* * *
Mare of Many Hats
Jeffrey C. Wells
* * *
A wet, gray, cottony night fell over the city of Manehattan as Applejack lay awake in the hotel room she shared with her very good friend Rarity, staring at the smoke detector on the ceiling.
After a while, the smoke detector waved back.
"Sorry," she whispered, a bit sheepishly.
The smoke detector burbled back at Applejack in its weird Northern monkey-tongue. Among the many amenities of the big-city hotel Rarity had booked for their latest Friendship Mission were in-room smoke detectors, which is to say, destitute stranded out-of-work breezies who were hired to perch on the ceiling lights and stay awake all night to watch for the smoke of a possible hotel fire. Rarity had assured her that it represented the ne plus ultra of safety and modern convenience, but Applejack just found it kind of weird. She also wondered what happened when the tiny little fairy-horses had to use the privy. Pictures of tiny adorable bottles filled with tiny adorable fairy-horse pee filled her mind's eye, and she actually let them linger there for longer than any sane mare probably should. She was, truth to tell, desperate for the distraction. Anything to help her not think about the loss of her beloved hat—
Ah. That was a mistake. Just thinking about the event brought a sniffle to her nose and a tear to her eye. Run over by a push-reel lawnmower! Such an ignominious fate for Pa's hat, she thought, except for the fact that she did not literally use the word "ignominious" because she wasn't familiar with it. (If quizzed on the topic, she would have guessed that it referred to some kind of rather large ground squirrel.)
The hat.
Applejack choked back a quick sob, hoping that the snowy-white unicorn sleeping right next to her wouldn't hear. Fate had continued to conspire to put Rarity and Applejack in bed together; this time it had been a booking error in the reservation combined with a complete lack of rollaway beds in stock. A.J. didn't mind it as much as she once had. It was actually kind of enjoyable sleeping next to a friend. Not in that way, of course. A.J.'s barn door famously swung only one way. And besides, even if she were to some day decide to install double-acting hinges on it, she would definitely hit up Twilight first. To A.J.'s appreciative eye, that mare really put the "ass" in "Asperger's Syndrome." But Rarity did have her qualities, one of them being a certain sensitivity and delicacy. It was the sort of sensitivity and delicacy that nearly ensured she would not stay asleep while the mare in bed next to her wept.
Rarity yawned, confirming Applejack's fears. The unicorn telekinetically shifted her sleep mask to a point just above her horn and blinked the sand out of her eyes. "Applejack, darling? Are you quite all right?"
Applejack struggled with a quick and dismissive answer, but she had once worn the Element of Honesty, and now it was sort of radioactively inside her at all times, she supposed? In any case, glossing over it was out of the question.
The workhorse let off a sigh filled with soppy, wet, countrified emotion. "Shoot, Rarity. I'm just thinkin' about the hat, is all."
"I knew it," Rarity fussed, clicking the switch on the bedside lamp, the effect of which was to teleport a dozen innocent and disoriented fireflies from a field fifty miles distant into the lamp's globe. "It's the wrong color, isn't it? Applejack, I want you to know that even though my trained gaze picked out the exact right shade of felt to complement your already-striking coloration, I, as a friend, respect your right to be completely wrong about your own fashion choices."
"Not the replacement hat you bought me," A.J. said. "That one's just fine." Well, fine enough. Of course it'd be going straight to the thrift store once she got home, but it was perfectly serviceable as a spare in the meantime, and it had been very nice of Rarity to buy it for her. "The other hat. The one you threw away."
"Say no more," said Rarity, throwing off the covers and rising to her hooves. "We'll trot right back to the park and pick it out of the dustbin. I am, if I do say so myself, a miracle-worker when it comes to garment repair."
"Well, that's right neighborly of you. Ain't no need to go through heroics, though. I'm practical enough to know when a stitch of clothes needs to be put out to pasture."
Rarity smiled a sad, warm little smile, straightened the covers, and inched back into bed beside Applejack. "It meant a lot to you, though. I can see that much."
A.J. squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. Here it comes, she thought.
"Would you like to talk about it?"
A deep, shuddering breath. "That hat... was one of the last things my Pa gave me before he passed on."
"Oh, my, darling," breathed Rarity. "I'm so sorry."
"Yep," said Applejack. "One of the last 67,986 things."
A moment passed. The breezie hanging from the ceiling chirped.
"...Pardon?"
"All of 'em were hats," said Applejack, the words coming easier now. "Gave 'em to me the day he passed. Just hours before, in fact. Pa entrusted me with that hat, along with 67,985 other ones, all exactly the same. They were his signature hats, Rarity. Weren't a day went by that Pa couldn't be seen wearing one of that vast multitude of hats. All 67,986 of 'em remind me so strongly of him that I... I can't hardly stand it."
"Oh," said Rarity. "Well, that's... that's terrible, Applejack. Terrible and a bit... confusing. You own sixty-seven thousand of your father's hats?"
"67,986, yup. Well, 67,985, now." A fresh lump welled up in A.J.'s throat.
"Where do you... I mean... they must take up a lot of space, yes?"
"We find room. Closets. Outbuildings. The whole entire attic. Fluttershy's basement. We got some of 'em buried in an airtight metal shipping container underneath the south orchard. I know they're just things, Rarity, but sometimes when I wear one of 'em, it feels like a little piece of my Pa is still with me." A.J. managed a little smile. "Specifically, 1/67,986th of him. Even thinking about 'em brings back memories of that day he gave 'em all to me. Almost like... a flashback sequence in a story you're readin' or something."
* * *
"Pa! Pa!" cried Filly Applejack. "Looky here! I went bobbin' for apples and I managed to fit nine of them in my mouth at the same time!"
"Well, well, well," rumbled Pa Apple, with a proud little smile. "I reckon that makes you the winner of the 'Stupid Stuff We Do to Make the Kinfolk Choke Themselves to Death' contest!"
"Yeehaw!" squeaked Filly Applejack.
"I got some bad news, though, Li'l Sapling. The beavers done ran off with the trophy and we got nothing to give you."
"Aw, that's okay, Pa," said Filly Applejack, snuggling up to her father. "Knowin' I made you proud is all the trophy I need."
Pa Apple beamed, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, as he looked down at his eldest daughter. After a moment's thought, he reached up and removed the signature Stetson from his head. "Here, Li'l Sapling. I... I want you to have this."
Filly Applejack gasped. "Pa! One of your 67,986 hats?"
"Yup. I'd say you earned it. Doin' stupid stuff to kill ourselves off is a proud Apple Family tradition, and by cramming nine whole apples down your immature and undersized horse gullet, you have shown yourself to be a true member of the Apple Family."
"Oh, Pa!" squealed Filly Applejack. "This is the best Apple Family Reunion ever! The hang-gliding competition... them cages of tigers you got shipped in from the zoo... the live chemistry demonstrations..."
"And we're finishing it all off tonight with a fireworks display celebrating the opening of our brand new grain silo."
"I'm gonna remember this day with fondness for my whole entire life!"
Pa chuckled. "I hope so."
Then Filly Applejack's face fell. "But... what are you gonna do without your hat? I suppose you got 67,985 others, each one absolutely indistinguishable from the rest, right?"
"Well, that's just it, Li'l Sapling," said Pa. "Actually, I'm giving you all of 'em. Right now." Pa stepped back and gave a sharp whistle. There was a rumble of hooves on earth, and in a flash, a huge moving-company cart appeared, screeching to a halt in front of Filly Applejack. With a noise like an avalanche, the cart unloaded its vast payload of utterly identical Stetson hats directly on top of Filly Applejack. The tiny orange horse was completely buried in a two-meter thick layer of stiff felt headgear.
A moment passed.
"Yay! Hats!" came a muffled voice from far beneath the pile.
"That's just the first cartload," Pa said. "Trust me, we got plenty more where that came from."
"Pa Apple!" came a sharp voice from the edge of the barnyard, as the moving-company cart rumbled away. "Are you finished giving all those hats to our daughter yet?"
"Almost, Honey Badger."
"Well, make it quick," said Ma Apple, trotting briskly up to the pile, her signature red hair-bow bobbing with the motion of her gait. "We absolutely must have the ownership of all those hats transferred to our next of kin by sundown."
"We got eight more carts on the way," Pa Apple reassured her.
"Good. The assessors will be here soon, and if we fail in this, the tax consequences will be incalculable." She paused. "Actually, that's not true. I have, in fact, calculated them. And they are staggering. Ruinous. You're sure you're officially transferring all 67,986 of them?"
"Counted 'em myself," Pa said. "But... if we wanted to make absolutely sure, there's another way we could reduce our joint spousal millinery load."
"You're talking about my hair-bows," said Ma Apple, her tone growing frosty.
"I'm just sayin', we got another daughter."
"Forget it, Pa Apple," snapped Ma Apple. "That stupid baby gets her hooves on my hair-bows over my cold, dead body."
"All right, Honey Badger, forget I said anything."
"The same way you 'forgot' to use protection last year?"
Pa Apple gave a deep sigh. "What are we doing, Honey Badger? I mean, we keep raising barns and building silos but sometimes I wonder if all this buildin' ain't just a patch over our flawed and failing marriage."
"Fine," said Ma Apple, rolling her eyes. "I'll choke down some anti-nausea medication and we can have a 'talk' about your 'feelings.' Tomorrow. I've got better things to concentrate on tonight, like keeping the farm afloat in this tax climate. With no help from you, of course."
There was a brief, awkward silence.
"Would this, ah, be a bad time to bring up that 'me being into stallions' thing?"
"Terrible," said Ma Apple.
Like some sort of bizarre sci-fi wasp monster burrowing out of the flesh of its host, Filly Applejack finally made her way to the surface of the hat pile, scattering hats everywhere. "Hats!" she shrieked, gleefully. "Hats, hats, hats!"
"You're adopted," said Ma Apple.
* * *
"They called it the 'Night of Knives,'" said Applejack, staring out at the harbor. "To this day, it holds the record for 'Most Members of the Apple Family Killed Off in a Six-Hour Span.'"
"Applejack, darling!" said Rarity, her eyes wide. "That's horrible! On... on so many levels!"
"Shucks, Rarity," said Applejack. "Ain't no big thing. It's just the Earth Pony Way, I guess. Wouldn't expect a unicorn to understand. It just makes me sentimental, thinking about all the good times Pa and I had together, before things went wrong in a way that pony scientists are still struggling to describe or even understand. And that hat was one of the last 67,986 links I had to him."
"Well," said Rarity. "At least you can feel good about the fact that it gave its life for a good cause. Executing the capricious whims of an unspeaking, unfeeling artifact of Harmony and all."
"Yeah, that does make it go down easier," said Applejack. "I mean, I know—or at least blindly trust—that it's for the greater good. But there's still gonna be a sore place for a while."
"We could... go out and get a bite to eat? An apple croissant or something? I can never remember, do you like apples?"
"Love 'em," A.J. confirmed. "But... I ain't in the mood to nail on my horseshoes and go out in the cold right now." A.J. trotted back over to the bed and began crawling back under the covers. "Let's just get back to sleep, how 'bout that."
"Certainly," said Rarity. "And if it would help at all, my hooves are ready to hug you with all the Generosity I can muster."
A.J. screwed her face up. "Ain't that more like... Kindness, though?"
"Well, you know, there's overlap. I call big spoon!"
Nestled in the comforting embrace of her very good friend Rarity, Applejack felt sleep finally begin to claim her. Sure, she had lost a token of another pony's affection, a pony who had meant very much to her. But it was good to know that there were other currently-alive ponies that loved her too, ponies called 'friends,' who could take some of the hurt away and help her make it through the long, lonely nights.
Losing Pa's hat was going to sting.
But at least, thought Applejack, I got 67,985 more.
And with that, the two of them drifted into dreams.
On the ceiling above the bed, the smoke detector cocked its head and looked down at the two ponies below.
"So hot," it said, in its weird Northern monkey-tongue.
