MAD: You can't cure stupid.

Earth Ponies. Hearty, stout, and grounded like the largest mountain west of Canterlot. For what they lacked in magic or soaring grace they made up for in good old fashioned determination and grit, along with enough stamina to see it through day and night if need saw fit.

Savants of the earth, and for one Earth Pony named Applejack, she took pride in such a fancy title even if she dare never admit.

"Hmm mmm mhm."

Much the same way she would never openly comment on how darn happy she was to see every apple tree in the orchard plucked clean by the end of each and every season. A family tradition for a family that prides itself on doing it together, for the family.

"Always an exception for the extended family!" Applejack lauds with closed eyes and a wide grin as she trots through the farthest orchards, bouncing so much with each trot that her bobbing tail never touches the ground. "Still family. Still counts!"

But with the season's work finished and the never absent ache of overworked hooves throbbing with each trot, she desires only what a fancy pony like Rarity and her fancy spa could never hope to deliver. Bringing all her brushes and workings for a good old fashioned scrubbing the good old fashioned earth pony way, she needn't open her eyes for her hooves since just a little filly have always known the way.

Secluded to the other side of the farm that faces Ponyville, if she were ever to describe, she would use only one word.

Hers.

"W-wait up, sis!"

But exceptions are bound to be made.

Especially after little sis becomes just another hoof closer to becoming the mare shes always been destined to be. She had already grown so much in such a short amount of time, slowly creating a life outside the farm that may one day take her far away from it. Life was good, but like anything good, it has to eventually move on so you understand just how good it really was.

"Better get your hooves snapping, Apple Bloom!" Applejack tries her best to slow down but only succeeds in swaggering her hips instead, much to the shattered fence post from her whipping tail ball. "Aw, shoot. Oh well, just another thing to mend on a day not today!"

Snagged by the smell of moss, Applejack's trot quickly pushes into a full gallop. Somehow able to still balance the basket on her back while kicking up dirt and grass, she merely leaps into the air like a little closed eyes filly on the banks of her twenty acre basin.

"Sis!" Apple Bloom, still in full filly gallop, skids to a stop just in time before going off the cliff as well. "Sis, are you okay?!"

Staring down past the cliff, Apple Bloom fidgets and gallops in place before throwing caution to the wind as she too jumps down. Trying her best to land, but failing miserably, she instead rolls and slides down the thick smelly black pond muck until she collides muzzle to rump with her equally caked sister. Noticing no reaction whatsoever, fret turns to tears when Apple Bloom clamors and struggles to move.

"Sis!"

"Wha? Huh?" Applejack rouses from her unexpected nap. Having been far heavier, she had gone through the thin cushioning that had mostly protected her sister without any sort of brace in fall. "Apple Bloom? A-apple Bloom are you okay?!"

"I'm not the one that got knocked silly, darn it." Apple Bloom slinks through the muck to Applejack's head, pressing her own next to it as she tries to push off the mud. Even as her own nostrils threaten to close up, she continues to rub and smear away as she checks all over her big sister's head. Diligent in her work, she never fails to notice . "Don't be moving."

Doing as told, Applejack seems anchored by something far too heavy for such a little filly to have delivered.

"I must be a horrible sister." Applejack whispers.

"Now I know you knocked yourself good." Apple Bloom quickly looks eye to eye with her sister for the tell tale signs, only to instead freeze when she notices something more worrisome. "You're not a bad sister! I jumped down all on my own. I'm okay, okay?"

"I just never noticed you had a knack for this sort of mending stuff."

"Who do you think went and kept the cutie mark crusaders from being cutie mark martyrs?" Apple Bloom's attempt at humor, of a far harsher context for one her age, rewards her appropriately. "There you are."

"Apple Bloom. I don't want to hear you talking like that ever again!"

Apple Bloom holds her hoof out, with a more at ease smile. "Only if the best sis I could ask for agrees."

Meeting eye to eye, both caked so full of mud that Rarity would pass out and die were she to catch sight or smell, the apple sisters both begin to giggle and laugh. Erupting in far more earnest bellows, Applejack begins to climb to her hooves before taking a light hoof to the nose.

"Nuh-uh. I never said you could get up, and you still haven't shaken my hoof." Apple Bloom's giggles and wide smile evaporates like the sun under a fast approaching storm. "Don't make me tell Granny you think you're a bad apple."

"You wouldn't dare." Applejack rears back in surprise, hesitant but eventual in pressing her hoof against the much smaller one. "You can't go scaring an old gal like that. You know how Granny is. If she even gets a whiff of one of us being down, she does that... stuff."

"Hey, I like her hugs and snuggles!"

"You're a filly, that's what you're made for." As if for a little payback, Applejack bats a little mud off her hoof onto Apple Bloom. Not quite one to stop at just a tiny jab, she makes sure to follow up all proper. "Can always tell Big Mac you were crying."

"Are you crazy?!" Apple Bloom jumps back. "Granny's at least so old she can't almost hug you a goner!"

"Apple Bloom!"

"He can!"

"You shouldn't talk like that about your elders." Applejack lowers her head to even eyesight with Apple Bloom. "You hear?"

"Then why was it that one time I caught you dipping into the cookie jar you said it was okay because she couldn't catch you anymore?" Apple Bloom rubs the underside of her muddy muzzle with an equally muddy hoof. "Didn't she just sick big brother after you?"

"Still ain't never quite forgiven big brother for that day." Applejack snorts. "Dang traitor."

Erupting once more in laughter, the apple sisters hide just a little sorrow behind the coming of a change. As one still growing finally comes to understand the one she thought was done still had a long ways to go, she cannot help but wonder.

"Sure you don't mind?" Apple Bloom quickly notices the confusion. "About lil sis not being so little anymore?"

"You're always going to be my lil sis, Apple Bloom. Just like no matter what, we're always going to have a big brother." Applejack breaths in deep. "But I have to admit there is one thing that I do mind. Mighty so, can't help but admit."

"Hmm?"

"What in blazes happened to my darn water!" Applejack jumps to her hooves. Searching all around as she circles in place, slopping the muck over her sister and herself, she only grows more frustrated to the absence of any clue. "Can't just up and be gone."

Catching the slow struggle of her little sister, Applejack follows in pursuit as they both eventually make their way down towards the lowest center of the once large basin. Quick curiosity however is met with quicker apprehension as Applejack jumps in front of Apple Bloom.

"No farther, for you." Applejack affirms without sounding angry, but firm nonetheless.

"But what about you? That's a big hole!"

Not far, but now noticeably farther across than either had first expected, does the ground cave down into darkness that even the slanted sun cannot fully breach. With the chill flowing up and over the ponies, does a sense of foreboding to their current situation come to bare.

"I'll be mighty careful, but I don't want you getting too close and falling in." Applejack nods to herself before turning towards the wide expanse not far away, but not before something snags her tail. "Apple Bloom, I said I'll be careful."

"Let's just go back, k sis? We can get big mac and come back with some ropes and stuff."

"I think I'm old enough to check out a hole in the ground." Applejack snorts to the notion, otherwise.

"But I'm not big enough to pull you back out if you go and fall in!" Apple Bloom begins to plea. "Please? I got a bad feeling."

For the second time of the day, the apple sisters would find themselves in another tug of war over who leads in their ever shifting world. Not one to ever like being anchored on the whim, it is Applejack who finds herself most torn between what she wants to do and what she knows deep down she should. Distracted, but still perceptive, she looks around from afar for anything to help sway her hinged answer.

"Tracks?"

Tracks indeed, but none she would immediately recognize. Coming in down from the southern embankment turned cliff, it's travel down the steep thirty foot decline only encourages more confusion. Sunk down deep, each long but thin hole seems far too small for the amount of soil pushed aside, saturated or not. Running her vision along each imprint, she does so until they disappear down it's side of the abyss.

Brought to alert whether she commands it or not, her eyes focus and scan all around the emptied basin for what now only causes the hairs along her back to stand on end. Even turning her head back behind, up and farther past Apple Bloom, she can account only for their own less than graceful entry marks. Whipping her head back towards the only other set of tracks, the only thing needing made clear hits like a sledge.

It never left.

"Apple Bloom. The mud is too thick for you, and I don't want you to slip and get hurt in a tumble." Applejack's agreement to leave does little to set the filly's nerves at ease with a tone as flat as a running board. "Get on my back."

"But I thought you hated it when I used to do that?" Apple Bloom confusion finds only the eerily slow crouch of her sister for her to climb on just enough to cause her to clamor atop. Much like she would when she was smaller. "What's wrong?"

Walking backwards, eyes focused dead center upon the edge of their side of the chasm, Applejack disregards any and all fallen from her basket on her slow dredge up the slippery embankment. So focused, she fails to notice the beginnings of what was the very reason she always hated when Apple Bloom would get on her back.

"I'm scared." The filly continues to tremble while doing her best to not slide off.

"I know. But don't worry none, we're getting out of here and headed right home."

"But all your brushes and stuff!"

Applejack sways her head halfway between where she is headed and especially towards what she cannot wait to leave behind. So tense on her slow ascent to the crest she nearly trips when passing the first hoof through thin air, but catches herself and the falling filly in her muzzle just in time to get a ear full of Apple Bloom's fear induced scream. With one eye forced shut from the discomfort, she finally brings solid lush green soil underneath her once again.

"Darn it, Apple Bloom." Applejack rubs a hoof over one of her down flapped ears. "Had to let me have it all, did ya?"

"S-sorry!" Apple Bloom slowly begins to shimmer down. "It's just you had me all worried something bad had happened."

"Now that we're back up here, nothing's gonna."

"Well, what do you expect me to be like when you're acting like we're surrounded by a bunch of timber wolves?" Apple Bloom does her best to pat her body with a hoof to try and knock off some of the crud. "Oh no!"

"What?" Applejack darts closer. "What's wrong!?"

"Dang it!" Apple Bloom looks over across the way towards not far from where the tracks had started from. "It's gone."

"What's gone!?"

"The thing that was watching us. Must of spooked it when I went and screamed."