The Farm Girl and the Drake

Applejack was sitting on the swing that hung from the tree closest to her house when Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy came to visit, slowly rocking herself back and forth.

“AJ!” Rainbow Dash called out. “AJ!”

“Applejack!” Fluttershy said in a voice no louder than a whisper. “Oh, Applejack!”

Applejack was in a very sad state when they arrived. They saw tears in her eyes. They had never seen Applejack cry. Ever.

“Applejack,” Fluttershy asked as she approached her friend, “is something wrong?”

“Yeah, tell us!” Rainbow Dash added, clenching her fists. “If somebody’s been mistreating you--!”

“No, Dash,” Applejack replied, looking down. “It’s something I’ve done.”

“You?” Fluttershy asked, quite surprised.

“It must be. Ma and Pa have been acting so...”

Applejack stopped herself when she heard her mother humming from the kitchen window. She got up from the swing and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy followed her around to the far side of the barn.

As they walked, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy couldn’t help but wonder why anybody would be mad at Applejack.

They knew that Applejack had a great life, but AJ had noticed that things slowly begun to change.

“All right, AJ,” Dash said. “Get on with the details.”

“Well, I first noticed it the other day when Pa came home after running in to town,” she began sadly.

Applejack had been out picking in the orchard, as usual, when she heard the schoolhouse bell echo across the fields. That was the signal that her Pa was close to home. She had run out to meet him, like she always did, and he rushed by without even acknowledging her.

“Buttercup!” he called out as he entered the house. “Buttercup, are you all right?”

“Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I just wanted to make sure you are okay,”

“You worry too much,” she replied.

“I just can’t help but worry,” he told her. “After all, in your condition, alone here all day with the kids and that dog.”

“‘The kids!’” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

“‘That dog?’” Fluttershy repeated.

“He’s never called us that before,” Applejack said.

Her friends were shocked, but they tried to make light of it.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it, AJ,” Dash said, trying to sound as cheerful as she could. “I mean, there’s a reason why there’s a saying, ‘we are only human,’ after all.”

“But now, Ma is... Well, we’ve always enjoyed our time together. But now, she won’t even come out to check on me while I’m picking in the orchards.”

She recalled an incident that occurred the day before, when Winona picked up a ball of soft yarn (thinking it was a normal ball) and got ready for a game, and Pear Butter said, “Drop that, Winona! Drop it, I said!” And she struck Winona.

Winona nuzzled Applejack’s leg and looked up at her with warm eyes as if to reassure her, “It really didn’t hurt.”

“She just spends all her time knitting,” Applejack went on as she scratched Winona behind her ears. “We haven’t really talked in days.”

It had been like this for almost two weeks. Her father didn’t pay much attention to her, and her mother seemed to be more interested in the tiny clothes she was making.

Applejack didn’t understand what was happening. She thought about asking Big Macintosh if he knew what was going on, but she remembered that her brother was a man of very few words, so she figured she wouldn’t get much out of him even if she did ask.

“What could I have done wrong?” she asked her friends. “And what’s all this talk about a ‘happy event’?”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy exchanged a knowing look. Then they looked back at Applejack.

“Well, Applejack,” Fluttershy began. “Your mother’s going to have a baby!”

“A baby?” Applejack asked, like she didn’t know what a baby was.

“Well,” Rainbow Dash said, staring thoughtfully, “they look a lot like us.”

“Only much smaller,” Fluttershy added.

“They walk on all fours—”

“And they cry a lot,”

“And they’re very expensive,” Rainbow Dash warned. “And you won’t be allowed to play with it.”

“But they’re mighty sweet,” Fluttershy admitted with a smile.

“And very, very soft,” said Dash.

“Oh, yeah!” a new voice chimed in. “They’re just a cute little bundle... of trouble!”