Chapter 6: Ditzy Do and Johnny Spurs (Part 1)
I hadn’t been to Appleoosa more than a couple of weeks. Just long enough for ponies to start getting weary of me. Nothing I wasn’t used to, at that point. I’d lived in a few towns before, and it was usually the same story every time.
I’d first met her, and Applejack, come to think of it, on a Friday afternoon. I was just getting back from cleaning out a ditch full of dead sandcats that had been rotting in the sun for a bit. Back then, like always, I was hurtin’ for money. So I took whatever job ponies threw at me, even if it was out of spite sometimes.
I remember her first words really clearly. She was flying overhead, delivering a package. I remember them because it was the last thing I heard before her box dropped on my head and knocked me unconscious: “What smells like Griffon puke?” THUD. Out like a light. Apparently she’d been carrying it in her mouth.
I woke up a couple of hours later to Applejack standin’ over me. And let me tell you, she was one of the prettiest mare’s I’d ever seen. Still is, kind of. But now she’s more like a cousin than anything, and that’s just weird. But when I first saw her? Man, I wanted that. HARD.
Now, this may differentiate from what everypony else will tell you I said, but don’t let them lie to you; I was a perfect gentleman. I woke up, saw her gorgeous face, blonde hair, and green eyes, and promptly introduced myself like a proper gentleman asking if she was an angel and if I was dead.
Everypony else, the lying bastards, insist I said something more like “Hey, you’re new. Wanna do it?” Lies and slander, I say.
Well, she didn’t wanna do it. But, fortunately for me, I was still concussed at the time, so she didn’t seem offended by that thing that I very obviously did not say. Instead, she responded, “Yeah, nope. Howzabout we get you some water first? You’ve been unconscious a while.”
At that point I heard a voice in the corner say “Yeah, sorry.” I turned to look, and there was Ditzy Do, sitting in the middle of the room. At first I thought it was kind of weird that she was sitting so far away from... well, everything. At first. One of those things you look back on and laugh, ya know?
Well, I got me out of bed, got some water, when I realize somethin’ rather important is missing. My hat. Mind oyou, I love that hat. This hat. I love it. Not like AJ’s hat. That’s... somethin’ special. I’ll let her tell you about it, if she hasn’t already. But no, my hat was a different kind of special. It’s what I found Asshole in when I first found him. He was using it as a bed. Middle of nowhere. But again, another story. Either way, I couldn’t find my hat.
Then i heard snoring. I turned, saw my hat, and my cat, both on the windowsill. And he was still using it as his bed. So I ripped it out from under him and put it on.
And this is Asshole Cat, in a nutshell. After he swears at me for takin’ the hat right out from under him, he just says, “Oh good. You ain’t dead.” And that was that. He hopped on my shoulders, and I went back to talking to, and trying to bet into the hay with, Applejack. Of course, my first attempt not working, I decided just to ask the obvious questions.
“The hell happened to me?”
Applejack glared over at Derpy, who kinda shrunk into the floor with a sheepish smile. “My bad,” she said. Derpy, not Applejack.
Applejack, instead, looked back at me and explained the whole thing. “I was delivering some farming supplies for my cousin, Braeburn. He’s got his own Apple orchard now, and...”
I can’t help it. I interrupt her. Bad habit, really. “Yeah, we know him. Fruity as his crop, he is. So you’re that farmgirl cousin he talks about?”
I don’t know why, but watching an eyebrow twitch always amuses me. “Yeah, I am. And I’d appreciate you not slanderin’ my family members.”
I traded looks with my cat, who asked her, in all seriousness: “You really expect us to NOT make fun of the guy? I mean, really. I remember readin’ the brochure before we moved here, and I’m damn positive that Appleoosa doesn’t have that many vowels in it.”
Their reaction was priceless. I don’t think they’d ever seen a Talker before. I mean, he’d said a few words in the hospital already, since I woke up, but Applejack told me later she thought it was just me talkin' to myself like some weirdo with a head injury. You know, like I was. “Holy horsefeathers it talked!” Applejack screamed, runnin’ backwards. “What they hey kind of cat is that?!”
Derpy just looked at it all wide-eyed. “Cooooool,” she said. I thought it was kinda funny.
Asshole thought it was hysterical. He was all rollin’ around on top of my head. “Ahaha, oh god! Oh my god that was great!” He just kept on laughin’ over and over. I thought he might choke to death. Wouldn’t be the first time he passed out laughin’ too hard.
I just chuckle and hold out a hoof for Applejack to pick herself up. She’d fallen against the wall when there wasn’t no more room t’ run. “You alright down there missy?”
If looks could kill I’d need a new cat. “The hay kind of cat you got there? I never met a cat that could talk!”
Asshole gave her some kind of look, I didn’t see it, but her eyes went wide. Must not ‘a liked it. “And I never met a unicorn obsessed with havin’ a talking familiar before my last owner. You get used to things.”
She never asked him about it again, after that. Ditzy, bless her, just never cared. “So, uh, sorry about dropping that box of nails on your head. I think we got them all out,” she said, lookin’ at my noggin’ left and right.
To this day I still feel a small prick at the back of my skull whenever she apologizes.
After giving my skull a thorough pat-down, I decided to not worry about it. “So, uh, you said you were delivering stuff to Braeburn? You happen to need any help?”
Applejack shook her head, slowly getting back into ‘normal’ conversation. “Not really, no. We was almost done when we... met you, and since you took so long to wake up we just kinda finished while we waited. I was standin’ over you cause the doc called and said you was gettin’ better.”
I nodded, grateful to have somepony look out for me like that. It’s not somethin’ I was used to at the time. Which got me thinkin’ back to any of the other ponies I know that’d give two shakes if I keeled over. Which in turn, got me worried. “Uh, nopony’s seen Gallop yet, have they?” I ask nopony in particular. I feel Asshole shudder on top o’ me, and I know he’s thikin’ the same thing I was thinkin’.
Which we didn’t get a chance to say, as she kinda chose that moment to break down the door. I still wonder where she gets her timing from, actually. She bursts in the room, yellin’ at the top of her lungs, “Where’s Johnny?!” Then she looked around, and spotted me. Like a heat-seekin’ shark or somethin’, I swear. I think at first she’s gonna give me a hug, which I was mildly prepared for.
What I wasn’t prepared for, was to get yet another physical. Cause, y’know, they give you one when you show up unconscious and stuff. She throws the cat and hat offa me, and checks all my fur. Rifles through my hair. Hell, she even flipped me on my back and checked to... uh... make sure I was still all together where it counted. Y’know? Anyway. After makin’ sure I was still a fully functional stallion, then she stands me up again and gives me a hug.
For like, ten seconds. Then she strangles me. “Don't. You. Ever. Go. To. The hospital. Again. Without. Telling me!”
“I. Can’t. Breathe.” I choke out. Must have been quite a spectacle, come to think of it. I think Applejack woulda stopped her if she hadn’t burst into the hospital with her rifle on.
Now, it wasn’t really a hospital. Appleoosa doesn’t have quite that much money, or at least it didn’t back then. It was more like a medical... shack. Really just a bunch of beds, some drugs, and a cart waitin’ to take you somewhere they could fix you up if you got really broke. So there wasn’t a lot of ponies that would stop somepony like Shotgun Gallop from breakin’ down a door and rushing to my bed, especially armed.
But that aside, she puts me down, and hugs me again, and looks round to the rest of the room. There’s Derpy, who just looks up at her and smiles, and Applejack, who giver her this look like, well, you’ve met Gallop. That kind of look. So she asks Applejack, “Did you break my toy?!”
Just like that, I swear. Asks her just like that. I was about to say somethin’ when Applejack goes, “What?! No! I didn’t do nuthin’! And what’s this about yer toy?” she was all indignant. It was kinda heartwarming in a super-possessive gun-toting psycho kinda way.
But Gallop ignores her, and turns to Ditzy. “Did youbreak my Johnny’s noggin?” she asks, kinda dangerously.
Before Derpy can answer, I decide I might wanna cut in on this. “Uh, Gallop? For one, my noggin’s fine. I can stand up and everything.” At least, I thought I could. I kinda teeter over at that point. “Woo, that’s where all my blood was. Hi.” So I lean against the bed and decide maybe climbing back in it isn’t such a bad idea.
Of course, Gallop’s all kinds of fussed. Found out later she was in heat at the time, and was really hopin’ I’d be in good enough shape to... you get the picture. Sure. But then the doctor comes over. And yes, he was a doctor. Don’t remember his name. He wasn’t there long. We have a new one now. But yeah, he comes by, and gives me a scolding for getting up when I’m obviously n need of more bedrest, and tries to shoo everypony out.
Applejack and Ditzy get goin’, but Asshole stays, which I figured he would. And Gallop stays, too. Cause tellin’ her to do anything she doesn’t want to is usually a lead-lined Bad Idea with capitol letters. So They give me more pills ‘an I fall back asleep.
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I wake up a bit later, like, the next day, and Gallop’s gone. Apparently she got bored and went to hunt down some poor unwary stallion to meet her needs. The only living things left in the room are Asshole and the doc. Not a lot of ponies stayed overnight at the medical shack. Either they didn’t need to, or they needed to be somewhere with a significantly better supply of painkillers. Either way, I was alone. And feeling much better. So I hop up, get checked out ok, and Cat and I mosey on home.
Which, for some reason, is being occupied by a couple of familiar mares. I open the door, and Applejack’s in the kitchen, lookin; for food (good luck), and Ditzy’s asleep. Gallop’s sittin’ off to the side with a field-stripped gun and a bottle of oil, takin real good care of it. She looks up when I walk in. “Oh, hey, Johnny. Thought we’d guard the house for ya while you was out.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh, so who’s watchin’ your house?”
She laughed at me. “Pffft. My house can look after itself.”
I found that out later, actually firsthoof. Truer words. “So why are they here? And asleep?”
She goes back to cleaning her gun. “I told ‘em they could sleep here, since you bein’ all unconscious kept em too late and they missed their train. And before you asked, they can’t stay at my house, cause I don’t want it to blow up. And Braeburn’s house isn’t exactly roomy enough for other ponies.”
I was confused. As was Asshole. He chimed up, “Isn’t there like, a whole branch of the Apple family here?”
Applejack looked over the top of the fridge door at me, and had the decency to look all apologetic. “Yeah, sorry about that. But this was the only place we could both get a good night’s sleep,” she said, nodding over to a sleeping Derpy. Well, was sleeping. Apparently all the talking woke her up. So she was kinda sittin’ up and rubbin’ the sleep outta her eyes.
“S’morning already?” she said. Even i gotta admit, she was cute in the morning. “Yay! That means we can go fight that Buffalo’s ghost thingy or whatever!”
The cat and I traded glances again, and gave Gallop a look. “What.”