> Wheat In The Rough > by SpiritwolfOfice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: Beginning of a new day > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia’s sun starts to slowly rise in the east side of ponyville, bathing the countryside with its beautiful sunlight, waking up the ponies of equestria. Along with the animals, especially with one animal in particular. A rooster on a farm about 20 miles north of ponyville, as to not cause competition between the Apple Family Orchard, cocks his head back aiming to the heavens and lets out his morning call to wake up the working ponies of the Golden Wheat farm, our main setting of this story. At the sound of the rooster’s call, a teenaged mare slowly sits up in bed and blinks a few times as she wakes up and lets her eyes adjust to the light in her room. She lets out a yawn with a small, slight squeak to it. She then moves a strand of her disheveled mane out of her face,  climbs out of bed, trots over to the mirror in the corner of the room. In the mirror she sees she is a mare with wheat colored fur, with a sandy blonde colored mane and freckles on her muzzle, under her eyes, which are staring back at her, but most importantly she has a very bad case of bedmane. The mare sighs and she says to herself, “I really need to stop tossin’ an’ turning while I sleep.” She then proceeds to style her mane in her normal braided and ponytail combo. Once she's done, her ears perk up at the sound of her mother's voice calling from downstairs, “Sweet Wheat! Honey! Breakfast is ready!” Sweet can only imagine what wonderful thing her mother has made for breakfast and she calls back, “Okay Ma! I'll be down in a second!” With that she picks up her trademark ascot and ties it around her neck, then trots over to her door, out to the hall and makes her way to the grand staircase at the end. She continues her way down, seeing her younger brother Barley Wheat scurry down the stairs in front of her, she follows behind him, until both siblings arrive at the dining table. Sweet walks over to her mother and hugs her. “Morning momma, what's for breakfast?” The older mare in front of her turns her attention from the stove and looks to her daughter. “Well I thought you would like flapjacks so I made those this morning before we all head out to the fields. Well me, you and, your father because a certain colt needs to go to school today.” Barley looks to his mother with a frown on his muzzle. “Awwwwww! But I wanted to stay and help Sweet and Pa on the farm!” He pouts as he pokes his flapjacks with his fork. Their mother comes over and nuzzles him, Barley smiles and nuzzles his mother back and hears her say reassuringly,”In time my little sprout you’ll be able to help out around here as much as you want, but for now good little wheat farmers have to go to school, okay?” After she said that she smiles lovingly to her son. He sighs and with a smile he says, “Okay momma.” He looks back down to his plate and starts eating. “Now for you, young lady,” their mother turns to Sweet now, “Hurry up and finish your breakfast  dear, your father is waiting on you in the fields.” Sweet nods, goes over to her place at the table, and starts to eat her breakfast as fast as she can without choking. After eating, Sweet makes her way to one of the many wheat fields the family has on their plot of land. On the second field she spots her father, a big brown stallion with a sandy brown mane like her own, she smiles and walks up to him and hugs him, and the big stallion who is the same size as Big Mac at the Apple farm only slightly taller hugs his daughter back. “Morning pa, so what we got today? Time to harvest?” Sweet asks with enthusiasm as she anticipates what her father wants her to do. “Well Little Grain,” he sometimes called her that on account of her cutie mark and the fact she’s still his little foal even though she’s sixteen, “It ain't time to harvest. We got another month ‘til that, but ya see our field over off in the distance, near the barn? That field needs to be plowed and cultivated so we can grow some barley this time. Think ya can do that?” He looks down to his daughter knowing that she can of course, do the job. Sweet salutes her father “Yes sir! I can do it! I'll get on it right away!” She then smiles and starts trotting over to the field. Her father watches her as she trots over and smiles to himself proudly. “Heh heh, she reminds me of myself… and a little bit of her mother.” He chuckles and starts moving hay bales to the barn. Sweet continues to trot over to the field. She looks up to the sky above and doesn't see a cloud in the sky knowing today is going to be a good day for farm work. She looks straight ahead to the field in front of her and goes over to the cultivator beside the field and starts to hook herself up to it, but she starts to struggle with one of the straps. Sweet growls in annoyance. “Grrrrr… why does this have to happen now? Ugh…” She bites the strap and starts to pull it, trying to get it over her shoulder so she can hook it to the harness she wears for the job, but the strap continues to be stubborn and doesn't move. As Sweet continues to pull, the strap goes taut and it catapults her backwards over the farming equipment and she lands on her belly and muzzle. “OOF!” She exclaims, as she lands and gets the wind knocked out of her. “Ugh… Earth ponies aren't meant to fly… and now I see why.” She starts to rise up, but when she does, she hears a voice call out from above. “Hey Sweet Sweet!” There is only one pony who calls her that pet name….and that’s her best friend Sweet Breeze. Sweet looks just in time to see her best friend come in for a landing, right in front of her. She smiles bright and hugs her friend, consequently getting some dirt on her. “Hey Breezie! I'm glad to see you! What are you up to?” Breeze hugs back and doesn't mind the dirt at all, and she smiles and gestures nonchalantly  with her hoof. “Oh you know, nothing out of the ordinary. Controlling the weather like normal pegasi and seeing what my best friend is up to.” Breeze quickly takes notice of the straps on the farm tool “Uhhh... need some help?” Sweet nods and stands in front of the tool and holds up the strap. Breeze takes the strap with the clamp, and before she even attempts to attach it she sees the strap is stuck in one of the pieces, she smirks  “Huh. You know, I saw your spectacular flip from above and I think I know why it happened.” She untangles the strap and looks to Sweet who is blushing in embarrassment. The two eventually get the cultivator attached to Sweet’s harness, and Sweet walks over to the closest end of the field and she starts walking pulling the farming equipment behind her, cultivating the field. Breeze flies along beside her as Wheat works, and both of them talk about yesterday's events. As they talk the notorious Flim and Flam approach the front door of Wheat’s parents’ home to try and talk them into another business proposition. Wheat’s father spots them and sighs and starts walking towards the house “Not these two again… well let’s see what they want”. > Chapter 2: Trouble brews > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wheat’s father approaches the two right as they are about to knock on the door. He clears his throat and wears a blank expression as he speaks, “Anything Ah can help ya with?” He mentally smirks as he watches the two well known con artists jump and turn around to face him. “Oh, yes, yes mister Wheat there is something indeed you can help us with as the matter appropriately concerns you and your family!” Flim says with a winning smile, “Isn't that right brother?” He looks to the pony to his right who almost looks identical to him except he has a mustache. Flam smiles and starts his pitch, “Oh yes yes! Because you see, your wheat is the one and only special type that we need to make our super duper special wonder bread. It’s something new we are working on, and well we were hoping to buy a field here so we can grow some of the amazing golden wheat by learning how from you.” He continues wearing his business smile as he watches Sweet Wheat’s father. Sweet Wheat’s father continues to stare at the two con ponies, until he eventually lets out a hearty laugh. When his laugh finally comes to an end he wipes a tear from his eye and speaks, “Oh boy… that was the funniest thing Ah have ever heard.” His expression then turns to one of stone. “Now listen here, none of these here fields are for sale, and they ain’t gonna be for sale. they are proudly owned by the Wheat family, that have been here for generations, but if you would like to buy some wheat Ah ain't got no problem with that. But if it's fer property, Ah decline. Now either buy some wheat, or get off my property.” He continues to wear that same expression as he said all he had to say. The two brothers look at each other, and it’s Flam who speaks first, “Oh well, that is a shame mister Wheat! But we will happily buy say… 50 bushels of wheat?”. Sweet Wheat’s father nods, “Well if you have the bits, then we have a sale.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Ugh! Come on Wheatie…. I thought you were going to be doing the work, not me!” Sweet Breeze says, as she complains while pulling the plow behind her, as her best friend Sweet Wheat walks beside her. Wheat giggles as she watches her fillyhood friend struggle with the farming equipment. “Oh come on now Breezie, it's not that heavy and if Ah recall the other day ya said ya wanted to give this farming thing a try, and besides yer a pegasus ain’tcha? Ah thought you were ‘sposed to be strong.” She smirks as she looks down at her friend who’s wings shoot out defensively as she stiffens up and turns to her with a wide eyed expression. “Hey! That's not fair! Yeah I wanted to try out this farming stuff, and yes I am strong, thank you very much! But you earth ponies you have this... This… this weird superpony strength that makes it where you can pull this stuff easier!” Breeze then looks forward at the rest of the acre she volunteered to do. She looks to her friend with malice in her eyes, and when she goes to speak, one could swear they could hear a growl in her voice “You... Owe... me... big time for this….” Wheat smiles and pats her friend on the back, “Oh really? Well how about this, since this field isn’t supposed to be ready for a few days, how about we quit for the day and me and you go over to Sugarcube corner and get some milkshakes?” She keeps her hoof on her friend’s back as she waits for her answer. Breeze hums like she’s thinking about it then with a small squee, “Deal. Now get me outta this harness…. oh you also owe me a back massage because...ow this thing really hurts.” Sweet moves to start undoing the harness and her ears perk at what sweet breeze said. “Oh? Well alright, Ah’ll keep that in mind.” She goes to remove the last clip on the harness. “Okay, just this last one then we can go” “Finally! I thought you were going to take forever!” Breeze giggles, then looks over to the farmhouse and sees Flim and Flam with her friends father on the porch. “Hey? Why is your dad with Flim and Flam?” She feels the last clip get undone from the harness and she lifts her hoof in the direction. “Huh?” Sweet Wheat looks over to where her friend is pointing and sees the ponies in question “Ugh...probably up to no good again, I’m sure. Now, come on before we head out, let's go see what they are up to.” Breeze nods and the two mares make their way over to the porch. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sweet Wheat and Sweet Breeze arrive at the porch right as the two stallions are leaving from the deal they just made. The two stallions tip their hats. “Good day ladies,” they both say as they walk off. Sweet looks back to them and the stallions must have thought they were out of earshot when she hears Flim speak to his brother, “Well..that didn't go as planned do you have any ideas” Flam smirks, “Of course I do dear brother, it's simple. If they don't want to sell us a field or two, we will force them to...by running this farm into the ground.” Sweet can't hear what Flim’s response is to what his brother said as they are now out of earshot, but she knows whatever it is, it can't be good, as both share a laugh and disappear down the dirt road. She whispers to herself, “Ah knew those stallions were up to no good… Ah won’t worry Pa and Ma about it Ah’ll take care of it myself” She then walks up to her father and nuzzles him a hello, “Hey Pa, so what’s up with the two con ponies this time?” Her father returns the nuzzle and he smiles, “Oh don't worry about it sweetheart, they were just buying some bushels for their new product that’ll probably fail I’m sure.” Breeze nickers at that “Pfft… knowing them, there's no doubt” Sweet nods, “Mhmm… well hey Pa, me and Breezie are gonna go to Sugarcube Corner for a while, do ya want anything while I’m out?”. He goes to speak, then stops when he hears his wife call for him. “Stone Wheat! Come here please, I need a little help.” Stone Wheat turns his head towards the door and he knows it's serious when she calls him by name “Aright hun! Ah’ll be there in a second!” He turns his attention back to the two mares, “Well Ah suppose Ah could go for an apple cobbler, now ya’ll have fun and don't stay out too late ya hear?” He hugs his daughter. Sweet smiles and hugs back, “We won't pa.” She turns to Breeze, “Hey, Ah’ll race ya!” Breeze smirks, “Oh, you’re on cowgirl!” Stone chuckles as he sees the two turn and take off down the cobblestone path till it meets the dirt road, and they continue to sprint till they reach sugarcube corner where he can’t see them anymore, and he goes inside to help his wife. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The two make it to the door of the one and only Sugarcube Corner, sliding to a stop. “I win!” Breeze announces. “No way! We got here at the same time! Now lets get our flanks in there!” She giggles and pants, slightly outta breath. She hears her friend laugh at her then head inside and Sweet thinks to herself, “Should Ah at least tell Breezie what Ah heard? Maybe Ah’ll tell her later back at home.” She then turns and follows her friend inside.