Applejack once believed that darkness, like light, comes in rays.
She was seven when she first conceived the idea, back when she would turn her nose at haystacks because she believed they were made from leftover trimmings gathered from all the barbershops across Equestria, or when she would cower beneath her bedsheets in the winter because she believed the Spirits of Hearth’s Warming would snatch away little fillies who stayed up late at night. But the one about darkness made more sense to her than the others. After all, sunlight comes in rays! Moonlight does as well! So it would only make sense that darkness would be doing the same thing that they’re doing!
Except it’s just better at it. A whole lot better.
Darkness was a spider, one with legs that would stretch out from one corner of the room to all the others.
She had since grown out of it, of course. Not since that night where she had made a huge fuss about it to Big Mac, who proceeded to tease her and mock her over it for several days afterwards, as was typical of him way back then. She couldn’t be blamed for thinking that, of course—try telling a seven-year-old filly that sometimes, just because it looks like there’s something there doesn’t always mean there’s actually anything there. That sometimes, what you’re seeing is really just a whole bunch of nothing.
But that don't make them any less important. Sometimes, having nothing tells you exactly what you need. That’s why every creature took to giving the ‘nothing’ a lot of different names, one of which just so happens to be the thing that we all call darkness.
And when we see that it’s dark, we know then that all we need is a little bit of light.
Granny Smith had her way of helping her make sense of things, that’s for sure.
“Naw, was just us. Me and Apple Bloom.”
Knowing her, she would definitely know how to deal with the guard.
“We just found it like that, swear to the princesses.”
What would she say to them?
“The tree got struck by lightning last night. Y’know, heavy storm and all. We were cuttin' it down, gettin' it ready to be carted off. We, uh, we do that anytime that happens, just so y’all should know. It’s something we’re used to doing. We’re taught to do it as fillies.”
What did Granny Smith know about this that they don’t?
“Can’t say. All I know is that the tree’s been around a while. It’s old. Really old. Ain’t got a clue how long it’s been there. Nothing about any dead body either, nothing of that sort. Matter of fact, I don’t even think about that sorta work. None of us on the farm do. Ain’t right to even dream about doin' anything like that.”
Did Granny Smith even know about this?
About any of this?
“I’m just a farmer, y’all know that. Honest to goodness. I don’t know a thing.”
The soft gleam of the evening cradled her when Applejack emerged from the barracks of the local constable, though she had been too preoccupied with the grim tidings of the afternoon to welcome it. The dirt path beneath her hooves folded over and over, ceaselessly pulling itself from underneath her in spite of the fatigue swirling in her fetlocks. For the longest while, all she did was wander about Ponyville without purpose or destination in mind. However, it wasn’t long before she caught a whiff of the currents in the air, the ones bearing scents earthy and familiar, that finally saw her cantering out of town.
The trademark barnhouse of Sweet Apple Acres was a welcome sight as it rose brilliantly from the horizon, a stalwart garnet standing amid the braided hillsides. White fences stretched out across the valley, all of them leading back to a leafy archway where a wooden sign with a carved-out apple hung from above, swinging in the wind as if eagerly waving in all who passed it by into the Apple homestead’s immeasurable embrace.
It was there that Applejack finally allowed herself to smile and relax, her stiff gait slackening into gentle strides as she made her way past the many coops and pens before reaching the front door.
Only for it to burst open as a pair of hooves lunged out to wrangle her by her withers.
“Horseapples, don’t do that to me, AB,” Applejack gasped once she regained her breath, only to break into a chuckle when she felt a light dampness growing in her chest. “And don’tcha go cryin' on me either.”
“She’s been waiting for you for quite some time,” Sugar Belle’s voice echoed from the kitchen, before emerging into the living room with her best grin on display in spite of the black circles hanging beneath her drooping eyes. “What did you tell them?”
“The truth. That we know nothing.” Applejack plopped herself onto the nearest chair she could find. “Only thing I could be sure about was the tree and how old it was. None about the feller inside. Hay, they had a lot of questions about him. Or her, could be a her.”
“You think…” Apple Bloom gulped. “You think Granny Smith knew about this?”
“Dunno. Don’t wanna know. Would make sense that she knew something about it. Woulda made more sense if she didn’t wanna tell us. At the same time, Granny ain’t the type to leave us to clean up after her messes, least the ones a simple broom couldn’t fix anyway. She would’ve told me or Mac about it, I’m sure.”
“So…” Sugar Belle exhaled. “What now? What do we do?”
“We do nothing. We sleep it off. Come next morn, we clean up what’s left of the tree. Hopefully by then, the guards will’ve figured something out.” Applejack chuckled dolefully when her response was met with a pair of anxious frowns. “Now, look y’all, I’m hankering for answers too. All this ain’t right, I know it ain’t. But the best thing for us right now is to not think about it too much. It don’t make sense, none of it does, but it can’t ever make sense if we don’t even know where to start.”
“We could search Granny’s bedroom,” Apple Bloom suggested. “That’s a start, right?”
Applejack shook her head. “Already did that with Macintosh a few times over, to sort her stuff out. Found nothin' important.”
“Did ya try checking underneath the floorboards?”
“Did that and then some. Nothing. Which ain’t that big of a surprise when you count all the times this place got torn to the ground,” Applejack pointed out with a dry laugh. “Basically, if Granny Smith ever left anything behind that could’ve helped us, it would've been long gone by now.”
Apple Bloom slumped onto the floor, a fretful nicker jetting out from between her clenched teeth. “So what, we just wait around?”
“Eeyup. Least ‘til whenever Big Mac comes back.”
“Tomorrow night,” Sugar Belle chimed in. “Letter from Mac came in while you were at the station. Says he’ll be able to make it around that time.”
“So the day after tomorrow then.” Leaning forward, Applejack concluded thusly: “We’ll run things through with him in the morning once he’s rested up, catch him up to speed. Who knows, he may have seen or heard a thing or two from Granny back then that we’ve missed. Then Mac and I will go to the guard, see if they have anything new for us.”
“Wait, what about me?” Apple Bloom raised her hoof to ask. “Don’t you think I should go?”
“Don’t know about that, Apple Bloom.”
“Why not? I can help, you know that!”
“I know you can, it’s just…” Applejack bit her lip, hooves cramming against the couch. “Sugarcube, whatever the guard’s gonna talk to us about, it sure as hay ain’t gonna be nice.”
“I saw the body, okay? I was the one who called you over to see it in the first place.”
“Don’t mean you should get yourself involved in it any more than you already did,” the farmpony said. “Look, I have no idea what’s going on. None of us do. Whatever happened to that fella, odds are it could happen to us. Course, I could be wrong, and all of this could just be a fluke. But until we can be sure it’s safe, I ain’t taking any chances.”
“But it’s fine if you do it.”
Applejack had only a hapless shrug. “One of us has to.”
To which Apple Bloom responded with a groan and a roll of her eyes, before standing up and stomping out of the room.
“Bloom.” Sugar Belle rose to her hooves. “Apple Bloom, wait—”
“It’s fine.” Applejack stopped the other mare in her tracks. “Just leave her be. She’ll come around eventually.”
“She does have a point, you know?” the baker turned to face her with a stoop in her brows. “Apple Bloom can help. I can too. It’s not fair that you’re the only one putting yourself in danger for the rest of our sakes.”
An airy sigh. “I know it ain’t, shug. But like I said, I’m not going to put us all in danger unless I’m sure about what we’re dealing with here. Better me than all of us at once. If something happened to either of you because of me, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.”
“And if something happened to you?”
“Then I’ll find my way out of it, like I always do!” she proclaimed, however unconvincing it may have sounded. “So long as it means keepin' everypony safe.”
Sugar Belle eventually acquiesced with a scant nod, if only because she must’ve realised nothing she could say would persuade Applejack otherwise. “But if you need help,” she stressed all the same, “just know that we’re here for you, alright?”
To which Applejack responded with a confident and mirthful: “Countin' on it.”
Even if deep down, she sorely wished that it would never come to pass.
The afternoon that followed was uneventful, as afternoons should be.
Farmwork had kept the family preoccupied throughout the day. All the hours they’ve spent bucking apples and baling hay meant that they had little time to think about everything that had transpired yesterday. By sundown, none of them had the energy for anything else, much less speculate about things best left in the dark.
Work had always been Applejack’s prevailing home remedy, however taxing it can be. She appreciated the mundanity that came with the daily routine, the kind that can only be found growing in between the wheat fields and the apple trees. Plus, no harm ever came from a hard day's work beyond the occasional sprained hoof. Certainly nothing malevolent either.
But above all else, it was familiar. It reminded her of what her home is. That Sweet Apple Acres was far bigger—far more benign—than a body in a tree. That this was a land that belonged to a family of honest farmers. That the soil they tilled, the seeds they planted, the crops they watered and the apple trees they bucked—all of it was the honest work of generations past, culminating in the present and ready to be bestowed to those who would take their place in the future.
It was a cycle cultivated with care and sincerity. A legacy, one of the Apple variety.
A legacy that had been tarnished by a body in a tree.
The thought of it had kept Applejack up into the depths of the night. It had been hanging over her shoulder earlier, casting a twisted shadow over the family as they ate in silence at the dinner table. Now, she could only stare at it with a weary scowl as it danced about her bedroom ceiling, tearing across the rafters to the rhythm of the shambling rain, all while cackling at her inability to do anything but despair at the quandary before her.
It didn't take long for Applejack to accept that she wasn't about to get much sleep that night. She cantered out of her bedroom, her frustrated grumbles lost to a gaping yawn as she made her way downstairs. The dim light coming from the living room did stop her in her tracks, until she remembered that Sugar Belle had opted earlier to stay awake to welcome Big Mac whenever he comes home. The hounding storm outside certainly threw a wrench in their plans, though Sugar Belle, true to the Apple name, was a mare determined.
"How ya holdin' up, sugarcube?" Applejack asked as she strode in. She had found Sugar Belle seated on the couch by the window, wrapped in a blanket and staring out into the pouring rain with only the warmth of the lantern by her side. "Any luck spotting him?"
Sugar Belle shook her head. "I don't think he’s coming back tonight."
"That's fine by me. So long as he's safe." Applejack sauntered over to sit by her side. "You can go upstairs and rest if you want. I can take over."
"It's okay.” Sugar Belle smiled at the offer nevertheless. “I don’t mind staying up with you, keep you company. Or wait, is it you who’s keeping me company?”
“We’re keepin' each other company,” was what Applejack settled on, grinning alongside her sister-in-law. “Though frankly, I’m beginning to think I need yours more than you do mine.”
“We can talk about it?”
Applejack offered nothing but a vacant simper.
Sugar Belle pursed her lips. She pressed the hoof on the other’s forearm. “Come on, what’s bothering you?”
Moments later, a muted “Everything.”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down.”
Applejack chortled at that little quip. “I don’t know how to describe it,” she said, glancing out the window and looking over the farm being consumed in the midnight rain, before turning back and voicing out the question that had been drawing whirlwinds in her head. “Do you... do you maybe think this is all my fault somehow?”
Her words gave Sugar Belle pause. “How’d you mean?”
“It all happened on my watch.” Applejack’s gaze fell outwards once more, this time over to where the body had been found. “That tree could’ve been struck by lightning when Granny was around, or when Ma and Pa were still around with her. Hay, with how old it is, it could’ve happened even before then. But it didn’t.”
“It could’ve been a coincidence.”
“Could very well be. Then again, Granny always used to say that there ain’t no such things as coincidences on this farm.”
“Coincidence or not, I don’t think it’s any fault of yours.” Sugar Belle shifted closer to her. “You said it yourself, that tree’s been there for a while. You couldn’t have known anything about it.”
“I know, Shug. It’s just… how do I say this… Granny Smith left the farm to us. It’s our job to take care of it now, our responsibility. And as much as I hate the idea, I can’t help but feel like this might be a part of that as well.”
Sugar Belle furrowed her brows. “You really think Granny Smith knew about this all along?”
“I’m beginning to,” Applejack admitted with a quiver in her voice. “Every time I think about how this could’ve happened, I keep coming back to it. Granny was here from the very moment Ponyville had been founded, so it only makes sense that she knew what happened from the start.”
“So why didn’t she tell you anything about it?”
“Maybe she couldn’t,” the farmpony postulated. “Maybe… maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe she did tell somepony or wrote it down somewhere but it got lost along the way. Or maybe I’m wrong and she never knew about it in the first place.” Applejack couldn’t help but let loose the strained laugh scratching at her throat. “Celestia, I really hope I’m wrong.”
Sugar Belle squeezed her hoof.
“I don’t know what to think," Applejack continued. "The fact that Granny Smith could have something to do with it.” The words that had been chewing at her chest all night finally came to the fore. “I don’t know what that would mean for us, or for the farm. Matter of fact, if it were up to me, I think I don’t ever wanna know. But I’m startin' to feel like I ain’t got a choice in the matter. That there ain’t an out for us, no way, no how, and when the time comes, there just might be hell for us to pay.”
As if on cue, a flash of lightning lit up the night. The rumbling thunder that ensued prompted Applejack to shoot a worried glance upwards as the rafters above began to rattle to its booming tune. Outside, the rain lashing against the windows grew heavier, more restless, as if it had been emboldened by the very words that had left her lips.
“But would it really change anything?”
Sugar Belle’s question emerged as a quiet whisper amid the furor, yet it rang far louder in Applejack’s ears than any other noise the storm outside could hope to conjure.
“Say that again?”
“Would it really change anything,” she repeated, louder and firmer this time. “About how you personally feel about Granny Smith. About how you see her. As her granddaughter.”
Applejack frowned, perhaps more so at herself than at her sister-in-law. Some part of her realised something that she knew all along—that on a quieter, much rosier night, she would’ve laughed such an obvious question off the table without even a second’s hesitation. After all, with everything that Granny Smith had done for them, not to mention the entire Apple family at large, it was wrong for her to even have to pause for a second and reconsider just how much Granny Smith meant to all of them in the first place.
Perhaps that was the true test all along. That no skeleton in the proverbial closet should ever sully the good name of Granny Smith in spite of all the darker possibilities at play. Perhaps all that’s expected of Applejack was for her to firmly believe that all of this will tide over in time, and that the Apple family name, on its own, would persevere.
Even so, Applejack couldn’t help but wonder.
Would that really be the right thing to do?
“Sugar Belle.” Applejack turned back to the mare in question. “If I could ask ya something, and I mean to hear you out earnestly, what do you think I should be doin' right about now?”
“Me?” A skittish laugh escaped from Sugar Belle. “A-Asking me, why, Jackie, I don’t think I could give any advice of any kind, much less anything about family! I-I just think I’m not—I just don’t, I...” She gulped. “I mean, why me?”
“Cause you’re the only other pony here right now. But also, ‘cause I’d like another opinion, ‘specially from somepony who’s rather new to the family.” Applejack attempted a reassuring grin. “Somepony who’s been around long enough to know the ins and outs, yet ain’t quite set in our ways just yet.”
“Applejack, please.”
“I trust ya, sugarcube. That’s why I’m askin' ya.” Applejack reached out from the dark and into the lantern’s glimmering shroud, meeting in the middle to cup Sugar Belle’s forehooves in between her own pair. “You’re an Apple now, Sugar Belle. You’re family. And I get it, you might think to yourself that you’re still new here, that it ain’t your place to speak your mind. But it don’t change the fact that what you have to say about the family matters, even if you don’t think it does.”
“And it’s something you can’t wait until tomorrow to ask Mac or Bloom about?”
“Mac has enough work on his plate as it is. As for Bloom, I…” Her eyes drew upwards to where her sister slept, her voice shirking into something between a breathless chuckle and a frazzled sigh. “I can’t help but keep thinkin' that she’s too young for things like these. Make no mistake, I’m really glad she’s been makin' an effort to help us out a lot more. ‘Specially if it’s farmwork, I’m all for Apple Bloom taking the initiative. But there’s just some things a mare her age shouldn’t be worryin' about. And as her big sis, I can’t help it, you know?”
To that, Sugar Belle let slip one of her dainty giggles. It was softer than the usual fare, drowned out almost by the wind and the rain. The precious yet peculiar sound twinkled like dewdrops as it skated along the night’s black gossamer threads, carrying within itself the warmth that Applejack had always found comforting and oddly familiar.
“Well, if that’s how you feel about them,” Sugar Belle said to her in a tone most sincere, “then I think that it doesn’t really matter what I think. I mean, you’re always doing your best, especially if it concerns the rest of us. What matters, I guess, is whether or not you think this will help us in the end. And if you think it does, I’ll be right behind you every step of the way.”
For a moment, brief as it seemed, the rain outside lapsed into a calm. The lantern’s flickering bloom, like a light breeze, rushed in to fill the quiet left behind. Applejack could feel the shadows over her shoulder momentarily receding, terrified perhaps in the face of such blinding warmth, and though she knew she was not quite out of the woods yet, she still found herself smiling all the same.
“Shucks.”
“I’m guessing that helped?”
“More than you know, even if what you did ain’t fair,” Applejack exhaled as Sugar Belle giggled sweetly once more. “Didn’t expect you’d sweet talk your way out of answerin' me, though I’m glad there’s at least one pony around here that believes in me. I’m glad I asked ya.”
“I’m glad you did. I... wasn’t sure if I would be, but now I am.”
“You gotta have more faith in yourself, Shug.”
“I know, I know, I…” Sugar Belle’s laughter faded into a sigh. “I guess you could say all of this family stuff is a little new to me. I never really had a say in these kinds of things before.”
“Not even with your folks?”
“My parents… to be honest, they weren’t really around for a lot of my life.”
Every word Applejack had held close to her chest immediately crumbled into silence. “I-I’m sorry, I didn't know, didn’t mean ta—”
“Huh? Oh! Oh no no no, it’s okay, they’re fine, they’re okay!” A boisterous chuckle. “Gosh, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. They’re still around, I think! I just… I haven’t really been keeping in touch with them. Haven’t done so for a long time now.”
“Why not?”
“We’re… not close. We never were.”
Applejack heard it again.
Hissing like a roach. Resting in the pauses between the other mare’s every word. Hiding right behind the thorns that make up her cracking smile. Bubbling just beneath it, lying in wait.
Resentment. A colour she had heard from Sugar Belle only once before.
”This is what a home’s supposed to be like.”
However, Applejack had seen it. Too many times, in fact. It was in the way Sugar Belle would sidestep every question about her life before Starlight’s town, the silent smiles she would retreat into every time one of them reminisced about Ma and Pa. Or, perhaps most glaringly, her adamant refusal at Pinkie Pie’s offer to write them invitations to their daughter’s own wedding.
And each and every time, Applejack pretended not to notice. Each and every time, she sternly reminded herself not to bring it up. As Rarity would put it, every mare has her secrets, so it’s no surprise that Sugar Belle would have her fair share. Secrets that, Applejack reckoned, she would come to reveal to everyone else in her own time.
But everything has its time. Every pony has their limits. There’s only so long a secret can last before the truth comes free. There’s only so long Sugar Belle could keep it in without its shadow consuming every corner and facet of her life. And, likewise, there’s only so long that Applejack could tolerate watching her own sister-in-law struggle to keep at it without letting the darkness tear herself apart.
“Did something happen?” she brought herself to ask.
She had to.
She just had to.
Sugar Belle suddenly turned towards her.
The sharpest of glares, shooting forth from her eyes.
Only to immediately die down as her gaze sagged towards the floorboards.
“No,” she murmured soon after. “No, nothing happened.”
Then, a laugh.
Sizzling, like flames.
“But I guess that’s the problem, isn’t it? Nothing happened. Nothing ever did.”
Applejack bit her lip, the shadows around them once more closing in. “What do you mean by that?”
Sugar Belle opened her mouth to answer, only to stop midway as she was turning back towards the window, prompting Applejack to follow suit.
Out there, in the distance, was a flicker of orange. It shimmered through the whipping palls of the midnight rain, swaying gently, unwaveringly, in spite of the pummelling winds. Slowly but surely, it pushed its way through the storm, criss-crossing in between the silhouettes of the trembling trees as it clambered over the battered hillsides and approached the warmer embrace of the farmhouse in its sights.
“Is… is that…”
Applejack squinted. “Seems like it,” she muttered, a grimace forming. “Can’t believe him. What the hay was Mac thinking, coming back home in a storm like this?”
“Towels!” Sugar Belle chirruped, leaping from the couch and scampering off into the kitchen. “We’ll need some towels! A-A drink too, something warm!”
“You go get the water, I’ll fetch the towels!“ Applejack stood up with a rumbling sigh and made her way towards the bathroom. “Seriously, Mac, one more day wouldn’t hurt anypony.”
Minutes later, the farmpony came back to the living room with a pile of towels on her back and set them onto the nearest table she could find. She looked over at Sugar Belle, who was perched on the back of the couch and looking out the window. “Everything okay, Shug?”
“Everything’s fine, it’s just…” the other mare leaned into the glass for a better look. “I think… I think he stopped moving.”
“Wagon wheel got caught in the mud, I reckon. Rain’ll do that to ya.” Shaking her head, Applejack trotted over to join her. Sure enough, the light outside had stopped moving, quivering in the rain like a lost filly. “Frankly speakin', Mac should know that by now. Don’t know how many times I need to tell him that. He’s lucky it happened close to home.”
“He can see us, right?” Sugar Belle turned. “Shouldn’t he be waving his lantern, call for help or something?”
“He should be.”
Yet he wasn’t.
The light remained where it was.
Waiting.
Watching.
“What the hay is he doing out there?”
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
The pummelling came from the front door, startling both of them so much that they almost fell off the couch. Catching her breath, Applejack’s glance darted over towards Sugar Belle, who could only stare at her from the corner of the cushions she had crumbled into, her trembling eyes as wide as saucers.
“Who… who is it?” she quietly asked.
“Dunno.” Applejack swallowed, glancing back at the front door. “Shouldn’t be anypony ‘round at this hour.”
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Both mares jumped again.
Sugar Belle whimpered, retreating further into the dark.
“Wait—” Applejack swallowed. “Wait here. I’ll… I’ll answer it.”
Rising from the couch, Applejack crossed over into the darkness as she made her way to the front door. The banging had not started again since then, though for how much longer, she wasn’t sure. Holding her breath, the farmpony pushed herself to stare ahead into the front door and face whatever pony or creature standing it, her quivering hoof coming to rest on the latch holding it shut.
"Hello?"
All was quiet.
“Is anypony there?”
Quiet. Still.
"Who’s… who’s there?
“AJ?” A gravelly voice rumbled from beyond. “AJ, that you?”
“Big Mac?”
Applejack immediately tugged the latch to the side, allowing the door to swing inward. Right before her, drenched in the rain with splotches of mud caking his sides, was none other than Macintosh himself. The stallion let out a raspy yet relieved sigh at her familiar face, trudging past her and into the farmhouse despite his dripping, grimy state.
“Thank Celestia y’all still awake,” he said, chuckling lowly. “Wasn’t looking forward to sleeping out in the barn for the night after all that.”
“Macintosh!” Sugar Belle’s horn lit up, grabbing one of the towels before quickly bounding over towards him. “Celestia’s sake, what were you thinking, coming back in the storm like that?!”
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Big Mac said with a sheepish chuckle as she began wiping him down. “Though from the looks of it, it seems like the two of you’s been expecting me anyways.”
“That’s because we knew you’d do it anyway! You could’ve gotten hurt out there, Mac!”
“Eeyup. Sorry for making you worry.”
Warm as their reunion was, Applejack’s gaze, however, was not drawn to the couple. Instead, she cantered past them and steadily made her way back towards the window, her heart sinking into her stomach as she glanced outside once more with a darkening frown.
The light was still there.
Still in the same place as before.
Watching from the dark.
Waiting.
“Who the hay’s that?” Big Mac’s voice rumbled from behind Applejack as he trotted up to join her. Sugar Belle, still busy wiping him down, followed behind soon after, only to stop with a light gasp when she saw it as well.
“We thought…” she muttered. “We thought that was you.”
All three pairs of eyes turned back to the light in the distance, watching it as it flickered in place within the depths of the raging night. It glowed only brightly enough for it to be visible—whoever or whatever holding it up was still hidden in the dark. For a moment, it seemed as though it was beginning to edge closer towards the house, as though it too yearned for the comfort of their home.
Then, a blink later, it vanished.
Swallowed by the darkness surrounding it.
Returning to it, maybe.
Or perhaps it was making a move.
Almost immediately, Applejack galloped back to the front door, the very same one she had left ajar. With a firm pull, she slammed it shut, before yanking its latch back in place.
“Macintosh, did you lock up the barn?”
“AJ, what’s going on?”
“Did you lock it up or not, just tell me!”
Big Mac flinched. “Yes, ‘course I did!”
“Sugar Belle, go check the back door.” The other mare hastily did so without question, leaving Applejack and Big Mac alone. “Listen, something’s happened while you’re away. Something bad.”
“How bad?”
Applejack gravely shook her head in place of an answer. “I don’t know who’s out there, but if they had a say in what happened, I ain’t taking any chances.”
“E-Everything’s locked up!” Sugar Belle called from the kitchen, the mare herself galloping back to rejoin them. “It’s… it’s them, isn’t it? Whoever’s responsible for the body?”
“Wait, what?” Big Mac turned to his wife. “What body? Wait just a minute, what happened?”
Before either mare could speak up, a loud crack burst through the room.
A burst of orange has erupted outside—one of the apple trees had been struck by lightning again. Blazing as bright and powerful as the last one, the monument of smoke and fire screamed up to the sky in the face of the howling storm, leaving all three ponies to shudder and look on in awe and terror.
“Should we… should we be putting it out?” Big Mac thought to ask.
“No,” Applejack gulped, knowing full well that there’s something out there waiting for them if they do. “No, just leave it.”
The taunting flames raged on, colouring the night as it shrieked orange.
The cackling of the rafters started rattling in the walls.
The shadows around her began to close in, converging beneath the hooves of everypony in the room as it swayed along to the ember’s erratic tune.
And all Applejack could bring herself to do was sit there.
“We...”
Back in the same place as before.
"We’ll deal with it tomorrow."
Watching from the dark.
Waiting.
“Let it burn.”