Timed Ramblings

by Midnight herald

Maybes

A lot changes when you’re a teenager. At least, that’s what everypony told her. When you’re a teenager, you go out to parties and do stupid things and have crushes and argue with your family and generally be a pain in the rear. Most days, it didn’t feel much like Applejack was a teenager, according to the folks who’d told her what teenagers did.

Teenagers were supposed to sleep in and be grumpy in the mornings, right? Just this morning she was up at 5:00, happily slopping the pigs and mending fences. Makeup was one heckuva mess, just one more fuss she didn’t have time to make, and the only colts or mares she saw these days were customers or family, both of which were taboo.

Not that she really minded where she was or who she was or what she was doing. Nopony else in the family was as good at applebucking as she was, and nopony else could calm down baby ‘Bloom with a single lullaby. It was just who she was, what she could do. It was who she was, right in her bones. Right in the mark on her flank. Dependable Applejack. Trustworthy Applejack. Applejack, the crazy girl who ran her family’s farm.

Applejack sighed and curled tighter around her baby sister’s sleeping form, so precious, so still, so tiny. Becoming a teenager hadn’t really changed anything for her, not in the end. Another year, another number added to her age. Sitting at fourteen, with a brand new blanket and lasso to show for it, and she felt just the same as she had at eleven, when she’d dropped school to help out Mac in the fields.

Apple Bloom stirred and murmured in her sleep, and Applejack absently nuzzled at her mussed-up red mane as her eyes wandered through her window, along the horizon to where she knew Manehattan lay. Nothing had changed for her, but she could still dream a while, right? Remember the high society, the awful dinners, the vapid, gossiping housewives, and wonder...

“...Applejack...” a little voice mumbled. She turned and looked at her sleeping sister, at her little baby sister with her angelic smile and adorably scrunched nose. She pulled little Apple Bloom closer to her and rolled the both of them over in a gentle, smooth movement. Shielding her little angel from the window, from that terrifying skyline miles away, with the tall, ugly buildings reaching their claws up to grasp the very stars above them. She closed her eyes and gave Apple Bloom a little squeeze, just to remind herself what was real, what was now.

So maybe she wasn’t a teenager, really. So maybe she didn’t want makeup or colts or gossip. Maybe that didn’t matter. The only things that really mattered were beneath this roof, and between her two forelegs, asleep and peaceful. Was right about time she should join them.

Author's Note:

Prompt 278: "A lot changes when you're a teenager"

Apparently when I'm tired I like the Apple Family a lot, and things like this happen.

Comments

[DarkwingSnark]

I always got that vibe that Applejack was forced into an adult role way before her time. I don't think anybody meant for it to happen, but she did pretty much become Applebloom's mother.

[Midnight herald]

2374773 Once again, you hit the nail on the head. That's what I was going for here.

[Mermaid]

I'm surprised she's taking it so well, with no resentment or anything.