//------------------------------// // Well, My Dad Was a Farmer // Story: Cause, Effect, and Consequences // by Coltsguy //------------------------------// I don't think I've mentioned it, but my dad was raised on a farm. He's told me how he got up at 4 a.m. to work in the fields and tend to the horses in addition to going to class when he was a kid. He never did go into specifics, but it was something he talked about occasionally and usually whenever I was told that I ought to have a better work ethic. My dad never was around much while I grew up. Well, it was kind of up and down since he had to work for us and take responsibility for his time in the military. I never once felt like he didn't care about us. I just understand that since he wasn't around much, I didn't really build the work ethic that he had upon myself amongst other things. Why am I talking about this? Because while I am very aware that work can suck, I realized working on a farm when you aren't really happy about it sucks even more. But, that's something I haven't gotten to yet. You see, when ponies get scared of something that they don't understand they seem to wait until they get to a suitable crowd size and then they're ready to come and ask Twilight what just happened. She went and gave the cliff notes version of what happened. Honestly, I think there were a few points she could have expanded on since I don't think some of the ponies really understood what had happened. That being said, they didn't question her one bit. She had their trust both from past experiences and the fact that she was now a princess. It probably helped out that Princess Luna was there too. With the explanation given, the crowd dispersed in no time at all. A few ponies did stick around; namely, Twilight's friends. They were more interested in what specifically was going on than the rest of the townsfolk. For them, several more details were given up by all of us. Interesting side note, Discord whispered to me during one of Twilight's parts and told me that we were going off to do some talking in the Everfree Forest with just the two of us and not to tell any of them about it. I was going to be hesitant about it, but his tone of voice was much different than I was used to. None of the playfulness or the mirth was there. It was just the serious nature that I had only heard once back during our duel. It was enough to make me just shut up and nod. Well, after everyone was filled in, of course the first thing out of any of them was Pinkie Pie's cry of party. The theme was 'We're Glad You Got You're Magic Back and Thanks For Saving Us Last Year Because None of Us Said Thank You for That Yet'. How that second part got in, I still don't know. None of us brought it up and I was pretty sure I got thanked for it at some point. I did make sure to tell her to make this one a private party since I still preferred that type of party over the mass gatherings she put on. From there, the next part was Applejack telling me that I still hadn't shown up on her farm yet. She was merely bringing up the fact that I still had said that I would work on her farm for a week in exchange for what had happened the year prior. She said that not being on the same planet was a suitable excuse for not doing it before, but now that I was back, that bill had come due. While I really hated doing it, I had promised to do so. I'd rather break myself than break a promise. So, wanting to get that done as fast as I could, I grabbed Applejack and went down on the farm so to speak. Or at least I tried to. I completely forgot about the fact that while I did have magic again, I still didn't have any of the abilities that I had before when I last had them. As such, when I went to pick up Applejack with my old super strength, I found myself without said super strength and I proceeded to pull myself down instead of pulling her up. This ended up with me going face first into the ground and Applejack barely having moved at all. After some chuckles and some flat out insults of my intelligence from Discord, I thought about how to resolve the problem. It was handled quickly enough as Discord reactivated the spells he had used on me before. This time, however, the spells were tied to my magic and had a small drain to them. I'm not entirely sure what he did, but somehow I knew how to use those spells myself after he did them. I just rolled with it since it was very helpful in case I ran out of magic and had to recast them myself. Heh, I could cast actual spells now. I am Mr. Wizard! Yeah, they thought that was about as funny as you probably did. With my spells flipped back to the on position, I placed my hand on Applejack's back and we teleported over to Sweet Apple Acres. Since it was just past midday, to which I was told what the actual fucking time it was and couldn't believe it, there was less work for me to do. All she really ended up having me do for the next few hours was some repair work here and there. What really upset me was how I wasn't allowed to use magic. Shiny new powers and they were all on ice for the duration of my stay there. I obeyed as far as doing my job with them, but I still conjured up a Gatorade twice during my little session. Me and my adherence to my promises. That's why I try and word them like a lawyer would. If I thought I could get away with using my powers to do my work, then I would. I just said I'd listen to her and do the chores how she wanted, and that's how I'm stuck in Boringsville. "You know," I asked no one in particular, "why do I not get to use my super cool powers to fix up stuff?" "Because Discord's magic can wear off and then they would still have to repair it." I looked off of the barn roof to see Twilight standing there, staring up at me. I couldn't see the expression on her face, but it hardly mattered to me right then. I knew how I wanted to respond. "If I snapped my fingers and fixed it all up then yes I know it would wear off. I'm talking about levitating things and hammering things and, well, other stuff, things." "That does sound like it would make things easier," she said teasingly. "Yeah, yeah. Anyways, what happened with Luna? I left in a hurry and totally forgot to tell her goodbye before I left." "She was going to come after you, but she realized that she had no reason to since she had ascertained the extent of your new found magic. Instead, she headed back to the castle to let Princess Celestia know about what happened as well. However, she did say that despite the report she expected Princess Celestia to make an appearance after the sun set today." "How long until that happens anyway? Other than my watch telling me how much time has passed," I said and looked at my watch. "Which, by the way, I've been here for about three and a half hours, I only have a general time of day that I got from Applejack that lets me know that it's somewhere near four o'clock or so." As I said that, I realized something that made me miss her reply. I had been out in the sun for a huge heap of time today. Despite that, I had also realized that I wasn't burned from the sun exposure. I remembered that I hadn't been burned last time because of the fun magic spell protection that Discord had given me. Those same spells were now active once again. "I'm not turning into a lobster!" I shouted suddenly; throwing my hands into the air. "Magic for the win!" "You were worried you were going to turn into a lobster?" Twilight asked me with confusion written clearly on her face. The reason I could see her face was because she had managed to fly up in the air to about my level a bit away from the side of the barn. She wasn't exactly stable in the air, but it was going enough that she could stay in one place. Seeing her like that made me think about how she was capable of flying off like that in the season three finale and yet now she was having trouble keeping aloft. Then again, I had heard that it was easier to keep going through the air than it was to hover. I read that on a forum post. Hooray for magical memory recall! It may come and go, but it's still pretty cool. "Twilight, you don't need to fly up here to talk to me." "Maybe," she said and then sputtered in the air. "but this is giving me some practice at the same time," she continued while trying to right herself. I rolled my eyes and held out my hand to magically hold Twilight in the air. "You can't talk and fly at the same time. If you still need practice in order to fly properly then that should be pretty self evident." I lowered her back to the ground before grabbing the toolbox and teleporting myself to her side. "Besides, I'd rather you not get hurt because of me. If that happens, no one will be happy about it." She grinned sheepishly before continuing. "So, you said you were worried about turning into a lobster? How would that happen? Is it because of the chaos magic?" "No, no, Twilight, it's an expression. You remember what happened the other day when I got too much sun right?" She nodded. "Well, I was just pink right then, but if that continued my skin would have turned into a deep red hue which is what the color of a cooked lobster is." "I... see." She was looking down a bit after I had said that. I was pretty sure that she was thinking about humans cooking up lobsters. Hell, I know about how it's done so I didn't really want her to think about it at all. Keep talking stupid! "If I kept getting sun after that, pretty soon I would have blisters showing up on my skin. Those are not fun. After that, well, I'm not sure if sun exposure would do more than that, but I think some kind of scarring would occur. Trust me when I say that anything from blisters onward would be an incredibly painful experience." "Ah can understand that," I heard someone else say. I looked to the side to see Applejack trotting up. She was carrying a couple of glasses full of some liquid and ice as well a pitcher with the same liquid and some ice in it on some platter. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I didn't really care at the moment. "Is the work up on the roof done yet partner?" "I just finished before Twilight got here." "Yeah, I saw her comin' and decided to get her somethin' tah drink." "Well, thank you Applejack," she said levitating the glass towards her. "Yeah, thanks Applejack," I said reaching for the other. "The other one's fer me," she said setting the platter down. Yeah, that was a bit confusing. "Um, not that I'm going to complain about this, but why do I not get one?" "You seemed tah have plenty already when you were makin' yer own drinks out there." "I get thirsty a lot. It's from the diabetes. But, I don't really care I guess. It's more of an annoyance than anything else. Plus, it's easily remedied thanks to my new-found magic." I snapped my fingers and another bottle of Gatorade appeared in my other hand. "Yeah, ah see that. There was also the fact that repair work seems tah be the only thing ah can have yah do. Yah couldn't plow the fields." "That plow wasn't made for me and you wouldn't let me push it with magic." "You couldn't feed the hogs." "The ground was so muddy that my shoes were getting stuck so I couldn't even walk over to them and again you wouldn't let me use magic." "You couldn't help Granny Smith tah go to town." "I still say that was a trap and I'd like to go on record that she bit me! If you weren't right there I'm pretty sure that I would have used magic immediately!" "That was yer fault fer bein' rough with her." "Bu-, sh-, se-, git-, ni-, yaggg!!!" "Ya see the problem here partner?" "That without magic I suck at life? I'm pretty sure I learned that lesson a long time ago!" I said angrily. "That ain't the lesson at all!" "I am not my dad or you! I'm not a farmer and I am not any good at menial labor! Hell, I'm not good at jack fucking shit! I am terrible at everything I do and the only thing I now have going for me is this cool new magic and you won't even let me use it!" "I reckon yer done fer today," Applejack said in a low tone. "Thank you Applejack!" I yelled and teleported out of there.