Canine Complications

Breakfast in Bed?

Twilight, for a welcome change of events, awoke gently for the first time in what felt like forever. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Observing the bed she was on, she noticed several things at once: first, Applejack's bed was quite small, second, Applejack was not in the bed, and third, Applebloom was quite warm.

...Applebloom?

Suddenly fully awake Twilight now could see the little yellow filly she was curled around.

"Applebloom? Why are you in Applejack's bed?"

No response.

"Applebloom?" Twilight put a paw on the filly's back and gave her a gentle shake.

The filly still did not respond.

Twilight knew that the filly would probably not be excited about being woken up by a wolf, but if she wasn't waking up at all, that was much worse.

Twilight decided to cut her losses and try the one of only things that Spike had always used successfully on her. Assuming the filly wouldn't wake to the call of "you're late", she used the method that Spike had used as his backup plan since they were young.

Twilight licked the filly.

That was normal right? Dogs did that all the time, and she was just playing the part right?

Might as well be thorough... She licked the filly again.

Aww, Now her fur is going the wrong way! Twilight licked again... And again... And again...

Twilight kept at it until she heard the door open.

"Hey Applebloom you seen- oh, Twi... I... Uh... What are you doing?"

Twilight retracted her tongue, closed her mouth, and stood back up.

"Now you weren't about to take a bite of my sister now were ya?" Applejack asked, giving a very unamused look to the wolf sampling her sister.

"NO! I was trying to wake her up! -and she!-" Twilight tried to explain, shaking her head.

The wolf's growls and whimpers meant little to the farmer, but the frantic head shaking was universal enough.

"Suuure... I'm going ta' give ya the benefit of the doubt and not buck you out the window right now."

Twilight gulped as she gave a nod.

"I came to say that breakfast is ready. But just so you know, Apple is not on the menu."

Twilight gave a sheepish nod, and followed the farm mare out of the room.

As soon as she was sure the monster was gone Applebloom opened her eyes. She had managed to play dead the whole night, but if Applejack hadn't come by she probably would have been- Ah!

She jumped as she heard a banging on the door to her room.

"Applebloom! You up yet? I forgot to tell you Scootaloo and Sweetiebell are here for you!"

Maybe they can help!

Applebloom followed her sister downstairs, past the kitchen where IT was, and was on the way to the clubhouse with Scootaloo and Sweetiebell before IT saw her go.

The filly trio had galloped half way to the clubhouse before the other two fillies spoke.

"What's the rush Applebloom? Do you have an idea for our cutiemarks?" Scootaloo said excitedly.

"Yeah, uh... is everything alright Applebloom?" squeaked Sweetiebell.

The farmer filly turned to her following friends. Scootaloo was beaming with excitement while Sweetiebell looked concerned.

"No! Everything is not alright. I didn't get any sleep last night because I was almost eaten right in front of my own house! Applejack saved me but then she let it into the house too! It snuck into bed with me! I was almost breakfast in bed!"

"Whoa! Cool! What kind? Did it have big teeth?" Scootaloo bounced with excitement.

"Not cool! I don't really know what it was, and seeing as it was going to EAT ME, yes it had big teeth! Anything else?"

"Would it make a good cutie mark if we caught it?" Scootaloo asked unabashed.

"No!" Applebloom and Sweetiebell said in unison.

"Well then, what are we going to do about it?" Scootaloo asked.

"We're going to do what we usually do when we have problems." Applebloom answered.

"What? Ask your sisters or Rainbow Dash?"

"No Scoots, I think she means we're going to build another catapult ...again."

"That's not right either Sweeetiebell, we only do that when we try helping Scoots learn to fly. No, right now we're going to visit Zecora!" Applebloom shouted.

Sweetiebell cautiously approached the subject of "Why?"

"Because she knows everything! She'll how to stop the monster before it eats anypony!"

"Cutie Mark Crusaders Monster Hunters YAY!"

Across town in the middle of the quickly filling marketplace a conversation was overheard. "Seriously I saw that animal care pegasus taking that beast from the market yesterday over to Sweet Apple Acres in the middle of the night. Shady stuff I tell you..."

One market-goer couldn't help but hear the mares' gossip as they passed him in the market. He was off duty, but he took his work as the Ponyville dog-catcher very seriously ...despite the city council's claims that Ponyville didn't really NEED a dog-catcher... Anyway he had never been fond of how Fluttershy, the goody-four-shoes, had always prevented him from catching any of the stray animals in the little town. The way she always caught them before he could was always a thorn in his flank, or more specifically his long-handled-net cutiemark.

But this was finally his chance, an actual non-pet possibly-feral canine had been sighted in the town, and Celestia be bucked if he was about to let that challenge to his sacred dog-catching honor -no- his destiny go unfulfilled!

He was going to catch this scourge if it was the last thing he was going to do.