Under the tawny sky, within a funeral home.
Applejack walked, garbed, in shadowed cloth.
Her hooves muffled on the well maintained stygian carpet.
She spied the Traditional Shadowed Mare. Her crowed face looming at the edge of the parlour.
Her neck rose straight and stiff. Until...
Her eyes rested on a...Colt.
Red. On Red. Sharp bones of youth shaped the...
...big.
Large. He loomed large...was large.
Now, he was not.
Still, if she had held her gaze she would seen him shiver and shake with unshed tears...
Her eyes though luminous and keen stole much.
Taking a moment to linger. Her own eyes fell on a clock. Lunch Time.
Her own bones though could only hold the smallest of apples.
She thought then of a silly filly with a curl in her mane.
Applejack with her bow.
Her with her dresses. She huffed then. Her Face flushed. Then...
She hmm'd to herself.
Readying the fine fair art of...paw and...
Cooking.
She bit her lip. Drawing blood. Feeling once again the throb of bruised hoove.
A song played in the periphery of her knowledge ,dancing, just out of reach.
She took the little song and waded in vague dreaming's.
The colours blooming so like apples.
A sharp tang of zap apple made her stomach groan.
A screeching, groan of a table and the soft cry's of some...distant filly with a bow of her own- caught her and briefly held.
Then, falling like water on a reed.
Applejack stared. The seat, its shape, curved and inviting...
...was hard plastic.
Applejack sat.
Applejack sat some more - and more.
Sitting in a too big chair. Thinking too big thoughts.
She rubbed a dusty hoove over the worn plastic.
Jumped and stiffened.
Carefully with a sharp look to the colts gaze.
She bid him silence.
She looked down. Equally worn...was her hooves.
Spying the lip of her other. The dull ache of it gave her mind of a needle.
Threading through bone.
A soft blooming from her hoove faded to a dark orange.
She dared not touch.
She sniffed.
Turning her head seeking relief.
Her eyes caught the wood ceiling.
The ivy green color played with the oaken wood.
She blinked and held her mind…to the chaffing!
The ridge of her bottom was not pleased.
Why do we even sit in these things? Any-who?
Taking a moment to swallow.
She had the sneaking suspicion that someone…(s)…had died.
Shuffling so made a flop of hair fall onto her face.
She rolled her eyes at the sight.
Shifting again. She looked at her Grandma.
In her own dark dress that too seemed bare the shadow of death.
The white of hair gave the richer shadow its due.
She saw the words that her Gran had said. But...She did not understand.
She stilled the echo of some knowing whisper. She found it there in her mind tentative and afraid.
Its sounded.. like her.
A rush of spirit felled her dark malaise ounce it came…for now.
She bore her hoove through her combed and well oiled mane. Why put oil hair that's already full of it?
Taking the moment to feel for her..bow.
She adjusted her bow.
The bright pink of it. Seemed on the edge of burning and catching the sun.
"Its too big." she said
Taking the time for herself...not for him...to see how big it was.
She could walk from back to front with some of her hoove-steps to spar!
A Smiled edged itself on her lips.
A voice broke that smile. Like...Something...bad.
"What"s...too big. Applejack." A colts cracking voice spoke.
The face that shown in her vision. Thought itself her brother.
No.
The red of his face made him appear like a burnished blade crusted with...blood.
She shivered.
Instead she turned as if he had not spoken. As...
If she was...talking to her brother...
"Gran Gran said not to read the stories. I read stories last night." She said.
A cough broke her speech.
Next to her stood her looming…the Colt.
A sheen of memory made her look over...and their...he...was...his placid face and that face so...ugh.
Applejack stood.
Standing on that same too big chair. Thinking too big thoughts for mind to know.
To ever understand.
Her hooves rent the hard plastic that smelled of its own strangeness.
She paid it no heed.
"I certainly don't...know you."
Her word shorn from a child's heart burned all the clearing in the falling day.
His own squeezed. His shadow seemed to bear smaller fruit withering and turning the gangliness of youth and vigour.
"Who are you!? Any-who? Ugh." Poking her tiny hoove into the thinnest of his black plaid suit jacket.
She felt the thinnest of him. But that just made her all more angry.
The thin reed that he chewed fell. down onto the ground.
"Applejack...please. I'm So-" he said
"Why we waiting here...Big...Mac!"
Staring at the Colt.
"Filly. Stop." A voice said. A old old timber born of generations of family's of struggle...and hope.
"No. "she added resolute. Her little form standing. Body aching heaving something deep and heavy within.
She needed to get it out. To hurl at something. To make someone else scream.
To understand.
Seeing the weight of him. His supposed strength. The weight of his muscles. The look.
"Look, how small you are?" Applejack said.
Suddenly the chair she paced so briskly seemed all the smaller. Confining.
A island.
"Well where's my brother then-Hugh?"
"Where he at?"
"I just see a thin raggedy colt to stupid to know-"
CRACK!
A hoove stayed in the air.
Redness and pain made her already orange coat all the redder.
AppleJack Turned away.
That same hoove...touched...her.
Her eyes went wide and cool as if the chill of deaths hoove ran over her spine.
obey came the call. obey me. or face my wrath.
"Mare you will be respecting your brother."Gran Gran said.
This...plain...tragedy. Does not need your hate. Young mare. Your brother lost something too.
As soon as the song of the void came it was gone.
Taken by the urge. The need to burn...to feel the hot...everything. She-
A tear welled in her eye. She-
She raised her hoove. She would see how She liked it.
Breathing deep and heavy. Body shaking. They stared. Waiting for-
A soft cry made all fall silent.
Walking onward past the shell shocked colt and filly.
Words held little meaning to the filly.
Her hoove throbbed. She watch a thin trickle of blood trail down.
Down. Down.
Away...from her.
The red stayed their...on the floor.
She closed her eyes. Aching wanting it to stop.
Everything to lay in silence. wanting. wanting. The brush of her mothers hoove.
Her paw.
A thin red hoove touched her.
Her eyes opened. She saw not the bitter...thing.
But.
Her brother.
He ruined it. If he was there all would be well.
She leaned into his touch.
Then clung together then under the dusk-light bleed from tall windows.
Clunk
Clunk
Her Grandmothers walker. A soft cooing.
Why didn't she hear?
Before?
She leaned away from Big Mac.
Her eyes took in the bright peach of her sisters fur.
"She wants you to hold her. She would...She loves you...so...so much. AppleJack." The old voice cracked.
The whining breath of the old mare.
seemed to a moment. stop.
For a moment everything was...
"NO!" AppleJack screamed!
Into her soft fur. It gave so...so...much.
She squash her self into that fur. Wanting to be wrapped on it.
Drowned.
"Please don't go!" Her voice muffled by her gran grans fur.
"I will work twice as hard. I will never rest! Please...I...Please"
She clung all the tighter to Big Mac.
His hoove wrapped around her small body.
They stared at the small Apple Bloom.
Her own voice a soft cooing.
Apple Bloom mouth in motion gave her hearts song...
Adding her voice to the chorus of love and warmth.
With tears flowing from their eyes.
"I'm sorry." Applejack said, staring as she did at the lip of hers brothers chin. "I'm sorry."
"Its not your...Fault."
Author's Note
Got a sad one y'all!
Till the next one!
Peace!