Applejack had just gotten home when she felt the first waves of drowsiness. She’d spent hours at Twilight’s, figuring out what supplies they would need before they arrived in the north, arranging for ponies to keep track of their obligations while they were gone, and generally enjoying a rare chance to catch up.
Sleep pulled at her, but it wasn’t time yet. Dinner would be on soon--it was Apple Bloom’s turn to cook, and she’d been getting better and better. She wanted to experience it before she left for Henosia in the morning.
She wondered, as she stepped through the front door and smelled Bloom’s cooking and heard her rough voice singing, what the others were doing. Sometimes she wondered about others, and how they might be different. As a filly she had wondered what their houses must be like all the time, what their dinners were like and their beds were like, how the views from their bedroom windows differed.
Would Twilight Sparkle eat dinner like a normal pony, or would she wait for it to be served a course at a time? Would Spike come back down from his new home on the mountain every night to sup at her table? Would she eat the same simple fare that she had enjoyed as a librarian and student, or would only the finer sorts of things satisfy a Princess?
Mac lounged on the couch.
“How was it after I left?” Applejack asked him.
He grunted. “Foolishness.”
She smirked. “Well, looks like I got lucky, didn’t I?”
“You did. What’s the news?”
“Adventure,” Applejack said, and smiled wider. “I mean, if you can believe it. Looks like Twilight’s map is callin’ me abroad.”
“It’s been awhile. A year or so?”
“Don’t remember the last time,” she said. “But there it goes. Gonna head out in the mornin’, sometime after breakfast.”
“How long?” he asked, stretching.
She shrugged, and her smile faded. “I’m really not sure, Mac. Can’t say for sure. Until the job is done, I suspect.”
“So, for the duration?” he said.
She almost laughed. It had been an old joke between them that any indeterminable time would become forever if you weren’t careful, that the only answer that mattered was whether or not it would end. Joke was the wrong word. It wasn’t very funny. It was just something you thought about out loud when you were far too young to be worried about keeping a roof over your head in the country.
“Yeah, looks like. At least two weeks, I think. Maybe more. I hope not more. At that rate, I’ll miss our prime harvesting time.”
“And leave it to me.”
“Which, of course, I can’t do. Can’t trust somebody as slow as Big Ole Macintosh to handle everything on his lonesome.”
He rolled his eyes. “I make good time. If we need to, I’ll hire a couple of townsponies to take up the slack if I need to, but if there was ever a time for you to be gone... “
“It’d be now, yeah,” Applejack said and made a “scooch” sort of gesture with her front hoof. Mac laughed and moved over and she flopped down on the couch. “I mean, things are just goin’ well and the farm’s got those fancy machines now. Hardly need me around.”
Mac snorted and she saw him close his eyes and settle into the couch. “Nah.”
“You don’t think?”
“Nah, we need you. We need somepony who can whip the hooves into gear and keep our spirits up. That sorta thing.”
“I s’pose.”
Dinner was nice. Apple Bloom was smug as she served it, and her older siblings praised her.
Afterwards, Applejack sat with her on the porch on two matching rocking chairs. Macintosh had turned in for the night, and whatever would come tomorrow, Applejack looked forward to the taste of cream soda and the nice nightly breeze blowing along the porch.
“Dinner was good,” she said as Apple Bloom opened her bottle.
“I know, you said it ‘bout a dozen times.”
Applejack chuckled. “Jus’ proud of you, that’s all. How was school? Talkin’ about the farm occupied all the visitin’ earlier.”
Bloom shrugged and offered her glass bottle. Applejack put hers forward and they made a soft clink as they connected.
“It was good,” she said. “I like my new school. We were learnin’ about how to write essays today.”
Applejack took a sip and rocked her chair. “Were you? How’s that comin’?”
“It’s kinda hard. You can’t write like you talk.”
“That you can’t, not all the time. Y’know, Mac was always good at stuff like that. He’d be glad to help you if you get stuck. That an’ science.”
“What were you good at?” Bloom asked, as she too started to rock.
This was about as Apple as it got, Applejack reflected. She and Mac had sat out with rocking chairs and cream soda since they were Bloom’s age. Her parents and she daresay their parents did the same. There was an unbroken chain of relaxation from then to now, a celebration of the quiet hour after dinner, after work, when nothing needed to be done just yet. It made her feel warm.
“Physical Education,” she said flatly, and Bloom giggled. “Public Speakin’ too, actually. I really liked history when I was your age.”
“History is hard,” Bloom whined. “Too much stuff to memorize.”
“Yeah, I remember those lists of dates. Drove me up a wall at first. But you’ll handle it.”
They lapsed back into silence for a bit.
The sun was almost gone now. The time between her and departure was a thin sliver or life, the thinnest you could slice off of the whole. Tomorrow, breakfast and then… and then Elsewhere, she guessed. They’d at least stopover in the Empire first. Beyond that was far too many question marks for her to be too eager.
And beneath it all, beyond it all, there was… Dreaming. The other one. The Applejack in the clutches of those horrible beasts. She shuddered. No answers had been forthcoming. Twilight had written to a few professionals but none had responded yet. This trip would delay her answer even further. How long would this go on? How long would she have to endure night after night of living beside this other-Her in a world she recognized only as a twisted and heartbreaking version of her own?
She did not know what to feel about any of it. The other Applejack was different. She was… she was not an unbroken whole, and living in her head made one uneasy.
“You alright? Thinkin’ ‘bout your trip?”
Applejack blinked and looked over at Bloom.
“Who told you? I was about to.”
“Nah, I could hear you when I was makin’ dinner.”
Applejack shrugged. “Fair. Don’t know how long I’ll be gone. You’ll be alright, you an’ Mac?” She pointed her bottle at her younger sister. “He can take care of himself but sometimes he gets kinda lonely. Make sure you keep his spirits up.”
“Do my best, AJ, swear it.”
“‘S what I’d expect,” Applejack replied and leaned back in her chair. “It’s what I’d do.”