Applejack sat alone in a diner, surrounded by the soft sounds of clinking glasses and frying bacon. Stark, artificial light shone from above, filling the room with its emotionless white glow. At the sound of the door jingling, Applejack looked up to see Cherry Fizzy walk in with a mare she didn't recognize.
“Excuse me,” Cherry Fizzy said to the mare upon catching sight of Applejack and approached her table.
“Hey, stranger,” he greeted her, “where you been?”
“Here an’ there,” Applejack grunted, avoiding his gaze.
“You must’ve gotten the notes I left at your place,” Cherry Fizzy said. “Why haven’t I heard from you?”
Applejack looked up and glanced meaningfully at the mare waiting by the door. “Looks like you got the message either way,” she said.
“Oh, Cornflower?” Cherry Fizzy asked, sitting down across from Applejack. “Yeah, she’s nice and all. She even talks.”
Applejack nodded silently, chewing on a waffle.
“Good for you,” she said finally.
“Yeah,” Cherry Fizzy replied. “Good for me.” He paused, waiting for Applejack to reply.
Applejack took another bite of waffle, still staring at her plate.
“I don’t get you, Applejack,” Cherry Fizzy said.
“Sorry,” Applejack said, meeting his gaze for a second before looking away. “I was prob’ly no fun anyway, was I?”
Cherry Fizzy’s expression hardened. “Applejack, I didn’t fall in love with fun.”
He stood up abruptly and left the diner, shaking off Cornflower’s touch on the way out.
Applejack’s hooves kicked up flurries of dust as she crossed her bare front yard to get the mail. At first glance, it looked like the usual bills and catalogues, but as she was about to put the mail in her saddlebag she noticed a postcard peeking out from under an envelope. The postcard looked familiar, like one she had sent Rainbow Dash a few days before. She turned it over and time stopped. She couldn't believe her eyes.
Stamped across her untidy mouthwriting were ugly, impersonal red letters spelling out “DECEASED”.
“Thanks for taking the time outta yer busy schedule to meet me,” Applejack said. She sat down across from Soarin in Pony Joe’s café.
“No problem,” Soarin said. “So you were Rainbow Dash’s camping buddy. She used to mention you. I would’ve let you know what happened but I wasn’t sure of your address.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Applejack said. “To find out what happened.”
Soarin sighed and set down his donut. “We were doing a show at Neighagra falls,” he began. “For the finale we thought we’d fly into the mist close to the falls and appear to the audience on the other side. Of course, visibility was awful. There was a rock that stuck out of the falls, hidden just inside the mist. There was no way Rainbow Dash could’ve seen it. She flew straight into it. Broke her nose, was knocked unconscious and fell into the water below us. She drowned before we realized she didn’t make it through the mist.”
Applejack was silent. Suddenly she had a vision of Rainbow Dash walking alone through city streets after a show. She saw three stallions approach and attack her from behind, knocking her to the ground. She watched as they beat Rainbow Dash relentlessly, kicking her in the stomach, in the face. Applejack couldn’t breathe. Soarin was lying.
“You all right?” Soarin asked, and the vision was over. Applejack was back in Pony Joe’s café and Soarin was across from her, looking at her with concern.
“Was she—“ Applejack grunted, her throat dry. “Was she buried?”
“Cremated,” Soarin said, “like she wanted. Her ashes were sent to her folks. She used to say she wanted her ashes scattered on Appleback Mountain… but I wasn’t sure where that was. Knowing Rainbow Dash, it might be some pretend place, where bluebirds sing and there’s a cider spring.”
Applejack swallowed. “We went campin’ on Appleback, one summer years an’ years ago.”
Soarin was silent for a moment. “Well, she said it was her favorite place,” he said finally.
“Are her folks still in Cloudsdale?” Applejack asked.
“They’ll be there ‘til the day they die,” Soarin replied.
Applejack got up to leave. “Well, thank you for your time,” she said. “I sure am sorry. We were good friends.”
“Get in touch with her folks,” Soarin said. “I suppose they’d appreciate it if her wishes were carried out. About the ashes, I mean.”
In Cloudsdale it felt to Applejack like the bright blue sky was not only above her, but all around her. Aside from the clouds on which she was walking, the sky was perfectly clear. It seemed strange to Applejack that even with blue skies and sunshine on all sides, the world could still feel like such a dark place.
She arrived at a small cloud house on the edge of town, not far from where the clouds beneath her hooves dropped off to reveal the ground thousands of feet below. A pink pegasus mare that Applejack assumed was Rainbow Dash’s mother stood in the doorway and then approached her as Applejack drew closer. She had a sky-blue mane in the same unruly style as Rainbow Dash's mane and Applejack guessed that if she were twenty years younger, she would have the same energy and enthusiasm of her daughter.
“Come on in,” Rainbow Dash’s mother said. “It’s a pleasure to see you.”
“Want a cup of coffee?” Rainbow Dash’s mother offered. “Or a piece of cake?”
“Yes ma’am, I’ll have a cup of coffee,” Applejack replied, “but I can’t eat no cake jus’ now.”
She sat at a bare wooden table, at the other end of which sat Rainbow Dash’s father, a pale blue pegasus stallion with a similarly untidy rainbow-colored mane.
“I feel awful bad about Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said. “I can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel.”
Rainbow Dash’s father didn’t respond.
“I knew her a long time,” Applejack continued. “I came by to say that if you want me to take her ashes up there on Appleback like she wanted, then I’d be happy to.”
Rainbow Dash’s father took a drink of coffee and finally spoke up, his voice a growl. “Rainbow Dash used to say, ‘I’m going to bring Applejack up here one of these days. Had some half-baked notion the two of you were going to move up here.” He stared into his coffee and then looked Applejack in the eye, as if challenging her. “Then this spring there was another mare she was planning to bring here. Some flyer by the name of Spitfire. Said one day they’d leave the Wonderbolts and come live here. But like most of Rainbow Dash’s ideas, it didn’t come to pass.”
Rainbow Dash’s mother put a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. “I kept her room like it was when she was a filly,” she said. “I think she appreciated that. You are welcome to go up to her room, if you want.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. Thank you,” Applejack said.
Applejack ascended the stairs and entered the room at the top. It was a small room, with posters of the Wonderbolts on the walls and a window on the far wall, beyond which was nothing but sky. Rainbow Dash’s bed creaked as Applejack sat down and took in her surroundings.
After a moment she stood up and opened the closet door. Inside the closet a small selection of jackets and bathrobes hung on hangers. Applejack noticed a Wonderbolts uniform hanging on a coathook at the very back of the closet, but what caught her eye was a familiar Stetson hat hanging on the same hook.
She stepped closer and lifted it off the hook. To her disbelief, it was her bloodstained hat that she thought she had lost on the last day of their first trip to Appleback Mountain. She gathered up the hat and the Wonderbolts uniform in her forelegs and pressed them up to her face, hoping one last time to feel the warmth and breathe in the familiar smell of her friend, the smell of fresh air, charged with the energy that precedes a thunderstorm. But all that was left were memories.
Applejack returned to the kitchen with her hat and Rainbow Dash’s neatly folded Wonderbolt uniform clutched tightly in her mouth. Rainbow Dash’s mother quickly found a paper bag, tucked Rainbow Dash’s uniform inside, and then gave it to Applejack, who gave a nod of thanks.
Rainbow Dash’s mother then disappeared into the living room and returned with an urn, small and without any fancy decorations. She gently lowered it into Applejack’s saddlebags while Rainbow Dash’s father looked on with an expression like his features were carved out of stone.
“You’ll come and see us again, won’t you?” she asked.
Applejack nodded again, unable to find words.
On the far side of the horizon, beyond the rolling hills of Ponyville and past the farmland of Sweet Apple Acres, there's a place untouched by Ponykind. A place where the mountains scrape the sky and the lakes that dot the terrain are as smooth and clear as glass. A contented stillness and silence blankets the vast landscape, as if though animals live among the scattered rocks and trees, none have reason to bring an end to its tranquility.
The sun rose over the landscape one day in late summer, turning the peaks of the mountains a burnt shade of orange. As the sun moved through the sky the orange light spread downward, illuminating sloping forests of evergreens and mist that hung over the lakes like dust on the surface of a mirror.
Also lit by the rising sun was a pony, dwarfed by the immense landscape and towering mountains. A long shadow stretching before her, she trekked upward over rocky slopes and babbling brooks, alone but carrying with her the memories of another.
No longer a stranger to the land, Applejack reached the familiar campsite. A fallen tree still lay across the clearing, showing over a decade’s worth of decay. The evergreens surrounding the campsite looked taller, thicker. The stream still flowed past, continuing on its endless journey.
Applejack crossed the clearing and looked out over the sweeping expanse of green that lay before her. Mane flowing in the late-summer breeze, she reached behind her and gently retrieved the urn from her saddlebags. After taking a deep breath she emptied the urn, surrendering her friend to the wind.
The next time Apple Bloom came to visit, Applejack saw that her sister was now as old as Applejack had been on her first trip to Appleback Mountain, still young but now a full-grown pony. Her ribbon held her deep red mane in a low ponytail, falling well past her shoulders. Though she now moved slowly and gracefully, her sunset-colored eyes still retained a twinkle of a younger filly’s excitement and passion for the world.
“Hey there, Bloom,” Applejack greeted her sister, stepping out onto her porch as Apple Bloom crossed the front lawn.
“Hi, Sis,” Apple Bloom replied.
“Nice jacket,” Applejack said. “That new?”
“Rumble gave it to me,” Apple Bloom answered, a hint of a blush appearing in her cheeks.
“But I thought you were seein’ Pipsqueak,” Applejack said.
“Pipsqueak?” Apple Bloom repeated. “Sis, that was two years ago.”
Applejack nodded, trying to think of something to say. “Pipsqueak still doin’ the campaignin’ schtick?”
“I don’t know what he’s doin’; I’m seein’ Rumble now,” Apple Bloom replied pointedly.
Applejack nodded again. “So what’s Rumble do?”
“Works up in the cloud factory,” Apple Bloom answered.
“So he’s a roughneck, huh?” Applejack said with a grin. “Guess you ain’t a filly no more, you can do whatever ya want, is that right?”
“Sure.” Apple Bloom smiled at her older sister and the two mares entered Applejack’s shack.
“Sis, you need some more furniture,” Apple Bloom said, sitting down on a cot as Applejack pulled up a folding chair and passed her a mug of hot tea.
“Yeah, well… Ya got nothin’, ya don’t need nothin’,” Applejack said, sitting down. “So, what’s the occasion?”
Apple Bloom looked shyly up at her sister. “Me an’ Rumble,” she said, trying but failing to keep back a smile. “We’re gettin’ married.”
Applejack looked at Apple Bloom and only then did it really hit her that her baby sister was all grown up. “Well, how long you known this guy for?” she asked finally.
“’Bout a year,” Apple Bloom replied. “The weddin’ will be just after Winter Wrap Up, at Sweet Apple Acres. Sweetie Belle will be singin’, and Pinkie Pie’s gonna cater the reception.”
Applejack gazed silently at her mug of cider. “This Rumble fellow,” she said finally, looking at Apple Bloom with an intensity she hadn’t seen thus far. “He loves you?”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom answered, a shy smile spreading across her face, “he loves me.”
Applejack nodded and glanced out the window.
After a moment Apple Bloom continued tentatively, “I was hopin’ you’d be there…”
Applejack cleared her throat. “I’m supposed to be workin’ a roundup down in Dodge City,” she grunted. Apple Bloom’s face fell. Applejack stood up and moved to the refrigerator. “But you know what? I reckon they can find themselves another cowpony.” She turned to grin at Apple Bloom, taking out two bottles of hard cider. “My little sister… gettin’ married.”
She passed Apple Bloom a bottle and held her own up. “To Apple Bloom an’ Rumble.”
The glasses clinked and they each took a drink.
In the fading light of evening, Applejack watched from her porch until her younger sister was out of sight. She then returned to her living room to find the jacket Apple Bloom had left behind. Snatching it up in her mouth, she burst through the screen door but her sister was gone. With a creak, the door closed. Applejack carefully folded up the jacket and placed it on the top shelf of a wardrobe standing near her cot. She then turned to face the backside of the wardrobe’s door. Hanging from a nail just below a postcard depicting a picturesque mountain landscape was a Stetson hat and a Wonderbolts uniform.
Applejack gazed at the Wonderbolts uniform for a long moment, then murmured, “Dash, I swear…”
She straightened the postcard, contemplating the four-by-six-inch picture of the place where she had spent the happiest days of her life, the place where however briefly, she and Rainbow Dash had been the only ponies in the world. Then she slowly swung the door closed.