"Look, I don't care if you have to dye a barrel of apples all the colors of the rainbow. Four more shipments of Zap apples need to get to Seaddle by Friday. Period!"
"Y– Yes ma'am, Ms.—"
A visibly angry mare took the phone away from her ear to hold it directly in front of her muzzle. "Cut the groveling and just GET IT DONE!"
Slamming the phone down with a snort of pure frustration, the mare swung her leather chair around and jumped to her hooves. Giving the chair a slight kick to move it out of her way, she stepped out from behind a metal and glass desk that could have doubled as a workstation and a piece of modern art. Making her way across the spacious corner office, she walked to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated one side of the room.
Sweeping her eyes from right to left, she took in a by now familiar sight – Manehattan at sunset. As her eyes traveled across the cityscape, her mind reeled off the spires that topped some of the historical city's grandest skyscrapers – The Equestrian State Building, One Rockefoaler Center, the FlatShoe Building, and many more that she knew by sight but could never name without a map to help her. As the sun continued to descend upon the sprawling city, the orange mare stepped closer to the window, focusing on the green eyes that stared back at her in the window's reflection.
Ugh, my head hurts, she thought. I don't know what's worse – the endless phone calls, or the imbeciles on the other end of the line. Rubbing a hoof on her temples, she let out a tired groan, silently cursing the stack of to-dos that were still sitting on the corner of her desk. The moment of calm was soon banished by a light knock at the door. Quickly smoothing a stray lock of her blonde mane, she turned to face the door just as it opened, a smartly dressed young earth pony gently moving just past the polished doors into the office.
"Ms. Applejack, I'm sorry to disturb you. If you're busy, I can co—"
"No, it's alright, Evernote," she said, cutting the mare off a bit. "What is it?"
"Two things, actually. First, you asked me to alert you when the time reached 6:45, so you would not miss your reservation."
Stunned at the apparent late hour, Applejack's eyes widened in a brief moment of schedule-induced panic. "6:45 already?! Oh, ponyfeathers, I'll never make it to the restaurant in time!"
"Actually, I anticipated that you might be running late, so I arranged for your driver to arrive earlier than normal."
Giving her head a slight shake, Applejack let a smile tug at the corner of her mouth, possibly for the first time in weeks. "Evernote, you've been my assistant for nearly five years, and you already know my habits better than I do." She raised a hoof to point at the young mare. "Some days, I forget that you're the Assistant to the CEO, and not a member of the family."
Evernote stole a quick glance at her blouse, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle to hide her slightly bemused expression. "Speaking of family, that's the second item that I had for you, Ms.—"
"How many times do I have to tell you, 'Applejack' will suffice in this setting."
"My apologies, Ms. Applejack," she replied, maintaining her well-practiced poker face.
"Fine, suit yourself," replied Applejack, waving a hoof in her assistant's general direction. "Now, you said you had something about my family? What do they want now?"
"Two items, actually, ma'am. Phone messages from your brother and your sister."
Applejack let out a brief snort. "Ponyfeathers, those two again? They must not be doing a lot of work on that farm, for the amount of time they spend calling or writing me letters. Ok, let's hear them."
Flipping her notes to the next page, she quickly scanned the paper before continuing. "Your brother, Big Mac, wanted to know if you would be visiting them on the farm this fall. He said that this year was the 50th anniversary of the Running of the Leaves, and he hoped to get every Apple to run in this year's race."
Applejack could not help letting a derisive chuckle escape her lips, as her penchant for sarcasm came to the fore. "Oh, yes, what a splendid idea! Let me just find my best pair of running shoes, so I can run circles around trees all day like a fool! I swear to Celestia, my brother's head is full of the same apples he continues to kick out of trees every day."
A short silence fell over the room, as Evernote waited for any additional comments from the still chuckling pony. Seeing none, she quickly continued with the second note. "And your sister, Apple Bloom, wanted to know if you would be attending her Cute-Ceañera next week. She had not yet received a reply to the invitation that she says was sent a month ago."
"Cute-Ceañera?! She wants me to go allll the way to Ponyville – the bucking middle of nowhere – just to watch a bunch of fillies get sugar highs and play mindless games all day?" exclaimed Applejack, lightly stomping a hoof on the tiled floor to emphasize her point. "And what invitation is she talking about? I saw no such thing cross my desk!" clearly aiming her last words at her long-time assistant.
Evernote replied as if she expected that very question to come her way the entire time. "If you recall, ma'am, you asked me to have any personal mail redirected to your residence a few months ago. The mail clerks would have intercepted it before it left the mail room."
As she spoke, Applejack walked back to the bank of windows, which were now bathed in the darkening glow of the receding sunset. Looking at her reflection in the glass, she ran a hoof over her business suit, smoothing out a few stray wrinkles that had appeared over the course of the day. Applejack took a final look at the skyline, lights now coming on all over the city as the setting sun made way for the moon.
While she took in the view again, the back of her mind did its best to dig up now distant memories of her own Cute-Ceañera. At the time, the event seemed like the biggest day in her young life, but it was nearly impossible to capture any of that lost feeling now. Now, all that Cute-Ceañeras did was fill her with bitter regret.
Steeling her mind to ward off the memories, Applejack turned back to her assistant, who still stood silently near the door. "Yes, you're right, Evernote. Think nothing of it, you were only doing as I asked."
Her assistant's eyes widened a bit as she glanced at the clock in the corner of the room. "Ms. Applejack, you really should get going. It's nearly seven."
Silently cursing her inability to slow time itself, Applejack quickly moved back to her desk, grabbed her jacket and her bag, and moved towards the door.
"Thank you, Evernote. You can head home whenever you're ready. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Likewise, Ms. Applejack," she replied, her voice still as chipper as it was when she arrived at seven in the morning. "Have a good evening!"
Stepping into the elevator, Applejack waited for the mirrored doors to close before letting out another long sigh, allowing herself a moment to lean back into the wall of the elevator. Knowing that the elevator would take about a minute to descend from her 50th floor office to the ground level, she took a moment to evaluate her reflection. Mercifully, her calendar was light on appointments today, so she decided to dress things down just a bit, opting for a simple taupe skirt and a white blouse. Her latest acquisition from Tiara's jewelry, a gleaming emerald pendent and earring set, complemented the earth tones of the designer ensemble, and better still, paired perfectly with her favorite pair of green Mafoalo Blaniks.
Still regarding her reflection in the mirrored walls, she ran a hoof through her always well-coiffed mane. Convincing Lotus and Aloe to move their spa here was perhaps my best idea ever, she thought. Applejack still remembered her single trip to their Ponyville-based spa, in the wake of a rather disastrous Hearth's Warming Eve on her family's farm. An argument over Big Mac's refusal to buy modern equipment to handle the applebucking ended with Applejack storming out into the cold, suitcase in tow. As she tore out of the house though, her jacket caught a rough edge on the front door, ripping a long snag into the designer fabric.
Thankfully, she remembered passing a clothing boutique on her way out to the farm, so she paid the shop a visit on her way back to the train station. The boutique's owner, a well-groomed unicorn mare, was none too pleased to see a walk-in customer the day before a holiday, but a quick flash of her business card, along with a fifty percent tip, changed the designer's mind instantly. To pass the time while her jacket was repaired, the seamstress suggested that Applejack head down the street to the Serenity Spa and indulge in, to quote the overly dramatic unicorn, "A simply marvelous time, darling!" Fortunately, the unicorn's recommendations were as good as her hoofwork, and in less than an hour, Applejack had a perfectly repaired jacket and one of the best hooficures that she had ever had.
Convincing the spa's owners to move was surprisingly easy. Of course, the promise of full funding to get the operation restarted in a new location, and access to her many business partners as seed clients may have played a part in the two mares' hasty departure from Ponyville, but that was not her concern. It's not my fault that barely anypony in that whole backwards town can appreciate a spa when they see it.
The soft ding of the elevator snapped Applejack out of her thoughts. Slipping her jacket back on and slinging her bag over her neck, she quickly left the elevator and made her way out the front door, green heels clacking against the highly polished marble on the entryway floor. Exiting the building, she saw her driver outside of her private carriage and quickly hopped in, shutting the door to drown out as much of the street noise as possible.
After a moment, the driver slid into his position at the front of the carriage and turned his head a bit to direct his voice towards the rear seat. "Good evening, Ms. Applejack. Shall I head directly to your dinner reservation?"
"Yes, please do," she replied.
Without another word, the driver turned his attention to the task, and quickly whisked the gleaming carriage into the busy flow of Manehattan traffic. A few minutes later, the carriage came to a stop outside of Le Bermaredin, one of the 'old-guard' restaurants of the nearly timeless metropolis. Applejack quickly checked her makeup in her pocket mirror as the door stallion stepped over to open the carriage door. "Good evening, Ms. Applejack, it is good to see you again. Welcome back."
Stepping out of the carriage, Applejack slipped an extra couple of bits to the stallion in a move that had been perfected over the years into a near sleight-of-hoof motion. "Good to see you too, Crimson." She quickly entered the restaurant, and was immediately whisked away by the maître d to her private table in the most secluded corner of the restaurant.
Taking her seat, she ordered her usual dinner spread; a mixed green salad with seasonal fruits to start, followed by a cup of Five Mushroom soup; a main course of the eggplant and cheese soufflé that made the restaurant famous so many decades ago, and finally, for dessert, a tart apple crème brulee. After taking her order, the waiter quickly returned with a glass of Applejack's favorite wine – a golden Viogneigh from the upper Northwest region of Equestria. On occasion, Applejack would strike up a mild conversation with the waitstaff, or sometimes with the head chef, if a lull in the action allowed him to extricate himself from the kitchen for a time.
Tonight, however, she just wanted to be left alone with her meal, and her increasingly brooding thoughts.
Applejack's mind continued to stew as she ate, flipping back and forth between tomorrow's schedule, her annoyance at her family, and her general frustration at the fact that she was stewing over any of this in the first place. Had she not been as hungry as she was, she likely would have forgotten to eat anything that she had ordered. In fact, when she finally stopped spinning a polished silver spoon in her hoof, she realized that she had already finished the dessert that she had ordered. She quickly downed the rest of her wine, letting out a short snort as she put the glass down with a bit more force than was necessary.
Beckoning the waiter, she quickly paid her bill and took her leave of the restaurant. Climbing back into her waiting carriage, she directed the driver to take her home. The good food and drink had done little to clear her mind, but the time spent in the restaurant did have the benefit of allowing the worst of the evening's rush to dissipate out of the city center, thus making the trip to her building that much quicker. All the better too, she thought. The faster I get home, the faster this day can be done with.
About fifteen minutes later, the driver brought the carriage to a stop outside of a tall, formal looking high-rise building. Designed to reflect turn-of-the-century architectural trends, the gleaming alabaster stones that comprised the front facade sported only minimal touches of the flair and grandeur that dominated so many of the older buildings throughout Manehattan. Alighting from the carriage, Applejack gave cursory nods to the two stallions that were assigned to the front door and elevator, respectively. Another quick elevator ride took her to the 30th floor, which consisted solely of her expansive studio apartment.
As soon as the double doors closed behind her, she let out a long breath of relief. Entering the apartment, she casually dropped her jacket and bag on the desk near the door, causing a pile of papers to fall off of the edge of the desk and scatter in all directions as they hit the highly polished wood floor.
Cursing both her sore back and Celestia, she bent down and shuffled the loose papers into something resembling a stack. Picking them up as best she could, she quickly moved into the kitchen and dropped the papers out of her mouth onto the black stone counters that ringed the kitchen area.
"Now, what in the hay is all of this st—"
Applejack's voice hitched a bit in her throat as she took a look at the papers on the top of the stack. She quickly realized that the pile she had knocked over was all of the personal mail that had been redirected away from her office. "Well, no sense in ignoring it forever. Might as well see what all of this junk is."
Putting the mail down, she walked across the room to a small serving cart that stood just past the end of the island that dominated the center of the kitchen. With practiced smoothness, she pulled the stopper out of a lead crystal decanter, inhaling the sweet aroma of the aged brandy that called the exquisitely designed vessel home. She gently picked up a matching glass with her other hoof, and slowly poured the brandy, filling the glass about half way. After returning the decanter to its proper spot, she grabbed the glass and walked towards the living room, taking a small sip as she made her way across to her favorite chair. The brandy left a satisfying warmth in her throat as she swallowed, her taste buds savoring every drop of the barrel-aged libation.
Applejack put the glass down on a small table situated next to her chair, which was nestled in front of a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace. Adjusting the stack of preset logs, she started a new fire, hoping to quickly chase away the slight chill that had settled over the room as the sun had gone down. Returning to the kitchen, she again grabbed the pile of long forgotten mail and made her way back to the living room, setting the mail down on the edge of the table. Slowly sinking into the high back of the black leather chair, she took another sip of brandy and began flipping through the stack of mail.
"Let's see... Apple Fritter, Caramel, Big Mac, Braeburn... Wait, Big Mac again? Ugh! What is it with him and his letters?!"
With another snort, she paused and took another sip from her brandy, the warming sensation of the drink mixing quite well with the growing warmth of the fire on her coat.
"Ok, what's left then. More Big Mac, no surprise there... Golden Delicious, eh? She probably just wants more money, the deadbeat. She's probably never earned an honest bit in her life." Applejack paused briefly as she hit the last item in the stack - a bright pink envelope with red bow-shaped stickers all over it, the address clearly written by a pony that was still paying exacting attention to their quill work.
"Apple Bloom."
Setting the other envelopes aside, she gently grabbed a corner of the envelope in her teeth, and slowly pulled it open along the top edge. A brief shake let the single card contained inside fall out, landing in her lap. Discarding the envelope, Applejack turned the card over and read.
YOU'RE INVITED TO
APPLE BLOOM'S CUTE-CEAÑERA
SUNDAY, AUGUST 18TH
THE PARTY STARTS AT HIGH NOON AT SWEET APPLE ACRES
At the bottom of the card was a fairly detailed drawing of a hammer and a saw crossed over a piece of wood.
Applejack dropped the card back in her lap, lightly slapping a hoof against her forehead. "Pfft, that figures. She displays a talent for design and construction, yet she's hanging out in the middle of nowhere with the rest of the bumpkins."
Grabbing her glass one more time, she downed the rest of the brandy in one gulp. Applejack stopped for a second, twisting the glass in her hoof, staring at it as the flames of the fireplace danced in random patterns through the crystal prism. "She could make quite a name for herself as an architect... Especially in a city like this. But noooo, I'm sure she'll stay on that Luna-forsaken farm, mare-rigging worn out farm equipment and building new chicken coops."
Talking to her own reflection in the glass, she continued, her voice growing more bitter by the second. "A wasted talent... Just like Mac, and Braeburn, and all the rest. They don't know how much better they could have it if they gave up on that farm and moved to the cities, or at least modernized the place, but they're so stuck in their ways, it's maddening. They didn't understand why I even came here to see Aunt and Uncle Orange in the first place, and they certainly didn't understand why I decided to stay. I'm not even sure why they bother to invite me to anything. It's not like they ever bothered to really get to know me."
Standing from her chair, Applejack grabbed the invitation, along with the rest of the mail, in her hooves. She glanced back down at the stack, representing months of unanswered correspondence from her very distant family. With a flick of her hoof, the stack of mail flew into the air -- and landed on top of the now fully burning fireplace. The fire quickly consumed its new fuel source, glowing brighter for a few seconds as Apple Bloom's invitation, along with the many letters and notes, went up in smoke.
Narrowing her eyes as she looked into the fire, Applejack's voice took on a flat, nearly icy tone. "Then again, I don't know them anymore, either."
Author's Note
Update 12/15/13 -- Huge thanks to Cerulean Voice for giving this a spot in Fiction Illumination #14, via the Las Pegasus Tribune!
Update 10/20/13 -- Fixed a few typos, and added some awesome cover art, thanks to DaisyAzuras from DA! Also, a big welcome to anyone visiting here from the Pony Confessions Tumblr Blog!
This was originally written for the July 'homework assignment' from the New Writers' Group. The purpose of the exercise was to re-characterize one of the Mane Six in a way that was as far removed from their on-air personality as possible. The idea of AJ never leaving the big city came to mind immediately, so I ran with it. Over the long term, I hope to expand this concept, and re-characterize the rest of the Mane Six in this fashion.
As always, I thank you for the read, and I welcome any and all feedback! :)
