Chapter Twelve: Give to the Earth
The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Chapter Twelve – Give to the Earth
Special thanks to Vimbert for Editing
Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art
The warm afternoon carried on stunningly—or so Harmony felt.
The sun sang overhead as the three ponies carried on with the dutiful task of apple bucking. Their task floated from one cluster of trees to another, filling the air with falling fruit and the rich scent of settling green leaves. With each bunch of baskets filled, there were more empty ones to replace them. Harmony's head spun from the process, as her body itself spun, glancing back at one second to see so many trees picked of apples, but then glancing forward to see four, eight, sixteen times as many trees across the orchards that still needed to be bucked clean.
Applejack and Big Macintosh sweated and breathed evenly with the severe ritual of exercise. It was more than obvious to the time-travelling pegasus that they were born and raised in this tradition of apple-lopping, which is why she felt all the more awkward and even guilty that she had barely broken a sweat since the beginning of the whole process.
Harmony had found her “tap;” she discovered the right force and pressure with which to kick the trees so as to make the apples fall naturally without any unforeseen consequences. This, of course, kept her preoccupied with getting as much apple bucking done as possible, for she was ever instilled with Spike's insistence that she “help” the Apple family while she was there in the past.
But with each passing glance that she gave Applejack and her crimson-coated older brother, she took into account the severity of their exhaustion. Solely for the sake of evading their suspicion, she slowed her effort of apple bucking, and even sullied her own attempts in order to maintain the airs of being a novice to farmwork.
In reality, Harmony never expected herself to be a natural farmhoof. She chalked up her ease of apple bucking to the rather unnatural state that she was in. As a projection of her soul self, she was merely a physical manifestation of her own essence from the future. She wondered briefly what would happen if she had been impaled by a pitchfork when Applejack first met her—Would she even bleed? More to the point—Would it even hurt?
The past was a place of color, of warmth, of life everlasting... until the Cataclysm would one day pull the rug out from underneath it all. It was a struggle for the time traveler to feel like anything but a walking blemish from beyond, casting a gray shadow on the green land through the mere miracle of some purple dragon's transcendent research. Spike undoubtedly thought that Harmony was “helping” the Apple Family by being there. The last pony could only hope to be that enthusiastic.
As the day wore on and the farm ponies wore down, there Harmony stood, looking onwards, resting blissful and cool in the shade of her Entropan shell, and yet in her heart of hearts she felt like a cheater.
A legitimate challenge constantly hounding Harmony was the ever throbbing need to stay within “range” of Applejack. The time traveler was consistently afraid of focusing too hard on the apple trees, only to look over her shoulder and see that her “anchor” had trotted off towards the barn to get supplies or take a break—and then the whole burning green world would melt hopelessly around the pegasus. If worst came to worst, what would Harmony say to convince Applejack to stay within twenty-to-thirty meters of her copper self?
It didn't help that Applejack had been relatively hostile to her presence since the first moment Harmony arrived from the future. So much of what the pegasus was witnessing didn't make sense to her. Harmony's memories of Applejack consisted of a smiling, endearing, sisterly mare with a heart of gold and a voluntary desire to defend everypony she deemed a friend. It was perhaps true that the politeness that Applejack exercised was reserved only for her loved ones, but even that Harmony doubted. The Apple Family had built their legacy on the foundation of neighborly hospitality and generosity; strangers were no less embraced with tender-hearted kindness than close companions.
So why was it that Applejack's attitude threatened to tear “Harmony's” wings from her spine?
Harmony imagined that there were ponies alive in Ponyville who legitimately had a problem with Princess Celestia or just Canterlot in general, but that didn't explain things to the last pony any better. No—There had to have been a severe problem ahoof in Sweet Apple Acres, and the only thing Harmony could guess was that Applejack—the element of honesty—was hiding something. She could imagine no better explanation for a respectable pony tripping over herself in such a bizarre fashion.
If Harmony's presence could disturb Applejack so much, then she figured that it was only a matter of time before she unearthed exactly what the hidden truth was. Suddenly, Spike's advice on persistence began to make sense, and as the thick afternoon of heated farmwork continued, Harmony sharply observed everything around her. But instead of focusing entirely on the expressions on Applejack's and Macintosh's sweating figures, she gazed about the orchards with the expert eyes of a Wasteland scavenger, taking notice of little details and bits of information that bled forth from the earth itself.
It suddenly occurred to her that the apple trees weren't nearly as perfect and immaculate as Applejack had touted them as being. As a matter of fact, there were several scars on the barks, scrapes and nicks and scratches that almost looked like claw marks. What was more, Harmony noticed apples lying besides a few trees that hadn't been bucked, and a good many of the fruit had burst open as if obviously bitten into. Then there were random bits of splintered wood besides the fences, shattered clumps of farm tools underneath the shade of orchards, and even more evidence of debris—all leading in a disturbed path towards a line of forested trees that bordered the extreme southeast side of the farmland.
During the time it took Harmony to observe these things, it occurred to her that Applejack and Macintosh were acting stranger and stranger. For instance, upon every moment Harmony took subtle notice of the half-eaten fruit, Applejack swiftly galloped over and scurried the ruined apples away into the high grass. When the pegasus took a prolonged time staring at a scratched bark of wood, the two farm ponies would usher her towards the next row of trees to be bucked, even if the last job hadn't been thoroughly completed. Finally, Harmony could have sworn she saw—from far across the orchards as she pretended to be engrossed in kicking apples loose—the sight of Big Macintosh setting up a metal caged structure or two alongside the fences bordering the farmland. But as soon as her amber eyes narrowed in on the distant spectacle, Applejack's frowning face would trot into view, and farm mare would gab on and on about “lost time,” forcing the two towards the next line of unbucked trees.
Though the last pegasus was obviously occupied with this developing mystery, she couldn't help but get caught up in the mesmerizing hum of the moment. As the minutes crept into hours,
her copper body sang with the thrilling sensations of sunlight, the intoxicating smell of grass, the fresh and pliable apples that bounced about the baskets she shoved from tree to tree. A part of her almost wished that her projection was susceptible to wear and tear, if only for the feeling of sweating her muscles to a trembling lull, hunched under a sky that kissed her with warm rays instead of blanketing her with snowy ash. Not even the brightest lit lantern or the hottest setting of the Harmony's boiler could make her feel as toasty as she did under those sky-cooked apple trees. If she could have Granny Smith's record playing within earshot of the dirt path alongside the orchards, Harmony would have been in absolute heaven.
What was it that Spike had said? Something about “enjoying herself?”
Harmony swiftly shook her head loose of that cobwebbed possibility and glanced over at Applejack once more. The farm mare was a sweaty mess, obviously urging herself to keep up with the “dainty Canterlotlian Clerk's” energy. Harmony was almost tempted to slow her apple bucking down further, if only to give the orange mare some relief. But—out of necessity more than cruelty—she kept her pace constant. What mattered most was that she was wearing Applejack down in some way or another. Hopefully, it would only be a matter of time before the Element of Honesty lived up to her title and treated the pegasus like the one friend she only ever meant to be.
Some way or another, it always boiled down to time. Harmony let the irony of that contemplation sink in as she rotated herself to another tree, lopping the redness off of the branches of Sweet Apple Acres slowly—from the inside out—like a healing salve that knew nothing of reluctance, but embodied everything about persistence...
The sun was starting to melt into a golden haze above the western horizon when Harmony first heard Granny Smith's sing-songy voice swishing through the green leaves. She kicked the last of many vibrating trees and glanced over her shoulder to see the elderly pony cresting the top of a hill, pushing a wooden cart decorated with a pitcher of water and three tall glasses.
“Break time, kiddies!” she chirped, a wrinkled grin plastered firmly across her lime muzzle. “Hard-workin' earth ponies deserve a hard-worker's glass of water! Pegasi too!” She giggled with a bizarre youth, even for the rest of them. “Get it while it's cold, y'all!”
Macintosh hummed pleasantly, batting the sweat off his ears as he trotted eagerly towards the wooden cart. Applejack stumbled less gracefully after him. “Th-Thanks, Granny...” the orange mare began, then did a double-take. “Granny Smith! You came all this way without yer walker? What in tarnation were you thinkin'?”
“I'm feelin' right as rain, girl!” The elder pony flexed a forearm, nevertheless wobbling slightly. She chuckled: “There's just somethin' so inspirin' about watchin' the whole lot of you gettin' so much accomplished. I admit, I had my own reservations about the success of this year's Apple Buck Season. But ever since Miss Harmony showed up, I'm startin' to have hope again. Thank you once again for coming, dearie.”
“Don't mention it.” Harmony smiled. “I'm happy to help. And I'm sure that—when it comes time for me to write Princess Celestia—I'll only have good things to say about how diligent your grandfoals are in their attention to the farm that you've so humbly helped raise.”
“Unngh... Drag me to the woodshed,” Applejack muttered with rolling eyes.
“What was that, AJ?”
“Nothin', Granny. Thanks for the water.”
“Plenty more where that came from!” Granny Smith made to walk back to the farmhouse, but took a second-glance at Harmony. “Why, good heavens!” She blinked. “You hardly have a drop of sweat on you, darlin'!”
“Oh. Uhm...” Harmony gulped and smiled nervously. “It's a pegasus thing—On account of our feathers and all. The oil we secrete hides our perspiration.”
“Well, I'll be...”Granny Smith shook her head and chuckled as she sauntered slowly, slowly back to her distant rocking-chair on jittery haunches. “Even in so many years, Canterlotlian Pegasi still amaze me. Y'all are like gifts from the goddesses. I'll be thinkin' of ya when I listen to Stallionivarius!”
Harmony breathed easier as she watched the elder pony trot gently away. She had been called many things in life: “last pony” by Dirigible Dogs, “loyal customer” by Bruce, “glue stick” by M.O.D.D. patrons. The irony poisoned her as much as it tickled her: that it would take a twenty-five year backflip through time for any living thing to call her a “gift.” The last pony would have felt special, if only this was her brown and weathered body bearing the warmth of the notion—and not some copper chronological carpet flimsily enshrouding her.
“Yer still a rotten fibber,” Applejack muttered between heavy gulps of water.
The stark, loveless honesty of the accusation carried a stale gray taste, like mushroom stew in the lonely sway of the Harmony. The time traveler glanced her way. “I beg your pardon?”
Applejack sipped the water heartily, swallowed, and exhaled, “Two of my best friends happen to be pegasi. I've seen enough drops of sweat between the two of them to fill the Eastern Seaboard.” She squinted in trademark suspicion. “Just how come you ain't fazed none by all them apple trees you've hit so hard?”
“Well, y'know—I do what you do!” Harmony shrugged her shoulders and chuckled. “I drink lots of water.” Her vision dripped aside and ricocheted off the chiseled muscles of Big Macintosh standing across the wooden cart from her, his sweat-stained, crimson coat glistening over every veiny contour of his broad shoulders as he eagerly drank from a cup. “Ahem—Lots of cold, cold, freezing-cold water.” Harmony clamped her hoof around the entire pitcher, doused her neck, tossed her black mane back, and exhaled loudly. “Mmmm—Yeeeeha! Heheheh...”
“That refreshin' enough for y'all?” Applejack bitterly smirked.
Harmony instinctually wanted to explain that it tasted a great deal better than recycled urine. “Oh, yes. Absolutely—I thank you very much for... y'know... the cold water. Eheheh...”
Applejack took a last few sips herself, placed her glass down, and sauntered around the cart towards her. “So, humor me, Miss Harmony. What exactly have you gotten from this whole buckin' afternoon that is gonna make yer job for the Princess worth all the messin' around with our farm in the first place?”
“Well... Uhm...” Harmony gulped and rummaged through the dirty alleyways of her synapses. “You and Macintosh have to cover so much acreage, and yet the two of you alone make more progress in less time than an entire—uhm—commune of Canterlotlian sharecroppers!”
“That's because the most Canterlotlian farmers ever worry about is potted petunias.”
“Well, okay. You got me there.” Harmony cleared her throat and smiled hopefully. “But still, you two are like a well-oiled machine. A machine that feels, of course. I was almost scared that I would be slowing you down for a moment there when I joined in.”
“Well, to be perfectly frank—No, you haven't slown us down at all.”
Harmony exhaled joyfully. “See? Was there really such a need to give me the third degree when I offered my assistance in the first place—?”
“But it still doesn't mean that you have any business prancin' about on our lands! You said it yerself—Big Mac and I are like a well-oiled machine. And though I can't pretend to know half as much about mechanical engineerin' as unicorns and pegasi, I reckon yer words should speak for the whole of Sweet Apple Acres. We're meetin' the schedule of Apple Buck Season just fine and dandy.”
“Now, about that.” Harmony glanced sideways at the earth pony. “Apple Buck Season normally happens later in the year, doesn't it?”
“Actually, Apple Buck Season stretches from spring into early fall,” Applejack explained, trotting over and steadying a few baskets full of apples. “The actual harvestin' is relative from farm to farm, as contractually arranged between producers and clients.”
“Really? In that case, when are you and Big Mac contracted to finish harvesting all of these apples, Miss Applejack?”
The far mare's features sagged. She stared down pitifully into a basket full of apples, murmuring something underneath her breath.
“What was that?” Harmony leaned in, curious.
Applejack gave a furious sigh. She glared up at Harmony with a shake of her hat. “In two days.”
“Snkkkt—In two days?!” Harmony's amber eyes nearly bugged out.
“Shhh—Hush, will ya?”
“AJ—hrkk--Miss Applejack!” Harmony nearly pratfalled as she rebounded from that blow of information. “Well-oiled machine or not; the two of you have poured your hearts over the Eastern fields all afternoon, with my help to boot, and still not even half of this side of the Acres has been harvested!” She took a deep breath, her wings fluttering in and out to assist her lungs in recovery. “How in Celestia's sparkling mane do you expect to finish gathering the rest of the apples in two days—no—a day and a half at this rate?!”
Applejack frowned back at her. “It's not like I didn't make it clear that we had no time to waste when y'all first dropped in on us!”
“I don't see how I could have any impact on this situation whatsoever! It's just that—nngh—if Princess Celestia knew this was the case, she would have sent a friggin' squadron of pegasi! I may be a 'fibber' in your book, but even the both of us know that's true!”
“Thanks for makin' my case for me!”Applejack growled and leaned against a tree, fanning her forlorn self with a hat. “The last thing I wanted was for anypony to make a huge fuss about this. But I assure you...” She looked up with a burning emerald gaze. “My brother and I will get the job done!”
“How?—If I may ask?” Harmony gawked as she paced around the earth pony. “I've... er... studied up on Ponyvillean history. You aren't adverse to requesting the help of your friends, Miss Applejack. Why is this situation any different? I mean—It's not like your brother is injured this year. Surely history should teach you that—”
“This has nothin' to do about history! It's about tradition! It's about land!”
Harmony made a face. “Land?” She blinked confusedly at the pony. “Sorry for sounding like a dense piece of wood, but what's that got to do with anything?”
“Pfft—Everythang!” Applejack gestured towards the wide expanse of red-glinted orchards. “It's always about the land! What it yields is equal to what a pony puts into it! It's more than just karma—It's about treatin' the land responsibly, and takin' into account everythang you've contributed to the trees even long before the harvest comes!”
“And this is something you guys can only do alone?” Harmony squinted. “Where's the logic in that?”
“Unngh...Logic, Logic, Logic...” Applejack rubbed her head beneath her brown hat and muttered. “Dang you one-track-minded Canterlotlians...” She paused, glanced up at the tree, then over at Harmony. She put her hat back on and approached the tree. “Miss Harmony, sugarcube, I wantcha to do somethin' for me.”
“Anything!” Harmony nodded emphatically.
Applejack reached her snout up towards a low-hanging branch and snapped an apple loose from its stem. She caught it in her tail, juggled it over her rump, and elbowed it expertly in mid-air so that it flew and landed in the pegasus' jittery grasp. “Take a bite out of that if ya would.”
“Uhm...”Harmony raised an eyebrow. “Not that I'm against the idea of a generous refreshment, but what for?”
“Y'all supposed to be conductin' an investigation of Sweet Apple Acres! Well, ain't ya? Then investigate with yer full senses, girl! Don't just calculate like a clerk—feel like a pony. Take a bite!”
Harmony stared at Applejack long and hard. But under her stubborn gaze, she naturally relented. It wasn't until her teeth were halfway through piercing the soft skin of the apple that the last pony finally took into account exactly what she was doing.
The next moment she knew it, she was being overwhelmed by a deluge of taste that nearly made her stagger from sheer shock. Years of subsisting off of mushroom stew, reclaimed water, and bland Wasteland meats hadn't prepared her for this. Taste buds that had been long retired in the back of her mouth exploded to life, throttling her brain back to the days when a pink haired foal shared cookies, cupcakes, and soda with two other blank flanks under a pink roofed Sugarcube Corner.
With a fluttering of eyelashes, she was brought back to the hay-strewn loft of an abandoned barn in the middle of a forest, experiencing the week's first leap of euphoria under a starry night sky. It was a sparkling sensation, the joy of filling a starved stomach. It was the shimmering expectation of living for another scooter-gliding day in Ponyville, of sharing the earth with so many colorful and friendly ponies, of pretending so much to be something that was loved that the little foal almost believed it was true.
“Well? Does it match yer royal seal of approval?” some strange voice drawled from beyond the nether.
“It's... the absolute best thing I've ever tasted.” Harmony's voice came in a bizarre whimper. She felt the moist apple bits sliding down her esophagus, warming her stomach like an inside-out hug. A breath left her nostrils, and it was several seconds before she realized that Applejack was staring at her. With a strange sensation alighting her cheek, the pegasus realized why. Harmony rubbed the left side of her face dry before uttering in a voice of forced composure: “Most acceptable. Ahem. It's fresh, it's delicious—Undeniably healthy. Princess Celestia would be pleased.”
“There's a reason why it tastes so magnificent,” Applejack said, strolling from tree to tree as Harmony watched her, apple in hoof. “The Apple Family has been workin' these here orchards for generations. As a matter of fact, we colonized here barely a decade after Faustmare's caravan first arrived in the Great Equestrian Valley. What we've put into the trees is more than just hard work—It's tradition. It's heart. All of our lives that we've poured into this here land. It's what we breathe for, dream for, and aspire to do—and nothin' else. If that wasn't the case, a single cutie mark would have broken the line of dedicated Apple Family members a century ago. And in all that time, nopony's branched off. Not even one.”
She took a deep breath, spun with a twirling of blonde threads, and gazed at Harmony with a sweet face that rivaled the rich fruit still lacing the pegasus' twitching taste buds.
“My Pa had a sayin', something that was hoofed down to him from his Papa and his Papa's Papa before him.” Applejack trotted gently towards “Harmony” and quoted: “'Give to the Earth, and the Earth gives back'.” She breathed in the air of the land and exhaled. “This has been our family's motto for generations. It's in our blood. I don't rightfully expect you to understand the importance of it—what, with you bein' a pegasus and all. And that's fine, but you have to trust me when I tell you it means everything to an earth pony. We don't mind sharin' our produce. We don't mind dusting off our front doorstep for visitors. But when it comes to treatin' our land right and makin' do with what the land gives us back, it is our business and nopony else's. We're responsible for givin' to the Earth, and we're accountable for what the Earth returns. And when the time comes that our labors our finished and we have no breaths left in our bodies, we return ourselves to the Earth, as it gives us everythang for us to live off of to begin with.”
“That's very noble, Miss Applejack,” Harmony gently replied. “But if you respect the Earth so much, then you'll know that this land will mean nothing if something horrible was to happen that would cause you to lose claim to it.” She motioned towards the rows upon rows of unbucked trees. “So maybe you and Macintosh try to do all of this alone. And maybe, Celestia forbid, you fail to get the Apple Buck Harvest done in two days' time. I'm not sure what the immediate repercussions will be exactly, but I certainly can imagine. It won't bode well for your farm—or any harvests you attempt in the future—if word gets around Equestria that you can't deliver on time! And why?—Because you refused the help that was given you at the most opportune time?”
Applejack sighed, hanging her head. “Ain't nothin' to it.”
“Why? Could you at least explain to me why?”
“Yes, Big Mac and I made a contract with our clients...” Applejack gazed up at her. “But first and foremost we made a contract with the Earth. There are... mistakes that have been made. And we've got to own up to it. Nopony else.”
“Mistakes?” Harmony made a face. “Is that why you started the Apple Bucking so early? You're trying to make up for something that happened with the orchards that you feel responsible for?” She glanced briefly over Applejack's shoulder. Along a distant crest of a hill, she once again caught sight of a glinting metal cage, intended to be hidden alongside the wooden fence of the Acres. “Miss Applejack, I'll buy that working the land has its own style of karma, but there are some things that even the Earth itself can't take into account.” She gulped and murmured in a low voice. “Cataclysmic things.”
“In the end, all that matters is that we answer to the land. The Apple Family.” Applejack trotted with sudden briskness towards the opposite rows of trees. “To drag anypony else in—especially from Canterlot—is just muddyin' the issue. Now come on. If y'all ain't finished with yer hooves-on investigation, there's still plenty of apple trees to buck. After all, the afternoon isn't dead until it's dead!”
Harmony gazed after her, all of her pent-up frustration crumbling suddenly under a cascade of confusion and sympathy. Helpless, she regarded the fruit in her hoof, and took another bite. It somehow tasted less sweet, but she knew better.
“Nothing ever dies enough,” she mumbled with a mouthful, then trotted off to join the rest of the day's work.
The world no longer sang. To perceive otherwise would be a travesty, or so Harmony felt. The bright colors and springy warmth of the green land around her suddenly paled as what was once a task of joy had crumbled into a quagmire of desperation, squeezed between the jaws of a schedule that had broken the copper pegasus' brain as hard as it was currently breaking Applejack's and Macintosh's backs.
The time traveler couldn't even write a novel on this laughable irony. She and Spike possessed thirty-odd years of reverse-time to work with and enough green flame to dance merrily across the lengths of them, and here she was—thrust into this infinitesimal moment of all moments—and there were barely forty-eight hours at hoof for her to salvage anything from the Apple Family, before an apple-flavored train wreck encompassed the entirety of their livelihood, before there would be nothing at all left to be salvaged.
Harmony's brain swam circles, mimicking the hard black lines of her cutie mark's infinity symbol as she bucked away under the melting red Sun. She pondered over what possessed a full-grown pony like Applejack—in a world replete of color and happiness—to do something so self-destructive, to make a contract that was as impossible as it was daring, to risk her entire family's hard-earned work on a delivery that was too soon to be feasibly met.
Absurdly desperate gambles belonged to creatures of the Wasteland. Last time Harmony checked, Applejack was an organism of Equestrian splendor. She couldn't possibly have been influenced by the future's gray psychosis, unless the time traveler's presence there had somehow tainted the sanity of that age, transmogrifying the “gift” that Granny Smith perceived into the “curse” that Harmony very somberly knew she herself was.
No. Harmony sighed and bucked on. Applejack had been digging this grave for a long time. Glancing across the lines of orchards, the last pony could see it in her eyes. The farm filly and her brother were like ghosts, pale shades of themselves as they limped from tree to tree. There was something that bled from their twitching irises, something that refused to reflect the rich red gloss of the apples, something alien that they must have seen which drained the love from their earthen passion. In all of her foalish years, Harmony couldn't recall the Apple Family siblings having ever appeared so... hollow.
Perhaps something horrible had happened recently. In a sudden, startling backflip of the heart, Harmony realized that she hadn't even seen a blink of Apple Bloom since she had first arrived there. A brief panic bubbled within her, like the rising crest of a Wasteland stormfront. She swiftly calmed herself, panting between apple orchards, realizing that if something truly terrible had happened to her childhood friend, then Applejack—the element of Honesty—would have definitely said something about it. Besides, Harmony was beginning to remember enough about the immutable past to know that Apple Bloom was perfectly fine. The vision of Whinniepeg trees danced before her blinking eyelids, and she shuddered.
Thinking back to the present, Harmony pondered over a true paradox that was transpiring on that farm. Applejack was hiding something; she had to have been. Everything in her body chemistry spelled it out and spilled it out, from the breathless limping between trees to the surly grumbles in the peripheral vision of the time traveler. Applejack was losing her sensible qualities like the trees were losing fruit all around her. Of course, Harmony knew that it would be an utter apocalypse before Applejack would admit to anything. In a shuddering breath, Harmony hoped that such a presumption wouldn't translate literally.
The melting sun glittered orange between the trees in a bright flash that held foalish hues. Harmony's twitching mind jolted back and forth, and she suddenly and forlornly remembered a storm cellar on the edge of a cliff that yawned into the ashen madness of tomorrow. The last pony had the unfortunate curse of knowing that the Apple Family had died, and yet she had the fortunate blessing of knowing how. In four months' time, the farm ponies—Applejack, Macintosh, Granny Smith, and Apple Bloom—would all be corpses. It was the Cataclysm that finished them off, as their skeletal husks were just as lifelessly intact as the rest of the Wasteland fossils that the last pony had ever encountered.
Were their lives filled with such anxiety as what clouded them now? Even until the end of their beating hearts, did they breathe the air of their farm with pride? Was it the same pride that struggled so hard to drive “Harmony” away? Or was it something righteous, something that they were yet to find, something that Harmony was destined to help them find?
It never occurred to the last pony before that there could have been a purpose to her presence there. Lurching between trees in the suspended shell of Princess Entropa, the visitor expected only to be a witness. She had plummeted there on the green flaming waves of reverse-time to find out what happened to Equestria. Instead, she was learning a depressing truth about one tiny farm on a speck of land that dotted the incomprehensibly vast bosom of a doomed world, and she suddenly didn't know what was worrying her more.
This past was too fragile, too alive, too perfect. She couldn't be a mere witness any longer, at least not so much as she had simplistically assumed time travelers to be pariahs. Nopony was ever foaled to be untouchable; Harmony had only survived her many years in the gray skies of desolation because she had known there was something better, something warmer, something hopeful into which she was originally born and out from which she forever bled.
But here—damnably here—where the smells of childhood cradled the sobbing void of all she had ever lost or dreamed of, there was no desolation, there was no grayness, there was no pain. With numb Entropan limbs, she punished hardened trunks of fruit plastered trees, fighting with every centimeter of her soul to preserve that painlessness, to impossibly salvage the soil from Applejack's grave, to scoop from the land whatever absurd principle the farm filly believed in, so that Harmony might cradle it, examine it, and scavenge forth what it was that Applejack held dear, so that she may understand it too—and endeavor to find a way to save her.
Equestria would someday die. There was a sun and moon somewhere to bring back to a sullen husk of a world. The time traveler knew that she may have been failing Spike, she may have been failing the future, and she may have been failing herself, but she suddenly and inexplicably couldn't bring herself to fail Applejack. Falling short of that would just be... painful. So with a firm jaw and a quiet disposition, she bucked on.
It would take the soft shuffling of lime hooves to briefly shake her from this suddenly noble exercise. “Your stamina is inspiring, Miss Harmony. It's nice to know that Canterlot is still made of stern stuff these days.”
Harmony breathlessly glanced up in time to witness the silhouette of an elderly mare in the sun's collapsing glow. “When was it not?” she mused with nonchalance. “I heard Miss Applejack say that you use a walker.”
“I use a lot of things.” The gray-haired pony smiled. With a wincing wheeze, she bravely lowered her body down onto folded hooves and sat upon the crest of gathering shadows before the time traveler. “I just do my darndest to not let them use me.”
“What's on your mind, Ms. Smith?” Harmony asked, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder at the mare's two laboring grandfoals. The farm ponies were swiftly bucking down the line of trees. If Harmony remained in one place for too long, the green flames could hoist her away from her anchor at any second. “I kind of promised that I wouldn't rest until I've helped your granddaughter with all of these trees.”
“Even if you bucked with the might of a thousand war horses, child, you wouldn't accomplish the task any more quick-like—at least not like we desperately need at the moment.”
Harmony bit her lip and peered up with soft amber eyes. “So you know all about the crazy schedule, huh?”
“I know everythang that there is to know about this here farm,” Granny Smith said with a weathered expression that clung on the precipice of wakefulness. “At least, I know more than them whippersnappers give me credit for. Harumph.” She briefly glared gray daggers the two ponies' way, but punctuated it with the softest of surrendering smiles. “I couldn't love them for better gumption. When I was their age, I reckon I assumed nopony else knew the ins-and-outs of the orchards but me.”
“What do you think, Ms. Smith?”
“I think that Octavia's music deserves a second chance under the needle. There's a certain richness to her cello pluckin' that's missin' from the classics. It's the vitality of youth, I reckon.”
Harmony managed a chuckle, something that had been robbed from her for the past hour or so. “That's nice to hear, Ms. Smith. But what I meant to ask was—what do you think of the situation?” She gulped. “Have Miss Applejack and Big Macintosh really doomed this farm?”
“Fillies these days; they are all about doom and gloom. Please don't remind me of Miss Lily from the village. If so much as an acorn hits the cobblestone, that sheepish pony screams bloody murder to the townsfolk—as if the world is coming to an end.”
“When... or if that happens, Ms. Smith”—Harmony winced even as the sardonic words instinctually dripped out from her lips—“I assure you it won't be through an acorn.”
“Hmm-hmm-hmm...” The elder breathily chuckled. Thin, sweet eyes wafted over Harmony in a gray baptism. “I have lived too long and seen too many things to focus on 'doom,' child. When you've gained as many years as I have... and lost as many ponies close to you, you come to realize that things come and go. Sometimes it's all for a reason, sometimes it's not. But the comin' and the goin' is just a matter of livin' and someday not livin'. Being too desperately affixed to a worrisome dot in the whole confusin' length of it all is just not worth the sweat, in my books.”
The last pony swam through the thick of Granny Smith's words, too terribly humble to bother vocalizing the familiarity of them all. She cast a nervous glance in the direction of the two young ponies and caught them gazing with less enthusiasm back at the “Canterlotlian visitor.”
“Well, your flesh and blood over there is focused on something,” Harmony said with a nod of her amber-streaked mane. “I really wish I knew what it was.” There was a pause, and she glanced squintingly down at the seated elder. “I don't suppose you could fill me in, any?”
“That wouldn't be my place,” Granny Smith replied with a knowing smirk. “I may be able to pull Applejack's ear from time to time, but it's AJ who runs this farm—not me. I'm not always approvin' of her judgment, but I sure as heck respect it. It was Apple Shine's wish, after all.”
“What wish is that?” Harmony asked.
Either Granny Smith ignored that or she was too desperately sailing towards a distant thought. She instead said, “You shouldn't be so hungry for facts, Miss Harmony. You can't rightly be blamed for a code of conduct taught by them Canterlotlian nobles that makes you so bent on uncoverin' the truth in all of its raw numbers. Instead, look towards the land. Bear witness to the fruit that we've brought to blossomin' all healthy-like. Isn't the quality of my grandchildren's work enough to impress Her Highness?”
“I... Nnngh...” Harmony ran a tired hoof over her features, sighing. “Ms. Smith, in all due respect, I need facts. I need to know exactly what it is that's making Applejack push this farm downhill on a crashing wagon with only one wheel! Otherwise, how am I... h-how am I going to be able to help her?”
“Mmmm...” Granny Smith smiled placidly. “I knew it.”
Harmony raised an eyebrow. “You knew what?”
“Yer the selfless type, Miss Harmony. That's a once-in-a-lifetime thang. Well, twice-in-a-lifetime, I reckon. Heheh. If I actually believed in reincarnation, then maybe I wouldn't feel so plum crazy,” the old country mare mused. “But with each passin' second, you remind me of that darlin' pegasus who visited me after Apple Shine was born. She was so genteel and graceful in every respect. Why—if Princess Celestia or one of her divine Alicorn Sisters had come to visit this here ranch, I would have been none the wiser. In some ways, I used to think that all Canterlotlian clerks bore at least an ounce of royal blood, in that they performed their tasks in an gorgeous air that mimicked the Goddesses themselves. Bein' around the farm during that year's census just gave the land that much more shine, that much more hope. I couldn't have asked for a finer guest—and here I am again, blessed to be in the gifted presence of one of y'all. Like I said, child, it's a wonder to be alive.”
Harmony tried to smile; it came across more like a wound. Gazing at Granny Smith's gentle face, she somehow wouldn't be shocked if the lime wrinkles and gray hair were suddenly replaced by purple scales and green crests. For yet another uncountable moment, the last pony felt loved and lonely at the same time.
“You say that I'm a 'gift,' Ms. Smith,” Harmony finally spoke. “And I respect that. I find it flattering—but I only wish it was true.” She gave a deflated breath and gazed across the labored lengths of the ill-fated apple bucking. “A real gift wouldn't feel so useless.”
“Real gifts take time to make themselves useful, and even more time for some lucky ponies to recognize what's fallen into their laps.” Granny Smith chuckled as her eyes regarded her descendants bucking their way across the immutable lengths of orchards like so many generational shadows before them. Her gray eyes turned grayer for a brief moment. “Elektra built this earth out of her own hooves, and Gultophine gave it life with her own breath. But it took time to make it grow into somethang as pristine and beautiful as the land I've been blessed to live on today... and to be buried in tomorrow.” She took a deep breath, and the twinkle returned to her in double copper hues. “I don't know where exactly you hail from, Miss Harmony, and can't rightly pretend to be understandin' how or why you're here, but all I can say is that you bein' here... is timely.”
Harmony shivered on the edge Smith's words. Something funneled through her, something cold, like the rancid teeth of yesterday's snowy rockfaces. So she hid deeper beneath her Entropan skin and fled from the pain, reveling in the toasty mirage of the past that danced around the wrinkled elder's meditative pose. Perhaps that far down, that deep into the moment, she might come to understand the living pony's words.
“I can only hope you're right, Miss Smith. For Miss Applejack's sake, for your family's sake, for—” She jolted suddenly, her amber eyes twitching up as she was suddenly overcome with a great red hue. The sky was bleeding, and for a feverish breath the last pony thought the Cataclysm was happening three months early. “By Celestia's m-mane! What's that?!”
Granny Smith blinked. She stared up, her gray hairs fluttering in the wind. A deep snort rose from her nostrils and bulleted through her lungs as she wobbled up on thin limbs. “Good heavens, child! Surely yer pullin' an old lady's tail!” She winked and sashayed away. “Why, that's the sunset! What else could it be?”
Two hours and hundreds of trees later, a good two-thirds of the Eastern Orchards had been bucked clean. A veritable mountain of baskets bulged with apples, most of which were presently being loaded up into the back of a large wooden cart. Big Macintosh harnessed himself to the wheels and marched firmly downhill towards the big red barn in the center of the Acres.
Along the path beside him, Applejack finished stacking several baskets aside for the brother's next trip back. Wiping her matted blonde bangs with a foreleg, she glanced over her shoulder and saw a dark silhouette atop the nearby hill.
Harmony stood frozen on a mound of black soil and bent grass, staring breathlessly into a great burning sight before her. The sun was setting in the west—the first sunset the last pony had seen in decades. It was a molten gold sensation, like being set ablaze from the inside out—hooves to mane—with liquid red fire.
The pegasus breathed bravely into the gentle crimson inferno, and as a brisk wind billowed over the hilltop, she shut her amber eyes and drank it in, settling down on her haunches in order to free her upper limbs. She stretched them outward as if they were secondary wings, riding the heated breeze as it kicked through her black mane and dashed her amber streaks like hidden streamers. The smells that wafted off the land were spiced with fluttering leaves and blossoming seeds, so that Harmony felt like she was flying for once without her wings, navigating a bizarrely warm world that had somehow evaded her for years, hidden behind cold ash and even colder memories.
“I reckon y'all Canterlot clerks don't get outside much.” Applejack's hoofsteps crunched up from behind. “Surely the sunsets are purdy enough in yer neck of the woods.”
The pegasus inhaled, opening her moist eyes into the melting horizon. “The only truly pretty things are what you capture by accident. They're the things that you'll forever fly away from, only to think back on how you'll miss them forever.” Her wings shifted involuntarily. She took another breath and tossed a bittersweet smile back at Applejack. “I think I finally have a reason to envy earth ponies like you. You know an awesome thing when you see it, and then you stick to it.”
“If I might make a lil' confession.” Applejack smirked slightly and winked Harmony's way. “I've always dreamed that I could fly with some fancy pegasus wings of my own someday.” There was a slight, girlish giggle. “Just a foalish daydream I used to have.”
“Keep it a daydream,” Harmony said in a droning voice, gazing once more as the horizon ate up the last of the glistening, golden sun. “The only reason anypony has wings is to escape things.” She gulped. “I wish I'd never have to escape this.”
Applejack's green eyes softened slightly. But—with a firm exhale—she nudged Harmony's mane and motioned southward with her snout. “Come along, Miss Harmony. There's somethin' I gots'ta show y'all.” She trotted off.
Harmony obediently followed, breaking into a slight canter to keep up with her orange host. Applejack led her past the last edge of the orchards, through a metal arch enshrouded in vines, and straight into a lush grove of bright white flowerbeds. The rolling expanse of Equestria lingered beyond a distant line of fences, the horizon turning purple under the advent of a coolly falling evening. The copper pegasus was so engrossed in this equally mesmerizing sight that she barely noticed that Applejack had stopped in her tracks. Glancing down in front of the earth pony, Harmony somberly realized why.
There were gravestones, many of them. Eight.. twelve... twenty... At least thirty that Harmony could immediately count. They were bleached-white, immaculate marble heads, with only slight aging noticeable in the stones that dotted the furthest distance. Each row, Harmony realized, stood for a subsequent generation of the Apple Family, with far too many names than she could discern, except for the freshest stones that lingered directly in front of Applejack and the pegasus in turn.
“Apple Shine – Devoted Father – Most Dependable Earth Pony”
“Orange Blossom – Loving Mother – Ponyville's Pride and Joy”
Harmony gazed quietly. Her amber eyes fell over the fresh lilies that had been placed recently before the two graves. In front of the mother's stone in particular she could spot a few foal-sized hoofprints that had been left in the soft earth. There was so much beauty surrounding the place, from the lulling unplucked fruit trees to the shadowed beds of white flowers that fluttered in the settling evening's breeze. For once, death actually looked peaceful to the last pony. A part of her was almost envious.
“I brought y'all here to show that I wasn't just blowin' hot steam with what I said earlier,” Applejack said in a hushed tone. She knelt briefly before the two stones and brushed an orange hoof betwixt them, murmuring a few sweet words with her mouth closed. She brought the same hoof to her lips, kissed it, and gently tapped both stones in turn. Once finished, she gazed across the many white faces reflecting her from across the grove. “We really do give everythang to the Earth—includin' ourselves in the end. This land of ours is more than just soil and appleseeds. It's flesh and bone. Every piece of fruit we pick is a piece of us. And—to be perfectly honest—I wouldn't have it any other way.”
The earth pony stood up, trotted around, and paced towards Harmony.
“When my Pa died, he managed to tell me somethin'. He said: 'Always remember to be strong, Applejack.'” She gazed at the breeze-blown apple trees in the distance. “Celestia knows, after all these years, I've taken him up on his word. I've been strong for him, for the family, for this here land. I've been so strong for so long that I rightly don't remember what use it is to cry anymore; it's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the family: they can afford it. That's just the way things happened to be. Apple Bloom was far too young and precious to be the strong one. Granny Smith—Epona bless her heart—she's always been the spirit of the Apple Family, but she no longer has the bones for the job. Big Macintosh has the muscle, but he's so sweet and soft-spoken. He may not look it, but he ain't the one to bear the weight. It all came down to me—And that's quite alright. I'm happy to be spearheadin' the family. It's my job and I'm stickin' to it. These days, it means more than just livin' up to what Pa wanted of me. I've seen what I can do for this land, and what it can do for me. And I'm startin' to realize just what it must have felt like for Pa when he had to leave this world so soon, when everythang he ever cared for was snatched away from him and Ma in a blink. I love this family with all my heart—but, just like Pa felt—I love this land all the same. Because it's all the same, ya see? The life, the legacy, the land—it all comes full circle. And in my humble eyes, that's a finer poetry than even your finest writers nestled in Canterlot could ever hope to put to paper.”
Harmony listened intently. Even her heartbeat quieted to give air to Applejack's words. Gradually, the farm mare turned her face to stare the pegasus straight in her amber eyes.
“Miss Harmony, when mornin' comes, and the sun rises once more over this land, you will be gone. You will be back in Canterlot, deliverin' everythang yer reckon you've learned from today and today alone.” She slowly shook her head. “I'm sorry if this sounds all intimidating-like. But what I'm stating is a fact; because if Big Macintosh and I wake up to do the rest of our apple buckin'—and we see you there waitin' at the front gate to inspect us some more—it will be I who will be writin' a letter to Princess Celestia. And I promise you—on the very graves that lie before us—it will not be a pretty letter. The Goddess of the Sun may control the sky, but she sure as hay doesn't control the Earth. Sweet Apple Acres business is our business, and that's the way it's gonna be, even until the end of time.”
Harmony nodded, waited for several seconds of silence to ensue, then bravely replied, “That's the funny thing about time, Miss Applejack—the end of it, at least. Nopony can know when it happens. It could...” she fidgeted. “It could be a lot sooner than you think.”
“My statement is still final,” Applejack said. “Even if the world ended tonight, I stand by my word—and my word is my flesh and blood. I'm sorry to have treated ya so viciously earlier. There is no hard work that ain't stressful work, and y'all caught us at a bad time. You may leave now, Miss Harmony. And if ever I see you in the future, that will be a future when all will be made right between the Apple Family and the Earth. Maybe then you'll be lucky enough to see my friendlier side, and I can show you the gratitude that you deserve.” She smiled sweetly. “I don't fancy you a bad pony, just not entirely an honest one. And that don't sit right with me.”
“Naturally, it wouldn't,” Harmony defeatedly murmured. She extended her wings and prepared to soar away—but paused briefly to glance back and utter, “But even you should realize, Miss Applejack, that a lie of omission is still a lie.”
Applejack fidgeted, digging the edge of her hoof into the ground. It was a gesture that appeared anything but strong. Rather than allow the awkwardness to go on for any longer, Harmony immediately took to the air and flew majestically towards the darkening horizon, disappearing behind a purple line of trees.
The farm mare exhaled the entire afternoon's weight out her mouth. Paying the graves one last bit of respect, she turned around and slowly trotted out of the grove. She walked back towards the orchards alone... or so she thought.
From behind a row of trees, unseen in the settling curtain of night, the shadow of a pegasus stealthily danced across the blossoming stars. With a pair of reflective amber eyes locked on Applejack, she hovered quietly over the treetops and kept within distance of the soul's anchor.
“You might be strong—But you've got a lot to learn about persistence, girl.” Then Harmony made like a gust of wind.
The Apple Family had retired for the night. After trucking in the last of the day's harvested apples and shutting them inside various woodsheds, Applejack and Big Macintosh tended to the last livestock chores before shuffling lethargically into the family farmhouse. A few lights lingered pitifully through several windows of the humble abode until they too blinked away to match the sleepy darkness that had settled over the land. For several hours afterwards, a tranquil peace wafted over the farmstead in a purple haze, accompanied by the chirping of crickets and distant hoots of owls.
All of this, Harmony witnessed—of course—because she was stealthily perched atop the roof of the red barn sitting straight across from the Apple Family's house, stretching her soul to the furthest reach of her projection's binding to Applejack's sleeping form.
“Hey, I just realized. There's a bum living in Ponyville. And it's me.”
The pegasus sighed and slumped down so that she was lying with her chin rested aside a rusted weathervane in the shape of a rooster. Her legs were unenthusiastically folded underneath herself as she waited... and waited... and waited.
She couldn't succumb to slumber. It wasn't because of the nearly nonexistent sleeping schedule that she had developed from all the gray years of piloting the Harmony. It wasn't because of some deep-rooted tingling of excitement billowing through her veins from being displaced in time. It was simply because she... couldn't sleep. She was incapable of it—so long as she was in this form, this materialized projection of her soul self. She had briefly figured—from Spike's description—that this would be a blessing. But suddenly, in the wake of having failed to pierce through Applejack's stubborn defenses, it appeared to be nothing more than a curse. Harmony could just as well have been a ghost, an age-old insomniac poltergeist forced to forever haunt the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres, beset with ponies who would very gladly ignore her existence. It was a supremely surreal flip of the coin from her very real, very lonesome life in the Wastelands.
“And just what is that smell?” Harmony sniffed the air while murmuring hushedly towards herself. “I sure as heck don't remember that from visiting Apple Bloom!”
The mare sighed. Her head spun with all of the many things she would have to deal with in the morning. There were still days left to her time travel, she figured. Of course she couldn't quit on Applejack. When the sun rose, she would have to plop herself down onto the earth in front of a startled pair of farm ponies and somehow convince them not to skewer her to death with pitchforks for having the audacity to betray their exceedingly solemn request for her to leave.
And why shouldn't she leave? Harmony wasn't entirely convinced that she knew what she was there to do in the first place. All she wanted was to bridge a simple communication gap, to get Applejack to open up to her, to get her to trust her. Then and only then might she come out with the truth, that she was there for reasons that exceeded the historically superficial issue of Apple Buck Season, that soon there would no longer be a season for anything, because all manner of measuring time and harvesting would utterly vanish along with the sun, the moon... and civilization.
“Who am I kidding?” The pegasus girlishly toyed with her alien mane of long black hair and gazed forlornly into the starlit haze of the Earth. “So long as I'm not honest with the Element of Honesty, the Element of Honesty can't possibly be expected to 'fess up to me.”
Perhaps that was the key. Applejack was no Ms. Cheerilee. She was strong, she had her faculties centered upon the rigid spokes of reality. If Harmony dove in on Applejack and divulged her the horrible fate of Equestria, the wheels turning in the orange mare's head would be absolutely well-greased to spin true. She would gladly do what she could to contact Princess Celestia. She may even open up enough to Harmony to accept her help with the farm—
Harmony went crosseyed. She facehoofed with a groan. “Dang it—That's not my concern! It shouldn't be my concern!”
The only reason Harmony came back in time to begin with was to find an answer to what caused the Cataclysm and the deaths of Princess Celestia and Luna. That should have been on the forefront of her troubled mind—not all of this business with Applejack's stubbornness, her family's legacy, an impossible harvest that needed to be completed in less than two days, a farm's future that could be put in jeopardy if the two farm ponies didn't just give up and accept much needed help...
Harmony sat up on her haunches, exhaling hard through her Entropan nostrils. No matter how hard she tried to make herself think of something more important, the issue with Applejack and her Apple Buck Season fiasco constantly bubbled to the surface. Even then and there, none of what she was doing made any sense. How would helping the Apple Family with one measly harvest shed any light on the End of Equestria—or how to reverse the damage done in a wasted future to boot?
A fit of anger reverberated through the time traveler. Where there was anger, there was pain. Where there was pain, there was ash. Where there was ash, there was home, a forever after of forever afters—alone.
Harmony didn't realize what she had done until a loud metallic ringing noise echoed across the lengths of the barn. She blinked briefly, watching as the metal rooster that formed the weather vane spun offensively before her. The pegasus glanced down at her hoof. She had struck the metal figurine at full force, and she hadn't felt a thing. It was a heavy weathervane—at least parts of her had to have stung from the contact. Alas, everything was a numb cocoon of bewilderment.
The last pony bit her lip. Out of curious experimentation—as opposed to somber angst—she once more raised a copper limb and aimed the soft part of it against the serrated beak of the rusted rooster as it rotated to a stop. She pressed her coat to the sharpest point; she pressed harder, until the skin bent and sunk under the menacing beak. It should have hurt. It should have broken blood. But try as she might, Harmony could not pierce the outer shell of her Entropan form.
So much of this projection was still new to her, from the amber streak in her black mane to the immaculate curves of her hooves. Harmony felt like she had been encased in a reverse time capsule, a copper glistening thing that Spike had randomly shot backwards in time via a green sneeze. If Harmony stuck herself inside a cannon and aimed it at the heart of the planet, she had no doubt whatsoever that the discharge would send her living brick of a body flying out the crust on the other side. It all seemed too terribly convenient, and yet inconvenient. Sent back to an era doomed to die, Harmony was temporarily immortal. But could she feel?
That day had been a warm day. The grass had been green grass, the apples had been red apples, the fruit that slid down Harmony's throat had sent her on waves of bitter sweet euphoria, the likes of which she had never experienced and would very likely not come close to relishing ever again. Every succulent morsel that had clambored together to paint the luxurious canvas of Sweet Apple Acres had not been lost to Harmony's senses, and they were such heavenly living senses that the ghostly gray future would stifle for so long.
Here, atop the red barn's roof, in a settling splash of momentary anger, Harmony reached once more into the nebulous past dancing all around her on cricket-song, and she couldn't feel pain. Or at least... she wouldn't. After a day's worth of effortless, sweatless, tireless apple bucking, she had suddenly become the pariah she imagined time travelers to be. Only, it was a different untouchableness, a cold and arrogant immutability, like time itself. Beyond the dull bass hum of the night, Harmony imagined a voice—sounding mystically like Princess Entropa's—and it was laughing, hooting like an owl.
She gave a shuddering breath, then gazed up at the stars in a desperate bid to distract herself. She had been engrossed in such an act for the last three hours straight. As soon as the lights went out in the Apple Family's farmhouse, Harmony had begun stargazing. This was a far different sky than the twilight that infected the gray roof of the future. It was dark—deathly dark—but the stars that twinkled beyond the curtain of oblivion were alive, blissful, and resplendent with the trailing Exodus of Goddess Epona.
And in the center of such a gorgeous canvas, their hung the brightest jewel of all: the moon. It wasn't just any moon, but the most precious of satellites, something that sat unblemished in the sky for no longer than a solitary year, when the shadow of Nightmare Moon had faded from its ivory body as a beautifully unassuming harbinger of the disastrous Cataclysm to come. And here Harmony was, a detached soul from the future, the only lucky (or unlucky) pegasus in the whole of existence to be granted the chance to visit such an abridged page in history, the last page, the bitterly brief appendix of all things that would ever be.
“I wonder... When Luna was up there for a thousand years, could she give to the Earth?” Harmony murmured allowed. A lump formed in her throat as her eyes melted away from the mesmerizing orb in the sky, and she uttered, “Spike, what kind of Earth will we have to give to when all is said and done?”
There was no answer. Instead, there was a noisy pattering of paws. Harmony's heart jumped—for the only thing that the last pony expected to witness after that sort of sound was a flurry of glisteningly sharp polearms. In a breath, she instinctually bounded up to her hooves and spun to face the other side of the barn, snarling.
She was confronted with the gloriously stupid grin of a farm dog panting up at her, its tail wagging. It was a rough collie, with gorgeous flowing calico fur and nimble limbs. Harmony's perplexed eyes followed a series of crates, outhouse rooftops, and rain gutters—until her mind explained to her exactly how the tiny mutt had managed to clambor onto the top of the barn without wings. The cleverness of the creature struck her funny, until a foalish corner of her brain mumbled forth a name that had long been in hibernation: “W... Wi-... Winona?”
The dog barked once, grinned even more stupidly, and all but pounced on the copper-coated pegasus, giving her several slobbering tongue-lashes across her face and mane. The pegasus hissed, growled—giggled once—and all but shoved the canine off her like she was a skunk.
“Okay—Okay! I get it! Not all of the Apple Family is angry to see a 'Canterlotlian Servant!'” She settled back down on folded hooves as she amusedly watched the excitable collie jog four-legged circles around her. “Just don't drool all over me. Sweetie Bell's the one who tasted like marshmallows, not me—Remember?”
Winona barked and sat before her, panting steadily as if attempting to relay some joyous secret code in tongued dribbles.
“Heh, silly little fuzzball,” Harmony managed a slight smirk. “It's an awful shame that your distant cousins will take to flying giant metal behemoths in the future and try to kill me.”
Winona tilted her calico head to the side.
“Meh—Gilliam was kind of cute, in his own disheveled, nauseating, predictably homicidal way. But he didn't have your eyes though.” She winked.
The collie nodded stupidly—but then her head shot up and her ears perked. In a blink, she snarled and faced southeast, glaring off the edge of the barn.
“Hmmm...?” The last pony raised an eyebrow. “Now what's gotten you all spooked?”
Winona barked loudly, snarled once more, and bounded fearlessly off the side of the barn. Rolling down a mound of hay, the farm dog broke into a full sprint, rocketing towards the distant edges of night-drenched orchards.
“What I wouldn't give to have a companion like that in the Wastes.” Harmony strolled up to the edge of the barn, blinking. “Eh, who am I friggin' kidding? I'd probably eat her—Wait a minute.” She squinted hard, nearly teetering over the edge of the rooftop.
Two large shadows were galloping from the front door of the family farmhouse and darting their way southeast. Moonlight glinted off a pitchfork in one of the ponies' grasp. As they pierced the obscurity of the apple trees, a shrill ringing noise could be heard off in the distance.
“Kind of late to be bucking apples, huh, girlfriend?” Harmony's face was caught between a smirk and a frown. She didn't think much of it; she took off and glided gently after the shadows, staying silently within the range of her anchor to Applejack, but most importantly staying silent.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Just a few more meters, Macky,” Applejack murmured in a hushed tone. She strolled hatless under several waving branches of apple trees as she snuck over a darklit hill with her pitchfork aimed sharply ahead of her. “I toldja that trap would be loud enough to wake a dragon from its slumber! We got 'em this time!”
The red stallion merely glared through the darkness as he shuffled alongside his younger sister. He tried his hardest to pierce through the veil of night with his vision, but was only faintly aware of a glinting shape rattling due east of where they were presently sneaking.
“You did wire that thing to snap shut at a feather's touch, right, Big Mac?”
“Eeeyup,” he hushedly managed, suddenly stopping his sister's trot with a mighty forearm. A tiny shadow had just darted straight past them.
“What in tarnation—?” Applejack gasped, then wilted in the moonlight from a loud chorus of barking noises. “Awww shoot! Winona! We plum forgot to shut her in the barn! C'mon! Let's hurry it there before one of 'em hurts her bad!”
The two rushed over rustling high grass and bushes until they were out in the open. In the ivory glow of the waxing moon, the silhouette of Winona pranced and bounced viciously around a rattling cage lying just before the line of wooden fences that marked the edge of Sweet Apple Acres. A series of bells suspended on strings rung loudly from the sides of the metal container that they were attached to—until the cage itself stopped shaking altogether.
“Shhh! Hold yer hooves!” Applejack hissed.
She and her brother skidded to a stop, gazing with sudden trepidation at the stone-still cage. The ringing noise had stopped. The southeast end of the orchards was still, eerily cold, and quiet. Sitting inside the metal contraption, a pale shape sat—sporting two beady white eyes that stared back at them. Its body rose and fell slowly in dark, leathery breaths.
“What in the hay is it just staring at us for?” Applejack gulped. Suddenly, Winona's barking stopped. The collie paced nervously over towards the two ponies, her voice reduced to a deep whine as her ears drooped. Applejack whispered: “Macky, I don't like this—”
Two shrieking figures dove in from a cluster of bushes and slammed Applejack to the ground. Spinning, Big Macintosh galloped over to rescue her—but four more bodies jumped out of a nearby apple tree and wrestled with the stallion, weathering his snarling kicks and bucks as he struggled to shake them off.
Applejack grunted and headbutted the first of the two leathery creatures clawing at her before reverse-kicking the second. She limped up onto three hooves with the aid of her pitchfork. “Darn Celestia-forsaken varmints!—They sprung a trap with our trap!”
Macintosh shouted and backtrotted hard into an apple tree. The entire thing shook, dropping heavy fruit down onto the heads of the various creatures clinging to him. He managed to shake off three of them with his mighty limbs, but four more shadows scampered in from the underbrush and tackled the stallion with a shriek. They shoved him across the orchards until he spilled violently through the wooden fences bordering the farm. Under the combined weight of the whooping leathery monstrosities and the collapsed beams, Big Mac was helpless to get back up to his hooves. The creatures clamored all over the stallion, bearing razor sharp claws and pointed fangs.
“I'm a'coming, Big Mac!” Applejack fearlessly plowed her way through three creatures, leaped over a leathery sea of more ambushers, and galloped the last heartstopping lengths separating her from her encumbered sibling. But before she could so much as get within a hair's length, the one creature inside the cage effortlessly snapped the bars open and pounced on her with a scream. “Unnggh!” She cried out as she was slammed hard to the splashing dirt.
Her pitchfork tumbled uselessly to the side as she gazed up in horror to see a drooling face full of fanged teeth leering above her. Winona suddenly dove into the scene with a growl, biting hard into the creature's shoulder. The monster hissed, flicked its limb, and smacked Winona off of him. The collie ricocheted across the earth's floor with a yelping cry as more leathery forms closed in from all sides. Applejack and Macintosh were suddenly awash in a sea of mangy carnivores, and the air sang as all the abominations extended their claws as one and made to slash flesh from bone—
A copper blur soared through the moonlight, and suddenly the monster straddling Applejack was gone. “H-huh?!” The frazzled blonde mare blinked, rolled up to her haunches, and glanced breathlessly aside.
A winged figure was stamping her hooves down into the side of the shrieking creature, filling the night air with the sickly crunch of bones. Two more monsters leaped at the pegasus' backside, only to be effortlessly bucked hard through a row of exploding wooden fences. With amber eyes flickering, the shadow of Harmony burned across the inky black earth and bowled through the pile of bodies that had clambored over Macintosh. Several thrashing hooves met hard leather skulls, and half of the creatures were already bolting off under a cadence of pained shrieks. The other half of the murderous group closed in, spurred on by the sudden heroine's audacious attack.
“Y-you again!” Applejack gasped, scampering immediately over towards a dazed Macintosh's side. “Nnngh—Carnsarnit, Miss Harmony! Why can't I quit you?”
“You're welcome,” Harmony blindly snarled. Frowning, she spun about—eyed all of the surrounding creatures—and then flashed a look to the earth. She saw the pitchfork lying dormant in the grass. Harmony slammed a hoof down and spun the thing upwards until she clasped its wooden handle in her teeth.
In one roaring charge, the monsters converged on her, but the last pony was more than ready. She swung her snout in a wide swath—her black mane flowing with an amber streak—and she mercilessly slashed the razor-sharp length of the pitchfork's teeth across an advancing row of leather flesh. Wet black juice splashed hotly through the night. Several creatures retreated in a howl of pain and defeat; a last trio stupidly rushed Harmony from behind.
The pegasus breathlessly kicked one creature, twirled on one hoof, and smacked another monster skyward with the pitchfork. She then tossed the farming utensil onto her back, twirled it over her outstretched wings, and kicked the handle of the weapon in midair with one well-aimed buck. The thing sang through the air before it sliced across the silhouette of a gasping monster's skull. With a wooden thud, the pitchfork embedded into a tree trunk across the clearing—with a severed ear spinning to a stop on the leftmost tooth of the bloodied tool. The last creature wailed, clutching its leaking head and hobbling off to join its scampering brethren just beyond the line of fences and into the pitch-black forest beyond. A dizzied Winona limped up to her feet, shook her head clear, and ran up just to the edge of the fenceline, barking canine obscenities into the great beyond.
Applejack panted, exhausted simply from watching the entire fight unfold. She shook Macintosh's shoulders, gazing at him with mute concern. He winced slightly but was moderately bruised, nothing more. The stallion climbed halfway out from the pile of wooden fence lumber and paused to pat Applejack's forelimb with a reassuring hoof. Gulping, the blonde mare helped him to all fours and gazed forlornly Harmony's way.
“Th-thank you. I m-mean it in all sincerity, Miss Harmony. Thank you for savin' our lives. We've had all we can take from them nasty varmints over the past few weeks—”
“Trolls.”
“I beg yer pardon?” Applejack blinked in the suddenly blinding moonlight.
“They're called 'trolls,'” Harmony spat, facing off into the forest beyond Winona's furious barkings. “And they're not gone.”
“Th-they're not?!?” Applejack gasped. Her and her brother's teeth clattered suddenly.
Harmony shook her head and motioned towards the woods with her snout. “They're still out there, in between the trees, watching us. No doubt they want to stage another attack before sunrise—The sun is their bane you see. Uh uh—There's no getting rid of trolls, not that easily at least.”
“H-how do you know all of this?”
“Because I know trolls, among other things,” Harmony said, turning to gaze down at the stumbling sight of the exhausted siblings. She raised an eyebrow. “All this time—That was it? You've been dealing with trolls?”
“It's n-not as bad as it looks—”
“Miss Applejack, it's worse than it looks! Trolls shouldn't be this deep in Equestria in this time period—er—in early spring, I mean! Why haven't you asked for any help with them up until now?!”
“Didn't y'all learn anythang from what I told you earlier?” Applejack murmured melancholically. She and Macintosh gazed sickly at the line of trees and the many pairs of pale eyes staring hauntingly back at them. “We have to deal with them alone—It's our land.”
“But why, Miss Applejack?” Harmony exclaimed, but somehow she already knew the answer.
“Because... Because we're the reason they're on our land to begin with.”
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Needed corrections: 1) the period in, -“'Harmony'. Or 'Harmony' for short.”- line. 2) -have sent me here to observe- instead of -have sent me her to observe-.
Wow on the part where Scootaloo not wanting to get her cutie mark for me was like, "what! must know more, must read faster!" lol.
Alright for some reason right about this paragraph I start envisioning Scootaloo and Fluttershy both laying down in the bed of green emerald pillows or on the sofa inside Fluttershy's cabin, -“I mean it, Fluttershy!” Scootaloo jerked away from her with a frown.-. Later near the end I picture Scootaloo pressed up next to Fluttershy, as would a filly to her mother (around the time that Scootaloo nuzzled Futtershy) and the raging storm's backdrop through the window outside. I know it wasn't what it was but that's how that scene turned out in my head.
Bringing up 'hot stallions' at the end was an interesting touch lol.
I have to say, not my favourite chapter, but that didn't stop me from drinking in every last word.us This is without a doubt my favorite fanfic that I've ever read. I hope the hiatus ends before I'm through with the next half. SO GOOD!
Cool
Cool chapter, but angel bunny is a boy...
scootaloo seemed really cynical/mean in this chapter
Gosh, I hate Harmony.
Angel Bunny is a boy.
"The first day I houseat the pet" -- should be "housesat", if anything.
The humorous references were great. "Live long and prosper" made me smile -- milk "does a pony good" cracked me up. The ending was charming and cute.
The scenes with filly-Scootaloo at Fluttershy's place are adorable, thought-provoking, and very well written. The transitions between past and... uh... future-past (?), when Scootaloo and Harmony are going through similar motions, flowed well and were cinematic.
I like the more intelligent BP!Ditzy better, but this one serves the story well, and her relationship with Dinky is heartwrenchingly precious. When she flippantly said she knew nothing about friendship... nyeugh. Talk about a knot in your stomach. I'm pretty sure Dinky is periwinkle, though, not grey. :ponkyshrug:
And what's with all this discrimination toward half-wing stuff? Oh, this was probably written before "Baby Cakes", huh? Waaay before baby cakes. Hmm.
I'm nervous that Dinky's academic recitations of the Ivory Nematoads was foreshadowing...
Nice allusions to the Moon Fortress and Ponymonium, by the way.
dl.dropbox.com/u/3373404/Ponies/32649221.jpg
Best moment in the chapter.
I first person'd it. I thought that would seem more appropriate.
"The filly smiled towards the floor and ceiling around Harmony."
Second best moment.
"Whoah! Hello, there ceiling"
Third best moment.
Great chapter. Awesome story, so far as I've read. You have effectively captured all of my emotions.
hmm... according to this wiki Angel is male
also
i think Fluttershy uses the stare on Angel in the final scene of "Putting your Hoof down".
Although this chapter was probably written before the episode, so you might not want to change it.
The trolls should make a blood pact for a war alliance with the buffalo. Hands-->Tools+Mounts=pwnage
this line is were it dawned on me
rainbow went to look for harmony because she seemed to know what was going on
harmony = scoots
i laughed then cried at my inability to put that together until now
One hundred thousand words down, four hundred and twenty five thousand words to go