Bramble Rose

Doctor Whoves stared upwards as everything started to collapse. This ... certainly hadn't been part of the plan. Luckily, this wasn't his first cave-in. He side-stepped one stone, then another, dodging rather frantically as he threw himself out of the way of these tumbling boulders. He was almost fatally distracted as he was pressed out of the way by Celestia, and smiled to see the shield keeping that lethal stone hovering over him. "Well, now, it certainly is handy keeping you around!" he said brightly, but she was already in motion. Events started happening too fast for him to keep track of, then - chaos, disaster, catastrophe - all the things that let him know that life was still going on, and adventure was all well and truly alive. Dust and rocks and glitter and light, creating a fanastic kaleidiscope of danger that blinded the eyes. Luckily, Doctor Whooves depended on a lot more than just sight to keep alive - he'd been doing this a while, so he dodged between the debris, working to stay on top, flexing his incredible sense of timing... even as such, he took quite a few blows from smaller stones, bruising and knocking him around. Oh, this was gonna hurt in the morn- ... no, it was hurting right now. Yup. But when it all cleared, he was on top of the debris. Celestia was there, peering at the rubble, the guards peeking around her wing, where he probably should have been - but he'd never much been one for standing still. He knew where he was going, though - those trapped guards had been right over here, and they might still have a chance! He dove into the pile with abandon, throwing rocks out of the way, getting behind the larger stones to brace himself and push them away. He dug down frantically, wanting to believe there *had* to still be a chance!

Not a problem, then we'll just keep working at it! Let us know once you've updated it again.

The scrawny white unicorn on the left could barely be considered a stallion - his face was still marked with acne, his orange mane still wouldn't always sit right no matter how he tried, and his voice still had a tendancy to squeak embarassingly. He'd been working his way into the Librarians for years, like his father and his father before him, but this was his first real post actually *at* the library. He'd held down small jobs at the palace, around Canterlot, and out around Equestria, gathering up experience that would come in handy when sorting reports from their agents. Or maybe, he pondered, even becoming an agent himself! Hunting down old scrolls of lost wonder, to be preserved for the Order, in the name of the Princess! But still, it'd really seemed like just a bunch of minimum wage part-time jobs. But he'd perservered, and here he was, posted in the library! How exciting! And they'd told him that it would be boring, he was guarding a passage behind a secret door. But here were actual intruders! Golly! Under his breath, he practiced his line, trying to ignore how his voice kept cracking. "You're not supposed to be here!" no, no ... "You're not supposed to be here!" hrmmm... "You're not supposed to be here!" Maybe combine them. "You're not supposed to be here!" Yes, that worked! "Here, let me escort you back to the library proper, and we can help you find your books! ... Let me escort you ... escort you ..." Beside him, the older and more experienced red mare sighed resignedly and just stood on solidly, her face impassive.

Hey, guys - every time I log into the server, I'm on the world where all the giant beautiful structures have been created. What's the command to swap worlds and get back home, again?

SteelEagle put it wonderfully. Also, I would remind you that back at the beginning, I had offered that it would be absolutely no problem to have had any version of this character in "Free For All" - where you can play to your heart's content!

Why would she keep going to their house if she didn't want to speak with them? I think you'll need to expand on that a bit. I still need you to come up with a different example for her art. Other staff have looked at the app, and all had a problem with using meat-eating as an example for a vegetarian society. Also, having a butterfly for a cutie mark is not unique nor special. It is a normal sort of a cutie mark. Other ponies would not be amazed by it.

(( PM if you want in - I'd like it if you either were a weather pegasus, or otherwise had a good reason to be there after everypony else is on their way home. )) It was a dark and stormy night, following up a very, very long day... the storm had come up out of the Everfree Forest as if from nowhere. What had been scheduled as a calm, peaceful afternoon that was slightly cloudy and with a touch of a cool breeze ... had turned into gale-force winds in a matter of twenty minutes. Dash had led the Ponyville weather team in against the gale, but it was no local mess - She heard reports of flooding as far south as Dodge Junction, and tornadoes as far north as Stalliongrad. It was a doozy, that much was certain! Time after time, she'd pulled back to build up a new front of conflicting air and brought it in to break up another segment of the storm, yelling orders with her powerful set of lungs to ponies she could see as no more than silhouettes in the volatile storm, except when the frequent flashes of lightning showed her that she was no longer giving orders to Ponyville pegasus ponies - but complete strangers. No matter, she had authority, and every pegasus was on the same team in an emergency like this! It wasn't long before they knew they'd never be able to give that peaceful summer afternoon that they'd promised Equestria ... nor even a peaceful night. The best they could hope was to break the cyclonic thunderheads into 'just' a powerful thunderstorm, sparing Equestria as much destruction as they could. By the time the storm had finally been broken, it had swept across most of the Nimbusgait Lakes, and by asking the local ponies where she was, she could only determine that she was somewhere north of Canterlot. And apparently, it was well after midnight. She'd been fighting the storm nonstop for more than half a day! Once the adrenaline wore off, the weariness set in quite quickly. No way she was making it back to Ponyville without a rest, not in the storm that still roared outside. She flew heavily over Canterlot with wings that felt made of wood, landing heavily before one of the few places that still looked open. Ponyland, a nice looking little jazz club. She stepped inside, and with aching hooves she peeled off the leather helmet and the goggles that were misting up her vision. Her coat shivered as she shook off sheets of rainwater. She ran her hooves through her tamped-down mane, but nothing was getting that to stand up again anytime soon ... no worries. Not like she'd meet anypony she knew here at two in the morning, other than the fellow pegasus ponies that were landing along with her, eager to get a drink and celebrate a job well done.

Bramble Rose grimaced at her uncertainty over his words, though he damped it as he took on that Canterlot Mask again, his only recourse when he had no idea what to do. "Only in that when you speak of your country, you make me want to see it all the more! Trust me, my dear, I have seen nothing to criticize in anything you have done, you've been an absolutely *darling*!" He stepped away for a moment for a quiet word with one of the museum's employees, then stepped back to Ornatia. "Well, there is always a carriage for rent around here, as it's one of the city's more popular sights - even more so what with the event going on. So we won't even have to wait!" He gestured to her in a most gentlecoltly manner to several carriages standing to the side, their guides clustered around in a small group sipping coffee and gossiping. "Please, take your choice, whichever looks finest to you. And don't worry about me stealing your designs, m'lady, this is my own height of fashion." He touched his fedora, his slightly loosened tie. "I know so little about the actual making of fashion. I rely wholly on Glitzen for that."

As Fluttershy started to panic right in front of her, Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and waited for her dramatic pacing to bring herself towards the athletic pegasus. She lifted her hoof and stuffed it into Fluttershy's mouth, silencing the frantic flusterment. "Hey!" she said to the pink-maned pegasus, her own voice letting out an embarassing crack, "Don't you worry, they're going to be just fine! You know why?" She pulled her hoof out of Fluttershy's mouth and buffed it on her chest. "Cause I'm Rainbow Dash! And I'm on the job!" She hovered up into the air and took off into the distance, just a rainbow streak through the sky. Seconds later, she had returned, except now she had a Daring Do hat perched on her head, and an eager grin on her face. "To adventure!" she cried, pointing off in a specific direction and starting through the air that way. ... Seconds later, she came back to the group and murmured to Fluttershy, "Which way is adventure?"

As Doctor Whooves often discovered would happen in his travels, he was left having made a brilliant plan, but relatively helpless to enact it, left standing quivering with anticipation and hectic worry as powers he could not perceive built around him. He knew that under normal circumstances, what he was asking of them was far, far too much. Very few ponies could do what he was asking them to do ... except that they were on the focal point of the ley net, here, a focal point that no unicorn had tapped for who *knew* how long? It wasn't overused like the one in Canterlot, it was brimming with untapped power... on his cart, the mana vane squeaked... started to turn towards Trixie ... towards Lyra... towards Mal ... back to Trixie... back to Lyra... twirling round in circles with a *squeeeeeeak* ... *squeeeeeeeeak* .... *squeeeek* *squeeeek* *squeek squeek squeek squeeksqueeksqueesqueesqueesquee!* It whirled like a little tiny maelstrom was assaulting it under the pressure of all the magical energies raising around it, the over-full ley nexus dumping power out into the fellow unicorns. The trilling noise that rose from Lyra's horn thrilled through Doctor Whooves. It was something he had only read about - a spell several of his unicorn predesessors had been extremely fond of - till he had taught it to Lyra earlier today. Modestly titled the 'magic screwdriver' spell, it was supposed to create a pleasant whistling as it screwed in metal screws ... or undid a door lock ... or shattered glass ... but today, it blasted across the water at incredible octaves to strike the stone wall opposite, thrumming against it. Little higher, little higher, he silently extorted, leaning forward in anticipation. When the crackes started to form, he leapt up into the air, punching a hoof excitedly. "Yes!" he cried, the word lost in the avalanche nearly drowning out Lyra's whistling with its ferocity. Before he even hit the ground again, a series of detonations blasted into the cacaphony, mixing with the sonic magic to sound distant and almost like implosions instead of explosions, as the shockwave caught him mid-air and knocked him backwards, to tumble along the ground. He came up with an eager expression to see the results. "Yes... yes... YES! Brilliant! Brilliant!" He ran up to the ridge looking down into the river below, his entire front half covered in frost, his mane and tail frozen in a 'blasted backwards' appearance. "Comon... comon..." he extorted the river, his words a bit louder than usual because of his temporary deafness. Sure enough, the river started to rise, the water flowing in but having nowhere to go. Doctor Whooves licked his lips, watching the makeshift barrier ... would the stone and ice hold against the tons of water pressure, the unimaginable force of nature behind it? He trembled, imagining his subtle earth-pony magic flowing out through his hooves and through the earth itself to extort that stone dam. HOLD Who knows? At this place, that might even work! Finally, he couldn't watch the dam anymore, and instead turned and hurried upstream, clambering up a rock formation to peer down at the recently empty streambed he had seen earlier. The water was getting closer and closer to the edge. Mere yards... mere feet .... mere inches! A tiny, dirty, muddy trickle broke through here, then further down ... those trickles turned into splashes, then into fountains of mud, wearing away the earth. The muddy fountains gushed down into the dry streambed below, filling it with a mucky mess... "Comon!" he said, his eyes bright, a grin growing on his face. His forehooves gestured towards the barrier, as if through his force of will alone, he could force it to break apart. If there was one thing he was good at, it was timing. Two gouts of clearer water burst through the barrier, taking a hail of dirt with it. He saw another place groaning, and like a conductor he gestured to it, and it responded with a gout of water. "YES!" he cried, "YES!" Another gout! Another! "AND THE FINALE!" he cried, throwing both hooves high in the air. With its own rumbling, powerful noise, the swelling and blocked river found its new path. The feeble dirty and stone barrier flooded away under the inexorable pressure of the river, blasting down the dry riverbed towards the ocean only a mile or so away, carrying with it the accumulated mud and dirt. For several minutes, it rushed and tumbled, the water frantic in its effort to escape its brief imprisonment, the sheer power of nature devastating as it once again carved this path into the landscape. Back at the makeshift camp, the twirling manavane suddenly quivered, and snapped into a new direction so hard it made the cart rock, lifting off two of its wheels. The three unicorns would feel a silent, unseen pressure like a hurricane-force wind that blew not against them, but *through* them, draining out the rest of the built-up energies of this area as the ley line snapped into its new course along with the river. This place wouldn't be able to fuel such magical majesty again for another several decades ... or more ... of unuse. And on the rocky outcropping, the Doctor capered and danced in glee. "HahahahahaHAAAA! Wooooo! Yeah! That's the ticket! Take that, nature! I'm a GENIUS!"

Well, you said they found a lost foal who wasn't saying anything ... but instead of reporting a lost child to the authorities, they brought her home. How does 'everyone know' if they never told anyone? And why is it difficult to bring her to her parents' house?

Rainbow Dash followed Carrot Fields down the aisle, looking around with quick movements of her head, grinning broadly. This was so cool! She hurried with him as the unicorn made his way around the corner, the circle of light his horn projected sweeping across the crates towards them. She jumped into the opening between crates right after Carrot, his pull making it even faster a movement than she expected, right before the light swept across the dark space they'd disappeared into. She stumbled with Carrot, through the dark, and then was running into a third pony! They fell down, a camera skittering away across the floor into the darkness, as she landed atop Carrot's sprawled form, her head tucked into his chest. She giggled helplessly, excitedly, and looked up to Madden, while his camera mare scurried after the lost camera to retrieve it. "Oh, sorry! Didn't see you here, with all the lights out!" She hurried to her feet, put her hat back on, and helped Carrot up. His hoof in hers, she pulled him away into the nearest doorway she could find. It had to be an improvement over storage! And it was! It seemed to be a changing room! It had all sorts of costumes, makeup, necklaces and whatnot, the works. Hey! That was light brown fur dye ... and grey mane dye! "hey, Carrot!" she said excitedly, handing him one of the little tins of fur dye. "Help me put this on!" ----- ----- ----- Silver Flash waited for the convention hall to quiet down to an acceptable level ... it took a while. Quite a while. All the time, she kept strutting in front of the crowd, head high, chest out, her wings constantly flaring as if it took great self-control to keep from taking off into the air just for need to move ... Daring Do just couldn't stand still for long. But eventually the crowd quieted, and Silver Flash grinned out at them, leaning forward as if imparting secrets. "I know some of you are wondering which of your favorite stories will be brought first to the stage! And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is - none of them! We all know what the record is on books-made-theatre ... so we're not going to even try! No butchered shortenings or cuttings of your favorite scenes! No awkward re-imagining of your favorite characters! They will forever remain true to your potent imaginations! Instead, the director has worked closely with the author to bring to you a brand-new, never before told tale of my brilliant and epic adventures!" She grinned, and lowered her voice, though her words still carried to the far corners of the room as the crowd quieted with her. "For I have a tale of Daring Do for all of you fans out there that has never before been heard! A tale of love, and treasure, and danger, and loss! My hoofsteps and wingflaps will take me to a place of such dreadful danger that its very name has become synonymous with the most dangerous and evil things that Equestria has ever known! FILLIES AND GENTLECOLTS! Are you ready to brave the terror of DARING DO and the TREASURE of TARTARUS!" Onc again, she had to wait ages for the crowd to die down. She smiled, and strutted some more. "I can't tell you more just now! But all your pre-con schedules have those generic 'special event' slots there with no descriptions? Well, the con staff have handouts to replace those slots with theatre-related events! The first one, later today, is a huge Question and Answer period, where I, and the director, and the author, will all be together to answer whatever questions you, the loyal fans, might direct towards us! Except, of course, the plot of the next play!" She winked and touched the side of her nose. "Spoilers, after all!"

Regarding the fourth question: Ahhh, I see. Do you think you could come up with something more appropriate to the setting to explain it? Like ... parents punishing their foals, perhaps? Rather a bit milder, but I'm sure the foals see it as cruel! Or something else. I'm not entirely sure I'm clear on the idea. Could you make it more apparant that it's her self-consciousness and not what others are actually doing? For the amount of time she was lost, and the explanation of her abilities, I do have a question, then. If she's old enough to know what she's doing in the wilderness.. how did she get lost in the first place? And if she knows survival techniques... how did she make the most basic of mistakes in not staying where she was and waiting for the search party? Regarding Shade and Yuki ... the way you describe it, the two of them basically kidnapped Duskus. I'm not sure that's what you intend to have happened.

All right, I looked through your new app. 1. I see you moved your character to living weeks without aid in the woods instead of in the mountains. This is still, however, wilderness... and young foals don't do very well in the wilderness, untrained. A few days at most ... 2. OK, so she's in Trottingham, where she's known to be missing ... why hasn't Yuki and Shade told the guard, "We found a lost foal." Especially when the foal obviously needed medical attention and wasn't talking to them... 3. Why would ponies look at her strangely because she has grey eyes? That's a normal sort of an eye color. 4. "(for example, slaying animals for food, its cruel, but necessary to stay alive)" Ponies don't eat meat ...

Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes and glared around the laundry room. Luckily, there were no dresses hanging up in here to have gotten splashed ... just ... everything else. Well, fine. She could clean up this ... clean mess. It was just soap. But today had been even more dramatically catastrophic than usual! She needed to make sure there was absolutely no chance that anything more could go wrong. She had to stand firm... except not on a bar of soap. Or a sudsy floor. She had to be careful not to bump her mop into anything while she was mopping. She had to make sure not to knock anything over by backing into it. She had to look where each and every movement took her. Oh dear. This sounded hard. Still. All these suds were mainly on the floor, so first thing to do was keep there from being even more mess on the floor. She picked up, one by one, every single thing that could be picked up, and started lifting them onto higher surfaces, to make sure they weren't part of the mess. Soon, every table, every chair, everything higher than her shoulder was covered in stuff. It was all a little... drippy ... but it was out of the way! There, now she could start to mop!

Rainbow Dash's head was whirling from all the commotion... a third cup of coffee brought to her hooves, and questions from everypony present... especially from the extremely excitable griffin. She addressed the Griffin directly, deciding that it would be best to keep her *calm* as possible. "Well ... I could take you to Twilight, sure ... but Neferset's just a story - and a griffin story, at that. I used to hear it in Junior Speedster Flight School from the griffins there." She paused, rubbing under her chin as she strove to remember it. It'd been so long! Her voice got a bit distant and pedantic - easy for her when she was *this* tired... "Neferset was the ruler of this ancient Griffin city built into the side of a mountain ... a golden age for Griffins. It's said that despite all her success, she waxed melancholy because her people, despite their strength and glory, were still dependent upon the Pegasus Ponies, their allies, to control the weather. She brought together all the most brilliant Griffin sages in all the Griffin lands and skies to address to them a question - how could the Griffins take control of their own destiny, and become true rulers of the sky? The sages worked on the problem for seven years before finally presenting a solution - a brilliant golden crown, shaped like intertwined lightning bolts. It was said that this crown would magically steal away the pegasus' magic, and give it to the griffins, for as long as the ruling griffins had it ... but even as they handed it over, some great catastrophe happened, some natural disaster, and the city fell off of the mountain and was lost, along with the crown." Her voice lifted a little, back to her normal way of speaking. "But that's just a story, of course, there's no such ruined city, and nothing could *actually* steal a pegasus' AWESOMENESS! It's part of who we are!" Having answered that questions to the best of her ability, Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up as the server returned with another coffee, then stepped back a couple of feet, as if waiting for something. Dash lifted the mug to her lips. At last! Beautiful, wonderful, magnificent coffee!

Bramble followed after Ornatia, taking the quiet ascent of the stairs to regather his thoughts. OK, so he was going to share a carriage with the mare who'd been at the next table over at the Gallopocous islands. No worries. There was no reason to think she suspected a thing. He just had to keep it together, not get too flustered, and treat her politely. Of course. Just remember what his dam taught him about being in public. Who was he kidding? When had he ever managed to not make an idiot of himself? But he couldn't very well give up! He drew himself up, as he followed after the mare, his head tall, his horn raised to try to lend an illusion of a couple inches more of height. Carry yourself like you are large, his dam had said, and everyone will believe that you are. "Oh, don't worry," he assured Ornatia. "I work with artists a lot. Especially Glitzen Glamour. Now there's a pony so extroverted that it's like he's trying to live outside of his own skin! He's never calm - if he's not giddy with excitement over some new and probably embarassing outfit he's thought up for me ... he's dramatic about how he has lost all of his muse ever and will never create again. Next to that, a little bit of agoraphobia seems quite *peaceful*. Trust me, if you feel prone to bouts of ... uh ... quietness ... as we take our tour, I will not take it badly." Wait. That might mean you don't like her voice! "Not that I don't enjoy listening to you talk!" he assured her quickly, awkwardly. "Your pride for your homeland is ... uh ... infectuous!" Infectuous? You compared her to a disease? Idiot! "But I quite understand needing some quiet time to rest."

Sweetie Belle let out a soft *eek!* as the juice ate its way through the table and floor. She produced a washrag and swiftly started trying to clean up the mess, even as the rag itself started to dissolve. No matter - she had spares! She used a second rag to clean up the juice and the first melting rag, and as the second rag also started to dissolve, she paniced and threw it out the window. From out in the street, came the anguished cry of "My cabbages!" Sweetie didn't notice, though, she was too worried about the hole in Rarity's table! She glanced around swiftly, worriedly ... then took a doily and sliiiiid it over on the table to cover the hole. There! That was a good use for a doily! To cap it off, she took a vase of flowers and put it on top of the doily. Perfect! Nopony would ever know!

After Spike and Twilight had been wandering the market for a while, lost in simaultaneously too many and too few choices, Rainbow Dash came winging overhead, trying to find them. When she finally did spot them, her eyes lit up and she flared her wings to come in for a quick landing. "Hey, guys! I got it! Well, sorta." Dash rolled her eyes. "She wouldn't tell me what she actually wanted, she just kept saying really useless things like, "It's gotta be from the heart," and "It has to mean something" and stuff like that. And then she just kept going on and on about that Ruby that Spike had given her, cause that's the best gift she'd ever received. But we kept talking about stuff till I finally got just the right idea!" She leaned closer, dropping her voice as she glanced around conspiratorially. "OK, so we gotta get her something pretty, right? The prettiest thing we can find, cause Rarity's all about the pretty stuff ... but Rarity makes all the prettiest things in town! So we can't get the prettiest stuff in town to give her cause she's already got it! But you know what gets her more excited than anything, and that's the ability to make pretty stuff! There's not a pony alive that can make something pretty enough to give to Rarity ... so the solution's in dying!" She grinned proudly at this declaration. "See, Rarity's gotta make all those fabrics and stuff, to make her clothes so pretty! So I figure, we spread out and all grab some special sort of dye that only we can get! Like, I'll go up to Cloudsdale and get Rainbow Tiedye - it's this thing from when our parents were foals where the fabric would just keep changing colors through every color of the rainbow! Kinda cool, but fell out of fashion for a while. But I bet Rarity could figure out something cool to do with it! And I bet Fluttershy could talk the butterflies into giving her, I dunno... butterfly glitter or something. And Twilight must have some awesome stuff in those books of hers! Applejack, maybe she'd got some sort of Zap-Apple Dye or ... or secret family recipe or something. And Spike could grind up some gems to make gem-powder that she could use for really bright dyes... maybe ask Zecora if she's got any ideas, like, Poison Joke blue or something ... and I'm sure Pinkie Pie will come up with something totally random." She kinda drained off, cause this was as far as her idea had gotten. "Sooooooooo ... anywaaaaaay ... ummmmmm ... yeah! So every time she uses these radical and awesome dyes to dye her fabric, she'll remember that Spike got them for her, and they represent all of their friends! So it'll be perfect!" she exclaimed, her voice cracking in her excitement!

( sorry, posted to the wrong thread )

The Tug of War was the only one of the three competitions that Rainbow Dash was well and truly worried about. Last year, the Iron Pony competition had been about winning! That meant using all your advantages - not just speed, strength, and agility, but also creativity, style, and clever tactics. This year, though, it was all ... regulated. So many restrictions and regulations, to put everypony on a 'level playing field' ... as if there really could be such a thing! Everypony had their strengths and weaknesses, they were just restricting some pony's strengths and not others. Still, Dash meant to win. For the other two competitions, she could use her cleverness and knowledge for an advantage. Here, though ... this was nothing more than a feat of pure strength and grit. No wily strategy, no way to think outside the box, and if she had to be totally honest with herself, she knew she couldn't win on pure muscle. She'd just have to hope that her other two competitions had gotten her enough points to make up for this one! She strode up to the rope, swallowed nervously and took a deep breath, then raised her hooves to the crowd. "Time for the Iron Pony to start playing dirty!" she cried out, playing the crowd. There was an appreciative chuckle from the audience. If she could play it off as a game, no one would care that she ended up in the mud! She tossed the rope in a loop around her torso, grabbed the end in her mouth, and ignored the three ponies on the far side. Three to one. Sheesh. She stamped into the ground, preparing herself, digging little furrows to give herself just that slightly better hoofhold, and then gave a nod to the judge before throwing herself forward. She withstood the first jerk, and then it was just waiting it out... she strained to her limit, the rope tightening around her, keeping it from slipping between her teeth. She could just grit those teeth round the rope, lean forward, and let every ounce of her weight and muscle go into keeping her out of that mud a little longer. Sweat poured down her forehead, down her cheeks and neck, as she worked against the pull of those three ponies... but she felt the ground give beneath her hooves, felt herself getting dragged back. She couldn't even lift a hoof to try to step forward... all she could do was dig in, and make those three ponies work for every inch! Once her first hoof slipped off the edge, it was all over. She tumbled back into the mud, coming up coated in the goo. She gasped, unwrapped herself from the rope, and stepped onto more solid ground as she gave her soaked and bedraggled mane a toss, then lifted her hooves up to the crowd and gave a cheer. YEAH! She'd done her best... now to find out if it was good enough... No! It had to be good enough! She was Rainbow Dash, and she NEVER lost!

Rainbow Dash watched the other competitors make their runs, noting the errors ... potatoes falling out was one danger, she'd have to glide smooth and careful ... but even worse was how they were all drained dry by the end of the race. Ha! Probably not a one of them had ever had to pull a cold front in from the frozen north, or even thought that air might be heavy! Heh. Sure, lots of them had hauled a load at a nice sedate pace, but she bet they never had to haul a full load while racing ahead of the freezing winds or else having your wings ice up and bring you down! Yes, this was much less like a race, and a lot more like hauling in the weather. Needs speed, strength, stability, *and* endurance. Starting up a storm front wasn't like starting a race - you had to build it up slowly, then let the weight carry itself. Yes, momentum was the key. She grunted a little as the weight was laid across her back, staggering one step and then straightening up again. Whoah! Yeah, not as heavy as a cold front, but solid weight like this had its own unique strain. She lifted her head and walked to the starting line, careful not to let the strain show. She was Rainbow Dash! she had a reputation to uphold! The whistle sounded, and she was not, despite her name, off in a dash. She started off at a walk, leaning forward, slowly building up her speed across her smoothest gaits. She couldn't afford to burn herself out trying to start quickly. She let the weight carry her forward, the momentum, making it easier to keep running than to try to stop. Woog! This wasn't quite the same as a cold front, after all - these potatoes weren't entirely moving on their own, she still had to keep up their weight, but they *did* keep her moving forward. By the time she'd reached fifty yards, the worst was over. Now she had her secret card to play ... it was like none of these amateurs knew how to bank! She swung out wide, not trying to hug the flag at the far end, but instead adding distance to her 200 yard run by swinging out by at least 20 yards... then, leaning towards the center, she pulled around, never slowing down, making a wide circle that skimmed right past the flag and reached 20 yards out on the far side, then making her way back in towards the center, her race route more like a giant teardrop without a straight line to its name. Now it was nothing but the home stretch, and her legs were certainly feeling it ... but she knew that she had better time than *any* of them, with that maneuver. She went through the finish line at top speed, and didn't even try to stop, but just kept going, her legs complaining, but not nearly so much as they would if she tried to come to a dead stop! She couldn't even hear the crowd, not with her breath rasping in her throat and her heart pounding in her ears. She made slow, banking circles as she slowly worked against the momentum of the potatoes, letting herself slow down easily... she groaned as she finally made it down to a walk, not having the energy to lift the potatoes off of her own back ... but thankfully, there was the officials, taking the weight for her. It was only then that she staggered off to collapse into the grass. *pwew*

Sweetie Belle smiled softly to Apple Bloom. "Oh, Abby! We're always looking for our cutie marks, whether we're by ourselves, if there's just two of us, or if it's all three! I know Scootaloo and me have gone looking by ourselves, like with the school paper! Don't worry, she won't be upset! And we probably won't get our cutie marks all at the same time ... but we're not going to stop trying!" She smiled to Timid, then. "Hi, there! You doing all right, then? Ready to help us get our cutie marks in apple-something? I'm sure it'll be lots of fun! And this time it won't be nearly as dangerous as some of the other things we've tried!" Sweetie pranced happily towards the apple trees. Truth be told, she was just a little bit nervous - last time she'd tried to buck an apple tree, it hadn't turned out very well ... but these weren't zap apple trees, so it'd probably be all right! She didn't even need the Apple Bumpkin's encouragement - the special reward she wanted was a cutie mark! And Miss Bumpkin couldn't hand those out! Sweetie Belle had an advantage - she spent lots and lots of time at Sweet Apple Acres, and was friends with someone who had been trained by Ponyville's best Apple Bucker! Head down, hooves up ... she gave a solid kick to the tree, and stumbled forward to fall on her chin, letting out a squeaky "Oof!" She quickly got back up, brows furrowed, feeling terribly self-conscious. "Oh yeah?" she said, "Think a tree's going to beat me?" She took the stance again, planting her front hooves a little more firmly, like she was trying to push the ground away, and gave a more solid *thump* against the trunk! "UNH!" A few leaves fell this time, drifting around her head. She coiled up, then kicked again, and again, beating her hooves against the tree! "Unh! Unh! Unh! UNH! Aw, COMON!" Leaves drifted down around her, till suddenly an apple dropped on her head, breaking her rhythm. She staggered a bit, but far from being upset, she picked up the apple and lifted it up proudly. "YEAH!!"

Purple Haze's breath caught when she saw the rainbow-colored jelly, her eyes wide and eager, already having forgotten about the idea of a love potion. That was it ... she hadn't dared hope for it. The Rich Marketplace scattered it all over Equestria, but it was so expensive, her family'd never been able to buy a jar ... and when she came to Ponyville, she'd *heard* of it even more ... and yet ... she still had never tried it. And now, here it was! Zap Apple Jam! "Oh, um ... Aye, Oi did make some carrot cake, but Oi already put th' frosting on it an' everything. But Oi also have some carrot bread, an' we kin put it on that! It's roit juicy an' it'll be a real treat! Oi'm right excited tae try yer famous jam! Oi've never had a chance tae try it afore, but Oi've heard th' stories! Oi'll be right back!" She hurried off into the kitchen, and was back in a flash, more carefully carrying a big wooden cutting board with a knife and a loaf of carrot bread on it. It also had a nice little dish of soft cream cheese on the board, in case anyone wanted to spread it on the bread, but ... zap apple jam! Yay! She slid it off onto the table, and looked up to her brother. "Big Brae, would ye loik tae cut th' bread for us, then?" She hurried around the table and sat down, sitting up nice and straight and proud at her place next to Apple Bloom, trying not to wriggle in eagerness *too* much!