Living Mark of Courage

by Moowell

Apple Ghost

"This isn't exactly your brightest idea, and you've had some pretty dim ideas. Raritan already didn't like you, but then you admitted to lying to her Ma for an entire day! Why are you going back?"

"Because it's the right thing to do. Ah wanna apologize for tricking Miss Applejack."

Epona trotted back toward the gate. Nopony was around, so she went through and shut it behind her. She could hear voice coming from inside as she walked up to the house.

"Sad part is she was comin' from this direction," said one of the Apples as she peeked through a lit window. The voice as Mister Belmont's. Raritan, Baldwin, and the foals were all sitting around a table, eating their supper. "There was a story in her eyes that Ah'm sure ya'll can help clear up for me, but ya'll reminded me Ah've got somethin' to do first. Excuse me." She ducked down as he slid back his chair and slowly walked toward a different room. She heard a few knocks. "Ma, it's Belmont. Ah'm comin' in." A door opened, then shut.

For a few moments, all was silent except for the clink of silverware against dinner plates. This seemed to be as good a time as any to do what she came for, so Epona slowly trotted up to the door. She was just about to knock when heard a loud bang and some plates rattling. Complete silence.

"Crabby, Alkmene, why don't ya'll go play outside for a bit?" Epona quickly donned her feather and jumped onto the roof of the porch as she heard a quick shuffling of hooves toward the door. The light came on and the door flew open beneath her, then two small figures rushed into the field.

"Tani, ya can't be losing your head in front of the foals like that."

"Don't talk ta me right now. Ah'm plottin' a murder."

"Don't ya think that's a bit much?"

"Tartaros' gates, no! Thinkin' 'bout that damn devil right now just-- EERGH!!" Epona jumped at the sound of breaking porcelain. "It makes me wanna kill somethin'! Nopony messes with Ma like that an' gets away with it!"

"I understand your sentiments, but ya can't just go and kill her. She's a filly."

"That don't mean nothin'! Filly's kin die like any other pony!" Her eyes shrank to pinpricks. "Ah'll skin 'er alive! Ah'll cut 'er flesh into tiny pieces an' feed it ta the pigs! Ah'll crush 'er bones inta chicken feed! An' when they're all done digestin' 'er, an' she ain't nothin' but pig an' chicken shit, Ah'll scrape 'er off the ground, throw 'er in a pile an' burn 'er 'cause she ain't even fit fer fertilizer!"

Epona gulped and slowly backed up the roof away from the window.

"Well, so much for apologizing. Any other bright ideas?" A step later, her hoof missed the house and she slipped and fell into some bushes below. "Nicely done."

"Shush, you. Ah've gotta get outta here!" Epona was just about to run when she heard a different set of voices coming from the side window. Curiosity got the best of her, and she found herself next to the wall under the window sill.

"Had Ah known ya'll were this into jewelry, Ah'dve bought ya a necklace decades ago."

"Don't give me those horseapples. You know I'm not interested in some fancy shinies." Epona hung her head. Miss Fluttershy said Honesty belonged to Miss Applejack, but-- "This isn't just any piece of jewelry, Belmont. You remember the stories I told about the Last Day?"

"Wait, are ya'll sayin' that necklace is..."

"That's right, but there's something even more important than that. I lost something else that day, something far more precious to me than an old necklace." Epona caught her breath. She had a feeling she knew, but she hoped that it wasn't true.

"Your sister." Her heart sank. Miss Applejack must hate her even more than Raritan does for what she did today.

"Belmont, what if Raritan's right? What if Epona really is Apple Bloom's ghost?"

"Ah dunno... The filly Ah met seemed pretty real to me."

"Apple Bloom is dead, but Epona had some of her memories. What if Raritan's right, and she really is my sister's ghost? What if the reason she doesn't remember everything is because she's been lost for so long?"

"That's a bit far fetched, don't ya think?"

"She pulled your cart, fully loaded with the entire dwarf grove's apples. She'd have to be at least as strong as you to do that! Or, if she's a ghost, she used her power to help her with the load. Spirits can move real objects, you know."

Epona's thoughts began to churn. "Apple Bloom's ghost..."

"Please don't tell me you're thinking about doing what I think you're thinking about doing."

"Wisp, Raritan wants to kill me, so Ah can't be seen around here again. But Ah still wanna make it up to Miss Applejack for tricking her. This could be mah chance!"

"So instead of tricking them into thinking you're Apple Bloom..." Wisp took on the shape of a pony. "...You're going to trick them into thinking you're Apple Bloom's ghost?" The pony's back legs merged into a small trail of smoke.

Epona shrugged. "Ah'm just gonna help out around the farm a little bit. As long as they think it's a ghost helping them, Ah'll know Ah haven't been caught. Besides, Ah'd rather be a ghost that helps a farm than a monster that kills."

Wisp formed a wide grin. "I love the logic of foals! When do we start?"

"Tomorrow."

*****

Just as the first stars began to appear, before the moon rose into the morning sky, Epona made her way to Sweet Apple Acres. She snuck past the gate and went to look at the schedule posted on the barn door. Each member of the family was listed with a number of tasks for the day, except Belmont. Baldwin was to work in the D block of the orchard for the morning, then the C block after lunch. Raritan's job for the day was to sell the dwarf apples in the marketplace. Crabby and Alkmene were going to tend to the animals, then help Applejack indoors. After lunch, they were free to do what they wanted.

"It looks like the safest one is working in the orchard. Only one pony to worry about, many places to hide, and lots of room to run if you have to."

"Hold on, Wisp. Every time we rushed into things without thinking, something bad happened. First, Ah gotta learn how things are done so Ah can figure out the best way to help."

Wisp raised a newly formed eyebrow. "We? I don't remember rushing into anything since I've been with you."

"No, not you. Me and... and..." Epona thought. She never spent time with anypony besides Mirror Child and Ivory, but even she was with them, they never did anything together. Who had she been talking about? "Huh. Well, Ah wanna take things slow anyways. At least for today."

A light appeared from the dining room just as the moon began to peek over the horizon, signalling Epona it was time to hide. She stuck her feather in her ear, jumped onto the barn and watched the house. A few minutes later, the entire family walked outside. Belmont walked toward the gate carrying his saddlebags as Applejack waved goodbye, and the rest of them came over to the barn and looked at the schedule before parting ways.

"So, who are you going to 'study' first?" Wisp whispered.

"Raritan," she whispered back. "It's too dangerous to go inside, and animals don't always stay quiet. Especially if they don't know ya. Baldwin's probably gonna do the same thing over and over so Ah can watch him any time. The only thing Raritan's gotta do before she leaves for the market is prepare. Ah'll learn that, then go watch Baldwin later."

Epona noted the general direction Baldwin was going, then followed Raritan to the back of the barn. The mare hooked herself up to a cart, then pulled it out to the front and opened the barn doors with a loud creak. Just inside was a green and white tent with a large red apple in the center to attract attention. There were two square poles beside it which Raritan fitted into the tent, then placed the whole assembly onto the cart. She placed two buckets of apples onto the cart, then closed the barn. Finally, she hooked herself back to the cart and left the Acres.

"That doesn't seem too hard, except that Ah'll have to open the barn without being heard. Remind me to get some oil or something to fix that before Ah try it. Now, time to find the D block."

*****

Applejack was in the kitchen when she heard the door open. "Who's that? I didn't ring the lunch bell!"

"Baldwin, Ma," he replied as he closed the door behind him. "Got any water?"

"Are you already done out there?"

"Not yet. Ah've started on the C block, but Ah got a little heated in the moonlight." Applejack turned and looked him over.

"Harumph! You aren't even sweaty, you slacker!" she scoffed playfully. "Back when I was your age, we had a little thing called 'The Sun' beating down on us whenever we worked. You think you're hot now? Hah! Go back a century and work the summertime!"

Baldwin chuckled then turned to the colt at Applejack's side. "Crabby, would ya fetch me some water?"

"A'right!" Crabby started, but Applejack stopped him and whispered in his ear. They exchanged a pair of devilish grins and glanced at Baldwin, then Crabby ran to the fridge and grabbed an ice tray. No, two ice trays while Applejack filled a pot with water in the sink.

"What are ya'll up to?" Baldwin asked with a leer. Applejack dumped both trays into the pot.

"You said you were heated, so we're gonna help you cool off. Get'im, Crabby!" The little colt grabbed the pot and charged the stallion, sloshing water everywhere.

"What?! No! Aah!" Baldwin danced around the able in an attempt to avoid being completely soaked while Applejack chuckled and Alkmene giggled at the spectacle. Crabby wielded his weapon with mirth, doing his best to keep hold of the pot as he tried not to laugh too hard. Finally, the colt leapt onto a chair and over the table and released his payload all over Baldwin. "Crabby! NOOOOOO!" The stallion couldn't help but grin as he dramatically fell to his knees and let Crabby pounce him and dump the rest of the pot on him.

"Way to go, Crabby! You got him!" Applejack cheered. She hoofed a glass of water to Alkmene and sent the filly to Baldwin.

"Phew! I'm not hot anymore! Brr!" He accepted the glass from Alkmene and drank. "Ah, that was good." A towel smacked him in the face as he set the glass down.

"Alright, now dry off, you big foal," the old mare said with a smile. "You look very frazzled."

Baldwin scrubbed himself down with the towel, then gave it to Crabby. "Might wanna clean this up before somepony slips, alright?" The little colt nodded and went to work on the floor as he went for the door.

"Hold it right there, Baldwin. The moon's just about high enough for lunch, so you may as well stay here. Would you mind helping to set the table?"

An hour and one full belly later, he returned to the orchard. When he arrived, he stopped dead in his tracks. There, sitting on the path before him, were fifty buckets filled with apples. And standing proudly behind those buckets was the C block, a field of barren apple trees.

*****

For a week, Baldwin and Raritan found their jobs being mysteriously completed while they were distracted by something else. Baldwin hadn't told the family about his experiences in the orchard until Raritan brought up that her cart was being prepared before she made it outside. The old mare had simply smiled and said, "Maybe there's a ghost on our property." Crabby and Alkmene liked the idea of a friendly ghost in the Acres, but Baldwin and Raritan didn't buy it. They thought Applejack was playing a practical joke on them, but when she and the foals stayed asleep and the cart still appeared, they conspired to discover the truth.

The very next day, Baldwin and Raritan started working together. Epona watched and waited for opportunities to sneak in and do a little work, but with at least one family member always there, none ever came. So that afternoon, she turned her attention toward Crabby and Alkmene. She never really saw what they did once they stopped helping Miss Applejack since she had only been helping the adults.

After lunch, the two foals rushed into the orchard. She followed them as closely as she could until they came to a small clearing. In the center was a large dead tree. Its branches held a burnt and decayed building. There was something about it that captivated all of her attention, but she couldn't place what. She felt something trickling down her face. When she lifted a hoof and touched it, she found a small drop of water resting there. When she looked back up at the building, a wash of bitter sadness swept over her.

Epona wiped her eyes and tried her best to control her raging emotions. It was just an old building. She had seen other old, burned buildings before. So why did this one hurt so much? Also, she need to stop crying soon, or somepony would hear her. She fought to control her breath until it finally stabilized.

She tried to distract herself by watching the foals. Crabby and Alkmene had climbed inside without a care in world. The pair looked out the window and yelled at an imaginary pirate captain before Alkmene started shouting something about cannons. Every time she would put her hooves in her ears, Crabby would jump to make sound effects.

All of a sudden, Crabby fell though the floor. Alkmene whirled back and looked down at him, then screamed. He wasn't moving, and a charred wooden spike was sticking out of his now backward foreleg. She climbed out of the tree as quickly as she could and picked him up to carry him back home, but she couldn't move very quickly under his weight, and he was bleeding badly.

(F), (D)~, (A), (F), (D)~, (A)

Several things happened in the seconds that followed. First she felt something lift her and Crabby off the ground. The next thing was the rush of air blasting her face as she watched herself move forward at speeds only Pegasi could dream of reaching. She tried looking down at the creature carrying her, but a burst of extra speed forced her head back up. Before she knew it, she saw the house. Then she found herself standing on the porch, wide-eyed and wild-maned, with Crabby still unconscious on her back.

Suddenly, somepony let out a blood-curdling scream behind her, catching her by surprise and making her cringe, but when she turned to see who, nopony was there...

As Applejack, Baldwin and Raritan rushed toward the filly and her brother, a pair of orange eyes and a small black cloud watched from the roof.

*****

"It's finally done. Nopony's gonna to get hurt here anymore. " Epona stood back and looked at the newly rebuilt tree-house. It had taken her three days to complete, even with the help of some new items she had found in her inventory over the course of her time at the acres. The first day, she smashed the walls down with a hammer covered in bone and tore the floors out of the tree from the ground with the help of an extending claw.

On the second day, she gathered materials from around the Acres while wearing a mask shaped like a rock. Wisp had said it would make her 'not quite invisible, but definitely unnoticeable,' and he was right. Applejack never saw her, even in broad moonlight.

Day three, she rebuilt it from the floor up. With new nails, new wood, and a longer, sharper sword to cut them with, she soon had a refurbished tree-house, complete with a door, windows with sills and shutters, a set of stairs for safe climbing, a strong roof to keep out the weather, and a fenced patio surrounding the whole thing. Still, it felt incomplete, but she couldn't understand why. It looked exactly like she remembered and had everything a tree-house needed.

...Like she remembered? How could she know a place she had never been? Yet like so many things about the Acres, the memories were there. She did know this place and she knew it well, like she had been here not just once or twice, but many times in her life. Yes, she used to come here often with... With...

"Epona, you're crying again. Are you alright?"

*****

Applejack sat and rocked in her chair, letting the evening pass by. It was quiet this time of day. Good for reflecting on the blessings life gave. Crabby had come home that morning in a cast. The doctors said he was a lucky colt. He had gotten to the hospital in time to prevent infections in the wound, and a clean break meant he should make a full recovery within a couple months.

"Thank you for saving Crabby, Apple Bloom," she sighed with a contented smile, recalling Alkmene's story.

"Miss Applejack..." said the soft voice of a filly. The old mare looked over to see Epona appear next to her. Her eyes were downcast, puffy and bloodshot.

"Land sakes, filly. You look worse than a sheep with the mange. What's wrong?"

Epona sniffed and looked up at her. "...Who were Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle?"

Comments

[Max Caulfield]

Such sad.
Much cry.
10/10
So melancholy.

[GMZ_Casper]

Dun, dun, duuun...heh, sorry, but I felt that it was needed here. It seems that 'Epona' has finally made a major step of self-discovery, though the discovery brought along some sadness with it. Poor filly, the whole thing must have too much for her. At least this will be good in a long run...still, poor girl...

[Telly Vision]

Now I just feel bad.

Also song of time called it, even if it's the backwards version I called it.

[zZ Sky Ninja Zz]

3701723 will it have an oot kind of ending??

[Moowell]

3704643
Still searching for spoilers, I see

I haven't decided yet because time travel is different between these two 'verses.

In MLP, time is fixed. When pieces of the future overlap with the past, they do so in such a way that nothing will have changed between those points, as seen in 'It's About Time'.

The LoZ series deals with time in several different ways. 1) In Skyward Sword you take a seed, plant it in the past, and when you return to the present, there is a tree there. After that point, it's as if the tree had always been there to everyone but Link. 2) In Oracle of Ages, the past and present travel parallel to each other, with singular events in the past affecting the same things in the present. For example, the Maku Tree realizes that something is happening to her in the past just before she disappears. 3) In OoT, Link's adventure effectively splits time in two, creating two completely different futures: one for Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess, and one for Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.

So yea, I'm probably not gonna figure this one out until the story gets closer to that point. Maybe not even then.

[zZ Sky Ninja Zz]

3704884 one more, i would like to see apple bloom/epona get her memories back and sent back to her own time again

[Night_Moon60606]

3704884 im surprised the Bloom didnt use the Song of Healing...

[Moowell]

3705706
The Song of Healing that the Ocarina knows isn't exactly a song meant for physical healing, per se. It's more a way to... you know... end suffering, if you catch my drift.

[squall_wave]

3704884 well i think a oot split timeline would be nice also i think that normal rules for time travel of mlp fim dont apply since here we have 2 ancient artifacts in conjuntion the elements of harmony and the ocarina of time also this is getting better and better good luck

[Night_Moon60606]

3705968 didnt play much of the Zelda series, in particular the newer titles...

[Moowell]

3706338
Spirit Tracks has its own Song of Healing which does in fact heal wounds (albeit only once per dungeon run), but the Ocarina never played that song, and so couldn't teach it. If Epona had played the Ocarina's version, Alkmene wouldn't be holding her brother, but her brother's face.