The last few days had been frustrating for Applejack, to say the least. It started out simply enough - she had to put a bit of extra oomph into her applebucking, she had to reach a bit higher to get to those top shelves, she had to lift her hooves a bit extra to rustle Apple Bloom's mane. The first two she had chalked up to exhaustion; it had been a particularly rough season at Sweet Apple Acres, and she had found herself worrying that she might not be bringing her A-Game. And Apple Bloom had been shooting up like a weed recently - of course her height would surprise Applejack once in a while, wouldn't it?
But when she awoke to what felt like a Princess-sized bed on the second day and her hat wouldn't stay on her head, she began to put two and two together. She was shrinking! After waking up the house in the shock of this revelation, she decided to visit Twilight Sparkle's treehouse in town. She insisted on going alone; the farm shouldn't shut everything down just because she was having a little trouble, right? Apple Bloom had snickered a bit at that line, but a stern look from her still-bigger sister shut her right back up.
It was still early enough that not many ponies were out and about in Ponyville. This was good, because the last thing Applejack needed right now were ponies holding her up with questions. The sooner she figured this out and got it over with, the sooner she could get back to work. One or two early risers wandered the streets, however, and their questioning stares made Applejack feel even smaller.
Luckily enough, however, Twilight was one of those early risers. She was out in the market, looking a bit confused.
"Mornin', Twi. Ya know the market's not open on Thursdays, don't ya?" Applejack greeted her friend, trying to hide her uneasiness.
"Oh, hello, Applejack! I'm usually not up this early, so I--" Twilight's explanation was cut short as she found herself adjusting her line of sight a few inches lower than where she was used to having it. "Goodness, Applejack; what happened to you?"
"Darned if I can tell, sugar. I was hoping you could tell me," Applejack replied, with a look down at her body. Seeing the ground that much closer than normal made her snap her eyes back up to Twilight. "I think this all started yesterday, but by golly, I just can't figure out what caused it!"
"I'll admit, that is quite the puzzle," Twilight mused. "Let's hurry back to my place and see if we can't figure this out."
"That's what I'd hope to he-- and just what's so funny?" Applejack snorted at her friend's smirk.
"Nothing, nothing; sorry. I'm just not used to seeing the top of your head, is all. What with you normally wearing that hat and being taller and everything. It's just so weird!" Twilight cleared her throat and straightened her expression. "AHEM - but it's not funny. We should get going." Twilight trotted off towards her house, leaving Applejack to follow.
"Spike, brew some tea!" Twilight ordered, throwing the front door open with a loud THUD. "Two cups, please! Three if you want some!" Applejack entered the house, closing the door behind her. Looking around the large main room of the library, she was awed at what a difference the few inches she'd lost made here. The room always felt spacious before, but now it was an enormous cavern, lined on all sides by large tomes holding all the knowledge of the world inside. She shook her head - she was letting this whole mess get to her, and that was no good. Gotta keep a good head on your shoulders, no matter how small those shoulders may be.
Twilight busied herself looking for the books she needed, a soft "aha" escaping her lips with every volume found. Applejack seated herself at the low table in the middle of the room and waited for the tea. She frowned; the table came up to her chin. As Applejack scoured the room for pillows and cushions and anything to give her a bit of height, Spike returned with two large cups of freshly-brewed tea. He stared at Applejack for a bit, made a quick mental comparison between himself and Applejack, and shrugged. "Look, it's been a long week, and I haven't slept since Tuesday. I don't even wanna know. Good luck with whatever this is - I'm going back to bed."
"Good night, Spike!" Twilight called up the stairs, flanked on both sides by several books held aloft by magic. "Applejack, will you follow me downstairs? I've got some tests I'd like to run in the lab, if you're okay with that."
"Can I carry some of those books for ya? You got half the library floatin' on ya." Applejack offered.
"No thanks, I'm fine," Twilight responded, looking at the books she'd gathered. "And besides these are old and valuable books! I'd hate for your condition to cause you to drop one."
Applejack scowled a bit. "Well, what about our tea?" Applejack asked.
"Tea? What tea? Now come downstairs, please!" Once again, Twilight trotted on ahead of Applejack, disappearing down the staircase between two bookshelves. Applejack took a quick sip of the tea - Spike had worked hard to prepare it, after all - and followed Twilight.
She had been up and down these stairs several times since meeting Twilight and never thought much of it. But the lights were higher, casting an eerie glow on the sloping hall, and the guard rail that used to be at shoulder-height was now even with her eyes. Applejack focused on the stairs themselves to put that out of her mind. The length between stairs had become longer and more awkward to climb. And was it her, or were the stairs getting even bigger as she went down? Twilight was here with her, and she wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, right? So why these feelings of apprehension? A lump rose in her throat, and she had to fight a bit to swallow it back.
Twilight's tests took most of the day. Many of them included several large machines, obviously designed for ponies larger than Applejack. The machines seemed to grow bigger and more elaborate as the day drew on, and Applejack grew tired of them. The worst test of all, though, involved a dose of poison joke. One of Twilight's theories was that this might be some kind of drawn-out poison joke reaction, but as Applejack quickly shrank down to almost nothing after biting into a leaf, Twilight ruled that out. Luckily, she had had a dose of antidote prepared beforehand. A momentary look of relief had crossed Applejack's face as she relished being her old size again. But the relief quickly turned to frustration as she remembered that this was not her size at all.
"I'm so sorry, Applejack, I just don't know what I'm doing wrong!" Twilight cried, having exhausted all her tests and experiments. She was flipping through her books frantically, attempting to find the solution in the pages she'd already scoured several times today. "I should have figured this out, by now, but nothing's helped! I even tried a straight growth spell on you, and that barely did anything!" She collapsed on the floor, almost in tears at how totally she had failed her friend. "Just -- just give me a second, I know I can do this!"
"Look, it's fine, Twi," Applejack consoled, slipping herself out of the harness of the last contraption she was strapped into. It wasn't too difficult - she was a bit smaller now than when Twilight had hooked her in. "I can't rightfully be mad at ya. I still got no idea what's happenin', either, so we're about even. And ya did try yer best." Applejack took another look at the metal monstrosities she had spent all day getting to know and gave a shudder. "I should probably just head home for the night." Applejack began the long ascent back to the first floor of the house, purposefully avoiding looking at Twilight on her way past. She knew she wouldn't like what she'd see.
Twilight picked herself up off the floor and gallopped after her friend. "Oh, oh wait! At least let me walk you home! I can place an invisibility field on you so nobody stares! At least let me do that much for you."
Applejack turned at the top of the stairs and watched her friend catch up, momentarily treasuring the ability to look down at her friend. It felt nice not having to crane her neck upwards for once today. "That's fine, sugarcube. I'll just tough it out--", Applejack began, but When Twilight had finally caught up, she noticed with a tinge of despair just how small she had become. Her eyes only came up about to Twilight's shoulder. Ponyville wasn't exactly a large town, and a small pony looking exactly like Applejack would definitely raise some eyebrows, especially this early in the evening, with the whole town out on the streets. There was no way she could handle that right now, after all she'd been through today. She swallowed her pride. "Yeah, Twi, I think that'd be nice."
****
Twilight cast the invisibility spell on Applejack and set out for Sweet Apple Acres with her friend at her side. They couldn't exactly make conversation on the way - Twilight would appear to be talking to herself. So the two walked along in silence, Twilight making smaller, slower strides than normal so as not to inconvenience her friend. The slow journey left Applejack with a lot of time to think. She dreaded coming home and being able to stare Apple Bloom even in the eyes. And what was she going to do for the farm now? She couldn't buck trees as she was now, and who knew where and when her shrinking would stop! How long would she be able to help in the house without becoming a nuisance? She'd already become this small in two days; give her a week, and what'd be left? That was the worst part of this whole thing, really. Applejack prided herself on being tough - being able to take whatever lemons life threw at her and press them into the most delicious lemonade possible. But letting her family down? And over something she had absolutely no control over? That was absolutely terrifying.
It was a small ways out of town when Twilight heard a small sobbing coming from beside her. After checking to make sure nobody was around, Twilight lifted the invisibility spell to find Applejack, now just about half of Twilight's height, tears streaming from her eyes. Twilight bent down and embraced her friend, wrapping her up in her forelegs and wings. "Oh, Applejack, it's alright. I know this is scary for you, but you'll get through it. Everything's going to work out."
"That's easy for you to say!" Applejack cried, now completely failing to choke back her tears. "Your life's gonna go on just fine, and you won't have ponies starin' at ya everywhere you go for the rest of your life like some kinda freak!"
"You might be surprised," Twilight chuckled with a small twitch of her wings. "But it's all going to be fine, you'll see! I had Spike send an urgent letter off to Princess Celestia while I was running all those tests today. And if Princess Celestia - the wisest, most powerful pony in the whole world - can't fix your problem, well, maybe it's not something that needs to be fixed."
"How can you say that? Just look at me! There ain't no way I can help on the farm anymore, and my family won't put up w--"
"Your family?" Twilight pulled Applejack away, holding her at arm's length. Her eyes stared deeply into Applejack's, ensuring that what she was about to say would find its mark. "Applejack, your family is the very closest, most caring group of ponies I have ever met in my whole life. Do you honestly think that they will think less of you, will love you any less, because of this little problem you're going through?"
Applejack looked up into Twilight's big purple eyes, holding her gaze for a time as she thought.
"Would you think any less of them if any of them were going through this? Or for any other problem, for that matter? Applejack, I promise you - your family loves you no matter who you are or what you can do." Twilight crossed her chest with one hoof and placed it over her eye.
The familiar gesture made Applejack giggle a bit, in spite of herself. "I know, I know, you're right. But that doesn't exactly help me figure all of this out, does it?"
Twilight frowned and stood up. "Well, no, not really. But that's something we'll find out together." She began to walk back to Sweet Apple Acres. "I'm not going to abandon you in this, Applejack - you have my word."
Applejack jogged to catch back up with her friend, the tears clearing up. "Your word as a princess?"
"No; my word as a friend."
****
Twilight had graciously volunteered to explain Applejack's current predicament to the Apple family. This left Applejack sitting on the couch, with Granny Smith and Apple Bloom on either side, and Big Mac standing behind. Applejack was extremely grateful to Twilight's explanation. She'd thought she had gained a handle on her situation - she'd even managed to joke a bit with Twilight during the rest of their journey. But now, being engulfed by the couch she'd barely been able to lay on just two days ago, she was overwhelmed once more. Familiar surroundings were warped by her newfound perspective. The household objects she'd grown up around took on odd, almost malevolent shapes. This was not her home anymore. She turned her head to find herself level with Apple Bloom. Her little sister shot her what was surely meant to be a reassuring smile, but Applejack felt it smacked of pity and superiority. But that was wrong, that was her sister. Twilight was right - her family wouldn't think any less of her because of this. Twilight WAS right, wasn't she?
She couldn't take it anymore. Applejack leapt off the couch, landing with a bit more force than she'd hoped, and ran up the stairs, almost tripping once or twice over her short legs. The gathered ponies could only watch as she sped off to her room.
"I'm going to go ahead and head back home," Twilight sighed. "There's gotta be something I missed, something that can help her out. I'll be back over first thing in the morning." With that, Twilight saw herself out.
"Well, I suppose we'd all best be off to bed, too." Granny Smith said, wiping a tear from her face. "Ain't no sense in worrying ourselves to death over somethin' we can't help with. Burns you up, though, don't it?"
"sigh - Eeyup...." Big Mac replied, his eyes glued to the ceiling, as if he was trying to see into Applejack's room from below. The two older ponies departed for their rooms.
Apple Bloom stayed behind and flopped out on the couch to think. There had to be something she could do, right? Applejack was her big sister, after all! How many times had she been there for Apple Bloom when she'd needed it? There had to be some way she could help her big sister out of this. But, try as she might, she couldn't think of anything. Maybe bed was the best option now. She headed up the stairs.
As she passed her sister's room on her way to her own bed, she heard a series of tiny grunts. She tried to ignore them and just go to her room, but she couldn't. She burst open the door to Applejack's room to find her older sister, now not even half Apple Bloom's height, struggling to scale the distance from the floor to her bed. At the sudden light from the hall, Applejack lost her balance and fell down to the floor with another "oof". Her hat lay overturned next to her, looking now more like a bathtub than a hat.
"Consarn it, Apple Bloom, I told you a million times to knock before you go bargin' into folks' rooms!" Applejack was fuming as she collected herself from the floor. "Just get off to bed, arlight? I can do this much for myself, at least! And if I got to, I'll just sleep on the floor."
A stern look crossed Apple Bloom's face. She knew how she was going to help her sister. She was going to be there for her tonight, no matter what. "I ain't leavin', sis! You're gettin' a good night's sleep on that bed tonight!" She took her sister in her hooves and placed her on the bed, climbing in after her and tugging the sheets over both of them. "Now, let's just get some sleep, alright?" Apple Bloom held her sister close to her chest.
"Apple Bloom, what are you--"
"Shhh!" Apple Bloom whispered. "You'll wake up Granny and Mac!"
"But Apple Bloom, I--"
"Shh!"
"Don't you shh me--"
"Shhhh!"
Applejack resented the gesture, feeling like a tiny teddy bear. She tossed and turned, trying to get free of her sleeping sister's grasp, but Apple Bloom's large yellow hooves were locked around Applejack tightly. Applejack quit struggling, and soon enough, the feeling of her sister's warm belly on her back and the sound of her large heartbeat lulled her off to sleep.
Applejack dreamed that night. She dreamed of trees that would not yield their fruits no matter how hard she kicked them. She dreamed of family and friends that wouldn't listen when she spoke. She dreamed of ponies whose gazes stole inches and inches away from her. She dreamed of falling into a glass of water and almost being drunk. She dreamed of running her way through a forest of pony hooves, trying desperately not to be stomped or crushed. She was insignificant; the world spun on in spite of her absence, and nobody seemed to miss her. So she ran. She ran out of her house. She ran away from the farm. She ran into the great expanse of hills behind her home. She ran and ran and ran and ran. She ran until there was no ground and no sky - just a dark blue expanse.
She ran so long and so hard, that she smacked right into a large silver tree. Looking up, she saw that it wasn't a tree at all, but the sliper on the hoof of another gigantic pony - the regal Princess Luna.
Luna looked down at the tiny orange pony with a compassionate smile. "Greetings to you, Miss Applejack," she called, in a voice that was as quiet as it was sweet. "How does this evening find you?"
Applejack fell on her haunches trying to look up into the princess's eyes. "Take a look at me, Princess - how do you think my day's been?"
Luna eased herself down to Applejack's level, resting on her legs. "I am looking at you. You appear to be very short, but then, most ponies do to my sister and I. But this does not answer my question, Applejack."
Applejack rose back to her feet and cocked her head. "Mighty sorry, but I don't think I follow. What kinda game are you playin' at, Ma'am?"
Luna responded to Applejack's questions with a warm smile. "There are no games here, my little pony. Only a friendly conversation, if you would care to indulge an old princess like myself."
Applejack looked around, running her eyes up and down her titanic companion's frame. "Phewee, I must be dreamin'."
"Of course you are dreaming! I came to you as soon as my sister received the letter Miss Twilight Sparkle sent. My sister is consulting her great library, frantically scouring its wisdom to find the cure to your predicament."
Applejack chuckled a bit. "Yeah, so's Twi."
"Those two ponies are remarkably alike in several ways. But I prefer a more direct approach to solving problems. I believe that, if any pony can appreciate a direct approach to matters, it is you, Miss Applejack. Am I not correct?"
"Well yeah, I suppose."
Luna beamed. "I do so enjoy being correct. Now please, make yourself more comfortable and tell me what is troubling you. You cannot hide anything from me, so you might as well "get it off of your chest", as it were."
Applejack looked down at herself and back to the monumental blue pony before her. "Come on, Princess. It's gotta be obvious, ain't it?"
"Perhaps. But I want to hear you say it, if you please."
"Well, for starters, I don't much enjoy only bein' an inch off the ground."
"But Miss Applejack, you have been this small before, have you not? I recall the report that was made about your group's encounter with the poison joke weed in the Everfree Forest. My, but that was some time ago. But in that situation, you were not troubled - you went out and faced your problem head-on! Why can you not do the same now?"
"Because, I--" Applejack started. "I don't know - everythin' just feels so wrong." Applejack got up and began to pace. "Last time, things were easier. I knew what was goin' on, and I had an idea 'bout how to go and fix it. Things are a lot easier with a plan to follow - even if our plan was completely wrong. But I just can't reckon what's goin' on now, much less find a way to get me back to normal. And I wasn't alone last time, neither. The whole gang was roughly in the same bucket I was in."
"And you believe you are alone now?"
"Well, yeah! Do you see any other ponies this tiny around here?" Applejack yelled.
Luna closed her eyes and her horn began to glow a serene blue. "No, but I do see your sister laying in your bed with you. She clutches you close to her breast. You are very much not alone in this."
"Well yeah, but how does that--"
"And more than that, I see her dreams. She dreams tonight of you, standing proud and tall, teaching her the skills and lessons she needs to learn to grow into a fine mare. She wants nothing more than to make you proud of her. You are very much her big sister, Miss Applejack, and she loves you dearly. I know you worry that your peers consider you as lesser than they are, and that you believe you can be nothing but a burden to them in your current state, but this is not the case. You are only as small as you feel."
"I'm 'only as small as I feel', huh?" Applejack stopped her pacing and looked straight at Luna. "Well shoot, Princess, I think I really needed to hear that. The worst part of all this was just how useless bein' this short made me feel, but I know I can make the best of it. That's what I do, right? But, uh, this doesn't really help me practically, ya know? Ain't there some kinda potion or spell you can lay on me to make me bigger? I'm not sure this mystic mumbo-jumbo's gonna cut it."
Luna opened her eyes and unfolded herself, standing back at her full height. Funnily enough, she didn't seem quite as tall to Applejack as she did a few minutes ago. "Oh, my dear Miss Applejack, whoever said anything about 'mystic mumbo-jumbo?" With that, she reared up on her hind legs and brought herself down with a loud CRACK, awaking Applejack from her dream.
Applejack felt her sister's hooves still wrapped tightly around her, but something felt different. Apple Bloom's hooves now didn't quite make it all the way around her torso. She turned around, facing her snoring sister and measuring up. From hooves to head, Applejack was still a bit shorter than her sister, but not by nearly the same amount. She smiled, hugging Apple Bloom back just as tightly as she'd been held before. "Maybe I am only as small as I feel." She drifted back off to sleep, knowing that tomorrow was going to be a better day.
