I’d spent nearly half a day trying to get my head on straight. And while Dash might’ve laughed at that particular turn of phrase — circumstances being what they were — the fact remained that I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
I hadn’t expected there’d be a fuss, honest. We’re family, ain’t we? Apples to the core. And it’s not as if Rarity was some no-good golddigger or somesuch. Granny knew her! Why she’d been over to the homestead dozens of times. Granny knew she was a good sort, didn’t she? Then why did she…why would she…
I sighed. Walkin’ in circles like this, I was bound to wear a groove in the floor. Or in my own head, at least. The kitchen was empty. Rarity had gone home, of course, and Big Mac had gotten it into his head to take Applebloom out for ice cream with her friends. He didn’t say it in so many words, but I think he knew that Granny and I needed a chance to talk. And if it came to yellin’...well, there was no need for a filly to hear all that.
Maybe it was just a shock, I thought to myself again. That’s all. Granny’s just getting older and she’s not fit for surprises no more-
I stopped walking. But she wasn’t so shocked when Mac told us he was datin’ Sugar Belle, so…
I sighed. So maybe it was what I’d been suspecting from the first. Maybe Granny wasn’t keen on…well…certain things not found in the Scriptures.
It hurt my heart to think that. More than that, it hurt me to think of Rarity. I could see it with my mind’s eye. I’d told everypony that Rarity was coming by for brunch - Granny hadn’t had no problem with it! We served up apple cobbler and pie and some nice juicy corn with butter; the whole works. Rarity kept smilin’ at me all along, ‘cause she knew I was gonna announce it. But I was waiting for the right time, was all. I thought they’d all be pleased as peach to learn that I’d finally found somepony.
Oh, I knew I might get a ribbing. “Oh Rarity, did they run out of fancy ponies? Well, that’s a cryin’ shame.” But it’d all be in good fun, wouldn’t it? Truth is they’d be happy for me, because I was happy.
But when the moment came…when I’d taken Rarity’s hoof in mine and told them all that we were datin’...Granny Smith got really quiet like. Mac had smiled and said that’s what he’d been expectin’, while Applebloom started talking up a storm about how Sweetie Belle was gonna be her cousin soon enough (“Hold on, Sugarcube. We haven’t exactly picked a ring yet.”), but as time went on I couldn't help but notice Granny Smith just sitting there, real quiet like. She tried to smile once or twice, but…it didn’t look none too convincing.
And after a bit, everypony else got quiet too. In a moment we were all lookin’ at her, waitin’ for her to say something.
Rarity spoke up. “It’s, uh…good news, don’t you think? I mean honestly, I don’t know what she sees in me sometimes, but we’re really quite happy-”
“-I need to go.” Granny said, and then she slowly walked up the stairs to her room.
So here I was, half a day later, thinking to myself that I just couldn't stall any longer.
I walked up the stairs. I knocked on her door.
“Granny Smith?” I called. “I expect this’ll be a mite might difficult for ya, but we need to talk.”
Her voice was clipped and hoarse, as if she’d been crying. “Come in.”
I found her sitting on her bed, holding a picture frame in her hooves.
“Granny-” I started out. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, even now. “Granny, you made my marefriend right upset today at brunch. She didn’t do nothin’ to deserve that from you. She is the loveliest mare I ever laid eyes on, and you treated her like...like a field fulla weeds!”
She flinched at that remark, and I took a moment to breathe.
“Granny, I don’t want to be mad at you. But you hafta understand what this means to me, don’t ya? When Big Mac brought Sugar Belle home you were crowin’ like a rooster all over town about it. But when I bring home a mare-”
She slammed the picture onto the bedside table face-down, and turned her head to the side. Her breaths were coming in quick, and it looked like she was fixin’ to cry.
I lowered my voice again. “Granny…do you think that Rarity is a bad sort?”
She shook her head, still not lookin’ at me.
“Granny…is it the fact that she’s a mare? Is that it?”
She paused. She nodded.
I felt my blood slowly starting to boil. Of all the things on this green earth, I never thought my own kin would be so….
No. No shoutin’. Not yet, at least.
“You just…maybe you just don’t understand. I feel the same way about Rarity that you felt about Grandpa Crisp.”
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.
I staggered. “Yes, I do. Yes, I DO, Granny Smith! And if you think-”
She turned. “That’s not what I meant-”
“-that I’m gonna stand for-”
“Applejack, please, I didn’t mean-”
“This kind of-”
“I’M LIKE YOU!”
The room turned deathly quiet. My eyes went wide. Granny was lookin’ away again, crying. She tapped the face-down picture with one hoof. “Look at it,” she sobbed.
I took the picture in my hooves and slowly turned it over. It was a mare I’d never seen before.
“See…” she mumbled, “I know you don’t feel the way about Rarity that I felt about your grandpa. ‘Cause if you did…” she looked at me. “If you did, you wouldn’t be dating her.”
“Granny…you don’t mean to tell me that…are you a…”
“Your grandpa was a good stallion, you hear? He did everything he could for me. There were just…certain things…he couldn’t do. I didn’t tell him for near 30 years. And by then she was long gone. Went off to Manehatten. One day my letters just start coming back, unopened. And what could I do? Start over? At my age?”
She looked me right in the eyes. “I wasn’t brave like you.”
I didn’t say a word. I just held her close while she cried.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I am. I’ll apologize to your marefriend. It’s just that…when I heard you was dating a mare, I -”
“It’s ok, Granny.”
“-I just…I just kept thinkin’ about Golden Dawn and all she’d meant to me…”
“I’m here, I’m here now.”
“We kissed in the orchard. She begged me not to marry him…”
“It’s alright, granny. It’s ok. You don’t have to hide. You don’t have to hide no more.”
After a long while of crying, she whispered to me again, her small frame still shaking with sobs.
“You have a beautiful marefriend, Applejack. I’m happy for you. I truly am. Just promise me you’ll give her all the love she deserves. Don’t hold back, ya hear? Don’t hold back.”
“I promise, Granny. I promise.”
Author's Note
Dedicated to the people who haven't been allowed to love freely.
