When you've lived as long as Granny Smith, you've got a right to be set in your ways.

Pear Butter's not gonna accept that.

(Winner winner chicken dinner of Scribblefest 2018's Flutteryshuttery award. Edited by some guy with fabulous pants.)

In the human world, Applejack’s parents are alive.

She has to meet them.

Written for the A Most Delightful Ponidox contest.

Applejack abandons her pie deliveries out of worry and goes back to check on her little sister who's home alone. As a result, she winds up acting extremely over-protective to Apple Bloom, to the point of stalking her.

But what if, instead of sneaking out to make the pie deliveries herself, Apple Bloom snapped and said something in a fit of anger that cut deep into her sister's soul?

An alternate take on Somepony to Watch Over Me

Sometimes, we hit those rough spots real hard. They might hurt a little, enough to make you wince. They'll scab over or you bandage them, and given enough time, it fixes up and you're doing good again. But those spots sometimes leave a mark. And when you look at them, you can still feel that phantom lingering in the back of your mind. You know the one; the kind that never really goes away.

But sometimes there's somepony there to make them hurt less. They might be a big, handsome husband, or your firstborn quiet and strong son. Or maybe just the cutest little filly who loves apples more than anything. Well, almost more than anything.

Artwork by TJPones! Pre-read by Raleigh!

We walk down our long roads of life, but what of the roads not taken? Twilight and Applejack are carried along a different path, where their fates were bound in new ways. Fresh sorrows and avoided crisis gives friendship's flower a new shape.

This story will make an alternative universe, but will start grounded in the world we know. Have you read my other works? I love canon. I will respect canon, but we are also changing a core fact, and its effects will ripple outward. Our beloved ponies will be changed, as they must. The stream of fate carries them on tides we never witnessed before.

Twilight, Applejack, I hope you're both ready. Come, the water's fine, and I invite you to swim with me. Let us see what would happen if Applejack's mother survived where fate had once demanded her end.

Done for a patron, will update 1/month with 4k chapters.

Cover art by Jowybean!

Hospitals can be dark places; full of bustling activity and apathy more than care and healing. At least, it feels that way to Granny Smith sometimes. No doctor in Equestria, even the kindest one, can fix what happened or fill the hole it left.

The dead, however, sometimes leave gifts behind.

EDIT: Featured 2/14/18!
EDIT: Now with a Chinese Translation!

Chiffon Swirl just wants to be noticed as an up-and-coming baker. Entering the Ponyville Baking Competition seemed like a good idea, at least until it involved making carrot cake. Nopony likes carrot cake.

Carrot Cake just wants to be noticed by a certain blue mare. Entering the Ponyville Baking Competition seemed like a great way to make that happen. If only he knew more than one recipe.

A special thanks to BlazzingInferno for the title and the long description.

This story is finished, and I will post a new chapter every Tuesday and Thursday.

Applejack is absolutely certain there's nothing in her farm, nothing at all.

(Audio reading by Lotus Moon!)

At a Hearth's Warming party at Sweet Apple Acres, Tempest Shadow is shown a picture of the Apple parents. And she reveals a terrible truth - she's seen Bright Mac and Pear Butter before, as prisoners of the Storm King.

Neither Tempest nor Applejack even question that they're going to attempt a rescue. But the Citadel of Storms is a long way from Ponyville, and there's the problem of the entire army in their way...

Granny finally admitted to Apple Bloom that Bright Mac and Pear Butter were just "missing". So she's taking things into her own hooves, with the help of her two crusader friends of course! The three brew a "Finding Spell" that will lead them to her long-lost parents at last, but she might not be completely prepared for what awaits her at the end of her journey...

Be sure and check out the fanfic reading/production here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugHtaO1Bvog&t=21s