Roaming
* * *
Roaming
Jeffrey C. Wells
www.scrivnarium.net
* * *
It was an unusual thing for Clementine Apple to set a table just for two.
Small dinners had been the rule in the city where she had grown up; just her, her mother and father gathered around a glass-top table set with delicate bone china plates and gleaming flatware, with a little soft jazz cued up on the stereo for background. She had always hated mealtimes in the city, truth to tell, and that first Thanksgiving with the Apple Family out on the old country holdings had come as the most delightful of surprises. Like some sort of fairytale wizard, her strong, soft-spoken fiancé had whisked her away to a magical realm of old linen, mismatched dish sets, and relatives in such abundance that she was hard-pressed to even remember their names. Oh, and best of all, whooping and hollering instead of jazz. Lots and lots of both.
And, of course, shortly after they were married, they had started making their own additions to the family tree. For years, there had never been a table set for less than six in the Apple Family dining room. Her beloved husband; herself; McIntosh, their eldest and heir apparent to Cortland's proud little orchard and distillery; their spitfire daughter Applejack; and sweet little Bloom, doted on by all. The sixth member of their crew was Cortland's elderly (but still quite spry) mother, who had moved in with them from the larger country farmhouse when her own husband had passed. The family had worried about her living all alone, and beyond that, Cortland's house was a much shorter commute to her new day job serving lunches to dreamy high-schoolers. Family was family, after all, and they were, to a one, happy to have her company. Meals were never a dull affair with all six of them gathered around.
And then, time and happenstance had started to take a toll. They were five whenever McIntosh was called away to an agronomy conference, and such was the case tonight. Bloom had metamorphosed from a chubby baby into a lanky tweener with a passion for sleepovers, and her meals were often spent in the company of her two little best friends rather than the family. Granny had her canasta parties, and Applejack…
Applejack was doing well for herself in college, to hear her tell it. It was pretty much a given that A.J. was going to end up tending the family orchard alongside her brother, but her childhood love of horses had not faded, either; and then there came the equine studies scholarship from the one school in their price range that offered a four-year degree, and…
Yes. Their eldest daughter had not been present for dinner for a few months, now, and would not be a frequent sight at the table for another several years at least. Clementine was still adjusting to this fact. Some days were easier than others.
So. Yes. Sometimes, there came a perfect storm of absence, and that meant that for tonight, dinner was just the two of them. Hardly seemed worth it to turn on the oven, really, but reheated cold casserole was unappetizing enough without adding microwaves to the equation. She and Cortland had just settled down at the table with plates of steaming beef and noodles and mushroom soup mix, accompanied by freshly-cracked bottles of Winter Reserve cider from their own brewery, when the call came in.
Clementine sighed as she got up from the table and walked to the kitchen to answer the phone, grousing faintly to herself that the Apple home had nothing more modern than a landline for circumstances like this (knowing full well even as she did so that that she wouldn't have it any other way); but her petulance changed to alarm when she heard her daughter on the other end of the line.
"M—ma?" came her daughter's hesitant voice. Applejack's voice was shaky and thick with emotion, and a quick surge of maternal panic rose in Clementine's breast.
"Applejack? Honey, is something the matter?"
A great sniff from the other end of the line. "Naw. Naw, it's all fine. Fine and d—dandy."
The bright flash of Clementine's initial fear faded to an even, slow-burning concern. "Something has to be the matter, honey."
"It's fine, I… I swear," said A.J. "It ain't… the middle of the night or nothing where you are, is it?"
"Come again?" said Clementine. "I know you're a ways away, A.J., but it's not a whole different time zone." The flame of panic again. "You're still in school, right? You're not… somewhere halfway around the world or anything?"
There came the briefest of hedges. "I promise y'all I'm exactly where I'm s'posed to be," said A.J. "Ain't nothing the matter, really. Nothing to be concerned or worried about. Your daughter's fine."
"Well, you're giving us a fright," said Clementine. "Your father and I were just sitting down to supper."
"Right, right," said Applejack, anxiously. "Something with—with cows in it, I expect?"
"Hamburger casserole, the kind you like. Honey, is—"
"So long as it ain't cows," said Applejack, breathing an audible sigh.
Clementine was not at all certain what she ought to say to that. "Your… father is here. Do you want to talk to him?"
Clementine frowned as something like a strangled sob came from the receiver. "No," said A.J. "No I—I just don't think I could bear it. Twi, you were right all along. This was a rotten idea, from the get-go." There was a brief pulse of static, as though the reception on her daughter's cell phone had gone spotty.
"Applejack!" said a second voice on the other end of the line: quicker, clipped, higher in pitch, a little muted due to distance from the receiver. A college friend of her daughter's, elsewhere in the same room? "Please be careful walking around the device! We need to maintain an unbroken link between the Crystal Mountain Leyline and the mirror-portal!"
"Ley… line?" asked Clementine, now thoroughly befuddled.
There was a rustle. "Landline," clarified the second voice, much clearer, as though its owner had taken the phone away from Applejack. "Not ‘leyline.' ‘Landline.' You know, like the type of telephone you have there."
"Yes, holding tight to the old ways, and proud of it. Miss… ‘Twi,' is it?"
"Twilight Sparkle," said the voice. "It's good to talk to you, Mrs. Apple. Applejack has told me… told us all so much about you."
"I'm flattered," said Clementine dryly. "Could you help me understand what's going on out there, Miss Sparkle?"
The voice hesitated. "Oh, it's just that… I mean… Applejack had the idea that maybe you were… that we could… call you and talk to you. And she was really interested in the idea, so I dug into my Hoofsenberg and put together a really crazy apparatus that harnesses leyline energy and projects it across quantum doorways that are untraversable to solid matter, and it works!" A brief noise like two hard objects clapping themselves together in an excited fashion. "This is so exciting!"
"Come again?"
A startled pause. "Er… that is to say, we… decided to pick up our cellular telephones in our hands and give you a call, Mrs. Apple. I realize this may sound a little strange, but your daughter had some things she wanted to say to you. I'm not… sure she's up to it anymore. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the next time you talk to her that she doesn't remember any of this going on."
And, there it was. Finally, the pattern resolved in Clementine's mind, and the last smoldering remnants of her panic were extinguished in a cloud of gentle amusement. "I see what's going on here," said Clementine.
"You do?" A worm of fear entered the young woman's voice.
"Isn't it a bit early for my daughter to be this foggy, Miss Sparkle? And on a weeknight, too? You had better tell me that my daughter's decision to drink tonight corresponds directly with a lack of classes tomorrow."
"Yes," said Twilight Sparkle, the fear vanishing from her voice. "Yes, I can guarantee you that Applejack has no classes tomorrow."
"Designated driver all picked out? You, maybe?"
"Actually, it's immaterial. We're already at the place we're staying tonight. It's at my old foalsitter's castle."
Clementine blinked at the phone.
"Babysitter's castle," the voice hastily corrected. "Sorry. I misspoke. The point is, we're taking good care of her, Ma'am."
"See that you do," said Clementine, wondering at the odd company Applejack was keeping nowadays. "Now, does my daughter have anything else she'd like to tell me before her father and I get back to our supper?"
The rustle again, the phone being handed back. "Yes," said Applejack, sniffling. "Yes. I do got somethin' more to say. I love you, Ma. I love Pa, too. I love y'all… more than I reckon I know how to say. And I ain't never said it enough. I'm sorry for all them times I got a little headstrong and came at you with fightin' words. Ain't none of them mattered more 'an smoke. Truth is, I regretted every single one. If I could take 'em back, I would."
"There's nothing to be sorry for, Applejack," said Clementine. "You are who you are. And your father and I love you for it. Even if we do get a little hot under the collar at times."
A hard swallow. "I just… I miss the both of you. I miss you so much. Sometimes I can't hardly stand it no more. Feels like a timberwolf howlin' inside of me and I wanna go out running and just not stop so's I can make the hurt go away, but it never works ‘cause the only thing that'll make it better is Pa's neck laid over mine and your breath warm on my withers."
Clementine's eyes felt full. She brushed away a little tear. "We miss you too, sweetheart," she said. "I know your classwork won't always permit it, but you can always come home and see us."
"No," whispered her daughter. "That's just it. I can't."
"I worry about how full you've got your schedule," said Clementine. "You and the way you overwork yourself. A.J., I want you to know that no matter where in the world you roam, your Pa and I are pulling for you. And even if you can't see us or talk to us, you're always with us in our hearts. Always, Applejack."
"Same for me with the two of you," said A.J., her voice breaking. "A hundred times over. Sweet Celestia, Twi, I can't do this no more…"
"You can just say goodbye and hang up," said Applejack's friend, gently.
"Anything you want me to tell your father before you go?"
"Sure," replied A.J. "Sure. Tell him… I still got his hat."
"I'll do that, sweetheart," said Clementine. "I love you."
"Love you too," said Applejack. And then the line clicked with a curiously musical burst of static, and she was gone.
Clementine returned to the dinner table, smiling wistfully. Cortland, always a gentleman, had refrained from taking even a bite until his wife was there to share it with him; and given Cortland's appetite, Clementine knew that the gesture was a considerable sacrifice for the man.
"Everything all right?" asked Cortland.
"Your daughter loves us and misses us," replied Clementine, picking up her fork. "She wants you to know that she still has that old hat of yours."
"She'd better," said Cortland, tucking into his food at last. "It's a good hat."
"It turns out your daughter gets a little maudlin when she's imbibing. Gets it from your side of the family, I expect."
"Can't be. Apples are happy drunks."
"Mm," said Clementine. "I am shocked, shocked to discover that she hasn't waited to reach legal age to find this out for herself. Some parental failing on our parts, I imagine."
"Girl's gonna take over the family business," grunted Cortland, "she's gotta learn how to tell good cider from bad. Earlier the better."
"We're terrible parents."
"Kids turned out all right, didn't they?"
"Yes," said Clementine, smiling. "Yes, they did." She put down her fork and worried her napkin a little. "It's just so hard to let them go," she continued. "Hard to know when it's time to let them face the world alone."
"Sounded like she had a friend there with her? Responsible one?"
"A bit… eccentric, maybe, but… yes."
"Well, there you go. She ain't facing the world alone. She's got good friends. Can't ask for more than that."
"Cortland Apple," said Clementine Apple, "you are as wise as you are handsome, and I love you dearly."
"Love you too, little Orange," said Cortland.
Clementine held up her bottle of Apple Family Winter Reserve. "Here's to the children we made, Cort. May they grow, learn and be always loved, all their long lives through."
"Amen to that," said Cortland, raising his own bottle.
They clinked.
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Well...
This was different. Using telephones and the parallel universes to contact loved ones?
That's pretty clever. Or did she just do something with the mirror?
~Skeeter The Lurker
It took me all of three paragraphs to hold in my train of thought.
Well, it's fallen off the tracks, because this just broke my heart in so many ways.
Goddamn it, right in the feels. It's like dropping buttered toast with you, man. Right in the damn feels every time.
That was really pretty and quite clever, too. I liked it.
And remember, everyone, treasure the time you have with the ones you love, because they may already be dead in an alternate universe where you're a tiny, sapient horse.
...or something like that.
I hate to see what their phone bill will look like if Twilight reverses the phone charges.
I think there's a term for this... Dramatic Irony? I'm pretty sure it's something like that.
That was not what I expected at all.
Twilight, that was probably a bad idea. Talk about opening old wounds.
And then ... the twister struck!
But seriously, this is a phenomenally good idea and proof that good can come from Equestria Girls. It was touching with just the right amount of cutesy bits. Thank you!
In a farmhouse, near an orchard
Came a call on the landline
To a farmer, name of Cortland
And his missus, Clementine
Phone's a ringin', phone's a ringin'
Phone's a ringin', Clementine!
It's our daughter, on her cell phone,
That we bought her, on the line
And they listened while the caller
Said she loved the man and wife
Never knowin' that she'd lost them
In another world and life
Considering how I've just moved away from family and friends to strike it out on my own quite recently, this is striking quite the profound chord with me.
I don't think you meant to imply Applejack thinks these denizens of the EqG universe really ARE the souls who bore her or that she's speaking with the afterlife, but just the idea alone that you could have parents who are and aren't yours at once gives me food for thought, too. Excellent piece and deft delivery of character in such a constrained space, and I definitely appreciated how Applejack's call didn't rock her parents' world substantially other than a simple confirmation that she's moving on with her life.
That took a turn that I was not expecting, nor was I ready for.
This was a good story, friend.
Babysitter's castle. Good recovery, Twilight.
As usual, your prose is disgustingly vivid, imaginative, precise, and focused.
I'm gettin' misty eyed over here.
Oh my, this was a fantastic little tale. One of the best EqG crossovers I've seen.
This was a grand, clever idea... Warm, touching, funny, and a great merging of continuity and character with an inventive concept. Great stuff!
On an aside, I do wonder if human AJ will put it together if she hears that she mysteriously called home and her mother talked to her friend Twilight.
Ow. Okay, you hit me in the feels so hard I'm coughing up blood.
3603622
Realistically? Not much. It's obviously an experimental setup that interfaces with the EQG phone network, not some kind of inter-universal phone company with massive charges. The Equestrian side and the universe-crossing are free. It's going through the mirror portal, so the interface with the EQG phone network will probably be near Canterlot High. Therefore, it would cost as much as a collect call from Canterlot High.
...
I upvoted this from 27 to 37. My upthumbs are as the upthumbs of ten men, because my heart is pure!
3604034
You underestimate the power of the dark side (aka phone company billing).
Sky. Stop. Stop making me have feels from Equestria Girls. I wanted to live in safe, comfortable nerd rage, and pretend every possible thing about it sucked.
First you singlehandedly redeem Cadence, and now this? It's like you want me to enjoy the show or something.
3604034
I could only do two. I think I might've done three had I not drunk the whiskey I bought my Dad for Christmas.
3604154
You underestimate Twilight's abilities as a phreaker.
3604367
Somehow I don't think Twi's using the Blue Box or the Captain Crunch whistle, so we shall see.
Wow, wasn't expecting that. Ow, my heart...
Very nice.
On the critical side, you missed a couple spots of grammar here and there, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about the decision to stick it in an EqG frame story. It takes a lot of punch out of the emotional core, but not everything needs to be full-bore feels-heavy and action-packed. This lets you do a bit of nice world-building and sets up a couple nice laugh-lines that you probably couldn't pull off otherwise: the one 3603803 mentioned below and "we… decided to pick up our cellular telephones in our hands and give you a call". But part of me really does wish we'd gotten to see the fullness of what this did to AJ, not just the snippets available to us through the phone.
Part of me. Though the more I think about it, the more I think you did make the stronger choice here, to play the scene in a lower key. It has more nuance, and I like the early ambiance, especially the paragraph detailing Clementine and Cortland's dinner menu. Some very nice detail in that.
In any case, this is good stuff. I think I'm going to have to toss it in my favorites list, for the sheer fact that it's some high quality Apple pathos from concentrate, and I'm confident I'll want to come back and read it more than once.
Poor, poor Applejack.
3604034
If she didn't bring a phone back with her and hasn't been back through the portal to set up equipment, I figure she's (ab)using someone's autopatch. Assuming there's one in range, it'd be a lot easier than talking with the cellular network.
Do Equestria and the Crystal Empire count as separate countries for DXCC? Do ponies have WAC (worked all castles)? Who handles QSO cards for Twilight?
3603704
Sometimes, you have to open old wounds to make sure they finally heal true.
Well, this is definitely one of the better stories involving AJ and her parents. Possibly the best I have read. Jeez Skywriter, stop making everyone else look bad.
(Please don't stop)
3605661 Though the more I think about it, the more I think you did make the stronger choice here, to play the scene in a lower key. It has more nuance, and I like the early ambiance, especially the paragraph detailing Clementine and Cortland's dinner menu.
It's the same choice I made in Long Distance, where Twilight makes a phone call to try to reconnect with Ponyville, but the story instead shows the mayor at the other end.
3606954
Hmm. Generally true, though I think it adds to the pathos more in "Long Distance". The Mayor is completely unreceptive to Twilight, whereas here Clementine is just less receptive. They're both about one-sided phone calls, yes, and they're both told from the perspective of the less involved party, but I think the choice leads to a stronger result where you make it and a more subtle one here. This winds up feeling more atmospheric and "Long Distance" more hollow, I think, and each serves its story well.
3606954
The similarity to your quite excellent earlier work did not, of course, escape me.
A strange EqG/FiM crossover. I wonder how long AJ had to badger Twilight to do this, after all, crossing over the dimensional boundaries, even only just a communications signal, is taking a big risk.
That said... it is obvious that Applejack had something that she desperately needed to say.
3607306
Are you kidding? This is Twilight we're talking about.
Ouch, my heart! My feels riddled heart!
3607361
Though A.J. says that Twilight was "right" when she said it was a bad idea, suggesting she campaigned against it, I can't imagine that there wasn't a lot of this going on as well. And the resulting argument was probably all the more tepid for it.
3608757
Well, once she'd established proof-of-concept sure, she realized it was a bad idea. But by then the phone was already built, so they might as well...
I read this right after I read Home, and oh god my heart.
My reaction in a nutshell:
"Wait, what? What's going on, I don't- oh? Oh! Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
You can tell it's a good story when realizing what's going on makes you feel smart.
Skywriter, I've got to stop reading your stuff. I never regret it, but I'm also deep in thought when I finish. I try to use FIMFiction to relax!
3610259
Perhaps my next story will consist solely of a verbal description of tranquil music and ocean waves and stuff like that. In any case, glad that you didn't regret reading!
Damnit Skywriter, now my feels are all over the place....
I gotta get a broom
"Maudlin"? "Imbibing"? Where do you find these words.
I was, I will admit, thoroughly confused the first time through despite the warning of Equestria girls content. It took me a quite to twig that Clementine was the human version. I guess AJ's parents are alive in Equestria girls? I ended up entertaining all sort of theories culminating on the idea the this was the past and Twi had set up a phone call to the past. Got more of the humour on the second reading, including the "Er… that is to say, we… decided to pick up our cellular telephones in our hands and give you a call, Mrs. Apple", which made me smile. Twi, you're really not the best liar.
You know, I bet that's what most ponyfic reads like if it were actually read by ponies. I often specify that ponies pick things up "with their hooves" because I like to keep the fact that I am writing are ponies present in the narrative.
Speaking of language...
I like the way Applejack does not use the word "beef". It stands to reason that Equestrian would not have the diverse names of the meat of animals like mutton, beef, and ham. I wonder if she knows what a "hamburger casserole" is. Fun historical fact: in English, the meat names, as opposed to the names of the actual animals, tend to be French derived as a rule because after the Normal invasion of 1066 the French nobility were in charge an, presumably, were more concerned with eating the meat than farming it, a job which fell to the Anglo Saxon farmers.
Tangents. Today I am all about the tangents.
3612373
I worried about that problem. I tried to drop as many hints as I could but I worried about overcorrecting in a "flashing neon sign" fashion, so maybe not enough?
3612575
It's probably fine, you can't expect everyone to get everything first time without dropping expositional anvils all over the place. I did figure it out before the end, and I know next to nothing about Equestria Girls other than it's humanised, Spike is a dog, and there is a Sunset [1] in there.
[1] I wanted that name for something, damn it. Now it's tainted.
3612575
It wasn't hard for me. I think it was clear that AJ's parents were her human parents. It took a moment to catch that AJ was pony AJ, but really not long.
3613426
Thanks for the input!
Deciding to read this was one of those infinity times zero situations. Oooh, new story from Skywriter! Ew, human tag? EQG!? But... it's from Skywriter!
Obviously, the only choice was to read it.
While if I had received such a call (without any knowledge of it's source) my eyebrows would probably have been raised significantly farther than Clementine's seem to have been, especially for lines like "your breath warm on my withers.", but the emotional significance of what's going on here is... impressive. It's surprisingly effective, in fact. Despite the fact that her mirror universe parents aren't actually her parents, it's fairly believable that they're close enough that this conversation could actually happen, and have the impact that it does.
Much as I resent the reminder that this bizarro world is actually canonical, it's existence does put a lot of multiverse fics on far more stable ground than they would be without. After all, if there's one mirror universe with uncannily similar relationships in it, then there could very well be others. Maybe the mirror goes more places than just Canterlot High if you set it up right, like that multiverse mirror thing from Stargate.
Also I'll have to agree with Bradel in that I think this point of view is the right one. I tend to prefer subtlety to the neon sign approach, as the former can add to immersion by making me think about the setting, and my own conclusions are more likely to pull on the heartstrings, whereas the latter can damage it by making me think about the writing.
Sooo, well done. You made me read about EQG, and you made me like it. What can't you do?
3614887
I'm terrible at scruffing cats, for one thing. There's this mystical kung fu five-finger death punch thing that you are supposed to be able to do to immobilize a cat by seizing just the right spot on its neck, and... yeah. Never works.
Also, I'm really bad at cooking eggs.
Anyhow, glad you liked!
Nice. I really liked this one Shy.
I know the feeling of having missing loved ones and ones that you can only talk to over static filled phonelines.
Excuse me, I need to call my mom.
Really liked how well worded everything was. Some months back I would certainly be completely destroyed by it, but in any case it was great.