Workhorse

by Apple Bottoms

3. Back to the Farm

Mel awoke the next day to the familiar sounds of grunting, the traditional warning they got before they were tossed breakfast. But when it came coupled with the pounding of hooves right next to his head, Mel woke up with a great deal more speed than usual.

“Mel, wake up! Mel!” Ramblejam hissed, his soft tenor voice shot-through with terror. “They’re picking ponies for the day - they’re not feeding us first! Jewelcrisp says he thinks that means they’re - they’re out of food!”

“It’ll be alright, Ramblejam,” Mel soothed him as best he could, his voice still raspy with sleep. His thick voice made him think of his neighbor, of the secretive words he’d shared last night just before he darted to the far corner of his pen, and he looked to him. His neighbor was where he’d left him the night before, curled into a ball, but the pen was cleared of hay. He was pointedly ignoring the hooting apes as they opened the neighboring pen. The pair of Storm King grunts moved swiftly through their group, pointing to ponies, sometimes grabbing them by the mane or ears if they didn’t move quickly enough.

“Sometimes they feed the ponies on the job. You should try to come with me, we can find something together,” Mel spoke in a low voice, and reached out with his hooves to touch Ramblejam’s collar. “Let me fix this for you, it’s too loose -”

Ramblejam jerked away from him with a soft cry that he couldn’t bite back in time.

Big Caramel’s eyes widened. “Ramblejam?”

Ramblejam was looking anywhere but at him.

“Ramblejam, what happened?” Mel pressed, and pushed closer to him, trying to shield their bodies behind the crush of ponykind at the front gate. He reached out a second time, and moved more carefully; Ramblejam didn’t fight him, but he leaned as far away from him as he could as Mel lifted his wooden collar up his neck.

Deep, weeping marks had been carved into his shoulders and neck. Open sores wept where the collar dug into him, his coat darkened where they leaked blood and fluid. You didn’t see these kinds of sores from collars that fit wrong; you saw them when you worked too hard, for too long, pulling wagons that were too heavy. Mel had gotten something in the same place when he’d been an overeager youngster, but his had been no more than light scrapes, and his hair had rubbed off in places. These kinds of injuries had to be done over weeks - maybe months - to get this bad.

“Ramblejam?” Mel whispered.

“NEW KID!” Jewelcrisp shouted. It had some notes of the jeering from before, but now it mostly sounded frightened. “They want you!”

Mel’s head snapped to attention, and he caught sight of their simian captors working their way through the pen towards them, shoving ponies aside as they went.

Mel yanked the collar back down on Ramblejam’s shoulders, and he wished he couldn’t see the way that it made him flinch. “I’ll go in Ramblejam’s place,” Big Caramel shouted, to who he wasn’t certain, and placed himself in front of Ramblejam as the apes approached.

One pointed at Ramblejam and went to move around him. Mel darted in front of him, and angled his back end towards the other when he tried to circle around the large stallion.

“No. You take me,” Mel insisted, and when the ape grunted at him insistently, he simply repeated himself. “You take me. Not him. He’s not going today.”

The apes grunted at each other, pointing at Mel and Ramblejam in turn, hooting and growling. One shook the muzzled bridle towards Ramblejam, and before he could quite think it through, Mel shoved his face into it, pulling it behind his ears with his hoof.

The pen went silent and the two Storm King grunts stared at Mel in baffled silence. Finally, one reached up to fasten the clasp that held the muzzle on, and gave the lead rope a tentative tug. Mel fell into step behind him, and let his head hang a little lower as they led him out of the pen. The other ponies eyed him with a mixture of shock, and maybe outrage. Ramblejam stood where he’d left him, frozen, and watched him be led away. The neighboring stallion had gotten to his hooves to watch him be led out of the pen. As the gate latched behind him, his neighbor gave a sharp, wailing whinny, and it echoed in the air as Mel took his place at the end of a line of shackled work ponies.

[***]

Big Caramel hoped that he would have still volunteered in Ramblejam’s place if he’d known how brutal the work would be. But when he collapsed mid-afternoon, he wasn’t certain that his charitable beliefs would have been strong enough.

The work was brutal, harvesting and ripping up every inch of edible greens from the farm they’d been assigned to - the Apple family farm, as it turned out. They didn’t only buck the apples from the trees (which no one was very good at), they ripped down every branch, yanked out every leaf they could reach, and then their ape handlers climbed into the trees to rip out anything green that remained. It was all tossed into the wagons, and once they were full, they returned to the camp.

Big Caramel wasn’t lucky enough. He was one of the larger stallions there, so while some of them took off to return the wagons and their payload, he was hitched to a plow and led to a potato field. This wasn’t something Mel was used to in the least. He was from the city, but he did his best, right up until he collapsed in the field.

“Mel!”

Big Caramel lifted his head weakly; that almost sounded like his little brother.

“Mel! Oh my stars - Mel!” And then suddenly there he was with his forelegs thrown around Big Caramel’s neck, crying into his mane.

“Caramel!” Mel gasped and leaned into him, his legs too weak and trembly to return the hug. “I thought you - I was afraid -”

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Caramel gasped, and lifted his head, twisting until he caught sight of the handler in charge of this field. “We’re okay. They sent me out to give you some water.”

“Water?” Oh, sweet mercy!

“Drink, here, this is for you.” There was a moment of fumbling, a few spilled drops, and then a cup, with blissfully cool well water. Mel drank it so quickly he thought he might drown in it; this didn’t sound like the worst option of the day. “Oh Mel, this is - I’m so sorry, Mel. I’m so glad you’re okay, but - but you’re not okay.”

“There’s worse-off guys in my camp,” Mel countered quickly, and his mane twitched when he thought of Ramblejam’s shoulders. “I’m okay. They’re feeding us - until today. Are you okay? What’s happening here?”

“I know you told me to run, but I couldn’t leave Big Mac, I couldn’t. And he wouldn’t leave Granny and Apple Bloom, but Granny couldn’t run, and -” Caramel ran over himself trying to explain, and took a heaving breath as he refilled Mel’s cup from his bucket. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mel coughed as some of the water went down badly in his panicked gulping. “It’s alright. I knew Big Mac would probably have to defend his family, I just figured they’d already be gone.”

“They held off the Storm King’s army for a day, but … well, they blew up the hayloft.” Caramel chuckled, despite himself, and brushed away his tears with the back of a hoof. He looked older, Mel noted; he didn’t even want to think about how bad he probably looked. “Now they hold us captive here, and we have to harvest the crops before they’re ready. Mac’s wrecked with Applejack gone. He keeps saying she’s gonna come back and save everyone, but sometimes - sometimes he looks so lost, Mel. Like he’s a million miles away.”

“He’s got you,” Mel reminded his little brother, his voice low. Caramel poured him another cup, and he held onto it for a moment, considering his little brother. “He’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, too. You just have to stick together.”

Caramel considered Mel for a moment, his eyes welling up with tears, and finally gave a little nod. “I hope so,” he whispered, his voice thick. “I’m so scared.”

From the other end of the field, a guard holding a staff grunted something threatening at them.

“That’s my cue,” Mel grunted and pushed himself upright on shaking legs.

“Are you okay?” Caramel asked, eyes wide and frightened as they darted over his much bulkier brother’s body. Mel was the strongest pony Caramel knew, and it clearly rattled him to see Mel in this condition.

“I’ll be alright. You helped,” Mel reassured him.

“When you plow, don’t let it get perpendicular,” Caramel spoke quickly, making it look like it was taking him a long time to gather his bucket and cup. “The plow only needs to get a few inches into the dirt, potatoes aren’t deep. Try to keep it parallel to the dirt, let the plow do the work. If it gets too deep and you have to pull hard, stop and give it a kick with your back leg.”

“Huh,” Big Caramel mused, his brows lifted. “You know a lot about farming. And here I thought you spent all your time on this farm making out with Big Mac.”

“Mel!” Caramel hissed, and despite their situation, he laughed, and he looked young again.

Mel shared the laugh, quick and quiet; he hoped he looked like his old self, too. He shot a quick glance towards the guard before he continued speaking in a lowered voice, trying to block his mouth from the guard’s line of sight. “I need you to get something for me.”

[***]

The day dragged. With each field plowed, ten more seemed to spring up. They harvested carrots, potatoes, apples, herbs, grass, even the few eggs that had been laid since the army laid siege to the Apple family farm and plundered everything. Anything that was green had been razed to the roots, even the dandelions that cropped up on the paths behind the henhouse. When they left it, everything but the buildings on the Apple Family Farm had been razed to the ground, and briefly Mel was grateful that Applejack wasn’t there to see it happen. Mel and Caramel watched each other as long as they could, until a curve in the road cut them off. And then Mel was alone again, dragging his heavy wagon the many miles back to camp.

“Mel!”

Big Caramel had almost forgotten that someone was waiting for him. With his higher-pitched voice, for a moment the exhausted Mel had thought it might be his little brother again.

“Hey, Ramble,” Mel greeted him, tiredly, as he followed the others into the pen. They were all as worn-out as he was, and not even Jewelcrisp could offer a smart remark.

“You’re okay?” Ramblejam looked him over closely, his ears flicking back and forth.

“Yeah, just wanna - lay down for a second.” And that he did, immediately, all but falling into the dust. It felt as comfortable as flopping onto his bed back home, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost see the glowing stars that Caramel had affixed to their ceiling.

“Got something for you,” Mel added after a long silence, making Ramblejam jump. He shook his mane and tried to fumble with the braid that Caramel had tied there. In the end, he had to have Ramblejam help him. Caramel had such dexterous hooves, he’d always been good at braiding and delicate work like this. It had been the work of only a few moments to braid the little jar into his mane.

“It’s a salve, for your shoulders. You - stay here -” Mel grunted, and pulled himself to his hooves, many aches and pains already starting to make themselves known. “I’ll get some water to clean it first.”

It wasn’t any kind of sanitary, carrying water in his mouth to clean out weeks-old wounds, but it was better than letting them heal with the dust of the pen in them. Mel helped Ramblejam out of his collar and then spat the water (as indelicate as it sounded) onto the injuries, until they looked clean enough to apply the salve.

“Granny Smith’s family recipe, he said. Good for everything,” Mel murmured, carefully smoothing the salve into Ramblejam’s shoulders with the hoof he cleaned with trough water. Mel had to give the apes one thing; they might not feed them well, but there was always plenty of clean, fresh water. They had to know firsthand that ponies could go a couple of days without food, but never without water.

Ramblejam jumped even under his tender touch and nodded, keeping his eyes on the horizon.

Mel worked in silence for a long time, his touch gentle, before he broached the subject they’d abandoned hastily that morning. “How did you get these?”

Ramblejam tensed under his touch.

“I know this wasn’t from anyone here - these are working injuries, aren’t they?”

Ramblejam swallowed.

“You’re not in trouble. I just - wanna know.” Mel fell silent for a few long moments, considering his next words carefully. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No! You said they’re working injuries, right? So I worked,” Ramblejam muttered, and turned his head away from Mel.

“They work you when you’re too small?” Mel pressed, wiping the last of the salve onto the worst of the sores. “Farming families forget that not all of the foals are big enough to plow -”

“My Pa died, okay?” Ramblejam snapped, his ears flat. His eyes closed, then squinched tightly shut. “Last winter.”

Mel’s brows lifted.

Ramblejam was quiet for a beat, perhaps waiting for Mel to pick up the slack in the conversation; when he didn’t, more words seemed to spill out of him, unable to stem the flood. “It’s just me, and Ma, and my little sisters. Pa was able to plow and grow and buck all of the rambutans, and we handled the rest of the farm. But - but with Pa gone - I thought I could pick up the slack. I’ll be 17 this fall, and - and I’m old enough, to take over.” Ramblejam’s words were failing him now as fat tears began to roll down his cheeks. “But we just fell further and further behind, and - and I couldn’t b-buck all of the rambutans in time, and - and it just wouldn’t heal, and it kept hurting -”

“It’s alright, Ramblejam; no foal could be expected to take over a job like your Pa’s,” Mel comforted him gently, but Ramblejam wouldn’t be comforted. His voice rose to a wail as he sobbed.

“Did it hurt Pa? Did we - did he hurt, like that, every day? And we just - let him d-do it? Did we - did we make -”

Mel grabbed him sharply, and dragged the sobbing teenager against his chest. Ramblejam was in no position to fight, and he all but melted into the larger stallion’s burly chest, hiding his face in his neck as he sobbed.

“You listen to me,” Mel said thickly after a moment, when Ramblejam had to take a break to gasp out a few strangled breaths. “Your Pa loved you. Hauling and bucking don’t hurt when you’re a grown up. And even if it did, it wasn’t your job to fix it for him. Your Pa knew what he was doing, and I’m sure your Ma wouldn’t let him get hurt. You were just a foal. You got that?”

Ramblejam nodded wetly against Mel’s neck, and Mel gave his neck a light, cautious stroke. When Ramblejam melted into him further, he repeated the stroking, and let his chin come to rest between his ears.

“You’re just a foal. Your only job was to love him, and I can tell you did. I’m sure he knew it, too. So you did your job.” Ramblejam’s sob rose to a soft, throaty wail, only for a moment, and then he was lost in Mel’s neck again, hiccuping softly until he fell silent. Mel continued to stroke his neck until he felt Ramblejam grow heavy against him and his body went slack.

Mel eased him down onto the packed dirt and laid down beside him; he didn’t sleep for a long time.

When he woke up during the night, he found Ramblejam snug against him, with his head tucked against his broad side.