“Please don't scream!” a voice whispered urgently.
Apple Bloom made a sound that many would consider a scream, though it was somewhat muffled by the rag.
Or, more accurately, Cornsilk’s hoof.
“I said don’t scream!” she hissed irritably.
Apple Bloom looked sheepish, and Cornsilk pulled her hoof away.
“I told you not to follow me!” Cornsilk grumbled.
“I wasn’t gonna let a little pony walk into the Everfree Forest by herself,” Apple Bloom defended herself. “This place is dangerous.”
She paused.
She scooted ever so slightly away. “Are you dangerous?” she asked hesitantly.
“No,” Cornsilk said defensively. “Unless you’re a crow,” she amended. “I hate crows.”
Apple Bloom’s head spun. “Wait. So Zecora’s story, that’s all real?”
“No,” she said irritably. “Crystal Eyes tells it very differently. But none of that matters because you shouldn’t be here right now! You need to leave! If the others catch y-”
“Cornsilk!”
Cornsilk flinched at her name. “Aw, crowsfeet!” she swore. “Mom’s looking for me. I’m not supposed to leave the village!” She turned back to Apple Bloom. “And you’re not supposed to be here at all!”
“We’ve established that,” Apple Bloom said snippily.
“Cornsilk?” her mother called again.
“Don’t. Move,” Cornsilk warned, and she stepped into the light. “Mom,” she said with a little too much faux cheeriness.
Her mother saw right through this. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Where have you been, precious hat?”
“Been?” Cornsilk asked, her voice higher pitched than usual.
Apple Bloom winced. Cornsilk was a bad liar.
“There’s a storm rolling in and you decided to just dance off into the forest?”
Apple Bloom had had very similar conversations before, and she knew where this was going. She was silently grateful for that time she’d helped a pony with his tracking cutie mark, and she made her move.
“Oh, no. You know I’m not a good dancer,” Cornsilk said disarmingly, hoping to convince her to leave it at that.
It didn’t work. “Were you with a colt?” she asked, half suspiciously, half hopefully.
“No.”
“Filly?”
“No.”
Apple Bloom winced again. Cornsilk was such a bad liar!
Her mother strode forward, squinting into the darkness, as if hoping to prove her wrong.
Cornsilk didn’t need to breathe, but she tensed as her mother looked around into the darkness.
But though she poked and stomped through the underbrush, Apple Bloom was nowhere to be found.
Cornsilk let out a relieved breath.
Her mother’s suspicions quelled, she sighed. “Were you out ‘exploring’ again?”
“Exploring? Me?” Cornsilk said innocently.
It fell flat. Her mother groaned. “Cornsilk, we’ve been over this. You can’t go out in the forest looking for living ponies! They don’t exist, and even if they did, it’s not safe for little scarecrows out there.”
Apple Bloom knew this lecture, having been on the receiving end so many times she could almost give it verbatim. She tried to remain as still as possible from her position up in the nearby tree.
“I’m not a little scarecrow anymore,” Cornsilk protested.
“And yet you keep believing in these foalish stories of living ponies. They’re not real, Cornsilk. Just like the Mare in the Moon. It’s just a story.”
“But Crystal Eyes has told us all about them!”
“Crystal Eyes is an old scarecrow,” she said tiredly. “Her memory isn’t what it used to be. They’re just bedtime stories she told so long ago and now she believes they’re real.”
The wind picked up, and Apple Bloom grabbed tighter onto the branch. She cast a fearful look up at the sky. It really was coming in fast. Hopefully they’d go back inside, and she could find shelter somewhere, maybe in one of the buildings they weren’t in.
But as if on cue, another mare approached. “You found her!”
“I’m fine, Aunt Kernel,” Cornsilk said tiredly as she affectionately hugged her.
Apple Bloom scowled. Great. The Impromptu Mandatory Mother Meeting. She knew this one, too. If she’d had a bit for every time she’d been ready to go home and Applejack got caught up chatting with a friend…
“If you call listening to Crystal Eyes’s stories ‘fine’,” Cornsilk’s mother said.
“Not again,” Kernel said wearily. “She’s been doing that with Stalk, too. Filling their heads with foalish stories.”
“They’re not foalish!” Cornsilk insisted.
Apple Bloom really didn’t want to know how she was going to prove that, but she was sure she didn’t want to be around when she did.
“No,” her mother said firmly. “Cornsilk, listen to me. There are no such things as-”
There came a sudden gust of wind, and with it a loud crack, and the branch Apple Bloom was hiding on suddenly gave way. With a surprised yelp, she fell and hit the ground, bounced, and rolled cutie marks over teakettle until she came to a dazed stop in the middle of the crowd, and her hat followed. Lightning flashed, seemingly emphasizing Apple Bloom’s appearance, and it was quickly followed by ominous thunder.
There was a brief pause as every scarecrow processed this new development.
“Living ponies!” one shrieked, pointing at her.
And with that, everypony (everyscarecrow?) began to panic, running full-tilt in all directions, holding onto their hats.
Apple Bloom irritably blew part of her mane out of her eyes. The Spontaneous Mob. She definitely knew this one.
Cornsilk ran up. “What are you doing?” she demanded as the other scarecrows ran around.
“Don’t look at me,” Apple Bloom returned defensively as she stood up. “It’s not like I meant for that branch to break.”
“Come on, we’ve gotta hide you,” Cornsilk urged, putting both forelegs on Apple Bloom’s flank and trying to push her away, but she likely would have had more luck trying to push over a tree.
“Alright, alright,” Apple Bloom said, scooping up her hat and moving where Cornsilk wanted.
Cornsilk pushed her over behind one of the alleys between the store walls, and Apple Bloom ducked behind a full rain barrel. Together, they listened to the other scarecrows running around.
“Well, at least they know you were right about living ponies,” Apple Bloom offered lamely.
“Yeah,” Cornsilk snorted. “If my mom realizes I brought you here, I’ll be in so much trouble. She’ll ground me until crows don’t eat corn.”
Apple Bloom winced. But memories of how everypony had acted around Zecora at first did give her a little hope.
“Ok,” Cornsilk said, looking down and clearly trying to work this out as she went, “they’re going to freak out, because supposedly living ponies like tying scarecrows to tall poles so the crows can land on them, and taking away their heads and putting a pumpkin on instead.”
Apple Bloom’s eyes flicked to one side.
It was fascinating how far Cornsilk’s eyes seemed to widen, even though they were still only button eyes sewed onto burlap.
“In our defense,” Apple Bloom said quickly, “none of our scarecrows were ever alive.”
“Ok,” Cornsilk said with forced lightness, “didn’t need to know that. Anyway, they’re going to freak out, they’ll probably group up and try to hunt you down, but with this storm, it might not last long. So all you need to do is lay low for a bit-”
Apple Bloom felt her mane raise. Her eyes widened.
Cornsilk didn’t seem to notice. “-and you should be able to-”
She was interrupted by a terrifyingly close lightning strike. She cried out and clamped her hat to her head, and Apple Bloom was right there with her.
“That was way too close,” Apple Bloom breathed, rubbing at her ears.
“Yeah,” Cornsilk agreed. “They might not be hunting you down after all.”
“Not after that,” Apple Bloom agreed. “I think everypony’s just going to go home and wait out the storm. I mean, I would. Nice blanket, hot cider, the whole shebang.”
“Yeah. It’s not like we haven’t seen these storms before. If it gets really bad, there’s this cave that we’ll all take shelter in.”
“That makes sense. Can’t burn a cave.”
“Nope.” Cornsilk paused. “It did flood once, though. They said there was a lot of patches.”
Apple Bloom wanted to ask a question about how exactly scarecrow biology worked when suddenly a much more urgent question came to mind. “Can you… smell?”
Cornsilk looked askance at her. “Yeah,” she said, gesturing at the sewn-in folds at the tip of her muzzle.
“Can you smell that?”
Cornsilk sniffed, and then noticed what Apple Bloom had smelled. “Oh, that’s not good,” she murmured.
Hesitantly, they poked their heads out from the alley.
The lightning strike had been much more than close. A nearby house was already in flames.
The scarecrows were already in action, using their farming tools and clearing the ground around it of debris so the fire couldn’t spread.
That made sense to Apple Bloom. A being made of hay couldn’t very well physically fight a fire. It made more sense to-
And then a high-pitched scream split the night.
She looked over to see a scarecrow mare being physically held back from trying to jump back in.
Her ears pinned. Only one thing could be that important.
Cornsilk seemed to know what she was thinking. “Don’t-!” she started.
But it was too late. Apple Bloom was already moving.
One bad barn fire could mean life or death for a farmer, so Apple Bloom had been taught what to do. She tore off her bandanna, dunked it into the rain barrel, draped it over her muzzle, and started running towards the fire. Ignoring the cries of surprise from the scarecrows, she burst in through the door.
She looked around. She didn’t see the filly right away, but she wasn’t worried by that. Her help with that firefighting cutie mark had taught her that foals tend to hide if they can’t run, and the fire had already spread. Everything here was hoof-crafted and made of wood. It was really nice, actually, and it was with some regret that Apple Bloom kicked the couch to make sure she wasn’t hiding behind it.
She checked in the closet (full of hats), under the table (empty), and in the pantry (surprisingly and yet not, it was full of corn). Her search came up fruitless, so her next guess would be the foal’s room.
She headed up the stairs, keenly aware that if something happened to them behind her, she could be trapped up there. She shoulder-checked the door open and found what must have been a filly’s room, with pony dolls made out of cornhusks sitting on hewn shelves and curtains made of dry leaves and vines, already burning. This must have been it.
She jumped as she heard loud popping from downstairs. The fire must have gotten to the pantry. She pushed away the intrusive thought about how much popcorn would be going to waste and continued searching. There was nothing under the bed, so she darted over and tore open the closet.
There! The gleam from the flames reflecting in the button eyes from a little scarecrow pressed back against the wall.
It suddenly occurred to Apple Bloom how horrifying this must look, mysterious popping sounds heralding a living pony wreathed in fire as if coming for her soul.
Well, she’d just have to apologize later.
Apple Bloom grabbed her around the waist and pulled her out. She barely weighed anything, though she was struggling and kicking frantically. “Don’t worry, we’re getting out-”
A burning beam fell down almost three paces in front of her, crashing through the floor and sending embers flying. Apple Bloom yelped and her eyes widened.
The stairway was blocked.
Well, there was always one other option.
“Earth pony strength, don’t fail me now,” Apple Bloom murmured, and she tucked the little scarecrow behind herself and charged forward. She exploded out through the wall, sending wood splinters flying.
And for the second time tonight, she fell from someplace high, hit the ground, and rolled, losing her hat in the process.
When she came to a stop, the little scarecrow quickly unfolded herself and ran to her mother, who happily grabbed her in a tight, relieved hug.
Apple Bloom straightened up and pulled off the bandana. She glanced behind her at the fire, realizing that they’d (rightfully) written this off as a total loss, and then turned back around, looking at the scarecrows surrounding her. She’d been on this end of mobs before, but they had been ponies and not living scarecrows. The wind whipping around with an eerie wailing really didn’t help, either. “Hey, y’all,” she started hesitantly.
While her actions were clearly heroic, the crowd still murmured, scuffing their burlap hooves against the ground, burlap eyebrows furrowed. They didn’t look like they trusted her.
But then another scarecrow made her way to the front. Her burlap looked more worn and frayed, with patches of various colors dotting her body. Her eye buttons were made of what looked like crystal pieces. Her battered hat was faded, but had formerly been a brilliant blue, and the band still glittered faintly in the light of the flames. “It’s been many moons since I’ve seen a living pony,” she said, her voice low and scratchy.
“This is my first time meeting a scarecrow,” Apple Bloom said with a smile. She quickly grabbed onto her hat as the wind picked up.
“How did you find us?”
Apple Bloom smiled disarmingly, doing her best to maintain eye contact. “Just a crazy random happenstance,” she tried.
But Apple Bloom’s grown-up voice was no match for the all-knowing granny eyes. “I’m not sure I believe that,” she replied, though a little smile played at her lips. She looked over her shoulder. “I would believe a curious young scarecrow going too close to the edge of the forest, though,” she added.
Apple Bloom did her very best to not look at Cornsilk. She didn’t want to inadvertently incriminate her.
But she needn’t have worried. Her little friend must have had quite the reputation already, because every scarecrow there turned to look at her.
She made an attempt to smile disarmingly, but it was shaky and nervous, and it didn’t help that she took an instinctive step back. “Me?” she tried innocently.
Apple Bloom shook her head. She was such a bad liar! “Please don’t be mad at Cornsilk,” she said, trying to head off anything. “She tried to keep everything a secret, really. I’m just really bad at taking ‘no’ for an answer.” She paused. “That came out wrong,” she said awkwardly. “I mean, I didn’t want to leave her all by her lonesome when we were in the middle of nowhere where if something were to happen, nopony could hear her scream and… that’s not better,” she realized.
Thankfully, Crystal Eyes looked more amused than anything else. She looked like she was going to respond, and then another crash of thunder split the night. More than a few scarecrows cried out as a heavy rain started falling.
“Well, unless living ponies got a lot more waterproof since I’ve been gone, you’re not going anywhere in this storm,” she said wryly. “Might as well join us to wait it out.”