//------------------------------// // Apple Flora // Story: Dinner with Rose // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Dinner with Rose Chapter Two: Apple Flora Admiral Biscuit I began by washing my clothes. They wouldn't be as clean as I could get them at home with the washboard, but they'd be good enough to wear another day. Thankfully, I was done with heavy lifting for the week—I’d finally convinced Rarity that I could handle painting her boutique.  She wanted a fresh coat for the fall. In exchange, she'd promised to make me three complete sets of clothes, one for each day of work. It was a fair trade; it would be enough to get me through winter in a pinch. If I could figure out knitting, I'd be even better off, but so far the reality of my knitting skills hadn't produced anything useable. At least I could just undo my work and start again with nothing wasted but time, and I had plenty of time.  A day’s work usually ended mid-afternoon, and there wasn’t much else to entertain me after that.  I suppose that was one of the benefits of living in a society with no television and no internet. Once my clothes were clean, I waded up to the bank and tossed them on the sloping stone abutment of the bridge. Back in the center of the stream, I soaped my body off, then ducked my head under the water to get my hair wet. The soap bar wasn't all that great for washing hair, but it was a lot cheaper to buy bar soap than shampoo. After two lather-and-rinse repetitions, I turned so that I was facing upstream and dove underwater again, letting the flow of the water get the last of the soap out of my hair. When I couldn't hold my breath any more, I broached the water like a dolphin, pushing off the bottom to get as much altitude as I could. There wasn't really any purpose to this, other than it made me feel like some kind of river goddess. I grabbed my towel off an overhanging branch and patted down my hair a little bit. I'd comb it out and braid it once I got home. I'd just stepped the rest of the way out of the water when I heard a branch snap. Instinctively, I wrapped the towel around my waist and looked around for the source of the noise. A moment later, a cream-colored filly with a two-tone blue mane and a garland of flowers around her neck stepped out of the underbrush. “How long have you been there?” I asked, more sharply than I'd intended. Her ears drooped and she took a step back. “Just . . . just a couple of minutes.” Her eyes darted to my right, and I knew she was about to bolt. “I'm sorry.” I made sure the towel was secure, and then crouched down. The last thing I needed was to get a reputation for being mean to foals. “You just surprised me, that's all. It's all right.” She took a sideways step, while I stayed put. It didn't take long for her natural curiosity to win her over, and she came out of the underbrush and approached me. She gave me a quick once-over before sticking out a hoof. “I'm Apple Flora.  You’re Sam—I’ve seen you around town.” As I reached out to bump it, I tried to place her, but came up dry. A good third of the ponies in this town were Apple-somethings, and they were all related. I didn't think I'd seen her before. “Are you related to—“ the Apples, I almost said, which would have been the most retarded thing to come out of my mouth in quite a while. “Um, to Applejack or Apple Cobbler?” I saw those two around town the most. “They're both my aunts,” she said. “My mom's Apple Cider.” “Blue coat and blonde mane? Wears a plaid bow in her mane?” “Uh-huh.” She nodded eagerly. “She sells cider at the market. It's really good. Some of it's bitey, and it's mostly for grown-ups but sometimes she lets me have some before bedtime if I've been good. But I can't share it with my friends unless it's okay with their mothers, she says.” “Why are you out in the woods?” “'Cause school's over and I wanted to find some wildflowers.” She turned her rump towards me, showing off her cutie mark. Unsurprisingly, it was apple-themed: an apple and apple blossoms. “Wildflowers are pretty. They grow up all on their own without anypony helping them.” “Yes, they do.” I grabbed my pants and started putting them on under my towel, figuring that she wasn't going to be spooked when I stood up again. “Sometimes I like to play in the water, too, because it's cooler than the pond on the orchard. But mom says I can't unless my friends are with me.” When I unwrapped the towel and draped it over my shoulders, she gave me another quick once-over. “Miss Cheerilee had a drawing of you in class, but I've never seen you up close.” “That's . . .  great.” I was going to have to stop by the school and take a look at that drawing. “So you were watching me for a while, then.” She nodded. “Your coat's funny. If somepony had told me it looked like that on the playground I wouldn't have believed her, but Miss Cheerilee said that's what it was like. She’s a teacher so she always has to tell us the truth.” I was really going to have to take a look at that drawing. “Yes, teachers always have to tell the truth.” I reached over and touched her mane. “Do you want to walk back into town with me?” “Sure.” “Just let me get my clothes.” I went down the bank and grabbed my wet laundry, draping it over an arm. “You know,” she began, looking up at me as I came out from under the bridge. She had a kind of uncertain expression on her face. “What?” “You shouldn't pee upstream from where you're gonna swim. Just in case some of it gets in the water.” My face turned bright red. She saw that? Great. Now I'm corrupting children. “And you squat more than a colt.” Her pronouncement made, she scrambled up the bank, turning to watch me as I picked my way carefully up the slope. “Hey, you try peeing standing on your back legs,” I said defensively. “Nuh-uh. I'd get my tail all wet.” She waited until I'd made it up to flatter ground before following the trail to the road. Despite her lead, I easily caught up to her—her four short legs gave her an advantage on a slope, but her head didn't even come up to my waist. I slowed down so she wouldn't have to trot to keep up. “So where do you live, anyway?” “Cross town, on the Canterlot side. We've only got a small orchard, but we get a lot of bruised apples and funny-shaped apples from other farms. When I got my cutie mark, my older sister went out to Appleoosa to help out with their trees, ‘cause the soil isn’t as good out there, even with a bunch of earth ponies. They've got buffalos in Appleoosa—we learned about buffalos in class, too, but I’ve never seen one.” My house was on the other side of town, closer to the Everfree. It wasn't good growing land, so the homes were cheaper over there. Plus, I'd started out my new life gathering firewood with a donkey named Berry Black, and my house was conveniently close to where he lived. “But we should go to market. Mom likes it when I help her pack up after.” “Alright.” “What's it like being a human?” she asked as we turned towards town. “Is it weird? I bet you can see all sorts of stuff 'cause you're tall.” “Yeah, I can.” I chuckled. As we went through town, she kept asking me questions. She wanted to know everything about me. I was only half-paying attention: I was keeping an eye out for the reactions of other ponies. When I'd first showed up in town, they'd been frightened of me, and I don't blame them. Fortunately, it hadn't been the kind of fright which led to pitchfork and torch mobs; instead, they'd just avoided me. I hadn't known it at the time, but working with Berry Black had actually lowered my social standing. But he was the only one who'd give me work, and he let me stay at his house while I saved up bits for a place of my own. It wasn't much, but it was a roof and walls. I'd probably still be cutting wood, except that he'd offered my services to Ginger Gold when he went out of town for a week. She ran the wood yard where we made our deliveries. She was skeptical at first, but it turned out I could split wood better than she could, and for a week that was my job. It was the worst week of my life. I hadn't known it was possible to be in so much pain. But it got a lot of ponies in town used to seeing me, and before too long other mares were asking to hire me for odd jobs. Just because they trusted me to split wood, haul sacks or grain, dig ditches, or even paint buildings, though, didn’t change their general wariness around me.  I’d seen the same whenever Berry Black had dealings in town.  Mares would watch fillies more closely, and no matter how crowded the street, there’d always be a bit of clearance around him and his wagon.  Until I’d started hanging out with Rose, I’d generally gotten the same treatment. It was a bit disheartening. Still, not everyone reacted that way. Mr. Breezy gave me a friendly wave—I'd unclogged his gutters during a rainstorm. Vera nodded politely as she passed the other way, heading for the spa with loaded saddlebags, and Mrs. Cake asked me to stop in for a free treat next time I was by Sugarcube Corner, then ran off after Pumpkin, who'd managed to slip her leash. Apple Flora watched the foal gallop off with Mrs. Cake in hot pursuit, then turned to look at me. “Do you have any foals?” I shook my head. “I’m too young for that.” Technically, it wasn't true, but it was a reasonable enough answer. “Oh.” She looked up at me curiously. “I thought you might have mastitis.  Everypony says you see Nurse Tenderheart a lot.  Aunt Fritter got it once after weaning Sweet Tooth, and it made her udders swollen and painful. She had to spend two days in the hospital and then take medicine until she was better.” “Nope, these are normal.  It’s a human thing.” I looked over the crowd, trying to spot Apple Cider's booth. At a guess, the one with the mug and apple on the sign was probably where we were heading. “They're pretty big. Not as big as a cow, though. Diamond Dog bitches walk on their hind legs a lot, and they don't have udders.” She ducked between a couple of ponies balancing a wood beam on their back; I went around. “Come on, mom's stall is just over this way.” She was headed in the direction I'd guessed, towards the stall with the mug and apple. I got a bit nervous as we got close enough for Apple Cider to see me. Most of the Apples liked me well enough—their family ethics revolved around hard work and loyalty, and I'd never done anything which crossed those boundaries—but being in the company of her foal might change her tune just a bit. “Mom!” Apple Flora bounded up to the stand, ducked under the tablecloth, and glomped her mother. I didn't; I stayed back where I was, a friendly smile on my face. “I was out in the woods and I found a bunch of wildflowers and I made you a necklace out of them and then I also saw Sam swimming in the creek and we came back into town together.” She let go of her mother's forelegs and pulled the garland off her neck. Apple Cider leaned down to let the filly drape it over her, then waved back at me. “Come on over,” she said. When I got close, she looked at me critically. “Where were you at?” “Just that side of town, under the bridge over the stream.” “Were any of her friends there?” “I didn't see them if they were.” “She didn't go swimming, did she?” “Mooom, of course I didn't.” “No.” I shook my head. “She was just in the woods, gathering flowers, like she said. Never even got close enough to the water to fall in by mistake.” “That's good.” She leaned down and ruffled her daughter's mane. “She's a smart filly,” I observed. “She is. I'm proud of her. Alright, kiddo, time to pack up and head home.” Without even asking, I set my wet clothes on the side of the stand and pitched in, too, carefully arranging the bottles in their wood packing. As each case was loaded, we stacked them neatly beside her stand, before bundling the awning into a box that went under the sales counter, raised off the ground on small blocks of scrap wood. She put her cashbox and the folded tablecloth into her saddlebags. “Are you just going to leave those there?” I asked her, pointing to the stack of crates. “Aunt Fritter has a wagon,” Apple Flora explained. “She'll take them back with her tonight.” “We take turns.” Apple Cider lifted the lid on the top crate. “No sense in having a half-dozen mares take trips with a wagon, when one'll do it.” She grabbed a bottle in her mouth and offered it to me. “Here, take thiff.” “You don't have to,” I said, as I took the bottle. “Please. I know I wasn't as neighborly as I should have been when you first came to town. I always see you around, helping somepony, even when you don't have to. I respect that. And my daughter seems to have taken a shine to you, as well.” “Well, thanks. I really appreciate it.” I picked my clothes off the barren stand. “See you later. You too, Apple Flora.” “Bye!” The filly gave me a cheerful wave.