Bloom Filter

by ferret

Chasing the Apple

“I wish I could help more, really I do,” the dream princess said sincerely to Apple Bloom. The two of them were sitting on a grassy hill overlooking the sunset. The princess loved this scene the most. She was so skillful at pulling imagery out of Apple Bloom’s head just by talking with her about her life and what she was dreaming. It was really sad though she’d even forgotten what grass feels like! Or something to that regard. Apple Bloom wasn’t entirely sure what went on in that pony princess’s head, only that her trip through space had left her alone for a very, very long time.

About the only thing the princess had memories of were that library she liked to dream about with Apple Bloom. It was a beautiful memory, to her credit, but most of the books were all blank now. All those books. She really had been lost and lonely for longer than Apple Bloom could even comprehend.

Now they dreamed not of the musty smell of ancient books though, but instead they dreamed of Apple Bloom’s memories. They rested there on a hill in somewhere, out in the crisp clean open air, atop a field of verdant grass. The princess loved being outside if for no other reason than the novelty of it, spreading her angelic wings to bask in the warmth of the sun, or what Apple Bloom knew as the sun felt like.

“It’s okay,” Apple Bloom told the space princess, with regard to the picture they were looking at. It was hovering right there in front of them, held there in the princess’s space powers, which she said she really had in real life not just dreams, maybe, she thinks, probably. “I don’t expect you’d know much of earthly affairs,” Apple Bloom consoled her with a hoof pat on her seated hindquarters. “Ah still think this has somethin’ to do with your comin’ though.”

Apple Bloom never had any trouble speaking here, or walking for that matter. Not that it was a huge problem anymore, back in the waking world, but dreaming always made things nice and simple. Apple Bloom found she dreamt a lot differently now that she was a pony. It was more like she was really there, and less like a sort of chaotic mishmash of unfocused thoughts. It was more like having a little story in her head, and it didn’t fall apart as easily as when she dreamed before. When the princess was around, it didn’t fall apart at all.

This portrait wasn’t all blurry and indistinct like the other night, because Apple Bloom made sure to take a good long careful look at it before going to bed this night. No, this time it was a picture perfect copy of the drawing Diamond Tiara made. If anyone could prepare them for that demon attack, Apple Bloom knew the space princess would have something to do with it. Or so she thought, until she brought it before the princess who had no recall of it whatsoever.

“Who is the um, ‘human’ in the center here?” the princess asked, pointing a hoof at the floating sheet of paper in front of them.

“Nobody knows,” Apple Bloom said with an air of mystery, “Applejack and her friends are searching for someone like that, but they ain’t found nobody yet. And I cain’t exactly go lookin’ through the school mahself.”

“I wish you would,” the princess said in a sympathetic tone. “You sound awfully lonely too, stuck on this farm of yours.”

“More bored than lonely,” Apple Bloom admitted, “Mah friends still come around once and a while, and ah told you all about the one who drew that.”

“Hmm, still,” said the princess, with a twitch in her wings that Apple Bloom had come to understand was an expression of dissatisfaction.

“Ah know,” Apple Bloom said glumly, “But I just cain’t go back to school or into town or nothin’. Humans are an awfully skittish bunch, and it wouldn’t take much to rile them up into a panic. It just wouldn’t be safe. They’re all fine with me stayin’ at the farm, and ah’m also fine with...”

“With...” said Apple Bloom, unable to say what she wanted to say without feeling all choked up about it.

The princess blew over Apple Bloom’s head, dissipating the dark cloud that had formed above it. “Ah guess it is kinda botherin’ me,” Apple Bloom admitted softly.

“I wish there was something I could do,” the princess said, laying a tentative hoof across the teeny little pony’s lemon yellow flank.

“Don’t you worry, princess,” Apple Bloom told her, confidently. “It ain’t no problem to deal with for me, and ah’m happy ah got the chance to keep you company, wherever you are way up there in space.”

“I still don’t know if I’m a um...” the princess tapped her chin with a hoof in thought, “’Space’ princess,” she emphasized a little disparagingly, with hoofy air quotes.

“But just look at your mane,” Apple Bloom said insistently, poking at the oddly rubbery thing. “It’s fulla stars!”

“Well, maybe I’m a princess of space,” the princess said, “But I’m not sure if I’m in space. How would I even stay up there?”

“Your space magic!” Apple Bloom said confidently.

“To lift myself?” the princess countered. “And why would I even be in space in the first place?”

“On your way here, I guess,” Apple Bloom said uncertainly. “From your home planet?” The princess groaned and rolled her eyes.

Changing the subject the princess drawled out in an unconvinced tone, “You know, speaking of my mane,” hoofing at the ethereal thing casually, even carelessly. “What about these colors,” she asked Apple Bloom, “Right at the bottom here?”

Apple Bloom took a look, as little as she could understand what she was looking at. “It looks kinda like a sunset ah guess,” she said after a pause, “You know, like how on clear days the light stays on the horizon, when the stars start to come out?”

The princess nodded, but pointed her hoof at the drawing again, saying, “They’re the same color as this, though. The stripes in this human’s hair. And her hide is the same–”

“Skin,” Apple Bloom prompted.

“Her skin is the same color as my fur,” the princess corrected herself. “I wonder if we’re somehow connected?”

Apple Bloom peered at the drawing, and then the princess and said, “You know... I think you might be right!” She squinted again, trying to figure out what the princess’s fur color would be called. Purple? Was that it, or was Apple Bloom just thinking that was it?

“It’s still kinda hard ta see you,” Apple Bloom conceded unhappily.

“Yeah, I sort of forgot what I look like, sorry,” the princess herself conceded sheepishly. “I think I look like that, right? Maybe... no, you’re right.” With a whoosh the princess turned like, pink polka dots or something. “I’m just making it up on the spot,” she sighed frustratedly, idly chewing on a loose bit of her ethereal mane, “Because I really really wish I could be that human girl.”

“Because you could wake up?” Apple Bloom prompted.

The princess nodded and grinned, “Got it in one.”

“I thought ah couldn’t see you because you were all... mystically and stuff,” Apple Bloom confessed, a bit embarassed. “Didn’t think you might not be able ta see yourself.”

The princess lifted her head at a sound Apple Bloom could not hear. Apple Bloom knew what that meant though.

“Ah’ll keep my eye out for her!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, jumping to her hooves as everything shifted around her unsteadily, like a movie projection. “If ah see a meteor landin’,” she shouted, “Ah’ll know what to look”

“For,” Apple Bloom said out loud into the quiet morning, opening her eyes to the dim light of dawn.

Apple Bloom was really starting to look forward to these dreams, with the space princess. Even if they just sat around and talked about stuff, it was a break in the monotony. They were unreliably infrequent, which didn’t make much sense since the princess wanted the company, but she just explained it was too easy to get distracted for a few... weeks or the like. Her meteor had been travelling through space an awful long time for her to forget all that stuff, so Apple Bloom figured she just had sort of skewed perception of time. Or something. Apple Bloom didn’t pretend to understand the mind of a space dream princess.

Apple Bloom’s days had been otherwise worryingly simple, and the scary thing is, Apple Bloom was sort of starting to feel okay about that. She didn’t want to get used to this. She had things to do, and careers to plan for. For getting stuck on the farm all day to affect her so much, it was worrying to say the least. As the days went by, Apple Bloom was starting to lose sight of why she ever went to that high school in the first place.

Apple Bloom had thought the reason was her ambitions, and her goals in life, but when she reflected on it, she just didn’t see how school was going to help her there. It wasn’t going to help her explore, and it was teaching her new things but, half of them just didn’t make any sense to learn. She wished she could get away from the farm, but what she was missing the most wasn’t school, it was people. Her friends. Her friends!

Today was a weekend, and a day that they all had to spend time with her! She rose up onto her hooves, and bounced like a spring right out of bed. There on the floor, Bloom hurried to the dresser where not one, but three dresses were laid out now. Dresses might have been a generous term, as everything Apple Bloom could possibly wear would count as a dress. At least Apple Bloom couldn’t fathom how an article of clothing with legs could fit around her butt, the way her legs pointed down, now. But it turns out, as admirable as Big Macintosh’s sewing efforts were, they just didn’t compare to the work of a real Fashionist. Or, at least her apprentice, with a lot of help from her.

Apple Bloom hadn’t realized what a godsend Diamond was, until Granny finally got permission and Diamond Tiara got to come over again. Diamond spent the whole time wrapping Apple Bloom in a bizarre complex of measuring ribbons and fabric, trying to figure out how to adapt clothing to Apple Bloom’s strangely shaped form. Diamond made a veritable bible of notes on Apple Bloom’s measurements, and Apple Bloom really didn’t understand why you needed that many measurements, but it worked out pretty well in the end.

To a degree, Diamond’s enthusiasm was a sad consequence of the relief she felt at the very sight of Apple Bloom’s odd transformation. She was so relieved that something about her weird craziness—which wasn’t weird craziness mind you—was out there where she could see and touch it. But Apple Bloom liked to think it was also because she was Diamond’s friend, and sort of understood her irascible ways. One way or another, it meant that Apple Bloom had some actual clothes now.

It was going to be an interesting day for sure, with the four of them together. It would be for the very first time since that fateful day in the cafeteria, when Apple Bloom showed up with horse ears. But first she had to pick out what to wear.

She uh, had more than three pairs of panties of course. Trip to the ...baby store took care of that. Or wherever they got these tiny pink things, because Apple Bloom couldn’t exactly follow along with them to the shop.

Apple Bloom’s white, er, formerly white dress was now deliberately dyed a fetching shade of green, which did a lot better job of covering up the grass stains than white. But Diamond and her “mysterious tutor” in the fashion industry had put together two other ensembles, that Apple Bloom could wear when her current clothes were dirty or otherwise overused.

One was a bright pink dress, with little white polka dots all over the backside of it. A bold coloring, but Diamond said it reduced the contrast between Apple Bloom’s hair and her ...fur, so Apple Bloom was okay with that. It was the same color as her bow! Really, she figured Rarity had gone all out on this one.

It had a slot for her tail instead of a cinch, and draped just down to her barrel, where it could be tightened snug with a little belt down there. There was some sort of frilly curvy thing sewn into it, that ended up atop her back when she wore it, like a flower or something. Diamond would only say that it looked very appropriate, whatever that means.

It was real fancy, but Apple Bloom only had to wear it for special occasions, not that there were any special occasions. She had a sneaky suspicion that Diamond and she who must not be named just wanted to make something pretty. But that was okay too. Apple Bloom just wished it extended to treating her like a person. Nevertheless Apple Bloom was not going to wear this pretty thing, if it meant running around in the dirt with her friends, and getting all filthy.

The third, final article of clothing was what Apple Bloom put on. They solved the pants problem by taking out the legs entirely, and it was an otherwise scarcely modified design on a pair of overalls. They were a durable blue denim, and fit snugly around her rear end like a teardrop, the suspenders on the front were easy to pull snug against her shoulder... er...

...against her whithers, so that the whole thing wrapped around her like a glove. It was easy to get into too: you just had to walk backwards, and step through the leg holes, then pull it up along your body by the suspenders with your teeth.

Apple Bloom was using her lips and teeth for lots of crazy things these days.

So, securely snug in her denim suspender overalls, Apple Bloom pulled open the door with her... yeah her teeth, and charged down the hallway skipping steps on the way down. “Is it time? Are they here yet? Are ya up? Are you—”

Then she remembered, and Apple Bloom stuttered to a halt. She walked sort of cautiously diagonal then, into the dining room, all quiet-like. Big Macintosh was down there at the table, but Applejack was still upstairs asleep. Apple Bloom’s sister had been up late all night last night, for the big quarterly exam this Friday, as well as the state qualifiers for track and field. Plus that big project due earlier in the week, that had gotten her way behind in everything else. Apple Bloom sort of felt like all that was her fault, on account of Applejack missing so much school. It did seem kind of low down for Applejack’s teachers to assign so much stuff at once though.

But regardless of the debate of the fairness of it all, Applejack really needed her sleep this morning, so even when Apple Bloom tip-toed into the dining room as quietly as she could, she sorta came hollering downstairs, so Big Mac still looked down at her irritatedly and said, “You’re gonna wake her up!”

“Sorry I was yelling,” Apple Bloom whispered apologetically, “Ah was just so excited. Haven’t seen Diamond Tiara since last week, and haven’t seen the rest of them since two!”

He smiled a little, reaching down to ruffle at Apple Bloom’s hair. He didn’t have to reach too far though, not like she was a doll or anything. It was still scary how accustomed to being below the table she had become. Apple Bloom couldn’t even remember what it was like seeing the top of it when she stood beside it. She hopped up on her booster, not to eat this time, so much as just to talk with her brother at a relatively equal eye level.

“You don’t think she woke up, did you?” Apple Bloom whispered, looking at the ceiling with concern.

“Nope,” Big Macintosh answered easily, leaning back in his chair as he eyed the ceiling, “Ah don’t hear no swearin’”

Apple Bloom was up way early of course. Nobody was going to get up at daybreak, on the weekend after all! She fixed herself some breakfast though, and by that she meant she drank some water and ate some hay. It wasn’t long before Granny Smith came down, followed a good deal after the sun was in the sky... by a groaning Applejack.

“Ah don’t know what’s more sore,” Applejack half joked, over their official breakfast, “Mah hamstrings or mah brain.”

Their breakfast done, the sun in the sky, the day warming up, there was little left for Apple Bloom to do but wait. Wait and worry out front for her motley crew of friends to arrive.

Apple Bloom stood aside warily, as the automobiles bearing her friends began to show up. Diamond Tiara came last, because she got a ride from the Apple family truck. Applejack did good job of picking her up at the orphanage and carting her over here, but that did mean she was arriving last. First, it was Cheerilee’s beat up old beamer that crunched down the road to the farm. Scootaloo jumped out as soon as it came to a stop, running up to Apple Bloom excitedly exclaiming her name.

“Hey, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom answered all casually up to her eager friend. She stuck her head around behind Scootaloo’s legs and said, “Hey uh, Ms. Cheerilee...” regarding her nervously.

The lady Cheerilee stood from her position at the driver’s side door, and gave a nervous little wave. “Hello there, ...Apple Bloom,” she said awkwardly, “You’re looking um, well.”

“Where’s Sweetie Belle?” Scootaloo asked from behind Apple Bloom, crossing her lanky arms and looking around.

“She ain’t here yet,” Apple Bloom said, “Ah gotta wait to greet her, but you’re free to go inside if’n you want. There’s some snacks in the kitchen.” She added in an exaggerated whisper, leaning up towards Scootaloo, “An’ ah don’t mean the bale of hay.”

Scootaloo laughed and blushed at the same time somehow. “That was one time,” she said jokingly.

“Come on, you two!” Granny Smith called to Cheerilee and Scootaloo from the front porch, “There’s biscuits and cider and a warm fire a waitin’!”

Scootaloo started to follow her mom in, but turned at the last second, saying to Apple Bloom nervously, “Are you sure you want to...?”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom nodded a bit morosely. “She’s gotta get over it some time. An’ ah wanted to greet Sweetie too, and Diamond.”

“I could stay, um...” Scootaloo fidgeted glancing at the aroma filled farm house.

“No it’s better if ah’m alone, ah think,” Apple Bloom said, “You just get yourself some vittles. Ah’ll be right along in just a sec.”

Scootaloo’s attitude had Apple Bloom a little more worried than when she started out. This was the part of her transformation she really hated more than anything. But hate it or not, standing there in her new denim overalls with her favorite bow now clipped neatly into her mane, as human as humanly possible, Apple Bloom waited calmly for Sweetie Belle’s ride to pull up.

Rarity drove a bit of a tuna boat. A long and sleek if slightly beat up sedan it was. She got it for a steal, thanks to some quick thinking on her friend Sunset’s part. For Sweetie Belle and Rarity’s ...situation it was real important to have steals like that, too.

The sedan came to a halt beside Cheerilee’s vehicle, and in it Apple Bloom could see both Rarity and Sweetie Belle’s heads peering over the dash. Rarity left the engine idling. Sweetie said something to Rarity, but Rarity just kept looking forward, right directly at Apple Bloom standing there.

Finally Sweetie Belle got out of the car on her own, and she had barely closed the door when Rarity pulled the car back, and executed a narrow turn. She didn’t quite peel out of the front yard but, well Apple Bloom sort of felt like Rarity had done so in spirit.

“That went... well,” Sweetie said critically, looking after Rarity’s diminishing auto with a grumpy pout.

“It’s alright Sweetie, she just ain’t ready, ah guess,” Apple Bloom responded sadly.

“Oh,” Sweetie said gesturing with her hands exaggeratedly at the car, “No Sweetie, it’s far too dirty here for the car. It’s the air filter, you see. Oh, I’ll not be a bother Sweetie, I’ll just drop you off so you can go play. Be out front by three o’clock please, Sweetie I don’t want to have to wait long in all this dirt,”

“She ain’t even saying it’s me she’s scared about?” Apple Bloom gaped astonishedly.

“Truthfully,” Sweetie admitted sheepishly, brushing the dust off her purple petticoat, “I think she might not have been kidding about the dirt.”

That was around when Applejack arrived, bringing along Diamond from the orphanage. Applejack got this serious look on her face, when she heard Rarity just drove off like that. “Ah’ll have another talk with her,” Applejack said, “But for now you three go find your friend Scootaloo.”

“We better hurry,” Diamond said urgently, “Before Scootaloo goes and eats all the biscuits!”

The three scampered inside where Scootaloo had done her most valiant effort to eat all the biscuits, but alas none could withstand the power of Granny Smith’s cooking. Scoots waved to them lazily when they ran and trotted in, already relaxing by the fire. Her mother was still off by the table, sipping at a cup of hot tea.

Cheerilee didn’t stay long either, but Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara, Apple Bloom would have for the entire day. Or at least until the afternoon, when Sweetie had to go. Mostly because Rarity was being Rarity about this. Apple Bloom figured she could wheedle another few hours with Sweetie Belle, if she got Rarity and her sister arguing again. Yes, that’s how desperate for company Apple Bloom had become.

Thus it was, that outside the ranch, three girls and a filly were just informally playing around with a ball, but mostly sharing in conversation. “You know, it’s funny,” Scootaloo said critically, kicking the ball against the fence, “We never visited much before, but now we get to come over like every other week. I didn’t even know a farm could be this fun!”

“Well thank goodness for small favors,” Apple Bloom said sarcastically, running over to bump the ball back at Scootaloo, “Ah still miss mah hands.”

“Pff, yeah right,” Diamond countered, “Anything you can do, you can do better without hands. Name one thing you can’t do anymore without hands.”

“Write.”

Diamond winced. “Touché,” she replied at a flat faced Apple Bloom.

“I wonder if you could,” Sweetie Belle mused. “Maybe if you strap something to your h–your arm?”

Apple Bloom waved her entire hoof at Sweetie Belle emphatically, saying, “Remember, this whole big thing is mah hand now. It’s like a... a big fat clumsy finger. And it’s just too big and clumsy. Ah can wrap it around a broom handle maybe, but a pencil? It just don’t work.” She stomped her hoof down, declaring, “These things were made for walking on, an’ you can’t do that without sacrificing a lotta fine motor control.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” Sweetie said in a defeated tone.

“How do you know?” Scootaloo asserted less defeatedly. “What do your hooves even have to do with a motor?”

“Fine motor control,” Apple Bloom emphasized, “It means how much you can make little fine movements. Instead of just motorin’ around.” She demonstrated by trotting in a circle, her tail swishing in a flourish as she stopped and gave Scootaloo her level gaze. “Humans have about ten times as many nerves in one finger than a horse does in their hooves.”

“So, you noticed you’re feeling a lot less sensitive?” Diamond Tiara asked uncertainly.

Apple Bloom shook her head, “No, uh...” she said uncertainly, “But that’s all subjective an’ stuff. Ah only think ah got mah original senses, proprioception an’ all.”

“Pro-prio-what?” Scootaloo asked with a laugh, “What even is that?”

“Oh, ah read about it,” Apple Bloom admitted, too embarassed to really explain just how much time she’d had recently to do nothing but read about stuff. “It means how you feel about your own body. Like uh, look watch ah’ll show ya.”

Apple Bloom backed up from the fence and closed her eyes, then stuck a front hoof out sideways. “Alright,” she declared, “Mah hoof is riiiight...” she trailed off, moving the tip of her tail to rest squarely on it. “Here!” she shouted, once she felt her tail hit her hoof.

Then she pulled her tail back, and put her hoof out at a different angle. “Here!” Apple Bloom repeated, touching it with her tail again. Because of proprioception, she never even had to hesitate.

“I don’t... get it” Sweetie said uncertainly.

“It’s like how you can touch your hands together with your eyes closed,” Apple Bloom explained, “But you can’t touch someone else’s hands, with your eyes closed. So you always know where your own hands are, even though there’s nothing to tell you about it. It’s sometimes called the sixth sense, though it said it ain’t really a sense. But it means ah got different perceptions now, the fact ah can do that with mah tail. If mah hooves had different sensitivity, it wouldn’t feel any different either.”

“That all makes sense,” Diamond said smartly, “But you can tell the difference between your hooves and your tail, so you can tell the difference between your old hands and your new ones.”

“Of course ah cain!” Apple Bloom declared, stomping her hoof frustratedly. “They’re hooves! How could ah not tell the difference? When did ah ever say I couldn’t?”

“A few minutes ago,” Sweetie Belle prompted helpfully. “You said you didn’t feel like you had less feeling in your hooves.”

“Ah... ah guess ah— but—” Apple Bloom’s face scrunched up and she exclaimed in frustration, “Oh, fingle fangle!”

There was a pause.

“Fingle, what?” Scootaloo asked.

“Y’don’t wanna know,” Apple Bloom said, looking down with her bangs shading her eyes. She didn’t have to inform Scootaloo, anyway. Scoots could just ask Diamond Tiara, who clearly knew what it meant from the way she was blushing from head to toe. Apple Bloom made another solemn oath never to repeat anything Granny swore, one she could hopefully keep for more than a month this time.

Bloom managed to distract them from the subject eventually, and soon they were running around like crazy with a spinning disc shooting between them, Apple Bloom scampering around underneath its path. When Apple Bloom jumped in the air and caught it in her mouth, Scootaloo had to stop, laughing uncontrollably. “You look just like a dog!” she crowed.

“Ohyr?” Apple Bloom mumbled, turning her head to the side, “C’nna dg do... ths?!” she snapped her neck around as she shouted, releasing the frisbee to travel in a beeline for Scootaloo who caught it between her hands. She looked at it, and looked at Apple Bloom in surprise, before smiling and throwing it right back to her.

Sweetie Belle was quick to sit out from the game, resting in the shade of a tree rather serenely in her sunflower yellow dress embroidered with hearts and bells. Custom made by her sister, of course, not that that was why Sweetie was sitting out. She simply wasn’t very a athletic person, Scootaloo was utterly tireless, Apple Bloom matched her hoof for foot, and Diamond Tiara was just too stubborn to give in before anyone else did.

So when Sweetie Belle looked up from her book with a small smile, to see how her friends were doing, it was—wait, where did they all go?

---

“Ah got it! Ah got it!” Apple Bloom shouted out to Diamond, just a bit earlier.

“Me! To me!” Scootaloo counter-shouted, both of them at a great distance from a huffing, grinning Diamond Tiara, who was the one who had the precious frisbee clasped in her hands.

“Between you!” Diamond shouted mischeviously, swinging her arm to eject the disc powerfully into the air, directly between the two of them. She was too excited though, and way miscalculated the distance. “Ah got it! Ah got—!” Apple Bloom’s increasingly distant chant cut off, as the frisbee cleared the tops of the dense trees that marked the far edge of Sweet Apple Acres. She and Scootaloo both jerked to a halt, as the frisbee descended into the foliage with a spray of leaves.

Diamond jogged up guiltily as the two looked into the forest, saying, “Sorry, I... I just got, like... too... can you see it?” She was having a harder time talking while breathing hard. Scootaloo wasn’t nearly as exerted, and Apple Bloom looked practically untouched for all she’d been moving more than both of them combined.

“Yeah, I...” Apple Bloom’s muzzle scrunched up a bit as she said, “I think ah see it. Let’s go,” Before she could run into the forest though, Scootaloo said,

“Wait. A-are we supposed to go in there?”

Both Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara gave Scootaloo an odd look. “Since when did you care about like, doing what you’re told?” Diamond asked Scootaloo.

“Hey, I care!” Scootaloo retorted hotly, “It’s just... it’s usually stupid things they tell you, not actually dangerous things.”

“What’s so dangerous about the forest?” Apple Bloom asked Scootaloo. “Not like there’s any wolves in there! Trust me, ah checked!”

“Yeah, but what if,” Scootaloo bit her lip, shifting on her sneakers, “What if we find that apple or something?”

Diamond Tiara turned at that. “You don’t think we could get turned into ponies too?” she more stated than asked. “That would be like, so ironic!” she added enthusiastically.

“You want to get turned into a pony?” Scootaloo asked her in disbelief.

Diamond shook her head, holding up her hands defensively. “No, no, I didn’t say that! I don’t want to be a pony. I mean, it would be like, totally terrible! No offense, Apple Bloom,” she remarked down to the grumpy little pony standing beside her.

“None takin,” Apple Bloom grumbled neutrally. “But y’know, me an’ mah brother tore apart these woods looking for that grove. Sure as ah’m standing on four hooves, it obviously ain’t just a dream, but if you’re not dreamin’ ah don’t think there’s one possible inch of land that could have that apple thing.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said in a quarrelous voice, “But maybe it’s because it has to be you and me, and Sweetie.” Diamond Tiara huffed a bit at that, and crossed her arms, but her frown softened when Scootaloo added in an edge of fear, “It might be after us next!”

“W-well, Sweetie ain’t here,” Apple Bloom asserted, waving over at the tree that was somewhere over there down the hill a bit. “So it ain’t gonna be any different. What are you scared of? Come on!”

Apple Bloom charged into the woods without another word, the little pony slipping under a bush and over a log, just like she’d already extensively explored the place or something.

“I just—” Scootaloo stomped a foot in frustration as Apple Bloom left her behind, “Oh fine, hold on!” and she too ran into the forest, making her way a bit more carefully as she had to navigate the unfamiliar and crowded forest floor.

Diamond Tiara actually hesitated a few more seconds, before shouting, “Hey wait for me!” and stepping into the forest before she lost sight of Scootaloo.

It was easy for Diamond to keep sight of the brightly dressed, brightly colored girl though, and soon she and Scootaloo were together with Apple Bloom, hunting around underneath the dim light of the sun filtering through the dense foliage above.

“Do you see it?” Scootaloo said, looking left and right, both in search and nervous as all getout.

“Ah didn’t see uh... it...” Apple Bloom blushed, her little tomato tail swishing like an irritated cat as she explained, “It’s mah big old ears again. I heard it land like right around here somewhere.”

“Haha, you’re like a bat,” Scootaloo snickered.

“Go ahead an’ laugh it up,” Apple Bloom responded, rolling her eyes.

“Just get looking, lovebirds,” Diamond Tiara jibed at them, starting to root around through the bushes herself for a particular molded plastic red disc. Scootaloo looked above, moving from tree to massive tree, shoving her whole weight against them to try and make their leaves shake. Apple Bloom was better at rooting around than Diamond Tiara, but it was actually Scootaloo who had the right idea, and the frisbee came plummetting down out of a tree’s branches to hit the bushes with a crunch of leaves.

“Scootaloo, you found it!” Apple Bloom crowed cheerfully. Diamond reached down and picked it up, unsurprised to find that the sturdy simple toy hadn’t even been scratched from the experience. Not that it was free of scratches. They’d been using it a lot lately, when they had a whole farm to run around instead of the cramped lots in the crowded city.

They were all surrounding the frisbee, when they turned at once to the sound of alarmed cries from none other than Sweetie Belle.

“Apple Bloom?! Scootaloo? Where are you?? Diamond Tiara! Apple Bloom?!”

What worried them was that Sweetie Belle’s cries were coming from much deeper in the forest, and not back at the ranch at all!

“Sweetie?!” Apple Bloom shouted, running towards her voice. “Why are you back there?? Hello?”

“Apple Bloom is that you?!” came Sweetie’s faint voice. They couldn’t make themselves heard, so the three of them hurried further into the forest, until they were close enough that Sweetie could hear them more clearly.

“Just follow my voice!” Scootaloo shouted.

“No, you follow my voice!” Sweetie’s voice shouted back.

“We don’t want to go deeper into the forest!” Diamond Tiara shouted.

“Then follow me!” Sweetie shouted back.

“Why should we follow you deeper into the forest?” Apple Bloom called out, a little less loudly since she was the one farthest ahead.

There was a pause at that. Then Sweetie’s voice rang out again, shouting,

“I’m not in the forest!”

Bit by bit, they made their way to Sweetie, and absolutely everyone besides Sweetie was completely shocked to find Sweetie Belle waiting on the edge of the forest, at Apple Bloom’s very own Sweet Apple Acres.

“Consarnit, we got turned around again!” Apple Bloom exclaimed in frustration, shaking the twigs and leaves off of her furry coat, and overalls. Her mane and tail remained something of a mess though.

“No we didn’t,” Diamond Tiara protested. “We went deeper into the forest! How are we outside the forest again?”

“It’s real easy to get turned around in those woods,” Apple Bloom explained to her. “Seems like no matter how deep you get, you always end up back at the ranch. It’s like, some sorta geography thing ah think.”

Diamond Tiara frowned at that, but didn’t protest.

“You all just ran into the forest without even telling me!” Sweetie Belle said in impotent outrage. “I was so worried!”

Scootaloo held up the frisbee, saying, “We were just going to get this. What did you think, that we were going to disappear if we went in there?”

“You might have run into the apple!” Sweetie protested, pointing at Scootaloo so insistently to be poking her in the chest.

Scootaloo flinched at her words, saying, “Oh, well uh, it’s like... a dream thing, so you can’t really find it right?”

“Well if you turn into ponies too,” Sweetie Belle said with the fury of a thousand puppies and kittens, “Then don’t say I didn’t tell you so!”

“We’ll be careful, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said, with a roll of her eyes. Diamond didn’t add anything in support of Scootaloo though, and just took the frisbee, running off back into the grassy lawn, on which the main farm house was built.

They were all laying together later, with even Apple Bloom sprawled out on her belly, in a position that looked terribly uncomfortable but she insisted was fine, when Scootaloo said cheerfully, “That was some adventure, huh?”

“Huh?” Apple Bloom said, lifting her head curiously.

“We got lost in the forest,” Scootaloo said, “And Sweetie Belle led us back to safety with her voice!”

Diamond Tiara gave a disapproving pfff. “That wasn’t an adventure,” she said derisively. “We just ran off for a few minutes, and we didn’t disappear mysteriously, never to be seen again.”

“You want to never be seen again?” Scootaloo asked her incredulously.

Diamond groaned, “Ugh, no. I didn’t say that. It just wasn’t anything special.”

“What would be special,” Sweetie Belle asked, “To you?”

“I dunno,” Diamond Tiara said, leaning back and looking up at the leaves above beyond her hands. “Like, exploring some strange old ruin, or falling into a portal to a new land, or like, discovering something that changes everything. You know, stuff that never happens for real.”

“Teen Girl Squad and the Case of the Missing Frisbee,” Diamond declared demonstratively.

Scootaloo winced at that. “Yeah I see what you mean,” she said. “It does sound kind of lame.”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom piped up in a somewhat hurt voice, “Ah discovered something that changes everything, what about that?”

“Everything for you yeah,” Diamond Tiara said glowering, “But nothing for me. It’s just the same old thing, every day. Nothing ever changes...”

“What do ya mean?” Apple Bloom responded, leaning up on a elbowish thing to look at Diamond disapprovingly. “You went an’ walked all th’ way to the ranch! How is that not changing anything?”

“Yeah and then I went back.” Diamond sat up, seeming surprised at the venom in her own voice. “It didn’t change anything,” she continued more evenly, “It just went right back to how it was before. Not like you, Apple Bloom.”

“So what,” Scootaloo asked again, sitting up herself too and eyeballing Diamond Tiara. “You don’t want to be a pony, so what?”

Diamond looked like she was going to deny it again, but she firmed her lip and stated, “And what if I do?

“You do not want to be a pony, trust me,” Apple Bloom said definitively.

“What’s so bad about it?” Diamond asked snippily, hands on her hips.

“Hands, for one,” Apple Bloom said, waving a hoof in her face. “You have no idea how much ah miss havin’ five things to grab with insteada just one.”

“You seem to be doing alright though,” Diamond protested, “You can catch a frisbee just as easy as any one of us.”

“But ah cain’t talk with a big ol’ frisbee in mah mouth,” Apple Bloom retorted.

“Say, that reminds me,” Scootaloo poked in, “How did you keep the frisbee from getting all slobbery? You had it in your mouth and I thought it would be, but it wasn’t.”

Apple Bloom blinked and offered unsurely, “Ah dunno, ah was just using mah lips an’ teeth an’ ah guess ah’m just... not very slobbery?”

Scootaloo leaned forward curiously, “W—”

“We’re not gonna stick our fingers in Apple Bloom’s mouth,” Diamond cut in, giving Scootaloo a look. Scootaloo looked mad, as if she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. But she folded her arms, said “Fine,” and backed off.

“You’re like, the chosen one of a princess or something,” Diamond Tiara gushed to Apple Bloom with a bit of girlish excitement. “She visits you in your dreams. And now you get to go on an adventure to save her, just like a story book!”

“Ah never wanted this to happen!” Apple Bloom protested. “Ah never asked for any of this!”

“I know you didn’t,” Diamond Tiara said with a half smile. “I’m just saying, it isn’t all that terrible, being all like, pony now.”

After a sullen silence, Apple Bloom replied snidely, “Ah’m not sure she even actually chose me. An’ ah don’t know where she is, so how am ah going to go on this adventure? You think your life doesn’t have any adventure, but what about the Fall Formal? That’s this week, and you know something crazy is gonna happen. Ah bet you are just as ‘chosen’ as I am, and it’ll all be revealed that night.”

Apple Bloom stood up then, saying with hurt in her voice, “And you know who won’t be able to be there? Me! Ah’ll just be stuck here on this stupid farm just like ah have been all these months, an’ maybe even for the rest of my life! How is that an—” she would have said “an adventure” but Apple Bloom just started choking up right there in the middle of her sentence.

“N-never mind,” Apple Bloom whimpered, sniffling and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Ah hate this so much,” she said sorrowfully.

“Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo said sympathetically, “I—”

“No,” Diamond Tiara declared. Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom turned to look at her, while Sweetie remained laying on her back looking thoughtfully upward. “You think you have it so bad?” Diamond said angrily to Apple Bloom, “You have a brother and a sister and a grandmother, who could have just left you here, but instead they helped you! I’m stuck in a stupid building all day, and then another stupid building all night. You can go anywhere you want, and I have to be ‘inside at all times after curfew’. You think that’s freedom?”

“Ah don’t want freedom!” Apple Bloom cried in tearful frustration, “Ah just want something to do!”

Diamond Tiara’s words halted in her throat, as it really did seem like Apple Bloom was going to lose it and start crying. Diamond said more carefully, in a more controlled voice, “The only thing you’re missing is the Fall Formal, right? Well, let’s sneak you into the Fall Formal then!”

Apple Bloom blinked, the craziness of the idea driving the sorrow right out of her head. “No,” she stated simply.

“Come on,” Diamond Tiara whined, “It’s a good idea—”

“No,” repeated Apple Bloom more emphatically. “If ah go to the formal everyone will just see this stupid little pony walking aroun’. Ah don’t want people to see me like this!”

Sweetie Belle had sat up in the meantime, looking at Apple Bloom owlishly.

“Well we saw you like this, and it wasn’t so bad,” Scootaloo ventured cautiously.

“Yeah, but you put up with it, cause you’re mah friends!” Apple Bloom stated, scraping a hoof, then startling and looking at it guiltily before setting it down carefully. “Ah don’t mean to be just some dumb animal,” she said apologetically, “But ah cain’t thank you enough for bein’ able to tolerate it.”

“It’s not as bad as you think, Apple Bloom,” Diamond Tiara said unflinchingly. “You really think I’d be able to sleep in your bed, if you were that intolerable?”

Scootaloo gaped, saying, “When did this happen?”

“When I was...” Diamond blushed, turning away from Scootaloo back to Apple Bloom. “Never mind. My point is that you are only a little dirtier than you used to be, but that’s just because you totally let yourself go, and there’s nothing dumb, or animal like about you.”

“Ah smell like a horse,” Apple Bloom whimpered quietly.

“No you–” Diamond pursed her lips. “Well, I mean, maybe a little but I mean like, horses don’t actually smell that bad, Apple Bloom.”

“You ever even been near a horse’s backside before?” Apple Bloom countered with a skeptical eyebrow.

“That’s it!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “That’s why you don’t smell like an animal. You wipe when you poop!”

Everybody looked at her and Sweetie blushed horribly, saying, “Oh, um, I didn’t mean I mean...”

“No, you have a point there,” Scootaloo remarked. “Isn’t that the difference between animals and people really? It all comes down to wiping.”

Diamond Tiara paused, and asked Apple Bloom, “You do, right?”

“Of course ah do!” Apple Bloom shouted exasperatedly. Then she blushed too, in the strange manner that a pony’s flush managed to show beneath their fur and crouched lower looking all flustered and stuff.

“How do you um... do it?” Scootaloo asked halfway between curious and not wanting to know the answer.

“Ah just use my hoof,” Apple Bloom mumbled. “It’s not hard...”

“But, see?” Diamond exclaimed triumphantly. “You don’t even need hands anymore, because you can still do things without them!”

“And you are still just as fun to be around as you always have been,” Sweetie Belle put in. “It’s just you’re a cute little pony now, and I’m not just saying it to humor you. It actually looks really good on you.”

Apple Bloom tilted her head. “Wait, what looks good on me?”

“Pony!” Sweetie Belle answered with a smile.

“It... it’s not a suit!” Apple Bloom protested aghast.

“No, it’s better than a suit!” Sweetie responded lithely.

“You should just admit it, Apple Bloom,” Diamond Tiara said in only a half joking manner. “When you talk about yourself as if you have it bad, then you make people who have it even worse feel... like... awful.”

Apple Bloom waited for her to continue, but Diamond seemed lost in her thoughts all of a sudden, staring forward over the knees she was hunched over.

“I’ve been growing my hair longer,” Sweetie said abruptly. She waited until everyone had turned to look at her before explaining, “It’s because I’m getting older. My hair was cute when it was shorter, but now I have to make it beautiful. Just like Rarity. That’s why I would want to be a pony.”

“Uh, wait why was that, again...?” Apple Bloom asked feeling a little lost by Sweetie’s train of thought. Sweetie Belle sat up and looked at the pony girl. And then lunged for her, and dragged Apple Bloom up into her arms, hugging the struggling pony fiercely with a beaming smile and exclaiming,

“Because you’re so cute!”

Scootaloo still seemed puzzled, but Diamond gave Sweetie a wan if knowing look, and asked, “You want to be a pony just so you can be cute?”

Sweetie Belle relaxed the hug, and Apple Bloom looked behind herself with concern, over her shoulder up at the pensive girl.

“Octave asked me out,” Sweetie hurriedly announced.

“Who??” Scootaloo blurted out, beside herself with... something.

“Octave Melody,” Sweetie continued uneasily, “He’s the lead cellist in the Canterlot orchestra. You know, the p-prodigy?” She clenched her fists anxiously, saying, “He said he loves my singing and enjoys my company and he wants to know if I would accompany him to the Fall Formal.”

“Wow, Sweetie!” Scootaloo exclaimed in— “That’s great!!” yeah, in clueless excitement.

“Sc–” Diamond Tiara managed to berate a single syllable before Scootaloo announced,

“Oh hey I forgot to tell you, Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo gave a smug self-satisfied grin at the pony girl haplessly ensnared in Sweetie’s arms, saying, “Guess who asked me to the Fall Formal.”

Apple Bloom just looked at Scootaloo like a deer caught in headlights.

“This cute boy in Technology 101 named Dinky,” Scootaloo answered herself closing her eyes and smiling all genteel. “I think we’re really gonna hit it off!”

“Just like you’ve been saying every day in school for the past week,” Diamond grumbled under her breath. Apple Bloom heard her, but didn’t chew her out, since it was too quiet for Scootaloo to hear. Instead Apple Bloom said to Scootaloo,

“Ah’m happy for you, Scootaloo! But... don’t you want to hear about Sweetie Belle, a bit?”

Sweetie Belle was the one to speak, not Scootaloo, saying “I don’t know how you do it, Scootaloo,” in a mournful tone. “I didn’t...” She bit her lip. “I mean, I got nervous and I– I said I had to think and I didn’t know what to think and—”

“You turned him down?” Diamond gaped at Sweetie. “Even I know about Octave! He’s a rising star!”

“I didn’t turn him down,” Sweetie huffed, “I just... he told me how beautiful I was, and I felt like I would hurt him if I said no, so I just said I needed time to think.”

She paused, then added, “This never would have been a problem if I had taken the Golden Apple instead.”

Nobody really knew what to say at first, but Apple Bloom slipped out of Sweetie’s arms, and faced her seriously. Putting a forehoof on her knee. Apple Bloom said, “Sweetie, y’ really think that bein’ like this would be any better? Maybe you wouldn’t be hurting some fancy boy’s feelings, but if you noticed, Rarity hasn’t exactly taken kindly to what happened to me. Imagine how she’d feel, if something happened to you!”

Sweetie started to answer, then she paused. Her expression darkened, then lightened again with mixed feelings. A giggle escaped her then, and she suggested, “She’d probably be beating your door down, Apple Bloom, demanding to know what you’ve done to me.”

Sweetie Belle stood up with a hand to her chest, exclaiming in a dramatic accent, “Oh, who dares turn my dearest sister into a pony? I will surely destroy them, the vile curs!”

Apple Bloom tried not to laugh, really she did, but when Diamond gave a critical hmmm and said, “That’s pretty accurate, but it needs more screaming and wailing,” it was just impossible not to. It was wrong of them to find amusement in Rarity’s self inflicted misery, but she was just being so silly about all this!

Apple Bloom wondered how many other students would react like Rarity. Too many, that’s for sure. No, one thing was absolutely certain is Apple Bloom was not going to go to the Fall Formal, no how and no way.

Later at the Fall Formal, Apple Bloom exclaimed in a tight reedy whisper from underneath the tablecloth torn from the remains of the refreshment table, “Ah cain’t believe y’all talked me into this!”

Next to her, totally covered in soot, Diamond Tiara exclaimed as well, “I can’t believe that just happened!”

“This enough adventure for you, Diamond?” Scootaloo said to her irascibly.

“Uggh,” Diamond exclaimed, dropping her assault rifle and folding her arms sourly. She didn’t deny it though.

“Do you think the fire is still spreading?” Sweetie Belle whimpered alongside the two of them, curiously untouched.

Scootaloo, who was also peeking out from under the tablecloth, not a very inconspicuous lump said, “After all those fire extinguishers exploded? Everything is absolutely soaked in nasty foam!”

A blonde boy next to Scootaloo just shook his head and said, “I’m so confused.”

“Maybe ah’m just a dumb pony,” Apple Bloom mused, “But ah’m pretty sure challenging someone to a duel because you lost to them is against the rules or somethin’.”

“At least both the princesses are unconscious,” Tiara sighed, “I didn’t even see who won.”

“Ah can hear the sirens already,” Apple Bloom said. “Maybe we better skedaddle before the paramedics get here, an’ who knows who else.”

And so the four, now five friends skedaddled like they never skedaddled before, the lead being Apple Bloom, eager to get her little pony body out of sight before it made things even worse.

The two girls left up on stage lay there serenely silent as the sprinkler alarms continued to rain down from above, the ruined gymnasium around them bedecked with unfittingly gay streamers of the brightest pink. Everyone who hadn’t fled remained standing around the two in solemn reflection, until the paramedics pushed their way through the crowd. Somehow, the partygoers all knew in their hearts that it would be quite a while before anyone was willing to allow another contest for anyone to become the princess of the Fall Formal.

“Best Fall Formal Ever,” Princess Trixie Lulamoon would say later, after she awoke in the hospital.

Author's Note:

Actually, they can...

Comments

[Wellwater]

… what.

[Vinyl_melody]

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE FORMAL? Fire? Duel? Princess Trixie? Is Discord in this story cause this is pure chaos right here.
Oh and whats up with r63 Octavia and Dinky?

[ferret]

6139378

I'LL NEVER TELL AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA until the next chapter or idk

[gamer52599]

What just happened! Did hell break loose and this is the result?

[ferret]

6143979
Trixie believes she already explained it in very clear terms.

[borgvicugna]

I wish to read more...
...
oHH! The cuteness!

[Wiimeiser]

Well, that's a big lipped alligator moment and a half...

[ferret]

6151588
That'th Printhess Peppermint-Twist-a-loo'Anaka Scootaloo-Marie Sweetiedrops-Baker-Cook-Middleman-McCormick to you!

6151768
Eh, it wasn't nearly as bad as the noodle incident.

[Wiimeiser]

6153283 Still, some warning would've been nice, like a horizontal rule.

Also, what is in that forest that's causing all these weird hallucinations? I mean besides the golden apple. There could be a mansion hunted by ghosts, beyond that a windmill, and beyond that the house of a giant spiked ball-spitting creature that eats ghosts. Or skeletons, ghost sisters and a phantom desert king. Or the well of Pirene. We may never know.

[ferret]

6154145
*shakes paws at the sky* Horizontal ruuuuuuuules!

It can't possibly contain the well of Pirene. None of the characters speak with a heavy brogue accent!

[raven618]

6139231 I'm with you
what?

[PiMan]

35 weeks late, I concur.
Wut?

[ConsciousHaze196]

“Ah can hear the sirens already,” Apple Bloom said.

don't let Adagio see you

[Reese]

"Thus it was, that outside the ranch, the three females, two girls and a filly"
Aren't there four of them, three girls and a filly?
(Yes, I'm finally reading this. Been quite enjoying it so far, despite my initiation leeriness of the Equestria Girls tag. I don't usually comment on stories I'm reading through like this, though.)

[ferret]

8244021

Welcome! Yes, I still can't count to four. And I know EQG is terrible but that's what was working, so I just kept going. Those of us who write deconstruction always have a hard time, because the only ones who would enjoy it are the ones who don't like the subject material...