The sweet smell of apple fritters woke Applejack up before the rooster crowing did.
It was very early in the morning. The sunlight was barely peeking over the horizon, and stars could still be seen in the remainders of the night sky. Still bleary-eyed and recovering from sleep, Applejack rolled out of her bed and fumbled her way down the upstairs hall and down the stairs.
Applejack followed the smell to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes as she took in the scene before her. Braeburn, wide awake, was pulling a tray of apple fritters from the oven and placing them on a rack to cool down. Not only that, but it looked like he’d juiced a few oranges to make juice, and polished a few apples until they were bright and shining in the light of the oil lamps. And if that wasn’t enough, a few bowls of oatmeal were also made and sitting on the table.
“Braeburn…?” Applejack said through a yawn. “What in tarnation is all of this?”
“Breakfast!” Braeburn said excitedly. “I figured I needed to pay y’all back somehow, so I made breakfast! I washed some of the apples for use in the fritters from where you keep the previous harvest’s storage, and made some oatmeal from the remnants of your last package so you’ll have to go into town to buy more. And I found a few oranges in the pantry and went ahead and made some orange juice to drink along with since I didn’t see any milk in the icebox.”
“Still runnin’ your mouth as usual, huh?” Applejack asked. “Well, in any case, it’s nice of you to do this, Braeburn. But… Celestia ain’t even raised the sun yet.”
“I’m used to gettin’ up this early,” Braeburn said. “Had to if ya wanted to beat the desert heat.”
The cock crowed as the rest of the Apples came into the doorway to see what the commotion was.
“Good mornin’!” Braeburn said cheerfully. “Now, why don’t y’all sit down? I think the fritters should be cool enough to eat.”
Upon seeing the meal, Granny’s eyes widened. “You… you done all this already!?”
“Oh, don’t fuss none, Granny,” Braeburn said, pulling out a chair for her at the head of the table. “Just come on over and eat!”
Disbelievingly, the others sat down as Braeburn brought around an apple fritter for each of them. They ate slowly at first, but Apple Bloom bit into her fritter and suddenly said “I think you just beat Pinkie Pie.” Suddenly, the table erupted into a swarm of comments, all in agreement that Braeburn was one mighty fine cook.
“I won a bakin’ competition at a fair in Dodge Junction for seven consecutive years,” Braeburn said. “It was nice, since winnin’ meant a little extra money as a prize. I think I won with my fritters twice, an apple pie four times, and a special batch of cupcakes made with applesauce once.”
Granny Smith sighed. “Just like your ma could,” she reminisced. “I remember her gettin’ her cutie mark one evenin’ when she added a special ingredient to her pie.”
“What was that, Granny?” Apple Bloom asked.
“I believe she added a little more brown sugar and a little less white sugar. Or maybe it was a hint of Caramel. I don’t know, but whatever it was, it was nice, light, and sweet with a little tart.”
“The pie recipe I used was ma’s,” Braeburn said. “I have a little box at home with a bunch of cards, each with a recipe on it.”
“For supposedly havin’ a spat with your parents, you seemed to have learned a lot from ‘em,” Applejack said.
“They taught me everythin’ before I left,” Braeburn said. “It was simple enough to remember it and write it down. ‘Course, I experimented with them sometimes in the evenings, but the best ways were how she made ‘em.”
“That’s sometimes what it boils down to, isn’t it?” Granny Smith commented. “You try to change somethin’, and in the end you’re back where you started.”
Braeburn opened his mouth to say something, but he froze as though in the middle of his thought. He stared with a rather happy expression on his face, but it soon dropped and became morose. He then dropped his head and didn’t make eye contact with anyone.
“Was it somethin’ I said?” Granny Smith asked.
Braeburn said nothing in response.
Applejack, now finished with her meal, got up from the table. “Well, best get to work before it gets too hot outside. Come on, Big Mac and Braeburn. We still gotta sort out the apple barrels.”
Braeburn seemed relieved at the sound of work and walked jauntily outside and towards the barn with Applejack and Big Macintosh, almost constantly talking.
“Man, it feels so good to be back here in Ponyville. I tell you, you have no idea the relief it is being back here in the cooler weather with all of you. I used to take a three hour siesta – that’s a rest period they have in Dodge Junction and transferred over to Appleoosa – until the heat went down and I could work again. But then a couple of townsponies tried my pies and I used to bake them and serve them with a tall glass of cold milk during my downtime on the farm. Made a decent amount of money with ‘em, too.”
“Sounds like things are goin’ well for ya out there,” Applejack said.
“Yeah. Well, used to. I haven’t been able to sell as many pies since I’ve lost a couple trees and don’t have as many apples.”
“Maybe we could set up a pie stall out here,” Big Macintosh said. “Give ya somethin’ to do for two weeks.”
“Well, thank ya kindly, Mac,” Braeburn said as they entered the barn. “Really appreciate it. We could whip up a few pies easily. So, how do y’all do this?”
“Well, one of us goes on top of the stack and sends a barrel down to Big Mac. Then we go over to the storage bin they belong in and empty it so that Big Mac can go back and get another barrel.”
“Easy enough. I could either help transfer the barrels or put them into the storage containers.”
“Whichever suits ya,” Applejack said.
“Alright. I’ll start with the storage bins. You still do them in alphabetical order?”
“Yep.”
And so they set off to work. Applejack gently bucked the barrels off the top of the stack so that they landed on Big Macintosh, calling the cultivar of the barrel. Big Macintosh gently carried them over to Braeburn, who heaved the massive barrels up and over the lip of the storage containers with ease and discarded the barrel as Big Macintosh went back over to Applejack.
The work was simple but time consuming, though Applejack quickly noticed the change. The three had already cleared a fair amount of barrels by the time Apple Bloom was coming by to say she was going to school. By the time lunch came around, almost half the barrels were placed and sorted correctly.
“Alright, then, let’s stop there. Should have stuff to make sandwiches back at the house,” Applejack said. “You feelin’ tired, Braeburn?”
“Nope!” Braeburn said. “The weather around here must be rejuvenatin’ me. I’ve felt better than I have in years.”
“Well, how about we still take a small break? You woke us up earlier than normal.”
“Whoops!” Braeburn exclaimed, a small amount of red on his cheeks. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” Big Macintosh said as they exited the barn and made for the main house. “It’s time for our lunch anyways.”
“Can’t say I’d deny a sandwich,” Braeburn said, the red fading back into a normal gold. “Do you often break for long?”
“About an hour,” Big Macintosh replied. “You could rest if you wanted.”
“You don’t need to go out of your way,” Braeburn said. “Really. I came down here to spend time with you.”
“Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to accommodate your schedule at least a little,” the stallion said evenly.
“I ain’t used to that restin’ thing,” Applejack said. “I’ll probably go work in the fields and see how our smaller vegetable crops are doin’.”
“Check on Granny before you go out,” Big Macintosh said.
“What will you do, Big Macintosh?” Braeburn asked.
“Finances,” the red stallion replied simply.
“Big Macintosh here knows the fancy mathematics required,” Applejack said. “I’d wager he’s the smartest of our whole family, but with how much Apple Bloom is learnin’ at the schoolhouse, she could probably give Mac a run for his money in a few years.”
Braeburn laughed. “It’s only fancy ‘cause it’s dealin’ with money. It’s about making sure the numbers are positive instead of negative. I used to do my finances in the evenin’, since it was kinda calmin’ sortin’ the books.”
“Not always,” Big Macintosh said. “But I see your point.”
Lunch was a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich with sliced apples and a large glass of iced water. When it was finished, Braeburn started heading up to his room and Big Macintosh headed into his office to work. Applejack started to head outside when she remembered Big Macintosh’s request to check on Granny Smith and turned back around.
Granny Smith was in her bedroom on the lower floor, lying down though with her head upright and supported on a pillow. She was looking through a book, an old leather-bound thing that Applejack quickly recognized as the family photo album.
Applejack knocked on the door a few times. “Granny,” she called. “Are you alright?”
“Eh, wha?” Granny said. She looked up from the book and saw Applejack walking over to her. “I’m alright. I was just lookin’ through the old family photo album.”
Granny motioned with a hoof over to Applejack. The orange mare stepped closer and looked at the album at a picture Granny pointed at. It looked to be almost fourteen years ago; Applejack was a little filly and hadn’t gotten her cutie mark yet. Big Macintosh already had his cutie mark, and Apple Bloom wasn’t even born quite yet.
Standing next to Applejack’s family was another, smaller one. There were two ponies Applejack only faintly recognized, but then Applejack saw Braeburn, looking almost the same as he did now but with his hat on the older stallion’s head. He had two younger sisters; her cousin Apple Fritter was on one side and a face she recognized but couldn’t remember the name of stood on the other.
“These were all the Apples livin’ in Ponyville back then?”
“Up until twelve years ago,” Granny Smith said. “Braeburn was the first to leave, goin’ on his trek across Ponyville. The rest of his family left a few months after we got word he was in Dodge Junction; shortly after you got your cutie mark. His parents died a few years later, his younger sister moved to family in Las Pegasus, and Apple Fritter recently got married to that one fellow and now lives in a town about two days’ travel from here on the old family farm.”
“A lot sure has happened since that photo,” Applejack said.
“More than any of us would have imagined back then,” Granny Smith said wisely. “As much to you as it has to Braeburn.”
Applejack thought about that. “How come Braeburn was the one that caused the bigger commotion?” she asked.
Granny Smith shrugged. “Well, I can’t rightly say for sure. You’ve always been a reasonable sort, while Braeburn had a rough time of it. You’ve done many wonderful things, Applejack, and everypony knows it. It just seems to be takin’ a while for Braeburn to receive the same acknowledgement.”
“Are you still mad at him?”
“I think there’s always gonna be a part of me that’s mad at him,” Granny said, closing the photo album with a sigh. “I just wish I knew what was runnin’ through that head of his. Like what happened at lunchtime.”
“Do you think that it has anythin’ to do with what happened twelve years ago?”
“Oh, sure. But… it seems there’s more than just that. Like somethin’ happened recently that he doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
Granny Smith yawned. Applejack pulled the photo album out of the old mare’s hooves and set it on her bedside table. Granny settled herself down in the bed and was soon dozing off.
Applejack had more questions. But, for now, there was work to do.