Faithfully Yours

Chapters

Braeburn
Rarity
Twilight
Fluttershy
The Country Mare's Dinner
Sweetie Belle
Applejack
Apple Bloom
The Visit
Rarity 2
Twilight 2
The Wedding Party
Awakening
Rainbow
The Second Visit

Braeburn

1st October

Dear AJ

Howdy! Sure hope this is the right address; it was no easy feat getting hold of it.

"How was the wedding?" I hear you cry, despite not one letter for nearly two months! (Dare I say it? Shame on you!) If I've been a little flighty in my own correspondence with my fellow Apples, it's just because the past month has damn near taken it out of me. I'm sure you know that after putting it off for as long as equinely possible, Rarity has finally moved up to Appleloosa. I think it was the new stirrings in agriculture that convinced her in the end; there's big money in this Flimflam chain, and with a little work we'll have gained their investment well in time for Hearth's Warming Eve. Celestia knows the move's been hard for the poor filly, what with her being so darn classy, but she's a strong girl, and of course it came with a catch: we had to have our wedding in the same month as the royals. It's good luck, apparently.

I don't know what trigged this urgency of hers to get hitched, but luckily every Appleloosan pulled their weight to give Rarity her perfect day and make Trixie and Blueblood's look like a street party (not that my girl couldn't outshine Her Highness on looks alone anyway). The late notice ruled out some of the more extravagant services; some renowned cellist by the name of Octavia wasn't contactable, which disappointed Rarity. But heck, if that was her only complaint I knew we'd done her proud.

But then, I guess it wasn't her only complaint, as I'm sure you realise. Toffee's renowned lemon drizzle tarts and Silverstring's beautiful harp solos didn't solve the problem of the guests. Sure, every Apple this side of Equestria showed - they were all asking after you by the way - but I ain't gonna lie; Rarity was more than a little disappointed that so few of her Ponyville friends could make it. I mean Rainbow Dash was there, strutting about with that flash Wonderbolt fella of hers, (he, at least, seemed to remember the square dancing lessons you gave them at Mac's wedding!) But as far as everyone else was concerned, I guess it was just damn rotten timing. Twilight Sparkle had been called back to Canterlot on royal business, something to do with "the redistribution of authority in light of Blueblood's marriage", and heck only knows what was keeping that crazy little filly Pinkie Pie. But AJ, it was your absence that was the icing on the cake. After your performance at Big Mac's wedding I'll bet you had every lusty young Apple jealous of you for being a free agent, so you can imagine my surprise when Big Mac steps off the train alone a week before ours, telling me that Fluttershy can't make it because they're too busy to both take time off, and Applebloom's chosen to take care of Granny Smith who's sick, and all on account of my wholesome cousin Applejack skipping town with some business stallion!

Now I won't sugar-coat it; Big Mac sure didn't seem happy about the arrangement - he refused to talk about it anyway. But AJ, much as I'm inclined to lecture you about the Apple family values, I know you haven't had a lot of luck in love, and if you've gone and found yourself a prize colt, then Gosh darn it, I'm happy for you. But don't go leaving us high and dry now, you hear? Whoever the lucky stallion is, I want to know all about him in your letter back, and I want a written guarantee that you'll be coming up to Appleloosa in the near future so that I can personally shake his hoof. I'm assuming wedding bells will be ringing in due time? Get in there soon, and you might still get a slice of that royal good luck, if that offer's still valid that is. I'll consult the expert over supper.

For now, all the best Cuz, and don't leave me hanging!

Much love

Braeburn xxx

Applejack finished the letter, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Inclining her head to the ashtray of the bistro table, she took up her cigarette and gazed out over the balcony. It was a typical Manehatten morning, with an edge of autumn unfurling leisurely as it waited to be run into the dust by galloping hooves. It was barely past six, but the bedroom smelled of the dregs of the night, and she'd needed fresh air - whereupon she had remembered the letter she'd concealed the morning before, when likewise, she'd risen early. With a quick glance through the french doors of the elegant penthouse apartment, she slid the letter towards her, swallowed, and tore it carefully down the middle. She tore the pieces several more times, before gently conveying them to the ashtray and dropping her lit cigarette on top. They smoked feebly, the scrawny grey tendrils climbing the flat air, while the remains swiftly curled black. Then she felt her husband's breath on her neck, and looked up into the white sky.

"Come back to bed, Jacqueline."

Rarity

10th October

Dearest Fluttershy

How are you keeping? I am somewhat saddened that you have yet to respond to my letters, but you should know that I am not blaming you, nor will I ever. I know you too well to succumb to petty bitterness. Rather, I have put down your lack of correspondence to the frightful amount of work that must be upon you as a farm pony. I am pleased to say that I haven't suffered that fate myself; Braeburn has worked hard to keep me in the lifestyle to which I am accustomed, and his efforts have paid off - Flimflam have invested in the acres and hired a brand new workforce for my husband to command. Of course one has the utmost respect for the traditional farmers, but stepping into the modern world requires certain changes to one's methods.

Oh dear, I hope I'm not sounding condescending. Celestia knows I'm hopeless when it comes to outdoor work, but you of course are a natural. I suppose I'm just grateful that I haven't had to compromise who I am upon marrying an Apple - you can imagine life in Appleloosa has taken some getting used to. And of course I'm a little upset that your work kept you from attending my wedding. I do so miss our weekly get-togethers, Fluttershy.

But I know I mustn't dwell on the past, nor must I bore you with details about my wedding, as I have found myself doing in my last letters to you (Maybe that is why you don't respond, and for that I wouldn't blame you). The fact is, I am making progress. I have re-established my business with relatively few setbacks. True enough, it was somewhat difficult to set up decent regular importation for my resources at first, given the remoteness of our town, but the Flimflam reorganisation of the cotton and silk industry has straightened that out since then, and business is booming in Appleloosa, which - let's face it - was gagging for the expertise of a fashion designer. I've become something of a celebrity amongst the Appleloosan mares, and just this week I was voted chairmare of the local ladies club. It offers the kind of small-town distractions you might expect - bridge nights, barbecues, campaigning for the royal protection of disadvantaged farm foals, fundraising for new local facilities with baking contests and raffles and the like. It certainly doesn't compare to confronting dragons or wielding the elements of harmony, but I have big plans for the club, and if the money continues to roll in, we might get a foot in the door of the Manehatten Mare's institute, or even that of Canterlot, provided my old connections aren't too repelled by my new 'farmer's wife' status. Only time will tell, I expect.

I feel that way about a lot of things these days. Like so many aspects of the future have become shrouded with uncertainty, and I'm to just keep my head down and get on with my new life if I am to stand any chance. My last letter from Rainbow Dash informed me that Twilight is still in Canterlot on Royal business. Mind you, that was almost a month ago, and even a blossoming celebrity like Rainbow doesn't seem to have much insight into goings-on at Canterlot. Whatsmore, I gather there has been no news of Applejack? Your husband refused to elaborate at all on this elopement of hers when he came over for our wedding, and what little information that has filtered through the Apple family since then is being kept from me most efficiently. The throng we've married into are certainly a cagey bunch. If you ever find the time to write to me, I implore you to provide me with a full report on everything that has happened since I moved away. You must understand I hear nothing in this charming little town of ours.

Once again, send my love to Pinkie, Granny Smith and my two other hardworking cousins.

All my love

Rarity xxx

Twilight

30th October

Dear Rainbow,

I'm crossing my hooves that this letter reaches you amongst the tons of fanmail you must be getting these days - so first and foremost, congratulations on your success! I can't walk down a single street in Canterlot without going past a billboard or promotional poster of you, the shops are packed out with merchandise from your line (the action figures hardly do you justice) and every rep at every rally in the town is talking about Cloudsdale's most promising up-and-coming star. I'll admit it's a little weird to think of how many times the newest wonderbolt came crashing onto my balcony, but I can think of no-one more talented and deserving of this hype than you, and if I know you, you're loving it.

It's such a relief to actually find time to write to a good friend; I'd say you have no idea how busy I've been, but I figure your schedule must be pretty packed out too, if the advertisements for your shows are anything to go by. In any case, I'm afraid I need to ask you for a couple of favours.

I don't quite know where to begin with this, so I guess I'll just jump right in. Please don't take it personally that I can't tell you a great deal (I suspect I shouldn't be telling you anything at all; this is pretty under the radar stuff, government business and all). But what I can say is that Celestia and Luna have been devoting a lot more time to pressing cosmic duties on the outer regions of Equestria, and intend to keep doing so now that two of the royals have been successfully married off. So Celestia has appointed me as a royal advisor to help keep extremist sectors from taking advantage of the new couple's... questionable expertise. You can imagine how thrilled the Great and Powerful Trixie was to have her old rival at her beck and call, and while I've been doing a whole lot of fetching and carrying for Her Highness, it seems I haven't been able to stop her from meddling in government affairs.

I know you're enjoying your new found fame, but I guess what I want you to know for now, is that things aren't so great for everypony. I've heard you haven't gone back to Ponyville since Fluttershy's wedding, and without touching a nerve, I understand. I also totally understand that your work is currently in Cloudsdale, but at the risk of sounding self-pitying, I'm sure you can't be more stranded than me.

My main request is for you to check on Pinkie. Nopony has seen or heard from her since shortly after Fluttershy's wedding, but I suspect that she has gone back to her family's rock farm in light of the rapid spreading of the FlimFlam enterprise. When you find her, she may need money. I know it's not tasteful to ask you to throw money at your friends, but I stress the latter - friend, before anything else. Secondly - PLEASE find Applejack. I need to know she's okay, that she's being treated well. Since she left Ponyville it's been a nightmare for anyone to get hold of her. Braeburn contacted her a while ago, but the address was obtained through hearsay alone, and she has't replied. If it was ever valid it might not be now; I'd imagine her fiancé has them travelling a lot.

Lastly, as glad as I am to watch your shows and interviews, I have to ask you to be careful what you say. I know it sounds stupid, but you are an icon, Rainbow, you have a great influence on the public. And I know you're not on the best terms with AJ at the moment, and I know that being the better half of a supremely wealthy and talented power couple is a dream come true for you, but please, remember how important it is these days for everypony to be there for her friends.

And with the best wishes for you and Soarin, I'm gonna ahead and post this before I find myself facing disciplinary action for making her majesty wait five extra minutes for her afternoon tea.

All the best for now

Twilight xxx

Fluttershy

12th November

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Dear Rarity,

Oh goodness, I'm sorry I didn't get in touch sooner; I'd no idea how lonely you were. I'm afraid you're right; we have been very busy on the farm since it came under new management. Mac told me all about your wonderful wedding, but I enjoyed reading your account of it all the same. I can't tell you how disappointed I was that I couldn't make it (although to be honest I was still recovering from my own - I certainly won't try drinking again) but it's so comforting to know that I've gained a wonderful new cousin in one of my friends.

Oh but listen to me, talking so joyously of cousins, after what's happened with Applejack. You seem to have been left a little in the dark, so I guess I'll go ahead and fill you in as best I can.

After our wedding, and your departure west, the FlimFlam brothers became interested in buying up Sweet Apple Acres. Well, they weren't just interested, they were sure, and very persistent also. I wasn't really involved, but I used to overhear Flam pestering Mac while Flim pursued Applejack in the fields.

I never expected the Apples to sell, but then, I never expected to get up one morning and see Applejack pass me in a carriage between Flim and Flam. She saw me, I'm sure, I was right on the road, but she didn't look at me. She wouldn't. Mac hadn't come back from his night at the inn, and when I found him at work the next day, he just told me that nothing would be the same. Mac hates talking about what happened, but that, at least, he needn't have told me. Everything changed, from the moment the new management knocked on our cottage door.

I enclose in this letter a newspaper clipping that was our only notification of Applejack's marriage to Flim. You will notice that it is from the Manehatten Times; our relatives the Oranges sent it with their congratulations for Applejack marrying so "well". I certainly don't share their feelings, but I'm glad at least for some news of her. You'll also see that the newspaper is nearly a month out of date, surely more by the time this reaches you - it is so very hard to get post in and out of Ponyville these days. So while we know that they were married in Manehatten, there's no knowing if they are still there.

Life now isn't easy, but we're getting along fairly well. The new management are generally kind to us, and while the hours are long, I am receiving a good wage, and Mac is paid much better than many farm ponies have been recently. As FlimFlam family members, Granny Smith and Applebloom are allowed to keep up residence in the Apple family home, although this right would be revoked if Mac and I quit our jobs. I feel just awful for Applebloom, who has had to skip school to look after Granny Smith. I've told Mac that I'll take time off work to take care of her myself, but he says it's for the best that Applebloom do it because my income is so crucial to our livelihood. It's tough, but we're helping each other through it. Lily and I ventured into the Everfree forest the other day, and found more than enough chestnuts to fill all our larders. (Can you believe I don't even get scared anymore when we have to go in there?) Mac's dream is to one day buy back a portion of the acres, and so long as we've this much love and support here in Ponyville, I'll never lose faith.

Oh goodness, here I am going on about our lives, when I haven't even told you about Pinkie Pie. I met Rainbow at her old home in Ponyville last week. It was so good to see her after so long, even though we only had a few minutes together out of her busy schedule. She told me she had stopped by the Pie rock farm, but the Pies weren't there, only there were accounts from the neighbours that all Pie sisters had been there a short while before, and that they had all left together. I hope this news is as reassuring to you as it was to me - we can at least assume that Pinkie is safe and with her family, although naturally I wish she were here. One of her parties would really do Ponyville good right now.

Well, I'd better wrap this up, I promised Rose I'd meet her for lunch before my shift starts again. I'm afraid I don't know when I can next write to you; as I've said, the postal service in Ponyville isn't very reliable at the moment, and I'll need to work overtime for as long as possible if we want a happy Hearth's Warming Eve. However, I'm sure us Apples will be reuniting soon, and I'll be keeping you and Braeburn in my thoughts.

Lots of love

Fluttershy xxx

The Country Mare's Dinner

6th January

The doors of the elevator opened, and it was with no little anxiety that Rarity stepped out, flanked by vice-chairmare Chantilly Creme and assistant Silverstring of the Appleloosan Ladies Society. The corridor was deserted, but the elegant bubbling of several hundred voices caressed the grandly iced white plaster walls and the mirror-like marble floor.

"Now remember my little ponies - grace, poise and dignity. If we make a good impression we're sure to have all sorts of influential figures interested in funding our projects."

She barely heard her own voice as the immense doorway came into view, through which chandeliers winked in the evening sunlight, and lace-covered tables floated like water lilies in webs of designer gowns, finely quaffed manes and genteel smiles.

"Rarity, darling, you made it!" Pavlova Periwinkle, secretary to the mayor of Trottingham, was gliding towards them through the vast mats of light that fell from the immense glass doors on the left. "And you even brought your little helpers! Silverstring, Chantilly..." She nodded to the respective ponies. "My heavens, I thought Appleloosa was a little too far off the map!"

Rarity squirmed, before letting an indulgent smile settle over her discomfort. "well, there's no doubt the annual Country Mare's Dinner is worth a little long distance travel. And you're well are you, Pavlova?"

"Oh, quite! I'll fancy this must be one of the most high spirited dinners of all I've attended thus far in my career, just look at all the special guests! It's your first is it not? How thrilling for you. You must forgive me for not taking another trip down to your quaint little town, I've been frightfully busy. Alas, such is the fate of she who is shackled to the politics of a big city!"

"You have my...greatest sympathies. I'm sorry, I believe Mr Fancypants is trying to attract my attention. I think he's indicating that we are to be seated with him tonight. Please excuse me."

Leaving Pavlova agape, Rarity levitated her dress a fraction and wove carefully through the sunlit tables. Beyond a trio of gleaming pillars and a neatly positioned orchestral quartet (sadly not Octavia's), the room unfolded further, and various glances cocked her way as she ambled to Fancypants' side. Chantilly and Silverstring followed behind her dutifully. Back home they were eager to impress quite vocally, but here their small-town hearts fluttered fiercely and rendered them all but mute.

Fancypants smirked kindly. "Goodness my girl, hasn't it been a long time?"

"Too long, I must say." Rarity said, surprising herself with the age-old sorrow in her voice. She had to remind herself that it had been over a year since she had impressed the elite of Canterlot, and that she should be careful not to appear outspoken. She found this rousing a hardened part of her that didn't want to accept such a distance from her past, as though the twenty-four hour train journey that had brought them to Manehatten had seen her cut through time itself, with memories flying up either side like dust, while in their stuffy carriage she had brooded, drawing endless games of bridge from her country company. Said company she presently introduced to the stallion.

"Charmed, I'm sure! Come, take a seat next to me, Rarity! I'm sure Fleur won't be done mingling for a long time yet. Did you have a good Hearth's Warming Eve? I daresay it must have been a world away from your last one. Please, I want to hear all about your delightful new town."

Perching in Fleur's allocated seat, she began to tell the socialite all, dissecting her life in Appleloosa and rebuilding it like a card tower on the table, if not for his benefit then for her own. The choir sessions at the town hall. Basket weaving and bridge nights with the Ladies. Swatting locusts as she stewed in her new studio. Boiling jam in the kitchen on bitter mornings. Knitting scarves for members of the new workforce - it was cold at this time of year even when exerting ones-self outdoors. Leaving the scarves on the branches of the Apple trees. Picking flowers at the brook.

"Splendid! And how are your friends, those delightful characters I met at the Canterlot garden party?"

"Well," Rarity began, the dulcamara of memory thickening her voice. "I've not doubt you've heard about Rainbow Dash, the most talented young wonderbolt to emerge in recent times. And Twilight, she's been Princess Trixie's right hand mare since the Royal Redistribution. I'm afraid their high profile positions keep them immensely busy; Twilight's duties all but confine her to the palace, and I scarcely hear from either of them these days. Pinkie and Fluttershy are both in farming, although last I heard, Pinkie's family had relocated. Fluttershy and I married cousins within the Apple family. Her farm joined the Flimflam enterprise about four months ago now, and we have persuaded the company to invest a generous amount in our own. As for Applejack..."

Fancypants chuckled and raised his hoof, for which Rarity was grateful, because she barely knew where to begin regarding the abrupt marriage of her other cousin to Flim, and the drought of news thereafter. "Please, my dear, you do not need to tell me that. You forget I am a stallion of high circles."

At this point, the dinner gong sounded, and Rarity repositioned herself in her designated seat on the other side of the table. Her fellow Appleloosans had long since found theirs, in which they whispered to each other and shot glances across the room, presumably at the various high profile ponies of whom they had heard and recognised.

"It is not good manners to act so conspiratorial, ladies." Rarity chastised discreetly, though her fatigue was evident. Fancypants had reminded her of the pleasure of different company. They were joined directly by Fleur De Lis; she eyed them with an unreadable expression and absent-mindedly toyed with her partner's cuff-links.

"I understand that you are chairmare of your local lady's club, Mrs Rarity, together with being the farmer's wife. I must say, in that fabulous outfit you look much more the former than the latter. You must have been a great loss to the fashion world."

"On the contrary, Miss Lis, I run a boutique in Appleloosa alongside my other duties."

"I don't know where any of us would be without it!" Chantilly burst out, grateful for her token contribution.

"My my, you must have your hooves full. It at least explains why you don't look like a farmer."

"Sweetness, please..." Fancypants murmured, bringing his muzzle close to hers.

"Well she doesn't!" Fleur retorted with graceful mirth. "Mind you, a horn always helps in that department. No offence meant to you two...ladies."

"None taken at all!" Chirped Silverstring.

"Well if my town's anything to go by, horns and wings are the very marks of a farm pony." Rarity muttered with a coy laugh.

"There's Flimflam policy in a nutshell." Fancypants remarked in a tone that was ultimately unfathomable, were it not, perhaps, for the faintest hint of sorrow.

"Darling, you've no idea how I relish the rare occasions when you speak your mind." She turned back to Rarity sharply. "Mrs Rarity, you come from a fairly neutral perspective. Your husband is an Earth Pony, is he not? Tell me, what do you suppose the future is for our unequipped brethren, in light of Flim and Flam's recent renovations in farming?"

"You know, I'm sure somepony once said that it's rude to discuss politics at parties." Fancypants quipped, only half teasing.

"Oh but I thrive on it, Fancy! Besides I've no interest in small-talk. Idle chit-chat should be left to idle creatures." Her eyes sparkled surreptitiously to the left of Rarity, where Chantilly and Silverstring giggled at a particularly handsome waiter.

"Well I mean to say, here is an even better subject for your interrogation. Mr Flim, how nice to see you again! And Lady Flim, you're looking positively radiant!"

Rarity turned on impulse, and there was Applejack. And yet, upon taking a second glance at the mare before her, Rarity wondered how she'd even recognised the farm pony that was her close friend. 'Lady Flim' was sporting a pale peach satin dress with a high-slit trail that revealed a tasteful portion of leg, her signature trio of apples (gleaming somewhat rebelliously amidst the genteel atmosphere) and her ample golden tail that lent the ensemble its gentle domed shape. A thin strap ran around the front, and was fastened at one side with a green apple-blossom brooch. Her butterscotch fur was glossy, evidently having enjoyed regular grooming, and her blonde mane, once long and barely kempt, floated halo-like about her head in a voluptuous honey coloured bob. The ends were sculpted with a few well placed curls, and a soft, graduating fringe obscured half her face with surprising flattery. Her husband stood at her side, clad in a tuxedo and a blue velvet waistcoat. His red mane was plastered back flat against his pate, lending emphasis to his sharp eyes.

"Sorry we're late all." Flim drawled, as Rarity and Applejack locked eyes for the first time in five months." Slight hiccup in business at Dodge Junction. Thankfully my employees have since straightened that out. I do hope we haven't missed starters?"

"You're right on time, old fruit. And how are you both?"

Rarity couldn't believe she hadn't noticed that the two remaining seats at their table were reserved for the Flims. Flim was talking, and then Fancypants was introducing them all, with Fleur chiming in with her semi acrid wit, and Rarity felt her lips sculpt the word 'charmed', but she heard none of it. She sat, shivering hotly in her friend's company, as that perfect and so very anti-Applejack hair shredded the sunlight and teased her peripheral vision. She felt like a jewel on a chandelier that couldn't stop spinning at such a speed that everything looked the same, so that she might have been sitting perfectly still within a perpetually warped world.

"So what did you want to interrogate me about, Miss Lis?" Flim smirked invitingly. Rarity blinked, tuning in again.

"Ah yes." Fleur began, fully intent on calling her partner's bluff. She repeated her initial question crisply, enjoying her own elegant execution of each word.

Had Flim supposed Fleur was challenging him, he might not have acted so relaxed. However, he was fully aware that none of his company posed a threat to his politics.

"You overestimate me, miss Lis." He drawled. "I am a simple country business stallion. I see spots where things are lacking, and I work with my brother to fill them in. I am a stallion of progress, of More instead of Less. I have no great visions of the future that transcend great tasting produce and the happiness that this brings. Perhaps my wife can lend her opinion, I daresay she is much more informed in this area."

Fleur turned to Applejack with a wry smile. "Well, Mrs Flim? What do you think?"

Rarity stared down at her side dish, waiting for her friend to speak.

After a few moments, Applejack obliged. Her accent had softened and her sentiment was simple, with the futile poignancy of a blunt knife. "We've all just gotta stick together, I guess."

"Strange that, coming from you." Rarity's faint words had dripped out of her before they had even registered in her mind. They lingered stagnantly in her side dish, and she could do nothing but stare at them, while everyone else tried not to. Fleur, at least, was prepared to tug out this weed.

"Ah yes, isn't it true that such ideals are as fundamentally flawed as we who spout them?"

"We can only be what we are." Applejack said tersely, eyes to the table.

"My point exactly." Replied Fleur. "Now, shall we take a look at the menu?"

Notions of food were fired this way and that, until the awkwardness was thoroughly shot through. Once all the orders were made, the conversation quickly became monopolised by Flim and Fancy's cultured past-times, with Fleur's frequent speculations on this and that fashion. Rarity made a few good natured comments in a half-hearted effort to redeem herself, while Chantilly and Silverstring merely laughed along to whatever they supposed to be funny just to keep their heads above the torrent of city sophistication in which they felt themselves drowning. Applejack didn't laugh, or comment, or speculate. She remained absolutely silent, a picture of moody integrity contained in a beautiful dress.

By the time the food arrived, the ponies were engrossed in conversation about the latest productions at the Canterlot theatre, and Rarity was just about ready to throw herself in despite her ignorance, suddenly unwilling to sit in almost complete silence for the rest of the evening of account of Applejack. It was then that her old friend took the opportunity to lean in close to her.

"What are you doin' here?" She whispered.

Rarity had a hard time keeping discreet. "It's the Country Mare's Dinner is it not? I'm representing the Appleloosan ladies."

Applejack smiled and muttered, "I'd say your company are doing a better job of it."

Rarity twitched with fury, not sparing a glance at her associates. "Everypony's been so worried about you, Applejack. Why haven't you made contact with anyone since running away with him?"

Applejack's smile faded and she turned away sharply. Rarity made to speak, but was interrupted by Fancypants.

"Mrs Flim, Rarity, you were close to Rainbow Dash, help me out here. Fleur thinks Soarin will win the summer derby, but I'm sure you will agree with me that it will most certainly be Rainbow. I mean it may be her first, but that girl is in a league of her own!"

"Oh but Soarin has come out top three years in a row now!" Fleur piped up. "He is in better shape than ever, and unfortunately, if the press has any merit at all, his girlfriend's talent is by no means paralleled by her lifestyle of late. There's talk of....elicit substances...don't you know, and not the kind that improve performance either."

Chantilly and Silverstring gasped in sync. "The scandal!" Chantilly exclaimed, as if it were a particularly good tasting element of her dish. "Well I must say she looked fine when I met her at Rarity's wedding, but I suppose you never can tell with these celebrities."

"Oh balderdash," Fancypants murmured around a shy chuckle. "Vicious rumours and nothing else, I'm sure." He cast an apologetic look at Applejack and Rarity.

"Absolutely." Declared Flim. "I have every faith in her. Ladies, word to the wise, for I am a boy of the bookies. " He addressed Chantilly and Silverstring with a charming smile. "Put your money on our dear Rainbow when you can. I guarantee she won't let you down."

"It's ever so exciting, is it not? Girlfriend versus Boyfriend, the two most talented wonderbolts going head to head, with love itself on the line!"

Applejack cleared her throat. "In any case Fleur, I won't let it keep me up at night. The kind of love you know is only on the line when somepony else is rich enough to buy it."

"Jacqueline." Flim barked abruptly.

"I'm goin' for a smoke." Before anyone could stop her, Applejack dismounted her chair and stalked towards the glass doors that led to the balcony.

"Excuse me, I'll join her. Ladies, why don't you tell Mr Flim here about the society's big plans for Appleloosa?" Rarity was amazed at how little any of it mattered to her now.

Outside, a spectacular view saw the last of the frivolity shelved neatly and negligibly on the balcony. The winter evening sky shone like an immense fresh wound, and Manehattan, drained of colour, brooded for miles under the sun. Applejack was struggling to light her cigarette with one of the tea lights on the railing posts, and Rarity swiftly assisted her, levitating her lighter out of her pocket and sending it towards the amber mare. She'd given up smoking as a young adolescent, but given the surreal magnitude of change her life had endured in Appleloosa, rekindling the old habit had seemed natural and trivial. Nevertheless, she had different standards for Applejack.

"My my, I never thought you'd be one to smoke."

Applejack glanced at her waspishly, before sharply exhaling a current of smoke from the corner of her mouth.

"But then, I suppose I also never thought you'd run out on us." She paused, before deciding to voice a thought that was more provocative than reflective of her feelings. "Perhaps there's a lot to you that none of us knew."

"Damn right." Applejack croaked despondently, neglecting to tip her ash. It flaked off in its own time, dusting the railing sloppily.

Rarity was growing impatient, and cast the ash off the railing with a sweep of her horn. "I must say you were incredibly rude to Fleur."

Applejack finally faced her square on. "Well you ain't exactly been a picture of good manners yourself this evening."

"Can you really blame me, in light of everything? And you never answered my question earlier. Why haven't you been in touch with your family?"

Applejack took a deep breath, and vulnerability flashed in her eyes. "Are they okay?"

"Answer the question."

The former farm pony dropped her head, adopting a steady gaze at the floor. "I had nothing to say to them."

Rarity shut her eyes. Applejack was striking everywhere that wasn't guarded. She forced herself to move onto something else. "Why did Flim call you Jacqueline just now?"

Applejack's gaze didn't stray from the floor. "It's just what I go by now."

"And where are you and your husband living?"

"Atlantic city, Neigh Jersey. Flim owns an estate there."

"Nice home is it?"

"It'd give you a small heart attack." The dry hint of mirth was drained from her eyes as quickly as it had come, and once again they abandoned Rarity, this time settling on what lay before them. "I miss this view though."

Rarity eyed her old friend sluggishly. "Your husband certainly is a flirt."

"I didn't see him flirting with you, so it's none of your business."

"And you love him, do you?"

"I married him didn't I?" Her accent thickened with her anger, and her green eyes shone fiercely in the evening light.

At this point, Rarity knew that she would get nothing from her old friend. It was a bitter realisation, and she struggled to contain her anger and disappointment when she whispered feebly, "fine."

And then a thought occurred to her, and she got it out quickly before her voice cracked. "Do you think Rainbow is...using?"

Applejack's face was unfathomable as she delivered her verdict. "Without a doubt."

"Ah, there she is!" Came a shrill voice. Pavlova Periwinkle was making her way onto the balcony alongside the inimitable Cherry Jubilee. "Lady Flim, what an honour! Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Pavlova Periwinkle, assistant to the mayor of Trottingham, and this is Cherry Jubilee, who tells me dear Rarity here used to work as a Cherry Sorter on her farm. Isn't it fascinating how ponies can progress?"

Cherry Jubilee's eyes widened as they locked on Applejack, before she burst into a regional frenzy. "Is that Applejack I see in that pretty dress! Why I'd heard the rumours but I never... My my, don't you look stunning! You know I never did forgive you for leavin' me sugar, farm ain't never gonna be the same!"

Applejack beamed wearily at the farm pony, while Pavlova twitched irately, her attempt to show up Rarity having backfired. She waited until the two country ponies had wandered indoors together, before addressing Rarity.

"You know, I had a discussion with a number of my dear friends here and I'm afraid we all have reservations about the projects of your society. But if you like, I could introduce you to a few small-town mare clubs like yours, perhaps you could join together and pursue some more realistic goals before attempting to curry favour with the likes of Fancypants, hmm?"

And with that, the last of the magic of the Country Mare's Dinner was gone. The balcony little more than an ashtray, and inside, where the manners were refined and the talk was barely garnished with sincerity, the tables were like spinning plates, held precariously by conversations and relations as insipid as they were eloquent. If friendship wouldn't last under this sky, why would any of this? In the heat of her irritation, a couple of words prized her lips apart. "Oh save it."

She turned back to the spectacular view, vaguely registering Pavlova's indignant "very well" and the receding trickle of her hooves. In the sky, colours kicked at other colours, made love to other colours, made other colours. All the world was a view, and alone with it, she suddenly decided she would go out tonight; don a red dress, take to the streets and break each building like chocolate. This was a city night, on which cigarette smoke could touch the moon, and the stars didn't aim like a rain of needles. And she would deal it to all sorts of strange sanctuaries - a park bench, the back of a cab, the ear of a sympathetic bar stallion. She'd leave Chantilly and Silverstring at the hotel of course; she'd no interest in being their chaperone in a city she didn't even know herself. But where did this leave her and Applejack?

This question was shortly answered when she drifted back inside, only to be informed by Fancypants that abrupt circumstances required the presence of Sir and Lady Flim elsewhere, and they had left five minutes ago.

Sweetie Belle

18th January

Dear Apple Bloom,

Rarity says you and Fluttershy are pretty busy these days, and everypony says Ponyville isn't the same anymore, so if you can't reply, that's okay. I'll probably DIE not knowing when you get your cutie mark, but I guess if you're just looking after Granny Smith then your cutie mark would only be an icepack or something, right? So I'm gonna hope for your sake that you're still a crusader.

What's wrong with Granny Smith anyway? Oh, I might ask alot of questions in this letter, even if you can't reply. I'm just so bored out here with my folks, and my last letter from Scootaloo was before Hearth's Warming Eve. Did you have a good one by the way?

I dunno if Scoots wrote to you, or if it got there if she did, and I kinda wrecked her letter when I was trying to make a friendship crane. You'd laugh if you saw it, art is SO not my forte. (But then you're probably laughing now, it was kind of a stupid thing to do). Still, when we see each other you've gotta teach me how to make them properly. I'll bet you can make all sorts of oragamis.

So I guess I'll tell you what Scootaloo said, or what I can remember anyway. She can't come visit either of us any time soon, because being Rainbow Dash's assistant is pretty hard work. Does Rainbow come visit you guys much? I dunno how she could since she's a superstar and super-busy, but I think that if we're like that when we're older, me a pop star and you a farm pony or whatever we are, I'd find a way of seeing you. I wonder if Fluttershy and Rainbow ever thought about these things when they were our age. Boy, that makes me wonder if I even want a cutie mark.

Scootaloo hasn't got one yet either, or she might now, but she didn't when she wrote to me and I'll bet she's just doing the same thing as she was before, with no time for crusading. She says she does a whole lot of 'being there for Rainbow', and asked if that could be her special talent. Dunno about you, but I don't think so. I've done enough 'being there for Rarity' to last me a lifetime, and I sure haven't got any cutie mark out of it. Doesn't stop her wanting me there again though, and if there's one place more boring than here, it's Appleloosa. I don't think a cutie mark can be about where you are or who you're with, because then you'd be useless without them or anywhere else, which doesn't seem right to me. The new mayor says everypony should be useful in their own right. Being there for someone is just being, which anypony can do, and with all the protection stallions hanging around the town, I guess that's just not enough now.

I didn't believe her when she said Rainbow cries. I can't even see her doing that once, let alone every night. Scootaloo never sees it either, she just hears it through the bedroom door and knows it can't be anypony else, even though Rainbow smiles at her before she goes in and when she comes out. It's not like she used to smile, Scootaloo says, because her face has changed. Looking at the posters, I don't see it, but Scoots says it's because she's around her enough to notice. She's probably just boasting, you know what she's like. Like when she told me that there's this big secret she's keeping for Rainbow, something Rainbow doesn't want anyone to know. It's the reason why she looks so "different" now. Grown-up stuff, Scoots says, and that she can't tell us. No fair, we're her best friends, and if Scoots is grown-up enough then we sure as Celestia are. But don't worry, give it a few more letters and I'll have gotten it out of her. No harm in her two best friends knowing too, right? We can keep a secret just as well as she can. Anyway, she can't torture me like this, I'm going crazy as it is.

Apparently Rainbow fights alot with Soarin, but she always starts the fights and always wins them, so I don't know why she'd cry about them. Soarin always caves in and accepts whatever problem she has with him. That's what Scootaloo says. That he's like "yes, sorry, okay honey whatever you want." And then she smiles at him and says "ok then, awesome" and then goes away and cries.

Scoots says they fight most about the summer derby, and how Soarin doesn't train as hard as he should. Not that it should matter to Rainbow, since it's every wonderbolt for him and herself, and there's nothing Rainbow likes more than winning. I guess it's boring to win easily, without any challenge. I told Rarity and she said that maybe Rainbow's afraid of winning this time, because it's such a big thing, the derby. It's about the best of the best, the very top. And it's lonely at the top, because there's only room for one. If Rainbow and Soarin can't get there together, why make him train any harder?

In any case it looks like she got her wish, because news all over town is that Soarin's been training real hard and he's gonna win. All the protectioners say so, they're taking bets left right and centre. My dad bet a fortune, so as much as I like Rainbow, I sure hope Soarin comes out top. Nopony wants to be in debt to the protectioners, although your sister IS Flim's wife, so you'd probably be okay. Must be great having such a rich and powerful brother-in-law.

Boy, I can't wait until we next meet up, just writing this letter's been the most fun I've had all week.

Write back soon if you can, okay?

Sweetie Belle xxx

Applejack

2nd February

Dear Rarity,

Heck, where to begin. I guess first of all, I gotta say I owe you an apology. You were right, I was ...a might antisocial at the Country Mare's Dinner last month. I have to attend an awful lot of these dos, you see, and after a while... Oh shoot, I can't go making excuses for my behaviour. I can be a real brute sometimes. But if I can't excuse myself, I can at least explain myself somewhat, or try to in any case.

I got married at the beginning of Fall; I'd left with Flim and his brother directly after they bought up Sweet Apple Acres, and we did some travelling as he organised the arrangements for the new workforce. Then Flam took the lead, and Flim and I headed to Manehatten. It was a low key registry office thing, so no need to feel like the world and his mare were there and you missed out. That being said, I felt plum low that it had to be this way. I'd never imagined in my wildest dreams I'd be getting hitched, at least not since I was a little filly, but if I had, I'd have dreamt of a stunning dress made by ya'll, and the finest bridesmaids a friend could have. However, Flim wanted to keep me out of the spotlight until I'd proven myself as a good wife and socialite, and I knew my brother would still be angry about my decision.

It ain't easy for me, having to act so proper all the time. I've had to change a hell of a lot to fit into my husband's life. So many things I've never really done before I've had to learn how to do, and not just do, but do real well, and learn real fast, and all by myself. I've got a lot of nice things; Celestia knows they sprung up around me like rapeseed the minute I stepped through my new front door.

And -perhaps the hardest skill to master - I've learnt to appreciate them. Now that I do, that's all I do, more than I've ever done anything. Suddenly I care about how I look every day, how the furniture is arranged, what hoity-toity business stallion's coming to dinner and what I should have the hired help cook up for him. Little things I thought I knew have given birth to a million little sub-things, and there's always something to do without ever really doing anything.

I won't pretend I'm not proud of having become the girl of the swirly signature at the end of this letter, one that doesn't betray a trace of who she was before. Because that's who life has had me be: Jacqueline Flim. It happened so quickly I couldn't stand to act like it even mattered, and at the convention...well, I guess I felt like neither should you.

I'll bet you wonder why I married him. The truth ain't all that complicated. I fell in love. Now I'm gonna implore you not to share this with anypony else, I don't even know why I'm sharing it with ya'll. I guess I feel like you're the only one who might understand, but you might just think I'm as crazy as all the other Apples do.

It was at my brother's wedding. I'd never known love; sheesh, closest I'd ever got was a few bad dates. You know I was the last filly of age in the Apple family who weren't married off? I had been for a long time too. But I fell hard, Rarity, and it ain't no easy thing to admit to. We were dancing, crowd was going wild, music was over and under us like a rope. We were spinning. Stars looked like a white wreath. My hair had got free, flying out everywhere, and my feelings were way ahead of it, like something snagged and unravelling fast. Then I looked back at him, and it happened, like a change of key. What I felt inside myself, I saw in the way he looked at me. And for the first time since I was a filly, I dared to dream above the ground. I walked away with my eyes to the stars. No white wreath, just...air-holes. Air-holes in a black box.

So two weeks later, when Big Mac was back from his honeymoon, and we were sitting round the table at the back of the tavern, I took the opportunity and bet myself. Flam had said they weren't gonna stop until they got the farm, and I asked Flim if he could really gamble. I said I'd bet him my hand in marriage if he bet us the right to keep the farm for as long as we were still Apples. Big Mac was hollering at me, saying I was crazy, that he wouldn't allow it, but he no choice. I was set on it. That gave him away to Flim and Flam, who called him, and of course he was out. And so it was up to me. I made a valiant effort. I lost. The farm was theirs, and I was his. I left with them with good grace.

Hay, you'll probably hate me for it, but I meant what I said at the convention - I didn't have anything to say to my family. I knew everypony thought the worst of me, high-tailing it with the new management just when the farm went under, but I knew that this was the way it had to be. I'd made a deal, see, and I was a loose cannon, so damn in love it would have crushed me if I hadn't gone with him. And then everything changed so quickly, and I just couldn't bear to think about my old life, and how much everyone hated me, given how tough things were at the time. When I found my footing, I knew I'd lost a hell of a lot more. And what could I offer them in compensation? I couldn't go home, I couldn't guarantee them any financial security, I mean I'd failed. But I couldn't even grieve for my own failures, because I was so far from the mare I'd been.

The other thing I feel kinda embarrassed to admit. See, Flim weren't altogether trusting of me in the beginning. I mean it was such a sudden thing, and in spite of everything, he really barely knew me. The deal whereby Flim and Flam got the Acres wasn't exactly accepted graciously by Mac, and the thought of me, former co-owner of the farm, conspiring with the remaining original workforce, put Flim a little on edge. When I got some privacy, I worried about who would receive my letters at the other end; everypony said Ponyville was going to the dogs, postal system and all, and if one of Flam's guys got hold of it and reported back...well, I was just worried he'd feel betrayed.

I feel okay writing a letter to you though. In fact, it's felt like the best thing I've done for a while. So Rarity, if you think you can forgive me for everything that's happened, and keep this letter-writing business under your no doubt fabulous hat, at least until I get can get used to it - I'd be real grateful if you would reply, and tell me all about your life with my cousin, so that I might have the undeserved honour of once again calling the most talented seamstress in Equestria, my friend.

Faithfully Yours

Lady Jacqueline Flim

Rarity set the letter down on the coffee table, and stretched out blissfully on the couch, revelling in the warmth of Applejack's sentiments; the bridging spirit of those words that sought her in her remote home.

It was Eight in the morning, and she was about to get up and head to her studio, where she would proceed to read the letter a dozen more times before getting on with some work. Then a thought struck her, and she peered over the back of the couch to the kitchen, where her husband was wearily making tea.

"Darling," She said, her voice now stripped of its morning frailty. "Was Flim at Mac and Fluttershy's wedding?"

"I...believe he was, yes." Braeburn muttered, having slipped subconsciously into the housework, at which his wife had long since rendered him all but obsolete.

"Are you sure?" Rarity asked, "I didn't see him."

Braeburn turned to her, raising an eyebrow dryly. "You talked to him, sweetness. I saw you."

Rarity toppled back down, bewildered. Celestia knew she must have been more drunk that night than had thought.

Apple Bloom

22nd March

Dear Sweetie Belle,

Oh boy, I just knew I'd hear from yall soon! Big Mac said I had my head in the clouds, but I knew our friendship weren't sunk yet, nevermind everything else.

I ain't got my cutie mark yet, but I don't crusade now, so it ain't my fault. At least Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon ain't here to give me hell for it anymore since the schoolhouse closed and their families eloped. Before they went, they'd stop by the house from time to time. I don't know why, because they should have been at school like I'd have been if I weren't with Granny Smith. But they came, hung around in between the trees whispering, and when I came out to do chores they'd make a few comments. Nothing much, but it got on my nerves that they thought they could just waltz onto our land, like they had nothing better to do. That was when it still bothered me, the cutie mark thing I mean, and I told Big Mac from time to time, until he started looking at me like I shouldn't, so I stopped mentioning it, and then Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were gone and I stopped thinking about it too, like they were the last reasons I did.

It's kinda hard to explain what's wrong with Granny Smith. I just do what I can for whatever problem there is, over and over, and we all just call it 'ill'. There's fever some days, and she sleeps more, deeply, like a ton of rocks has landed on top of her because she's gone and let them. When she's coming out of it, she's bringing the past with her, talking about all the jobs on the farm she's gotta do today, asking for Applejack when we keep telling her she ain't here no more. The more we tell her the more she insists on seeing her, until she's screaming for her, and there ain't nothing we can do. When she realises she ain't gonna get her, she lets the ton of rocks knock her out again. It's like her heart's on strike. I don't think she can help it, but I don't think she's trying in any case. Ponies say that I ain't myself either, and that Big Mac's dragging a thousand problems everywhere he goes. We's all just wearing sickness like our old duds, we don't give it a second thought.

Things have changed alot here, I'm not even sure ya'll would recognise it now. And the weird thing is, I barely noticed, even when things like school and crusading just plain fell off the map. But the icing on the cake is that I barely see it now. Even when I'm walking past these places, keeping an eye out for Daisy or Rose, or just anypony who can sell us a meal for less than two bits. So many of the shops are boarded up, and the houses are glowing with firelight where the Diamond Dogs are squatting inside, and I know how different it used to look, but it's like it don't register. My eyes are just seeing what I gotta do next, while my legs get me past the dogs and the protectioners as fast as possible.

Fluttershy works harder than me, she does the big long things, I do lots of little things. It don't take her voice though like it takes mine, if anything it chases it out of her. She's always talking to me, whenever she's at the farm house she's talking about how fast I'm growing up, and how sorry she is that I can't be in school with my friends again or doing all these things I done before, and bringing up this and that school subject, trying to teach me anything she can. But I barely hear her. When I go to bed , I know it's more than the howling of the timber wolves and the diamond dogs that's keeping me awake, or at least in a sleep that's exactly like being awake, so that the next day I can't tell if I'm extremely well rested or half dead.

Truth be told, I ain't never met my rich brother-in-law Mr Flim since he married Applejack. I ain't even seen my sister since she left. Looking back, I don't remember much of the time when she disappeared, apart from feeling like I was running around with a huge bite taken out of my side. Flim and Flam were here after my brother's wedding, and that was a big thing. It had AJ ranting and pacing every day in the kitchen, and even Big Mac raised his voice from time to time. And then one sunny morning they were gone, and word was they'd taken Applejack with them. The shouts and the fretting and the hype all died, floated up on out of here like dead fish, leaving us behind to face the new faces. Big Mac wouldn't tell me anything, other than that AJ was engaged to Flim and he didn't know if she'd be coming back. No letters. No answers. She was just gone.

And then Granny Smith fell ill real fast, like the drop of a hat, like she were abstaining from any more than a couple of weeks of a life without Applejack. And I got to work looking after her, while Big Mac and Fluttershy worked under the New Management. If I had been holding my breath, I must have passed out, or learnt to live without it. And then one morning we saw it in the paper - "Lady Jacqueline Flim" had recently been married in Manehatten. She came back to me mighty hard. It had me sobbing, I was so angry. I've worked off those feelings since. You've gotta keep busy around here for a hundred reasons. Now it's like a shadow thrown over me, and I only notice it when she crops up in some form or another, like in the ribbon I found in the clearing the other day. I remember that's where we had the party.

My stars, I'm sorry! You've asked me a ton of questions and I'm rambling on about everything else. Let's see, last time I saw Rainbow must have been before ya'll left. I ain't seen her recently; no big Pegasus star like her would set foot here if she could help it. Then again, Fluttershy's had a fair few meetings with her on the outskirts. That was how the trouble started between her and Big Mac.

It was just after Hearth's Warming Eve and just before New Year. At least I think so; the house still smelled of chestnuts anyway. I heard them talking one night when I couldn't sleep (they'd been staying at the family home since AJ left). I only eavesdropped because his voice was a little gruffer than usual, and Fluttershy's was a little more insistent. There ain't much gets a rise out of those two, so I figured it was something to do with Applejack, but it turned out they were talking about Rainbow. Fluttershy was saying that the two had been friends since they were tiny fillies, that Rainbow knew that her huge success was in part due to all the propaganda these days, and that she knew it didn't mean she worked any harder than us farm folk. Whatsmore, Rainbow felt guilty that she didn't visit, and that she had alot and our family didn't.

Then Big Mac was saying, "So she can visit. Ain't nothin' stoppin' a powerful figure like her droppin' by to see her childhood friend. I don't ask for compensation for what she just don't wanna do."

And Fluttershy was upset by that. She insisted "Oh ofcourse she wants to visit! But you know how hard things are at the moment."

But Big Mac just said it again, looking away like he knew a little too much. "Ain't nothin' stoppin' her."

I thought Fluttershy would leave it there, like all of us do when Big Mac's mind is clearly made up, but she didn't.

"Mac please, you know it's not as easy as that. You can't blame her for being cautious about saving face, what with all the pressure on her in Cloudsdale. And just think what we could do with the money, we could buy a place for Applebloom in that new school just out of town, or a nursemaid for Granny Smith!"

"I said no."

"Or even a little of the acres! We could have a little of our lives back, Macintosh."

"Damn it, Fluttershy, I ain't gone be indebted to no god damn pegasus!"

I don't think I've ever heard him that angry, and I found myself terrified that he meant it. Fluttershy was just staring at him like she'd been shot. She'd been getting chattier and chattier, and now she looked like she'd never talk again. Big Mac had his eyes down, like he was looking at his mouth, trying to see if those words had really come out of it. But he didn't try to stop her as she got her things and left.

I don't want you to think badly of my brother, but I didn't realise until I got to writing this letter, just how badly I needed to talk to someone. I wasn't gonna bring it up with Mac, and when Fluttershy comes round now she looks at me like I'm the only family she's got left. I might ask that you don't tell Scoots though. javascript:void(%200%20);I don't want her to think that my family are like that, and if folk in Cloudsdale got to thinking there were that kinda attitude in Ponyville...well, I'd rather not know how much more change this town can take.

I hope I ain't sent you to sleep with this mighty long letter of mine. I know I ain't done a good job of answering all your questions, but I promise that if you write back soon, I'll do much better next time.

Your fellow crusader

Apple Bloom

The Visit

13th May

Rarity stood on the front porch, fanning herself tiresomely as she eyed the hanging baskets on either side of the door. It had been a beautiful morning in Appleloosa, as usual. Rarity always awoke at sunrise, when the scent of apples leapt from the orchard on the morning breeze and fell like shot birds over the town. But now the infamous midday heat was descending. It suckled sweat from the corners of her dress and peeled the strength from her flowers. It broke the breeze's back.

Trading her decorative hand-held fan for her watering can, she resumed tending to the freshly replaced forget-me-nots. This was the day of the visit, and she wasn't going to waste peace that Sweetie Belle's arrival had granted her. Now that Apple Bloom had someone to play with, Rarity could devote her time to what she did best. After all, she had no desire to welcome the Flims to shoddy peasant dwellings.

"Darling, will you come and tell me if these look okay?" Rarity called to her husband through the open door. The back door was open as well, so that their unending, unspecified back yard gaped at her from the porch. Both doors were always open from early morning to late at night, and the house held noise, wind and sentiments little better than a cracked shell. The flat songs of the wind chime seemed to be the only thing that stayed in this house, rolling in and out of it like a penny waiting to drop.

"If they look anything like the last twelve, sweetness, then yes, they look fine." Was the exasperated response from the kitchen. Rarity sighed. She had thought she was good at gardening, until she moved here, and her green hooves had turned brown like everything in this heat that didn't bear apples.

She was fussing over the right basket when her husband did, in fact, make an appearance.

"Rarity, we got any wine left?"

The sandy stallion was dusted with wood-shavings from the whittling that had become his second nature.

"Oh goodness", Rarity muttered as she brushed him down, "I do hope you got this mess out of the kitchen."

"Kitchen's fine." He replied, casting a look out into the street. "I was, uh, gonna open up a bottle for us all to have over dinner."

Rarity looked up at her husband, and then back down at his waistcoat. "I think there's a bottle tucked away somewhere. I'll fetch it once I'm done out here."

"Well if ya'll just tell me where it is then I'll - "

"They're here!"

The ornate black wagon charging along the dirt road at the hooves of two soberly clad chauffer stallions could belong to nopony else. The spokes churned the Appleloosan dust that shrouded the faces of captivated locals. All had caught wind of the visit.

The wagon came to a halt about five yards from the porch, and with a sinister clank, a miniature flight of steel steps unfolded from the carriage. Flim descended them first, looking dapper as ever in a tweed vest and a quaker hat. His eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the sunlight, and seemed to enjoy a brief period of liberation, before locking into a picture of courteousness. He presently held out a hoof for his wife, and Applejack proceeded to unfurl from the carriage like Rarity's elegant fan. She was clad in a magnificent high-collared burgundy gown and a matching wide-brimmed summer hat. Sunlight was sheathed into her blonde fringe, under which her green eyes glittered like stained glass windows, her pupils having shrunk in the sudden onslaught of light. Then they landed on Rarity, and this animated fashion illustration turned back into her best friend.

"Well howdy-do! You must be Mr Flim! My stars if it isn't good to meet ya after all this time!"

Braeburn was already shaking Flim by the hoof with a vigour that could have shaken off the last year with it.

"The pleasure's all mine I assure you, dear cousin. Why, I'm most contrite we couldn't visit sooner. Alas, circumstances were such that it was impossible. As a fellow farm pony I'm sure you'll understand."

"Say no more about it! We's just gotta make up for lost time by making sure ya'll have a mighty good day! And AJ get your flank over here! Gosh darn it I've missed you girl!"

Applejack and Rarity had meanwhile slid into a tentative embrace, like two kites tied at the same spot. Were it not for Braeburn's demand, they'd have stayed there a good while longer.

"To family." Flim raised his glass with his horn. Rarity followed suit, while Applejack and Braeburn made a respectful effort with their hooves.

"To family." They reiterated, before sipping the juniper wine that Rarity had retrieved with little trouble.

Apple Bloom, who sat next to Sweetie Belle and opposite Applejack, had her eyes planted moodily on her plate, and the ample mound of tartiflette that resided there. Despite her lack of green hooves and recent difficulties tracking down the local grocer, Rarity had done the Apples proud.

Apple Bloom had arrived in Appleloosa a few days ago, when Fluttershy had arranged to take three personal days during which, she insisted, she would look after Granny Smith while her young sister-in-law visited her cousins. A month ago Big Mac would have objected passionately, but since their change in circumstances, his duty was now simply to avoid his wife's eyes when she was nursing his grandma in his home.

Apple Bloom had yet to meet the eyes of her sister, whose coy "howdy squirt" had been wholly inadequate after nine months of estrangement. Her husband's greeting hadn't gone down well either; after everything that had happened, the famous Flim had simply regarded Applebloom with a brief "delighted to meet you again, young Filly" and a cold, disinterested eye. She didn't care, she had decided with a heavy heart. She could never have felt anything but anger anyway.

"So Apple Bloom, what's new in Ponyville?" Rarity inquired, after two consecutive glasses of water. "Are the garden farmers faring any better?"

"The flower ponies are gettin' by." Apple Bloom said without looking up. "But nopony can really grow vegetables now. I mean they just get taxed by the protectioners and raided by the Diamond dogs, so it ain't worth the cost of keepin' the patches. I'm surprised Carrot Top didn't tell ya all that."

Braeburn wiped his mouth. "Well that filly sure is a tough one to get close to. I've been trying to wheedle it outta her for months. I gave up eventually, didn't want her to think I only help her with her garden to get the inside story on Ponyville."

Rarity blinked. She hadn't been aware that Carrot Top had moved to Appleloosa, although it was no surprise that another had relocated. She smiled pleasantly. "Well, darling, since you're sparing her your time, perhaps she can spare us some vegetables. At this rate, I can't see us having another meal like this for a while."

Braeburn cackled disparagingly. "She ain't been able to grow nothing in this heat! This is by far the hottest spring we've had in Appleloosa."

"Our town too!" Chimed Sweetie Belle. "The pegasi must be getting lazy."

Rarity rose. "Sweetie, help me with the plates."

The white filly dismounted her stool solemnly, and Applejack made an attempt to help too, but Rarity swiftly quelled it.

"Ah ah! Leave it to us, darling. You are a guest."

"Aren't I a guest too?" Sweetie Belle chirped behind a growing stack of crockery.

"You take more than enough liberties, Sweetie. Let the rest of our family have a few."

Flim chuckled and rose lazily, wandering through the wide doorway that divided the dining room from the lounge.

"My my, what fabulous firearms."

Braeburn leaned back in his chair. "I take it you're eyin' up Brenda and Marilyn."

"Are they genuine duelling muskets?"

"I'll be a damned if my Grandpappy used anythin' less. Cigars are in the box on the mantle, by the by."

"Splendid." Flim crooned, lifting the lid of the tinder box with his horn and bringing a cigar into flight. "Are you smoking too?"

"I don't see why not."

Applejack was still sat at the table in silence. She knew the cigars were for guests; Braeburn himself didn't smoke. Apple Bloom at this point had gone into the kitchen to keep Sweetie Belle company, unwilling to sit there alone with her sister and Braeburn.

Flim animated a second cigar and sent it gliding towards Braeburn, who caught it between his teeth. Then the farm stallion heaved himself off the chair and joined Flim in the living room. The business stallion had now removed one of the muskets from its wire holdings by way of his horn, and was examining it on a much closer level. There were some things only a unicorn could get away with, courtesy of their deft magic.

Braeburn retrieved a framed picture from the corner of the room and set it down on the coffee table.

"This here's my Grandpappy." He announced proudly.

Flim turned from the musket, still keeping it air-born, and brought his lit cigar to hover on his other side, as he examined the picture of the Earth stallion. The stocky pony was standing on his back hooves, clad in old-fashioned rural attire. One of the muskets stood at his side, and his left hoof was proudly settled on its muzzle. Applejack came to peer at the photo too, for this was Braeburn's grandfather from his father's side, to whom she was no relation.

"And could he really duel?" Flim inquired, raising his eyebrows.

"Ofcourse! Ya see him there with Marilyn don't ya?"

Flim smiled wryly. "Well, with respect, cousin, it must have been rather difficult." The yellow stallion's eyes strayed and he gave the musket a casual twirl with his magic . He muttered distantly, "One wonders how he aimed the old girl, for starters."

Braeburn laughed hollowly. "He's holding her in the picture, surely that gives ya confidence enough."

Flim cocked his head. "To hold in what sense though? I mean to say, in spite of those delightful pet names you've bestowed on them, holding a gun isn't the same as holding a mare," Flim turned around to face Applejack, putting his hoof to her cheek and sliding it behind her fringe. "Is it, Jacqueline?"

"I thought we'd have desert later on, since the sun's still high and we're all so full-" Rarity had marched into the lounge, stopping when she saw Flim and Applejack, the musket hovering at the stallion's side, and the cigar suspended precariously between them.

Flim turned his head promptly. "Capital suggestion, Rarity." Then he released Applejack and levitated the gun back onto its stand, before summoning his cigar back to his lips, and sitting down in an armchair. "Do you duel, Braeburn?"

Braeburn laughed gratefully, relishing the turn the conversation had taken. "I've had more than enough practise. I'll fancy I'm the best around these parts."

Rarity pursed her lips, making her way to Applejack's side. "Well, if you boys are alright here, I might suggest Applejack and I take a walk through the orchards. The girls have gone out to play and I could do with some fresh air myself."

There was something bleak about the artificial wood, this dehydrated Sweet Apple Acres and its trees planted like teeth, each with an apron of white light, and a batch of roots splayed below like a singular webbed foot. The ground was rock-hard and sported a stubble of wiry ginger grass that combed the hems of their dresses as they wandered through the dappled light and shade.

"I must say Rarity, I'm surprised." Applejack said, her parasol waggling as she talked. It was customary for gentlemares to hook the accessory about the collar. "I weren't expectin' no outdoor excursion. I figured you'd have us sittin' in somepony's livin' room for bridge night or embroidery night or whatever the heck."

Rarity smirked cordially. "I'm afraid the activity of the Appleloosan Ladies Society is rather sparse at the moment. What little headway we made at the convention was made by me alone, and Chantilly's been terribly busy setting up her new union." The white mare gave a surreptitious look before adding, "The Asmawm Sumsu."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "The what now?"

Rarity took a deep breath. "The Appleloosan Settler Mares and Assimilated Working Mares of Small Means Support Union. Their goal, as far as I understand it, is to offer a sympathetic hoof to the struggling masses, and discuss pragmatic, dignified ways of bettering the current situation for unemployed farm 'and other such' ponies."

Applejack snorted. "Sounds like the product of second hand city talk to me. And how's they intend to go about this noble task, besides toastin' to the welfare of the economy over brunch?"

Rarity's eyes glazed over, then her head darted upwards at a familiar sound - an increasingly loud, low, flat whistling. The source met her eyes directly, whereupon, between the canopies, she could make out the regular line of sunny yellow industrial chariots coursing through the sky at the hooves of the muscular work pegasi.

"Oh look! That's the workforce of this orchard. They fly very high, you see, to survey the entire area. Those must be the ones who worked overtime, the rest packed up and went home hours ago. See, they live about six miles out in a town they built very recently. I forget the name of it. Braeburn acts as the foreman, or some kind of equivalent." Rarity narrowed her eyes, and she slipped into abrupt contemplation. "You know, this one time, I was out walking, not so far out as this, and one of the workers approached me and made some...rather lewd advances. When I told Braeburn, he wrote to the central offices of your husband's company, and received a swift response from Flam himself. He fired the worker the very next day." Her tone was unfathomable, until she briskly turned back to her amber friend. "I'm sorry what were we talking about? The union?"

Applejack rolled her eyes in vague despair. The intense heat clearly had a more profound effect on her friend that she'd supposed. "So why ain't yall a member of this quaint li'l pack?"

"Well, I hardly fit the criterion do I? Braeburn and I aren't struggling like their families, and we agreed that it was better if I pursued the issues of the ladies society, given my natural advantage." The last line came out a little too urgently, and Rarity glanced at Applejack, worried she might have touched a nerve, but the former farm pony gracefully changed the subject.

"Here now, ya'll ain't even shown me your new boutique!"

"Oh I would, were it not temporarily out of action. I was renting the shop from Caramel's sister Tofee, you see, she lives on the floor above. But since Caramel moved up here, she's needed the room herself. Ponyville is in a frightful way. In any case, my inspiration is pretty dried up these days. I only really have the last of last season's line, and it would hardly do to sell them."

"I don't see why not. You're the only point of reference for fashion in this town. You can dress 'em up in whatever ya like."

Rarity shook her head. "Oh, they couldn't afford my gowns now anyway."

"Why don't you go do business with the workforce's town?"

Rarity smiled. "That's what Chantilly said, right after I suggested she do the same. I don't think she appreciated me offering a solution to her union's plight before she'd even time to move her podium out of my back yard."

The two mares laughed.

Applejack looked up through the canopies, between the lit up skeletons of the leaves, where the blue sky tumbled outwards, and the trails of the pegasi were quickly petering out. She realised that there was something terrifying about that sky, how every possible thought frayed and ended somewhere on that endless canvas; fell and skidded and died. The orchard might as well have been a field of parasols, where Rarity made a futile effort to shield herself from the hot, wild nothingness that threatened her on all sides.

"Ah, here we are." Rarity puffed.

The trees stepped back to reveal a clearing, where a bulbous cavity had been formed in the ground by a brook. Its path emerged from between the trees, widening to a width of about four yards, and tumbled down into a chasm, where it was pounded back into the earth like a silk quilt caught in a sewing machine. The sun-bleached skeleton of a dead tree oversaw its journey, and cast dramatic stripes of shadow over the patchy ground. This was a somewhat more fertile area, and the bank was encrusted with weeds and gorse bushes alive with the chirping of crickets and hissing of rattle snakes. Dragon flies plunged theatrically and mosquitoes drew elaborate knots in the air, delirious with the flattened scent of desert flowers and animal carcasses. If Rarity knew there was rotting flesh and poisonous reptiles concealed within that wiry garden, she paid the fact no regard as she unfolded the picnic blanket. Applejack wondered with dry mirth, if she had come to terms with it before she'd stopped dragging her chais lounge out with her.

As Rarity lay down the blanket, Applejack surveyed the area aimlessly, clambering over the rocks of the broken, bloated ground where the water was recieved. Here she could see the brook's path out of the clearing, and could make out Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom playing in it about half a mile away, where the trees remained fairly sparse. They appeared to have stopped on a couple of protruding stones within the brook to talk to each other intensely. Then their distant little faces turned, revealing a flurry of marble eyes, before they swiftly turned back to one another. Applejack's own eyes fell to the rocks beneath her, though she couldn't bring herself to move away, or even turn her head when she addressed Rarity.

"Cutie mark crusaders sure are quiet now."

Rarity was rummaging in the folds of her dress for her bug repellent. "Oh, are they playing in the brook again? Well I suppose they would be, Celestia knows that's all Sweetie does when she comes here - "

"She hates me."

"Sweetie Belle? No! Of course she caught wind of you running away, but -"

"No! Apple Bloom."

"Well," The white unicorn had levitated her bug repellent and was guiding it around the blanket, spritzing. "Sweetie Belle has been so excited to tell her all the news from Scootaloo. Apparently that filly has all sorts of juicy secrets as Rainbow's assistant. There's one that Sweetie won't even tell me. No doubt Apple Bloom's mind is just a little preoccupied at the moment."

The orange mare turned to her. "Any more excuses for me?"

Rarity shrugged, and smiled sadly. "She's growing up."

Applejack look back at the ground. "And I missed almost a year of it."

"I'm not going to tell you that what you did was right, Applejack. It was romantic, certainly, but incredibly selfish."

Applejack turned sharply upon hearing the elegant pony deliver such a terse sentiment.

Rarity swallowed and continued. "But I know you, darling. Because you're still the same pony I knew last summer, who put on that wonderful wedding party. You are not selfish ...or romantic." It was clear that Rarity's point had trailed away into pondering, and Applejack ground her teeth, expecting her to start prying. Instead, Rarity turned her attention to the other bottle tucked into her dress. "But, since you're determined to hate yourself, I'll play my part and deny you any of this."

"Why don't you just stop buyin' the wine? He'll find it in the end."

The unicorn turned to her friend, narrowing her eyes. "You're kidding, right? Do you know how lucky I am to get good wine out here ? I manage it through my connections in the textile businesses you know. I'm sure the other Appleloosan mares would struggle terribly." She looked down, settling the bottle between her back hooves. "And anyway, he can't find it if I drink it. It's not like I can go to the saloon, that's his territory." She added, as if reciting a stale mantra; "Married mares don't go to the saloon."

"Wouldn't stop me."

"Then what does?"

"I don't drink. I'd sooner do my own head in, save the booze the trouble."

Rarity chuckled, relishing Applejack's dry wit. "Be that as it may, I am quite used to it. I live with a perpetual hangover - my husband's."

Applejack smirked, letting her eyes drift shut on the immaculate blue sky.

"Now it's my turn to ask a question."

"Go ahead." Applejack sighed reluctantly.

"Why did you get your hair cut like that?"

The amber mare sat up. "That's all ya wanted to ask me?"

Rarity fiddled with the neck of the bottle. "For now, yes."

Applejack sniggered dryly after a moment. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised, you bein' so passionate about that stuff."

"And how!" The unicorn declared, now noticeably tipsy. "And might I say what a wonderful cut it is, darling. Why, with such volume as you've been blessed with devoted to a fringe instead of a scruffy long ponytail, I find myself quite unable to stop looking at it."

Applejack laughed without smiling. "Is that so."

"So much so," Rarity mused, turning to her friend square on. "That I sometimes forget" - with a flit of her horn, she quickly and gently swept the fringe to the side - "That you're the pony behind it."

Rarity's mouth drifted shut, and she armed her eyes with resilience as her suspicions were confirmed. Rolling like storm clouds over her friend's cheek and clotting around the outer corner of her right eye, was an immense dark bruise, tinged like a magpie with shards of green and blue. Applejack cast her head away hastily, her fringe toppling back down.

"He don't do it much." She said carefully. "I mean, he can't. Only when he's pickled, and even then he's careful. Celestia knows we gotta look good for public appearances."

"Leave him, AJ." Rarity whispered.

"And go where?" Applejack snapped.

"Anywhere! Ponyville, Canterlot, Manehatten - come live here!" She was suddenly immersed in an imaginary freedom that wasn't even hers.

Applejack's eyes adopted a ferocious sincerity. "I don't think you understand, Rarity. If Appleloosans hate you here - "

"They don't -"

"-Imagine what the elite think of me there. You think they're happy when they see me on the arm of one of the richest business stallions in Equestria? In the times we live in now?"

Rarity bit her lip, and Applejack took a shaky breath, heaving back her emotions.

"But I am, through some crazy twist of fate, and they can't do nothin' but work with it. So long as there's a seat for Lady Jacqueline Flim at the next hoity-toity convention, there's a place for my kind in this world."

Applejack sighed bitterly, feeling Rarity's gaze remain on her as she looked out at the tumbling brook. "Forget the politics, that ain't neither here nor there. I'm not sorry I married him, Rarity. If he beat me half to death I wouldn't be sorry."

Rarity's hoof hovered about her friend's shoulder, but couldn't resolve a landing before Applejack had stalked away, returning to her position over the chasm. The unicorn cast her head about futilely, taking in how blue the sky was, and how immensely free they weren't. She looked back down at her bottle, thought about drinking it, but instead let it fall from her hooves. It slid down the bank a little as she turned her back on it.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had now gone, but Applejack was staring at where they had been, when she heard the high pitched grunt of Rarity bucking the bottle, and the ensuing smash as it hit a rock. When she looked back, Rarity was breathing through her mouth, and the brook, on which her eyes danced wildly, was momentarily tinted red.

Rarity 2

29th June

Dearest Applejack,

I've no doubt you're wondering why I'm replying so quickly to your last letter; the truth is I simply could think of nothing else to pacify myself after today's events. I hope with all my heart that Flim is treating you tolerably; there isn't a day goes that by when I don't worry.

In response to your letter, yes, I will certainly be attending the Fillydelphia ball, on the condition that you honour our pact. I'm sure I don't have to tell you again that these things are no fun without you, so if you leave me high and dry you will be sorry to incur my wrath. I will tell Jangles that you have been dying to take her up on her offer of playing croquet with her mother, and I will recommend you to Pavlova as the most talented ribbon-cutter this side of Equestria.

Celestia knows it won't be all namedropping and profile-raising. Fillydelphia still has unsegregated nightlife, so provided we line the right pockets, we can treat ourselves to some fine cocktails at the very least. Maybe the venue will have a pool like in Trottingham. It would be nice to swim without Pavlova's informative commentary about Trottingham's ratio of pools to other towns. I almost regret restraining you when you suggested pushing her in.

Oh, I do wish I could afford to travel more, darling. And don't be alarmed, that isn't a hint. I'd sooner saw off my horn than be under an obligation to your husband, and Braeburn's position is precarious enough as it is since the disappearance of Sheriff Silverstar. So I'll simply insist that you come down here as soon as you can.

Oh, but I'm getting swept up with all these pleasurable thoughts. I can already hear you squawking "Get to the bleedin' point girl!" And in all honesty, I am terrified that when I do, you may not wish to visit me again, or have anything to do with me for that matter. It's true that it was the most monstrous feelings that compelled me to write this letter, following the most urgent breakthrough. You see, Pinkie Pie has arrived in Appleloosa.

I was on my way to visit Toffee when I first ran into her. I'd heard Caramel had bought a house of his own a couple of months ago, so I was hoping to cut a deal with her to rent out her downstairs room again. I was barely halfway down the high street when I heard that inimitable voice.

"Rocks here! Get your rocks folks! Topaz, Jade, Quarts, pretty rocks to suit all! Any shape! Any size! They're like candy for your eyes! And that's a guarantee from the Pies! Hehe, that rhymes! We've got a new pitch, Blinkie!"

My heart leapt when I first saw her. She looked so bright and alive in the current of soberly clad appleloosans. She was wearing a red and black saloon dress and a twin carrier full of the rocks she was selling, and I could vaguely see another pony in similar attire further up the street. Pinkie was darting this way and that, trying to snare the interest of the passers-by. Most politely avoided her, but a fair few stopped; she's an admirable salespony after all. Some even gave money without taking a rock.

I ran up to her and burst out, "Pinkie! My goodness!"

She replied promptly, "Oh. Hey Rarity! Wanna buy a rock?"

Maybe it was the serrated shrillness of her voice that just hit too quickly. Or the armoured glint in her eyes. Or the way her brows hovered like they were ready for anything. Her curls were stiff and waxy; her dress was torn and full of holes. I don't know what it was, Applejack, but I suddenly felt like I'd hit a force field, and almost leapt back from the impact. She was facing me square on, so that her twin carrier looked like a pair of rock-filled wooden wings, and the trail of her dress loomed behind like a giant black halo. There was a cut on her mouth, or a smudge of lipstick, I couldn't tell. I remember thinking that her open mouth looked like it could breathe fire. The conversation that ensued was something like the following.

"Pinkie, how are you? What have you been doing? Why did you leave Ponyville?"

"Oh, I went back to my family's farm. Flam's protection stallions were threatening my folks, so we harvested as many rocks as we could and, well, me and my sisters have been on the road ever since."

"Oh my dear, did they buy up your farm?"

"I dunno, my dad was dead against selling, but the threats were getting pretty bad. We can't go back in any case."

"Oh Pinkie, I'm so sorry. Here let me help you with those rocks, you shall come back to mine immediately. You can stay as long as you wish."

"Oh no thanks. We're staying at the local inn."

"Oh but you can stay at ours for nothing! Darling I refuse to let a friend of mine - "

"Don't worry about it Rarity!" She laughed unsettlingly. Then she added, "Oh, but could you tell Braeburn we'll be up at the patches around five? Oh and also to bring more empty bottles, the new hooch should be ready now. Well, better get back to business! See ya!"

I wondered how long she'd been here, and why she hadn't made contact with me.

I didn't accompany my husband to the patches the first evening, or even the second. On the third, after attempting to work for a few hours, I decided I had to join them. The patches - the old fruit and vegetable patches that are clustered on the edge of the town, that is - have been dead for months, but there were still many gardening ponies sifting through the brown plant life, looking for any that might have made it. I cringed at the thought of those precious spoils on our patch being wasted on moonshine - more so when I noted that the still set up on the outskirts, along with the kegs of that potent drink and a number of my wine bottles (refilled), were presently being ignored. Pinkie and Braeburn were running through the sea of dead foliage under the sun, giggling inanely and talking all manner of nonsense. It seemed that they had finished for the day, having no doubt sampled their product amply upon doing so.

Blinkie Pie, a plain, pallid young thing I regret to say, was over by my scarecrow (the one I told you about a few letters ago, that I fashioned for everypony last Fall from one of my mannequins and excess fabric). She was staring at it intensely, perhaps wondering if it was worth their switching clothes. Oh I don't mean to be disrespectful to Pinkie's family, given how tough things are at the moment, but Applejack, Pinkie and her sisters are not the first to have passed through our town. Many come with various products, displaced gypsies and farm fillies, dressed much the same and selling whatever they can.

And then I saw her Applejack - Octavia. I knew there was a third sister I'd yet to run into, and I guess the rumours in Ponyville were true. No wonder she hadn't been available to play at my wedding. I hadn't seen her approach; I was staring at my husband. Pinkie had stolen his trademark waistcoat, and he was galloping this way and that in a playful attempt to get it back, sweat gleaming through his bare golden back hair. And then all of a sudden Octavia was before me, staring at me square on, all kohl and fishnets and broken, stormy grey gown. Octavia has always been a notable beauty, but there and then it was extreme, obscene, stunning to the point of sickness on account of all it meant now, and I wished with all my might that she would stop staring at me but she wouldn't let up, until she said in her elegant voice, utterly devoid of shame,

"Are you looking for someone?"

I couldn't take her merciless eyes; my own mortification. I tore my own eyes away from her and ran back up the high street.

Pinkie won't come to our house on my invitation, but on Braeburn's she will come round the back to use our well and root for truffles, while my husband sits on the back porch, whittling away idly as he watches her. Today, when he went inside for lemonade (his first non-alcoholic beverage all week, I suspect) I approached her. She was at the well, clad in a new outfit that was already lined with dirt, while her old one, and those of her sisters, hung around the stone edge.

I spoke without any idea of how my voice would come out.

"Pinkie, are you sleeping with my husband?"

She took a small breath, before responding curtly, "Nope."

I swallowed, and then I asked, "Are you going to?"

And then she turned back to me with that horrific brightness.

"Oh Rarity, you're my friend, but you gotta know I'd do anything to help my family!"

Applejack, I know how I should have felt. She's destitute, she's lost everything, she has no idea if her parents are lying dead in a ditch full of bullets. And I know what they say about Braeburn and the garden farmers; for lord's sake, even as early Fluttershy's wedding his flirting was provoking comments from perfect strangers, and Celestia knows I got what I paid for when I ignored such warning signs and went and married him anyway.

But Applejack, I couldn't feel for her. In the face of the humiliation I saw on the horizon - the humiliation of losing my husband to somepony so piteously wretched - all I could do was hate her. I stood there paralysed on the porch, listening to Braeburn pour the tumbler while, having turned her back on me, she proceeded to heave up our bucket from the depths of our well, full of our water. And all I wanted to do was to scream at her; everything that the workers say, everything that gets coughed behind napkins by Equestria's finest at every elegant function we have ever attended and ever might. And in my mind's eye, I saw myself laying hooves on her.

Fucking Earth Pony Whore! Get off my property! How dare you take my water to clean your whore clothes! How dare live off my money and harvest my truffles! How dare you use my fruit to make your disgusting farm drink! And how dare you even think of laying hooves on my husband! How dare you, when you know what I am?

Applejack, I felt like I'd been poisoned.

But darling, I beg you, do not abandon this letter in light of what I have imparted. I do not tell you these things to upset you, but to put myself through the uncompromising mesh that is your relentless integrity. If you never wish to speak to me again on account on my having these thoughts I understand. But I am living on the hope that you will forgive me, because it's all that I have right now.

I've never been too proud to admit the truth, and the truth is that I'm afraid. I know that Pinkie's situation is purely circumstantial, but then, isn't it such that we have become so close? What would I have become if I had married well? What would you have become if you had not? This is a unique and precarious middle ground on which you and I have been washed up together. I don't know how long it will last.

I hope you'll forgive me for burdening you with these sentiments, darling. And please, don't allow them to spoil your experience of the derby next week. For all my jealousy, I will be contenting my troubled heart with thoughts of the fun you'll be having at such an exclusive event. Please give my love to Rainbow and Soarin if you get a chance to talk to them amidst the hype.

All my love

Rarity

PS. What you said to me last time you were here, about the Appleloosans. You were right.

Braeburn finished the letter and looked up to meet the eyes of his wife.

"Well?" She snapped. "Aren't you going to say anything? Or was the violation of my privacy not even worth that?"

Braeburn croaked stiffly, "What did you mean at the beginning, 'bout Flim not treating AJ right?"

Rarity let out a small embittered laugh.

"Is he hurtin' her?!" The stallion barked.

Rarity looked to the floor. She decided to spare her husband the obligation to confront his boss, and Applejack the potential danger. "No. He just doesn't leave her as much money for clothes as he should. You know how passionate I am about that."

Braeburn snorted. "Yeah."

After a moment of silence, Rarity lost her patience. "Aren't you going to answer to anything else that's in it?"

"I don't see why." Braeburn said faintly, anger brewing under his words. "You seem to have me all figured out, and all the rest of my kind on that note."

Rarity took a sharp breath, thrown off-guard by his boldness. "Oh, I assure you, I haven't figured anything out," she said vehemently. "Least of all the kind of stallion I've married."

"Ya married a country stallion, Rarity," Braeburn drawled bitterly, marching to the other side of the room and turning his back on her. "Just a plain old country stallion with a plain old country life."

"And Celestia knows I could have had better!" The unicorn burst out.

Braeburn turned, growling. "And don't ya just love remindin' me of that when you're whinin' about dirt and bugs and how much ya miss Ponyville and yet here ya still are! Sittin' pretty in your froufrou dresses and livin' off my farm!"

"You wouldn't even have the farm if Flim's wife wasn't your cousin and your own wife a unicorn!"

Braeburn's mouth snapped shut. His gaze went through her as he stood there, stone-faced. Then he said curtly, "I'm going out."

He walked swiftly to the kitchen cupboard, fished out two bottles of hooch, and headed to the front door. Rarity followed hastily.

"Why?" She spluttered at a higher volume, now that they were out in the street, and Braeburn was doing his best to lose her. "Where could you possibly have to go? The farm has no use for you anymore, and you've all the alcohol you need at home, courtesy of your latest catch."

The Appleloosan citizens turned to stare at them as they both made further progress down the street; Braeburn had nearly reached the saloon.

Amidst her anger, Rarity's discretion had died. With her feelings unleashed and the consequences muted, she hollered shamelessly, "Or perhaps she's not desperate enough for you? Perhaps you need a prostitute with even greater misfortune. Is that what you're going out for?"

And then she stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the ponies that occupied the front of the saloon, whom her husband had now approached. There was Octavia, looking much the same as she had at the patches, were it not for the deeper shade of unfathomability that became her face as she glanced at Rarity. She was simultaneously garnishing and supporting a perfect wretch of a stallion swathed in a ragged cloak; his head and eyes were crudely bandaged and encrusted with dried blood. Rarity gasped, recognising the badly bent badge that was tucked about his collar.

"Sheriff Silverstar?"

Octavia pulled back his bandages a fraction around his eyes, allowing them to pierce Rarity with a chilling resonance. The former sheriff gave a low growl. "What would you know about misfortune?"

"Forget it Silver." Braeburn murmured , handing him a bottle of hooch. "She's just like the rest of em."

"Like what?" Rarity snarled at her husband's back, her heart throbbing. "Tell me what I am!"

She panted hotly, swamped by the stares and titters of the simply dressed Earth ponies that inhabited this town - that were this town - while she stood trembling furiously in a quintessentially fabulous gown of last season's collection, which she couldn't have made them wear if she had dropped the price to nothing. Chantilly was whispering. Toffee was laughing. A long standing truth was grinning at her, having got a foot in the door. They all hated her.

With all her fury and desolation, she threw the line at her husband, reaching for him with all she had left.

"SAY IT!"

Braeburn lowered his hooch, eventually turning to face her. The line was there, but the noble sneer that became him told her plainly he wouldn't bite, before he tiredly uttered, "A bitch."

Twilight 2

1st July

Dear Rainbow,

Congratulations!! I just knew you'd win! The derby was so exciting to watch

Rainbow abruptly stopped reading. Seizing the letter between her hooves, she tore it with her teeth and threw it aside furiously. A dose of something other than Twilight's condescension was what she needed right now. Clamping her feelings like rampant wound, She hurried to the bedroom and swiftly took to rooting around under the bed. This supply wasn't quite exhausted, as far as she could remember, and certainly hoped - she'd be damned if she had to make another appointment with Flam.

Engrossed in her frenzied search, she heard none of her boyfriend's upbeat chatter as he entered the room, having finally escaped the surge of post-derby commotion. She herself had made no compromises in her escape, but she knew that such a miracle would be short-lived. She was the big star, after all. Her heart pounded as the pockets of last season's promotional outfits, stuffed contemptuously under the bed, offered nothing. And then she found the spare pillows, and gasped with relief at her old reliable lack of imagination. She didn't bother being discreet about it now.

Soarin flew to her side, seeking to disarm her. "Hey! No! Remember what the doctor said - "

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

Soarin reeled back from his girlfriend and the horror of her grief-stricken face.

"You took a dive you son of a bitch!"

"Rainbow I went down at the twenty third hoop, I lost concentration and misjudged. It happens."

"NOT TO YOU!" She swallowed hard, battling her feelings with an obstinacy that was all too justified. "You never misjudge that angle. I know you."

Soarin's face fell. It took nothing less than a champion of the sky, who on top of her own expertise, knew him through and through - the weight of his body, its suppleness and natural inclinations, every approach, every reflex, every strength and every weakness - to realise what he had done.

Rainbow sniffed fiercely, her voice attaining a bitter form of composure. "And I know why you did it. Scoots was there when you made the deal."

Soarin took a step back, his brows rising on the influx of incredulity and fury that now inflated his stare. "You sent your little helper to spy on me?"

Rainbow turned away. "I didn't want to think that you'd actually go through with it." She pondered, her voice now disturbingly casual. "I thought when the time came you'd have...changed you mind."

"You WON, Rainbow!" Soarin bellowed, abandoning all former pretence. "You got what you wanted! You have everything you wanted!"

But Rainbow was shaking her head, tears streaming down her face. With a voice crippled by futile contempt, she asked, "Why don't you love me?"

The question had no answer. She survived no more than a minute of the silence, and her husband's fatally honest face, before she felt her beaten heart break. And then the screams possessed her.

The Wedding Party

14th August (last year)

To an owl or a high-flying pegasus, Sweet Apple Acres was no more than a cakey black expanse rolling outwards from the stipple of lantern light that indicated Ponyville. A short distance into this darkness, a small golden ember glowed, where Big Macintosh and Fluttershy were having their wedding party.

The couple had been married in a marquee at the edge of the Everfree forest, before heading to the clearing where once stood an old barn and now, as of that morning, a large gazebo and a long buffet table. Applejack, having assumed the leading role in all aspects of her brother's wedding, had overseen the erection of the site. Rainbow had dropped by with Soarin during the day to help, with the usual thinly veiled incentive of showing off her boyfriend. The novelty of having a gorgeous celebrity stallion on her arm still hadn't worn off, much to her own concern - she'd never thought she could be such a sap on account of a boy.

Applejack was running around frantically when they arrived, barking directions at her various visiting relations and farm pony friends in an accent thickened by their company, almost to a degree of incoherence to an outsider. When the pegasi approached her, she swiftly refused their help.

"Oh come on, AJ, there must be something we can do. I'm not offering the services of a champion wonderbolt stallion just for you to turn us away!"

Soarin had never seen his girlfriend's charming best friend so stressed, and was conscious of the stares of the stern, stocky farm stallions. Did they know who he was? Soarin wasn't sure how far Cloudsdale's popular culture extended into the rural regions. Applejack hadn't known at first, but then it wouldn't have mattered to her either way.

"Look, it's mighty sweet for ya t'allow Rainbow to rope ya into this Soarin." Applejack flushed with hasty manners. "But us Apples know what we's doin'. This ain't our first Apple wedding by any means!"

Soarin shifted awkwardly on the spot. "You sure, AJ? I mean we've just been hanging out at Rainbow's, I feel pretty bad when you've got all this work to do."

Applejack grinned, her eyes gleaming with exertion. "Don't sweat it, Sugarcube. Ya'll run along now, I'll see ya s'afternoon. And tonight I'll teach ya how to party Apple style, how about that?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes tenderly, though in truth she was rather relieved to not have to spend the morning heavy lifting with Applejack's extended family.

The pegasi took off, Rainbow eager for where they were going and Soarin intrigued by what they had left behind.

It was nearly ten o'clock, and as far as the pegasi were concerned, Applejack was making good on her promise. She had been cantering merrily this way and that all night, greeting everyone with her trademark grin, striking up quick conversations, dipping in and out of dances and lending her fiddling skills to the band. She had even sung a duet with a couple of her female cousins and proved to have a very musical voice, a trait that Soarin discerned was somewhat taken for granted within the Apple family. He and Rainbow had been dancing non-stop, if not remotely in the country style. This wasn't a concern of Rainbow's by any means, but Soarin was fascinated almost to the point of self-consciousness by the alien lifestyle exhibited by his girlfriend's best friend and her family. Applejack beamed at them from the gazebo, having come to the end of a jaunty country song that Soarin had never heard.

Pinkie too, was enthralled by the music, having naturally emerged as the most flamboyant dancer and indeed a very good one; she herself had her roots in farming, after all. Rarity and her fiancé Braeburn had been having no end of fun dancing too, but now Rarity had opted for mingling, presenting Braeburn to her most respected clients. She felt no shame about marrying the farm stallion, and loved to revel in the liberation that this feeling granted her. Twilight had thus far spent most of the night by the drink stand, and was now engrossed in intense, one-sided conversation with Star Hunter about the meaning of his cutiemark.

When the cloud-skinned night was at its coldest, and a sizeable dent had been made in the alcohol supply, Applejack once more took to the gazebo, seizing the band's microphone for her announcement.

"I trust we're all havin' a mighty good time?"

Her holler was met with rowdy cheers and stomping.

"Well shucks, this turned out better than I coulda imagined. We pulled off another one, Apples!"

Her plethora of relatives crowed boisterously.

"Now I sure hope ya'll ain't tired your hooves out already, cause' it's that time of the night folks! Who's gonna be leadin' our time-honoured square dance then? Where's the happy couple? Big Mac, Fluttershy, get on up here! And Rainbow, Soarin, you've been givin' it all you got all night, what ya'll waitin' for?! We need one more couple, folks, and we'll have our square! Rest a yall follow along now, we got plenty of us Apples to go around!"

Rainbow and Soarin were quick to the gazebo, both excited by the prospect of excelling in something new. Big Mac and Fluttershy leisurely followed suit, the latter's shyness softened by alcohol, the former's eyes sparkling as one who was about to enter fully into his element.

"Oh boy, square dancing!" Pinkie, who had been raiding the buffet table, exclaimed to nobody in particular. "I did this all the time when I was a filly, oh boy this is gonna be AWESOME!"

Pinkie's elation roused Rarity from her conversation with Lyra and BonBon. She looked to her fiancé, who had been dutifully standing at her side and now extended his hoof to her in the hope she might join him on the stage, but Rarity gave a soft smile and directed his attention to the solitary Pinkie. Braeburn nodded, gave his fiancé a quick peck on the cheek, before bounding up to the pink Earth pony and extending his hoof to her. Rarity smiled as she watched her friend eagerly accompany him to the stage. She was so lucky to be marrying such a thoughtful stallion.

Applejack had by this point had snared her reliable reserve dance partner Caramel, and was now instructing the participants on the gazebo as to where they should stand. Meanwhile, four more squares formed amongst the party guests below, with Apple family members distributed generously amongst those who, like Soarin and Rainbow, were trying it for the first time. Then Applejack began a run-through of the moves, demonstrating each one reflexively with Caramel. Rainbow's concentration was feeble as she leaned tipsily against her boyfriend, who was wondering how many weddings Applejack had done this for.

Applejack rejoined them in the square, bringing up the volume of her voice in the absence of the microphone. She was to be both the caller and one of the leading dancers. The band shortly took up their instruments and began a fast-paced tune.

"Ok...Here we go. Bow to your partner, bow to your corner!" Applejack crowed. "Join hooves, and round we go! Now face your partner, docey do!"

Soarin and Rainbow had not been prepared for the speed and fluency of Applejack's calling. As the only leading couple without an Apple family member, Rainbow and Soarin were chaotic in their attempts to mimic the movements, but the crowd of non-participants cheered and stomped regardless. As the song went on, Rainbow grew bored of their constant mistakes, but Soarin only became more determined, glancing back at Applejack every few seconds to check he was doing it right. Soarin's career was built on his superior coordination and aptitude, and it was only a matter of applying it to this. Rainbow had never seen him concentrate so hard - it was cute. It wasn't long however, before the cuteness wore thin.

"C'mon babe, let's give it up." Rainbow puffed over the music. "I need another drink." She didn't wait for her boyfriend - she never did - and flew out of the centre.

"Left...take...partner..." Applejack gave up attempting to direct the incomplete square when Caramel, a renowned lightweight, abruptly flung her away from him and galloped out of the centre with his hoof over his mouth. Only Soarin caught her faint sigh and eye-roll, from where he stood, five feet away, having also momentarily been abandoned.

Then Applejack put on a fresh smile and hollered, "Come on partner!" before grabbing Soarin by the hoof and proceeding to dance with him in a generic country fashion. The squares below rapidly disintegrated without anyone calling the moves, and the widely dispersed Apples took to cheering at the sight of Applejack dancing with a stallion who wasn't the feeble Caramel. Applejack was the family spinster, and how sweet it was for Soarin, a handsome superstar with a beautiful pegasus girlfriend, to humour her passion for traditional dancing. Soarin looked happy enough too, and Rainbow laughed as she turned from the drink stand to behold her boyfriend getting some much needed one-to-one tutoring.

Big Macintosh and Fluttershy had slunk out of the gazebo, and Twilight now pounced on the former, showering him with drunken blessings and heartfelt fragments of traditional wedding speeches that might have been utilized much more effectively if Applejack hadn't taken the position of Best Mare. Big Mac looked around with nervous impatience; Fluttershy had gone ahead, making a discreet escape from the party, and he had assured her he'd catch up at his first tactical opportunity; it was their wedding night, after all. With multiple bows and 'thank ya kindlys', he tentatively edged back towards the gazebo. Twilight had closed off his original desired exit, but the spot behind the band was just aout suitable for a disappearing act.

Braeburn and Pinkie were wandering back to Rarity, tottering dizzily this way and that and laughing together as they went. Rarity watched as Pinkie nudged her fiancé and leaned to whisper in his ear, and she frowned a little, rolling her eyes.

"A perfect little flirt that one, isn't she?" Drawled a voice. Rarity vaguely recognised it, but was too preoccupied to register.

"Hmm yes." She replied, not sparing a glance behind to behold her elusive company.

Braeburn and Pinkie were in front of her now, the former smiling at her tenderly, and Rarity abruptly forgot about it - her fiancé was a cheeky and deeply sensitive stallion whom she couldn't wait to marry, and Pinkie was a natural, indiscriminate and harmless enough little flirt, although it was not her to which Rarity's mystery company referred, but Applejack.

Because by this point, Applejack and Soarin were fully in the swing of their country dance. Soarin had finally got the hang of the style, and couldn't remember the last time he had felt this free. This sort of thing was a far cry from anything in his high profile celebrity life in Cloudsdale, and the innumerable stares that had become so mundane to him now kindled a new excitement. His mind came loose from his body as his eyes slumbered on the mare before him, his girlfriend's best friend Applejack, and he realised he couldn't stop dancing even if he'd wanted to. Applejack's hair had come loose from her burgundy party ribbon and was lapping at his vision like burning straw, more escaping with every swing. Her smile was always in front of her eyes; it shaped them into little emblems of goodwill, her desire to make everyone else happy. But tonight, Soarin noticed them. Their ripened, ready love. Their mirror-like honesty. And through them, for the first time in years, he saw himself in the same light.

And it was at this point, when their synced hearts were mid leap, that everything Rainbow knew of Soarin - the dents of admiration and reverence in his handsome, puerile face - was overthrown by a sublime new smile that held him the right way. And Applejack was returning this, as if it was passing like breath between them. Tied together in this new intimacy, their eyes had been flung open like windows, and behind them were blue skies, humbly conspicuous as little cuts in the night. This was how Soarin was supposed to be, and Rainbow had never seen him like that.

Applejack's ribbon finally gave up, fluttering away from her on the light night breeze. It landed in the mud at Rainbow's feet, and she stomped on it once, hard, but her eyes didn't leave the couple on the stage, and she failed to lift her hoof again, frozen with grief. When she looked away, a drunken Twilight met her eyes with pair that were grossly wounded with sympathy. So she looked back at her best friend and boyfriend, letting her pain thaw.

The song ended. The couple parted tentatively, the spell broken. But both were still living behind their eyes as they ambled their separate ways; still wearing each other's breath.

Only Rainbow, Big Macintosh and Twilight saw it. The other Apples would never expect anything so profound from their celibate cousin, and everyone else either didn't know either party well enough, or was simply looking the other way. The latter was the case with Rarity, whose intuitive nature would have seen her comprehend the situation immediately, had she not been preoccupied by her own jealousy.

It was the next day that Rainbow would insist that it was time to move up to Soarin's home in Cloudsdale, and Rarity would give in to her fiancé and move to Appleloosa. And the next week that Trixie would finally marry Blueblood, and Twilight would be called to Canterlot on royal business. And the following week that Pinkie would return to her family's farm, and Big Mac would return from his honeymoon to find the FlimFlam brothers harassing his sister to sell Sweet Apple Acres, whereupon they would engage in a poker game in which both subjects were put on the line, and Flim and Flam would walk out with the rights to both of them, and Applejack would leave the following morning with Flim.

1st July (present day)

The storm had passed, and Soarin stood in the wake of its destruction. The room was blitzed with torn costumes, dented trophies, broken picture frames and pills, like the disembowelled entrails of all his time with Rainbow. And on the other side of the en-suite door, against which Soarin had almost collapsed, a soft sobbing was audible.

"Rainbow?" Soarin persisted frailly. "Rainbow, please open the door."

There was a pause, and the pop of a cap, then the sobbing continued with a breathless edge. Soarin shut his eyes.

"Rainbow please, all that stuff...it doesn't matter anymore. It's done with."

He grappled for his feelings amidst his gutted heart.

"Flim came by an hour ago." He found himself saying. "Applejack's run away."

Saying it made it all the more real, but still it failed to inflict the impact for which he was bleakly waiting amidst the numbness the news had brought. And then he lost his patience, slamming his hoof against the door.

"Rainbow I'm still yours." He burst out. "I - want to be yours."

The sobs were suddenly sucked up, and Rainbow responded distantly. "You need something else. Something completely different."

"We can find it." He gave a breathless laugh. "Heck Rainbow, we're the two most talented pegasi alive today. We can do anything we want." His resolve strengthened, and in the dried up canals of his honest nature, he felt his feelings run again. "We can make this work. We can find love, it's just...it's not here." His last line was saturated with sincere need. "Please babe, let's go somewhere else."

Soarin knew that his case was feeble, and felt his revived love rain on him in the silence that followed. But before his first tear had hit the ground, the door was being unlocked.

Awakening

2nd July

A current of purpose caught Granny Smith, and she tore through her fever dreams. Her eyes flew open. The scene before her was almost a year old; a knot of time tugging itself ever tighter to the same spot. The chaise lounge; the antique table; the stove by the window; the sideboard; shelves of jam - a whole home that had been plucked like a web, reverberating with loss.

Big Mac was at the stove stirring dinner, his large, conspicuous shoulder blades gently kneading his course red hair. Applebloom sat at the kitchen table, and appeared to be tending to a paper model with intense concentration. No sooner had she set aside her creation, when she noticed her Grandma had awoken, and hastily approached.

"How are ya feelin' Granny? Dinner'll be ready real soon now. Big Mac's cookin' up chestnut stew." She smiled sheepishly. "Classic, right?"

"Applejack?" It was just a word now, even to Granny Smith, who uttered it on impulse without understanding why, but Applebloom's face fell.

"She's gone, Granny." The filly quickly went to the table and retrieved her model, dangling it before her grandma. "Do ya like the friendship crane I made for Sweetie Belle? I knew I'd get round to it one of these days. I sure am proud of it, but I'll bet I can make a better one once I've got the knack back." The 'diversion' routine was second nature to Applebloom now.

The starved waxy eyes of the elderly mare eclipsed her aging visage as they landed on the ribbon from which the crane was suspended. Applebloom followed her gaze, and her own proud stance was quickly dwarfed by regret. The paper swan fluttered into her grandma's lap, who took it up and proceeded to stroke the hair ribbon.

"This was hers." Granny Smith whispered.

"I know." Applebloom croaked, looking to the ground. Then she swallowed, and added abruptly, "I don't think she's coming back, Granny." Her voice was hard and intrusive, falling quickly under the weight of stale pain.Big Macintosh stopped stirring and shut his eyes, anticipating an outburst.

Granny Smith's hoof hung in the air halfway along the ribbon. Her granddaughter hadn't wanted to wear her hair in ribbons that night; she'd no interest in looking "frou-frou". Granny had chuckled at her protests, insisting she tame her boyish habits for the occasion, but secretly wondering if Applejack protested because she thought herself a lost cause. She remembered watching her granddaughter squirm in her outdated country frock, lovably disgruntled, and the old mare had smiled warmly through the chill of another feeling; a certain lost sadness; a wandering wonder - would the mare before her be the Applejack she adored if she had married quickly like her cousins? If she had thus far experienced the love and admiration she deserved from stallions, before filling the hole in her heart with loyalty? Now, a year later with the ribbon returned, Granny Smith didn't need to wonder.

"It doesn't matter." She said quietly.

Applebloom stared at her with wide eyes. "What?"

"It doesn't matter!" She snapped violently, alighting from her rocking chair. She swallowed, and continued with a heavy heart. "If she comes back, we're here for her. Because so long as we're Apples, we'll be here, and so long as we're here, we're Apples. If she don't come back, we've still got work to do."

She turned. "And what the hell are you doin' here without Fluttershy?" Her eyes locked sharply with those of an astonished Big Mac.

"Granny I - "

"You love that girl. And she loves you. She's the best thing that ever happened to you. Go get her back!"

Granny didn't wait for Big Mac to follow her orders, before flinging the front door open herself, and stepping out into the yard. She told herself she'd no right to blanche at the sight that met her, because she'd known it all along. The hideous machines that plundered their earth. The swarms of pegasi that formed dark rashes in the sky. The bleak bowed crowns of the unicorns, their uniformly pointed horns sucking hundreds of apples from the weary trees. And the dust that took to the sky in great, indulgent plumes where nothing grew, where workers kicked the ground and animals no longer scurried. It was difficult to behold, even under the feather-light prospect of change that pondered a landing in the sky. It almost wasn't enough, but far more than she'd dare jinx with her suspicions.

Rainbow

5th July

Hey Twilight,

I'm sorry I haven't been replying to your letters. Really sorry. Let's just say, it's been a tough year. I hope you still consider me a friend, if a lousy one. I don't know what I'd do without your friendship.

Thanks for the congrats. It means a lot that you're proud of me, but you should know that it didn't happen the way you think. My boyfriend is an amazing athlete, much better than he let everypony, including himself, believe that day. It's too bad he's not so quick to know how to do the right thing as he is to clear sky hoops. A lot of good ponies have lost their savings and more because of what happened at the derby, and I can only hope that what we have planned will at least help a lot of them back on their hooves.

Which leads me to my big news: we're gone.

Yup, right now, Soarin and I are officially 'gone', as in not in Cloudsdale, Ponyville , or anywhere; as in the furthest place you see when you look to the horizon, and then some - that bit tucked just behind the sky. When you get my next letter depends on when I can find a mailbox. So in the meantime, just picture us flying.

Don't worry, we'll stop before the edge of Equestria. We just need to find a spot near the coast that we can call home, where we can grow food and get a little business. Then maybe, one day once things are settled, we can have a foal or two. I'll have to teach them since I'm the smart one, so I guess Soarin will be bringing the bread in. He'll make a good dad though, I know it.

We stopped by Sweet Apple Acres before we left. Fluttershy came running out into the front yard, and the two of us said our goodbyes there while Soarin went to the door to talk to Big Mac. You see, after the derby, Flim offered Soarin the chance to buy Sweet Apple Acres. The price was okay, but I chipped in too - from now on, we do all these things together. I was a little worried about offending Big Mac after he refused to let Fluttershy take my money before; I knew he'd be too proud for pegasi charity. But when Soarin handed him the deed to the farm...well, the look on his face was clear. One look at me, and Mac was satisfied - this wasn't charity. At least not for Soarin.

I wish we could have stopped by to see you, but we needed to keep it as quiet as possible. For now, I need you to know that I'm not abandoning you guys. It's complicated. But then, it's not. It's simple. I just can't live this life anymore. I came within a feather's breadth of losing him, Twi, and I can't take that risk again. The posters lie. I'm not some enigma, I'm not the dream girlfriend with the hunk around her hoof, or the druggie with an attitude problem. I'm just a pony. Like you, like Pinkie, like Soarin, like Applejack. Once we're settled, I'll be back to visit all the time. I'll do everything I can to help Pinkie and Applejack, even if it means leaving Soarin behind for a while. He promised he'd never go back and I'll hold him to it, but that doesn't mean I can't. Right now though, I've gotta make him happy. And I've gotta keep making him happy, til the end of Equestria and longer. I can't lose him. If I lose him, I'll die. That's all there is to it really.

I'm guessing you've noticed the check with this letter. Don't freak out; I know it's a lot, pretty much everything we have, but it won't cover the losses of the ponies who betted on Soarin. Still though, I need you to try, set up some kind of trust - heck, you're the smartest pony I know Twi. If anyone can use this money effectively it's you. I've gotta insist ten thousand goes to Pinkie though. I only hope she's still lying low in Appleloosa.

I know it doesn't look good for Applejack, and I know there isn't much we can do. But please, save some for her just in case. I know there haven't been any sightings, but I can't give up hope yet. If she comes back, tell her I'm sorry. I'll be back soon enough to do what I can, but right now I wouldn't know how to say it myself. Maybe it's because even after everything, I'm only a little sorry for her, and a whole lot more sorry for me. And so I know I'm an awful pony, and I'm sorry for that too.

And don't forget Rarity, the only one who's got this marriage thing in the bag. If there's one pony I look up to above all others, it's her.

Don't start counting the days, Twi. Equestria's greatest hero will be back before you know it.

Your loving friend,

Rainbow

Twilight exchanged a smile with Spike, instantly forgiving him for reading her post. She crossed her castle room and peered out of the window. The city was bleak, but the sky was still a summer one, ripe for the return of Celestia. Things were going to start getting better, it was only a matter of time.

The Second Visit

21st August

Midsummer had past, and the days were getting dark earlier, though one wouldn't know it in Appleloosa. For all they knew, Rarity pondered, Celestia might have abandoned the sun too, allowing it to sink arduously through the sky after yet another horrendously long day.

Now the evening shadows were crawling sluggishly across the back porch, where Rarity sat on the edge with a mug of tea between her hooves, silently watching her husband. She didn't look at him directly - she kept her eyes to her mug - but on the outskirts of her vision, his hazy, honey-coloured form was fitting a wooden cover over the gaping hole that was once the garden well. He had set about 'relocating' it early that morning, dismantling the cover and knocking down the wall that surrounded it. The stones were now piled up at the far end of their large, dubious back yard, ready for reconstruction. It was true that the original well had now dried up, and the new location, further East, was now the only convenient place where they stood a chance of getting any water, but there was little point in knocking down the old well, other than to keep one's self occupied.

"Maybe the pegasi will start pushing the rainclouds over here again now that the derby's over. No doubt they've been very preoccupied."

It was a meek statement, but the silence was badly wounded. Braeburn paused, stiffening, but said nothing. Then he continued fitting the cover.

Rarity shut her eyes. She knew that it was more than the dismal state of political affairs that was praying on her husband. Behind those stone eyes he was grieving the loss of Pinkie, who had moved on with her sisters a fortnight ago. The passage of time had seen no improvement to her husband's state, however. He never ate with her anymore - he rarely ate at all - and slept in a hammock on the back porch. It wasn't as though this affected their marriage - Celestia knew it had been over for a long time. But now, their shared misery was confined to their home. Braeburn hadn't the heart or the nerve to go to the saloon anymore, opting instead to create work for himself in the garden. The workers had long since made it apparent that his tokenistic authority was not appreciated. His presence, they both gravely imagined, would prove just as offensive.

Rarity too was at a loss. She could no longer face the townsponies, not so much for fear of further disgrace, but for fear of her own intense hatred that oozed from the scab disgrace had left. At first she had taken walks to the brook, but the voyeuristic workers were no more bearable, and the discovery of the bottle she had broken with Applejack returned her thoughts to her best friend, who had been reported missing just before the derby. The extent of Braeburn's misery was no mystery; vulnerable Earth travellers were destined for incarceration, either within one of Equestria's hideously overcrowded prisons as a result of some alleged misdemeanour, or the elusive system of relief camps fed by Flam's thuggish hunters hungry for the reward money. If any escaped from the former, none returned from the latter. And so when a manic letter from Babs Seed's mother arrived in the post one morning containing the front page Canterlot article on Applejack's disappearance, Rarity had kept the information from her husband. She knew it was wrong, but her ethics were spent, and she hadn't the heart to endure any more of her husband's pain when both his pain and her endurance were only ever for nothing. If Applejack's potential capture had been Rarity's only concern, she might have told him; for this might well be avoided on account of the country mare's high profile status. But Rarity understood her cousin's grave situation all too well. She knew the kind of stallion Flim was, as well as his line of business. She had every reason not to trust him, least of all to tell the truth about the fate of his wife. And when Rarity lay alone at night, she found herself fearing the worst.

Following their public row, Rarity's immediate instinct had been to leave Braeburn; to gather her things and take the train to her parents' town at the first opportunity - but that was before news came in that Soarin had lost the derby, and, consequently, her parents had lost their pensions to Flam's stallions. She longed to see them; console them and help them financially, until it occurred to her that she herself was now, for the first time in her life, dirt poor, and probably couldn't afford the fair out of Appleloosa, let alone to be anything other than an additional burden to her parents. She had entertained the idea of taking up residence in Canterlot - perhaps persuading a couple of lusty pegasi to give her a ride in one of their industrial chariots - whereupon she could re-establish her business. But a successful passage would hardly be worth the danger of contacting the workforce's town. Even if she did make it to Canterlot, it wouldn't be the same as her dreamlike experience with the city's elite two years ago. Things had changed drastically, and she had no doubt that Fleur would inform everyone of her status as a sympathiser and an Earth lover - for all she ran, she couldn't escape her wedding vows.

And yet, for all she hated him, as she watched her husband heave the last of the building stones into his work cart, she wondered what would happen if he touched her again. That day outside the saloon he had left her feeling robbed, as though he had reclaimed every touch he'd ever bestowed on her. As though in all those dutiful pecks on the cheek before his disappearances to the saloon or the patches, he had sucked up a little more love, to surreptitiously redistribute it amongst countless others. And then, abruptly it seemed, she was all dried up, shuddering with resentment and unsaturated need as she sat on the porch in a beautiful, worthless dress. It was in this state of marital desolation that their days were simultaneously wiled away, but their suns never brushed rays, their shadows slid around each other on separate tides, and at night they pierced the heavens to oblivion with their separate stars.

Braeburn had finished filling the cart now, and slunk into the saddle at the front, before stalking towards the far end of the yard, where the wilderness took over, and the new well would presently be constructed. Rarity's eyes fell on the untouched mug of tea next to her, now stone cold. Sighing, she emptied it over the failing flowerbeds, and levitated both mugs into the kitchen.

No sooner had she put on the kettle when the doorbell rang. She froze. Nobody ever called upon them anymore. Had the locals set up some cruel prank in the hopes of driving her out? The doorbell sounded again, this time in a violent couplet, and Rarity's thoughts slipped into darker territory. Supposing it was the protectioners, come for Braeburn? It certainly wouldn't be the first time a prominent member of an Earth pony community had be made an example of, and there was no doubt the workers were still embittered about ever having to take orders from him. Flam's gang would be keen to win them over.

And what if they did? She thought suddenly, unable to stop herself. Would any more tea be left to go cold? Would any more meals be wasted? The knocking persisted, and she shook off the macabre thoughts and headed to the door.

Maybe they'll throw me into the deal for good measure. She thought, an odd, theatrical form of reassurance that proved very effective. Maybe it would be for the best.

What met her was just as urgent, but far less expected. The door was barely ajar when a flurry of orange and burgundy tore into the living room. The entity collapsed at the foot of the sofa, and Rarity gasped when it reared its head.

"Applejack!"

"Shut up!" She growled, her accent noticeably thickened. "Close the door!"

Rarity was swift to comply, before turning back to look at her furiously panting friend.

"Sweet Celestia."

Applejack's visage was clouded with bruises, and her mane was matted with dried blood and dirt. She was wearing the same outfit she had worn when she had visited them at the beginning of summer, but only a seamstress would know it. The dress was horrendously torn, and the hat had half been reduced to a skeleton. Rarity noticed that the petticoat of the frock had been ripped out, allowing her view Applejack's dusty hooves, one of which, to Rarity's alarm, was encased with the inimitable metal of a prison tag. Rarity quickly looked away as though she hadn't seen it, before seizing the dishevelled mare and leading her to the kitchen. The next cup of tea would not be wasted.

"Thank you for the letter, Rarity." Applejack said quietly, burying her nose in her mug. "My only regret about runnin' away was that you wouldn't know I got it, and appreciated it."

Rarity smiled briefly, bowing her head. Applejack was subdued for now, but her fear was dormant. Rarity was no psychologist, but she knew mood swings were a common symptom of trauma. The former farm mare had been evidently confused upon bursting into the house, unable to fully register that she was out of immediate danger. If she could compose herself so hurriedly to such an ominous state, Rarity had no doubt she could be incensed just as easily. She knew she had to be tactful, but after a sweaty month of nothing but thinking, the seamstress was aching for answers.

"I...can't quite recall what I said in that letter." She began. "I told you about the fight, didn't I? Between Braeburn and I? And...how he'd flirted at Fluttershy's wedding?"

Applejack nodded slowly. "I believe ya did."

"Well," Rarity sipped her tea, "it's not like it matters now, but it got me thinking. I couldn't remember seeing Flim at the party. And the truth is I didn't. " She shrugged. "Silly really, because as it turns out, I talked to him. And when I wrote you that letter, I remembered when. It was during the square dancing. Flim was over next to me, you see. And you were on stage with Soarin. I... I don't remember you dancing with any other stallion than him, Applejack."

The dishevled mare lifted her head, reluctantly meeting her friend's eyes.

"You never fell in love with Flim, did you?"

Applejack took a deep breath, shaking. "I guess I got some explaining to do."

Rarity's eyes burned fiercely, but her tone remained mild. "Please."

The amber mare's lips parted, and there was a moment of silence before her voice found its way out. "I didn't know anything about what had happened until Applebloom started talkin' to me again. Well, she wrote me a letter anyway. And in it she talked 'bout somethin' Sweetiebelle had told her when we came here to visit ya'll, that Scootaloo had told Sweetiebelle. See, apparently back in Fall, Twilight asked Rainbow to check on me; find out where I was and see if I were doin' ok. Rainbow weren't in the best of spirits with me, and she was mighty busy in any case, so she sent Scootaloo to find out where Flim and I were living, and report back to her about how things were."

Applejack surveyed the ceiling, as if hoping for a wormhole through which to escape the truth. Finding none, she continued anxiously. "Now I'd no idea about any of this - I'm guessin' I were out at some do that day - but when Scootaloo found our house in Atlantic city, she heard a conversation on the second floor and did a little snoopin' at the window. Ya'll know what these younguns are like. And much to her surprise, there was Soarin inside my husband's office, the two of 'em talkin' real seriously. Soarin kept askin' about me, and where I was, and how I was doin', while Flim kept talkin' about the next derby, and how 'profitable an investment' it could prove for his employees if the outcome was the right one. It was a long conversation, I'm given to understand, and Scoots didn't follow a lot of it, but it ended with Soarin sayin' 'fine, I'll do it', then Flim sayin' 'Name your price.' And Soarin sayin' -"

Applejack paused, choking. "'Just ask her if she's happy. Ask her if she wouldn't rather leave.'"

Heaving back her feelings, she continued. "When I received this letter from Applebloom, it was just under a week before the derby. I know my husband's business; I understood what the deal was, unlike the crusaders. I knew that Soarin was gonna take a dive at the derby, that ponies everywhere would lose money to those cads that are my husband and brother-in-law, and Rainbow would know, and her and Soarin would be over. All for the sake of gettin' my no-good, lyin' drunk of a husband to ask me some stupid question." Her voice had turned to a growl of hatred, as if she saw her husband before her rather than Rarity, who was shaking her head unconsciously, because it wasn't just about that.

"And I couldn't let that happen. So I were all in a panic, knowin' I'd no way to contact Soarin, since these wonderbolts get countless letters every day, and even if I could make sure one reached him in some roundabout way, it would never get there in time. I did the only thing I could do. I did it how I'd seen it in my mind's eye for months - myself, the mess, and all the fancy furniture - and I did it all quickly, before I could change my mind. That is, I trashed the house and ran away. I knew the press would be all over the story of how Flim's wife had high-tailed it just before the derby, and I was hopin' the news would reach Soarin, so he'd abandon the deal. I mean how can my husband give me the offer of leavin' him if I've already gone and left? Well, no such luck. Soarin either didn't hear the news, or had other motives, because he went and took a dive anyway. I was in Saddle Francisco when it was announced, having just escaped the authorities. I was starin' out over the Golden Hoof Bridge, and thinking 'bout how I had nothin'. I felt so down-and-out, I nearly threw myself over."

Rarity swallowed, her hooves now numb from their prolonged contact with the hot mug of tea. "Soarin and Rainbow have left Cloudsdale, Applejack. Twilight wrote to me not long ago, telling me they'd gone, after buying Sweet Apple Acres and giving it back to your family."

Applejack nodded. "I saw it in the papers on my way here. I reckon Flim offered to sell Soarin the acres as an alternative payment for the dive, now that I was long gone. Amidst my husband's cheating ways, he has a perverse sense of honesty." She chuckled quietly. "I guess Soarin and I should look on the bright side, at least something useful came of our crazy feats."

Rarity abruptly slammed her mug down. "For goodness sake Applejack, don't you dare smile." She said quietly. "Why would you deny yourself like that? Shame on you, you stupid mare. You had true love and you went and married that tyrant. How dare you do that to yourself, and everypony who loves you."

She caught her breath, paced, and pointed furiously to the kitchen window. "There is a stallion just out there who hates my guts, who despises me so much that the thought of touching me again would probably make him sick. He'd do every mare in this town before laying a hoof on his wife, and you had a stallion miles away who would have given up his career just to give you a slice of what you deserved. Well I hope you're happy, because he's gone. Rainbow's intent on starting a family with him. You'll probably never see him again."

"And what would you have done?" Applejack snapped. "Sat pretty while countless ponies lost their livelihoods because of him? Because of - me? And don't ya go giving me hell about my marriage, I agreed to it trying to save my farm." She added, her voice winded, "I couldn't let myself have him, Rarity."

"You think you're that expendable?" Rarity burst out. "Why won't you realise you're important, Applejack? Far more important than a slim chance of saving a farm, or a relationship that's doomed anyway. Rainbow is a beautiful, magnificent mare, but Soarin will spend the rest of his life wishing she was you. Neither of them deserve that."

Applejack shook her head. "You're wrong. Ya think Soarin would have taken a dive for next to nothing if he still cared about being a wonderbolt? Ya think he would have looked at me like that a year ago if I hadn't been a farm mare showin' him a different way to live? Rainbow can make Soarin happy. She can be all that I was, and more. Look at us. This time last year we had nothing in common, and now all that's different is that horn of yours. " A bittersweet smile shone through her suffering. "Ya shouldn't underestimate us ponies, Rarity."

There was a gasp from the back porch, and both mares turned to see Braeburn. His face was warped by emotion behind a layer of dust.

"Hey cuz..." Applejack whispered.

Braeburn walked stiffly towards his cousin. His eyes never left her face, but the entirety of her ghastly state had instantly registered in them.

There was a fraction of a second between the touching of their noses and the violent ensnarement of their hooves. And then, to Rarity's astonishment, Applejack had burst into tears, and her sobs were not those of a respectable lady or a proud farmer, but the loud, selfish sobs of any mare mourning for herself after a month-long nightmare alone on the road, the crowning glory of her tragic fate.

"Stupid, stupid girl..." Braeburn murmured, his voice cracking. "Why didn't you tell me..."

It wasn't a question that required an answer; Applejack could form no words in any case.

Rarity just sat with her head in her hooves, respectfully avoiding their eyes. When the doorbell chimed again, she was grateful for the distraction.

"Oh who could that be..." She croaked, knowing her voice wouldn't be heard.

She regretted opening the door before she had finished doing so, and Applejack barked futilely "don't!" a split second before she saw why. Flim was standing before her, his unfathomable eyes peeking out from the brim of his fedora, and his jaw parted in wry expectancy. A glance behind him confirmed for Rarity the presence of every gangster within a mile of Appleloosa, as well as an additional throng drafted in, no doubt, for the purpose of this confrontation. All were conspicuously armed with rifles; they levitated next to those with horns, and were tucked under the wings of the pegasi. Behind this dormant line, a few Appleloosan citizens stood sparsely, not even daring to gossip. Nopony wanted to draw the attention of these visitors.

"Evening Rarity." The stallion said, as though he'd come by for tea. Without the gangsters, this might have been plausible. They were family, after all.

"What do you want?" She snapped, her confidence only coming with the anger she felt at herself.

"Well, I caught wind that my wife had come by here. I've come to take her home."

"Well she has no intention of accompanying you." Rarity managed, quickly returning her attention to Flim after falling prey to the menacing sneers of his company. Against her better judgement she added, "Don't you owe it to all the ponies you've defrauded to at least leave your poor wife alone?"

Flim's head snapped up. He looked about briefly, and leaned in close to Rarity. "My my, you've been rather generously informed. No doubt with a fair few embellishments." He sighed. "You're a smart girl Rarity, so I won't beat about the bush. Nopony forced Soarin to indulge my little business request. He did it entirely of his own accord, and I thanked him deservingly with the offer of one of our most prosperous farms. That score has been settled, and Soarin has taken leave of us satisfied. And so I have come for my wife, to whom I owe nothing but the promises of my marriage vows."

Rarity shook stiffly. "You don't know what a marriage is."

Rarity heard hooves behind her, no doubt Braeburn walking away, because when she followed Flim's gaze, Applejack was standing there alone in the centre of the dining room, staring past Rarity into the eyes of her husband.

"Ah. There you are, Jacqueline."

Applejack shook her head slowly. "Ain't no Jacqueline here."

Flim blinked, and his eyes darkened. "Come now, sweetheart. Don't take that tone. It never does you any favours. We're going home, the easy way or the hard way. I would much prefer the former, but as ever the decision is yours. Don't break my heart, Jacqueline. I couldn't bear to see our wonderful family destroyed because of your obstinacy."

"Can you really duel, Flim?"

Flim turned sharply to see Braeburn emerge from the dining area with Brenda and Marilyn under his front hooves.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard. You, me; one on one. All or nothin'. A duel, a gamble, seems right up your street." His eyes narrowed.

"Or are you a fake like you dared call my grandpappy?"

"Braeburn no!" Applejack spluttered, but a look from her cousin silenced her. It was a look she knew well of his: that of absolute resolution. Rarity recognised it too; it was the look he'd given her when she'd attempted to converse with him after Pinkie left, or tried to convince him it wasn't worth covering the well.

The townsponies were now whispering frantically, and even the protection stallions broke their stoic formation to exchange a few indiscreet words. It was rural tradition never to turn down a duel. Of course these were stallions accustomed to the corruption of the city, to Flam's drug market and Flim's racketeering. They did not expect Flim to honour it.

Flim swallowed. "Is that an official challenge?"

Braeburn snarled, and tossed one of the muskets at the unicorn's hooves.

Flim gazed at it for a moment, eying the prospect on the horizon, and in no hurry to get there. Then he suddenly turned his head and barked at the uneasy gangsters. "Boys - disperse!" The stallions exchanged a few wary glances, then slowly began to wander in separate directions. None of them had anywhere to go.

Flim turned back to Braeburn, and slowly levitated the musket before him. "Well then, cousin. If that is your wish, then kindly step outside, and we will settle this."

Braeburn nodded, kissing Applejack on the head, before ambling towards the front door, his musket tucked awkwardly under one hoof. Rarity stepped back numbly to let him pass.

And he did, but not before turning to face his wife, and showing her everything she had to lose. Two eyes and a heart full of unrefined love. That and a substance at his core that throbbed like the stuff at hers, as they'd clumsily gone about loving each other without being able to compromise who they were. And then he kissed her, before she could doubt that it was all worth it, or wonder for the millionth time if this was the best they could have done. When they parted lips, none of that mattered, because he was still her husband, and her loving cousin Applejack was standing at her side when they watched him follow Flim across the porch.

The End