Elliot took his time walking to Sweet Apple Acres next morning. Coming back after a day away was like coming up for air, but that didn’t mean there was any reason to rush. All the more reason to appreciate the magic of fresh pebbles crunching underneath his shoes. It took a human about forty minutes to hike over from the train station, and the road there was filled with so many things. Things that, while living in the city, he had never known were so much like air for breathing. There were pillbugs and crocuses, and hoary mats of moss hung in ancient glades of birch. There were all the ways a hill could fold around grass and dirt, and all the ways the sky could color the ground.
Besides, it gave him a chance to warm up his singing voice. Elliot was considering singing The Song today. He’d probably chicken out before he got there, of course, the same as always. But still he had the lyrics in his pocket. He thought it was one of the most inspired things he’d ever created, although that didn’t necessarily translate to making it a good idea showing it to Applejack. He probably wasn’t as good as he thought at writing lyrics in Equus. He just felt that way because it was so much easier to rhyme.
It was probably best suited for unfolding while alone, in a moment like this, and singing to the shade of mockingbirds while he puttered down the trail.
To an Earth Mare
I comb through your mane, picking out pieces of dirt,
Out of a desire to crumble them,
Not to clean you.
This is when you’re at your most beautiful, Applejack:
Your coat crusted with little specks of dirt from working in the field.
This is your element, this is the way you came out of the earth,
Covered in the ground that worships you.
Only when you’re like this,
I can hold your sleeping form and inhale the sweet smells of harvest.
You shift under my touch; your face turns toward the sunlight coming through the barn door,
Like a plant, you reach instinctively toward mother.
Inside you, just an inch past the fine leather cover that separates my hoof from your cavities,
Are currents of magic that would electrocute me.
Your organs draw the magic of Equestria through your liver, your blood, your beating heart;
You are raw green mana,
The magic of life itself,
Dancing, laughing, working, sweating.
Science confirms it;
from Equestria’s womb you came,
and thence you shall return.
No death could diminish your beauty.
I’d plant you–you’d hardly notice the difference, already one with the earth.
The tree that sunk its roots through your corpse would be the tallest and strongest of all.
(Not for pegasi this ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
For me, maybe, but only as a cheap sermon–
You give the words invincible pride.)
Only if Equestria let its dearest child go,
And hurled you into orbit,
Past the thaumic field that holds your cells together,
Would you disintegrate into a mess worth crying over.
I want to hold you closer, to keep that from happening,
but my hooves have already wandered too far,
Just like I wouldn’t dare whisper these words in your ears
If I thought you real.
Gravity embraces you with fanatic devotion.
It is enough.
I trace your back,
Supple, curving like gentle waves of wheat;
I dig between your hairs, leaving marks,
–Furrows?–
and smell soil, the strength of moving earth.
Still soft enough to bury myself in.
A mighty fine piece of land.
I want to be planted here, in you.
Carry me forever.
Gravity embraces us both,
Drawing us closer, despite your cautions.
No matter where I go now,
as long as I touch the good earth you touch,
We’re together.
Yes...maybe singing this to Applejack wouldn’t be the best of plans.
Another reason not to hurry was that he’d only have to wait once he arrived at the outer gate. If he reached it early, he might meet Applebloom going out to school, but only if it wasn’t a Sunday. And he couldn’t arrive that fast when he had to take the morning train from Canterlot. He would just have to wait for Granny Smith to show up closer to noon; she would let him in then.
But he seemed to be blessed by a rare sort of luck that morning. Scarcely had he spotted the gate when he also saw an orange speck coming down from the hills.
He greeted her with a wave as soon as she was within pony earshot. “Good morning, Miss Applej—woah!”
He didn’t get very far before she was suddenly in his face. Her orange snout stuck up like an accusing promontory, eyes and freckles sharp in the morning sun. She had put on a burst of speed and crossed the meadow before he could finish his sentence.
“What is this?” she declared loudly.
Twisting back over her shoulders, she bit open the clasp to her left saddlebag. When her face came back out of it, there was a heavy black rectangle balanced in her teeth.
Oh dear.
Elliot smiled wanly. He held out his hands to balance the laptop for her when she tried to set it on the fenceposts. He remembered that gift. Perfectly well. Why had he ever thought that was a good idea? There were all sorts of things on that drive, folders he’d copied over from his own computer without thinking any farther ahead than the idea that Applejack would enjoy being able to see some of her own fandom without an internet connection.
Applejack angrily gestured for Elliot to open the computer. He pried back the lid reluctantly, sure of what he would see. At the impudent flick of her mane he scanned the screen.
But it wasn’t what he thought.
The worst thing he could see in this image was the word ‘Hurtful’, although even that had been crossed out and replaced with the word ‘Loving’. “Doing Loving Things to your Waifu”. In the comic panels below—admittedly, they were crudely drawn—a figurine of Applejack was being complimented…petted…being proposed to. All in all, rather nice things. At least it seemed that way to him.
“Not the porn, huh?” he deadpanned.
“This what you want?” Applejack snarled.
Elliot jumped back at this. He’d never seen a pony actually snarl before—never realized her lip could curl over her teeth as if she actually had canines, and in some primordial language scare the flowing blood halfway out of his body. He re-approached the fence as if it were the cage of something dangerous.
“Now, Applejack, there’s a…lot of stuff on computers. I don’t know if you should go poking around every…”
“Think we can’t live without you?” she whinnied. “Cuz’ yer’ just the plum darn greatest thing to fall out of the sky?”
Elliot winced. “Er…no?”
“Stallions!” she snorted. “Just the same everywhere I go. What do you think, Elliot? I’m just gonna’ roll over for you one day cuz’ you so darn sweet? That what you want?”
Her sides were heaving as if she’d run a race. Elliot stepped back again. He tried desperately to look up, but he couldn’t meet the sour fire in her eyes.
He looked away, and folded his hands behind his back. “Gee, Miss Applejack. It never crossed my mind that I might actually win you over.”
“You little—what?” Her head bobbed up; she back-trotted a couple steps.
“Sure.” He looked down again. “I mean, you’re the one and only Applejack, after all. I’m not that full of myself. But you seemed to like me, so I thought that if I was lucky I’d get the chance to…”
“Chance to what?” she asked with lowered ears.
“Uh...sing your praises, I guess. I’m still working on the singing part. But I am getting better.”
Applejack pawed the ground. While Elliot waited outside the fence, she paced, glared and stomped. When she locked down his gaze, it wasn’t so grin at him, but to scrutinize, plumbing whatever was behind to find it either shallow or deep. Elliot only hoped she wouldn’t tell him to go away.
“You’re bein’ plum ridiculous,” she whinnied. Looked down. “I’m nothin’ near as great as you think I am.”
Elliot shrugged, still wearing a bemused expression. “So?”
“So yer’ wastin’ your time!” she snarled. “You should go home! Leave me here, Elliot, and go find a filly fer’ yourself who’s actually as nice as you think she is.”
Elliot rolled his shoulders. “Nonsense. This is the opposite of a waste. And I don’t love someone else. I love you.”
She was looking away, glowering into the dirt as if she could plant her fury there. “But…I’m not…”
“Not a line drawing? Sure!”
“Elliot! I mean Ah’m not…” She spat, trying to make herself say something.
“Oh, horseapples! Love doesn’t care about that.” Elliot vaulted himself onto the fence. “It doesn’t care about stubbornness, or bursts of temper, and it certainly doesn’t care about an unwashed mane. It doesn’t even care about Breezies or late episodes. Applejack, you love something because…well, I figure love is its own reason. That’s as plain as I can say it, and I hope that’s enough.”
She glared at him, working her jaw.
“Well…if’n…” She stamped. “If’n you wanna’ be my gosh-darned minstrel, then cut it out with the frog songs!”
Elliot fell flat off the fence. “Y-yes, miss!” he cried with his legs sticking up in the air.
“And—and quit talking about my hair!” She pulled her mane down on both sides.
“Ask and it shall be done,” he said from the ground. “No more hair songs.”