Chapter Eleven: A Wonder to be Alive
The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Chapter Eleven – A Wonder to be Alive
Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing
Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art
“That's a mighty purdy name you've got there, Harmony, but it doesn't do a lick of good excusin' you for pokin' yer wings through these here apple trees!”
“H-hey! You asked me who I was, didn't you?” Scootaloo—or “Harmony”—hissed and wiggled, the faces of her two interrogators frowning upside down before her as she dangled from the upper branches of the apple tree. “Whatever happened to country hospitality anyways?”
“Y'all must be thinkin' about another country—a country full of hay-brained idiots!” Applejack leaned obstinately on her pitch-fork in front of the topsy-turvy pegasus and spat into the ground before growling, “You think we're stupid? In these parts, we don't take kindly to wayward leaf rummagin'!”
The time traveler's amber eyes narrowed. “Did it ever occur to you that I might simply be a visitor?”
“Front door's thattaway.” Applejack lethargically pointed a hoof towards the Apple Family farmhouse beyond the red barn. “But y'all can forget about droppin' in for a cup of tea. Big Macintosh here and I have lots of work to do and we ain't gonna be makin' no progress on account of random ponies usin' our orchards for landing pads!”
“I swear, this whole thing was an accident,” Harmony confessed in total honesty. She tongued the inside of her mouth and shot her eyes towards the corners of her sockets in an attempt to scoop up something meatier, yet not nearly as honest. “I-I'm not all that accustomed to flying around this area of Ponyville!” Then she produced something half-true, at least: “I'm a stranger to these parts, you see.”
The farm mare's green eyes focused on the outsider's face with squinting suspicion. “I've never known a pegasus this far from Cloudsdale to have so much trouble navigatin' the treetops of Ponyville,” Applejack muttered. “Don't y'all get grilled on a daily basis at them fancy schmancy flight schools of yers? How could they let a winged pony as loopy as you get herself a diploma?”
“Jee, I dunno.” Harmony frowned, reaching into the back of her blood-pumping mind and salvaging: “They've let even loopier ones deliver the mail, haven't they?”
A deep bass chuckle filled the air; the red stallion aptly named Big Macintosh snickered before producing a smile and an “Eeeyup.”
Applejack frowned at him, then gave Harmony a haughty glance. “I swear, even when y'all are on the ground, you pegasi still have yer head in the clouds.”
“Better than having our heads up something else,” Harmony grunted, flailed one last time, and sweated with a dull glare. “Can somepony let me down now?”
Applejack rolled her eyes, then whistled at Big Macintosh. The stallion nodded, marched up, and nudged half of the pegasus' body upwards with the back of his neck. He then stretched a mighty leg out to buck the tree trunk. The resulting impact expertly shook the black-maned visitor from the forking branches. She spun in the air with a girlish shriek before being caught effortlessly across Big Mac's backside. The stallion lowered gently to his knees, and she stumbled off of him, reeling with dizzied amber eyes.
“Ughhh... I've eaten mushrooms all my life, and now I'm seeing stars,” she muttered quietly to herself, shook the cobwebs out of her head, and gazed up at the stallion. “Thank you very much, Mister—”
Harmony stopped in mid-sentence, for she realized that she was... gazing at a stallion. Not just any stallion, but a tall and concrete-built workhorse whom the chronologically displaced pony remembered, only none of those memories belonged to a grown mare. Now, all of her foalish recollections of a softly-spoken, hay-chewing, freckle-faced farmcolt suddenly melted under the reality of this razor-chiseled, earth-scented, blonde thoroughbred who was presently towering like a great crimson mountain of masculinity before her. He blinked at her with quizzical green eyes that melted her to the lonesome core of her suddenly fluttering heart.
“—Mister Big... Mac,” she ultimately exhaled, her copper cheeks burning with an extra rust.
The stallion's blonde sister rose into view, her frowning freckles occupying the entirety of Harmony's flustered eyesight. “Had yer fill, yet?”
“I... er... uhm...” Harmony gulped, shrinking back slightly towards the trunk of the tree she had been hanging from. “Please, listen—There was a reason why I came here.” The mare listened to herself begin, but winced at the thought of finishing it.
“I reckon ya do—But ain't nothin' to it! I've said it before and I'll say it again—There's work to be done around here, and the longer we have to deal with ya, the longer it's wastin' our valuable time!”
“Care to be a little bit more specific?” Harmony raised an eyebrow. “Maybe if you gave me a chance, I could make it up to you for—y'know—committing the crime of flying into your precious apple orchards. Or do you wanna keep treating me like a sack of manure?”
“Don't tempt me!”
“Why are you so off your rocker to begin with, Applejack?” Harmony exclaimed—but suddenly wanted to bite her own tongue off.
“None of yer beeswax—!” The orange mare began, but then went cockeyed. “Wait—How'd you know my name?”
“Uhhh—”
“Is this one of Rainbow's and Pinkie's pranks?” She stomped her hooves. “Gul-durn it!—I don't have time for this horse hockey!”
Big Macintosh cleared his throat. Catching his irascible sister's attention, the sweating stallion pointed a nervous hoof towards the edge of Harmony's flank. Applejack took one glance, saw the celestially crested infinity symbol, and instantly covered her gasping mouth with two shaking hooves.
“Mountains of Elektra!” the blonde mare sputtered, her knees shaking. “A servant of the Royal Court of Canterlot ...!”
“Huh? Where?” Harmony glanced stupidly around, blinked, then brightened. “Yes!” She caught herself, cleared her throat, and struck a haughty pose with her copper neck tilted upwards regally. “Yes—That's right. I'm here on official business of Her Majesty, Princess Celestia. It's an honor to meet you, Applejack and Macintosh. Your work here at Sweet Apple Acres is...” She bit her lip momentarily. “...uhh—Renowned over half of Equestria!”
“I'm so sorry, Miss Harmony! I had no idea!” Applejack all but collapsed in her breathless attempt to placate the still-frazzled pegasus with the fabulous cutie mark. “All this time, I thought yer were just a fence-hoppin' tramp! We've had our fair share of monkey business lately around these here parts; it was a total misunderstandin', honest!”
“And I believe you, Applejack.” Harmony smiled warmly, breathing slightly easier as she finally managed to get a hoofhold of the conversation. “It's obvious that you—uhhh—hold so much pride and responsibility in your family farm. It's not only natural that you defend it so rigorously, but it's also commendable.”
Big Mac leaned in and whispered into his sister's ear. Applejack nodded, gulping. “Yer right, Macky. She even talks like one of them fancy Canterlot folks.” She cleared her throat and adjusted the brim of her hat, smiling awkwardly. “What can we do yer for, Miss Harmony, representative of Her Highness?”
“Well, you can—” Harmony started speaking, but fell off the proverbial cliff of her brain. She saw the immensity of the wide-stretching apple trees around her, blanketing the horizon. Her skin sang under the bright glistening sunlight; her amber eyes wilted under the deep blue sky. Everything around her was so overwhelmingly alive. There she was under the gun of Applejack's trust, and she suddenly had nothing to deliver. She floated with a sudden numbness, tangled in the gray webs of her ash-laden mind, and it took several seconds for her to plunge back to the blistering moment, struggling to bring her hooves back down to the earth. She fell a few centimeters short and hovered in an invisible cloud that ultimately tripped her. “Actually,” she coughed up the words and chased them awkwardly like a foal prancing after a rubber ball. “I'm here for a check-up.”
Macintosh and Applejack exchanged glances. They squinted as one in the pegasus' direction. “Ch-check-up?”
“You are the prime supplier of Canterlotlian apple goods, yes?”
“Right as rain, we are!”
Harmony exhaled victoriously at her memory and dove off the platform of it. “Well, the seasons are changing.” In mid-speech, she glanced her amber eyes around at the lushness of the Earth. It was already early spring. “The Summer Sun Celebration will be in four months.” She looked into their eyes for an adverse reaction; there was none. So she finished with, “And Her Highness Princess Celestia wants to be sure that there'll be plenty of fruit to go around for the annual event!”
At this point, however, Applejack's vicious frown had resurfaced. “Miss Harmony—correct me if I'm wrong—but the Summer Sun Celebration is at Stalliongrad this year, ain't it?”
Harmony blinked, for she had suddenly remembered that. With the warm breeze and fragrant senses of Sweet Apple Acres wafting around her, the mare's foalish memories bloomed at the surface of her brain.
She recalled several things in order: a chilling autumn, the village's first successful Winter Wrap-Up, a warm spring, the curious absence of Sweetie Belle and her sister Rarity, a strange creature falling into the Everfree Forest, Rainbow Dash and her weather team taking a trip to the northwest Griffon lands, a disastorous visit to Whinniepeg, sick foals visiting from distant rock farms, a Summer Sun Celebration at Ponyville—without Celestia—and then ... Cataclysm.
For the first time in a quarter-of-a-century of navigating the perpetual gray twilight of a dead Equestria, the last living events of the Fourth Age came to the last pony in bitterly blissful clarity. The Cataclysm had immediately followed the Summer Sun Celebration, almost an exact year after the return of Nightmare Moon. And here she was, four months until the Apocalypse, and she was stammering to make any sense of herself while a certain blonde farmfilly stared her down.
Try as she might to focus on the situation at hand, the memories overwhelmed her. Between each blink, Harmony saw in particular the bodies of dark trees against a Whinniepeg night sky. She felt warm, loving forelimbs encircling her while frigid tears escaped into the starlight. The phantom sensation chilled her to her core, so that Harmony was almost glad that the apocalyptic holocaust had made her forget things that were both cheerful and chilling to her childish soul.
“Uhm...” Harmony gulped hard, her own voice bringing her back to the sweaty moment at hoof. “Yes—uhm—the Summer Sun Celebration is in Stalliongrad this year.” Harmony struggled to recollect her authoritarian airs. “But since the marvelous turnout of last year's Celebration in Ponyville, Her Highness Princess Celestia desires to spread the wealth of her most beloved town of earth ponies to the far ends of Equestria. In short, she would like to take a marvelous bounty of Sweet Apple Acres' fruit with her to Stalliongrad. But before she can so much as propose that sort of an endeavor, she needs to... uhh ...give your farm a check-up!”
Applejack raised an irate eyebrow. “Don'tcha mean 'inspection'?”
“Sure why not?” Harmony muttered, winced, then said in a stronger voice: “Y-yes. I am... here for the inspection, Her Majesty Princess Celestia's inspection. So... let's inspect away, shall we?” She smiled a plastic grin. “How about them apples, huh?”
Applejack's eyes resembled emerald daggers at this point. She spat once more into the dirt and grunted her older brother's way. “Macky, I reckon we have ourselves here a fibber.”
“Eeyup,” he chirped with a disbelieving look cast towards the pegasus.
Harmony blinked nervously between the two apple farmers. “H-Huh...?”
Applejack trotted towards her with icy menace. “This ain't about no cotton-pickin' Summer Sun Celebration, is it?”
“Uhhh...” The time traveler stumbled back from her, wincing sheepishly. “I... guess not...?”
“It's about why me and Big Macintosh here have been settin' forth on collectin' apples so much sooner than traditional Apple Buck Season....”
“Uhh... S-sure...?”
“It's about all the commotion that's been botherin' the other farmers who border our Acres at night...”
“Yes...?”
“And it's about how last year's Apple Buck Season was a complete ramshackled mess on account of Macky bein' all hurt and me doin' my darnedest to buck all the apples on my lonesome, and how it was a hasty decision on my part that may or may not have led to a bunny rabbit stampede and several counts of food poisonin' in the heart of Ponyville!”
Harmony backed up into a tree, her body scrunching up like a copper accordion as she sweated under Applejack's point-blank glare. “Uhhh—Eheheh—Yeah. About all that—”
“I knew it!” The farm mare stomped backwards, all but tossing her hat down onto the dirt path being kicked up beneath her. “You ain't no freeloadin' pegasus! You're a dang bureaucrat! And of all the rotten timing—Y'all just had to come snoopin' around my farm this week of all weeks!”
“I'm not here to snoop, Ms. Applejack!” Harmony blinked and stood up straight, shaking the sweat off her black mane. “This is just a cordial visit from the Royal Court of Canterlot!”
“Cordial visit my flank!” Applejack hissed. “I should expect more trust from the Princess! Yes, I made a lot mistakes last year, but I turned a new leaf! And with the help of all my friends—including her faithful student Twilight—I got all of the fruit harvested in time for the end of Apple Buck season! So I rightly don't see why anypony at Canterlot has to be ridin' my tail this year! Especially if I'm gettin' stuff done ahead of time!”
“Miss Applejack, it's an investigation,” Harmony exclaimed. “Not an inquisition. And if I may be so bold, you two realllllly seem on edge.” She smiled hopefully. “Look at this whole thing as an opportunity to get an upper hoof on Apple Buck Season, aside from starting early. I've only been sent here to help.”
“If you wanna help”—Applejack spun and leered in front of Harmony—“Then get out of our mane!” After a long, deep breath, Applejack took her hat off and fanned herself. In a calmer voice, she said, “Look—Miss Harmony—I mean no direspect to the Princess. But this is completely unlike her. For the better part of five years, our farm has supplied Canterlot with all the apples y'all could ever need. But to suddenly find out that I'm under some investigation—well, it sure don't float my boat nothin' proper. If the Princess is so gul-durn worried about how I run my farm—then I politefully expect her to send me a written letter through Twilight—Like she normally does! But all of this 'Royal Court of Canterlot' investigation hogwash is angerin' me something fierce! I don't have time for it, and I don't have time for you. Now make like an apple tree and buck off!”
As Applejack marched away in a huff, Harmony frowned at her backside. “Hey! I may not be Princess Celestia herself—But that doesn't mean you gotta treat me like some pitchfork you accidentally rolled onto this morning!”
Applejack paused to blink back at her. “Like some pitchfork I what-now?”
“I flew all of this way to help you and that's final!” Harmony slammed her hoof down for emphasis, but to her misfortune her limb caught the open end of Big Mac's discarded spade. The tool's wooden handle flew mechanically into the copper pegasus' snout, sending stars spinning around her skull. “Unnnngh.” Harmony teetered, the numbness of her projected self vibrating in and out of focus, and yet she wasn't feeling pain. She should have been hurt, but she wasn't. Only the flimsy, green-fuming facsimile of pain briefly jolted her otherwise bright Entropan senses.
Applejack laughed pathetically, her eyes rolling back. She waved a lazy hoof towards the visitor. “Ohhhh, sugarcube. Take a look at yerself, why don't ya? Yer a clerk of the Court of Canterlot. You ain't no workhorse! So don't go writin' checks that yer flank can't catch!”
“Blblbllb—” Harmony shook the cosmic rays of dizziness away and frowned bruisedly in the earth pony's direction. “Are you suggesting that I don't have what it takes to work on a farm?”
“Girl, you'd be lucky if you could work on a dinner plate!”
An untested kernel of pride nestled deep in the icy heart of the last pony popped to the surface. She shook her mane and trotted furiously up towards Applejack. “I'll have you know that I can handle anything and everything that apple bucking could toss at me! The Royal Court of Canterlot doesn't hire ponies just for their good charm, y'know.”
“I reckon that much is obvious.”
“You got a test in mind?”
“As a matter of fact, I do!” Applejack trotted over towards a tree and bucked it lightly, forcing only two glistening fruits to fall loose. These she caught in nimble hooves before bearing a jester's smirk. “I call this here the 'test of preservation!'”
Big Macintosh instantly muttered something, rolled his eyes, and marched away with a humored expression. Harmony blinked at him confusedly, but then found herself staring at a green and red reflection of herself.
“The first and most important thang one needs to know about apple buckin'”—Applejack glared at the pegasus from over the two fruit stems—“is that yer product is more important than anything else. You can kick trees until the cows come home, but if you let a single one of these here apples bite the dust, then that translates to bits flyin' straight out of yer pocket! T'ain't a good thang, ya hear?”
“Is there a point to this brilliant platitude?” Harmony said, squinting nervously at her.
“The point, Miss Harmony, is that if y'all wanna help me buck apples, y'all gotta be prepared to preserve 'em!” She juggled the green and red fruits in her hooves, winking slyly. “If yer fast on them wings of yers, it should be no trouble performin' this here first test!”
“Yeah...?”
“I'll buck both apples high into the sky. All ya gotta do is catch 'em. So long as neither of them get smashed into little seedlings, then I'll employ yer royal help, ya hear?”
“Nnnngh...” Harmony rubbed her head as an artery pulsed at her frustrated temple.
“Somethin' wrong, copper-bottom?”
“This is silly and pointless!” The last pony frowned. “Now you're wasting my time! Let's just get to the point. Do you want my help or not?”
“Now yer soundin' like another stubborn pegasus I know.” Applejack smirked. “Granted, she woulda been mighty fine at meetin' my challenge. Goddess knows what's chompin' at yer bits, Miss Harmony.” She finished juggling the two apples and balanced them expertly on top of each other upon one hoof. “What's the matter? Yer chicken?”
The time traveler's amber eyes narrowed. In a hissing voice, she throated: “Nopony—And I mean nopony calls me 'chicken.'”
“That's a right mighty fine inspiration if I ever did hear it!”
“You gonna toss your fruit or what?” Harmony struck her copper wings out with emphasis.
“Go get'em, hot shot!” Applejack grunted and tossed both apples skyward. Pivoting on her front limbs, the orange farm mare stuck her rear hooves up and knocked each apple towards opposite ends of the shimmering horizon.
Harmony was airborne in a flash, forcing the green leaves of several bordering orchards to flail in the sudden breeze of her flapping wings. Squinting through the flashing sunlight, she spun like a barreling rocket towards the first target as it reached the peak of its red arc.
“Gotcha!”
She effortlessly caught the thing in between two hooves, banked around, and throttled towards the second object that was already plummeting like a green meteor.
“Let's see a side of poultry do this!”
Harmony smirked, twisted her dive at the last second, and clamped her jaws over the stem, so that the second fruit dangled victoriously in her grinning teeth.
“Hah-Hah! Dhid youff thee dat, Mithh Applejag?”
There was the brief sound of clopping hooves—growing faint—then dissipating into the green haze of springtime drowning beneath her. Harmony glanced down past her flapping wings and immediately dropped both fruits in a stupified gasp. Applejack was nowhere to be found. Even the pitchfork and spade left at Harmony's brief scene of awkward dangling had vanished.
“She... sh-she ditched me!” Harmony gasped. She then blinked, and finally yelped in horror. “Oh no—Oh no Oh no Oh no—I'm still bound to her!”
Harmony panicked and flew frantic circles over the green treetops, glancing through rows upon rows of reflective red apples, gazing desperately for any sign of the blonde soul to whom she was anchored.
“Applejack? M-Miss Applejack?” She flew, she zig-zagged around orchards, she circumnavigated wooden fences and water wells. “Hey! Prized Pony of Ponyville Award winner!—Grrr—Show yourself, you Celestia-forsaken corn-shucker!”
Harmony's exclamations were cut short as she once again absent-mindedly hurt herself, this time colliding straightway into a tree trunk. Her body swam through a soupy thick numbness, hauntingly devoid of any cyclonic currents of pain. She was woken from this stupid lapse in comprehension by a half-dozen apples pelting her from above. Instinctually, she rubbed her skull with a groan, gazing towards the red barn on the far side of the farm. She saw an old-old mare, a lime-colored ghost of the past whom her foalish mind ambivalently labeled as “Granny Smith.” The aged pony could be seen from a distance, sitting on the edge of her rocker, listening to a record player—But she wasn't alone. In the mare's company, pleasantly sharing a conversation... was a copper-coated pegasus.
“H-huh?” Harmony awkwardly blinked through her dizziness. But before she could even make sense of that unsightly sight, her amber eyes pivoted towards the side and saw the distant image of two siblings—an orange mare and a red stallion—marching away at twenty meters... thirty meters... forty...
Green tongues of flame started eating away at Harmony's peripheral vision. She gasped and flailed her hooves through a curtain of emerald fire. “N-no! Not yet!” She shrieked and tore through the air towards the terminally distant sight of Applejack. “Gotta catch up! Gotta—” The entire green expanse of Sweet Apple Acres melted under a tunneling blaze. “No-No-No-No-No!” The mare hissed, rocketed forward, and broke through the flames...
...only to sail smack-dab into a granite laboratory table under purple manalight. A resounding thunder filled the cavern. A purple dragon stood up from closely monitoring a chemical experiment. Turning his snout about, Spike narrowed his spectacled gaze on the collapsed time traveler.
“Well, that was most certainly quick.”
“Gnnnnghhh!” Scootaloo—no longer “Harmony”—stood up, ignoring her suddenly throbbing bruises as she paced angrily around the stone floor of the bone-chillingly painful present. “I swear to Epona! It's like trying to talk a zebra into speaking out of rhyme!”
“I can see that you're frustrated, child, but must we resort to stigmatic hyperboles?”
“Spike—What gives?” The adrenalized pegasus unceremoniously hopped up onto the edge of a lab table and frowned into his green-crested snout. “I remember Applejack being the element of honesty. Not stubbornness!”
“When you or I know what is true, do we defend it with any less fervor?”
“Only she's not telling me what that truth is!” Scootaloo scowled. “I dropped in on her and Big Macintosh, and out of nowhere they were pointing razor-sharp farm tools at my jugular vein!”
“Scootaloo...”
“I didn't spout out anything about the end of the world this time! I swear it!” She crossed her heart and poked her left eyelid with separate hooves. “Something's obviously rubbing them the wrong way, and it's so bad that it's making them tackle Apple Buck Season early! Now they think that I'm some sort of nosy goody-goody-four-horseshoes sent from Canterlot to spy on them!”
“Did you find this out before or after you flew out of the limit of the soul binding?” Spike raised an eye-crest.
“Huh? OH! Pffft—That was... Ungh!” Scootaloo ran her forelimbs frustratingly through her mane, only to remember that she didn't have a mane. She sighed and muttered in embarrassment: “I was saying anything I could think of to get Applejack to let me stick around her longer. She told me that she would let me help her on the farm if I could catch two of her apples from midair—”
“She did the 'test of preservation' trick with you?!” Spike grinned wide. “With the double-apple tossing, yes?!” He yanked his crystal glasses off and laughed fumingly, filling the air with a green haze that betrayed the otherwise solemn complexion of the elder dragon. The violet pendant twirled and spun from his cackling neck. “Ohhhhhh, that is most exceedingly rich!”
Scootaloo slumped down on the edge of the table, folding her front hooves with a frown. “I don't see what's so friggin' hilarious.”
“Oh, child...” Spike wiped a tear, exhaled, and slid his spectacles back on as he lowered to her level. “That's an old disappearing act that Applejack performed on anypony she deemed trespassing on her family's property. She did it with Rainbow Dash quite a few times. It almost became a game between the two of them. You may not have the capacity to believe this in the midst of your current ire, but I would count what she did as a very subtle sign of your having won her respect.”
“Well, the girl needs to work on her signs, or someone's liable to kick them over in the dirt,” Scootaloo muttered and rubbed her face with a hoof. “I'm so sorry, Spike. I blew it again. You might as well send me back to Ms. Cheerilee, or let me find another pony. Because, I swear, Applejack is a literal brick wall.”
“Now, with that sort of attitude, you'll never get any information,” Spike said as he strolled across the laboratory.
“What information?!” Scootaloo cackled, waving her front limbs dramatically. “Spike—She's obviously in a very bad mood! I don't see how in the name of all that's holy I might possibly be capable of getting her to connect me with Princess Celestia, much less anypony else for that matter!”
“I do believe the key here, old friend, is not to think of how these ponies can help us,” Spike said. He coughed briefly, hacking up a cloud of fumes and waving them clear with a scaled hand. The dragon grabbed the crystal jar of Applejack's ashes once more and shuffled back towards his tiny companion. “But rather we must focus on how we can help them.”
“I don't see how that's going to get us anywhere in our little 'experiment', Spike,” the pegasus grunted. “Besides, the last thing in the world Applejack wants right now is help.”
“It wouldn't be the first time she's refused any and all assistance.” The dragon smirked at her. “When Twilight Sparkle first came to town, Applejack had to tackle Apple Buck Season all on her lonesome. That means she tried to harvest every single fruit from the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres without anypony else to lend her a hoof. It was a supremely impossible task, given her self-appointed deadline. But she convinced herself and other ponies that it had to be done, at least until Twilight convinced her otherwise.”
“Yes, I think I remember Apple Bloom telling me about that.” Scootaloo nodded, then squinted up at the purple dragon. “Just how did Twilight succeed anyways?”
“Persistence, my good friend,” Spike smiled. “You'll find that it's an avid companion to subtlety.”
“Ughhhh...” Scootaloo slumped down onto the floor, gripping her skull dramatically. “Somepony, anypony, gag me with rusted stirrups...”
“Right. Let's send you back—”
“What?!” She glanced up at him, bug-eyed. “You're sending me back to Applejack?”
“But of course.” The dragon uncorked the vial and motioned her towards the alchemic circles. “Applejack's penchant for honesty is easily masked by her stubbornness, both grayer shades of her immaculate sense of self-righteousness. But all of those robust surfaces can be broken; all it takes is a kind and humble heart, and she will open up to you. Of this, I can promise.”
“I wish I had the faith in Applejack that you have in me, Spike,” Scootaloo murmured.
“That too, you can find for yourself.” He smiled. “But do make it a commitment to not leave your anchorage to her this time. There is only so much green flame I have available to give at a moment's notice. Also, I cannot send you back to a single pony's soul too many times in a row without losing cohesion.”
“Losing 'cohesion?'” Scootaloo blinked queerly at him as she trotted back over the circles. “What does that mean?”
“Simply that I would have to junction you to a completely different soul for a while before I could possibly send you back to Applejack again,” Spike explained as his shadow spread over her. “So it would behoove you to make the most of this trip back. Stick to Applejack like sawdust. Be subtle—but also persistent. You are built of hardened stuff, Scootaloo, more than our late apple-bucking friend can possibly imagine. The moment your own stubbornness exceeds hers—and I have every faith that it will—you'll find the task ahead of you to be a lot easier. Then and only then will the floodbanks of her honesty open up, and mayhaps she can help us in the way that you'll help her.”
“Assuming I survive the whole thing.” Scootaloo sighed. She stood up straight and closed her eyes. “I'm ready, Spike. You're sending me back a day later or something—Right?”
“Mmmm...” he dashed a sneeze of ashes into his scaled palm. “I was thinking more along the lines of two minutes earlier.”
Scootaloo's eyes reopened confusedly. “Earlier? But Spike, wouldn't I run into myself?”
“Somehow, I doubt it.” He anointed her with the ashes and lowered his fuming jaws. “Think of it this way: Applejack just got through tricking you. I think it's only appropriate that we get the jump on her.”
“How so?”
He answered her with a gust of green flames. Scootaloo winced as she rode back on billowing emerald currents. The flickering tongues solidified behind her scalp in the form of black mane hair, settling to her suddenly copper shoulders as she stood smokily besides the red barn of Sweet Apple Acres, serenaded by the sweet melody of a melancholic violin.
“Mmmm...” Harmony murmured aloud. “Early Third Age... Stallionivarius?” She spun a glance to her side, and was pleasantly amused to see a rustic record player crackling forth beautiful strings into the hay-scented air. “I knew it!”
A voice snorted to life beside her. Harmony was suddenly made aware of a gray-haired, brittle-limbed mare squatting on the edge of a rocking chair, her clouded eyes flickering to life as she woke from a midday slumber.
“H-huh? Whazzit—Who goes there? Apple Bl-Bloom?”
Harmony's heart jumped. Following a foalish instinct, she curtsied politely with a bending of hooves. “Granny Smith, I'm sorry to have woken you.”
The lime-coated pony elder squinted the visitor's way. “Eh??? D-do I know you...?”
“I... Er...” Harmony glanced over the horizon of orchards.
She blinked suddenly to see two farmhorses marching towards her: an orange mare and a red stallion. Far behind them, a copper-equine figure was surging through the air, only to be consumed in a puff of green smoke that nobody saw but the pegasus. The sight sent synapses firing pleasantly in Harmony's mind, so that she managed a gentle smile and hummed Granny Smith's way.
“I'm simply a fellow aficionado of good music, ma'am.”
“Aficionado of what-now?” the senior pony shivered to say.
Harmony gestured towards the crackling record player. “Stallionivarius' Adagio for Princess Luna, if I'm not mistaken.”
She breathed the spring air with deep tranquility, feeling her projected body filled with a sudden easiness that sharply contrasted the bitter frustration from earlier. It was a beautiful day, the greatest of days. The trees sang around her.
“It's a classic piece,” Harmony continued, “evocative of the Artistic Elegy of Mourning that predominated so many musical symphonies memorializing Princess Luna after Nightmare Moon's banishment at the start of the Third Age.”
“Eh? Eh heh heh—Now if that ain't somethin'!” Granny Smith smiled with tired eyes. “A filly yer age, appreciatin' such fine tastes; now I've truly seen everything! You've ever heard this rendition before?”
“Erm...heh heh... No, to be honest.” Harmony blushed slightly as she paced about and stood besides the gray mare's rocking chair. “But I am familiar with Stallionivarius. He pioneered the Canterlotlian violin for centuries of musicians to come. I've got to say, as much as I love Octavia's composition, Stallionivarius' version of Adagio for Princess Luna sounds far more appropriately mournful. I wish I had heard it sooner.”
“Ah, yes, Octavia. Heheh.” The Apple family grandmother coughed briefly, then sat tall and proud at the edge of her rocking chair. “She is all the rage with the rich upstarts of Canterlot, these days. However, like all young musicians, she has talent but the substance is plum missin'! Bah! Give me Stallionivarius any day!”
“There's a lot to be said about Octavia's revolutionizing of the cello,” Harmony remarked. “But it certainly can't replace the traditional strings of this version of Adagio. But, then again...” She giggled in a sudden, flighty breath at hearing herself say this: “With Princess Luna having just returned to her formal glory, what need is there for Equestria to keep mourning?”
“Mmmm... How times have changed.” The old mare gazed off into an invisible horizon beyond the red barn. “I remember when I was a lil' filly, and Nightmare Moon was a name that struck fear in the hearts of foals everywhere. I grew up, married, foaled, and retired under the shadow of the same cursed moon that haunted all of the Third Age for centuries. To think that in my time I would see things changin' so dramatic-like. It's a wonder to be alive, young one.”
Harmony took a deep breath, gazing at the spinning black gloss of the record. “I wish everypony would live long enough to witness such wonders.”
“Mmmm—Eheh—Certainly a purdy wish, young'n. But that's somethin' reserved for the few.”
The copper pegasus gulped and produced a bitter smile. “Or the one.”
“I'm sorry; do pardon an old farmer for makin' a necessary inquisition, but...” The aptly named Granny Smith shuffled in her seat and squinted earnestly in the time traveler's direction. “Have we met before?”
Something that felt like a heart jumped in the center of Harmony's Entropan body. The crystal clean joy of the moment briefly quivered, like a curtain of rain water dancing between the two ponies and their years upon years of distance and obscurity. Two orange dots that resembled a bouncy foal shimmered in the graying eyes of the elder. The ghostly scents of baked pies, tattered aprons, and wrinkled skin christened the air above them, and it hurt—for the first time since descending to the apple-kissed land of green it hurt to lie.
Harmony thought briefly of Spike's garden, of how his flowers and trees choked one limping stormfront after another under a siphoned sunlight. The future was a barren graveyard that this glistening past—for all of its children and saints—could not comprehend. For the first of many desperate occasions, Harmony gladly took the numbness of her Entropan body, wrapped it about her neck like a shawl, and danced a silver tongue directly in the elder's face.
“No, ma'am.” Her face was a concrete wall and the smile was still drying. “We've never met before. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it's probably just yer taste in music, but I coulda sworn I've seen you before. You have a shine to ya, darlin'. Yer coat is like a bright gold from yesteryear, somethang that this day and age rarely sees.”
“Where I come from, Ms. Smith, my coat doesn't have a reason to shine,” Harmony said in a brief breath of honesty that she felt purified the moment. With a cheerful murmur, her teeth mimicked the sudden twinkle in Granny's eyes. “But I imagine your delightful farm here is giving it a good enough reason to as we speak.”
“Heheh—You got that right, child. Heheheh.”
Harmony briefly couldn't tell what sounded more heavenly, the record player or the chuckling equine who was suddenly outshining it. She smiled all the same, a chronological prisoner to the warmth of it all.
Just then, the clopping hoofsteps of Big Macintosh and Applejack crossed over into the echo of the beautifully crackling strings. “Heheh—Boy, Macky! I'm tellin' ya! You shoulda seen the look on that goofy pegasus' face when—” She took one glance at Harmony, and in mid-laugh suffered a melting expression of her own. “Now how in blazes did you get here so darn quick-like?”
“Yeah—uh—One moment, if you will.” Harmony waved the farm mare off and smirked back towards Granny Smith. “Have you ever listened to the compositions of Marezart?”
“Hah! That old string plucker?! Who hasn't, child? But she is so goddess-darned overrated.”
“Yes—But one can argue that she paved the way towards the dynamic phase of Mid-Third Age Canterlotlian chamber music. Without her, we wouldn't have the 'Celestial Medleys I – IX'.”
“Oh, those old ditties! Why, those made great background music for tea ceremonies, at least before the Big Band phase that inundated Equestria during the Second Zebraharan Conflict.”
Harmony gasped wide. “I didn't know that the Big Band phenomenon transpired simultaneous to wartime!”
“H-Hey!” Applejack noisily barked in the background, flailing a cowfilly hat in her hoof.
“If you live long enough to notice it, dearie, you'll find that the sweetest music is enjoyed during times of great duress.”
“Heheh—Don't I know it, Ms Smith.”
“Hello?! Uhhhh—Howdy?!” Applejack frowned and stood in between the pegasus, the grandmother, and the warbling record player. She glared into the copper visitor's face. “I do believe I was callin' out to y'all!”
“Applejack!” Granny Smith hissed, shaking a wrinkly, lime forearm. “Be polite! I was just chewin' the fat with our guest here!”
Applejack did a double-take. “Our 'guest?'”
“Yes! This fine filly by the name of... name of... Ehhh...” The elder mare squinted at the pegasus. “I rightly apologize—What was yer name again?”
“Allow me to introduce myself.” Harmony smiled gently and re-curtseyed. “My name is Harmony. And I am positively enraptured to meet somepony who appreciates classical music like I do, if not moreso.”
“She knows who Stallionivarius is, Applejack!” Granny Smith beamed, her limbs creaking as she stood up from her rocking chair and waddled about the record player. “I can't count how many times I've tried to get these here whippersnappers to listen to the greats.” She winked Harmony's way.
“Heheh—They sure don't know what they're missing.” The visitor smirked back.
“Granny, this ain't no simple guest!” Applejack flung an accusatory hoof at the pegasus while sneering. “This here's a nosy, bothersome clerk sent straight from the—”
“—Royal Court of Canterlot!” Granny Smith suddenly gasped, holding a hoof over her heart as she regarded 'Harmony's' cutie mark with widening eyes. “Now it all makes a lick of sense! Why, I would recognize that there celestial crest anywhere!” She smiled warmly the pegasus' way. “You know, it was a finely-trimmed pegasus much like you who came to do a census on Sweet Apple Acres several decades ago when I foaled these here seedlings' papa, Apple Shine—Goddess Gultophine rest his soul. I was always entranced by just how polite and downright neighborly Princess Celestia's servants could be. That same pegasus even came back for Apple Shine's first foalday!”
“Well, isn't that quaint?” Harmony smiled and was subtly gazing Applejack's way as she added, “It's too bad politeness isn't as rich today as it was in the Third Age.”
The orange mare fumed, a fountain of steam building beneath her twitching ears.
“Why, whatever do you mean by that, child?” Granny Smith blinked, then squinted confusedly Applejack's way. “AJ, what's goin' on?”
“Nothin', Granny,” she snarled. “Just a simple matter of miscommunication—”
“Out with it, girl!” Granny Smith stomped her hoof, bearing a wrinkled frown. “I know when the apple has fallen far from the tree—Now don't I?”
Before Applejack so much as opened her mouth, Harmony strolled into view and smiled placidly the elder's way. “I believe the fault is entirely my own, Ms. Smith. I was clumsy and I flew awkwardly into one of your family's exceptional apple trees while on a mission for the Princess. One rightfully can't blame your two strong grandfoals for getting the wrong idea about me from the start. But I assure all of you”—she paced about and took in the three ponies with a smiling face—“I only wish to lend a helping hoof. The Princess isn't so much concerned about this Apple Buck Season's bounty as she is about the morale of the equine tilling the land that so dedicatedly provides Canterlot with such delicious apples.” She smiled with the barest hint of a regal sparkle to her teeth.
Applejack's frown was venomous. Macintosh was rolling his green eyes. Granny Smith was electrified: “Well, if that ain't just divine!” she cooed. “Any occasion we have to treat a guest visitin' on behalf of the Royal Family is a fine day to be alive, if I ever did see one! On behalf of the Apple Family, I whole-heartedly welcome any assistance y'all have to give us! Besides, we did start out Apple Buck Season early, and it would be a shame not to use an extra pair of hooves, especially if it means that the Princess is smilin' on the whole lot of us in approval!”
“But Granny Smith!” Applejack began, her orange face paling with each centimeter of the situation slipping loose from her grip. “Things have been hectic enough at it is at night! At this rate, we can't afford t'humor her with—!”
“Did I or did I not just welcome her on behalf of the Apple Family? Hmm? Carnsarnit!” Smith shook a wrinkly hoof and all but trampled the obstinate mare at a bone-rattling twenty millimeters per hour. “Now go out into them there orchards and find some work for her t'do! Time's a'wastin', y'know! Don't make me force Big Mac into talkin' some sense into ya!”
Applejack glanced at Macintosh. Macintosh glanced boredly back at her, shrugging. With a heavy groan, Applejack shuffled past Harmony. “Nnnngh—Fine. Get along, little doggies...” The last exclamation came out like a dying cat.
“Fantastic!” Harmony hummed, trotted after the farmfilly, and called back to Granny Smith. “The Princess will be most pleased at your limitless hospitality! Oh—And don't forget to let me hear more of your records sometime, Ms. Smith! I'd love to know what your opinion is on Sebastian Buck or Prancerecki!”
“Eheheh—A pleasure I hold most dear, child!”
Harmony smiled and gazed towards the many rows of orchards as the three strolled along. “An old copy of Stallionivarius! Who'd a thunk it?” Her pleasant expression was swiftly smacked away by a full blond tail swatting angrily across her face. She shook her snout and glanced aside with a wary eyebrow.
Applejack hissed at her. “I don't take kindly to yer sneakin' around the barn and persuadin' my own family against me! That's downright dirty-like!”
“You can't get stuff done without getting a little dirty.” Harmony winked back. “Or is that not one of the traditional earth pony proverbs?”
“Don't you mish-mash my own words on me!” The orange mare sneered. “You took advantage of a frail old pony in order to get yer silly bureaucratic job done against our better wishes!”
“Excuse me, Miss Applejack.” Harmony spoke with narrow eyes. “But that 'frail old pony,' if I'm not mistaken, is as much a living-breathing member of your marvelous family as you and your handsome brother here. She obviously knows that this farm needs some extra help during the Apple Buck Season, and if you had half the respect for her that you're so eagerly defending at the moment, then you would do well to emulate her natural gumption for generosity!”
“This is why I hate havin' to deal with you red tape runnin' Canterlot clerks!” Applejack snarled. “Dang politics! One way or another y'all are always spinnin' the argument around to yer favor! Rest assured, I'm only lettin' you lend a hoof because Granny Smith told me to, and from the way I was raised, it's always the elders who have their say.”
“You have a golden conscience, Miss Applejack.” Harmony grinned. “Even if it is buried underneath the rigid exterior of an obstinate mule.”
“Eeeyup.” Macintosh strolled ahead of them with a sly smirk.
“Don't you encourage her!” Applejack barked at him and pointed a hoof at the infecting pegasus. “As soon as it's sundown and Granny Smith is asleep, I'm bucking her clear out of Sweet Apple Acres!”
“You make it sound like I'm a plague.”
Applejack turned her nose up at the visitor. “Say what ya fancy sayin'. But I ain't lettin' you out of my sights for one second! Heck, y'all will be lucky if I so much as allow you to buck one single tree!”
“Pffft—Under those circumstances, nopony will get any work done! All it takes is a leap of faith, Miss Applejack.” Harmony then added with a mischievous smirk, “Or are you chicken?”
Applejack stared back like a blank wall of stone. She marched icily ahead, grumbling under her breath: “Y'all just follow me.”
“Heheh,” Harmony chuckled proudly and trotted after her. “We'all intend to.”
Along the east side of the acres, under a glisteningly warm sun, Applejack finished nudging the last of many apple baskets beneath a tree full of bright red fruit. She took a deep breath of the rich, earthy environment, smiled at the neatly arranged halos of baskets around each nearby orchard, and strolled halfway towards a dirt path cutting straight through the fields.
“Alright. Y'all listen up,” she spoke without looking at the 'Servant of Canterlot.' “True apple buckin' takes several days, so it's important to plan out just right which field to tackle first. A month and a half ago we had to gather a few bushels of apples early, on account of havin' to cater to the Ponyvillean Anniversary in April and all. We took what we could from the west fields, but we spared these here trees in the east. Reason bein', we wanted to give 'em a longer time to freshen up and bask in the glow of the late Spring Season. And now that that the time has come for a total harvest, we thin out these here groves first and work our way west. That way the youngest of fruit get all the time we reckon they need to bud up and become harvest-worthy by the time we buck'em down.”
Applejack trotted around the tree and motioned towards it with a proud hoof while further delivering her speech.
“Now when it comes to the buckin' itself, the key is not to sweat givin' it a might bit more force than you'd imagine was necessary for a tree. The bark on these things is made out of stern stuff, as if Princess Elektra herself carved them out of the strongest iron. I reckon you could trot all across Ponyville—or the entirety of Equestria for that matter—and still you wouldn't find a tree as versatile as what the Apple Family grows right here. So, don't be afraid to kick the trees hard. If they could talk, they'd just think we were lovin' on them, is all! Now watch and learn—”
Applejack snarled her teeth in a fierce grin, pivoted on her front limbs, expertly swiveled her rear legs, and catapulted her hooves murderously into the side of the tree. The entirety of the trunk shook like a gigantic wooden tuning fork, and, in a magical exploit of gravity, every single apple from the branches fell expertly into the soft wicker baskets waiting for them below.
Applejack let loose a satisfied sigh, dusted her hooves off, and trotted proudly around the containers now brimming with red fruit. “The key is to make the orchards shake so much that the stems plum give up holdin' the apples in the air,” she said. “Mother Nature does the rest. It takes a lot of effort and practice to get just the right aim and kickin' pose down pat. But the most important thing is to put yer back into it and be firm with the tree! Think of it like yer chastisin' the thang for making a mess on the porch. Eheheh—” She blushed and rubbed her head underneath her brown hat. “—I reckon that sounds a bit silly—ahem. But when you've lived your whole life around these here trees, you almost start treatin' yer crops like part of the family, especially figurin' that they've been around for more generations than most Ponyvillean citizens can count.” She cleared her throat and glanced aside at a red stallion who was setting up the last of many baskets around another tree. “Macky—Care to give it a go yerself?”
Big Macintosh smirked at her, winked, and spun with a mighty arc of massive legs. A thunderous clap filled the east end of the Acres, and the apples literally hovered above the branches—spinning—before falling like plummeting red and green gyroscopes into the wicker containers below. Macintosh twisted the haystalk in his mouth and proudly bowed with a gesture towards the expertly filled baskets.
Applejack whistled. “That's my big brother, alright: always makin' me look bad. Heaven help Apple Bloom when she gets to buckin' age. She may just give up and resort to pie bakin' like her grandma.” She turned and faced the visitor again. “But you saw how Big Macintosh didn't hesitate none when he took a swing at the tree, right? We ain't dealin' with stalks of celery here. Apple Buck Season is like an endless Iron Pony Competition: you gotta give it yer all, through and through. So, then, are y'all still bent on gettin' yer hooves dirty or what?”
There was no response. Applejack squinted and tilted the brim of her hat up to get a better look...
Harmony was basking in the warm sunlight, smiling drunkenly as she marveled at the feel of the green earth underneath her squirming hooves. “Epona Alive! I forgot how... how springy grass felt! Heeheehee—Oooh!” She raised her hoof as several darting green insects waltzed across her limb. “Aphids! I found aphids! Would you imagine that—?!” She glanced at the two blanching farm ponies, blushed, and cleared her throat. “Ahem—So, y-yeah. Apple bucking: it's just like loving on a tree... r-really hard?”
Big Macintosh murmured something in Applejack's ear. The orange mare nodded numbly and gave the pegasus a cockeyed loot. “Why do we get the feelin' that y'all burn more than mana-torches over at Canterlot Court?”
“I'm very sorry for being distracted. It's been... er... a long week of flying around to random farms and being given the third degree by obstinate horses wearing hats.”
“Hardy har.” Applejack rolled her eyes and backtrotted with a hoof pointed at an apple tree surrounded by empty baskets. “Step up to the plate, sugarcube. You've talked yer way this far. Reckon we should see if yer hooves can dance as well as ya sing.”
“Pfft—Why not?” Harmony walked up and stared at the looming tree before her. “I mean, how hard can it be?”
Macintosh and Applejack exchanged amused smirks. “Well, Celestia forbid that one of her ever respectful, ever dainty royal clerks should get her limbs dirty!” The farm mare snickered. “I bet y'all think that kickin' apples out of trees is just as easy as writin' letters and settin' up appointments!”
“You really don't think Princess Celestia would have sent me to get a good idea of how you run this farm without expecting me to go all the way, do you?”
“I may not be the charming country pony that you expected to gab with today, but I'd be lyin' if I said I actually wanted to see ya get hurt!” Applejack stretched a hoof out cautiously. “Just tap it a bit, why don't ya?”
“B-But I thought you said that true Apple Bucking required being forceful with the tree—”
“I'd rather you not break anything, sugarcube!” Applejack smirked. “Especially if you expect to return to Canterlot in one piece! Those are some pretty fragile lookin' wings yer sportin' there, after all!” Big Macintosh snickered behind her and Applejack snorted to avoid breaking into giggles herself.
Harmony rolled her eyes, spun her flank towards the tree, and raised her hooves. “Right—Just a tap.”
With a girlish grunt, she slapped just one leg against the tree. Suddenly, her ears popped, as if she was piercing the gray overcast of the Wastelands in the Harmony. She blinked in sudden dizziness and let her gaze fall to the earth, spotting several apples rolling dirtily through the grass.
“Whoops—Dang it.” She blushed under her copper skin and gazed up at the two farm ponies. “I'm sorry. Looks like I totally missed the baskets—” Harmony stopped in mid speech, squinting curiously at the two siblings.
They were gazing up above Harmony's black mane with wide eyes and open jaws. Macintosh's haystalk fell loose from his lips.
“Wh-what?” Harmony blinked up at the tree—and jumped back at the sight of it leaning forty-five degrees off its foundation and away from her. “Waaah!” She winced as the hulking trunk literally fell over with a thud, its exposed roots dangling nakedly in the air as the shaking ground loosened even more apples from the rattlings baskets surrounding the gruesome catastrophe. She bit her lip, sweatdropping as she gazed back and forth from the tumbled tree and the gawking farm ponies.
Macintosh's eyes were still wide. Meanwhile, his sister swung her hat off, clenched her green eyes shut, and slapped her skull with a right hoof a few times before shaking her entire snout and glancing once more at the sight with a twitching expression. Slowly, the two swiveled their necks until they were gazing mutely at “Harmony” with a blank plea for an explanation.
The time traveler was no less confused. “Eh heh heh... G-guess that was a weak one. My bad. Uhm...” She glanced left, right, behind her—“Oh, here we go!” She marched over towards another tree she spotted and aimed her hind quarters at it. “Ahem—Maybe if I just aim a little bit higher.” She bucked it, once more with a “tap.” “Nnngh!”
It exploded. With a sound that mimicked several fireworks rocketing skyward, two dozen apples simultaneously lifted off the tossed branches of the kicked tree and soared clear across the east orchards, landing in a chicken coop behind the barn. This ended with several thunderous claps, followed by a chorus of blood-curdling clucks that filled the otherwise tranquil air.
Harmony bit her lip and glanced across the horizons of her mind. She briefly remembered something Spike had told her about the durability of her projected self, that while her time displaced soul was wearing this “avatar” of the Goddess of Time—complete with a coat and mane painted in the image of Princess Entropa—she would be impervious to hunger, exhaustion, and thirst. It suddenly occurred to the crafty survivalist inside that numb shell of a body that another “benefit” to her chronological displacement was an unearthly strength that was variably related to her imperviousness.
“So... Yeah!” Harmony wasted no more mute seconds and hopped up to all fours, a bright smile plastered desperately across her face. “Apple Bucking! Maybe I should just... uhm... Do it the 'dainty' Canterlotlian way...” She smiled sheepishly and marched off towards the next tree. “I'll... Uhm... buck in the direction opposite of the chicken coop from now on...”
Applejack gulped and slapped her hat back onto her mane. “Macky, do yer little sister a favor. Next time I'm lucky to be invited to the Grand Galloping Gala, remind me to look into a Canterlotlian gymnasium.”
“Eeeyup.”
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Because badass Scootaloo is badass.
And Don't afraid of anything
an internet reference? In my End of Ponies? Didn't see that one coming 
First and foremost I must say I really did like this chapter considering this comment picks on it so much.
Should've seen that coming, good/sad though. 
Imagining the young Scootaloo bruised and bloodied hiding trying to comfort herself... man that's dark imagery though fitting for the situation.
Needed correction: 1) '“You were bored up until I showed up, weren't you?”', 'bored until' not 'bored up until' right? 2) 'like the teasing hands of a doting'. Isn't 'hands' supposed to be 'hoofs'? 3) 'Oh! Mmm... I... I didn't mean anything nosy by that.', being that its Fluttershy wouldn't a timid 'Umm...' work better than 'Mmm...'?
OK this line right here 'But alas, as you are the end of ponies, I can only conclude that I am the last of dragons.”'... all i can think is 'ah *curses* no, not him to...', then an overwhelming sadness befalls me, coupled with the story's lines that trail after it.
This confuses the hell out of me. In one part it says the thorns had chocked the green life out of everything, then in another part it says the sixty sum white headstones were covered in the green mildew of time. After researching I two possibility; that the stones themselves had aged from white to green, or once had green mossy mold now decayed into the stones. Honestly I think it was just a bit of whimsical writing gone unchecked.
The gear and vertical decent into the forest was cool.
In my opinion this line “I was about to ask the same of you,” should have been “I was about to ask you the same,”.
Might want to consider looking at and possibly revising this paragraph imo:
- - removal. ' ' addition, and /\ OR operator.
“Many ponies around here have lost loved ones 'dear to them'/\'close to them' in the mine collapse, or else they knew friends who lost 'their' family to it. It's common for them to come and pay their respects. So it's only fair for the grounds to be -maintained-'kept' in good order, in respect of those who died, if nothing else.”
This lines ending.... seriously!? 'It's just thunder! The storm's still far away, my pretties!'.
'I was not paying attention!', better would be 'I wasn't paying attention!' imo.
Meeting Dinky was nice twist at the end, I was thinking it was Rarity or Sweetybell lol.
Most noticeably through the entire thing in my opinion is that the over all the length at which Fluttershy speaks typically extends to about, I'd say, almost twice of normal, putting it slightly ooc. I don't think is to bad because it add to character depth but with Fluttershy's persona heavily centered around a 'soft kind short spoken' persona it just rubs me the wrong way I suppose.
82309
You really need to rethink some of those corrections.
447371 I'm not editing the story just leaving my feedback and thoughts on the chapters as I read them
. Which corrections would those be?
I wonder how many discreet refrences to future events I'll catch here. I know I saw Pinkie refrences pretty early on so maybe I'll find refrences to stuff not yet written/posted in this... section? Chapter? BOOK?
I was listening to "He Who Brings the Night" by Two Steps From Hell during the action scene in this chapter
I must say, songs like that do fit to your writings quite well! 
82309 The word "hand" was referring to the simile, not Fluttershy herself.
Another glorious chapter.
In place of green tree canopies and misty knolls there spread a cancerous, ink-black, neverending quagmire of gnarled thorns—humongous twisting vines of iron thick onyx wood. The sharp pointed barbs that protruded from these unnatural briars were like giant glistening daggers of indestructible slade, hewn from the blackest heart of a ravaged earth.
Probably some of the most incredible imagery I've ever read in a story.
Ever.
Dang it. I admit, that was a great chapter. What a way to start the FlutterArc.
Wow, that was intense. And Dinky is best filly.
I dunno if I'm the only one who doesn't get it...but the creature with Fluttershy hanging on the wall sounded like a visualization of the Zodiac Sign Capricorn.
Quite the interesting idea thrown in there, if that's what it was...though what it was doing on land...that's what I don't understand.
Dem bloodthirsty constellations...
What a powerful chapter this was.
Woah, the dust of an entire skull?
Great imagery, I was imagining the look of shock on AJ and Big Mac's face when she flattened a couple trees. Priceless.
I was laughing my Ass off at this chapter. Just think about it if she has inhuman strength or at least the strength of at least a God. Or maybe even a Demi-God just imagine what happend to that tree she struck earlier. When she first got brought back to Spike. Seriously think about it that tree does not exsist anymore. On how fast she was going plus her God like strength. She must've struck that tree so hard it's now probably a pile of ash. Lol I find that pricelessly funny. Lol good job man this is probably one of my most favorited stories on this sight besides Past Sins and My Little Dashie. Like seriously if I were to name those three off this story will be second place right under Past Sins. Bravo sir barvo.
AJ got served. Scootaloo deals with so much Guile in the wastelands. ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/942/942903/street-fighter-iv-20090108105745602_640w.jpg
The irony in this is astounding now.
Chapter 11 audiobook
The time traveler's amber eyes narrowed. In a hissing voice, she throated: “Nopony—And I mean nopony calls me 'chicken.'”
Back to the future reference!
4431917
While simultaneously an MLP and fandom reference. Double reference for the win!
Ah, a classic crutch for setting up conflict in an MLP fic: make Applejack a paranoid bitch for no adequately explained reason.
Okay, that was an absolutely brilliant reference. It's a shame I only read this chapter a few days after Back to the Future Day.
Be honest, Skirts: did the idea for this one joke inspire this whole fic?