The Applejack Zone - A Pony In Hay

by TrollestiaSubject

Fruits

I felt friendless, and out of place out at Ponyville, or even at the farm, but I hadn’t another place to go. So I was just… hanging around... No, I shouldn’t say that, but after that I didn’t want to leave the farm. In fact I didn’t want to see anypony around me; I was starting to think I was dangerous. But I couldn't help but feel good when Fluttershy visited me, until she said something about only being there to pick up her Sweet Apples; and she had bought a lot! Apparently her animals were just eating Sweet Apples, I dunno if she had lost her guts to her animals by being depressed or what, but that didn’t sound good to me, and that's exactly what I was doing! So I offered myself to help her to carry up her shipping.

Going back to her cottage she wasn’t the talkative pony we all know and love, to be true about her she was… you know, shy. And she seemed to be really concerned about her animals; and she had a lot. She enjoyed taking care of them, but I suppose the recent sense of loss for our friends had made her… take too much care for them lately. She had spoiled them, ok? But I knew it wasn’t her fault. She was sad, we all were. I surely was.

She seemed to drown her sorrows with the exigencies of her animals, and I wanted to help her but I didn’t know how, maybe all I could do was help her to feed them, so I started with that.

Fluttershy wasn’t a lot into apples, but her animals themselves were insatiable gluttons. When I asked her about take a Sweet Apple for ourselves, she told me her animals never let her taste a single one. I almost fainted after hear that! How was that possible, she was my friend, she had to have one! I told her to prove a Sweet Apple resisting the urgency of slid it through her throat, but she was like. “A- Are you sure!?” and I was like “Eat it already, mare!” So she held it between her hooves reading herself for her first bite, but when her furry friends saw an apple less for them, they all tackled me. I didn’t know they could be so strong! I had heard that Fluttershy was catched once for a flock of butterflies when she was falling from the sky, but she was a filly pegasus then! And there I had rodents of some sort as bunnies and… beavers, maybe, judging by the good bites I was receiving, maybe just bunnies but, they should thought that I was made of apples myself cuz their teeth were really sharply, and I didn’t even know what happened with Fluttershy’s Sweet Apple before I hit my head with some random furnishing before passing out.

I didn’t want to open my eyes next morning.
I moved my legs and yeah, they were aching a bit.
I started to move like Dirty Pinkie told so, and she there, commenting something out in her scolding speaking tone, but I didn’t care what was it.

I was really trying to wake up, to feel a clean blanket to grasp Fluttershy’s hoof.

But all I could felt was the hay.

I heard the door being pulled, the stalls open, and I felt a pull.
“They’re going to shoot you if you don’t get up!” Pinkie shouted me from far away, so I went up trying not to show how my legs were in pain. I opened my eyes, and I surprised to find many unknown ponies occupying stalls, then the sound of a bush doing its work made me turn around.

It was on Fluttershy, wings no longer on her, instead a saddle.
“I- I’m sorry, flutter…
“Don’t worry Applejack, I’ll be fine today” She told me completely sure, without a single stutter. I didn’t wanna thought why. It just made me felt better. I barely could say a word to her when they brought my bucket of Sweet Apples and attached me with Pinkie to the plow.

That day the field was damp, and I could feel the mud creeping up between my hooves.
It was painful but the only way I had to deal with it was to pull harder.

That morning we saw Fluttershy mounted by an owner when she went away by a road with a mountain up ahead. They went there to shepherd some animals there, or that’s what Dirty Pie told me, She said it could be dangerous up there due to predators, but it sounded like a poultry gossip to me, since they used to spend a couple of days up there each time they went, and nothing bad had passed before.

I kept working for the day until afternoon when I felt a crack inside my right front hoof. Accompanied by a wet and instantaneous pain, I fell down to the ground, cold mud inside my leg, an owner was getting closer to see me when a herd of them came shouting something to the rest, many of them ran to them, and I was left in the field, for a while, without being able to move.

They all, were pulling, on a yellow sack.

I looked away, I knew what it was, I couldn’t stand more.

And I started to weep.

I’m not sure if I had even stopped before.

And now I was hurt just like Dash.

“It can’t be” I thought, and dried my tears, but that red thing from pony insides was pouring out of my hoof too. It didn’t taste anything like apples, it was bitter, like me.

Then I heard a splashing sound, and without attempt I saw Fluttershy’s guts falling down to the ground when they were trying to push her up to a wagon. At least they seemed to be trying to help her. I could only see her bellyside, but it looked as if a wild animal had attacked her up at the mountain.

When they took us to our stalls I knew they noticed about my leg, but they were too busy gathering Fluttershy’s entrails to actually care, they brought us a bucket of Sweet Apples in a hurry, and it helped a little to pass the grief, Dirty Pinkie ate them like a piggy; smashing her head inside the bucket, at this rate she was going to end like Rarity, and I didn’t want to end like Dash. I had the night to heal, maybe the mud inside the wound could help to heal it, I’m no doctor but maybe the throbbing pain I was feeling was cuz it was healing too fast.

When I woke up I felt my leg pulsating again, but it was some bunny I had attached yet in a bite, I was in Fluttershy’s cottage, resting on the couch, Fluttershy had taken care of me, but where was she!

When I shook the little biter off me, Fluttershy went to him, nuzzled him away and then asked me if I was alright or somethin'. But I was just too happy for find her safe and sound. I hugged her and I didn’t want to let her go but after a while she was like “I- I have some errands to do yet” and she’s not very insistent but it was fine.

Actually nothing was fine, I asked how she felt, with Rarity and Dash gone, since they both were also her best friends after all, and she seemed to have something to say, we all had. But she stuttered a couple more of times before trying to go away, saying that she wasn’t ready to talk about that yet, and that her animals needed her.

“Look, I know the loss of Dash and Rarity has been harsh but…
“I- I’m sorry Applejack, as you can see I have a lot of friends here to attend, c-could you please leave me alone. Please, I’m busy in this moment“. She said feeding with Sweet Apples that bunny of hers who for the first time ate everything she gave him.

She had taken the deaths of our friends with a very strong denial; she was more worried about her animals, and back then she obviously needed a helping hoof, so I agreed to go to her place and help her everyday under the condition she don’t hang herself from any tree.

She pitifully accepted, and in that way I could talk to her whenever she was ready. I was starting to feel tired of blaming myself, we were all friends and we had to help each other, after all, Fluttershy was always there when you need her, but nopony was there helping her.

After a while my bad dreams seemed so ridiculous at the plain day of light, they were only that, bad dreams caused by a bad pastry from Sugarcube Corner, but When I found out Fluttershy eaten by her own animals, inside her own home, I started to blame it on a dream, caused by eating too many apples just before bedtime, or maybe I had been dreaming all along, since that day Pinkie pushed me, or when Rainbow Dash made me fall from that hill.

But then why would she lose control in that way, she was too sad, and me talking about Dash and Rarity all the time didn’t help.

I Ran away to get the guards and later they confirmed just what I saw, Fluttershy was eaten by her own animals. They became rabid and feasted on her, what were they thinking she tasted like?

That night the guards had taken care of the animals and closured the place; it was like if Fluttershy had never lived there.

But she had! and her animals went mad, and there should be a reason, I needed help to find out, I needed Twilight Sparkle!