Author's Note
A note from the author:
When I wrote "The Sun Eater," I created a sort of alternate Equestria. It was dark, gritty, and even slightly nihilistic. The damnedest thing about it, though, was that I liked it. Furthermore, I liked the versions of the characters that inhabited it. That being the case, I decided to write a little more about them. You won't have to read the Sun Eater to understand these, and if you have "mature" filtered out, you won't even be able to see that story, anyway.
These stories will be of varying length. In other words, I will stop writing when the story is done, whether that point comes at a thousand words or a hundred thousand. That said, I do expect these to be relatively short. Each one will focus on an individual pony, and will tell a little about how they get by in an Equestria that is a lot more like the world you and I inhabit.
Be forewarned, these are not going to be "G-rated" material, but neither will they be clopfics -- I don't do those. If I mention anything sexual, it will never be explicit. I just do not feel that is necessary to a good story.
In short, there's going to be some "adult" language, themes, and behavior in these, and I just wanted to make sure that anyone who was familiar with my "Everyone" rated material didn't get more than they bargained for.
Thanks for reading
Mannulus
Special thanks to Huussii of Deviantart for allowing me the use of the work "MLP - Applebuck Season" as a cover image.
Well and Good
Well and Good
Applejack's eyes popped open just a split second before the rooster crowed. They always did. She could just feel that sound coming somehow, even in her sleep. For some reason, though, that never made it any easier to greet the day.
"Goddamned Rooster," she mumbled, even as the bird was still hailing the dawn. "Goddamned sun." She rolled away from the window. "Goddamned Princess Celestia. Can't you sleep in just one time?"
Applejack's head was pounding, and her stomach felt twisted and watery. She had drank too much last night -- again.
"I gotta lay off, or I'm gonna end up like Big Daddy," she thought.
There was the sound of hooves in the hallway, and Applejack groaned in anticipation of what came next. The door to her room flung open, and there stood Granny Smith. How a pony so given to long naps could awaken herself an hour before the sun every single day -- for decades -- always bewildered Applejack.
"Get your kickin' shoes on, girl!" shouted the old pony gleefully. "It's that time o'year!"
"Dammit, Granny, I know! I was the one who reminded you last night. Just gimme a minute to get my bearings straight. I feel like shit."
"You done gone and got yerself hung over for the first day of harvest again, I see." Granny's voice told Applejack she did not approve.
"So did Big Macintosh. So, go give him the once-over, why don't you?"
"Eenope," came her brother's voice from the hallway as he strode toward the stairs. "I'm just fine and dandy."
The stallion seemed all but immune to the unpleasant after-effects of a night at the bottle.
"I got breakfast ready downstairs" said Granny. "Come get some food in you before y'all have to get out there."
"Alright, I'm coming," said Applejack, rolling to her hooves, and flipping her hat onto her head.
As she bumbled down the stairs, she heard Applebloom in the dining room, asking her usual retinue of Applebuck Season questions.
"When do I get to help buck?" always came first, and it was during Big Macintosh's explanation that Applejack came and sat down in her chair at the table.
"When you finish school," said the big, red pony. "And when you get big enough to actually knock an apple or two down out of a tree."
"Applebloom," said Applejack, "It's just a lot of kicking trees and pulling carts. I don't even know why you get your blood hot for it every year. Hell, if I could go back to school with all my friends instead of having to be out there..."
Granny Smith placed a platter of pancakes in front of Applejack, along with a glass of apple juice and two aspirin.
"Thank you, Granny," said Applejack, quietly, popping the two aspirin into her mouth. She washed them down with a swig of juice, and set into her pancakes.
"Applebucking's what being an Apple is all about," said Applebloom, obviously confused by her sister's demeanor.
"Eeyup," said Big Macintosh.
"Oh, yeah," said Applejack. "That and apple pies, apple fritters, apple cider, and damn near anything apple else you can think of."
"What's got you in a mood?" asked Big Macintosh.
Applejack stared at him blankly for a moment.
"Apples," she said, mouth half full.
"You're fixing to have one hell of a long-ass day, then," he said, looking out the window at the fields of heavy-laden apple trees.
"Y'all don't mind her," said Granny Smith. "She's just hung over and hungry."
Applejack sighed, and continued to eat. Granny was close enough to the mark, but there was something else this year; a nagging desperation that had been sneaking into the back of her mind for some time. She had first felt it one day back during planting season, when she had dented a plowshare on a rock in the eastern corn field. She always dented plowshares in that field. It seemed that the ground just gave up more and more stones to replace the ones she picked out of it. There was a hopeless kind of frustration in it that she just couldn't shake. She thought back to that moment, -- to standing in the hot sun, staring at the dented piece of steel -- and then she did what she always did. She took a deep breath, and forced her frustrations down inside of herself. What else could she do?
The food did help, though, and once Applebloom had been shooed off to school, she and Big Macintosh headed for the north field.
"You want to pull the cart or buck first?" asked Big Macintosh.
"Don't make no difference to me," said Applejack, "so long as we get the trees out of that thicket in the holler first. I ain't gonna end up down in that hell hole trying to beat sundown again this year."
"If that's it, then you're the one going in," said her brother. "I can't hardly fit my ass in there to get at 'em. I'll go get the cart."
"Aight," said Applejack, as she turned down the path that led into the thicket.
She hated the thicket. It was a little more than two acres of overgrown brambles, shrubs, and vines, situated in a hollow where a stream ran in the wet season. It was always muddy, and furthermore, no matter how many times they cleared the offending vegetation, it always grew back by next year. In spite of all that, there were two dozen Golden Delicious trees that somehow managed to grow there, and the two ponies could never bring themselves to let their fruit go to waste.
When she reached the edge of the thicket, Applejack stopped to consider how best to go about harvesting the apples from the trees buried within the brush. After a minute or two, she heard Big Macintosh approaching from behind her.
"I thought you'd already be in there getting after it," he said smugly.
"Won't do nothing but make more trouble if I buck 'em before there's buckets under the trees, will it?"
"S'pose not," said her brother, unloading buckets from the cart.
The buckets were all stacked three and four deep to conserve space, and he placed one such stack on Applejack's back.
"Well, get in there, and watch for snakes."
"Ain't gotta tell me twice," said Applejack. She had been bitten by a snake in this very thicket three years past. Even after the trip to the hospital, she had felt terrible for the rest of harvest.
She stepped into the thicket, pulling through and over vines, brambles, and mud holes. She was already filthy by the time she got to the first tree.
She lay the three buckets around its base, positioning them to catch the bulk of the apples dangling above. Then, finding a solid spot on the ground beside the tree, she wound up and drove her rear hooves into its trunk. The old, familiar jolt of the impact rolled upward through her hind legs, pelvis, and spine. The shock wave met with the resistance of her locked knees and shoulders, and she dropped her rear hooves back into the muddy soil. It was a sensation she would experience several hundred more times over the next few days, and it would leave her stiff and sore for weeks after. One day, it would leave her all but crippled, just like Granny Smith.
Thoughts of her grandmother's many complaints of aches and pains crept through Applejack's mind. She envisioned the old pony's glacially slow, uneven stride as she picked up the apples that had missed the buckets. She was careful to grasp them gently so as not to leave teeth marks. Every single pony in Ponyville had probably eaten an apple that had been in her mouth, but they didn't need to be reminded of that.
"And they call Berry Punch "Secondary Kiss," she thought.
She swung the first of the buckets onto her back, and hauled it out to the cart. Big Macintosh was at a nearby tree on the edge of the thicket. He had buckets already placed around it, and was looking over his shoulder, aligning his hindquarters with the tree's trunk. One quick shot from his right hind leg, and the tree let go of all its fruit. He didn't even have to wind up, let alone use both legs.
"Damn it all, but it ain't fair," Applejack mumbled as she turned back into the brush.
* * *
Big Macintosh slowly negotiated the narrow, muddy path back down to the thicket. He had emptied the cart twice already, and it looked like at least two more trips would be necessary. He was not excited by the prospect, but what had to be done simply had to be done. He felt the cart stall in the mud, and gave a quick, forward heave to free it. Several more mud holes later, and he was back at the thicket.
"Well, that's peculiar," he said to himself. Applejack hadn't gotten even one bucket full of apples out of the thicket since he'd left.
"Hope she didn't get snakebit, again," mumbled the stallion.
"AJ!" he shouted. There was no response.
"Hey, Applejack! What's the holdup!? You okay!?"
"I'm FINE!" came the reply, but there was an edge of anger and frustration in her voice that told Macintosh his sister was lying.
"Bullshit!" he yelled.
"Just keep bucking the goddamned trees out there, would you? I'm on that big-ass, old tree with the twisty trunk, and it's pissing me off, is all!"
"Aw, shit," mumbled the stallion. "I better go help her."
He sighed, and waded into the hellish mess of thorns and vines. After a few seconds, he heard the sound of his sister's hooves against a tree trunk. Then, he heard them again -- and again, and again, and again.
"FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" Each expletive was punctuated by the sound of Applejack's hooves striking wood. Then, there was silence.
A few seconds later, he found her. She was seated on her haunches, mud soaking into the orange fur around her rump. Her head was hung low, and her hat lay on an old log beside her. She was breathing heavily, and the imprint of her horseshoes was present all over the gnarled, twisted trunk of the tremendous apple tree behind her.
"I forgot about this tree," said Big Macintosh, and the words were calm, careful, and gentle.
"Yeah, I did too," said Applejack, without lifting her head. There was a tremor in her voice, and it drew her brother's gaze away from the branches of the monstrous tree. He noticed a tear that had run down to the tip of her nose as it let go and fell into the dirt.
"You on your rag, or something?" sighed Big Macintosh.
"What?" A bit of a laugh sneaked into Applejack's indignant reply. "No, goddammit."
"Well, then what the hell is wrong?" he asked. It was strange to Applejack the way that only her brother's voice could mix irritation with genuine concern.
She struggled for the words she wanted to say. "I don't want to applebuck, this year, Big Mac."
"You'll feel better when we get done with the thicket," he said. "I hate it down in here, too." He turned and lined up on the big tree, then wound up. As his muddy hooves slammed into the tree's serpentine trunk, it cut loose its fruit. Apples showered down around the two ponies, and one of them landed directly in front of Applejack's downcast face.
"Heh," Big Macintosh chuckled. "Have an apple."
She stared at the piece of fruit for several seconds before she spoke.
"I'm... I'm... tired of apples, Big Mac," said the orange pony, her voice quivering.
"Wow," said Big Macintosh. "Now, I know something's wrong."
"I just..." Applejack began, as her brother came and sat down, planting his red hindquarters in the mud beside her own. "I work my life away out here, and I feel myself getting older inside every goddamn year. It's always the same routine; same shit, over and over. There's a comfort in it; in knowing what I'll be up to on any given day for the rest of my life, but there's a pain to it, too.'
"I don't have no bullshit aspirations of being something big or nothing. Don't much wanna see the world like some ponies. I seen enough to know that I'd just end up back here, anyway. I reckon maybe that's the problem. Maybe I just feel trapped; like I'm locked up inside of who I am."
Big Macintosh said nothing. He did not feel he was expected to. After several moments, Applejack spoke again.
"You know I ain't never even been on a date? Always too goddamn busy. Can't find a stallion tougher than I am, no way. How am I supposed to respect somepony enough to... you know... go for him if he can't even hold his own with me? It's like this damned farm has beaten the mare out of me."
"Aw, it ain't done that," said Big Macintosh. "You still cry like one, you little pussy."
Applejack gritted her teeth, and tried to restrain herself from laughing. Finally, she let go.
"I'm gonna kick your ass," she said, each word a half-laugh.
Big Macintosh hugged his sister, then picked himself up. "Well," he said, "if this tree's any indication, I reckon my ass ain't got much to worry about.'
"Go pull the cart and work the trees outside the thicket," he said. "I'll finish up in here."
* * *
The day dragged on the way Applebucking days always did. Between herself and Big Macintosh, they had cleared the thicket and the rest of the north field, just like Applejack had known they would. As the sun set behind the mountains in the west, she stood alone on a hillside not far from the barn, and gazed out over the apple-covered trees there. A breeze blew in and carried the fragrance of their heavy, red, green, and golden fruit to her nostrils.
"I suppose it's just another day on the farm," she said. "What if it ain't the best I've ever had? Ain't the worst, neither."
She lay down on her belly, and let the wind cool her face.
"What if I do end up just a crippled up, drunk old maid? That's all well and good. Don't reckon I'd know how to be much else."
A twinge of pain shot up her spine, and it called to Applejack's mind the unique, rolling shock of a strong, well-aimed buck.
"I do love that feeling." She smiled slightly, shut her eyes, and breathed in the apple-scented wind.
"I really do."
finem
