“C’mon, now. Put ‘em up, Winona!” cried Applejack as she waved her hat around in circles in an attempt to draw the cattle’s attention to her. “Hiyah! Get along now.”
Winona barked happily, jumping off Applejack’s shoulder and diving headfirst into the massive crowd of bovines before her. With a yip and a sharp bark, she corralled the cows into a single mass and started herding them towards Sweet Apple Acres.
“Good work, Winona! Now we just gotta—” Applejack froze, watching in horror as Winona led the cattle the wrong direction. Her eyes widened and she tried to shout at her to stop, but she couldn’t hear her.
Winona, with cattle all around her, could hear nothing but the stamping of hooves and the incessant mooing. She barked again, pushing the cattle further and further towards what she thought was Sweet Apple Acres. Criss-crossing back and forth behind the cows, she kept them in tight formation, unknowingly leading them towards the edge of Ghastly Gorge.
Applejack shoved her hat back on her head and galloped as hard as she could to catch up with Winona, but she was already too far ahead, and getting closer every second to the cliff’s edge. She tried to call out again, “Winona! Stop! You’re gettin’ too far!” But, alas, it was all in vain.
It was all too late by the time Winona realized what was happening. She skidded to a halt when she saw the cliff ahead of her and tried to bark at the cattle to get them to stop too, but all it succeeded in doing was herding them closer to the edge. Before she knew what was going on, the cows had started tumbling over the edge, too frightened to stop or know what was happening to them.
Her mouth hanging open, Applejack watched with bated breath as all her cattle plummeted to their deaths. She sucked in sharply as the last cow stopped at the edge. At least one of them had survived.
Winona barked, scaring the last cow into tripping over herself and falling down to meet the rest of her friends.
Applejack fell back on her haunches. She brought a hoof to her face and slowly pulled her hat down. Winona whimpered, walking over to Applejack and brushing up against her. A single tear fell from Applejack’s eye, as she pet Winona on the back. “It’s okay, girl,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Suddenly, Winona’s face grew grim, and she pushed Applejack’s hoof away. “Bark! Woof!” she said resolutely.
Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“Bark! Bark! Woof, woof bark, woof!”
“Winona,” Applejack said calmly, “ain’t nothin’ we can do about it now. There’s still a bunch’a cattle at the ranch. This was only one herd. We’ll be okay.” She tried to pet Winona comfortingly, but the dog shook her head.
“Woof!” said Winona. Without another sound, she spun around and tore off towards the barn.
Applejack yelled, “Wait!” but she didn’t stop.
When Applejack found Winona later that day, she was in the middle of the town, kneeling on a mat wearing a silver kimono and with a solemn look on her face, paws on her thighs. Her eyes were cast downwards, and she sighed softly. A crowd had gathered around her, including a very worried-looking Fluttershy and a deeply-concerned Twilight.
“What’s going on?” asked Applejack as she elbowed her way to the front of the crowd.
Twilight frowned. “I’m…. not really sure. I saw the crowd and decided to see what was up. I have no idea what Winona is doing.”
Fluttershy bit her lip, then said, “I’ve been trying to talk to her for a few minutes, but she won’t say anything.”
Applejack turned to Winona. “What are you doing?” she asked.
Lifting her head slowly, Winona looked Applejack in the eye and said, “Bark… Woof, bark. Bark bark bark.”
“Uhh…” Applejack turned to Fluttershy, her hooves splayed. “Little help here.”
Fluttershy nodded. “She says, ‘I have brought great dishonor upon our family, Applejack.’”
“What? No she hasn’t,” pleaded Applejack. She looked down at Winona. “You ain’t done nothin’ wrong, Winona. It was just an accident.”
Winona shook her head with deliberate motions. “Bark. Bark.”
“She says, ‘No. This cannot be forgiven. I have disgraced the Apple family name, and so I must face my punishment with courage and a firm jaw.’”
“Woof.”
“‘Applejack-dono… You are so young, so naive. If I don’t do this, my dishonorable act will haunt this family for a thousand years. I have no other choice but to enact… seppuku.’”
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “She said all that?”
Fluttershy shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“Huh… the dog language is so beautiful.”
Applejack, ignoring Twilight, shook her head. “Winona,” she said urgently, “you didn’t do nothin’ dishonorable. I don’t even remember what happened. It was all so long ago, I’ve forgotten it now.”
Winona sighed, placing a paw on Applejack’s shoulder. “Bark woof bark bark woof. Woof.”
“Uhh, she says, ‘Don’t lie, Apple-san. It doesn’t become you. You and I both know what happened was no accident. It was due to my incompetence that we lost many good cattle this morning. Had I not misjudged the distance, perhaps things would’ve gone differently, but, alas… it was not so.’”
Winona took her paw from Applejack’s shoulder and reached to her side where a thin knife was lying on its side. She picked it up and held it in front of herself. “Bark,” she said.
“What’d she say?” asked Applejack, her face growing worried.
“Well,” said Fluttershy, holding out her hoof, “if you’d give me more than two seconds to say something, I’d tell you.” She sighed. “She was asking for a second.”
Twilight, her head cocked even more to the side, raised an eyebrow. “A second? Like, more time to think?”
Winona shook her head, then, looking directly at Fluttershy, said, “Bark…. woof.”
“Let’s see, ‘bark’ means…” Fluttershy gasped. “She asked me to be her second!”
“Second what?” Twilight asked, completely upside down now.
“Yeah!” said Applejack. “What does she mean by that?”
Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “Jeez, calm down. All she wants me to do is cut her head off after she’s finished stabbing herself in the gut. Friggin’ wait two seconds and I’ll tell you next time. Good lord…”
Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Holy bejeezus,” she said quietly. “She’s going to stab herself in the gut with that knife?”
Fluttershy stared at Twilight with an expression that said, “Are you freaking serious right now? No, like, seriously… are you serious?” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “I did say seppuku, right? You did hear that?”
Applejack took her hat off and threw it to the ground, her face angry. “Dangit, Fluttershy! I don’t know what sepparku is!”
“Seppuku,” said Fluttershy with a sigh. “It’s seppuku, and it’s ritual suicide.”
Applejack’s eyes went wide. “Whoa! We gotta stop her!”
“Well, you can’t,” said Fluttershy. “It’d bring great dishonor on Winona if you stopped her.”
“I don’t give a hoot about dishonor,” Applejack said, looking over to Winona. “I ain’t gonna let you kill yourself over something silly like this.”
Winona frowned. “Bark… bark.”
“‘Regardless of what you think, Apple-chan, I must do this. I will not dishonor my famiree.’”
Before Applejack could say another word, Winona, her face resolute, grasped the wakizashi with her paws and held it out, point towards her. With a sharp thrust, she drove it straight into her stomach, wincing only slightly. Applejack cried out, but Winona didn’t stop. She twisted it one way, and then the other, dragging it across her whole gut. She bit her tongue, forcing herself to not yelp.
Then, with shaky paws, she slowly pulled the knife out and set it to the side. She looked over to Fluttershy, and nodded.
Fluttershy nodded in return, producing a large katana from seemingly nowhere. “Welp,” she said, “looks like I’m up.” She hefted it over her head.
“Holy balls!” shouted Twilight. “Where the heck did you get that thing?”
Fluttershy’s head twisted to face Twilight, her eyes harsh. She stared at her intently.
Twilight held up her hooves. “All right, all right. Calm down.”
Turning back to Winona, Fluttershy sucked in her breath, lifting the katana even higher. Before she could bring it down, however, Applejack jumped in front of her. “No!” she cried. “I won’t let ya’ll decapitate Winona.”
Fluttershy shrugged. “I can do you too, if you like?”
Applejack held up a hoof, her mouth open, then stepped aside after a moment. “All yours.”
Fluttershy smiled. For the final time, she brought the katana high above her head and then, with a heave, swung it downwards until it collided with Winona. However, rather than cleanly slice the dog’s head off like it was supposed to, it shattered into a million pieces, flinging bits of metal everywhere, and potentially injuring a few bystanders in the process.
Everypony gasped as a bright light enveloped Winona. The wound in her chest seemed to stitch itself back together as she was lifted into the air by some unseen force. Winona looked around wildly, then stopped suddenly as her eyes grew wide. Beams of light shot from her sockets and she began to rotate slowly, her mouth hanging open.
I CAN SEE, she said, her mouth not moving at all. I CAN SEE INTO FOREVER.
Applejack, holding up a hoof to shield herself from the light emanating from Winona, said, “What in tarnation are you talking about? What’s going on right now?”
THERE IS NO NOW. THERE IS ONLY FOREVER.
Applejack frowned. “Okay, you ain’t makin’ a lick’a sense.”
Winona rotated slowly to face Applejack, her white eyes piercing and cold. She looked down and said, I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW. ALL OF EXISTENCE BEEN LAID BARE BEFORE ME. I SEE WITH NO EYES, SPEAK WITH NO MOUTH, AND LISTEN WITH NO EARS. I AM ALL THAT THERE IS AND EVER WILL BE. I AM FOREVER.
Twilight clicked her tongue. “Stabs herself in the gut and suddenly she becomes all-knowing. Talk about a showoff.”
Ignoring her, Applejack shook her head. “I don’t get it, Winona. What happened to you?”
I HAVE BECOME ONE WITH THE UNIVERSE. I HAVE ATTAINED… ENLIGHTENMENT.
“Enlighten-what?” asked Applejack.
Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “She’s saying she’s reached Nirvana. I guess something about almost getting her head lopped off must’ve triggered some kind of deeper understanding in her.”
Twilight shrugged. “Meh, I’d buy that.”
Applejack turned back to Winona. “But what are you gonna do now? What do you do after you’ve reached enlighteningment?”
Winona sat perfectly still in the air, her back legs crossed indian style and her fore paws held up in perfect reflection of each other. With a final glance down at Applejack, she said, THE UNIVERSE AND I ARE ONE NOW. I WILL VENTURE INTO THE STARS AND SPREAD MY KNOWLEDGE OF FOREVER AMONGST THE PEOPLES OF TIME AND SPACE. Raising her head high, she added, I MUST GO NOW. MY PEOPLE NEED ME, then she disappeared in flash of light, never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, far away in Canterlot Castle, Luna walked into Celestia’s study. As she opened the door, she saw Celestia, her horn alight with sunny magic, facing a window. Luna cleared her throat.
Celestia spun around, the magic around her horn disappeared. “Oh, it’s you, Luna. You surprised me.”
“What were you up to?”
Celestia waved a hoof dismissively. “‘Oh… nothing really. Just, y’know… the usual.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Mhmm. You don’t say?”
Celestia smiled innocently. “Dear Luna, are you accusing me of something?”
“Me? Accuse you of doing something? I thought that was your job?” Luna said mockingly. “No, I’m not accusing you of anything unless of course you’re admitting to something.”
With a wave of her hoof, Celestia said, “And what would I be admitting to?”
Luna shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Celestia chuckled. “Well then, since we go that cleared up. Do you want to have some fun like we used to?”
Luna gave a sly grin. “What, you mean messing with gravity and stuff?”
“Something like that.”
“Perhaps make a dog immortal?”
“Well, I already—”
“HA! I knew it!” Luna shouted, pointing her hoof at Celestia.
Celestia laughed. “Well, the game is up, I suppose.” She splayed out her hooves. “You caught me.”
Luna grinned smugly. “You thought you could outsmart me? I’m a lot more clever than you give me credit for.”
Celestia walked over to Luna, flicking her auroral tail in her sister’s face as she passed. “Oh, goodness no. I could never hope to outfox you, Luna. You’re so clever and wise. I’m far too slow to get anything past you.”
“Hmph,” said Luna, puffing out her chest, “I am rather wise, aren’t I?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, in fact, I imagine you’ve already discovered the surprise I left for you on the moon.”
“The what?” Luna cocked her head to the side. Celestia merely smiled at her. She frowned, walking over the window Celestia had been looking out of and saw the moon hanging there in the sky. It looked just the same as it always had. “I don’t see anything,” she said. Celestia didn’t respond. “Celestia?” Luna asked, turning around. The other alicorn was gone. “Huh…” Luna remarked, “I guess she left.” With a shrug, Luna headed back to the door and left the room, but not before her she passed a mirror that reflected the “Kick me” sign taped to her rear.
Hiding behind the door, Celestia chuckled under her breath.
Author's Note
For the love of God... someone please stop me.
