Final Hours

by CountDerpy

6 Hours Remain

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Night of the Final Day
6 Hours Remain

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Applejack and Apple Bloom walked quietly up the hills that filled the northwestern half of the orchard. Neither of them said a word as they walked between the rows, only stopping momentarily as the sound of the tower bell filled the air, signifying that the end had come.

Applejack looked down at her younger sister as they walked, finding it hard to keep tears from trailing down her cheeks as she thought of how far she had come. Apple Bloom had grown up to be quite the young teenage mare, her own body now nearly the size of Applejack's. She looked at how long her mane had grown and how well toned her bucking legs had become in recent years, never once letting the end of the world come between her and doing what apples do. She looked up to her cutie mark, thinking back to how she spent so long doing all kinds of crazy things to earn it and to how proud she was when she finally did. The only things she couldn't look at was her eyes, sunken in and dark from days and weeks with very little sleep. AJ looked down at the ground as they walked on, only assuming that she didn't look too far off in that department.

It had been quite the shock to her when she heard that the world was ending, and at the time she didn't believe it. Granny had just died and after a few months of hardship without her, the orchard had finally gotten back to the state it once was. Applejack nearly fainted when she learned that all of their hard work didn't mean a thing.

"Applejack, we're here." Apple Bloom said as the two stopped walking.

"Ah know Bloom, ah know this smell of death all too well." She sighed as she looked up to be greeted by four headstones resting at the base of the one zap apple tree that stayed around all the time. She drew in a ragged breath, calming as she felt a reassuring pat on her back from her sister and walked up to the graves.

"Hello Ma....Pa.....Granny.....Big Mac." She barely said as she sat in front of the marble slabs. "Me and Bloom wanted to come say goodbye to ya'll one more time before....before we get to see ya'll again."

She looked over to the two graves on the left of the tree. "Ah wish ya'll could've been here through it all Ma. Ya'll didn't get to watch Bloom grow up into the beautiful young mare that she is, and ah know Granny and Mac are up there reminiscing with you and Pa right now. She's probably going on about her romps with Uncle Orange or about trying to hit on the eldest of the Pie Family, but ah bet she is probably happier than she had been in years.

She sighed and looked over to the freshly tilled earth in front of the only wooden headstone in the row. She lifted herself up and walked to it. "And Mac, ah forgive ya for leaving me and Bloom here on our own today. Ah knew you were havin' trouble facing the inevitable, but aah still wish you would have at least stayed with us....or said goodbye ya big....lovable....stupid dork!"

Applejack's emotions were starting to get the better of her as the streams of tears pouring forth from her eyes dripped silently to the ground. "Damn it you didn't have to do it this way! Ah should never have had to have buried all of mah family like this!" She screamed as she hit her hoof against the ground. "You didn't have to leave me alone...ya shouldn't have..."

She screamed and cried into the pile of soil that covered her brother's resting place. Finding his body in his bed wit slashes down his hooves, the sight of his blood covering her as she tried to wake him up, and seeing the last bit of his smiling face as she covered it in dirt was more than enough to drive her over the edge.

AJ turned to look as she once again felt her sister's hooves on her back. "Applejack, it's alright."

"Bloom....ah'm so sorry...no pony should ever have to go through all this, especially at your age." She said as she whipped the tears from her eyes and took hold of her sister's hoof.

"Sis, there ain't nothin' to be sorry for." She said as she knelt down and pulled her older sister in for a hug, her own tears streaming down her face. "Ah don't care if ya think that it's yer fault for our parents or granny dying, and ah know it isn't your fault that Big Mac just couldn't carry on."

She pulled her head away from her sister's shoulder. "What matters is that yer still here fer me, not what ya think you did or what you think you could have prevented. Ah only care that ah will have the best sister on the planet to be there for me when it all ends."

Applejack stared slack jawed at her sister for a fraction of a second before a sobbing smile overtook her face. "Ah am so proud of you, ya know that. For everything that ya'll have been through, you've come out stronger than most and still fighting like a true Apple." She pulled her sister in for another hug. "Ah want you to know that if Ma and Pa were here, they would be even more proud of you than ah could ever be."

"Ya really think so?"

"Ah know so." She said as the two shared as small laugh before resting in each other's hooves. After a few minutes of restful silence Apple Bloom looked up at her sister. "Hey AJ, can ya tell me what Ma and Pa were like again?"

AJ looked down at her sister and smiled. "Of course ah can, there's always time for that."

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5 Hours Remain

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