“You’re even tougher than you know.”
Applejack awoke slowly as the light trickled in through her window. She grumbled gently as she rolled over in her bed, nuzzling deep into her pillow as she drew her blanket over her head. Her body still ached from her walk home from Manehattan, and she was having quite a good dream. All she wanted to do was go back to it and see how it ended.
She clenched her eyes tight, trying to will herself back to sleep before the images of her future self and friends she hasn’t met yet left her. She could her tiredness begin to grip her and pull her back down, but just as quickly as it did, it was interrupted by:
“Applejack! Breakfast!” Came a loud, echoing call that rang through the Apple Family home. Applejack recognized the craggly and hoarse voice immediately as her Granny Smith, who was taking care her and her two siblings while their parents were visiting Vanhoover. And, by the tone of her voice, she was getting impatient. This probably wasn’t the first call.
Applejack bolted up from her bed, throwing off the covers as she threw herself out of her bed. She rushed out of her room with a blinding speed, not even affording the time to brush her mane or wash up a little bit.
As she rounded down the stairs and entered the dining room, she saw that she was already late to the table. Sitting in front of her, already strapped into her feeding chair, was her baby sister Apple Bloom. The little yellow filly had already begun the usual breakfast time ritual of slamming her rattle against the food tray.
“Morning.” Macintosh said as Applejack sat across from Apple Bloom. The tall, lanky colt sat facing the kitchen as usual, eating the cereal he was provided without much of a care. “Welcome home an’ all. Congrats on your Cutie Mark.” He said with the enthusiasm of someone who knew he’d be planning her cute-ceañera in their parents’ stead.
“Mornin’!” Applejack responded with just a bit of extra enthusiasm. She grinned over at her big brother, having missed him in her time away from the farm.
Her grin then quickly fell as she saw the bowl of flavorless, oat-based cereal that sat in front of her, drowning in an excessive amount of milk. Granny Smith must have done the shopping before Applejack woke up.
Choosing to ignore this boring and unsatisfying meal, Applejack looked up to her older brother with a wide grin. “Oh! Did I tell ya about the dream I had last night?” She asked, knowing full well she didn’t.
“Nope.” Macintosh replied, taking the bait almost immediately. “Y’just came down from your room so how could ya-”
Instead of letting him finish, Applejack just began to rattle off what she could remember about the dream she was having only minutes ago. She told her brother about meeting her behatted future self, meeting both future and present versions of the ponies she’d be making friends with some day, and helping said friends return to the future where they belonged.
Though, as she spoke, she found that the names and appearances of her future friends had already begun to fade. And yet the friendship she founds still remained. And the cool hat her future self was wearing, reminding her of the one her father wore almost constantly.
“I wonder if dad’d let me try on his hat for a while.” Applejack wondered, reaching a hoof up to brush back her messy mane. It was getting long. Maybe a hat would help with that.
“Nope.” Macintosh responded, not even looking up from his breakfast. “Dad’s giving me the hat. I get that, you get mom’s blue hair whatsits.” He punctuated his point by eating a spoonful of his cereal, then gesturing the spoon at his sister. “Them’s the rules.”
“But future me had the hat. Don’t you think-” Applejack began to whine, but her sentence was interrupted by the kitchen door swinging open.
“Order up!” Came the call from their grandmother as she entered the room, muffled by the three plates she deftly held in her mouth. Something she picked up from being a waitress years ago, Applejack figured.
But, as the plate hit the table and the half-burnt, half-white toast stared back at her, she also figured that a waitress probably wouldn’t be learning how to cook.
Macintosh didn’t mind. As far as he cared, the only recipe she needed to know was for making Zap Apple Jam.
As she passed out the plates, Granny Smith kissed Applejack on the forehead, to which she immediately recoiled with a giggle. Macintosh only received a ruffled mane as he immediately dug into the rest of his meal. Apple Bloom wiggled and cooed in her high chair as she also received a kiss. Granny then kneeled down as she began to feed her the rest of the baby food she was left, though she directed her attention towards Applejack.
“Now, I know it ain’t one of those high-falutin’ Manehattan meals you probably got used to, but I’ll tell ya something they definitely didn’t have.” She waited for one of the two youngin’s who could talk to question her, but neither did. Extracting the spoon from Apple Bloom’s mouth, much to the baby’s sadness with the situation, she gestured it at her other two grandchildren. “It’s love, which Mosley ain’t never shown to any of the rest of his family.”
Setting down the spoon, Granny Smith stood up on shaky legs as a ring was heard from the other room, followed by a plume of grey smoke. “Well that’s probably something burning. Mac, could you help Bloomy?”
Macintosh nodded gently, standing up from his seat. He was done with his meal anyway. As he took his position and began to feed his littlest sister and his grandmother left, gestured his head to his middlest sister. “I’m getting the hat.”
“You already got the collar, I should get the hat!” Applejack retorted, planting her hooves on the table and standing up in her seat. “It ain’t fair if you get both.” She flopped back into her seat, crossing her hooves.
Feeling that his baby sister was suitably nourished and, really, wanting to get neck deep in this argument, Macintosh stood back up and took a step away from the high chair before responding. “The hat ain’t even gonna fit you, you’ve seen how big dad’s head is.”
Somehow, Applejack crossed her hooves even harder with a huff. “Yeah, like the collar fits you all that well.”
Offended, Macintosh reared up and planted his hooves on the table with just a bit of force. “I’m growin’ into it!”
“So I’ll grow into the hat!”
Their argument was interrupted as a wail began to sound, synonymous to an air raid siren as it deafened both the conversation and Macintosh himself. Looking to the side, he saw the little yellow filly in the high chair had begun to sob, probably due to the sudden loud sounds caused by he and Applejack.
“Macintosh! Deal with it!” Came a cry from the other room, followed by several hacking coughs and further plumes of smoke from the kitchen.
With a grumbling sigh, he followed orders and unhooked Apple Bloom from her chair and placed her on his back. He began to walk into the living room where he could probably distract her with toys and, if it came to it, slapstick comedy. Still, he turned to look at Applejack. “This ain’t over.”
Apple Bloom was still crying. Applejack couldn’t hear him.
Now alone, Applejack picked and poked at her breakfast, no longer very hungry but not wanting to leave the table to get to her chores just yet.
The silence lasted for minutes and, just as Applejack finally got over the fact that she would have to do things eventually, a very loud knock sounded on the front door. This caused everyone in the house to jump, and spurred another fit of sobbing from Apple Bloom much to Macintosh’s dismay.
With a disgruntled huff, Granny Smith came storming out of the kitchen, thankfully with the billowing smoke lessinging as time passed. The old mare grumbled to herself as she shook her head. “I swear to Celestia, it never ends!” She said as she approached Applejack, giving her another kiss on the forehead as she did so. “When it rains, it pours. Ain’t that right, AJ?”
Applejack nodded in response. She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted yet again by an even louder, more insistent banging on the front door.
“I’m coming!” Granny Smith shouted, causing Applejack to jump out of her chair, before stomping off towards the door angrily. “I swear, Crab Cakes gets more and more insistent every day.” She muttered to herself with a shake of her head as she left towards the front door. As she did, there came another, louder, knock to which she returned a shout that was as unintelligible as it was loud.
Again alone in the dining room, Applejack continued to pick at her breakfast. However, this time her ears perked as she heard the front door open, angling to listen in closer as she set her spoon down once again.
Granny Smith began the conversation by yelling something Applejack, thankfully, couldn’t hear, but it was quickly cut short by a male voice that Applejack wasn’t able to recognize.
The man spoke with a Vanhooverian accent that indicated that he wasn’t at all from around Ponyville, and Applejack had absolutely no idea what a Vanhoover pony would want from the Apples.
Unless…
Unless her parents were home from their moderately extended vacation, and they brought home a new friend with them!
Applejack was so excited of the thought of her parents returning, a few days after they were meant to come back, that she forgot to even listen in on what the adults were talking about. All she heard was their soft discussion from the other room, the sound of paper being ruffled, and quite a few strange sounds she couldn’t quite place. And then there was suddenly silence from the other room.
The silence was broken by Macintosh returning with a now calm Apple Bloom riding on his back. Using the skills he developed when Applejack was a foal, Macintosh had managed to quell the yellow foal so both could get back to breakfast.
Just as Macintosh had plopped his little sister back into her high chair and returned to his own seat, all three ponies were startled near out of their seats as they heard the front door slam. There was a small moment of unease as the two older ponies waited to see if it was now Applejack’s turn to fix their shared sister. Thankfully the moment turned to moments, and the little filly just went back to slamming her rattle against anything she could reach.
Beyond the rattle smashing, the room was yet again filled with a calming morning silence. The only other sounds somewhat audible were the birds tweeting outside and the strange sound Applejack kept hearing by the front door.
As time passed, the sound slowly grew louder while accompanied the sound of by slow, deliberate hoofsteps.Granny Smith sure was taking her time to rejoin the family, but whatever she was doing must have been important.
The elderly mare entered the room carefully, first seen by Applejack as she entered from the living room. She kept her head low, not daring to look any of the foals in the eyes as she entered. In her mouth she held a familiar light brown stetson that she quickly transferred to a hoof before speaking.
