The Country of Roses

by Dutch Tilt

3: The Mare in the Window

3

THE MARE IN THE WINDOW

Special thanks to
Golden

It was a good day, Applejack thought, right up until the law decided to pay her a visit. She had been hard at work in her family’s orchard, harvesting the best fruit for the festival. The produce from Sweet Apple Acres had always been in high demand both in and out of season, but never had the family found themselves so busy as they were during that once-in-a-lifetime week. There was a Summer Sun Celebration every year, but when one’s own small town was chosen above every settlement in Equestria, the tradition took on an entirely new meaning, a new gravity. Everybody in Ponyville had work to do, and the family who had run Sweet Apple Acres the past four generations was no different.

The last thing any of them needed were distractions, particularly a distraction with an autumn-red pencil moustache because he was too young to grow a proper one like his boss, and gold-rimmed spectacles which were supposed to give him a look of culture and intelligence, but only succeeded in making his inner sliminess so much more apparent. Had Deputy Tongs been born a slug instead of a unicorn, it still would have been disparaging to the rest of his species.

He let himself in, quite uninvited and because Big McIntosh had not been around to intimidate him, and sauntered up to her, thinking himself so dapper in his blue pinstripes and tin star, and dealt her a whop on the rear with his tail. Perhaps that was considered classy wherever Tongs came from, but in the civilised world it was just plain rude. Applejack felt the sharp sting on her rump, reared up with a startled neigh, knocked over one of her work-baskets, and then rounded on him with a face like thunder. The sight of his smug grin, those two crooked buckteeth at the front so his moustache looked like moss growing around a tombstone, and those irritating glasses that disproportionately magnified the lower halves of his eyes, annihilated her previously happy demeanour in less time than it took for her to blink.

“All right, buster, I know you’re gonna be startin’ with an apology if ya wanna keep that tail a’ yours!” she seethed.

“Careful there, darlin’,” said the smug thing, tapping his star with a forehoof. “You keep that attitude up an’ I might have to get rough with ya. ’Course if that’s what you’re aimin’ for I’m sure I can oblige ya.”

Applejack made a disgusted sound in her throat and set about picking up the basket and its spilt contents. “Go away, Tongs, I ain’t got time for your dumb games today.”

“You think I’m playin’ games here, Applejack?” Tongs snorted. “You know me better than that.”

“You’re right, I do,” said Applejack curtly. “Most games are kinda above that grain a’ sugar ya call a brain.”

“You wound me,” said Tongs, and put his forehoof to his temple in a slightly melodramatic flourish. “But sugar sounds ’bout right. Ya know how sweet I am on ya.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Tongs was suddenly in front of her. He grabbed the apple she had just picked up and took a sizeable bite out of it. “Look, baby girl,” he said around a mouthful of fruit, “you’re gettin’ all worked up ’bout the Summer Sun, but you an’ me, we’re too young for all that worryin’. Why, where I come from, a pretty filly like yourself enjoys life.”

“I was, ’til you wormed your way into my life,” said Applejack, “an’ if the fillies are so pretty where ya come from, why don’t ya just go right on back there?”

“Why, ’cause none of them was you,” replied the deputy.

“Oh! Spare me,” Applejack snapped. “Y’know that line ain’t worked in the history a’ anythin’. Listen to me an’ listen good, Deputy. Only courtin’ we’s gonna do is gonna be in front of a judge an’ jury if ya don’t get off my family’s land in the next five minutes.”

Tongs continued to simper and sneer as Applejack finished putting the fallen basket back together and carried it to an awaiting cart, then went back for the other four. She hitched herself to the front of the cart and headed across the orchard to the farmhouse. She could hear the sound of cheery, horribly off-key singing through the open kitchen window, where Granny Smith, the family’s wise matriarch, was getting the everything ready so that when the day of the celebration came, everypony in town, the natives and the visitors, would be able to enjoy the delights which only the hardworking folks at Sweet Apple Acres could provide. The song was an oldie called ‘Hey Jude.’

“Say, Applejack,” said Tongs, evidently unable to take a hint, “how’s about I come on in an’, like, lend a hoof or two?”

Applejack unhitched herself right outside the back door of the house, which led into the kitchen, then manoeuvred a basket onto her back before grabbing a second one in her mouth by its handle. She set the baskets inside the open doorway, then repeated the process. She only had to carry the fifth on her back, leaving her free to speak.

“Y’know what, Deputy?” she asked. “I think ya could lend me all four of them, if ya really wanna make me happy.”

“Well, just so happens I do, darlin’,” said Tongs hopefully. “So just you tell me what ya need a’ me.”

“Take all four a’ them hooves,” she said with a mean smile, “an’ beat ‘em real hard ’gainst the ground in the direction a’ the gate!” She slammed the door in his face. “Keep goin’ ’til ya see a cliff!” she finished from the other side.

Deputy Tongs decided his patience was quite exhausted with that remark. He started banging angrily on the door. “Now just you look here, ya side-whinnyin’ little bi—!” He felt a sudden, sharp pain as something fell on him from above, cutting him off mid-curse. Tongs looked down while rubbing his head, saw a fallen apple in the grass, then looked up. A window on the second floor, directly above him, was open, and peering out of it was a small, yellow face with a pink hair-ribbon in its strawberry red mane.

“You leave my big sister alone, dirtbag!” the yellow face squeaked at him.

“Apple Bloom!” Tongs snapped. “You get your bony little rump down here an’ apologise to me right now, young lady!”

“Don’t wanna!” Apple Bloom told him matter-of-factly. “Go away or you’ll get another!”

“Good little foals should know to do as their told an’ respect their elders!” snarled Tongs. A second apple stuck on his horn, and juice squirted in his face.

“Yee-haw!” hollered Apple Bloom. “Bullseye!”

Inside, Applejack tried her best to ignore the shouting match going on outside, wishing her hearing was as selective as Granny Smith’s. She arranged her baskets neatly, and asked if she could help out in the kitchen for a while. It was better to say “help” and not to suggest that Granny take a rest and let someone else do the hard work, because everypony in the Apple family learned quickly that such an idea was liable to land them on the wrong end of a rolling pin. It was not because Granny Smith believed in hitting any of her brood, mind you, but she liked to wave the thick old pin in the face of whichever poor idiot had earned themselves a good telling off. She may have been small and more than a little bit saggy, but Applejack would swear her grandmother was a force of nature, spat out by the earth itself to remind you where your place was and how you should be thankful for it.

Unfortunately, Granny had already given Apple Bloom the task of assisting her, and was even now calling the foal from the bottom of the stairs. She could play with the dumb animals later, but right now she was needed, and if she wanted to lick the mixing bowl clean come pastry-making time she had better get her bouncy little britches downstairs toot-sweet, whatever that meant. Applejack decided to see if she could help Big McIntosh in the orchard around the front of the house. Being close to her brother would surely give Tongs ample incentive to leave her alone.

She was passing by the kitchen window when she saw Jack-a-Nape and three strangers trotting up the road from Ponyville. She chewed her bottom lip because she knew Tongs despised Jackie, and while a part of her prayed to all the powers to make the deputy go away or for him to be looking in the opposite direction until the visitors got to the front door, the rational part of her knew things were about to get more complicated. Applejack pushed the window open and called out to Jackie in the loudest whisper she could manage, but when that failed she settled for waving her forelegs to get his attention. Maybe, she thought, they could be sent a signal to stay low until they were out of Tongs’s range.

Her eyes fell on the strangest of the strangers. A grey earth pony, and he seemed to have noticed her. He was looking right at her, or he might have been looking through her, it was hard to discern. What she knew was that he seemed not quite right, and she got this niggling little instinct to find out who he was. Oh, for sure, she had never seen the purple unicorn with the flashy mane around these parts before, and definitely not the baby dragon riding on her back and boy howdy what a story that would make, but they were full blown flesh and blood. The earth pony with the eyes of pure ice, well, it was like she was staring at a ghost. In a way, he spooked her.

“Hey, there’s A.J.!” Jackie cried and pointed straight at her. “She’s wavin’! Yo, A.J.!”

Applejack groaned, and put her hoof to her forehead with so much force she thought it might bruise. Tongs came tearing around the corner of the farmhouse a second later. His face was sticky with trickling rivers of juice because attempting to remove the apple skewered on his horn with unicorn magick had caused the fruit to explode. Pulpy pieces of its skin were glued to his mane like ugly, oversized particles of glitter. He stopped several feet in front of the new arrivals, causing them to grind to a halt themselves.

“Nape, I told you I never wanted to see your face in my town again,” he scowled.

“Yeah, ya did, but I guess I wasn’t listenin’,” replied Jackie with a shrug. “I’m kinda deaf on one side, y’know? What’s that stuff on your face, guy?”

Tongs growled indignantly and tried to brush the fragments and juice off of him, messing up his mane and making him look rather alarming in the process. He did not seem to have noticed, but if he had it would not have changed his mood any.

“No, not that stuff,” said Jackie, “that looked just fine. I’m talkin’ about that thing on your lip. What, did somethin’ die there and ya didn’t notice?”

Applejack snorted as she tried and failed to restrain a laugh. Apple Bloom, who had wandered away from Granny Smith again to come watch, joined with a giggle. Jack-a-Nape beamed at them cheekily. Tongs growled and willed the window to slam shut. The impact rattled the wooden frame, broke one of the panels, and knocked the sisters backwards.

“That was uncalled for!” cried the purple unicorn. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m the law in these here parts, filly,” said Tongs, his old smugness creeping back onto his face. His grin pushed his cheeks up so high they covered the corners of his eyes and lifted the arms of his spectacles up a bit.

“You’re a bully!” the baby dragon piped up. “That’s what you are!”

Inside, Applejack comforted Apple Bloom. The window had hit the tiny foal dead on the snout and she was trying her hardest not to cry. Granny Smith’s hearing might not have been what it used to be, but she came shambling out of the kitchen as quickly as she was able when she heard the sounds of shattering glass and her youngest granddaughter’s sobbing. She gently brushed Apple Bloom’s tears away, then turned her gaze to the ruined window and the scene occurring outside. She saw the nice young colt whose name she could never remember, as well as two or three others, but her old eyes lit up furiously when she saw Tongs.

“Why, if it ain’t that low-down, dirty law-horse again,” she grumbled. She started for the door, and the two girls followed. “Deputy!” she shrieked as they all stepped out through the front door. “I want words with you, boy!”

She did not see Tongs roll his eyes, or hear him call her something dreadful under his breath, but the newcomers did.

“I’ve been patient with ya, even though ya done disrespected me an’ my kin by comin’ on our land when we’s told ya to keep yer distance!” the elderly mare went on. “I always respected the star, but where d’ya get the gall to strike my girls an’ vandalise my home? Y’know what I’s gonna do, Tongs? March right on up to Sheriff Ramrod’s office an’ see what he makes a’ your bad behaviour!”

She continued on like this for several seconds, not merely threatening the young deputy but promising to see him stripped of his rank and his dignity. That short time was all it took for Tongs to reach the end of his tether. He wheeled on her, and said, “WHY – DON’T – YOU JUST – SHUT – YOUR – DANG – PIE-HOLE – YOU – TOOTHLESS – OL’ BAG!?”

The outburst caught Granny Smith off-guard, but she quickly regained herself. “That does it. Ya got one minute, Deputy. One. Minute. To get off a’ Sweet Apple Acres an’ never pollute my home or my orchard ever again.”

“How’s about I do ya one better, ol’ girl?” sneered Tongs, and he neighed with laughter. “I’ll get me a posse together, we’ll burn this sorry eyesore to the ground, then I won’t be able to ever come back, ‘cause there’ll be nowhere to come back to!”

“You wouldn’t dare!” shouted Applejack.

“Try me, darlin’.”

“Excuse me, sai,” said the grey earth pony in a level tone of voice, and all of them turned to look at him, “but you seem to be outnumbered here. I would recommend you either apologise for your disrespect, or leave.”

“An’ who in the heck are you supposed to be, boy?” Tongs snorted.

“Just an observer from out of town,” said the grey earth pony.

“Well, that’s mighty neighbourly advice, stranger,” sneered Tongs, “but I think you’ll find this star on my chest keeps me quite safe from ol’ biddies, little fillies an’ street punks. Now let me return the favour to ya. I would recommend ya get on outta here ’fore ya get hurt.”

“I am quite comfortable where I am,” said the grey earth pony.

There was a long, pregnant pause as Tongs absorbed the stranger’s defiance. He said nothing in return, only smirked wickedly and super-charged his horn with magick, until it was ablaze with swishing tongues of light. The light shot out and became a fireball.

“PEACEMAKER!” the purple unicorn screamed.

An explosion rang out, and smoke clouded the atmosphere. It stung Applejack’s eyes, but she was unable to turn away from the scene, unable to even move. She had known Tongs was a creep since they had first met, she could have guessed he was a bully with too much lip, especially without his boss to muzzle him, but she had always thought him too cowardly for murder. She reached out a hoof to push Apple Bloom back, fearing what she might see when the smoke finally cleared, and touched thin air.

“Apple Bloom?” she croaked. “Granny, where’s Apple Bloom!?”

Granny Smith tried to respond, but was too busy choking on fumes. Jolting herself into action, Applejack told herself it was better to handle what was happening that she could do something about than worry, and hefted one of the elderly mare’s forelegs across her shoulders, supporting her as she made towards fresh air. Jack-a-Nape emerged from the cloud and darted over to them.

“A.J., you two okay?” he asked, panting heavily.

“Just help me get ‘er inside, quick!” said Applejack.

“Yeah, right, no worries,” replied Jack-a-Nape, and took the other foreleg.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike gazed with shared bewilderment and worry. They could barely make out two black shapes in the smoke, one upright and one fallen, but it was not until Twilight willed the cloud apart with a magickal breeze that it became clear who the victor was.

Peacemaker stood, one gun fixed to his hoof. Aside from a slightly charred tail and a furrowed brow, he looked no different to how he did moments before. Tongs, in the meantime, was down on his haunches and minus the greater majority of his mane. The gun-pony’s shot had shaved it away perfectly down the middle, leaving only two uneven rows, one on either side. The deputy’s ears drooped, and his eyes were wide and quivering in their sockets.

“She gave you a minute. You have five seconds left, cully,” said Peacemaker.

Tongs appeared to have forgotten how to talk beyond stammering, “You…you!” over and over. The grey earth-pony, though the victor, had done him no real harm, but you could tell just by looking in the deputy’s eyes that he felt fear all the same. He knew that this stranger could hurt him if he wished, that he could do more with his weapons than he could do with all of his unicorn powers, and the coolness with which the act would be done was unbearable. Before the unfeeling blue eyes of the gun-pony, his star and his class and his strength were meaningless. A kind of madness descended over the deputy in that moment, because he did not flee.

“I’ll get you,” he growled.

“Four,” said the gun-pony.

“You’ll pay for this,” Tongs swore.

“Three,” said the gun-pony.

“You an’ Nape an’…” he hissed.

“Two,” said the gun-pony.

“All a’ ya’ll are gonna pay for this! Oh, yeah!”

A shadow fell over the deputy. A big, mighty shadow. “Nope,” it said. Tongs looked back over his shoulder into the face of Big McIntosh. Apple Bloom, who had fled during the chaos to find the eldest brother of the Apple family, was sitting on his back. She was sticking her tongue out at the beaten law-pony.

“One,” said the gun-pony.

Tongs left.

The gun-pony blew a tail of white smoke from the weapon’s barrel and returned it to its holster. He stared after the rapidly diminishing form of the terrified deputy until it was gone completely, then he turned back towards the rest of the group. Granny Smith was carried inside, but she had been raised tough enough to survive a childhood which was far more demanding than those of her descendants, and now even in her dotage she was still tough, and still excellent at surviving.

Once she caught her second wind and could wet her throat with tea, which she took hot and with a hint of something that some country folk thought of as the perfect cure for a new-born foal’s teething pains, she revealed a side which was more characteristically genial, as Applejack and her siblings had always associated with her. She sat at her chair in the kitchen, surrounded by her cooking utensils, pastries, and baskets of apples, and the group were gathered around her.

“I cry your pardon, sai,” said the gun-pony, and Granny Smith started, turning her face up towards him. “When my bullet passed the deputy’s head, I fear it stuck in one of your precious trees.”

She smiled warmly. “Now, now, don’t be gettin’ all hung up over a little scratch like that,” she said. “Our apple trees are made a’ sterner stuff than ya think, sonny.” She turned to her grandchildren. “Applejack, Big McIntosh, could ya please go check on how all the others are doin’ in the orchard?”

“Yup,” said Big McIntosh, and went without question. Apple Bloom was still on his back. It would be ten minutes before Granny Smith realised her assistant was missing again and would start calling for her.

“Ma’am, is there anything we can do?” asked Jack-a-Nape.

“Well, if ya mean yourself,” said Granny Smith, being careful not to let her sentence lead her to a point where she would have to remember the nice young colt’s name, “ya can make up for all those apples ya think I don’t see my granddaughter sneak for ya. A day’s honest work’ll make a real pony outta ya.”

Jack-a-Nape chuckled good-naturedly, as glad as anypony else that the matriarch would be just fine. He nudged Applejack, who realised she had been staring at the gun-pony and blinked herself back to reality. She had developed a ruddy flush on her cheeks, and nervously feigned ignorance when Jackie pressed her on it later. She asked her grandmother if she would really be all right, and after a reassurance and being ordered to get her caboose rolling, went outside. Jackie stopped only to invite Twilight Sparkle and Spike to come along with them, seeing as they were there to carry out a royal assignment and all, and they all left together.

It was only Granny Smith and Peacemaker now.

The mare sipped her tea and said, “I know you. ’Least I know ’bout where ya come from, gunslinger.”

“How much do you know?” the gun-pony asked, not rudely.

“Enough to think,” said Granny Smith, “that your kind were all gone from the world. Dead gone.”

“Then you see different,” said the gun-pony.

“Tell me, please,” said Granny Smith, “tell me ’bout Gallowad. Does it still stand?”

“Gallowad is only history now,” said the gun-pony sadly, the first genuine sign of emotion he had shown since his arrival. “I have not deceived you, sai. We are not all gone, but I am the last. Now, you tell me, ’tis only fair, how do you know of my home?”

Granny Smith shook her head, and swallowed another sip of tea, then she regarded him for a long time, assessing him. Her smile was sullen. “I figured so, an’ your right, it’s only fair, ’specially since I was startin’ a’ think I’d never meet another pony from there. I may’ve lived an’ grown old here in Equestria, but I was born in Gallowad. My uncle was a gun-pony, like you, but my father, may he rest in peace, he was always a little different to everypony else. He wanted to leave the kingdom an’ find somethin’ different for his family. We settled in Ponyville, and we’ve been here ever since.”

She paused to reflect. The gun-pony waited patiently for her to go on. “My dear, departed husband was also one,” she said finally. “Arkansas Black was his name. Daddy hated him, ’cause he thought I’d go astray. Back to the way a’ life he wanted to forget. I never knew why, but I think he an’ my uncle just never saw eye to eye on things. One valued his duty to his kingdom an’ his dinh, the other his duty to his kin.”

“I am sure they were both good ponies in their own way,” said Peacemaker. He meant it with all his heart.

“That they were, sonny,” said Granny Smith. “My Arkansas, though, he was a good pony, too. When he found out what it’d take to earn my daddy’s trust, he threw his guns, his father’s guns, in the river an’ renounced everythin’ he’d inherit back in Gallowad. I rescued the guns later that night. I cleaned them, an’ I kept them safe all these years, ’cause I never thought he should’ve given up who he was for me.”

“If you would allow it,” said Peacemaker, “I would like to see them one day. The guns, I mean.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, “but not now. I’d like to get back to my work. I’ve rested enough.”

“And I as well,” said Peacemaker. “I have duties I must return to. You are very brave, sai, and very kind to do that for your husband. I hope in time we might hold palaver again and speak of better things than departures. Long days and pleasant nights to you.”

“An’ may you have twice the number, gunslinger,” said Granny Smith. She reached out with a forehoof, adjusted the bandanna around his neck, and let him go.

XXX

Twilight Sparkle was astonished by the sheer amount of earth ponies she saw at work in the orchard. Her mind boggled as she tried to comprehend how the ancient mare they had just left could coordinate such a vast operation as this all by herself. It was made apparent that with the news of Ponyville’s selection to host the Summer Sun Celebration, the Apple family had called on relatives from every corner of the region. They took their blood ties very seriously, and each successive generation had an unspoken promise of fealty to the last, while keeping a sharp eye on the next. They had absolutely no concept of distant relatives. All were close.

It was almost inspiring, but Twilight did wonder if mealtimes were anything like those back at the Academy of the White, where the acolytes and apprentices ate in a gigantic hall filled with rows of long tables, while the teachers occupied a single one at the far end, with Princess Celestia at their centre so everypony could see her more easily during announcements. She could imagine Granny Smith in such a seat, surrounded by the family’s elders, with their children and children’s children arranged in neat, parallel lines, only her vision involved bundles of hay in place of tables, and a few more chickens and other livestock wandering in to steal food off the plates. She quashed a giggle.

Jack-a-Nape, lagging behind, snagged an apple from the top of a passing cousin’s basket, then pulled it in half and gave one of the halves to Spike. The baby dragon munched on it happily whilst Twilight and Applejack talked.

“I’m sure sorry ya’ll had to see us at our most hostile,” the blonde earth pony said. “Normally we here at Sweet Apple Acres are happy to be makin’ new friends.”

“I take it the deputy back there isn’t the friend-making type,” said Twilight Sparkle. Truth be told, neither was she, but Applejack seemed nice, and she was worried for the safety of her family and the orchard that was their home as well as their livelihood. The encounter with the crazed law-pony had only served to confirm her feelings that there was something very wrong in Ponyville. What if his threat to gather a posse and come back to seek vengeance was more than that? He had sounded pretty set on it when he mentioned burning the whole place down.

“Tongs an’ his gang showed up ’round here ‘bout a month or so back,” Applejack explained, “an’ we tried to be real neighbourly to them. It didn’t exactly work out as planned. The little scuzz decided I was his destined or whatever, an’ he stuck to me like a bad rash. Too stupid or downright refused to take no for an answer.”

“How many are there in this gang?” asked Twilight.

“Three,” said Applejack. “He has this buddy, name a’ Hammer, an’ they both work for Sheriff Ramrod. He seems okay, I guess, but I still don’t trust him none. Always tells ya one thing when ya know he means somethin’ else entirely.”

“I understand,” said Twilight. “So, why don’t we talk about something different?”

“Sure,” Applejack agreed. While the girls talked about how Sweet Apple Acres would contribute all the food for the celebration banquet, Spike looked to Jack-a-Nape to answer his own question.

“So how come that guy didn’t like you, Jackie?” Spike asked.

“Just somethin’ that happened when we first met,” the chestnut earth pony shrugged. “I don’t remember all the details, it all went by kinda fast, but I know it started with a welcome party and ended up givin’ him this weird hatred for all things banana-flavoured. He don’t like to talk about it, and I’m in no hurry to find out.”

Applejack asked if Twilight Sparkle might like to sample a few of the things she could expect to see at the banquet. The unicorn said she would, so long as they could make it quick. The next thing any of them knew, the blonde had pulled an old metal spoon and triangle from somewhere and was ringing them together loudly while yelling, “Soup’s on, everypony!”

By the time Twilight Sparkle saw the oncoming stampede, it was too late.

Author's Note:

21/12/13: fixed some dialogue problems related to accents.

XXX

This was an odd chapter for me to write. I began simply with the goal to introduce the rest of the main characters, as it was in the first episode of the cartoon, and I had hoped presenting it from their individual points of view would allow me to get into their heads and make it easier to introduce them each in a way that didn't simply copy things over from the canon. My personal goal was for my Applejack to be recognisable but not identical to the Applejack of the animated world. The segment with Granny Smith was definitely spur of the moment. I had a vague inkling about it, but it only became fully formed when I sat down to type it out. Anyway, I'm a bit nervous about posting this since much of this chapter did not fit with my original outline, but I hope you'll enjoy it all the same.

Comments

[CrowMagnon]

Loved it. The 'flavor' of this story was very strong, still keeping up that very nice blend of both series you're drawing from. Applejack and her family were still very strongly recognizable, but with that extra touch of King's style that seems to flow so well here. And Tongs is SUCH a Stephen King bully antagonist. Apple Bloom pelting him with apples was priceless.

[Super_Big_Mac]

Welcome, welcome, to my group! This looks great, you're no nincompoop! Keep this up, and, I might add, this could go so greatly "bad."

But terrible poetry aside, this fic looks interesting, and I can't wait to see how much it actually references The Dark Tower. Eeeee~~

[Dutch Tilt]

3574940 Wow. I hope my poetry wasn't that bad. Ha-ha-ha. Glad to know you're enjoying it so far. I hope I don't disappoint.

[Super_Big_Mac]

3574993 I usually come up with these rhymes on the fly, but this time I just couldn't get by. The story is good, and striving towards great! What is in store, I can hardly wait!