//------------------------------// // The Word of Glimmer // Story: Applejack Gets Lost // by MagicS //------------------------------// Gray mountains and dry cracked dirt were all that Applejack could see. If there was a way to get lost while being lost Applejack may have just found it. Not that she’d admit to any of that. The one upside right now was the good weather, no clouds, even temperature, no wind or anything to be a bother. Her hooves reverberated off the hard ground with each step, casting loud echoes across the valleys between the mountains. There was a rock in front of her that she started kicking around to pass the time as she went wherever it was she was going. Someplace normal would be good. It had been days now since she had even seen another pony or anything resembling a town, her throat wasn’t going to be used to talking when she inevitably did run into another pony. Getting bored of kicking the rock she hit it harder one last time to send it flying. It came back down to the ground and echoed with each bounce, until it disappeared down the side of a hill. Applejack hadn’t been able to see the hill at first because everything looked the same, but as she walked closer and focused she saw the ground suddenly dip in front of her. It wasn’t a sheer drop but the ground still descended far into another valley. And there was a town down there. Applejack smiled. And then frowned. The town looked weird. It was almost like it was trying to copy the blandness in the environment around it. The whole town was in the shape of a square, with rows of buildings all placed at exactly the same distance from each other. Almost every building looked exactly the same too, there was only one area of difference in the center of town where there was some extra space and a few larger and smaller buildings around that. But even those were still very similar looking. She had never seen such a… planned town. Or wait, now that she thought about it it was kind of reminding her of something but she just couldn’t place what it was. It was right in the back of her mind. There was something off about all this. Well there was nothing else to do about it, it was still the first place she’d seen in days and it looked peaceful and well kept enough to stay the night and get some food before leaving tomorrow. She could see some dots moving between buildings from up here, definitely ponies. Applejack went down the hill to the town, walking pretty much dead center at it so she’d get to that middle part if nopony stopped her first. It’s not like she was worried if somepony did she just figured it was more likely that the town’s mayor or anything else important was in the middle. As she did make it to the first row of identical buildings, which she was pretty sure were houses, ponies started to notice her. She stuck out like a sore thumb. They did seem friendly enough, all of them smiling and waving at her, the filly’s and colts too, but again there was still something off. All the stallions had the same short haircut and trimmed tails, all the mares had the same pigtails, and everypony wore the same gray dress that covered their whole body. It reminded her of the outfit Maud wore, whatever Rarity would call it. One of the cheerful stallions came up to Applejack as she was going through the rows. “Hi, welcome to our village, pleasure to meet you!” He greeted enthusiastically, his coat was a deep violet and his mane brown. “Uh, pleasure to meet you too, name’s Applejack.” She stuck out her hoof for him to shake. “I’m Wool Dye.” He limply grasped her hoof and gave it a shake. “What brings you out to these parts?” Applejack rubbed the back of her. “Well I got a little turned around when I was going somewhere and now I’m just looking for a way home.” He got a sad expression on his face as she told him her story. “Oh I see, that’s so sad, I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t find my way home. Please, won’t you come with me?” He gestured to her to follow him. “I can take you to our gathering place, maybe somepony there can help you.” “Well I really appreciate the offer but mostly right now I was just looking for a meal and maybe a place to stay the night.” She doubted anypony here knew how to get to Ponyville, and the eeriness of the village was putting her off. “Problem is I really don’t have any money.” Applejack said that last part regrettably but it’s not like she could lie to them about it. Wool Dye only giggled. “Money? Nopony has money here. We all work together.” “Oh. Well that sounds nice.” Applejack said genuinely, if a little bit surprised. As they continued to walk to the center of town Wool Dye tried striking up as much friendly conversation with her as possible. “So what’s the name of the town you call home?” “It’s Ponyville. Me and my family live on a farm right outside it called Sweet Apple Acres.” She said proudly. “I see, well the name’s don’t ring any bells for me unfortunately but I hope somepony else will know. It would just be terrible if you couldn’t find your way home.” He sounded sincere enough to Applejack but it was so stressed, like he was trying too hard to make sure she knew he cared. “Well thanks, so what’s the name of this town? And uh, if it isn’t rude to ask how come everything here is so… well, you know?” She asked with a bit of hesitation, she didn’t want to offend him but sometimes she couldn’t help calling stuff out like this. That honesty had gotten her in trouble before though. She might need to work on making her “honest opinion” a little nicer around these ponies. “It’s all due to the influence of our divine gospel. We were once lost and angry ponies, but we discovered the truth and bettered ourselves. We specifically chose to build the town this way, in this place, because of how neutral and ordered everything is.” He said, smiling the whole way. “Oh, and the town doesn’t have a name.” Applejack was a bit flummoxed. She really wanted to say something. And she was getting a really bad feeling at the same time. “Riiight...” Applejack walked with Wool Dye for a while longer, occasionally another pony would greet them but conversations were kept short. The town wasn’t big so it didn’t take long for them to reach the center. The town opened up into a large square gathering place with a building about twice the size of the others on one side and a few slightly smaller ones than normal on the other side. But they all still looked the same. Same paint, same wood, same style. “Oh dang.” Realization suddenly struck Applejack. “Did you say something?” Wool Dye asked as the other townsponies already gathered started to turn in her direction, seeing the bright new arrival. “Uh, no, nothing at all.” Applejack shook him off. He seemed to take her word for it and they continued their walk to the large building. Upon entering it Applejack was fairly certain that it was an office of some sort. A desk was in front of the door and there were numerous filing cabinets behind it, to her right a staircase crept up along the wall leading to a second story hallway. A tan stallion sitting behind the desk rose to greet Applejack. “Welcome!” He said happily. “Wow, an outsider! We’ll be sure to record this occurrence.” Applejack raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean by that?” Wool Dye answered for him. “This is our multi-purpose building. We hold our records here and conduct any pertinent meetings, upstairs are guest rooms for travelers like yourself. We like to catalog our new lives here and how we better ourselves through following our gospel.” The tan stallion was nodding along the whole time. “Yes indeed.” “Right, so you think I might find someway back home here or something?” Applejack questioned. “Well the ponies that make up our town come from many different places, our previous lives are recorded in these cabinets as well, one of them may have something pertaining to your Ponyville.” He happily answered her. “I hope you can find what you need.” Applejack looked at the many filing cabinets that filled up the room. “So how are these organized then?” “Oh don’t worry abut that, Firewood and I will help you search through these.” Wool Dye said. “Heh, thanks. I was a little worried for a second there.” She smiled at the two of them. “Our sacred text tells us to be kind and helpful, we simply must aid all ponies in need.” The newly christened Firewood explained to Applejack as he went around to the nearest filing cabinet. “Firewood is correct, this is all only normal.” Wool Dye as well went to a filing cabinet and began looking through it. Applejack was still weirded out by this all, and she had a few questions that she was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear the answer to but for now it was time to get down to business. With any luck she’d find something about Ponyville and then she could leave as soon as possible without anything else happening. It was probably a bad idea for me to think that… The three of them spent a few hours searching through all the cabinets, it was like doing inventory at Ponyville city hall, this is the kind of thing Twilight should be doing. She’d love to do this. As it was, Applejack was forced to sift through file after file, most of it completely irrelevant to where ponies in the town came from and absolutely none of it making any mention of Ponyville. She started to feel more and more defeated as the amount of cabinets dwindled down. Applejack now knew a bunch of completely useless knowledge about this nameless town and its inhabitants but learned nothing about where she might be or where she needed to go. Great. Wool Dye was apologetic as he approached Applejack. “I’m truly sorry you didn’t find anything about your home.” “It’s alright, I’m used to this by now.” Applejack put the last couple of files back in their cabinet. “Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise though!” His eyes lit up as a big smile broke out on his face. Applejack stopped and slowly turned to look at him. “How do ya figure?” “Well you seemed to be in a hurry to find your way home, but since now you’re at a dead end maybe you’d like to stay in our town for a little while? We’d all love to share our way of life with you.” Wool Dye and Firewood both walked up to her, making her take a preemptive step back. “Look, I’m sure it’s wonderful and all but I really would like to just rest for a bit and head off as soon as possible.” She tried edging her way over to the stairs. “That’s alright, we would never force you into an uncomfortable situation. That isn’t our way.” Wool Dye nodded. “You can take any room upstairs you like. There aren’t any other ponies from out of town around.” “Thank you.” Applejack eagerly started to head up the stairs. But when she was halfway up she figured she just finally had to ask. Biting her lip she looked back at Wool Dye and Firewood. “Just out of curiosity, what’s this ‘gospel’ and everything called? Where’d you get the idea for it?” Both of their smiles somehow got even wider. “Well I’m glad you asked!” Wool Dye said. “We follow the Word of Glimmer, discovered from a book that fell from the sky written by our idol, Starlight Glimmer.” Starlight, even when you’re my friend you’re still causing me problems. Applejack most certainly kept that thought to herself. Forcing herself to smile she stiffly responded. “Wow, that sounds pretty amazing. Maybe we can talk about it more tomorrow morning.” With each word she took another step until she got to the second floor, the two ponies down there waving at her as she went. Applejack was gonna go to bed, wake up, and leave before she opened her big mouth and made a bunch of ponies really angry. Gonna be tough.