The Hollow Kingdom of Big Macintosh

Exhibit E

Macintosh Apple looks decked out for death. He thinks this because the only times he saw his father and mother dressed up was at their funerals, so that meant he'd seen his mother dressed up once and his father dressed up twice. He remembers asking Granny Smith how mother got dressed up like that if she was dead. He thought, for a year or so until his father died in the orchard wearing his overalls, ponies simply dressed up to die.

Even if the sentiments of fashion are not apparent to him, Big Macintosh thinks it much more practical to dress up in general than to dress up after you're dead. Clothes can keep you warm, keep you safe, or even just make you appear more important. They are so simple, yet so effective.

"It's late." Big Macintosh looks out the window and sees that, in fact, Rarity is right. The sun is setting under Celestia's power, although Big Macintosh often wonders if putting it down is even necessary. He thinks once the sun is sitting directly overhead it should just slide the rest of the way down the horizon like a drop of slick rain rolling around an apple. The true nature of how any heavenly body moved is beyond him. He is glad it is left to the Princesses in Canterlot.

"Eeyup."

"Well, I won't keep you forever." Big Macintosh wonders if she really understands the implications of that. "Would you be okay with coming back around the same time tomorrow?"

"Eeyup."

"The same time everyday this week?"

"Eeyup."

"Alright, I'll hold you to it," she says, levitating her supplies away and off of her living mannequin. She uses her magic to help Big Macintosh out of the suit he's wearing. While it's pulled over his head, she says something else.

"Pardon?"

"Don't forget," she says.

"Forget what?"

Rarity continues breaking down, but she doesn't take her eyes off of Big Macintosh. She is caught between the possibility of the stallion joking and the possibility that he has already voided his promise of seven seconds ago.

"Please don't forget," she says. The statement covers both bases and says everything she needs it to. "I mean it."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh says, returning his harness to its traditional spot around his neck. "I'll see you tomorrow, then." Rarity says her good-bye as he leaves. He is out on the street again. The first thing he does is check the sky. Whatever was falling fell, all the way. It is somewhere on the green earth now.

He wonders where it could possibly be. Driven by his curiosity, he walks in the direction he saw it falling. He walks, unsure of his destination or success. His destination turns out to be town square's fountain, and he finds more than success.

Capricorn is in the fountain. Not the stars, but the creature. The goat creature sits and watches the ponies walk by, her green tail splashing the water behind her. Big Macintosh approaches her. He finds out that he was wrong, that what he is seeing is not a creature he's never seen before. It is just a mare wearing goat horns with her tail split at the end to look like a fish's. As he approaches her, she turns and notices him. Her tail splashes idly.

"Hey."

"Howdy." The pair stare at one another. "What's your name?"

"Hippocampy."

"I'm Macintosh Apple." They stare at each other a while longer. "I saw you fall from the sky." Hippocampy stares wide-eyed at him.

"I wasn't aware anypony saw that," she says. Big Macintosh stares through her and at his memory of her falling through the air.

"Are you a star?" he asks. Hippocampy tilts her head. "You know because you fell from the sky. I was just asking if you fell out of heaven."

"Oh."

"Are you Capricorn?" Macintosh asks. Hippocampy blinks a few times, but she keeps her gaze fixed on him.

"Yes," she says.

"Oh." They go back to staring. "I'm supposed to stay away from Capricorns."

"Oh?"

"My horoscope says so." Big Macintosh looks up at the mouth of the fountain. Three stone ponies stand there, two of them spitting water from their mouths while a third lets water flow out from an urn in her hooves. The water from the latter pony crashes down right next to where Hippocampy fell to earth.

"What did your horoscope say?" she asks.

"The horoscope for Libra was that we should stay away from Capricorns because the happiness they offer we'll get to easily or something like that."

"Oh." Hippocampy sits and processes Big Macintosh's face for a moment. "What does Capricorn's horoscope say?"

"Dunno."

"Big Macintosh!"

The pony being called looks over his shoulder. Applejack is in the square, waving widely at him. Big Macintosh waves back. He turns again to Hippocampy, who is staring back up at the sky where she came from.

"That's my sister," he tells her. Her eyes flicker over him for just a fraction of a second. She nods and continues to look up at the sky. Big Macintosh turns back to greet his sister, trotting over to meet her halfway. She looks concerned, somewhat. It isn't uncommon. She practically runs sweet apple acres and has to be the voice of reason among her friends more often than not. Big Macintosh can't really sympathize with the latter sentiment.

"Did you get done with Rarity?" she asks.

"Eeyup, for today."

"You goin' back tomorrow?"

"She asked me to," he tells her. "She told me not to forget, so I reckon I shouldn't."

"Good call, considering it's Rarity." Both Rarity and Applejack seem to harbor some sort of resentment for each other, even if they are friends. Even Big Macintosh can see this. He does not know why, but it not his place to know why. He is better off assuming that cosmic forces and long-dead social castes demand the two be bitter enemies, even if only from the core of their beings. "What're you doin' here, then?"

"I was just-" Big Macintosh turns back to the fountain. There is no pony sitting in the shallows. There isn't even a pony looking like they are thinking about sitting in the shallows and getting a little wet during their stroll home. It stands to reason, for Big Macintosh, that nopony ever set hoof in the fountain. "I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"Astrology," he admits freely. To say one was thinking about astrology carries no heavy implications of talking to the stars of Capricorn in the town's fountain, but at some level it must if one can say the former and also mean the latter. This is the sort of misdirection Big Macintosh employs to keep his conscious clean.

"That seems a bit above you," Applejack says, meaning it as a joke. "What about specifically?"

"Horoscopes."

"I didn't know you were into horoscopes."

Big Macintosh could fill a book with all the things his sister didn't know about him. He wasn't sure if there would be a chapter in that book about horoscopes. They did appear to hold precedence today at the very least.

"Just a lil'." The two of them leave the town square behind. It's back towards home for them.

"Do you even know what your sign is?"

Big Macintosh tells her he is a Libra and at the same time remembers his sister is a Capricorn.

"I think I'm a Leo," Applejack says to herself. Big Macintosh cannot remember if she is wrong or if Applebloom is a Capricorn. Even though he can clearly recall the date of her birth due to its overwhelming significance in his life, he hasn't the slightest clue where the stars were that day. He remembers where he was, but that's about it.