Once upon a time, there were two wonderful married ponies Bright Mac, a devoted father, and Pear Butter, the daughter Granny Smith treated terribly, who lived with their awful, horrible mother Granny Smith.
One day, while throwing a toddler tantrum after a series of honest mistakes, Granny Smith said that an Apple wouldn’t mess up as much as Pear Butter did. Overhearing, her son rightfully tore a strip out of his own mother who deserved it, and decided to do the Trottingham delivery a day earlier with his wife. They departed immediately with that no good varmint Granny Smith stubbornly refusing to apologize despite feeling awful about having even thought to say such a terrible thing. Telling Granny to wise up, they departed for the White Tail Woods, taking the well worn trail to their destination.
Unfortunately, the trail was destroyed by a sudden storm and Bright Mac and Pear Butter found themselves lost. They desperately sought out shelter, but they instead came upon a mountainside.
A landslide happened. It killed Bright Mac and Pear Butter.
Their awful, horrible mother who took her grandfoals’ parents away from them, received their mangled bodies from the guard and hated herself everyday for what they had done.
Then Granny Smith never forgave herself and lived in misery forever after.
As she should.
Granny rushed out the door, the wood slamming against its frame as she galloped into the orchard. She pushed through her weak lungs and old limbs as she ran to the White Tail Woods, sheer panic driving her forward.
Apple trees turned into open fields and finally into tall maples in the midst of shedding their leaves for the coming winter.
She slowed to a canter then a stop on the worn path, grinding her hooves into the dirt as she caught her breath. Her head swiveled about as she did, desperately searching for something. When she couldn’t find it, she allowed her rump to collapse to the ground, hopelessness beginning to settle over her.
As she wallowed in her misery, a spark of determination lit up inside her. She forced herself back onto her tired hooves, and drew in a deep breath.
“Apple Bloom!” Granny screamed out into the woods.
No answer was given.
Unwilling to give up, Granny galloped blindly into the trees, crashing through shrubbery and past low hanging branches as she continued to call out for her youngest grand foal. She’d find her. She wouldn’t lose another.
She couldn’t lose another.
Stumbling over a root, Granny fell to the ground with a thump, a twinge of pain lancing through her bad hip. Ignoring the pain, she pushed herself to a sitting position and readied to call out again.
“Apple Bloom!” Granny cried.
“Granny!”
Granny turned toward the sound as two ponies raced out of the thicket. Both showed signs of relief before one morphed into seething rage.
“Applejack! Big Mac! Thank Sun, you’re here. I need—”
“What the hay, Granny!” Applejack shouted. She stomped towards the elder, grinding her teeth in frustration. “What do you think you’re doing tearing off into the woods at your age?!”
“I-I had to,” Granny stuttered out. “She’s missing.”
“Who’s missing?” Applejack asked.
“B-Bloom,” Granny said, her body shaking. “She wasn’t—” The words caught in her throat “—She’s gone!”
“She was hiding in the cellar, you, you—!” Applejack growled in anger, turning away from Granny to vent her frustrations onto the nearby ground.
At the words, Granny felt tears of relief pour from her eyes. She clutched her chest with her hooves. “Oh thank, Sun,” She said.
Soft hoofsteps approached her. “Why’d ya think she was out here?” Big Mac asked.
“I couldn’t find her in the house and I panicked,” Granny explained. “I’d already lost two foals to—” She stopped “—I-I mean ponies get lost in these woods all the time and, since Bloom likes to play—”
Applejack whipped her head around, triumph on her face. “You admit it!” She shouted. “You know Ma and Pa are dead!”
“AJ,” Big Mac chided.
“No!” Applejack stomped her hoof. “She’s been doing this stupid pie crust trail thing for nearly a year and I’m sick of it! If she don’t even believe it—”
“I do believe it!” Granny defended. “They’ll come back. They have to!”
“They. Are. Dead!” Applejack seethed. She stomped towards Granny, shoving her face against hers.
“They aren’t!”
“How do you know?!”
“Because they just can’t be!”
“That’s not how this works!”
“AJ,” Big Mac chided again, his voice growing in intensity.
Shooting a glare to her brother, Applejack retorted, “Lay off, Mac! I’m getting to the bottom of this.” She returned to Granny. “Why can’t they be dead, Granny? How are those bodies at the funeral not real? Why do you keep insisting—”
“Because my last words to my own daughter can’t have been that she wasn’t an Apple!” Granny screamed.
Applejack stepped back startled, an expression matched by Mac. Granny released a terrible grief stricken scream as words began to spill from her mouth.
“She might not have been of my own blood, but she was family and I-I told her—” A sob tore through her. “She left thinking that I thought she wasn’t family. Because I had an off day and acted like a git to my own kin. Ya asked who the witch is?
“It’s me. I’m the witch. I’m the one they were running from and now they’re gone.”
Granny huddled in on herself, her regrets overflowing from her as she let out the grief she had been containing. Bright and Pear were dead. They weren’t coming back. She knew that. But she didn’t want to believe it.
“I killed your parents, my own foals, because I’m a horrid pony. If I hadn’t said what I did, if the shipment had gone out on the day it was supposed to, they’d still be here. It’s all my fault.”
A quiet descended upon them, broken only by Granny’s sobbing. The one to break it, was the one most unlikely to.
“I thought it was my fault,” Mac whispered.
Both Applejack and Granny turned to Mac, his eyes on the verge of tears.
“What do ya mean, Mac?” Applejack asked.
“Pa got mad cause I told him I didn’t wanna be on the farm anymore,” Mac explained. “I thought he was so angry with me, he couldn't stand being around and left with Ma to Trottingham early.”
“T-that’s—” Granny started.
“Crazy!” Applejack interrupted. “That ain’t the reason they left early. He woulda calmed down and talked to ya about it later. You know Pa is the type to think things through first.”
“He was real mad, AJ.”
“Couldn’t have been more mad with you than me, since I’m why they left,” AJ retorted.
Mac stared at AJ blankly, confusion clear on his face.
“Why do you think that?” Granny asked.
“Got mad with Ma for not letting me go out with friends. Told her she was the worst,” Applejack spat out bitterly. “What kinda daughter tells that to her Mom?”
“She wouldn’t have held it against you,” Mac said.
“Your mother was too forgiving for that,” Granny added.
“Yeah, well, she still left with Pa.” Applejack sniffled, rubbing her nose with a hoof. “And now neither of ’em are coming back.”
The wind blew through the woods, rustling the warm coloured leaves. It was the only sound amongst the three stationary figures who settled into their grief and guilt. Their beliefs in who was truly at fault for the loss they all felt.
“We said a lot of things we regret,” Granny said, breaking the silence.
“They didn’t deserve it,” Applejack bitterly added.
“And now we can’t apologize for it,” Mac commented.
“I—” Granny sobbed, “—I’m so sorry. To both of you. And Bloom. I’ve been chasing this… hope that it was all some lie and that they would be back, but all I ended up doing was hurting all of you.”
“I shouldn’t have gotten mad with you,” Applejack said.
“I was acting like a real varmint.”
“And I should have talked to you about it!” Applejack retorted. “I should have talked you through it and then maybe… maybe we coulda already dealt with all of this.”
“I wasn’t ready to,” Granny morosely replied. “I still felt awful about what I’d said and couldn’t face the consequences of it.”
“But I was acting like a total doofus!”
“We are all acting like that,” Mac commented. He smirked. “Apple doofuses to the core.”
Granny and Applejack snorted.
“New family motto.” Applejack giggled.
“Carve it in wood and hang it right over the fireplace,” Granny added.
“Gonna be hard to explain that one at the next family reunion,” Mac said.
They all released a sharp bark of laughter which quickly turned into bales of it. When they calmed down, Granny lifted herself, biting back the pain in her rear, and opened her hooves to her two grand foals. In answer, they walked into their grandmother’s embrace, letting themselves be enveloped, and released the tears they had been holding back as they cried into her fur.
It would be a while longer before the tears stopped, and an even longer while still before they were able to pull away from each other. But when they did, there would be an unspoken forgiveness between them, a silent acknowledgement of their shared pain.
The grief would never truly go away, just dull with time. But, together, they would forge ahead, planting new seeds out of damaged soil for it to one day sprout into something akin to true happiness. Because that was what the Apples did. They pulled together and they pushed through.
Stronger together than alone.