//------------------------------// // Fallen Apples // Story: Nuthin' Gold // by Baby Boo //------------------------------// Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost Chapter One: Fallen Apples Applejack dropped her hat by the well, drew up a bucket of water, and dumped it over her head. The icy slap of it zinged down her spine and back up, tightening startled skin and pulling a wildcat yowl from her throat. She shook her head doglike and grinned, breathing hard from the cold shock, water dripping through her mane to soothe the baked feeling of midsummer heat on her cheeks and forehead. She drew another bucket for a drink, plunging her muzzle into the water and sloshing her face about. After sitting a moment to let the sun dry her hide, she pluffed her lips and stood up to stretch. Time to see what her bones and muscles thought about the rest of the day. Their first point of business, as always, was a hearty round of clicking, snapping complaints as she flexed her back and stretched out her legs. She wasn’t old, by any reckoning — not even half her Granny’s total years — but she had gone past the days when she could keep on bucking half the day without a break or a second thought. In all her years, she’d grown only a couple inches taller than she’d been on the day of Luna’s return. Some in her family, like Big Macintosh, got up nearly twice as tall as the average earth pony, oftentimes in a growth spurt that came on a lot later in life than it had for him, but Applejack had taken after Granny and the pint-size side of the clan. She’d grown a couple inches in the sideways direction too, all of it in toned muscle of course, except maybe a little extra energy stowed around her undercarriage. Fine lines, and some not-so-fine creases, had crept in around the edges, but her emerald eyes were bright and sharp as ever. Barely visible in her hay-straw mane were ever broader ribbons of white, and her hide had picked up quite a collection of little scars from all the adventures that followed on being a friend of Twilight Sparkle’s, but all in all, she was much the same mare she’d been back in her heyday. Still had Pa’s hat, even, though it could just possibly be that not all the treatments she applied to preserve it were entirely free of magic. She wasn’t surprised to find herself thinking about age, and time, and how she had a heyday to look back on. Thoughts like that had become as much a part of the midmorning routine as the stretches and self-inspection. Nothing worse than the usual little aches and twinges came up this time, anyway. She was good for at least another couple hours bucking. Some chores she had let the foals and grandfoals take up over time (out of her chores, that is, not counting the full roster of their own they’d darn well better do), but two things she wasn’t about to give up: tending to the pigs and other barnyard tenants — really just an excuse to stand around gossiping for awhile — and bucking apples. And baking, of course, but she didn’t count that as a chore; it was what she did when she wasn’t doing anything. The day she couldn’t kick trees from breakfast to lunch, well, then she’d be old. Of course, her portion of the Acres to buck had gotten smaller over the years, but so it should. There were more strong, healthy hooves around the farm these days than back when it was just her and Big Mac. Feeling like she ought to be doing a full half of the work on her own was just an old habit of thought, too long ground in to wash away. Doing it all herself while a bunch of perfectly able, imperfectly willing young’uns sat around and ate all the food wouldn’t be virtuous, just stupid. Age had nothing to do with it, except that she had a head start sprouting more family to boss around. Hold up now... The decently-skilled bookkeeper in the back of Applejack’s mind had been fretting over something, and now showed her the sum. She wasn’t ‘not even half’ Granny’s final age anymore. Hadn’t been for a long while. Come this next autumn, it’d be well past three-quarters. That put a cloud over her mood, slowing her hooves on the way to the next orchard section. For once, in the lazy heat, she gave in and let herself wallow in a puddle of mope for a bit. It wasn’t just that her share of acres to buck had gotten smaller. Her overall share of usefulness had fallen off, too. She could just stop, if she wanted to. The rest of the family would just split up her part of the bucking between them and the harvest would carry on just like always. Same went for everything else she did, from the farmyard to the boardroom. All of it needed doing, but nowhere was it carved in stone that Applejack had to do it. The fortunes of Sweet Apple Acres weren’t resting on just her and her siblings like they used to. With an artful bump of the hip, she flipped a small pile of baskets from atop a big pile onto her back, and snorted at her own maudlin foalishness. So... basically, what she was fretting about was that the farm, along with the whole wide spread of Apple business interests, was doing so well that no one pony could possibly oversee every bit and bushel like she had in her youth. Yeah, hitch up the big wagon to carry all the pity for that party. Shaking her head and smiling ruefully, she headed first toward Old Limbertwig. Biggest and oldest tree on the Acres, pretty near his hundred and fiftieth birthday, and still he stood strong and tall, hanging in there producing his fair share of fine, crisp apples without complaint. How could she do any less? She gave the tree an affectionate pat before turning to aim her hindlegs toward his trunk, kicking her rear up high to slam her hooves back in a motion as familiar, as free of thought, as blinking. No tonic nor fancy philosophy had ever been so good for raising low spirits as plain honest bucking. Except this time something went wrong. She felt it as soon as her hooves hit the bark. Pain, instant and sharp, tore up her right foreleg and forced it to buckle, even as something like a dragon’s fist closed around her chest and squeezed without mercy. Her rear hooves dropped to the ground quickly enough to keep her from tumbling forward, but they were unsteady as jelly beneath her, and she couldn’t draw a proper breath. Her ribs felt clamped in stays of iron, betrayed by her own muscle power clenching around her. Straining for wind, she caught only a throatful of dust and hot air, and began to cough uncontrollably, each spasm stabbing further pain through her chest and leg. She spread her uncertain hooves wide for stability and lowered her head, hacking desperately with no time to draw more air. Agonized tears fogged her vision, joined by silent firework stars of nameless colors as the daylight dimmed to sudden dusk in her eyes, and she fell heavily to the ground. A moment of darkness washed her out. Then, swift as it came, the pain relaxed and she was able to pull a loud sobbing breath, screaming in reverse. With a few clear breaths of sweet air, the grating in her throat eased, and in a few moments she was able to roll up onto her hooves again, though her head still felt wobbly and watery. She stood still for a long while, head hung low, breathing deep and careful, until she was sure her legs would stay steady under her and she could raise her head without sloshing her brain about. Looking around, she frowned in puzzlement. Something wasn’t quite right still, but she wasn’t sure what. The scenery around her was the same as ever, familiar as her own hoof, apple trees and grassy hills rolling along as usual. But there was a weird brightness to everything, like the darkness that had clouded her vision a moment ago had cleared, and then just kept on clearing, until the world was too shiny to believe. Each leaf, each blade of grass, each stone in the dirt stood out crisp-edged and significant. The air itself seemed somehow to be giving off a clear and lovely light. Could be she was just appreciating the world more, in the moment after a nasty scare. But that didn’t explain all the apples. The fruit she’d kicked down was still falling, slowly. All around her, apples drifted down like the air was some kind of clear molasses. Hundreds of them tumbled in slow time, far out beyond the overhang of the apple tree, a languid rain from nowhere. Well. Ain’t that a marvel, she thought, blank with wonder, watching them drop. She felt mildly surprised at how little surprise she felt. The sight was strange, but there was something familiar about it, like coming across a rare animal in the flesh after knowing of it only from picture books. Had she seen such a thing in a dream? Something like that, maybe, but no; this vision wasn’t something she remembered, it was just... right, somehow. Like it was supposed to happen, however odd it seemed. There were apples in all colors, russet and scarlet and golden and green, each of them perfect, unbruised and polished to a mirror shine. She could see her own reflection in the gleaming sides of the nearest fruits as they dropped in no hurry around her. She could see more than her own reflection, even. In the side of one apple, she saw her friends, clustered together as though posing for a picture, though they were giggling and jostling about, not just a still image. She swung her head around, but there wasn’t anypony there. Only their reflection on the side of a slowly falling apple. She snorted, somewhere between curiosity and doubt. Some kind of prank, maybe? She wouldn’t put it past old Trixie, whose sense of humor remained weird even after she reformed her ways. Let alone Discord, who still bopped by Ponyville on occasion to ‘liven things up’. Applejack couldn’t guess what the punchline might be, though. Cautiously, she started walking forward through the field of tumbling apples. Other apples had other faces reflected in them — except reflected wasn’t the right word, really, since she didn’t see herself in all of them, and most showed things that simply weren't anywhere nearby to reflect. There was Granny, and Big Mac, and Apple Bloom... the Princesses... Braeburn and Caramel... all sorts of folks from Ponyville and beyond. Pretty much everypony she’d ever known seemed to have their portraits, in living color and motion, though entirely silent, shining on the apples. A little further on, and most of the faces gave way to images of herself, but not like in a mirror. Little scenes played out from years and years back. She saw herself as a filly, smiling wide as the sky when Ma carefully let her hold baby Apple Bloom, swaddled in a blanket, tiny and cranky. Just a little older, there was little Applejack looking out a window in Manehattan and seeing a brilliant display of color in the sky, pointing the way back to where her heart really lay. There she was, meeting Rarity for the first time in the schoolyard, both of them shorter than a haybale, not exactly making friends but forming a sort of comfortable, instant rivalry. And there came Rainbow Dash, ridiculously cute from an adult eye with her colorful frizz of a mane, sneaking up with a cloud and soaking both of them just for laughs. Next apple over, a gangly young Pinkie Pie was apologizing rapid-fire for dropping a tall chocolate layer cake on Applejack’s head, and not exactly winning any points for trying to lick off the mess. Applejack, in the present, laughed despite herself. More than just seeing these scenes, it felt like she was reliving them, sinking into each as she watched, viewing them from an outside perspective with all the knowledge of later years. Walking on and seeing the time roll by, she gradually gave up trying to figure out what was causing the peculiar show and just enjoyed it. Not all the apple scenes were happy. She had to blink back tears when she realized that the last scene with Ma in it was going to be just that, the last one; and then not even a full season later, there was Pa on the bed he wasn’t ever going to get out of. She saw Apple Bloom at five years old, weak in bed with a serious case of the pox, and saw herself going down on the floor to pray to whatever powers might listen for her sister’s life. Granny Smith’s name got chiseled on a stone and she went to earth, alongside her daughter and son-in-law. Nightmare Moon reared up out of the shadows, ready to sink the world in endless night, but then Twilight Sparkle was there standing up to her, and showing them all how to defeat her. Piles of apples with laughing faces lied to Applejack about the future and darn near extinguished her honesty, but again Twilight was there, and all her friends, and Discord’s triumphant smirk turned to a grimace of terror right before his body turned to stone. Dragons and gorgons and vengeful stars, evil ponies made of smoke or of snow or of shadow, all hatched their plans and cackled in wicked triumph, but Applejack and her friends were always there to stand and thwart them, and sometimes even convert them to forces for good. She began to smile again when her beloved Bell Pepper finally gave in to all her hints and knelt down to ask the question that was pretty much settled by then anyway. More tears slid down her cheeks, warm and pleasant ones this time, when she saw herself holding her own little Pippin for the first time, and then came a quick flood of scenes — Pippin learning to buck, spinning around in delight when her blossoming-branch cutie mark appeared, growing up to start her own family on a new plot of land just south of Fillydelphia. Then there were all the other foals, Russet and Cascabel and Spicy Sweet, and then the grandfoals, and even some great-grandfoals by now, her branch of the Apples ever growing along with the family fortunes... Lost in memory, fogged with tears of mirth and of sorrow in succession, Applejack couldn’t say how long she wandered through the shining apple theater. The memories were getting a lot closer to current, at any rate, when suddenly she almost stumbled over an unexpected filly. The sprightly young earth pony popped out of the trees and hopped right into Applejack’s path, laughing like a little devil. Applejack scarcely had time to draw back in surprise before the filly greeted her with a wild crow of, “Hooowww-do!” “Whoa-ho now!” Applejack couldn’t help but grin at the kid’s energy. Behind her, she heard a rainlike chorus of soft thumps which she guessed to be the apples finally completing their fall, but her attention was on the bouncing, giggly filly in front of her. There was something familiar about her... of course, there were a lot of young’uns around the farm these days, but Applejack was pretty sure she would remember one like this, with the fire of mischief in her eyes and a green coat bright as spring leaves. “Uh, do I know you, little missy?” The filly only laughed again, as though Applejack had told a whopper of a joke. “Oh, reckon you’ll remember me sooner or later,” said the filly. “I come to show you the way home.” Applejack snorted and shook her head. “Well, I appreciate the thought, sugarcube, but I ain’t done workin’ yet. An’ I can find my own way... home...?” She trailed off, looking around in fresh confusion. It dawned on her that she wasn’t too sure where she was. That trip through the apples of memory could have been miles, for all she could recall. The whole weird thing had her generally confused about what time it was, and the curious bright light all around didn’t really seem like any particular time of day. As mixed up about when as she was, though, there had only ever been one where for her, and she knew Sweet Apple Acres down to the stone and branch. But she didn’t seem to be there anymore. Past the filly, the hillside rolled gently down into a grassy valley that Applejack had just plain never seen before. All across the broad floor of it were groves and orchards and gardens of all different sorts, clumped in odd irregular patterns, with no roads or houses, nor buildings of any kind in sight. She could see all sorts of ponies, hundreds of them at least, going about their various businesses, some of them tending the plants, some of them apparently just as dedicated to tearing up parts of the foliage, many just walking and talking along between the trees. As she watched, she saw an earth pony drop his hoe and hightail it away from his grove, galloping madly westward. She followed his trail of dust, which reached the horizon in an uncannily short time, but there was something weird about the west end of the valley. She couldn’t quite make it out. It wasn’t dark, exactly, and it wasn’t foggy, exactly, but when she tried to see the line between white sky above and green valley below... or when she tried to follow the mountains ringing the valley to where they closed in off to the west... it was like trying to see something in her blind spot, or a badly-focused movie. She could see a few other dust-trails approaching that place she couldn’t quite see. Now that she knew what to look for, there seemed to be a lot of ponies heading in that direction, one or two at a time. Unnerved, she turned back toward the filly, who was rolling on the ground now, tickled at what Applejack had said. Finally she caught her breath and rolled to her hooves, giving Applejack a sass-filled grin. “Oh honey, your work’s all done now! Come on, it’s time to get goin’.” Applejack was getting more befuddled by the minute. She’d been in the middle of doing something, hadn’t she? Something to do with apples? What time was it, anyway? One thing she could remember clearly was how to be stubborn, though, and as the filly grabbed her hoof and started tugging, Applejack set the other three legs and refused to budge. “Now hang on just a darn minute. I can’t go runnin’ off in the middle of the harvest. The apples, they need me...” Applejack faltered. Apples? Was she talking about fruit, or ponies? The word seemed to mean both to her. Was that strange? “The harvest’ll carry on, just like always. It ain’t your worry no more.” And just like that, it wasn’t a worry. Applejack felt her concern dissolve, like traces of fear from a dream on waking, and then she couldn’t remember what it was she’d even been worried about. A heartbeat later and she forgot ever being bothered at all. “Ever’thin’s all right now, ain’t it?” asked the filly, smiling like sunshine, and Applejack laughed just at the joy on her face. “I reckon it is.” She nodded. “I reckon it’s all just about right.” “Great, now come on!” The green pony grabbed Applejack’s forehoof and tugged her along the slope of the hill, pointing in great excitement toward the galloping figures heading west. “It’s time to follow them!” “Why? What’s over there?” “Nnnope! No cheatin’, you gotta see for yourself!” The filly chuckled, shaking her head and making the thick pigtails tied in her pale-green mane whip back and forth. She started trotting down the hillside, peeking back over her shoulder to give Applejack a mischievous grin. “Race ya!” she announced, then launched into a full-speed gallop with no further warning, trailing wild delighted giggles in her wake. Applejack took one more brief, uncertain glance back at what she was leaving behind. Then she turned, laughing, and forgot all about it; and she shot after the apple-green filly, racing toward the horizon, fast as her hooves could fly.