Applejack wasn’t one to visit the Ponyville Reservoir on a voluntary basis. It may have been close to her farm, but it was municipal property, and when the dam needed inspection or repair, civil engineers got called on a lot more than apple farmers.
But civil engineers had no chance against this particular problem. Nor, of course, would an apple farmer; but for those who knew Applejack, the idea of her shirking a problem that could directly affect Ponyville—not to mention her farm—was farfetched, no matter how large it was.
But the problem was with more than just its size—it was with its teeth, or maybe its eyes. They were all big and all tall and all way, way out of place. The creature had laid its barn-sized head over the dam like it was a throw pillow—its top row of chompers sitting over its chin like a mustache made of ivory. Its wet, bulbous eyes had skinny rectangular pupils with rounded corners—pointed outwards in either direction, and not pointed at what was in front of it—a sharp drop down the dam wall to the river, where Sweet Apple Acres, and then Ponyville, were sitting unaware.
While unaware to the creature, there was a metal hatch installed next to it just wide enough to fit a pony. It led to the interior fire escape—routinely left unlocked for safety reasons. And at the top of that fire escape, pressing her forehead against the top rung of a forty-foot ladder, was the apple farmer, whose muscles screamed so loud she almost wanted to cover her ears.
The caged lightbulb below her buzzed incessantly.
"Ah'm goin', Ah'm goin'... Hold yer... stinkin'..."
Applejack opened the whining hatch just a crack, and a pool of murky water spilled inside, coating the walls—and her—from top to bottom.
"Ah, fer cryin'—!" she protested. She spat out the few drops that had gotten in her mouth once the water stopped pouring in.
Through the crack in the hatch she peered at the mass of slimy, scaly flesh outside. She noted its bluish-greenish colour, and then closed the hatch again.
"There's a sea monster... on the dam," she reported. She repeated it twice in a lower tone, but before she got to the third time, she made a little gasp. She smiled to herself and said, "Fluttershy'll know what to do."
She descended four rungs down the ladder, and then jabbed it with a hoof.
"That's right... Fluttershy... Element a' Kindness. Same Fluttershy who was... called away by the danged Cutie Map this mornin'."
She winced as she climbed back up to the hatch, but then her gasp and her smile returned. "But Twilight oughta have a book on these things or sumthin'!"
She quickly re-descended the four rungs and slammed her forehead against the rusted steel again. The lightbulb blinked in an out twice, and she smashed it with her back hoof.
"Stupid uppity Cutie Map," she whispered to the dark.
The hatch sprang open, and Applejack climbed out with a wobble and a groan. The sea monster's filthy aura hit her nose like a wave of factory sludge, and she slammed the steel lid back shut with a buck between her coughs and sputters.
She sat on the wheel of the hatch, trying her best to not pass out from exertion. The wet air flowing over the dam sliced through her fur, and she shivered. The final few rays of dirty, orange light had long since disappeared, and the twilight was the only thing to keep her warm—something at which it didn't excel.
She tipped her hat down and took a deep breath—finding that the smell of the farm had seeped in through the leather and stuck around for the journey up the dam. "Alright," she said, and she steadied herself back to standing. "Alright, alright, alright."
She turned to the creature. It stayed still.
"Listen up, you," she started. "No... wait... Dubya-Dubya-Eff-Ess-Dee."
Applejack took off her hat and laid it across her chest. She stared up at the slimy half-globe that was the sea monster's right eye and cleared her throat. "S'cuse me! Mister Sea Monster, uh... sir...? Sir?!"
Neither the eye, nor the creature itself moved. In truth, it would have taken a lot of force to do it. Applejack paid a worried glance to the concrete beneath her hooves. No cracks yet. Not on the outside, in any case.
"Mah name's Applejack and... Ah live, well... at that farm... down there." She pointed at her apple trees downstream from the river—ignoring the trapped deer a half-mile or so away, staring up at her with perfect, expressionless aim. "Okay, so, uh... I was just wonderin'... why you were here...?"
Not a sound or movement came from the stranded beast. That was, if it even was stranded and not simply tanning itself at a rather poor time of day to go tanning.
Applejack suppressed her twitching upper lip. "Now... I'm not one to shame anypony, but... yer a mite heavy, y'see. Not exactly what this here dam was designed for, I reckon, heh." She tapped the concrete to further her argument. It didn't get her very far. "Look, pal... if this thing breaks—and it's happened b'fore! Both mah farm and that nice little town down there are gonna be in for a mighty wet surprise."
There was no response. Applejack put her hat back on and ground her teeth.
"So... ya can't be here, alright?! Yer... Look, ya see that—? Ah mean, yer not lookin', but... that town just down the way there... Ah don't think the folks'at live there'd appreciate you bathin’ in their drinkin' water. I mean... if that’s what... yer doin'?"
Still nothing. Not even a blink. Or a moldy breath, for that matter.
"Oh... crud," Applejack worried. She trotted to the lake, where the beast's lower half was submerged, descending diagonally through the greenish-blue haze. There were no hints as to how far down it went. The lake was stagnant, save for a few raindrops, and a small, whirling current just outside the twelve giant slits in the monster's side—opening and closing in order like a wave.
Applejack whirled back around. "So yer just ignorin' me then, is that it?!"
A ball of hot gas bubbled from inside the beast's lower half and up to its throat. The ivory moustache moved out and a cloud of stink from a foreign sea dumped into the air.
Applejack gagged and stuffed her hat over her nose, but the fertilizer was trounced. "Now, that is just IT!" she shouted through a plugged nose. She threw her hat to the side and cracked the bones in her neck. "HARD WAY IT IS!"
The apple farmer charged towards the sea monster's head, twisted around and bucked it so hard she half-expected apples to fall from it. But instead of the rigid return of tree bark, her hooves only met spongy, slimy flesh, which immediately sucked her in.
"G-u-uh!" she shuddered, balancing on her forelegs. "That's disgustin'!"
Struggling and squirming, she pushed herself out of the trap and slid face-first through a thick, murky puddle. She sputtered and clambered back to her hooves. She wiped away the residue from her mouth and flicked her soaking mane over her head. She made for a second charge—this time head-first.
"Git… OFF!"
She pounded, she pried, and she pushed. She punched, she pulled, and she pressed. Up and left. Up and right. Away. Towards. Down, down, and down. A surge of blood went to her head, and she saw red.
“WHAT IS IT—?!” she screamed as her punches went limp. "WHAT IS IT WITH WILD ANIMALS THIS WEEK?!"
She crumbled down to her knees, but kept softly pounding.
"FIRST the skunk sprays Big Mac with somethin' so awful we had to quarantine 'im! Then the Timberwolves bite a dang hole—!" She paused when the last word came out in a whimper. "A hole in my dang coop! Frightenin' all my chickens away! Those glorified kindlin' piles don't never stray outside the Everfree Forest!"
The whimpers didn't stop. She sniffed and looked over the concrete wall to the deer standing in the same spot in her apple farm.
"And then that bone-headed thing gets itself and its stupid antlers stuck in mah fence, and it's all just..."
The deer's head tilted. Like it heard.
Applejack scrambled back to standing. "And now YOU! What GIVES?!"
She thrust her front hooves into the beast's skin, and got stuck in again.
"Why can’t y’just… leave us alone?! We ain’t got no problem with wild animals, but sweet Celestia y'all are thick sometimes!"
A river of hot lava rumbled in Applejack's chest. She shut her eyes, waited for it to rise, and she erupted.
"JUST 'CAUSE Y'ALL ARE FREE THAT DON'T MEAN Y'CAN DO WHATEVER Y'WANT!"
"Applejack?"
The farmer threw opened her eyes, and found them bleary. Through her blurred-up vision, she saw flashes of orange and yellow in the skin that held onto her hooves. For a moment, she wondered if she really had spat lava at it.
But she saw the colours flicker, as well as a patch that looked like her shadow. She whipped her neck around and squinted to see a purple-and-pink smudge, a yellow-and-pink smudge, and the blaring light of what might have been a lantern.
"...Are you... okay?" the yellow smudge continued.
Applejack blinked. "Twilight? ...Fluttershy? Is that you? Or... am Ah dreamin'...?"
"We got back a couple hours ago," the purple smudge said. "We heard Granny Smith was sick, so we brought them some medicine, but... more on that later. What's... going on here?"
The stranded apple farmer rubbed her eyes into her shoulder, and the smudges resolved into her friends. They had two wings and one eyebrow raised each. Twilight held the lantern in her magic. Fluttershy held a white, rolled-up paper bag in her foreleg.
"What's goin' on?" Applejack spat back. "Ah'll tell you what's goin'... on!" she said, yanking her forehooves clear of the fleshy snare. "This here oversized varmint is ruinin' everythin'!"
Fluttershy turned her head. "But.. it's just a leviathan."
"It's just—?!" Applejack squeaked. "What did you just say?"
"What exactly is it ruining?" Twilight asked.
Applejack blew her mane out of her eyes—or she at least tried. It was rather stuck there. "Y'all must be tired from yer trip!" She reared up and slammed her sticky hooves into the concrete. "This whole thing's gonna crumble if'n it stays here! I've been tryna get it to move but he's just ignorin' me! Won't so much as blink!"
Fluttershy bit her lip and looked away from her enraged friend. "Um... it's a fish," she pointed out.
"It's a—... So what if it's a fish?!"
The pegasus flinched. "Um... fish... don't have eyelids."
The words hit Applejack like a punch to the gut. She wheezed like it, too. "You don't mean..."
Fluttershy nodded, and managed to meet her friend's bloodshot eyes for one half-second. "He's, um... asleep."
Applejack craned her head up to the towering ton of fish. Its eye didn't move at all. "Well—... That don't matter! The dam—!"
"The dam's been reinforced several times over ever since it broke four years ago," Twilight explained.
"It broke?" Fluttershy repeated, re-positioning the medicine bag. "I don't remember that."
Twilight smirked. "I was there when it happened. During the whole Mare-Do-Well incident, remember? I patched it up myself right after it ruptured."
Fluttershy giggled. "Oh, yeah... we should do that again sometime. That was so much fun."
"The good ol' days," Twilight agreed. "Do you think we can convince Rainbow Dash to be full of herself again?"
"Oh, that shouldn't be too hard..."
"STOP IT, BOTH A'YA!"
Fluttershy shrieked and dropped the medicine bag into the sludge.
Applejack raised her hooves in apology. "Just... What about the water?" she seethed. "Have you seen the gunk Ah'm covered in? Nopony's gonna wanna drink that."
"We get our water from wells," Twilight replied. "Three of them, actually. The dam is more for energy generation."
Applejack guffawed. "Alright, well, this fella can't be good for the hydro-electricks, right?"
"It's not running right now. We usually only need it in the summer and winters." Twilight trotted over to the edge of the reservoir and hovered the lantern over the water. "In fact, even if it was running, it would probably be fine... The intake isn't cov—er..." She stopped talking when she noticed her distressed friend crumbling to her seat and rubbing her eyes with the one clean space on her knee.
"This ain't happenin'... Ah'm not hearin' this..."
"Oh!" Fluttershy gasped. Twilight and Applejack looked at her expectantly and forlornly, respectively. "There is a problem," she announced. She skipped forward and took flight towards the leviathan, hovering in front of its eye and waving her hooves.
Applejack stood up. "There, see? Ah told ya—"
"His eyes will dry out," Fluttershy noted.
"His... His what now?"
Twilight failed to suppress a chuckle.
"Wakey, wakey..." Fluttershy cooed.
The leviathan's eyeball quivered. The monster groaned and swished its pupil forward and backward, and then locked it right onto its tiny, yellow alarm-pony. A mighty purr vibrated through the concrete.
"You need to get back in the water, mister," Fluttershy advised. "Or those big eyes of yours will be sore for weeks. You wouldn't want to have trouble seeing, now would you?"
The leviathan rumbled again. With a tremendous moan, it leveraged itself up with its jaw and slid inch-by-inch back into the water. From beneath its ivory moustache, the corner of its mouth raised high up its face.
Twilight cantered over to her crumpled-up friend and placed a hoof on her shoulder. "That better?"
Applejack stared at the mass of clear slime the fish had left on the side of the dam. She watched as a V-shaped current with a few long spikes sticking out glided down the lake towards the inlet. She sniffed. "A little."
"That's good. Don't worry; I doubt he'll be coming back. He's come really far from home. It's weird he was even here."
Fluttershy landed once she was finished waving goodbye. "It's very weird. The nearest leviathan migration river is miles from here. I'm surprised it got so lost."
"Can we stop talkin' 'bout the leviathan?" Applejack pleaded. She held her shoulders close and shivered against the icy drizzle.
"Sure," Twilight said. "Say, where's your hat?"
"Ah tossed it... somewhere, I dunno."
Twilight raised the lantern and Fluttershy looked around. "There it is," the latter said, and she flew over the slime towards it.
Applejack didn't watch her go. "How was the, uh... Where'd you two go again?"
"Smokey Mountains," Twilight said.
"Didja... solve your friendship problem?"
"We sure did! Fluttershy was the real hero. Turned out a couple of farms were damaging the environment. Didn't even realize they were doing it."
Applejack raised her head just in time to see Fluttershy waltz back into the lantern's light—a stetson with a small amount of leviathan slime stuck to its brim tucked under her shoulder.
"Hey, Applejack," she said, giving the hat a sniff. "Is... that a new fragrance? It's seems... strong for you."
Applejack stammered.
"Is that where that's coming from?" Twilight asked. "I couldn't tell... the moisture in the air is making everything smell strong."
Applejack rocketed to her hooves. She snatched the hat, shoved it into her nose and inhaled deeply. The smell of orange, peach, and persimmon, perhaps, flew through her nostrils, her lungs, and a little bit of it even found its way to her brain.
"Ah need yer help. Both of ya."
Twilight and Fluttershy looked at each other. "Sure," the former replied. "What's up?"
"Fluttershy, Ah need you to clear these clouds."
"Um... okay, I can do that."
The pegasus kicked off and took to the air.
"Twilight?"
The alicorn princess puffed out her chest and flared her horn. "What do you need?"
Applejack thrust her hat into Twilight's chest. "Wash this, please."
"Ooooo...kay! I can... manage that. You sure there's nothing else I—?"
"Soap n' water!" Applejack commanded, running over to the steep side of the dam. She peered over the apple trees, fallen dark under thick rain clouds. She squinted, and she saw what she feared: A few faint green lights appeared in the apple trees, and moved through the farm with unpredictable precision.
"Celestia, gimme strength."
The first green dot appeared in the night like a rotting grape that glowed. It strafed, and a second light appeared next to it. A pair of spiky green leaves closed halfway over the two dots, angling their light downwards over a jagged set of timber teeth.
More eyes appeared around the first—closer and farther—slowly growing larger—as the sounds of snapping twigs and crinkling leaves grew less and less subtle, not to mention the growling. Four, eight, twelve eyes appeared, and thanks to the vanished sun, there was no way of knowing if there were only six pairs or at least a hundred.
Anyone's guess would be as good as the deer's.
Pretty soon it decided—likely for the sickly green light it was bathing in—that standing perfectly still wasn't fooling any of them. It moved forward first, but its back knees and hooves only clunked against the plank under its stomach in a half-frantic scramble. It whimpered, lowering its head and reversing instead, but its branched antlers only got in the way, knocking all too loudly against the plank above its neck.
It snorted and persisted, pulling against the plank with all it could muster, and groaning like a injured cat with a sore throat.
The first timberwolf to appear was the first to approach—either for dominance or tradition. It exhaled a mossy cloud from its maw that smelled like garbage and rotting weeds. The prey pointed its crown at the predator, and it tugged, and it tugged, but the nails trapping it in held strong.
It stood up and grunted, sidestepping away from the wolf and sliding into the post next to it. It rubbed against a small bit of rough rope at the plank's end, and took one last look at the approaching alpha, who had stopped just a little short. The two angled lights in its face stared at the rope, and got a lot less angled.
It was a long and very scratchy rope. One that had seen a lot of use. It sat loosely over a corner of the upper plank, until it went taut with a tug. The wolf and the deer followed its length into the darkness next to the wolfpack.
"Heads up!"
The timberwolf yelped, the deer whined, and the rope stretched tight. With a resounding crack, it ripped the board off the fence and sent it careening past the alpha wolf, who avoided it just barely before the nick of time. It smashed into a tree, loosed an apple from a branch, and sent a smattering of nails—and a piece of the alpha's nose—into the remainder of the wincing pack.
"Yee-HAW!"
The alpha timberwolf clutched its face and sprinted through a divide in the its peers. The freed deer hopped backwards over the damaged fence and sprinted away from the green spotlights.
"Wrong WAY!" Applejack bellowed—springing from the night, short her hat. "That's t'wards the FARM!"
She made to follow, but halted when a buzzing rumble sounded from behind her. The timberwolves—less an alpha—gathered closer together and started a synchronized growl. They made an effort, for a second, to surround the farmer.
Applejack pointed at the board between them.
"And how many nails're holdin' you goons together? 'Cause if it's less than nine..."
The wolves—having not a single nail holding them together—stopped surrounding her. The group growl fell into a few murmurs, but the glowing grapes didn't look away.
"GET LOST!"
The wolves scattered. Their green headlights whipped around to the direction they'd come, and they ran, letting off a few half-hearted howls.
Applejack waited for the their auras to disappear, and then their noises. She stood in darkness for a few seconds, before the cloud above her was dispersed, and the moonlight could shine through the trees.
"Cheers, Fluttershy..."
She trotted to the fallen apple, kicked it up with one hoof, and snatched it out of the air with the other. "Ugh..." she groaned at the mushy bruise on its side. "Dag gummit."
Tossing the apple over her shoulder, the farmer made to leave for home—spilt nails and broken fence to be dealt with another day.
A twig snapped and she froze.
"...Ya still there?"
The deer poked its head out from behind the nearest apple tree and pressed its neck against the bark. It stared at Applejack with moon-filled eyes.
"Y'all can come out, now. Big bad wolves are gone."
With a careful look to each side, the deer stepped out. It took another look behind itself, past the farmer, and began to stride over to her.
"Um..." Applejack started. "Any, uh... injuries?"
The deer didn't answer. But it didn't limp, either. It hopped over the broken fence and came up as close as Applejack had that evening, and no farther. The staring contest began again.
Applejack forfeited right away. "Uh... Run along, now, sugarcube. I ain't gonna... lure ya into a trap no more, but Ah sure ain't gonna look after ya no more, either. Y'understand?"
A tilt of its head. A flare of its nostrils.
"What'd I say 'bout makin' me ask again..."
Without warning, the deer closed its eyes and dropped its head. Bending one foreleg and straightening the other, it bowed to the farmer quietly, not unlike the way she might greet a princess.
Applejack blushed. "Oh, uh... Don't mention it," she said, and she returned the bow. "I mean, it was mah fault you even—"
The two of them raised back up together, and Applejack saw the bruised apple lodged in the deer's teeth.
"...Oh."
It cracked the apple in half, and let the outer half fall skin-down into the dirt.
Applejack turned over the apple and saw the bruise.
"...Thanks."
The wild deer winked—though the rain had long stopped. Then it swiveled around and dashed off into the trees, bounding left, right, left, and out of sight.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! And be sure to check out the other entries!
I'll fix that link once the organizers release a list or something. And if it's already out and the link isn't fixed, feel free to leave me a nasty comment.
Applejack won the staring contest by default. Her opponent—a middle-aged white-tailed deer with a big, bushy tail and a great set of antlers—didn't last more than three seconds. Its gaze wandered around the apple trees, to the scarcely falling leaves from their branches, the well-trodden ground atop their roots, and the horseshoe prints in their trunks. A breeze flitted through its short hair, and it took a moment to sniff whatever was on it.
"How'dja do it?" Applejack asked the loser, craning her head back so she wouldn't get poked in the eye by a stray antler.
The breeze weakened, and the deer brought itself back to the battle. It stared blankly at the farmer's face—dirty, worn, and creasing.
"Don't make me ask again."
A single drop of rain fell onto the deer's right eye, and it paid the farmer a wink.
She returned the wink with a snarl. "Y'know what goes into buildin' a fence?"
The deer didn't know.
"Well, I'll show ya... First, y'get a coupl'a big 'n' heavy posts... like this one!" She thrust her hoof onto the wooden log next to the deer's shoulder. "Next, y' get a coupl'a bigger and heavier planks, like these ones!" She clamped her forehooves around the two wooden boards rubbing up against the deer's back and stomach. "And then you nail 'em together!"
The wild animal raised its chin, as if proud of where it had ended up in life.
Applejack continued. "Guess how many nails go into a post. Go on, j'st guess."
The deer didn't guess.
"NINE! Nine nails that Ah'm gonna have to yank out, then haul yer bushy-tailed butt outta mah fence, and then hammer back in!"
The breeze came back, carrying the same smell it had before, but the deer didn't move. It stood transfixed on its lecturer's large, green eyes, determined to win round two. It tried to step forward, but its back knee knocked against the fence. It opened its mouth, revealed a flat, pink tongue, and slowly lurched its head forward.
"Don't—!" Applejack yelped, pulling her hat away from the deer's jaws. "I'm try'n'a help you! If ya show me how ya got stuck in there then Ah'll build so it doesn't happen again! Jiminy Bleedin' Crickets!"
"Arf!"
Applejack stamped her hoof. "It is bein' difficult. Wait—"
She whirled around to see a medium-sized dog squatting next to the deer, her solid eyes locked on her master, and her tail was wagging fast.
"What're you doin' here, Winona? I thought I told ya t'—... Wait... Don't tell me you found 'em already."
Winona nodded and panted in sync with her beating tail.
"Alright, alright, gimme a second. Ah gotta..." Applejack started, before the deer sniffing at the brim of her stetson required shoving away. She stepped back and snorted. "Y'know what? Ah'm just gonna leave ya here. Think about what you've done, y'hear?"
The deer opened its mouth again, and its teeth made a soft clamping noise in the farmer's direction.
The path to the coop was short and flat and familiar, so Applejack walked it with three hooves on the ground; the fourth pulled her hat over her face so she could grumble her cares into the leather and shield her eyes from the burnt-orange light shining through the trees.
"Seems early..." she complained to the sun.
It was a day that was almost over, but it hadn't been a day to celebrate—especially since she had to face it alone for the first time in years.
Apple Bloom was willing to help, but she was out of the question, having been thoroughly grounded for something unspeakable a week prior to the day the deer got stuck in the fence.
Big Mac was out of commission, having been sprayed by three skunks, and then sprayed by five more when trying to get away from the first three. The aromatic and monochromatic little mammals had been wily in their apple hunt this week. They may not have had pincers, but they sure knew what they looked like.
Granny Smith was out too, feeling woozy from an unknown affliction. If she had been forty years younger and been from Canterlot, she might have described it as "the vapours". But in her old age and her country roots, a swerve and a groan was enough to diagnose her with "sumthin' fierce" and put her on the couch for a few days' rest.
Applejack sucked in some air through her nose. The smell of sunkissed hay, apple tree leaves and fertilizer filtered through her hat. The fertilizer was a new brand, purchased from a kindly farm shop in town after Apple Bloom loudly proclaimed that the farm smelled like the solid part of a outhouse's natural diet. She hadn't described it that politely, of course—if she had, she wouldn't be grounded.
She couldn't complain about the new brand. It permeated the air with a flash of tart orange, mulled peach, and even persimmon. Applejack didn't know what persimmon smelled like, but the farm's new aroma was so full of flavour that it might have had some in it. Besides, she liked the way the word 'persimmon' sounded, and the way its smell could cloud up her worries and whisk them away. She even spread a little under the hen's nests and a little more within the living room just to make it a touch more present. A brief highlight in an otherwise dim lit week.
Actually, that wasn't quite true, Applejack realized, as a few raindrops plonked onto her hat. Because those raindrops didn't fall from a natural weather system. It was a favour she'd asked of Rainbow Dash. Just a slight drizzle, lasting the day, that never gets too hard but never quite goes away. Enough to give the trees a steady drink flow, but let the pony work in peace. It was the least Rainbow Dash could do, considering the new word she had taught Apple Bloom.
"Alright..."
Applejack stopped before the steps to the chicken coop and exhaled from beneath her hat. She straightened it back up and faced the row of off-white birds—clucking and jittering at each other in a language only they understood.
"Pard'n me, ladies," Applejack said, but only Winona listened.
The dog barked from the end of the line-up in a language that everyone present understood. The bustling chickens snapped to attention and sat down in the dirt.
Applejack cleared her throat. "Good to see y'all home safe and sound... Ah'll make this quick."
She scanned the chickens one-by-one, taking note of them each by name. There was Betsy, Francine, and Winnifred—inseparable. Sally and Darlene, and Agatha and Brittany, all slowly falling asleep. And at Winona's side was Margarita—cross-eyed and open-beaked as always.
Applejack rubbed her temples. "I thought y'said y'got all of 'em."
Winona tilted her head. She peered down her lineup and scanned the chickens herself—her furry brown brow fully furrowed.
"Y'missed Priscilla."
The chicken dead-center in the lineup stood up and clucked a mighty cluck, throwing a wing up in salute.
Applejack blinked. "...Oh. There y'are, Prissy. Sorry, I meant... Margarita? Hang on..."
The gangly chicken next to Winona sprung to attention and gave a resounding squawk of its own, before losing balance and falling back into its seat.
"...Huh. Any, uh... injuries?"
The chickens gave themselves and each other quick once-overs. None of them spoke up.
"Well, Ah'll be. You really did find all of 'em. Great job, Winona!"
Winona saluted with a muddy paw, and the rest of the chickens followed.
"Sorry 'bout that, y'all... S'just been one o' those days. Get on back inside... the hole's been fixed."
In a storm of clucks and feathers, the cluster of white birds stuffed themselves into the chicken coop. Once Margarita had waddled her careful way inside behind them, Winona sprinted to the steps and flicked them upright, closing the egg-layers in for the night.
Applejack massaged her eyes as her helper waltzed past her towards home. She teetered forward. Her hat slid down.
"Ah'm gonna go free that stupid animal... and if... there ain't no objections... Ah think Ah'm done for the day."
She listened.
She heard the pitter and patter of rain falling on the dirt. A few drops tapped her face. But nothing objected, for a moment.
"Arf!"
She crumpled. "Oh, what is it now...?"
Winona was sat in a patch of grass, her shadow casting all the way back the chicken coop's shut door. her back made an almost vertical line as she stared intently at the elevated horizon over the mountains. Her head tilted, and her tail started to wag.
"...What's wrong, girl?"
The dog didn’t answer.
Pushing the sweaty mane out of her eyes, Applejack tried her best to follow the dog’s line of sight.
She started at the fenced-in apple trees, but didn't see anything of note. Not anything new, anyways.
She raised her head and traced the river—bubbling in from the Ponyville Reservoir at the base of the nearby mountain range. Nothing was out of place.
Finally, she picked her head up far enough to see the top of the dam itself—where the sun was setting between the artificial rainclouds and the dam on that busy Autumn day.
And she realized that it really was setting too early. Just by a few minutes, or however long it took for the sun to depart from the final few inches above the horizon.
She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a dusty wheeze. "Oh… c'mon, now…" Her hind legs buckled and she let the rest of the fall happen—landing chin-first in the dirt and growling, "This week ain't never gonna end..."
She took another peek through her dirty mane to the obstruction on top of the dam. It stared right back at her.
"What in the... tar-nation... even is that?"
Winona barked and ran past her fallen master back to the chicken coop. Applejack groaned, finding it hard to focus—her eyes or her mind. She heard Winona’s soft paws trot back towards her, and cringed when her trusted rope thumped loosely into the dirt.
"Arf!"
"Somethin' tells me that ain’t gonna cut it."
