By the time the paper-colts had unleashed havoc in the streets of Ponyville, Sweet Apple Acres was already wide awake and well on into the day.

There had been many changes at the old farm over the past few weeks; not the least of which was that the fields and orchards were now dotted with hired ponies. Celestia had kept true to her word; Sweet Apple Acres was now part of the Royal legacy and registered as a historical site... which gave the Princesses all sorts of leeway on sending out workers to "properly maintain and upkeep" the farm. For the first time in many years the farm was staffed with enough hooves to do all the work.

The first shift was already up with the dawn and putting their hoof to the work; mending fences, rebuilding chicken coops and pig pens, or laying down new roofing on the farmhouse and the barns... or working on the new wing of the Apple farmhouse, or the new greenhouses. The old farm had never looked so good. Meanwhile the second was in the new longhouse, fueling up on a proper Apple farmhand breakfast before going out to join their coworkers.

There were even more ponies on the royal coin inside the farmhouse: kitchen staff to feed the crew, houseworkers to handle the laundry and housekeeping, even a live-in medic and nurses for the care of the workers... and not too coincidentally to provide Granny Smith with some much needed therapy after her hip surgery.

There had of course been a bit of kerfluffle when Big Mac and Granny Smith had clapped eyes on just how much help was being sent their way. The idea of being the recipient of so much "charity" had deeply stung their Apple pride. Celestia was no fool, though. She'd expected as much from them, and had already dealt with Applejack's own apprehensions, so she knew how to handle it. She made a point of emphasizing to Granny the importance of Sweet Apple Acres as a strategic reserve: it was after all the only farm in Equestria, or as far as she knew the entire world, that grew Zap Apples, and made a point of sending two or three agriculturalists to study the Zap Apple trees under Granny Smith's and Big Macintosh's tutelage... and sent them bearing cuttings and seeds of Celestia's own golden apple tree and Luna's silver one, heavily emphasizing how VERY IMPORTANT it was that Granny oversee this particular project personally. And of course both Granny and Big Macintosh had been given official, multi-hinged double-jointed Royal titles of authority over the whole shooting match: Head Overseer, Head of Staff, Chief Executive and vice-executive, etc. and a nice long list of responsibilities and duties to go with them.

As to the "excessive" amount of help, she had played every card in her hoof for that one. Nearly all of the staff moved here could claim at least a distant relationship to the Apple clan... Nepotism? No no no, merely preserving a legacy. Nopony walked through the front gate without at least three different careful rationalizations bordering on polite fictions as to why they were there, ranging from youth employment programs to "veteran transitioning to civilian life" to "interns getting professional training" to legal necessities for minimal staffing (one HAD to have a maintenance stallion for a Royal Legacy site, it was the LAW after all), et cetera. Granny had given some of the justifications for all the workers swarming everywhere the hairy eyeball, and Big Macintosh had traded more than one amused, knowing look with the Princess of the Sun, but in the end they'd accepted the excuses.

The Apple family would just have to get used to the terrible, heartbreaking burden of lots and lots of hired help and a life of relative ease.

It hadn't hurt that some of the staff had let slip that, even as hard as the Apples were working them, many of them regarded this as a plush post compared to their previous service or prior hardships. The work was demanding but simple, the pay excellent, the bosses decent, the townfolk friendly, and they ate like kings thanks to Granny Smith's demanding standards and generous hoof at the table.

Up at "the Big house," though, there were a few guests who were less than happy about their circumstances. What was a dream job for most of the staff, Pennyworth and his little herd could only regard Sweet Apple Acres as a special circle of Hell. The colts and fillies, children of nobility, nouveau riche and privilege, had never done a day's physical labor in their lives, not so much as making their own beds. Since arriving they had been subjected to experiences... sights, sounds, and especially smells, OH the smells... that they had never imagined in their lives. Gone were the fancy clothes and jewels, gone were the primped manes and groomed coats, gone were the servants waiting on them hock and hoof. In their place? Waking at dawn, dressing in rough rags and crude boots, mucking in the dirt, pulling weeds, sweeping, mopping, cleaning, scrubbing, hauling bushels of apples, hauling bales of hay, hauling firewood, hauling tools to workers in the field, hauling things of every description back and forth till they were blue in the face... and if they gave any of the adults in charge of them any lip or back talk or balked in any way, the work load only doubled. It was an unending nightmare from which none of them could wake.

After the first week or so, after their calluses had thickened and their soft muscles had firmed, they could have downgraded their estimation of their torment to merely Grueling, from their initial estimation of Hellish. But what had landed on the table that morning had swung the needle clear back the other way and pegged it in place. Nothing, nothing could ever redeem them from the pit of Hades into which they had now been plunged, once they saw the front page of the newspapers.

While the field workers and such ate their meals down at the longhouse, the heads of staff- including of course Granny Smith and Big Macintosh, and by necessity their six guests- took their breakfast at the dining room table in the Apple farmhouse. It was there that they went over the plans for the coming day, and indulged in some good old social chewing of the fat over stacks of flapjacks and bowls of apple-cinnamon oatmeal. This new little tradition had gone a long way in soothing the heartache the two remaining Apple family members had felt at seeing Applebloom and Applejack's empty chairs across the table every morning. And, of course, each morning was greeted with a pile of newspapers as the various heads of staff of the Sweet Apple Acres Royal Legacy Historical Farm caught up on the news from their home towns.

This morning, the chatter around the table was a deafening din, and every pony's nose, even Big Macintosh's, was buried in a newspaper. A distressing number of those papers had almost identical headlines on their front pages.

Pennyworth and his friends sat at the table, their food untouched, staring in horror at the pictures on the front pages all around them. The faces in those pictures stared back with cheery smiles that promised doom beyond their imagining. "It can't be real," Marzipan whimpered. "Somepony please wake me..."

Air Drop looked over at PennyWorth. Gears slowly turned in his head as he regarded PennyWorth's gallows expression. "This is bad... isn't it?" he said slowly.

A moment later, the Apple matriarch came rolling in, her wheelchair pushed by her live-in nurse. Greetings and congratulations rose up from the table to meet her. "An' a good mornin' to you-all," she said cheerfully, rubbing her bandaged hip. "Hoo, I'll be glad when ah kin git these bandages off an' be up an' about again... and whaddya all mean 'congratulations?' "

Big Macintosh didn't say a word. He just smiled and turned his newspaper around so Granny Smith could see the front page. Granny took the paper from him, her jaw all but hanging to the floor. "Sweet Apple Butter," she breathed. "Little Applebloom... she..."

"Eeyup," was all Big Macintosh said. But the quiver in his lip and the tear of pride in his eye was plain to see.

"Wow. It must run in the family, huh?" one of the ponies at the table joked.

"Looks like it runs in several families," another pony retorted, tapping the pictures of Sweetiebelle and Scootaloo.

Granny's expression of astonishment and pride suddenly turned into a scowl. Squinting, she began skimming through the paper, mumbling to herself. "Whut is it, Granny?" Big Macintosh asked.

"Didja see anythin' about their cutie marks in this here?" she asked Macintosh.

"They just ascended and you're wondering about their cutie marks?" the nurse said, puzzled.

"After all whut them three fillies has been through tryin' to git them cutie marks," Granny said, flipping the page and continuing her speed reading, "If'n they ascended and STILL ain't got 'em, there's liable to be mass injuries and proppity damage."

"Page four of the Canterlot Clarion, Granny," a pegasus mare at the end of the table said, laughing. Multiple newspapers rustled; more than one sigh of relief went up as a triptych of three no longer blank flanks appeared. More than one amused chuckle went up at the obvious glee on the fillies' faces.

"Whooe. Well, ain't that sumpin," Granny chortled. "Right flashy cutie mark, too. Bet li'l Applebloom's kickin' her hooves off the ceilin' over that." She gave a raspy chuckle.

"Well congratulations all around, then," somepony said. "Two of your granddaughters are princesses now. Two!" Heartfelt applause and cheers went up. Granny looked at them all with a teary eye.

"They wuz allus princesses," she said, her eyes bright. "Jest now everypony else kin see it." The compliments and congratulations spread a wide smile on her face. Amidst all the good cheer, it didn't escape her notice that the youngsters at the table weren't sharing in the happy mood. In fact if she was any judge, they all looked like convicts who'd just heard their sentence now included a protracted tour of the moon's surface.

After over a century of life, Granny Smith was no fool. "Well, cheers an' applause don't feed no chickens," she said. "G'wan, y'all, we got us a big day ahead." Everypony shuffled to their hooves and headed for the door. "Not you lot," she said to the youngsters. "Sit back down. I want a word." Silently the Gala brats sat back down. "Give us a moment, Tender Care...?" The nurse left as well. Granny looked at the six over the table. Now," she said, tapping the paper in one hoof and giving them a knowing look. "care to tell me why you look like the milk cow jest died?"

The six gave each other sidelong glances. PennyWorth spoke up for all of them. "You don't need to pretend," he said sourly. "We know what you're doing. There's no need to rub it in."

"Rub whut in?" Granny said, suddenly mystified.

"You're going to ruin us now," Marzipan blurted, seeming on the verge of tears.

"Whut?"

"Hey, it's not like we're surprised," PennyWorth said, his casual tone failing to cover the bitterness in his words. "You got us dead to rights. You guys were already one of Princess Celestia's favorites, now you've got TWO princesses in your family. You can take any revenge on our families that you want now."

Granny's jaw dropped so far her false teeth nearly fell out. "Revenge?"

"That's why we're here, isn't it?" Ivy said bitterly. "So you can get even with us for picking on your granddaughters. Humiliate us, humiliate our families...Now you don't even have to ask Celestia for favors to get it; Babsy and Jackie and Apple Boom or whatever her name is can just order it done." She poked at one of the abandoned papers sullenly. "You'll have our families kicked out of the Manehattan upper crust in a week."

"I'm gonna miss bein' rich," Bullhorn said dolefully.

Granny Smith scowled and rapped the table with her hooftip. "My granddaughters wouldn't do any such thing-"

"So big deal, either them, or one of the other two," Ruby Drop sniffed. "It's all the same. One of them will decide to finish what you started by bringing us here...wrecking our family names." She cringed as she remembered how her father had bellowed at her for hours, ranting about how she'd wrecked their family's social standing and opportunities with her 'stupid antics.' She could well imagine the apoplexy he was undergoing this morning as he read the Manehattan paper and found out she'd bullied three princesses...

Down at the end of the table, Marzipan started to cry. Ruby Drop felt like she was ready to cloud up and rain herself. Bullhorn and Air Drop were snuffling; Even PennyWorth was struggling to keep a stiff upper lip.

"Hush up that nonsense!" Granny snapped, making them jump. "We didn't bring you younguns to Sweet Apple Acres to get revenge on you! We brought you here 'acause you six messed up, and you needed to learn a lesson or two!" They looked up. The expression their faces nearly broke Granny's heart. It was the expression of somepony who didn't believe, who couldn't believe that any mercy or forgiveness would ever be shown to them. Her own face, had she been able to see it, was a mix of anger, frustration, disappointment... and regret. "But it seems you-all learned all the wrong ones afore you even got here," she sighed.

Her face firmed up, her wrinkles settling into her all-too-familiar no-nonsense face. "Y'all are bein' foolish," she said. "Them fillies ain't like that. Their families ain't like that and the Apples ain't like that. Gwan, you lot. Go do your chores. Hain't nobody goin' to do nuthin' against you or yourn."

The colts and fillies pushed their chairs away from the table. "I'll believe it when I see it," Granny heard one of them mutter.

"You'll believe it 'cause I said it!" she snapped. "Now git a-movin'!" The Gala brats picked up the pace and hustled for the door.

Granny sat back in her wheelchair, groaning inside. "Come back on in, Tender Care," she said. She grumbled to herself as the peppermint-colored pony returned and started wheeling her through the house. "Lordy, what a mess," she said. "Whut kind o' ponies raise foals like that?"

"Ambitious ones, Granny," Nurse Tender Care sighed. "I've worked for upper crust families; it gets ruthless up there. You're expected to stab any back that gets turned to you... and children are just pawns for furthering the family's goals. " She shrugged. "They expect you to destroy their families' standing and reputation because that's what their family would do."

"An' they got no idear that there's any way different," Granny concluded sadly. "Whut a pity...

"I wuz raised better'n that," Granny said. "Fust thing ah wuz taught was that the good Maker wanted us to care about our neighbor the way we cared about ourselves. Ah git the feelin' those younguns ain't never cared for any other livin' thing but themselves their whole lives." She brooded over that as Tender Care trundled her along. "I think I'm a-gonna have ta change my approach a mite with those six..."

"We'll see to that later, I think. Time for your therapy session, Granny..."

"Ugh..."

"What are we doing out here, Miz Smith?" Marzipan asked.

Marzipan was less than happy. Of the Gala brats, she was by far the prissiest, and she liked it that way. Thus far, over these horrible weeks, she had managed to wheedle, whine, beg or plead her way out of the more disgusting jobs around the farm, swapping out chores with the others or even taking extra ones to avoid dealing with the nastier bits of work.

Now it looked like Granny Smith, the horrible nag, had caught her out, and was about to take away that last little bit of comfort she had in this awful place...

Marzipan was standing inside a straw-littered stall, clad in those horrid boots and coveralls, her once-glorious mane stuffed rudely up under a shoddy straw hat, shifting back and forth uncomfortably. The old nag was outside the enclosure, sitting in her wheelchair and watching Marzipan's every move as if she expected her to bolt... Marzipan actually thought about it, but she had the dreadful feeling that the old bat would actually run her down in that wheelchair before she made fifty yards. She gulped as Granny gave her the gimlet eye.

"You're here 'cause I've decided yer ready to take on some new duties," Granny said, pushing the gate to the stall shut and latching it. "If ya do good, you MIGHT get a few more privileges round here. Like you MIGHT be allowed to go into town on th' weekend when Macintosh or th' hired help picks up our dry goods. You MIGHT maybe even git a li'l spendin' money of yer own fer whutever you like. Maybe. Depends."

Hope and desire sprang up in Marzipan's heart. Going into town... shopping... maybe even getting some makeup or mane fixings or some real shampoo... "O-okay," she said. "What is it?"

"Yer gonna be takin' care of some o' the pigs," Granny said, cool as a cucumber.

"PIGS?" forget shattering glass, Marzipan's shriek could have splintered plywood. "You want me to take care of a bunch of PIGS?"

"EEeyup," Granny said. She pointed down the length of the fence separating them. "Wheel me down yonder, Tender Care..."

Marzipan pulled her hat down over her ears, nearly tearing the brim. "I'm a daughter of a baron! I can't take care of a bunch of smelly, stinky, filthy PIGS!"

"Sure you can," Granny said. "Applebloom done it, an' if a Princess-to-be could wrangle it, so kin you." She reached up and grabbed a pull-cord in her teeth. For the first time Marzipan noticed the sliding door at the end of the stall.

"You can't-!" Marzipan exclaimed in horror.

"Can so." Granny gave the rope a pull. The trapdoor slid up. "Git ready to say hello-"

"NOOOOOO!" Marzipan threw herself to the straw-covered floor, pulling her hat down over her eyes and howling in despair. Oinks and squeals came bearing down on her; they were everywhere! Hooves pattering in the dust and oinking and squealing and bodies jostling her and she was about to be trampled and...

Wait a minute...

Marzipan paused in her howling. There seemed to be a marked deficiency in the amount of trampling. Plus a lot less oinking than expected. And the jostling was more of a rather diminutive nudging... fearfully, she lifted up her head and peered out from underneath the wide, floppy brim.

A little round nose and two black button eyes looked back. "Hweek?"

Marzipan slowly sat up. Gathered up around her were three tiny piglets. Two of the pudgy little things were busy nosing about her hooves, looking for their promised dinner. The third was sitting back on its haunches and looking up at her with a puzzled look on its face. They had little curly tails and little floppy triangle ears and perfect upside-down heart shaped little noses in the middle of their pink faces. They all turned their adorable little faces up to her, heads tilted inquisitively.

It was instant piggy love.

"Oh. Ohhh..." Marzipan cooed in spite of herself. "They're the littlest piggies I've ever seen-"

"Gotcha," Granny Smith said. She cackled uproariously as Marzipan glared death daggers at her. "Well, don't keep 'em waitin," she finally said, pointing at the canvas bag by the gate. "Give 'em their breakfast!" Marzipan fumbled with the bag, finally pulling out three baby bottles. This got a whole new round of excitement out of the piglets, who began noodging up and squealing hungrily for all they were worth. Marzipan fumbled a bit more, finally managing to balance all three bottles in her fetlocks and cork all three greedy little mouths.

"Turns out mama pig had herself more piglets than we was expectin'," Granny said as the hungry piglets guzzled away. "These three were three more'n she could handle. So they're your responsibility. Yer responsible fer feedin' em, fer makin' sure they git shade in the daytime and a nice warm bed at night, fer muckin' out their pen when it's needed... leastwise till they're old enough to go in the pig pen with the older 'uns... for givin' em their medicine when they need wormed... everythin'.

She gave Marzipan a hard look. "You better remember this: Them piglets don't care ifn' yer a baron's daughter or a duchess or a princess. All they know is that if they're hungry, it's 'cause you ain't fed 'em. If they're thirsty, it's 'cause you dint get 'em water. If they're cold or sick or injured- that's all on you. An' no excuses or apologies you kin ever make up will mean a thing to a pig. Just whether or not you care for 'em. You're their whole world now, an' that's all that matters to 'em.

"There's a list o' chores you'll need to take care of on that pegboard over there," Granny said, pointing. "An' a schedule for feedin' em. You got any questions at all-don't be a fool. Ask me or Big Macintosh or any of the help. They'll tell you what to do... but yer to do it all yerself, an' they know it, so don't even bother tryin' to hornswoggle any of 'em into doin' it fer ya. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am," Marzipan said meekly.

"And this is on top o' the chores you already got, mind."

"What? But-"

"You think Mama Sow gets a break from all them other pig things she's gotta do? Think any farmer gits a free pass just cause the pigs are birthin' or the sheep are lambin' or the chicks are hatchin'? Put up or shut up; I kin allus find one o' yore friends to take this lil opportunity."

"I- okay, okay."

"Good. Back to the house, Tender Care." The nurse got her rolling along, headed back to the farmhouse. "Dinner's in about an hour; be washed up when the dinner bell rings," Granny called over her shoulder.

"Yes'm." Marzipan turned her attention back to her pudgy little charges. "Ooh yes, you is a hungwy piggy..."

"You are terrible old lady," Tender Care murmured in her client's ear. "I think you scared a year's growth out of her."

Granny cackled. "Couldn't resist."

"Think it will work?" Tender Care said.

Granny mulled it over. "Fair to middlin' chance, I think," she muttered back. "A week or two will tell." She sighed and settled back in the wheelchair. "One down, five more to go..."