"Like Such a Thing Would Ever Affect the Applejack That I Look up To!"
“I swear that there's nothing in this world ya could ever hope to do right!” Granny Smith exclaimed as the final plank of wood fell from the newly 'constructed' shed. Applejack profusely sweated as she tried to collect the fallen planks of wood. “Why can't you keep your hooves steady when you're hammering like everypony else? That amount of tools you've dropped has cost me more than to keep a worker on for a week, and then ya go on to break everything you touch – you're as inept as your mother once was!”
The older green mare made a cross over her heart, before spinning around and striding away. “You should be grateful that she's not here to see the mare that you became."
Applejack let the planks of wood she had collected fall out from her grasp, not caring as the twisted nails cut against her hooves as they fell. She dropped to her rump and felt her eyes grow wet, only to feel the weight of others watching her.
The nearby Apple family and fellow workers on the field looked her way, drawing a collection of what had occurred just moments ago, before they burst into a fit of laughter. Not one to cause a scene, Applejack began to chuckle alongside them, though she kept her tears well hidden.
But when their laughter grew to a blaring pitch, she clenched her eyes and retreated further into herself – anything to get away from their horribly happy faces. It was at this moment that she understood the throes of Spike's life, the misery that would come when he accidentally screwed up a chore, and the humiliation of laughing at his best attempts.
He always had to laugh at himself because the girls were laughing at him. Spike always had the potential and the will to escape his miserable life of ineptitude, but it was because of her not caring even an iota to take him in and set him down the right path.
Applejack had unknowingly condemned him to the life of a fool, and her punishment for doing so was to live that same, horrible life.
“Why are you cowering for, Applejack?” A concerned voice asked her above the roar of laughter, its sheer familiar causing the orange mare to lift open her eyes and set them upon the scaly being standing before her. “It’s not like for you to take ponies being rude sitting down. The Applejack that I look up to would always stand against ponies acting like this."
Applejack blinked, sending some of the moisture flying from her eyes. “S-Spike? Is that...is that you?"
Spike shrugged his shoulders, standing just to the right of her, and at a height far taller than the baby dragon she had seen moments ago. “Sorta.”
“What are you doing here? Where have you been!?”
“Out and about, though none of that matters right now.” He kept his solemn gazed locked onto the laughing crowd, the latter almost unaware of his existence. “You’ve listened to me whine more than enough; It's about time I did the same for you."
Applejack watched him for a few moments longer, before letting her head hang downward.
“I don't deserve such treatment from you, Spike, not after how the girls and I treated you," she said, feeling her eyes sting with the familiar burn of tears. "Though now I suppose I understand why you wanted to help out on the farm so much. Ya just wanted to have a pair of hooves and eyes to guide you on how to work, and how to work well, and I should've been the one to guide you.
"Instead, the girls and I just laughed at you," she choked back a sob as shame coursed through her body. "I deserve to be treated the same way I let the world treat you."
Spike exhaled as he glanced an eye over his shoulder and down at her. She couldn't tell if he was going to berate her as the other had done, but she felt it would hurt more if it came from this Spike, as now she was no longer blind to her crimes.
“I've become more of a fool than you ever were.” Tears began to fall from her eyes in a steady stream, yet held a wobbly smile on her lips. “I lost what made me, me, all my abilities suddenly disappeared, and now I'm pretty much the laughing stock on the farm. I've become useless, and I deserve the laughter more than you ever did."
“Don’t feed yourself with such lies!” Spike finally spun around to face her, exposing himself completely to her trembling green eyes. Applejack saw the same drake that had left them only a day after, yet this one somehow felt different than the one in her memory. “There were never be a day when someone deserves to be laughed at just because they tried their best, especially not you, Applejack.”
“I deserve to be laughed at like this, Spike." She shook her head and felt it drop further. "Ever since I lost the thing that made me a hard worker..."
“Like such a thing would ever affect the Applejack that I look up to!" Spike said as he looked down on the mare, a grin plastered to his lips. “The Applejack I know is a hard worker regardless if the sun is up or down, is she's out on the farm or playing with friends, and especially whether she’s inept or not – begin a hard worker is a part of who she is! She'd never let others laugh at her because she lost some of her abilities, because the Applejack I know would work hard to regain them!"
Slowly, the laughter became distant.
“Just because you haven’t attained a skill,” Spike said as turned back to the fading crowd of ponies, “doesn’t mean you never will. Anyone can become competent at anything so long as they work hard and never stop learning – that there is always a path for us to walk down, and you're the one that introduced me to it."
Applejack blinked as she began to raise her head. The shame that had frozen her being was washed away by the warmth of his presence, and the black sky of her farm was blown away by golden light. She had let herself believe that she and Spike were fated to the despair of ineptitude, yet her hardworking imagine alone was enough to give Spike hope to aspire to a better life instead.
That image began to burn in the forefront of her mind as she slowly rose to her hooves. She stepped next to the drake, the two relishing in the oncoming breeze together.
The drake and earth pony stood together, enjoying the blissful silence of one another's company, before Applejack finally began to speak.
“Working hard to improve...never giving up even when the times get tough... ignoring everypony's laughter so you can do what ya believe to be is right..." Applejack wiped the last of her tears away, replacing her sadness with a grin – one akin to the one that the drake next to her wore. "I can’t believe I got wrapped up in such nonsense instead of doing what I believe in.”
“Aye.” Spike looked at the mare with eye alight. “Don't forget that I have a long path before me, one that I have to take in order to reach the greatness of you six – how am I ever supposed to reach the other side without your work ethics to abide by? I’m the lowly type of drake that needs that constant motivation – and you’re always the mare I look up to whenever I'm filled with dread and beyond tired."
Applejack looked over to him as well, her eyes alight with the happiness that they were now on the same eye-level – a detail she had missed those many months ago. “You should try looking up to yourself for a change, sugarcube.”
"But then I wouldn't have anything to look up to," he replied with a chuckle, before looking forward. Spike chuckled at her words, before looking forward. “Get going, Applejack. A fate like this one is beneath you.”
Applejack nodded her head, looked forward, and began to trot toward the brilliant portal of purple and green. She left the drake and the broken shed behind, and returned to reality.
Her eyes were no longer dim with despair.