It was ten years ago. Big Macintosh and I were on holiday at aunt Appleseed's ranch. They had found a special corner in the barn; it had been abandoned since the cows had been sold to another owner (Beet Road, if I remember well). We used to come there, away from his bullying brute of a little sister (yeah, even I have trouble believing AJ used to be like that, and I was there... she's come a long way, for sure), and away from grown-up conversations. They always talked about stuff we didn't care about, in those family reunions. Marriages, funerals, inheritances, land trades, food trades, stuff trades, foodstuff trades... it made our eyes glaze over; soon we'd get impatient and make some sort of mess, so we made ourselves scarce instead.
So there we were, in the barn; it was summer-quiet, the sort that comes when the breeze is too soft, and even the birds keep silent and seek shelter as Celesta's moment of overenthusiastic (and overzealous, and overbearing, and overwhelming) splendour passes. The brick-red, wooden barn was certainly a relief from the pressure of her Highness, but it didn't save us from the hot, still air. We were sprawled on the ground, as shapeless as the straw-gold stacks of hay that surrounded us. What little light passed the planks of the ill-maintained roof seemed like solid beams of light, and mottled the ground with many, tiny specks of light.
"Hey, cuz, " I said as I idly intercepted the lights with my hoof. Something in me kept expecting the perfectly prismatic sunbeams to break into small fragments as I hit them, like the most delicate glass. But they just redefined themselves to only go as far as my leg went. For some reason, I kept trying. "It's really hot today."
"Yup." Macintosh said. He kept swatting the piles of hay, throwing zillions of particles of dust in the air, making the sunbeams look even more tangible and solid, to my great (and unjustified) frustration.
"Stop it..." I said, vaguely. I flailed at him weakly. When that didn't work, I used my extended hoof and just tried to make myself roll at him. As I rolled, I noticed I would end up too close... but I just couldn't be bothered to try to stop myself. We collided like two barrels in a cart.
"Hey, watch it, " he said from somewhere under my ear. At least he had stopped flaying the straw. We were sort of tangled. Didn't care to find out how. My nose was stuck in his mane, but I didn't feel like pulling it out. So I breathed.
He smelled nice. Salty.
He shifted a bit under me. Unresisting, I left myself slide by his side. Now we were face to face.
Two half-lidded, green pairs of eyes, stared at each other with the infinite patience of idleness, the impotent frustration of boredom, and... something else? Why did my heart beat so fast? Why did his, for that matter? I had my hoof on his chest. Big Macintosh had always been big, and deceptively slow, with a heart to match. But either that heart had just given up on deception, or he felt...
"Braeburn, " he breathed, his gaze even.
"Yea-" He kissed me. It wasn't a long kiss of true love or anything. Just a peck. Like the sort Granny Smith loved to give us (and mommy demanded that we accept).
My mind was slow to work out an answer to that. But other parts of my brain must have been quicker to make their minds up, because, long before I figured out a word to say, I broke into a wide, goofy grin, and a soft snort. Finally, my line came;
"Macintosh... what was that for... You're not grandma..."
He gently bit me in the jawline. "Nope" His eyes were calm, soothing; I was kind of confused, and maybe a little scared, but he seemed to know what he was doing. Then I lost them, as he moved on to nuzzling my neck.
I nickered. "Cousin, that tickles..."
"Yep" He shifted a little, grabbed me between his arms, and he caught me in a long, right hug, his muzzle firmly in my mane. In turn, I sniffed at his straw-like mane.
Despite the heat, we stayed like that for a while.
Then he started working his way up to my ears. He breathed into them, which made me giggle and flick them this way and that. He wouldn't be deterred, though. "If you stop moving those ears, I'll tell you a secret..."
That got my attention. I foolishly gave him the benefit of the doubt; I have always found secrets irresistible. One day, they will be my undoing. "What is it?" I asked.
For a moment, he lowered his head to look me evenly in the eye. "Promise you won't tell?" he said.
Those eyes... you could get lost, in that calm green ocean. All you had to do was let yourself go... "S-sure," I said.
He went back up there, and whispered, with his big, soft voice "In reality, I-TURULULULULULUUUU!" Aaargh, the ringing! It was the first time someone pulled the "raspberry in the ear" trick on me. I was furious. I fought to get the big red dummy away from me. We wrestled and we laughed and we made a mess and--
He stopped all of a sudden. We looked at each other. Again, those eyes of his...
"Big Mac, where are ya, ye big fat doodoo brain!?" Applejack irrupted into the stable like the terrifying tomboyish mass of energhy that she was. We barely had time to separate before she started searching between the stacks of hay in which we always hid "Soup's served, don y'all dare make us wait at the table, ye lazy campers!" Ow, she was so loud. It was business as usual. Mac and I looked at each other, smiled, and shrugg-"There y'are! Come on, everyone's waiting fer y'all!"' Without a word, we followed her out of the barn, and through the prairie, to where the adults were. It was just another summer afternoon.