... I Wish You Were Here.

She sat there, looking into the sunset.

Not daring to breathe, not daring to hope.

It had been so long since she received any word, and it was far too long for there to be no visible sign of her.

Applejack had been doing this for five years now, every evening, like clockwork. Ever since the war started, she has sat on the edge of the farm after work, and waited.

She promised she would write, she Pinkie Promised she would. And she knew better then to break a Pinkie Promise, she should know better.

Three years since her last letter, which was forgivable, since things got nasty where she was stationed. The WBPS building was destroyed in the last major conflict: making it almost certain that her letters got destroyed, and that she couldn't send them for a while.

When the sun finally cast her last orange glow over the horizon with a furious flare, Applejack sighed in defeat, and turned to walk into the barn. There she found her desk, lamp still alight from the night before, and sat down before it.

She untied the net that had kept her hair in confinement, and breathed a loud sigh as it fell freely across her shoulders. She took out a piece of parchment, an envelope, and a pencil. She adjusted the lamp so she could see, and took the pencil in her mouth:

Dear Rainbow,
I read in the papers that you're finally driving back those cowardly ponies. Nice to know that you and your teammates are keeping us in the Heartland safe, and I thank you for that.
I also wanted to thank you again for those flowers you sent my brother, y'know I never knew you used have a thing going with him? Pity that didn't work out, but you know what they say about long-distance relationships. Plus, he likes Soarin, so he never held it against you.
Speaking of the little bugger, how is he? He still saving your life, or have you returned the favor, with a little extra after... if you know what I mean?
The papers say your section of the 'Bolts is heading into the thick of it sometime tonight. I honestly hope you knock their sorry plots to Tartarus! A little dark for me, I know. But when they brainwashed Braeburn, and got him killed, it done snapped a part of me in two.
I love you, Rainbow, you're like a sister to me. The girls and I all miss you terribly, sugarcube: Fluttershy's been reduced to tears over the past year, and I ain't been getting a whole lot of sleep for the last two. Twilight's trying to make sure the strategy works well with the other Princesses.
Is Starlight still providing ground support for your flight? She's the best mage on our side, so I hope everything's staying like it was.
I love you, Rainbow.
Your friend, Applejack.

She closed her eyes, sighed, and spat out the pencil. She folded the letter, and stuck it in the envelope: sealing it with a lick. She stood up, and winced as her hip sent a jolt of pain up her spine again.

"Damn shrapnel." She muttered. "If their first attack hadn't been an ambush on the farm, I'd be out there with her."

She still had one leg good enough to continue work, but the other had been injured by an attack just before the war. She limped over to the mailbox, and was about to put the letter inside when she noticed a shadow at her hooves. She looked up in time to see her favourite mailmare, descending from the skies.

"Hey, Derpy!" She called.

"Hi, AJ!" Derpy laughed as she reached the ground. "Another one for our local hero?"

"You betcha!" Applejack sighed. "I just hope this one gets to her."

Derpy lowered her head. "Sunflower's doing the best she can, but it's gruesome out there. She can't complete a round-trip flight without losing her lunch at least once: and that's only from the medic's tent! They have to get a whole other Pegasus to get mail to the front."

"I know, I know. It's just hard not hearing from her." Applejack groaned. Derpy lifted a hoof, and draped it over Applejack's shoulder: pulling her in for a tight hug.

"She'll come back to us, Applejack." She said supportively, taking the letter in her hoof. "She always will."

-=-=-=-=-=-

Applejack had finally gotten to sleep, after hours of tossing and turning, when there was a mighty thundering on her door. She shot up like a light, and ran down the stairs. She found that her brother had gotten there first, and he seemed to be frozen in place. Applejack brightened for a second, until she saw a single tear trickle gently down the backside of his jaw.

'No...'

She bolted to the door, caring not a flying Dutchman for the pain surging across her body, and was instantly petrified by the sight that greeted her:

There stood Derpy, on the verge of tears. She held a single envelope, and had left her mailbag behind. The envelope was sealed with an all-to-familiar crest: The Alicorn Insignia.

Applejack didn't even notice that she fell to her knees, she didn't hear herself scream in such an agony that it awoke ponies on the far side of town. She was broken, she wasn't even aware that both her brother and the mailmare had wrapped their forearms around her.

She only saw red.

She only felt cold.

She only knew sorrow.

She only heard the soothing, chalky voice of her best friend, in ghosts of memory and long-gone joy.

She went limp, and her vacant eyes stared darkly into the sunrise.

"I'm so sorry, Applejack." Derpy sobbed, joining her friend on the floor. The tears of three different ponies now slicked the floor, so much that the wood glowed in the moonlight.

"AJ!" She heard her brother say. "Look!"

Applejack lifted her eyes, and saw the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life: A rainbow. A brilliant rainbow was cast across the sky, connecting the sun to the moon with glory. An honor to her friend, a tribute to the pony closest to her. She knew the princesses heard, and there was now no way this war would be lost.

Applejack smiled darkly: "You messed with the wrong family..." She hissed.

Big Mac recoiled at the tone of her voice, for it was not any sound he had heard her make before.

This was pain.

This was hatred.

This was war.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Applejack sat once again at the desk, three days later. She glanced at the letter again, smiling with a slight hope lingering like a match that refused to die in the midst of a blizzard:

Miss Applejack
We regret to inform you that Flight Captain Rainbow Firearc Dash, and Vice-Captain Soarin Thunder, were reported to be Missing In Action after the battle of Dragon Barrens. They were last seen heading into the heat of the battle, armed with merely a small dagger, and a can opener. No word since.
General Spitfire

Missing in action, not dead. She might still be out there. Alive!

She picked the pencil up with her teeth one last time, and started writing:

Dear Rainbow:
I miss you with every beat of my heart
It burns me that we are miles apart
I refuse to believe your death is the truth
I know you're far stronger than any veteran youth
Days tick by with every second that passes
All the apples, the trees, the grasses
They're not as sweet, or as mighty, or as soft since you left
I know they can't kill you, it's an impossible theft
Just try to come home, don't do anything foolish
that old Golf Hitter's a coward, and awfully toolish
I know you could beat him, stallion-to-mare
But I'd advise you survive, come home, and take care
I love you, Rainbow. I hope that you know
That we're all waiting for you, back here with the crows
I know you'll come home, for you can't forget
The family that awaits you, please ease my regret.
Your friend forever, we're like sisters together.
Love: Applejack.

She folded the parchment, and set it in the packet. She set it in her pocket, sighed, and gave a determined look to the path outside.

After half an hour of painful walking, she reached the Postal Office. She stepped inside, hardly being gentle as she shoved the doors open with a crash.

Derpy looked up with a start when Applejack slammed the envelope onto her desk.

"Mail this, tonight, and tell those foals to hold it for her!" She demanded.

Derpy gave her a look of mixed sympathy, and determination: "Yes, ma'am!" She cried with a smile, taking the letter in her hoof, and bolting out the door.

Applejack smiled as she watched Derpy fly off faster than she ever had before, and chuckled to herself: "Hang in there, Rainbow."

-=-=-=-=-=-

She ran.

She ran like the wind, cringing and crying as the shrapnel shredded her nerves, and an even worse anguish stained her heart. Five weeks had gone by, and no positive word had come. Only negative results to the large-scale searches.

The warm summer breeze whipped across her face, and the sun itself seemed to beat down upon her with a vengeance. Even though others would call it a refreshing afternoon, she only felt the pain.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she reached the gateway to Sweet Apple Acres, threw her head back, and screamed in such despair and grief that the trees themselves shook in agony. She fell to her knees, crying so hard that she couldn't even breathe, and her eyes were growing puffy from all the tears spent in the last week.

She looked up to the barn, hoping to see her siblings coming out to--

'No...'

She saw a figure of a mare heading towards her, but this was not her sister. She blinked, twice, thrice, as the sun shone from behind the pony, and only a silhouette could be seen. Applejack wasn't sure why her heart was racing so.

The mare stood above her, before flaring one of her wings out behind her head: blocking out the sun. Applejack stared ahead in awe, and disbelief.

There, before her, stood a Cyan Pegasus mare, with a tattered prismatic mane flowing gently in the breeze. A giant scar decorated the height of the left side of her face, and she wore an patch over her left eye. A single, bloody tear fell from her right eye as she smiled warmly down upon her closest friend.

"R-... Rai-... R-Rainbow?" Applejack sobbed.

"I got your poem." Rainbow choked, producing the stained parchment.

Applejack couldn't hold back anymore: she pounced. She wrapped Rainbow in the tightest bear-hug she'd ever given, and sobbed. But for the first time in years, they were tears of pure joy.

Rainbow immediately returned the embrace, and mirrored her friend's actions flawlessly.

"D-d-don't you EVER scare me like that again, Rainbow Dash!" Applejack practically screamed, hugging Rainbow even tighter.

"I won't be able to, AJ." Rainbow said sweetly.

Applejack drew her head back, and looked the former Captain in the eye: "What do you mean?"

Rainbow smiled, and nodded to her right wing. Or rather, her lack of a right wing.

Applejack gasped in horror. "Rainbow! What-?!"

"I was buried under some rubble, after narrowly dodging an enemy mage." She patted a hoof to her missing eye. "And I do mean narrowly!"

"Well, Ah'm sorry, but Ah'm just glad you're alive!" Applejack giggled, pulling back in for another embrace.

Rainbow chuckled to herself. "I don't care about the wing, AJ." She sighed, "I'm just happy to be home..."

The two sat there for hours: unspeaking, unmoving. Just locked in a mutual embrace that was all the medicine either could ever need.

So Far Away...

by Amethyst_Dawn

... I Wish You Were Here.