Applejack almost had a heart attack. She had been scared hard enough to jump ten feet in the air and land on her back. The reason for it all was smiling at her, completely unfazed.
“Hey cuz!” said said reason.
“Pinkie Pie, how many times I have tell you not to sneak up on me like that?”
“Oops. Sorry.” At least Pinkie Pie was kind enough to give her a hoof back up.
“Well, no harm done, I guess,” said Applejack, again in proper vertical alignment with the world, as she brushed off the dust still clinging to her coat. “So, what brings you here?”
“My hooves, silly.”
“I mean, what are you doing?”
“Oh, that,” she said, still containing her giggles with the back of her hoof. “I am helping Twilight with her genealogical research. It's so much fun! Did you know that Prince Blueblood's fourth cousin’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather actually adopted Snails' great-great-great-great-great-uncle? Can you believe it; there's royal blood coursing through Snails's veins! Twilight still says we have to investigate further, but I know it's true. I can feel it in my tummy, and in that pinch in my knee; you know the same pinch I always get when—”
“Pinkie.” Applejack gazed at her friend sternly.
“Yes, Applejack?”
“What are you doing here at Sweet Apple Acres?”
“Oh, we just came here to say hi,” Pinkie answered innocently.
“We?”
“Me and Gummy.” She held her pet alligator right in front of Applejack's face. “Mostly Gummy to be honest. But I thought, if we're coming here already, I might as well say hi too.”
It was already too late for Applejack. She had been caught in Gummy's eyes. They lay before her as two fathomless abysses, sucking in all of creation, perpetually stripping it of all its constituents, safe for sorrow, woe, and despair. Her mind was growing ever more numb.
“You should have seen him,” Pinkie continued, turning Gummy around and thereby lifting the curse. “When I told him that we were part of the Apple family now, he got so excited he wouldn't rest until we came over. No matter what I did, I could not get him to calm down.” The alligator rested limply on top of her right foreleg.
Applejack was still reassembling her thoughts. “What did you say? I didn't catch any of that.”
“Nothing really. Just that it's super fun being part of the Apple family.”
They stared at each other in awkward silence, the corners of Pinkie's mouth raised as high as Applejack's eyebrows. After a minute, Applejack started talking again. “Well, it's been a real pleasure, but lunch is just about ready, and unless you want to join us...” she offered hesitantly.
“I can't,” said Pinkie Pie. “I already made plans with Twilight and I know she'd be super upset with me if I'd go back on my word.”
Applejack breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“Gummy on the other hoof just told me that he would very much like to join you.”
Instantly, Applejack reclaimed her breath tenfold, her eyes glued on the sudden lunch guest Pinkie held out to her like a jack in the box that had done his trick already. She reluctantly picked him up. “Alright, he can stay for lunch, if that's what he wants.”
Pinkie smiled. “Great! I gotta be off now for more detective work with Twilight. Have fun, you two!” Seconds later she had already bounced out of sight.
Unsure of what else to do, Applejack simply carried Gummy over to the kitchen, set him down on the counter, and helped Granny Smith prepare lunch. When they were done and she was about to set the table, she found Apple Bloom already seated, playing with him.
“Apple Bloom,” she ordered as she put down four sets of cutlery, “get Gummy off the table.”
“But why?” whined Apple Bloom.
“Cause it's unsanitary,” answered Applejack, while she served up Granny Smith's world famous apple stew.
“Eeyup!” agreed Big Mac, taking a seat.
“No it ain't,” Apple Bloom defended. “He's real clean and well-behaved. He's just gonna sit next to me and not bother you at all. I promise.”
“All critters go on the ground while we're eating. Them are the rules. What if he decided to take a dip in the stew? We'd have to throw out the entire pot and have nothing to eat.”
“But he doesn't even like apples. See?” As she spoke, Apple Bloom took an apple from the fruit basket and stuck it in Gummy's mouth. The toothless alligator started sucking on it phlegmatically, ere he decided it wasn't for him and let it roll out of his mouth.
“I said no!” Applejack said decisively.
“Pu-lease! Just look in his adorable eyes and tell me he can't stay.”
Apple Bloom lifted him right into Applejack's face, and once again she made the mistake of staring into his eyes. She was instantly engulfed by that illimitable void, dragging her down into a state of exanimate apathy. At the last moment, she shook her head and regained her grasp on reality.
“Alright, alright. You can keep him sitting on your lap. Just never point that thing at me again.”
Beaming from one side of her face to the other, Apple Bloom put Gummy right there and happily waited until lunch was served.
The rest of the meal was uneventful. Everypony ate their lunch while Gummy sat there tacitly, never as much as blinking. To Applejack, it was uncomfortable, even disturbing to have him around all the time.
And it didn't stop at the kitchen table. When she went out apple bucking again, there he was, sitting on a stone in the middle of the orchard, staring at her relentlessly. When she went down to the cellar to check on their firewood supply, there he was on a cider barrel, watching her incessantly. In the barn, in the shed, on the fields – he was everywhere, even in the shower when she decided to simply wash off all the day's stress, only to find him lurking in there next to the shampoo bottle. Naturally she threw him out immediately.
After that, she only wanted to take a rest and forget all about it. She asked the rest of her family to leave her alone while she sat in front of the fireplace, a mug of cider by her side, as she went through one of the many Apple family photo albums. They were always the best at calming her down.
Her peace lasted a whole fifteen minutes, until Gummy sneaked up on her and lay down on the sofa to her left. She looked him in the eye yet again, into existence's nadir, where all substance witnessed its own ephemerality. She could have been lost in them forever, but blinked and thereby vanquished her rumination.
For a brief moment, she looked at him in the most factual manner she could muster. There beside her sat a tiny little alligator, as non-threatening as he was toothless, who happened to be one of her best friend's beloved pet. Things should be simpler than they were. There should be a way by which she could get along with him.
Tentatively, she reached out for his scaly head and started petting him all the way down to his tail. She repeated the process a couple of times, Gummy all the while resting impassively. There was no telling if he was even aware of Applejack's existence.
Seeing him lie there, completely listless, she simply gave up on him. After a quick sip from her cider mug, she went back to her photo album, relishing all the wonderful memories she found in it.
And that's the end of the story. Applejack learned to ignore Gummy and just went on with her daily life like she always had. Until one night a couple of days later, when Applejack had already gone to bed and the house caught fire, because she had forgotten to turn off the stove. That's when Gummy, in an act of unparalleled bravery, dragged her out of the burning building and the two of them became the bestest of friends.
The end.
Author's Note
Don't forget to check out the other entries for more unexpected family linkage..
