Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Applejack and I would spend the night on Gallop in a guest cottage improvised from a prefab storage shed. It wasn’t fancy: you don’t get many guests this far into deep space and we hadn’t called ahead. The only horizontal surfaces besides the floor were crates of machine parts. We had been left enough blankets to make ourselves comfortable, but nobody had thought to offer bathing facilities. In spite of my shower this morning while Shining Armor slept on the bathroom floor, it might be nice to freshen up before sleep.

“Hey, Applejack, I’m going skinny dipping down in the crick, clean up a little. Coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for a world.”

She grabbed her hat from some clunky machine she had appointed to hat stand duty.

“You don’t need that to go splash around in the water.”

“Ah feel nekkid without it.”

“You are stark naked and have been all day. Getting shy now?”

She chuckled, but she kept the hat.

As we walked through the dark town and towards the water, I asked Applejack if she could swim.

“Sho ‘nuf Ah cain. Is it deep?”

“Not very,” I said and broke into a run, shouting, “but the last one in is a rotten egg!”

She almost caught up by the time I reached the jumping bank. I went over without breaking stride and pulled my knees to my chest.

“Cannon ball!” I yelled.

“Yee-Haw!” Applejack called, right behind me, one hand holding her hat on as she plunged towards the water.

She hit the surface an instant after me and our combined splash was phenomenal.

By the time I floated back to the surface, she was out of the water on the far shore, and dancing from foot to foot.

“Too cold for you?” I asked with a laugh. I should have looked for towels before dragging her down to the cold crick.

“Naw, I gotta pee! What’s the hydrology of this place like?”

“The what?”

“How far do Ah need to go so Ahm not widdlin’ in the water supply? Come on, Ahm fixing to bust a leak.”

“Oh, wow, power of suggestion, now I gotta go too,” I said, walking out of the water. “Up by the trees should be far enough.”

Behind a shrub we squatted and made water.

“Ah’ll race yah back t’ crick!” she shouted, already running ahead…

—

Back at our glorious shed we spread blankets on two of the larger crates at either end of the narrow space, and bedded down.

“Hey Tanna,” Applejack said after I turned out the light, “so about the star ship.”

“Well you see—”

“Hold on, sugarcube, indulge me for a moment. Ah learned a bit today, and Ah bin thinkin’. You know, Ah got a little of the sea in my blood, though you might never know if Ah di’n’t tell ya so.

“Now, logic tells me the stars must a sight further away than anywhere a sea ship sails. If they wun’t really distant, the constellations ‘d change from summer to winter due t’ par’llax effect of planetary motion. To cross distances like that, a ship must have sails larger than my entire orchard and masts like the world tree. Whole forests would be felled, replanted, and felled again to build the hull—”

“Actually, they’re made of metal, you’ve seen pieces—”

“Nuh-uh. Let me finish spinning a fantasy before you get boring and tell me about the real thing. Ah see a mare like you, strong and beautiful, out on the bowsprit watching for somewhere to land, but with the captain and crew gone then ship speeds blindly across the sea of stars, off course and off the charts. She watches as nebula scud overhead, and void whales breach abeam. The great sail aloft clutches the galactic trade winds, and below the keel lies a deepness beyond knowing.”

We lay in the dark – I wasn’t sure if she was done and ready for me to tell what I could about real space travel. I thought I heard her sit up on her crate.

Then, slowly Applejack began to chant.

“Lost on a sea without measure – lost out beyond Saturn’s headland
the headland not yet out of sight – stricken, doomed, and left unhelmed
no hoof on helm, tall masts awrack – captain and the crew lost o’erboard
lost on a sea without ending – lost for five full generations

in endless night
with fear bedight
each star is slight
till one grows bright

blindly she hove into harbor – blindly to rocks with no pilot
no pilot, no captain no hoof – no hoof to guide her to landing
drowned deep in green depths the captain – new hooves upon the helm take hold
holding a course, new hope, new life – holding true amid the space wrack

the mainsails furled
still imperiled
on strange tides swirled
but, lo, a world

now plunging into the air – air swept by golden wings
foundering in gravity’s well – golden wings a final hope
hope for a new life – new life in a new world
for them this is freedom – freedom at last without measure”

I sat in silence for several minutes before I could say anything.

“Well,” I finally said, “it ain’t much like that at all, I don’t know who’s been giving you history and spaceflight lessons!”

“A kid named Jefferson on the trees and gardens team.”

“Did he tell you all the crazy parts, or did you just make up the best of it?”

“The worst of it, I reckon.”

“Figures. But shoot, mare, you got a way with words there. You’re a poet!”

“Well, mebbe I am, but don’ let nopony know it.”

“I’m serious, you have talent. But your secret is safe with me if you don’t want me to tell.”

“Thanks,” she said, “Ah knows you won’t blow it.”

“Are you doing that to mess with me, babe?”

“Ah reckon mah hooves show it.”

“Goodnight, Apples.”

—

It can’t have been more than an hour after I fell asleep before, “Sweet Hel, the traffic cone!”

I sat up, startled into full wakefulness by the realization.

“Huh, wha?” Applejack mumbled from the far end of the shed.

“Nuthin’, go back to sleep, I’m sorry.”

“Naw, ya don´t gitta wake me up and then do the ol’ ‘it was nuffin’ thing. Now what was you doin’ to the traffic cone, I want all the saucy details, y’hear?”

“I went drinking with my brother in law last night. When I crawled out of bed this morning I found him passed out in the john, wearing a police cap. But I just realized that there was a traffic cone sitting on top the other toilet and I have no bucking clue how or why it was there.”

“Hey there, buckaroo, it's not a good night out unless you get a traffic cone!”

“But it said Bolton City Public Works! That’s fifteen kilometers away.”

“I take it you colts had bit of a bender?”

“You can hardly call one little night of drinkin’ a bender.”

“What’s the last thing you remem’er?”

“I recall chugging a half litre tankard of nameless booze down at The Thirsty on fourth avenue and then things fade out. Sumpin tells me that we moved on from there, but I have no idea where we went. Yeah—” I paused to try to arrange the muddled memories “—we were running from the cops, and then we snuck down an alley and hid under a wagon. Later, there was another bar, but I don’t recognize it. And if that cop was chasing us, I wonder how’d Shiny get aholt of her hat?”