The morning after her birthday, Apple Bloom was awoken at the crack of dawn by Applejack pushing her out of bed. As the young mare flailed about and tried to extract herself from the sheets tangled around her body, the elder gave a light chuckle, and placed a single hoof on the struggling bundle. Apple Bloom paused, and let her older sister pull on the sheet, untangling it for her.
“c’mon, Bloom. Ya had better get on downstairs fer some breakfast. Can’t have ya workin’ on an empty stomach,” explained Applejack as she left the room. Apple Bloom grumbled slightly, but picked up her fallen and tangled sheet, and placed it back on her bed. She could untangle it later, she thought, as she headed down the stairs of the family household as quietly as she could, not wanting to disturb Granny Smith’s sleep. Breakfast was also quiet at this hour of the morning, as the three younger member of the Apple family were in various states of awareness, some just waking up properly, like Apple Bloom, while Big Mac seemed like he’d never even gone to sleep in the first place, and Applejack was somewhere in between the two.
“Right, Bloom,” began Applejack, as the three headed out to the fields, “Yer old enough now to really start helpin’ out here, so I’m gonna teach ya how t’ buck.” The two females stood in front of the beginning of the orchards, and each picked a tree to start with.
“Now, the real important thing about buckin’ is to keep a good grip with yer front hooves, let the power o’ the earth flow through yer, and push it out through yer back hooves,” said Applejack, as she demonstrated the technique, which Apple Bloom watched closely. Applejack’s hooves connected with the tree, and the apples fell neatly into the buckets set below it. Applejack turned to her younger sister, “Now you give it a shot.”
Apple Bloom nodded, and lined up her hooves carefully, got a good grip, closed her eyes to concentrate on the feeling of the earth under her hooves, and then threw her hooves backwards.
Thunk! The youngest Apple opened her eyes to see that most of the apples had made it into the baskets, but a few were still left on the tree. Applejack gave a whistle, “Not bad, for ya first attempt, Bloom. All ya need now, I reckon, is practice. And fortunately, the south field needs to be bucked, so off ya go.”
“But the south feild is the largest!” complained Apple Bloom.
“Are you sayin’ ya can’t handle it, Bloom? Didn’t ya spend all o’ yesterday goin’ on about how y’all was a ‘big pony now’?” Applejack teased, a smile gracing her lips, as Apple Bloom grumbled for a minute or two, but then began walking off towards the south field.
“Don’t take too many breaks, Bloom!” called Applejack, a smile still on her face as Apple Bloom shouted something obscene back, still grumpy about being awoken so early.
In the end, it had taken Apple Bloom from sun-up to just after sun-down to completely buck the south field, and by the end of it, she was so exhausted that rather than try and make it back to the homestead, she dragged herself and her sore hooves to the nearest tree, sat with her back against it, and was soundly asleep within minutes.
-time-
Applejack and Big Macintosh found their younger sister like that a few minutes later.
“Well, I reckon she done good today,” began Applejack, a soft smile on her face.
“Eeyup,” came Big Mac’s response.
“Best to get her back to the house, and into her bed,” continued Applejack, “She’ll appreciate that, ah think.”
“Eeyup.” And with that, Big Mac and Applejack gently picked up their little sister, placed her on Big Mac’s back, and they began the trek back to the house together.