I slowly watched the world change right in front of my eyes as I lazily sat in my rocking chair on my front porch at Sweet Apple Acres. Hearing the birds chirping away in the apple trees gave off a calm and comforting atmosphere. Being old wasn’t easy, with new technology coming out everyday and your body changing to its age, it just seemed like nothing was ever on your side. Another downfall of being old is that people start to die.
I could vaguely remember my friends’ moods whenever I saw them, always taking for granted that I would see them the next day. Well, I was wrong. As us Elements of Harmony got older, age took a toll on us…
Rainbow Dash was the first to go; she did get to join the Wonderbolts, but died very young. She took her role as a Wonderbolt very recklessly, and now gets used as a story to the recruits of what not to do.
Fluttershy’s, being one of the most tragic deaths, was when she encountered a Timberwolf, she was brutally raped and died from her injuries.
Pinkie Pie just asked for hers, she always loved to eat food and talk at the same time, after a long time of warnings of talking with her mouth full it finally happened; she died choking on a vegetarian hot dog.
Rarity seemed like the she had the most peaceful death out of all my friends and it was just recently too, a couple months ago she went to bed, and never woke up. It was said that some time during that night was when her heart gave out and stopped beating.
I’m now the last of my friends in my old age, just waiting for death to take me with him, or her, or whatever gender death happens to be. The only thing I’d be leaving behind me would be my family, not my friends as they’re already dead. I would surely miss my brother Big Mac, as well my daughter Applesauce, the father of which left me when he found out I was pregnant with her.
And the last person I would miss would be my grandson, Johnny Appleseed. He used to be energetic which reminded me of myself when I was younger, but now he’s starting to be a teenager where he doesn’t even want to hangout out with his elders.
Speaking of my grandson, he’s going to be dropped off here at my house soon to spend the weekend with me to get to know me better. Johnny and I rarely talk to each other; the only time I get to see him is during Santa Hooves break, which even then we barely got time to talk to each other. It saddens me that he won’t even get to know his own grandmother very well.
Over the horizon on the farm I saw a moving object, I squinted my eyes better to get a good look at said object that was heading towards my house. With the dust being kicked up into the air it was hard to see what was coming towards me. After it traveled 20 meters or so I soon realized that it was my grandson Johnny who was walking towards me. I couldn’t believe that my daughter would let Johnny go walk here all by himself; though it was a short walk it was just too hard to believe. It seemed like he was just taking his sweet time to come towards my house, just the way he was walking indicated that he was trying to make the trip longer.
As he made his way down to the arc at the front of the house I began to see him better, about my height in size, with an orange coat and a short blond mane with apple seeds as his cutie mark, he was a chip off the old block of me. I saw him walking with a bit of annoyance on his face, something that actually concerned me for once.
“Hey, Johnny It’s nice to see you!” I said, I got up from my chair and proceeded to walk towards him, as soon as I got right up to him, I tried to give him a loving hug and say “I’m looking forward to spending the weekend with you.” But when I tried to hug him he just gently pushed me to the side saying that he wasn’t in the mood. As soon as he said this I felt my heart break a little, which was something that my old heart clearly didn’t need.
He pushed open screen door and walked into my neatly clean house, I walked up in front of him and said “Follow me and I’ll show you where your room is.” I walked him through our living room; nothing fancy and nothing boring about it, just a TV and a comfortable couch to lie on.
I led my grandson up the stairs while passing the bathroom, a couple doors down the hall I made a sudden halt and told him that he would stay here for the weekend. I don’t know what he has in his room at his mom’s house, but here, this room was very basic. I stepped aside to let him become acquainted with his new room for the next couple days..
“Well, I best be going now, you can get yourself settled in here.” I said, to break the silence that began to fill the room.
“Ok grandma.” He responded as he closed the door after I walked out.
A couple hours have passed since I showed my grandson to his new room, and within those hours I have been hearing “ARGH” “YES” “NO” “OH COME ON” over and over from the upper floor. I was currently sitting in my rocking chair inside the living room reading the newspaper until I decided that this was the final straw for me. I’d been listening to his yelling for hours until I finally got tired of it. I struggled to get up out of my chair, and I walked on towards the stairs. It took me some time to get up to the second floor but after a while, I made it. I trotted over toward my grandson’s room and partially opened his door. In there sat my grandson sitting on the rug floor staring and at the TV with an intense look, holding a controller in his hand.
“What in tarnation are you yelling about, youngster?” I said, glaring at him.
“I, er, um… I’m playing Call of Apples on my game console, grandma.” Johnny responded, not taking his eyes off the TV screen.
“Call of what?” I said, as I looked at the screen and noticed guns, blood, and violence everywhere. “Whoa there, youngster, don’t you think you’re a little too young for that?” I said, my eyes wide open from shock.
“It’s fine, Grandma. My mom bought it for me a while back; anyway I was just getting bored so I wanted to have some action.” He said. As soon as he said that I got really annoyed, he wanted to have some action, well hell I know what action is, heck I was in a war, so I have both seen and been in action.
“You kids with your fake games really make me mad... Follow me Johnny; I want to tell you a story.” I said as an order, not a request. I lead him down to the living room where I had him take a seat; I sat in my own rocking chair right across from him.
“Now Johnny, what you’re about to hear is completely true, I saw it with my own eyes, but before I get into the action: I’m going to start with how it all begun.”
“What do you mean Grandma? What are you talking about?” Johnny said with puzzlement.
“Johnny, I’m talking about the four day war, how the Apples won the war.”
"Dagnabbit!" I cried out in frustration. "The Orange family did it again!"
I stared in complete bewilderment, as anger began to fill my eyes, not twenty feet standing in front of me is what used to be of the red barn, but only torched down in flames. Everything in the barn had now been burned to the ground. It was no wonder who set my family's barn on fire; because this isn’t the first time we’ve lost a barn to them. Ever since my sister, Apple Bloom, accidentally set ablaze the Orange family's west orchard on fire, they have been setting our barn on fire for payback. Whenever my family rebuilds the family barn, it’s because our neighbors, the Orange family, had something to do with it.
"This time, they’re going to pay for it." I said to begin my rant. "It's bull shit that they keep on tearing down our barn as soon as we rebuild all because Apple Bloom accidentally set half of their farm on fire, even though I paid for the damages!"
I turned around, and headed back to the house to tell my family the bad news again, I can't bear to think of what Big Mac might do, people say that the silent people are always the deadly ones. Once I got fifty feet in front of the door my dog, Winona, came barreling out the door in searching for me, I knelt down on my one knee and braced for impact on her bombardment of licks.
"Hey, Winona," I said with a calm and cool voice. "I'm going to go inside and talk to my family, come on Winona, let’s get back inside."
The second I walked through the front door of my house, I smelled the best smell ever that could possibly come from a kitchen: sautéed apples. I slowly walked into the kitchen noticing the whole family, minus my parents, where there. I sat down right next to my Grandma, and my younger sister, Applebloom. Once everyone was sitting with food on their plate, we began to say our grace, with me leading.
"Bless us, oh Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen." We all said in union.
After that we all dug into the food that we were given. The sautéed apples were marvelous. I always loved how when you bite into the apple it just melts into your mouth; I love that feeling. Continuing to eat my meal, I saw my family staring right at me, after a while I guessed that they wanted to know what happened.
I sighed. "Yes, if you're wondering where the smoke is coming from it is indeed coming from our newly burnt down barn. Also yes, our wonderful neighbors the Orange family did." I said, hinted with a side of sarcasm. After I said this, Big Mac's facial expression turned from worry to anger, just like I predicted. Turning over to my side to meet Apple Blooms face, she looked confused on what to do next. "Sister what are you going to do?" She questioned. I looked at her for a couple seconds and swallowing my sorrow I replied. "Apple Bloom, I'm just going to go over to the Orange farm and have a small little talk with them, nothing to it and nothing to fret about."
After that got out of the way we continued eating our breakfast with a delicious pint of light cider, except for Apple Bloom whom was too young for it. As soon as breakfast was done I walked up stairs and grabbed my saddle bag, I laid it down on the bed and got prepared to go over to the Orange's farm. I looked throughout my room in various places of where I hide some of my important tools, first aid kit, pocket knife, matches, flashlight, rope, and other necessities, just in case something bad happens. I placed the items into the saddlebag and proceeded downstairs to leave and go find answers.
I whistled through the house and yelled out "Come on, Winona, let’s go!' As I walked outside I heard Granny Smith yell out. "You be safe, you here?" And slightly after that I heard Big Mac agreeing with "Eeyup."
"Don't worry Granny and Big Mac, I'll be fine. I'll be back soon!" I yelled out, galloping towards the Orange Orchard.
I started to notice the outline of the Orange orchard as I ran, seeing instead of apples on the trees it was oranges. I found a dirt path to walk on and shortly after walking on it my destination came into view. Upon walking through the big metal arch in front of the house I was quickly spotted by a filly not ten years old in age. Hmph, there goes Clementine. I thought to myself, who's probably going for her dad Valencia. Not a second later my assumption was correct.
A tall orange colored pony stepped out the door frame and walked towards me, taking his pretty time while he's at it. "Why hello, Applejack, something troubling you?" Before I could answer the question he interrupted me. "Oh answer that later, please do come inside.”
I followed him inside of the house, trying to not look frustrated as I met his gaze. "Please sit down, get all comfortable." He said, directing me towards a couple chairs. As I sat down we sat there in silence for a couple seconds before our eyes met each other, and after I gave him a death stare he immediately knew why I was here.
"I'm guessing you're here about your burnt down barn again?" He sighed.
"Yes I am, and I'm pretty pissed off about it too, because I know its you who keeps burning down my barn!"
As soon as I said this he looked straight into my eyes and gave me a very calm expression. "You really think that I have enough dignity to go over to a fellow neighbor and burn down her barn, especially one of my relative’s barns?" The words spoken from him right there made me speechless.
"I... er...uh..." I stammered.
"Look, I didn't burn down your barn, but I bet I know who did." As soon as I heard say this my heart sprung up.
"Who?" I replied.
"Well, you see, after the last barn that got burnt down I kinda figured someone wanted revenge on you so I placed a couple surveillance cameras around the perimeter of the barn only. I know, it seems a little creepy but just to catch the culprit." Valencia said nonchalantly. He started to get up from his chair and went up to the front door. "Well if we're going to see who did it then lets go look at our cameras, shall we?" After that I sprung up from the chair and trotted after him to the burnt down barn.
He decided to take his slow time, Valencia started saying something about how lovely a day it was, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was just focused on finding out who burned down my barn. As we soon headed up to the burnt down barn he took an immediate left turn to the apple trees, as we got closer I noticed that there was a brown camera hiding up in the branches.
“You see, Applejack,” Valencia said as he turned towards me. “We didn’t want to tell you that we hid these up here because you’d probably put legal charges against us.”
“I oughta-” I started to say, but then quickly realized that a rude remark could cost me the video evidence I needed. “But if you say you didn’t burn down my farm and that tape recorded it, then I guess I shouldn’t.”
“Great!” He said, almost a little too cheerily, as he took the tape out of the camera. We proceed to 4 other surveillance cameras and got the tapes out of them. We then walked back to my house and as soon as I opened the front door to let him in, things almost went sour. “Enope!” I heard Big Mac yell in front of me as I lead newly acquainted guest inside of the house, shutting the door behind him.
“Big Mac!” I started to argue. “He’s here to help us find out who burned down our barn.”
“I betchya he’s only here to burn down our house this time!” Apple Bloom piped up from behind Big Mac.
“No.” I insisted. “He’s here to help us, now sit down and lets and find out the real truth about who burned down our barn!”
Later that day, the rest of my family and I got off the train and walked out of the train station at Dodge Junction. The sun strongly struck us when we were walking on the streets, I could already see that Big Mac was starting to sweat. A couple tumbleweeds flew past me as we walked towards a carriage ride. I walked up to the carriage and was greeted by the shaggy carriage driver. After countless minutes of arguing over the price of going to Cherry Hill Ranch we decided on the fair price and we made our way.
A good thirty minutes later, we arrived at Cherry Hill ranch. Being here just….. made me feel different, it being out in the near Dodge Junction it was vivid with colors and plentiful of cherries. I had memories of not to long ago where me and my friends worked at the Cherry Hill Ranch factory, that ended up being a disaster for me and the company, so it seemed like a reason why Cherry Jubilee would want to make life miserable.
The same figure from our evidence tape walked out behind the screen door of her house. “Why, hello, Applejack.” I could tell who said that from the instinctive accent of Jubilee.
“Hello, Cherry Jubilee,” I responded. “I just came here for business, and that’s all.” I said, my face turning to a frown.
“Why sure Applejack, come in, come in please, and we can talk about what you have on your mind.” Cherry Jubilee led us to a medium sized room, a rich green colored wall with exclusive carpets and just fabulous furniture that would make even Rarity envious.
“Well.” I began, holding up the VHS tape. “I was hoping that I could show you this interesting video.” I was sure to emphasize on the word ‘interesting’.
“Sure.” was the only response I got from her.
I placed the tape into the VCR, turned on the TV and VCR, and let the tape play. I looked towards to Cherry Jubilee as the expression of shock consumed her, followed by a deep frown. On the screen right now, Cherry Jubilee and her associates in crime were currently in the middle of burning down my barn, that’s when I pressed the pause button.
“There.” I said, pointing directly towards to the TV screen. “See there, Cherry Jubilee, that’s you right there on video; showing your face to the camera as you burned down my barn! What do you have to say about this?” My eyes stared fiercely into Cherry’s soul.
Cherry Jubilee returned my glare. “I did what I thought was right and to avenge my company.” I looked at her hard, I couldn’t believe that she burnt down my barn just because of something that I did to her company. I answered as rationally as I could.
“Look here, Cherry Jubilee, I don’t know what I did to make you burn down my barn but this isn't right, you're going to pay for all of the damages; or else.”
I started to walk out of the expensive living room and headed towards the door with my family behind me when Cherry Jubilee yelled. “Like hell I’m going to pay for what I did, ain’t no way what I did was bad; I did it for the right reason.” I spun around as fast as I could and lunged forward grabbing her by the throat, I could feel the surge of anger overtake me as I held Cherry Jubilee in my hooves. As I felt power, I could also feel panic in her as she began to get nervous.
“Look here, Cherry Jubilee.” I growled. “If you don’t repay the damages, you’ll regret it.” I saw that she was starting to struggle to talk with my hoof around her neck so I got off of her and patted dust off myself whilst heading towards the door.
“I ain’t paying nothing to you lowly dirt ponies.” Cherry muttered as I walked away.
As I ushered my family out the door, a million thoughts came into my head thinking of what I should do. All but one thought it was the boldest decision I would ever make. I glared as hard as I could into the eyes of Cherry Jubilee as I barely spoke the words I never thought I would speak. “This means war.” I said, slamming the door on my way out of her ranch house.
