//------------------------------// // Old Scars // Story: Apples Don't Fall Far from the Tree // by BronyDad //------------------------------// Chapter 9 Old Scars Applejack cried out in agony as white hot fire shot through her leg, then collapsed and slid back down to the bottom of the incline. She just couldn't do it. She had tried four times during the last couple of hours, but the excruciating pain in her leg always overwhelmed her. So far, she hadn't even made it a quarter of the way back up. Never in all of her life had she felt as helpless as she did now, panting in the mud and counting the seconds until the pain lessened. Despairingly, Applejack's mind strayed to the family she would never see again. The family that she had failed. They've already suffered so much from losing Ma and Pa. And now, they've lost me too. She closed her eyes against the pain and misery, and did her best to fight back the tears. As she felt the last of her hope fade away, Applejack was unable to prevent her mind from uncovering a memory that she had long ago buried deep within herself. The memory of the day that they had received the worst news of their lives. Her parents had left for Manehattan to deliver an extremely large order of apple pies, leaving Applejack, Big McIntosh, and the infant Apple Bloom under Granny Smith's care. They had been in the dining room sharing supper when they heard an unexpected knock at the front door. "I'll get it!" Applejack cried as she leaped off her chair and cantered to the door. A large stallion wearing a blue uniform and hat with a golden badge displayed on his chest awaited outside. Upon seeing the little filly answering the door, his disciplined manner seemed to crumple. "Hello, sweetie," he said as he uneasily glanced into the house. "Is there an adult present?" "Uh-huh." Applejack nodded with a wide grin. "My granny is right inside." She stepped aside and watched the stallion swallow hard before making his way into the dining room. "Well, howdy-doo there, officer," Granny Smith greeted warmly as he entered the room. "What can we do you for?" The stallion remained silent as his eyes continuously moved between the foals and Granny Smith. Suddenly looking scared, Granny Smith stood. "What's happened?" "There's been an accident," the stallion spoke softly. Confused, Applejack watched as Granny Smith slumped back into her chair and covered her face with her hooves. Turning to the stallion, she asked, "Accident? Was it Ma and Pa? Are they okay?" Unable to find his voice, the stallion slowly shook his head. "H-how..." Granny Smith stammered. The stallion took a deep breath. "They were descending a steep hill, and it appears that one of the wheels broke. The wagon flipped...and..." he trailed off. "No," Applejack stated, suddenly sure that the stallion was wrong. "No, Ma and Pa are fine." When the stallion did nothing more than simply watch her sadly, she continued, "They'll be back before I know it, that's what Pa promised. Pa always keeps his promises." Big McIntosh rose from his chair and approached her, but she quickly sidestepped away. "They'll come back...they just have to." As Granny Smith started to cry, the stallion knelt before her and spoke with a voice that broke with emotion. "I'm sorry sweetie, but they're gone." "You're wrong!" Applejack shouted, stomping a hoof in anger. "They wouldn't leave, they couldn't! They love us too much...they love me..." Gazing at Granny Smith as she continued to cry, then Big McIntosh, who was hanging his head and sniffling, she suddenly screamed, "YOU'RE ALL WRONG!" Applejack whipped around, fled the dining room, and raced up the stairs. Not sure what she was running from, and not caring, Applejack galloped down the hall. As she reached a small table that held a vase full of flowers, she reared up and threw it to the ground. With a numb detachment, she watched as the vase shattered across the floor, the flowers bouncing among the broken shards. Just as her life had shattered, leaving her to bounce and skitter toward an uncertain future. From her room, Apple Bloom began to cry, but Applejack covered her ears and rushed past the infant's door. She bolted into her room and slammed the door as hard as she could. Applejack dove onto her bed and pressed her face into the pillow. With a scream of unbridled rage, she began to sob as the horrible truth seemed to smother her. Gasping for breath, her eyes landed on the storybook that lay open on the table next to her bed. It was the storybook she and her mother read together every night. The storybook that they would never finish. With a shriek of fury, Applejack threw the book across the room, then covered her head with the pillow and continued to wail. Seconds later, the pillow was abruptly pulled away, and Granny Smith was hugging her fiercely. "W...w...why, G-granny?" Applejack managed between sobs. "I don't know, deary," Granny Smith replied quietly. "I just don't know." The two of them continued to hold one another in silence until Applejack drifted off into an uneasy sleep. The next several days passed in a haze. She spent all her time outside, wandering about the farm as if in a trance. She ate, but couldn't remember what. She slept, but only for a few hours at a time. She spoke to Granny Smith only when she had to, she avoided looking at Big McIntosh, and she wouldn't even stay in the same room as Apple Bloom. It already seemed like it had been so long ago since she last saw her parents, and knowing that she would never see them again, all she felt within was a vast, terrible emptiness. Then, one night as Applejack lay awake in bed, Apple Bloom started to cry. Covering her ears with the pillow, she heard Granny Smith enter the infant's room and try to soothe her, but the baby wailed on. Sitting up and listening to the endless bawling, Applejack started weeping as well. After a moment, she realized that they were both crying for the same reason. They both wanted the mother that could never hold them again. Suddenly, she couldn't stand it anymore. She jumped out of bed, dashed down the stairs, and out the door. Although she thought that she was running blindly, she wasn't at all surprised to find herself standing before her tree house. She gazed up at it for several long minutes before finally climbing the ramp to the door. Slowly walking around the inside of her special hideaway, Applejack studied the floor and ran a hoof along the walls. "I don't understand, Pa," Applejack whispered. "I watched you make that wagon, just like I watched you make this tree house. Nothin' you built has ever broke...so why did the wheel break?" She climbed up on the table and hopped up and down on it, then she leaped off and landed on the wooden floor as hard as she could. Without warning, an awful rage boiled from deep within her, spilling out of her in a violent scream as she tipped the table over. Furiously, she began stomping on the floor, then she savagely kicked the walls repeatedly. She glared at the sturdy walls that surrounded her. "Why are you still standin'?! Why won't you break?!" Pounding the floor with her hoof as hard as she could, she shrieked, "Why are you so strong, but the wheel wasn't?!" She collapsed to the floor as bitter tears began to stream down her face. "It's all your fault, Pa. You should have built the wheels better." Covering her face with her hooves, she hissed, "I hate you." Lying there on the floor, exhaustion finally overcame her, and Applejack slipped into a deep dreamless sleep. As the rooster's crow echoed over the farm, Applejack rose feeling strangely different. Walking around the tree house, she stared at all her drawings that were pinned to the walls and the overturned table, and then turned her gaze toward the ceiling and the wooden stepladder that led to the small attic above. She couldn't understand it. Last night, her father's presence was so strong here, but now, she felt nothing. It was just a plain old wooden tree house. There wasn't anything special about it at all. Applejack descended the ramp and looked around at the quiet farm indifferently. The land seemed so silent and empty, her chores so mundane and useless. How had she coped with it in the past? Why had it all seemed so important just a couple of weeks ago? Suddenly, Applejack understood that she would never be whole again as long as she was on this farm. She wanted noise to drown out the lonely silence, she wanted lots of ponies to fill the emptiness around her. She couldn't live like her parents had, because she couldn't live with the memories. She had to forget them and their way of living. She needed to live in a city, to live the sophisticated life, like her mother once had. She remembered her mother's sister, Aunt Orange, and how well they had gotten along. "I'll bet Aunt Orange would take me in and teach me everythin' about livin' in the city," Applejack stated. Her decision made, she trotted back to the farmhouse, and marched straight into the kitchen. "Oh, good morning, Applejack," Granny Smith began as she entered. "I was wonderin'-" "I want to leave the farm," Applejack interjected. Immediately, Granny Smith's face fell. "I know, deary." Stunned to her core, Applejack asked, "How do you know?" "It's the way you've been actin'," Granny Smith explained. "You've been takin' the news much harder than Big Mac and myself." She stepped forward, and hugged her granddaughter fiercely. "I'm not gonna try and stop you, but I have to be sure. Is this really what you want?" "Yes," Applejack confirmed resolutely. "I want to live in the city." "All right." Granny Smith smiled sadly. "Just give me some time to talk to your brother." Granny Smith left the room without waiting for her to respond. Several days later, Applejack was all set for her journey to Manehattan. Standing beneath the arch that marked the entrance of Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack hugged her Granny Smith a final time, then turned to Big McIntosh. "I love ya, Big Mac," she said in a shaky tone. Big McIntosh sniffled as he embraced her. "I love ya too, Sis." She released him, then turned and trotted several yards away before coming to a halt. With a final wave goodbye, she began her journey to the big city. Although she was sad at leaving her family behind, she was excited about starting her new life with her Aunt and Uncle Orange and couldn't wait to reach Manehattan. The trek to the city took her two days and was uneventful. She followed the road the entire way, and kept a careful eye on her map. As the first day drew to an end, she had made camp with the supplies that Granny Smith had packed for her. Eating her fill, she had laid out her blanket and gone to sleep without delay. Around midday of the second day, the road led her to a steep hill, and with a sudden pain in her chest, she came to an abrupt halt. Gazing down at the sloping road, she realized that she was looking upon the place of her parent's death. In her mind's eye, she could see the wheel breaking, and the wagon flipping as it careened down this very slope. With a large lump in her throat, she followed the road down, and stopped in the place where she imagined the wagon would have landed. Staring up at the crest of the hill, she lost track of how long she stood there as countless unanswerable questions circled in her head. Finally, she tore her eyes from the scene and continued her journey. When she arrived in Manehattan later that evening, she was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. The buildings seemed to stretch to the clouds, and the ponies seemed to move like waves over the surface of a pond. Trotting through the streets, it was all she could do to keep herself from being carried away by the throng of ponies. As she struggled to remember her Aunt and Uncle Orange's address, she spotted an incoming stallion and managed to jump aside just before crashing into him. "Hey! Outta the way, you rube!" he yelled angrily. Applejack looked after him as he stomped on, wondering what in Equestria a 'rube' was. Soon after, she located a large apartment building that had the same address as what Granny Smith had written on the back of the map. Climbing multiple staircases, she gazed at the numbers in each hall until she found the right door. Grateful to have finally arrived, Applejack knocked on the door and was welcomed by the warm smiles of her Aunt and Uncle Orange. As she excitedly greeted them and thanked them for taking her in, they commented on her country accent and chuckled among themselves. Over the course of the next month, Applejack strove to fit in with the city folk, but often ended up feeling like an outsider. No matter how hard she worked, she would always slip up somehow, like the night that she accidently brought up the rooster on her farm at a dinner party. The guests had all stopped talking and stared at her in confusion until Aunt Orange quickly stepped in and turned the conversation away from her. It wasn't long before she began to miss her life on the farm. She also came to realize that living in the city was doing nothing to help her forget her parents. The hurt was still there every night, and every morning they were the first thing to enter her mind. Applejack awoke abruptly one particular morning from a nightmare in which her parents had been leaving on the wagon, and no matter how much she called out for them to stop, they just smiled and waved. After weeping for several minutes, she sat up and noticed that the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon. She quickly got out of bed and leaned on the windowsill. Excited to see the first sun rise since she had arrived in the city, Applejack felt an unexpected sadness as the sun slowly rose into view. "Cock-a-doodle-doo," Applejack mumbled to herself. Memories of her days on the farm began to fill her mind as tears formed in her eyes. She missed applebucking the apple trees, and feeding the chickens and the pigs. She missed picking corn and planting seeds and even cleaning the stables. But more than anything, she missed Big McIntosh, Apple Bloom, and her Granny Smith. Had she been wrong to leave the farm? Was it too late to return? Just then, a rainbow appeared in the sky and rocketed off toward the horizon. With her mouth hung open in wonder, Applejack watched in disbelief as it led the way back home. This is impossible, she thought to herself incredulously. How could this be happening? Suddenly, she realized that she didn't care. She had never seen a clearer sign in all of her life, and she knew, without a doubt, that she needed to return home. Her real home. Her heart filled with a joy that she hadn't felt in nearly two months, Applejack raced down the hall and barged into her Aunt and Uncle's room. As they woke with cries of surprise, Applejack loudly announced, "I know where I belong now! I'm goin' back home!" Her aunt and uncle wiped the sleep from their eyes, and glancing at one another in confusion, asked her if she was certain. When she confirmed, they got out of bed and helped the over-excited filly pack a bag. As soon as she was ready and had a map to safely return home, she hugged her Aunt and Uncle Orange, thanked them for their hospitality, and began her trek back to Sweet Apple Acres. Eager to return home, Applejack made remarkable time, but she once again came to a halt as she reached the steep hill. She felt a deep sadness well up within her as she gazed up at the crest, but all the anger and confusion was gone. She understood now that it had been an accident. She would never know the why, but she knew now that she would never need to. All she needed to know was that she had a family that she belonged to, a family that loved her, and she was never going to leave them again. Sweet Apple Acres came into view a little before midday on the next day. As soon as she caught sight of it, Applejack broke into a full gallop and screamed as loud as she could that she was coming home. By the time she reached the entrance, Granny Smith and Big McIntosh were both standing under the archway, grinning ear to ear. Applejack skidded to a halt directly in front of them, and then lunged forward and nuzzled Granny Smith as she began apologizing over and over and vowing that she would never leave again. It was then that a beaming Big McIntosh nudged her and pointed at her flank. Her breath catching in her throat, Applejack twisted around to find that her cutie mark had appeared and began hopping up and down excitedly. Laughing and hugging one another, the three of them shared the joy of this momentous occasion, and each felt more thankful than they ever had before to have one another. "I'm glad you finally found your place, pickle pear," Granny Smith said as she ruffled her mane. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up, and she added, "Come with me. I got somethin' for you." As they entered the house, Granny Smith suggested, "Big Mac, why don't you go check on the baby?" She waited for Big McIntosh to obey before leading Applejack up into the attic. Confused, she watched as Granny Smith climbed up on a trunk in order to reach a high shelf, and then gasped at what she pulled off of it. Granny Smith held her father's hat up so that it could be plainly seen in the dim light. "An officer returned this to us one day while you were out somewhere on the farm," she explained. "You were takin' their deaths so hard, I was afraid to let you see it. So I stuck it up here for safe keepin'." She sat down and studied the hat closely. "The officer told me that the crash had been terrible, and that the wagon had been nothin' more than a pile of splintered wood, but your Pa's hat was perfectly fine. Not a single scratch, not even a small rip." Looking Applejack square in the eye, she stated, "It was as meant to be as the accident itself." Unable to speak past the lump that had formed in her throat, Applejack waited for her to finish. "And now, I know why." She placed the hat on Applejack's head. "It was meant to be yours, deary. I realized that when you earned your cutie mark. Take good care of it now, and remember that your Pa is always with you." Applejack embraced her grandmother as she began to sob. "Thank you, Granny. I will, I swear it." That night Applejack was too overwhelmed with emotion to sleep. Lying in bed and holding the hat tightly to her chest, she couldn't stop smiling. It felt like a piece of her that had been shattered was now whole again. Somehow, she just knew that her parents weren't as far away as they had seemed at first. Suddenly, she realized that there was something that she needed to do. Quietly getting out of bed, she set the hat down on her bedside table, right next to her open storybook, and carefully walked down the hall. Silently entering Apple Bloom's room, Applejack made her way to the crib and gazed down at the sleeping infant. Smiling, she gently stroked her mane. "I'm sorry I've been avoidin' you since the accident, and for leavin' you, but you got nothin' to worry about now. I'm here to stay, and I'm gonna take the very best of care of you. You may not have a Ma or a Pa no more, but I promise that I'll be the best sister you could ever ask for." As a single tear ran down her face, she whispered, "Because you're my sweet little apple, and I love ya." She wasn't sure how long she stood in the darkened room, staring at her sleeping baby sister, but eventually she slowly exited the room and headed downstairs. There was still one more thing she had to do before she would be able to sleep. Breathing in the cool air and gazing up at the beautiful night sky above, Applejack felt at peace with herself. It seemed as though she were seeing the farm in a whole new perspective, and was able to appreciate it on an entirely different level. She closed her eyes as she relished the sound of the musical insects and hooting owls, the sweet smell of apples that hung in the air, and the soft grass beneath her hooves. As the tree house came into view, her smile faded and her heart quickened, but she knew that this needed to be done. Applejack hesitantly entered, and noticing the table was still upended, turned it back over. She stood in the center of the room for a long while, recalling the day that she had helped her father build it. "Pa, I'm sorry I left the farm, and I'm even more sorry for blamin' ya. I understand now that it wasn't your fault that the wheel broke. It was somethin' that just happened, nopony could have predicted it, or stopped it. And I don't hate you, I love you. I love ya with all my heart, you and Ma both. "Now, I don't want ya to worry none bout us. You just take care of Ma, and I'll handle the family. I'll take real good care of them, I promise. You'll see, I'm gonna prove just how dependable of a pony I can be. The farm will keep on goin' strong, the family is gonna be as close as it ever was, and little Apple Bloom is gonna grow up happy and well educated. I swear it." She started toward the door, but slowed to a halt. "I probably won't be comin' back here, since I'm gonna be busy with the family and all, so I guess this is goodbye. I'll never forget what you two taught me, and I'm always gonna be proud to be an Apple." Trotting back to the farmhouse, Applejack felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. A weight that she hadn't even been aware she was carrying, but now left her feeling light and free. Applejack returned to bed and slept peacefully all through the night. Her dreams were filled with memories of her parents and the love that they had always shared. As the years passed by, and the pain grew more bearable, Applejack managed to put her memories to rest. Although the hurting never truly left her, she allowed the love of her family to mend her wounds. Now, as she lay in the murky swamp somewhere deep within the Everfree Forest with a broken leg, Applejack wiped at her wet eyes and stood determinedly. She had made a promise to her Pa that she would take care of her family, and nothing in this blasted forest was going to make her go back on her word. Gritting her teeth against the pain, Applejack once again started up the steep incline. Inch by agonizing inch she climbed, and whenever she believed that the pain was too much, she reminded herself of how she had survived her old scars. She remembered the pride on Big McIntosh's face when he had first seen her wearing the hat, and she kept going. She remembered the look of gratitude on Granny Smith's face when she had volunteered to start looking after Apple Bloom, and she kept going. She remembered how her old teacher had started bring her schoolwork to the farm, and how hard she had worked at caring for the baby and getting her assignments done. She remembered her pride at her graduation, and she kept going. Applejack suddenly slipped but quickly grabbed an exposed root with her teeth and clung tight until she got her hooves back under her. Gasping from exertion and pain, she glanced up to find that she was almost to the top, and willed herself to climb the remaining distance. As she crested the top, she dragged herself onto level ground and then slumped over, exhausted. Face down on the soft, moist ground with spikes of pain shooting up and down her right foreleg and tears of agony running down her face, Applejack began to laugh. Filled with elation despite her pain, Applejack yelled at the cursed forest, "You're gonna have to do better than that to finish me!" Unseen by her, a creature of pure malice watched her from the shadows. As its glowing blue eyes slowly disappeared into the gloom that surrounded it, it whispered a single word. Applejack.