> The Applejack Zone - A Pony In Hay
>  by TrollestiaSubject
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Seeds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We ponies use to say some words too slightly; and one of these words is honestly, well, I honestly can say apples here from Sweet Apple Acres are the best all around Equestria, and I’m sure of it for all the work and dedication that I have put into them. You should taste them sugarcube; once you grab a bite you won’t stop liking them. I owe these apples not just my fitness but my sanity itself.

You know, many ponies had tried to get the secret of this fruit out from me, and I’m probly crazy for telling you but I trust you if say you can keep the secret, I’m gonna start saying that these apples can only be found in this part of Equestria thanks to little Apple Bloom. She got the seeds of an already extinct apple tree from her zebra friend living in Everfree forest. We all in the family have a natural tinkle when it comes to apples, and even if she didn’t earn her cutie mark as "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER, APPLESEED RESCUER!", She did good indeed that day.

We started to plow them, just a few the first time, and I remember the whole family gathered for that special moment in the field. We were helping to keep alive an apple kind after all. We don’t usually reunite all very often, but when we do it sure is fun, and that one time was no exception, in fact I guess these all good vibes and cheerful camaraderie was what made the propitious ambient for these trees to group up fast and healthy, it was like if they would want to repopulate the world again, or maybe that was natural for the new tree, nopony in the family would know, not even Twilight could find  anything in her books about this new crop, but its grow rate was amazing, that was probly the reason why Zecora had decided to let them die as apple kind, she said they were dangerous, and in the wildness of her land they could be clearly a problem, but they were under the watchful eye of mah family now, and you won’t find ponies with more experience anywhere in all Equestria, yah know it. So what could go wrong?


Before a season they were ready to be bucked, and howdy apples! They were the sweetest thing I had tasted in all my life; Pinkie’s oven never knew what a sweetened flavored thing was as I did that day. Too bad Apple Bloom was too busy doing Cutie Mark Crusaders crusades that day, so the honor of the first taste fell on me, and I was probably the first pony ever in taste such apple, or at least the first living being in this part of the world.

So when I went back, I wanted to share with everypony in the farm. Surely it could be our best season in the farm with a harvest like that. When I gave an apple of these to everypony in the farm to taste the new product, I felt sorry for mah friends in Ponyville, so I went right there with some more of these new apples in a basket for them. Carrot Top, and Colgate, Berry Punch, everypony in the way should know about this, in fact all my friends had their own friends, and pets; these apples should sweeten the behavior of Fluttershy’s bunny sure, and help Rainbow Dash to do her rainboom flying thing. These apples were good, the point was going to find, how good.

> Roots
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At Sugarcube Corner Pinkie couldn’t deny these apples where the sweetest things ever, so she tried to bake some in different pastries, as cupcakes or pies, but the flavor was kinda ruined when baked so I told her to stop wasting them. But you know Pinkie, everypony in Ponyville does, she was like “one more, one more!” But I had more friends to visit, and when I tried to get outta there with mah apples, she… I’m not really sure what she tried to do, but she stumbled with me, and mah lights went off; I wish I had a better way to explain it, but my head has been a mess lately.

Before heading out the door of Sugarcube Corner with my basket in mouth, I had this weird feeling, of something other than a basket in my mouth; it was something acid, metallic, something tied around my head. Sugarcube Corner was nowhere around and I was in some crappy wooden building, it smelled funny and my coat was itchy n’ frowzy, and my hat n’ ribbons in my mane and tail were gone. I was resting over a dirty floor of hay, mud under it, and I dun wanna imagine what kind of disgusting thing was mixed within at the corner. Then I heard something, a weird sounds, like if somepony was snoring or something like that.

I had completely forgotten about Pinkie, Sugarcube Corner, or the apples. I just wanted to know where I was, but my legs gave me some trouble to lift me up. After some effort I could stand up and find out Pinkie Pie inside an individual stalls too, they were lined in the border of the building and all the other were empty but they all were the same of creepy.

“What the hay! Pinkie, Is that you?” I could believe what I saw, she was all muddy and her puffy mane had some bugs flying around, but it was her, no doubt.

“Hello silly filly!” she said cheerfully in her usual bouncy standing position. “You overslept again; you are the laziest mare I have ever met!” She told me and I wasn't giving credit, Pinkie pie was lecturing me about oversleeping! My jaw couldn’t go lower, and that was just the beginning!

“Where are we?” I asked her.
“In the ranch” she replied. But just what in hay a ranch is? She told me it’s like a farm, but it didn’t look anything like Sweet Apple Acres, not even if you abandon it for one hundred years. This place was much more dirtier and smelly than a farm could ever be.

Then a… some... thing, came in, and I asked it why were we there, but that thing had just such a dumb face that probly didn’t even understand a single word of what I said. It walked bipedally and had a hide covered in more… hide, and was wearing a hat like mine.

“They are our owners” Dirty Pie said, but owners my flank, I told her that we had to scape, but then that thing brought a basket full of these sweet apples we had tasted earlier, and I had to admit; maybe play to be a pet for a little bit more wasn’t going to be so bad, And they gave them in baskets, a metallic ugly one but still. It gave one to me, and one to Pinkie’s sweet tooth, and since I was too full to complain anymore, and since Pinkie was still energetical and surprisingly eager to work, I let it put me on a harness and played to do Big Mac work. Pinkie was unexpectedly strong so in fact I wasn’t doing the entire job as I had thought before.

In the field I noticed Pinkies cutie mark was… different, like bald random lines, I told her, but she chuckled and made me notice mine was the same, and I would have been scared if I wouldn't have been so tired. After the work It wanted to let us again inside that dirty shack with just dirt and hay in the floor and Pinkie didn’t mind at all, but I fought back until some other of them brought more apples, and I don’t know who they did it, but they managed to get me back in a stall again, at the end I was so tired that even that filthy hay did a good place to rest for the night.

When I woke up, nurse Redheart was taking my pulse, I was on a mint clean hospital bed, mah ribbons in place, and my hat was at the bedside. When she noticed I had awake she smiled to me, and after look at the door and pony her hoof back and forth my friends went in, all rushing inside bringing a gush of wind along them.

Pinkie Pie was crying waterfalls and her mane was deflated, she told me she was sorry, and I said “It’s okay sugarcube” but I don’t really remember what happened, and ask her wasn’t going to help her feel any better, so I’m not very sure what happened there even now, but then I told them my dream and at the end they all were like:

:o

And I know right, it sounds a little scary, but these sweet apples did worthy the whole thing.


Sometime later everything was back to normal, even better. The apples had been a huge success so we had to plant more of these trees, and even replaced some fields with the new apple breed. We even had that discussion about replacing all of them with the new crops, but we just agreed to focus in the later production, without lose the original product, but just a few ponies wanted to keep working on them even back then. The new apples were a sales record, we even tried to share our incomes with Zecora but she had suddenly left to her homeland. 

This new tree was growing up fast, and the fruit could be bucked a few times each season. What’s even better, with proper cares it could bloom even out of season proving to be a strong and resilient crop, even so due to demand it wasn’t cheap, but for short, it was a great time for us on the farm.

We had a brand new barn, Granny Smith had her new hips, Big Macintosh didn’t need to do physical job anymore, if he ever had wanted! but nooo… well, I guess that wasn’t so bad in the end. Anyways; Apple Bloom was the guest star at the parties of all her filly friends, and everypony in the field had a new cart. Not to mention this new Sweet Apple was the absolute treat that the world needed.

> Trunk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think it was one year later after the first crop when me and Rainbow Dash were competing in a race, the price, an apple of course, that had settled all of our differences aside and we were just doing it for the fun, not to mention the apple, even if only one.

That day I was a little ahead when Rainbow Dash made me stumble and I fell down by the hillside. Certain for how she was laughing, it should have looked funny from where she was. But next thing I remember was my tummy itching by the hay on the ground.


At the beginning everything was blurry, and my head was still dizzy; but I recognized that filthy stall and the stinky smell. My legs felt a little weak when I tried to stand up, but over the door I could see a few ponies in other stalls, and I could recognize a muddy Pinkie Pie and a less muddy version of Rainbow Dash in a separated cabin. They were very quiet, but a soon I made the first sound they started with things like “Finally, the princess woke up!” and nonsenses such like that, so I was pretty much sure they weren’t going to help me getting out of there, or explain what’s going on. But, what the hay, I’d been there before and wasn’t so bad, very soon a nice breakfast of Sweet Apples should start.

And so it goes on, they feed us, Pinkie ate her apples too fast, she didn’t have any control, she doesn’t know how to enjoy properly an apple. Rainbow Dash also decided that the appropriate way to eat them was crashing her face against them, was there when I noticed that her wings were gone.

I should have suspected in that moment that I was just dreaming; but a grin twisted mah face. I already wanted to see that show off pegasus after an earnest tough day in a farm.

So they hitch the plow to me and pinkie. But they brush Rainbow! I was expecting to see working that presumptuous mare for once in her life, but they groom her and that’s just not fair! Or at least I thought so because later that day I saw her carrying one of these things on her back, an owner. And I could have laughed on my back but my legs were aching a bit so I decided to keep it for later, she was wearing a seat tied down with some stripes at her belly, and her head was held gagged with reins, it was so sick that I had to bit my lower lip to don’t burst out laughing. But it covered just that one part of the morning primp, so thinking that the cheater had it well deserved I made her stumble with the plow when she went near, she fell down with that one thing “owner” on her back and I saw them writhing on the mud, I thought it had been so hilarious till she said she twisted her ankle, but then she was taken away to the building where I woke up, and I felt better knowing they could care her there for the day.

That afternoon they took Pinkie away, for a shower I hoped so, and I was taken to that poor imitation of a house for us were they had kept Rainbow Dash for the day. Inside one of them brought me my well-earned bucket of apples and it wasn’t very clean, but Sweet Apples are totally worthy an ugly bucket or the heavy work. I was eating and could see Rainbow Dash up in some kind of cart, with her leg tied down in bandages, and one of the owners gave her a single apple, it wasn’t a big one or the prettiest one, but surely it was one of the sweetest, you can say by the moisture around a bite mark when you are an expert as you know ey am. Dash was holding it between her hooves gladly munching her bite, I was happy for see her sane and safe eating properly an apple for the first time in her life when the owner took a stick and making a terrifying sound with it Rainbow’s head blow off. I jumped up on my place shouting every course I could made up, or at least I was trying to but no real sound came outside, just a strange sound that I didn’t know I could do.

I still remember the brain bits of Dash raining over the place, I wondered if these were part of the dirty between that hay. I had never watched the insides of a pony or a head, but they were Rainbow Dash and I couldn’t turn my eyes away.

Poor Dash, she was always the first pony in die.

The thing with the boomstick was heading to my cubicle in a hurry when another form outside came in, and they argued for a while, I placed my hooves above my head and begged Celestia for it all to be a dream. Silly me, I had forgotten it was a dream, if I had be able to see what would happen later, I would have begged to stay.


Next morning I woke up again in a hospital bed, and I started to wonder if it all had been a dream since I went to Pinkie’s place, an unicorn doctor came in, examined my pupils, and then when outside wordless, After a while my friends went in and this time Pinkie wasn’t crying, and Rainbow wasn’t there at all. They told me how worried they were but I was almost weeping because the bad dream. I was sopping Rainbow’s dead and I didn’t stop there. We found her dead that very same afternoon; she hanged herself from an apple tree at Sweet Apple Acres. The doctors said she had to fly fast against the rope to be able to hang herself like that, I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to in that moment, we would be able to see the procedure over again later first hand, but in that moment I was denying everything related to it. They blamed regret for it. Some ponies told me that Dash hanged herself because she thought she had hurt me badly, and that I couldn’t make it through the night. But Dash wasn’t anything like that; she should be the last pony thinking I wasn’t going to make it. Or maybe some ponies were just mad to me and that’s why they told me so, and I didn’t blame them, I was mad to myself, to them, to everything. I’m still. Maybe a Sweet Apple could help now.

> Branches
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even mah family and friends were beginning to be distant with me. Rarity was the only pony that invited me to her place after that and probly just to dress me up with black veils and to carry her Sweet Apples from the farm, Twilight had enclosed herself more than ever with her books or so we hoped, and writing a lot of her letters to Celestia, and Pinkie was almost the same; obsessively trying to create a pastry with the original flavor of the Sweet Apple and failing. And Fluttershy, well, she could be next to you and you could only notice when she eeped cuz she thought you saw at her, but frankly she has always been busy with her animals, and then, it sounded like the best excuse to keep her distance from me. I tried to talk about this situation with Rarity, I told her about my brother more silent than ever b’coz he was always busy trying with normal apples, he being the only pony involved with them anymore since they weren’t business anymore, and Apple Bloom, well, she was with her friends most of time, in fact Rarity hadn’t talked too often with Sweetie Belle either, and she tried to comfort me using fancy words to say that everypony was a spineless pile of shame; we all were Rainbow Dash’s friends, and nopony saw that coming, and right then we weren’t in disposition to face each other shames and guilts. And you know what, she was right! Rainbow Dash was always a loyal friend, and all the blame for what she did was… mine.


Rarity’s face didn’t show a lot of confidence in my last statement the first time I said it, but I had to be honest and accept that what Dash did was all my entire fault. That or maybe Rarity was just a little tiny bitie fatty, and her thoughtful cheeks seemed like her doubtful face.

I was being pretty honest with myself in that moment, and Rarity didn’t want to admit that she had enclosed herself below her cloths and jewels. And she was positively overweight, since Rainbow’s death she was depressed, and I had been going very often with apples to visit her, so I tried to pull her out of Carousel Boutique, and take away the apples from her, or at least make her pay for them. But she wasn’t ready yet, for any, and my head was already a mess, so she became angry with me, like a trodden rattlesnake in a cold day, and pushed me with the raw strength of her swinging flank to a corner with ponyquins stacked.

And now I wish that would had been the last time I saw Rarity.


Next morning I woke up with my face between the hay and the mud.
It was cold, and it felt so real.
My tears were real too.
Was this the dream?

A strand of colorful hair was between the hay.

I pushed my legs down trying to escape of the sight but I hardly did half way up.
The strand stood there, I had to try twice.

“Silly filly, you’re still dreaming that you’re the princess of your own farm”. Dirty Pinkie said springing merrily. Somehow this Pinkie seemed to be more bouncy than the pony at Sugarcube Corner.
“I positively agree with Pinkie in this. Look at you Applejack, you should do something for yourself” a ladylike voice said from a corner, No doubt whose pony was it.

And I don’t remember if I said “You’re gonna die, you’re all gonna die!” or if I just thought so. I was just expecting to the thing with the boomstick to go in to open my head like Dash’s.

But then when I saw to Rarity’s stall I found out more of her of what I had thought.
She was comfy lying over her hooves in pigpen at a corner near the entrance; the very same dirty hay in the ground, and no privacity at all. And she was definitely not a unicorn; still a pony but she looked more like a piggy.

This Rarity was surely a bit more fatty than a bit, this Rarity was like three bits fattier.
“What the hay is up with you!!?” I said. I’m sure I said it; I couldn’t just have thought it, even if I had tried.
“Well, how impolite from you, not everypony here is a pulling beast. I’m going to my contest, and I’m surely gonna win”
“Well I hope they qualify your… extra you.”  I said, and lifting her nose, maybe ‘cuz that was her only part she could lift, she turned her face away from me after a slight hum that made me happy before my deafening goodbye.

I was shaken in my hooves when the main door opened with that distinctively silhouette pulling open the door.

But he was just carrying buckets with sweet Apples along.  
Some more unknown ponies had their own share in their own stalls. 

Pinkie and I had one.
Rarity had a whole cart.
Mine looked tastier.
Rarity acted like if hers were better.

Then they took us all to work.
Pinkie and I had to tow.
Rarity had more Apples to finish.

That day we worked like real mules pulling stones and trunk out of the field.

And the sun wasn’t doing it any easier.

Neither the whip.


When they took a break they leaved us there leashed.

“Pinkie, I can’t stand it anymore”. I said falling over my hooves.
“Well, you need to warm up early every day, but you’re always… dreaming, with family, and sales” Dirty Pie said in a sarcastic tone that didn’t fill my ears with please, I actually was surprised she wasn’t saying anything about magic or dragons, but whatever. “Well princess, let me take out my magical horn of happiness to make “you” feel right. Do you think I like this job? My legs ache each morning; do you think I’m jumping in the morning because I’m happy? I have to cover my coat in mud to protect it from the bridle. But you just oversleep and dream, and now you’re crying. You better put up your best face or you’re going to finish like ol’ Rainbow Dash.”

I’m maybe getting up one or two words there of what she said, but I’m never gonna forget the way she did, she wasn’t happy there either, but she was doing her job, and I was just whining around.


That afternoon we saw Rarity, on a road with a village below, coming back from her competition; she had a blue ribbon with her, and was trotting proudly in front of us in her way back to the stables, her funny figure and white coat imposing against the red afternoon sky. We kept working in the field, but I felt glad for her, bcoz she has always been my friend, and I felt mad to her earlier and I dunno why. In that moment I felt like everything was alright.
If Just for a moment.


Later, after the job, they took Pinkie and me to our building as always. And I saw open a building that had always have been closed when we passed in front of it before.
And I had a strong bitter smell from the inside, like something rusted, and I catched the sight of metallic things hanged from the roof; many thin sheets, hung one against each other, colliding, and making a noise like wind-bells.
I saw the back of one of these things, taking away something like a piece of white hide while something red was pouring from the table to the ground.
When Pinkie and I were in our stalls, they brought us our buckets of Sweet Apples and leaved us alone, I didn’t want to talk any more to Dirty Pinkie and she wasn’t very talkative to me either.

That night after her dinner Pinkie was bluntly slept on the filthy hay floor, but I didn’t eat that fast and now I couldn’t eat; a gross smell was misting the air, they were grilling something.

Rarity wasn’t in her stall.


That night I couldn't sleep, and something in the air told me that these things ain’t vegetarians. 



When I woke up between the ponyquins I just wanted to say Rarity I was sorry, but she wasn’t anywhere in the Carousel Boutique. And I was really gladly she when outside since… I was just glad.


I didn’t have to look for her a lot, that afternoon somepony found a body aside a tree at Sweet Apple Acres.

When I heard about it I knew it was Rarity, I'd wished to be wrong.

Self-made said the guards.


She tried to hang herself, but she was a little chubby and her body fell off from her head.

Only she could use a stylized rope to hang herself from such height.

If she wanted something spectacular, she made it.

It was spectacularly grotesque.


I threw up apples for the first time in my life that day.

I had seen pony insides before.
Once.
It was… for the sorrow, I had too much inside for mah size.


> 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!

> Leaves
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ran to the library, the moon high in the sky, I thought I would need to force the entrance open, but the lights were on, and the door was opened wide. I saw Spike leaving upset for some reason but I hadn't had time to figure out why. Just when I went in through the door her feathered assistant leaved the room too through the window, and Twilight was sited in front of a book smiling awry to me, she had books scattered all over the place but she was in her best face, or so I believed.

“Twilight, Fluttershy’s animals went crazy! And we have to find why!”
“Crazy! Who’s crazy!?, I’m not crazy!!” she said in a psyched expression, 

I know it was late and she seemed to need some sleep really bad, but I had to tell her everything that had happened with Fluttershy earlier and that really seemed to take a screw out of her cuz her expression just twisted a bit more, but she had a secret reserve of Sweet Apples just below the floor, with only two left but she shared one with me, and I kept going on about my weird delusions, and asking for help I told her every I knew about the Hay world, but she just told me that didn’t matter. She wasn’t even listening to me! She only asked me for some Sweet Apples for Celestia’s nightly snack. I knew that if I ever returned to that place I was going to end like Rainbow Dash. I told her everything about my broken hoof, and their Boomstick! But Twilight just told me it was all just a dream, due to anxiety of a traumatic event, or something, but I felt she was totally ignoring my problem and she was just asking for Sweet Apples! So I tried to infuse some sense into her using my hoof but she didn’t like my idea, so I heard something about she getting the apples by herself, and then a glow of her magic turned my lights off…



“Not again” I begged with mah eyes yet closed. My entire body ached, but especially my right front hoof. I had some trouble trying to stand up, so I called for help to anypony out there, but just a guttural primal sound went out from my heart.  

I wasn’t feeling good by any mean, I was just trying to get a word, ask for help, or say anything at all. That was the moment when I thought it could be all a dream due to a hit on the head. Convincing myself that it was just some sort of cuckoo hallucination, I calmed down enough my voice to be able of ask for help.

Surprisingly a lot of ponies answered, I thought for a moment that I was still in Ponyville before realize about the hay under my belly. 

Forcing enough my three comparatively sane legs I lifted me up. With my head above I could notice an almost, if not fully, occupied stable. I didn’t recognize most of ponies there, but I saw some faces I didn’t wanna find there.

Apple Bloom between them.

“What the hay?” I said, and that was a perfect moment for it, then it hit me. Is curious how we ponies use some words too slightly; and one of these words is hay. I was just in that very same hay place we ponies call when something strange is going on.

“So this is hay” I thought, and I didn’t like it, it was smelly and my hoof was broken.

Then they pulled the doors open, and the Sweet Apple buckets started to arrive. After breakfast some ponies were taken away while others were quietly brushed in their stalls. I was being inspected on my leg. Without a good signal from the reviewer, Dirty Pie who was mudding Apple Bloom’s coat and was teaching her to jump still in a place, was taken away. 

Carrot top was there too, but she was too thin for the heavy plow, she was attached to something smaller alone, and since the rest had being taken or were being saddled they took Apple Bloom for the job.

Dirty Pinkie face was like “What the hay!?” But Apple Bloom was ready and fired up for the job, and I couldn’t see more since I was left in my stall, between the filth and hay.

But then Twilight came in to my booth .

“Twilight, you have to help me!” I cried to her.
“Well, if you tell me your problem, maybe I can do something about it” she said somehow smiling.
“You have to use your magic to help us all to return to Equestria!”
“Very good then, just let me look for… how does Muddy Pie say? My magical spike of happiness! That’s it? Well, Hufity-Hoppity-Shablabla! And you’re princess now, or a tree, or whatever you want” Said Twilight giggling.
“Twilight, I’m serious here!”
“Well, then hit your hooves together and say three times in a row “go again, go again, go again, to that dream away” and you’ll be in your magical land with flying ponies then”
“TWILIGHT, MAH HOOVES ARE BROKEN!!! They are going to be here any moment, and they are gonna bring their boomstick with them!”
“Boomstick! I’m pretty sure you know its real name, don’t you? But boomstick is a good one, I’ll have to remember”
“Twilight, what I’m going to do? If you can’t help me Ah dunno…”
“Well, you have to accept it, is normal for likes as you, it’s a natural part of your life, it was mean to happen all along. You just made it harder for yourself with, these dreams. I’m not magical, I don’t have any firing peak on my mane” She said raising her forelock, showing no horn. 
“Twilight, you don’t understand? They are going to kill us all!”
“Not me! I’m an exhibition specimen; they use me to jump high, gallop funny, and learn tricks. Nothing bad is going to happen with me! You in the other hoof, you only seem to be alert to eat and work, and that’s it! Actually, I can’t really blame you for your dreams; I couldn’t stand the life in your hooves either”
“Twilight! The other world, Equestria! It’s real! You have to remember! You are my only hope in this moment!”
“Real hmm? Let’s see. Do you remember your parents?”
“Well…
“Any family?”

“I remember mah brother!”
“Oh yeah? And what’s him into? What does he like? What does he like to talk?
“He… hmm… apples? Well, he’s big and strong!”
“Oh my! No, Applejack, these are qualities you like. We’re talking about his likes”
“I remember Granny Smith”
“Well, of course you do, even I do. She was the mare Dirty Pie replaced, she was your first companion, you couldn’t forget her. Tell me; is she magical, does she fly?”
“She still alive”
“Aww, Applejack!”
“No! Little Apple Bloom is here! And she’s my sister!”
“Well, she’s going to substitute you; naturally you see her as a little you. See…? Everything is a dream!”

I fell crying in that moment, realizing that Twilight was right.

“Now I have to leave you, I have an important competition this afternoon.” these where the last words I heard from Twi.


That afternoon Pinkie was brought earlier to her stall, and I didn’t want to ask anything; she was brought alone, and she started to cry. I didn’t want to see in her way.

“I- I didn’t mean it. She, she was too small, I tried!” she said to me I guess. When I lifted my head, I saw two of them through the door, pulling out of the mud the small body of little Apple Bloom on the field.

And Pinkie never ended her crying.


Twilight came that afternoon; she was lying down on a cart, one like the one they used to carry Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash away. Her knees were wounded, practically exposed, and she seemed to be in a lot of pain, she was brought directly to my stall, and they took Pinkie away leaving no other pony in the building but us, while she was still grieving the ambiance with her far cries. 

I didn’t felt like saying “I told you so”. She couldn’t hear me anyways.

The only thing worse than Hay; was to have somepony else to share it with.

They brought two Sweet Apples along, and you could bet they were the sweetest apples I had seen in mah life, one to Twilight, and the other for me. 

She held hers between her hooves gleefully, she seemed to forget about her pain for an instant, and she smiled for a bite, for a chew, for a sweet moment she was never able to gobble down.

Mother sugar always loved me, when I heard to the sound I only could stand holding on my Sweet Apple.

I was wrong; the only thing worse than Hay, was to have been left alone in it.


Twilight was now in the hay the same way than Rainbow Dash, her little drops shinning. I didn’t know what to do, even if I had it was too late. Twilight never was able to gulp down her apple. I could see her first bite of it, still chewed on her exposed tongue. Her time ended on a chomp, I was too frightened of end like them, and all I could do then was vow to myself not to eat anymore apples ever again. It was the sweetest apple I had seen in mah life, no doubt of that; but I never tasted it. I held it like praying on it and giving it back. And the shoot never came, and I was left alone all again, and I started to dream again.


The morning had come, it always came. It came too late.


I felt a book fall down over my head and I woke up, I was below a pile of them in a corner of Twilight’s library. She wasn’t anywhere around, the place was a mess, but it already had been when I first came, I just didn’t mind on that before. A lot of books where piled out of the shelves and many more were sprawled open as if she had been looking for something.

Outside the sky was a perpetual nightfall, neither the sun nor the moon were moving up or down, and just a small line of dawn was burning at the distance after a well darkened night  in the most part of the sky, and the moon was loosely colliding against the stars, whirling everything randomly inside and hypnotic nightly firmament.  

Ponyville seemed to be empty but I didn’t dare to suppose an hour of the day, no lights where on like in the library, and many doors were open but nopony was around, buildings simply abandoned. Without anywhere else to go I went on my way to Sweet Apple Acres. Before reach the full length of the way there I noticed something hanging from the trees; they were bodies of ponies all over the field. 

You could find them hanging as far you could see. in my run amid the trees I found workers from the farm and many ponies from Ponyville hung motionless there, Carrot Top, Colgate, Derpy, Berry Punch, a lot of them, and the furthest I went more recent seemed to be the bodies, at the point I found out some ponies still moving while hanged up there, and even yet hangings themselves. I tried to stop them but they were too many and most of them weren’t even reacting to me, as if they don’t care. When I heard somepony crying, it was Bon-Bon, she seemed to be the only pony with a bit of consciousness around, but she was tying a rope too, when I asked her what was going on; she just told me, she was doing that cuz Lyra did, and pointed to a tree nearby from where a lifeless Lyra was hanging on, I was so shoked that I starter to run again until ah crashed with a brown stallion, when I asked him, he told me they just wanted to be part of the apples, and he didn’t gave up on hanging himself even after I had thumped him to the ground a couple by my own, they all were mindless, and I ran away from there too, I didn’t care where, I was just running, you know; like in these dreams you run and run, but you never reach anywhere. I had to prevent more ponies hang themselves but besides the obvious and not-very-appealing solution, I couldn’t think something better while I was running senseless around. 

Then I found out Apple Bloom. Hanging there with her two little friends near, from other trees, and I went frozen to the brim. The wind between the trees was the only sound besides the ropes tightening after the ponies falling. I should have never asked Apple Bloom to steal those seeds from Zecora. Then I heard some weeping again, it wasn’t mine, I had cried already all I had.

“I didn’t let her taste the Sweet Apples till I could create a pastry with the same flavor, when I thought I had reached the closer that I could I gave them the raw apples to compare.” Pinkie Pie said between sobs, she was stained in flour, coiled over the roots under Apple Bloom’s tree. She had been there all along but I hadn’t noticed her before.

Much to my grief I had thought only one way to prevent more ponies from hang themselves, and now I didn’t have any more time if this was going to be an option.
I had to burn all the trees. 

Wasn't easy, in my despair I started running silly, holding a torch from the house in my mouth, but once Ah give it a little more of time and they catched the fire, it spread pretty fast by its own.

While I was running between the trees firing the field, I could see a red line of dawn rising up against the nightly sky from the fire I had started. Other ponies didn’t even care the fire, the kept on hanging themselves, among the fire achieving or not. By then I think Pinkie was the only pony that hadn’t died hanged or in the fire. She was trying to turn off the flames with a water cube from Only-Pinkie-knows-where; I knew she couldn't do it alone, so I let her be. Meanwhile I was setting more fire, but then she tried to stop me, she wanted to save the Sweet Apple trees and I couldn’t let that happen, we ended facing each other and I didn’t want to harm her, but in that moment I recalled how surprisingly strong was Dirty Pie, and the true is this Pinkie wasn’t weak or slow either; but then you came around to give me a hoof; and I’m still mad at you for that. She was my friend and you shouldn’t intervene! That’s when I told you to leave and keep on burning the trees, and well, While Pinkie and I were fighting, she was crying, she didn’t really want to hurt me I guess, but she had to, she had to stop me from burning the trees. Now I think she possibly knew what’s going to happen if I accomplished, but she didn’t have time to prevent me, but I had never saw her that crazy before. At the end I had to kill Pinkie Pie with my own hooves, I found her crying, and she died crying, in a puddle of mud from her own bucket and tears.


> Skies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Whose pony am I starring now? Not again, not again, not again, in this dream I can't awake, who is real? Which is real? What is real? That’s something I can’t see.” I wake up. And I’m dreaming again, but it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s too late now. Twilight was right all along! She told me everything is a dream. 

"As it was before, It will be no more. Time does that".


I see you keep listening to my story, or maybe you still here just for this apples. No point in save them in the reserve anymore, it was good that you never could be able to sell them I guess, and luckily you never tasted the Sweet Apples. They gave you bad vibe since you noticed how I was just since I ate one, don’t you? Nice from you don’t minding sharing these, but you can have all you want for your won, I can’t really eat anything else since I tasted the Sweet Apples. I don’t know if I can convince you, but these were the sweetest apples I’ve had in my life, nothing could compare. I know they gave me troubles in the past, but if you think that was bad; try to sow Sweet Apple Acres again all by yourself. Sure I stopped switching between dreams! But we ponies use to say some words too slightly; and one of these words is Hay, well, the real Hay was to sow all the field by my own again! And the worst part is that the Sweet Apple trees won’t grow up again anymore, now all the seeds we had are dead and all that work was for nothing!

Nor the sun or the moon, are moving anymore, and we have too many for this ol’ simple apples just for both of us, I just wish they would be of the Sweet kind. 

In the other hoof, if you can imagine the flavor, the sweetness, the dripping juice, the crunchy feeling, the crispy sound from your mouth, then maybe YOU can dream with the Sweet Apples again, and reach its world, where they are given by buckets to everypony morning and late, and maybe you could bring some with you from there, that’s the way these apples should have come here in first place; maybe a zebra dreamed with them long ago, and that’s how they came to Equestria. Maybe if everypony dreams with them once again, and you being the only other pony around for all we know, maybe then I could have them back.


Tell you what? I didn’t want to return, but after a while I have thought; maybe return there is a good way to stop all this dreaming. Maybe if you can get mad with me, by something related to these apples, like maybe that I was lucky enough to taste such sweetness, and you will never can; maybe then if you faint me out, I could return to the Hay, with my apple between my hooves. I’m still afraid of the boomstick, but the same is going to happen with me here in Equestria, it’s just a matter of time, and there at least, a last Sweet Apple, is waiting for me.

Oh, the Sweet Apples could save me of a slow death starving.

A little something to rely on.
And the sweetness of the apple gently hiding me.




THE END



---------------------------------------------------------------






Autor notes:

1.-Dang, kill RD was pretty hard for me, I was crying alone for it.

2.-Dang, poor rarity, I was really mean with her, I wanna say here that I wrote the whole thing listening Silent Hill songs, tender sugar, your rain, acceptance, hell frozen rain, now we’re free, love psalm, shot down in flames, O.R.T. , well, etc, the whole thing, I don’t remember the point of say this, but it was fun.

3.-it was something between darkness 2 the videogame storyline, a fine film by Junji Ito, I wanted a little more of gyo and bodystanchers but didn’t turn out as I wanted, maybe later, and… and the part of Fluttershy, her ending, is a Despair story inside The Sandman story, I’m sure it was an extra volume so Neil Gaiman didn’t write it, I don’t remember the name of the book either. I can’t really recall any other source, I’m sure years watching Twilight zone had something to do too. Well, actually kill Dash first felt a bit like cupcakes, but I haven’t read that one, so I don’t know if she’s the first one dying there too.  

4.-before Fluttershy’s arc, after Rarity’s, I was feeling aboard the killing train, so I started writing these notes, if I have something else what to say during Fluttershy’s, Twilight’s, or Final arc, I’ll add more notes.

5.-I singed “I want love” by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn all aloud here alone. Yeah, a female love song, and I sounded so gay, but we real men don’t care.

6.-I’m so writing Junji Ito’s Frankenstein with Apple Bloom after this. and about the emoticon in chapter 2: 
but then I told them my dream and at the end they all were like:
:0
I hope everyone see it. It wasn’t laziness at all, we all knew how they could react, and it’s even funnier to make your own conclusions, I was just too much in the “she’s telling” spirit, and I just placed the picture there to break up with her story to her face to the present listener. So; I’m basically scratching a rule there and leaving the emoticon be, haters gonna hate and stuff, it’s kinda obnoxious but that was supposed to be. By the way, did you catch whose pony was there listening?

7.-I SO need an editor.

8.-I don’t have 8 yet… Ok, sometimes I write in a comic stile. Shameful, I should read more books. Well, after all that arc is called Branches. This story is full of little still images, specially the gore ones, they are just still frames hidden between blocks of text to make them less meaningful and sudden. I didn’t want to exalt death, that’s ok in a story if she is the killer and would like to watch it, but in this story Applejack was too scared even to see them die.

9.- :S I don’t wanna write Fluttershy’s arc yet, I’m scared. 

10.-This story was so long, I was hoping each arc could be smaller than the last but… Oh wait, Love Psalm is playing now xD 

11.-I’ll try to write now… OK, a couple of quotes are small jokes if you catch them, some involve innuendo, I just hope they don’t ruin the context.

12.-the concept of this serie is camp fire tales, that why I’m trying to don’t get too out of the original flavor, not too bloody, and not too lovely towards Dash or Rarity specially as they are the normal shipping for Applejack and I totally agree with that, but not here, I want the contrast of the original feeling and a Junji Ito story. But this one has an ending that doesn’t sound like a campfire story, sounds pretty much like a “world ended damn it!” story, besides this is going too long, maybe I should drop it as a one shoot instead of part of these.

13.-for the concept of campfire story, I would like to add a story from each pony in mane 6, and maybe Spike or Scootaloo, or maybe I should make a story out of that ala “November” from Gaiman who actually got the inspiration from Ray Bradbury. Now, im not saying can can write anything like them, but it sure will be fun to add some ponies into it xD

14.-I think I found out an Editor. And English not less ^_^

15.-if you eat a Sweet Apple here you end in hell. I mean, hay. Zecora knew they were dangerous so she probably kill herself when she found out, you never see Fluttershy eating one but she went to hell anyways by own means. Sweet Apples are a clear reference to Drugs here, but Fluttershy drugged herself with her animals.

16.-I learned something from Junji Ito about good horror stories, they must be so horrible that you scream “no, hell, no more please, I can’t stand anymore” But they must be so interesting that you can’t stop reading. At least a couple of times here I felt like “stop. I don’t wanna write anymore v_v” but the story actually is so compelling that I was on this 2 full days xD, I dunno you over there reading, but I’m having fun here writing in the dark starting Twilight’s hay xD

17.-Did you know Jumanji movie was called like to as tribute to Junji Ito? No? well, I just made it over here myself, I don’t really think so, besides, Junji Ito writes in a much more darker tone than the fantasy/romantic/funny/adventure Jumanji movie. 

18.-I just added Jumanji and Junji words to the dictionary, they were freaking me out

19.-I should spend less time checking up the site and finish the story v_v

20.-dang, 20 points :0

21.-Does a pony have hind knees? Cuz im talking about front knees at twilight’s arc, but the hind one is almost a hip bone called stiffle I think, and then a lower backward knee of which I dunno a name, but just in case, I was talking about front knees there, but you can always suppose “all or some” knees, and I guess you could be just right.

21.-I cannot believe I just droped yesterday just before the ending, now I cant believe how long is taking me to finish just the ending v_v

22.-I really loved the other twilight participation here, Dirty Pie was nice too, a shame she had to left. In fact I dunno what happened with her.

23.- finished :S I can’t believe it, I’m shaking, too much excitement… or maybe I need lunch. Not to start the corrections.

24.- I had to look for words like “one “, and names starting with lower cases to make corrections

25.-when Applejack find Apple Bloom for the last time, she has a cutie mark of a rope in a neck hang tie. (internal joke, no cannon)

26.-finished with cherry on top, if you find a very weird missspelling tell, plz help me notice it.

27.-I know we don’t really eat fat ponies, but I never said that the “owners” are humans. I picture them more like little demons on farmer’s costume.

28.-I know it was a long story but I decided to cut it into chapters.

29.-Proofreading courtesy by 

Lifer


It’s really helpful, not just about grammar and punctuation, but to find out, if you can deliver the feeling in the story you were intending. 

30.-After some feedback form my editor, I wanna add something about fluttershy's afterhay, I don't wanna blame the apples there, since I want to picture Applejack as an adict to them, never blaming them for any trouble. And you actually you never see fluttershy eating these Sweet Apples from the story, if you eat these Sweet Apples, you end hanging yourself here, so she probly never did, her vice was take too much care of her animals, to carry through the death of her friends, and that killed her, her own vice, at the end you could say she did, or didn't, apples, but I dont want applejack suggesting anything there. this was meant to be a mistery story after all. In fact the theories about this from the reader are better than the ones I could enlist there. I hope you had made some interesting ones as my editor did.

31.-Since chapter two, i had more or less the whole story in my head, it was easy, every friend had an arc: Accident, Hay, and Afterhay, ending and start were a little different for obvious reasons. It was taken, a little, from silent hill 1, if you put the pieces together.