“Howdy y’all!” Applejack called out to the crowd, a reply of hoots, hollers, and hoofstomps echoing back. She stood on a stage, looking out at the assembled members of the Apple Family. It took minutes for the ruckus to die down, even as she waved a hoof over them. As it did, she rubbed one ear with a hoof and shook her head. “I swear y’all get louder every single year. Least I know my hearin' ain’t gone yet!”
In the laughter that followed, Applejack took a moment to scan the crowd of cousins, uncles, aunts, great uncles, great aunts, multitudes of greats beyond, and of course her siblings and friends. The crowd didn’t always grow, but Applejack could appreciate it all the same.
“Welcome to another Apple Family Reunion! Can’t say I know what number it is, don’t think hardly anyone would know at this point,” Applejack let out a nervous chuckle before clearing her throat. “But it’s another year, and I hope it’s been as good for y’all as it has for us.”
She looked down to the front of the assembled audience, to where Rainbow Dash was seated alongside Apple Bloom, Big Mac, Sugar Belle, and their little colt Candy Apple. Further back, she could see Twilight standing out from the crowd, though it wasn’t easy to miss Pinkie’s mane either.
“I know I’ve kept this real simple before, and I see some of y’all already eyein' the catering, but give m—Give me a moment!” She laughed at a few playful jeers from the back. “It’s been a lot of years with these reunions, and one or two without, and I know there’s gonna be plenty more, but… We only get so much time together. There’s only so many years of our lives, and those years only got so many months, and there’s only so many days in those. And even if this is only a hoofful of those days we’ll have together, I’m mighty glad we’ll have ‘em.”
A light smattering of applause followed. Applejack felt a throbbing in her forehead. She clenched her eyes shut, taking a deep breath as the pounding of her heart filled her ears.
Thump.
When she opened them, she had to wipe away tears. “And for years before the ones we have, our family has been pourin' their hearts into the land, their blood, sweat, and tears, and we’ve reaped the bounty of it, but that don’t mean we’re ones to sit idle.” There was a chorus of hums and uh huhs from the older members of the audience, along with the boisterous “Eeeyup!” from her brother.
Thump.
“We still plant the seeds for those that’ll come after us, that’ll remember us, that’ll keep carryin' on.”
Th-thump.
The throbbing in her forehead grew. Applejack’s eyes drifted towards the orchard, until she shook her head and focused once more on the crowd. “But… but this is gettin’ more sentimental than Granny Smith would have been able to stand. How about we get this shindig started?!” She let out a sharp whistle, and the more musically inclined of her kin on the stage began to play.
Even as the din of the crowd rose with the music, Applejack could still hear the beat below it.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“It’s great to see ya, Fritter,” Applejack said as she broke the hug, pulling away from her cousin. Seated at one of the tables on the edge of the orchard, Applejack greeted and mingled with family members from far and wide. As Apple Fritter talked about her youngest, Applejack leaned back in her seat and sighed, sipping at a cold glass of lemonade. She let her gaze slip to the side, where not far away Big Mac and Sugar Belle were talking to Cherry Blossom. After a moment, they turned, calling out Apple Fritter’s name over the din of the crowd, and a quick goodbye was exchanged.
“Are you sure you’re feelin’ alright, sis?”
THUMP.
Applejack jumped in her seat, into the hoof just above her shoulder. She pivoted toward the voice, laughing as she held her chest with a hoof. “Heavens, girl. You’re gonna scare me the other half to death.” After a laugh and a deep breath, Applejack shook her head. “Don’t you worry none. I was just havin' a bit of a headache earlier. Nothin' that won’t go away.”
Apple Bloom moved her hoof back and forth on Applejack’s shoulder, “Honest?”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Honest.”
Apple Bloom smiled, before looking up and calling out to Babs Seed, who wandered over to talk with them. Her business was the first thing on her lips, but as the subject wandered into her and Apple Bloom reminiscing, Applejack let her mind wander. Hoof tapping idly to the music, she looked out over the crowd and recounted the familiar faces, matching them to the RSVPs that had come in the weeks prior.
Th-thump.
Then she thought about the names that hadn’t replied, the faces that weren’t there, the kin that didn’t have the chance to come. She thought of the funerals months prior, the shuddering gasps, the painful tears, the embraces that should have lasted longer. The words she should have said.
“Applejack?” Apple Bloom was nudging her shoulder. Babs Seed was gone. Her chest felt tight and her throat dry. Her cheeks were wet.
Applejack quickly sniffed and wiped away what tears there were. “Sorry, sorry, sis. Guess I didn’t get all that sentimentality outta me durin' that speech.” She grabbed her glass, chugging the remainder of the lemonade to parch her throat.
“If you need a break, we can head inside.” Apple Bloom nudged her head towards the farmhouse, which ponies were filtering in and out of. Applejack saw a few fillies meandering about with Candy Apple.
THUMP.
“And miss out on meetin’ everypony? Not a chance!” Applejack tried to ignore the growing throb in her forehead, the beating of the heart in her ear, the nagging, gnawing dread that had built over the past year.
Th-thump.
As another cousin approached, it faded into the background, ignorable, but not escapable.
Nights later, the reunion had ended. Applejack sat upstairs at her desk. The gentle tinny strums of a guitar filtered up from a record player downstairs, interrupted by Big Mac’s laughter and the patter of hoofsteps. Applejack was poring over the ledgers, looking at the haul from the past few years and seasons. The numbers were steadily dropping. She rubbed a leg with one hoof, feeling the scars hidden just beneath her coat.
Looking up, her eyes immediately fell on the darkest part of the orchard. Even with the moon and stars out, and the lights strung up on the roads leading out of Sweet Apple Acres, there was one part of the southern orchard that looked like a pit, a void.
Th-Thump.
“I know,” Applejack muttered to herself, the weight in her chest lifting slightly. “And I know what I said to ya.” She knew she was getting on in years. She knew that Big Mac and Sugar Belle had had a colt. She knew that she and Dash—that she had chosen not to have foals.
She knew what it wanted, what it wouldn’t accept.
Applejack thought back to how old she had been when she learned, when she had been asked to hear the old mare out before jumping to conclusions.
It hadn’t helped, but Applejack came to understand.
Was Apple Bloom ready for that?
There was a heavy knock on the door. Applejack closed the ledger and swiveled around to face her brother. “Still obsessin’ over them numbers,” he said, rather than asked.
“You know how I get, Big Mac. Just gotta look out for our future.”
He let out a curt cough before clearing his throat. “Eeeyup, but it don’t mean we worry any less. Come on, we’ll have all winter to think about that. Your wife’s missin’ ya.”
Applejack blew out the candle and pushed away from the desk, laughing. “And she can’t come up and say that?”
“I didn’t say just she was missin’ ya, but you know that girl is more stubborn than you.”
As Big Mac walked back downstairs, Applejack stopped at the door. Looking back through the window, darkness had consumed the frame.
Th-thump. Th-thump.
With the glint of light at its edge, in its reflection, it throbbed with a deep, burning crimson.
The farmhouse was dead quiet. Applejack took careful steps, avoiding the floorboards she knew needed replacing in an attempt not to wake the entire house with a creak. She stopped in the kitchen, pulling a half-full bottle of cider from the fridge before grabbing a lantern by the door. She left it unlit as she stepped outside, looking out at the moonlight orchards.
“Ain’t it a bit late for a nightcap?”
TH-THUMP!
Applejack’s breath caught in her throat and she turned to the voice. “Land sakes, Bloom. What the hay are you doin' up this late?”
Apple Bloom sat on a chair by the door, bags under her eyes and cheeks damp. “Couldn’t sleep, probably the same as you. What d’ya got a lantern for?”
Applejack followed her sister's eyes to the unlit lantern at her side. “A mare can’t go for a night’s stroll out in the orchard without a light? What’s Equestria comin' to?” The two chuckled, and Apple Bloom stood up.
“Want some company?”
Applejack knew where she wanted to go, what she had to do. “I can manage by myself. It’s nothin' for you to lose more sleep over.” She started to walk away from the house, but stopped when she heard the creak of the porch floorboards.
“Applejack, come on. I know you don’t wanna be alone. Don’t bottle it up to yourself—”
“Pour it out to me.” Applejack kicked the dirt and sighed. “Fine, fine…” she looked down at the bottle in her hoof, “But get another bottle, just in case. And make it the heavy stuff.” Facing the orchard, Applejack heard the door swing on its hinge. She took deep, steady breaths.
Thump, thump. Th-thump.
Maybe tonight would be the night.
With the lantern at her side lit, Applejack walked leisurely through the orchard with her sister. A cool breeze blew through the trees, the creak of branches and rustling of leaves joining the faint chirping of crickets. Applejack steeled herself with each swig of cider, the sweetness and chill fading into the aftertaste of alcohol.
“So, what’s on your mind?” Apple Bloom finally asked.
TH-THUMP.
Applejack wanted to blurt it out, but bit it back. “What isn’t?”
“That isn’t an an—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Consarn it.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “I guess… How I’m gettin’ old. Worryin’ about which applebuck is gonna be the last one. Which harvest I help with is gonna be the last.”
Th-thump.
What happens when my blood dries up, and that thing gets impatient again.
Apple Bloom giggled after taking a swig, wiping the spittle from her chin. “Granny was still helpin' out on the farm ‘til…” The joy quickly left her face.
“Yeah, but it ain’t the same. I know it’s stubborn, and I know Big Mac’ll probably be hittin’ the wall before I do, but that don’t stop me from worryin’. Doesn’t help when I stop seeing some faces at the reunion, faces I grew up with. Double doesn’t help when I look at the harvest numbers.”
“The farm’s not goin’ under tomorrow, Applejack. I’ve seen the ledgers too.”
Applejack took a long swig, stopping herself from draining more than half of what was left. She took a few moments to cough and clear her throat. “It’s not about tomorrow. It’s about a thousand tomorrows after that, and more after that.”
Th-thump, th-thump.
It’s about when that thing stops feedin' on me and wants Sugar Belle, wants you, wants anypony that comes near.
“We can manage. It’s not just the seeds you put in the ground that matter to me, or Candy Apple, or any of those little ‘uns that were gallopin’ around at the reunion. Sweet Apple Acres or the orchards out in Appleoosa or… heck, even that little garden Babs Seed’s got on her balcony, they’re not just the plants and the earth… They’re the family that takes care of ‘em. And you and Big Mac and… and Granny’ve all done your part to—”
Applejack could hear the tremor in Apple Bloom’s voice, the tears that she was choking back. She pulled herself close to her sister, stopping their trot and holding her tight. “Shhh, it’s alright.” Applejack couldn’t ignore the tightening in her chest as well, doing her best to hold back her own tears. She had to do what she’d always done, what was necessary for her kin.
It took a minute for the sobbing to stop, for Apple Bloom to pull away, but the two sat for a while still.
“Like I was sayin’,” Apple Bloom started with renewed composure, “you’ve done your part to help us stand on our own. Come hell or high water, we’ll be family, we’ll be together, and we’ll be strong.” As Apple Bloom spoke, she looked up at the stars.
Th-thump, th-thump.
Applejack stared into the darkness of the orchard. In her mind, she could see the walls of the garden tumbling down, a rotting gate, a shattered lock. She saw children wandering in and never leaving. She saw the heart grow fat, hungry, ravenous.
“And if you leave?” Applejack asked, finally tearing her eyes away to look at her sister. For a moment, in the dim glow of the lantern, it looked like staring into a mirrored memory.
“I’ve still got the Friendship School, the Crusaders, babysittin' Candy Apple and who knows how many foals they might have years from now… And it’s home. It’s always been home. I’ve never really thought of…” Apple Bloom looked down at the bottle in her hooves, the label bearing the emblem of Sweet Apple Acres. “But, even if I do, I’ll still be an Apple.”
TH-THUMP TH-THUMP TH-THUMP!
Applejack clenched her teeth, biting the inside of her cheek. Her lips quivered as she fought the urge, held back what she couldn’t take back. The throbbing in her forehead grew as the heart beat like a war drum. For years she’d held back, but part of her knew it was now or never. She relaxed, and let out a shuddering exhale.
“Apple Bloom… I think it’s time I showed you something.”
The walk through the orchard, to its deepest, darkest recesses, took time. The ground had grown uneven over the years, the trunks close and bound together. The canopy was too thick for light to enter it. More than once, Applejack had hit a stray branch in a rush to reach the garden wall, but with Apple Bloom at her side, this trip was too methodical to allow that danger. Soon, the trees gave way to dead grass, dead grass gave way to dirt, and dirt gave way to the garden wall.
Dark moss and thorny vines reinforced its weathering stones. They bound together and traveled upwards, the dirty grey stones beneath barely visible in the lantern’s light. Applejack turned back to face Apple Bloom. Her sister stared up and down the wall, her face a mixture of fear and wonder. “You said not to come here,” she whispered, as if she were afraid of being caught.
“And y’all listened to me. You kept Candy Apple away too, though he’s not that curious a colt. But I want to make sure you really listen to me, okay?”
Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.
The heartbeat grew steady, eager. Apple Bloom stepped closer, alongside her sister. She gave a nod, doubt settling on her face. Applejack began to walk slowly along the perimeter, holding the lantern up to light their way.
“It was a long time ago that Granny told me about it, when you were still a little filly. I had seen her comin' out here some nights, and I was curious. She told me it was something important, but also something dangerous. She wouldn’t tell me, even though I wouldn’t stop askin'.”
They stepped over a pair of fallen stones. A trio of vines had crawled their way through a gap in the wall, reaching out towards the trees. A tiny patch of grass around them grew, vibrant and green.
“One night, I heard her wake up in the dead of night, hurryin' out here. And I followed her. I think she knew that I was followin' her, but I don’t think she thought I was brave enough. While she went through the gate,” Applejack turned the lantern to the wall, then up to its peak, illuminating the tangled canopy of dead branches, “I climbed. I just wanted to look, but when I got to the top I tumbled over.”
As they continued around the perimeter, they came to a patch of vines that were thinner, fresher. Applejack set the lantern down and pulled them away, revealing a sturdy ironclad door. Pulling off her hat, Applejack pulled back a flap and took out a key. In moments, the door was unlocked, the key and her hat back in their place. She stopped, hoof on the door, and looked at Apple Bloom.
Th-thump-th-thump-th-thump.
Despite the pounding in her ears, she kept her voice steady and low, as if more than a whisper would spill the secret to everyone. “She was just past the gate and she scrambled to grab me when I hit the ground. I thought she was gonna tan my backside, but she just hugged me tight, like she knew I was gonna start cryin'. I did, sayin' ‘sorry’ over and over and over, but she told me it was alright. She said… she said she was ready to tell me, to show me.”
Apple Bloom’s doubt had given way to worry, yet she placed a gentle, sure hoof on Applejack’s own. “I trust you, sis,” she said softly.
Applejack smiled and nodded, before pushing the gate open.
Inside, the grass was wild and uncut, weeds and vines sprouting from the ground. At the center stood a hollow, dead tree. Its interior was pitch black. Applejack left the lantern at the gate.
Th-thump th-thump th-thump th-thump.
The pounding grew louder and faster, and yet Apple Bloom didn’t react. She only stared into the darkness of the tree. Applejack stepped forward, standing between the heart and her sister.
“This place is important,” Applejack repeated Granny’s words. “It was here before we arrived, even if it took a while for the family to find it. And it helped us. It fed the soil, the trees, the family. And… And…” Applejack stumbled, taking a breath to steady herself. “And then we fed it.”
“Fed it?” Apple Bloom asked, a rasp in her words, as if she hadn’t breathed for moments.
“Yes. We need to feed it for it to give us what we need. And it… it wants… us.” Applejack turned to the tree and walked inside. She waited for her eyes to adjust, for Apple Bloom to follow.
Th-THUMP. Th-THUMP.
As soon as Apple Bloom’s hooves crossed the threshold, it made its presence known. The black heart glowed a sinister red, casting crimson shadows on the worn bark of its home. Apple Bloom gasped, hooves covering her mouth, the half-empty bottle of cider slipping from her grasp. Applejack stared at the heart, at the withered shells past it that she hoped her sister couldn’t see, and then at the knife on the table before them.
“It doesn’t want stallions. Sometimes I wish it did, so that our Pa, or Big Mac, could have helped.” Applejack held up the knife, sweeping it towards the heart and the gauze and bandages seated on the makeshift table. “It wants blood from us, from mares. And in return…” She looked back towards the gate, up past the stone walls. “And in return, it gave us this. Bounty we’d been thankful for, that’s fed and homed us. A place to call home.”
Apple Bloom could not tear her eyes away from the heart, still beating in time with Applejack’s own, still burning with crimson hunger.
“Granny Smith fed it,” Applejack continued, “Her mom fed it, and her mom before that, and—”
“And Mom?” Apple Bloom looked at Applejack, tears in her eyes.
Applejack wanted to shut her eyes, to wish it was a dream, a nightmare that she could wake up from, a choice that she could take back.
But Applejack did what she had to, stayed strong like she had to be. She did not look away from her sister. She did not cry.
TH-THUMP!
“Yes.”
“And Sugar Belle? Rainbow Dash?”
Applejack had thought about telling them years ago, but it never seemed right. They wouldn’t have the heart for it. They wouldn’t be able to stomach it. They weren’t really…
“No, I never told ‘em. I never wanted to tell you. I told it that it could have me, but not you. I wanted to keep you away from it, forever, but—”
“What happens when it’s not fed?”
“That’s not importa—”
“What would it do?”
Applejack felt the heart beat faster, felt her blood run hotter. “It’ll bleed this land dry, it’ll take all of this from us. It already has. I haven’t fed it in a year and look at the harvest. Look at what we’re losin'!”
Apple Bloom began to back away, but stopped at the edge of the hollow. “This farm, this land isn’t us, Applejack. Our family isn't this land.”
“Our family? This,” she jabbed the knife towards the heart, and then to her leg as she laid it on the table, “this is what I’ve done for our family, what Granny did for our family, what Mom did for our family. It’s what we have to do, will do.”
Applejack began to move the blade towards familiar scars. Apple Bloom galloped forward, grabbing onto the blade and her sister’s hooves. “Applejack, please! I just wanna talk about it. It’s not… this thing ain’t family, you are!”
TH-THUMP TH-THUMP TH-THUMP!
The heart beat angrily. Applejack growled. “I’m doin' this for us, for you, for family! For Candy Apple, for his children, and their children! They need it! The Apple Family needs it!”
“No it doesn’t!” Apple Bloom grunted and tugged, the knife flying from their grips and sliding across the dirt. It hit the bottle with a hollow clink. “We don’t have to do this! You don’t have to do this!”
“Yes I do!” Applejack shoved Apple Bloom away, sending her falling to the ground. She loomed over her sister, face bathed in crimson. “If we stop, if this farm shrivels up and dies, if this land becomes barren, what was it for?!”
Apple Bloom coughed, the wind knocked out of her. She crawled along the ground, out of the hollow, into the vibrant garden. Applejack followed her.
“But if we keep it up, if we pour our blood and sweat and tears into the land it’ll keep us until it’s dust!” She was crying, her voice breaking. “Please, Apple Bloom. Please trust me.” She looked back at the hollow, the heart pulsing red inside.
“I do,” Apple Bloom replied.
TH-THUMP-TH-THUMP-TH-THUMP!!!
Applejack smiled as she turned, only to see the lantern flying towards her. On instinct, she dodged, and then looked back to see the lantern shatter. The pounding in her ears accelerated, time slowed. Her breath caught in her throat.
Flames burst from the lantern, landing on the bark and heart; embers spread into a roaring blaze. The heart burned a sickening red. An ear-splitting screech rattled her, still resonating in her head even as she covered her ears. Amidst the growing inferno, black tendrils extended from the heart. They dripped and bubbled like crude oil. One surged towards Apple Bloom.
Applejack moved without thinking. She was sent flying back and felt her head hit the stone wall.
Applejack awoke to screams. A chorus of dozens of voices carried up into the night. Smoke billowed from beyond the wall. The gate was closed. Apple Bloom stood before her, silhouetted by the inferno that now consumed the garden.
The pounding was gone from her ears, the weight in her chest had lifted. And yet she stared in sorrow as all she’d spilled burned down.
“What was it for?” she muttered to herself. “What was it all for?”
The heart screeched in anguish, flashes of crimson like thunder in the black smoke.
Apple Bloom turned to face Applejack, then galloped to embrace her.
“It was for us.”
In the frigid northern edges of Yakyakistan, tremors rumbled through the earth. In a valley where no hoof had stepped for hundreds of years, an avalanche crashed down the mountainside. In its wake, a lone trunk of pure white wood glistened amidst its surroundings. It would not be seen for years to come, a sign that fertile lands may have been reached.
In the deserts of Abyssinia, a thump rippled through the sands. A passing worm turned their body towards it, waiting for the rhythmic echo that would signal prey. When it would arrive days later, from a lone rocky outcrop, its partner wave was long since forgotten for more readily available food. A passing traveler would stumble on the outcrop, and the singular tree that adorned its top, bark burnt by the blazing sun overhead.
Far off the southern coast of the Hippogriff Kingdom, on a deserted atoll, a singular tree sat with its dead branches swaying in the ocean breeze. A wave would rise up off its coast, crashing onto a distant shore. A lone child who saw its crash would venture to the sea one day and find themselves marooned on that forgotten shore. Amidst a storm they would find shelter in the tree’s husk, and warmth within.
In an unexplored savanna, next to a stagnant pond, sat a withered tree. The water would ripple with unheard reverberations, sent into the mind of anything that might wander too close. Miles on miles on miles away, visions of paradise would torment the dreams of an aging explorer.
On an untrodden cliff, overlooking a tumultuous sea, stood a hollow oak. Within, the black heart of the land beat ever on.