Apple trees are terrible for sleeping in. They’ve got all these thin, pokey branches, and even the ones strong enough to sleep on don’t give much room to stretch out. I sleep in them anyway because it annoys Applejack, and at heart I’m still the same filly who pulled Fluttershy’s tail to announce we were going to be friends. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle other ponies put up with me. Applejack gets it, though. Whenever she manages to startle me out of a tree, she always takes a few minutes to make fun of me, no matter how busy she is.
On this particular day I must have looked pretty pathetic, because instead of ending with the usual “Go on, get,” she said, “Was just sitting down to supper, y’may as well join me.” Said it all grumpily, like it was a big imposition, which is how I know she really wanted me to accept. I’d’ve accepted anyway, of course; I’m not a pony to turn down free food and never have been. But it was nice to know I was wanted.
This was after Apple Bloom had moved out, so the farm was pretty quiet. Granny Smith was still around, and she could make a heck of a racket on a good day, but those were getting fewer and farther between. This wasn’t one of them. I’m no good with quiet, never have been. There’s no deep reason for it - my brain just needs something to chew on or it chews on me. Applejack’s better, I think. She’d have to be, growing up with Mac. She knows me, though; if she invited me, she didn’t mind the place being a bit louder than it had been.
We sat to eat, and I started rambling, mostly just filling empty air. “It’s good to be back in Ponyville,” I said. “Captain’s got me flying letters down to the penguins; it’s the worst. Courier duty always is, since the regular mailponies handle all the sensible routes, but usually we can foist it off on the newbies. None of them have long-distance and cold weather certifications right now, though, so I’m stuck with all of it. Nothing quite like going halfway around the world and over however many leagues of icy wasteland it is only to learn that penguins don’t use internal heating. They say it’s because excess heat messes with their machines, but my theory is I personally angered King Edgar in a past life and now he’s getting revenge. Which, you know, I can respect. How’s the farm?”
“Oh, same as always,” she said, which should really have tipped me off that something was wrong; Applejack doesn’t turn down opportunities to talk about that stuff. “When’d you get a cold weather cert anyway?”
And that did tip me off, because flight safety certifications are some of the most boring things in the world, and I say that as a pony who’s supposed to care about them. But I had no idea what was wrong, and if Applejack wanted me to talk about myself it’s not like I had a better plan. “Picked it up a few months ago,” I say. “Cadance wants to see about settling some of the land outside the Heartsphere, and she asked me to consult on weather magic for the project. I’m surprised she didn’t get you involved, come to think of it; you know more about farming than anypony, I’m sure you’d have all sorts of ideas.”
She shook her head. “Not really how it works. I know just about everything to do with this farm, but it’s all to do with this farm. Soil conditions, local pests, Everfree nonsense; that all changes pretty quick once you start moving around. Put me on another farm and I don’t know much more than anypony else. Sides, you know I’m a very traditional sort of farmer.”
“And you think Cadance doesn’t want something traditional?”
“Doesn’t much matter what she wants. Tradition’s about doing what’s worked before; it’s no good in uncharted places. No good in uncharted times, neither. Can’t vanish a thousand years and expect everywhere else to work the way you’re used to.”
“Shame, that. Would have been pretty great to have another place to get apple cider.”
She snorted. “Knew there was a reason you kept coming back to Ponyville.”
“One or two of them, yeah.”
From there, the conversation meandered. There wasn’t anything we particularly needed to talk about, but I didn’t really want to go and Applejack didn’t feel like kicking me out, so we spent a few hours chatting about nothing. You know the sort of thing - little bits of local gossip of no real importance, petty gripes that we didn’t really care about, stories we’d told each other half a dozen times before, the like. She didn’t end up telling me what was wrong, and I didn’t ask. I figured if she wanted a pony who would prod her about things, she’d talk to Pinkie or Rarity, not me. By the time I left, I do think she was feeling better, though.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. Sometimes you have a bad day and just need a friend and there’s no more to it than that. I figured that was all it was. But after that day, whenever I was in Ponyville, I would stop by the farm and she’d invite me in for supper. We didn’t ever really acknowledge that it was a thing we were doing; we never made any sort of plan in advance. But she kept inviting me and I kept accepting, and we both knew she’d keep inviting me and I’d keep accepting.
“I got an offer on the farm,” she said one night.
“Did you accept?” In my memory of this conversation, I gave it the gravity it deserved, but I’m pretty sure I’m lying to myself. Applejack selling the farm had been unthinkable; I would have thought she was making a joke.
“Still considering.”
“The money’s that good?”
“More’n the farm’s worth, if I’m honest. It’s a historic site, apparently. Ain’t they supposed to wait till I’m dead for that?”
I fluttered my wings in a vague sort of shrug.
“I asked Mac if there’s any thought with all them of moving back, but Mac’s happy out with the Our Towners; says they need the help more ‘n Ponyville does. And Mac’s right, or I’d go over there and talk sense till they came around, but it doesn’t change that I’m one pony on a farm meant for a family.”
“And Apple Bloom?”
“Not even gonna ask. She writes me every now and again about what she’s up to, and half the time I hardly understand what she’s on about, but it’s clear she’s meant for more ‘n just running an old farm. She might say yes, just to keep me from selling, but it’d break her heart to do it, and it’d break mine to let her.”
“But you’re not selling.”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Big decision.”
“Yup.”
And then genius struck. “You know, this place is way comfier than my place up in Cloudsdale. I never got the hang of insulation, y’know? Gets too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, and too damp all year round.” There’s a particular feeling I get sometimes; half the time I have it I revolutionize competitive flight again, and the other half I fling myself into a mountain at two thirds the speed of sound. I had it now. “You think Apple Bloom would mind if I took her old room? If so, I can take Mac’s.”
She ended up deciding not to sell. I took Apple Bloom’s old room. It wasn’t half as comfortable as my place in Cloudsdale - clouds are just kind of better than the kind of building materials available groundside - but it wasn’t half bad, either.
We weren’t in love. Or we were, a little bit, because I think everypony’s always a little bit in love with their friends, but not more than that. We just fit in the holes in each other’s lives. I think that’s a kind of love, and in any case we were happy, and I’ve seen plenty of ponies in love and unhappy, so who cares if what we had could feed a changeling?
Granny Smith passed. We knew it was coming. Applejack was devastated anyway. We’ve been through a lot together, and this was the worst I’d ever seen her. Hardly ate, hardly slept; threw herself into working on the farm, but somehow hardly managed to do any work at all. It made things easier, in a way. Grief was too big for me; I never knew what to say or do about it. Granny, especially; I kept half-expecting her to show up one day complaining about young whippersnappers not knowing how to tell when a pony was dead. I couldn’t help Applejack with anything that really mattered. But I could coax food into her, and I could handle the work she left undone, and I could be present and keep the silence at bay. And time passed, and grief receded, and we remained.
If you’d asked me who would propose first, I’d have said Applejack for sure. She’s the one who cares about that kind of thing. But we’d been living together for a while, and even if we didn’t really talk about our relationship much, it was impossible to deny that there was a relationship to not talk about. So, one night, “Do you ever think about marriage?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“Your whole family glares at me every time there’s a reunion. Half of them because I’m taking advantage of your goodwill to freeload off you, and the other half because I’m leading you on. They wouldn’t glare if we got married.“
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, they think you’re leading me on because you keep going on about how you’ve seduced me with your dashing looks and roguish charms.”
“Dashing looks, capital ‘D’. Have to specify the capital.”
She groaned, but it was the kind of groan you do when you refuse to admit you want to laugh. “Be serious a moment. You were thinking about marriage?”
“I mean, you haven’t kicked me out yet, and I’m pretty sure you’re not planning to, and I’m pretty sure the usual thing two ponies who’ve decided to spend their lives together do is marry. Must have at least crossed your mind.”
“Suppose we may as well.”
“I think that might be the least enthusiastically any proposal’s been accepted in the entire history of Equestria.”
She shrugged. “Don’t really see there’s much point in it, if I’m being honest.”
“Oh?”
“I figure marriage is all about trust. There are ponies who love each other more ‘n anything, but wouldn’t rely on each other in the slightest, and those are never good marriages. And there are ponies who are civil to each other, but not in the least bit in love, and sometimes those marriages work just fine. And I trust you about as much as I trust anypony, and it’s the kind of trust you can put weight on, so if we married I’m sure it would go well. But I wouldn’t trust you more for making a promise about it.”
There was a lot I could have said, there. ‘You shouldn’t trust me,’ I didn’t say; ‘I’m flighty and kind of dumb and I give up on things all the time.’ ‘Sometimes I think about flying off and disappearing forever,’ I didn’t say, ‘and I don’t think I’m ever going to, but sometimes I’m not sure, and I think if I made a promise about it I could be sure.’
Instead I just said, “Tax benefits?”
We got married the next morning.