Dearest Brother,
I am writing a story. It's a story you'll never read.
Of course, it's a story that I reckon rather few are going to read, Mac. Twilight sure ain't going to, because whatever she says, no way in hell I'm going to show her. Knows too much 'bout literature, you understand. A writer fears being uncovered, I suspect. Might just be me, but you feel like you're trying to fool them all and if one such as Twilight started trampling in the tangled wheat of words I've got going it'd all be uncovered. Least, that's how I feel.
I don't rightly know what you'd think of it!
Applebloom and I were in your room a day or so after it happened, after she was gone. We were cleaning out, you know, putting stuff in boxes for you. I started in on your books. Damn, stallion, I knew you read but... Some of these things are bricks! Crime and Punishment? Stalliongrad. I'm honestly real impressed by this little shelf. Is it alright if I keep a few for a little while? Just reading. I used to not have as much time, but these days it seems like all I have is time.
Been thinking about writing.
~~
Applebloom and I are in his room, the one that's been silent and empty for awhile now. We thought it might be a good day to do a bit of clearing out. Of course, by that, I mean I thought it was good an' Applebloom is a bit put out with me. But she don't complain too much.
She's growing up.
I look over my shoulder, up from the piled books. "Heya, Bloom."
Her voice is quiet. "Heya. Whatcha need, sis?"
"Nothin' special," I say back, watching as that bow-topped head peaks out of his closet. "Jus' wonderin' how you're doin', is all."
"Doin' fine."
There's a pause. I almost turn back.
"Kinda sad."
"His room?" I ask.
"Yeah."
"Well, sug, he ain't gone forever. You know that. Jus' a while yet, an' you'll see him again."
"I know." Her little face is drawn, and I know it's not Macintosh that weighs on her. My throat seizes up, and my heart skips a beat. I don't want to talk about this. I'd rather do anything else. I want to start asking about Spike and the crusaders, something involved.
I wonder about her take. She's younger. Grief is hard on the young, hard on 'em as much as it's hard on me, but Applebloom, for all of her Apple toughness... she's just a kid. Just a filly. I know she thinks about it. It's been hanging in the air too long.
"I did what I could, Bloom," I say softly.
Her little eyes widen, and she waves her hooves. "A-Applejack! No, I didn't mean like that!" she spits the words out in a panic, a slurred mess of a sentence that usually would make me smile.
"I know," I parrot. "Ain't nothin' to be done, I guess."
She fidgets, half hanging out of the closet. "Sis, you can't just shrug," she says quietly.
"Ain't nothin' to be done, I suspect."
Applebloom opens her mouth and I tense. She doesn't know. She can't know. She feels around the edges of it, a foal in the dark, in the funeral home, trying to discover what they've run into. It’s a casket, Bloom, and if you look inside you'll never look up again, will you? You'll be falling down...
Shit.
I cut her off. "Bloom, how's it comin' in there?"
She blinks, as if I've thrown the covers off of her, and answers me. The moment passes. It dies.
~~
Got a title for it.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost.
How you like it? Twilight would love it, really. It's got a sort of... Sorry, I had to remember what that word was. Aphorism? Something. It's a saying, Mac, and a title--all at once! I was kinda thinking about walking. I used to love takin' long walks with Pa in the orchards, after sundown, and I know y'all did that too. He used to tell me about how Apples were everywhere, these days, and about how we wandered and meandered until we came to Ponyville at last. We were never lost. We were just waiting for the time to be right.
Is the time always right? Do things have to happen? I don't know, Mac, but Twi... It's her kinda question.
I wonder where I got that title from.
~~
When you're an earth pony, writing is a tricky business. If you have to do it a lot, ya get a fancy dictation spell thing, talk into it.
I don't have one, mostly because it costs money I never figured I needed to pay for something I can do myself. Sure, something to be said for efficiency, but I'm mostly doing my writing after working, so I don't worry if I take my time. 'Sides, if you don't use it, you lose it. Seems a shame to lose such a thing.
So I don't see Bloom come in. I hear her.
"Whatcha writin', Applejack?"
"Celestia, Bloom!" I shoot straight up, my quill falling on the little desk, the paper sliding a bit. My heart pounds at my chest like a drummer. "Don't scare me like that, y'hear?"
"Sorry, didn't mean to." Her words are apologetic but her tone isn't. She's gettin' wilely as she gets older, an' part of me is proud. At the moment, that sly look in her eyes makes me tense.
"So, whatcha doin'?" she asks.
"Stuff. Ain't it late? Clear on out an' head to bed, sugarcube."
"Not that late. It's only ten. I was headed there anyhow. You alright?"
That look. She's going to be a wonderful bargain-dealing' mare one day, a real terror, whether its workin' the farm or shoppin' for groceries, some poor ponies are gonna get run over by that piercing look. Or some poor stallion.
“Of course I am,” I say a little too quickly. There’s no fixing it. She’ll catch on quick, like she always does, jump on it like a timberwolf on a bunny. Lands alive, but that’s not an image I want in my head. I keep seeing that Angel of Shy’s. Except it keeps winning.
And there she goes. That sharp little glance, that beginning of a grin, her little triumphant face. I want to groan, but it would just make things worse.
“You’re a terrible liar,” she says, blunt as can be. I grimace, and she goes on full steam ahead, her little brain working as hard as it can. “Somethin’ is up.”
“Yeah, but it ain’t your business, so shoo. Shoo, go on, stop botherin’ me.”
“Oh, but I simply have to,” she says, that bow bouncing as she leans in. “Applejack, you shouldn’t keep secrets! You’re an honest pony, remember? An honest mare doesn’t keep secrets!”
I snort. “Like you would know, filly. How old are you, now?”
“Jus’ ‘cause I ain’t out of school…” she groans, and I can’t help but grin. It’s awful, and I shouldn’t. Yet I do. “Applejack,” she continues. “I’m just playing with you, but… honest?”
“Honest?” I blink at her, aware again of the papers I have that I don’t want her to see. It’s not like they’re bad, it’s just…
“What’s wrong?”
“I really am alright, Bloom. Just… workin’ on something. Just a little something.”
She sighs, and comes close. I make sure that I’m between her and what I have written, and so she doesn’t see my story right away. But that’s not what she wants. She hugs me, and I stand there staring stupidly for a moment before I return the gesture.
Damn, I’m so worked up about being secret and it’s so pointless. Applebloom doesn’t care. She’s worried about me, not about what I’m up to. What has it been like, seeing me these last few days? It can’t have been good. Part of me wants to look back at those pages, pick them up, and show them to her. To explain that I’m alright. That I’m gonna make it, and that I’m fine right now. It’s not the end of the world, Bloom.
But I just can’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The story sits on the page behind me, in midsentence, waiting.
“Gosh, Bloom, do I seem that sad?”
“AJ, I was trying to kid you about it, but… you’ve been too quiet. You just… I don’t know, y’know I’m just thinkin’ about you. But it’s getting close to the day and you’re just… our house is just so quiet, Applejack.”
I don’t rightly know what to say about that.
~
Writing is going slow, Mac.
It ain’t something that just happens, you know? Like, you don’t just magically have a story just because it’s in your head. Yeah, sometimes it’s easy. The beginning was, for me. It just began, and I followed after it like I was trying to head off a stampede. It felt a lot like that. You remember when you got hurt, and how I was running all over town? It was kind of like that, beginning this thing. It was just going to happen and I was either gonna be its midwife or it was gonnna spill over into my everyday life and not stop haunting me until I helped it come to life. Like trying to deal with a tenacious animal, really. Or maybe it was like running. Running far and running fast. But I like the idea of an animal.
And just like one, sometimes it don’t want to cooperate!
I’m just bitching, honestly. The thing is about two-fifths done, almost halfway. Something like that. Applebloom noses around, but she hasn’t a clue. I hope.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why I care so much to keep it secret. Why it’s something I think no one is ever gonna get to read. Why? It’s a good question, and a fair one. I’d be asking it myself. It’s also a question that’s hard to answer. I don’t rightly know. Well, that ain’t true. Mostly.
I guess it just… I don’t know, I squirm at the thought. Just tense up and want to put all my papers and things into a box and bury it all. I want somepony to read it, though. I really do. And yet in the same moment I get all excited about it, I’m on the verge of panicking like a darn fool about it. It’s just so close, Mac.
And that I have this thing sitting here waiting for me every night, Mac, suddenly the whole world starts spinning again. It felt like the whole thing just… stopped when she died, Mac. It just went stone cold dead in its tracks and it all fell apart, you were there. You saw it. But suddenly the girls are all wanting to talk and do things and go places.
Trying to cheer me up? Probably. We could all use it, these days, and I love them for it. But have they always been this? I wonder, Mac, if I just notice it more now that I have something to come home to. Waiting for me. Always, just sitting there and waiting for me like a husband and child. The farm is a hoofull and a half, and I’m working all day to keep these fools we hired on the straight, narrow, and profitable, but still I come back to this stack of papers.
~
“Oh, Applejack, surely you can’t be serious?”
“Ain’t I always, when you get to saying that?” I reply, suppressing a grin as best I can.
She groans, and I’ll be damned if it ain’t somewhere between endearin’ and adorable. It’s an old game with us, ever since Twi came to town. I don’t take offense no more, and Rarity still holds out bemused hope that one day I’ll shape up and be a lady. Of course, I know the truth. I am a Lady as much as my mother was, there’s just a time and a place for frou-frou and cute, and I’m a workin’ mare so that time ain’t when I’m workin’. Or most times. Just ain’t practical. Nice though.
“Applejack, I invited you out, the least you could do is try to dress to the occasion.” She make a great show of sighing, but she’s smiling while she does it. “Oh well, I suppose that time marches on.”
“Eeyup.”
“So you’ve not said a word, then.”
“It… well, sugarcube, it ain’t exactly appropriate to say nothin’ like that when—“
“Yes, yes, I know. It was just a question.”
I huff, then look down at the table. “Nah, I ain’t said nothing.”
Rarity sighs and reaches across the table to nudge me with a hoof. I look up, and she’s smiling at me.
All around us, the crowd at this joint are all engaged in conversation, quiet but not so much that I can’t hear a few words. I wish I could hear, in a way. That I could experience every single one of those conversations. I never realized how interestin’ they are until I was putting them on paper. Talkin’.
“Well, Applejack,” Rarity begins, and I know it’s the beginning because she’s got these phrases and rhythms that let you know it’s coming. The lecture. Or the “valiant attempt to set the poor foals right.” Or the “Let the gossip help.”
“Well,” she says again, pausing. She looks down at the menu for a moment.
“Gonna decide?” I venture.
“On words or edibles?” she asks, not looking up.
“Both.”
“Well, I think I’ll have the farfalle, if you’re really curious. As to what I’m going to say… Applejack, all of my façade aside, I’m not without gaps in my knowledge. I just don’t know.”
I sigh. “I appreciate that ya care, though. It’s a sticky mess, that’s for sure.”
“It needn’t be. It’s not like the two of you can’t do this, handle this like grown mares.”
I stare down at my own menu, thoughts of food far from my mind. “I just don’t want it to go badly, y’know? I ain’t about to make things more quiet than they already are. House is too damn quiet already.”
Rarity nods. She glances up, scanning the restaurant for our waiter, but in vain. I can just see those cogs all working in her head, wheels turning and turning trying to figure it all out. I like that about her, she finds a problem and just attacks it. Or, you know, whines and complains and collapses on her nice soft couch in dramatic angst about it. One of those.
I chuckle, thinking about that couch. I have no idea how she did it to this day, but she brought it out with us somehow when we would have picnics or some such. Crazy mare. Good, but crazy.
Ain’t much to say, really. At least on that subject. I know she wants to say somethin’, give me advice, but I’m just not feelin’ it right now. Oh, I’ll listen if she insists. Just how I am, to listen, but it don’t mean I’m going to do what she says just because. I’ll weigh it all, consider it all. But she’s reaching as much as I am. It’s all a sticky situation on top of a bad year.
I think about telling her about the book.
~~
How is Caramel, Mac?
For that matter, how is it all going? You never were a traveler, I know he must have spent forever convincing you to let him drag you out to Vanhoover. Some kind of artist colony up there, right? I forget, awful as that is. I do try to keep up with family, but you know. It was a rough time. And he’s family now, ain’t he? I’m glad for you, Mac.
You know… I'm embarassed. I used to think it was weird. You liking colts and such. Now you know I never judged you, not really. Just wasn’t my cup of sweet tea. I was happy when you found Caramel. He’s a good pony. Anypony who makes a point to be nice to Bloom and means it? He’s got my vote.
I still don’t know who paid when y’all went out, though. Being stallions. You can’t just laugh when I ask you questions! Drives me up a wall and then some.
I guess… well. I kind of understand now. Writing helps me think, Mac. It’s a familiar form, like Pa and the Books always talk ‘bout, you know, the way that old Rowan Oak and his friends went on about old stuff. Something you do over and over, that you come back to. In familiar forms, ponies find focus. So it helped me understand a lot of things.
I guess I understand now.
Anyhow.
~~
Twilight.
It was always going to be her, wasn’t it? No way ‘round it.
As she walks across the floor, it’s for all the world like some kind of silly dance. Like that dance Pa took me to, when I was young. Before he got sick. They had it in a barn, I remember the band and the dancing and the noise.
But right now, it’s all quiet and she’s just walkin’ along. Hips swaying, though she don’t know it. Eyes bright, though she has no idea. Smile beautiful, though the thought of telling her so makes my throat seize up.
Rarity’s at her boutique probably dying of curiosity right now. Everypony knows it’s happening tonight. I let Miss Gossip tell our friends, and so all the girls know. I guess it couldn’t hurt, and we’re all friends. If this goes south on me, I’d want them to at least not be in the dark. I wouldn’t be in any shape to tell them. Truth should out, and all.
And I’m wasting time, just watching her and reminiscing. No time for that. I’m burning sunlight. Or, well, I would be if it weren’t night and such.
“Twi.”
“Hm?” she turns, and a smile blossoms on that face. I can’t help but give her a nice one back.
“Howdy there.”
“Hey! What’re you doing in town this time of night? You’re usually back by now.” She smiles, shelving a, book before finally coming over to me.
“Jus’ some personal sorta business,” I say, chuckling. It sounds nervous in my own ears, and I try not to wince. And fail.
“Ah,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “Well… what do you need? I’d love to help.”
I swallow hard, and think about what to say. How to say it. I must have stared at her too long, because she’s cockin’ her head to the side and looking at me like I’m a crazy mare.
Thinking is really overrated. Takes too long.
“Twilight, I like ya.”
“What?”
“I like you,” I say, making every syllable ring as true as I can manage. “I love you. I think.”
“You think.”
“A lot.”
“Oh.”
“As much as I lo—“
She places a hoof on my mouth. She’s smiling at me, looking confused but on the verge of laughter. You know it’s going badly when Twilight ain’t the shy one.
“Applejack… why don’t you take a deep breathe… and come with me. I was going to say, earlier… Dinner will be ready soon. Why don’t we talk? Spike’s cooking tonight.”
~~
So life happens. Sometimes it’s awful, Mac, or at least feels that way. But you always come back.
The novel marches on. It has to. It’s just how it works, I think. I don’t really know anything about this writing business. I was just… she was going, Mac. She was going and I ran. It ain’t like me, I know that. It ain’t like me at all, but it was an extraordinary circumstance. And I was there for in the end, despite it.
It weren’t anybody’s fault, how it happened. Your happiness is important, and I know you didn’t mean to be gone. It couldn’t be helped. If you’d have rushed back, it would’ve been useless. She’d have gone before you could have made it.
We’re orphans twice, Mac. Damn.
Just damn.
Every now and then it just hits me all over again and I don’t know what to do ‘bout it. I’m not sure if there is anything to be done, really. We can’t change it. We have family, Mac, so we’re not alone. You got Caramel. Me? I’ve got Bloom. And you and Cara. And… Twilight. I’ll tell you all about it when y’all swing back here.
But… the house is quiet, these days. I don’t like it.
The book’s getting near done. It’s about her, Mac, about our Granny. About travelling and about finding new places. Remember her stories? I do. I think about them a lot, these days, when I see all these new faces that ain’t family out in our fields. I had to find four stallions to do what you do, Mac. Four, Celestia as my witness, and it feels kind of like starting all over. So I wrote it.
I can’t help that Granny’s dead.
I guess I just ran, Mac. I just ran. Applebloom would have seen it and known, I know she would have. Not sure what she’d make of it. I don’t know what I make of it. But it’s almost done, and I’m almost done running from death. Celestia, but I’m glad, Mac. Running takes a lot out of a mare.
You can’t help it either. So I’m writing this to tell you that we’re alright. I’m alright. You’re alright. Bloom is alright.
I miss you a lot, brother. I miss my family being whole.
So, if you come back, I’ll let you read it. How does that sound? You come back to me, and bring your shy, painting colt with the nice smile back, and I’ll let you read it and laugh at me or not get it or think I’m awful. Whatever you want. You can always come back home. I’m going to stop wandering myself, soon.
Winona says hey, by the way.
~~
“So what is it you wanted to show me?”
“Jus’ hold your horses for a moment, Twi. Gimme a bit.”
“Oh, alright,” she says and laughs, closing her eyes. I can’t help but reach in and give her a quick peck on the lips, and she opens them up to catch me. I laugh and pull away.
It’s been three months. It’s been a wonderful three months. Twilight visits and so does Fluttershy. Applebloom and her friends help keep the house from being silent. I’m so grateful to her, my librarian. My egghead with her smile and her hard work and her patience. She’s patient when it’s needed, patient with ponies, or tries. I’ll take that any day.
I leave her sitting on the bed while I root around under it. There, underneath, I see the box. The familiar box that is almost to me another family member.
I get it out with some difficulty, pushing at it. For not the first time, I wonder how wonderful it must be to have claws like Spike does.
But at last, I give her the box. I kiss her again, and she opens her eyes. I gesture for her to open it, and so she takes the top off, holding it in her magic and looking inside.
“What is this?”
I grin, and scoot closer.
“It's a story I though nopony’d ever read, Twi. I wrote a novel."
Author's Note
stuff and things
