The Dreaming
By TrollestiaSubject
Part of The Applejack Zone
Auto conclusive chapter
Involves some blood and the Apple family members
Granny Smith told us once that our ancestors had to settle Sweet Apple Acres right here to calm down the dormant spirit of an ancient city that could be very dangerous if it ever awake and rise. She told us cities have spirit; Ponyville isn’t Manehattan, Cloudsdale isn’t Fillydelphia, and Canterlot isn’t Appleloosa, they all have their own personality, and their own spirit, but they all are slept. They dream with the ponies living on them, they dream with their roads, and over their roofs, between their fountains, and with travelers going and coming. A sleeping city is something beautiful, and reliable, the real danger comes when they wake up, and an empty city could stop dreaming, wake up, and rise.
Of course the first time I heard that I was just a little filly, and it was a story around a campfire, probly made up just for mah and my brother. So I had always thought this was all a folly from the hyperactive imagination of granny smith when I was growing up. I would like to have been right all along.
It all started maybe a week after granny smith died, or at least that was the first one time I did hear anything about it.
Our cousins started to see weird things on treetops; some tried to explain it as a kind of exotic bird, but I really doubt any of them knew about exotic birds at all. The funny thing was to me that most of them were frightened of what they saw, or trying to ignore it giving explanations just as odd.
The first time me and Mac did see something was… maybe about two weeks after the first incident. Most of our cousins had already dropped the job bucking trees, they rather to sell apples out at Ponyville, go in large groups to return faster, or moved to Fillydelphia for any chance of a job out of the apple trees here. But mah and my brother haven’t any intention of move away from our farm for any reason, or so we thought until that day.
We were coming back from the southern field pulling both a cart full of apples, and we did hear something in the grass, between the tress.
Plushh, plushh, was the sound, like if somepony was dropping water from a bucket.
Plushh, we heard a third time. Maybe we didn’t notice the first one, maybe just the first one. And I tried to ignore the second time I heard it. But the last time me and mac stood frozen.
Plushh… We heard a sound like water for the fourth time.
Mac didn’t say anything but I asked him anyways, like trying to know if only I heard it.
“What was that?” But surely enough by his face, he didn’t have a clue. “Rainbow Dash? Is that you?” I asked to nowhere between the apple forest aisles, and the sound stopped.
After a moment I started to think that I was going to see Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie jumping from somewhere between the trees shouting something like… Dunno , Stop in the name of Celestia! These carts are stolen! Or something dummy like that. But I have to admit, after a while without anything funny like that happening; it began to crawl up to my nerves.
Me and mac look to each other agreeing with the sight that we hadn’t heard anything, so we started again our way back to the barn, throttling like if we had lost valuable time. The true is it was getting late and we weren’t returning for the day, and since most ponies had decided to go in bigger groups to finish faster, more areas needed to be bucked, and just I and mac had taken on that responsibility; find somepony near was becoming a scarce chance there. So we were pretty sure we should be alone right there, even certain by the time being.
Flushhh!, we heard again, the sound seemed to be following us.
We watched around, I was trying to hint some slash of cyan or pink behind the bushes. They’d had their chance, and they let it slip away, it wasn’t going to be funny anymore. But just when I was inspecting around Big Mac shouted “LOOK, UP THERE!”
I was most impressed for see him act that way than anything “up-there”, but his surprised expression was really something foreign to him, so now I wanted to watch out whatever made him that.
His hoof was pointing slightly up by the treetop line.
At the beginning it looked like somepony
Rainbow dash I thought.
But I was wrong.
His coat… was… like If no coat at all.
The deep dark contrasting color was totally not Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie Pie? Yeah, I should have supposed that after that, positively way possible than… that.
“May be her in a lot of strawberry jam… Maybe” I was thinking.
I didn’t find out when it came down jumping form the tree, screeching at the top of its lungs.
Once in the floor it didn’t look like a pony at all, it didn’t have a muzzle, and its front legs hanged at the sides of his body, its ears were too low at the sides of its head too.
But the real differences were its eyes… deep black, and soulless, still angry. Eyes and teeth, only fangs. But somehow its eyes were much more scarier.
That day I and Big Mac competed for our lives, not from that thing, but from each other running away. We didn’t want to lose, but neither wanted to stay and prove a bitter taste of true.
“Hay, I hope to be laughing of this tomorrow. Best Pinkie/Dash joke ever. I hope so” I was saying to myself while running, I didn’t even care of falling on it so easily; I just wanted for this to be really a joke… and to run away.
I didn’t even notice when Mac’s cart wheel got stuck behind.
Luckily he was strong enough to break the reins and run away, but he broke him a couple of ribs in the process, which prevented him from a full trottle scape falling behind.
I wish I had been luckily enough to not break out in front of everypony when I came back, saying everything about that thing, and how I had lost Big Mac.
After a couple of minutes he opened the door inside, but some ponies had already leaved, and some had already decided to leave later anyways.
And that’s how I ended bucking apples alone in field.
Big Mac was hurt and nopony else wanted to help in that job anymore.
And It was a tiring job all alone.
I used to take a break after a couple of hours before, but now I just wanted to buck off and leave.
But the sun didn’t helping that season, and I had to rest anywhere.
I once fell slept in the field under the shadow of a tree.
And I dreamed of bucking apples off from trees.
Nothing irregular there.
I just had wished for some help.
I just wanted to finish, suddenly in the dream I discovered a cavern between the trees, it was small above from the ground, it was totally surprising how I never had noticed it before, of course it was all a dream, so that should explain everything.
I entered the cave, and it was surprisingly amazing inside, it was a huge place, all under an enormous cave. Roads and walls of stone, creating getaways, and tunnels inside tunnels, alleys, and deadends. Bases of buildings without roofs, and dried fountains surrounding a plaza with a massive rock pointing upwards, it looked too perfect to just be any rock, it was sharpie, but build alone in a single stone. Anything like what you find out even in the books of twilight, I had planned in show her this place latter, maybe knowing this could help her to figure out a solution for all these problems, but then I remembered that I was just dreaming, so no point in all that.
That rock was in size like Canterlot’s castle, and it had a stair to climb up. It was too tall to see the end, but you surely could find something amazing up there, like a new kind of apple, an apple pie tree, or something amazing like that, but the sight alone from up there should be spectacular.
Before climb up I found something sited in the stair.
It was like that thing in the treetop that day.
But this one had a cover.
Like a hide.
Brown, yellow, or maybe black, it was hard to tell in that light.
“I just wanted someone to stay” he said
And I woke up.
When I returned that afternoon, I didn’t found anypony around; Even Apple Bloom had stayed in rarity’s place with Sweetie Belle for her own protection. But Big Mac should be back, I went to the barn to release my cart, and place the apples in the container, anything out of the ordinary, but then went I was goin’ outside, I found him.
Just below where I had just passed a minute ago; he was under the entrance of barn, only half of his body staying out. I shouted at the top of my lungs when I found out, then he did something like wake up, I was trying to help him out, but his coat covered in blood didn’t get a hold to fully pull him out.
“It’s ok” he said. “Everything will be ok now”. And that was all.
With the time everything returned to normal in Sweet Apple Acres, my entire family returned back, and the workers returned to the field, and no pony has seen strange birds, or gets a surprise from anything not being cyan or pink. Everything is ok now, just like big mac said, although we never could get him out from there. Twilight detected under that place just between the barn and mac’s body the highest point of a cavern so big, that dig in there could make collapse the whole thing, and probably all Sweet Apple Acres within it. So we engraved him there, and raised the floor to compensate the match. that was a nice, and practical way to remember him, but the mystery stood lingering around, not about the cave, I kinda know what’s in there, but of how did Big Mac to get himself between the ground and the barn.
The End.
A.N:
Now, you are probably thinking I took the whole thing from Neil Gaiman and Junji Ito, well you’re right! This is my homage to these two great storytellers. It was damn fun to do and I regret nothing!
It was a part of “the sound in the grass” and “the principal under the principal pillar” by Junji Ito, and a standalone story inside The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman re-enacted by ponies.
Stories inside stories, that’s what I liked from the sandman, and Junji Ito once wrote that a good horror story never should really explain itself. So is up to you to find logic to the whole thing or go crazy trying I guess, so expect to see these things over here a lot.
Next time I would like to bring GYO/Bodysnatchers, but with a lot more of apples in them, you know.
P.D. if any English talker is kind enough to help me proofreading, or give applejack a bit more of her talking style, that could be great. Thx.
They Said
By TrollestiaSubject
Part of The Applejack Zone
Auto conclusive chapter
Involves a weird illness, and some...child abuse I guess, it’s hard to said, read it yourself
That afternoon was the first one with martial law since Celestia-knows-when in Equestria.
It’s a disease that affects only on the afternoon, they said.
And only to little fillies and foals.
We earth ponies were sure it’s not the food, and then they asked to the pegasi race; maybe weather had something to do with all of this, but even the best magicians all around Equestria were the same confused than them. The best doctors didn’t know why either. They had their symposium, but the illness continued to spread even between their offspring.
We all at Sweet Apple Acres were worried about little Apple Bloom.
“Why can’t I go outside?” My lil’ sister used to ask. We didn’t want to answer that. Until that afternoon one day.
“Because we don’t want anypony to see you” Ah said once, and I kept regretting that day.
She used to see us all with her big crystal eyes, and we tried not to show her our fear, but it was so difficult to hide.
“Why can’t I go outside and play?” She used to ask, with her little jaw going down and up inside her little woodened muzzle. It was amazing to watch. She really looked like a wooden doll. Even her joints were separating with an empty line, allowing movement but not falling apart. And her coat was hardening with each passing evening; I never had the nerve to touch it, not even if Rainbow Dash herself had come inside daring me to touch it. But Granny Smith did. And Mac too, once by mistake! He was so scared when he realized, didn’t seem to be so big aside of little wooden Apple Bloom that day.
Ah asked to Twilight of course, and Zecora, even Celestia myself, but that new disease was too new, too complex, they said. Nopony had idea how it was originated. We even proposed to stop the sun or the moon, since the ailment only progressed during the linger light of dusk. But then the plants would die, they said. That year had been a poor season for everypony’s harvests. We could stand a night, or a day, but if we wait longer, the crops would wither, and that would have been devastating for all the farms. I would have liked still, a chance to try, if even for half day more with my little sister; but I couldn’t say to anypony. We had to give Apple Bloom to the guards, any infected pony, they said. But they were always little ones.
“It´s not so bad” we agreed the day it happened to her, and we kept Apple Bloom hidden. None of her friends came looking for her.
In the beginning, I was so sad, you know; it`s like an apple too near, but you can never reach it. I was like that but much more, like longing for a whole season of them, or all the food in the world; and it just got worse on time. The whole world was withering in front of mah eyes inside Apple Bloom, and there was nothing I could do about that. And after each nightfall her ailment was worsening.
One night she became completely hard. All made of wood; I had watched the full thing happen, she had reached the window to watch the sunset, and when I was feeling her turn around, maybe to ask if she could go outside, with her big and weird rhinestone eyes, and a hanging plank of wood has jaw; She just had stood there, watching the night.
“It`s not so bad” We said, we can keep her as our own little doll, mah own little sister doll, I could have painted on her any Cutie Mark she would want. If only she could speak. We sited her in a coach and I use to poof up her ribbon every single day.
We used to talk with her a lot, we didn’t know if she could hear us, but it helped us all to felt a little better. Until the day we noticed Apple Bloom's transformation hadn’t stopped yet. Her wood was drying, and later more crystal eyes started to pop up between the cracks all along her coat to her flank. At the end her body was lengthening, like the one of a centipede, and cracks of dry wood that seemed to be falling apart of her body, were really becoming slender bug legs; even then we didn’t want to give her up, until the day we noticed that every division of her body was puffing out different color hair, these like legs started to move a bit by their own, and something like dragonfly wings were growing behind each pair of eyes.
When we were at the guard post to hoof down Apple Bloom, we covered her with a blanket for nopony to see her current state, and the guards took her away into a building with a great chimney smoking a high cloud of darkness. They weren’t opened for this, but they were proving to be useful yet.
When we were going out, we noticed everypony else had their little ones just like us, covered with a dark thick mantle, motionless, and crying aloud.
At the end the guard’s stations with incinerators were taken down, and musical instrument’s shops were saved from bankruptcy. We saved our harvests from wither, and the ponykind with it, they said. But we lost all of our little ones.
We all still unsure if it had something to do with burning down the parasprites, some weird curse about a bad season, or how it all began; but I think Ah know how it was spread… But now it’s all a thing from the past, new foals and fillies will come in time, and they will grow up happy and healthy, or so they said.
The End.
A.N:
this was a bit of "Babycakes" by Neil Gaiman and “HELL O' DOLLIES” by Junji Ito, and it was pretty short because these histories are shorts indeed, probably mine is longer actually. I don’t have a lot to say about this, I wanted to write this since Branches chapter back in “A Pony In Hay”. Next one will be better.
Again: I’m not English talker, so any suggestion you can make will be well appreciated, thx.
