//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Home 
// Story: Clean Slate 
// by Alaborn 
//------------------------------//

Clean Slate

By Alaborn

Standard disclaimer: This is a not for profit fan work.  My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyright Hasbro, Inc.  I make no claim to any copyrighted material mentioned herein.

Chapter 3: Home





Applejack stood at the nurse’s station, filling in some paperwork.  I waited as she collected documents from various nurses and doctors.  Finally, a nurse brought a final document, along with a small contraption of metal bars, with two wheels and two rubber feet at its base.  A walker.

The orange mare must have noticed my expression.  “Doctor’s orders,” she said.  “We’ll see in a week if you still need it.”  When I continued to frown, she continued.  “Look, Diamond Tiara.  You’re an earth pony.  Strength and resilience are part of the magic that’s in you.  But healing still takes time.  If you don’t want to use the walker, the first step is to use it.  Do you understand?”

I nodded, and rested my forehooves on the bar near the walker’s base.  By pushing my body into it, I lifted it off the rubber feet, and the walker moved on its wheels.  The framework kept me steady as I walked out of the hospital.

“We’ve got a stop to make first.  Follow me,” Applejack said.  I walked after her, paying attention to her movement.  She took small steps, moving far slower than she obviously could, just so that I could keep up with her.

We ended up at a large building.  It might have been bigger than the hospital, but it was hard to judge, as this new building was one story, as compared to the multilevel hospital building.  The building itself looked like newer construction, with a modern style, but the sign hanging outside was not.  An old wooden sign, with hoof-carved lettering, read Barnyard Bargains.  The sign was obviously well cared for, varnished and polished, but it must have been much older than the building.

We headed inside.  The store was enormous.  Rows of shelves, stacked three high, held an abundance of material goods.  I saw cookware, toys, cleaning supplies, and canned food, with many varieties of each.

“I’m just going to get some glass jars for canning,” Applejack explained, walking into a row with cookware.  I walked parallel to her, in another row, but keeping her in sight through the gaps in the shelving units.  At the end of the row, I found a display with items for winter.  Snow shovels hung from pegs.  Boots were stacked next to a circular rack, holding ponchos.

I remembered the racks.  I remembered finding dropped items, from broken wooden hangars to glittering gold coins.  I remembered hiding inside them, peeking out between two ponchos.  A foalhood game of hide and seek?  With who?

I walked up to Applejack, who was busy inspecting two competing packages of lids.  “Have I been here before?” I asked her.

She set down the packages.  “I reckon you’ve spent a lot of time here.  Did you remember something?” Applejack said.

“It’s very vague, but I felt… an impression.  Maybe it’s something from my past,” I said.  Down the aisle, I saw a rambunctious colt run by, a harried mare chasing after him, scolding him all the while.  Could that have been me, several years ago?

Applejack settled on her purchases, and placed glass canning jars, rubber seals, and metal lids into her saddlebags.  “Let’s take a look around before checking out.  See if you remember anything else.”

We walked through the entire store, but I didn’t experience any other memories.  I seemed to know how the store was laid out, but whether that was because of past experience, because all stores were laid out that way, or because it was just a logical layout, I didn’t know.  I shook my head.  Applejack nodded and headed to the clerk, paying for her purchases.

When we stepped outside, Applejack got to her knees.  “Alright, sugarcube.  Hop on.”  I hesitated.  “Don’t give me that look,” she continued.  “It’s a long way back to the farm, and I don’t want you to tire yourself out.”

She’s probably right.  I don’t know where this farm is, and I am feeling a bit tired just from walking through the store.  I climbed on Applejack, draping my forelegs around her neck.  She effortlessly picked up the walker with her tail and balanced it on her back.  She then stood up, and we departed.

We traveled in silence through Ponyville.  Small shops and homes were arranged along the dirt roads.  The farther we walked, the fewer commercial buildings were present, and the more homes.

“See anything familiar?” Applejack asked.

I shook my head.  Realizing she couldn’t see my gesture, I then said, “No.”

After half an hour, we reached the edge of the settlement.  Farms extended as far as the eye could see, ahead and to both sides.  A short walk up the road, we crossed the gate of one of these farms.  “Welcome to Sweet Apple Acres,” Applejack said.  





Sweet Apple Acres was huge.  A whitewashed wooden fence stretched to both sides, encompassing an orchard of apple trees.  The leaves were beginning to change colors, but apples remained to be harvested.  As we walked through the orchard, I noticed sounds coming from all over, the cracks of something strong striking wood.  “Is this your harvest season?” I asked.

“Eeyup.  We’ve been harvesting for a couple of weeks, and still have a few more to go,” Applejack said.

I thought about the amount of time Applejack had spent at the hospital.  I calculated the time it would take to walk there and back, each time.  “How could you spend all that time with me, then?” I asked.

“Because you needed somepony to be there,” she replied.

“But all your work!” I implored.

“We’ll manage,” is all she said in reply.

Again I was struck by the size of the farm.  At no point in our walk did I not see apple trees.  It was not until we reached the farmhouse, fifteen minutes later, that I finally saw something different.  Off in the distance was another farm, a painted wooden carrot marking its barn.

Applejack stooped so that I could hop off.  I landed on the wooden porch.  I started to walk to the door, only to have the mare place my walker in front of me.

“Safety first,” she cautioned.  Applejack opened the door and led me inside.  I paused at the threshold, wiping my hooves, or rather my rear hooves, on the sisal mat.  The house was quiet, save for the sound of our hooves on the old wooden floor.  But the smell of fresh apple pie made me feel welcome.

“You’ll get to see everypony when we break for lunch,” Applejack said.  “For now, let’s go to your room.”

I followed Applejack up the stairs.  The walker was rather awkward to use, but the physical therapy I had done helped me make it up the stairs without issue.  Once on the second floor, she pushed one of the doors open.  “So here’s where you’re going to be staying,” she said.

The small bedroom was crowded with two beds and two nightstands.  One bed was older, sloppily covered with a quilt with apples embroidered on it.  The other bed was neatly made; a stack of books, a wooden box, and a slate rested on it.  The furniture and bedding looked brand new.  A shared room.  I guessed this was somepony not used to sharing a room, so that meant I was imposing on them.

While I was taking in the room, Applejack was in the closet.  She pulled out a trunk and set it at the foot of the bed.  “We brought some of your things,” Applejack said.  “Now before you go getting settled in, the doctor wants you to do an hour of stair climbing and an hour of motor skills practice each day.  You’ve got a doctor’s appointment and physical therapy sessions at the hospital each Tuesday and Friday.  And Miss Cheerilee brought by schoolbooks and lesson plans for the material you’ve missed.

“Bathroom’s down the hall.  If you need anything, Granny Smith should be in the house most of the time, so just ask.  I’ll see you at lunch.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

As Applejacks hoofsteps receded, I opened the chest.  My eyes were first drawn to a diamond tiara, resting on a small pink pillow.  It was damaged, clearly bent out of shape, and though it looked like some effort had been made to clean it, I still saw a bit of dried ocher-colored mud in the tiara’s crevasses.

I tried on the tiara and looked at myself in the mirror.  The tiara looked beautiful.  The two metal alloys, one darker than the other, mimicked the violet and white color of my mane.  The curves reminded me of the natural wave in my mane and tail. The sparkle of the pale blue diamonds reminded me of my color of my eyes.  It was perfect for me.

I took off the tiara.  It might have been perfect, but it was out of place.  I hadn’t seen anypony wearing anything like it.  I took the pillow out of the chest, and placed both items on the dresser.

I turned back to the chest and looked to see what else was inside.  A doll.  Three dresses.  A small velvet box with a pair of decorative teaspoons.  A hairbrush and mirror.  Saddlebags.  Nothing that unusual.  And nothing that was familiar to me.  Sadly, I closed the chest, and returned it to the closet.

I lifted my forelegs onto the bed and checked out what was there.  The schoolbooks were plain.  Mathematics.  History.  Magic.  Grammar and composition.  I set them aside and checked out the mystery box.  Inside were plain wooden rods.  Therapy.  Not the present I wanted to find in this package, but it was necessary for my recovery.

I wasn’t sure how much time I had until lunch, so I thought I’d get my stair walking out of the way.  I took the first trip down the stairs carefully, making sure the rubber feet of the walker were placed on the next step before moving.  Once I made it back downstairs, it was time to climb again.

Somewhere in the middle of my exercise, I heard the back door open.  Somepony was in the kitchen.  She talked in a scratchy voice, addressing the food she was preparing.  I giggled.  Such a kooky thing to do!

As the stepping became more routine, I was able to look around.  The defining feature of the staircase was the pictures hanging from the walls.  There were more than a dozen framed photographs, with almost all the ponies in them having coloration in either earth tones or colors like apples.  Most bore cutie marks with some form of apple or food made with apples.  Obviously, all the ponies pictured here couldn’t fit into this house.  A certain group of ponies appeared in multiple pictures.  One was Applejack.  There was a red stallion around Applejack’s age, a little older, and a yellow filly, who would probably be around my age.  An elderly green mare appeared to be the family matriarch.

As I focused on the family photographs, I then noticed the middle generation, the ponies who were probably Applejack’s parents.  In the oldest photos, the ones without the young filly, a mare and stallion were both present.  Later photographs showed only the stallion, and the most recent neither parent.

I had tuned out the noises from the kitchen, but the screeching of “Soup’s on, everypony!” brought me back to the real world.  I slowly walked into the kitchen.

The elderly green mare I saw in many of the photographs was busy in the kitchen, loading the table with salads, bread, and apple pie.  Curiously, there was no soup.  Within minutes, Applejack and three other ponies joined us.

“Diamond Tiara, in case you haven’t been introduced, this is Granny Smith,” Applejack said.

“Well look at that!  We’re twins!” the old mare said, lifting up her own walker in one hoof.  The way she had been moving around the kitchen, I think I needed a walker more than she did. 

“This is my brother, Big McIntosh,” Applejack said, motioning to the red stallion.

“Eeyup,” he said.

Applejack introduced a yellow stallion, wearing a brown vest.  “This is Cousin Braeburn.  He’s here all the way from Appleloosa!”

“Howdy,” he said to me, tipping his hat.

“And that’s Apple Bloom,” Applejack concluded.  The yellow filly took her seat at the kitchen table, not looking at me.

“Apple Bloom!  You introduce yourself properly!” Big McIntosh scolded.

Apple Bloom barely looked at me as she muttered a quick hello.  I think she’s upset about sharing her room with a stranger.





Lunch went about as well as could be expected.  The loops around the utensils at my place setting were a reminder of my condition.  At least I was able to feed myself without sticking my muzzle in the bowl.  The conversation at the table was another reminder.  The talk was mostly about the farm.  I wasn’t familiar with the many varieties of apples discussed, nor with which field had which type of apple tree.

The food was very good.  The salad was crisp and fresh, the bread still warm, and the apple pie incredibly flaky and tender.  The other ponies, having worked up an appetite with their hard work, ate a lot, and ate fast.  I, still getting used to eating solid food again, ate very little.  I couldn’t even finish the thin slice of apple pie, no matter how good it smelled.  We finished eating at about the same time.

I brought my plate to the sink.  It looked like Granny Smith was taking the lead on cleaning, while everypony else was heading back to the harvest.  Soon, I was alone in the kitchen with Granny Smith.

“Now, don’t you worry about the kitchen,” Granny Smith said.

“Okay,” I replied.  “May I study down here?”

“Of course you can!” she replied.

I headed upstairs and looked at the schoolbooks.  Mathematics seemed like as good a place to start as any.  Remembering my saddlebags, I pulled them out of the chest in the closet.  Now, I finally got a good look at them.  They were constructed of a lightweight fabric; I hoped it was strong.  The fabric was pink, like my coat, and there were small gems sewed into the fabric, in the shape of my tiara.  That same pattern was once on my flank, in those pictures where I had a cutie mark.

Into one side of the saddlebags, I put the textbook.  In the other, I slid in the slate, and added the box of chalk and eraser that was resting next to the slate.  I donned the saddlebags and returned downstairs.

At the kitchen table, I set down the slate and chalk and pulled out the textbook.  Stuck in the cover was a detailed list of assignments, covering the first four chapters of the book.

The first two chapters include a review of the material from previous years, but if you have any questions on these old subjects, be sure to ask your family.

--Miss Cheerilee


I noticed the calendar hanging in the kitchen, indicating it was October.  If I had been in a coma for five months, that would have been May, so I wouldn’t have missed much of the previous year’s material.  I didn’t know what topics I had missed, so I decided to get to the lesson.

“Read chapter 1.1.  Do problems 1 through 20 at the end of the chapter,” I read aloud.  I read through the chapter, which was a review of mathematical topics I was familiar with, fairly quickly, skimming the problems worked through in the text.  Now, the problems.  I took the chalk in my mouth and began to work through the problem set.

Four problems fit on the slate before I had to erase it.  I took the eraser in my hoof and wiped the board clean.  As I stared at the slate, black except for a fine residue of chalk dust left behind, I saw myself.  The blackness was my memories, at the moment I woke up.  Each stroke of the chalk was an attempt to imprint lost knowledge on my mind.  I needed to work to make sure that which was left behind was more substantial than the chalk dust.





I worked problems until it got too dark to read comfortably.  With twilight falling on the land, my new family members filed in, their workday at an end.  They crowded around the sink, taking turns cleaning up before dinner.  I packed up my work so that the table could be set for dinner.

Again, the food was excellent.  The baked hay was breaded and crispy, with a flavorful tomato sauce.  More fresh bread, green beans, and apple cobbler completed the meal.  I ate in silence, trying to pick up on the conversation.  I was still lost amidst the farming terms and apple names, so it was hard to pay attention.

“Diamond Tiara?” Applejack said.

“Huh?” I replied.

“I said, how was your day?” she repeated.  Everypony was finishing their meal, and apparently, Applejack had asked me a question when I was zoned out.

“Oh,” I uttered.  “It was okay.”

“So what did you do?” Applejack pressed.

“Mostly math, and exercise before that,” I continued.

“Did you do both your therapy exercises?” Applejack asked.

Shoot.  “No, I still need to do those motor skill exercises,” I admitted.  Around me, the ponies were starting to clean the table.  I pushed aside the uneaten portion of my cobbler.

“Apple Bloom, would you get the box from your room?” Applejack requested.

“Okay,” Apple Bloom said, still not appearing any happier.  The filly departed.

“You know, Diamond Tiara, she made those for you,” Applejack said.

“That’s nice of her,” I replied.

“Let’s go to the living room,” Applejack suggested.

I sat in one of the chairs and waited.  Apple Bloom returned, the box sticking out of her saddlebags.  She passed me the box.

“Thanks.  These are nice,” I said.

“It’s nothing special, just some basic woodwork,” Apple Bloom replied.

I practiced picking up and manipulating the wooden rods.  From my seat, I could watch the rest of the family.  Applejack and Braeburn battled over a checkerboard, both ponies taking the game very seriously.  Apple Bloom was sprawled out on the throw rug, doing her homework.  Big McIntosh read.  Granny Smith, seated in her rocking chair, alternated between knitting and napping.

By the time I finished my practice, the muscles in my forelegs were aching.  The fire in the fireplace warmed the room, but the warmth of this family was even more soothing for my tired body.  I yawned.

Applejack heard my yawn, and glanced at the clock.  “Apple Bloom, it’s time to get ready for bed.  You have school in the morning.”

“Awwww,” Apple Bloom replied, setting aside the book she had been reading.

As the filly departed, Applejack turned to me.  “You should get to bed too.  You need your rest, more than any of us.”

I walked upstairs.  I needed to wait for Apple Bloom to leave the one bathroom upstairs.  After a few minutes, she departed.  She didn’t make eye contact with me.

After washing up and brushing my teeth, I went to our room.  Apple Bloom was under the covers, her eyes closed.  I set my walker at the foot of the bed and contemplated how to get in.  It was easy enough to place my forelegs on the bed, to pick something off of them, but getting my hind legs on the bed… well, this still wasn’t easy for me.

My knees shook as I steeled myself for the jump.  I pushed off the floor, but only succeeded at getting a few more inches of my body on the bed.  I slid backwards.  I breathed in, and jumped again.  Still no good.

“Apple Bloom?” I called quietly.  She didn’t stir.

“Apple Bloom?” I called again, louder.

“What?” she replied irately.

“I can’t climb into bed.  Can you help me?” I said.

Apple Bloom sighed and climbed out of bed.  This time, when I jumped onto the bed, Apple Bloom pushed at the same time.  With her assistance, I ended up sprawled on the bed.

“Thanks,” I said.  Apple Bloom just grunted in response, and she returned to her bed.  I crawled under the covers and blew out the candle.

I lay on my back, staring at the patterns cast on the room by the light of Luna’s moon shining through the window.  This family had no issue with sharing a small space.  They enjoyed being crowded around the kitchen table, with barely enough space for all the ponies and their food.  They fit themselves into the living room.  And they shared two small bathrooms.  Thinking about it, Apple Bloom probably wasn’t unhappy about sharing her room.  That meant there was another reason.

A few seconds later, I realized the reason.

“Apple Bloom?  Why don’t you like me?” I asked hesitantly.

I heard her shift in her bed.  “You want to know why?  You’re a bully.  You’ve done nothing but make fun of me for the last three years.  You made fun of the way I talked.  You made fun of my family.  You made fun of anything I made.  And the minute you got your cutie mark, you teased me for not having one.”

It was obvious this had been eating her up.  It sounded like Apple Bloom had been bottling up these words for years, and now they were all spilling out.

“When I heard you were in a coma, I was happy, because that meant you would finally shut up!  And then Applejack said if you recovered, you’d move in here.  I….”  Apple Bloom choked back a sob.  “I almost didn’t want you to get better.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“You’re sorry?” she replied incredulously.  “You think that makes it all better?”

“I’m sorry!  I can’t remember any of that!”

In the near darkness, I still saw Apple Bloom stare at me.  “You can’t remember?  Well, I can’t forget,” she said.  She turned away from me.  I heard her sobbing.

At the time I fell asleep, I heard two ponies sobbing.