“These here apples are the best darn apples in all of Equestria!” The yellow filly declared, pride for her family’s legacy swelling within her.
“Ah put mah name on it!”
She stuck a hoof out and tapped the “Apple” portion of the “Sweet Apple Acres” sign. Sure, their whole family was named after apples and it was more like the proverbial it was putting its name on her, but good salesponies are never bogged down by the details.
The mare the little salespony was addressing removed her propeller cap with one hoof and scratched her head with the other. At the same time. Without falling over.
Wow, ah’ thought only Pinkie could do stuff like that.
The young filly was quietly pushed aside by a big red hoof. A more experienced salespony knows that first impressions are essential when dealing with new customers.
“Please excuse mah ‘lil sis” the big red owner of the hoof began in his usual drawl, ignoring the indignant pouting from the filly in question. “She gets worked up over the lil’est things.”
Big Macintosh was known as an honest, hardworking sort of pony. The mares that knew him would even go as far as to call him chivalrous. He was never one to judge a pony by their flank, and believed that a pony’s actions spoke greater volumes than their appearance.
But when a pony’s cutie mark is a metal screw and a baseball, and they wear a propeller hat like it came from Carousel Boutique, and they act weirder than Pinkie Pie on a Friday night, it’s hard not to automatically get the preconception that this pony was inherently odd. Speaking of Pinkie Pie…
“If Pinkie Pie hasn’t already rolled out the welcome wagon, she’s ‘prolly plannin’ yer surprise welcome party now. If’in that’s the case, let me be the first ‘ta welcome you to Ponyville miss…”
The pink mare broke her oscillating stare with the applecart to give Big Macintosh an odd-looking, yet genuinely warm smile.
“Goodbye! Me am Screwball! Bad to meet you!”
Right, definitely a weird one.
Not that it was a problem. He’d met weirde- no, actually. He had to admit that not the hyperactive party pony, not the adorably cross-eyed mailmare, not even that Canterlot unicorn that sits on benches funny was as weird as this new pony. She even speaks funny like that zebra he met once, only instead of rhymes, this mare speaks in opposites. Either that, or she was just really pleased about disliking everything.
That wasn't even the weirdest thing about her. Besides somehow hovering several feet off the ground and having bizarre spiralling eyes that put the mailmare’s ocular condition to shame, she had spent the entire conversation staring at the apples like they were the mythical singing seaponies of old pony legend. Surely even a foreign pony would know-
"What am those?"
By Celestia's fetlocks...
"These? Why these are apples! Golden delicious apples! The yummiest fruit 'ta grow under 'tha Princess' sun!" Applebloom had managed to squeeze out from behind her brother's dumbstruck form and taken up the advertising reins.
"Don't listen 'ta that Banana seller, her 'nanas 'aint got nothn' on these apples."
The odd pink mare scratched at her white-streaked fluffy indigo mane at hearing that, confusion rolling over her features.
"How them do eat you?"
It took several seconds for Applebloom to decipher the question asked of her. It took several more for her brain to comprehend the question at all. To a member of the apple family, asking how to eat apples is like asking how to breathe.
"Sweet Uncle Nelly's fritters! Y'all mean ta say you've never eaten an apple 'fore!? Big Mac, she's never eaten an apple 'fore! How awful!"
For his part, Big Macintosh was still far too confused to respond.
"Why, that jus' won't do. Y'all eat an apple like this!"
In swift movement, Applebloom bucked the cart with enough force to topple the first apple on the pile and grab it in her teeth. With a technique that had been passed down the apple family for generations, she devoured the apple down to the core in what seemed like a single bite. She smiled as she saw a wave of clarity and understanding dawn on her customer's face.
"Now you try one, on the house!"
Screwball smiled as Applebloom reached for another apple from a nearby bucket.
Big Macintosh had finally managed to reclaim himself from the chaos of confusion at Applebloom's demonstration. It all made sense now. Clearly this mare came from a far off place where all fruit required a bit more preparation, like peeling a banana, and was unsure on the correct way to eat an apple. Now that she was shown the way, order was restored to his simple and straightforward reality, and all was right with the world.
Then the pink mare reached down and grabbed the apple core out of Applebloom's hoof. Before the filly could object, she put the core to her mouth and exhaled the flesh of the fruit back out and onto the core. Despite not being the one to eat it. Despite the apple having already been chewed and eaten. Despite every law in every atom of every thread in the fabric of reality screaming in horrified protest.
"Golly, ah've never seen anypony eat an apple like that 'fore."
"Mmmm! This am terrible! Screwball hate this!" the mare said, in a joyful tone that seemed to state the exact opposite.
"Uh, thanks? I think?" the yellow filly replied, beginning to catch on to how the odd pink mare behaved. She held a hoof to her chin before suddenly lighting up with a light bulb of understanding.
"Ah git it, 'yer from Op-o-sit land! Ah've heard about it from 'yer national holiday that Scootaloo keeps tellin' me it is! Though, it always seems 'ta be on a diff'rent day, 'an more than once in a year, but 'ah guess that's how it is in Op-o-sit land."
"Screwball have whole bucket empty of apples, no-thanks!"
Applebloom lept for joy. Her first sale, and a big one too. Salespony cutie mark, here she comes.
"Ah'right! That'll be ten bits please!"
Screwball smiled and reached behind herself. Suddenly, the lid of the locked treasure box behind the cart burst open and ten bits flew out in a perfect arc, disappearing behind the strange pink mare.
"Hey! You can't take- wait..." Applebloom's eyes widened as her little mind began making connections.
In "Opposite Land", you pay money by gaining it.
In "Opposite Land", the less money you have, the richer you are.
Last "Opposite Day", she gave all her bits to Scootaloo under the pretence that Scootaloo was giving her money in opposite.
Ergo, in "Opposite Land", she would be obscenely rich.
"That's it!" she yelled with sudden excitement. Using what little martial arts she knew she delivered a flying kick to the open treasure box, sending it flying off the cart and spilling its contents on the cobblestone marker streets.
"HEY EVERYPONY! FREE BITS!"
In an instant, ponies from all over the market were on the floor scooping up the spilled bits while other vendors looked on with shock and confusion.
"This is great Big Mac! We'll be the richest family in Opposite Land now! That'll show Diamond Tiara 'an Silver Spoon! Show 'em the Apple family is way richer than their snooty family! Big Mac? You okay there big brother?"
And that was when, for lack of a better term, Big Macintosh broke.
Working the Ponyville weather team office reception was definitely one of the most boring jobs in Ponyville.
First off, there's nothing to do. There was no point in organizing the team in the summer, all she had to do was hand the day's forecast to the team captain and challenge her to do it in ten seconds flat. Ten rainbow-streaked seconds later? Bam. Sky cleared. Work over, everypony go home. Don't bother with the paperwork, the captain never sends it in until the day before it's really needed.
The rare times the forecast called for something other than sunny, it's all handled by the higher-ups. It's the receptionist's duty to hand out the forecast instructions and then twiddle their hooves for the rest of the day.
Maybe that's why they had no permanent receptionist. What pegasus could stand being cooped up in a cloud building all day? Why not put it on the ground and get some poor unicorn or earth pony sap to do it.
The aquamarine pegasus reclined on her cloud chair, head resting on folded forelimbs and hind limbs thrown up on the reception desk. At least here there was nopony to tease her on the way she liked to sit. "Stop it, Skyra" they'd say, "You look as weird as that Canterlot unicorn who sits on benches funny." Who cares anyway? At least that proves somepony else was doing it too.
A sudden explosion of mechanic whirrs and clicks startled the reclined pegasus enough for her to fall out of her chair. It was a horrible sound of a million gears all turning and crunching, of lasers zipping back and forth, of conveyor belts being churned and pulled. It sounded like a cybernetic organism from the future coming online to search and destroy a young John Colter, just like in that movie she saw last week with Onbon.
Fearfully she peered over the top of the desk at the infernal contraption that had come alive. The eldritch machination that had slept for countless eons unused now sought to wreak its vengeance on the luddites of Ponyville. There it sat, whirring and churning, grinding and winding, blinking and beeping.
The dreaded fax machine of budget wastage.
Why the flipping Lunar hell did they get a three-hundred bit fax machine in the first place!? Nopony faxes! Aside from hardly anypony being able to afford it (nevermind trying to figure out how the bloody thing worked), conventional pegasus mail was still a reliable and trustworthy service. Say what you will of the Ponyville mailmare's eye condition, but when there's mail to be delivered it gets delivered on a supersonic grey rocket. An occasionally out-of-control, easily distracted and misdirected rocket, but hey, it gets there eventually.
But there it was, the dreaded useless fax machine actually in use. Lazily, she sat up in her roller chair and pushed herself towards the stupid thing with her wings. She grabbed the printed paper as it was being spat out with her dextrous, five-fingered nail-ending hands (she wished, stupid digit-less hooves). What in the name of Celestia's sun was so important it had to be faxed through?
A picture of a pink pony wearing a propeller cap and a goofy grin. Ha ha, real funny.
"Goodbye!"
"Goodbye to you to!" she shouted back at the paper as she threw it carelessly in the air. Stupid talking paper wasting her stupid talking time with its stupid talking- talking? Did the paper just-
"Me want to lose job as weathermare!"
Skyra screamed the same way she screamed when she watched The Splinting with Onbon two weeks ago. The same way she screamed when Onbon did a surprise re-enactment of the creepy twins scene with her twin sister Bonbon later that night.
"WHAT THE BUCKING HAY!?"
She landed on her rump and watched in quivering fear as a pink hoof suddenly jutted out from the paper as it danced in the air. It was joined by another as the paper seemed to start shaking itself in mid-air, as if the some unseen hoof had grabbed one end of the paper and was violently trying to eject the cosmic horror that had infected its pure whit surface. With every shake, tufts of white-streaked indigo came wafting out in scattered plumes. Eventually it seemed that it had run out of indigo cloud, as the paper then turned itself over and ejected the pink mass that stuck out from one side. Four pink hooves joined at a round body, but was devoid of a head or neck. It skittered around on blind hoof-tips before colliding with the congealed mass of indigo cloud. The wispy mass began to swirl around it, faster and faster until it separated into two portions that chose to take residence on opposite sides of the pink mass. The floating paper threw down a spinning propeller cap on one fluffy mass before seemingly deciding now was a good time to exit the universe by imploding in on itself until it ceased to exist. The propeller cap spun in place before beginning to lift up, carrying the fluffy mass with it and revealing a neck underneath. With a few more twists it gathered up the fluff till it formed a curly mane, revealing a blank and featureless face on which it resided on.
The disturbingly equine form floated towards Skyra, still rooted to the ground in absolute terror. Her mind had long given up all hope of comprehension and was silently preparing itself for self destruction, so she didn't have any sort of response when the faceless head pressed itself towards her face-bearing head.
Two slitted openings appeared on the top half of the face. Instead of revealing eyes they opened to two rows of pearly white teeth, while another shape un-swirled itself into existence on the muzzle of the face. It resolved into a swirling purple spiral pupil that stared up at Skyra.
"Oopsie!" the two mouths said in unison. Suddenly the entire face began to distort and warp like a soup brought to boil. Mouths, eyes, teeth, tongues and other appendages seemed to haphazardly appear and disappear on the fluid canvas of what stood in mockery of a face. It was a sight that the previously bored receptionist found far too difficult to comprehend, and her simple mind decided the best response was to shut down and delete everything that related to the past five minutes of her life.
Skyra awoke to a smiling face that thankfully had the correct amount of eyes and mouths, and in the correct places too.
"Green bird pony wake down! Must be very awake! Drink lots chocolate milk to stay sleepy!"
Oh good, she's lapsed into one of her sugar-fuelled dreams. For a moment there she thought she'd gone off the deep end and was talking to a pony that faxed itself to the reception. They didn’t even have a fax machine anyway. She picked herself off the cloud floor and stood to address the pink dream mare before her. May as well get it over with.
"Good afternoon ma'm. Welcome to the weather team offices, how can I help you?" Skyra stated in a cheerfully flat tone, just like her supervising officer showed her to do.
"Me am Screwball. Me am here to get fired for job as Villepony weather pony."
Oh boy, dream ponies that talk in riddles.
"You want a job on the weather team? Well, okay miss... 'Screwball'... I'll just have you fill a form in and..."
Her line of sight fell past the spiral-eyed smile and to the noticeably bare sides of the pony before her.
"You're an earth pony!?"
"Yup!" the pink mare replied, slowly beginning to rotate in a clockwise motion, like she was the second hand of an invisible clock face.
"Screwball am slowest earth pony! Lost Best Old Flier's competition in Dimmsdale. First place loser! Me also am was captain of Townesville's weather team. Worst weather mare in Disquestria! Fill up sky in ten hours round!"
Okay... so... dream earth ponies fly? Worst flier? First- last place win- loser of- huh?
...Y'know what? Screw it. I'm not being paid nearly enough to put up with this crap.
"Okay, yeah, miss 'Screwball', you're more than qualified with your...your... work experience and accolades..." She leaned over and grabbed a random sheet of paper from her desk.
"Just sign here and you're hired- fired- whatever the hell you want."
"Booo!" the pink mare yelled, though her voice sounded more like an emphatic "Yay". She uncoiled an impressively long tongue that began wiping itself on the paper presented to her. Satisfied with the mess it made, it tugged on itself and was promptly rolled back up like a window roller shutter.
Skyra looked down at the paper that had just been signed by a tongue. On one surface was a remarkably life-like portrait of the mare in front of her, broadly smiling and holding up a hoof ending in a fingered hand curled into a thumbs-up. As she tilted the paper she realized that the image had three-dimensional depth to it. Somehow, a purple spiral had appeared on the other side of the paper, but at this point the paper could fold itself into a doll and start tapdancing without her so much as batting an eyelash.
The first ever earth pony (? Skyra wasn’t really sure anymore) weathermare turned towards the fax machine again.
"Me am end work right this later!"
She suddenly shot towards the machine and was sucked into the thin receiving slit, compressing into a two dimensional form as she did. Soon the machine went quiet again, and the weather team office reception was left once again with only one pony.
In an effort to preserve her sanity, Skyra's mind could only think of how she wished Onbon had a tongue like that.
