The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Exhibit S

There is something off about Big Macintosh this morning. As long as he has been awake, he has barely said a word. To some, this wouldn't seem out of the ordinary, but Applejack can sense something is amiss. One could argue, however, she has been looking for something amiss in her brother for a while now. She is still not certain if she is searching for some justification or damnation, but she is looking. She has the eyes that can see when something is wrong.

"Something on your mind," she asked. Her brother gave an apple tree heavy with ripe fruit a swift kick. It's bounty showered down into eager barrels around the trunk. He looks up at the bare tree silently.

"Nope." It's a lie.

"That's a lie." Nothing gets past Applejack. "So why are you being so quiet?"

"It's my business." It's a fair claim. There isn't any reason Big Macintosh should bear all for his sister. He doesn't have to tell her that the path he wandered onto him is still calling him. He isn't going to tell her that he keeps feeling something or somepony watching him over his shoulder. He bottles it up inside. These are his burdens.

"Ugh, why are ponies so impossible?" Applejack said, ready to admit defeat. Nowadays, nopony was forthcoming. She knew; she had experience. "You're acting just like Rainbow Dash. She's goes around acting so gloomy and stand-offish these days, but she won't talk about it. She can't keep acting like everything is okay."

"Everything is okay!" The exclamation comes unbidden from Big Macintosh's mouth. He stares catatonic at the tree in front of him. He wants to push out some further comment to defend himself, but his throat is burning. His mouth will not form another syllable. His own body refuses to lie again.

Applejack can see it happening, but she can't even act surprised.

"When you're ready to stop pretending, I'll be more than happy to listen to you," she says, taking up a load of apples before heading back to the barn. Big Macintosh stays in the orchard. He is a bushel and a few pecks away from being done with chores, but he doesn't finish. He leaves, or more specifically he returns.

As if he had walked the path many a time, Big Macintosh finds his way back to those unfamiliar woods. With the path under his feet, he wanders further and further into the trees. His paranoia and anxiety fade a bit. The scenery and atmosphere of this quiet, sylvan landscape take him in. It is not unlike White Tail Woods, but the trees here look older and stretch higher. As the air cools around him, he wonders how he'd never seen this place before.

An odd sound reaches his ears: leaves crunching under his hooves. It isn't time for the leaves to fall from their branches, but the floor of this forest appears to be littered with them. He gazes upwards at the treetops, but he finds the boughs bare are gnarled. The branches twist and bend back towards the ground, as if they decided the sun was poison from which they must escape. Big Macintosh keeps walking, the forest growing cooler as more and more skeletal limbs blot out the sun.

Soon, Big Macintosh has to crane his neck to look up the massive, dried trunks of the bare trees. Not only were there no leaves on the branches, but all the bark has also been stripped from the trees. Giant holes in these husks revealed that each tree is really just a massive log. It is one of the strangest things Big Macintosh has seen, and he wonders if he is hallucinating.

He reaches the place where the trail stops. There is nothing here that isn't along the path; he sees more hollow trees refusing the sun with their numerous, fruitless limbs. The forest floor is bare except for the coarse, gritty dirt of the path and the dusty soil of the forest floor. As a farmer, he can tell this land is infertile and barren. Taking it all in, he can't help but feel sorry for what he sees.

Out from behind the trunk of a tree, the final piece of the scenery steps into view: a silhouette. This is the same shadow that has been watching him, Big Macintosh is sure of this. He is surprised to see, however, that all there is to this pony is shade. It has two bright white eyes that look like they have been scribbled on with a lit match upon its pitch face. When it moves its lips to speak, all he can see is poorly drawn shapes scrambling to form some sort of image reminiscent of an open mouth. Its voice does not betray its odd appearance.

"Welcome home."

"I've never been here before," Big Macintosh tells the shade.

"You have lived here most of your life," the shade says in response. He says this without any sort of conviction, as if there is no need to assert his certainty. Big Macintosh still cannot believe him because he does not understand. Even if he is hallucinating, it is all very strange to him.

"What is this place?"

Big Macintosh watches the shade smile, which is not unlike his speaking. The answer falls out of the shade's mouth with genuine tenderness, like a mother speaking the name of her foal for the first time. It is a tone so sweet it sickens Macintosh. All it takes is three words to plant a seed of anxiety:

"The Hollow Kingdom."