The Unbearable Lightness of Bucking
Autumn is a Second Spring
Applejack grunted and tugged at the brim of her hat. She pulled it a little further over her face to keep the glare of the late afternoon sun out of her eyes and leant back against the tree’s solid, reassuring trunk. She chewed idly on the straw in her mouth as she returned her attention to her book: Leap to Faith.
“The faith that ponies have that our beloved Princess Celestia will raise the sun each morning may be classified as a true faith,” she read. “Indeed, it is perhaps the truest faith of them all – but it is not a belief, not in the same way that we believe an apple pie made by the finest of chefs from the finest of fruit to the finest of recipes must perforce taste delicious.”
Now that’s how you get a mare’s attention! Applejack thought, grinning. She continued to read.
“We can see and touch and smell and taste that pie. Although Celestia is a corporeal pony, she is something more as well, and it is that extra part of her that both causes and allows her to raise the sun to begin each day.
“But do we know that this will happen every day? We do not. We have faith that it will, but we cannot prove that it will. We cannot show that it will happen in the way we can show that a pie exists. There is – there must be – doubt in our minds. Without this doubt, faith itself could not be, for what we call ‘blind faith’ is, in truth, nothing more than credulity.”
“You sound just like Twilight,” Applejack muttered.
“Who sounds just like Twilight?”
Applejack looked up to see the alicorn in question standing before her. She spat the straw from her mouth and hauled herself up onto her haunches. “Oh, it’s nothin’ really,” she said. “I just saw this in the library earlier and thought I might as well give it a look. Got nothin’ much to keep me occupied in the orchard for a spell now the apple buckin’s done, and you know how antsy I get if’n I don’t have a thing to do.” She held out the book towards her friend, who took it and peered at the cover.
“Oh!” Twilight’s eyes went saucer-wide and she did a little jig of delight. “Murky Guard! One of the most exciting modern philosophers! I’ve been meaning to do more research into the Cloudsdale School. I’ve read a lot about ponies like De Whoavoir and Sartrot, but this stallion is really something. I’ve had this book on my to-read list for weeks now; I never imagined you’d get there before I did!”
“Now excuse me,” Applejack said, reddening slightly. “I may be a simple farm pony, but I can read a book just as well as anypony else.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, okay. Present company excepted, I guess. But I would still appreciate it if you gave me a little credit here.”
Now it was Twilight’s turn to blush. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I didn’t mean to sound insulting, but... oh, this is just so wonderful! Most of the others aren’t that interested in this sort of thing, so it’s not often I get to discuss it at all. I have a little chat with Celestia sometimes, but that’s about it. Luna still has a little trouble sometimes with straightforward notions of free will, quite frankly, let alone anything more novel. Um, so, how are you finding it?”
“Well, now, I reckon it’s pretty interestin’ stuff, even if I don’t quite get the point of it all. Still, I guess it was the bit about about the fruit that really grabbed my—“
“Ooh, I must see if I can find you some of the things Hay Digger has written!” Twilight interrupted. “I’m sure you’d love his books – there’s a whole shelf of them in the castle library, you know. I’ve read them all. Actually, I’ve been through his works four or five times now, and he’s just so fascinating. Especially Ruminations on Ontological Determination. That’s my favourite.”
“Ontolo-what now?” Applejack said, but Twilight’s stream of words had ground to a halt. The alicorn was looking at her with a frown, her forehead creased and her ears back in confusion.
“...Fruit?”
Applejack scratched her muzzle. “Yep. I ain’t much of a mare for the abstract stuff and whatnot, and I’ll be darned if there ain’t plenty of that in this here book – but I can tell you right now that there sure ain’t nopony in these parts knows more about apples than the Apple Family.”
“Well then,” Twilight said, “maybe you could explain it all to me. Oh, this is just too wonderful. The pursuit of knowledge is an amazing thing, isn’t it? Especially when you realise just how little you’ve actually discovered and how ignorant we all really are!”
Applejack gave her friend a sideways smile and said, “I hope you’ll excuse me if I don’t use all the fancy words here. I reckon I’ve almost got my head ‘round it, but it’d be mighty fine if you could let me know whether I’m buckin’ up the wrong tree with it all.
“From what I can gather, there was a stallion a little while back, name of Neightzsche – now don’t you get all excited every time I say a name you know, else we’ll never be done talkin’ – and this guy said that the world was like an apple harvest. Anythin’ we do in our lives, it’s all happened before, and it’ll all happen again, long after the both of us are gone to the Great Beyond.”
“Neightzsche!” Twilight was actually bouncing on her hooves now, her eyes shining with an almost otherworldly intensity. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Did you know that he wrote the classic work on modern zebrine thinking, Thus Spake Zecora?”
“You, uh, you don’t say.”
“It’s a really, really brilliant book – ostensibly written as straightforward light verse, but actually a deeply philosophical volume examining every facet of the world that the zebras know today. And it’s filled with so many absolutely wonderful aphorisms!”
Applejack rolled her eyes and snorted. “I’ll take your word for that. Anyway, what the guy in this book—” she indicated it with a nod “—believes is that what Neightzsche says just ain’t so. He reckons life ain’t like an apple harvest at all, but more like a simple apple pie.”
“Oh! Like when you and Rarity were at the Sisterhoov—”
“Heh, not quite. This ain’t really about two ponies workin’ together.” Applejack smiled. “The author sure talks one hay of a lot about pies, though. Not real certain he’s right to recommend bakin’ plums along with peaches, but that’s another thing. Anyhow, he says that if you bake a pie but nopony eats it, well, that pie ain’t never gonna come ‘round again. You’ve lost it forever, ‘cept if’n you want to feed it to the pigs or somethin’ – so all that buckin’s been for nothin’ at all.”
She lapsed into silence and Twilight said hesitantly, “I think I see.”
“T’ain’t every day that happens, now, is it?” Applejack said, laughing. “Somepony gettin’ you to look all confused-like.”
“I am not confused! I’m just thinking, that’s all. Inwardly digesting. Cogitating.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow, still smirking a little. “Cogitatin’. If you say so, Twi.”
Twilight shot her friend a look but said, “I really do think I need to read the book for myself, though. I wonder if there’s another copy in the castle library somewhere?”
“You’re plenty welcome to look at this one. I guess it’s really your book in the first place.”
“Applejack!” Twilight sounded genuinely shocked. “This book is for the benefit of the Ponyville community as a whole. Just because it’s shelved in the castle doesn’t mean it’s mine. I’m just... holding it in trust. But, well, would you mind if I took a quick look at its first page, so I can note down the details I’ll need to search the library catalogue later on?”
“Why, sure. Knock yourself out,” Applejack said, shrugging as she passed Leap to Faith across to her friend.
Twilight took it with her magic and flipped back through the book to find the relevant section, then stopped abruptly. Her mouth formed a huge ‘O’ as she stared at the paper, blinking rapidly.
“Somethin’ wrong there, sugarcube?”
“Applejack,” Twilight said slowly, “does Rainbow Dash know about this book?”
“Rainbow Dash? Gee, Twilight, you were a mite surprised that I was readin’ it. Why would Rainbow take an interest in somethin’ like this?”
“Because she’s met the author. So have I, actually. And you.” Twilight floated the book back to Applejack with a short passage magically highlighted. “Take a look here.”
Applejack read aloud. “About the Author. As a foal in Cloudsdale, Murky Guard spent hours each day gazin’ skyward, a bag of shiny red apples in his hoof, hopin’ for a glimpse of his great heroes: the Wonderbolts. Occasionally he did see them, but mostly the colt was left with with nothin’ to nourish him but those bright apples and his own bright thoughts. One day he would be a ‘Bolt himself, famed across Equestria as—”
Applejack broke off, her eyes flitting across the page. Now it was her turn to look astonished. “Guess the world really is absurd,” she said. “An’ I sure as hay feel pretty gosh-darn confused about it right now.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“Sufferin’ snakebites, he sure kept that quiet! And even you didn’t know?”
Twilight shook her head. “All my own books call him Murky Guard, and so does all the literature I’ve studied about him. I’d always assumed that was his full name. I don’t know why he hid away like that; perhaps he worried that his friends might make fun of him. Still, it does explain why he takes so much interest in apple pies: it looks like he never did like the idea of facing the bleakness of existence with just a single apple to hoof.”
Applejack didn’t answer: she was still gazing at the book. Finally, she looked up at Twilight.
“Well I’ll be... Soarin.” She shook her head slowly. “Amazin’.” She scratched her forehead for a few moments, then shrugged. “Anyway, I was gonna ask: do you and Spike feel like comin’ ‘round for dinner at Sweet Apple Acres tonight? Won’t be nothin’ special, I’m afraid, but we’d be mighty happy to have y’all join us all the same.”
“That sounds great. What will you be serving up this evening?”
“I guess I could rustle up a few things. You got any special requests?”
“Well,” Twilight said, “Spike would love a few of those sapphires from the North Field pits, I’m sure, and as for me—” She looked at Applejack with wide and pleading eyes. “I don’t suppose I could hope for a really rich fleeting moment of existence? You bake those so well.”
Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “Uh...”
Twilight gave a crooked smile. “With cinnamon ice cream?”
