• Published 29th Dec 2012
  • 12,586 Views, 1,189 Comments

Mother of Invention - zaponator



Awake and alone, Applejack will find a way to survive.

  • ...
23
 1,189
 12,586

Welcome...

The sunlight within the oppressive jungle was dimmed a great deal by the canopy of green far overhead. As Applejack trekked her way through the undergrowth, she kept her eyes and ears open for any sign of much-needed drinking water. She knew that if she kept her focus firmly locked on her objective, she could hold off the thoughts threatening to invade her mind with fear and worry. Once she actually found water, and had a moment to really think over her situation... Well, she'd deal with that when she came to it.

The jungle was eerily quiet. She had expected a constant cacophony of bizarre animal noises to be present in a tropical rain forest. Instead she was treated to nearly complete silence, save for the occasional rustling sound that she assured herself was just the wind.

Through the ominous silence, and the even more ominous lack of silence whenever a bush or some tree leaves would rustle, she pressed on. The air in the thick rain forest was hot and humid. Applejack could feel it clinging to her coat, destroying any small amount of comfort she had possessed back on the beach. The farmpony was in good shape, there was no doubt about that, but the heavy jungle air would have made the going tough even if she was functioning at maximum capacity. Needless to say, in her dehydrated and recently-awoken state, she was left panting for breath in short order.

Even the trees seemed to have a malicious presence of their own, and it was beginning to wear on the earth pony as her steps became more and more sluggish with each passing minute. She couldn't see the sun's exact position through the forest ceiling, but it had to be nearing midday judging by the shafts of light that pierced straight down through gaps in the canopy coverage every so often. Since she had awoken on the beach sometime in the morning, this meant she had been trudging through the jungle for a couple of hours at least. She still hadn't spotted a single sign of drinkable water, but she wasn't one to give up. No matter how hopeless it seemed, she knew there had to be a stream or a spring somewhere. All she had to do was keep moving.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of marching through the dense plant life, she heard it. Just at the edge of perception, she heard what sounded almost like a faint trickling of water. Applejack stopped immediately, cocking her ears in the direction she'd heard it. For a minute all sound was drowned out by her overworking heart and lungs, but when she finally managed to quiet her panting for a moment, she heard it again.

There could be no doubt about it now, there was a stream nearby. Sighing heavily with relief, Applejack stumbled off in the direction of the heavenly sound. She knew that this was the most dangerous part of the search for water. Now that she had finally located her means of survival, her body was beginning to relax. The emergency reserves of energy she had been running off of were failing without the presence of an immediate emergency to drive her on. She pushed herself harder as the sound of running water grew in volume.

Just as she began to worry that she might collapse before reaching it, she broke through a wall of foliage and into a clear area. The trees cut off a few feet away from a stream on both sides, leaving Applejack just a few feet from glorious salvation with nothing between her and the crystal clear refreshment. The stream was tiny, easily small enough to step over without trouble. That didn't matter one bit to the parched farmer as she threw herself down to her belly in front of it, and commenced to drinking the clear, cold, life-sustaining liquid.

She coughed and sputtered after drinking too fast at first, but slowed down for the next several gulps. Once she had drank her fill, she scooted away from the edge of the stream and rolled onto her back with a contented sigh. Finally she allowed herself to relax. Her eyelids felt heavy, so she let them close as the soothing sound of the stream filled the air with a peaceful calmness. She had found a clean source of water. That was the first thing to do when lost... in... the wild...

Her eyes shot open wide, her pupils as small as pinpricks. The water had done wonders to clear her head, and she was only now fully grasping her situation. She was lost in an unknown location with no idea how she had gotten there, and no idea where 'there' was except that it was on the coast. The nearest coast to Ponyville was hundreds of miles away. How could she have been unconscious long enough to get that far? That was assuming she was even in Equestria, which seemed unlikely given the tropical environment.

Her very next thoughts turned to her family. What would become of the Acres? Big Mac could never run it on his own, Granny Smith was well past her farming years, and Apple Bloom... Oh Apple Bloom. Who was going to take care of her? Granny Smith would do her best, but she was a few apples short of a bushel in her old age. Big Mac was never cut out for raising a foal, even though Applejack was younger, she had always been the one to care for her older brother, not the other way around. In short, Applejack had always held the family together.

Now she was stuck here, split from her family who needed her. There was only one thing for it, she had to get back to Ponyville somehow. Applejack rolled off of her back and stood up, a fire of determination shining in her eyes. She would need to find her way to high ground to get her bearings. Geography had never been her strongest subject, but she did know that if she was in a tropical rain forest, that likely meant she was somewhere to the south of Equestria. Still, she wasn't about to go tramping off to the north without at least getting a view of the surrounding area from on high. If she was lucky, she might even spot a city or a town. From there it would be a simple matter of getting a letter to the princess and waiting for an airship to come get her.

These thoughts did a great deal to calm her down. Her family would still be worried of course, and that still tied her gut in a knot, but nothing could be done about that except get home as quickly as possible. Granny Smith could keep her brother and sister in line for a couple of days. By then Applejack would be sitting comfortably in front of the fireplace, telling them all about her crazy adventure.

She figured she should be more concerned about the fact that she woke up hundreds of miles away from home with no recollection leading up to that point. However, after being an Element of Harmony for two years, she was used to a little adventure. She had learned sometime between the changeling swarm, the mad-god of chaos, and the return of an empire gone for a thousand years not to worry about the 'how' or the 'why' and simply to focus on getting the job done.

The farmer couldn't shake her unease about the family being left without her, but she was still feeling fatigued. Applejack decided it wouldn't hurt to take a short nap to regain her strength before searching for mountains to climb. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of a single living creature in this Celestia-forsaken jungle, so she felt that she could close her eyes safely for a few minutes.

Walking over to a soft patch of grass about halfway between the treeline and the stream, she lay down on the comfortable turf, removed her hat, and placed it carefully on the ground next to her. Smiling at the thought that this whole mess would be sorted out in a couple days—and thinking up the scolding she would give Twilight if this turned out to be caused by a magical accident—she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Author's Note:

Edited by Pilate, because he's awesome and stuff.