Last time:
>Went back to Sugar Cube Corner to put on the finishing touches for the party while Dash and Pinkie got more ponies.
>Accidentally dropped a whole cake on Mrs. Cake and her babies.
>Pinkie though this was hilarious.
>Partied with her, Dash, Berry, Lyra, Bonbon and Derpy. Minimal spaghetti.
>Ponies asked you some human questions. You told them what you thought was right but you honestly cant remember.
>When the party was over, you and Pinkie were able to convince Mrs. Cake for you to stay the night.
>Got in bed with Pinkie.
>Can't sleep cause Pinkie snores like a lumberjack.
You are lying in a small bed shared with Pinkie. You are really tired after a day of partying and trying not to die, but can't sleep because Pinkie so snoring really loud. Gummy is wedged between the two of you.
You consider using the small gator as a makeshift pony silencer... but you're already had one awkward experience with him and don’t really want to press your luck. Besides, you doubt both he and Pinkie will stay asleep like that.
You grit you teeth, bury your head in your pillow as best you can to muffle the noise and count sheep.
"One... two... three."
Some time later
"…seventy seven... seventy eight... seventy... mmeem."
Eventually, by sheer determination, you get through this ordeal and drift off into sweet unconsciousness.
......
......
You are laying down. You don’t know where you are. It's dark.
You hear something else, muffled. You don’t know what.
You pull out and fiddle with your lighter.
The flame comes on. Your small space is illuminated. It's very small, just a bit larger then you are. It's all padded, but the part you are looking up at is glass or something. Your lighters light passes through it and to the area beyond a little.
It's really dark out there and you can't see much. But there’s someone out there, turned away from you.
You turn off the lighter.
You feel with your hands that there are no drafts. It's sealed tight.
"Hello?" You call out to the figure you say beyond, in the dark. "Help!"
You try to bang on the glass. It's solid and ice cold. Your hand hurts.
You can't see the figure anymore, but you can hear something moving.
You bang on the glass with the folded knife.
*BBOOWWW*
*BOOWWWW*
*BOWWWOWW*
Nothing. It's too strong. It doesn’t even leave a mark.
You try to push it. It's wont budge. You're not strong enough.
Suddenly the glass shatters. There’s something on top of you, pushing your chest, around your neck. You can't breath.
Everything is red.
!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You wake up. You are drenched in cold sweat. You can hear the familiar sound of Pinkie snoring in your ear, right in your ear. One of her legs on lying on your face.
Slowly, you take a free arm and gently peel Pinkie off your face, the fur tinkling your nose a little. You gingerly place it back down by Pinky's side. Her snoring doesn’t even falter.
Her hair is even more tangled then it usually seemed from yesterday. She's also been tossing and turning all night; she's out of the sheets and they're all ruffled.
Gummy's gone.
You decide to get up and brush your teeth. You don’t remember the last time you did. As you get up, the bed creaks noisily as the springs in the mattress are no longer supporting you. Pinkie is still out.
You stalk across the room and down the hall quietly. The house seems quiet, you guess the other ponies are still asleep too. Remembering where you bathed yesterday, you find the bathroom easy. It's empty, so you go over to the sink and mirror.
You realize you have no tooth brush.
You wash your hands and do as best a job you can, using a bit of toothpaste. It's not perfect but you think you're clean enough for now.
You also undress from the clothes you slept in and take a quick shower.
With your one eye that’s not covered in pink pony limb, you see that its light out. You can hear a few birds chirping out a window. You think it seems early.
You dry off and get back into your only clothes. You washed them yesterday, kinda, but they're really wrinkled and have a smell to them.
So you wash them a again in soap and water real quick. You feel OK. That dream was... vivid, but you're OK. Your clothes are now clean, but damp and really wrinkled.
As you finish, you realized you probably should have locked the door. It's wide open.
"Hello?" You call out quietly, keeping in mind ponies are sleeping. "Is... someone there?"
No answer.
You shrug it off an head down stairs. The morning light shining in through the store front window. It's definitely early, but you can see a pony or two outside, walking down the street. The store seems completely empty.
You look around Sugar Cube Corner a bit, staying clear of the kitchen. Given your track record, you'd probably burn the whole place to the ground by accident.
The place is immaculate. All of the the treats and various backed good are under glass, arranged in order. There’s a fancy cash register on the counter, as well as a bell chime. Everything is clean and orderly, which amazes you, having spent all day with Pinkie. You guess the Cakes are different.
You open a cabinet to see what's in it anOHFUCKAHHH
You fall backwards noisily, calling out!
But it's just Gummy. How... did he get in there? The little gator hops out of the cabinet and crawls over to you. He bites you on the foot and wages his large reptile tail.
You hear noises from upstairs.
You quickly get back you your feet. Gummy is still stuck to your foot, so you try to pluck him off......... you cant! He's latched on to you like a vice, even though your foot doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t seem to mind being on your foot, so you ignore him, listening closely to the noise upstairs.
A door creaks... hoof steps on the floor... another door... running water.
You guess one or more of the ponies is awake.
You decide to sit down quietly and wait, struggling with Gummy. Eventually you pry him off and just set him on your lap. After a few minutes, Mr. and Mrs. Cake come down the stairs and nearly die of fright seeing you.
"AH! Oh... Rusty, it's just you." Mr. Cake says, getting his bearings with is wife. "You're... uh, you're up early."
"Yeah, about that," you start, getting up. The Cakes take a step back at the same time. "I just wanted to thank the two of you for your generosity. As you know I'm... new in town and I don’t have place to go. I was hoping that there might be a few chores or something I could do to pay you back, or maybe even make a little money."
"Oh uhh," Mrs. Cake starts. The two of them exchange looks. "That... very nice of you to offer, Rusty."
"It's just that... we..."
"And with the babies and all..."
"Tell you what." Mr. Cake goes behind the counter and opens the register. He scoops out what look like some gold coins and shoves them into your hands. "Here.”
“Now if you'll excuse us, Rusty." Mrs. Cake says, pushing you to the door. "We really need to get the story ready for business."
"Oh, thank you so much!" You say, holding the coins in your hands and sliding to the door. Mr. Cake opens it.
"Oh no, think nothing of it."
"It's just so nice of yo-"
You're cut off as the door slams closed behind you, now out in the street. Looking back, you see the Cakes smiling at your from behind the store window and then they get busy, setting things up in the store.
You count the coins you were just given. One... two... three........................... thirty. Thirty coins exactly. You don’t know how much that is, but considering that they look like gold you guess it's quite a lot. You pocket them.
You think it's best you get some new clothes. You've been wearing this same pair and cleaning them poorly as long as you can remember. Literally.
You vaguely recall Pinky telling you her friend Rarity runs a Boutique and you visited it with her... briefly. You guess that’s your best hope and make your way there.
Wandering the streets a bit, you see a few ponies going about. They take one look at you and cross the street or duck between buildings. You feel a little off put by this, but before you think about it too much something hits you like a ton of bricks and you fall flat to the ground on your chest, knocking the air out of you.
"Good morning Rusty!"
Whatever hit you, it lets you turn on your back and look up at it. Oh, its that gray pegasi you met at the party last night... Derpy, you think. She's standing right over you, you between her legs. She seems really happy about something.
"Oh, good morning... Derpy, was it?"
The gray pony nods her head really hard smiling, her mane flying all over. You spy some saddle bags or something hanging over on her flanks. "Last night was really fun, huh?!"
"Oh yeah, real fun... say, Derpy, I was hoping I might be able to go buy some new clothes. You wouldn’t happen to know a place, would you?"
"Oh oh!" Derpy shouts, flapping her wings, kicking up dust and hovering in the air a bit. "Rarity makes good clothes. She lives at the Carousel Boutique, one block east and two houses down from here!" Derpy points off, over your head.
"Oh, thank you Derpy."
Derpy smiles and claps her hooves together excitedly.
'And I just cleaned up too.' You think to yourself, getting to your feet and brushing the dirty off your clothes best you can.
"Derpy, do you know which way is ea... oh, you're... still pointing." The flying pony is still acting like a living compass, her hoof pointing in a very specific direction. "OK, thanks again. By the way, where are you off to in such a hurry?"
"Mail!" Derpy shouts, turning mid hover and wiggling a saddle bag in your face. "I deliver mail! I got a lot today, but I wanted to say hi!"
"Oh, that’s neat. Nice meeting you again Der-"
You're cut off mid-sentence as Derpy hugs your face.
"Nice seeing you Rusty. OK bye bye!" She lets go and flies off somewhere. You guess north, considering she just pointed you east. You stand there a little confused what just happened for a few seconds, but shake it off and walk on.
The Carousel Boutique is just where Derpy said it was and where you remember it.
You decide to just take the straight forward method and go up to knock on the front door. You can hear something from inside.
"-is hour of the morning!" There’s the sound of something being knocked over and then the door flies open, revealing a disgruntled looking Rarity in silk looking coverall. You look up at you and squints really hard.
"Uh, hi Rarity, its me R-"
The door slams in your face.
You decide Rarity isn’t going to change her mind on you just yet, so you walk off and wander around a bit.
Seeing things now in the light and not being attacked by a giant jelly, you start to get a real feel for Ponyville. It's pretty nice; small rural town, cute little houses. Streets are clean. A few stores and market stalls begin to open up for the morning. Of course, you stand out like a sore thumb and everything is on the small side, but it's still nice you think.
You wander for what feels like a good hour or so, just taking in the sights and sounds and learning your way a bit around town. The sun is higher in the sky and there are more ponies in the streets, but not many. Your feet are aching and your stomach is rumbling a little.
You could go buy something to eat... or you could continue to bum more food from these ponies! Besides, you remember Applejack lived at that orchard farm and she seems like an important pony to know. Plus you think you should save your money, especially if you want to buy clothes later.
You wander around some more and make way to the apple orchard you went to with Pinkie yesterday... and got attacked. But you're sure that won't happen again!
Soon enough, you're out of town and going down a dirt road (they're all dirt roads, you guess) surrounded by apple trees and can spy the farm house in the distance. Luckily, you weren’t ambushed this time and make it to the door without incident.
You knock on the door. No answer.
You guess no one is home, so you look around the farm. From here, you can see a big barn close by and of course the whole orchard. It makes sense that farms would be out in the field, so you head out into the orchard to find a pony.
You immediately get lost. This place is HUGE, its practically a forest of identical looking apple trees with red and green fruit. Before you know it, you can't tell where the farm house is or even what direction town is!
But you keep your cool. You figure you can just climb a tree and and get a good vantage, maybe spot a pony or at least which way town is again.
Picking a random tree, you hop up and grab hold of a sturdy branch. It snaps with a crack, you fall back and hit your head on your familiar friend, the ground.
You look at the small branch you broke in your hand as you get back up. The Apples might not be too happy about you doing some emergency pruning to their property. At least no one saw, its OK...
No, you know what? No, its no OK! This shit IS getting old! You've been knocked to the ground like... at least six times in the past two days! You are getting really freaking sick of it! You're just so mad you could just... just!
You fling the branch away from you in frustration, grunting in anger. You feel a little better, watching it fly over the foliage and beyond, out of site behind the trees. You hear it hit something.
"Ow!" A familiar voice shouts. "What the hay? Who threw that? Who's out there?!"
"Oh no," You say, holding you hands to your mouth. You start running over to where you saw the branch go. "Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no!"
It doesn’t take you long before you come face to face... face to torso, with Applejack. Her hat is on the ground by some bushels of apples and shes rubbing the back of her head.
"What huh?" Applejack says, surprised by you. "Oh. It's you. Rusty. What in tarnation are you doing here? Throwing branches, like some mad pony?!"
"I'm sorry! It was an accident! I was looking for you and, I'm sorry, I wanted to know, I'm sorry, if I could maybe do some, I'm sorry, chores or something around the farm so, I'm sorry, I could work for a meal or something. Please."
She looks as you, her eyes squinting really hard.
"I'm sorry." You say again.
"Fine!" Applejack says, clearly angry. She kicks her hat and it lands on top of her head. "We're harvesting the south field today. You help, and you can have as many apples as you want to eat. Come on, now."