Krizak's Compendium of Concise Chronicles

by Krizak

Possibly Four Days Too Early - Romance

“You have to be playin’ with me. You have to be.”

When her marefriend had, completely out of the blue, invited her to come with her on her yearly trip home, Applejack had figured that it was a golden an opportunity as any to once and for all get the truth of Pinkie’s past. As long as she had known the pink party pony, all the way from barely-tolerated acquaintance to good friends to tail-tied lovers, Pinkie had maintained that same story, the one about the rock farm and a family that never smiled, and while Applejack trusted Pinkie as much as her own flesh and blood, she knew that there had to be some sort of catch, some twist that made it all make sense. Applejack was a farmer herself, and she knew, as certain as apples were the best food on Celestia’s green Equestria, that ponies did not farm rocks.

But everything she knew had been shattered the moment they’d crested that final hill on the walk from the Rambling Rock Ridge train station, and Applejack had laid her eyes for the first time on the place her marefriend called home. She was seriously considering going out and partaking of some pears now, or maybe some bananas, because this was seriously bananas.

Applejack had wanted to convince herself that it was just a field left fallow, or perhaps some terrible disaster had befallen the Pies’ crop, but she was a farmer, and she could tell the moment she stepped past the gate that the soil wouldn’t ever sustain anything worth growing. It had been too much, and as much as she could understand Pinkie wanting to see her parents again, she had forced her marefriend to show her exactly what it was she had done on the farm.

She had watched as Pinkie rolled a rock from one part of the field to another, giggling all the way and saying how much easier it was now that she wasn’t a little filly, and that had drawn out the phrase, the one Applejack hadn’t wanted to say out loud but had been forced to. So she saw that oh-too-familiar expression on Pinkie’s, the one that meant that she had been hurt by something Applejack had said or done, and she knew she had messed up big time.

“You still don’t believe me,” Pinkie said, her voice not even accusing her, just pointing out the simple fact. “We’re here, you can see for yourself what we farm, and you still won’t believe me.”

“I’m sorry, Pinkie, I really am,” Applejack said, forcing herself to not look away from Pinkie’s pain-filled gaze. It hurt, but she deserved it right about now. “Everything you said seems to be true, but… I just don’t get it. What’s the point of farmin’ rocks? Y’can’t eat ‘em, there’s not gonna be much of a market for ‘em… How does yer family make its livin’, sugarcube? That’s what I can’t see.”

Wordlessly, Pinkie stood up and turned, and for a moment, Applejack thought she was about to just walk away and leave her. She was prepared to race after Pinkie when the pink mare suddenly leaned forward, putting her weight into a well-formed buck that cracked her hooves against a particularly large stone. The stone split apart down the middle, the two halves falling to either side, and Applejack had shield her eyes against the sudden blinding brightness.

When her eyes had recovered, Applejack blinked a few times and looked at the split open rock. Inside it sparkled gems like she had only ever seen in Rarity’s possession, a cacophony of colours that covered the full spectrum. “Well, I’ll be darned…”

Pinkie managed a weak smile. “They’re sunstones. They naturally convert sunlight into gems inside of them. They work naturally – that’s what Rarity found when she was a filly, a huge natural sunstone! – but our family found out a long time ago that if you rotate them and move them around to catch more sunlight, you could grow gems inside of them much muchfaster.” She looked at Applejack, her stare suddenly very serious. “And that’s a Pie family secret, Jackie, never to be revealed to outsiders, so there’s only one thing we can do now.”

“Pinkie Promise?” Applejack asked as Pinkie turned and leaned into the split sunstone, her muzzle fishing through the assorted gems for something.

“Mmm-mmm,” Pinkie said with a shake of her head, her mouth now holding a particularly round red gemstone. The pink pony turned to her own saddlebags, digging through them for a second before she found what she was looking for. She turned and fiddled around with her hooves for a second, and Applejack couldn’t figure out just what Pinkie was doing.

Then Pinkie turned back around, and Applejack’s eyes widened so much she was afraid they’d fall out. Hanging around one of Pinkie’s hooves was that same stone she had just plucked from the sunstone, now set rather expertly in a golden necklace. A golden necklace in the shape of a heart, that Applejack knew could only mean one thing.

Pinkie smiled, sweet and sincere. “No, the only course of action left to us… is a Pinkie Proposal.”

Author's Note:

This story was for Prompt #70: "Hot Apple Pie." Applejack's prompt was for Pinkie Pie to show her a good time.

The title may seem odd, but it's because the prompt directly following the theme week was already planned, and it was "Pinkie Pie's peculiar proposal."