“Ooh, a stick! I can retrieve it for you! Please let me? Please please please? Stick retrieving, my favorite! Yay!” barked the little puppy, dashing madly across the grassy fields beside the latest barn raised over Sweet Apple Acres.
“Blarga blarga shucks,” chuckled the dusty and sweat-drenched farmer, “blarga blarga good dog, Winona!” Tipping her hat back, she wiped a hoof across her dripping brow and knelt down on the lush green carpet. “Winona, blarga blarga blarga - tarnation! Blarga saddlebags blarga back where they go?”
Winona grinned and yapped as an orange hoof tousled the rusty fur between her ears. “Ooh, head rubs, my favorite! Yay!” Looking down at the rumpled and half-empty saddlebags, she nodded her head, tongue slapping her nose with every bob. “Ooh, delivery service, my favorite! Yay!”
She scooped up the bags with her muzzle, leaving a dusty trail as she trotted off down the lane. The bags were only slightly bigger than the dog dragging them and gave the impression of three brownish lumps hopping merrily through wheel ruts and mud puddles. Winona paused at the gate to Sweet Apple Acres, looking back at the rustic farmhouse only briefly before bouncing away toward Ponyville.
Through busy streets and alleys she roamed, past trees and bakeries, sniffing trashcans and marking mailbox posts and fertilizing flowerbeds along the way. Now trailworn and caked with mud and not-quite-mud, the saddlebags followed her every perky step. Now and then a pony would point or wave and say, “Awww, lurga murga cute little puppy!” Ahead she spied her destination, sparkling and resplendent in the afternoon sun like a sacred golden fire hydrant.
Patiently she sat by the door to Carousel Boutique, panting raggedly with the saddlebag strap still clenched tightly in her teeth. Long minutes passed before a magenta mare opened the door, waving to somepony inside as she departed carrying a long, flowing dress. Winona leapt to her feet and darted inside, weaving between the dress and the pony’s legs as the door clicked shut behind her.
Inside a white pony was humming and smiling from her kitchen as she fretted and fussed over a table full of vegetables and breads, wines and cheeses, and more. Thoughtfully dropping the saddlebags on the softest and sparkliest pile of material she could find, Winona crept into the kitchen, the scents wafting off the table filling her nose. Curled up across the room lay a corpulent snow-white ball of fur, napping peacefully on a gilt settee.
“Ooh, cat, my favorite! Yay!” whimpered the diminutive dog, “I haven’t seen that one in two or three days – I’d better sniff her butt.” Crouching onto her haunches, she dove upward onto the gilded sofa to bury her ice-cold and dripping-wet nose a full muzzle’s length into the fastidious feline’s fancy fanny. Opalescence’s eyes flew open and she shot a pony’s height straight up, howling and hissing and clawing madly at anything and everything in reach. “Yep, same cat!” yipped the canine.
Turning to face the table and the screeching pony behind it, Winona woofed, “Ooh, cheese, my favorite! Yay!” Bounding off the couch with a crazed cat in hot pursuit, she vaulted into the midst of Rarity’s culinary masterwork and scarfed up half a dozen squares of Equestria’s finest cheeses as hooves and claws raked the table after her.
“Warga warga Applejack warga mangy cur!” yelled the flailing alabaster pony behind her as Winona rocketed off the table. “Warga my imported silk brocade! My gourmet warga warga! Warga warga detestable beast!” Tearing through the Boutique, she spotted an open window and sprung through it to freedom.
After racing back to Sweet Apple Acres, Winona lay on the farmhouse’s sprawling porch and watched the clouds roll by. “Ooh, a dog cloud! Ooh, another dog cloud! Ooh, a dog cloud!” she mused. As the sun dipped behind endless rows of apple trees, the white pony stomped down the lane and began barking at the orange pony, throwing the saddlebags at her hooves. “Warga warga my cat, my drapes, my warga cuisine! Warga barking blight!” she stammered. The orange pony put a hoof around the white one, which seemed to calm her down, and offered, “Blarga blarga too frou-frou anyway. How’s about y’all blarga blarga supper here tonight?” As the ponies stepped into the house, the orange one turned to Winona and winked, whispering, “Blarga cat deserved it, if’n y’all ask me. And, uh, blarga fer them saddlebags, Winona. Real blarga of ya.”
After waiting patiently for the inevitable table scraps, Winona trudged her tired paws up the creaky farmhouse stairs and into the orange one’s room. “Ooh, naptime! My favorite! Yay!” yawned the pup, curling up on a pile of towels by a sturdy bedroom nightstand. From her place at Applejack’s bedside she saw two ponies scurry into the room and quickly shut the door behind them. The creak of a bedspring barely registered to Winona as she lazily lifted one eyelid. “Wow,” thought the groggy puppy as she closed her deep brown eyes, “I guess they haven’t seen each other in two or three days.”