I hate to bring up old and painful memories, but... tell me, what's the worst part of living for so long, Applejack?
The worst part, Cheerilee, is that even if all the people and ponies I knew are gone, the memories of them are still alive in me, playing out as if they were happening right before my eyes...
The battle had been catastrophic.
Samurai Pegasus and fierce dragons clashed in the heavens, tearing into each other in a fierce midair clashing of steel and fangs. ponies spun and dodged the fierce burning of dragon fire, and many a stratadon fell before the swipe of a katana blade. The battle seemed to go back and forth at first, but the Pegasus soon gained the upper hand, driving the few remaining stratadons back into the caves beneath midnight castle.
The big dragon was the hardest to bring down, taking the combined efforts of seven of Floater's samurai to spear the great and fiery beast's wings to the point it could no longer fly. As the draconic horror came down with a mighty crash! The fall of the great dragon ended the conflict, bringing victory to the great forces of Hoofkaido.
"Most honorable Floater, this creature is still barely alive." The Samurai unit's rainbow monk chaplain exclaimed. "And what's more, I can sense the spirit of a frightened pony trapped deep within this monster."
"Probably a victim of Tirek's rainbow of darkness, no doubt, transformed into a dragon against her will." Floater noted, looking over at the dragon, hoping to see the form of her friend Sugar Apple come to light. "Priest, use your holy power to remove this poor mare's curse."
The rainbow haired mare bowed, and lowering her head, produced a burst of light as she chanted a prayer to the horsemaster. The golden light enveloped the form of the unconscious dragon, as the rainbow monk made her divine plea;
What has been done, please undo
return to the form that is most true!
The large beast began to slowly shrink down, gradually taking the shape of a young earth pony. As the light dissipated, the disappointed floater found herself looking at at an orange mare with a yellow mane and five red apples as a cutie mark.
"I do not recognize her, probably a mare from one of the other pony kingdoms." Floater replied sadly, shaking her head. "Make sure she is all right, and see to it that she is properly rested and stocked with provisions, before sending her on her way."
Floater recovered her brother, who had been judged too mild in temperament to be turned into a dragon, and jailed in Midnight castle's dungeons. The raid did force Tirek to sign a treaty that he would leave Hoofkaido alone for the immediate future- though it would open the other pony kingdoms to attack, particularly Dream Valley. Floater and her brother would never see Sugar Apple again, but their friend would one day know Floater's granddaughter, the white Pegasus who would restore laughter to the overly-serious house of Pie.
The recovered earth mare, restored to pony-form after being a dragon, remembered virtually nothing over her life before. She became a wanderer, a migrant worker pony worker guided by her cutie mark to travel across the land and pick apples. Seeing a resemblance to the historical figure, the ponies she worked for across the lands came to call the mare quiet mare Applejack.
But as she wandered from Bright Valley to Fort Dash, from the Royal Paradise to Maretonia, the pony now called Applejack felt a... tiredness, as if she felt the burden of a dozen lifetimes lay upon her tired old shoulders. AJ was like an automaton, going through the motions of working, eating and sleeping as she followed the harvest seasons in her wanderings. There was no joy or happiness in her travels as she traversed the landscape, and it became apparent to all ponies she met that this mare was only living to exist.
It eventually came to pass that Applejack found herself harvesting apples in Misty Mountain, working in the orchards beside the other farming ponies, when a certain pink alicorn princess, one of the two remaining of her kind, happened to spot her while strolling through the orchard one sunny day.
"Applejack, is that you?" The winged unicorn with the crystal heart cutie mark called out to her. "Great Celestia, I can't believe it! What are you doing here?! How did you survive!?"
And the princess took the migrant farm pony in, insisting to her courtiers and her family that this random apple picker was the long-lost Equestrian heroine of long ago. Already used to Princess Cadence's royal lapses in memory and occasional moments of senility, the members of her royal court decided to humor the princess in this notion.
As to the mare herself, Applejack said noting about all of this, simply going along with the princess and her crazy ideas. She didn't seem to remember anything the princess was talking about, but it seemed better to be an ancient harmony bearer rather than being a migrant worker. So she learned all about the original Applejack's past... and made it her past. But the few ponies who knew of Princess Cadence's fantastic claim noticed this weary old mare seemed more of a lazy and clumsy glutton that an honest and hard working harmony bearer.
She always seemed like less of an honest Apple... and more of a plain old silly pony.
But the time came when Princess Cadence decided to call up a new generation of harmony bearers, and this apple picker seemed like the perfect candidate to fill in the role of the element of honesty. And so she jumped into this new life in Dream Valley with gusto, befriending the descendants of the ponies she believed her once her friends. And the rest, as they say, is her story.