By the time they reached the farmhouse, Apple Bloom was tiring from the combined excitement of her adventure and the effort of maintaining her disapproval of Big Mac. Her little head drooped on her brother’s back even as her strong little legs maintained a firm grip on his barrel. Mackie was glad of the dear little burden, and even gladder that she was sleepy, because it meant that her criticism stopped.
As he stepped in through the main door, he was greeted by his grandparents.
“Hey, Mackie-boy! Yew all right? Yew look like yew’ve been out there wrestlin’ cragodiles!” came the gruff, friendly voice of Gramps Blackie Smith Apple. His shrewd steel-gray eyes twinkled at his grandson, ascertaining that – despite the twigs and leafs in his mane, and overall sweatiness, Big Mac seemed to have taken no serious harm.
As always in the last couple of years, Big Mac heard the growing hollowness in his grandfather’s voice, noticed that the hair on his once-lush gray mane had gone wispy and snow-white. Big Mac had never really seen Blackie young in life – when Big Mac had been born, in 1474, Blackie was already over eighty years old – but he remembered when Blackie had been strong and vital, powerful muscles like cordwood under the old stallion’s black-and-gray speckled hide. Now, his once big and sturdy frame, similar to Mackie’s own, seemed wasted, as if it were collapsing and shrinking in on itself while its owner yet drew breath.
Black Smith had been, as his name indicated, a blacksmith – a small-scale ironworker with his own forge and anvil. He was born into the last era of old-fashioned iron smithing: when as a colt, he had first begun working the bellows at his uncle’s forge, the force of falling water had already begun driving mechanical trip-hammers; by the time he gained his mastership, steam-powered ironworks were beginning to spread through the Realm.
His first masterwork had been a wrought-iron hearth grating, depicting two entwined trees. One of them was a chestnut, the tree traditionally associated with blacksmithing. The other had been an apple tree, of course. He had been a big and handsome thirty-six; Greenie Apple had been a sweet and lovely thirty-four; he had given it to as a courtship present. She had been so touched that she had accepted his suit on the spot; in two months they were wed.
The story was romantic, the way they told it. It was also true in its essential details, and the iron grating still adorned the hearth at Sweet Apple Acres. His coal-black and her golden blonde mane were now white, but their love was still fresh and green, as Big Mac could plainly see from the warm and affectionate glances they always exchanged.
There was still a good place for a blacksmith in a rural town, especially in the days before the railroad came, when it was still expensive to ship finished metal goods cross country. Black Smith Apple, as he now called himself, had brought in the bits making and repairing tools for the farms of Ponyville, and some of his fancy work – both originals and licensed designs, was marketed through Barnyard Bargains by Granny’s friends the Riches.
Stinking Rich had lost out in love to Black Smith – that was a whole other story – either more or less romantic than the hearth grating, depending on how one looked at it – but he was a stallion of honor and he had been gracious about Greenie’s marriage. Black Smith’s wares and designs were profitable – Stinking Rich had never been one to let a personal grudge stand in the way of good business. He was, in his own way, a very honorable Pony.
Granny now regarded Big Mac with some alarm. “Land a’sakes, Mackie,” she asked him. “What have you been doing? I hope you really haven’t been a-rassling cragodiles!”
“Run into a bear,” Mac informed them, swinging Apple Bloom down onto a well-cushioned chair. “It was curious ‘bout Bloomie. We was lucky – it didn’t hurt her none. Ah grabbed Bloomie and got the hay out of there, fast. It took a swipe at my tail – subtracted some hairs, but Ah warn’t really hurt.”
“Oh, sweet Celestia!” Granny said, coming over to Apple Bloom’s side, bending down, examining the little filly minutely. “Yer right, thank Light an’ Life,” she confirmed, looking back at her husband Blackie. “The foal ain’t harmed.”
"We cain't let that varmint hang 'round the Acres," Gramps growled. "Ah should take after it, with Ol' Bessie."
'Bessie' -- Blackie's arbalest -- had been in part been crafted on his own forge, and in part built for him by some sort of secretive monster-hunting organization which Blackie, Greenie and Greenie's cousin-in-law Strudel all belonged. Sometimes at reunions, Blackie and Greenie would chew the greens with Strudel and his wife, Greenie's favorite first cousin, Rose, and they would all talk about what they'd done together for the Watch back in the good old days. Bessie was a powerful and well-crafted weapon: a triple repeater with a selection of special bolts, including armor-piercing, explosive and chemical tips, and made of high-quality steels. It would have counted as a masterwork, if Gramps had done it all himself.
Given the location of Sweet Apple Acres, and the fact that the Apples held it free and clear of all property taxes so long as they did "ward the Vale against what might come out of the Everfree," Blackie and Greenie had kept Bessie, and kept her in good condition. The Apples did not seek out trouble -- they scorned the supposed glory of war -- but trouble sometimes came to find them, or duty made its call upon them, and then they took out Bessie, and other things that they kept hidden, and used them as need be, to the great regret of Equestria's foes.
"Yore in no way to be gallivanting all through the Everfree," Granny said, worry tinging her voice. "Yew've been doin' poorly, sugar -- in lots of pain, and limpin' bad. Yew specially don't want to be wanderin around in the woods with a bear on the rampage."
"Ah ain't dead yet, ol' mare," Gramps snaped angrily. "Ah've still got some fight left in me!" He surged to his hooves, then winced and sat down again, his voice strained. "Hmm ... think Ah need mah dose o'laudanum."
"Ah'll bring it," replied Granny, getting up. Her own limp was much less extreme, and she showed none of her husband's signs of extreme weakness.
Mackie knew the reason; Blackie's condition had been diagnosed just two years ago at the new hospital, Ponyville General. Bone cancer, and inoperable. They'd discussed some new procedures being pioneered in Baltimare, but it would have cost a lot of money to send him there -- they'd have had to mortgage the Acres unless they could get their agency to foot the bill -- and Blackie hadn't been given much of a chance of remission even then. They might have been able to get the Watch to cover it -- it might well have been a delayed effect of something that he'd encountered once, something that they only referred to as "the color" and which they refused to describe in detail, but that still sometimes gave them nightmares -- still, the procedures would have been extensive, and painful, and probably useless.
No, the truth was that Blackie was dying. He was, after all, a hundred and two years old, and fast approaching his hundred-and-third birthday. Though it wasn't uncommon for Earth Ponies to become centenarians -- both Blackie and Greenie were now over a hundred years old -- few lived more than a couple of decades into their second century, and those who did were rarely in good health. Granny was still only slightly impaired, but Blackie's time was swiftly running out. Such were life and death, and Mackie knew it, though it still hurt him when he thought upon it as it applied to his once-mighty grandfather.
Granny gave Gramps the laudanum and a spoon. Then she had to use those implements herself, measuring out and feeding her husband his dose, because his hooves were shaking too badly to hold the bottle and spoon steady; if he'd had to do this himself, he might have spilled the precious medicine. The old stallion slurped and swallowed the mixture of tincture of opium with alcohol, heaving a sigh of relief when he had consumed the medicine.
He needs the medicine now, Big Mac thought. It's all that's between him and the pain. He's so weak now -- he used to be so strong. Ah hate cancer. Ah hate the word, Ah hate its sickly stench, and Ah most'all hate what it's doin' to Gramps. He's a hero. He deserves better'n this.
But this was nevertheless what Blackie had gotten. This was the reality, the truth tat they must all quietly endure. It made Mackie want to cry, to see his grandfather brought so low, but he could not afford the luxury. Blackie was fatally weakened; Greenie all torn up inside watching her husband suffer; Mackie's parents were dead; Applejack was away in Manehattan; and Bloomie just a tiny little filly, almost still just a foal -- she could not even understand what was happening. Big Mac could not cry, because right now, he had to be the strength of his whole family.
He must be their hero, now.
"Grampaw," Big Mac said. "Yer feelin' a mite poorly right now." Nothing but the truth. There was no point in adding that it seemed unlikely that his grandfather would ever be feeling all that much better from now on. The whole truth was unnecessary, because Blackie already knew it, surely better than Mackie ever could. "Mebbe I should take care o'that bear," he suggested, "this time." His tone was calm, but firm.
"Mah job!" Blackie insisted, "huntin' the monsters!" Again he rose from his chair. This time, he succeeded in keeping his hooves. He took a step; grimaced in pain. "Ah am feelin' poory today," he admitted. He stepped back to the chair, sat heavily down. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "Mebbe you should deal with the critter, after all. This time."
"Eeyup," Big Macaffirmed, and he turned to go up the stairs.
"Whar yew goin', Mackie-boy?" Gramps asked him. His voice was gruff, but his tone gentle.
"To fetch mah huntin'-crossbow," Mac answered.
"That's a mite small fer bear, don't yew think?" Blackie asked, almost teasingly.
"It'll do," replied Big Mac, vaguely annoyed by the casting of aspersions on his own crossbow.
"That's as may be," allowed Blackie, "but Ah reckon yew might want something a bit bigger." He turned to Greenie. "Darlin' mare," he said, smiling, "could you get out Ol' Bessie fer our grandson, the new fearless monster hunter?"
There was no mockery in his grandfather's voice. Only love, and pride.
The same love and pride that filled Big Mac's heart.