Reincarnation beats cider for forgetting what you did last night

by StrangeCreature

Applejack's memories

Knock, knock, knock.

It was the second night in a row she was knocking on Twilight’s door after midnight. It creaked open and Twilight saw her on the doorstep.

“Hello Applejack. If you’re looking for Big Mac he and Spike went out, I don’t know when they’ll be back. I think they’re at that new diner across from Quills and Sofas.”

“It’s about Apple Bloom.”

“Oh no, did it happen again? Come inside, was it another tree?”

“No, she’s fine. At least, she was when I left. It’s about her cutie mark. She got it again.”

“Really? I thought it would be another week. What’s wrong?”

“It’s not the same one. Yesterday was an apple. Today is a flask.”

“Did she get into your special cider?”

“Not a hip flask, one of those glass flasks you use for science. It’s got measurement lines on the side.”

“You’d better come inside. I’ll make us some tea.” Twilight led Applejack to the library’s small kitchen. She poured up two cups of chamomile and got to listening.

“Last night she got an apple. She was going to carry on the farm. She was going to stay in Ponyville. She spends today brewing with you and Zecora and all of a sudden she’s going to be a potion maker. There’s no school for that in Ponyville. We don’t even have a shop she can apprentice at. She could go with Zecora but she still won’t be part of the farm. Is it even really her? Could she be a changeling? Ponies’ cutie marks can’t change unless something really bad happens, right?”

“Applejack, breathe.” Said Twilight. “Drink. You’re panicking.” Applejack sipped at the tea. Trying not to scald herself was enough of a distraction she was forced to calm down.

“I’m pretty sure I know what happened to Apple Bloom. It was a theory of cutie mark development from years ago. No one’s checked it before because the technology didn’t exist but with the renaissance system we seem to have just proven it accidentally. Cornelius Agriffa was a griffin scholar who thought that cutie marks didn’t come about when ponies found something they loved doing, instead he said that ponies developed until they were ready to take on a talent, and that then the first thing they spent a while on that made them really happy marked them. He actually worked it out after watching a couple of colts spend months looking for their cutie marks and then getting them in things they’d tried before.”

“A lot like Apple Bloom and her friends.”

“A lot like the crusaders, yes. I think there was even three of them.”

“Do you just know this by chance?”

“When Apple Bloom came over earlier I saw how good she was at making renaissance swallow and I had a hunch it was a special talent somehow. I spent the evening looking into it. I guess that spending the evening with Zecora pushed her over into getting her cutie mark.”

“Okay. That is Apple Bloom, not some changeling or something out of the forest. Now I need to work out what to do.“

“What do you mean?”

“She’s got a mark in making potions. Like I said, I don’t know anything about making potions, and I don’t think anyone in Ponyville does either. Zecora might, but she lives in the forest and I’m pretty sure she goes around Equestria to get ingredients pretty often. Probably farther. Apple Bloom dies often enough wandering around town. I don’t want her heading out like that.”

“Applejack. You haven’t asked Zecora if she’d take on Apple Bloom. I’m sure If she did she’d take care of her, but that's down the line. All of these are just hypotheticals. Why are you really upset?”

“Because I don’t know what to do about Apple Bloom.”

“Breathe. In. Out.” Said Twilight. “If she had gotten a potion making cutie mark two days ago you wouldn’t be panicking like this. You’d come to me to ask where she could go to get a good education in potion making, or how you could add potion making to your farm, both of which could be done pretty easily. You wouldn’t be doing this. Why are you really upset?”

Applejack paused. She breathed in and out, sipped at her tea, breathed in and out again, and spoke. “Yesterday I knew my sister was going to be part of my life forever. Today she’s someone else. She’s going to live her life, and I don’t know if I’ll be a part of it.”

“Oh, Applejack, of course you will. She’d still a kid, even if her talent is potion making now there are still a million different things she can do with it, and she’s going to need your help to work out which she wants. You said she got her mark yesterday when she decided to stay with you. That love is still there. She’s the same person she was then.” Said Twilight. Applejack finished her tea.

“You’re right. I was panicking. Thank you for calming me down, Twilight.”

“We all need someone outside a problem to help us sometimes. Spike’s done it for me too many times to count. Do you want to spend the night?”

“No, I’ve got work around the farm tomorrow morning. Two late nights in a row’ll be rough, but I’ll handle it.”

“I’ll let you get home to bed then.”

The moon had pierced the clouds when Applejack left Golden Oaks and her walk home wasn’t half so dark as her walk out. As she walked the roads of Ponyville memories came unbidden to her mind. Here, she’d found her sister crying after school, upset because of something or other, and taken her to Sugar Cube Corner. Here was where Apple Bloom had first lost a tooth. Here, her sister and her friends had tried getting marks in mining, dug into a water main, and almost drowned.

She was briefly forced to confront the fact that most of her memories of the crusaders involved them in mortal peril. Whether or not it had made them even more reckless she was sure there was no chance the three would still be standing if Twilight hadn’t wired up the renaissance device.

She came to the edge of a pond and gazed across it. The moon shone on the water, surrounded by stars. What came to mind wasn’t from years ago. It was just last week.

Camping had always been a joy for Applejack. The orchards were her home, but nature, growing free, unconstrained by pegasus weather or earth pony magic, was a vacation. She always felt at her most relaxed there, where no part of her responsibilities could touch her, like she was a filly playing hide and seek. At least, when she tried to put it into words, that was the closest thing she could find. Comfort, safety, and excitement, all at once. It was too primordial for her to describe with any accuracy, but it felt like where she belonged. Her sister was the same. At least, Applejack thought she was. She always jumped when Applejack offered her a camping trip.

They had taken a trip all the way to Portage Park, a forest growing between lakes on the far side of the Canterhorn. Just getting there had been half a day by train. They had rented a canoe and paddled it through the woods. The weather, despite being wild, had been perfection. The thinnest layer of clouds with sunlight piercing through to wrap every inch of the park in a golden glow. Every time they stepped out of the boat onto dry-ish land they had been utterly beset by mosquitoes. The swarms were entirely insensitive to the Apple’s freely applied bugspray. After a sleepless first night of lying in the tent and hearing a new bug buzz past their ears every few seconds Apple Bloom had been ready to go home and Applejack had been ready to burn down the park.

For whatever reason, the mosquitoes didn’t try to cross the water, so the Apples decided to stay on the boat, coming ashore only to build fires and cook. They had been itchy and bumpy after the first night's bites, but they got almost none after, and the first day’s didn’t last long. Apple Bloom had slept wrapped in Applejack’s legs. It was the only way they could fit in the boat while sleeping. She remembered waking up on the third day, the sun just barely up and the mist of the waters fading away. She had looked at her sister and wanted nothing more than to keep her safe. She paddled to shore with one leg, keeping her sister still, then extracted herself from the entanglement, crept onto the beach, grabbed some wood from the forest’s edge, and built a fire. It was early enough the mosquitoes weren’t awake yet, and she wanted to cook before they woke up.

Apple Bloom only woke up when she had almost finished frying everything. Beans, eggs, tomatoes, and toast sizzled away on a sheen of butter that spread across the surface of the travel skillet while a kettle whistled softly. Rubbing her eyes, she had shared breakfast with her. That was the day her sister had her first cup of coffee. Every other part of the breakfast had been shared, and she had wanted to share that too. It was half milk by the time she found it light enough, but Applejack had always taken hers light too, and thought no less of her for that. The rest of the day they both had the faint taste of coffee on their breath. At least, Applejack did, and had assumed Apple Bloom did.

That moment was gone now, as was every other moment from the camping trip. She had an Apple Bloom that had never enjoyed a cup of coffee, or endured the mosquitoes, or pushed her paddle through the still waters of the lake in Portage Park. All the fears that had filled everyone’s mind in the early days of the renaissance device, when they had been afraid it would lead to a plague of mad ponies like the mirror pool it had been based on, or argued that the new ponies didn’t count as being the same, sprung to her mind. Everypony had harbored them, but nopony had spoken the complaints too loud. Everypony knew what it was to lose somepony special. She’d been uncomfortable but she’d kept quiet since she was worried about just about everypony. Her friends, her sister, her sister’s friends, Granny Smith, all of them were as mortal as they came. Even Big Mac might find out something was too heavy for him to lift one day. If he found out while under it she would prefer to have him on a backup.

She still had her sister, but that week, all of those moments, even the most important, watching her sister get her cutie mark, were gone. Forgotten by everypony but her. If she died before she backed up again, then even her.

She walked away from the lake, trotting into the night.

There was one more stop before she got home. The Apples had been in Ponyville since it’s founding, but it was a young town. Only a couple of Apples had been buried here. Until recently. It wasn’t a proper graveyard, just a field hidden away between two orchards. Her fondness for simplicity was hereditary. It had been filling up rapidly these days. Before the renaissance device ponies could only be buried as fast as they were born. Now there were twenty-nine different Apple Blooms under half the field. They outnumbered everypony without a backup almost four times over. Applejack had never mourned any of them. Nopony had.

The first time she had gone to Twilight with the mangled body on her back, desperate. The backup had been just a few hours before. She’d almost flayed Apple Bloom for worrying her so much despite her saying she couldn’t remember what she’d done, then got her to promise never to play on the train tracks, and made her get a backup every morning for two weeks. Rarity had been even worse for Sweetie Belle’s first time, when she tried to clean her cooking using bleach and ammonia, and Scootaloo’s aunts had refused to let her leave the house for a month after she tried cliff diving. Twilight had told them all they should bury the bodies as they saw fit. By the eighth time having to dig her own grave was a standard punishment for Apple Bloom for getting herself killed. By the twentieth time there had been enough accidents she didn’t deserve to be punished for that it was just considered another chore around the farm.

Applejack had never mourned any of them. Crying over somepony’s grave when she was standing right next to you struck her as odd. She trotted up to the freshest one, a single wooden stick at the end of some freshly dug earth, nothing but a mark not to dig there again. Neither her nor Apple Bloom had even dug it, instead Big Mac had gotten it done between breakfast and lunch. She laid one hoof on the stick.

“I’m sorry.” Said Applejack. “I didn’t know you long, but you mattered.”

She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t think of anything else. She sat on the dewy grass as the clouds drifted across the moon and the shadows shifted across the grass. She saw the moon move and felt her eyelids prickling. She had to be up at dawn tomorrow. She got up and walked home.

Comments

[Mockingbirb]

But can any story really live up to that idea you've laid out in your story descriptions?

[Surfing Pikachu]

Interesting, but needs copyediting.

[StrangeCreature]

11542360

11542985
I wasn't satisfied with it, but I've started and abandoned enough stories that I was desperate to finish something.

[new55]

That was a interesting story and idea.

[Bicyclette]

The rest of the day they both had the faint taste of coffee on their breath. At least, Applejack did, and had assumed Apple Bloom did.

aww, what a lovely slice of life experience for Applejack to treasure

All the fears that had filled everyone’s mind in the early days of the renaissance device, when they had been afraid it would lead to a plague of mad ponies like the mirror pool it had been based on, or argued that the new ponies didn’t count as being the same, sprung to her mind.

ah yeah the mirror pool! i figured that would be part of this technology somehow!

“I’m sorry.” Said Applejack. “I didn’t know you long, but you mattered.”

and oof. powerful line!

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a lot of really great ideas and beautiful moments here. thank you for writing!