//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: A View Out the Window (H. Applejack, P. Applejack) // Story: On the Fine Art of Giving Yourself Advice // by McPoodle //------------------------------// H. Applejack—Earth, Canterlot High School. Early afternoon of Day One. Trixie stepped out of the rickety wooden booth. She slammed the door shut behind her with so much force that the booth almost tipped over, causing several cardboard “magical artifacts” to go flying. And then she stalked her way out of the quad. “Sick burn!” Snips exclaimed, complimenting Snails. Applejack walked up to the pair and silently raised a fist, a promise of future retribution. Then she raced to catch up with Trixie. She found her standing at the bus stop. A block away, the west-bound bus had already departed. Trixie’s eyes were on the bus, and her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides. “Easy there, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, coming up beside her. Trixie turned, glaring silently at her for just a moment, tendons visible on the sides of her neck, before looking down at the ground. Applejack got out her cell phone and sent a text back home. “I’ve seen everything I want to see today at the Fair,” she said casually. Sitting down on the curb, she added, “Want to talk about it?” in a calm voice. Trixie clenched her fists even tighter, then walked away, stamping a foot with every step. When she had gotten fifty feet away she wheeled sharply and stomped her way back, passing Applejack and continuing down the sidewalk. Applejack turned her head, watching Trixie pace. After a while she noticed Rarity coming into view. She was looking back and forth between Applejack and Trixie, and wringing her hands. With a slight frown, Applejack got up, waited for Trixie to pass, and walked over to Rarity. “Do you need any help?” Rarity asked. “As your new friend, I’m willing to stand beside you, no matter what you’re going through. And…I feel sorry for Trixie.” “Don’t let Trixie hear you say the ‘S’ word,” Applejack replied. “And aren’t you going to miss your internship?” “Well…yes,” Rarity said, glancing off towards downtown. “But this is more important.” Applejack smiled. “I appreciate the sentiment, Rarity. But right now the only person who’s going to be able to get through to Trixie is yours truly. You’ll just rile her up, no matter how good your intention.” Rarity opened her mouth to protest. Applejack silenced her with a finger across Rarity’s lips. (Applejack didn’t notice the bright blush this act generated.) “Go along to your job, Rarity.” “If you insist,” Rarity said. She waited until Trixie started walking away from her, then walked purposely behind her, crossing the street and waiting at the east-bound bus stop. Applejack returned to her curb seat. A few minutes later, after the bus picking up Rarity had come and gone, Trixie sat down next to her. But she still refused to speak. Finally, the Apple family’s pickup truck stopped in front of them. Applejack and Trixie took the back seats. “Trixie needs a ride home,” Applejack explained to Big Mac, the driver. With a nod, Big Mac pulled the truck into traffic and started heading west. # # # “It’s not about lacking a mark,” Trixie finally said a couple of blocks later. “I didn’t think so,” Applejack replied. “After all, I still don’t have mine.” As she said this, she locked eyes with Big Mac in the rear view mirror. A silent communication passed between them. Big Mac pulled up to a stop sign, and then turned left. “I know what I’m going to get,” said Trixie. “Everybody knows. No, it’s what happens after that.” Trixie steeled herself for what she was about to admit. “There’s a secret I’ve been keeping. From before we ever came to Canterlot. And when I step out of the Church with my plate, it’s gonna come out.” She looked out the window at the passing scenery. “I can put up with most of the school calling me out. But…the thought of what you would say. The…look you’ll give me… That’s why I’ve never gone through with the Ceremony. Those two bullies just made me realize that I’ve run out of time.” Applejack sighed. “Trixie, you’re as good as family to me. To all of us. We’re not going to hold some dumb thing you did when you were seven against you.” Trixie closed her eyes, turned her head back to face Applejack, and reluctantly opened them. “But that’s just it. I never stopped. I used the power I had…still have…over…” Even at this point, she couldn’t reveal the whole truth. “…Over…somebody very special to me, and I made their lives miserable. That’s what I’m admitting to! I abused my family! And isn’t that the very thing you told me you hated more than anything else?” Applejack bowed her head. It was all clear to her now: Trixie had been using her mother’s guilt over the circumstances of her birth against her. Applejack had always suspected that Cat Lulamoon didn’t have enough money to afford all of the expensive magic equipment that she was always buying her daughter in the early days of her career, when she barely made enough to cover the rent of their upscale apartment. And it would be so easy for Applejack to do exactly what Trixie predicted she would. After all, who was the one who was always forgiven, no matter what she did? Trixie. Who would get hugs and extra dessert after throwing a tantrum? Trixie. And who got sent to her room without supper the one time she had dared to do the same thing? Applejack. Applejack considered her family’s love a limited resource, and Trixie the primary recipient of that love, even two years after Trixie had moved out. It would be so easy to hate. But that would reflect on Applejack more than on Trixie. Because that was what she finally realized she understood. Her focus on her family wasn’t based on trying to get more of that love for herself. It was based on giving that love, and Trixie was as much family as anyone else. “I forgive you, Trixie,” Applejack said simply. Trixie’s jaw dropped. “I forgive you, because I know you mean well. Because you apologize every time your condition makes you act out. And because ever since you learned about its tenets, you have done your best to be the living embodiment of the Spirit of Markism. But most of all, I forgive you, because you are family. And family is everything. I...I know sometimes I’m hard on you. But it’s not because of what you do. It’s because I want you to be happy just like I want Apple Bloom to be happy. Just like Big Mac wants me to be happy. I’ve got your back, sis.” Trixie’s eyes went wide—Applejack had never called her “sister” before. She smiled through tears of gratitude. “Th…thank you,” she managed to say. Applejack gestured towards the Church of the Goddess, which the truck was now parked beside. “We figured you’d want to go here instead,” Big Mac explained. Trixie looked up to the tall spire of the church, and opened the car door. “Well, I might as well get this over with. I’ll tell you the full story tomorrow, before school starts.” “I’ll be looking forward to it,” Applejack replied. Trixie stepped out, adjusted her magician’s cape and hat, and walked purposefully into the church. P. Applejack Applejack was staring at a tall fancy building. She had no idea where it had come from. She closed her eyes and opened them, expecting the view of countryside through a brownstone window to return. But it didn’t. She was still looking at a tall fancy building. Applejack was sitting on some sort of hard seat, in an unfamiliar posture. It was inside a carriage of some kind. “That was a mighty fine speech, Applejack,” a very familiar voice said to her from over her shoulder. “A mighty fine speech. You might even say that it was mark-worthy.” Applejack turned her head, even though a part of her was absolutely terrified of what she might see. In the front compartment of the carriage were two minotaur-like figures. One was red, with a blond mane. And the other was blond, with a red mane. And somehow she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that these two were her brother…and her father. “Pa…?” she dared to ask. “Yes, my little dumpling?” he asked. Pa asked, using his pet name for her. Applejack remembered her last thought, before opening her eyes to see the fancy building, before opening her eyes in a new body in a new world: she wished that the exploding rainbow wave that was rushing towards her was the Herald of the End Times, as her Noctiferian cousins whispered to her at the last family reunion. Because if it was the end of the world, then she might finally see them again. And she was so very tired of trying to live a life without them. “I’m home,” Applejack said, barely above a whisper. H. Applejack—Equestria, Manehattan. Applejack blinked. The world had just suddenly changed around her. Curious, she stuck her head out the window, to observe that she was a couple of stories in the air. Below her was a vision out of The Gangs of New York—cobblestone streets, and carts pulled by…well, not exactly horses. And not a human being in sight. In fact, a good deal of the not-horses wore clothes, carried groceries, sold newspapers... So more like Gangs of New York crossed with Planet of the Apes. It then dawned on Applejack that something was wrong with her, as she was comfortably standing on both hands and feet. She pulled her head back into the room with some difficulty—it was shaped wrong. She looked down to confirm her suspicions, that she was now one of the same type of creature that she had seen on the street. Seeing a dresser topped by a mirror, she carefully instructed her limbs to take her over and get a look at herself. The face in the mirror was equine, and yet somehow it was still definitely her own face. Applejack had always had an odd knack for seeing the truth, no matter how well it was disguised. And this body was somehow still her, her as a…pony? Well, there were a lot of differences from a pony, and a few resemblances to a dog, but she was going to settle for “pony” for now. Why was she in this changed body? How did she get here? Did someone direct this, and if so, why? As Applejack pondered these questions, there was a knock at the door. “Applejack,” an unfamiliar female voice asked her through the door. “Are you ready for breakfast yet?” Applejack’s first impulse was to yell, to protest her treatment at the door and demand that things be put right immediately. But her Ma had been working with her on controlling her temper, and so Applejack did not lash out against the first available victim of her outrage. Instead, she calmed herself and said, “Could you step in here for a moment, please?” There was a pause, and then the door opened, revealing a blonde pony with an orange mane done up in waves. That same mysterious sense of Applejack’s told her that this was her Aunt Orange, who Applejack had seen in one of Granny Smith’s photo albums. Only Aunt Orange was supposed to have died soon after Applejack was born, at the age of 99, while this Aunt Orange was clearly in her forties. (Now that was a question for the ages: How did she know how to read the age of a pony?) “Is something the matter?” Aunt Orange asked in an urbane accent. “Do you see anything wrong?” Applejack said. She tried to raise a hoof to refer to herself, and nearly fell over. “Well, you haven’t done up your mane,” her Aunt said. Applejack opened her mouth, and found herself uncertain what to say. Her glimpse of the outside world revealed the technological equivalent of the Nineteenth Century on Earth. Would Aunt Orange even understand the concepts of other worlds or alternate dimensions? It wasn’t as if there was some sort of teleportation emitter out of Star Trek mounted to the ceiling above the spot where she had appeared. “Something is wrong,” she ended up saying. “I don’t belong here.” Aunt Orange sighed. “I should have suspected something with you reverting to your country accent,” she said. “And after doing so well last night at the soiree. I suppose you’ll be wanting to return to your family?” Applejack had the feeling that Orange had not picked up on what she was trying to say. “I need to get back to my body on Earth,” she said. Aunt Orange clearly had no idea what she was talking about. “Is that another one of your country-isms?” Applejack gave up. “I’d like to see my family.” Based on a sample size of two, it looked like this was a world of pony counterparts to herself and everyone she knew. She figured if she could convince her family of her identity, that would provide a lot of support in trying to figure a way back home. “Well unfortunately, harvest season has already begun,” Aunt Orange explained. “So even if I paid for it, nopony can come over and pick you up, and your uncle and I absolutely cannot spare the time to chaperone you on the train.” “I can go by myself,” Applejack said defiantly, some part of her temper showing. “I really shouldn’t,” Orange said with a smile. “But I’ve seen what you are capable of. Alright, I’ll let you go.” She walked over to the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer with her teeth, revealing a yellow bandana with a red apple embroidered onto it. A long stick was produced from behind the dresser and the bandana was tied to it, creating a bindle staff. She put a few items into the bindle, including some gold coins and a couple of oranges—Applejack wasn’t sure where she had produced them from, as she wasn’t wearing any clothes. “That’s the cab fare, the bus fare, a bit to eat, and a card with my name and address in case you get lost.” She finally put a framed photograph of herself and her husband—also deceased on Applejack’s world—in the bindle on top of the rest. “To remember us by.” She turned and walked out the door and down a flight of stairs. Applejack found that she didn’t have much trouble following—it seemed that walking was natural to this body if you didn’t think too hard about it. “You didn’t bring anything with you other than the bindle, so you don’t have to worry about losing your saddlebag,” she said as they reached the front door. “There’s only the one train station and two trains a day heading to Ponyville on the way to Canterlot. You’ll have enough to pay for a sleeper car—that will keep you safe from strangers and also make it so you don’t have to spend the night on a narrow train seat. Be sure to wake up bright and early for your arrival in Ponyville.” The two of them emerged into the sunlight. Aunt Orange looked like she was trying to hold back tears. “And try to remember something of the manners we taught you. You never know when you might be meeting a duke or the Princess.” “The train to Canterlot, stopping at Ponyville,” Applejack said, committing the most important part to memory. “I’ll remember. And thank you, Aunt Orange. For everything.” Aunt Orange put the bindle staff across Applejack’s back. Impossibly, it stayed in place, without Applejack doing anything to keep it from falling off. She raised a hoof, and a cab pulled up to the sidewalk. “Take her to the train station,” she instructed the driver. “And don’t pay a bit until you arrive,” she added in Applejack’s ear. “The customary tip is 15%.” Applejack nodded. And a minute later she was off, traveling through the busy streets of an alien city.