What You Don't Know

by Flaming Pulsar

Chapter 8--Apples

Author's Note:

And we return to the unwritten Author's Note. Today's Author's Note is brought to you by human technology: it never works the way it's supposed to in HiE fics.

Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ICII5EX31Pbr4LefGIN-yGqDWUxHEnQ2RV0RBiV6zj8/edit?usp=sharing

Chapter 8--Apples

I was out walking one day when I thought to myself, I wonder if one of these ponies could hold my weight. On that thought, I went to find the strongest pony I knew.

“Hey, Big Macintosh, would you like to help me with an experiment?”

“Eeyup,” the big red pony said.

“Awesome. You just stand here and I’ll get on you.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea, Síor.”

“Don’t fret. I just want to see if you can hold me.”

As it turns out, ponies can’t hold my wait. That little experiment ended up with Big Mac getting a cast around his back. It wasn’t broken but he couldn’t do any manual labor for a week.

“Sorry, Big Mac,” I said.

“And right before Applebuck season,” Applejack complained. “I s’pose that means I’ll have ta harvest all them apples myself.”

“No AJ,” I said. “I hurt Big Mac so it only stands to reason that I should help harvest apples with you.”

“Thank ya fer the offer, Síor. But I can handle this.”

I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I was going to help her even if it meant I had to do so secretly.

And secretly it was as I followed her back to the farm. “Well,” she said when we got there, “I better get kickin’, these apples aren’t gonna shake themselves outta the trees.” Right when she said that, a loud rumbling sound started and one of the apples fell from a tree. “Oh no.” She raced back to town to stop whatever the rumbling was. I started picking apples.

Have you ever noticed how on TV, hours pass in mere seconds when the characters are doing a boring task? Yeah, picking apples is one of those boring tasks and let me tell you, the few hours that I spent hiding in trees and picking apples felt more like days. By the end of the day, I had harvested apples from about twenty trees whereas AJ had kicked the apples out of about a hundred. I don’t know how she does it but somehow she’s able to make all the apples fall from a tree with one kick. And on top of that, they always land in the buckets beneath. I decided to stay up for a few more hours to pick apples before finding a comfortable branch and going to sleep. I wasn’t going to waste time running back and forth between here and town every day, after all. I had told Twilight that I would be staying with a friend for a few days so she wouldn’t go looking for me. This went on for about a week.

I awoke one morning when the sun shone right in my eyes. I was about to go back to work when I saw AJ leaving the farm. I heard something about an award ceremony so I decided to follow her. I had long since lost count of how many trees we had finished but I knew that harvesting however many trees in a week with minimal sleep couldn’t be good for a pony, and it was showing on AJ.

When we got within sight of the town square--which was actually a circle--I could see Twilight trying to give a speech of some sort but she kept getting interrupted. By the time we got there, it was time for Aj to accept her award. She did so less than graciously and dragged the trophy off the stage. The only sound was the scraping of metal on the ground as she slowly dragged the trophy back to the farm. That excitement over, we went back to the farm. I should mention that she still didn’t know I was helping her. Another day, another twenty or so apple trees for me and another hundred or so for AJ.

The next day, Applejack was supposed to help Rainbow Dash with something. I let her do her thing while I stayed back and harvested apples. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sick of apples by the end of this. My excitement for that day was seeing a rainbow-maned cyan pony flying through the air towards the library. I hope she doesn’t break my window again.

Later that day, Twilight decided to stop by to try to help Applejack. Of course, AJ had fallen asleep and when Twilight arrived, she woke up suddenly and hit her head on a low branch. Clearly her ears were ringing because she had a hard time hearing Twilight.

“Applejack, can we talk?” Twilight said.

“Can bees squawk?! I don't think so,” Applejack yelled loudly.

“No. Can we talk?”

“Twenty stalks? Bean or celery?”

“No! I need to talk to you.” Now Twilight was yelling, too.

“You need to walk to the zoo? Well, who's stoppin' you?”

“I need to talk to you!”

“Oh! Well why didn't you say so? Whatchu wanna talk about?”

“Rainbow Dash dropped in to see me today.”

“That's quite neighborly of her.

“Yes, except that she crashed through Síor’s window after you launched her into the air.” Dammit.

“Oh, yeah. I wasn't feeling quite myself this morning.”

“Because you're working too hard and you need help.”

“What? Kelp? I don't need kelp. I don't even like seaweed.”

“HELP! You need HELP!”

“Nothin' doin', Twilight. I'm gonna prove to you, ta everypony, that I can do this on my own.” She hit her head on another branch. “Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go help Pinkie Pie.”

That sounded interesting so I decided to follow her. She still didn’t know that I was helping but I couldn’t help Twilight seeing me when I hopped out of the tree. “Síor! What were you doing in that tree?” she asked.

“Oh, I decided to help AJ harvest apples and let me tell you, it is boring as fuck.”

“Well, that was very nice of you. How’d you convince her to let you help?”

“I didn’t. She doesn’t even know that I am helping. I’ve been hiding in the trees picking apples day in and day out and she hasn’t noticed a thing. She hasn’t even found me sleeping in the trees.”

“You’ve been sleeping in trees?”

“Yeah. You’ve been sleeping in a tree, too.”

“That’s different, It’s a hollowed-out tree made for living in. You’ve been living in the branches of trees.”

“Yep. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna see what AJ is helping Pinkie with.”

“This conversation isn’t over,” she yelled behind me.

“Yeah it is,” I yelled back.

I found AJ and Pinkie at Sugarcube Corner. Apparently the Cakes had left Pinkie in charge of the restaurant while they went to some dessert convention or something. Pinkie had acquired AJ’s help to make muffins but AJ wasn’t hearing well being sleep-deprived so she got some of the ingredients wrong and her logic wasn’t working right either because she thought that earthworms were a muffin ingredient. Long story short, when Pinkie gave out the free muffin samples, it didn’t end well for many ponies. The “baked bads” ended up making everyone who ate them sick, unbeknownst to Applejack.

Twilight once again tried to convince Applejack to accept her help but to no avail. The next pony AJ was supposed to help was Fluttershy. I was sure that anything Fluttershy needed help with couldn’t possibly go wrong so I saw no reason to go watch. I stayed behind to work on harvesting apples. We were almost halfway done with the orchard and it’s only taken us...two weeks. Fuck.

As it turned out, Fluttershy needed help with the bunny census because apparently--I’ve used that word a lot recently--a bunch of baby bunnies had been born and they needed to be counted. And of course something went wrong because I wasn’t there. The bunnies stampeded into town and ate all the plants. And of course Twilight decided to come and complain to AJ about that.

“All right, Applejack. Your applebucking hasn't just caused you problems, it's over-propelled pegasi, practically poisoned plenty of ponies, and terrorized bushels of brand new bouncing baby bunnies that are still bouncing around like a babbling bumbling band of baboons.” Alliteration overload. “I don’t care what you say, you need help.”

“Ha! No I don’t.” Yes you do. “Look, I did it. I harvested the entire Sweet Apple Acres by myself.” I helped! And besides, we’re only halfway done. “How d’you like them apples.”

“Um,” Big Mac showed up, “How d’you like them apples,” he said showing her the other half of the orchard that we still had to harvest.

“How did the--huminah--ah,” she fainted.

Twilight woke her up by yelling in her face and she finally accepted her help.

One long apple harvest later, we were all celebrating with some apple juice. I was officially done with apples at that point but I did want to ask AJ something in private. “Hey, Applejack, can I talk to you alone?”

“Sure, Síor.”

We walked over to the barn and went inside to talk. “You remember when we first met how I mentioned something called applejack?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I was wondering if you would like to help me make some.”

“Why d’ya need my help?”

“Because it’s going to require a shitload of apples and you seem to be the main apple supplier of Ponyville and Twilight won’t let me go outside of town except to hunt.”

“Well, sure I guess. When d’you wanna start?”

“Well, it works best in cold weather so we’ll have to wait at least until fall. I just wanted to get your ok so I didn’t have to try to find someone else on short notice.”

“Sure thing, Síor. We can start after the Running of the Leaves.”

“I have no clue what that is but I’m sure I can find out easily enough.”

“It’s the annual race in the fall when the ponies shake the ground to make the leaves fall.”

Actually the leaves fall all on their own. “Huh. Well, after that, we can start brewing.”

We went back to the group and we all talked until the sun went down and then we returned to our respective living spaces for the night.