Applejack Gets Lost

by MagicS

Twin Towns

It had gotten to the point where they were well out of the desert. Now they walked across a dried out plains, the dirt brittle and cracked. But Applejack could now at least see signs of the Twin Towns in the distance, there seemed to be a small group of buildings not too far from where they were and beyond those were copses of trees and lush rolling hills to the east. To the west Applejack could make out the mountain range that the other town was supposedly built into, it stretched on as far as she could see with peaks rising high into the sky. Looking up at them she could see snow around the higher ones.

“And so,” Marble’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Hoof of the Earth is all about the heart. Literally. An earth pony takes the vibration from the beating of their heart and amplifies it, sending it into their hooves and then into a target. With practice you can send a tremor of any magnitude to anywhere in a pony’s body. If you just wanted to rattle them a bit or break all their bones, anything’s possible.”

Applejack stared blankly ahead.

“Uh, I appreciate you helping me out as best you can.” She turned to look at him. “But none of what you’re saying is making any sense to me whatsoever.”

Marble facehooved.

“It’s… It’s really pretty simple, I think? You take the natural vibration inside your body created from your heart and you use it to destroy stuff.” He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “What’s not to get?”

Applejack just groaned in frustration. He was acting like this was as simple as pie or something, like a foal should have no problem getting it.

“Look, I get what you’re saying, sort of. But how do I do that?” Applejack tried pleading with him.

Marble was about to respond when Obsidian cut him off.

“Oh forget it. Look, Applejack, I’ll tell you.” She pushed Marble out of her way and walked side by side with Applejack. “Remember how earlier you focused on trying to feel the sand worm from below? Do that again, focus on your heartbeat. Block out everything else and just feel your heartbeat through your body.”

“You should stop walking for a second too.” Quartz chimed in from behind them, with Bedrock further back picking up the rear.

Applejack frowned but did as she was told. Stopping for a second she closed her eyes and flattened her ears to block out any outside sounds. The others also stopped walking to not send any foreign vibrations through her.

Her heart was just beating like normal, she never really paid much attention to such a thing in the first place, she couldn’t even really hear it or anything even with no other noise around her. Her brow wrinkled as she tried to focus harder on just being able to feel it, just being able to feel one single beat or motion.

*Thump

Applejack’s eyes shot open, it was just for an instant but she definitely felt it. However as soon as her concentration faltered she lost it again, she didn’t know how she would carry and amplify it or whatever like Marble said.

“I did, I mean, I don’t think I got it all but I felt my heartbeat. Uh, I kind of lost my concentration and didn’t feel it all the way through my body though. It was just for a second.” She told them.

Obsidian just smiled. “That’s fine, you did well.” And then her eyes drifted upwards and she started rubbing the back of her head, like she was embarrassed about something. “To be honest… there’s a much faster way to do this, we just kind of wanted to see if you’d be able to do it the hard way because you’ve shown so much natural talent for it. Ehehe...”

“Sorry.” Quartz said as he walked up beside her, shrugging.

Applejack narrowed her eyes at them, not really angry but just a little annoyed. “Okay you, so what’s the easy way then?”

“Instead of just standing still and trying to feel your heartbeat simply bring a hoof to your barrel and feel it that way.” Quartz told her. “Then you can just focus on the beating and the vibration, feel it as it goes up your leg and hold on to it. Follow it throughout your body.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “I’m getting a little tired of this.” She said to him but still brought her hoof right to where her heart was. Now she could feel it beating under her skin without any effort.

She stood there for a little while, just getting used to the feeling of her heart beating against her hoof and the small vibrations being sent. She thought one of the others might have been speaking to her but she tuned them out, focusing on the path of the vibration as it started from the heart beat, following it as it went through her whole body but getting weaker the farther it traveled. Finally it ended in her extremities, turning into nothingness.

A wave, Pinkie Pie jumping into the lake and the waves starting big but getting smaller and weaker… Applejack visualized it, now she could try to grasp it.

“I think you’ve done good.” Quartz said suddenly as he removed her hoof from her barrel, snapping her out of the exercise. “Sorry for interrupting but I know you want to get to the Twin Towns soon. I figured if we just let you do that all day you’d be mad at us later. We can get back to walking and teach you more when we’ve settled down.”

“Uh, yeah, thanks...” Applejack said, uncertain of what just happened. It wasn’t like her to get lost in thought like that. Maybe it was the effect of discovering a whole new thing, something that was always inside her but she never realized it.

Applejack didn’t think about much as they got closer and closer to the buildings she had seen from afar but as they got practically to their doorsteps she noticed some other things. The buildings were built at the edge of a large river, it must’ve been the one Sturdy Wheel mentioned, one of them looked like a hotel and the others just some small shops. They certainly weren’t houses. She also saw a large bridge behind them that rose high up in an arc over the river, at least that made things simple.

“Guess we’re almost there.” Marble decided to state the obvious.

The others just nodded, Applejack spied a pony sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a clumsily put together wooden shop. She could’ve built a better store in her sleep. A dirt pathway lined with watermelon sized stones appeared before them at the edge of the buildings, leading between them and probably to the bridge Applejack figured. As they walked past the store Applejack felt it was only polite to say hello.

“Howdy, the Twin Towns right beyond here?” She asked.

The pony, an older stallion, dirt brown in color, raised an eyebrow at her. “Just so. Not sure why you want to go to either of them.”

“Honestly I’m just passing through on my way home, anything wrong with the Twin Towns?” Applejack hoped it wasn’t as bad as she feared.

“I came from the mountain town along with some others years ago to build this little outpost on the other side of the river, the few of us out here have been staying out of their business. Bunch of fools. Thanks to the dam no one goes anywhere anymore and we don’t get any traders from other towns. They’re just all sitting on their two sides seething at each other.” He shook his head. “I’d make any trip over the river quick if I were you.”

“Uh, thanks for the advice.” She frowned and turned back to Quartz and the others, who looked similarly unenthused. Sighing, “Nothing we can do about it, it’s still the best bet for directions around here aint it?”

Quartz nodded. “Any other towns or villages are quite far away. If anything the Twin Towns will make a good rest stop for a day.”

Wordlessly they all continued down the path, finally getting to the bridge. And Applejack realized just how much things must’ve changed around here recently.

The river was a shadow of its former self, what was once obviously a large raging river was now reduced to a stream far below the old riverbank. It was practically no different from the stream that flowed through Ponyville. If this is what the dam had done then it’s no wonder there was bad blood between the towns, the mountain ponies could take whatever water they wanted while the valley ponies wouldn’t have had near enough for all their farms anymore. It was like if the weather ponies only came by Sweet Apple Acres half as much.

The bridge also was a bit unusual, it was built right where a distributary broke off from the main trunk of the river on the other side, heading northeast at a wide angle. The bridge arced up and over the river until about the halfway point, upon which it split in two, giving it a Y shape. One branch of the bridge went to the west side of the distributary and the other to the east.

Applejack and her companions walked up the bridge until they reached the middle. A sign sat right at the middle of the bridge in-between the branching paths. On it was painted “MOUNTAIN TOWN” with an arrow pointing to the left under it and then “VALLEY TOWN” with an arrow pointing to the right under it.

“Where should we go?” Obsidian asked everyone.

Each town was as likely to have the same knowledge of Ponyville as the other Applejack figured. She couldn’t think of any solid reason to choose one over the other. But she certainly had a personal reason for wanting to go to one side in particular.

“Let’s go to Valley Town.” She told them. “I heard they’ve got all the farms and orchards, I want to see if they’ve got apples.”

Applejack really wanted an apple.

The four disciples just shrugged, not having a problem with it, and they followed her as she walked down the east branch of the bridge to Valley Town.

Comments

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Poor AJ still wants an apple, hah.

[RoboRed]

After coming from reading about Rainbow's adventures for about a month and a half it's interesting to see another solo adventure from someone like Applejack and juxtapose the two. Definitely different goals/drives for the trips here. AJ's more thought-forward than Rainbow and different in combat. Wonder how she'll grow over the story. I'm looking forward to learning more about this "Hoof of the Earth" style.

Also places not hearing of apples and AJ longing just to have one again is totally gonna be a recurring theme.