Applejack gathered Diamond Tiara, Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh all in the living room, Apple Bloom looking a little tear stricken but otherwise just miserably apologetic, for a pony at least. Even though she was finally here, Diamond Tiara hadn’t yet seen her other two friends as cute little pony creatures, because this matter simply had to be settled. That was the only reason why Granny Smith wasn’t here with the rest of Apple Bloom’s family, because someone needed to keep the other two occupied elsewhere, while Apple Bloom had some very serious apologizing to give.
“Ah’m sorry, Diamond,” Apple Bloom either croaked out or whinnied, it was hard to tell. Her words were legible though, when she said, “Ah just wanted t’see you again ah was worried you’d all get all... weird like the orphanage. Didn’t think everyone would be all told that you had a crush on mah brother. It was plum stupid of me! But what was I supposed to do? You were just ignoring me!”
“Now hold on, Apple Bloom,” Applejack cautioned the little yellow pony. “Don’t kick yourself too hard, but ah think you ain’t done apologizin’ yet.”
Apple Bloom blinked, and then blushed hard, saying to Big Macintosh without looking at him, “S-sorry bro ah didn’t even think... I mean ah had no right... oh golly...”
“You shoulda known better,” he said to her in a low, even tone. “Only natural though,” he sighed. “Ah’ll cover for ya,” he told his liquid eyed pony sister, “Just don’t do it again.”
“Oh, thank you Big Macintosh! Ah’ll never do something so gosh darn fruity loopy stupid again!” Apple Bloom told him gratefully, trotting forward and rearing up to hug him, just buring her nose in the side of his jeans.
It might have been a more touching moment, if Apple Bloom hadn’t used the opportunity to wipe her runny nose on reflex. With the apologies out of the way, it was time to give Mac a moment to talk with Diamond more personally... but only after Applejack grabbed a dish cloth and threw it to a horrified and apologetic Apple Bloom, who cleaned off her completely disgusted brother’s leg as best as she could, thankful as all of them that denim was a relatively thick fabric.
“Alright,” Applejack said then, “I think we’re square here. You ain’t gonna keep ignorin’ your friends,” she said to Diamond, “You ain’t gonna be putting pressure on us to get your friend back,” she said to Apple Bloom, “You ain’t gonna walk into school Monday wonderin’ why everyone’s whispering behind your back,” she said to Big Macintosh, “And ah’m not gonna go blabbin’ on about something ah don’t have no business with.”
“It really wasn’t your fault,” Diamond said, grumpily. “You couldn’t help—”
“Ah don’t care about whose fault it is, Diamond,” Applejack said firmly. “I just wanna know you ain’t gonna get in any more fights like that.” The farm girl then kneeled down to look Apple Bloom in the eye, saying, “And you may be a little pony sis, but you gotta be more careful. Ah don’t think you know your own strength!”
Apple Bloom shrunk down a little and mumbled, “Yeah ah was just... pushin’ her and ah didn’t mean to hurt no one and... guess ah do kick awful hard.” She looked at the mysterious little yellow hooves curled in front of her, with the fearsome power to support the weight of a dog sized pony. “Might be a good idea to measure that, actually,” Apple Bloom quietly postulated.
“You haven’t measured that yet?” Diamond said in astonishment.
“Measured how?” Apple Bloom retorted in a surly manner. “Ah can lift things, aind... what else?”
“Don’t you have any weights?” Diamond asked curiously. Apple Bloom shook her head. “Scales?” Diamond suggested cautiously.
“Ah’m over 20 pounds, if’n that’s what you want to know!” Apple Bloom said, blushing as she did. “Like a quarter of what I used to weigh,” she added sullenly.
“Well, why not hold up the scales?” Diamond suggested. “Like, see how hard you can push on them?”
“That ain’t a bad idea, Diamond,” Apple Bloom speculated, glancing at her hind legs, “But what about how hard ah can kick?”
“C’mon Apple Bloom,” Applejack interrupted, nudging the pony’s side, standing up and turning around. “You two can catch up with each other later. Let’s go’n get your other two friends so y’all can be properly reacquainted.”
“Guess so,” Apple Bloom admitted, frowning in frustration at first, but then she brightened, saying to Diamond with a growing smile, “Oh boy are you in for a treat! They’re so cool as ponies; ah think you’re gonna love it!”
“Pff, as if,” Diamond weakly denied, rolling her eyes. “I can already guess they’re still orange and white, like you stayed yellow.”
“Well if nothing else, it’ll be nice to see ‘em again, though?” Apple Bloom offered with the cutest little insecure hoof wobble.
“Yeah it—fine,” Diamond gave in without too much of a fight. “I can meet them again, it’s no big deal. I don’t care if they’re like, ponies or whatever. You should be thinking of your own hooves. Like, how hard they can hit things.” Diamond poked at her side and winced at the tender spot there.
Apple Bloom nodded solemnly and trotted off, led by Applejack, who gave Diamond a silently meaningful look before heading off herself. And with them out of the room, that left Diamond Tiara alone with... oh gosh darn it. Those two planned this, didn’t they? Diamond refused to blush as she glanced at the elephant—or rather boy—in the room. She didn’t want to have a crush on him, and she didn’t really, did she? What did having a crush feel like anyway?
Diamond rose from where she was sitting on the couch, nursing a bruise or two, and stood stiffly before Big Macintosh, the blushing girl keenly aware of just how much taller he was than her.
“So I don’t like, have a crush on you, okay,” she said mutedly, looking down and to the left of him. “Apple Bloom was just being dumb, and I didn’t think it was that important to her. I mean, I should have like, come over last weekend or something. Just kind of putting it off for, like, reasons.”
“Eyup,” he said to her in a very warm, forgiving tone. “Ah understand.”
“Well, good,” Diamond remarked precariously, “Because I really don’t have a... I mean, that would be totally silly, wouldn’t it? Just because I come to visit, and you like, sort of, were hanging out with us sometimes, and I sort of never did that before with a uh, boy and with anyone really.”
“Sounds about right,” he said in a neutral tone.
Rocking on her heels, Diamond continued looking the other way, adding, “So, if I did like, have like, a crush on you, you wouldn’t be like, interested or anything, would you?”
He raised an eyebrow. Then he smiled at her and said, “Nnnnope.”
“Okay, g-good,” Diamond Tiara said looking at him confidently, without a sinking feeling inside her at all almost, “Because I don’t.”
Big Macintosh looked at her silently, then reached his broad hand forward and brought it down on Diamond’s head, scruffling her bountiful hair. Then he straightened up, and shoved his hands in his pockets, just walking camly away.
Diamond blinked, and touched her head, and... did he just scruffle her? “Hey,” she shouted after him, “What’s that supposed to mean, messing up my hair like that?!”
“Yer too young,” Big Mac said over his shoulder, “An’ ah ain’t lookin’.”
“I—I wasn’t asking!” Diamond said with a furious blush. Big Mac didn’t answer her. The deep, ruddy red skinned upperclassman just walked on up the stairs heading back to his room. Diamond knew that’s where he was going, because that’s what he always did when he wanted to be alone, and she knew where his room was because she—she didn’t have any sort of crush on him at all! She didn’t!
Totally platonic like, um, knowing of his life. Yeah, that’s it.
Diamond just sat on the couch and crossed her arms, feeling at the same time relieved and... a little snubbed. He could have at least pretended she was a beautiful girl he had to put some effort into resisting falling in love with. That’s where she sat until the sound of three pairs of hooves came cloppling in from outside the front door. Diamond imagined Scootaloo, that scruffy looking friend of hers who loved riding around on that scooter of hers. Scootaloo always had a weird pointy chin that wasn’t exactly standoffish, but Diamond couldn’t imagine it on the face of a pony. And Sweetie Belle with her bountiful curls always gently shrouding her head. Would she even be able to walk if she had that hair on an Apple Bloom clone? Sweetie had this delightful magenta blouse, headband combination in her wardrobe, but now she couldn’t even wear anything?
...that was when Diamond recalled that she had never seen her other two friends naked before today. She barely had time to tense up though, when suddenly gallopping into the living room came Apple Bloom... by herself, alone.
“Uh...” Apple Bloom said to Diamond bashfully, “They’re kinda embarassed, still. We haven’t exactly taken care of the clothing uh, problem yet. So, you don’t mind if we’re all like, naked and stuff, right?”
“You haven’t even gotten them outfits yet?” Diamond said scornfully. “This is worse than I thought! Hasn’t Rarity been with you all this time?”
“Sweetie’s sister?” Apple Bloom remarked curiously. “She had a uh, exam last week that she had to study for, and she has some material on order that she cain’t finish her sister’s dress without.”
“Ugh, she would need everything to be perfect,” Diamond said face palming. “Doesn’t she understand how you need something functional, then she can try to make things pretty?”
“Well, we strictly don’t need clothes being uh, ponies and such,” Apple Bloom attempted, blushing redly.
“Oh,” Diamond told the blushing Apple Bloom in a very wry tone, “I suppose you really feel that way?”
“I... ah’d feel a lot... comfortabler with some dignity yeah, but...” then, Apple Bloom’s little muzzle firmed into a determined cuteness. “Ah ain’t gonna wear nothing,” she declared, “Until mah friends got something to wear too!”
“We’re not attractive in any way,” Sweetie Belle’s voice suddenly sounded out from across the room.
Both Apple Bloom and Diamond looked over, to see Sweetie Belle forcing herself to walk forward from around the corner, where she and Scootaloo were still hiding. “S-so it’s not like anyone is going to look down there, or... anything...” Sweetie pointed out. She stuttered to a halt then, unable to push herself further, once she tried to look Diamond Tiara in the eye.
Sweetie Belle had—get this—turned into a unicorn! Well, technically a unicorn, but she was basically just Apple Bloom with a horn. The little soft white pony was unmistakably Sweetie Belle. The mane on her head was pretty much exactly like her hair normally looked, if a bit dirty and tangled. What’s more and this probably shouldn’t have startled Diamond, but Sweetie Belle’s new pony tail was also thickly covered in her hair, in sworls of pink and purple.
“H-hi Diamond,” Sweetie said quietly, looking up with wide green eyes. “You got big.”
Before Diamond could stop staring long enough to laugh, she heard Scootaloo speak up, and darted her head up again. “I dunno Sweetie, there are some real weirdos out there!” came Scootaloo’s voice from the corner. Of her, you could only see one little orange pony hoof braced on the ground, and one little orange pony face coming around the corner and looking their way, topped with a swoosh of berry purple hair.
Sweetie Belle turned her head... just her head, to look back at Scootaloo, saying, “Yeah, but like, one or two. With most boys we’re perfectly safe.” It seemed weird how effortless Sweetie could crane her neck around.
Scootaloo crept the rest of the way out from behind the corner and what Diamond then saw would almost be humorous, if it wasn’t stark reality. Scootaloo’s short cropped hair had become a short cropped pony mane, even retaining her characteristic cowlick on it, but her tail? Scootaloo’s tail was long and flowing, lushly abundant with her purple hair. It might have even been bigger than Sweetie Belle’s tail, though Sweetie’s was certainly volumnuous. Scootaloo now had more hair on her butt than she ever had on her head.
Okay maybe it was a little humorous. Diamond tried not to snicker at the thought.
“There’s always going to be someone who’s attracted to you,” Sweetie continued to tell Scootaloo, “Even if you are wearing clothes.” Sweetie turned and walked back over to tell her that, which presented Diamond Tiara with a nice clear view of... not much, actually. Even if Sweetie’s tail did curve up into the air, all it revealed was a kind of scrawny looking horsey looking butt and maybe a little bit was showing, but mostly it was just sort of... there.
“No, that’s silly.” Scootaloo retorted, directing Diamond’s attention away from Sweetie Belle’s horse butt. “I could think of something to wear, that nobody would be attracted to.”
“Like what?” Sweetie asked suspiciously.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes, saying, “I dunno, a diver’s... no, wait like maybe pajamas...no, uh... a really slimy mucky...” She fell silent then, rubbing the side of her hoof underneath her chin, sort of like a human would the bottom of their index finger on the side of their face.
“My point exactly,” Sweetie said with a satisfied nod, encouragingly nosing Scootaloo’s side like a... pony, to get Scootaloo walking over to where the human Diamond Tiara and the pony Apple Bloom were waiting. As she neared them, it was obvious Scootaloo wasn’t a unicorn like Sweetie Belle. Diamond figured Sweetie must have just won the pony lottery or something, at first. But then she noticed Scootaloo’s... things.
“Scootaloo,” Diamond said carefully, “Are those, like...?”
“Wings?” Scootaloo said, looking up at Diamond and smiling. Scootaloo stopped walking then, concentrating, and one of the things tight against her sides spread out, just like the wing that it was. “Pretty cool, huh?” Scootaloo prompted, nibbling at her own wing. “It even has feathers now!” And it did, though they were all short, jagged, and poorly angled.
“I bet they’ll be all done in like a week,” Scootaloo said eagerly, folding the wing back against her and wiggling them happily, “And then Sunset said I can go and really fly!”
“You didn’t tell me you were like, super ponies!” Diamond exclaimed in a hurt tone to Apple Bloom. “I thought you were just like, pony ponies?”
“Turns out ah am the poniest pony they got,” Apple Bloom said, stepping up to Diamond sprightly. “The other two kinds of pony got wings and a horn. Ah got like, a special secret thing so I just look like a normal pony. Though uh... lots smaller than a real pony ah mean.”
“So each of you is a different kind of pony?” Diamond asked getting down on her knees to be more at level with the three of them, now standing together before her. “Scootaloo’s a pegasus pony, Sweetie Belle’s a unicorn pony, and you’re a... pony pony?”
“Earth pony!” Apple Bloom said confidently. Her confidence broke though and she scuffed a front hoof as if in embarassment, saying, “That’s what they call ‘em anyway, but it’s kind of confusing since you would normally use “Earth” pony to set apart ponies native to our planet in specific.”
“What do you mean ‘our planet’?” Diamond gasped. “You were right when you said ponies were aliens?”
“Sorta,” Apple Bloom said uncertainly, “The princess in mah dreams has a... wait, how did you know they were all called pegasus?”
“What?” Diamond asked blankly.
“Ponies like me!” Scootaloo said, spreading a single wing again. “Sunse’ said they’re all called pegasus, like it’s the kind of pony, not just the name of one of them.”
“Pegasus hwas the name of a winged pony in Greek legend,” Sweetie pontificated deliberately, in her steady four legged stance at Apple Bloom’s side. “He was created when zhe Gorgon’s blood spilled on the ground. It jus’ turned into a winged horse named Pegasush. It didn’t say if he had any babies.”
“Oh, I thought pegasus was just a name for the kind of horse with wings,” Diamond said uncertainly. “It really was his name name? Who gave it to him?”
“I... dunno,” Sweetie said, reservedly. “It was in the legend of Perseus... Apple Bloom has a copy, because um... Scootaloo. It didn’ say there ever were any other pegasuses, so maybe it was his name, and... also his species, since he’s the only one?”
“Well I’m the only one now,” Scootaloo remarked cheekily, “So now hyou have to call us Scootaloosuses.”
It was pretty clear Diamond Tiara was trying very hard not to laugh. “S-so, like, whatever, we’re...” She covered her mouth with her palm, briefly. “We’re getting off track,” she said a little more steadily. “You can call yourself wingiehorsies for all I care. But what about your princess, Apple Bloom? Did your dream princess start remembering things?”
“Oh, uh, we ain’t found her since the dance; she’s still ruminating or somethin’” Apple Bloom said nervously. “She didn’t tell us all this stuff.”
“So, someone else did?” Diamond asked Apple Bloom, then paused in thought, resting her chin on her fingers. She lifted her head slightly then, saying, “You didn’t find any actual alien ponies, did you?”
Every pony stared at her silently.
“Diamond,” Apple Bloom uttered seriously, giving her head a slow shake, “You have no idear what you missed!”
One lengthy explanation (that turned out not to be as lengthy as Apple Bloom thought it would be) later, and Diamond was so excited, about several things. First, Sweetie and Scootaloo needed clothing, and Diamond had a good idea just how that was going to happen. Also considering Sweetie Belle knew full well who Diamond Tiara’s secret tutor had been this school year, Diamond didn’t have to sneak around the issue, and since Rarity was already here, there was a good chance that Diamond’s work was pretty much already done for her.
Second, ponies were freaking awesome! Scootaloo was already trotting after only a week or so of practice, and Sweetie wasn’t far behind. Something about horses naturally knowing how to walk, maybe. Ponies were especially awesome, since Apple Bloom’s friends had special bodily accessories, making them much more special than if they were just three ponies, all alike. Apple Bloom wasn’t just a pony, she was a special kind of pony, and there was a whole ecopolitical system between the three kinds, that the mysterious alien pony had told them about.
Third, there were aliens among us! A girl called Sunset Shimmer said she was actually an alien pony in disguise, and had been able to back up that claim! ...sort of. She was mode locked in human form for some reason, but she and this other former pony both came over and blew Apple Bloom’s little pony mind with implications and other worlds and stuff.
And fourth, Diamond felt excited because Scootaloo was here, and Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom. Diamond Tiara had been so bored this past entire week or two even, because all her friends were ponies! And she was still totally resentful of that, but now she was here, with Scootaloo making her laugh in her clumsy antics as a pony, and Sweetie Belle trying and failing to show Diamond Tiara her “magic horn powers,” and Apple Bloom just sort of... being there to listen, like she always had been, like a tree that’s always there for you to lean on. Between the three of them with her, who she’d been missing so much, Diamond was actually starting to feel pretty good.
Going pony sure hadn’t put any more sense into her friend’s heads though. They still had barely even thought about the weirdness in the forest on the edge of Apple Bloom’s property. It was almost like they didn’t even remember anything was wrong, or didn’t care, or something. Like how that weekend, they were out in the front yard by the farm house, while Apple Bloom gave Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle a trotting lesson, but it ended up with Diamond arguing with Apple Bloom, saying,
“I can’t believe you haven’t explored that place more! Wasn’t your whole pony thing about the forest outside your property in the first place?”
“Me an’ Big Mac explored it lots Diamond,” Apple Bloom said with a patient sigh. “Ain’t nothing special about it. It’s just a scraggly old forest.”
“But there is! Don’t you remember we never turned around, and it like, rotated around us or something?”
“Oh, yeah but ah think we were just getting turned around or something,” Apple Bloom said shaking her head. “Easy to do once you lose sight of the farm house.”
“I swear it wasn’t,” Diamond said hotly. “You said you were going to like, measure it and stuff!”
“Oh I... ah guess I kinda fergot about that, sorry ...heh heh,” Apple Bloom said, rubbing the back of her head with a nervously close eyed smile.
“It’s really important though,” Diamond urged. “And you should measure how hard you can kick, and you should measure how hard you can pull things, and how much weight you can hold up. Haven’t you done any of that?”
“We been real busy with things, like learning to walk, and speak!” Apple Bloom said resentfully. “I was getting around to it, or something. All that measurey stuff and ...stuff.”
“Ugh, I swear,” Diamond said hands on her hips. “First you don’t have any clothes, or even measurements for Scootaloo’s wings. Then you aren’t even curious about your super pony abilities. Then you don’t even figure out why the forest is so weird. You were right Apple Bloom, I should have come here lots earlier! You three are complete doofs without my guidance.”
Apple Bloom started to retort angrily, but then she remembered it was Diamond Tiara, and her friends knew that Diamond didn’t believe one word that came out of her own mouth. So Apple Bloom just smiled and said, “It’s nice to see you too, Diamond Tiara.”
Diamond was properly flustered at that, and just stomped off in the end, exclaiming as she went, “Where is Rarity keeping her fabrics?”
Apple Bloom lead her to the laundry room, and showed Diamond the rolls of cloth Rarity brought in from the crafts store, not high quality fabric certainly, but the designer sure knew some cool things to do with it. Instead of taking the roll, Diamond Tiara just walked up to the crudely improvised pony forms Rarity had made from shoeboxes, on which Rarity had hung the rough patterns from when she sized the three of them. Not really dresses, just a bunch of patches pinned together in that sort of shape. “This’ll do,” Diamond remarked, lifting one off the shoebox and laying it out flat on the ground.
Sweetie and Scootaloo were all nosey about her affairs. Diamond’s pony friends sort of literally nosed around at everything, since they didn’t have fingers to pick stuff up with anymore. Apple Bloom herself was just looking at Diamond with concern, saying, “Those aren’t real dresses or anything, Rarity’s still trying to find th’ right uh, inspiration.”
“Mm hmm,” Diamond said distractedly, swiftly undoing the pins and pulling the pattern apart into pieces, making sure there was a mark by each hole with a set of colored markers.
“Ah dunno if you’re supposed to do that!” Apple Bloom said anxiously, “Rarity won’t appreciate if her things aren’t just right. She needs ‘em for inspiration!”
“Do you even know how Rarity’s inspiration works?” Diamond asked Apple Bloom, looking at her questioningly. When Apple Bloom didn’t answer, Diamond explained, “First, she has a good idea, then she tries out things to get it right, then she gets lost in the details and sits on it for months, then she goes with what she was going to do in the first place. I’d be doing her a favor getting her to start over again!
“But...” Diamond concluded reservedly, “There’s already marks for where the pins go. See, I marked them with a fabric pen. You have to take these apart, otherwise you can’t cut out new ones. I can just match up the marks and put it back together later, after I make Scootaloo a pretty little princess.”
Scootaloo meanhwile lifted her head out of a box of cloth scraps, saying, “Wait, what?”
“Oh hey, look at this!” Diamond exclaimed distractingly, holding up a round half oval-ish pattern piece. When no one said anything, she clarified, “It’s a hood!”
“A hood would be cool, I guess,” Scootaloo said neutrally. “It’d have to have something for our ears though, those things are sensitive!”
“Not for your head,” Diamond corrected snidely, “For your wings!”
Diamond explained, in so many words, that there was a bunch of complicated stuff that Apple Bloom didn’t really understand, about the mechanics of modifying a dress to accomodate wings. Apple Bloom thought you’d just cut a couple slits in it, but apparantly those would bind up with something. This hood thing would be sewn onto the back of the dress, and have to scrunch back when Scootaloo unfurled her wings, while flattening out to partially cover them when folded. It sounded cool, but... Diamond was clearly more excited about making this stuff, than actual need for it.
Apple Bloom supposed you might need wing... hoods, or whatever if it were truly arctic conditions. But she had to be honest, Scootaloo was even less phased by the cold than she or Sweetie Belle was. Nevertheless she didn’t want to disappoint Diamond, and it really would be awesome if they could all get some clothing again, to at least feel halfway human. Maybe feeling human wasn’t so important, now that Apple Bloom’s mental faculties were relatively safe, and her friends were with her, but it’d still be nice. Might even make it sort of okay to go back to school...
Diamond shooed the three ponies out, so she could trace and cut out all the patterns, and sew them up together. Only obvious fact was Scootaloo’s dress, whatever it was gonna be, was a buttery yellow in color, but Sweetie’s was a mystery. To pass the time, the three of them spent time out in the cattle pasture meanwhile, with nothing more than warm scarves to wear. Out in that pasture, there was a near endless, even expanse of newly fallen snow to play with. Sweetie couldn’t even do her horn exercises, because it was just too much fun to run around and just do stuff in that powdery snow.
It was Sweetie who managed the first snowball, in fact. She’d been idly poking chunks of snow loose with a forehoof, while Scootaloo was trying to make “literal snow angels” which obviously didn’t work so well since she wasn’t even humanoid, and didn’t have huge wings. It was kind of scary how Scootaloo could push herself upright using her wings though. Those flimsy things were a lot more powerful than they looked. And the feathers just got bigger and fuller every day.
But Scootaloo was on her back, wriggling around in the snow, and Apple Bloom was watching her, commenting on the shape of the depression, and then Sweetie managed to get a chunk of snow up lightly clamped between her two pasterns, rearing up onto her haunches. Giving a quiet little huff, she lobbed the thing in a graceful arc, right into the side of Apple Bloom’s face.
So a flying chunk of snow out of absolutely nowhere came soaring through the sky, and smacked into the yellow little pony, exploding on contact to cover her face and the side of her barrel in powder.
“Blgah!” Apple Bloom said, rearing up in surprise at the sudden shock of cold. “What?! Who threw that?!” she demanded, looking around.
Scootaloo was too busy laughing to answer. Apple Bloom glared at her, and then at Sweetie Belle, who was calmly looking the other way, with her hooves neatly gathered together on the ground.
Using the blade of her right hoof to scoop a ball of snow out of the ground, Apple Bloom gave it an experimental toss in the air, and sent it flying towards Sweetie Belle. Sweetie was so busy playing little miss innocent, she had let her own guard down, and her “Guah!” echoed out over the snowy meadow as the chilly powder blasted the unicorn right in the cheek.
“How didz you know?!” Sweetie said to Apple Bloom abashedly, wobbling as she brushed the snow off her cheek.
“Ah was watching Scootaloo, silly,” Apple Bloom admonished her, walking up to Sweetie. “That was pretty impressive though! How’d you figure how to make a snowball?”
Sweetie looked down insecurely.
“It was really more hoof a snow chunk,” Sweetie said looking shyly sideways at Apple Bloom. “You’re a lot better at it than I yam.”
“Me? Ah don’t know how ta make snowballs!” Apple Bloom laughed. “Ah think that’s your... wait.”
“Okay, don’t think,” Sweetie cautioned Apple Bloom in sudden urgency, holding up her hooves. “Don’t think, just make one. Jus’ scoop one up right off the ground.”
Apple Bloom tried not to think about it too much, just thinking like she was when Sweetie had her riled up, all ready to bean her with a retributive snowball. She scooped up a ball of snow from the... ground? It came up easy enough, but there balanced on the tip of Apple Bloom’s hoof wasn’t just a smidgen of crushed snow, but rather a nicely shaped ball of snow, much larger than you’d think she could scoop with.
“This is one of them earth pony things, ain’t it,” Apple Bloom said looking at it with disgust.
“No, it wasn’t—” Sweetie paused in thought. “I watched you do it,” she said carefully, “It was just like you were sort of, um...” Then she dipped her own hoof in the snow, and scooped out a bunch. Or a chunk rather. A big chunk just broke off from the edge of the hoof print that she pressed her hoof against, and came up with her. It certainly was just a misshapen, irregular chunk of snow, but it definitely wasn’t the sort of thing you could have formed with just an ordinary hoof.
Holding it before Apple Bloom with a smile, Sweetie smiled and said, “I think it’s just how hoofves work!”
“How do hooves work though?” Apple Bloom said in confusion, flicking her arm to toss the snowball smoothly forward over the trail of hoofprints, where they had left a trail getting out here into the clearing. It landed with a piff on the newly trammeled snow. It was weirdly easy to do it. It was just so... well behaved!
“Magnets!” Scootaloo put in, sidling beside Apple Bloom. “Mother fu—”
“No,” Sweetie said to Scootaloo, with a stare of intense disapproval. “Never again.”
“Well uh...” Apple Bloom said, a bit uncomfortable at that exchange. “If y’all can do it too, then why don’t we have ourselves a good old snowball fight? It’ll be great practice!”
“If I could pick up snowballs,” Scootaloo said skeptically, waving a hard nailed forehoof in front of her, “With these, that would be just incredible.”
So Apple Bloom taught her friends the trick, thus sealing the snowy grave of her own fate. It wasn’t just them that got the hang of it though. She got better at doing it, the more she tried to teach them. Well, not better at doing it, but better at... paying attention while doing it.
It was hard to think about, but you sort of had to tilt your hoof just so while you were scooping, to get the flakes to compress into a compact, shapely ball, just perfect for smacking against someone’s face from a distance. At first Apple Bloom couldn’t even watch, but pretty soon she could just reach down and scoop, and before her eyes the snow would just roll right up, and she’d have a beautiful ball of snow balanced in her hooves.
It was just like when Apple Bloom was setting the table. She was only guiding the snow, rather than actually moving it. Like when she slid a plate out, and it came to settle just in the right place. If that were true for everything... that’d be pretty awesome. Honestly, Apple Bloom had never been this good at making snowballs with her hands, even. She couldn’t see how a regular old horse could do this, but... she was starting to think a lot more seriously about the wild tales of another world built and run by ponies that the Sunset and Twilight girls had told her about.
The other two didn’t figure out snowballs so easily, and never quite got to where they could create such perfectly piffing snowballs as Apple Bloom did, but they sure could collect snow. Make vague balls or chunks out of it. And that was all it took to completely destroy each other. Sounds of screams, and horse-like squeals, and childlike laughter echoed through the hills as the three of them scooped up snow as fast as they could, and hurled it at each other. It also helped Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle learn to move better, as they tried to dodge snowballs thrown by the other two. Obviously Apple Bloom was better at that, but she still got whacked again and again by those tricky to avoid crystalline balls of cold.
Diamond Tiara came jogging up the trail to call them in for dinner, and just stopped in astonishment. Some sort of detached bemusement. She couldn’t figure out how to feel about this, or how it was possible, but these ponies were throwing snowballs at each other, hopping around and laughing like excited children. If those children had four legs, hooves, and were clothed only in scarves, that is. It was a really beautiful sort of... sight, in a way that made Diamond wish she could just run in there with them.
But Diamond felt like she would look so awkward in there, and she was here for a reason, so she just swallowed her urges and shouted, “Hey, ponies! Time to come in and eat!” The three all looked at her, and Diamond could swear they all simultaneously got these devious predatory grins. She didn’t even get a chance to turn and run before snowballs were plastering into her side and back and she was squealing at the cold soaking into her coat and pants, and edges where the snow could insinuate under to her bare skin.
Diamond fell on her butt strategically, less of a target and closer to the snow now. Grabbing handfuls of the stuff around her before the ponies could... scoop out more, however they were doing it, she lobbed one at Apple Bloom who easily dodged, and one at Scootaloo who tried to dodge but stumbled clumsily on her hooves and got a face full of powder. Three more were headed her way though, and another three before she could even get one fired off.
That’s when Sweetie defected to Diamond’s team, knocking Scootaloo off her hooves in disrupting her shot, so that Diamond had a straight shot with Apple Bloom. With the odds evened it was a lot more fun, but Diamond hadn’t waited for her clothes to get cold enough, so she was starting to get wet and already shivering. “Alright, cut it out!” she shouted to the three. “We have to get inside for dinner.”
“Aww...” the three ponies all said with such disappointed looks on their faces.
“C-come on, you’re not like, babies anymore,” Diamond said somewhat flustered. “Aren’t you l-like, hungry and s-s-tuff?”
“Yeah! We’re not babies,” Apple Bloom said with a determined change of heart. She trotted up to Diamond and said, “Ready when you are! You... look kinda cold.”
“I’m f-fine,” Diamond said, standing up and brushing off what snow clinging to her that she could. Apple Bloom gave her a serious stare, but continued on ahead, to the head of the trail that led out of the meadow.
Scootaloo came next, grumbling, “I hope we’re not babies...” her tail drooping a bit making her look all jaded and stuff as she followed Apple Bloom.
“I w-wouldn’ mind if we were,” Sweetie mentioned next, practically to herself, breath fogging in the air as she caught back her wind from running around so much.
As far as Diamond could tell, Scootaloo trotted steadily, though not as skillfully as Apple Bloom. Sweetie Belle... was only able to walk it seemed. Diamond kept back with her, walking more slowly alongside Sweetie Belle. Sweetie actually looked a lot colder than the other two. She was actually shivering, just a teeny bit, and her nose was flushed, and her balance seemed more ‘off’ than Apple Bloom or Scootaloo. Sweetie shivered from head to tail, and then seemed fine, but...
Looking up from Sweetie, Diamond saw Apple Bloom over at the trailhead, watching them with concern, right where Scootaloo was already approaching the pink bowed farm girl. Diamond looked down at Sweetie Belle again, continuing to walk beside the unicorn, who clumped along unsteadily on her short stubby little hooves through the trammled snow.
“H-hey, I’m l-like c-cold and stuff so,” Diamond exclaimed deliberately. Then she knelt down and picked up Sweetie Belle, mid-stride. Her friend was significantly large for just a girl to pick up, even as a little pony, but it was easy enough to lug Sweetie’s butt up in her arms, and lay her head against Diamond’s chest.
This fuzzy, Sweetie Belle colored unicorn, that is to say Sweetie Belle herself, stiffened in surprise as Diamond picked her up. “You’ll be my body warmer,” Diamond explained to her smugly, carrying Sweetie along as she sped up, taking longer strides to catch up with the other two waiting for them. Sweetie didn’t answer, just relaxed and didn’t protest, but good golly was it the truth. Sweetie was so warm, where she nestled against Diamond. It was like carrying a fuzzy warm uh... pony. Diamond Tiara could really see why Rarity enjoyed lugging Sweetie Belle around, as a pony.
Dinner was delicious, of course. Butternut squash casserole, cucumber slices, and corned beef (for the humans at least) with a nice hot slice of pumpkin pie, topped off with fresh churned ice cream. Literally fresh churned: they made it outside in the chilly evening after dinner while the pie was cooling, in a hand—or—hoof cranked bucket, combining vanilla, sugar and fresh cream, and ice, snow and salt on the outside. Diamond was fairly sure a motorized one would be vastly superior, but she had to admit the sound of the ice clattering away was a lot more pleasant, as the three took turns enthusiastically cranking the handle, spinning the stuff around inside to keep it all nice and smoothly churned. Actually Diamond tried a little bit too, but it was really hard to turn the crank since she went last, and the ice cream was already mostly all ready.
She wasn’t sure why it seemed like everything the Apples did was so anachronistic. They didn’t seem particularly affected with nostalgia or any sort of retro craze. There was good, practical reasons for them to use what they did, the way that they did. And yet, until she started visiting here Diamond’s best idea of what ice cream is, is what you get by the scoop in a cafeteria, or topping a bubbling glass of root beer on those very rare occasions to purchase it at a café. But she wasn’t going to go walking 5 miles off this farm, just to get that, and even if you drove, it was just... easier to sit there with a bucket and a crank. They didn’t have access to Diamond’s cafeteria, and she didn’t have dispensible cash to spend on gas or ice cream, but there was vanilla sugar in the pantry. Ice was easy to come by, especially in the winter. And salt? Well, actually Diamond wasn’t sure where they got the salt. But cream, I mean, duh.
Wash tubs and clotheslines, and ice cream made in a bucket. It was so colonial era. It was kind of like a different world, even though Diamond could hear the city nearby. It was kind of like the effect of the city just didn’t reach out this far. It was astonishing how quickly Canterlot city changed from a solid urban landscape to a practically wild environment, where the buildings looked like they could have been assembled and painted by hand, with no more manufacturing involved than cutting boards and forging nails, and painting uh... however you made paint. Actually that did sound like a lot of manufacturing, so it wasn’t that different, just... there wasn’t as much... cement?
Diamond really couldn’t put her finger on it. But she sat there, eating her surprisingly tasty ice cream that dribbled over the still warm pie, she couldn’t help but think that maybe they were onto something that people in the city just didn’t get. Something more than just being behind the times so far that they had a woodpile instead of just buying sawdust logs from the supermarket to fuel their fireplace.
She might have asked more about that, but Diamond had a whole bunch of homework to do for the next week, and three classes that had projects coming up. So Diamond sort of bogarted Apple Bloom’s room, lugging up her ponderous bookbag, where she could get laid out comfortably at Apple Bloom’s old desk, the one she scarcely used now that she was well, a horse. Dinner was at 5, so that gave Diamond 4 hours to work on the stuff. Not enough, but... she had wanted to play with her friends so she wasted a little of her precious time. Now, Diamond just worked through science review after science review, and a bunch of annoyingly hard statistics problems. Remembering all those weird ways to manipulate numbers always left Diamond checking the textbook again and again.
She kept finding herself looking at the frosty window, where occasionally the sound of a young girl’s laughter could be heard drifting up from the ground, or a young girl’s whinny as such the case may be, whenever the three of them got close enough to Diamond’s side of the farmhouse to be heard. Diamond stood up once, just to stretch her legs of course, walking over to the window and looking outside at the snow speckled yard, and the trees beyond. Her heart hurt with the forbidden desire to just forget her homework and go outside and take advantage of the last rays of daylight. Sighing, she went and returned to it, working until everyone had come inside, and there was nothing outside the window besides blackness.
In the final hour before bed, the girls all came up to join Diamond in Apple Bloom’s room, Apple Bloom took the rear of the three ponies walking into her room, pushing the other two ponies in with her forehead. “Okay girls,” Apple Bloom was saying brightly, “Lemme show you the difference between monkeys and... oh, hi Diamond.”
“Monkeys, huh?” Diamond said, pulling back from an annoyingly ambiguous social studies project about finding a historical figure and reporting on how they influenced our modern life. Not just like, talking about it, but making a big long essay that had to be in the proper essay format, and had to have at least 5 references, and a bibliography, and like, stuff like that. She was doing Benjamin Franklin because he was easy, and the teacher was a big fan of the founding fathers, but it was still annoying.
“We’re just gonna study some too, if’n you don’t mind,” Apple Bloom said to her shyly.
“Study?” Diamond declared in confusion, “What do you have to study?”
“Anything we want!” Scootaloo said eagerly. Maybe a bit smugly.
“Just because we’re not in school doesn’t mean we can’t... study...” Sweetie said shyly.
“Yeah, but why would you want to? Nobody’s forcing you to, right?” Diamond said in amazement.
That stumped the three for a bit, but Apple Bloom just shrugged in the end and said, “Ah guess it’s because nobody’s forcing us to do it? You don’t mind if we look up some things, do ya?”
“It’s your room,” Diamond said shrugging, “If you need the desk, I can get up.”
“At our size?” Apple Bloom laughed. “It’s easier to sit on the floor and just you know, read.”
While Apple Bloom was pulling a large, illustrated biology book from underneath her bed using her mouth, Scootaloo asked Diamond curiously, “So, what are you working on?” Diamond hoped that wasn’t a library book.
“Just some stupid report,” Diamond told Scootaloo dismissively. “I’m trying to write about how super great Benjamin Franklin is. It’s not hard. Really the hardest part is talking about all these sources.”
“Wow, really?” Scootaloo said intrigued. “I’m in Social Studies too, but I hadn’t thought of a historical figure yet. Because uh... you know.” She gestured at her own furry body with a one fingered hoof.
“Maybe I could help, if we were in the same class,” Diamond said a bit moodily, “But all I know is my teacher, mister Jubilee thinks revolutionaries are the cat’s meow, so this’ll be a snap. If I could just write the darn thing...”
“Oh! Uh, sorry, I uh, didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Scootaloo said, backing away. Diamond wanted to be interrupted, but she shouldn’t let that happen, so she just rolled her eyes and went back to working. Her friends didn’t make themselves obtrusive or anything, just talking with each other in quiet tones that should never have been able to come out of a pony’s mouth, over how weird monkeys looked now, and then some psychological thing. Diamond forced herself to tune them out at that point, and ignored her friends to perform her obligatory studies. She sure wished she didn’t have to.
The four of them all slept together. Oh, it didn’t start out that way. Diamond was a lot more willing to open up when it was just Apple Bloom there, but with the other two looking at her from their shared bed, she adamantly refused to even remotely consider sleeping together with them. No, she had herself a nice bed roll that she was going to sleep on, by herself, on the floor.
But when Apple Bloom thought Diamond might be asleep she whispered, “Okay girls, let’s go,” and Diamond lay there suspiciously, not moving just to see what these ponies were doing. Not that she could see in the dark room, but to her surprise and maybe even chagrin, she heard Apple Bloom’s hooves clop quietly up around next to her head, and then the earth pony crouched down on her belly, then lay against the human girl’s bouncy purple and white hair. At the same time, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were insinuating their way in, nestling themselves to either side of Diamond Tiara. Sweetie Belle remained nestled compactly against Diamond’s side, while Scootaloo curled in the crook of her belly, then later tossed in her sleep, and ended up laying across Diamond’s lap.
Diamond Tiara shouldn’t have pretended to be asleep. She really should have just told them to buzz off. But she did and she didn’t, so, covered in ponies and surrounded by the warmth of her friends, Diamond Tiara let herself descend into a perfectly normal human sleep, one lacking pony princesses entirely.