My Baby Sister

Applejack remembered the last second before the darkness. A winged demon, weeping ashen tears; a dragon clad in bloodsoaked scales; a foal, lying half-dead on a non-existent ground. She didn’t regret standing up, didn’t regret trying to help. She regretted that she failed. The claw tore through her coat and her blood splattered onto her attacker. She knew that it had happened, for she had seen it before the end.

And yet Applejack found that, just as everything ended, her body took another breath. It was the strangest sensation she had ever felt, like her body decided to ignore death on nothing but a whim. Not just that, but that first breath came so easy to her. No pain, no aching, no nothing. She just sucked in the air and then continued to exhale subconsciously. There was no way to describe the feeling she experienced as she lay on the ground, the air filling her lungs, her sight slowly getting sharper, the feeling of dirt and wood pressing against her back, so much that it caused her a bit of pain.

Even that wasn’t bad, because Applejack founded it easy to shift her body a bit and then the pain vanished again. Not only that, but she looked at the sky, the horrible Tear and for the first time in forever, no voice accompanied the sight. She saw how it pulsated, how the cracks between the shards lit up and went dark, following a rhythm that now completely eluded the pony down here.

In a weird way, Applejack had to admit, it looked quite beautiful. The red color reminded her of her mother’s mane. She let out the slightest giggle.

Her lungs didn’t hurt, she felt no strange fire waiting within her, always ready to consume. Even her mind felt much clearer than in a long time. It was like she was lying here as if nothing had ever happened. Applejack’s body felt as fresh as it did when she ran the race of the Falling of the Leaves against Rainbow Dash and her mind was as sharp as it was when those dreadfully weird twins with their strange machinery had shown up in town. Yes, Applejack, for the first time in a long time understood that she was fine, that she was alive.

Yet, immediately as that realization struck her, it also came to her mind that the beast might’ve gotten to Apple Bloom. Without a singular thought more, she rose to a seated position and stared at where the circle had been.

The first thing she noticed was that her legs were all back, fully working and did not show any signs of wear or rot. No pain, no nothing. She quickly began to rub her left front leg, not believing that what she was experiencing was real. It had been nothing more than a burnt stub and no magic of this world could have saved it. Yet she felt her hoof brushing through her coat, welling up the orange hairs that covered her legs. However, the sensation felt stranger still, as if it wasn’t her arm, the one she’d used for so many years, but a strange new appendage she’d never had on her body before. No black patches, either. What had happened?

As she looked up, she immediately spotted Spike across from her. He’d sat up just as she did and now looked at her queerly and in complete disbelief. Much like she did, because there were no more scars on his body nor were his spikes chipped. Even stranger, for the first time Applejack really noticed how much he’d grown since the beginning of all this. He was almost a good head taller. How the hay did he grow up that quickly and why the hay hadn’t she noticed it before?

She felt embarrassed, her cheeks started to burn up. So she did the smart thing and allowed her legs to look to the ground. There, she spotted another thing lying unconscious and as she saw it, her mouth went agape, because she knew that it shouldn’t be, couldn’t be. The lean build, the cyan coat, the hair of six colors. Rainbow Dash lay on her back and only her chest moved up and down with every soft breath she took.

“That’s impossible,” Applejack heard herself say and her brain was quick to agree with her mouth.

There was no magic in Equestria to bring back the dead. No princess held that power, no beast could utilize such a might. Yet she was there. Applejack felt herself jumping up, rushed towards her and leaned over her. She heard those soft, little breaths, as if that pony had the most relaxing sleep in ages, as if she hadn’t realized that she had burned and died and was then turned to ashes.

Applejack had to admit that, in a way, that really was just like Rainbow Dash, but also tried to poke her against her cheek. The pegasus remained unmoving.

“What the hay is this?” Applejack heard herself say and then looked at Spike, who still couldn’t believe that she was alive.

At least that was how Applejack interpreted that look of his. She didn’t blame him, usually being cleaved apart meant instant death, so she really didn’t want to think about why she feeling as healthy as a newborn foal instead. Instead she wanted to focus on everything else.

And that everything she just needed to find, so she looked around once more.

The once great Golden Oaks Library was in ashes. The only thing that remained were the wooden floor, and even that was charred, and the staircase down to the basement. All the books, all the letters and all of Twilight’s belonging was gone with the explosion. Beyond that, the inner town was completely wrecked, the outer parts would soon collapse in on themselves. Just two explosions and the town they once called home was gone. Ponyville, the boutique, the town hall, everything was cinder now. Applejack thought herself strangely calm considering what that meant.

The air tasted of ashes, but all that mattered was to find her, the filly that mattered most. So, Applejack turned her head.

“Apple Bloom?” she asked, which also caught Spike’s attention.

He rose up, walked around, looking over the ruins. Yet he halted almost immediately. Applejack knew why, he just had the same realization as her, the same strange feeling that came so easy to shake off. For him, it really was the same, because a second thereafter he took a step.

“Twilight?” he asked, his voice hollow. “Apple Bloom?”

Twilight, too. Where was she? Applejack still had a million questions for her, questions that needed to be answered. She knew that the alicorn had her reasons, she always did, but Applejack needed to know.

She wanted to shout, too, but Spike turned around. “Stay with RD, I’ll look around. Okay?” He asked, unsure.

Applejack turned to Rainbow Dash. She needed some attention, sure, but Apple Bloom was her sister.

“Please trust me,” Spike said, sounding as if he didn’t believe to already have it.

Applejack looked up, saw his pleading eyes and then another realization hit her. He knew about Twilight’s plan!

It made sense, of course, Twilight wouldn’t just go out of her way to plan the murder of her own friends. She’d probably talked about it many times with Spike, maybe they both had tried to find another. Applejack wanted to think that she was sure of that, but she wasn’t. No, whom she needed to confirm that was Twilight herself.

“Please find my sister, Spike,” she said and tried to give him a smile. While she felt like she did it, he didn’t even notice, just nodded and turned away to look for Applejack’s sibling.

And that left her with Rainbow Dash, who usually snored like a locomotive while she was asleep. Many a sleepover had been ruined by Rainbow Dash’s often appearing trademark roar of a snore. The times where she breathed so softly and relaxed were far and few between and the closest thing to a sign right now that something was up with her.

Of course there’s something up with her, she turned to bloody ashes! Applejack thought and twisted her mouth. She was honestly not quite prepared to deal with whatever was going on here.

She was perfectly fine now, but then again, she’d also died. If one would take a moment to think about it, then–

“No!” Applejack exclaimed, putting her hooves against her head. “Don’t think about it, focus on something else. Anything!”

And with that she tried to think about what to do with Rainbow Dash. She’d taken care of an ill filly for the better part of the year now, so she figured that she could utilize some knowledge she accumulated.

“The most I did was blow raspberries and change diapers, though,” she quietly summarized her experiences during the past few months, also remembering that she was now quite adept at brewing coffee.

How’s that going to help me, though? she thought and checked Rainbow Dash’s body again, hoping to find some form of anomaly. Applejack didn’t find any, though; her friend looked as healthy as always.

Rainbow Dash was lithe and lissom, a pony that was pretty much the pinnacle of a pegasus’ natural abilities. Not only that, but she had a lot of hidden strength, too, in those arms that, compared to Applejack’s, appeared to be rather thin. Worse than that, she had a more elegant look to her than anypony cared to admit. Sometimes Rarity would make off-hand remarks about how good she would look, if she’d only cared for herself more and Applejack found herself agreeing.

The problem was of course that Rainbow Dash knew about her speed, about her strength and her looks. If she weren’t as social as she was, her pride would probably be her main feature. Applejack managed to twist her mouth even further as thought about that, looking to where Spike had gone. He now dug through the wooden rubble that had probably either been a roof or a wall.

Then she looked back at Rainbow Dash as an idea came to her. But if he would find Apple Bloom and Twilight, it’d probably cheer them up. Right? Rainbow Dash would forgive her for that, because everything was lost and they needed to keep things light.

With that, she followed up on her thought and hurried down the stairs to the basement. The mare kicked up the dust that had settled on the staircase, which left her coughing as she reached the basement down below. Here, the damage was minimal. The light still glowed, though it did start to flicker more and more. If it was there, however, it meant that Twilight had to be alive. Otherwise it would’ve vanished.

Applejack halted to look at it and smiled. Maybe the ritual had worked even better than the alicorn had anticipated, maybe her own interference had changed everything. Maybe, but she needed to consult Twilight. Without her, any more thoughts would be wasted. So instead she moved towards the alicorn’s bed, where she found a box beneath.

She pulled it out and put it on her back, then quickly moved back up, to where the light of the shards illuminated the world with colors of all sorts. There, she put it down and opened it.

Her heart skipped a beat, she felt a bit vicious for doing it, but she could justify this with more than bad humor. After all, she didn’t know when Rainbow Dash would wake up and whether it was before or after she needed to go to the potty.

Toilet, Applejack corrected. She’d spent months together with Apple Bloom and now weeks together with Twilight and Spike, pretending to be a child herself. She was an adult, however, and needed to use adult words from now on.

And being a responsible adult, she took some of the inserts and a cover out of them. She’d figured Spike to have made them. His infatuation with Rarity had led to him learning quite a few tricks concerning the making of clothing. The covers, however, were awfully tacky, even Applejack could see that. In a way, accurately placed planetoids and comic book characters seemed quite up Twilight’s alley, however. She’d always been comfortable with her inner child.

With that, Applejack stopped her stalling and put the inserts atop a spread out Daring Do cover. She’d taken that one because, a.) the embroidery was just amazing and b.) Rainbow Dash’s reaction to it would be twice as amazing.

As she slid the diaper underneath the pegasus, steps approached from behind her.

“Really? The first thing you do when you’re taking care of someone is put them in a diaper?” Spike asked skeptically.

Applejack actually grinned as she snapped the diaper shut and then turned around to him. “Maybe it’ll encourage her to wake up. Her reaction’ll be hilarious.”

She noticed Apple Bloom in his arms almost immediately. The filly looked like she enjoyed being carried princess-style. Yet, what Applejack noticed about her was the most astounding thing. She’d seen Apple Bloom rot away day after day, the black spots growing both in size and number, her body growing weaker and weaker. That was not the filly she was looking at right now.

Apple Bloom was still as small as Applejack remembered, lack of nutrition perhaps, but her coat was a rich yellow, her mane a wonderful red. She looked well-fed and not boney at all. Best of all, however, there were no signs of the rot left on her.

The filly grinned at her sister. “You’re mean,” she said jokingly.

Applejack saw the teeth, all white and perfect again.

“And you’re both enjoying somebody else’s harm,” Spike said with a sigh, but then followed with an approving nod. “Yes, this is why I saved you.”

With that, however, he was quick to put Apple Bloom down on the ground again, where she sat steadily beside her sister. The dragon then turned around again, worry plastered on his face.

“I still need to find Twilight. I’ll be back in a minute,” he said and tried to dash back to where he’d found Applejack’s sister.

The filly, however, raised her voice at that moment. “She’s gone, Spike.”

He halted. A moment passed and then he turned around again. “What?”

Apple Bloom’s eyes were cast down, she shivered. “She told me. …”

Spike then took a step towards her. “Told you what?” He asked, voice shaking, claws trembling.

Apple Bloom looked towards the sky. “The creatures within the flames, they were brought here by that voice. That’s where we went, too.”

Applejack looked at her sister, curious. “But I can’t remember anyone but me, you, Spike and that Monster to be there.”

“It was there, though. It was all around us. Twilight said that the Tear is like a gateway to other worlds, but the only one to be able to step through it is a beast so vast, we cannot even comprehend its size.”

“When did she tell you that?” Spike interrupted her.

Apple Bloom closed her eyes. “I hugged her and I died while doing so. That ashen demon beast? It was the source of the fire in Twilight and in me was another one, a child that understand how it had gotten there. I guess before everything ended, all of us fused, somehow and we overcame that vast being together.”

“We ended the song?”

“And the fire’s gone, too. Everypony’s free from the fire that tortured them for so long,” Apple Bloom said, smiling at him. “It did cost us, but you did it, Spike. You saved the world.”

The dragon looked at her and then looked up at the sky. “But where’s Twilight?”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “She could’ve taken me in and survived, healed her own wounds, but she chose to sacrifice herself to save all of us,” she looked to Rainbow Dash, “and more.”

Applejack looked up at the broken sky. It wasn’t the same old blues anymore, she knew, she could look at it and needed not to be scared anymore. Twilight had actually done it, she had saved them all.

“I guess,” she said, looking at the ruins of Ponyville, “We need to look for whomever did survive and then we’ll see. Maybe Twilight can still be saved, after all,” she pointed at Rainbow Dash, “this one made it.”

Spike looked down at the cyan pony and then nodded. “Yeah,” he said and then actually sighed. “Can’t give up. There’s always a way, right? And if the fire’s gone, then maybe we can go to Canterlot and actually get Princess Celestia’s help. Maybe we can actually fix every–”

And then the day was pierced by a brutal howl and the cracking of burnt wood under heavy hooves coming closer. Everybody immediately turned around, to see what was causing the ruckus. What they spotted, however, wasn’t anything like they’d expected.

Towards them ran a beast of cinder, an equine corpse clad in a dusty aura. As Applejack stared at it, she couldn’t feel an unease, a fear, rise within her, as if she was looking at a trick of her mind, something that couldn’t be there and shouldn’t be. It was as if she was staring at death itself.

As the beast reached the edge of the library, its hooves kicked its body off the ground and with a cackling howl, it opened its mouth, ready to take a bite out of Applejack. Spike was quicker than it, however, and met it with a kick, mid-air.

The beast tumbled backwards and the dragon landed on both his feet, grinning smugly. “No singular monster will take down the great Spike!”

The beast shook the damage of immediately, and howled again. This time, more answered in the far off distance. Whatever they were, they were alarming each other to the prey that had appeared before them.

“Alright,” Spike said, giving a nod. “You took me by the word. That’s, that’s alright. What was that now, ten, twelve? I can take you.”

The equine just circled around them. Weren’t it the common expression of skulls, Applejack would’ve thought its smile was deliberate.

And then it howled again. It was filled with rage and fury, bitterness over a loss experienced. Applejack heard it, understood it. It was the remnant of a song.

Spike didn’t appear to care, instead he just punched the wild beast before it could hit him. Then, he quickly turned around. “Take Rainbow Dash and Apple Bloom,” he told her. “Get out of here, now!”

Weird, she heard his voice and also the sound of more beasts approaching. The sky was pulsating with a fury she didn’t know.

“These things, they’re what’s left without the song to soothe their pain,” Apple Bloom told them, looking aghast at them. “They should be dead.”

“Just. Go.”

He didn’t need to insist twice. Applejack heaved Rainbow Dash up on her back and then nodded at Apple Bloom to follow her. However, she did not intend to leave Spike behind. “Come with us. We don’t even know anything about them. We need to go.”

The one responsible for all of this, she thought at that moment. “We need to find the pony responsible for the tear, Spike!”

“What?” He asked, turning his head.

“She can help us. Whatever these corpses are, maybe she can stop them!”

He grunted, but nodded. “We need to hurry though, they might catch up to us.”

Applejack knew that already, so she started into a gallop as quickly as she could. Behind them, the one that had fought Spike rose without making any sound and then picked up the pace. The sky pulsated above them, but the song and the light were all gone. Applejack knew not what exactly had happend, but she understood that it wasn’t as good as they had first assumed.

This world was too broken for anything good, after all.