• Published 30th Jan 2019
  • 4,069 Views, 1,058 Comments

A Duet For Land And Sky - Estee



The smallest movement from the most stable tectonic plate can produce an earthquake large enough to shake the world. On a related note, Applejack just asked Snowflake out on a date.

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Fermata

Afterwards, when she found out where he'd gone, what he'd done -- it made her feel as if she was stupid, just as stupid as his being her big brother was supposed to make him. Of course he'd headed directly there, naturally that had been his first and only plan. In retrospect, it all made sense, and she would spend some time trying to figure out why she hadn't seen it from the very start.

But just then, starting to move off the Acres, with mind and soul still reeling from everything which had happened, it felt like a puzzle. And the Apple kids were good at puzzles. Winter was puzzle time: something with thousands of pieces, all three siblings searching together for colors and edge shapes which looked as if they were meant to match. Snow covering so much of the world's hues, but a riot of a deliberately-shattered palette would be spread out across the sitting room floor. Some of the biggest could take the entire season to finish, and then they would be gently painted with glue, framed, and placed into the basement. A trophy showing their group victory over a foe which had decided that pastures filled with flowers made for an imposing battleground, not to mention a good source of stress-related injury when Apple Bloom realized that every petal did in fact look exactly like every other.

But that was an opponent with defined limits, which included the edge pieces and the fact that as a last resort, there happened to be a picture on the box. A jigsaw couldn't think and for all his birth order enforced idiocy, Mac could.

Applejack looked at the path which led away from their front door, the one which would eventually merge with the road that went towards Ponyville. (It was, in many ways, the settled zone's first road.) Tried to think.

Where would he go?

She waited. Part of that was for the first realization to arrive, and the initial flash of blinding insight was taking its time about showing up. The rest came from recognizing that she was dealing with some level of mystery, and so there was a near-instinctive pause. The time required for Pinkie to pass her the hat.

Not that Pinkie was there.

(They'd finally found out where the hat, and everything else, came from. But when it came to Pinkie herself, Applejack had recently wondered if some degree of extremely short-range teleportation could be involved. Twilight had once mentioned something where the baker's image had seemed to appear in a mirror...)

Think. He stormed off. He might not get mad much, but he's as angry as he's ever been. Where does he go?

The first presumption was that he would -- go talk to a friend? Find somepony he could complain to, a willing ear listening to everything his tradition-breaking sister had declared she was going to do.

Makes sense. So who's he gonna see?

The herd assembled behind her eyes.

Then she blinked, exactly once, and it vanished.

...who's he ever seen?

Her jaw didn't drop. She'd been through too much since the mission had begun for the next realization to produce a visible reaction. But on the deepest levels...

Who's his friend?

They lived together, as adults. And for ponies, it wasn't unusual to have multiple generations in the same household. But for grown-up siblings to share a residence -- that was more uncommon. Brothers and sisters had a way of getting on each other's nerves, especially after the arrival of adulthood had all parties involved insisting that the years had finally made them right. Applejack and Mac got along, at least most of the time. The bond was

Ah thought it was

unbreakable. But the slow rasp of irritation which came from simply living together tried to do its damage. Spending their working hours at the same tasks didn't help either, and it was why the siblings frequently wound up on separate portions of the Acres. They lived together, and so each tried to give the other a gift: privacy. The times when Mac was off the Acres were his own. He could go wherever he wished, do what he wanted, and as long as none of it reflected poorly on the family, those activities were no concern of Applejack's. With Apple Bloom, with both knowing how easily the youngest's activities could turn into disaster, they'd tried to keep an eye on comings, goings, and the amount of damage which had been done to the majority of destinations -- but Mac was an adult. He could keep his own company, because it was assumed that he would seek out sane companionship and counsel.

There were nights when he left the farm. Days during which there wasn't quite so much work to do and he could spend a few private hours under Sun. And to Applejack, it had been just that: private hours. It was his time and if he wanted to tell her where he'd gone, who he'd seen, anything about what he'd been up to -- he would. She didn't, wouldn't, refused to pry.

It was jus' -- courtesy. Gotta have a little bit of our lives which are jus' ours 'cause that way, we don't fight as much. Ah didn't ask an' he didn't tell me, so Ah figured there was nothin' t' ask 'bout...

There was a slight breeze coming in from the west now, gently ruffling her mane. She wanted to pretend it was serving as a distraction, preventing her from coming up with the answer. But she couldn't, because that would have been lying to herself.

Name one pony Mac sees as a friend.

And she couldn't.

She could visualize some of his foalhood companions: a build like Mac's was suitable for a number of sports, and they'd both spent some time crashing through opposing lines on junior hoofball fields. In that sense, the youth had ponies whom he'd spent some time around: training, practices. (Post-game celebrations and group mourning sessions depended on the final score.) But had he seen any of them away from the games? He hadn't exactly brought those ponies to the Acres, because Mac had a certain shyness to him: the central factor which made an incredibly high percentage of his public voicings appear within a total vocabulary range of two. At home, with family, he opened up, was considerably more verbose -- but when he was in Ponyville, or if there were strangers about...

He's never been as bad as 'Shy. For starters, Mac could freely go into crowds: he just wouldn't really associate with anypony there. But...

There were a few years between Mac and Applejack, enough that she had either missed the majority of his earliest years or simply had no capacity for truly recalling them. But she felt as if the youngest version of him, the one which had so gently carried her back by the scruff of her neck when his infant sister had demonstrated her own capacity for sneaking off in the name of exploration... he'd been a lot more social.

He had friends. Ah'm sure of it. Ah can remember ponies laughin' at him 'cause he had t' keep herding me, ponies his own age. But he got older, an'... then it was jus' the ones he was on teams with, an' some of 'em were the same colts. But it wasn't all of 'em. An' he stopped with sports after a while, 'cause he had size without speed, and short-term bursts wore him out. Wasn't gonna get into college on an athletic scholarship. But he had his mark by then, he was studying, and once he was off the team...

Who had visited Mac on the Acres?
Who had he spent time with at school?
Who had been his friend?

...Ah don't know.

Ah had mah own life. Mah own friends. Havin' a big brother was for home. Ah gave him his privacy an' as long as he thought Ah wasn't gettin' in trouble, he did the same goin' back.

Ah see him... kind of look at other ponies in town. Not the same look he gives Snowflake. (The small nod of acknowledgement, strength recognizing strength.) Little tilts of his head, mostly. An' they look back, mostly do the same.

Are those his friends?

Could she name a single one of those ponies? Did she even truly remember what any of them looked like?

Ah've been givin' him his privacy this whole time. Ah've got the Acres t' tend. Ah had t' try an' keep AB from gettin' herself killed. And there were missions an ' --

The hardest thing was being honest with herself.

-- there were excuses.

The Crusade was jus' the last few years. Same for the missions. He was goin' off for his private time before all that started. An' he don't date, 'cause he's jus' as bad as 'Shy there. Ah know there's some mares who want him, but he don't go lookin' an' after the love poison... It was an ugly memory. ...Ah think he jus' felt humiliated. Even knowin' it was the poison actin'. Not love, but obsession. Makin' him do things he'd never do. He was movin' on hoof edge for weeks after, barely went into town at all...

She sent her mind back across the course of a lifetime, as she stood still under Sun. Because realistically, there were certain requirements to storming off the Acres at night. Mac would have been unlikely to pace the settled zone until Moon had been lowered: that meant requiring a place to sleep. But he hadn't taken his saddlebags, didn't have the funds for a hotel and couldn't have withdrawn money from a closed bank. Would he have simply found an isolated tree and curled up near its base? Or had he asked a friend for the favor of a couch, a barn, a bed...

Who are his friends?

(How well did she know him?)

He's mah brother.

(Did she really know him at all?)

There were ways in which it almost felt unfair. The mission had found ways to break all of them, had arguably broken the world by removing a near-impossible illusion and showing some portion of what had lurked underneath. But they'd gotten through it, they'd come home, and home was where things were supposed to be normal. You came home to heal. Applejack had come home, and the pieces were still falling.

But Ah did that. Ah'm the one who asked him out.

Something she never would have done before the mission.

Think. Where would he go? Who does he trust?

Sun didn't seem to be doing much to help the deductive process. The lack of hat was probably playing a part.

Maybe Ah ain't a natural detective. But Ah've read enough stories 'bout 'em, been to a few movies. Ah know how t' start. Ah've gotta track his movements. An' the first step in that is...

They'd all learned a little more about each other's magic during the mission, and that included Applejack gaining a few facts from Rainbow. She'd learned that pegasi generally couldn't track each other through the air on feel alone, not when somepony was just flying normally: the traces associated with something so basic faded quickly, could easily become lost in the overlap produced by every other pegasus in the area. And with earth ponies, the background music produced by the creation of the Cornucopia Effect was constant for each singer unless it was deliberately shut down -- but it also blended with everypony else's song. Mac's echoes saturated the Acres: an inevitable side effect from so much time spent in residency. Hearing which notes were freshest, trying to get some idea of which direction the singer had been moving -- for nearly all intents and purposes, it could be impossible.

Unless, of course, you'd spent your entire life in the presence of that voice. And then it just became virtually impossible.

Ah think Ah can make him out. It'll be easier once Ah get past the border, don't have all the background echoes t' listen past. She took a deep breath, felt her tail twitch with anticipation. Time t' move.

It started as a slow walk: so much of her was being dedicated to directing that hearing inwards, and it didn't seem to leave much for a trot. She could feel him all around her. Technically, every signature faded past recognition after a week, but this was her brother and so it seemed as if that portion of the song had always been there, the notes constant and true...

Isolate. That's Granny: always been some sharpness on her notes. Apple Bloom's still quavering a little, 'cause she don't have her full magic yet. Forget 'bout me. Try to hear him an' only him.

Her legs were carrying her forward, seemingly of their own will. Away from house and barn, nowhere near the plantings. Down the path which would soon turn into the first road. It would take her where she needed to go.

That's you, ain't it, Mac? Little bit louder there, 'cause you were mad an' as far as your magic was concerned, you were stompin'. Ah think that was you from last night. An' here you go, down the path, heading for town.

Sun's light was getting a little warmer, and she wasn't sure how long that was going to hold: given everything which had been happening, she'd completely neglected to check the weather schedule. There could be rain set for later in the day, an evening fading of heat as a reminder that autumn was on the approach -- anything. For a mare who had to work with the Bureau's decisions every day, it was an additional level of disturbance, if a rather minor one.

Yeah. Gotta be you. Up t' the gate, angry as anythin', looking down the road an' tryin' t' figure out where you're goin' next. An' then y'took another hoofstep, maybe made up your mind on the spot, an' you --

She was focused completely on that one voice within the orchestra (or chorus, but her Mommy had said orchestra and so Applejack liked that best), and so she heard the song invert.

Worse: she felt it.

Nearly all of the expanse of earth pony magic was concealed within the Secret. But it had never been everything, because the Effect had to remain public. And with that out in the open, some ponies had theorized about whether that magic could be altered. If it was possible to put the entire thing into reverse.

It was.

The tool wasn't easy to learn, and using it would always make the singer feel ill: in a very real way, they were going against themselves on the deepest level, and there was a price to pay for that. But an earth pony who mastered it could turn the Effect inside out. The result was semi-public in nature. The unicorn and pegasus scholars who'd puzzled it out had found nopony shouting down their theories, because having it known was safe: there just weren't many ponies who cared to learn or even think about it.

With the wasteland in action, an earth pony could poison soil -- but that was usually pointless: in a settled zone, you would be effectively fighting the accumulated Effect of everypony in the area. It meant staying in one place, making a constant effort, and not only would the illness be building the whole time, but your efforts would effectively be wiped out at the moment you stopped. It was more common to use the tool as desperation weedkiller, focus your efforts on the soil feeding a single unwelcome plant until it simply wilted-- but it took a talented singer to avoid damaging anything else. Earth ponies who truly mastered the wasteland effect had been known to hire themselves out for the early stages of opening a new settled zone: a simple approach towards something vegetable and hungry would see the menace ended. They also tended to be unnaturally thin, because they needed to eat three meals just to keep down enough sustenance for one.

Applejack wasn't all that good with wasteland: most of her weeding was done with her teeth. But it seemed as if Mac was a little better, because the previous night had seen him use it. It hadn't hurt the Acres to even the smallest degree, not with all the accumulated magic going the other way -- but it was enough so that somepony who was listening closely would have to hear the echo of a note which had been turned inside out.

It sent the residue of deep illness radiating through her body. It sickened her soul, and she staggered. And once her vision and inner hearing had cleared...

...you bucking jerk.

He'd set the whole thing up to disorient her, punish her for trying to follow. And at the moment after he'd done that, he'd shut down his portion of the Effect. Left her with nothing fresh to listen for at all.

Her teeth were beginning to grind.

All right, Mac. If'fin that's the way y'wanna play it, then Ah'm jus' gonna have t' do this the usual way. Ah look until Ah find you.

She started to trot down the road.

Then she thought about just how big a head start he already had, and began to gallop.


It was hard to think of Ponyville as being all that big. Yes, the settled zone was expanding: so many ponies wanted to live in the same town as the Bearers while never thinking about what that might mean, and now others apparently wished to be near the world's newest alicorn. But the population still wasn't all that high. Some of the homes had a lot of distance between them, the Riches had enough room for an estate...

...there weren't a lot of ponies, certainly not when compared to places like Canterlot and Manehattan. What Ponyville did offer was space. There was the chance to spread out, and when you were looking through the entire settled zone for one stallion, it rapidly began to feel as if all things considered, the Princess could have granted somewhat less land.

Ah need a place t' start. Somethin' more than 'Ponyville'. Ah need t' think like Mac, an' he's bein' tricky: goin' wasteland proved that. What's a stallion who thinks he's bein' smart gonna do?

And then it hit her.

...go where Ah wouldn't look. Where jus' about nopony's gonna look.

It had been night, deep enough under Moon that most ponies wouldn't risk the trip, and no amount of sibling-perceived fury would have made Mac leave the trail. But there was a trail, and the sapient who lived at the far end did what she could to maintain it. Mac might have tried for it, taken the last option as the first.

It was a fairly long trip. It would cost her at least two hours: more if something crashed through the protection. But if he was going to be tricky, then so was she.

Her tail flicked. Her snout tested the wind, tried to pick up on the distant scents of anything which might be waiting for her. And then Applejack diverted south.


"Not last night: this I attest. Not to me, for he knows best. To come at night, and come alone -- facing fright to scare a throne." Zecora slowly shook her head. "I am sorry for your quest, but he did not choose here to rest."

And that meant she'd lost the outbound hour, added to the time used for dealing with the chrystanzy. (On the plus side, it had also allowed her a healthy outlet for pent-up aggression -- well, healthy for her.) "Ah understand, Zecora. Sorry t' bother you." She began to turn away from the hut --

"-- he does come, now and again," the zebra softly said. "I'd like to consider him a friend."

The older sister glanced back.

"Ah didn't know." She was starting to wonder if she'd ever known her sibling at all.

"A student of philosophy," Zecora quietly stated. "And Pundamilia Makazi." The name of the zebra homeland -- but not the nation: Applejack had learned a little about the distant soil and so knew that for all intents and purposes, the nation didn't exist. "Our ways of thought are not your own. To ponies? Mostly an unknown. After the Seeds, once I had helped, he came to visit me. He wished to make an offer, for gratitude had he. Worried about winter, with me here in the snow. My --" and the striped mare swallowed "-- homeland is much warmer: true cold we don't know. I had assisted Apple Bloom -- and so he offered me a room."

Green eyes blinked. The orange body turned back.

"He never told me." He'd asked Zecora to stay on the Acres...

"So I could see, within your shock." And the blue eyes dipped, their brightness shadowed by the weight of the leafy canopy. "But I could not join herd or flock. But he wished to learn who we were: I told him what I would. And eventually, he asked me for --" and stopped, the striped features contorting from the effort required to send words back.

"Zecora?"

The zebra was quiet for a moment, and they both heard something large crashing through distant bushes.

"No help," the immigrant finally finished. "Not that I could. A private matter, Applejack, between he and I. If you wish to learn the rest, then ask him the why."

And then she was looking directly at Applejack.

"How bad?"

The protest was just about instantaneous. "Ah don't --"

"You're sad." Zecora sighed. "A mission sends you to fight evil, and your life is now in upheaval..."

She still didn't have a full jaw grasp on zebra magic. She was certain none of it included mind reading. "How -- how do you know --"

"The way you hold your body, the position of your tail -- I saw that once, but nearer," was the pained reply. "Because I had my folly, I found a way to fail -- and then I was looking in a mirror." Just about a whisper, "No kraal, no zeal. No hope, not real. Applejack, you've learned of me, you see me as a peer. But not once have you ever asked -- 'Why do you live here?'"

Her head dipped. Looked away from the zebra, even as her eyes closed.

"You're right. Ah... Ah didn't ask. An' Ah'm sorry. Ah should have --"

"-- a story for another time," Zecora gently interrupted. "One where I abandon rhyme. Seek your brother, Applejack: I can only wish you all the lucks. But when you finish, please come back." Applejack opened her eyes in time to see the slim shoulders shrug, just before the foreign mare sighed. "Because sometimes life just simply sucks."


Not the cinema. (It was open at all hours under Sun and Moon: it had felt as if there was a chance for him to have snuck in and found a comfortable bench.)

Not any of the best napping spots, at least for those at ground level. (It was impossible to become Rainbow's friend and not have all of those memorized.)

Not in any of the alleyways and little passages of the various residential districts. (She was listening for his voice as she went through them, and she didn't hear it. She couldn't go pounding her hooves on every door...)

Not there.
Not there either.
Not there...

Galloping through town, sweat falling onto cobblestones and soil. Ponies stared at her as she went by, and she recognized some of their expressions as carrying relief: she was wearing her hat and to the most skittish, those who hadn't stopped at her cart because the smallest thing had been off, that meant something was once again normal in the world. Others simply saw a Bearer who looked as if she was becoming increasingly desperate and hastily locked themselves in their homes, just in case.

She was losing hours: Sun had crested, was well along the path towards the moment of formal lowering. Any head start he'd gained was getting wider: he could have reached Canterlot on hoof in a fraction of the time since departure, could be anywhere within a huge radius if he'd managed to find some way onto a train. Would he have claimed being her brother as a reason for claiming a free ticket? The brother of a Bearer: he might have gotten away with that without ever having to specify an exact reason: just imply emergency and push forward.

Would he have tried that?

He'd gone wasteland on her. She didn't know what he was capable of.

Ah need help. (And she recognized that it was a rather belated sort of thought, but she'd been more than a little distracted and it was, foremost, a family matter -- enough so that it had taken significant time to think of her other family.) Seven can search faster than one. It's late enough that Ah can pull most of 'em away. Rainbow gets in the air and tries t' spot him from above. Twi might have a tracker spell that Ah don't know 'bout an' if she don't, she can jus' organize the search. Plus maybe somepony mentioned seeing him in the bakery, Pinkie would've overheard that... A little bitterly, Startin' t' understand how all those ponies who were lookin' for Doctor Gentle felt. Takes a lot more than one.

She was closest to Sugarcube Corner, and so the personal racecourse tilted to the right. She could collect Pinkie there: the Cakes would understand, especially when it was family.

Can't try for the cottage, but once Ah reach the tree --

-- and the yellow body came into sight all at once, Applejack was moving too fast and the caretaker was paying very little attention to where anypony was going, she was flying just barely over street level and her feathers were damp with sweat, she looked as if she was about to collapse and Applejack didn't have time to divert --

-- so she jumped.

It wasn't that hard to get the height for clearing back and flapping wings, not with Fluttershy so low to the ground and earth pony strength going into the leap. She even managed a mid-air twist, allowing her to land facing the caretaker's path: momentum meant it took a major effort not to skid out on the spot.

"Fluttershy!"

Wings slowed. The weary body dropped to street level, touched down.

"...Applejack... I'm sorry, I didn't see you, I've been looking --"

"-- is something goin' on? Y'look like you've been goin' for hours! Ain't seen a scroll, so Ah know there ain't another mission on --"

There were a few ponies on the street: those who got out from work somewhat later in the day. The spectators had just found themselves in the presence of two tired-looking Bearers (and they were both worn out, for earth pony strength and the endurance which essence had granted did nothing to combat the near-total drain which came from high emotion), both of whom looked as if something was wrong, and the miniature herd visibly began to struggle with its collective decision.

"-- ain't no mission!" Applejack hastily called out. "Nothin' big happenin'!" And because she was exactly herself, "Um... that Ah know of. 'Shy?"

"...no," the caretaker panted, panicked features momentarily twisting into public-reassuring denial. "No mission. I was just looking for Snowflake. I had to wait until I could leave the cottage, and I couldn't do that until it was safe to leave. That took a while, because there was a dog, just when I was almost out the door. He'll be okay. And then I had to find Harry. He's watching the door." Hesitated. "...or where it used to be. But I went to his house, and he's not there. I can't find him. I saw Scootaloo a few minutes ago and asked her to look, because I thought she might know some places he goes, but it's getting late and she'll have to stop soon." With weary, desperate hope, "Have you seen...?"

"Not since yesterday." An' if'fin Ah hadn't... "You?"

"...late morning." With an extra layer of worry added onto the towering pile, "Why were you running?"

"Lookin' for Mac." There would be a chance to provide details once they reached privacy, but saying his name in public meant a chance of having somepony say they'd seen him --

-- which didn't happen. The spectators just kept watching them, as Sun's light began to fade.

Figures. But now she had somepony else to take care of, somepony who clearly needed help for something which (somehow) might have been worse than what Applejack was trying to fix. "Why are you searchin'? 'cause y'look desperate, 'Shy, desperate and scared..."

And then she knew. Knew before she saw the one blue-green eye frantically surveying the little audience, the visible search for something which would be safe to say...

"...I..."

Oh no.

Ah didn't think 'bout it. Not at'tall. Not that it was gonna happen soon, that it had t' happen an' she was gonna be the one who did it. Sun an' Moon, he jus'...

"You told him," Applejack starkly said.

"...yes."

She instinctively began to move towards her friend. For reassurance. For presence. And incidentally, also to get Fluttershy out of public hearing range, fast, because there was an audience and some of them would already be wondering what had been said.

"...he was shaking," Fluttershy half-whispered. "He was just..."

That one visible eye widened. The slightly-oversized wings flared out, and sweat flew in all directions.

"...shaking..."

"'Shy?"

The next words were barely audible. It was completely possible that only Applejack heard them at all, for Fluttershy had a lifetime of experience in pitching her whispers. They vibrated eardrums more through suggestion than power, and then they kicked Applejack in her soul.

"...he was shaking. Everything was shaking..."

no
Ah didn't think
He's... he could...

"We've gotta find him," Applejack abruptly declared, because now it was worse. A runaway brother would have to wait because for the rest of the world, the Secret remained intact -- and a terrified hybrid was a potential trotting breach. "Fast. Ah'll help. We'll get the others --"

Then there was a shout, somewhere off to the north.
Then there was a scream.
They glanced at each other. They both mustered what few reserves they retained. They galloped.
And when they got there, they both found what they were looking for.
They would arrive five seconds too late.