AN: Ok folks, this entire chapter is dedicated to AJ and what she's been dealing with at the paws of the Kitsune, As such don't expect any real conflict resolution in this chapter.... Well maybe a little, anything to get Pinkie to quit blowing that damn horn in my ears. I swear I wish I'd never pulled that thing outa my hat and given it to her.
The morning had been a typical one for the Apple family, which is to say everypony was up early and getting right on with being a productive member of the farming family. Everypony save for Apple Bloom that is, her and her friends had all slept in for a bit, agreeing to meet up and watch Rainbow do some tricks later on.
Still, even down a pony Big Mac and AJ were more than enough to handle everything that needed to be done. Ever since Twilight had suggested rotating the fields it had become much less costly and a whole lot less work to keep the farm running smoothly. Sure, all of Sweet Apple Acres was still covered in trees, but they worked it in sections now, as opposed to doing everything at once. Today's section was the famous Red Gala apples that they often used for cider and pies, tomorrow was the Yellow Delicious, and the day after that was the... Oranges?!
"What th'a hay?" asked AJ as she scratched at the back of her head, one eyebrow cocked and a look of utter bewilderment on her face. She had no problem with oranges, they were good enough and some of her kin helped grow some of the best dang citrus fruits there ever was, her aunt and uncle Orange excluded (funnily enough it was the Papaya branch of the family that did the orange growing). That being said never in all her life could she remember having a single orange tree on the farm. That would just be silly, they were an apple orchard after all.
That said, staring her right in the face, was a whole field of em, laden down with the pebbly skinned fruits named aptly enough for their color. Frowning she trotted up to one of the trees and gave it a well practiced bump with a hip. Sure enough one lone orange came a-tumblin' down to land in her outstretched hoof with a gentle plop sound. Her frown deepened when she began to peel it.
Under the orange rind was a plum. Now she'd seen her fair share of strange things when Discord was out and about, but this took the blue ribbon by a huge margin. To say that she'd let her jaw drop in puzzlement would not be amiss at all. Nor would it be a stretch to say that she let the thing drop when it suddenly sprouted eight fuzzy legs, six eyes. and a pair of mandibles before scuttling about atop her arm.
The fruit turned arachnid scurried off quick as ya please, and quickly enough to please the now shuddering farm pony. That was just creepy as could be. She didn't even like plums, let alone ones that were also apparently spiders. For that matter, who the heck liked spiders?!
Her day only got weirder from then on out. The strange trees prompted her to go about and check over the entirety of her family's land. What she found bothered her quite deeply. For one, only one of her orchards remained a stately strand of apple trees, the rest... Well oranges were not the strangest thing she found that day.
Bananas, coconuts, peaches, pairs, plums, apricots, dates, figs, and pretty much everything else one could think of had gone and replaced her beloved apples. Eeyup... Time to go find Twilight and see what the hay was going on round here.
It had taken her till just about noon to make her rounds and get back to the farm house, and boy did she have a lot to tell Granny Smith and Big Mac, though that could wait in the face of what occurred once she was in sight of home. Her hat, a beloved heirloom from her father, was swept off her head with what she could have sworn was a giggling breeze.
Frowning fit to give herself worry lines prematurely (something only Rarity would concern herself with really) she gave chase with a call of "Get back here ya darned hat!" Being a hat with very little brain, it apparently completely misunderstood her words for it alighted high atop a tree with an honest to Celestia "DING!" That brought AJ up short and made her blink in surprise. Since when did trees and hats make bell sounds?
"Well, since I decided they should of course, when else?" asked a voice that could only belong to the sudden weight atop her head. She looked up into the jade colored eyes of some lil' critter with a very lax definition of personal space... Or aspirations of being a hat itself, either or really.
"Uhh... Wha' do ya think yer doin' up on mah head like this ya lil' varmit?" asked Aj with all of her confusion laid bare in the tone of her voice. Not every day one wakes up to find that their farm has apparently become a large scale botanical study and has a talking fox decide their head makes a decent perch now is it? She sure as sugar didn't think so.
"Why, keeping it warm of course, after all I did just deposit your usual head gear in a tree did I not?" asked the Kitsune as he ducked a rather clumsy attempt at brushing him off from the mare whom he'd claimed as a seat. "Oh do calm down, I'm doing you a favor you know. I coulda just let your head get cold after all, but who wants a chilled scalp? ...Wait a moment, we've both got fur here, and when one stops to consider that a scalp is the skin from which hair grows, and fur is just a sort of hair, wouldn't that make every bit of skin on the two of us scalp?" The Kitsune paused it's sudden rambling for a moment to give Aj a light poke before it continued, "And if that's the case I can't go about letting your scalp freeze after I stole your hat... I know! PARKAS!"
There was a loud bang (and a few now naked Eskimo ponies somewhere in the far north of the world) and AJ suddenly found herself bundled up to well she couldn't move. Good lords above she looked like a marshmallow all wrapped up in a massively puffy white coat that covered her from the tip of her nose to her tail. She had one thing to say to all this of course, and that was "MURMPH MURRMRMPH MURRGH!!!!!"
Roughly translated from muffle-ese to proper equine, "What in tarnation?!"
That had been an hour or so ago, and since then AJ hadn't been able to move too well, though she had managed to get her head outa of the oppressive coat and give the world a disapproving glare. Who's bright idea had it been to set summat like that little critter loose in the first place? She sincerely hoped they got hog tied for it... Though to be honest she didn't figure that would be quite fair... Maybe only hog tie the critter and toss it at whoever sent it... That'd work.
For now though the stay puffed marshmallow mare sighed and slumped a bit where she stood under a tree. Least it was shady here and she wasn't roasting in the forced winter gear. Her folks were in similar straights if the fact that she could make out a couple more white blobs of vague pony shape on the porch was any indication. Nothing to do but what about really, unless she wanted to waddle about and she really didn't if truth be told. Too hot, too much effort.
Meanwhile Twilight had found the rest of her friends and they were all making their way to find Apple Jack, all in various states of annoyance at their treatment at the paws of the Kitsune. Rarity was the most vocal, declaring that she'd dress it in a tartan skirt and make it dance to vaudeville given half a chance. Fluttershy just wanted to pet it some more.
Red was still plodding along, fluttering a bit every now and again in an effort to speed up his trip. His new staff presented a minor problem to carry if he wanted to fly. It didn't taste too good so he was reluctant to carry it in his mouth. Hooves aren't exactly made to hold things either, despite the fact that they apparently could... He had no clue how that worked still, and he couldn't get it to work for the staff when he was thinking about it either. Oh well, he'd get there eventually.
Watching over this all sat the Kitsune, humming a merry little tune as he munched on a bowl of caramel corn. "Well, this is getting good." he said, grabbing hold of a remote and changing the channel. He'd come back to the show he had a large part to play in later... For now he wanted to see what was on AMC.