//------------------------------// // 13 - Forever Harvest // Story: Contraptionology! // by Skywriter //------------------------------// * * * Contraptionology! by Jeffrey C. Wells www.scrivnarium.net (with gratitude to the pre-reading powers of Akela Stronghoof and S.R. Foxley) * * * Part Thirteen: Forever Harvest So, yep, I was falling. First fall out of three that day, if I recall correctly. One thing I can say about the ol' noggin, it sure ain't a dilly-dallier. Lots of ponies in this situation, their brains'd get all silly with the life flashing before their eyes and everything. Now, I don't know if maybe I'm a little bit immune to this on account of my life being such a generally happy, uneventful picture-book of apple-growing and apple-harvesting (the occasional Equestria-preserving quest aside) that my head just kinda skips over a bunch of it, but no matter. In the middle of danger, Applejack, bearer of the now-busted Element of Honesty, was on the job and burning full blast. Without sparing even a moment to think about it, I flipped the parasol Discord had tossed to me around in the air and caught it by the ribs in my mouth. One mighty lash of my neck later had the curved handle of the thing jammed into a tiny little crevice in the rock, leaving me hanging by my teeth over death that was slightly less certain than it had been up there at the top of the bluff. Not for the first time, I shot a quick prayer of thanks to the Grower that he'd seen fit to provide me with a body what could suspend its entire weight by its own jaw muscles. No time for patting myself on the back, though. The parasol was already starting to dissolve into brightly-colored ribbons of chaos-stuff. If I couldn't find a better solution, and fast, I was still gonna go splat into the piney woods below, and I still didn't fancy my chances to live through that. Grunting and kicking off the rock with my powerful iron-hard leg muscles, I put myself into a good solid swing, aiming my body at a rocky outcropping on the bluff about twenty yards below me. From up where I was, it looked large enough that maybe with a little wedging I could actually rest for a spell, and if not, well, at least it'd mean twenty yards less to fall once I tumbled off it. My swing was timed just about perfect. The parasol exploded into streamers right as I was reaching the end of my arc, and it sent me careening across the face of the bluff straight toward the outcropping. Unfortunately, I botched the landing, hitting the rock all wrong, and it knocked the wind right out of me. My hooves scrabbled against stone as I tried to get purchase, but it was no use, and there I was, back to falling again. One good thing, though – my efforts with the parasol had brought me closer to the face of the bluff than I had been before, so there was at least a chance I could dig my hooves in and slow my descent a little. Gritting my teeth, I gave 'er a shot, dragging my forehooves across the rough cliff face and successfully slowing myself down, at the price of roughing the walls of my hooves pretty near all the way down to the frog and drawing blood from the sole plate. Right then and there I vowed that I'd never again set hoof outside my barn again without a set of good iron shoes on, but as Granny always says, it's a mite easier to see the snake that's hanging off your leg than the one that's hiding in the bushes. Bellowing against the pain of it all, I yanked my hooves back away from the face of the cliff and knocked myself into a spin in doing so. Now tumbling head-over-hocks toward the trees below, and beyond any hope of reaching the cliff again to break my fall, there was nothing left to do but try to judge how fast I was falling, how much it would hurt when I hit, and whether or not it would kill me dead when all was said and done. The answers, one at a time: fast, a lot, and maybe. I squeezed my eyes shut, the wind howling all around me, and braced for impact. In a cloud of needles and real unhappy birds, I hit the pine canopy at somewhat less than terminal speed, missing full-on impalement by about a foot in either direction. Branches clawed at my white science coat and at my hide underneath as I tumbled past them, covering me with scratches and sticky tree sap, until I eventually came to a jarring halt when a heavy, sturdier-than-usual ponderosa limb snagged the back of my science coat and held on. Everything got quiet as I hung there, suspended far above the forest floor, spinning slowly in the breeze. Well, I said to myself, as I gazed down at the ground, on the bright side, that's a darn sight more pleasant a distance to fall than before. Heckfire, I continued, on the bright side, I'm still bucking alive. All the adrenaline swimming around in my blood finally made its way into my head and I started guffawing like a loon. Still alive! "Ha!" I shouted up to the distant clifftop. "Take that, you stinking dragon-pony-lizard thing! I ain't in a full-body cast at all! I'm just stuck on a tree branch a hundred feet above the ground!" The echoes of my words died away, and it was just then that I realized I was, yep, stuck on a tree branch a hundred feet above the ground. Shoot. All right, easy does it, A.J. One crisis at a time. If I could just swing myself up onto one of them branches I could get myself stable. Now, ponies are good at lots of things, but climbing trees ain't really one of 'em, so I couldn't say as though I would just clamber down the tree once I got my hooves under me, but maybe if I stripped off my lab coat I could construct a sort of jerrybuilt harness out of it, and then slowly work my way down to— With a sickening crack, the heretofore presumed-to-be-sturdy branch gave a lurch, pulling away from the tree and leaving my weight trusted to a single wide strip of bark. Okay, new plan, I thought to myself, all frantic. First I— It don't even matter what that plan was, and I ain't gonna tell you on account of it being kind of ridiculous. Three seconds later there was only one plan left in the world, and it was "fall". I twisted and turned in the air, trying to make sure I hit the ground hooves-first. I'd put it off every way that I possibly could, save for growin' a pair of pegasus wings all of a sudden, and it was time to let the earth give me my long-delayed lumps and pick 'er up from there. All right, Applejack, don't tense up, don't lock the knees, let 'em take the shock for you, and whatever you d— And then there was no further time for self-advice, because I finally, finally, hit the ground. The impact tore into the tendons and muscles of my legs, and I stumbled, dreading the sound of a crack, but none came. Tears welled in my eyes as the burn of pain hit a split-second later, and I fell to my knees, but a moment later I was back on my hooves, shaking all over like a leaf. I weren't falling no more. I was on the ground. I was alive. A mad cackle rose up in my throat. Sounded a bit like my science-cackling of earlier, and maybe it was; but on the other hoof, maybe it was just me, busting out in absolute delight that I had survived an impossible-to-survive fall with nothing more to show for it than massive tendonitis. I was still in the game! That rascal Discord couldn't get rid of me that easy! Boy howdy, he sure picked the wrong pony to cross when he decided to cross Applej— The heavy tree limb that had been my savior a moment or two ago finally finished the business of falling, directly onto my unprotected cranium. Oh, for pony's sake, I thought, as everything went black. * * * Pinkie's got this... game, I guess it is. It's a big black number-eight billiards ball with a little window at the bottom, and when you turn 'er over you can see that the whole mess is full of this inky blue-black water stuff. And there's a little white jobber floating inside it with words written on it, and the game is that you shake it around in your hooves and ask it a question, and whatever words float to the top of the black water is what the answer to your question is supposed to be. Usually it tells me to ask again later or somesuch. Anyhow, I ain't actually stopping my story to yak on about party games to y'all. Point I'm trying to make here is, while you're sitting there waiting for the little white jobber to answer your question, you can see it kinda bobbing in and out of the shadowish water, vanishing and reappearing and such, and – coming to the end of my self-indulgent little gab – that's what my world was like for a good long while. Bob up. A pony's breath in my face, a flutter of pegasus wings. A squeaky little voice, calling out to somepony far off. Bob back down. Bob up. That voice again. "Bell! Over here, Bell! ¡Vámonos!" A second voice, then, much deeper, rumbling out a reply I couldn't make out. Bob back down. Bob up. "—move her? What if her neck—" And down again. Bob up again at the feeling of being lifted up onto something, my legs hanging loose, like a rag-doll's. The deep voice, in my ear now. Bell, volunteered my concussed head. Bell Pepper. "Hold on, Applejack," whispered Bell, with gentle urgency. I felt the little bubble of a grunt rise in the back of my throat, and it seemed to stiffen Bell's resolve. Warmth flooded my breast at the idea that a measure of safety had come to me, that I could stop worrying for a spell, and the moment I even allowed myself the thought, a great well of blackness opened beneath me and I was falling, falling, falling... * * * I blinked my eyes open at white light. Things were quiet, where I was. Maybe a little birdsong, distant. The rush of a creek, somewhere. The air had a touch of frost in it. I raised my head to look up. I was lying on my side in sweet-smelling grass. All around me were apple trees in full fruit, golden delicious variety. An orchard, then, not one I was familiar with. For all the green and yellow, everything around me seemed a mite washed out and pale, like I was living in a photograph where somepony'd left the shutter open too long. "Hey, little cowpoke," came a voice. Well, ain't nopony called me that in ages, and only one pony I ever knew did, regular. So I knew what I was gonna see when I turned my head around; still came as a bit of a startlement, though. "Pa?" I said, my voice sounding strange in my ears. The great dusky-red form of my father Cortland, wavering in the strange and washed-out light, sauntered closer by a step or two. Pa was enormous to me, like I always remembered him. He was far bigger than any stallion should be to a mare of my age; but as I got my hooves under me I could tell my legs weren't quite the shape I was used to them being, and a quick glance back at my clean, un-Marked flank confirmed that I weren't a mare of my age no more, if that makes sense. "Ayup," said my Pa, laconically. I swallowed hard. "It killed me, Pa," I said in my little filly voice, looking around me. "Right? This here's the Forever Harvest, ain't it?" Pa chuckled, picked a little stalk of timothy grass, and planted it between his teeth, like I'd seen him do a hundred thousand times in the few years I knew him. It quite near to broke my heart how much he looked like Macintosh in doing it. Pa gazed off into the uncertain distance, chewing quietly. "Nope," he said, eventually. "Ride ain't over for you yet, little cowpoke. Not while the world's got its chestnuts in the fire, again." I nodded. "I understand, Pa," I said. Then my jaw quivered a little. "Can I...come over there and touch you?" "I ain't where you are," said Pa, matter-of-factly. "And you ain't where I is. So let's not muddy the waters, hear?" "Yes, Pa," I said, cowed. "Good girl," said Pa. He stood there a moment, chewing on his timothy. Then he wadded it up, swallowed it, and turned back toward me. "You done got yourself into a heap a' trouble, cowpoke," he said. "I... I lost your hat this morning," I said, my voice thick. Cortland shrugged. "There's other hats," he said. "Two bits a dozen." "None of them's yours," I sniffed. "Be that as it may," said Pa. "I ain't talking about hats. I'm talking about all the fancy science shenanigans y'all got going on. What in the blue blazes is going on there?" "I know, I know," I said. "We all been poisoned, Pa. I'm fixing to make it right, though." "See that you do, Applejack," said Pa. He shook his head. "Thunderation," he continued. "This here's what you reap when you start trucking with city-folk wizards." "Wait," I asked, blinking. "Are you talking about Twilight?" "Ayup," said Cortland, his face like a mask. "This ain't none of this Twilight's doing, Pa," I said. "Me and her's got our differences, sure, but this is bigger than anything going on between us. We got the immortal Spirit of Chaos wrecking up the place, for crying in the mud." "So you say," said Pa. "I do say," I replied, stamping a little and standing my ground. Yes, I was somehow a little filly again, not much more than a yearling; and yes, I was speaking to my dead Pa, who I missed more than words can say. Don't matter. We're Apple Family, and we call a spade a spade. "Discord ain't doing anything truly unnatural," Pa maintained, shaking his head. "All these machine ideas he's put into your heads, well, it's what the city-folk call 'progress'. I know it seems strange to you now, cowpoke, but mark my words: in two hundred years, there'll be things goin' on in Ponyville that make your little advanced science fair here look like a rusty old well-pump." "Ain't so," I said, guardedly. "Is so," replied Cortland. "Discord's sped up the process, sure. But every day, unicorns like your friend Twilight and earth ponies of the fancy-learning type like your friend Pinkie are whelping more and more machines into the world. You remember them unicorn hucksters you drove off our land last cider season? The ones who were aiming to machine up every last drop of cider production in Ponyville?" "The Flim-Flam Brothers," I said. Even speaking the name brought the smell of ozone and mane oil fresh to the front of my mind. "Too well." "Well, they ain't gonna be the last," said Pa. "Fact is, the future's gonna hold more and more of their kind. They're all gonna want our land, cowpoke, and eventually, you ain't gonna hold out." I tried to forget just how near a thing it had been, how close we had come to losing Sweet Apple Acres to the first real challenger to come down the road. "We'll hold out," I said, hardly believing it. "You won't," said Cortland. "All it'll take is a couple bad years. Two centuries from now, your great-great-great-great-granddaughter is gonna be working as a checkout girl at a big ol' Rich's Barnyard Bargains they'll have built smack-dab on top of where our home is now, and the only apples she'll even know are ones that come out of 'frigerated produce cases." "Ain't gonna happen," I said squaring my jaw. "Then you gotta fight for it," said Pa, looking me square in the eye. "Once you drop Discord like the sick dog he is, your job ain't over. You gotta spend every day of your life fighting for the soul of Ponyville. Because there's some things that ought to last forever, and our way of life is one of 'em. Do you hear me, cowpoke?" "Yes, Pa," I said. Pa grunted. "Well, all right then," he said. "Anyhow, you'd best be waking up soon. That Pepper boy's almost got you up to his family's place. Once you're there, you've gotta stitch yourself back up quick and then find a way to stop Discord. I'll be checking in, case you need more advice." "You'll be watching me?" I asked, hardly daring to hope. Cortland's face softened. "Always, little cowpoke," he said. "Always." I smiled, my eyes bright and my heart filled with sunshine. Deciding that crazy afterlife restrictions could go hang 'emselves, I practically threw myself at Pa, aching for him to lay his neck across mine and call me his little filly one more time; and as I galloped at him, fast as my little legs could carry me, the birdsong faded and the overexposed trees turned all to white and a susurrus rose in my ears... * * * ...and then I wasn't galloping filly no more, but instead back in my own body, bound up in a makeshift stretcher bumping gently along a dirt path. The light was growing low and beginning to slant just a hint, and evening was coming on apace. From everywhere around me there came the soft and happy grunts and buck-bucks of pigs and chickens. I groaned a little and turned my head to the noises, and then up at my rescuer. "Bell?" I murmured. "Hush now, Señorita Applejack," said Bell. "Now is the time for resting, not speaking." "Bell," I persisted. "I can't quite make it out to see, but that... that sounds kinda like my livestock there. Did you go and gather up my animals when everything went to Tartarus?" Bell chuckled. "You may thank your sister and her friends for that," said Bell. "The Pepper family is merely providing the pens." "Thank you," I said, sinking back down onto the stretcher. "For you it is no trouble," said Bell. "What is a few more head of swine? No, what perplexes us is how to store the seals and toucans and such of your yellow pegasus friend. But we are resourceful on this troubled day, and we will endure." "Thank you," I repeated. "Thank you so much, Mister Bell Pepper." "You are most welcome," said Bell. "And now I must insist you rest. We are almost home." "As you say, sir," I said, feeling the black open under me again. "Keep me safe, hear?" "I promise you this, Applejack," said Bell, his voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well. Or maybe I was in the well and he was on top of it. Didn't matter for long. I was out cold again, and did not wake for some time.