"AAAAhh! Help me, somepony help me!"

"What da hay?" Babs Seed sat bolt upright in bed and looked over at her bunkmate. Applebloom was shouting in her sleep. She was tangled in the bedsheets and was flailing all four limbs about like a demented grain thresher. Babs moved to shake her awake. "Applebloom, snap outta it already!"

The two were still sharing the Royal suite with Applejack. The ship was more than large enough for them to have their own cabin, but after some deliberation the two fillies had persuaded the grownups to let them all stay together. A second emperor-sized canopy bed had been promptly and deferentially moved into the Royal suite next to the first, and the girls had shared it ever since.

Now Babs was seeing a small drawback to it, as apparently her bedmate was going through one rip-snorter of a nightmare. She reached over and tried to grab hold of Applebloom to stop her thrashing. "Applebloom, wake up! Cousin Jackie-!"

Applejack had left her own bed and was at their bedside in a moment. "Applebloom, Applebloom, what's wrong, sugarcube?" She took the filly's shoulders in her hooves and shook her gently.

Applebloom finally started awake. She looked at the two of them with wide eyes, panting. Then her eyes puddled up. "Oh, Applejack, it was awful-!" she sobbed.

"There now, it was just a bad dream..." Applejack said. She pulled the crying filly into a hug; Babs burrowed in from the side, adding her own comfort. It was then that Applebloom dropped the bomb that shocked them to the core.

"Ah... ah don't wanna be a Cutie Mark Crusader anymore!"

There was a rapping at the cabin door. "Your Majesty?" one of the guards called. "Is everything well?"

"We're fine, we're fine," Applejack called back. "Jest a nightmare." There was a sort of grunt of acknowledgment from the other side of the door. Applejack turned her attention back to the two fillies. Applebloom was utterly distraught, and Babs wasn't looking much better. Both of them were wide awake and not looking to go back to sleep any time soon. "Hold on, easy there Applebloom. Sumpin' in that dream tore you up, an I think we all need to calm down a bit...What say we get some breakfast?" she suggested. A little comfort food seemed to be the order of the day.

Babs looked at the grandfather clock sitting across the room. "But it's not even four in the mornin'," she protested.

"So, we'll call it a mid night snack," Applejack said. She took on a lofty air. "'Sides, ah'm the Princess, an' if I say it's time fer breakfast at oh-dark-thirty in the mornin', then it's time fer breakfast at oh-dark-thirty in the mornin'. So there." She tipped her nose in the air. Babs chuckled and even Applebloom giggled a bit through her snuffles.

"Now let's see here..." Chewing her lip, Applejack regarded the 'Intercom.' It was a brass and copper doodad sitting on a little end table between the beds, and it had a trio of speaking horns, a bell, and what looked to the technology averse farmpony like a kajillion little fiddly levers. It was supposed to let her speak to ponies in any part of the ship, and she'd been shown how to use it, but she could never quite figure it out. "Dern..." she poked a lever experimentally. "Now how d'you set this thing to call down to the galley..?"

Applebloom giggled and slid across the bed next to her. "Here, Applejack," she said. "Single line, pipe number 3, an' push the button to sound the bell." She proceeded to show off her knack for mechanical devices. A few deft flicks of her hoof and the complicated looking gadget bent to the filly's will. The brass horn buzzed and a tinny voice came out:

"Yes, your highness?"

"Uh yeah, the girls and I were in the mood for a late night snack...um, something breakfasty?" Applejack said. "Just sorta surprise us."

"Ah, a little midnight comfort food then?" The voice replied. "Of course, your Highness, it will be right up."

A short while later there was a knock at the door, and a unicorn mare in a maid's uniform came in, pushing a trolley. "Breakfast in bed, your Highness?" she said, giving a curtsy.

"Oh, thankyah. Uh, we ain't all roustin' none of y'all out of bed 'r nothin, are we?" Applejack said uncertainly.

"Oh no, mum," she said in a Trottingham accent. "I'm on the late shift. This is actually near the end of the day for me." She quickly levitated the breakfast trays onto the bed for each of them and began serving up breakfast treats from the trolley- flapjacks, cinnamon buns, french toast sticks, biscuits and muffins, little bowls of porridge, plenty of butter, syrup and preserves to top things off and tall glasses of milk to wash it down. The mood lightened considerably as the three of them set to eating with a will.

It took more than a quick nibble to quench a hearty Apple appetite. When the noshing finally slowed down, Applejack set down her fork, dabbed at her mouth with a napkin like her Aunt Orange had showed her, and looked at Applebloom. "Ready to talk about it?" she said.

Applebloom took a long swallow of milk and set her glass down. "Ah guess so," she said, wiping her milk mustache off with her fetlock. "It was a nightmare, Applejack. A real awful one..."

"We guessed dat much," Babs chortled around a mouthful of cinnamon bun. "What was it about?"

"It was about... about me getting my cutie mark," Applebloom said glumly.

Applejack nodded. "Oh, like before...? With, what was it, twittermites and what not?"

Applebloom shook her head. "No! This was... well it was worse. And it was-" her face scrunched up. She almost looked... guilty? "It was awful. And it was...STUPID. But..."

"Jest tell us about it," Applejack said. "Start at the beginnin'."

Applebloom took a sip of juice and sighed. "Okay. It started out, me an' the others- except for Babs, sorry Babs- we were at the clubhouse. An' Pipsqueak, that's the little pinto colt from Trottingham?"

"Ah know him."

"He shows up and asks if the Cutie Mark Crusaders can help get him elected."

"Elected what? Mayor? Class president?" Babs interjected.

Applebloom shrugged. "I dunno, I guess. Anyway, we run around the schoolyard carryin' him over our heads, singin' about what a great candidate he is... he gives a speech, he gets elected, and Diamond Tiara loses. Then Diamond Tiara starts singin' about how sad she is because she's really a good pony deep down inside and she just wants to be nice-" this was followed by elaborate gagging motions. Applejack nearly snorted juice out her nose. "And so all three of us go and try to help her figure out her cutie mark..."

Bab's brow furrowed. "What does her cutie mark haveta do with being a good or a bad pony? And why wouldn't she figure out her own cutie mark anyway?" Both Applejack and Babs looked equally befuddled. It was the most nonsensical thing they'd ever heard of. You got your cutie mark because you discovered your special talent. You knew what it meant before anypony else possibly could. Needing somepony else to explain your cutie mark to you was as unlikely as needing somepony to tell you what your own name was.

Applebloom scratched her head. "I dunno, somethin' about how she thought it meant she was special like a princess, but it was really about how she could get people to do what she wanted... I dunno, it made sense then, but it gets dumber the more ah think about it."

"Idears in dreams tend to be that way," Applejack said knowingly.

"Anyhow we help her figure out that her cutie mark means she's a GOOD pony, not a bad one, and suddenly she's all sweetness and light and gets her daddy to pay to fix up the school playground..." More gagging and retching motions accompanied this, with Babs helping this time. "And so everypony's happy and singing and stuff, and me an' Sweetiebelle an Scootaloo are all sayin' how it's so wonderful crusadin' for other people's cutie marks too, an' we don't care if we never get a cutie mark so long as we can keep crusadin' like that FOREVER-" she threw her hooves in the air and slapped them on the bed. "An' that's when we get our cutie marks.

"We give each other a high hoof. An' we start floatin' in the air an' glowin' and stuff... then there's this bright flash and there they are. Three cutie marks- Three stupid looking Crusader badges, made up of our mane colors. They were awful. And you couldn't even tell 'em apart unless you got in real close an' squinted. "

Babs paused in mid-chew. Her eyes started to cross. "You mean... you got your cutie marks..."

"In crusading for cutie marks." The loathing in Applebloom's voice was as thick as the blueberry syrup.

Babs almost choked laughing. "Oh wow-"

"Um, I don't think cutie marks could work like that," Applejack said cautiously. Getting a cutie mark in getting cutie marks? She had visions of cutie mark magic dividing by zero and imploding the universe. She shook her head, dispelling the disturbing mental image. "But I don't quite understand why you're so upset... I mean, don't y'all like crusadin' with your friends?"

Babs and Applebloom both rolled their eyes at her. "Come on, Cousin Jackie," Babs said. "Don't you know how awful that would be? It would be like... winning a pie eating contest and finding out first prize was a coupon for free pie. Or a getting first place in a spelling bee, and winning a dictionary."

Applejack chewed that one over while she munched on a french toast stick. It would be like graduating from school, only to find out your reward was to take school all over again, forever, she thought. Yep, that did sound pretty horrible...

Applebloom rambled on. She looked distraught and disgusted at the same time. "Three badges. All the same. In the one thing we're ABSOLUTELY THE WORST at- understandin' Cutie Marks. It was like gettin' a Cutie Mark participation medal."

"Ugh," Babs agreed. "That is AWFUL-!" Make no mistake; it was an awful idea. As much fun as the CMC had "crusading," every last one of them longed for the day when the nightmare would finally be over. Getting stuck with crusading for cutie marks forever? Too awful to contemplate.

"And then our butts fused together." Applebloom said dully.

That one was too much. Babs DID choke this time, on a mouthful of orange juice, and Applejack sprayed french toast crumbs. "Don't laugh!" Applebloom yelled. "It was horrible! We all sorta... mooshed together, like a big blob o' marshmallow." She pantomimed something undergoing the aforementioned mooshing. "We were this big three-headed thing, an' all we could do was wobble around on all our legs, talking about cutie mark this, an' cutie mark that, an' going 'cutie marks, cutie marks, yip yippie yay!' " she waggled her head back and forth with a dopey grin on her face. "An' then the Flim Flam brothers took us an' stuck us in a cage, and charged ponies two bits to ask us cutie mark questions," she finished. "And that's when I woke up."

"It was awful. It's like the whole dream was tellin' me that... that the only thing special about me was that I was a Cutie Mark Crusader. That I wasn't nuthin' without that but... but just another..." She stopped and rubbed her forehooves together, refusing to meet either Babs' or Applejack's eye.

Applejack felt her Element twinge. She barely needed the cue; she could see for herself that something more than the fear of getting a meaningless Cutie Mark was fretting her little sister. "Go on," she urged.

Applebloom shrank down a little. "You'll be mad at me," she said, her voice small. "You'll think I'm horrible for thinking it."

Applejack paused, but decided to be truthful. "Maybe," she said gently. "I might get upset at somethin' you say. I don't know, I ain't heard it yet. But if'n I get mad, I'll get over it. You're more important to me than anything that might make me fuss." She reached over and patted Applebloom's cheek. "G'wan an' tell me, sugarcube. I promise I'll hold my tongue and listen."

Applebloom took a deep breath. "The cutie marks. They were a little different on the inside. Scootaloo had a lightnin' bolt and wing, for her stunt ridin'?" Applejack nodded; lightning was a common symbol for athletes and daredevils. "An' Sweetiebelle had a musical note an' a star, for her singin'. She's gonna be a music star some day, just you see. But mine... It was an apple in a heart. Just... an apple. Like, there was nuthin' else to me." She cringed back as if she expected a blow. "I... I don't- I love you all, I love bein' an Apple- but I- I don't wanna be just an Apple!"

To the filly's surprise, Applejack let out a low chuckle. "I think I know where you're comin' from, sugarcube," she said, her voice still gentle. "You're not the only one who's been afeared of that...Lemme tell you a li'l story.

"When ah was, shoot, not even knee high to you, we had an Apple family reunion, and me bein' the youngest everypony was makin' a fuss about me. They'd say things like 'oh, she got her mama's eyes,' or 'she has her daddy's nose,' or 'that's her grampa's chin for sure...' Me bein' a little thing I got upset. I went cryin' to Granny Smith. 'I don' wanna have everypony else's face,' I said, 'I wanna look like ME!' " She chuckled a bit. "I was so upset 'cause I wanted to be ME. Not just a knockoff of every other Apple."

"That's what's botherin' you, ain't it," she said. "You're not scared that you're gonna end up with a silly cutie mark. You're afraid that there ain't nothin' special about you. That there's nothin' different about you but your crusader cape, or your family name. Aren't you?" It was a statement, not a question.

Applebloom wouldn't look up to meet her eye. But she bit her lip and nodded.

"Well you listen to me, sugarcube. That's stuff and nonsense. Just like everypony's been trying to tell you silly fillies all this time... just cause you ain't found your cutie mark yet, it don't mean you ain't special. It just means you ain't found your passion yet- that special one-and-only something that means the world to you, and only you.

"And believe me, I unnerstand about wantin' to be more than 'just an Apple.' Don't you remember my cutie mark story... how I went an' stayed with Aunt an' Uncle Orange fer a while?"

"Yeah, but- you came back," Applebloom pointed out.

"Ayep. But think about it, sugarcube, You have an Aunt and Uncle Orange. An' how d'you suppose we ended up with them as relatives?" She grinned as the realization dawned on Applebloom's face that at some point, an Orange had sprouted in the Apple family tree. "Just like your Pa's sister, you'll be a part of the Apple family no matter what you become- an' just because you're an Apple don't mean you can't become anything you want." She leaned in and tousled Applebloom's mane. "Understand?"

Applebloom nodded. She smiled hesitantly, then more confidently, and tucked into her unfinished breakfast with a will. "Glad to see it," Applejack said. She picked up a slice of toast and began stirring the jar of honey with the dipper. "I guess this little trip has been a little bumpy for y'all, ain't it," she said apologetically. "Nightmares and what all..."

"Least it wasn't the Honeybee nightmare this time," Babs said.

"The Honeybee nightmare?" Applejack said.

Applebloom gulped and cringed at the memory. "Yeah. You remember what I told you about that.. um... accident at the Cherry Jubilee? At the honey display?"

The honey dipper slowed as Applejack recalled Applebloom's debacle the prior week upon discovering exactly how bees made honey. "Um, yeah, I recall that," she said.

"Well, for a couple nights there I had nightmares," Applebloom confessed. "They always start out so nice, too! I'm a little bitty pony, the size of a bumblebee, sitting in a big flower. And the bees find me and they're big and fuzzy and friendly, and they invite me to come visit their hive..."

"Uh huh," Applejack said.

Applebloom's expression turned ill. "And we get there, and golly gee, they wanna share some of their new batch honey with me- and you know how I told you bees pass honey back an' forth- "

The honey dipper froze. "Uhhh..."

"and they all have themselves a nice big bellyful of their latest batch, and it'd be ever so rude to turn them down..."

The honey dipper returned to the jar, and the jar discreetly floated over to the wastebasket in the corner of the room. "Pass the gooseberry jam, wouldja please?" Applejack said, her expression not changing an inch.

Babs, she of the cast iron stomach, regarded the Princess of Honesty with a touch of condescension as she scarfed down her own honey slathered biscuit. "I'm glad Princess Luna stopped by in your dreams and helped you with that one," she said to Applebloom. "Havin' you wake up three times a night to run to the bathroom and brush your teeth got to be kinda old..."

---

Elsewhere, two princesses- one pink and frizzy, the other midnight blue- sat up burning the midnight oil. Luna was reciting some of the highlights... or low lights... of her nightly dream duties for the past few days.

"Bug Barf..." she said, her eyes haunted. "Bug Barf from bugs the size of ponies..."

A servant came into the room pushing a tea trolley. "Would your highnesses like sugar or honey with your tea?" she chirped.

"SUGAR," came the immediate reply.

---

"Well, like I said- it's been a rough trip for you so far, ain't it," Applejack said. "I become a Princess and get to go on a grand mission for the Princess, you come along and..."

"And get in fights, have horrible nightmares and puke on cute boys," Babs said dryly.

"Babs-!" to Applejack's surprise, Applebloom's cheeks turned red.

"Oho, so he was CUTE was he?" Applejack teased. Applebloom just turned redder. "Oh, sugarcube, no wonder you were so tore up," Applejack laughed. "Tell you what though, I think our next stop will be right up your alley."

"Really?" Applebloom said, not sounding very hopeful.

"Really," Applejack said confidently. "Our next stop is a lil' wingding called the um..." she squinted and waved her hoof, trying to recall the name of the darned thing.

"The Annual East Equestrian Farming and Industry Trade Expo, your Highness," the maid said.

The three of them nearly jumped out of their skins. "Yeep! Sakes, forgot you were there, darlin'," Applejack said. "You sure do keep quiet."

"Thank you, mum."

"Um. Right." They paused. "Uhh, you were sayin'?"

""The Annual East Equestrian Farming and Industry Trade Expo," the meek little maid went on. "It's something of a cross between a trade exhibition and a job fair, where hundreds of businessponies and innovators all over the east coast come together to show off their latest innovations and recruit talented ponies to come work for them..." she gave them a rueful half smile. "And if my uncle Whole Sale is to be believed, to get up to shenanigans a hundred miles away from where their families can hear about it."

"...Ah." Applejack chuckled, then turned to Babs and Applebloom. "Y'see? A whole big festival of all different sorts of jobs ponies do. Betcha you'll get a thousand and one ideas for Crusadin' just walkin' around. Shoot, you might even get lucky and find your cutie marks right there." The two fillies, Applebloom especially, brightened up considerably at this.

"That sounds gr...great," Applebloom said, letting loose with a wide yawn.

"Yeah," Babs agreed, yawning herself. "Even if we don't do any crusadin', it sounds like fun..."

"You two should get some shuteye," Applejack said. "We'll be arriving in Baltimare around brunch, and y'all are gonna have a big day." The two nodded sleepily. Applejack tucked them both in as the maid deftly rounded up the breakfast trays and stowed them away. The two were out like a light the moment their heads hit the pillows. "Can't believe I'm actually encouragin' em to go Cutie Mark Crusadin'," Applejack said softly to the maid, shaking her head in amusement. "I sure hope that Expo is ready for what's comin' when those two arrive."

The maid chuckled quietly and covered the trolley with a tablecloth. "Cutie marks," she said. "They're such a simple thing, and yet they can cause so much heartache..." she got behind the trolley and looked over to Applejack. "Will you still be having regular breakfast?"

Applejack thought it over. "Mebbe just a quick brunch when we get up," she decided. "Just throw a few more apple type fixin's on the cart this time."

"Of course, mum."

"Uh. And no honey."

"Of course, mum."