//------------------------------// // Discovery // Story: My Little Life: The Beginning // by Kind_Of_A_Rarity //------------------------------// I called Applejack once school had let out, telling her about how I had been discharged from the hospital and where I was. She agreed to stop by the bakery and pick me up on her way home from school, though she didn’t sound quite as excited as I had hoped she would. Just like my father, Applejack talked as though everything was normal, like I had never been shot. I supposed it was probably for the best anyway, since thinking about it too much wouldn’t help anybody. Applejack arrived soon after, and Pinkie and I said our goodbyes. The ride home was full of questions, which I should have expected. She was curious about how I was feeling, what kind of medicine I was put on, and the like. She also asked me about a question about what happened that day, “if you’re okay with tellin’ me, of course,” Apparently, Pinkie was in too much shock to say anything other than that I’d been shot, and that they had to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Applejack didn’t know who was there, who did it, or any of the other details of what happened, so I told her. It didn’t feel right leaving her in the dark after everything she’d done for me. I answered whatever questions she had, but there were, surprisingly, not that many. Her main concern, of course, was who did it, and I told her exactly who it was. “Really? Honestly, I never thought things would go that far,” She hardly showed any expression, eyes locked on the road as if we were driving through a hurricane. “Yeah, neither did I,” I shifted in my seat, laying my head against the seat behind me. “But it doesn’t matter now. The police came asking, and I told them everything that happened. They’ve probably already caught him.” Applejack turned in my direction for a quick moment before facing the road once again. “Doesn’t it make you mad?” My head rose, turning to face her. “No, why? Should it?” “Well,” I saw her hands adjust their grip on the wheel, “if my so-called ‘friend’ turned a gun on me for no good reason, it’d probably get under my skin, even just a little.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Getting angry wouldn’t really help anything, especially not now,” Applejack turned the wheel, and we pulled into the driveway of Sweet Apple Acres. “I guess,” was her final thought on the matter. She spoke up once more, however, as she pulled the key from the ignition. “So, you and Pinkie are friends again, huh?” I pulled myself from the car, turning back around to face her as she did the same. “Yeah, things are finally,” I paused, but only for a moment, “back to normal.” “Well, I’m happy for ya, Sky,” Applejack exclaimed as she grabbed her bag from the backseat and threw it over her shoulder, apparently having missed my momentary lapse in thought. As I stepped inside the house, I was greeted with the sweet smell of Granny Smith’s homemade apple pie. It was nice being able to smell something so good after so long. The only smell I ever got in the hospital was the one of sterilized syringes and cleaning supplies. Granny Smith walked through the kitchen door just after Applejack had shut the door behind us. “Oh, Sky! Applejack told me you’d be back today!” She began her way towards the pair of us, moving as quickly as she was able. “I even made a pie for the occasion!” I smiled. “Thanks, Granny Smith!” I then noticed there was a distinct lack of half the family. “Where are Big Mac and Apple Bloom?” Applejack spoke from behind me. “Apple Bloom rides the bus home with her friends, and Big Mac’s probably in the field. Right, Granny Smith?” “Absolutely!” Granny Smith said, after finally having reached us. “Well then,” Applejack began, walking back out the front door, “I’ll go see if he needs a hand. I’ll be back in a little bit,” She waved a hand over her shoulder, shutting the door behind her. Granny Smith turned back to me. “Say, why don’t you go wash up there, Sky? I could use another pair of hands in the kitchen. Shouldn’t be too hard on ya’.” I nodded. “Sure, I can do that,” And with that, I was off to clean myself up, as I soon discovered that I was still covered in flour and frosting from making cupcakes. --------------- I slept restlessly that night. So much had happened, and I had no idea how I should have felt about any of it. I saw my father for what seemed like the first time in my life. It was barely even the same person, let alone my father. He was strong, and had a deep voice, but this man was puny and soft-spoken. He had said that Jane visited him a lot, even a bit too much. How could she have gone to see him so many times, but leave me alone every time I asked to see him? I’m his son, and he’s my father. That’s almost incomparable to what she was: some useless piece of trash, not even worth his time. It made me angry just thinking about it all, so I didn’t. Instead, I thought about what happened after I was discharged from the hospital... with Pinkie Pie. We had just made up, and were friends again, then I had to go and do something stupid. I kissed her. How can things be like they used to be after that? She said that she had wanted to as well, but I couldn’t believe her. It was probably just something she said to relieve the tension, but it wasn’t helping; far from it. I was stupid to even agree to playing Twister, especially with my wound. Things can never go back to the way they were, not after that moment. No matter how hard we try, it’ll always be there in our minds, forcing its way into the forefront of our thoughts. At least, that’s how it seemed to be working in my head. And what was going to happen with Henry? The police will probably arrest him, but what then? Life can’t go back to the way it was after I had been shot. I’ll always be weaker, even if I heal completely, and I’ll always have the knowledge that somebody tried to kill me. How does a person continue living a normal life after going through something like that? They can’t. At least, I can’t. Eventually, I was able to push away my thoughts for long enough to allow my mind to drift into a deep sleep, which I was in desperate need of. The following day I stayed home from school. My wound was still painfully reminding me of how fresh it actually was, and it would have been foolish of me to put any undue stress on it, and as such, I was allowed to help Granny Smith around the house, and nothing more. There, surprisingly, wasn’t much for me to help with, besides making lunch for Granny Smith, Big Mac, and me, and, of course, cleaning up afterwards. I cleaned up a bit around the house until Granny Smith dozed off in her chair, at which point I decided to work on a bit of homework, that I would surely have been expected to do, even with my injury. After a while, Applejack got back from school, announcing herself, much to Granny Smith’s surprise. I could hear her jerk awake from upstairs in my own room. I walked downstairs to greet Applejack myself, and she seemed happy to see me. “Hey there, Sky! Feelin’ better today?” I nodded. “Yeah, much better,” Applejack smiled at me. “Good. In that case, follow me. I got somethin’ I could use your help with!” Granny Smith quickly interjected. “Now Applejack, don’t you put him through anything too much, y’hear? Wouldn’t want him gettin’ hurt again.” “Don’t you worry none, Granny Smith,” Applejack turned back around in the doorway. “It ain’t nothin’ too bad.” The walk across the orchard was fairly quiet. I tried to ask Applejack what it was we would be doing, but she just told me, “Don’t you worry about it. It’s easy!” There was a lot more land than I was expecting. Even though I knew that it was an apple orchard, I had never even considered how much land they could possibly have owned, but it was a lot, as it turned out. We walked for half-an-hour, or at least, it felt that way, before we finally found a spot atop a hill. I looked around, finding that I could barely see the tiny farmhouse, let alone the edge of the orchard. “Are you sure we didn’t need to bring anything?” I asked before turning back towards the farm girl. Applejack stepped behind one of several nearby trees and knelt down, pulling a wooden bucket into my field of vision. “Nah. I knew we’d be back up here today, so I just left everything we needed from yesterday.” “Oh,” I took a step closer to the bucket, which was filled with several tools, some of which I had never seen in my life. “So, what exactly are we going to be doing up here?” “Well,” she began, reaching into the bucket and yanking out a pair of clippers, “a lot of the trees aren’t in their best shape. So we need to trim’em, check the ground around’em, and make sure they’re as healthy as they can possibly be. You see, we bought this orchard from somebody who thought the land had run its course, but as it turns out,” she tossed me a set of clippers, followed by a trowel, “they just didn’t know how to keep up the land properly.” “So now we have to fix what they thought was a lost cause?” “That’s the gist of it, yeah,” Applejack began clipping some stray twigs and leaves off of one of the nearby trees. “That sounds simple enough, I guess,” I took to a tree of my own, cutting off anything that seemed out of place. After a while, Applejack found her way over to where I was, and began watching me work. “What?” “You do know you’re cutting off some of the buds, right?” She pointed down to the ground, where several white flowers lay. “Oh,” I looked back up at her, an awkward smile across my lips. “Sorry.” She laughed. “Don’t worry ‘bout it none, Sky. Just be sure to avoid them from now on, ‘kay?” She began cutting off some of the branches I had missed. “Pinkie was back in school today.” “Was she?” I had expected her to be. “I hope it ain’t a big deal, but she told me what happened, you know.” I stopped cutting the leaves. “She did?” I felt a lump swell up in my throat. What could have possibly made Pinkie want to tell anyone about that kiss? Surely she couldn’t have thought that kiss meant anything between us. I mean, it did, but nothing I knew how to feel about. And from the way she acted afterwards, she was just as lost as I was on the matter. “Yeah,” She cut a final leaf off the tree before moving on to the next tree in line. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, but I just want to let you know that I’ve always got an open ear for you.” She hit the nail on the head with that one. I had no idea what to feel, or even what I should be feeling. “It’s a little hard to hear that she already told someone about it,” What else was I to say? It was already hard enough with Pinkie, the girl who was just as confused about the whole situation as I was, but now I was supposed to talk to Applejack about it? Applejack stopped cutting as I arrived at the same tree she had been trimming. “Why’s that?” “Well, I still don’t even know how to feel about any of it. I never even meant for it to happen.” Applejack lowered her clippers, placing a fist on her hip and staring straight through me. “You didn’t mean for what to happen?” I stopped as well, looking back towards her. “You know, the kiss, like Pinkie said... right?” Applejack’s eyes grew. “You kissed Pinkie Pie?” I felt my heart drop in my chest. If that wasn’t what she was talking about then... “What did Pinkie tell you?” “She told me about your dad, and how you saw him yesterday for the first time in years! But nothing about any kiss!” “Oh... W-well, uh...” I couldn’t muster up the words I wanted to say, even if I knew the words to say. So, I settled for an excuse. “T-there’s been... a lot on my mind... lately...” “That much is clear...” Applejack whispered to herself. It was just loud enough for me to hear, although I don’t think she meant for me to. “I didn’t know y’all had gotten that close.” Neither did I. “We aren’t... I think. It was just something that... happened. I never even thought about Pinkie like that until after the, uh... kiss,” I stood there a moment, my hand slowly losing grip on the clippers, before I snatched the tool back into my grasp and continued cutting stray leaves. “But I don’t even know what to think right now, so I really don’t want to talk about it...” Applejack watched me for a moment before continuing her own work. “You know, talking about it might help you figure things out, Sky.” “What am I supposed to figure out? How I feel about Pinkie Pie? I can figure that out on my own, thanks.” I saw Applejack glance at me for a brief moment before she went back to trimming the tree. She had already finished and moved on to the next one by the time she spoke again. “Well, how’s seeing your dad go? It’s been a while since you last saw him, right? How’s he doing?” “Fine,” I stated a bit more aggressively than I had intended. I forced my eyes towards her, and our eyes locked for a moment. Her’s were stern, almost like a mother’s to a child when he did something wrong. “Sorry... He could be doing better. I don’t know all the details, but I could hardly recognize him when I saw him.” “Did you get a chance to talk to him? There must’ve been a lot to talk about, huh?” “Not really,” I admitted. “Pinkie was there, and I told him she was one of my friends at school. That was about it,” Thinking back on it, we didn’t talk much about anything, even before my dad was diagnosed with the cancer. I shouldn’t have expected to talk about much else. “He fell asleep before we had a chance to talk about anything else.” “Well, at least y’all had the chance to talk,” Her voice was still stern, but in a way I didn’t fully understand. She seemed... bitter, and she stopped looking at me, only watching the leaves she had cut and the clippers at work. “Did I-” A clap of thunder echoed across the orchard, and my attention was ripped away towards the blackening sky. Rows of clouds had accumulated since we had arrived on top of the hill, and were threatening rain at any given moment. I looked back towards Applejack. “Was it supposed to rain today?” Her eyes were still pointing towards the sky. “Not that I know of, but we should get back to the house before it gets any worse. The trees can wait another day,” She tossed our tools back into the bucket and lifted the thing with ease. Despite her obvious strength, I felt compelled to ask, “Need a hand?” “Nah,” She started back towards the direction we had come from. “Besides, you can’t carry anything too heavy, remember?” “Oh, right,” I felt bad about not being able to help, but only for a moment before a strike of lightning in the distance caught my attention. It was quickly followed by the crashing of thunder. Applejack turned towards the sound, letting the bucket drop to the ground. “Ain’t this just great? C’mon! Hopefully the rain won’t mess up the tools too bad.” She started back towards the house at a hustle, with me following closely behind. --------------- The rain began long before we had ever returned to the house. As we stepped through the door, Apple Bloom almost bowled the pair of us over, almost throwing me to the side in order to get to Applejack. “Applejack, are you okay?” She almost immediately pulled away from the dripping girl, regretting her decision. “Oh, yeah... you’re all wet...” Applejack smiled. “We’re alright, Sugarcube. Just got a little wet is all.” Apple Bloom turned her attention back to me. “Oh, hey there, Sky! I’m, uh, glad you’re alright too.” I couldn’t help but smile at her innocence. Applejack quickly began towards the stairs before anyone had a chance to stop her. “I’m gonna go change before I catch a cold. You might wanna do the same, Sky,” She continued up the stairs until she disappeared from our vision, shutting a door soon afterwards. Apple Bloom stopped me before I had a chance to follow Applejack up the stairs. “Is something wrong with Applejack?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I might have said something to her in the field, but I was only talking about my dad.” Apple Bloom’s brow lowered, and she looked down at the floor. “Oh, that’s what it is, then.” “That’s what what is?” “Well-” Apple Bloom was cut off by Granny Smith, who had just entered from the kitchen. “If Applejack didn’t say anything, then it ain’t our place to, Apple Bloom.” Apple Bloom’s expression quickly changed to match Granny Smith’s blank slate. “Oh, yes ma’am...” Granny Smith quickly turned back towards me. “Now, why don’t you go ahead and change, Sky. Wouldn’t want you catching anything, you hear?” “Oh,” I looked back down at my still-soaking clothes. “Yeah,” I made my way upstairs as quickly as my dripping jeans would allow, shutting myself in my own room to change into something dry and comfortable. Afterwards, I tossed my wet clothes into a hamper I had brought from my old house, claiming that I would wash them later that night, and stepped back out into the hallway, where I found Applejack patiently awaiting me. “Oh, hey.” “Uh, hey. Would you mind if I talked to you a minute?” I felt a lump swell into my throat. “Uh, yeah, sure...” These kinds of “talks” always made me uneasy. There was never any way to tell what they wanted to talk about, and it was typically never anything good. Applejack motioned for me to follow her, and I did. We didn’t go very far, just across the hall to her own room. It was simply decorated, with almost everything being made of wood. There was a dresser, bed, a nightstand, and not much else. The most color in the room was in her orange comforter that was neatly sprawled across her bed. I stepped inside, and Applejack shut the door behind me. I stood in the middle of the room as she walked past me, taking a seat on her bed. I sat next to her. “Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to act the way I did.” “Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “Sorry if I said something that offended you.” “It ain’t that,” Applejack stopped a moment before sighing. “I ever tell you about my parents?” I shook my head. “Well, it’s kind of a long story...” “I don’t have any plans.” She looked up at me, made an awkward attempt at a smile, then proceeded to tell her story. “I was real young when it happened, ‘bout five or six or so...”