The crops had failed again.
Applejack bows her head, solemn at the sight of the puckered apples swaying in the sighs of the halfhearted, stale wind. Dagnabbit. She thought to herself, throwing her cow-mare hat to the ground angrily. This was supposed to be the season! She huffed, exasperated with countless failures.
She trots dejectedly around the dying apple trees, double-checking, then triple-checking each tree individually for any apples. And each time, nothing. Only shriveled, hollow husks of apples. Inedible. Enraged, she snatches an apple from a low hanging branch. She twirls it about in her hoof, inspecting every edge, every nook. There’s gotta…Nothing. The rage chills to despondence, and the apple husk falls to the parched, infertile ground.
She collapses to the ground, pressing her flanks against the coarse yellow underbrush. Everything had failed once again. Even the grass scraping against her had refused to return to green, instead it is a dry, bristly yellow.
This *had** to be the one!* She thrusts the husk away, sobbing silently. It’s always, ‘wait ‘till next year, that’ll be the one…’ And it isn’t. Every year the Blight shears through crops, feasting on them like an inferno devours firewood. Wiping her face with her hoof, Applejack looks up at the apple tree, it’s gnarled, splayed branches raking at the sky. There ain’t gonna be nothin’ left. She shuddered, acknowledging the truth, the inevitable truth that, eventually, nopony would be alive.
