Redstreak and Pink Pearl had taken to each other very quickly, and however fast it may have been considered did not stop them tying the knot in a mere seven months. Their children became very close, Applejack took to Pink Pearl like a new mother, and Redstreak was more than willing to fill the spot of father for Little Macintosh. Around two years passed, and many little things happened during this time, each one important to the family in their own way. Simply put, it was a perfect, happy time for them all.
And Granny Smith was still insufferably smug about the whole thing.
“Ah told ya so! Ah told ya! Didn’t Ah tell ya both?” she called from her rocking chair.
“Yes, Ma, you did.” Redstreak sighed at his mother’s continued tenacity on the subject and continued slicing apples in the kitchen, whilst Pink Pearl just laughed a little and lightly nuzzled the side of his face as she rolled some pastry. They were visiting Granny Smith for her birthday this time, and whilst the adults were busy in the kitchen preparing dinner, their foals were outside playing in the orchard. Somewhere.
“Where’ve the young’uns gotten themselves to, anyways? Ah swear, Ah ain’t seen hide nor hair of those two since all o’y’all got here! Ain’t a grandmother s’pposed ta see her grandfoals on her birthday?” Had Granny Smith been able to see through several layers of farmhouse, she would have noticed Applejack busily hiding behind some barrels and giggling to herself quietly as her father’s large hat plopped down over her face again.
There was no way Little Macintosh was going to find her here, no siree! It was just too perfect: she couldn’t be seen from beside the house, the barrels were bigger than her, they were arranged just right−
“Found ya!” The hat was whipped from her head and she looked up in shock to see Macintosh, Stetson now on his head, grinning down at her from over the top of a barrel, which he had half-climbed so that his back legs were dangling down the other side.
“But… but how?” Applejack tried to jump and swipe for the hat with a hoof, but her brother deftly dodged back and dropped to his hooves, maintaining his possession of the hat and forcing her to leave the hiding spot.
“Y’all were gigglin’ to yerself, Ah could hear ya! And the barrels were all shifted from where they were before, so it was pretty obvious.” Before she could protest at her hiding place’s flawlessness, however, he took the hat off and plonked it on her head once more, and then he cantered off into the apple trees, leaving behind a somewhat stunned Applejack.
“…Little Macintosh, why you…” She giggled and watched him disappear.
In actual fact, he was on the verge of outgrowing the moniker of “Little”. He may have only been eleven years old, but he was very nearly as tall as Granny Smith. Soon he’d just have to be “Macintosh”, maybe even “Big Macintosh” if he kept growing.
“Hey Sis, come look!” Applejack followed the sound of her brother’s voice to one of the apple trees and found him posed with his rear legs reared up to it. Before she could ask what he was doing, he kicked back and his hooves connected with the tree’s base with a solid-sounding thud, then another, and another, before a good portion of the apples finally fell from the branches and into the buckets waiting below. Applejack gasped in wonder as the colt stood up straight and thrust his chest out, looking very pleased with himself.
“Wow, Macintosh! Y’all can applebuck now!”
“Aw, t’aint nothin’,” he claimed, now slightly embarrassed for putting on such a show, but Applejack shook her head resolutely and put her hoof down to support her point:
“It is too! Lookit!” Macintosh watched as the filly positioned herself in front of another, slightly smaller apple tree and gave it the hardest buck she could. Nothing happened. Several more equally zealous bucks later amounted to one tired Applejack and a few fallen loose leaves, but no apples in the collection buckets.
“Ya see! Ah can’t even buck one lousy apple!” she said between gasps of breath, before she sat down heavily and looked at the surrounding orchard forlornly.
“Ah just dunno, Mac, Ah ain’t sure Ah’m cut out fer this…” Redstreak’s hat again fell down over her eyes, but not before Macintosh caught a glimpse of tears forming at their corners.
“Hey now, don’t say that.” Macintosh trotted over to her and lifted the hat up again, before he pulled Applejack into a tight hug.
“Y’all’ve just gotta wait till yer bigger is all, then yer sure to buck those apples down no problem!” He loosened his hold and smiled at her, and she smiled a little at his comforting words, but it never reached her eyes. There was something else on her mind, Macintosh could tell.
“What’s wrong?” The orange filly considered for a moment, screwing her face up as she did so, before she looked back at him and asked a question.
“Promise to keep a secret?”
“O’course.”
“Well, ya see…” She swallowed, then continued. “All the other colts and fillies in mah class at school have got their cutie marks by now. Ah’m the only one that doesn’t.” Applejack looked around the orchard again, and sighed.
“Ah don’t mind waitin’ for it, and Ah love apples and all, but Ah dunno if they’re what Ah’m good at, y’know? Wouldn’t Ah have got mine by now if they were? Ah… Ah was kinda thinkin’ about tryin’ sumthin’ else…”
“…huh.” Macintosh didn’t know what else to say. He had his cutie mark already, and had had it for a year or so before he met Applejack. His mother’s work had got him interested in the orchard in the first place, and he couldn’t think of anything else that he really wanted to do.
He didn’t think about the future all that much, but whenever he did, he pictured Applejack and himself working on an orchard with their parents, either back home or here at Sweet Apple Acres. What if Applejack didn’t want to be a part of that? What would he do then? The young colt started to worry, but then his common sense reminded him about something: just because his sister wasn’t necessarily going to do the same thing as him, it didn’t mean he would be completely unable to see her again. And anyway, it wasn’t as if Applejack, if she did leave home, was going to leave anytime soon, right?
“Applejack! Little Macintosh!” Redstreak’s voice called out from the direction of the farmhouse.
“A letter’s arrived for yer Granny! It’s from yer Aunt an’ Uncle Orange in Manehatten! Do you wanna hear what it says?”