//------------------------------// // Part II - A Wave of Sorrow // Story: Where the Rarest of Apples Grow // by jkbrony //------------------------------// "Look, another one!" Rarity boasted, and rushed over to magically pluck a red-and-silver petunia sitting like a weed at the base of a bush. Applejack groaned with annoyance. This had been the fourth time Rarity had stopped to pick a flower within the last five minutes. "In case you forgot, we ain't here for the flowers, Rarity." "Oh, I know, dear," Rarity said, carefully placing the petunia into her left saddlebag with the three other flowers. "Still, it's quite a shame to think that all the beauty that grows in these woods can go ignored simply because nopony cares to enter them. In fact, I'd say it's downright criminal! These flowers could be absolutely perfect for a headdress!" Applejack shook her head, chuckling to herself at how typical this kind of behavior was for Rarity. "If you say so," she said apathetically. They were now more than fifteen minutes into their two-hour trip, and no creatures, dangerous or otherwise, had yet crossed their path. Nevertheless, the forest still exhibited its typical eerie demeanor—bushes and shrubs twitched as they passed them, the leaves on the trees rattled without any wind, and strange, unidentifiable sounds could be heard in the distance. Every few minutes, their path was illuminated by patches of sunlight which managed to shine through significant gaps between the trees, granting them a vague sense of safety within the mostly darkened forest. But once their path led them into another tree-heavy area, the forest instantly shifted back to its dark and shadowy self, as though a massive gray cloud had suddenly been pulled over the sun, stealing their safety away. They continued walking along their path, but it was not long before Rarity caught sight of a golden, shimmering light to the left, obscured only slightly by the bushes and trees that filled the distance between her and it. The light was reflecting off the petals of a small, golden daisy. Its stem protruded from out of a small shrub like a piece of golden treasure, waiting to be claimed. "Oh, my stars!" Rarity cried in astonishment, squinting as she stared directly into the light. "It's an Equestrian Sunshine Daisy! I never would have expected to find one in a place like this!" "C'mon, Rarity," Applejack said, sighing with more annoyance. "At this rate, we won't even be home in time for dinner." "Just one more, I promise!" Rarity said, looking at her with pleading eyes. "I simply cannot let this one go!" "Fine," Applejack said as she viewed the desperation in Rarity face. "Go on." Squealing with excitement, Rarity turned and rushed in the direction of the shimmering flower, disappearing from Applejack's sight as she zipped past the bushes and trees to reach it. Applejack waited in place for several seconds, squinting her eyes forward at the path ahead, then shifting them warily around her surroundings, hoping not to see the menacing glint of a pair of hungry eyes staring back at her from within the bushes... Before long, the seconds had stretched on into a minute. When Applejack looked back in the direction Rarity had vanished, she could no longer see the golden light, letting her know that the flower had been plucked. Yet for some reason, Rarity was still nowhere to be found. "C'mon, Rarity!" Applejack called. "What in thunderation is takin' so long?" She received no response. "Rarity...?" Applejack called again, a sudden chill falling over her as she realized that she might have made a grave mistake by letting Rarity out of her sight. Again, there was no response. In a panicked frenzy, Applejack hurried through the brush where Rarity had disappeared, her head moving swiftly in all directions as she searched frantically for her. Through a small patch of sunlight shining between a gap in the leaves just ahead of her, she caught a quick glimpse of the indigo of Rarity's tail from the other side of a tree, just a short distance away from where the flower had been. Rushing quickly around the tree, Applejack found Rarity standing entirely stiff, apparently transfixed by something in front of her. Her left saddlebag glowed brightly from the inside. "Sakes alive, Rarity!" Applejack cried as she approached her. "You scared the apple seeds outta me! I thought you—" She stopped, immediately understanding why Rarity was standing frozen in place. Lying just before her hooves was the decomposed carcass of a large cragidile which was tied up with black vines along all four of its limbs, as well as by its snout and its tail. Each vine was tied against several nearby tree trunks which circled its body with enough distance to leave it spread out widely across the ground. The rocky exterior of its body now appeared so loose and fragile that it seemed as though it would have crumbled entirely if given only the slightest touch. Rarity trembled steadily, and it looked like she was only just barely suppressing a flood of tears from dropping out of her eyes. "We....we did this..." she whispered. Applejack felt guilt travel through her nerves as she stared into the now-empty eye sockets of the cragidle. She instantly remembered when they had stumbled across it, when it had closed in on Twilight, and when they had tied it up against the trees with the black vines they had found nearby. At the time, it had been nothing more than a threat that needed to be dealt with, but it now seemed more like a living being whose life was stolen away in a truly horrifying manner. "Well, shoot. I certainly didn't mean for this to happen," Applejack said, removing her hat. Rarity shook her head with disgust. "How could we have just left him tied up like this?" "Well, if you recall, he did come quite close to swallowin' Twilight up," Applejack pointed out. "That doesn't mean he deserved to die like this!" Rarity cried, finally allowing a few tears to release. "No living creature deserves to die like this!" "You're right," Applejack said with a mournful nod. "I wasn't thinkin' 'bout it much at the time, but I had assumed he would be able to break free eventually." "So did I..." Rarity admitted, wiping her eyes. "I didn't think these vines would be able to hold him for that long. Goodness, what have we done?" "Somethin' we can't take back, no matter how much we want to," said Applejack, respectfully closing her eyes. Rarity shook her head, suddenly wishing that they had not come across the golden daisy. It was certainly not worth making this discovery... "So....what do you want to do?" Applejack asked, looking back at her. "I didn't bring any shovels with me, so I don't reckon we could bury him." "Let's just untie him," Rarity said softly. "We simply can't leave him like this." Applejack nodded in agreement, returning her hat to her head. Like a wave of liberating sorrow washing over the scene, they carefully unraveled each of the knots around its limbs. Applejack untied the knots around its snout and right legs, while Rarity magically untied the ones around its tail and left legs. Once finished, they moved its fragile limbs closer to its body so that it no longer looked stretched thinly upon the ground. "He almost just looks like big pile o' rocks now," Applejack said mournfully. Rarity sat at the cragidle's side and opened her saddlebag to magically remove the golden daisy, placing it upon his back. "I'm deeply sorry..." she whispered, her ears wilting. "You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve this at all..." Applejack plucked a nearby orange-colored daisy from the ground and replicated the action, placing it perpendicular to Rarity's daisy so that their stems were crossed. "I'm mighty sorry, too," Applejack said, sitting down next to her. "We didn't mean to do this to you. We were just tryin' to protect our friend..." After a moment of silence which was only broken up by Rarity's trembling breaths, the two ponies rose back up onto their hooves. "Don't blame yourself too much," Applejack said tenderly, noticing how guilt-stricken Rarity still appeared to be. "We couldn't have just let him eat Twilight, could we?" "No," Rarity said, shaking her head slowly. "But it makes me shudder to think about how it was just trapped here, unable to call for help, unable to do anything but wait to die. It's horrible..." "It really is..." Applejack could not help but think about the Chimera that she had saved Apple Bloom from just a few months earlier. She had left it trapped, its fangs embedded deeply in a thick tree trunk, and for all she knew, it was still there. And if it was indeed still there, it was surely also dead by now. Yet unlike the cragidile, the Chimera had been a sentient being, and the thought that she had left it to die made her slightly uncomfortable, even in spite of the fact that it was only seconds away from digging its teeth into her younger sister. As Rarity had said, nothing deserved to die in such a horrific way... "C'mon, we should go," Applejack said softly after another few minutes had passed. "We've done all we can." Rarity nodded, wiping any remnants of tears from her eyes. "Let's not tell Fluttershy about this." "No argument from me," Applejack replied with a nod. As they walked back to return to the trail from which they had departed, Rarity turned her head to take a final, sorrowful look at the cragidile before she could no longer see it from behind the thick trees and brush.