Applejack struggled up the side of the canyon, teeth gritted and sweat dripping from her brow as her hooves found purchase on the small outcroppings or clefts in the rock wall. The orange pony continued to climb the vertical wall towards the large rock she saw jutting out of the side about halfway up. Not thinking about anything but climbing until she was able to make it to that small checkpoint and rest for a bit, Applejack willed her body on. Just a little more effort and she’d be able to relax, and effort was practically her middle name. And as that stray thought made its way into her head she couldn’t help but think-
“Wait, no, honesty is my middle na-”. Applejack stopped in mid-sentence as a rock she was using as a hold suddenly broke free from the canyon wall, leaving her stuck just barely by her back legs and spinning her forelegs around to get her balance back and keep herself from falling backwards. “Woah woah woah!”
Finally she caught herself and pressed her body back to the canyon wall. Taking a deep breath and stopping for a second to gather her wits. “Woo-wee, that was a close one.” But she knew she couldn’t stop for long, already her back legs were trembling from being stuck on the minuscule ledge she was on, she’d have to get back to moving to that big rock. It wasn’t too far away now.
“Just one hoof at a time, Applejack.” She told herself and began climbing again.
With more focus she made quick progress, coming up right below the rock and starting to shimmy around it, making sure her hat didn’t get knocked off on accident. That’d be a real trip. Make it up halfway and then having to go all the way back down just cause she dropped her hat. She bit her lip and tried to banish any thoughts like that, not keeping her mind on the climb almost made her fall off right before this. It was trouble getting on top of this darn rock though, the walls on the sides of it were too smooth and she couldn’t see any good places to hold on to. She might just have to brace her back legs and try to hook herself over it and pull herself up, but she wasn’t sure if she had enough strength left for that.
Nothing to do but to do it, she thought. Bracing herself against the cliff face she reached up with one hoof, stretching as much as she could to get it over the lip of the rock. With that one hoof up there she started to pull the rest of her body up and over. Grunting and clenching her teeth, breath coming out in sharp gusts from her nose, she managed to get her head and shoulders over the top of the rock, now using both forelegs to pull the rest of herself along with her back legs kicking at air to try and give herself the momentum she needed. Just a bit more and she could rest, just a bit more after that and she could be out of this canyon, just a bit more and she could be back on her way to Ponyville.
A final grunt of exertion left her mouth as she pulled the rest of her body onto the rock, rolling over and onto her back immediately and panting with exhaustion, Applejack took a hoof and wiped all the sweat she could from her brow. Looking up she saw the sun hanging high over head, tipping her hat to give her face some shade she closed her eyes for a second.
“I don’t need a map, when have I ever needed a map Big Mac?” Applejack recited to herself, remembering the conversation she had with her brother not long ago. “Who do you take me for? I know my way around Equestria and I can take care of myself juuuuust fine.” Applejack sighed and opened her eyes. “Bic Mac aint ever gonna let me live this one down.”
Applejack stood up and looked over the side of the rock back to the bottom of the canyon, the wagon she had taken with her for the delivery left there for whoever might come across it in the future. Nothing else to see down there so she turned her head to her next destination, the top of the canyon and hopefully something she could recognize once she was up there. It was almost unfair, she thought to herself, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could just fly around, Starlight would teleport, Twilight could do either, she somehow could see Pinkie just impossibly bouncing up the cliff without a care in the world, Rarity was just about the only one of her friends who would be worse off than her in this situation. Thinking about her prissy friend trying to scale the canyon wall got a good chuckle from Applejack. “Oh, this is the worst possible thing!” Applejack could see her saying, dirty and covered in sweat with that mane and tail she usually kept so nice being frayed and haggard.
“Heh, guess I don’t have it too bad. Hard part’s over anyways too.” Reaching a hoof up she pulled out her trusty lasso she kept under her hat and looked at her next target. A tree sitting at the top of the canyon, dead and leafless with half of its old gnarled roots hanging out in the air. Finally on top of this rock she was close enough and had the footing she needed to fire her lasso up there and around the trees trunk. Then she could easily climb up and out of this darn canyon. “I don’t need no map, Big Mac.” Applejack said to herself as she spun the lasso over her head before expertly throwing it up and around the dead tree, pulling the rope tight in her mouth the tree hardly budged at all as the rope stopped midway on the trunk. “Hot dog! I lassoed that finer than a silk sheet!” Grinning, she tugged on the rope to make sure it was secure before pulling herself up, keeping her back legs on the canyon wall so she could just half walk up it.
Slowly, she didn’t want to mess something up just cause she couldn’t be patient, she scaled the second half of the canyon. Her lasso and the tree both held firm, now the only thing bothering her was the hot sun making her sweat all over. It fell in beads from her forehead and made her hooves wet. “Could just ask Princess Celestia to make things easy for me huh?” She mused. In hindsight, it might’ve been a little smarter to wait for the sun to not be directly bearing down on her while she attempted all this grueling activity.
Applejack frowned. “Less thinking, more doing!”
She was close now, almost to the top, she didn’t need any wings or magic or anything like that. Just good ol’ fashioned muscle and determination. “You got this, sugarcube.” Applejack said to herself, the roots of the tree right in her vision. Pulling herself over and around them was easy and she could use em for footholds too.
Hugging the bottom of the tree trunk she foisted herself over the edge of the canyon, finally on top of and out of the thing. Tired and waiting to catch her bearings she looked out behind her at the landscape she had just traveled through.
Nothing.
Well, nothing notable to a lost pony at least. Numerous canyons and crags behind her, endless random rock formations that all looked the same and the low mountains that she had gone through already far off in the distance behind her. It all just made a maze to Applejack that she would have no way of backtracking through, looking at it all she thought she was lucky that she hadn’t actually gotten stuck or trapped somewhere.
“This is still Equestria aint it?” She wondered aloud, shaking her head.
Having enough of the bleakness behind her she finally decided to get a good look of what lay ahead. Hoping she’d see a town in the distance or some Equestrian Landmark she recognized. Hay, for all she knew she was just in the Macintosh Hills and she’d just look out there and see Appleloosa. Course Big Mac would probably give her an even harder time if that were the case. But no matter to that, she’d just run down there, meet up with Braeburn and have a nice hoedown with the townsponies. And all the apples she could eat, it’d been a while since she had had one.
Even more nothing.
Empty rolling hills right before her and beyond was just a featureless plain that stretched into the distance as far as she could see.
With a frowny face she usually reserved for her friends when they were being silly she stood there for a second, eyes impassively looking at the landscape in front of her, sun still high in the sky and baking her. Wiping the sweat off her brow again she just sighed. “I guess at least a little cloud cover would be too much to ask too, huh?”. Applejack just shook her head and went to untie her lasso. “Gonna be a rough walk to… wherever.” She sighed again in consternation, pulling up the rest of the rope and bundling it up, then putting it back under her-
“Huh?” Applejack patted her bare head, realizing her hat wasn’t sitting on it. “Where did ya get off to?” She looked at the ground around her before suddenly freezing. “Naw, couldn’t be.” Walking back to the edge she peered down into the canyon.
Sitting right in the middle of her abandoned wagon after floating all the way down there was her nice old stetson hat.
“Aw shucks.”