The next morning, Twilight felt more at peace with the world than she had since setting hoof in Ponyville. Birds' morning songs, so often an annoyance that had woken her early, sounded sweet and cheerful today. When a certain orange filly on a scooter, wings wrapped in white and racing to not be late to school, rounded a corner out of the blue, Twilight hopped over and admired her energy instead of getting annoyed at the near-collision. Reaching the library and noting Spike was still asleep, she dabbled in the kitchen for several minutes and came out with a freshly-baked gem-filled donut, which she carried up to her faithful assistant and waved under his nose until he woke. Even Pinkie interrupting and dragging her off in the middle of making the day's checklist was positively tolerable.
The next several minutes, however, had worn on her cheer.
"Pinkie," Twilight sighed as the two of them passed through the leaves-and-apples arch that formed the main entrance to Sweet Apple Acres, "you don't have to keep apologizing."
Pinkie's usually-bubbly mane was a bit flat. "I know, I know, but...I didn't realize you and Rainbow were..."
"It's OKAY," Twilight reassured. "Rainbow told me she was glad, because it gave her the chance to get me back. And...well..." Blushing, Twilight looked off to the side. "...honestly, so am I."
"Oh!" Pinkie's mane refluffed into a shape reminiscent of cotton candy. "Then everything worked out!"
"Yeah." Twilight looked around the fields. "So what was so important you had to bring me out here?"
"Oh, right!" Smiling as if all worry had been banished from her heart just that quickly (which, so far as Twilight knew, was exactly how her friend operated), Pinkie continued, "Weeell, last night my right eye twitched. Just that. It was one of my first Pinkie Senses; it said I needed to teach someone important something about farming soon. I'm sure the mayor already knows everything she needs to, so I figured it must mean you!"
Twilight stopped, puzzling over Pinkie's words. "That's...awfully specific, Pinkie."
"Hel-looo, I grew up on a farm!" Pinkie grinned. "You'd be amazed how many ponies didn't even know WHY we farmed rocks! Sure, it was boring: just gather rocks all day, they didn't even need watering or planting."
Twilight looked at Pinkie. "Even I don't know why you'd farm rocks. And...wouldn't the field run out, if you just gathered all the rocks you could find?"
Pinkie giggled. "Nnnope! It wouldn't have been a good farm if we could just run out."
Twilight blinked. "You never ran out? But...that means...oh, I get it! You must have been at the top of some geological formation that kept forming and pushing up mineral aggregates."
Pinkie blinked back. "Huh?"
"So you'd never run out of rocks."
Pinkie's eyes widened. "Oooh! Yeah, we've never run out of rocks!"
Twilight nodded. "And then you supplied sculptors and masons? You probably didn't have that wide a variety if the same geology produced all your rocks - I'm betting they were either all igneous or all sedimentary; am I right? Oh, did you farm any granite?"
Pinkie gave her an odd look. "...we farmed rocks. You'd have to ask Maud about all that."
Twilight caught herself, made a note to ask Pinkie's rockhound of a sister, then almost stumbled over her next thought. "Err...right. But, umm, is your farm on a mountain or a hill? Is the ground warm? I mean...well, I'm trying to figure out what would produce all those rocks. Your family's not living on top of a volcano, are they?"
Pinkie tried to picture it, then snickered. "Nah, they wouldn't live any place that exciting. The rocks come from the dragon! See, my super-really-great - when my folks tell the tale there's all these 'great's but I'm shortening it so it won't take as long - anyway, grandfather was kind to a dragon in his last few years. So with his last breaths, the dragon pointed to a field and said, 'Bury me there, and so long as your descendants work that land, my fire will give them rocks.' It was a spell, so part of the dragon would live on and on, but it was also a promise! Princess Luna thought it was pretty clever."
"Princess Luna? But we only just freed her from...wait, you mean before she became Nightmare Moon? Over a thousand years ago?" Twilight wondered at the historical records such a continuously inhabited place might have, then dismissed the thought. If Pinkie's distant ancestors were like her current family, quite possibly entire centuries would have passed where gathering rocks was the only notable activity. Another thread of thought silently amended her earlier bet: dragon fire would produce igneous rocks, which explained why the farmers viewed sedimentary rocks as worth collecting.
Pinkie nodded. "Yep! That's what inspired me to come up with Pinkie Promises! See, I figured if a dragon's promise could last that long, why not a pony's?"
Twilight blinked. "There's actual magic in them? You invented a spell that ANY pony can cast?!?"
"Well...oh, hi Applejack!" Pinkie waved as the orange farmpony came into view.
For just a moment, Twilight had a vision of Sweet Apple Acres as a rock farm. It fit disturbingly well, though the Apples were more cheerful on average than the Pies - but that was like saying that a forest was wetter on average than a desert.
"Heya," Applejack called. "Oh hey Twi! What's this 'endurance training' you've got Rainbow Dash up to?"
Pinkie and Twilight froze.
"She was jus' here," Applejack continued, "an' doubled her order of meat, sayin' she was gonna need the energy. You got her in a marathon or somethin'?"
Pinkie stifled some giggles.
Twilight grimaced. "She eats meat? Eww. I could've done without knowing that."
Applejack shrugged. "Makes sense for someone like her. Anyway, she seemed awful chipper about that trainin'."
Pinkie sunk to her knees, convulsing quietly with glee.
Applejack raised an eyebrow, thoughts flickering. "...not...that it's any of my business, but are you an' Rainbow...?"
Twilight tried to protest, but found herself just blushing and unable to meet Applejack's wondering stare.
Applejack blinked. "For SERIOUS? Twilight, did Rainbow take your virginity?"
Twilight shook her head. "I'm not a virgin!"
"Oh." Applejack smiled sheepishly. "Ah thought for sure that-"
"It counts if you, err, do it with yourself, right?" Twilight interrupted.
Pinkie's laughter escaped her suppression, and now she fought to not laugh hard enough to drown out the conversation.
Applejack stared for a moment, then shook her head. "Nope, don't count."
Twilight blinked. "Even if you create a temporary clone body so that you and you can do it like two mares?"
Applejack froze mid-head-shake and stared another moment. "Ah...suppose that would technically qualify..."
Pinkie was by now rolling on the ground, her laughter having transcended volume - and somewhat exhausted her air supply - to become silent again.
Twilight tried to give Pinkie the stinkeye, but was unable to keep a smile off her face. "Well I'm glad somepony's amused!"
"So, you an' Rainbow," Applejack wondered. "Opposites attract, ah guess."
Twilight made a show of stretching, leaning back while digging in her front hooves, then leaning forward to press her rear hooves into the ground, and finally spreading her wings briefly. "Not THAT opposite. She taught me a few things, and we had a wonderful evening. We're planning to see each other again tonight." Twilight's body reported a slight loss of stress from the stretching, the resulting endorphins prompting a blissful little sigh. "And maybe the night after that, if we're not too busy."
"Ah see." Applejack gave Pinkie an amused look. "And Rainbow's worried about keepin' up with ya. Didn' know you had such stamina, Twi."
"Well...I did, err, kiiinda tap my magic to keep going?" Twilight blushed again. "I didn't want to let Rainbow down. We stopped when she got exhausted, last night and again this morning."
Applejack looked at Twilight, suddenly worried. "You mean...y'all expect her t' keep up with th' magic reserves of somepony whose cutie mark is magic, who bonded wit' the Element of Magic, an' who if y'all need remindin' is an ALICORN now?!?"
Twilight blushed harder. Pinkie's silent laughter had begun to subside, but now renewed.
Applejack adjusted her hat. "'Endurance training' indeed. Twilight, promise me ya won't clop her t' death?"
Twilight blinked, taken aback. "Of course! I would never do that to one of my friends! Besides, then there wouldn't be a next night."
Pinkie was beginning to look a little blue, struggling to slip in breaths between her laughs.
Which prompted Twilight to realize how her priorities might have sounded, resulting in a smile that was an even mixture of amusement and discomfort. "Errm...for Pinkie's sake, can we change the subject please? Liiike...what do you mean, eating meat 'makes sense' for Rainbow? Why do you even have meat here?"
Applejack blinked. "'Cause this is a farm?"
Twilight's blank expression aptly conveyed her lack of comprehension.
"Ain'tcha ever heard the old sayin', 'Society's only three meals away from anarchy'?" Applejack asked, setting up her explanation.
"Well...yes?" Twilight looked around. "You've got apples and hay and all sorts of stuff to eat."
Applejack nodded. "And meat. Equestria ain't ONLY a pony society, y'know."
Twilight grimaced. "Well...err...yeah, I figured, but...couldn't you just import it or something?"
"Meat rots, jus' like most foods spoil." Applejack shrugged. "It's mah family's duty, as handed down by Princess Celestia herself when we founded this here farm, t' keep Ponyville fed, an' that includes all foods we care t' provide." Smiling, she added, "Heh, some days I wonder what'd we do if a bunch o' changelings moved into town - if'n they played nice enough t' not be run right out, that is."
Twilight winced.
Pinkie, now free of the giggles, breathed deep, savoring the sweet, sweet oxygen, sustainer of life and enabler of further smiles. "This must've been what my Pinkie Sense was telling me you needed to learn!"
Trying not to gag at the mental images her brain offered up, Twilight responded, "Yes, but...MEAT. WHY would any pony eat MEAT? It's gross! It's inefficient! And it was once trotting around like we do!"
"Well," Applejack drawled as if replying with a long-practiced answer, "y'all have never HAD it an' ya were raised not to think too highly of it, it's got a higher calorie count so it's more efficient if ya need energy fast, an'...well, yeah, but bein' eaten's its purpose in life."
Twilight had a safety net for emotional situations: look at things logically. So she did now, examining the farm to find evidence to support or deny Applejack's final assertion. "...you mean the pigs."
Applejack nodded. "Not that they're th' only ones, but yeah, the pigs in particular. They wouldn't exist if we weren't raisin' 'em for food. It's not like they suffer: when it's time, we make it quick an' painless. And before then - Celestia's truth: ya give 'em healthy an' happy lives an' ya get better meat afterward. Give 'em a life o' sufferin' an' misery an' ya get so little meat, ya might as well not've had 'em in the first place."
Twilight blinked, trying to sort that out. "'Celestia's truth'? You mean...is that just something she noticed, or did she work a spell into the land to make it so?"
Applejack shrugged. "Y'all tell me. That the kind o' thing she'd do?"
Twilight shook her head. "Even Celestia's magic isn't that powerful." She smiled as she slid away from a distressing topic and into the familiar comfort of a solving a puzzle with pure logic. "You'd need...well, to bend reality across at least all of Equestria, if not the whole world? And let's say at least a thousand years - or maybe permanent: there's not that much different at this scale. Anyway, for a pony to do all that you'd need to be an alicorn, with insane amounts of raw magic power on top of that. Maybe Celestia and Luna working together might have enough, but it'd leave them exhausted and they'd need to do it in steps. For just one pony, you'd need years of training and practice in the most powerful spells - the ones they keep locked up and guarded in the restricted part of Canterlot's library - and then something like your whole cutie mark boosting the Element of Ma...gic..." she finished with a squeak, freezing and staring into space.
Applejack and Pinkie glanced at each other, then Applejack waved a hoof in front of Twilight.
"I think," Twilight eventually said, her voice small, "that's the kind of thing she wants me to do."
Applejack blinked, then stood back and grinned. "Naw, really?"
Twilight absently nodded. "Yes, really. It explains why she...err, why are you smiling?"
Applejack smiled wider. "'Cause ya FINALLY figured it out! Took ya long enough."
"You..." Twilight blinked slowly, twice. "...knew? Did Celestia tell you?"
Applejack shook her head. "She didn' need t' tell me nothin'. It was flamin' obvious. Ah wasn' even sure y'all'd need to go alicorn t' do it, butcha have so that's a moot point now."
Twilight's eyes widened. "What do you think I am?"
Applejack put a hoof around Twilight's shoulder. "Mah friend. An' all Equestria's friend."
Twilight shrugged out of it and backed away, fear in her eyes.
"Wha...?" Applejack looked into Twilight's eyes but did not advance on her. "I say somethin' wrong, sugar?"
Twilight shook her head without breaking eye contact. "No," she whispered. "Everything you said was right. And that scares me. If...if I'm getting that powerful...I could sneeze and vaporize every pony in Ponyville, m-maybe Equestria with a few sneezes in a row."
"Oh! Oh! Or turn us into potted plants," Pinkie offered eagerly, bouncing slightly. "I think Fluttershy said she wanted to be a tree!"
Twilight just stared at Pinkie.
"Not. Helping." Applejack nudged Pinkie in the ribs with a knee.
"Aww," Pinkie pouted.
"I...I need some time to think about this." Twilight backpedaled a bit more. "I'll be back by dusk."
Applejack tilted her head. "Where ya goin'?"
"To beat up a mountain. I'll be safer if I exhaust myself." Twilight teleported away.
Pinkie looked at Applejack. "What'd the mountain do to her?"