Plowed Fields

Chapter 3 ‘Family Stallion’

A Big Mac Romance

Jessica looked at the handwritten ledger once more. She was thinking that she was wrong, but it all added up. The Peach Orchard, now renamed Sweet Nectar Acres, was actually making money. They were selling enough fresh peaches at the farmer’s market, and to a local bakery that she was able to let her online tech support job go. It was a freeing feeling to let them know that she appreciated what they had done for her, but she had an opportunity to do something better.

That wasn’t the only thing that had happened in the last few months. A soft smile crossed her face as she remembered that fateful night less than half a month ago with Big Mac. He had been a gentleman, well gentlecolt, but enough was enough. She had went from liking having him there, to loving being with him. That wasn’t the only thing either. He had really helped her. She wanted to be with him. To open up to him, and to get past what had happened when she had lived in the stacks for a short while before her grandmother was able to get custody over her.

He had reached her, and slowly he helped heal her hurt. She found herself trusting him completely, and she was trusting normal human men more and more. That’s when she decided that she wanted to give him something that had been stolen from her. He was nervous, like herself, but he was so gentle. She had seen him kick a tree so hard that every ripe piece of fruit fell into the buckets below, and she had seen him bend a steel fence post into the shape they needed with his bare hands. Still, all of that power didn’t come out at once. Instead he was completely gentle with her. He had even put them into the position where she was in complete control.

She looked at something beside her ledger. The letter from the courthouse indicating that her request to change her last name had come through. She wasn’t Jessica Wilkins anymore. No, she was officially Jessica Apple. Big Mac had asked her about it, and she had told him that she wanted to do it. As far as she was concerned she wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was he.

Since then he had taken a more active role in the orchard. He wasn’t just bucking, but he was also letting her know things they could do to make it better.

“Jessica, got a minute?” he asked from the hall.

She got up and walked out. The smell of sweat, sweet apples, and peaches rolled off of him. She walked over to him, felt him pull her against him and they kissed deeply for a moment before he pulled back.

“We’ve more peaches than I can haul outta here by maself,” he said.

She walked with him to the barn and saw what he meant. The bushels were full. She wanted to know how this was happening. Her trees had always been good about producing fruit before, but they were producing well over twice as much as they had been, and they seemed to be doing it in a sort of schedule. It was as if nature was changing it’s designs for Mac.

She looked at currently in use wagon, the same she had helped him repair, and saw that it had a full load of peach bushels already on it. They had some money now, but it was far more cost effective to have Mac pull the wagon to the market, and the bakers. Both places cleared a full wagon in a couple of days, and that wasn’t including them eating several different peach inspired dish a night.

Their finances did give them quite a bit of wiggle room. The thought of a truck came to her mind, but it would far too expensive to maintain an electric powered truck let alone a combustion powered engine one. She could look into finding a Clydesdale for sale, but most horses now tended to be bought up by large cities. There was traditional taxi cabs, but more and more people had started using horse drawn buggies in cities that had enough wealth to afford the care of the animals.

No, buying a Clydesdale would be out of the question, and besides she wasn’t sure how Mac would take seeing what a normal horse looked like.

“It’s too bad that AJ ain’t here. Ah know she’d help out in a second, and Ah’d kind of like to introduce ya to her. What with ya takin’ ma name and all,” he said.

That hit her perfectly. Big Mac missed his family, and while she wasn’t too keen on the idea of sharing him it was wrong to keep him separated from his family. Not to mention the fact that Applejack would want to help make sure that her brother’s farm was doing well.

“Let me see if I can find her. Maybe we can have her agree to come out,” she replied.

He watched as she walked off. Her heart shaped rump making those jeans look better and better. He was lucky to have her, and… something struck him as odd. She mighty ornery last month around this time, and the month before. She wasn’t acting all ornery this time. His ears splayed out as it occurred to him. She wasn’t ornery. Applejack acted a might different when it was her. She got ornery sure, but she also went to working harder, and sometimes she would go to Zecora and get a little bit of black root to chew on for some kind of cramps.

Jessica wasn’t acting like she had those cramps, and she wasn’t acting ornery.

“Pa always said to be a stallion about things like this,” he muttered as he hooked up the wagon and got ready to pull it to the market and then to the bakers.

Jessica watched as he left, and then she slipped on her haptic gloves and VR goggles. She began going back through her browser history trying to find Vogon, but she couldn’t find it at all. She kept looking, but nothing came up. She checked her email, and the original email was gone. There was another chance. Netflix would often have pop ups, and maybe she could find a pop up of Vogon. She groaned and finally she logged into netflix. It was a long shot, but maybe it would pop up again. If it did then she could get to it through that.

The episode of Filli Vanilli began and she watched it. It ended, and she waited for the pop up. She watched the side of the credits, and nothing happened.

“Please, come on, please pop up… He misses them so bad, and we could really use the help. It made him so happy to see Pinkie Pie at that meet and greet with Andy Williams, so I know he needs this please,” she whispered.

Almost as if the digital anthropomorphic stallion had heard it he appeared. It walked toward her, bowed and smiled.

“Click me,” he whispered.

She reached out for him and once again the entire setting became blindingly bright. The psychedelic rainbow appeared once more and she was standing in the exact same room she had been when she got Big Macintosh.

“I take it that you are happy with your purchase Miss Wilkins, or should I say Mrs Apple?” he asked.

“Wait, how do you know about that?” she asked.

“Mrs Apple, Jennifer, Vogon is a multinational, multibillion dollar business. We like to keep tabs on our clients and ensure that they are getting the most for their money. Now, what can I interest you in?” he asked.

“The Apple family,” she replied.

“The entire Apple Family? You do realize that according to some cannon, and most fans, that means the bulk of all Earth Ponies. Why, even Pinkie Pie is related to the Apples,” the stallion said.

“Okay, Big Macintosh’s immediate family,” she replied.

“Ah, that’s a much more manageable request,” he said.

The curtain opened, without his pulling on the cord, and Applejack, Granny Smith, and Apple Bloom all three lit up.

“They are still twenty-two thousand credits a piece I should add,” he replied.

“I… I only have enough to spare for two,”

“My dear, then what you need to do is decide which two you want to have. Think about what he needs,” the stallion said.

She breathed out, reached out, and touched both Apple Bloom and Applejack. For a moment they glowed, their eyes opened and then they disappeared.

“Very good. Now, their memories will be created from the show, but is there any memories you would like to add from fan content?” he asked.

She thought about the stories containing Applejack and a good part of them that concerned her with humans did usually end the same way. She’d either hate the humans, or she end up shacked up with them. Still, she was always honest, always family oriented in most of them. She thought hard, and came up with two. She quickly typed in Set in Stone by Kudzuhaiku, and then she added Room for Rent by Drax99.

Applejack wasn’t the main character in either story, but the authors had done a good job of portraying her in a good light. As for Apple bloom she decided to let her memories simply exist from the show. The stallion nodded and smiled. Once again a bright light covered her and she saw Discord dragging something over a register.

Take good care of the former element of honesty and her sister. I’m sure that they miss their brother,” he said.

She looked at him strangely for a moment before he disappeared. She pulled off her goggles, the gloves, and looked at the console. There was far too many questions to ask, but they had help coming, and she was doing something nice for Big Mac.

Author's Note

(And there’s the next chapter. Expect an Applejack story to be coming out in the next couple of days, and here’s a small glimpse of the first chapter.)

Ah lay in that confounded bed and listened to what was supposed to be ma sister-in-law making little soft moans, saying ma brother’s name over and over, and then there was the sound of that damned bed. Those springs squeaking, the headboard slapping the wall. Finally Ah couldn’t take another minute and Ah walked to his room, and banged on the door.

“Better get some shut eye ‘cause we got a lotta buckin’ ‘morrow, and I expect ta get it all done!” I shouted.

“Kinda busy,” he replied through the door.

“Celestia, please, please just make me deaf for tonight. Ah wanna sleep,” Ah whimpered as I walked back to ma room.

(Thanks for reading and commenting

LF)