My Little Balladeer

by Ardashir

Chapter 2

My Little Balladeer
Chapter 2

That little pony and I walked for what felt like hours through the dark woods. I swear to nothing, I’ve walked through many a dark and lonesome woods before and heard a right many animals and other things in the dark, but never such a one as that. The sounds coming from deeper in amongst the trees sounded like what I thought it must have been like for the very first human men and women. The crashing of trees being torn up and falling, the slow heavy distant thudding of something walking, and once overhead the soft heavy thump of wings a-catching at the air. I looked up then and thought maybe I saw something the big as a good-sized house go by high up. The moonlight glittered on a hide that shined. I was right glad for the light from that torch and the company of little Red Mane.

“You have some sand in your craw, a-using around a place like this after dark,” I told her once as we walked under dark trees and those almost-familiar stars above. She just gave me a look with those golden yellow eyes of hers, whinnied another of her long and complex whinnies at me, and went on.

After a time the trees along the trail showed shorter and sparser, and when you looked up you could see more of the night sky. I had to stare. I already knew or kindly thought that this wasn’t my home, nor air other place I knew of, but those stars settled it. I recognized Orion, but when I looked north for the Pole Star I didn’t find it. It gave me a turn, more than a turn, to see it gone. I can make my way by the stars, I know them by all their seasons, but right then I knew myself to be more lost than I’d even dared guess. No Big nor Little Dipper, either, only some stars so faint you could just barely make them out where they should be. I saw some new and strange constellations I didn’t know the name of. I thought I might could recognize some of them, but even they seemed bigger and closer than the night sky I’d always known. I wondered me if it was just because there might be less dirt fouling the sky here, or if those stars were just that much closer. I reckon I must have stared for a right long time, because I felt that tugging on my pants leg again. I looked to see her a-asking me to keep on walking with her eyes.

“I’m coming,” I said, and then soon after we came out from under those trees and along a dirt road. Even in the dark it looked tramped down hard. I looked up and down along it and saw just night and dark both ways. Across from it, a wooden rail fence such as you can still see here-there in the mountains. No gates set in it but it owned gaps for folks to pass through. We walked across it and in under more trees. I wondered if it were more of that forest but changed my mind when I saw them set in neat rows.

“This is an orchard, a farm then?” I said to her. She looked at me again like she wondered why I kept a-stopping at every new thing I saw. I spoke more. “I’m not rightly sure why, but I figured you for a farm horse when I saw you.” She just snorted and tossed her head. I followed her deeper in amongst those trees. I liked the feel of them. This place might be strange to me, but these trees felt safer, somehow, than the ones we’d just come out from among. I looked to see they bore leaves on them despite it feeling like early spring. Some of them looked to bear fruit, which struck me as odd for the time of year.

“You and your folks must know their trees,” I told her, “If they can make them bear this soon in the season.” She didn’t stop or look, she just kept going. I’ve wondered myself many times since then why I kept a-talking to her when she didn’t know air word I used. I think maybe it just felt so silent in that night, and I felt so uneasy after coming to whereair here was, I needed to be talking to someone.

Right then I heard barking, not too far away and coming closer. I relaxed to see how the little filly seemed right pleased to hear it. I doubted it’d be a mean dog if someone as small as her liked the sound of it. The dog came up out of the dark, barking and wagging its tail to see her. I recognized it as a border collie. It looked and acted right friendly. It jumped and licked her face, though it didn’t have to jump very far. She neighed soft-like and rubbed one of her forehooves over its back and along its ears like most anyone would do with a pet. Then it turned and ran over to me in that excited way most dogs do. It acted a trifle wary, but I saw the tail still a-wagging.

“It’s kindly good to see you,” I said, giving its ears a scratch. She was a right friendly dog. It sniffed my fingers and then licked them, its tail a-wagging. She rolled at my feet and I scratched her some more. I like dogs, most animals in fact, but I think I rarely liked one so much as I did then and there. After seeing the little filly, I wondered if I’d recognize air thing in this place, and how whoair lived here might end up a-treating me. I figured air person human enough to own a dog and kindly enough to treat it as well as they’d treated this one couldn’t be any too strange to me. If they were that human, then I reckoned they couldn’t be alien to me, as some old Greek thinker once said, or close to it.

The little dog kept us company as the filly and I came out from the orchard into what I could recognize even in the dark as a farmyard. I saw a big barn and someplace smaller that looked kindly like a stable and yet like a house too in some way. Maybe it was because lights showed at the windows. The lights shined steady but soft, not flickering like a candle nor yet like electricity neither. Fields showed in the distance, where I figured that whoair lived here would raise the crops they ate themselves. I saw a pen for pigs and a paddock for cows, and from somewhere I heard neighing from more horses. The little filly perked her ears up at the sound and ran out before me, whinnying and sounding like any little human girl-child who hears her family calling for her.

The dog raced off barking after her. I hurried after them both. I saw two horses, both bigger than the filly, standing in front of the smaller house. By the lights in the windows and the fancy but plain work done on it, hanging eaves and a fancy weathervane atop something like a small steeple set atop it, I saw this must be where the family lived. The little filly pressed up right close against first one and then the other of those horses, wrapping one of her forelegs around theirs. They both bent their long necks down and nuzzled her like any horse with its foal. The two horses both gave whinnies that sounded relieved. But then they caught sight of me. They snorted like any horse that’s a-warning you they’re not certain sure of you. They trotted closer into the torchlight, trying to set themselves between the filly and me. She ran ahead of them and set herself against my leg. I stood and looked closer at them, and they looked back at me.

Right then I clapped eyes on something else new to me in this place, though a trifle less new than some other things I’d seen so far. The smaller one was a palomino, the smallest mare I ever did see, her withers barely up to my belt. Her blond mane and tail hung long and were tied back the way some country women do to keep their hair from their eyes as they work. She wore a cowboy’s hat, what you call a Stetson. Her eyes showed big and blue, more like a person’s than an animal’s, the same as on the big sorrel stallion beside her and on the little filly. And like Red Mane and the sorrel beside her they showed larger than air horse I’d ever seen and set frontwise like a human person’s. Those eyes went from wary on me to relieved on her and then swung back to me again, a trifle less cautious now. And I got the same feel from her and the stallion that I did from the filly. These were folks and no animals. Not human men and women, no, but people all the same. Had you been a-standing there with me I reckon you’d have felt the same.

The palomino mare whinnied at me and the filly and she whinnied back. I wondered myself what they said and hoped it was nothing bad or unchancy. While the mare and filly spoke I looked past them to the stallion. He was about the size of ponies I’d seen afore back home, maybe a trifle bigger. He looked like a little sorrel draft horse, collar on his neck and all, but redder than any sorrel or roan I’d ever seen before. A wisp of straw hung from his mouth. When he whinnied at the other two, it was shorter than the sounds they made.

I noticed something else then that I’d not before. The mare and the stallion bore marks on their flanks, like the little grey in the woods bore. I thought them to be brands of some sort and then I saw they weren’t. The marks grew right from the hair of their coats, three red apples for her and one big green apple sliced in half for him. He looked me in the eyes, steadier than some animals and many a man. I looked back at him in what I hoped was a friendly way.

And right then the palomino mare turned from the little filly to rear up before me, her hooves up high and a-looking ready to fight.

* * *

Applejack reared herself up before the whatever-it-was that’d followed Apple Bloom home and looked it right in the eyes. Her initial fear, that this was Thorn or something else like him, lessened as she looked at him. Its gaze held hers like a pony’s would – well, like some ponies would. She just didn’t imagine something like Thorn being so bold. It just felt so odd, though, to look at something so alien even by Equestrian standards.

Under a short gray-shot brown mane she saw bright but too-small eyes, small nubs for ears and no muzzle beyond a fleshy lump in the middle of its face. The body below looked near as tall as Thorn’s. The clothes covering near all of it looked old but well-made. Work clothes, Applejack decided approvingly, and ones he’d actually worked in. He held a torch in one hand, and on his back he wore a small old pack and a guitar. The moonlight shone oddly bright on the strings.

She looked him in the eyes, trying to get a read on him. Even before she’d been chosen by the Element of Honesty she’d been known for her ability to get a handle on ponies by talking to or just watching them. He looked back at her, not afraid but not trying to stare her down either. Applejack dropped back down on her hooves. Whatever he might be, she felt sure he’d be no threat to her or her family.

Apple Bloom still talked behind her, going on about how she’d met this creature. “…an’ then he killed thet monster an’ tried talkin’ to me, but he don’t speak any Equestrian. He don’t seem lahk that other one you tole me to watch out for, big sis. Maybe he kin stay the night?”

“What monster, Apple Bloom? Where did you see a monster?” Aside from him, Applejack thought as she glanced at their ‘guest’. She looked at her baby sister. Apple Bloom suddenly seemed very interested in the dirt at her feet. Applejack scowled and said, “Hold on now, sugarcube. Were you in the Everfree again after dark? Didn’t we have us a little chat about that?”

“I was just lookin’ around,” Apple Bloom said defensively before she looked straight at her sister. “You-all don’t have to worry. Ah’m a big pony an’ he helped me!” She pointed at the creature.

“We’ll talk about how well you listen when I warn you about somethin’ later,” Applejack said to her. Apple Bloom shrank under her gaze. Applejack sighed and hugged her little sis close. “Ah’m glad you’re okay. But you gotta stop goin’ in there all alone, even if you like seeing Zecora!” She looked up at Big Mac. “Mac, you better go find Caramel. Tell him we found Apple Bloom and to come back for supper. Umm,” she darted a glance over her shoulder, “An’ tell him that we found somethin’ strange and that it’ll be stayin’ with us, okay?”

“You sure that’s smart?” Big Mac said to her, looking at the creature.

“Not rightly,” Applejack said back, “but he don’t feel like that other one that made all the trouble. I’d say we kin trust him. Besides, anything does go wrong, there’ll be you an’ me an’ Caramel. Tomorrow, we can send word to Twilight. She’ll know how to handle this. Now git goin’ before all the food gits cold.”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said before he turned and trotted off into the dark.

Applejack watched him go and turned to her little sister. “An’ as for you, you go inside an’ help Granny Smith set the table. Tell her we’ve got company and we’ll need one more place.” Apple Bloom went with no further argument. Applejack turned back to the creature. “Now, what-all do I do with you?”

He said nothing in return. He did relax some, however. He must have figured that they wouldn’t be doing him any harm. Applejack pointed to the double doors of the house with both snout and forehoof. He looked and nodded. He carefully set his torch down and made sure it was out. She nodded and set off for the doors. He followed her quietly. She opened the doors and went in and he followed. Then once inside the doors, he froze, holding them open.

“Hay, now,” she told him, “I don’t know where you come from, but here you don’t hold a door open when it’s a cold night out! Were you raised in a barn?” She took the knob from his hand with her mouth and closed the doors. Then she looked inside, wondering if maybe she’d see something strange. By the way he stared, you’d think he’d never seen a dining room before.

It all looked the same as ever. Deep-set windows in the wood and cemented stone of the walls, shining cheap light-jewels in the lamps sitting on the windowsills, wallpaper over plaster on the walls. She felt comforting warmth from the fireplace and the large iron stove in the kitchen where dinner was cooking, smelled the mouth-watering scent of baked apples, and heard the scratching of Apple Bloom fetching the dinnerware and plates out. And in the middle of the room a long wooden table, made by Granny Smith’s father and still as solid as when he’d made it, back when their branch of the Apple family first settled their land grant.

Speaking of Granny Smith, she stared as they came in. Her old eyes widened as she saw what stood in the door and she near dropped the plates balanced on her back. She said, “Land sakes, granddaughter! What did y’all bring home this time?”

“Ah don’t rightly know, Granny,” Applejack responded. “Better ask Apple Bloom, she found him in the Everfree.” She looked over her shoulder and added, “Ah reckon we’ll be findin’ out what he is sooner or later.” As her strange guest looked back at her, startled by something he must be seeing in the room, she mentally added, Ah hope.

* * *

I walked into that house behind the little palomino. She opened the double doors with her mouth – Dutch doors, they call them, set so you can open the top half without opening the bottom – and walked right in. I went to go in behind her, but when I saw what waited for us inside that room, I stopped and stared.

The house its own self didn’t look air much different from the houses I’d seen and lived in back home. Four walls of wood and stone set around with windows of glass, a fireplace against the wall, a wooden floor beneath that showed clean but scuffed from long use with hooked rugs set here and there. I saw lanterns along the walls that glowed soft-like, not with the flicker of flame nor yet with the steadiness of electric light. I wondered if it might be gas, though if so I didn’t smell air such a thing. I saw a table set for dinner in the center of it, long and low and set with cushions on the floor instead of chairs. I smelled and saw fresh corn bread on it, saw apples made into sauce and boiled up and done air other way you might could make an apple. I thought they smelled right good.

That all held my attention less than the new horse I saw inside the room. She rose up right slow and careful the way old folks move, and I saw that she owned a thin coat and her silver mane done up in a bun such as old ladies still do in the mountains. But I say to you all, that caught my eye less than the fact that she looked green. Yes, as I live and tell you all this, her coat showed green as fresh-grown grass. She had a mark on her flank like all the others save for the little one did too. Like theirs, hers was some sort of an apple. And on her back she had a set of old-style dishes. They looked more like platters, fired from clay before they’d been glazed and painted with scenes of horses and trees.

The palomino snorted at me and took the doorknob from my hand with her mouth. I felt the brush of her lips against my hand as she took and closed the door, and they felt like the warm wet velvet of air normal horse. I needed that right about then. It felt real to me, more real than air thing I saw. I knew then if nor afore that whereair I stood, it wasn’t the Earth I’d been born on. While she did, the old green mare whinnied like she felt surprise to see me. The palomino whinnied back at her. The old mare seemed to settle some at that. That palomino ran that place, and no two ways about it.

The little filly came back into the room, holding what looked like table silver in her mouth. The old mare turned and gave her a look as the palomino whinnied and neighed at her. I wondered me if I’d somehow gotten the little one in trouble. But then the old mare turned away from her and walked up to me, moving right slow and careful the way people and horses alike will when their joints hurt them. She whinnied something at me and indicated the table like to say, sit and eat with us.

“Thank you kindly, I’ll do just that,” I said back to her, a-taking my hat off and doing my best manners. She nodded slow-like. Then she turned and began heading for the table. She winced like something pained her. Right then, I reached out and took the dishes from her back afore they could fall. She and the palomino looked at me in surprise.

“If I’m to be a guest,” I said to them all, “Let me help you here with this.” First of all I set my old guitar down off to the side, a-making sure it would be safe and out of the way. I went to the table and saw how the little filly set the knives and forks, and I set the plates down by them. No chairs that I saw, but pillows on the floor to sit on. The little filly watched me near about as much as where she set the silver. The old mare tossed her head like she approved. Then she made her way to the head of the table, like any old granny woman with her kin back home. I saw how the palomino nodded on me afore she whinnied and whickered back at her. They might not have spoke like human folks, but they spoke, sure enough.

I went to sit and froze right then. Noise at the door, sudden like, and neighing with a frightened sound to it. I moved back off and to the side, a-wondering what would be happening now. The palomino mare snorted and went to the door. No sooner she opened it than a new horse came in and went right for me, his ears down and snorting.

I backed away, wishing I had a chair or something to set between me and him. He looked smaller than the other stallion I’d seen, and about as big as the palomino. He owned a soft brown coat and mane just a little darker, like the color of the caramel candy you could get at a store. Three blue horseshoes showed on his flank. He whinnied something at her and then started snorting at me again. I tried to balance myself on my feet, ready to move as fast as I could if I needed to.

The palomino neighed something at him, short and sharp. He stopped and gave her a look like any human man called on his foolishness by a woman he knows. She whinnied some more, less sharp, and pointed at the other side of the table from where I stood. He went to it with his head hanging. I saw the sorrel coming in from outside. He just rolled his eyes like he’d expected no less and went to sit down his own self. I sat myself down with them all while the little filly and the palomino went into the next room. By the smells I reckoned it to be the kitchen. They came back out a moment later and set the food down on the table. We all sat ourselves down. The palomino mare sat to the one side of me, and the big sorrel on the other. The little filly tried to squeeze herself in between the big stallion and me. The palomino snorted at her. The filly gave her the saddest eyes you air did see. The mare just repeated herself and pointed with one hoof. The filly pouted but she went down to the far side of the sorrel away from me. I reckon maybe I smiled a bit to see it. They might not have been human-looking, but most other ways they were so near like human folks as made no difference. The palomino caught how I smiled and it looked like she grinned back some.

“I hope that means we’re to be friends to one another,” I told her and smiled my best.

We all tucked in then. That food was right good, let me tell you all. Those apples I saw looked near about as big as the ones I reckon Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan might have grown in one of the old tall tales about them. I needed my knife to cut them up just to eat them. They tasted like the best apples I’d air eaten, and no lie. They also had hay and oats and what I reckoned to be alfalfa, fresh and raw from the ground, but naturally those I didn’t eat. No meat to be seen air place, either. I could hear the little dog eating out in the other room from her bowl, maybe she had some meat but I didn’t. It all finished with cider, pure and sweet as waters from Eden, and some apple pie. Those ponies loved their apples and no mistake. Once in it I caught the eye of the palomino again and saw how pleased she looked at how I ate.

“I do relish good food,” I told her, “And your cooking is to be honored.” She lifted up her head a bit at what I said. We might not have words to speak to each other, but she knew when someone liked the food she grew and cooked. When we finished I smiled around at them all and rubbed my stomach.

“You-all set a right good table,” I said, and meant it. The palomino puffed herself up some more before she whinnied at me and nodded at the old mare at the head of the table. I nodded my thanks at the old mare. I figured her for the mother or grandmother of the ones I saw here when I saw one of the pictures on the wall showing a younger version of her with little versions of the sorrel and palomino, and two older ponies aside. They looked something like the sorrel and palomino and little Red Mane. I wondered me where they were.

I gave my attention back to the palomino when she whinnied and whickered more at me. She held her hoof right out. I took it and felt some surprise at how it felt compared to a normal horse’s hoof. Then she shook my hand. Believe me, when she shook your hand, you shook. I smiled at her when it stopped and hoped she didn’t notice me a-flexing my fingers to make sure they weren’t broke.

We cleared the table off then. I went by one of the lamps as we set the plates away for washing in an old sink with a hand or maybe I ought to say hoof-pump for water by it. I looked into that lamp and maybe I stared when I saw what lit it. It was a little jewel or crystal in there glowing to beat all. I looked away and saw how those ponies all looked curious on me.

“I crave your pardon,” I told them, “But it’s all kindly strange to me here.” They just looked funny at me and then went back to cleaning everything up. I saw how the brown stallion still looked nervoused by me, but less than before. I saw too how the little filly kept giving my guitar a longing look. She saw that I noticed and pointed at it, giving me one of her high-pitched whinnies. The palomino frowned at her like to say, wait until he says yes.

“I’ll play it some,” I told them all, “If you want to hear it.” I picked it up and drew my fingers along the strings. The palomino had her mouth open for to say something, but when I started to play she fell silent and just nodded for me to continue.

* * *

Applejack remembered having some unusual dinners, but rarely as odd as that night. Between explaining her reasons to Granny Smith for why she wanted to keep the stranger here to dealing with Caramel’s foolishness and Apple Bloom’s nonstop curiosity, she felt glad when the meal ended. She sat back with a sigh as she let the meal settle. Judging from the way her ‘guest’ acted, he liked it as much as she did.

“Thank you kindly,” Applejack said to him, smiling in contentment herself. Then, puffing herself up slightly, she added, “Granny ‘n me cooked all of it.” He must have understood some of it, for he nodded at Granny Smith in obvious respect and then held his hand out to Applejack. She gave him her usual firm and friendly hoofshake. She noticed with some approval that he didn’t wince or shake his fingers after, though it took him a second to recover.

After eating he helped them clean and set everything away. Caramel still seemed uneasy with him, but less so than before. Apple Bloom glanced constantly at the guitar where it sat. Finally the stranger noticed and pointed at it.

“Kin you play it?” she asked. “Kin we hear some music? I bet you play real good!”

“Now, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said to her, going over and standing by her sister, “he’s a guest here, and you don’t go bothering a guest like that. He’ll play it some if he wants.” Applejack privately wondered if it would be a good thing if he did. Thorn seemed harmless at first, maybe even funny, but then when he started telling everypony things they didn’t want to hear, and what he’d done or tried to do to her when she spoke up and called him out…

This fellow didn’t seem to need any further encouraging. He picked the guitar up and tuned it. Applejack leaned in close and looked at the strings. They shone in the light and she recognized the color.

“He’s got silver strings on that guitar,” she said, thinking out loud. “I wonder why?”

“It’s kind of an old custom with some musicians,” Caramel said. She turned to look at him. He blushed under her direct gaze and he said, “It has a better sound to it than the usual kind of strings.”

“Whut kind ‘o sound?” Applejack asked, and then the stranger began to play. And when he did, she didn’t want to say anything more for fear that she might not hear all the music. Everypony else fell silent too. The song, whatever it was, went slow and gentle as a spring rain. It sounded to Applejack like something a stallion would play or sing to a mare he meant to court. She thought she might not be the only one to think that. Applejack caught Caramel giving her a longing look. She looked down, and told herself that she did not feel her cheeks reddening. She looked back at the stranger and saw how he smiled to see the way Caramel looked at her, and the way she’d reacted. Then he went into another song. This one was the kind of stomp your hooves and choose your partner song you did for barn dances. Before it ended near all of the ponies, Applejack and Big Mac and Caramel, were clapping their hooves against the floor for the joy of hearing it. Even Granny Smith clapped her hooves against the old wooden floor and showed a smile.

“I swear to nothing, Applejack, he does know how to pick that guitar,” she said, closing her eyes with a sigh. “That’s mighty like the kind of songs your grandpa loved listening to, when we were courting.” Sadness washed over her face and vanished.

Applejack felt an old twinge at her own last memories of her grandfather. Of a younger her standing under the full moon, looking up at the Mare in the Moon and asking, “Please, please, make mah grand-pappy stop hurting all the time. Even if ya got to take him away…” Applejack shook herself at the memory. Nopony in her family had said anything to her when they'd learned about the wish she'd made, they'd seen his suffering too, but it felt like a cold lump in her belly to remember it.

Meanwhile Granny turned to the stranger, “We didn’t ask for no payment for dinner, so I thank ye for the gift, whatever ye be.” She lowered her head with the slowness of the very old. The stranger nodded back to her gravely. Then he began to lower the guitar

“Wait, now!” Apple Bloom said. “Cain’t we hear some more?”

Applejack frowned. “Apple Bloom,” she said, “Now don’t go be getting greedy. We got to hear two good songs, and that’s plenty.”

“Yeah, but…” Apple Bloom looked first at her big sis and then at the stranger with that pleading look she could do so well. “Do ya know this one?” She closed her eyes and furrowed her brown in concentration and began to hum five notes. Applejack recognized it as the song her friend Fluttershy sang all the time, as the one she and her friends, the fellow bearers of the Elements, used just a few days ago in their summoning. The stranger looked at Apple Bloom in obvious surprise. He picked the notes out on the guitar strings before trying a few more. Apple Bloom looked delighted.

“He likes somethin’ I sang! Did ya see that, big sis? Wait’ll I tell Sweetie Belle tomorrow, she’ll be so durned jealous!”

“I bet she will, little sis,” Applejack said, but she watched the stranger with a new wariness and worry. How did he know that of all songs? She wondered,did we call him here from wherever he comes from? ‘Cause if so, then I’d better get him to th’ others first thing I can.

Applejack decided right then and there what she needed to do concerning this stranger tomorrow. She went over to her little sister and lowered her head to push her gently off towards the steps. “Okay, little sis. It’s way past your bedtime, an’ I think you had more’n enough fun for one day. You get on upstairs and get to bed. I’ll be sleepin’ down here tonight.” She looked at the stranger. “I reckon he will, too.”

“Awww…” Apple Bloom said, but she headed for the stairs with no further argument. She stopped long enough to wish everyone “G’night,” and then headed up. She really must be tired, Applejack thought. Granny Smith rose and slowly followed her, Big Mac keeping close behind. He glanced at the stranger and shot Applejack a wary look. She smiled at him. He went slowly up the stairs. They creaked under his weight. Caramel went to follow, but he stopped and gave Applejack a pleading look.

“Maybe I can stay down here tonight?” He looked down and blushed before saying more quietly, “You think it’ll be safe with, you know…” He gave a hopelessly obvious sidelong glance at the stranger.

“Ah’ll be fine,” Applejack reassured him, wondering if she ought to feel amused or insulted at Caramel’s actions. Which of them had faced down two mad gods, after all? Some lone stranger coming in from the Everfree was nothing in comparison. “You go on upstairs and keep an eye on Granny and Apple Bloom. She’s done enough wandering for one night.” Caramel looked like he wanted to protest. Ha gave her one last glance before joining everyone else upstairs.

Applejack took down the lamps and covered them, dimming their light. Then she went to the closet and pulled out a pair of pallets as well as some blankets. They seemed wide but a bit short for him. If he felt any shortcomings he didn’t show them. He took a bedroll from his pack and rolled it out on the pallet she gave him, took off his boots, got into the roll and dropped off almost instantly.

He must’ve slept in stranger places than this, Applejack thought as she laid herself down. She heard Winona go in under her pallet and curl up. With a final look at the stranger, she closed her eyes. I hope this goes better with him than thet other sidewinder, she sleepily thought as the day finally began catching up with her. Better remember to ask Twi iffen she still knows that speakin’ spell… Sure like to know where you’re from… A dreamless sleep took her.

* * *

Inside Sweet Apple Acres all lay peaceful and still. Five ponies and one human slept in their beds; the chickens roosted in their coop; and cows lay in the barn and the pigs snored in the pen.

And out along the edge of the property, where it ran up against the unexplored depths of the Everfree Forest, a pair of red-eyed, near-skeletal figures stood with the unnatural stillness of the walking dead.

“Are you sure it’s here?” One whispered to the other in a voice like leaves blowing over a grave.

“I am sure,” came the equally soft response. “It’s right here, in the same place as Ruby’s little friend who got away from us. Should we try and get him?”

“Not now,” came the answer. “For now we just watch. That’s what Thorn said. Just watch, and wait, and get ready to bring his book back. The book that will make us live again.”

“And if the other ponies interfere?”

“Then we do what we’ve always done. We make them part of our herd…”

Comments

[CoastalSarv]

Ooh shit! Yeah, that is also out in Everfree...

[Ardashir]

630589 Yes, and we're not done with them yet either. Stay tuned!

And I hope you enjoy the story, ans thanks for commenting.

[The Library]

I love the story! great job.
I love the part that the can't understand each other.
Great job once again. I will be faving this story and I will give it a thumb up

[Jordan179]

I really like your description of the Apples through John's eyes. Also a great piece of character depth in

“I swear to nothing, Applejack, he does know how to pick that guitar,” she said, closing her eyes with a sigh. “That’s mighty like the kind of songs your grandpa loved listening to, when we were courting.” Sadness washed over her face and vanished.

Applejack felt an old twinge at her own last memories of her grandfather. Of a younger her standing under the full moon, looking up at the Mare in the Moon and asking, “Please, please, make mah grand-pappy stop hurting all the time. Even if ya got to take him away…” Applejack shook herself at the memory. Nopony in her family had said anything to her when they'd learned about the wish she'd made, they'd seen his suffering too, but it felt like a cold lump in her belly to remember it.

which also serves to illustrate just how good John's music can be.

[Godiswithus3]

So a lot has happened by the time the story starts. Hmm

This sure was a good interaction between John and the Apples.