Death of Mother Nature Suite

Chapters

V. (A) Your Own Blood Tastes Sweetest After the Blows Stop
VI. (B) Applebloom Upon Ponyville
VII. (A) And Some Landed Upon The Rocky Soil, And Were Soon Lost
VIII. (B) Go North, Young Mare
IX. (B) As The Soul is Upright, So is the Universe
X. (B) Beautiful the Hooves of Those Who Travel Far
XI. (A) The Fires of Perdition
XII. (A) Forgiveness Is A Worthless Emotion / They'll Drag You Through the Mud As Long As You Let Them
XIII. The Silent Witnesses of Evil Deeds
I. (A)Everyday she gets a little weaker
II. (B)The Beauty
III. (A)You Called Me Your Hyacinth Girl and I Hated It
IV. (B)We Raised Ourselves Up From Nothing

V. (A) Your Own Blood Tastes Sweetest After the Blows Stop

The road cut through two opposite bluffs and between them Applejack sat atop a rickety wooden bridge.

She ate quietly, staring straight ahead into the little defile below. The wind whistled softly, what little wind there was, but beyond this there was no noise. The bridge had been painted once, she noted idly as she blinked uncaring into the depths. She'd noticed the flecks of white and pink, and wondered how long since it had been a bright, cheerful sight.

More than that, she knew that paint meant settlement and civilization, or what counted for civilization, and that meant... a lot of things. It meant a lot of different and frankly terrifying possibilities.

Applejack finished her apple, the last one in the pack, and let it slip off her hoof down, down to bounce on the rocks below. She thought there'd been a creek there once. You could see what was left of it in the putrid mud. Unbidden, memories of planting came to her in waves: the feeling of the sun on her back and the sweat pooling on her brow, the smell of the fecund earth and the taste of salt, the way the earth shifted beneath her hooves as they transplanted some poor tree.

Civilization in the new world beyond the roaring of progress meant a few things. She imagined the possibilities branching out like a tree before her.

A village would be dangerous in the way a feral dog was dangerous--very, but with clear limits. They would have little in the way of armament and experience, just wild swipes and desperate, empty stomachs to fuel their mad dash after any interloper. That was if the village hadn't been visited yet by an apostle, or by an auditor. An Apostle meant... it meant horrors. An auditor meant merely trouble.

The old settlements were little more than fuel for the new world's nascent miseries. They were the kindling for a great engine beyond Progress, and each and every pony could be bent to serve the blind graspings of one of a dozen new gods. They had great, harsh names, but they had not always been so great, nor so insidious.

Applejack stood, sighed, and readjusted her duster. She had to keep moving, danger or not. Staying still was far more dangerous, after all, at least while the sun was up. She liked the night more, anyhow. Nopony dared to come out at night, and she liked it that way.

She supposed it could be one of the Front's recruiters had gotten to whatever village had so lovingly painted the bridge. If so, that meant less danger but more sorrow. Poor, stupid bastards. She hated them in the way one could only hate the bright hearted and the good-willed. It was the hate of a pony with three broken legs stuck down a well who listens to a companion talk about hope.

The road that she followed now, as per her brother's old instructions, was winding in a way that had once probably been considered quaint and charming, weaving in and out of hills, but was now only a hazard.

Applejack's mind did not wander. It simply split. One half stayed upon the road, and the other half was far, far away in the past, on a very different road. She saw--

"So why do we keep to the road, boss?" asked the upstart, fidgeting under his back.

Applejack didn't acknowledge him, but Mac did.

"Woods ain't right," he said. "You minimize your hoofprint in 'em, you understand? Lower your chances of runnin' into somethin' nasty in there if you don't go in."

"Yeah, I hear you," continued the young stallion, who had not yet learned when to be still or quiet. "But ain't we sittin' ducks out here?"

"You ain't wrong," Applejack muttered, and winced slightly as the skin on her leg caught on the barding. She needed to talk to Rarity or Rose about that when she got back. "But the woods aren't any safer. Die by blade or spell or get ate alive, them's your options. You're free to go the shorter way through the woods, but we won't wait on you too long."

Duty along the roads was random, to a point. Some folks always went together. If there was one Apple, they always sent another, for instance. Everyone who wasn't already assigned to medical duty or other needful tasks was fair game. This time she and Mac had been given the dubious honor of showing the young Dollar Rain the ropes.

Which was laughable. As if there were much else to teach aside from "don't stray too far" "run at the first sign of trouble" or "keep your head down". It was all bullshit, really, wasn't it? Patrolling, vigilance, caring, whatever words you wanted to attach to any of this expense of energy.

Applejack pulled her down and put a bit too much force into her steps. Stars burn her alive and forsake her, but she was angry. She was pissed. Mac had asked her what about and she'd about torn his head off. What about? What not about? What in the whole grey and brown world, what in the whole world wasn't there to be angry about?

She was angry about the heat and she was angry when the winter came and kept them huddled together like rats, all movement and confusion and misery in the dark hutches they'd dug beneath their own perfectly good houses getting as close to fires as they dared to simply prolong the inevitable suffered cold. The way her hooves ached after the road and they way they itched to be out again. The dead trees and the places out on the fence she couldn't fix cause they needed the timber for other things. The way the farmhouse creaked and groaned like an old mare. The way her stomach felt empty in the day time and unsettled in the night time. The dust storms that brought the poison that planted the seeds of cancer in you through your eyes and mouth and nose and cuts. The dead grass and the loose dust and the weight of the hoofblades on her front hooves and the wheeling spurs on her hind legs, the revolvin' five guns for her legs and the barding cobbled together by Rarity and her her sister. The failing crops and the already dead ones and the shallow foal's graves and the sky and the bitter alkaline taste on the air and really, Mac, what wasn't there to be mad about in such a world?

The route they traveled was simple, really. Just make a loop of the old Filthy Rich road, the one he'd built to connect Ponyville to Ponyford years and years ago out of his own pocket. Princess had paid him back, but he'd hoofed the bill for a year. Halfway to Ponyford, then back home, and don't let anything alive over there see you. Simple. Easy? Easy as anything else, which meant it wasn't, but the chances of dying weren't much higher than one in ten and those were good odds.

"'sides," Applejack grumbled. "You wanna go too far and stumble into town?"

Dollar didn't have an answer to that, and that was just as well, because she wasn't terribly interested in his voice anymore, or ever really.

She wasn't always this way. Mac had simply touched something he shouldn't have at the worst possible time. She was anxious and her blood was up.

It would be fine. It would be fine. Nopony had seen anything come out of Ponyford in months, anyhow.

VI. (B) Applebloom Upon Ponyville

The first day of school was always a panicked rush.

They were all used to waking up early, so that wasn’t the problem. They were all used to lives ruled by regimen and work, so that wasn’t the problem. It was not a thing of ability but of the mind. School came in like a lion, roaring one way or another but always roaring, a sudden intrusion upon the monolithic world of Summer.

So it was that Applejack watched her young sister slowly descend the stairs that led up to her bedroom with a nervous energy.

What she meant, what she would have explained if asked, was that the feeling she felt had everything to do with that half-remembered experience of the first day of the school year and absolutely nothing to do with her dreams. She was most certainly not thinking about dreaming in any form. Words like Apostle and Auditor did not cross her mind, nor did she feel them with her conscious curiosity, nor did she wonder too hard about the reactions the Applejack of her dreams had had to those terms.

She most certainly did not think about Dust and Towers, cog’d or not.

Applebloom yawned, pulling Applejack out of her spiralling thoughts like a claw attached to her face. “What’s for breakfast?” she said, her lips hardly parting to let the words go pass.

“Toast, apple juice, omelet,” Applejack replied, staccato and flat. Gritting her teeth, praying to sound normal, she continued. “You sleep well, Bloom?”

Her little sister nodded. “Mhm, slept fine. Took me a lil while, cause on account of school today.”

Applejack smiled. “Eager? Nervous? Ready to have somethin’ besides chores to do?”

Applebloom had already moved from the kitchen floor to the table and sat sleepily in her accustomed chair. “New school,” she said. “‘S gonna be weird, cause its a new place and I don’t know everybody, an’ cause it ain’t in town..”

Applejack blinked. She nodded, though not at Applebloom. Her eyes kept focused on breakfast but her mind and her focus were suddenly gone, torn apart by the four winds.

The new school wasn’t in Ponyville. It was two miles down the road, between Ponyville and the outskirts of Ponyford’s farms. It was certainly an improvement--the villages in this part of the province had relied on single room school buildings and an incredibly basic curriculum, making do with overworked but intrepid teachers and whatever funds they could afford. But Twilight Sparkle had changed that--and she had done it with technology. The new techniques in building were visible here, the new architecture and the new engineering. The new aesthetic, cinderblock and institutional grey shot through with bright color, the sharp right edges and the boxy construction. Twilight had asked for a modern building and she had gotten one. The Six Villages School was probably the most sturdy building around, not counting palaces with heavy enchantments scrawled into their roots.

The new school, like the turbines and the great harvesting machines, was the future. It was progress. It was new. They were all bound up together.

“Heard tale you’re still gonna have Ms. Cheerilee,” Applejack, managing something approximating bright cheer. “For this year, at least, just to ease you in, for at least a few classes. You know you’ll have more ‘n one now.”

“Yeah, I know,” her sister replied, and Applejack placed an omelet in front of her, and left her to it. She called up the stairs for Mac, only for Apple Bloom to inform her that her brother wasn’t in his room.

“Up before me? Figures,” Applejack said with a little smile, and turned to her own breakfast.

Applejack closed up the panel with a grunt and then carefully slid off the great harvester.

The machinery wasn’t perfect, obviously. Nothing ever would be absolutely perfect, and in a way this was actually a comforting thought. No perfection meant that there would always be room for ponies.

She landed and dusted herself off. Her brother, who had waited patiently below, raised an eyebrow at her.

She scowled at him. “Don’t you give me that look, big red.”

“You figure out the problem?”

“You know I didn’t. Damn thing’d be movin’ again if I had.”

“You want I should go into town to grab the mechanic?”

Applejack shook her head and sighed.. “Nah, I’ll go. I need you here. Grab one of the farmhooves and get them to help you finish up these rows. It’ll be slower, but we’ll get it done one way or another.”

“Alright. Say hi to folks in town for me.”

Applejack gave him a weary smile before he turned to go look for one of the others. She stood still for a moment, and a breeze blew through the row and she felt it like a kiss on her face.

It was, after all, a good life. Her dreams seemed far away. Most things did, when she lost herself for a moment here and there in the day in the wide orchards. She did not think about Apostles and Auditors and Cogs. Even the bills and the payments on the harvesters slowly faded away. Only the wind remained, and herself, and the sound of the swaying branches and the grass whistling.

Twilight was in, of course, and didn’t mind having a spot of lunch while Applejack waited for the mechanic to finish up with his work. She’d been irritated, but only for a moment. It wasn’t as if she didn’t understand being busy. If anything she understood it all too well.

There were others there, of course. Rarity and Fluttershy had dropped by only a moment after she had, and so they decided to head across town to sit on the new porch at Sugarcube Corner.

Talk drifted, as it was wont to, and AJ didn’t mind a bit. She wasn’t always interested or knowledgeable in exactly the same things as her friends, but there was a pleasure in listening to them talk about what irked them or what they cared about.

“How has business been?” Fluttershy asked her at one point, right after the food had arrived and the now on-break Pinkie had scooted a chair between Twilight and Rarity.

“Good,” Applejack answered with a lopsided grin. “It’s changed a lot, but it’s still the same old farm and the same old work day.”

She nodded. The others chatted around them, and oddly Applejack felt like it was only the two of them in their own world.

“I um…” Fluttershy looked away for a moment, and then shrugged. “Sorry if this is rude of me, but you seemed a little, uh… out of it, I guess. Tired, maybe? I thought you might be having a hard time.”

Applejack blinked at her, and then sighed.

“Ain’t been sleepin’ well,” she managed after a short pause. “I’m sorry if it’s obvious. I tried to keep myself lively today.”

“No, no, there’s nothing to apologize for. Are you having, um, nightmares?”

Applejack swallowed. “Yeah, Shy. Funny you should say that.”

“I have those sometimes.”

“Ah, do ya now?”

“Mhm.” Fluttershy winced, and then smiled brightly. “But they don’t last forever! If you’re having trouble sleeping, I could give you some of the leftover medicine that Zecora gave me. It really helps.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that. Busy this evening?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Not after five.”

Applejack smiled and reached across to pat Fluttershy’s foreleg. “Come on down and eat dinner with us, sug. Mac’ll be happy to see ya, and you can bring me that medicine.”

As Fluttershy’s face exploded into a blush amidst protestations, Applejack laughed, and felt some of the weight drift away.

VII. (A) And Some Landed Upon The Rocky Soil, And Were Soon Lost

Applejack rehearsed what she knew, as she often did. Repetition was an anchor for the heart when all other bonds frayed. Dull, ceaseless repetition of the known and the safe secured one as well or better than the sharpest blades and spurs, and it could obliterate the very rational fears of life just as quickly and dreadfully as any bomb.

The village was under the ordered rule of the Cogs and their glassy-eyed Auditor corps. She’d seen this town’s Auditor from the bluff and sneered at the air at the sight of him. Most ponies had a kneejerk reaction to the Auditors. How could you not? To call them abominations was a kindness. Revulsion was not an emotion Applejack approved of or enjoyed, but in sight of one of the Cog’s little disciples she found it very appropriate.

. They were an unholy and--if one believed what the whispers said--unconsensual marriage of flesh and machine. The clockwork legs jutted out at odd angles, and each one was a new experiment of the artificers of the Tower, each a unique but incomplete answer to their Questions. Their bodies were a canvas of experimentation, and with each Auditor the Tower of Cogs grew closer to the perfection it sought. This Auditor’s eyes were still intact, which Applejack supposed was a sort of blessing. Great, hideous tubes and vials of fluid rose up violently from its sexless, gaunt body, and an jointed iron hand which emerged from a compartment in it’s chest held a clipboard.

They galloped out from under that masked orderly shadow like buzzards to the kill, she knew, and they set about the rotting countryside to bring all things into their Order, as if the world were a ledger of numbers. Numbers born to consume resources, aye, that and that alone, and nothing beyond the calculus of size and distance and supply.

Weren’t a matter of them bein’ wrong, so she told herself gruffly, jus’ they went about it wrong.

She needed supply. Stealing was out of the question. Not that she was bad at it, because she was a surprisingly excellent thief. Cogtowns, even small ones, were secure. The townspeople of new acquisitions weren’t much of a threat, but even new villages to the fold got the standard array of defensive trickery. Mines that jumped out of the ground and clung to your body before exploding in a killing rain of shrapnel. Razerwire that caught runners and killed them before they had even noticed. Some said that the first villages had strange fire-casters now that could burn a pony to a crisp from far off without a single unicorn to keep them lit.

There was money in her pack, and Cog towns traded with the outside, even if the prices were never remotely fair. All she needed was a few moments to buy, just five perhaps, and then she could be on her way.

So it was that she came striding down the road, hat obscuring her face a bit, pace slow, as if she’d been traveling for awhile and wasn’t herself. Her duster was tight about her, and her weapons were secured out of sight.

Applejack approached the town and stopped when the two nervous looking stallions at the end of the path called for her to stop. They asked her where she’d come from, and she told them she was passing through from Briarpatch, looking for family in Owlet Falls. The guards talked a moment and then nodded and patted her down for weapons.

She was tense as they did so, but neither of them were terribly competent. Or perhaps something of their old sense of decency was left, for they did not touch her flanks. The first big hurdle was out of the way.

“You have thirty minutes,” said one, and she saw that he’d been “blessed” with a timepiece in his leg that he showed her. “I’ll know when. If you aren’t gone by then, I’ll escort you out. Cause no trouble. Speak to no one but the merchant. She’s in the town square.”

“Thankya kindly,” Applejack murmured, and the pony merely hummed back--or at least, the whirring machinery somewhere within him hummed. They did not look at her.

Applejack walked through the streets towards the center of the village. It was perhaps a hundred souls, she guessed, all thatch roof and timber. Looked not unlike a Ponyville street, before the Line went up and Ponyville was flattened.

There were ponies in the streets, all of them rushing by busily as if they were on strict schedules. She supposed they were. The Auditor was nowhere to be seen, which was just as well. She walked alone in the center of the street and the others filed around behind her, hugging close to the wall, avoiding eye contact.

In the square, a single trader was set up with a few carts forming a half square of wood. He was a frail looking colt, no more than eighteen, and his wide eyes sized her up.

She didn’t mind.

Without a word exchanged, she stood in front of his arranged carts and slipped out of her saddlebags. She rolled out a few trinkets: old coins, some iron ore from the last merchant through Ponyville, bullets for one of the great long barreled guns like the griffons bear, a spare set of spurs in decent condition, and some food. He looks over what she has brought and then pushes the spurs and food away. No need for them. The ore and the coins are raw material for more creation, and the long barrel can be repurposed for the defense of the tower.

The trading colt offered money, old Equestrian bits first and then Society crowns, but she turned both down. He blinked in confusion, and then settled on food and water, which she did take. It was a terrible rate of exchange, but honestly she’d expected that.

With a nod and a grunt, Applejack turned and left the way she had come.

Or she tried to, at least.

It happened fast. Listen:

First, a hum filled the air. Turning, Applejack saw the Auditor standing behind her at the edge of the square. She tensed, but it did not move and so she relaxed into her next step.

But she misjudged. She misjudged several things at once. Her duster caught on her saddlebags as she hoisted them onto her back and flashed a bit of her left flank to the air. It was enough.

The Auditor began to hiss and advance with frightening speed. Applejack looked back at her leg and cursed loudly before bolting.

Villagers poured out of houses, called without knowledge by the Auditor’s rising calls with slack jaws and blank eyes to hunt her down.

Applejack, running through the street, dodged a groaning mare whose eyes had been replaced with fine-tuned lenses and then kicked her as she passed for good measure. Another replaced her, and she doled out yet another kick. Bu she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t fight them. There wasn’t enough time.

The Auditor was only a few steps behind her. Its hissing had become a scream and it drove all of the thoughts out of her head. Experience with the beasts helped with nothing. They would take and tear, take and tear, take and--

Another kick as he passed, but her luck had run out. A pony she hadn’t seen wrapped it’s front half around her leg and she went sprawling in the dust. More joined, until she was lost under the squirming, groaning mass of mindless thralls as they bore her upwards to meet the hissing, steaming Auditor and its horrible face as the syringe of sedative rose from a compartment in its cheek.

VIII. (B) Go North, Young Mare

“So, you’re telling me that the map is active again?” Applejack asked.

Twilight nodded. The others were late, which wasn’t that surprising. Fluttershy lived a bit of a ways out of town, Rainbow Dash was hard to find, and Rarity was in and out of town. Applejack arriving before Pinkie had been the only odd thing, but even Pinkie was starting to mellow with age. Mellowed in that she only three a party every few days instead of trying to force them into every hour physically possible, but it counted.

“It’s been, I don’t know, ages. But it’s a live again, inexplicably alive, and honestly this is an absolute royal-decree situation because I’m not sure when we’ll get another chance to study this phenomenon again.”

Applejack sighed. “Figured you were gonna say something like that. Also figures that I just got a bit more leeway with the farm and my time. Who is it calling?”

“Right now? Come look.” Twilight gestured towards the circle of thrones, and they walked together.

Applejack had been summoned via letter early that morning. More specifically, a letter had dragonfired into thin air about a foot in front of her nose out in the orchards and almost been trod upon by her brother as he struggled with some machinery. It had been a busy and altogether frustrating morning.

Mac had taken over command and she had taken the quickest of showers before striding along into town with a scowl.

The table before her was indeed alive again. It glowed, and immediately she saw who it was calling out to. Herself, Twilight, and Fluttershy. She blinked, squinted at it, and then shrugged.

“That’s a strange combination, if I say so myself.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

Applejack clicked her tongue and leaned against one of the chairs. Rarity’s, by the look of it. “Well, just sorta spitballin’ here, so bear with me. But we’re all friends. I love all y’all, you all love me. Just wanna say that and set the groundwork.”

“Sounds right to me. Thank you for saying so. It’s always nice to hear it out loud.”

“Glad to do it, sug. Anyhow, even sayin’ that, it’s obvious we tend to break up into different shaped parts when we scatter. Me an’ Dash tend to go together, right? Rarity and Fluttershy. You complicate it all, on account of bein’ everybody’s friend and never developin’ that kinda inner-circle preference? Ain’t sure what to call it.”

“You were all my friends at the same time, and so nopony had seniority,” Twilight said.

“There you go. That’s why you wear the crown,” the farmer’s daughter said with a grin. “But that trio of you, me, and Fluttershy? I love her and you, but that’s a strange threesome to head, ah…” she glanced down. “Huh.”

“What’s that?”

Applejack felt like her stomach had simply dropped. North. North along the path her dreams had taken, north towards whatever that other Applejack needed to find so desperately.

Not the Crystal Empire, not its Imperial Center and the warm valley that kept the snow at bay. North of that, past it for leagues and leagues. Her mouth felt dry. The trio of symbols kept going until it hit the end of the map, and then the map changed. It was as if it were on a scroll, and their whole view shifted northwards to lands she had seen on no map.

“The hay is that?” she mumbled.

Twilight shrugged. “I mean, I know… Kind of. I’ve never seen it do this!” As Applejack looked, she caught a manic grin on the Princess’ face. “This is totally new! Stars, Applejack, what does this mean? Aren’t you thrilled?”

“I’m... “ Applejack worked her mouth for a bit. “I ain’t, ah…”

“Oh, I think I know what’s going on here. That’s… yes. Henosia.” Twilight was bending over the new part of the map, taking it all in with glee. “I’ve seen it on some older maps before, but don’t really know as much about it. Nopony in Equestria does! Oh, I’m excited! I’ll write everyone!”

“Everyone,” echoed Applejack, flatly, not entirely there.

Twilight continued to fawn over the tiny ghostly country that the table had created. Applejack split her attention between Twilight and the source of her glee. Mountains, she noted. Mountains and deep valleys, dark forests and snowy hills. This Henosia looked to her to be a harsh land, the kind of place that hard and stern sort of ponies lived in. This wasn’t a farmer’s land. Too rocky, too angled. Not enough room. She guessed you could terrace it, but…

“I mean, well, not everyone obviously! But certainly a few ponies! Like Princess Celestia, for instance, and Luna too. Maybe Cadance, since I remember her mentioning it once. Why did she mention it? I forgot. I should ask her about that…”

“Right,” Applejack said, not listening in the slightest.

She bent down and saw a tiny village in the lonely northern forests of Equestria, as the Cutie Map sometimes did, as she drew closer, the details came more and more into focus. She saw a small subsistence farm and hills beyond it that felt familiar in a way that was almost sickening. Part of her wanted to look for a painted bridge that crossed a small gorge but she did not, no--she could not look for it. Either it would be there or it would not be there, and both things were unacceptable. They both felt like madness.

Twilight was still talking excitedly. “And I’m sure the city that it’s pointed to is the capitol, or has some official there, and we can talk to their rulers and establish official contact and there’ll be an embassy and Celestia will be so happy! Unless maybe we used to have one but then we lost contact, and we’ll be reviving an old alliance or something, and maybe that’s what the map wants! Or--”

Applejack nodded numbly. She looked up to where her cutie mark sat with the others. It rested over a tiny pinnacle, a great tower rising above a miniature city, all of it on a great rocky expanse without much in the way of a flat approach in any direction. She saw then, with a soft gasp, that it was a city suspended, perched upon a series of peaks. The ground here was not merely rocky but was in fact made of great mountainous thorns of white that interlocked above an abyss, and below she saw rushing water.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she was for the briefest of moments, there upon the walls. She felt the wind rake her mane back and claw at her coat. She felt it pick up the duster and send it flapping behind her, and she felt it roughly tear her hat away.

With a mute cry she turned to try and catch it, only to find herself in Twilight’s Palace of Friendship, in old Ponyville made new again, with no wind and no city and no rushing water below.

She shivered. The cold in the wind stayed with her, chilled her core.

“--Though, now that I’m thinking about it, if we had ever had contact in the form of an embassy, wouldn’t we have made some sort of… record…? Applejack, are you okay?”

Applejack startled, lowering her stance as if to run or fight. Her turn was so fast she almost capsized and hit the floor of the palace shoulder first.

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. Don’t you worry none,” Applejack said creakily. “Just… kinda got lost in thought there.”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah,” Twilight flushed. “Sorry. I kind of got lost in thought myself, there. I’m just so excited!”

“For travel?” Applejack said with a smirk, trying to remember how to act like herself. “Strange, if you ask me. Don’t you travel an awful lot, bein’ a princess and all? I thought you were in Griffinstone just a month or two ago.”

“Oh, I was. And it was great,” Twilight said. “Remember how disappointed I was when I couldn’t go with Dash and… who was the other one? Was it Rarity?”

“No, there was one like that, but I think that one was Rainbow and Pinkie.”

Twilight hummed. “There were so many, weren’t there? Dozens, I think.”

“At least,” Applejack replied. “At least that many, maybe more.”

Twilight sighed, and smiled a loose, goofy smile as she sat down in her chair and sprawled out. She still seemed bouncing with energy, but Applejack thought she would save the rest of her spiel for the Princess. “It was fun, wasn’t it?” she asked Applejack.

Applejack moved to her old seat and stroked the side of it with a hoof before sitting. “Yeah,” she said with a growing smile. “It was pretty fun. Adventurin’. Seein’ new folks and new places, solviin’ problems. Jus’ bein’ us and bein’ young.”

“Do you ever miss it?” Twilight asked.

“Sometimes.”

“I miss it a lot.” Twilight shrugged, and looked back down to the map. “I just… really, really miss it. I’m not unhappy,” she said quickly. “Not at all. I like my life. I love being able to help ponies, and I love being of use to Celestia and Luna. I even started liking some of the pomp and circumstance after a few years.”

“But you miss bein’ young and havin’ adventures left and right.”

“I do. We still do things together, at least. I mean, you five accompanied Starlight and me to Saddle Arabia this year, and at least a couple of you will probably be there with Celestia and I when we pay a visit to the Dragons. I’m thinking Rainbow is a definite candidate for that one.”

“And every now and then, we solve a friendship problem for old times’ sake,” Applejack said, smirking as she tiped her hat and relaxed. “You know, get folks to play nice and apologize, teach ‘em how to share, keep the world from explodin’ into war and famine. Just for old times’.”

“I would never have made it this far without you girls,” Twilight said. Her smile slipped a bit. “Never. Not in a million years. I may not have made it at all if it hadn’t been for you. I think about that ledge in the Everfree a lot.”

“I do too, from time to time.”

“I’m actually very glad that Fluttershy was summoned by the map,” Twilight said, and rested her head on her hoof. Her brow furrowed. “I see you and Rainbow quite a bit, and Rarity and I have dinner in Canterlot when she comes up to check on her shop, so at least once a month if not more. Pinkie is somewhat unavoidable, not that I wish to! But Fluttershy sometimes gets lost in the cracks. Even if nothing good besides that comes from this, having a chance to spend time with Fluttershy will be worth it.”

Applejack smiled. “You know, you’re the kind of pony who would see that right off the bat.”

“You think?”

“I know,” Applejack said firmly. “A lot of ponies start out with few friends and never get the hang of it. They just trudge along and exist. But you, Twi? You took to folks like fish to water. I think you always just needed a tiny push.”

“Maybe so,” Twilight said. “It’s kind of you to say, if nothing else.”

“And for the record, I’m pretty excited to see Shy myself,” Applejack said. “It’ll be nice to be on a real adventure again.”

But even as she said it, she felt the wind chill her again.

IX. (B) As The Soul is Upright, So is the Universe

Fluttershy blanched. “Oh… dear. Surely not! But… I mean, the map hasn’t sent us anywhere in so long!”

Applejack, who had been returning from the kitchen with coffee when Fluttershy had arrived, came along side her and nuzzled her cheek before finally sitting down. “‘Bout what I said, Shy.”

“Yes, it’s surprising!” Twilight responded cheerfully and clapped her hooves.

“Just the three of us? The others aren’t coming along?”

“I suppose not,” Twilight said. “But we can keep records if they want to read along afterwards!”

“Er, right,” Fluttershy said, and sat down.

Applejack opened her mouth to ask Twilight when they would be heading out, and to make some last minute plans, but before she could a familiar voice broke into their councils. Starlight, still a regular inhabitant of the palace, trotted into the room with a variety of books in her magical grasp.

“Hey, you guys. I got the books you wanted, Princess.”

Twilight beamed at her. “Thank you, Starlight! How was your trip? I forgot to ask.”

“Decent.” Starlight set the books on the table and stretched. Applejack’s attitude had continued to soften towards her over the years, and now it felt odd to remember that once she had been suspicious ever, for any reason.

Time had softened Starlight as well, and taught her patience. The mare who had once “solved” her problems with injudicious use of magic and manipulation was gone, and in her place there now lived a mature mare. She hadn’t just gotten stouter of heart and mind, however. Her mane was longer now, and most of it had been pulled back in a messy bun. A long scar ran across her face from her right temple down past her eye.

“Just decent?” Twilight asked. “Aw, you know I want more than that!”

Starlight chuckled. “Well, m’Lady, if you insist. The conference was a long and mixed affair. You know how they go. Half of the papers I heard were just awful, eye-roll inducing, miserable garbage. The other half were pretty decent. A couple of students were presenting, and that was fun.” She smirked and sat back on her haunches, leaning on the table with her forelegs flat against the map. “It was pretty cool going back with my doctorate this time.”

“I thought it might be,” Twilight said.

“It helped that it was in Manehattan,” Starlight finished, and turned her head towards Fluttershy and Applejack. Starlight smiled. “How about you guys? I know Twilight here has been freaking about the map since breakfast.”

“Well, ah, I…” Fluttershy shrugged. “You know. Kind of just the same. The hospital is up and running now, you know. I’ve been helping them more and more.”

“Glad it’s doing well. Your house still certified as a shelter?” she asked with a grin.

“Y-yes, Twilight was helpful with that,” Fluttershy said. “But I would have done it on my own eventually. Anyway, I’m glad. It’s made getting funds from the crown a lot easier.”

Starlight shifted her gaze to Applejack. “And you, cowgirl?”

“Machines,” Applejack said, and tasted ash for a moment. “Lots of machines. Farm’s turnin’ me into a mechanic bit by bit. They work wonders, though, I’ll tell you what.”

Starlight nodded. “Good. I’ve noticed the combines on my way in the last few times I’ve visited the Princess. I take it business is good.”

“Very,” Applejack replied with a lopsided grin. “Though I wish it would slow down sometimes.”

“Same,” lamented Twilight’s former student before she turned back to Twilight. “So… the books. What’s up with all that?”

“Just a bit of light reading,” Twilight said with a wave. “If we’re heading north, I need to know everything I can about what’s awaiting us.”

Starlight clicked her tongue. “Sounds ‘bout right. I’m thinking I could go for lunch soon. You’re all welcome to join.”

The three elements looked at each other, and then mutually shrugged. Starlight joined their idle talk, and more time passed.

All six were gathered by the time that lunch rolled around, and they had food brought up from the new deli on the west side of town. Starlight had insisted, and no one else except perhaps Rarity had had any opinion one way or another, and Rarity had been half-awake. She’d stumbled in, slumped into her chair and laid her head on the table before groaning about carbohydrates. Whether she was for them or against them was perhaps destined to be an eternal sort of mystery.

Over dinner, Applejack caught up with her friends. Pinkie was doing well, with her second child on the way with Pokey. The bakery was doing great, and the Cakes were seriously considering taking off on their retirement a few years early before leaving the twins and Pinkie with equal shares in the business. Rarity was dividing her time between five or six shops and two dozen soirees and events a year while also helping Sweetie get her start in Canterlot. Doing what, Applejack asked, though she knew--music. And it was a tight market, or so Rarity said dramatically.

Fluttershy lived a quiet, homely life. She volunteered at the animal hospital and kept her small shelter running, she read, she had tea at the same time every day and said hello to the same ponies when she came into town for groceries. Rainbow flew with the Bolts and kept herslef busy, and Applejack knew what she herself was up to.

Starlight had gone onto graduate programs and lectured in Manehattan at the university there. Psychology, if Applejack remembered correctly. It had seemed fitting.

Sometime after they’d finished and had fallen into chattering, Starlight and Applejack began to talk.

“AJ,” bgan Starlight, as she maneuvered around Twilight’s dining table to occupy the empty seat at the end. “How’s it going?”

Applejack flashed her an easygoing smile. “It goes, as my dad used to say. It goes.”

“Good. Mind if we chat really briefly?”

Applejack blinked. “I… well, sure, I suppose.”

“Twilight told me you’d been having some trouble recently. Before you get defensive, I’m not snooping, and she didn’t ask me to do this. You’re my friend, and I thought I might check up on you. That’s all this is.”

Applejack pursed her lips, and with fleeting eye took in a quick sight of the others. Twilight seemed oblivious, deep in excited conversation with Pinkie and Rarity.

“Alright. I’ll try not to get my dander up,” Applejack said. “‘S long as your recognize why I might.”

“Oh, trust me. I get it. I really, really get it.” Starlight reached out and touched her foreleg. “Mind telling me what’s going on, farm girl?”

“Well…” Applejack shrugged and looked Starlight over. She seemed earnest. It was hard not to imagine a brighter-eyed, younger Starlight sitting here, but then again… it was hard to imagine that Starlight wearing this open expression. “It’s dreams. I’m not sure, exactly, if I can call them nightmares.”

“Ah. Losing sleep?”

Applejack shook her head. “Not exactly. I’m sleepin’ fine. But the dreams don’t leave like they should when I get to work. They kinda stay with me for a few days. It’s almost every night, now. An’ they’re connected, too.” She shuddered. “Tellin’ a story. It ain’t always a bad one, but last night was awful. I just can’t shake it.”

“That sounds like a lot of stress to heap up on the normal stress of running a farm.”

“Ain’t that the truth. And now I’m I’m feelin’ things when I’m awake!”

Starlight blinked. “Excuse me?”

Applejack cringed. Shit. “I got a weird chill earlier when the map was showing us Henosia. Jus’ an overactive imagination.” She thought she felt the wind again, and shook her head violently. “I’d honestly rather not talk ‘bout it. It’s bad enough normally, but as soon as I get to thinkin’... You think there’s something goin’ on?

“Perhaps. But I think you should--”

Twilight clapped and cast a simple amplification on her voice. “Girls! It’s time for us to get started. I want to have this explained in time to get a few letters off before I leave.”

Starlight and Applejack exchanged a look that promised there would be a “later” and turned towards Twilight.

X. (B) Beautiful the Hooves of Those Who Travel Far

Applejack had just gotten home when she felt the first waves of drowsiness. She’d spent hours at Twilight’s, figuring out what supplies they would need before they arrived in the north, arranging for ponies to keep track of their obligations while they were gone, and generally enjoying a rare chance to catch up.

Sleep pulled at her, but it wasn’t time yet. Dinner would be on soon--it was Apple Bloom’s turn to cook, and she’d been getting better and better. She wanted to experience it before she left for Henosia in the morning.

She wondered, as she stepped through the front door and smelled Bloom’s cooking and heard her rough voice singing, what the others were doing. Sometimes she wondered about others, and how they might be different. As a filly she had wondered what their houses must be like all the time, what their dinners were like and their beds were like, how the views from their bedroom windows differed.

Would Twilight Sparkle eat dinner like a normal pony, or would she wait for it to be served a course at a time? Would Spike come back down from his new home on the mountain every night to sup at her table? Would she eat the same simple fare that she had enjoyed as a librarian and student, or would only the finer sorts of things satisfy a Princess?

Mac lounged on the couch.

“How was it after I left?” Applejack asked him.

He grunted. “Foolishness.”

She smirked. “Well, looks like I got lucky, didn’t I?”

“You did. What’s the news?”

“Adventure,” Applejack said, and smiled wider. “I mean, if you can believe it. Looks like Twilight’s map is callin’ me abroad.”

“It’s been awhile. A year or so?”

“Don’t remember the last time,” she said. “But there it goes. Gonna head out in the mornin’, sometime after breakfast.”

“How long?” he asked, stretching.

She shrugged, and her smile faded. “I’m really not sure, Mac. Can’t say for sure. Until the job is done, I suspect.”

“So, for the duration?” he said.

She almost laughed. It had been an old joke between them that any indeterminable time would become forever if you weren’t careful, that the only answer that mattered was whether or not it would end. Joke was the wrong word. It wasn’t very funny. It was just something you thought about out loud when you were far too young to be worried about keeping a roof over your head in the country.

“Yeah, looks like. At least two weeks, I think. Maybe more. I hope not more. At that rate, I’ll miss our prime harvesting time.”

“And leave it to me.”

“Which, of course, I can’t do. Can’t trust somebody as slow as Big Ole Macintosh to handle everything on his lonesome.”

He rolled his eyes. “I make good time. If we need to, I’ll hire a couple of townsponies to take up the slack if I need to, but if there was ever a time for you to be gone... “

“It’d be now, yeah,” Applejack said and made a “scooch” sort of gesture with her front hoof. Mac laughed and moved over and she flopped down on the couch. “I mean, things are just goin’ well and the farm’s got those fancy machines now. Hardly need me around.”

Mac snorted and she saw him close his eyes and settle into the couch. “Nah.”

“You don’t think?”

“Nah, we need you. We need somepony who can whip the hooves into gear and keep our spirits up. That sorta thing.”

“I s’pose.”

Dinner was nice. Apple Bloom was smug as she served it, and her older siblings praised her.

Afterwards, Applejack sat with her on the porch on two matching rocking chairs. Macintosh had turned in for the night, and whatever would come tomorrow, Applejack looked forward to the taste of cream soda and the nice nightly breeze blowing along the porch.

“Dinner was good,” she said as Apple Bloom opened her bottle.

“I know, you said it ‘bout a dozen times.”

Applejack chuckled. “Jus’ proud of you, that’s all. How was school? Talkin’ about the farm occupied all the visitin’ earlier.”

Bloom shrugged and offered her glass bottle. Applejack put hers forward and they made a soft clink as they connected.

“It was good,” she said. “I like my new school. We were learnin’ about how to write essays today.”

Applejack took a sip and rocked her chair. “Were you? How’s that comin’?”

“It’s kinda hard. You can’t write like you talk.”

“That you can’t, not all the time. Y’know, Mac was always good at stuff like that. He’d be glad to help you if you get stuck. That an’ science.”

“What were you good at?” Bloom asked, as she too started to rock.

This was about as Apple as it got, Applejack reflected. She and Mac had sat out with rocking chairs and cream soda since they were Bloom’s age. Her parents and she daresay their parents did the same. There was an unbroken chain of relaxation from then to now, a celebration of the quiet hour after dinner, after work, when nothing needed to be done just yet. It made her feel warm.

“Physical Education,” she said flatly, and Bloom giggled. “Public Speakin’ too, actually. I really liked history when I was your age.”

“History is hard,” Bloom whined. “Too much stuff to memorize.”

“Yeah, I remember those lists of dates. Drove me up a wall at first. But you’ll handle it.”

They lapsed back into silence for a bit.

The sun was almost gone now. The time between her and departure was a thin sliver or life, the thinnest you could slice off of the whole. Tomorrow, breakfast and then… and then Elsewhere, she guessed. They’d at least stopover in the Empire first. Beyond that was far too many question marks for her to be too eager.

And beneath it all, beyond it all, there was… Dreaming. The other one. The Applejack in the clutches of those horrible beasts. She shuddered. No answers had been forthcoming. Twilight had written to a few professionals but none had responded yet. This trip would delay her answer even further. How long would this go on? How long would she have to endure night after night of living beside this other-Her in a world she recognized only as a twisted and heartbreaking version of her own?

She did not know what to feel about any of it. The other Applejack was different. She was… she was not an unbroken whole, and living in her head made one uneasy.

“You alright? Thinkin’ ‘bout your trip?”

Applejack blinked and looked over at Bloom.

“Who told you? I was about to.”

“Nah, I could hear you when I was makin’ dinner.”

Applejack shrugged. “Fair. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone. You’ll be alright, you an’ Mac?” She pointed her bottle at her younger sister. “He can take care of himself but sometimes he gets kinda lonely. Make sure you keep his spirits up.”

“Do my best, AJ, swear it.”

“‘S what I’d expect,” Applejack replied and leaned back in her chair. “It’s what I’d do.”

XI. (A) The Fires of Perdition

She awoke suspended, her legs stiff and sore from the ropes. They had attached several drips to her flank, her side, her chest, her neck--all of them running through chains attached to shackles above her hooves. Every movement possible would upset two dozen different hanging ropes or chains, for they hung down like a weeping willow’s branches. Like spanish moss, Applejack through groggily, that’s what it was like. Like Spanish moss made of iron and sinew.

She did not make a sound. Groans would only draw them to her. She knew this. The servants of the Tower hunted by sound, and the jailors would no doubt operate by the same motive force. She imagined what they might be like. Would it be Artifcers? Or was there some intermediary class between the butchers and their inventory of parts and canvas?

As her mind came back, Applejack began to really examine her surroundings. Below the forests of restraints, there was a vast darkness cut across by slivers of light cast through windows on the walls. At least she assumed it was so. She couldn’t see the walls very well through the chains and her fellow prisoners.

For there were more of them. In the dark, in the chains, there were a dozen ponies and griffons suspended above the void. The nearest to her was a young unicorn colt probably only half her age. He groaned softly, startling her into painful movement that she regretted, and then strained against his shackles for a few seconds. He could not keep up his struggle for much longer, for it soon proved too much for him and he went limp.

He was only a few ponylengths away. She had the absurd idea of swinging herself until she could reach out and touch him, but the slightest jerk of her leg sent agony running through her. Her body was so stiff. She imagined the needles coming out, all at once, pulling out, and she felt sick.

Welcome to the Tower, Applejack, she thought and ground her teeth.

Consciousness is an elusive thing.

It comes. It goes. It is soft and pliable to the touch in ways that it should not be, and yet is. Among the chains, Applejack’s mind was like a beach, and time like waves that took a bit at a time. The hours dug causeways in her consciousness, stealing it from her. She was less a pony and more the sensation of suspension, of dull pain and cottonmouth. If there was water, she might have felt alive, but there was no water and so she felt like meat in a Griffon’s freezer.

The Tower was cold. Not just cool, like one finds in well ventilated buildings, but cold. Piercing cold. Like cold knives slipping under her skin, like they slipped them in and sewed her up after and the icy blades were trapped inside.

Her sight would swim. Sometimes she thought she saw things moving in the inky black. Sometimes she didn’t see it at all, the pit, but instead she saw a brightly lit room with piles of twisted metal and beds coated in dried blood, or what she thought was dried blood, and robed piles of twitching parts walked beneath. Sometimes she looked down and saw fields, verdant and whole. Sometimes she saw the last battle and the winding gorge and the bridge. Once, Applejack saw a hipbone rising out from her bowl of stew and Celestia was laughing from across the table about the price of grain and the price of coal, the price of oil and the price of apples. A bit for a bushel of oil, a bit for a bushel of blood, she laughed and Applejack slurped up her soup and then she came up out of the nightmare into the other nightmare, the one that had the chains and the needle drips, and then she stumbled out of that one, swinging, into the last and worst nightmare, the one where the earth was green and Fluttershy’s eyes still worked and Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville was still of Ponyville and alive.

She thought sometimes that she saw a figure be brought down from the hanging ropes. They would be dislodged and descend like the gods of ancient ponies, like they were gingerly stepping down from heaven. Slowly, slowly, and then they were beyond her sight in the darkness, and they did not come into the small lit places below.

Sometimes she heard things, but she did not want to hear them.

Sometimes she heard the grinding of far off gears. Sometimes she heard the laughter of children. Once, she heard Twilight Sparkle lecturing in a shining hall.

Eventually, they took her down.

Applejack lay on a bed now, somewhere else in the Tower of Cogs. There was no telling how high up she was. Ten stories? Thirty? Fifty? How tall was the abomination anyhow? How much of the sky did it contaminate with its smog and grinding?

They had cut her down. Literally, she had woken to red glaring eyes in the dark and the sound of saw blades as they cut the ropes and chains and she collapsed into the grasp of large clawed hands made of some sort of surface unlike any she had known. She had been brought here through a long darkness and then a brief terrible light. She had been given food and water, and it was all clean and filling.

There had been no questions. There had been, in fact, no strength for questions. What would she have asked, had she possessed the will? Nothing. The Cogs did not answer questions. Others answered their questions.

Her kit had not been returned to her. She was sorry to see it go, but much of it was replaceable. The spurs, for instance, were a bit a dozen, though hers had been of high quality. The food was a concern, but she could steal or trade services for more. The only things she needed were the duster and the maps, and the duster she could at least find something to replace with.

Mac’s maps. Applejack shuddered. There was no telling where they were or what had happened to them. For all she knew they’d been burnt.

Just thinking about it almost broke her exhausted, numb horror enough to bring her to tears. Gone.

She waited for someone to collect her, but nothing walked through the door of her spartan cell. In the meantime, as her strength returned, Applejack waited.

Her room was bare, almost entirely bare except for the emblem of a cog emblazoned in relief on one wall. There was a single bed, small but not too small, and a table just large enough for an empty bowl and a carafe of water. She had already drank half of the water in blind greed.

There were hoofsteps outside. At least, she assumed what made them were hooves.

It might have been heroic to think that one would go down swinging, that one might could spit in the eye of the interrogator and declaim. It was a sweet if not seemly thing to dream in the intervening seconds between hearing and seeing that she might could ambush her jailor at the door, overpower him, and push out into the corridor beyond. She imagined herself fighting through the winding, circular stairs, one at a time and unstoppable and…

The door opened behind her. She had not moved.

The newcomer did not introduce itself. She felt cold iron scoop her out of the bed and she squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to see anything.

Applejack knew better. Not everything was in darkness, and she had see the halls. One did not walk in the tower past the first story. One was taken along--one connected to a rail and slid along by way machinery. She would be hard pressed to survive just walking. She could not escape as she was and she knew it.

The trip was long, she thought. Time was hard to pin down. Even with the influx of food and water, she was still hazy.

But eventually she was deposited in another room, and she did not open her eyes as her jailor left. She did not want to see them.

She also needed a clear head to think.

Any hopes of that were dashed as a familiar voice spoke from above her. “Ah, it’s you. They’ve found you, then.”

XII. (A) Forgiveness Is A Worthless Emotion / They'll Drag You Through the Mud As Long As You Let Them

When did someone stop being your friend? Where did that connection sever? When they died, were they still your friend, or had you lost even the connection with no one on the other side to pick up the slack?

Applejack hadn’t put much thought into it. She hadn’t had the luxury of putting too much thought into anything until recently.

Twilight had been her friend, and Twilight was her friend. From the Elements of Harmony to the parting of the ways at Ghastly Gorge, they had been friends. Once, what felt like a whole world ago, there had been six of them. Some she had seen since Ghastly Gorge. Rainbow she’d seen quite a bit. Rarity, from a distance. Rumors of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. But Twilight? Nothing. Nothing after that last heated conversation. It had been best that way.

“You’re alive,” Applejack said. “I mean, I think you’re alive. Gods, you alive in there?”

Twilight was suspended from a jungle of tubes and machines jutting from walls. Her limbs were splayed out with oozing holes bored into them for wires to gain passage to somewhere inside. Her face glowed, not naturally but as if lights were there right under the skin, and sometimes they flashed off. She smiled, and Applejack saw some occasional flashing down her throat.

“For a given value of alive. Yes.”

Her voice was… off. That was the best Applejack could do. It was off. It was like Twilight was talking through a soup can.

“You’re supposed to be dead. More ‘n that, part of the whole… the whole reason for all of this is on account of you dying. What the hell? What th’ actual hell, Twilight? Why couldn’ta you stayed dead like you were supposed to?”

The more-or-less crucified Twilight had no answer. Applejack wondered if she could even shrug.

“No,” Applejack said before she could think of something. “Lemme guess: this ain’t your idea.”

“It wasn’t my intention, but there are parts in here that I’m sure were originally mine,” Twilight said lightly. “I know the pumps keeping my lungs working were based around some of my designs, if that helps.”

“It don’t help,” Applejack growled.

“I didn’t think it would. How did you get caught, AJ?”

It was stupid, but hearing Twilight say “AJ” in that twisted, strange voice of hers--hearing her say it at all, with that tone of familiarity and exasperation, just sent her into a rage. She could feel her chest clenching and her pulse spike. She ground her teeth together.

“Tradin’,” she said, reining herself in. “Figured I could grab a few supplies, only settlement around happened to be a Cog-town. Does it matter? It already happened.”

“And now the Cogs have what they want. Do they know?”

Applejack spat. “You think they woulda let me stay in one piece if they knew? I’d be all cut up and dissected.”

Twilight frowned. “Vivisected, technically, as you would still be alive. And you know the whole, ah, spitting thing doesn’t work as well inside? It’s just going to stay there until it dries.”

“Why the hell are you alive? I liked it better with you dead, I think.”

Twilight recoiled as if stung. The machines, the tubes and wires, let out a groan as she moved. Guess that answered the question of how mobile she was. Something about the pain in that face, the way her brow furrowed and her mouth fell open and all the little lights inside, infuriated Applejack. She took one step towards the monstrosity, and then another.

“That’s right. When you were dead at least some of this made sense, Twi. Can I call you Twi? You got no problem callin’ me AJ, after all!” She pointed a hoof, and Twilight shrank from it. The machines stopped her from fleeing. “Don’t act all chummy with me, Sparkle. Don’t you dare. Not after what happened. Not after the Gorge, and your Gardens. Not after Bloom and them and what you did and what you didn’t do and--don’t you dare!”

“I…”

Applejack reared back, and then stopped. She let herself down and stepped away.

The room was circular, banded around the middle with a window that allowed a view of the world below. There wasn’t much worth seeing, but she saw it anyway as she walked over to and sat on her haunches. What was the point? Alive she may be, but Twilight was little more than a voice attached to a machine. Weren’t worth hurting herself kicking a ghost.

Around them was desolation. The Pinnacle towered above everything else, rivalling any other tower before or after the collapse. Whatever there had been here before, it was here no longer. No trees, no grass. Sickly yellow-red dirt and water the color of sewage cut into narrow channels that fed into cooling pools. Industry sprawled out from the tower, a hundred factory-temples full of twisted things building in darkness they knew not what. Beyond that the row houses, all of them identical and all of them brutal in their conception. Beyond that the shanty town of scavenged iron and some paltry attempts at irrigation in the mud-wastes. Everything was obscured by smog. She could see shapes, not definite places or even ponies, but mere suggestions. But she knew what sort of things the Cogs made and what sort of ponies they preferred.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t choose to be alive,” Twilight--or whatever this thing was--said behind her.

Applejack shrugged.

“What do you want?” she said. “Why am I in here with you?”

“Because She knows we were friends.”

“She just thinks we’ll go back at it, huh? Spill out all my secrets to you?”

“No.”

Applejack shrugged again. “Whatever. I’ll find my way out, and then it won’t matter.”

“I hadn’t ever expected to see you. Any of you.”

“Ain’t it hilarious that the one you see is me?” Applejack said. She smirked out the window. To be fair, it was darkly funny.

She pressed a hoof to the glass. A part of her wondered if she couldn’t just… break out. Keep kicking until it cracked. Fall. It would be less than a minute of falling. She’d be dashed to bits. Her secrets and Twilight’s secrets would die just like that. The Cogs wouldn’t get a thing from her. That final mistake would be corrected.

“It’s not funny at all.”

“I’m surprised that you’re surprised,” Applejack said as she turned and leaned on the glass. Twilight was watching her. “I mean, that you’re surprised I ain’t thrilled to see you.”

“I… My last memory of you is hugging you goodbye, so yes.”

She ignored the way that churned her insides and kept talking. “Physically yeah. But you made a mistake that day, Twilight. A big mistake. Hell, you made more than one. We’re all fucked because you couldn’t stop yourself and you couldn’t stop the others. Couldn’t stop her, and now she’s got you locked up. How is Glimmy doin’ these days?”

Twilight Sparkle looked away. “She visits sometimes.”

Being furious took a lot of work. She was starting to feel tired. “Well, good, ‘least thataway you two nutjobs can have some solidarity over, I dunno, fuckin’ with nature.”

“I tried!” Twilight cried out, and there was more groaning of machines. She stopped and hacked up… something for a moment, and then kept on. “I tried, Applejack. You were there. You know I did what I could. I didn’t know! I didn’t have enough information.”

“Your point? Why should I give a flying shit what you knew or why you did anything?” Applejack raised a weary eyebrow at her and then looked elsewhere.

They didn’t say anything for a long while. Applejack didn’t want to talk, and Twilight obviously didn’t know what to say. Maybe it was best that way.

Eventually, she didn’t know exactly how long it had been,

XIII. The Silent Witnesses of Evil Deeds

Ponies can be more than one thing. They were almost never simple creatures, and Applejack knew that. Ponies had looked at her and saw a farmer, and those ponies were right. But they weren't completely right. They certainly weren't right now. She had been a farmer once, but she had also been a sister and a caretaker and an organizer. She had been a builder and breaker, an athlete, a hero, a frustrating obstacle, an honest friend, an obstinate sumbitch.

Twilight Sparkle had been a lot of things as well.

The age of technology had come swiftly and with fanfare fit for an age's worth of kings. The World was Changing, so said all the signs and all the papers. The world was changing, whispered the outlaws over watered-down beer and the socialites between sips of cognac. The world is changing, moaned the farmers in their dustbowls and the fishing trawler crews in the oil spills.

She'd gotten tractors. Ponyville had grown into a town, and then into a city. Suddenly the open land wasn't open. Suddenly the commons weren't common. Suddenly. Suddenly. She'd been rich. She'd been deliriously rich, rich beyond the wildest dreams of any of her kin since the herds had settled in the now frigid north. Gold bits had fallen from the sky like rain. Disaster could not touch those who could buy entire villages, and life had become easier. The whole world knew about Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack's cutie mark was a household brand. The world changed.

If she'd seen the collapse coming... well, she hadn't.

And who had, really? Those on the margins. The louts in late night dives. The youths kicking patched up balls in the alleys. They might have seen it. The crazy pony she'd passed sometimes on the corner of Sparkle and Yakkistan Avenue, the one in rags with the mouth-written sign that said that the end was nigh, the one with the cracked horn and the bloodshot eyes. Truth from the mouths of foals and psychos.

It'd be nice to say that the fate of the wild preacher had been a mystery, but Applejack had seen him roasting on a Godspeaker fire a year ago, which wasn't fitting or unfitting. It was just a thing that happened.

Twilight Sparkle. Had she seen it? Who knew? Who cared, for that matter? Applejack cared, but in a half-ways sort of caring, the kind where she could only care in bursts of fury and then was exhausted and let it go.

That was more or less how their visits went. Applejack would be brought to Twilight and do and say nothing as a general rule. Twilight would try to talk sometimes, but as days went on she lapsed into silence. "Days" was an only passably useful term here. The industrial sprawl's fumes and the cloud cover often made telling what time it was difficult, and Applejack could only guess. The tower had few other windows, so it wasn't as if she could tell from the room they had given her.

Servants and servitors would wander outside of her cell, and she would hear them. But she only saw the ones that moved her occasionally.

Sometimes she didn't even see those. Sometimes there was a chime, and her door would swing open and there would just be an elevator waiting, the inside ugly and looking hastily-assembled. Functional but forbidding, and Applejack couldn't even be bothered to worry if her skin would catch on the uneven, jagged edges.

She stopped counting days after five. They weren't really days.

"So, Twilight, tell me about all the lights," she said one time when she was brought to the empty room.

She had laid out on the floor to try and take a nap, but found the room far too cold for that and the floor far too hard. Nothing better to do was forthcoming, and she could only manage a helpless stoicism for so long.

Twilight seemed startled and cautious. For all the world, even with the horror of her new state, she looked like a kicked puppy offered a treat.

"Starlight and Sunset were the ones who managed to complete some of my old work," she said softly. The distorted echo of her voice was still grating. "I had played with the idea of using magitech to restart brain function, but had abandoned it. I just didn't... I didn't know enough." The last bit came out strangled.

"Looks like a theme."

"Yes. I didn't want to go to the lengths of testing something so dangerous. My students didn't share my opinion." She smiled wistfully. "They didn't share a lot of my opinions. After I died, Starlight found my body in the Grotto."

"Carted your decaying ass all the way here. That's a pleasin' image, there."

"Yes. I was the last project they worked on together."

Applejack blinked. That was news to her. "So they ain't working together up there?"

Twilight shook her head, and Applejack shuddered at the sounds of servos. "No. They were able to restore brain function, but my body was mostly a lost cause. I hadn't had enough time to rot, not as long as I'd hoped. The screaming and crying got to Sunset. Starlight added more sedatives because the sound grated on her ears. Sunset left after I was coherent."

Applejack whistled. "Perfect. Now she's out wandering. That's wonderful."

"I don't know where she is. Starlight doesn't know either. She won't talk about Sunset. She only asks me questions."

Applejack shifted till she was laying on her side. "What sort of questions?"

Twilight hummed. The sound was like a synthesizer. It was ridiculous and it poked at Applejack's anger.

"Technical ones, mostly. The last three visits she's been focused on my research with soul gems and power systems. Metallurgy, early on. Alchemy, but that was brief. Once a week we play chess. She doesn't ask me questions when we play. We just play."

"Sounds nice."

"It's okay," Twilight said. She avoided looking at Applejack.

"So you just sit here."

"All the time," Twilight replied flatly. "I look at the windows sometimes. She gave me a video feed. I asked and then the next day I just had one. It's streamed into my eye. I can see the town if I want."

"That garbage heap ain't a town," Applejack said. She rolled over.

"It's, uh. It's technically a town."

"Whatever."

Another day.

"So, brain dead and then not. How was the other side?"

Twilight's servos whirred again. "I don't remember anything. I died, and then I woke up screaming."

"Right peachy. No hellfire, no Tartarus? No happy fields? No friends and loved ones?"

"No."

"Figures."

"She tell you about anything that's happening?"

Twilight sighed. "Yes. Bits and pieces. I know about all of our friends."

Applejack snorted. "Funny way of puttin' that."

Twilight blinked. "What do you mean?"

"What's a friend, anyhow? And who says that they're mine? Or yours, for that matter? You think they'd greet you?"

"But..." Twilight hesitated far longer than she should have, as if she were trying to read something written by a drunk.

"We friends?" Applejack pressed.

"I... I thought we were," Twilight said quietly, and then she refused to say another word for the rest of the day until the servitors came for Applejack. She said something sounded like, "goodbye" as the door shut.

I. (A)Everyday she gets a little weaker

Dust. Applejack felt she was qualified to write books on dust now. And you could write them--you could write tomes on the qualities of dust and ash, scorched earth and mud.

Where would she begin? Ah. A perfect place: It never goes away. You never get rid of it. Try to wash it away and you'll make more mud.

It comes with the howling wind, riding it like Spike used to ride on Twilight's back, perched as he was--and it stings your eyes, fills your ears, violates your mane, fills your mouth. It sticks to your teeth and it fouls your tongue. It clogs your nose and leaves you miserable and teary eyed.

Applejack was tired of it.

Applejack was tired. Period.

Perhaps it might have been easier, had everything been featureless. The advantage of a flat, featureless plain was that one could conveniently ignore it One could, if one so chose, pretend that it was false. A dream. Not a nightmare, because that was dramatic and dramatic things took energy and she had none. None at all.

A flat plain of nothing would have been easier to traverse, as well. The hills were still there, and they still took time and effort, and with the air the way it was, she had less and less of both.

The hills north of old Ponyville had been forested, once. They were still, in a purely technical sense. There were things like trees sitting on some of the crowns of the old rolling hills. They were jagged, pointy sorts of things, but she still felt that they counted as trees.

Near a dry creek bed, Applejack stopped to take a sip from her canteen and rest her legs.

The map came out, as it always did whenever she left home. Maps were another thing that Applejack felt she could write sermons on. She'd always loved them, how they kept everything fixed and coherent. Nowadays she horded them because they were vital. Maps were a kind of gold. They told you everywhere that ponies could run to. They told you where water might be, where food might be, where these things would most definitely not be. Word of mouth was only so good. Ponies forgot. Ponies remembered halfway and that little bit they left out might be an accident... or might not be an accident. She'd been lied to more times than she cared to count. She'd been led astray innocently even more times. But maps? Maps didn't lie. They were just wrong. The lack of intentionality was comforting.

She'd made good progress. Not amazing progress, no, but decent. As good as could be expected. Mac's chickenscratch was here and there, and she followed his notes. Left supplies at the crossroad near Golden Dawn village. Ponies on the river ain't friendly. Do not try to talk or trade. Provincial hospital mostly empty at Meadow Green but it's sturdy. Local doctor says that he's still open for business. Willing to trade in kind (?)

There were trails marked out too, though these she trusted less than his notes. Mac hadn't touched this map nor walked these paths in a year or three, at least.

A few more hours. She could manage a few more hours.

II. (B)The Beauty

Applejack rocked on the porch and enjoyed the falling sun.

The days had a way of feeling shorter, as the harvest wrapped up. So much to do, so little time remaining to do it! But she wasn't concerned.

Once, she had been. Not so long ago, Applejack's farm had been paradoxically successful and on the edge of ruin. It was often the way of things. You accepted it. Good years were good years, but you saved far more than other's expected because you knew that good years never last. A bumper crop is just a bumper crop. It won't save you from a string of bad years, and it won't remove the possibility of abysmal failure next year. Nothing did.

Rains fail. Fire takes what it can. Insects devour, vermin infest. There's not enough help or there's too much unskilled help. Plant too soon, plant too early. Plant on time and you're still riding on the edge, confident but only by practice, knowing that nothing is set in stone and nothing is certain.

That had been then. Now? Well. Now she still held possibility in the back of her mind, and by no means did she discount the power of flood and fire, but no longer did Applejack find herself lying awake at night, thinking of that power. No longer did she nervously inquire as to the books and harp on Rainbow Dash for more rain because she could almost hear the crack of flames.

Ponyville had changed.

Got bigger, for one. Got fuller. More ponies meant more laborforce, and more hooves to the road meant more left over for Applejack and the other farmers. Meant more mouths to feed, too. So she'd expanded. Hell, they'd all expanded, all the real farms, the ones that weren't just an acre and a house. It had been a risk but it had paid off.

Then came the machines. Applejack had heard of the machines as a foal, but the great hulking beasts of iron had always been a far-off prospect. They were a thing for other ponies in other towns in other whens and wheres. Her father had shown her pictures in the catalogues that filled their mailbox every month, scrunched up and full of vibrant color. As a foal, Applejack had delighted in the roaring noises her father had made, trying to imitate what he imagined the machines might sound like.

But now they prowled her fields, driven by the hired help and her brother and sometimes herself.

The machines had come to the Carrots first. Applejack and Bloom had watched them wheeled up to their neighbor's gates with awe and bafflement, and given customary waves as the Carrot's matriarch had come out to inspect her newest arrivals. With bated breath, they had watched the marriage of simple machine and glowing magic come to life and it did not roar, not as her father had imagined, not with the fire of combustion and smoke but with the sharp whine and hum of thaumic lightning.

And now the beasts of iron hummed and whined on her own land. It had been only a matter of time. Two good seasons in a row had certainly helped.

Productivity was up, money was flowing in, and demand for Sweet Apple Acres Cider was high. So high that that Mac and herself spent as much time doing business as they did farming, and soon she suspected they'd be doing very little actual farming.

Which... well, now that she thought of it, and what would entail... Left her a little empty.

III. (A)You Called Me Your Hyacinth Girl and I Hated It

Applejack is shrouded along her lonely walk in the world of ash and quiet.

The duster is old. She isn't sure how old, only that it is in fact worn and aged. The original owner was probably long gone. She herself had received it fourth or fifth hand from an uncle whose name had slipped her mind in the long years. She remembered that she had liked him as a foal, but his face and everything else were mysteries. It had spent most of its time in her care hidden away in a closet in the house at Sweet Apple Acres, gathering dust and waiting. They also serve, who only stand and wait, her brother had grumbled once, and unbidden his voice carried along the wind.

Her duster coat was the only possession she had besides her hat, her map, and a few supplies. She was almost never parted from it, even when sleeping. In the day it was a shield against staring eyes and the sun which burned through the thin sky, a ward against slings and arrows, a bulwark against putrid rain and dust storms. In the night it was her bed, blanket, pillow and tent. If she were out under the sky, she would, no could not be parted from it.

The wind blew and kicked up sand. She cursed and pulled up her bandanna to cover her nose and mouth, adjusted her hat, and strode into the mess.

It wasn't that uncommon, areas of desertification. Unnatrual, sure, but not uncommon. One found them without regard to climate in Equestria. This one was in the middle of the northern forests.

It was also not on Big Mac's map. Thankya kindly, she thought with a bit of venom.

The wind died for a moment, and she made the most of the respite. She could see where the salt and sand ended ahead as the land rose.

Halfway across, and the wind returned from the right. She stumbled, but mere wind could not break Applejacks' stride. It could not before the Waning, it could not now, it never would. Even without the Earth's blessings, she was strong.

Consider her, looking as much like a living flag of black canvas as she was a mare, plodding on three legs as one clutches the patched hat to her head. Consider her stride and her strength, the hard emerald of her eyes shaded by her father's memento. Consider the weight on her left hind leg, dragging just slightly against the parched, drained earth, leaving a quickly-covered trail behind.

But soon she is beyond the waste and back into the hills as they slope upward. She sighs and sits well away from that damnable place and has a single drink of water. It's all she can afford, but it quiets the dryness in her throat and the dryness in her bones. A mare can get addicted to the feeling of creaking, wandering with little water and the sun high over head. A mare could get to enjoy the mindless stumbling into death, thanatopic and vague like the heights of devil-grass high or the pits of whiskey nights. It was the kind of joy a foal discovered pulling at a scab, a destructive, miserable sort of joy, a delight in the varied simulcra of vileness.

She tries not to enjoy it.

There were still days left. But not many, thankfully. Tomorrow she would have to be quick of hoof, and she prayed the world had not changed much from her brother's careful mapping since last he passed that way, because she could ill afford to be caught dallying through some damn-fool thing like a patch of salt flat or a null zone in the presence of the Tower of Cogs.

Scowling, she gets up and continues on.

IV. (B)We Raised Ourselves Up From Nothing

Applejack lay awake in bed, waiting.

Her dreams had grown strange of late. Not exactly like the nightmares of her foalhood, full of fire and monsters. Not like the ones she had as an older mare, of debt and forgotten obligation. They were not exactly pleasant, these dreams. They did not come every night, but she usually knew when she laid down for the night when one would visit her. It would start as a prickling in the back of her neck, like a set of claws gently touching her. Then, slowly, like a hangover-fog, an awareness of something or perhaps of someone right beside her, right behind her, right in front of her. But she never saw anything.

What was it? imagination. She'd already decided that. She remembered a conversation--

"You got a moment, Twi?"

"For you? Always! What's on your mind?"

"Terrible sorry to barge in on you unannounced like this," Applejack muttered, playing with her hat. It was a stubborn, foolish ritual, but it helped in a way. "Jus' figured you were the best one to talk to, and 'sides I ain't seen you in a minute."

"It's quite alright. I was actually about to take a break," Twilight said with a smile. "Was going to have some tea out on the balcony. Care to join?"

Applejack smirked. "Sounds nice."

They adjourned, and spoke of odds and ends while Twilight summoned one of her aides and asked him to inform anypony who wandered by that she was busy. Applejack talked plenty, but as she found herself doing more and more as the years went by, she found herself simply considering.

The years had been kind to Twilight. She'd explained how aging would go for her after ascension a few times, but frankly Applejack hadn't understood her past the introduction and doubted anyone else had either. You could see perhaps a year or so marked out in her face but otherwise she wasn't so different from the Twilight who had waltzed into her orchards a decade ago. What was different wasn't physical. Twilight carried herself differently now.

It wasn't as if the academic turned small town librarian had vanished. In rare, warm moments, the younger Twilight would shine through in some unrestrained fit of laughter or spontaneous smile. Applejack found she rather liked this new if not improved Twilight just as much as she had always loved the old one. And they weren't so dissimilar. She wore power well, and Applejack, who held authority to high standards, was satisfied.

Tea arrived and they settled into the rhythm of slow sipping and waiting. Twilight hadn't said anything, but she had supplied a cup more suited to use by hooves, and Applejack silently appreciated it. Unicorn magic sometimes unnerved her, but she respected it.

"What's been on your mind?" Twilight said at last, smiling her most Celestia-like smile. "Though, I hope it's not so bad, or else I'll feel a bit guilty for the excuse to see you before the weekly get-together."

Applejack smiled. "I wouldn't say it's bad," she responded with a wave of her free hoof. "Not bad. Just, not exactly good. How much do you know about, uh, dreams?"

Twilight's brows raised. She hummed to herself for a moment. "Dreams? Lots of things. I know what the psychologists might say, from a few different angles. I know how Luna navigates and understands them, at least in theory. I've never really mastered dreamwalking, though I can attempt it. And of course, I know my own dreams."

Applejack nodded. "Right, I figured you'd cover all the bases. I'm guessin' you need the whole story to know where to start?"

"Probably," Twilight said. "Nightmares? You said it wasn't something to bad. If it's, ah, uncomfortable in nature, I can assure you I will speak to nopony of it. And of course, you know that dreams are just that: dreams. What we do in them can be very significant, but not those things are amoral actions. I mean, they have no real force of..." she sighed. "Sorry, I'm tripping over my words. Weird or bad dreams do not mean one is weird or bad, if that makes sense."

"I getcha. Nah, it ain't that, so you can rest easy. It's..."

Applejack took a sip of tea to stall for time.

She didn't know rightly how to explain it. What was there to explain? How did one begin to explain the internal workings of one's self?

All at once, she guessed. "I've been havin' awful strange dreams, Twi. They go together, I think. Like a story, that's what it's like. They're dark and sad, and I don't rightly know why I'm havin' them. I don't understand what's goin' on half the time, but I'm me in every one, doin' things I don't understand and thinkin' things I'd never think. It's been happening for awhile now. First it was just... workin'. I would dream of workin' on the Acres, but it'd be different. Crops are dyin', air is foul. Thought I was just stressed. But then they changed. Folks were leavin', or they were comin' in hoping for greener pastures. There was fighting sometimes and once I woke up cause I dreamed Applebloom got bucked right in the chin and I fell out of the bed. I was furious and anxious all day, trying to convince myself it weren't real, and--"

"Applejack, slow down!" Twilight held up both front hooves, and her wings had splayed out slightly. "Whoa. Whoa. Alright, so you've been having recurring dreams? They have a sort of narrative pattern?"

Applejack nodded. "Right. Like a story."

"How long?"

Applejack shrugged helplessly, and bit her lip. "Ain't really sure, to be honest with you." Rolling her eyes at Twilight's soft chuckle at the use of the word honest, she continued. "Ha, yeah, I know. But..."

"Sorry. I laugh when I'm worried."

"I guess a part of me is glad you're worried, but is it that bad?"

Twilight shook her head. "At the moment? I don't think so. But its obviously caused you distress."

"Yeah," Applejack felt like that deserved a nice spit off to the side as per her custom when frustrated, but spitting off or onto Twilight Sparkle's fancy Royal Balcony seemed a bit... ill-advised. So she drank her tea instead.

"What are these dreams like? This dream world, I mean. You mentioned they'd changed, but focus on the big things. You said something about the farm doing poorly? Something about the air?"

"Right. World's twisted and wrong in there. Sky is sooty half the time, and the land is all blighted. Most of your crop dies, and sickness is rampant. There was never food to go around. I'm not sure how it happened, or if it's just always been that way there one way or another. It's a bleak world, Twi. Violent, hungry, filthy. The rain stinks, for Celestia's sake. It's Ponyville, just... not like any Ponyville I've ever known or wanted to know."

Twilight shuddered. "That sounds awful, Applejack."

"It is. But they've been changing."

"The dreams?" Twilight sighed. "I'm assuming from your being here today that the change isn't a good one."

Applejack weaved her head side to side, vacillating between answers before settling. "Eh. It's a bit of both, I think. Good in some ways, bad in others. Don't have to watch Ponyville rotting like an old mare in bed, for one. That part is nice. But now that me is goin' off somewhere and I'm seeing everywhere else all dyin' and unnatural. It's all tradeoffs. If I had to guess, now that I'm thinking of it? I'd guess it's been a few months."

Twilight propped her head on one hoof. Her eyes were on something, but they weren't on Applejack. She was seeing something, or remembering something, and the way her face tightened in recalled anguish made Applejack wish not to know whatever it was.

At last, Twilight shook her head. "No," she said softly, as if to herself. But Applejack was a mare of action, and her senses were still sharp. "AJ, I think for the moment... I'd like to write Princess Luna, if you don't mind. Recurring dreams are perfectly normal, but you are describing something a bit more thorough than what I've read about, and... hm." She pursed her lips.

Applejack looked away, wanting to fiddle with her hat but refusing to do so. "Is this really worth botherin' her ladyship about?"

"I mean, you did bother me, and I'm a princess," Twilight said with a smile. "Though bother isn't the right word. I'm glad you came to me. Would you be alright with dream walking, if Luna feels it might be useful? Nothing too invasive. Think of it as therapeutic. If it helped, I could do it instead of her. If she hasn't intervened at all in this long..." Twilight shrugged. "I need more."

"Yeah, I thought you might." Applejack put the cup down and slumped in her chair. "Sorry, it's just... I knew you wouldn't have some sorta cure-all, but I guess I hoped."

Twilight rose and crossed the space between them to wrap her friend up in a tight hug. "You're going to be okay, AJ. I promise. We'll figure this out."