Post-Traumatic

by Jordan179

Chapter 5: It's a Dirty Job

"Oh, this so very much not cool," grumbled Rainbow Dash.

The storage barn was half-full of big bags of fertilizer, tanks of water, and barrels of something which smelled worse than the fertilizer. There was a big vat of the sort that one might use to tread grapes, standing on a framework, with an oversized faucet and valve attached to the botom part of the side. Next to it were a wagon and lots of empty tarpaulin bags.

"Nah, it's pretty cool in here," Applejack said. "Fact is, the temperature's just right. Any cooler and the blend wouldn't flow too well; any warmer and we'd be right uncomfortable with what we're about to do."

"You can't be serious," said Rainbow Dash.

"Mixing up the feed for mah apple trees is durn serious," Applejack said. "If'n we don't do it jest right, the trees won't get fed right, and if the trees don't get fed right, the apples don't grow tastin' right, and the trees themselves could wither and die." Her voice quavered slightly at the prospect of the death of apple trees. "Every spring, we Apples have to mix up the nutrients so as that the apple blooms bloom like'n they should, and the apples grow all healthy and dee-licious."

"But ... can't you just get the right kind of fertilizers from the store?" asked Rainbow Dash, flitting over to look at the bags of fertilizer. "These look like regular fertilizers -- they say 'Barnyard Bargains' on them."

"What you're lookin' at is an integrated supply chain," said Applejack proudly. "We get a discount on supplies from Filthy Rich, on account of we're one of his best suppliers for apples. That particular fertilizer was made from guano, imported overseas from South Amareica, and manufactured in Manehattan, then brought to Ponyville by freight train. Cain't get much more regular than that."

"Then what are we supposed to be doing?" asked Rainbow Dash. There was a tone of incipent panic in her voice, implying that she wasn't about to relish the answer.

"Oh, that's simple," explained Applejack. "Store-bought fertilizer's good enough for most farmers, but we Apples ain't most farmers. We make a special mix of extra nutrients. Then we put some water in the vat, add the fertilizer and the extra ingredients, and mix it all up into a slurry ..."

Pinkie Pie looked around the barn with interest: her big blue eyes open wide and a large smile spreading across her face. She might have been contemplating the industrial process involved, or simply its potential for comedy. She leaned over a half-open bag of fertilizer. Suddenly her mouth opened, her impossibly-long tongue emerged, and she licked the fertilizer.

"Pinkie!" scolded Applejack. "That's for the apple trees to eat, not you!"

Pinkie made tasting motions. "Hmm ..." she said. "Nitrogen ... potassium ... and phosphorous, mostly. As ionic oxides. Chemical-licious!"

"Yup," said Applejack, deadpan. "That's yer basic fertilizer. Now when you get to the trace compounds that mah apple trees need to blossom perfect-like, that's where we go to the special mix."

"Whoa, whoa, time out," said Rainbow Dash, making a "T" in the air with her forelegs. "Since when did you and Pinkie become, like, egghead chemists?"

"Ah'm no chemist," said Applejack. "But Ah know fertilizers. Ah have to know them, on account of Ah'm a farmer. If'n you don't know about fertilizers and soil chemistry, then you ain't likely to grow good harvests. It's in all the almanacs, and the farm magazines. An' Pinkie here was a rock farmer. That's geology ... how do you say it? ... geochemistry ... combined with understandin' the ley lines of the Earth-currents."

"Yep!" Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. "You gotta know about rocks!"

"And licking the fertilizer? Is that more secret Earth Pony lore?" asked Rainbow Dash.

Applejack's mouth quirked imperceptibly. "Nah," she said. "As far as Ah know, that's just Pinkie being Pinkie."

"Maud bites the rocks!" Pinkie interjected, grinning happily.

"So what's the point of this whole setup?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Well, when we've mixed the slurry and stirred it up real nice and good, then we drain it off into these water-proof bags, close them up and stack them on the wagon. That gets a load ready for spreading on the trees. Which Ah'm gonna do tomorrow, as that's work you want to do by daylight."

"Makes sense," said Rainbow Dash. She sniffed. "Why does it smell so bad, though?"

"Oh, that's the special ingredients," Applejack explained. "Ah cain't tell you all that's in them -- it's an Apple family secret, an you ain't Apples --"

"I am!" cried Pinkie happily, boucing up and down next to Applejack, and smiling winningly at her.

Applejack sighed.

"All right, Pinkie's sort of an Apple, bein' that she may be mah fifth cousin ..."

"Twice removed!" giggled Pinkie.

"But you ain't," said Applejack, looking at Rainbow Dash.

"Huh," commented Rainbow Dash, crossing her forelegs, obviously miffed.

"But Ah can tell you what one big part of it is," said Applejack.

"And that is?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"Manure," replied Applejack, smugly.

"Manure," repeated Rainbow Dash, flatly, wrinkling her nose.

"Yup," said Applejack. "But not just any manure. We go out into the Everfree Forest and collect the scat of all sorts o'beasts, which feed off strange foods and absorb magic from them. But they cain't digest all the magic, you see, and some they don't need no more. So what they cain't digest and don't need, it ..."

"I think I get the idea," said Rainbow Dash.

"It's a beautiful and natural process," said Applejack, meaning it fervently. Suddenly she caught a motion in her peripheral vision. "Pinkie, no! Don't do that!"

There was a slurping sound.

"Oh, gross," said Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie licked her lips. "I think I know what the special ingredient is made out of!" she declared brightly.

"Right now I am so glad my name isn't Cheese Sandwich," Rainbow Dash said.

"You an' me both, partner," replied Applejack in an aside to her.

"Meh, I'm not too proud to do a geek gag," said Pinkie, looking right at you readers.

"Who are you talking to?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Oh, nobody," said Pinkie Pie. "Just nobody."

"If you're finished eating mah special ingredient, maybe we can get to work?" Applejack suggested.

And so they did.

***

A couple of smelly hours later, the tarpaulin bags were all full, as was the wagon. There was also a good amount of fertilizer, special ingredient and mixture spattered all over the storage barn, the equipment, the wagon and the three mares who had been working with it.

"Wow, this sure is a messy job!" commented Pinkie Pie, surveying the damage.

"Yeah, I have to say that you Apples sure aren't afraid to get yourselves dirty doing honest and necessary work," commented Rainbow Dash. "Is it always like this?"

"Ah cain't rightly say that it is," said Applejack. "See, most times we don't whiz around the inside of a barn carryin' open buckets of fertilizer," she explained, looking pointedly at Rainbow Dash.

"Eh, I was just trying to do it faster," the blue Pegasus explained.

"Hee hee," said Pinkie Pie, laughing at Rainbow Dash. "She got you good!"

"Also, cousin Pinkie," added Applejack, "most times we don't have 'fertilizer fights.' That's just asking for trouble. Do you Pies throw rocks around on your farm?"

"Oh no," said Pinkie. "My daddy told me that it wasn't funny at all. And he looked so sad about it with that big bump on his noggin that I just had to agree with him!"

"Ah am coming to deeply sympathize with your family," said Applejack. She looked around the barn. "Well, we did the worst part."

"Now we relax?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"No -- now we do clean-up," announced Applejack.

Rainbow Dash looked around at the dirt-spattered barn and groaned.

***

An hour later, the barn was clean, and so were the three mares, courtesy of an impromptu shower under one of the water tanks. Applejack produced towels to dry off, which was welcome in the cold April night, and they trooped into the Apple farmhouse kitchen. There, Applejack set coffee to brewing, and made them all sandwiches.

"Don't that feel good!" announced Applejack as she served the coffee and sandwiches. She stretched under her towel, flexing what looked like each and every one of the muscles along her powerful frame.

"Well, they're good sandwiches," allowed Rainbow Dash, munching on one of them, and trying not to make too obvious her fascination with Applejack's motions.

"No, silly, she means doing honest and necessary farm labor, and doing it right," explained Pinkie Pie, tucking into another sandwich.

"You got it," said Applejack. "After we eat, we can go to bed, content with having accomplished something."

Pinkie nodded vigorously. "It's just like making the cupcakes," she said. "Well, only we don't make the cupcakes out of your special ingredient, which is good because cupcakes made from your special ingredient wouldn't taste too good, and I know this because I tasted it and apple trees might like it but it would be all yucky for cupcakes for Ponies!"

"Eww," said Rainbow Dash. "Not while we're eating."

"Which proves my point!" said Pinkie.

Applejack laughed, overcome by a sudden warmth toward both of them. "Ah'm lucky to have friends like you," she said, smiling.

"You're a super-duper friend!" replied Pinkie, grinning widely.

"Yeah, you're pretty cool," added Rainbow Dash, trying and failing to sound casual about it.

"Ah'm just glad we're over all that with Starlight Glimmer," Applejack said. "Feels good to be back in mah own home again, feelin' like mah own self again, 'stead of being trapped in that room an' not even able to be mahself." She hugged herself with her forelegs, as if she felt a sudden chill. "Brrr!"

The other two mares nodded, their smiles fading as they remembered.

"I kept finding things funny," said Pinkie Pie, "and then I couldn't laugh at them. It was like my sense of humor was being squelched under the wettest wet blanket I could imagine. It made me sad."

"I wanted to break out and kick some flank," said Rainbow Dash. "But I couldn't get up the energy. And then after we did get out, when we were chasing her? I was so slow, could barely fly!" There was a brief look of fear in her eyes, which was as suddenly veiled. "It was lame," she said. "Really lame."

"Ah couldn't break down the door," said Applejack. "Ah gave it mah best double-buck and hardly rattled it on the hinges. And Ah felt like Ah had no spirit to keep on trying. Like Ah wasn't me any more."

"It really sucked," agreed Pinkie Pie, leaning up against Applejack's side.

"After a while, Ah just stopped struggling against it," said Applejack. "Wasn't doing me no good, and Ah figgered Ah should conserve what was left of mah strength for when Ah got a chance. Ah figgered Ah'd get a chance, if'n Ah just waited. There's always a chance, right?"

Rainbow Dash nodded. "You just gotta be ready for it," she agreed.

"I was nervous when we first went in," Pinkie Pie said unexpectedly. "Really nervous, cause I knew something really bad was going to happen to us in there. I wasn't sure just what, cause my Pinkie Sense didn't tell me, but I knew we were all going to survive and not get hurt too bad so I didn't try to twist anything, cause I was afraid that if I twisted the wrong thing, I'd make it worse. See?" She looked at her friends, and was meant by total incomprehension from Rainbow Dash, partial comprehension from Applejack.

"Ah think Ah understand," said Applejack. "Ah hope you're not blaming yourself for not warnin' us more."

Pinkie looked stricken and screwed her face up. "Maybe kinda sorta," she admitted, moisture glistening in her eyes.

Applejack put a foreleg around Pinkie's barrel and gathered her in to her side. "You did warn us, Pinkie. Remember? You said the smiles were wrong."

"I did!" Tears began to flow down her face. "I did!"

"Ah understood what you were telling us," Applejack said. "When the Equal Ponies said things -- 'bout how happy they all were -- Ah could tell they was lying. Not lying direct, but saying what they wanted to believe, if'n you get mah meaning? Ah knew there was something dreadful wrong in that town, but Ah just figgered that we could handle it between all our abilities." She frowned. "Ah was wrong. Only thing is, Ah didn't realize just how wrong until it was too late."

"I shoulda said more," Pinkie sobbed, burrowing into Applejack's side. "I think that I really got us hurt."

"Hush now, sugarcube," Applejack said, holding her and stroking her mane. "You did the best that you could. And you was right. We didn't get hurt that bad -- Twah figured out how to get us out of there, like'n she always does, and Fluttershy did her part, and in the end Twah beat that warlock in a face-to-face magic duel, and we came out of it all right. No need to fret."

"I didn't know what was going on but I knew they were creepy because they didn't even care about winning! How lame is that?" Rainbow Dash commented.

"Pretty lame," Applejack agreed, smiling at Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie Pie poked her head out of Applejack's mane and wiped her tears away with a single motion of her hoof. "Yeah," she said, smiling shakily. "Lame."

"I mean, if you're gonna have a contest," Rainbow Dash continued, "of course you care about who wins. It's the whole --" Suddenly, her features shifted into a look of almost-comical dismay. "The contest!"

"Eh -- ?" asked Applejack, before she realized what she had also forgotten. "Our chores! We was supposed to be having a contest on who was doing them faster!" She looked at Pinkie Pie. "Were you keeping track ...?"

"Um ..." Pinkie looked embarrassed. "I forgot?"

Rainbow Dash groaned. "Pinkie!"

Applejack made a strange convulsive sound. Then she started snickering. Then giggling. Then laughing, loud and unrestrained.

Pinkie joined in, her laughter almost like that of a little filly, but with the throatiness of a mare full-grown. She collapsed against Applejack's side, laughing uncontrollably.

Rainbow Dash glared at both of them for a moment. Then she found it impossible to maintain her expression of outraged dignity. She joined in the laughter, guffawing and banging her hoof on the table.

"Hey!" came the clear, young but very annoyed voice of Apple Bloom from upstairs. "Some Ponies are trying to get to sleep up here!"

They only laughed louder.

After a while the laughter died down. The three friends smiled at one another, glad to be alive and sane and whole, and glad to be together.

"Well," said Applejack, "Ah'm going to bed. Ah already made up the guest room for you two jokers. Got a nice big bed."

"She snores," Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash said simultaneously.

They climbed the stairs and went to sleep, putting the nightmares of the past behind them, and dreamed good dreams.

Author's Note:

If you care, the fertilizer in that storage barn was made in Tompkins Town, Manehattan, in the very factory which the Night Stallion wanted to destroy. Thank you, Great and Powerful Trixie.

Comments

[Jordan179]

6502612

Comedy relief, sort of. And Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash make a great team. They're the three Ponies who would have been least affected by what happened to them, in some ways. Pinkie's the most affected because she knew something she could have done that might have spared them the ordeal -- or made it worse -- and she's not sure which.

[Jordan179]

6502687

Oh yes! The whole Shadow Wars Story Verse was inspired by the Pony POVerse!

[Jordan179]

6500818

Starlight Glimmer is a fanatic. She finds it very hard to look at anything from anypony else's point of view.

[DreadedCandiru2]

6502796 If you've ever read the comic strip For Better Or For Worse, you'll realize that understanding other people's points of view is not in Elly's wheelhouse. The woman thinks she can TALK her dog into doing things if she's sincere enough and thinks that her children are space monsters trying to eat her brain because they want attention and have to be shown how to do chores.

[Ardashir]

And this we discover that Pinkie Pie is a coprophage, if that's how you spell it. Thanks, Jordan, for showing us something we never needed to know.

More seriously this is a good chapter, and I like the insight into Dashie and AJ and Pinkie here.

[FanOfMostEverything]

And so the healing process continues.

Magical manure, huh? Hadn't considered that. Probably essential for the zap apple trees. As for that secret ingredient... Pinkie, just because you can do something like that doesn't mean you should.

And that description of being under the affects of the Sameness are downright haunting. Nice work there.

[Jordan179]

6503180

Nah, she just knows geochemistry and has a really good sense of taste. She can lick a rock and tell you of what it's made. All her family can do that, though she's the only one who would have licked the special ingredient.

As for the Sameness, thank you. I found it a horrible concept in the original show, and am glad that you liked the way I described it.

[Eruantalon]

Am I missing what the secret ingredient is, or is it really horse apples?

[Alex Warlorn]

There was a slurping sound.
"Oh, gross," said Rainbow Dash.

-_- That's over the line dude.

Sorry dude, I apologize deeply.

But that just made me sick. And reminds me of some art I REALLY want to forget. -_-

You think they'd wear breath masks for this job.

we don't have 'fertilizer fights.'

-_- Enough already. :-( This didn't make me laugh. It made me feel sick for sickness sake.

"You got it," said Applejack. "After we eat, we can go to bed, content with having accomplished something."

This is again why I think Magic Mystery Cure was a monstrous waste, like say Applejack admitting that Rarity's line of work is just as brutal and unforgiving as AJ's.

. It made me sad."
She didn't look sad.

I wonder how Starlight Glimmer would react to her trying to get ponies to let go of their more intense traits had the opposite result.

Pinkie Pie just called her own sister lame. Maud Pie DOESN'T CARE who wins or loses in a contest she's a part of remember?

I wonder how any of them would react to that being reminded of that. Seriously, SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY.

Hearing RD say that, and having AJ AND PINKIE PIE all agree with her when Pinkie Pie KNOWS about Maud Pie's values and views, feels REALLY OOC for Pinkie Pie!

Didn't the sirens show that turning EVERYTHING into a competeition backfires horribly?

[Vaguely Demented]

Good thing it’s Pinkie. The veritable storm of diseases/poisonings she could have gotten would have done a number on anyone else.