“You know the best pie I ever tasted?”
The question came on the tail of Applejack breaking into a swift trot, and me galloping to catch up to her. “Granny’s Zap-apple pie?”
“Well, not exactly. But sorta. Kinda.” She chuckled as she leapt a puddle of mud as the trail shifted, dipping into a tiny ravine for several lengths, then rising again. “It was… well, that’s kinda another story.”
“I see.” Storytime was over, apparently, and at the pace Applejack set, talking was harder since I had to watch the trail for divots and roots, and she did the same. “Maybe… tomorrow?”
“We’ll see.”
The trees shifted and changed around us much swifter than the sedate pace of earlier, and the trail she led us onto opened up into a wider not-quite-road with two great ruts of bare earth divided by a scraggly fringe of grass.
She slowed the pace—a little. “See, makin’ Zap Apples into treats has always been a family thing. Always. Since Granny and her folks harvested the first bunch, way back. She and her Pa and Ma, me and mine and Granny.”
I nodded, skipping over a root scrabbling out of the side of the cart path.
“The best pie I ever had was right after Apple Bloom was born. We had a harvest right that week, it seemed. Them timberwolves started howlin’ the day she howled her first. Even better, we had Apples from all over come to see the baby on the fifth day, and every Apple helped out.
“Family and fruit alike, we had Apples comin’ out our ears! First time they all managed to make it on time for a harvest.” She laughed as she slowed to go up the steep side of a hill. This path didn’t wind around like the barely there one we had been following, but went up and over and down the other side. Direct. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a better harvest. And not a better day, neither.” She stopped at the crest of the hill, staring into the distance.
Ahead of us, the cart path stretched down into the dell below our hill, then disappeared over the crest of the next. Apple trees of all shades covered the rising and falling lands around us, a sea of green, red and gold swaying with the light breeze. Beyond the hills, maybe five or six humps where I could see the trail continuing, straight as an arrow, I could see the barn’s windvane, and the spinning blades of the windmill.
“That harvest was…” Applejack’s smile faded, her ears drooped. “It was…”
“I understand.” I didn’t want to look back at the tree, but I did, and she she didn’t quite turn to look back at the tree. It stood, easily visible from our hilltop, high above the apple trees around it. That harvest was our last as a whole family. I heard it in my heart even as I shivered and turned away from the tree to face her again.
“That harvest was the best we’ve ever had.” Applejack didn’t look at me as she said it, but I could see the sparkling droplets falling from her chin. “The best.”
I took a step closer, then stopped and shook my head. What could I say? ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ just didn’t feel like the right thing. But I had to say something. She was crying, right there in front of me. “Applejack…”
“Don’t mind me, Fluttershy. Just hard memories.”
“It’s more than that,” I said, stepping closer, but not too close. Or maybe I was too far away. I took another step, and I felt the truth bubbling up in my head along with a sympathetic grief that I couldn’t help. But I could hold it back as I faced what I had to say. It was there on my tongue, and I didn’t know if she would hear it, but it needed to be said. “Granny Smith got hurt.”
She stayed quiet as she watched the slow turning of the windmill’s blades and the lazy turn of the distant windvane. But she nodded finally. “I know it. She got hurt. Bad.” She looked me right in the eyes, tears in hers. “I-I know it. She’s tough.” Her voice quavered, and she swallowed. “But—” She cut off as she sat down hard and drew in a ragged breath.
Oh, Applejack. The thought almost broke me, and I had to dash tears from my eyes to see her clearly, then took a deep breath. “You got hurt, too. You are hurt.” Keeping the strain from my voice as I held back the hurt was almost more than I could manage.
Another step closer, then another, and I was beside her, pressing my shoulder to hers. “She’ll get better, Applejack,” I said quietly. She stiffened, and I pressed against her more firmly. “She will. You’ll see.”
“Yeah.” She laughed shakily, leaning into me as she did.
Was it a laugh? Or was it a sob? The tears said it was a sob, but she was smiling. I opened a wing and started to settle it over her back, but she stiffened. I froze.
Then she relaxed again, shaking her head and chuckling. “Yeah,” she repeated, and rubbed a foreleg against her muzzle. “Yeah, I will. But you know what I want to do, right now?”
“Bake a pie?” I tucked the wing back against my side and leaned into her a little more firmly. Just a little. “I’d like that.”
She nodded as she stood, her smile growing wider as she brushed her other leg against her cheek. “Yeah. Bake a pie. You and me.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to taste it.” I could still remember the pie slice that I had given up—the smell of it a blend of spice and tart, sweet and sour all in the same whiff.
“Well, let’s get goin’ then.” She stood, taking a step away, but she didn’t go any further. “Fluttershy…” She cleared her throat. “I’d like to go back to visit her before the day’s done. Make amends, make sure she’s okay.” One brief look back towards the tree, and she smiled as she turned aside and started down the hill. “I’d like it if you came, too.”
I didn’t even stop to think about it. “I will.” She was smiling as I caught up to her, bumping shoulders and laughing as she picked up the pace—just a little. “Would her doctor object if we brought a slice of pie? That’d be a nice treat. If they don’t object, that is.”
“We can always bring a piece.” She snorted, pranced ahead a few paces, slowed, and looked back at me. Something I saw in her said she wanted to let go, and run all out. But she didn’t. She waited for me, then started again, matching me stride for stride. “They can always say no.”
“I suppose.” What had I seen in her? Was it eagerness? Something else? I glanced aside at her, trying to be circumspect in my study of her. Run. It was a sudden thought, and I knew, then, if I followed the impulse, she would, too.
But she was calm, and so was I. Distant birds chirped and sang at each other, the wind was picking up as the afternoon sun began drifting towards early evening, but the heat… it was still as hot as any day during high summer.
Run. Not a warning. A joyful impulse.
“Applejack?”
“Yep?”
“Would you like to race?”
She eyed me for a moment, lips pursed in an almost smile. “I wouldn’t mind stretchin’ my legs a little.” She kept on at the same pace for a little longer, turned away from me again. “Do you think you can keep up?”
It was a fair question, and I felt a blush growing with the uncertainty knotting in my stomach. Stop thinking! Do.
The first stride felt uncertain, the second less so. “Let’s find out,” I said over my back. It was thrilling to say that. I didn’t know. Well, I was almost certain, but I didn’t know, really. At the third, I was reaching farther, feeling the stretch along my spine. At the fourth, I heard her hooves pound beside me, and she leapt ahead.
Dirt, rocks, and roots flew by under my hooves, and the wind filled my ears as though I was flying. But she kept pulling ahead. By the time we both reached the bottom—she lead me by several short strides.
“You sure?” She asked again as I caught up to her slow trot up the next hill.
I nodded, not trusting my voice to call it off, and galloped past her, trying to keep the momentum gained by going down the hill. It was a strain to keep it, but it got easier as heat flowed into my muscles, and by the time I reached the crest, she was beside me again.
“Yeehaw!” Came her wild cry as she started down, just a nose ahead of me, already stretched into a full galloping stride.
An impulse struck me just before I followed her down, and instead of stretching, I compressed, stalled, and kicked off. I snapped open my wings, pulled myself up by a pony-length, and snapped my wings into a tight wedge, diving along the incline.
“Whoa nelly!”
Applejack’s voice snapped by in a flash, and I lost myself for a moment in the fine details of not crashing. That close, with my hooves barely a pony-length off the ground, every twitch of my wings, and every slight breeze would have been too much if I didn’t focus my all on the moment of flight.
Time to worry later.
And then I was touching down, braking to sanity at the bottom of the hill. I had enough time to look back at the hill I had just dove down the side of, my heart racing, and exhilaration being pounded under by panic. What did you just do?
“Don’t stop now!” Applejack’s call came from closer behind than I would have thought possible. “Ha! Thought you was RD again, Fluttershy. Good move.” Applejack slowed only a hair as she passed me, starting up the next hill.
And I followed. Up, my hooves pounding as I labored up one side of the hill, and saw Applejack’s tail flashing down the other side.
Before thought or caution could take hold, I dove off that hill, too.
I let the rush take me up the next, Applejack just managing to beat me to the next hilltop, and I felt a wildness I’d not felt before take over. Everything became the rush and the stretching gallop up to reach the next.
And she kept up. I could hear her breathing harder at the fourth hilltop, but she was laughing, as I dove off after her, passed her, and was passed in turn.
When no more hills were there to climb up and slow me down, Applejack let out a yell. I looked behind, saw her closing, her neck stretched level to the ground, her hooves reaching and pounding the road.
“Home stretch,” she grunted as she drew even with me, her pace hardly slowing. “Can ya—” She sucked down a breath, laughed as I surged forward, and spoke no more.
I had no breath to reply, and too overcome with surprise at my own burst of speed as my lungs burned from the ache of running so hard. But I could still smile at her, and she returned it with a broad grin.
The run, with our hooves matching beat for beat, became everything for too brief a time. The gate flashed by, red and white painted with apples and flower scrollwork, and Applejack slowed to a trot, a canter, and finally a walk for the last hundred or so pony-lengths to the front porch.
“Hah! That felt good,” Applejack said between deep breaths. She wasn’t panting, or breathing all that hard, but sweat glistened on her coat, and her smile made the noonday sun seem dim. “I figure… just a few minutes to cool down.”
I smiled at her as I lay panting in the shade under the overhang. My face hurt, my legs burned, and there was a knot growing in my side the longer I stayed there.
“Well,” she said, grinning, “maybe more than a few minutes.”
Why did my face hurt? I laughed at the passing thought, not quite formed. I was still smiling.
“Y’know,” Applejack said a few minutes later, “I think I don’t care what the doc says. I’m gonna bring Granny a slice of pie. Heck, if I kept some from her, she’d wallop me upside the head anyhow.” She chuckled, sweeping her hat off and fanning herself with it. In a fair imitation of Granny Smith, she continued: “You young’uns don’t know how to whip the jam right proper. Let me show ya how it’s done.”
“She’s going to bake a lot more pies before she’s done, Applejack.”
“Darn right, she is.” She laughed and pushed open the door. “Come on, I’ll need your hooves helpin’ out.”
I followed, still smiling.