The Last Shipment, or Conversations with a Barrel

The forest seemed to less dense than before... she found it easier to navigate Barrel between the trees, and she began to hope that perhaps she'd be approaching some form of field: if she was very lucky she could perhaps spot some kind of village or road without any trees to obstruct her vision, a village where she could find and charter some form of transportation for her and Barrel to Maredrid. But when she finally passed the last tree blocking her path, her face fell.

Faced with a rugged rocky landscape, uneven and unforgiving, she realized that she was probably in for even more troublesome terrain. She looked down at Barrel, visibly unhappy that she'd have to carry him far more than before, unable to roll him over the rough surface ahead.

"Darn it! Y'all just had to go on gaining weight, didn't ya, partner?" she grunted, poking at Barrel's rather rotund form. Barrel himself made no remark, quite content to let Applejack vent her stress on him. She smiled. Barrel was so considerate...

"Well, Ah don't remember the map that well, so without any alternatives... let's get on movin'." Applejack declared, hoisting Barrel onto her back and navigating the more treacherous rocky landscape. She had to admit she was glad to see some trees dot her surroundings. She didn't relish the notion of a completely lifeless mesa.

The grit shifted under her hooves, the sound reminding her of that when she had visited Appleoosa for the first time...

Old memories, best left alone. If she began remembering things, who knew when she'd stop?

She shifted her weight as Barrel began to slip to the side.

"Whoops-a-daisy! Hang on tight, there, partner!" Applejack exclaimed. "Ah know how hard it is to hang on to somepony at a rodeo, but for all our sakes just hang in there." she added, grinning. She missed rodeos. She missed the excitement, the fun, the cheap food... hay fries and thick tomato sauce handed to her as she sat on top of the tall stallion who took her there, so she could see above the pulsing crowd and look at the events down below...

Taking part was fun too. Hanging onto a raging bull was one of her favourite events, aside from lassoing. It was simple, tricky, and wildly unpredictable.

Applejack turned to take stock of her surroundings, this time standing on higher ground.  She saw the forest behind her... stretching out as far as she could see, disappearing into the horizon. She wondered how long she had been walking through that idyllic woodland... the days had began to blur together by now. She rubbed her eyes. She wasn't even sure how long it had been since she was walking over these rocks. It felt like it hadn't been long. How long had it been since...

Hadn't there been a beach? Right back at the beginning of her trip?

It didn't help, she reasoned, that her sleep pattern had been completely thrown off. Sleeping in the middle of the afternoon made keeping track of time difficult, impossible even, without anypony to keep track for her. Her carefully crafted routine, hammered into her mind back at the farm had been utterly smashed to pieces.

"Gah. Good thing you don't have an expiration date, huh, partner?" she commented as she resumed her slow, unyielding march. She glanced up at the clouds briefly. She could almost hear the pegasus's voice in her ear.

"Whoo, boy, that's a beauty! Nice little Cirrus up there, nice high altitude." he said, grinning. Applejack chuckled as she looked back down. Pity she couldn't tell clouds apart. She'd love to have something to talk about. Barrel's conversation was getting a little stale.

"Ah don't suppose you know about clouds, do y'all, partner?" she asked her passenger briefly. Barrel did not reply. Applejack shrugged, as if she were uncaring. "If y'all don't want to talk, that's your problem." she replied, a little annoyed that her friend was ignoring her.

"Fine, be that way." she snapped, pausing as she encountered a small ravine. She peered down suspiciously.

It wasn't the most impressive thing she'd seen, but it would take a long time to go around. Too long. It was pretty deep, too, the stream at the bottom only able to be heard faintly. She couldn't estimate exactly how deep: the way it was slanted made her perspective seem off. Not only that, but hunger was giving her eyesight some trouble.

"We'll have to climb across, partner." she told Barrel. Barrel disapproved.

"It's too risky. We should go around instead." Applejack replied. She slapped her face with her hoof, exasperated.

"But we don't have forever! It'll take a whole day to get around!" she complained. Barrel still wasn't convinced.

"Ah know, but surely we could pick another direction? Maybe there ain't a town in that there direction anyhow?" Applejack replied, doing her best to convince her partner against this rash course of action. Applejack just looked at the barrel disparagingly.

"Don't be like that. C'mon, look! There's a tree Ah can use to climb over, no problem!"

"Yes, but if it breaks you'll fall into the river an' drown."

"Ah won't drown, Ah can swim!"

"There's jus' no reasoning with you, is there?"

Applejack sat down, engaging in a desperate staring contest with Barrel, her many bee staring contests with Rainbow finally paying off. But Barrel wasn't giving up either: his wooden expression was driving Applejack utterly crazy.

Eventually Applejack couldn't take it anymore, and in a swift, decisive movement, much to Barrel's shock, she bucked him right in the middle of that area where she decided his stomach should be, her well developed muscles sending him flying straight over the ravine and bouncing on the other side before rattling to a stop.

"Whoa! What was that for?"

"Now all Ah gotta do is climb across." Applejack said, ignoring Barrel completely as she trotted over to the tree, examining it carefully. Sure, it wasn't the most lively tree around, and it had a few branches that looked a little dry and brittle, but the largest and strongest branches were leaning over the ravine, and the farmpony knew her trees. If she thought it could take her weight, then it could.

"Y'all be careful over there!" she exclaimed. Barrel had a worried look across his lid. Applejack swallowed as she drove herself upwards, her hooves clinging onto the slanted side of the tree, her balance impeccable. The tree hardly even swayed. Applejack looked over at Barrel as she began carefully making her way across the makeshift bridge.

"See? Perfectly safe."

"It don't look perfectly safe!"

Barrel had a point. Applejack was making her way to the thinnest parts of the branches, nearest to the very top of the tree, that hung just over the opposing edge of the ravine. Applejack chuckled nervously when she heard the dry wood begin to creak. A second passed as she stood there, unmoving, waiting for any sign that the tree would give. She breathed a sigh of relief.

The branch snapped, splinters shooting out at the most chaotic of angles like shrapnel from an explosion, and Applejack began falling straight down.

"Applejack, no!" she exclaimed as she leapt forward best she could, changing her momentum just enough for her hooves to find purchase on the edge of the cliff. She slid down for a few inches, then stopped. She looked desperately at Barrel.

"Go! Save yourself!"

Barrel heroically stood his ground.

"Ah'll never leave you!" Applejack exclaimed bravely. "Anyway, Ah'm not the one in danger." she added.

"Oh, yeah, right. Mah imagination ran away with me." she said.

Barrel seemed to understand Applejack's predicament, despite the rather volatile circumstances. After all, a long time spent alone tended to make you more susceptible to mind tricks. She tried clawing herself up, but gravity pulled harder. She could barely make any headway. She felt sweat begin to form on her fur and her leg muscles become heavy. Barrel seemed so tauntingly close, yet despairingly far away. Applejack gritted her teeth.

She found herself presented with a choice: either give up and, if she was very, very lucky, live with an injury, or she could keep on trying to save herself, and not only keep herself safe but Barrel too. She grunted with effort, her muscles bulging as she tried lifting her frame above the lip of the cliff.

"Guh! Shouldn't... have eaten... so may guldarn' pies... Applejack!" she exclaimed, before shooting an angry glare at Barrel. However the taunt was enough to convince her to push beyond her limits, and she found herself, lying flat on her back and panting, safe on the other side of the ravine. She was silent for a time, unable to speak.

She had made it.

Both herself and Barrel were well on their way to continuing their trek across the rocky mesa. She turned her head towards the road before her.

To her despair, it stretched on endlessly, faraway hills forming a desolate horizon. Applejack groaned as she looked over at Barrel.

"Looks like we got a long way to go yet, partner."

***

Twilight stepped outside into the sunny, warm outside world, blinking twice as her eyes adjusted, transitioning from intense reading to bright sunlight. She almost cringed, but relished the warm caress of light on her fur.

This idyllic peace was disrupted however, by a familiar pegasus shouting angrily.

"Whaddya mean they lost the tornado cloud? That's a class five stormcloud they just went and... um, what was the word you used? Misplaced?" Rainbow Dash screamed at one of her weather ponies. The pony in question, Thunderlane, had lost the rock paper scissors match to determine who would break it to their field manager that they wouldn't be getting their resources due to a technical failure. Rainbow Dash hated technical things. She couldn't even remember the names of most of the weather they made, referring to them by their colloquial, civilian terms.

"What's wrong, Rainbow?" called Twilight. In the space of a split-second, the cyan mare was mere yards away, still in the process of face-hoofing severely.

"They guys from Manehattan lost our twister cloud... bumbling idiots..."

"You mean a green cloud, right?" asked the alicorn, trying to recall the correct terminology from one of her many study sessions. Rainbow Dash threw her hooves up angrily.

"What do I know? I just move the clouds where they tell me, how they tell me. That science stuff is left to the lab ponies." Rainbow snorted, clearly not caring much for the specifications of each nebulous form she had to deal with on a daily basis. Twilight's horn flashed to life as she opened her mailbox, pulling out a small pile of letters.

"You seem awfully moody lately. What's eating you?" Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash groaned.

"Well aside from this latest embarrassment..." she said, gesturing towards her innocent and berated workers, "I still haven't caught up any of my sleep from since last week when Scoots had her accident, because some dumb fillies were partying right underneath my house, and to top it all off I can't even blow off some steam with AJ. My life sucks right now."

Twilight chuckled. Rainbow Dash couldn't tell a hard day's work if it hit her over the head with a banana. Shaking her head, amused, she became silent when she saw a letter she didn't expect among her usual collection of advertisements. It was very formal and was signed from the Manehatten Merchant Fleet Office. She frowned as she opened it.

"I guess I just need to keep cool until AJ gets back... then I can totally chill and be awesome again." Rainbow Dash added hopefully. She saw Twilight's growing concern as the alicorn read the letter. Eventually Twilight gasped, which set off alarm bells in the pegasus's mind. She landed, and trotted closer. "What, what?" she asked as her friend reread the letter in a panic, working up the nerve to read it aloud.

"It says that a rogue twister hit Applejack's ship..." Twilight began.

***

Applejack curled up next to Barrel, for some reason feeling some kind of warmth emanate from the squat wooden object, as the surprisingly cold night air bit at her skin, particularly her back, which was now itching. Her eyes were still open, looking out at the rocky landscape that surrounded her.

"Ah bet you're wondering why Ah'm out here alone, right, partner?" she asked her friend.

"Ah didn't want to pry, but do tell." Applejack answered.

"Well... Most of mah friends had things to do, see... back at home." she said. "Rainbow was meant to be here with me, but she had to stay behind take care of somepony. Spittin' image of loyalty, that girl. Heh. Makes sense, right?" she explained, before her eyes glazed over wistfully. "Do y'all remember home, partner?"

Barrel didn't respond, deep in thought.

"Ah'm not sure. Ah remember... Ah remember the smell of apples. Y'know, ponies think Ah like the smell of apples because Ah like apples, but t'ain't true. It's cos' of mah family, y'see... the Apples have been livin' in Ponyville since Granny Smith's time." Applejack said. She smiled as she talked, not even glancing once towards Barrel.

"Pa weren't an Apple... but y'all could tell he belonged on the farm. He were a pegasus: and that might sound mighty strange, since mah whole family is earth ponies, but he were. And Ma told me that the day he arrived, he smelt of apples. Took her right by surprise, that did!" she said, laughing. She sighed.

"Ah sometimes wonder if he missed his home... he were always lookin' up at the sky, his hooves pointing at all the different types in the sky... cumulus... cirrus... altocumulus..."

"Y'all sound like you miss him." Applejack replied. She hugged Barrel tighter.

"Nah, 'course not.It's like Granny always says: he never left me." she muttered. She closed her eyes as she let herself drowsily fall to sleep. "'Night, Pa." she muttered.

Alone in the night, the barrel stood, unaware of it's surroundings and the pony who was curled around it. Because it was just a barrel.