Applejack and Applebloom in Appleoosa

by Metal Pony Fan

Applebloom

"Come on, Applebloom! Rise and shine! Up and at'em!"

I rolled over in my bed and pulled the quilt over my head. Why won't my sister let me sleep? Applejack's been yelling at me to get out of bed for at least five minutes.

"Applebloom!" She sounds serious this time. "You get out of that bed right this minute, or so help me, Ah'll have Big Macintosh drag you out mattress and all!"

I reluctantly rolled out of bed. I called her bluff on that threat once before, and I don't dare give her any trouble about going to school anymore. But school's on a break this week while they fix up the giant hole in the roof. She should know that! And she usually lets me sleep for another 30 after sunrise, but now the sun isn't even up! What's her problem?

I walked towards the door to-

"DONK!!"

"Ow!" Ok, I thought I was walking towards the door, but that was the dresser. At least, it felt like the dresser, it's so dark in here that I can't tell. And does my head really sound that hollow when it hits something?

I felt my way along the wall until I reached the door. When I opened it, a blur as orange as the morning sun ran past me. That was my big sis. She was runnin' back an' forth, grabbin' stuff and crammin' it into that big ol' rolling suitcase my brother bought her.

It's weird, Big Mac does all the shopping, but he never buys anything for himself. He also does all the cleaning. And most of the cooking, and most of pretty much everything.

"And pack yer things!" she yelled, apparently not noticing that I was right behind her. Pack? Why does she want me to pack? And what is she packin' for. Are we goin' somewhere? The train doesn't even start runnin' until 8:30.

"Why?" I asked as I rubbed my eyes, "are we goin' somewhere? It's the middle of the night, sis. Asides, I ain't got nothing ta pack anyway."

"Now what did I tell you bout them double negatives?" she said in her lecture voice, rolling her eyes an' tiltin' her head at me. "Ya ain't got anythin' is how ya go an' say it proper." She tossed a few last things in the suitcase and tried to close it. Just like I try to get my cutie mark, unsuccessfully.

"Well, I ain't got anythin' ta pack. Can Ah go back to bed now?"

"May Ah," she corrected me, "and no you may not. We gotta hit the early train ta Appleoosa." She started jumping up and down on the case in an effort to make it latch shut.

I yawned. "But the train doesn't go anywhere till 8." I could have gotten another full hour of sleep.

"Twilight." Jump. "Said." Jump. "There." Jump. The case clicked shut and Applejack slipped off of it. She caught herself before she fell completely and gave the suitcase a glare. I don't see why though, it was her fault that she slipped. "There's one headed through 'round about seven. Now grab yer bow and get ready."

"Ah'm goin', Ah'm goin'." I trudged back to my room and grabbed my hairbow. I hope trudged is the right word, Sweetie Belle told me it was when you walk slowly because you don't want to do something. I should probably ask my big brother to buy a dictionary.

As I was walking out of my room, the sun had just started to come up. In the now- What did she call it again? Oh, right! Illuminated! In the now illuminated room, I could see my crayons on the dresser next to my photos. I grabbed the crayons and went back out to the living room. I gave both the crayons and the hairbow to Applejack and she helped me put the bow in my hair. "Sis, where's Big Macintosh? He's usually the one who gets my bow."

"Ah don't know, Sugarcube." When she finished with my bow, she tossed the crayons in the suitcase. Kinda funny how you can always stuff one more item into a suitcase, no matter how full it it is. "Ah ain't seen him since lunch."

"Did something happen to him?" I don't think we'd be going to Appleoosa if something bad happened to him, but what if something happened to him that wasn't bad? I don't really know what that could be, but it could happen.

"He goes ta that dojo thing of his every night, if he didn't show up, Pete or Fluttershy would have told us by now." She opened the door and rolled the suitcase out to the porch. "Mac probably just stayed out too long and slept at the gym."

"But ain't he comin' with us?"

"If we can find him, but Ah think it's just gonna be us sisters this time."

"But-"

"Now look here, Mac is a big pony and he can take care a' himself. It's right there in his name, Big Macintosh. So cheer up, we gotta go. Granny's waitin' fer us, Twilight already took her to the station." She grabbed the handle of the suitcase and started walking across the porch.

I started following her. "Wait!" We almost forgot! "Ain't ya gonna leave a note? For Big Macintosh?"

She stopped and spit out the case's handle. "That's a mighty fine idea sugarcube." She went back in the house and I tagged along behind her. "What should it say?" She went into the kitchen and dug around in one of the drawers. I thought about it while Applejack fished out a pencil and a pad of those sticky notes that Mac bought.

"It needs to say where we're going in case he decides to follow us," I said.

"Gah ta Afaoosa," Applejack said around the pencil as she wrote, "aythi' ese?"

"He needs ta know who all went, so he ain't lookin' for nopony."

"If Ganny and Afe-oom."

"And how long we'll be there."

"E ack i ree days."

"And why we're goin', then ya can sign it."

"ew ree, Afejack," she spit the pencil back into the drawer, "done! Ah'll just leave this on the table, then we'll go."

"Put it on the fridge instead." Big brother doesn't eat at the table if he thinks noponies looking.

"Good thinkin' AB!" She stuck the note to the fridge and headed back for the door. "Now let's go get ourselves a tree!"

I followed her, all but, halibut, no, albeit? Yeah! Albeit at a slower pace. "Why the big rush for a new tree? Ya spent weeks plannin' out the last tree."

Applejack was tapping her hoof as she waited beside the door. "Ah assume yer talkin' 'bout Bloomberg? This right here is a slightly different situation. There's a merchant who's got one left, and they're gonna leave town with it in three days. It's s'posed ta be some fancy northern tree that grows apples in winter, so we're gonna go see what all the fuss is about."

"But why are we staying for three days?" Once I reached the porch, I climbed on top of the suitcase. I ain't walking to the train station this early in the mornin'. Besides, sis has plenty of energy. "Couldn't we just buy the tree an' come home?"

"We could," she walked up to the case and dumped me off of it, "and we might end up doin' just that, but we gotta be prepared to haggle and get a better price."

"Ok." Why'd you dump me? That wasn't very nice. "Maybe I can get a cutie mark in buyin' and sellin' stuff."

"Ya tried that one already, didn't ya?" She grabbed the handle of the cart and pulled it down the steps.

"Just with apples."

"And this is a whole tree." The suitcase wheels got stuck the moment it touched the grass in the front yard. "Ya might want to start with somethin' smaller." Started shaking the case and fiddling with the wheels in an effort to get the case rolling again.

"Like what?" I don't think that thing's gonna move.

"Uh-" She gave up on making the cart roll and yanked it up into the air before throwing it on her back, uprooted grass chunks and all. "We'll discuss it on the train, sun's risin' fast and we need ta get movin' afore we miss it." She took of at her rodeo running pace with the case on her back. With a sigh, I start following her dust trail. Maybe if I get left behind, I can do something with Big Macintosh. We had a lot of fun last time sis was out of town.

"... ..."

What was that?

"... ... ... ... ..."

It sounds like somepony talking. Is it coming from the barn?

"... ... ... .. ... too."

I know that voice! That's Big Macintosh! Yay! I get to stay! Hey! That rhymed! Maybe I can get a cutie mark for writing poetry!

I was just about to make a break for the barn when Applejack came running back. "Alright, if ya can't keep up, Ah can carry ya, but yer not even tryin'!"

"Ah don't have ta! Mac's in the barn," I pointed, "so Ah can just stay here!" Why did I point? Applejack knows where the barn is.

She rolled her eyes. "And what would Mac be doin' in the barn at a time like this? He don't drink, so Ah know he ain't drunk an' sleepin' it off, he wouldn't start his chores without breakfast, and he'd tell us if he brought somepony home. Ah can't really see any other reason he'd be in there."

"WAHH!" Before I could say anything else, she grabbed me by the tail and tossed me over her head. I landed on her back atop the suitcase which she had somehow managed not to drop.

"And hold on." With that, she ran back towards Ponyville. She didn't even stop to open the gate, she just jumped right over it. The rest of the trip to and through Ponyville was a blur. Mostly because I had my eyes clamped shut and was hanging onto the end of Applejack's mane like my life depended on it, but also because she was running really fast.

As we approached the train station, I could see a purple mass waving at us. It was Twilight, the unicorn librarian. She's a friend of my sister and comes to my school all the time to give presentations on things. But why is she meeting us at the station? Spike wasn't with her, so he's probably still asleep. He's helped my friends and me with enough of our crusades for us to know how much he sleeps. I wish I could be sleeping. Wait a minute! I've got an idea!

"Hey Applejack," Twilight said as we got closer, "hi Applebloom." I have to time this carefully.

"Hey ya there Twi," said my sister, "uh, where's Granny?" I have to wait for the perfect moment.

"Oh," Twilight pointed at the train, "she's already on the train, she's taking a nap in one of the private cars. She said she wanted to be wide awake when you start talking price."

Applejack let out a chuckle. "That sounds like her." I yawned, a nap sounds nice right about now. That's it, I can't wait any longer. I have to make my mo- "By the way, Twi, mah little sister's 'bout ta use her pouty face ta get ya ta let her stay at the library." There was an awkward pause and I was left with my mouth hanging open, the words I was about to speak dead and falling from my tongue like so many bad apples. Well, that plan's ruined. How'd she know what I was about to do? That honesty element thing hasn't given her metal telemetry, has it? Applejack turned to look at me with a smile. "Mental telepathy? Nah! I'm just bein' yer big sister. Mac does the same thing ta me sometimes."

"Oh." I climbed off of my sister's back. Maybe the telepathy won't work if I'm farther away from her. "Then what's telemetry?" Oops. I shouldn't have asked that.

Twilight cleared her throat. Aw, come on! It's too early in the morning for this. "Telemetry is a term colloquially used to denote any sort of flight data, but specifically refers to a measurement of a distance made by calculating a known distance against a subtending angle. For example, know that point A is a certain distance from the observer and that the sine of X over..." She's still talking, but I'm still too tired. Oh well, I guess I'll sleep on the train.

"FFWHEEEEEEEET!!!"

"AAAHH!" I yelled. Not tired anymore, stupid whistle.

"... then if you convert that into radians- you do know what radians are, don't you?" Is she still talking? "Applebloom?"

"Huh?" Oh, right. "Radians are a way to measure angles, two pi radians to a full circle, and radius times radians equals the length of an arc."

"Uh, yeah." Twilight gave my sister an odd look. "That's exactly it."

Applejack shook her head. "Don't look at me, Mac handles all a' that." And he doesn't make it all boring like Twilight or miss Cherrilee do sometimes. But I don't see why everypony gets so surprised when I say stuff like that. I mean, building catapults and stuff takes a lot of calculatin'.

We were all standing around and not saying much when the conductor started yelling. "All aboard! Next stop Appleoosa!"

"Sorry Twi," my sister said to her friend,"gotta go. Come on Applebloom." She hurried past the conductor and onto the brightly colored train.

"It's gonna be a long day," I muttered to no one in, um, sounds like party cooler, particular, that's the one. I said to no one in particular and followed after her.

Comments

[Lucky424]

So it's a first person AB fic? Cool.

I mean, building catapults and stuff takes a lot of calculatin'.

AB is now my favourite CMC.