Fluttershy was feeding her animals. Like she normally did, there were the average rounds, starting with the birds first.
The bird food was the least liked by most of the other animals, and the hardest to get too. Otherwise, if she fed the ground-bounded animals first, some of the birds tended to get impatient.
There was a knock at the door that startled Fluttershy into dropping the bird feed.
"Oh!"
Immediately the animals rushed in, hoping for the obvious.
"Oh no. Wait, some of you can't-"
Another knock. It was too late anyways. Fluttershy fished the bag out of the storm of animals and moved over to the door.
Nopony knocked on her door. Nopony. She'd been a hermit for years, until she went to the summer sun celebration for the first time, met a group of nice mares, and then saved Equestria. You know, a normal first outing for what qualified for Ponyville's closest thing to a cryptid.
Still, she wasn't just going to ignore them. That would have been rude. That didn't mean she was going to open the door all the way. She crept up to the door, bird feed still slung over her back, and gently grabbed the handle in a hoof and opened the door just a crack to peak out.
It was Applejack, with a similarly shaped brown bag over her back.
"Heya, Fluttershy. I'm sorry to-" There was a crash from somewhere behind Fluttershy, as the animals continued fighting over the spilt bird feed. Applejack winced. "I'm sorry to bother you... especially with this, but it's important."
"Oh... um." Fluttershy backed away from the door slightly.
Applejack continued, "Ah know we've only known each other for a few weeks, but... Fluttershy, can I just come in?"
Fluttershy opened the rest of the door. The animals comically stopped momentarily to all observe the new intruder before going back to what they were doing. Fluttershy continued to hide behind her mane until she smelt the blood. Her eyes were drawn to the bag on Applejack's back, it had a tiny brown stain, just underneath the neck.
"Applejack."
Applejack had only ever heard Fluttershy project her voice when facing down a dragon. The fact that Fluttershy's voice went up to normal speaking volume, and sound so even, was enough to get the animals to stop fighting for a moment, again, and question their safety.
"Ah... I-"
Fluttershy, against what Applejack was expecting, got up in her face. "You should never put an injured animal in a bag like that. Let it out. Now."
Applejack waved her hoof, "It ain't like that." She still went to heft the bag off her back, and set it down in front of Fluttershy. She opened it, and Fluttershy's ears drooped.
"What happened?" She asked, the iron in her tone gone, realizing that there was nothing to be done.
"It was in the northern orchards." Applejack answered slowly. "I couldn't scare it off so..."
Fluttershy's singular eye widened and locked onto Applejack's. "You did this?"
"Ah did." Applejack responded, trying her best to sound confident.
The animals had long since stopped. Most of them could smell the scent of death. The rest of them knew well enough when not to create extra problems for their caretaker.
"Why?" Was all Fluttershy could muster.
"I know the breed." Applejack answered softly. "They're aggressive, and very venomous. If Applebloom had found it instead of me? Or Winona?" Flutteshy's eye narrowed slightly. "I didn't want to. I promise. I took no satisfaction in... in killing it, but I wasn't going to leave it around my family."
Applejack pulled her hat down over her eyes. "I only thought of you... after." She looked down too. "Ahm sorry."
Fluttershy sighed and reached for the bag, taking another look inside before closing it slowly. "It's... nature." She said, "I forgive you." Fluttershy's eye hardened, "But next time. You're going to come get me first."
Applejack nodded as she watched Fluttershy take the bag. Obviously, Applejack assumed she would, but now... Now Applejack felt responsible. As the bag left her technical care, she couldn't help but feel the nagging sensation in the back of her mind that she hadn't done enough.
It's not like she'd never done pest control before, usually they were all buried in the orchards.
This was different though. Her friend cared about this, she had just never thought of it.
Fluttershy had opened Applejack's eyes to the nature of 'pest control'.
And it stung.
Fluttershy had been living just a few hills over for years. That's heaps of animals that Applejack could have simply gotten removed instead of removed. Applejack didn't want to feel guilty about stomping the head of a venomous snake that startled her while she was working. The justification for protecting her family was honest, true, and solid.
But she did still feel guilty. It still just felt wrong to kill an animal just trying to live. It wasn't its fault that it saw ponies as a meal. The manticore probably did too, and she hadn't killed that to protect her family.
It was all just wrong, and her emotions were all upside down and backwards. So of course, Applejack, ever the mare to not sit around, elected to try and do something about it.
"What are you ganna do with the fella?" Applejack asked, intentionally choosing to not say it. It wasn't an it. It used to be alive.
Fluttershy let go of the bag, and continued to stare with her single visible eye. "I'll probably fix her-" She clarified, "into kibble. A lot of animals need other animal proteins, and it'd be wrong to waste her."
Applejack blinked at the surprisingly pragmatic answer, it didn't make the guilt go away, so she tried something else. "Can we... bury her?"
Fluttershy nodded, "Come with me."
Applejack followed Fluttershy with the bag in tow out the back door of the cottage. Out into the grounds, past the strange vegetation, and into the bounds of the Everfree. The forest had long since stopped being scary to Applejack, she'd always seen it as a danger, and she always would.
It wasn't scary though.
Here, specifically, and along the path Fluttershy was leading her through seemed less menacing and dark than the rest of the forest. The bark was lighter, less jagged oak trees. The leaves let in far more sun, and the smell was less of a gunky forest, and held more texture of the rotting leaves, flowing water, and natural pleasant scents of wild flora.
Fluttershy led her to a cave. Outside the cave, was Harry the bear, who was eyeing them both up as they approached.
Fluttershy gestured a wing out to Applejack, who understood the gesture as 'be silent.' Although, in Fluttershy's case, the non-verbal request probably came with a 'please'.
She set the bag down in front of the bear, and he didn't open the bag. He didn't need to. He just hefted it over his shoulder, and gestured for the two ponies to follow him.
"Harry is a predator." Fluttershy said over her shoulder, to Applejack. "But he cares, he made this himself."
Applejack followed the butter yellow pegasus, and the bipedal brown bear into a graveyard.
It was overgrown, in certain places. In others, the grass, fungus, and shrubbery had been clawed from the dirt, and moved to the sides. There were mounds, and jagged rocks with pictures drawn in them by claw. Snakes, birds, a wolf. A graveyard built by a bear.
Fluttershy stopped by the entrance of wooden logs on their side that marked the boundaries. Harry stepped over them. Applejack stopped too, until Harry's steps came to a halt, and he looked at her. He had beady eyes, nothing near the expression capabilities of a pony... except... that wasn't quite right. There was no head toss, no hand gesture, nothing. Just a look, and Applejack found herself on the other side of the wooden logs with understanding she didn't know she knew.
She left Fluttershy behind, following Harry deeper into the graveyard.
Fluttershy wasn't a predator, Fluttershy didn't kill. She, at best, was a doctor. She put things down when they were suffering, and helped animals along when they were too old to live in anything other than pain.
Applejack and Harry were predators. They killed for food, in Applejack's case, to protect her food. Harry had protected the cottage several times from stray wolves from whitetail. There was a difference, but it was really only splitting hairs.
Harry and Applejack stopped in front of an empty plot of grass. He set down the bag, and started to dig. Applejack joined him.
They made a hole. A simple alteration of position in the matter making up the ground they were standing on.
Harry used his dexterous claws to raise the brown snake out of the bag, and set it in the hole.
They covered it back up, Harry plodded over to a pile of rocks, bringing one over, and wasted no time wedging it into the dirt in front of the mound.
Both of them stared at it for a moment. Applejack... didn't like this. It wasn't enough.
"Wait." Applejack broke the silence.
She leaned forwards and took the rock in her hooves. "Let me... I-"
Harry just watched, with that unreadable animalistic expression. The sun had gone down at some point. Fluttershy had left, it was just her and a bear in the middle of the woods. She had never felt so safe, and so guilty for being so safe. There was nothing to be done, nothing to be said, nothing that could fix or alter the state of things.
All it took was one stomp, and it was over. A simple life, but a life nonetheless.
"Can I come back?" She asked.
Harry nodded.
Applejack left with the stone very carefully cradled in her hooves.
The next day, as dusk fell, the little mound had two new additions to it. An apple blossom, picked off of a fresh tree, one that would have surely sprouted a juicy, edible, or sellable apple.
Ahead of the blossom, laying just above the mound were several rocks. One of them had a carving of a small pony, the other, a picture of a dog. A large pony with a yoke, an elderly pony with a scarf, and a middle aged mare with a hat.
The stone Applejack had taken from the graveyard held no image, rather, a message that read:
"This is what you died for. Thank you."
A week later, Applejack returned. Harry watched her, as she did, as he always did to anyone, animal, pony, or otherwise that came to his graveyard. She had brought another apple blossom, attached to another branch, one that surely would have yielded apples galore. She set it down on the grave, like she always did, and muttered a quiet, "thank you." Like she always did.
Then she left. Like they always do.
"Twilight?"
"Hmm? Yes?" Twilight turned away from her book to see Applejack entering the Golden Oaks. "Oh! Applejack! Hi, how are you?"
"Ahm doing fine, but, and it's good to see you, but I need your help with something." Applejack cut to the chase, "I need a spell for the farm."
Twilight did a double take. "I thoug-"
"Not for the farm, rather..." Applejack took her hat off, "It's personal, and I'd rather not talk about it."
Twilight lifted a hoof, and opened her mouth, but stopped herself. Despite her curiosity, Applejack had a look of ultimate focus on her current task. Twilight wouldn't have been able to explain it if asked, but her questions died in her throat, and she focused entirely on her friend. "That's okay, I'll help however I can, what do you need?"
Applejack mulled over the words in her head, "Do ya have some kind of... freezing spell?"
Twilight tilted her head, "For apples?"
"Just the blossoms, actually" Applejack corrected. "It's getting up to winter, and the trees are gonna stop bloomin' pretty soon. I need to keep a couple through the winter, enough to last till next spring."
Twilight levitated a book from the wall of the library while tapping her chin, "Let me see what I can do..."
"Ah still don't understand why we're doing this."
Applebloom and Applejack were both clad in winter's clothes. Boots and scarves while they trod through the snow, through the forest behind Fluttershy's cottage. Applejack wore a pair of enchanted saddlebags, courtesy of Twilight.
"I told you. You'll see." Applejack said, focusing more on making packed snow for her sisters smaller hooves to step on. "Ah did this last winter too, I wasn't going to make you until next year, but Granny said that it's best you learn... about this."
Applebloom rolled her eyes. "About what?"
"Ah can't explain it. You'll just have to see." Applejack looked over her shoulder, "And rem-"
Applebloom interrupted with a little bit of snark. "Be respectful. I know. Ya only told me thirty times on the way here."
Applejack fell silent with a neutral frown, and continued her practiced path through the forest. Even with the snow, she could never mistake the direction. They came upon a cave, blocked off by a large stone.
Applebloom didn't say anything when Applejack caressed the stone, and wished it a safe hibernation. Her sister was acting strange, stranger than usual. Cryptic, and not at all the straightforward, no nonsense mare Applebloom was used to. Despite her snark, the tone, and the way her family had talked to her when describing this thing she was doing with Applejack led her to actually keep her questions quiet.
Apparently Applejack had been coming to this place every week for nearly a full year. Applebloom knew Applejack occasionally disappeared from the farm once a week, but she figured her sister was just taking a break, or off doing adult things. That, or bearer stuff. Apparently not, apparently it was this, and Applebloom was supposedly about to find out why.
They came upon an area, concerningly lacking in snow. The dirt was covered in a thin layer of browning grass, and there were mounds, untouched by said grass. Applebloom didn't know what to make of it, but carefully stepped over the tall logs to follow her sister. Around her were what looked like cave carvings of animals.
Applebloom would have been concerned if the environment didn't make her feel so safe.
She realized where she was when her eyes were drawn to the mound her sister had stopped in front of. The decaying apple blossom and branch, and the words and pictures on the stones surrounding it. Applejack, under silent observation of her younger sister, opened both saddlebags and removed the decaying branch to the left side, only to take a fresh one from the right, and place it down on the ground.
"Thank you." She whispered.
A windless beat passed in the forest. Then Applejack took Applebloom by the hoof, and led her out of the forest.
Applebloom continued to come, and the pair never needed to speak a word about why.
"Applejack!"
Applejack was working the farm, like she normally was, bucking trees when she heard Fluttershy call out to her. Fluttershy was the kind of mare to just wait until she was close enough to speak to avoid shouting. It had been years by then, so Applejack could differentiate between the differences. A yelling Fluttershy either meant imminent danger, or that the pegasus was excited about something. Usually the latter, and usually a cute animal.
Applejack got a silent answer as she turned, and heard the gravelly half roar of Harry.
Harry stayed away from the farm, not out of anything other than it just not being a place for him. Seeing him here only meant one thing.
Applejack ran.
"Applejack wait!" Fluttershy tried to stop her as she ran past, but Applejack was a mare of action, and even Rainbow Dash would have had trouble outflying Applejack's ground speed in her own orchard. It wasn't a call to action, as there was likely nothing to be done.
Applejack knew that she had no power over the situation, but she refused to do nothing, she refused to not be there now. She undertook the necessary steps to be where she could be a witness. That was all she could do, and by it All. She would do it.
When she arrived, she caught her breath, and carefully stepped over the logs, turning her run into a respectful trot. Fluttershy was still behind her, as was Harry.
Thing was, Applejack couldn't see any issues. There weren't any problems with the graveyard. She'd been helping Harry upkeep it for years. It had never lost its ‘whimsy of the forest look’, but the grass was even, and the graves were placed less haphazardly as the graveyard grew.
So Applejack waited.
She'd found that time always slipped by when she was here, and as Fluttershy and Harry were approaching, Applejack spotted it, unmistakable, and impossible.
An apple tree sapling.
Right in the middle of the graveyard. Close to the middle, rather, and off to the side where Applejack had been planning to expand the wooden log wall. Her eyes went wide, and Harry stepped over the wall and joined her, leaving Fluttershy by the logs.
For the first time, Harry spoke to her.
It wasn't in a language she could understand, of course, just a bear noise. It wasn't that it carried some extra-magical reasoning that she could comprehend. It was that while standing around the impossibility of an apple tree growing here of all places. There was only one possible thing he could have been saying.
"Thank you."
Applejack had asked Applebloom to stay home this week.
She was grown, and in that phase of being a growing mare where she reveled in the chance to escape responsibility, and Applejack felt like she needed today to last a little longer than normal.
She had things to say.
Words that finally made sense to her.
Fluttershy waved to her as she entered the forest behind her cottage. Applejack came and went like clockwork now, and there was a tiny hoof trail from where she had walked so many times, that the grass had parted for her, and the animals occasionally stood by the path to watch the strange orange mare go by.
Before walking into the woods, Applejack adjusted her hat, and her scarf.
It was a short walk before she made it to the graveyard. She didn't care for the snow anymore when it fell. It was summer time now, just a month after Twilight left for her coronation. She'd been past here so many times that even her senses ignored the things that weren't within her focus. She walked past the abandoned cave, towards the wooden log wall, the thing slowly meshing with the dirt and moss on the outside.
The graveyard was different.
Instead of rays of sun, there were rays of pink.
An apple tree hung its branches above each and every mound, and a blossom fell, one, every week. To each memory that lay within the dirt.
Applejack walked up to the tree, and the massive stone with the picture of a tall bear, standing on his hindlegs, with his arms outstretched for a hug. The carving was hoof made, evident by the smooth grooves of friction, and it held more detail and emotion than any other image in the graveyard.
Applejack hugged the stone, for a moment, before rescinding. She sat down on her flanks, and stared at the eyes on the image. They were beady with intellect, but the expression betrayed the violence those eyes had seen.
All were welcome here.
"I've been wondering..." Applejack started. Taking slow, measured breaths. The words didn't need to come fast, they didn't need to mean more than they did. He knew, he always knew. She never had to tell him.
She finished her thought as she took off her hat, and set it down on the blooming grass at the foot of the boulder and the tree. "If I should find myself here one day."
"Like you."
She smiled. "I will."
And her hoof raised to the scarf around her neck and pulled on it lightly to feel the sensation of pressure on the back of her neck. "I've just been wondering where I should put myself."
"I thought you should decide for me. You always had a way with choosin' the spots."
Applejack stood up after her words and drew in a short breath. A hoof, that she could have sworn looked younger than it was for a split second, delicately, lightly, tapped itself on the bark of the tree. Just next to the stone.
Behind her, there was a cracking noise. She turned, completely unsurprised, as she watched a single blossom disconnect itself from a branch and gently float to the ground. Applejack walked up to the blossom, and reached into her saddlebags to pull out a large flat stone.
The image on the stone was extravagant. Made with years of effort and detail. A black slab of granite, with white markings covering its form. It depicted everyone. A farm, a bear, a family, a graveyard, a country, a mare, a life, a memory.
Underneath the image was a message that read:
"This is what I lived for."
She set it down where the blossom had fallen, picking up the delicate flower and taking a step to her right. To a grave so familiar to her, and also, as it usually was, lacking an apple blossom of its own. She set down the flower on the mound.
"Thank you."
And on that day, she left.
One day she would not, but that was okay. She would be remembered.
All it takes is one person to care for a memory to become immortal.
