Near the Tree

by Comma Typer

Golden Spur

The oblivious beast of a stallion munches on his pizza. Cheese looks as gooey as it can be, with the slight mint of herb and the sharp tang of tomatoes definitely flooding in.

Apple Bloom shakes her head, clears her mind from salivating distractions as she finally receives her seven-and-half-dollar pizza along with the chef’s flowing thanks. “Get it together, Apple Bloom! Big Mac is Big Mac no matter where he’s from, right?”

With her feet stomping and some nearby clock tower ticking the seconds of break time away, she gets herself moving. Her hands grip her pizza box firm, fingernails half-clawing their way through the flimsy cardboard. Her focus is a laser, zoomed in on the big red stallion now eating, now living right in front of her.

“Hiya! I’m Apple Bloom!”

She plants her box down on the table with a plop!, and her hand extends out to shake. Confusion sets in, both in her mind and in Big Mac’s muzzle, cheese dripping out of his wide and bulky mouth. How will he shake back?

There’s an idea. She takes the hoof, with all its pizza crust dust and whatever else those hooves must’ve stuck to walking on the ground like that, grabs it with all her might—up and down it goes, though it’s weird to not have any fingers grab her own hand back. Speaking of hooves, surely Rarity might bawl her eyes out at the very thought of shaking pony hooves and how uncouth everyone is, using the same appendages that transport them through dirt paths and grass fields to grab food, catching germs.

“Eeyup.”

He sounds just the same as ever. Nothing’s changed.

“So, heh, you’re definitely Big Mac, right?”

A little shrug happens. Clumsy, but she shoves a slice of pizza in her mouth, distracts herself with the taste of good food: piquant cheese of milky goodness, tasty vegetables to round out the saltiness.

As for Big Mac, he’s as if someone managed to cosplay one of the family horses as her brother. Oakley is a good and obedient horse, able to gallop and steeplechase, even won Applejack some gold medals back in junior rodeo, but to talk to him like he’s Big Mac himself is just crazy talk.

Still, he opens his mouth. “Eeyu—”

“So what’s your family like on the other side, ya know?” Apple Bloom’s grinning, raring to jump from her seat. More family, more of her brother, open up to her from the skies above. “You’ve got a farm over there too, right?”

A little sip of water is done on the side. “Eeyup.”

“And you… farm apples, right? Of course, you do; yer’ Big Mac, after all; cutie mark says it all. Um, then you make apple pie, apple cider, the works?”

“Yup. Actually…”

A tiny smile on his muzzle as he grabs something from his bags. Saddlebags, she remembers someone—somepony, surely Sunset—calling them.

Out of the bag appears a jar of jam, rainbow jam. Looks like an art project on the surface, but the look on the bulk-horse’s face—he can’t lie, as he declares straight-faced, “It’s zap apple jam.”

The jar’s popped open; he slathers the rainbow recipe on some leftover pizza crust.

“This… is this how apples are there?” she spills out as he continues to spread magic jam all over the dough. “H-hey, let me try!”

The crust is swiped, and she shovels it into her mouth, much to Big Mac’s chuckling. Down it goes, and her eyes open wide—the flavors of the rainbow, of something definitely apple, yet more. A different definition of sweet, of tart, her stomach both full and empty, like Apple 2.0. Equestrian produce at its finest, most certainly, with a popping swirl like rock candy that’s too small to feel the rough edges of; apple soda, yet more like cream, delectable golden fruited butter blessing her tongue.

“This is the best apple jam I’ve tasted! It’s… I don’t know! The best! I don’t know how we can even—“

She coughs, clears her throat. Swallows down the humility. “Well, nothing can beat our apple jam… but this has gotta be on the same level! We’re equals! Like, the same, and… and, like, how’s the farm there? It’s gotta be just like ours too! We’ve got a couple acres, enough to eat up like half a block, and—“

“’Bout five hundred acres.”

Another gulp, and it’s not just from the delicious jam and crust. “Five… hundred acres?! Five hundred acres… full of apples?!”

“Not all. Some carrots, some corn…”

But her fingers tap against each other. A farm that big, huge industrial farms where harvesters can cover entire football fields in half a minute, the stuff to feed an entire county, a quarter of the whole state—but without big tractors, with no factories littered around, “just… Earth pony magic. Like ya bring magic in the soil to make yer apples grow better? For the whole farm?”

“Eeyup.”

“Like… uh, no fertilizer? Ya just… grow ‘em… manually?”

“Eeyup.”

“Wow, yer just like a magic version of my brother! I mean, we’ve got fertilizer and that’s pretty much it. We used to have a tractor, but we sold it when we just planted more apples trees. Granny said we needed to—”

Ring!

“Oh wait! Hold your horses!”

And she takes her phone out.

---

He stares at the strange rectangular thing.

Millions of colors dance around in her wordlessly talking black box. Letters and scrolls would come home crying to their mamas, even his own written words from well over ten years ago. Poor young AJ; she once made it over to Manehattan, galloped and took the train ride there when she was a filly, and she’d written nothing ‘till she came home.

“Like, what do ya do there, Big Mac?”

“We, uh, farm there.”

“With Earth pony magic, right?

“Eeyup.”

Out of the bag, fortunately, he produces some photos of the family posing in hard, grimy work, where hooves are caked in dirt, calloused from honest, straightforward living. Bringing these was something Princess Twilight recommended, talking pieces to stir up conversation, if the fact that two worlds collided weren’t enough of an icebreaker. Grinding stones, simple machines, hay bales and plows: the whole works, with the bushels of apples to prove it. A moment at work, prouder than most, recorded in history: plowing fields, every day and all day, sweat under his brow worth a dozen medals.

“Man, seems like yer’ a lot like my bumpkin cousins in Misstiruppi! They’ve got… like, lots more land ta farm, and they’re just, I dunno, more down ta Earth. Getting close to nature… not like a hippy, but it’s more soil-y. Just livin’ there, and there’s not much of a town nearby. Just houses, ranches, and horses, and that’s that.”

Over the table, Apple Bloom’s pizza stays untouched, save for that one slice eaten at the start. Not many minutes remained, drained away by Apple Bloom’s never-ending curiosity. And now she decides to eat her pizza again.

---

Minutes to go until it’s back to cargo-carrying for Big Mac, hefting boxes and crates for a sunset extravaganza in the park later. There’s Rara, Applejack’s singer friend, wearing nothing but a simple shirt, nothing overproduced. Concert’s happening later tonight, with lights and speakers and smoke and steam machines from big futuristic cargo carriers, those trucks, all for other artists who weren’t as down-to-earth as her. He’s happy to oblige and carry, to come back home later tonight to good dinner with the rest of his family—

A simple stallion from the sticks, that’s what he is. Same for his Apple Bloom, the beloved sister he’s showered with love and care, the one that saw him as the best brother anyone could ever have, even after messing up a precious Sisterhooves Social in such ridiculous fashion.

But there’s this Apple Bloom, speedily tapping and chatting at her phone, wearing sophisticated clothes just like the Manehattanites, just like little AJ. None of the overalls or the rugged hats, nothing like the illustrations and pictures of human farmers Princess Twilight shared during a town council meeting when she got caught up excitedly explaining Earthling society to all of Ponyville. Even as Apple Bloom keeps asking about home, where he lives, what’s it like there to live in a village—

“Big Mac?”

That snaps him out of his spot. Her goofy filly smile has left the building.

“I know yer not exactly the talkative type, but… this doesn’t seem right. You’re quiet. Too quiet.”

At least she saw the photos he brought along. Good souvenirs they are, something to keep in a scrapbook, a family book. Photos tell a thousand words and all.

But the names. The whizzing names, fads, hashtags, consoles—city slang, city folk. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Too sophisticated with these iron towers looming around everywhere. Didn’t live in one of those towers—said so herself; her home’s apparently a ranch, too. But poor Applejack did come home from Manehattan to tell tales of how she was out of her league.

Ding!

Her black box rings a shrill bell.

---

A quick look at the alarm, and her heart skips.

Apple Bloom puts the phone away, eyes still hovering over Big Mac. Disappointment leaves her out to dry, crashing and burning.

“I… I saw Sweetie Belle on the way here, Big Mac, and she was…” Rarity and dear Sweets, sisters together, from different worlds yet dancing along seconds later. Scootaloo’s there too, wherever she is, and if Rainbow’s here, already strutting her stuff in the aerial show with loops and colored skies—

“What’s wrong?” asks the brother, brows creasing. “She hurt?”

She shakes her head too violently. “No, she’s not hurt! But…”

The real Rarity and Sweetie Belle can be spotted in the distance, lavish hats peddled to passers-by of all kinds. Stacks of banknotes are taken in, change facilitated by Sweetie Belle. When no one’s looking, they bump a fist and a hoof, laughing gaily, prim and proper, just like old times.

Her ear picks it up, an emcee’s muffled microphone voice. Whooshing overhead, smoke left behind, eyes to the sky to see the Wonderbolts in full glory, stopping right in the middle of the air before falling down in style. Rainbow smoke stands out like a sore thumb. If she strains her ears more, she may hear familiarly incessant screaming from the far-off audience.

Somewhere else, somewhen else, brother and sister chased each other, playing hide-and-seek across the orchard over fields of grass and under the shade of an apple tree, round and round until she’s finally It. Just like old times.

Ding!

She looks down. A text from Applejack.

AB, break’s over. Finish up your food.

Another gulp to keep the screen hidden from Big Mac’s curious eyes, keep him away from the time. “Like… you know Rarity’s here, and you jus’ saw Rainbow Dash too, right? I… I saw Rarity with Sweetie Belle, and they were just… good! Big Mac, don’t you get it?”

A laugh to finally get his attention, even now as he checks a little clock tower in the park, a couple pegasi taking selfies with human-made phones, posing by the hours and minutes on its face. The camera flashes, their photos are taken; other-worldly laughter stabs her heart.

“I just thought we’d… click from the start, you know?”

R-r-ring!

One more quick draw to answer the phone.

“Apple Bloom, where’re you now?”

She grips the table, half-stands up. “I’m… I’m at the, uh, pizza pony’s place! It’s around the corner, but I’ll be there in a jiffy!”

Ends the call there, kills off any line of questioning.

“I’m sorry, Big Mac, but I gotta go. I still have work at the family stall, b-but if you wanna come and visit, ya can’t miss it. You’d see all of us there… and sorry for keepin’ ya here fer’ too long.”

She sprints off, leaving him in the dust. Don’t look, don’t see him—

A second too late, realizes the pizza she’s left behind with only one slice eaten. Money wasted, and her stomach still cries for something more than just a handful of cheese and bread.

A quick buy from some snack stall will do. There’s the hotdog stand. A quick bite, she’ll be good. Give her money to the unknowing carrot-colored vendor pony and get her food now.

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Poor Mac's getting hit hard with the culture shock. And Apple Bloom isn't helping at all.