//------------------------------// // A Stubborn Apple // Story: The Fillysitter // by Green Gale //------------------------------// Apples. There was nothing else around you than an infinity juicy apples reflecting the moonlight. But what would you expect from a place called Sweet Apple Acres? Even the family that runs the farm was named Apple, and if there’s one thing you’ve learned well since you came to Equestria it’s that, for ponies, names are much more than a label. At the end of the dirt road you walked, stood a red house that had seen better days. You took your workbook out of your pocket and made sure it was the right address. You climbed up the creaky staircase at the entrance and knocked the wooden door. Knock! Knock! In five seconds a strong, red-maned stallion opened the door to greet you. But when he saw you, he stood staring at you agape. This has happened to you so many times that you were used to it already. “Hi, you must be Mr. Apple, I’m here to take care of the little… Applejack, right?” you said. “Y-yes… Just wait here a moment.” The stallion came back into the house bearing a face that looked like he had seen a bugbear. A second later, you heard a mare yell. “And’s still outside!?” You could hear the sound of a set of hooves running towards you. Through the door came a light-brown pony with fluffy, caramel mane and tail with some simple jewels decorating her complexion. “Please, ‘scuse my husband… What was yer name again, dear?” “Everypony here just call me Human,” you answered with a smile. “I beg you to apologize my husband. He ain’t used seein’ any other creature than a pony. I’m Mrs. Apple. Please, come in.” She invited you to sit in the couch. The fire in the fireplace warmed the house with a gentle, family warmth. Although the walls needed a coat of paint, the house was in a good shape; decorated with some sunflowers. “Are we rally leaving our Applejack with…?” said Mr. Apple as his wife passed by his side. “You have nothing to worry about. I’m highly qualified to take care of your little one, but if you need it, here I have a seal of fidelity from Princess Celestia.” You showed Mr. Apple a golden badge shaped like Princess Celestia’s Cutie Mark. “All my friends have told me Human was the best fillysitter in all of Equestria.” Mrs. Apple came out of the kitchen with a glass of apple juice that you couldn’t refuse. “We’ll be back in a few hours with Mac and your mother, stop worryin’.” “I promise that Applejack will be in perfect company,” you said professionally. “The problem is,” said Mrs. Apple, “Applejack’s a little bit of a cold, so she shouldn’t be out of her bed.” “I will not take my eyes off her.” You drank the last of the juice and climbed the stairs accompanied by Mrs. Apple. She opened the door of Applejack’s bedroom, letting you see a tiny, orange filly with a messy blonde mane. She was standing on her bed trying to catch an apple with a lasso. Her eyes got caught in you, trying to find what you were. Her face, decorated with a few freckles, was a bit reddened by the fever. Her mother took her lasso out of her mouth and put her in bed. “Applejack, you’re sick. You have to rest.” The little filly struggled against her mother trying to escape, claiming that she was healed already, but her mother didn’t stop until Applejack was wrapped up in her bed with a dozen pillows around her. “To make sure nothin’ happens to you, I hired the best fillysitter of Equestria to take care of you.” “This tall one?” A smile decorated her face. “Howdy, I’m Applejack. Who are you?” “I’m the one who will take care of you until your parents return.” You approached the filly and put your hand on her forehead to feel her temperature. There was nothing to worry about. “This is how yer kind says ‘hi’?” asked Applejack. You couldn’t avoid to giggle. “Something like that.” Mrs. Apple took you downstairs as she explained you where to find anything you could need in the house and what to do in case of vampire fruit bat emergency. Her husband was waiting for her next to the taxi that had come to get them. When driver was about to start trotting, Mrs. Apple jumped down her sit and went to give Applejack a kiss. She came back, and just when she jumped on the taxi, she jumped down again and went to see if Applejack was well wrapped. You saw her coming and going eight more times as you waited in front of the door. When she finally decided to leave, she woke up her husband, who had fallen asleep in the taxi, and they set off. At the moment you closed the house’s door, you heard the howling of a wolf, then you realized how close you were to the dreadful Everfree Forest. Quick as a Wonderbolt, you locked every single door and every single window in the house, even the one in the attic. No wolf would eat you during your working hours. Speaking of work, it was time to take a look at the little cowgirl. You went to the kitchen for a glass of water for Applejack and went up the stairs to her bedroom. You came in and almost dropped the glass of water. It was empty. “Applejack!?” you called immediately. Nopony answered. “Are you in the bathroom?” You ran to the bathroom and knocked the door. “Are you there? Applejack!” Again, no answer. Drops of sweat formed on your forehead. Then, you heard a noise outside. You looked out the window to see the little Applejack pulling a wagon six times her size to the trees. Your heart went to your throat. The filly was outside, sick, at night, and near the Everfree Forest! In less than a blink, you descended the stairs and rushed toward her. “Applejack! What in Equestria are you doing!?” You caught Applejack out of guard and she jumped out of fright into a bucket next to a tree. She poked her head out and frowned at you. “What in tarnation is wrong with you scarin’ me like that!?” You put your hands on your waist. “No, what’s wrong with you? You are sick! You’re supposed to be sleeping in your room.” “I can’t leave until I’ve filled mah fee.” “Fee? What fee?” Applejack went to the wagon and picked up a paper. It had a drawing of four ponies that looked like she, her parents and a red colt. Below them was a sort of graph of days and apples. “See now? We have ta meet the fee to generate apple profit.” “Apple profit?” you asked. No matter how much you looked at her doodles, you couldn’t find any sense. There wasn’t any pattern or anything that could help you decipher it. Applejack picked up a crayon from the wagon and drew an apple underneath the doodle that looked like her. She showed it to you again. “One apple, see? One apple from a group of eight apples sold at two bits equals profit if the apple is juicy. Focus on the profit, that’s the important here. And I haven’t picked any apple since last week, which means that if I don’t go to work, there will be no profit. And without profit, we can’t fix the barn!” You gave the graph another confused look. “Aren’t you too young to be involved in finances?” “No, I ‘m not.” Applejack sat and showed you her front hooves. “I’m these years old, ya know? And now I have to go back to work.” “I see…” you said with an eyebrow up. “You want some help with those apples.” Applejack looked at you like if you had broken her favorite toy. She snatched her graph from your hands. “Help!? I don’t need any help, now shoo!” After shooing you, Applejack came back to the tree. You watched how she bucked the trees with her tiny hooves. Around five apples fell with each buck, which was amazing compared to a human. But you couldn’t just leave her outside with hungry wolves around. You could try to force her to go to sleep, but when you saw her face, you realized that she wouldn’t leave without fulfilling her fee. And something you learned well since you came to Equestria was that the ponies can be as stubborn as a mule. No offense to the mule community, of course. Against such stubbornness, you couldn’t do more than join her cause. You came back to the house for a glass of water and offered it to Applejack to keep her hydrated. “Water? I don’t need no water, I’m fine.” She bucked a tree so strong that she left it without apples. You gulped when you noticed how destructive those hooves were. “Very well then, don’t drink it, but I’ll be back again every ten seconds to offer you water until you drink it. But I’m sure that a finance genius like you will know how much valuable time would be wasted if you didn’t drink it already.” Applejack rubbed her chin as she stared at you. “I reckon you have a point there.” She drank all the water in three sips and went back to work. You took the glass back to the kitchen with a smile on your face: the bond was born. When you returned to Applejack’s side, you sat next to a tree to watch her work. No matter how many times you asked, she never accepted your help. How would you explain her parents how those apples were in the barn? You could be honest, or maybe sprinkle a little the true, after all, they sure know their daughter’s temperament. The howl of a wolf triggered your alarms. You looked around, but everything was fine. Just in case, you took the lamp and came closer to Applejack with the excuse that she would see better. The wagon was filled with baskets of apples and it was time to take them to the barn. To prevent the little one from making so much effort, you offered to do it. Applejack answered with a smile. “Fine, I’ll take care of the rest.” She ran to other tree. You could notice her panting and sweating. With all the strength of your soul, you grabbed the wagon and started to pull it. Your face turned red and the damn wagon barely moved five inches. The road to the barn seemed eternal as you did your best to avoid tripping in the dark. At last, after what felt like a hour of torture, you put the wagon in the barn, and when you were about to take a leap of happiness, you remembered what was coming now: unload the apples. Four, five, six, you lost the account of how many times you jumped down the wagon with a basket of apples in your arms. Once the wagon was empty, you came back with Applejack, who was sitting on the floor, panting. The poor thing must be tired. “Here’s the wagon ready for more, pardner,” you said as you walked toward her, trying to copy her accent. As you approached her, you saw how dull her green eyes were. Her face was very red and she couldn’t stop panting. Your hand went to her forehead like if it had life of its own. She was boiling! Her little face was covered in hot sweat while her heart seemed like it was going to escape from her chest. “Applejack, you have a high fever!” You picked her up and she started struggling. “Forget about the fever. I’m just at five baskets to finish.” Applejack exhausted what little strength she had left struggling with you and surrendered in your arms. You ran as fast as your feet let you to her room and put her in her bed. You went to the kitchen and returned with a bucket with cold water and a washcloth. “Ah! It’s cold.” “What’s wrong, you can harvest more than a thousand apples but can’t stand a little cold?” Applejack giggled a little and stood still. When the washcloth warmed up, you cooled it again and put it on her forehead, gently. Applejack’s breathing calmed. Around ten minutes, the filly fell asleep. Her fever had already gone. You made sure her window was closed and you left the room with care not to wake her up. Poor thing, working herself to fatigue and still wasn’t able to finish. You looked at the clock and saw that you have some time left... As the best of the fillysitters it was your job to make sure everypony you care was happy. It was time to do some manual work. You left the house lamp, in hand, and went to the half-harvested trees that Applejack was unable to finish. “Five baskets...” you said to yourself before gulping. You approached the tree and kicked it with all your strength, but the tree didn’t even flinch, in fact, if it could, it would have laughed. You had no choice but to use the ladder you saw inside the barn to harvest the apples. You came back to take revenge on the tree with the ladder in your hands. Since it was a pony-sized ladder, you didn’t reach the top of the tree, but you could grab the apples without problem. You grabbed the bigger apple you could spot in the tree and threw it to the basket. As you grabbed the apples, you started thinking about how different this night was being from the one you have imagined it would be, but that’s the beauty of your work here in Equestria: the foals of Equestria are adventures on four-legs. With the last apple of the fourteenth tree, you filled the fifth basket. You went down the ladder and spotted a big and juicy apple. The light of the moon reflected on its red-and-orange peel. You stomach begged you to give it to it, but you decided that there was somepony who would enjoy it more than you. After the titanic task of taking the wagon to the barn and unloading the baskets, you made sure to close the barn properly and returned to the house, crawling all the way. You collapsed on the coach to recover strength to climb up the stairs. After twenty minutes of well earned rest, you went to Applejack’s room to find her sound asleep — her temperature was normal. You didn’t have the courage to wake her up, because it escaped from your mouth just when you went d’aaaaw after seeing her asleep. You took your workbook out of your pocket and pulled out a page. Get well! You put the apple and the note on the bedside table and left the room. You came back to the couch to wait for the Apples. After half an hour, you heard a cart slow down in front of the house. Applejack’s parents came into the house accompanied by a green, elder pony, and a red colt that looked like Mr. Apple about twenty years younger. As a professional, you told them everything that had happened, not without mentioning that if there was something they should be proud of, it was their little daughter. Mrs. Apple almost fainted as she heard you story, but she was just as worried about you as she was about Applejack; she didn’t think you had what it takes to hold Applejack’s horses. Although, you had the feeling that if she’d not been sick, you would have had to survive a night of rodeo. The family paid you for a job well done. You said goodbye to them and left the house, taking a last breath of the apple’s sweet scent. The image of yourself between the sheets of your bed was the only thing in your fainted mind. Your walk back home through the dark streets of Ponyville was accompanied by the multicolored smiles of the villagers. Once in the peace of your home, you went straight to bed without even going through the bathroom. There will be time in the morning. The only thing you were going to do was sleep with the idea that you had helped a filly to achieve her fee. At the next morning, neither the rooster singing nor the impetuous conversations of the ponies were able to get you out of bed. It was your stomach, however, who force you out with a roar that sounded like an opera in its prime. After a good breakfast and a bath, you put the comfy bathrobe Princess Celestia gave you and went to pick up the newspaper. When you opened the door, you found that there was no newspaper, but a big and juicy apple in which you could see yourself reflected. You grabbed it and felt something slip between your fingers. A note written with an orange crayon fell to the ground. Thank you!