Applejack secured herself into the harness for the plow, her mind unsettled, thinking about the words of Twilight Sparkle. She leaned into the harness, the plow heavy behind her, cleaving into the soft black soil.
Sandow was clearly the marrying sort, Applejack concluded. She tried to think about the world from his perspective, the struggle to survive, to live, to push ahead and see the next day, and populate the world so the process would continue. Applejack turned and looked at the enormous farmhouse that she lived in, and thought about Sandow’s two room stone cottage. She worked hard, she struggled to keep the farm working, but she did not struggle to survive. Marriage, love, were optional, not imperatives. There was no pressing need to band together to survive the hostile elements.
But there was a need to band together.
Applejack thought about everything she had faced. Discord’s return. Sombra and the Crystal Empire. Nightmare Moon. The world was still a hostile place, but the types of dangers had changed.
Or had they?
Discord, Sombra, Nightmare Moon, all problems from the past, all of them dangerous in their own way. And who knew what sort of monsters might have existed during Sandow’s time. Coming together and forming a family had to been of vital importance.
Almost as much as coming together and becoming friends had been for her, Applejack pondered. Applejack and her friends had been bound together through the Elements of Harmony, changed forever. Merged. No longer separate as an entity.
Applejack turned the plow and began to create another furrow, her legs pumping and quivering as she pulled forward through the moist and fertile earth.
Friends, family, the lines seemed to become indistinguishable, blurry. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle had noticed the same thing and had confused it for something else. Where did one end and other pick up? Applejack concluded that she did not know.
Sweat trickled down her neck, making her mane cling to her pelt.
Intimacy was just another line, Applejack realised. At some point, you drew a line that you did not cross, and that defined a boundary. Or did it? Boundaries, like fences, changed over time. Didn’t they?
Applejack could not reach a conclusion on that line of thought.
She ferreted out a tiny bit of thought, something she could chew on as she laboured, and thought about Sandow and his perspectives. Sandow focused on family. For all of his grief, he was already bravely pulling forward and becoming involved with Flickershine. While Applejack could not understand all of his thinking, or how he saw the world, she understood that he valued family above all else, and that Sandow wanted, no, needed family. Sandow would rebuild and survive. On some deep level, Applejack knew that one day, Sandow would leave the Apple farm and strike out on his own, to leave his mark on the world.
Thinking about this caused a pang of sorrow.
She turned, and began to plow up another row, leaving behind her a furrow.
Life was all about leaving a fertile furrow behind you, planting seeds, leaving life in your wake. Applejack understood this on some deep fundamental level as an earth pony. It wasn’t so much as a philosophy as something in her bones, as much a part of her as her marrow.
Family would come in time. She wasn’t in a hurry. There was no need for desperation. For now, friends had seen her through. She thought about the victory celebration in Canterlot after Discord’s defeat. All of them had come together, they had seen each other through.
Applejack supposed that she could see Twilight Sparkle’s point of view. They had passed the point of friendship a long time ago, and into confusing territory that was full of dangerous philosophical pitfalls if you didn’t watch where you stepped. Depending on you chose to look at it, you could see their relationship as any number of things.
Thinking about this made Applejack feel worried. Sweat ran from her back, down her sides, and trickled down her legs. Her muscles began to burn slightly, and the heavily corded muscles in her back quivered.
Twilight Sparkle had simply confused and muddied the issue, as she always had, overthinking and turning to books for answers, and reaching a conclusion based on text rather than real world principles.
Applejack paused, unmoving, the harness going slack, as she pondered the fact that she understood Twilight well enough to know that. That was a deep level of understanding, at least in Applejack’s mind. She leaned into the harness and continued her task.
Rarity would see it in a completely different way, of course, as would Pinkie Pie, or Rainbow Dash, or Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash saw her friends as fellow competitors in the game of life, and occasionally, rivals. Rainbow Dash played to win, and her loyalty sprang from this, knowing that she needed friends to even the odds and level the playing field. Rainbow Dash drew her strength from knowing that she was the best of the best, and she needed the best of friends to be her very best. She was a deeply flawed pony, and needed all of her friends to balance out her various weaknesses and shore up her many strengths. By herself, she was a powerful athlete, crippled by many character flaws. With her friends, she was a force to be reckoned with, and she had shown this time and time again.
Applejack turned the plow again, ready to plow another row. She wiped sweat away from her muzzle with a foreleg.
Fluttershy saw her friends as an outlet for her kindness, the kindness she wanted to show to everypony. But Fluttershy was shy and scared of most everything, so she kept her kindness bottled up, and for the longest time, her only outlet had been her animal friends. Becoming the Element of Kindness had changed that, and Fluttershy’s acts of charity toward her friends was now a part of her nature. She could be counted on for anything. Again, her weaknesses had been shored up by her friends, making her a force to be reckoned with.
Something nagged at Applejack’s mind. She could feel it tugging. She leaned into the harness with a grunt, knowing that whatever it was that was teasing at her mind would only come out with hard labour.
Pinkie Pie was her own can of worms. Her need for popularity, to be the center of attention, to always have fun, and to be deeply involved in her friend’s lives. Pinkie Pie defined herself as others saw her, and she always worried about how other ponies saw her. She was constantly on the edge of concern, always trying to make sure other ponies smiled, and always held herself responsible for the moods of others. And if she lost her connection to her friends… Applejack shuddered. She had seen both sides of Pinkie Pie, and accepted them both. They were one in the same really, two parts to the same pony. Pinkie Pie could always be counted on for a laugh, but she depended and needed the laughter of others to keep going. She didn’t handle other unhappy situations very well, and required her friends to carry her though those rough patches where there was no laughter.
Applejack snorted when she thought of Rarity. Her mind drifted to a sleepover long ago, with Rarity and Twilight Sparkle. Applejack smiled, she had been to bed with Rarity. Applejack made a mental note to bring that up to Twilight Sparkle and see if she could shake some of Twilight’s thinking. Applejack knew that she and Rarity were as close as sisters and it wouldn’t take much to blur the lines had Applejack leaned that way. Rarity understood hard work, perhaps more than any other pony in their group. Rarity shared a common bond, carving out a life through back breaking labour. Rarity worked hard. Long days hunched over a table, or her sewing machine, many many hours invested into her dreams, and her constant worry over success. Applejack understood it. Every ounce of effort. Rarity’s largesse manifested from her constant struggle, and she felt empathy for those who also struggled.
A powerful thought struck Applejack, the notion that had been tugging at her mind. She was defined by her friendships, her own honesty a manifestation of allowing her friends into her heart as family. She trusted them enough to be honest with them, even when being honest hurt. And she could trust them to keep being her friend, no matter how painful those moments of honesty might be.
She could tell Rainbow Dash that she was a flighty little pegasus that spent too much time napping. She could tell Pinkie Pie that she was an overbearing annoying pink pony. She could tell Fluttershy to pull herself together and pony up. She could tell Twilight Sparkle that she was being a manic neurotic mess that was once again making a mountain out of a molehill. She could tell Rarity that she was being a self righteous uptight snob.
Applejack could say all of these things and still have friends. Applejack could be honest and her friends would still be her friends, still love her, still treasure her.
She took a deep breath and turned the plow again.
Sandow was defined by his need for family, much in the same way she was defined by her friends. It hadn’t taken Sandow long to graft into the current Apple family tree. Once he had his bearings, he threw himself into getting to know his new family, and now, he was working to get to know Flickershine.
Sandow was defined by duty, devotion, and dedication. And without those things, he was lost. And Applejack understood that now, as she pulled the plow through black earth, under the warm spring sun. She would be lost without her friends. Equestria might be lost without her and her friends.
The character of being an Apple ran deep into the heartwood of the family tree. Applejack understood this now. Meeting her distant ancestor allowed her a rare glimpse into the family past, and she understood now why the Apples had survived through the ages. The Apples had existed in the old world, had survived the long walk through the ice and snow, they had settled the new world, and they had survived into the modern age.
Applejack smiled. She would have to give Twilight Sparkle a good honest piece of her mind. And Twilight Sparkle would listen, because Twilight was her friend and depended on Applejack’s honesty.
But that would come later. There was still plowing to do.