Continuity Disrupted

by Doug Graves

81 Humility

At the Golden Oaks Library Doug, Trixie, six fillies and one colt watch as five mares gallop into the woods to the northwest, horns ablaze. Seconds later a small yellow filly takes off, a small saddlebag on her side. Moments later, Applejack yells to Winona as the two reappear on the scene, “Alright, girl, you got this here scent? That’s Spike’s blood! We need you to follow it!”

Winona barks once, nearly smudging her nose in the red splotched dirt before she takes off, Applejack hot on her paws.

Trixie blandly remarks, “So, do you think this is going to become a normal thing? Where those six galavant off to who knows where to do who knows what, and we get stuck here watching over the foals?”

“I’m not a foal!” shouts Scootaloo from atop Doug’s head.

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle yells from his arms, “We should be out there, helping too!”

Apple Bloom nods along as she rubs her rump, “Meringue went after them! Why can’t we?”

Doug sighs; Rainbow Dash left Scootaloo perched on his head, and with Apple Bloom on the ground that means the only thing keeping those three from charging off is him holding tight to Sweetie Belle. That and Scootaloo’s scooter is behind him but still in easy reach should she go for it.

“Sadly,” Doug flatly intones, “I fear we’ll be relegated to that role a lot.” The other three fillies in his arms are rapidly waking up; fortunately most are still trading yawns instead of conspiratorial glances.

“Great. Trixie does not appreciate her great and powerful talents being wasted on such a trivial pursuit.” Trixie, Pomarbo riding on her back and hunkering down, walks up to the library, though she stops short as she spots the prints of red. That and they could hear all the shouting that went on inside the library. Glancing around she can’t see another pony in the dark evening and for little wonder; it’s pitch black aside from her horn and the distant street light.

“Well, if that’s how you feel, it isn’t too late to back out now.” Doug marches behind Apple Bloom, walking the filly to the house. Her head keeps turning this way and that, eyes darting from patches of red to the woods beyond.

Trixie huffs, then groans, her eyes rolling as she looks to Sweet Apple Acres. “We could lock them all in a box.”

Doug rolls his eyes, “Why would you want to teach them how to break out of things? That seems like the exact opposite of the kind of trick we should teach those three. They’re hard enough to keep track of on the best of days.”

“Who said anything about teaching, or tricks?”

Doug rolls his eyes, “Right.”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom exclaims, though every time she tries to go a different direction she finds Doug’s foot in the way. “Ah thought we were gonna help!”

“We are going to help,” Doug states, grunting as he steps around the puddles and into the library. He grimaces at the wreckage scattered around. “Maybe not in the way you want to, though.”

“Aww,” moans Sweetie Belle, “Rarity makes me clean up the store all the time.”

“Yeah, well, somepony has to do it,” Doug forcefully states, moving to the relatively clean kitchen, soon joined by the rest of the fillies. “Do I need to list why we aren’t going to traipse on into the woods after them?”

“I think you’re going to anyway,” mutters Scootaloo.

“Yup!” Doug sets one filly after another onto the kitchen floor as Trixie’s hard hoofsteps clump into the kitchen. He searches through the cabinets and grabs detergent, a bucket, and cloth. “So, who wants to forestall that by volunteering?”

The fillies glance around at each other, none wanting the onerous job of removing blood from the wood.

“First off, only Scootaloo is fast enough to catch up to them. On her scooter. Through the dark forest.” Doug raises an eye, “I probably don’t need to tell you all just how bad an idea that is.”

Scootaloo keeps muttering, “Laying it on pretty thick,” as she grabs the bucket in her teeth. She fills it at the sink. Apple Bloom grabs one of the cloths, then looks at the floor. She passes the cloth to Sweetie Belle, who takes it with a huff.

“How come I have to wipe up the blood?” groans Sweetie Belle, her horn lighting to push the cloth away from her. It only moves a few inches.

“That’s because you’re all helping.” Doug motions to the library books strewn about and knocked off shelves, the pillow, and the mouse. “How about this.” He motions to Apple Bloom, “You all look pretty tired. If you don’t want to do a task, pass it on to somepony else. They can do the same, all the way down to me.”

“Okay!” exclaims Sweetie Belle, passing the cloth to Applebaum. She looks at the cloth, then at the mouse, grimaces, then passes the cloth to Lemon. Lemon takes the cloth, a heavy-hearted hint of a glance at Doug before she lays the cloth in front of Hedge. She yawns, nudging it towards Pomarbo as she curls into a ball. The earth pony colt takes the cloth with a shaky foreleg, glancing at the spots on the wood. He hesitantly passes the cloth to Doug, looking up at his sire with pleading eyes.

“Alright, then,” Doug says quietly, pulling out a dustpan. “Sweeping up the ash.”

“Nope!” Apple Bloom says with a giggle, passing the dustpan to Sweetie Belle.

“Nope!” Sweetie Belle echoes, the dustpan moving down the line of fillies just like the cloth.

Doug takes a deep breath, letting loose a long sigh, “Right.” He holds up a single feather, “Picking up loose items.”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle giggle as the process repeats itself, Scootaloo holding the full bucket with a scowl.

“Making sure the food is good, and dinner is ready.”

“Picking up the books.”

“Organizing the books.”

“Putting Twilight and Spike’s room back together.”

“Throwing out the trash.”

“Dealing with the dead mouse.”

The last item gets a series of ‘ewws’ and groans in addition to the chirped ‘nopes!’, many of the fillies giggling along as yet another item is passed back to Doug.

Doug stares at the pile of chores that need to be done, an apologetic look to Trixie. “Well, that’s it. If you are all too tired, then we’ll get some cots set up for you.”

“Nope!” chirps Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle quickly following.

“That last one wasn’t a request,” Doug grunts out, a bit of harshness peeking through his mostly neutral voice. He walks up the stairs, followed by a line of grinning fillies.

“He can’t be serious,” Trixie states, looking at the pile of items representing the chores that need to be done. She grumbles, “This was supposed to be our night together! And he’s going to ruin it with chores?” Her horn flares, mixing a bit of the detergent into the water as she levitates the cloth over, attacking the first stain with a vengeance.

“He’s gotta have some plan,” Scootaloo grunts out, putting the pail of water next to the closest stain. She glares up at the train of fillies, muttering, “Whatever happened to helping your sister out?”

Upstairs, Doug takes sheet after sheet, doubling them up and folding them on the floor to make rudimentary cots. The five fillies and one colt watch. Doug grabs the pillows from the closet, the six laying down.

Apple Bloom complains as Doug turns to leave, “My pillow is too lumpy.”

Doug stops in his tracks and takes a deep breath. He goes back to the closet, takes out a different pillow, and swaps it for Apple Bloom’s. He smiles down, obviously forced but at the same time genuine. “Good night, Apple Bloom.” He goes to each filly in turn, a light tussle of their mane before he goes back downstairs.

Doug walks downstairs, noting Trixie’s scowl and Scootaloo’s resignation. “You know,” he says, trying to interject a little joviality into his tone, “Pinkie Pie finds that singing during dreary chores helps them go quicker.”

“I am not singing while I clean up Twilight Sparkle’s mess,” Trixie spits out through clenched teeth. “Or her dragon’s.”

Scootaloo giggles, “Hey, I bet I’m a pretty awesome singer! We can make up the lyrics as we go along! Like, ‘here I am, a scrubbing away! All the livelong night!’”

“Day,” corrects Trixie, still scowling at the filly’s horribly off-key singing.

“See? You’re really good at this!” grins Scootaloo. “Let’s see. The blood of an owl, it’s making my hooves all foul!” She takes a detergent soaked cloth of her own, grimacing at first as she presses into the nearest stain, suppressing her grimace. It’s better than tree sap!

“If this wasn’t from a fowl, I’d say it came from somepony’s bowel.” Trixie sighs as she shakes her head, the first spot mostly cleaned up. “Trixie thinks this job is the bowels.”

Doug moves over, trash can in hand. He grabs the dead mouse, then starts filling it with loose feathers and the ash, though he leaves the longer owl feathers that might work as quills. “This smell might be sour, and on my face put a glower, and even though it might take an hour, we’ll leave it smelling like a flower!”

A smile peeks out on Trixie’s muzzle, the saccharine attitude surprisingly infectious. It’s too bad her color changing spells aren’t permanent, but at least her levitation can pick up a lot of the gunk from the wood without getting her hooves dirty. Scootaloo, though, will definitely need a bath afterwards.

Their voices carry to the upstairs, rousing Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. They sigh, glancing over at the empty cot next to them. Sweetie Belle starts, “You don’t think it was wrong of us to make them do all the work, do you?”

Apple Bloom sighs, “Hey, Doug said that if we didn’t want to help out, we didn’t have to. And Ah’m tired.”

Sweetie Belle slowly nods, “Yeah, I’m tired too.” She sinks into her cot, but the sheets no longer feel as comforting as when she first lay on them. She rests there for another moment or two before commenting, “I bet Scootaloo is pretty tired.”

“Yeah, you think? Rainbow had her running laps around the pond. And then trying to fly over the pond! Ah’ve never seen her so happy to get drenched, that time she nearly made it!”

“Yeah.” Sweetie Belle’s frown deepens, “And she’s downstairs. Working.”

“Ugh,” Apple Bloom moans as she covers her face with her less lumpy but still not her normal soft pillow. “Ah’m tired.”

Her only response is the clip-clop of hooves on the stairs, the torrent of hooves following after just like the rain that begins pounding on the house.

Apple Bloom looks over, not a single cot occupied any more. Ugh, why does she let herself get talked into these things? She walks downstairs, though pauses at Scootaloo’s happy expression. Not the glare she was expecting, but relief that her sisters are with her yet again.

Doug smiles as the tired fillies of the herd gather up, each taking a cloth, or picking up a book, or finding some manner to help put the library back together. Soon the cleaning is in full swing, the fillies rhyming what they are doing with how little they want to do it and how quickly they want the task to be over. He pauses in his cleaning to pull Trixie into a quick hug before working alongside the mare. “This’ll give us plenty of time, right?”

Trixie snorts, “Doug wishes he had more time to spend with the Great and Powerful Trixie! He is lucky she deigns to spend even the one night with him, when she could be out like his other mares, gallivanting off and probably rescuing more Princesses.”

Doug smirks, “Really? You want to be out there and driving away dragons?”

Trixie shrugs, “Those six do it. How hard can it be?” She motions to the areas of wood that they still need to get to, “Trixie would rather pay some poor sap to do this.”

Doug leans over, hugging the azure mare and kissing the side of her head. “Would you like that payment now or once we get back home?”

“Trixie likes the idea of a payment plan. You know what they say about compound interest.”

Comments

[badninja]

Well Doug did a good guilt trip. Now hopefully the foals will be more willing to help in the future.