Black Hat

by Fervidor

The Long Shadow

“...an' escaped with all the gold,” Applejack finished reading. “This whole book's full 'a stories like that, an' Ah...” She noticed that all her friends were looking at her in awe. “What?”
“That was awesome!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“Stuuupendous!” Pinkie Pie chimed in.
“I admit, that was a pretty exciting tale,” Twilight said. “You say you found it while you were spring cleaning?”
“Yeah, Red Delicious found this big ol' trunk in the attic,” Applejack explained. “This journal was stashed inside. Ah asked Granny 'bout it but even she don't know where it came from. That means it musta been there fer a very long time. Whaddaya think, Twilight? This the real deal?”
“I'd guess so,” Twilight said. “The name Black Jack does seem vaguely familiar – I think I must have read it somewhere before, but I can't quite place it. Of course, Marshal Lawmane is a well known historical figure.”
“Lawmane! Lawmane!” Pinkie Pie sang. “Strong as a bear! Quick as a panther!”
“Oh! Applejack, maybe this Black Jack was an ancestor of yours!” Rarity suggested. “That would explain why your family has his old diary.”
Applejack frowned slightly. “The thought did occur to me, but Ah can't say Ah'm all that comfortable with that. Black Jack may've been a criminal genius, but he was still a criminal. Us Apples pride ourselves as honest, hard-workin' ponies and Ah'm just not sure Ah want us ta be associated with somepony like that.”
“Eh, you're taking it too seriously, AJ,” said Rainbow Dash. “I sure wouldn't mind being related to somepony as cool as that, even if he was a bad guy.” A thought seemed to occur to her and she held up her borrowed copy of Daring Do and the Curse of the Obsidian Mask with glistening eyes. “Hey! What if Black Jack fought Daring Do? That would be awesome! Who'd you think would win?”
“Black Jack, obviously, on account 'a havin' been a real pony,” Applejack deadpanned, “where's Daring Do is a storybook character.”
“Sounds like somepony is a bit proud of her possible ancestor after all,” Rarity teased. Applejack let slip an embarrassed cough, averting her eyes and scrunching her mouth like she always did when caught being less than perfectly honest.
Rainbow Dash still seemed unwilling to give up her fantasy scenario. “I dunno, what about all that weird magic stuff Black Jack was doing? I mean, come on, mind-crushing ponies and cracking mountains by stomping his hooves? He must have been making that part up.”
“I wondered about that too,” Fluttershy whispered. “Earth ponies can't do things like that, can they?”
“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Twilight said. “He may have exaggerated, but all ponies have magic. Unicorn magic is the most obvious kind, of course, since our horns form a natural magical conductor to our minds, but you pegasi can control the weather in ways we can't. Earth pony magic tends to be a lot more subtle, but it's still there.”
Applejack wrinkled her brow. This topic didn't seem to sit well with her. “Don't know about that. Ah ain't ever felt 'specially magical.”
“Maybe not,” Twilight said, “but I've seen you knock the apples from an entire tree in a single buck, without leaving a mark on the tree itself. That's not just a matter of muscles, is it? How do you do that?”
Applejack shrugged. “Ah... Ah dunno, it's just somethin' Ah known how ta do. Ah don't actually think about it.”
Twilight nodded. “It's something you can do intuitively thanks to a lot of practice, just like I have practiced casting spells. Earth ponies have a magical connection the earth, or rather, to nature itself. Just because your way isn't as flashy as ours doesn't mean it's less magical.” She shrugged. “Of course, I've never heard of any earth pony with powers like Black Jack's, but theoretically speaking, it's not impossible.”
Applejack regarded her hooves. “Well, no offense to ya'll, but that just makes me more conflicted 'bout all a this. Earth ponies usin' magic is just a bit...”
“I understand,” Twilight said, giving Applejack a friendly pat on the shoulder. She still remembered that one Winter Wrap Up when she tried helping out at the farm – she knew that getting by without magic was a matter of pride for the Apples. Maybe I said too much? “Oh well, I suppose this all comes down to how you feel about it, Applejack. What do you want to do?”
“Ah dunno,” Applejack said, looking down at the journal resting on the table. “To be honest, part 'a me just want to stuff this book back in the attic an' forget all about it. But... if Black Jack really is my ancestor, wouldn't that be disrespectful? Even he deserves to be remembered, right?”
“I think this is a decision only you can...” Twilight paused. She blinked. “Wait, what did you just say?”
“Ah said it might be disrespectful to...”
“No! After that!”
“...Even he deserves to be remembered?”
Twilight's eyes widened and she felt her pulse start to race again. “Remembered. Remember. Memory...” Her head snapped around with a look of abject terror on her face. “My memory potion!”
In the other end of the room, completely forgotten over its flame, the potion had boiled into a tar-like consistency and gone from purple to almost pitch black. It now bubbled with such intensity that the flask was starting to vibrate.
Rainbow Dash was the closest and reacted first: Bolting towards the chemistry set, she reached her hooves out. “I've got it!”
“Wait!” Twilight cried. “It's very...”
But it was too late. Rainbow Dash had tried to grab the flask but yelped as it burned her hooves. On reflex, she lobbed it aimlessly into the air.
“...hot!” Twilight finished. “And unstable! Look out!”
The flask sailed through the air in a perfect arch heading straight for Rarity, who gasped in horror. “My newly styled mane! Nooooooo!” Reaching out for whatever was closest at hand – which turned out to be an unabridged copy of The Canterlot Tales – she desperately swatted the potion away from her. Miraculously, the flask didn't break and was sent flying once more, this time towards Pinkie Pie.
“Weeeee!” the party pony squealed and, to Twilight's horror, struck it hard with a squash racket.
Where did she even get a squash racket!?
Pinkie's strike was perfect, but her aim was not. Even faster than before, the flask now hurtled straight for Fluttershy, who simply stared at the oncoming projectile as if paralyzed.
“Get down!” In the last moment, Applejack threw herself over Fluttershy and they both fell to the floor. The flask grazed Applejack's head, knocking her hat off, before impacting on the table with the journal. The mistreated flask finally gave in and shattered.
An explosion rocked the library and filled it with a dense black smoke. Coughing and nearly blind, the six ponies hurried to open all the windows and doors to vent the building.
“Is everypony okay?” Twilight asked once the air had cleared up enough for them to see anything.
“I... I'm alright,” Fluttershy said, picking herself off the floor. “Thank you, Applejack. You really saved me there.”
“No sweat, sugar,” Applejack replied. She looked around. “Anypony see where my hat went?”
Rainbow Dash coughed loudly. There was still a lot of smoke in the air. “Yuck! This stuff smells like burning hair and timberwolf breath!”
“It's ghastly!” Rarity coughed as well. “Oh, I just know I'm going to reek of this for the rest of the day! This is the worst. Thing. Ever!”
“No really. Anypony see my hat?”
“Oh-oh...” Pinkie Pie had been investigating the site of the explosion. Twilight's table had been completely demolished, but that wasn't all. Pinkie turned around, holding up two objects in her hooves. One was the journal, the other Applejack's hat. “Sorry, Applejack.”
The other ponies gasped. The journal's brown bindings had turned a dull black, as if Twilight's potion had somehow doused it completely. Stranger still, the hat had turned black as well. Not scorched or stained – it looked as if it had been evenly dyed.
“My hat!” Applejack took the misfortunate piece of headwear from Pinkie, staring at it with a shell-shocked expression. “How could this happen? It was my favorite, too!”
“That's not all,” Pinkie said. She held up the journal and flipped through the pages. They were all blank. “Look, all the words are gone.”
“What!?” Twilight levitated the journal to herself and started looking through it. Pinkie was right, there wasn't a single stroke of ink on the yellowed pages, as if nothing had ever been written on them. “But... that's not possible! I don't understand.” Twilight turned to Applejack. “I-I'm so sorry, this is all my fault! If I hadn't forgotten...”
“It's... It's alright, Twilight,” Applejack said. “Ah ain't mad at ya. Shucks, it was my fault fer disractin' ya with that story.”
“But...” Twilight bit her lip. “The journal is ruined.”
Applejack shrugged. “Well, at least this way Ah don't need to decide what to do with it. Maybe this was fate?” She frowned. “Truth to be told, Ah'm more upset 'bout the hat.”
“Well, it's not entirely ruined, is it?” Fluttershy said. “I mean, you can still wear it. Um, if you want to, that is.”
“Fluttershy is right!” Rarity said. “Black is never out of style. Go on, Applejack, try it on.”
Hesitant at first, Applejack placed the blackened hat on her head. At least it didn't feel different. “How Ah look?”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash smiled. “That's actually pretty cool!”
Applejack cocked her head. “It is?”
“Why it looks splendid!” Rarity said. “Very chic, and it goes well with your colors.”
“You look like a different Applejack, but in a good way,” Pinkie commented. Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
“Well, Ah'll be,” Applejack said, daring a smile as she corrected the hat somewhat. “Ah s'pose a slight change of style ain't nothing to cry about, guess Ah can try to get used to it. It's still a good hat, anyhoo, an' it ain't like the color matters to me.”
“That's the spirit!” Rainbow Dash gave her a hard pat on the back. “That hat is now at least 20% cooler.”
“Ah'll just take yer word for that,” Applejack chuckled.
Twilight, however, was still examining the journal with a deeply troubled expression. “Still, I'm really sorry, Applejack. I just don't understand how this could happen.”
“Ah told ya not to worry, Twi,” Applejack said. “It's alright.”
“No, it's not!” Twilight insisted. “Look, do you mind if I keep this journal for now? If I can figure out what happened to it, I might be able to find a way to fix it.”
Applejack sighed and smiled at her friend. Leave it to Twilight to make a fuss over some old book. ”Tell ya what, sugarcube, you hold on to it for as long as ya like. Take yer time with it.”
Twilight's frown slowly turned into a smile. “O-Okay.”
Satisfied, and secretely glad that her dilemma had somehow sorted itself out on its own, Applejack turned to the others. “Now, whaddaya say we all pitch in an' get this place cleaned up?”
Everyone cheered at once: “Okay!”
Cleaning the library took the rest of the afternoon, but the six friends made time fly by turning it into a game; Pinkie improvised a song about cleaning, and Fluttershy even manage to convince some nearby birds to help out. When they finally left the library they were tired but happy.
“I had fun today!” Pinkie Pie declared. “And I'm so glad my Pinkie Sense didn't predict the rise of some insidious force of darkness that would threaten to destroy the bonds of friendship between us!”
“I think we can all agree on that one,” Rarity chuckled.
“Well, Ah needs ta get back home,” Applejack said. “We've got a big apple order comin' up this week fer the Solstice Parade in Canterlot. Lots a' apples to buck tomorrow.” She waved the others off. “See ya later, losers!”
Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie all stopped and looked at each other, frowning. Had they heard that right? “What was that, Applejack?” Rarity asked.
“Ah said: See ya later, girls!” Applejack repeated over her shoulder as she trotted down the street.
The remaining four ponies exchanged looks again. Surely, good old Applejack would never... Well, would she? No, that could not be. Wordlessly, they all agreed they must have simply misheard her, and so continued on their separate ways.
Non of them noticed that Applejack's shadow seemed somehow longer than it should have been.

“Mwahahaha!” Captain Baybeard, scourge of the seven seas, laughed maniacally. “Ah got ya now, Princess Celestia! With you as my hostage, nothin' will stop me an' my crew from plunderin' Canterlot of all its precious booty!”
“You'll never get away with this!” Princess Celestia spat, struggling against the ropes holding her tied to the great mast of the pirate king's ship. “Your voodoo curse may have sealed my magic, but you can never defeat the Power of Friendship!”
“Well, Ah gotta start somewhere,” Baybeard said. “All hands! Set sail fer Canterlot! There'll be nopony to stop us this time!”
“Nopony except me!” Suddenly a pony dressed in black, wearing a black mask over his eyes, swooped down on a rope and landed in front of Baybeard. He drew a sword, flourishing it dramatically. “Aha-haa!”
Baybeard gasped. “Dread Stallion Roberts! Impossible! How did ya escape the Labyrinth o' the Changeling Queen!?”
“With the Power of Friendship!” Roberts declared.
“Curses!” Baybeard swore and drew his own sword. “Ya may have survived the Temple o' the Rainbow Drinkers an' defeated my dragon servant an' outwitted my changeling allies, but ya were a foal to come here! Now Ah, Cap'n Baybeard, will knock ya down!”
“Today I avenge my father!” said the Dread Stallion Roberts, crossing swords with the captain. “It's just you and me, Baybeard! One on one!”
“Make that two on one!” Celestia declared, having somehow freed herself from her bonds. “Sorry to butt in, Roberts, but I also have a score to settle with him!”
“How can this be!?” Baybeard gasped.
Smiling triumphantly, Princess Celestia raised a sword in her hoof, pointing it at Baybeard. “I kept you talking so you wouldn't notice my faithful phoenix companion biting through the ropes! Also, I have a sword now.”
“Yar! How unfair!” Baybeard drew his extra sword. “Lucky Ah brought an extra sword! Have at thee!”
Applejack stared at the scene playing out in front of her. She had a huge grin on her face, and had to bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. Too. Darn. Cute!
Outside of their clubhouse, the Cutie Mark Crusader has assembled leftover planks and some old curtains into a crude construction that might pass for a ship with a generous helping of imagination. The fillies themselves were dressed up in makeshift costumes: Sweetie Belle wore a crown and harness made out of golden paper, and had a pair of fake white wings tied to her back. Scootaloo wore a black cape and a mask tied around her head. As for Apple Bloom, she had put on an old slouch hat, an eyepatch and a fake beard that was too large for her. She also wore what looked like an ordinary piece of wood tied in a string around her neck. All three of them were armed with wooden swords – Apple Bloom wielded two – with which they now enacted what was surely the most epic swashbuckling battle in Equestria's history.
“Foals! Ah'm invisible!”
“You mean invincible.”
“Yeah, that too!”
“Not without this you're not!”
“No! My voodoo medallion! The source of all my powers!”
“The curse is broken! SOLAR FLARE!”
“AAAAAARGHH!”
Applejack completely lost it. Laughing out loud, she started stomping the ground in appreciation of the performance. The three fillies stopped their play fight, having not realized they were having an audience.
“Um, hey sis,” Apple Bloom said, looking a bit embarrassed “How long've ya been watchin' us?”
“Oh, since ya threatened to plunder Princess Celestia's booty, just about,” Applejack replied, still highly amused by the mental image of the princess fighting a pirate. “So this is, what, Cutie Mark Crusaders improvised theater?”
“Nah, we already tried that once,” said Sweetie Belle. “It didn't work.”
“We're just playing,” Scootaloo said. “We're still kids, you know? Not everything we do is about cutie marks.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom nodded. “Sometimes we just wanna have fun the ordinary way.”
“Oh, so this here's recreational fun?” Applejack chuckled. “Gotcha.”
Stupid foals, don't know a thing 'bout the real world.
Applejack blinked. Where did that come from? It had just been a stray thought – she had barely noticed it, but it seemed so... mean. They were just fillies playing a game, for goodness sake.
“Sis?” Apple Bloom's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “You okay? Ya kinda zoned out on us fer a minute there.”
“Oh, sorry,” Applejack replied. “Ah got my head inna clouds today. Anyhoo, Ah just came to tell ya it's almost time fer dinner, so Ah'm afraid Cap'n Baybeard will have to make her darin' escape now.”
“Oh, okay.” Apple Bloom put her swords down and climbed off the alleged pirate ship. She waved at her friends. “Bye, girls! Ah had fun today!”
“See you tomorrow, Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle called after her.
“I'll get you next time, you no-good pirate!” Scootaloo added, cheerfully waving her wooden sword in the air.
“No-good pirate, huh?” Applejack said as the two sisters wandered side by side towards the farm. “Ya usually play the villain?”
“Most the time we take turns,” Apple Bloom explained. “It's fun being the baddie, but ya never get to win. Ah don't mind much, though.”
Applejack smiled, then glanced at her sister. “There's just one thing Ah don't get.”
“What's that?”
“How was Baybeard plannin' on sailing to Canterlot? It's on a mountain.”
“It's a flyin' ship. Duh.”
“Oooh...”
The two sisters kept chatting about simple things on their way back to the house. Apple Bloom did most of the talking, telling Applejack about her day at school and the most recent attempts of the Crusaders to acquire their cutie marks, all of which had of course ended in failure as usual. But Apple Bloom remained cheerful non the less, and Applejack felt at ease. After the afternoon's events, she appreciated the peaceful stroll through the orchards.
“By the way, what happened to yer hat?” Apple Bloom asked, just as the two of them were passing by the barn.
Applejack chuckled. “Ah, nothin' much. Ah'd gone to see Twilight Sparkle 'bout something and we had ourselves a bit of an...”
Right then, a strange sensation came over Applejack. A shiver ran through her body, racing down her spine, causing the hair of her coat to stand on end before hitting her tail and causing it to twitch. Accompanying the reaction was an odd feeling of immediate peril. Acting entirely on instinct, Applejack stopped dead in her tracks and held her hoof out to halt Apple Bloom as well.
The next moment a large hay bale landed right in front of them with a heavy thud.
“...accident,” Applejack finished. She looked up. “What the hay?”
A beige, blue-maned head peeked out from the barn loft, looking very awkward. “...Sorry, AJ!”
“Red, ya klutz!” Applejack shouted, suddenly very irate. “That's the second time ya almost dropped somethin' on my head!”
Ah have a mind ta come up there an' drop you!
“I know, AJ! I-I just don't know what went wrong,” came Red's embarrassed reply. “Really sorry!”
We'll see how sorry ya are after Ah break yer legs!
Applejack had to force herself not to say those words, and she found herself surprised at her own ferocity. She'd never hurt a family member... would she? “Be more careful, fer Petes sake!” she shouted instead, and then stormed off towards the house without waiting for a reply, her good mood ruined.
“Ah, swear, that pony!” she muttered. “If we didn't need his help to fill our order, Ah'd be tempted to tell him to pack his bags an' go home.”
Apple Bloom had to trot to keep up with her sister. She frowned slightly. “Aw, ya don't really mean that, do ya AJ?”
“No, Ah guess Ah don't,” Applejack sighed. It seemed those strange feelings of aggression still lingered with her. “Ah s'pose Ah'm just cranky 'cuz Ah'm hungry.”
“But how did ya see that hay bale comin'?” Apple Bloom asked.
That was a good question. Applejack was pretty sure she hadn't seen or heard it. She had... felt it, somehow. Had she just experienced one of Pinkie's mysterious precognitions? Thinking back, hadn't her tail twitched just before something fell from the sky?
No, that couldn't be. Pinkie Pie could do that because she was, well, Pinkie Pie. Normal rules just didn't apply to her, and there was no way an ordinary workhorse like Applejack could ever do what she did. It must have been a coincidence.
“Ah just had a feelin',” she told Apple Bloom. “Now come on, let's see what's fer dinner.”

Dinner turned out to be both palatable and very sturdy, as was usually the case in the Apple household. The whole family were seated at the table, enjoying the meal with the gusto only hard-working farm ponies could muster. Applejack's mood hadn't quite recovered, though, and her appetite seemed to suffer from it. Her brother and sister didn't seem to notice, and Red Delicious did his best not to meet her eyes. But when it appeared she wasn't going to finish her second helping, Granny Smith gave her a concerned look.
“Applejack, ya ain't eatin' like ya normally do,” the old mare noted. “Is anythin' wrong?”
“Oh, is nothin', Granny,” Applejack said. “Ah guess Ah'm not that hungry today.”
“But ya said ya were hungry just a while ago,” Apple Bloom argued. “An' you've been working hard all week. Ya need yer strength, sis. We still got two fields ta buck tomorrow if we gonna meet the Canterlot order on time.”
“It's not so bad,” Red Delicious said. “If you girls can manage the south field on your own tomorrow, we should still make it in time.”
Big Macintosh gave Apple Bloom a playful nudge. “Think yer up to it?”
“You bet we are!” Apple Bloom replied, confidently sticking her chin up. “When it comes ta applebuckin', me an' AJ are an unbeatable team!”
“Ah dunno,” Big Mac teased. “That's a looot a' apples we're talkin'.”
Who cares 'bout some stupid apples?
“Who cares 'bout some stupid apples?” Applejack heard herself mutter. She immediately gasped and clamped her hooves over her mouth, but it was too late. Red Delicious nearly choked on a piece of apple pie. Granny, Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh all stared at Applejack as if she was Nightmare Moon herself.
“...Applejack, dear, are ya sure yer feeling alright?” Granny Smith asked. She sounded genuinely worried, which only made Applejack feel worse about the whole thing.
“Ah... Ah dunno, Granny,” she admitted. “Somehow Ah just don't feel quite like myself today, like my head ain't on straight or sumthin'.”
Granny Smith sighed. “Ah know what's wrong. Yer overworked, plain as day. Always out there inna fields buckin' them apples or throwin' hay around or chasin' cows. An' when ya ain't workin' the farm yer out with yer friends, helpin' ponies in need or saving the world an' what have ya. Now Ah'm mighty proud Ah helped raise such a heroic, hard-workin' little pony, but ya need to take it easy once inna while, dear.”
“Ah... Ah guess yer right, Granny,” Applejack said. “In fact, Ah think Ah'll hit the sack early tonight. Need to be plenty rested tomorrow anyhow. 'Scuse me.”
She left the table and then the kitchen, too embarrassed to look at her relatives. If she had, she might have noticed the concerned looks they were giving her. As the evening proceeded, though, they all agreed with Granny's assessment and left it at that. Only Apple Bloom seemed to suspect something more serious was going on, but as she couldn't exactly put her hoof on what, she didn't bring it up.
Climbing the stairs to her room, Applejack thought about what Granny had said. It didn't seem quite right to her. She'd been overworked before – she still remembered that one applebuck season when she had stubbornly worked herself into an insomniac stupor. This was different, though. She didn't feel exhausted, just... not quite herself.
Closing the door behind her, she sat down on her bed and went through what she knew. In retrospect, hadn't she started having those strange thoughts sometime after the incident at the library? She'd breathed in a lot of that nasty black smoke – they all had, as a matter of fact. The more Applejack thought about it, the more she worried. If there was still some magic in that smoke, then what if there were side effects? Twilight hadn't said anything but Applejack had always been somewhat suspicious about this sort of thing, it wasn't like her magician friend didn't mess up on occasion. No matter how much talent she had, Twilight Sparkle was still only a pony after all.
Ah better talk to the others first thing inna mornin', Applejack thought. Find out of any a' them been thinkin' strange things as well.
There wasn't anything she could do about it at the moment, though, except trying to get some good old fashioned rest and hope her brain sorted itself out while she slept. She took her hat off and hung it on its usual rack. It still seemed somewhat bizarre to her: The even coal black color really did make it look like a whole different hat, and even now she felt a twinge of unease about that. But then she shook her head and convinced herself she was being silly. It was just a hat.
Even though she wasn't especially tired, she lay down on her bed and waited. Sooner or later sleep would come to her.

Later in the night, Applejack found herself sitting by the small table next to her bed. She didn't recall getting up, nor did she know the time, but her room was dark save for the silver light of the moon shining through her window. Finding a box of matches, she struck fire to one and lit a candle. A golden glow spread through the room but rather than fill it with light, it merely caused the shadows in the corners to deepen.
Applejack watched the candle burn in a strange daze. The small flame flickered like a beating heart and the mare felt mesmerized by it. Putting her hooves on either side of the candlestick, she started drawing deep, slow breaths while she kept on staring into the flame. The flickering slowed and the fire seemed to pulse in time with her rhythmic, controlled breathing. For each breath the flame seemed to grow larger; to the size of an apple, a pineapple, a melon. Her focus increased and the room around her started to fade away. Nothing existed except Applejack and the flame. Applejack was the flame.
But then something changed. She felt something creep across her mind like a spider and suddenly she knew, with terrifying certainty, that she was not alone. There was another presence in the room with her – it made no sound but she could feel it moving behind her, looking over her shoulder, breathing down her ear. She wanted to turn around and face the intruder, or better yet run for the door and never turn around. But her body would not move, and her eyes would not tear away from the billowing flame. She was paralyzed. Trapped. Her rising panic made her breath grow quicker and more shallow. The fire shuddered but continued to grow, evaporating the candle but still flared brightly. She could see shapes in the flames – a flowing mane; eyes of molten gold; a large, slender stallion rising from the flames like a beast out of Tartarus itself.
Overcome with panic, Applejack was finally able to turn away and then she saw it. The light from the flame cast a long shadow on the wall behind her. Her own shadow, but at the same time not. It reared as if trying to tear itself away from her, screaming silently at her with its open mouth...

Applejack jerked awake and sat up in her bed. There was no candle, no flame, no mysterious shadowy presence in her room. It had all been a dream. Drawing a deep breath to calm herself, she raised a hoof to wipe a drop of sweat from her forehead.
She froze. Her hoof had brushed against a familiar brim of felt. She was wearing her hat.
Applejack tore the hat off her head and stared at it. Why was she wearing it in bed? She never went to sleep with her hat on. Had she been so distracted she'd forgotten to take it off this time? No, she distinctly recalled hanging it on the rack before she want to bed. This was all wrong.
“N-Now calm down, Applejack,” she whispered to herself. “Ya just had a nightmare, and it's got ya a bit spooked. Ya were probably just... sleepwalkin'. Yeah, ya put yer hat on in yer sleep. Fer some reason.”
Not wanting to get out of bed, she simply placed the hat on her nightstand. She eyed it for a moment as if she expected it to pounce her, but then she shook her head. Stop bein' stupid. It was just a bad dream. Yer not a little filly anymore and besides, ya got a lot of apples to buck in the mornin'. Go to sleep!
Applejack knew, with the experience of an adult, that she was unlikely to dream the same nightmare twice. So, repressing her last bit of foalish anxiety, she turned on her side and closed her eyes. It didn't take long for sleep to overtake her groggy mind once more and soon she drifted into a new, different dream.

In this dream, she was walking through a desert at night. Though the sky was dark, the landscape shone white in the moonlight. White sand, white buttes and mesas. White like eggshell, or bone, or old paper.
Applejack didn't know where she was or where she was going, she just kept walking through that lifeless ivory wasteland with no goal or aim. It seemed to her like an endless prison without walls. A strange thought, but accurate.
She stopped to rest by one of the large buttes that dotted the landscape. Looking up, she thought for a moment she could discern a face in the moon: The features of a beautiful mare. She seemed very familiar somehow, but Applejack couldn't quite recall her name. It lasted only for a brief glimpse, and the next moment the mare in the moon was gone.
Losing interest and finding nothing else to look at, Applejack turned her attention to her shadow, cast against the nearby cliff by the moonlight. The more she looked at it, the more she found that something seemed off about it. Puzzled, she walked closer and turned her body to have a better look. The shadow seemed too long somehow, and too slender.
Then the shadow turned its head and grinned at her.
“Who's a silly pony?”
Applejack staggered back and stumbled on her own hooves. She turned and ran, not knowing from what, but knowing somehow that she was in grave peril. Racing across the sand, she heard her pursuer laugh behind her. She cast a look over her shoulder and was horrified to see her shadow stretched to monstrous proportions and at the other end a dark figure ran after her, matching her pace. It was no longer a flat, lifeless shape but had begun to take the form of a large pony. Even from a distance, she could see golden eyes flash in the inky darkness.
“Ya can't outrun yer shadow, li'l filly!”
Something grabbed a hold of Applejack's hindleg and tripped her, causing her hat to fall from her head and roll unto the sand in front of her. Her shadow had wrapped itself around her hoof like a tendril. She struggled to get up but more black tentacles lashed around her and pulled her down. She felt herself sinking into the ground – no, into the shadow. Becoming the shadow. In desperation she pushed her muscles to their limit and reached her hoof to the moon above.
“Oh no ya don't.” The shadow pony approached, watching her struggle with a grin on its face. By now it almost resembled a real pony, tall and slender and dark as a thundercloud. “Ya ain't gettin' away this time, sugar. Ah've spent all day stuck in the back of yer dull farmpony skull an' lemme tell ya, Ah'm mighty sick of it. So, Ah'm taking over now. Nothin' personal.”
Darkness overwhelmed Applejack, her struggle in vain. She tried to scream, but could make no sound. The pony had become a shadow, and the shadow had become a pony.
The black stallion picked up Applejack's fallen hat with his mouth and casually flicked it unto his head. “Yep,” he chuckled. “Ah still got it.”

Then he flickered like a flame and faded away like smoke, taking his shadow with him.

For a brief eternity the desert lay empty and silent. Then the flutter of wings disturbed the stillness and a majestic dark alicorn descended from the sky.
Princess Luna inspected the place where the hoofprints in the sand vanished abruptly. She let her gaze sweep across the white landscape and frowned. It was not necessary for her to personally enter all nightmares, nor was it desirable. Fear still served a purpose, after all, particularly in adult ponies. But something about this one bothered her. This dream felt wrong somehow – she could feel it in the air and in the sand under her hooves. She wondered what exactly had just transpired there.
Then she sighed and shrugged. She should have noticed it sooner; there was nothing to be done about it now. Dreams were fickle things and with the dreamer gone, this one had already started to fray and dissolve at the borders. Once the night princess left I would soon disappear all together.
Berating herself for her own lack of attention, Princess Luna continued on her way and allowed the desert to be just a dream.

Morning had broken and the light of Celestia's sun shone through the window to Applejack's room. Though the brim of her black hat shielded her eyes from the light, the pony still stirred from the warmth. Pushing the hat up on her head, Applejack's eyes opened and squinted in the bright glare.
The pony who looked out of those eyes, however, was not Applejack.
Yawning, the pony who wasn't Applejack climbed out of bed and stretched her legs, as if getting used to her body. Scratching her mane, the pony looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, then approached the mirror by Applejack's dresser. Peering into the mirror, the pony saw the reflection of a young mare looking back – orange coat, blond mane, eyes that now narrowed in a slight frown. For a moment, a shimmer of gold flashed across the emerald green.
“...Well now,” said Black Jack the Outlaw, “this gonna take some gettin' used to.”