It was a fine autumn day, early September, I reckon. I remember it had been a real warm summer, too, so the cooler temperatures had everypony’s spirits (and productivity, incidentally) higher than it had been for a good while. I’d just put in a good day’s worth of bucking, naturally, and I was pleased at the sight of all the apple-filled baskets in my cart. The beginning of Applebuck Season’s always the best part, afore you start to get sick of bucking day in and day out and afore the sight of the apples makes you slightly queasy.
Don’t tell anypony I said that, though.
I really do love farming. It ain’t just that it’s all I’ve ever done and all my entire family back nine or ten generations had ever done. Course, could be that is all it is - that it’s just in my blood like it was in theirs. All that aside, though, farming is hard work. It makes you feel every step, every kick and every swing of your neck. You always know you’ve done something during the day, and it’s always something worthwhile. Everypony's gotta eat, after all. Entire civilizations have collapsed for lack of food. But I’m getting off the subject.
It was just about time to harvest the wheat. I’d been down to those fields a dozen times in the last few days, both to check in on the wheat and to check in on myself. Even farmers have to take care of more than just our bodies. Ain’t no pony living or dead who can honestly say that the mind ain’t just as important, if not more important than the bodies we’re in.
Despite the nice, cool weather having a calming effect on everypony else - or so it seemed - I remember feeling extra pent up that day. Like I could run for the hills on the outskirts of town and just keep running and running ‘til I died. At the same time, there was this extra weight on my chest that I couldn’t move, for all the brute strength everypony says I’ve got, and it was just crushing the air and life from me.
It wasn’t actually the case, of course, but that’s what it felt like.
It ain’t like I never felt it afore that day, either. It’s actually a pretty familiar sensation, even now. No amount of running has ever helped and lifting Pa’s yoke off my chest ain’t taken off the weight, either. It took years for me to figure out what I needed to do to feel better.
Our wheat fields aren’t vast, by any means. Especially not in comparison to the orchard. But they ain’t tiny, either. Just the right size to sustain Ponyville’s need for flour. They’re also the perfect size for me to tend on my own. When I get that running feeling, I make myself move extra slow so I won’t run away with myself. Then I take my sweet time and I stroll on down to the wheat. My wheat. My sanctuary when Pa died and I didn’t want to be around anypony ever again.
So that’s where I found myself that day. Stands to reason that I had my own spot, since I spent so much time down there. It was on the lee side of a good-sized hill, facing Northwest toward the Everfree and the Lonely Mountain. When I’m there, I get one of the best views of the sunset in Ponyville.
Only AJ and Granny know where to find me when I’m here, and Granny ain’t been able to walk this far in ages. So I knew for a fact it was AJ coming to get me, probably for dinner, when I heard hoofsteps in the grass at the top of the hill and hour or so later. The sky was just beginning to display the bright colors of sunset, though I always thought dusk was the best part. I ain’t ever seen the sky turn that nice shade of green any other time of day except dusk.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Pa had been the one to point that out to me years ago.
“Hey Mac.” AJ had finally reached me, but I was still watching the vivid reds, oranges and yellows in the sky. She shuffled her hooves a little in the grass. “Mind if Ah sit?”
I bristled slightly at the question that had never been asked afore, dang near an invasion of privacy - to this day, that field’s probably the most private thing I’ve got. But another split second and I was turning my head to look at her, confused. I’d just noticed the hitch in her voice when she’d gotten to the word “sit” and how her eyes were darting back and forth, a bead of sweat starting to travel down her brow. Honestly, she looked like she was gonna be sick.
“Nope,” I responded slowly.
She sat herself down, not really able to look me in the eye. I fought the smirk threatening to take over my face as I figured out what must be the problem, the tightness vanishing from my chest as I thought more about it.
“You’re sweet on somepony, ain’tcha?” I said, slow and unassuming as ever, my eyes back on the horizon. Always makes her squirm.
A snort came from her muzzle. A little too forced. My small smirk grew.
“Ah ain’t sweet on anypony, Mac, you know that.” I could almost hear her roll her eyes.
I turned slowly and levelled an unconvinced look at her, unblinking.
“Oh c’mon. Stop it.” She waved a hoof at my face, threatening to shove it away so my eye contact would break.
I blinked slowly and shrugged. I knew when she was lying - she wasn’t doing a very good job at it anyhow, but I guess that comes with the territory of being the Element of Honesty.
“Truth always comes out,” I said nonchalantly.
“That ain’t what Ah’m here about!” she protested hotly, her cheeks flushing slightly. “An’ how come you’re so interested anyways?”
“Ain’t it enough that Ah care ‘bout mah little sis?” I tried to look angelic, chuckling a little at Applejack’s unamused glare. “Okay, so it’s mostly ‘cause you’re so bad at lyin’ about it.”
She huffed a little. “Ever think there’s a reason Ah ain’t told you yet?”
“Other’n that you’re a mite embarrassed t’ have a crush?” I nudged her shoulder playfully and pondered for a split second. “Eenope.”
A raised eyebrow was my only answer this time.
I shrugged again, before a thought came to me.
“Ah guess Ah could jus’ tell ev’rypony ‘bout your mishap with that lasso five or six summers back…”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she looked at me, aghast.
“That all depends on mah curiosity, now, don’t it?” I smirked again.
“Ugh,” she slapped a hoof to her face. “Fine. You’re askin’ for it!” She rolled her eyes and muttered, “Ah was doin’ it for your own good, y’know.”
I smiled again, widely. Not in my wildest dreams could there have been any way that what she was about to say would do me any harm at all.
“It’s Fluttershy,” she mumbled.
My ear twitched and my eyes went wide with shock. I hadn’t heard right. She’d meant to say Rarity, I was sure of it.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“I said it’s Fluttershy, OK?” She glared at me again. “Th’ very same pony you’re sweet on. Ah know. Happy now?”
I had no comeback.
So we sat in uneasy silence, watching the sunset together. It was starting to get late enough that we’d need to head back to the farmhouse soon, and I did still want to hear what she’d come to say. I took a breath, telling myself that it couldn’t possibly be worse than what she’d just told me.
“So,” I drawled slowly. “What was it y’ really came out here t’ tell me?”
To my surprise, the scent of her fear nearly bowled me over. I glanced to the side and could see her hooves shaking and her chest heaving.
“Easy, now, AJ.” I put a hoof on her shoulder, a small frown on my face. My normally over-confident sister was never this out of sorts. “Take your time.”
She shot me a grateful smile, and took a calming breath. “This one’s gonna take a bit of explainin’.”
“Reckon we got some time afore dinner.”
I watched her squeeze her eyes shut, muttering some voiceless prayer of encouragement, then take yet another deep breath.
“You remember when Ah left for Manehattan, years back?”
I grunted. “Never will forget.” Not that fact that she left or the look of permanent pain on her face afore she went. She was different when she came back. It’s true, she was where she belonged and it made her happy. But that look hadn’t quite faded, either. Sometimes I still catch her staring in the mirror at herself, and always wondered if it was ‘cause she missed the high life of Manehattan, or if it was something else entirely.
“Well, there were a couple o’ reasons Ah left. Ma and Pa, o’ course… I was hurtin’ pretty bad for them. But, the other part was somethin’ else entirely. Like Ah wasn’t who Ah was s’posed t’ be.
“Leavin’ didn’t help none, as you an’ Ah both know. But Ah realized Ah did learn somethin’ in Manehattan that Ah ain’t been able to put my hoof on ‘til recently.”
I watched on as she tugged at her hat nervously, licking her lips. I didn’t interrupt.
“Th’ part that was wrong - that didn’t feel quite right,” she continued slowly, her eyes darting from her hooves to the grass, then to the wheat a few ponylengths off. “It didn't have nothin' t' do with where I was. Which is why Ah couldn’t run from it. That part was inside me. That part… it… it don’t line up with the outside of me.”
Now I was real confused. “How d’you mean?”
“Ah…” She looked up at me again, her eyes a little wild in her nervousness. “On the inside, Ah… Ah’m a colt. Stallion.” She fidgeted with her hat some more. Pa’s hat. “Ah know it sounds weird, but I just can’t handle feelin’ this way no more, Mac! Not if’n there’s somethin’ Ah can do t’ feel better.”
At that point, my mind had become completely fuzzy. I heard a tinny buzzing in my ears that wouldn’t go away no matter how I flicked my ears. I didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. Trees grow a certain way. So does wheat. And there’s a reason for it. I’d always maintained that it was the same with ponies. But this?
Reckon it explained why I often caught her staring in the mirror like that.
I felt a million emotions then. Anger, because this wasn’t the natural order of things. Sorrow, because AJ was so obviously hurting. Heck, I was hurting, too. All of my illusions about our quaint little family who stick so well to tradition had been shattered, in spite of my constant boasts that we broke the stereotypes of being prejudiced farm-folk. How in tarnation were we supposed to explain something like this to family, to friends?
But most of all, I felt a deep confusion.
I tried to speak, but the only thing that came out was an angry-sounding grunt. Like somepony had just bucked me in the stomach. I heard a foggy version of AJ’s voice like it was coming from real far away. I flicked both ears to try to catch her actual words, which was a whole lot harder than it should've been.
“...figurin’ out what comes next, so Ah had Nurse Redheart teach me how t’ do these injections that’ll give me more a stallion-like figure an’ voice an’ stuff.” She reached around to a large bag I hadn’t even noticed she had with her when she came to sit with me. She showed me the vials containing a very slightly golden liquid and the syringes for the injections.
I shied away from them as if they would bite, shuddering a bit at the size of the needles.
“How’d you get those?” I demanded, inwardly furious that I’d taken so long to catch back up to the conversation and not able to prepare myself for the sight.
She almost smiled then. “Bein’ one of the Princess’ best friends has a lot of perks.” She looked up at me with big eyes, looking almost like that small, scared filly who’d gone off to Manehattan to find her destiny - only without the hint of pain that’d always been there.
My poor brain was overloaded. I wanted to be happy for her but I also needed to sort through all of this on my own. So I stood and, without looking at her, started up the hill.
“Reckon it’s time for dinner,” I called back to her. I strode home slowly, still fighting that unsettling need to run forever. But I planted my hooves slowly and firmly, just like I’d taught myself, and showed up for dinner just like usual.
AJ never did come back to the farmhouse that night.