Applejack at the Edge of the World

by MagicS

The Long Bridge

Applejack had walked far enough where she could no longer see the Citadel of Al-Karamaretel behind her.

And yet she could still see nothing in front of her either.

The canyon stretched on so far that it was really just darkness around the bridge and in the distance. If she squinted her eyes all she saw was a blur on the horizon where the bridge just kept going. It was no wonder only a single bridge existed and travel from one side of the west to the other was so difficult. The bridge itself, despite the lesser attention it had to have received recently, was in good shape. Good enough that Applejack wondered if there was something magical about it all. There wasn’t too much dust anywhere, nor any cracks in the brick or the short walls that she could see. Applejack considered herself a pretty decent craftspony but she could never imagine building something like this, nor could she picture any of the masonry and construction ponies she knew doing it. It was perfectly flat too with nary a single bump and stayed just as wide at about thirty feet across the whole way down.

“The Everfree is weird enough, and weird things keep happening to Ponyville, why do I gotta keep coming across strange stuff like this every time I end up outside Equestria?” Applejack shook her head.

Applejack reached into her saddlebag and took out the metal water bottle she had gotten from the Citadel. It was kind of strange to her, but so was much of the rest of the Citadel. She could easily unscrew the top and take a drink at least. There were several biscuits along with a tomato, a potato, wheat bread, and a can of lentils packed in her bag as well. The bridge was a several day journey across but this was more than enough food and water for her to last through it.

She only wished it was a little less lonely out here too.

There wasn’t a single bird flying over the canyon. Nothing to make a sound. She figured it kind of made sense since the birds wouldn’t have been able to fly all the way across but how come there weren’t any still close to the eastern side? Or around where they could land on the bridge and rest? Instead there was no other life besides her out here whatsoever. It just added to the weirdness of this whole thing—she wished she could ask the original makers and rulers of the Citadel about it.

Oh well, just one more thing for Twilight to be curious about when Applejack got home.

Applejack looked down at her shadow and then looked up at the sky. No clouds overhead either.

---

For the first time in a long while, Applejack set up and slept in her tent that night.

It was incredibly uncomfortable but compared to all the trouble she had gone through recently a hard “bed” was barely an issue. She only hoped that it would be a mere two more nights—three tops—that she would have to sleep on the bridge.

With all the walking she did today, and all the other stuff, and how even busier yesterday was, Applejack felt herself already starting to drift off to sleep.

She turned over a few times to try and find a more comfortable spot—to pretty much no avail. “Half way to Elysium’s View...” She sighed. “I hope there’s a train or something on the other side of the canyon I can ride to it.”

Applejack gave up and just rested her head on her bag, falling to sleep a minute later.

---

The next morning she started walking early, before the sun had even risen. That turned out to be a smart decision since once the sun had come up the day became rather hot. It wasn’t just the heat of the sun on her back but she felt the stone bridge collected and kept in a lot of the heat as well. Applejack began to sweat in the sweltering heat, only protected and slightly cooled off by the hat on her head.

“This is miserable. Ponies had to use wagons to cross this before, right?” Applejack asked nopony in particular.

Another check up at the sky and all she saw was blue and the sun. Clouds for some reason didn’t seem to want to fly over the canyon either.

“Nutty place...”

And no matter how much further she walked today there was still no end in sight. At one point Applejack went to the side of the bridge and just looked down for a while, looking into the dark abyss. It was almost mesmerizing—you just couldn’t tell how deep it was. It seemed liked you would fall for hours if you went over the side. Maybe there was no bottom at all. Maybe it was one of those bottomless pits you heard about.

Eventually she managed to tear her eyes away from it and get back to walking. There was still a lot of bridge to cover and she couldn’t waste time on it like this.

Since she was walking all day the heat subsided eventually as well when the sun started to go down. Applejack didn’t take that for granted and kept walking for several more hours—well into night. If there was nothing else to do on this bridge but walk across it she might as well push herself to only walk and sleep. That’d make it easier for her to conk out on the hard ground anyways.

---

When Applejack woke up the next morning she was hoping that by the time the sun came up she’d be able to see the end of the bridge and the other side of the canyon in the distance.

She couldn’t.

It looked like another day of full walking and then if she was lucky she’d finally reach the end of the bridge tomorrow.

“If there ain’t a train then please at least let there be plenty of signs and roads telling me exactly where I need to go,” Applejack muttered. “Hay, I’ll just keep walking straight anyways. That’s always worked in the past.”

Applejack stopped for a second and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. Today was just as hot as yesterday, no clouds in the sky, and not even a breeze blowing by the bridge. Which was just as odd as anything else—normally it would be incredibly windy on a bridge like this. But Applejack had learned by now that the idea of “normal” didn’t go well with this bridge at all. It was a total dead zone. She doubted the bridge was to entirely blame for the strangeness, it was more likely the canyon itself that was the cause of all these oddities and the bridge just reflected that. It was funny to think that back at the Citadel of Al-Karamaretel if she looked past it and out over the canyon she would’ve thought she had reached the edge of the world.

But supposedly that edge was still far away.

Later that night she was too agitated to fall asleep straight away. It was still only about as long out here on the bridge as she expected, but it was frustrating not really knowing how much further she had to go. She ended up taking out the journal Twilight had lent her and started scribbling down stuff on the half-drawn map pages just to give herself something to do. From memory she tried figuring out where everything was, how long it took to travel, how spread out things were, and how big this canyon and bridge really were.

Twilight was sure to appreciate it. Right?

Applejack found herself getting more tired shortly after that and she soon slept through what she hoped was the final night on this bridge.

---

When Applejack had already been walking for several hours the next day—right before noon—the blur on the horizon started to change. It wasn’t just darkness ahead, there was color appearing once more.

“Please tell me I’m lucky for once,” Applejack said.

It took another hour of walking before she could see anything for certain—but far in the distance the darkness of the canyon started to fall away. She could see the cliffs of the other side. The Far West on the other side of this great chasm was finally visible.

Applejack sighed in relief, briefly stopping for just a moment and taking a drink from her water bottle.

The further she walked and the closer she got now the more she saw. Which actually wasn’t too much. Applejack would’ve figured that if not a city, or town, or sister Citadel, there would at least be some building or checkpoint where the bridge connected to the other side. But there wasn’t. There didn’t even seem to be a big sign or archway over where the bridge began. Maybe there had been at one time but as the Citadel closed down everything over on the other side vanished?

Beyond just where the bridge ended and the cliffs began, Applejack still couldn’t see too much, the distance was still too great and she didn’t have any height to see further. It looked like there was just a plains for a while on the other side since she couldn’t see any hills or mountains, but they could’ve been hidden by the blur for all she knew. It got a little better the more she walked but her initial estimation didn’t change—there really was nothing directly ahead, at least not for a while after the canyon ended. What she did see though was mountains to the north and south and even a forest that popped up at the foot of the mountains to the north.

However, that wasn’t the direction she was going in.

When her hoof touched down on the dirt road that led away from the bridge, a smile broke out on Applejack’s face.

Things weren’t as nice as they could be, but she was still here all the same.

Comments

[RoboRed]

That is a massively long bridge in need of mile markers, landmarks, and shaded rest areas.
Uh, speaking of rest areas, now there's a rather unpleasant thought...

It was almost mesmerizing—you just couldn’t tell how deep it was. It seemed liked you would fall for hours if you went over the side. Maybe there was no bottom at all. Maybe it was one of those bottomless pits you heard about.

Certainly didn't stop Mister Tall-Dark-and-Angry from clawing his way back out...

[redmar]

That was a very long bridge. It really is surprising that there is nothing on the other side since you'd expect a resupply post and last resting stop would be there.