Seeding the Territory
Rainbow Dash was having a strange dream—she was locked out of her house, or she had locked someone else out, she wasn’t sure which—when she suddenly awoke with a jerking buck that dissolved the cloud she’d been napping on. Her instincts kicked in immediately and her wings spread to keep her gently hovering even before she was fully conscious. She stared at the dim, indigo-gray sky, speckled with stars, and tried to get her bearings… She could still see the constellation of Hippocampus and the sparrows weren’t farting around just yet, so it was just after five AM. Ugh! She’d overslept, but at least the sun hadn’t actually risen yet, so she could still make the morning meeting with her crew on the weather team. There would just be time for her to grab some food for them, as was her responsibility as their team leader.
She sped over town and considered her choices. Sugarcube Corner was a recurring favorite, but Pinkie had pulled off a particularly lame prank yesterday involving a bucket of frogs and a spicerack and a visiting Yak from Tuvyok… Well, it would have been pretty awesome if Dash had done it to Pinkie instead of the other way around. Anyway, she didn’t feel like confronting Pinkie’s smug, mugging grin just yet.
Instead, she looped over the market square, where the early vendors were just getting started. Applejack was one of the earliest to appear, and her apple turnovers, freshly flipped, were a tempting choice. On the other hand, AJ was always there, and there were other food vendors who only came to the market on certain days… and one of these was Poppyseed “Pops” Ringer, the bagel maker, who was still setting up his vendor’s stand and pulling trays of his merchandise from his antique cart. Rainbow Dash could smell the freshly boiled-and-baked dough even from up here, and the golden-brown crusts of the bagels on display looked delicious. She swooped down and landed swiftly, with such tight control over her air displacement that not a single napkin on the old stallion’s sales counter even fluttered.
“Hi, Pops!” she said, running her hungry eyes over the bagels on display… covered with toasted sesame, or poppy seeds, or cinnamon and raisin, and there were even a few that didn’t have a real hole in them, just a dent filled with chopped onions, be-yawl-eys they were called or something like that… Rainbow Dash could almost taste them already, crusty and chewy and almost still steaming from the oven, and her stomach gave a quiet growl.
The old fellow, whose coat color had originally been as brown as his bagels but was now getting as gray as the pre-dawn sky, beamed happily on seeing her hungry expression. “Morning, Ms. Dash! What can I get for you?”
“Aw… I’m already having trouble making up my mind. Let’s just have five each of the salted, and sesame, and poppyseed, and cinnamon, and… ooh, wait, what kind are those?”
“Those ones with the brown seeds? Those are cumin.”
“Huh.” They smelled interesting, and kind of familiar. “Can I try some?”
“Sure thing!” Pops deftly wielded a crescent-shaped bagel slicer, chopping one of the cumin bagels into bite-sized samples, then sliding a few onto a plate. Rainbow Dash tried one. The taste was spicy, peppery and nutty, and made her think of delicious foods from faraway lands. “Hmph!” she said. She’d actually tasted something like this most recently yesterday, when Pinkie pulled her prank with the spicerack and the bucket of frogs, but she didn’t want to mention that. “They kinda taste like curry!”
“Curry powder is made with cumin seeds,” Pops said. “Some folks have told me they’d like a spicy bagel, so I thought I’d oblige them. Shall I bag some up for you?”
Rainbow Dash considered. She didn’t know that she really liked them yet, but they were worth trying. Maybe just a couple. “Yeah, I’ll have two of them.”
“You got it!” said Pops as he put together her order. “So, that’s five salt bagels, five sesame, five poppyseed, five cinnamon, and five cumin—”
“No, two.”
“Eh? I know you want them too…”
She shook her head and spoke louder—she knew Pops could be hard of hearing, but this was starting to get kind of lame. “Two. Two cumin, not five!”
“Huh? Not five?” he said, pushing the bags towards her. “Two of each?”
“I want two cumin,” sighed Rainbow Dash.
“Ah, my mistake, Ms. Dash.” He repacked the last bag. “Two cumin bagels it is. Here you go!”
Rainbow Dash forked over her bits, took a container of cream cheese as well, and with a takeoff that was not quite as controlled as she was capable of, flew off towards her morning meeting.
~~~~~
A few hours later, Rarity was getting a morning cup of coffee at Sugarcube Corner after pulling an all-nighter at the Boutique, and found herself chatting with Pinkie about the morning’s events. A generous platter of pastries sat on the table before them, a few of them unbitten, and some of the pies were oozing with cream. Rarity had taken three lumps of sugar in her coffee (an odd number) and Pinkie had taken seventeen lumps (a very odd number.)
Pinkie was carrying most of the conversation, as usual. “…And, Rarity, I watched her buying a few bagels from old Pops Ringer, and what do you think got said?”
Pinkie smiled smugly, leaned in close and spoke.
“‘I want two cumin,’ sighed Rainbow Dash!”
Rarity blinked. “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this—oh! I see. But, darling, it’s pronounced ‘cue-min,’ not ‘come-in.’”
Pinkie winked. “Oh, Rarity, sometimes the one you think is getting pranked isn’t really the one who’s getting pranked, and that’s part of the fun of pranking!”
Rarity smiled politely. “Well, I’m sure it’s just as you say, Pinkie. But I must be getting back to work. Ta-ta for now!” Rarity quickly finished her coffee and took her leave.
Pinkie sat there at the table, humming to herself for a moment, before suddenly swinging her head around to look at you with big eyes of innocence, but with a horribly wide and toothy smile.