Scroll 16: Butterpond
"B-Pond, what're ya doin'?" the break-even, strained voice of the Milk Family farm's leading worker, Milkshake, asked her younger sister.
"Dressing up for Nightmare Night." Butterpond answered; her attention completely on her equine face and applying its red coat of make-up.
"As 'n Apple?" The cream-white earth pony gritted her teeth.
"Yup."
"WHY!" Milkshake shouted; placing a hoof over her eyes. "Ah don' believe this…"
Milkshake was the first foal to her parents; Dairy Cream and Cowl-Malt. Their foals were all bred for dairy farming: Milk-Malt a colt, Buttercreme a filly, Choco-Late a filly, Sugar Crème a colt and Buttermilk, a filly. Butterpond was sixth and final. Butterpond, Milkshake had found out very early, was a special pony that a pony had to be handled with precautions. Butterpond had a serious love of butter, a love that bordered on insanity. Anything whose ingredients included butter like butter-cookies would set her into an eating frenzy; while trigger-words would set off her hyperactive-ness. It was diagnosed by Doctor Quarter the horse, that Butterpond had an acute case of butter-philia (the obsessive love of butter).
The doctor worked with the Milk family on keeping B-Pond's butter-philia in check. This included allowing a daily dose of carefully measured butter hidden within her regular food and avoiding trigger words like Butter and Buttermilk; which was a nuisance since the family owned a dairy farm. Names also had to change, since her siblings had butter in their name, they had to change it to 'B'. Buttercreme, Milk-Malt and Buttermilk didn't like the idea, so they ended up moving away to set up their own dairy farms.
Milkshake had also cashed in on her siblings' idea and opened up her very own dairy farm near Ponyville; bringing her poor, butter-leptic sister along to relieve the burden on her parents. That was six year ago, and the other local farm; the Apple Family Farm had been there first and was the only farm around for miles.
The two farms – milking cows and apple trees - had immediately clashed. Milkshake and Applejack both were earth pony farmers and the rivalry between the two was fierce. The orange apple-bucker and the cream-white dairy-maker competed in EVERY Fall-Up harvesting contest that had to do with farm products. It didn't matter that their trades were completely different; Applejack farmed apple trees and Milkshake bred, raised and milked cows. The two ponies were too proud to show off their fine farm products – striving to outshine the other – that it took the presence of a third local farm that built a bridge of commonality between them.
Three years ago, the Milk-family and Apple-family farms had to deal with the modern, fancy-doodad-toting farm of the Orange-family. O-Juice (Orange Juice) was as conniving and slippery as competitors came. Many times, the orange and green-maned pony often crossed the line of fairness and cheating. OJuice was wicked, wily and had the tongue of a serpent; twisting and honey-coating her words to appeal to farm-product buyers. Who would have thought a pony would continually almost out-sell the Apple Family and Milk Family with oranges and orange-products than OJuice.
"Uh, Milky?" B-Pond asked.
"Tha' jus' burns meh up som'em wicked, it does." Milkshake didn't hear her sister. The dairy farmer was caught up in her thoughts.
"Uh, you're…on fire…" B-Pond spoke again.
"Well, this Nightmare Night, Applejack and Ah had th' honors of makin' th' treats for th' town!"
"That's nice, sister, but, you're burning a hole in my carpet."
"What?" Milkshake snapped out of her thoughts and looked down. Her intense fury had started to smolder the cream-pink round rug in B-Pond's room. "AAAAA FIRE!" Milkshake panicked and started stamping on the smoking patch beneath her. "Get gone, ya fire!"
Butterpond sighed and lowered her head in annoyance; watching her older sister stomp around in the room. "That's the sixth ruined carpet this month, Milkshake. You need to stop thinking about O-."
"NO! Don' ya dare say tha' horrible name!" Milkshake hissed. "Get yor costume on and lets go. We don' wanna be late for settin' up our table in th' town center. Applejack might already be there!"
"Uh, ok…" Butterpond smiled and turned to the red apple outfit that sat on her bed. B-Pond was lucky her sister didn't forbid her the apple-costume.
"Oh, an' y'all ain't going as an Apple, B-Pond, the cow outfit is in mah room. Hustle up and get it, we all need to look our best tonight!"
"NO! I refuse!" Butterpond stamped her hoof in anger. "I'm going as a RED APPLE, and that is FINAL!"
The ensuing scene was too terrible and scary to share with the audience. Let's just say Butterpond had an episode of her butter-philia and ended up using her years-old costume of a fairy-pony-princess. Milkshake had to quickly find a costume –with mask - that would hide the black shiner on her cheek, flank and neck…