The clouds were lazily moving across the deep blue sky above the watchful eye of Ponyville’s resident red workhorse. The day was warm and Big Macintosh was exhausted from a hard morning’s applebucking in the orchard that served as his small family’s meagre income. The sweat on his flank had turned his coat a darker than usual shade of red and his muscles were twanging from the strain of the repeated motions of his trademark applebucking style. The day was a fine one and he had no intention of moving from the shade provided by the trees he so lovingly cared for, so lay down against the tree and let his own thoughts roam free.
His deep red flank rises and falls with each relaxed breath, his mind wandering to the events of the day. For a pony of few words he could be quite eloquent when the mood caught him, but he much preferred to answer all the speedy questions of his sister and her friends with a simple “Eeyup”, saving his pearls of wisdom for when they were truly needed. Why did everypony always seek to hurry through life? He was content to sit and watch the world pass him by, and it showed in his peaceful continence, his eyes were often half-hooded and the emerald green pupils often carried a look of boredom...as if he didn’t really care about anything around him but his own thoughts.
And they weren’t really that wrong... Big Mac cared for his family, his trees and the land he worked on, but not much else. He took his days as they came, needing for little and caring for the land that he worked. He cast his eyes skyward again after his bout of internal reflection and saw a small cyan dot moving across the sky at considerable speed, “Ah swear, I ha’ no idea where she gets all that energy from” he chuckles to himself, his ever-present stalk of hay bobbing up and down in time with his deep laugh as he ponders raising himself up and returning to the task he had set himself that day, “well if miss Dash ca’ find the energy to fly around the sky like that, ah reckon ah can still buck a few apples before dinner” .
He stands and moves towards the nearest set of buckets that was placed under one of his prized apple trees and pivoted, striking the wood of the tree a practised blow, causing a small storm of apples to fall from the overladen branches of the orchard’s tree. Picking up the remainder of the apples that had missed the safety of the wooden buckets he bends and stretches, his muscles now relaxed from his rest under the shade of his beloved trees he dedicates himself to the application of his long practised career and the heritage passed down from his grand pappy to his pappy to him.
But every now and then he stole a glance at the sky, his silhouette against the now falling light marking him as a massive sentinel to the hill he stood on, the light of the evening causing all to turn golden around him as he loaded the last of the bucked apples onto the cart to return to the barn for the evening. Hooking hiself up to the harness he dragged himself back towards the homestead. The last tendrils of light guiding him down the well worn paths to the house and he smiled......
