The Games We are Forced to Play

by Kablam Pony


30: Welcome To Appleloosa

Connor

“Hey, wake up! Time to get your rear in gear!”

Connor shifted awake at Applejack’s incentive and opened his eyes to see that the train had stopped moving and was parked at another train station. He stretched in his bed to loosen up the muscles in his body before he gathered his things and hopped down from his bunk bed. Everypony in the train car was already set to leave and were waiting on him before the group departed. Once Connor secured his saddle bags, he nodded to signal everyone to start moving and they all left the train.

Once off the train, Connor’s eyes fell upon the country town of Appleloosa as the sun was slowly setting over some of the taller buildings. From where Connor stood, he could see a good distance down the center of town until it branched off into two different directions at the ‘T’ junction at the end. Shops and establishments lined both sides of the road with a sheriff’s building at the end. Ponies trotted back and forth across the main road that ran through the center of town going about their business as Connor watched from the train station platform.

The buildings were, for the most part, what Connor expected. The wooden buildings had varying amounts wood stain on them with dirt and dust filling in the cracks giving a weathered texture to everything. However, all the window blinds were vibrant colors of green, blue, red, and yellow with colorful signs hanging from each building depicting different goods and services offered. Some of the roofs were a strange pink or light teal color that felt weird and out of place to Connor, but that was a small matter compared to the multitude of strangely colored ponies filling the streets.

Despite the slightly fractured picture of a Wild West town in Connor’s head, he was still impressed by the sight of the town.

“Wow, this is actually a pretty cool place,” Connor said out load to himself.

“Glad you think so partner,” Applejack smiled, “Appleloosa has come a long way when it first started several years back.”

“Really,” Connor asked with mild interest, “What kind of things have happened here?”

“Well, a lot of the stuff that has happened here I have only heard through the letters I get from my cousin here. but he has told of some exciting stories since the last time I visited here.”

Everypony stepped down from the train platform and into the street as Applejack was about to dive into one of her cousins letters when Pinkie Pie burst through to the front of the group.

“Where’s Ms. Jubilee?! I need to speak with her as soon as possible!”

She ran over to the closest pony from the group and grabbed him by the shoulders to get his attention.

“Excuse me mister, but can I ask you a really, really, really important question? I have a really important thing that I need to talk with Ms. Jubilee about and I’m not sure where she is. Do you know where I can find her?” she asked in a hurried tone.

“Uhh, I believe I saw Ms. Jubilee over by the post office not too long ago, if I remember right.”

“Greatthanksbye!!” Pinkie shouted and tore down the road towards the post office somewhere in town. The confused stallion stared after the pink blur for a second before looking at Connor and the group of ponies around him wondering what just happened.

Twilight gave an apologetic wave to him and he shrugged to himself hoping that would be the only strange occurrence to him for that day. Twilight sighed tiredly and Connor gave her an inquisitive look at the back of her head.

“What was all that about?” he asked.

Twilight straightened her posture before answering him. “Pinkie Pie has been talking about starting a new food with Ms. Cherry Jubilee for a while now. Ever since she came up with the idea of a ‘Cherry changa’, she has been wanting to speak with Ms. Jubilee and suggest starting a business deal to make ‘Cherry changas’ a new food that could be made and sold.”

Connor raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, Pinkie Pie has been needing a new source of income-”

“Why would she be needing another source of income when she works at the bakery in Ponyville and is living with the owners in the shop??” Connor interrupted his voice raising in volume.

“How do you know that she lives with the cakes?” Rainbow Dash asked surprised.

“It’s not that hard to figure out when you fly past the bakery often enough during whatever task that I am doing and notice that she has a private room in the attic with a strangely toothless alligator who she has one sided conversations with like it can understand her,” Connor deadpanned.

Twilight blinked twice before she returned to her previous statement. “As I was saying, Pinkie Pie has been needing another source of income for her party planning.”

“Wwwhhyyyy??” Connor asked again.

“Because,” Twilight said exasperatedly her annoyance becoming clear in her tone, “When she first developed the party cannon several years ago, she managed to get a deal and be promised a certain amount of sales profit from any and all third party companies that sold her party cannons.”

“So like a patent of sorts,” Connor interjected.

“Yes,” she hesitantly answered, “If it makes it easier to understand it that way. Anyways, the party cannon did pretty well with sales, which is how she was able to throw so many parties.”

“But then how does Pinkie Pie work at that bakery come in to play?”

“Pinkie Pie lives with the cakes so she needed a way to pay for rent while there. So Pinkie Pie managed to get a job with them in their bakery as a way to pay for rent. As a little extra, the cakes also gave her some bits to buy a few things for herself since she works so hard in the shop and helps out with their kids a lot too.”

The group started walking slowly into town as Connor and Twilight continued their conversation.
“So what about the party cannon deal?” Connor pressed.

“That deal ended about six months ago according to Pinkie Pie. That’s also how Cheese Sandwich was able to get his party howitzer without having to pay an extra fee that was Pinkie Pie’s promised profit.”

“Who?” Connor asked again with another raised brow.

“Never mind about that,” she dismissed, “What is Pinkie’s major concern is getting another income source to fund her party throwing habits. The costs of buying confetti, streamers, balloons, and anything else she gets can become quite expensive with the number of parties she throws in town.”

“Let me guess, you took the liberty to calculate all the costs for one of Pinkie Pie’s party out of curiosity?” Rarity chuckled.

Twilight shook her head, “No, Pinkie Pie showed me the invoice for just one of her parties when I tried asking how much it cost to put on so many parties.”

Everypony laughed at the crazy antics of their pink friend as they walked deeper into town. As the laughter died down, Applejack’s ear twitched at the sound of her name being called.

“Applejack!!”

she turned to see who was calling her name and smiled at what was quickly approaching them.

“Braeburn!!”

The rest of the group finally noticed the pony quickly approaching and all cheered at the arrival of him. Connor hung back behind everyone to see who this new pony was. He seemed pretty friendly as he exchanged a quick hug with Applejack and beamed at the rest.

“howdy cousin! Glad to see you again!”

“You too, Braeburn. How is everything?”

“It’s fantastic with the tournament that about to happen soon! I’ve never seen this town have so many visitors. How has everything been in Ponyville?”

Applejack smiled warmly at his question, “Everything is just fine back home; the farm is doing pretty well too. We’re all here for the big tournament that will be happening tomorrow.”

“Right, about the tournament,” Braeburn focused on, “It’s actually been delayed until the day after tomorrow so construction on the field can be finished.”

“What?! Awwww,” Rainbow Dash whined.

Braeburn nodded solemnly, “’Fraid so. This is the first time something this big has happened in Appleloosa and it’s taking them a little longer to get everything set up safely. They will be ready by tomorrow night and then we can start the tournament bright ‘n early the next morning!”

Rainbow sighed and scuffed the ground clearly not swayed by his attempts to make the bad news not sound all that bad. Braeburn was unaffected by Rainbow’s sour mood and faced Applejack again.

“Applejack I forgot to tell you in one of my letters, but I’ve actually become one of the ambassadors between Appleloosa and the Buffalo tribe!”

The Buffalo tribe?” Connor thought, “Is that like this world’s equivalent to native American tribes?

While Connor was lost in thought, Applejack and her friends were ecstatic about the news.

“Yee-haw! Way to go Braeburn!” she slapped him on the back, “I would have never had guessed you would be given such an important responsibility! Good for you!”

“Aw shucks, thanks Applejack. Even Little Strongheart was appointed the tribe’s mediator between the Buffalo and the town, so both of us have been work together to handle any kind of problems that come up between the town and the tribe!”

“Little Strongheart too? Way to go little guy!” Rainbow Dash punched the air in triumph.

Braeburn nodded again, “She has been a big help with coming up with ways to get the best of both sides when an argument starts up between folks.”

“So was that what the big party you had a few months back was about? Celebrating the appointment of you two as the new middle ponies between Buffalo and pony?”

Braeburn shook his head at Applejack’s assumption, but beamed anyways as he dived into another story. “Nope! That party was for something else entirely. We were actually celebrating about using the Buffalo’s stampede as a way to collect one of the apple harvests in the year.”

Everypony around Braeburn gave him perplexed looks not understanding what he meant.

“Well, after you and your friends left about four years ago and the Buffalo tribe had settled into the new shared usage of the orchard field, one of us noticed that some of the ripe apples had fallen during their stampeding. So we tried planning out our harvests in time with the yearly stampeding as a way to make one of the harvests easier to collect. It took us a while, but we finally got the timing right!

"The first time it happened, we were giddier than a school filly on the last day of school. But we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t luck that we managed to get it right. So this year, we made sure it was us who got the timing right and not luck. The whole thing went off without a hitch and everypony was ready for a night of celebrating. Actually, this was around the same time that strange fella, Cheese Sandwich, came to town come to think of it.” He put a hoof to his chin as he focused on remembering the exact details of that day.

Applejack tipped her hat back in amazement, “Hoo-wee, I didn’t know you managed to do that! That is some smart thinking!”

“Thanks, but it wasn’t my idea. It’s still pretty impressive.”

Everyone nodded in agreement while Connor quietly noted their surprising ingenuity. He wasn’t sure about all the exact details, but the idea of working around another’s tradition followed by finding a way to use said tradition to improve one’s life while still maintaining original tradition is brilliant to say the least.

“Hey cous’, I know I’ve met all your friends before but it’s been a while since you all came to town together. Would you mind introducing them all to me again?” Braeburn asked sheepishly.

“Sure, no problem!” Applejack stepped beside to point out everypony in front of the pair, “That there is Princess Twilight.”

“Well, you don’t have to call me princess. Twilight will be just fine.” Twilight rubbed the back of her neck blushing.

“Nice to meet you again, your highness,” Braeburn tipped his hat.

“There’s Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy…” Applejack pointed to each of her friends as she called them out. They exchanged waves with Braeburn who smiled and waved back.

“… And that one in the back is Connor,” Applejack finished.

“Connor?” Braeburn asked.

Connor walked forward through the group to shake hooves with him. Now that he was in the front, Connor got an unobstructed view of Braeburn. His yellow coat and partially orange hair contrasted greatly with his brown vest and cowboy hat he was wearing. Pinned to his vest was shiny gold star with a ring around it signifying his apparent status as ambassador. He was about the same height as Connor, if not a little bit taller than him.

He shook hooves with Connor with a firm grasp which told Connor that this pony was sure of himself now that he was appointed an important position. Connor also noticed Braeburn’s eyes glance slightly to the side and down at something. Connor held back his desire to ask what he was looking at and smiled to hide inquisitiveness.

“That’s a funny name if I’ve ever heard one,” Braeburn stated, “Where are you from anyway?”

Connor felt his insides stiffen a little at Braeburn’s question. He needed to make a quick cover story that would play this question off. But Braeburn sounded honest as was merely curious so he didn’t want to outright lie to him. Connor shifted his body to buy a few more seconds as a plan formulated in his head and to shake his body free of that stiff feeling.

“I’m not really from around here. I’m from a little farther north than most ponies so we do things a little bit differently.”

“Like farther north than Canterlot?”

“Yeah, a little more like to the north west. My name isn’t really that strange where I’m from.”

Braeburn nodded and smiled, “Well, welcome to Appleloosa, Connor!”

“Thanks, this is my first time here.”

“Really? Then why don’t I give you the grand tour of our town?”

Connor turned to the rest of the group looking for any objections to the idea. When he found none, turned back to Braeburn and said, “Sure.”

Braeburn beamed even more, “Well then follow me everypony and let me show all about Aaaaaaa-ppleloosa!” he reared back excitedly and trotted off to start the tour.

Braeburn took everyone to every part of the town pointing out every highlight he could think of for everypony to see. There were designated dancing areas for different kinds of dancing from slow moving to square dancing. He showed off the carriages used in town and the many drawings of them, which confused Connor because he didn’t understand why they would need carriages for small town or why there would be only drawings of said carriages. Couldn’t ponies draw other things besides fancy carts?

In between the bits of random facts about the town, Braeburn supplemented it with the history of Appleloosa and how it grew to be the bustling town before them. he told the tales of how the first apple family searched for weeks in the desert looking for the best soil to plant their future apple tree orchard before they ran out of food and drinking water. It was by sheer chance they happen to find this land while looking for a river to refill their nearly empty supply of fresh water.

They quickly set up their homes there and had an orchard growing faster than you could eat the corn off of a cob. Within a few weeks of getting their apple farm started, other ponies started arriving and making their homes along side with the apples and in less than a year, a small town was growing up around the late apple family founders. Unfortunately, the town did not know they had planted their homestead on lands that the nearby Buffalo tribe had deemed sacred. The fields where the apple trees were planted had been used by the Buffalo tribe for their yearly traditional stampede for generations.

The townsfolk and the tribe argued against each other two years until one side finally snapped. Braeburn couldn’t recall who was first, but the two sides started fighting with each other by damaging each other’s homes or crops. The fighting was still happening when Braeburn first arrived in Appleloosa and after a couple of weeks of constant battle Braeburn wrote to granny smith for help. She wrote back saying she would be sending Applejack along with an apple tree to implant in their fields but forgot to tell Applejack about the fighting.

Applejack was upset about hearing this part of the story and wondered why she would keep such an important detail from his letter away from Applejack. Braeburn could only shrug and continued his story.

After Applejack and her friends arrived almost four years ago and helped ease the fighting between the tribe and the town, the two managed to find ways to prosper after the resolution. Since then, both the tribe and the town have been steadily growing and expanding until it was the lively town today; though, Appleloosa made sure to be expanding in a direction away from the tribe to prevent any future confrontation with each other.

Connor was intrigue hearing about the history behind the town and it made for nice background chatter as the party strolled down the main market street. Braeburn began pointing out the different businesses that were set up. A general goods store held just about every odd item one may need while living in Appleloosa. A couple of grocery stores followed afterwards with food grown here in Appleloosa and imported on the train were sold. Braeburn particularly pointed out a store that was completely dedicated to selling cowboy hats.

Applejack took great interest in this. “Really? A store just for buying hats? Braeburn, you have to let us stop and see this! I wouldn’t mind checking to see what kind of hats you have for sale.”

“Don’t you already have a hat there, Applejack?” he mused.

“True, but who says I can't try on different hats just to see how they look? I may decide to try wearing a different style.”

“Oh come on Applejack,” Rainbow Dash interjected, “Everypony knows that will never happen.”

The group exchanged laughter with each other, including Connor. however, he peered out of the corner of his eye at the supposed hat shop with great interest. He wouldn’t admit it openly, but he really wanted to check out that shop and see what he might find; it could be fun seeing how he would look wearing a cowboy hat.

But a pair of swinging shutters to the left of the shop caught his attention. A little ways down the road, a pony came out of a pair of saloon doors with a bit of a stumble to his walk. Connor watched as the pony walked down the road catching his hooves every few steps before he returned his attention to the building he came out of.

The building was a two story establishment with a balcony over the entrance and a piano playing drifted out of the front door. The windows lining the bottom floor were a little dingy and faded with time, but clean enough to see that ponies were there having a good time. A sign hung from the balcony with the word ‘Saloon’ printed in red.

A saloon?! Oh, that is one I have to check out before we leave!” Connor couldn’t stop the corners of his lips curling up into an excited smile so he looked away to feign interest hoping nopony saw him eyeing the town’s saloon.

He notice that he was falling behind the group, so Connor sped up to chase after them. Once he was close enough, Connor could overhear some of the conversations being held between Braeburn and the rest of the party. Braeburn was just finishing up talking with Rarity when Twilight jumped into the conversation.

“Hey Braeburn, we have a few rooms reserved at an Inn here in town. Do you think we could stop by there to set our bags down before we continue the tour?” Twilight asked.

Braeburn nodded and motioned to follow him. “Sure thing, Twilight. I’m pretty sure I know what Inn you are talking about and it’s not that far from here.”

Everyone followed Braeburn down the market street and made a left at the end for a ways until a he stopped in front of another two story building with piano music pouring out of it. He walked up and pushed the saloon style doors out of the way and disappeared inside with everypony close behind him.

The interior of the Inn was similar to what Connor would expect to see in a western style Inn. The main floor had several chairs and tables set out for patrons to sit in and enjoy while a piano played some tunes in the corner. A couple of ponies were already seated and having a few laughs with each other over a card game and a few drinks. Along the right hand side of the first floor was long bar with stools and a wall filled with all kinds of glasses and various bottles of liquid.

Braeburn waved to the chubby pony behind the bar, “Howdy, tall glass! Did you have a couple of rooms reserved for some ponies coming in?”

The bar tender was cleaning a glass as he responded with a smirk, “Yep, party of eight supposed to be showin’ up at around this time. Is that them?”

Braeburn nodded as the bar tender set his glass back on a shelf behind him. Pony smiled and pointed to the stairs near the back. “Their rooms are up those stairs and about half way down the hall. They got three rooms to split between them with three ponies to a room. I’ll leave it to them to decide who gets what room.”

Braeburn waved a thanks and lead the party to the second floor. Connor glanced around taking in more of the place as he subconsciously followed behind everyone. A few painting were hanging on the wall and a rug or two covered what little open space the Inn had left after the tables were set up. It was a nice place that Connor liked as the owner had decided to go with a more natural feel with the walls unpainted and the floor softly creaking beneath their hooves. One thing that was on his mind was how comfortable the beds were going to be.

He slowly made his way up the stairs and down a hall way where two ponies could walk side by side comfortably with enough room to squeeze a third pony by going in the opposite direction. Several doors drifted passed until Braeburn finally came to a stop half way down the hall.

“Alright everypony, here are your rooms,” he gestured to the doors behind him, “You’ve got the two doors on the left and the one on the right to choose from. I’ll let you all decide who wants to go in which room.”

There was a few seconds of the friends glancing around at each other as a silent conversation was held between them all. Connor watched awkwardly as their gazes bounced from one pony to the next looking for a que of some sort indicating who would go into each room. After a couple of seconds watching the silent debate go on, Connor decided to take action and pick a door.

He strode to the front of the group and pushed the door on the right open. This spurred the rest of the group to follow suit and pick a door at random. The room itself that Connor entered was decent sized. Two beds were pushed into the far corners of the room with a third tucked into the corner to his left. A writing desk was placed in the last corner of the room. The beds had a spring mattress with a blanket folded at the end with a pillow on top and a small stand beside the head of the bed. A window was placed opposite of the door, but the window was blocked by a building so the only thing you could see was into the alley way.

Connor headed to the far left bed and started undoing the saddle bags strapped to him and set them on the bed. He heard hoof steps enter the room behind him and he glanced behind him to see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy entering behind him. Looking past Rainbow and Fluttershy, he could just see Twilight and Applejack entering the door on the other side of the all with Braeburn following behind them while spike hopped off of twilight’s back to enter the last room on the left. Rainbow set her bags down on the bed on the other side of the room from Connor while Fluttershy took the bed closest to the door.

Connor turned back to his bags to pull out what few possessions he had brought with him. He set the book on the stand next to him, tossed his snacks in the corner where the bed met the wall and tucked his bag of bits under his right wing for safe keeping; a little trick he learned on how some pegasi still held money on them without having saddle bags.

Rainbow Dash flopped onto her bed loudly and groaned, “I’m bored! What are we going to do for the rest of the night and tomorrow?”

“I don’t know; something,” Connor vaguely remarked half paying attention to her.

Rainbow readjusted on her bed causing it to squeak. “There has got to be something we can do. Connor, do you have any ideas?”

“Not really, no. try asking Fluttershy.”

The yellow Pegasus gave a small peep as eyes fell on her looking for ideas. “Um, well, we could try exploring the town on our own. It’s been a long time since we were in Appleloosa so maybe some new things have been added since our last visit.” She softly put her bags on her chosen bed.

Rainbow groaned again, “But do you have any ideas of what to visit first? Make it something exciting!”

Fluttershy nervously tapped her hooves together not putting forth any ideas. Rainbow sighed again and flopped down on the bed.

“Well, there was that saloon I saw when we were walking through the market street…”

Rainbow sat up and looked at Connor musing over the idea he had offered.

“Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?”

Connor hesitated before nodding and glanced at Fluttershy who was looking scared now.

“Then it’s settled!” Rainbow hopped off the bed with a huge grin on her face.

“Uh oh,” Fluttershy quietly squeaked out.

“WE’RE GOING DRINKING!!”