//------------------------------// // Applejack // Story: Death at a Party // by Joural //------------------------------// Applejack leaned against the snack table, and stared forlornly through the could of similarly listless ponies. Sure, there was some pretense of dancing, a few games, but nopony was truly partying... not like Pinkie had wanted them to. If it had just been a horrible accident, terrible as that was to think, this would be easier— far better to place blame on random fate then on your own actions. She sighed, her gaze drifting to the ground. She had tried, of course, to mend the rift that eventually split her from all of her former friends, save Rainbow, who exiled herself for the sake of the wonderbolts, but some wounds ran too deep— How do you apologize for telling someone you think they are an abomination? She knew, and accepted, that she had been wrong, that when she said those things she may have been being honest, but it didn't change the fact it was the worst thing she ever did. Applejack's jaw fell open as the mares before her— her friends!— hugged close, sharing the kind of intimacy intended only for a mare and a colt. She nearly retched. She knew her eyes would betray her feelings as disgust and contempt fought an even battle for supremacy, and she could see in Twilight's eyes that her friend already knew what she was thinking. The hurt she saw only made her angry. Twilight had called her to them, then done... done that! And she thought she had the write to be hurt by her disgust? Applejack's stomach roiled, and her confused gaze melted into open hatred. Twilight's eyes watered, and Applejack saw her heart break as her friend saw her emotions, clear as day. "Applejack..." "No! Don't you "Applejack" me, you... you slut! Ah... Ah don't even know what to think anymore! You... you disgust me! Ah don't want to see you, either of you, around Sweet Apple Acres, and I don't want you spending time with Applebloom, not until you realize how... How foalish you're being! when you work this out of your systems, let me know, but until then... I don't want to see either of you." Applejack turned and stalked from the room, But not fast enough to escape the sorrowful gaze Pinkie leveled upon her, nor to escape the soft sobbing as one of her dearest friends had her heart wrenched from her chest. She assumed it was Fluttershy, but in the end, she didn't really care. Applejack winced as the memory faded, knowing that, while it was perhaps the most noteworthy of such events, it was hardly the last. She vaguely recalled saying a number of unkind things when Fluttershy had found Applebloom on her way back from visiting Zecora and offered to walk her home, of launching into a veritable verbal tirade when she had seen the couple on a double date with Bon-Bon and Lyra, even of sending hate mail to her once-dear friends, demanding they abandon their sinful life style and live their lives hiding who they were— of course, she hadn't seen it that way at the time, but introspection and a healthy dose of perspective had a habit of showing you the truth of your actions. Pinkie had eventually managed to calm her down, and talk out her worries, fears and beliefs, downplaying them without dismissing them, showing her how stupid it all was without implying that she was stupid. When she had finally accepted that truth, she immediately rushed off to apologize, to undo the damage that had been caused, only for Pinkie to wisely point out that, for a time, at least, it would be best if she simply left things alone. And she did. Meanwhile Pinkie started trying to get Twilight to come to talk to her- They both knew that Fluttershy would be willing to forgive her, but the problem was convincing Twilight to let Fluttershy anywhere near Applejack. With each successive panic attack and break down Twilight had grown more protective of her Marefriend, perhaps reasonably so. But that still left Pinkie and Applejack without a point of egress. Everypony they spoke to for assistance insisted that Applejack had gotten herself into the mess, and that she should be the one to dig herself out. They might have tried contacting Rainbow for support, but the only reliable methods of contacting her— Fluttershy and Spike— were out of the question, the mare for the obvious reasons and Spike because he had reacted even more negatively than Twilight to her tirades, and had often been the one to physically evict her from whatever location she had chosen for her most recent rant. Eventually, she was forced to admit that she wasn't going to be able to fix things with twilight, and accept that their friendship was over— maybe forever. Pinkie bounced up to Applejack while she was lost in thought, babbling about something. she knew she should pay attention to what her over-excited friend was talking about, but somehow it just didn't seem worth it. It had been weeks since she had ruined her own life, and in that time only one of her friends had really talked to her— she wasn't willing to count the arguments she had with Twilight, the times she reduced Fluttershy to tears, and the contempt all their other friends had shown her as talking. Much as it pained her to admit, Applejack already knew what she needed to do. She looked at Pinkie, who was smiling wide, probably because of some new plan to makeup with Twilight, and gave her a sad smile. "Pinkie, ah... Ah don't think we're gonna fix this. And ah don't want you to burn any bridges on mah account." Pinkie seemed to slowly deflate, her hair loosing it's bounce and her eyes watering. She stared at Applejack for a few minutes, before turning slowly away. Applejack watched her last friend walked away, and a tear fell from her eye. Applejack sighed,staring down at her hooves. How was she to know that Pinkie wouldn't be able to make friends with the others again? And how was she to know that things would get so bad? Even as she thought these things she knew she was lying to herself, that she was as responsible for this as anyone else, but sometimes it was nice to hide behind a comforting lie.