//------------------------------// // Lost and Found // Story: Eggs and Apples // by Tzee //------------------------------// %i% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Diamond Tiara was scared. She had forgotten the size of the Sweet Apple Acres orchard, and was totally. Hopelessly. Lost. She had gone from a sprint to a jog to a sluggish trot. She kept turning corners at random times in random directions, but everywhere all she saw was the dusk-covered branches looming over her, the twigs appearing to be claws unsheathed and ready to rapidly scratch her until she was on her side sobbing in pain. Diamond Tiara's stomach rumbled. She moaned. When she was back at Silver Spoon's she was going to get a mint chocolate-chip ice cream cone. Or anything! She needed food. But wait...she was surrounded by food! Apples were growing everywhere! She wandered around a bit more until she found a looming branch close enough to the ground for her to jump up and grab. Diamond Tiara took a deep breath and dashed towards the branch. The pink filly leaped up and wrapped her tiny hooves around the stick. She pulled it on to the ground as low as it would go, then released. The branch flew up, smacking four apples in the stems and making them tumble onto the ground. Diamond Tiara grinned as three golden delicious and one red delicious apples rolled up to her. She leaned in and took a heaping bite out of the golden delicious when she felt a prick on her head. She looked up and discovered that the apples weren't the only thing she had knocked down. A wasp nest was sitting on the ground near the stump of the tree Diamond Tiara had whacked the apples from. Honey lay out in a puddle and bits of honeycomb were scattered on the ground. The fall had made the wasp nest splatter, and now there was nothing left, except a ton of angry wasps. Diamond Tiara screamed and began to run. She was followed by black and yellow fury, armed with stingers. One wasp caught up to her and dug its stinger into her cutie mark. That made her slow down enough for a couple more to get their stings in. Soon, about 30 wasps were swarming around Diamond Tiara. The filly sobbed as she felt spikes of pain appearing almost everywhere on her body. These spikes of pain were followed by a stinging sore. "Shoo!" came a familiar voice. A pony in a beekeeper suit armed with a broom ran in and started swatting at wasps. A couple wasps fell with wings to bent to fly. Others evaded the swinging broom and tried to sting the mystery mare. Those attempts were pointless though, due to the beekeeper suit. One by one, the wasps flew away. Diamond Tiara sighed in relief when she got stung one last time by an exiting wasp. So this is what a voodoo doll feels like, Diamond Tiara moaned. If she stood still, the burning sting in nearly every part of her body wasn't as bad. But she naturally swayed a bit, her legs weak. Finally she collapsed and screamed in pain as holes where wasp stingers had pierced erupted into pain. Diamond Tiara stood up on wobbly legs and looked at her masked rescuer. The pony took off the beekeeper suit and replaced it with a raspberry red bow, then grinned sheepishly. "Apple Bloom?" Diamond Tiara asked in shock. Apple Bloom nodded. Then, it was sorta spooky to Diamond Tiara how fast AB's face went from sorta shy to dead serious. Apple Bloom's glare actually made DIamond Tiara sweat and kick and the ground nervously. "Why?" that one word that came out of Apple Bloom's mouth made Diamond Tiara's head waver in dizziness. Or maybe it was just the massive amount of wasp stings that dotted her skull. Diamond Tiara was going with B. "I know ya' hate me and mah famly," Apple Bloom continued. "But eggin ar' home? That's a new all tahm low and evil for ya'!" Diamond Tiara hung her head in shame, then snapped back into reality. Apple Bloom wasn't supposed to be doing this to her! She was supposed to be doing this to Apple Bloom! "You know darn well why I did it!" Diamond Tiara snapped. Apple Bloom took a step back and tilted her head in confusion. "You Cutie Mark Crusaders are always stealing the spotlight! It's like you have this personal grudge against me and Silver Spoon! You have no idea what happened two years ago, and I don't want to tell you! I was sick of always being Number Two, right behind you and your lame friends!" Apple Bloom wrinkled her nose in disgust and said through gritted teeth, "Actually, we only do that because we feel like outcasts. Being blank flanks and all. You wudn't kno'. You have yer cutie mark. We trah to get attention lahk that because not having cutie marks is bad enough. Having a bully lahk you to rub it in almost evry day? That's even ha'rder!" Diamond Tiara sighed and hung her head again. "I guess I am a bully. I treat you like crap all the time. I am a bully. You just don't know what i went through, and how good it feels to be popular. Silver Spoon too, I think. I don't know! You wouldn't understand." Diamond Tiara tried to get away quickly. She didn't want to talk to Apple Bloom. Why had she said that? Why had she gone soft? Either way she didn't like it and did not want to do it again. "Wait," Apple BLoom called after her. "We need to talk. Compare misery, y'know? Maybe it'll help us feel better." For a few moments, Diamond Tiara kept walking, trying to ignore her yellow calssmate. But then she stopped, sighed and turned around. "Only because you saved me from the wasps," the pink mare growled. Apple Bloom gave a half grin that lasted about a second, then caught up with Diamond Tiara. And the two began to talk.