It was raining. Not like a refreshing light drizzle on a hot summer day, or one of those spring showers. It was autumn, and it was an outright downpour from the skies.
But the trees had to be bucked, and that was what Applejack and Big Macintosh were busy doing. It was the same routine every tree: one of them would keep watch, make sure that nopony came into the direct vicinity, while the other one bucked the tree and ran. The trick was to be out of the immediate danger zone before the first apple hit the ground.
Working in a downpour had the advantage that less ponies were on the streets, meaning they could work faster than usual. Unfortunately, it also meant they had to be more careful. Well, they always had to be careful, but the slippery streets and mud could be real treacherous in this type of weather.
Applejack had just bucked another tree, and was already starting her running motion even before the first apple started to fall, when disaster struck. Or to be more precise, lightning struck.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. It had been a pretty nice and warm early autumn day after all, and it wasn’t like the weather team hadn’t announced the possibility of thunder either. Out of safety, the two siblings had taken a quick break from their work when the first raindrops started to fall, but once the air had cooled down quite a lot already, they simply assumed that there would be no thunder that day, just rain.
That didn’t detract from the fact that she was surprised. Or maybe she wasn’t, but in the very least she hadn’t been expecting that flash of light through the late afternoon sky, nor the thunder that followed it almost instantly.
That very moment, she was distracted from what she was supposed to be doing: running. Maybe it lasted less than the blink of an eye, but it was the reason why what happened next, happened.
She slipped.
And she landed wrong.
Big Macintosh saw the flash of lightning across the sky too, but it wasn’t the rumble that followed that got his attention. It was his sister’s cry of pain, a loud, piercing yelp, much louder and closer than the thunder itself.
He had never heard her cry out like that before, the mare having quite a high tolerance for pain. Turning around to see what would have caused her to, time seemed to slow down as horror and realization sunk in both at the same time. Yet everything was happening so fast.
Applejack’s hind leg didn’t look right. And if the weird angle it was lying at and the accompanying cry were anything to go to by, it wasn’t alright either. Applejack was lying on her side, seemingly unable to get up as the first deadly apples started to fall from the tree. Big Macintosh knew his sister probably better than any other pony, and if she wasn’t getting up, then something was very wrong.
Applejack wasn’t really aware of her surroundings, all of her attention devoted to the stinging pain in her leg. It felt like it had broken in half, and even the tiniest of movement caused a new surge of pain to come from that area. That changed when she felt something against her back.
Forcing open her eyes and looking over her shoulder to see what it was, the realization came to her too. One of the apples she had just bucked from the tree had rolled up against her backside. Glancing at the tree, there were more on the way, too. She had to get up, but she couldn’t. And she couldn’t reach the apple that had rolled up against her backside either.
She realized that this was it. She couldn’t help herself, and if her brother had any brains at all – which she knew he had – he wouldn’t try to either.
They both knew that it could happen. It was part of the job. And they both knew that if it happened, the best thing to do was leave the other be. Trying to help the other was nothing more than a good way to get yourself hurt, or killed, in the process as well.
The apple lying against his sister’s back would probably kill her on the spot in a few seconds now. How many had she left anyway? One? Five? Ten? It didn’t matter, really. It was going to happen anyway, and he wasn’t about to jump in to try and stop it either. Even if that particular apple wouldn’t do it, others had fallen nearby enough that even if she somehow managed to still be breathing after that, she was going to need serious help, and fast. The sensible thing to was to just get a running start on getting that help.
The sensible thing was what he did.
Applejack seemed to have come to this conclusion too, and their eyes locked one last time. Neither of them knew how long they looked in each others’ eyes, but at some point, Applejack gave a small nod and laid down, her eyes closed. Tears were coming through her closed eyelids, yet somehow, it seemed that she also managed a small smile, despite her leg. He didn’t know how she was managing to do that, but at least she seemed content with her decision. She accepted her fate.
She was at peace.
That was the last he ever saw of his sister. Next thing he knew, he was running away, never looking back. He was running towards the Ponyville hospital, but not to get help. It would be too late for that. It was just that the hospital also dualed as the reporting desk for when such incidents happened. Once the area was closed off, the ‘Cleanup Crew’, as it was referred to in professional jargon, would do what their name implied.
He couldn’t stop the flow of tears that had started since he had begun to run, even before the sound of the exploding apples reached his ears.
She was gone.
Apple trees.
According to legends and old tales, these used to bear delicious fruits. But that was really long ago, before Discord’s time. When Discord had ruled the land, he had changed all the trees. Not just the apple trees, but also all the other trees. They still grew apples. Only these weren’t edible, and blossomed all through the year. And they were dangerous. They could kill. Ponykind had named them pomegranate trees, for the apples they beared were not unlike grenades. A few seconds after they had fallen from the three, they would explode, causing chaos, destruction, and sometimes, death.
Ever since Discord was defeated, researchers at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns have been trying to find a spell to reverse the trees to how they used to be. Centuries had passed since then, but the trees were still as deadly as they were back then. Libraries full of logs and reports of failed experiments to turn the trees back to the way they were, and still they hadn’t succeeded. They were getting closer though, with each day still more dots and facts being connected to another, giving new insights.
One would have been inclined to simply use magic to let the ripe apples fall, but Discord had foreseen that. The pomegranates had a little bit of magic of their own, and when they came in touch with other magic, they fell towards the source. Defying gravity. It was something only Discord could have created.
Another technique, that was quite safe actually – for the workers at least – just wasn’t very practical, and cost a lot of effort. First, a pegasus had to attach a strong rope to the top of the tree, which was then given to a bunch of strong ponies on the ground. They then bent the tree as far as they could, and when the rope was released, the ripe pomegranates were catapulted far away. That was the major drawback, because they became spread over a large area. If one didn’t count a rope hanging from every tree, or the bending of the tree requiring a lot of strong ponies. It was only used in less crowded areas with fewer trees, like Saddle Arabia.
One could always ask a pegasus, or use a really long stick, to knock some of the pomegranates down, but they could only reach the ones on the outside of the trees.
As such, throughout Equestria, the most widely used technique, and also the riskiest, was bucking the ripe pomegranates out of the tree. Every day. So that they wouldn’t fall randomly of their own, when a little filly might be walking just underneath it. It had become a profession. Best practices were developed, one of them being working in tag-teams. One would buck-and-run, the other would watch out for passers by. They switched every few or so trees.
Despite all this though, accidents still happened each and every day throughout Equestria. Though the pay was higher, a missing ear or hoof was not unheard of. That were the smaller accidents. In other accidents, ponies died. A few days ago, Applejack had died in such an accident, and now, her closest family and friends had come together to pay their last respects.
Silence.
Apart from the sound of the falling rain, and explosions in the far distance – the sign that apples were being bucked even at this moment – there was only silence. There had been no fancy post mortem speech for her, nor had there been any need for it. Everyone present – the Apples that lived on the farm, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and Applejack’ five best friends – they all knew her well enough anyway, and there was no point in making this rainy day even more miserable.
They understood.
Pinkie wasn’t bouncing up and down constantly, instead standing perfectly still, gazing at the wooden coffin that would soon be lowered into the earth. The farmer’s hat was lying on top of it. She wished she could just sneak up on her friend one more time and steal that hat, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.
Rarity wasn’t complaining about the mud she had to stand in for once. Applejack hated it when she acted all classy, as if a little dirt was going to kill her. Although she had worn an umbrella when she arrived at the funeral, it was nowhere in sight now, her mane wet and out of fashion, her hooves dirty and muddy. She wasn’t complaining though; it was her way of paying her last respects to the farmpony who had often modeled for her in her free time. She was too busy blinking back tears back to worry about getting dirty anyway, not wanting to be the first one to show just how much she cared about her friend. She could have a little class, after all.
She wouldn’t be the first one anyway. That was Rainbow Dash. Almost half a year ago, the two ponies had discovered there was something more between them than just friendship. Something bigger. As much as she had disliked the word in the beginning, they had been in love. And now she was gone. So sudden. So without any warning at all.
This wasn’t like that time when Applejack had gone to visit her family in Appleoosa. Rainbow had been a little lonely then, but she had known everything beforehand, and Applejack would return anyway. In fact, the orange pony had returned a few days early, simply because she missed her Rainbow too. Life couldn’t have been happier for the two.
This time though, she knew her friend wouldn’t be coming back. All the plans they had together, all the fun they would have, it would never happen. There would be nothing after this. Only emptiness.
The other two friends, Fluttershy and Twilight, seemed to be a little better off, though they too had dropped any and all obligations for the coming week when news reached them that ’a most unfortunate event had befallen Applejack on her job.’
Big Macintosh had been there when it happened, though he refused to tell anyone the details, much to the chagrin of a certain pegasus. He hadn’t actually seen it happen, having looked away at the last moment, though the fact that the coffin had already been closed when it arrived at the farm later that fateful day was a sure sign that they didn’t really want to know either.
When the wooden box that contained the earth pony’s remains was slowly being lowered into the earth, and the brim of the cowboy hat started to disappear from her sight, Rainbow’s sobbing increased, crying out why of all ponies it had to be her, Applejack. She loved her so much. They loved each other so much. Why her...
The other ponies did not answer her question. It almost sounded like Rainbow wished for it to have been another pony to have died instead of Applejack. Almost. They all knew Rainbow was having a hard time with this, even more so than the rest of them, but she would never actually mean it when she said things like that, even now. The silence of rain and faraway explosions returned once more.
Initially, Rainbow had said that she wanted to help fill up the hole. But now that the moment was here, she was as if frozen. She wanted to do it, and she didn’t want to do it. Wanted it, because it meant she could do one last deed for Applejack. Didn’t want it, because she never wanted any of this to happen in the first place.
In the end, she didn’t help. She could only watch, while her friends did the work. Watch, as with each shovel, the mare she loved so much seemed to slip away from her a little further, covered with a little more earth. She wanted to help, so badly, but she just couldn’t bring herself to it. Briefly, she thought about the irony of an Earth Pony being buried in, well, earth. Was that why they were called Earth Ponies? Of course not. Unicorns were usually buried too, though it was customary to let the wind take Pegasi ash away, to let them fly one last time.
It only served to renew her sadness, producing fresh tears when she had thought that wouldn’t even be possible anymore. She had shed so many over the past few days already.
The whole time, she just watched.
It was only after the last of the earth was put back in place, that she realized she had missed her chance. Her last chance. It was over. For good. She had never felt so weak and empty as she did right now. There was only one thing she could think of to do now. She lay down where she had sat during the entire funeral.
She just lay there. She didn’t know how long. It could have been minutes, or hours, she honestly didn’t know. Her friends had gone back into the farmhouse some time after it was over, but she hadn’t. She just lay there, alone in the rain, her wings, legs and belly all muddy and wet.
At some point, her friends had come back, worried that she might get sick if she stayed any longer in the rain, but she refused to move. They actually had to drag her away, as they forced her to leave Applejack behind. Alone. In the rain.
Rainbow lay awake. Years had passed since Applejack had been buried, and although she had gone through a period of mourning first, her days were usually happy now again.
A lot had changed in those years, too.
Researchers at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns had finally discovered, after many centuries, how the deadly apple trees grew and blossomed. With that knowledge, they had started working on a new spell, a spell that would rid the world of the deadly apple trees. Or rather, change the trees back to what they were before Discord made them bearers of deadly fruits.
At first, like any research, there was only limited success, the spell working mostly on trees that were originally pine trees of some sort. But now that they had a start, it took only a few more months to perfect the spell and the last of Discord’s trees was reverted to what they used to be.
Oaks. Berks. All sorts of trees, really. And apple trees. Real apple trees this time, and Sweet Apple Acres was full of them. Sometimes, she wished that if only Applejack were still here to see all this, but that wasn’t often anymore. But the weeks, months directly after her death were hard for her. Those first weeks, she visited her grave – the Apple family grave, located in a far off and treeless corner of the Acres – every day. Multiple times, if it was up to her. She’d spent hours upon hours just sitting there in the rain, or when the wind tossed her mane around. One day though, when the first snowflakes had started to fall, her friends had decided enough was enough, and told her that she couldn’t be sad forever.
Dash more or less already lived on the farm those days. When Applejack had still been alive, they had often spent the night together. Cuddling in Applejack’s room, or simply sleeping in the straw in the barn in mid-summer. Those were happy nights. Rainbow had wanted to show her her cloudhouse too, but that a bit difficult since Applejack wasn’t able to stand on clouds. Besides, she was needed on the farm, so it was just impractical as well.
After her death, Rainbow had tried to forget about the farm and everything, flying back to her cloudhouse each day, but she found herself sneaking back all the time. After she was caught a few times at nighttime, she decided to accept the offer of making the guest room of the farm house her second home. Just being around other ponies the whole time did a lot to lift her spirits, but there still was one thing she hadn’t done. A thing that she had been putting off for a while now, but wasn’t going to do on her own either: go into Applejack’s room.
So her friends made her to.
Not just go into it, look around, then run back out again, but they – well this was Twilights idea really, having read about it in a book – made her sleep in it as well. The first night, it brought back... memories, and she could barely sleep. Memories she didn’t even know she had. The same was true for the second night, and the third, but after a while, her restlessness of just being in the room began to fade, and was slowly being replaced with, with what exactly?
She couldn’t quite put her hoof on it, still not after many years, but she had known something was changing in her. At some point, the various objects in the room started reminding her less of Applejack herself, in the sense that the void in her heart that was caused by her death, seemed to get smaller over time. It wasn’t that she forgot about her completely – that was impossible, being in her room and all – nor did she miss her any less than she did before, but somehow, it became manageable now. The empty barrel of cider, that doubled as a nightstand, now reminded her of the day they had drunk the last drop of it. They had been told afterwards that they had been... a little more than just tipsy at the time, but just thinking back to it brought a smile to her face. The same was true for the hairbands. AJ hated it when Rainbow stole them and hovered above her, just out of reach. Which she thus did as often as possible, because it always had AJ make that weird angry-but-cute face. Good times.
On some nights though, she would be sad. On those nights, everything in her room would remind her of Applejack, and she just wanted her back. Tonight was one of those nights.
It had been a good day, practicing a bit for tonight’s Ponyville Air Show – but mostly dozing off in the afternoon sun. She was a Wonderbolt now, touring the world, sometimes not seeing the farm in a few weeks. It had always been her dream to join them, and Applejack had always supported her in pursuing that dream, even if it would mean that in the long run, they would be separated for a few weeks at a time. The first time the Wonderbolts had approached her was about half a year after Applejack’s death. As much as she would have liked to accept their invitation right there and then, she didn’t. She was still too occupied by closing that difficult chapter in her life back then. The second time, about two months later, she had again declined. She was on the way up, smiling more and more everyday, but just didn’t feel ready yet to start on something new. The third time though, she accepted.
She absolutely loved flying with them, performing for crowds of thousands all over the world. Being showered with diamonds was more painful than she had imagined though. And even though Applejack couldn’t see her awesome outfit for real, she knew she would be watching her late night shows from the stars.
Tonight, she should have been flying. It was the Ponyville Air Show for crying out loud, she would be flying on her home turf. But she wasn’t. In fact, none of the Wonderbolts were flying, cancelling the show minutes before it was about to start. One of the backstage workers had wished them the best of luck, in the way it was customary in show business.
“Break a leg.”
The Wonderbolts knew what effect that simple sentence could have on their youngest flier – they knew of what had happened, and never used it themselves anymore – and there were times when, if those three words were said, Rainbow was fine with it. Tonight though, she wasn’t. After a few awkward silent seconds passed, the eyes of the other Wonderbolts glaring at the backstage worker – the worker himself wearing an expression that said, ‘What?’ – she threw off her suit and flew off without a word.
After a week or so of not bugging Big Macintosh about it, she had asked him – more like pleading until he would tell – what had exactly happened. She didn’t want to know it anymore, she just needed to know. Until then, she had more or less believed it had been just a random accident, but suddenly, there was more to it. Rainbow worked on the weather team; she had helped put together the cloud that eventually caused all of it. Her friends had to talk her out of it when she started believing it was all her own fault.
Still, those three words had a different meaning now.
She had flown straight back to the farm, through the open window of her – and Applejack’s – bedroom. And tonight, every object that usually made her think of happy times, now made her want Applejack back. She would still get like that sometimes. Sometimes, memories weren’t enough, and she just wanted to cuddle with somepony, to touch and be touched. There didn’t have to be any romantic meaning behind it – she didn’t want to start a new relationship. Yet. Maybe someday, but not today. All she wanted tonight was just someone to cuddle up against her, like the old times.
Someone was knocking on her door. She must have been crying louder than she thought if the other ponies could hear her, especially since the Apple family usually respected the privacy of one’s bedroom. Before Applejack, she was usually the one that never cried, or at least, didn’t show it a lot. That had changed since then. Besides, even a tiny foal could tell that she had been crying tonight, and she was lying in her bed anyway, in the Apple house. It was probably just one of them coming to check up on her, so there wasn’t any need to keep up the strong faade anyway.
She didn’t feel like answering the door tonight though. Even if she did, any attempt at forming words would have failed completely, her throat having become dry. And she definitely wasn’t getting up from where she was lying.
“Rainbow? Are-are you in there?”
She recognized the voice; it was Applebloom’s. Her voice didn’t sound so good either.
“If-if you don’t answer, I’ll just come in...”
After a few seconds of silence the door opened, revealing Applebloom, whose red, puffy eyes betrayed her own sorrows. She was a young mare now, having earned her cutie mark in applebucking. Not the sort Applejack had to do; she bucked apples of the edible variety. There were acres full of such apples around them.
Applejack’s sister closed the door, and silently joined Rainbow Dash on the bed.
As much as Applebloom enjoyed working on the farm, sometimes, she too would be sad, remembering the past. Remembering Applejack. Like tonight, when all she wanted was just to cuddle up with her big sister. It was only logical that she saw Rainbow almost like her big sister.
Cuddling together in Rainbow’s bed not unlike either of the two would have done if the other pony was Applejack, they sobbed together, until they fell asleep in each others’ embrace.