Remaining Strangers
Applejack sighed.
Her body ached all over, her mane was full of dirt and sticks and five other kinds of muck, and her hat had somehow landed right on top of her face.
“Now, I don’t wanna point hooves,” she said as she pointed a hoof, “but I think this is just about all your fault.”
The pony who’d landed on top of her scrambled to his hooves, making her wince as he climbed over her to stand up. “Wha—what happened?”
“Well.” Applejack nudged her hat up. She could see trees and stuff above them, but only in a tight circle; everywhere else there was just rock. “I’m no expert, but it sure looks like we fell in a hole.” Or he had, anyway. She’d just been taken off guard by the flailing hooves that wrapped around her leg.
They were in a small cave, by the look of things. A few tunnels ran off in various different directions, but only one was big enough for a pony to make it through.
“Well we—we have to…” Hooves clipped and clopped loudly in the rapid drumming of anxious pacing. “What’re we going to do?”
“Can’t speak for the both of us, I’m afraid.” Applejack let her hat fall back down over her eyes, then sprawled out. The rock actually wasn’t so uncomfortable, when she squirmed enough.
“What? You can’t just—you can’t just lie there!”
“News to me.”
“But we need to get out of here!”
Applejack sighed again and lifted her hat again. “Look, Fla—”
“Flim.” There was a snap to the scoundrel’s voice. It was refreshingly straightforward.
“Flim, sorry.” Applejack gestured upwards. “Y’see how high up that is? I don’t know about you, but I can't jump that, these walls’re pretty steep to climb, and there’s not a lot to rope onto easily up there even if I had any. So unless your magic’s feeling up to it…”
“Well we can’t just sit around doing nothing, can we?!” Flim trotted in circles, eventually throwing a wild look towards that one pony-sized tunnel. “Look, there’s a way we can go. What if—”
“What if it leads us to some kinda creature lookin' to chew us up?” Applejack tapped a hoof on the ground. “This spot’s safe so far, and that’s real valuable out in the Everfree.”
“So you’re saying—”
“What I’m sayin’.” Applejack groaned as she sat up. “Is that I told my brother where I was goin’, and if we just sit tight for a spell, he’ll come looking for us and everythin’s gonna be fine.” She pointed up at the hole. “That’s gonna be tough to miss. Closer to it we can stay, the easier it’s gonna be for him to find us.
“So just relax.” Applejack brushed some dust off of herself. “Might be here for a bit, but this ain’t a thing to panic over.”
Flim seemed to disagree, judging by the rapid rising and falling of his chest, and his restless eyes. It did make him look a little less like his usual smug self, though. Substantially less buckable. “What if he can’t find us? What if—?”
With a sigh Applejack rummaged through her saddlebags to procure a piece of paper with messy—but legible—directions scrawled on it. “He’s got these directions, same as me. If I came here, here’s where he’ll come.”
Flim kept pacing. At least once he started to move towards that one tunnel, or glance up at the opening in the ceiling, but soon he just plopped down on his haunches in front of her. Seems she’d finally gotten through to him.
That was good. He was… well, not quite the last pony Applejack wanted quality time with, but even he didn’t deserve to get chewed up by some Everfree creature. Not much, anyway.
He still seemed quite restless, though. That wasn’t so good. Not that she could blame him; she’d been in more scraps than him by a count too long to reckon, she figured, and she was juuust a tiny bit nervous as well. Best that bit be buried, though. Wasn't doing anypony a shred of good.
“So,” Applejack said, “what brings you all the way out here?”
Flim huffed, turning up his nose. “That’s no business of yours,” he hissed.
“Alright, alright.” Applejack rolled her eyes, looking away. “Probably wouldn’t like the answer anyhow.”
“No, I’d think not.” Flim’s lip curled. “I’m surprised you even bothered asking.”
“I wouldn’t, but if you’ve got some other idea on how to pass the time, I’m game.”
Flim’s mouth opened, hung still, then closed without a word.
“Uh-huh. So where’s your brother? Little weird seeing you without him.”
“That is also none of your business.”
Applejack shrugged. “Fair enough.” She set that piece of paper she’d pulled out on the ground in front of her, smoothing it out with a hoof. “So this…” She peered at the big, beefy words on the corner of the page. “… Kaleidoroot thing.” She chuckled, shaking her head ruefully. “Who comes up with these names, anyway? I take it that's what you're after, since you and I were on the same path. I hear if you grind it up or something, it makes quite a show. Colors you'd never believe, something like that.”
Briefly she glanced at Flim, who was trying to pretend not to look at her. “And in particular,” Applejack continued, “if you mix it with a couple other things, you’ll get this… paste or somethin’. Smear a bit of it on a thing and you can make it whatever color you want. And if you're careful, and know what you're doing, you can get patterns more intricate than anypony could make by hoof.”
Finally Flim gave her a look. “What," he said, "are you doing?”
“Ah, nothin’ much, when you get down to it.” Applejack chuckled again, smiling. “I don’t know the first thing about any of that, but my little sis seems to have a fancy for it. Potions and... and alchemy and stuff, I mean. She's made me pick up a little. Tells me about it whether I want it or not. But it feels good, y’know? Like there’s a whole other world I get to peek into a bit, all ‘cause I got a sister.” She studied Flim’s face closely. Hardly any reaction. Figures someone in his line of work would have a good poker face.
“Fascinating, I’m sure.”
“Heh. I guess it’s not like that so much with you, is it?”
“You would think that, wouldn’t you? No, my brother and I agree on many things, but not—”
Applejack arched an eyebrow.
Flim froze, then clamped his mouth shut.
“No, no, no, go on,” Applejack said with a wave of her hoof. “First thing you were saying that’s any business of mine.”
A heavy sigh was her response. “What do you want?” Flim asked. “I don’t have anything for you, and this isn't getting us out of here.”
Applejack glanced upwards thoughtfully. “Well,” she said eventually, “it’s close to Hearth’s Warming, you’re in just about the last place I’d expect to see anypony, where the only thing that won't try and gobble you up is a special glowy plant thing, and your brother ain’t here. Should be obvious what I’m thinkin'.” She let out a wistful chuckle. “Guess I was hoping maybe I could tease something outta you that I wouldn’t wanna slap you for, for once.”
Flim gave her a long, wary look.
And then suddenly he was smiling, as though he hadn’t been all hisses and glares just a few seconds ago. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said with an amicable chuckle. “We must have oodles in common, now that you mention it.”
“I dunno if I’d go that far. But go ahead, prove me wrong.”
“Hmm, very well.” Flim stroked his chin. “Like you, I’m…” He blinked, pausing. It was strange, seeing him at a loss for words. It didn’t last long; after only a moment he was back to being bright-eyed and chipper in expression and tone. That moment dragged on much longer than it should have, though. “Well, it’s quite obvious when you think about it. Like you, I’ve come all this way thinking of nothing but a cherished sibling.”
“That so? And it musta been a whole lot farther than for me, even, seeing as how you ain’t exactly a local.”
“Yes, quite so, I imagine. Fifty times or more, I’d wager—not that that matters, of course. But yes, anyway, this Kaleidoroot thing, it’s…” He trailed off in a casual, natural manner, and the chuckle he made was made hollow by its predictability, as was the upwards gaze that came after it. “Well, it’s actually kind of silly, but I suppose I’m quite a sentimental sort”—Applejack marveled on how he could say that without skipping a beat—“so when my brother told me he’d dreamed of a thing with colors so bright it couldn’t possibly exist, I realized I just had to let him prove himself wrong.”
“Mighty kind of you.”
“Indeed it is! Don’t ever tell him I said this, but he means the world to me, you know.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Ah, excellent.” Flim cleared his throat, his eyes digging into Applejack’s. “So,” he said, “did you… find what you were looking for?”
Applejack thought for a moment. She looked at this stallion in front of her. He felt so unlike her it was hard to believe that they were even the same species. But there was just enough of a kinship there for her to latch on to, perhaps.
Assuming he’d said a word that was true. If he hadn’t… or, well, even if he had… what was there that he'd put out, what part of him had he actually dug up and shown her, and what was just her filling in the blanks for him?
“Yeah.” Her instinct was to sigh, and perhaps it was hypocritical of her that she smiled instead—and that it didn’t mirror at all how she felt. “Yeah, actually, I think I did. Thanks for showin' me.”
“I aim to please, as always.”
That one, Applejack doubted was false.
They kept talking after that. Or Flim did, anyway. He seemed to relax, and so he prattled on and on and on, and Applejack was quite content to just listen and respond. She didn't remember much of it, and maybe she was being cynical, but she doubted she was the only one.
Just as Applejack had said, Big Mac showed up after a while, and with a little finagling he was able to get the two of them out of the hole. He didn’t say much, but the second he saw Flim he gave Applejack a look that said he had a whole storm of thoughts brewing inside his head. But if he made any judgments, he kept them to himself.
Until, that is, a while later when Flim was long gone and him and Applejack were walking back to the farm with a few chunks of strangely-colored root in a bag.
“Flim,” he said.
Applejack nodded. “Flim.”
Mac nodded too. “The two of you were down there a while. He say much?”
“That a question that really needs askin’?”
He shook his head. “No, it ain’t.” A pause, long and thoughtful. “What’d you think?”
“What'd I think?” She looked at the ground, quirking her lips to the side, and then she rolled her eyes and chuckled ruefully. “Didn’t give me much to think about. Lies and half-lies and…” She pinched her lips shut to sigh. “Ah, you know him. He’s a… whole other kinda stallion, ain’t he?”
A quiet, rumbling grunt was Mac’s response. Didn’t need to say anything.
Applejack nodded. “I might feel bad for him.” There might have been an effort to connect. A tiny one, but maybe it’d been there, just for a bit. “Don’t know yet.”
Mac gave her a look, an eyebrow lifting just slightly. “That so?”
“Maybe.” No. No, there hadn’t been. Not a real one. Coulda been ignorance that snuffed it out. But it coulda just been laziness, instead. “No sense trying to set him straight, though. He’s got no interest, it ain’t happenin’. And… well, I don’t like that, but I’m alright with it, y’know?”
Mac thought for a long while. “I do,” he said at last.
Applejack smiled and gave her brother a playful bump. “Course you do,” she said. “Better than me, I’d bet.” That thought made her warm inside in a way that colored the last couple hours with a frigid glaze.