Shamblin'
Everypony had left.
Sweet Apple Acres was empty.
A young Applejack slowly drifted down the lines of orchards. Her father's hat lay balanced across her flank as she threw melancholic glances left and right.
The stillness of the falling evening added to the sudden desolation of the moment. Everything was eerily quiet under the coalescing shadows. Applejack's home—and the fields abroad—felt two souls smaller, and it chilled her.
The mare bit her lip as she passed by the gardens that her mother used to tend and the chicken coops that her father had built. Closer to the family house, she found herself passing by a set of wagons untouched for the past few days. A tarp stretched over them and the apples plucked from the trees—no longer fresh, but surviving. The air had a growingly sour smell to it, and it sent a shiver down Applejack's spine.
Searching, she tilted her face towards a distant barn set on a hilltop. For the first time in as long as she could remember, a flicker of light emanated from within the hold structure's bent windows. With purse lips, Applejack readjusted the folds of her dress and swiftly trotted towards the building in question.
Big Macintosh was the reason for the light. Applejack found the young adult stallion inside the barn, wandering back and forth between piles of old rusted tools. Big Macintosh operated in a deadpan fashion, brushing cobwebs away and restoring an abandoned workbench to normal. He had completely stripped of his neatly-pressed suit for the funeral; Applejack saw the article draped over a crooked antique chair in the corner of the place.
"Brother...?" Applejack gulped, fiddling with the old stetson in her petite hooves. "Big Mac... reckon you should get some sleep or somethin'?"
"Eenope..." Big Macintosh's muzzle tensed slightly as he began shoving boxes of old farm equipment towards the furthest walls of the decrepit barn.
Applejack blinked. Her ears twitched beside her pigtails as she glanced at the meager candles freshly illuminating the old place. "It's so late in the evening. We ain't even had supper or nothin'."
Big Macintosh said nothing. All was silent—at least until the air echoed with him shoving old equipment around. Applejack watched as he dragged an old rusted plow out of hiding and began examining it up close.
"You plannin' to stay here overnight?" Applejack slurred.
"Eeyup." The suddenness of the answer was stabbing.
Applejack shuddered. Her ears folded as she stifled a whimper. "Big Mac... this... this isn't like you." She gulped. "Ain't you got a mountain of thangs to say? A big speech... some poetry... anythang?"
Big Mac's nostrils flared. He didn't look at his little sister. Both angry eyes were locked on the plow as he began tweaking the old, battered thing. "Eeenope."
Applejack clinched her eyes shut. She fought to keep her voice steady. "Please, Macky. Just... say somethin'. Anythang. I... I-I feel better when I hear you ramble on. Really, I do."
Dead silence. Big Macintosh worked and worked. He had nothing to say, and his back positioned to Applejack solidified it.
Applejack's eyes moistened. On tender little hooves, she reluctantly turned around... and trotted out of the barn.
Applejack returned home, and somehow it felt darker inside than outside.
Cricket song wafted in through the windows and shutters as she fumbled up the stairs, feeling around for the railing.
"Granny...?"
No reply.
Applejack brushed against the wall lining the stairs. Her flank bumped into old portraits. The faces of her mother and father jostled, then swung to a stop like smiling ghosts. At last, she spotted a light out of her peripheral: it was looming from the nursery recently furnished upstairs.
"Granny Smith?"
She heard Apple Bloom's gurgling voice, but nothing else. Heart pounding, Applejack briskly approached the room on the second floor. She pressed against the open door, and as it swung open with a meager creak, she spotted Granny Smith kneeling beside the crib where Apple Bloom lay. The old mare caressed the little infant foal, tending to her, brushing her tiny tuft of scarlet hair.
"Granny..." Applejack breathed. "It's so dark in here." She breathed again, fiddling with the stetson. "Want I should switch on the lights? Or set a few candles or—?"
"Best to conserve what we've got," Granny Smith murmured, not looking back. Her voice was dull, hollow. "Reckon we ain't gonna earn bits the same way we used to."
Applejack blinked. "But... but we've got plenty of candles and—"
"Do whatever ya feel is right, darlin'," Granny's voice wavered. She stroked Apple Bloom's forehead as she exhaled. "Dun really matter much, however way ya shake it."
Applejack fidgeted in the doorway. "Big Mac is out in the old barn... rummagin' around and workin' on Grandpa's old plow."
"Is that right?"
"I... tried to talk some sense into him. But he ain't listenin' to me. He ain't even talkin' back. Maybe... maybe you could have a word with him, Granny?"
"About what?"
Applejack stared.
Apple Bloom let out a shrill giggle. Granny Smith nuzzled her close, cooing something beneath her breath.
Applejack cleared her throat. "Granny. If yer needin' somepony to talk to—"
"Get some rest, Applejack," Granny Smith nearly grunted. "It's been a long day. Ain't no sense."
"Ain't no sense in what?"
To that, the elder mare had no answer. She continued sitting there beside the bed, doting on Apple Bloom with a deadpan expression.
Slowly, like a falling leaf, Applejack receded from the scene... and hobbled off to her own room.
The funeral dress hung off a chair in the corner.
A single candle had been lit, but it barely survived the cold winds gusting in through the window.
Applejack lay on her belly, staring across the bed.
Her father's hat rested on the comforter, blending with the shadows.
Applejack stared and stared. Gradually, her eyes filled with tears. She sniffled, covered her face...
And wept gently into the impenetrable shroud of a lonely night.
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About time.
7659158
Wait...wut
...
About time.
I wonder if we're getting the whole story from AJ's view or just this first little introduction piece, you know, only 100 or so chapters. A complete retelling of part 1 from Applejack,s PoV.
Good to see this in my readbox again. Way to raise the storytelling bar, great start to the new part in every way.
why dun u go dash sum appulz
This was an interesting way to continue the story. I wonder how long we're going to be seeing things from AJ's perspective?
Welp, it just hit the Featured Box.
We can now look forward to numerous comments from newbies complaining about how many words do I have to read before I can start this? and for the next hundred chapters bitching how the story description is fraudulent because the tagged sex hasn't even remotely happened.
Because 1000 chapters of rainbow being depressed wasn't enough, here's 1000 of applejack
I wonder if Applebloom is the narrator for this volume?
Yay, more depression just what the story needed
And lo it begins. With Slice of Life! Finally. No more running Rainbow. No more half-truth Applejack. We're getting a fuzzy collision of freckles and feathers and everyponies in for a whirlwind of romance.
Unless we aren't, since this is Appledashery, but at least the SoL tag means they'll probably be stuck in the same town with a crapload of time devoted to skirting the elephant in the barn.
7660790 Until we all die of course
THE WAIT IS OVER! Much excitement!
Also, I feel like this is going to be like the beginning of Eljunbryo and Utaan where we don't get a word out of Rainbow for awhile.
OH MY GOD I'M SO EXCITED
Man, in all seriousness, reading this made me realize just how much I missed this story.
That story description.
Heeeeere we go, I like the canon from When the Apple Lies being incorporated here.
Annnnnnd now I'm depressed again. Appledashery is officially back.
I kid. I really am excited to see where all this volume goes.
These last three chapters have honestly been one of the most painfully depressing things I've ever read.
Now I'm remembering when I clicked on Appledashery for the first time, hoping for a guilty pleasure at best.
7661374
That SS&E for you, An optically consumed existential crisis.
Whew. Great stuff, here. What a way to start. I'm excited for Applejackery.
Mmm, neat how you worked in the stuff from new episodes without letting it change what needed to happen in this story world.
So we're playing at Applejack being entirely alone... and Rainbow Dash breaking her out of it?
I can dig it.
Brand new viewpoint, same great melancholic flavour!
Oh happy day! Our Appledashery crack dealer survived the inundation of Swampland and is posting again!
<reads chapters so far>
Oh crap. Sad AJ is LOADS more heartbreaking than sad Rainbow.
I'm gonna need a bigger box of issues...
A tragic backstory where the protagonist isn't responsible for 99% of her problems? This really IS a new story!
I've always felt bad for Dash since most of her self-inflicted wounds stem from character flaws that I can sympathize with but AJ's scenario feels so much more hopeless since it seems to be driven by forces beyond her control. It gives me the picture of a mare fighting alone against the world and slowly losing.
I also like the idea that underneath the surface, there are pretty deep issues within the Apple family. It adds an avenue for interesting character development and is something that I can't recall ever seeing explored in fanfiction.
A very interesting story I will be keeping an eye on this one.
These aren't tears, honest! There is just a rather large quantity of salt particles floating near my eyes, irritating them, and the only way to stop it is to hug my blanket. Honest.
Oh joy. The feeling of seeing a few chapters up only to all too quickly read them all and feel sad.
It's nice to be back in the bright cherry world of appledashery.
7661854
At least he got the "arduous" right.
7662235
It's definetly Pinkie.
I was cold and depressed so I curled up under a blanket next to my heater to read ponyfics to cheer me up.
Now I'm warm and depressed
Everyone is so hung up on the sex tag y'all aren't even considering the possibility that it's not between who you think it is. And that if they actually get together it will be like at the end of this anyways.
7662687
Welcome to appledashery
Its here?!
Already!?
Yes!!!
Edit:
Oh...
No...
7662979 Did you not read the conclusion of RainbowDashery volume one?
7660801 Sounds like you were really fed up with that one guy on Shellstrings.
I see we're taking a break from the ritual emotional torture of fuzzy blue birdhorses for a while.
...and turning to fuzzy orange applehorses instead.
The fact Big Mac clammed up and stopped talking after his Ma and Pa died makes the fact he's a talker in the (private) company of Fluttershy all the sweeter and just a little bit heartbreaking.
I'm just glad someone in this universe found a way to open up and heal.
