Earth, Wind, and Fire

Applejack paces, her hooves echoing off of the ancient wooden floor of her room. The Apple homestead has stood since the family moved to Ponyville, and four generations of earth ponies have lived within these walls. Applejack's grandmother once slept in this room, before its walls were painted and its floor was sanded, back when Apple Acres and her great-uncle Jonathan were just stars in Great-Grandpa Pippin's eyes. Granny Smith, too, had paced in circles before the mirror screwed into the wall above the dresser, wondering how to deal with the next few hours. Had Applejack stopped for a second to consider, the farmer might have found the thought painfully ironic.

Steadily, she makes a circuit from the door to the dresser to the bed and back, round and round again. Her hooves move on automatic, just like bucking a field. Step, step, turn. Step, step, shake. She doesn't stop. She can't stop. Stopping might give her thoughts a chance to still, instead of sloshing inside her head like milk in a butter churn. If she stops, they might settle, and she's not sure she wants to deal with what she knows will rise to the surface. She knows the thoughts are there, lurking in the depths of her mind, but as long as she keeps moving, she can keep them submerged.

"A.J.?" The voice snaps her out of her twisting. She spins, hind legs pointed towards the door, head spun around to face whomever she's about to buck into the next town. Standing in the door is her brother, leaning against the doorjamb, one forehoof crossed over the other, that ever-present wheatstalk hanging from his lips. "Everythin' alright?"

"Landsakes, Mac!" Applejack drops her head, her voice shaking. Despite the tension in her legs, her knees feel ready to buckle, and she trudges over to her bed and drops on it, the springs in the worn mattress creaking. "You coulda knocked, you know!"

"I did," the older sibling drawls. "Twice." His eyes slowly meander from his sister, across the well-worn floorboards to the dresser and the mirror, then back again. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No." The denial escapes Applejack's mouth before she can catch it. "And what makes you think there's somethin' on my mind anyway?"

McIntosh doesn't say anything for several long seconds; he just shifts the stalk of wheat from one side of his mouth to the other. His bright green eyes are half-lidded, studying her, and she feels the heat rise in her cheeks. He doesn't call her a liar; he doesn't have to say anything. Her eyes slip away from his piercing gaze, desperate for any point in the room on which to find purchase. They fall on the shoe nailed above the door, a token of good fortune from Grandpa Wealthy. It's proof that Granny made it through the next few hours. So can she.

Applejack lets out the breath she's holding, and some of the tension passes from her back, "It's... it's a lot of things, Mac." She stops, wondering how much she can say. Her thoughts are painfully still, and part of the clump of emotion floats free, up from her subconscious. "There's...." She trails off, but as the thought crests the surface of her thoughts, the words follow like so many bubbles. "There's somepony I've had my eye on for a while. I've been tryin' to work up the courage to say something. I just...."

The brick-red pony finally steps into his sister's room, shutting the door behind him with a rear hoof. His own hooffalls are unusually light, exposing the years of practice he's put into understanding his own strength. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed next to Applejack and wraps a foreleg around her. She puts a hoof on his side to push him away, but then thinks better of it and lets herself be pulled into the hug. When a single tear escapes her eye, he brushes it away with the edge of his hoof. The two of them sit together for a time, Applejack leaning against her brother. No words pass between them. Occasionally his hoof brushes the back of her mane, or gives a firm squeeze around her middle, but the only sounds in the room are their breathing and the soft creaking of the ancient farmhouse.

Slowly, the silence between them grows thick, and Applejack coughs. "Look at me, hunh?" She laughs weakly. "Some big pony I am. Bucked a manticore, lassoed a hydra, fought my way through an army o' changelings, and here I am shakin' like a leaf thinkin' about asking somepony on a date."

The elder Apple just shrugs. "Least you're thinkin' about it," he says, his voice strangely flat. There's a heartbeat's pause, and then he perks back up again. "What's got you so worked up?"

Applejack takes a deep breath and cracks her neck, then drops back onto all fours, resuming her slow circuit of the room. "It's just... I want it all t' go right, you know? An' it's really easy to see all the ways in which it just...." She stops moving again, her mind churning. Flashes of the past flicker behind her eyes, of moments rejected because of the neighbors, or the foals, or her fears. Flashes of anger follow, and fights, then horrible, horrible silence. "It just goes all wrong." Her voice turns sour on the last word, thick and full of tears she still hasn't shed since that night.

McIntosh chuckles softly. "You got like this the night before the Canterlot Rodeo, too, 'member?" He rises onto all fours himself and trots over to his sister's side, laying his neck alongside hers in a hug. "Relax. Do th' best ya can. Th' rest'll take care of itself."

Applejack sighs wearily as she leans into the contact. "It ain't that easy, Big Mac. It's... it's complicated. It's always so complicated."

Mac takes a step back so he can look his sister in the eyes once more. "What's so complicated? All ya gotta do is ask."

The orange pony draws in a deep breath, then swallows it and looks back towards Wealthy's shoe nailed above the door. "It ain't--" She catches her voice rising and swallows her frustration, shoving it back into the depths of her thoughts. "It just ain't like that, Mac. An' no, I ain't explainin'. Just... let it go for now, okay? I got this."

The stallion shifts the wheatstalk around again. "Like that one applebucking season?"

"Sisters, Mac, that ain't fair!" Applejack snaps. Then, as fast as it comes, the flash of anger flees, leaving chagrin in its wake. She lowers her head, her eyes closed. "I'm sorry. You're right." She presses a hoof to her forehead, trying to forestall the headache is sure to come. "I know I'm stubborn. I just get it into my head how things're s'posed to go, and then when things go afield, I start tryin' t' drag things back. I'm just not real good at just lettin' go an' lettin' stuff happen."

"You sound just like Pa."

Once, reminders of her parents would have ground Applejack's mood into the dirt. This time, it's the briefest prick against her conscience, enough to break free a thought from the depths of Applejack's mind: that ain't a bad thing, really. She presses back into her brother, briefly, and then trots towards the door. "Yeah, well, Pa didn't win Ma's heart by twistin' in the wind or running 'round in circles, neither. I'm gonna go, Mac. I got somewhere t' be."

McIntosh's smile broadens a little further, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes this time. "You're gonna make some stallion real happy. Just don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Applejack pauses at that, then chuckles. "Can't make no promises, Mac, but I'll do my best."

Fluttershy's cottage sits on the edge of the Everfree, removed from the hustle and bustle of a major metropolis like Ponyville. Far from the markets and away from the press of other ponies, the pegasus keeps to herself and cares for the animals of the forest. However, the solitary life does not mean she's alone in any sense of the word. Birds frolic in the skies above the two-story building, and all kinds of forest critter scamper across the expansive yard. Few ponies seek her company, and for the most part, she seems to prefer it that way.

It's a lifestyle choice that both intrigues and confuses Applejack. She understands the simple joys that can be had in solitude. Working the orchards around Sweet Apple Acres, the farmpony's spent many hours enjoying the simple rhythms of hard labor, the singing in her muscles and the burning in her lungs. Step, step, buck. Step, step, shake. And yet, at the end of the day, she always looks forward to seeing the rest of her family, or her friends if they come by for a visit. The idea of a life without another pony in it scares her, just a little bit.

She'd had another pony in her life, once, but as she said to Mac, it just went all wrong. It had started out just as she'd imagined it, with days of dreaming and nights of passion away from home, and hugs and kisses stolen from the in-between times. Soon enough, though, it started drifting pretty far afield. Her special somepony started getting brazen, showing up at uncomfortable hours at the farmhouse, making demands and, worse, making noise. It had gotten to the point that Granny Smith had noticed and asked about that rainbow-maned filly friend of hers, and the farm-mare had had to learn to let go in a hurry.

Still, it's hard not to think about the other pegasus as Applejack crosses the bridge, stepping wholly into Fluttershy's domain. A pair of mice run up a nearby treestump to watch her, and a bluejay perches on a nearby branch, its head cocked to the side as she walks beneath. The pegasus' favorite rabbit, Angel, sits by the front door, lazily chewing on a carrot. He fixes her with a glare as she approaches the door, narrowing his eyes at her over his meal. The message is clear, if unnecessary: don't you dare hurt her.

Applejack knocks, her hoof rapping solidly against Fluttershy's front door. "'Shy?" Her voice quivers, and she clears her throat, pushing all of those thoughts back into the depths. "You home, sugarcube?" Inside, she can hear all manner of rustling and chirping, but no obvious sounds of the home's main occupant. The farmpony waits another few seconds, then knocks again. "Fluttershy, everything okay in--"

The door opens a crack, and one large cyan eye peers out through the gap. Then, suddenly, the way is clear, and Fluttershy's hooves are on her shoulders, dragging her inside. "Oh, Applejack, thank goodness! Quickly, there isn't a moment to lose! This way, this way!"

"... there," Applejack finishes, her voice falling. The inside of Fluttershy's cottage is a disaster. It looks as through a herd of hoofball players have used the living room as a practice pitch. The couch has been snapped in two, and feathers and shreds of fabric litter the floor. Several fresh gouges have been carved into the floor, and two of the light fixtures lay in twisted brass and shattered glass across the floor. "What in tarnation's goin' on?"

"I'll explain, there's no time, just... do you have any rope?" Fluttershy doesn't wait for a response; she's already turned away and is heading towards the back door, which is hanging on one hinge, the glass in a glittering pile below. "Here he comes!"

"Sure, but--" Applejack has just enough presence of mind to extract the aforementioned rope from her saddlebag when the backdoor slams against the wall, then crunches to the floor. An earsplitting roar makes the farmpony's ears ring, and she jerks up to see a wall of shaggy brown fur charging towards her. She jumps backwards, snapping her head to twist the rope into an impromptu lariat. A second toss, and the lasso's noose flies towards the rampaging bear, snagging one massive arm. She jerks, and the rope goes taut, pulling the bear's attention right at her.

"Shoot." It's an expletive muttered around a mouthful of stiff rope as the bear charges once more, both forepaws raised and teeth bared. Drool flies from its lips when it roars, and Applejack leaps from the floor to the broken remains of the couch just as the bear's teeth snap closed around where her neck might have been. The farmpony rises on her forehooves, and then two powerful hindlegs snap out and connect with the side of the bear's head, earning her two solid bruised knees and a fresh cry of pain.

"Shy!" She doesn't have time to see where the pegasus is or what's she doing. Her attention is on the bear, and on being where its teeth and claws are not. One massive paw swipes downward, splintering the back of the couch inches from where she'd just been perched, but she's already moving, letting the rope play out from her lips, judging distance, strength, and speed. She stops suddenly, turns, and tosses her head once more. A wave ripples up the rope and twists smoothly around the bear's other forepaw, and then Applejack bites down hard and holds on with everything she can, digging her hooves into the remains of Shy's carpet.

The bear, caught midswing, suddenly pitches backward, its own strength leveraged against the immovable pony. Its eyes go wide and its muzzle hangs open, one hindpaw in the air, comically flailing for purchase. Then it stumbles and slams onto the floor, its jaw hitting the ground with an ugly, hollow thud. Its tongue lolls from its open muzzle, and a deep groan resounds in its chest. It doesn't move after that, and from the sound of the impact, it probably won't for some time.

One disaster down, Applejack turns back towards the back door. "Shy, you--" The sight in front of her leaves her stunned, her own muzzle wide and speechless. A smaller bear of similar fur crouches near the back door, muzzle in her paws. Deep, rumbling chuffs roll up from her throat, and tears visibly roll down her cheeks. The pink-maned pegasus hovers in front of her, one hoof on the bear's shoulder, the other stroking the back of her head.

She looks up at Applejack's words, gives the barest shake of her head, then turns her attention back to the sobbing ursine. "It's going to be okay," she soothes, her voice warm and gentle, a poultice for the soul. "I know you didn't mean to hurt anypony. He was hurt and upset, and he overreacted." She taps the bear's nose with a hoof in the most gentle reprimand possible. "In the future, maybe you'll think a little more about how your actions look from the outside before you invite strange bears into your cave, okay?"

The bear nods and wipes at her eyes with a foreleg, then drops to the ground and lets out a plaintive wail. "I'll send him home once he's had a chance to calm down, but if he yells at you, you come back here right away, okay?" The bear nods again, then turns and trundles slowly back towards the Everfree, slowly shaking her head.

Fluttershy watches her second visitor depart, then wipes her brow and trots back over to the first, patting him on the forehead. "Poor Bjorn," she says softly. She offers a smile to Applejack, but her eyes are wide, the corners turned down in sympathy. "He and Ursula haven't been getting along all that well; the winter was hard on them both. They had a fight earlier in the week, but I thought they'd gotten better. Then Bjorn came home today and found another bear in their cave and... well, you understand. He...." She surveys the remains of her home and brushes her mane out of her eyes. "He took it poorly."

"It... ah... looks like, yeah." The farmpony is still shaking off the adrenalin from the fight. Her gaze keeps dropping back to the bear she dropped, expecting him to rise up and charge again at any second. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Bjorn? Oh, no." Fluttershy strokes Bjorn's head with a hoof. "He's a softie, really. As much as I didn't want to say it to her, this is mostly Ursula's fault; she was sharing fish with a stranger, and Bjorn got really hurt by it. What he did was wrong, and I think when he wakes up he'll be mortified, but he was understandably hurt by what Ursula did." She looks around the wreckage of her living room, then motions for Applejack to follow her. "Let's sit in the kitchen; we'll be more comfortable there."

Fluttershy's kitchen is remarkably untouched. She pulls a wooden chair with a small hoofstitched cushion on the seat out from her two-pony table and motions for Applejack to claim the other. Birds have begun to take up position on the windowsill again, and a few of the braver mice have crept out from the walls and cautiously approached the bowls of nuts and seeds that line the walls. Angel, the pegasus' favored rabbit, sits on the counter with his arms folded, looking irritably past Applejack's shoulder and at the bear out cold in the next room. "It's okay, everyone," Fluttershy says, disarmingly calm. "I'll walk Bjorn home later, once he's recovered."

Applejack gingerly takes a seat and folds her hooves before her on the table, just watching the pegasus. Fluttershy's gaze roams the room, chewing on her bottom lip as she surveys the results of the fight on her animal friends. She ain't got a care in the world for herself, the farmpony thinks. Her first worry's how everypony else took it. The selfless kindness seems to radiate off of her, a palpable aura of comfort, and Applejack leans forward, a small grin breaking out on her muzzle that, if she saw it in the mirror or on her brother, she would describe as "silly."

Slowly, life returns to the kitchen, as a family of ferrets slink down from inside the walls, and a small horde of rabbits pour in from outside. Fluttershy breathes in deeply, then lets out a sigh and smiles. "I'm really sorry about that, everyone," she says quietly to the returning masses. "I know that must have been scary." Then she turns to Applejack, focusing the full weight of her smile on the farmer. "Thank you so much for your help in there; I don't think I could have -- Applejack? Are you okay?"

"Hunh? Oh! I... uh... yeah, everythin's fine, sugarcube." Applejack tries to keep her sputtering to a minimum as she sits bolt upright on her chair. "Just... happy to help, you know?"

"But you didn't have to, and you did anyway." The pegasus smiles and reaches out a hoof to Applejack's, and the room grows subtly warmer beneath her touch. "You look like you're thinking about something. What's on your mind, Applejack?"

The question is like a kick to the side of the butter churn, knocking loose all kinds of thoughts that float, unbidden, to the surface. I'm thinkin' about how I'm gonna tell Big Mac he's gonna have to be th' one to give Granny her great-grandfoals. I'm thinkin' about what Big Mac said right before I came here. I'm thinkin' about how you can talk down a rampagin' bear an' care for an army o' critters, an' I'm wonderin' how I could keep up. I'm thinkin' about how close I came t' bein' that bear's lunch. I'm thinkin' how good it feels when you hold my hoof like that, an' I'm tryin' real hard not t' think about how I'm gonna feel if you say no.

"Oh, you know. Not much, really." It's not a lie in any sense that counts. It's hardly even a real question. It's just small talk, and small talk deserves small answers. Big answers will come later. "Still kinda rattled from, you know. Earlier." She waves a hoof vaguely in the direction of the living room and Sweet Apple Acres beyond.

Fluttershy smiles warmly and cups her other forehoof against Applejack's, and the temperature in the pegasus' kitchen rises again. "Bjorn would have felt just awful if he'd actually hurt you. He was just upset and he didn't know how to deal with his emotions. Some ponies get that way sometimes, too." Then, suddenly, she blushes and whirls away from the table. "Oh, where are my manners?" She floats over to her refrigerator and sticks her head inside. "Would you like something to drink? I have some suntea I brewed this morning, or some juice --"

"Water's fine if you're offerin', really." Applejack shifts her forehooves on the table, subtly covering the spot where Fluttershy brushed against her. "You gonna need any help with.. uh... Bjorn, later?"

Fluttershy comes back to the table with two glasses. "Oh, no, once he wakes up, he'll be terribly embarrassed, we'll talk about what happened, and he'll go home. He and Ursula have a lot to work out between them, but they both know they can come here." She sets the water in front of Applejack and picks up her tea. "So, what brings you by? Is Winona alright?"

Applejack takes the glass in her hooves and slowly brings it to her lips, letting her thirst buy her some time before answering. "She's fine. She got some burrs in her tail chasin' one o' Angel's friends through a patch o' clover, but aside from havin' t' sit still while Bloom plucked 'em out, she's happy as a puppy." She set down the glass and pushed it away, then popped her neck. "As for why I'm here, I... uh... I wanted t' know what you're up to this Canterday."

Fluttershy tilts her head to the side, her cyan eyes widening. "Canterday? Wh -- why do you ask?"

Applejack nods. "Yeah, I... thought maybe you'd like t' take a walk out t' the Whitetails, maybe take a picnic lunch. There's plenty o' trails, an' with summer comin', there's bound to be plenty o' birds and such. It could be, like...." Her muzzle goes dry, and she lifts her glass again, but it's already empty, and she sets it down with a thunk on the wooden table. "A date, maybe?"

"Date? On Canterday?" Fluttershy's voice rises in a squeak. "Why, Applejack, I'm flattered, but... well, I--" She takes a heavy swallow of her tea, her wings shifting restlessly at her sides.

The farmpony lowers her head, pulling her everpresent Stetscolt down to shade her eyes. "Oh... uh... right. I guess I shoulda maybe asked if you were interested in mares first. I... uh... just kinda assumed."

The pegasus makes a soft strangled noise around a muzzle of tea, trying to talk and swallow at the same time. "Ngh. No, no, I--"

The blonde pony shakes her head. "It's okay, really." She slides off the chair, her hooves hitting the ground harder than she intends. "I'll just see m'self out, then. Sorry t' trouble you."

"Applejack!" Fluttershy doesn't raise her voice, but that tone could be heard in Twilight's library from here if she'd meant for it to travel.

The farmer freezes, a shiver running down her spine. "Yes'm?" She doesn't quite mean for her question to come out that way, but those are the words that leave her muzzle, strangely familiar but from where she can't recall.

Fluttershy folds her forehooves, wings flapping lazily to keep her upright. She glares down at the farmpony, but her expression softens as she talks. "I... I was just... caught by surprise, that's all. I wasn't expecting... I mean, I knew you were interested in mares, but I already have a... I have something planned on Canterday afternoon already, so I...." She stops, her cheeks flushed, and takes a deep breath, then smiles and settles back down on the ground, holding out one forehoof to Applejack. "How does Friendsday evening sound instead?"

Applejack stops. It takes several seconds for the words to register, but when they do, she feels as if she could buck through stone. She takes Fluttershy's hoof in hers. "Friendsday night sounds mighty nice. I'll be by after chores, prob'ly around six. Plenty of time for a nice long walk an' a chat. Sound good?"

Fluttershy nods, smiling tightly like she's about to burst with excitement. "That sounds lovely. I'll see you then, okay?"

"Friendsay, then." Applejack takes a step, then forgets quite where to put her hooves. "I, uh... I better go. I got... apples t'... yeah." The smile on her face passes "silly," sliding dangerously close to "goofy." Thank ya, Shy." She gives the napping bear a tap on the shoulder on her way out. "Be nice t' her, hear? Don't do anything I wouldn't do."