When life gives you apples, you make apple pie... Or get turned into one.
Hi, my name's Jack, and I'm an apple.
I wasn't always like this though, in fact, I used to be a cook, a darn good one too. So what is a sentient apple doing in a land of colourful horses? Beats me, but at least I can still speak. Maybe I can convince the natives to send me home.
I woke up to the irritating buzz of my alarm clock, punched it with the fury of a thousand angry midgets with the intention of sending it flying, remembered that I screwed it in place months ago after the last time that happened, and begrudgingly got up.
As I trudged downstairs I tended to my now aching hand, which had become calloused from the frequent abuse. It had become my daily routine, wake up, punch alarm clock, massage hand, make breakfast, get dressed and head out the door, arriving to work at six O clock. This routine was interrupted when I got to the kitchen, where I was greeted by the most horrific sight any mortal man could imagine, an empty fridge. I blanched upon realising the implications.
I turned to face the Freezer.
"Hello, old foe."
I walked over and braced myself for what I was about to do, I knew full well how strong my opponent was and was not going to underestimate him, not again. Placing my fingers under the lid and summoning all of my power, I called upon the herculean strength of my hunter/gatherer forefathers. I groaned as the freezer resisted my efforts, my infrequent visits to the gym doing little to help. after about 10 seconds of pain and anguish I finally managed to pry it open, I had bested my enemy, for today.
I reached in and grabbed a loaf of bread jutting out of the ice, having pulled it out and closed the freezer I was about to extract the slices when I heard a thump from behind me. I spun around to face the potential threat, finding only an apple on the ground underneath the fruit bowl... I face palmed when I realised my previous escapade was entirely pointless.
putting the bread on top of the freezer, I opted for an apple, but upon reaching to grab it I noticed the surface was unusually shiny, almost glowing.
"Weird, but it's too early to contemplate the shininess of fruit"
I took a bite of the apple, or tried to.
"What the?"
My mouth slid on the apple's skin as if it were polished steel, in fact, that's exactly what it felt like. Just as any normal person in my situation would do, I retrieved my sharpest knife from it's special sheath and tried to cut it. It was a MAC MTH-80 with a high carbon 8 inch blade, my pride and joy, if anything could cut this demonic fruit, it had to be this knife. I placed the apple on the cutting board, the shiny black graveyard where many of the apple's brethren had fallen, and began to cut, To no avail.
"... No, this isn't possible. Nope. Not happening."
That knife hadn't ever failed, Not once had I ever seen it slow down when cutting something, seeing it stop altogether? Unthinkable. After a few moments I slowly put the knife down and cupped my face in my hands. To think, a professional chef, with a job at a fancy restaurant with a barely pronounceable name had been defeated, by an apple. It was at this point when I began to entertain the thought of someone sneaking into my house and placing a titanium apple in my fruit bowl as some kind of sick prank. My musings were cut short when the apple began to glow, the glow seemed to be coming from both the outside and the inside, as if the entire apple was giving off light.
I honestly would have been more surprised at this development, had I not already seen it perform the impossible with my own eyes, this only strengthened the idea that this was either a dream or some kind of practical joke. However I didn't get to finish the thought as I was assaulted with a flurry of light that shone with all the colours of... apples? Reds, greens and yellows danced through my vision, and all the while my brain was sliding farther and farther back into the realm of disbelief.
The apple themed drug trip ended as quickly as it began, and I was treated to absolute darkness, the ground and my jaw would have been ecstatic to meet each other again if either was still there, but it seemed like I was floating, and I couldn't feel anything. I tried moving my tongue along my teeth, and was met with the glorious sensation of nothing at all, attempting to speak yielded no results, leaving me with just my thoughts to entertain myself.
It was at this point that my mind finally sobered up and took stock of the situation.
'Where am I? Am I unconscious? No, I wouldn't be thinking like that if I was unconscious. So, what happened? Maybe I'm just dreaming, in which case I should only be here for as long as I'm asleep, I should wait for something to happen.'
...
'This is boring, on the bright side, I seem to be taking this pretty well. Ha! and Audrey says I have no patience'
...
'Okay, now I'm scared, what if I never come out of this? Wherever I am. What if I'm in a coma, and my parents are sitting by the hospital bed talking to the doctor, discussing whether they should pull the plug or not? How long have I been out? Days? Weeks? Months? Have the past few months just been a dream? That would make sense, my promotion to Sous Chef had been rather sudden, but I can remember all the hard work I went through to get there. Surely that wasn't just a dream.'
Luckily I didn't have to think about it any longer as my surroundings started to brighten up and my sight returned, however all I got was green. As I focused more I noticed the green had patterns on it, when my vision had fully cleared I was finally able to make out leaves centimetres in front of my face.
"Wait, what?"
Furthermore, I couldn't see my nose or make out any other features in my surroundings, just leaves. However, I did notice that there was light coming from behind me, as the area just in front of me was quite dark, indicating a shadow. I tried to turn my head and was met with a strange pulling sensation on what felt like my hair, only it felt more rigid than hair should be, and I didn't remember my hair being that long. It wasn't necessarily painful, but it felt like my hair was extraordinarily long and was attached to the roof of... Wherever I am.
While I was contemplating my hair length I failed to noticed that I was in fact moving, like my face was moving to a different part of my body. I immediately became aware of this action when I was met with the pleasant feeling of the sun's rays burning my retina.
"Sweet Cheesus Chrust! it burns!"
I attempted to move my head downwards and was met with the odd feeling of my facial structure changing, after a couple of seconds I found myself looking strait down at a dirt path.
"Well, I have no idea what happened to my neck but apparently I don't need it anymore, great. Now if I could only figure out what's happened here."
'Come on think, what details can I glean from my surroundings? Well I seem to have lost all my limbs, including my neck, yet I can still move my head, or face, or whatever that thing I did before was. Maybe I can use that to look around and gain an idea of where I am'
As I looked around for more clues I noticed I was surrounded by apple trees, and on closer inspection it looked like I was sitting in one myself.
'Huh, how did I get up here I wonder? Come to think of it, why am I up here? I don't remember climbing a random apple tree and taking a nap.'
I then remembered how I ended up here in the first place. Waking up, defeating the freezer, trying to cut an invincible apple and spending a short eternity in a black abyss after an apple themed psychedelic journey.
"The apple, this is all the apple's fault. Look at me, blaming my problems on a piece of fruit, lovely"
I was once again reminded of my hair seemingly being pulled by some unknown force, and hazarded a look upwards. What I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life. On top of my head was a single brown stem, an apple stalk, attached to a tree branch.
I don't know how long I sat there, staring at the woody appendage sticking out of my head, It was like waking up one morning to find you had an extra leg. When I snapped out of my stupor the first thing I noticed was that my surroundings were slightly darker, or perhaps dimmer would be a more suitable term, given the cause of the change, as when I looked up I noticed that clouds were beginning to cover the skies.
'How long was I out?'
I continued staring at the clouds for a few minutes before I noticed something. They weren't moving, I continued to stare at the motionless shapes, trying to find any signs of movement, eventually I concluded that they hadn't budged at all since I started. However i did notice that there were holes in the clouds in odd places, and far too many holes at that.
"I'm no expert in meteorology," I said to myself, "but I'm pretty sure clouds aren't supposed to have that many gaping holes in them."
"I'm working as fast as I can!" Came the response. It sounded masculine, but that didn't tell me anything about the speaker.
'Did the clouds just talk back? Am I dreaming?'
It was only when something poked its head down through the cloud that It hit me. It was a person on top of the clouds speaking, not the clouds themselves, although it didn't help my case at all. Now I just had to figure out how they got up there in the first place. I took a closer look at the speaker and noticed that their face resembled that of a horse, and as they came down through the hole I was able to get a good look at the rest of their body. He was most definitely male, of that I was certain, but what was particularly jarring was what he was.
I was looking at a horse, with wings. he was light brown in colour with a dark brown mane, his muzzle was slightly shorter than that of a regular horse and sat below two eyes that I could swear took up the majority of his face.
Not wanting to leave him hanging I said "I didn't mean to insult you, I'm just confused, could you tell me where I am?"
He responded "Why, are you lost? Where are you anyway? I can't see you anywhere."
"I'm down here, as hard as it may be to believe, I'm an apple."
"Oh, are you here for a family reunion or something? They live just over there," he said while pointing to my left, "it's the big red farmhouse, you can't miss it." He seemed to give up trying to find me and instead opted to simply look in the general direction of my voice.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it" and with that he flew away, no doubt to continue doing whatever it was he was doing.
My eyes stayed trained on the spot where he was hovering just a second ago as thoughts began to swim through my mind, 'Who and what was that? Did he say family reunion? Are there other talking apples around here? Hopefully they'll have the answers, right now I have to find a way to get to them, maybe they can help me, whoever they are.'
W ith renewed vigor I attempted to move my new fruity body, and was rewarded with some movement. I continued to sway left and right, pushing with all of my might, I felt like i was about to break free when I realised what would happen to me upon hitting the ground.
"I'm starting to seriously regret not asking that horse for help, but would he really believe a talking apple would be asking for his help?"
Having no way of safely reaching the ground, I decided to stay put and wait for help. 'What was that guy doing anyway? He seemed offended when I mentioned the unnatural cloud cover, did he do that? I guess it makes as much sense as anything else I've experienced so far. I'd still like to know where exactly I am, and why I'm a talking apple for that matter. Hold on, I'm a talking apple, I have a voice, and they can hear me, I might just be able to summon help after all!'
I gotta tell ya', it feels weird taking a deep breath when you don't have lungs, or a mouth, or any extremities for that matter. It's like walking on nothing, You know something should be there, and you can almost feel it, but you know for a fact there's nothing there and whatever you think you are feeling is just your mind playing tricks on you. Nonetheless take a 'deep breath' I did, and what followed was the result of much practice shouting orders at people in a busy kitchen.
"Help! I'm stuck in a tree and I can't move, somebody please help me!" I bellowed. Well it wasn't completely a lie, I was indeed stuck in a tree and in need of help, but how exactly was I going to explain my situation?
'Hi, i'm an apple, but I used to be a human, can you get me down from here and perhaps take me to your leader?' It sounded ridiculous, but I would need some kind of message to relay when help finally did arrive. 'On that note, will these people believe me? Well surely if they have talking horses, then a talking apple wouldn't be too far of a stretch, or maybe they will take one look at me, shake their heads and walk off. Anything's possible I suppose. Also, since he referred to it as a farmhouse, I think it's safe to assume I'm in an apple orchard, and since i don't know its size or in what part of it I currently reside, I can't say for certain whether my call was heard or not.'
After a few hours with no response I relented, "Where are they? I'm starting to get worried, if they didn't hear me then there's a good chance the farmhouse is located far away from here. On the bright side, I don't feel hungry or thirsty, I guess I wouldn't have the need for such feelings when the tree provides me with all the nutrients I need. Come to think of it, how long could I survive without the tree's support? Well I may not feel hungry, but I do feel tired, if help was going to arrive it would have done so already." Accepting my immediate fate seemed to comfort me somewhat, and I slowly drifted into a deep sleep.
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I awoke to the sound of thumping, followed by the clopping of hooves coming from my left. turning to face the source, I was greeted by another horse, although this one was orange with blonde hair and lacked wings, also, it appeared to be wearing a stetson hat and had an image of three apples adorning its rear. Its face was also different to the last horse, the muzzle was slightly flatter and more feminine, although it appeared to have a stronger build than the last one, so I couldn't be sure. It stopped at one of the trees, then turned around and bucked it, causing all the apples to fall perfectly into buckets underneath. I watched it do this to five more trees before getting to mine, when I was struck by a brilliant idea.
I waited for it to get close, biding my time. When the horse was within range, it turned around and cocked its legs, and right when it was about to buck I shouted "Look out, a snake!", this had the desired effect, as it misfired and ended up falling on its haunches. All the while I laughed my nonexistent socks off, the horse on the other hand, looked less than pleased.
It looked around for the source of the disturbance and, with a heavy southern accent, bellowed "Who said that? Show yourself!"
As my laughter died down and I began to sober up, it occurred to me that I was ruining my one chance at freedom, so I quickly responded "Sorry, I couldn't help myself, I'm up here, in the tree,"
"Now what compelled ya' ta do that?" she said, more calmly this time. She continued to look around for signs of life in the tree, and began to scowl when she found only apples. Her voice told me that she was certainly female.
"yeah, I suppose it was a nasty thing to do, sorry." I said, not wanting to come off as a complete jerk.
"That's better, now would ya' mind tellin' me where ya' are? I can't see ya'll anywhere"
"I'm right above you, I'm the one that's moving", As I said this I put energy into shaking left and right, to prove my point.
Upon seeing me one of her eyebrows raised in suspicion, "Is that so?, and ya'll are sure this isn't just another prank?"
"Hey, I apologise for scaring you but you have to believe me, I really am an apple, I don't know how this happened but I need your help. I've been here for a day now and I'm bored out of my mind"
"Uh-huh, and what have ya' been doing in that time?"
'Brain, whatever you do, do not mess this up', "Oh, you know, just hanging around", 'why you little-'
Without another word she turned around and bucked the tree, causing all the apples, including me, to fall into the buckets. The fall was softer than I expected it to be, like falling on a springy mattress. She proceeded to pick me up by the stem using her teeth and promptly walked back in the direction she came. I was too ashamed to say anything after that, and so we continued in silence.
After a few minutes I spoke up, "So where are we?"
She didn't respond
'maybe I should just leave her alone for now'
After another few minutes we came to the end of our short journey, and I was greeted by a large red farmhouse surrounded by fields, sheds and other buildings of that ilk. When we got there she placed me on a fence post and said "Welcome to sweet apple acres."
The first thing I noticed was that there were apples everywhere. Granted, the fact that it was an apple farm meant that seeing some apples was a given, but holy guacamole were there a lot of apples. Whoever was in charge of the construction must have had some unnatural fixation with them, I had to have seen at least four apples on the front of the building alone.
Needless to say I was beginning to get sick of apples, but apparently it wasn't enough for their homestead to be loaded with apples, they all had to have apple themed names as well. The orange mare called herself Applejack, and as she told me about the rest of the family I could only grow more and more concerned about pony naming conventions. Her younger sister Apple Bloom was small with a yellow coat and a red mane, her older brother Big Macintosh was big and red, and Granny smith was old and green.
As we entered her home, thoughts once again flooded my mind, 'How did they know at birth that Big Mac was going to be big? And for that matter, how much longer will Granny Smith live? If she's as old as Applejack says then I have good reason to believe the universe is keeping her alive for the sole purpose of fulfilling that one gag. On that note, who in their right mind names a kid granny?'
We entered the kitchen and Applejack set me down on a table in the middle of the room, then left, coming back a minute later with a smaller pony who I recognised from Applejack's descriptions as Apple Bloom. She fitted the description pretty well, she had a laser lemon coat with a red mane and amber eyes. She was also wearing a giant pink bow for some reason, and i'm not exaggerating, the bow was almost the size of her head and must have used some ancient and dark magic to keep itself upright. 'Do all the ponies in this place wear large and ostentatious accessories? Maybe they wear them to stand out, or maybe it's just Black Friday.'
I heard Applejack cough into her hoof, I must have spaced out for a while because she had a concerned look on her face. She stared at me a bit more before saying "Well?"
"Well, what?" I replied.
"I was just askin' if ya'll minded Apple Bloom keepin' ya' company while I'm gone. I'm gonna see if a friend of mine knows anything about talking apples"
Look, I don't mind kids, I think they're lovely... When they're nowhere near me. Which is why i responded with "Why don't you just take me with you?"
"Because I don't wanna carry ya' all the way to Ponyville with my teeth"
"Are you calling me fat?"
"Look, all ya' have to do is sit there, I shouldn't be gone for long."
I was about to respond when I noticed Applejack had already left, leaving me with a monster more evil than anything hell could produce. A child.
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"Hey, ya' still there?" Apple Bloom asked, interrupting my thoughts.
"Yes"
"Okay, so ah was thinkin' you could-"
I tuned her out again and continued to lament, 'What did I do to deserve this? Is this punishment for giving that food critic the finger because he said the caramel on his Crème brûlée was too thick? No, I'm certain he was in the wrong. So why?'
Apple Bloom seemed to have no problem accepting that a piece of fruit could speak, immediately striking up a conversation the moment her sister left the room. And when she started talking, she just. Didn't . Stop. On the bright side, I learned a lot about the world I now inhabit. For instance, between her ramblings about life on the farm and something called a 'cutie mark', she mentioned Equestria. At first it just seemed like she was referring to equines in the same way people on Earth would say 'humanity', but then she started talking about her sister's adventures, which took place 'all over Equestria' as she put it.
When I learned the name of their country I was dumbfounded, 'Why would anyone name a country after their species? A country named Humania would never be taken seriously back home, though I suppose I should expect as much from the same ponies who name themselves after fruit.'
I noticed the kid had stopped talking and was now looking at me expectantly, she must have asked me a question. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice in one day, I hesitantly said "Sure, I'd love to", and I instantly regretted doing so.
"Yay!" She exclaimed so loudly that I could swear I heard a ringing in my nonexistent ears, "Come on, we don't wanna be late!"
'Well, whatever I've agreed to, it couldn't be that bad. Could It?'
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Okay, this tea party wouldn't be so bad, if I could drink the tea. I looked longingly at the small plate of eclairs on the table, sitting next to a pot of herbal tea and some odd looking scones, the fact that I could smell the tea only made matters worse. 'Why can I smell food if I can't even eat it?'
I was sitting in a tree house with three fillies who called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and it actually wasn't that bad. Mostly because I was too distracted by the food to take notice of what they were saying. We were sitting around a square table with the typical tea party setup, but with one catch, the food was actually interesting. In fact, I was amazed by the quality of the desserts, just by looking at them I could tell that they were crafted by a true artisan, someone who understood the finer intricacies of confectionery that few people understood. This was the kind of perfection that required years of backbreaking labour to achieve, talent alone couldn't get someone this far, one would need a short lifetime of acquired skill.
"I've never seen eclairs as beautiful as those," I praised, "whoever made them truly has an unparalleled mastery, and those scones for that matter, they don't look like regular ones."
"Eh, I've seen better" The one named Scootaloo, a winged pony who had an orange coat and purple hair, spoke before shoving one of them in her mouth, taking no time to acknowledge the flavour before swallowing.
What.
"I gotta agree with Scootaloo," said Apple Bloom, "Bonbon's a good cook an' all but I'd hardly say she's a master. And I think she called them 'Griffon Scones', or something like that."
"Look, I wouldn't expect you to understand, but these were clearly produced by someone with a high level of skill." I said, once again praising this 'Bonbon' character.
'Where did these kids get this stuff from anyway? You don't just walk into any old candy store and ask for confectioneries of this quality.'
The unicorn filly known as Sweetie Belle, who with a white coat with a pink and purple mane spoke in a squeaky voice "Who, Bonbon? Yeah, I guess she's pretty good, she has a candy store in town."
'Okay... Well, some of the greatest artists in history came from less than desirable places, perhaps Bonbon is of that ilk.'
Realising that it would be quite a while before my queries would be answered, I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and instead focused on the fillies in the room with me. I asked "Alright then, I'll have to find out more later, in the mean time could you tell me more about this place?"
Apple Bloom seemed surprised at the sudden change in subject, and said "Oh, well, it used to belong to Applejack, but she hadn't used it in a while and it was really old and dusty, so we spruced it up."
"I was talking about this world" I stated.
"Oh, okay, well what do you wanna know?"
"Everything" I would have regretted fueling the fire that was Apple Bloom's talkativeness, but I was genuinely interested in this world, especially with people like Bonbon to shine a light into the darkness. I listened intently to all the information they had to offer, I had forgotten about the exotic eclairs and scones, I was more interested in learning about the other foods Equestria had to offer.
'When I go home I'm bringing back every exotic recipe this land has to offer. Hey, hold on just a tooth picking minute, did she say Griffon Scone?'
