“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.”
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