White fog escaped from Applejack’s nostrils as she exhaled into the night air. It quickly dispersed, being caught on a cold wind and ferried away.
Looking down, Applejack parted her mane which the wind had blown into her face. The same wind that had carried her breath away was also blowing her mane around, getting in her face and bothering her. She was on a short fuse, as she always was on Hearth’s Warming Eve. There was too much pain and sadness, so she needed some air.
She looked up at the sky, only to look back down when snow started to get in her eyes. Huge wet flakes were falling, quickly filling up the holes left by the townsponies earlier in the day.
Applejack fought to keep her tears, huge and wet just like the snowflakes, from escaping. As much as she wanted to cry, as much as she wanted to give in and let it all out, she feared she would never be able to cap it again.
“Applejack?” a familiar voice called from the distance, breaking the stillness of the night.
Applejack didn’t respond. She hoped that the pony would go away, especially if it was who she thought it was.
“Oh Applejack, that is you!” Rarity beamed, trotting up to the bench where she was sitting. “Oh, I thought you had gone home! They always say, one only leaves a Pinkie Party when they’re exhausted from all the fun! I figured you would go right home to bed!”
“I just needed some air,” she said, turning her face away from Rarity. “That’s all.”
“Well, you’re not dressed to be out here in this weather!” She gestured towards the scarf around Applejack’s neck, the only clothing she had on. “You’ll freeze to death if you’re out here much longer! You need to get back to the party!”
“I don’t think I’m going back,” she admitted. “Think I might just go home.”
“Not dressed like that you’re not!” she exclaimed. “Here, take my jacket. I’m wearing a fleece under it, and I live much closer than you. And here, take my scarf, too. I’m taking yours; it’s practically threadbare, and—”
“No!” she yelled, swatting Rarity’s hooves away as they reached towards her scarf. “I mean, no thanks. I can make it home just fine.”
“Applejack,” Rarity asked gingerly after inspecting her hoof to make sure it wasn’t chipped, “is everything alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“You certainly don’t sound fine,” she said, using her magic to brush snow off the bench and create a place for her to sit down.
“I’m just tired is all. Been a long day.”
Rarity sat on the bench, making sure not to get any more snow on her brand-new clothes than she had to. “Applejack, this isn’t about—”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“I know.”
“So…?”
“So?”
“Anything you’d like to talk about?”
“No.”
“Applejack,” Rarity begged, “just talk to me!”
“I said no!” She got up off the bench to leave, but was quickly engulfed in magic and forced back down.
“I, unlike you, actually dressed for the weather.” Rarity looked at the streetlamp beside them and watched snowflakes fall beside its warm light. “Based on how you're dressed I'd say that you're going to get cold fairly quickly. I'm all nice and cozy in this jacket, and I'm not letting you leave until you talk.”
“You know this ain’t exactly the best way to get somepony to open up to you, right?”
Rarity simply smiled and nodded.
For minutes, the two sat motionless on the bench, just watching the snowfall accumulate around them. Applejack’s teeth began chattering, and before long, her body grew cold.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, rubbing her hooves together to try and keep warm.
“What do you want to say?” Rarity asked back.
“Nothing.”
“Well then, it appears we’re at a bit of an impasse.”
“Rarity, just tell me what you want and let me go!”
“I don’t want to know anything,” she corrected. “What I do want is for you to finally open up to somepony and speak about it.”
Applejack sighed. “Fine. It hurts real bad, always does this time of year, that’s why I left the party. You happy?”
Using her magic, Rarity removed her jacket and placed it around Applejack. “Go on.”
“What do you mean ‘go on’?”
“I mean go on.”
“No. Let me go.”
“How did she die?”
Silence fell over the two ponies. “You know the answer to that,” Applejack whispered after moments of tension.
“I know,” she confirmed. “How did she die?”
“Disease. Can I go?”
“What sort of disease?”
She paused. “I don’t know what it was, but they said it got to her heart. Chances are pretty slim after that.”
“How long before it took her?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Few weeks, maybe a month? It worked pretty quick, took the doctors by surprise. Couldn’t keep up with it.”
“Must have been hard on all of you, having to see your mother suffer the way she did.”
“It…” She wiped a few tears from her eyes. “It was.”
“Did you get to visit her often?”
“Yeah, but…” She stared at the ground. “They always told me she was going to be okay, told me the doctors were going to make her better.” The tears she had been keeping back broke forth, rolling down her cheeks. “When I got older, I found out how bad it was. There was no way she was going to live, it would have taken a miracle for that to happen!”
“I know nothing I can say can undo the past, but…” Rarity averted her gaze, trying not to look Applejack in the eye. “I’m sorry they lied to you like that. You deserved to know the truth, horrible and bleak as it might have been.”
“They were just trying to protect me,” she said.
“You’re a terrible liar, Applejack. You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Rarity got no response.
“They were in denial. They wanted to hear somepony say she was going to be alright, even though they knew it was false.”
Applejack took a deep breath. “Rarity, why are you even doing this for me?”
“I’m your friend!” she exclaimed, pointing a hoof at herself. “And this is what friends do, help each other when they need it most!”
“Well...no offense Rarity, but you can really lose sight of others at times.”
“That is...not exactly incorrect.”
“And I don’t think anypony else even noticed I left. We’re also not on the way back to Carousel Boutique or your parents’ house, so you had to come out of your way to find me here. Why?”
“Applejack,” she laughed. “I told you. I’m your friend!”
“You and I haven’t always exactly gotten along,” she pointed out.
“Doesn’t mean we’re not friends now, does it?”
“It doesn’t, but I’ve just never really thought of us as, you know...super close friends. I feel that if it weren’t for Twilight, we never really would have become as close as we are now.”
Rarity giggled. “Oh Applejack, Applejack, Applejack. I know you don’t really mean those things. Of course we would be good friends!”
“Would we, though?”
Rarity nodded. “While you and I do have one of the more strained friendships amongst all of our friends, we also have one of the deepest. Who’s the only other one of us that grew up here in Ponyville, right alongside you?”
“So you’re saying we’re close just because we grew up together?”
“I’m saying we’re close because I’ve seen every side you have to offer. What you like, what you don’t like, what you like to keep hidden, what you say you do but really don’t…”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’m good at reading ponies for who they really are. You have to be when you’re as successful a designer as I am!” She flipped her mane with her hoof, only to receive a disapproving glare from Applejack.
“I suppose humility ain’t one of the things a successful fashion designer needs?”
Blushing, Rarity brought her hoof back down. “But yes, I’ve known you since we were both little fillies, and you always stood out because we were always either best of friends or worst of enemies. Go ahead, ask me anything, as simple or as complex as you like.”
“What’s my favorite color?”
“Well, it’s not green,” Rarity said with a flutter of her eyelashes.
“Wrong. It’s green.”
Rarity giggled again. “Applejack, you know you can tell me anything. Like, for example, how although you say your favorite color is green because it reminds you of the leaves on the trees at Sweet Apple Acres, your favorite color secretly is pink? Not hot or bright pink, mind you, but a softer and more subdued shade.”
Applejack’s eyes grew wide. “How did you—”
“You wanted to win those pink hair bows so badly at the end of the school year festivities when we were nine. But Roseluck won them, and when she offered you her old green bows instead, you turned them down and said she could keep them. That wasn’t down-to-earth Applejack not asking for anything from anypony; that was a little filly who was upset because she didn’t get the color she wanted.”
“I’m surprised you remember that,” she replied softly.
“All up here,” Rarity smiled, tapping her temple. “And I’ve never even suggested putting pink in any of the outfits I’ve made for you because I know you’re embarrassed about it, and I honor your wishes to keep that as your little secret. But every time I show you around my Boutique, your eyes tend to linger on the pink outfits I’ve made. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s the look of a mare envisioning herself in the dress she’s staring at.”
“I’m impressed,” Applejack said, speaking louder. “Nopony else has ever figured that out.”
“Comes from being a designer, darling. And did I ever tell you it was your mother who first encouraged me to do it?”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Really now? When were you and her ever just sitting around, talking about your dreams?”
“Do you remember Career Day in kindergarten, by any chance? When we were all supposed to present what we wanted our careers to be when we grew up?”
“Can’t say I do. Why?”
“I got up and said I wanted to be the greatest fashion designer Equestria had ever seen. I said I wanted to design dresses for Princess Celestia herself.” She smiled painfully and sighed. “Some of the other foals started laughing at me and saying it was a silly dream. It probably wasn’t the case, but at the time it felt like the whole class was laughing at my aspirations, so I started crying! I ran out onto the playground, and it was your mother who saw me and came up to talk to me.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me I could do anything I wanted to and listened when I described all the ideas I had at the time.” A tiny smile began to grow on her face. “I had told my parents before, sure, but I don’t think they took me seriously, they just played along like you do with a little foal. But she listened, and she told me that she was looking forward to the day she could wear an original Rarity.” Smile growing larger, she put a hoof around Applejack. “She was a fantastic mare.”
“She was,” Applejack replied hollowly. “I miss her.”
“Do you mind if I ask something, dear?”
“I suppose,” she shrugged. “Sounds like you kind of know everything about me already, though.”
“There’s something about that scarf, isn’t there?” She gestured towards it. “It looks like it will fall apart in the next breeze that comes, and you seemed more offended than normal when I suggested you get rid of it.”
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “It was hers.”
“Did it mean anything to her? Or does it remind you of her? Did she make it for you?”
“No to all of those.” Applejack’s face tightened. “I don’t know why she gave it to me, but she did.”
“So she gave it to you?” Rarity echoed. “And from the sounds of it, it was after her death.”
“Yeah.” Applejack attempted to rip the scarf off her neck, but encountered Rarity’s jacket instead. “Get this stupid thing out of my way!”
Quickly, Rarity reached over and pulled the jacket away, allowing Applejack to proceed with untying the scarf. “Applejack, is something the matter?”
“This scarf is…” After a few seconds of struggling, she pulled it off and looked at it in her hooves. “This scarf is the only thing of hers I own!”
“How come?”
“Because it’s the only darn thing she left me!” she erupted. “She loved to collect knick knacks, and Big Mac got all of those. She loved to take pictures and make scrapbooks, and Apple Bloom got all of those. And all I got was this scarf!” Grinding her teeth, she threw the scarf, which was caught in the wind and fluttered gently to the ground a few feet away from where they were sitting.
“And nopony knows what it meant to her?”
She shook her head furiously. “My dad was already gone, so I couldn’t have asked him. And Granny Smith didn’t know, either.”
“Did you ask anypony in her family if it meant something to her?” Rarity inquired. “Her parents, maybe? Or her siblings?”
“I’ve barely seen them since she died,” she sighed, anger flooding out of her system. “Get a card from my grandparents on my birthday and Hearth’s Warming cards from everypony, and that’s it. We don’t go out and travel much, and since they all live near each other, they never think to come out and see us.”
“You should try to go out and see them,” Rarity smiled. “I know you love the Apple family, so it must be hard for you to have so much family you don’t know. And I think you, Big Mac, and Apple Bloom would have fun going and meeting everypony.”
Applejack nodded slowly. “Yeah, Apple Bloom especially. I don’t know if she can even remember any of our family on mom’s side, she was that little when she died. I think we have a couple cousins around her age, so she could probably bond and get along with them…”
“Applejack, let me buy you and your siblings train tickets to go see your family,” Rarity offered. “It’s the least I can do for you.”
“No,” she replied uncomfortably. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I also don’t have to be sitting here and talking with you. Tell me what days work for you, and I can get it arranged. This is no longer an offer. This is an order.”
When Applejack did not move or respond, Rarity discreetly draped her in the jacket again. “Thank you.”
“For the jacket or the tickets?”
“Both, really.” For the first time since they sat down together, Applejack looked her in the eye. “Thank you for listening. Even if I didn’t really say much.”
“Saying anything is healthy.” She smiled back. “You’ve worked very hard to push everything down, so I don’t expect it to all come out at once. At least, it won’t do that and still be comfortable. I had to push you to start, but from now on, only when you feel like it.”
“Again, thank you.” She began to stand and take the jacket off. “Well, I really am tired, so—”
“Wear the jacket home,” Rarity said with a wave of her hoof. “I can get it from you later. I live close enough that I won’t freeze in my fleece.”
“That’s another thing,” Applejack pointed out. “We’re out of the way of either of the places where you’d go, but you seemed surprised to see me. What are you doing so far out here?”
“I was just wandering around town like I love to do this time of year.” She smiled broadly. “I think winter is a positively magical time. Some of my best ideas have come during moments like this, when the whole world is calm and quiet. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Kinda,” Applejack said after looking around. “Never really noticed it until now. My mom died around this time of year, so I was always thinking about her and never about the weather.”
“Take some time to appreciate it on the way back; I think you’ll absolutely love it.” A large smile grew on Rarity’s face. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Applejack.”
A much smaller but no less warm smile appeared on Applejack’s face. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Rarity.”
When Applejack turned around and walked away, Rarity looked up at the sky and watched the snowflakes fall towards her. She remained there for a few minutes before growing cold and deciding to go home.
However, when she stepped off the bench, her hoof landed on something scratchy and thin, prompting her to look down. Under her hoof was the scarf which had been violently thrown by Applejack only a few moments earlier. She picked it up with her magic and began inspecting it.
“Well, the nap’s not entirely gone; that’s a good start.” She moved it closer to her eyes. “Blast, I wish I had my glasses on me. From the looks of it, this isn’t even the original; it’s been repaired before. Applejack sure wouldn’t have done it, so Mrs. Apple must have had it repaired before. Repairs look like they'd be rather simple, too.”
Gently, Rarity folded it up and placed it inside the pocket of her fleece, making sure not to damage the fragile fabric. “It’s the only thing of her mother’s she owns, so I’m sure Applejack will be positively delighted to see it repaired and returned to her! Belated Hearth’s Warming present, it’ll be just perfect! I just hope she doesn’t worry too much about its whereabouts in the time it will take me to work on it…”
