The Blood Runs Crazy

“Mommy kept your room exactly the way you left it,” Mosaic explained.

An old poster for Dummy Mare, featuring the wild-eyed lead singer with her black mane woven into dreadlocks, hung above a desk that had been rickety 15 years ago. Notebooks, Daring Do novels, and old text books had been carefully arranged into a neat pile in the center of the desk. Board games were neatly stacked in one corner, and a spider had thoughtfully strung a web between the boxes and the floor to keep the games from escaping over their neglected years.

Most disturbing was the bed. Neatly made with dark green sheets and covered with the same layer of dust that dominated the room, as if they had expected Applebloom to return at any moment and need a place to sleep. The same sheets she'd masturbated under as a teenager.

Applebloom breathed in the old and slightly moist air, searching for a response. Finally, she settled on the most meaningless word in her dictionary, “nice.”

“Mosaic, what have I told you about going into-” an orange filly with her mane clumped together in long descending spikes entered behind them. She stopped when she saw Applebloom.

The two mares stared at each other for a few minutes.

“You must be Aunt Applebloom,” the orange filly said, “I’m-”

“Apple Rust. You don’t think I’d forget my own niece do you?” Applebloom threw her hooves around the orange neck and hugged it tight.

Apple Rust smiled slightly, “I wasn’t sure … I was just a year old when you left for Canterlot.”

“You’ve grown a lot since then.”

“I see you’ve met my little sister,” Apple Rust said, not entirely returning her aunt’s affection.

Mosaic, only too eager to return to the spotlight, jumped in at being mentioned. “Yes, I was just showing her the room. Uncle Braeburn said I could.”

“Well, I think she knows where she is now. Why don’t you go bring your uncle inside?”

After Mosaic ran from the room, Rust turned to her aunt, “Have you heard about Big Macintosh?”

“He’s suffering from some sort of dementia?”

“The same thing that finally took Granny. No one is sure when it started setting in, since he was always so quiet anyway. Two years ago, though, he just snapped. It was … unpleasant.”

“He’s not dangerous is he?” Applebloom was growing concerned at the thought of her two underage nieces living with a mad stallion.

“Dangerous is a relative term. He might hurt himself, but he’s gentle as he ever was. He doesn’t like surprises, though. Or loud noises. Or, well, anything out of the ordinary.”

Apple Rust watched out the window as her younger sister spoke to her uncle in the yard, coaxing him back into the house.

“I’m worried about what will happen to him now Mom is gone. The doctors wanted to keep him in the hospital after the accident, but she fought like a devil to stop them. Whatever happens, please look out for him. He can’t go away to a … It might be …” The orange pony sighed and shook her head, the braids in her hair flipping against each other, “He hasn’t said a word since Mom died.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“There will be time for that lawyer nonsense tomorrow. You’re probably tired. Did you eat dinner yet?”

“Yes, I’m fine, although bed sounds good.”

“Of course,” Apple Rust walked out, closing the door after her.

Applebloom was alone again in the dust and darkness. Outside, the sun had finally finished its duties for the day and retired. The cluster of wagons owned by her more distant relations were illuminated by a constellation of pipes, cigarettes and fires heating pots of coffee. A pair of banjos dueled, soon to be joined by a fiddle and the line between funeral and party became further blurred.

Before sleeping, Applebloom unmade her bed entirely, searching for centipedes or cockroaches. She found none, indicating that the spiders residing in the corners of the room were doing their jobs most efficiently.

She settled tiredly between the sheets, trying not to think of all the hormones that she'd left to ferment in the bed. Soon, she was vanished into dreams.