It has been many, many years since Applejack first came to this island, and it was time. She made an excuse to the Pygmies and started her climb up the hill one final time. One creaky step at a time.

As she ascended, she reflected back on her accomplishments she achieved during her time here. She was a farmer, she knew how crops worked. That was her first Gift. She helped plant and maintain plants with all sorts of uses, medicinal, edible, aesthetic, and ones that supported. She even planted an apple tree and a pear from the seeds she kept on her at all times. She planted them overlooking the sunset.

Then, Twilight passed away in the night in her sleep.

Applejack wasn’t able to cry as she witnessed all of the Pygmies mourn and rejoice the death of a Chosen One. She wasn’t able to cry after the celebrations and burial happened. She wasn’t able to cry many days later when she barged into Twilight’s room to ask her a question and found nothing but an empty room. She wasn’t able to cry many years later when her back started to hurt and her senses dulled and she needed an old friend. She wasn’t able to cry when she felt death right at her doorstep, about to press the doorbell.

Applejack kept on climbing.

The second Gift she bestowed was Honesty. To tell the truth to yourself, to others, and to everything else. But she also taught the ways of deception in the truth. That truth may not always be the answer. Applejack trusted the information to the Pygmies and hoped that whatever they did, they would never ever use Honesty to severely harm themselves and others.

A storm arrived on Isla.

The wind tore up crops, lightning burned down sections of their tree home, water flooded entire sections of the island. Applejack had but one thought, to protect her friends. She rushed out, ignoring the warnings of the Pygmies and charged up the hill and bellowed at the clouds up above. When the inevitable lightning arced itself towards the hilltop, Applejack pawed the ground like an angry bull and launched herself towards the bolt and intercepted it. When she woke, all of her fur had been fried and her stetson in tatters, but the graves were intact.

Applejack could see the summit.

Through that, Applejack taught her last Gift. The strength to continue onwards. Where a daunting effort needs to be undertaken, you must persevere and finish the task. Where there’s nopony left but yourself and threats face your way, you charge right back into the fray. Where there’s no hope left and that everything you know and love has disappeared, you continue onwards to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

Applejack slumped in front of the seventh grave.

It was a tree. Throughout the years, it had grown sideways, it’s branches stretching over the other gravestone, as if protecting them. In the bark, a six pointed star was carved with precision and love.

Applejack started to cry, placed her tattered and old stetson on a branch, and leaned back on the trunk. She looked out across Isla for the last time, tears still running down her cheeks. Despite that, she smiled.

Then she closed her eyes.

Author's Note

tadaaaaaaaaa, wrote these past three chapters on a road trip.