Chapter 6: I Didn’t Choose The Farm Life...
If there’s one thing I never thought I’d actually get to spend my days doing, it’s working on an honest-to-God farm. I was pretty much born in the city, and had lived the city life pretty much every day of my life right up until today. The closest I’d ever gotten to roughing it out in the country was every single outfield exercise I’d ever gone for during my two years in the army, but I sure as hell didn’t consider that a lifestyle choice.
But these past several days I’d spent at Sweet Apple Acres… I have to say that they really opened my eyes to what it was like in the country life.
You know, for once, I can actually see why people would want to live like this. Life was simple, routine, free of the hustle and bustle of city life. It was quiet, tranquil, and despite how hard the daily work was, I couldn't have possibly asked for anything simpler.
Well, at least… barring the regularity of having to get up at ungodly hours in the morning.
“Joe?” *knock knock knock* “Hey Joe, drag yerself outta bed already, it’s almost six!”
For fuck’s sake, the sun hasn’t even risen yet!
Groaning as I rubbed the remnants of sleep out of my face, I fumbled my way out of the sheets and stumbled towards the door, groping blindly for the knob for a couple of seconds before I managed to pull it open, and got rewarded with the sight of Applejack looking up at me expectantly.
“Missed yer alarm again?”
“Slept right through it,” I croaked hoarsely as I yawned and cleared my throat, trying to sound less like I’d just crawled out of a grave. “Sorry ‘bout that AJ, I’ll go get ready now.”
The blonde earth pony simply gave me a wry smile, and she looked at me patiently. “Still not gettin’ used to risin’ at the crack of dawn every morning?”
“Takes a while to get back into the swing of things,” I grunted in assent as I turned away, eyes blearily roaming around in search of the dresser while I shambled back into the room. “I used to do this regularly, but it was years ago and my body clock hasn’t quite adjusted back to it yet.”
“Well, don’t keep us waitin’, eh?” Applejack remarked as she began walking off. “Mac’s already got the wagon and baskets prepped - we’ll be haulin’ in the rest of the harvest today, same as yesterday.”
“Be there in a few minutes,” I called out after her, pulling the dresser open and picking out one of the few t-shirts I’d brought out with me at random. I had at least three sets of spare clothing with me, barring the one scratched and torn set that I’d worn throughout my little stint in the Everfree The plain white muscle tee went over my head as I tossed the grey tank top I was wearing into the waiting laundry basket (hardly a surprise the Apples had one - they may not wear a lot of clothes, but bedsheets and pillowcases are still things that need washing), and I traded the shorts I was wearing for another set of black hiking fatigues before stepping into the bathroom.
I fumbled a little bit more with the faucet, twisting it open, and once I got it running I immediately took a handful of water and splashed it over my face. The ice-cold shock did wonders in kickstarting my lagging system into work, and I took some time to scrub the rest of the sleep out of my face and eyes, grabbing a nearby towel to dry myself off. As I did so, I thought briefly about the past several days I’d spent on the farm, and figured that apart from the ungodly hours in the mornings, things probably weren’t that bad after all.
I wasn’t exactly in terrible shape - I might have been the short and skinny type, but I did my fair share of working out at the gym and went for regular (if short) runs to maintain my improvements to what would normally be incredibly shoddy stamina. Two years in the army had rendered me no stranger to grunt work, and I took the several consecutive days of shifting hay bales around the barn and lugging baskets of apples from the wagons AJ and Mac brought in from the orchard into storage right in stride.
Don’t get me wrong, the chores were all strenuous as hell, and my muscles would be screaming at the end of each day, but I gotta tell ya, the absolutely mouth-watering dinners that Granny Smith would prepare for us every sunset made every hour of back-breaking work worth it.
I swear, I had no idea a diet could consist of nothing but vegetables, fruits, and baked apple pastries and still be so gorramned delicious. I was never going to look at apple pies and apple fritters the same way ever again.
Well, that was basically how the past few days had gone down for me, and it was already day four right now. But even as I pulled my scratched and worn hiking gloves on, trudged through the kitchen, grabbed an apple for breakfast on the way out and stepped out the door to meet AJ and Mac on the porch, I still found myself not being any more of a morning person than I had been for the past three sunrises.
Hell, I squinted up at a sky that was still dark, the barest beginnings of the sunrise beginning to peek over the horizon in the form of faint pinkish rays, and the only thing I could think of at the moment was what the hell am I doing up at this hour?
Ah, right. That.
I turned to where Applejack was calling me, and saw her waving at me next to Big Mac, the hefty stallion already having hitched the wagon to his yoke and preparing to haul it off to the apple orchards. Rolling my neck around to get the last few kinks out of it, I bit into the apple in my hand again and walked off to join them in the morning chores.
The next several hours were spent doing exactly what we’d spent the past three days doing, and day four on the farm looked to be shaping up to be no different. As I followed Mac and AJ out into the fields, we would place the empty baskets from the wagon around the apple trees, and the orange cowpony would start bucking trees left and right, a majority of the apples falling neatly into the baskets while I picked up the stragglers and tossed them in. Mac would save his energy for the actual lugging around of the cart, so when it came to shifting the filled-up apple baskets back onto the wagon, the onerous task would fall to me and Applejack… but mostly me.
I thought I knew the meaning of back-breaking work right up until my first hour of apple basket lifting, and that was when I learned an all new definition to the term ‘back pains’. Still, I wasn’t anything if not fast at adapting, and soon enough I was lugging apple baskets just about as quickly as Applejack was when my out-of-practice muscles finally kicked into gear. Toss apple stragglers into baskets, lug baskets onto wagon, move on to the next batch of trees, position new empty baskets, rinse, lather, repeat.
The hours blurred past us, and I didn’t realize the sun was directly above us in its noontime position until I noticed that I was sweating buckets, and my stomach was starting to rumble something fierce. I whistled to Mac, miming taking a drink from a bottle as I did so, and the crimson stallion nodded once before reaching into his saddlebag. With a deft flick of his neck he pulled something out, and tossed me a glass bottle filled with a clear, yellow liquid that I caught out of the air.
A simple twist of my gloved hand got the bottlecap off, and I drank deeply from the bottle of the Apple family’s godlike apple juice. I’m not kidding - I’ve never tasted anything as sweet or as revitalizing as this back home. AJ’s apple juice was like the nectar of the freakin’ gods.
… Okay, that phrase sounded a lot less erotic in my head.
Despite the painful mental wince I made at such an uncouth allusion, I let out a long, satisfied burp as I finished chugging down almost half the bottle straight, and a short giggle that was abruptly cut off with a snort came from behind me. I turned around, and saw Applejack looking at me with an unabashed grin on her face. “That good, huh?”
“Best I’ve ever had.” I raised the bottle in cheers towards her, and took another generous swig. “I don’t know how you guys keep this chilled so well, but this is some divine stuff right here.”
“Well, you’ll get more of it back at the farmhouse, don’t worry,” Applejack chuckled. “But we’ve gotta finish up here first ‘fore we take a break fer lunch. Mac, reckon we’d be done soon enough?”
“Eeyup.”
That was all the answer we were going to get out of the big stallion, so after a moment I shrugged and finished off the rest of the bottle before capping it again and handing it back to Mac. He accepted the bottle without a word and placed it back inside the saddlebag, and we finished filling up the last few empty baskets we had left on the wagon before wrapping up and heading back to the farmhouse.
By the time we were back my stomach was growling like a beast out of the depths of hell itself, and I desperately tried to look innocent as Applejack gave me knowing looks out of the corner of her eye every time my belly rumbled. Mac, as usual, took everything as phlegmatically as he always did, and there wasn’t even a minute shift in his stoic exterior as he pretty much ignored my rumbling stomach, wordlessly bringing the wagon straight to the storage shed. Applejack gestured for me to follow her back into the farmhouse, and I gratefully followed, relieved simply to get out from underneath the sun and to some food into my stomach.
What I wasn't expecting to see when I walked through the doorway was a lavender mare to be sitting on the living room couch, her snout buried in a book that had probably come from the saddlebag she wore, and judging from Applejack's reaction, she was just as surprised as I was to see her.
"Twi'?" The farm pony's eyes widened in surprise. "Nopony told me you'd be swingin' by today. What brings ya over?"
"Huh?" Twilight's head jerked up from the book as though she'd just remembered where she was, and she looked over to us, lowering the reading glasses that she wore (which looked positively adorable on her by the way, but really, reading glasses? Maybe there was more to this world than what I'd seen in the show). "Oh, Applejack! Yeah, sorry about popping over unannounced, but I needed to speak to Joseph about something."
My ears perked up at that, and my eyes immediately zeroed in on her. "Is it about getting me home?"
Twilight looked mildly uneasy at that, and she fidgeted about uncomfortably. "Yeah, about that... Sorry, but I haven't really made much progress over the past few days. There's just so little information for me to go on - I was hoping that you could answer a few questions for me so that I'd know where to look better."
Something at the back of my brain started whispering to me about how odd it was that she was asking these questions only now rather than when I'd first taken up residence on the farm. Twilight was smarter than to go down on a wild information goose chase unprepared, so just what had she spent the past few days doing, if she had been 'looking for a way to send me back' like she professed?
And why would she be fidgeting uncomfortably discussing the subject anyway?
Maybe because she's hiding something. The more paranoid side of me whispered, but I viciously cast the thought aside - this was Twilight Sparkle we were talking about here! You didn't get much more Lawful Good than her unless you were Superman or Captain America or something! Besides, it wasn’t as though I could say that I wasn’t keeping secrets of my own, right? Like I was in a position to throw stones.
"Well, if you think it'll help." I shrugged, pushing my doubts aside. "I'll take whatever I can get at this point." You don't think she's gone to Princess Celestia about this, do you? Oh, shut the fuck up, brain.
“Well, he’s all yours, but don’t take too long with ‘im; we still need him for the afternoon chores,” Applejack said with a grin as she walked off to the kitchen, no doubt to grab lunch for us.
Twilight looked at me as the farmpony left the room, and the nagging sense of paranoia in the back of my head only got more intense when she said, “Joseph, do you mind if we speak in private?”
“Uhh, sure thing, I guess.” I ignored the nagging feeling and walked off to the guest bedroom I’d taken up residence in, Twilight following close behind me.
“So, how’s the past few days at Sweet Apple Acres been?” The lavender mare asked in an evident effort to make small talk.
“Pretty simple, even if the work’s a little hard. Still, it’s nothing I can’t handle,” I replied as I grabbed a towel from the dresser to wipe off the worst of the sweat and the grime, and I plopped myself down on a nearby chair. “So what was it you wanted to ask me?”
“Oh, right! Well, you see, I was looking over my books, trying to find material regarding humans so I would know more about you and where I should start looking, but most of the references are really obscure and lacking in details.” Twilight looked mildly flustered as she spoke, as though embarrassed that she’d actually been unable to find something in her books for once. “I’m not quite sure if I’m looking in the right places, so if you could give me some more information about your background and the place you came from, it would really help.”
Even as she spoke, her saddlebag lit up in her distinctive magenta aura, and after a moment a pencil and notepad came floating out. Twilight gave me an eager, enthusiastic look, and I found myself getting the feeling that this was going to be a really long interview. “So, shall we get started?”
---
I think we must’ve spent the next several hours just sitting there, with Twilight spouting off question after question regarding my background, my home... hell, pretty much my entire damn life story. I told her whatever the pertinent details were - my age, what the country I was born in was like, what kind of schooling I’d gone through in my youth, but I veered away from answering in detail whatever questions there were about my personal life; namely those about my family. As far away from home as I was, I didn’t want to dwell too much on it - the less energy I spent needlessly worrying about something I couldn’t do anything about myself, the better.
Twilight also had an endless amount of enquiries about humanity and our civilisation in general, but I avoided answering those questions in detail like the plague - I sure as hell didn’t have the energy to answer questions as complex and all-encompassing as that. Applejack came in with lunch about half an hour into the interview, chuckling to herself about how Twilight was getting carried away before letting me know that she had the rest of the day’s chores covered, so I could take my time with Twilight.
While the whole interview thing was going down, I found myself with my first chance to observe the lavender filly up close and personal, and it was for the first time since meeting her did I realize one very important fact - she didn’t have wings. The Twilight Sparkle sitting before me was still just a unicorn, and that alone was a pretty good indication of when I was in Equestria.
“So, let me try and sum this up,” Twilight said as she tapped the back tip of her pencil against her lip thoughtfully, an oddly human gesture. “You’re saying that you’re just a regular person born in a moderately well-known city in your civilisation: Singapore, as you called it, before moving to another nation that your species calls ‘the United States of America’, and you’re considered a young adult where you came from. You’re an only child, but you have a handful of close friends that you keep in touch with, am I right?"
“Mhmm.” I nodded, taking another sip from the bottle of apple cider Applejack had brought in with lunch. A salad, some tofu, a side of cashew nuts and a slice of apple pie were hardly what I’d consider satisfying after going so long without having some meat, but as long as it was food going into my belly, I could hardly complain.
“And you spent a couple of years drafted into your country’s military, the Singapore Armed Forces as you called it, as an officer, but it didn’t really stick to your lifestyle, correct?”
“That’s pretty much it.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t stand taking orders from the top and being expected to follow them blindly, so I decided to strike out on my own first chance I got. They don’t have conscription over here?”
“No, we don’t.” Twilight gave me a bemused smile. “The Royal Guard is an all-volunteer unit, and their training is really rigorous, so only the best of the best can join them. It helps that everypony who signs up to join has made the choice to commit their lives to that path - otherwise, I think the dropout rate would be a lot higher than it is right now!”
“Kind of figures…” I muttered darkly. “Doesn’t really help that more than half the regulars in my country’s army signed on only because of the pay…”
The unicorn cocked her head curiously at me. “What do you mean by that?”
I opened my mouth right there and then, almost ready to launch into a tirade about how money was the motivation for pretty much everything back in the country I was born in until the government had to go to the lengths of dangling inordinate amounts of money in front of its citizens in order to convince them to sign up for the armed forces, but I bit it off at the last second. I didn’t want to sound bitter or anything, and it was also more than likely it was just my leftover biases against my two years of national service speaking out here. No need to pile all of that negative energy right onto Twilight.
“... Nah, it’s nothing.” I waved it off, eager to change the topic. “Forget I said anything.”
The lavender unicorn looked at me oddly, but didn’t pursue the subject. “Okay then… So what did you spend your years doing after you finished your stint in the army?”
“Not much, actually.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s only been two years since I finished my service. I was still unemployed at the time, so I moved to the States hoping to find an education in the arts and getting a job somewhere that involved designing stuff."
"Oh, so you were some sort of aspiring artist, then?"
“In a manner of speaking,” I said with a grin, doubting that she’d understand what I meant if I said that the design part mostly had to do with designing video games - a career path that pretty much embodied my childhood hobby of gaming. "Like I said, the army just wasn't for me. I might be a military enthusiast, but I'm an arts person to the core. I couldn't live the lifestyle of a military guy even if my life depended on it."
"Sounds like you'll get along just fine with Rarity as a fellow designer, then," Twilight chuckled, levitating the daffodil sandwich she'd packed for lunch to her mouth to take another bite out of it. "She's a dress designer, and she's one of the best that I've ever seen. Some of her designs have even made it to be featured in Canterlot's top fashion brands!"
Ew dresses. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a beautiful woman in an evening gown at any time, but appreciating a dress required a woman to be filling it out first before I could start appreciating said dress on my part. Dress designing sans said woman still sounded too girly for something I wanted to be associated with myself, and I still had my male pride. Still, I stoically kept the grimace from showing on my face with a forced smile, and shrugged.
“She sounds like a great lady - I wouldn’t mind getting to know her.” Well, barring the fact that I already knew pretty much everything important there was to know about all of them, but I wasn’t about to say that.
“I’ll see if I can arrange a meeting between the rest of us again sometime soon.” Twilight’s eyes twinkled as she smiled, and I have absolutely no idea how I managed to notice that but something about the way she was looking at me reminded of how Dumbledore’s eyes were described to twinkle in the Harry Potter books whenever he was hinting at something he knew that Harry didn’t. Suddenly, I felt very much like the aforementioned teenage wizard at the moment. “In the meantime, I think that’s all I need from you right now. Thank you so much for your time, Joseph, this information is going to be a great help in finding out more about where you came from - we should be able to start helping you get back in a few more days!”
“Not a problem,” I replied distractedly, still being bothered by the nagging sensation that there was something I was missing here, and Twilight wasn’t telling me everything. Nevertheless, I still got up from my chair to shake Twilight's hoof as she packed her saddlebags, readying herself to depart. "So you'll let me know once you've found a lead on getting me home, right?"
“Of course!” Twilight answered a tad too quickly for my liking, and my suspicion only grew. “Don’t worry too much about it, once I’ve got something you’ll be the first to know.”
The purple mare left the room as I took a glance at the clock, and noted with mild surprise that it was already four in the afternoon. I heard Twilight bidding goodbye to Applejack before there was the distinctive swing of the main door opening and closing, and when I stepped out of the guest bedroom, I saw the orange cowpony already waiting for me in the corridor, eyeing me with a sardonic grin.
“So, ah see Twilight seems ta have taken an interest in ya.” The cowpony remarked idly, leaning casually against the wall. “Ah haven’t seen that girl that curious about someone since the first time she saw Zecora come into town.”
It took nearly all my willpower not to casually remark on having seen that before, and I merely arched an innocent eyebrow in response. Thankfully my poker face seemed to have been sufficient, because Applejack simply shrugged and turned around. “Well, Mac and I have finished up most of today’s harvest, and we can wrap the rest up ourselves over the next couple of hours. Take the rest of the day off till dinner, Joe - ah think you’ve earned it.”
I blinked - well, that was unexpected. “Uhh, thanks, I guess?” I called out after her, and once she was out of sight I retreated back into the guest bedroom, flopping down onto the bed and sighing as my aching muscles cried out in relief. My hand reached out to grab my iPhone where I’d left it on the bedside table, and I started scrolling idly through the screens.
Something curious I’d noticed about it was how ever since I’d come to Equestria, the phone never seemed to run out of battery. In fact, it seemed to be in a perpetually charging state, always maintaining itself at a hundred percent charge no matter what I did with it and how many apps or videos I was running at the same time. I didn’t exactly understand why it was so, but then again I was in a land of talking magical ponies - a perpetually charging phone was the least of all the supposedly fantastical things I’ve seen so far.
I wasn’t about to question it either, so what I did was to instead take full advantage of the fact, and I spent the next couple of hours lounging on the bed with my earphones plugged in as I fired up my video player and started rewatching several episodes of Attack on Titan.
A couple of hours later, I’d just about reached the part where Mikasa had been cornered on both sides by the two titans, the mortal enemies of mankind in the series, and this was where watching this particular episode became very satisfying for me. As I watched, the stoic young woman on the screen let out a stirring battle cry in what would have certainly seemed like a final blaze of glory as she prepared to charge… right before the foot of the titan behind her crashed into the ground right at her feet, tossing her into the air.
And then it proceeded to completely ignore her as it continued on to deliberately smash its fist right into the face of the other titan, punching it right in the kisser and sending it’s entire head flying.
“What the hay!? Ah thought titans were the enemy!?”
I jerked violently in place as the iPhone nearly went flying out of my hands, and I snapped my head around with a surprised yelp to see Applebloom staring at me over my shoulder with an incredulous expression on her face.
“JESUS CHRIST HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN STANDING THERE!!?” I nearly screamed as I tried to calm myself down. I’ve never been one to deal with sudden shocks well, and I usually went with one of two reactions: either I completely go stock, stone-still, completely freezing up while I tried to think of how I was supposed to react, or I would jerk violently into motion and start freaking the fuck out.
In this case, it was pretty much the latter.
“Ah’ve been here since ya started watching those moving pictures on that doohickey of yours!” Applebloom protested with a pout. “Ah couldn’t hear anything cos of those thingies ya got plugged into yer ears, but ah can read just fine! Them words on that there screen told me everythin’ ah needed ta know about what was goin’ on. Ah kinda figured the story out as you were watchin’, but there’s still one thing ah don’t get, Joe: what’re Titans?”
Emperor preserve me. I briefly considered telling her about the series, and had, for just one horrifying moment, a vision of three hyperactive fillies jumping in the air screaming ‘CUTIE MARK CRUSADER TITAN SLAYERS YAY!!!’
“Applebloom,” I began firmly but gently, trying to slowly guide her away from the idea that what she had just seen on screen was another chance at getting her cutie mark. “Titans are completely fictional creatures to my kind, and what you just saw was essentially a… recorded play, if you could call it that. It’s a work of fiction back where I come from, and basically it can’t be done in real life. There’s never been a cutie mark for titan slaying, after all.”
“Oh… Ah see...” The little filly’s ears drooped noticeably at the mention of the lack of a cutie mark, but she continued looking at me curiously regardless. “So, the whole thing you were watching, it’s kinda like a story, then?”
“Pretty much.” I nodded. “Still, just because it didn’t actually happen doesn’t make it any less awesome to watch, though.”
Applebloom nodded, her expression one of dawning comprehension. “Yeah, kinda like those Daring Do books Rainbow Dash is always reading!”
“Exactly like that.” I nodded, and the filly’s expression brightened considerably.
“That’s so cool!” Applebloom gushed. “Are there any more stories like this back from where you came from?”
“More than I can count.” I grinned. “I only know just handful, but-”
“Hey Joe! Applebloom! Dinner’s ready, come on out here!” Applejack’s voice called out from outside.
“Comin’!” Applebloom shouted right back, abruptly jumping off the bed and cantering out of the room. “C’mon, Joe! Granny Smith’s makin’ us apple fritters tonight! You can tell us more stories from your home at dinner!”
My rumbling stomach was all the motivation I needed to haul myself off the bed and onto my feet. Apple fritters sounded like a positively heavenly prospect right now, and even if I was going to be eating vegetarian sandwiches and salads, the baked apple goods made it all worthwhile.
---
Ten minutes later, I was at the dinner table alongside the rest of the Apples, with Applebloom and Applejack roaring with laughter as I continued on through my recount of what I remembered as hands-down the funniest scene ever in Bruce Almighty, barely keeping my laughter in check myself. “So Bruce is basically screwing around with Evan while he’s in the middle of a live broadcast - everyone in that city can see what’s going on. And he’s using his powers as God to edit the script on the fly, so essentially you have a pretty much standard news script suddenly being changed into “The prime minister of Sweden visited Washington today, while my tiny little nipples went to France.”
Applejack burst out into a fresh series of guffaws as Applebloom nearly fell off her seat shrieking with laughter, and even Mac and Granny Smith were grinning. “And the best part is, those exact words are showing up on the prompter.” I continued with a mad grin on my face, going on with the re-enactment. “The White House reception committee greeted the Prime Rib Roast Minister and I do the cha cha like a sissy girl.”
By this point, Applejack was pounding the table with a hoof as she practically howled, and Mac actually snorted into his salad.
“So imagine the guy in charge of producing the entire thing looking over his script, and then realizing that the whole thing has just edited itself right in front of his face.” I adopted my best ‘dafuq?’ expression, and this time Applebloom really did fall off her seat. “And imagine what Bruce makes him do next?”
“Ah can’t… Oh stars ah can’t breathe…” Applejack wheezed, still cackling wildly. “And what… what did he make Evan do next?”
I cleared my throat, made a few sounds, and then proceeded on to recite the most hilariously nonsensical bout of gibberish I had ever taken the time to sadly memorize (seriously, I have no idea how Steve Carell does it). By the end of the entire thing the two youngest siblings of the Apple family were rolling about on the floor in stitches, and even Mac was sniggering. Granny Smith was giving me a vaguely disapproving look, probably at the brand of the humor, but there was no denying the smile she had on her face looking at her grandkids having so much fun.
“Oh, geez.” Applejack climbed back onto her seat with visible effort, still in a fit of giggles. “Oh, my sides… Joe, you are one hay of a riot, ah’ll give ya that. Between this and the work you’re helpin’ us get done on the farm, ya just might become an honorary Apple family member. It’s a real shame Twi’s gonna have ta send ya back in a few days.”
My expression froze at her words, and I tried my best not to let anything show outwardly as I nervously laughed it off. It was obvious that she was just joking about the family member part, but I nevertheless couldn’t suppress the cold shiver that slithered up my spine.
The mere mention of family reminded me of exactly why I had to get back home as soon as possible - Mom, Dad, and my friends were probably worried sick about not having heard from me by now, having been missing from my hiking trip for days. That, and becoming an honorary Apple family member pretty much meant that I could then become obliged to stay in Equestria - as much as I loved it here, I sure as hell didn’t want to spent the rest of my life in a world of technicolour ponies when I had my own family waiting for me back home.
“Well, I’m pretty sure we can figure out some way to keep in touch,” I replied in a rather half-hearted platitude - I wasn’t even sure how cross-world communication could be managed, even if Twilight probably had some magic spell that could do just that. I certainly didn’t. Still, Applejack seemed satisfied with my answer, and dinner continued on with me regaling them with more ‘outlandish tales from my land’, which was basically me retelling them the plots of the various comedy, science fiction and fantasy movies that I’ve watched over the years.
What they didn’t know was that I’d actually spent the rest of the entire night hiding my thoughts behind a dissembled mask of joviality. While I busied myself with telling jokes and recounting stories, I desperately tried not to think about the possibility that I might be stuck here for good, and by the time we had all retired to our rooms for the night, the mask fell and the sombreness took over.
As I gazed up at the moon through the window, I couldn’t help but wonder if Twilight really was making progress in finding me a way back. The feelings of suspicion I’d experienced during that little ‘interview’ I’d had with her certainly didn’t help her case much either. More than anything, I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding that things weren’t going to be that simple.
“Y’know, Princess Luna…” I muttered up at the moon I was staring at whimsically, sighing. “I don’t know if you’re listening or anything, or if you even know I’m here. But if you are… I’d really appreciate it if you and your sister could do something about getting me back. Not that I wanna rush you or anything but, uhh… Yeah.” I finished lamely, rubbing the back of my head.
I wasn’t even really expecting a reply, honestly - I was just rambling introspectively to myself at that point. As I turned over on my bed and pulled the covers over myself, I shut out all thoughts regarding home and how I was going to return, simply concentrating on getting some rest for the next day ahead.
And I had absolutely no way of knowing it at the time, but as it turned out, somebody was listening.
---
Day Five on the farm now. The next morning, I was in the midst of taking a short break when I caught sight of my first pony outside of the Apple family in days. I was sitting on the porch with a bottle of apple juice in hand when I saw a tiny little blip of grey approaching the fence gate where the mailbox was. As the little blip got closer I noticed the little dash of golden-blonde that decorated the top of its head, and I froze for a second.
On the one hand, I was technically supposed to be keeping a low profile, and as few ponies as possible were supposed to even catch sight of me - the less mouths there were to spread around rumors, the better.
But on the other hand, HOLY CRAP IT’S DERPY!!!
While I sat there for several moments, caught in a bout of indecision, the grey-and-blonde blip resolved itself into the tiny but visible outline of a pegasus, and it approached the mailbox, opening it up to evidently deliver the letters for the day. I saw its head tilt in my direction, and I could just imagine the curiosity behind the gesture before it raised a foreleg at me, waving back and forth.
Completely nonplussed at the completely normal and shockingly human gesture, I numbly waved back before my brain had even processed the fact, and only after she had left did I realize what had just happened.
Derpy had just waved hi to me.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE- *ahem*.
I made several furtive glances around, and thankfully, nobody had been around to witness my little squee-ing fit. Now that I thought about it, it seemed a little odd that a pony outside of the mane six had caught sight of me, and not freaked the fuck out.
… Huh. Did that mean that Twilight had already succeeded in easing in my introduction to the rest of Ponyville?
The thought stayed with me even until hours later, while I was busy loading up the apple wagon again with Big Mac and Applejack. I must have been showing at least some of my pensiveness on my face, because Applejack eyed me curiously for a couple of seconds before speaking up. “Hey, Joe. You feelin’ all right there? Yer lookin’ mighty distracted - bit fer yer thoughts?”
“Huh?” I blinked, looking at Applejack as though I’d just remembered she was there. “Oh, just thinking about how I spotted Derpy at the mailbox today. She waved at me before heading off - has Twilight eased my introduction in to the town already?”
Applejack gave me a very odd look, and she set down the basket of apples that she had been carrying. “Derpy? You mean Ditzy Doo, right? How do you know her? Ah don’t remember ever tellin’ you about her, or her nickname.”
I froze for a millisecond as I realized what I had just said, and then my brain started racing for an explanation. Oh crap, how could I forget about the fact that I was supposed to not know a majority of the townsfolk here when I was a newcomer!?
“Well, uh, Twilight told me about her when she came over,” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Applejack hadn’t been around when Twilight and I had spent hours just going over my background, there was no way she could possibly know what we had actually discussed. “She told me she was gonna start slowly introducing me to the town soon, so she thought I should know who’s who first.”
Applejack’s raised eyebrow didn’t lower itself, but she seemed to take my lie at face value as she shrugged. I got the feeling that she didn’t fully believe me, but she didn’t pursue the subject, and that was all I needed. The next few hours passed by in the silence that normally accompanied intense work, and the sun was high over us at noontime when I felt the inexplicable sensation of someone’s eyes on me.
I looked around for Big Mac and Applejack, but the both of them were faced away from me, busy with their respective duties. That bugging sensation still refused to go away however, and in a flash of insight I finally deigned to look upwards.
There was only a single lone cloud up in the sky, and where else could it have possibly been but right above us? Because over the edge of the cloud I could see a flash of rainbow topping a cyan-blue head, and a pair of rose-colored eyes watched me from on high with no small amount of hostility evident within them.
“Uh, Applejack?” The orange mare looked over to me, and I pointed upwards at the cloud. “Is that normal?”
“Huh?” Applejack gave me a nonplussed look, and only when she looked upwards did her eyes widen in understanding. “Oh, right. Don’t mind Rainbow Dash, she does this to everypony new she meets that she doesn’t trust. Hay, if ah remember correctly, she thought Twilight was a spy that time Nightmare Moon tried to take over. First day she’d even met the girl and she was already gettin’ up in her face about it, heh.”
The cowfilly let out a little chuckle, and she grinned at me casually. “Don’t you worry about it none, Joe. Dash’ll come around soon enough, and she’ll see that ya ain’t so bad after all.”
“As long as she doesn’t buck me in the face again until then,” I muttered wryly as I glanced at the cloud again, and saw Rainbow Dash glare at me threateningly before pointing at her eyes with a forehoof, and then pointing towards me again.
There wasn’t much translation needed for the universal sign of I’m Watching You. Rolling my eyes, I shrugged off the exasperation that came with it and soldiered on with the rest of the harvest alongside Mac and AJ. It wasn’t long before we were done with the share of the harvest they had planned for the afternoon, and I followed them back to the farmhouse, sipping from another bottle of apple juice. The sensation of eyes upon my back still refused to go away however, even by the time we reached the barn - I looked upwards, and just as I thought, Rainbow Dash’s cloud was following us, the pegasus mare still watching me with truculent eyes.
“Ah’m gonna help Mac out with unloading the cart first,” Applejack suddenly said as she split off to walk with her brother. “You head on back to the farmhouse, go get yourself some lunch.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I blurted out as I realized just where that left me. “What about-”
“Oh, you’ll be fine, Joe.” Applejack smirked back at me as she walked off with Mac. “Rainbow Dash doesn’t bite. A few minutes alone with her hoverin’ over yer head ain’t gonna kill ya.”
‘Says you.’ I thought sourly to myself as I began trudging in the direction of the farmhouse, and just as I expected, Rainbow Dash’s cloud continued trailing after me.
After a couple of moments of enduring the prickling sensation of her gaze upon the back of my neck, I decided I’d finally had enough of this passive-aggressive nonsense. Halfway to the house, I stopped in my tracks and turned to face the cloud. I raised a hand, and beckoned downwards with a finger.
The cloud abruptly disappeared in a puff of white, and a cyan blur leaving behind a prismatic trail streaked down towards me. Just a mere second later Rainbow Dash landed heavily on the ground in front of me, folding in her wings in a manner that oddly reminded me of someone crossing their arms, and she eyed me with the same kind of look one would give a particularly nasty bug. “What do you want, monkey?”
I sighed, again resisting the urge to apply palm to forehead. I seemed to be doing that a lot in her presence lately. Whatever, this dumbass back-and-forth of a one-sided cold war she seemed determined to wage with me was a waste of time and energy that I had no intention of dragging on. I had to put an end to it as soon as possible. “Look, Rainbow Dash, you and I both know that I’m pretty much harmless, and I’m not going to hurt you or any of your friends. You can see that I’m getting along pretty well with Applejack, and Twilight was just over to interview me yesterday. Why are you still treating me like I’m some kind of monster in disguise that you’re just waiting to beat up?”
Up until now, I had never thought it possible for Rainbow Dash to have such a capacity for bitchiness, but her next words proved me absolutely wrong. “You may have the others fooled, buddy, but I’m not gonna be taken in so easily. You’re dangerous, and nothing is gonna change my mind about that. I saw the remains of that giant timber wolf you killed - there is no way you could have done that with your bare hooves.”
The hot-headed pegasus took several steps closer to me, and she shoved a hoof in my chest, prodding aggressively. “You might look harmless, but I know what you’re really capable of. And you can bet that I’m not going to be letting you hurt my friends - not on my watch.”
A vein in my forehead twitched, and I desperately tried to fight down the instinctive urge of retaliatory hostility that threatened to rise up in me. I nearly slapped away her hoof on instinct, but thankfully, clearer heads managed to prevail, and I instead set my hand on her foreleg and gently but firmly pushed it aside.
“Rainbow Dash, if I wanted to hurt your friends, trust me, I could have done so days ago when I first arrived here.” I tried to keep the exasperation out of my voice, trying to keep as patient as possible. “Come on, cut me some slack here. I’m God knows how far from my home, I don’t know anybody else around here, and Applejack’s been kind enough to take me in while Twilight helps me look for a way back. What makes you think I would even want to do anything to hur-”
Before I could even get any further, there was a sudden shout, and a crash from the direction of the storage shed behind the barn. Rainbow Dash’s head whirled around simultaneously with mine to the source of the noise, and the two of us glanced at each other for only a second before we both took off at the same time for the shed.
Both of us could recognize the sound of Applejack screaming when we heard it.
The pegasus blitzed straight ahead of me as she took flight with her wings, and she disappeared around the corner before I had even gone five paces, even while at a dead sprint. As I rounded around the corner mere seconds later, I heard more shouts and crashes, and one other sound that unnerved the hell out of me - the sound of skittering legs and buzzing wings.
“Mac, don’t let ‘em reach the shed! If they do, our tools are gonna be goners! Darn it, Rainbow, ah said get back! Somethin’s making ‘em more aggressive than usual this time!”
“Like hay I will! I helped you chase the rust beetles off the last time, and I’m gonna do it again!”
Rust beetles? “Guys, what the hell is going on her- JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE THINGS!?”
I turned around the corner, and nearly fell flat on my ass in shock when I caught sight of what the commotion was all about and almost shat my pants. I thought I’d seen the worst of it all during my traipse through the Everfree, but apparently fate had seen fit to throw another curveball my way.
Let it be known that giant fucking bugs are one of the creepiest thing you will ever fucking see, period. When I turned around the corner, I saw Applejack, Macintosh and Rainbow Dash all simultaneously facing off against a pair of the biggest freakin’ beetles I had ever seen, each of them about the size of a small bear. True to the name I had heard Rainbow Dash call them, their exoskeleton was a shade of rusty reddish-brown, and the mere sight of the pair of giant insects made my flesh scream and my fingers itch desperately for either my shotgun, or the world’s biggest can of bug spray.
At the sound of my voice, Applejack’s gaze shot up from the rust beetle she was staring down, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Joe? What the hay are you doin’ here? Git goin’, tell Granny and Applebloom not to come out until we’ve dealt with these varmints!”
The two Apple siblings had positioned themselves firmly between the rust beetles and the storage shed, fiercely cutting off any attempt to approach the tiny little building with powerful, vicious bucks to their chitinous little heads. The fully-loaded apple wagon stood forgotten off to the side, and curiously, the rust beetles made absolutely no attempt to approach it. In fact, they seemed to have eyes only for the storage shed, which I knew contained lots of farming tools and equipment that had loads of metal parts.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash zipped about the beetles while in the air, raining down blows upon them in a manner that looked a lot like some form of aerial jousting. She would streak by a beetle, landing a solid kick with her hind legs as she veered past it, and then immediately dart out of the way before it could lash out in retaliation with its clicking pincer-jaws, hovering just out of reach for a second before diving in to repeat the process.
The entire thing, however, seemed to be accomplishing little more than giving the beetles minor bruises given their thick carapace, and I had no idea how they intended to fight them off if this was the kind of damage they were doing.
“Ow! What the hay, AJ!?” Rainbow Dash yelped out as one of the pincers came a little too close to catching her, and she darted away with a long line of crimson decorating her hind leg. “They should’ve been scared off by now with the beating we just dished out! What gives!?”
“Ah don’t know, for some reason they’re a lot more persistent than usual this time!” Applejack yelled back in a panic as she dodged another snap of the second beetle’s jaws, and she looked over to me with a wild look in her eyes. “Joe, what the hay are you doin’ just standin’ there!? Get outta here, yer not prepared to fight these things!”
I barely even heard Applejack’s words. My mind was too busy recoiling in horror and disgust at the sight of the two oversized insects, their buzzing wings and chittering cries resonating through my head, setting my teeth painfully on edge and sending my skin crawling.
Right at that moment I wanted nothing more than to just scream out in gibbering hysterics while running as fucking far away as I possibly could from the abominations of nature, but the sight of Applejack and Rainbow Dash standing fast in the face of the threat rooted my feet to the spot. I couldn’t just run and leave them now, could I? Not when two girls were facing down a pair of giant bugs, displaying more giant brass balls than I’d seen most men even possess in my lifetime.
Call me a neanderthal, but I absolutely refused to be showed up in that department. If there’s ever a woman in distress, it is my function as a man to leap into the fray and solve the problem with extreme prejudice, period.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t be smart about it, however.
My legs braced themselves, and then I took off back towards the farmhouse in a dead sprint.
---
“What the hay!? Where does he think he’s going?” Rainbow Dash cried out as she watched Joseph abruptly turn tail and run back to the farmhouse. “I knew that dirty coward would leave us out to dry!”
“Oh, shut up, Rainbow Dash!” Applejack retorted sharply as she cut off another advance from one of the beetles with a powerful buck. “You know he can’t possibly fight these things off, not like we can! If he tries to help us, he’s only gonna get himself hurt! Ah’m not gonna have his injuries on mah conscience just because of yer misguided sense of machismo!”
Rainbow Dash had no choice but to grit her teeth in silent, grudging agreement with what Applejack had said. Still, there was no denying that something was seriously amiss here. Given the kind of beating they’d been dishing out, the rust beetles should have been chased off by now already, but the giant bugs still seemed as determined as ever to get to the shed and the metallic meals that their diets made them crave so much.
Spinning around, Applejack delivered a powerful kick to the side of one of the bugs that would have punched a hole in the barn wall, but there was nothing more than a dull thud and a minute shift in the beetle’s sizeable mass, its chitinous shell shrugging off the blow. Normally however, that would have been sufficient to discourage the beetle from any further attempts at the shed. But she had already landed at least four other such kicks, and the beetles still refused to give up and go home. “Consarnit! Mac, this ain’t going so well!”
“Eeyup.” Her brother agreed as he whirled around and bucked the other beetle in the face just as it surged forward again, sending it stumbling backwards chittering. The big stallion made to retreat back to his sister’s side, when the second beetle abruptly came barrelling towards his open flank from the side.
“Mac! Look out!!” Before he could even react, a prismatic blur slammed into his side, and he found himself being knocked out of the way. Macintosh landed heavily on his side with a loud ‘oof!’, and when he looked up he heard Applejack scream, and saw Rainbow Dash pinned beneath the massive bulk of the beetle that had rushed him. The pegasus mare was screaming as the beetle reared over her, and its pincer-like jaws opened, moments away from descending upon her.
Mac knew he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing - he immediately got his hooves under himself, and was in the midst of preparing himself to lunge forward and bull rush the beetle’s jaws out of the way when there was a sudden, tremendous blast of noise that sounded like Pinkie’s party cannon, but multiplied by a million times in volume.
And then the beetle’s entire head exploded in a shower of yellowish ichor.
Rainbow Dash’s screams grew even louder as the ichor splattered all over her, turning into a disgusted mantra of “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew ,ew”, and Mac saw the second beetle turn towards the source of the noise, screeching in what he could have sworn was surprise - right before there was second deafening BOOM! just like the first one, and the second beetle’s head exploded as well, its hefty bulk collapsing to the ground beneath it like a limp ton of bricks.
Mac burst into action. The stallion’s forelegs shot forward, grabbing Rainbow Dash, and he snatched her out from beneath the first beetle’s bulk before it could collapse on her as well. As the dust settled from the encounter, all three ponies turned towards the source of the cannon-like blasts, and stared in mute shock as they saw Joseph holding up the long, metallic stick that he had called a ‘shotgun’, the tips of its twin barrels smoking.
“So big…” The human muttered in a detached monotone as he eyed the carcasses of the rust beetles, and he lowered the shotgun from his shoulder, nothing but frigid ice showing from his eyes. “So angry… so dead.”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were still so shaken from the pegasus’ narrow escape, that only Big Mac had the presence of mind to notice that despite Joseph’s outward nonchalance, the young man’s hands were beginning to shake.