"Dear Celestia," Rarity swore at the sight of Twilight's condition.
Applejack stared at Twilight, her orange face paling as she took in the blood, snot, and tears. "Oh, Sugarcube, I'm so sorry. I won't let Her hurt you ever again." Applejack reached out a forelimb to comfort her friend but was shocked when Twilight shied away from her.
Twilight growled, "No, AJ. You did this."
"What?!? I did? How in tarna-" Applejack was cut off by a swift kick to her side, delivered by a white and perfectly polished hoof.
"What our dear Applejack meant to say was, 'We know we've been in the wrong and have been acting terribly.' Also, she wants to say 'that we are deeply sorry and beg your forgiveness'."
"You do?" Twilight asked as her temper came back under fuller control.
"We do?" Applejack asked her white friend.
"We do." Rarity confirmed with ice in her voice.
All eyes were on Applejack, waiting. "I...we do," she said and deflated a bit.
Twilight regarded her two, poorly-behaved friends. "I'm not sure I can forgive you for this, AJ. You accused Luna of foal-napping and then threw a pitchfork at her. If any guardponies had seen that you'd be on your way to prison right now."
"I wouldn'tve thrown a pitchfork at just anyone, Twi. It was Luna. The worst it coulda done is annoy her a bit." Applejack at least had the decency to look chagrined.
"What about me, AJ. You could have hit me with that thing."
"M' aim's pretty good." the orange mare muttered.
"Really?" Twilight's anger was building again. "You want to go with the whole, 'I'm pretty good at throwing sharp objects at monarchs so you weren't in any real danger defense'?
"Ok, ok, I was angry and scared and I jumped to conclusions and I was stupid and wrong!" Applejack's own voice rose in response to Twilight's tone. "Applebloom's gone missing and I had thought that Luna had took her away for 'training'."
Twilight could hear the extra set of quotes. "What do you mean by 'training'?" she demanded.
"Twilight, you of all ponies should understand. Everyone's worried that AB's got a dangerous talent. It wouldn't be the first time one of the princesses swooped in and took a foal away from their family to keep everyone safe from them. I can't even imagine how your family dealt with it."
Twilight realized what Applejack was implying about her own history to and inhaled deeply as she was surprised by the hurt. She opened her mouth, about to test if it was possible to flay the skin off an earth-pony by the power of voice and vitriol alone.
"Aaand now we need to change the subject!" Rarity interrupted, wedging between her two friends before they came to blows. "Twilight, Sweetie Belle is gone too. We're worried that they ran away together."
Twilight licked her lips as she restrained her impending tirade so as to give Rarity a chance to elaborate.
"Scootaloo's not missing, so its just the two of them and it's my fault. Please Twilight, forget what Applejack just said and help us find them. Help us find two lost and scared foals," Rarity continued without pausing long enough for Twilight to interject until she was finished laying out her request.
Twilight exhaled in a whooshing sigh. "We aren't done with this Applejack, not by a long-shot." She raised her head and locked eyes with the green ones before her. "Finding the girls is more important than this, where do you think they went?"
"Canterlot." Rarity answered.
At the same time Applejack replied, "Everfree Forest."
The two looked at each other and tried again.
"Whitetail Wood," said Rarity.
"Ghastly Gorge," Applejack said simultaneously.
Twilight facehoofed, "Ok, I'll put that down as 'you don't know'. Come in, I'll see what I can do to track them down."
The three mares entered the library tree underneath the light of the noonday sun.
------------------------------------------------------------
Dawn was just beginning to break over the Canterlot mountains to the east as the two fillies pushed their way through the last of the tall grass.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sweetie Belle asked Apple Bloom as they neared the boundary to the forest.
"Sure it is! You come along with me and we can help the ghost deer together. That way everyone can see that my talent is a good thing and not any danger to my friends and family."
"...Ok, but what if it is dangerous?"
Apple Bloom looked back at the unicorn, "The ghost I met here was nice. He helped me find my way home when I was lost." It wasn't anything like the last time."
"Yeah, that Blank thing sounded kind of bad." Her green eyes were wide as she took in the look of the gloomy forest.
"Oh yeah, it was terrible. I almost died. Actually it would've been a lot worse than dying." Apple Bloom replied without any trace of fear in her voice.
"Yeah, that totally makes me feel better about this," Sweetie planted her hooves.
"Oh come on!" Apple Bloom looked over her shoulder to her friend. "I promise, it won't be anything like that."
"You're sure?" Sweetie asked, obviously worried.
"I haven't been wrong yet," Apple Bloom replied, voice dripping with bravado.
"Isn't this the first time?
"...You comin' or not?"
Sweetie looked guilty, she felt that she shouldn't doubt her friend. Especially since all the adults were being dumb about Apple Bloom. This was their chance to prove them wrong and keep their friendship (and the CMC) alive. She clenched her lips and summoned a fitful and sputtering green light from the tip of her horn. Dawn was spilling over the fields and mountains but, underneath the canopy of leaves, the forest was still dark. "Ok, let's go."
Apple Bloom smiled and nodded. She took the lead, using the faint light from Sweetie's horn to pick her way around the otherwise hidden logs, brambles, and burrow holes. She didn't know where to go, not exactly, but made sure to project an air of confidence - for Sweetie's sake she told herself. She was looking as had as she could, eyes darting to any movement or flicker of light as she led them deeper into the forest but she saw nothing supernatural.
Hours passed as the two fillies pushed deeper into the forest. Eventually, to Sweetie's great relief, the sun gained enough height in the sky so that its light could filter down through the thick leaves. They were able to see without her horn-light and he white unicorn stumbled as she released the concentration that had kept the green spark going.
"Sweetie?!? Are you ok?" Apple Bloom asked, alarmed by her friend's sudden trouble walking.
"Yep but-" she shook her head, causing her sweat-logged curls to shift messily. "But, I'm tired from making that light while walking. I've never done that for so long before."
"Do you need to rest? the earth pony asked. Apple Bloom was barely winded but she was an earth pony and knew that Sweetie Belle had a hard time keeping up with her and Scootaloo during their more physically strenuous adventures.
"Please, could we?" Sweetie circled around and found a relatively bare patch of dirt underneath an oak tree. She didn't sit as so much collapse onto the patch, panting. Apple Bloom trotted up besides her exhausted friend and sat leaning against her flank so that her friend could know she was there without having to open her eyes.
It wasn't long until Apple Bloom heard Sweetie's breaths even out and deepen as the unicorn fell asleep. Now that the sun had fully risen, the uncharacteristic heat that had been plaguing Ponyville this last week began to build once again. As the mercury rose so did the volume of the cicadas as they resumed their ascent up the rough bark of the trees. Apple Bloom found herself simply staring at the insects as each struggled against impossible odds to seize the finest spot from which to sing. The parallel with her sleeping friend was obvious to the earth pony; not for the first time did she wonder about Sweetie's singing ability. If singing was her friend's talent; she, like these bugs, would need to find a taller perch to sing from. Ponyville was nice but you couldn't launch a music career from here. If Sweetie's talent was for music, she would be leaving Apple Bloom behind.
The earth pony suddenly felt like she was falling as she realized that her musings were no longer accurate. Her imagined farewells had assumed that she had developed some talent having to do with apples and that she'd spend her adult life working at Sweet Apple Acres. Applejack's words came floating back to haunt her, that future was gone. It was like the time the CMC had tried base-jumping with Pinkie; her stomach was trying to escape via her esophagus as her rock-solid destiny was left far behind. She was plummeting towards a future she could no longer imagine. She'd be leaving the farm. She'd likely be leaving Ponyville. Her breathing sped up from equal measures excitement and fear. It was then she noticed the white stag again.
He was peeking out from behind one of the great oaks that dominated this deep portion of the wood. Now that she was looking for it, she could tell he was translucent as well as luminous. The expression on his alien face was inscrutable as he regarded her.
"Um, Hi," Applebloom nervously greeted the ghost.
His head tilted, ever so slightly, to one side.
"Um, I came back to say 'thank you,' for helping me find my way home yesterday.
There was a nearly imperceptible nod.
"I, ah, was wonderin' if there was anything I could do for you in return."
The antlered head tilted the other direction.
"Um, since I can see you an' all, maybe I could help you 're-solve your lingering issues'," she said, plagiarizing words Twilight had previously used. "Or maybe there's a message you want me to carry somewhere?"
The stag regarded her blankly for an uncomfortable amount of time. Apple Bloom began to wonder if Twilight and her brother were wrong about the utility of her talent. Suddenly the stag nodded and sprang off, deeper into the woods. He stopped after a few bounding leaps to make sure she was following. Apple Bloom scrambled to her hooves and the stag continued on.
The yellow filly turned to her sleeping friend and whispered, "Sweetie, Sweetie, wake up!"
"Huh, what?" the unicorn flailed groggily.
"Shhhhh! The ghost deer is back, he's wanting us to follow. Be quiet, I don't want to scare him."
"Oh! Cool!" Sweetie Bell sprang up to her hooves and followed as quietly as she could. After a few minutes of following her friend Sweetie asked, "Apple Bloom? Are you sure we're going the right way?"
"Of course we are, we're just following that there stag." Apple Bloom replied in a whisper.
"Um, Apple Bloom. Its not that I don't believe you but I don't see anything here but trees."
"Wow, that's really weird." the earth pony replied and kept on following the deer only she should see.
Sweetie Belle whimpered and followed her friend, unwilling to abandon Apple Bloom but also very aware of the fact that she was unable to find her way out of the woods on her own.
After an exhausting chase through the dense woods, the spirit stopped after entering a clearing. Apple Bloom's eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness and then studied the gap in which the stag stood. A shallow hill fell from the left to her right, ending at a small but fast-flowing stream. The hill seemed to be missing a portion, as it looked like the part facing the river had been somehow cut, exposing stacked, broken, sheets of reddish rock. The ground directly in front of the face was littered with stones of varying sizes and shapes. As Apple Bloom stepped into the clearing she began to notice that the rocks looked chipped and flaked, as if deliberately shaped. Looking down-slope she saw three rock rings, mostly overgrown with moss and weeds. They were each about three meters across and the remaining stones stood hock high to her, each had an opening facing a small pile of fire-blackened stones that sat in the center.
Apple Bloom's vision swam as more pale figures joined that of the stag. A second male moved alongside the white form, this one with a much smaller rack of antlers. Three more deer drifted up to the two stags, they had no antlers and were a head shorter than the two males. "Does" Apple Bloom reminded herself of the terminology Twilight had conveyed to her yesterday. The last to emerge was the dim and wavering form of a fawn, his antlers no more than fuzz-covered nubs on his head. She could see the settlement as it once stood as the deer remembered their home for her. Wooden poles were driven into the ground inside the stone rings and thick boughs of pine served each tiny house as thatching. The does spent time at different chores. One was down by the stream manipulating something invisible. Another was besides the remembered fire, tending to some cooking the filly couldn't see. The last doe romped in the clearing, surrounded by wisps that felt like the memory of fawns to her. Only one of those forms frolicking with her provided his own substance and light, all of the others were visible only in the reflected light of the ghost-doe's memory.
This idyllic scene was interrupted by the appearance of several ponies from the far end of the river. Their shapes were hard to see clearly as they too were not ghosts themselves but images from the memories of the dead. What she could see gave her the impression of long, straight horns jutting from their foreheads and ancient armor covering their withers and flanks. The unicorns reared and charged the deer. The stag she knew locked antlers to horn with the leader as the younger stag stood pack and flung spears at the invaders. The projectiles hit home but the stone tips shattered against the metal plate these ponies wore, stymieing the stags attempt to defend his home. Once the unicorns dismissed the younger male as a non-threat they surrounded the great stag and impaled him upon their horns. He kicked and spun but could not defend himself from all the others as he was still locked, skull to skull, with their captain. The stag fell, and as he lay dying he helplessly watched as the unicorns ran down the younger stag, the does, and the fawns. No one survived.
Apple Bloom's mind was blank. 'Blood and horror' did not begin to describe the slaughter she had witnessed. Tears ran freely down her slack cheeks and their saltiness creeped into the edges of her gaping mouth. Her knees shook, her skin twitched, and the strong scent of urine told her that she had lost control of her bladder at some point during the vision.
"-Bloom!" Sweetie Belle's full-throated shout brought Apple Bloom back to some measure of consciousness.
"Sweetie?" The yellow filly croaked.
"Thank Celestia! I thought I was going to have to carry you back!"
At the sound of the goddess' name the specters raised their heads and seemed to finally notice Sweetie Belle. The ghost-deer still carried their death-wounds and seemed to be struggling to rise from the ground. Apple Bloom could feel the intensity of their combined gaze fall on Sweetie's horn. "No," Apple Bloom begged. "She's not one of them that hurt you."
Sweetie continued, oblivious. "You just stopped once you got into the clearing. First you were smiling but then you got scared; really, really scared." The unicorn's gaze dipped for just a moment to he puddle underneath Apple Bloom, politely not detailing the physical signs of the filly's terror.
Apple Bloom could see the earth underneath the ghosts begin to buckle and boil. "Each spirit was laying where they had died," her brain supplied trying to make sense of what she was seeing. As a terrible theory began to take shape she interrupted Sweetie's monologue. "Sweetie, do you see something going on with the dirt over there?" She gestured to the nearest ghost, struggling against some invisible pull.
"Um, yeah. It looks like something is digging its...way...out." Sweetie's eyes grew to the size of platters as her pupils contracted down to specks. Humus-stained bones broke the surface as a leg dragged the rest of the animated skeleton free from its grave.
To Apple Bloom, the two forms seemed super-imposed. A translucent memory of self enveloped each set of remains. They did not move with the grace their purely spectral forms possessed, instead they lurched and crawled towards her and Sweetie. She corrected herself as realization took hold, they were after Sweetie. They were after revenge. "I should never have brought you here," she said to her friend.
"I thought you said you couldn't do zombies," Sweetie said with rising alarm.
"I'm not doing this," was Apple Bloom's simple yet ominous reply.
"Ok, in that case, what are we going to do?" the unicorn asked with a panicked voice.
"Run!"
Applejack is suicidal, she have to learn that is not what you did but what you wanted to do
also looks like Equestria was not a uninhabited land as everypony thought
Applejack is really trying hard to be most painfully obnoxious pony.
2015103 Seems like it was just as uninhabited as america used to be.
Yeah, AJ is walking on some super thin ice there.
Appleboom's ability is... interesting. And Sweetie might be in some trouble here!
Ooh now things are really starting to pick up.
2015116
^ This.
I did decide to leave out the whole smallpox thing, at least for now. I don't see what it would add to the story other than a more explicit "this is based off history" thing. That might change if it somehow fits better than the violent takeover of land thing.
I'm kinda miffed neither Rarity nor AJ asked "Hey why are you covered in blood (this alone is huge cause for concern for any friend), tears, and snot? Are you okay?" Just straight to "DID LUNA HURT YOU?! No? I didn't do anything wrong! We're sorry ((as if that makes it all better) P.S. IT DOESN'T) for something we don't know about." Yeah, AJ is still in that pit. Also a bad friend.
In other news RUN SWEETIE RUN.
2015193
Crackle, crackle, pop goes Discord's candy shell as their friendship takes blow after blow and the elements start to lose power.
There might be an upcoming chapter about that.
2015250
Discords prison aside (that whole Nightmare Moon thing didn't really seem to phase his candy shell) it's nice to know that AJ isn't off the hook.
What?........What?!
Oh no she didn't
I love AJ, I really really do, and I know she likes to cover her stubborn stupid moments by acting even more stubborn and stupid, but their are blatantly dumb things you just never never say.
I'm sure that's not at all how she really really thinks of her friend, but for goodness sake....that was just low; I know you are going for a very traditional/conservative presentation with Applejack, and she's shown in the last story that she is not stupid nevermind her accent...but if their is one character thus far who is almost turning into a bad stereotype, it's her .
But I know that's not really who she is....and I'm happy that both her, and Rarity, have come to their senses - and understood that, despite their
goodmisguided intentions, that doesn't change their obscene actions....well, let's let bygones be bygones (mostly for Rarity.....AJ, not just yet ); happy to see they are beginning to make progress on what do to next....Rarity thinks they are in Whitetail Wood, but based on what AB is going through right now and the brief description, I don't think so.She and Sweetie are the real stars of this chapter...I love the attention to detail in the forest and everything that took place; I also bringing attention to Scootaloo's absence, as well as Sweetie's singing career in which she would eventually have to leave Ponyville even if AB's destiny was to work the farm....it gave the whole chapter a tragic feeling.
And of course, the deer....rather then simply being wandering spirits, It seemed we were treated to a time-travel moment where we see the 'final moments' so to speak....the fact that unicorns...nay, ponies whatsoever, were killing deer (much less killing whatsoever), was both startling and curious and takes me back to Grogar and the revelations by Celestia in the last chapter before ponies proliferated the Earth and their were more species with their own wants and needs. Whatever the context truly is, AB and Sweetie were treated to a dark tale from the past, that now takes them for the enemy .
Another exciting and detailed chapter to say the least, and no spelling/grammatical errors that caught my attention; keep it up ^_^
2015103>>2015111>>2015145>>2015185>>2015389
I think I over-did it a bit with AJ this chapter. I changed her lines a bit to try an mellow it out a bit. What do you guys think?
and
2015698
It's better I guess....the thing is, I wasn't necessarily complaining - I was annoyed with AJ in this chapter, sure, but not in the sense that I felt she needed to be re-written or that I was blaming you for it; again, she was simply being stubborn and stupid...she cares dearly for both AB and Twilight....the stuff from her brain just doesn't make it to her mouth properly . I'm not thinking too hard on where on earth she got the ridiculous idea that Twilight was someone who needed to be 'put away' for everyone's protection, because I know that's not what she really intended or how she really thinks of her friend -- she's just a passionate mare going through an emotional wreck right now, so she's just being a silly pony (well, more then usual).
It's the same with Rarity; I know they are better then how they are acting right now, so I'm not too upset or anything....the funny thing is, I just complained about Twi having too short of a fuse lately, but here, it's entirely justified.
But in any case, I do like the additions; even though she's broken up over where her little sister is, she's not too hysteric to see she nearly endangered her friend (and notice the blood and so on), as well she should.
okay, so AJ is still stupid, got it.
rarity was able to read the situation a bit and get to a more correct picture of the whole thing, so she's not totally retarded, good for her.
for the record; i still think that both of them are within character, so that's not an issue, this is just me reacting towards them.
when ponies jump to conclusions; they'll say and do things without thinking them through properly, which might strain relationships.
when ghosts jump to conclusions; they turn vengeful and kill the living.
2015698
Honestly, it didn't need to toned down. The way AJ reacted felt real and Twilight's reaction the same.
AJ is super protective of her family and Twilight doesn't... well, yeah. She doesn't take insults well. Intentional or otherwise.
If you want to change it, do so. But I think it is fine as is.
2015698 I think that the second one works better than the original but I'm not to sure on how I feel about the first one.
I missed reading the original but AJ had a valid point.
Celestia did not Force Twilight's parents to give her up but it was still necessary for Twilight to be trained by someone both capable of dealing with a filly of her power level and also capable of teaching Twilight morals and responsibility.
Anyone read the dark fics where Twilight searches for and finds dark knowledge she is unable to deal with as it consumes her soul and makes her kill all of equestria? Even with Celestia's guidance it was a risk. Without it? all but a certainty.
One of Twilight's strongest traits is her search for knowledge. Remove the Celestia imposed restraints and Twilight could easily become a monster.
No Bueno Nacho about Luna and Twilight, and some serious shit is about to go down with Sweetie and Bloom. I can't wait to find out what happens next!
Sweetie Belle is a Unicorn, they got murdered by Unicorns... Baaad idea to bring her along ><
OOHHHH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!