When she closed her eyes, Applejack could imagine how she had felt. How she had to brace herself for the touch of the cold metal of her prosthetic wing, until her own body heat warmed it enough until it was just like any other part of her. How the gentle touch of her feathers on one side made the steel on the other feel soft, somehow. How that shock of rainbow-colored mane felt when she ran her hoof through it.
She could make herself believe, if for just a few moments longer, that she would feel those things again one day. But, no. Even before she had opened that envelope, she’d known that it was a stupid thing to hope for. Even stupider to do was what she was doing now, which was trying to convince herself that some part of her mind had tricked her, and had somehow misread every word on the page. That when she opened her eyes, what the letter said would change.
She opened her eyes, and read the letter again. She was a prospector, desperate to dig up any trace of lingering feelings in the words. Any hint that Rainbow Dash had changed her mind from how she said that she had felt. Any hint that it was all a lie, in order to break her heart in advance. To protect her, in case the worst happened out on that battlefield.
But, no. There was none of that. And the war was over now.
She folded the letter with her mouth, then put it back in the envelope in her forehoof. With the other, she closed it, bringing back together the two halves of Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark, but not quite.
The seal was broken, after all.
Pinkie Pie was just like how Applejack had expected her to be, from what Rainbow Dash’s letter had said. A dull, pink coat with a straight mane of an even duller, pinkish grey. A haunted look in her eyes, and few words. Her hindlegs, fixed and unmoving in the wheelchair she pulled behind her. And a slight frown on her lips that seemed so natural and set-in that Applejack wondered if it was permanent.
As it turned out, it wasn’t, as she would soon see. The first time she saw this was when she was showing Pinkie the storehouse that used to contain the equipment installed by the Canterlot Victualing Company. Pinkie picked up a stray can label that was still on the ground, and smiled weakly, as if mimicking the drawing of Granny Smith’s face.
“So this is where those things came from,” she said, a wisp of satisfied curiosity in her voice.
“Ha, memories of good eatin’, I hope!”
Pinkie looked at Applejack, holding her smile, but said nothing for a moment. Applejack laughed.
“Ah, don’t worry about it! Rainbow Dash already told me plenty about how those things tasted on the front. I’ve heard it all before.“
Still, Pinkie Pie’s gaze shifted away. “Yeah, they… weren’t super tasty.”
“I know, they weren’t the best.” Applejack sighed. “Had to make sacrifices on quality, y’know? Just to get enough cans out for the war effort. As long as it kept y’all fed.“
“Well, I can say at least that.”
Applejack nodded, glad to take what little pride she could from those thankless years of churning out those bland rations. And glad that she now had a chance for some vindication.
That vindication came when Pinkie Pie took a bite of her first proper Sweet Apple Acres apple, freshly bucked right in front of her. The second time Applejack had ever seen her smile.
“Oh wow, that is good. Even better than a chocolate diamond!”
Applejack decided not to question that, as Pinkie looked up at the tree Applejack had just bucked.
“I wish I could at least help with the harvest, for letting me stay here, but…”
Applejack shook her head.
“Oh no, don’t you worry none about that! I wasn’t expectin’ a fieldhoof from you or nothin’. I meant what I said.”
She laid a hoof on Pinkie’s withers.
“As long as you’re here, you’re family.”
Applejack gave her the only bedroom on the ground floor.
She couldn’t help with the bucking, but despite Applejack’s protests that she was just here to rest and recuperate for as long as she needed, she insisted on making herself useful. Much better for the soul than sitting around all day, she said.
As a fellow farmpony, Applejack could agree with that.
And it was nice to come back to the farmhouse after a long day of work in the fields and not have dinner or much cleaning to worry about. She hadn’t realized until then just how much she had let things go in terms of keeping her family home tidy. Apple Bloom could only help with the chores so much. Apple Bloom was only allowed to help with the chores so much. As Applejack insisted, her schooling came first, even now.
Before any of them knew it, Pinkie was as settled into the routine of the household as any other. But cooking and cleaning weren’t the only ways she helped.
Ration books. Wasn’t the end of the war supposed to bring better times? But so much had to go into feeding the workers rebuilding both the Crystal Empire and the northern regions of Equestria, and there weren’t enough “luxuries” to go around.
But Pinkie received two of those little books every week. One stamped with the three balloons that appeared on her own cutie mark, and one stamped with a single, grey rock.
Coffee. Sugar. Cocoa. Cheese. Not only once again in their pantries and on their plates, but abundantly so. It was almost like how it had been before the war, when they could just go down to the market with the bits saved up from last year’s harvest and buy whatever they wanted.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
In the mornings, when that bedroom door squeaked open, Applejack could imagine for a split-second that Granny Smith would step out from it instead. One morning, she was lost in it just a bit too long, and Pinkie asked her what was wrong.
“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” Applejack reassured her. “Just nice to have another soul in the house, is all. Was mighty empty with just the two of us.”
It was even true.
“Oh.” Pinkie blinked, then returned her smile sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m not used to living in a house with so much smiling.“
The family she couldn’t go back to, like the letter had said. There was no talking. There was no smiling. There were only rocks. Like Pinkie had said. She hadn’t been exaggerating, apparently.
And the farmhouse wasn’t all smiles.
“Aw, c’mon, Apple Bloom!” Applejack cried. “It’s chocolate cake, your favorite!”
She turned from the frowning filly to glance at the mare behind her, who still had a smudge of chocolate icing on her cheek, and a smile that betrayed no disappointment at Apple Bloom’s reaction to all of her work.
“And it’s all thanks to Pinkie, you know! We wouldn't even have the ingredients if it weren't for her.”
Apple Bloom’s frown deepened. Her voice low, and acidic.
“We never got one of those ration books for Big Mac.”
Without another word, she stomped her way out of the kitchen, then up the stairs. The slam of a bedroom door echoed throughout the farmhouse soon after.
Pinkie was silent, no longer smiling, her face full of confusion and concern. Applejack sighed.
“C’mon outside. I can explain.”
Applejack led Pinkie out of the farmhouse and up the little hill that was nearby, not too steep for Pinkie to have trouble with her wheels. Once they were at the top, Applejack pointed her hoof out at the horizon, past the boundary of their little farm, where the neat rows of apple trees gave way to an empty field that was in turn swallowed up by a forest in the distance.
“Basilisk came in from the Everfree one day. Wouldn’t normally happen, but the Ponyville Town Guard was called up to the front the moon before. Big Mac died savin’ us, not to mention the town. But he was a civilian, and not military, so…”
“No ration book.”
Applejack sighed.
“Yeah.”
Pinkie frowned.
“That isn’t right of them.“
Applejack shrugged.
“It was the deal. He was one of the strongest ponies in all of Ponyville. Would’ve made a heckuva groundpounder. Of course he was one of the first to get the letters!”
From the twitch on Pinkie’s face, Applejack knew she didn’t have to specify which letters she meant.
“But he couldn’t let himself go. Couldn’t risk leavin’ Apple Bloom behind. So who knows? Maybe since he didn’t go, somepony else had to do their duty in his place. Maybe even…”
Applejack didn’t finish her sentence.
“I mean, you and Maud were doin’ your part, savin’ Equestria from King Sombra. The Princess wanted to reward that. That’s that.”
“It didn’t feel that way.” Pinkie shook her head. “We threw rocks where they told us to. Broke rocks they told us to. That’s all.”
“Y’all did more than that. You saved Rainbow’s life!”
Pinkie looked at her, at almost a glare. “Maud did. I wouldn’t have been able to break that boulder by myself, but she could’ve. She was stronger than any of us. In so many ways.“ Her eyes softened. “You and Apple Bloom are too, you know. Your parents, Granny Smith, and your brother. I can’t imagine.”
Applejack frowned. Pinkie really couldn’t imagine, could she?
“Your parents. You never told me about why you couldn’t go back.”
Pinkie didn’t answer for just long enough that Applejack was about to apologize for prying, when she finally spoke.
“I could go back. Maud couldn’t.”
Pinkie touched the pendant of her makeshift necklace. An eyeshadow compact, its lavender pigments long-faded.
“Not as herself.”
A deep chill ran through Applejack at that. She touched the brim of her hat, and thought about how it had once been her father’s. Just like that yoke had once been, now resting against a gravestone on a hill over yonder.
She closed her eyes and imagined one of the countless warm evenings of her foalhood. There had been too many of those to count, with her parents, Granny Smith, and Big Mac all seated around that dinner table that was not much too big back then. But this one was special, since it was one of the too few where Apple Bloom was there as well. A little bundle of button eyes and laughs and a mouth so small that the whole family took turns feeding her from the tiniest spoon in the house.
They were in the kitchen, making pies. An old family recipe, from Pinkie’s father’s grandmother, that had tasted so good and so oddly familiar that Applejack demanded she teach her. And she agreed.
Pinkie had only been confident enough to try it in the first place after discovering how much she loved baking in her time in the Apple family kitchen, even though it didn’t seem to have too much to do with the three balloons on her flank. But as she often said, she had already figured out a long time ago that cutie marks had nothing to do with your real destiny. And that destiny was in a baker’s apprenticeship in Canterlot, that gleaming city she never would have dreamed of stepping hoof in one day, growing up on that dreary, remote rock farm.
The thought of her leaving pained Applejack, though she kept up a brave face for Pinkie's sake. This moment was enough, in that kitchen full of smiles and laughs and the little jokes that build up when you spend enough time around somepony you are close with. She could not make herself believe that this moment that was enough would do anything other than end and then fade into a distant memory, so she drank in its joys as deeply as she could, trying to feel every little detail.
It was in this state that her hoof brushed up against Pinkie’s, and her mind flooded with thoughts of how gentle and warm it felt against her own. A creeping guilt gnawed at her for enjoying the sensation, and for not pulling her hoof back and apologizing right away.
But Pinkie wasn’t pulling her hoof back, either.
They looked into each other’s eyes, sky blue and emerald green, frozen in that moment that felt just like so many others before it.
Their lips met.
