Applejack was watching apples fall, but she could no longer feel the dull thud of her hooves making contact with the tree trunks. All was breaths and sweat. She burned forward, each step a torturous exercise in repetition.
Row after row, she stripped the orchards of their fruit. It took multiple wagon trips to store up the barn with the bounty she was gradually harvesting. And yet—whenever she so much as glanced back at the heart of the ranch—the collected baskets looked incalculably fewer than her muscles had implied they would be.
Huffing, she tore the offensive image out of sight by keeping her eyes forward. Her vision locked on one tree at a time as she approached it, pivoted, and slammed her rear hooves at full force.
Thwack!
"Aaaugh!" Applejack cried out. She stumbled backwards in intense pain, grimacing hard. She looked down at her rear legs.
Blood trickled out of a fresh scrape just above her right fetlock. The sweat in her eyes must have blinded her, preventing her from noticing an errant branch with its pointy end aimed outward.
The blonde teenager sniffled. She looked behind her.
A wagon lay in the setting sun, half-empty.
Panting, she turned and looked at her leg again.
The cut was shallow. It would be wasting too much time to bandage it up.
So—limping—Applejack gathered the apples, proceeded to the other tree, steeled her lungs, and slammed her legs again.
WHACK!
"Mmmgnnh—ah!" the young mare yelped, eyes clinching shut. She shook, shuddered, and finally fought back the tears.
After a heavy sigh, she bent over, gathered the apples, and dropped them into the basket...
...before proceeding to the next tree, bracing herself for the pain, and bucking yet again.
"Mrmmmf—guh!"
Applejack's lower joints screamed. Nevertheless, she raised her body up as high as she could and threw a basket into the back of the wagon with her forelimbs.
Once finished, she slumped against a wooden wheel, panting for breath.
She stared at a lopside world shrouded in darkness. A halo of torchlight illuminated the cart, grass, and immediate tree trunks surrounding her.
And through her peripheral vision, she could still sense the unmistakable glint of dangling fruit.
Applejack sniffled.
Applejack whimpered.
Then...
...tossing her ponytail over her neck, she turned around... and hobbled back to her nightly task.
Applejack went too far forward.
She had gathered apples from an errant patch of trees at the base of a hill, several yards from where the wagon was parked. Now, in the hazy morning grayness, she found herself having to trot uphill in order to reach the cart.
She made it no more than five feet up the earthen incline before the weight of the basket overtook her.
"Grfff—rrrgh—augh!" She fell flat on her chest. Whump! Every joint and muscle screamed. The wounds in opposite fetlocks throbbed, and the nerves in between caught on fire.
Applejack bit her lip so hard it drew blood. She tensed her remaining limbs, pushed... pulled... and finally inched her way up the hill.
"Grnnngh... hrmmmghh... ffnnnghh..."
Applejack slithered... crawling on her belly like a lame pig. At some point, she brushed past several weeds crawling with aphids. Her skin itched and her mane was a frazzled mess, barely held within the red ribbon of her ponytail.
And it was at this point that Applejack stopped in place.
She panted and panted.
She gazed up the hill.
The wagon was miles away. The light of morning receded... turning gray and grayer... like polished granite.
Applejack seethed and seethed...
And soon the frown gave way to a limp expression as she let her muzzle drop to the earth.
And she cried.
She cried like she had never cried before. More than when a terrible blizzard had killed off half the livestock. More than during her short-lived vacation to Manehattan. More than when her parents had died. For this was worse... and it could only get worst. It could only...
"... ... ..." Applejack clenched her teeth. Her green eyes flashed open, and she snarled through the curtain of tears. "Rnnnngh!"
Her elbows shook... shivered... then turned hard as stone. She slowly raised herself up. Every nerve exploded. Every muscle screamed in agony.
But she got up... and she stepped forward... climbing the hilltop... approaching the wagon one thunderous hoofstep at a time.
She cried the entire way up.
She cried as she approached the next line of trees.
She cried as the bucking motions sent her joints popping and her brain flying nightmarishly through the stratosphere.
But slowly...
Orchard by orchard...
...she was getting the harvest done.