Home.
The smell that ponies associate with the word vary wildly between individuals. When I was growing up, it was water – vapour trails, mist, rain – then gradually the sweat of an intense workout, or a well-won race, or an aerobatic routine perfectly performed.
But lately, as I’ve spent more and more time away from the skies, the scent has started to involve… more grounded things: apples, of course, and sugar and baked goods. Funnily enough, though, there’s still a little sweat. And that’s how you know her cooking is a labour of love.
My stomach growls in anticipation. “You make me wish it weren’t my job to organise the Wonderbolts.”
For the briefest of moments, Applejack pauses over the combined stove and oven and flicks an ear my way. “How’s that?”
“Your cooking.” I groan and lay my chin flat on the table. “It’s just too good.”
She laughs. “Nothin’ special, sugar, just some old family recipe.”
“Then it has to be special, or else your family wouldn’t have kept it around so long.”
Her ear flicks again in my direction, and then she purses her lips and shrugs her brows. “Not wrong, I suppose. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve taken things for granted.”
Now it’s my ear’s turn to twitch, and I tilt my at her in curiosity as my brows gently furrow. “What do you mean?”
“Oh.” Seemingly finished with the pie, Applejack returns with it to the table, and with practised ease she cuts a slice for me and another for herself. They steam and seep their sweet-smelling filling onto each plate, and as we wait for the heat to dissipate she clears her throat. “Well, once upon a time, way back when I’d only just become an Element Bearer, or what have you, Big Mac had got himself hurt and couldn’t help with the harvest that season. With Granny too old and Apple Bloom too young, that left me to sort it out myself.”
I glance at the window and the orchard beyond. “All of it?”
“Yup. Every square foot.” With a grin and fork in her hoof, she divides her slice into sections to cool. “Now, I figured since this was my family’s farm, it was our business and nopony else’s, and since Mac told me I couldn’t handle it on my own, I felt obligated to prove him wrong.” She blows on each miniature slice in turn, almost reflectively. “Long story short, I ended up lookin’ more of a fool than if I’d just reached out to anypony for help. I was my own worst enemy, and it took Twi, Dash, Shy, Pinkie and Rarity to make me see it.”
Stubbornness isn’t new to either of us, but it’s hard to imagine those beautiful emerald eyes could ever be stern. “I’m not sure I see that kind of mare in you anymore.”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod and a chuckle. “The power of friendship, I guess. Nowadays, if I’m in a similar situation around here, all I need to do is go into town and ask.”
Inwardly, I can’t help but laugh too. “If only I had something like that.”
Just as she’s about to skewer the smallest slice, she stops, looking at me as if I’d said the strangest thing. “What do you mean?”
At first I wonder how exactly she’d find it confusing, until I realise that I’ve never really explained what my job is like. I search for the words, but they catch somewhere deep in my throat – not quite embarrassed, but not far from it either – and figure it might just be easier to shake my head dismissively. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just some… stupid leadership nonsense.”
“Ain’t nothin’ if you felt the need to bring it up.”
Should’ve known that wouldn’t work. Keeping things from the Element Bearer of Honesty? I sigh at myself for even considering it. And the worst bit is she doesn’t even have to get upset to rub it in my face, just sit across from me at the same table with a small, caring smile. “Being captain… isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
She rolls her eyes. “Wouldn’t ever have imagined so.”
“Sure, but…” A memory flashes in the back of my mind, from the days when I was a recruit, and had every intention of being the best of the best – much to my chagrin, not unlike Rainbow Dash. I wince at the image of my past self and shake my head. “Well, sure, but it’s around this time of year when everypony you’re meant to be in charge of suddenly decides that, maybe, being a Wonderbolt isn’t that important. They fantasise about what gifts they’ll get or who they want to spend time with on Hearth’s Warming, instead of focusing on the show in Canterlot coming up.”
She isn’t surprised but she shifts her weight – wondering, or perhaps worried, by something I’d said. Whatever I’d said. “You can understand why, though, right?”
“Of course I do, but we’re meant to be professionals – soldiers, even, when the time calls for it. We can’t just stop taking our job seriously whenever we feel like it, especially on the holidays when everypony else does.”
Applejack squints. “Yer sayin’ I ain’t serious ’bout the farm?”
The crack of thin ice. Best tread carefully. “Uh… no? I mean, yes, no. Which is why the fact you manage it so well impresses me. Running this place and its business is a big responsibility, maybe even bigger than being captain, but you barely ever seem to break a sweat, or worry about anything going wrong. Meanwhile if I let my guard down in front of the others, that’s their signal to slack off or daydream, as if we aren’t professionals representing Equestria, its citizens, or the pride of Cloudsdale!”
She eases her expression into a satisfied smirk, then slowly nods to herself. “Have you talked with them about this?”
“I’ve told them I expect better, yeah – that everypony expects better from the best of the best. But there’ll always be a couple who put their personal lives ahead of the team, and that gets the others rethinking their priorities too.”
“The same happens here, y’know: Apple Bloom desperately wants to meet her friends instead of helping out with the animals; Big Mac needs to take some time away from the homestead for his wife and son. It ain’t sunshine and rainbows all year every year.”
“So what if it isn’t?!” I throw my forelegs in the air and slump back in my seat. “They’re still family to you – they have to listen. My word carries some weight, but it’s not the same as being the responsible head of household and a hard-working business mare.” My plate and the pie still steaming on it now feels like a lifetime away from me, and the distance makes me feel small. Insignificant. “We have definitive ranks. I can be replaced. You can’t.”
Her smirk shrinks and her brows wrinkle. “This ain’t just about what you said it was, is it?”
“…Possibly? Maybe. I dunno.” I shrug and try to let myself relax into the seat somewhat. “I’m just… glad to be on a break myself, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.”
Her ears perk up, and that smirk reappears in a more knowing fashion as she folds her forelegs across her breast. “And yet the job is weighin’ on ya more than ever. Better still, you and the troopers ain’t so different after all.”
“I never said we were.”
“You didn’t need to. It’s how you talk about them, like they’re… a nuisance to you – sheep, if you will, that you shepherd. Whenever there’s any sign of ’em having a mind of their own? Fwip!” She slams a hoof down on the table. “You gotta nip that bud before it sprouts. Now, I’m not sayin’ there ain’t different standards they, or you, should follow compared to the rest of us, but what I am sayin’ is that from what it sounds like, you don’t treat them right.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes; we’d been over this before and had come to an understanding: the Wonderbolts were part of the same institution as the Royal Guard, and required just as much discipline if not more so. Comparing it to civilian life was inaccurate and she knew it, but I’m not really in the mood to challenge her – spent too long butting heads at the Academy.
Despite being in charge of the conversation, however, she softens her tone and angles her ears, looking at me with sympathy. “Wanna know the reason why ponies ’round here trust me? Why they’re so eager to help? Why I’ve got the network I do?”
“Because you’ve helped save the world a couple dozen times?” I answer facetiously.
“Because I give them reason to trust me,” she counters, leaning over the table’s edge. “This little… support network, if you wanna call it that, I didn’t get it just by ordering ponies around and knownin’ what’s best, or by saving the world. That all helps, sure, but what’s most important is showing others how alike you are – how fallible you are.”
“Fallible?”
“Let me finish.” Applejack holds up her hoof for a couple of seconds for emphasis, and when she’s sure I won’t interrupt she lets her breath go and deflates, and seems to grow almost as weary as her own grandmother. “We all have limits, is what I’m gettin’ at. When I reach mine, I reach out, and whether it’s because of my fame or the respect they have for me or any number of other factors, my friends, family and business partners reach back. It’s not about being the boss, Spitty. It’s about being a leader.”
Inwardly I scoff. Outwardly a languid shrug “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
“Then you know there’s a difference. Nipping at their heels might be the best approach at times, but it’s not the only one, and it’s exhausting for everypony involved.”
“It works, though.”
“Would you be complaining if that were true?”
I narrow my eyes as if I’d been called a liar – by Lady Honesty Herself, no less – but my ears twitch and betray something else: interest. I’d have shut this down sooner if I truly thought that she’d have nothing to add.
She sits a little straighter and looks up in thought, tapping the edge of her forehooves together. “Look at it this way: would you prefer a Celestia who’s cold and distant and hard to get to know, and who only talks business whenever she’s out? Or would you prefer the Celestia we have, who stops by Ponyville every month or so to have tea with Twilight and half the town?”
Comparing myself to the oldest, wisest and longest reigning princess feels too bold, given her responsibilities include governing the realm, managing the passage of the sun and fostering diplomatic ties with the rest of the world both friendly and sinister. But blasphemous though it may be, Applejack has a point. As usual. Nevertheless, part of me can’t help a rising sense of exasperation. “So, what, I’m supposed to start having tea with the team?”
“You don’t have to take it so literally, no, but it’d be a start. Besides, I think cider would be more up their alley. I know for a fact that Dash would agree.”
Of course she would – her addiction is legendary – and the fact she wouldn’t have to pay for it would only make her all the more insistent. But before word can ever reach her, I’d have to agree to the idea myself, and while I don’t like the idea of suddenly going soft on those who’ve caused me so much trouble, a friend of the Princess of Friendship probably knows what she’s talking about.
What bothers me is the inevitability of actually having to admit it.
“Part of bein’ responsible is knowing where yer limits are.” Applejack’s attention wanders to the windows, as if remembering some long forgotten memory with a mixture of fondness and shame. “That’s a lesson I learned the hard way. Better you learn from my mistakes so you don’t go making them yourself.”
“I hear you, I hear you,” I relent with a sigh, absently waving a wing. “I just… don’t think it’d be as simple as it sounds.”
“It won’t. Change is hard.” She leans across to lay a hoof on mine, and gives me a warm smile – warmer and sweeter than the pie itself. “But sometimes it’s for the best.”
And I’m glad the changes I’ve made have led to her, here and now.
Perhaps a little more wouldn’t be so bad.