//------------------------------// // Probably Rotting in a Bargain Bin Somewhere // Story: 3:14 PM // by SugarPesticide //------------------------------// The streets of Ponyville bustled with activity as its residents went about their business. Among them trotted a wild-maned pink pony with far grimmer business than her pace would suggest. Her eyes flitted about as she trotted up and down the streets, searching for the newcomers from Canterlot. “They should be here soon,” she said to herself, nodding as a mint-green unicorn passed going the other way. The unicorn gave her a strange look, but nevertheless continued on her way. “Unless they’ve already got here, in which case they could be anywhere! I mean, I guess I saw them go into Town Hall that one time, but I wasn’t really thinking straight, so when that is exactly, who can say?” She glanced at the clock tower. It was close to a quarter past four, so she had been wandering about for nearly an hour. Maybe she needed to wait outside Town Hall until they came by? “Look out!” The sound of wings made her swivel around, and her eyes widened at the sight of the swiftly incoming chariot and its purple occupants. The pegasus guards beat their forehooves against the air in an effort to slow, but within half a second they were above her, their kicks narrowly missing her head. With the chariot itself, however, she was not so fortunate. ∞ Pinkie rubbed her neck, wincing. “Right,” she mumbled. “Try to avoid that if I can help it. But they were in that chariot, weren’t they? Twilight and Spike. It’s a good thing their memories reset each time, or else they’d really be disturbed by now.” “Who would be disturbed, Pinkie?” “Nothing, Mrs. Cake! I just have a little business to take care of.” “If you say so, dear.” Pinkie managed not to get beheaded this time, and the chariot touched down without incident. As the guards deposited their charges and flew away, she marched over to meet them, eyes fixed on them in such a way to show that she was on a mission. “A mission, huh?” Twilight looked skeptical once Pinkie had filled her in. “You mean to tell me that you’ve died several times trying to get back at Nightmare Moon?” “Yes. Which is good, in a way, since otherwise everything would be doomed for all eternity.” Pinkie frowned. “Although I guess the trade-off is that Equestria can be doomed multiple times instead … that’s unfortunate.” “More like amazing!” Spike gushed. His eyes were alight with fantasy. “Anything with time travel is seriously cool. It’s like in the latest issue of Power Ponies, where Radiance loses control of her powers while fighting the Clockwork King, and ends up reliving the same week for a really long time.” He grinned. “Heh … Radiance.” “This isn’t a comic book, Spike,” Twilight said with a huff. “This is clearly just a very confused pony who needs to go back to bed.” Pinkie sighed. “Twilight, you can’t afford not to believe me. Nightmare Moon is coming, I know where the Elements of Harmony are, and we need ponies who embody their virtues. What we need to do is find those ponies and deal with the problem while we can.” “C’mon, Twilight.” Spike nudged the scowling unicorn. “Didn’t you want somepony to believe you?” Twilight blinked. Her eyes flicked sunward, then refocused on Pinkie. “Fine. I’m not saying I believe you completely, but I’m going to take what I can get.” “That’s great!” Pinkie clapped her hooves together. “Where should we look first?” “Well, I told you I need to check on preparations before the celebration. But maybe we can run into suitable ponies along the way.” They strolled along to Sweet Apple Acres, which Pinkie could only remember going to a couple of times before. Those were simple outings, as she and Mr. Cake would discuss deals with a big red stallion whose name she couldn’t remember. Their seasonal apple muffins would be delicious, she’d thought before, and that was all that mattered. The idea that the farm would be important in any other way had never crossed her mind. Now, she considered the place as if visiting for the first time. As they crossed over hills and through dips in the road, vast apple orchards came into view, through which the occasional pony could be seen gathering the plump red fruits. A bright barn sat on a hill, overlooking the rest of the property in such a way that Pinkie was reminded of a watchful matriarch. When they had passed through the gate, an orange figure galloped past them toward an apple tree nearby. The earth pony swiveled around on her forehooves and bucked hard enough to shake the fruit from their branches; the apples fell neatly into baskets around the roots of the tree, defying everything Pinkie knew about earth ponies and magic. “Well, howdy-doo, strangers!” The orange pony came forward and extended her hoof, beaming despite the sweat matting her coat. Twilight shook. She shook in more than one way, for she was bounced around from the force of the pony’s enthusiastic hoof. “Uh, hi,” she said, once she managed to get her balance back. “You must be Applejack. I’m Twilight Sparkle, and this is my assistant, Spike.” “Well, darn pleased to meet you, Twilight and Spike.” Applejack considered her other visitor. “Say, I’ve seen you around town. Pinkie Pie, right?” “That’s me!” “You lookin’ for my brother? I dunno whether it’s apple muffin time yet, but I’m not exactly the expert on those.” Pinkie shook her head. “I just wanted to drop by and see how the farm was doing.” Not a total lie. Applejack’s mouth set in a hard thin line as she processed this. Something flickered in her bright green eyes — something that was ever so slightly less friendly. Then she shook herself, and her teeth glinted in the sun as her smile returned in full force. “Mighty nice of you, Pinkie. Y’all wanna come around the back and see the food? I bet it beats your expectations, no contest.” The food that had been laid out was certainly a spectacle. Apple fritters, apple dumplings, apple pies, and other apple confections were heaped on the table, somehow stacked in such a way that not one was in danger of falling despite their precarious position. The chime of a triangle brought a veritable herd of earth ponies trotting over, and Applejack listed off names that by and large matched the tasty-looking treats. “Well, this looks really nice …” Twilight started to say, smiling weakly. “It looks fantastic!” Pinkie cut in. She glanced from pony to pony, wondering if she might not be able to find their element holders all in one fell swoop. “You all must’ve worked really hard on this.” “Aw, shucks,” Applejack said, smiling despite waving a hoof. “Kitchen was a little crowded, but t’weren’t nothin’ a heap of teamwork couldn’t fix.” The big red stallion scuffed at the ground, blushing. Big Macintosh, wasn’t it? Pinkie wondered how she’d managed to forget a name like that. He certainly looked the part, making his sister look absurdly small in comparison. “D’you wanna try some of this, Pinkie?” A yellow filly leaned toward her, balancing an apple fritter on her bow-brightened mane. “I made it myself! Well, my cousins helped, but it was really me who did the work!” Pinkie took a bite. “Itsh delicioush.” “She likes it!” The filly bounced higher than should have been equinely possible. “I told y’all it’d work out fine!” Applejack chuckled. “Well, Apple Bloom, I guess everythin’s good, then. Disregardin’ the two dozen eggs it took to bring us this one fritter, of course.” “Darn tootin’!” Pinkie giggled at Apple Bloom’s antics. A part of her wanted to join in, glad that something was going well in this time turnover. Still, she stood her ground against the urge, instead drawing the line at smiling politely and swallowing the rest of the fritter whole. It was nice to be the sane one around here, she knew. “Well, I’m glad everything’s in order,” Twilight said, giving Pinkie a strange look for some reason. “But we do have to move along; there’s more that needs to be done.” “Aw.” Apple Bloom’s eyes grew huge. “But we were just about to snack on the extras.” Twilight bit her lip. “I really should be off supervising …” “You go ahead, Twilight.” Pinkie patted Apple Bloom’s head. “I’ll stay and help with the food. If that’s okay, I mean.” “Why, sure it is! You can be part of the family for the afternoon.” Applejack waved at her relatives. “Dig in, everypony!” The earth ponies happily obliged. Twilight took her leave, though a little pleading on Spike’s part allowed him to join in the feast. “Getting ready for the celebration sounds like a lot of checking up on ponies,” he told Pinkie as they plucked a few treats for themselves. “Don’t get me wrong, I love being Twilight’s assistant. It just doesn’t seem like she needs me with this. And hey, who would I be if I turned down free food?” “You’d be a very silly dragon.” Pinkie grinned as they found themselves a spot in the grass. “But you didn’t, so you’re not. You’re probably not missing much, anyway.” A shadow fell across them. “Mind if I join you?” Without waiting, the unfamiliar pony took a seat next to them, followed shortly by Applejack. “You said your name was Pinkie Pie, right?” “That’s me.” The pony smiled. She had a coat the color of toffee, and her blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight. “I think I’ve seen you in town before? You’re the bakers’ daughter?” “Nah, she’s their apprentice or somethin’,” Applejack corrected, taking a bite from her slice of apple pie. “Big Mac tells me they don’t know what they’d do without you.” Pinkie laughed. “I really just help around the bakery. Life never gets crazier than that.” “Would you like to know my name?” the strange pony asked. “Uh, sure.” The pony smiled. She said nothing. “This here’s my cousin, Apple Cobbler. You can call her Cobbler, though,” Applejack filled in. She ruffled Cobbler’s mane affectionately, and Cobbler leaned into her touch with a smile. “You’ll have to excuse her; she ain’t the kind to stop askin’ questions.” “Wow.” Spike leaned in, eyes bright with curiosity. “That’s just like somepony in a book I read. The Inquisitor, I think her name was? She was terrifying.” “Who’s she?” “Oh, she’s brutal. She managed to break the Guardian just by asking questions. I mean, that’s pretty much all she could do, but then her ice minions came in and grabbed him when he was crying on the floor and everything. She’s pretty terrible.” Cobbler’s eyes hardened, though she didn’t stop smiling. “Who’s she?” “I told you, she’s—” “Spike, what other books have you read?” Pinkie cut in. “You live with Twilight, so you must have been to libraries a lot. She seems like a studious type.” “Pfft, we practically live in a library! Oh man, this one time, after magic camp …” As Spike dived into his story, Pinkie gave Cobbler a sideways look. The latter had relaxed slightly, though the tension didn’t quite leave her shoulders. Applejack caught Pinkie’s eye, and something like understanding passed between them, though what Pinkie understood, she couldn’t say. The ponies and dragon continued to discuss what they liked, though Applejack often had to fill in for Cobbler when a question couldn’t serve as an answer. As the hours wore on, Pinkie learned that Spike had been hatched by Twilight when she was just a filly; she learned that Applejack was devoted to her work at Sweet Apple Acres; she learned that Cobbler liked to vacation in the Mild West when she could afford it. All the while, ponies around them traded stories around them. Is this what it’s like to actually stop and talk to ponies? Pinkie wondered. She watched Spike and Cobbler laugh about some embarrassing story or other, their previous animosity forgotten. I always thought it was a nice distraction at best … but here we are, talking like old friends. Maybe one of the ponies here really does embody a virtue. Why not get to know them? In the distance, Apple Bloom laughed as a soaked collie chased her across the sunset. There’s no reason not to. And I have all the time in the world. ∞ “Well, my name is Apple Fritter, and I—” ∞ “—lived on this farm since I was a filly, back when the princess—” ∞ “—Celestia knows we could do with a bit of rain on Thursdays, especially once the squirrels and—” ∞ “—badgers me whenever I go to milk the cows, but that’s in Hoofington, where on cloudy days the sun don’t—” ∞ “—‘shine on, you crazy diamond!’ And since that’s my birthstone, I told him that he was a real wise—” ∞ “—guy needs to lighten up, especially since oranges can be a—” ∞ “—treat when you live in the city, although sometimes those performers can be a bit over the—” ∞ “—top of the line machine, we should really make a killing, eh, brother of—” ∞ “—mine was a bad idea, even if the coal itself was useful in times of—” ∞ “—trouble sometimes, but Applejack is really understandin' about the pigs—” ∞ Pinkie’s head was full of apples. She was glad she’d managed to talk to everypony at Sweet Apple Acres; much as she loved the the company and the treats, all of this was a lot to remember. She couldn’t remember when she had last slept. “No time for sleeping,” she told herself, waiting outside Sweet Apple Acres. If she was right, Twilight and Spike wouldn’t be staying there for long, even with the promise of an apple-based feast to keep them busy. “Twilight and I still need to find the right ponies. The Apple Family is full of possible ponies, and they’re all really generous … or is that loyal?” While she mused on the situation, she was entirely unaware of what was happening far above. A sky-blue pegasus swooped in and out of clouds, wearing a cocky smirk as she dived and weaved at impossible angles. A flash of pink alerted her to Pinkie’s presence on the ground, however, and the pegasus skidded to a stop in midair. “Who is that?” Her muzzle scrunched in thought. “She looks familiar …” She raised a hoof, as if to try to catch Pinkie’s attention, but no words came. With a shrug, the pegasus flared her wings and spun in another broad loop, then darted off for Ponyville proper.