Applejack reached up high into the trees on the orchard, picking apples for her family. She hummed a pleasant tune to herself as she grabbed onto an apple with each hand and lightly twisted them while pulling down, separating the stalk from the core and allowing her to retrieve the fruit with minimal effort.
She had worked on the farm for many years, starting when she was only an elementary school girl. Most others would consider labour like that to be punishing and unrewarding, but Applejack took pleasure and pride in her work. She had not missed one day of working on the Apple Family's orchards and she wouldn't start today.
"Applebloom? You almost done with your tree?" Applejack briefly pulled herself out of the work and peaked over towards her younger sister, who was trying to jump up to reach the higher apples.
"Almost, sis!" Applebloom leapt and reached up high for the apples. She grabbed onto one and let her weight do the rest of the work. She didn't time her landing, though, and ended up landing on her butt instead of her feet. "Those higher-up apples just ain't co-operatin'." She stood up and wiped the dust off of her jeans.
"Well, just make sure ya get that tree picked before dinner." Applejack plucked a couple more apples from the trees. "The harvest season's well underway, and none of us want any apple to go to waste."
"Eeyup." Big Macintosh was working on the tree behind Applejack's. He barely had to stretch his arms to get his apples down due to his height, and picking them off of the brances was even easier of a task given his strength.
Applejack wiped some of the sweat off of her brow as she nimbly ascended the tree and squatted down on top of it, reaching out get the apples that had been concealed by the leaves before carefully dropping her prizes into the basket below. Once she got the last one, she gently hopped down onto the ground, shaking the leaves off of her hat as she landed.
"Hoo-wee!" She proclaimed, looking down at her basket. "Hot swelterin' sun, lotta' apples to pick, and a whole bunch'a time on our hands. It sure is nice being part of the Apple Family."
Suddenly, Applejack noticed something out of the corner of her eye. A man dressed in a simple blue shirt and cap carrying a bag full of letters strolled up the path towards the farm. He had a smile on his face and was whistling himself a tune as he approached the house.
"Huh. Ah wasn't expecting mail today." Applejack walked away from the tree and came up to the postman. "Howdy. What can I do ya for?"
"I have a letter here for a Miss Applejack." The postman fished into his bag and pulled out the letter. The envelope had a black border on it and was sealed with wax.
"That's me." Applejack smiled and took the letter off of the postman. "Thank ya kindly."
"It's no problem at all, miss." The man turned around and waved her off. "Enjoy the rest of your day!"
Applejack pinched the wax seal and struggled to tear it off of the paper. As she thrashed trying to get the seal off, she ripped off part of the flap and dragged her finger through the remaining strips that were still held down by the wax. Once she got through the paper, she reached in and pulled out the letter.
"Now, let's just see what we've got here..." Applejack unfolded the letter inside and began to read what it said.
Dear Apple Family.
This letter comes to you courtesy of the Canterlot Morgue. We are sorry to inform you that two of your relatives, Big Apple and Sweet Apple have passed away during a vacation in the country of Maneorca.
The two people in question had been attacked by a stampede of enraged bulls in the country and were quickly escorted to the hospital. Their hearts had been damaged in the attack and were slightly lacerated, causing internal bleeding and a strong chest pain that no medication could cure. They were put into the operating room as quickly as possible, but their injuries were extremely fatal. Because of this, they both flatlined halfway through the proceedure and couldn't be revived.
We at the Canterlot Morgue know how hard it is to lose a family member like this and we are providing some compensation for the remaining members of your family. Inside this envelope is a large sum of money to handle the funeral and to help the rest of your lives out after this great loss. Again, we apologize for what happened in Maneorca, but we do hope that you recover from the pain that this message will no doubt inflict upon you all.
—Black Border, Head of the Canterlot Morgue.
As Applejack read the most important parts of the letter, her eyes went wide and she let out a massive gasp. She felt like she had been hit by a truck moving at high speeds and had thrown her against a brick wall. The revelation of what had happened to her parents had stung her hard and she was now choking trying to say something in response to what she had read.
"I... I..." Applejack's hands were trembling as she dropped the letter and envelope down to the ground. She reached down and clutched it again, crumpling it up tight in the palm of her hand.
"Applejack?" Applebloom turned away from her tree and tapped on Applejack's shoulders. "Are you alright?"
Applejack jumped as soon as Applebloom touched her shoulders. Looking back at her sister, sweat began to trickle down from her forehead as she looked back at the letter. "Applebloom, I..." She swallowed and tugged on her collar, unable to bring herself to say what she had read. "I gotta go." She ran off to a deeper part of the orchard with tears beginning to form in her eyes.
"Applejack! Wait!" Applebloom reached out to Applejack in an attempt to reclaim her attention, but it proved absolutely fruitless as Applejack didn't even respond.
As the sun began to set in the orchard, Applejack was found sitting down by the tree, crying into her hands over the news about her deceased parents. She had always been a strong girl in the face of adversity, be it her friends got into an argument or when Applebloom had done something wrong, but now her mother and father were gone and she had to come to terms with the fact that she would never see them again. She wouldn't be able to tell them how much she loved them, wouldn't be able to hear about their travels, and she would never be able to show them all of the things that she would be able to accomplish when she left Canterlot High.
"It just ain't fair!" She screamed, thrashing her head around and throwing her tears everywhere around her.
"Uh, hello?"
A girl with silver hair and dark blue skin approached Applejack. Her silver hair had been tied up into both pigtails and a bun and a pair of red glasses hung gently around her ears. She wore a plain pink skirt with yellow frills around her collar and had a pair of black espadrilles with a yellow and purple firecracker on each shoe.
"Go away!" Applejack looked away and waved her hand at the girl, wiping away some of her tears. "I'm not in the mood for talking right now!"
"How rude." The girl walked up to Applejack and looked down on her. "I simply say hello and you brush me off?"
"Listen. You don't understand what I've had to go through today." Applejack's bottom lip quivered as she showed the girl the letter about her mother and father. "I've just had the worst news of my life hand-delivered to me in an black-bordered envelope!"
"Death in the family? A real shame." The girl sat down next to Applejack and glanced over at the crumpled up letter. "May I see?"
"Might as well. It's nothing more than dead weight to me and the Apples now." Applejack drooped her head down to her knees and put her hands to her eyes once more, continuing to cry over Big and Sweet Apple.
The silver-haired girl read the letter rapidly, taking in all of the important parts within seconds. "Hmm. Those bulls probably stabbed them during their rampage, which would explain the lacerated hearts. As for the internal bleeding, that's really a problem that only an operation can fix most of the time. Other than that, the chest pain could've been easily alleviated with the right medication. A lethal combo and a rather unstructured one if I do say so myself." She gave the letter back. "I do deeply apologize for your loss."
"Thanks. Won't really do much since I'm never gonna see them again, but it's nice to hear that others are holding out for us." Applejack's voice had lost a significant amount of confidence as she stopped crying to get a look at the girl.
"You're welcome." The girl got a good look at Applejack's face and readjusted her glasses. "Wait. Have we met before?"
"I don't recall." Applejack shook her head, still letting some loose teardrops fly. "But then again, ah'm not really feeling like myself right now, so I couldn't tell ya even if I tried..."
"Of course. The Friendship Games!" The girl raised her middle finger. "That seemed like so long ago now..."
"Wait, what?" Applejack wiped away the rest of her tears and got a better look at the girl sitting beside her. "You're saying you were at the Friendship Games?"
"Well, duh. If I had the uniform on right now, it would make me stick out like a sore thumb." The girl nodded and showed off her casual clothes. "That being said, I can only assume that you came from Canterlot High. There's no other explanation, really."
"I'm Applejack." She slowly reached out her hand for a handshake, her arm shuddering as she tried to keep it stable.
"My name is Sugarcoat. Soon-to-be valedictorian of Crystal Prep." She took Applejack's hand and shook it. "I must say, I'm not really surprised that I would find someone from Canterlot High living and working in a place like this." Sugarcoat stood up and looked around at the trees. "With how the trees are planted, the texture of the soil this season, and how many apples are still left for the picking, I imagine that it would fit a Canterlot High student pretty well."
"Hey. I try to be nice and you just throw it in my face?" Applejack lightly recoiled and raised a brow at Sugarcoat's remark, some hair dropping down around her face as she did so.
"I'm not exactly saying that you as a student is bad, but you haven't really synergized your job at apple-picking pretty well given how long it is until sunset." Sugarcoat put her hands to her side and shook her head. "Crystal Prep could've strategized and picked this entire farm clean in an hour at max."
"Well, ah'm not from Crystal Prep, and we don't really take to over-manning the farm here on Sweet Apple Acres." Applejack's knees knocked together as she sluggishly got to her feet and walked up to Sugarcoat. "Me, Applebloom, Big Mac, and Granny Smith; we get along just fine here."
"Fine. To each their own, I suppose. Even if it is partially flawed." Sugarcoat crossed her arms.
"You know, I distinctly remember back at the Friendship Games that you had it out for Twilight." Applejack walked in front of Sugarcoat, folding her own arms as she looked her in the eyes. "I get that your name makes who you are deep down, but you really hurt Twilight's feelings and piled up pressure that she didn't even need, all so that Abacus Cinch could try and keep her fancy-schmancy reputation," she said. "I don't usually say stuff like this, but you're mean."
"Mean? Do you think I'm mean?" Sugarcoat lowered her brows at Applejack. "I show absolutely no signs of being mean whatsoever. You are obviously referring to the other ruffians that plague Crystal Prep." She took some deep breaths and put her hand on Applejack's shoulders. "Let me be perfectly clear. I'm not mean. I'm blunt."
"And that's fine. Honesty is the best policy. But that's still no reason to hurt other people with the truth!" Applejack stomped her left foot hard on the ground. "If you tell the truth all the time, then it ends up hurting people much more than you realize, and you could potentially wreck someone's life with it!"
"Applejack. There is a fine line between the truth being painful and the truth being unbearable." Sugarcoat turned her back to her. "The thing is... I'm not really saying the truth because I'm trying to hurt other people out of malice. I'm doing it to save them from making terrible mistakes."
"What?" Applejack's eyes widened as she leaned in towards Sugarcoat with her eyebrows raised. "But you're simply telling it as it is with no regard for what others might say back or the reactions that others might have to your words!"
"Yes, and I take full blame for people hating me for my own words, but I am simply softening the blow for them." Sugarcoat looked up to the skies. "The thing is, people make some really sub-par moves that only barely count as top-quality, and they still think that they've done the best. There's talent and then there's feigning perfection; something that can never be fully achieved by anyone, not even me.
"Twilight Sparkle wasn't really much of an athlete, but Cinch pushed and pushed her because she didn't really care about the repercussions of her actions." Sugarcoat looked down to the grass and picked some of it up. "I kept telling her the honest truth because I was hoping that she would be brave enough to back down and save herself the embarrassment and pain of failing Crystal Prep in the Friendship Games, but she still disregarded all of my warnings and obeyed that old witch instead." She opened her hand up, letting the grass dance on a small gust of wind that flared up from her right. "I'm personally quite happy now that Cinch is serving twenty years in Tartarus Penitentiary for her crimes."
"We all are." Applejack nodded. "Anyway, go on."
"When people do something below average and think of it as the next big thing, it takes someone with real courage to stand up to them and tell them the honest truth, before they let themselves get filled with false hope that could ultimately blow up in their faces." Sugarcoat turned back to Applejack. "I tell the truth straight away and don't try to hide it with any lies, because I know the pain that comes from when everything comes crashing down around you when you finally realise what's going on."
"Ah... guess?" Applejack's tipped her hand out in front of herself.
"When the truth is told straight away, then the pain is dampened heavily and it becomes easier to swallow." Sugarcoat looked down at the letter one more time. "If you instead decide to lie to the rest of your family, then it'll just make the situation even worse. And by the time it comes to tell them when they finally realise, then that'll make it even more painful, and could ultimately leave them in tears for much longer than they need to be."
"How am ah supposed to tell them that Ma and Pa are dead?!" Applejack violently threw her arms forward.
"Just say it as it is." Sugarcoat picked the letter up and folded it up properly, ironing out the wrinkles with the tips of her fingers. "Yes, it will be hard for them to get over. Yes, it will leave them crying and wailing. But it's better to let them know as soon as possible than leave it until later when they become worried and concerned over the loss of your parents."
"But what if ah can't even say it to them?" Applejack's eyes darted all over the place as she brought her fingers together. She began to tear up as she took back the tidied letter and put it away in the ripped envelope. "If ah choke on my own words, then it'll just be putting the truth off and making it worse like you said!"
"Don't worry about it. I'm here for you." Sugarcoat draped her arm around Applejack's shoulders. "I'll provide moral support as you break the news to them. Now, which way is it back to your house?"
Applejack fought back against her resurfacing tears and began to walk back towards her house with Sugarcoat by her side. She took in every word that she had been told on telling the truth and was now having trouble on what exactly to say to the Apples and how she should say it. She dwelled on the thought and looked down at her feet while she walked.
Applejack opened the door and walked into the house with Sugarcoat close behind her. She shut the door and locked it tight as she went towards the kitchen with the letter in her hand. She tossed the envelope in the bin as she walked past it and read the message over and over again, thinking about how she should deliver it to them.
Both Applejack and Sugarcoat walked into the kitchen where Big Mac, Applebloom, and Granny Smith were dining on apple-themed foods. Caramel apples, apple pies, apple fritters, and many more were scattered around the table on plates; ones that the Apples were quick to fetch and pull towards them.
"Applejack! You're back!" Applebloom was the first one to notice as Applejack walked up to the table, with Sugarcoat standing by the counter. "What's the letter about?"
"Eeyup. We never got the chance to read it after you ran off like that." Big Mac nodded as he leaned in towards Applejack.
"Uh... well... about that." Applejack took a deep breath and laid the letter down on the table for them all to see. "It's about Ma and Pa. Big Apple and Sweet Apple."
"Those two?" Granny Smith looked down at the start of the message. "Ah thought they were vacationing in Maneorca. Is this about their first postcards?"
"No, Granny." Applejack shook her head and began to cry once more. "It's... it's just that..." Her bottom lip began to quiver. "Ma and Pa are dead!"
"WHAT?!" Applebloom, Big Mac, and Granny Smith all cried out together as they read the rest of the letter.
"They were attacked by a stampede o' bulls and ended up in hospital with fatal injuries." Applejack's tears flowed freely now as she pointed out the cause of death on the paper. "The doctors tried everything to save 'em but nothing worked. Ma and Pa are off in that giant apple orchard in the sky now, and they ain't ever coming back!"
Applejack broke down into tears for the third time that day, slamming her head against the table and crying heavily into it. She heard Applebloom bawling shortly after once she had read the letter entirely, followed by Big Macintosh wailing like a girl once he had finished reading it. She didn't hear Granny Smith crying, though.
As Sugarcoat watched the Apple Family crying, she felt something strange in the pit of her stomach. As she watched the family share their sorrows with one another, she herself hung her head and felt sorry for herself. She was always one to tell the truth and she had dealt with pain like that before, but she had never in her life felt bad about encouraging others to tell the truth. She ruminated on her actions and watched Applejack, Applebloom, and Big Mac continue to cry.
After a while, everyone had calmed down and Applejack pulled her head from the table, looking up at the rest of her family. "Ah knew that it would be painful for ya'll. That's why I ran off. I didn't want to break the news to you straight away at first because I felt like it would bring everything down." She looked over at Sugarcoat. "But then I met someone. Someone who deals with honestly just as well as I do. Someone who gave me the courage to stand up to my fear and tell the truth immediately, without it being as painful as it would be later on."
"Hello." Sugarcoat waved to the others.
"Ah knew that it would cause us all to feel bad deep down, but Ah didn't want to leave it 'til too late, otherwise it'd just make us feel even sadder." Applejack nodded as she took the letter back and put it down on the table. "The truth hurts. That much I know. But if it festers and makes the situation harder, then it just spirals out of control and you get a bigger problem and worse reaction than before. If you have something you want to say, don't hesitate. Let it all out. That way, you can get it off your chest and move on." She let out a weary sigh and looked back at the letter. "Just like we're all gonna have to now..."
"I always knew that Big and Sweet were gonna pass away soon, and I was worried at first about how you might cope with it." Granny Smith stood up and hobbled over to Applejack, pulling her into a tight hug. "I knew that the news would've scarred you for life, Applejack, but you handled the situation very maturely with that newfangled friend of yours."
"Really, Granny?" Applejack asked.
"Yup. I don't think I could've worded it better myself." Granny nodded and patted Applejack on the back, motioning towards Applebloom and Big Mac.
"Thank you, Granny. Thank you all." Applejack smiled and let one final tear escape from her eyes and land by her feet. "But most of all, I think I owe Sugarcoat a thank you too and an apology for how I thought of her."
She broke off from the hug and walked up to Sugarcoat. "Thank you so much, Sugarcoat. If it weren't for your wisdom, ah could've cracked under the pressure and held off telling the truth. Ah could've left Applebloom and Big Mac crying for months upon months without you."
"It's no problem." Sugarcoat nodded back at her.
"And ah'm awfully sorry for how I accused you of hurting others." Applejack took off her hat and put it to her chest. "I thought that all forms of honesty caused others to get hurt, but I see that with your words, that maybe getting a slight sting of the truth isn't as bad as feeling completely crushed by it."
"Apology accepted, Applejack." A small smile crept onto Sugarcoat's face.
"So... friends?" Applejack gestured for a second handshake.
"Friends." Sugarcoat's smile widened as she took Applejack's hand and shook it gently.
Author's Note
And so, here it is. The third story in the Shadowbolts X Rainbooms series that I've been working on. Sugarcoat and Applejack. If you enjoyed the story, then be sure to recommend it to all of your friends and followers, upvote, favourite and comment on it, and just generally spread the word.
As for the artwork, I want to give a very special shoutout to kul for making this for me. This was the reward for me writing Magical Backlash for her, which I also recommend checking out if you want another sad story that'll tug at your heartstrings and leave you crying.
But anyway, have a nice day, everyone!
