Applejack blew on her hands and rubbed them vigorously together, appreciating the feel of her thick, leather-like callouses touching. She stood on her two feet, far more deftly than what she had been two month's back, and for a brief moment the mare-woman was struck motionless by the beauty of the spring day and the peace she felt on the farm. It was a familiar peace, nostalgic and warm, a peace that vanished under a sudden, knee-shaking bout of homesickness for her family, her friends, her land.

Scowling at the thoughts ruining her contentment, she dropped down to her hands and lowered her knees a bit, then went through motions that were once more familiar, yet foreign and bizarre to her body. She snapped her leg up and collided her foot with a tree.

It was a solid hit, sending a crack though the tree and making it visibly shudder, scattering leaves, a few weak branches, and her prize, dozens of cherries that rained down into baskets surrounding it. She rose, looking over her handiwork with a nod of satisfaction, squatting down to toss a few stragglers that had landed into the earth beside the baskets, before marching to another tree lined with baskets and doing the action once more.

Sherri watched Applejack from a distance, one arm under her breasts and her other bringing her thumb to her crimson lips. She chewed thoughtfully at a once well-manicured nail as she watched the relative stranger perform. Marty shot a glance to Sherri as they tended to the chickens nearby.

“What happened to just keeping her for a month?” Marty asked, scattering seeds at his feet and then heading to the chicken's nest to gather their eggs.

Sherri gestured to the woman and the baskets lined with fruit, knowing Marty couldn't see her motion, but knowing that he know she was doing them all the same. “That was before. When we thought the girl was just giving a line and story to hide some hurt.”

He laughed, shaking his head in humor. “There's no damn way—“

“Mouth, Marty,” she said instantly, her motherly instincts kicking in with him.

“Sorry,” he said, giving an apologetic tip of the trucker hat he wore, his dry tone pushed back just a hair in respect of the older woman. “But you can't honestly believe all of what she said, right? That's retarded.” He blinked. “Uh, the story is. Not you.”

“I knew what you meant, no need to clarify,” Sherri replied, then nodded to AJ as the blonde gathered four buckets filled to the brim with cherries in each hand and walked off, headed to a truck in the distance. “But can you tell me with a straight face that you have an explanation for her?” Finally freeing her thumb from its prison, she started to count on her fingers, glad in a way to be able to speak up to someone regarding her, the others on the farm not asking any real questions regarding her, just appreciating her hard work and liking the company she gave when she took a little downtime.

“How often do you see a woman looking like that?” Sherri finally asked.

“How should I answer this?” Marty asked. “Because it almost sounds like you're saying she's too hot to be human.”

“Of course not. She's pretty, anyone can see that.”

“I don't see it,” he replied. “Too tall and the muscles are a bit much.”

“Marty,” she flatly said. He gave a little laugh.

“Sorry, sorry. Go on.” His smile made Sherri's own eventually appear and she put a thumb once more to her mouth.

“Well, how to put it... if I had to guess her ethnicity, I'd think Creole, or a mixed child from around here, judging by her dialect close to matching our own.”

“Ok...?” he said, waiting for her to finish.

“How often do you see a black woman with naturally blonde hair?” she bluntly asked, deciding against beating around the bush.

“It doesn't have to be natural,” Marty countered. “Dyes exist. Hell—I mean 'heck,'” he corrected, Sherry nodded her approval, “—I had a phase when I dyed my hair too, remember?”

“I do,” she said.

“So she just got some dye and—“

“Where'd she get the dye?”

He gave an exasperated shrug of his ebony shoulders. “I dunno, ma. The store?”

“She hasn't left the farm this entire time, Marty. And I looked around the house, nothing there.”

“Maybe it's a defect then. Like being an albino.” Marty said, sighing with exasperation.

“How do you explain her outworking even my seasoned vets? Those baskets she just hauled had to of weighed fifty, sixty pounds a piece.”

“She's a big girl, a lot of testosterone in there, there's gotta be an explanation,” he answered, giving a small pace around the chicken lot.

“And that trick she just did with kicking trees. She's clearing things that would take us at least an hour a pop from hand-picking!”

“I don't know, ok?” he snapped, shaking his head. “But do you really think a world with talking horses and magic sounds any better? It's impossible.”

“It sounds impossible, but after all this time she's still asking questions any normal person would know, I just...” Sherri sighed. “There's more to this, I'm sure of it.”

“So what, she's some kind of... alien or something?” He shook his head. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” she agreed. “But she's here now, and it's my responsibility to take care of her until she can...”

“Can what? Go home?” He shook his head. “This isn't a Lifetime movie. If—if,” he empathized. “She's really some sort of... thing beyond our scope, I have doubts she'll make it back. If it would have happened, it would of happened by now, for sure.”

“We don't know that.”

“And we don't know if she's just crazy and you're trying to convince me she's not,” Marty answered.

Applejack approached them, popping her knuckles.

“Howdy, ya two!” she called out. “Need help? I saw ya both jus' sittin' here with the birds and thought ya could use a hoo—“ Catching herself, she paused. “Hand. Could use a hand,” she finished, a little more reserved.

“No, no,” Sherri replied with a dismissive wave. “We were just talking, that's the reason we've been moving slowly. It's actually getting close to lunch time. How about we go and get a bite to eat while you've graced us with your appearance?”

Jack nodded. “I'd like that. So hungry I could eat a whole square bale.”

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of parmesan chicken, personally,” Sherri said.

“Bird chicken?” AJ asked, her expression faltering.

“Only type of chicken I eat,” Marty chimed in. “What? Do horses not eat chicken?”

The woman glanced away, frowning. “Guess this one does,” she quietly admitted.

Sherri bit at her lip. “We can have a vegetarian meal, if you want.”

“Nah. I...” She swallowed, looking disgusted. “I wanna eat chicken. If it's as good as sausage, bacon, or hamburger.” Shrugging, she added, “It's like my body needs it in me now, ya know?”

“I'm sorry, hon,” Sherri said, looking down at her feet in shame.

“Don't be,” AJ quickly countered. “Ya didn't know. An' it's...” She shook her head, unsure what to add on to it. “Let's jus' get some grub in us.”

000

The thing named Q turned, looking at the bald man as he rested his feet on the bald man's table, in his lap a book.

“...I'm surprised you have to ask, when your human Shakespeare explained it all so well,” Q stated, gesturing down at the book with his palms.

“So he did,” the man replied, giving a cautious rise of his hand as he stood before Q. “But don't depend on any one single—“

“It's a pity you don't know the contents of your own library,” Q said. He glanced down at the book in his hands and drolly raised his own finger up to the ceiling. “Hear this, Picard, and reflect.” He looked distantly to the walls of the bald man’s chambers. “'All the galaxy's a stage.'”

“World, not galaxy,” Picard corrected. “All the world's a stage.”

“Oh, you know that one,” Q replied with disinterest. ”Well, if he were living now, he would of said galaxy.” He had another sudden thought. “How about this, ah, 'Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” He gazed sternly to the bald man, looking over his militaristic suit. “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Picard let the smallest smirk peek from the corner of his mouth. “I see,” he replied with contempt. “So how we respond to a game tells you more about us than our real life, this,” he gestured to the book at Q's lap, “tale, told by an idiot. Interesting, Q.”

Q perked up a hair and offered a smile. “Oh, thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed it.” He raised a palm. “Perhaps maybe a little Hamlet?”

“Oh I know Hamlet,” Picard countered, putting his hands to his hips. “And what he said with irony, I say with conviction: What a piece of work is man.” He leaned forward on the desk resting between them. “How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable.” He narrowed his brow. “In action, how like an angel, in apprehension, how like a god!”

Q shot up out of the chair, glaring at Picard in a sort of awe and hatred.

“Surely you don't see your species like that, do you?”

Picard gave a small nod. “I see us one day becoming that, Q.” He stared, unblinking at the entity with the appearance of a man, the smallest smile of contempt at his face once more. “Is it that which concerns you?”

Q said nothing, only scowling and tossing the book at Picard in frustration.

“He reminds me of someone...” AJ said, squinting in thought as she stared at the television screen.

“Picard?” Marty asked, crossing his legs and leaning back in a worn recliner.

“Who?” Applejack questioned.

“Bald guy.”

“Oh. Nah. The other guy.” She scratched her chin and adjusted herself on the couch, glancing across the room to Marty. “So, all ya think like that fella?”

“Depends on the man,” he replied. “I like to think there's some truth to it.”

“Y'all seem like yer fittin' the bill. Heck,” she started, pushing her stetson back, ”Yer kind's done things we're jus' now getting' to, with magic.”

He scoffed at the word 'magic,' but played along. “Alright. I'll bite, what are you talking about, exactly?”

“Medicine. Exceptin' a gal that's a potion-maker, an' unicorn magic, we're jus' now getting decent hospitals. An' cars. Only one I've really seen back home was 'bout as fast as a tractor here.” She gestured to the spaceship on the television. “An' not even Celestia or Luna's been past the moon, an' there ya'll are explorin' space.”

He flatly looked at her. “This isn't a documentary.”

“Oh.” After a beat, she shrugged. “Well, some of yer facts seem more like stories, where I'm from. Like, I remember Sherri mentionin' somethin' 'bout a world war.”

“What, the first one?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “Y'all had more than one?”

“Two,” Sherri said, appearing in the doorway with three cups filled with iced tea. “And I hope whoever's listening above makes it stay at two.”

The older woman looked between AJ and Marty, before joining the farm woman at the couch.

“Y'all sure seem ta fight a lot,” Applejack commented, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Sometimes you have to fight. Not always, but you can't stand by when things are a problem.”

AJ gave an unsure shake of her head. “If ya talk it out, there usually ain't no need ta—“

“Talk it out with someone like Hitler? Mao? Stalin?” she questioned, shaking her head. “You can't be civil with tyrants. A show of force is the only language they understand.” A small, minute flare of pain crossed Sherri's face. “It's why my Logan served in the Navy. He admitted it was childish, but he truly wanted to protect the nation's ideals.”

“I don't know who those three ya said are, so I reckon I can't argue. An' if yer Navy is like our royal guard, then he did a good thing fer y'all.”

Sherri glanced down at her hand and the ring she still wore, nodding slowly.

Marty spoke up, raising a brow towards Applejack. “You don't know Hitler? I can understand maybe not knowing Mao, but not knowing the Nazi posterboy?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry I ain't been crackin' open yer history books, I guess,” she dryly countered.

“Well... I could teach you a little history, if you like,” Sherri offered.

“I dunno.”

“I have supplies and textbooks. We can start you at fifth-grade American history and expand from there.” She smiled. “How about it? If you're going to be here for a while, you need to know some basic information. People will think you're nuts if you go around saying something that,” she gestured at the television, “is historical fact.”

“I... I don't know why I'm still here,” she admitted, clutching a hand to her knee. “Twi, I thought she coulda found me by now. She's the smartest mare I know, an' if she ain't able ta help...”

Sherri and Marty exchanged glances. After a moment, the woman rested a hand on the back of AJ's own and gently stroked it.

“And if that's the case, you have a place here. With me, Marty, my farmhands.”

AJ took in a shuddering breath. “I didn't get ta say goodbye,” she weakly choked out. “They're...”

“I know, honey, I know,” Sherri said, clasping both her hands onto Applejack's. “It hurts, losing the chance to say goodbye. If my boy or me can do anything...”

After a moment of looking miserable and feeling just as bad, Applejack nodded. “I appreciate it. But I don't know what that anythin' yer offerin' could do.” She rose, looking down at the hands entwining her own and for a brief moment, seemed almost longing, before she pulled her hand away. “If it's alright with ya, I need some time by myself ta think. Ya reckon the rest of the chores'll keep 'til tomorrow?”

“We got along fine before you, honey. You take as much time as you need, ok?”

Applejack turned and left the room. They heard the sound of heavy boots clomping up the stairs, then Sherri brushed a hand down her skirt.

“I don't really know what to make of her,” Marty admitted. “Maybe there is something going on here. I didn't buy it then, but now...” He sucked in a breath. “Though for an alien, she's better looking than E.T.”

“Mmm.” Sherri crossed her legs and stared at Marty. “Do you still visit Randall?”

“Randall?” Marty blinked, not used to Sherri taking an interest in the boys he grew up with before he got taken off the streets. “S-sometimes, yeah.”

“And does he still have that business on the side?”

“Yeah,” Marty freely admitted.

“Tell him I need an ID made in the next few days. I'll provide the photo.”

He raised a brow. “Don't tell me...”

“I want to cheer her up some. And I know exactly how I'd do it.” She nodded, pleased with herself. “We'll make a day out of going around the Big Easy.”

Author's Note

And we're back. Holy cow, it's been a long, long time since I updated this, and I apologize for that, true believers. I know this is a short chapter as well, but I wanted a bridging chapter before more plot, and really wanted to show you guys that the story isn't dead, I swear. Expect the next chapters in a far more reasonable time, along with some actual story development. Until then, this is Merc signing off.