A Delayed Train

by Karach

Rating: everyone
Tags: Granny Smith, Sad, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Slice of Life
Length: 5836

While waiting for a train, Applejack helps Granny Smith pass the time by reminiscing on the past with her. As they revisit the memories, they learn more about each other, and about themselves.

A train Granny Smith was supposed to board is delayed. Having nothing better to do, the elderly mare asks Applejack to help her pass some time by reminiscing on the past. Resisting the urge to return back to work, the young farm pony agrees. Who would she be to deny her grandmother's request?

As the memories of the past are revisited, both mares learn about each other, and about themselves as well.

Published 2014-11-13 23:20:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-13 23:20:05 UTC

Waiting for the Train

A green hoof shot in the air, pointing at the single cloud in the otherwise clear afternoon sky.

"Consarn it! If only that pesky cloud moved, so them old bones of mine could get some of Celestia's sweet warmth," an impatient voice squeaked. "Applejack, be a dear and get that pegasus speedster friend of yers, will ya?"

Another voice joined with a chuckle. "Can't do, granny. I would need mah own set of wings to find her. And if I had a pair, I would clear that cloud for ya mahself."

Granny Smith smiled, opening her mouth to speak. Before she could utter a word, a rainbow corkscrewed through the sky, blasted straight through the cloud, and disappeared over the horizon.

Applejack pressed her hat to her chest. "Well, I'll be. Looks like you've got your wish granted, granny."

The elderly mare stretched her hooves on the bench, finding a more comfortable position, her joints cracking audibly with her each move. "Ah, that's much better."

The two mares sat in silence, enjoying the soft touch of the warm afternoon sun.

A ding sounded in the air, breaking their leisurely rest. "We are sorry to announce that the afternoon cross-country service to Baltimare has been delayed by approximately thirty minutes. We are sorry for the delay to this service."

Applejack groaned, rubbing her forehead with a hoof. "Good thing you're not in a hurry to get to work."

"Are ya?" Granny Smith asked.

Applejack waved her impatient hoof. "Not more than usual. Apples won't pick themselves up, ya know."

Granny Smith's giggle cracked in the air. "I swear, Applejack, you're the most hard-working pony I know."

The young farm pony giggled. "Heh, you raised me that way yerself."

Granny's laughter died slowly, a cloud of tense silence enveloping the pair.

"Do you..." Granny Smith hesitated, looking away. "Do you hold that against me?"

A pair of strong hooves rested on her shoulders. "Ya kiddin', granny? I couldn't be more thankful." Applejack pierced the elderly mare with her emerald eyes. "I'm sure ma' and pa' would be proud of your work."

The elderly mare sighed, the corners of her mouth rising in a warm smile. "Well, I do hope so. Darn, if they ain't gonna nag my ears off if you're wrong."

Applejack shot her grandmother a curious glance, but the mare didn't notice, reaching for her saddlebag. "So, are y'all thankful enough to help this old mare pass some time?" She presented the family album.

Applejack sighed, her eyes casting a longing glance towards the orchard. She could hear the trees calling her, their branches leaning towards the ground, overweight with fruit. She could feel the awfully sweet stench of ripe apples in her nostrils... She turned away, her ears deaf to the cries of her trees, her nose indifferent to the smell of apples beginning to rot, and offered her grandmother a warm smile. "Sure think, granny."

Granny Smith opened the back cover of the album and turned a few pages, starting from the last. "Now, ain't that one something?" she said, tapping a page lightly with her hoof, an absent smile warming her face.

Applejack looked at the picture of six young mares, five of them wearing beautiful necklaces, the sixth a tiara. She squinted her eyes. "I don't remember that photo bein' taken."

"Y'all were pretty busy back then, savin' Equestria and whatnot," granny sighed.

Applejack touched the picture with a hoof. A dusty horseshoe left its mark, connecting all the ponies like a beige ribbon. The farm pony blew the dust away. "We're all here."

"You betcha. Ain't it something? Lookit here: my own little granddaughter, who I used to change diapers and read bedtime stories to, all grown up now." Granny let out a gentle chuckle. "The Element of Harmony, protector of Equestria, vassal to the princesses, the livin' embodiment of Honesty..." she said, waving her hoof higher and higher, until another one covered her mouth.

"Granny, I'm about to think you're makin' fun of me." Applejack mocked an insulted look.

The elderly mare patted the photograph. "On the contrary, youngun, I couldn't be more proud of y'all. And not only of you alone." Her hoof ran a full circle around the picture, taking a short stop on each of the mares' faces. "Those are some great friendships you made along the way." Granny Smith pierced Applejack with serious eyes. "I trust y'all make sure to cherish and nurture them..."

Applejack looked into her grandmother's eyes, searching for any trace of mockery or sarcasm. When she found none, she met her grandmother's eyes with an equally serious look. "'Course I will, granny."

The elderly mare smiled to herself and turned a few pages.

Applejack's ears fell flat against her head as soon as she saw the picture her granny stopped at. She looked away, unconsciously covering her face with the brim of her hat. "Yeah, that," she muttered. "I'm sorry, granny. I was a young fool back then."

"Oh, I don't blame you, youngun." The elderly mare smiled. "Everypony is entitled to do some searchin' during their life. 'Specially for their cutie mark." Granny Smith tapped her granddaughter's hoof to get her attention. The young pony looked into the amber eyes of her grandmother, finding nothing but warmth in them. "Can you imagine how glad I was when you got back to the farm, three shining apples appearing on yer flank?"

Applejack scrunched her face, literally trying to imagine the feeling. "Can't rightfully say I can." She finally gave up, the warm smile brightening her face. "But I think I will soon feel it for mahself, when Apple Bloom finally finds hers."

A light chuckle brightened Granny Smith's face. "She tries the craziest things with them friends of hers, ain't she?"

Applejack nodded, stifling a giggle.

Granny Smith looked towards the station building, her eyes half-closed. Not many ponies loitered on the platform today. She broke the silence with a light chuckle. "Like mother, like daughters, I suppose. Both of them," she sighed, locking her eyes with her granddaughter. "You have to watch over yer sister, youngun. To steer her in the right direction. And I'm not talking only about her cutie mark, mind ya. Can y'all promise to look after her while I'm gone?"

Applejack scrunched her snout, the seriousness in her grandmother's eyes painting confusion all over her face. "Why are you even askin' granny? Ya think I won't?"

Granny Smith shook her head. "I know ya will." She turned a few more pages with a swift flick of her hoof.

Applejack couldn't help but smile at her little figure, hugging a brown-and-white mutt that licked her in response.

"Do you remember the day you took Winona in?" Granny said.

Applejack looked into the picture, a soft smile still present on her face. "How could I ever forget? She was a sick, hungry stray, rests of her collar dangling on her neck. A pitiful creature."

Granny Smith drew a sigh. "I found her in the barn, eatin' through the rest of our chicken feed. Such a beat up, scared puppy... Do you know what I planned to do with her?"

Applejack shook her head, looking curiously at Granny's face. The elderly mare kept looking at the picture, avoiding her granddaughter's eyes. "I planned to take her to a vet to put her to sleep."

"What?!" Applejack slammed her hooves against the bench.

Granny sighed, still carefully avoiding her granddaughter's eyes. "Look at it this way: the orchard wasn't exactly swamped in bits back then, we had no stock that needed herdin', and besides, what were I going to feed her with? Apples?" A guilty smile crossed the elderly mare's face.

Applejack looked at the picture again, her eyes distant and unfocused. "You never told me that before."

"I still remember how your eyes glinted the moment you found her in the barn. An every filly's dream, to have her own pup, landin' on yer laps..." Granny Smith patted the little filly in the picture. "Except it wasn't that easy, was it?"

Applejack's face twisted in an apologetic smile. "'Course not. It took an entire week livin' in the barn for her to just accept me. After a month, she allowed me to touch her without biting my hoof off. Only many weeks later, after I had met Fluttershy, learned of her special talent, and managed to drag her to the barn, she was able to convince Winona to go to the vet with me."

Granny Smith turned her warm smile from the picture to her granddaughter. "Took some iron will and determination, to forge that friendship, didn't it?" She pierced Applejack with her eyes. "Somepony might even say it took a lot of stubbornness."

Applejack blushed, looking away for a moment, before confronting her grandmother with determination and confidence. "It sure did, but I'd reckon it was worth it."

Granny Smith's hearty chuckle reverberated across the platform. "It sure was, youngun. I had planned to take care of Winona the moment you lost yer interest with her. Needless to say, she owes her life to your stubborn nature."

Applejack said nothing, reminiscing upon that particular moment in the past, thinking how it inadvertently changed her life, giving her a trusty companion and a new friend.

Granny Smith tapped the picture book with her hoof. "Yet there have been times when yer stubbornness cost ya more than a few bruises."

Applejack dropped her ears. "Yeah, you don't need to remind me. I still remember the first apple bucking season after Twilight moved to Ponyville."

"Or that one when those two tricksters almost stole our farm..."

"Yeah..." Applejack nodded. "Hey!" Her eyes flared open. "If'n I remember correctly, I was the only pony to object their crooked competition. It was you and Apple Bloom who fell right into their trap."

Granny Smith offered an apologetic smile. "Right you are, youngun. See, stubbornness runs in our family, it seems. And while it can prove useful, there are times when you'd better let up. Learn from your grandmother's mistakes, youngun. If there's anything I'd like you to remember, is to always stop and think, try to tell apart the good stubbornness from the bad one."

"You mean to distinguish tenacity from stubbornness?" Applejack winked.

Granny Smith blinked. "Whatever you say, youngun. Such fancy words aren't in my vocabulary." She chuckled. "That bookworm friend of yers rubs her knowledge off all of ya, ain't she?" She tried to stifle her giggles with her hoof, but they only grew louder. "I guess I shouldn't talk like that about the new princess, now should I?"

Applejack smiled. "No, granny, you definitely shouldn't. She's still as big of a bookworm as she ever was, though," she added after a short pause.

The two mares' eyes met and they both erupted in a fit of loud giggles.

A familiar sound of the announcement bell rang in the air. "The next train to arrive at platform one is the delayed afternoon cross-country service to Baltimare. Please stand back from the edge of the platform until your train comes to a complete halt. Thank you."

Granny Smith turned a few more pages of her album. "Well, I guess my time has nearly come. I have only one more picture to show you." Her hoof pointed at the photograph.

Applejack immediately covered her face with her hat, trying to hide her burning red cheeks. "Aw, come on, granny. It's like you keep that photo just to embarrass me in front of my friends."

The elderly mare 's hearty laughter rang in the air like a cracking old bell. "Hay, if it ain't what us grannies are s'posed to do. Just look at how cute you were, with that little diaper, asking for more appuw fwittels..."

Applejack was about to turn the page in a valiant effort to hide the embarrassing picture, but a glint of light reflected of a drop of liquid in her grandmother's eyes stopped her hoof. She took a second look at the little foal, and her face brightened with a warm smile.

"But that's not the one I was looking for." Granny Smith turned a few pages back until a content 'ah' announced she had found the right one.

"It was another reunion I was looking for, not yer first one, as cute as you looked and all," Granny Smith's voice cracked, disturbing the pleasant trip down the memory lane so distant, Applejack could hardly remember. "Apple Bloom's first... But also the first reunion that missed two very important Apples..."

Applejack bit her lip, all of a sudden glad that her hat had still obscured her eyes.

"You asked me," the elderly mare continued, "why aren't ma' and pa' there. You asked where they were and when would they come back. Do you remember?"

Silent like Twilight's library in the middle of the night, Applejack could swear the joints in her neck cracked like a thunder on a sunny day when she nodded her head. "As clear as it was yesterday. You got me to fetch Big Mac to the kitchen, all the commotion outside forgotten, and stated they were never comin' back."

Tense silence fell over the two mares, neither brave enough to break it. After a painstakingly long moment, Granny Smith was the first to drop her head. "I should have been less blunt, Applejack. Maybe stall a little, buy y'all some time before I cut both yer childhoods so abruptly. I'm... What I wanted to say, youngun, is that I'm–"

"I remember running away, into my tree house." Applejack interjected. "I stayed there, crying for Celestia knows how long, until Big Mac came for me."

"Such a gentle and caring colt, that one." Granny Smith stifled a sniff. "Always ready to offer a helping hoof when you need him. And this is how his granny repays him. Applejack I'm so–"

"Don't be!" The young farm pony pressed her hoof hard against the picture book. "You taught me something very important on that day, granny, something that very well made me the mare I am today." She grabbed the elderly mare's shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. "You taught me the value of honesty, the meaning of trust, and the ups and downs of being truthful. If you are sorry for that, you can as well say you're sorry to have raised me into who I am."

Granny Smith's hooves traveled down her granddaughter's legs, enveloping her in a strong embrace. "Never, youngun. There ain't another grandma' as proud of her granddaughter as I am."

Surprised at first, it took a moment before Applejack reciprocated the strong hug, basking in the mare's familiar, yet missed for so long, warmth. The scent of her orchard—fresh and brimming with life in spring, sultry in summer, and ripe with apples in autumn—filled her nose, yet this time she knew who it originated from. She buried her snout in her grandmother's shawl, inhaling the familiar scent of her orchard that soaked into the elderly mare over the years, ignoring a drop of liquid that fell down on the back of her neck from Granny Smith's cheek. As she did, another scent stepped to the fore, subduing the others, making her snout scrunch in disgust. She immediately recognized its glaring difference to the three others that mingled and blended in peaceful harmony. The clear and crispy breeze of lifeless void, the dreaded stench of the orchard buried under snow in winter. It burned through her nose, covered her throat with frozen ash, and filled her lungs like poisonous gas. She hated it.

An ear-piercing whistle rolled down the station, causing the ponies lazily loitering on the platform to nearly jump out of their horseshoes. Applejack scrunched her nose, trying to get rid of the awful smell, as her grandmother broke the hug.

Granny Smith closed the album with a quiet snap of its hard covers, drying her cheeks with a handkerchief. "Thank you, youngun, for this trip down the memory lane." She packed the album into her saddlebag and slid off the bench with a grunt. "Now help the old mare one last time, will ya?"

Applejack offered her hoof with a smile. "Whenever you need, granny. Wanna give me your bag?"

The elderly mare waved her hoof. "Nah, I'll manage. I'm not that old yet, mind."

The four studs pulled the train on its tracks effortlessly, despite its relatively small speed. A small crowd of ponies moved towards it, spreading evenly between the railcars. The ponies traveling alone entered the wagons swiftly, without looking back. The passengers lucky enough to have been accompanied by their acquaintances lingered on the tracks, bidding their final farewells.

"Well, youngun, I guess that's it." Granny Smith put a hoof on Applejack's shoulder. "Y'all probably can't wait to return to the farm, ain't ya?"

Applejack waved her hoof. "Come off it, granny." She smiled. "It was a pleasure to dwell on the past with you."

The mare smiled, but her expression hardened as she took Applejack's hoof in her own. "Ya'll take care of them while I'm gone, won't ya? Of yer quiet big brother? Of yer little sister, so full of energy? Of dear Winona?" Her grip on the young farm pony's hoof grew stronger as the mare looked deep into her granddaughter's eyes. "You are the shoulder they keep leanin' on."

"What are you saying, granny?" Applejack narrowed her eyes. "Of course I will. The farm will run as swiftly as ever when you're back."

The elderly mare looked away, blinking away the stinging moistness that had gathered in her eyes. Thousand feelings clashed in her heart, but she kept them inside, allowing herself only a feeble, vulnerable smile. "I'm sorry. Goodbyes are never easy, ya know?"

Applejack reciprocated the smile. "I know, granny."

"Thanks for staying with me, youngun."

"Don't sweat it, gran'. The apples can wait while the Apples sort out their family business."

Granny Smith smiled, chuckled, and let her hearty laugh crack through the platform. She wiped her eye with a hoof. "Well said, youngun."

The sharp blow of the conductor's whistle cut through the air. "All aboard who's coming aboard."

Granny Smith turned towards the train, pawed at the ground with a hoof for a moment, then turned around and tackled Applejack in a rib-shattering hug. Surprised, Applejack hesitated for a moment before ultimately reciprocating the embrace.

"Always stay true to yerself, youngun. And to yer family and friends," granny whispered into her ear, breaking the hug, a proud smile brightening her face. "But I don't hafta tell that to the Element of Honesty, now do I?"

Applejack bumped her chest with a hoof. "'Course you don't, granny."

Another whistle, somewhat more impatient than the first, pierced the air, ringing in the two mares' ears. Granny Smith let out a sigh and climbed up the stairs, disappearing inside the wagon. The conductor gave another whistle, and the four studs heaved. The train started down the platform with a heavy jerk, gaining speed with each beat of the stallions' hooves against the crossties.

Applejack trotted alongside, breaking into a run as the train gained speed. "Be sure to say hello to uncle Apple Strudel, granny!" she called on top of her lungs, waving her hat from the edge of the platform.

A window in the car opened, letting Granny Smith's head outside. Her face, devoid of wrinkles and smooth as in the mare's youth, was lashed by her blond braids, dancing wildly in the wind. Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell on the track like tiny pearls as she waved back. "I will," she shouted back. "As soon as I arrive."

Applejack stood on the platform, waving to her grandmother until the train disappeared behind a hill. Once it had, she donned her hat and turned around.

The whole universe came to an abrupt halt as she registered her hoof loosing balance, her body leaning over the platform's edge. She flailed her legs, but it was too late to stop the fall. She closed her eyes, falling headfirst on the tracks.

***

A loud thud and a searing pain in her head made Applejack open her eyes. It took her a moment to realize she had fallen from the bed, her legs wrapped uncomfortably in her sheet. She swore under her breath, massaging her forehead as she struggled to untangle her body and get up. As she did, the memory of her dream flooded her mind with the force of a violent tsunami.

"Granny?" she whispered to nopony in particular, fighting the sudden stinginess in her eyes. She looked around, taking a moment to remind herself where she was. She didn't recognize the room, but at least she had found her hat. She shook the dust off it, donned it on her head, left the room which definitely wasn't her bedroom, and stormed down the stairs.

"Howdy, cuz!" A smile rivaling Pinkie's filled her entire vision. "Breakfast's ready and after it, I reckon we can get back to work. I swear, the orchard has never bloomed this much, not since you left last–"

Applejack stopped the verbal outburst with a hoof shoved unceremoniously in her cousin's face. "Not now, Braeburn. Has the post office been opened already?" she asked, the memory of where she had been living for the last few weeks returning with an almost audible snap.

Noticing the anxious look in his cousin's eyes, the stallion trotted to a window and leaned outside, searching for the town clock tower. "I reckon it should be..." He shrugged. "What's the rush?" he said to the already empty room.

Applejack trotted through the town, constantly reminding herself not to break in a frantic gallop, as the scenes from her dream replayed in her mind.

"I'm sure ma' and pa' would be proud of your work."

"Well, I do hope so. Darn, if they ain't gonna nag my ears off if you're wrong."

Applejack swallowed the lump in her throat. It had to be the dust in the hot desert air...

"Be sure to say hello to uncle Apple Strudel, granny!"

"I will! As soon as I arrive."

Only uncle Strudel joined ma' and pa' on the other side over a year ago...

"Ya'll take care of them while I'm gone, won't ya?"

"Of course I will. Everything will run as swiftly as ever when you're back."

What if... Applejack closed her eyes, forcing the unwanted thought from her mind. Being the rational mare she believed herself to be, she tried to convince herself not to worry too much over a dream. However, no matter how hard she tried to rationalize it, an image of her grandmother—all young and pretty again—waving at her from the train window, kept flashing in her mind whenever she closed her eyes.

She slowed her run to a trot each time she realized her legs had increased the pace, but still she reached the post office in record time. The door to the building opened with a bang as she bolted inside, heading straight to the unoccupied window.

A clerk greeted her with a trained smile that showed more of a polite routine than any genuine happiness.

Applejack paid it no heed. "Can I send a magigram here?" she asked, cutting all the subtleties aside.

"Sure can, ma'am. You can find the local magigraphist through that door." The mare pointed down the hall.

"Thanks." Applejack tipped her hat and followed the clerk's extended hoof to the door decorated with a scroll engulfed in flames. She barely noticed the small letters solicitously calligraphed into a tiny word below the sign: "Hornhead". The unicorn working inside had apparently not found the time to make friends in the post office yet. Applejack pushed the door open and headed into a musty, parchment filled room the size of a broom closet. She cleared her throat, failing to notice anypony inside.

A green horn emerged from behind the pile of scrolls, followed by a bespectacled face of a young mare. "A customer?" the unicorn gasped, evidently not expecting she would ever get one. "Oh! Let me just make some room here..." She levitated a stack of scrolls from her desk, and dumped them on the ground, bright smile never faltering from her face. "There. Now, if you could just tell me your name and the destination for your magigram, we could start preparing it right away." As if to punctuate her words—or because of sheer excitement—her horn flared with bright orange aura.

"We're sending to Ponyville," Applejack said. "The name's Jacqueline Apple."

The unicorn blinked, mouthing Applejack's full name with her lips. She raised a hoof and rummaged in the stack of sealed parchments. "Miss Jacqueline Apple? I believe I had received a magigram for you, sent from the very town you mentioned, but a few minutes before you entered my office. Some coincidence, huh?"

While the unicorn dived between the stacks of scrolls and parchments, Applejack felt the icy claws of fear clenching around her heart. Her breath hastened as the stacks of scrolls towering on her both sides threatened to collapse, burying her body under tons of unwritten correspondence. The room shrank and darkened, the only light coming from the magigraphist's horn.

"A... A... A... It can't be nopony other than you, I suppose," the unicorn chanted, oblivious to the fact that Applejack's world was crumbling beneath her hooves. "Aside from the sheriff's monthly correspondence with the guard division, most locals don't use magigrams." The horned head emerged from between the scrolls like a dolphin catching its breath before another dive, it's owner winking at her customer. "I believe the price is rather steep... Not to say that local folks are poor or anything, mind you." The unicorn buried her head back into the piles of paper haphazardly tossed about. "They are rather frugal, though. Besides, I've yet to see a pony here in a hurry off to somewhere. And that's why magigrams exist, after all. To send a message of grave importance as soon as it is possible."

Applejack forced her mouth closed, wheezing through her nose, the last words of the eager unicorn ringing in her ears.

"Apple Jacqueline!" The unicorn's head emerged before the farm pony, a scroll levitating beside her. "If you could just tap a seal with your hoof to confirm that the magigram is indeed for you..."

It took a while before Applejack registered the unicorn was expecting something of her. The scroll dangled before her, the clerk's proud smile gleaming at the farm pony from behind it. Applejack wanted to raise her hoof, but either the limb weighed a ton, or some prankster had glued it to the floor while she wasn't looking. She closed her eyes, steadying her breath, and tried again. The hoof jerked and sailed upwards, bounced off the seal, and shot backwards as if the scroll had burned its owner. The seal flashed with faint light and broke in two neat halves.

Guided with the clerk's magic, the scroll landed in front of Applejack's hooves. "No further confirmation is necessary. Let me just find the registry to mark the magigram delivered..."

Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but nothing but a wheeze came out. She licked her lips, her tongue feeling like sandpaper inside her mouth, to which somepony had apparently dumped half of the sand from the desert outside.

"Do you..." she forced out, barely recognizing the hoarse voice as her own. "Do you mind if I read it now?"

"Take all the time you need." The magigraphist giggled. "It's not like there's a line forming outside."

Applejack took a deep breath, her pounding heart threatening to break her ribcage apart. The message wasn't long, barely two sentences—each two words long—scrapped together. Her brother had never been the most eloquent pony in the world, and magigrams were paid by the word, but neither of those was the reason for the letter's brevity. A fact stated, a request for her return sent—no further words were necessary. Applejack reread the letter, her heart sinking in the bottomless pit that had formed below her stomach. She subconsciously pulled her hat over her eyes, but a few inconspicuous drops had already managed to fall on the parchment.

"Miss Jacqueline?" The unicorn's voice rang in the room like a chorus of tiny bells. "Are you ready to send your magigram now?"

Applejack tried to respond, but her voice broke. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, to no particular relief. "N-no," she croaked. "It's no longer needed." She stifled a sniffle.

The unicorn raised her head curiously, but could not see her customer's face over the wide brim of the brown Stetson.

Her legs threatening to collapse underneath her, Applejack found her way to the door, upsetting several stacks of scrolls and parchments along the way. "I'm sorry," she barely whispered, her voice booming inside her head like a thunder over the withering orchard.

Once outside the post office, Applejack buried her face in her hat, letting the tears flow freely, washing the pain from her soul. The monotonous sound of hooves clopping on the dirt road was her only comfort as ponies passed by her, throwing her an occasional confused look.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but eventually the spring in her eyes had run dry, and she was able to move her legs. She headed straight to the railway station, noticing a single cloud obstructing the otherwise clear morning sky.

***

"Thank ya kindly, yer majesty." Young Granny Smith courtesied, her blonde braids dangling on both sides of her face. "I imagine not everypony gets to say their farewells in such a bizarre way."

Princess Luna shook her head slowly, her face twisted in a mixture of sadness and wonder. "You are correct, fair mare. Of the ponies that have the chance, very few know they can take it. Of those that do know, very few have the desire to do so. Of those that do, very few have the courage to ask." Her ears dropped against her head as she took a long and detailed look around. "Such a shame. I enjoy coming here, but cannot do that on my own."

Granny Smith raised her eyebrow. "Why is that?"

"This limbo on the border of dreams from which a pony can wake up, and of the final dream from which there is no return, is as far as I can ever travel. But I would never make my way here without a guidance from a mortal soul." Luna raised her hoof, and it sailed slowly upwards, leaving a trail of silvery aura behind it, until it pointed at the giant obsidian door that towered over the two ponies. "This door that calls you, that demands your soul... It will forever be closed to me and to my dear sister. It repels us, hides itself from us. We will never know what lies beyond it. At least, not until the sun still shines over Equestria and the moon lights the sky at night."

Granny Smith followed the princess' unfocused gaze to the giant door—the only visible structure in the otherwise empty black void. "My old folks believed there's a well of souls there, in which the spirits of our ancestors swim together, until they decide to come back for another ride on that crazy band wagon you call life."

"A wagon I and my sister are never permitted to disembark from." A longing note reverberated in Luna's sigh, millennia of life resting heavy on her tired shoulders.

The moment of princess vulnerability ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving Granny Smith unsure whether she hadn't imagined it. Luna spread her wings, her voice once again strong and deep. "I thank you, kind mare, for allowing me to come here with you. It is good that the living—especially the undying—are reminded of life's finality once in a while. The rest of the way you have to travel alone." The princess flapped her wings, rising slowly above the silvery ethereal floor.

"Yer highness!" Granny Smith's called, freezing Luna in her tracks. "Don't y'all want to take a peek inside?"

The princess turned around, ogling the mare standing between her and the door with curious eyes. She blinked, her dark eyelids covering the stars in her eyes like clouds over the night sky. "Nopony has ever made such offer before. But should I take that risk?" she said, allowing her wings to take her back beside Granny Smith.

The earth pony shrugged. "Can't see why not. Ain't ya curious?"

Luna pawed the ground—if there even was one in the limbo—with a hoof, her eyes fixed on the giant door. "Of course I am. I am afraid, however, of seeing something I will not like... Or, on the other hoof, something that would make me envious of mortal ponies."

"So ya'd rather spend your life in uncertainty than pony up and see for yerself?" Granny Smith's strong hoof pulled the princess closer to the door. Luna stumbled forward, but didn't resist much.

Guided by an invisible force, the door reacted to the mare's presence and cracked open without making a sound. A beam of blinding bright light pierced the pitch-black void, making Luna cringe and close her eyes. A murmur of many excited voices reached her ears, starting with a distant buzz, gradually gaining in strength as the ponies on the other side of the door came closer.

Luna cracked an eye open, noticing the tears rolling down her earth pony companion's cheeks. The droplets fell on the floor, mixing with the silver mist as Granny Smith came closer to the wall of shimmering light. Three pony silhouettes, waiting for her just on the other side, mirrored her movement. "Hun, kids..." Granny's voice cracked as she leaned against the invisible barrier between the worlds. "I missed y'all so much."

Luna couldn't hear what the voices responded, but didn't need to. Granny Smith turned around, waving at the princess. "Thank y'all once again for letting me see my granddaughter one last time." She took a step back, her tail disappearing behind the wall of light. "It turns out we have something in common with yer majesties." She walked back, only her head and a waving hoof visible to the princess. "Our bodies may grow old and wither, but our souls live forever, if not in Equestria then in the world beyond." Her muzzle disappeared completely, leaving only Granny Smith's waving hoof for a few moments longer, until it too disappeared.

The door jerked on its hinges, and through the shrinking slit of light Princess Luna could see several pony silhouettes, tackling the newcomer in an embrace as strong as the bond between them, amplified over the time they have missed each other. Then, the door closed noiselessly and dissolved into nothingness.