The oaf found Trixie busily searching through the cabinet in her wagon. She had been certain there was leftover paint somewhere that she could use to touch-up her newly-repaired props. So far though, after sifting through most of the drawers, she was ready to concede defeat and head out to find that dreadful shouting pony to inquire after buying some.
Certainly, Trixie could perform a beyond-dazzling show with her props as they were, but she would feel much better with everything being just right.
She must have been just too focused on her task; when the hick knocked at the front of the wagon, Trixie jumped and slammed the back of her head into the bottom of a shelf. Since she had invested in particularly durable furniture, the shelf did not budge one iota.
“Ah! What is it?” she snapped, rubbing the back of her head with one hoof as she leaned back into the narrow space that functioned as her hallway, living room, bedroom, and kitchen at any given time. The face peering in through the open door was one showing the calm, serene look of a pony that needed a warning and a good run up before attempting advanced-level calculus questions like two-plus-two.
“Oh. What do you want?” she demanded, trying her best to look haughty while simultaneously picking up the little stack of copper cards from the top of the cabinet. She pressed the cool metal to the back of her head, hoping to ward off a goose-egg.
Mac frowned, just a bit, but did not otherwise seem perturbed. “Brought you some food,” he said, his silly drawl making him near impossible to understand. So saying, he climbed the few short steps that led up to the doorway, but thought better of trying to actually enter. For one thing, it really was a small space and his shoulders would barely be able to fit through the doorframe much less further inside, given the way things were stacked. There was also Trixie’s glare to consider; it was the kind of look that reduced sizable towns to rubble.
In order to diffuse the situation, Mac coughed and carefully took the cutting board where he had balanced it across his back and held it through the door for the entertainer to examine. On it was a full assortment of peerless Apple family fare, ranging from cherry donuts to fritters to an entire loaf of sourdough bread, stuck through with a breadknife. This was pinning a wedge of cheese near as wide as Mac’s hoof to it, sort of like a really strange olive stick in an equally strange cocktail. At the very center of the tray was a mug with a froth of pink foam that was fizzing away merrily, giving the air a cheerful, apple-cherry scent.
“Trixie isn’t interested,” she started, but into the beat of silence between the last word and the next her stomach interjected a compelling, and rather vocal, argument. The little bowl on that tray must have held soup, and by the rich, spicy scent, it would be butternut squash soup. It would be hot. There would be crushed walnuts in it. Maybe a sprinkle of cinnamon on the top, too.
The idiot stallion seemed not to have heard the world-rattling growl of her belly, instead just blinking once, slowly. Probably to be trying to remember how to breathe. “Paymin’,” he said around the edge of the tray.
Trixie managed to keep herself from drooling long enough to grow suspicious. “Payment for what?”
“M’ndin’ th’ lil’uns.” It was hard to believe it, but he was even harder to understand with his mouth full. Trixie had half-expected the universe to get in on the joke and have him sound like a professor of logic or something; it would have been hysterical. He nodded his head gently, “Pl’th?”
Still suspicious, but not denying her hunger, Trixie took hold of the tray with an effort of will and lifted it free from the oaf’s mouth. A second brief effort of magic cleared enough space on the crate that made up her table for her to set it down. There was butter on there, too: a little bowl of it, rich and yellow and probably freshly made this morning, given the way these hillbillies never stopped working.
That little spark of admiration was overruled by the way her stomach was threatening to eat her liver if she didn’t placate it.
She quelled the desire to leap at the offering and go at it with knife, fork and rammer, instead pushing herself upright, lifting her nose just that extra few aristocratic inches, and sort of crabwalking as haughtily as she could to take a seat on her pallet. Then, with the exquisite care of one trying desperately not to show weakness, Trixie plucked up one of the admittedly good-looking donuts and took a dainty bite.
She almost fainted as the rich, buttery-soft treat melted on her tongue, the taste and scent of sweet cherries momentarily overwhelming a palate that had been surviving on stale biscuits and watery tea for the better part of a month.
It was so good she wanted to cry.
More importantly, she wanted to know where the rest of them went. Trixie eyed the tray with renewed suspicion. She had counted no less than three of those cherry donuts there half a second before, but now all that remained was a notably empty space and a fairly large number of crumbs on the floor between her hooves.
Her glance slid to Macintosh, who was still standing where he had been. As far as it was possible for him to actually have an expression on that dumb face, he looked startled.
“Was there something else you needed?” She had meant to snap at the hick, but found it hard to get properly angry with the taste of cherry lingering on her tongue. The nearly-polite question had almost the same effect of putting the stallion off-balance at least, though he did not seem quite so intimidated as she would have liked. For his part, Macintosh didn’t say anything, but he had taken on an expectant countenance.
Trixie tried to stare him down, but she might as well have tried to stare down a cat, or a brick wall.
“Ahem,” he said, nodding towards the tray he had brought.
“What?”
“You said you’re from Canterlot. They have no manners up there?”
Affronted, she scoffed, “You should be thanking Trixie for looking after those brats.”
Macintosh’s look didn’t sway nor lessen. Beneath that steady gaze, Trixie found herself starting to flush, even as she tried to distract herself with cutting the mouth-watering bread.
The steps creaked a little as Mac settled his weight. He seemed disinclined to leave. Finding herself growing uncomfortable with an audience for quite possibly the first time in her life, Trixie grit her teeth, swallowed a tiny measure of pride from her vast reserves, and uttered the two syllables she hated most in all the world.
“Thank you.”
“Enjoy,” said Mac, grinning, his eyes wandering about the interior of the wagon as he backed down the steps. The place was a madness of things, all somehow carefully ordered and organized to actually be able to fit in a space where they really shouldn’t have been able to. It had the worrying feel that, if something got jostled in the wrong way, it would cause everything to collapse or, quite possibly, explode.
He turned away, idly wondering about the little blue ribbon Trixie had pinned to the wall beside her pillow. It was curious that in a wagon so packed to the brim, a bit of cloth would have an empty space all to itself.
“Mac?”
His train of thought was derailed when he heard Trixie call his name. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the mare peering out from the doorway, a half-devoured fritter hanging in the air beside her head.
“Would your uncle have some paint?”
She wasn’t yelling. She wasn’t shouting. She wasn’t... okay, actually she was still scowling a bit, but given her reaction to him a minute before, it was like she had become an entirely different pony. Mac waited patiently for his brain to come to terms with the idea that Trixie Lulamoon might not always be insufferable before answering.
“I reckon so. Need some?”
“Yes,” she said, lifting her nose again to a more familiar angle before leaning back inside. Mac started back towards the house and got three steps closer before Trixie called out again.
“And can you bring me a spoon?”
He waited patiently for a short moment before turning his head and clearing his throat, loudly. An exasperated sigh and quite possibly the sound of rolling eyes drifted out from the open door of Trixie’s wagon.
“Please?”
“Sure thing.”
He rounded the corner of the homestead and was greeted with the sight of the small feast winding down. A number of ponies were still sitting around the tables, chatting and nursing their last mugs of cider while others were busily clearing away plates and cutlery. Those ponies with the most robust appetites were seeing to the last of the offerings, and alongside them were a number of fillies and colts whom, being Apples, were bottomless pits one and all.
Mac found Turnover sitting where he had left him, the old pony now turned around and relaxing with his back against the table, with what looked to be a fresh mug sitting in one hoof.
“Hey uncle.”
“Mmn?”
“You have any paint laying around?”
“Paint?” The old stallion scratched at his beard, causing a number of crumbs to come tumbling out. “I reckon so, over in the main barn. What you need that for?”
“Trixie was asking after some.”
That drew Turnover’s eye and, worse, his grin. “Oh hoo; you two are setting up house already! Well then...” He started to laugh when he saw Mac’s expression. “Ah, don’t look at me like that. Just head on over to the barn and take a look around the workbenches. Come to it, I think Cherrywood and his girls have already headed over there to see to some of the chores; they can point you to it.”
“Thanks, uncle. I’ll get this done then head out with the rest to finish up.”
“Ah, don’t fret about that none; the work is pretty much over with and you’ve been hauling that wagon for a few days now. Stretch your legs and enjoy the place!”
“Nope; there’s work to be done.”
“I used to say that, and let me tell you: there’s always work to be done, nephew. Don’t be afraid to just sit on yer arse and take a look around.” Turnover took a draught from his mug, smacking his lips a bit before continuing. “The work’ll wait for you.”
Mac gave the old stallion a friendly pat on the shoulder as he passed on by, starting towards the indicated barn before getting a better idea and veering towards a group of foals made conspicuous with the shape of a tall, pointed hat amongst them.
It was the work of a moment to convince The Wizard Greensleeves to bring some cutlery out to his new idol, and a cursory examination at the barn produced no less than five tins of paint. They looked to be on the ancient side, but shaking a few of them produced a sloshing sound, and that was hopeful. After a bit of balancing and the clever use of a broomhandle, Macintosh was striding out of the wide doors and back towards the homestead.
Ponies were streaming down into the cherry orchard in ones and twos, ready to finish what they had been called out to do. There was already the sound of chopping and sawing drifting through the air as the last of the dead wood was being rounded up and seen to. As he walked, Mac’s mind drifted to the work that still had to be done, namely getting all the wood stacked and corded at the homestead and the barn. A kind of country arithmetic whirled away at the back of his head as he counted up the number of stumps and multiplied them by the size of the trees, figuring out that there would be a good fifteen cords of firewood to stack up: enough to keep a big house warm through two hard winters, and then some.
Despite what his great uncle had said, Mac was looking forward to help with the cording. It was all well and good to pull a cart for a few days, but it wasn’t exactly hard work and it had only done to leave him feeling restless. He liked to go to sleep with an ache in his muscles; it reminded him that he had put in a solid day’s effort, and that was something he had grown into… Had needed to grow into: farms were busy places even during quiet times, and Mac had been seeing to their Acres since AJ had been Apple Bloom’s age. That torch had been passed so suddenly to Macintosh, and even as sprightly as Granny Smith had been when she had come to mind him and his sisters, her apple-bucking days had been long behind her. It was Mac that had to keep Sweet Apple Acres afloat, and it was no small bit of pride that warmed his heart when he considered how successful it had become.
Mac knew the real value of hard work, and danged if he was going to just sit around and sniff flowers: that idea alone got his hooves to itching. Carting a few tins of paint wasn’t exactly hard work, but it was something to do, and the notion of pitching timber into stacks and rows in the near future was worth looking forward to.
When he rounded the homestead to where all the wagons had been parked, he discovered that Trixie’s wagon had exploded. Oh, this wasn’t the violent, debris-strewn mess that the word makes it out to be. Come to that, maybe ‘unfolded’ is a more accurate word, though it was hard to grasp just how such a neat and compact little wagon could open up to produce a stage twice as wide and long as the wall it had folded down from. There was also the long curtains to consider, and the dazzling array of...
Mac tried to make heads or tails of the things sprouting from the top of the wagon, but gave up. There was any number of strange shapes up there, all gently bobbing around on deely-bopper springs and painted in glitter. Oh, he could see that there were cutouts of moons and stars and comets, but precisely why they were there in the first place was baffling; there really was no point to have them there, to his mind. Even stranger, Trixie was sticking halfway out from the curtains, giving orders to a small cloud of foals that were running about on the stage. She actually looked cheerful.
Happily, this strange state of affairs was swiftly corrected when Mac deposited the tins.
“Bit of paint for you.”
She frowned at him, then looked down her nose at the decidedly battered and rusty and dirty cans. They were spattered and caked in patches, some red and others white.
“Hmmph. I take it there’s no blue or silver?”
“Uh, nope.”
Trixie sighed and rolled her eyes, then turned her attention to a crash of noise at the other end of the stage. A filly with a coat the colour of a blushing rose was seated there. It was hard to make out more detail, given that the rest of her was currently swallowed by the bell of a tall brass horn. The pair of little pink hooves sticking out the bottom wobbled a bit as her new hat was claimed by gravity and started to topple, taking her along with it. Before the instrument hit the stage though, it was caught in a pale plume of magic and gently lifted upwards, revealing the cheerful, giggling visage of Sweet Berry, whom did not seem the least bothered with having been stuffed into a horn.
“Ugh. Red and white are so not my colours,” said Trixie, lofting the instrument upwards and fixing it into place, or at least, into what Mac assumed was its place. Sweet Berry was up and pushing behind the curtain like nothing had happened. For a brief moment, Mac felt upset that they weren’t getting Trixie’s death glare like he had, but the moment swiftly passed. The crowd of chattering foals looked to be hauling out bits and pieces for her, or at least a few of them were. A pointed newspaper cap was conspicuous there in the trio studiously wrapping small cylinders in colourful paper.
“You don’t have anything else? Even purple would do.”
“Nope. No use for fancy colours out here.”
“Why not? You could use more colour around here...”
“Well,” Mac frowned some, “Red and white is cheap. Takes a lot to do a barn.”
“Hmmph.” A long screwdriver drifted out from behind the curtains as Trixie stepped up to the cans, giving them a thoughtful look. A knock with the handle and a deft bit of prying caused two lids to pop up, to be carried upwards by a bit more magic. She let out a sigh.
“If I paint anything in this, it’ll end up looking like some kind of stupid fishing lure.”
“Try blueberries.”
Trixie eyed Macintosh, trying to decide whether he was pulling one of her legs or not, but he looked entirely serious. That, and she was quite certain humour was far beyond his capabilities.
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. Frozen blueberries,” Mac turned and started ambling away. “Stains my sisters’ coats up and turns them both purple. Might work for the white paint.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly the best solution, but it was a solution of a sort. Anyway, Trixie didn’t have anything to lose in trying. She considered the paint for a moment as a small riot of voices filled the air around her, then turned her head.
“Apprentice!”
There was a brief scuffle around the side of the wagon, followed by a clatter of small hooves on the wood of the stage. Trixie had to lean back just a bit to avoid losing an eye to the rather sharp point of the cap the colt had made for himself. It was an impressive bit of origami, even she had to admit.
“Miss!” He stood to attention, the very picture of awe and adulation.
“I have a very important mission for you!”
It had been a task and a half, but he had done it. He emerged from the house, one half of his face dusted white from flour and a cinnamon roll stuck in his mane. There was a streak of cherry pie filling decorating his sunny flank, and his proud pointed wizarding hat now sported a 90-degree angle and a decorative donut, but he had succeeded in raiding the homestead’s icebox. Set across his back was a bag near as big as his head, frosty from the warm air and speckled with dark spots from the tiny treasures within.
There was a ruckus behind him, of shouting ponies and a few wayward curses that turned the air blue, but that didn’t matter; he had won out.
Proudly, the little colt deposited his prize before Trixie and stood up as tall and straight as he could, even going so far as to try and suck in a bit of his pudge, to mixed results. He was vibrating with excitement when Trixie solemnly accepted the hard-won prize, and then nearly exploded when she declared him an Apprentice of the Third Water.
Okay, so Greensleeves had no idea just what that was, but it sounded impressive and The Great and Powerful Trixie had fastened a cloak about his shoulders.
A real wizarding cloak, with glittery stars and everything!
As it happened, Trixie didn’t really need the extra curtain; it was just taking up space in the wagon that would be better served for some of her tools. As she watched the little yellow colt hare off with a cloud of her helpers on his tail, she couldn’t help but do a bit of mental arithmetic, subtracting the worth of that bit of cloth and sequins from the total value of the wagon. She decided it was a useful investment.
Eager as they might have been, foals tended to be loud and unfocused at the best of times, and Trixie needed calm to paint properly. That is, if she could make the odd idea work. She lofted the bag of gently thawing berries upwards, then took up one of the two tins of white paint, eyeing it critically before retiring behind the curtains.
It came out a sort of reddish-purple, but it was purple, and that was suitable. Using it and the other tin of white, Trixie resurfaced some of her more necessary props. She even found a use for the gaudy red on one or two pieces that were meant to draw the eye. Trixie was feeling quite pleased with it all as she picked out the last few details on the spiral pattern of the sparkler wheel, chewing industriously on a slice of bread slathered in rich butter and topped with a thick slice of cheese.
The show would indeed go on, and it would be one of the best she’d ever done.