Tempest Tossed

"It's you! But both! And—" Discord starts to blur,
His shaking head a twitching, writhing mass
That stops to grin. "You're looking pleasanter."

I laugh and say, "We're back from death's crevasse."
I hear the sounds and words and then recall
I'm less a solid thing and more a gas.

"Forget it," Discord says. "You've braved the squall
By slinging paradox with mad aplomb.
You shouldn't seek to understand at all."

"I gotcha." Applejack's remaining calm
Because, of course, she does and always will.
Except she isn't speaking. That's a bomb.

Her voice is ringing fine throughout my head,
So how—? I'll think of something else instead.

I breathe without a breath and say, "But still,
This rescue plan that's met with such success
Rejected parts where I recrossed the sill.

"And yet? I'm here in ways I can't express.
My sacrificial offering denied,
I'm done with playing games of cosmic chess.

"I love you, Applejack, but stuck inside
Describes a fate I'd rather not embrace."
A laugh from Applejack: "Relax and ride."

She nods to Discord. Joy ignites his face.
He twirls his axe. "And thus we launch this ship!"
He smacks the dark. It shatters everyplace.

Imperfect sunlight bursts, a welcome touch.
That stuff in death's domain? A little much.

"Hoo-whee!" from Applejack. "I've missed the grip
Of honest grass and ground. And now with these?"
She flaps her wings, her horn a glowing tip.

"I reckon things've changed. But lemme sneeze
And getcha out my innards, Dash. You set?"
"For what?" I ask, awash in slight unease.

She's rearing back and blasting out a jet
From nose and mouth that laps me up and down
And flings me out. I'm tinged with some regret...

Aloft, however, nothing wears a frown.
My wings effective, flying once again,
I spin and tumble, dance, a perfect clown—

Until I see as acrobatics slow
The Apple family graveyard sits below.

Recalling all that happened there and then,
I land to stand with Applejack beside
Her former grave, a mound within the glen.

"Exhume it," Discord says. "I must confide
You'll find it empty now you've both returned
With extra limbs and everything applied."

"With what?" I ask, my stomach slightly churned.
"With that," from Applejack. She turns her head
And clacks her horn against the undiscerned:

My own protruding horn. Disquieted,
I blink and stare and blink and stare some more.
"You never think," she says. "You charge instead.

"Despite the cost." She's giving tangled grins.
"The newest alicorns. We're almost twins."