I Dream of Apples
by Dan's Comments
Disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
I got laid off. Not the most promising start for a day, but not an immense surprise: we all knew layoffs were coming, and only an idiot doesn't assume they might get the chop. It hurts that it's so arbitrary, it's infuriating that I had just moved across the country from another job site, but I'll survive, there're other places to work and if I have to move, most everything is still packed.
The extensive hiking trails are one of the reasons I accepted the transfer across the country in the first place. To walk the fields where battles of the Civil War took place, to see where people, without the benefits of all our modern gadgetry, made decisions that had such an effect on our country's history promised to be, and was inspiring.
I need some of that inspiration now.
I'm enjoying the cool, midmorning wind through the trees. The trail is pretty much empty. Later in the day there'll be people on it, but not this early. My work boots aren't the ideal hiking boots, but they are serviceable. I let my feet carry me as I consider my options. One of the main reasons getting laid off is a nuisance rather than the end of the world is there are plenty of jobs in my field in the local area. If I stay, I'll have to take a pay cut, but I can continue unpacking. Or, I could move back to my hometown and be with my extended family. The old place is entering one of the boom portions of its constant boom-bust cycle. I'd left during one of the last 'busts' and coming back in the opening of one of the booms would mean I could sell the house here, buy one there, and I wouldn't have much packing, since most everything is already packed. 'Yeah, what's your offer, moving expenses, yes, just tell them to send a forklift, it's already palletized.' I could also spread my net wider, as there's a strong demand everywhere in the country right now. So I could literally go anywhere. Decisions, decisions.
Another reason I'm out wandering in the woods. Going through boxes of my stuff has been too depressing. I get all the memories of this or that object coming back as I unpack it. And while I really should just pitch it, I stand there like a fool and just look at it. Whatever 'it' is. I mean what's a guy my age doing with stuffed animals? Well, in the most recent case, it was the last present from my grandmother before she died, handmade too. So I'm sentimental, and it's not like I don't have the space.
The sudden shift of the entire physical world seems to have caught up with my internal turmoil.
I'm glad the sun's high up, or I might have tripped and broken something. I look around at whatever it was I stumbled over.
It's a large, and rather ornate bottle, almost entirely buried in the collected leaves of the last few years. Despite being buried in leaf-mold and dirt, it's actuality in pretty good condition. People are always finding remnants from the war out here. Although usually they are bullets or buttons or something like that. This is fingernail-sized, colored bits of glass with brass holding them all together in a bottle-shape. I would have thought someone would have spotted this before now. There haven't been any recent rains to uncover it, and this trail gets occasional use. As I look at it more closely, I am a bit confused that it isn't covered with verdigris. The brass is still yellow, and shiny.
"This can't be gold," I think aloud, "Someone definitely would have spotted and claimed it before now."
As I hold the bottle up to the sun, to get a better look at it, I swear I see something falling inside the bottle. It's sealed so it's probably a rodent corpse or a card or something stuck in there. Terrific, something else to clean up. I'm rotating the bottle to get a better look at what's in there when the top falls off. Not a problem.
When the smoke starts pouring out, that's when instincts and training pop up. Now the job I do, did, isn't the safest in the world. But it's only really dangerous if you aren't trained. Anything that emits smoke/steam is dangerous, and there's a simple procedure, move upwind and get some solid cover between you and it. Then, with a mix of speed and safety, increase the distance and the durability of the cover between you and it. I'm across the path, hunkered down in a ditch and scrambling sideways before I'm even aware I'm doing it. Thank you training! No, I don't scream while I'm doing it. You save your breath for running.
The ditch turns into a creek, and following that would increase my exposure, so I stay where I am. Idiot, the reason it was shiny was some prankster put it there and had a smokebomb or something inside that didn't like getting handled. So there's probably a hidden camera somewhere recording me running like a scared rabbit. So what? Someone got their jollies, and that bottle can't have been cheap, not as heavy as it was. So you get your laughs, I get a conversation piece, or something I can send to a relative as a present. My oldest sister's 'uncle-in-law' makes lamps out of old wine bottles. That bottle will make a fantastic lamp. I take out my phone, and use the camera like a periscope. Raising it up so I can see over the embankment of the trail, I scan the area to see it's free of smoke. So what if some jokers are getting their jollies, it's not like I had a lot else to do.
Seeing her on the screen standing where I dropped the bottle, I think I lost my presence of mind. It became patently obvious that this wasn't a cheap or quick stunt, maybe a reality TV show like the Japanese do: put someone in an impossible situation and see how they react. The more embarrassing the better, and 'djinn of the lamp' would be a classic.
Ah, my lost presence of mind. First, she's gorgeous, really. Blonde and tanned, long-legged and hourglass-figure all scream 'model', although starlet would be more accurate, models tend to be skinny and heroin-chic. She is quite healthy and more curvaceous than most actresses. Second, the costume is one you'd need careful tailoring to make and shows her off expertly. William Theiss would be proud to own the design. The leather bustier displays most of her flat stomach and generous cleavage, and that one poor button up front waiting to pop. The daisy duke's she's wearing are cut high enough half the jeans' pockets are sticking out the bottom. What else is sticking out the back I leave to the imagination.
Her expression should snap me back to reality, but . . . lost presence of mind. You rarely see a goddess in human form posing so tantalizingly. So I snap her picture. That one sound tells her my position, and the absolute and utter rage displayed on her face turns on me full force. I had one drunken idiot in a bar who was intent on killing me, he didn't look as furious as that woman does.
I stand up to run, little good will it do me, because I swear she closes the twenty feet between us as fast as I can stand and turn. She leans over and grabs me by the shirt. I studiously do NOT look at her cleavage despite if passing before my eyes as she lifts me clear out of the ditch I'd been standing in. My feet dangle over the path as she holds me in front of her face, the irises of her green eyes practically boiling. I plan on listening to whatever she says, because as long as she is dangling me off the ground and yelling at me, she isn't tearing me limb from limb. I'm not light and she isn't struggling to keep me off the ground.
I can see the tirade begin, she takes a deep breath, which I watched the effect of, I'll admit. Then she starts shouting. Or rather she tries.
What comes out of her mouth and practically plasters my hair straight back behind me, sounds more like a bad impersonation of an angry horse than anything human.
I instantly realize that this girl has no poker face. Because her expression goes from enraged, to confused, to horrified, before collapsing in abject misery. When I say 'collapsing' I mean it. My feet touch the ground, as she deflates. Not like that. Her knees buckle and she sinks to the ground. She hasn't released me so I am pulled down, staring straight down, which isn't a bad view, but I kneel in front of her as she begins sobbing amidst more horselike noises.
Yeah, I know 'sucker', but I've already figured out this is all a put up job to get some interesting footage, because someone that angry wouldn't have limited themselves to just grabbing someone. So when she didn't hit me, I knew she wouldn't, and she's really selling the miserable, pretty girl. So I play along. I put my hands on her shoulders.
She looks up at me, no hostility, then her arms reach out and gather me in. She sobs on my shoulder, and makes more horse noises. I take it as permission to do the same, leaning my chin on her shoulder and putting my arms around her. I have to brush her ponytail and cowboy hat aside, but we stay like that for quite a while. Her hair and skin smell of apples, but that's probably just her soap and shampoo.
She occasionally seems to be trying to explain herself, but every time she starts talking, she breaks down crying again. I tell her it is all right, I'm not going to leave her until she is ready.
As a bit of a joke I wish, "I wish you could understand me." I figured it would be good as an homage to the other famous genie show.
She finally reins herself in, being merely sniffly. I fish a napkin out of the small pack I carry on these excursions. She blows her nose, and seems to start looking at me apologetically. She sighs deeply, then blushes as I glance at what swelled in her bustier.
She points to the bottle and her gestures seem to imply 'pouring' herself into it. Then she holds up two fingers, and stares at me in confusion. I nod, yeah I already used up one of my wishes. She's good, keeping track of little things like that.
So I have two 'wishes'. Back in college we had a gaming group that would discuss all kinds of stuff. One was a wish in real life that would really net us some good money, without attracting too much attention from the IRS and other agencies, and still be something we really wanted. Making sure the phrasing didn't really screw us under was also a high priority. Some talked about seducing women. Some wanted the effects of drugs changed. Me, I always wanted to be able to communicate. So my wish went like: "I wish to be able read, speak, write and understand every spoken and written language on Earth past, present and as they appear in the future, with a full professor of that languages' level of understanding. And be able to understand not just what is written or spoken, but the intent, simile and metaphor, and subtlety and intent behind it."
That wish also means she can drop the act with the horse noises. After all, I'd just wished to be able to understand whatever the language she is using is. She stares at me for a moment, then nods. I figure that 'gives her permission' to speak English.
"That's a weird wish," she tells me, staring straight at me almost as intently as when she'd first spotted me but utterly lacking the hostility, "Ya got only one left, you do understand that, doncha?" Honestly, now she looks worried.
"I do," I tell her as we sit beside each other.
She sighs again, and I don't stare. When she starts biting her lip, that I figure is safe to stare at. When she realizes what she's doing and what I'm doing she stops. "Don't ya wanna make your last wish?"
"What happens to you when I do?" I ask.
She shrugs, also well worth watching. "Back in the jug fer someone else to find."
"I take it you aren't thrilled with that prospect," I say.
She blushes, not just her face, but all of her I can see. But her clenched fists tell me it isn't embarrassment. "No," she says almost too softly for me to hear.
She's an excellent actress, I hope that this little role opens up some doors for her. "So if you could have whatever you want, what would it be?" I ask, "Some djinni want vengeance, some want freedom, and some just want to go home. What would you wish for?"
She's back to looking horrified. She stands up and turns around. The back is a strip about as wide as the front, so no throng. I'm sorry, but it's practically in my face, I'm going to notice. As I stand up, I see the column of buttons down the back of the bustier with a row of several button holes for each shows how it's that form-fitting and that the one 'poor straining button' on the front is there for show.
I step in front of her, and put her cowboy hat on her head. "Hey, talk to me. I'm the guy with a wish, remember? Maybe I can help."
And again she's miserable. She gathers me against her again, and she cries on my shoulder. I enjoy holding her. She's soft and warm, and not just physically. She mutters some apology about being stronger than this.
"It's all right," I tell her and am pleased when she snuggles against me.
"Oh dear, oh BARF!" comes from behind.
She whirls out of my arms, and if I thought the anger directed at me earlier was hot, this is the full power of the sun. The weird lizard is shorter than me, and has got to be a puppet or robot, because there's nothing alive that can be that much of a chimera.
"Since when do alligators wear costumes?" I ask, which seems to confuse the beast for a moment.
"Discord," she hisses at the lizard, and despite my wish, I can't understand a word of what follows. The individual words and phrases, yes, the detail of her invective, no. But I know hatred and a cry for vengeance when I hear it.
I walk around the creature as the lizard taunts the woman about Apple Family, and farms and friends with weird names. I think it's friends, I mean is a dashed rainbow what we call a sun dog? Perfect understanding will take a while I guess, a mere professor's level of understanding isn't up to it yet.
One of the other things I keep in my pack is a survival tool, a folding sort of hand-axe/shovel hybrid. I get it out and unfold it. The lizard thing reaches behind and snaps his fingers at me. How he did that with a paw I don't know. But snapped fingers never got me worried. The girl seems shocked by the action, and blanches, looking at me worriedly.
The lizard is looking at its paw and snapping repeatedly, when I bring the shovel down on his head. Not the edge, just the flat. It's enough. The lizard slumps to the ground and lays there. I hope it wasn't too expensive, because I'm going to break it a bit more thoroughly.
I am also beginning to think that there may be more to this than a reality TV show. Time to put it to the test.
"Can you turn into smoke, and go back in your bottle?" I ask as I walk towards the bottle as I open my pack.
"Yes," she says and blocks my way, she looks me over, touching my face, and hands, "Are you all right? He didn't hurt you?"
I give her a kiss on the nose, which makes her blush again. "Fine. Whatever he was planning to do, it doesn't work. Your wishes are the only magic here. So the spell he cast had no effect. That's also why I want to go home and go over the last wish in detail. Whether you go or stay, that'll be the last of the magic you can use."
She looks horrified by that, but turns into smoke and heads into her bottle. I should be freaking out about such a thing. But instead, I feel numb. The lizard-thing is real. I've puzzled out some of the threats he made to the girl, and the intimations of what I'd do to her under his influence. None of them were pleasant, and if he figures out a way to restore his powers . . . I don't want to give him that opportunity. I can't just kill him and bury him, but I can see to it he doesn't come after us for quite a while.
I reseal the bottle, and put it in my pack. Both to carry it safely, and so she can't see what I'm going to do. I grab the lizard under my arm and drag it along. When it begins to stir, a quick application of the survival tool returns it to dead weight.
The woods around here are full of trees, small, closely spaced trees. You can lose sight of someone within a hundred feet. That'll work to my advantage. I follow the creek for a ways until I'm well past the point where someone could see me from the trail. Then I travel perpendicular from the creek. When I spot the tree I want to use, I leave the pack behind a stump with the top visible, but the bottle well behind it. I'll be able to find it later, but she won't be able to see what I'm doing. I give the lizard another whack with the shovel, and then proceed with my plan.
About an hour later, I've walked all the way back and I'm entering the parking lot, there are no other cars in the lot, so I let the girl out of her bottle. I'd had time to piece together all of what had been said between the two, and it had further steeled my resolve. 'Discord' was not going home, and Applejack, I'd worked out her name from Discord's taunts, was, if she wanted to. My plan is to put the pack with the bottle behind the shotgun seat.
Applejack has other ideas.
She hasn't fully solidified before she wraps around me, and plasters her face against mine. Her smoke nearly makes me sneeze before she hardens. Then her hands and cheeks are roaming over my face and arms, before her arms wrap around me as the smoke had. The kiss she delivers as she presses tight against me is a promise of a lot of things, and frantic nature of it and her hands a plea for others.
"Discord'll be coming after us," Applejack tells me rubbing as much of herself against me as she can. I'm not complaining but I am a bit worried, I just met her and she's doing this?
"Not tied to a tree he won't," I reply.
"He'll wriggle loose," she warns, then she stares at me and gets a calculating look, "There's nasty critters around here, ain't they?"
"There are."
"Oh," she says. She's not happy with the implications, but she's not happy with the idea of Discord running around loose either. "So, you think the critters will get him?"
"That was the plan," I tell her, "Do you think I should have sold him to the zoo? Or a lab that would cut him up to examine him? Would that have been better? Without his snap powers, he's just an interesting animal."
She looks worried again. "Sugarcube, Discord may not have done as nothing to you as you think he did."
I consider that for a while, as she has a point. I didn't have a problem with what I did and how I tied him up, and I still don't. I also know there's certain details I do not want to share with her, or anyone else. But there's the one that threatened her and proclaimed I would be the tool of her humiliation, and the person in front of me. "I won't hurt you," I assure her.
She smiles, a faint, gamine smile, but it's there. "I know," she says, and bites her lip again, "Please don't make me go into my bottle and seal it. I don't like bein' alone, and sealed in there is as alone as can be." She looks at me. "I'll do anything, if you promise never to put me in there again."
"Anything?" I ask with my most lascivious grin.
She blushes, nods, sits on the fender of the car and wraps her long legs around me to draw me tight against her and settles against me. "Yup, even that." She leans away from me, and tries to look all cute, which she does exceedingly well. "But can you splurge a bit for a spray gun, just brushes and rollers will take so long."
I can't help it, I laugh, and she smiles that I got the joke. I do note she hasn't unwrapped from her grip, and the girl is strong. Her frown worries me, not for what she'll do, but what she's worried about.
"Your first wish, wasn't a good one. That I understand you. I know you won't hurt me. But you gave me - " She looks miserable. "I could hurt you, make you do things." She looks ashamed. "And you'd think it was your idea. I could make you love me, and you couldn't help it!"
"Then we have to trust each other," I say as I take her in my arms. This time she settles against me without bursting into tears.
She rubs her cheek against mine as we stand holding each other. It's beginning to settle in that this is the usual behavior, for the group of aliens she's actually part of, and would be still if it wasn't for Discord. Despite having a gorgeous human in my arms, I have to figure out how to send her home. There's too many unethical people who would hound her to extinction.
Applejack wasn't happy about the situation. If Discord had wanted to punish me, he coulda hardly done better, she thought, and gazed down at the man with his arms around her waist, using her stomach as a pillow. She'd offered her bosom for such, but he'd been too embarrassed to take her up on her offer. I don't think he knows what he's doing is means more to a pony than higher up would, she thought. She had her legs wrapped around his waist and she felt at once content, and a bit miffed he hadn't taken the hint. But I knew he wouldn't, she admitted to herself, I guess understanding him has its costs and benefits. She smirked at his embarrassed admission that he slept on his stomach to cut down on his snoring.
They had sat up several hours working on the words that would let her, and him, travel back and forth between their homes, and more important, their families. They would be ponies in Equestria, and humans on Earth.
But the magic couldn't do it, she thought angrily, So we need time ta think about whether I go home, and does he stay here, or do I stay here? she remembered, and his calling a halt. They needed rest and sleep might provide some answers. She'd come to his room, to his bed, wearing just one of his shirts. She'd known he would be too flustered to really do anything. But I wanted him to know I was up for anything he wanted to try, she thought.
She glanced down again and couldn't keep from smiling. If you'd been in Ponyville, we'd be hitched and Applebloom would be an aunt by now, she thought, and resisted the urge to 'pet' his ears. She'd never felt as close, as synchronized with anypony before as she did now. Would I despite the wish . . . yeah, Discord would want to break me between two things, same as Rainbow Dash, the man I love and the home, pick one and never see the other again. And know you'll break the hearts of whoever you leave behind.
She knew part of the reason she 'offered' was to convince him he was worth loving, that someperson else, besides her would be attracted. So have I decided? Go back home, and break his heart? Ask him to come with? And have him abandon his family to never see them again, to live out his life as a pony? Here or there. Together or apart. Decisions, decisions. She lay back and closed her eyes. She knew she might try again in the morning, maybe with better results. But her mind was whirling so fast it exhausted her. Don't wanna hurt no one no how, but that's not a choice, she thought muzzily as she drifted to sleep.