Disclaimer: Laconically not mine.
A/N: I started this back in February when I mainlined the entire FiM canon up to that point. Then real life got in the way and I didn’t finish it until holidaying in Belgium brought a bout of creativity. This was actually my first FiM fic, so please be gentle.
….
Big Brother
….
- DAWN
….
Applejack was missing.
Big Macintosh stared at her empty bed. The covers had been neatly turned down. That would be Granny Smith’s doing. She turned down the covers every evening, as if she was convinced one night a tiny orange filly would scramble through the window, fall asleep and come down to breakfast like nothing had happened.
He wasn’t stupid. It had taken twice as long for him to learn multiplication in school and he needed to sound out long words in books – didn’t really like reading at all unless he was alone and nobody could see his lips moving – but he wasn’t stupid. Convincing the rest of the world there was a difference between ‘slow’ and ‘stupid’, however, was an on-going struggle.
Applejack had never treated him like he was stupid. She was so much younger, she listened, enrapt, as he explain working the farm to her and thought he was the smartest pony in the world. She wasn’t old enough to use language he couldn’t understand when he read her note. He pictured it, full of tooth marks and spit-stains from being constantly pulled from under the china angel on the mantelpiece where she had left it. They all knew it by heart. It didn’t make coping any easier.
Treading as delicately as he could – which wasn’t very, but Granny was practically deaf so it didn’t matter – Big Macintosh crossed the room and nudged Applejack’s pillow to fluff it. It was his own private ritual. Granny turned down covers; he fluffed pillows. They both set out an extra place at mealtimes, and then refused to look at the unused plate.
He was the stallion of the family now Pa was gone. He was supposed to look out for his little sister, but he had obviously done something wrong if she had just up and left without saying a word. He wasn’t given much to introspection – couldn’t spell it if told to write it down – but that bothered him. Why had she been so unhappy? Was she really so dissatisfied with life at Sweet Apple Acres that she had to leave it – and them?
He sighed and went to the window. It was dawn; bright light cresting the horizon like paint on a dark canvas. He had barely slept. That wouldn’t do. He had work to finish today. Granny couldn’t manage the bucking anymore. She tried, but it was mostly his job since her arthritis really took hold. He had to get bigger and stronger, so he could take care of things the way the stallion of the family was supposed to.
He stayed at the window, thinking his private thoughts, until the sky exploded. That was how it seemed, at least. A wash of multi-coloured light detonated and shot outward over the farm. Birds of the dawn chorus abandoned their song to squawk and fly in all directions. Dozens of rabbits, squirrels and other small animals dashed about the orchard. A crashing noise followed seconds after the rainbow explosion, as if the universe was stamping its hooves.
“Wassat?” Granny burst through the door, bleary-eyed but alert. “Did the boiler explode again?”
Big Macintosh tossed his head at the quivering sky. The ring of coloured light was still travelling away into the distance like a gigantic ripple in the fabric of reality. His mouth hung open, but he couldn’t help himself. He had never seen anything like it before.
“What in tarnation?” Granny squinted at it. “The heck is that?”
Big Macintosh didn’t know. A strange feeling coalesced in his belly. He wouldn’t realise until later that it was excitement. That rainbow ring was a portent, or a sign, or something else significant for which he didn’t have words. He could feel it in his fetlocks.
“Granny,” he said slowly.
“What is it, youngin’?”
“Applejack.”
“Where?” She scanned the road. “Dang filly. Wild as a June bug on a string. I don’t see her.”
“Not yet.” He smiled, even though he couldn’t yet hear the clatter of tiny orange hooves. “Soon.”
“Y’think?”
“Yup.” He turned from the window. “Gonna wait for her at the gate.”
Granny watched him with narrowed eyes. “You’ll be wastin’ good buckin’ time.”
“Yup.”
“You must be sure if you’re willin’ to neglect buckin’.”
“Yup.”
A smiled creased her wrinkled face. “Good enough for me.”
….
- MIDDAY
….
Big Macintosh stood at the crest of the hill and watched his sister and her friend darting between the trees. Midday sun dappled orange and blue coats as the two little ponies played. No matter how old she acted, or how much responsibility she tried to take on, Applejack was still a filly at heart. It would be a couple more years before she could reasonably be called a mare and he would have to start worrying about stallions courting her. In his humble opinion, she should act like a filly as much as she could while she could, but the only time she let her guard down seemed to be when that little blue pegasus came calling.
He was standing in plain view, but neither filly spotted him. They were too absorbed in chasing each other in some complicated game of tag mixed with hide n’ seek and rugby. The pegasus arrowed up between the branches. A swish of leaves was the only indication where she had gone. He watched Applejack canter into view, spot the leaves and pretend not to see them. She slowed to a trot, but when the pegasus tried to surprise her from above she was ready. Somehow slewed her body to one side and turned their madcap roll into her pinning the other pony.
“I win!” she crowed.
The pegasus spat out a mouthful of leaves. Her rainbow mane and tail were studded with twigs and bits of bark. “No way!”
“Yes way!”
Another roll and their positions were reversed. A single leaf was stuck to the pegasus’s flank. It looked a little like a cutie mark, but flaked away to reveal the actual mark beneath. Yup, on their way to becoming mares, but still fillies in all the ways that counted.
“No way!”
Applejack blew out a breath. “Goldarnit, you weigh a ton! No more apple pies for you.”
“What?” The pegasus was aghast. “No fair! I love apple pies.”
“I can tell. You’re breakin’ my ribs.”
“Aw, man.” The pegasus beat her wings and lifted her weight off, only for Applejack to launch herself and reverse their positions once more.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” Applejack grinned.
“I let you win!”
“Sure you did. Oh look, there goes a flying pig.”
The pegasus blinked. “Now that’d be awesome.”
Applejack made a face. “You think everythin’ would be better with wings.”
“Well, it would.”
“Nu-uh.”
“Uh-huh! Imagine raccoons and rabbits and squirrels with wings. They’d be so much cooler than they are now!”
“It’d be gosh-darn awful! They’d reach all the apples before we could pick ‘em!”
“Nu-uh, because you’d have wings too, so you could chase them off. You wouldn’t have to learn to buck anymore, either. You could just take the apples right off the branches.”
“But I like buckin’. Why would I want wings?”
“Duh! Because everything would be more awesome with wings.”
“I’m awesome just the way I am.”
“Nu-uh!”
“I beat you today without wings, didn’t I?”
The pegasus pouted. “Totally not awesome.”
Big Macintosh allowed a small smile to turn up his mouth. Yup; it sure did do Applejack good to act like a filly sometimes. He turned away and hid behind some bushes before she could see him and demand a bucking lesson instead.
….
- DUSK
….
There was a lot of satisfaction to be had in doing a simple job well. Apple-bucking was a balance of strength and accuracy, but not exactly academic. Neither was Big Macintosh. He had long ago reconciled himself to his shortcomings and no longer felt like he had to justify himself to the world. Either ponies accepted him the way he was or they didn’t and weren’t worth knowing anyhow.
This had definitely been a Valentine’s Day to remember. Or not. Usually bucking helped him order his thoughts, but today had left him in such a tizzy he was still reshelving a few things in his head.
He kicked out with one hind leg and a tumble of Red Delicious landed in each of the three baskets he had positioned. Taking a handle between his teeth, he dragged each to the cart and manoeuvred them up the ramp. When he was done he checked to make sure had hadn’t missed any and arranged himself in the harness to pull the entire load through the orchard for checking. Granny would take out the bad ones and save what she could, turning the others into mash for compost or one of those liniments she kept for when he or Applejack pulled a muscle.
He looked around him as he walked, wondering where the heck his sister was. She had been due to help him today, but in all the confusion with Cheerilee he had forgotten. Now, trying to cram all the work into his evening, he felt the slight stirring of resentment that Applejack had apparently used his absence to sneak away and do her own thing.
He frowned at the resentment until it skittered away back into its box. Applejack wasn’t that kind of pony. She wouldn’t skive work unless something important had come up – which, given some of the things she had gotten mixed up in since Twilight Sparkle came to town, could be just about anything. Had another dragon attacked? Was she helping rescue a friend from underground jewel-thieves? Could she have been whisked away to Canterlot on Princess Celestia’s orders? He was still impressed that a practical, down-home pony from their family was hobnobbing with the upper crust without picking up all sorts of silly airs and graces. Applejack was as level-headed today as she had ever been since the day she got her cutie mark and he was proud of her.
He dragged the cart into the barn and was unloading the baskets when he noticed the ladder from the hayloft on the floor. Usually it sat by the hayloft door, leading down to the floor, but it had fallen or been kicked over. He couldn’t park the cart after unloading with it there, so he hastily stashed the baskets where Granny could reach them in the morning and gripped the ladder between his teeth. It took two smaller ponies to manoeuvre the thing usually – Applejack and Applebloom typically worked together, since Granny could barely move her withers to pick up more than apples these days. It was no trouble for him, however. He gently placed it up and put it back where it should be.
As he turned away, the sound of movement made his ears twitch. It was coming from the hayloft. He turned back, thinking it may be a racoon or stray squirrel that had got in. Once, an entire family of grickles had nested up there and he had been forced to carry each squalling, scratching lizard-bird down individually in special unbreakable carriers Twilight had whipped up for him. He hoped it wasn’t more grickles, although that would account for why the ladder had been kicked down. Grickles were notoriously territorial when they chose a nesting spot.
He climbed the ladder quietly, not wanting a faceful of claws when he reached the top. He couldn’t smell anything bad, but that was indicator. Peering cautiously over the top rung, he froze.
Well, it sure wasn’t grickles.
Applejack slept curled in the hay, her tail over her nose. It was how to she used to sleep under her blankets as a filly when the boiler blew and the farmhouse got especially cold. Behind her, mouth open and a glob of drool ready to fall, Rainbow Dash also sprawled asleep in the hay. Neither had heard him approach. They were both clearly exhausted. What made him pause, however, wasn’t the fact that his sister was napping up here while he was busy working in the orchards. It was the casually possessive hoof Rainbow Dash had thrown over her flank and the fact that she was wearing Applejack’s hat. Applejack never let anyone wear her hat. She had been protective of it ever since Pa gave it to her on one of his rare visits home. Not even he or Applebloom were allowed to touch it, but there Rainbow Dash was, bold as brass, wearing it askew like it was her own.
Big Macintosh stayed where he was for a long moment. He considered ducking out of sight and coughing to give them a chance to reorder themselves, so they could all pretend things were as they had always been. As he was thinking this, however, Applejack shifted in her sleep, nuzzling backwards into the curve of Rainbow Dash’s body. Her tail fell aside to reveal she was smiling in utter contentment.
Big Macintosh descended the ladder with a soundlessness anyone would have been surprised at, given his soup-plate hooves and massive body. He passed through the barn doors but stopped, looking back over his shoulder. Going back to the ladder, he took it between his teeth and brought it down, using his knees to cushion the sound of it meeting the floor. It lay where it had been before he came in, giving no clue that he had moved it.
“What’s got you smilin’ like a fox with the key to the henhouse door?” Granny asked when he came into the kitchen. “You find a sweetheart today?”
He thought about the question, and about Cheerilee. “Sorta.”
“Sorta? What kinda sweetheart is a ‘sorta’ sweetheart?”
“Complicated.”
Granny sighed. “You young folk. Never make nuthin’ simple. You’re gettin' long in the tooth to keep puttin’ off settlin’ down, Macintosh.”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“You need to find somepony special, get coupled and be happy. You an’ Applejack both. She shouldn’t get to your age an’ have nopony special to call her own too.”
He thought about the hayloft and smiled. “Not a problem, Granny.”
“You’re smilin’ again.” She glared at him. “You gonna tell me why?”
“Nope.”
“Dagnabbit. Nopony tells me nuthin’ no more. It’s because I’m old, ain’t it? Y’all think I’m too old an’ old-fashioned to know what’s goin’ on in your lives. I was young too once, y’know.” She continued to grumble as she sliced apples to go in the pie crust sitting on the counter.
Big Macintosh looked out of the window at the barn and just smiled.
….
Fin.
….
A/N: I didn't think there was anything more to write for this either, but then Apple Family Reunion happened and ...
EVENING
Big Macintosh was admiring the shiny new barn when he heard hoofsteps behind him. Usually he would have been able to tell exactly who it was, but with so many ponies crowded into the old homestead there were too many to choose from. Whoever it was walked lightly; not with the heavy gait of a workhorse like himself, yet not lightly enough to be a mare, filly or colt. There weren’t many lean Apple stallions, so Big Macintosh was unsurprised at the voice that hailed him.
“Ain’t you comin’ inside?”
He shook his head without turning around.
Braeburn trotted right up to him, bending his neck so he could look up into Big Macintosh’s face. In actual fact he just got a good look at his cousin’s upturned chin. “You sure? Granny Smith broke out the apple cider. It’s turnin’ into a real shindig in there.”
Despite popular opinion, they didn’t sell every scrap of cider they made each year. Granny kept back a barrel or two for special occasions and had stockpiled more this year as she planned ahead to the family reunion. Even though Applejack had taken over organising everything, he was willing to bet his sister hadn’t known about the cider until Granny roped somepony into rolling it up the steps from the cellar.
The call of the cider didn’t resonate enough with Big Macintosh to make him want to move. He had thought nothing could surprise him about the barn anymore, but here it was unleashing more secrets on and about his family. He was beginning to think of it as some sort of magical place; no matter how many times it got knocked down, it sprang back up again, and had been the scene for some of the most significant moments of their lives.
While showing them pictures of old reunions, Granny had also run across snapshots of their foalhoods. Apple Bloom had squirmed in embarrassment at photos of herself in a diaper and then laughed at her sister and brother at the same age. Applejack had gazed for ages at a picture taken when she was no bigger than a Junebug and he still talked in a high voice like a spindle-legged filly. However, the one that had snagged Big Macintosh’s attention like cloth on a rusty nail had been taken long before any of them were born; a picture of two ponies whose faces could still be seen in himself and his sisters. Their parents had married in that barn and Granny Smith had dolled it up brighter than a maypole. Her carefully assembled flower arrangements framed the hulking mare as she walked on hind legs, carrying her new husband out into the sunlight while a dozen hats were tossed into the air around them.
Big Macintosh still missed them. It surprised him, how fresh an old pain could feel. Applejack had some memories, but Apple Bloom had none. He was glad she looked up to her sister so and he tried to be a good role model for her too. Sometimes, though, it all got a bit much even for his shoulders. He loved his extended family, but rebuilding the barn and being in such close proximity to the place in the newest photo were his parents didn’t stand had made him uncomfortable. Rather than say anything, he had retreated outside and sat quietly with his thoughts, as was his habit.
Braeburn didn’t know his cousin well enough to read his mood. If he ever had a mind to play, Big Macintosh had the best poker face in the whole Apple family. Besides, Braeburn was younger and had always been closer to Applejack anyway. His playful nature was a good match for hers when they were younger and he still retained his exuberance, even though life in Appleloosa had toned him down a bit. Life out there was harder than he had thought when he hauled hoof to a new life in the wilderness, but like any Apple he was making a go of it. Big Macintosh could admire that kind of commitment.
“Big Macintosh?”
“Yup?”
“Did I do sumthin’ to offend you?”
“Nope.”
“Then are you ever gonna look at me?”
He finally lowered his eyes from the weathervane. Apple Bloom and Babs had found it in a bush on the other side of the first orchard. It had shot straight up when the barn was destroyed. They had spent hours carefully knocking the dents out and polishing it to a shine. Braeburn was watching him with concern.
“You know, you’re worryin’ your sisters,” Braeburn chastised.
“You done worried your own plenty in your time.”
He laughed. “True enough. Even so, I reckon Applejack would appreciate you comin’ back inside an’ bein’ sociable.”
“She said that?”
“Not in so many words.”
Big Macintosh nodded. “I’ll come back in a spell.”
Braeburn didn’t seem convinced, but quickly realised this was the best he was going to get. Big Macintosh wasn’t one for wasting words; what he said, he meant. However much he had matured, Braeburn just wasn’t cut out for sitting still for long intervals, so he made his excuses and retreated back to the farmhouse. When he opened the door to enter, sounds of a party were released like a flock of noisy birds. It sounded like a real party.
Still, Big Macintosh did not move.
This wasn’t the same barn where his ma and pa got hitched, but parts of it were from the original building. If he sat here long enough, maybe he could spot them all woven into the new structure; the way certain physical features and personality traits of theirs had become woven into their children. Applejack was stubborn, just like Pa. Apple Bloom was a dreamer, like Ma. Big Macintosh got his build from their mother, who had always been heavyset and caused quite a stir when she chose a husband who overbalanced onto his face if he so much as picked up a hammer. The way Granny told it, Ma hailed from a hamlet that had since been absorbed into Ponyville, but at the time sat a ways distant. Every month when she and her own father came into town to sell their pots, she had admired Pa from across the marketplace. Granny recalled seeing the dumpy little filly watching him try to lug sacks of apples like he had hung the moon.
“Those were in the days before we realised he was a better gabber than a grabber, y’understand. Your father had the gift of the gab, youngin. Your mother … not so much.”
Ma had thought herself too ugly and plain, until she finally gathered enough courage to cross that marketplace and buy herself an apple from him. That opened the floodgates and Pa had been so blown away by her courtship of him that right from the start he couldn’t see any other mare past the stars in his eyes. Ma had even gone to Granny and asked in her taciturn way for her son’s hoof in marriage, which had made Granny laugh until her belly ‘ached for a month of Sundays’. Big Macintosh didn’t know how much was true and how much was family legend, but they were nice stories and worth hanging on to: just like the barn.
After a while, when he was certain Braeburn wouldn’t return, he said, “You can come out now.”
Nothing happened.
“I know you’re there. I know apples, an’ you ain’t no apple up in that tree.”
For a few minutes nothing moved. Then, like a sloth slipping from its perch, a black shape dropped out of a nearby tree. It resolved itself into a pony that walked out of the shadows and stood glaring at him like he had shaken the trunk to make her fall.
“See?” Big Macintosh said affably.
“See what?” she demanded.
“You ain’t no apple.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well duh.” She continued to glare, but when he didn’t respond the expression wavered. “Aren’t you gonna say something?”
“Nope.” He smiled at himself. “’Cept that. An’ that.”
“You’re a real comedian.”
He looked at her. She stood like she expected him to say something uncharitable. He wondered what he had done to give her cause to think that. Instead, he chose to say nothing and went back to gazing at the new barn.
She shifted from hoof to hoof. “You guys … built that thing pretty quick,” she said at last. Evidently she liked silence as much as Braeburn did.
“Yup.”
“Many hoofs make light work, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Must be nice.” She said this so quietly, he wasn’t sure had had heard her right. He flicked an ear in her direction, which she apparently noticed, because she cleared her throat. “We’ll see how long this one lasts, huh? How many times has this barn been destroyed now, anyway? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?”
“Sixteen.” Sixteen times he had sat here like this, looking for signs of the old in the new.
“Really?” She sounded surprised. “You kept count?”
“Yup.”
“Wow. I’m not sure if that’s sad or impressive.”
He shrugged. It rarely bothered him, what other ponies thought of him. As long as his family and his farm were all right, he had little cause to be dissatisfied. Well, he thought with a flicker, as long as those Cutie Mark Crusaders didn’t slip him anymore love potions, that is.
After a long moment she said, “You sure like looking at that barn, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
“I don’t get it.”
He shrugged again.
“Why the hay did you get me down out of that tree if you didn’t wanna talk to me? I could just as easy have stayed up there and been comfortable for my nap.”
“That ain’t why you were in that tree.”
“Was so!”
He shook his head. “It’s evenin’.”
“Yeah? And?”
“You don’t nap of an evenin’. Besides, you was up there all day.”
“You … noticed me?” She sounded shocked. Realising her increased volume, she lowered her voice. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugged. How to put into words that he had known exactly why she was there, who she was really there for, and why she hadn’t revealed herself to the rest of the Apple family. It went beyond simply respecting their right to a private family function. Big Macintosh recalled the last noteworthy thing he had witnessed in the barn in its last incarnation, but knew this pony wouldn’t understand the significance. Besides, he couldn’t mention it now. They hadn’t and it wasn’t his place to broach their secrets, even with them.
“Applejack sure worked hard for today, huh?” he said.
“What? Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“Mighty proud of her.”
“Great. Whatever.” She feigned disinterest. “Listen, I’m gonna head off –”
“Wait.” At long last, now he had good reason to, Big Macintosh got to his feet. He shook out his mane and muscles, sore from the day’s labours and cramping from sitting for so long. He lumbered towards the farmhouse, pausing to look over his shoulder. “You comin’?”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“Uh, it may have escaped your notice, big guy, but I’m not an Apple.” She flapped her wings for emphasis and wiggled her cutie mark at him, displaying its lack of anything fruit based. “See?”
“I see.”
“Great. So, um, yeah. I gotta fly –”
“I see you.”
“What?” she scrunched up her nose. “Is this one of those trick statements Twilight likes: if a tree falls alone in the Everfree Forest does it make noise yadda-yadda-yadda?”
He regarded her and remembered Applejack the day she came home with stories about her brand new amazing friend who could do so many awesome things. She had galloped along the path so fast she tumbled and still had a tiny scar under her chin from hitting the dirt. Being cleaned up hadn’t stopped her telling them all about the pegasus who could do a loop-de-loop, barrel-roll, nosedive, plus a hundred other tricks, but who didn’t live with her parents on account of them not being around anymore. Applejack didn’t know what that meant at the time. These days she was intimately aware of the feeling, but it was difficult to be truly alone in a family like the Apples. They had rallied when Granny Smith found herself with three young ponies to raise and her own grief to deal with and he had never forgotten what it was like to have somepony show kindness without want of something in return.
Neither mare had told him about them, so he had respected their wishes and right to privacy. Even so, something about the sight of a pegasus covered in twigs and leaves from a day of subterfuge simply so she could watch Applejack be happy with her family … it made him want to show some of that Apple kindness.
“I see you,” he said again in his lugubrious manner. “An’ you’re family. So are you comin’ inside or what?”
She stared at him. He wasn’t sure what was in that stare: astonishment? Suspicion? Panic? He returned it with a blank look of his own. Nopony in all of Equestria had him beat on the perfect blank look. It really was a good thing he didn’t like cards.
“You’re …” She looked like she wanted to say ‘crazy’ but her sneer faltered and she instead ended with, “… sure they wouldn’t mind if I crashed the party?”
“Can’t crash if you’re invited.” Big Macintosh turned and walked up the path, confident she would follow.
“Yeah.” She bit her lip and half turned away, clearly wracked with indecision. Then she drew herself up tall and trotted after him like she had a right to be there. “You have a point, big guy.”
The look on his sister’s face was worth it. Big Macintosh nodded at her and headed for the cider barrel, where Braeburn passed him a foaming flagon.
“Looks like you picked up a stray there, cousin. Ain’t that Applejack’s buddy? Reckon I met her out when they came to Appleloosa.” He glugged his own cider and dragged a hoof across his mouth. “A real firebrand, from what I can recall.”
“Yup.”
Big Macintosh gulped the cider until there was none left. The buzz was nothing compared with his sister’s happiness as she introduced her secret special somepony into her family and Rainbow Dash’s expression when she was mobbed by foals enthralled by her wings. Soon she was offering them turns around the orchard and older ponies were welcoming her into their ranks just as they had a mare who thought herself too plain and ugly for love all those years ago.
