“We’ll
see what time there is.” Twilight tried to deflect her guide as she headed for
the door, “There’s a lot to do before I have time to duel.”
“Oh
but we have to pass the town’s main rune grids on our way to Sweet Apple
Acres,” Pinkie’s mane and tail seemed to lose a little of its bounciness,
startling Twilight a little, “Are you sure you don’t have time for one little
duel?”
“I
have a job to do.” Twilight was firm, “Princess Celestia sent me to oversee the
preparations and...”
“Oooh...”
Pinkie perked up again, excitement obvious, “You know the Princess?” She asked,
bounding around Twilight in a circle, “What’s she like? Does she hold good
parties?”
Twilight
could not help the amused smile that emerged at the last question even she
tried to prevent herself becoming dizzy at Pinkie’s antics. She answered
Pinkie’s questions as best as she could as they trotted along, passing the
DuelRune grids in question as they went.
Thankfully,
at least for Twilight, they were already in use. Several ponies of various ages
were duelling against each other, using varied decks of cards with different
themes and strategies. There were not many duplicates on the duelling fields in
front of her and Twilight found herself pausing to watch as a young orange
pegasus filly with a short windswept, magenta mane and messy tail and no cutie
mark, activated a trap card that saved her from the fangs of the Silver Fang
owned by the silver unicorn filly, whose cutie mark was a silver spoon, who was
her opponent.
“Twilight.”
Spike chuckled, poking his friend in the side, causing her to side step in her
surprise, “Work, remember?”
“Right,
right.” Twilight nodded, mentally berating herself for getting distracted as
she caught up to Pinkie who seemed far too amused.
“You
sure you don’t want to stop and duel?” The earth pony asked with a bright and
amused grin.
“Later.”
She told herself as much as she told Pinkie, trying to ignore the little voice
in the back of her head grumbling under his breath about how ‘later never
came.’ “Is it much further to the farm?”
“Nope.”
Pinkie bounded down the road, “It’s just this way. See?” She asked, gesturing
with a hoof. Twilight looked in the direction she was pointing and paused as
she took in the amount of apple trees that she could see and the logo on the
sign over the entrance. When she had first gotten the list, she had just
assumed that Sweet Apple Acres would be some small, locally selling farm that
was maybe a couple of acres at most. It had not occurred to her that the Sweet
Apple Acres she was visiting would be the same orchard as the famous farm that
produced zap apple jam every year and whose cider was not only to die for, but was
only released once a year and sold for ridiculous prices. She had only ever
tasted it because her mother had bought some to celebrate Shining Armour’s
promotion to Captain of the Palace Guard.
Suddenly
the confidence that Pinkie had in the farm’s produce made a lot more sense.
As
she entered the orchards she tried to see if she could see any of the really
rare zap apple trees that, supposedly, only grew on the Apple family farm but
all she could see were common varieties, all of which were heavily laden with
ripening fruit. The trees with apples that were already suitable for consumption
had quite clearly already been picked clean.
Twilight
knew what they had been used for too. She could smell the delicious scents of
apple based products before she saw the production line of ponies making tarts
and pies and fritters and Celestia only knew what else. Pinkie seemed to know a
lot of the ponies there as she bounced over to the tables to see how things
were going.
Twilight
would have followed her except an orange filly with a plaited mane and tail in
a pale yellow, a cowpony hat and three rosy red apples for a cutie mark, had
planted herself in her path. “Hi, I dun think I’ve see yer in these parts
before, if you’re here to buy I’m afraid I don’ have much in stock right now…”
“No,
no,” Twilight smiled at her politely, if a little nervously as she offered her
hoof, “My name’s Twilight Sparkle, I’ve been sent to oversee the Summer Sun
Celebration.”
No comments:
Post a Comment