//------------------------------// // Ch. 6 - Somepony that I Used to Know // Story: Legacies of Friendship // by PonIver //------------------------------// Now and then I think of when we were together Like when you said you felt so happy You could die Told myself that you were right for me But felt so lonely in your company But that was love And it’s an ache I still remember… - Gotye *** Six years ago… ***         It all had felt like a dream up until now. A fairytale. Nopony gets to be this happy, except in books and legends passed down by the generations. It was everything she ever wanted. The pieces fell into place so elegantly, and she felt so lucky that the picture they painted included her.         Something wasn’t the same though. There was a layer of dust clouding things, and it all seemed to turn towards some sort of nightmare. She was lost in a labyrinth where every choice and turn she made led to the same inevitable end. Confused. Lost. Forsaken.         Alone.         Applejack had locked herself in the bathroom. She had no reason to do so. She was the only one in the house after all, but Celestia forbid that somepony find her in her weakest hour. Every breath she took seemed heavy and pained. She looked no different than after a long day’s work in the fields, but this was not the case. Her exhaustion was the result of another day spent in self-pity and tears.         She looked in the mirror, hardly recognizing the stranger staring back at her. She silently asked what she had done to herself, and why this had to happen to her. She was scared, and all she wanted was the one pony who could make her feel better. At the same time, that was what she feared most of all right now. She knew that hiding would get her nowhere, but it was the closest thing to safety she could find right now.         She kept telling herself the same thing over and over again. ‘This is all Gran’s fault,’ echoed the voice in her head. Denial was getting her nowhere. Granny Smith had passed several months ago. Applejack knew the nagging voice inside her head wasn’t that of her elder, but her own creation instead. She had been haunted for months by what she thought for sure were the wishes and last requests of her grandmare, but it was just her subconscious harassing her, using Granny Smith’s voice to tug at Applejack’s heart.         Somewhere, there was a part of Applejack that knew this the entire time. Her grandmare was a stern, wise pony, but she would have never said such hurtful things to Applejack. Applejack was simply beating herself up emotionally. Perhaps it was simply because of her grandmare’s passing, or it could have been her resistance to give Granny Smith full disclosure before she went to sleep for the last time. Applejack continued to stare into the reflection, browsing the options for an answer that would provide no solace. Thoughts and accusations flew through her mind at a mile a minute. She thought she wasn’t normal; that she didn’t deserve love.         ‘Love?’ It was all she ever wanted. Apples, sunshine, love. It all seemed so simple to her, but somewhere it had all gone horribly wrong. She knew how lucky she was to have been born with all three. Sweet Apple Acres seemed to have been built to make her happy. She had found solace in the rewards of hard work, family, and community. It had been everything to her for so long, but one day it stopped being enough. Ponies came from miles around to admire the fruits of her labor, but that didn’t fill her void. Applejack would find herself distracted while bucking the expanse of trees, her eyes fixated on the hills leading into town. She had kept hoping that the day would come when somepony came over those hills to see her, and not her work.         Applejack’s hoof was shaking as she turned the faucet, releasing a steady of flow of cold water into the porcelain bowl beneath her. She pulled her face towards the bowl and splashed cold water onto the flushed skin of her face. She returned her gaze to the reflection in the mirror, and without her trademark hat, she looked as naked and unrecognizable as she felt inside. It was impossible to discern which of the droplets in her reflection were made of sweat, and which were made of cold water that had failed to wash away the pain. Her eyes tracked down towards the puddle forming in the sink. A distorted reflection of herself stared back at her, disturbed by ripples emanating from the constant flow of the faucet. The image in the sink captured the Applejack that she had as of late come to recognize as her true self, and the sight infuriated her. She pounded her hooves into the liquid mirror, in a futile attempt to destroy the intruder. The water did little to slow her punches from the collision against the porcelain, and after a few punches she fell backwards against the wall. Her body slowly slid down until her flank rested against the cold floor. She looked at her hooves, the orange fur tinted red with blood, colors of the fire that raged inside her.         Applejack wasn’t sure how to feel when she finally found the love she had been searching for. She had wanted to buck herself and see if she would wake up from some sort of dream. For her, love felt like a thick blanket on a cold winter night. It was a hot swallow of cider that spread from her throat to every inch of her thick hide. It made her feel weak and stupid, and she couldn’t care less. From that point on, it seemed like every day was the first morning of spring. Life was full of color, and the sun seemed to shine just for her. It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard about. It was better, because it was happening to her.         It was Granny Smith’s declining health that changed all that, and that wasn’t her fault. Nopony can fault another for growing old and frail, but watching this happen made Applejack question her motives and her reason for being. All the meaning she had found in life suddenly seemed petty to her. She told herself it wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t changing. Granny wasn’t getting better, and with each breath she inched towards a light unseen.         Applejack was broken when her family laid Granny to rest. It was a small procession, and as the hours passed, the numbers dwindled. Big Mac had been the first of the family to leave the proceedings, with Fluttershy in tow. He had been solemn the entire day, and quiet, even by his standards. He set his wheat sprig atop the stone monument and hugged his youngest sibling before leaving. He only stopped to look at Applejack for a moment, the bond between the two requiring no words or actions to communicate the sorrow and sympathy they conveyed for each other. His legs seemed to have trouble holding up his frame as he wandered off to someplace that was anywhere but there. Apple Bloom fared no better. She held a hoof to the monument, and the cold stone sapped her strength. Her sobbing could be heard for miles around, and she would have laid there next to the monument forever if Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hadn’t carried her off towards home.         Applejack remained there a while longer, her love close at her side. At that moment though, Applejack felt like the pony next to her was miles away. She was broken. Her entire body shook and she couldn’t gather a single thought together. Her life felt void and null. She felt like she had let her grandmare down. She felt that her failure to tell her was the greatest mistake of her life.         And then, she felt she had to make it up to her.         Applejack began to descend into a darkness that consumed her. She was possessed by selfish thoughts, and was unsure what she could do to remedy them. She thought about what Granny Smith had wanted for her. The only answers she kept finding led her back to the farm. For several weeks, she had found herself wide awake before morning. She would climb to the top of the barn and watch the changing of the guard in the sky. As the light emerged to reveal just how expansive the family land was, she wondered what the future held for the farm. She knew that one day, she would be like her grandmare, and there wasn’t anything that could change that. She became scared. She had dedicated her life to this farm, just as her grandmare did before her. Applejack thought about what would happen to the farm once she was gone, and the uncertainty consumed her every thought. Apple Bloom’s calling was sure to take her away from the farm, and it was unknown if it would ever lead her back. As for Big Mac, as happy as she was to see him head over hooves, she feared the unlikelihood of Fluttershy being able to bear offspring that could handle the strength and dedication the farm required.         As she lay on the bathroom floor, Applejack wondered how she could possibly have been so foolish. She had made a mistake. She had misjudged all her feelings, and her honesty was getting the best of her. She pulled herself up and over the edge of the bathtub, and turned on the shower to try and wash away the blood on her hooves as well as the regret that loomed over her. Her long mane draped around her frame as it grew damp and hung heavy on her. The blood and sweat rinsed away with ease, but as her hooves graced her abdomen, her body became overcome with the shaking and twitching of her muscles and she collapsed.         ‘It was a mistake. I know that now, so why must you remind me?’         Life and time had refused to halt after Granny Smith’s passing, and as Applejack tried to catch up with her work, her love and her emotions, she grew apart from those around her. All she lived for at that time was her fear of a bleak future for Sweet Apple Acres. All she knew for certain was if she let that happen, then she would have truly failed her grandmare. Her love was far away, distant not just from Applejack pushing her away, but separated by distance as well. Applejack hated waiting for her love to return, even though it had done nothing to quell her pain thus far.         Applejack had wandered away from the farm for a while, and that was when it happened. She didn’t know the pegasus in the slightest, but even as he hovered, he could tell that Applejack seemed lower to the ground than the other earth ponies. By now, Applejack could barely remember what he looked like, but the clouded memory still haunted her as she stood under the water trying to scrub it away. That nagging voice inside her had told her to go for it, and she foolishly gave in. As the pain rocked through her body, she could feel how out of place her body felt. Applejack had always been toned by her hard work, but as her hoof graced her abdomen, she felt supple and weak. It was as if all her guilt and emotions had manifested themselves into a tumor that festered within her, pulling her apart and feeding off her.         That was why she had sequestered herself in the bathroom in the first place. The guilt had reached its apex, and she knew today was when her world was going to descend deeper than she could imagine. She was thinking clearly again for the first time in months, but that didn’t change the fact that she was now being forced to live with her mistakes and indiscretions.         As Applejack shut off the shower, she could hear the front door to the farmhouse open, and the soft sound of the hoofsteps could only belong to one pony. Applejack’s heart sank even lower as the moment she feared quickly approached. She took a final, prolonged look at her reflection. She wondered if she could just keep up the charade a little longer. The truth was too hard for her to face, but it was going to come out today whether she was ready or not. She had never looked so frail in all her life. She felt like the slightest breeze could shatter every bone in her body, and at this point she wouldn’t care if that happened.         There was a rapping against the door, and a voice she had heard a thousand times prior inquired if Applejack was inside. She nervously told her love she’d be out in a minute, barely remembering to welcome her beloved back home from their journey. Applejack made a feeble attempt at conversation as she readied herself to face her fears. She asked about the event that had called her love away for the last few weeks. She heard a response, but wasn’t listening at all, offering back pathetic ‘yeas’ and ‘nays’ whenever she thought she should.         Applejack could hear the hoofsteps go back downstairs, and still she stood in the bathroom contemplating her attack plan. She didn’t have the slightest clue how to approach this. It had been scaring her for weeks, but in all that time she hadn’t thought of a single way to approach the situation. She bandaged her injured hooves and slowed her breathing to a crawl.         The seconds moved like hours as Applejack opened the door and made her way downstairs. Each step sent stinging pain up her legs, as the still-fresh wounds on her hooves winced from the pressure of her weight. The pain resounded throughout her body, but Applejack could barely notice. By this point, pain was all she knew, and she had become numb to it.         At the bottom of the stairs, Applejack could make out bits and pieces of her lover peeking out from the outline of the couch. Applejack came around the back of the couch towards the empty side and set herself down next to the object of her affection. She laid there silent for as long as she could, trying to enjoy what little peace she could have next to the pony before she ruined everything.         The other pony sorted through stacks of mail that had arrived during the sabbatical. The pony took little notice to the farm pony that was lying across the couch, as they had hundreds of times before, but before long the pony noticed the bandages around Applejacks hooves. The mail fell to the floor as Applejack’s love grabbed one of the bandaged hooves and asked what had transpired and the state of Applejack’s wound.         Applejack pulled her hoof towards her and out of her love’s grasp. She didn’t feel the pain, but felt too guilty to be worthy of her lover’s touch. As Applejack faced the pony, she could see a look of concern on their face, and Applejack quickly turned her face away from their gaze. Those eyes. She was unworthy of being looked on by those eyes. This was supposed to be the pony Applejack would spend the rest of her life with, and she had thrown it all away.         The pony opposite Applejack became worried, and demanded to know what was bothering Applejack. Applejack was normally so happy to see her love return home after these long trips, and her behavior was more than unusual, even though Applejack had acted strange ever since Granny Smith’s death.         The words left Applejack’s mouth without hesitation. She couldn’t even look at the pony as she told the truth, or at least as close as she could come. She didn’t ‘think’ she was pregnant, she knew full well a foal was gestating inside her. Everything grew silent as she said those words, and she waited for the inevitable. Outside, the birds stopped singing, the flow of the rivers grew silent, and the breeze stilled itself. The only sound Applejack could hear was inside her head saying, ‘This is it.’         For the first time in weeks, Applejack felt pain again. There was no numbness present as the hoof connected with the side of her face. The smack of hoof on flesh echoed around the house. The pony across Applejack exerted heavy breaths, their heaving chest barely able to contain all the anger felt in that moment. Applejack slowly pulled one of her injured hooves to where the slap had connected. She tasted salt and iron; tears and blood. She said nothing. She didn’t retaliate. She welcomed the hatred that she felt she deserved.         As Applejack turned to face her love, she caught a glimpse of flank galloping out the door. The door slammed shut and a frame on the fireplace mantle came crashing down with a harsh shatter, obscuring the captured image of a time when they could tell each other anything.         Just like that, she was scorned. Isolated. Abandoned.         Alone.         Except for the sound of a heartbeat that wasn’t her own. ***         Within the farmhouse, the shelves near the fireplace were lined with scrapbooks. In this household, family was everything, and Applejack was raised to learn that a family is built not on the whole of its members, but on the memories they build together. She had taken it upon herself years ago to catalog the journeys of her life, lest they be lost to the sands of time. At the time she had compiled them, Applejack wasn’t sure the purpose they would hold, but it seemed a good way to pass the time during the downtime of the long winters in Ponyville.         Dozens of scrapbooks had been started and completed, and many more started and unfinished. These shelves were a testament to the farmer’s short and difficult journey through life. Applejack approached a shelf and pulled a book down. The tales in the books ranged from adventures and parties to greetings and goodbyes. There were books that catalogued the various harvests of Sweet Apple Acres going back twenty years. Some told the stories of the elements, as could only be told by the element of honesty. There was one that held copies of Applejack’s correspondences with Celestia during her youth. Another held pictures of Winter Wrap-Ups and Running of the Leaves from past and present.         The book in Applejack’s hooves was not like those scrapbooks. None of the books on the shelves stood out in any particular fashion. They all were wrapped in the same backing, and none of them varied in size by a noticeable amount. The only way to notice this book was to look at it as it stood on the shelf next to all the other books. Applejack had made many scrapbooks over the years, but most had sat on the shelf, never being called upon by anypony to be browsed or reviewed. A thick layer of dust covered many of the older projects in the collection. The book Applejack pulled down was pristine. It was older than many of the books in the collection, but the many times she had perused it prevented it from gaining any sense of age, although some of the edges had been worn down from Applejacks occasional haphazardness.         This book was different. It had called to her many nights before, and she had always answered. The younger Applejack that stared back at her in the photos looked like to a stranger to her. She was in every single photo in the book, and she looked so happy. In most of the photos, it seemed that Applejack took no heed for the camera pointed at her, instead having her eyes fixated on the pony next to her. Tears welled up in Applejack’s eyes as she recalled each and every memory that lay imprisoned within the pages of the book. She held a hoof to her mouth to muffle her cries, embarrassed that she might wake Twilight or the fillies sleeping upstairs.         The layout of the book was awkward, and as she browsed the pages the pictures grew faded with age. The ponies in the pictures grew younger on each page, but still looked at each other with the same longing in each other’s eyes. A desire that burned strong from the beginning. Only in one photo could the duo be seen locked in embrace. Even though it was off-center and poorly lit, the lens had captured the pair entranced with their lips locked and hooves wrapped around each other. The true subjects of the photo smiled in the center unaware of the passion emanating from the nearby lovers, and almost anypony looking at the photo would notice the detail in the background and laugh it off as the drunken antics of ponies at a party, but it was so much more than what the photograph revealed. It was that moment that sparked a fire which to this day burned inside Applejack, stronger than the fire that illuminated the photograph on the page.         A soft, tired voice came from the top of the stairs. “Auntie A.J.? Why are you still awake?”         Applejack slammed the book shut and tried to hide it against her side. She fumbled as she spoke, “Apple Bushel? What in the hay are yah’ doin’ out of bed lil’ filly?”         Apple Bushel stumbled towards Applejack, still half asleep. “I had a nightmare. I jus’ came down for a glass of water.”         Applejack welled up with emotion as she looked into the emerald eyes of the filly. There were dusty scrapbooks on the shelves of another filly that looked just the same at one time, except for the wings that sprouted from Bushel’s hide. It was those eyes that caught Applejack’s attention though. Applejack didn’t realize she was speaking aloud as she said, “Of all ah have to give yah’, yah’ had to get mah’ eyes.”         Still sleepy, the filly didn’t take notice of what Applejack had said. “What was that, Auntie A.J.?” she said as she yawned.         “Nothin’ sugah’cube. Let’s get you that water.” The two went to the kitchen, and returned with glasses in tow to lie next to the dwindling fire.         Applejack had left the book lying on stones in front of the hearth, and Apple Bushel took notice of the detail. “What’s this, Auntie A.J.?” she said as she tried to take a peek at the book.         Applejack swiped the book from the young pegasus before she could get a good look at it. “Just one of mah’ scrapbooks.” She placed the book back in its place on the shelf, her hoof gently caressing her hoofwriting along the spine that read ‘Rarity & Me’. She lay down next to Apple Bushel as she tried to explain. “Ah was just thinking about somepony ah used tah’ know.”         “Like Twilight?”         “No sugah’cube. Not like Twilight,” Applejack said with a faint smile.         “Then what do you mean?” the filly said, her voice a mix of confusion and exhaustion.         Applejack thought for a moment about a way to say it to her, but gave up quickly. “Ah’ll tell yah’ when you’re older.”         The fire uttered its last breath and the room became draped with darkness, accented by the illumination of the moon. Apple Bushel was too tired to complain about Applejack’s lack of an answer and scooted closer to her, resting her head against Applejack’s side. “Auntie A.J.?” she forced through a final yawn.         “Yeah?”         “I love you.”         Applejack wrapped a hoof around the small pegasus as the two shut their eyes to sleep. “Ah love you too, Lil’ Bushel.”