August 8

Moon Dancer came too slowly. As she became more and more aware of her surrounding she noticed that they were not normal. She was about to worry when she remembered where she was.

Moon stretched carefully and opened her eyes. Sunset slept soundly. Moon reached over and grabbed her phone off the nightstand to turn off her alarm.

About half an hour later when the alarm would have gone off Moon carefully woke up Sunset.

“Man your bed head is awful!” Moon teased.

“Do you think I should shower before my meeting?”

“Probably.”

An hour later the two were seated and eating at the Hotel’s dining place.

“Are you sure you can leave campus for lunch?” Moon asked.

“Yeah. we will have to stay near by but we can go somewhere. My boss says the food isn’t at good as the University’s. I’m sure there are some lovely bakeries in the aria we can go to.”

“Alright.”

The two finished breakfast in silence. A few minutes later Sunset got into her car and headed for the local college for her meeting. Moon waved her off and then pulled out her phone and set it up to guide her to a local park.

As Moon walked down main street she recognized some buildings and shops from her previous trips here for the friendship games. Her classmates had been eager to spend their allowances on souvenirs. She came up to an intersection with a sign pointing to a farmers market. Without really thinking about it she found herself turning to go check it out.

She approached what looked like a former parking lot that had several large permanent covered arias, like it had been converted for the purpose of hosting gatherings. As she approached the smell of cooked pasties and fresh produce hit her. She walked up to a farmers stand with lots of greens and vegetables and smelled clean earth.

Sighing in contentment she decided to buy some cilantro and basil. She selected one of each and paid. She decided to check out more booths to see if there was anything else she wanted.

She passed buy a display of potted plants and display of pastries. A table of local honey has a live beehive section that Moon Dancer swiftly avoided. She backed up and found she was unable to look away.

“There are neat aren’t they.”

Moon turned to see a slightly taller woman with broad shoulders and long blond hair smiling at her.

“What?”

“The bees. There are cool.”

“Yeah. I guess so. I’ve never seen a hive before. Or a section of one.” She admitted.

“We higher them every spring to come and pollinate our orchard so I am pretty used to bees.”

“Cool! You have and orchard?”

The woman gestured to the table behind them. Moon turned and saw a large display of apples. Every single kind of apple she could think of seemed to be there and more she didn’t recognize.

“Right! I wasn’t paying attention I guess.” Moon laughed nervously. “How many kinds of apples do you have here!?”

“Forty nine” the woman said with a chuckle.

Moon counted the buckets and came too fifty. “ Wait what is in the last one?”

“Asian pears.” The other woman laughed at Moons puzzled expression. “Do you want to try one?”

“Yeah. Are you sure that’s okay? I wouldn’t want to cut into your profits.”

“That’s thoughtful of you but we allow sampling.”

“Okay.” The other woman took one from the bucket and walked over to her table. She pulled out a hunting knife from her pocket and cut the fruit open.

“I haven’t seen you around before. Are you from out of town?”

“Yes I’m from Crystal county.”

“Well my name is Applejack and it’s a pleasure to meet you!” She smiled as she held out a slice of fruit.

“My name is Moon Dancer.”

“Nice to meet you Moon Dancer”

“This is delicious!”

“Yeah?”

“Yes! This is amazing!”

“I’m glad you like it.” Applejack smiled. She handed Moon another slice. “If you don’t mind me asking what brings you here?”

“My wife’s job.” A flash of emotion crossed Applejack’s face but it was gone before Moon could identify it.

“Cool. What does she do?”

“She works in the research department at Crystal University. She is here to share some research with a similar department at the college here.”

“What is she studying?”
“Schizophrenia.”

“Oh. What a topic!”

“Yeah. I have tried to read some of her papers and the only thing I understand is that too complicated for me to understand. It is a miracle that the brain works given all the things that can go wrong!”

"I agree" Applejack said.

“I think I want to buy a couple Asian pears from you.”

“Okay. Do you want one that are ripe now or will be ripe in a day or so?”

“Maybe two of each.”

“Sounds good!”

After paying Moon Decided to keep walking around the little market. She passed pottery stands and wooden cooking tools. She saw silk screen printed shirts and handmade jewelry.

She stopped at a stand of quilts. Each quilt was in a clear plastic sleeve to protect it. She admired the design work. It was clearly patchwork done with scraps but they were carefully arranged to look like mosaics. All the patterns were either trees or waves framed my geometric boarders. This was much more artistic than her own patterns. She tended to use triangles and repeating patterns. She was about to move on when a smaller quilt caught her eye. A mosaic of a leopard sleeping on a branch.

“I usually save animal patterns for the kids blankets.”

Moon turned to see an older woman approach her. “It is beautiful. My quilts are very geometric.”

“You quilt?”

“Yeah.”

“It takes practice setting fabric of different shapes and sized into a flat pattern.”

“I can imagine. So can you make lots of animals?”

“Yeah. I think the hardest pattern was of a peacock. That was a lot of small strips for the tail feathers.”

“Wow!”

“Do you want to see some other animals? I have some others them in this box.”

“Sure!” The older woman pulled out a large container from under her table. She opened the box and pulled out the top bundle. She lay it out on the table. It was of a fox curled up and sleeping on a rock.

“The red is amazing! Where do you get your fabric?”

“There is a designer quilt shop in town I buy whole garbage bags of scraps from them.”

“Nice! I should look into that.” the woman folded up the fox blanket and lay out a tiger laying in snow quilt. After admiring that one for a little bit the woman pulled out a final blanket.

The mosaic pattern was of a bear laying down in a cave. It was on the biggest of the children’s quilts. It had a lovely green and brown border. Moon know immediately that Sunset would want it.

“I want to buy this one.” Moon

“Oh. for a friend?”

“Umm… no.”

“Oh. you have a child?” the woman sounded surprised.

“Me and my partner are expecting so soon.”

“Well then!” the woman quickly glanced as Moon’s stomach and then smiled before moving to the other side of the table. “In my experience mint is the best morning sickness cure. When I was carrying I drank mint tea before work and have no issues for the rest of the day!”

Moon stood in silence trying to determine the best response. She settled on nodding. “I will keep that in mind.”

Moon Dancer spent another hour exploring the market. She bout a little more produce. She was on her way out when she heard a loud cry of pain. Turning around she determined that the sound came from the apple stand. She rushed over to see if nice woman running it was okay.

There was a man dressed in black standing in front of the table. Moon came to a stop a few feet away. Something about this man made her want to reach for her pepper spray.

The woman’s blond hair popped up from the other side of the table. The man said “are you alright?”

“Yeah I’ll be fine.” the women said in a somewhat strained tone. She was holding her arm. There was blood.

“Well I hope you have a good rest of your day.” the man walked a way with a large bag of apples.

Moon started to turn to watch the man leave but then stopped when some motion caught her eye. The Woman had snatched something off the table and stuffed it into her pocket.

“Are you okay?” Moon walked over. “What happened?”

“Oh hey Moon Dancer. I was just not paying full attention and the money box fell on my arm.” She smiled and looked a little sheepish. She picked the money box off the ground. Indeed the box had blood on a corner. Applejack picked up a small stack of money from the table and put it inside the money box. Moon noticed that the top bill was a one hundred dollar bill.

“You remembered my name! I forgot yours… sorry.”

“Of course sugarcube! I remember everyone’s name! I’m Applejack.” Applejack was struggling to open her water bottle with one hand. Here let me get that. Moon set down her things and reached out. Applejack handed it to her. Moon unscrewed it and handed it back. Applejack winced as she poured some water on the cut. “I’m glad I got a tetanus shot!”

“Ma’am do you need a bandage?” A man in running clothes walked over.

“Umm... yeah. Do you have one on you that you are willing to spare?” Applejack asked.

“I am a paramedic and I never leave home without my first aid kit!” He pulled a small backpack off his back and reached in pulling out a fat backpacking first aid kit. He pulled out some wound supplies. “ here.”

Applejack let him dress her wound. She thanked him as he walked away.

“Well that was convenient.” Moon couldn’t help but to comment.

“Definitely.”

“Are you going to be okay here by yourself? There are a lot of heavy crates.”

“It’s fine. The cut isn’t too deep. Also my brother is going to come take over from me soon. I’ll be heading out and he will finish the day and then clean up.”

“Oh, okay.” Moon gathered up her stuff. “Maybe I’ll see you around”

“Yeah. It was lovely meeting you.”

Moon’s walk back to the hotel was completely uneventful. She walked in and deposited her purchases. The food went into the refrigerator. She hid the quilt in her half empty suitcase. Then she headed back down to catch a taxi to the college. On the way she looked up local bakeries.

“Moon! Just the person I have been dying to see.” Moon turned to see Sunset walking towards her.

“I found a place we can walk to!” the two set off.

As they walked Moon explained her trip to the market.

“And then the man walked away with this big sack of apples and she put something in her pocket. I went over to see if there was anything I could do for her. She picked up the fallen box and put what looked to be a lot of money in it. And then I helped her clean-”

“Hang on. That wasn’t money she was putting in her pocket. Right?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it. It was small. I think the money from the sale was still on the table when I walked up although I didn’t really pay attention to it until she was putting it away. I was sort of focused on if she was okay. Why?”

“Because it is fishy. A lot of money for a sack of apples and he just walks away? You said her Asian pares were really reasonably priced. He wasn’t buying something else was he?”

“Are you suggesting something?”

“I don’t know. You said she was a generous person with a pleasant aura so I will give her the benefit of the double even though you are not always the best a reading people. I just find the situation strange.”

“I guess it was.”

The two walk into the bakery, order and sit down.

“Hay Sunset! Who is you friend?” The two turned to see a thin woman with curly orange hair wave. She walked over with two women following behind her one had purple pigtails and the other had a blue ponytail.

“Umm… who are you?” Sunset said confused.

The trio stopped. “Are you serious?” the blue haired one demanded.

“Ummm… yes.” Sunset said.

The trio looked at each other. “You really don’t know who we are?” the blue haired one asked.

Sunset felt a twinge of guilt. The blue haired one sounded hurt.

“Is this your way of telling us our friendship is over?” The orange haired one demanded.

“You must have her confused with someone else!” Moon cut in.

“Who else would we-” The blue haired one started.

“So your the human Sunset… Nice to meet you. My name is Adagio and these are my sisters Sonata and Aria.” She gestured to first the blue haired one and then the purple haired one.

“Nice to meet you. Umm… you already know my name so this is my wife Moon Dancer.”

Different odd looks flashed across their faces. “Nice to meet you.” the three said together.

“Well I hope you two have a wonderful lunch!” Adagio said she turned to leave.

“Did you see her belly? It-” Sanata started but Adagio shushed her and ushered both her sister out the door quickly.

“Well that was interesting.” Moon remarked.

“What did she mean I’m “the human Sunset”? Isn’t it obvious that I am a human?”

“I think she was referring to the Sunset we met last night. And she seemed equally human. Perhaps we can ask when we see them later.”
“I don’t know. I think that might be a little wired to start a conversation with. Let’s try to get to know them first. Then we can decide if we think they are trying to pull our leg.”

Moon took a taxi from the college to the park she wanted to walk in. Her mind raced as she jogged down the trail. So much had happened in a short amount of time. She had met what seemed like a wonderful person but what if she wasn’t. And she and Sunset had probably meet friends of the other Sunset. If she was being honest with herself she found those women a little odd.And what were they going to talk about tonight? Her thoughts persisted.

Eventually Moon’s timer went off. She stretched and started walking back to the hotel. She showered and changed into casual nice clothes. She texted Twilight and arranged to meet up for Thai food then she grabbed a book she was reading and lay down on her bed.

Some while later Sunset walked in. She changed into nice casual clothes and the two of them set off.

“Do you know where we are going?”

“Yes, we are going to a Thai restaurant not too far from here.”

“Do you want to take the care or walk?”

“I was thinking you would chose.” Moon paused. “I think, if we drive, I should drive.”

“Okay. Let’s do that.”

Author's Notes:

I have decided that the events of of both the fan-fiction An Open Door by Skycatcher EQ and Sunlight by the Albinocorn have happened in this Alternate Universe.

I don't think I will be referring to their events very much. I want this to stand on it's own.