Doing the Dirty Work [Open!]

[appletastic]

How did Applejack stand working so hard around the farm? Her secret was simple: combining work and play. She'd brought the same styl to Hydroponics, where she'd sectioned off a small patch of the ground to be a place for some of the animals to play. The grass was dug up and seeds were planted elsewhere, water was poured, and Applejack herself was pounding her legs into the dirt. Making mud! Her bright orange coat was now coated in brown, and the longer she worked, the further she sank.

But this wasn't very fun. Back home, she'd done---yeah, that was what was missing! She hopped out of her little mud pit, tracked dirt across the grass, and set off at a fast trot. "Yee-haw!"

If anypony happened to be hanging about, they'd be splattered when the large pony came crashing down, rolling in her little pit of dirt. Her hat sat some distance to the side, miraculously untouched by the splattering of mud. Surely most would know to stay away from such a display.

Comments

[morganknight]

Morgan had been out looking for edibles, seeds, and useful plants in this bizarre world of Hydroponics... proving once again that he completely overestimated his own capacity to observe things.

As if to prove that it was impossible to underestimate his perception, he didn't even notice Applejack, the mud pit, or the inevitable collision of the two till a massive spatter of mud nailed him dead-center in the chest.

And that was the shirt Rarity had made for him. Somewhere she was fainting and didn't know why.

[appletastic]

Applejack looked up after a particularly fun roll, suddenly a little sheepish. Not that she was an expert on sweaters, but it did look nice. What on earth was it doing around a farm, though? Farms are messy. Everypony should know this.

"Howdy Morgan! Your apple seed's comin' along swell."

[morganknight]

He hadn't NOTICED the farm, of course. Paying attention, noticing things... these are not Morgan's strengths.

He looked down at the shirt with a wry smile, possibly imaging Rarity's reactions for himself. "Hi, Applejack. I'm glad to hear it." As he swatted off some of the mud, he looked back up at the pile of dirt curiously. "What are you doing?"

[appletastic]

"Makin' a mudpit, of course!" Applejack explained again, as though this was the most obvious fact in the world. She looked proudly upon her hard work. "I thought the critters could use some playtime, y'know?"

[morganknight]

"In a mudpit? Is that common?" Most of the "critters" he was personally familiar with... well, his own pooch would have loved to roll around in the mud, but his cats, not nearly so much. "Not that I don't see the appeal," he added with a grin -- because after all, AJ was sure enjoying it.

[appletastic]

"Sure is! You've never seen the little piglets going at it?" Applejack wondered. "Helps 'em keep cool and keep the bugs off. They love it!"

And they track their muddy hooves all over the farm too, but that's another story for another day. One she doesn't mind at all.

[morganknight]

"Pigs. Of course!" He thunked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I'm not used to being around them, but yeah, duh, Morgan."

[appletastic]

"Aww, well that's all right. Farmland ain't for everypony," she shook her head, grinning up at him. "You're city folk, then?"

She asked in a friendly enough manner, but she privately wondered if he had any Rarity tendencies.

[morganknight]

"Well, most of my life I spent in a temple, training," he said, sliding off his coat to drop it on the ground casually next to her hat. "But I'm probably more city folk than anything these days. I did a lot of running a company."

[appletastic]

"So you're businessfolk!" She understands that, at least, even if her little apple cart doesn't quite meet the standard. "How were things going for you?"

[morganknight]

"Very well, actually. I inherited a lot of things from my folks... the Knight family has been in business in my home country for a long, long time. But I was keeping it going well!" he said with a boyish grin.

[appletastic]

"Better than the Apple family?" She would just have to see about that! She straightened her neck proudly. "So what were you selling?"

[morganknight]

Yeah. Just a little. Through no fault of hers and no credit to his. "It's... complicated to explain. The corporation was really one big company that managed a whole bunch of smaller companies, each of which made a different kind of product."

[appletastic]

"Sounds like a mess waiting to pile in on itself," Applejack observed. Seriously, who could handle all those fancy things? "I guess y'all were pretty busy keeping track of all those numbers."

[morganknight]

"Well, we had people and machines to do that sort of thing. Me, personally, I only dealt with one business very directly and that was my comic book business. That one, I created," he said, pointing his thumb at himself with a proud smile. "That's my baby."

[appletastic]

"Comic books?" Applejack knew of books, of course, and sometimes she read a few, but she hadn't seen many of them. "Those funny picture stories?"

[morganknight]

"These weren't so much funny. It'd be fair to say they were like some of the life stories of people on this ship." Morgan had not failed to notices that some people around here seemed to behave like comic book characters, or at least observe the tropes and conventions of characters like that.

[appletastic]

"So they're more like regular ol' books. With pictures."

It sure sounded good to her! Something a little easier on the eyes.

"What's so exciting about those stories, though?"

[morganknight]

"The same as any stories, of course!" he said. "They're a different time and place, a different world. Reading them is exploring that world!"

[appletastic]

"Wish I could see it all," she wondered. "Just ain't the same as smelling the grass or walking the earth. But I like stories---just as long as they're not coming true and causing chaos everywhere."

That...was a sore spot.

[morganknight]

Morgan's mouth twisted to a wry expression that was closer to a smile than anything -- but wasn't, really. "We had that happen, once. It was kind of insane and I never heard half of what happened, but what I do know is enough to make me wish I hadn't been anywhere near any of it."

[appletastic]

"What did you know?" Applejack's expression shifted into a serious one. "Was it bad? Were they...y'know, dying?"

[morganknight]

"No," Morgan said, though her question brought up all sorts of painful memories for him abruptly, like a kidney shot. But Morgan was good at taking hits. "One of my friends was a comic book author. She worked for my company. Her best work had characters that were based off of people she knew, including herself. Well, somehow -- I don't know how -- the comic book version of her, and she herself, traded places."

[appletastic]

"What?" Applejack yelped, very tempted to cling to her hat. That was just wrong.

"So she's just trapped in the book forever?" Now why did that sound familiar?

[morganknight]

"Oh no! She didn't go into the book! See... in this universe, anything is possible. Like talking ponies or ships made of meat or... anything. Everything is real somewhere. So was the character that was based off my friend. Two real people switched places."

Though man, the idea of her being trapped in a book forever was, in retrospect, kind of appealing. That was a mean though and unworthy of Morgan but he thought it anyway!