Granny Smith had woken up at the crack of dawn specifically to crack a wooden spoon over the head of the rooster that kept waking everypony up two hours too early!
"Ah know ah old 'n mah joints are screechier 'n a tractor without oiled gears, but ah don't need ta get up this early, ya dang feathered varmint!" she shouted with the broken spoon in hoof. The bird ran off with its wings covering the lump on its head. The green mare nodded with a 'harumph' and looked at her spoon melancholically. "Dang blasted...Ah'll have to go 'n get more wood from the Everfree fer carvin' another spoon!" She casually tossed it to the side, sat on her haunches, and wiped her hooves clean. "Can't make proper apple pies 'n jelly without a proper spoon.
She took a deep breath and looked at the orchard, marveling at how generations of Apples had managed to grow so many apple trees and kept them strong and intact. She could even smell them all from where she was standing...somehow. Opal apples, honeycrisp apples, jazz apples, red delicious apples, sweetie apples! She giggled to herself, remembering that everypony in the family had been named after some form of apple or apple based treat, then her nose creased in and tried to bury itself in her skull and seal away the indent it would have made.
"What in the world is that horrid stench?" She clutched her muzzle and looked around.
There didn't seem to be anything visible from where she was standing, so she hurried through the orchard, going by the amount of water filling her eyes when she looked in a direction. Finally, she reached the source of the odor: Tall apple trees with gray-green bark, black leaves, and what appeared to her to be black apples. The old mare raised a brow. She poked the trunk. Solid and not sickly. She plucked a leaf and felt the texture as well as checked for anything else that could have caused the color change. It was growing just fine and was free of any diseases.
"How did these get here?" she wondered.
"I made them," said a weak voice.
Granny spun around every which way in an attempt to find out who was the source. "Whatwasthatwhereditcomefrom?"
"It was me, Granny," the voice repeated.
A small figure came out from behind one of the strange trees. She seemed only vaguely familiar to the old mare. This orange pony had black rings surrounding her eyes, and had covered her mane and tail in black ash, creating a sloppy recoloring where faint windows of the natural blonde pushed out. The base of her hooves were also dirty with soot and ash, almost making her look like she was wearing black shoes. Granny sighed in relief when she saw that the hat she had given her granddaughter hadn't been stained. Instead, it was draped in a black 'hood' of sorts to cover it, and the edges of said hood had laces sown into them. It was a contradictory appearance.
"Applejack, is that you?" Granny asked.
The young mare exhaled and drooped her head. "Yes, Granny."
The old mare was baffled and couldn't figure out what was happening. It was time to start prying like when she had to break open the Carrot's silo when Apple Bloom had somehow gotten into it. They never did figure out who caused the carrot flood in Ponyville. Good. As her great great grandpa Zippy Apple once said: 'Leave no evideeeeeeeence!'.
"What's wrong wit ya? Ya look like ya haven't slept in years!" she exclaimed. Applejack didn't say anything. "Did the kids at yer school make fun of ya? Did they do this to ya?" She looked around and frowned. "Don't explain all-a this, though," she said while gesturing to the entirety of her granddaughter. "Boyfriend dumped ya or ya got rejected, maybe," she mumbled with a teasing smirk.
Applejack groaned and pushed Granny Smith away. "Ugh! No! It ain't like that, Granny! Gah, you don't get it!"
Granny's face creased as she tried to figure out what her granddaughter was saying. "What's 'it'" she asked?
"Ugh!" Applejack exclaimed whilst rolling her eyes. "It's just the thing. You're too old to understand!"
Her apple juice blood was turning into warm cider, but the green mare needed to know more. She wasn't stupid enough to act without getting more information...now. "Riiiight," she said behind clenched teeth. "And where did these awful things come from?" she shouted.
The young mare sighed and rolled her eyes again. Granny held herself back from slapping her so hard the ash would fly right off of her.
"I wanted to, you know, make my own mark," she explained weakly. "Like, I found all these seeds and started cultivating them until I got trees that were as black as my soul," she claimed with a hoof to her chest.
Once again, Granny had to hold herself back, but not from slapping the apple core out of Applejack. She spun around and put a hoof to her mouth to muffle the laughter, although this didn't go unnoticed by the mare whose cheeks puffed up from frustration.
"Applejack, sweetie, y'ain't s'posed to just make a tree look like ya want it to be burnt," Granny explained. "There's careful plannin', like checkin' the composition of the soil needed fer it ta grow 'n the types of fruits it's gonna make, then ya gotta carefully select which ones ta further evolve 'n--"
"Ugh, that's old people talk," AJ complained. She punched one of the trees with a foreleg. "Ah just wanted a black tree with black apples." She whipped her pony tail around. "Just...makin' stuff fer society she spat."
Granny was even more confused and baffled. "Wh...ya made an entirely new type of apple 'n apple tree fer everpony, but ya hate everypony?"
"Um, no?" AJ clicked her tongue. "Ah said ah hate society. They're so...the same. They're all these little gray blobs. Ain't different from one another, so ah gave 'em an apple that fits 'em."
"Ya just said ya made it to reflect yer-" The green mare snorted from contained laughter. "inner self."
AJ's eyes widened. "Y-yes! Th-that's also why!" she panicked. She was quick to buck a tree and have a few apples fall down.
"Now that's a waste of good food, Applejack!" Granny leaned over and sniffed the apples but was quick to retract her muzzle and clutch her nostrils shut. "Even if it smells like a barn what ain't been cleaned in years!"
"It doesn't smell that bad!" AJ incensed. She sniffed the apple and immediately jerked her head away. When she finally turned back around her eyes were watering. "It...smells like...my inner self and...the true face of...the world," she heaved.
The green mare nodded with a smug look. "Right, 'n ah reckon ya adore the taste, too."
The emo mare pulled a knife lying on one of the lumpy roots at the base of the tree. "Well, when ah gather these apples I generally lahk ta-" She put the knife close to her foreleg. "-cut mahself." Granny Smith was about to intervene when the orange mare put the knife to the apple. "little patterns in the apples."
Granny's head was about to burst from frustration, and she was reaching her limit. "Yer goin' through a phase, aint'cha?"
"What?!" AJ exclaimed. She dismissed the mare with a wave of her hoof. "No! It's who ah am!"
Granny leaned forward. "Yeah, lahk when you were havin' yer 'Magical Mystery Cutie Filly Unicorn' phase with all the dresses 'n whatnot." Applejack looked at her horrified. "Ah remember everythin'. Still have the dresses 'n all the stuff ya made, too." She tapped her chin and looked at the farm. "Should be somewhere in the attic."
"N-no! That's stupid! Ah'd never do that!" AJ said behind a wall of steam coming from her red face.
Granny snorted. "Ya look like Big Mac now, just shorter. Want me ta call you li...Li...Hmmm." The mare pursed her lips pensively. "Tiny Mac?"
AJ averted her gaze and took a chomp in the apple. She was quick to drop it and keel over, vomiting. With her curiosity peaked, Granny took another of the apples and bit into it. The two shared a bonding family moment, releasing their shared, internalized frustrations with each other...mostly non-linguistically.
The green mare wiped her mouth while gasping. "Consarn it, Applejack!" Granny Smith exclaimed. "It tastes like ya look: A giant licorice stick that somepony done went and coughed orange powder onta."
"And ya look lahk an apple that's been out in the sun fer too long!" Applejack responded. "Bet ya listen ta real old folk's home songs, too!"
"Then whadda ya listen yerself?" Granny Smith asked with a modicum of repressed anger.
"Ah listen to Black Spur. Makes correct kind of country music," the orange pony said proudly.
"Define 'correct'," Granny asked with skepticism.
The mare pulled out an old beatbox and put a CD into it then started to play the music. The tunes were low and dowry and somepony was crying or howling in the background. Then the lyrics came in.
My lawn is gray like the winter day
No pony knows the pain I feel when I overturn the fields
I miss my green light under the trees that have been taken from me
Applejack flew away with a giant leap when Granny Smith's body slammed the beatbox from a tree branch. She groaned in pain and rolled onto her back afterwards.
"Ah had ta. This pain is nothin' compared ta what ya were playin' from that technobox 'a yers," she wheezed.
"My beatbox! Ugh!" Applejack exclaimed. "Ya old bag! Look at what ya did!"
"Old bag?" Granny Smith rolled over and gradually got back on two hooves, then cracked and stretched multiple parts of her body without taking her eyes off of Applejack. Gradually she was standing straighter and straighter and Applejack was shrinking down and down. She moved up to the black tree and ran her hooves across the bark. "Now, ya see, Sugarcube, ah reckon that most foals nowadays get all uppity like ya cause they got bad parents, or maybe they're bored 'n want ta have a bit of that 'pizazz' ya gets in a conflict." She leaned her head to the side to look at her grandaughter. "But you? Ah know ah raised ya properly. Now, usually, ah'd use a wooden spoon, but ah broke it over that howlin' fowl's head." With some effort, she broke a branch off of the tree and patted the ground with it. "Let's just use our imagination and say this is a spoon!"
"B-but that ain't no spoon, Granny!" AJ stammered.
The orange mare was slowly backing away when Granny Smith started to edge closer to her. "Ah said we're imagin' it's a spoon! It's goin' through a phase, too! It thinks it's still a tree branch." She raised it high in the air. "Now help me carve it!" She started chasing after Applejack, spanking her with the tree branch when she got into range. "Ah ain't never heard of no foalfolk talkin' ta their grandparents like that without gettin' their butts whooped redder than a Red Delicious, and the only thing 'delicious' about this is knowin' that y'ain't gonna be actin' like this no more unless ya want me ta create a brand new kind of red apple just fer the comparison! Back in my day!"
"No, Granny Smith! Not the 'back in my day' talk again!" Applejack pleaded as she ran for her life and the safety of her buttocks.
