The sun ain’t up yet, but I already hear hoofsteps on the stairs.
I’d normally be asleep now, but somehow my brain always knows when I have to get up early, then wakes me even earlier. On a regular day, I’d hop out of bed, throw on my cape, and run out to meet Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. We’ve got a plan that’ll get us our cutie marks for sure this time, no foolin’. But when those clomping sounds keep coming down the hallway and pause in front of my door, my heart sinks.
There’s a quiet knock. “Apple Bloom?”
I sigh and pull the blanket up over my nose.
“Apple Bloom,” Sis repeats, a little louder. “Wake up. It’s time to go.”
It doesn’t matter if we’re late—I can’t stay in here forever and wait for her to go on without me. Whenever I get up, that’s when we’ll leave. “Can I have breakfast first?” I mumble through the covers.
“I s’pose. Pack some in a basket and take it along, if you like.”
I groan, but I don’t think she heard. No getting out of this. Not that I’d want to—it means so much to Applejack, and I’d do anything for her.
So I roll off the bed, yawn, scratch an itchy spot on my ribs, and head to the washroom to straighten my bow and brush my teeth, Applejack’s steady eye on me the whole time. She’s one of those ponies who get fixed on something and can’t imagine there’s any other way to see it. In other words, she’s an Apple.
Down the stairs I trudge, then off to the kitchen. I don’t want to wake Winona, all curled up on her rug behind the table, so I feel my way along the wall and flick the switch for the lamp over by the front door. The weak glow that manages to make it around the corner guides me back to the pantry.
Quietly, I rustle around in there for some bread and peanut butter, then grab the apple jelly from the fridge. “You want one, Sis?” I whisper. She’s staring out past the hills of bare orchards, and the heavy shadows outside pull her frown down a little harder. So I wait for her to come back from wherever she’s gone. Finally, she nods, not so’s I’d notice if I wasn’t looking for it.
Two sandwiches, then. I spread the jelly on thick, how I know she likes it, and wrap them up in a couple of napkins. In the basket they go, along with a bit of fresh hay and a bottle of apple juice. I wish I had time to make some hot cider on a cold morning like this, but no way Sis’ll wait for me to heat it.
When I’m done, I balance the picnic basket on my back and poke Sis in the side. It only takes two more pokes to get her attention, then she jumps a bit and smiles at me. While she turns out the light, I pull one of the folded blankets off the couch and toss it on top of the basket. That should do it.
Out the door, onto the road, and at last a few rays of sun peek over the horizon and gleam off Applejack’s mane, but over this way, we’ve got mostly clouds. Still, it is a nice enough day. Let’s just get it over with.
Silence. Except for the wind and leaves and what have you, of course. Not far away from the farm, I see a piece of white gravel, next to the dried-out grass, with some pretty shiny, silvery bits in it, and it’s better than the nothing that’s happening now. I swing a hoof out and knock it into the roadway, then keep it going. Kick, tumble, tumble. Kick, tumble, tumble, tumble. I accidentally hit Applejack’s hoof with it once, but I don’t think she notices. She just hums a soft tune to herself, one I guess I remember her singing years ago when she’d try to get me to go to sleep at night.
We walk a good three miles before Sis says anything. I already know what it’ll be. I already know how every minute of this morning will go.
The words form in my head, but with her voice: I don’t s’pose I’ve ever told you this before, but…
“Apple Bloom, I don’t s’pose I’ve ever told you this before, but… the reason we went a few years without a family reunion is ’cause folks didn’t have the heart so soon after Mom and Dad passed, and it was like they plumb forgot.” She keeps trotting straight ahead, watching straight ahead, still wearing that mask that looks like Applejack but doesn’t move.
Y’know, we should spend the time…
“Y’know, we should spend the time until we get there tellin’ stories ’bout Mom and Dad.” I’ve heard every one of those stories before. She tells the same ones every year. They’re just as much a part of the script as the rest of it. “Lemme start with the first Hearth’s Warming I remember—I must’ve been three, four at most…”
I trot on, listening to the birds and wind and creek and trees instead. At least their songs change. Sis doesn’t get it. I tried explaining it to her once, but I got nowhere. She already has her mental catalog of how things ought to be, and no use arguing.
Thing is, that’s her memory. She might as well tell me a story about June Bug or Mayor Mare or Carrot Top. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Sure, I feel bad for Sis, but I wasn’t there when she was three or four or whatever during Hearth’s Warming. It’s just a story.
“…And Mom forgot all about the oranges in my stocking! A week later, we came down to breakfast, only to have a big ol’ wall o’ stink greetin’ us. Not the best way to start a day, lemme tell you.” She laughs, and I smile a bit with her, more at the face she makes than what she said. At least the mask cracks, and I get my sister back for a minute.
She’s dragged me along on this trip five or six years now, always on December twenty-second. Rain or shine or snow or—yuck!—the one year she had a nasty case of the flu and had to stop a couple times by the roadside to… well…
My stone goes skittering off the road, down the short slope, and slides across the ice on the stream’s edge before plopping into the water. I stare after it for a minute, but now Sis has gotten well ahead of me, and I see another blue-gray pebble I like anyway, so I roll it out of the moss and continue on with that one.
“Then there was the time,” she starts again, before I’ve even caught back up, “that I got in trouble for cheatin’ on a test at school, even though it was the other pony copyin’ off me. Now, Dad knew he couldn’t give ol’ Miss Slate what for, since I had to sit in her class the rest o’ the year, so…”
And the next one’ll be about the time Braeburn came for a visit over Nightmare Night and Dad scared the stuffing out of him, and the one after about her first applebuckin’ season. Then it’ll all wrap up with how she got her hat. I get to hear that one on Mother’s Day, too.
We finally take the turn into the forest, along the path that follows the creek, but I lose the pebble I’ve been kicking along, somewhere in the ditch. Sis’d tell me not to dawdle if I went down there to get it, but I don’t feel like playing now, anyway. Just another mile or so.
“Anyways, Apple Bloom, it sure came as a shock to everypony at the reunion when it happened. No fun that year—all somber and… I dunno, stunned silence.” She shrugs and twitches her nose the way she always does when she’s trying not to cry but doesn’t want to rub it and look too deliberate about it.
“The day everypony showed up, too. We just couldn’t do it. Not for a few years after, either.” She does brush some mane out of her eyes. At least that’s what she’ll say, if I ask her. “So, you got a story?”
I frown and shake my head. The first year she asked me that, I did have a story, but I didn’t want to talk, so I said no. Every year since, I get a bit less scared. Every year, I lose a little of what I was going to say. Every year, I say no. And every year, Applejack’s shoulders sink a little lower at my answer. But it’s gone now. I don’t have a story anymore, and I hate how quiet it makes her.
Off in the distance, I can see where we’ll stop. The bend in the road, where an oak root sticks through the wagon ruts, and there’s a small pile of rocks on the edge of the forest. It’s fallen over.
As soon as she sees it, Sis rushes over and stacks up a couple of the bigger ones, but then she keeps digging at the dead leaves around them and shooting her eyes all over the woods. I-I’ve never seen her like this. She always has a plan. Always. It might not be a good one, but at least she has it. She looks lost...
Sis’s chest is heaving, and she keeps looking around frantically. “Wh-where is it?”
“Where’s what?” What do I do? She—she’s scaring me!
“The red stone. Th-there’s s’posed to be a red stone!” She jumps over the path and hangs her nose out over the stream, her hoof ready to snatch something from the cold water. “Darned kids. Must’ve thrown it in,” she mutters. “Can’t they see it was there for a reason? They—they don’t think before… I gotta find it!”
I can’t remember the last time I saw Sis cry. Well, I guess that ain’t true. But I can’t remember the last time she didn’t do anything to hide it. I-I can’t move, and she’s breathing so hard she’s wheezing, and I don’t know how to help!
“Do something!” she barks at me, and a jolt shoots through my body. “Look for it!”
“For what?” I yell back, harsher than I meant to. I don’t understand…
“The stone! The red stone!” She points a trembling hoof at the toppled stack. “An old piece o’ jasper. It goes right in the middle!”
Her wide, wild eyes look right through me. “Apple Bloom, help me find it!”
I don’t even know what those rocks are. They’ve just always… sat there. Somehow, I pull my hooves off the ground and gingerly creep down the stream bank, but she jumps full in, splashing about and shivering so hard I think her hat’ll come flying off. The water goes nearly up to her belly, and the current sweeps her tail around—she tosses it out of her way, and when all that ice-cold, soaked hair splats up on her back, her knees almost buckle.
She’s… possessed. I don’t know what to do—I want to dash off and find somepony to help, who can knock some sense into her, but I can’t leave her here. Not like this! Run, or stay, or-or…
She’ll freeze in that water! I have to—I leap back up into the road, where I dropped my basket, and start into the trees on the other side—the only way to get her out of that blasted water’ll be to find that dumb rock myself.
I rifle through all the leaves and brush, the dry crackle blending in with the splashing behind me. It can’t have rolled far, and certainly nopony threw it—a spot of color behind a sapling catches my eye. It’s… well, brownish-red, I guess. “This it, Applejack?” I ask, pointing a hoof toward it.
Her head whips around, and it takes a second for her eyes to come into focus, but then she staggers up out of the water and drops to her haunches. She holds a hoof to her chest, like she’s just had the biggest spook of her life, and nods hard, flinging drops from her soaked mane at me, and then she starts shaking.
She’s freezing, but I’m the one who can’t move. I… I have to help her! Why can’t I move my stupid hooves?
Her breaths come rapid and shallow now, and she practically crawls toward me, road dust clinging to her. Before she can get it in her head to do all this herself, I force my legs into a stumble and bring the jasper over to her where she lies next to the other rocks.
With those jittering hooves, she somehow manages to pile them all up again. The largest at the bottom first, then she cradles that red one in her forelegs and shuts her eyes for a minute. Finally, she gives it a little kiss, puts it on the pile, and adds the last few small stones on top. But by then, her lips have gone blue, and the creek water in her coat is turning to frost.
“Sis!” She blinks a few times and slowly turns her head to me, but I can’t tell if she really sees—her eyes have gone dull. “I’ll get help!”
She shakes her head—at least I think so, but it’s hard to tell with all the shivering—and juts her snout toward the picnic basket. At least she understands what I said… Of course! The blanket! But she’s too wet. If I put it on her now, it’ll just get soaked. It wouldn’t do any good—I need some way of drying her off first. I-I guess I could use…
A chill runs down my back, leaving me feeling as frozen as Applejack must, and I wish desperately I had another answer, but there’s no time… My heart sinks. But not for me.
I reach for my bow.
“N-no,” she chatters, shaking her head, hard enough that there’s no mistaking it this time. “W-was M-Mom’s.”
I pull a loose end and undo the knot. “I know,” I say softly, my hoof trembling, but I’m not really cold. I’m not cold, so I don’t have an excuse.
“P-please no.” She hangs her head like her memory must weigh a ton. “Sh-she gave you th-that—” she pats a shaky hoof against the back of her head “—d-day you were b-born. Took it f-from her own m-mane.”
“And Mom’d say you’re more important.” That’s not just creek water dripping off her cheeks as I walk up to her.
I don’t listen to her faint whimpering—just press my bow against her neck and try to wring out her mane as best I can. Then her tail, and finally her coat, all the while fighting her attempts to wriggle away. When I finish, I toss the sopping-wet ribbon over a low branch. Red dye bleeds onto the ground, and it stains her coat in a few places.
“N-no,” she repeats, too late for it to matter.
For once, I get to be the big sister, the one who knows what to do. I get to comfort her while her world crashes down. I shush her, throw the blanket over her, and huddle underneath it with her. Then I brace myself—that first icy shock of her coat against me sucks out my breath, but I keep rubbing my hooves up and down her back and sides. Over and over again, and her breathing finally starts easing, though she chokes on her tears a few times. I-I wish I could make that better too. I really do.
Through the little slit of daylight at the edge of the blanket, I can see her hat—Mom’s hat—lying in the road. I didn’t notice it had fallen off. Neither did she.
But I can’t worry about it now. In our dark shelter, I hug her close and keep trying to rub some warmth back into her. I hope it’s working—that cold burn of her against me fades, but maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.
After what feels like most of an hour, she’s stopped shivering, and we poke our faces out of the blanket. Good—she doesn’t look so small anymore, and her eyes have a life to them again. Now I’d better help her get her strength back a bit. “You ready for a sandwich?” I ask, and she stares at me for a second before she bursts out laughing.
“N-nice day for a picnic, huh?” she manages to spit out, and I roll my eyes, not that she can see. I’m trying to be serious, but I don’t mind if it distracts her.
When she’s settled down, she wipes her eyes dry, then shrugs and nods, so I tug the basket over and get her sandwich out. I can’t believe how fast she wolfs it down, then I shove mine at her too, and maybe for the first time in her life, she doesn’t argue. Even when I give her the hay. I don’t offer her any apple juice until I’ve had a chance to hold it against me and warm it up—the last thing she needs is something cold to drink. If only I’d made her wait for me to heat up that cider before we left…
“I—I’m glad,” she pants after downing the warm juice, “we got that rock back in there. That’s… that’s the heart.” She clutches her hooves to her chest.
“Just a wagon bumped it over or something. Nopony meant anything,” I say, patting her on the shoulder. She nods, but her fragile smile fades when her eyes set on the dripping ribbon again and the pool of thin reddish water under it, half-turned to slush now. And little ripples go through the part that hasn’t frozen yet, like rain falling, or…
It’s snowing.
Those heavy flakes that hiss softly through the trees and soak up every noise—even the stream sounds far away, but right up by my ear, her breath keeps coming, steadier now. I love when it gets like this on the farm, all peaceful and silent under the fresh white drifts, but now it only reminds me how far we are from home and what could’ve happened here.
No. I have to keep my head. I’m the one in charge.
“It means a lot to me that you come along every year,” Applejack says. “It’s important to remember.”
I figure she’s warmed up enough, so I duck out from under the blanket, tuck it around Sis, give her a smile that says the worst is past, then squeeze out the water from my ribbon and stuff it in the picnic basket. She wraps the blanket’s edge over her head like a little hood. It only takes a second before she can’t look at that ribbon anymore.
“Over there.” Applejack points at a gash cut into a tree trunk next to the pile of stones. New bark has long since grown over it. “That’s where it happened. That’s where I found ’em.”
Sis closes her eyes and sees something that I can’t. The quiet pounds on my ears. “I’ll never forget,” she finally adds. “And you won’t, either.”
“Forget?” I blurt out before I even have a chance to think. “I-I wasn’t there. I was too young to remember.” I never get anywhere with her, but I have the time, I guess, and she might not feel like talking back. Might as well give it another try. So why am I the one shaking now?
“I… I hate coming here.”
She stares at me, but she doesn’t gape or anything. She expected this. She has tears welling up again, but she expected this. I… I can’t break her heart again. Not twice in one day. But I have to get this off my chest. Maybe the worst isn’t over.
“I don’t come here ’cause it’s fun,” Sis growls, brushing the snow off the piece of forelock hanging out of her blanket. And brushing off my words, too. “I come here ’cause it’s important.” Her voice sounds all flat like when she scolds me, and she practically sneers.
I can’t look her in the eye. “It’s important to you,” I tell her, my snout almost pressed into my chest. “That’s why I come with you.” She doesn’t answer, letting the silence gather around me.
“Applejack, I barely remember Mom,” I mumble. She might not have heard me over the snow’s whisper, but I go on anyway. “Just a fuzzy picture of a blonde mare leaning over me once when I had a bad dream, and following her around on my first Nightmare Night. The only way I remember what she looks like is the photo on the hearth.” When I risk a look up, she bites her lip.
I’ve never gone this far before, and she looks like a wagon hit her, like… Mom’s died all over again. “I know you want to honor her, Sis. I just can’t feel the same way you do. But I know how much it means to you, and I love you, so I’ll come here with you next year, and the year after, and every year from now on.” I really mean it, but she has that firm mask on again and stares back—I want to apologize, tell her I’ve made a mistake, something. But if I don’t go through with this, nothing will ever change. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know her like you did.”
Shivering… She starts shivering again. No, that’s not it…
“B-but… she’s your mother.” She leans forward to force her words at me, and her eyes glisten in the weak daylight. I don’t know how to take it—her stare cuts into me, but her ears couldn’t droop any lower. Desperately, she wants that to be an accusation. But it’s a plea.
I sigh, shake my head, almost give in to my own tears. But no. I’m the big sister today. “No,” I repeat out loud. “She’s not. You’re my mother. As far back as I can remember, you did all the things that a mother does.”
Not many ponies would know to look for it—I recognize that shy smile I’ve seen so often, but only for a split second. Sis could never take a compliment. But then she breaks again, her lower lip holding steady as best it can, and I have to fix it. That’s what big sisters do. “That doesn’t take anything away from her or make her any less special. Of course I love her, and of course she’s got a place of honor in my heart. Nothing’ll change that.”
I reach in the basket and hold up one blotchy, limp end of the ribbon—Mom’s ribbon. “It would’ve got worn out anyway. We can dye it again and find something else to use it for, and I can wear another one in honor of Mom. It’ll still be our tradition.”
Her eyes wander back down to the road, and she opens her mouth a couple times to answer, but she holds back. And not for lack of something to say—she’d cast about, stutter in that case, but she’s got her eyebrows all knit together, like she’s thinking, like… like she’s actually listening. She sniffles, but she eventually gives me a hesitant nod, and I think I see a smile. Not a happy one, sure, but genuine.
Applejack heard me. She heard what I needed to say. Now I just have to bring her back to a warm place, like a big sister should. “When I think of a mom, I think of you. I love you.”
She gives me an odd look, like when she nods at Big Macintosh after a long shift in the fields and tells him to call it a day. “C’mere,” she says, some color finally in her face, and she wraps me in a hug. “I love you too.” Using a corner of the blanket, she dabs the tears off her cheeks.
All surrounded by the folds of blanket and Sis’s embrace—it’s so warm, and I giggle. I never would have figured on giggling today. “How’d you get to be so wise for a young ’un?” she asks.
I shrug and giggle again. I like being the little sister.
“I s’pose we should be gettin’ on home.” She keeps the heavy wool blanket draped over her and stands to pick up her hat while I get our basket. “You don’t have to make this trip anymore,” she adds as an afterthought, but her voice has all the life of a stump.
“When we come back next year—” I start. She looks up quickly and raises her eyebrows. “When we come back next year, just don’t tell those same stories again, okay?”
She nods. She smiles too—the only one today that I’ve believed. And somehow, I know that she’s answering much more than that one question. “Done,” she replies. She holds her hat to her chest and bows her head toward that pile of stones for a minute. I lower my own head, too.
And we start home, through the quiet snowfall.
Author's Note
"Then it’ll all wrap up with how she got her hat. I get to hear that one on Mother’s Day, too."
This is a subtle call-out to another of my stories, "But You Surpass Them All." I figured it wouldn't hurt to put them in the same continuity.
