Only One Way to Know
by ph00tbag
The wrinkled, orange-coated mare dozed silently, a worn cowpony hat cocked forward, revealing the bun that kept her graying mane in place, but covering her eyes. The same green eyes had, not a half-hour earlier, secured her the best rocking chair in the room with a steely glare at all her challengers. She knew all the foals shrieking through the house at some game or another would stridently argue that the new-fangled reclining sofa seat was the comfiest in the Apple Family abode, but she was still a fan of the classics. Besides, even if she knew death was somewhere around the next corner, she wanted to meet it with some form of dignity, not trapped in the jaws of some mechanical contraption, which she knew would be her fate if she attempted to operate the younger ponies’ favorite seat. A small voice stirred her.
“Granny Applejack?”
The mare deliberately tipped her hat so she could see the foal that had called her name. It was Sunset. Or Suntan. One of those. The one with a burnt sienna coat, yellow-orange mane and tail, and her grandfather’s bright blue eyes. It was difficult for Applejack to maintain eye contact. She drowsily mumbled something that sounded like, “Yes, what is it?”
“Granny Applejack, there’s a pretty lady here who wants to talk to you.”
Applejack looked up past the smaller pony to see an old friend, although nopony would know it to look at her. Twilight Sparkle had not aged since Applejack had first met her, save to grow taller. Her lavender coat shimmered like the sky above the horizon a few minutes after sunset, and her purple eyes still burned with intellectual intensity. Of course, when Applejack had first met this mare, her mane and tail didn’t flow in an invisible wind, nor did their colors gradiate from a soft pink sunset upward to a dark, indigo night, with stars just winking into view. Of course, she also hadn’t had the wings, but those were easy to miss for the flashy hair. Applejack smiled. “A pretty lady indeed. Thank you for lettin’ me know, sugarcube,” she said, turning briefly to her grandfoal. “Now if I can just…” She braced herself against the arms of the rocking chair.
Twilight stepped forward anxiously. “You don’t need to get up, Applejack. You look comfortable.”
“Nope,” Applejack said, rising from the chair, slowly but surely, all manner of joints cracking on the way up. “I’ve already started, and I always finish what I’ve begun.” She grunted as she reached a standing position. “Besides, you need to come give this old mare a hug!”
Twilight smiled and rolled her eyes as she leaned in to twine her neck behind her friend’s. As she pulled away, Applejack made her way back to the rocking chair. Twilight looked about for a seat of her own, and eventually settled on the recliner, but declined to engage the lever. Somehow, using a recliner for its intended purpose seemed un-princess-like. At some point, all of the Apple Family’s activity in the room had stopped. Once Applejack was settled again, she fixed Twilight with a mischievous grin.
“So what is the Princess of Canterlot province doin’, callin’ on an old nag who can barely stand on her own four hooves?” Applejack asked, laughter shimmering in her sleepy eyes.
“There was a rumor that my best and favorite friend was having a birthday party today,” Twilight demurred. “All of her family was invited, but I wasn’t. I wanted to know why an honorary Apple was being so rudely ignored,” she scoffed.
Applejack snorted. “Don’t lie to me, sugarcube, especially when I’ve just turned a hundred and eighty-two. I know full well I was never your favorite among the five of us, and don’t worry about my feelin’s. I didn’t ever feel jealous or nothin’. It was enough you cared. ‘Sides, it ain’t like you were my favorite, neither.”
For all her time knowing Applejack, Twilight would be lying if she said the truth didn’t sting at least a little, and Applejack had not softened her honest approach to life in her old age. Quite the opposite. Twilight let out a sharp laugh. “I didn’t lie about the invitation,” she said, petulantly.
“Oh, those children of mine must’ve left you out ‘cause they didn’t want to ‘impose,’ or some horseapples. You’ll have to forgive them. They don’t quite appreciate the value of old friends.” She sighed, and sank into the chair a little more, closing her eyes.
Twilight sat in silence for a moment, outwardly smiling. It wasn’t all she had wanted to talk about today, but she had been agonizing over how to bring it up over the whole ride to Sweet Apple Acres, and she still hadn’t figured out what to lead with. At any rate, she probably should say something quick, or else Applejack would be napping again. A thought flashed in her mind. “I don’t like to say I had favorites, AJ.”
Applejack started, and focused her eyes again on Twilight. She smiled on one side of her mouth, but her eyes seemed sad. The older she got, the more skilled she became at saying, “bless your heart,” without needing the words. “Well, it don’t change the fact you got on better with Rainbow Dash than with any of the rest of us four. I could never figure out how you could stand her for as long as you did, but that’s how it is. To be honest, I was surprised you didn’t Leave when she died.”
And there it was. Leave it to Applejack to point out the elephant in the room, as though it were simply there for tea. Twilight had sensed for years that it may have been time to take the Alicorn’s Final Journey, as Celestia had just under a century ago. But something kept stopping her. Some feeling always held her back, she couldn’t work past it. She had hoped to talk it over with her friend, who must be dealing with similar considerations, herself. It seemed her hemming and hawing had not gone unnoticed. But she had an excuse for not Leaving with Rainbow Dash. “Well, I couldn’t. Stargazer wasn’t well, himself, and I had to make sure he was cared for in his final years.”
“Even so, Stargazer also passed quite some time ago.” Applejack scrunched her snout in thought. “Of all your friends, Twilight Sparkle, I’m the only one still alive, but I have these Apple Genes my young-uns keep jabberin’ on about. We all knew I wouldn’t have a properly short lifespan. You don’t have to wait for me to go just so’s you can be on your own way.”
“Well, maybe I just want to make sure I don’t miss out on anything,” Twilight countered.
Applejack snorted again. “Darlin’ anythin’ there ever was to miss o’ me is well behind us by now. I even passed on the burden of the Element of Honesty to my successor already. I’m bein’ serious. You don’t have to wait around just for me.”
Twilight grimaced. The Sweet Apple Acres homestead hadn’t changed at all in all the years Twilight had known it. The theme for the sitting room was a pinkish color with red Apple shapes all over the drapes. They had even kept the wood paneling. Twilight was startled from her appraisal of the walls by Applejack speaking again.
“Honey, are you afraid?” There was worry in Applejack’s features.
“What? No!,” Twilight curled a hoof evasively, and her eyes darted about the room. “I mean, it’s not like there’s no record of what will actually happen to me when I go, or like I’ll be able to come back if I ever decide that it’s not for me, over there. Is it ‘over’ there, or ‘under’? I don’t know! I’ve never been.” She chuckled awkwardly. “I’m not afraid of that. I just don’t know, you know?” Twilight grinned. Twilight could always convincingly drop a century and a half of maturity when she got emotional, especially around those she trusted not to make a big deal out of it. Not surprisingly, this happened frequently around Applejack.
“Twilight, there ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of. I’ve been told since I was a filly, and I’ve told my children and grandchildren, passin’ away is like goin’ to sleep. You close your eyes, and you begin to dream. But then, you don’t stop dreamin’. The dream keeps goin’ and goin’ and eventually, you’re in a land with lush fields and fruits aplenty that go on and on. Everypony is happy to see you, and nopony ever gets sad or upset.” She smiled wide, eyes closed, as if she could see it already. “I believe in the depths of my heart that this is where I’ll go, and I have all faith you’ll be there when I finally arrive.” She opened her eyes to smile at Twilight.
It didn’t help. “I’ve heard of the Summerlands, Applejack. And… well, I just don’t know. Celestia would always tell me when Alicorns Leave, they make the journey to Valhalla, a grand city where Equestria’s heroes gather in the afterlife to celebrate each other and live forever in harmony. She even went so far to say you and my other friends would be there. She seemed so sure. On the other hand, Rainbow Dash was convinced we’d all be in Elysium. How can everypony have so many ideas about… what happens when we die, and all be so sure their idea is the right one, even when they hear what others believe?”
Applejack looked nonplussed. “Well, ain’t everypony gotta call it the same name, but why can’t it all be the same place? I said it’s like dreamin’, and dreamin’s all up to the dreamer. Maybe we make our own afterlife, but we’re all there anyhow.”
“I’ve researched this, Applejack. I’ve looked into it in depth.” Twilight stood up and began to pace. “If something like that place existed, there’d be some shred of evidence for it. There’d be distortions in space. There’d be magical signatures. I’ve looked everywhere on the planet. I’ve scoured our view of space. There is nothing that can’t be explained. Not that I’ve seen, anyway.” Her wings flared in agitation. “To boot, I’ve never seen evidence that any kind of spirit leaves a pony when it dies. How am I supposed to believe that our spirits go off somewhere, when I don’t even have proof of a spirit?” By now, Twilight had started flapping her wings idly, and was hovering almost directly over Applejack, who, to her credit, didn’t betray whether she was fazed or not.
Applejack cleared her throat, snapping Twilight out of it. The Princess of Friendship backed away, and alighted once again on the recliner. Applejack regarded her seriously. “What do you think happens when we die?”
Twilight bit her lip. “As near as I can tell, nothing. Well, for most ponies, at least. Clearly, when Alicorns Leave, they simply disappear. At least that’s what happened to Celestia, Luna, and Cadance. But even then, I checked when Cadance Left, and all that she was remained as magical energy that just merged with the aether. If they had Left for some alternate dimension, you’d think there’d be some destruction of equilibrium, but it’s more like they were just annihilated, which is almost more distressing to me, in particular. Once again, I come back to the same conclusion. Nothing happens when we die.”
Applejack raised her eyebrows. “Can you prove that, though?”
“I—“ Twilight stopped. It was an audacious question, and Twilight knew that Applejack knew the question was circular. She must be going somewhere, but Twilight couldn’t tell where. “I don’t see where you’re going with this.”
“I mean, what is nothin’ like, Twi? If we simply cease to be, then we could find out what that’s like, right? By doin’ some experiment thingy? We could prove it exists?”
“I… guess?” Twilight thought she knew where Applejack was going, but she was already on this path. She might as well finish it. “Science has never been able to show that nothingness can be achieved with the technology that we have. Even in a vacuum, there is a baseline level of magical energy that cannot be frozen. In fact, the purer the vacuum, the stronger the magical energy inside it.”
“So if nothin’ness can’t be shown to be real, any more than the Summerlands, or Valhalla, or Elysium, then it seems to me nothin’ happenin’s as unbelievable as somethin’ happenin’ when we die.”
“Well, when you put it that way, yes, but—“
“Do you like the idea of nothin’ happenin’ when we die?”
“No, but—“
“Well, then, why do you believe it?”
“I don’t know!”
Applejack didn’t say anything. A vein had appeared on Twilight’s forehead, which hadn’t happened often in recent years. Twilight’s efforts to emulate the serenity of her predecessors had mostly been successful, but clearly this topic was undoing much of her work. Applejack decided to let Twilight work off the frustration on her own, rather than stir the pot any further. “I don’t know what happens! I don’t know what to believe because there’s not even a hint! There’s no way for me to prepare for what I’ll find after I cast that damned spell! And you know what? Yes. I'm scared, Applejack. I'm terrified, and I don't know why! I’ve faced down dark lords. I’ve faced evil centaurs. So many times I’ve faced down things that terrify everypony else, and the only thing I can’t face is the one thing everypony else faces like it’s nothing.”
Applejack waited. She could be patient when she needed to be. Twilight had a little ritual she would do whenever she could feel herself getting out of hoof. She pressed her hoof to her chest, and inhaled, then pulled her hoof away as she exhaled. Applejack let Twilight go through these motions before sitting back down. Eventually, Twilight spoke again. “You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I’m not even sure what bothers me more. Having to go somewhere I know nothing about for sure, or living forever without ever knowing what happens.” Twilight laughed miserably.
“You know, I once knew a mare that had to go into a magic portal to save Equestria. She had no idea what was on the other side of that portal, and nopony was able to tell her what she would find.” Applejack was rocking in her chair, eyes closed as she strained to remember nearly two centuries back. “Back in those days, she was still young. Perhaps still a little overconfident. But I could tell that somewhere deep inside she was afraid. Hay, we all were. But do you know what she did?”
Twilight smiled and rolled her misty eyes. “I can’t imagine.”
Applejack ignored the sarcasm. “She went into that mirror. She faced all those fears, because she knew that even though she was scared of what she might find, it was even worse to go on not knowing. She didn’t just save Equestria by the time she came back, either. She also saved a whole other world.”
Twilight chuckled and wiped away the tears that were welling up in her eyes. “She must have been pretty brave.” She sniffled.
Applejack nodded. “She was one of the bravest ponies I knew.”
Twilight looked out the window at the night sky, which she would never see again if she Left. Or would she? “I guess there’s only one way to know, for sure, isn’t there?”
Applejack smirked. “How long’s it been since you really learned something new, Twi?”
“Too long.”
Twilight’s Departure had been a fairly muted affair. While Celestia and Luna had received an ostentatious ceremony, Twilight had insisted that her Departure not receive the same fanfare. Such reverence of the diarchy didn’t really befit the republic, she had felt.
After Twilight Left, her commemorative statue was revealed in the Canterlot Garden. Twilight had always been regarded, despite her title as Princess of Friendship, as something of a warrior princess, simply because of all of her heroic deeds in her youth, and the statue reflected that. Her pose was active, and she wore symbols of the Revolution.
It didn’t really fit for Applejack, though. To her, Twilight had always been a proponent of peaceful conflict resolution. Even when she fought, she had always sought a way to end a battle as her opponent’s friend. To Applejack, it was Twilight’s most admirable trait. She had actually fought very hard to have a different statue made for Twilight, but ponies these days don’t listen to their elders.
She would have to complain to Twilight about it when they met again.
Author's Note
The most formative text in establishing the theme of this very short story is Nothing: A Very Short Introduction, by Dr. Frank Close. The book is, indeed, very short, and I recommend it to anyone who finds a lot wrong with the assertion that "nothing happens when we die," but finds no comfort in the questionable descriptions of the afterlife.
