"I looked over them contracts left and right... backwards and forwards..." Granny Smith said, sitting in her rocking chair by the crackling hearth that night. She shook her wrinkly head. "I still can't believe it..."
"Hmmm?" Applejack looked up from where she sat across from the old mare. She had the family schedule book opened in her lap and was making notes on the next few weeks... harvest changes and the like. "What's not to believe anymore? You done signed yer name on the papers this afternoon."
"Somethin' must have happened... some... some harmonic divine providence, I tells ya..." Granny Smith sighed, staring into the fire. Crickets rang outside the front windows. Starlight glistened off the crisp lawn. "...downright flabbergasted."
"You..." Applejack squinted. "...you ain't havin' second thoughts now, are ya?"
"Heheheheh..." Granny Smith shook her head. "...nothin' of the sort! Just... plum blessed, is all..."
"Mmmmm..." Applejack nodded, flipping the pages in the schedule book. "Reckon we all are."
"How did it all begin, I wonder? I mean... who in the hay even pointed that Trottingham namby-pamby our way?"
"Granny... honestly..." Applejack sighed. "Could ya lean off the sissy insults? After all, he's our business partner now!"
"I know. I just... mrmmmgnnh..." Granny's jaw muscles tightened. "Old habits, darlin'. Them sort of folks was always difficult to trust back in my day."
"What about Filthy?" Applejack asked. "His folks were always sweatin' it in the Ponyville sun like us. Nothin' hoity-toity about them."
Granny nodded. "You make a point. Just... blasted me sideways that somepony from Canterlot could be so kind-hearted."
"It's Trottingham," Applejack corrected. "And kindness isn't as rare as you think it is. Just ask Fluttershy."
"Mmmm. Reckon so. Or ask Big Mac."
"Heheheheheheh..."
"Hyeh hyeh hyeh..."
"Heheh... hehhhhhhhhh..." Applejack sighed warmly, pouring over the dates and numbers. "Guess he got the honey-glow with good time."
"Seems to be a happy season for feelin'... happy." Granny Smith creaked in her rocking chair. "Didja see how beside herself with giggles Apple Bloom was today?"
"What? You mean with Fancy Pants visitin'?"
"Yup. Couldn't stop chattin' his ears off and showin' him family photos. Poor gentlecolt. He could barely get away before nighttime."
"He didn't seem to mind none, Granny."
"Well, sure. Nice stallion and all..." Granny Smith sighed. "Almost makes me wish we had visitors more often..."
"Yeah. Apple Bloom seems to take kindly to folks from outta town."
"T'ain't just that, AJ." Granny Smith stared firmly at her. "Poor lil' sprout could use a fatherly character in her life. It showed through all the seams today. Practically burstin'."
"Yeah, well..." Applejack flipped a page, breathing. "She could use a bit of everythang."
"Dun kid yerself. She's gotten all she needs from her Ma from you."
Applejack froze in place. She gazed across the room, her eyes absorbed in the flame.
"I ain't half as senile as ya thank I am, darlin'," Granny Smith said. "It felt awful heart-warmin' to you too, didn't it?"
Applejack took a deep breath. When she finally spoke, it was in a weathered, scratchy tone: "Like you wouldn't believe."
"Life ain't full of disappointment alone, AJ." Granny Smith bore a calm, wrinkly smile. "Yer at the right age. Yer health and contentment...? Yer downright irresistible to any self-respectin' stallion. Do ya think it's actually that impossible to find a pony yer age who would care for you and the farm just like you care for all of us? Look at Big Mac. He's found someone. I mean... sure... a few gabbin' noponies might call it puppy love... but not from where I'm sittin'. I've seen that kind of affection before..." She fought a sudden lump in her throat, then tenderly added: "And I would absolutely love for you to find it for yerself as well..."
Applejack clammed up. Her hat felt like it was miles away, although it rested squarely on her crown.
Granny Smith paused in rocking. She murmured: "I know yer not exactly chatty when it comes to—"
"The one thing I know, Granny..." Applejack looked across at her, eyes glossy. "...is that I don't know what I want... except what's best for this farm. And I aim to make it all right."
"And you are, darlin'? Right now... everythang is meetin' up all square..." Granny Smith leaned forward. "...so what's next?"
The pages shook in Applejack's grasp. She tried saying something, but could only shake her head. She sniffled, stuck in that spot.
On wobbly legs, Granny Smith stood up from the chair, shuffled over, and wrapped Applejack up in a tender hug. She nuzzled her neck, murmuring: "I just want to see you happy... I want to see all that's left of my little un's happy..."
"And I am, happy, Granny," Applejack murmured bag. Another sniffle, and she felt the feather once again—stabbing through the hat and soaring off again. She tried following it with her eyes, but all she saw were stars beyond the window, shooting away, growing more and more distant. "I am happy... I am... ... ...?"
Sailing up that lonely river.
De Nile.
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Styx and stones, love.
Her heel will show soon enough.
Granny is a bit like a knife coated in anaesthetic.
She asks the questions that cut deep, but it doesn't hurt as much as it would being asked by someone else.
No, AJ. You know what you want for yourself. The problem is that you’re tying it up and confusing it with what you want for your family. And like a millstone round your neck, that’ll drag you down unless you take the time to unwind and sort that stuff out. So do yourself the favor: take a well deserved break.
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Lightsaber. Self-cauterising.
It's okay, Applejack, you just need to wait another 838 chapters. Then you will find drunken rainbow-maned pegasi in dirt and everything will be very bad. Then another 1000 chapters will go and things some kind of will be turn fine. You just need to wait a bit.
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that'd stop the bleeding, for sure, but it would still hurt like buggery.
s'why I said a knife coated in anaesthetic, numbs the pain a bit.
It'll hurt cutting, but once the anaesthetic gel on the blade kicks in, you won't feel the cut.
8533729
If you want to be realistic about it, a lash of magnetically contained plasma would boil the water in your cells explosively and carbonize the rest on contact.
Your nerves would be reduced to dehydrated carbon among the other bits of charcoal-flesh more quickly than the chemical and electrical signaling bits could tell your brain and eyes your arm is off.
You wouldn't feel a thing!
It's pretty easy to see how she ended up with Stu Leaves, now. Applejack is so focused on what she thinks she should do she very rarely thinks about what she wants to do.
Chapter title: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/149893/943/appledashery/are-you-now-rainbow-dash