//------------------------------// // Sforzando // Story: A Duet For Land And Sky // by Estee //------------------------------// She was alone. Applejack realized that searching the house was pointless, and the last minutes prior to Sun-raising found her doing it anyway. It was easy, for a residence in which she'd spent so much of her life had no secrets left to hide and before it all ended, she would realize that was only true of the structure. The occupants still had a few things tucked away in dark corners, and some of those little privacies were currently unknown to her. (Some of that would also end.) Apple Bloom was the one she didn't have to worry about, and no amount of internal agony could prevent the older sister from briefly regarding the strangeness of that thought. The youngest had been freed from chores and the endless little morning labors of the farm in order to report in early at work. A little body was on the road under Moon, a journey being made in safety because the Acres were within the settled zone and besides, Applejack had asked the weather team's pre-dawn unit to keep an overhead eye on her. Apple Bloom was trying to prove her dedication to the newest of paths, making a good impression when some of what she'd previously left around town was still waiting for repair crews. Granny... the family elder didn't have a particularly regular sleep schedule. It was possible to find her resting during the day, and the frequency of those encounters increased every year: the use of awareness-simulating ropes had been limited to once. But at night, aching joints could wake her. A bladder which seemed to be pursuing new routes of tyranny explored the limits of its power. And Applejack knew the sheer weight of thought could keep a pony awake, for that was part of what had chased so much of her own sleep away: there were times when sapience was a curse. Add extra decades of memory to the top of the stack, so much more to look back on and regret, and rest might never come. Applejack didn't always find Granny in the elder's bedroom before Sun was raised. But the matriarch was generally somewhere in the house, and this time... no. She's on the Acres. She's gotta be. She can't go that fast, so she can't go too far. Ah know Ah was hearin' her down the hall jus' before Ah dropped off at the last. As it had turned out -- the mission had provided the first proof, on the night she'd broken the Secret -- it was in fact possible to cry yourself to sleep: the final barrier was trying to get comfortable against a soggy pillow. Ah'll find her... And Mac was gone. Apple Bloom, as the smallest, still had places she could try to hide within: it was just that Applejack happened to know where every last one of them was, mostly through having used them first. Mac couldn't do that: his best hope was finding an exceptionally large haystack, running a breathing tube to the surface, then trying not to use it too often. If he wasn't visible, then he wasn't there, and... he hadn't come home. No food had been taken from kitchen or pantry. The little string she'd thought to stretch across his doorway was unbroken. The bed was undisturbed or rather, it was no more disturbed than usual. Mac had never been much for making beds, and it had reached the point where the rumples had worked their way down to the mattress. And the books were there. The books were always there. Ah made him think 'bout it. She knew where to kick him: she always had. But the books had been present for years, and -- it was the first time she'd thought about where they were. Look at the little shelf, look at the bed, spot the impression of his body left by the sleeping position he assumed every single time... Eyes open up, an' they're the first thing he sees. Every time. Every day. Ever since. Accepted into college. Not the first Apple to go by any means: there had been others who'd found that their destinies led them away from the farms -- but it wasn't the most common event, and the entire family had celebrated because it was his acceptance and they were proud of him. It hadn't prevented some gentle kidding about his initial choice of major, because what kind of job was a philosophy degree supposed to produce? Did Mac really believe somepony was going to pay him to think, especially when all of the books he'd ordered for early study never got around to any conclusions? What good was learning how to ask the next question if none of them ever led to a final answer? But they'd still been proud. And their parents had been getting ready to see him off in the autumn, they'd rewritten the will to grant their land to the daughter they were sure would stay, the one whose mark had seemingly arisen from a renewed connection with family and the land itself. But it had been a practical measure only, because they were both fairly young and it would be decades before any real concern over inheritance arose, and then they'd... ...died. Got some money from the travel company: they knew it was their fault, never even tried t' fight in court. They paid for temps t' work on the Acres 'til Ah left school, and Ah hated havin' those ponies here, hearing the wrong voices in their soil. Ah wanted 'em gone, and Ah started tryin' t' find any excuse t' get them out. Ah... and the memory would always hurt ...lost mahself for a while, until Pinkie pulled me back. But Granny came home, an' Ah told mahself Ah could live with the temps 'til Ah grew up, an'... ...Mac stayed. He'd been heading for college. Going off to chase down whatever his own mark truly meant, as the image was apparently more metaphorical than most. But he'd stayed because his parents were dead, a single grandparent would have had trouble taking care of two girls, and while multiple relatives had offered to take Applejack and Apple Bloom in -- that would have meant abandoning the land. He'd stayed until one sibling had reached adulthood, and then, with his obligation seemingly fulfilled -- he'd remained on the Acres. It was possible that he'd wanted to take a direct part in Apple Bloom's years. A slightly younger Applejack had spent fuming hours in the heat of another conclusion: he didn't believe she was capable of managing on her own. Or he could have just felt... it was too late. That he'd missed his opportunity, that there was no point to starting over, and he might as well be with family. Never worked it out all the way, an' knew the worst thing Ah could do was ask him. 'cause Ah knew it hurt, when Ah got old enough t' think 'bout it proper. Ah just knew it hurt him. An' part of me, deep down... knew it was someplace Ah could kick him. What does that make me? The proper answer was 'his sister', and she knew it. Love was part of what bound a family together, but there was also scar tissue which coated the wounds from accumulated grudges and hurts. Pick at the scab, and all of the old pain would come flowing forth. Bleeding began anew, because some wounds never truly healed. And where blood flowed, love could drown. Just like them. She had lost two and no matter what the nightmares had insisted, there was nothing her presence ever could have done to change that. Years had been spent in desperately trying to keep Apple Bloom's mad quest from ending in a grave. Granny... He'll come back. A little more dryly, He's almost gotta. All his stuff's still here. He can take his own money out of the bank, but he ain't quite the type t' just go trottin' off into the world with nothin' but some jingling saddlebags. Wasn't even wearin' his yoke when he marched off. So he'll come back. Unless he didn't. Ah asked a pegasus t' go out with me. A hybrid an' Moon's craters, what would have happened if they'd known that? Ah asked a pegasus t' go out with me. A pony Ah don't love yet, don't even know if Ah could love. Jus' asked. An' now everypony's gone. She looked at the books again. The thickness of them, the little bits of gilt which still clung to the spines. Well-notched tooth impressions in the covers. Everypony... Well... at most, two. There had been several reasons why Applejack had taken so long to fall asleep, and emotional turmoil had simply been the most prominent. But before she'd found herself awake in that bed, twisting blankets as moisture moved from eyes to pillow, she'd simply been up for a while. Speaking with a pony who'd turned out to have some insights on the matter. After all, if anypony in the family knew about what it felt like to be a self-imposed outcast... "Can Ah ask y'somethin'?" The youngest tilts her head slightly to the left, the mane bow shifting in slightly-embarrassed concert with the motion. "It jus' stood out, 'cause it was kind of weird. An' with everythin' else..." A soft sigh. "Ah guess maybe Ah wanna get the easy one answered. If it's easy." And again. "Somethin' should be, right?" "What?" She leans left, takes another sip from the water in the mug. Tears need to be replenished. "Mac..." And now the soft tail is twisting with awkwardness. "He called you Lady. Like it was the worst thing he could ever say about you." "Yeah," the elder daughter bitterly states. "Never did get 'round t' callin' him 'Lord' neither. Ain't pulled that one out on him in years." And the mission had even given the term an extra touch of foulness, since it just happened to be the stallion -- the castle owner's -- Quiet's title. (She had written the name down and was making sure to look at the notes at least three times per day.) More quietly, she adds, "It's... kinda the last thing we can say 'bout each other. It means a fight's gone as far as it could go." Or as far as she'd ever believed it could, until that night. "But why?" the youngest inquires in confusion, yellow body wriggling against the sitting room's guest cushions. (The elder daughter is resting on the floor. It was meant to make eye contact a little easier, and it's left her looking slightly up.) "Don't make sense." The elder daughter sighs, because this is something she's been trying not to tell her sister, especially while the Crusade was still a factor. In an absolute sense, the foundation stone means very little: there's simply a sense of distant family pride for the original granting of the terms. But when it comes to the current generation... she didn't know how the youngest would take it. What it would have been used to justify, and how (not if) that would have gone wrong. But the Crusade may be over, and she needs somepony she can talk to. She needs that almost as much as she's ever needed anything and on the previous occasions, the theme was exactly the same. She can't get her full family back. But she can be honest with the one who stayed, and so the elder daughter tells the younger a truth. The filly is unusually quiet. Bright eyes carefully look at the old, worn furnishings before focusing on the older sibling again. "Nobles." In many ways, it's a rather simple word. There currently isn't all that much emotional flavor behind it, and the accent is still trying to work out exactly how the term should be distorted. "Yeah. Well, y'know: first ones in an' granted land rights by the Princess herself, AB. Titles got passed on from there. But when they reached us... a title ain't 'bout anythin' we did. Somepony else got respect once. We've gotta earn --" "-- nobles," the youngest repeats, and there's a little disbelief in the word. "Ah'm a noble. Diamond ain't a noble. Hardly anypony in town's a noble, Ah bet --" "-- Twilight," the elder daughter tries to cut her off. There's a little desperation in the attempt: after this many years, part of her is anticipating what she sees as a rapidly-approaching 'Yay!' and everything that goes with it. "An' Spike, 'cause it came with the adoption. Y'remember that whole 'noble dragon code' he was kickin' around? Not sure he ever spotted the pun --" "-- Ah'm a noble,' the younger simply continues. Disgruntled now, "An' it still didn't work." The elder daughter blinks. "Y'tried that already, didn't you? As part of the Crusade." A simple "Yeah." (It may be a word she needs to become accustomed to.) "Why didn't Ah hear 'bout it?" "'cause nopony was sure what bein' a noble meant. So Sweetie borrowed some old fancy stuff from Rarity's workshop --" which triggers the rise of a blush beneath yellow fur "-- stole. She stole it. But we put most of it back that time. The parts that weren't torn up." Wincing, "Anyway, we got dressed up an' tried tellin' each other what t' do. Only it turned out everypony liked tellin' more than bein' told, so we got in a fight, an' that's how the tearing started up. No marks an' once the hooves stopped kickin', we figured out jus' bein' bossy might mean gettin' Diamond's mark. Didn't feel like that was worth it for anypony." The elder daughter, who's never seen a Crusade averted before, finds just enough strength to bask in the lack of disaster. (Admittedly, based on the scant demonstrated evidence, she's pretty sure Diamond's mark is actually for leadership, and that's a powerful talent. The filly just doesn't understand how to use it -- or worse: understands far too well.) The youngest daughter takes a slow breath. "An' that's why y'didn't tell me, ain't it?" "Yeah." As words go, this one has its uses. Silence again. "The thing 'bout Crusadin'..." A deeper breath, and the youngest continues. "...Ah always felt it was worth it. No matter how bad the last one went, Ah couldn't see the next one doin' anything but workin'. Because if Ah thought it wouldn't, then... everything Ah did, we did... wasn't worth it at all. An' when Ah finally had that thought, Ah had t' stop." All the elder daughter can do is listen. "Paid a price," the youngest softly said. "Never saw the numbers pilin' up until it was too late. An' Ah think... y'feel like y'paid one tonight, for what you said. An' the price wasn't worth it." Green eyes slowly close. "Thing is," the youngest goes on, "there's stuff where the cost could sorta work out. Ah've gotta pay a big one, and Ah'm hopin' that when the total's settled up, it brings mah mark. The right way." It will. Something else the elder daughter can't say. "But even that hurts," emerges in a near-whisper. "'cause I paid a price for mah best chance. Took three years an' every bit of respect the town might've ever had for me along the way. At the end, took Sweetie and Scootaloo. Took everythin' an' left me wonderin' if there's anythin' in the world worth all of that." The price of the next words is a lifetime. "Even a mark," Apple Bloom quietly says. "But all Ah can do is keep goin', an' hope it's the right way this time. Ah know what Ah'm chasin'. Applejack... whatcha after?" It takes some time before she can speak, along with a tremendous, fully invisible effort. The strength required to be honest with herself. "Before this? Family. The next generation. Your nieces and nephews, AB. Keepin' the Acres goin', and doin' it at the side of somepony Ah loved. Now... we're goin' science. The land's gonna be taken care of: jus' in a different way. An' the mission... Ah can't tell you everythin' right now, 'cause the palace don't want that. But it broke things. It broke the way Ah saw things. An' it had t' be an earth pony for me, because that was the family, all of it. Every last pony, all across Equestria. Keepin' the blood pure and the magic true. That's what the family wants." "Broken," the youngest softly tries, with her own eyes briefly half-lidded. "An' y'can't say how." The elder daughter shakes her head. "Gotta wait, Ah guess," the youngest goes on. "An' now?" "Ah thought... it could be more 'bout what Ah wanted." The tears are starting to fall again, sliding quickly down saturated tracks of fur. "'bout who..." The next question is painful in its simplicity. "Do you love him?" And the answer is agonizing. "Ah don't know. Ain't been no chance t' see. Love ain't that simple, AB. Love can take time, and love don't always come. Best Ah can say is that Ah thought... if we tried, we'd find out." "Ah felt that way," the youngest quietly says. "'bout a few things. Over an' over." The silence settles in again, and the weight of it presses on them. Finally, the elder daughter has to say something. "Y'been lookin' at anypony?" Almost wryly, "Jus' t' ask." "Don't matter," the youngest mutters. "They think Ah'm a joke, everypony in mah class. Everypony in town." Seemingly without full awareness, "An' the only one Ah even felt like Ah was lookin' at..." Green eyes go wide. "Who?" She'd just been speaking for the sake of having sound. If her sister is actually thinking about a pony -- "Don't matter," and the left forehoof ineffectively stomps against cushions. "Hormones are stupid, 'cause everypony thinks Ah'm a joke an' hormones made me think 'bout a pony who thinks it's really funny." "AB --" The next words are notable for two reasons: it is the first time the youngest has ever given an order, and so it is also the first time the words are obeyed. "Drop it." The elder daughter blinks. Stops talking, even as tears fall away. "...sorry," the youngest eventually offers, and her words are barely audible. "Jus'... not now. Not for me. It's gotta be 'bout you now, not me. Okay?" She wants to push, recognizes that it's partially a desire for deflection, and so she doesn't. "Okay. Apple Bloom..." Which is when the elder daughter truly feels the dark strength of the irony. The youngest is the joke of the town: one of three chorusing punchlines for a jest that's long since worn out its welcome. And she is about to ask that filly for advice. The joke of Ponyville, and so much of that feels like it's the elder daughter's fault. But it's a joke which has grown up enough to realize why it was never funny. "...what..." She swallows back disbelief, almost chokes on the pain. "...what do y'think Ah should do?" And the youngest thinks. "Y'paid your price," she finally says as she leans forward on the cushions, arcing her neck down so she can nuzzle her sibling's forehead. "No matter what happens now, y'paid it. So if y'already paid... might as well find out if it was worth it." Apple Bloom had gotten up before her, taken an early breakfast and headed off to work. Mac and Granny were... somewhere, and she could only hope the latter was close by. Still on the Acres and -- -- don't want t' think 'bout that right now. Her family was gone. But the Acres were still there. They were always there, and the fact that there was but a single pony to tend to them meant they still needed tending. ...actually, now that she thought about it, there was one other family member missing: she hadn't seen Winona. But that wasn't unusual. The border collie had been spending an increasing amount of time with Granny, because the breed needed to herd something and... ...how much did Winona understand? How much could the canine comprehend, for a species which existed without true thought? How did she know? It didn't matter. These days, Winona was usually found with Granny, and it meant someone was watching out for her. The Acres needed tending, and Granny (plus collie) were probably somewhere within the borders. Sun had been raised, there was work to be done, and it was Applejack's land. The first soil she'd ever touched, the place which had granted mark and a degree of destiny (which Elements and missions had then done their best to subvert), her land -- -- except that it wasn't. You couldn't own land, not really. Everything came from the earth, everything returned, and everything belonged to it. No matter what the deeds said, Applejack was little more than the current caretaker. And it always needed tending. She moved across the soft soil, and the depth of her hooves' impressions told her how much rain had been delivered by the Bureau. This kind of moss on a tree was a natural protective layer: that kind of vine had to be stripped away by angry teeth before it strangled the trunk. Everything which rested within the earth could be absorbed by roots, and that meant she needed to pull some weeds not to keep the grass safe, but the apples pure. A spot of color on a leaf could indicate disease. A single worm in the wrong place might mean infestation. Ask Applejack which creature she loathed most in the world and the answer would be instinctive, spat, and possibly come with an automatic double-hind kick: tent caterpillars. She had to watch for all of it, on every tree, just about every day, and... Every hoofstep was a trip into the past. A tree her Daddy had planted, a huckleberry bush which had been harvested by her Mommy. Everything she touched had been touched by them. To walk through the Acres in early dawn was to move through living memory, a drifting mist of past which added its dew to every surface. She moved where they had moved, and so she moved with them. There were times, even with their echoes long-since faded, when she felt she could almost hear them. And on that morning, with no family left around her, she tried to see them at her sides. Flanking her. Guarding. She almost succeeded. She could bring back her Daddy's strength, her Mommy's grace. Her hat doubled, moved to where it had once belonged, claimed by one of the phantoms in her heart. The unruly manefall... oh, she had loved that manefall, the way it seemed to form curtains, allowing a foal to play hide-and-seek with a toy which never went out of sight for long. She could picture all of it... ...but when she did so, she shrank. Perhaps that was why the Poison Joke had hurt her so. (Twilight was still trying to work out why the effects hadn't killed her: compression of a living body to that scale would have been fatal, and selective removal of mass wasn't exactly an improvement.) Even in Ponyville, her voice was one among thousands, and her own song was so easily drowned out by the land. And when she was on the Acres, going past tree after tree, thinking about everything that had to be done and the fact that there was but her to do it, when she tried to bring back visions of her parents and flanked her body with their phantoms... she felt small. She was small, when measured against world and memory. She could never live up to any of it. She tried to bring them to her side, and her imagination provided that much. But it also diminished her, for they had always been larger than she, and so they always would be. And it was worse than that, for they had been the adults, she the child, they knew more than she did and that meant some part of Applejack's soul felt that still held true. The phantoms of memory moved with her. They overshadowed her. She tried to think about how much her parents had loved Pinkie: the excuse she had given her brother. The phantoms heard that, and so they judged her. She didn't know how they would have felt about Snowflake. She could never know, not until the day she entered the shadowlands. And so much of her felt her first sight in the last pasture would be of tails lashing, as those who had brought her forth left her forever -- -- she shoved the memories away, or tried to. But they were part of the Acres, and they would not leave. Acres which always had one more tree to inspect, one more weed to pull, one more and one more and when you did the whole thing one at a time, with a divisor of one pony... ...it's too much. Ah could ask Apple Bloom t' hold off until after the harvest. Still wouldn't be enough. Four was barely enough. Two can't do it and one... Ah'd have t' hire temps, an' what that does t' the profit margins... That was Snowflake's job: labor for hire. He could aid in the harvest, at least in hauling carts and bringing apples down from high branches. But he didn't have the Effect -- -- did he? She didn't know, and it didn't matter. The Acres were what they had always been: too much land for a single pony. She couldn't tend them on her own, not for long. She needed help. She needed... For a pony Ah barely know. For a pony Ah don't love. For a pony Ah don't know if Ah can love. She did as much as she could, tending to the land under rays of sunlight in the mist of memory. But it wasn't enough. It never could be. She was simply too small. Every living tree had a role in the world. Every fruit-bearing branch was meant to do exactly that. Some had been created to produce pine cones, others littered the soil with needles, and it was all done by plan. Applejack accepted that, because it was what her parents had told her. Her Daddy had made an extra point of telling her that the stout cypress which shaded the barn had clearly been created to support a giant cart wheel. She'd never found out where he'd gotten the wheel, had never even seen a cart large enough to justify something where the total diameter was twice the length of a pony's body, with spokes thick enough to take Mac's weight and a hub which could double as an exceptionally smooth tree stump. He'd simply come back from town in the company of three laughing friends, all desperately trying to roll it along without too many falls, using their own bodies as the propelling force, and they'd almost made it to the barn. And by the time her Mommy had come out to see what the crash was about, her Daddy had already been tooth-tying the first ropes. An older Applejack suspected he'd had the wheel commissioned, because a tree which had been created to support it needed to fulfill its role. A younger one had mostly been lost in imagining ponies larger than barns while her Daddy and his friends had head-tossed lassos until they finally hauled the huge new swing into place. The family had seldom used it, not as a swing: you needed a considerable amount of force to get it going and while earth pony strength provided, the pony in the center couldn't make any contributions -- plus there was only so far you could go before you risked hitting the trunk, and the support ropes tended to twist. But on warm days, you ducked (slightly) under the rim, you walked between the spokes until things got too narrow, you climbed up onto the hub -- a boost helped there -- and then you just... rested, under the shade of the cypress. The truly dedicated might be able to toss their weight enough to get a little rocking motion going, but it never lasted for long. It was better to just sit and think, dappled by leaves and slow-shifting dreams. It was where she found her Granny, and Applejack's first reaction was fear. She couldn't help it. Granny was lying down, her body draped across the hub with all four legs limply dangling between spokes. Wrinkled eyelids had closed, ears had sagged close to the skull, her tail wasn't moving -- -- but Winona was in the shadow of the hub, curled and resting quietly. The collie looked up at the sound of Applejack's little gasp, and that tail wagged. It's okay. The thought didn't seem to reach her lungs, which insisted on continuing to work at double time. Ah can see her breathing now. Winona would have come t' get me if something happened. She's just asleep... She was wrong. "Ah know yer there," the matriarch declared, eyes still closed. "Outer hearin' may not be much --" her ears lifted for a moment "-- but ain't nothing wrong with mah soul. Ah heard y'comin'. Figured you'd reach this sooner or later. And in the meantime..." The dangling white tail shifted: left, then right. "...ain't been up here for a while. Figured Ah'd get one in, before the Bureau blocks mah chance." "Y'shouldn't be up there," was Applejack's first protest. One eye cracked open. "Oh? Ah'm gettin' kicked off the swing now?" "Y'shouldn't climb. That's nearly your height off the ground! Y'could... y'could hurt yourself, an' --" Wait. "How'd you get up there, anyway? Your hip --" "-- asked the earth t' give me a boost," Granny casually replied. "Wasn't much." "An' that position," Applejack valiantly went on. "All splayed out like that! It can't be helpin' --" "It's a good day," the matriarch declared, closing her left eye again. The response was automatic. "How good?" "Good enough," Granny replied, "that Ah can remember what the bad ones are like. As opposed t' the bad ones, when Ah can't remember much of anythin'. Today, Ah remembered what Ah needed to." Applejack's next word almost caught in her throat. "Granny --" "-- good enough," the old pony sighed. "As good as it gets, these days. And that's good enough. Remember Ah told you we'd talk in the morning?" "Yes." "It's morning. Get up here." Slowly, Applejack approached, ducked under the rim. (It was a deeper duck than it had once been: she was taller, and she had her hat.) Moved between spokes, and then her own soul asked a careful question of the world. Soil welled up beneath her. (Winona, used to it, just wagged that thin tail a little more.) She climbed off the mound, draped her body across the spokes. The hub was the most comfortable spot, but that belonged to Granny, and... Applejack had hurt her enough already. "Ah'm talkin'," the matriarch stated, once Applejack's body was roughly parallel to her own. "You're listenin'." Silence. The quiet of obedience. "Speak up, girl! Ah got mah eyes closed, so Ah can look at what's important. Can't see you noddin' or nothin'!" "...okay." Granny sighed. "We're startin' with Apple Bloom." Applejack, who found confusion blended quite well with inner panic, waited for it. "Durin' the whole Crusade, y'were blamin' yourself. That's right, ain't it? Not somethin' y'have t' say, not when Ah know how you think." A little more slowly "Or... Ah thought Ah did. But Ah can guess at this one. 'She wouldn't be doing this if Bright an' Pear were alive.' So it was all your fault, that the Crusade started or kept goin' at all. Close enough?" It was so strange, to hear her parents' names. In her heart, they were Mommy and Daddy. Nothing else. But... Every day. Every Crusade. Every small claims lawsuit. Every coating of tree sap. "...yeah." And the next words were a definitive statement. "You're wrong." Followed by a sigh. "Just like Ah was wrong 'bout Bright. Wrong 'bout Pear. Wrong 'bout everythin'. Ah was wrong, an'... that's why we're here now, ain't we?" "Ah..." She swallowed, wondered just how 'good' the day truly was. "...Ah don't understand, Granny." The old body took a slow breath, savored the air before releasing it. "Never told you 'bout how your parents met, did Ah?" Applejack's eyes squeezed shut. "No. Ah asked them -- well, we all did. But they always told us it was a story for when we were older. For later." And then 'later' had run out. "All Ah know is..." And now she could feel the blush rising. "Um... we found some weddin' photos. In the attic. So Ah know what the ceremony looked like. An' her dress." And nothing could make her mention the other thing all three children had noticed, not in front of her grandmother -- -- who saved her the trouble. "An' the fact that Mac was, let's say, puttin' a tiny amount of strain on the dress?" The fire burning Applejack's face answered for her. "Yeah," Granny softly sighed. "But that wasn't really the biggest part. An' Ah ain't tellin' all of it today, 'cause it's a story for the whole family." And before Applejack could express the surging terror which had just made her believe that putting such a requirement on 'later' would have it run out again. "Right now, you've gotta know the part which applies t' you. An' it's this. They shouldn't have married. They shouldn't have dated. They shouldn't have met. An' Ah..." A deep sigh. "Ah was against it. All of it, the whole way. But Ah was wrong. An' if Ah'd got mah way, if it hadn't happened... then we ain't talkin'." This time, her breath caught in her throat, as the pressure of her frozen blood cut off every thought she ever could have had. Sun was gone. The wheel might as well not have been there. All Applejack could feel was the cold. "Things work out the way Ah wanted," the matriarch concluded, "an' you ain't born. Y'don't exist. Y'never did. That's the price of mah bein' right. An' Ah would have paid it at the time, 'cause Ah hadn't met you yet. Didn't know y'were gonna be around, or what you'd be like. But before there were Elements an' missions an' a Princess who can't figure out how t' clean her dishes after the card game an' keeps tryin' anyway... there was this filly sneakin' out of her crib t' chew wood. An' Ah would've stopped that, 'cause Ah didn't know." She had spoken to Pinkie in the cell under Quiet's castle. Been the one to pull her friend back, just as that familiar companion had once saved Applejack. She knew what the baker had been thinking, after the truth had been revealed, and for the first time, she felt the horrible ice of that thought creep through her own skull. Ah'm not s'pposed t' be alive... "Talk," her grandmother irritably ordered. "Ah need t' know y'didn't drop off." "Ah..." Her thoughts were spinning. The world was spiraling. "Ah... they were earth ponies, Granny, they were both earth ponies. Why shouldn't they be together?" "Because some stupid ponies thought they shouldn't be," was the immediate reply. "Ah was one of 'em. But it happened. It happened no matter what we did t' try an' stop it. An' at the end, when we found out -- Pear had t' make a choice. She picked Bright. An' that was it. She was with us, an' it meant that when they died, when we had their shiva, Ah didn't put out some of the benches Ah could have, 'cause Ah knew they would never be filled." Old lungs forced a small sigh. "Wish Ah'd been wrong there too. But she picked us an' to her own blood, she became water. They jus'... let her wash away. Drowned -- Ah'm sorry." "...what?" "Ah felt that," the matriarch told her. "Y'made the whole wheel shake with that shudder. It was a bad word, an' Ah'm sorry. But you've gotta listen. Ah thought Ah raised Bright the right way, an' he never stopped lookin' at that filly. Y'did your best with Apple Bloom. Y'know what that means, for the two of you? Like mother, like daughter. Like father too, come t' that. It's in the blood, Ah think. Every generation finds a way t' go against what the last one wanted, an' so far..." The green left foreleg raised, painfully shifted to the side, made gentle contact. "...Ah can't say it ain't worked out. Pear gave up her bloodline, an' we got you and Mac and Apple Bloom. Ah still call that fair trade, little sprout." Fur darkened at the edges of her closed eyes, taking on the first bits of moisture. "Ah don't want t' give that up. Any of it, any of you. 'cause you were worth it. All of it." Her own blood became water, ran out through her eyes. "Granny --" "-- but yer right," the matriarch interrupted. "They were both earth ponies. He ain't." And before the ice could return, "So tell me, right now: why him? It sure ain't his looks." She snorted. "He ain't a looker. More of a can't-stop-lookin'." "Ah know." "Makes it easier, actually," her Granny added. "At least Ah know y'didn't go for the prettiest snout." Dryly, "Or were y'lookin' somewhere else?" "Ah don't --" The matriarch explained, and so Applejack's mind was forever seared with the undeniable fact that her father hadn't arrived in the world through trotting out of a mirror. "GRANNY!" Which only brought a calm "Well? Was that it?" "NO!" "If'fin y'say so," Granny calmly said. "Then what is it? Why him?" "It's... hard t' say." Please, please let me stop picturing that... "Meanin' yer afraid t' try. So do it anyway." The forehoof gently rubbed at her flank. "'cause this is what Ah should have asked your father, exceptin' the obvious part. Even though Ah know what he was lookin' at, at least for what happened before Mac showed up. Ah ain't making the same mistake twice. Snowflake, little sprout. Why him? If you were gonna ask a pegasus, why him?" She tried to explain, as best she could. (In time, she would find herself using the same words again.) "Really," Granny dryly said. "All of that." "...yeah." "Y'sound like him right now. Y'know that. Wanna add 'mutual limited vocabulary' t' the list?" "Granny..." "Oh, good. Another word." The old mare sighed. Her body sagged against the hub, and Winona licked at the still-dangling foreleg. "It's gonna get worse," the matriarch said. "A lot worse. Mac's jus' the start, Ah think." All of the sarcasm was self-directed, and so the fresh wounds were self-inflicted. "Ah drove my brother off. The pony who gave up his life for us. How does that get worse?" "'cause there's more than jus' Mac." And before Applejack could figure that one out, "So Ah'm guessing y'wanna hear what Ah think?" Fully, painfully aware that a certain natural response would just get her an extra joke, "Yes." "Ah think..." Another slow breath, echoed by a faded breeze rustling the leaves. "...that mah opinion don't matter much. Acres are goin' science, an' Ah won't be a real part of that. Apple Bloom's gonna get her mark, an' that's got nothin' t' do with me. 'cause we all come from the earth, an' we all return. Ah'm headin' back soon --" the other foreleg came up "-- an' no point in denyin' it. Ah know Ah'm old. When the Princesses are sendin' you birthday cards, you're old. An' -- your grandfather's been waiting a while. But it's not jus' that. Ah wanna see mah son. Ah wanna tell him how his kids turned out. How his older daughter was... jus' like her mother. An' when she hears that, she'll jus' laugh..." She sighed. The white tail fell flat. "Ah'm dyin' -- stop cryin', if'fin y'can. Save it for shiva, for when it matters. This old, dyin' jus' happens slow, 'til the moment it finishes. An' the funny part is... Ah don't mind. It's been a good life, little sprout. But life is for the livin'. You're still in the contract: mine's jus' 'bout signed off. Y'get close t' the shadowlands, y'think 'bout how everypony before us tried t' live the same way, by what all the ones before 'em told them t' do -- and if'fin you're me, y'think that listenin' means Ah wouldn't have the three of you. Ah think deep down, Ah'm angry, 'cause that was mah first thought when y'told us. That Ah was mad at Bright, an' Ah was mad at you. Second thought, though... that was the one which said Ah hadn't learned much. Third one had me listenin' in on you and Apple Bloom. About prices. Ah paid mine. Pear paid hers. It's your turn, 'cause that's what livin' is. So you do what y'want,'cause Ah'm almost out of it. So mah opinion don't matter." "Matters t' me!" Applejack instantly protested, the hard head shake sending tears flying everywhere. "Didn't before y'asked him." And there was nothing she could say. "Climb down," the matriarch told her. "No more chores today, no tendin' anythin' but your family. Go find your brother. Think of what you've gotta say t' him, something which ain't another fight. An' hope t' Sun an' Moon that it ain't too late t' stop stupid. He's got a head start, a huge one. Go now." She jumped down, nearly got her body squeezed between too-close spokes for her trouble. Moved towards the rim. "Applejack?" The eldest daughter turned, looked into filmy orange eyes. "If'fin y'decide that he's worth it," the matriarch said, "don't take too long." One last snort. "Ah never put no lesson into no scroll. Maybe that's why they're hard t' remember. But Ah still learned somethin' along the way. That the kids get it right in the end, more than y'think they do. An' Ah never took t' 'Duchess'. But as titles go... Ah think 'Great-Granny Smith' would suit me jus' fine."