To meet her brother for the first time again—it hits so close to, yet so far from, home.
Granted, Apple Bloom and her family aren’t the estranged type; they’re knitted tighter than the Gordian knot. Big Mac’s been there since day one, from the rare and barely remembered early morning of strong and sturdy hands lifting her from the crib, through laughing at how his cheeks went all big and red when he stuffed it with too many apples at once, all the way to playing tag with him and Applejack across the whole orchard after a grueling day of pulling weeds, feeding chickens, care-taking horses, and picking precious, delicious apples.
But to meet Big Mac, the best big brother ever, like a stranger, is sitting down for lunch and finding out that they’re having breaks at the same time. It’s discovering that they’re eating at the same place, too, a pizzeria owned by a pony across the interdimensional divide. They even like the same flavor of pizza! Juicy tomatoes fresh from the local farm, fresh basil plucked with tender love and care, and sweet olive oil drizzled all over.
Though in a completely different form, this is surely him. A red jacket becomes an all-encompassing crimson coat; his brown collar, now a hefty yoke. That same scruffy hairstyle fits a magic equine well as his windswept mane, just as she’d ruffled his hair so many times in younger days with their brighter mornings.
All she has to do is sit down at his table and get started. The rest of the Club had their own meet-your-loved-ones moments in the expo; now is her moment.
But earlier, in the Apple family’s cranky old jalopy chugging its way to the expo, it was everyone else’s moment.
“Eeeeeee! We’re gonna see unicorns! Eeeeeee!”
Sweetie Belle’s melodiously blood-curdling screams cement the Canterlot Movie Club’s presence in the smoke-belcher.
“Come on, Sweets, there’s more than just ‘pretty little unicorns’!” Scotaloo’s fingers flap up and down over those last few words, over-imitating the fancy girl’s accent. “There’s pegasi flying around! Like, horses with wings? That can fly? And do aerobatics like fighter jets?! Come on, Canterlot Filmies, won’t that be the best thing ever?!”
“Can you lift yer’ weight, Scoots? Yer’ crushin’ me here.”
Scootaloo does adjust her weight, half-squatting above Apple Bloom’s knees in the cramped passenger bench. What’s worse, Sweetie and her froufrou purse take up an open window, breathing in all the fresh and now surely magical air as they draw closer to jampacked Middle Park.
“Quit yer yappin’ and just let me drive! The engine’ll bail if y’all keep gabbin’!” And Granny Smith twirls the wheel in circles, pushing and pulling the creaking manual transmission of this aging and smoke-sputtering metal machine like a pro racer.
“How in the world is this truck still going?” shouts Sweetie, her flapping cheeks capturing too much fresh air.
“Dad works as a mechanic sometimes,” Scootaloo cuts in, “and he says that it really is gonna break sooner or later. It’s seventy years old, even older than Daring’s truck from The Marked Thief of Marapore!”
“And yer’ sayin’ those scooters of yours we just made at my house ain’t gonna fall apart like a pair of twigs like that same truck?”
“Hey, you did all the woodwork, Apple Bloom! Besides, no offense to the magic ponies, but I don’t think they know what we humans can do with these bad boys!”
Apple Bloom snorts at that, whickering like one of the family horses. Sweet little Cookie did always look confused whenever the girl told her trusty steed that there were magical talking horses in a magical land across some magical portal at school. And now a chockful of pure magic is just a block away.
“Ayuh!”
All jerk to a stop; heads and knees take a dashboard beating.
“Alright, you whippersnappers!” Granny unbuckles her seat belt and slams the front door open. “We’re here! Get back to yer sisters! They’re worried sick after yer oversleepin’ at the ranch. When I see ‘em, I’ll tell ‘em how you experimen’ed on our livestock!”
“Oh, come on!” cries Sweetie Belle, hopping off the truck and onto firm pavement, gifting Apple Bloom more breathing room. “We just had them pull our new scooters and bushels around to test the footstraps, with wooden panels and everything! We didn’t fall once, we swear!”
An insistent Granny simply points at the ebony entrance gate to the venue: Middle Park, where colorful towers and billboards shouting the worlds’ fair’s name tower over vast green spaces, pockmarked in the sky by flying creatures—
Flying wings! Winged, flying creatures! It took a zip line and some tree sap to nab just a few seconds of that, and Scootaloo was screaming with all that her lungs could pack during that one time at camp, but these people, these living and breathing people, living creatures—pegasi, griffons, dragons, hippogriffs, changelings—with their feathers or leather wings, hovering over the venue without an airstrip or propellers or jet fuel—nothing but their own strength! There they are, talking and laughing and doing loops in the air, the freedom of the skies, of magic becoming real, to listen to it like sparkling water—
“Ah ah ah, Apple Bloom!”
Granny’s fast-draw hand catches Apple Bloom trying to sneak away, her little mission failing before it began.
“Aw, come on!”
“We’re here to carry apples to our business, not to sit down doing nothing but look at the pretty horsies all day! Now, chin up and let’s get the dollies rollin’!”
With Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hurrying past the gates (after getting their school IDs checked by the guards), Apple Bloom keeps herself calm, collected. She goes to the back of the truck to open it up: apples in crates, crates spilling apples aplenty. She has to climb a small mountain just to reach the top, which raises the question of how Granny’s reckless driving managed to not only evade police attention but also preserve every box without any one toppling off the back.
“Not even a fifth of the whole harvest!” Granny proclaims proudly, her hands saddled on her hips. “Now let’s get ‘em to the stand!”
In a flash, it’s back to the job, heaving and hurling each crate onto the dolly. It isn’t exactly hard work, though the literal flying horses just a dozen steps away beckon her to look, to dream onward to the world Sunset’s talked about in her visits to the farm.
With an overwhelming column of apples in her trolley and a cheek-breaking grin plastered across her face, Apple Bloom is finally here: The Multiverse Expo, a weekend-long event in Middle Park where the roads and avenues of Canterlot City, intersecting in this urban oasis with pristine ponds and falling leaves colored in the fiery blaze of autumn, carry the denizens of both Earth and Equus in a historic display of two worlds journeying together through a strange yet conjoined reality.
Her eyes take her to the colorful critters swarming around her, swimming in curious delight as they stir up chatter with humans just like herself, their own smiles wide and cheery despite hanging around on muzzles, beaks, or snouts. She locks eyes with a pony passing by, his scruffy mane like the sea and with turtles as his cutie mark, so said the introductory videos Equestria’s hastily established Earth Tourism Board posted on TackTube.
“Woah! You… you look just like Apple Bloom!” the surfer pony shouts in wide-eyed shock; his friends look his way.
Butterflies wrap around her stomach at the assault of new eyes upon her. “Oh, uh… hey there!” She happily waves at the little stallion and his friends of many species. “Yer’ havin’ fun Mister… uh, what’s-yer-name?!”
“Sandbar, and yeah, we’re all having fun!” He wraps a hoof around a wing, a claw, and the sheer size of a blushing yak’s horn. “I can’t believe you humans can fly with those big planes and world webs!”
She stops, parking the apples by a lamplight decorated with bannered ads for some great and powerful magic show. “Oh yeah, we can fly!… sorta’!” Beholding Sandbar’s winged companions, her fingers twitch. “But what about you? That’s a… you’re griffons, right?”
“Hippogriff! Oh, my name’s Silverstream…the grumpy griff that’s actually a griffon is Gallus, the dragon’s Smolder, the changeling’s Ocellus, and the yak’s Yona! Nice to meet you, Apple Bloom!”
With a claw extended to her, Apple Bloom’s quick to the draw, shaking it gladly. “You’re the first Equestrians I’ve ever met in my life! I can’t believe it!”
“Apple Bloom, ya seedlin’! Where in the whole wide world are you?!”
“Oops!” Hand wrenched away from the claw, she makes it wave dejectedly, taking care of the dolly and pushing the tower of crates once more, can’t hear their goodbyes over the tin of the crowd and the whining of strained wheels. “Um… I gotta go! See ya’ round?!”
“Ah, there you are!” Applejack calls out to her from their Sweet Apple Acres stall.
Wearing stained aprons, Applejack and Big Mac hurry like clockwork, handling portable ovens and grills, checking up on fresh cider barrels and making sure that the taps won’t malfunction like last time with a pent-up Rarity and her spilled-on dress.
Big Mac hands his little sister a clean white apron and a hairnet, and Applejack pours in a fresh mix of cinnamon, salt, and lemon juice into a sauce bowl where they’d lather apple slices for baking and sweet, sweet tasting. If she just closed her eyes, she’d be back home by the smells alone.
“This is just like our CHS fundraiser for Granny’s new hip. AB, you know what to do, right?”
“We’ve got… uh—“ fingers raised for Applejack, ready to count the items on the menu just to be sure “—apple pie, candied apples, caramel apples, apple cider, apple cider donuts, apple turnovers, cinnamon apples, and apple dumplins’!”
“Woo-wee, now let’s get goin’! We’ve got an apple pie for Pinkie over there!”
And over there Pinkie stands, waving her hand like crazy and wearing Apple family sports merchandise, wherever she got that.
But behind her lies a line, an incredibly long and winding one of starving tummies to cook for and serve.
“Woah!”
She almost spills her tray, cups of apple cider tipping. Now she’s leaning over the table, face almost smacking the surface. She gulps, re-introduces herself to the couple seated at their spot just outside the stall.
“Oh, uh, sorry for that! Here’s yer pie an’ cider!”
“Why, thank you!”
The chubby little mare, with her twin ponytails and her cutie mark of pie, bites the tray with her mouth. It’s certainly not sanitary; she decides to ask about ponish door handles in Equestria later.
“Well, I do declare,” shouts the not-so-little horse once she takes her eyes up towards her waiter. “I just can’t believe that when things change so much, they end up staying the same.”
It takes a moment for Apple Bloom to recognize who the mare is speaking to. “Ma’am?”
“Yes, miss!” And she takes a lick of apple pie and a wash of apple juice down her throat. “Princess Twilight explained the whole parallel dimension thingamajig! Our town gets regular visits from the Apple family, and sometimes Apple Bloom comes along… and well, you’re just like her, voice and all!”
“Oh wow, I, uh—“ Apple Bloom spots the line moving back at the stall; they’d need her pair of hands right now “—I’d like to stay an’ chat, but we’re kinda’ swamped!”
“That’s alright! I’ll leave you to it! Oh, and say hi to Rarity, won’t you?” the mare asks as Apple Bloom turns back to the stall. “I heard she’ll be visiting this expo herself!”
Past the backdoor and back into the stall, there’s Applejack moving past with a hot tray in hand. Tries to dodge—
“Oh, ow!”
—hits her arms, the tray drops, its lone pie dangerously falling, but Big Mac makes the save before it strikes the floor, lucky with his mittens on.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean ta—!”
“It’s alright, sugarcube.” There’s a sisterly pat on the shoulder with her own mittens, homely with her hairnet in the middle of the busiest park in the world. “I think we’re all getting a little distracted; it’s the new faces ‘round here, I bet. We’ll get used to them though, right, Big Mac?”
There he goes with that ever familiar tiny smile as he serves steaming hot pie to the next customer. “Eeyup!”
An eager chuckle escapes Apple Bloom’s lips. “Yeah… yeah, we’ll all get used to it…” She trails off as she sees Pinkie, the mare that is, bouncing around on the other side of the park path, also proudly sporting some Apple family merchandise, wherever she got that.
Feet and hooves tap, close to noon, waiting in line, as human mutterings mingle with Equestrian screeches, squawks, and neighs.
There’ll be lunch break. Applejack said it’d be for half an hour. “No use bein’ here if we can’t enjoy the place a little, right?” But hard work is still hard work, though she’s now gotten into the groove, the family vibe, as Scootaloo once said when she busted out a bass guitar and played too-old songs from the sixties to serenade her parents with.
Without looking, she reaches back to grab Applejack’s tray of apples to boil into dumplings. Turn the vat on, reach to the left, but Big Mac opens it with his free hand as he punches more apples to candy with popsicle sticks. The cider barrel gets drained to the last drop, but Granny’s on the way to heave another lofty barrel of apple goodness despite her age thanks to her new hips. More cider’s ready, fresh and high-quality just like it’s been done for generations.
But a sign’s planted straight into the counter: On lunch break.
Customer groans resound, but it’s been a good morning so far: tables are still full, family’s hard work being eaten up and enjoyed by all species imaginable, most once thought mythical. It’s been a great day for Earth and Equus.
Banknotes in her hand all of a sudden, Apple Bloom glances down. “This is… thirty bucks? What?”
“Like I said, what’s workin’ at the fair without enjoyin’ yourself a little, huh?” Several pats on the back later, “Come on, sis, you've earned it.”
She gulps again. Apple Bloom looks at the rest: Granny Smith fixing up the plates and washing utensils while Big Mac counts the money in the cash register, writing transactions down on the ledger. Outside, the final people in line get the message and leave for other attractions like an auction for Equestrian paintings, run by a blueblood noble, perhaps to curry favor with some human officials.
“But what about you, Applejack?”
“I’ll hold down the fort. Just don’t pet the ponies too much, okay?” Applejack finishes with a laugh, her sister already going out the stall—
Apple Bloom’s already dazzled.
Griffons, hippogriffs, changelings, yaks, dragons, ponies galloping or flying or trotting everywhere. Magic shows with unicorns up front, dragons blowing glass to craft vases and other vessels of many hues, live cooking exhibitions to satisfy herbivores and carnivores alike with hay and bacon in separate compartments, contests to parade local traditional sports like buckball and ice archery, musical concerts emanating soothing notes from Equestrian choirs and classical Abyssinian guitars where invisible instruments seemed to come out of nowhere. Still, more came: paintings and contraptions of equine magic and human technology in mutual exchange, garnished with attempts to combine them, such as a computer powered with magic, a steampunk-esque generator of magic clouds, and a man-made battery of preserved magic, all to the tune of a unity of voices all across the catalog of species, spelled out in ooh’s and aah’s. Even Rarity’s in on it, trying to sell a couple hats she’s stitched to prospective humans of refined tastes, the fedora perched on her horn casting her as a ponish counterpart of Detective Spade—
“Rarity?!”
That gets the mare looking her way. “Oh, darling! Is that you, Apple Bloom?”
Away from a hopeful human customer checking out her wares, Rarity approaches, gesturing her to keep walking, Don’t just stand there! Blend in with the crowd, darling! If Rarity’s here, her friends must be nearby, too. Certainly Princess Twilight’s here for diplomacy and politics, but maybe Applejack or Big Mac’s here too, and if either are here—
“Apple Bloom, is that Rarity?!”
The squeaking voice betrays the little sister whose mouth is stuffed with cotton candy.
She turns to the wayward Club member catching up to her. “Wait, uh, Rarity! Sweetie Belle, I—!“
“Rarity?!”
Sweetie Belle shrieks, failing to pick up the mare with her bare hands for a hug, all while she still shrieks straight at the poor pony’s ears. She finally gives up, opting to bend down and embrace her standing.
Rarity reciprocates with a gasp then a nuzzle, luscious mane brushing soft against human skin. “O-oh, Sweetie Belle, I know you must be excited! I, too, am enthusiastic over meeting you, but can you at least calm down and stop shouting in my ears in public?”
After a quick spate of blushes and shaking off other people’s stares and wiping her own mouth from the sugar, “Oh, I’m sorry! I-it’s just… well, when Rarity—not you, my Rarity… see, we used to play dress-up and be unicorn princesses like that. And a unicorn’s my spirit animal, so to see you all around and—!“
“Up-up-up!” The brim of a hat levitates to Sweetie’s mouth to keep her quiet. “One thing at a time! And please walk with me. I still do have these chapeaus to sell to your fine species!”
“Oh, alright. But I can help!”
The two not-really-sisters walk away, out of Apple Bloom’s sight as hats get levitated to human passers-by, given quotes from none other than the Rarity herself.
“And I can help crochet here and there if you want!”
Through the bustling crowd, Apple Bloom trudges past a couple hairy yaks blocking the way, also checking out how keyboards and smartphones work from the local electronics store. While the words are lost on her, she can still see the pair, different-mothered sisters. If she closed her eyes and just listened, it’d be any normal day for Sweetie Belle: hanging out with Rarity at the mall, shopping for some jewelry or hat or some other knick-knack to adorn themselves with, with the occasional video game tossed into the mix.
Paused in the stream of visitors from everywhere, sitting by a fountain, Rarity floats a big fluffy hat onto her sister’s head. It fits her like a glove, and Sweetie laughs.
They immerse themselves in yet another hug.
Her stomach rumbles, and she checks her phone for the time. So many precious minutes spent not finding food. Back to the lane of food stalls before her: there’s the family where Applejack’s close to bargaining with a couple donkeys who aren’t exactly eager to wait the lunch break out, haggling bits in stubborn negotiations.
“Oof!”
She almost trips, certainly bumps; instinct rises to say Sorry, ma’am! but a turn of her head reveals Scootaloo running around on her trusty scooter.
“Oh hey, Apple Bloom!” Can’t possibly have missed her, but her hungry mind gets everything fuzzy. “Heh… I should be the one saying sorry!“
“That’s okay, Scoots! I’m fine, ‘least I think I am.” Checks her elbows and forearms just to see if there are any scrapes from the scooter clash.
“You’ll be alright… oh, sorry, gotta go!” Foot on the ground to swoop herself away—
“What for?”
A brochure’s slapped onto her hand, something about the Wonderbolts. Not the local high school soccer team Wondercolts; these ‘bolts are an elite group of flying stunt aces, pegasus aces. There’s the names, badges, little bios for each of the members. “Imagine the Sapphire Saints, but they fly without the jets! They can do all those cool tricks on their own! They’ve got knife-edge passes, loop-de-loops, barrel rolls, pitches, and crosses… that’s so sick! And look, look!“
A finger flings itself across the page, blazing past the Wonderbolt roster. Spitfire, center forward at soccer—no, now leading the whole crew of these expert fliers, wings as sharp as razor blades. Soarin, the never-winded central midfielder, is now Spitfire’s second-in-command, performing post-stall maneuvers in the air, falling gracefully before picking up speed mere inches before the ground.
And covering two pages at once is the team’s premier striker, Rainbow Dash, sleek in her uniform, with familiar rainbow hair translated into a spectral mane. Pictures capture her flying around, not doing bicycle kicks to catapult the ball past the goalkeeper but surging through the skies, completing turns as tight as a nickel, leaving behind a smoking trail in the colors of her namesake.
“I can’t believe I’ll get a meet and greet with Rainbow Dash, Top Colt style! Uh, that sounded better in my head, but who cares?! I get to have two Rainbow Dashes in my life!”
“Hey, kid.”
The new voice gets their heads turning: a Wonderbolt right there, uniform and goggles and everything. And Scootaloo’s too excited; her teeth tremble, surely recognizing the voice of her soccer player counterpart.
“You look a lot like a certain fanfilly from Ponyville. And you too, Apple Bloom.”
“F-Fleetfoot! You’re… wait, is Rainbow Dash here?”
“Backstage by the big open space with lion statues, Scoots!” She flashes a smile, her wing of arctic blue wiping her goggles clean. “I’ll tell Rainbow that you’re around. I’m sure you’re attending, right?”
Awe washes over Scootaloo, about to faint. “Yes, I am! Am I… am I gonna get backstage access? Will I get to see Rainbow Dash?”
“Oh, you betcha’!” Her wings flare up, wind speeding away from her being. “She’s been so focused on practice, she hasn’t even thought this world’s got their own Scootaloo! She’ll be stoked to see you, kid.”
All that kid does is cry in glorious Eee! as Fleetfoot leads the way, scooter carried away to what can only be a good show.
Carried away from an Apple Bloom whose stomach still rumbles.
Embarrassed, cheeks flushed, she quickly scans the rest of the fair from her vantage point in the middle of the walkway, already moving to not look like a weirdo standing around and doing nothing.
A couple choices jump out at her. A big juicy hotdog stand over there, boasting the simple condiments of ketchup and mustard; one or two of that with soda and she’d be good for the rest of the afternoon. There’s also burgers, hayburgers; not exactly her appetite, but there’s also some carrot dogs over there for a taste of equine cuisine. And a flying pizza. Up it flies, its fluffy dough spinning until it flattens itself.
It lands on the hooves of a pony with his eyes closed. All natural to him, doesn’t even need to look.
His foodie spectacle attracts, yet more alluring is the lack of a long line. Carnivores and omnivores have flocked to the human chains with their breaded promises of bacon, beef, and shrimp fused together with cheese and tomato to melt in foreign mouths and on their tongues, leaving the left-behind crumbs of attention to a lone stallion and his crew.
The smell of good pizza wafts her in, grabbing a tight fistful of money straight to the counter. “I’ll be havin’ some of yer’ garden pizza!”
He talks nice. Thick accent, certainly from Equestrian Roam, but then some tourists have teased her about her own accent, a telltale Amareican country gal. But that doesn’t matter: the pizza flips high in the sky like with any other pizza guy, but it’s a horse doing it. Dear Cookie back home couldn’t come close to this; beloved as she and the rest of the horses back home are, they certainly can’t boast about baking the best thing sliced bread.
Once it’s shoved into the brick oven, it’s time to wait, time to check the tables.
And there sits her almost brother.