Cowboy Hats And City Slickers

by TheSundewOrder

Chapter Two

Mac found himself in an empty carriage. He sat down right at the front, having hauled his one suitcase up into the luggage compartment, and stared out of the train windows at the three people who’d come to wish him goodbye.

Applejack, proudly wearing their father’s cowboy hat, was waving enthusiastically. However, Mac still noticed traces of depression lingering behind her bright green eyes. She masked it well, though, and if he hadn’t been paying attention he wouldn’t have noticed.

Granny Smith stood smiling, waving with one hand and balancing the rowdy baby Apple Bloom in the other. The young filly was trying to jump out of Granny’s tight grip, probably wanting to follow Mac onto the train. It was terrifying, actually, watching the determination his little sister wore on her face. It actually reminded him of —Mac gulped —Applejack.

Soon after the train left Ponyville, Mac began to doze off. His head bowed and his eyes drooped and the swift landscape outside did nothing to keep him awake. He fell into a short, dreamless sleep before someone aggressively tapped him on the shoulder. His eyes fluttered, but he didn’t move.

“I told you it wasn’t Mac!” somepony whispered behind him. “What would Macintosh Apple be doing on a train to Centerlot?”

“I’m sure it is”, whispered another pony. Mac recognised this other voice and opened his eyes. He was surprised to see a smiley mare’s face just inches away from his. She was dark cerise in colour with large, pale green eyes. Her frizzy mane was a striped rose situation, with various hair pieces. She was grinning at him now, and he noticed she had braces with bright pink bands in her teeth. It was a cute smile, and Mac found himself smiling back despite his obvious disturbance.

“Uh…”

“It is Macintosh Apple!” cried the purple mare, glancing away from him. Then she looked back, blinking at him with interest. “Gosh”, she said, lowering her voice slightly, “I haven’t seen you in years.”

The other mare, who was standing behind Mac and thus couldn’t be seen, let out a low groan. “Well, that’s great, Cheerilee. Now that we’ve confirmed —“

The purple mare cut her off as she assaulted Mac in an overwhelming number of questions:

“How have you been? Where have you been? Gosh, I haven’t see you in years! Since kindergarten, wasn’t it? Oh, that was a long time ago! We’re in high school now! Well —are you? I heard you… dropped out after your parents —you know. I’m terribly sorry about that. I do hope you got the flowers my mom sent. Anyway, how are you?”

… Cheerilee. Mac was still trying to connect the name and the face in his head, vaguely remembering a boisterous filly in his kindergarten years who kept gobbling up the glue supply. After that, she’d just kind of disappeared off the face of the planet. When he and the other students had been promoted, she’d been taken out of school —or so he remembered —and he’d not seen her in Ponyville ever since. Now, seeing her, like an extremely vague character taken right out of his past, made him want to double-check his reality.

She had grown. Obviously —they all had. Now that she had stepped back and away from him, he could finally look at her properly. She was much taller than he remembered, and was wearing her mane a little longer. The frizz was questionable, but Mac guessed that it was just some trend she had jumped onto. She wore what looked like leg warmers around her back hooves, and a couple of plastic anklets around her front right hoof.

As she excitedly manoeuvred herself into the seat next to him in the carriage, Mac couldn’t help but glance at her cutie mark. He remembered that she’d been one of the few who hadn’t gotten it in kindergarten. Now, on both sides of her flank sat three smiling flowers.

Mac began wondering what exactly it meant.

“Cheerilee!” came the exasperated voice of her friend. Mac heard light footfalls, and soon an amber mare appeared quite close beside him.

He looked up and was met by ferocious blue eyes, lined in dark eye-liner. The amber earth pony was glaring at him, obviously agitated by his very existence. Mac shrank into his train seat.

He couldn’t put a name to her face, but he recognised her. However, this recognition was disputed by the heavy eye make up, the black clothes, the spiky accessories and the generally angry vibe he was getting off this mare. She was literally throwing daggers at him with her eyes and Mac couldn’t understand why.

“Come on, Cheerilee! We’ve got to find seats!”

Cheerilee, who somehow hadn’t noticed the severe antagonism her friend was giving Mac, looked at the amber mare with confusion. “We could always sit in this carriage, Mae. It’s just Mac in here!”

The amber mare, Mae, scowled. “But there are so many other empty carriages, Cheerilee.”

“But Mac’s here!”

“So?”

Mae’s ferocious look turned onto the smiling Cheerilee. The purple mare, however, didn’t seem at all perturbed by her friend. Instead, she turned back to Mac and said, pointing a hoof at the vicious mare, “I don’t know if you remember her, but this is my best friend Mayor Mare. She’s Senator Stallion’s daughter —“

“Ugh, Cheerilee!” cried the amber mare, finally sitting down on the seat across the isle from Mac. Their proximity made Mac flinch. “Don’t call me that! My name’s Mae.”

Cheerilee laughed. “The Senator named her in hopes that she will follow his political hoof steps”, she whispered into Mac’s ear.

Mac glanced at the rebel as she got comfortable on the seat. He could never imagine her as a politician, especially with that ensemble of a look. He watched as she pulled more dark kohl and apply a thick line around her eyes, then proceed to smudge it.

When she caught him staring, she snarled at him. Mac sank even further into his seat, willing himself to disappear.

Mac’s first ever train ride was spent under trial, with Cheerilee acting as the very chatty prosecutor with Mae as the extremely harsh judge. Though all of the hundreds of questions Cheerilee was asking were aimed at him, never once could he get a word in. There was always a thought Cheerilee would happily proceed to voice, or a complaint Mae just had to make.

It was extremely stressful for Mac. Back in Ponyville, he rarely left the farm besides the weekly trips into town to deliver and sell apples. However, these trips had lessened in number since Applejack had insisted she take over the responsibility. He had been happy with the arrangement —he hated social situations.

Not that he didn’t have any friends. He had plenty. Like the Cakes, who he supplied with apples for their pies. And some of his older cousins who sometimes came to Sweet Apple Acres to help out with the farm. He always ended up spending lots of time with them in the orchards. And… Granny Smith was his friend. Sometimes they talked endlessly about… apple cider, or the fruit bat situation. And…

As Mac tried to cram his brain for more names, he became more and more aware of how little experience he had with ponies who he wasn’t related to or had business arrangements with. He gulped as he realised how long it had been since he had actually been in the presence of ponies his own age. Even the cousins who visited —they were generally older than him since their whole purpose for visiting was to teach him a skill for the farm, or help out with a situation he couldn’t handle. And, as previously mentioned, he’d never once left Ponyville to visit his younger cousins, who he was sure existed. They had all sent letters in the wake of his parents passing.

Mac panicked.

He realised that this was the first time in a very, very long time that he was was going to be around a teenage pony like himself. He’d hadn’t heard much about Gaff Apple and his family until about two weeks ago, when Granny Smith had told him that he was going to Canterlot soon. He hadn’t even known they’d existed.

And now, he was on a train into, possibly, the most uncomfortable situation he would ever be in in his own life:

Amongst teenagers. In the city. Alone.

Mac wanted to pass out, but Cheerilee was still assaulting him with a barrage of questions.

Comments

[NobleValor]

Poor, poor Macintosh.