Farewell (And Epilogue)
Applejack was up with the sunrise. Or at least what was presumed to be sunrise. Pinkie was sleeping soundly as Applejack got herself out the door and breathed in the fresh after-rain air the day brought with it. The Cakes were already at work prepping the heavier bread doughs for baking, but returned the quiet wave Applejack gave them on the way out.
A quick walk to the farm was reassuring. Dash had lived up to her promise and ensured that when the rest of the storm blew itself out overnight, Sweet Apple Acres was still ensured its protective cover. The apples were all but handled, boxed, barreled, stored in every nook and cranny they could be. Several bushels had been unable to fit anywhere else, and now resembled bobbing-for-apple buckets at a county fair from the rain. Still, the crisis had been handled, Twilight was due back later today, there was almost nothing that could go wrong.
She did frown a bit, thinking about Babs. This wasn't exactly what they had hoped for for a visit. Of course, how many ponies visited Ponyville specifically because of the madness that seemed to surround the place. Applejack sighed and rolled her eyes. Some ponies had taken to referring to crises in other parts of Equestria by saying 'It must be Tuesday in Ponyville.' Not that far from the truth, of course, but not something to take much pride in.
Well, if nothing else, she was going to have a great send off. With an approving nod, Applejack headed towards the other end of town for Fluttershy's cottage. Time to rustle up the best going away party to date!
***
Unsurprisingly, Big Mac was already up. Surprisingly, Fluttershy was with him. They were feeding animals out back of the cottage. Applejack just smiled quietly as she walked up.
"Good morning you two."
"Eep! Umm. G-good morning." Fluttershy cringed behind the safety of her hair. Mac simply nodded quietly to his sister.
"Was hoping to get Mac here to come along to see off Babs. Back to Manehatten already. Granny still sleeping?"
"Nnnnope."
"Oh, my, yes, she's been so helpful with the smaller animals around the house. Even Angel likes her! Discord has been.. well, he's been busy with something again, but he seems to get along with her as well for some reason."
"Huh. Well don't that beat all. If she's still awake by ten, feel free to drag her down to the station." Applejack pulled the brim of her hat in a minor salute, in part to hide her furrowed brow at Discord being 'busy', and started walking off.
"Oh! Umm." Fluttershy blushed. "I don't think I met Babs last time, really. Could- could I come along? I mean, if that's alright with you."
"Sure thing sugar cube. Thanks again for helping out." Applejack gave her an honest smile and headed back into town. The next pony to talk to should be just waking up.
***
"A going away party! Of course! I'll set up banners and confetti and-"
"Pinkie. We've only got a few hours, and this is just gonna be a small party."
"A smaaaall party with banners and confetti and cake and-"
"Just a little."
"I'll make sure the train station is ready by ten!"
"Wait, I never told you when Babs was-" Pinkie had already zipped off in a blur of pink, leaving confetti and streamers behind. Applejack rolled her eyes with a smile. Some ponies.
The pink blur vanished into Golden Oaks library for a moment, before zipping back out with a quiet giggle, bouncing back to Sugar Cube Corner. So much to do, so much fun to have!
***
The Crusaders, Babs, and Spike were just starting to wake up when the alarm went off at 8. Spike started a warm breakfast of oatmeal with personalized toppings, apple slices for Applebloom, marshmallows for Sweetie, orange slices for Scootaloo, sugar and cinnamon for Babs, and hot pepper for himself.
The fillies and dragon dug in quietly, Applebloom finally addressing the elephant in the room. "It's too bad you have to go so soon, Babs."
"Yeah! This was nice. But we didn't even get to try as many crusades as I had planned." Scootaloo frowned, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of orange.
"No offense, but I'm good with that." Babs smiled.
"And we did have a fun day yesterday! Hey, maybe by the time Babs comes back again we'll figure out our talents!" Sweetie Belle smiled enthusiastically.
"Or at least figure out magic and flying." Scootaloo moved her spoon through the air with wooshing noises. "Second Best Flier in Equestria, right after Rainbow Dash!"
Applebloom rolled her eyes. "Either way cuz, I guess we should get ready. Oh, and thanks Spike, for letting us stay the two nights."
"No big deal. You weren't as bad as I was expecting." Spike covered his mouth wide-eyed at that comment's escape, earning glares from the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and a laugh from Babs.
"And you weren't a big mean dragon, so there we go." She gave him a teasing smile, helping to clear the table of dishes. Now facing his own inconclusive compliment, Spike blushed a bit, and opted for quietly cleaning the dishes as the fillies got themselves in order.
***
The clocks had claimed it was nine-thirty and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, both Manehatten and Ponyville branches had slipped on their cloaks for the trip. Spike hauled Babs' luggage as the crusaders regaled her with more ideas for possible crusades.
"You could try helping out at an art gallery!" Sweetie smiled.
"No way, she should go be a costumed crime fighter! Standing mightily on top of buildings, swooping down to stop bullies and thieves!" Scootaloo threw some punches with a huge smile.
"I'm pretty sure only pegasi could jump down from most Manehatten buildings and be in one piece Scoots." Babs rolled her eyes with a smile.
"How about gardenin'? I know you don't have a lot to work with out in Manehatten, but it is a pretty common skill in the Apple Family."
"Well, I have only had a little herb garden, but maybe I can give it another shot this year." Babs nodded cheerfully.
"Hey! There's the train station!" Spike pointed ahead, bringing the crusaders up short. They exchanged looks, before finally settling on a massive group hug. Spike sighed, frowned, and finally joined in when Babs waved a hoof at him to get in. A few moments later they split up again, smiling sadly.
"Sorry you have to go so soon, Babs." Applebloom sighed.
"Yeah. It was good having you back." Scoots nodded, smiling sheepishly.
"Next time, I'll make sure not to add that much powder!" Sweetie nodded enthusiastically.
Babs laughed. "I appreciate that. Thanks, everyone. And I'll try to come back for a longer stay next time."
A moment of awkwardness passed as the party resumed moving towards the train station. Spike blinked at the massive clock, now covered in colorful ribbons. "Nine-o-five? But that's-"
"SURPRISE!" Pinkie popped out of nowhere, in a cloud of confetti. Walking out from cover were the Apples; Applejack. Big Mac, Granny Smith; and the available Elements of Harmony; Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie, of course. Banners overhead unfurled to reveal 'Come back soon, Babs!' as Pinkie pulled out platters of baked goods and a bowl of punch. The conductor gave her a minor frown, but there wasn't a train due for almost an hour, so it was all good.
***
"-so I snuck in and set all your clocks ahead so you'd be at the station in time for a party!" Pinkie smiled hugely at the small party, somehow having managed to hook her gramophone up to the announcement system for the trains. Cheerful music blared overhead.
Spike and the Crusaders were still a bit shellshocked, and Babs was smiling almost as widely as Pinkie. "Well, thanks Pinkie. This is- this is great!"
"Applejack was saying it was supposed to be just a little party for you going back home, but I figured you'd like a bit more of a send off! Plus, you can keep some of the leftovers for the ride home!" Pinkie bounced over to one of the food platters, scarfing up a small stack of cupcakes in a single motion. She licked her lips. "Mmm mm! And they're great, too!"
Babs rolled her eyes. She couldn't stop smiling. After the stories she'd heard, these were some of the ponies who were in the midst of some of the crazier stuff that happened, and while she'd seen them before, they hadn't really interacted much. Plus, Sweetie had been so thrilled that her sister was here, it was rather hard to not just bask in the infectious enthusiasm from everypony. She laughed, tapping her hooves to the music. "I think I'm gonna dance for a bit."
She moved herself into a little clear area and started moving to the music, doing pretty well for a filly with no experience. It wasn't long before the impromptu dance caught on, everyone simply enjoying themselves for a short period.
***
"Goodbye!" "Don't forget to write!" "We'll keep you posted about the crusades!"
The cutie mark crusaders waved as the train pulled away, Babs waving back. The Elements of Harmony had started cleaning up the party, Pinkie giggling cheerfully as she bounced up to remove the banners from the station.
"So it was just luck you happened to be around?" Applejack asked Rarity, helping to haul another banner away as the unicorn lowered it.
"Well, after these dreadful past few days, I simply needed a strong body and some quick hooves to get the shipment onto the train in time. So of course I headed to Sweet Apple Acres, where Dash told me about your little slice of mayhem. She lent a hoof, and then of course we all met at the station. Twilight is due back in a few hours, so here's hoping this crisis is at its end." Rarity gave a warm smile to Sweetie Belle where she was sweeping up confetti. "Still, it didn't seem all bad. Babs' visit really helped keep Sweetie occupied while I got the work done."
"As long as she can fix the trees, I suppose we can figure out some way to handle the apples." Applejack nodded at Applebloom, who was cleaning up some cake platters. "Yup, friendship does have a way of making little problems less important."
"I wonder if Twilight is going to have one of us writing a friendship report about it?" Rarity giggled as Applejack shot her a look.
"At this point, since it was her meddlin' that started the crisis, I reckon she'd still be the one to write."
"Mmm. Oh my, Fluttershy! Are you up for the spa? I could really do with our weekly trip a bit earlier." Rarity smiled at Fluttershy, who smiled back. "Oh of course, that would be lovely Rarity."
Spike sighed happily nearby, leaning on a broom. Oh beautiful Rarity. Scoots gave him a nudge, and they both resumed cleaning up the streamers.
***
With a a little over an hour left before the Ponyville Princess was due back home, Spike was triple checking the lists, and had finally triple checked the List of Lists. "Phew!"
He looked around the sparkling clean library, adjusted the carefully prepared daisy sandwiches on the dining room table, checked on Owlucious, and made sure that all the books were in order. A moment later, he looked around, and having made sure nobody was watching, pulled 'The Big Book of Dragon Secrets' from the shelf. It was another blank Discord book, but it had proven useful.
Spike flipped the book over, opening the back cover, where he'd been keeping a small photo album. A handful of the best pictures of Rarity he could get were scattered at the top of the page, with 'Perfection' written under them. A picture of him and Sweetie Belle dancing was underneath it, with a number two written beside it. He thought for a moment, pulling out the picture of Babs that Pinkie had provided. Of course, how she got a shot of when Babs stared him in the eyes during their hoof wrestling match was another Pinkie Secret.
He pondered for a long moment before putting the picture on the other side of the two. He added notes under the pictures. For Sweetie, 'Sugar,' for Babs 'Spice.' He added a question mark under the two and wrote in 'Everything Nice' below it. Satisfied for the moment, he closed the book and returned it to the shelf. He still had half an hour to go.
"Maybe I should check the list again."
***
Epilogue
Twilight raised the magnifying glass to her eye, squinting as she examined the apple tree. The quill and tome floating beside her carefully sketched notes as she hummed to herself. Nearby, Applejack was pacing back and forth. Dash watched from a nearby cloud.
"You're in a rut, AJ." Dash commented.
Applejack snorted. "Well I can't get my mind off this! If these trees can't be fixed it'll take years to replace them, and even with magic apples that pour all day, well, that just ain't Apple Family tradition! It's for sure going to hurt our profits this season, and we've got a lot of things to cover."
"No, I mean you've paced a rut into the road."
Applejack blinked, and hopped out of the hole she'd worn into the dirt, grumbling at the bemused pegasus.
Twilight nodded, finally closing her book. "Well you don't have to worry Applejack, just like it took a few days to kick in, it looks like the fertilizer is wearing off. By tomorrow your trees should be back to normal."
"So all we had to do was wait?" Dash groaned. "So much for a crisis."
"Well, if you girls hadn't figured out the cloud cover thing, there's a good chance Ponyville would be up to its' collective knees in apples. So we'll call this an averted crisis." Twilight smiled cheerfully.
"That's great and all Twi, but are the apples safe for pony's to eat?"
"Oh of course! It looks like the fertilizer just caused an infusion of elements similar to their base components. I'm not entirely sure how the contagion element got in, unless that's related somehow to the aspects of friendship, but that would be a completely different-"
"Twi'?"
"Yes Applejack?"
"What was in that fertilizer you keep talking about? And I thought you said it wasn't supposed to be magical?"
Twilight blushed, earning a raised eyebrow from Applejack. Rainbow covered an approaching giggle with a hoof. "Well, you see, since becoming a princess I've realized there really hasn't been a study done into the utility of Alicorn elements. We already handle a lot of other elements normally, so it stands to reason that all elements should act normally. In this case, I was just trying to run a test on, well, fertilizer."
"Alicorn Fertilizer?" Applejack's eyes went wide. Dash used two hooves to stifle her approaching laughter.
Twilight blushed some more. "Yes. I mean, I didn't expect there to be any kind of magical reaction, let alone something on this scale. Of course that might've been because I used a combined sample with Celestia, but-"
Dash couldn't hold it anymore, and was rolling around laughing on her cloud. Applejack just stared at Twilight like she'd grown a second set of wings and a second horn. "How in the hay did you convince Celestia to provide you with-with her poop?!" She sent a glare up at the laughing pegasus. "And how the hay did you seem to have figured this out early?"
Dash grinned smugly. "More apples with more sunlight? This was like one of those puzzles Daring Do always has to solve. Obviously something 'sunny' was involved."
Twilight grinned nervously. "Anyway, yes, that should also explain the effect on the apples. The magic in them should at worst just make ponies feel really friendly, and comfortably warm. So- perfect for cider, right?" She pony-squeed at Applejack who just facehooved. "And I really should test a sample with Luna at some point... I still can't figure out how Magic got into the equation, though. The samples were completely inert."
"Twi? Let's just wait on any more testing until we finish handling these apples."
"Oh, right, of course!"
The friends shared an awkward but happy smile. Dash spoke up. "I call dibs on the first bottle."
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Congratulations on winning the contest for November!
Because I'm going to be writing a review of this story, I can't tell you what I thought of it just yet
but keep an eye out.
I much appreciate any review you see willing to render.
And thanks for the congrats.
Though I was the only entry.
3641419
Review has been sent off, I think it will get posted tomorrow. One thing though, in dialogue, when addressing a character, a comma goes either before or after the address.
EXAMPLES:
"Scoots, are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Scoots?"
P.S. You have to hit the "reply to comment" button to let the commentor know that you've replied to them.
3741561 It appears my newbie is showing. Thank you sir.
And drat.
I thought it scanned well in my head. Ah well, perfection is a journey, not a state of being. Thank you for the feedback.
Here's hoping the scathing reviews will leave some part of me alive so I can finish my other stories.
What about the kiss?
3988158 Since it was an accident, and the two of them settled it between them, there's nothing to worry about.
Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all.
3988892 Except Spike and Babs Seed thinking about that kiss, that one moment of passion and tension filled up to the point that it's been building up day after day night after night in reality and their dreams, that they can't resist the calling for one another that with the power of love and desperation reliving that moment to make more moments of THEIR LOVE ONCE AGAIN!!!!!!
3989097 Perhaps.
Perhaps. While I hadn't planned on any kind of sequel with the pair of them, it might be something interesting to see. And it does seem you have an idea in mind.
4005948 I appreciate that. Although I have a loooong way to go on reaching 'quality' writing. I think I'm currently hovering around 'kwallitee.'
4006010 I point you at my previous reply.
I should have perhaps thought that a bit further through, but I believe we have seen points on the show where things go wrong simply by putting faith into the wrong idea. Of course, using the 'idiot ball' is hardly a valid excuse for writing.
Hahahahaha. Didn't see that coming. Sunny fertilizer. Makes a lot of sense though.
And to be fair, yes, a lot of problems in the show happens because people don't think things through. So let's meet halfway, we'll live with the dreadful breach of scientific caution, because the plot is fun enough. Still, think a little more about the effects next time.
The first description of the events at Sweet Apple Acres was a little confusing and I didn't really get what was going on, I just didn't get the picture until the following chapter. So you should work on being more clear in the "reveals" next time. Also, I personally dislike the "x time ago" as it's own header. I want the "time information" to be weaved into the narrative, unless it has been established throughout the story that you get the time before each chapter. As an example, in a spy novel, I can live with it if every chapter begins with "time and place" stamps or "month and year" in a historical novel spanning a long time. But if it is only in a single place the time is important, weave it into the narrative itself.
Two specifics:
"Spike covered his mouth wide-eyed at that comment's escape, " This should in my opinion be "Spike covered his mouth; wide-eyed, at that comment's escape" or reword it a bit, because it looked wrong at first glance.
"Applejack blinked, and hopped out of the hole she'd worn into the dirt, grumbling at the bemused pegasus." Don't you mean "amused"? Bemused pretty much means "confused" or "baffled", not "amused".
Now with the criticism out of the way: I like this story a lot. I think it is a real shame how few likes and reviews it has, because the writing is pretty decent, the characters are pretty much as they should be and it's a fun little read, with neither too much description or too little. You manage to stick to the past tense (something a depressing number of people fail to do and what instantly turns me off a story unless it has a LOT of promise) and you don't make many mistakes. I can recall no places where you confused one word with a similar one or shifted tense without reason. Only the bit that Danger Beans wrote is a problem and I didn't notice, so good job there. You keep a consistent tone that is very similar to canon, which I really appreciate (I'm tired of dark and gore in my MLP) and this is one of the few good Spike and the Crusaders that I have found. Having Babs is just a bonus. Don't know if you hit her perfectly, but considering I have only that one episode to base her on, then, well, she worked as a character.
So, good job. Hope to see more of you, self-proclaimed newbie
Happy writing.
4006148 Wow! Thank you for the more in depth analysis. I admit I haven't gone back through to patch my two stories so far; as I'm trying to keep up with other story ideas; but at this point I should probably go back and start fixing things. I'll probably need to tweak some scenes to make them a bit more clear. I think I just get stuck running with an idea and don't realize my glitches until too late.
4006211
You're not the only one to have made that mistake with bemused. I always thought it was the kind of reaction people have to Pinkie, amused AND confused. You know, the situation where you smile and nod and can't help but find something funny, even if you don't really get what's going on. But I learned better at some point.
And you don't necessarily have to go back, though that will make me feel important. I have come to understand that my corrections are usually taken to heart for future stories and not necessarily followed in the story I'm actually commenting on.
4191161 Should be Rarity, but you're right, it's kinda unclear. I'll patch that up... within the next week or so. Give the whole story a nice little patch-up.
You can has review!