For Forgiveness

by sarcastictrixie

Bad Morning

As the sun began to wake up, trickles of gold light spilled in from the crack of the door, and stumbled down from the sky light. The barn glowed in a gentle pink hue, contrasted by the bright yellow of the day lit straw. In the splendor of the morning, Trixie woke feeling less than beautiful. In fact, as soon as she brought herself up to her aching hooves, a horrible hacking almost knocked her back down, and a few small spatters of blood and phlegm landed on the hay. She knew this feeling; it was a chest infection. When her cough subsided, she moved toward a water trough in the stall, and lapped at the stagnant water. It wasn’t pleasant, but it soothed the burning of her throat.

As she made her way back to her bedding to have a brief lie down, she spotted some mice, hurrying and scurrying about the dried grass in the stall. Their beady eyes kept flashing towards the unicorn, wary of her presence. With the nasty snort, she made it clear she was worth being wary of. A brief glance around the structure confirmed to her that last night wasn’t just a dream – Applejack had really taken her in. Her mind was still a little fuzzy, and the lingering headache was making it hard to think. What was she even supposed to do now? Something caught her eye.

The blankets and pillow left in the wake of the farmer, who she didn’t realize had been here with her. Wriggling towards them, on her belly, she put hoof to fabric, and found that they were cold; Applejack had been out for a while. Reasonably, she assumed it was either to work the land, or to see her friends. Either way, Trixie was really lost for ideas on what she was meant to do. Leaving the barn seemed like a bad idea, given her physical condition, and everything she’d left in her wake when she was last here, but she could hardly spend her whole day sitting in this stall. She was in desperate need of a clean, her wounds in particular, and the sickness bothering at her lungs could do with some decent treatment.

Her stall gate was open anyway, but she noticed that the door to the barn was ajar. The temptation to have a look around outside got the best of her, and she moved on her tender legs to peer onto the farm land. Applejack had been bucking trees, but was now moving to pull the full cart towards the house. Rainbow Dash was floating around by her, allegedly helping out - if helping could be counted as eating one of the apples. Though the magician backed away into the barn again with urgency, it wasn’t left unnoticed by the farmer.
“Hold on out here for a sec’ Dash. I need to check on the heifer in the barn, she’s just recently got knocked up by one’a’tha prize bulls, and she needs regular checks before birthing, ya know? Cows ain’t good with birthing right.” There was something humorous about the analogy of Trixie being a cow, but she had to ignore that.
“Yuck. I’ll stay out here, sure.”

Briskly, Applejack made her way to the barn, and closed the door behind her. The blue furred pony was holding back a cough until the door closed, at which point she did choke a little bit. Her ears flicked with irritation, as though she remained skeptical of her rescuer. In spite of the coughing, she tried to regain her usual personality.
“You alright there, Sugarcube?” She patted on her back, trying to help her, but the gesture was met with an abrupt backing off.
Eventually, she caught her breath and swallowed hard, “Trixie doesn’t need your help! She’s fine!”
“All that wheezin’ and retchin’? I don’t think so hun.” She shook her head, but then seemed a little concerned, looking at her thighs.
“What?” Trixie snapped, “What are you doing?”
“Y’all’ve made a right mess of those legs’a yours. Go wait in your stall for a sec’, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Though she hesitated initially, she moved back into her stall, and lay on her blanket.

The rush that the orange pony was in seemed to worry Rainbow Dash, who swooped down to see her, following after. Her brow was creased, “What’s going on? You’re acting a bit more nervous than someone whose cow’s got morning sickness or something.”
“I’m sorry, Dash, but I gotta sort some things out. Is it alright if I come see ya in a bit?” She clambered up into her house, looking through cupboards for the first aid kit.
“I guess… But you’re acting really, really weird.”
“Thanks Sugarcube,” She looked relieved, “See ya in a bit!”
Sure, Rainbow left the house, but she took to the apple trees to hide; she had to know why her friend was being so strange.

With urgency, the blonde pony dashed back into the barn, and made her way towards Trixie, who was lying on her belly. Her eyes glanced up with an automatic aggressive gaze, and then she covered her face with her hooves. As much as she wanted to retain an aloof and haughty personality, she felt too under the weather for it to be worth it. Plus, Applejack wasn’t really reacting to it anymore, so the façade was fairly worthless. She was offered a bit of cough syrup, which she took with little fight, and stayed still, in place, on her blanket.

“It’s gonna sting,” Was the only thing said before the antiseptic was rubbed onto her flank. Without even a second of hesitation, Trixie yelped and stumbled up to her legs, panting hard. She lowered her head and glared.
“Don’t do that! Trixie doesn’t want your help!” The shock brought heavy coughs to her chest again, and she had to lie down, lungs exasperated by her sheer overreaction.
“I couldn’t care less if ya don’t want it, you have to get it,” Though tension rose in her tone, she tried to keep herself calm; getting angry wouldn’t help.
“Trixie will be fine,” Quite clearly, the unicorn had belly crawled backwards into a corner to avoid having the antiseptic on her wounds.
The anger restraint fell back quickly, “Y’all’re being real ungrateful for some pony who would’a been dead if I’d not taken her in!”
“Well maybe you should have just left me!” She stomped forward, snorting in her face, “It’s not like my death would have made a difference to anyone anyway!”

With that curt remark, she began her way out of the barn, ignoring Applejack’s shouts to come back. Trixie was hobbling while she trotted out, and it hurt like hell to move, but she wasn’t giving in and going back – she’d already lost face enough, this would just add insult to literal injury. When the farmer was hot on her tail, she tried her best to move faster, but as soon as she hit a slow canter, her wheezing breaths turned into a horrid coughing fit, forcing her to stop. The orange pony stopped too, but not quite because of Trixie’s current impairment.

A hoof thumped over and over on Trixie’s back until she retched, eyes watering from how badly the cough hurt her lungs. Between gasps, she was swallowing hard to soothe the torn sensation in her throat.
She had no time to recover though, as she was knocked back by those same blue hooves that helped her stop choking.
“What the hell are you doing back here?!”

Author's Note:

The old version of this chapter was only 600 words, and everyone was poorly written. Its now like 1200 words and everyone is written slightly better

Comments

[Frankie2]

Now, Applejack has to explain why she felt she had to lie to Rainbow. Though seeing Trixie the way she is, Rainbow shouldn't put up too much of a fuss. Rainbow is a prideful pony as well.

[sarcastictrixie]

8392028
I think it is going to put Applejack in a bit of a difficult situation because while Rainbow would be able to sympathise with why AJ took her in, she still lied to her
Hopefully getting the next chap done real soon, its just been real hot lately and its hard to concentrate haha

[Cheer]

Ooo. I'm really liking this rewrite. X3 very well done

[sarcastictrixie]

8425511
thank you! i've written half of the next chapter but havent got round to finishing yet!!

[RebelNarrator45]

This needs finishing!!! I really like it!!!