Ah've Made A Terrible Mistake
Sneaking Cider
1-Ah've Made A Terrible Mistake
"Go on ta bed now, Apple Bloom. It's past your bedtime," her older brother insisted.
"But everypony just got here!" she contested. The Apples had held an annual cider tasting event for all of Ponyville. The finest of aged ciders, whiskeys, bourbons and wines were set out for all who partook to sample the labors of the year. It was off to a great start as the last few guests began to arrive.
"Apple Bloom, Big Mac is right, it's already 9:30. Fillies need their rest," Applejack added in support of her brother.
"Ah'm not a filly!" she pouted. "Ah'm a big pony!"
AJ and Mac smiled at each other. They'd heard this argument before, but it was still cute nonetheless.
"How come y'all get ta drink out of them fancy cups when Ah got ta go ta bed?"
"Silly filly, you know you ain't old enough to be drinkin' this," said Mac
"Why not? What does age have ta do with anythin'?" she demanded, determined not to accept defeat so easily this time.
"Because, terrible things happen when fillies drink grown-up drinks," Mac teased, though his stoic voice and demeanor would lead the impressionable young mare to believe he was serious. "Ain't that right, Applejack?" He nudged her with a hoof as she caught his drift.
"Darn tootin'. Why, the world as we know it would come crashin' down around us! Is that what you want, Apple bloom?" AJ asked in the most sincere manner she could muster.
Apple bloom may have just been a filly, but she certainly wasn't stupid. She knew when her siblings were making up stories to scare her, but didn't see any way around her bedtime.
"Fine, Ah'm going..." the defeated youngster sighed, climbing the stairs to her bedroom as the dull roar of conversations continued to creep up the stairs with her. Once she made it to her room, she shut the door, a devious grin across her lips. She reached a hoof into her bow and produced a small sample bottle of her brother's apple whiskey, which she'd managed to sneak off the table when they weren't looking.
"World come crashin' down, what a bunch a manure," she whispered to herself as she climbed into bed, taking the bottle of hard grain alcohol with her and shimmying beneath her blanket. She set her bow on the headboard and held the bottle out in front of her, examining the amber liquid within. There wasn't much in it, maybe about three or four mouth fulls for a filly her size.
Her door knob rattled, alerting her that somepony was coming to check on her. She quickly stuck the bottle beneath the covers as Macintosh poked his head through the door.
She turned to face him, the cold glass of the bottle resting against the small of her back sending chills through her body.
"Hey Apple Bloom, Ah know ya wanted ta stay up with us," he began, taking a step into her room and sitting on the edge of her bed.
"It's alright Big Macintosh, Ah know Ah ain't old enough ta stay up late," she said in the saddest voice she could manage while keeping the bottle she'd stolen as far from his line of sight as possible.
"You will be one day, and then ya can have all the cider ya want with us. The thing about it is, it ain't good for fillies that ain't done growin' yet," he explained, figuring she'd want an actual reason she wasn't allowed to partake with her family.
"Ah know..." she sighed, tugging on the big stallion's heartstrings as she gave him those darn puppy dog eyes.
"Tell ya what, tomorrow after school, Ah'll take you and your friends down ta the lake out back for some swimmin' and such."
Apple Bloom's eyes lit up in the darkness of her room. "Really? Ya mean it?" she asked excitedly. She was never allowed to go to the lake and swim by herself, and Mac and AJ were always too busy with the farm to ever take her and her friends. This was a real treat!
"Ah do. We can stay there till it's dark if ya want." He smiled at her. It didn't take much, but he loved to make his little sister happy when he could.
She gripped as much of Mac as she could get her forelegs around into a hug as he gave her a kiss on the forehead.
"Goodnight Apple Bloom," he said, getting off her bed and heading towards her door.
"Goodnight Mac! Ah love you!"
"Love you too, darlin'."
With that he closed the door, leaving only the light of the moon to illuminate Apple Bloom's room.
She waited a few seconds to make sure she wouldn't be interrupted again, before sliding the bottle back out from beneath the covers.
"Mac already promised ta take me to the lake... maybe Ah shouldn't..." she thought, holding the bottle up to the moonlight, noting the dull orange glow the light passing through it cast on the ground.
"No, Ah'm a big pony, and big ponies drink... whatever this stuff is," she convinced herself, holding the bottle as best she could in her forelegs while unscrewing the cap with her mouth.
Once she managed to open the bottle, she spit the cap to the floor, the tinkling of the metal against hardwood making more noise than she had anticipated. Once she was certain nopony had heard, she sniffed the open container. The smell alone burned her nose, making her cough a few times before being able to breathe again.
"Ponies drink this on purpose?" she said to herself, still unsure of whether or not this was a good idea.
C'mon! You've seen Big Macintosh drink this all the time after work, and he's the biggest pony in town! Don't ya want ta be like him? she thought, her internal argument finally allowing her to pluck up the courage to take a full swig.
The moment the liquid passed her lips, she regretted attempting so much at once. It burned like the fires of Tartarus itself, and her eyes blurred as they watered profusely. She forced down the first gulp, nearly allowing it to come back up if not for her willpower alone.
After catching her breath, she wondered why anypony would willingly drink this stuff. As the burning began to fade, a smooth aftertaste saturated her taste buds. The apple flavors and hints of charcoal and oak formed a heady bouquet, the likes of which she had never tasted before. On top of that, the longer she thought about it, the better she began to feel!
Her tense muscles began to relax, and a general feeling of wellbeing began to wash over her. There was still about two swigs left, and she knew she didn't want to waste any of her brother's hard work! She gathered up her courage, and took the last two mouthfuls, draining the small bottle completely. She coughed a few times while gasping for breath, but she had done it.
A sense of pride swelled within her as she felt more mature than ever before! In fact, she felt great! Why would AJ and Macintosh try and keep something that makes you feel so good away from her?
Excited about tomorrow, she hid the empty bottle underneath her mattress to dispose of it later. All kinds of thoughts swirled around in her head about what excitement the next day would bring.
Ah knew AJ and Mac didn't know what they were talkin' about! This stuff may taste awful, but it makes ya feel great! What could be bad for you about that? she wondered as she began to get comfortable in her bed. It felt softer, as if she was sleeping on the clouds themselves. No wonder Rainbow likes sleepin' all day!
She drifted off to sleep, sure that the next day would be one of the most fun she'd had in a long time.
The sun blasted through her window, a pounding headache demanding she keep her eyes closed. Maybe Mac and AJ were right, but if this was the worst part of being a big pony, she could handle it, no problem!
She looked out of her window, noting that nopony had come to wake her up for school! She had to have been nearly an hour late!
Apple Bloom hopped out of bed, grabbing her bow on the way out of her room and rushing downstairs. She was all set to demand to know why nopony woke her up for school when she noticed the living room was empty.
"Where in the hay is everypony?" she asked herself, grabbing her saddlebags and stepping out onto her porch. "Applejack? Big Macintosh?" she called, but received no response. Giggling that sounded familiar caught her attention from the barn as the filly bounded down the steps to investigate.
Upon turning the corner, her eyes widened in shock and her jaw nearly hit the floor. Her cheeks flushed red, confronting her big sister and Rainbow Dash kissing passionately on a hay bale.
"What in tarnation?!" Apple Bloom shouted, startling both mares out of their lovestruck trance as she covered her eyes with a hoof.
"Oh, hey Apple Bloom," Rainbow said nonchalantly, continuing to keep Applejack pinned beneath her. "Shouldn't you be in school?"
"What... but... what in the hay are you two doin?!" she demanded, never having seen such a sight before in her life. She was certain it was something she wasn't meant to see, though you wouldn't know that from Dash and AJ's reaction.
"What's it look like, silly filly!" Applejack answered, gently kissing up Rainbow's neck.
"But... you... and Rainbow? Since when?!" the confused filly asked.
"Since always! I'm the most desirable mare in town! After I'm done here, I still got Spitfire, Fluttershy, Pinkie and Rarity to have se—" Dash explained, before Apple Bloom cut her off.
"Ah don't want to know!" she shouted, covering her ears.
"Whatever, your loss," Rainbow added bluntly before going back to what she had been doing. Apple Bloom shut her eyes and hurried away, shocked by what she saw until she bumped into Twilight after a few steps toward the front of the house.
"Twilight! Thank Celestia you're here! Rainbow and Applejack are... doin' stuff they ain't supposed to be doin' in the daytime!" she explained, a grimace coming over Twilight's features.
"Really? I'm glad you came to me," she said sincerely. "Take me to them, I'll set them straight!" Twilight insisted as Apple Bloom led her around the barn where her sister and Rainbow had... moved on from simply kissing, nearly making the little filly gag from the thought of her sister behaving in such a way right in front of her.
Twilight gasped, though the two ponies didn't pay any attention to her as Apple Bloom covered her eyes with her hoof.
"Please make them stop! They're in public for goodness sake!"
"You were right to call me Apple Bloom, this is serious," Twilight said, clearing her throat loudly and getting the two mares attention.
"What are you two thinking?" Twilight scolded.
Having hot fillyfooler sex without me? The sexy nerd? For shame!"
Apple Bloom's mouth hung open.
"What?!"
Twilight quickly joined in as Apple Bloom darted away, wishing she could scrub what she'd seen from her mind with a wire brush.
"Ah gotta find Mac, he'll know what's going on!" She searched high and low of her family's orchard and fields, but no sign of her big brother anywhere. She went back into the farm house, realizing she still hadn't looked in his room. As soon as she came into the house, a line of mares from town led all the way down the stairs and into the living room.
"What in the hay are all you ponies doin' in my house?!"
"We're waiting on Macintosh, of course," a voice from the crowd answered as Apple Bloom noticed they each had a small ticket with a number on it. Apple Bloom pushed her way up the stairs and saw that Mac's room had a sign above his door with a number counter mounted above the door frame. The door opened, a mare with a mussed up mane left, a wide smile on her face as the number above his door changed to allow the next in line to enter. Apple Bloom barged into her brother's room to a racket of "Hey!" and "No cutting!"
"Macintosh, what are you doin up here? Ain't ya got chores ta do or something? Ah thought you said you were gonna take me and my friends to the lake today!" she pled as Mac lay in his bed, covered halfway by his sheets.
"Don't worry, we'll go to th' lake, just as soon as Ah get done servicin' every mare in town like Ah do every day," he explained as though what he was doing was somehow normal.
Apple Bloom's face twisted into a look of frustrated confusion. "You don't do this every day!"
"Well, sure Ah do! Ah'm the hottest stallion in town!" he added confidently, much to Apple Bloom's disappointment. It looked like he wasn't gonna be much help either. Shuddering in disgust at the thought of her brother doing... that to every mare in town, she darted back down the stairs, when she noticed Caramel, her cousin Braeburn, and even Twilight's married brother Shining Armor were waiting in line!
"What in the hay... y'all are boys! And you have a wife!"
"Yeah, but we've had inexplicable crushes on your brother for a long time, even though we don't mention it, and there is never any evidence to support it," Caramel responded.
"That's right, Ah just came 'cause my life partner Caramel here thought adding another pony to our love life might bring us closer."
"But Mac's your cousin for Celestia's sake!" Apple Bloom shouted in disbelief.
"What? It ain't like one of us is gonna get preg—"
"Ah don't want ta hear that!" she yelled, zipping down the stairs and out of her house and praying she wouldn't run into any more sex crazed ponies on her way to school.
"This can't be happenin'. Has everypony lost their minds but me?" she wondered aloud as she entered the town proper.
Apple Bloom hesitated, stopping just outside the edge of Ponyville. She tried to mentally prepare herself for anything she might see upon her normal route to school. Taking a deep breath, she began her normal walk to the schoolhouse when she heard a familiar voice call to her from behind.
"Apple Bloom!" she turned, recognizing the familiar colors of Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo as they bounded towards her.
A smile crossed Apple Bloom's lips, but quickly began to fade as she realized something different about the other crusaders.
"Apple Bloom unit, are you prepared to proceed to the designated learning facility?"
Sweetie Belle was a robot. A robotic filly with cold, green machine eyes that lacked the soul of her fashion conscious friend.
Scootaloo, thankfully, appeared to be a normal pony. "Scoots, what happened to Sweetie Belle?" the yellow filly asked urgently.
Her pegasus friend smiled at her before clucking loudly, scratching at the ground with her foreleg and pecking at the dirt.
"Oh come on! That joke is so tired!" Apple Bloom turned to Sweetie Bot, the only one of her friends that could actually speak.
"What is going on here?" she pleaded, as a whirring noise emitted from her new robot friend's head. Her eyes took on a thousand yard stare as she processed her question.
"Corrupt data file, answer not found," she responded happily.
"Then how do Ah find out?!" she shouted in frustration.
"Teacher unit Cheerilee provides answers to her pupils on a daily basis. My records indicate the designated learning center instructor has a 97 percent success rate at answering queries to her database."
"Uh... okay... Just c'mon," she added in annoyance as Sweetie Bot followed her. "And get Scootaloo!" she called over her shoulder as their pegasus friend continued to scratch at the ground.
"Affirmative, chickenloo wrangling protocol initiated," another whirring noise came from Sweetie Bot as she held a foreleg outward at Scootaloo, a net firing from within her metal foreleg and closing around their chicken friend, despite her wild flapping and clucks of protest.
Sweetie Bot drug their friend behind them as they made their way to school.
"Ah sure hope Miss Cheerilee knows what's going on," Apple Bloom moaned, already tired of the insanity she'd been thrust into this morning.
As they ventured further into town, Apple Bloom soon realized she was not in the Ponyville she had gone to sleep in the night before. They passed what used to be the post office, now a building in the shape of a giant muffin, with two pony guards in armor that also happened to be made of—what else—muffins. They advanced on the traveling trio and crossed their spears in front of them.
"Halt! What business have you in the sovereign territory of the Muffin Queen?"
"The who?"
"Insolent outsider, you know not of the Muffin Queen's glory?"
"Uh... no?"
"She rules the block between Mane street and Stirrup avenue with an iron hoof! Her word is law, and even commoners such as yourself must obey her edicts whilst passing through her lands!" the guard on the right explained.
"Now, why have you brought this mechanical filly and flightless foul into Her Majesty's dominion?"
"We're just tryin' ta get ta school!" Apple Bloom screamed angrily, stomping her hooves in frustration. She was already tired of this nonsense.
"Guards! It is past my muffin time!" a grey mare with crossed eyes shouted from her balcony, which Apple Bloom recognized as her friend Dinky's mother. "Why are you harassing outsiders again? We talked about this!"
"My apologies my queen, I was simply—"
"Hush!" Derpy insisted as she fluttered down from the balcony, her robe and crown all sporting the muffin theme. "Go guard the entrance to the palace like you've been trained!"
"Yes Your Majesty!" they said in unison, bowing and returning to their post.
"My apologies girls, they get a little overzealous sometimes."
"Mrs. Hooves, can you please tell me what happened to Ponyville?" Apple Bloom asked, relieved to find an adult mare that wasn't hoof deep in another mare for once.
"What do you mean? This is the way thing have always—" she was interrupted by a loud siren beginning to wail. Apple Bloom recognized it as the tornado alarm from the weather center, but the skies were clear. What else could it mean?
She glanced back at Derpy to find a look of horror across her features.
"Quickly girls, inside the castle! And bring your chicken!"
"What? Why?" Apple Bloom demanded, only to be hurried inside by Dinky's mother.
The alarm continued to scream out its warning as the guards barricaded the doors and windows.
"She comes," Derpy whispered.
"Who comes?"
"Molestia, the wicked witch of the south! She comes three or four times a day! If she catches you, you'll be lucky if you come once!"
The crusaders were silent. "What?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Never mind! We must simply wait for the all clear, and then you can—"
A loud crash startled the girls as the roof of Derpy's palace began to shake. Apple Bloom looked up in time to see part of the ceiling rip away, revealing what appeared to be Princess Celestia. However, she'd learned by now that appearances were often deceiving.
"Stay away from the Muffin Queen, you monster!" her guards demanded, stepping in front of herself and the girls with their spears crossed.
"Oh, I think it's been far too long since I've had a stallion pet!" the would-be Celestia laughed evilly. Upon closer inspection, her cutie mark was no longer the benevolent sun Apple Bloom remembered, but instead a riding crop and a set of hoofcuffs. Her royal regalia had been replaced by a tight leather vest and boots reaching all the way up to her flank.
She took a stallion in her magic as he struggled in protest. "Remember me as I am!" he shouted as a black bondage mask with a zipper mouth appeared over his head, silencing him. In seconds she was gone into the distance with her captive.
After she had left, Derpy folded her forelegs and pouted. "Now where am I supposed to get another guard?"
"Mrs. Hooves, can you please tell us what happened to Ponyville?" Apple Bloom insisted once again.
"My dears, Ponyville has always been this way," she replied, much to Apple Bloom's annoyance.
"No it ain't!" she shouted, her frustration mounting. "If you can't tell us, and the Princess is crazy, then what are we supposed to do?" It looked as though she would be trapped in this insane asylum forever.
Derpy put a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment, "Ah! I bet Ms. Cheerliee would know how to help, she's the smartest pony in town!"
Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. "But Ah thought Twilight was the smartest pony in town?"
Derpy scoffed, "Pfft, that slut?"
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes and motioned for her friends to follow her. "Thanks for the help Mrs. Hooves," she droned heading towards the door before Sweetie Bot stopped her.
"Wait, Apple unit. My calculations indicate our chances of survival will increase and our chances of being sodomized by a princess decrease if we include an adult pony in our travels."
"Sodo-what?" Apple Bloom shook her head. "Never mind, Ah don't want to know." She turned to Derpy. "Mrs. Hooves, would you mind helpin' us get there?"
Derpy frowned. "I'm afraid I can't girls. For you see..." she paused, turning to face out of a boarded up window for dramatic effect. "I have... pony cancer."
"Pony cancer," Apple Bloom said flatly. With a heavy sigh, Apple Bloom strode towards the door before Derpy called to them.
"Wait, girls!"
Apple Bloom turned slowly. "What?"
"There is one mare who can help you on your journey. She lives in a cart outside of town. Trixie, is her name. The answers you seek lie in Canterlot, inside the crystal palace. The Great and Powerful Smith will be able to help you with any problems you have."
"Trixie? That mean old magician?" Apple Bloom clarified.
"Yes, the one with the cape and wizard hat. You all must make the journey to Canterlot, everything you're looking for is there," Derpy insisted.
"Will this 'Smith' character be able to help me fix Ponyville?" Apple Bloom asked.
"What part of everything was I not clear about?"
"Okay, okay, we're going."