The Longest Nights
She set it ablaze.
The fog hardly parted.
With the pale mist choking down against her, she pushed off of the soon-to-be forlorn construction. It bobbed and dipped beneath the murky black waters of the once clandestine river. Out onto the water, the apple-wood vessel surged out, ferrying its dead-weight cargo with an implacable resolve. The oil burned below, licking past the sheet of ragged cloth that had once belonged to somepony.
She looked out one last time, watching alongside the presiding low gray cloud cover.
The flames overran the lips of the boat, a roaring inferno that was no doubt crackling. It was quickly stamped out; not even a trace of orange or red was left to the mist.
She turned her eyes away, and tucked her stetson in.
“...I miss them.”
Her breath hitched. Behind her, the aching wood door thumped the rest of the way shut, kicking up a plume of dust. She froze in the midst of the room, eyes wide with an alarm reserved for worry.
As she traced her way through the darkness, her eyes adjusted to the indoors. This living room had been filled with all manner of furniture, tapestries, and memorabilia. It had been husked down in the passing moons.
She shuddered, reorienting herself to the familiar voice. “Bloom? What are you doing up?”
She heard the hooves coming down the stairwell. They’d been dainty little things, those hooves, but time had filled them out. Now, the pony they belonged to had blossomed in full, ready for the rigors of the world.
“You know I don’t like sleeping here, sis.”
But neither of them had been ready for this world.
She sighed, and when she did, her chest heaved against the tight confines of the thick coat she wore. She didn’t try to take it off, because for as warm as things felt now, the cold would know. There was no room for warm comforts. “I know, Applebloom. But it’s warm here, again. I’d reckon that it’s about spring.”
“What does it matter? Even apples don’t grow the same anymore.”
“Well uh, it at least ain’t as cold as it could be...” She earned a snort for that one. It made her wince, and she looked right to the source.
The lanky yellow mare that came from the stairs was scraggly and thin in far too many places.
The pain that flew through her gut at the sight of Applebloom’s form was too much. Her voice was a low croak when she spoke to her. “Where’s your coat?”
“I didn’t feel like putting it on.” Applebloom’s voice was as cold as the air.
“That don’t matter, Bloom. You know we have to—”
“I know.”
The voice of her sister was quick, but her reply not as sharp as she believed it could have been.
“I know we have to. But I don’t want to.”
In response, she chewed over her lip, then sighed. She shook her head, and levied her neck up toward the stairs. “Get back on up there. I’ll be there soon. I just need to make sure there ain’t no open doors for critters down here.”
Applebloom didn’t move. “It’s all the same as we left it.”
“Are you sure? We—”
“I already checked. There’s nopony here, Applejack.”
The quiet hope in Applejack’s heart dimmed out into nothingness. “I... I s’pose you’re right.”
Applebloom turned her back to her. In the moonlit living room, the tattered ribbon in her mane was the last bastion of color. “It’s just us, Applejack.” And as Applebloom trudged up the stairs, she reiterated more quietly... “It’s just us...”
Applebloom’s bedroom was the only room of the house left untouched—or rather, unstripped. In fact, it was the only room left that proved who this house had once belonged to.
The knit comforters and pleasant cloths that they used to warm themselves at night were as clean as they could get them. But the pictures were empty. The photo albums were devoid of any and all signs of the Apple Family. Mothers, fathers. Brothers, sisters. Nieces, nephews. It was as if somepony had come through and scraped history itself from the once prized memorabilia.
Only one picture was hung up. It sat above the collection of gifts and artifacts that had belonged to the homes of former friends in Ponyville. Two Apple sisters, smiling. The camera had been placed far away, and the framing too wide and awkward for two mere ponies. A family had stood there together. Generation after generation having come together for the sole purpose of being together.
And all but two were left.
“I sent another one off, tonight.”
“I saw you. There’s no more trees between the river and that part of the orchard, remember?”
“...Right. I guess I just didn’t notice.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve... I’ve logged an awful lot of them, haven’t I?”
Applebloom nodded, her lips a flat line.
“They were never meant to come down.”
“A lot of things were never meant to happen, AJ.” Applebloom shifted. “Like sometimes, I worry about what might happen if I get my mark.”
That pushed Applejack’s ears into full alert. “Applebloom—”
“It’s not okay, sis. It never will be okay.”
Applebloom pulled herself up onto the windowsill, careful to not knock over their only source of light. She stared out through the dusty, frosty glass, and into the dark and impenetrably foggy night.
Like everything else, it hadn’t started this way. But that could be said for anything.
All that mattered to Applejack now, was that the ritual eclipse shadowed the day until the next single hour of morning light.
And when the fog of night came, they came.
“I miss them.”
“I’m sorry.”
A sniffle rose up. “It’s not your fault.” The little apple wiped at her eyes with the back of her fetlock. “You’re doing what you can, sis.”
“It won’t ever be enough.”
Applebloom shook her head. Her eyes stayed facing out.
“Not everypony stayed in Ponyville. And I’d like to think... you’ve saved most of them.”
“I’d like to think that too, Bloom.”
Together, they looked out the window. Distantly, over the remaining trees, and across the top of the settled fog, they could see the tops of the homes of Ponyville.
A few light wisps of blue dotted the skies. They zipped and zoomed about like careless pegasi.
Some of them very well could have been.
But they were loyal to this land, until the river carried them to the peace beyond.
Applejack felt a warmth pressed against the nape of her neck; it was a warm kiss of love to fight the long night. “Goodnight, sis.”
The bed shifted, and the thick blankets merged together.
For a long time, Applejack stared out the window. The wisps in the sky above Ponyville flew restlessly. Come the morning hour, she would venture out in search of them. And she would do so until every last one had flown their last.
She snuggled deep into the space beside her sister, then craned her head up toward the window.
And she blew out the candle.
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Now how did Applejack end up playing the part of Charon? I'm sure she'd like to know as well. But answers seem to have gone along with everypony else.
"The cold would know" is a deliciously ominous phrase. I'm going to have to turn the thermostat up a couple of notches.
Excellent stuff as always. You tell more with ambiguities and implications than some entire epics could
Perhaps I'm simply fabricating ambiguity in a place where there wasn't supposed to be any, but I kinda have to wonder whether the two remaining Apples are the punishers or the punished. Either way, nicely done with this!
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Thank you. Happy to see the open-ended nature of this one still had the substance I wanted it to have. Glad you liked it!
nightmare moon timeline, isn't it?
Whoa 😳 where you come up with this idea
That's kinda dark. Literally and figuratively
Also, forgot to note. This is a unique turn of phrase that I'm shocked I haven't seen before
This is so poetic. I love it.
Dang, I love these sort of mysterious, open-ended tales
The story builds suspense and mystery exceedingly well, and for such a short oneshot, it definitely evoked a feeling or two. I like that while "what's going on?" is fairly obvious at the end, there are still some parts of the backstory that I can only guess at.
It seems pretty obvious that Applejack is acting as some kind of exorcist, burning corpses to help the stranded souls, the wisps flying above Ponyville, move on to the afterlife. The town is clearly abandoned by everypony else, and nobody is coming in or out. Seems like there was some sort of crisis which caused some of the ponies of Ponyville to escape before it was too late.
Ultimately I'm pretty sure the story is some metaphor for losing your loved ones. Burning the bodies is moving on, wisps and the cold are grief, empty pictures are half-forgotten memories of the dead, stuff like that. I might be extremely wrong though, I haven't read any other comments yet.
There are also some things I'm wondering about:
>why is it so cold, and why is Applejack so concerned with being warm? Is it symbolic, or is that part of what happened?
>why was the house ransacked? Did they need weapons? Fuel? Was there some kind of unrest before everypony died?
>Why does Applebloom not like sleeping "there"? The trees being gone would imply they've been there for a long time, but the story gives off the feeling they've just returned from somewhere.
>"But the pictures were empty." Is this implying that something literally removed ponies from the photos? My first assumption was that maybe the wisps are somehow tied to ponies within photos, or their posessions, but that makes no sense since the Apple sisters have gifts and memorabilia of other ponies just sitting right there.
Somber spooky is the best spooky. The mystery of the world is palpable and ominous, and I could definitely see this expanding into a wider story. Keep it up!
You might think that Spring might never truly wake at dawn here, not even to barely register that everyone are gone. Premise of everything slowly submerge under the blanket of night is ominous and compelling, just as everything that can be said about the Dark.
Of course, it brings its own changes
Well, in the blurb it says that "sun still rises", but it certainly doesn't read as if it matters much here, doesn't it?
Hello! Have a review. An unsettling little piece, which probably benefits from not explaining everything. Some interesting ideas in the comments here about what's going on, but I appreciated it anyway, so upvoted it is!
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Thanks a ton, Loganberry! Glad you had a good time with it!