Chapters Young Applejack pulled on her harnesses and, straining at the yokes, she forced the wheelie basket over the ridge and up the path to the top of the hill. From there, she jutted her lower jaw, the lollipop stick shifting from her right side to her left. This was the first aisle of trees, rows and rows of bark towers lining the dirt path.
Thus the Wanderin’ Sheriff, cresting the great dune of the San Palomino Desert, looked upon the baked and dusty tin rooftops of the Ringo. There was never a town like it. Every house hid shadows. Every window glowed with all the eyes leering out. The town brimmed with rustlers and rowdies, outlaws and bandits, thieves and desperados, all watching and waiting.
She tried to remember how the story went. Granny had insisted on getting the details right, in spite of her ancient memory. But Applejack had, in turn, insisted on hearing as many as she could before bedtime. She’d crammed so many details last night that they mingled with each other and flowed freely from one story to the other.
Swinging the straw from one side of her mouth to the other, the Wanderin’ Sheriff wheeled through the town. Behind closed doors, knives slid out of sheaths. Ropes and lassos were tied around shoulders or spun in readiness. Clubs and iron horseshoes scraped on the rickety boards as the criminals kept pace with her slow walk.
“Ah ain’t givin’ y’all no more chances,” yelled Applejack, frowning at the rows of trees and narrowing her eyes until her freckles stretched. “This ‘ere’s where the Wild ends an’ the Law begins. Ah am the Wanderin’ Sheriff, the roughest, toughest, most meanest pony o’ justice that ever lived. Y’all come out, an’ y’all gonna be nice an’ slow, or Ah’m gonna come in an’ make this quick an’ nasty. What’s it gonna be, you snakes in the grass?”
Around her and her wheelie basket, the breeze rustled the leaves of the red delicious trees. Further down the slope of the hill, she could see the white picket fence that kept the south side of the orchard apart from the north. Only a lone bumblebee tumbled ahead of the wind.
Applejack smiled. The Wanderin’ Sheriff never ran away from a fight, and none of the gang had come out. Sweet. They’d destroyed many towns and stolen all the bits from the banks. Only the most cunning and vicious of heroes could hope to defeat even one of them, never mind the whole gang. With the ceremony of a master warrior removing a travelling cloak, she unhitched herself from the wheelie basket.
“All right!” she yelled to the trees, trying to hide her filly squeak. “Y’all asked fer it! Git along, little ponies!” And she sprang.
Applejack leaped, ducked – the Sheriff felt the blade slice through the air over her head – and with a loud “YAH!” kicked the trunk. Shockwaves rippled across the stunned bandit’s belly. Above, the branches wobbled and waved with the force, and twigs and leaves snapped off. Apples rained down and landed – the bandit’s sack of gold arced through the air and landed – smack into the basket.
As soon as the basket had been filled, Applejack bit the ropes lying in the mud, ignoring the muck sliming over her tongue. Yanking the harness and the basket all the way, she placed it under the next tree. A thief broke out of the timber house, trying to flee from justice. Applejack jumped forwards and the Sheriff whacked him, sent him flying all the way to the horizon. His gold rained down on the basket, ready to be wheeled back to the grateful townsfolk of Cooper.
Applejack kicked the third tree and watched the apples rain down on the pile, and to her shock a pink filly landed on top of them with a yelp.
Bandits, gold, and wooden towns shattered like reflections under a splash. The filly was pink and had poofy hair and was pink and grinned like a crescent moon and was pink and holding in both forelimbs a rubber chicken. Also, she was pink. It stood out a bit.
Applejack opened her mouth, and then closed it and stared. Nothing in her upbringing – in either one of her upbringings – had taught her how to respond to ponies falling out of apple trees. She glared suspiciously at the offending tree as though expecting to see more ponies hanging up there.
She tried to pin the face to a name, but no one in Ponyville looked like this filly. She’d never seen a smile so wide. It seemed to cut far beyond the boundaries of the face and swallow up all who gazed upon it.
Applejack took stock. She was a farmer. This was a farm. Only farmers were allowed on the farm, and only grown-up farmers got to work in the fields. Whoever this filly was, she was no farmer. So she ought not to be here.
“YOU, er…” She cast around for tough words to say, but something reached down from her habits and shook its head disapprovingly. Instead, she continued, “You need help there, stranger?”
“Nope!” The simple word left the filly giggling at some joke only she understood, because she added, “Nopity nope nope NOPE! Hey! Watcher doin’? You looked so cool! With all the kicking and the jumping and the ‘YAH YAH YAH!’ You’d make my sister look like a pushover, and she can kick boulders across a whole field!”
Applejack’s freckles burned and she could imagine them glowing a deep red. “Ah, heh, Ah was jus’ apple-buckin’.”
Under the two hooves, the rubber chicken squeaked. “Ooh! Apple-buckin’. That sounds like fun! Although I think it’s more like apple-tree-buckin’ because you’re not really buckin’ the apples, you’re buckin’ the trees, and the trees are raining apples down after you do that, and oh my gosh they’re so red and shiny! Can I eat one? Ooh, ooh, how many points did you win?”
To Applejack, a whirlwind of words battered her about her ears. This filly seemed to be living a few seconds’ jump ahead of her brain, and it was all she could do to grab the last snatch of a sentence and respond, “Points? What points?”
Another squeeze of the chicken followed, and the filly rolled her eyes. “Duh! The points you get for apple-buckin’. Or is it like when you run up a hill as quick as you can to see how fast you can go? Are you buckin’ all these trees!? That’ll take forever. You could be going for a record, champ!”
Applejack wondered if she was talking fast on purpose. Testily, she said, “Wait a minute! Hold on to your reins, darlin’. You can’t just drop down from trees like the Sundancer Kid off a cliff! This is mah farm! An’ who the husky hayseeds are you s’posed to be?” Narrowing her glare, she crouched ready for a leap. “You a trespasser? Granny done warned me about trespassers. Them’s strange ponies, and you sure are as strange as they come.”
The filly dropped the chicken and backed off a couple of steps. Her forelimb was raised to flee. “I’m not a trespasser! I swear! I never passed any tresses in all my life! I-I’m Pinkie Pie. I just got in last night. I’m new!”
Look ‘em in the eyes, her brother had said. You can tell an honest pony by the look in their eyes. Applejack peered into the startling sky blue irises and the gaping black of the pupils, and thought they looked like any other eyes she’d ever seen. They were quivering slightly, though. Maybe this filly wasn’t the rough-and-tumble sort.
Applejack relaxed and adjusted the lollipop in her mouth. “Ah din’t mean to scare you, Miss Pie,” she said, trying to pour oil on her tones. “Ah was jus’… surprised, that’s all. Ponies don’t normally fall out o’ no trees. An’” – she leaned forwards and whispered behind a hoof – “yer can’t be too careful with all them wild west baddies runnin’ around.”
At that moment, the wind picked up. Pinkie’s wide eyes darted across the canopy, trying to follow the invisible pegasus. “Baddies?” she whispered.
“Yup. Granny tells me stories about ‘em, but that was the Spirit of the Sands, and she’s OK if you show ‘er some respect. Whatcher doin’ here, Pinkie?”
As the pink pony took a deep breath, Applejack shooed her off the pile and pulled the wheelie basket up to the next tree, but even as she did so, she knew she’d have to go back for another one. When she kicked the trunk, the apples started rolling off the fruit mountain and bouncing across the flattened soil. Full already! The townsfolk would get all their savings back in one round!
“…and then I fell asleep,” continued the mare, who was hopping in Applejack’s footsteps and almost bounced into her rump. “And when I woke up, I saw you playing your game, and then –”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Applejack spun round and winced; she’d chomped so suddenly that the lolly shattered in her mouth. She spat out the pieces and adjusted the stick to the other side of her mouth. “Game? This ain’t no game.”
Pinkie snorted. “Oh, you silly filly. Of course it’s a game! Look” – she pointed at the next tree – “that one’s the Monstrous Marshal of Mare-ico, who eats bottles and steals vaults by picking them up and walking away! That one” – she pointed at another tree – “is El Bravado, the desperado of Avocado; she steals candy from babies. And shows; she steals shows! And first of all, you gotta beat the worst of the worst, the one they call… the Bronzer! Woooo! You don’t wanna mess with that tough cookie, know what I mean?”
Cheeks crisping with the flame of embarrassment, Applejack spun round and marched away. She tugged so hard on the rope that it scorched her lips. Only a muffled groan of shock could be heard; she’d bitten down hard to keep back the yelp.
Pinkie hopped alongside her, but Applejack pretended to be interested in a passing bumblebee. “Can I join in? I could be your sidekick, the Mean Dean! Or… uh… I could be… uh…”
Applejack spat out the ropes. “This,” she said to the tree, “ain’t no game! This is apple-buckin’ . There’s no room for no games; apple-buckin’ ain’t done by no fillies . It was nice to meet yer, Miss Pie, but Ah really, really gotta buckle down. Ah’m sorry. Ah got responsibilities .” A vicious kick at the trunk almost knocked her onto her face with the rebound, but she continued to glare at anything other than Pinkie Pie.
“Oh,” said a small voice behind her. “Oh, uh… OK… See you later, I guess?”
“Goodbye. ” Applejack kicked again, and an apple conked her on the head. She snapped to her senses at once and shook herself down.
What was she doing? The Wanderin’ Sheriff would never talk to a pony like that. The Sheriff was a real gentle mare, Big Macintosh had said. She was always neighbourly, except to bad guys. A chill went down her filly spine.
“Uh, wait. I mean… goodbye…” Applejack tried to soften her tone, but when she turned around, the poofy tail was already slinking over the peak of the hill. A pang hit her heart. Granny always said to be neighbourly, and Granny’s word was golden.
But it had to be said. It weren’t no game.
All the same, she muttered, “Nice goin’, AJ. So much for bein’ a hero.”
For the rest of the day, she was not the Wanderin’ Sheriff. She was just Applejack, and her hooves were starting to ache.
Young Applejack shuffled over the grass, trying not to meet any pony’s eye as she passed cottage after cottage. Every now and then, the hat slipped down her face, and she had to stop and push it back up.
It was a wedding cake of a hat. Shadowing not only her face, but her shoulders and the small of her tiny back, the brim of the hat glowed fiercely white like a plate made of the purest china. Some frilly edge hung over her eyebrows, as dainty as a doily, and above that was the black and white mounting swirl of fabric where the designer had gone crazy with the textile icing. A feather plume arced over the lot like a poised fork, and all that the peak needed was a message and two little figurines joined in holy matrimony.
A few passersby glanced at her, but she headed straight for the spire of the bakery. The gingerbread house below it overflowed with chocolate browns and strawberry pinks and fondant white goodness. Part of her was astonished it hadn’t melted under the midday sun. Merely to look at it was to find herself drooling uncontrollably, and she wiped her mouth on the back of her hoof.
“OK,” she said, trying to flex her muscles. “Easy peasy. Jus’ walk in, chin up. Hand it over. Say it. Then go. This ain’t – erm, I mean, this is not hard. OK… OK…”
She took a step forwards, but then paused on the first step. One ear quivered. Despite the faintest tickling of the noise, she was sure there was a beat to it. Boombox music?
“What the hay? I mean,” she said hastily, “what is that strange sound?”
The silhouette of a filly jumped across the glass to the right of the bakery’s front door. When she stared at it, confetti was thrown into the air, a balloon bounced off the glass, and several voices rose up in a wave of laughs. Squint though she might, however, the tint of the glass made it hard to pick out colours or anything beyond the dark outlines. Pouting, she pushed her way inside.
As soon as the door had opened, the noise rose up and hammered on her ears. Blues, reds, greens, and pinks bounced around – some confetti caught on her eyelashes, but she blew it off at once – and fillies rushed through the lot, chasing each other or dancing with kicks and jumps through the field of balloons. Her mind shut down against the race of colours and movements and noise.
“A… party?” she said.
“Halloooo!” As if on cue, the filly Pinkie Pie cartwheeled into the space before her, the manic smile stretching the skin around her cheeks. An iridescent cone landed on her head at a jaunty angle. “Woo, look at you! That’s a chapeau I gotta get to know!”
With a grimace, Applejack raised a leg to shield her eyes; Pinkie was right up to her face, almost nose-to-nose. “What’s goin’ on? What’s goin’ on?”
Opposite her, Pinkie chortled. Her mane was even wilder than usual, sprinkled as it was with confetti and splattered with bits of cookie dough and melting ice cream chunks. Her face was soaked from nose to ears, and as Applejack lowered her foreleg a smidgen, she noticed the bucket in the corner where a filly was dunking for apples that bobbed on the surface.
Around them, schoolmates she recognized only by sight were throwing themselves at each other. There was a pegasus filly with goofy eyes, trying to balance on a balloon. Beyond her was a brown earth colt playing peek-a-boo with the gramophone. On the counter, a unicorn filly struggled to walk on her rear legs, wobbling with her forelimbs spread wide like welcome arms.
Pinkie followed her gaze and squeaked with delight, and Applejack jumped when one pink limb landed over her own withers. “Check it out! That’s Derpy! She’s a riot with a diet, let me tell you! I made her favourite blueberry-banana-coconut-triple-chocolate-jam-filled-cream-topped mega-muffin, and she ate it all up! And that one? He calls himself the Doctor. He says he’s gonna invent a time machine. Ooh, I hope he finishes it soon; imagine a party you could go back to again and again and again and again and again” – Applejack jumped when Pinkie gasped right in her ear, and it sounded like the pink filly was sucking in all the air in the room – “Lyra’s the one doin’ the terrifying tightrope trial of terror! When she grows up, she’s gonna find a handsome prince and make sweet music under his bedroom window all night long. Oh, so romantic!”
Despite herself, Applejack gaped in horror. How could she possibly know their names already? No, scratch that; how could she know so much about them already? She’d only arrived yesterday morning, and there must be every colt and filly under this ceiling right now. Applejack had been born here, and she barely remembered what her classmates looked like.
Quickly, she shook her head. This was not important. Removing her hat delicately with both hooves, she backed away from Pinkie’s embrace and tried – and utterly failed – to look her in the eye. She swallowed. There was fighting, but the words would come out. They had to.
“Uh, listen,” she said, and she grimaced at a spasm of pride that tried to cut her off at the voice box. “About yesterday. Ah… uh, I wasn’t quite myself yesterday, and uh –”
“WOW!” Pinkie bounced on the spot. “You changed you voice! You changed your voice! Do it again! Do it again!”
“Look, Ah’m tryin’ to be serious – I mean, I’m trying to be serious. Oh, shucks. I mean, oh fiddlesticks. I want you to have this.” Scarcely had the last word left her mouth when she thrust the hat before her like a talisman. Her cheeks were burning again, this time helped by the sheer lived-in weight of the packed bakery. When she breathed in, the air smelled as though it had passed through every pair of lungs in the place.
Pinkie was wide-eyed. She tilted her head and leaned forwards. “Fancy pants,” she breathed. “That’s a fancy pants hat. I’ve never seen one that big and white and so… so rich-looking! Where did you – uh –” The nervous chuckle did nothing; if anything, the pink face turned paler. “Holy moly! That hat has class!”
“I bought it in Manehattan,” Applejack said to the brim, not daring to look up. Although the hat was nowhere near the weight class of a bucket of apples, nevertheless her forelimbs were shaking. She strained to hold it as far away from her as possible. “It’s a gift. To make up for what I did yesterday. That was simply rude of me. And I’d like to say s… I must say I’m s… I’m sorrorrorror… I’m sorr…”
But her pride, forcing its way into her larynx, finally crushed her throat, and she fell silent, pleading helplessly through her stare as though the hat could look back at her.
To her astonishment, Pinkie burst out laughing. It really was a burst; each gale blasted out through the gates of her lips and gave the air a winding jab. Any pony nearby found themselves battered and bruised under the onslaught of belly laughs. At least, Applejack did.
“Oh, AJ, AJ, AJ!” Pinkie gave a snort trying to hold a laugh in. A hoof patted Applejack on the crook of her forelimb. “You don’t have to say sorry for something like that. I could tell you were busy. It’s OK. It didn’t mean a thing. Oh, you are so silly, though!”
“But… but… you were sadder than a rabbit in an empty carrot field… and you jus’ went away, dincha?”
Pinkie fell suddenly silent. “Come on, I’ll show you something. Ever been in the kitchens? It’s awesome!”
For a moment, Applejack resisted the tug on her forelimb. “What? What d’you mean?”
“Relax, silly. It’s OK. I’m allowed, and so are you. You’re my special friend today. Ooh, ooh, you can be my VIP. That’s a Very Important Pony. Come on, come on!”
It’s amazin’ , thought Applejack as she found herself dragged through the maelstrom of screams, beats, and rainbow balloons. She walks an’ talks like she owns every good thin’ her blue eye falls on. The last time Ah felt like this was when there were that whirlpool thing in the lake. An’ she’s got a grip like a true apple-buckin’ pony.
Just in case, Applejack checked the cutie mark beside her, but it only showed three balloons, and she was even more astonished. Her hat on her free hoof was getting scuffed as it hit the floor, and she tried to fight the pull of Pinkie to put it back on her own head. They passed the beatbox that was thumping the world around it, and when Applejack emerged from the drowning beats, she found herself on the other side of two batwing doors. Pinkie let go of her.
“Welcome!” intoned Pinkie Pie. “Welcome to the inner sanctum of Sugarcube Corner!”
Applejack rammed her hat back on, looked up, and gasped. Between the armies of cupboards, under the shadow of the looming stove, and above the flour-stained floor, the two bakers Carrot Cake and Cup Cake shot from one task to another. She blinked; Carrot Cake smoothed out a ball of pale mix with a rolling pin. She blinked again; Cup Cake's head was backing out of the oven, a tray of steaming pies gripped under her oven mouth-gloves. Applejack wiped her eyes and found both of them orbiting a massive tower of cakes, hooves blurring as icing, sprinkles, and whipped cream were conjured out of thin air to decorate the delicacies. She barely noticed Pinkie nudging her in the side.
“Well?” said the smug squeak-of-a-voice right next to her. “Whaddaya think?”
Applejack had never been inside the kitchen before. There were legends about the place, all told by the foals who had never been allowed inside. Some said the treats were delivered whole from the clouds in a descending beam of light. Some said there were impossible machines and gigantic clanking things that worked day and night to create perfection from scratch. Some said the Cakes were hiding an alchemy set, and that one day they would invent a treat that no mortal pony could ever stop eating. And here it was, the Secret. Elbow grease.
“It’s…” she breathed, “it’s beautiful .”
“And I,” boomed Pinkie, “get to work in it, forever and ever, always and always!”
When Applejack turned to look, Pinkie was behind a nearby counter, an oversized apron on her front and trailing across the floor. She wore the toque blanche on her head as though it were a crown. Before her, her hooves kneaded a thick wad of flavoured pink dough, and Applejack noticed with approval how the filly’s forelimbs moulded it with a firm twist of the elbow.
For the first time in her life, a foalish fancy crept up to her mind and pounced. “May Ah… May I try it?”
“Like you have to ask! Sure! Jump right in! It’s fun!”
Applejack chuckled as she hopped up and started pounding at the mix. Beside her, Pinkie carried on kneading and even pushed back, and soon they began to synchronize, pushing where one slackened and slackening where one pushed, and it was a while before Applejack realized she’d gotten flour on her lovely hat.
The last light of Sugarcube Corner clicked off while they were peering over the rails of the balcony. At once, Applejack and Pinkie chuckled and giggled and galloped straight to the sleeping bags in the middle of the room in the spire.
“Nighty night, dearies!” said Cup Cake through the bedroom door.
“Goodnight, Mrs Cake!” chorused the fillies. As soon as the creaks of the staircase faded away, however, both of them whipped out the flashlights from their bags and lit their own faces from underneath, chuckling and giggling as quietly as they could manage.
“OK, OK,” whispered Pinkie Pie. “Truth or Dare! Truth or Dare!”
For a moment, a frown crossed Applejack’s face. “Uh… Well, Ah’ve heard of that one, o’course. But, um, what is Truth or Dare?”
Pinkie blinked at her with a gasp. “NO! You’ve never played Truth or Dare? Every pony’s played Truth or Dare. What do you do at slumber parties?”
There was an assumption in that question that cut Applejack, and she winced at it. Almost immediately, Pinkie’s face softened.
“Oh,” she said. “I was being silly. I mean, of course not every pony has played Truth or Dare – obviously, really little fillies can’t have played it, I mean they just got here – and not every pony does the same thing. Different strokes for different folks, after all, right?”
“Maybe,” said Applejack in as soft a tone as she could manage, while deep inside her, something screamed at Pinkie to shut up, “you could jus’ tell me how it’s done, sugar cube?”
Pinkie bit her lip and nodded, but then burst out with a short, sharp laugh. “Sugar cube? That’s cute!”
Applejack’s ears flared red. “It’s what mah big brother used to call me. Ah think it sounds nice, that’s all.”
Opposite her, Pinkie shuffled and her sleeping bag squeaked with each rock of her torso. A quick shush made her stop at once.
“Okey dokey.” Pinkie gave her a wink, and then disappeared into her bag. After a lot of squeaking and some hasty shushing, she popped out and threw her rubber chicken across the room. “Now try this. Let’s start with a dare, to make it easy peasy. You think you’re such a cowpony, then let’s see you cow-po-nay! ”
A strand of ribbon landed in a heap on Applejack’s face. Snorting, she flicked it off and peered beyond Pinkie’s outstretched hoof to the smirk behind it.
“AJ,” said the filly, “I dare you to get that chicken without leaving your bag at all! I wanna see a lasso!”
Applejack sagged with relief. Deep within her mind, a tiny voice was whispering that she was miles away from being a cowpony, but she’d practically been born with a rope in her mouth. Even with hooves, it was the work of a moment to tie a respectable ring. The red fabric was a blur, and then…
“Wow!” breathed Pinkie when the chicken bounced off her face. “Do it again! Do it again! You must be a rodeo queen!”
“Tweren’t nothin’.” Yet behind her fluttering chest, a little Applejack was pumping the air and whooping. “Does that mean Ah win?”
“Dare me to do something! Dare me! Dare me!”
“Oh, Ah dunno. Ah can’t think of anythin’.” Applejack fixed her with a steely look. “So how’s the ‘Truth’ bit work, then?”
A creak of a floorboard came from downstairs. Both of them shut up at once and cocked their elf-like ears, breaths well and truly bated. Two clicks later, their flashlights went off. Both of them blinked against the afterglow.
“Clear,” whispered Pinkie. She switched her light back on. “But I can’t believe you’ve never played this before. And, and that hat was amazing. And your voice keeps turning all well-to-do one moment, then cowpony cool the next. I bet you ran away from a travelling theatre!”
Applejack illuminated her own frown. “Theatres travel? ”
“Not like that, duh! My family used to watch them when they came in. They had all kinds of coaches and carriages and wagons and things. I think they called it… hold on…” She tapped a beat on her skull. “A ‘caravan’?”
“Ah ain’t travelled in no caravan, Pinkie!” Applejack couldn’t hide the chuckle. “No, Ah jus’ came back from –”
“Ooh, ooh! Truth or Dare! It’s my turn! It’s my turn! Truth! Truth!” Pinkie was almost bouncing out of her bag, which was impressive considering she was lying on her belly and elbows. The beam of light juddered with each bounce. “OK, OK, for this, I tell you to say something, and you have to tell the truth! No backsies!”
“Um… OK, then…”
Applejack began to sweat. Much as she was getting used to Pinkie’s squeak and the way the filly never seemed to stop moving, there was always the chance Pinkie could bite. Not really bite, naturally, but that was how Granny would’ve described it.
Oblivious, Pinkie cleared her throat and winked at her. “Where did you get that hat and that funny voice? I mean, what makes the AJ go ‘tick-tock’?”
They cocked their ears again, checking for the slightest sound. Not so much as a sleepy murmur came up to their level. No wind came through the open window.
“Ah was jus’ telling yer,” said Applejack. “Ah came back from Manehattan, jus’ last week. Ah was stayin’ with mah Aunt an’ Uncle Orange – they’re like the big city ponies in the family – and they was tryin’ to bring me up all s’phisticated-like.”
“You must have loved something about the place, right?” goaded Pinkie Pie, batting her eyelashes.
Despite a large part of her shrieking “NO!” Applejack couldn’t resist the few at the top. “Well… to tell yer the truth… it was OK at firs’… Actually, it was great! Nothin’ to do but goin’ to dinners and readin’ books and loungin’ aroun’ all day. An’ they pampered me somethin’ fierce. Ah tell yer, for the firs’ few days” – she broke off and giggled – “it was kinda amazin’. Ah was like a li’l filly princess!”
“Ooh, ooh! Do the accent, do the accent!”
It didn’t take much strain. If anything, she had to strain not to do it at times. “Very well, my little pony. I was just saying to the lovely little pink filly in the front row…”
“Oh you flatterer, you.” Pinkie fluttered her eyelashes and batted a hoof.
“The city was a most inspiring place,” said Applejack, smiling in what she hoped was a gracious manner. “But I fear it wasn’t quite homely enough for my palate. Oh, I was ever so miserable. So many long words to use, so much enunciating to do – why, the number of times I had to say ‘the rain in Wane falls mainly on the plain’, you just wouldn’t believe…”
Pinkie was squirming in her attempts to force back the giggles, and snorts broke through her hooves once or twice. “It’s…” she tried to say, but it was a full minute before she could control herself enough to speak. “It’s so weird! You were like this salt-of-the-earth farmer pony, and then you do that posh pony voice, and bam! I mean, what’s Wane supposed to be?”
“That there’s a town, sugar cube. It’s in the desert.” Applejack’s voice, having wandered across a few scorching hot dunes with not so much as a wince, immediately turned back and ran for the comfort of familiar grass again. “Ah done learned g’ography in Manehattan.”
Not one word of this sank in, as Pinkie was writhing and squeaking again. After a while of this, they both glanced down at the floorboards, ears cocked once more. Outside, the stars twinkled and the cottages stood as sentinels guarding a prison.
Hoofsteps reached them from below. At once, they ducked into their sleeping bags. One of the Cakes was gargling.
To her surprise, Applejack was twitching at the hooves. There was no doubt in her mind that she was a creature of the soil, through and through. Yet Pinkie’s histrionics were grating, as though she was running a rusty saw over a banjo.
Why, she found herself thinking, is it so funny when I speak like I come from the city? It’s not weird.
The hoofsteps passed by. Far below them, a door clicked shut. Only once a silent minute had slunk past did they peek out of their impromptu cocoons.
“Hey, do you think,” said Pinkie as though it just occurred to her, “I could be a cowpony? It’d be so cool, with the hat and the rope thing and the little towns in a big, big world, and then there’d be all the hoedowns and the happy settler ponies, and –”
Applejack coughed and shrugged at her carelessly. “Ah think it’s mah turn now. Truth time for you, Miss Pie. Now gimme a minute. Ah gotta think what to ask.”
“But I could be a cowpony if I wanted, right? They do all kinds of daredevil stuff, all on their own, wanderin’ like that one you were playing yesterday. The Lone Pinkie Pie: has a ring to it, huh? And I can do the accent too! Listen! Ahem… Hah hain’t a-tay-keeng no guhff frum noa wun. See? Fits me like glove.”
Chilly legs began to crawl up the inside of Applejack’s chest. Pinkie was talking faster than usual; not so’s a casual listener would hear it, but there was a slight breathlessness as the pink filly went on. Her eyes narrowed. Big Macintosh said never trust a smooth-talker. Oil can work as a cheap paintjob, was how he’d phrased it.
“All I gotta do is work out how to do the rope thing,” Pinkie went on, “and then I get the hat and maybe some boots, you know, with the little pointy wheel thingies on the backs, and then a long coat so it flutters in the wind –”
“Ah got mah question, Pinkie.” Applejack waited for the blue eyes to focus on her, and thought she saw the slight quiver. “Here it is: Where d’you come from, an’ how d’you end up here in Ponyville with them Cakes?”
There was no mistaking it this time; Pinkie’s blue eyes darted about for a split second, as though flurrying with panic. Then, their gazes were locked together.
“No backsies,” said Applejack.
“Ha. No problemo.” Pinkie’s poofy mane bounced when she rubbed the back of her neck. “That’s an easy one. I was on a rock farm, with my ma and my pa and all my sisters. It was all rocks. Rocks, rocks, rocks. I was so, so sad, because no one ever talked or smiled or did anything other than move rocks and cut rocks and grow rocks and dig up rocks and eat rocks and” – she gasped – “and then one day, I saw the most beautiful thing! It was a pretty rainbow in the sky! It just came whoom! Right outta nowhere.”
Applejack’s mind gave a spasm, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell why. “An’ then?”
“Well…” Pinkie’s gaze strayed to the twinkling sky and drifted down to the silent chimneys scattered at eye level. “It wasn’t the same after that.”
They heard an owl hoot in the darkness. Faint though it was, Applejack heard the slight scuff when Pinkie flinched.
“So then,” Pinkie continued in an even cheerier voice, “I came here! The Cakes come from my ma’s side of the family, and they said it was OK… so I came here and told them what was going on, and here we are! My turn! My turn!”
Applejack pursed her lips as she tried to spot the owl in the darkness. “You don’t wanna go back, even a li’l bit?”
“Well… I can always go back and visit, natch. Like when Hearth’s Warming Eve comes, we can all meet up for a big get-together.”
“An’ your family was jus’ OK with you movin’ away? No cryin’ or nothin’?”
“Of course! We kinda don’t always totally see things eye-to-eye, or eye-to-any-part, really. They like rocks, I like… stuff. Every pony said it was a great idea. The Cakes are just so much n – I mean, they love doing fun things like baking and having parties and talking to the neighbours and drawing and colouring and playing games like Find the Hidden Chocolate Cake –”
“Right,” said Applejack. It was the way she switched gears. Pinkie was creeping one moment, and then galloping off the next. Big Macintosh had told her about that too.
Applejack looked her in the eye. “Pinkie Pie, the game says you gotta tell the truth when it’s Truth, right?”
A fit of spluttering ensued, mixed liberally with easygoing chortles. “Well, of course it’s the truth, I mean, hah! Why would they call it Truth or Dare if the only thing you could do was dare? Then it’d just be Dare, or Dare and Dare, or Sometimes Truth But Always Dare –”
“Pinkie,” said Applejack sharply. “You’re worryin’ so bad Ah can smell it comin’ off you. We’re gonna be friends, ain’t we? An’ friends always tell the truth, don’t they?”
There was a long pause as Pinkie reached across and started fidgeting with the rubber chicken. Quickly tugging, Applejack had whipped off the ribbon with no more effort than a unicorn levitating it off.
“You Pinkie Promise not to tell any pony?” said a small voice which was even squeakier than before.
“Ah have no idea what that means.”
“Like this. ‘Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye’.” As she spoke, Pinkie crossed her chest and poked her closed right eye. “I made it up myself.”
“OK. Ah’ll do that then.” Feeling a bit stupid, she rushed through the rhyme and the crossing, and in her haste she tapped her eyebrow instead of her eye. When Pinkie opened her mouth to protest, Applejack said, “Ah promise, OK? But now you gotta tell the truth.”
Several deep breaths were needed. Applejack wondered if Pinkie had ever run a race in her life, given how strained her throat sounded. Dribbles of sweat had to be wiped off with an errant hoof. And then she told the truth.
When it was finished, Applejack’s face had crystallized. Her cheeks were taut with the effort of clenching her jaw.
“Do you…” said Pinkie tentatively. Her eyes were wide enough to reflect even the faint starlight outside.
“Ah made a promise, Pinkie,” said Applejack stiffly, and the fire burned in her chest, “and an Apple pony keeps her promise.”
Pinkie cast about for a response, but suddenly Applejack didn’t want to hear it. Click went the flashlight, and she threw the sleeping bag over her head and curled up, ignoring the weak whispers outside until they died away. It took her hours to fall asleep; the fire in her chest was worse than a sunbeam right on the pillow. Opposite her, Pinkie didn’t make a sound.
The first rays of sunshine cut through the patchwork of orange and purple clouds, and the dawn chorus broke out in earnest across the hills and canopies of Sweet Apple Acres. Apples twinkled like gems under the rising light.
From the open doorway of the barn, Applejack stood and stared out, glowering as though it offended her, but already she could feel its reassuring chill working against the inferno in her chest. A familiar chafing of rope pressed down on her sides and back, and she knew when she started walking that the wooden trundling of the wheelie bucket would accompany her.
“Up an’ at ‘em, Sport!” said the ancient voice of Granny Smith behind her. Applejack nodded in as respectful a manner as she could manage. “Now there’s a farmer an’ a half! You sure yer don’t wanna take five, or somethin’? Ah mean, you only jus’ got back.”
“Big Mac’s up already, ain’t he?” Applejack didn’t look around.
“Well yeah, but he ain’t even finished breakfas’ yet.” At this point, Applejack felt Granny’s flabby forelimb flop over her own withers. “So how’s about that Pinkie Pie, eh? Sprightly li’l thing, ain’t she? Hoo doggies, but she’s got the gift of the gab! Makes me feel about a hundred years younger just talkin’ to her!”
Against the gales of elderly guffaws, Applejack stiffened and hummed in agreement.
“Funny how she jus’ turned up, though. To Ponyville, Ah mean. Ah was talkin’ to them Cakes yesterday, an’ she said there’d been a letter from her ma an’ her pa, but they din’t get nothin’ through the mail. An’ the letter Pinkie had with ‘er – well, the writin’ were a bit funny, if yer ask me. Untidy, like.”
Applejack, if possible, stiffened even harder and hummed in a deeper tone.
“Ah well, whit does yer ol’ Granny know, that’s what Ah say. Diff’rent strokes fer diff’rent folks, an’ all that jazz.” Finally, the slab was removed from Applejack’s withers. “Yer sure yer won’t have a bite to eat?”
“No thanks, Granny.” Applejack kicked the brakes off the front wheel and strode towards the nearest trees. “Busy. Got work to do.”
“Er, OK… Say, Sport!” Granny shouted after her. “How’d yer sleepin’ over go? D’yer trade secrets? That’s what we used to do when Ah was yer age. Ol’ Apple Rose was the wors’ one fer Truth or Dare; why, this one time, we was all out campin’ in the fields…”
Eventually, the trunks swallowed up Granny’s words. A pang of guilt nudged Applejack’s elbow, and she softened her brow. After all, it wasn’t Granny’s fault. She resolved to go back and explain herself once her shift was done.
The ghost of the Wanderin’ Sheriff loomed up before her, but she braced her limbs and strode right through it. There’d be no playing. This job called for responsibility, not silly foal games.
As she trundled along, she cocked an ear and listened to the cheeps and squeaks and trills of the songbirds over her head. Deep inside her, she liked to think she could understand what the birds of the dawn were singing, but the rest of her shouted this down. That was just a foalish fancy. Every pony knew birds didn’t talk.
Leaves were rustling overhead where the faint breeze tickled at the treetops. The Spirit of the Sands was cheerful this morn – NO! No games, no fancies, no messin’ about, no nothin’! An’ definitely no Spirits of no Sands, neither.
After a few minutes, she passed through the gap in the white picket fence, and the relentless green overhead gave way to blazing dots of yellow where the crepuscular rays caught on the golden delicious fruits. Other wheelie buckets were standing in a row, their emptiness gaping at her as though shocked she hadn’t got started yet. With almost mathematical precision, she aligned the wheelie bucket with the bases of the trees to the right of the dirt path, and pulled here and shoved there and slid hoof over this and under that until the harness was lying on the soil.
She snapped into a kick, and her rear hooves were as hard and as stiff as rocks. Her rear knees clicked under the sheer force. Ripples crossed what Granny smirkingly called her “puppy fat”, and her ponytail flapped with the urgency of a banner facing a tornado. Thundering apples filled the bucket. Heavy though her brow was, a grin broke through below her nostrils.
Nothing compared to a well-aimed kick. Already, as she wheeled the bucket over to the next tree, she was feeling the inferno die back to a more temperate bonfire. Every strain of her muscles washed over her, taking the muddy thoughts with it. Every rattle of her bones smothered the smoke festering over her personal sky. Each time she stopped to notice how her back leg had a blister left over from yesterday’s work, she may well have been drinking from some simple fount, cleansing her insides. And when she remembered Big Mac’s advice and Granny’s praises and cheers, the waves of purification beat against the pile that kept her bonfire burning bright.
She was feeling better already. Applejack turned around to get another wheelie bucket, and in an instant her grin evaporated and the bonfire flared up.
It was Pinkie, standing at the picket fence.
“Hey,” said Pinkie, not quite looking at her.
Applejack’s teeth pressed hard into each other before she grunted, “Mornin’.”
Striding towards and through the gap in the whitewashed wooden struts, Applejack noticed with grim satisfaction the way Pinkie stumbled backwards to get out of her way. While she busied herself with the harness, she kept an ear cocked for the first word. Her own mouth was a thin line. Whatever Pinkie wanted, she was going to have to make the first move.
“Uh…” said the tiny voice. Applejack was already at the gap with her new bucket when the voice added, “Can I help you out?”
“Ah’m fine,” she said carelessly. “Thank you for askin’.”
“Please? ” insisted the voice. “I know my way around a farm – I had plenty of practice, believe me – and my hooves have been handling rocks since I was old enough to waddle.”
The trundling stopped. Applejack chewed over the words and glanced back; Pinkie was taking a step forwards, but then she paused with one hoof in mid-air.
“It’s an honest day’s work,” she said, and a shameful part of her nodded with approval when Pinkie flinched at the word. “Lots of sweat, lots of heat, lots of achin’ an’ swellin’ if you get it wrong. You think you’re up for it?”
Silent nodding was all she got. Pinkie, with her front hoof raised and her wide eyes straining not to blink, looked like she was about to bolt. Behind her chest, the bonfire’s wooden pile collapsed slightly.
“Well…” Applejack hummed as though in deep thought. Then she snapped back into attention and trundled on. “Don’t say Ah din’t warn you, an’ that’s all Ah’m gonna say.”
Aligning herself for the next kick, she pretended not to hear the second set of wheels squeaking and rocking slightly over the bumps and gouges of the soil and grass. Her ponytail flapped against the turbulence as Pinkie passed her by.
The two of them carried on for some time, bucking tree after tree, Pinkie with grunts and squeaks and – if Applejack was honest – not a lot of success. Whereas Applejack got almost every apple in one swift kick, Pinkie only ever managed half of the boughs at best, and once or twice she had to be told not to throw her weight wildly. Already, the falls and misses and stumbles had left her poofy mane and sweaty face splattered with clumps of dirt.
Soon, however, the pegasi pushed the clouds aside, and the sun was beating down fully on the pair. Applejack stopped to watch when Pinkie screamed and threw herself at the trunk of a particularly thick, column-like tree. This time, all but four apples hailed down and dented the ground.
“Not bad,” said Applejack, nodding. “Your aim’s gettin’ better.”
“It’s… easier… with rocks,” said Pinkie, who had stopped to catch her breath.
Applejack’s eyebrow stood up on her forehead. She’d copied the technique in a mirror after Granny Smith had done it to her one too many times, but then that cookie jar had been too much to resist.
Pinkie sighed and flopped onto the ground, panting and trying to beat clumps out of her frazzled hair. “I didn’t not like it on the farm. Of course I liked it! I had Maud and Limestone and Marble and Ma and Pa, and every pony liked my parties, they really did! I didn’t like leaving them. It burned me up! Honest, it did!”
Her lip trembled slightly. Applejack’s internal bonfire dimmed down to a steady campfire, and part of her sat and watched the dance of the light and the flame.
“Ah don’t get you, Pinkie,” she said.
A weak grin braved the greyness of Pinkie’s face. “That’s you and every pony I’ve ever met.”
“It sounded like you were happier than a pig in a muck mine. You know you shouldn’t have jus’ left. So… why d’you leave?”
They moved on to their next trees. Applejack’s kick got every last apple this time, but Pinkie’s missed completely and she thumped hard on her stomach.
“I don’t know!” she wailed from the ground. “I was rock farming, rock farming, rock farming all my life, and then that rainbow went BOOM, SWOOSH, PWWWOW, and then every pony had a party, and they liked it, they really liked it! But then I wanted one again the next day, and Ma and Pa said we couldn’t do another one so soon, and they said that the next day and the next day and the next day and THE NEXT DAY… ”
“Whoa there, Motormouth,” Applejack said at once; Pinkie’s face was turning blue. “Take a deep breath. You keep on at this rate, an’ you’ll talk yourself inside-out.”
Patiently, she waited by the tree for Pinkie to heave as though her lungs depended on it. Inside her own chest, though, the campfire was starting to diminish, approaching a cup of flames at the peak of the black wood pile. Familiar dull feelings threatened to rain over her.
Take your time, Applejack , she thought. That’s what Aunt and Uncle Orange would’ve said.
“I just wanted something different,” said Pinkie at last. “Something other than farming, farming, farming. I thought I was gonna DIE! And then I heard Ma talking about the Cakes one day, how I was like them when they were younger, and I was like NO WAY, and then I was like WAAAY, and then I figured out where they lived, and I made up the letter and walked the whole way!”
“Yeah,” said Applejack. She was staring through the leaves at the glare of the sun.
To her surprise, there was a tentative squeak of joy beside her, and when she looked round, Pinkie was on her hooves, trying a smile.
“You know,” said Applejack, this time softening her tone, “they’re gonna find out soon?”
Pinkie’s lower lip wobbled. Barely had Applejack looked away when the explosion hit her ears. Wet drops flecked her cheek and the side of her jaw. Gritting her teeth, she stood her ground and waited until the sobbing had spent its power and had gone down to a whimpering sniffle.
“I don’t wanna GO!” Pinkie was wailing. “I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it here! All the ponies are so nice, and I get to make real pies instead of rock pies, and I can have a party whenever I want, and there are sooooo many ponies; I wanna know all their names and what they like to eat and what’s their favourite games, and I haven’t even seen the whole town yet, we were gonna go explorin’ with Cheerilee and Rarity and all the other ponies in the school, and I DON’T WANNA GOOOO-HO-HOOO!”
At last, the campfire dwindled to a few embers. Overhead, the rustle of the Spirit of the Sands picked up again. Applejack turned around and gave a tree a swift kick, but once the apples began thumping on the wood, she strode over to Pinkie Pie, who was blowing on a handkerchief. Then it occurred to Applejack that she hadn’t been carrying a handkerchief.
Shaking her head, she said with softness straining on each syllable, “You do know you still ran away from your farm, doncha Pinkie? That’s not somethin’ you can jus’ sweep under a rug.”
It took some time for Pinkie to stop sniffling into her hanky, and she didn’t look up. “You ran away from Sweet Apple Acres. Granny told me.”
“Hey! Ah never run away ! Ah told every pony before Ah went –” But she bit back the retort and smoothed down her furrowed brow, and the flames died back. “Look, you din’t have to run away, now didya? Don’t you think your ma and pa would’ve let you try it?”
Fearful blue eyes stared at her, trembling behind a film of water. “I didn’t wanna make ‘em sad,” mumbled Pinkie into her hanky. “They love rocks. My sisters love rocks. What if I said I wanted to leave?”
“Granny and Big Mac were cryin’ their eyes out when Ah left. That don’t mean Ah was wrong to go.”
“And you came back,” Pinkie said, picking at the scab in the argument.
“Ah made a mistake, OK!?”
“See!” Pinkie threw down her hanky with a burst of triumph. “You hated the city! So you just left! That’s what I did! With the farm! Not the city!”
“Quit goin’ on about it! They ain’t one bit similar!”
And then they blinked, and realized they were up in each other’s faces. Hastily, they drew back and suddenly became interested in studying the upcoming apple trees.
“Ah ain’t doin’ a good job o' comfortin’ you, am Ah?” said Applejack.
“Nopity nope nope nope,” said Pinkie with a shake of her head. “You were dreadful!”
As if a dam had burst, the waves of laughter broke out. It all seemed so stupid to them. What were they, little foals? Applejack’s guffaws rumbled on while Pinkie had to lean against her for support. In the end, they wiped their eyes and let the little snickers dribble down to nothing.
“You sure are a funny little pony, Pinkie,” said Applejack with a smirk. “Seriously, though, you know you gotta talk to the Cakes about this, right?”
Small though it was, the snort of disbelief was unmistakeable.
“Don’t worry,” she added. “Ah can come with you if you're nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” said Pinkie at once. “I can tell them. I’m a big pony, not a little filly, silly.”
“An’ Ah’ll say Ah wanna see you come back, ‘cause you gotta go back an’ do it properly with your family, too.”
Pinkie gasped. “You mean that?”
At this point, Applejack reached across – fumbling a bit, because she was refusing to make eye contact – and placed a hoof on what felt like Pinkie’s withers. “O’ course. Ah made a promise, din’t Ah? An’ friends keep their promises.”
“No! I mean about going all the way back to the farm. That’s crazy. Won’t they be mad?”
“Well… yeah… but if they’re like Granny and Big Mac, then they’ll be really happy to see you firs’.”
“And… you’re not mad at me… are you?”
Finally, Applejack made eye contact, and the ember in her chest was finally extinguished. “Granny says every pony makes mistakes. She says that to me a lot.”
To her shock, Applejack was seized in a hug that pinned her forelimbs to her chest and almost squeezed her ribs against each other. Under the burning warmth of Pinkie Pie, she squirmed a little, and then gave up and just accepted the inevitable. It wasn’t as if it was that bad.
When Pinkie let go, she bounced on the spot and squeaked, “Thank you, thank you, thank you! Well, come on then! We’ve got a town to save, and I’m truckin’ for some buckin’!”
“Now yer talkin’,” said Applejack with a smirk, “Mean Dean.”
“Raht b’hine yer, Shair-iff!” Pinkie gave her a winning wink.
“An’ Pinkie.”
“Yup, yup?”
“Don’t do the accent.”
“Okey dokey!”
Their bucks hit harder and hit faster. Soon, the buckets were full, and the pair of them picked up the ropes and dragged their hordes to the fence, ready for the next set. As they stopped to catch their collective breath, Applejack screwed up her mouth trying to rewrite the stories Granny had told her about the Wanderin’ Sheriff.
“By the way,” she said, “Granny was talkin’ about you this mornin’.”
“Oh yeah!” Pinkie grinned at her. “I went to talk to her the day before yesterday. Isn’t she a gem? She said you were out working in the orchard.”
When she eventually registered these words, Applejack blinked and shook her head. “Wait a sec. You were askin’ after me?”
“Every pony kept talking about you in town.” Pinkie nodded with enthusiasm, shaking off a lot of dirt. “Oh don’t worry. It was all good stuff, how you were a hard worker and always helped ponies and stuff. And I just had to get the insider’s insights! I mean, you’re a farmer! We’re both farmers! And I thought you’d like someone like me to talk to, and then I saw you working all alone in the orchard –”
“You mean…” Applejack’s brain struggled with the concept. “You mean you planned to meet me that way? Like, in advance? ”
“YYYYYYYYYYep! I thought you’d like someone to play with. And I was dying to meet you! Why?” Suddenly, Pinkie drew back. “I wasn’t bothering you while you were working, was I?”
Applejack turned her head and peered out across the towering trunks, across the green clouds of the orchard, and across the apples twinkling like stars under the midday sun. Under her glaze of sweat, her mind was pumping furiously.
“Nah,” she said in the end. “Ah’d say you called it right.”
