Applejack Gets Lost

by MagicS

Heart of Fire II

“Huh, well now aint this something nice?”

The first town Applejack had come across in her walk through the beautiful valley was a pretty marvelous looking place. It was almost less like a town and more like two gigantic buildings, separated by a river running right down the center of the village. The ponies who lived here had constructed two buildings that faced one another and were connected by dozens upon dozens of bridges and tunnels. Some of them came out right at ground level above the river while others were suspended in air. The buildings themselves were massive, Applejack had no doubt that if you turned the biggest skyscraper from Manehattan on its side it wouldn’t be as long as these. They looked haphazardly designed, as if somepony first built a smaller building and then just kept adding on to it, putting more and more above it and beside it with no forward planning or any idea that they were going to do this in the first place. She saw some parts of the building were made from brick and stone, others concrete, or metal or even just wood. It was a true mishmash. Chimneys, smokestacks and plaza’s dotted the roofs of the building. Because of how uneven it all was there were shops and public markets on the top level right next to things like chimneys and air vents and even some housing units that came out halfway.

It was chaotic but it had character, Applejack liked that. She also had no doubt that inside the two huge structures was complete mayhem, it must be a labyrinth of corridors, alleyways, offices, apartments and who knows what other independent construction in there. At the moment she was standing in the middle of one of the raised bridges above the river. From what she could tell the building was about five standard stories tall. But anything standard meant nothing in two buildings like this, who knew just how many different levels and areas there were. It was doubtful even most of the ponies here knew it all.

Speaking of the ponies they seemed to be quite the industrious folk. The bridges and walkways were bustling with busy ponies, all of them walking with purpose and focus, a lot of them were wearing business suits or some other kind of uniform. This “town” had a lot going on for itself right now. Applejack just hoped she’d be able to find a place to rest for a second or maybe get some extra food, but she didn’t have any money or even anything to trade really if it came down to it.

She walked over to the building on the east side of the river and took some stairs up to the top level. The market on the roof seemed like the best place to start, Applejack had no idea if there was even a hotel or place to rest around here but there was definitely food. Most of the ponies she walked past paid her no mind at all even though she obviously wasn’t from around here and was pretty messy looking. When she got to the market she lifted her nose in the air and tried to see if she could smell any apples.

No such luck.

She did see some stands selling carrots and potatoes among other things, that seemed like as good a place to start as any. Maybe she could trade a pear for some.

Applejack walked up to the frizzy orange-maned mare selling vegetables. “Scuse me ma'am, I was wondering if I could maybe have some carrots? Problem is I don’t really have any money, anything you might be willing to trade for or anything?”

The mare eyed her with a suspicious look, Applejack’s appearance probably made her look like some kind of urchin or vagrant. “Well I wouldn’t be against it.” She said a bit uneasily. “But what do you have to trade? Sorry if I’m being rude but you seem a bit… destitute.”

Applejack smiled and chuckled a bit. “No offense taken, I know how bad I look right now. Kind of wish I could find a spa or something too. But uh, anyways, I don’t have much on me but I was wondering if you’d like a pear for some carrots?” Applejack reached into her bag and pulled out one of her remaining pears.

The mare’s eyebrows instantly shot up and her mouth opened with a gasp. “A pear! My word, wherever did you get those?”

Applejack tilted her head, pretty surprised by the reaction. “I won em in a race. Why? Are pears not common around here?”

“They’re a delicacy here. If you want you can have all my carrots just for the pear, please!” The mare grabbed a big bucket of carrots and placed it on her table in front of Applejack.

Applejack looked at the bucket and the pear in her hoof. She thought about the three other pears she still had in her saddlebag. “Huh. Aint that something. Would you mind also telling me where I could find a nice bath?”

---

Now unlike the last time she was at a spa Applejack really let her enjoy herself this time. With a delighted sigh she slipped down to her neck in the hot, bubbly water. She had taken a quick shower right before to get all the grime and dirt out of her mane and coat and now it was time to relax. All the kinks and soreness in her muscles were just evaporating away. She had a massage scheduled for later and then a visit to the mane stylist so she could finally fix her frazzled look. Already she had bought some new hairbands for her mane and tail after they got done up. Yep, she was really enjoying herself in this town.

And she didn’t even need a map to navigate through the buildings.

That’ll show Big Mac. I’ll tell him all about this place when I get home.

Applejack took a quick dip into the water, letting the warmth wash over her face. With a “pop” she came back out, taking a deep breath and lounging on the side of the large tub she was in. Those pears were enough to give her a hotel suite, more than enough food, and a trip to the best spa around and still left her with some leftover local money. She figured she might as well spend it all since it’d be useless once she left town. As she learned from others the place was entirely self-sufficient and they never had much contact with outsiders or other towns.

Spending a good half hour just soaking there Applejack finally felt relaxed enough to get out. As the water dripped off her she couldn’t help but smile at how sparkly clean she was, her coat looked even better than it felt. It would take a more dedicated process to get her mane and tail just right but even they looked a lot better than they normally did.

“Even Rarity would be jealous of how I look right now.” Applejack snickered at the thought.

Applejack took a big stretch and toweled herself off before heading to the massage wing of the luxurious spa. Her masseuse, a light-purple mare by the name of Lilac Touch, was waiting for her.

“Miss Applejack, it is my pleasure to help you today.” She bowed, fake eyelashes flittering, and motioned to the massage table.

“Eheh, thank you.” Applejack rubbed the back of her neck, the extra-polite mare just making her a bit uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to ponies bowing for her, it was kind of awkward.

Still she hopped up onto the table and lay down just the same. A massage was a massage. She closed her eyes and let Lilac Touch get to work. Maybe she could even take a bit of a nap while it was going on. Or she could go over the various ways she was gonna have to refuse the mane stylist from doing something fancy. Just had to remember all the ways she would reject Rarity’s offers.

As Lilac Touch got to work Applejack groaned in contentment. The spa had already done a lot of good for her body but now she was just turning into putty. She probably had a big satisfied smile on her face the whole time too.

Instead of just letting herself fall asleep Applejack decided to ask about something she was wondering. “So hey, Lilac, I’m gonna be staying for at least a night here, do you know if there’s any work that needs to be done around? Anything I can help out with?” Applejack didn’t want to stay long but she wanted to give something back to this place after the great reception she got, even if it was just dirtying her hooves for a day she felt she owed them that much after getting all this for just a few pears.

Lilac hummed for a second. “Hm, well if you wanted to help with something you could go see the builders at the end of our town.”

“Oh, you’re still adding on more stuff? Woo, this place is just gonna get bigger and bigger huh?”

“No no, it’s nothing like that.” Lilac shook her head. “They’re rebuilding the ends of the village after they were burnt down. It’s lucky that we were able to stop the fire from spreading along further but a lot was still lost.”

Applejack’s eyes opened, an upset frown appearing on her face. “I’m sorry to hear that, I’d heard that there were a lot of wildfires springing up around here.”

Lilac grimaced, a worried look taking over her normally inviting smile. “It wasn’t a wildfire, we were attacked.”

Applejack pushed herself up, nearly toppling over Lilac on accident. “Attacked?! By who?”

Lilac steadied herself, giving Applejack a bit of a disapproving glare, but answered her anyways. “I don’t know exactly, I wasn’t in the area. From what I heard it was a pony but they weren’t a normal pony like you or me.” Lilac swallowed, as if she was afraid of what she was about to say. “They were on fire. And they burned part of our buildings down before leaving. Our security team tried to stop her but they couldn’t do anything, they were lucky to escape with their lives from what I heard.”

“A pony on fire?” Applejack asked.

“Yep, that’s what everypony who saw her said. I heard she could even control the fire herself, she threw it at our buildings and attacked ponies with it.”

A Nirik?! Could it really be?

Applejack didn’t voice her suspicions. It was likely these ponies living here didn’t know anything about Kirin or Nirik’s at all anyways. And she didn’t want to slander any Kirin in case it didn’t have anything to do with them. But a pony on fire certainly sounded like a Nirik to her.

Applejack scratched her head, she didn’t like how this was developing one bit. And if this possible Nirik was the cause of the fire here was she also the cause of all the other fires? Is that why things felt so wrong to Applejack?

She hopped off the table, getting ready to leave the room. “Thanks for everything, Lilac. But can you tell the mane stylist that I’m canceling? I’m gonna go check some things out.”

Lilac Touch just nodded. She didn’t really get why Applejack was suddenly reacting like this but it wasn’t her place to question a customer. Springy Clippings would be upset though.

Applejack left the spa, going back up to the top level of the building so she could more quickly reach the far end of the town. Despite ditching the mane stylist she at least took the time to put her hairbands in so she was looking like her usual self again. Going through the top level was still a pain even though it was better than trying to navigate through any of the lower levels. She ended up hitting a lot of dead ends and places where she couldn’t just continue straight on but had to cross a bridge to the other building. She wanted to be mad at the lack of foresight that they didn’t include a single path that went from one end of the building to the other but with the way the place was built she knew it was impossible to avoid things ending up like this. So instead Applejack just enjoyed the sights, the ponies walking past her, the random obtuse building coming out the side of another building where it really had no place to be, a wooden office built on top of a metal clothing store. Looking at it all now as she walked by it seemed like what would happen if Pinkie Pie ever designed a city. Or Discord.

Hm, got me thinking that if Twilight ever designed a city it’d be the exact opposite of this. Starlight too. Oh, wait…

Shaking her head to clear those thoughts away, Applejack saw ahead that there was some temporary fencing and signs put up to cordon off a large part of the building. Was she at the end? She walked up to the cheap chain-link fencing and peered through it.

Oh yeah, she was at the end.

A huge portion of the building, and the building on the other side of the river, had been destroyed by fire. She saw dozens of ponies working to clear debris and knock down unstable structures. With the haphazard way things were built there were a lot of uneven parts. Some of the stone and metal parts had survived but even they were damaged and would probably have to be completely torn down and rebuilt. Applejack hoped that there weren’t any houses or living areas that had been in this part. So much had been reduced to ash, there would’ve been five stories worth of building here and it looked like it had originally stretched out another hundred feet in front of her or so. But almost all that was gone.

“Why would anypony do this?” She whispered to herself.

From what Lilac said it sounded like the pony, or Nirik, had pretty much just set fire to the buildings and left. Why?

Applejack didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She wanted to just keep going home and not get caught up in anymore adventures or weirdness. But this fire pony was dangerous, very dangerous, and she couldn’t just do nothing about this, could she? How would she feel if this pony came through Ponyville? Applejack… she had an obligation to her family, and she wanted to avoid any unnecessary problems, which is why she up and left the area as quickly as she could after defeating Night Storm. Even though she knew she left a lot of ponies hanging, her family and friends all came first. Night Storm was a big enough threat, an evil enough pony that her personal interests didn’t matter, she had to stop him cause it was just the right thing to do even though she had no investment or relationship with the ponies he was hurting. It was important enough whereas the rest wasn’t.

It’s the same thing here.

Doing the right thing out of the goodness of your heart. Applejack nodded, eyes turning hard as steel. She was going to find the pony who did this and stop them.

Comments

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Interesting.

[RoboRed]

Huh, wouldn't that be something if it was a kirin/nirik? My gut says it's not, though.

The spa had already done a lot of good for her body but now she was just turning into puddy.

"putty"