Author's Note
I suggest slowing down your reading speed, to aid with flow.
Tastes Bitter Sweet
Three phrases could sum up the past month of Applejack's life.
A spring harvest.
A loud snap.
And a hospital stay.
And now here she sat, laying flat in her hospital bed. Staring up at the pale powder blue ceiling. Doctors rushing around like mad trying to find a way to break the news. Disease infested her bones, down to the marrow. Our Dear Applejack would never kick another tree. Bones brittle and growing weaker day by day.
Applejack could only stare up above herself, waiting to get back to work, waiting for the bad kick to get solved and for her to get back out in the fields. The last thing she was expecting were the words, broken bone. And as shattering as those words might have been, what followed was like a brick through a window.
The infection, the sickness, contracted by chance and worsened by time, had festered in the winter, unseen and unheard. That by the spring, when the first tree was to be harvested, poor little AJ's bone snapped like a twig. A sickening crack was all that was heard, the proud mare nearly biting through her tongue to keep from screaming.
But all the same, now she was in bed, being told she'd never buck again. Told to leave the work to those stronger, healthier, that she wasn't good enough anymore. She was a broken plow, doomed to sit around until the rust finally ate her away, and left nothing but a ramshackled wreck.
That was her life now, the life of a broken tool. And even on the day of her release she could only lurch step by step, her legs strong, but bones weak. Years of training, years of work, all lost to an incurable bout of denial, turned to an untreatable disease. And the now busted mare tried hard to work again, forced back by those that were strong, those that cared.
But their care was convenient to them, it was genuine, but born of misunderstanding. And as Applejack sat by the window, watching her siblings overtake her, assume her life, all without a word, she grew tired. Days would pass without a word. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to a month, and finally a special day came around again.
A day like no other for our crippled heroine. A family gathering, a chance for her to limp around and pretend she was still whole. A fake smile burned into her cheeks, grim and artificial. But her family knew, every Apple knew, this one was rotten.
But there was one Apple, one like her, one broken from years of abuse. She bore a hat and a fiddle, and as the festivities drug on, she laid a special gift under the bed of our rotten Apple. Her hooves were thick, filed down to a sharp point, the hooves of a musician, and of a mare who knew what the pain of futility was.
Years of back breaking work, years of pulling carts and hard labor had racked her muscles. The loss of a daughter, a failing outside of her control, racked her mind. But much the same as our dear AJ, an outsider dropped by.
And as the festivities drew to a close, as the day drew to an end, and out broken plow wandered back inside, bent on rest, she found it. A smooth black guitar, with a note slipped between the strings, and a file. The note was plain, written with thick black ink.
Sharp hooves, sharp tongues, and sharp minds are worth all the bits in the world.
And so did Applejack toss the sturdy gift aside, casting it to the floor in a fit of rage. And it would sit on that floor for a week, until Applejack's options narrowed. An accident, or so she'd have everpony believe, confined her to a chair. And with a month of nothing ahead of her, she had two options.
Starve herself to death.
Or cut her hooves on the guitar.
And while at first the first was her intent, a strum of the chords made her ear twitch. It sounded terrible, like someone smashing a brass cistern over stone. Applejack tossed the guitar away once again. But as the hours pressed on, and her mind wandered, she grew angry.
I've heard it sound better.
I can't let that be it, that was awful.
Apple ponies don't quit anyways...do they?
And so Applejack struck a tune, once again sounding like pap on bricks. In a fit she stroked the guitar wildly with her hooves, and in the flailing, found a tone. A sharp pluck, a high string, something pleasing.
And so her little game turned to a challenge. Find the chord, then the next, and another. It sounded new, like nothing ever played for her.
How the hay?
Ain't never done that before....
Bet I can do it again!
And so she did, and when her stomach begged for food, she answered. Not for herself, not for the taste, but just to get a few more minutes to find that proper tune. The one that would ring like a bell, the one that called her name. Her life settled into a deep groove, all a challenge to find that one place, that one combinations of movements that summoned up that golden sound.
But her dull hooves could never pluck the right place, never give it just the right tension. So on a dull summers day, while the others were out playing in the mud, Applejack filed down her hooves, and picked. Her game was one of wood and metal now, fighting the guitar and forcing the fickle device to do as she commanded.
And the dour Apple pony, paragon of honesty, mare of her family, smiled. An angry, fighting smile. Tongues were bit, cuts were formed, and war was waged against the acoustic monster. The tunes spilling forth from the Apple family home drew crowds from miles around, all listening with rapt attention as Applejack cut her soul and let the music speak for her.
But it was never right.
Dang it, do like you're supposed to.
Never went and made the right noise.
Gotta get it right...just one more hour.
And even on the day when her friends gathered around her, with the greatest news of all, she and her steel strung obsession played on. And with a new found posture, bones strong once again, nearly a year of limping had left Applejack a bit weak.
And so, she played standing, her legs growing stronger. She threw her weight into her playing, her legs growing stronger. She hit a string, her legs growing stronger. And on a brisk autumn morning, laying on a tree branch, she found it.
She found that high pitched pick, that resonating twang. And when she hit it, she struck it again, and again, and again until another was demanded, a new chord. And after that, more and more lines were pieced together, more music was forged into a beautiful song.
The barren trees staying silent while Applejack found a way to turn a broken tool into art. She learned to use a rotten apple to grow a rose. She created an art, an abstract idea, something blue, but something bold. Something orange, something her own, something she would never lose.
And from that fall day on, the distant strum of a guitar could be heard across the orchard from dawn to eight am, when the orange rose from the rotten apple stood proud, and reclaimed her life.
But one thing was assured, the feel of a blue apple, the sound a steel string, and the taste of bitter cider had never been so beautiful.
