At the best of times, the Everfree forest is merely unpleasant, full of unpredictable ancient magic and roads long since overgrown. As with most remnants of the Wild Age, the Everfree only grew worse at night. The difficulty of navigation now bordered on impossible, and even the twigs that littered the forest floor seemed to spark with the last dregs of spells cast long before the rise of anything calling itself civilization.
Sometimes, the sparks caught. But as with most wild magic, they were not content to merely start a fire. No, where these sparks caught, they flowed together like a river, fusing the twigs and splinters that carried them into great hulking beasts. Somewhere in the heart of these creatures, the sparks met and made something that was almost like a mind. In the same way that a lump of coal is almost like a diamond.
Such was the mind of a timberwolf, a jigsaw of impulses trapped inside a jigsaw of a body. Such were the minds of the monsters that were chasing Applejack through the Everfree at break-neck speed in the middle of the night.
She panted and ground her teeth as she ran, every hooffall sounding like a hammer when she compared it to the wolves' pursuit. They almost sounded like wind racing through branches, with only the guttural sounds of their gnashing teeth and their strange breath to remind her that there was something to be running from. For the moment, Applejack was just fast enough that she couldn't feel their breath on her haunches. She had to keep her eyes on the trees, couldn't afford more than half a second's glance at the world around her. Still, they were getting louder. The wolves were closing in.
Bright Mac and Buttercup had a closed-casket funeral. Applejack could tell from all the looks that ponies had been giving each other, and especially to her, that there was a good reason behind that. She hadn't tried to open the casket. She was a good little filly. She brushed her teeth and ate just as many carrots as she did apples, and she put away her own plate and washed it too, and she kept finding herself turning around, expecting somepony to be proud of her for doing all of it.
Applejack knew what death was. She was a farm filly, after all. Pigs died. Sheep died. Trees and apples died, in their own way. But while those were sad deaths, they didn't hurt too bad. It was like losing a stuffed animal, or falling down the stairs.
You might cry over it a little right when it happens, but you got over it fast. She was a good little filly. She didn't spend days and weeks bawling her eyes out over some doll.
But how was a good little filly supposed to feel when the one who died wasn't a pig or a tree, but her parents?
Buttercup had taught little Applejack all sorts of things about what it meant, being a good little filly. She knew that when she grew up, being a good mare was different. Some old rules would get forgotten, some new rules would come up. Applejack understood all of that, and she had promised Mommy that she wouldn't try to grow up too fast.
Applejack could tell from the whispering that right now, knowing certain things would make her grow up real fast. Old busybody mares gossiped about how thank goodness the child hadn't looked in the casket, thank goodness she doesn't know what happened, time enough for that when you're older I say, let her be a little filly a few more years, poor old Buttercup wouldn't have wanted her daughter to see her like this, oh no how long have you been standing there?
Applejack didn't know why her parents were dead. She didn't want to know. Time enough for that, she repeated to herself about a thousand times that night, when she was older.
There! It was barely more than a slight tinge to the darkness all around her, but Applejack knew a jutting tree root when she saw it. A quick jump was all she needed, just short and fast enough that the lead wolf didn't realize there was a root until he went flying. Applejack bobbed right, and was rewarded with the lovely crunching sound of the timberwolf shattering against the tree she had been about to run into. There were a few more crunches like that, but she couldn't take it as a chance to slow down. They were already pulling themselves back together.
"How did Ma and Pa die?"
The room fell silent when she asked that question. Granny Smith stopped her wistful recounting of her daughter-in-law's life mid-sentence, and Grand Pear visibly shuddered as he turned to face Applejack. Big Mac hung his head; he'd wanted so badly to be brave, he'd asked to see their parents on that day. He'd asked what happened. He just kept getting quieter after that moment.
Apple Bloom looked the most surprised. Big Mac had told her a few years ago, once he figured she was old enough to understand not to tell Applejack. "Let her ask when she's ready," he'd said, and now she was ready, and it looked as though her little sister didn't quite get why she was suddenly asking.
"Timberwolves," was the only word Granny Smith said in those first few moments, but it hit harder than a five-hour speech. "T'were the day right after the zap apple harvest. They'd been working so hard, hadn't had hardly a minute to themselves. I thought they weren't gonna go further than the orchard, maybe Whitetail if they were real worried about the noise, but never the Everfree. And this were back before that Zecora lass got to work, mind you. Y'ain't never seen timberwolves like there was that night."
Silence, blissful silence, reigned for a few precious moments. Not long enough, though. Applejack had to ask something else. "So, the closed caskets...?"
"It weren't all for your benefit, sugar. Don't reckon even a griffon'd wanna lift the lid on that one."
Apple Bloom excused herself from the room. She looked a little green in the face, but didn't say anything about needing to barf. From the sound of opening and closing doors, she was even heading out to the outhouse so as not to disturb anypony. What a good little filly, Applejack thought. And then she cried.
There was a snap, like a poacher's trap closing around some poor innocent critter's leg. Applejack recognized the sound a split second too late, and she cried out as the timberwolf bit down on her side. It was like a vise, a grip that refused to even loosen as she tried to shake it away. Worse, the wolf was keeping pace with her; it wouldn't be content with taking a chunk.
No time to stop and buck it off. By the time she'd taken care of this one, there'd be a hundred more. She scanned the shadows, then tried to grin before a fresh twinge of pain took over. She picked up speed, dragging the beast along as it kept trying to match her pace, then she turned.
The wolf shattered, impaled through the neck with a branch that refused to come away from the tree. Applejack started to laugh, but pulled up short as one shadow loomed suddenly in front of her. She dodged again, her shoulder banging against another tree. She'd been maybe a hair's breadth from being shattered herself.
Didn't matter. Nearly there.
"Hey, Twi."
Honestly, Applejack preferred her friend's palace library to the old Golden Oaks one. It had always seemed weird to her to put a big stack of books inside a hollowed-out tree, especially one that actually stayed alive somehow. The few times she'd slept over there, it had felt weird, messed with her earth pony senses something fierce. The palace, though, that was good solid crystal all the way down. A real exquisite specimen, though she'd be caught dead using that kind of language out here in the country.
"Oh, hey Applejack." Twilight emerged from behind a stack of treatises on sewing, beaming with a smile that bore none of the weight on Applejack's shoulders. Metaphorical weight, of course. "Did you need something?"
"Anything and everything you know about timberwolves that you figure I probably don't know, Twi." She gestured with one of her front legs, making it look a lot more sore than it really was. "Zap apple season's coming up, and that tends to make the packs real antsy. They get harder and harder to manage every year, and we ain't exactly got a lot of time to go scattering wolf twigs on top of all the harvestin' business."
Twilight nodded to herself, her eyelids flickering in that way they always did when she was checking her brain for what she needed instead of aiming for the books right away. "Well, there's not much need to scatter them. There's this sort of upper threshold of damage a timberwolf can take and still be able to pull itself together, and it isn't actually that high. In one of those alternate timelines, I saw them getting blown up left and right."
"That was the one with Nightmare Moon, right?" Applejack always did her best to remember her friends' solo adventures.
They weren't always the easier to understand, but they were fun stories to hear again and again around a campfire.
"Precisely. But anyway, just because that was an alicorn doesn't mean the blasts were anywhere near an alicorn's upper threshold. I managed to get some measurements of her power output, and I think..." Paper and pencil floated in the air around Twilight for a few seconds as she calculated ferociously, "yeah, if my math's correct, if you buck the wolf like you're trying to explode a tree, and I do mean you need to buck it, the resulting explosion of earth pony magic should completely dissipate any of the wolf's own magic and leave it a big old bundle of sticks."
"Thanks, sugarcube. But, are you sure we can just go around exploding timberwolves like that? They're still Everfree critters, ain't they? Last I checked, that whole place is more a magical nature reserve than any normal forest."
"And for most species in that biome, that's true." Twilight levitated a book over to them, flipping through page after page of the kind of creature that Applejack could only classify as 'spooky critter'. "But you see, the timberwolves aren't a protected species. Truth is, they're barely even a species at all. The Great Mage Meadowbrook was conducting an experiment with wild magic and golems, but she didn't really count on what effect the golems would have on stray brush, and before you knew it there was a population explosion..."
Applejack backed away, calmly and respectfully. Twilight was in the zone now, and by the time she came out of it she'd have half talked her own tongue out of her mouth. She had what she needed now. She knew how to kill the timberwolves. More than that, she knew that she could.
So close now, she could taste it. The treetops were thinning out, Applejack could even see the sky in places. There were still snapping jaws at either side of her, but that barely mattered. There was the flag, hanging from the same tree she'd put it when the sun had been up. Just a few more seconds, a few more frantic dodges. She was so close, she could feel the weight lifting off her shoulders. It was almost time to be free.
It was almost time to turn and fight.
The zap apple season was over. All the apples had been harvested, all the jam had been made and jarred, and Filthy Rich would be swinging by tomorrow to buy his share.
This harvest had been excellent. Apple Bloom had been able to help out much more, and Applejack had found herself having to explain the whole complex process of all the harvest rituals to a fascinated Diamond Tiara. Everything had been going marvelously.
And now, the harvest was over. Tonight was the night after zap apple jam season. It was time.
Applejack spent a few hours relaxing in the family room, then she got up and made her way towards the door. Big Mac looked up, with a frown that quietly requested explanation.
"Tonight is the anniversary. I'm going into the woods to make even."
Big Mac was on his hooves, a fire in his eyes. He didn't have to say anything; she knew that he would stand in the way.
"Mac..." Applejack turned, and looked at Granny Smith and Apple Bloom. "I talked to Twilight just before the season started. Timberwolves ain't a protected species."
And then, everything changed. Her brother shifted his stance, rolled his shoulders, and grinned the sort of grin only made by people who have nothing to laugh at. And behind Applejack, furniture was shifting. Granny Smith was getting up.
"Did I hear that right, AJ? You're saying... them varmints ain't got any of those fancy by-laws what the cockatrices and the cragadiles has got?" There was a certainty to the way Granny was standing, as though it were ten years ago all over again.
"Not a word in any lawbook, Granny. They ain't even critters. What's more, Twilight taught me how to take them down. Permanently."
Apple Bloom sat up, even the usual trace of child-like wonder lost from her face. There was the face of a filly who had been screaming at the universe for years, and now could finally do something about it.
"Well, ain't this a regular ol' Apple family gathering?" Granny chuckled, and took off her shawl. "Enough lollygagging, young'uns. Time for us to do right by your ma and pa."
Applejack burst into the clearing. Her family waited there, ready and waiting for the prey. She had flushed them out, and it would only be moments before the entire pack would be in the clearing.
She knew the wolf was right behind her. With maybe a second to spare, Applejack planted her four hooves squarely in the earth, took a deep breath in and kicked.
When she dared to turn around, there was nothing left of the opponent. Hardly even a splinter of wood left on the grass, and the trees right behind where she had lashed out with her hind legs were... well, they weren't.
Through the opening the wolves came pouring, their jaws all snapping and their throats all roaring. They spread like wildfire, encircling the four Apples with no hope of escape. That was probably the pack's biggest mistake that night. Fittingly, it would be their last.
"No more hiding. No more crying. This is for Mom and Dad." Applejack lunged forward, rearing up onto her hind legs and letting the earth flow through her entire body. Then she brought down her hoof on the head of the nearest wolf, and felt it explode beneath her. "Hit 'em with all you got! These arts and crafts projects weren't ever designed to stand up to us!"
A yellow and red blur shot past Applejack's snout, and she watched about five wolves try to stay together with a pony-shaped outline punched right through them. They fell apart at the seams, and Apple Bloom popped up from the edge of the clearing. She blurred again, and Applejack could have sworn she felt the ground shudder as her little sister accelerated through another three victims.
"Behind!" The moment she heard the word, Applejack braced and kicked back without thought. The sound of rapidly fading howls and tiny bits of wood bouncing off of everywhere greeted her, and she rounded on the nearest trio.
As she turned her back to the enemy, she beamed at Big Mac and Granny Smith. Her brother looked like he was barely trying, pushing his hooves through the wolves with barely a flicker of resistance. Granny, meanwhile, was moving so fast and so hard that she was leaving blur marks that just hung in the air, her horseshoes glowing red-hot and setting the timberwolves on fire at even the lightest touch. And there was Apple Bloom on the edges, racing through the wolves' ranks like a knife through hot butter.
For her part, Applejack just kicked. But to be fair, she was really good at it.
