Alzate Sordini
She didn't want to think any more.
It might have been possible to follow Elstar, even potentially beat him to the train station through taking paths he didn't know, especially since he had to lead Akane all the way and -- make sure nothing happened -- but it would be hard to find any degree of privacy for the resulting group discussion, he would show up eventually, and he would be accompanied by semi-mobile set dressing for the staging of his lie. Applejack didn't know what she could say in the face of that, Granny was already working on the next scroll, and --
-- she was tired. She didn't know if she was capable of staggering across the hours until Sun was lowered, let alone make it to Ponyville. She couldn't chase, she didn't want to think, and the best way to stop thinking was through work.
Ah forced those roots to grow too fast.
(He had been talking about roots. About splitting. Breaking them away from the family.)
That could hurt the trees, long-term.
(Maybe she deserved to be hurt.)
Ah should check 'em.
So she left the house, almost choked on moisture-saturated air. Started to head left --
"-- I just saw 'em go."
Her head slowly turned, and weary eyes focused on the big body which was blocking so much of the barn doors. A huge right hind hoof carefully nudged the opening shut behind him.
"I didn't try to talk to them," her brother added. "There... didn't seem to be much point."
The big head dipped, and the yoke shifted forward accordingly. He'd donned it too quickly, it wasn't seated well, and so it put extra pressure against his head.
"If I hadn't sent the letters..." he half-whispered.
"If Ah hadn't gone for the fosse," Applejack quietly countered.
He looked up at that, just a little. Enough for matching hues to make direct contact -- but only their eyes. They were about eight body lengths apart, and neither had moved towards the other.
"'And no one would have suffered had they not been born'," her not-so-dumb brother replied.
The drizzle was slowing down again.
"Sounds like a quote."
"It is," Mac sighed. "One of my textbooks. The one I can never get you to even glance at."
"The one from that Solomon Short fellow?"
"He's a great philosopher," her brother stated. "He just doesn't get a lot of study in Equestria. Griffon perspective is -- different. Not wrong all the time, but... it takes a while to get your head around it."
"It ain't a bad line," Applejack allowed.
"It ain't," Macintosh agreed. He straightened up to his full height. "Where's your hat?"
"Inside. Ah..." and indulged in a sigh of her own. "...jus' forgot t' take it back from Apple Bloom. Too much else goin' on. Mac --"
"-- we both said a lot," her sibling gently cut in. "We both did a lot. And... I had a lot of time t' think about all of it, AJ. Chains do that. All I could do was think. About how long some of it's been building up because it's hard, living together as adults. There's things we don't say, because we love each other --"
Y'still love me?
The rise of the question didn't surprise her. The fact that her inner voice had sounded like that of a filly did.
"-- and we want to keep it that way," he continued, just before heaving a huge sigh. "It's the same way in every family, I think. Nopony's better at hurting you than blood, and sometimes -- maybe nopony has more right."
"We know each other too well." She couldn't make her hooves approach. He was there, he was talking to her, and... it was as if any movement she made might spook him. Drive somepony else away, a pony whom her deepest fears had told her was already lost.
"Or we think we do."
Her head tilted slightly to the right, and her unbound tail twitched.
"Really?" It was a word which could be said, if not necessarily in safety.
"I never thought you'd go for a pegasus," he reminded her. "And... it goes the other way. AJ..." The big barrel slowly shifted with breath. "...I don't know everything about you. But there's times when I know enough. When I finally thought about it, I knew you were going to open a fosse, because that's who you are. But I didn't know if you would win, not against Elstar or Akane, and it was probably going to be one of them because they would have been the first in and -- they make it easy to think of fighting, but they're also the ones who would want to fight. I didn't know if you would win, or what kind of terms you would invoke..."
The red brow furrowed with thought.
"...actually," he finally asked, "what did you ask for? It had to include the right to go out with him, but if you pushed past that..."
'cause he wasn't there when we sealed the results neither. "Ah had t' cover everypony. Can't be sure where AB's gonna end up lookin'." A little more slowly, "An' that's started, by the way. She's lookin' an' she ain't happy 'bout where. So we'll have t' gallop that down. Anyway, Ah invoked for family. That any one of us could look for love from anypony we chose --"
She almost missed it, in the midst of her recital, for all of the Bearers reflected each other to some degree and Applejack had a certain fondness for her own lectures. But she saw his eyes starting to go wide, heard the sudden intake of breath, spotted fur beginning to stand up all over the big body --
"-- and nopony could say different. Even got the next generations in." She shrugged. "Comes t' that, Ah even covered you. So why d'you look so funny --"
He charged.
She didn't dodge. She couldn't, not when she had seen the look on his face, an expression which made her think that a dam had just cracked and years of stored water were cascading forth, there was a flood and it was a flood of pain and it didn't matter because the crack meant the agony was draining away and
he was nuzzling her. The nuzzle meant for family, with those matching eyes squeezed shut and the big barrel heaving with sobs.
"...Mac?"
"Me," he just barely managed to whisper. "You covered me..."
"You're -- you're mah family, you're still mah -- Mac, what's wrong?" Not without a faint (and mostly failed) attempt at humor, "Y'got a little unicorn on the side Ah should know 'bout?"
The first response was halfway between laugh and choke. The verbal emerged as "Ah thought Ah could put this off a little longer... oh, AJ, y'brilliant idiot..."
Wait. "Mac, before this turns into another fight -- 'specially since Ah ain't sure if the last one's over --"
He didn't break contact.
"-- there's something I have to tell you."
"Really."
"Yeah," and his voice thickened with accent and emotion. "Ah... should've told you a long time ago. An' Ah wanted t' wait a little longer, 'cause there's somethin' else we've gotta deal with before we can really try t' talk for too long -- but it's gotta be now."
"Really." She managed to toss off the smallest dubious shrug. "What?"
"...stallions."
He'd backed away by half a body length or so. It gave them enough space for the dark bemusement to fill all of it.
"Do you remember when Twilight was so busy telling you about that one scroll, she didn't watch where she was trotting and she walked right into the cider press? You look just like she did just before her snout poked into the barrel --"
"...stallions," Applejack just barely managed to repeat.
"Eyup."
And from the depths of the pit which had been created by a world freshly overturned, with a million implications in play and no strength left for chasing any of them down, "What's that like?"
The big head tilted slightly to the right.
"AJ?"
"...what?"
"There's a thousand things you probably could have asked just then," Macintosh considered. "Ah'm pretty sure that was the dumbest."
"...oh."
"A full-grown mare, who's never done more with other mares than some fairly aggressive cuddling, wants to know what being attracted to stallions is like," her dumb brother dryly observed. "Ah stand by the 'idiot' part from before. I'm not too sure about the 'brilliant' now."
Her jaw worked a few times. Stupidity failed to tumble out.
"Mac?"
"I'm really hoping this one's better."
"Ah'm -- kinda dealin' with a lot right now." Understatement didn't qualify as a lie. "An' y'said there was somethin' else we had t' deal with. So Ah'd like t' get that out of the way. We'll talk 'bout this later --" if Ah can ever find the words "-- but Ah need t' know the rest of it."
"So do I," he softly said, and the big body began to turn. "Because I heard the end of that duel."
"Well, yeah," Applejack acknowledged. "Figured you caught at least part of it on the gallop in. Listenin' ahead, right?"
"I had to," he admitted as powerful legs took a step towards the barn. "I thought you'd probably use the same part of the Acres again, so I was hoping I knew where to go. But I didn't know if I was going to be in time, or -- what I was going to be in time for. I was hoping there was still a chance to talk you out of it, or to just --" he took a deep breath "-- talk. AJ, maybe I can't say exactly what I was thinking, because I wasn't doing too much of it. I knew my sister might be in trouble and I had to reach her. But I was listening as I galloped, it gave me the direction, then I started to overhear some of the chords and --"
He paused, just in front of the doors.
"-- you were focused on Elstar, right? The only thing you were really listening to was him."
"Ah had t' try an' hear what he was up to," Applejack admitted, slimmer legs automatically beginning to follow.
"And I think Rocksteady was just about the same way," her sibling considered. "Listening to you two, and pretty much nothing else. He was checking for interference on the side, because that's part of an Advocate's job --" more darkly, and not without sorrow "-- but who ever does that, right?" The big body shuddered. "And I realized... he's never heard me working, has he? We've never sung together, I haven't done anything in front of him -- he doesn't know my notes, and he's never tried to pick me out of the orchestra. There's been no need. So when Akane's tool was debated all the way into silence -- he decided it had to have been me. And you weren't listening around, AB can't hear clearly yet -- but I saw Granny react when Rocksteady gave me the credit. She knew something was wrong."
"Hold up a minute," a thoroughly-confused sibling protested. "That wasn't you? Nopony else it could've been unless -- did Apple Bloom start singing right there?" Which instantly brought her to a near-toxic mix of pride and exasperation. "Ah made her swear on Mommy an' Daddy that she wouldn't try, but Ah guess when she saw Ah was in trouble --"
"-- Granny knew something was wrong," Macintosh softly said. "I don't think she could ever imagine just how wrong. But she knew something happened, AJ."
He pushed the right-side door open. Went inside, with Applejack trailing close behind, heading for the feed storage area. Stepped as lightly as he could (and Applejack automatically matched that pace), moving between two haystacks as he followed what felt like an oddly smooth wide trail in the dust of the floor, automatically ducked as he passed a window, approached a grain-sheltered corner...
"She knows," he whispered as he stepped aside, moving just enough to give her sister an unobstructed view, "that I don't sound like a dented tuba with half its valves pulled out. So tell me why he does."
There were a thousand thoughts she could have had then, and just about all of them arose at once. Fear fought for space with panic, wrestled its way past a surge of terror before drowning within a burst of desperation, everything was fighting with everything else and while the big concepts were battling to a standstill, a single (and arguably stupid) observation made a dive for the front.
So that's what he looks like when he's sleeping.
Or rather, it represented a singular subset of that state: she doubted that level of tension was always present in the rough-hewn features. Asleep, but not resting: muscles briefly tensed as she watched him, golden hooves made poking motions without ever fully shifting into kicks.
There was a blanket under his body: rumpled edges showed where he'd shifted the draping portions off his broad back. His earring moved in rough concert with every twitch, and the brush-cut mane was still damp from humidity and exertion. Eyelids shifted as the nightscape steadily extracted its toll.
She could watch. (Part of her wanted to keep watching.) But she couldn't speak.
"Ah thought I heard something, at the end of the fight," Macintosh softly told her. "Maybe because I was at the center when things went strange. But Ah didn't think too much about it after, because Ah was drunk. Drunk enough to think the wrong things, so... why not drunk enough to start hearing things too? But I wasn't drunk when I was trying to reach you, AJ. He carried me to the border, because I needed some extra speed, and I told him to stay back -- but he didn't listen, did he? He followed me in. I found him a few dozen body lengths away from the fosse. Unconscious. Too far away to see what everypony was doing, not close enough to break the Secret through seeing the duel, more than close enough to set off the alarms and somehow he didn't manage to do that -- but he was also close enough to shout. And I heard something, because I was listening to everything. I heard the only other pony who was there."
Sun an' Moon, what do Ah tell him, what can anypony
Her tail was twitching. The rope loop was beginning to slip free from her mane.
"I didn't stop Akane, AJ," her brother whispered. "He did. And you weren't yourself for days after you came home, and then you asked him out. Him. So I kind of want to know what's going on. 'cause Ah'm lookin' at somepony Ah had t' drag here, keepin' him away from everypony else, an' that meant goin' for my yoke so Ah'd have something Ah could hitch the blanket's ties to. He never woke up." He took a deep breath. "Ah'm lookin' at a trotting, flying breach of the Secret, something which shouldn't exist, somepony who can't exist, an' Ah ain't sure 'zactly what t' do 'bout that. Not with somepony who saved you, an' not when Ah don't know what's happenin', what's wrong with the world..."
Ah... Ah can't...
"So if you know something," he finished, "tell me." Paused. "And I'm really hoping the next words out of your mouth aren't 'It's classified'."
...this is what happens.
The Princess said we couldn't keep the hybrids a secret for much longer. That it was a wonder it got this far.
This is how the world changes.
She swallowed.
"He's gonna wake up," Applejack quietly said.
"Not for a while," her brother whispered. "I know what it looks like when somepony's pushed themselves too hard. Y'gave me a whole harvest worth of views once --"
"-- or we could wake him up if we talk too much around him," she added. "But we might want t' be in the barn when he does wake up, 'cause he'll have a few questions of his own. Starting with why he's in a barn." She sighed. "Come over t' the opposite corner with me, Mac. Over by where Apple Bloom's workshop is gonna be. An'..."
Secrets break everything.
But that didn't mean the truth would heal.
"...no matter what y'hear... try to stay quiet." She was entitled to a sigh. "You're gonna want t' shout, Ah think. Or worse. It's gonna hurt. But -- Ah'll tell you what Ah can."
He slowly nodded, because he knew she would be honest with him. He followed her.
It took less than five minutes before she had to jam a foreleg against his mouth.
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Sometimes getting the answers you're looking for means hearing things you'd never want to know, I suppose.
Aw, I was hoping his powers would be weirder.
Whooo! Revelations!
...
Too obvious that she's shutting him up for yelling. Betting it's some other reason.
Or I'm thinking too twisty. Funny either way!
Lol if she just delayed the "It's classified" by about 5 minutes.
Really gonna laugh if Pinkie just pops in or something.
Wow just wow. Now Big Mac knows about the hybrids. Either that or that Applejack broke the secret.
Mutes out. Time to talk.
Heh. Not in this timeline.
Truth may not mend everything. Love does a lot more. But that's still not going to do too much when the bedrock of Mac's understanding of the world explodes. This is going to be very interesting...
9905977
Honestly Elstar will have his hooves full for a bit. Right now he has a broken daughter to care for. And the question I wonder will he attempt to use her to strike at Applejack? Will he use other family members that agree with him to try to take Applebloom away?
Well arent all the secrets getting out now? Applejack gonna put a ad in the classifieds next?
Damnit, Estee! Every chapter only makes me want the next one more! At least we're past the fosse, itself, and the immediate aftermath, so the cliff we're hanging from isn't too tall. But I still can't wait to see Mac's reaction to the mission's effects, and Snowflake's to what just happened.
"She knows," he whispered as he stepped aside, moving just enough to give her sister an obstructed view, "that I don't sound like a dented tuba with half its valves pulled out. So tell me why he does."
Somebody's gonna get some singing lessons out of this at least.
9906020
As my father used to say “Don’t ask questions if you don’t want answers”
(Not a nice person, my late father, even when sober)
As I said before “given gender ratios, homosexuality may be legal in EQ, but I’d bet that a fair number of mares HIGHLY disapprove on the grounds of ‘getting a stallion is hard enough already, that’s unfair competition’ “
This story is going places and the Secrets are coming out.
Yes, I capitalised Secrets.
It won't be long...
Current Mood: furiously speculating on Mac's romantic trajectory.
Excellent writing, as usual. :)
and now mac learns what happened during "triptych". bet that shout AJ is covering is one of horrified rage.
Family is everything for the apples, mac included, so a story focusing on a fathers abuse and mutilation of his daughter simply because she was an earth pony is going to stomp on some buttons pretty hard. i doubt Mr. Gentle would enjoy encountering Mac after this.
and the Secret continues to bend and leak. I doubt it's going to hold much longer at this rate.
Ruh-roh. Learning about the hybrids is going to mess with his head.
So many chapters! You just made my day😍
Hearing about what happened during Tryptich must be hard for Mac, it touches a lot of sensitive spots for an apple family member. Family abuse and earth pony prejudice... no wonder AJ has to silence him so quickly.
And now we know Snowflake's instrument! Nice. Now I'm hoping for "Granny will teach him" to become true extra extra hard.
Also really glad that the revelation of what exactly AJ asked for in the fosse came out and helped her and Mac patch things up a little. It's good to see them make up and work together again. Apple family fighting is... weird. Since they're usually sticking together so closely.
I feel like I say this at the end of every chapter, but I already can't wait for the next one!
Of course he does, he's your brother but there's no reason he can't hate you at the same time.
That fosse stuff was awesome and way better than what the show gives to earth ponies - I bet most commenters of Triptych stories already point that out though ;)
I'm having a blast coming back to read more and more as this story unfolds- the insane amount of emotional pressure Applejack has... She has, like, double Secrets right now; reminds me of how in chess it's possible to get caught by "double check" but still not checkmated - well mostly only the "double" part anyway. I'm kinda less nervous for Snowflake's situation though, 'cuz I know that at the very least his side job as masseuse will come up and be such the perfect thing in the end :D urgh why's he got to be still so down and out? Get back up on your hooves you doof! >:O
9906098
How much you wanna bet Granny Smith just shrugs and goes, "Bah, I seen weirder things than that growin' in the back forty!" when she gets told officially?
9906918
Don't know if she's encountered something quite that weird, but I'm she's encountered a lot in her day.
"You think zap apples was all I found in th' Everfree? You ever wanna join your li'l friend Twilight in th' princess club, Jackie, lemme know. I know one recipe with poison joke that'll put wings on durn near anything."
“Well now Mac, all ah can say is that our lives depended on it. Not jus’ our lives neither. The way ah figure, the fate o’ the whole damn world depended on me telling the gang about the secret.”
“You damn fool! Ya went an’ told two unicorns and two pegasi the secret?”
“Two pegasi, one unicorn, one dragon, and one alicorn. Who ah’ve gotta give singing lessons to, right here on The Acres.”
“A.J.!”
“Shush. You’ll wake him. If what ya’ said earlier is true, ah might be teachin’ him too.”
9907127
"And strictly speakin', it was only one pegasus."
"What."
"Ah'm gonna have to give Fluttershy lessons too."
I'm glad big mac made up with aj. It was hard to read about the Apples fighting so seriously to the point where you could have thought they couldn't reconcile. It says something about how well estee laid the stakes out that reading in the moment had you totally immersed in the role of the characters. I can't wait to see what happens next.
9907269
Now I wonder what kind of instrument Fluttershy sounds like. Since she and Snowflake got the essence of siblings, maybe also a wind instrument.
9907127
9907269
I think I worked this out correctly before:
AJ - Earth Pony
Dash - Pegasus
Rarity - Unicorn
Pinkie Pie - Earth Pony/Unicorn
Fluttershy - Pegasus/Earth Pony
Which makes Twilight - 1.5 parts Pegasus, 2 parts Earth Pony (From 3 different ponies), and 2.5 parts Unicorn (again from 3 different ponies).
It makes me curious if Twilight’s voice is only an echo of Applejacks, or if there are any subtle strains of Pinkie and Fluttershy’s would-be voices in there.
9907985
I don't think it's as simple as them being 50/50. Especially with the extra chaos pumped into Pinkie.
9906956
At least none of the Crusaders ever got their hands on those Poison Joke/Zap Apple combo energy drinks.
Kudos for not shying away from the immense psychological damage being muted by the world causes earth ponies. It might all end with sunshine and rainbows for the main cast but there’s likely one in this story that ends up at the end of a rope, and not the one her father is dragging her home by.
Unicorn on the side... that’s funny.
Five chapters of Duet this month, only three that count for Patreon though. Nearly done and then on to the real sequel. I’m looking forward to Glimmer.
So... alright, if Elstar had won the Fosse, he would have used it as an excuse to:
There's no version of this that isn't LITERAL slavery.
To justify his crimes he'd make Applejack legally sign the adoption papers, thereby using Equestiran Law to do get away with it, under threat of either excommunicating the Malus Family from Earth Pony Society, or if the stories are to be believed, possibly even forming a Lynch Mob to kill them.
Instead, he's openly stated that having lost the Fosse he intends to still attempt to turn Earth Ponies everywhere against the Malus Family, in direct violation of their prior agreement. He's blaming the Malus Family for the fact that his daughter cheated for him by proxy in the Fosse. And, of course, Akane is literally guilty of attempted murder at this point, and would probably have succeeded if not for Snowflake.
But what I'm thinking most, right now? It's that even if Celestia and Luna weren't Alicorns with access to the magic of all three pony tribes for the past couple of thousand years, they were still born as Earth Ponies. Which means there is zero chance whatsoever that they aren't fully aware of the existence of The Secret. And they've probably only tolerated it for as long as they have because they want to respect the Earth Pony's right to protect their own culture.
I wonder, if they found out about today's events at Sweet Apple Acres, how they'd react?
9908049
I doubt it’s that simple either, but it’s worth noting which tribes are represented from which ponies in Twilight’s make-up. Or maybe it’s not, but I found it fun to reflect upon anyway.
9908883
Discord thought it was worth noting.
Which also gives us the tiniest clue about Cadance. I don't know if we're ever going to get a straight answer about what happened with her.
9908572
That's what he would have wanted to do, yes.
I expect that the likely results of his course of action would include becoming intimately familiar with the nearest hospital waiting room; having every single insurance premium he pays septupled; gaining a thorough education in building escape-proof rooms that would stand him in good stead if he ever needs to build a prison (every time he tries to lock Applebloom in her room); and likely discovering that it's possible to literally blow up a farmhouse with nothing more than a sack of flour and a candle.
And that would be the first week. At some point in the second week, the cannons would arrive...
9909215
I mean, at the risk of this conversation getting Super Goddamn Dark... Elstar is in no way prepared for what Apple Bloom would bring to the table, you're right. But I'm pretty sure I know how he'd have reacted to Apple Bloom attempting shenanigans, and the answers aren't exactly comedic. Something about how Elstar acts suggests to me that he might be more willing to engage in... physical discipline of a misbehaving foal. Especially a (former) Malus. Apple Bloom's tough, but she's not ready for that.
Thankfully it's not going to come to that now! But I still think that if the Princesses ever find out about what he intended... well, it'll be a question of which Royal Sister ends up trying to hold the other one back, won't it?
9909348
The 'suggestion' that Elstar is willing to beat children came at the end of the previous chapter. It was the part where he was about to beat Apple Bloom and Granny threatened to kill him for it.
If that's super dark, then all I have to say is: welcome to the Triptych Continuum, here's your helmet. There's a lot of child abuse lurking in these stories.
9906140
9908572
Exactly! No matter what he does (or tries to do), what lie he tries to spin, there's always going to be a way to unravel it because:
A) Child abuse is a bit fat NO and the Princesses will be first to agree.
B) AJ happens to know a Princess personally, who in turn has access to the other Princesses.
C) The Advocate dude, as AB herself said, told the other family members who also came what happened, EVERYTHING that happened (minus Snowflake), and has the scrolls to back it up.
D) Elstar made an agreement with the Land to let his claim drop if he lost to AJ, which he did.
Ergo, Elstar has NO LEGAL LEG TO STAND ON. I don't know what he was thinking making the claim that he'd lie to get revenge, because everything is stacked in AJ's favor. Even the knowledge that she's dating a Pegasus is now a flimsy excuse, because the Land has judged and to against that judgment is likely tantamount to sacrilege among Earth Ponies. Adding to the fact that he's a very, very, VERY bad pony on top of all that and he's gonna lose before he even gets started.
………………...at least, I hope that he does
I really don't want anything bad to happen to AJ and her family: they just got back together 
9909599
Something interesting to think of. Whst happens if he goes against his actual word openly? Will the land even a distance from the farm actually retaliate or does justice come at the hoofs of other Earth Ponys? And something else. Did Celestia and Luna feel that fight? Did they feel the agreement and the punishment? How sensitive are they?
9909215
I don't know if you were just joking about blowing up the farmhouse, or if you realize it is possible. It might take more than one bag, and a fan could certainly help, but few things burn better or faster than flour--or confectioner sugar, dust, or any other fine particulate. The fire spreads between the particles so quickly, it's the next best thing to an actual explosion. And if they get spread into the air, like with the aforementioned fan, then any difference left would probably be pretty much academic. The flammability issue is actually mentioned in the next chapter, in fact.
9910320
If you used multiple fans set to keep the flour airborne and the bulk size flour bags used at mills I'd think there would be enough to cause a considerable explosion. After all, it's not how much you start with, it's how much is in the air within a given amount of space. I can remember doing a science experiment out in the yard with a bicycle pump, a little bit of flour, and an ignition source. A little bit of flour makes a big flame.
9907985
Well, Pinkie is mute so make that "The way Pinkie's voice would be if she hadn't been muted."