Chapters "Git them fences painted! Do yer chores! Fetch Granny more firewood! Buuuuuuuuy some apples!"
The orders rolled nonstop from beneath Applejack's hat as it's owner leaned on a wooden fence while two fillies were busy rolling around and giggling in the looming shadow of it's wearer. Apple Bloom waved a hoof around with authority, aiming it at her big brother, placidly running a plow through the distant field.
Sweetie Belle started to squeak and turn an adorable tint of red as the littlest Apple commanded his utter obedience.
"Plow them fields! Tote them hay bales! And buck the west field by last Tuesday!"
"APPLE BLOOM, AH TOLD YA TO GIT THEM FENCES PAINTED!"
Scootaloo went into hysterics. "Apple Bloom, that was the BEST one yet!", the runty pegasus managed to gasp as her eyes blurred with tears of laughter.
When they cleared, green eyes were burning with the promise of certain doom, and a rough-shod hoof scraped a long streak in the dirt. A second later, three trails of dust marked a trail zooming for the uncertain shelter of the Apple homestead. A door slammed to the sound of Winona barking up a storm, then silence settled back down over Sweet Apple Acres.
A snort that would only been ladylike from a she-minotaur came from the monstrous orange-furred beast as it stomped towards the homestead, fixin' to get her teeth into a certain little pony...
The ogrish monster pushed the front door open and roared:
"APPLE BLOOM, YOU COME HERE AND GIVE BACK MAH HAT THIS-", Applejack trailed off as the missing link revealed itself on Granny Smith's head, who had a box open next to a scrapbook. Crumb covered faces looked back with the hopeful expressions of the condemned who had reached sanctuary three steps ahead of the Grim Roper, although the plate of apple fritters had mostly gone on to their final reward (or repast). The last, still steaming offering was raised by Granny to the growling beast.
Consarn it, she knew I skipped most of mah breakfast! , Applejack thought as the first bite began to banish the empty feeling in her stomach, which gurgled and growled as the pack of timberwolves that the rest of the family called "AJ's appetite" seized the meal and savagely digested it into gobbets of bliss.
"Why don't you sit down and have a few more, dear. I was just showing your sister and her friends a few of my hats...", Granny creaked out.
The thought of sitting through a selection of bonnets failed to get Applejack's attention, but a second plate of fritters proved more effective. The next look Apple Bloom got was far kinder as the hungry pony-monster became a much less grumpy big sister.
"Big sis, ah'm sorry I borrowed yer hat. We was just havin' a little fun!", the hat-stealing varmint said from her safe perch by Granny on the sofa. Applejack, dreading a tour of lacy ribboned frippery managed to accept the apology with a minimal number of lost chews of flaky goodness. Granny Smith reached into the hatbox...and pulled out a battered clone of the one sitting atop her own wrinkled head. A good sized hole in the top looked like it'd been cut right out of the thing with a sharp knife.
"This here was Applejack's great-grandpappy's hat, and he handed it down to his colt. When it got too plumb busted to fix up, we cut up what good parts was left...", Granny said and tossed her head, sending the hat on it flipping forward onto the living room table. Applejack's cowpony hat came to rest upside-down, the lining matching the older hat's material perfectly. "...and we made it a part of HIS colt's hat. And that hat was your pa's, and when it gets worn down, you'll take some of THAT hat and make it into the new one. Just like your great-grandpappy made one from the one he got, or sometimes she. I think your great-great-great-aunt had it before he did...all the way back to the very first Apples. Why, your great-great-aunt Saucy used to say that every cowpony hat a farmer called their own was made from a pony fancying one like the hat we've passed down for generations!" The scrapbook was a history of photography, from a picture of Applejack through black and white, cabinet to card to faded portraits of over a dozen Apples...each bearing a hat seemingly cloned over the centuries.
"So where'd the Apples figger out how to make this, Granny?"
With a whisper of sound, the rainbow came down, all pretense of it's friendly presence lost in the night.
Earth ponies scattered madly in all directions as the ribbon of multicolored light reduced another wattle-and-daub cottage to fragments of burning straw and kindling. Most kept moving after the impact. A few lay very, very still.
If they weren't too badly injured, that was for the better. The monster preferred moving targets. She moved forward on denim-clad legs, leather boots covering her feet as they squelched through the winter mud. With a gesture, the glowing arc whipped stinging sparks across the flanks of the fleeing crowd, herding them together into a milling mob of panicked, whinnying fear.
Once the running ponies had been crowded together closely enough, the rainbow became a fence of prismatic menace, burning the stragglers with the occasional runnel of liquid sparkles as it followed it's mistress towards the mountains with the population of the town. And every pony knew that to enter the hills with the monster was to never be seen again.
The *crack* of an ebon-shod hoof on the beast's shoulder sent it tumbling to the ground, downed but not out as the rainbow released it's prey to scatter into the hills. Coiling, it struck like a serpent, fangs of light snapping at the winged tormentor who dared to interfere...but inches away from tearing into a cresent-mooned cutie mark, the cheerfully colored menace was swatted aside by a thin column of flames.
A second challenger appeared, banishing the shadows of the late evening with a nimbus of morning sky.
"No more, eldest sister!", Celestia cried.
The two-legged thing opened eyes that had been bleached nearly completely of their original blue and let it's mouth hang open. A voice that had never known or needed flesh rolled out between slack lips like a cloud of menace.
"TOO LONG HAVE YOU HELD THE PROPER MEETING OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS AT BAY, YOUNGEST. I SHALL END THIS IMPURITY OF FLESH AND RETURN THINGS TO THE PROPER, CLEAN RADIANCE OF SPIRIT. ONE HOST, SIX, THOUSANDS- UNTIL THESE MATERIAL THINGS NO LONGER HINDER US. THE SIN OF FORM SHALL BE ABSOLVED IN MY LIGHT."
"We say thee nay, Alexandrite! No more will you harm another living-", and at harm , the ribbon of colors struck again, coiling itself around Celestia to crush the alicorn to a shapeless mass of flesh. Luna pounced on the rainbow's tail with all four hooves, pinning it to the earth before it could reach her sister. Before the other end could rise again, Celestia's forehooves crumpled it, flattening the true evil into a technicolored carpet splattered with the muck of the hill.
"Release the girl, Alexandrite and return to thine prison.". Luna's horn sparked, a cresent sickle of moonlight forming at the end as she ground the thing further into the unyielding earth. In response, the living rainbow began to heat and bubble.
"ENOUGH. CLEARLY, WE MUST BEGIN BY BURNING YOUR CORRUPTED FORMS FROM THE REALM. WHEN WE HAVE REFORMED IN A THOUSAND YEARS, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND REASON AND COMPLY."
Celestia's mouth set in a grim curl and a small sun joined the crescent of focused moonlight. With a convulsion of mystical energies, the two forces tore the melting rainbow apart like a twist of taffy, interrupting it's attempt at self-immolation. Two pieces of colors mixed and writhed on the hill like a broken-backed constrictor, alive but crippled. The beast fell to it's knees, it's hat tumbling down the hill. Golden hair spilled out, only to be stained by the gout of blood that splashed from her nose to stain both hair and vest. Hidden beneath it, a heart-shaped locket cracked nearly in two and hung loosely from it's chain.
"Release thine host or we shall do what must be done, eldest.", Celestia said to the wounded, mad thing.
The bisected rainbow threw itself against the glowing prisons that encased it, cracking the shells of aura and sending a wave of creamatorium heat into the sky. The golden hair dried in an instant and curled at the ends as an errant wisp of energy caressed it, leaving ugly brown stains of dried gore to color what had once been a country-girl's riding outfit.
"ALL SHALL KNOW MY LIGHT AND BE FREED.", the obscenity that coiled at her breast bellowed.
With that, the two alicorn's heads jerked twice, like a neck falling into the hangman's noose. The two already-torn pieces found themselves each ripped anew, not once but twice- and finally fell limp, the bright colors congealing into grey hunks of calcified, monochrome stone. At the girl's chest, the broken locket mirrored the gesture, disintergrating into six jagged shards of useless metal- and the light in the child's eyes extinguished itself like a burned-out lightbulb. The puppet collapsed, it's strings cut- and no life remained within it.
Darkness fell once again to it's natural place, clouds forming as the burning heat faded away. One pony galloped through the beginnings of a gentle rain to the mortal remains of Megan Williams, put her head to a no-longer tormented brow, and wept bitter tears.
Sun and Moon stood above a body and a broken-hearted pony as she mourned, wings sheltering the sobbing creature as she nuzzled and pushed at the lifeless form of her friend.
"Whhhhhhhhy? WHHHHHHHHHHHY?", Applejack's voice shrieked and echoed from the uncaring stone.
The warmth of two alicorn wings settled on the earth pony as Celestia and Luna settled down by the grieving pony.
"Because the Moochick did not know what he gave your friend, little pony.", said Celestia. "The locket held a shard of an ancient, sleeping spirit- and when Megan had given it enough time to grow strong in the world, it took her as it's slave, instead of her commanding it."
The chubby little earth pony sniffled and buried her head between her hooves. "And then she...she...oh, heavy hooves!"
"Aye, for that spirit would tolerate no creature of another world in this realm, or even ponies if it could be rid of you all. Vile, that it first took thine friend's kin and...took them from this place.", Luna added. "There was something of your Megan left when she struck, though you shall ne'er seen them again. They live, but the way is shut and we know not the means to open it anew."
"Then...then...but...this is Megan. She saved me, so many times. Even when I turned into a dragon! She can't be...nothing could...she was my friend. My best friend! And then she...she...", Applejack's words crumbled into a broken mess.
"We know. The monster wasn't Megan, it made her into a monster- like you, when Tirek made you into a dragon. If there had been any way to stop this that had a better end, to save your friend-"
Celestia paused and laid her horn across Applejack's neck and her eyes widened in surprise.
"And perhaps with her best and faithful friend, there may yet be- for a price. Wouldst you have her here, again?"
"For anything. Every apple in my orchard, every bush in my garden, if I had to eat thistles morning, noon and night! "
"Would you care for her as if she be thine own daughter? Knowing that if I bring her to thine hooves alive, the monster she bore will one day return? Speak truth, for if a single drop of falsehood stains thy words, I shall do naught."
Applejack paused, at the thought of what that thing had done, the friends it had taken away, never to be seen again.
"If you don't, then the monster will have taken everything. I could have a farm as wide as the valley and ponies who love me from here to the sea, but if I left my friend like this? You can bury me next to her, for I'd be as dead as she. Give her back to me, we are apples grown from the same good tree."
Luna bowed her head and let her starry mane drift across Applejack's back. "Well said, good friend. Thou art as true a sister as I to mine own, even if thine has no hooves. For her, wouldst thou spare a lock of thine?". When Applejack nodded, Luna nipped a mouthful of hair from her mane and scattered it across the limp form of Megan.
"Stand away, and mine sister and I shall work."
Six grey stones floated in a hexagon above an equally greying body, sprawled beneath a dead sky on a lifeless rock. A single rough strand of golden hair waved forlornly as it stuck itself to a damp spot.
"We begin."
Sunlight and moonlight grasped the stones, setting them to orbit around their corpse-tether. As they whirled, the stones blurred into a ring, then a disc of swirling blue and gold that veiled the body that lay beneath it.
"We claim what has been taken, unjust, a debt unpaid, a life not given in it's time but stolen and cut short.", Luna intoned.
"We return a child to a mother, two bound in friendship and family who should never have been split asunder.", Celestia followed.
A spark of many colors formed, hovering above the disk of solar and lunar energies.
"WHAT FOOLS, YOU MORTALS BE. THE PIECE OF LIFE I HAVE TAKEN CANNOT BE SO EASILY RETURNED, NOR WOULD I GIFT IT BACK TO THAT PATHETIC WASTE YOU LAY BELOW ME."
Luna's lips curled back in disgust. "Thou shalt have no say in the matter, eldest sister."
"TWICE FOOL, YOU. IF YOU WOULD TAKE, SO MUST YOU GIVE- AND ONLY ONE THING COULD YOU GIVE TO ME."
Six fragments of broken locket joined the six stones in their path, only to be sucked greedily into the hungry stones.
"YES....YES. WITH THIS, I SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN...IN TIME. BOUND AM I, LIFE FOR A LIFE. BUT IT SHALL NOT BE ENOUGH FOR THE BROKEN HOST, ONLY FOR ME!"
A mist of sparkling dust settled from stones, soaking into Megan's form without visible effect.
"WHEN I WAKE, YOU WILL JOIN HER IN DUST. SOON." And the rocks tumbled from their flight to sink into the mud.
Celestia's horn shone and the cursed things vanished.
"Not while we live. And with what Alexandrite has done, only four will be able to give her what she needs to exert herself. Myself, Luna...and those of your blood, the Apples. And with what has been stolen returned, there is a sister of yours that needs to be saved. The journey from death to life is not easy, and long will she need to be whole again- but we will guide her, and use your love to mend what cannot be renewed. Be thou ready, Applejack? There will be pain."
Applejack took a deep breath and forced the words around the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat.
"Help her."
The two alicorns touched their horns to Applejack's flanks, then bathed the body of Megan in a torrent of energy, consuming it utterly. Seven knives of fire sank into Applejack's haunches, and her cutie marks burned with witch-fire as the two fed a bit of the pony's very soul into the devouring flames that had become Megan's pyre. Drained and spasming as the spell took it's toll, the little pony stiffened and tipped foward into the darkness, unseeing and unknowing.
It Goes On Top Of Your Head
Blue skies. Sun. A warm breeze and the familar scent of a friend.
Am I dreaming? , was the first thought to go through Applejack's head as she began to wake up.
The feathers that tickled her ears as she shifted her head told her otherwise. She snorted as a primary teased her nostrils, making the owner wiggle a bit in her sleep. The noise made her aware of the pony curled up against her in turn, grunting a little in her sleep as a hoof waved in the air. Did they save another pony after I fell over? , turned out to be thought number two. A half-grown filly with an oddly familiar hat covering her eyes, a red ribbon tied in her mane behind the neck. Pink and blonde, but old enough to have a cutie mark that was a twin to the hat in every way.
Something sawed wood next to Applejack's head and she twitched again, upsetting the delicate balance of the pony-pileup she'd been sleeping in. Luna rolled onto one side and resumed snoring, her nose pointed into the air and her tongue lolling out to one side of her wide-open mouth.
"She's never been a quiet sleeper."
Applejack flailed briefly at the voice in her ear, managing to finish rolling Luna on to her belly and sending the filly into murmured protests about a few more minutes as her pillow shoved itself onto open ground. More gently, the long-legged Celestia rose to her feet and settled the filly against Luna.
"There we are. Thine sister and mine can get a few more minutes in, twas' a long night."
"But...but...Megan? MEG?"
"Is quite well, quite tired, and right there."
"THAT'S NOT MEG!"
The shout managed to rouse the younger pony, who blinked away sleep and looked up. "Huh? Wha...who?"
"Your sister, er... Nut...meg. Nutmeg Apple, wasn't it? You were so afraid last night after that monster came that you ran here and would do anything for your little sister. Why, you thought she was dead! But see, Nutmeg's going to be fine."
"Is'm...reaaaaaally tired. Gonna...zzz....", the filly managed to get out before the exhaustion of a REALLY hard night put her back in dreamland. Coming back from the dead will do that.
"So, why don't we take a little morning stroll?"
"The best we could do, Applejack. What she had...there wasn't enough left of her to make a human out of, but with enough of YOU, there was enough to make a pony. One that won't be seen as "the monster" that devoured three towns and made Danny and Molly go who knows where but far away from all the ponies who loved them. Twas' not her fault, but anyone who saw her wouldn't think otherwise. And with what you gave her, she's as much your sister as if you'd been born from the same mother."
Celestia frowned a bit. "We were working on a new name, but I had to improvise a bit when you woke her up. Luna's filling in as many of the gaps in her head as she can while she sleeps, but Megan...er...Nutmeg will think that she's been a pony all her young life, and that being a hero or monster was the dreams and scary nightmares by the time she finally wakes up. A little pony who really doesn't know much except that YOU are her big sister who saved her and is the center of her world. A big sister she's going to need and love for a very, very long time."
The light went on in Applejack's head, and it never stopped shining. Not for a very, very long time.
The Apple family orchards were something to marvel at, for centuries to come. The sun and rain came right on schedule, no matter if a pegasus or three was around to herd them. Two sisters were the first- Applejack, who kept the crops and trees growing tall and sweet, and Nutmeg, who could keep all the farm ponies working together through anything, and even sweet-talked herds of the local cows, sheep and pigs to make themselves a home on the prospering farmstead. The kind of knowhow and partnerships the Apples made became common in other farms, even if none of them seemed to have quite the luck that the two sisters did.
Why, you could say they'd been blessed or something. When the time came, as everyone's does- Nutmeg put her hat on the pony she'd picked out to take her place when she went to the Last Roundup, and her favorite little daughter got the big red ribbon bow that she'd always wear in her mane. She started a tradition or two on the way out, and to this day, there's an Apple with a hat made of hoof-me-downs, daughters with a big red bow in their hair, and an Apple farm that always seems to have a bit of good luck just when it needs it, as long as they work hard, love their family and don't complain too much about the little things.
It's an Apple family tradition, after all.
Author's Note
And if you're saying to yourself "Hey, Nutmeg isn't a very Apple-y name?"...well, guess what you call the fruit from a nutmeg tree? :)
