Building up that fruitful relationship...
Author's Note
This was originally part of an un-posted colab, but I adapted it. I have no regrets.
Well, except that I don't have any Electric Blue Jolt Cola.
Damn that sweet vomit-inducing crack. Almost as good a whiskey.
...almost.
-Pencil
Building up that fruitful relationship...
“Oh Anon?”
“Jesus fucking christ Twilight, not so loud,” you groan in frustration.
Twilight winces back, but doesn’t look too surprised. She’s probably used to this sort of reaction by now. You’d feel worse if it wasn’t for that eternal, splitting headache.
"…nevermind,” she mutters, and trots off to go find something to do that doesn't involve you.
Good riddance, you think, not really meaning it. Since your arrival in Ponyville, things have been…weird. You’re stressed all the time, you feel twitchy, you yell at everyone…then again, that’s all probably to be expected from a caffeine addict. It’s also probably because pony coffee is pretty much swill, and lacks any sort of kick. Of course ponies would only drink decaf.
You’ve asked Pinkie a few times where she gets her energy, but every time her eyes have just dilated and she’s hissed the word “frosting” in low, reverent tones. You’re not sure what exactly she means by that, but from her tone you’re pretty sure that it’s illegal. You’re not quite that desperate yet.
Since you arrived, you’ve also been too upset by all this to even look at the bag you’d had on you when you were stuck here. You know for a fact the shirt in there has a coffee stain on it, and the very idea of the smell would probably send you into crying, shaking fits of withdrawal. The bag sits forgotten in a corner now, taunting you on occasion.
Especially on days like today.
You can feel a lack of caffein in your veins. You can feel your brain calling out the word over and over again like a prayer. You need the stuff. Any of it.
Suddenly, the prospect of that bag is getting too much of you. Maybe if you could just smell that coffee stain, lick it a little, get anything to remind you of that deliciousness from home…
You tell your body not to do it. It doesn’t listen.
In a flash, you’re over at your bag, tearing open the zipper, breaking it permanently. You don’t even care. You rifle through the clothes in the duffle, at last finding that dress shirt.
The telling brown stain across the front beckons to you, and you burry your face in it with a soft moan of pleasure.
Dear sweet Colombian bean gods that smells like heaven. You sniff the shirt again and again, continuing to moan with each breath.
Then, all at once, something catches your eye. A glint of blue in the corner of your bag.
Hello…what’s…
Like the strike of a lightening bolt, you remember exactly what this is.
How could you have forgotten? Was it the shock of being sent to this world? Was it your own blind stupidity? Were you secretly saving it from yourself?
With trembling hands, you carefully pull back the cloth and lift your long sought prize from the bag. Glinting in the low light of the tree library, you look upon a full 6-pack of bottles of a long forgotten relic.
Electric. Blue. Jolt. Cola.
You choke back a sob of joy.
You’d bought the stuff as something to put on a shelf, a sign of things long past. The soda had stopped being made a while ago, well except in a few select places and this 6-pack was from the original batch. You glance at the expiration date, and find it was years ago. While part of you wants to preserve this ancient artifact, you also have a large, shrieking, shit-flinging monkey on your back.
Besides, if they’re expired they might be fermented by now or something.
You know what you must do.
With an anguished, wailing cry, you force open the first bottle and down it in one, long, gargling swallow. It tastes something like raspberries, if they’d been rolled in old hockey socks and then rolled on by an autistic Saint Bernard. You don’t even care. You feel a rise in your bloodstream, a surge through you…
Oh god. You’ve wanted this. You’ve missed this.
Not even feeling your own hands, you open another and another, downing one after another in quick succession. Your starved body absorbs it all, not caring what horrible chemical reactions may occur from drinking expired energy soda. You love this feeling.
But…still…wait…
Somewhere deep inside you, you sense more than feel your senses leaving you. You feel like you can barely see. As you finish the last one, your body cries out in a small, child’s voice.
Water.
Something.
Anything.
Something is wrong here.
You stumble to the counter, everything silting and swaying with the sugar and artificial everything infiltrating your brain. As you stumble and start to fall, you grab for something, anything. Your hand finds a bottle, and you grasp it. As you shake, trembling to the floor, your vision going white and black around the edges, you have time to focus one more thing. The bottle in your hand.
It’s cider. From the Apple’s farm.
As you lose all sense of yourself, the logo of a large red apple is the last thing you see.
——
It’s a mighty bright day in Ponyville, the perfect kinda day for fixing up the old and rotting boards on the family barn. You wipe the sweat from your orange freckled cheek with a satisfied nod.
The sun is getting awful high in the sky, and you’re pretty tuckered out, but there’s still more wood to replace. A pony’s work is never done you ‘spose. Still, you kinda wish you were one of those magic types, like Twilight or Rarity, so you didn’t have to use your mouth for everything. Nails taste bitter and rusty in your teeth, and gripping a hammer in the meantime sure is a right challenge. But you’ve had it harder. Shucks, this is nothing compared to applebucking season.
Besides, Granny Smith’s got fresh lemonade for you when you finish. You can about taste that cool refreshing drink just thinking 'bout it. Mmmmmh.
You glance up from your work and spot a familiar form stridin your way. He looks a little fuzzy from this far, but as he gets closer you recognize your human friend, Anon. He's walking with a determined look in his eye, and his hands all balled up in fists. His face is blank, pale, and focused on something in front a him you can't quite see. Why, it's that look that Twilight gets when she has some silly project she's working on.
Poor fella, must be stressed 'bout something. He has been grumpy lately.
Maybe Granny Smith has that lemonade done now. Looks like he could use a drink, even if he doesn’t seem to like the drinks here, and you're happy to offer it.
You raise a hoof and wave it at Anon as he stomps past the barn, still staring straight ahead.
“Well howdy Anon, care to stop and shoot the breeze a while?”
He halts mid-stride and turns real slow to look at you. His eyes seem like they're peering straight through you. It makes you right uneasy, but you show your kindest smile. After a moment he wanders over to you like some sorta zombie. As he gets closer, you can see that his face is all twitchy-like. It's strange, but you don't say nothin’. He stops in front of you and raises a hand just up to his shoulder, palm facing you, then puts it right back down in a fist.
“Hi.”
Was that 'sposed to be a wave?
“Yeah...uh...hi Anon,” you say, still trying to be upbeat, even though he's beginning to give you the willies. “What're you up to?”
He stares at you some more without speaking. A long thin trail of drool begins to drain outa one corner of his mouth.
Yeah, that's creepy alright.
“Well,” you say to carry on the conversation, even if it's a mite one sided. “I'm just fixin' up this here barn myself.”
He slowly raises his chin to stare up at your barn. With a low slurp, he breathes the line of drool back into his mouth.
“Uh-huh,” he mutters.
“Yeah, it's plumb difficult work, ya know. But Granny Smith is just about done with a mess of lemonade if you'd like to stick around for a glass.”
He seems not to hear you as he approaches the barn. He's still staring up at it with that terrible blank expression, but he seems real fixated on it now. He stops just before he bumps face first into it and takes a deep breath in, almost like he's sniffin' the wood.
“A-anon?”
You approach him slow, not quite sure what to do, but sensing somethin's powerful wrong.
“Barn...fixing...” he mumbles.
“That's right, just fixin' up the barn.”
“Fix...barn...”
“Yep, you got it.”
“Barn.”
“That sure is a barn, yessiree.”
“I...I'll fix the barn.”
You brighten considerably. You're not sure what's up with this fella, but you'll never turn down a helpin' hoof when it comes to work around the farm. Heck, he even has those long...hand...stick things. The kind that bend and hold stuff? Yeah those! Might be right helpful with hammers and nails.
“Oh, you wanna help me fix up the barn?”
He nods without looking away from the cracking red wood.
“Ok, well I need to make real sure any loose boards are secure and that any rotten ones get replaced. Wanna do the nailin'?”
He nods wordlessly.
“Well here Anon, knock yerself out!”
You nudge the bucket of nails closer to him and raise the hammer towards his hand. With a shakey arm he reaches out and picks up a single nail. Then, slowly, like he's barely able to do it, he reaches out for the hammer. You can see he's trembling something fierce, and that his skin is wet with sweat. You have enough time to think that maybe this isn't the smartest idea after all. He touches the handle of the hammer...
All at once, Anon flies into motion.
He durn near rips your teeth outa your mouth as he snatches the hammer from you. He raises the nail and tips back his head, eyes wide and crazy. He lets out a warbling battle shriek and jerks his hand away, leaving the nail hangin' briefly in the air in front of him. Before it can fall, he lets the hammer fly. It connects with the nail and drives it into the wood.
Then through the wood.
His whole arm goes through the side of your barn.
“Anon!” you cry. “What in the hay-!”
But he's not stopping yet.
He rips back his hand, the hammer still clutched in it and attacks another plank, not even bothering with a nail this time. Wood splinters fly out in all directions as the board splits into three parts and falls useless to the ground. He grips the wood bits in his hand and chucks them between his legs to begin a scrap heap, barely missing your head. Then he moves to the next one, the hole in your barn growing rapidly.
His arm swings faster, harder, splittin' board after board before your eyes. The shock begins to wear off and you realize that you're standing there like durned fool, as he destroys part of your home!
You rush to him in a panic. What in Equestria is he thinkin?!
“Stop!” you call, tugging at his shirt with your teeth. “What do you think you're doing?!”
He spins, arm still raised with the hammer in it. He's grinning a big goofy grin, and his eyes are watering.
“I FIX BARN!” he cries.
“Yer not fixin' it, yer breakin' it!”
“Wood bad! Need new wood all over! ALL OVER!” he shrieks. “Completely rebuild!”
You try to stay calm, but his expression is beginning to actually scare you.
“But it doesn't need to be be rebuilt, just fixed up a bit. So you don't-”
“No no no no,” he says, shaking his head violently. “No no no. I'll fix it all, you can just relax. I...Ill make it four stories!”
“But-”
“And big enough to store all the apples ever!”
“But-”
“And I'll paint a portrait of Granny Smith on one side. In post-impressionistic style!”
He's shaking all over, and you can see a vein throbbin' in his neck.
“It. Will. Be. GLORIOUS!” he yells in a kinda roar.
You start to tell him no again, but you're not quick enough. With a sharp set of manly giggles he whirls back to your barn and drops the hammer. He now goes after the boards with his bare hands, ripping them right off of their beams with creaks and pops. A froth of spit is making foam around one side of his mouth as he continues to chuckle.
You stare, both horrified and impressed, as his pace increases, till there's a steady and rhythmic pop, pop, pop, as boards fly over his shoulder to form a messy pile. Before you can even move towards him, he's already almost completed a whole wall of board stripping. As he starts on the next, you try to stop him again.
“Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute, I already did some of those!”
He looks over his shoulder without even stopping from his work.
“Not good enough!” he gurgles. “I make better! Make everything better, cleaner, fancier, faster!”
Still staring at you, he sinks his teeth into the next board and tears in back with a growl. It pries free and he throws it away like a dog flingin' around a chew toy.
"Must be perfect," he grunts through the wood.
W-what's going on here?
Is this some weird human thing? Is this how they try to attract mates or somethin'? Of course, you'd be right flattered, but not like this! You never asked fer this! He tosses another board and pauses, mid turn. As if in a daze, his eyes lock on that pile of boards he's makin’ behind him. He gives a short gasp and lets go of a newly gripped board.
“Not....straight!” he hisses.
Good gravy, what now?
He runs, arms flapping all limp at his sides, to the pile of wood. In a flurry, he begins stacking and straightening, whining frantically as he does so. An instant later, the pile goes from messy to perfectly stacked by size and wholeness. If he wasn't so scary right now, you'd almost say thank you. Almost. He looks up, seemingly content with this project at least, and spots your orchard.
A gleaming grin rises to his face.
“Apples...must be....picked...”
Oh lordy, not your apples! Anything but the apples!
He raises his hands, and reaches out towards the trees as if to gather them all in whole one by one. You have no doubt at this point that he'd probably try. You can see his knees knockin' together with the desire to run over there and begin working again. You have to do something, and fast!
“Anon!” you yell, trying to sound urgent.
He pivots in place, so sharply it looks like he might break his back. He's panting hard like an old dog, and you can see he's grinding his teeth.
“Th-the other ponies!” you say, suddenly inspired. “They need yer help!”
He looks dubious, but interested at least. You go on.
“Y-yeah, they're all mighty busy and such. Lotsa things to fix and...make...straight. I'm sure they're wishin' they had someone big and strong like you Anon.”
It's not in your nature to lie, and you feel a blush of shame rise into your freckled cheeks. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures. He blinks at you, the first time you've seen him blink so far today. Then he whips his head 'round towards the path.
“Where?!” he demands.
“Um, that way!” you say, pointing off into the general direction of Ponyville. “They're all thataway!”
Without looking back at you, he begins to sprint towards town. Your barn, wood pile, and apples are all forgotten. You breathe a sigh of relief as you watch his retreating dust trail.
“Good golly, I wonder what that was all about,” you mutter.
Then you turn back to your barn...
And the scene hits you sudden, all at once, when you're not ready for it. You sink down onto the ground, and lower your head.
All that work...
You hear the door slam behind you and the clink of glasses as someone approaches.
"Applejack honey, I got that lemonade you..."
Granny Smith goes silent as she spots you, sitting with your hat in your hooves, quietly weeping over your newly wall-less barn.
