The Haunting of Carousel Boutique

by mushroompone

Part VI

“I’m sorry,” Rarity said again, her voice hitching as she tried to suppress her sobs. “I didn’t know that-- I-I thought that--”

She couldn’t finish her thought.

Perhaps even she didn't know where it was going.

Applejack looked at her silently. Though the truth of her injuries was dubious at best, the murky feeling in the earth pony’s mind was all too real. A great cloud of confusion and shock and a blending of pain both physical and emotional.

She tried to focus on the details. To process Rarity's story--one told in brief, emotional sentences and interjected with explosive bouts of tears--over the soft thudding of ponnequins against the door. She tried to recall her experiences these past few days, to piece them together into a narrative that worked perfectly, a story with ends tied in bows and all accounted for.

Some things made sense.

Rarity's sudden magical prowess, followed by an equally sudden aversion to casting even simple spells.

Her need to distance herself from Applejack, and yet her obvious desire to draw closer.

Her defensiveness of increasingly private spaces.

The way the Boutique seemed to hold her there, trap her there-- even though it seemed to want her gone just the same.

But so much still seemed blurry. And perhaps that was how things like this went; in all the campfire stories Applejack had heard and told, in all the urban legends whispered around lunch tables and passed in hushed tones from foal to foal, none of them had ever accounted for the illogicality of magic. Of monsters. Of love, even.

Here sat Rarity, crumpled in a puddle on her cold basement floor, a slave to her own loneliness and terror. Her own mind had been weaponized against her. Everything torn out of her control, her basest instincts and emotions laid to bare. And she showed it-- she showed it in the way she curled into herself, disguising her face as she suppressed her tears. She showed it in the scraggly mess of her beautiful mane, in the short hiccups which escaped her cracked lips, and in the way she pushed away from Applejack.

Even now.

Still trying to get away.

Applejack didn't know what to do, and so she only looked blankly at Rarity, trying to figure a way out. Her mind gnawed hopelessly on these grand epiphanies which had been gifted to her, and yet she came to no conclusions.

She only watched as Rarity tried to escape her.

To put it simply, Applejack's heart ached. It ached because, for the first time in many years, she felt entirely helpless.

Applejack swallowed, and tasted the metallic tang of blood on the back of her tongue. "How long ago, again?"

Rarity sniffled. "H-how long ago… what?"

"How long ago did… I dunno, really." Applejack sighed. "How long have you been so lonely, Rarity?"

A whisper.

Rarity opened her mouth, and a tiny squeak escaped, but no words. No tone.

"I just… all this time, all this-- this stuff," Applejack continued, not daring to specify. "I was just down the road all along. Why didn't you come to-- why didn't you ask for help?”

She choked and stuttered on her words. Strangled by grief and guilt.

“Why didn’t I know?” Applejack went on. “How could-- how could I let this happen to you? You were just down the road all along, all this time just a short walk down the road… and I just let you be alone like that!”

Applejack wanted to scream.

She wanted to pound her hooves on the stone floor with all of her might, wanted to bellow in anger at herself, at the world, at anything that might take the blame. She wanted to find the thing that did this and destroy it. Cause it to vanish utterly and completely off the face of the earth.

She wanted to get her hooves on that thing waiting outside the door. Wanted to choke it. Wanted to beat its brains out against the wall and watch it shrivel up and die.

But that thing

was Rarity.

A piece of her.

And an important one.

And so she couldn’t.

Rarity lifted her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Quit sayin’ that,” Applejack barked. “This ain’t your fault.”

Rarity scoffed.

“No,” Applejack said simply. “Rarity, it’s not. You know that, right? You know it’s not your fault?”

Rarity bit her lip.

She looked down at the floor, and the darkness of the basement seemed to swallow her up. As if it were greeting her. Embracing her. Holding her tightly and whispering things in her ear. Declarations of love and devotion and obsession and protection.

“Rarity, listen to me:” Applejack said firmly, even as her friend faded into the shadows. “Whatever this is-- h-however this all started, whether that was loneliness or depression or… or anything. It wasn’t you.”

“Of course it was,” Rarity whispered. “It’s all me. Everything in this house is me. It always was.”

“But it’s not!” Applejack argued.

She moved towards Rarity, driving deeper into the shadows. Rarity retreated, though not of her own accord-- rather, the basement itself seemed to tug her in deeper. Sliding her along the stone floor and into oblivion.

“Rarity!” Applejack cried. “I-it’s not your fault! It’s not you anymore than-- than your loneliness is you! Or your fear! Come on, now!”

“It’s me,” Rarity whimpered, and the voice seemed to seep out of the walls, to ooze up from the floors, to echo from the inside of Applejack’s own mind. “It’s me. It’s all me. All of it.”

“No!”

“I hurt you.”

“You healed me, too!” Applejack argued. “Come back!”

Applejack grit her teeth and plunged deeper still into the darkness. Everything ahead of her vanished. Only a thick, black cloud of musk and sweat and blood, surrounding her, blanketing her, drawing her in. Isolating her. Feeding on her.

“Rarity!” Applejack screamed. “Got dang it, Rarity, where are you!”

Nothing shouted back.

Not a whisper or a whimper. Not an echo.

Applejack’s breath hitched and wheezed. The air down here was so thick with the smell of dirty sheets and stagnant dishwater and sweat--smells of depression, of neglect, of isolation, of loneliness--that she could hardly breathe. So strong and so true were those smells that even those breaths that Applejack managed to suck down hurt. They hurt her lungs. They stung in her throat. They made her chest clench in fear and guilt.

They reminded her of her own endings. Her own isolation.

Her dog dying.

The smell of the anaesthetic, of dirt scraped over a tiny grave.

Her sister leaving.

She smelled crisp autumn leaves and that flowery perfume Applebloom wore on special occasions. She smelled the basket of warm muffins she passed up to her on the train.

Her Granny dying.

She smelled the way the apples soured on the trees afterwards, sloughing off hunks of mealy goop. The pungent odor of cores rotting in the compost. The mothballs in her closets and chests as Applejack rooted through old clothes and blankets and tablecloths, holding them to her face, inhaling deeply, coughing from the dust and yet not regretting these last remnants of her grandmother which she clung to so dearly.

And the darkness pressed down on her, heavy with the weight of her losses. Of her loneliness.

Each tiny breath Applejack managed only made her heart ache all the more, made her chest feel so heavy with the pain and the guilt and the need to see them all again. To have them home around the table. To love harder before the absence.

“Rarity!” Applejack roared. “I know you’re in there!”

In where, she didn’t know.

“Consarnit, you’re a stubborn son-of-a-mule!” Applejack swore, laughing to herself at the revelation. “Folks always called me the stubborn one of us, but they had us wrong, didn’t they? It’s you. It was always you.”

Her words did not echo back to her. They were lost to the vacuum of the darkness. Sucked up by the memories of loneliness.

“What was it you said?” Applejack bellowed into the darkness. “About thoughts being’, uh… reflective? No, no-- reflexive. Thoughts thinkin’ themselves. That’s what all this is, ain’t it? Your scariest thoughts thinkin’ themselves, roamin’ around, gettin’ into trouble.”

The smells twisted around themselves. Strengthening and weakening. Coiling through the darkness.

“Well, two can play at that game,” Applejack said. Much softer. “Can’t they?”

The darkness seemed to stiffen. What little motion there had been--even that oppressive feeling that had gripped Applejack so thoroughly--stopped. As if anticipating.

Applejack closed her eyes, though it didn’t make much difference.

She thought about the things she’d lost. The ponies who had left her. The times she had felt alone, perhaps even trapped.

Winona was gone. But her puppy--the runt of the litter that Applejack couldn’t bear to part with--was still here, that same splotch on her face that always brought a pang of bittersweet memory to Applejack’s chest.

Applebloom had left, but she always came back. For little visits whenever she could, longer ones around the holidays. Postcards and letters and photos and a hundred little trinkets she thought her big sister might like to have. Warm hugs upon return. Kind words. Growth. Every scrap shared and memorialized with her brother.

Granny had died, but she had died peacefully. Surrounded by family. By love. Not alone at all, in fact-- so loved and cherished and fondly remembered that, at times, it felt like she might still be here. Might still come down the stairs for breakfast in the morning as if nothing had changed, grinning mischievously in anticipation of her latest awful joke.

Their friends had departed from Ponyville, scattered to the four corners of Equestria to do astounding things.

But they were still out there.

They still reached back home--their forever home, here in Ponyville--every chance they got, sending love and joy and good tidings in times both light and dark. The bonds always strengthening. The love always growing.

But, most of all, Applejack thought of Rarity.

She thought of the pieces of Rarity that were gone. The ones she longed to reunite with.

The way she fussed with her mane, delicate white hooves hefting while her face contorted in consternation.

The way she smiled, a radiant and wonderful thing. Always with her eyes closed. As if she knew her smile brought others joy, and never needed to look to be sure of such a thing.

The way she laughed. Like bells. Like windchimes. Like tiny birds.

And then not at all like that-- the great, out-of-control guffaws and snorts that sometimes escaped her when she was a little bit tipsy, or a little bit tired, or even just feeling at home with her dearest friends.

Her passion, of course.

Her drive.

Her generosity.

Her beauty.

Her poise.

Her… everything.

And Applejack wept for the loss. For every tiny thing that she might never see again. Every aspect of her friend which she might never get to tell her she loved. And loved hard.

Applejack cried in the darkness.

But she kept her mind on Rarity.

Not on the Rarity she missed, but the Rarity she knew was still there. Even as tears spilled down her peachy cheeks and dropped to the stone cold floors beneath her shaking hooves, Applejack thought of Rarity as she was now.

Alone

and afraid

and needing her.

“I love you, Rarity!” Applejack screamed into the darkness. At the darkness. With the darkness. “I love you! I’ll always love you-- even when I leave! Even when I’m gone, I’ll love you!”

“You’ll break my poor old heart,” the Boutique whispered back.

Applejack laughed, a weak and weary and desperate sound. “Good!” she called. “That’s how you know it’s real! I-I know you don’t want to be alone, Rarity--by Celestia do I know it--but being alone isn’t about losing! It’s about… it’s about never even having in the first place!”

She waited.

Listening.

Hoping.

“For pony’s sake, Rarity, come back,” Applejack said, hanging her head. “We don’t have to be alone anymore, don’t you get it?”

She waited.

She listened.

She hoped.

Nothing.

Applejack let out a deep sigh, and eased herself down onto the cold stone floor of the basement.

It was quiet here, she thought.

She couldn’t make out the sounds of the ponnequins at the door anymore. The smell had quieted, as well, no longer clouding her every sense.

And then, between blinks, Applejack was no longer alone.

Love stood before her. An ironic name for the ghost of Rarity’s lovelessness, Applejack thought, though she couldn’t quite find the humor in it.

It looked quite like her. Everything from the slope of her shoulders to the bluntness of her snout to the squareness of her jaw seemed perfect, exactly as it was when Applejack looked in the mirror.

It should have scared her, but it didn’t anymore.

Applejack knew who it was, now. And she could never be scared of Rarity.

“You should leave,” it said. And its voice was Rarity’s.

“I’m not going to,” Applejack replied. “Not for anything.”

“You will,” it insisted. “Everyone leaves eventually.”

“They do, “ Applejack agreed. “In a way. But, in other ways, they’re always here. Aren’t they?”

It hesitated.

Flickered, almost.

A glimpse of the mare behind the curtain. Of the puppeteer. A flash of brilliant white behind the blue.

“But you’ll break my poor old heart, Applejack,” it whimpered. “You’ll break my heart when you leave.”

“You ain’t listen’ to me…” Applejack said, shaking her head.

She stood, hooves scraping softly along the stone, and walked up to Love.

It took a few steps back. Quick ones. Light ones. Frightened ones.

Applejack sighed. She reached towards Love’s face--towards Rarity’s face--with one gentle hoof, and cupped her cheek. The magic popped and fizzled under her touch, but she didn’t mind it. She just kept her mind on Rarity, and on the feeling her cheek should have had.

Soft.

Warm.

Real.

“You ain’t lonely because ponies keep leavin’ you,” Applejack murmured. “You’re lonely because… because you stopped lettin’ ‘em in. I don’t know why-- I wish I did, because maybe I could really knock some sense into you.”

She hitched.

The magic stuttered and split.

“I need you to let me in, Rarity.”

The magic fizzled.

Like a bad signal.

Popped and hissed and flickered.

“That’s it,” Applejack encouraged. “That’s it, sugar cube.”

The darkness began to fade.

Not all at once, and not everywhere. In little patches, it grew lighter, revealing the basement beyond it. Mundane things--furniture covered with sheets, cardboard boxes piled up with old dresses, broken stands for the ponnequins in the entryway--revealed themselves. Lights in the darkness.

Pieces of Rarity come home.

“I’m here, okay?” Applejack whispered. So soft and so gentle that it could hardly be heard. “I’m here.”

She caressed Rarity's face with her hoof. Searching for the reality behind the protective barrier of magic.

Love tried to hold on. It wasn’t the first time it had tried to cling to Rarity through violence and possession--Applejack knew that now--but it would be the last. It would be the last time Rarity’s love hurt.

Love’s hooves grasped at Rarity’s barrel as it was swept away. Desperate to stay.

"I'm so scared, Applejack," Rarity whispered, her voice one of many as it slipped from those magical lips. "I'm so scared of losing--"

"I know," Applejack replied.

Rarity sucked in a shuddering breath, and it sounded like wind in the bare branches of a thousand winter trees. Love still held on, clawing at her, climbing up her barrel even as a mighty wind seemed to blow it away.

Applejack wanted to watch it. Wanted to sear the memory of that face--of her face--into her mind forever. A reminder. A warning. The truest, deepest reflection of her friend.

But she didn't.

Instead, Applejack closed her eyes.

She pressed her forehead against Rarity’s, weeping still. The tears rolled down the steady slope of her snout and dribbled onto the floor like those precocious first drops of a summer rain.

"But I'm here," Applejack whispered. "I'm here."

Just as Rarity stiffened at her friend's touch, the ponnequins still thudded softly against the door. It was without thought, without direction-- merely a practiced reaction. Reflexive behavior. Reflective behavior.

But, for the first time in a long time--quite possibly forever--Applejack felt her friend press back.

Rarity fell into, onto, and over her friend, a total collapse of tension and pressure that she hadn't known she'd been holding in. She allowed herself to fall graciously into Applejack's firm, steady chest, to be held by her strong hooves, to be cradled, to be protected by somepony other than herself.

To be vulnerable.

To face loss honestly.

And to give herself to this temporary bond anyway.

There came a final sound. Like a thousand cards being shuffled, a million sticks run along a trillion picket fences, an infinite number of buttons rattled inside an unfathomably large sewing kit. A shifting, rattling, vanishing sound that could only mean one thing:

That Love was gone.

And love had taken its place.

Rarity cried.

She was draped over Applejack's shoulder like a rather damp and shuddering scarf, crying with such power and desperation and relief that it was practically silent. Beyond the occasional gasp of air, Applejack could only feel the way Rarity's chest hitched against her own.

With one slow hoof, Applejack reached up and pressed into Rarity's back, drawing her in closer. Rarity threw her own hooves around Applejack's neck and buried her face in her soft orange fur, spreading the muck of her tears and day-old makeup into it without a thought.

Applejack did not protest.

She didn't even speak.

She only held Rarity there, firm and constant, strong and true.

Even as her own eyes welled with tears, she held her friend. So close. Chest to chest. Sharing warmth and breath alike, sharing heartbeats, even. Rhythms.

After some time, the sobs slowed.

"Rarity?" Applejack murmured, drawing her hoof slowly up her friend's back to cup her head. "We need to go."

Rarity sniffled.

She pulled away, wiped at her face with an equally messy hoof, and nodded silently. Solemnly.

"Alright," Applejack said. "I'm gonna carry you out, okay?"

She moved to hoist Rarity onto her back, but Rarity scuttled away.

"No, no. I don't want them to hurt-- or me to--" Rarity screwed her eyes shut and shook her head vigorously. "I don't want you to get hurt," she said carefully.

"I won't," Applejack said.

"But how could you possibly--"

"I just know it."

Her certainty gave Rarity pause. Though she continued to shiver, she bit her lip and nodded once. Firm. Brave.

Applejack tried not to let her own doubts show as she knelt before Rarity, inviting her friend to climb up onto her withers and cling ardently to her mane with two weak, white hooves. She bowed her head low. Her joints knocked on the stone floor with a sound so much less empty than hoofsteps.

Rarity pulled herself up onto Applejack. She did so quietly, only the meekest of grunts escaping her as she settled there, face buried in her friend's frizzy blonde mane.

She exhaled. A sound of safety. And Applejack stood.

The ponnequins still beat upon the door, their sound nothing at all like their intent; so gentle, so soft, so completely muffled that it may as well have been a dog's tail thumping lazily against the wood. So difficult to be afraid, and yet so easy.

Applejack held steady. She took slow, planned steps towards the door, not hurrying in the least.

The thumping slowed.

As Applejack approached, the thumping tapered off. As if her ever-nearing presence were enough to push the sentinels out of the way.

Applejack knew better, of course. Rarity curled against her friend, her cheek pressed firmly into the broad side of Applejack's neck, murmuring something to herself. Over and over. With great haste and desperation.

The pair climbed the stairs together. Rarity never once stopped hissing these tiny prayers to herself, hardly even taking a breath.

When Applejack opened the door, she met no resistance.

At first, she braced herself. Prepared to encounter a frightening surprise as the haunted things lunged at her, knocking the both of them down the rickety wood stairs and landing them in much worse trouble than they might have been before.

But nothing happened.

Cautious, Applejack reached out one hoof and pushed the door open completely.

The morning sun spilled in through the cracks in the blinds, casting bands of light and shadow across the two dozen ponnequins which awaited them. The sight sent a cold pang of fear through Applejack, and she slipped backwards a step, but Rarity squeezed around her barrel and urged her forward. Applejack reluctantly obeyed.

Dozens of ponnequins. The very creatures which had piled onto Applejack the night before, intending to-- to what, exactly? To suffocate her? She might never know.

These things, the unwitting vessels of a thousand unintentional trials before Rarity had gotten it right. The home of magic without emotion or personality, only use. And they certainly looked the part: many of them were coming apart at the seams, stuffing exploding from their joints like a fungus after Applejack's attack. Despite their wounds, though, they stood stoically. Entirely still.

"Don't hurt her, don't hurt her, don't hurt her," Rarity was muttering. "Please leave her alone, please oh please leave her alone."

The ponnequins stood in two neat rows, one one either side of the door. Applejack had no idea what such a formation might be called, but it seemed almost royal. Guards lining up to defend their princess from the uncouth hordes beyond their shields. A tunnel to safety.

And it was; the ponnequins stretched across the room, basement to front door, showing the way.

The room was infinite.

Much longer than Applejack remembered it. Than it could have been. Than was possible.

Huge.

Vanishing into the distance.

Only a pinprick of light where the door lay at the end.

Though many of the room's details faded into sudden and total darkness, Applejack could see the cartoonist stretching of the floorboards. As if somepony had grabbed either end of the home and pulled with all their might.

"It's Love," Rarity said. "It's Love. It's Love, so please leave her alone. It's Love."

Applejack didn't know if that was the proper Love, or just the irrational one.

But she didn't ask.

She stepped over the threshold.

The ponnequins didn't move a muscle, a scrap, a string, a fiber. They stood still, like perfectly normal ponnequins should. Their heads were turned towards her, but their eyeless faces weren't looking at her. Not even through her. Not looking at all. Not seeing.

Applejack took a deep breath and continued her trek to the door. Rarity kept on murmuring, her voice fading out faster and faster as she did. She clung tighter and tighter to Applejack's neck, but Applejack set her jaw and pushed through it.

As she passed the first pair of ponnequins, she felt a change in the air.

It was hard to describe. Not so much a change in temperature, or even in her ability to breathe. Rather, it was a relaxing of tension. The feeling of an exhalation.

As if the house were sighing.

And the ponnequins went stiff. Suddenly. Totally.

The ghosts banished.

Suddenly feeling a renewed sense of hope, Applejack plunged forward. Like a paddle through water, she could feel the ripple of calm spreading behind her, sucking the supernatural life out of the ponnequins. Leaving them still and once again ready to gather dust.

Applejack picked up speed. Rarity drew in a sharp gasp and looked up, watching her guardians rush past her. Her murmuring halted, and she pulled her head away from Applejack.

"Hang on," Applejack ordered as she broke into a gallop.

And Rarity did.

She tucked her head down once more, screwing her eyes shut, clinging silently to her friend as she carried them to safety.

Applejack put everything she had into her stride. Long. Strong. Powerful. Head bobbing like a racehorse. Hooves pounding along the hardwood with loud, firm sounds.

The ponnequins, no longer held steady under their own power, began to topple over.

Like dominoes.

Applejack did not look back. She only heard the way they thudded to the floor.

"Hang on!" Applejack shouted again. "We're almost there!"

Rarity made a small sound, some hint of great effort, and squeezed harder.

And then

just like that

they were upon the door

then against it

then through it

through the dark dome as if it were only a fragile soap bubble

and in the light of morning.

Applejack bucked her hips out to one side and sent Rarity sailing off her back while she landed shoulder-first in the dirt. It knocked the wind right out of her, and she rolled a ways through the dust, gasping desperately through the clouds which scraped along her throat. After what felt like several barrel rolls, she slid to a halt.

She coughed.

She opened her eyes and felt the full force of the sun drilling into her skull, then winced and quickly closed them once more.

It smelled like dirt out here. That may have been a given, but it really and truly smelled like dirt and little else. A warm, dusty, earthy smell that filled every corner of Applejack's lungs and made her feel at peace.

Until she remembered her friend.

Applejack's eyes sprung open once more, and she scrambled into a sitting position. "Rarity?" she called. "Rarity!"

She coughed again, waving her hooves around to disperse the brown cloud which hovered around her.

There

in the dirt

head raised yet looking down--

"Rarity!" Applejack shouted.

Her hooves shot out from under her as she galloped to her friend's side. Kicking up even more dirt and dust. Not caring in the least.

Rarity looked up.

Though she had rolled through the dirt herself, and her coat was hardly as white as she would have liked, she was no longer dull. Her mane hung limp and unwashed beside her head, but she was no longer lifeless.

The glimmer in her eyes had returned.

She hardly had enough time to open her mouth before Applejack all but tackled her, wrapping her in a bear hug from which few could escape.

Least of all Rarity.

"Oh, thank Celestia," Applejack said in a great rush of exhausted air. "Lemme look attacha. Lemme look."

She pulled back enough to look into Rarity's eyes. In her panic, she could hardly control her hooves, and so they wandered clumsily over Rarity's face and shoulders, leaving streaks of tan wherever they lingered.

"You okay?" Applejack asked, not stopping her physical exam for an answer. "You alright?"

Rarity only stared up at her, eyes wide as dinner plates. Sparkling in the sun.

"Hey, hey." At long last, Applejack's hooves found steady ground: one on Rarity's cheek, one on her chest. "Rares? Say somethin', sugar cube."

Rarity swallowed.

Applejack felt the way her muscles shifted with the motion.

"I…" Rarity trailed off. She blinked rapidly, as if trying to clear the dust from her eyes, but Applejack saw tears brimming there. "I-I'm alright."

But she barely got the words out before her face crumpled and she began to cry once more.

Not like before, though.

Not retreating into the darkness.

Not shrugging off Applejack's touch.

Not lonely.

Rarity crashed into Applejack's chest and cried. Freely and completely. Holding nothing back. She spilled herself onto the dense cream fur which rose and fell with Applejack's breath, pawing and reaching and clinging to whatever she could get a hold of. Crying with all the breath she had in her lungs.

No.

Not crying.

Laughing.

Not laughing.

Something in-between. Some great and powerful, raw and real sound of relief and desperation and exhaustion which shook Applejack to her very core. Before she knew it, she was crying, too-- her own tears spilled down her cheeks and drizzled onto Rarity's head like perfect raindrops.

They cried together.

On each other's shoulders.

Because nopony should have to cry on their own.

And, as the sun warmed their backs, Rarity and Applejack knew that they would never have to feel lonely again.

Comments

[iAmSiNnEr]

Can I just say I love this chapter

[Bicyclette]

She wanted to pound her hooves on the stone floor with all of her might, wanted to bellow in anger at herself, at the world, at anything that might take the blame. She wanted to find the thing that did this and destroy it. Cause it to vanish utterly and completely off the face of the earth.

She wanted to get her hooves on that thing waiting outside the door. Wanted to choke it. Wanted to beat its brains out against the wall and watch it shrivel up and die.

But that thing

was Rarity.

my feelings

And the darkness pressed down on her, heavy with the weight of her losses. Of her loneliness.

Each tiny breath Applejack managed only made her heart ache all the more, made her chest feel so heavy with the pain and the guilt and the need to see them all again. To have them home around the table. To love harder before the absence.

you really are pulling out all the stops here, just wow

And the darkness pressed down on her, heavy with the weight of her losses. Of her loneliness.

Each tiny breath Applejack managed only made her heart ache all the more, made her chest feel so heavy with the pain and the guilt and the need to see them all again. To have them home around the table. To love harder before the absence.

i have no words for how amazing this was. i can't imagine ever reading a piece of RariJack this deep and moving and true ever again. thank you so much for it