//------------------------------//
// Harvester of Apples 
// Story: Things Changed 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"Come on, please! She needs something to do, I can't just let her stay in the castle. She needs to learn how to do something." Twilight stood in front of Applejack, a pleading smile on her face.
Applejack ignored her and kept pulling the boxes behind her through the rope held in her mouth.
Twilight pouted, and used her magic to levitate the boxes on to the cart.
Applejack dropped the rope and looked at her. "Fine," she muttered.
Twilight smiled. "Chrysalis!" she called, "She said yes!"
Chrysalis fell out of a nearby tree, hitting the ground with a thud. "Hurray!" she cheered while aimlessly tossing her hooves around, "The orange one has accepted me!"
Applejack looked at the sky with a prolonged sound halfway between a growl and a sigh.
"Twilight!" Chrysalis called, "Could you please set me back on my hooves?"
Twilight sighed, looking at Chrysalis in the loving way a mother looks at her newborn after they've accidentally gotten their head stuck in a hole, and lifted the changeling's body off of the ground to turn her around and set her back down.
"Thank you!" Chrysalis said with a smile.
Applejack began to walk towards the trees, and Twilight motioned Chrysalis to follow her.
"I'll leave her with you then," the purple alicorn said before taking flight and going back to her castle.
Applejack kept walking towards the trees, eyes looking at the ground.
Chrysalis bounced to her side. "Did you know your mane tastes like pears?"
Applejack stopped for a moment, then went back to walking.
Chrysalis kept bouncing at her side, and lowered her head to look at the pony's expression. "So?" she innocently asked.
Applejack shook her head. She then looked at the way Chrysalis was moving and cocked an eyebrow.
Chrysalis looked over herself. "Oh. This?" she asked, pointing with a hoof at the way the other three were bouncing her on the ground. "The pink one taught me how to do it," she explained with a smile.
Applejack went back to looking ahead, and the two kept going forward for a little while.
"What do you think my mane tastes like?" Chrysalis suddenly asked.
Applejack looked at her with a confused expression, stopping.
"Do you want to try it?" the changeling offered, stopping as well.
Applejack hesitated.
Chrysalis had a realisation. "Oh wait, you're right. What if it doesn't taste good?" She put her hoof to her chin and pondered for a moment. "I guess I'll have to try it for myself first." She grabbed a few strands of her mane and put them in her mouth, then began to chew.
Applejack looked at her.
Chrysalis swallowed.
Applejack kept looking.
"Weird. It tastes like lychees. Strangely enjoyable." Chrysalis returned to moving forward, this time walking.
Applejack scratched her head and then trotted past her, guiding the changeling to their destination. She took a sharp turn to the right, into the rows of apple trees, the changeling following her, and kept walking forward in between the lines of trees devoid of any apple until they finally reached Big Macintosh, waiting for them where the trees began to have apples on them again with some empty baskets by his side.
Applejack walked up to him and started to talk to him, as the stallion suspiciously eyed the changeling. After some words quietly exchanged between the two, he sighed in frustration and grabbed some baskets, moving on to a nearby tree and setting them down.
Chrysalis walked up to Applejack. "So? What are we doing? Why does the red one look bothered? Has he not accepted me yet? What should I do? I'm here to help, right? So? What am I doing? Am I helping out with the apples? How do I do that? What-"
Applejack silenced her with a hoof on her mouth, then pointed at her brother.
Chrysalis watched, fascinated, as Big Mac reared on his front legs and hit the trunk of the tree with his back hooves, causing apples to fall down from the branches and land inside the baskets.
"Oh..." the changeling commented. "Should I try to do that?" she asked, looking back to Applejack.
The orange pony nodded.
Chrysalis giggled with excitement as she neared the nearest tree and prepared herself. She gave her back to the trunk, looked back over her shoulder to make sure she was properly aligned, took a few deep breaths, steadied her hooves, hunched forward, frowned in concentration, pushed herself up with her hind legs and, while using her front legs to keep her balance, kicked at the surface of the tree.
Nothing happened.
Applejack stared at the changeling, unimpressed.
Chrysalis stared back, a sheepish smile on her face as her mane partly covered one of her eyes. "Maybe I should, hum... put a little more strength in that?"
Applejack pouted and raised an eyebrow.
Chrysalis nervously giggled. "Yeah, hum... Yeah. Sorry."
Applejack raised her other eyebrow.
Chrysalis took another deep breath. "Okay. Here we go. I'll kick it as hard as I can." She pushed herself up again, but one of her front hooves slipped and she stumbled with a gasp. She managed to steady herself again by resting her hind legs on the tree, again without a single apple falling.
Applejack rhythmically beat her hoof on the ground, impatiently.
Chrysalis gulped. "Okay, here we go." She pushed herself slightly forward with her hind legs, just enough for her hooves to leave the trunk, and then came back to hit the tree.
Apples might have fallen that time. Applejack didn't get to see it though. It would have been rather hard to see if anything had fallen from the branches, given the way the entire tree had been uprooted and launched sailing away through the air, leaving a hole on the ground and a trail of broken branches and snapped twigs as it kept flying between the rows of other trees.
Big mac stared, his eyes wide and his mouth equally so, and his sister was in much of the same position as he was, shocked at what she had just witnessed.
Chrysalis looked between their expressions, then glanced behind her where the tree wasn't. "Oh..." She cleared her throat and ran a hoof through her mane, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head and neck. "Sorry."