//------------------------------//
// Chapter I 
// Story: Friendship Was Magic 
// by Error732 
//------------------------------//

Applebloom tasted dirt. She recoiled momentarily from the soiled, rotten texture, but her stomach forced her to continue, biting down into a slimy brown mess that was once an apple core. There was nothing solid enough to chew, a merciful relief to her taste buds, but torture to her throat as she fought to swallow. It was a vile taste, and it shamed her to know that it was now inside of her.

She discarded the decaying hunk of fruit, though it represented half an hour's scrounging. She surveyed the dumpster once more, pungent with a week's filth, and shivered with revulsion. Surely, she had not always been this hopeless.

One could hardly have guessed as much by looking at her. The same diet that had reduced her legs to gaunt twigs made her hooves brittle and sore. The contours of her ribs pressed against her skin, only mostly hidden by her patchy fur. Her mane was a matted mess, now too thin to support the ribbon that once adorned it. Her makeup was a collection of dirt and scars, her perfume a gallimaufry of odors from the alleys of Ponyville.

The current addition to that collection of aromas was the gap between Ponyville Cakes and Ponyville Quills and Sofas, which housed a pair of dumpsters and, presently, Applebloom and her sister Applejack.

"You find anything good, Applebloom?" asked Applejack, limping toward her from the far end of the alley. Her tattered saddlebags sagged slightly under the weight of discarded pie tins and frosting bags.

"There's never anything good, sis," said Applebloom. "We ain't good enough for good things, no more."

Applejack's hopeful expression hardened. "Now don't you get like that, Applebloom. We Apple ponies sure are down, but we ain't out." She pushed up the brim of her hat and trotted as proudly as she could, a tall, regal gait, entirely spoiled by her regular stumbles over her bad leg. "Now, c'mon. I found a whole mess of tins for Granny, and I'm sure she's real hungry by now."

When are we not hungry, thought Applebloom. For herself, she had only a few carrot ends and wilted leaves of lettuce, as well as the lingering aftertaste of apple slime. It was a cruel substitute for the diet she remembered; her youth had been a carefree, even spoiled experience punctuated with apple pies, apple fritters, apple turnovers, and, of course, fresh apples. Her family had owned an orchard, a luxury she had failed to appreciate as a filly. At the time, it had seemed a natural, necessary part of existence: hers was the Apple family. They grew apples.

But every bushel rots. At first, the Long Night had seemed survivable, despite the havoc it had wreaked on the weaker crops. But the expenses of Granny Apple's numerous hip surgeries had thrown the family into debt, and, as Applejack's own hip had announced, the condition was hereditary. Short of workers and unable to keep up with their loans, the Apple family had begun selling off tracts of the orchard. Every time was vehemently declared the last, each dwindling remainder was proudly pronounced the true core of the family land to the discarded periphery, and each promise was quietly broken, under the failing hope that things would turn around. Desperation pushed McIntosh to marry a rich widow, but the mare had insisted on an iron-clad prenup and kept her finances her own; now, he lived Appeloosa, indentured to his wife for his livelihood.

As night fell, the sisters Apple at last arrived at their current home, a shack behind the last row of merchants in the market quarter of Ponyville. There now, as ever, was Granny Apple, wrapped in punctured blankets.

"Granny Apple," said Applejack, suppressing all unpleasantness. "We brought you dinner, Granny Apple." Applejack unloaded the wretched feast and began delicately feeding the immobile mare. Granny Apple's wrinkled face had long since lost any expression; she conveyed her appreciation only with continued struggles to swallow and occasional groans.

Applebloom struggled to savor her own meal, but her hunger overpowered her. In a rush of disappointing bliss, she had finished every scrap of what were already scraps. Remorse closed upon her, for she had once again submitted to hunger. Never did she resent her own body more than when the threat of starvation enslaved her. Not when her front tooth had fallen out, marring her once adorable smile. Not when her cheek had scarred keloid, after she'd cut dug carelessly through a dumpster mined with open cans. Not even when her cutie mark had grown in late, ugly, and faded had she protested the workings of her body. But she loathed hunger. She was scarcely even a thinking being, so long as hunger held her reins.

And now, standing beside the rest of what would surely be the last Apple ponies, Applebloom decided she could take no more.



"Sis," she said, "I can't do this anymore."

Applejack briefly discontinued nursing their grandmother. "Now, Applebloom, I know you don't—”

"Can it, sis. I already know what you're going to say: we'll get through these hard times. We ain't stuck like this forever; we just gotta find work. But it's a lie, sis! There ain't no purpose to what we're doin'! We can only scrape by like this for a few months, maybe a year more, and there ain't nothin' waitin' for us at the end of it!"

Applejack rose from Granny's side and stared sharply into Applebloom's eyes. "Now you listen here, sis. We may have lost the orchard, but we ain't gettin' it back by complainin' and callin' ourselves as good as dead. If you want a better life, you gotta work for it, and that's what we're doin'."

"Like heck we are," said Applebloom, rolling her eyes. "Why don't we ask for help? Your friends—"

"Because we ain't beggars," said Applejack, digging her foreleg into the ground. "Because we Apples are workers, not freeloaders. Because we're tougher than that."

"Get over yourself," said Applebloom. "We're three homeless ponies who eat trash for dinner. I bet if we asked Twilight Sparkle in Canterlot, she'd be able to—"

"No, Applebloom," said Applejack, resuming her place next to Granny Apple. "We're not doing that. You're my sister, and I love you, so I forgive you for insultin' the family like that. But let's get one thing straight: if you go beggin' for alms, you ain't doin' it for us. You're doin' it for you." With that, she resumed feeding Granny, affording her sister no further attention.

Applebloom lay down against the wall across the alley and closed her eyes. Her anger had given her more energy than her last week's worth of meals, and now she fought to contain it. It would be a cold night, and any reserves were better spent keeping warm. She shivered as the dim red light of dusk waned, trying her best to remember the pony she used to be.

She faded in and out of consciousness, a piecemeal sleep fractured by biting drafts and a sore belly. Unable to will herself to doze any further, Applebloom opened her eyes. It was scarcely an hour after dark, judging by the sounds of passing ponies. Applebloom stood up. There was no comfort here.

And, though the nearby hoofsteps had raised her from sleep, Applejack kept her eyes closed as they softened into the distance.