06:50 AM
"Ah can feel … trees … apple trees. Apple trees! Home!"
Applejack's eyes snapped open and grew wide. She jumped to her hooves and galloped, expertly, toward the south. "YEEEEEEEHAWWW!" she shouted, leaving Rarity behind to stare on at her, shocked.
She quickly curved around the palace of Friendship, passed small houses, and sped over gentle hills of lush, green grass. She felt plant life all around her as each hoof touched the ground, her gallop, requiring all four hooves to lift in the air for brief moments, caused slight gaps in the strongest of these feelings, but each landing seemed to bring them all back even stronger.
Never did she have to wonder where she was going. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it. Home. As plain as the muzzle on her face.
Plainer really, considering that her muzzle was a nose only a couple hours ago.
But that gave her all the more drive to seek out the growing feelings. Apple trees. Home. Family.
The gentle earthy smells of the town began to grow stronger, forming into the telltale scents of farm life. Apple farm life.
A few gallops later, a welcome sign appeared in the distance that spurred Applejack on faster.
~—~
Sweet Apple Acres
~—~
She gleefully galloped past the sign and open gate finding herself among the apple trees. She smiled as she neared the source of ….
An odd thought struck her and she slowed and came to a halt.
“Is something callin’ me?”
She looked around at the trees. In all directions were the beautiful, bright greens and whites of blossoming apple trees. “Blossoms? It’s Spring here? It ain’t Spring back home.”
Still, there was that urge, that call, coming further on. And so Applejack continued at a slower pace.
Getting closer, she noticed more oddities. “Most of these trees ain’t been pruned, but they’re growing just fine. Right shape to grab the sunlight an’ everything. Although … they’re so tall and why them lower branches so high up, like shade trees? How are ponies supposed to pick the fruit?” She looked down at her new hooves. “Pony Applejack climbs ladders like this? Does she pick with her teeth? But then what? If she drops them in’ta a basket from that high they could bruise.”
Continuing to examine the trees confirmed that there were few points where the trees were pruned, yet the trees looked and felt very healthy, and the amount of blossoms suggested there would be a bountiful harvest come summer.
And then she was there.
She arrived at the call she felt.
She looked up at the trees she found herself at. Greens and reds this time. Full, ripe apples hung from those healthy branches, ready to be harvested.
“What? But isn’t it …,” she looked back at the blossoming trees, “Spring?”
Looking forward, she saw more trees with ripe fruit and others with neither fruit nor blossoms.
She walked forward and placed a hoof on the nearest tree.
Applejack remained there a few moments.
She felt the tree’s life as if it were connected to her own. She closed her eyes.
“Quite healthy, Almost ninety years old. No rot in your trunk.” She opened her eyes and looked up at the tree’s full branches. “How are you still producing so much fruit at your age?”
The tree yielded no reply.
So, Applejack got closer, rearing up to add her other forehoof against the tree’s trunk.
“You’ve seen a lot in your time, haven’t you? So many winters and harvests.” She got closer still, wrapping her forelegs around the tree in a hug. “I bet you’ve seen many members of the Apple family grow up as they used you for shade and enjoy your fruit. And … they’re that heavy? I see … It’s like a cow that needs to be milked. You was calling to be harvested!”
Applejack stepped back, lowering to all fours again and called up to the laden branches. “Don’t ya worry nothing, Rainsworth, I’ll Help ya lighten that load.”
Smiling, Applejack turned but stopped and tilted her head.
“Rainsworth?”
She turned back to the tree. “Is that your name?” She blinked. “Well, it ain’t like ah don’t name a lot of my trees back home. But … how do ah know your name?”
Confused, she walked up to the next tree over and placed her hoof on it.
Again, she felt the life of the tree connect with hers and closed her eyes.
“Healthy. About seventy-five years old. Pruned once. Heavy load of apples to be harvested.” Her eyes opened in wonder. “Bloomington.” She stepped back. “You have a name too. And ah know what it is!”
Unable to help it, Applejack giggled. “Rainsworth, Bloomington. Don’t ya fret now, ah’ll take care of ya both faster'n two flicks of a tick's tail.”
Now, how to pick them? she wondered. The lowest apples were fairly high up, but there was a somewhat lower branch on Bloomington that looked reachable.
She jumped and reached as high as she could, but only just tapped the branch with her forehooves. With a second attempt she managed to curl a foreleg around it but was unable to hold on and fell back down.
“Dagnabbit!” she grumped and idly struck the trunk.
“Oh! Sorry Bloomingt—ow!” she flinched when an apple dropped onto her head.
“Huh. Guess they really are all ready to come down.” But she was faced with a dilemma. “So where’s the barn? Gonna need a ladder and some baskets for the apples. Can’t just keep shaking their trunks and hoping for the best.”
Then an idea struck her and she lay down on the grass, closing her eyes. She could feel the trees around her. Most were blossoming, but others were ready to harvest, others still had been harvested recently. She felt grass and flowers, and … several sizable, rectangular gaps in the plant life.
“Well, barns tend to be rectangles.”
A likely destination found, she got up and trotted off.
Shortly later, she found herself near a rectangular gap in the grass that, indeed, turned out to be a barn. Nearby, located in some similar gaps, were other buildings, one that looked like a quaint residence. She smiled. “Perfect. Ah can harvest some apples to help out our trees and see the family. Ah’ll be able to ask them about Twilight while ah’m here and make it back in time to meet up with Rares.”
She entered the barn … and lost a portion of the sensations she had of the life around her. Frowning, she looked at the wood floor of the barn but stopped and concentrated. She could still feel everything as before. It was all still there, just muted somewhat. The frown faded and she looked for the harvesting supplies.
Ladders. Full and empty baskets. Pruning tools. A few horse—pony—drawn carts with harnesses.
“That’s exactly what I need!”
She opened the barn doors wide to let in more light and to make way for the cart. She then got behind the cart, rearing up to place her forehooves on the back and pushed it forward. Returning to the more familiar two-legged walk felt quite odd with a pony’s hips.
Once it was set just out of the barn, Applejack went back for the nearest ladder that looked tall enough, hooked a hoof around a rung and … not sure how to walk with just three pony legs, simply dragged it with that one hoof and walked beside it. She then went back for the baskets.
She tipped a few over and rolled them up to the cart, again walking on two legs while pushing.
This left her at the edge of the barn with a cart, a ladder, four empty apple baskets, and no idea how to get them up into the cart.
The ladder, she surmised, shouldn’t be too hard. She looped her foreleg in one of the rungs as before and simply flung it up toward the cart. It landed with one end in the cart’s bed as intended, but the other end still on the ground.
Not quite what she was going for, but it presented her with a solution for the baskets. The ladder was a perfect ramp!
She went around to the first basket, still on its side, and rolled it to the ladder’s end and up a couple rungs. Once she could go no further without walking up the makeshift ramp herself, she debated actually walking up the ramp, but given how unsteady she already felt just on the ground she decided it best to just give the basket a strong push to get it up the rest of the way.
The first attempt failed, Applejack not supplying enough oomph, and it simply rolled back down.
The second attempt got the basket all the way to the end of the ladder. Unfortunately, the weight of the basket at the higher end of the ladder informed Applejack quite rudely that standing over the lower end while on two legs was not the best plan.
The shock caused her to pitch forward, landing belly-down on the ladder. She lay there a moment with a moan as gravity brought the ladder, with her on it, back down. The basket, still on the upper end of the ladder, then followed.
“Gah!”
After a moment for recovery, Applejack repeated the steps from before, but this time instinct took over and she turned and kicked the basket up the ladder with her hind legs. She then jumped forward to as to not get personal with the ladder once more.
“Third time’s the charm!”
However, this time the basket rolled up the ladder so fast it banged into the head of the cart’s bed with enough force for Applejack to realize it would have been nice if she had thought to check if the cart had a parking brake.
As the cart began to move forward, Applejack also thought how it would have been nice if the barn wasn’t located at the top of a hill.
After a short chase, Applejack thanked, with many apologizes to, Sir. Barks-a-lot for stopping the cart without causing it damage and was relieved that he himself was unharmed. Then she wondered if it was pony Pinkie who named that particular tree.
Since one basket was carried, and the ladder dragged, from the barn by the cart, Applejack decided to cut her losses and just use what she had. She pushed the cart away from the blooming Barks-a-lot and wiggled into the pony harness.
She then had to figure out how to tighten it around herself.
The harness seemed simple enough. Mostly just two poles holding an arch to go over the pulling pony’s back, and a strap to go under the pony’s barrel to keep it from sliding off.
But how does one tighten such a strap without fingers?
With the arch already over her, the strap was hanging limply from the left side. She just needed to grab that, round it underneath her, thread it through a buckle hanging on the right side, pull it tight, and affix it in place.
With her hooves and teeth?
She bent her head down and grabbed the strap in her teeth while reaching her right forehoof under her barrel to pass the strap to while keeping herself from falling into the dirt by leaning on her left foreleg. This taught her the amount of flexibility Equestrian ponies have in their necks was indeed great enough for such a contortion. Catching the strap in her hoof, however, was the tricky part.
Once transferred from teeth to hoof, all Applejack could do was either let it slip out of her hoof or press her hoof up against her belly to hold it in place. Doing the latter required her to then slide her hoof right, dragging the strap through her fur so she could eventually transfer the strap back to her teeth from the right side.
There were a number of failed attempts.
There were a number of little patches of fur missing from her belly from some of these attempts.
There were a number of profane words and phrases spoken.
A few she invented on the spot.
Some of these were too loud to be considered “spoken.”
Once more passing to and trapping the strap with her hoof, Applejack grumbled, “If only I could get this to stick to my hoof, things would be so much easier.”
It was just at that moment with her head bent down under herself from the right, about to make another pass of the strap from hoof to teeth that Applejack lost her balance and stumbled. Instinctively she lowered her right foreleg to the ground for balance but found she was unable to. The too-short-to-touch-the-ground strap was stuck to her hoof!
This caused her to fall over.
Now lying on her right side on the ground and her right forehoof in the air from being stuck to the hanging strap of the harness, Applejack had to figure out not only what just happened, but also how to fix it.
She pulled her hoof toward her but it was as if the strap was glued on to her hoof. This was a bit of a disturbing thought given how some glues in her world were made.
Unable to pull her hoof away from the strap, Applejack attempted to stand.
This proved difficult given her current situation.
She rolled onto her back first, then used her three free legs to slide herself backward, away from the cart, eventually managing to get to a sitting position on her hindquarters. She stood on three legs and pulled, walking backward. Teaching herself how to do so in the process.
It was her hope that the strap would just release itself from her hoof, but she ended up dragging the whole cart forward.
Taking another look at the bottom of her stuck hoof showed that there was no visible reason for the strap to be stuck, it just seemed to be held there as if glu—magnetized—to it.
“Okay, Applejack, think. This has got to be some sort of magic. I just said, ‘stick to my hoof’, and it did. Alright,” she looked at her hoof intently, “Le’go.”
She pulled.
Still stuck.
“Let go,” she enunciated.
She pulled.
Still stuck.
“Dagnabbit! Get off ma hoof, you dang lousy piece of—oof!”
She found herself on the ground again when her hoof was freed.
From her position, she looked at her previously stuck hoof but found nothing unusual about it. At least nothing that was different from the last time she had looked at it.
She got up and tapped it to the strap, pulling back immediately as if it burned her, but the strap hardly moved.
A second attempt, contact lasting longer, had the same result.
For the third attempt, Applejack held her hoof against the strap and spoke clearly, “Stick. To. My. Hoof.”
When she pulled away, the strap followed!
Applejack immediately yelled, “Le’go! Le’go! Le’go!” while pulling away.
And found herself on the ground again when the strap let go.
She looked at the strap a moment and tried again.
“Stick to my hoof,” she said and pulled away, taking the strap along.
“Let go.” The strap released.
A few more repetitions followed to be sure.
“Huh.”
Applejack then checked the ground with her newfound mind’s eye, locating a rock of appropriate size. “Stick to my hoof,” she commanded it before lifting. “Let go.” The rock dropped.
She repeated this a few times as well; with multiple rocks. Eventually she could replicate the phenomenon without speaking.
Stick.
Release.
Stick.
Release.
“Well, that aught’ta help.”
Applejack then returned to the cart’s harness and tried again with her new discovery.
Once in position, she bent her head down and grabbed the strap in her teeth while reaching her right forehoof under her barrel to pass the strap to while keeping herself from falling into the dirt by leaning on her left foreleg. She then stuck the strap to this hoof, lifted her head up and to her right side, slipped the end of the strap into the buckle and then bit the end in her teeth and pulled it tight.
Upon releasing the tightened strap, the harness was now properly fit to her size.
“Hoo’wee!” she shouted. “Ah did it!” Chuckling, she walked forward and the cart came with her. “Now to free Rainsworth and Bloomington of them apples.”
It was not difficult to find her heavy load-bearing trees, she could feel them when she closed her eyes, even knew them by name, and she was back in short time.
Now, not seeing any way to hold more than one apple at a time, or carry the basket with her, Applejack figured what she had to do was set up the ladder, climb up it, stick an apple to her hoof, climb down the ladder, put the apple in the basket, and repeat.
For every apple on each tree.
She frowned, thinking how long it took just to … do everything else that day.
She frowned harder when she realized she didn’t know how to get the harness off of her.
Some minutes later revealed that the buckle released easily when pulled again at the right angle. Easy enough to do even with just her teeth. Sticking the bucket and ladder to her hooves got them set up against Rainsworth much quicker, and with less fuss, than getting them onto the cart had been.
But climbing the ladder?
Applejack took another look at the underside of her hooves. Humane feet are long and curl to some degree, conforming to objects such as terrain that isn’t flat or, in this case, rungs of a ladder. Hooves can’t do that. Instead, she noticed that the “frog” or palm was well depressed compared to the nail, and the nail was an open circle, and she could easily twist her pasterns in ways equines in her world couldn’t.
It seemed an obvious conclusion.
She walked up to the ladder, reared up to her hind legs, placing her forehooves on the sides of the ladder as close to how she would with hands as possible and “sticking” them there for safety. For her hind pair, she stood on a rung and turned them both to the left to catch the rung in the opened back part of the nail.
With a smile, she leaned around to take in her accomplishment from various angles.
This led to her suddenly finding herself on the ground.
Some time later, after a number of attempts, falls, and tests, she learned that hooves don’t “stick” quite as well without at least one touching the ground.
“Ah’m startin’ to hate all these picky magic rules,” she grumbled while more carefully climbing the ladder to get the first of Rainsworth’s apples.
Once high enough to reach the lowest apples, Applejack reached out and stuck one to her hoof. She pulled it off Rainsworth and, thinking she deserved a reward for her troubles, decided this apple would be it.
She brought it to her muzzle.
And it dropped into the basket.
“Consarn it!” she yelled and tried, more carefully, again.
The second apple made it to her mouth and she took a bite of the most delicious apple she had ever tasted. While it was a mostly familiar flavor, something between a McIntosh and a red gala, it was also different enough that she wasn’t sure what type of apple she was actually eating. It was so crisp and pure. Clean without chemicals or pesticides. It felt like there was a magic right inside the apple. It felt …
Sparkling.
She couldn’t help but moan. Deeply.
“Applejack?” asked a young, familiar voice behind her.
Startled, she inhaled at just the wrong moment and choked.
“Applejack!” the voice shouted in concern, “Are you alright? Do ya need the Hindlich maneuver?”
A few coughs and chest beatings cleared Applejack’s airway. “Nope, no. Ah’m okay,” she assured the owner of the voice before looking behind herself.
She saw before her a small, yellow, earth pony filly with apple-red hair wearing a large, pink bow.
Applejack just stared. Her jaw dropped. “A-Apple Bloom?”
“Uh, yeah?” Apple Bloom replied.
“Is that you?”
“Um …, yeah? Are you okay?”
Applejack leaned backward, hardly noticing the instant drop back to the ground, never once taking her eyes off the little pony.
“Apple Bloom?” Applejack got to her hooves and walked up to her.
“Applejack?”
They just stood there a moment, staring at each other. Apple Bloom with a questioning tilt of her head and worried expression, Applejack in wonderment.
“My stars and garters,” Applejack smiled, “Ain’t you just cuter than a bug in a rug? Why, that bow is as big as your little head.”
“Uh, huh?”
Giggling, Applejack closed the distance and pulled Apple Bloom into an embrace. “Hee, hee. Ah don’t think ah ever wana let ya go.”
“Whoa, whoa! What?”
“You’re just so tiny and precious! Ah'm gonna keep you safe forever.”
“A-Applejack? You’re not gonna start makin’ me wear helmets all the time again are ya?” Apple Bloom tried and failed to get her forehooves freed from Applejack's grasp.
“No siree. Ah’m gonna keep you safe right here in ma arms.”
“Forever? In your arms?”
“Forelegs?”
“Why are ya actin’ so weird?”
Applejack blinked, reluctantly laxing her hold on Apple Bloom. “Um, weird? What do ya mean?”
“Ah mean, something’s up. Right, Big Mac?”
“Eeyup.”
The other voice came from more to her side. “Mac?” she asked, looking over.
Every bit as tall as in her world stood a creature pushing the limits of the term “pony.” He was the same red and yellow as she was familiar with, though he wore a yoke around his neck. She looked him up and dow—
Up, AJ, up! She told herself. Yer brother’s naked! Eyes UP!
“Mac!” she said much louder than necessary, snapping her eyes back up to his mane, locking them there and no lower for safety. At some point, Apple Bloom wriggled out of her hold and she dropped back to all fours. “Uh, howdy!”
Big McIntosh’s eyes flicked to Apple Bloom who looked back equally confused.
“We’ve been watching you,” Apple Bloom explained, “And—.”
“Watching me?” asked Applejack.
“Eeyup,” answered Mac.
“So, uh, just how long have you been watching me?”
“Since you rolled the cart down the hill,” answered Apple Bloom.
“That long eh?” She blushed. "You, uh, been listen' too?"
"That was a lot of words you've told me to never say."
“Eeyup!” Mac added with a harsh tone and glare to match.
Applejack chuckled nervously, reaching up and partly covering her face with her hat.
“So, what’s going on?” Apple Bloom pressed.
“Um,” Applejack pushed her hat back to its proper location and her eyes flicked between her counterpart’s siblings. “I was just thinking I’d harvest Rainsworth and Bloomington here.”
“One apple at a time? Why don’t ya just buck ‘em?”
“Do WHAT to 'em?!”
“Buck ‘em.” Apple Bloom turned and kicked Rainsworth with both hind legs and every apple simply dropped off the branches and into the waiting basket.
“Wha?!” Applejack stared. “How? Y-you mean this whole time, that’s all ah needed to do?”
Apple Bloom and Mac traded glances.
“Eeyup?” answered Mac, an eyebrow raised.
“Are you runnin’ a fever or somethin’?” asked Apple Bloom.
Applejack didn’t respond, still looking dumbfounded at the easily harvested payload. If ah could only do that back home.
“Is that why you came back early?” Apple Bloom tried again.
“Early?”
“Yeah. From Canterlot.”
“Canterlot?”
“Eeyup.” Mac chimed in.
“You said you’d be gone a while this time. The Princess called you all.”
“Twilight called us?” asked Applejack.
“No, Celestia did. Twilight's a princess now too, but she's just a princess. Celestia’s ‘The Princess’.” Apple Bloom thought for a moment. “Although, maybe that’s being unfair to Princess Luna, they're supposed to be equal on the throne now.”
“Right. Just a princess. Of course. Ah knew that.”
Apple Bloom looked to Big McIntosh.
“Nope,” he confirmed.
“Okay, Applejack, think it’s best you lie down. We’ll finish the rapid field on our own just fine.”
“Rapid field?” asked Applejack.
“Yeah, you know, the …, are you testing me?”
“Uh ….”
Apple Bloom straightened up her bow and seemed to enter into exam-taking mode. “We put extra earth pony magic in some fields each season to get the trees to bud monthly.”
“Monthly? Really? Then why don’t we do that to all the fields?”
“ ‘Cause the trees in the rapid fields need ta recover for two or three years before we can harvest them normally again.”
“Three? Wow. But still, monthly harvests …,” Applejack trailed off, turning to look at the laden trees, thinking of the financial benefits.
“Um," Apple Bloom's scholastic stance faded, "you did know that already, right?”
Applejack turned back to Apple Bloom but wasn’t able to keep her eyes fixed on hers. “Uh, yes. Of course ah knew that.”
“Nope,” declared Mac.
“Yeah,” agreed Apple Bloom, “Yer taking a nap.”
“Ah am not taking a nap!” Applejack protested. “Ah feel fine.”
“Don’t make us call Granny!” Apple Bloom challenged.
“Granny Smith?”
“Huh? What other grannies do we have? That’s it!” Apple Bloom turned to her brother. “Mac!”
“Eeyup!” Mac turned and began heading off.
“Now, now, wait just a durn minute!” Applejack called out, stopping Mac. “So Twilight’s in Canterlot city?”
“You got on the train with her!” Apple Bloom declared.
“An’ it’s just that easy to get to?”
“Easy to—? It’s right up there!” Apple Bloom pointed north and up.
Applejack looked and found a mountain. Plain-looking at first until she noticed what looked like a mix of castle and small city attached to the side of it. “That’s Canterlot?!”
The next thing she noticed was being lifted in the air and placed on something furry. She looked down to see Big McIntosh’s back under her as he trotted her off toward the buildings she saw near the barn.
“Something’s wrong with you today,” a concerned Apple Bloom told her. “And yer gonna take a nap and we’re gonna get the doctor and maybe Zecora or somethin’ ‘cause somethin’ ain’t right an’ yer goin’ nowhere till we find out what.”