Chapters “Promise me, you won’t do anything stupid.”
“I promise.”
“I mean it, Applebloom. I’m going to find a doctor. My family has money. We can stop this...” Diamond Tiara gestured to the swelling and distorting body within Applebloom’s cloak. “It can be fixed.”
“Of course.”
“You’re not convincing me,” the rich girl glared.
“I don’t have to. It was your idea.”
Once her … friend? The word sounded weird. Inappropriate. Whatever, once it was gone, Applebloom walked into the hotel bathroom. As the tub filled with warm water, she smashed the mirror and selected one of the larger pieces of glass.
She shed her robe, revealing what remained of her body. Pale, white ropes, like worms slowly consuming a corpse, stretched down her legs. New muscles for new limbs. Her stomach burned and bubbled from the inside. New organs for new appetites. In the broken mirror, she saw the gaping hole of her right eye socket, dripping blood slowly as something egg-like and strange grew to fill the opening. New eyes for new visions.
With any luck, she was the last of her bloodline. There was only one stroke left to bring the whole wretched business to an end.
There was some regret, as she filled the tub with lavender and vanilla scents. She slid into the tub, feeling the warm chase exhaustion out of her limbs. As her greying torso, now almost entirely hairless, vanished beneath the suds, she started to relax. Diamond Tiara may be an obnoxious fool, but there were benefits to traveling with a pony who practically shat bits.
Some regret, but nothing she’d carry with her.
The minibar had a bottle of champagne but no flutes, so it was through plastic ribbing that Applebloom watched the bubbles traveling to the surface. Desperate to escape their origin.
The radio in the corner sang slow and mournful, “I’m a free mare with no place free to go.”
After the bottle lay empty by the tub, Applebloom figured Diamond Tiara owed her at least the 200 bits worth of room service, the mare gripped the glass in her mouth.
The Previous Week...
Applebloom bounced her hoof against the window as the landscape slid by. The seat across from her already bore her suitcase, a preemptive strike against anypony who decided to assault the lonely mare with friendship.
She hadn’t been back to Ponyville in fifteen years. Not since she’d split for Canterlot with a grant to study urban planning.
The window was bound by a heart-shaped frame, a holdover from her quite mad predecessor. Between the setting sun shining off the glass and the shape of the frame, her face was turned into a parody of a glamor shot. She leaned closer into her reflection, inspecting her face for signs of age. A bit like looking over a building for signs of bricks, really.
She puffed out her cheeks in a weak attempt to stretch out some wrinkles, then stuck out her tongue. Her eyes slid crossways and out of focus as she lost herself in mocking the countryside.
“Miss, do you need any …” A filly in a blue uniform had paused by her seat. “Please don’t lick the windows, Miss.”
“I wasn’t gonna … um … I mean, I …” Applebloom cleared her throat and attempted to force some dignity back into her body. Fortunately, the stewardess hadn’t recognized her. Charity Bawl would love more ammunition for their arguments. “How much farther to Ponyville?”
“Just under an hour.”
The train surged into a tunnel, and bounced wildly in the dark. They had slowed considerably by the time they returned to the light.
The stewardess was calm as she explained, “That section of the track has been damaged for years. The infrastructure budget never seems to have the money required to fix what the government views as a minor hiccup on the road to some backwater.”
It had been said without accusation and in ignorance, but Applebloom felt the dagger all the same. She'd received more than a few letters from Ponyville complaining about the tracks. Still, if she dropped everything and came running every time somepony back home got a bee in their bonnet about a local issue nothing would ever get done. Applebloom had to remain objective in her job. The modern world had no room for crusaders.
The train disgorged her on the Ponyville platform and was gone again in an instant. Schedules got to be monstrous on the overnight trains.
As she walked through the old streets, she saw just how little difference time had made. The same buildings. The same fillies and colts that she’d left behind doing the same menial jobs as ever. Twist waved to her from the cafe she'd started working in while they were both still in school.
Following her memories, Applebloom made her way to Sweet Apple Acres. The fence, according to Granny Smith, had been the first permanent structure established in Ponyville. The gate stood in silhouette against the setting sun, its inscription hidden within its own shadows. It was open, welcoming as it always would be. Eager to swallow its wayfaring daughter.
Beyond, Applebloom could see the caravans, wagons, and trailers of the Apple family. It seemed everyone had come to see one of their favored relatives into the grave.
“You came,” Braeburn’s voice was flat. He may as well be observing the color of dirt.
“I got your letter.”
“Not in time to attend your sister’s funeral, though.” The Earth Pony, as always dressed like a gunslinger from those awful L'Amour novels, dropped off the fence where he'd been sitting.
Applebloom squirmed silently in her skin. Her cousin never talked so plainly before. The uncanny way he was acting only added to the overall awkwardness of her return.
A filly with a light green coat and pale yellow mane saved Applebloom from suffering further conversation. “Good evening, Ma’am. Good evening, Mr. Braeburn,” she interrupted.
“Apple Mosaic, this is Aunt Applebloom. She’ll be staying here for a few days.”
“It is well to meet you.” The filly curtsied delicately to Applebloom. “Will you be staying here or in the city?”
“She can stay in her old room. Unless you want to overpay for a room in the Ponyville Arms?” Braeburn turned back to the yellow mare.
“If … I think I already made a reservation at the Arms.”
“Oh, that simply will not do, Auntie. They have a terrible problem with insects in the city. Follow me, please.” Apple Mosaic turned without waiting and started to the house.
Applebloom followed the winding dirt road quickly catching up to her niece. The filly had been born after Applebloom had left for Canterlot, and so this was her first look at the Applejack’s youngest daughter. On closer inspection, Applebloom could see the filly’s namesake, an irregular pattern of yellow spots that stretched along her spine and down her rib cage.
The mare was so busy studying her niece, she nearly tripped over her when she stopped.
“That’s Uncle Macintosh,” Mosaic whispered conspiratorially as she pointed with one hoof.
Applebloom looked down the green hoof to see the immense shadow of her brother slowly rocking back and forth on a child’s swing. It was amazing the ropes hadn’t snapped under his weight.
“He’s simple,” the child giggled under her breath.
The yellow hoof was moving before the mind responsible for it had time to take offense or reconsider. The elder mare struck her niece on the ear as she snarled, “Don’t talk about your Uncle like that.”
“It’s what the doctor says,” Mosaic whined in response, “he says that something is rotten in his brain and he went simple. That’s what he told me.”
“Adults are allowed to say things like that. Fillies are not,” Applebloom sighed as her fury melted before the child’s pouting.
"I'm sorry." Apple Mosaic was good, nopony could deny that as tears peeked from the edges of her eyes.
“Just … I had a long train ride. Can you show me to my room?”
“Of course!” the green and yellow filly changed like a light switch, skipping up the road to the house.
“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.
Applebloom’s eyes opened, giving her an excellent view into her brother's gaping mouth. The left half of her face was covered in drool as he continued licking her. His hot breath washed over her face as his saliva clogged her nostrils.
Her hooves pushed at his chest, trying to put distance between her and the liquid assault. Big Macintosh toppled out of her bed, taking the covers with him. He'd been under her sheets! As he rolled on his back, she saw the prodding appendage under the sheets, sheets slightly darkened with precum.
Applebloom screamed.
The sudden noise caused the stallion to panic. He struggled against the sheets draped over him, his legs flailing furiously as he fought for his feet and fled the room.
A moment later, Apple Mosaic and Apple Rust entered the room, rubbing their eyes.
“What happened?” Mosaic asked.
“My brother … my brother …”
“What about him?”
“He was in here! You said he was safe but he was … He tried to …”
Applebloom’s panicking was interrupted by the sound of somepony slamming into the front door. It was a bone shuddering impact, and a second later it was repeated.
"Mosaic, get some carrots or something and try to calm Uncle down."
Apple Mosaic trotted away.
"You can't! He might ..."
"Auntie, please settle down. I told you he's harmless."
"Does this look harmless to you?" Applebloom replied, indicating where her leg was sticky with her brother's ... it was too disgusting to even think about.
"Be glad he had an erection. It probably kept him from pissing your bed. He did that once, to all of us. Just climbed right in and pissed all three of our beds in one night."
"But ..."
"It is purely a physical reaction. He hasn't got enough sense left in his head to make use of it. Sometimes he gets lonely at night and climbs into occupied beds. Now, if you don't mind, me and my sister are going to calm him down and try to get some sleep before morning," Apple Rust turned to leave.
"You can't expect me to just go back to sleep here."
"To be honest," Applebloom's niece replied as she turned back, "I don't really expect you to do anything. In fifteen years, you've never come back once. Granny died, nothing. Mosaic was born, nothing. Uncle Macintosh got sick, nothing. Mom died, and you don't even come back in time for the funeral. Braeburn seems to think you can help with the disposition of the will, and I'll be grateful for that if you do, but I'm not in a mind to do any more special favors for you. You're more of a stranger than all those idiots sleeping out in the yard, and the only reason you've got a room here is because you are my mother's sister. Are we clear now?"
Applebloom was shocked at being chastised by a filly half her age, and so she said nothing.
"Good night."
Apple Rust left the room, and Applebloom heard her going downstairs to see to her sister and uncle. There was some slight murmuring, and two sets of hooves returned up the stairs.
Unable to sleep, Applebloom sat at her old desk and flipped aimlessly through her notebooks. Little scribbles and the other petty gibberishes of an adolescent mind. Her last thought before she passed out face down on a doodle of Truffle Shuffle shoving an entire pile of donuts into his mouth, was to wonder why she hadn't heard her brother come back upstairs.
“You’re missing breakfast,” a voice sang in Applebloom’s ear. She pulled her head off the desk, leaving a pool of drool. Truffle Shuffle, who had survived so many years tucked in a notebook between laboriously copied song lyrics, had been almost completely obliterated.
Mosaic giggled at the sight of her bedraggled sister.
“I think I’ll skip breakfast. I need a bath.”
“You can eat breakfast while the water is being heated …”
“Nevermind,” Applebloom shook her head. Of course, there was still no indoor plumbing, “I’ll just go out back to the spring.”
She slipped out the backdoor of the house, avoiding the early risers and late fallers in the impromptu campground. The thought of someone seeing her in her present state, even if they were technically family, grated on Applebloom’s nerves.
As she walked down the path to the cluster of trees that marked the old creek, Applebloom passed through a cluster of sparrows. With each step, the stupid birds took flight and settled a few more feet in front of her. She continued forward, cursing the animals for their refusal to travel left or right of her path and leave her alone.
Finally, the copse of trees forced the birds to scatter and leave the yellow mare alone as she slid into the frigid, autumn embrace of the spring. The cold water woke her up as she slid through it. Her hooves idly paddled through the water, pushing her body out until the sand below her hooves vanished.
Beneath her, fish scattered in every direction. They moved exuberantly as the liquid separated around the foreignness of her body. Watching the little, black animals, she remembered catching them in jars when she was younger. Applejack showing her how to hold the jar still, waiting for the creatures to forget and move close enough to the inescapable, invisible maw. Scooping them up into transparent prisons.
Applebloom dunked her head beneath the surface, letting the sparkling water purge her face of two generations of drool. When she came up, her gaze settled on a crawdad regarded her from the mud. She had captured one of those tiny monsters, too.
In the single night she left it alone with her captured guppies, they had all been massacred. Her dreams that night had been tortured with small splashes and quick cuts in the dark.
The next morning, the little creatures had been floating at the surface, their bellies slit open and their organs ripped out. A sole survivor swam amongst the dead, an eyeball quietly hanging from its socket. Her sister had found her crying that morning, mourning the loss of the little fish in her care.
Applejack had laughed at first, as much at the ridiculous caricature of a face the remaining fish presented as at her sister's apparent distress. Once she had calmed, she'd explained that it was just nature. The cycle of life. Now half-blind and flickering through the water, as if it knew what hideous fate awaited it in the night.
Applebloom turned over onto her back, now oblivious to the fish beneath her, turning her hooves in a slow approximation of a backstroke. Her mane hung and swayed gently in the water, twisting with invisible currents from below.
She would have to stop by her sister’s grave this morning, as the afternoon would be filled with talking with the lawyer. It would be a bitter pain. Between the current status of the farm and inheritance taxes, there would be at least a couple days worth of bureaucratic wading to try and keep Sweet Apple Acres in one piece.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of snapping twigs, and she turned to see her brother staring at her. Her mind, still fresh with last night’s assault, urged her to swim for it. Could he swim? Did he need to swim in the shallow waters, or could he just wade out toward her.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked.
Big Macintosh shuffled his hooves and held out a small bag in his mouth.
“He’s sorry for scaring you last night,” Apple Mosaic, spoke up. The green and yellow filly was easy to miss beside her uncle's size. She stood staring beside Applebloom's sibling, her hooves resting on a stone.
The red simpleton nodded his head and snorted. Then proffered the bag again.
Applebloom climbed out of the water, the brisk, autumn air catching her breath. Out of the water, her mane lost its airy quality and plated, cold and wet, to the side of her neck.
“Also, Apple Rust said I should bring you a towel,” Mosaic added, pulling a white patch of cloth off her back.
Applebloom dried herself and wrapped the towel around her like a blanket before she took the bag from her brother. Opening it, she found cold pancakes, a half jar of jam, a biscuit that was at least a day old, and a piece of cheese. It was an utterly random assortment of food, but her stomach rumbled at the sight.
Without the bag in his mouth, her brother lowered his head and tossed his mane apologetically. Looking up at the sorrowful face, Applebloom couldn't help but forgive him. She threw her forelegs around his neck, and he eagerly returned the hug. This close, his mane smelled of mildew and old wood, with a slight tang of copper.
Her hooves massaged his back, feeling the flesh beneath crinkle and chaff.
The earth pony detached to eat, and her brother paused for a moment. Once he saw Applebloom quietly spreading the preserves across a pancake, he splashed into the stream. The red giant stood in the shallows, enjoying the cold as it tickled his underbelly.
Apple Mosaic sat perfectly still, her eyes wide and fixed on her aunt.
Unable to endure the silence, Applebloom asked the first question that came to mind, “What happened to Macintosh?”
“The doctor said...”
“No, not that. I mean, his skin. The accident.”
“Oh. He burned down the barn,” Mosaic returned to her quiet silence, periodically looking over to where her brother now had his nose buried in the water. After a few moments he jerked his head up, snorting and snapping at a passing guppy.
“What happened?” Applebloom probed further.
“Nopony knows. One night, we woke up and the barn was on fire. He ran all the way into Ponyville, screaming at the top of his lungs. It took five stallions to stop him.” Apple Mosaic smiled at the strength of her uncle.
Applebloom finished her meal in silence, watching the giant hunting fish in the stream. As she watched his powerful teeth snapping in the glistening water, she wondered what he’d do if he caught one.
She cowered in the old kitchen. Before Big Macintosh and Applejack had remodeled it. The polka dots from years of Zap Apple Jam were faintly visible, like purple spots of mold. The light glared viciously at her, hateful and strange.
Her father towered over her. Yelling about something. Always it was about something. His mane scratched the ceiling as she lay at his hooves.
"I'm not about to take second place to a dog! She can stay out in the yard for all I care. This is my house. My family."
Blood danced swished across the floor. It cast a quick nod in her direction as it carried on its merry way.
Now she was in the woods. Running. Monsters were pursuing her. Snarling, growling, their claws and wretched breathing reaching out for her. Grabbing her fur and her hair. Her legs pushed through thick jelly, trying to push herself forward.
She fell. It mounted her. A timber wolf reared above her. It’s wooden jaws creaked open and its tongue spilled out. Long and fat, the tongue swayed before her face like a worm.
Slowly, it lowered toward her, the stiff wooden tongue prodding her cheek. It sought her mouth, pushing forward to claim her body. Drool slid down, thick and hot to cover her.
