Author's Note

Ah, you've made to the final chapter of Fireflower's fanfic that goes beyond the typical oneshots made from before, a Mature one no less on the grounds this chapter deals with heavy subject matters proven to be unsuitable for those ––– you know what? Fk it; you've made it this far so there's no use in me repeating what I had said before in the regarding the stuff I had y'all read since winter.

That being said, I want to say thanks again for putting up with my story this year, especially if you been reading the prequels as well since years ago; I honestly wished that I could have done this sooner, let alone finish it.

One last thing before I sign off, I want to let y'all know since I've gone back to writing a certain character, I had to rely on some media for some inspiration; as a matter of fact, considering that I published stories like these on this website, I can use certain media to embed hyperlinks into text and then some so look out below.

Seeds

All throughout the wayside, there was an abysmal unknown of complete whiteness where only such factors being sights, substances, and scents all lain buried in obscurities best referred to as an ethereal void. The exceptions that had just given out clues to the very location’s identity were surface, sensitivity, and sound: such were the gentle breezes close to comfort anyone that would have crossed their path. Most importantly, the current occupancy itself was above from being simply desolate, let alone abandoned; after all, this bright light all around the way had proven to be outright temporary to say the very least.

That being said though, the location in question was uniform but lacking, spanning across many acreages to and fro like mosaic pieces with no end in sight. They were adorned with footprints caked with inches of mud and blood staining them with the utmost uncanniness in every single step thereof deep within. There was a sink which was filled to the brim with a brackish water bed tinted in a jet black color scheme and a rim with a much livelier color rippling about. Nearby was a toilet made with pristine porcelain textures already oversaturated with numerous crimson streaks as water poured throughout the closed lid. A lone bathtub was also found, adorned with a small pair of pink curtains with a shadow sticking out and about in the process despite remaining stationary.

Lying within them was but only one identity in particular with labored breathing lacerating the atmosphere already: a singular tanned blonde female. She had possessed eyes reminiscent of the green grass blowing in the wind but with the textures of discolored shadows that bled outward against them. The occupant in question had lacked a shred of fabric in any material form whatsoever upon her very body, clad in the cold comforts of the red liquid. The tanned blonde had her left arm already being submerged right in the depths of the otherwise achromatic fluid that was already lacking in solidity. Her freckled skin was moistened with a combination of milk, blood, and sweat; the solution coated its owner in an illustrious sheen from the waist. The occupant’s cleavage barely touched the water as its protruding nubbins were currently facing the adjacent leaky faucet and showerhead themselves.

“PLOP…!” was the sound of the water beholden to by the forces of gravity which had sent it downward in a straightforward direction so to speak; the mere exception being none other than the otherwise gentle overflow from the sedentary latrine right nearby the tanned blonde therein.

After ten minutes of its rhythmicity that made the mundane and paltry pitter–patter precipitation into a dull sonata, she shed a large yet singular tear and began to sing out an aria of sorrow:

A righteous tongue exercises discernment
and it will also pronounce supreme judgement

Blessed heroes who endure temptations
proven they are crowned throughout generations

Providence, fountain of integrity
Providence, sacred fire, please have mercy

Oh how sacred, how serene
how benign, how lovely
O’ lily of purity

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Providence, sacred fire, please have mercy

Oh how sacred, how serene
how benign, how lovely
O’ lily of purity

As soon as the song had finally reached its conclusion, the occupant began to cry, shedding her achromatic tears as they were mixed into the colorful solution. Of all the hands that were used to bury its owner’s face, the left one had a cluster of purple spots surrounding a freshly cut wound that was pouring outwardly. Though the tanned blonde was all alone, she couldn’t bear to see her reflection into the bloody stream of her own making but the sounds in question remained.

“Applejack, was that you singing…?” another voice broke on through, but it didn’t belong to the aforementioned occupant in question; nevertheless, it made the latter jump a bit in confusion, “it’s beautiful...”

“What… who’s there…?” she cried out, this time in alarm as the sheer singular temptation to look outwardly from beyond her place had been instantaneously planted all in due time no less.

Before the tanned blonde dared to open the curtains, the voice in question had replied back, “don’t you remember me…?”

“Huh, who are ya…?” Applejack asked as she finally gave into the opportunity to peek from the curtains; little did she learn, what had stopped before her had made the beating inside skip about in longer intervals than the dripping water: a lone individual standing out and about so freely, “Babs?!”

Another female was now in the ethereal void, a sight that made the occupant more aware of her exposed state thereof due to the whole encounter. Like the tanned blonde in observance, the individual in attendance was also bearing a darker complexion with freckles and glowing green eyes. Of course, such differentiation had begun to take form which had prompted Applejack to cover herself in the most rudimentary of such a manner.

Babs was already bearing the stature of a lonely girl fifteen feet from where the young woman was now standing, the latter wrapped in drapery. A set of straight red hair had been found to be making its way down to the nape of the neck sharing the same length as the tanned blonde. Of the two eyes that the redhead possessed, some cuts and bruises were found to be underneath the right side as it had overwritten her freckles. The lonely Babs’ attire was simple to a fault: a stripy long–sleeved shirt in shades of brown, bottle green jeans, and a pair of wine sneakers. The redhead was nevertheless caked in dried blood from her shoes to the neck, already mixed in with some tears and mucus as of this moment.

“Applejack, I’m cold and hungry; my stomach hurts…” the lonely girl whinged as she clutched her abdomen.

The titular occupant stepped out of the tub and said to Babs, “what do ya mean by that; haven’t your mom and dad been feedin’ ya lately…?”

“No, not anymore; they’re gone and I can’t do anything about it…!” the timid redhead had cried as the tanned blonde went over to comfort the latter immediately, “mommy and daddy have been taken away along with the food they’ve brought home; my siblings been trying to feed us but we ended up losing more money and I–––”

“Shhhh… it’s okay, Ah am here fer ya; please tell me what happened at the big city lately…” the young woman whispered into the young girl’s ear.

Babs attempted to compose herself and started to speak to Applejack at once, “I was running home from school one afternoon and I saw my parents being dragged off by some men in uniform. I tried to tell my sister Sunflower about it but she got to me first; we tried to go get some more groceries together but there was a large explosion at the local shopping district. A curfew was set up afterwards which meant that we couldn’t be able to see them come back, let alone visit them.”

“Ya mean the Oranges, am Ah right; why would they be taken away all of the sudden…?” the young woman had gone and just asked the similar youth, looking the latter in the eyes, “as far as Ah remember, none of those two would have ever dared to even hurt a fly, much less be connected to the bombing itself…”

“That’s was I’ve been trying to say; besides, I’ve been still worried about whether or not they see that: even my friends Smokey and De–Shawn have been asking me about it too…” the redhead answered the tanned blonde slowly but steadily at once.

A moment of silence had now passed between themselves, only to be instantaneously broken by the likes of Applejack herself who then asked Babs immediately, “Smokey… De–Shawn… who were they and how come Ah haven’t heard of them…?”

“To tell you the truth I’ve been meaning to tell you about them on my upcoming vacation away from the big city; so much for seeing you again…” the young girl had said now with a dab of water growing from the corner of her left eye, “by the way, I heard that something happened at the farm: I wish I could’ve gone there to check it; better yet, have you seen my cousin lately…?”

“Ah wish Ah had but even now Ah don’t know where Apple Bloom is or what’s happening to her at all: honestly, Ah can’t even stomach the mere thought of what’s being done to the poor girl; if anything, it should have been happening to me instead of her…!” the very woman wailed alongside her younger counterpart, the former’s tears bleeding into the latter’s dirtied clothing.

Speaking of which, it didn’t take long for the redhead’s tears to gain color matching her tresses and thickness within themselves easily reaching the pink curtains that were refashioned into a modest garment for the tanned blonde with a gruffly snarling hiss, “you’re right, Applejack… it should have been YOU…!”

“What are ya––– Babs?!” the eponymous adult replied in alarm as the closely adjacent youth reached for the former’s neckline all of the sudden with a roar, “what in blazes has gotten into ya?! Yer bleeding faster than honey dripping out from a beehive on a hot midsummer’s day!”

“That’s right I have been bleeding ever since that metal doohickey shot me in the back on that day and it reminded me of how you didn’t stop him, let alone save me…!” the young girl screeched aloud as her facial structure transformed into something bone–chilling: both eyes now had matched hair and blood along with such frothing carnassial triangular dentition in the mouth.

The sight of what was once a timid redhead now replaced by a beastly visage with venom and vexation in her blackened conjunctiva, causing the startled woman to scream, “what in tarnation does this have to do with me…?”

“Isn’t it obvious, dear cousin?!” the straggler once known as Babs began to laugh out loud like a hyena before regaining her frown, “you both had shared the same eye color as me, especially that bucket of bolts that went and killed me alongside others; I was blessed to find that my siblings got away safely but not enough to avoid being slaughtered by shrapnel thanks to him…! To think that I would be killed by something that reminded me of my cousin Apple Bloom, let alone a failure of a sister such as yourself; speaking of sisters, Sunflower in jail and there’s not a damned thing that corpses like me could do about it! Meanwhile, you’re sitting pretty in some hospital because of a fucking baby you gave birth to on account of you sleeping about with these shit snack soldiers stationed down south of the bordering cunt–fucking city! Even the memory of what you tried to do to Apple Bloom pisses me off, even in death; I’ve may have regretted taking part of this damned war, let alone not being given the chance to see her again but at least I didn’t grow up to become people like you!”

“Now that’s a lowdown dirty lie here, missy: those soldiers killed Granny Smith and mah dog Winona, took Apple Bloom away from me, and threw me down on the ground and raped me as Ah had laid there bleeding begging for them to stop this nonsense against me and mah family!” the tanned blonde had interjected but to no avail.

Then, it was the profusely bleeding figure’s turn for a rebuttal, “but it didn’t stop, didn’t it…? People were being killed out there on the streets and in the buildings, including some that went to my school like my friends…! Sunflower had to start selling her body the minute our home went up in flame because of them, and to think that being bullied at school wasn’t enough so to speak! Even worse, when we had learned about what was happening down southward, I couldn’t fucking believe it at all: our entire clan was being besieged by some ungrateful bastards our elders, especially Granny Smith, had once dared to call her neighbors! We even hoped that by teaming up with another company we could’ve been able to save the town and rebuild it but that changed went that machine came by. It was big, red, had glowing green eyes that reminded me of Big Mac, not that it matters anyway since it killed me and all of those people at the Springwheel Foundation before you came along! Ever since that day, I’ve been trapped in that forsaken corpse that used to be me, reliving the same fateful moment in the same damned clothes, suffering the same fucking fate as these cunt licking faggots from overseas! It makes me sick knowing that you survived while everyone else died alongside, crying your heart like a cog in the cuckoo clock on schedule before everything starts up again without notice; but not today, not here, not now, not anymore! At least this encounter has made me feel hungry enough to remember how big and juicy you are; as a matter of fact, I’m going to see to it that by the time that I’m done with you, I can never go hungry again…!”

“Babs, no please don’t take your anger out on me; get back Ah say…!” Applejack struggled out a command in a newly firm tone, “Barbarella Seed, Ah–––”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU LYING BITCH; BABS IS DEAD THANKS TO YOU BUT I’M LOVING IT, OR AT LEAST AS MUCH AS I’M GOING TO BE ONCE I EAT YOUR FLESH…!” the bloodstained redhead interspersed loudly as she had shoved the woman back into the bathtub with overwhelming force.

With the tanned blonde back into the scarlet water, she could look at the smirk on the face belonging to what had once been referred to as Babs and begged, “please, Babs… Ah am family, yer cousin for crying out loud: what would yer parents think if you end up resorting to cannibalism; matter of fact, what would Apple Bloom think of ya then…?”

“It’s too late to play the family card now, bitch…!” roared the stout figure in question, leering at the timid Applejack’s dirtied yet shapely figure with naughty glee, “the second I died, I’d stopped being your cousin and the fact that your begging and pleading by using my parents this way is only succeeding in pissing me off even further; fuck, using Apple Bloom’s hypocritical! At least the only good thing I had going was that my parents were there and so was my sister; compare to them, she was a fucking saint, unlike you…! THAT BEING SAID, I’M ABOUT TO DEDICATE THIS FEAST TO MY COUSIN APPLE BLOOM WHO’LL DO WHAT I’VE FAILED TO DO: LIVE LONG AND PROSPER! YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, LET’S JUST SAY THAT I HOPE YOU LIVE UP TO YOUR NAME; THEN AGAIN, SEEING WHAT I AM RIGHT NOW, I’M TOO YOUNG AND DEAD TO BE A PICKY EATER: I’LL EAT ANYTHING FROM BREADCRUMBS TO WORTHLESS EXCUSES OF SISTERS IN PEOPLE’S CLOTHING!”

“Augh…!” the young woman cried out as she had felt a sharp clamping onto the left leg, no doubt the work of the adjacent redhead who started to sink all the teeth into the former’s flesh.

As much as the tanned blonde started kicking Babs’ face in, the clothed figure still held onward to her shins; at long last did the former get her wish, only for the latter to rip out a small yet wet and messy piece of the integumentary system with a snigger, “this shit tastes better than what we Apples were known for: even as an entree, you’re as sweet as nectar…!”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” Applejack screamed in pain as the stout figure was now feasting upon her body, teeth marks soaking in blood and salivation despite the dirty water nearby more than ready to absorb the concoction, “PLEASE STOP THIS ALREADY, AH AM BEGGING YA!!”

“YA SHOULD’VE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU LEFT ME TO DIE; DON’T YOU GET IT, FUCKER?!” the gluttonous redhead spat out onto the young woman’s face with blood, “IT’S ALL A LIE: YOU’RE NO FUCKING HERO; YOU COULDN’T SAVE ANYONE, LET ALONE ME AND YOU DARED TO END THE LIFE OF ONE OF YOUR OWN…! IT’S ALL YOUR FUCKING FAULT… YOU’RE A HORRIBLE FUCKING PUSSY PUNK BITCH AND I HATE YOUR FUCKING GUTS SO FUCKING MUCH I HOPE THIS HURTS YOU MORE THAN IT HURTS APPLE BLOOM; IN FACT, YOU DON’T DESERVE TO HAVE A SISTER HALFWAY GOOD AS HER. I WISH THAT SHE WAS MY BABY SISTER INSTEAD OF YOU; AT LEAST I WOULD GIVE UP MY LIFE FOR APPLE BLOOM AS MUCH AS SUNFLOWER WOULD DO THE SAME FOR ME, UNLIKE YOU UNGRATEFUL SANCTIMONIOUS BITCH!”

“CEASE, THY GHOULISH SORE…!” another loud voice had boomed but it belonged to none of the female figures in question.

Almost instantaneously, the attacker otherwise known as Babs had spontaneously combusted, rays of heat and light now emerging from her body as laughter turned to screaming. The bloodstained attire that the stout being had once worn was starting to singe about as the flames begun consuming her while leaving the tanned blonde completely unharmed. Even though that they were nearby overflowing sources of water nearby themselves, only the redhead alone was already disintegrating as she was burnt up into absolute oblivion.

When the belligerent battling Babs had disappeared in a mass of photons and fire, the heart inside of Applejack was beating against the structure as she sighed at once. It wasn’t even long until the young woman was quickly accompanied by another female figure, this time descending from above almost immediately to the former’s relief. The new visitor bore a complexion rivaling the tanned blonde herself albeit fifty shades darker and already free of such irregularities plaguing the latter before and after. Glimmering about in the cold distance was but a pair of cyan irises glowing about alongside with the rest of its owner’s eyes, capturing Applejack to remain firm at attention. The floating female’s elongated hair had flowed to and fro, sparkling about as each and every one of its tresses were a bluish tint with both lighter and darker hues alike. Aside from the small obsidian tiara matching a widely white crescent necklace, the new visitor had wore a long shimmering dress colored in pink and achromatic slippers.

The young woman was in awe of such presence and begun to call out to her, “Luna… Ah am so glad to see you again…”

“Yea verily, ‘tis I Princess Luna…” the well–dressed figure introduced herself at once, “greeting, my fairest Applejack…”

“Luna, Ah can’t believe it’s you again… Ah am such a mess here…” the tanned blonde had wheezed aloud onto the regal figure in question.

The eldest of the women looked upon the younger counterpart damaged form and had sighed, “thy phantasmagorias art beginning to take form: though thou hast overcome the guilt of attempted sororicide, ‘tis been replaced by thy survivor’s guilt…”

“Sometimes, Ah wonder if it was right for them to let me live after what Ah had done; after all, Ah couldn’t even do anything right besides watching people Ah know and love die and/or be destroyed…” Applejack wept as she looked at her still wounded left arm, “as a matter of fact, Ah think back to the time that Rarity had another breakdown that day and the disease infecting me. It’s funny how one would still act like that all will go back to being right with the world even after everything that happened in the homeland, let alone my family’s hometown, not to mention the things I have done and failed to do in the grand scheme of things. Going right back to what had been done against Apple Bloom, Ah don’t think Ah deserve to be anyone’s pride and joy anymore, let alone mah parents or Granny Smith; if anything, Big Mac deserved it more than me. Ah hurt people and bring destruction to them without even trying; Ah am not even worthy of fighting for mah own forsaken life… Ah am a failure.”

“Thou shan’t be weary on the account of what hadst been done to thee; after all, thou art not alone as one thinks: as a matter of fact, there is someone else who I wish to bring along to prove it to thee…” Luna replied as she had directed the younger counterpart over to another figure in the distance.

The tanned blonde now found herself staring at another woman, though older than the girlish figure from earlier but the youngest of the three therein. Unlike the very females in attendance, she was brightly skinned with curled locks of purple and pink tresses vying for dominance upon her weary head. Even the youngest of the inhabitants had a much simplistic attire than the princess and modest than Applejack: a long purple dress with long pink socks. She also had eyes of green like the bathing woman albeit pale and threatening to go off joining the same spectrum as the likes of the eldest counterpart.

Before the tanned blonde had the chance to speak, the bright skinned individual interjected, “hello Applejack…”

“Sweetie Belle, what are you doing here…?” the aforementioned woman asked, memories of the savage redhead’s recent attack still fresh in her troubled mind, “Ah don’t understand why or how this has anything to do with me…”

“You already know anyway; after all, we have more in common now than we actually had in the past: even I had felt like that everything that happened to me was all my fault…” the youngest visitor answered back as she pulled down her dress’ collar to reveal large handprints upon her neckline.

The mere sight alone brought tears to the occupant’s tears once more, now finding the strength to reach outwardly and cry, “Sweetie Belle, don’t be going around saying such stupid things like that; yer smart, beautiful, cute, generous, kind, and fair just like your sister Rarity was. Everything that happened to us was none of our fault whatsoever; it’s just those bad people who did this to us, our friends, our families, our neighbors, our home. Don’t let what they did to ya or them shape ya into something ya hate or fear; don’t let what we did to ya two stop ya from becoming what ya want to be; don’t let what happened to yer friends impede ya from what needs to be done. There’s a whole bunch of people in this land that care for ya: Cheerilee, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Twilight, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow, even Ah care for ya as well; they’re all counting on ya to make the best of things for yourself. Ya were yer family’s pride and joy and yer still are: they saw ya all brand new and perfect, no mistakes or regrets; even though that we once feared living in yer shadows, we still grew to love and cherish ya as one of our own.”

“Since time immemorial, many gazed upon those individuals such as you and ruminated on how wonderful the river of time will flow be: they wished for the best of things to happen, like vast wealth or a clean bill of health; many of them still do…” the princess said, the environment around them now changing with little warning, “of course, the wishes alone aren’t the vexations. The future is often rife with utter uncertainty, factors ranging from the mundane to the astronomical are usually not called for at most but even the best laid plans can be torn asunder. To think that if I hadst managed to plunge the world into eternal night only to end up causing the mass extinction of many was one thing; to be forgiven for daring to try after all this passing time was another thing I hadst never expected, let alone be freed from mine self–imposed prison by the likes of mine sister’s chosen few. If we continue to be corrupted by this darkness throughout our very lives, then we’ll be more likely to wind up as victims of harlotry and disease crying for the world to end; should we continue to corrupt others with it actively, filthy lucre wilst be stained with blood and tears from the trades of bane and brutality against others indiscriminately. The darkness shan’t be casted aside for its undeserved reputation of what can be done within it but rather embraced and accompanied by the light alongside, all for the sake of balance and resolution. The past is more than just a memory – ‘tis a force at our back which pushes and steers; we may not always like where it leads us, but like any story, it needs resolution to this day, beyond the prologue where our youthfulness, full of vim and vigor hadst made it playable. As nervous as we feel about the future, we must prevail, over our own past and the outcome of actions therein: love all, trust a few, do wrong to none – these are the tenets that our predecessors hadst lived by and passed down to us; that being said, redemption is possible as is reconciliation. Don’t let these shortcomings make thee become friendless or hopeless; keep thy faith lest we may never recognize the good that can be done for the people living on this blue and green world irregardless: some people can be trusted and some people can trust you. Just remember that there are still people like you and me that still love you and they always will: the lovingkindness of friendship and family still exist within you even to the end of time itself; ‘til then, fare–thee–well, kind souls… fare thee well…”

Finally, the visage of the eldest woman started to dissipate before their very eyes almost immediately; soon, Sweetie Belle joined in, leaving the tanned blonde all alone again. Applejack now found her feet standing upon the clean colorful sands between the lush forests behind and the waters upfront with a large bright orb rising up from that adjacent side. The lone woman also looked upon her own body: although she was devoid of the pink curtains once used to clothe herself, the wounds on the integumentary system were no more. She'd stared outward in relief as the firmament above her started grow brighter and warmer as the darkness that had loomed overhead now showed signs of disappearing altogether.

“Thanks, you two…” Applejack sighed happily as gentle tradewinds were blowing against her long flowing golden locks.