Twilights Mane Passion

by Darkonshadows

24

Tress wiped her brow with a hoof, it was nearly lunchtime and she was already downright exhausted. She still kept up with Applejack and Big Mac, it was clearly obvious they had more stamina then even she did as they weren’t tiring nearly as badly. She might not have been out of shape, but she wasn’t nearly as fit as those two were.

Speaking of tired, Twilight’s horn was glowing red hot as she magically pushed the wagon back towards the homestead. Twilight had a lot of magic, but her body and horn could only take so much channeling before giving out. She was moving a lot of baskets filled to the brim and beyond with zap apples, getting as many of the apples back to the home as quickly as she possibly could.

“Okay Tress, you can stop. It’s about time for us to be getting to lunch. You’re looking mighty tired their partner. I’m actually surprised you’ve lasted this long.” Applejack sauntered on past Tress following in Twilight’s wake; she turned to her older brother and took notice of what part of Apple Acres they were in. “Big Mac, you might want to get the next load of zap apples, we’re stopping for lunch. Poor Twilight doesn’t look like she can take much more of this! Heavens to Betsy, we’re way ahead of schedule if we’re at this point in the orchard. We might not miss any zap apples at all this time.”

Upon reaching the home and offloading the apples, Twilight stopped using her magic as her head was aching fiercely. Her horn was sizzling; it felt like it was almost catching on fire. She had never worked her magic like this before. A few seconds of resting on the ground a green spark of magic zipped up to her and exploded into a roll of parchment. Twilight smiled, that was her daughter that just performed a magic messaging spell. She stayed lying on the ground where she was and read it by hoof.

Tress was dripping with sweat as she walked over to a place near the house and planted her plot on a nearby bench. She looked to the well, the nearby corn crop, a tired Twilight reading something and Applejack also meandering in looking only slightly tired. How did that mare do this every day?

“I may have been a bit wrong about you two, you’ve helped us a ton. Though I see that you’re both wearing out mighty quick like and it’s just about time to get started on the vittles anyway. You two rest a spell, you really deserve it.” Applejack was about to walk off only to be stopped when Tress poked her. “Yes, do you need something sugar cube?”

“Can I try one of these zap apples?” If Tress was going to be getting them out of the trees for the rest of the day, she would at least want to try one. She heard Twilight making some sound from her position on the ground as Big Mac went out to pick up one last haul before lunch. Tress saw the hangdog expression on a tired Twilight’s face. “Oh and do you make cider?”

“Well sure as an apple farm we do, we make some of the greatest cider using the oldest of methods. Though are you sure you can handle a zap apple? Those things really pack quite a kick to the jaw and I know because I’ve tried one myself out of curiosity.” Applejack had been jolted so hard by the fantastic taste of an unrefined zap apple before, she wasn’t sure if Tress could handle it but she held one out to her all the same.

“Do you make specialty cider, such as honeyed cider?” Tress was worried when Applejack gave her an odd look as she took the rainbow colored apple in hoof.

“How would even you know about cider like that?” It wasn’t a big secret, it was just a really unique specialty item that was hard to make perfectly.

“A honey festival if you would believe it and my friend is a bit addicted to the stuff.” It wasn’t a joke either, one could easily see that the purple pony loved the stuff and Tress liked it well enough too. Tress preferred the taste of cranberries and pomegranate juice mixed together for a drink, she liked something more tart personally.

“Well something like that festival of yours would serve that stuff, its specialty cider though. I wouldn’t have problems making some of that for y’all.” Applejack was witness to a hoof being thrown in the air from the ground with a small gasp of victory; she snickered at Twilight’s joyous reaction despite how tired she looked.

“Speaking of doing something for someone else, I think Twilight needs to dunk her horn in a bucket of water.” Something was slowly etched into the dirt by the mare on the ground, Tress blinked. “Make that ice water, she’d know better than I would about what she needs for her horn at the moment. Anyway time to try one of these things out.”

Applejack stuck around to see the look on Tress’s face when she took her first bite out of the zap apple; they say the first bite of any apple was the best. It was kind of the opposite with a zap apple, the first bite was the most awkward and the taste only got better the more you eat it.

Eyeing the apple with some suspicion, Tress decided to just bite down on it. It tasted pretty darn good and she couldn’t understand why Applejack said it had a kick to it, sure it was tangy but it wasn’t anywhere near overboard on her taste buds.

“Um Tress, are you feeling okay there girl?” Applejack didn’t understand, the apple should have really given her quite a shock. Not that the farmer hadn’t gotten used to the taste of zap apples, it’s just the first bite was always a bit of a thing to handle and quite a rush for first timers.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Tress just took another bite of the apple, its taste only got better after the first bite. She silently considered how awesome the magical rainbow apples tasted. “Hey Twilight you got to try one these, they taste pretty good. You wouldn’t mind if I had a few more of these things right?”

“Not at all, we never get all the zap apples harvested on time and this might be the first time it happens. Go on and have a few more Tress. I’m going to get that ice water for Twilight now.” It was strange to the farmer that Tress didn’t get the shock of her life eating that apple. Applejack knew that they were called zap apples for a reason. The reason was you get zapped for eating one without it being processed or having gotten used to the jolt from eating them. It usually tended to cause a pony to jump and their hair to stand on end. Tress had to be some kind of mare to handle a zap apple without reacting to its special properties.

Within a minute Applejack had placed a bucket of ice water next to Twilight and the unicorn immediately drove her face into it. Steam immediately started to rise from the bucket. Walking over to the zap apples Applejack picked one out and bit into it. She liked the jolt and was used to it, it was as strong a rush of energy as ever. She quickly finished off her zap apple and then left to go help make lunch. The zap apples certainly weren’t weakening in their strength at all and were just the same as they always were.

Twilight finally pulled her head from the bucket of cold water, half of which evaporated, some of which she drunk and the last bit of it sat at the bottom. She upended the bucket into her mouth and drank the last of the water not caring at all what it might taste like.

“Better?” Tress asked after a moment and Twilight nodded to her while grimacing.

“Much, thank you.” Twilight stretched out her spine with an audible pop and made her way over to Tress. She levitated one of the apples they’ve been harvesting to her and looked it over. Her head had a slight migraine from doing even that much. “Hmm… how do they taste?”

“Well they’re not spicy if that’s what you’re asking, it’s nothing like the liquid rainbow topping your father uses for some of his cooking. It’s got a really nice tang to it though.” Innocently enough Tress bit into a second zap apple, she really liked this fruit. Too bad it was a rare seasonal randomly occurring phenomenon of deliciousness.

Twilight bit into her apple and felt a huge jolt go through her body; it was like she had been hit by a bolt of lightning or had consumed a lot of coffee too fast. Eating more of it, the second bite tasted a lot better than the first and she continued on to finish the apple. It was strange that an apple could get better while you’re eating it, but that’s probably the effect of it being a magical fruit. That first bite nearly knocked out her ability to stay standing and her hair was slightly frazzled. How had Tress handled eating a second one if it had that much of a first kick to it?

“You could have warned me that these things had quite a kick to them on the first bite Tress.” Now Twilight had to wonder why her friend look confused. The zap of the apple was something you couldn’t have ignored, unless you were completely used to it and even enjoyed it. This was Tress’s first time eating zap apples, something was odd about this but Twilight didn’t think too much of it.

“They really don’t have that much of a kick to them, the first bite is a bit strong but otherwise it’s really good.” Tress even bit into a third one and didn’t look like she even got jolted by the apple. “I know where we’re buying all our apples from now on.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac just sauntered on by leaving behind the wagon that needed to be unloaded.

Lunch was a nice thing for them or at least Twilight thought it was. The food didn’t rise up and try to kill everyone, which was Twilight’s definition of nice. That and the food tasted great, the Apples certainly knew how to cook and with more ingredients then their namesakes would imply. The peach cobbler was fulfilling in many ways, the carrot soup also wasn’t anything to sneeze at. They weren’t allowed to leave the table until they tasted the apple pie; it was a matter of pride for the Apple family.

They were introduced to a little red haired filly with a similar coat color to Fluttershy; her defining feature was a pink bow in her mane. She was an active and happy little filly with no cutie mark, kind of reminded them of Sweetie Belle somewhat. She was scampering around and even asking Twilight about random things, the filly had spent most of her life around other earth ponies and has hardly ever interacted with a unicorn or pegasus before. Her name was Apple Bloom, a name the two helpers had heard earlier but really hadn't asked about.

Twilight just knew she and Tress would be back to work real soon, they were enjoying the time to relax from all the back breaking work. It might just be horn breaking as well in her case, she had a slight headache. At least the distance she would have to travel through the orchard was a lot smaller now.

It was a long day already; it was only going to keep getting longer as the small break wasn’t enough for either Tress or Twilight to return to full strength. The Apple’s were a hardy family that worked hard and ran an entire orchard of this incredible size on their own and that wasn’t the only thing they ran. They had fields to plow, other crops to grow, chickens for eggs, fertilizer from the pigs they had, milk from the cows. Anything other than apples was a small side thing as this family was thoroughly in the business of growing apples.

They really hadn’t bothered to ask about it at lunch because it was readily apparent to them as the extra hooves. Applejack, Big Mac and Apple Bloom didn’t have their parents and Granny Smith was the closest thing to one for all of them. That old mare had to have seen many things and knows many a wondrous tale to share. Applejack and Big Mac were in the prime of their youths, strong and healthy. Apple Bloom likely didn’t have her parents growing up and mostly looked to her older siblings and grandmother as surrogates.

“Ready to get going again ladies, we still got work to do so get those hooves a moving.” Applejack looked like she did that morning, perfectly fine and ready to go another round with the special apple harvest.

“By all that is good with the world, we’re working with a pair of tireless maniacs!” This caused a fit of laughter from every pony within hearing range. Tress was receiving a particularly unusual look from a giggling Twilight as she set out on her own through the trees. Twilight obviously found it humorous for a different reason and Tress knew it had to do with her calling other ponies’ maniacs, especially when given the context of their lives thus far.

As she walked along through the orchard, Tress felt a strange sensation going through her body. She shrugged off the strange feelings, her stomach was probably just digesting those zap apples and all the other stuff she ate.

Author's Note:

No chapter tomorrow or the day after.

Going back to the Rarity thing, I was thinking back to how she treated Twilight after she first met Rainbow Dash and got completely covered in mud. Twilight’s mane and tail were a mess and she was forced into outfits and had her hairstyle played with by Rarity for a while, she left the boutique with Spike out of fear of what Rarity would do to her next. That is the kind of the scene I was playing to avoid a few chapters ago with her forcefully pushing her generosity onto others.

Now onto some theoretical issues that might come up in the story.

Trixie's presence in Ponyville is part of a convoluted number of chain reactions starting from Barb's birth. Imagine if you will a scenario where a young filly Trixie is walking up to the school for gifted unicorns and bears witness to a dragon bursting through the roof of the school after a rainbow explodes across the sky and runs away because of it scaring her. Now imagine because of Barb existing, Trixie instead didn't get scared off and managed to get into the school.

There’s also Sunset Shimmer still being Celestia’s student to consider as well, how will this affect Celestia’s plans for a student to help save her sister from being the villainous Nightmare Moon? Until Sunset actually appears in Ponyville the Nightmare Moon plot can’t happen or can it? Celestia plans to have her student save her sister and her current student isn’t exactly the most selfless pony in the world and as such Celestia has a basket full of easily crushed eggs.

Note this is all rather theoretical and subject to change. Just because the story isn’t focused on them doesn’t mean they still can’t be plot relevant or still moving around in the background doing things outside the view and scope of the story taking place where my focal characters are. I’ve read so many fan fiction stories where a character would need at least ten chapters worth of reading to explain why they ended up where they did when they weren’t the main character or focus in the story at all. I've read some pretty convoluted things to be sure.

Sure I’m smart, but I’m not a great writer. A great writer would have actually planned some of how their story is supposed to go instead of just making stuff up as they went along as long as I have up to this point. This theoretical stuff is the thing that comes to my mind well after the fact that I wrote the early chapters which is where they would initially take effect.

Quite frankly I’m surprised to have even gotten as far as I have or as many favorites and comments, especially with a random number generator for a mind.

Comments

[John Tannius]

Regardless of how you feel, I am enjoying this story immensely. I even like that you figuratively turn left when I really expected a right turn with Rarity. It's always refreshing to me to have something different and unique when I'm reading. Too many stories fall into cliches.

As far as making things up as you go, you'd be surprised how many professional authors go that route. Heck, I never thought more than a chapter or two ahead in my own writing. Granted I only ever finished one story and haven't written anything in years.

Anyway, I like the amount of detail you put into your chapters. There is no need to hurry up and get to the point even though it will be an exciting journey I'm sure.

[Imperium Bedlam]

Man this story is just fantasticals, that is now a word, I can't wait for the next chapter, but it looks like I'll have to wait a few days before I can read it.

[Hilltopper2]

Tress is getting her prehensile hair back. Muahahaha.

[ultrasolarflare]

*stares with an insane look* its happening she is returning mane-iac will soon return

[King of Kings]

especially with a random number generator for a mind.

Eh...at times, it's better to have a random number generator for a mind while you're writing stories. Trust me, I know.