Applejack’s stomach groaned in protest as she lay out flat on the couch. The belly juices started pounding on the walls of her gut in complaint of there being nothing to… juice. She rubbed her hoof in small circles to try and ease the symptoms, assuring herself that she would eventually find something to sate it.
It just wasn’t fair! How was a stack of bay leaves, celery, and the most disgusting, non-appetizing excuse for a salad dressing ever supposed to appease her ravenous appetite?
Certainly apple products couldn't be bad for foal development. She didn't know much in the way of nutrition, but most doctors she'd heard of endorsed apples as a healthy food overall. Why on earth would Granny put her on such a diet in the first place?
Her brain refused to give her a reply with a lack of energy. She rolled onto her front and buried her head beneath the pillows to try and block out the scathing agony of starvation.
It was a little-known fact that Applejack wasn't exactly a lightweight pony. In fact, many of the foods she ate led to a rather impressive girth for her age. Apple fritters, apple pies, apple dumplings, apple tarts – all fattening foods for a regular pony.
Granny, however, had always lived by the philosophy that a pony with a bit of meat on their bones was a happy pony, and happy ponies were healthy ponies. She couldn't count how many times her grandmother had tried to get Rainbow Dash to eat more substantially, only to have her wife turn her down.
"A whole apple pie? Uhh... Granny? You know I'm an all-star athlete, right?"
"What's that got to do with anything, sugarcube?"
"Well, it means I can't afford any extra weight. And that means I can't have an ounce of fat below my jawline."
"Nonsense! Nopony ever got healthy eatin' vitamins and drinkin' mineral water!"
was the way such conversations usually went.
Still, none of it made sense given her current situation. If ponies with meat on their bones were healthy, why did it feel like she was being starved? Could it have had something to do with her impending stationary lifestyle? Was Granny afraid she'd get too fat to move?
Tired of thinking, Applejack growled and shoved herself off the couch and started towards the kitchen. She perked an ear and listened.
Granny, from the sounds of it, was upstairs sewing, judging from the creaking rocker. Applebloom had taken her friends out for a shake. That left Big Mac out in the fields with Rainbow Dash, showing her the ropes of how to applebuck in her stead.
With those four accounted for, that left the house mostly to herself.
A mischievous grin crossed the farmpony's lips as she rubbed her forehooves together.
"Ain't nopony starvin' this mare," she whispered to herself, slinking through the dining room and towards the kitchen door.
Peering into the kitchen, she didn't see any signs of recent use, and no occupants as of the moment. Smiling at her good fortune, she slithered in like a serpent, avoiding touching the butter churner and stealing a peek out the window. No signs of her wife or her brother. She perked her ears a moment more and listened, straining to hear any movement. Granny hadn't moved from her current task by the sounds of things, and nopony else had come back in the house.
Secure in her loneliness, Applejack's emerald eyes scanned to the left and practically watered at the sight of the beautiful, still-steaming apple pie that had just come out of the oven twenty minutes or so ago.
She leaned up against the counter and sniffed in the wondrous aroma.
"Ah had a dog, and 'er name was 'Bingo'!"
"WOOF!"
The sound of Winona barking at her tail nearly caused Applejack to lose a good portion of her coat. She paled a moment at the border collie's volume, and waved frantically at the panting, tail-wagging pooch. She held a hoof to her lips and shushed the dog softly.
"WOOF, WOOF!" Panting.
"Winona! Shh!" she snapped sharply.
Her faithful dog perked her ears and sat, tilting her head expectingly.
"Good girl. Hush," she said quickly, looking around for something to distract her companion with. Grabbing a wooden spoon from the utensil jar on the counter, she held it up vertically in front of the dog and waggled it in offering.
Winona stared and tilted her head the other way.
"See the stick?"
Silence was her reply. The dog yawned and continued to pant.
She waggled the spoon closer to try and entice her. "Play fetch?"
Winona snorted.
"Awww, c'mon! You always wanna play fetch!"
Disinterested silence.
Growling in frustration, Applejack frowned and looked about for something else to rouse the dog's excitement – more specifically, to other locations away from her.
She eyed the side door.
She turned back to Winona. "Ya wanna go play outside?" she asked excitedly.
Winona pounced into readiness, her tail going wild. "WOOF!"
She opened the door for her pet. "Let's go!"
Winona rocketed out the door like her tail had caught fire, and Applejack slammed it shut a moment later, breathing a sigh of relief. She heard her pet jumping at the threshold and pounding against it with her paws, yapping in protest at being tricked.
"'At'll keep 'er busy," she said triumphantly.
Turning back to the pie, Applejack reached up and claimed a plate for herself. Reaching for the pie server, she reached towards the object of her desires and pierced the golden crust.
“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” came a sudden, loud, mechanical voice from overhead.
It scared the bejeepers out of the earth pony, and she jumped back reflexively, her green eyes widening in surprise.
"What in tarnation?!" she shrieked.
Then the metallic cage dropped from the ceiling, trapping her in its bars.
Applejack gaped in surprise at her new prison. How had she not seen it when she'd walked in?
Turning back to the counter, she watched in abject horror as her prize apple pie lowered into the counter through a panel, and disappeared out of her reach forever.
"HEY!" she shouted in protest, reaching towards the counter. Too late.
A moment later, Rainbow Dash opened the side door, hovering in with Winona in her forehooves.
"Hey, Applejack!" her wife shouted. "Lightning-Butt here got out somehow! She kept bothering us in the-"
The pegasus froze in mid-air, and Winona wriggled out of her hooves to the floor. Her faithful dog bounded over to the cage and slipped through the bars to sit next to her.
Big Mac breathlessly ambled up behind Rainbow Dash, sweat pouring from his brow.
Both stopped dead at the sight.
Applejack could feel her stomach turning.
"What in tarnation's all that racket?" sounded the old voice of Granny Smith. "Ah'm tryin' ta get to work on a blanket fer the baby and y'all're-" Granny peered in from the dining room she had come from a few moments ago and gaped, her teeth nearly falling out of her head.
Her wife and brother looked at each other and had begun to form the merest of smirks on their faces, both suppressing their urges to laugh.
"I don't even know where to start," Rainbow Dash snickered, shaking her head.
“Don’t neither one of you say a word!” she growled threateningly, pressing against the bars. “Just git me outta here already!”