Chapters CHAPTER 1
Applebloom shook her head. ‘What is with me today? Everything is so…’ she paused searching for the right word. “Beautiful”
“What?” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both looked at their companion with a look of utter confusion.
Not wanting to make a fool of herself, Applebloom elaborated out loud what she had been thinking. “Isn’t everything beautiful? The way the sun shines so sweetly, the way the clouds drift pleasantly through the sky, like nothing was wrong in the whole of Equestria… I dunno. It just all looks so…right.” She finished with a sigh, soaking in the beauty of a summer day.
Sweetie Belle began to address this abrupt behavior with a nervous giggle, “Uhh, Applebloom, um, well, I don’t know quite how to put this, but, well-” she cut herself of, not quite finding the right way to word her testimonial.
“What she is trying to say is that you need to get out of the sun. It’s frying your brain,” interjected Scootaloo.
Applebloom felt the heat rising rapidly to her cheeks; she began to paw at the ground to forget what her friends had just told her. Looking up, she saw Scootaloo smirking, and when Sweetie Belle let a chuckle loose into the air, the humility became unbearable. “Stop it! That’s not funny!” Yet it was too late, and her outburst seemed only to encourage the onslaught of wordless ridicule. Applebloom’s eyes began to fill with tears, and in frustration, she fled from her two friends, the once-beautiful world seeming to mock her every thought.
She stopped after a while, and, heart racing and breath ragged, she looked around, seeking solace in the quiet beauty of nature. She lay on the ground, looking at the clouds as they lazily drifted by, like flower petals in a small brook during a midsummer day. She smiled and shut her eyes, melting into the world around her, peacefully listening to the birds singing their merry tine, and the bees humming quietly as they work. She sighed and opened her eyes, to find herself staring directly into the face of Twilight, whose look of bewilderment was as plain as her presence.
“Hey there Applebloom, might I ask just what you are doing?”
“Oh, nothing really important, Twilight. I was just thinking about what a nice day it is.”
Twilight giggled at the statement. “Well it certainly is, isn’t it.” She looked around for a moment, as if expecting something to surprise her. Finally, she addressed her query to Applebloom: “Where are the rest of the crusader?”
Applebloom immediately felt the heat rising inside of her. “Well, I was telling them that we should try and help Applejack prune the orchard but Scootaloo said that that was dumb so I said ‘do yall have any better ideas’ and Sweetie Belle said that we could help Rarity do…something…but then I said that if we couldn’t help Applejack prune the trees then we could help Rarity so then Scootaloo jumped in and said that we should help Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle said yes but I said no and then we did it anyways and then mmphhffppmpfth,” with no less than Twilight’s hoof putting an end to the onslaught of language.
“Ok, ok, calm down, Applebloom!” She said breathlessly, looking as though she had just sat through a whirlwind.
Applebloom spit out the hoof, and, with an overwhelming air of humility, gulped down her panic and continued, “I’m sorry Twilight. It’s just- I was lookin’ at the sky, and it looked mighty pretty, but they just sorta made fun of me,” she sighed, searching for the right way to say what was on her mind. “They thought that I was weird.”
Twilight sat down, contemplating the situation. “Are you sure that they thought that you were weird, or is that just what it felt like?”
A blush rose to Applebloom’s cheeks as she began to explain everything that happened. She related the tale of the spring breeze, moody from never being where he wants to be, shoving aside the trees and trampling he grass in his haste. She spoke of the wonder captured in a drop of dew, of the sweet song of the setting sun, of the silent sonnet of the sparkling stars. Yet, as she spoke of these mysteries to her friend, she felt a taint upon the natural beauty of the world. It took her but a moment before she realized just what she felt- It was the curse of her untrained speech! Every sweet syllable in her head came out twisted and putrefied with the stench of inexperience. Then, Twilight confirmed this dreadful thought with a single mortifying syllable, “What?”
Applebloom was caught in a vortex- this beauty that had began to impregnate her mind with wonderful visions was stuck inside of her! The world would never understand her- she was an outcast-an outrage-a-“STOOOOPPP ITTTTTTT!!!!”
Twilight’s command echoed off of the mountains. Applebloom blinked the tears out of her eyes. She looked at Twilight, who was holding Applebloom’s head with her hooves, with the fear in her eyes almost tangible. “I think that you should go get some rest, this much sun can’t be good for you!”
Applebloom nodded absentmindedly, recalling the words of her friends. ‘They all must think that I’m crazy,’ she thought. Then, a daunting notion slunk into her head. ‘What if I am?’
Distraught from the events of the day, Applebloom decided to seek advice from her sister concerning her rapidly crumbling reality. She solemnly strode along the familiar, well-beaten path until finally she reached her home. There she found Applejack returning from the orchard. “Hey sis- could you wait up? I need to ask you about something!”
“Sorta, I guess. Well, no, not really.”
“Is it some colt?” she said with palpable disdain.
“Ewwwww, no!”
“Is it-”
“It’s me, ok?” angrily stated Applebloom, frustrated by the way the conversation had turned. “I…I…” she struggled violently against the binds that held her world inside. “I can’t talk right!”
Applejack looked quizzically at her little sister. “Whaddya mean, Applebloom?”
Applebloom drew in another large breath, attempting yet again to relate the plague which had decided to occupy her mind. “You see, ever since yesterday, or maybe a bit before that, I’m not really sure, I just started looking at the sky and how…blue…it is and how…bright…the sun is, and how the trees are so…leafy…and the grass is so…green…but…but…I just can’t…” she began to hyperventilate with frustration. “I just can’t say it right!”
Applejack, now wearing the furrowed brow of somepony who was attempting to decipher a complex code, began to reply slowly after a moment of thought. “It sounds like you can talk fine to me. Maybe you might just want to get outta the sun, or something.”
Applebloom had finally had enough of this torture. “CAN’T YOU PONIES THINK OF ANYTHING NEW? AND I DON’T NEED TO GET OUT OF THE SUN! I NEED TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!” She ran crying away from her sister, from Twilight, from her friends, from the world that would and could never understand her.
CHAPTER 2
The forest was silent. The trees stood mightily, stretching their ever-reaching branches out toward each other, in a silent fraternity of the wood. These giant brothers held within them such a great many creatures that if one were to breach into their domain, the entrance would be greeted with a lively fanfare of bird songs, the calls of crickets, the ever-droning katydids, creating a symphony of nature, a grand play of color and sound, inviting all visitors to watch and weep with their heart of hearts at the wonders that continuously reveal themselves.
Applebloom stood in awe-it was as if the forest was showing itself anew! She began to walk ever so lightly, floating in each sunbeam the penetrated the living branches of the great trees, fluttering with each breeze, until she came upon a small clearing. As she stepped into the light, something more than just the sun’s golden glow washed over her. Here was a place that she understood, and by the sights, the sounds, she felt as though it understood her. Immediately, she felt herself awash with calm, and she lay back, looking at the clouds drifting pleasantly in the sky, the sun shining so sweetly, she was happy, and for once, she wanted to stay in that place forever.
After a long while of taking the serenity in, Applebloom decided to go back and talk to Applejack again. ‘Maybe now I can say it right,’ was her consolation for leaving such a utopia. As she left the forest, she had the impression that a toy was winding down’ slowly the brotherhood dissolved, the symphony led its final decrescendo into silence, and then she was back on her eve-familiar farm.
“Applebloom--APPLEBLOOM! There you are. I was worried sick, you’ve got to come quick.” Applebloom spun around at the sudden outburst, to see her sister and Twilight both approaching her rapidly. “I know that you would want to see this.” As they neared, she saw that etched into both of their faces was a tale of great anxiety, and relief.
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I’ve found a perfect place, and I just wanted to come back to tell you about it before I left again.” She smiled, her tongue felling light as a feather as she watched her sister’s countenance drop back into disarray. “Well, I was really, really upset, and so I went into the Everfree Forest, and I found this one clearing that was just so perfect,” she waited dramatically, to enhance of the words that were sure to come to her, but as she opened her mouth to explain the wonderfully serene scene, her throat closed off, her tongue grew heavy, and she felt like her once-clear mind was filled with molasses. She began to panic, the world was wrapping around her, grabbing her, pulling her every which way-the flowers were never so vivid, the sky never so deep, and she was never so helpless. After an internal struggle which seemed to last ages, she finally broke down into tears. “I’m sorry Applejack, Twilight. I just wanted to show everypony how nice the world is, but I can’t! I just want to get it all out of my head, but no matter how much I try to give you gals the gift of nature, but, I just run it through the dirt, and you just think that I am crazy!” Having emptied herself to the other two, she buried her face into Applejack, as if it would stop the humiliating tears from flowing.
“Now, now, Applebloom,” Applejack began cautiously, unsure of just how to assess the situation, “there is nothing wrong with you, ya hear? It’s just a long day, that’s all, that’s all.”
Applebloom realized that her sister was also crying, and so she looked up at her. “What’s wrong, sis?”
Applejack began to talk, but decided against it, smiled at her, looked at Twilight, and said, “We have something to show you.”
As soon as Applebloom heard this, she immediately began to formulate just what pleasant surprise was in store for her. ‘Is it present-or a party? Or maybe even my very own pet!’ She found herself lifted as though she were a Pegasus, soaring among the wonderful, fluffy clouds, floating on the invisible wind. She found herself skipping ahead of the other two, her thoughts aflutter with the possibilities of this new attraction.
“Hey, Applebloom! Over here! Look-Look what we got!”
The next few moments passed by in slow motion. She turned, mid stride, towards the owner of the shout. Applejack began to gallop toward her, yelling something. Scootaloo and Sweetie bell were running towards her; Sweetie Belle was still calling to her. Applebloom saw a smudge on Scootaloo’s flank, and she began to inform her of this. Applejack suddenly was knocking her sister over, tears streaming down her face. Applebloom looked up as the dirt cleared, and, clear as the sun shining so sweetly above her, the ‘dirt’ focused itself into a defined form-into a picture-into a cutie mark.
The sight was like being hit with everything in the world- she even momentarily forgot her own sister lying on top of her. The look on her face as she squeezed out from under Applejack was blank; her entire world had just turned upside down. She could tell that they were talking to her, but she only heard ringing. She saw their faces slip into horror as she began to walk past them, but all she could feel was a numbness encapsulating her heart. She walked in silence, seeing nothing but her hooves as they methodically impacted the ground, carrying her farther into oblivion. She looked up, and saw that she had wandered back into her clearing.
At first, the forest seemed like it had closed itself off to her. Yet, as time crept by, she started to see the Great Fraternity of Trees standing guard against all intruders, and she began to hear the Symphony of Nature chirping along its aleotoric way. She sat down, and soon, she found herself dancing to the wonderful cacophony of the world, and she laughed and spun and frolicked, all in this little clearing, untouched by society. ‘Free from those who laugh. Free from those who forget. Free from those who break promises, and free from those who break hearts.’ She laughed hysterically, her voice rising with the wonderfully free spirit of mother nature, the world turning circles around her, the wind leaping and playing as though they were dancing some soundless waltz. ‘Here, no one thinks I am crazy. Here, the world is more beautiful than anywhere else. Here, I don’t have to worry about cutie marks.’ She took a breath, and, at the top of her lungs, she shouted, “HERE, I. AM. FREE!” Laughing again at the silly lightheartedness of it all, Applebloom fell onto the soft grass, and reveled in the joyous feeling of belonging. Finally, she was in a place where nopony could judge, torment, or ridicule her. She let herself slowly drift off into a blissful sleep, immersing herself in that which she had previously labeled a curse, but now knew to be a virtue.
CHAPTER 4
“But my hoof itches!” Applebloom was adamant that the cast was hurting more than it helped, and was pulling all the stops in order to get out of wearing it.
“That doesn’t matter; the doctor says you have some healing up to do, and I am not about to let you get into any more trouble.” Applejack was even more adamant about the wellbeing of her physically and emotionally harmed sister. “Just, take it easy. Please. I don’t want to see you hurt like that again.” Applejack’s eyes were deep pools of sorrow, and Applebloom could tell that as upset as she was, her older sister had almost lost her absolute best friend.
“Can I at least go outside?” Applebloom inquired, not wanting to stretch the will of her anxious sibling any farther than it already was, but still wanting to feel that same unique oneness she had felt, seemingly so long ago.
After a moment of internal deliberation, the elder gave into the younger’s proposition, and Applebloom happily hobbled out of the house. “Just don’t go too far, ok?” Came the worried voice from the front door.
“Ok!” Was the response, but the words came on a twisted misgiving. ‘It’s not like I’ll go to Canterlot…’
Applebloom looked around her as she hobbled into the woods. Everything had been decimated; the Brotherhood was long dead, the Symphony had finished its final coda. She blinked a tear away, forcing herself to look at the destruction. Here was a tree, once covered in moss, vines, and leaves, a safe haven for travelling animals, but now it was nothing but charcoal and soot. There was a patch that once held a trickling brook surrounded by cattails, singing with the croaking of frogs. It too, was dead, the watery path cutting a wet streak through the grey ash all that was left of the once serene scene. After coming across many such images, Applebloom finally reached the place she had some to see. The sun was beating down fiercely, no longer hindered by the green extensions on the branches of the Wood; the silence pounded on her eardrums like a funeral drum, beating away in solemnity for the lost souls. She brushed away the layer of soot on the ground, and dug at the hard earth, once teeming with life. A single drop fell and wet the dead ground, an homage to the bliss that had been taken from her all too quickly.
As another drop fell, she began to speak, not to anypony, but to this lusterless patch of scorched dirt. “I…I don’t know where to begin. I know I wasn’t here much, but I really appreciate what you did do for me. It was nice coming here those times, and taking it all in-If I could go back, in time that is, I would have come here much earlier.” A shudder ran through her body. “I once thought that there would be nopony who could understand me, but…but you-you were waiting here for me when I needed you.” She began to cry again. “I’m sitting here, talking to dirt-DIRT-because it is the only thing in the world that understands me!” Her tears were staining the ground now. “My whole life, I was trying to do what everypony wanted, and right when I saw how nice this place was, it got taken away!” She fell to the ground, soot and dirt staining her coat. “This was all I had left-now I have nothing! I’m not even worth dirt! The only thing I could do was run-run from Applejack, from my friends from here, and this is where I am- in the dirt in a burned clearing with a sprain and no cutie mark. I DON’T EVEN HAVE MY CUTIE MARK!”
“So?” A voice drifted over from the sooty clearing, the rays of sun reflecting off the haze of dust tossed up from Applebloom’s laments obscuring any sort of image that the blank flank would have been able to see. “Yeah, so?” A second voice joined the first, this one closer than the original one. From the haze emerged two figures, who both sat down on their flanks and comforted the distraught Applejack. “We thought we might find you here-it wasn’t too hard to find you with all the screaming going on.”
Applejack looked up at Sweetie Belle, whose face was streaked with tears, and Scootaloo, whose face was not free from them either. “Why are you here?”
“We-we wanted to say sorry-“
“Yeah, we felt bad for showing you our cutie marks, we shouldn’t have.”
“Mmm-hmm. And we really, just wanted to apologize for not listening to you-“
“We actually got our cutie marks helping Applejack!”
The last sentence stunned Applebloom to the core. “You-you helped her? With what?”
Sweetie belle laughed. “Pruning the trees. Like you said. It worked, see?” She stood to show off her cutie mark, but the grime from the fire had covered it up. The silly action, combined with the unexpected showing of her friends and the kind words they brought with them finally drove Applebloom over the edge-into a hysterical fit of laughter. Soon, the other Crusaders joined her, and time shook her invisible head and let the three giggle uninterrupted, and so they laughed well into the day.
Applebloom looked up at the sky, vision blurry with tears of joy and pain, and saw the sun shining sweetly, the clouds drifting pleasantly by as if there wasn’t a problem in the whole of Equestria, and suddenly, it hit her. She jumped up with a hasty command to follow and hobbled quickly off toward the direction of the farm. Her friends, surprised by the outburst, obliged without a word, and followed her all the way to the Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse. They entered, and Sweetie Belle let out a screech of surprise.
CHAPTER 5
Applebloom’s front hooves were flying. She was in the clubhouse, but that barely mattered. All that mattered was the slowly growing form in front of her, taking shape of all the nature trapped inside of her. A little more here, a little less there, material always flowing. She felt a calm wash over her as the form took shape. She hardly noticed the squeal from behind her-she was one with her work. Suddenly, as quickly as it began, the building stopped. In front of her was a conglomeration of nearly every material that she could find, but it all made the beautiful sculpture of three friends, all laughing together in the afternoon sun. She turned around, beaming, but the smile fell off her face when she saw the looks her friends were giving her. Both of their mouths were agape, but not in horror as Applebloom thought, but rather in awe. Scootaloo was the first to speak of the three of them. “You-you JUST made that? That’s…that’s…so beautiful.”
Applebloom blushed at the compliment, and jokingly addressing the state of the three of them, said with a little more than some attitude, “Anything YET?” They all laughed, and re-enacted the glory days, so recent, but years in the past. The ritual began with the locking of eyes, followed by the obligatory cleaning of any residue of the last idea they had from their flank. Then, with a mental countdown, they all nodded and turned to their flanks. Applebloom hesitated a moment, knowing the paleness that always greeted her eyes. She turned, and was met with a brand new flash of color, adorning her flank with the glory of someplony who had finally found just why the sun smiled down on them every day, leading every single ponyfolk, blank flank or not, through the mysterious, tragic, wonderful journey called life.
The End
CHAPTER 3
The stench was acrid, and strong. It burned her nostrils like the laughter of Sweetie Belle. Soon, the smell got so strong that she had to bury her snout in the grass. ‘Applejack…’ visions of that terrible moment played through her head. The shout, the smudge, the tackle, ‘Applejack…’ suddenly, Applebloom was awake. “She tried to stop me! She cared!” Her revelation was cut short, however, by a lungful of thick, foul smoke. ‘FIRE!’ She mentally screamed. Panicking, she looked around- the Symphony was silent, the Brotherhood obscured. She blindly walked in a direction, but when she felt heat creep up her face, instinct kicked in, and she ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction. She was blind; every beautiful root only served as an obstacle now, as if Nature was calling her to join together in fate. “No!” She shouted after a particularly nasty fall left her hoof bruised and throbbing. She got back up, and kept limping, finally exiting the smoke into clean air.
“Help!” She weakly shouted. “Big Mac, AJ, help!” She collapsed coughing onto the ground, and soon she heard the clopping of hooves as Applejack ran to her.
“What is it? What is i-Oh, sweet Celestia! Are you ok!?”
Applebloom lifted her head up slowly, coughed weakly, and muttered, “The-the forest is on fire.”
“I know! I was worried sick about you!”
Another meek cough. “No, the forest. Save-save the forest”
“Shucks to the forest-my baby sister is hurt. Twilight-get over here! Applebloom needs help!”
Soon she felt herself lifted by magic, and as she drifted away, she saw the dark lifeblood of the forest spiraling towards the clouds. “The forest, save the forest, save…forest…” she blacked out, with the image of her friends cutie marks burned into her head. As she slipped away, she heard a whispering, “Save the forest, it’s all I have anymore.”