What's wrong?
The scent of farm air reached Cheese Sandwich's nose. It was a mixture of dirt and tree sap with a hint of manure. Cheese scrunched his muzzle at the rather unpleasant smell. There was whiff of fresh-baked pastry in it too. Pinkie Pie caught that particular whiff too as they reached a point on the hilly road where the Apple family house could be seen.
"I hope Applejack has made her delicious apple pie again!" Pinkie squealed and sped up to a gallop which Cheese soon followed.
They walked up to the door and were ready to knock it when a southern voice greeted them from behind: "Howdy, folks! Y'all here fer apple pie?"
Pinkie and Cheese turned around to face the orange earth pony. She looked like she'd been working for a long time. Her mane was wet with sweat and she had a few bruises on her legs from bucking apples all morning.
"Hi, Applejack! We're here for several things and one of them is certainly pie!" Pinkie said.
"Well c'mon in then!" Applejack chuckled and opened the door for them and let them go in the kitchen before her. She looked at Cheese curiously as she walked inside.
"C'mon over t' sit at the table, pie's almost done." Pinkie and Cheese obliged and sat next to each other on the floor. They watched as Applejack washed herself from dirt and sweat with a towel. Then she carefully took two pies out of the oven with a mitt in her mouth and put them on the table to cool down. Then she came over to sit next to Pinkie, who eyed the pies hungrily.
"Nice t' see ya in Ponyville again, Cheese Sandwich. What brings ya here?" she asked politely, setting her hooves on the table to get a better look at the stallion, who seemed surprisingly secured.
"Gosh, everypony asks that! I don't even know exactly myself", Cheese said in an annoyed tone.
"Now what's that s'posed to mean?" she said, giving an inquiring look at him.
"His Cheesy Sense told him to come here for whatever reason and long story short we're now a couple", Pinkie explained casually. Cheese cringed against his own will.
"Beg a pardon? A couple?" Applejack said, her expression becoming more and more confused by the second.
"Everypony has problems with hearing me today. Yes, a couple!" Pinkie facehoofed.
"Sorry, sugarcube. It's just surprising that yer the one gettin' a coltfriend and not somepony like Rarity. Well, congrats", Applejack said with a faint smile, which Pinkie returned.
Pinkie pulled the note Twilight had given them from her basket and inspected it. The writing was curvy and fancy and, unfortunately, really hasty and sloppy. Pinkie couldn't make anything out of it. She tried tilting and zooming in on it, but it looked like nothing to her. She narrowed her eyes. "I think that's a 'W'..."
"Lemme see that", Cheese said and took the paper to himself. He did the same actions Pinkie had done with it. He finally recognized some letters and started reading them out loud.
"Wny de tno senror o... ocour?" he read slowly and set his brows low afterwards.
"What's that there paper fer?" Applejack asked.
"Twilight wants us to ask some questions from you and gave us this paper with them written on it", Pinkie explained as Cheese was still trying to make something out of the writing.
"Wheh dud the... Well, that's somewhat of a word... sonser sss... art ocourihg?" he continued reading.
"That can’t be what it really says. Give it t' me." Cheese gave the paper to Applejack, still blinking in confusion from what he had just tried to read.
"Aha! It clearly says: 'Why do the senses occur?' in mah eyes", Applejack exclaimed.
Pinkie and Cheese looked at each other in disbelief.
"Well, answer it then", Pinkie insisted.
"Twilight trusts ya'll to just remember what ah say?" Applejack asked in doubt.
"Maybe we should write something down..." Cheese's voice trailed off as he looked around the room for a pen.
Applejack went and took one from a nearby desk with her hoof. She gave it to Cheese, who took it in his mouth promptly and turned over the paper with the questions on it for writing space.
"Alrighty then... Mah sense is as subtle as can be but still noticeable once it has happened fer most of yer life. The senses are usually related t' work on the farm and ah haven't gotten t' know them all yet. One example is that whenever a tree is ready fer a buckin', ah feel a small twitch in mah tailbone. Just one and no more. They're just really small hints, ya see." She looked at Cheese. He was scribbling something on the lined paper. "Ya got that?"
"Huh?" Cheese raised his head from his scribbling to look at the ponies next to him, the pencil still in his mouth. Pinkie looked at the page. There was a cartoony looking sketch of Applejack.
"Wowza! That is a cool drawing", Pinkie complimented.
"Oops, I guess I got a bit sidetracked", Cheese said apologetically after spitting out the pencil. "But I think I remember what you said. I can multitask."
Now Applejack looked at the picture of her. "Now that is a fine picture ya got there... Yer really good at drawin'."
Cheese waved a hoof at them, flattered. "Gee, thanks."
Pinkie looked like she was going to jump on the table at any moment. "Do me! Do me!"
Cheese grinned at her and took the pencil in his mouth again. He started sketching lightly at first, stopping to look at the whole drawing once in a while. Soon the lines became bolder as he stroked the paper more confidently. The mares watched in awe as he worked and put every bit of Pinkie's personality into a single sketch.
The finished product looked astonishing. Cheese looked back at his work a little unsure. He made one last stroke and a smile grew on his face. "Perfect!"
"Oh. My. Gosh! That is the best drawing I've ever seen!" Cheese blushed at Pinkie's compliment. Nopony had really complimented his drawings before, and he didn't really like to brag with anything other than his partying planning.
"Ah especially like the curviness of the mane." "And my eyes look so glimmery and full of happiness!" "It bursts with so much personality." The mares kept on giving compliments on every detail in the sketch. Cheese felt so flattered he could burst.
"Where have ya learned all this drawin' stuff?" Applejack asked.
"Well, it takes a lot of practice and I always take time after partying to work on my drawing skills when I..." Suddenly he felt really insecure about something and his voice faded away.
"Cheesie, I didn't know you were so talented!" Pinkie hugged Cheese with much compassion. He smiled, but felt his nervousness somehow increase because of Pinkie.
"Applejack, could you answer the other questions now?" he said with a shaky voice.
"Shure. So..." Applejack flipped the paper over and took it in her hooves. " 'When did the senses start occurring?' Hmm... Ah think ah got the first one a few days after ah got mah cutie mark. Back then ah didn't think about it at all as a sense of some kind. Brushed it off as a small occurrence."
Cheese listened and tried to keep the information in his mind for Twilight's sake. Pinkie still looked in amazement at the drawings on the other side of the page Applejack was holding in a way she could see them. The mare was easily distracted.
"Next and last one... Ugh, really bad writing." Applejack squeezed her eyes to be barely open. " 'What are the senses like?' Well, ah already kinda answered that, but let me elaborate. From what ah've gathered, it's either an uncontrollable ear twitch, an out of nowhere eye blink, an itch in my back or as ah already told ya, a slight twitch in mah tailbone. Those are the most common ones at least."
" 'Kay, I'll try to keep all that in mind..." Cheese nodded bluntly.
"Now, time fer pie!" Applejack slid the pies in front of them from the other side of the table. Pinkie gasped and dug her head into one of the apple flavored pastries. She had eaten half of it in only a couple of seconds, when Applejack pulled it out of her reach.
"Hold it, Pinkie! These pies are s'pposed to be fer the whole family! That reminds me..." She got up and walked to the next room, where the stairs going up to the bedroom area were located.
"Apple Bloom! Pies are done!"
Soon a little yellow filly with a pink bow in her mane galloped downstairs and entered the kitchen with her big sister.
Apple Bloom noticed the company they had. "Heya Pinkie and Cheese!" She trotted to sit behind the other side of the table.
Cheese felt a little unnerved by the sudden increase in population and hoped it would stop there. He didn't feel like socializing right now, when he needed to go settle his feelings somewhere else. How many more relatives could Applejack possibly have living with her?
Pinkie greeted Apple Bloom and Applejack proceeded to cut the apple pies, one of them half eaten, into pieces with a knife. "Ah think Big Mac's right 'bout done with 'is chores, so he'll be here in a minute."
Cheese started panicking a little inside at this point. He wanted to go the library, tell Twilight about Applejack's boring senses and get some time to think about his situation. But should he do it with or without Pinkie? She was his marefriend after all...
Right when he was about to nudge Pinkie, the door was opened by a bulky red stallion.
"There ya are, big bro! Come take some apple pie", Applejack offered.
"Eeyup", came the exhausted answer from Big Macintosh.
"Sorry ah left ya t' finish the chores on yer own, but ah had t' take the pies outta the oven in time."
"Eeyup."
Big Mac sat next to Apple Bloom and nodded politely at Cheese and Pinkie. He was the first one to take a slice of pie, which was a signal to the others to start eating too.
Sweat rolled down Cheese's face as he sat in a paralyzed state. Why was he acting this way? Usually he loved company and the Apples seemed like really nice folk. This panic attack seemed so unlike him. With a shaking hoof he nudged Pinkie softly. She didn't seem to notice it though, and kept eating her piece of pie.
Applejack spoke before he could try again. "Hey Cheese and Pinkie, ah fergot one little thing 'bout mah sense."
She looked at Big Mac for a second. "Sometimes, though very rarely when ah get mine, Big Mac gets a similar one at the same time. And from what ah've gathered, it only happens when he's far away from me, across the farm no less."
It took a moment for Big Mac to realize what she was talking about. "Eeyup."
"O-okay. I-I think we should go now. Twilight is p-probably waiting for us", Cheese said, almost stuttering at every word. He took a hold of Pinkie's hoof. The mare noticed his hoof was sweaty and shaky, which made a look of concern fall upon her face. She let Cheese pull her with him outside as the Apple family siblings looked at them with confused looks. "Well, bye then."
As they arrived outside the door and closed it, Cheese exhaled deeply in distress.
"What's wrong, Cheesie?" Pinkie tilted her head.
"I-I... I don't know... I just... Let's just go to Twilight's and get this over with."
Pinkie didn't budge. "I've noticed that you're not your usual self today. Normally you would be jumping all over the place and be all cheerful, but today you seem so reserved and now you seem to have some sort of crazy panic attack. So, what's up?"
Cheese was genuinely surprised of how much she had noticed. And here he thought Pinkie was oblivious to everything around her.
"I just feel really nervous today for some reason..." Cheese allowed himself to say.
"Is it because of me?" Pinkie asked with a shaking voice. Her saddened eyes looked down and her ears drooped. Cheese couldn't stand to see her sad.
"No, no! Of course not!" he assured, hoping to cheer her up.
"Okay..." She sniffed and started walking along the path. Cheese soon ran next to her. His assuring didn't seem to have any effect on Pinkie's mood and she remained gloomy.
"You believe me, right?"
"Yeah..." Her mane deflated a bit.
What Pinkie didn't say, obviously showed through her body language. Why didn't she believe him? What was the reason to his behavior anyways? He thought about what to say for a while before speaking up.
"Pinkie... I don't know the reason to my behavior today, but... I'm absolutely sure it's not about you."
Pinkie looked at him. "Pinkie Promise?"
"Pinkie Promise." Pinkie's mane returned to its poofy state and her bright smile came back, but then it immediately curled down a bit. He didn't know what the reason was? She decided not to question this topic further, for now, and to focus on telling Twilight the information she needed... whatever that was.
They arrived at Golden Oak Library once again and found Twilight upstairs. She was still on her bed, though this time reading a different book from before. She thanked them many times after they, mostly Cheese, told her the answers they got from Applejack and she wrote everything down in her notebook.
"That last bit about the senses going off at the same time is something I would definitely like to expand on... " Twilight talked to her notebook.
"Ah! It's all coming together now!" She started scribbling with manic speed. The quill went along the page in waves and wrote small text all around. When Twilight was done, she showed the pair of ponies present, what she had put together.
On the top read: "Earth ponies' magical ability" There was a quickly sketched map of Equestria with horizontal and vertical curves over it. Next to them were many calculations of velocity, magical energy and other things of that kind. There was a small note on the bottom: "two earth ponies on the same line + other one has a sense -> spontaneous senses"
"Do you get it?" Twilight asked hopefully, smiling with pride.
"I got lost on the title." Pinkie shrugged.
"What are these lines?" Cheese asked.
"They're the magical surges that are naturally present all over Equestria. They affect how this land works in many ways. For example, unicorns use magic by taking control of a magical surge and honing it to his or her use. There's a lot of different and complicated patterns related to them which need to be mastered in order to do magic... But don't worry I won't lecture you about them. I never thought that the earth ponies' sense could be related to them until now. The spontaneous senses finally opened my eyes."
"So, what does this mean over all?" Pinkie seemed to finally get on top of things.
"That earth ponies have magic too?" Cheese suggested unsurely.
"That's it! Oh, how have I been so blind to this? I have to write to Princess Celestia about this immediately! SPIKE!" Twilight didn't wait for the dragon to come and already started writing the letter. Cheese hoped for Celestia's sake, that she wrote it more clearly than the questions for Applejack.
"Hey, Twilight?"
"Yes, Pinkie?"
"Does this thing on this page mean that the reason to Cheese's sense going off last night was because we were on the same line?" She pointed her hoof at the text on the bottom of Twilight's notebook.
"What makes you think that exactly?" Twilight stopped writing her letter to look at Pinkie.
"On that same night I got a Pinkie Sense that told me something great was gonna happen that night and I think it had something to do with his sense... My sense was at about 11PM. What time was your doozy, Cheese?" Pinkie now looked at Cheese. Twilight became intrigued and turned her gaze to the stallion too.
Cheese felt himself get nervous looking at the two sets of big, curious eyes, but he tried to control the feeling with the best of his ability. "I'd say it was at about 11PM too."
"See?" Pinkie exclaimed proudly.
"But there has to be some reason for it to happen! I mean, isn't it weird that you got your sense only because he got an out of nowhere sense to come here? It doesn't make sense! There has to be some kind of connection like with Applejack and Big Macintosh both being up for the job..."
There was a moment of silence, which made room for thinking.
"This might sound crazy, but... What if you were thinking about each other at the same time? Strong feelings affect magic", Twilight suggested.
Cheese blushed and blushed even more after realizing that he was. What's wrong with me?
Pinkie hummed in thought and rubbed her chin. "Yeah... I think I was thinking about him at that time..."
"Oh, so it might be it! Cheese?" Twilight turned to Cheese and could hardly hold in her giggle. The poor stallion's face was bright red.
"What?" Cheese demanded angrily even though he knew what she was laughing about.
"Cheesie has a blush attack!" Pinkie cheered, but then her face turned serious. "Are you okay?"
Cheese was surprised by the drastic change of tone in her voice. "I'm fine."
"Well then... Can you tell us if you were thinking about Pinkie last night?" Twilight said, still smiling.
"I dunno. I was asleep. So, maybe I was dreaming about her or something", he said in an indifferent voice, hooves crossed.
"So, I think we can now safely say that my theory is correct. Another thing to add to my notebook." She continued her letter like nothing happened. Then Spike came in groaning.
"What's wrong, Spike? You've been unusually tired today", Twilight said amidst her writing.
"Yeah, like you don't know. You made me organize the entire west wing at 11:45!"
"Now, Spike, you know I have more important work to do than organize the library nowadays and at a strict schedule no less."
"But why did you have to make me do it at almost midnight? Don't you have any time to do that boring work in the day?"
"You were so caught up in helping Rarity until then and I didn't want to bother you with some 'boring' work while you helped her with her 'not boring' work. And seriously I didn't have time for it when I had to..."
At this point in the argument, Cheese and Pinkie sneaked out of the room and through the front door. Twilight and Spike didn't notice their disappearance at all until Pinkie yelled her farewell from the doorway.
Pinkie closed the door and turned to the smiling Cheese. His smile faded once he saw her worried face.
"Seriously, what's up with you? Why did you get blushy when Twilight asked if you had essentially missed me? What's so embarrassing about that? Don't you want to be with me...?" She was at the verge of tears.
"I want to be with you, I really do! But... Something just feels so awkward about it..."
"But... you Pinkie Promised that it wasn't about me..."
"I was confused about the whole thing and still am."
Pinkie tried her best not to burst into tears on the spot. He just doesn't know how much weight the Pinkie Promise has to me, I shouldn't freak out. Let's just get to the bottom of things... "So, how should we get to the bottom of things?"
Cheese didn't have an answer to that. What options do they even have? He definitely couldn't think of any.
"Cheese?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember when Rarity asked us to come over?"
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Nice chapter. I liked your explanations of the senses. Best of luck with the next one.
On Hiatus?!!?!??!!??!?!??!?!?!?!!??!?!? WHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4400618 I've explained it in this blog post.
Oh. I knew! Just doing that for dramadic affect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice cover! You're a pretty good artist. I can't wait to start reading
Omg this is way too sweet!!!
Im looking forward to the next part
Is there gonna be an update in the future? This is marked as on hiatus not "canceled"...
Amazing story tho, but I hate having to fill in blanks. I feel like all the good stories are being cancelled T^T.