//------------------------------// // Sour Notes // Story: Under The Light of Dusk // by applejackofalltrades //------------------------------// “That’s just horrible, ain’t it?” Applejack sighed and held her hat to her chest for a moment before putting it back on her head. Pinkie Pie’s silence was what caught her attention and made her look over. The usually bright and bubbly pink mare deflated; metaphorically and literally. Wetness brimmed at the edges of Pinkie’s eyes as something twisted and turned inside Applejack’s chest. “Err, look, listen, Pinkie,” Applejack started awkwardly, “I know this probably ain’t whatcha wanted to see, but… well…” She inhaled sharply, unsure of what she was even trying to say. Pinkie looked up and curled the corners of her mouth upward ever so slightly. Applejack knew it was meant to be a smile, but not even Pinkie Pie could make that look like a real smile. “It’s okay,” Pinkie whispered. She shook her head, slowly at first, but then quickly as her mane grew back to its regular size. “It’s okay, Applejack. Really. It doesn’t matter.” Her smile was almost real-looking. She said that, but Applejack knew that it wasn’t entirely true. Pinkie might have perked up, but she wasn’t back to her usual state. Her gaze kept drifting back to the wall and around the room, and a frown tugged at her mouth. The farm mare bit her lip and followed Pinkie as she made her way to a certain ice-cream shaped object near what was once her bed. At least they hadn’t wrecked that.  This wouldn’t be surprising to Applejack. She had experienced the entrance to the Party Planning Cave first hoof one day by accident, and it was a rather troubling surprise—until she and her friends realized where they had been taken. As Pinkie’s floor split in half and sent the two mares down the ridiculously long slide into the secret cave, Applejack could barely bring herself to smile. Once upon a time, she might have thought the slide was fun. Now all she could think about was how they had to stay quiet.  The slide finally ended. It was not a particularly long way down, but the anticipation and fear that somepony might be hiding down in the cave was enough to make it seem like a lifetime. Applejack hopped off the slide followed by Pinkie. Neither of them made a noise apart from the quiet hoofsteps echoing off the walls.  A quick scan around confirmed Applejack’s hopes that they were alone. The farm pony let out a sigh and tensed muscles relaxed slightly. She could almost feel Pinkie Pie doing the same next to her. Still, they had to be careful. Applejack knew that. “Well, looks like there is some stuff we can use, right?” Applejack looked over to Pinkie Pie, who was peering into a toppled over filing cabinet. There were papers strewn about, which meant that Twilight’s forces must have come in here. There was no substantial damage, though, so they must have not found anything worthwhile.  Pinkie Pie stared into the filing cabinet, unblinking. “Do you remember the party I threw for Twilight when she and Spike first got here?” She smiled weakly and turned away from the metal organizer, pushing a loose stack of stapled-together papers toward Applejack, who made her way closer to the pink mare. “That’s when I found out she’s not good with spicy food.” Applejack looked down at the stack of papers that Pinkie Pie was motioning to. They were old and beat-up, some of the corners ripped and missing, but the front page had a picture of Twilight when she was a unicorn taped to it with her name written neatly underneath. Applejack’s mouth raised into a slight grin as she flipped the page. It was a list of Twilight’s likes and dislikes written in different colours of ink, presumably whenever Pinkie found out something about her friend. The next page was a chart of the party favours she liked and what would go well together. Seeing as how the stack had a hoofful more of pages, there must have been more information. Applejack looked up in awe. “Pinkie, that’s… amazing. I’ve seen all this before, but I never really looked at how much work ya put into it.” “I just love to see my friends smile,” Pinkie stated simply. She reached into the cabinet and pulled out some more files like the one she had on Twilight. On each of them was a picture of the pony it belonged to and labeled with her name; Rainbow Dash’s was written with sparkly blue, Rarity’s with elegant purple, Fluttershy’s with a soft yellow, and Applejack’s with a simple red. “I have one of these for nearly everypony in Ponyville. Some of them are missing, I think. I can’t really tell. These were the only ones in this filer.” Applejack nodded along, looking tenderly at the detailed files Pinkie Pie kept on everypony. At one point, she might have thought it was creepy, but now she knew it was only in everpony’s best interest. She always knew that. Just now… well there were worse things to worry about than Pinkie Pie being in everypony’s personal business.  “Why do you think she’s leaving us alone?” Applejack looked up from the Rainbow Dash file at Pinkie Pie, who wasn’t exactly looking at her, but in the general direction. “Whaddya mean?” “Twilight,” Pinkie clarified. “Why do you think she’s not trying to… to attack us? She keeps the day cycle pretty normal, and she hasn’t really tried to come to Sweet Apple Acres in a while. Why? I know she’s stronger than the magic barrier we have around the premises. So why?” Pinkie spoke in a way that Applejack wasn’t used to from the usually bubbly mare. The farm pony swallowed dryly as Pinkie turned to face her with a pleading expression. Applejack often thought about it. Why hadn’t Twilight tried to take them all by now? She was definitely more than capable, but instead she chose to do little things to hurt them. Erratic winters, random long days of blistering hot sun, taking ponies that strayed from the farm… Applejack sighed. “I dunno, Pinkie. I don’t rightly know.”  “What if she… she doesn’t want to hurt us?” Pinkie asked, a slight twinge of desperation edging her voice and making it crack. “Maybe she remembers!” Applejack cringed. It was a good idea, and maybe a hopeful one, but it was not a feasible one. “I don’t think so. I think maybe she’s just… messin’ with us. I don’t think that Twilight—at least not that Twilight—is our friend.” Pinkie Pie didn’t respond. Instead, she walked away from the cabinet to gather the few supplies that lay around the room. Applejack watched her closely. Pinkie Pie didn’t smile, nor did she frown. She’d been doing that a lot recently; not quite smiling, but not quite frowning either. When she thought anypony might have been looking at her, she’d smile. But Applejack was sneaky. She could see Pinkie without Pinkie knowing she was looking. There were better things she could be doing than watching Pinkie Pie at the current moment, however. She tore her subtle gaze away from the other mare and set to looking around. There was a little bag of balloons on a countertop across from where Applejack stood. As she went to grab them, she noticed a single paper on the ground under the table. Considering all the papers that were scattered along the floor, it wasn’t particularly exciting. However, this one had a picture of Pinkie Pie on it, and in the same hoofwriting as the files for herself and her friends, Applejack noticed just one thing written in smudged plain black ink. With narrowed eyes, Applejack read quietly under her breath. “‘Make them smile’.” The orange mare pushed her slipping hat back up her head. “Is that really all she wants? Why’s she got a file on herself, anyway?” Applejack turned her head to look at Pinkie Pie who was in the action of putting a pile of tangled streamers into her mane where they seemed to simply disappear. The pink mare looked blankly at the ground before she lifted her head and made eye contact with Applejack. It was then that her smile returned and she pointed at her mane with the jubilation of the Pinkie Pie that everypony had once known but never knew they lost.  As Pinkie Pie turned away, Applejack discreetly tucked the paper under her hat and returned with the bag of balloons held tightly between her jaws. Pinkie waited for Applejack in the centre of the room with a toothy smile.  “Did you find anything? I found lots of things!” Pinkie Pie pointed at her mane. “Well, not a lot of things, but more than I need for sure!” Applejack nodded and set down the bag of balloons. “It ain’t much but it’s… uh, the only party supplies I found.”  Pinkie didn’t seem to care. She squealed happily and with a pink blur, the balloons were placed inside her mane. “That’s great! I didn’t find any balloons and you can only reuse balloons so many times, you know. Then they start to get all soggy for some reason. Really gross.” The farm pony had seen things as of late. Many things. All sorts of things she wished she’d never seen, but that mental image was one of the worst. She shook the disturbing thought away and followed Pinkie Pie back to the slide. The last time she had been down here, she had to walk up the slide. It was a bit of a difficult task but she managed.  As she was preparing for another climb up a slippery slide, Pinkie walked right past her and sat on the slide as if she had just gone down it. She then scooched back a bit and patted the space in front of her. “Sit here.” “What.” “Trust me!” Applejack took a hesitant step toward Pinkie and glanced at the empty spot in front of her. “You want me to sit there?” Pinkie nodded. “Come on, trust me! You’ll see why.” With a shrug, Applejack sat with her back to Pinkie. There was nothing to lose, and she did trust Pinkie. Although, she did question her decision a bit as Pinkie wrapped the orange mare in a hug and told her not to scream. It took a lot of effort to keep her mouth clamped shut as the two mares somehow shot backwards up the slide. Applejack made sure to keep her hat on her head as the slide up slowed down and they shot back into Pinkie’s old room, landing with a grunt. Pinkie Pie whooped quietly as she jumped to her hooves, leaving a distraught Applejack laying on her back on the floor of Pinkie’s old room. The farm pony stared straight up at the ceiling blankly before bursting into hearty laughter. She laughed for a long while as she draped a hoof over her chest and finally as the air ran out, she rolled over onto her stomach as the laugh died off. “Hoo-wee, I haven’t had that much fun in ages,” Applejack breathed. With a grunt of effort, Applejack got to her hooves and shook out her pelt. “How’d you even do that?” Pinkie opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a loud clanging on the bottom floor that stiffened all of Applejack’s limbs. Both pairs of ears pricked and eyes set on the staircase, Applejack slowly sidestepped until she was shoulder to shoulder with Pinkie.  The cluttering of items continued. Applejack widened her stance, ready to fight if she needed to. She just hoped that whoever, or whatever, was making that noise didn’t have access to magic. She could deal with somepony like her. Hay, she could probably deal with a pegasus, but a unicorn with access to magic? Past experiences taught her that it wouldn’t be a fun confrontation.   Pinkie looked over to Applejack who returned the glance. Pinkie’s eyebrows were furrowed and her mouth tensed into a tight frown. Applejack adjusted her hat and raised a hoof. She knew Pinkie Pie knew that it meant to stay put, although Pinkie’s increasingly worried expression told her that she would only do so reluctantly.  Applejack wanted to say she’d be fine. To reassure Pinkie that it would all be okay, but Applejack was no liar, so she said nothing and instead gave her a comforting smile and took a cautious step toward the staircase. She peered down the steps. There was nothing there, but she knew there had to be something somewhere further into the room.  It was ludicrous, but there was no other way. If there was something down there – maybe even something dangerous – Applejack knew she had to be the one to face it. It’s not that she didn’t believe in Pinkie’s ability to defend herself, but between herself and Pinkie… well, Applejack had more experience. Besides, she would hate to go back without Pinkie.  Applejack figured she herself would be easy to replace. Big Mac was just as capable, if not more capable than her on the farm, and Spitfire seemed to be the pony at Rainbow’s right hoof. But Pinkie was not replaceable. Pinkie made sure everypony was smiling, no matter what. There was not another pony quite like Pinkie.  Applejack had to keep her safe. She stepped down the stairs slowly so as to not make any noise, but strong, heavy earth pony hooves were not on her side. With every step down, the wood underneath threatened to give way and creak, and every step down, Applejack found herself getting slower and slower until finally she reached the final step.  She was almost successful. The silhouette of a unicorn stood at the other side of the room, past the counter and near the entrance to the confectionery, completely oblivious to the earth pony's existence. Right as she stepped down, the step creaked. It was so quiet. But even the subtlest of noises were enough in dire situations.  The shadowed pony spun around and faced Applejack. From the backlight of the full moon, Applejack couldn't tell who the pony facing her down was. But she could see those blaring amber eyes and the short mane on the pony's head.  Applejack stood perfectly still. There was a type of instinct that kicked in at situations such as the one she found herself currently trapped in. Fight or flight. Much like a rabbit will flee from a hungry wolf, or an opossum will play dead at the first sign of danger, Applejack's body begged her to choose.  Time seemed to slow down as Applejack's heart rate quickened. She wished she wouldn't have to face a unicorn. Of course, the universe loved to play with her. The amber eyed unicorn did not blink as the elongated horn began to spark to life. It seemed slow, like molasses, but Applejack knew that she had to react quickly.  Applejack leaped to the side as a beam erupted from the unicorn's horn. It jetted right through where Applejack was just standing. The ray passed so close to Applejack that the heat made the skin on her shoulder feel like it was burning for a moment, but luckily there was no real damage.  Another zap. Applejack inhaled sharply as she ducked out of the way of another shot. This one opened a cut on her cheek. Desperate for a moment to think, she hid behind the counter as another ray exploded into the wall at the back of the store and left a black singe mark.  She could only imagine the amount of noise that the encounter was making. Hopefully, there was nopony else around to hear it, or else things would get hairy. Not that they weren't already.  Applejack cursed under her breath and let her heartbeat and shaking slow. Blood slowly dripped from the wound on her face, but it wasn't bad enough that she couldn't ignore it, so she did. There was no more magic, but there were no hoofsteps either. Should she look around the corner? It might be a set-up to get her head blown off, but if she waited too long, she'd risk getting snuck up on.  "Dammit," she whispered under her breath. "Dammit dammit dammit." Applejack furrowed her eyebrows and clenched her jaw. She had to risk it. She knew she had to.  With the speed of a tired sloth, Applejack peered around the corner of the counter. The unicorn was no longer where she had once stood. The earth pony's eyes widened in panic. How had she lost the unicorn? Applejack scrambled to her hooves and looked around. There was no sign of her magical adversary anywhere.  Careful eyes scanned the vicinity until the unmistakable noise of magic charging up broke the eerie silence right behind Applejack. The large mare spun around as quickly as she could to see the unicorn mere inches away from her.  Applejack's heart dropped as she pieced together who it was. The minty fur, the two-toned cyan and white mane, the yellow eyes… She could only stare as Lyra Heartstrings charged up a magical blast and pointed it right at her.  "No!"  Lyra toppled over with a pink blur on top of her. The magic discharged and shot a hole through the ceiling, causing Applejack to break out of her stupor and swallow dryly. She wasn't expecting Lyra to have been shooting to kill.  Pinkie pressed down on Lyra's back, keeping her as contained as possible as the minty unicorn thrashed about and uttered words that Applejack couldn't quite make out.  "Applejack, are you okay?" Pinkie asked as she struggled to keep Lyra off of her hooves as she shot magic recklessly around.  Applejack shuddered. "I'm fine. You saved me, Pinkie."  Pinkie Pie grunted and squinted. "No time for that! What do we do?"  Applejack gazed at Lyra, whose eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the room. Her horn glowed absently, although not in the colour of her magic. It dimly glowed green but before Applejack could even think about it, Lyra snapped her head up with a sudden burst of energy and shook Pinkie off into a nearby wall. Pinkie grunted as she hit it and fell to the floor.  "She knows where you are now," Lyra growled. "And she'll come save you. It's only a matter of time before you come into the light."  Applejack jumped in front of Pinkie protectively. If Lyra was going to hurt any of them, it wouldn't be Pinkie anymore. However, the laser never came. Lyra's horn glowed and then she popped right out of the room. Confusion was evident in Applejack's face, but she wasn't complaining. Instead, she looked down at Pinkie, who was only now getting back on her hooves, if a bit shaky.  Applejack took a step back, still looking around them in case Lyra decided to come back for a surprise visit. "Land sakes! You alright?"  Pinkie nodded as she tried on a smile. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a little bit sore."  That was a relief. Applejack walked to her friend and wrapped her in a hug. "I thought she mighta done something to ya. The way you weren't gettin' up at first…"  Pinkie gladly returned the hug. Applejack was never more glad to feel somepony's breathing on her shoulder. "I just got the wind knocked out of me," she reassured. Surprisingly, Pinkie was the first one to break apart from the hug. She stood in front of Applejack and reached out to wipe blood off of the farmer's face. "I think you took it worse than me, silly."  "What, this?" Applejack pointed at her cheek with a hoof. "T'aint nothing. I've gotten worse just from fallin' branches in the winter." Applejack grinned at her friend and gave her one last affectionate nuzzle with her good cheek. "Come on, we'd best head on out now. I dunno what Lyra meant by what she said, but if it means we high tail it outta here, then that's what we do."  Pinkie nodded in agreement. "So, are we gonna go clear the waterway? You said Apple Bloom mentioned the flow wasn't reaching the farm, right?"  Applejack bit her tongue. "I did say that, didn't I?" She frowned and sighed. "It wasn't the whole truth. Waterway's blocked. That part is true, but it ain't the one that comes by here. I just told Rainbow that so she'd agree to let me come here with you."  Pinkie cocked her head. "So you lied to her?"  That stung Applejack. She hated being called a liar almost as much as she hated plain lying. But she hadn't fully lied. "Kinda. But I had to. I don't like it, either, but I knew you were right about needin' to come, so I… did what I thought would make it work."  "Aww," Pinkie cooed with a happy smile. "You totally did that just for me and that is why you are the bestest friend anyone could ask for!"  Applejack chuckled. That was one way to look at it. Still, she had lied, and being reminded of that just put her on a sour note. She couldn't let Pinkie know though, so she just smiled back at her and gestured for her to begin walking. "Come on, Pinkie, let's go back."  "Okie dokie!"  Applejack led them to the door. She carefully opened it and peeked outside. It was empty. Completely empty. It was strange, but that sort of thinking could wait. Applejack took a cautious step outside and began to make her way back to the entrance to the tunnel, followed by Pinkie.  What neither of them saw was the purple alicorn watching from the very rooftop of Sugarcube Corner. Once-purple eyes flashed and glowed red for a moment before turning back to their regular shade of purple. She watched them enter the tunnel, and with a grin, powerful wings allowed her to take flight as she returned to the storm-covered castle that sat at the edge of Ponyville.