Applejack at the Edge of the World

by MagicS

Cops and Robbers IV

Applejack stood back in front of the first cell again, flatly staring at the two stallions inside it. The two of them were shuffling about awkwardly and refusing to meet her gaze. And Applejack was running out of patience.

“I just want to talk with him and the rest of your friends. Can’t you tell me where your hideout is? I’ll find it anyways, believe me,” Applejack said.

“We understand that, but we still can’t just tell you,” Ace said.

“Oh for crying out loud—just tell her!” Maggie yelled from down the hall.

“Tephra is our friend, our leader, we can’t betray his trust like this,” Golden said.

“Well, I can respect loyalty like that at least,” Applejack sighed. “Even though I’d say he’d probably want you to listen to his wife. And you owe me partially for trying to attack and rob me.”

“You got us thrown in jail...” Ace muttered.

“And can you really blame anypony but yourselves for that?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.

They didn’t really have an answer for that. If they weren’t going to talk though, Applejack didn’t want to spend anymore of her time here. It already seemed like it might take a while to find where Tephra and the rest of the robbers were. And even more time to convince him to stop what he was doing. It was good she had met his wife though and learned how she felt, that might make things easier for Applejack. But she still needed to get there first of all.

“Well alright, I still know he and your friends are up in the mountains north of town, with all that activity last night I bet I can find a trail real easy,” Applejack said and started to walk away.

“Good luck!” Maggie yelled again.

Applejack smiled. “Thanks.”

---

She walked out of the jailhouse without so much as glancing at any of the deputies or Sheriff Crater’s office. Her mind had been made up after talking to them and the prisoners; nopony here was in the right. Ever since that mayor of theirs ran off, every one of them had just been piling up mistake after mistake on top of each other. It frustrated her something fierce. Why did ponies always have to be so silly? Applejack knew even her friends and the rest of Ponyville had their moments too. She just hoped she could get these folk to listen to her. Hardly anypony ever seemed to though.

Thanks to how well laid-out and gridlike the town was it was easy for Applejack to make her way from the jailhouse to the north side of town and then out of it. A few ponies saw her as she went by—locals who probably didn’t care less about what she was up to. That was fine with her, she didn’t need to talk with them or waste any time right now.

Though it did make her think about how many ponies here were really on the side of either the Sheriff or Tephra and how many didn’t care one way or the other…

How big was this conflict in reality?

Well, she could find out when she reached the hideout. Applejack was an outdoorsmare through and through but she didn’t consider herself a tracker and certainly not a hunter. She was hoping it would be easy to get on the robber’s trail. If not she did have a few unique ways of her own to find where they were but she preferred not to use them when she didn’t absolutely have to.

Part of the jungle stretched towards the foot of the mountains and Applejack followed along towards it. In her head she pictured where ponies running out of town would end up if they were trying to escape into the mountains, keeping her eye on the ground the moment she left the stone streets to see if she could see any hoofprints in the dirt. They had all made a quick escape, and a big ruckus, when they were leaving last night. There was no way there wasn’t some sign of where they had gone. Applejack knew their continued inability to be found was more the result of Sheriff Crater’s apathy than anything else.

She wondered if they had anything like guards, sentries, or even traps lying in wait in case anypony did try to come find them. Hopefully not but Applejack was going to be careful regardless.

“Considering how nutty everypony involved with this is I better not take any chances,” Applejack shook her head.

As she got closer to the mountains she saw that there were a number of paths going up them—which fit what she knew of Fire Vent. There had to be some old hot springs or other things that ponies would go up here for in the past. A glance up to the tops of the mountains and she still saw that they were obscured by low clouds. Which one was the supposedly dormant volcano? Actually, she kind of hoped nothing would happen that would let her know. The mountains themselves were actually pretty nice looking, with plenty of vegetation and healthy rocks and soil making them up. Applejack saw a few birds flying in the sky, just things to let her know that with all the problems ponies were going through, the world still went on.

One of the paths going up the mountains she saw was far more worn than the others. There weren’t just hoofprints but divots and grooves in the ground from where heavy things had been pushed and dragged up it.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “They aint even trying… all the crazy things I’ve been through, this is feeling more like your typical friendship problem than anything. Maybe Discord was pulling my leg about Elysium’s View or whatnot and this is where the map was leading me?” She snorted. “Naw, no way would I be that lucky.”

Applejack took a few breaths to ease the tension and began climbing up the mountain. The start of it was pretty simple thanks to the well worn path that even had some steps built in and a wooden guardrail to guide you up for a while. Applejack’s eyes though could see that eventually it disappeared into heavier brush, trees, and messy rock formations higher up. It looked like a place a pony could get easily lost in even without anypony doing something to obscure the right path. Applejack figured they must’ve been relying on the natural landscape itself to keep out intruders. Somepony could get trapped or turned around up here and lost for days. So maybe they weren’t just being lazy but were fully trusting in the mountains surrounding their home.

“Not bad I guess,” Applejack smirked. “Maybe I was a little too harsh first.”

Though it was unfamiliar to Applejack she had still been to many places like this before and wasn’t afraid of finding her way around. It was still easy to see where grass had been recently crushed and where dirt was freshly overturned. There were scuff marks in the rocks as if something heavy and hard had hit them at some point. All of this told Applejack she was still on the right trail. Her gut instinct and inner sense of direction hadn’t always worked out for her in the past but she wanted to trust them here.

Walking further along she was now totally inside the interior of the mountains, looking back all she could see was rocks and trees, the town of Fire Vent had disappeared from view completely. Ahead of her the path itself started to change from something clearly purposefully built to just a naturally formed “way” of walking through the mountains. But that’s also where it finally became harder for her to figure out where exactly all the robbers might be holed up.

It looked like there were a few different ways she could go. There was a forested area over some rocks to her right, a steep hill leading up to a mountain ridge that ran across to the other side of the mountain on her left, and a narrow crevice directly in front of her that looked like it sloped down a bit before ending somewhere further north. Seemed like the only place that could lead to somewhere where ponies wanted to live up here was the forest. But that could be the point. Maybe Tephra knew that looked like the obvious answer and his hideout was somewhere else.

“Aint gonna second guess myself,” Applejack said and started walking right to the forest.

Didn’t really matter much. If she got lost and had to find her way back here then so be it. She wasn’t on a time limit and if she had to search through these mountains all day then that’s what she would do. Getting started early in the morning left her with plenty of daylight and if it took more than one day she still had her tent in her saddlebag. Whatever other problems were out there west of here could wait too.

The forested area was thick but small, a lot of trees in a small area that Applejack struggled a bit to walk through. What she saw was reassuring though as a small mountain spring came down and through here. Water would’ve been a necessity to any group of ponies living up here—no way could they steal all they needed from town. Applejack figured she only had to follow the stream and shortly she’d reach Tephras’s hideout. That’s how she should’ve been thinking to begin with, she figured. Where would they have to be living up here rather than what would make a good hiding spot. There had to be some area flat enough where a large number could settle down too. Applejack would look harder for signs of ponies moving through along with where a plateau or valley could be nestled up here.

“Those two could’ve helped out and made this a lot easier for all of us...” Applejack shook her head. “I just don’t right understand ponies sometimes. Loyalty like that may be a bit respectable but whoever said it was always smart?”

Applejack sighed and put the thoughts out of her head, no need to get distracted. She walked along the gentle stream and followed it up over an uneven wall of rocks and boulders as soon as she got out of the forest.

What waited for her was only more rocky ground so Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow and continued following the stream. Her eyes though picked out several spots along the stream where deep indents in the dirt had been mad. Likely by ponies stopping to get a drink on their way to and from their hideout.

Following the stream though actually soon brought her to a dead end as the water seemed to be coming out of a wall of rock jutting out from one of the mountains. Applejack knew that wasn’t really the case though, it was just going through a hole at the bottom of the wall. Looking around she saw some boulders she could hop up to get over the wall and quickly ascended them. She wasn’t letting such a simple obstacle stop her.

Though she wasn’t as spry on her hooves as Pinkie Pie, or even Rainbow Dash, Applejack had to begrudgingly admit, she was still able to hop up easily and could look out over the landscape behind the wall.

What awaited her was a heavily forested valley where the ground was made up of several different, uneven, levels. There was almost no flat surface wider than maybe thirty feet across and that was Applejack being generous. It was big and spacious though, and dense enough where Applejack could hardly see anything stick out. The stream went north through it, going towards a mountain that sat at the back of the valley. Applejack could probably follow it and find her ponies—there was no doubt in her mind that they were hiding about in this valley.

“Big space though…” Applejack rubbed her chin as she made her way down the sloping side of the wall and onto the valley floor. She had time to spare but since she was here… “Might as well not waste anymore time if I can avoid it. Guess I’ll do this the easy way instead of the stubborn way.

Applejack stretched her legs, rotating them in their sockets, and cracked her neck before planting herself firmly on the ground. Taking a deep breath she held it in for a while before exhaling and closing her eyes.

A tremor, completely imperceptible to normal ponies, radiated from her body and expanded through the valley. When it bounced off rocks, trees, and anything else in the ground she got a perfect picture of it, just like before. Some of the more sensitive animals froze up or skittered away as the mysterious tremor in the ground reached them. Applejack stood still and focused on all of it, sending out more and more as one tremor decayed to get as clear of an image as possible. Soon a smile stretched across her face as she felt the things that didn’t belong here. Tents with stakes driven into the ground, rickety shacks standing up, ponies walking around and creating bouncing vibrations of their own. It was all Applejack needed.

“There you are,” Applejack stopped and opened up her eyes, turning her head in their direction.

It was impossible for her to physically see them with her eyes, but she knew exactly where their hideout was. Safely tucked away in this valley, it was a nice spot. They didn’t know she was here either. Applejack could tell with her Hoof of the Earth scouting that they didn’t have any lookouts or anything like that. They weren’t expecting a pony to come up here like this.

There was only a little more distance to cover. Applejack trotted over to where the hidden ponies were, walking through the brush, up ledges, past rocks, and hoping that they wouldn’t be too surprised that they attacked her when she appeared.

The closer she got the more she could hear too. Ponies moving and walking around, building or working on stuff, talking with each other. She didn’t need to rely on anything but her own two ears anymore. Hopping up another ledge she could see through the trees ahead that there was an open area coming up. The colorful flashes of pony manes became visible, red, pink, green, white, yellow. Along with more casual chatter.

Applejack saw a pathway in the grass, trampled by hooves hundreds of times, and put herself on it. Now she took another deep breath and strode on into the hideout in full view. It looked like it was made of several different areas scattered through this part of the valley, full of tents and ponies mostly taking up the flat spots that didn’t have any trees on them. Those ponies—still dressed in their typical Fire Vent garb—now looked at the stranger in their midst in confusion.

Once more, she was pretty out of place.

There were quite a few adults but not a small amount of younger children and elderly ponies as well. All in all it wasn’t just some ragtag group of brigands and thieves but an actual community they had in here. It’s a shame they were doing what they were doing or else it didn’t seem like too bad a life in this nice little valley with your friends. It just made Applejack think more about how this whole situation was a big mess between two sides that should really just be getting along.

Either way she had come here to talk to a pony in particular and so far all these ones were doing was staring hesitantly back at her.

Applejack broke the ice the way she normally did. She gave them a big ol’ smile and wave. “Howdy y’all! Would one of you happen to be Tephra?”

Comments

[redmar]

Well she's found the camp now she just has to convince the ponies there.