The Autumn breeze came from the Frozen North, bringing with it tales of its home land, with smatters of stories from Galloping Gorge, Unicorn Range, and even the hanging city of Cloudsdale. It nudged the branches, stripping them even more of their leaves, and played an intricate, swirling game of tag with the leaves that had already fallen on the ground, bringing them up in the air.
Topaz Apple looks on, down the long dirt road ahead of them and to the barn at the end, which was nearly blocked from view atop its majestic hill by the branches of the trees near them—now barren and cold with the passing of the Season. For a while she just stands there in the cold, along with her other three companions.
“So I guess this is it?” Lightning Dash sighs, because, Topaz thinks, there’s really nothing better to do than point out the obvious.
She nods absentmindedly.
The colt is hovering again, just on the edge of her peripherals. Next to her, standing there, instead of literally hovering in the air like she knows he wants to. His wings protest this, beating slowly and steadily with his boundless, legendary energy, and adding even more of the cold breeze on her back.
She nods again, more for something to do than anything else. “Thanks for inviting the two of us,” she says to him. She doesn’t turn her head completely towards him. She doesn’t really need to.
“Yeah, no problem. Glad you came,” he replies.
The Tower, near Aunt Fluttershy and Uncle Mac’s house, groans in the darkness.
Ugh. It’s two o’clock guys, it moans in its old age.
“Hellfire,” Lightning swears. “Two already? C’mon, Storm, we’re in deep shit if moms catch us,” he calls out to his youngest sister.
Topaz turns out of instinct, probably to tell her own little sister the same, but quickly turns away again—partially out of disgust and partially out of actual good manners.
Opal and Stormee are locked in a passionate, suggestive embrace, their muzzles pressed together.
She doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Opal and Stormee are almost always sucking face and being generally indecent.
There is a sound like a wet plunger popping loose when one of them pulls away—she doesn’t look to see who.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’,” Stormee grumbles. She gives what sounds like a noisy peck to Opal, and the two whisper for a short while, in low enough tones that Topaz doesn’t hear any of it—not that she wants to, mind. Those two were always whispering sweet nothings to each other, and she’s heard some before and never wants to again.
Eventually Opal comes forward to her. Or, next to her, as she hugs Lightning and thanks him for their outing.
Topaz steps forward to the colt too, once Opal is done.
He's not much of a colt anymore, she thinks. Sure, she towers over him—she towers over most everypony nowadays thanks to her Uncle’s genetics—but Lightning is far from a colt. Going on twenty now, he was. ‘Bout to finish his schooling at that fancy Cloudsdale school of his and what not. Going back tomorrow, in fact, for his final year.
She hugs him familiarly, the same way she hugs kin and her best friends. ‘Course, he might as well have been kin. Known him her entire life. He was only a year older than her, and they were raised together, practically. The Apples and the Dashes had always been close.
She pulls away and goes to hug the younger Dash, just as familiarly. The filly squirms in her strong grip, but says nothing until Topaz pulls away.
“Jeez. Is everypony around me sappy, huggy idiots?” Stormee complains, rolling her eyes. She’s ignored.
The brother and sister duo leave them, then, turning to head back across town. The Apple sisters watch them until the village houses engulf them, hiding the two pegasi from view.
Opal shivers beside her when they turn towards their own home. The breeze had picked up during their farewells, after all. They press closer together as they slowly trek up the hill to their front door.
Some distance away, a howling bark sounds at them as they’re welcomed back, and a small brown dog trots up to them moments later.
“Stupid mutt,” Topaz growls with no real heat. “Don’t y’all go waking up the whole house, now.”
The dog says nothing in reply, only wagging her tail as she trots ahead of them, happy that no one was invading her property but ponies whom she was familiar with.
“So how do ya wanna do this?” Topaz asks Opal once they’re only a short distance away from the house itself. “Wanna climb up the grapevine out back?”
Opal rolls her eyes. “That grapevine is older than our parents. No doubt we’d come away with a few injuries,” she huffs. “And, it leads to Jasper’s room. We’d get caught.”
Topaz snorts. “Shoot, Jas wouldn’t rat us out.”
“No, no. I know he wouldn’t,” Opal assures her haughtily.
“Well, at least not if he’s not asked,” the older Apple sibling adds. “Ma or Mother ask him straight, we’ll have our hinds skinned.” She laughs lightly. Their little brother was a sweetheart in every definition of the word, but a more horrid lair than their Ma.
“Y’all still will have your hinds skinned.”
They both freeze as the porch light comes on.
Their mothers are sitting in the twin rocking chairs in front of the house. Mother is wearing her winter robe—all fluffy and warm red fuzz to protect from the cold. Her mane is held tightly in place by several rollers, also red. Ma’s hat is missing and her mane is loose, but other than that, she doesn’t look much different.
For a short while the only thing to hear is the howling of the wind and the rustling of the branches. Topaz looks away, down to the western field and among the shadows of their barren trees being bothered by the wind.
“You both are in serious trouble,” Mother points out, speaking casually with an air of ‘this is common knowledge’.
“Two in the Celestia darned mornin’,” Ma huffs. “What time is curfew?”
“Eleven, ma’am,” they both mutter, ears pinned back good and truly now. Opal looks to her, just out of the corner of her eye.
What’s our excuse? Opal's eyes ask.
Topaz shrugs. Lighting Dash?
Opal rolls her eyes.
Lightning Dash is a terrible excuse.
Their mothers say not much more, seemingly in the middle of their own silent discussion.
“Get inside, you two,” Ma finally huffs.
“We’ll figure out your punishments in the morning,” Mother sniffs.
“Yes, ma’am,” they chorus pitifully, shuffling up the three stairs and onto the porch. Topaz hesitates briefly, and then wraps Ma and then Mother in a small hug.
A part of her finds it almost humiliating that she’s eighteen and still getting chewed out by her mothers. She was an adult in every sense of the word, darn it. But a part of her also knows that she’s still living in her mothers’ world. In the Apple household, there simply was no such thing as being too old to be grounded.
Opal hugs both Ma and Mother too, sheepishly and lightly as part of an apology, and then joins her older sister in walking into the house.
It’s warm inside, and completely dark apart from the ancient fireplace still alive with a few ambers of the long since died out fire. Pictures frame the walls within an inch of their lives. The seven Dashes, their Aunt and Uncle and cousins, the Royal Family of Sparkle kin with their three sons. And, of course, the most important one of all that sat in the middle of the fireplace mantle, of six mares in days gone past. Back before families of their own.
The two sisters shuffle up the stairs and split, going into their separate rooms.
Down stairs, Applejack walks inside the house and flips the switch for the outside porch light. She follows Rarity down into the hall and to their own bedroom.
“Do you think we were too hard on them?” she asks her mate.
“What do you mean, darling?” Rarity replies in a clipped tone, sliding into bed. Applejack follows with small grace, ruffling the covers just a hint. Twenty years of marriage had taught her that there were simply some things that Rarity would not let up on. Her sleeping habit was one of them.
“Well, we was all teenagers once," Applejack reasons. "I can’t tell you the amount of times Granny caught me sneaking in or out of the house all hours of the night.”
In the dark, Rarity’s smile almost twinkles. “So that’s who they get it from.”
The farm pony rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you never snuck out.”
“Oh, of course I did, dear. I just never got caught.”
Author's Note
P.S. For anyone wondering, Opal is an apple cultivar. No, Rarity did not name her daughter after her cat. -_-
