’Twas a bleak day when I learned the news about Twilight Sparkle.
Lookin’ back, the weather seemed suited for the occasion. Early March rain—the cold, clingy kind that could soak a mare straight to the bone—fell all day, givin’ me a bath I didn’t ask for but probably needed.
For the four years leadin’ up to that day, I’d earned my keep by minin’ rocks in that dadgum rock farm. It was miserable work without rain fallin’ down and turnin’ the ground to sucky mud. I ain’t a minin’ pony. I ain’t a clothes-maker, or a farmpony for that matter. Those days, I wasn’t too sure what I was, and even after all that stuff with Earth Pony, I’m still unsure. Least I know my name—Applejack—and my past, which is better off than some.
But I’m gettin’ ahead of myself.
On that rain-slicked rock farm, underneath steely gray clouds, I’d spent the better part of the day with a hammer in my teeth and chippin’ away at whatever rocks I could. I was wet, I was cold, and I was seriously considerin’ throwin’ in the towel for the day. Hittin’ rocks stuck in mud just pushed ’em in deeper, and part of me knew I was only makin’ it harder for myself when it came time to load up the cart.
The thing that snapped me outta my blank workin’ mindset was the sight of a stranger. I grit my teeth against the handle of my hammer. I wish I could say I was hardened enough and ready to defend myself. Truth is, those days in those parts, seein’ a stranger was the sort of thing that sent a shiver down your spine even after every other part of you’d long gone numb.
’Tweren’t that pony folk were normally like that, really. Heck, when I was growin’ up, there used to be songs the whole town’d break out in, just ’cause that seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
All that came to an end when the White Ribbon murders started.
Over the last three years, there’d been over sixty victims, all done up in the same way—strangled by a length of white ribbon. The farm was almost twenty miles outside of Ponyville, so for three years, I’d only heard bits and pieces of the story. From what I’d heard, after three years, it didn’t sound like the guards were gettin’ any closer to catchin’ the killer.
So when I saw someone I didn’t recognize walkin’ along the path near the rock farm, you can bet I kept my eye on ’em and took in the details. Light blue fur, dark blue mane, and cold blue lips, thanks to a shoddy raincoat that weren’t doing nothing for her—or a very feminine him.
Must’ve caught me lookin’, though. Those blue hooves stopped right in the mud path as we locked eyes, and my teeth clenched even tighter. ’Tweren’t just the cold that made me shake a little.
Still, we’d acknowledged each other’s presence, so there wasn’t much I could do other than see what his or her business was. It beat lettin’ ’em out of my sight, anyway. I hung my hammer in my belt, keepin’ it ready in case I needed to use it.
Then, I walked my clatterin’ hooves over to say hello. No need to not be friendly-like.
When I got close enough to tell her face was a cute mare’s, her peppy voice confirmed it in a shout: “What the hay are you doing out in the rain?” ’Tweren’t angry or nothing; just a genuine question.
I put on a grin and hollered back, still closin’ the distance. “Workin’! How ’bout you, sugarcube?”
“Same, heh.” She propped her forelimbs up on the wooden fence that separated the rock farm from the road. The wet fabric of her raincoat clung to her like a second skin, and since she didn’t have a horn, I could tell she was a lean, small-framed earth pony.
When I got over to the fence, her voice dropped to conversational volume and she asked, “Hey, you, uh… got a place I can crash ’til the rain lets up?”
I weighed my options. The safer one’d be tellin’ her to get lost, but somethin’ about her rubbed me the right way. My hooves’d long since stopped shakin’, at any rate. She was genuine, leastways enough to cut to the chase ’bout what she wanted. A mare with somethin’ to hide might try to shoot the breeze before invitin’ herself in to my home.
Course, it was also rainin’ like someone’d ordered a new lake from Cloudsdale. That’d make me pretty rude if I wanted to get out of it, too. In the end, I listened to my gut, which told me to do the neighborly thing. Pointin’ down the road, I nodded. “Up in the old silo. Got room for two, if you don’t mind the couch.”
That pony’s little blue ears perked right up at my words. “Couches are good. Better a dry couch than a wet road, right?”
I grinned a bit warmer. “Somethin’ like that. C’mon, it’s just over yonder.”
Boss Pony—that was his actual name—had long since gone home for the day, so I just climbed through the fence and headed home with my guest. I kept her in the corner of my eye the whole way there, since I wasn’t naïve enough to turn my back on a stranger.
She spent most of the trip lookin’ up at the clouds. I reckoned she must’ve come from one of them big cities where they had pegasi in charge of the skies. Nothin’ like out in the sticks, where we got the runoff weather from the Everfree Forest.
We shook off once we reached my home—what’d used to be a silo for storin’ rocks about a decade ago, before the farm moved. Boy howdy, I wouldn’t be surprised if my guest left an inch of water on my floor; poor girl was drenched to the bone. She crawled out of her coat and squished it on the coatrack, which gave me the first real look at her. Real lean for an earth pony, but it worked on her. I ain’t ashamed to say she was eye candy. Noticed somethin’ of a scar behind her shoulder, too, but it didn’t bug me none.
Once she got done hangin’ her coat, she trotted right over to my couch, which was kind of in the middle of the tall, circular room. I was about to stop her—I had towels in the bathroom—before she plopped down on the cushions and sent up a dust plume all around her. “Whew. Crazy rainy out there. Thanks again for the save, Miss…”
“Applejack,” I finished for her. I walked over and offered a hoof for shaking.
She clacked a hoof against it. “Right. Applejack.”
Didn’t introduce herself or nothing after that; she just quietly lazed back on the couch and kicked one leg over the other.
Left the talking to me, anyways. “So what brings you ’round these parts… Earth Pony?”
“I’m headed to Ponyville…” She paused, gave me a queer look, and then blasted out a sneeze that shook the room. “My boss... she, uh, has some work there for me to handle.”
“Ya sure didn’t pick a purty time to visit, y’know.”
She ran both hooves through her blue mane, givin’ herself a jagged, punky look. “Yeah, tell me about it. You’re the third pony I passed since this stupid rain started. None of them even wanted me standing under their porch.”
“You seem respectable enough for me,” I admitted. Sayin’ it reminded me to keep my wits about me. I had my minin’ belt, at least. “But hay, a pony can’t be too safe ’round strangers these days.”
Earth Pony’s and my eyes stayed mostly locked as I walked to the kitchen to get us some drinks. Was something peculiar in them, watching me deep. It didn’t seem predatory, but darned if it didn’t make me tense up.
“Yeah…” She nodded slowly, back at me. “What’s the killer’s count up to now? Sixty four?”
My gut churned and I stopped in place. “Last I heard it was sixty three.”
“No, there’s been one more. The librarian, earlier today.”
I gripped hammer on my belt and faced the stranger in my home head-on. “You mind tellin’ me how you know that?”
Earth Pony, her eyes went to my hoof, but she didn’t say nothin’ about it. Instead, she leaned forward and shook her head. “That’s kinda part of my job, Applejack. I got the news this afternoon in Canterlot, before getting stuck in this stupid rain. Number sixty four, the creepy shut-in. Twilight Sparkle.”
All the fear that’d built up inside me drained away, leavin’ me feelin’ hollow. The room was spinnin’ too darn fast all of a sudden, so I put my fourth hoof back on the ground. Earth Pony didn’t make a move or nothin’, but kept her in the corner of my eye as I bowed my head. “Twilight… Twi was a friend of mine.”
Movement in my peripheral snapped my attention up to Earth Pony; all she’d done was let her ears flop down. I watched her get off the couch to walk over to me. Brown, slimy dust-mud adorned her side and flanks from where she’d been sittin’.
When we were close, she showed me her empty hoof and slowly put it on my shoulder. Most of my doubts about her intentions vanished at her genuine, sympathetic eyes when she whispered, “I’m sorry, Applejack.”
“’Tain’t your fault,” I shot back hard enough to make her ears droop again. I made an apology by way of shakin’ my head. I’d gone through years of hard work, pain, and failure. Along the way, I’d lost patience for fake apologies from ponies who weren’t responsible.
Given the circumstances, however, I still couldn’t be too sure this one weren’t. I scowled and added, “Least, it better not be. You still ain’t told me what you do for a livin’, Miss Knows-Too-Darn-Much.”
That blue mare, she let out a chuckle. Sounded nervous, to me. “What, you can’t tell from my cutie mark?”
I looked down at her right-side flank. She wiped some of the muck off, revealin’ three pink butterflies on a cute little canvas. I wasn’t in any mood to keep starin’, so when I realized I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, I shook my head.
Earth Pony reached into the back of her soppy mane. She pulled out a wet leather wallet, opened it, and showed me her golden badge. The letters “EG” were engraved through the center—Equestrian Guard. Below the emblem, in smaller lettering, were the words “Investigations Unit”.
She smiled at me. “I take care of animals.”