//------------------------------// // Kuja Day Thirty-Five: My Appleloosa Heart // Story: To Live Again // by _No_One_Remains_ //------------------------------// We spent the few days we were in Appleloosa doing chores that I’m convinced Braeburn left us on purpose. Some were trivial and others a bit more involved. We received a letter from Applejack confirming Mr. 111’s theories, and Braeburn set to work trying to find us something to deliver. Finally, five days later, we were heading out to Ponyville on a train carrying, and I quote, “extremely important cargo.” Standing on the station’s arrival platform, as if eager to receive our cargo, was the orange mare and her five Technicolor friends. But… … Our first act was to lay Mr. 33 to rest. Braeburn sold us a plot of land at the top of a small hill overlooking the town proper right next to a massive and spellbindingly beautiful apple tree, and we buried him with a view of the surrounding areas. Mr. 111’s thinking was that if his spirit came back to visit, he wouldn’t need to worry about being caught unaware by a rabid animal. Such a childish way of thinking, and yet I sort of agreed with him. And then… Chores. So many chores to do, it was almost as if the stallion had purposefully left things undone just so we would have to work. Most of them were trivial tasks at best, but I suppose I didn’t expect much in the way of difficulty. Mr. 111 was assigned to helping load and unload train cars for deliveries across Equestria. According to Braeburn, it was ‘time we stopped being moochers and earned some dough.’ I couldn’t agree more. I may never have been one to work hard physically, but even when I was a tyrant I never enjoyed charity. I never liked it when my prey simply walked right into my trap. The Desert Palace was a bittersweet occasion. While I was able to send Zidane for what I wanted, I didn’t enjoy how easily he fell into my web of lies. So we did our parts as any citizen would, albeit with a significant height advantage. Mr. 111 tended the trains…while I was reduced to a mailman… A mailman. Seriously! I was reduced to delivering mail to the residents of the town. I suppose that mail is an important part of any society. To say otherwise would evoke the rage of hundreds of Moogles, yet I still felt as if my time was being wasted. Then again, it was a trivial task for a man who had just awakened from a comatose state, so I guess it was acceptable. That was the first day back. The following day was filled with ‘bucking’ the apples from the local apple orchard. If not for my magic, I quite possibly would’ve died plucking apples. The time it took me to drop a single apple equated to an entire tree for the majority of the Earth Ponies. Apparently when Braeburn told us we would be ‘bucking’ apples, he literally meant ‘bucking’. Earth Ponies must have legs of steel, because physics would dictate that the force exerted on a non-moving object would come back in equal blasts… In simple, the force of their kicks should have shattered their bones. Physics doesn’t work the way the apple trees made it seem, at least not on Gaia or Terra. So while the Earth Ponies abused their iron bones, Mr. 111 and I were reduced to plucking apples one by one from our trees. That is, until my companion put his clever thinking to use for the third time. He suggested we simply magic the apples into the barrels. Before I could question his meaning, he demonstrated by wrapping the contents of the tree into an Aeroga spell, harmlessly ripping the apples from their branches and dropping them through the cyclone into the barrel. I wanted to hug the genius mage. I’d never once considered magic to be worth trivial tasks like the unicorns of Equestria seemed to think. I would never waste a telekinetic power on carrying books or inkpots. But in this world, it seemed magic was meant for menial tasks and chores, rather than grand defense or destruction as in Gaia. I vowed to simplify my thinking process and not overexert myself in the face of favors. Once we established the wind-based plucking system, we managed to catch up with the rest of the ponies in the orchard and even surpassed their progress. Two mages with the power to conjure multiple storms of wind only screamed effective apple-buckers. We even took the time to help some of the less-energetic ponies with their trees, seeing as how we had plenty of magic to go around. We were scolded for the use of our magic in an Earth Pony tradition until I pointed out our lacking physical strength and the ignorance it took to assign us such a laborer’s task. We were then informed we had broken a few town records and fed fresh-baked apple pie for dinner that evening. Late that evening we received Applejack’s letter informing us that it had been Bobby Corwen the chocobo that Mr. 111 had seen. With him was Vivi. It was decided then and there that once all of the chores were covered, Braeburn would send us on a delivery back to Sweet Apple Acres to meet the mage. We slept easy that night, knowing it would only be a matter of time… Day three of our return didn’t go as smooth. I still haven’t decided if that was because of the flash-flood rains or the horrible realization that the prior night’s apple pies had been baked with bad apples. I actually think it was a bit of both. If it hadn’t been for my crippling nausea, the pounding of the rain would have driven me crazy. I almost had the urge to threaten a few of the local Pegasi to clear away the clouds as I had seen them previously do. Deciding that was a bad idea, I simply vomited instead. A lot. I…don’t want to discuss the rest of the day. Day four was really pleasant, though! Braeburn let us take the day off and recover from the bad apple pies…considering most of the ponies that ate them ended up glued to their wastebaskets. The mares that baked the pies were determined to blame the bad bunch on our magic, saying we cursed the Earth Pony orchard. All I could reply to that with was a shrug of the shoulders and a grunt. So we kicked back in the Salt Block Saloon—the tavern that became my home—all day, playing cards and talking news around the kingdom. I had no immediate knowledge of any of the towns that were mentioned, but I at least acted interested in what the ponies were saying. It sounded important enough, anyway. It was about halfway through our fifth game of poker—I had a royal flush—when Braeburn charged into the saloon with a large stack of papers. As if we weren’t busy or anything, he dropped the stack in front of me and told me to sign on the dotted lines… ...So…many…lines… Fifty pages of signatures. I spent at least an hour simply signing my name! And it was all for the delivery that the stallion wanted us to make! We were delivering a single, albeit beautiful, apple tree! He said it was the sprout of the original tree they had planted in Appleloosa courtesy of Sweet Apple Acres. I didn’t get too mad at him, though. Turns out I had misread my hand and was one face card short of a royal flush. I only had a normal flush, which would’ve ended in me losing a significant chunk of my bits. So early on the fifth day we loaded up the tree sapling and fastened it securely into the most comfortable bed on the train. Why the potted tree needed a bed I will never understand, but the sheriff insisted that it be comfortable the whole trip. I won’t lie; it was surprisingly heavy considering its size and shape. Once everything was loaded up, we were on our way. The trip was quick and bumpy. And when we arrived, we were greeted with open hooves. Applejack and her friends darted into the train to retrieve the apparently precious tree. And standing in the shadows of the station’s entrance, head lowered toward the ground with a tiny yellow bird on his shoulder, stood Vivi. He looked up as the bird leaped from his shoulder and darted across the platform to the larger of the Black Mages. My eyes met his. And in an instant, I knew what he was thinking. I had thought it many times over the month of my stay in Equestria. He’d seen what I’d seen. We both had stories to tell, and I had a feeling that neither of us wanted to hear them. I thought perhaps the pink pony’s delicatessen would be able to add a lighter tone to the dark evening that was soon to follow…