A warm wind danced by, shaking the leaves and filling the air with the songs of summer. Cicadas joined in as backup singers, their whines underlining the growing symphony. As Travis Touchdown walked through the orchard, another sound joined the symphony, giving it an almost drumlike beat. A repetitive chunk, followed by a soft, flowing noise. Travis followed it to its source.
There was a small clearing here in the orchard. In the middle was a young apple tree, its apples red and glistening in the afternoon sun. Underneath the shade of its green leaves was a hole about seven feet in length and four in diameter, with a mound of dirt nearby. The head of a shovel poked out of the hole, sending more dirt into the neighboring pile.
Travis arched an eyebrow in interest as he drew nearer. More dirt joined the pile as he closed in. Inside the hole was a pony whose brown hat adorned a head of blonde hair. Her dull-red duster cloaked an orange body, black gloves on each leg (so would that technically have made them boots?). When she noticed Travis’ shadow looming over the hole she’d dug, she stopped and looked up. Her green eyes pierced Travis like a pair of emerald arrows, her lips drawn taut.
Otaku and pony stared at one another.
“So,” Travis said, deciding to initiate the conversation this time.
“So,” Applejack said back.
Travis clicked his tongue. “…I take it you knew I was coming.”
Applejack threw her shovel out of the grave she was digging. “Sooner or later, yeah.”
Travis offered her a hand to pull her out of the grave, but she eyed it like it was toxic.
She helped herself out of the grave, Travis taking a few steps back to make room for her. “…Not t’be snide’r anything, but Ah kinda thought you’d look scarier,” she said, brushing herself off.
“I get that a lot,” Travis responded casually. It felt weird that they were suddenly almost neighborly to one another—he wondered if Applejack felt the same.
It was time to end the pleasantries and get to work. Travis pulled out the tried and true Tsubaki Mk. III. Its bright green blade extended with a slow, menacing shriek. He gave it a test swing or two before assuming a badass samurai pose.
Applejack shrugged. “Not one fer big speeches, are ya?” she asked.
“The only two words I’m gonna need are ‘die, bitch.’”
She adjusted her hat. Popped the kinks out of her neck. Limbered up. Then she assumed a battle stance. “Fine by me. But the only two words you’re gonna be sayin’ is ‘oh, shit.’”
The two clashed, a tiger of the jungle against a wild horse of the plains, colliding with a thunderous force, the trees in the orchard shuddering at the impact. Travis brought down his Tsubaki—a miss. Applejack leaped into the air and performed a drop-kick—a dodge.
Travis swung the Tsubaki for Applejack, who nimbly ducked and rolled into Travis’ shins, knocking him to one knee, chased with an uppercut to the jaw, sending him onto his back. She jumped and followed up with an elbow-drop. She’d have crushed his head had he not rolled away in time.
The two warriors circled one another. “You’re pretty good at this,” Travis admitted, wiping blood from his lip. “Where’d you learn to fight?”
“You learn a lot from yer parents,” Applejack said. “Some ponies learn how to love. Some learn how to hate.” She cocked her head. Spat. “Mine taught me how to break!”
At break, Applejack stomped the earth. The tremor she caused shook Travis, forcing him off-balance. Before he could recover, Applejack shot for him like a bolt of orange lightning, crashing into Travis’ stomach with the force of a speeding train. A tree caught him midair, the impact showering hard apples on him as he slid down to its base.
Applejack took a few measured, ominous steps forth. “Y’know, the day Ah heard Rarity got herself split in half, Ah didn’t believe it ’til Ah saw the body.”
No witty retort came to Travis’ mind as he struggled to his feet. Once again too fast for Travis to react, Applejack brought a foreleg towards his arm, pinning his hand to the tree. The other foreleg went straight into Travis’ stomach, giving him round after round of softening. The tree Travis was pinned to shook harder and harder with every pound.
Maybe she was trying to remain in control, or maybe because she had more to say, Applejack let go of Travis. He plopped forward, air struggling to make its way back into his body, his insides all fucked up to hell.
Applejack readjusted her hat and continued. “…Ah think Rainbow Dash took it hardest. She had half a mind t’just hunt you down and kill you herself. Twi’n me had a Tartarus of a time tryin’na talk her out of it.”
Travis caught something in her eyes he didn’t like. It was like she was observing an insect under a glass. Like she felt sorry a creature like him had to exist. She licked her dry lips. “Didn’t seem to matter none. You murdered her all the same. All they found were just some singed feathers.”
Applejack reached into her jacket and retrieved a rope as Travis struggled back up to his feet.
He coughed. “Oh, shit, seriously?! Tell me you’re not!”
She quickly formed a lasso, spinning it between her teeth. Almost as if the lasso had a mind of its own, it wrapped around Travis’ leg. He caught a particularly nasty grin on Applejack’s face as she turned around, lasso between her teeth, and took off, dragging Travis along behind her.
Over sharp rocks, over desert, over sand-burs. Travis’ new clothes were now officially fucked. Applejack jumped a fence—Travis half-expected to go up with her, only to just crash through the fence, sending wood and debris and other shit flying like a flock of moths. A sharp turn here and there sent Travis smashing into nearby trees.
Travis regained his composure and decided to try guiding himself along the ground. With some leaning, he managed to dodge the rocks, and with some finesse, he was able to avoid trees.
Travis felt himself suddenly flung forward. Applejack had come to an abrupt stop, and with more power than her diminutive form suggested, she began whipping Travis around her head in circles. Finally, she brought him down, expecting to crush his body against the orchard’s earth. Suddenly, there was no weight at the end of her lasso.
She looked up in surprise as Travis sailed through the air, his Tsubaki back in hand, the rope around his leg severed. While his form before was studied and practiced if a bit clumsy, he practically glided to a stop, kicking off an apple tree and hitting the ground running right at her.
“Fuck,” Applejack spat as she got up on her hinds.
She brought her forelegs together, stopping Travis’ downward strike mid-swing and turning the attack into a power struggle. The amazing might in Applejack’s hind legs bent Travis backwards, only for Travis to really put some oomph behind his upper-body strength.
Not wanting to struggle for too long—as Applejack seemed more than capable of winning the tug-of-war—Travis lifted a leg and belted Applejack in the stomach. Her green eyes widened as the air blew out of her like a bagpipe.
Without wasting a second, Travis tossed his Tsubaki into the air. Applejack had yet to come back down from her hindleg-favoring stance, allowing Travis to jump in, wrapping one arm around her middle and the other around her neck as he sidled up beside her. With a backwards jump, he slammed her into the dirt, the crash loud enough to spook what looked like literal fruit bats out of the trees.
Travis got back up, expecting gravity to do its job and let the Tsubaki drop down and pin Applejack, ending the fight.
But Applejack had other plans.
Even after getting suplexed, Applejack was hardly winded. She saw the Tsubaki as it plummeted, and with a motion fast amazing enough to make Travis WTF, she shot right up and caught it by the handle between her teeth.
She glared at Travis, her green eyes bulging. An angry snort shot from her nostrils. Great, Travis thought. Just fucking great. Hey God ,if You’re listening, I could really use a favor right now.
The ground beneath them began to quake.
A quick turn of both fighters’ heads revealed a fleet of buffalo headed their way, a tidal wave of thundering hooves and angry glares and warpaint and an intent to make roadkill of the orchard’s intruder.
Not quite what I had in mind! Travis thought as his eyes bulged.
Almost as if acting as one, Travis and Applejack both leapt up above the buffalo stampede, catching the wave as it descended on them. They landed on the backs of the buffalo, riding the stampeding surf, locking eyes with one another. Travis had already pulled out the Rose Nasty, their hot-pink twin blades crackling dangerously.
Breathing heavily, hot blood pumping through their veins, both Travis and Applejack bounded on the backs of the buffalo, their beam katanas ready. Despite having never held a sword before, Applejack seemed to grasp the idea of how to use it effectively—every swing from Travis was countered or dodged expertly.
The buffalo below made shaky ground for their battle. The loud thundering of their hooves silenced any battle cry, any hum from the beam katanas. The buffalo Travis was standing on decided to buck him from his back—only for Travis to land on the buffalo behind him.
Applejack followed, leaping from raging buffalo to raging buffalo, Tsubaki between her teeth and murder in her eyes. Travis stood back up, trying to remain steady enough to bring his Rose nasty back up.
A light of realization flashed through his eyes. A Cheshire smile gracing his lips, Travis watched Applejack come closer. She leapt from one of the nearby buffalo, Tsubaki raised for a downward strike—and just before she could land on the buffalo in front of Travis to bring the Tsubaki on him, he jabbed one Rose Nasty into the buffalo’s neck.
The buffalo went down, taking Applejack with it.
Travis stood back up and jumped to a nearby apple tree, grabbing onto its branches and pulling himself up. He sat on the strongest branch, waiting out the stampede as the tree vibrated dangerously. After nearly five minutes, the entire buffalo herd had passed. It took another minute for the dust to settle.
Travis then climbed down from the tree, his aching body reminding him not to do anything too strenuous. He hobbled over to where he spied the corpses.
The buffalo Travis had stabbed was barely recognizable. He’d been stomped to mush by his brothers. When he heard a cough, Travis froze, his hands already on the Rose Nasty. There, just behind the buffalo corpse, was Applejack.
Her legs were bent and purple in many spots, her hat and duster shredded and torn. Blood trickled from a mouth that was missing a few teeth. Her mane and tail were loose and wild, spooling about her like warped waves of gold. Her breathing was haphazard and hoarse.
Applejack’s green eyes looked up to Travis. When their eyes connected, something between them was suddenly shared. Something deep and fundamental. Primal. Travis’ lips tightened.
“Why…” Applejack coughed, sounding like a mare about to die. “Why th’ long face, cocksucker? Ain’t this what you wanted? Blood ’n glory?”
Travis thought about it. Then he sighed. “Yeah, but… this…”
He knelt by her side, where the Tsubaki had miraculously not been broken underneath buffalo hooves. Picking it up, Travis looked to Applejack. “…Your friends died almost instantly. I might want you fucking ponies to get outta my face, but I don’t want you to suffer.”
A pause. Applejack smiled. Coughed up some blood. “That it, huh? You’re gonna suddenly be all noble ’n shit? Yer a funny one, Travis. Real comedian.”
Travis stood up, the Tsubaki once again hissing to life, its long and sloping blade stopping an inch above the ground. Applejack looked at it as if she was relieved to see it. Then she looked back up to Travis. “If Ah ’kin ask fer one last favor…”
“…Yeah?”
Applejack coughed. “…Take me… take me back to Bloomberg, won’tcha? Ah wanna see ’im one last time ’fore Ah go.”
At first, Travis didn’t quite understand her demand. Then it clicked. The Tsubaki’s blade was sheathed for now. He knelt down, working his arms around Applejack and lifting her as best he could. He heaved her across his shoulders carefully, wincing when he heard her grunt in pain, walking back toward the tree he found her under. For some strange and mystical reason, he could just… feel his way back there.
“Bloomberg was my tree,” Applejack said as he walked. “My first one, Ah mean. My Pa… he showed me how to plant a tree, once Ah got big enough to start apple-buckin’. He asked me to name it. So Ah did.”
Travis took a short cut through a gaggle of apple trees, the jagged shade from the leaves coloring their surroundings in darker hues. “Givin’ up Bloomberg fer my cousin’s orchard was a tough choice, but Ah knew they could use ’im.”
“It’s just a fucking tree,” Travis said. “But it really means that much to you?”
Applejack let out a small, pained laugh. “Ain’t you ever had somethin’ precious given to you by somepony ya love? Somethin’ to remember them by?”
A long and lonely silence drifted between them as Travis saw Bloomberg up ahead—and the hole Applejack had dug beneath it.
“…Not really.”
As Travis set her down in front of the hole, Applejack looked at him with eyes that seemed to… apologize. “Ah’m sorry t’hear that.”
They shared some more silence. As Travis’ fingers went for the Tsubaki, Applejack piped up again. “You got ’ny family, Travis?”
“…Got a twin brother. Had a sister. Parents.” A pause. “…Had.”
Her apologetic eyes went from expressing pity to expressing sympathy. “Ah won’t ask how they got taken away from you,” she croaked, “that ain’t important. Travis, you an’ Ah both know how much senseless cruelty there is in the world. Why you gotta go an’ add to it?”
“Because the people who do those senseless acts of cruelty? They took something away from me.”
“Did killin’ ’em bring that somethin’ back?” She blinked. “Does killin’ my friends’n Ah, does that bring anything back? What’d we take from you, anyway?”
More silence. “…I didn’t come here to talk,” Travis said finally.
Applejack shook her head silently, sighing sadly. “Yer so fucked up. Ain’t nothin’ to you but violence ’n want.”
“Fuck you,” Travis spat. He took a step back.
“Doesn’t change anything,” she said suddenly. “Y’know, Ah usually ain’t so negative. I’m actually pretty upbeat. Like this? Dyin’? Most would look at it like it’s the end. Not me, though—death’s not an ending. It’s just goin’ home after a long, hard day. Know what Ah mean?”
The Tsubaki sprang back to life. Applejack once again looked at it with relief. The end of her suffering was near. She smiled.
“Ah don’t think you do. You look too scared.”
Applejack breathed deep and lifted her head towards the sky. For some reason, Travis stalled. “’Samatter? Ah know you ain’t above killin’ a lady, so do it!”
The force of her voice shook Travis as he lifted the Tsubaki.
“Do it, cocksucker! Fuckin’ DO it!!!”
Applejack felt cold, suddenly. A sense of weightlessness as she got a good view of the sky. Her vision haloed with blackness, the sounds of the orchard becoming distant, everything going dark, then pure white as her disconnected body chased her head into the hole behind her.
Applejack…
…We’ve been waiting for you.
…Welcome home.
It took Travis a while to get over crying for his fallen foe. It took him a while to bury her, leaving the shovel stuck in the dirt as a makeshift gravestone. It took him a while to gather his bearings, to leave the orchard before those buffalo came back.
As he slowly walked away, Travis turned to give Bloomberg one last glance. Then he turned and made his quiet exit from the orchard.
From Bloomberg’s branch fell a single, bright red apple. Slowly, it rolled along the ground, touching the shovel before coming to a stop.
APPLEJACK:
GONE HOME