Prompt: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life
“Well, Ah suppose that’s that, then,” said Applejack, wiping the rest of the grease on her hooves onto a spotty rag. “She’s all oiled up and ready to fly.” The orange mare took a step back from the loading dock and surveyed her work proudly. Even in the reddish, sooty light of New Manehatten’s setting sun, the Apple’s Pride floated tall and confident. It wasn’t the fastest airship, nor the strongest, but it had been cared for by a mare who treated it as she would her own child. The balloon was shiny and taut, the clockwork engines oiled and polished to a shine, and the lodestone furnace stocked and filtered. The ship was a labor of love, and it showed.
“She looks good, AJ,” a deep, bassy voice murmured from beside her. “She looks mighty good.” A huge red stallion, flight-marshal’s coat brimming with barely-contained muscle and sinew, glanced toward the orange mare below him and nuzzled her affectionately. “Ah don’t know what Ah would’ve done without you ‘n Bloom helpin’ me out like this. Ah wish I could thank you more more, but-”
“You’ve already thanked me enough,” Applejack interrupted him. “Ah’m just glad Ah could do mah part, what with the damn leg ‘n all,” she said, gesturing ruefully at the series of brass rods, copper tubes, and clockwork gears that had replaced her left foreleg. “How’s the sayin’ go again? ‘Effort is effort, big or small...” her brow furrowed as she struggled to remember the next line of the wartime catchphrase.
“‘An’ the work of one can help us all’,” finished Big Mac. “Although Ah would say you’ve put a mite more than a ‘small effort’ into fixin’ up the Pride here,” he said, gesturing at the gleaming airship hovering before them. “She looks like new. Better, even.”
Applejack blushed and scuffed the ground with her flesh-and blood hoof. “Aw, shucks, Mac. It wasn’t that big of a deal. A couple anchor bolts here, some replacement maingears there, a little fine-tunin’ to the lode regulator, some spit-shine an’ polish, an’ the old girl did the rest herself.”
“There you go again,” said Mac, smiling and shaking his head. “Yammerin’ on about gears and regulators as if Ah had the slightest inklin’ of what you were talkin’ about. Ah don’t build the ships, sis. Ah just fly ‘em.” His smile faded, and he glanced towards the gigantic brass grandfather clock that dominated the central square of the port. “That reminds me. Ah should be gettin’ on mah way.”
Applejack sighed, closing her eyes and feeling a lump beginning to form in her throat. “Do you really have t’ go?” she asked sadly, even though she knew the answer.
Big Mac shook his head. “‘Fraid so, sis.” He looked out towards the smoky sky beyond and pointed. “Somewhere out there, there’s griffons that want Equestria to fall. They want me dead, they want you ‘n Bloom dead, and everypony else dead too.” He turned back to her and leaned down, grabbing Applejack in a tight embrace. “An’ it’s mah job to make sure they never even get close.”
The orange mare sniffled. “Ah’m gonna miss you, Big M.”
The stallion smiled sadly. “Ah’m gonna miss you too, AJ.”
She looked at him hopefully. “You’ll write, wont’cha?”
He nodded. “Every week. Ah swear it.”
She smiled through her tears, leaping up and wrapping her one real remaining hoof around his shoulder.
“Take good care o’ Bloom for me, all right?” Mac asked, walking up to the Pride’s loading ramp.
She nodded. “Don’t you worry about us, Mac. We’ll be fine.” She wiped her eyes and stared at him, at the brother she had relied on for her entire life, her rock, her anchor, now about to be swept away to return only Celestia knew when. “You... you jus’... be safe, all right?”
He nodded, even as the ramp began to lift with a hydraulic groan. “Ah promise. Eight months from now, Ah’ll be back, safe ‘n sound, and we can start th’ first day of the rest of our lives. Don’t you worry.” With a hiss, the ramp closed entirely, and the Apple’s Pride began to slowly make its way up from the dock.
Applejack gave a nod in return, ignoring the fact that her brother couldn’t appreciate the gesture. She watched as the airship rose and rose, fading into the soot-filled sky like a pearl in an ocean of rust and blood, before she blinked away a tear and it was gone.