Mac's Tale II: The Blood of Apples

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue

Prologue

Prologue

The night air was still and heavy with the scents stirred of recent rain as Luna oriented herself to this new world. It was a world both surprisingly familiar and yet again alien to her, as was every dream she entered. The dreamscape was a forest by night, a typically foreboding motif that Luna had encountered many a time. There was a certain fear that ponies had of the dark, the unseen things lurking in shadows coiled and waiting to strike, yet never be fully revealed even when they did. Only by the gracious light of her dear sister’s golden sun did such monsters retreat back into closets and under beds and reform themselves back into common objects such as brooms and rakes, toys and hat racks, all canted or viewed at odd angles that in darkness suggested intentions much more vile.

Raising her head, Luna spied through a gap in the early spring foliage the familiar silvery disc of her celestial charge, the moon. Yet it did not give her its usual comfort this time. The alicorn princess’ gut gave a gentle twinge of shame and regret as she recognized the ominous dark shape that lay across its eastern hemisphere. There, formed of a pattern of darkened mares and craters, the silhouette of a pony head was clearly visible.

The mare in the moon.

She had first seen the image in a book Celestia had shown her shortly after her return and restoration by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Celestia had told her that it had been a reminder to her for those thousand years of her failure to save the pony she cared for most. Luna knew it differently. To her, it was the icon of her own folly; of the night she let her repressed resentment, jealousy, and desires for attention urged on by whispers from those lonely shadowy places that lurked unseen within the soul to finally twist and weave them into the shroud, the nightmare she became, Nightmare Moon.

Yet it wasn’t the blotting of the sun, nor the desire to cover of ponykind in the glories of eternal night that troubled her the most. Nay, it was of all her actions the desire not just to supplant her elder sister but to remove her utterly from all existence, to kill her. That was her greatest regret. And every night since she had been restored, as she had raised the once more pristine disc of the moon into the heavens, she had silently thanked Celestia for having the wisdom to save her with her banishment to that celestial prison. Luna knew with absolute clarity, that had the horseshoe been on the other hoof, the Nightmare would have delivered the fatal blow.

A shiver brought on by the damp caress of a cold night’s breeze brought the Diarch Nocturnes back from her reverie.

“Odd.” She mused aloud as she stood in the darkened silence among the trees.

And that is was. Normally when she’d manifest in a dream she’d be near enough to the manifestation of the dreamer to be able to identify them with relative ease that she might make herself known to them and then set to aiding them allay their fears. This though was not the case at present. The depth of the darkened stillness was unnaturally deep in this dream, eerily so.

Mayhaps, Luna pondered, this pony actually dreams of being a forest.

It would be unusual as dreams went, yet far less odd than say, that one pony whose dreams were of being marmalade, or such as it was. Whatever that was, Luna had to admit it had utterly stumped her, and perhaps this would too, after all she was normally drawn to dreams of fear or distress. Ironic in some ways she found that the onetime Nightmare that nearly conquered Equestria, now aided her pony subjects in vanquishing nightmares of their own.

Tis a least a tidy forest, Luna had to admit of the dreamer, and orderly too. As she noted the clean set rows formed by the trees as she paused to admire the intricate memory work of the dreamer in a nearby white blossom. It was obvious to the princess that the dreamer had a very good memory as the quality of the dream image was so exact in detail. Most dreams were far less precise in such things, rather generalistic in her experience. Yet here she was reasonably sure she could identify the flower in question. Though not as was as well read as either her sister, or her sister’s prize student Twilight Sparkle, for Luna it came down to a question of remembering which flower had four petals and which had five as the bloom in question was either a dogwood or an apple.

The implications of her affable musing suddenly clicked in her head.

Nay, tis not a forest, Luna smiled at her realization, but an orchard.

That now narrowed the possibilities considerably, as Luna recalled a friendship letter Celestia had recently received and shared with her from the bearer of the Element of Honesty, Applejack, on the benefits of the support of friends in trying times as her grand-dam, Granny Smith, was soon to be undergoing a surgical procedure to repair an ailing hip. It astounded Luna to hear of such things having been devised in the millennium of her absence. So much had changed in that lost time.

But as it stood to reason, it was likely that this dream was that of one of the kin of the Element of Honesty, if not the bearer herself. The leading candidate was the youngest of the family, Apple Bloom. Luna often found herself drawn to the young pony’s dreams of confusion and loss involving her lack of memories of her parents.

Luna could empathize with the little filly, for she too had nigh no memory of her own dam and sire beyond blurred images and the echo of a voice she could no longer tell to be male or female, only that she knew that it loved her truly. Most of what she could remember in clarity was from after she and Celestia had been found, and informally adopted, by Star Swirl the Bearded.

Her own past aside, it still didn’t answer the question as to the whereabouts of the dreamer. The dead calm that pervaded the whole of this dream was beginning to become rather unsettling to Luna.

Well then, Luna set herself to task, if there is a purpose to my being here I intend to discern it. And with that she set off along the corridor of trees her mithril clad hoof guards making no more noise than a shadow as she sought to locate the avatar of the dreamer. Yet in the shadowy recesses beyond the trees occasionally she could catch flickers of what she thought might be eyes watching. Her ears too began to pick up at first murmurs in the stillness. The subtlety growing polyphony continually shifting pitch and tone, age and gender, as the murmurs progressed from shapeless noise to forming first simple words: get, hate, me, they, will, I, and then phrases, … they hate me, … let them fear me, … have my revenge.

A rush of realization came to her as she stepped clear of the tree line where a looming craggy ridge rose before her, as the heard voices finally became her own, urging her vengeance on those who thought less of her than her sister.

The dream was tainted! Tainted, she realized, by the same manner of shadowy presence that had long ago driven her to her darkest deeds. Whoever this dream belonged to was in the thrall of unseemly and dire forces. And then her hoof bumped against something and she looked down.

At her hooves lay the bodies of two earth ponies, a light orange mare, and brown stallion. They were facing each other, their still hooves nearly touching. The mare, with a flower looped in a lariat as a cutie mark, Luna could see was likely felled by a single blow, her back obviously broken, and likely accompanied with internal bleeding; her death would have been a slow and agonizing one, yet her final expression was seemingly relaxed and calm.

The stallion’s demise she could deduce had been faster though, but far more brutal. A glance at the cracked teeth of his bloody muzzle and a touch of her hoof against his barrel informed her that he had been stomped repeatedly, his ribs all broken, until he had literally drowned in his own blood as splinters of bone had been driven into his lungs; a ghastly and violent end indeed.

Lifting her view from the two fallen ponies Luna drew in a resolute breath and raised her wings magnifying her stature, as a wave of sapphire energy radiated from her horn stifling the disembodied voices in the shadows.

“Show Thyself Dreamer! Thyne Princess Summons Thee!” Luna boomed in the Royal Canterlot Voice, the reverberation cracking like thunder across the dreamscape before dying away into the darkness.

There was no answer.

Luna pawed the ground and rustled her feathers in growing irritation at the lack of response. She was about to call out again when the earth of the dreamscape shuddered. Before her, the face of the ridgeline crumbled and slid as the shape of an immense equine head began to emerge from the slope.

“Nopony summons the Lord of the Valley and Everfree.” A heavy voice echoed from within the ridge as the edifice like face stared balefully down at her, as if utterly unimpressed by the presence of one of only three alicorns in all Equestria.

Lord of the Valley and Everfree? Luna paused for a moment to ponder the title. There was no such listing in the Grand Registry of Peerage and Nobility in Canterlot. Of that she was sure; it had been the first tome she had committed to memory upon return and restoration.

“I, Luna Diana Serenity by Stellar Ambition out of Faustian Creation, Lady of Dreams, Mistress of the Selene Orb, Princess of the Night, Diarch and Co-Ruler of all Equestria, do summon thee.” Luna raised her head and puffed out her chest in pride as she spoke. It was rare enough for her or her sister to use their full and proper names that she wasn’t entirely sure she’d gotten it entirely right.

The face on the ridge did not even bat a stony eye in response.

“There is only one Princess in Equestria,” the deep echoing voice rumbled derisively as the feature of the face began to submerge into the earth, “and it is not you.”

“Nay, Cloddsome Knave!” Luna’s temper erupted in scathing pique at the display of disrespect being shown her. “How Dare Thou Make to Depart Before I so Grant Thee Leave!”

The midnight blue alicorn lashed out, wrapping the submerging form in her magical grasp to draw it from the slope. She could shift the moon, and even the sun, should it be required, ergo this task of drawing out some itinerant pony’s ego from a dreamscape manifestation should have presented no problem.

GET OUT!

The thought exploded out of the ridgeface at Luna’s astral form in hot white rage, hurling the princess backwards with enormous force.

Luna shrieked in shock at the monolithic power, her mithril clad hooves clattered against the white marble of the balcony as she reared backward her rump bumping the rail of the same behind her. Settling herself she glanced about furtively as she gathered her wits about her. Below her the courtyards of Canterlot Castle, and the city’s skyline spread outwards to where they either embraced the mountain’s face or dropped off into the open sky beyond the outermost ledge.

The soft clatter of shod hooves making landfall on the balcony following a silent glide down from the sky, save the subtle rattle of his mail and scale barding, drew Luna’s now conscious attention.

“Is there something amiss your highness? I saw you startle.”

She recognized the voice of her personal Captain, Deadly Dream. Equus sapiens dermatoaves-nocturnum, was the scientific name for the species. By whatever name the tuft eared night flyers called themselves, beyond we, us, and our kind, if any, was unknown, even to Luna and Celestia. The common term in use was ‘Bat-Ponies’, and since the times before the fall of the Nightmare, they had served as Luna’s personal attendants.

“Nay, my good Captain. Nothing amiss. My last visitation did but end abruptly with the sudden rousing of the dreamer, nothing more. I am fine.”

She looked towards the west where the moon slowly slipped closer to the horizon, dawn would not be far off. She reached out with a sapphire shaded thought and drew aside the curtain leading from the balcony to her own private chambers decorated in a rich nebula of shades of midnight cut with bands of shimmering brilliance.

“Though please alert my sister’s chamberlain, Refractions of Dawn, that I wish to speak with my sister in the castle library following daybreak.”

The guard pony bowed low as Luna stepped inside her room, the curtain closing behind her, then took wing to carry out his orders.

Luna hated lying, even by omission; she had done far too much of it in the days before The Nightmare. But something had happened; she had been forcibly ejected from a dream. She could count only a few hooves the number of beings she’d ever encountered with the will power do such a thing, and this one was none she recognized.

* * * * *

The darkness of the dream faded through bleary eyes to the darkness of the simple room. McIntosh Apple lay there a moment collecting the cool early morning air in a deep breath, recovering himself from the emotions that still swirled, fading, from the dream. He let the breath go, and drew another. He had had the dream again, that dream, ... if only it was just a dream.

He stretched his legs and rolled from the bed to his hooves the floor giving a soft groan as it accepted his weight. The room he had was scarcely half again his own length, by three quarters wide. It was just enough space for his small bed, a bookcase for his texts and ledgers, and the small desk from where he managed the finances of the farm assisted by his secretary and sole confidant, Smarty Pants. Still, considering what he’d done, he always felt it was more than he deserved.

Taking a look out the window the moon was just above the horizon. Knowing the date and a quick judgement of the angel of the moon to the horizon, gave him the time without needing to look at a clock, 4:08 am, give or take about a half a minute.

Slipping on his yoke and stepping towards the door he gave a glance and nod back to Smarty Pants, confirming their appointment to review the farm’s accounts that evening. For all she could do, math was never AJ’s strong suit, thankfully it was his. If it weren't for that and the help he’d gotten from Pa’s best friend ‘Uncle’ Fil, in convincing Granny not to sell off large tracts of the family holdings to pay for hired help after Ma ‘n’ Pa’s funeral.

He stepped into the hall with a softness disportionate to his bulk, closing the door behind him. He turned and slipped open the door to Applejack’s room. She lay in a tangle of sheets, hind legs poking out from the end of the sheets, her left twitching slightly her fores likewise.

“First place …” she mumbled.

Mac closed the door with a smile, AJ was probably dreaming of the rodeo finals again. She was so much like their mother, beautiful, athletic, self assured, and she lead with a natural charisma straight from her heart.

Across the hall he found Apple Bloom sleeping far more peacefully, angelic in her innocence of all things, even the truth of their parents’ deaths. She still believed they’d perished in a mudslide near great grandad Oats walnut grove. That was still the official story everypony knew, as printed in the Ponyville Express. His version of events was deemed ‘preposterous’ by the investigating officer. He leaned a moment on the doorframe, watching her barrel rise and fall, someday she’d have to be told the truth.

Closing the door Mac made his way down the stairs to the kitchen. He stopped by the old stove and held his hoof to the side of the firebox to check the heat with the frog. Finding none, he opened the firebox door and blew softly on the ash pile, a few sparks glimmering to life. he carefully added some shavings and kindling and soon had revived the fading flame. As the fire slowly built to the point where he could add some larger wood, he got the rest of his usual breakfast fixings together, water in the coffee pot, and dry rolled oats in his bowl. He’d get the water in the pot hot first, make his porridge then finish the coffee while he ate.

As he munched his oats he planned his day, he’d overslept by almost ten minutes but that could easily be made up by a quicker lunch. There would be plenty of time to get through his list for the day he figured, so long as AJ didn’t get any new notions of things to do. The Equestria Games were coming up and AJ might just get a notion to want to compete in some form, it was a certainty that her good friend Rainbow Dash would be participating, and the blue pegasus seemed to have a way of spurring AJ on at times. It was as if the two shared some intangible symbiotic connection at a level he just couldn’t explain.

Placing his porridge bowl and coffee mug in the sink, Mac headed out the back door to begin his day. He made his way across the farm yard towards the main orchard gate. Stopping by the gate, he turned his attention to the small gallery grove just inside. Bounded by a low white fence that any grown pony could easily have stepped over, ‘The Family Grove’ was where members of the Apple Family found their final rest. McIntosh’s great grandsire, Pokey Oats had been the first, well before Mac’s own life had even been an itch under Pa’s saddle. The most recent were his own parents back when he was scarcely older than Apple Bloom was now. He could still hear the crunch of bone and his mother’s screams in the quiet of the orchard, and smell the blood in the earth every spring.

“Mornin’ all.” He bowed his head as he spoke softly to his ancestors. “Ma, Pa, the girls are doing fine, so don’t you worry none. An’ don’t you worry either Gran’pa Smith*, Granny’s a feisty old mare and she’d gonna pull through her surgery today an’ll be back on her hooves before the zap apples come in.”

And what about you? The tiniest of morning breezes seemed to carry the words to his ear from somewhere among the silent trees as Mac raised his head and began to head off for the first of his chores of the day.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me either.”

Author's Note

* Granny Smith’s late husband, Apple Carter. His grandfoals always called him ‘Gran'pa Smith’.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Virgin’s Blood

Dusk was falling over the quiet little town of Ponyville. Celestia’s sun sat low on the horizon, offering a warm golden hue to the evening sky that gave a beautiful sense of calm to the world. Many ponies took a moment to reflect on their day at this time. They basked quietly in the glow of their sovereign’s light and silently offered their thanks to the great alicorn princess that guided the sun’s path each day.

Caramel, though, was not among the participants this day. As he leaned in and took another draw of his vegetable barley soup the caramel-brown colt kept a focused eye on his dinner companion across the table at the outdoor dining area of the Lucky Clover Inn’s restaurant. Sassaflash was a beautiful pegasus pony mare, her amber eyes, aquamarine coat and blonde mane and tail were the stuff that young colts mounted their pillows over.

For Caramel, she was a gift from Celestia, not in a literal sense but, metaphorically very real. His longtime crush had finally been broken, Applejack was a beautiful, robust mare bequeathed of long blonde tresses, emerald eyes, and a dusty orange coat with a shy dusting of white freckles across the bridge of her muzzle. An earth pony like him, she’d been his heart’s longing ever since they were foals. The only thing was, her heart was never in it. Worse was ever since that last winter wrap up where he’d mislaid the grass seeds for the second year in a row, he couldn’t look her in those green eyes without seeing her disapproval even if it wasn’t there.

Sassaflash had been his redemption. It was the spring after that winter wrap up. She’d found him sulking out by one of the lakes trying to come up with a way to redeem himself to Applejack only to find this pegasus swooping over him again and again waving her foreleg or taking a phantom buck over his head. He’d asked her what she was doing all that for.

“Trying to get rid of that dark cloud over your head you silly colt.” She’d told him.

When he’d asked why, she replied by flashing a lightning bright grin while hanging rump over withers above him from a tree branch, “You’re just too cute to look that glum.”

He’d finally cracked a grin at the comment, and had been grinning ever since.

They’d never even planned on becoming a couple, but their friendship just grew with Sassaflash making a habit of popping up to ‘breathe some fresh air into his day.’ They just seemed to just click for each other. When Sass had contracted feather flu so badly, Caramel had visited her every day at Ponyville hospital for over a week lifting her spirits, and more than once holding her head. They’d even spent last Hearts and Hooves Day together without planning it.

And now they were here …

Sassaflash looked up from her cream of broccoli soup and gave him a knowing grin. In some ways this was their first official date. Official in that this was the first time that one had ever asked the other to meet for dinner. Not that this was the first time they’d had dinner together, it was a fairly regular occurrence actually, though it was almost always a spontaneous event. This time though, Sass had asked him directly.

Caramel brushed his chocolate mane back nervously, but returned the smile genuinely.

“Drink your Perri-Air Caramel.” the arctic blue mare gestured to a glass of clear slightly blue tinted water beside him. He hooked the glass in is pastern and drained it in a show of good will. It had a slightly sweet taste, sort of like cool summer rain, with a hint of mint. Sass had had Rainbow Dash bring her some on the weather captain’s last trip to Cloudsdale. Didn’t seem like a big deal, he actually liked it better the time they’d split a pitcher of rainbow juice at the Summer Harvest Parade. Still, this was her idea and he didn’t want to disappoint his now official marefriend.

The waitress brought their entrees soon after. His was a roast vegetable platter, hers was a spinach salad heavily laden with Camembert and chopped eggs.

“Why so much protein?”

Sassaflash looked at Caramel as the waitress departed. “I’ve got some exercise planned later and I’ll need the energy. If you think this is a lot of protein, I’ve got a cousin that suffers from Diomedes Syndrome, she actually has to eat a steak once a week or risk suffering constant exhaustion.”

“Steak, that’s …” Caramel swallowed the last word uneasily.

The mare nodded. Diomedes Syndrome was a rare enough condition but seemed more prevalent among pegasi by over two to one versus earth ponies or unicorns.

“Yeah,” she continued, “my aunt and uncle actually had to move near the Griffonian boarder to be able to buy the ‘medicine’ my cousin needs.”

“What kind of workout do you have planned?” Caramel really wanted to change the subject away from carnivorous horses as he took a reassuring sniff of his veggies.

“Oh something invigorating, endurance training of a sort, I had Rainbow Dash help me set some of it up earlier. I was hoping you’d be willing to give me a hoof and a motivating push or two, in-spear-ay-ton if you would.”

Caramel felt his face twist slightly in confusion as Sass went back to her salad burying a grin in leafy greens and chopped egg. Caramel too went back to his dinner, crunching down the perfectly light roasted veggies. Neither pony completely surrendering the eye-lock they shared.

As the waitress, an off-yellow mare with hazel eyes and a deep blue mane and tail highlighted by sparse fuchsia streaks collected their dishes she offered to take the couple’s dessert orders if they’d care to place any. Caramel was about to enquire what the special was if any but Sass put a hoof to his lips and informed him she had dessert waiting after their workout. Caramel merely nodded in agreement and squared the bill as Sass stretched her wings before they trotted off.

As the couple headed out of town pointlessly chatting over the merits of their meals, their direction didn’t escape Caramel’s notice. They were heading out of town towards Sweet Apple Acres. Albeit so was the Ponyville fair grounds, and for that matter, Rainbow Dash’s cloud tower on the edge of the Serenity Valley was not far off on the same path.

“Sass,” he began as “where exactly are we going if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, just a spot I picked out for this little exercise.” The icy blue pegasus gave back with a toss of her blond mane and tail. Picking up her pace a little she gave her wings an excited flutter sending a light breeze back at the trailing colt, a breeze that brought Caramel to a standstill.

Caramel felt something in the air as it wafted by him. There was something there. Something … He sniffed the air again, his face contorting in the Flehman response as another flutter of Sassaflash’s wings drifted his way.

The tingle in his nose spread like a rush into his body, bypassing his brain and flowing like a flash flood straight to his other head before curling back to his consciousness.

She’s in Heat! The thought exploded into his head.

“Where … exactly … are we going?” Caramel addressed his marefriend, his voice becoming deeper with an adrenaline fueled arousal. The blonde maned mare looked back over her shoulder to give him a knowing smile and a come hither glare and a saucy wink from her amber eyes.

“Maiden’s Grove.”

Caramel’s heart jumped up a gear or two, Maiden’s Grove, Mare Maker’s Meadow, The Orchard of Lost Cherries! The small hidden clearing near the edge of the Everfree Forest was known by many names in Ponyville, all spoken in hushed tones of secrecy and reverence. It was the temple of lost innocence, where two generations or more of Ponyville youth had gone to ‘do the deed’ with their first loves. He could have dwelt longer on the monumental history of the place and its various meanings, but his brain distilled it down to three words for him.

Gonna …

Get …

LAID!

And then reality chose to slap him upside the head.

“But I didn’t bring any … you know … protection.” He offered with a guilty grin of disappointment.

Sassaflash gently cantered back towards where the brown colt now hung both heads limply towards the dark earth of the wagon track. She rubbed her muzzle up both sides of his face to gain his attention before finding an ear and giving it a soft nip.

“I know, I told nurse Tender Heart what I was planning, and I’ve been taking ‘No Foal’ for the last month. When we go in to Maiden’s Grove, you’re going to go all the way in, and you’re not coming out until we are both totally spent. Do I make myself clear?”
With that Sassaflash gave her chosen colt a peck on the lips, both his heads erect and pointing straight ahead, before slowly walking away from him and giving him the wink every colt hopes to get one day, the wet pink wink of a willing mare.

Pawing the air Caramel bolted after his mare like a wild charger, closing the ground so easily between them Sassaflash had to take to the air just to be able to lead him to the hidden grove. As she landed in the overhung opening Caramel piled into her unable to resolve stopping and the want to wrap his legs around her, sending both young ponies tumbling to the gentle turf within.

“Hey!” Sass nearly screeched as she pushed against Caramel to gain some separation. “Easy there big boy. Gimme a moment, I need to take care of a little something before we take care of each other.”

Caramel looked at his heavenly pony of passion with glittering blue eyes glazed over in lusty anticipation. Bringing himself to his haunches he nodded as his lover-to-be as she fluttered from the grove.

As the scent of mare-in-heat faded slightly, Caramel’s mind likewise unfogged, allowing him to appreciate the contents of the small clearing. It was a little more than three lengths by two. Oval in shape, with the trees and bushes forming a natural cordon that closed off the outside world and allowed access by a curved path overhung with weeping birch to conceal its presence. A small dais near the further of the shorter ends had been ringed with flowers and a sheet and pillows laid over it truly made it look like a bed. And all about the place, hung from branches and pinned to the trees themselves, were the tokens of past lovers enshrined in this nest of holy passion.

“Get Out.” the heavy voice cut into the calm of the twilight air.

What the Buck? Caramel’s brain knew that voice, of that he was nearly certain as his mind tried to pull itself free of the entangling decision of which set of Sass’s lips he’d like to kiss first. The obvious answer was whichever set she wanted kissed.

“Hey buddy, occupied, y’ know.” The brown soon-to-be-stud stallion shot back. Then the voice clicked, McIntosh!

Big McIntosh Apple, the older brother of Applejack. ‘Big’ brother was a more apt term. The Scarlet Stallion was one of the most recognizable and least talkative ponies in town. The massive work pony hardly ever said more than ‘Eeyup’, ‘Nnope’, and maybe ‘Hi’ to be polite. He stood a good hoof or more at the withers over almost every pony in town, and was built like a red brick outhouse.

Normally if Big Mac deviated from his normally curt vocabulary, ponies tended to listen. Caramel didn’t feel like that right at this moment. He was maybe a few moments away from getting laid for the first time and like Tartarus was he going to leave for anypony.

“Leave the filly and get out.” The big stallion breathed heavily form behind Caramel. “Now.”

Oh, that's it. Caramel gave a brief prayer of thanks to Luna for his passion fired courage as he turned to give the big red interloper some hot Caramel attitude as he got up and turned around.

Straight into an onrushing hoof …

The blow hit with the force of a runaway wrecking ball. Caramel felt his jaw snap, his nose break, and several teeth pop loose from the impact. The force of the hoof-punch knocked Caramel around close to a quarter turn, more if his staggering counted.

The first blow left Carmel’s head reeling and half blinded from a concussion. The young colt never saw the follow up coming. The second was a vicious upper cut style shot that crashed into the middle of his barrel on the left side right where ribcage met soft belly. Caramel felt his last couple of ribs break from the impact as his diaphragm collapsed and the wind driven from his lungs. Worse yet was the bruising impact driving his well-fed stomach into his backbone, causing the involuntary evacuation of his dinner along side the air from his lungs.

The spattering of vomit on the ground was, other than a grunt from his assailant, the only sound Caramel could hear as his body fought to somehow bring air into his lungs. The winded brown pony staggered near senselessly as a third blow drove into his left shoulder on a steep downward line.

Through the creeping air voided numbness of his concussion new pain burst into reality. He felt is shoulder blade and upper leg bone break from the down driven impact. The whole joint could be felt to shift, tearing muscles and ligaments as it was brutally forced into an unnatural position sliding against his ribcage. Before a hefty shoulder connected against his side knocking him onto the dais where he and Sass were to have given their bodies to each other.

The soft impact of his body on the white flower strewn sheet barely registered but the soft ‘whump’ of his body landing barely covered the heavy tottering sound of a stallion moving forward on his hind legs alone. His pain blinded world erupted in a crescendo of hurt as the standing stallion dropped full weight and both front hooves onto Caramels barrel. Ribs broke and the prostrate pony vomited bright frothy carnelian blood onto virgin white sheets as shards of bone pierced one lung.

As the last of his awareness faded he thought he could hear fireworks above, hooves crashing through the woods, and then … Sass screamed.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Virgin’s Bloom

The crack of dawn found Applejack where it normally did, rolling out of bed bleary eyed with her mane and tail askew. A deep yawn as she scratched that self same mane with a hoof and gave a good one-eyed squint at nothing as Celestia’s sun’s first rays of light drifted in her window. A final stretch and the young mare made her way to the upstairs bathroom to freshen up.

The crow of a rooster entered the window as the dusty orange mare tied her mane into its almost trademark ‘pony’ tail. She felt more alive after a quick cold-water scrub of her face and running a brush through her long blonde tresses. As she moved to tie off her tail with a matching hair tie, her waking senses caught a hint of a slightly sour scent in the air. Lifting her hind leg AJ took a quick whiff in the direction of her nethers confirming her suspicions.

With a mild groan Applejack opened the medicine chest behind the mirror over the sink, and removed a bottle of pills. She hated her seasonal cycles, about as much as they seemed to hate her. Cramps, sore back, the itching, and crabbiness, she loathed them all, well the crabbiness did have the advantage of keeping the other gender at leg’s length or better. There really wasn’t one in particular that stood out without the others trying to outdo it. The pills were ‘suppressants’ meant to keep her pheromone levels low and take the edge off the rest of the symptoms, and that only meant she wasn’t going to be sashaying her hind-end all over Ponyville trying to attract a foal-daddy. She still was in for a lousy next while her biology tried to yet again unsuccessfully demand to be put to use.

Popping two of the pills from the bottle, Applejack downed them with a glass of water and finished her morning routine before proceeding to the door of her younger sister’s room. The orange mare gave two quick hoof taps on the base of the door followed with a hearty, “Wakey, wakey, Apple Bloom, up ‘n’ at ‘em!”

AJ didn’t wait to hear the younger pony rouse before heading downstairs to start breakfast. As she reached the kitchen she saw the steam curling lazily from the mouth of the coffee pot. Her older brother, Big McIntosh, had obviously already been up. The big red earth pony stallion was always the first pony up in the morning. AJ grinned; she used to tell Apple Bloom that Big Mac had to get up so early so he could wake up the roosters, so they could then wake up the rest of the Ponyville.

A twinge from her nether regions made point of fact for the blonde maned mare. If she was going to get through another round of estrus, she might as well do it on a full stomach, and this morning she felt it called for eggs. Tossing another log in the firebox of the stove she gave the bellows a couple of pumps to make sure the fresh wood caught and headed out to gather some eggs from chicken coop.
Trotting across the yard she spotted the work-barn door open and detoured in the direction of the other structure. Through the open door she saw the big crimson form of her older brother sitting on a straw bale, wrapping his front hoof in a bandage.

“McIntosh?” AJ called to her brother, as she trotted up to the door. “What’re ya doing with that bandage?”

The elder sibling said nothing as he finished tightening the wrap on his front hoof. The binding finished to his satisfaction, he turned his head to reply to his sister, before her patience ran thin.

“Just rolled mah hoof a little while I was takin’ a jog ‘round the orchard this morning, nothin’ serious.”

“Alright, you still able to …” Applejack paused as she took a better look at her brother. The scratches were hard to notice against his red coat but the more she looked the easier it was to see them, the few stray twigs and leaves in his mane and tail, a little easier. “You sure that all you did was roll y’r hoof?”

“Eeyup, rolled mah hoof an’ took a little tumble. I’ll be fine AJ.”

“A’right McIntosh, if you say so, I’ll take y’r word for it.” She said with a nod as she turned back toward the direction of the chicken coop. Eggs were still needed for breakfast, after all.

She had scarcely gone half a dozen lengths when she spotted her little sister trotting out of the edge of the orchard.

“Apple Bloom!” She called out in surprise to the small scarlet maned blonde filly. “What are ya doing out here?”

The littlest Apple froze cold in her tracks not having expected to be seen outside so early in the morning.

“I … ah … decided to … try and go for an early morning jog like big brother … I didn’t get up early enough … so I just ran out to the club house an’ back.”

“Un-huh,” Applejack may just have gotten out of bed less than twenty minutes ago but she wasn’t foaled yesterday. Something about her sister’s tale didn’t hold water. “Well, do me a favor and fetch some eggs from the coop while I go get the table set.”

“Yes ma’am, right away ma’am.” Apple Bloom scampered off in the direction of the hen house at a speedy clip.

“Apple Bloom!” AJ called out before her sister got too far. The younger pony skidded to a stop so hard she tumbled flank over forelock landing rump first in a mud puddle.

“You forgot the basket.” Applejack snickered at her sloppy sibling as the younger pony picked herself up and trotted over to take the basket from her older sister. “And wash y’rself off at the pump before ya come tracking all that mud inside. I know we’re not as fussy as Rarity ‘round here, but there is a limit.”

“Right, sis.” Apple Bloom chirped as she trotted off, egg basket balanced on her head, muddy flanks, and an equally muddy tail plastered to her backside.

Ma really just missed it on her, I swear, she gets into more mud and mess than any colt I know of. Prissiest little tom-colt y’ever saw. I wonder whatever gave Ma the idea she was gonna be a colt in the first place? Applejack mused as she watched her sister traipse off, before heading back into the barn-house to get the table set and grab a cup of coffee.

Breakfast wasn’t normally a big deal at Sweet Apple Acres. Big Mac’s bowl was already in the sink, as Applejack had already seen. It seemed her brother at times lived on oatmeal and coffee, at least in the mornings. Usually it was the mares of the house that got to sit down and eat that first meal together. Sunday was about the only day that Big Mac would join them for breakfast on any kind of regular basis.

Applejack shook her head as she wondered how her older brother had managed to grow into such a huge strapping stallion from such a scrawny little colt, some how. Big McIntosh aside, this morning it was just her and Apple Bloom for breakfast, Granny Smith being at the Ponyville hospital having undergone hip surgery the other day. It would be a couple of days yet before Doc Stable would likely be willing to send Granny home to finish recuperating.

It was the sound of frantic munching brought AJ’s mind back to the present as Apple Bloom practically inhaled her bean-sprout and pepper omelet, along with the toast with apple butter.

“Braaarrrp!!” the smaller pony belched before declaring, “I’m all done sis, gotta run, me and the Crusaders are going to try to get our cutie marks as … something, uhm …, it’s Sweetie’s turn to pick so I’ll find out when I get there.”

It was as Apple Bloom turned away from the table and headed for the stairs that Applejack caught the scent in the air, it was sweet, with a hint of sour ammonia hiding beneath, it was almost like …

AJ quickly ducked her head under the table and saw the wet spot on the booster block and cushion that Apple Bloom had been sitting on. Sitting on and fidgeting all through breakfast. She walked around the table and took a better whiff …

“Apple Bloom!”

The small filly froze on the bottom step as her stomach did a big back flip and looked back at her older sister, eyes wide at the upcurled top lip sneer on AJ’s muzzle.

“Get your tail up to the bathroom right now, little missy.”

Apple Bloom swallowed hard and bolted for the bathroom, AJ following hot on her tail.

“Whoa there, sugar cube!” Applejack called as she dashed up the stairs after her sister, only to come skidding to a halt too late as the bathroom door slammed shut in her face.

“Apple Bloom?” AJ asked through the door.

“Go away! I’m in here, wait your turn.” The younger pony shot back through the wooden barricade.

AJ leaned patiently against the wall beside the door as she responded to the obviously scared young filly inside the privy. “And when might that be?”

“When you’re not mad at me any more for wetting the bed and trying to hide the sheets, and for dripping on the cushion at the breakfast table, and …” the frightened filly broke off with a sob of fear mixed with equal parts fear and confusion.

“Wet the bed did ya?”

“Yes.” came the small reply from the other side of the door.

AJ chuckled slightly, “It’s all right, I’m not mad at ya, these things kinda sneak up on ya sometimes.”

“I … Wha?” Apple Bloom stumbled verbally. A few moments later there was a soft click of the cross-bolt sliding back and the door latch opening.

Applejack looked down at her little sister as the filly’s amber eyes peeped out from the gap in the door, a confused expression on the crimson coiffed filly’s face.

“You’re not mad?” Apple Bloom murmured.

“No, I’m not, I just wish you’d told me what had happened.” AJ assured her sister as she pushed her way in to join Apple Bloom in the bathroom.

“But I peed the bed Applejack, I’m too old to do that.” Apple Bloom whined in reply, embarrassed at her unintentional faux pas. Being called a ‘baby’ and a ‘blank flank’ was bad enough without her body betraying her in ways that seemed to prove Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon right.

“You sort of did, and sort of didn’t.” AJ informed her sister as she reached up and opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. She pulled out a narrow wooden box and popped the stopper from the end and drew a heavy glass thermometer from inside it.

“I did what?” Apple Bloom queried, not understanding what her sister was getting after.

Turning the rod about on her hoof Applejack placed the business end in her own mouth and looked at her younger sibling seated on the bath mat nearby.

“Are you feeling sick, sis?” Apple Bloom cocked her head as she spoke.

“Naw, Ah’m right as rain, this here’s f’r you. Now this is gonna seem a might strange but I need ya t’ turn round and put y’r forelegs on the edge of the tub an’ hold y’r tail out of the way f’r me.”

Apple Bloom immediately backed herself into the nearest corner, a look of shock on her face and her tail tucked tightly over her plot. “No way, no how. I’m a big pony and I can hold a thermometer in my mouth just like you.”

AJ grinned as well as she could with the glass rod protruding from the edge of her mouth and not drop it. “It’s not that kind of thermometer, sugar cube.”

“Then why do you have it in your mouth?” Apple Bloom countered, still trying to back herself through the wall.

“’Cause the first time Granny Smith used this on me it was colder than a Windegoe’s withers, so I’m trying to warm it up some f’r ya.” The older mare explained calmly. “This here is a special kind of thermometer f’r while you’re in season, meant f’r checkin’ t’ see if y’r fertile and ready to have foals, so of course it’s gotta go in yer …”

“But I’m too young t’ have foals Applejack, I don’t even have my cutie mark yet!” The younger pony gasped as what her sister was saying sank in.

“I know, and y’r younger than I was when I first came into season, but it seems nature has snuck up on you and it’s hitting you harder than it did me. So we need to be careful, since y’r leaking kinda heavy. A raw fertile mare can make even the calmest colts plum crazy, so after I check y’r temperature, we’ll get ya cleaned up and I’ve got some scent scrubber we can rub on y’r plot to help hide y’r scent f’r now. When we go over to Ponyville Medical to see Granny Smith, we’ll make you an appointment with Doc Soft, and pick you up some suppressants. Okay?”

“I guess …” Apple Bloom relented with a sigh as she stepped away from the wall and moved to follow her sister’s instructions.

“Good girl, Apple Bloom, now just relax and this will go real easy.”

* * * * *

Big McIntosh’s ankle still throbbed slightly as he hauled the empty cart with the pruning tools in it down the orchard path. The injury was minor, but he’d have Fluttershy take a look at it later, anyway. The butter-yellow pegasus mare was pretty good with treating minor aches and such, and was a good friend of AJ’s.

“Hey, Big Mac!” called a voice from above moments before a sky blue pegasus pulled up into a hover just a half a length in from of him, forelegs crossed over her barrel and a scowl on her face. “Have you seen Caramel? I want to give that colt a piece of my mind.”

“Nnope.” Mac replied, Caramel hadn’t shown up yet, but given the brown colt’s propensity for bad timing, he was likely just running late as usual.

“Yeah, well, I helped Sassaflash set up a romantic date for the two of them last night and this morning the Mayor sends Derpy over to wake me up on my day off because Sass didn’t show up for work this morning.”

“Eeyup.” Mac gave a single nod as he spoke, as the rainbow maned mare bolted off again into the blue. If he saw Caramel before Rainbow Dash did, he’d be sure to let the unlucky colt know that the hot-blooded weather mare was bucking for him. At least then the unfortunate fella would have a chance to run for cover while hurricane Dash was tearing up the sky.

As he resumed pulling McIntosh took in the orchard. A storm off the Everfree Forest had blown through a few days ago and he had some broken branches to finish pruning. Not to mention the signs of a Zap Apple season were starting to show, and that would add to the work, as the finicky rainbow-colored fruit was only harvestable for a very short period of time. He was hoping to sack away some extra bushels this time for a little cider related side project he’d found in his grand-pappy’s journal if he could, but that meant staying on top of his chores among other things.

A flicker of white motion caught his attention as he neared the small clearing where his sister’s clubhouse sat. When AJ had been young it had been her ‘Manehatten townhouse’, where she’d host her fancy dinner parties and such. The thought brought bittersweet memories to the surface. AJ had loved hearing about their mother’s younger days growing up in Manehatten high society. Their mother had even promised Applejack a proper Manehatten style cutecenera when AJ’s cutie mark eventually appeared. McIntosh’s heart gave a painful wrench as at the memory, Orange Bloom had never gotten to see Applejack get her cutie mark.

With a brisk shake of his head, McIntosh cast the quickly souring memories aside in favor of his more immediate chores, and trotted onward, only to have a stray breeze bring a whiff of something to his nose. Big Mac paused as his brain processed what his nose was trying to tell him. The scent on the air was familiar, yet different.

He cast about looking for the source of the odd aroma as his lip curled back in the flehmen response as he drew a fuller winding of the scent in. His eyes zeroed on the sheet hanging off the veranda of AJ’s former tree house that now served his youngest sister as the headquarters of the Cutie Mark Crusaders as the three young fillies called themselves.

Cautiously, McIntosh let his curiosity lead him to where the bed sheet hung over the railing of the tree house. One more good whiff, and his brain clicked. The scent was Apple Bloom, mixed with that magical aroma of ‘mare in season’ and urine. Apple Bloom had blossomed it seemed.

So that’s what Apple Bloom had been doing out here so early this morning. Mac mused to himself. Hiding the evidence of a wet bed, probably not knowing what had really happened, and figuring AJ would be tissed with her for having wet it. I hope that AJ’s sharp enough to pick up on it before some daft colt picks up on Apple Bloom.

Mac shook his head in amusement, he certainly wasn’t ready to enforce a pitchfork wedding on his baby sister. Still it couldn’t be any worse than the traditional contracts that he knew his parents had arranged and signed for AJ and him. He was pretty sure AJ wouldn’t take to kindly to Granny Smith handing her that sealed envelope some day.

Himself, he wasn’t sure, but it would probably save the complicated hassle of the whole social dating scene. He’d never really gotten over the teasing for being a scrawny ‘egg head’ in his youth. Well, that was if things didn’t work out with Cheerilee.

As he turned away from the incriminating laundry, Mac caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. It was a hoof print he hadn’t noticed before, and a large one at that he noted, as he placed his own sizable hoof over the stranger’s print for comparison. There were also, he found rub marks around the base of the tree. The prints were too big to be Caramel’s, so who would be out here in the orchard near daybreak beside himself?

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Blooming Knowledge

Their morning chores finished, the two Apple sisters set out for Ponyville. Apple Bloom trotted warily along beside her sister, Applejack, as they made their way around the outskirts of the town. It was actually a quicker route to the train station which lay just past the Golden Oaks Library on the western edge of the town. If the young filly had been keeping any closer to her sister, Applejack would probably have had to give birth to the younger pony in order to separate them. In any case Apple Bloom was happy to have her big sister looking out for her at this moment, especially after the events of earlier that morning.

It had felt very strange for Apple Bloom, front hooves on the side of the bathtub holding her scarlet tail in her mouth, exposing her most private parts to her sister whilst Applejack had carefully inserted the specialized thermometer. While Apple Bloom had held the warm, firm object in her little orchard plot, her sister had calmly and carefully explained the implications of ‘coming into season’. The young pony had listened as her older sister had told her about wetting, ‘spraying’ or ‘marking’ as some mares called it, and about how her body was behaving so as to tell a prospective colt that she was ready to bear foals. Though not up to Twilight’s level, Applejack did manage to deliver a rather substantial lecture on the matter in-hoof. Oddly, Apple Bloom found the whole concept of sex fascinating, albeit in a slightly unsettling way.

It was obvious to the young pony that foals had to come from somewhere, or more accurately, there had to be a way that they somehow got inside the mare’s belly. Apple Bloom could remember looking at pictures of Ma in the family albums, the orange mare’s middle bulging, and being told by her siblings and grandmother that she was the reason for the bulge. Apple Bloom supposed that it made sense; she knew hens laid eggs in nests and chicks hatched from the eggs, so … yeah, it made sense. It just so happened her eggs, along with the nest to keep them warm in, were inside of her, which was kind of odd in a way to Apple Bloom, yet not really. Still, the whole process of ‘getting covered’ by a colt as Applejack explained to her, that was well …, as Scootaloo would say, ‘Ewww, total cootie factory, waayyy uncool.’

A shallow growl from Applejack lifted Apple Bloom’s thoughts back into the present. The young blonde coated filly snapped her head up and quickly glanced about. A mere moment later she spotted where the offending colt had hastily dove into a nearby bush, a pair of nervous eyes peering out from the foliage betraying the other pony’s presence.

A year or so back Apple Bloom had, in the process of one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ early misadventures, seen first hoof, Fluttershy use an ability that most ponies commonly called ‘The Stare’. It was an almost supernatural gaze the butter-yellow pegasus could perform that seemed able to hypnotize animals, or, it was rumored, even other ponies. Well, if that was Fluttershy’s ability, Applejack had something Apple Bloom was rapidly deciding to call, ‘The Glare.’ The older Apple mare had but to make eye contact with any approaching colt or stallion and her green-eyed glance seemed to literally send the offending colt or stallion stumbling backwards, or otherwise fleeing from sight.

It was probably a good thing, Apple Bloom mused. For one, it would no longer necessitate Scootaloo needing to repeatedly administer more of her pegasi patented ‘cootie shots’. On the other hoof, when AJ had withdrawn the thermometer from Apple Bloom’s hind end earlier that morning, Apple Bloom remembered her sister’s eyes widening slightly before her expression fell to a grim expression of concern. It seemed, as young and blank flanked as she was, there was a good chance she could become pregnant by indications of her temperature if she got mixed up in the wrong way with a colt, and that was something AJ had told her that a ‘cootie shot’ wouldn’t be able to fix. AJ did offside mention a white halter and a pitchfork being one solution to the problem, not that Apple Bloom quite saw how.

It was truly perturbing to the young filly, that some stray encounter with a colt could make her a mother before she’d even graduated the sixth grade. The thoughts of accidental motherhood had, at the time, distracted Apple Bloom from how odd the feeling was of Applejack spreading the de-scenting anti-inflammatory salve across the tender parts under her tail.

Yeah, it seemed weird at the time, but the herbal balm had definitely, in just a short time made a huge difference in how Apple Bloom felt. By the time her morning chores were finished, the swollen itching in her hind-end had subsided to the level that Apple Bloom had to actively think about it to notice still itched a little. Even better was the fact she also no longer felt a continuous need to pee every few minutes, which, in light of last night, was a huge relief for the little filly.

Nuts. Apple Bloom chastised herself as a slow building dull cramp took ever greater hold of her now obviously full bladder. Why had she had to go and think about -that-? Everything had been fine until she had thought about -not- having to relieve herself. Apple Bloom was sure that Twilight would have said something about a ‘psycho-somatic response’ or something. It really didn’t matter, what mattered now was there was far too much ‘juice’ inside Apple Bloom for the little filly to keep it in for too much longer, regardless of what reason Twilight Sparkle might give for …

Twilight! Apple Bloom’s mind latched onto the thought. While the purple unicorn might not have been the cause of the young filly’s immediate problem, she certainly presented a solution, or more accurately, the library that she lived in did.

A quick glance ahead confirmed that the Ponyville library was definitely within easy trotting distance and coincidentally happened to be on the way to Ponyville Medical.

“Uh, sis?” Apple Bloom called to her sister, a soft, yet rising, whine of urgency in her voice.

“What is it, Sugarcube?” the older pony replied, turning her head from where the latest stallion to tuck tail and run from ‘The Gaze’ was disappearing into the distance.

“Could we stop by the library for a bit, Sis?”

“Why’d ya want t’ do that? I’m sure, if ya want t’ pick up some readin’ material ‘bout becoming a mare, it can wait until the trip back. Come ta think about it, I’ve still got that copy of ‘The Loveliness of Mare’ that Granny Smith gave me the first spring I came into season.”

“Uh, yeah, Sis, that’s erhm, great,” the little scarlet-maned filly quipped back to her big sister. “But I was thinking more of a spot to ‘juice an apple’ if you catch my drift.”

“Oh…, of course, Sugarcube,” Applejack grinned back as she caught on to the old Apple family’s turn of phrase for relieving one’s self, “I’m sure Twilight won’t mind ya making a little pit-stop.”

Apple Bloom nodded an eager agreement as Applejack continued. “Now, you remembered to put extra scent wipes and that can of cover scent in your saddlebags, right Sugarcube?”

“Yes.”

“And, remember to keep your tail out of the way when ya go, but keep it down otherwise.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And wash y’r hooves real good afterwards.”

“Okay, already.” Apple Bloom’s patience with her sister was getting as stressed as her bladder. “I’m gonna be using the toilet f’r corn’s sake not having lunch at the Queen’s Plate in Woodbine.”

Applejack backed a second at her little sister’s rebuke, and then blushed as she realized what she was doing to Apple Bloom. “Heh, sorry there, Sugarcube, alright, let’s go then.”

Apple Bloom scampered quickly ahead forcing AJ to pick-up to a canter to keep pace with her smaller sibling. Reaching the Library first, the young filly quickly tapped out an urgent message of need against the closed door.

Please, please, let her be home! Apple Bloom thought quickly to herself as she began to hop slowly from one pair of hooves to the other, right front and left rear then alternate as she waited for the Purple unicorn to answer the door.

Applejack had just reached the library door as the upper half unlatched, and the purple profile of the resident librarian popped into view.

“Oh, hi there, Applejack,” the perky unicorn smiled at her orange coated friend, seemingly oblivious to the smaller pony directly under her nose, “is there any chance Granny Smith is with you?”

“No such luck Twi, her her surgery was only yesterday. Doc Stable says she’ll be in for a few more days yet. In fact we were just on the way up to visit her.” Applejack replied, “Why’d y’ask?”

“Um, excuse me,” Apple Bloom tried to politely interject herself in to the conversation with some urgency, and keep the chances of deviation of that conversation to a scarce minimum until a certain necessity was tended to.

“Oh, I just wanted to ask her something about your extended family,” Twilight carried on, looking momentarily disappointed before perking up as she continued. “Actually, Applejack, maybe you know something that could help me.”

A pained whine of distress drew the attention of the two older ponies to where Apple Bloom was now quite noticeably dancing in place, a broad grin of distress stretched across the filly’s now scarlet tinted complexion.

“Oh, shoot,” Applejack cussed mildly over the distraction of Twilight’s initial question, “Twi, would you mind if Apple Bloom used your restroom? She’s gotta go pretty bad.”

“Bad? I gotta go Now!” the younger pony whined pointedly through clenched teeth.

“Oh, of course…” The unicorn librarian nodded with a tilt of her head as her horn took on a magenta sheen about itself and the lower portion of the door unlatched with a thought from Twilight.

Apple Bloom didn’t even wait for the door to fully open. Instead, she squeezed through the narrowest gap between door and jam that she could fit through and bolted for the washroom, her scarlet tail flying out behind her giving a genuine impression that her rump was indeed on fire.

* * * * *

Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Knowing Truth

“What was that about?” Twilight tilted her head casting a questioning glance at Applejack, as she ushered her friend inside the hollowed out tree of the Golden Oak Library.

“Heh,” the blonde-maned mare started with an uncertain chuckle, a slightly embarrassed half grin on her muzzle as she rubbed the base of her crest with a fore hoof, “meet the newest little mare in Ponyville.”

Twilight seemed to wrack her brain for a moment, a massive undertaking when one considered the dearth of social information contained therein, only to come up dry a moment later. An occurrence not entirely unexpected, when the matter at hoof was not either academic or magical in nature.

“Newest little mare?” Applejack repeated with a nudge of her head in the direction Apple Bloom had gone, as the unicorn’s face remained locked in an expression of non-comprehension. Yet the message seemed to slowly sink in as Twilight finally glanced back towards the washroom and back to Applejack, silently mouthing ‘her’ while pointing back over her shoulder with her hoof.

“Mm-hmm,” AJ grinned smugly at her now quickly understanding friend. “Just came into season this morning,” she added with a small glimmer of pride starting to show through.

“How’d you find that out?” Twi’ asked quietly.

“She peed the bed,” AJ, replied with a soft chuckle of embarrassment on behalf of her sister.

Twi’s jaw dropped, almost with a sense of recognition it seemed to AJ, but the unicorn recovered herself quickly. “I’ve got some books here that might help her understand the changes she’s going through right now.”

“Naw, that’s okay, Twi. I’ve got a copy of The Loveliness of Mare at home that Granny Smith gave me the first time I came into season,” Applejack politely deflected her friend’s offer with her typical nonchalance.

“The Loveliness of Mare?” Twilight’s brow furrowed contemptuously at the mention of the book. “That’s the most useless book on growing up ever published for mares. It’s from a completely backwards period when a mare was supposed to just lower her head and lift her tail, and ‘think of Equestria’ while the stallion ‘did his thing’”

AJ pulled her head back slightly at Twilight’s revelation. Such a thought had never occurred to her. Albeit it did make sense now as to why the ruddy book had made no sense to her back then either; though she had hoped Apple Bloom might have been able to understand something she hadn’t.

“Yeah-huh, but enough about AB’s little problem,” AJ changed the subject as the pair settled themselves in the main reading room, “You started by asking ‘bout Granny Smith an’ wanting’ t’ know something ‘bout mah extended family.”

“Oh yeah, right, maybe you can help me.” The purple unicorn gave her head an animated shake as her original train of thought righted itself back onto her normally one track mind. “You know your family around Ponyville pretty well, right?”

“Absitively posilutely,” Applejack grinned confidently back at her studious purple friend, “Each an’ every one of ‘em.”

“Good,” Twilight nodded, “because I was helping Cheerilee clean up, move around, and reorganize some shelves and stuff over at the school house the other day, and we came across an old misplaced school registration form that was never completed in the back of a filing cabinet.”

“Okay, an’ ya think this has somthin’ t’ do with somepony in mah family?” the orange farm mare highlighted the obvious reason for Twilight’s question.

“Your father’s name was Apple Ridge, right?”

“That’s right Twi’ and my Ma’s name was Orange Bloom, Apple Bloom is named for both of them,” the blonde-maned cowpony affirmed as she lifted her head and puffed up her chest with the pride she always carried for her parents.

“Was he, by chance, maybe named after anypony, like maybe his father or an uncle?”

“Not that I can recollect, Twi. My grandsire, was Apple Carter, but we just called him ‘Grandpa Smith’. Granny’s sire was Pokey Oats, and her brothers were Prairie Tune and Happy Trails. I’m not too sure ‘bout great-great uncles though, most o’ them didn’t live in Ponyville. Why’d ya ask?”

“The name on the registration was for a colt named Lightning Ridge, by Apple Ridge out of Flicka …”

“Is that some kinda joke?” Applejack’s pleasant demeanor dropped like a bale shoved out of a hayloft as she cut off Twilight before she could finish, leaning in and toppling the unicorn back off of her rump. Muzzle to muzzle with the unicorn, she continued through half clenched teeth. “‘Cause that ain’t funny Twi’. That’s right crude in fact. If you weren’t such a good friend, I’ve got half a mind t’ lay a good hoof upside y’r head for sayin’ things like that ‘bout mah Pa.”

“I … ah … er … didn’t mean …” was all the shaken unicorn librarian managed in response, as she pulled herself back onto her haunches. Her vaunted brain was drowning in its equally well noted lack of social experience as AJ eased back a little as she proceeded to delineate the situation to the verbally dazed librarian.

“Flicka Apple was Pa’s sister, and she would have inherited the farm instead of Pa, only she died before I was born. Now who put ya up t’ this knot headed chicanery? Was it Rainbow Dash? ‘Fess up so I can put them, and this lame joke, out of their misery.”

“Flicka Apple?” Twilight eased herself back into the conversation with a cautious certainty of fact in her voice. “The dam listed on the registration was Flicka Field, not Apple.”

“I …” Applejack started, Twilight’s revelation of the actual name of the mare in question knocking the ire out of the farm mare as easily as AJ could buck apples out of a tree. “I’m sorry Twi’, I should have let you finish before flyin’ off the plow handle. It just sounded like the time Diamond Tiara went around telling folks that Apple Bloom’s full name was Apple Bloom by Big McIntosh, out of me. ‘Cept that time it was a young filly who didn’t know road apples ‘bout what she was saying. Miss Cheerilee and Mr. Rich had a good time straightening things out afterwards, I’ll tell you. I don’t know any Flicka Field, but I can ask Granny Smith if she knows of anypony by that name. I don’t like the notion there that mah Pa was out ‘sowin’ oats’ behind Ma’s back. Have you tried the foal registry at town hall?”

“I did,” Twilight acknowledged with a slight nod of defeat, “but it seems a leak in the roof of the archive store room a few years back ruined a bunch of files, that one among them I guess, based on the approximate age of the foal to be registering for school.”

“Oh,” the farm mare pondered a moment, “well what about the hospital, if either pony lived here in Ponyville, there’s gonna be medical records right?”

“I may be Princess Celestia’s personal student, Applejack, but even I can’t go looking through other pony’s medical records on a whim. I’d need to file a pretty lengthy request and state my reasons for needing to do so and ….”

“Are y’all talkin’ about me?” Apple Bloom chimed in curiously, startling both mares as she walked up from behind Twilight.

“Naw, Sugarcube, Twilight was askin’ about somepony that she thought might be a relation of ours.”

“Oh.” was all Apple Bloom managed to say before the keen of a train whistle sang out.

“Welp, there’s the 12:20 I reckon.” Applejack turned her head to look out the nearby window to see the train not yet having pulled into the station, “we’d best get a hoof on if were going to be there for the start of visiting hours, AB. Sorry I couldn’t be more help to ya Twi’.”

“It’s okay, Applejack, but could you ask Granny Smith if she knows anything about it?”

“Sure can.” Applejack said with a tip of her head to her friend as the library’s door opened and closed at the unicorn’s mental direction permitting the two Apple siblings to be on their way. “And come to think of it, if the pony there is kin by what ya think, ya might want to stop by the farm and talk to Big Mac. He carries the power of attorney for the estate now that Granny’s gettin on in years. He might be able to get you the permission you need to settle that question ‘bout the records.”

“I might just do that.”

With Apple Bloom falling into step alongside her as they headed out across the empty field between the library and the train station. The hospital was right up the other side of the tracks on a hill on the north side of town. As she trotted away from the Golden Oaks, Applejack’s right ear swiveled backwards as it caught the hurried hoof-falls of another pony rushing up to the library door.

“Twilight,” the new arrival huffed windedly, “where is Spike? Mayor Mare needs you to send a message to Princess Celestia immediately.

“Spike’s not here right now, Pundit,” Applejack caught Twilight’s reply, “he’s off collecting gems with Rarity, they should be back later this afternoon. Can it wait ‘till then?”

“I’m not sure it can, there was a grievous attack near the edge of the Everfree Forest last night and the Mayor wants the Guard to come and take custody of the suspect right away.”

“Attack?” Applejack heard Twilight squeak in surprise as the distance slowly swallowed the sounds of the conversation, “What kind of attack?”

“C’mon sis!” The call of her little sister drew Applejack’s attention from behind her as Apple Bloom broke into a hard gallop. “Race ya t’ the crossin’!”

Applejack broke into an easy run after her sister whose lead had stretched now to a dozen lengths, closing the distance but letting Apple Bloom hold the lead. Whatever the Mayor though the guard’s might be needed for she’d let them deal with; they seemed to have a hold of the situation already. Besides, dealing with creepies, crawlies, and critters that went ‘bump’ in the night was the purview of Princess Luna and her Night’s Watch anyway, and Applejack was fine to let them do it this time. Right now for her family came first, her elderly grandmare, her hard working brother, and her no longer quite just-a-filly of a little sister, and that’s the way she liked it to be.

* * * * *

McIntosh gave a small sigh of satisfaction as he replaced the last of the pruning tools in their proper places. It had been a longer mornings work than he had expected, the storm of a couple of days earlier had broken quite a few branches in the far end of the main orchard. On the other hoof he had a plethora of select fresh young applewood branches piled into the back of the wagon sitting beside the barn, and a purpose to put it all to. Ilchester, the local caseiculturalist, a piebald pony originally from Trottingham, had been enquiring for some time about harvesting several large limbs or even whole trees on the property, for the purpose of preparing an old family recipe for applewood smoked cheddar.

In accordance with AJ’s motherly approach to the individual trees, she had named virtually every single one on the property, Mac had kept the price intentionally high to account for the loss of produce for as many years as would take a sapling to grow to compensate the loss of the commensurate number of trees. He had however arranged to sell all trimmings and prunings of suitable size to the cheesemaker for a tidy and fair sum in bits per stone-weight in silver, or a price-equivalent number of wheels from each batch.

Mac smiled at the thought, his mother had often quoted her own sire, J.C. Orange, to Mac’s father. “There’s always a chance of ending up with lemons, so you might as well learn to make lemonade and not worry about it later.”

Oddly, Mac had always found it perturbing that his damsire, despite his apparent wisdom, had not been able to see the ‘lemonade’ potential in his daughter’s choice of husband. Instead choosing not to endorse his daughter's marriage, or even bother to attend the ceremony. In fact only his mother’s younger brother Mosley had been present from that side of the family.

The sound of heavy hooves pounding up the lane and into the farmyard drew Mac’s attention from his family’s storied past.

I wonder who that could be rushing up here in such an all fired hurry? Mac wondered as he gave himself a quick shake and moved toward the work barn’s open door. It certainly couldn't be either of his sisters, or their friends for that matter, the hoof steps were far too heavy for any of them, or even most of the village for that matter.

Mac was counting off the possibilities of the few individuals heavy enough to be making the sounds of the hoof falls who may have come calling as he reached the open doorway. It was there that the smell hit his nostrils, a rank sour odor of spoiled leftovers, assorted trash, and stale horse sweat. But no more had the name of the odorous arrival clicked in his head than a huge brown hoof swung out of nowhere catching McIntosh square in the jaw and knocked the world on its side.

As Mac attempted to collect his legs under him, as the striker stepped in and caught him behind the right ear with another hoofshot, sending him sprawling back to the floor, his head ringing.

“Pick him up Pig Pen.”

As the rancid smelling sanitation pony stepped over him and hoisted him up in a full-nelson onto his hind legs. Mac dimly recognised the firm clipped voice of Creme Brulee, Carmel’s heavyweight older brother.

“The mayor has sent for the Royal Guard to haul your sorry red ass away for trying to kill my baby brother, you colt-cuddling shit.” The big tan stallion growled through a clenched jaw, punctuating his sentence with another shot to Mac’s head, as Mac tried desperately to focus his eyes and thoughts to understand what was going on. “But I don’t think they’ll mind if I make it a little easier for them, eh ‘Twiggy’*? I’m gonna break you, ‘Little Stick’ before I let them ‘toss’ you straight into Tartarus.”

Author's Note

* As a colt, the school bullies teased McIntosh with nicknames like “Little Stick to Toss” and “Twiggy” because of his narrow, gangly, stature.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Truths Exposed

It had been the abruptness of the silence that had smothered the sounds of the reception area that had first signalled to Applejack that something was amiss. It was the kind of fearful hush that fell across a saloon in one of those cinema westerns just as the villain made their entrance. A combination of awe and trepidation was tangible in the air as she walked Apple Bloom up to the reception desk to make the appointment for her with Dr. Lily Soft.

As they began speaking to the receptionist Applejack found herself becoming more aware of the slow building of whispers behind them.

“Oh, my ...”

“Do they know?”

“Should we say something?”

“Somepony should get them out of here …”

The voice of the receptionist confirming that one of the physicians would be available in the next half hour or so to see Applebloom, and that they should have a seat in the waiting area, momentarily drew her attention away from the mutterings behind them.

“But what about visiting Granny?” Apple Bloom piped up with cautious concern. It had been part of the original plan for the afternoon, and given the non urgency of Apple Bloom’s condition there was likely to be no rush on the part of the hospital staff.

“Well how’s ‘bout we pop up and say a quick ‘howdy’ to Granny, and let her know we’ll be back up afterwards?” AJ had offered her sister, and the younger pony’s expression lightened a bit as she nodded her agreement.

It had been as they had turned the corner from the receptionist’s desk towards the elevators that they had met the tired, disheveled, reason for the murmuring in the waiting room earlier.

“Oh, hey there Sassaflash,” Applejack smiled at the blonde pegasus, “how’d it go with Caramel last ni ...”

There was a flicker of something that flashed like a thunderbolt, in the pegasus mare’s golden eyes in the heartbeat before the stinging pain kissed Applejack’s cheek. Her world jerked violently with the hoof slap, and then devolved into chaos. A feathery blue and blonde, twister of hooves, wings, and rage engulfed her like a rabid wildcat, tumbling the room like the time she’d foolishly once tried to roll down one of the hills on the farm in an old cider barrel.

It hurt about as much too, only this time it wasn’t punctuated with AJ’s fearful yelps as the barrel had rolled and bounced wildly down the hillside; the pain was carried along by a different soundtrack, one of shrill, grief laden screams and accusations that AJ could scarcely make sense of.

“He tried to kill him you stupid hay-brain! He tried to kill him! I hope Creme and Piggy make glue out of him before the guards get here! I don’t care how many pieces he’s in as long as one of them can tell me why he did it! Why! why! why! …”

By the time the combined efforts of a security guard, two orderlies, the duty nurse, and receptionist, had finally restrained the near psychotic pegasus, Applejack could only watch, stunned, as Sassaflash, her fury spent, wilted into a limp, blubbering, puddle of sobbing hair and feathers that eventually curled up into an unresponsive ball that had to be loaded onto a gurney and wheeled away.

“What in corn’s sake was that all about?” AJ wondered aloud shaking the cobwebs from her head as the receptionist helped her to a seat, and somepony else passed her her hat that had been dislodged in the course of the altercation. “And who tried to kill whom?”

“Oh dear, you mean you don’t know?” the duty nurse commented, brow furrowing in concern and disbelief as she helped AJ to get settled.

“Know what?” Applejack let her words drop plainly with her own confusion.

“Caramel was nearly killed last night out by the edge of the Everfree Forest … by your brother.”

AJ’s jaw slackened and the contents of her gut rose like a great sour balloon within her as her ears focused on the tale as it was recalled.

The duty nurse carefully explained how Sassaflash had flown in with a severely beaten Caramel, all the way from the Maiden’s Grove, on a cloud the previous night. A cloud that had been hidden in the bedding and ended up saving the colts life, along with the cloudwalking potion Sassaflash had slipped him at dinner. Otherwise the beating he had sustained would surely have been fatal. She also told Applejack how during the initial triage, before Caramel had been put under total sedation, he’d managed to tell the emergency staff the name of his attacker, … Big Mac.

AJ sat there stunned. Her first instinct was to deny it, there was no way her brother could have, or would have, ever done such a thing. McIntosh, AJ knew, loathed violence. Even as a school-colt he found it hard to defend himself, though he was constantly bullied for being a scrawny, know-it-all, teacher's pony, egghead. No matter how often the other colts came after him, he wouldn't raise a hoof in his own defense, even after Ma and Pa had forced him to take self defense classes.

It was a shame too for herself, as she thought of it. She’d never stood up for her brother either when they were little. She’d been too concerned with her own self image, trying to be a proper, well groomed, Manehattanite filly, like her Ma had been at that age, and not getting involved in such ‘colt things’, as her mother called them. Mac, like a good colt, was expected to be able to stick up for himself according to Pa, and Grampa and Granny Smith. Still, AJ had always made sure to be there to run for the teacher, like a good filly, or help her brother home when the bullies were done, because that’s what family did.

There were times looking back, that AJ wished she had been less a lady and more a spitfire like Apple Bloom. If Apple Bloom had been in her horseshoes back then, there would have been quite a few more black eyes and bloody noses dished out, Applejack was certain of it.

Apple Bloom!

The thought leaped to the fore for Applejack, how was Apple Bloom taking the shock of this accusation? There was going to be a lot of explaining needing to be done.

“Where’s Apple Bloom?” Applejack snapped her head back and forth quickly scanning the reception area for any sign of her baby sister. There was none.

“Where’s Apple Bloom!” she let out in a panic straight at the duty nurse, who cringed back from both the volume and the vocal force of the demand.

“She ran past me a couple of minutes ago.”

Applejack’s attention homed in on the sound of the voice, bringing her head around to the main entryway where Twilight had just arrived.

“A couple o’ minutes ago?” Applejack lurched to her feet as Twilight approached.

“Easy there.” the duty nurse put a hoof on Applejack’s withers and tried to steady her in an effort to urge her back to her seat, only to be roughly shoved aside with a firm sweep of a foreleg.

“What’s a couple of minutes s’posed t’ mean Twi’?”

“Three maybe four, I wasn’t keeping track. I was rushing to come find you two after flagged down Rainbow Dash to rush that message from the Mayor’s office out to Spike on Rocky Ridge to send to Canterlot.” The studious unicorn explained succinctly, before her tone dropped sympathetically as she added, “I know what happened last night ...”

“Horsefeathers you do Twilight!” Applejack cut her friend off, heading for the door. “Which way was she headed?”

“South, back to the farm I …”

Applejack didn’t give Twilight time to finish. Her gut tightened, her legs twitched, and her heart kicked into overdrive as she bolted from the hospital doors like a starting gate. Orange hooves tore clouds of dust and chunks of earth from the dusty track as they beat a fervent desperate rhythm against time itself. The ten furlongs between Ponyville Medical and the train station flashed by in probably less than two minutes if anypony had been keeping a clock on her, the long blonde ponytails of her mane and tail streamed like banners behind her. Even her trademark hat had blown off her head in her wild rush against the clock to try to avert disaster, and she had not looked back to see it snatched up in the telekinetic aura of her lavender unicorn friend, now nearly a half furlong behind her.

Oh no you don’t … Applejack thought. Ahead of her she could see the Friendship Express pulling out from the station, the 12:45 to Canterlot. She diverted her course away from the tracks. Brave as she was, she was not delusional enough to try to beat a train when failure was not an option.

With a combination of natural ability, and well honed skill, she cut behind the station house, vaulting and weaving around crates, travelers, baggage ponies, and luggage piles in a raw display that would have left the finest barrel racers and steeplechasers slack jawed with astonishment. Still despite her best efforts she knew it would add seconds to her time, seconds she wasn’t sure she could afford to spend.

Bolting across the tracks behind the train, Applejack kept her eyes on the course ahead of her. It was four furlongs to the bridge. Then another two before the cart track entered the trees on the edge of the north orchard near the schoolhouse. Yet as she closed the distance to the trees Applejack couldn’t catch sight of any sign of her younger sibling.

From the schoolhouse it was seventeen furlongs further on to the farmyard itself, ten if one jumped the fence and went as the crow flies through the orchard. Undoubtedly in AJ’s mind, that’s what Apple Bloom would have done. As she reached the first bend in the track she could see the hoofprints where Apple Bloom had left the worn dirt of the cart path, crossed the ditch and made for the orchard. A strong push from Bucky McGillycuddy and Kicks McGee launched her easily across both the ditch and fence and soon found her weaving along the narrow orchard trail towards the farmyard.

Once into the shaded path through the trees AJ could feel the sweat running beneath the hair of her coat. Apple Bloom too would likely be sweating as bad or worse than she was. AJ’s gut tightened at the thought as it came to her. While she had her hormone suppressors to keep her estrous from being very noticeable, Apple Bloom had nothing of the sort. She was running straight into danger to try and save her brother from two very wound up stallions, and was going to be stinking like a raw harlot when she got there. There was half a hope AJ held out, that over the years Big Mac had acquired a scent blindness to the mares on the farm, but this being AB’s first time being in season, there was no guarantee. Creme Brulee and Pig Pen, on the other hoof, … there was no chance whatsoever.

As she leaped the last fence and skidded to a halt in the yard she caught ear of a stallion yelp in pain from inside the work barn; her head and body coming around, she lined up for the charge. The fearful scream, of what could only be Apple Bloom that followed it, made AJ’s heart wince. She was too late … too late to save her sister.

And then she heard the roar …

* * * * *

McIntosh grunted hard as the blow landed squarely below his barrel. The fact he had already been exhaling before the blow landed cushioned the impact.

Earth gets hit all the time, but does not break. Why? Earth knows how to get hit.

Mac could hear the words of Miyagi-sensei, the Ishiumajutsu* instructor that his parents had sent him to years ago as a school colt. The fundamentals of the Path of the Stone Horse were discipline and self control. Let one’s attacker wastefully expend their energy, and absorb, deflect, and redirect the aggression away from you, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Philosophically it was to become like stone, or earth as the old Neighponese Misaki mountain pony had taught.

Of course there was more an expectation to block and maneuver as an individual in reality, but being held from behind by Pig Pen, McIntosh found the lessons in how to absorb a blow of primary importance at the moment.

As the momentum of the impact passed, Mac drew in a breath as the big brown cart pony hauled back for another swing.

“You must be feelin’ pretty sore from guilt to just take a beating like this, eh, Twiggy?” Creme growled through clenched jaws as he took a pause for breath himself. “Back in school you’d have been crumpled up bawling and waiting for your sister to bring the teacher to make it stop.”

Mac just grunted and rolled as best he could as the hoof punch slammed home just under his left shoulder.

“Too bad it’s not gonna happen this time, ‘cus I'm gonna make sure you’re looking every bit as bad as my brother by the time the Royal Guard show up to drag you away.”

Mac gulped in a breath as Pig Pen hauled him straight again. Over the rambling dialogue of insults, threats, and accusations as Creme had laid in his beatings, Mac had come to understand that he stood accused of having beaten Creme’s younger brother, Caramel, nearly to death. There was also the possibility that the young stallion might still succumb to his injuries.

Mac’s repeated firm denials of ‘Nnope’ to Creme’s accusations had only infuriated the brown stallion further. Of course Mac was certain he hadn’t, but there was something sickeningly familiar about how Creme had described his brother’s unfortunate fate. It was something that was tenaciously sticking in Mac’s beating addled brain, but not yet completely clicking … unlike the latch on the door.

“Hey! You leave mah brother alone!” a young voice cut in on the moment as Apple Bloom entered the barn. She brashly scampered under Creme’s hindquarters before using Mac’s own stifle as a vaulting step to bodily hurl herself back at the big, dark brown maned stallion in an effort to push him away.

It was a valiant effort, but three stone against twenty-three was futile. Creme easily wrapped Apple Bloom up with his forelegs pinning the struggling scarlet maned filly with her back against his barrel with ease.

“Hey Creme, I guess it is like old times with Little Stick’s sister rushing to save his bacon.” Pig Pen chuckled as he held Mac secure. But Creme wasn’t paying attention it seemed; something else had captured his focus, and in a second Mac caught it too.

Apple Bloom!

Mac’s stomach curdled as he watched Creme tip his head down, his nose in Apple Bloom’s mane, and take a deep breath. Creme’s blue eyes went wide and glassy with realization as to what his nose was telling him.

“Hey Pig Pen, seems like the little sprout here is ready to go to seed already.”

“She wha …?” The dump pony started before he too caught the pungent aroma of estrous dripping alongside the sweat off Apple Bloom.

“Don’t you dare.” Mac growled a bloody warning past a split lip, as Creme slipped a pastern down between Apple Bloom’s hind legs. The little filly’s golden eyes shot wide in realization as the big stallion’s hoof found her folly, and then it happened.

Apple Bloom opened her jaws and bit down with everything she had squarely into the soft skin at the back of Creme’s left pastern. Creme yelped in pain and let the little fiery filly drop to the barn floor. Apple Bloom’s teeth remained clamped solidly shut as she fell away, tearing away a chunk of hide and skin from Creme’s leg in the process.

“You miserable spoor.” Creme growled at Apple Bloom as she landed flat on her back in front of him. A vicious foreleg back-hoof was already descending from on high as Mac struggled against the pony behind him.

Apple Bloom screamed and threw up her hooves to protect herself.

The blow landed with a horrifying smack sending the little filly tumbling away across the floor into a stack of bales.

Mac felt the sound blow resonate inside him. It was a harsh, disrupting, vibration that didn’t fade. Instead, it built upon itself, growing harsher and stronger with each reverberation until it absolutely filled him.

NOOOoooo! Mac could hear himself scream inside his head, as something deep, and dark, and bitterly painful within him roared and seemed to tear itself free as he desperately now fought himself for control, the edges of his vision tinged with white and red.

It was futile.

Mac could feel his mind trapped inside himself as he felt his right hind leg lift from the floor and slam down on Pig Pen’s hoof. He felt the short pastern bone of Pig Pen’s right hind leg snap in half and the coffin joint pop loose. The force of the sanitation pony’s scream buffeted the back of Mac’s ear, but he heard nothing but a distant muffled sound.

The sensory exclusion didn’t matter to Mac, not one bit. What did matter to Mac was that the grungy gray pony’s grip on him eased, letting him slip free of the full nelson lock he’d been trapped in. No sooner had his fore hooves touched the floor than his back ones were planted against the barrel of the still vertical trash pony.

Please! Don’t! Mac begged himself, but it was pointless as the trigger slipped on his hind legs.

Mac felt the buck drive the big gray pony backward off his feet. There was a solid wooden ‘crack’ as Pig Pen connected with something in mid flight. Mac ducked his head down between his forelegs in time to see the gray stallion tumble into a heap at the far end of the barn.

He didn’t have time to do more than glimpse the consequences of his actions, as the momentum of the kick followed the laws of motion. Mac relaxed his front legs and let the recoil force smoothly carry him over his tucked neck onto his withers. He felt the swish of a near miss swing across his tail as he did so, before he came to rest on his back, forelegs splayed out to either side to brace himself, and his hind hooves now planted firmly against Creme Brulee’s chest.

The look of shock on the brown stallion’s face was mixed with the shrinking anger and rising fear inside him as he realized his situation. Mac just felt himself glare angrily back at the other stallion as his mental trigger tripped again. Creme crashed backwards through the barn doors with such force that one door tore free of its hinges completely, and the other was left sagging from a lone retainer.

As the brown stallion crashed in a heap in the farmyard, Mac gathered his hooves under himself and charged after the focus of his rage. Creme managed to roll unsteadily onto his hooves, Mac arriving on the spot almost immediately. A brutal shoulder check smashed into the disoriented pony sending him sprawling into the middle of the yard. Mac wasted no time in capitalizing on his toppled foe, tumbling Creme around before trapping the fallen stallion under himself.

The terror was evident to Mac in Creme’s eyes, along with a brief flash of lavender, as the fallen pony stared up at his vanquisher. Mac leaned into the face of his downed opponent, forcing Creme to shrink back against the dirt, a gleaming hoof cocking back at the end of a blazing white foreleg as he spoke.

“If you ever, so much as lay an unkind hair on my sisters again, I swear on my parents' graves, I will END YOU!”

The upraised hoof slammed to the ground, neatly clipping the very tip from Creme’s left ear, served as a final punctuation to the statement.

The beaten stallion swiftly scrambled to his hooves and bolted past the orange and purple mares standing agawk in the yard on his way out the gate.

Mac paused a moment and blinked, Apple Jack and Twilight staring back in disbelief at what they had no doubt just seen.

Fear washed through McIntosh like a raging white water torrent as he took a step back from the two mares, his rage crashing flat like a derailed express train.

No. Was his only thought, Oh, no. No! No! NO! NO! NO!

He turned in a panic, and bolted for the trees.

Author's Note

* Path of the Stone Horse, an equestrian martial art, also practiced by Maud Pie.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Exposed Wounds

A soft breeze curled across the farmyard, tugging absently at Applejack’s the long blonde locks. The mare gave it no mind as her thoughts were fixed elsewhere. Her eyes were straining, trying to follow the last flashes of the fiery white form retreating quickly through the orchard as she tried to come to grips with what she had just seen.

“Was that … ?” Twilight’s voice seemed to come from somewhere far off, though she actually stood no more than two lengths away, as she too watched the blazing white stallion vanishing among the orchard trees.

“Eeyup”

“... And he …”

“Eeyup.”

AJ could feel the sour tremor of fear building inside her from the scene she had just witnessed. Her was mind drawn back to the memory of the night in the orchard when she had confronted her brother over his refusal to discuss his cutie mark with their baby sister. Apple Bloom had pressed her curiosity too hard that day, and the eventual, explosive, reaction to the repeated questions of the little filly had sent Apple Bloom fleeing in fright from her elder sibling. It had been later that night, on the edge of the orchard, in their great grandfather’s walnut grove, below the face of the crumbled muddy rise; a place where for years she’d been lead to believe her parents had died in a tragic mudslide one evening following a prolonged rainstorm. But that’s not what her brother had told her that night …

“I got mah mark right here!” Applejack remembered her brother roaring at her as he slammed his hoof to the ground with such force Applejack thought she’d jumped.

“I got it right here, watching, as Ma an’ Pa DIED!”

His eyes had been glittering with an unearthly green fire she could not remember ever having seen inside him before as he’d told her.

“And it weren’t no accident.” She remembered his voice slowing to a magma hot simmer.

“It was the Albino.”

“Do you know what this means!” Twilight’s shocked exclamation burst through Applejack’s thoughts, cutting her free from the darkness of the memory, though not its terrifying implications.

“Eeyup.”

Applejack knew what it meant, as a dark, hateful, sensation rose up inside her gut as her mind affirmed the horrific realization that it had just made. She had called McIntosh a liar that night in the orchard, when he’d finally told her. She had bucked him angrily to the ground for his confession, and for having scared their baby sister half to death. Yet somehow, someway, she’d been unable to believe what he had told her had all been a lie either. There had been something in his eyes that night as he told her, something deep and powerful hiding among the dancing green flames. It was that something that had told her he was telling the truth, even though she couldn’t accept it then. But she accepted it now, with a sad, painful, resignation. Her brother ... was a killer, a kinslayer, … he was the Albino.

“I thought only uni…”

The sound of Twilight’s voice made Applejack’s gut lurch as her ears pinched off the words of her, at times, observationally challenged friend. Right now though, Applejack could feel the anger twisting inside her gut to the point she was reasonably certain that she was going to forcefully ram her hoof into Twilight’s pie hole any second in order to stifle her friend’s distracting comments. If only to give her own mind time to finish it’s own bout of conflicted emotions. The next sound that caught her ears was not from Twilight; it was the distinctive soft, high toned, sound of a young filly’s moan and whimper of pain.

Apple Bloom!

Applejack abandoned her rage there in the yard in an instant as her hooves carried her quickly to the barn. There she found her sister bloody muzzled, holding one fore hoof to her head and trying in vain to gather her other hooves under herself. The young filly’s uncoordinated stance abruptly gave out as her hindquarters buckled, sending her toppling backwards into the adjacent haystack just a AJ reached her sister’s side.

“What did they do to you, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked as she drew the groggy, trembling, filly into her protective embrace.

“I tried to stop them. They … they were beating on Big Mac.” Apple Bloom sniffled as she snuggled into her older sister’s comforting hooves, bleary eyes trying to focus on her sister. “I … I tried to stop them. I tried … but I … I couldn’t, … and then … Creme ... he ...” Apple Bloom gave a shudder, her eyes closing tight as she ended her narrative with a painful whimper.

A dull masculine groan, followed by a prominent yelp of significant pain drew Applejack's attention towards the opposite end of the barn as Twilight arrived in the vacant doorway.

“Oh my Gosh!” the unicorn gasped, her eyes going wide at the sight inside the barn. “What in the name of Celestia happened?”

“He touched my teats!” Apple Bloom boomed out, tightening her grip on her sister before turning, sobbing, into AJ’s shoulder.

“We need to get them to the hospital.” Twilight quaintly summarized things.

Applejack just shot a glance of exhaustion at her friend. She’d spent every last bit of energy her had to get here, and there was nothing left in the tank to do anything more than hold onto her sobbing younger sister. As she watched, Twilight quickly sized up the situation so fast it almost seemed possible to see the gears spinning in the lavender unicorn’s head as she quickly devised a course of action.

“Hold on,” the unicorn blurted as she dashed from the doorway. “I’ll be right back.”

Minutes later AJ was still holding on to Apple Bloom and glaring daggers at Pig Pen as Twilight’s plan moved along. The sanitation stallion lay with his back to the opposite side rack of the hay wagon breathing through his teeth in pain as the it made it’s way down the old farm track. Applejack glanced from his splinted rear right hoof, obviously broken above the coffin joint, to his face, just as the wagon passed over a bump in the road. The expression of anguish on the stallion’s face was disturbingly comforting to AJ.

“I’m so sorry.” Pig Pen choked softly through his, no doubt considerable pain.

“Shut it.” AJ spat back, as Apple Bloom also turned to glare daggers at him,“I’m in no mood to hear it right now.”

For a moment AJ though the scruffy gray colt was going to cry. But, Pig Pen merely closed his eyes and let his head and neck droop back to rest on the floorboards of the wagon.

Serves him right. AJ thought to herself, feeling the tug of a smile at the corner of her lips as she did, as she looked from where Apple Bloom lay half curled up in her lap. For a brief moment Applejack felt a swell of gratification at the wounded stallion’s injuries. That vanished as Apple Bloom turned her head and AJ caught a glimpse of the pained look of confusion in her little sister’s eyes. It was a confusion both begging for answers and reproachful for her elation at the suffering of another pony.

Applejack turned away, to hide her own conflicted emotions, to where Twilight stood on her hind legs, front hooves on the top of the front rack of the hay wagon horn shimmering with effort. In the months since Winter Wrap Up, Applejack could definitely tell that the studious unicorn had obviously been practicing her control of the ‘Come to Life’ spell that now allowed the wagon to move without the need of anypony in the traces.

“It’s okay. We’ll be there soon.” Twilight said, turning her head to give a smile of reassurance to her friends, only to have the wagon bounce hard against a large rut in the road, eliciting a collective yelp from the passengers.

“Thanks Twi’, but how’s about you just stick to minding the road.” Applejack gently chided her friend, accompanied by a groan of agreement from Pig Pen.

“Heh,” Twilight blushed as she turned her attention back to guiding the magically self-moving wagon, “sorry, about that.”

There was little doubt in Applejack’s mind that the sight of a pony-less wagon drew more than a few looks of consternation from the townsfolk as it made its way to Ponyville’s hospital, not that she cared one crooked furrow at the moment. Her relief though at their timely and, beyond a few rocky bumps, smooth arrival at Ponyville Medical was palatable.

It was likely some sharp-eyed pegasus had obviously seen them coming and alerted the staff, Applejack guessed, as they were met out front of the hospital by a doctor, a pair of nurses, and a half dozen orderlies with stretchers at the ready.

How much time had eventually passed, Applejack couldn’t rightly say. By the time she had finally collected herself, and her thoughts, she was sitting in one of the exam rooms nursing a lukewarm cup of honey-lemon tea as Doctor Lily Soft finished up her examination of Apple Bloom. The good news from that was that was that the young filly’s injuries were no more significant than those that had typically been incurred in the course of her ‘crusading’ along with her friends.

The bad news was that Apple Bloom was indeed in season, in fact maybe a day or two short of peak fertility. The dangers of such a young filly being in season, was a serious matter, but a manageable one as the medical mare explained. It would take a few minutes to prepare for the procedure and about a half hour to properly apply the Chastity Charm, given the complexity of the medical magics involved. Both Apple siblings were immensely relieved at the prognosis as the doctor stepped out of the exam room to go collect the materials needed for the spell.

“Hey there!” Twilight smiled as she poked her head around the corner of the door frame. “The doctor said it was okay for me to come in. You guys doing okay?”

Applejack nodded along with her sister, who was still sitting on the exam table tail wrapped nervously about her hooves.

“Dr. Soft is going to cast a spell on me to fix my early heat.” Apple Bloom commented nervously.

“Oh,” Twilight cocked an eyebrow at Apple Bloom’s revelation. “Is she going to use the Chastity Charm?”

“Yeah, that’s what she called it. How’d you know about it Twilight?” Apple Bloom asked as Applejack finished the last bit of her tea.

“I don’t know how to cast it, but I know more than a little about it.” the unicorn admitted.

“Really?” Apple Bloom said with a mix of relief and curiosity. “How?”

Twilight paused a moment, a blush of self-conscious knowledge adding highlights to her lavender complexion.

“You’re not the only pony to have needed it.” Twilight finally replied, a thin smile of confidence and sincerity melting through her sheepish pause.

“Really!?” Apple Bloom perked up leaning towards Twilight with curiosity glittering in her big gold eyes.

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded her admission as she stepped into the room, her horn taking on a magenta shimmer as she began to close the door.

“Well Twi, I’d hate to be an extra party to such a personal conversation, as seems to be breaking out, so if you wouldn’t mind settin’ a bit with Apple Bloom, I’ll just take this time to pop up an’ see Granny Smith and let her know we ain’t forgot about her.”

“Awww, can’t it wait till I’m done AJ?” Apple Bloom cut in with a plaintiff tone.

“I wish it could Sucgarcube, but I think visiting hours are gonna be finished before you are. We’ll come by tomorrow and you can tell Granny all about it yourself.”

“Okay.” Apple Bloom relented with a downcast glance.

Applejack turned back from the door and moved to the side of the exam table before slipping her muzzle under her sister’s lifting the filly’s face to look right at her.

“I promise Sugarcube, everything will be okay, Honest Apple Honor.”

Apple Bloom smiled at the words and reached out and hugged Applejack around the neck, her demeanor lighter at the promise.

“Oh, and if you could ask Granny about that pony I mentioned earlier …?” Twilight added as Applejack reached the door.

Applejack sighed coldly inside before answering, “If’n I remember Twi.”

The trip to Granny’s room was a quick one, with Applejack opting to take the stairs as opposed to waiting of the elevator. Reaching the ward desk Applejack found indeed there was actually still some time remaining time left for visiting, maybe even enough for Apple Bloom to make it by, though it likely wouldn’t be much more than to say Howdy.

“Eh? Is that you Applejack?” The feisty tones of Granny Smith’s voice met Applejack at the door as she opened it, as the elder farm mare lowered the copy of Quilter's Quarterly she’d been reading.

“Yeah Granny, it’s me.” Applejack entered the room as she spoke, smiling at her elderly green coated grandmare, and closing the door behind her. Applejack was relieved that the second bed in the room was vacant at the moment as she sat herself down at the side of the bed.

“Ya didn’t happen t’ bring me some of mah rheumatism medicine, did ya? An’ why ain’t Apple Bloom with you?”

“Apple Bloom’s down stairs with Twilight and Dr. Soft.” Applejack explained, “It seems she went to bed a filly last night, and woke up this morning a young mare.”

“Hardly seems enough reason for ya not to have brought her along?” the old mare puzzled her response.

“I had other reasons Granny,” Applejack tried to hold her voice steady, but her emotions were welling up into her voice as she spoke, “reasons I didn't want Apple Bloom to hear just yet.”

The old mare’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at Applejack before she cautiously added, “An’ just what might those be?”

“I know the truth Granny.” the words seemed to cut her throat as she spoke, each one a jagged piece of painful truth, “I know the truth about McIntosh, and what happened to Ma ‘n’ Pa. I know that they didn’t die in no mudslide. I know that they were killed, ...” Applejack paused a moment, all but choking on razor-like bile of her next words, “by him, by the Albino, and I know that McIntosh is the Albino.”

Granny Smith’s brow furrowed in thought as AJ waited for her grandmare to digest her confession and vindicate her findings, to call Ma and Pa’s deaths murder, and name McIntosh a kinslayer.

“What in corn sake are you talking about?” Granny Smith came back in disbelief, her mouth cocking sideways in a pinched half frown of weighted suspicion and scrutiny. “I asked you to bring me a snort of my Granny Daisy Moses’s ‘rheumatism medicine’, not fer ya t’ go an’ get a snoot-full of it y’rself girl.”

“It’s true Granny.” Applejack slapped down her grandmare’s accusatory disbelief, her raw emotions gushing into her words. “Mac told me himself, he saw the Albino kill Ma ‘n’ Pa. I saw it in his eyes. He was telling me the honest truth. I called him a liar ‘cause I didn’t want to believe him. But today I saw something, and I know it’s true. He killed Ma ‘n’ Pa! He is the Albino!”

“Poppycock.” Granny calmly spat back with the kind of unimpressed snort that smacked of ‘you’re lying’. “Y’r brother is no more an Albino than you are a Pegasus Pony. Shoot, y’r brother is so red, that when yer Ma foaled him the broodwife thought y’r Ma had tore herself inside. But no, it was j’st y’r brother; red as an apple, an’ hung like a full grown stallion.”

“But he is.” Applejack pressed her assertion, hot tears running down her cheeks. “He is. He told me how they died. How he saw the Albino kill Ma ‘n’ Pa, first hoof the very night he got his cutie mark.”

“Horse apples!” Granny Smith pushed herself as far upright in bed as she could, her amber-gold eyes hot with her assertion. “Y’r brother never got his cutie mark ‘til after y’r parents were buried. He got it that first morning he strapped on that plow after the funeral, that’s when he got it. I’d come out onto the porch with Apple Bloom to give her her bottle, and there it was right on his flank, plain as day, as he was pullin’ f’r all he could at that dang ol’ plow.”

The two mares just held their positions in silence as the tension in the room swirled about them. Both seemed content to allow the emotional tension to ebb before continuing.

“But Mac told me …” AJ was moved first to recover the initiative. She remembered looking into her brother’s eyes that night he told her of the real cause of their parent’s deaths. She could practically feel the pain of his memories in her own heart.

But Granny cut her off again, stoic and unflappable in her own self-certain knowledge.

“The night your folks died,” Granny’s aged, yet sturdy, voice asserted itself like a cold tidal wave of time and experience against AJ’s crucible of burning emotion, “we nearly lost your brother too. He’d been caught in the same mudslide as your parents. When I went out to look for them later that night, I found your brother caked in mud from muzzle to rump, crazed and crying. He’d already dug y’r Ma out of the muck, and was trying frantically to get y’r Pa out from under the pile. I tried to hold him, but I couldn’t stop him, and when he finally found y’r Pa, y’r brother lost it. It was awful, Applejack, and your brother saw it first hoof the damage that slide had done to your Pa.”

AJ’s mind reeled for a moment, was her brother actually crazy? Was the Albino just a figment of his imagination brought on by a near death experience and the deaths of their parents? It couldn’t be. She’d seen her brother there in the farm yard just hours ago, blazing white and ready to kill Creme Brule for accosting Apple Bloom. Pig Pen’s broken foot too was no figment of Mac’s imagination, or her own.

“No Granny, Mac’s not lying. He killed them. The Albino is real. McIntosh is the Albino, and he killed Ma an’ Pa.”

“Impossible!” Granny sputtered in frustration. “Y’r brother never killed your parents, and he ain’t no Albino!”

“Why?”

“Because the last Albino died almost two years before your Ma ever set hoof in Ponyville!”

The statement hit AJ like a solid slap. Had she just heard what she thought she’d heard?

“Wha … are … are you sayin’, that the Albino is real?”

“Was real, and dead, and gone, well before that landslide took your parents. So just forget about y’r brother’s crazy stories about dead ponies killing your parents,” Granny Smith sternly stated, folding her forelegs across her barrel, “an’ that’s all I’m gonna say about it. So don’t ask me again.”

“Alright.” Applejack sighed her acquiescence, glancing at the clock on the wall in a move to try to change the direction of the conversation. “‘Sides, I should be getting back to Apple Bloom and Twilight. I’ll bring Apple Bloom by to see ya tomorrow.”

“An’ don’t forget mah Granny's ‘rheumatism medicine’ this time.” Granny added as she settled back in her bed behind her Quilter’s Quarterly.

Applejack rolled her eyes to herself as she headed for the room’s door. What Granny saw in that high-proofage corn squeezings Applejack just couldn’t figure out. Heck, the only other pony that she ever knew to touch those dark brown jugs with their ‘XXX’ label on them was Mac, and he only ever used the stuff for stripping paint and blowing stumps. Granny, on the other hoof, saw a totally different value to that over-proof cider and corn whiskey ‘white lighting’.

“Say Granny,” Applejack turned her head back as a thought suddenly clicked in her head, “Twilight wanted me to ask you about somepony she thought might be a relation of ours.”

“Yes?” the old mare raised her head from her magazine and fixing her attention on Applejack.

“What do you know about a pony named Lightning Ridge?”

No sooner had the last syllable left her tongue; Applejack could see, across the distance from the door to the bed, the spark of connection in Granny Smith’s eyes. Applejack swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry, the back of her neck clammy. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, telling her she was still alive, though it felt as though her heart had stopped cold. Under her hooves though, through the hospital floor, through the earth, back across Ponyville, and all the way back to the farm Applejack could feel the deathly gut churning sensation as she was certain her father had just rolled over in his grave.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - Bloody Wounds

It was quiet inside the main barn-house of Sweet Apple Acres, as Applejack softly closed the door of Apple Bloom’s bedroom and made her way down the hall. It had been a long day. A long and unwantedly turbulent day at that, but at least Apple Bloom was finally asleep for the night. The little filly had had a big day, and had taken a big step on the road to marehood. Apple Bloom, AJ knew, would have much preferred to have gotten her cutie mark today instead of the much less likable revelation she’d gone into estrus. Still, AJ was just thankful by the end that Apple Bloom hadn’t gotten her cutie mark this day. What a cutie mark for ‘coming into season’ looked like AJ didn’t have, or want, a clue as to. The thought of her little sister’s destiny as a broodmare*, wasn’t too bad. The thought, however, of AB as a night trotter or stable girl,** was stomach turning.

Applejack paused a moment to look at the pictures that hung on the long wall between the door of her room and McIntosh’s, as the unsettling thought ebbed away. The pictures were of family, Granny and Grandpa Smith, along with Pa and his two brothers, Carter Seed, and Smith Forge. Carter, the eldest, had been struck with the same wanderlust that Granny had said was possessed of the Smith family, and he had left the farm as soon as he was able, travelling the length and breadth of Equestria, just as Granny’s Pa, Pokey Oats, had done. AJ smiled to herself, it was her cousin Braeburn, Carter’s son, who had eventually helped found the western orchard boom town of Appleloosa only a year and a half ago, much as their great grandsire had done for Ponyville.

Smith Forge, the middle colt, was more a pony of tools than trees Granny had always said. Forge had gone off with Granny and Grandpa Smith’s blessing to become a blacksmith and forge worker. Eventually he landed a job at Goldbuck Green’s plow shop in the town of Moline near Winneysota. Years later, he was still there, now a master toolmaker and the senior supervisor for the whole plow factory.

The last picture in the row, beside Pa's, was of a young bay filly. She had a darker mane and tail, and big, soulful, caramel brown eyes. The picture showed her about mid-way in years between AJ’s own age and Apple Bloom’s. She was seated, half turned away from the camera, looking up at an apple tree on the other side a fence, her cutie mark: two hearts above a tree. Applejack had always thought of her as her Aunt, Flicka Apple, it was the name the mare had been buried under in the 'Family Grove'. Yet Applejack now knew, it wasn’t.

Flicka Field had been the daughter of one of Granny Smith’s best fillyhood friends, River Field, a wild Mustang from the plains of Mustangia that Granny had met when the Smith family had passed through that region, many years before ever founding Ponyville. The two young mares had formed a strong friendship over the time the Smiths had spent there, and had maintained that friendship as pen pals over the years.

Eventually they had both settled down and started families. In time it was agreed, in the traditional manner of the earth ponies, that River’s daughter Flicka, would be sent to Ponyville to be accepted into the now Apple family as a bride and broodmare for Granny’s youngest son, Apple Ridge.

AJ gave a heavy hearted sigh as she turned from her late ‘Aunt’s’ portrait and headed for the stairs back to the main floor parlor. It would have been a simple end to Flicka’s tale there, she’d have grown up on the Mustangian plains, and when she was old enough, have come to Ponyville to be with Pa, and have foals to carry on the Apple line. Heck, Applejack’s own mother might not have ever even entered the picture, or so Granny had told her, but it seemed fate had other ideas.

When Flicka was only four, a wave of feather flu had swept through Equestria. It was a strain, so strong and terrible that there were far too few able pegasi to adequately manage the weather for months. Even Princess Celestia herself, Granny had said, had been stricken with it, though she gallantly held to her duties. The sun, in that time, had crawled dangerously slowly across the sky for weeks. It was in this dire heat wave that the green plains of Mustangia turned brown and dry, and Flicka was sent by her parents to the safety of Ponyville where the ‘free weather’ that formed over the Everfree Forest provided enough rain to keep the Harmony River valley healthy and green.

Nopony knows, Granny had said, as to what started The Great Mustangian Firestorm, all those years ago, the dreaded Field of Fire that claimed so many lives that summer. Some said it was a angry dragon, as black as night, others said it was a mishandled thunderbolt in the hooves of a pegasus, too young and hurriedly pressed into service. All Granny had told Applejack of it was, that because of it, Flicka would never be able to go back to Mustangia.

And so Granny had raised Flicka, who was a year older than Applejack's Pa, as one of her own foals. As the years passed the two young ponies grew closer than could ever have been hoped, Flicka grew into a beautiful mare, strong, vibrant, and full of energy. She was a tireless worker and achiever, Applejack remembered Granny telling her, much like Applejack herself, and just as headstrong. Yet her energy was paired and tempered to Pa’s own great caring heart, his deep rooted love of the valley and orchards. The magic that seemed to flow between the two of them brought many a great bounty to Sweet Apple Acres over the years, and eventually a very special one to themselves.

Applejack absent mindedly poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and sat down at the kitchen table. The coffee was really there for the two Royal Guards who were even now dutifully searching the property trying to find and corral McIntosh. Though AJ didn’t particularly like it at the moment, it was good Apple hospitality. Still, she wished them luck all the same. McIntosh, for all his size, knew the farm and orchards better than anypony alive, and he had a perturbing ability to vanish practically without a trace at times among the trees. Playing hide and seek with him as a foal was a perplexing affair, and these guards were both novices to the farm.

Pushing the steaming cup aside Applejack reached out and drew the lone piece of paper on the table towards her. Twilight had brought it from the schoolhouse and left it here after the guards had arrived. She’d also cautioned the pair about having seen McIntosh experience a ‘Rage Shift’. The guards had, of course, scoffed. A ‘Rage Shift’ was a type of magical outburst experienced by unicorns under emotional duress. The thought of an earth pony experiencing a magical surge the like of that was, even by Twilight’s own admission, unheard of.

There was, however, no denying for the two friends what they had seen, and eventually Twilight had managed to convince the pair to take due caution in apprehending McIntosh. For AJ the sight of her brother, blazinging white, standing over Creme Brulee’s fallen form and ready to kill the brown stallion for molesting Apple Bloom had initially convinced her of a totally different conclusion. It had convinced her that McIntosh had in fact been the so called ‘Albino’ that he had told her had killed their parents that rainy night so many years ago.

AJ looked at the paper before her on the table. She knew more now than she had before, but it seemed like less some how. The name on the Ponyville school application was, Lightning Ridge, by Apple Ridge, out of Flicka Field. It was a name that Applejack now knew, by Granny’s admission, was that of her older half-brother; a pony that had died in the Everfree Forest along with his mother almost two years before AJ’s mother, Orange Bloom, had ever followed the rodeo circuit to Ponyville and met Pa.

Lightning had been a very special pony in many ways, Granny had told her, and was the reason why the family had began keeping hogs years ago. But there was one particular thing Granny Smith had told her about Lightning that had stuck in AJ’s mind and she couldn’t shake loose; Lightning had been an Albino.

AJ pushed the page away from her and turned slightly to look out the window. Through the window she could see trees and low white fence of the ‘Family Grove’, and she felt a pull inside her chest drawing her towards it.

We know you have questions, my beautiful princess, and we’re right here if you need us.

Applejack felt a shiver run up her spine as she recognized her mother’s voice as it spoke to her from somewhere beyond the trees of the farm, yet closer than AJ’s own heart. The voice was right, she had questions to ask, and the ponies that held the answers were not far away, waiting patiently for her to open herself up and ask.

The night was cooling as Applejack made her way across the farmyard to the sacred spot among the trees where her family placed their own for their final rest. In the sky above, she could see the silver light of Luna’s moon glinting off the dark clouds building over the Everfree, there was a storm coming, and her soul was as restless as the air around her.

She settled herself before her parent’s graves and cleared her mind like Granny had taught her, as she opened her heart to her ancestors. Applejack glanced over past Pa’s grave to her … Applejack paused, no, not her Aunt, but also yes, in a way.

I’m so sorry, little one. Forgive me, please?

The faint pleading voice was one Applejack knew she had never heard before, but in her heart she immediately recognized it as belonging to Flicka.

I do. Applejack thought, answering her stepmother/aunt’s request. In her heart, she knew it was the right thing, and the tension in the air ease with her thoughts of forgiveness.

Something, though, caught her eye as she turned her attention back towards her parent’s markers. There was something about the spacing of the graves she hadn’t noticed before. The gap between her father’s grave and Flicka’s was wider than between the others … almost wide enough to …

I could never bring myself to put the marker there. Applejack shivered as she felt the presence of her father beside her.

Why Papa? AJ asked as she felt the phantom sensation of her father nuzzle the side of her neck, like her used to when she was a little filly.

We only ever found Flicka, not him. In my heart I always felt he was still alive, that somehow he’d escaped, somehow. It was a hope I held … until the end...

But what about McIntosh? Applejack pleaded. He’s in trouble, he needs our help, we have to help him. Please.

Your brother is safe, Sugarcube, her father assured her, and not far away.

A crash from the work barn snapped Applejack's attention back to the present.

“Sayidati***, you should go in, where it is safe.” The smoothly accented baritone of the bay unicorn, Khartoum, came from behind her as the half-Arabian guard reached the low white fence that bordered the ‘Family Grove’, his attention focused, like hers, on the barn.

Khartoum, was the senior ranking of the pair of royal guards sent to the farm from Canterlot. He was a half-blood, by his own admission, when Twilight had commented on the unusual nature of his name. His father, he explained, was a noble from Saddle Arabia, and his mother a unicorn diplomat from Canterlot. He was tall and strong, with a coat like deep varnished wood and accented by an ebon hooves, mane, and tail. His noble and dignified manner and bearing gave him a regal presence AJ found most befitting of a royal guard.

Eyrie’s Honor, Khartoum’s pegasus partner, was by contrast a pony of a different feather. Headstrong and honest in speech, his mannerisms reminded AJ of Rainbow Dash, though Eyrie’s coloration was more typical of a royal guard; he bore an almost white, silver-gray coat that highlighted his sky blue mane and tail, and gave light to his flashing golden eyes.

“He’s my brother.” She replied firmly. Nopony was going to get between her and family.

“But you are valuable to Equestria, Sayidati, you are a Bearer of Harmony …”

“And that makes me overqualified to deal with my own family in this case.” AJ cut Khartoum off bluntly as she made her way out the Family Grove’s gate and headed towards the work barn. “So drop it.”

Khartoum raised his head and propelled a bolt of magical red energy into the sky. It burst a hundred or so feet up with an audible pop, sending out a shower of sparks and bringing another crash and clatter from inside the barn.

AJ looked up at Khartoum, who acknowledged her concerns with a nod of his head and a cautionary raised hoof. Applejack was about to offer another reminder to Khartoum that this was her farm and family, but an upward gesture of his head drew her eyes skyward to where Eyrie’s Honor swooped into view. A throb of color flashed about Khartoum’s horn, echoed by a low hanging cloud above the farmyard. Eyrie’s Honor rocked his wings in acknowledgment and swung up on to the cloud, peering over the edge at the farm in a ready stance.

As Khartoum turned his head back to Applejack the guards’ plan consolidated quickly in AJ’s mind, it made sense. Eyrie’s Honor was set to pursue her brother if he managed to somehow get past Khartoum and her on the ground.

“If you must follow me Sayidati,” the unicorn guard began, “stay behind me and talk sense to your brother, let him see wisdom and reason. Help him make peace with himself for what he has done. I swore an oath, to Princess Celestia herself, to protect your family’s line. Do not make a liar of me Sayidati. I do not wish to do harm to your brother, but I am prepared to if I must.”

Applejack nodded her agreement as she followed Khartoum towards the workshop-barn. Twilight had magically repaired the barn’s doors that had been broken in Mac’s altercation with Creme Brulee and Pig Pen after they had returned from the Ponyville Medical Center. While AJ hadn’t been too pleased with Twilight for using her magic, it just wasn’t the Apple way, she knew her unicorn friend’s heart was in the right place, and AJ thanked her honestly for it.

The good part of Khartoum being a unicorn, AJ noted as the barn’s doors glowed and swung open as if on their own, was that long reach their spellcasting ability gave them. If he could get Mac off his hooves and hold him up in the air she might just be able to talk some sense into her brother, or at least get his side of the story.

“Mac.” Applejack called out into the gaping entry of the barn as Khartoum continued forward. “Ya c’m on out now, y’ hear. These nice fellers ain’t gonna hurt ya. We wanna hear y’r side of the story, okay?”

There was no answer from within, but AJ could see that there was straw tossed all over the floor. That was odd, she felt, as Mac was nearly as big a ‘neat freak’ as Twilight or Rarity at times, so this was certainly out of place. Of course he had his temper issues, just like Ma.

Khartoum took the lead as they passed through the open doors, lighting his horn and channeling a magical beam of light into the dark interior.

“Mac.” AJ called out again, “Ya mind telling me what this here mess is about? It wasn’t here earlier when Twi’ fixed the doors.” She was running short on ideas as to how to call him out, gentle like, but still something seemed amiss.

As they made their way cautiously farther into the barn, AJ watched as the light from Khartoum’s horn played across the second work stall and its tool cribs. The hoof trowels and small garden forks had fallen around and into the harvest baskets below them. Applejack took a hesitant step in the direction of the first stall. The small tools were there, but what about …

The answer abruptly leaped up and struck her, mentally, and quite literally, as her second step entering the stall had her hoof find the business end of a rake, sending its shaft slamming upwards into her face

“Ow!” Applejack yelped, ducking her head to her hoof, as she staggered back a half step with the impact.

“Sayidati!” AJ heard Khartoum exclaim, “Are y…”

The sound of a swift swing of motion that ended in a heavy ‘thock’ of something embedding itself in the nearby wooden post, cut Khartoum’s words off as something else dropped onto the floor nearby with a heavy thump and muffled clatter.

Blinking her eyes harshly to clear the stars from her vision, when she could finally focus she found the barn had gone dark. As she stepped back from the mouth of the stall where the rake had struck her, she spotted the curved form of the scythe embedded in the support beam at beginning of the dividing wall. Below the blade she could now make out the shape of Khartoum, unmoving, on the floor, and her nostrils caught the coppery tang of blood in the air.

Oh Mac, please no. The thought jumped into AJ’s head as her gut and heart simultaneously leaped into her throat silencing any chance of vocalizing the words as she stumbled back from her brother’s folly.

As she moved back she became aware of the silent presence of the huge Earth Pony stallion, easily more than a hoof-and-a-half taller than herself at the withers, standing before Khartoum’s fallen form. He was massive, thick necked, deep chested, and broad barreled. His mane and tail hung long and loose over a powerful rump and withers lined with muscles that rippled like a filly’s fantasy. But what caught Applejack’s attention completely and sent a cold prickling wave of frost down her back was his color. Apart from the gleaming red pupils, full of cold focussed emotion, set in raw pink frames that gazed down on her like some disapproving godling, the stallion was white without even the faintest trace of a cutiemark. The unearthly scream of a mother’s grief echoed distantly from beyond the grave inside Applejack’s head against the silence of the barn as the realization came to her. The stallion wasn’t McIntosh, but the stallion was her brother, and the stallion was an Albino!

Applejack swallowed hard, her guts settling into a cold lump in the back of her belly as she kept backing towards the barn’s doors as the ghostly stallion turned and slowly advanced on her, casually stepping over Khartoum’s body as if the fallen guard pony were of no more consequence than a pile of leaves.

“Lightning?” Applejack murmured, half to herself and half in question to the white stallion whose ears pricked in seeming recognition.

“You’ve heard of me?”

The white stallion’s response sent a shiver down Applejack’s back, as he turned his view from the fallen guard pony, to look directly at her as she nodded her affirmation. He sounded uncannily like Big McIntosh in a way, a smooth, even unhurried tone with an earthy bass to it.

“How?” The big stallion took a step forward as AJ’s hooves kept her backing cautiously towards the barn door.

“I’m your sister, Applejack.” AJ answered plainly and honestly as was her nature

“I don’t have a sister ... “ The big pony rumbled, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny.

“Half-sister, actually, our Pa …” AJ began to explain, only to reconsider a heartbeat later as fiery flecks seemed to ignite in the hot red furnaces of the white stallion’s eyes merging into a hateful glow.

“Our father?” growled the Albino lowering his head threateningly as he drew a forehoof back, gouging a long scrape into the packed earth of the barn floor, as faint scarlet streamers began to leak from the corners of his eyes. “Was a cowardly fool who couldn’t protect those he loved. He left my mother to die, and me to the mules and dogs. So he could take up another mare. He tried to keep me from my birthright. A birthright granted to my great grandsire by the Princess herself, the Lordship of the Valley and Everfree Forest, and nopony will keep me from taking what’s rightfully mine!”

Applejack backed through the open barn doors as the monster advanced on her, her guts cold as she watched the Albino advance on her. He wasn’t the monster from her dreams. He wasn’t a tattered timber-wolf like pony construct with a bent changeling horn and bloody fangs and stone hooves. No, but her half-brother’s eyes were those from her dream, from her brother’s nightmare, hot red and shimmering with rage. They reminded her McIntosh’s eyes the night he confessed the truth to her.

Oh, how Applejack needed her friends by her side right now, how she needed them and the elements of harmony they represented. She had seen the power of the elements strip the darkness of the nightmare from Princess Luna, and restore the Alicorn Princess to her proper self. She needed them now to do the same now for one of her own family, if it was even possible.

No, Applejack reminded herself, as the Albino stepped out of the barn into the farmyard, it was possible, she just needed somehow to get word to her friends.

And then, like a bolt from the blue, opportunity knocked the Albino over.

* * * * *

Something had certainly gone wrong, Eyrie’s Honor knew as he watched Applejack back cautiously out for the barn That was what his gut told him as he watched from his perch on the cloud above the farm. His haunches and wings twitched with nervous energy as he watched and waited, ready to spring into action and chase the criminal to exhaustion. It was a sound plan that Khartoum and he had used many a time, though the half-Arabian unicorn preferred to talk his opponents down if possible.

It’s go time. Eyrie thought as the big white earth pony stallion stepped into view, and Eyrie tipped forward off the lip of the cloud. The ground rushed up as he plummeted towards his target, his wings guiding him in perfectly.

The impact was shockingly hard, Eyrie found, like playing Bumby-Rules Hoofball at flight camp, and his shoulder was going to be feeling the consequences tomorrow. But the big earth pony seemingly got the worst of it, getting knocked clean over, as Eyrie gave a flap of his wings to send himself up and over the big white stallion and touch down in a defensive posture on the other side.

“In the name of the Princesses I hereby place you under arrest, stand down!” Eyrie boomed at the white pony, flaring his wings as the big stallion rolled back over and regained his footing.

“Not likely, fool.” The white stallion snarled back. “There is only one Princess in Equestria, and on my land, I yield to nopony.”

One Princess? Eyrie pondered the odd comment for a second before the white stallion lunged at him. Eyrie took wing, deftly evading the blow and landing a pair of quick hoof shots to the bigger stallion’s muzzle with his back hooves before somersaulting in the air and landing two lengths behind the white.

The big earth pony wheeled about his mouth tight, and nostrils wide with rage.

“Not that easy big fella. Now stand down before you get hurt.”

The big earth pony just snorted defiantly and charged his opponent again. Eyrie took to the air, vaulting the charging stallion again this time landing a solid one hoof kick to the withers as white pony passed beneath him.

“I said: Stand Down!” Eyrie shouted as the white stallion turned about seemingly unphased by the kick.

The white earth pony gave an angry rumble in return, his red eyes darting across the yard. Eyrie followed his opponent's line of sight to where Applejack was cautiously skirting the pair moving towards the house-barn’s door.

Eyrie didn’t have time to guess the other stallion’s move before the Albino earth pony charged directly at the blonde maned farm mare, who startled and bolted for the barn-house at the surprise maneuver. Eyrie pushed off with legs and wings to get ahead of the white stallion, get between him and Applejack.

Oh Crap! Eyrie realized in a split second as the big white stallion aborted his false charge and whirled on him. The cross left hoof connected solidly with Eyrie’s head, sending him crashing back onto the dirt of the yard. Eyrie rolled upright onto his belly, his wings splayed out limply on either side as he shook his head to clear the double vision. The Albino trotted up quickly, pressing the advantage gained in the shift of momentum as Eyrie’s head settled.

A downed Pegasus pony was vulnerable, Eyrie knew, but the Equestrian Royal Guard’s self defense training was superb, and mind, training, and instinct quickly meshed in a moment of inspiration for him to take back the initiative. With a quick sweep of his wings and a push of Pegasi weather magic Eyrie sent a dust devil swirling into the white earth pony’s face as he threw himself back onto his hooves, and a moment later lunged into the air. The Albino earth stallion reared up and pawed useless frustration after Eyrie as the pegasus guard looped the farmyard on high, dropping down in front of the barn-house porch as Applejack made it inside.

Eyrie reared slightly raising his wings to show his protection of the ponies in the barn behind him. The white stallion merely lowered his head with an odd sideways glance of derision and proceeded to trot in an agitated circle in the middle of the yard.

“What’s he doing?” Applejack asked as she cautiously opened the upper half of the door a crack.

“I’m not sure.” Eyrie replied back over his shoulder, before addressing the Albino. “Give yourself up and stand down. Run and I can easily run you down and drag you back to Canterlot in chains.”

The white pony gave his head a firm shake and a defiant snort as he came to a halt in the center of the yard, a grim, hateful, look hung across his face as he stared back, and then, he lowered his head, and his rump and his barrel, and lay prone on the earth.

“Fine, feather head, come take me.”

Well, Eyrie mused, it seems the mad bronco has some sense after all.

"I’ll get my rope.” Applejack interjected from behind him.

“No need,” Eyrie assured her as he ducked his head beneath his left wing and retrieved a pair of fetters from a pouch that seemed easily too small to have held them. The pouch was magical of course, using something he remembered Captain Shining Armor called 'Tardic Manipulation'. That mattered not a whole lot at the moment to Eyrie’s Honor, as he advanced on the prone stallion. All that mattered was he had the fetters, and this wild white menace’s spree of mayhem was at an end.

“He’s my half-brother, Lightning Ridge,” Applejack added as she followed, "and he’s under some kind of spell, or possession, or something ... I think.”

“You think?” Eyrie hedged in reply.

“I don’t know, but I know Twilight could figure it out. I just need you to hold him here until I can get my friends.”

“If you think it can help.” Eyrie gave a grudging acquiescence to the Bearer of Honesty, as they stopped before her fallen brother. If a pony couldn’t trust her, who could they.

“Hello, dear sister.” Lighting grumbled sarcastically as he dragged a fore hoof idly through the dirt of the yard where he lay.

“Why?” Applejack asked. Eyrie could hear the heaviness of emotion in her voice.

“Because ...” Lighting began in a surprisingly calm tone, as Eyrie lowered his head to secure the fetters, “it’s time.”

The feral stallion suddenly lunged forward, and a sharp pain slammed through Eyrie’s throat as he dropped the fetter chain from his mouth suddenly gasping for breath as the big earth pony lurched to his hooves and sent Applejack reeling to the ground with a powerful backhoof.

Eyrie tried to call out to her, but all that came from him was a sick, wet, gurgling sound that dripped hotly down his neck, as a fervored panic built within him. The white stallion paid the sound no heed as he focused his attentions on Applejack, administering another powerful swat as the farm mare tried to get back to her hooves, again sending her to the ground. Eyrie tried to move forward help her, but the world swam unsteadily, his legs going from under him as the Albino turned towards him and callously spat a bloody wad of flesh and hide onto the ground.

The Albino looked at Eyrie, a smile forming across the white stallion’s bloody lips. Eyrie watched in horror as the smile grew broader and broader, the Albino's lips eventually curling back to reveal a set of long, wicked, fangs, like those of the Pegasi Tribe’s distant cousins, the Bat-Ponies of Princess Luna’s Night Watch, stained pink and red with fresh drawn blood. Diomedes syndrome, in it’s rarest of forms, Eyrie knew, as he lay his head on the ground, his strength was gone, and the world growing dark as the Albino turned his attention back to his fallen sister.

“I rise. You fall, dear sister.”

Darkness swallowed the world for Eyrie’s Honor. But he felt light, and warm, and safe, as blue skies opened above him and sweet flowered air flowed warmly through his nostrils and filled his lungs. He felt the hard earth fall away, as he rose into the Elysian skies, his wings buoyed upwards on warm gentle thermals. His last thoughts of the world he had left were now fading from his mind, yet he wondered of the deep, powerful, voice he had heard speak just at the end and what had it meant when it said,

“Nnope.”

Author's Note

* Broodmare - Equestrian term for a female pony who's special talent is the bearing and raising of foals. (Often highly regarded by other ponies for their devotion to their families).

** Night Trotter/Stable Girl - Equestrian terms for two kinds of prostitutes or harlots, specifically those who work from the street corners and alleys (Night Trotters), or from a tavern, inn, or brothel (Stable Girl), and neither are considered very highly as professions.

*** Sayidati - Saddle Arabian term of respect meaning, 'My Lady'.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Blood of Apples

The lengthening golden rays of sunset seemed to dance as they passed through the softly moving leaves of the trees of the orchard. It was spring, and the air was warm and sweet with the smell of apple blossoms. It was a serene and reflective moment for the light brown earth pony stallion as he sat quietly in the small, well groomed grove near the edge of the orchard. He had given his thanks to Celestia for her stewardship of the sun and its life giving warmth and light, and for the grant of land she had bestowed on his damsire years before. He also thanked his grandparents in turn for their hard work that had turned that grant of land into the proud and expansive orchard that it was today, and wished them peace in their well earned rest in Elysium.

The last pony in his thoughts though was at once both the easiest to address and the hardest. For virtually his whole life she had been there by his side. She had been everything to him that a pony could ever want of a friend …

I miss you so much Flicka, the Stallion’s thoughts were barely a whisper in his mind, but to his heart they were as if screamed at a level beyond deafening.

I know, my love. I know, the gentle caring strength of Flicka’s voice inside him eased the hurt that he found in his heart every time he opened himself to her. In the three years since he’d lost her, had lost them, that hurt had always remained. Yes, it had abated at times, yet here in the family grove, in her ethereal presence, the painful wound of her loss was always as fresh as the day it had been torn there.

You were my strength when I was weak, my joy when I was sad, my warmth when I was cold,* and my dearest friend most of all.

And you were mine, Ridge. His as well. You know that, and I know you’ll never give up hope he’ll come home someday. Wherever he is, Ridge, he has to believe you still love him, believe that you’d pull the sun itself from the heavens and hold it in your bare hooves to light his way back to you if you could.

I know.

But you can’t, and you need to focus on what’s important there and now. I know I’ll always carry the best part of you with me …

… and of you with me …

… but I’m here now. I’m at rest and at peace; I don’t need it now. But I know you need mine, and that she needs yours. She needs you to be her strength, her joy, her warmth, and I want you to know that I want you to give her all that you can of it, because they are there with you.

Thank you, my love. The brown stallion smiled as he felt the great radiating warmth of Flicka's kindness within him. I just wish she could hear it from you.

“I already have, my sweet cider stallion.”

He hadn’t heard the light orange mare enter the ‘Family Grove’, but she had. As she slipped up behind him, she wrapped him in a warm embrace. She rested her head on his withers as he turned his head to see her soft, gorgeous apple green eyes looking back at him.

“What do mean, you already have?”

“Exactly what I said, Sugarstud, ‘I already have.’”

Apple Ridge tilted his head questioningly as he watched the mischievous twinkle in Orange Bloom’s eyes dance in the light of the sunset as she smiled back as she slipped herself around him to where he could return the loving hug.

Ridge’s ears perked up as the realization dawned on him: Bloom had been trying for months since the wedding to try to reach out to this part of her newly adopted family with no hint of success. “You … you … you mean you have? You can hear her? Hear them? When did you … ? How?”

Orange Bloom snuggled closer into the warmth of their embrace. She stroked her soft muzzle gently up and down the side of his neck, and he reciprocated tenderly just like that first day. It had been here in the ‘Family Grove’, in front of Flicka’s grave, her fore leg still bandaged and healing from the break months earlier when she’d somehow managed to wrap a bandage of her own around his inner hurting and eased it for the first time in over two years. He had felt Flicka’s approval then, as now, and he knew things were going to be all right.

“I found out just a few days ago. When I found out ...” Bloom stretched her neck up alongside his and caught his left ear gently in her lips. Ridge loved it when she nibbled his ears like that, how she tickled the little hairs inside with her breath. His hind leg was about to start drumming in pleasure when she stopped and drew back a bit, planting a soft kiss on his muzzle before fixing him with a look inviting him to ask her how.

“Found out what?” he asked as he looked into Bloom’s dancing green eyes. He could hear Flicka’s wild laughter ringing merrily among the trees. He knew she already knew (and she wasn’t telling him) as Bloom planted another quick peck on his nose.

“I’m pregnant.”

* * * * *

The uneasy air swirled across the open space of farm yard, gently ruffling the feathers on the wings of the fallen pegasus guard.

“And who are you?”

McIntosh’s eyes narrowed as he watched the Albino turn his gleaming, hateful eyes on him, shifting his attention away from Applejack in the process. Dazed, Applejack used the reprieve to slowly roll herself into a semi-upright position. A tangle of sounds and voices echoed distantly inside McIntosh’s head: The crunch of bone. His mother’s scream in the darkness. And more ...

“I’m McIntosh Apple of the Apple Family, by Apple Ridge out of Orange Bloom … and I know who you are.” Mac gave a threatening snort and pawed the ground for emphasis, only to see the Albino’s bloody lips curl into an oddly knowing smile, the hatred still burning in his eyes.

The sick sound of the mocking chuckle that was Albino’s response grated coldly on McIntosh’s soul as the white stallion gave his dead toned reply, “Oh, do you now?”

“Eeyup,” Mac rumbled. He tried to keep as much calm in his voice as he could, but the weight of the swirling emotions he was holding back darkened his words, “You’re the stallion that killed my parents.”

“What?!” a young sharp voice suddenly blurted out.

Mac snapped his head around at the sound of the outburst to find Apple Bloom standing two, maybe three lengths behind him. Her mane and tail were rumpled from bed and her hair bow sat lopsided behind her right ear. A croquet mallet lay forgotten in the moment, dropped in shock at her hooves. By the expression on her face, eyes wide, her jaw slack and trembling, Mac knew she’d heard that which he’d always feared having to tell her even as the Albino’s cruel chuckle carried across the yard.

“Apple Bloom, I …” Mac began, only to be cut off by Applejack.

“Apple Bloom! Run! Get Twilight an’ the Elem … !”

The sound of a hoof-punch cut off Applejack's words, causing Mac to reverse his sight back to where Applejack lay sprawled on her back senseless before the Albino as Apple Bloom dashed for the farmyard gate. Something inside him snarled viciously as Mac felt the chains of his self control draw tight and strain to their painful limits.

“What a waste, little sister,” the Albino snarled as he flexed his haunches and reared up to his full towering height. “Now I’m going to have to kill the little filly too.”

The world seemed to float as McIntosh watched his parents’ killer prepare to deliver another fatal blow to a pony he cared for, but something inside him was unwilling to let that happen. When, or how, he had started running he surely couldn’t say, but each beat of his heart brought him closer to his goal. Finally throwing his full weight behind his left shoulder, he slammed hard into the Albino.

It felt like he’d collided with a rock wall. The pain of the impact was in no small part due to the working over he’d taken earlier at the hooves of Creme Brule and Pig Pen. McIntosh let out a grunt from the impact as the Albino toppled clear of Applejack and rolled a short distance towards the work-barn.

“AJ!” Mac began, eager to get his sister clear of the conflict.

“Mac … he .. he’s … our brother … “ was all Applejack was able to mumble before going totally limp. The rise and fall of her barrel, though, showed Mac she was unconscious but alive.

It’s true, my son, I’m sorry. It’s true. It was the sadness in the sound of his father’s voice, carried by the swirling wind, that echoed inside him that chilled Mac through to his core.

A furious whinny and a thundering of hooves alerted McIntosh to the onrushing danger scarce moments before the Albino slammed headlong into him at a full charge with a body tackle. The momentum carried them clear across into the side of the main barn-house. Mac slammed back first into the side of the building with enough force to rattle all the shutters. Most of his breath was knocked from him with the impact, but not all. Enough remained to allow him to screech in pain as the Albino pounded a fast pair of hoof strikes into the base of Mac’s ribs.

Emotions let us feel the world around us, Little Tree-bucker, McIntosh could hear the words of Miyagi-sensei in his mind as he fought his way through the semi-conscious haze of pain and anger in order to think straight and keep control of himself. They let us know what is right and what is wrong; what is good and what is bad. But it is the mind that must tell the body what to do, so as not to act wrongly to feel right.

A fast right hoof from Mac to the Albino’s left ear rattled the white stallion, causing him to twist away from the impact and loosen the pinning grip that held Mac to the side of the barn. Mac snarled in pain as he took a return shot in the ribs from the Albino, but the effort on the Albino’s part let Mac twist free of the hold on the white stallion’s left side. Mac quickly rolled his shoulder into his opponent, hooking his right foreleg under the Albino’s left as he moved back to back with the white stallion, executing a heavy back-over-shoulder throw that sent the Albino crashing out into the yard.

Mac took the opportunity to drop back to a solid four point stance, pulling air in hard as his barrel burned in pain from the Albino’s blows. He could feel the sweat beginning to form under his crimson coat and his ribs throbbed in time to his heartbeat. The Albino just calmly rolled to his feet and shook himself as if he had simply enjoyed a dust bath.

“I see father raised you to be more of a fighter than he was, little brother,” the Albino sneered. “Your death will give me far greater satisfaction than his did.”

“Why?” Mac asked as the pair began to circle slowly as the winds of the gathering storm hissed through the trees, joining their slow dance.

“Because he failed little brother! Failed in the one thing he always promised us! To always be there for me and my mother! He failed! She died! And he abandoned me!”

No Lightning! Your father wasn’t even on the farm that day you ran into the Everfree, the voice of a mare McIntosh didn’t recognize burst into his thoughts as the thunder cracked and growled as lighting rippled through the clouds above the yard.

McIntosh watched as the Albino cringed at the flash and rumble, for a second seeming as scared as a foal.

“He didn’t abandon you!” Mac put his heart into his words as he remembered something from all those many years ago. Remembered watching unseen among the trees of the orchard, watching his father sitting quietly in the family grove shedding silent tears for what McIntosh now knew was a lost foal. “He never forgot you, ever!”

“He did!” the Albino roared back as he charged with a renewed fury. The white rush of rage was aimed squarely at McIntosh, driving both stallions up onto their back hooves as a hammering uppercut slammed into the base of Mac’s jaw. “He did!”

An unexpected hind leg sweep by the Albino dropped McIntosh hard onto his side with his back to his opponent and his ribs awash with fiery pain. The Albino towered over him, the fatal blow at the ready.

Mac jerked himself back, rolling belly up toward the Albino’s back hooves. The Albino’s jackstomp missed, barely slamming hard into the earth of the yard. The back edge of one front hoof still managed to tear a bloody furrow up Mac’s right shoulder.

Mac roared in pain, but capitalized on his position. As he had rolled in and under the Albino’s strike, Mac tucked his hind legs protectively into himself and he now had his hind hooves placed squarely against his older brothers barrel. Mac could feel the inrush of air as the Albino gasped in recognition of what was about to happen.

McIntosh bucked as hard as he could. The angle was not perfect, but the larger stallion was flung hard, tumbling through the air and into the white twin rail fence that separated the orchards from the farmyard. The sound of the rails breaking as the Albino crashed into the fence meant more chores to Mac if he pulled through this, but it was grateful music to his ears in the moment. Wrenching himself hard back onto his hooves, Mac whinnied in pain as the tear in his shoulder burned exquisitely for a moment as his maneuver inadvertently dragged the fresh wound through the dirt of the yard as he did.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, brother,” Mac grunted through the stabbing pain in his ribs. That last fall had cracked at least one, McIntosh was certain, as he advanced on the white stallion who was also righting himself.

“No little brother,” the Albino snarled back as he too recovered his footing, swaying slightly before throwing himself back into the fray, “it’s the only way it can be.”

McIntosh deflected the Albino’s charge with a circular double cannon block, turning himself away from the rush while moving his own hind quarters towards the break in the fence. The Albino stumbled slightly and circled out in a wide turn before again rushing back at McIntosh. Mac dropped his forelegs low and readied himself to execute a neck and shoulder lift-toss. It was a bad choice as the Albino spotted the maneuver and pulled up short, delivering a pair of fast left and right cross hoof strikes to Mac’s head, splitting Mac’s left ear vertically from skull to tip and bloodying the right half of his nose and muzzle.

Mac howled as he recoiled from the bad position. The Albino moved in to press his advantage, driving a forward double-hoof thrust squarely into Mac’s chest. The heavy work yoke McIntosh wore cracked but thankfully cushioned the worst of the blow, the force still sending McIntosh over backwards. The Albino did not relent in his advance, moving in to add more blows to Mac’s misery, but it was a bad move.

A hind hoof sweep from Mac tripped up the Albino’s advance, dropping him belly to belly onto Mac’s barrel. Mac quickly jammed his left fore hoof hard under the back of the Albino’s jaw, lifting his brother’s head away from him as he brought home a powerful, post driving right cross to the Albino’s muzzle that sent blood and bits of teeth flying into the night.

The Albino roared in pain as Mac hit him again, and then brought a hind leg up between them as he flung his rabid half sibling hard away, back first, into a nearby tree. The trunk of the mature apple tree cracked and leaned from the impact, but didn’t break completely.

The Albino dropped back to all fours, while adrenaline and determination brought McIntosh back to his hooves again.

“I forgive you, brother,” Mac choked out over bloody lips. He felt the warming presence of his family around him as the storm began to pour cold rain on the warring pair. “You’re family. You belong here now. We can all forgive you.”

The Albino gave a cough of his own, blood and froth spattering on the ground at his hooves. His feral, pink and red eyes glowing hot with rage in the darkness of the downpour as he turned his head in his reply to Mac.

“But I don’t forgive them,” he snarled back. “Or you. Or your sisters. All this is mine: The orchards, the valley, the forest … mine and mine alone! Granted to my family by the Princess herself, and you are trespassing little brother. There can be only one Lord of the Valley and Everfree, and that stallion is ME!”

“What in Tartarus are you talking about?” Mac shook his head in uncertainty. “Our family doesn’t have any Titles.”

“We do!” the Albino roared as he charged. “And they’re MINE!”

Mac chose to stand his ground as the wild avalanche of white pony rage slammed into him. Mac took in the full body blow of the collision and wrapped his forelegs around his brother, holding tight as the pair tumbled down the sparse grassy hillside that lead down from the farmyard into the zap apple grove below.

At the bottom of the grade Mac pushed off of his brother and rolled clear of the pair, driving himself back onto his hooves. The Albino followed suit with a whinny of rage.

“This has to end brother! Now!” Mac yelled as he steadied himself. He could feel the last tatters of his self control fraying, the adrenaline pounding thick in his veins and his gut knotting ever tighter and tighter. His limit was near, and he didn’t want to consider what may come after ...

“It will end, little brother. By the old laws of stallions, it will end: One shall stand, one shall fall.” The Albino ground a hoof into the ground for emphasis as he readied himself again. “And I’ll see you buried with honor.”

The Albino lunged in, the pair rearing onto their hind legs trading blows and blocks as they lashed out at each other, pushing and striking, seeking the advantage. McIntosh could feel the weight of the stance going against him; his brother had more than a hoof vertically on him and three or four stone of muscle to back it up. The leverage battle lost, Mac felt himself falling and the ground catching him, though not softly. Inside he could feel the last fetters of his self control finally break and fall away as his brother towered over him to deliver the killing blow, lightning raking across the blackened sky behind him.

I’m sorry...

We forgive you.

Sparks flew as the two sets of shod hooves smashed together on blazing white legs. McIntosh could see the look of surprise flicker in his brother’s eyes for a brief moment just beyond the fires of his rage at having his blow stopped before Mac threw him back with a powerful shove. Both stallions got to their feet circling each other, tossing their heads, and eyeing their opponent before coming together in a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder.

As the pair fought, tiny white hot bolts of energy began arcing between the trees of the zap apple grove, dancing around the warring stallions. Beneath their hooves the ground was gradually torn into muddy furrows sown with blood as again and again the pair clashed, then broke, then clashed again, neither yielding.

On and on the battle raged. Regardless of their mounting wounds, the pair fought on: Ruthless; remorseless; relentless; merciless. Until at last a telling blow found its mark. One stallion went crashing to the ground as the other rose towering toward the storm. Lightning split the sky and thunder shook the earth as over and over and over the victor rained blow after blow after blow onto his fallen victim. The wild refrain of a furious howling scream forged in a lifetime of grief and rage filled the night and drowned out the thunder.

And then the quiet fell.

* * * * *

Dawn was just breaking as Twilight galloped towards the main gate to Sweet Apple Acres, accompanied by the rest of her closest circle of friends and a very bleary eyed Apple Bloom. It had taken longer than she had expected to gather all the Element Bearers after Apple Bloom had awoken her in the midst of the raging thunderstorm. The littlest Apple had been frantic, repeatedly tripping over her own words as she had tried to explain the situation.

There was something else as well. Something that had been there since she had been startled awake bolt upright from what she had thought was the crash of the storm outside last night. It was a strange, deep and powerful yet almost intangible steady pulse that seemed to be both within her and all around her from the moment she awoke. Its rhythm was like the beating of some giant heart: lub-dub, lub-dub. She could feel it tingling through the root of every hair of her coat and mane with each thrum of that mysterious force. Even more, the sensation was only increasing as she and her friends approached Sweet Apple Acres.

“Applejack!” Apple Bloom cried out at the sight of her sister and broke into a gleeful beeline run. Twilight too was relieved at seeing her good friend emerge, albeit noticeably dirty and disheveled, from the main barn-house. The feeling was shared by the rest of the gathered friends. Applejack had looked better for sure: Her blonde hair was half loose and unkempt, and (along with her coat) spattered with mud. There was also a narrow rim of dried blood accenting the corner of her mouth and edge of her nostrils, Twilight noted.

The enthusiasm and relief of the reunion faded quickly at realization of the presence of a large, white sheet covered form out in middle of the yard. Twilight’s heart sank at the sight, yet the phantom pulse continued unswayed

“Is it … ?” she began.

AJ confirmed Twilight’s fear with a solemn nod and a name. “Eyrie.”

Twilight could feel much of the joy at finding their friend alive fade from the group, replaced with a sickening weightiness. Fluttershy gave a soft sob as she and Pinkie leaned on each other for support. Rarity daintily covered her mouth in open shock, and Twilight could feel Spike’s arms wrapping tightly around her own left foreleg for support.

“Hey,” Rainbow Dash called from on wing overhead. “I thought there were two guards?”

There was a fleeting murmur of affirmed concurrence from the others.

“Khartoum 's ... in the work barn,” AJ attested with a sigh shaded deep with sorrow. Rainbow Dash was there in the flit of a wing.

“Dash! Don’t!” Applejack cried out as she realized only too late what the impulsive pegasus pony meant to do.

Twilight watched as Rainbow yanked open the door, only a barrel’s width or so, and stuck her head in … only to immediately snap it back out with a shriek of surprise and revulsion. She slammed the barn door as she did so before diving for the nearest hedge.

“What I remember from last night weren’t pretty,” Applejack explained, as a shudder from the memory rippled down her loose hanging mane, her voice chilled. “Ah reckon it’s worse in daylight.”

Twilight’s gut turned and a cold shiver of her own made its way past the sensation of the great ethereal heartbeat that still seemed to be everywhere around her and slithered down the length of her spine.

“You can say that again AJ,” Rainbow gave her sound agreement as she trotted back over to the group, giving her muzzle an absent wipe with a fetlock. “Big Mac did all this? Whoa. Princess Celestia should have sent an entire platoon of guards, not just a pair.”

“It wasn’t McIntosh, Dash,” Applejack’s blunt rebuke took on a more defensive and serious tone. “It was Lightning.”

At the mention of Applejack’s lost half sibling’s name, Twilight felt the throb of the unseen heart turn abruptly cold, like the wintry arctic gusts that would occasionally slip past the magic dome of the Crystal Heart up where her brother, Shining Armor, lived in the Crystal Empire with Princess Cadance.

“No way AJ,” Rainbow cut in on Applejack with her typical assuredness. “I know all about lightning. There is no hole in the roof for one, and lightning doesn’t chop pony's heads off with a …”

A horrified gasp and the muffled thump came from Fluttershy’s collapsed frame as she fainted dead away at Rainbow’s statement, putting a quick end to Rainbow’s assertion.

“Not the lightning that comes from the sky Rainbow,” Applejack admonished. Twilight felt another chill work it’s way down her back, her mind beginning to fit the bloody pieces together. She could feel the phantom heartbeat give a sudden cold kick as she drew her conclusion.

“You don’t mean ...” Twilight finally broke in, soft enough for only AJ to hear.

Applejack locked eyes with Twilight for a fleeting moment and gave a sad nod of acknowledgement in reply as Pinkie Pie and Rarity helped Fluttershy back to her hooves. Twilight’s heart slid into her gut as AJ put a hoof around Apple Bloom’s withers and drew the filly close to her side, giving the young filly’s mane a comforting nuzzle before turning to her friends.

“Before I say another word on any of this, I want y’all to promise me that you won’t tell any other pony that doesn’t have an absolute, undeniable need to know anything about what’s happened here, understood?”

The group nodded. and collectively with words and motions the group made their Pinkie pact without further comment before Applejack turned to Apple Bloom and steadied herself with a deep breath. Twilight was practically certain she could feel the nervousness of her friend reverberating from the trees surrounding the yard along with the mysterious heartbeat. She pushed the thought and sensation to the back of her mind as AJ began to speak.

“Apple Bloom, I know Big Mac was hoping to wait until your were older to tell you any of this,” Applejack began, “but after what happened here tonight, there’s no reason to keep you from hearing the whole truth now. It’s part of why he got so mad at you the other week when you pestered him about how he got his cutie mark.”

Apple Bloom gave her sister a nod of recognition.

“I know about the white stallion Applejack,” Apple Bloom interjected. “I heard big brother say it last night. That the white stallion was the one that killed Ma ‘n’ Pa.”

The sadness on Applejack’s face was as much apparent to Twilight as the shock and gasps of the others were at their friend’s revelation before Applejack continued her explanation.

“I know, Apple Bloom. He told me that too, the night after he got mad at you. But there is more to it than that, and it gets a little complicated. You see, that white stallion is Lightning Ridge, and he’s ...”

“Gone.”

The group turned as a whole to see Big McIntosh standing in the broken gap of the fence across the yard. The grim weight behind his baritone voice had seemed to sweep all other sensations from the air of the yard for Twilight. Even the steadiness of the phantom heartbeat seized up hard at the sound of the red Apple stallion’s words.

“Big brother!” Apple Bloom cried out in joy, quickly dashing from the midst of the group towards her massive sibling.

Twilight and her friends gave a collective gasp as they watched as McIntosh lifted a hoof to move forward and greet his baby sister, only to collapse to the ground where he stood. At the same time she felt the unseen heart gave a sickening twist and nearly fade from existence.

“Big Mac!” Applejack yelled as the group raced over to her fallen brother.

As they reached him Twilight began to notice the plethora of injuries covering him. His muzzle was bloodied, with both upper and lower lips split, staining the froth around his lips pink and white. One ear was slashed vertically nearly in half and dripping blood down the left side of his face. Among dozens of knicks and scratches that covered his hide, a pronounced kink in the curve of his barrel surely meant broken ribs, Twilight noted. Still, the most prominent injury had to be the long ragged gash that ran nearly the length of his right shoulder from forearm to withers.

“Rarity!” Fluttershy’s was hardly the voice Twilight expected to hear next, but it was. It was clear, strong, and dominant as she spoke. Her wings were raised in authority as she continued to bark out instructions. “I need some number two white suture silk, and a one-and-a-half 3/8th needle, stat! AJ, get me some boiling water, some clean rags, and a jug of Granny’s corn squeezings.”

“No …” McIntosh groaned, raising a bloody and dirt caked hoof, bringing the flurry of activity to a halt.

“Can it!” Fluttershy snapped at him before turning back to the others. “Rarity! AJ! Go! Go!”

“AJ … “ Mac moaned, continuing to hold out his hoof for his sister, who gently shouldered past Fluttershy and leaned in.

“What is it Mac?”

“Tell Granny … I’m sorry … I … I couldn't save …”

“I know that you tried,” Applejack comforted him, lowering his hoof.

Twilight could feel the mystery heart growing weaker as Mac took a shuddering breath. She was sure now that the phantom heart was McIntosh’s somehow, or at least connected to him in some way. A flash of white out of the corner of her eye made her look up.

“What is it, Twilight?” Spike asked.

“Stay here and help the others,” Twilight absently replied.

“Hurry! Rainbow, I need you to get me some pure clouds to clean this wound,” Fluttershy instructed Dash with commanding urgency as Twilight scanned her eyes across the trees of the adjacent orchard. The sound of her friends faded as she caught sight of the white flash further down at the bottom of the slope that lead to the zap apple grove.

Relaxing herself, Twilight focused her thoughts on the location she’d chosen as her horn began to glow. The world beyond the mystic bubble bent and distorted itself, shifting and moving as the teleportation spell did it’s work. A moment later the bubble around her burst in a flash of lavender sparks and Twilight reoriented herself to her new surroundings.

There!

Twilight caught sight of the white flash near the trunk of a zap apple tree and moved towards it to get a better view ... and immediately regretted it. She reared back in shock at the sight and backed quickly moved away from her discovery with her eyes clenched shut, her mind reeling from what she’d just seen. Her stunned brain wracked itself, searching for the words, any words to make sense of what she had seen. The first word that finally came to mind, however, summarized things well ...

Shattered.

That’s what lay on just the other side of the tree trunk: the shattered remains of the other stallion. His head had been smashed like a pumpkin on Nightmare Night, barely recognizable save for the tattered white mane and the open jaw filled with broken and bloody fangs. His neck was broken in at least two places that Twilight could see, where repeated hoof strikes had torn the flesh through down to the bone; there were probably more. The stallion’s barrel had been completely caved in, broken pieces of shoulder blade, forearm, and ribs jutting up through breaks in the hide. There were glimpses, Twilight could tell, of parts of a pony that were never meant to see daylight.

Twilight quickly conjured a sheet and covered the remains as she staggered away to dry heave against a nearby zap apple tree. The whole of the front half of the other stallion looked more like something crushed and ground under a massive rockslide, not something that could ever be done by another pony. The evidence, though, was as plain as the massive hoofprints stamped across the corpse. It had been.

“Twilight!”

Twilight shook her head to clear it of the images she likely never would be able to as Applejack’s voice reached her ears.

“Twilight! We need you back up here right now!”

Twilight again centered her thoughts and returned herself to a spot near her friends at the edge of the farmyard.

“Twilight!” Applejack grabbed hold of her as she tried to regain her bearings. Teleportation, though seemingly quick, was never the easiest mode of transportation. “We need you to teleport Mac to Ponyville Medical pronto! Fluttershy says he’s bleeding internally an’ she can’t stop it.”

Her friend’s request hit Twilight like a buck in the gut.

“I … I don’t think I can Applejack,” Twilight stammered. At her best, she might manage about seven or eight furlongs in a single blink. It was over twenty to Ponyville Medical! And with an extra body along, that meant four hops at least… more than likely killing Big Mac from the shock from the spell before she got him to help. Perhaps Celestia might have been able do it if she were here, or maybe Luna, but for Twilight that level of power was just not available.

“Please,” Apple Bloom pleaded, her big gold eyes wide and wet with caring tears that could surely melt the heart of even even the coldest Windego.

“I’m sorry, Apple Bloom,” Twilight answered the little filly as kindly as she could, even though it felt like she was carving her own heart out with a dull knife as she did. “I’ve never been able to teleport that far on my own, let alone with …”

“It’s all right,” McIntosh’s calm voice interrupted the moment. “Thank you, Twilight.”

“But big brother,” Apple Bloom turned back to her fallen sibling, “if somepony doesn’t do something, you’re gonna …”

McIntosh silenced Apple Bloom with a soft ‘Shh’ before continuing. “I know, little one. An’ when I do, I’ll see Ma and Pa an’ be able to tell them what a fine young pony you’ve become. Sometimes, Apple Bloom, we don’t have a choice in what happens... all we can do is make the best of things, however they come out.”

With that said Mac lay his head down and closed his eyes.

“Mac?” Applejack called to her brother as Twilight felt the phantom heart give one last half squeeze. “Mac!”

At her side, Spike gave a solemn snif. Rainbow tucked her head under a wing. Pinkie lowered her head, her mane unraveling itself as it fell. Twilight could see Rarity’s mascara beginning to run, a dark streak trailing from one closed eye down her silver white face as a bead of blue-white light formed at the tip of her horn. Fluttershy oddly made no sound... she just raised her wings and lifted her head, muzzle skyward, closing her eyes as she did.

Twilight too, lowered her head and closed her eyes as she lit a memorial light of her own on her horn. Beneath the ground, she could feel something move beneath her hooves like a great wave as the great phantom heart relaxed one final time. In the stillness that followed, another beat took it’s place: Young, strong, and rapid. Its pace quickening with each beat building, growing stronger, echoing from what seemed to Twilight to be every tree from here to the Everfree.

Finally, she had to open her eyes. Something was going on, and she had to know what.

The first thing she saw, though, was Apple Bloom. The little filly had her face buried between her brother’s fetlocks, but there was an image on the the young filly’s flank glowing brightly. A silver-white tree stood out proudly, with five upturned branches surmounted by an arch of six small apples in the colors of the Harmony Gems. Her brother gone, Apple Bloom had gotten her cutie mark!

Twilight was just about to say something when Apple Bloom threw back her head.

“NNOOOOOOO!” the grieving filly howled, her eyes gone bright … glowing ... as a monstrous wave of energy rolled outwards from her.

It was a wave like Twilight could only recall once before ... long ago when she had not been able recognize it or control it. Now though … now …

The world vanished in a burst of lavender sparks.

Author's Note

* The words of the traditional Earth Pony wedding vows.

Epilogue

Epilogue

The first thing he became aware of was the pain. Distant and clouded, like it wasn’t really his. But as he slowly opened his eyes to the muted white of the room, he knew very much it was his. His jaw throbbed dully, though the pain in his left shoulder and arm seemed to sink deep into the bones. Every breath he took sent a small rush of fire down his left side, and his guts felt like he’d had them yanked from his belly, torn to pieces, stitched randomly back together, and crudely stuffed back into place. The pain sucked… but the view was amazing.

Sassaflash’s eyes went wide as he opened his, her wings springing to prominence as the world came back into focus for the first time in … just how long had it been? The last thing that he remembered was a blur; a big painful blur.

“Doctor! Doctor!” Caramel heard Sass calling out as she rushed out into the hall in a flurry of blue feathers and blonde hair, leaving him (for a time) alone with his pain.

A shallow breath burned its way into his barrel as he tried to get some kind of moisture back into his mouth. He was as dry as a month old sea biscuit and his body seemed about as stiff as he tried to shift slightly in the hospital bed.

“Easy there, fella, let’s not go thrashing about like some ruffian there. You’ve had quite the adventure to recover from, it seems,” the caramel unicorn in the doctor’s coat chided wryly as he followed Sass back into the room.

“Mmphf?” Caramel found it hard to form words as he tried to reply.

The doctor, Stable if Caramel read the physician’s name tag correctly, gave a bemused snort at Caramel’s attempted reply. “Eleven separate breaks, my boy. As well as a punctured lung, torn muscles, and a first rate concussion for good measure. You’re very lucky to even be alive. You’re even luckier to have such loyal, quick thinking, and caring marefriend like her. If it wasn’t for her having slipped you a cloud walking potion and actually having a cloud handy, you probably wouldn’t be with us right now.”

Caramel smiled through the pain at Sass as she moved around to the right side of the hospital bed. The doctor’s horn took on a bluish glow as a trio of pens floated up from his pocket.

“How many pens do you see here?”

“Thurr-ee,” Caramel slurred out, only to be abruptly blinded as Dr. Stable flashed a pocket light in his eyes.

“Nnnnnh,” Caramel groaned as the light induced a blinking fit, leaving floating blue-green spots hanging in front of his eyes.

“Pupil reaction normal; concussion seems to be abating nicely,” Stable commented aloud. “So what’s the last thing you remember, my good colt?”

Caramel tried to think back as Sass gently placed her hoof on his right front one, the one that didn’t hurt. There had been dinner, he remembered, and the race to the grove, then Sass flitting off to … something about a cloud … and then … him.

“Bheg Mek. In duh grovbh. I rermumber,” Caramel tried to get the words out right, but had little success. Even with the highly articulate lips ponies had, it was still hard to speak clearly.

“It wasn’t Big Mac, Caramel!” Sassaflash blurted out before quickly turning away, her ears drooping in shame for some reason Caramel couldn't put a hoof on. He curled his pastern into hers and held onto her hoof with all the strength he could muster.

“Just go easy there, I’m sure it’s not easy to talk with your jaw wired up like that.”

“Mm sur it wes Bheg Mek.” Caramel turned back to Dr. Stable. “Duh voice, und …” Caramel paused as fractured shards of memory started fitting themselves back together. He recalled the fight, a very one sided affair if it could even be called a fight. He recalled the voice, turning around into that first brutal punch, staggering back, the grove spinning, and …

“He wuz white, why wuz Mek white?”

“It wasn’t Mac.” Sassaflash sniffled into her shoulder.

“I see,” Dr. Stable said. “It seems that you were a victim of the same mysterious rogue stallion that attacked the Apple farm south of town the night after your own encounter.”

“Uttacked Ahpull furm?” Caramel mumbled, astonished.

“Yes. It seems the unidentified stallion was attracted to the Apple estate by the scent of a young mare in season. Probably not unlike your own encounter, I’d guess.”

“Wus unnypuny hurt?” Caramel could feel his heart hesitate as he asked the question.

“Unfortunately so, I’m afraid. The two young mares made it through, and the rogue was ultimately put down… permanently. But at a considerable loss of life.”

Sass’s sobbing grew louder as the doctor finished, and Caramel could feel her hoof grip tightening on his as his mind slowly drifted back, and his heart sank. He remembered attending the funeral services for Applejack’s parents years back. What had fate cost her now?...

* * * * *

“I’m not going to remember him for what he did at the end, but remember him for the pony I knew him as. He was an energetic, inquisitive colt who loved his family and was loved by them.”

Her piece said, Twilight watched as Granny Smith stepped forward and placed a bouquet of flowers on the fresh turned earth of the grave, joining those laid there by her grandfoals.

It was as good a day for a funeral. If there could be such a thing, Twilight thought to herself as she looked up the length of the grave past the small gray stone marker to where the two wooden stake crosses stood sentry behind it. Each wooden cross was topped with the helm of one of the fallen Royal Guards, their horseshoes and peytrals hung from the crossarms.

The loss of the two valiant stallions had been a shock to the Royal Guard, and the Princesses had taken great efforts to assist the families in the memorials, especially Luna for some reason. Even Shining Armor had returned from the Crystal Empire to attend the services. Khartoum’s remains had been sealed in crystal and placed in his mother’s family’s crypt in the catacombs beneath Canterlot. The memorial for Eyrie’s Honor, by contrast, had seen his body burned on a funeral pyre—as was the Pegasi tradition—so that the fire of his soul would rise into the heavens to join with his ancestors.

Twilight had been too young to remember when her last grandparent had passed. She had also never seen a Pegasus funeral pyre before that point, and now she was present at an Earth Pony burial at Sweet Apple Acres. The weight of the recent events draped itself over her like a heavy winter blanket. Yet there was something else too. Something that if she calmed herself, and payed close attention, she could still hear and feel: It was the great phantom heart that she had first noticed the night of the storm. The night the stallion had died.

A flicker of motion called her attention to the orchard trees beyond the low white rail fence of Sweet Apple Acre’s ‘Family Grove’. Dimly, in the shade between the trees, she could just make out the forms of a light brown stallion flanked by two mares: One a light dusty orange, the other a dark varnished brown standing in the orchard. As Twilight watched the spectres standing there, from behind the forelegs of the darker mare a small white foal peeked cautiously out at Twilight. His soft, pink and red eyes sparkling and warm as he gave a shy wave accompanied by a faint smile.

Twilight smiled at the white colt as she raised her own hoof and returned his wave as he ducked out of sight behind the forelegs of the darker mare.

“Uh, Twilight?” Spike’s voice broke the serenity of the moment causing Twilight to blink as she gave her head a shivering shake.

Twilight turned her head. “What is it Spike?”

“You were just staring out at the trees while everyone else was heading back to the yard for lunch. Is something wrong?”

“No. No Spike, nothing is wrong,” Twilight assured her young dragon aide. She looked over towards the work-barn where the Apple Family and funeral guests had gathered near the funeral lunch being overseen by Mr. and Mrs. Cake. “Actually Spike, could you get us a couple of plates of food and a seat near Princess Celestia? There’s something I need to talk to her about.”

As Spike scampered off to fulfill his requested task, Twilight turned her attention back to the trees of the apple orchard, but the spectral figures were gone. Relaxing herself, Twilight let herself feel the beating of the great phantom heart, hoping it might guide her to what she sought as a tall shadow moved up from behind her.

“You saw them, didn’t you?” came the voice. A heavy morose baritone that caused Twilight to lose her concentration again.

Turning about, she found herself nose to chest with Big McIntosh. He was dressed most atypically to Twilight’s normal expectations of him. A white collar shirt and green apple bolo tie replaced his normal work yoke. A long black duster and complimenting black stetson completed the somber yet oddly menacing makeover of the big stallion. It was still something of a miracle, as far as Twilight was concerned, that Mac was even alive.

At that time it had seemed impossible to have gotten the severely injured stallion to Ponyville General in time. All hope had been lost for saving him, but that was before the massive wave of magic that had unexpectedly come radiating off Apple Bloom that had allowed Twilight to teleport herself, the injured McIntosh, and all those present to the medical center’s emergency facility. Needless to say, the group’s sudden arrival, along with several clumps of dirt, a section of fence rail, and the formerly overhanging limb of an apple tree took the the hospital staff by surprise. Thankfully their prompt professional attentions had been able to save McIntosh’s life.

With McIntosh safely in the care of the hospital staff and his prognosis good, Twilight had found herself on the receiving end of a deceptively powerful hug of thanks from Apple Bloom, the little filly sputtering out her gratitude over sobs of joy. Twilight had been about to inform the youngest Apple that she had something else to be thankful for: her new cutie mark. But to Twilight’s amazement, the little filly’s flank was as blank as it had been earlier that morning; the silver tree and rainbow arch of apples gone. In the end Twilight said nothing of it as her friends had closed in to form a group hug around Twilight and Apple Bloom.

“I … ah …” Twilight fumbled with her response as her mind tried to fit together what, or how, he had known what she had seen.

“My family. You saw them, didn’t you? I saw you wave to somepony in the orchard just after Granny finished speaking.”

“I saw some ponies standing out among the trees,” Twilight confessed. “A stallion and two mares, and …”

“... And him …” McIntosh finished, the gaze of his great emerald eyes weighing on Twilight to confirm it back to him.

“And him,” Twilight gave a nod as she answered.

The big stallion gave a deep sullen sigh as he seated himself before his late half-brother’s grave. Twilight could see the edge of the bandages wrapped around McIntosh’s pastern joint as he reached out with one hoof to barely touch the edge of the newly turned earth, a prominent tear running down his muzzle.

Help him. Please, a soft voice whispered from among the trees caught Twilight’s ear, but she could feel the great heart beating stronger as the words came through. He can’t hear us. He’s shutting us out. Going away. Please... help him.

“All I ever wanted was to be with my family,” Mac began calmly. “To grow with them, care for them, be happy, and make them proud of me. He … he took that from me. And I hated him for it, for all these years... but it was the same thing he had wanted too; to be with his family. Just like me.”

I’m sorry. Twilight could hear the small voice of a foal echo in the grove even as she sat down beside the red Apple stallion.

“Oh Mac,” Twilight offered as she leaned in, resting her head against Mac’s shoulder as she swept her long tail around behind him.

McIntosh shifted away. “I don’t deserve to comforted for what I’ve done.”

Twilight was taken aback for a moment. She could hear the specters in the orchard gasp as the phantom heart kicked hard in her chest.

“No, of course you do. You protected your home. Saved your sisters from a killer. You even saved him.”

“I killed him,” Mac’s voice grew dark and distant. “I became him. Became the monster he was. At the end of the fight, as he lay there, his back broken, he screamed … for his mother... and I killed him. I couldn’t stop myself. I’m not worthy of anypony’s sympathy. I’m not worthy of my family. I’m nothing but a ...”

“Hero.”

Twilight’s ears pricked and swiveled in the direction of the easily recognized voice. She turned along with McIntosh to see the tall regal white form and flowing mane of Princess Celestia step quietly through the gate into the burial grove. The grand alicorn approached where Twilight and McIntosh sat in front of Lightning’s grave, stopping short before turning slightly and dipping her head slightly towards the graves of each of McIntosh’s parents.

“Nope,” Mac answered as Princess Celestia turned from the graves to Twilight and Big Mac. “I’m no hero, your Highness.”

“I’m afraid you are, my little pony. Though you may not like it, you are.”

“I’m not,” Mac deflected with melancholy resignation. “I’m a monster. A kinslayer... I’m anything but a hero.”

“I understand how you feel, my little pony... more than you know.” Princess Celestia made a gesture with her one hoof Twilight recognized and stepped aside, allowing the Princess to step closer and address Mac more directly. Mac just tilted his head quizzically as the Princess continued. “Nearly a thousand and one years ago, I was lauded a hero by all of Equestria for a choice that I wished for a thousand years afterward I hadn’t had to make. Hero can be a hollow, lonely word sometimes for those who wear it. It can seemingly bear upon us with more weight than we think our souls can bear alone. But know you have friends and family around you to help you shoulder that burden. When that burden seems the most heavy, don’t push them away. You are far better with them than without. You are a far stronger pony than you know, McIntosh.”

Twilight watched as Big Mac seemed to drink in the wisdom of Princess Celestia’s words before standing and bowing in thanks to her.

“Regretfully though,” Princess Celestia turned to Twilight as she spoke, “my sister and I must be returning to Canterlot shortly. But I believe, Twilight, you have something you wish to speak to me about first? Come, walk with me back to the royal carriage, my most faithful student.”

Twilight began to follow, only to halt after a few steps and look back to where Big Mac was once more seated in front of his brother’s grave, his eyes closed as if lost in thought.

Thank you, Princess, came the soft words from among the trees. We can take things from here.

Twilight fell into step with her much taller mentor as they made their way to where the royal carriage was waiting.

“Princess Celestia, I …” Twilight began once they were far enough away from Mac. There was something she wanted to ask her mentor; too many things actually. Twilight looked away a moment trying to single out a lone question from the swirling mass in her head when she spotted Apple Bloom and her friends seated with their lunch already plotting their next ‘cutie mark crusade’.

“I… felt something the other day, when I teleported Big Mac to the hospital. Actually, I felt it before that, during the storm, and I can still feel it now.”

“Go on, Twilight,” Princess Celestia encouraged as the pair stopped beside the royal carriage. Princess Luna was already aboard and the team of four Pegasus guard stallions stood ready to depart on command.

“It’s like a giant heart beating around me, somewhere I can’t see.”

Princess Celestia smiled kindly, as was her manner, and laid the tip of one snowy white wing across Twilight’s withers. “I think that may be too big a question for me to answer completely here right now, but I have a book back in Canterlot I can send you that might help you figure it out. It’s one of Starswirl’s journals.”

Twilight was initially disappointed she wouldn’t fully get her answer here, but the chance to read one of Starswirl’s journals that Princess Celestia had kept was more than enough to bring a huge smile to her muzzle. “Oh, thank you, Princess Celestia! Thank you!”

“He was theorizing on Earth Pony magic and how it’s more than just what most ponies call ‘strength’. That it was a deeper connection to some form of living magic, a ‘Great Heart’ I believe he called it.”

Princess Celestia smiled and drew her wingtip across Twilight’s shoulders as she stepped aboard the flat-decked carriage. “I’ll see to it that you have the journal in your hooves by nightfall, Twilight. You’ve come a long way in your studies, and this is just the next step on that path, I believe.”

At that, Princess Luna signaled the team and the carriage lifted off back towards Canterlot.

Twilight stood there and watched the carriage fly off for a bit.

The next step? Twilight mused as she turned back towards her friends gathered in the farmyard.

Out in the orchard, echos of curious knowing laughter whispered from among the trees.

Author's Note

Finished at long last.

Cannot believe how long this took, and it's rather different from how the original version came to me. But I like this version better. :twilightsmile:

Sass likely still has a lot to fill in for Caramel. His brother's assault charges stemming from the incident with Big Mac and Apple Bloom for one.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Sir Barton (One Old Racehorse)