//------------------------------// // Applejack - One // Story: Garbled // by Drizzle Quill //------------------------------// Garbled By Drizzle Quill Applejack One Applejack hovered nervously by the edge of the door, biting her lip but being careful not to pierce the skin and draw blood. One ear twitched as she attempted to hear what was going on inside her sister’s room, though she knew it wouldn’t change. She could still only hear crying. Crying and crying and crying. She took a few steps towards the door, then stopped and backed away. She inhaled and stepped forward again before faltering, not for the first, or second, or even fifteenth time. But somepony had to do something. The fillies had been in there for hours, and as far as Applejack knew, the crying hadn’t stopped. It was a wonder there wasn’t water leaking out under the door by this point. Lifting her trembling hoof, Applejack knocked, loud and hard, three times. The crying hesitated, followed by a loud sniffle. “W-Will you tell her to g-go away?” came the trembling, high-pitched voice of Sweetie Belle, trying to speak in a whispering voice but failing horribly. “She’s mah sister; she needs to know.” This was clearly Apple Bloom; Applejack tipped her head to one side, mouth curving into an even further dissatisfied frown. What exactly were the two fillies hiding? “B-But what if I d-don’t want her to know?” “Shh, she’ll hear you!” Shaking her head, Applejack nudged the door partway ajar and cupped her hoof to her muzzle, calling out softly, “Girls? Are y’all alright in there?” It took a few seconds for either one to reply, before Apple Bloom called out hesitantly, “Um, sis? Ah don’t think you can come inside right now. It’s just…it’s not a good idea.” “Are you hurt?” Applejack felt a rush of panic surge through her at the thought of the two little fillies curled up, alone and hurt and sad, and nearly bucked the door down right there and then to zoom to their protection. “No, we’re fine.” The panic vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by a nagging, dissatisfying upset deep in the bottom of Applejack’s stomach, weighing her down like a stone in a river. Unable to keep the concern from her voice, she called out again. “Is there anything Ah can do to help you?” Sweetie Belle answered this time, in a high-pitched squeak. “No.” “You just want me to go away, then?” Her voice hesitated, but the answer was firm. “Yes.” Applejack sighed, lowering her head. “Alright, then. Suppose y’all win. Ah’ll be seeing you around then, Ah hope.” There was no response from the room except for the squeak of a door being closed and the muffled sound of a filly’s heartbroken sobs as Applejack slowly trudged away, feeling like even more of a failure than she was already. She went to the kitchen, and there was Big Mac, resting with a glass of apple cider resting against one hoof; he stared off into space as if lost in his own little world that nopony else could see, which, most of the time, he was. With a loud, dejected sigh, AJ trotted over and gestured at the cider. “Mac.” He looked up at her, lifting an eyebrow. “Eeyup?” “Do we have any more of that stuff?” Big Mac shook his head. “Nope.” Applejack groaned. “Where’d it all go? Ah could have sworn we just made a fresh batch yesterday an’ it’s gone already? ” Her brother shook his head in sad realization. “Rainbow,” was the only word that escaped his mouth. AJ grit her teeth, annoyance flooding throughout her and making her head pound like crazy. “Of course it was Dash. Could swear she has an obsession with the drink. An’ didn’t she just get back from her trip with Fluttershy last night?” Big Mac rolled his eyes and took a sip of the cider, staring up at the ceiling again. “Eeyup.” Mumbling about how she would have to have a serious talk with that mare later on, Applejack frantically searched the cupboards for any other sort of apple-related relief. Cider would have been ideal – over years of making it, one soon discovered it helped drown your sorrows in a few sips of the jug, the sweet taste and glorious sensation soon overtaking any other emotions – but a nice fresh slice of zap apple pie would do just fine as well. As Applejack began to cut her slice out of the rainbow-fruited delicacy, Big Mac snapped out of his dreamland once more to ask a single worded question. “Sweetie?” Bucking the door closed with one well-placed kick, AJ shook her head. “Couldn’t get to her, and Bloom wouldn’t let me in. Such a sweet little filly doesn’t deserve to feel so sad, you know.” Mac nodded, gulping another sip of his cider. Though he didn’t speak in words, Applejack knew her brother well enough to know that there were plenty of things he thought could be said – they just weren’t necessary right that second. That was the rule he lived by – only say the things necessary to the moment – and though it made him seem quiet and awkward to others, Applejack only loved him the more for it. They sat together at the table, brother and sister, one with a drink and another a food, both lost in their own worlds, both not quite sure where to begin. For AJ, as she rested her head on the table, knew what would happen now. No matter how much she tried to avoid it, she would think of the train. She always thought of the train. Misunderstandings and upset feelings. Damaged friendships and hurt emotions. Scarred memories, scarred with a knife hungry for blood and ready for more at the drop of a misspoken phrase. Applejack had not spoken to Rarity for three days. It felt like three years. And all of a sudden, she shook her head. “You know what?” she said to Big Mac, who blinked and turned her direction, lifting an eyebrow inquisitively. “You know what Ah’m going to do?” He looked at her for a long while, and then said, a hint of hope in his voice, “What’s right?” “Abso-pony-lutely,” she replied, and though her tone was humorous, no hint of Applejack’s trademark grin appeared on her face. “Wish me luck, Mac. Probably shouldn’t be doin’ this, but it’s right, you know?” Big Mac looked at her and simply shrugged. It was how most conversations between them went, and Applejack would never have it any other way. Feeling the adrenaline rush surge through her, pumping her hooves forward to the room of her sister, she felt determined. Not happy. Not proud. Just determined. “Sweetie Belle? Apple Bloom? Ah know you’re in there. Now let me in before Ah buck the door down. If something serious is going on, Ah need to know.” There was no hint of the previous nervousness in Applejack’s voice; no hesitation. Just a firm rumble deep in her throat meaning she knew what she was doing and she meant it. When there was no response from the room she rapped the wooden door again. “Sweetie? Bloom? Come on, now.” “Uh, can you give us a minute?” Apple Bloom’s rushed voice called out. Applejack lifted an eyebrow. “A minute?” “Maybe like twenty or thirty or an hour minutes,” Sweetie Belle replied loudly. There was the sound of something heavy, perhaps a book, slamming into something else, perhaps a pony. “You dimwit,” Apple Bloom sighed. “There’s no such thing as hour minutes.” “But Rarity told me-” All motion in the room suddenly seemed to stop, quite abruptly. At the mention of the white unicorn, Applejack felt her chest freeze up; it felt as if she couldn’t breathe, and apparently the fillies in the same room felt the same way, because they had stopped all of their chatter. Sweetie Belle sniffed. A silent invitation to enter. Slowly Applejack nudged the door open and walked inside. Sweetie Belle lay huddled in a tight ball on Apple Bloom’s bed, eyes puffy and red from tears, some of which were still hovering in her eyes. Her mane was tangled and looked worse than AJ had ever seen it before, and that was most certainly saying something coming from her, the pony who couldn’t care less about another’s appearance. As the orange mare came closer, the filly looked up, and her lip trembled. Apple Bloom sat next to her, a hoof on her back, looking as if she was about to burst out crying herself. “Sweetie Belle, Ah need to know what’s going on.” It was a tone of voice Applejack used quite a bit – the gentle but firm this is important voice. The unicorn filly trembled, teeth chattering. “It’s R-Rarity.” Applejack’s ears flattened against her head; she narrowed one eye, lifting the other eyebrow: a perfect expression of confusion. “Rare?” The nickname hurt her to say, bringing back memories of misspoken phrases, words not meant, a train that just kept on going, but, miraculously, she continued without flinching. “What’s wrong with her?” “She’s b-been acting d-different,” Sweetie continued, lip wobbling insecurely. “Locks herself in her room and cries for a long, long time. Hardly does any of her work. Ignores all of her visitors. And she…she ignores me! And she yells at me! And she…and she…” Sweetie Belle’s voice cracked. “And I don’t know why , Applejack. Why does she suddenly hate everything? Why does she suddenly hate…hate me?” There was another silence, a much more awkward and prominent one. Applejack swallowed, forcing the saliva in her throat to go down, and though the saliva was gone, the lump stubbornly remained. “Well, Ah…Ah sure don’t know. That sounds like quite the trouble you’re having, Sweetie. An’ Ah really have no idea why—” “You knew her when she was little, right?” The question startled Applejack; she even jerked back a little bit in surprise. “Um, yeah, Ah did. We were friends when we were…shucks, it had to have been when we were your age. Good times, those days.” Sweetie Belle rolled over so that she could face Applejack more directly. “So don’t you know her super-duper well?” “Ah wouldn’t say that… ” “Please, Applejack! Isn’t there some way to make her go back to normal?” AJ bit her lip and inhaled. Sweetie Belle’s green eyes wavered slightly; she glanced down at the bed, and Apple Bloom put a comforting hoof around her friend’s neck. “If you don’t, it’s okay, I guess. I just wanted to know if there was anything you or Apple Bloom could do. Well, actually, mainly Apple Bloom, but this could work too…I hope you don’t mind. I really hope you don’t mind.” Those words hurt. They hurt a lot, and they dug deep into the mare’s heart, and for some reason, she couldn’t get them to go away. Apple Bloom whispered something in Sweetie Belle’s ear, and the unicorn lowered her head. Her eyes were watering again. AJ had had enough. “You know what? There might be something Ah can do.” The words erupted out of Applejack before she could stop them, and before it was far too late to take them back; feeling like her chest was being squeezed in a trash compactor she continued. “Yeah…Ah could talk to her. She has no right to be treatin’ herself and her sister and everypony else this way, and maybe…” Sweetie Belle’s eyes, alight with hope, stared into Applejack’s now firmly set, rapidly receding, green ones. “Really?” She drew one hoof over her right eye, attempting to hide the tears still flowing in a steady river down her cheeks. Applejack didn’t answer. She was already out the door.