Xenophilia: Shotglass Oneshots

by TheQuietMan

6: Home Truths by Minalkra

Home Truths by Minalkra

*********************

The dying light from the fireplace cast strange shadows across the floors and walls of the Apple family farmstead, illuminating the weathered and browned photos of old and distorting the newer and brighter colors that clung to newer and brighter memories. The muted colors, the lack of readily discernable forms save a rattling lump that moved in ways no lump ought ... had it been any other pony, none would have blamed her if she had turned tail and fled. Applejack, however, was this house's mistress. If not in name, at least in spirit and deed. Quietly, she tiphoofed her way across the family's comfortable - if sparse - living room and with a gentle nudge, the apple farmer slowly brought her motherly matron back to the land of the conscious.

"Granny?"

"Hu-wha? Oh, Applejack." With the snapping of several joints and a yawn that would have put a manticore to shame - had she any real teeth, anyway - Grinalda 'Granny' Smith of Apple stretched her old bones and idly scratched her barrel as the quilt that had just recently covered her snoozing form slipping onto the floor. A quick glance at the darkness outside confirmed what her aches were telling her and the matron of the Apple family gave her son's daughter a confused look. "It's gettin' pretty late, innit? About time you settled in for some shut-eye."

"... Ah couldn't sleep." Applejack settled in next to Granny's rocking chair with a sigh. Despite her physical presence, Granny knew that her mind was in a far away city where a Princess and a farm stallion were whiling the night away in dance and laughter fit for royalty.

"Ah see," Granny said. She knew the fears Applejack was harboring. She had spent many a night like her youthful scion. Kept up late into the early morning with fear and worry. The fact that life had changed did not much matter to the small instinctual fear inside each mare. Especially about kin.

With a huff, the elderly earth pony nudged Applejack's face up, looking her right in the eye. "Applejack, yer brother ain't gonna let them Canterlot nobility ruin him. Ah doubt they'd get the chance with how dang feisty that new Princess is. Shucks, if Ah was about twenty seasons younger and weren't his gran-ma-"

"Granny!" With a start, the orange-colored apple farmer jerked her head back and out of reach of her relative.

"Heh, you younguns and yer prude ways. Remember, Applejack, Ponyville was a very small town back in th' day and tweren't nothin' for a herd to have a pair 'a sisters in it most times." Granny Smith nodded over towards the wall of portraits, some of them even older than she was. Strangely enough, despite the cultural norms surrounding pony herds, many of the pictures showed only a single mare and stallion couple. Only after Ponyville had been founded did the Smith family settle down and give up on their ancient and ill-liked habits.

Applejack looked over the wall of pictures with tired eyes until they landed on a particular group photograph. Two stallions and four mares surrounding a small red bundle. Granny winced as old memories bubbled to the surface.

"Granny, why did they leave us?" Applejack's question wasn't unexpected. It wasn't the first time she had asked and it wouldn't be the last. Big Mac's new fillyfriend had only re-opened that old wound. Rejection. Abandonment. Granny could hear the tears in her heir's voice.

"Applejack, come 'ere." With a strength that told a liar's lie to her age, Granny pulled the slightly reticent younger mare in for a hug before settling the orange mare's head down into her lap. As she spoke, Granny's hoof slowly and gently stroked Applejack's mane. A calming rhythm for the both of them.

"Yer father an' mother's herd was, well, you know there was always this undercurrent of monogamy tween yer ma and pa." The elder mare's emphasis was not lost on Applejack. Not a venomous dislike as some ponies spoke of it. It was a longing. A set of Old Ways denied to her. "Yer father was playin' favorites a bunch with his chosen mare and that never did sit right with the rest a' the herd. Heck, if this town had been any bigger back then, I reckon he'd've been like them Cakes that friend a' yers lives with. But it was a different time back then, not so prudish about where and how the foals came ta be - long as they came. But with four other mares in th' herd and yer pa only with the one regardless of if she was with foal or not, well ... when she got with Applebloom, that was the last straw."

"Ah jest - Ah remember Mandarin and Mosley playin' with Big Mac and me when we were jest tiny foals with Ma and Pa lookin' at us with these big eyes jest filled with so much happiness ..." Applejack's voice slowly faded until her shaking shoulders were the only thing to indicate her ears were still open. Granny sighed. She had seen first hand a herd torn to pieces over a stallion and perhaps ... perhaps she had pushed Applejack too hard to be 'normal.'

"... when that storm ripped outa th' Everfree and stole away yer birth parents right after Apple Bloom was born, well, things never did get to be normal tween the Apples and the rest a' yer pa's herd. Lotsa old hurts and yellin'." The Oranges had been called 'aunt' and 'uncle' for so long, most Apples didn't even second guess the relationship. Or the reason they had gone only as far as Manehatten instead of somewhere with more land. Even as hurt as they had been, Mandarin and Mosley had done the proper thing with Applejack and Granny wouldn't forget them for it. "Ah jest wanted mah three grankids to grow up without a herd angry at them for the love their parents had and without the stain of what their great gran'parents had done to set them a'wanderin' in the first place."

"Granny, Ah miss them."

"Ah know, Applejack. Ah miss them all."

As the night slowly turned above, two Apples sat as close as bodies could get, taking comfort in their hurts while a third Apple laughed in a field so far from where his tree had first sprouted.

Comments

[Jake The Army Guy]

This is something I would love to see more of: the monogamist's position in this universe. Being looked at disdainfully, perhaps even hated and shunned by some, just because you happen to find just one soul mate. It would be a very interesting story, one of the main six coming out in a monogamous relationship and how the rest of the girls react to it.

[TheQuietMan]

2581334
You're right. Bugger, I'll go stick them back in again.

EDIT: They're back. Not sure what happened there.

[Banchoking]

Good job.

[Minalkra]

2581413
Mine too - though you got it third-hand so maybe you never saw them to begin with. The only one that i can think of was the word 'monogamy.'

[TheQuietMan]

2585303
I think they must have got lost along the way. It'll prob' be easier if we try and get everyone to send them to me direct or send me a google docs link that I can upload from.

[Minalkra]

2585317
They do get lost - text editing via PM's and such on this site are plain text. No formatting is saved in the text itself - which makes it a bit of a hassle doing things like this but makes it simpler to upkeep and ... well, a bit less prone to being abused.

We could always use a modified BBCode to send info. Instead of using the direct [-u] (sans the - of course) we could instead use <u>this</u> to specify. I don't think the text parser will try to interpret that and the receiver can do a find/replace <u> with [-u] and similar with the </u>

But it's up to you on how you want things to go.

EDIT: Testing an idea... This is a [u]test[/u] Didn't work at all.

[Morphy]

2585239

Besides the sexual connotations of Pop Rocks... are there other magical candies in Equestria? Personally, I would think it's a foregone conclusion. Of course there's magiced candy to be had.

Stealing relentlessly from Harry Potter, there's a whole buffet of enchanted confectioneries to abuse in FiM fiction. Muhahaha!

[VelvetHeart]

2585773
Oh, but pop-rocks aren't magical again - they just taste magical!

[Morphy]

2585934

I suppose it would be simply awful of Bon Bon to try making her own versions of the Whizzo Chocolate Company's flagship product, the Whizzo Quality Assortment box.

[Aru]

2585934 Well pop-rocks done by Twi,Lero and Bon-bon have some magic in them apparently if Twis horn was sore : P