My first draft for this thread. Will post an improved version later.
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A thin boat called a drifter, drifted across the mirror-esque still water pond. Two earth ponies in sun hats with nets going down from their brims and down into their collars. Despite being fully protected, mosquitoes buzzed around them in wisps of icky clouds.
One of them held and oar and used it to break the drift of the drifter so they broke into a stop next to a lily flower surrounded by a bunch of lily pads.
A drifter was a long, thing row boat for a maximum three ponies. What was so interesting about them was how the water almost reached up to their edge so from the side it looked pike the occupants sat on or in the water.
As the other pony kept the drifter steady, the other dipped his hooves into the waters. The mare coiled her hoof around a stalk and did a fast and precise jerk upwards.The stalk belonging to the lily flower was pulled out from the very bottom of the pond. The mare roped the stalk up and placed it on deck of the boat among a pile of other white stalks of the same type, with lily flower and pads at one of their ends. The mare continue to pull up from stalks onboard till all had been plucked and her companion set the drifter adrift to the next lily pad bouquet in the row.
Outside of the edges of the pond was even more water. The pond had been set up with boulders, stones, and timber for walls, like many other artificial ponds set up for agriculture.
A little bell jingled. The two mares on the boat stopped. One of them looked over the edge of their boat and saw how the water had risen so high the cork attached to string attach passing through a small wheel lower down on the drifter's hull back to the bell. Another jingled was heard as a ripple caused the cork to bob upwards and pull the string taut for a moment.
Two ropes lay across the drifter and went under the stalks. They had been placed there before the ponies put the stalk on top. Now, the ponies tied them hard and made a handle between the ropes with their excess.
Above them, two earth ponies stood on a rope bridge hanging between two, of the many tall trees around. The two above threw lowered down a line with a hook attached to its end. The pair in the drifter hooked it under the handle of the bundle of stalks. The four ponies help lifted in all together in the beginning but once it was hoisted up far above the two in the drifter to reach, they let the two above do the rest. The rope bridge waggled from side to side as they hoisted it up onto it, but they managed.
The ponies worked in relative silence with the exception of some small talk and the buzzing of the mosquitoes in the background. It was early in the morning and a few rays of dawns light pierced the treetops of the tall greenwoods.
The one mare with the assigned job to pick up the stalks in the drifter stretched out her limbs. She scratched part of her neck. The one with the oar took notice.
"You been bitten, Outback Poof?" the mare with oar asked.
"Tch," the mare whose name was Outback Poof answered. "Yeah. Somehow it got inside. The net probably tore again."
She sighed.
"Gotta go to, Zheila, for some of that green goo, she sells. This stings baaaad," Outback said through clenched teeth.
"Well, that's how it goes when you don't give the net enough slack, like I told you" the other mare said.
Outback groaned.
"I gave it slack, alright." They arrived at the next patch of pads with a flower and Outback submerged her front hooves through the water surface instantly. "How's this: 'Oh, Outback that sucks mare. Hope it gets better.'"
Outback hauled in a few stalks onboard.
"Taste it at least, Dawn-Iris," Outback said as she panted lightly from pulling in the stalks.
"I'm tasting it," the other mare whose name was Dawn said. "But, 'Do it right the first time and you won't get bitten,' tastes better in my mouth."
Dawn smirked smugly.
Outback rolled her eyes and sighed.
She was about to dip her hooves into the water again but then her eyes caught sight of something strange. Beneath the lily pads there was this big thing. It looked like sharpened yet somewhat blunt end of a log. She leaned a bit closer. It had a weirdly uneven and kinda brown-green color but then again so were most things in the water.
Then she recognized it. Her eyes went wide as she saw what was right under the surface and beneath her hooves.
She pulled her hooves back and fell onto her back. The drifter shook and it's edge being so close to the water cause some of it to splash up into it.
"Hey hey hey!" Dawn shouted at her in rage. "Don't tip the drifter! Idiot."
"A croc!" Outback yelled and pointed in the direction she saw the eyes.
"What?" Dawn turned her head and looked into the depths where Outback points.
Her expression was hard and her body motionless.
"What's going on down there? Poof? Iris? You alright?" calls one of the ponies from above on the rope bridge.
Outback waves up at them.
"Hey! Toss down the lin--" Outback starts but gets silenced by Dawn's hoof blocking her mouth.
"Shh," Dawn said in harsh whisper. "No yelling. Sound agitates crocs."
Outback open her mouth, holds it there for a moment before closing it again.