Thunk.
Another bucket worth of apples descended from yet another tree on just another hill of Sweet Apple Acres.
The red stallion’s hindlegs clamped back down on the earth. He turned around, silently hemming at the length of grass clenched between his teeth. His eyes traced over every last section of the tree. Eventually, he shifted the piece of grass to the other side of his mouth, and started forward for the bucket he’d filled.
His ears pricked up high, and he stopped where he stood. Turning, his eyes landed on a fresh set of ears coming up from the hill’s yonder edge. The chestnut-coated ears swiveled his way long before two brown eyes and a white-blazed muzzle could appear.
Big Mac stared at the big mare. He pushed the grass back to its proper place, and continued chewing.
The big mare stared at Big Mac. Her visage was pressed into a perfectly unreadable line, but her ears bounced with each purposeful step she took.
She came to a stop not too far from him. She was taller than him by a healthy margin.
She blinked. He blinked.
It was then Big Mac realized she was holding a bucket. In fact, it was a bucket he was intimately familiar with: he would recognize his repair work on the banding from leagues away... were it not for the profound impression the big mare had left in her wake. It was clear: the soft blaze that trailed up the big mare’s muzzle was impressively distracting. Doubly so, considering he’d had to cast his eyes up to enjoy it in full.
She walked past him. He blinked again, turned in place, and watched her go.
The big, beautifully blazed mare set her bucket down at an un-kicked tree. It drew Big Mac’s eyes right down to the sleek white socks that trailed up from her hooves to various lengths: they were another set of natural pigments in her coat that left him rooted in place.
The mare looked up into the branches, eyeing up the tree in a way not too dissimilar from his own prospecting.
Then, she turned, and delivered a buck so quickly that it caused him to ever-so slightly lift a foreleg off the ground.
The precisely placed buckets he’d left were filled by flowing waterfalls of red delights. But the one the mare had placed had no such luck.
He approached after a moment, and they both looked up into the tree. There was a suitable patch of apples for the bucket, but they hadn’t fallen.
He lifted a hoof, and pressed it to the tree. From the corner of his eye, Big Mac could see the mare’s watchful gaze.
He heaved on the tree once. Twice. Three times.
Plonk, plonk, plonk.
The last apple fell neatly into place.
The mare snorted. But it was a quaint kind of snort, one Big Mac felt from within. It carried no sense of annoyance, or feelings of belittlement. In fact, it left him feeling... proud. He set his hoof back down, and looked at the mare.
“Big Mac?”
“Eeyup.”
She nodded. “Reckless.”
He chewed over his grass, then nodded back.
“I carry apple. You help load?”
He looked over the buckets of apples. It took quite a lot of experience to get used to the weight, experience that most extra farmhooves didn’t have.
But he didn’t have to look back at Reckless to find himself an answer; he already knew that this mare knew how to carry a thing or two. Or even four.
“Eeyup.”
“No stopping her now, sugarcube.”
“Yeah. I can see that.”
Applejack laughed, tilting her stetson. “Heh heh. I’m not so sure I could put her to work, but if I ever need a pony to watch over Winona for a while, granted Fluttershy couldn’t, then she’d be the next pony on my list.”
Sea Swirl frowned, but said nothing. Instead, she continued watching with Applejack.
Screw Loose was in her element, galloping at a furious pace to keep up with the bounding hound before her. Winona yipped playfully, and Screwy barked back with joy.
“I need her to get better. If she keeps acting like this, then she won’t.”
“I don’t see the harm in it.” Applejack shrugged her withers. “She seems happy.”
“But she’s acting like a dog. She’s a pony, not a dog.”
Applejack scuffed at the dirt, then frowned for her own. “Well, yeah. I s’pose that is a mite too much.” She sighed, then straightened back out. “Well, shucks. I don’t know what to tell you, sugarcube. We need ponies who can work well-enough on their own. A little supervision is all proper of course, but this is, well... I’d trust Winona with a hammer before I did with your friend, here.”
Sea Swirl glared.
“Just being honest.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of your thing.” After another bitter moment, Sea Swirl relented, shaking her head to herself. “Right, sorry. I know it’d be a lot to deal with. It was already too much to ask.”
“Aw, nonsense. I didn’t knock down the main orchards on my own, least this year. That’s why I let Reckless mosey on up to Big Mac when you asked if she could work. Ain’t no harm at all in getting and asking for help.” She paused. “Though, I did just learn that the hard way...”
“You’re fine, Applejack. You’re totally in the right, and I’ve gone too far trying to push this on you. I’m sorry for asking.”
“Now wait just one apple kickin’ minute. I wasn’t trying to win some kind of argument with you, Sea Swirl. I just... I need to know more.”
“More? Like?”
Applejack shot her an understanding look. “You were pretty determined to get her to help out with fixing up things around here, but why exactly do you think she’d be good at any of that? I can’t imagine her shingling roofs, dealing with squeaking hinges, or fixing the boards on the porch. Least not when she’s like... this.”
Sea Swirl gave Applejack a long, long look, then turned back to the two noisemakers. “Screwy, come here! Please?”
The mare scrambled to a stop. Winona lapped around, slowing, but still wagging. They stopped, and instead of parting as dogs would, Screwy managed to pet her instead. Smiling broadly, the perked-up mare left her new friend to come up to Sea Swirl and Applejack. At a full sprint, of course. She skid before them, panting.
Sea Swirl stepped forward, and closed her mouth with a gentle push from her muzzle. Standing beside Screwy, she let the mare lean into her. “She wasn’t always like this.”
“I used to see her in town all the time. And she was always like this, then. One day, she came to Ponyville. And then some day after the other, she disappeared.”
“That’s because somepony took her to Ponyville General.” She took a breath, then pressed back into Screwy, who had closed her eyes, and set her barrel to rise and fall in eased motions. “Somepony who knew she needed help.”
It took Applejack a moment. “Oh.” She clutched her stetson again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that... she was doing so poorly.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure most ponies thought the same thing. ‘Just another quirky pony, best leave her be’. But she has a problem. And like some problems, if you leave it alone, it’s only going to make things worse.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” The farm mare let her hat flop back out and returned her hoof to the dirt. “But uh, what is this problem? Where’s it from, I mean. I see the problem. Heh. No offense.” She smiled awkwardly.
Sea Swirl giggled. “It’s okay, I can do worse. I was going to say she was screwed up.”
Applejack’s face twitched. She couldn’t decide whether to laugh along, or simply live with the pain.
“Just being honest.”
It took Applejack a second. She shook her head back and forth, snorted, and looked at Sea Swirl with a cocktail of emotions. “Sugarcube, that’s awful.”
“I know.” Sea Swirl combed her snout through Screw Loose’s light gray mane. “But so is her story. I was lucky to even have the chance to hear it, because she’s obviously in no state to share it.” She kissed the top of Screwy’s head, and in turn, the shut-eyed mare waved her tail. “Her father was in town a couple months ago.”
“He was in town?” Applejack’s mouth worked wordlessly. “He just left her?”
“He tried over and over to get her to stop, but by the time I finally worked up the courage to intervene, she’d already run off to the next part of town. She wouldn’t listen to him, no matter how much he called her name.” Sea Swirl licked her lips, resting her head against Screwy’s, with one ear propped against another. “He was... lost in his own way. Eyes so distant you’d think he was in a different world altogether. Body so pulled apart by stress that he was... well, at least for a pony who couldn’t be all that old, graying like he’d been around for a lifetime.” She pursed her lips, then looked down. “I think he needed help, too.”
Applejack’s silence prompted Sea Swirl on.
“I asked him for his story. He gave me one. A story about a stallion and his daughter. Two ponies, practically alone, who lived in a quiet village in northernmost Equestria. But they were happy.”
“I think I’d like to hear more of that story.”
Sea Swirl nodded, and closed her eyes. For a moment, she was in a different time. “The father was a carpenter, and he focused on furnishings for the village’s homes. The daughter was a pioneer, and she loved to create all sorts of things. She wasn’t quite as good at making furniture, but when it came to bringing them together, she proved her worth in making it happen. Anvils, forges, casts, she put metal bindings of all kinds together to make her father’s furniture sturdy, and last. She wasn’t strictly a blacksmith, but her talents reached as far as her mind wandered, and metals happened to be her favorite kind of material to work with.”
“They even managed to strike it rich, or at least, as rich so far as the village was concerned. They turned their good fortune great. A traveling tradesmare acquired their wares in exchange for the ones she brought, and the village prospered as the father took to delivering their new wealth as gifts. Soon, by word of the tradesmare, ponies flocked to the village, settling back home with their families instead of seeking purpose elsewhere as they’d tried before.”
“The father helped build new homes from the ground up, helped mold the village leadership, and helped to bridge the community together. Meanwhile, the daughter toiled away, taking up the mantle of creating goods for trade, as new patterns and inventions always found worth with the tradesmare. It was a new era for the village, and the two ponies found themselves at the head of the little age of prosperity.”
“Then, the daughter made a mistake. The father didn’t know what had happened, but in the act of forging her latest project, something about her efforts had... changed her. He came across her in her workshop, tools scattered about, and smoke still rising. By all means, they were signs that she was hard at work. But she acted nothing like the daughter he knew. She responded to her name, and her name alone.”
“The next day, the tradesmare arrived, and instead of being greeted by the new wonders the daughter had surely crafted with care, she was greeted by the father, who begged her for a solution. The mare offered her help immediately, and together, they managed to bring the daughter aboard her traveling wagon, and off they went, straight to Canterlot.”
“But they never made it to Canterlot. Just below the peak of the Canterhorn, despite pulling the wagon in turns, they halted to rest for the night. The father and tradesmare awoke, only to find themselves without the daughter’s presence.”
“He searched, and his search did take him to his daughter. But it was then he realized that she no longer recognized him. And to his eyes, she appeared happier now than ever before. Instead of being confined to the workshop to toil day and night for the village, she moved freely, and lived without worry. The tradesmare offered her help once again, but he had no answer. He didn’t know what to do.”
Sea Swirl opened her eyes. “He was gone before I could find him again.” She looked again at Screw Loose, who had since fallen asleep, and was still leaned against her. “But I wrote down his story. For her sake.”
Applejack had her tilted her head down, staring right down at the ground. Her ears were pointed right at Sea Swirl, but as the world went on—with the air occupied only by the sound of the day around them—her silence furrowed deeper and deeper.
“...It was too much, wasn’t it? I always put too much thought into what I say.”
“No. You don’t.”
Sea Swirl glanced up. Applejack’s eyes were shadowed by the tilt of her stetson.
“You said she won’t get better if she... stays this way. I see what you mean, now.” Applejack took a deep breath. “You really believe in that stallion and his story?”
“I believe that Screw Loose could be more. I want her to get better. And I want her to be with a pony I can trust. Twilight told me there was no better friend for that than you.”
Applejack turned to Screw Loose, but this time, there was no mirth in her eyes. She looked over the sleeping mare. She chewed the inside of her mouth. “I...” She trailed off, briefly, but turned her eyes back to Sea Swirl. “I’ll do my best.”
“You... you will?”
“Like I said, I’ll try. I really will.”
“Applejack... I hope I’m not muscling you into this.”
“Sugarcube, you’ve said enough. I believe you.” After another pause, she continued. “Have you tried to do anything with her that ain’t... playing?”
“Um... not exactly. She helped Reckless fix her coffee table. Which they smashed.” She let that fact hang in the air. “Reckless said she didn’t know what half the pieces were, but Screwy knew what went where.”
“Well, it’s a start. I can work with that.”
“...Thank you, Applejack. Really. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
For a moment, they both stood there, watching Screw Loose rest.
In the distant hills of the farm, the sounds of hooves cracking against wood echoed down.
“Whew. Well, Sea Swirl, you sure know how to put some weight in the air.”
Sea Swirl let out a weak, nervous laugh. “Yeah... sorry.”
“Listen, I know what it’s like to be all... jarred up. There’s no need to be sorry.”
“But—”
“Hush. Let go, sugarcube. It’ll all work out. I promise.”
Sea Swirl sighed. She really needed to get a better grip on herself. This was exactly why she never wanted to stick around other ponies for long. There was always too much to unpack with her.
“Okay.”
At least tomorrow would be a little better for her friends.