//------------------------------// // The Obvious Outcome // Story: Applejack Gets Lost // by MagicS //------------------------------// “Heresy! Heresy most foul that seeks to corrupt our town and all we stand for!” Wool Dye said to the gathered ponies at the center of the town. “An agent of evil has been sent to test our faith in The Word of Glimmer. Luckily we found out this agent’s intentions of discord and chaos and have stopped her before she could cause any true harm. She sought to make us question our beliefs in equality and true harmony and friendship, but we did not allow it! The wicked pony is now being held captive for us to judge.” Wool Dye moved aside to let the ponies see behind him. Applejack sat in a wagon, tied up with rope, looking more than a little peeved. She didn’t even want to ask these ponies if they had apples anymore, that’s how peeved she was at them. Now she could easily break out of this but that wouldn’t really help the town, and she didn’t want to accidentally hurt any of them if they tried to stop her from leaving. “Not only did she reject The Word even upon seeing the happiness it brought but she falsely claimed to know Starlight Glimmer and tried to convince us that Starlight herself renounced her own ways.” As Wool Dye said that the crowd gasped and started angrily booing at Applejack, some ponies even looked like they were on the verge of crying. “Yes.” Wool Dye continued. “We know Starlight would never go back on what is written in the book. The truth of equality and the evils of exceptionalism and Cutie Marks!” The crowd started stamping their hooves and cheering in agreement while Applejack just rolled her eyes. She wanted to plug her ears so she could at least ignore this nonsense. “Do you have anything to say in your defense, fiend?” Wool Dye turned to look at her. Applejack blankly looked at him. “Yeah, you’re all nuts and ignoring reality. Now untie me.” “Vile deceiver!” Solar yelled out at Applejack from the crowd. “Recant what you said about Starlight Glimmer!” Tears were welling up in her eyes. “What I said was the truth. Look, it’s fine if this is all working for you. I guess. It’s not like you’re hurting anypony, before now at least, but you should still know the truth about things, about Starlight and what she really thinks now about Cutie Marks, friendship and embracing your own uniqueness, alright?” Applejack said to Solar and the other ponies standing with her. “She’s a demon!” One random pony from the crowd shouted out. “Maybe she was sent from Tartarus to destroy our town!” Brush Swipe yelled. “Hey, I’ve been to Tartarus and-” Applejack started before getting cut off. “She’s from Tartarus! She admits it!” Solar cried in fear. Applejack would’ve buried her face in her hooves if she could right now. Instead she just leaned back and looked up at the sky as if to ask “Why?”. She ignored the increased shouting and accusations coming from the crowd, if things got more serious she’d just leave. For now she didn’t want to give up entirely on them. Even though it was looking like a fool’s errand. The sudden jostling of her wagon snapped her back to the here and now. Stout Shoes, a large red earth pony who had helped tied her up, along with another pony were pushing her towards the smaller buildings on the other side of the town’s center while being led by Wool Dye. “Alright, so where are y’all taking me now?” She tiredly asked Wool Dye. “We’re putting you in the detainment room. I said we were going to hold a more official hearing and judge you but after what you’ve just said to us all there’s no need, we’re skipping right to the next part.” He answered, solemnly. “Uh, and what’s the next part?” She was kind of hoping that her expectations about these ponies were gonna be proven wrong. “The gallows. We’ll have them built by this evening.” Applejack was disappointed in them to say the least. What Wool Dye said was probably something that should’ve made her more worried, or upset, and for a normal pony that certainly would’ve been the case. But Applejack was just annoyed. She just couldn’t be bothered to take this nonsense seriously anymore. She tried, she failed, they were planning on executing her. The thought of leaving grew stronger in her mind but since she wasn’t in a rush she figured she might as well keep trying to convince them to change. Or at least convince them that they shouldn’t execute ponies that disagree with them. Even Starlight or Twilight would have trouble changing these ponies minds. Applejack thought about how this really wasn’t her forte, despite some good showings in the past. “Look, you all really don’t want to do this do you? You all seemed so friendly and happy, is this really how you want to handle things? I’m not even saying how you live is wrong… sort of, I’ve just been giving you my honest opinion as nicely as I can. Barring a couple of outbursts.” Applejack gave an uneasy grin to the ponies around her. Wool Dye and the other ponies glanced at each other for a second before he responded. “Yep, we’re pretty sure this is what we wanna do.” “Oh for crying out loud you didn’t even think about it!” Applejack banged her head on the back of the wagon. “You should just quiet up before we decide to gag your heretical mouth.” Wool Dye shoved his hoof in her face. “Now you should just keep quiet and stop trying to cause us problems. Enjoy your time left or repent your heresy. If we think you’ve honestly changed your corrupting mind we’ll of course spare you and gladly welcome you as a friend.” “And I assume that means no more talking about how I know Starlight Glimmer or how she’s changed or how Cutie Marks aint evil?” Applejack asked sarcastically. “Yep!” Wool Dye answered, completely blind to the sarcasm, as cheerful as he was when Applejack first met him. Applejack rolled her eyes. “Just throw me in the cell already.” “Suit yourself, demon.” Stout Shoes said as they got to the detainment room and he lifted her out of the wagon. Wool Dye opened up the door to the small building. showing a barren room with a single bed and a barred window. This was sort of bringing back memories for Applejack too. “Look, doing this isn’t going to change anything. Starlight doesn’t believe in that book anymore, okay?” She tried to reason with them as Stout Shoes carried her in and deposited her on the uncomfortable bed. “Enough of your lies!” Wool Dye spat before slamming the door shut. She could hear him lock it up after. “After we finish constructing the gallows we’ll give you one final chance to repent. Goodbye for now.” Applejack groaned and laid down on the bed. Still tied up despite the ease with which she could break out of the ropes. She was trying to think of any way she could convince them that she was right. “This is all so stupid.” She sighed. “Give me a monster or something to fight instead. Ugh, now I sound like Rainbow Dash.” Rarity probably would’ve lost her temper too by now, Fluttershy and Pinkie would probably be fairing better. These ponies don’t even like unicorns using magic or let pegasi fly at all, I wonder if that would’ve been too much for even Starlight’s old village. Applejack started to hear noise coming in through her window. Sawing, hammering, pieces of wood being put together. And then her stomach growled and she wished she had actually eaten one of those muffins earlier. The gallows were less threatening than an empty stomach. She stewed around in her room thinking about what she might say when they came to let her out. She certainly wasn’t going to lie but if she kept going the way she was nothing would change either. Maybe she could try and act a little more compassionate when breaking the truth to them. Applejack frowned. “If they say I’m from Tartarus again though that’s it.” She could see the sun slowly going lower and lower from her window, it’d be evening soon and she couldn’t imagine them not being finished with a single gallows by then. Nopony had come by to give her any food this whole time either. That wasn’t helping her mood. Execute her or not it was just common courtesy to feed somepony, this was just them being rude. The light from the sun slowly turned oranger as day shifted to twilight and then eventually to dusk. All the while she heard the ponies hammering away at their makeshift gallows. Applejack took some solace in the fact that them having to make it right now meant they had never actually needed one before. Of course that could also mean that anypony who spoke bad of what they were doing were forced into changing their mind. Old Starlight would approve. Starting to get bored enough where she was almost falling asleep she finally heard the ponies outside stop working. A moment later her door was being unlocked and Wool Dye, Stout Shoes and Solar were there to greet her. Solar looked especially hopeful, with a Pinkie Pie sized smile on her face. “Well Applejack, we’d love to have you as part of our town. You seemed like a really nice mare, I think you’d fit in well here.” Wool Dye said as he walked in, almost cheerful. “But I still need to ask, will you embrace The Word of Glimmer?” Applejack smiled. “Nope.” Solar’s face fell. “Will you stop lying about Starlight Glimmer?” Wool asked, much less cheerfully. “I didn’t say a single lie about my friend Starlight.” Applejack would’ve crossed her hooves over her chest if she could. Solar again looked like she was close to crying. Wool Dye just sighed. “Alright Stout Shoes, bring her to the gallows.” He left the room to allow Stout Shoes in, who proceeded to carry Applejack’s tied up body to the newly constructed gallows outside. Any light from the sun was gone, instead lamps and lanterns lit up the center of the town and all the ponies that were gathered there. Applejack was certain that every last one of them was there. The gallows was a pretty standard affair, a platform with some stairs leading up it and plenty of space below. A wooden beam went up from the back and had another beam emerging from its front where the rope was tied around. Wool Dye walked up first to stand by the trap door and lever, guess he was gonna be pulling it. “Y’all are making a mistake.” Applejack tried to reason with them. “You should just untie me and we’ll talk things out, Starlight’s a very happy pony now and you can be too, you don’t need to follow this Word of Glimmer stuff.” A lot of the ponies the crowd tried to cover their ears. Wool Dye just scowled at her. “Quiet, you’ve made your choice. Stop trying to corrupt the town.” Applejack, still completely tied up, had to be stood up by Stout Shoes so he could loop the noose around her neck. As he was getting it ready for her Applejack closed her eyes and sighed deeply. “Well, you’ve made your choice too.” Applejack sent a tremor into the ropes binding her, tearing them to pieces as they practically exploded off her body. As Stout Shoes and Wool Dye gaped at her in disbelief she used another tremor to obliterate the gallows, the debris flying out around the crowd. Applejack easily landed on her hooves surrounded by the remains of the gallows with no problem but Stout and Wool ended up falling hard and covered in broken pieces of wood. The two groaned in pain while the crowd screamed in fear and confusion. “She really is a monster!” “Run for your lives!” “I knew she was from Tartarus!” That last one got another roll of the eyes from Applejack. She watched as the townsponies ran around screaming, a lot of them running into each other and collapsing into beat up heaps. She couldn’t help but take a slight amount of mean-spirited joy in seeing how chaotic everything had become. Applejack shook her head and turned to Wool Dye. “Hey, there anypony inside those other two buildings?” She asked, pointing at the other small buildings that were next to her detainment room. Wool was too shaken and scared to say anything so he just shook his head in fear. “Good.” Applejack sent three tremors to the buildings and destroyed them, causing a fresh new wave of panic to erupt. She looked around to see Solar openly wailing, just sitting there alone in the center of town. Applejack felt a lot worse seeing that, she could feel her face fall. She really didn’t want things to go like this but she also couldn’t let this town keep on going the way it was. At first she thought they were nice and even if they had a warped view of things she was willing to live and let live. But that had unfortunately changed. Applejack walked up to Solar while all the other ponies continued to run away. “Hey.” Applejack put a hoof on the sad unicorn’s shoulder. She opened her eyes through her sobs, she didn’t seem to be any more afraid just cause Applejack was talking to her, just upset and sniffling. “You’re a nice, well-meaning, pony. But you and your town needs to learn that you can’t do stuff like this.” She gestured at the destroyed gallows. “I don’t agree with The Word of Glimmer or whatever at all and I have to tell you the truth about it and Starlight. Sorry. I just wanted to help you, and I honestly can’t say I’d want you all to go on living like this even if it was the choice you made after learning the truth about everything. But I suppose ponies have their own ways, I got family that are just about as different from me as I am from you. Just don’t hurt anypony or ignore the truth okay?” Applejack smiled and started to walk away. It was a pretty easy walk out of town. Everypony was either running from her or had already shut themselves indoors. She hoped that she got through to Solar Streak even just a little bit, that would’ve made the past couple days worth it all. If Starlight could change then so could they all.