Sprout jerked awake, sweating and breathing heavily. He rubbed his eyes, trying to calm his pulse, as he heasitantly recalled his dream.
It had started out like all the others: him in the Sprouticus Maximus, trailed by the earth ponies of Maretime Bay, all wearing anti-mind-reading hats, some of them sporting splat-a-pults. But instead of only a couple dozen ponies behind him, the neat lines of marching citizens went on for miles. Sprout would try to stop the Sprouticus, or jump out the door and order these ponies to turn back and head for home, but it always seemed as if he was enslaved inside himself. He couldn’t control his own hooves, and was forced to watch in horror as the army marched to Sunny’s old lighthouse.
Sunny herself was standing just outside the structure, surrounded by her four friends, defiantly standing in his way. They would join hooves, and their magic gem accessories would appear, which began to glow, lifting the five ponies into the air as magic swirled around them. Sprout would growl and slam his hoof on a button, which activated his machine’s splat-a-pults. They pelted Sunny and her friends until they were covered in green goo and stuck to the ground.
Now Sprout could control his motions, but the Sprouticus started moving on its own, thundering up the hill towards the lighthouse. Sprout would jump out at the last second, but the lighthouse moaned and cracked before topping on top of the red machine. He whirled around and saw his entire army, led by that blue and pink earth pony - Candy Floss - engaging in battle with pegasi and unicorns, paying no attention when Sprout screamed at them to stop.
The ground cracked underneath him, and he fell into darkness, and then-
And then he woke up.
Sprout shook himself. It was just a dream, nothing more. He couldn’t dwell on the past. His friends were giving him a chance to make up for his mistakes, and he wasn’t going to waste it.
Without the franticness of his nightmare weighing in on his perception, Sprout looked around and, for the first time, noticed that he had been dozing in a very familiar room that was none other than his mother’s office at Canterlogic. How had he gotten here? Sprout racked his brain until his sluggish memory finally produced something.
It had been yet another sleepless night in his own home. He had been tossing and turning all the time until something prompted him to get up and look out the window. He didn’t know what it was, just some sort of feeling.
The sky had gone back to its original state only a few hours after magic had returned, but that had been hours ago - what was happening now was nothing related to that.
One of the constellations in the sky had been glowing: five stars arranged in a circle around a sixth, which always seemed to be brighter than the ones surrounding it. The five surrounding stars were glowing different colors - orange, white, blue, yellow, and pink. Sprout was no astronomer, but he did not recall stars being pink.
As the stars glowed brighter and brighter, they fell towards the earth; one in the direction of Bridlewood, two over to the tall mountain home of Zephyr Heights, and two - the yellow and the orange one - fell straight towards Maretime Bay.
With that, Sprout pulled his head inside the window and shut it. He slipped out of his house and onto the dark streets and looked up at the sky, where he saw no signs of the event he had just witnessed. Mind overflowing with questions, Sprout had gone to the Canterlogic factory and slipped into his mother’s office to collect his thoughts. The sound of the night shift always soothed him when he was younger, as if it brought him comfort knowing that something would protect him from the evils that his mother always used to describe the land around them. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but that must have happened.
Sprout stood up and opened the door to his mother’s office, peeking outside to make sure that nopony was watching. He slipped outside and hurried down the catwalk above the main factory, his head down, so lost in thought that he crashed into somepony standing on the catwalk.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said hastily, picking himself off the floor.
“Ah, you’re fine, sugarcube,” the mare said cheerfully, her voice carrying a country accent. “Guess I should’ve got out of the way; that was my fault.”
Sprout froze. Did that pony just call him… sugarcube? But that was what his mom called him… How did she know? He lifted his eyes from the floor to look at the mare, and his heart skipped a beat. The mare had an orange coat and a blonde mane tied off with a red band. She wore a brown hat and green eyes, and her cutie mark was an image of three apples. She appeared to be made of… sparkles? Like she shouldn’t be here, and yet she was.
But that wasn’t even the strangest thing about her. The strangest thing was that Sprout felt like he had seen her before, and yet he was confident that he had never seen her around town. There was something familiar about her…
“Aw, shoot, I’m really sorry ‘bout that,” the mare said brightly, grabbing Sprout’s arm and hauling him up, dusting him off. “You okay, sugarcube?”
“Don’t call me that,” Sprout snapped, taking a step back. The mare looked hurt, and he felt the urge to apologize, but shut it down.
“Let’s start over,” the mare decided after a while. “Hi, I’m Applejack. Nice to meet you.”
She held out her hoof, and Sprout stared at it, not sure what to do. The mare blinked, confused.
“And you are…” she prompted.
“Sprout,” the red earth pony said slowly, hesitantly taking her hoof and gently shaking it before letting go. “So… I haven’t seen you around before, which is becoming kind of the usual, except that you’re an earth pony, so that would mean you probably had to live in Maretime Bay, so why do I feel like I’ve seen you before? His gaze drifted to the mark on her flank, and he frowned, feeling the answer in his mind, but just out of reach. “Wait…”
“Wow, isn’t this place amazing?” Applejack put her front legs on the railing of the catwalk and gazed down at a conveyor belt that was producing packaged products, ready to be shipped. “I can’t believe we didn’t have somethin’ like this when I was around.”
“Wait, what?” Sprout’s head jerked up as he realized what the earth pony might be saying. “When… you were around?”
“It’s like magic,” Applejack continued, oblivious to Sprout’s confusion.
“Did you, by chance, have any friends who… weren’t earth ponies?” Sprout asked cautiously, creating a theory inside his head.
“Yup,” the mare said, grinning fondly. “Loads of ‘em. In fact, four of my closest friends were unicorns and pegasi. Well, now one of them’s an alicorn, but still not completely earth pony.” She gave Sprout a strange look. “Why are you lookin’ at me like that, sugarcube?”
“Don’t call me that,” he muttered. “You’re one of the Guardians of Harmony? Because I think my friend Sunny has a toy figure that looks like you…”
“Oh, is that what we’re known as these days?” Applejack rolled her eyes and grinned. “I suppose that each new generation must come up with their own name for our group. I mean, we used to be the Elements of Harmony, and then those got broken, so some ponies started calling us the ‘Mane 6’, and then we were the Council of Friendship… Guess I can add ‘Guardians of Harmony’ to my list.”
“B-but how are you here?” Sprout spluttered. “Do you know what Sunny will do to me if she finds out about this? This is a very serious situation, so stop laughing,” he growled as the orange mare shoved her hoof into her mouth to keep from snickering.
“So, Sprout.” Applejack tried the name, and Sprout felt shivers climb down his spine. It sounded weird for her to say his name, but also strangely right. “Tell me about yourself.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Sprout grumbled, having made up his mind that this pony could only be a hallucination or a factor of his own imagination. He pushed past her and continued down the catwalk, and was annoyed to find her following.
“Ah, come on, there’s gotta be somethin’,” she pushed. “How am I supposed to help you if you don’t at least tell me about yourself?”
“Help me?” Sprout would have laughed if she hadn’t looked so serious. “You’re here to help me? Well, let me get one thing straight with you. I am fine. I certianly don’t need help from random ponies whom I don’t even know and honestly should not be here. So, how about you go find somepony who actually wants your help, because it sure ain’t me.” He snapped his mouth shut as the phrase left, wishing he could grab the words and stuff them back into his mind, where they only existed to him. When he was growing up, he’d had trouble talking like everypony else; his mind automatically translated it into some sort of country language. His mother told him that everypony in their family had suffered the same, and to just refrain from saying words like y’all and howdy and things like that.
“Well, ya see, Sprout,” the mare continued as if she hadn’t noticed, “it’s sometimes the ponies who don’t want your help who need it the most.”
What was that supposed to mean? Sprout wondered. He shook himself and glared at her. “Look, like I said, I’m perfectly okay, so you can leave me alone now.” He turned around and kept walking, though he sensed that Applejack was right behind him the whole time.
“What a nice town,” Applejack commented as the two of them walked outside the factory. “You live here, I take it? What’s it called nowadays?”
“Uh, Maretime Bay?” Sprout said, unsure how to take her comment. Maybe he just misunderstood… Her accent did kind of make the words blend together, so that must be it.
“What do you do here?”
Sprout clamped his mouth shut to refrain from answering. It was clear that this pony wanted a conversation, and he wasn’t giving her one.
“Farmin’?” the mare prompted, falling into step beside him.
The idea was so ridiculous that Sprout snorted. “Good hoofness, no. I’m a deputy. Or at least, I was…” Nice going, Sprout. Now she’s going to want to know about that, too, and you just love telling that story to complete strangers, don’t you? He prayed that she wouldn’t notice, but alas, nothing seemed to get by Miss Country Pony.
“You were? What’re you now?”
“Nopony,” he snapped. It was true that he had been unable to find a new job so far, because everypony knew about the one pony who almost sent the three pony tribes in a war.
Applejack seemed to get the message, because she asked, “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Sprout said, way too quickly. Applejack gave him a sideways look that clearly said that she didn’t believe him. “I - I mean, I just… didn’t have much to do, you know, what with all three pony tribes reuniting and magic returning and Hitch being able to handle just about everything, so I just… left.” It was a very watered-down version of the truth, but Sprout hoped it would be enough.
Apparently, it wasn’t. Applejack gave him another sideways glance and said, “Are you sure ‘bout that, sugarcube?”
“I told you not to call me that!” Sprout quickened his speed so that he was a few steps ahead of the other earth pony, but she caught up.
“I get the feeling that there’s somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me,” she said conversationally.
“Of course there’s something I’m not telling you, and that’s because I don’t want you to hear it!” Sprout said angrily, breaking into a run. He growled in frustration as the mare easily kept pace with him.
“Ah, come on now, the things you don’t want other ponies to hear are the things you most need to tell,” Applejack insisted. “Look, I keep my friends’ secrets; I Pinkie promise that, whatever it is you have to say, I ain’t gonna tell it to anypony else. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She stabbed herself in the eye with her hoof, but Sprout didn’t even register the strange chant.
“There’s nothing to say!” He rounded a corner and groaned as he faced a dead-end, populated only by a dumpster and a few rogue pieces of trash that Hitch had missed.
“I know there’s somethin’,” the earth mare insisted, taking a cautious step forward. “One of the perks of being the Element of Honesty is bein’ able to identify when other ponies are lyin’ pretty easily, and you are terrible at it.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sprout muttered to himself. “Look, whoever you are, just go away! I don’t have any confessions, okay? I’m just fine, you understand?” Sprout’s eyes started to tear-up, and he swiped angrily at his face, hoping that the other earth pony wouldn’t notice him crying. “Now leave me ALONE!!!”
Applejack took a step back, and a look of hurt breifly flashed across her face before being replaced by a look of determination. “I know that ain’t true, sugarcube,” she said gently, taking two steps forward now. “I know you have somethin’ you need to say, but somethin’s keepin’ you from sayin’ it. Now, don’t be afraid to speak what you really feel, alright? It’s good to let other ponies know how you feel. Bein’ honest is hard, I know, but I think it’s worth it. So what is it that’s botherin’ ya?”
“Nothing,” Sprout choked out, taking a step back as the mare continued to advance on him.
“We both know that’s not true, sugarcube,” she said quietly. “Somethin’s goin’ on, and you need to talk about it. So what is it?”
“Nothing!”
“Are ya sure? Because it sure don’t sound like you’re sure. I promise you, whatever it is you have to say, I’ve probably heard of worse things, so whatever it is, spill it.” Sprout was silent. “I know you’re lyin’, so you might as well just tell me. What’s goin’ on that’s botherin’ you so much? Is it-”
“It’s because I’m scared!” Sprout finally burst out, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. “I - I’m scared that my friends won’t forgive me, I’m scared that something’ll go wrong again, I’m scared that everypony will blame me, I’m scared I’ll never be able to own up to my mistakes, I’m scared that ponies will keep holding me to expectations that I can’t reach, I’m scared that… that I’ll be left alone.” Once the words left his mouth, a huge weight lifted off his shoulders, and Sprout sat down on the ground, wrapping his arms around himself and avoiding looking at the mare. Applejack walked up to him and sat next to him, and though she made no other moves and spoke no words, Sprout felt a sort of comfort wash over him, and he took a deep breath, feeling calm for the first time in hours.
After a few moments of blessed silence, Applejack finally said, “Do your friends know?”
Sprout shrugged. “I mean… sort of? I haven’t told them everything, though.”
“I think they deserve to know,” Applejack said, standing up. “They are your friends, after all, and you should never be afraid to share something with them - or what they might think of you.” Her voice seemed to be getting fainter, and Sprout looked up to see her already somewhat transparent form getting more transparent-er.
“Wait… are you going?” He stood up, suddenly feeling like he didn’t want her to go. “So soon? Can’t you at least help me a little bit more?”
She shook her head. “The rest is up to you to figure out. I only leave when you’re ready to go out on your own, so you don’t need my help.”
“But it would be very nice to have it,” Sprout insisted, taking a step forward and reaching out. “Please, don’t go yet.”
“Good luck, Sprout,” Applejack said, her voice barely a whisper. “And remember, the most important pony to be honest with… is yourself.” She closed her eyes and disappeared, leaving behind a faint smell of apples.
Sprout stood in the alleyway for a while, thinking on what she had said. They deserve to know, she had told him. He had to tell his friends… but where to start? With who? Hitch? Or maybe one of his newer friends, like Izzy or Zipp? But in his heart, he knew exactly who to start with, and his hooves automatically found their way through Maretime Bay to a dirt path that led to a newly constructed lighthouse. From the dancing lights upstairs, he guessed that Sunny was home…
Sprout took a deep breath and started up the path. There was a conversation that he had needed to have for a very long time.
Author's Note
Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!
