//------------------------------//
// Fourth Look: Tree Sap? Eeeyup. 
// Story: The First Friends You Ever Make 
// by Shotoman 
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Fourth Look: Tree Sap? Eeeyup.

Special Thanks to ZeroCore for the suggestion.


"Now, yer sure ya c'n handle things on yer own?"

As this was the fifth time Applejack asked this question in the last fifteen minutes, Big Macintosh would have been more than justified in rolling his eyes. A small smile quirked it's way into being on his muzzle instead. "Eeeyup."

The comparatively smaller bundle of orange energy didn't stop. A.J. was just far too flustered to really notice the signs of her older brother's mirth. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I like Caramel 'n the guys, but they just ain't applebuckers, you know?"

Big Mac's expression never wavered, though a twinkle seemed to appear in his eye as he watched his sister check for the twentieth time to see if she packed her toothbrush. "Eeeyup."

Something in his tone caused her to stop, and she looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "Are you laughin' at me, Big Mac?"

"Eeeyup." There was a subtle but definite note of smugness to his voice this time.

"Well, excuse me for being nervous 'bout my first big trip away since Manehattan," A.J. huffed. "And not just any trip either. This's Bloomberg were talkin' about. Bloomberg!"

Big Mac's smile widened ever so slightly. Looked like it was finally time to enter into this conversation good and proper. "I'm sure it'll be fine. Y'know how to take care of a tree on the go, right?"

A.J.'s green eyes showed that strange combination of uncertainty and mule-headed stubbornness that only she could quite pull off. "Right..."

"'n Cousin Braeburn's a full-blooded Apple Family apple farmer, ain't he?"

"Yeah..."

"'n you got yer friends with you, who help ya out a lot, even though they ain't applebuckers, right?"

Applejack had the grace to blush sheepishly. Big Mac had this uncanny ability to call her out without even changing his tone. "Sorry. Right."

"Then don't worry. Yer gonna make it out all right."

A.J. sighed and smiled. "Yer right, of course. S'not just me I'm worried about, though. And not just the farmwork. I know how ya work. You'll get 'er done. What scares me is, yer gonna be left mostly alone with Apple Bloom. S'not like Granny Smith c'n keep up with her, much as she'd tell ya otherwise."

Big Mac shrugged his over-sized shoulders. "She ain't the first little filly I've had to deal with, y'know."

Somewhat to his surprise, a wry smirk formed on A.J.'s face. "You haven't met her new friends." 


~FiM~


Though the morning had been on the frantic side--as is always the case when seeing a family member off on a trip, especially with A.J.'s chaos-attracting friends involved--the afternoon was promising to be a rather quiet affair. Big Macintosh would have the farm mostly to himself that day, since Caramel, Pokey, and the rest of the guys wouldn't be in until the next morning. So he took the opportunity to tend to at least part of the South field on his own. He never did feel quite right if he couldn't do at least something to keep the farm running each day.

The quiet was shattered by a large explosion that shook several not-yet-ripe apples from the trees. "Whut in tarnation?" he asked aloud before charging off in the direction of the sound.

"WHUT IN TARNATION!?" he repeated again mere minutes later when he entered the barn and saw the mess. He would never in his life know exactly how those three fillies actually caused the wagon to explode with a hammer, saw, and some nails, but the evidence lay before his dinner-plate sized eyes that they managed somehow.

"Uh, Sorry, Mac," Apple Bloom sheepishly spoke up for the group. We thought we could, ah, get our cutie marks if we could, uh, fix the old wagon? Guess we were wrong..."

Big Macintosh stayed stock still, taking in the utter carnage. He dimly registered the little orange pegasus--Scootaloo, he'd learn later--whisper "I think we'd probably better get out of here before he pops."

"Might be a good idea," Apple Bloom agreed, and the three of them were gone like a shot.

It took Big Mac a few minutes to regain his usual composure, but after some deep breathing and a rather long sigh, he somehow managed. He did remember the boundless, restless energy of youth--he still liked to think it hadn't been all that long since he'd possessed it, though the sheer destruction was certainly something to address--and he did know that Bloom was having a tough time of it recently, so he figured the lecture could wait 'till dinner at least. Besides, at least they knew better than to go after the good wagon. The one they tried to "fix" was old, run-down, and seldom used anymore. Physics-defying failure aside, no real harm was done. Right?


~FiM~


Bic Mac could literally feel the blood vessels in his temple throb when the now all-too-familiar sounds of filly-related destruction sounded throughout the orchard. While those three fillies had fortunately not managed anything quite as... spectacular as that first day, they still managed to get up into all kinds of trouble. Whether it was something as mundane as pulling the vegetables and leaving the weeds over at Carrot Top's, to more interesting trouble like getting stuck in a taffy machine at Sugar Cube Corner, some form of disaster seemed to follow when they got together.  Sighing, he turned Caramel. "You think y'all c'n handle this while I go sort out mah sister?"

Caramel chuckled. "Sure, sure, big guy. Though you might wanna keep it down on the 'sorting out' thing. Ponies might get the wrong idea."

Big Mac looked at his old friend in genuine confusion. "Huh?"

Caramel just chuckled. "Nothing. Nothing. Just go do what you need to do. This is basic stuff. We got this, right Pokes?" Pokey Pierce didn't answer, as he was divesting all his concentration on levitating the apples out of a tree with his magic. "Yeah," Caramel repeated, somewhat less than convincingly. "We got this."


~FiM~


A few minutes later he found the three little fillies stuck to a tree, covered in tree sap. He had to admit, it was somewhat amusing that Scootaloo muttered something along the lines of "Seriously, again!?" before the three of them saw Big Macintosh approaching.

"Uh, hi there, bro!" Apple Bloom said in a humorously forced attempt at being casual.

Big Macintosh just grunted. 

"I don't suppose y' could, uh, get us down from here?"

Another grunt.

"'Cuz, uh, we're kinda stuck."

Without saying a word, Big Mac gave the tree a swift kick, knocking the sticky trio off the trunk and onto his back. "C'mon, then," he said, his tone brooking no lip.

"Where're we going?" Miss Rarity's little sister Sweetie Bell asked nervously.

"I dunno,' Bloom responded.

"How can you not know?" Scootaloo asked irritably. "Isn't this your farm?"

"You have any idea how big this place is? I'm not allowed everywhere yet."

Big Macintosh stayed silent even as he led them deeper into the farm, to a place that wasn't secret, exactly, just not well known. Apple Bloom's eyes widened a bit when she recognized the place. It wasn't much, really, objectively speaking. A quite small pond with a shack next to it. But for a family like the Apples, it was a place of summer memories.

With a quick buck, he sent the three fillies into the pond with a splash. When they surfaced moments later, spluttering and gasping, they were each beaned on the head with bars of soap. "Wash up," he ordered, and the three fillies did so without much fuss.

Just as they were finished and were about to climb out, Big Mac surprised them all by cannonballing into the pond, dunking the three in a veritable tidal wave. "What was that!?" Scootaloo sputtered when they had all surfaced. 

"I don't..." Apple Bloom began before suddenly being pulled under, just to be launched to the other end of the pond. The other two swam over to her in a hurry, somewhat surprised that she was laughing when she surfaced. "What's going on?" Sweetie Bell asked. "I've never seen your brother like this before."

Bloom just laughed. "You've never seen 'im at the family reunions." Not far away, Big Mac peeked out of the water, his head just surfacing like a shark's fin. "GIT 'IM!" Bloom ordered, and the three fillies tackled the large stallion as one, only to be swept away by another tidal wave courtesy of his powerful foreleg.

Mac only stayed in the pool for a few minutes, long enough to get the little anklebiters good and riled. He just spent the rest of the afternoon watching as the little ones had a good, clean, day of fun, with no explosions, and not one mention of a cutie mark.


~FiM~


As the sun began to set over the horizon, Big Macintosh slowly trotted back to the farmhouse, one very tired little sister on his back. "Thanks fer that, big brother," Apple Bloom said through a yawn.

"No problem," he replied. "Y'all looked like y'could'a used a day without, what d'ja call it? Crusadin'?"

"Hmm. Guess we did. Yer not gonna give me the lecture on letting our cutie marks come in their own due time 'n all that, are ya?"

Big Mac chuckled. "Nah. Figured y'all've heard it plenty. 'Sides, th' way I see it, the cutie mark's all 'bout finding who you are, right? There's worse ways t'go about that than with some friends."

Apple Bloom laid her head on her big brothers really big shoulders. "Thanks, Mac."

"Just... try to keep the explosions to a bare minimum," he teased.

Bloom laughed. "You got it."


~FiM~


Big Macintosh sighed in contentment as he wiped the sweat off his face. Today's haul was good, really. Ahead of schedule even, thanks to help from the guys. Still, he was gonna be happy when A.J. returned the next day. His contented mood was shattered the same way the evening air was, with a new sound of destruction reverberating over the trees.

Big Mac just sighed and muttered, "Whut in tarnation?"