//------------------------------// // On the Other Side // Story: Taken for Granite // by Cloudy Skies //------------------------------// The pony who had sat here before was a nice pony, Pinkie Pie decided. She didn’t know if it was a he or a she, or anything in between. She didn’t know if it was an earth pony, a unicorn, a pegasus or a princess pony. Whomever they were, they had left a magazine for Pinkie Pie to read, and that made them nice. That, or they’d forgotten it, but either way, Pinkie Pie had something to read while she waited for the train to choo-choo its way along. She’d exhausted her own entertainment within two minutes of getting on the train, mostly because the grumpy ticket inspector took her mobile party kit away. Something about a ban on tubas. The last five minutes had been very much the same as the five minutes before that: The frowny mare in front of her cleared her throat and coughed every so often, the stallion across the aisle kept trying to look at Pinkie Pie’s magazine while pretending he wasn’t, and the train clickety-clacked as trains did while Pinkie leafed through her magazine. She scratched her head at the next article. It would’ve been even better if Pinkie Pie understood the magazine she tried to read. “Blueblur likes to show her stuff.” Pinkie Pie read the words aloud, turning the magazine upright so she could look at the large picture of a blue pegasus. She wasn’t performing any tricks or anything. She just lay on a too-large bed looking sleepy and maybe a tiny bit angry. Pinkie Pie shook her head. It looked like a very fancy yearbook, if she were to guess. Glimmershot the unicorn liked to lounge on the beach and Breeze the earth stallion was “eager to display his skill.” At what, the article never said, and he, too, looked sleepy. Every single pony in the magazine had half-lidded eyes like they just wanted to go to bed and have a nap. “Then why can’t they nap, and then have their pictures taken?” Pinkie asked nopony in a whisper. She turned the magazine around twice, then went back to the pony she liked the most. Sunset Dream, she was called. A dark yellow pony. She reminded her a little bit of Applejack, and she was an earth pony, just like them. Applejack had made that sound like it was significant. Like it mattered that Applejack and Pinkie Pie were earth ponies, not because it made them special, but because it was a link. Something they had in common, like two muffins from the same batch. Pinkie’s tummy rumbled, remembering that very same muffin-filled night as she. When Applejack threw in the towel, she’d left the eating just to Pinkie, and when Applejack suddenly decided it was time to leave, Pinkie found she couldn’t really stop eating. She’d need to lay off the muffins for a week or two. That, and find a better metaphor. Two turnovers on the same platter, then. It didn’t sound quite as fancy, but it worked. Applejack would have said something like that. Two apple turnovers from the same platter. When Applejack spoke, it wasn’t how she wrapped the words so much as what waited inside. Just like a turnover. Applejack had said a lot of things to Pinkie, lately. A whole lot. Most of them made Pinkie Pie very happy, and when she wasn’t making Pinkie Pie happy by saying lots of clever stuff, Applejack made Pinkie Pie happy by listening to her. Problem was, it was really hard to say something, and just as hard to listen, when you weren’t anywhere around. Sometime between the fourth party invitation and the third lunch-dinner-breakfast-or-night-snack-you-decide-hey-let’s-just-hang-out invitation, Pinkie Pie realised that maybe they weren’t accidents and busy-nesses. It was around that time she hopped on the train heading home before she had time to realise anything more that threatened to make her sad. Pinkie Pie gave Sunset Dream another look. Her mane was all wrong. It was long and flowing and far too soft, and deep red rather than blonde besides. She was probably a very nice pony, and Pinkie Pie hoped she got some sleep. She brought the magazine a little closer and gave it a sniff, but it just smelled like paper rather than apples and dirt. The stallion across the aisle made a strangled noise and turned red. Pinkie’s head hit the headrest behind her. She really wanted to talk to Applejack again soon, or even just listen to her speak. If she put just the tiniest smidgen of her imagination to work, she could hear her now. It didn’t matter so much what she said, exactly. “Hey, Pinkie Pie. What’re you up to?” she might say, and Pinkie Pie would think before she answered. She wouldn’t say “I’m super-duperrific!” right away. She’d think it through in case she wanted to say something else, because Applejack would listen. “Wanna grab a snack?” she might also say, and unless Pinkie’d had a particularly big meal, she’d say “yes, I would love a snack,” because she probably would. Or perhaps Applejack would say “Faster, R.D., try the next car!” Pinkie opened her eyes, jolted from her daydream. That didn’t make sense at all. It took her a moment to realise there was a reason Applejack sounded like Applejack instead of Pinkie Pie imagining what Applejack sounded like. It had, in fact, been Applejack. “That’s one’s a food car!” another pony retorted. A raspier, higher pitched voice. Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie jammed a hoof in one of her ears and rooted around a little bit, not quite sure what she expected to happen—Applejack sailing by her window wasn’t top among those, but it worked. “Yeah, well, where else’d you expect to find Pinkie?” Applejack retorted. Her voice was muted, barely louder than the noise the train was making. Pinkie Pie blinked and glanced around, but nopony else seemed to have noticed. She cracked the window open a tiny bit so she could hear them better. On the other side of the glass, Applejack clung to the slimmer pegasus, her forelegs wrapped around Dash’s neck. Rainbow Dash, for her part, didn’t have much trouble keeping up with the train. She wove around the telegraph poles that whisked by, more concerned with figuring out how she could glare up at Applejack without tossing her off. “Don’t ask me, this is your mess!” “Yeah, well—yeah,” Applejack said, slowly loosening her grip on Rainbow Dash, rising to stand on wobbly legs. Pinkie Pie made a mental note to ask her if she’d ever tried surfing. “Thanks, alright? I owe you.” “Don’t thank me,” Dash shouted back. “I’m not your friend. Wait. I mean, I am, but not just your—oh for crying out loud, I’m friends with both of you, so just fix this so we can go bowling or whatever.” Dash rolled her eyes, peering inside the train car. “Oh. There she is. Hey Pinks.” Pinkie Pie waved and beamed. “Hi Dashie!” “Oh. Howdy.” “Hi Applejack, too!” “Pinkie, the window.” Dash shot her a meaningful glance, tilting her head towards Pinkie. “Right!” Pinkie said, giving the window a push, but it was a mess of latches and switches, and however she worked them, she couldn’t quite figure out how to open it up entirely. It was like somepony had deliberately tried to make train car windows impossible to open up. “Um. I don’t think it opens, actually,” she said, glaring at the gap in the top half of the window. “Eh. Good enough,” Dash said. Applejack nearly fell off when she shrugged. She definitively fell off when Dash angled herself to ram sideways against the train. Pinkie squeaked and toppled off her seat when, with a loud wham, Applejack’s head, chest and forelegs suddenly poked in through the window. “R.D! Of all the stupid ideas you’ve had—” Applejack began, glaring back through the window, half-stuck as she was, but there wasn’t a whole lot to yell at. In fact, there wasn’t any Rainbow Dash outside the window at all. A quarter of a second later, most of the ponies on the train would probably argue there was entirely too much Rainbow Dash when a rainbow-coloured blur impacted against Applejack’s flank. The car rattled while Applejack shot through the window and landed in the seat next to Pinkie Pie with an “oof.” “See you later!” Dash said, waving before disappearing out of view. “Ow,” Applejack said, rubbing her butt. The rest of the ponies on the train didn’t say a lot. The pony across the aisle stared even more than before, and the mare on the row in front cleared her throat in a slightly more annoyed fashion. “Hi,” Pinkie said, picking herself up off the floor. Applejack was in her seat, so she took the companion seat next to it. “You don’t have your hat. You always have your hat with you.” “Yeah,” Applejack said. “Didn’t think it’d much appreciate flying at speeds nopony has business with.” She sat up straight, winced again, and fished a red hairband out of her tail, bundling it and tying it anew. Pinkie thought it was a little sad given how pretty Applejack looked with her tail out, but then, she looked pretty with it on, too. Pinkie Pie didn’t have a hat or a tailband, but Applejack cast little glances her way, and that reminded her she had something else. She’d apparently clutched her precious, confusing little magazine all the while. “I ain’t even gonna ask ‘bout that one,” Applejack muttered. “Oh! I forgot!” Pinkie said. She leaned across the aisle to put the silly magazine on the seat next to the stallion across from her. “It’s okay, I’m done with it, and you looked like maybe you wanted to read it!” Pinkie said, but he didn’t look very happy to hear it. Instead, the silly unicorn went beet red and pretended not to hear her, looking out his own window. Maybe he expected visitors of his own. Pinkie shrugged and turned back to Applejack. “I didn’t get it,” Pinkie said. It didn’t look like Applejack wanted to do a whole lot of talking yet. “I mean, I understood the language just fine. I speak and write Griffin and a whole bunch of other languages just as well as I understand Equestrian. How can I congratulate all the wonderful non-ponies in Equestria if I don’t speak their language? The words were fine. Just not the everything else.” Just like with Applejack, Pinkie thought. Applejack’s words were fine. She usually made perfect sense—and then she did things that made no sense. Like hang out with Pinkie Pie a whole lot, and then disappear. To think ponies usually said Pinkie was the silly one. “I really, really wasn’t gonna ask,” Applejack said, shaking her head. Evidently, that was all she wanted to say, too, because she sat there in her seat just like all the other ponies around them, looking like all she wanted to do was be on a train and be left alone. Every so often, she would turn and look at Pinkie for a glance and a half, maybe two glances at most. Pinkie was really glad to see her, of course, but there was something else. Something more than the curiosity, something bigger—no, something almost as big as the warmth that came with seeing her. She couldn’t put a hoof on what. It was probably round. Maybe a little spiky. “Am I a bother?” Pinkie asked. “No, you ain’t,” Applejack said. She studiously avoided Pinkie’s eyes now, but Pinkie could see a smile on her face at that. It started small, and Applejack clenched her jaw like she very much wanted not to smile, but still her lips curved upwards. “‘Leastwise not in a bad way. You’re Pinkie Pie. I reckon that means some bothering, but there’s a difference between bothering ponies and being a bother, I’m coming to think.” “Okie-dokie,” Pinkie said, though for once, she was the one who couldn’t quite match the happy look on somepony else’s face. “See, sometimes, I wonder if there’s something wrong with me, and what ponies really think about me—” “Pinkie,” Applejack said with a sigh on her lips. “—because I know I can be a bit of a hoof-ful at times, and I used to think that was fine, and you say I’m Pinkie Pie, and I am—” “Pinkie.” “—but you usually sound like you think that’s a good thing, and then you suddenly just ignore me and disappear and I started thinking maybe I wasn’t just doing something wrong like I usually do, but I was being wrong, and I don’t know how to change that.” Applejack looked at Pinkie now, but she didn’t say her name again. Pinkie thought it was a bit of a shame, really, because she liked the way her name sounded from Applejack’s lips, but she said something different altogether. “I’m sorry.” Pinkie Pie tilted her head left, then right. Applejack spoke the rare words very slowly, made them bigger and more important than Hearth’s Warming Eve and the Summer Sun Celebration put together. “It wasn’t fair of me. Shouldn’t end up makin’ you feel bad just because I—” “Oh! I know what it is! It’s angry! I mean, it’s anger!” Pinkie burst, finally realising exactly what that icky, spiky feeling was. “I’m angry with you!” She beamed, pleased with the realisation, right up until she wasn’t pleased any more. “Aw. I’m angry with you,” she repeated, splaying her ears and pouting. “That’s no fun!” Applejack looked angry for a split second too. “Consarn it Pinkie, I’m trying to apologise here!” “Oh. Sorry. Go ahead,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof. Applejack rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Forget it. I guess you’ve every right to be angry. I’ve been getting more’n enough of that lately from just about everypony else, too.” Pinkie Pie frowned. “Aw? Who’s angry with you who isn’t me? Tell me! Tell me and I’ll throw them a super-duper terrific fun celebration so they’ll be happy instead!” “Twi and Rainbow Dash. Mostly Dash. Figure Rarity ain’t too happy either, but I didn’t talk to her yet. Don’t suppose Fluttershy has it in her to be angry, but if she does, well, that ain’t a pleasant thought.” Applejack breathed out through her nose. “Oh. Why—” “‘Cause they care about you. And me, I suppose. And ‘cause they noticed I was treatin’ you terrible, ignoring you and avoiding you like you were nothin’. I figure they still like me just fine, and I deserve it. I can take it.” “Oh. Okay.” Pinkie bit her lip and rubbed her forehooves together. “Can I still be a little angry with you, or is that enough angry ponies for one day?” Applejack shrugged and leaned back, one eye trained on Pinkie. “Go nuts. Just figure I owe you an explanation of sorts too. You know, while we’re at it and all.” Pinkie Pie nodded, not so much out of curiosity as a desire to have Applejack talk to her and not go away again. “Started liking being around you a bit more’n what’s strictly normal, I suppose.” Applejack chewed her cheek. “Could say I caught myself thinking I’d like more than my fair share of Pinkie. More than I had a right to ever ask.” “Huh. You could’ve asked, actually,” Pinkie said. “Inkie Pie once said she thought it was really neat that I tried to make absolutely everypony happy all at once, but then Blinkie Pie said that wasn’t a problem if I kept snacking so much because there was plenty of Pinkie Pie to go around. I bet you could have a little extra Pinkie Pie!” Applejack sighed and stood up in her seat, raising her voice a teensy tad, which earned her a few glances from ponies who weren’t Pinkie Pie. “You’re missin’ my point. I started thinking about asking you out. Call me selfish if you want, but there it is. Started wondering about you and me.” Her cheeks acquired a faint blush, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Pinkie Pie giggle-snorted. She noticed the other ponies look their way again, but she didn’t care if they didn’t share her amusement. “Aw, that’s really silly! We went to that snowy picnic thing, remember? We’ve already been out!” “For crying out loud,” Applejack groaned, throwing her head back. “Listen. I fancy you, Pinkie Pie. I ain’t gonna apologise for that in particular, but I’m trying to explain why I acted the way I did. Just get it into your thick head, will you? I like you. I like you, and me wantin’ something more than just friendship, that’s why I’ve been acting a fool, why you’ve made a liar out of me.” She snapped her head around, glaring back at the rest of the train car. “And y’all mind your own darn business!” The ponies scattered around the car did indeed go back to their own business. Heads ducked back behind chairs, and a ticket inspector on the approach turned around and smartly trotted off back to from whence he came. Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Well, duh.” “What.” Applejack froze. “What, what? I’m not stupid, you silly filly,” Pinkie giggled. “I mean, I figured that out a while ago, I guess. You don’t just stare at other ponies and hang out with them lots unless you want to maybe kiss them or something. Unless you’re me, I guess, because I sometimes do that because I forget not to stare, and once, I forgot my ‘hang out with the other ponies in Ponyville’ rotation so I ended up going roller skating with Lyra three days in a row, and Bon-Bon got really angry with me. Boy, that was a doozy!” “Right,” Applejack said. “Right!” Pinkie concluded. She didn’t really feel all that angry with Applejack any more. She’d never been any good at grudges anyway. “I just got really confused by the way you acted about it. By the way, your eyes are a bit red. They were red when you got here. Or, was pushed in here. I don’t know what you’d call that, but it was a pretty neat entrance. An eight out of ten, easy!” “Yeah, thanks,” Applejack muttered, looking particularly sour. She rubbed at her eyes with a hoof. “Air pressure or somethin’. Rainbow Dash flew too fast. So yeah. That’s that. Guess I’m gonna see about finding a way home or something.” Applejack slipped off her seat and edged towards the aisle. “That’s it?” Pinkie asked. In the space of a few seconds, something else entirely flooded the space where that icky, ill-fitting anger had been; a sadness that threatened to weigh her down. “It’s all ‘hi, I like you, goodbye’? You used to think about asking me out?” Applejack sighed, hung her head and turned on the spot. Somewhere behind Applejack’s shiny, pretty green eyes, something changed, and Pinkie Pie could tell. Her features hardened, but there was no meanness to it. Instead, there was something thoroughly Applejack about the resolve with which she slipped past Pinkie Pie to retake her seat. “No, that ain’t it,” Applejack said. “I still owe it to tell you why, but you gotta promise to keep quiet for a bit. No interrupting.” She reached out to touch Pinkie’s lower muzzle, holding it shut for a second. “Just let me talk for a little bit at my own pace. Can you do that, sugarcube?” Pinkie Pie had never before nodded so quickly. Her eyes took a while to settle afterwards. “Long while ago, I lost mom and dad. You know that. I was a little filly when it happened. Don’t remember half as much about them as I’d like, I suppose. Don’t misunderstand, I ain’t sitting around crying about it,” she said, fixing Pinkie Pie with a stare that dared Pinkie to be sad either. Pinkie didn’t. She sat as still as she could and listened. Applejack nodded, satisfied. “I spent a bunch of time thinking about it then, and it’s all done with, but it still happened. For as long as I can remember, it’s just been the four of us on the farm. It’s me, Big Mac, Granny Smith and Apple Bloom. I care about’em more than I can ever say, and I can’t stand to lose them. They’re all I’ve got.” Pinkie Pie nodded, once. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, like “I’m sorry,” or “but you have me and all of us, too,” but she said none of them. She sat completely still and waited, counting the rhythmic half-wooden, half-metallic noises that marked the train’s movement until next Applejack spoke. Despite her earlier words, now she looked a little sad. “I don’t know where that leaves me, but it don’t even matter what you or I think, because I just plain can’t risk it.” Applejack’s eyes drifted, ponderously shifted from Pinkie to her own hooves. “I’ve had a good life so far, and I sure as hay don’t plan on being by my lonesome forever, but you girls are all important to me. Like family. I’ve lost family already, and I can’t stand to lose any more.” Pinkie tested her muzzle. Opened it and closed it again. She wanted so very badly to speak, to say something, but she didn’t want to make Applejack angry by breaking her promise. “D’you know Caramel?” Applejack asked. She answered her own question before Pinkie Pie could even nod. “‘Course you do. You know everypony in Ponyville. Him and Big Mac, they had a thing going last year. Maybe you know. Maybe you don’t. No matter. Point is, that all went sour, and now they hardly ever talk.” “There ain’t no guarantees any of this would ever go well, and I don’t think I’m gonna chance that—no, I know I don’t want to. I ain’t gonna risk it, and that’s final.” She shook her head. “You’re a heck of an amazing pony. You’re—well, you’re Pinkie Pie. I can’t think of a better compliment than that, but it ain’t you. It sounds like something out of one of Twi’s books, but it ain’t you. It’s me.” Applejack reached on top of her head as if she made to grab for her hat, but found only air. Evidently she’d already forgotten she left it at home. She’d forgotten more than just that, though. Pinkie Pie frowned and shook her head. “Nuh-uh. It’s not. That’s stupid, and a lie.” “Right. And how do you figure?” Applejack asked. Pinkie wracked her brain, tried to think before she spoke, but she almost wished she hadn’t—Applejack beat her to it and didn’t let her speak at all. “Actually, no. I don’t want to hear no more of this, I ain’t much in the mood for that. That’s just how it has to be. You can’t promise me nothin’, and we’re very different ponies.” Pinkie’s head spun and her tummy itched. She was confused only for as long as it took for her to be disappointed. First they were the same, and now they were different. It was enough to drive a mare crazy. “But—” “Pinkie Pie? Please.” Applejack sounded very tired, and all the words died in Pinkie Pie’s throat. Suddenly, she couldn’t think of anything to say that was more important than Applejack’s weary request, no words that Applejack would want to hear. Friends listened, and so she just sat there, waiting for something to change, anything to happen. For almost a full minute, nothing did, and then she had to steady herself against the seat in front of her when the train started slowing down. Pinkie took a silent breath and put her smile back on. “Hey, looks like we’re here!” Pinkie said, leaning past Applejack to peer out the window. Long past the furthest reaches of the Whitetail Woods stood Rockopolis Station. Here vegetation was sparse, and weather even more so. A grey cloud-cover dominated the sky from horizon to horizon, and the familiar, simple stone platform was the only real feature for as far as the eye could see. Winter had barely touched the place yet, the landscape frosted but lacking in the layer of snow Ponyville had. The only exceptions to flat dirt and bare hills were the occasional shrubberies, a tree or two, and the roads that wended away from the platform. Grey and uninspiring. Pinkie smiled and focused on that instead. Home. Applejack followed Pinkie’s gaze, then tried to look out the window opposite. “So. Any idea how often the trains pass through here heading to Ponyville? It’s gonna take me hours to get back by myself.” “Uh-huh, and it’s colder than it looks, I bet,” Pinkie said. They’d come to a complete halt, but nopony made to get up. “Cold never bothered me none.” “And there’s no road, so you’d be following the train tracks through the edge of the Whitetail Woods, which sounds really boring.” “Right,” Applejack said. “And you might get hungry! I can’t even help you there. I ate my lunch already, and my travel snacks!” “Pinkie, what the hay are you getting at?” “You should come visit the rock farm! Come! Let’s go see mom and dad! Inkie and Blinkie’s visiting too, so it’ll be tons of fun!” She hopped off her seat and tugged at Applejack’s legs. Applejack wasn’t quite as enthusiastic or willing to be dragged, but she let herself be guided to the floor at least. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.” “Aw, it’ll be great, and I’ve been trying to convince my sisters to come visit Ponyville, but they’re really shy, so maybe if they’ll come see us some day if you don’t bite them now!” Pinkie giggled. “I’m sure I can manage that, at least,” Applejack said with a quiet chuckle of her own. “And besides, you were all, ‘you’re always welcome at my farm’ except when you’re stupid and hiding—” “Guess you remember that, huh?” “—and you haven’t even ever seen my farm! Or, well, my parents’ farm, I guess, but still!” “Right, right, okay, just stop pulling,” Applejack said with a little laugh.