Faithfully Yours

                                                                                                                                                         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