The sky was still dim in the early morning, where sun hid mostly behind the far hills of the Apple family farm. Sweat was already staining the flanks of two hard working Equestrians, Applejack having been up through the night and Big Macintosh up early to assist her. The sturdy mare breathed in a chilled crisp breath as she checked over the small growing pants in her care. "It was a mighty harsh winter this year."
"Eeyup," Her older brother lifted the bucket from his back and rested it in the drying mud. His expression turned somewhat sour when he lifted his gaze and saw the crackling leaves of the orchard.
"I know, Mac, it's really taken it's toll on the farm, but what can we do?" Applejack said, taking the bucket, and with well trained hooves she scattered the rest of the slightly decayed leaves and branches they had saved from fall. It was all they could do to help support those precious apple trees during their off season.
By high noon, the copper orange pony traversed through Ponyville a book of orders for their later harvest in hoof. A grey pegasus with matching blonde hair nodded excitedly, her voice, though low for a mare, kept going on about delicious cinnamon apple muffins. Applejack chuckled before bidding a farewell and moving on.
She double checked her list. Her pen made a slight cracking sound in her mouth while she crossed off the Hooves residence, "I guess that just leaves Fluttershy's place." Her hooves dragged slightly. The thought of not being able to fill these orders haunted the mare, but no need to make a fuss over a crop that still had a lot of strength.
Applejack's target came into sight as she moved into the outskirts of her hometown, a delightful high rising tree with doors and windows. It all looked so flush and green already, Fluttershy surely took great care of her home. Applejack pondered on this fact as her hoof clacked on the door a few times.
After some shuffling and apologies to what the orange mare suspected was Fluttershy's animal residents the door came ajar, a soft yellow pegasus with messy hair appearing behind it, "Oh Applejack, I was expecting you...thank you for always coming on time."
"They don't call me old faithful for nothing. Can I put you down for the usual?" Her head bobbed and it pulled the notepad out once again.
"Oh yes please, my little friends love your apples the most," her voice was almost inaudible except the other mare had become accustom to it. That however did not stop Applejack from moving closer to hear better.
"By the by Fluttershy, how is it that your tree is already so green?" storing her utensils in her back-sack, the mares green eyes focused on the shying pony in front of her, "the winter just barely spared a good portion of our orchard this year."
Brow furrowed slightly, the soft spoken mare walked out of the door. Applejack politely backed up to let her by then followed as they trailed around the tree. The earth was almost as soft as the shy pony's voice, pure as any the earth pony had seen. "The animals, they are grateful to me and many decide that their final resting place...well, they rest here. Once they're..."
"Wait, all them animals die here? That's why it's so fertile," Applejack said, cutting her off, though more out of surprise then any rude intent. "By golly, if only we were so fortunate." When she saw the upset look on her companion's face Applejack cut herself off, saying, "I-- well you know what I mean."
"It's ok, I do. I'm terribly sorry that I could not help you more," Fluttershy said, waving it off with a hoof and trotting away.
"Nah, don't worry about it Fluttershy. See you around." They bid each other goodbye. As they parted, though, Applejack saw Fluttershy bowing politely to the long-passed animals.
As the season drew on, the Apples were starting to feel troubled. Their trees were not looking their best. Granny Smith quietly thought over a bubbling pot as her three dear grandchildren talked in the living room. A steady breeze flicked the curtains around a window until the tiny hooves of Applebloom closed it.
"I've counted the outcome again and again. The only solution I can come up with is we give to pre-made orders what we got and deny any after harvest buyers," the steady mare cantered in a long oval as her older brother watched patiently.
"Or no market," he suggested with a gruff sigh after a few moments of silence.
"But Maccy, we make higher sales when we take them in to market or use them for cider and baked goods. We can't just sell them all in bulk," she said, surprised by such an idea. Their small sister was curled on her haunches, watching without interrupting. Applebloom hardly knew what they were talking about but was respectful enough to keep hushed.
Walking over, the young pony cooed under an affectionate hair ruffle. Applejack's eyes skimmed up the window her sister had closed and she stared long and hard at the battered earth. "Is it that our soil don't have enough nutrients?" Her thoughts turned to Fluttershy's cottage, and the graveyard by it.
Large shoulders answered with a shrug as Big Macintosh got up to head into the kitchen to help Granny Smith. Without dispute Applejack knew the conversation had run its course; her mind was elsewhere, anyway.
In the stillness of the same night, when most ponies had long gone to bed, a hulky and not very stealthy mare crept through town. She had to test something, but there was no approaching the subject with Fluttershy. The quiet pegasus cherished her animals far too much to ever allow the kind of test Applejack had in mind.
A few lights were left on in the cottage when the farm pony arrived, but there was no sign of movement. A few long moments of wait drew some confidence as Applejack quietly etched her way around the home.
Pulling a bucket from the pack on her back, she glanced back to a window and whispered a small apology to her close friend. With a swift motion her hoof scraped a hardy amount into her bucket and she was just as swiftly on her way back home.
Shudders went up her back and a strange excitement came from desecrating the sanctuary of long dead pets, but only briefly before huge guilt swelled in her stomach. Safely in front of her own home, her heavy lidded eyes stared at the rich mulch in her bucket. With a dark sigh and cold expression she smeared the substance over a small plot of space, then towed it in with a small shovel. One last addition, a unhealthy sagging sapling, and she was done with a nod, galloping off to her home to rest.
The coming weeks, Applejack found her sad sapling started to perk up. As much as she hated to admit it, the experiment made her feel like her friend Twilight. "It's all in the name of science!" the mare could just imagine Twilight Sparkle saying. Trotting in a wide circle as if in trance, her hooves halted as her eyes skimmed the slightly better but still shaky-looking groves.
"If I could just get some more of this here mulch there's enough time to build our trees’ yield." Her head tilted at an angle and she snorted. "No no, what am I thinking? Fluttershy would kill me if I messed with her dead pets. I mean, yeah they're already dead, but..." With a second snort, the mare trotted inside.
As the days carried on and the weather grew warmer, Applejack's thoughts plagued her. It was not until after the first heavy spring rains came in that there was a shift in her thinking. The ground outside was moist but cracked and chalky where the sun’s rays had pulled up the water. That was the last the mare could stand for.
Barging into the Apple home, Granny Smith nearly toppled back in surprise as Applebloom hopped up and asked, "Sis, what's wrong with you?"
"We have to do something, and I have something in mind. When Mac gets in from his inspection, tell him to till the ground around the orchards. I'm going out tonight." Her family nodded their acknowledgement as she went back out the door.The plan was simple: in the middle of the night, Applejack planned to take a large cart with a couple of barrels to her friends. With the storming from yesterday, no one would be able to tell any of the land had been handled.
With an early afternoon start, the copper mare dragged along her cart going through town. Nopony took notice as it was not uncommon for one of the Apple family to do so, even so she could not help feeling as if they were all staring. When a brown stallion bumped into her, she nearly yelped, managing to catch herself and only letting a grunt out.
"Oh pardon me," he said, backing up and grinning politely. A hoof reached up to push his chocolate brown hair back in place as she nodded her greeting and hurried on leaving, the stallion confused. She parked her cart at the side of town just inside the outskirts and fell onto her haunches, letting her nerves calm down with each heavy pant.
This was all too nerve wracking for the honest good hearted mare, but it was either her family's livelihood or some gone and dead animals who would never know. As night nestled it's way into everyone's homes, soft murky noises rose from behind a cozy tree cottage.
Applejack worked as quietly and diligently as she could, trying her best to avoid lifting still mostly intact bodies from the animal cemetery. Though as the night wore on, and her nerves grew stronger, as well as her stomach, even those made it into the packed barrels. By morning however, the cart, barrels and pony herself had already left for home.
A month passed, and what was gathered up on that night covered a large section of their Northern and Eastern orchards. Pleased as the Apple family was they had to stop asking what Applejack did when she kept silent on the matter. However as the evidence presented by the varying orchards became more and more noticeable Granny Smith decided it was time to talk to her stubborn daughter.
In the house, while Big Macintosh was out on errands and Applebloom was still in school, the old withered pony stopped her orange granddaughter with a shaking hoof. "Wait now there deary," she said softly, then dropped her hoof. "I have something to talk to you about."
"What is it, Granny?" Her attention was focused on her grandmother as indicated by her erect ears. "If this is about what I did to them fields, I already told you all I can't say."
"I know, I know." A quick breath escaped from her wrinkled lips taking her frustration with it, "I'm not asking what you did no more, but it does have to do with that. Since you had Maccy till that land and all it's looking a might better, no here I say if what you did wasn't illegal could you put some work into the other orchards too?"
The illegal comment, though merely a joke, caught Applejack off guard and while she shifted uncomfortably on her hooves she looked into the golden peach colored eyes of her elder. "I don't know Granny, " the young mare finally answered and looked away.
"Why not, honeycrisp? What you managed so far is downright amazing, and with a little more of that we could be in the green for harvest this season after all." When the pony didn't respond, the old mare lowered her shaky head. "Well, if it's really not something you can do, I understand."
With a quick shake of her head and a snort Applejack finally replied, "What nah, Granny I can do anything! Alright, it may be some touch work but I'll figure something out by week's end!" With a grunt the orange pony trotted away full headed as she often got, the pale green old mare stifled a chuckle watching her stomp off.
Outside the house Applejack's full hardy attitude faded, she had to find a way to help her granny, well her whole family. A welling feeling of excitement built in her stomach, this same feeling had taken over her guilt from her past sin by Fluttershy's, but she could not return there. Even if she had the nerve to pillage through the dead animals, her first trip did not leave much for a second time.
Instead the orange mare pondered where else dead animals might gather. The thought was strange in itself, it was a known taboo to discuss death at length in Equestria. Fluttershy's acceptance of it may have attributed to her outcast nature, but here Applejack was going even farther than acceptance. She was using the dead. A shudder ran up her back, only calmed as she started to pace through her plants.
Needless to say she experienced death more than most other equestrians having lost her father and mother. Her body jarred slightly as her head clung to that idea. "The dead, not just animals gather to one spot, but-- No!” Shaking her head furiously, Applejack condemned herself for such thinking. A bunch of dead animals is one thing but nopony should ever tamper with the bodies of passed on ponies, it was just wrong.
That conviction wavered in the coming days as her and Big Macintosh worked the ground around the other trees. They were healthy enough to produce fruit, but they would produce late at best and without much yield. "Nope." her thoughts broke off as she met her large brothers even larger eyes.
"Yeah I know, it's not doing no good without the nutrients we need is it?" Her hope was that helping air the earth would help the trees, a much safer option than the others that tugged at the farthest edges of her mind. His eyes questioned the work they'd done just the past month and she let out a heavy sigh, "I know what you're thinking there, Maccy." He just turned his head away and went back to work.
That night her legs heaved and shook. The disappointment her own family had for her was enough to send her into nightmares. Unholy visions of decapitated horses clawing over her fur and dragging her beneath the ground. Chants of ponies calling, "We're hungry, where are the apples? Where are the apples?" were so loud she could hardly hear her own screaming.
With a deep gasp for air, her eyes shot open and she felt a hoof to her face. Mouth dry and lips cracked from chewing on them, Applejack was just grateful she was still with the living. Never had such imagery invaded her mind, and with a quaking fear of the future Applejack decided to commit the great evil, "It's for my family darn it, even Celestia would forgive grave robbing if it's to save your family!" With that conviction and a midnight snack, Applejack was able to sleep somewhat peacefully the rest of the night.
The glowing orb of the sun beat extreme heat across the outside regions of Ponyville. Applejack cursed the coming summer winds that proved to her just how little time she still had to better her trees before harvest time. A large cart strapped to her back, the trek to the burial grounds was a bit of a far one.
Something Ponyville shared with one of their close neighbor towns, Manehatten, was a cemetery. Canterlot was to prestigious to bury their dead with commoners, but the busy fast paced Equestrian's of Manehatten shared no such idealism. This was fortunate to Applejack, as that means she would have a much larger area to work from and less chances of anyone noticing a change in the scenery, not that many visited the deceased often anyway.
That was except Fluttershy apparently, Applejack's muscles grew tense. The fair pegasus was along the same path as herself only coming in from the other direction, head low enough her pink wisps of hair dragged in the dirt barely staying out of reach of her dirty slender hooves. There was no running here, the earth pony had been avoiding the other since that dark night.
Deciding to take the offensive in a way, Applejack spoke up first., "Afternoon, Fluttershy, what brings you half way to Manehatten today?" Surely startled, Fluttershy stared at her with large glossed over eyes.
"Applejack? I am...I was visiting the graves." Her chest heaved, and she was slightly relieved it was only her friend and not somepony she had never met. "If it's not intrusive, why are you out here?" Her cyan eyes met the other’s after a swift look over the empty cart on the orange one's back.
Subconsciously, Applejack straightened, her toned muscles tensing a bit. "Oh well, I'm heading out there too." Internally cursing herself, she wondered why she found it so hard to just say she was visiting family in Manehatten instead, "You know, my parents done been buried out here a long time ago." That was easier to say, since it was actually true.
With a quiet noise of understanding Fluttershy looked down. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories," she stammered on, some confusion still on her face, though. "Please have a good visit. I'll see you back in Ponyville."
"Right, see you later, kid." Applejack smiled awkwardly before trotting along the path towards the burial grounds, glancing over her shoulder to see Fluttershy watching her. With a high pitched gasp, the pegasus blushed and turned away quickly heading down the other way.
Once the yellow pony long out of sight, Applejack let out a nervous laugh that turned into a deep satisfied bellow of laughter. "Whoa Celestia, she doesn't expect a thing. I can't believe I'm getting away with all this." There was never a rush like getting away with some dark deed right under the noses of those around you. Calming herself, Applejack stated, "Though I'm not out of the woods yet." With that sober thought in mind, she quickened her pace.
Celestia's bright rays started to fade and disappear as evening set in, and her destination was just ahead at long last. Eerie gusts of wind flew in from the graves’ direction. It smelt oddly fresh of grass and dirt, and not at all like death as the mare had expected. Though that might change as soon as the dirt was dug up, she reminded herself as her cart left from trails through the moist cemetery grass.
Unhitched and fur shaken free of a good deal of sweat, Applejack pulled the first of 5 barrels free from the cart. All the math had been done in her head: this should be enough to at least jump start the rest of their land and realistically even a strong pony like herself could only pull so much alone. Besides, she shuddered, feeling a strange satisfaction from this next thought, it's so easy that if she needed more, she could always come back.
With a shovel in her mouth and after a few front leg and flank stretches the mare was hard at work shoveling the healthy, rich dirt into the first barrel. This land had never been farmed, so there was no hint of dryness or compacted harsh bits to it. As easily as butter it cut free from the earth and tumbled into small mounds at the bottom of the wooden container.
Out of respect, though that seemed even to be a farce at this point, Applejack only skimmed dirt from the top layer of the ground and stayed a few feet from the direct tops of the graves. Passing quietly by each one and the mare stopped and stared at the graves of her parents. A sour taste crept in her mouth as her head dropped low, "Please forgive me Ma, Pa, you know I'm only doing this for the others."
The work was solemn and the air stale, as it grew dark she wiped her brow and tossed her hat onto one of the up standing planks of her cart. Five full barrels and a muddy coat was all that was left of her hard nights work. All that was left to do was take it back home. Trotting to the front of the cemetery Applejack bowed her head low, "Thank you for your kindness." She felt it only right to give thanks to the land and to those of the land for their generosity before hitching herself back up and pulling the now much heavier cart on home.
It was only a short while before day break when the hard working farm pony made it back to the Apple farm. As tired as her ragged dirty hooves were, something kept her wide awake. She had gotten away with it. Applejack dug up the dirt of the dead and only the long decayed eyes of the lifeless were witness to it. Mind flicking from thoughts of what other ponies would think to what an awful pony she was were soon all deadened to the idea that she could get away with anything.
Hooves trotting high, and her tail flicking in pride, her hooting and hollering woke the rest of the Apple family. The first to come running out was a half dazed filly soon followed by a stalky red stallion, and finally just poking her heavy head out the front door was the pale old grandmother. "Apples our trees are getting plump from here on out!" Applejack called kicking a sturdy leg against the side of her prize.
As summer started in full force, the trees grew fresh and bright foliage. All their hard work had been successful, and with the passage of time, Applejack's mind grew more numb to the negatives of her actions. The rest of the Apple family chalked up the special mulch as a farming secret their beloved orange mare managed to squeeze from their family up in Appleloosa and that was well and good in the mare herself's eyes. No one needed to know her dark secret, anyway.
The only issue was now that she'd done it once, the urge to do so again bubbled up her throat almost to the point of vomiting, but she hid it well. There was no reason to, their farm was productive and apple's grew in bright and red. So why did her mind keep giving her excuses? Shaking her head again, she felt a large hoof on her shoulder. Turning to stare her older brother in the eyes she chuckled as a sign she was ok. He nodded then pulled away to buck the next tree.
Then, not but a few weeks into the summer mid harvest, the announcement for a fruit contest was the final straw. There lay the perfect excuse to return to the graves. She just had to win for the namesake of their farm of course. Applejack told herself, "Why not?' She startled herself with her own words. There was nothing stopping her, she realized. So with less caution and more optimism and excitement she planned her next journey to the good earth.
Rainbow Dash had said it would be overcast all day, and the slick, puffed-up pegasus had been right. Thick clouds blocked out the sun and allowed a cool breeze to whip across the land in an even pace, perfect day for a long walk, especially when most the days were wrecked with the highs of the summer sun.
Applejack's flanks for hitched up to their smaller market cart today holding but one barrel, since there was no need to grab nearly as much as she had the first time. Instead, her plan was to find the richest dirt there and salvage that, finding solace and maturity in the decision not to get carried away for one plant. This time the walk was uneventful. Nopony came from either direction of the path.
When the cemetery was in view, the relaxed earth pony picked up her trot and strode directly into the fresh, cool land. Unlatching her straps, the mare walked around and studied the earth. It was all as well nourished and soft as her first journey but this time that would not cut it. To have the best largest apple, Applejack had to be picky. She chuckled at the irony that the same pony who had done in her prize apple last year was the same pony who gave her the best farming advice she'd come across in a long time. If only Fluttershy knew that now, the mare mused.
This would not do. An hour had gone by and although all the soil was good, none was as good as Applejack wanted, or perhaps needed. Sitting on her haunches and lifting her head up in the breeze, her mind flowed with it. Memories drifted on about her parents; passing their grave a few times was most likely the cause. An orange hoof moved to caress her face. The Apple family Ma and Pa were distant memories now and Applejack hated that she could not even remember their faces without pictures,
Tilting her head, her green eyes fell in the direction or their grave. Were they still whole under there? Would their faces be sunken in, but peaceful? Then it struck her: she had only been examining the surface dirt! Of course the best of the best was buried deep within the graves themselves, where the bodies had decomposed and became nutrients for the soil.
Shivering at the idea, Applejack let go of what guilt she had left for this dirty deed. There was nothing wrong with returning her own parents to the land they loved so much, she reasoned, and she was soon on her hooves again, carrying the single barrel over to her parents’ gravestones.
As the shovel hit the soil below, their was a soft crunching noise dirt giving to the metal spade. None of the top layers were collected though, only pushed aside by dirtying orange hooves. Six feet, six feet, Applejack kept chanting in her mind, she didn't want to pass her parents right by as she dug away at the graves.
The sun started to fall behind the earth's side and it grew dark quickly, the overcasting clouds blocking what little of the rays was left. With the morning warmth passing, little droplets started to form in atmosphere above loosing their altitude when they became to heavy. If not for the film of mud that was forming, the busy mare would not of noticed the gentle downfall.
Pushing a glob of brown soil over the lip of her hole, she was frustrated that there was still no sign of her parents. "This is only four feet, don't you start to fret like Rarity, you're better then that," she said to herself. As she drew closer to her goal of six feet her shovel struck something hard, that cracked under the weight of the tool. Putting it aside, Applejack started to scrape at the dirt with her hooves desperately.
There is the dark slick mud was the crackling knee bone of somepony, no not just anypony it had to be her mother. Carefully pushing the mud and dirt off of the corpse, the mare's eyes glazed over. This was her mother, all that laid there was bones covered in torn and eaten papery skin. Reaching a hoof over, even a gentle touch caused the skin to splinter and tear more from the body. A few small worms wriggled away from their disturbed rest leaving trails over the hollowed out eyes.
After her trance broke and she realized just what she was touching, the pitch of her stomach heaved and she barely managed to keep herself from defiling the body with her stomach acids. What had she done? Why was she in a grave, defiling a dead body-- the body of someone she dearly loved, at that?
Panicking, she moved to exit the hole but slid down the side of the mud. The walls were deeper than she had remembered digging and all of the sides were slick with fresh, moist soil. When her desperate swinging hooves failed to get her free from her disgusting prison, the mare forced herself to calm down.
Taking deep breaths, she said to herself, "Now now, AJ, this is no big deal." With her own reassurance, she put the dead corpse at the back of her mind as her now shivering but fairly more steady hooves started to press into the muddy holes side. The support was not great but it would have to do.
Shaking limbs drew her up the hole, but before the earth pony could moved her second hoof upward more mud came pouring down the side. The rain wasn't that heavy, it was as if it was being shoved down, "Wait! Wait! There somepony down here!" Caught or not if whoever was up there kept on, well she did not think on it too long.
No response came from the holes entrance, and after a moment more mud seemed to pile over the edge sliding down and splotching into Applejack's face and down her back.
Gasping and coughing the mud out of her mouth, "Stop it! I can explain why I'm here, please let me out first though! Please, I'm getting really scared in here!" she pleaded, having sworn she saw a muddied hoof stepping over the entrance. Soon more mud started to pour in and Applejack moved a hoof over her face to protect it.
Maybe they were trying to help, what if she could stay atop the mud and just climb it out. "Ok, I see what you're doing just don't move so fast! It's hard with it getting in my face," she called. The mud stopped coming down and only silence and the trickling of rain filled the air, "Hello? You still there stranger?"
Did they leave her? Applejack's heart started to pound, but she worked on scaling the grave’s wall again. Then suddenly, a sharp pain struck her shoulder. The mud exploded around the brown-orange mare as her back collided with the hollowed out grave floor. Pushing back to her haunches, Applejack felt her injured shoulder, a small bruise and slight cut. The object that had struck her sat next to her back leg, a medium sized rock with a shark edge.
"Did you-- that was an accident, right, stranger?" she yelled out of the grave. "Why won't you answer me?" Another rock slightly smaller flew down the narrow way and struck Applejack one the eye. It was dark enough she barely saw it in time to close her eyes as it gashed her eyelid. "What are you doing?" she cried out again. After one more larger rock crashed down and splashed the mud beside her and broke the dead body beside her in two sickening halves, Applejack fell deeper into the mud the dead body plastered to her side.
As Applejack jerked back from the crackling corpse, a faint voice finally sounded from above. It shuddered and choked as if the speaker was crying, but it was audible nonetheless. "You're the one who wanted to play with the dead," it said, so soft that if Applejack had not been used to it she would never of even heard it over the drizzling rain.
As the mud continued to pour in from the rain’s resolve alone, the faint voice cracked as it shrieked one last time. “You wanted to play with them!” A cracking noise came from Applejack’s skull as another rock plummeted into the hole, but she did not feel much pain as she blacked out. “It was you…”
Author's Note
This is my first story here! I have written fanfiction before, but it was on Fanfiction and none of it was MLP-related, heh.
Also, I do not usually write grim-dark like stories, but I did for my Tumblr blog and figured if I was going to start writing I should post some of it here as well.
