> Sour Apple
>  by adchild
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> Prologue
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Applejack had been on this train for quite some time now. She and her friends were on their way to Canterlot to see Twilight's coronation. It was a special day. They had come so far in almost four years of being friends. She had learned so much about friendship, and even herself. Applejack was so excited for what was to come in the future. What else would they do? Who else would they fight? How many new friends would they make? She had so many questions. But for now she'd just have to wait and see.

The blonde mare pulled a journal and pen out of her saddlebag. She opened it up and began writing in it.
> Chapter 1
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I have long since learned not to believe Idle stories. Heaven knows I grew up on them. For years as a filly I was terrorized by Family stories of great uncle Apple Seed being killed at Blue Lakes by trespassers. Or how Uncle Apple Seed escaped from trespassers running a gauntlet and his brother was captured and Uncle Apple Seed ransomed him for a barrel of whiskey.
         Not to mention Granny Smith's stories about Jaybird reporting once a week to the almighty about our missdoings for which, somehow, we'd be punished. Jaybird reported only to Celestia, she said.
        But for some reason I did believe the rumor told to me by my cousins Apple Fritter and Red June of how only weeks after my mother's burial, my father was courting another mare.
        I believe it because my cousins were friends with the Dr. Top's daughter, Linky. And he'd been in attendance at my mother's death and was an acquaintance of my father.

       They told me this mare is from Manefort. The town where my father visits frequently for business. They say she has a 73 year old mother who is the head of society there. That she herself wants to be called Dahlia, and that she hopes to lift our family to new standards of elegance.
        Grandmother Bartlett. Who lives just up the hill from us here in Ponyville and is my own mother's ma, says it is an indecently short time after Ma's death for pa to go courting.
        My cousin Apple Fritter says Pa sent his new lady a miniature of himself painted by Ponyville's own Prisma.
        Dahlia Root is her full name. I made it my business to find out everything I could about her. She's no stranger to Ponyville. Two of her uncle's taught here at our Ponyville College.
       She's going to bring her own family with her when she comes. I wonder how that will sit with Granny Smith.
       Jaybird can tell Celestia all he wants about me. I already know that I don't like her.

It was in the air a long time, the silent courtship of Pa's. Auntie Apple Top, his sister, who ran the household since Ma died, warned us not to ask him about it. So we didn't. But we watch him closely at the dinner table to see if he was changing toward us.
        For all we could see, he wasn't.
        He still asked Big Mac if he'd been a good boy that day and ruffled his hair when he asked it. He still told my spoiled cousin Ginger how pretty she was. He still discussed social matters with Red June and Apple Fritter. And he still promised me a puppy if I was a good girl. He'd been promising me a puppy for ages. As long as he kept promising, I figured my hope for a puppy was still alive. Though I did wonder if a puppy would fit in with Dahlia's idea of a new standard of Elegance.
      No, he wasn't changing towards us. He was still Pa, who loved us and wouldn't let anything come between us.

Sometime around Hearth's Warming, my father called us all into the living room after dinner and cleared up the rumors. I was 9 years old.
       "My situation has become irksome," he said. "People of ill-will are saying bad things about me and my intended, Dahlia Root. So I have become engaged to this dear lady and hope soon to wed. I need to complete my domestic circle so I can enjoy the repose and happiness which the world can never give."
        Pa talked high words sometimes. But we understood. Apple Fritter and Red June kissed him. I hugged him because I wasn't going to be left out of any part of his domestic circle.

That's how we learned we were going to get a stepmother. But I didn't see the need for one. As far as I was concerned, the domestic circle we had was complete enough. Granny Smith ran the kitchen along with the help of Big Mac and I. And I didn't see anything wrong with Auntie Apple Top running the house. She even did the male chores when Pa was away, oversaw The Farm, disciplining the kids, and bought the Staples. Only Bone I had to pick with her was that she favored my little sister Apple Bloom too much. Apple Bloom was the darling of her eye. I was almost ten the year Pa wed and Applebloom was going on two, and Applebloom took all the attention from me.
        Red June and Apple Fritter have their own set of fine-feathered marefriends who can't talk about anything but dresses and stallions. Meadow, three years older than me, and Big Mac, only twelve at the time had the full attention and love of Pa. All I had was Granny Smith to stand up for me. And she was fifty two.

I have had a lot of afflictions in my life, don't think that getting a stepmother was the first of them. Now that I am an adult and about to attend my best friend's coronation. I can write of them without hurting too much.
         Before I was three years old I lost my place as the youngest in the family to brother Red Delicious when he was born. When I was four I lost my baby brother. Red Delicious died at 14 months. I was uncommonly fond of Red and his death affected me terribly. Then when I was five my mother got pregnant with Applebloom and she died giving birth.
         At almost ten I got a new stepmother.


                                           -


We were to call her "Ma" Pa told us in one of the most stern moments I ever recollect seeing him in. Not Dahlia, but Ma.
       We all said yes.
       "And if you have any concerns about the whole household, bring them to her. She wants to be in charge."
        Concerns about the household? I've had nothing but concerns since Auntie Apple Top had left us, as soon as Pa and Dahlia came home from their wedding trip.
        Concerns about the household? That phrase went through my mind as I stood in the kitchen and watched, transfixed, as Marigold, one of Dahlia's neices, stood grim-faced, her two hooves holding a large bowl of soup. I could smell the soup from where I stood. I loved that soup, all made with preserves from our garden.
          Across the kitchen stood Granny Smith, who had made the soup. She'd caught Marigold sampling it from the serving Bowl and scolded to her.
        "Here, take your old soup," Marigold said and threw the bowl on the floor.
        The smash of the china bowl sounded throughout the house. The soup was splashed all over the place. I even got some on my coat. Granny Smith backed away, held her hooves to her face, and cried.
         "Who wants your old soup?" Marigold stamped out of the kitchen.
          Just then Pa appeared in the kitchen doorway. "What is this? What's going on here?"
         "Marigold threw soup on the floor," I told him.
         He looked shocked. I felt sorry for him. So much for repose and happiness, I thought. And as if he could read my thoughts, he looked at me. "AJ, go and get your mother," he said quietly. Then he turned and went out the back door.
        For a moment I thought that he really meant my mother. The look on his face was so confused that for all I knew he could have been wanting her then, just like I was. But I ran upstairs to get Dahlia.
        She was seated at her dressing table, making up her mane. "What's all the noise?" she asked.
       I just stood there like a jackass in the rain. "Ma," my voice cracked when I said it. "Granny and Marigold are fighting. There won't be any soup for supper."
       "And why is that?"
       "Marigold threw it on the floor."
       "Well, she must have had provocation."
       So that was the way it was to be. Her family could do no wrong. "Pa needs you," I said.
       She stood up. "Is there no order in this house?"
       I shrugged. "Marigold threw the soup when Granny found her eating out of the serving Bowl."
       "There must be more to it than that."
       'New standards of Elegance', I thought.
       "And you don't have to look so pained when you call me Ma either. Now say it again. And say it strong."
      I swallowed. "Ma," I said.
      "Again."
      Tears came to my eyes. "Ma."
      She swept passed me. "I hope I don't have to speak to your father about you. Now go and tell the others to come to the dinner table."
> Chapter 2
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I knew that I loved Granny Smith, that she had been my safe harbor since before Ma died, and that now I depended on her more than anything.
      "Go in for supper," she said. "And doan' make trouble."
      I obeyed. As I slid into my chair at the table, Dahlia gave me a disapproving look. Marigold set a bowl of mashed potatoes down in front of me, and Big mac, winked at me as if we had some secret. He was standing over Pa, pouring sweet tea into his cup.
     "You're late," Pa observed.
      "I was talking to Granny."
      "And I was talking about my friend's daughter, Rarity. Do you think you could listen, Applejack?" Dahlia queried.
      "She better, she's gonna be Rarity's companion while she's here," Pa said.
      As it turned out, he was right. Rarity was coming to live with us. She was born here in Ponyville but is coming back from a long trip to Canterlot, and I was to share my room with her.
      "You'll go to school together," Pa said.
      "I don't go to school," I reminded him.
      "You will. Next semester. You'll go to Ward's with Rarity. She'll be a good friend."
      I don't want a friend, I wanted to say. I want my Ma back. I want you to love me, Pa. I want a puppy to show you love me. I want new clothes. I want to be an important mare some day, a hero. And I want your promise that you'll never abandon Grandmother Bartlett.
      We ate supper. The conversation took another turn. And Marigold served.

I've always wanted to be somepony important when I grew up, somepony that everypony will remember. It was something I dreamed about the way other girls my age dreamed of marrying prince Charming.

 The reason I'd never been to school was because in Ponyville colts started at six or seven and fillies at eight or nine. I'd be almost eleven when I started at Ward's in the fall. Only young ponies from important families went to Ward's, so my family must be important, in spite of what Pa's new wife had said to me last time she got angry.

-

      "It takes seven generations to make a strong, independent mare, Applejack. You have a long way to go."
      I didn't mind the insult to me. But I minded it to my family.
      "My ancestors founded this town,"
      "That still doesn't make you important," she'd retorted.
      That was yesterday, and today there was the business with the soup and Rarity coming. She was trying to undo me all right, this lady. My spirit was brought low, exactly as she wanted.
      It was time to go and visit Grandma Bartlett.
> Chapter 3
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Grandma Bartlett was old. She was all of fifty five. She had two children. Four brothers, and two sisters. But she was never too busy to see me and welcome me in her one-story brick house up the hill from us.

       When my mother and father had wed, she'd given them the lower part of her lot so that our two houses looked like one compound. When my Ma first married, she was taken over by running a home and often sought help from her mother. And then my Pa was away a lot, visiting different parts of Equestria for business or to visit friends and family. When we needed help on the farm, she'd send people to help.
       She kept a close eye on us, too, after Ma's death, eventually letting us keep my ma's old things, which belongs to us now. I know she didn't approve of Dahlia. And, while she didn't encourage us in our dislike for her, she didn't discourage us, either.
        "Applejack, come in, come in." She held open her hooves and I quickly went into them, hugging her slender form tightly.
        "Child, child, what is it? Is she plaguing you again?"
        "She said I'll never be a strong mare." I drew back and wiped my eyes. "She's always after me, like a fox after a bluebird."
        "How are the others faring?"
        "She's mean to us all. But mostly to me. She does it on the sly, so Pa doesn't hear or know."
        "Of course she does. Here, would you like some tea?" I said yes, and before long we were sitting at the dinner table in her kitchen and I was feeling better. I looked around the room. "Why can't I live here with you?" I asked for what was like the twentieth time.
        "Because your Pa needs you."
        I gave a bitter laugh. "Pa? Needs me?"
        "Yes. He needs all of you." She poured tea out of a silver pot she'd once told me had been made by Chancellor Puddinghead and handed down in her family. "Did you ever think how it would hurt him if you left?"
        I hadn't.
        "Besides, you are strong. I wouldn't have you in my house if you weren't."
        "She said it takes seven generations to make a strong mare"
        "Then tell her about your great grandfather Pyrus Nivalis' wife, Jade, who was living in a stockade in Coltucky when she wove her wedding dress from the weeds and wild flax that were the only material she had. She may not have had Frills and Ruffles, but she was a strong woman."
         I listened intently. Once Grandma Bartlett started on family Legends, she never stopped. But if you paid mind to her, at least she wouldn't go on forever.
         "Will you come and visit us sometime?" I asked her when I left.
         "I don't go down there anymore," she said. "Not since my daughter died. She's welcome to come and pay her respects to me anytime she wishes. Now remember what I told you. Tell her about grandmother Jade and the woven wedding dress."
         She hugged me when I left and pressed a few bits into my hoof. "Buy yourself a little something," she murmured into my ear.
         My spirit soared when I left her.

-

By late spring Rarity arrived with all the ceremony of a princess. The carriage bearing her was drawn by two horses and included a hoofcolt who put down the step with a flourish of a bow. Out stepped Rarity, holding a frou-frou of a kitten.
        I'd wanted a pet since Mama died but Pa had said no. Rarity intended to let this kitten not only live in the house but sleep in her bed. And Pa was fine with it.
        Everyone greeted Rarity with the good wishes they usually saved for important ponies who stopped in Ponyville on their way to Manefort. She was done up in fine feathers too showy for our town. All Ruffles and bows and golden be-ribboned curls under a velvet hat.
       She came with four more suitcases of clothing. I hated her on sight. The only thing that kept me from jumping on her and pulling her mane was that she was a guest.

-

"My room at home is bigger than this. But at least this isn't as bad as I expected."
       "What did you expect, a wooden shack surrounded by timberwolves?"
       She raised her muzzle. She was pretty. I had to give her that. "No. My mama told me you-all weren't that bad off." She plumped herself down on the bed and set the kitten, Opal, on the floor. I thought of my father's hunting dogs out back in the pen and how I'd always wanted a dog for a house pet.
      "What do you do around here?" She asked.
      "What ponies do anywhere. There's lots to do." I found myself defending Ponyville.
      "Is your daddy an important stallion?"
      "No."
      She eyed me unblinkingly. "My grandmother used to rule society in Manefort."
      We sat, each on a bed, facing each other. I swung my hoof. "I'm going to have a puppy one of these days. My Pa says so."
      "Will you let me play with it?"
      "If you behave."
      She reached down and lifted Opal on her lap and hugged her close. "I didn't want to come here. My mama made me come."
Rarity set Opal back down, slipped off the bed, and offered her hoof, just like a stallion would. I took it and we shook hooves. "I don't always act like this," she said. "I was just so scared when I got here. Will you be my friend?"
       We shook on that, too.
> Chapter 4
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Rarity was a hopeless case. I had to school her in everything. Most likely she'd associated too much with that grandmother of hers in the aristocratic lace cap.
       First off, she was afraid of everything: garden snakes, the woods, lightning and thunder, Turtles, bugs of all kinds, the peacocks that roamed around our house that my father used as watchdogs, and Granny Smith.
       When Granny jokingly told her one day she was going to send Jaybird to scold her, she became terrified of Jaybird and all the other Demons of Granny's world.
        I must confess that I added to her fears. I couldn't resist telling her about the legend of the woods surrounding Sweet Apple Acres.
       "The ponies called it a dark and bloody land," I told her when we were lying awake in our beds one night. "Anything you can imagine lives in those woods."
       "Like what?"
       "Buffalo," I lied, "giant mammoths, runaways and timberwolves."
       "Do the timberwolves ever come to the farm?"
       "No, but they watch us all the time."
       She half believed me and half knew I was just entertaining her. But her fear of the timberwolves was very real.
       One day a pack of friendly wolves came through Sweet Apple Acres, right past our windows. I ran to find a Rarity, to show her how friendly they appeared, but couldn't find her. Her screams led me to the cellar, where I found her hidden in a corner, praying and sobbing, "Don't let them get me. Don't let them eat me, please."
       I stopped feeding her fears after that. I didn't know that my tales of folklore, which I'd learned from Granny Smith, we're so effective.

There was no place in our family, Pa said, for ignorant mares. So in September, the best time of the year, the time when the sunshine was so mellow you wanted to drink it and the sky was so blue you wanted a dress of the same color, Rarity and I trudged three blocks up the hill to Reverend and Mrs. Ward's school at the corner of Second and Market.
      "We're going to be late for school, Rarity," I said. "Let's go."
      And we were late for school on the first day. Reverend Ward was not happy. And that's when we found out what emulation meant.
      "It means looking up to and trying to imitate the virtues, the character, and the values of our Equestrian heroes," Reverend Ward said solemnly as we stood before him, waiting for permission to go to class. "It means trying to be better than you are. Now, so as you learn, you will both stay after school today and write a paper about who, in our history or in your family, you would like to emulate. Understood?"
       I don't know who Rarity wrote about. Likely her grandmother with the lace cap. I wrote about how Grandma Bartlett's maternal grandmother had brought food and clothing to her husband at Valley Forge. How she frequently brought Provisions to the stallions and on one visit was greeted by Princess Celestia, who complimented her on her devotion to her husband and the cause.
       When Reverend Ward read it, he scowled. "Where did you learn to write, Applejack? Who taught you such words and such penmanship?"
       "Sometimes my own mother," I said. "Sometimes Grandma Bartlett. Or Auntie Apple Top or my older sisters." He harrumphed. "Good girl," he said begrudgingly. "Now go and sit and wait for your friend. I think somehow that she has not had the same education as you."

It wasn't writing in penmanship that I had to learn at Ward's. Some of the other fillies, like Basil Leaf and Trail Trotter and one of my own cousins from Apploosa, Gala Appleby, were as accomplished as I was. I did have to learn arithmetic, history, geography, Natural Science, French, and religion. Mrs. Ward taught astronomy and something I liked best. On the afternoons when her husband was busy talking about politics in the parlor with professors from Fillyvania, she would take us into the kitchen and teach us how to make puddings and custards, cakes and candy.

       She also was responsible for having us join the young fillies' library in Ponyville and saw to it that we attended performances by every Children's Theatre Company. It was impossible not to like Mrs. Ward. Once a month, on a Saturday, she took us shopping and to sugarcube corner owned by Mr. and Mrs. Cake, whose swiss pastry cook made special meringues and macaroons for us.
        I looked up to Mrs. Ward. Until the day she disappointed me.
        Every May first the school erected a maypole in the square, and a filly was randomly selected to be crowned Queen of the May.
        It was supposed to be the prettiest filly from our class. But Mrs. Ward was overly fond of Bible verses and required that we memorize them. The filly who memorized the most, she promised, would be Queen of the May.

        "Even if she isn't from our class?" Came to question from Gala Appleby, my cousin from Apploosa, who boarded at the school.
        "Yes," Mrs. Ward promised. "Remember, this is a school where respectability is all. Where discipline hasn't died and emulation doesn't sleep."
       I had no desire to be Queen, but my Rarity wanted it so badly she swore she'd memorize the most Bible verses.
       She enlisted me to listen to her. She memorized 1,373 verses. And before she reached 50, I begged off.
       "Do you think I'll get it, Aj? Do you?"
       "She said whoever memorizes the most verses will be crowned," I said quietly.
       For one thing, the girls kept reminding Mrs.  Ward that the contest had more to do with beauty than Bible verses. "It's supposed to be the prettiest filly," said swirly clay, who came from our class and was the next to prettiest girl in school.
        The prettiest was Star Twist. But she was from another class.

         "You all get to wear white and march in an elegant parade to Silver Mist's grove where a maypole will be erected. We want to make the best display for the school," was the response Mrs. Ward gave us.
         Rarity recited her verses. Some of us attended the class where a weary Mrs. Ward and her husband, the leader, sat and listened approvingly.
         One by one, those of us who attended excused ourselves and left.
         There was no doubt about it. Rarity won, hooves down. But Mrs. Ward still wouldn't name her Queen of the May. And we all knew why, especially Rarity.
        She simply wasn't pretty enough. The school needed a prettier filly. Before the day was over the fillies were split and arguing over who should represent the school as Queen.
        Mrs. Ward was beside herself. "I can't have this contest turning my fillies against each other!" So she turned it into a civics lesson and had us vote for Queen of the May.

        After some very secretive voting and whispering, the votes were counted. I knew most of the girls considered Rarity a Miss Prissy-boots for memorizing all those Bible verses. But the vote, as it turned out, was a tie. It was even, between Star Twist and Rarity.
        "No more of this." Mrs. Ward gathered the little slips of paper with our votes on them and dumped them in a wastepaper basket.
        "Star Twist will be Queen of the May," She announced.
        To the cries of most, that Star came from a different class, she paid no heed.

        "But you said whoever memorized the most Bible verses," Rarity complained.
        "That isn't the point. The fighting that has occurred is distasteful to me. Perhaps next year the fillies from this class will learn to take this more in stride."

        "She turned on us," Rarity sobbed to me later in our room. "I know I'm not that pretty but does pretty mean everything?"
        I hadn't thought so. Until now. It was a distasteful lesson, but perhaps the most important one I was to learn at Ward's, the school where respectability and discipline lived. The school were emulation never slept. And virtue hadn't fled.
       "An outsider from Mrs. Lilyfly's class has been selected for Queen of the May," the school newspaper reported. "Two young fillies held a canopy over her. Their names were Rarity and Applejack from Mrs. Wards class"
       What the newspaper didn't say was that Rarity had tears in her eyes while she held her part of the canopy.
> Chapter 5
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It was in my last year at Ward's that I awoke one night in November to hear thump, thump, thumping coming from downstairs, likely the back door in the kitchen. As I lay warm and snuggly under my quilts, I then heard Granny shuffling around. Then the thumping stopped.

        Rarity heard it, too. "What's that noise, AJ?"
        "I don't know. I sat up. "But I'm going to see."
        "No, don't go. Maybe it's timberwolves attacking. Don't leave me, AJ." She was sleeping with her Opal huddled next to her. Unfortunately, Opal heard the thumping, too, because she sat up and meowed loudly. Short little meows. I hushed her and patted her head and she settled down again. And when I saw that she had quieted, I crept downstairs, assuring Rarity it wasn't timberwolves.
          As I peeked into the kitchen, I saw a candle lit, casting a peculiar light across the floor. I stood there trembling as Granny opened the back door.
        What huddled there could scarce be called a stallion. He was on his haunches, looking up at Granny appealingly. "You put the sign on the back fence?"
        "My name is Granny. But yes, I put the sign on the fence. I'll feed you and get you on your way to the train. But you can't stay the night. My son'll be very angry, he finds out I'm doin' this."
        "Grateful, Granny, grateful," the stallion said.
        "Now you go on back to the barn. I'll bring out some victuals. Meat an' bread and somethin' warm fer you to wear," she told him.
        Then she closed the door in his face and turned. And saw me.
        "What you doin' there, child?" the harsh whisper came across the kitchen.
        "I heard the thumping."
        "Well you best forget what you hear."
        "Can I go outside with you to bring his food?"
        "No. An' you ain't to go tellin' anybody else 'bout this. If your stepma finds out, I'll be horse fodder."
        "Now go to bed," she directed. And I promised I would, as I watched her gather food in the kitchen. Then we both heard the stairs creak behind us in the hall and froze.
         It was Rarity.
         "What you doin' here?" Granny said in a loud whisper. "What is this, a May Day Parade?"
         "I wanted to see," Rarity stammered.
         "See what?" Granny asked.
         "I don't know. I was afraid it was timberwolves coming to scalp us."
         "Only me," Granny told her, "an' I'll scalp you if'n you doan get up to bed now."
         Rarity turned and ran. I stayed to watch Granny go out the back door to the barn with a single Lantern and tow along with some victuals.


The next day I asked her, "How do they know to come to our house?"
         She chuckled. "You invited them."
         "Me?"
         "Yes. 'Member the day you painted those flowers on the front of the fence?"
         "You helped me, Granny."
         "Yes, but you didn't know why you were doin' it, did you?"
         "I thought I was just painting some flowers on the fence."
         "No. You were invitin' runaways to stop. You were tellin' 'em that here, in this place, if they wuz careful they could get food and clothes on their way to the train. You better talk to that Rarity filly. If'n she tells Dahlia, we're all finished."
         I just stared at her in wonderment. I was young enough to think it all exciting and to think of Granny as a hero. To think, right in the midst of us all, this was going on. But I had a question.
        "How long have you been doing this?" I asked.
        "Not long 'nuf."
        I continued staring while she kneaded some pie dough.
        "Things ain't always what you think, little one," she told me. And then she chuckled. "The next time you paint some flowers on a fence, think what you might be really doin'."


"It was just a traveler who lost his way last night," I told Rarity later that morning.
        We were both eating. It was Saturday. And I wondered if my "traveler" had gotten safely to the train.
        "I'm not stupid, AJ. I know what it was. I know Granny is using this place as a safe house for runaway ponies."
        I was trembling inside. Would she hold this over me now? Make me do things I didn't want to? She had every chance to lord it over me, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
        "I looked out our upstairs window and saw her taking the food to the barn," she said. "What else could it be? We had ponies who would do it in Canterlot, too."
        "Rarity, if you tell Dahlia...," I started to say.
        She leveled her blue eyes at me. "I said I'm not stupid," she repeated.
        I breathed a sigh of relief.
        "And AJ, I won't hold this over you. You don't have to worry. If you don't really trust me yet, I want you to know that."
        Like Granny Smith said, things ain't always what they seem to be. And the next time I went to paint flowers on a fence I'd remember that.


When I was fourteen, I got my puppy.
        At breakfast Pa said he had something to show me outside. I should have known what it was because of the looks and giggles of everypony at the table. And because of what Dahlia said.


       "Bright, you didn't."
       "Yes I did, Dahlia. Though it was forced on me. Payment for a debt I was owed. I thought, why not?"
       "Because she's a little ruffian now. She doesn't need anymore encouragement."
       He murmured something back to her. I couldn't hear what. Because by now Big Mac was leading over to me the most beautiful chocolate colored puppy I had ever seen.
       "AJ, this is Winona," Pa said. "She's yours."
       "Providing you behave yourself," Dahlia put in "Or I'll take away playing privileges."
       "He's yours," Pa said again.
       I embraced the little darling, who put her nose into my mane just as if she knew she belonged to me. I patted her, happier than I've been in a long time.
       "Can I take her for a walk?" I asked. There was a regular collar on her."
       "Only for a little bit," Dahlia directed.
       "Go ahead," Pa said. And he helped me put the leash on Winona.


By Spring, there were ten ponies in the house, to Dahlia's dismay. From my Granny, who was fifty three, down to three year old AppleBloom.
        Dahlia's patience was tried. She cried most of the time. She took to her room and stayed there and left the doings of the household to us.
        Then came the announcement from my cousin, Red June, that she was to marry Honey Daze and move to Manehatten. When they had settled she would invite Apple Fritter to live with them.
        I think it was the only thing that kept Dahlia sane. And I think she wished that Red June would also take me. I know I did.


Red June's wedding took place at the farm and the whole place was in an uproar for two weeks preceding. Rarity and I were invited to be bridesmaids, and here is where I got my say in a matter of grave importance to me.
       "If I'm to be a bridesmaid, I don't want to wear a dress," I told Dahlia.
       "How would it look for others to wear pretty dresses and not you?"
       "If I have to wear a dress, I don't want to be a bridesmaid. And I'm too old to scatter rose petals. So that means I can't be in my cousin's wedding. And I know Pa wants me to be in the wedding."
      "You are a limb of Cerberus," she said, "to corner me."
      "If I could go to Manehatten with Red June, I would."
      "You're too young. But you are going somewhere. You and Rarity are going to Madame Mentelle's boarding school when you graduate from Ward's. Your education isn't finished."
      "I don't want it to be."
      She was doing some embroidery. And never once did she look up at me. "What you don't know is that you will stay there all week and Big Mac will fetch Rarity home every evening. That is what you don't know."
      I felt the room swirl in front of me. Something fell and crashed on the floor of my soul. She was putting me out. As discreetly as she could.
      I didn't have to wear a dress, but at what price? Like Granny had said, the next time I painted flowers on a fence I should stop and think about what I was really doing.
> yikes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't have the time to finish this story at the moment so it'll be on hiatus. Maybe in a few weeks when everything I need to do is done, I'll continue it. But I kind of lost my interest in this story.... sorry.