//------------------------------//
// Chapter 25--Cider Season 
// Story: What You Don't Know 
// by Flaming Pulsar 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 25--Cider Season

And then came morning--or rather early afternoon--and I had to deal with the fucking candy hangover that I knew would come. Knowing the only solution was real food and water, I went down to the kitchen to get some breakfast...lunch...food? Upon arriving in the kitchen, I noticed a note on the table: Síor, Spike and I left early this morning to secure a spot in line for the start of Cider Season. There are leftovers in the refrigerator. Also, assuming it is probably around 2 o’clock by the time you’re reading this… I looked at the clock. It was 1:45. She just has no confidence in me. ...my friends and I… I guess they’re not my friends? Thanks Twi, nice to know you care. ...will be having lunch at Sweet Apple Acres with Applejack and her family. We’ll be back in time for dinner so try not to destroy anything while we’re out. Your friend, Twilight. Seriously, no fucking confidence. I went to the fridge to find some leftover soup and warmed it up in a pot on the stove since ponies didn’t believe in microwaves. After eating, I took some food up to the Doctor and checked on him and Mim. They were still hanging helplessly from my ceiling because they had nothing better to do. And since I had nothing better to do, I grabbed Qene and went to Sweet Apple Acres to meet the ponies and collect my cut of the money from the cider sales.
When I got there, I saw a strange contraption with twin unicorns riding on it driving up. Yes, driving. I’m pretty sure it was fueled by their magic but this is still the first example of any motorized vehicle I’ve seen since arriving in this fucking place. They started singing a weird song that had a word I didn’t know in it that I looked up later. After that, they tried to make a deal with the Apple family about using their machine to increase productivity of cider by a factor of three and splitting the profit 50-50. Apple Bloom, being the idiot she is, jumped the gun and agreed to the deal before the family had time to discuss the offer. She was immediately pulled aside while they did just that. Meanwhile I was doing the math on that. If the twins, whose named I learned were Flim and Flam through their song, got 50% and the Apples got 50%, half of which they would give to me, then Flim and Flam would make 150% of what would normally be made, the Apples would get 75% and I would get 75%.
Before I could work out how much we would need to change the split to make it fair, Big Mac told them, “No deal.”
“Very well,” Flim said. “If you refuse our generous offer to be partners, we’ll just have to be competitors.”
“You’re on!” Granny Smith said.
“Then a contest it will be,” Flam said. “Whoever makes the most and best apples by the end of the month wins.”
“What’re the stakes?” AJ asked.
“The winner gets exclusive rights to sell cider in Ponyville and full ownership of Sweet Apple Acres,” Flim proposed.
“It’s a deal,” Granny said. “And after we beat ya, I don’t ever wanna see you bambahoozlers around here again!”
“So be it,” Flam said. “We’ll start tomorrow at 8.”
“Oh, but Flam,” Flim said, “We haven’t any apples to use.”
“You can use our South Fields,” Granny said. “It’ll be worth it to teach y’all a thing er two about making cider.”
And so they parted ways until morning.

The next morning, around 7:55, we were all gathered at Sweet Apple Acres waiting for the time to come. Flim and Flam had apparently allowed ‘honorary family members’ to assist which apparently included me. At least AJ cares about me enough. So that meant that I was dragged away from the 4 hours of sleep I had gotten to help.
“Can I go back to bed?” I asked Twilight.
“No, we need all the help we can get,” she replied.
“Then can you at least make me not be so tired?”
“I can give you a revitalizing spell. It will increase your energy so you can be more productive.”
She did her magical awesomeness and I suddenly felt like I had just slept for a week. “Why haven’t you told me about this before? This is way better than failing at sleeping.”
“Revitalizing magic, while useful, does have its downsides. If you use it too often, it can lead to hallucinations or just plain insanity.”
“Good to know… What time is it?”
“7:57”
Flim and Flam drove up with their machine. “Good morning Apples and friends,” Flam said.
“We wish you luck in our competition,” Flim said.
“You’re gonna need it,” Flam added.
“Síor,” Applejack called. “Do you think we can use our special cider for this?”
“Well, each barrel takes three weeks to ferment so we should be able to make some. How much were you thinking?”
“Well, after selling it yesterday as a premium brew, we sold about 2 barrels of it for every 3 of the regular brand.”
“How many barrels of regular can you make in a day?”
“With your help and our best efforts, we can produce about 60 barrels per hour,” Big Mac chimed in.
“Thanks Big Macintosh,” AJ said. “You’re always there when we need some o’ that fancy mathematics.”
“Eeyup.”
“Alright,” I said getting us back on topic, “Daylight lasts about 10 hours this time of year so we should be able to make 600 barrels total. So that means that we should set 240 of those aside to ferment and keep the remaining 360 for nonalcoholic consumption thus keeping the same 2:3 ratio.”
“Contestants, please take your places, the competition will begin in 1 minute,” the mayor announced.
“Sounds like a plan, Síor,” AJ said. “We better get ready.”
We all took our positions: Dash on the smasher with Big Mac, Flutters with AJ to help remove apples from trees, Pinkie with Apple Bloom to help catch the falling apples, Rarity and Twi with Granny to help with quality control, and me at the barrel prep station to ferment the correct amount of barrels with the starters that we already had made because we’re just awesome and plan ahead. We all had our eyes glued to the clock tower as we waited for it to strike 8. Everyone was watching the second hand that wasn’t there and somehow they all knew when to start the countdown because the crowd started yelling out, “5...4...3...2...1. GO!”
And with that, the race began. Since I didn’t have much to do until some barrels were made, I went to talk to what appeared to be the judging panel. It consisted of the mayor, Spike, and Zecora. “First of all,” I said, “before I ask my real question, I feel like I should know the mayor’s name.”
“I am known as Mayor Mare. I only tell my true name to those who deserve to know,” she said with a slight hint of a glare.
“Alright, whatever. My real question is whether or not we are allowed to work at night.”
“Hmm, that’s a good question. Flim, Flam, would it be alright if the Apples manufactured cider at night?”
“We don’t care if they’re working around the clock. It’s a lost cause,” Flam said as they shared a chuckle. I should mention that they had it rather easy as for as workload went since they simply powered they’re machine with magic and the machine did all the work.
“I guess it’s ok,” the mayor said to me.
“Great.” I went back to the group to talk to Twilight just as the third barrel was coming off the line. Hey Twi, I have an idea. Would it be fine for that revitalizing spell to be used for about a month?”
“A month?” she asked in shock. “It’s unsafe to use it for a week. A month would definitely cause some mental problems.”
“What’s the longest consecutive time that you’re willing to use it?”
“I wouldn’t allow it’s use any longer than two weeks.”
“Alright, I have a plan. If we work 24/7 for two weeks, have a day of rest, and repeat that process, we should in theory be able to make more cider. It would be a potential of 32,568 regular barrels and 4392 premium.”
“What’s this premium product you keep talking about?”
“It includes a special ingredient and it sells for twice as much but only sells two-thirds as much as the normal product.”
“I see, well after some quick math in my head, I come to 23,040 regular and 15,360 premium. You seem to be missing 7 hours from your count.”
“Well, I had to make room for Thanksgiving.”
“What’s Thanksgiving?”
“You’ll find out on the 28th. The point is, we’d have a shit-ton of product by the end of the month.”
“Also, your ratio seems extremely off.”
“That’s because the premium product needs three weeks to prepare so we should stop setting it aside after the 9th.”
“I guess that makes sense. And I see you calculated in a 24 hour period for the first rest and 17 on the day that I’m assuming is this Thanksgiving thing. It will work but we’re all going to start hating it after about a week.”
“What’s life if you don’t hate it?” She looked like she was about to rebuke that but I added, “I have to go back to my station now.”
At the barrel stack, I saw that there was already 10 barrels made so I put the starter in 4 of them and stuck a big ‘Premium’ sticker on them.
And so that continued for a few days. On the 5th, I took a few minutes off to release the Doctor and Mim from their prison. “Now, what have we learned?” I asked them.
“Don’t fuck on your bed,” Mim answered.
“Good. Doctor do you have anything to add?”
“I’ve learned that it is a very bad idea to anger you,” he added.
“Right you are. Now, next time I find you being fucktards, the punishment will be worse. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal."
On the 10th, since we were done making the hard cider, I had to find something else to do. So, I used Qene and his flying to make the barrels into a nice neat stack in the shape of a tetrahedron because it is the most stable 3-dimensional shape. We were actually a little bit ahead of schedule by about 100 barrels which was good because Flim and Flam were working at about thrice our speed. And even though they weren’t working 24/7, they were still working 10 hours each day so they were a little bit ahead of us in quantity, but luckily the quality was also a factor and I was sure we would win with our hard cider.
On the 16th, we rested. This was made very easy because as soon as Twilight turned off the spell, we all crashed right then and there.
That done, we continued working until the 28th when we rested for 17 hours until 5 in the prevening, at which point I introduced them to Thanksgiving. I had found a turkey, two ducks, four hens, and eight quail eggs while hunting shortly before Halloween and I took the time to make a turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail--that’s two quail eggs inside each hen, two hens inside each duck, and two ducks inside the turkey. I was going to make a gooturduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailailturduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail but I couldn’t find a goose or another turkey, two ducks, four hens, and eight quail eggs. Anyways, I put it in the oven on a slow roast before our rest. After we woke up, I made some apple pi--that’s half of a pie because pi is only half of a circle--and pumpkin tau--that’s a full circle because tau is equal to 2pi. I also made some mathed potatoes--kinda like mashed potatoes but with each potato specifically cut into equal portions of 1 over a power of 2 until i couldn’t cut them any more. Next, I made some delicious vector green bean matherole with all the beans placed in a beautifully spiralling vector. Add to this some spherical bread with butter prisms and we had a beautiful mathematical feast.
After all the food was made, we all sat around the biggest table any of us had which happened to be at the farm. “Alright everyone, here’s how this works. Thanksgiving is a holiday that I always loved because there was always a shit-ton of food but the basis of the holiday is that it’s supposed to be a time to give thanks to all the good things in life or something like that. Case and point, we have here some turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail, two apple pi’s, a pumpkin tau, mathed potatoes and gravy, vector green bean matherole, and spherical bread and butter prisms all being a part of this mathematical feast. Obviously the turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail is for me and Spike because it’s the meat of the meal but the rest of it is for everyone so dig in.”
After my explanation, Spike asked, “Hey Síor, what’s a turducka--whatever you said?”
“Turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail? It’s a turkey stuffed with two ducks which are each stuffed with two hens which are each stuffed with two quail eggs. Also known as deliciousness. Just eat it.”
He warily took a few slices of the roast and munched on it. “Sweet Celestia, this is amazing!”
“Told ya.”
And so we ate our feast until we fell into food comas only to wake up again and get back to work. At midnight on the 30th--technically December 1st but whatever--we stopped working and went to sleep until morning when the tally would be given. According to the count, we had produced 35,000 regular and 4500 premium. The brothers made 65,136 regular and 8784 premium which I highly doubted was any different from their regular.
The judges gave their scores for quantity. We got a score of 7 ⅔. They got a solid 9. Next was the taste test for the regular. Both teams scores a solid 8 which means we were still down by 1 ⅓. It all came down to the premium. As suspected, the brothers hadn’t changed the product in any way so they scored the same as the regular, an even 8. This was it we needed a nine and two 10’s to win. The mayor drank. She savored the flavor for a moment, noticing its difference. She thought for a moment before writing her number down: a 9.
Zecora was next. She decided to say shit before giving her number. “My judgement I will not give haste so that I may savor the taste. A flavor I have long missed, one which my lips have long since kissed. ‘Tis a taste I wish to have again, for this reason I give you a 10.”
Finally Spike drank his sample. He savored the flavor for a minute before burping a huge fireball. He then said, “Any drink that can make me belch a fireball like that deserves only the best score. I give it a 10.”
“That means the Apple Family wins!” the mayor announced.
Insert cheering here.
Thus was the end of that little adventure. I then went home to get some natural sleep and to bask in my share of the profit.