Applejack Is An Interdimensional Alien

As she walked, Applejack couldn’t get it out of her mind how cold it was. It was unbelievable. In all her life she’d never felt it be so cold. She knew that the only thing keeping her from starting to freeze was the fact that she was keeping pace and letting her blood continue to circulate. However, it didn’t stop every small gust of wind from feeling like it was biting her.

It was nearly an hour of walking through the cold and snow before the earth pony saw anything of note. It was a bridge, one that she found herself walking under rather than over, which only reinforced into her mind how cold it was. She knew she had to be walking on a lake or a river of some sort, one that clearly had to be frozen solid for her to be able to walk under the bridge without trouble. She’d never seen anything like it in Equestria, not even in the Crystal Empire, and made sure to step carefully just in case there were any parts of the river that were more fragile than she thought. Stepping in any water at this temperature would not be good.

Past the bridge, farther in the distance, was a sign, one with white lettering against a blue background that welcomed her to someplace called Kansas. She never heard of such a place, but then again, she was fairly certain that she wasn’t in Equestria, so it would make sense that she wouldn’t know what it was. Farther up ahead was what looked to be a small town, one smaller than Ponyville, that, despite the temperature, had all its lights out and didn’t seem to have any fires started. It was very eerie, but she figured it was better than the destruction that that… thing promised. She also wasn’t entirely convinced that she wasn’t asleep right then, but decided to wait until she was inside someplace and warm to even try to think about what was going on.

Despite how recently she got to… wherever she was, she suddenly felt very tired seeing the town, and moved faster, breaking into a trot before stopping at the first building she came across, figuring it was as good a place as any to seek refuge. It looked to be a farmhouse of some kind, but not any kind of farmhouse she’d ever seen. There were a few silos that looked to be entirely made of metal, as well as metal pipes suspended in the air that tracked through the snowfield beyond. She saw a couple of giant metal somethings, maybe three or four times her length and twice her height, sitting in front of the house that, judging by the wheels she saw on them, were for carrying things. As well, she saw another metal contraption, green she thought, on the other side of the house in front of another large field that had spikes that seemed to be made for cutting things. It was a whole lot of metal she picked out, the most she’d ever seen in one place before. Not even when she went to Manehattan had she seen so much metal all at once, and yet this farm, not large from what she gathered, had it seemingly everywhere.

She also noticed a distinct lack of animals, but given the cold, that didn’t entirely come as a surprise. What did come as a surprise was the lack of a barn, as though this farm never had any animals to begin with. As far as she knew, every farm in Equestria had a barn, a lot of times more than one, depending on how big it was, and it was a shock to see a farm without one.

“This ain’t Equestria,” Applejack reminded herself, “and yer focusin’ on the wrong thing. Right now, ya gotta get out of the cold, not worry about whether this farm has a barn or where in the heck all this metal came from.”

Focusing back on the task at hoof once again, she quickly made her way up to the door and knocked loudly, trying to be polite but somehow not expecting an answer to come.

“Anypony in there?” she called, waiting a few seconds before trying the handle and finding the door unlocked. She wasn’t keen on just waltzing into somepony’s home, but it was blistering outside and she was starting to freeze again now that she wasn’t moving anymore.

After taking a quick look around her to make sure nopony was watching, the mare called out, “Ah’m comin’ in. Ah ain’t tryin’ ta rob y’all or nothin’. It’s just cold out here.”

Cautiously, she pushed the door open and saw a fairly empty, eerie looking home. As she stepped in, there was a staircase to her right, a door that led to somewhere else on the far side of the main room, and other rooms past the main one on the far left. The room in front of her was a barren living room, one without furniture or decorations or anything. It had a fireplace that wasn’t lit on one side along a wall, a carpet, and nothing else. It was dark, quiet, and cold, although staying inside would at least provide a little bit of insulation from the outside air.

Figuring there wasn’t much else to do until daylight came and still feeling tired, the mare decided to forgo exploring the house and simply made her way upstairs, heading into the first bedroom she saw. Once again, she saw a room that was nearly completely empty, this one containing just a mattress and nothing else. Nothing else besides a shivering pink mare who lay sleeping next to the mattress on the cold floor, having left one of the windows in the room wide open while she slept.

Applejack couldn’t help but shake her head at the foolishness and quickly shut the window, watching the pony on the ground shiver a little less intensely at that, then stood over her, debating whether or not she should wake her up. After a moment of thinking, she decided to do so, thinking of how she herself would want to be awoken if somepony were in her home.

“Hey, missy?” she called, loudly enough to be heard but softly enough to try to avoid startling her. “Missy? Can y’all hear me?”

She watched the mare stir a bit at her voice, but she mostly remained unchanged in her position. As she did move though, Applejack noticed that her flank was notably blank, which she thought was incredibly strange to see on a fully grown pony. However, once again, she filed that away for questions for later. She was incredibly tired for some reason, perhaps because of the night and the piercing cold, and had the urge to collapse onto the mattress and fall asleep right there despite the fact that she knew she woke up only a few hours ago, before this whole… something… happened to her.

“Sugarcube? Ya with me?” she asked louder, lightly touching her side and shaking her just a little bit. “Ah wanna know if Ah can stay here fer a little while, just until the mornin’ if that’s alright with you.”

“...hmmmm?” the pony mumbled, opening her eyes and taking AJ in. “Who are you?” she asked tiredly. “I’ve never seen-” Suddenly, she stopped, her eyes going wide in fright at the sight of the cutie mark on her flank.

Applejack took notice of her sudden change in body expression as she watched the pony tense up and took a step back. “Now Ah ain’t tryin’ ta hurt y’all. I just-”

“You’re one of them!” the mare interrupted, yelling at the top of her lungs, quickly standing and stumbling as she tried to back up, keeping her eyes on Applejack. “You’re one of them! You’re- you’re one…”

A second later, Applejack watched as the mare fell back to the floor and fainted.