Ch. 3 - A Brand New Start
The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian
A Brand New Start
On any list of places in Ponyville to wait out a good, long, afternoon soak, Sugarcube Corner ranked at the top. Admittedly it was a short list, being as Ponyville did not have very much to put on the list other than the spa, where you could soak in warm mud instead of the cold mud outside, or the bowling alley where they discouraged any form of mud at all. Sugarcube Corner outranked them all, because it had something no other business in the small town could match: Plenty of Pinkie Pie’s Pastries and Pies (on sale during rainy days at 20% off).
Needless to say, the bakery tables were nearly all filled with happy ponies, all nice and snuggly warm while munching away on baked goods and watching the chilly rain outside. One table in particular had become slightly more loaded than most, as Pinkie Pie had brought the long-absent tutor one of everything, and stayed afterwards in case he needed more.
“I tell you Pinkie, this is what I missed from this town the most. You have the most delicious muffins in all of Equestria. And your pie! It is simply heavenly. I could put my nose down in it and not come out until tomorrow.”
Pinkie Pie giggled and turned slightly more pink while scooting the chair closer. “Oh, stop it. You’re making me blush. Anything else?” She leaned nearer to the green stallion and looked into his eyes, blinking rapidly.
“Your cookies are without equal, your donuts divine, your pastries perfection. The cake you make is baked without flake, your frappe makes me happy, your desserts taste so good it hurts, the coffee is cataclysmic, and the milk—” Green Grass took a sniff before taking a sip “—tastes a little off. Is the icebox out of order?”
“No, silly. The icebox works perfectly. We were all out of milk, so I got you some foal formula.”
The spray of non-milk reached halfway across the room as Green Grass spasmed in the middle of a deep gulp. Coughing and spluttering, he shoved a napkin into his face and tried to rescue some degree of composure until Pinkie Pie said, “Or it could be from Mrs. Cake, she’s been pumping for the twins. Oh, somepony’s at the door. Better get it.”
The happy pink pony bounced over to the front door and flung it open. “Applejack! What are you doing out in the rain?”
“Delivery. Mr. Cake said you were about out of milk, thought I’d run you out some fresh before ya do somethin’ silly with your substutin’.”
“Too late,” gasped Green Grass from the floor, still coughing.
“Hay, I recognize that voice.” A damp, rain-slickered head poked inside the bakery door and regarded the stallion under the table with a neutral stare. “Grassie, I heard you already met Twilight and our town’s resident dragon.”
“Oh no,” moaned Green Grass and put a hoof over his head. “It’s started all over again. What did you hear?”
“Not much really. Just that you lit out of the library like your tail was on fire, squealing like a little foal when you saw little ol’ Spike. An that Twi threw you out like yesterday’s newspaper after you went peeling back in there with a bucket of water and soaked ‘em both.”
Green Grass winced. “How widespread are the rumors?”
“Well, ah heard it from two pegasi on the weather team on my way over here, and Twilight.” Green Grass cringed and added a second hoof over his head. “Oh, and Ditzy says not to worry none, ‘cause her little filly is really brave, and will toughen you up right quick.” A tablecloth was added to the hooves. “Oh, and when I told Rarity, she said you can have your classes in the boutique instead of the library, if yer too afraid of little ol’ Spikey Wikey.”
“My reputation,” declared Green Grass dramatically, “is toast. Thank you, Pinkie Pie.” He took a tentative nibble at the toast Pinkie had given him and smiled thinly. “Your toast is the most.”
“Oh! Oh! I know what we could do!” Pinkie bounced around the room, balancing a full milk bottle on the end of her nose. “We could take you to the spa, and dye your coat and mane to some really silly color. Like pink! You could be my brother that I never had! Or my sister that I never had! Only I have sisters, and you wouldn’t be able to look like my sister unless—”
“No!” Green Grass came out from under the table like a shot. “Here, let me help you with getting that milk back to the icebox, Pinkie. I’m certain this will all blow over by tomorrow, and nobody will remember a thing about it.”
“Well, ah’m pretty sure Twilight will remember,” said Applejack sternly while unloading bottles of milk inside the bakery door. “She remembers everything, and I think you kinda scared her a mite bit with yer antics.”
The tutor resumed his place at the table once he had helped move all the bottles to the cooler, and gave a sideways glance at Applejack, who was still standing patiently in the rain at the open door. “Um, A.J. Could you run over to the library and apologize for me?” he asked hesitantly.
“You ain’t changed none since last year,” huffed Applejack. “Tryin’ to get other ponies to cover for your messes. I suppose if you can’t get me to do your job, you’ll pawn it off on yer kids this year just like before.”
“Of course not!” objected Green Grass, who had been thinking that exact same thing. “But it’s raining right now. How about I write a nicely worded apology letter, and hide from both of them until next year when my circuit comes around here again?”
“No.”
“I could send her a nice cake with frosting that says ‘Twilight Sparkle and Spike, I apologize for dumping a bucket of water on you, signed Green Grass,’ would that do the trick? Thank you Pinkie.” Green Grass took the cake Pinkie gave him and checked the spelling. Perfect, as always.
“That’ll be twenty two bits, please. We’re having a special on apology cakes.”
Applejack shook her head, scattering droplets across the bakery floor from her wet mane. “Nope, yer gonna have to go do it in person. You should still take the cake though.”
“It’s half banana and half marble chip!” chirped Pinkie Pie happily. “They’ll love it. And we can have balloons and streamers and ice cream and—”
“All right! I give up. Just as soon as it quits raining, I’ll go over to the library.”
“Good,” declared Applejack smugly before looking up into the clouds and shouting, “Ok, Gassy⁽*⁾ said yes!”
(*) A nickname he had picked up last year after placing second in the Chimichanga Eating Contest at Ponyville’s ‘Fiesta Mexicolt’
—
Sunlight streamed out from the sky as a half-dozen pegasi pulled the clouds away in a line between Sugarcube Corner and the library. Knowing defeat, Green Grass could do nothing but shake his head and put his damp hat and cloak back on for the walk.
“You know, for the Element of Honesty, you’re awfully sneaky.”
Applejack chuckled. “Ah got a little sister. Just be glad she’s not one of yer students this year.”
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Sometimes honesty is knowing which bits of the truth to withhold for someone's own good.
Also, I doubt that apology cake's going to survive the trip to the library intact...
Nice one AJ, that was beautifully done.
The Pinkie Pie shenanigans were wonderful.
Greengrass shouldn't be too worried; everypony is scared of Twilight Sparkle. Everypony. Especially after the Miss Smarty Pants incident.
"And your pie! It is simply heavenly, I could put my nose down in it and not come out until tomorrow.”
Bad brain! shame on you, stop thinking like that...
I'm going to pony hell...
1896768 Considering Pinkie's reaction there's a 50/50 shot she was thinkin' that way too.
“GRassy,I heard you already met Twilight and our town’s resident dragon.”
Flatulent pony is best pony.
24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6iigiqiKX1ra443jo1_400.gif
...here, have a slow
clopclap for that one...Wait, what did AJ do? I think the who thing flew over my head.
Great story so far, I don't think I have seen anybody yet with an idea like this, although I'll admit that I was a mite disappointed when I looked at the tags and saw that the 'travelling tutor' wasn't Trixie. Oh well, Greengrass seems endearing enough
Oh, and now I really want a banana cake... do they even make those?
Nice, one, AJ!
1732287
“It’s half banana and half marble chip!” chirped Pinkie Pie happily. “They’ll love it.
-I just hope they don't get the two sides confused... then again Pinkie probably already had that problem if she was going to, and now has an established procedure for which half has the stuff that is a hazard to Pony tooth and digestive tract. Said procedure invented by Twilight of course... or maybe Twilight just has a habit of biting into things extra carefully for the first few bites?
Sunlight streamed out from the sky as a half-dozen pegasi pulled the clouds away in a line between Sugarcube Corner and the library. Knowing defeat, Green Grass could do nothing but shake his head and put his damp hat and cloak back on for the walk.
-Nice one...
“You know, for the Element of Honesty, you’re awfully sneaky.”
Applejack chuckled. “Ah got a little sister. Just be glad she’s not one of yer students this year.”
-Both very good points (and thank Celestia for the last one).
Well, this was interesting. Also, I'm not going to comment on the pie part. It was either the greatest dirty coincidence or the funniest intentionally written dirty joke ever.
1896768
Oh, good. I wasn't the only one to think that.
Just because you're honest doesn't mean you can't be sneaky as sin
I was actually drinking milk when I started reading this chapter and the whole breast milk thing killed it for me. It was funny though, so I have that going for me, which is nice.
AJ, parting the heavens for the sake of getting the upper hoof.
Ah, you spelled it “Grassy” in the previous chapter. Might want to standardize it one way or the other.
9466292 Huh, thought I had all those picked out. Missed this one, I guess. I must have been thinking about The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam, where I had to exterminate that typo in three source documents (since it's so large) Thanks.
While I understand the alliteration, I have to ask: cataclysmic? That's the word you went for? That word has such negative connotations that I would never think to stick it into such a string of compliments.
While AJ's arrival is almost too convenient, I love the comedic timing for this line.
I love lines like this for being, as I like to phrase it, so very human. Even if this entire story were to revolve around the elements being unfaltering ideals of their elements, the very concept of knowing how to deal with the antics of younger siblings is such a universal thing that it brings an element of relatability to the characters, and in this case also brings a smile to my face.
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Now, something I should bring up here is that I always have issues with people writing out AJ's accent, not because I have much problems reading it myself, but because I'm of the school of thought that says you should be able to communicate tone and accent from word choice alone, and not have to butcher words to get your point across. It doesn't help that I'm a skinny white boy from rural Texas and even AJ's official lines tend to skew toward the inauthentic to my ear. Also, I have a number of ESL friends who have serious barriers to reading accents, so I've become very mindful of that. Most people are not going to mind when an accent is not written out, but several people are going to be grateful that it isn't.
I mention that mostly to give some context to any later gripes I may have, more than say there's anything particularly wrong with the way the dialogue is written here. This is far from the worst I've seen AJ's accent written, so there's not much to say about it, but I will be complaining about a certain other character much later on.
9656674 Pinkie Pie just *screams* for the use of the word 'cataclysmic' in everything she does, including coffee. :)
AJ's accent is (literally) from the Grand 'Ol Opry. Ashleigh Ball admitted it once on an interview, as I recall. So we can blame Tennessee even though she's from Canada. So we can blame them too. Now, to be serious, writing accents are a lot different from speaking them. Literally, you can't write the way most southerners talk because the words become unreadable. (Side story: Had a southern employee once ask me for my Nam. My Naaaam. Took me a minute to figure out she meant name. Sigh. When you write AJ's accent, the best you can ask for is that half of the readers don't think you're accenting it enough, and the other half think you're doing it too much.
1896768
Considering how Cerberus is mostly watching for Tirek and his ilk you could probably slip out unnoticed. And then you're in Equestria. I don't see a downside to that.
Applejack came prepared with a plan. What are old friends for?
Apple Bloom... as a unicorn?
The horror that vision engenders can only be summed up with two words:
"Apple Boom."
10299072 You'd need three of them, of course.
Apple Boom - The farming unicorn who feels like the odd one in her family, and hopes to make it up with her cutie mark in apple products.
Scooterlou - The determined young earth pony who is destined for a racing career, once she finds a way to reach top speed on the ground without all that stuff getting in her way.
Sweetie Bell - The joyous young pegasus filly who loves to flit around town, singing her heart out, while her family and her sister keep trying to get her to be serious about life and consider an actual career.