Sweet Apple Acres: A Love Story
Applejack sat in her room and stared out the window for a year.
Applejack sat, and from her bed she watched the seasons change. She watched the green summer leaves darken, dry, and fall. She watched the autumn wind pull them from the safety of their withering tree and take them to a place known only by the breeze and the pegasi and the Goddesses. And she watched the leaves that weren't taken by the wind fall to the ground where they met their end beneath careless hooves, crushed by an implacable stampede that charged forward in pursuit of trivia. Marching. Following what was frivolous and trite all the way to the ends of the earth.
When the pegasi welcomed winter, Applejack sat and watched the ambers, and the browns, and the yellows, and the cinnamons, and all the fall colors die -- and in death Ponyville became barren and pale. White. Winter white. And when winter was wrapped up, spring came and went quickly, as if not wishing to be watched by the forlorn farmer. All at once it was summer again. The first day of summer. Applejack didn’t know the date, but that uncomfortable summer time sweat that appears on one’s neck and shoulders absent effort had began dripping from her pores. She wiped some of the glistening salty stuff from her neck with a bare hoof, and wondered how many summers like this one had come and gone. She wondered why the seasons changed and for what purpose the world insisting on turning. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, and as she sat in her depression, Applejack wondered if anything ever had.
During her sulking, they came to her. Her friends. They came carrying concern in their hooves and on their backs, stuffed into saddle bags that clung to their hips and placed in baskets clasped in their mouths; needing strength and grit to lug the burden about, as if worry were a heavy and tangible thing. They came seeking understanding, wishing to known what ailed their dear friend, and hopping there was perhaps something in their bags or baskets that held power enough shake the farm girl from her depression. They came offering many things -- baked treats and hoofuls of love -- but Applejack never so much as a turned to meet their gaze. They came and found her sitting on her bed, staring listlessly out the window at some small horror only she could see.
Every day, three times a day for a year, Applejack’s sad eyed little sister would wander into the room with a tray of food and a clean pot for Applejack go about her business in. The blond earth pony never once acknowledged the filly’s presence. She sat. She stared. Occasionally she ate what her sister brought her.
She stared.
She ate.
She stared.
She sat.
A year. A year of Staring. Eating. Sitting.
…And then it happened one day -- no -- it was the first day. The first day of summer. The first day of the rest of her life. Whether it was a Wednesday, or a Friday, or a Monday, Applejack didn’t know. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was the first day, and on this first day her sister came to her, small and sad faced, offering an apple: holding it up for Applejack to see as if it were something ancient and precious.
An apple. She took it in her hoof and held it far from her face, at forelegs length, as if afraid it might spontaneously implode and swallow her whole.
An apple? Was it a Red Delicious, she wondered.
Was it a Gala?
She turned it over in her hoof. Took note of the color. The texture.
A McIntosh perhaps?
She tossed the piece of fruit and caught it again, gauging its weight.
Golden Delicious, maybe?
Slowly, reluctantly, as if it were some poisonous barb she held and not a harmless apple, she pressed the very tip of her tongue against the fruit’s skin, then withdrew it quickly, as if fearful contact might cause the muscle in her mouth to wrinkle and fall out.
She smacked her lips together and tried to remember the taste. Tried to remember the differences: the big things and the small things that separated one apple from next.
She didn’t know.
There was a time when one whiff was all she needed to tell what sort of apple she was dealing with. It hadn’t been that long, had it? Only a year. Only a year and already the power had left her. She didn’t remember how to tell the difference, and anyway it wasn’t important. What was important was that it was an apple, and more important than that, it was the last apple. It was the last apple on the first day. Suddenly Applejack knew exactly what she had to do. She knew what cancer ailed her. What sickness of the mind had kept her bedridden for so long. She was holding it in her hoof now. It was a fruit that grew and fell from trees, and Applejack had had her fill of them.
She looked at the apple in her hoof, then down at her forlorn little sister, and what she said next, she said without needing to think. The words formed all on their own.
“No more apples,” she said, plainly, as if stating some universal truth. Something so obvious nopony had ever bothered voicing it before. It was simple. Grass was green. The sky was blue. There would be no more apples.
“What?” Apple Bloom said, confused and excited. She hadn’t heard her older sister speak in a year.
“No more apples?” she repeated. This time it was a question. A great philosophical pondering. A debacle. One that had been ruminated on by the greatest minds in Equestrian history and still there was no answer for it. Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Will there be any more apples?
“What?” little Apple Bloom echoed. It was the best her young, foolish mind could muster in the face of such an ageless conundrum.
“No more Apples!” she said again, and this time it was a blast on the horn: a declaration of war. At last it had come to this. There had been negotiations. There had been talk of treaty, and talk of sharing resources, and talk of peace, and talk and talk and talk, and the talk was cheap. Now was the time for action. Now was the time for violent action. Now the enemy was clear and present, and Applejack knew that it must be destroyed. She would not falter. She would not surrender. There would be no more apples.
No more apples.
No more.
For the first time in a year she called upon the muscles in her limbs to move her to purpose.
She stood.
Her legs were stiff.
She marched.
She marched toward her bedroom door and it seemed to fling open of its own accord, as if knowing what terrible will now accosted it.
She marched out into the orchard, found her brother resting peacefully under an apple tree, marched right up to him, and shouted in a voice that was like hers but completely without reason or restraint:
“No more Apples!” The large, red, and usually unmovable wall of a stallion jumped at the sound of his sister’s roar like a whimpering babe, and when is faculties returned to him there was nothing in his head and a single word on his lips.
“What?” he asked. But Applejack did not answer. No more apples was the answer. It always had been. Why it had taken her a year to see it, she did not know. But they would know. They would know, and they would join her, or they would fear her, but regardless they would know.
She found her grandmother sleeping soundly in her rocking chair.
“No more Apples!”
She found Twilight studying quietly on her balcony, her nose pressed deep in some fascinating, albeit, meaningless text. Whatever knowledge her book held was inferior to the knowledge bouncing around in Applejack’s head. There was no more need to pursue information. No more wisdom to be gained. Whatever questions were left, Applejack already possessed the answers. There was only one answer, and the answer was “No more apples.” She made it known to the unicorn.
“No more apples!”
She found Rarity busily drawing out designs for some frivolous new summer line of sundresses, and, seeking to free her friend from the tormenting drudgery that was the white unicorn’s empty existence, Applejack kicked open her door with hind legs made strong from years of wasting time, trotted up to Rarity and shouted in her face.
“No more Apples!”
She found Fluttershy in her home nursing a sick bird back to health, and Applejack's eyes narrowed at the sight of the miserable little creature because she knew that whether sickness claimed it or not, it mattered little because its life was as insignificant and pointless as every other life on this planet. She had to save Fluttershy from her folly. Life was nothing -- less than nothing. All there was and all there ever had been was apples, and there destruction was the only goal worth pursuing.
She dove head first through Fluttershy’s window and landed with a thump, coming to rest in a pile of broken glass on the carpet. The pegasus pony jumped at the intrusion, and then jumped again at the sound of Applejack’s voice: the suddenness of it like thunder breaking across a clear blue sky.
“No more apples!”
She found Pinkie Pie standing behind the counter at Sugarcube corner, an uncharacteristically bored expression plastered across her face. The pink pony leaned a pink cheek against a pink hoof, and immediately Applejack could see that her fellow earth pony knew as well. Knew of the bleak, abysmal nothing that was the world trying to swallow them whole: trying to beat them down, break them, trample them underhoof. Yes, Pinkie Pie knew. She’d been hiding behind that smile of hers for years, and now the smile was gone. Now there was nothing left but bored eyes and a blank countenance. But I can save her, thought Applejack to herself.
Pinkie’s eyes grew large as Applejack approached the counter, and her smile returned at the sight of her dear friend who she hadn’t seen up and about in a year. Her lips parted to speak, but speech was something reserved for those who knew. Knew that the secret of life had been hidden in three simple words. She spoke them. Made them known.
“No more apples!”
And finally she found Rainbow Dash, sleeping soundly, cradled by a low hanging cloud that floated only a few inches above a tall tree. What was she doing, thought Applejack. Wasting time! Sleeping away her fleeting and perishable life when the enemy was among them! Growing! Sprouting up underneath them like weeds! Hanging from the very tree her cloud so daringly floated above! What was she doing?! Napping? Resting? There would be time for rest in the next life.
With nothing but bare hooves and terrible will, Applejack scaled the tall tree. When she reached the top, she leapt for Rainbow Dash’s cloud, tackling her and sending the two of them crashing to the hard earth below. Rainbow Dash wailed. Scared, confused, and hurt; she looked up and saw a face she hadn’t seen in a year, and the face looked down at her, wearing an unreadable expression.
“No more apples!” The face declared.
Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow. She looked up at the pony who now so violently rebuked her namesake, who spat in the face of honored tradition, of what she loved. What she held closest to her heart.
Rainbow Dash looked up and saw something she'd never seen seen before, and she knew something she'd never known before, and for a moment that lingered longer than most, it seemed she was on the precipice of some grand epiphany. The heavens opened, and the Alicorns beat their wings, and they sang, and their horns lit up, bathing the two of them in impossibly bright light. The world ceased it's incessant turning. Everything that had eyes watched them. Everything that had ears listened. Everything that could speak or utter sound raised its voice in exaltation of this momentousness discovery.
“...What?” Rainbow Dash said after a long pause. And then the moment was gone. The truth lost. The world turned once more.
Applejack grabbed the pegasus pony's face and leaned in close.
“No. More. Apples.” She repeated slowly, the breaths taken between each word labored. She held Rainbow Dash’s face in her hooves and looked down at her, waiting for an answer. Rainbow looked back quizzically.
“What?” was the best she could manage.
Applejack became an Ursa Major. A hydra. The great demon hound Cerberus himself. Her many heads wagged to and fro, and her six eyes were wide and wild.
“No more apples! No more Apples! No more Apples!”
“Then what?” asked a voice that wasn’t Rainbow’s. It was familiar. Small and gentle and foolish and familiar. Applejack looked up, and there they were. All of them. They had followed her here. Bore witness to her raving. Her enlightenment. She was surrounded on all sides by her friends. The ponies that had come to see her. Offered her comfort. Friendship. They were fools, all of them, but they were her fools. She would have to teach them. Save them. Show them what she had found. The way. The way forward.
“No more apples,” she repeated. They were the only words she needed now. The only words that meant anything anymore.
“Then what?” asked the familiar voice again. Its owner trotted up to Applejack, big eyed and forlorn and all alone. Rudderless. Utterly empty. “Then what?” her sister repeated. Then she began crying.
Applejack looked around and saw that she was surrounded by sad faces, and accusing faces, and confused faces. The faces of the lost. The faces of her friends. Would there still room for friendship in this brave new world without apples, she wondered. Would there still time for picnics? For birthday parties, or star gazing, or visits to the beach, or to the spa, or to restaurants; the market place, bowling alleys…
…the farm.
The family orchard.
Applejack looked around and saw them. Circling her. Boring in slowly. The symbols of her oppression. Of all their oppression. Her mad dashing about town had somehow led her back here. Back to where it all started. She looked up and saw that there were apples on the trees.
“No more apples,” She insisted. But here, among the countless hoards of her enemy, the words had lost their power. Her voice was no longer a drumbeat. It shrank into a whimper, and the whimper shrank into a sound even smaller and more pathetic. “No more apples,” she tried again. It was the only thing she had left. It was the only thing she ever had. The only thing there ever was. Everything else was meaningless: just so many leaves taken by the autumn wind.
“No…more…apples…” It was all she had left and suddenly it wasn’t enough.
“Then what, big sis?” Apple Bloom looked up at her. They were face to face now. “If not apples, then what?”
Then What?
Huh…what a strange thought, Applejack mused. But of course her sister was right. She herself had been unable to acknowledged such a daunting truth until now. Why, she wasn’t sure. It was so obvious. If there were to be no more apples then there must be something else. Something to take their place. Applejack looked around at the faces of her friends and all at once understood that it was she who had been the fool. No more apples wasn’t the answer after all. It was only the first step. The first step on the first day of summer. The first day of the rest of her life. She searched the eyes that watched her for the true answer, and when she didn’t find it there, she searched the heavens.
She threw her head back and marveled as the world opened up to her. The possibilities were boundless, limited only by what she could imagine, and she could imagine plenty. Her mind expanded. It breathed between her ears, beat in her head, evolved into some new kind of organ capable of thinking, and shuffling air, and moving blood.
She had evolved. Outgrown the old ways. The old world. The apples. She'd had her fill of them, and now they couldn't hurt her anymore. But what was to come next? If not apples then what? What would be her new purpose?
Applejack looked to the sky and found what she had been searching for. It looked back. Smiled. Applejack imagined that if stars could wink, surely this one would have. It would wink its lone burning eye; bright and shining and round and the color of her own coat. Orange.
Orange.
Of course. That was it. That was the answer.
“Oranges,” she said plainly.
The others exchanged glances. They mumbled among themselves for a moment before letting out a loud, collective, and deeply puzzled:
“What?!”
“No more apples,” she said, and at last she found what had escaped her for an entire year. “Oranges. Ah'd like ta' grow oranges.”
That was it. That was the answer. Her answer. She voiced it, and was content.
~Fin~
