Oh my. "Take part at the center of the festival" Does anyone else hear Voyeurism? This is definitely going to be awesome! I can't wait for you to write more of it.

OH YES! Here we go!

~Skeeter The Lurker

It's finally here!

2929832 it may be nsfw but its appledash! I have been bored all day so THANK YOU! To the appledash gods!

2929849
This part is actually safe for work. NSFW comes in the update tomorrow.

And now Applejack has stage fright.

This is getting goood.

~Skeeter The Lurker

2929868 either way, ill still read it! Thanks for the appledashery booky!

If only we could have more sooner rather than later. Alas, and alack. Bookplayer is always worth waiting for.

Mmm, that's some good worldbuilding. The kind that makes you go "D'oh, of course, why didn't I see that earlier." The connection between the Summer Sun Celebration and the ancient unicorns raising the sun seems natural, and once it's pointed out it makes perfect sense to have similar rituals for pegasi and earth ponies.
Now, with that said... why is it a secret, though? I don't see any reason why unicorns need to be forbidden from knowing anything about it, and in fact that actually kind of runs counter to the whole 'all three tribes working together in harmony' thing, which is the entire point of the thing. Princess Celestia certainly doesn't keep the SSC a secret.

Also:

Applejack noticed Twilight blushing, and realized that what was a mystery for her was a secret Twilight was trying to keep.

Nothing really wrong with this, but I did have to read it a few times to figure it out.

2930118
Well, it wasn't originally a secret, when all three tribes were involved. Each part was just a secret, something private for their own communities. When the unicorns left the ritual, they lost their part of it, so now all that remains are the vague understandings in the history books Twilight had read (mostly written by unicorns born hundreds of years after they stopped taking part.)

Oddly, the ritual was supposed to be a kind of a symbol of unity, even before Hearth's Warming- it required all three tribes to come together to do one thing, at least. They just retained their individual identities in the preparation festivals. It still kind of does that for pegasi and earth ponies, they are definitely uniting, they just spend the day celebrating it in their traditional ways first.

Interesting canon you're setting up here. I myself am interested in the specific reasons behind the Unicorns no longer participating, and what role they play in the greater scheme of things now that Celestia took their jerb.

Good stuff so far.
Looking forward to reading the rest of the story.

Does anyone else notice that the word count of the prologue is '666'? O_O XD

2930161
Sure, that makes sense. It's just kind of a long way from there to 'If Twilight had asked Rainbow or Applejack about it before her ascension, they would have refused to tell her,' which is the impression I'm getting.

Liking much this I do, yes. Mmmm. Feel the magic, it surrounds them, binds us together, the cloud, the tree, Flower Maiden, Cloud Maiden, yes yes. May the Horse be with them

Hey Bookie, look who made the box.

2930259
That is true, but not really from any secret pact. If Rainbow Dash asked Applejack something about it, Applejack probably wouldn't have told her (and definitely not if it had to do with the earth pony celebration.) It just happens that pegasi learn about it from other pegasi, and earth ponies learn it from other earth ponies, and it's not something you're supposed to talk about with other tribes. Unicorns learn about it from... well, they don't. Most unicorns who aren't scholars barely even know it happens, and if they do it's just some weird thing the earth ponies and pegasi do. Probably has to do with nature or something.

(ETA: Also worth noting, the pegasi seem to have a looser grasp on the ancient history of it than the earth ponies. Or at least, Fluttershy never learned it and Cheerilee did.)

Book, what are you doing.
Stop that.
No, stop that.
Bad Book.

2930311
Eeep! What am I doing? What am I doing?

2930330 it appears that "fillyfooler" is an appleshy fan and probably not a fan of appledash...... .___.

2930330
Joking, joking. Though seriously I've never liked the 'it's a ritual of our culture to have you two women fuck for something' thing and it just sort of rubs my fur the wrong way, if I had fur. So I regret to inform you that I won't be reading this story.

Though I'm sure it is an entertaining romp through Appledash shipping and many others will like it.

Also you've got 2+ well liked stories in the group, welcome to being a contributor. Congratulations.

To the person who just got rolled by the troll Fillyfooler.

Interesting story so far. I like the history you've created that makes this ceremony plausible. However, I feel bad that the unicorns are left out because Celestia now controls the sun. I'm sort of hoping that Twilight will try to reintroduce the unicorns into the ceremony seeing how it brings the groups closer.

2930363
Aww, well... I do explain why, and it isn't actually voyeuristic, if that helps. The effects of the ritual are watched by other ponies, but the ponies themselves are too far away for onlookers to see anything.

But if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. I have a more traditional AppleDash fic coming up in the next week or two, so hopefully you'll be more interested in that one.

ETA: And thank you for the contributor status!

2930387
Nah never been a fan of Appledash, just too... simple I guess. Like it's too easy to do. But what ever floats your boat.

FF out.

wow, what is this?! a "clop" fic by bookplayer?! =O
must read!

What?! Unicorns aren't allowed?

Come on, threesomes make everything better.

featured

2930399
That's fair enough, I guess. Though for many it's part of the attraction. No need to jump through hoops to make AppleDash seem likely, compared to others.

In any case, this is more about the ritual than it is about the clop, or the Appledash itself. Might still be worth a look? ;)

an Appledash mixed with magic to the power of 10 and sex. three good combinations

reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/popcorn_yes.gif

Everyone who favourited and liked this, including me.

2930387 I'm more of a fan of ApplePie.

Aw, poop. I shoulda waited until tomorrow so I could just read the whole thing in one go and not have to deal with the suspense. But it was right there, staring at me from the feature box, and then I clicked it...You're a word temptress, damn it, and now I'll have to go through a whole day of work wondering just how gobsmacked the Maidens will be when they figure out who it is they have to canoodle with.

In other words: You're awesome and thank you for writing this lovely story.

GAH why is there no chapter 4?? I must know what happens!! Gonna fave

Man, there isn't even going to be a desert after these two have their way with each other.

>Sees story
>looks at chapters
>sees that prologue has 666 words

......

not sure if want

All my love. All of it.

YOU CAN THROW THE SECOND HALF AT US NOW THAT'S OKAY REALLY IT'S FINE SO JUST YA KNOW GO AHEAD AND POST THAT PLEASE!!

2931113
I can see it now. Headlines tomorrow: "Cities overrun with plants and wildlife!"

2931492
Developing story
CANTERLOT (APP) - Trees sprouted from the city streets and the royal palace sustained significant structural damage after the annual Maiden's Day festival resulted in an unusually potent surge of earth pony magic across Equestria yesterday evening. Over 60 buildings collapsed and hundreds more rendered uninhabitable after extremely rapid plant growth occurred across the entire country.

Princess Celestia could not be reached for comment at the time of writing, though palace staff assured us that rumors that she was missing after a three hundred foot redwood tree appeared in the center of her bedroom were "completely unfounded." "She's just busy dealing with the crisis," the official spokespony at the palace told APP reporters during a brief Q&A session after the scope of the disaster became clear.

2931528
And let us not even mention the hurricanes and floods from the cloud maiden...
"Oh man, did I do that?"

Cheerilee and Spitfire.........I can deal with that mental image, lol. Very creative story you have going here. I'm enjoying it a lot.

2929948
HEY, DON'T YOU HAVE YOUR OWN STORY TO WRITE?! *cracks whip* GET TO IT!

I mean... please? LOL, yeah, I just wrote that. I feel terrible now. But then... why did I not delete this? Not sure.

I suppose The Winds of Change are blowing through me.

Lesbians... lesbian everywhere...

2932011
Direct from the story: (Were you just not paying close enough attention?)

Twilight spoke up again, “That reminds me... why is the ritual between two mares? Fluttershy wasn’t sure. But it would seem that, for a fertility ritual, a stallion and a mare would make more sense.”

“You know how the ancient ponies lived in herds, right?” Cheerilee answered. “If the mares in the herd were as in love with each other as they were with the stallion, that was good for the herd. They thought it made the whole herd more fertile. So since the ritual is to make the earth fertile, the Maidens are like the mares in a herd.”

Think of it (functionally) like a pride of lions.

It was too early in the spring for most produce, but the farm ponies had carts of seeds and young sprouts, ready for planting, or baby chickens and pigs.

I understand that you can get eggs from chickens, but why in equestria would a pony need a pig?

2932011
Actually, "fertility" doesn't need a Y chromosome. It is the ability of something to reproduce if a Y chromosome (or comparable) is attached. Lesbians could be insanely fertile, they can't be fertilized without a male. This isn't a fertilization ritual.

(ETA: It can also refer to the nutrient content of the soil, something which is pretty gender neutral and more applicable to this fic.)

2932073
Natural trash compactor.

Basically, if you're on a farm and have a lot of organic trash (like partially rotten fruit,) you feed it to a pig. They can live on it, and the fertilizer they produce lets you put the nutrients back in the soil a lot faster than a compost pile.

2932102 Oh, okay. My diet consists of meat and potatoes, so I could only think of porkchops.