//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Through the Orchard 
// Story: Under a Tree 
// by Noble Thought 
//------------------------------//

	I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but silence hadn’t been it.

Applejack kept on at the same steady, slow pace. West we were going, back towards the farmhouse. I thought so, anyway. The sun, high overhead, marked noon. We could have been walking any direction and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Not that it mattered, I supposed.

“So…” She hesitated, chewing her lip and staring down at the trail. She took a breath, lifted her head, and started: “I was just a little’un. Smaller’n Apple Bloom. About yea high.” She lowered her head and snorted at about the height of her withers. “I was still a blank flank, then. I ever tell you that story?”

“Yes,” I said, “in Sugarcube Corner.”

She nodded, and fell silent again.

“I would like to hear about the tree,” I suggested quietly, bumping into her. “Or I could tell you about the time I talked Angel into wearing a cat outfit for a day?”

“Nah. Maybe later. Sounds like a hoot’n a holler.” She laughed. “I kinda forget who I tell that one to. Why, I hadn’t even told my own sister! Can you believe that?” She shook her head, still smiling. “I knew from even before then, that my heart was in the earth. I could feel the earth beneath my hooves, and hear her song even on the darkest of days. Pa said he could feel it in me, too.”

She stalled for a moment to tap a hoof on the ground, then her chest. “In here. Ma, city pony that she was, was more like Pinkie, I s’pose. She felt us, not the earth so much.” Her ear ticked back to angle at the tree, then she snorted and shook herself.

“So, anyway, Pa gets it in his head that we need to plant an oak tree. Don’t ask me why. I suppose he was up to see the in-laws out in Manehattan, or something. You know they got that big park, right in the middle of—” She caught my eye and rolled hers. “Well, of course you know! You were there. Couldn’t hardly drag ya away from the critters after the play. One of those big trees in the park they got.

“I don’t know, or can’t recall, one of the two, where Pa got this acorn from. Just a puny little thing not much bigger’n a pebble. Probably got it from Ma, or maybe he was keepin’ it. So, he shows me this acorn and says to me: ‘Applejack,’ he says, ‘I want to teach you how to plant a tree.’

“‘But Pa,’ I say, ‘It ain’t an apple seed.’

“‘Nope!’ He was right, there. Me, thinkin’ my first tree’d be an apple tree. ‘Course, back then, Pa had no more idea what I wanted to do than I did. Granny knew, always says she did. Like usual, she was right.” Applejack chuckled. “Shoulda seen the look on my face. Pa did, he laughed. I laughed a little, later. So, he continues on, balancing that acorn on his nose. ‘I’ll tell you now, Applejack, this little acorn’ll be bigger’n any apple tree. And when it grows up, big and strong, I’ll build you a tree house.’”

Applejack stopped then, and looked up at the sky, then back the way we had come, even though the hill and the tree atop it weren’t visible anymore. “He, uh…”

I watched her, and I saw the tension in her neck as she swallowed, then looked away and started back down the trail, more slowly, with her hooves almost dragging.

“He never got to do that,” she said, quieter, a few paces later.

Our hoofsteps and the quiet, distant calls of birds filled the silence for a stretch of the path. I didn’t want to disturb her reminiscence. Sometimes, it hurts to look back, I knew, but it was necessary to move on. I just had to make sure I was there for her. If she needed somepony.

Her smile came back after a time, and she lifted her head. “But that didn’t keep me from buildin’ one anyway. With Big Mac and Granny’s help. ‘Course, that tree back there was too tall and gnarled for me to make anything in it by then. Not that I didn’t try. Can’t see it no more, but there used to be planks in the side. Tree took ‘em back.” 

“Your treehouse became the, um, headquarters for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“Yep! Girls’ve done a better job than I ever did, keepin’ it up. Mighty nice place, it is. Happier than it ever was for me, too.” She grinned. “Just like it should be.

“But, back to the tree. ‘First lesson,’ he said, ‘is findin’ the right place. Now, this is a big ol’ tree. Or it will be. What’s that mean?’

“I thought about it, and thought about it. For days, I tried to think what that meant. I couldn’t ask him. Each day I did, he had me go out and weed the small garden. Pullin’ up this and that weed. It hit me, when I was tuggin’ and haulin on this big ol stinkweed. The roots! That’s what made that big ol’ weed so hard to pull up.

“So, stinkin’ like a skunk, I rushed into the house. But Pa caught me, just before I could track mud all over the place and dropped me back outside. ‘Best not. Yer Ma’s a little, er, tweaky t’day.’” He looked scareder than a pig on bath day, his eyes all rovin’ like some madpony.” 

She giggled. I hadn’t heard her giggle often, but it was a happy sound, a little rough, but uncompromising—just like Applejack. 

“I knew what Ma could be like, if she got a goose up her gander. I thought he mighta smashed one of her antique plates or somethin’ like that. Nope! I found out later that it was little Apple Bloom making her all upset. Now, Ma was usually a little lax about just a little dirt—kinda surprisin’, her bein’ a city pony n’all—but she took it in stride like the rest of it. Pigs, cows, dust and dirt.

“She waged her war, though, and she had her moods, let me tell you, but she kept a lid on her temper. Mostly. 

“Why, one time, she took a hoof to my hind end—” She cut off abruptly and snapped her eyes to me.

I nodded. “I’m still listening. It’s fascinating, hearing about your parents.”

“Yeah, well… some of it’s embarassin’. Like… well, I made a lake in the kitchen. Only, the lake was s’posed to be outside it. The, uh, the hose leaked a lot. Anyway, that’s what got me a hoof to the hind end. Gentle, mind, but still smarted like a—”

I coughed gently.

“Oh.” Applejack coughed, too. “Thanks. The tree. So… Pa took me out that afternoon while Ma and Granny worked their magic with the Zap Apple harvest…” She trailed off, looking out into the distance. “It was the first Zap Apple harvest they let me do anythin’ for. Dancing around the water, checkin’ the jars. I got ta do all of that, just like Apple Bloom. It was Ma’s fourth or fifth. I forget. She was right there, helping Granny get everything ready.” She sighed, and scuffed a hoof on the trail. “Gosh.”

“It’s okay.” I stepped a bit closer and risked bumping shoulder to shoulder. “I’m here.”

“I know ya are. Thanks.” She smiled, looking up at the sky again, then bumped her shoulder gently against mine. “Just… Pa, Ma… Granny.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“No, don’t apologize. I just… wander. It helps me remember the good times.” Her smile faltered, and she shook herself. “I’m glad you’re here, Fluttershy.”

What to say to that? I smiled, and nodded. The trees around us began to change subtly, their bark growing darker, leaves too, and their fruit changed from the bright red apples of the majority of the farm to an almost sunshine gold. From the air, it was easy to see the almost quilt-like way everything fit together, but it hid the slow transition from one to the next that was really only visible by walking through it.

I realized I had never really walked through a large portion of farm like this. Just the little bit I helped Applejack clear, all those years ago, and the little bit when we were going up against the Flim Flam brothers, when I had been too busy to take in the scenery, or pay attention to how rich and vibrant the orchard was.

“Me, too,” I said, after a while. I was, I discovered. It wasn’t just something kind to say. I was happy to be there, even if the reason I was there was… not so happy. “What happened next?”

“You’re sure?” she asked. I nodded, and she smiled. “Gimme a moment. Didn’t think you’d stay this long.” She frowned, sighed, and shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that. Gosh darnit… keep puttin’ my hoof in my mouth today. First with Granny, then with Big Mac…” she shook her head, smile coming back after a moment. “Glad Apple Bloom was there to take it back out again. Best darn little sister, I tell ya. Still, had to leave before I did something else dumb. And here I am doin’ more dumb stuff.”

“It’s okay. I really am interested in the story.”

“Well, alright… where was I?” We passed more trees as she thought, her eyes on the ground. “So, I think…  yep. So, he says to me: ‘Applejack. Where’s the best place for this tree to take root? Now, don’t rush. Ya gotta find a place that feels right. I know you know what I mean.’

“Sure I did. See, for us earth ponies… maybe you too?” She paused, looking at me. I gave her a silent shake of my head. “No? Oh. Well, you get along with ground critters… and flyin’ critters, too, I guess.” She kicked a hoof at the ground again. “Huh, kinda thought… Well, for us earth ponies, the earth is more than just the ground. It’s magic. Life. Tubers and trees, y’know. Above,” she said, raising a hoof, “and below.” She let the hoof drop and skipped a step. “Something like that. Twilight’d probably say it better.

“She talks to us, and we can talk back. Sorta. Like… well, like you and animals. You know, don’tcha?” She paused for a beat, looking at me, and asked: “What they’re thinking?” When I nodded, she nodded, too. “Yeah. Kinda thought so. Same for us. Not exactly like you, I bet, but we know enough.

“It took me a while, but I found it. Do you know what makes a good spot for a big oak?” 

“Um… dirt?”

She laughed, pounded a hoof on the ground, and nodded. “Yep! That’s one thing. Dirt! And lots of it. But,” she said, settling down to a more sedate stride, though the smile never left her face. “There’s more. Ya need rocks, deeper down, for the roots to grab ahold of, and sand and clay, too, to hold and filter water. All sorts of stuff you need to make a tree like that one back there. All in one place. There are plenty of places like that, ‘round these parts, but Pa shook his head at each one I came to, until we came to that hill, and I felt somethin’. Deep down.”

She almost stopped, then, and made an awkward half-step and a skip to cover the pause. “I still feel it, y’know. When I’m sittin’ up there, listening to the wind through the tree, I can almost hear them again.”

I didn’t need to look at her to know she was on the edge of crying. She kept her face turned away, looking at the trees to her right, then ticked her ears and shook her head. I wanted to stop her, ask her to let it out. 

It’s what I would have done. But not Applejack.

The orchard changed again, dark barked trees turning light, the leaves changing shape along with the trees, becoming sharper and more angular. Golden apples turned grass-green, their scent growing sharply tart before Applejack continued. “I figured out later that Pa had planned it. See, I was the grower.” She cast me a glance, eyebrow quirked.

I shook my head. It made a sort of sense, but telling her I didn’t know the first thing about earth pony talents wasn’t all that important.

“A grower… I dunno if y’all don’t have some other way of sayin’ it, but that’s what Granny and Pa always called us.” Her shoulders rolled in a shrug after shooting me a searching look. “Ain’t difficult to understand, I guess.  Anyway, Big Mac… he’s more of a mover. Not that I can’t move, but you ain’t seen him at full charge.”

Family. “What did Big Mac do?” Maybe she wanted to leave the tree behind for a little bit.

Only, she seemed surprised by the question. “Oh? Him? Yeah… y’know that huge boulder just off the Everfree? That one I climbed up on to get at them Timberwolves?” She paused long enough to glance at me, and I nodded. “Thought so. Kinda hard to forget that day, honestly. Big ol’ mess that was.” 

She snorted, tossing her head. “Anyway, that was his lesson. Took him near a week to budge it even as much as he did. Dad wasn’t a mover, really. Not like Big Mac, and it’s hard to teach what ya don’t know, but hoo boy! That was a sight when he got it. Him shovin’ that little mountain like it wasn’t any bigger’n a boulder.”

“My next lesson was the hole. I’d watched him plant other trees, y’know. Not many. Most of these trees grew whole from an apple fallen to the ground.” A lift of her chin took in the trees ahead of us, and her tail flicked left and right to take in those to either side. “This is an old part of the orchard, back when Granny and her Pa and Ma were gettin’ everything sorted, back before there was a Ponyville. 

“Granny learned her buckin’ here, and fought off the vampire fruit bats here. Too many apples splattered, she says. Shoulda been planned and ordered in neat rows, she says.” Applejack snorted, a smile flickering briefly as she looked up at the spreading branches reaching out over the trail. “I know I apologized for that whole bit with the bats, but… gosh darnit, I wish I’d seen right the first time.”

“I-it’s okay. Really. I should have—”

“Oh, hush with that. I was wrong, Fluttershy, and I’m sorry.”

I should have seen that your family means so much to you. I should have asked Granny to help convince you. Or convinced her. That’s what I should have said. But it wasn’t about me. I nodded. “Apology accepted.”

Instead of continuing the story, or saying anything else right away, she eyed me up and down, as though she could see what I hadn’t said. She sighed, shaking her head. “Anyway, you don’t just drop an acorn on the ground. Oh, I suppose you can, but not if you want it to grow for certain. Too many critters’ll snap up an acorn before the heart of the seed breaks free. Squirrels, like.  For it to grow up right and fast, usin’ magic, that little seed’s gotta be in the full embrace of the earth. Just so. With sand and rock and good, rich soil all around.

"Well, I was so excited that I just sorta took off diggin. You woulda thought I was the mover, what with earth flyin’ every which way." She snorted and shook herself. "Ma came out and scolded us. Pa made a little show of tellin' her it was okay, but he didn’t care how dirty I got, or how big that hole got." Applejack snorted again. "Ma made me swim in the lake to get clean. She called me a mudball with legs later."

I could just see it—Applejack so dirty and muddy she looked like a clod of soil walking around on four legs. To hear Rarity say it, she had been a walking ball of mud all those years ago, when Twilight was still new to Ponyville, during that big storm.

"Anyway... after she left, he took me aside and dumped a bucket of water on me, not that it helped, but he'd promised to try and clean me up, y'see. 'You dig all the way to Canterlot if you have to. Just make sure you learn something doing it,' he told me. Well, I was all set to get back to it when some great big earthworm thing poked up and scared the willies outta me." 

She chuckled, lifting her head to let a patch of sunlight play over her face before we passed the patch in the canopy, a smile stretching across her muzzle. "He laughed and laughed, and after I stopped runnin' around yellin' my head off, I tackled him, and we rolled around till I was just about plum tuckered out, both of us dirtier'n Ma woulda liked.

"After all that, I figured it was enough. I had sand aplenty, more’n enough rocks, and, well, dirt goes without sayin'. He managed to knock most of it off, horsin' around, and that hilltop looked like a fresh-tilled garden for all the sod torn up everywhere.

"That was the part where it all had to be just so, and it was harder to get it right, and I was too tired to stay awake anyhow. Then Pa did help, after a nap, anyway. See, the earth listens just fine, but we can help her hear us better if we do things her way. Pa lay down with me at the edge of that hole I dug, and he pointed out the different layers of soil, sand, clay, and all the other bits."

She slowed as we passed into a small valley between two hills, the path winding along beside a brook burbling cheerfully after a fresh rain had swollen its banks. Little darting bugs flitted to and fro above the water. Trees grew sparser along the valley floor as the brook widened into a stream.  and I could see little fish flashing back and forth as silver streaks under the surface, sometimes breaking it as a bug landed.

Her eyes were on the hills to either side, drifting up and down the slopes.

"What are you looking for?"

"Just wanted to show you. It's hard to explain without..." She shook her head and picked up the pace. "Well, talk to Maud if you want the full thing. I just know how it looked. Thought I might see it here." With a jerk of her chin, she indicated a place where a small pile of dirt and rocks had exposed dark, weeping stone that added to the stream's flow. "Too low, I guess. Gotta start from the top of a hill to really see the best, and go down."

"Maybe some other time?" The words left my mouth without a thought as to what they meant. "I mean, it's so nice to hear you talk about your dad. I can tell you two were very close." 

I could’ve kicked myself when I saw her wince and look away, too slow to keep me from seeing the shimmer in her eyes. Let her tell the story! I told myself.

"We were, that's true. Ma and I, we were... close, I suppose." She shook herself. "I always felt she wanted to understand me better." 

She let that hang between us as the hills on either side came closer together, and the trail, barely more than a rocky, sandy shore for the stream, grew narrower. Trees stretched their limbs over the stream, almost seeming to want to reach down and comfort Applejack. Some low-hanging limbs shifted in a slight breeze just above our heads, and I almost thought they did mean to.

Then the trail widened again, the gully spreading out into a small vale as the path retreated from the stream, becoming a proper dirt trail again. Still, she kept her silence. I could almost feel the memories playing out in her head, or maybe that was my imagination.

"You said she was a city pony." 

"Manehattan. You know my cutie mark story." It wasn't a question.

I saw the connection, and almost did kick myself for not seeing it sooner. She hadn't run away, even then. Not away from family. Never Applejack. Should I say something? I opened my mouth to do just that, but I saw her watching me.

"I do know."

She nodded. That was all. She kept on walking even as my heart crumbled in my chest. It was all I could do to keep up with her over the rougher trail alongside the stream. It felt like I should have been crying as much as the stream, but she wasn't. For her, the pain was old, and perhaps familiar. I brushed aside the tears and kept up.

"You don't have to go all the way with me, Fluttershy. Back home, I mean." Her voice was steady as she stepped in beside me, her shoulder—her strength—helping me keep up. 

You don't have to suffer for me. That's what she said. She didn't want me to hurt, as she must have been. Didn't want to see me hurt. Did it make her burden more, seeing me there on the brink of crying? But, while her words said one thing, her shoulder pressed to mine, all smooth motion and strength, said another: I’m glad you’re here.

“I’ll stay. I want to hear how the story ends.”

She glanced at me, her smile brighter. “Yeah. Just give me a sec, alright? I needta…” The smile faded. “It’s somethin’ happy, y’know?”

I nodded. The trail hugged the next hill’s base, running back and forth across the little brook as it narrowed again past the weeping rocks.

“Pa…” She took a deep breath, and continued: “He would take me walkin’ through the orchard like this. Get a feeling for the land, he said. Let her talk to me, and learn to talk to her.” Her head swung back and forth, as though she were looking for something. 

I kept watch, too, searching for the signs I had learned to see. The little bits and pieces that a farm leaves by accident or intentionally. Sometimes just forgotten in the bustle of a busy life. A spring rusted almost to falling apart laying by the trail next to what might have been a spoke.

“He showed me how to work the stones just so into the soil, then let me play around at settin’ em just right. Him’n me, dirtier than a dog in the dirt.” She chuckled, her smile coming back stronger. “We laughed, he taught. I learned.” Her smile grew as she fell silent, and I saw in her eyes the memories unfolding again. “Gosh, I tell you. That day… I was the happiest filly in the world. Coulda lit up the sky with my smile.” She almost did that anyway. I’ve only rarely seen her smile that broadly.

“That was important, too. To really make somethin’ grow… ya gotta be able to feel it. You have to be happy. See, that makes the earth happy, and she gives us some of her magic to help the trees grow faster. Or the crops to be more fruitful. She gives, but we give to her, too.” She trailed off, staring into the distance at the far off windmill’s top blades, slowly spinning, in the light breeze.

As it dropped back out of sight behind another hill full of trees, she shook her head, flashing a smile at me. “Anyway! Pa and I got the earth just right… and I could feel it, too. She was listening. Right under my hooves. Waitin’.

“‘Patience,’ Pa said. ‘Let her embrace the acorn.’ Thinkin’ I knew what he meant, I started to move dirt again, but Pa held me back and told me to plant my hooves. I did.” She touched my shoulder and stopped, planting her hooves like I’ve seen her do before—facing down a manticore, Nightmare Moon, even Discord and Tirek. It had never occurred to me that it was more than her fighting stance.

“‘Ask her,’ he said. So I did. The little green and brown acorn sat at the bottom of that hole, touching all the different kinds of earth. Nothing. She was there…” She frowned at the ground, as though she couldn’t talk the earth. “That’s when Pa smiled and pulled me close. He said that I made him happy.

“Gosh darn it if I didn’t almost jump outta my skin. I heard her. Through my hooves. Like… like… Gosh. How do you say the whole world spoke to you?” 

She stood still, eyes closed and face raised to the sky. Shadows and sunlight flickered across her freckles as a breeze came down along the trail. I felt something through my hooves suddenly, just a flicker of a feeling, but it was enough to make me squeal and jump back.

“Oh.” She gave me a look, then down at where I’d been standing. Grass had spread around her, just a little fuzz of green shoots, but it had spread so swiftly I’d not noticed. “Well, like that, I suppose. But… in my heart. I felt my Pa. I felt the grass, the apple trees all around. I felt the little crawly critters and that great big earthworm.”

“‘Now you,’ he said. ‘What makes you happy?’ Well, I’m ashamed to say that it weren’t anything you mighta expected. Um. Apple pie. See… Ma and Granny Smith were bakin’ up a storm, and I could smell it all the way out there. And I was gonna have some. Oh, not just any ol’ apple pie. Zap Apple pie. Granny makes zap apples dance a jig, she does, and if she wants to make the best darn pie you ever tasted.” She paused to look at me. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but she stopped, her eyebrow arching. “Fluttershy?”

“I…” I coughed, trying not to feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “I, um, I’ve never had any Zap Apple pie. I, um, I gave my piece to Rainbow Dash.” The last came out in a rush.

“What? That little…” She snorted again. “Not one piece?”  She stared at me, goggle-eyed when I shook my head. “Do you mean to say you ain’t tasted any?” 

I nodded, scuffing a hoof at the edge of the grass.

“Well, we are gonna fix that. Right now. Come on. I’ve got the recipe, and there’s some jam still in the icebox.”