This was back when Applejack and I were just out of school. My family had learned that I couldn't be trusted to harvest cherries without eating myself sick, so they sent me to, um, Applejack's father's mother, named for a good sour baking apple. Applejack put me to work, even though they really didn't have enough money to pay me. Farming is like that; if you have a good harvest prices are so bad you make nothing, and if prices are up it's because nobody has a crop and you've got nothing to sell. Farming takes a lot of very hard work to live by.
Anyway, zap apple time had just been. Zap apples are a magic fruit. Applejack's, um, grandmother makes a jam from the harvested zap apples that sells for big money all over pony-land, and that's mostly what keeps the farm going. All the other crops only about break even, from what I hear. But zap apple time is also wood-wolf time. When we hear them howl at night, we know zap apples are coming.
So we were in tending some regular apple trees when we heard growling and smelled something like the poo box. Wood wolves are made of rotten tree limbs and moss and vines and like that, so their breath stinks.
Wait— magic wood needs to breathe?
Wood-wolves do. So we had about two seconds warning before two wood-wolves came out of the Forever Free, coming straight for us. A wood-wolf is six times the length of a pony and almost three times as tall. They can be deadly, and they can't be tamed, can't be reasoned with. They're not like manticores or even hydras. They're just evil. And these two wanted to kill Applejack and me so the forest could take back the zap apple trees.
Well, of course we ran. But as we ran under a low-hanging branch, Applejack wasn't beside me anymore. She swung up on the branch, over, and down— WHACK!— right on top of the first wood-wolf's snout. It went down, and Applejack went with it, lining up her rear hooves and kicking it straight in between the eyes. That was it for that one— it fell apart right off.
But the second one was right on top of her after that. I thought she was a goner. I screamed for her to run, but instead she found a piece of the dead wood-wolf that had a vine attached to it. She tossed the piece of wood into the second wolf's mouth, and it jammed there— wood-wolves don't like to let go of something once they bite. And then she grabbed the loose end of the vine and ran with it around the wolf's rear legs. The wolf tried to pull her back, but the vine just pulled tight and ripped those rear legs clean off.
The second wolf tried to twist around to bite her, but she wasn't there. It couldn't find her, and it turned around again just in time to see her rear hooves coming right at it. And that was that.
We spent the rest of the day picking up the bits of wood and hauling them off to be burned. You have to burn wood-wolves. Otherwise the spell comes back after a day or so. And it's rotten wood, so you need a lot of good wood to get it started.
So we got almost none of our work done that day. And when we went to see her grandmother, Applejack didn't brag about killing two wood-wolves. She apologized for not getting her work done!
And that was only, hm, about three years after we got our cutie marks. Still just kids, really. And even then she was like she is now; doesn't brag, doesn't even like to show off. But give her a job and it's as good as done, so long as all it needs is honest hard work.
"Whoa! You mean she saved your life when you were still kids?" Mark asked, incredulous. "Where the hell were your parents while this was going on?"
"My parents had their own farm," Cherry said. "A lot smaller than Applejack's, so we earned extra money sometimes helping with my aunt's farm down south. But Applejack's parents died when she was pretty young. Her little sister was just a baby. So now it's the big brother, the little sister, and AJ, and their grandmother, and whatever help they can get from friends and family come harvest time."
"Oh. Whoa. That's rough," Mark said. "Is that why she's named Applejack? Does she drink a lot?"
"No more than— oh wait, you mean, does she get drunk a lot?" Cherry asked. "No. Her family makes cider, but she only drinks a mug with friends. She's not like my cousin Berry Kick."
"They make applejack too," Starlight said quietly.
The thing you have to remember is, the Apple family pride themselves on their cider, soft or hard. They only offer it for sale for a short season in mid-fall, after the leaves change. Other farms use windfalls and half-rotten fruit, but the Apples insist on quality. They have part of the farm specifically for growing apples for cider. Ponies line up for days to get one drink.
Dash told me once. I think if sea were made of cider, Dash would grow gills.
Er, moving along... But the Apple family doesn't sell apple brandy of any kind. They do keep a few barrels of cider every year and age it, and you have to be a very close friend of the family to get even a sip of that. But if you mention apple brandy, you'll get the door slammed in your face. They don't sell it, and they don't even admit it exists.
But... well, Twilight Sparkle worked really hard to teach me how to be a better pony. I'm still learning. But there were times that I thought it was a lost cause. It just all seemed so tough, so... well, impossible. And one time I screwed up bad. I'm not going to give you the details, because... well, to be honest, because it embarrasses me, but it might also give your friends ideas if and when you learn how to use magic. Let's just say it took a lot of cleaning up and apologizing.
That night I was staring at the stars from a balcony of Twilight's castle— this was before the school. I was wondering if I was cut out for this, if it wouldn't be better for everyone if I just lived in a cave in the mountains for the rest of my life. I even had the perfect cave picked out.
Then Applejack comes out and asks me what's wrong. I say, "Nothing's wrong, I'm all right." And you don't do that to Applejack. You can misdirect her, you can fool her, but you can't lie to her face, because she knows.
She shook her head, then pulled this little pottery jug out of her saddlebags, uncorked it, and poured me a little bit— about, oh, twice as much as one of your test tubes, Mark. "Here," she said. "Have a sip and go to bed. Everything will be better in the morning. Well, afternoon, I mean, but you know."
I took a sniff. "What's in this?" I asked.
"Apples," she said. "Well, mostly apples. It's a family secret. We don't talk about it."
It smelled good and it tasted better. I can still remember the smooth apple flavor and how warm it made me feel inside. Unfortunately that's the last thing I remember before waking up in my bed the next morning with a killer headache and a pot of fresh coffee and two pain pills on the nightstand next to me. By the time the hangover cleared I felt much better about everything. Which led to another buck-up, but that's another story.
Cherry Berry stared, slack-jawed, at Starlight Glimmer. "You've tasted the Holy Appleshine?" she asked in Equestrian. "I thought that was only a legend! I thought that was a thing grandmas and grandpas told about Granny Smith's parents to show how much better the old days were when Ponyville was being founded!"
"Cherry, calm down!" Starlight replied. "It was only the once. Applejack's never offered again, and I sure never asked again. The Apples really don't talk about it! Besides, English!"
"Er, is this cider really that big a deal?" Mark asked. "I tried apple brandy in college once. Didn't much care for it. I like beer much better."
Starlight and Cherry turned glares on Mark that could have frozen him colder than the air outside the cave farm. "Beer," they sneered.
Dragonfly looked at Spitfire. "So, I guess a welcome-home drinking party in Ponyville is out of the question?"
Spitfire gave the changeling another tap on the noggin, then asked, "Commander, may I hit the changeling for saying dumb thing?"
"Don't ask permission after you've already done it!" Dragonfly snapped.
Author's Notes:
This was harder than I expected, and I'm not happy at all with ending this on a booze joke, but my head and back hurt, I'm tired, and I need a good night's sleep before the all-day drive home tomorrow. So this is what there is, right down to me stealing a lame gag from Log Horizon to wrap it up.
Going through the episodes, a few things come out about Applejack. First and foremost, she is not a thinker. She is perfect backup or muscle, but any episode that features her will make her look foolish in one way or another— stubbornness, anger, overprotectiveness, jerkass-mode honesty, etc.
As far as the cartoon is concerned, you can rely on it— any decision Applejack makes based on thought is certain to be the wrong decision.
Of course, this is why people refer to Applejack as Best Background Pony. She stands out by not standing out— by always being there when needed and providing her strength, skill, and common sense to a group. It's when she goes it alone that things inevitably go wrong. But, as a consequence of this, none of the stories in the cartoon that focus on Applejack are in any way complementary to her.
(Which is a shame, because the ending to Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 5000 is my favorite moment in the whole damn show.)
So, instead, you get two stories of Applejack that are about her courage, strength, and kindness— even if the kindness takes the form of, "Have a delicious Mickey Finn, it'll all be better in the morning." I admit it's a very easy way out and plays on fan headcanon (since, of course, there is no actual liquor in the cartoon), but it's all my brain can produce tonight.
Further edits on yesterday's chapter will have to wait. For now my back is screaming at me, and I'm to bed to watch YouTube until I pass out (which won't be long).
Incidentally, if any of you are interested in T-shirts, fourteen days remain on my 2018 Kickstarter. My publicity efforts have failed multiple ways on this, so I probably won't try this again, but here's the link anyhow:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1869505034/wlp-shirts-2018-summer-shirt-lineup#
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Sol 336
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Changeling Space Program Mission Forty-Nine hurtled through the upper atmosphere in a cone of superheated plasma, the rocket being pushed to the very edge of survivability by an array of enchanted crystals hundreds of miles behind it. Inside the control capsule, its sole occupant repeated a single word, for no other reason than to remind the ponies on the ground that she was still alive and conscious.
"Okay!"
It was less a word than a grunt, but Chrysalis managed to get it out regardless, somehow keeping her hooves on the controls despite eight times the normal force of gravity pressing hard on her entire body.
"Okay!"
This, beyond all doubt, was the worst ascent she had ever piloted, worse than her first flight, worse than Mission Five, which more than one book had called "Chryssy's Bad Idea", worse than anything.
"Okay!"
Her muscles really, really ached. It took the kind of willpower that (in her own mind) made her the perfect ruler of her fractious subjects to keep one hoof on the engine throttle and the other on the joystick. But if she let her forehooves drop, she'd never be able to lift them to the controls again while the current acceleration lasted.
"Okay!"
With this kind of monstrous acceleration, it seemed madness to add to it by firing the sole engine on the short, single-stage test vehicle. But the engines were required to turn the flight from a purely vertical flight into a shot to orbit. The capsule reaction wheels, mighty as they were, would only put the ship on its side; the fifteen magical repulsor pylons would continue pushing the three comparatively small crystals tucked behind the engine bell directly away from themselves, regardless of which way the ship was actually pointed.
"Okay!"
By itself, the ship might just be able to lift itself off the ground on a half-full tank. With the addition of the enchanted ring of rocks on the ground far, far behind her, Chrysalis was now bound not just for orbit but for a rendezvous with Concordia and her long-overdue shift on station there. Her three-person capsule (the other two seats currently empty) would replace the one that would take Cadance and a certain stowaway back to Equus.
"Okay, six point five gees and falling," Chrysalis said, getting something more closely approaching a deep breath for the first time in three minutes. "On course ninety by fifty, fuel at sixty percent, all systems nominal." All ship's systems, that is. The pilot's systems felt like she'd just been popped out of the cardboard in some pony toddler's activity book. She could be her own drogue parachute.
"Horseton copies, Forty-Nine." Chrysalis forced herself not to frown at the sound of Rainbow Dash's voice. Yes, it was joint operations these days, and yes the little showoff was the second most senior pilot remaining on the planet, but it just felt wrong to have any pony other than the pony as capcom for what was, at least in name, a Changeling Space Program flight run from Horseton Space Center. "Twilight confirms you are go for orbit and Concordia rendezvous, repeat go for Concordia."
The acceleration was tapering off rapidly now, and Chrysalis checked her speed indicators, then opened the taps on her chemical rocket engine a little more. For a moment she'd wondered if those stupid enchanted rocks would let her stop at Concordia, or if their creator had decided to surprise the changeling queen by making her commander of Equestria's first permanent moon base, population one.
"Forty-Nine, ESA speaking." Ah, and speak of the pony herself. The idiot genius must have taken the headset from Rainbow Dash. "If we restrict the mana flow a little more, the extra weight of the NASA ship should reduce acceleration even more, making the system safe for the Amicitas crew to use for escape. I think we're almost ready to send them the specifications and await results of their own local testing."
That made Chrysalis smile. As much as the perfect pony princess of Putting Her Nose Into the Private Business of Evil Masterminds annoyed her, it felt good when Twilight Sparkle's plans worked... because when she failed she tried again, and when she succeeded she literally knocked the ball out of the park.
Yes, she could live with Twilight Sparkle's plans, so long as they weren't pointed at her.
