropes when they weren’t being used, and Scootaloo’s trap called for a lot of rope.
This particular job wouldn’t have been easy under normal circumstances, but Apple Bloom had discovered a problem with Scootaloo’s plan: namely, she didn’t specify how thick any of the ropes needed to be. And the Apple family, it turned out, had a rather large variety of cordage sizes available, from skinny lengths of twine for bundling packages to huge coils of rope that were as thick as one of the filly’s legs. Apple Bloom wasn’t sure where to begin, and in all likelihood, any attempt to get her family members’ advice would create more problems than it solved.
Apple Bloom hopped off of a rafter onto a storage area that had an actual floor. She could have simply climbed down the ladder she’d used to get up here, moved it to the other side of the barn, and climbed up again, but although this would have been much safer, it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. Besides, this took a lot less time. The yellow earth pony stared at the various options in front of her. She briefly entertained the idea of simply hauling all of it to the clubhouse, but if any of the other Apples actually needed rope in the next day or so, they’d probably get suspicious when they discovered that somepony had apparently broken into their barn and had only taken the rope, leaving behind much more valuable farm equipment. No, the filly needed to be selective. Of course, lacking adequate criteria with which to make her selection, she had to fall back on a tradition that had been passed down through countless generations of Apples. Why, there were some who claimed that it predated the founding of Equestria itself! Taking a deep breath, Apple Bloom extended a hoof towards the pile of ropes, and solemnly intoned: “One potato, two potato, three potato, four....”
August 31 – 12:35 PM
“...to permit special consideration of property with outstanding features, including, but not limited to, historical, architectural or social significance, unusual topography, landscape amenities, and other special land characteristics.” Mayor P. Diane Mare coughed several times before popping another throat lozenge into her mouth. She hadn’t particularly wanted to spend her entire morning reading aloud to herself in her office, but she couldn’t think of any other way to get through all the proposed changes to Ponyville’s zoning laws without nodding off. She was about to return to her inglorious task when she noticed that the clock on her wall said that it was past noon—time for lunch.
On most days, the Mayor ate her midday meal in her office, but she quickly rejected that idea: if she stayed in this room for much longer, she’d probably go stir-crazy. Instead, she decided that this was an ideal day to take her lunch outdoors, where she could greet her constituents. Granted, this inevitably meant that she’d have to respond to dozens of impromptu lobbying efforts, but unless the subject of building regulations came up, she couldn’t see how this wouldn’t constitute an improvement.
As Mayor Mare opened the door of the town hall, she took a deep breath of Ponyville’s fresh air... and was promptly bowled over by a rapidly bouncing pink blur. “Hello, Pinkie,” she said with a nearly-imperceptible sigh as she stood up. She had always liked Pinkie Pie, and not just because her sister had named the excitable pony after her, either. The pink earth pony had an exuberance about her that was rarely found on either side of her family; she was fun-loving, extroverted, and full of energy. In many ways, she reminded the Mayor of a younger version of herself, multiplied several times over and with a massive sweet tooth thrown in for good measure.
“Hiya, Auntie Diane! I’ve got something for you.” Pinkie rummaged around in her saddlebag for a few seconds before extracting a small package and presenting it to her aunt. “It’s from Mom.”
The Mayor gladly accepted this parcel, as she always enjoyed hearing from Rhubarbara. Given its weight, she presumed it contained an interesting-looking stone of some sort. “I didn’t know you had visited your parents, Pinkie Pie. You should have told me you were traveling north.”
“Well, I probably would have, but this was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“You mean, you just woke up a few days ago and decided that you wanted to see your family, so you bought a train ticket to rock farming country?”
“No, I flew there this morning using my flying machine.”
Even though Mayor Mare had never heard of this contraption’s existence before, that fact that her niece apparently owned one did not seem all that remarkable. She was Pinkie Pie, after all. “Well, I’m sure it was a pleasant surprise for them to see you.”
“Are you kidding? I was so lost that I was surprised to see them. The fog is way thicker than it looks on the outside.”
This piece of information caught the Mayor off-guard. “Fog?”
“Yeah, you know, the humongo-ginormous fog bank on the other side of the Unicorn Range that’s threatening the safety of everypony in Ponyville?”
“Er... no. I don’t know it.”
“Oh. Well, there’s a humongo-ginormous fog bank on the other side of the Unicorn Range that’s threatening the safety of everypony in Ponyville, and Fluttershy asked me to have a look at it.”
“Fluttershy?!”
“Uh-huh. She’s the one who’s been put in charge of dealing with it. Anyway, when I went there, I learned that it’s not just really easy to get lost in it. It’s also really cold and wet and I started shivering really badly and Twilight says if my Daddy hadn’t found me I might have gotten hypochondria!” From the tone of Pinkie Pie’s voice, one might think she was describing her plans for an upcoming party.
Mayor Mare, on the other hoof, was staring at her niece with her mouth hanging open. “Er... are you sure you don’t mean ‘hypothermia’?”
“That’s the one. Twilight says that if I’d been out there too long, I might have kicked the bucket, but Daddy used the Sense to find me. Wasn’t that lucky?”
“That’s... one way to put it.” The Mayor’s eyes lowered into a squint as she finished processing what she’d just learned. Two facts stood out to her. The more obvious one was that her niece had gotten into serious trouble on what seemed to be an impulse (though whether that impulse came from Pinkie or somepony else wasn’t particularly clear yet). Rhubarb was no doubt incensed that her daughter had been permitted to put herself into such danger—at least, not without a direct order from Princess Celestia—and the fact that she might have ended up in a hospital (or worse) were it not for her husband’s bizarre superstitions wouldn’t make it any easier to accept. If her past reactions to some of Pinkie Pie’s adventures was any indication, Rhubarb was probably planning on unleashing a tirade at her sister, just because she happened to be the most convenient authority figure. Mayor Mare suddenly became very wary of the stone she’d been given, and made a mental note to have Zecora scan it for curses the next time she came into town.
Second, and more importantly, the citizens of Ponyville were apparently in danger, and nopony had bothered to tell her. Given that looking out for the welfare of her town’s inhabitants was pretty much the entirety of the Mayor’s job description, it seemed that immediate action was called for. “Pinkie Pie, you said Fluttershy’s been put in charge of dealing with this fog business?”
“That’s right.... Oh! That reminds me: I need to get back to the library so I can help Fluttershy make plans to deal with it.”
“I think I’d better go with you,” the Mayor replied darkly. “There are some things I need to discuss with her.”
August 31 – 12:56 PM
Somehow, the fog bank beneath Pencil Pusher had gotten even thicker since the last time he’d flown over it... though given that this was the first time he’d seen it in the full light of day, it was quite possible that he was just imagining things, thanks to the muggy summer heat. The midday sun was pounding down on him, making him sweat profusely. He was starting to wish that he’d bought one of those overpriced bottles of water that vendors sold on the streets of Cloudsdale, but it was too late to head back—unless he wanted to miss his meeting with Fluttershy. And after all he’d been through that morning, there was no way he was going to do that.
Thus, to take his mind off the two hours of flying that still lay ahead of him, Pencil Pusher contemplated how he’d approach his second meeting with his prospective significant other. “Greetings, Ms. Fluttershy. The Department of Weather sent me here to discuss your plans for dealing with the fog.” No, too impersonal. If I do it like that, she might not notice that we’ve already met. Hmm....
“Hello, Fluttershy. It’s me, Pencil Pusher! You know, from this morning? I wanted to help you out, so I volunteered to come back.” Ugh, I sound like a desperate teenager. The bureaucrat had put those years behind him; these days, he was a desperate full-grown stallion.
“Hello again, Miss Fluttershy.” What am I, a Con Mane villain?
“Hey, what’s shakin’ baby?” Yeah, right. That’s a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen.
Pencil Pusher’s thoughts were interrupted by a stray gust of wind which nearly caused him to lose the steady wingbeat that he’d managed to keep going for nearly an hour. By the time his mind was free to speculate about his co-worker, he was considering a different tactic altogether. I should probably wait until after the meeting for any small talk. If she thinks I’m trying to take advantage of an emergency so I can hit on her, she might think I’m callous. This was of particular concern to the bureaucrat, as that was precisely what he was attempting to do.
Let me think... a compliment! If I compliment her plan, it’ll show that I respect her mind. Mares seemed to think that was important, especially the pretty ones. At least, he assumed so. “You know, Fluttershy, that’s a really sensible idea. It’s clear that we’re all in good hooves.” Blecch. I sound like one of Greg’s yes-ponies. Maybe compliments aren’t the best way to handle this... encouragement, perhaps?
“I really admire your leadership skills, Fluttershy. You’re a classic example of what they call ‘grace under pressure.’” Ooh, I like that one. It sounds like I’m interested because of how impressive she is. And it’s got to be true: after all, she was a famous supermodel, and ‘grace under pressure’ is what those ponies do best, right?
August 31 – 1:03 PM
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry...”
Applejack stared at the tableau before her, trying to figure out what was going on. She had sold out her stock at the market fairly early, no doubt due to the vaguely-explained fog causing the preppers to be even more paranoid than usual, and had decided to stop by the library on the way home to see how Fluttershy was doing. The first thing she noticed was that Twilight Sparkle had apparently given up her efforts to keep her door from being slammed, and had decided to prop it open with a complete four-volume copy of Chancellor Puddinghead’s autobiography, which was famed (at least among scholars) for being both exhaustively detailed and so riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings as to be nearly incomprehensible without Smart Cookie’s annotations.*
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry...”
Next, she noticed that Fluttershy was groveling at the hooves of a very uneasy-looking Mayor Mare, as the four other Elements of Harmony looked on with equal unease. “Uh, that’s... that’s alright, Fluttershy,” the older mare said. “After all, everypony makes mistakes.”
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry...”
Turning her attention from this spectacle, Applejack glanced off to the side and saw Sweetie Belle, who, despite her efforts to hide her face behind a book on the history of siege engines, was obviously as engrossed with the situation as everypony else. Figuring it would be impolite to simply barge into an obviously tense moment without knowing what was going on, the farmer walked over to the unicorn filly and quietly greeted her. “Uh, hey there, Sweetie Belle.”
Sweetie Belle seemed a bit startled, but regained her composure rather quickly. “Oh, hi, Applejack.”
“You got any idea what’s goin’ on?”
“Kind of... Rarity and I came here maybe half an hour ago. I wanted to check out a book, and Rarity had a poofy necktie thingy for Fluttershy, only she doesn’t like it when you call it a necktie.”
Applejack looked over to where the yellow pegasus was still continuing her profuse apologies and noticed that she was indeed wearing a cravat similar in style to the Mayor’s, only hers was burgundy as opposed to green. “Right... and the Mayor?”
“She came in here with Pinkie Pie soon after that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look angry before. She chewed out Fluttershy for not telling her about the fog, and Fluttershy got really defensive at first, but then she just sort of broke down all of a sudden and started apologizing.”
“Okay, and this was, what, thirty minutes ago?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So... what’s she apologizing for now?”
“Oh, this is still her first apology, basically. I mean, she took a ten minute break to eat lunch in the middle, but then she went right back to apologizing. Everypony else has been trying to get her to snap out of it.”
“Is that so?” The farmer strolled up to the still-prostrate mare, and, ignoring the surprised looks of her friends, shouted, “Dragon!”
It took several more minutes of cajoling to get Fluttershy to emerge from beneath Twilight Sparkle’s bed. Once she was back in the main room, she turned once again to Mayor Mare. “I’m sorry—”
“No!” shouted everypony else in unison.
“...about taking up so much time with all that, um, apologizing,” Fluttershy finished. “It’s just that when you started shouting...”
“I was shouting?” the Mayor asked, clearly confused. “I thought it was simply a firm tone of voice.”
“That’s because that’s precisely what it was,” Rarity explained. “But I don’t think the poor dear has as much experience in the fine art of forceful solemnity as you do.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I always called it ‘talking like Mom.’”
“Um, of course,” Fluttershy said, despite the fact she wasn’t quite sure what Pinkie was talking about. “But I really am sorry about not telling you, Miss Mayor. It sort of slipped my mind.”
The Mayor sighed. “As I said, I understand that everypony makes mistakes. But there’s no need for you to grovel; it’s unbecoming of your cravat.”
Fluttershy raised a hoof to the neckwear in question. “Oh, right. I’m s... uh, I mean, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”
“Well, now that we’re all here,” Twilight Sparkle said, “perhaps we should start brainstorming some possible solutions.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Rarity said. “What say you, Fluttershy?”
“That, um, sounds like a good idea. We’ve only got about two hours to come up with something. Uh, would you like to stay, and, um, contribute some, er, input?” she asked the Mayor.
“I should think that I can reorganize my schedule for that,” the official said with a smirk. Given that her other option was to go return to poring over zoning regulations, this wasn’t a particularly difficult choice.
“Right,” said Rainbow Dash, who didn’t recognize that this statement was supposed to be humorous. “Time to get this think tank moving.”
As the adults began discussing ideas, Sweetie Belle sensed that the library was about to get way less interesting. She informed her sister that she’d be walking home on her own, and placed her book in her saddlebag, and headed towards the open door. As she exited, she heard Pinkie Pie’s voice call out behind her: “Good luck swapping the engine in your siege!”
* Contemporaneous sources claimed that forcing ponies to read the autobiography without the annotations was once used as a particularly effective form of psychological torture. Though many historians dismissed this as hyperbole, others pointed out that Celestia herself had banned the practice 700 years previously.