Ponyville

October 31

Three ponies sat at a long wooden table in the wee hours of the morning. They scarfed down their breakfasts by candlelight. Two oil lamps, both of simple glass and metal construction, sat on the table's opposing ends and burned brightly, but it was the stove that contributed the room's flickering ambience. It made the space seem much darker and more primal than it actually was, as if they were in a narrow cave instead of their own cozy kitchen and their campfire only revealed one or two of the walls. Parts of th e main floor of the house, such as the sitting room and the stairs, lay buried in blackness where the light could not reach. The furniture threw monstrous twisted shadows.

Applejack jumped when a piece of kindling in the stove shifted in its iron bed. The room was not particularly quiet; ponies chewed and clinked silverware against plates and the house had its own vocabulary of creaks as it occasionally shifted on its foundation. The family at the table talked, too, but the gaps between conversations made even small sounds seem loud. It was the extreme silence of a farmhouse six miles from the nearest civilization, in the dead of winter, and not too many hours after midnight. Like heavy cotton, it pressed against her eardrums. She found herself making noises in order to fill those gaps.

The log distracted Applejack from the empty plate in front of her. Ten minutes ago, it had held eggs and oatmeal and apple fritters and toast, the staples of a filling breakfast, but now it was bare, as were the serving trays in the center of the table. Only five pieces of cornbread sat on the centermost one where previously there had been two pans' worth.

Applebloom's quick hoof darted in and snagged one. Her cheeks colored, as if she was ashamed of being caught at it, when clearly she could be seen by everypony at the table. "It's okay, little sis," said Applejack. "We ain't gonna run short of corn anytime soon. Can't say the same about the apples..."

As soon as she said it, two more pieces disappeared from the plate in a similar fashion. "Big Mac?"

"Yup," said her older brother thickly, through a mouthful of crumbs. Bits of chewed bread sprayed the table. Applejack stifled a laugh.

"You're worse than Applebloom. At least she's got the decency ta keep her mouth closed." While she addressed the guilty stallion, Applebloom snatched another piece.

"It's awful cold," Applebloom said, despite her chair at the dining room table being closest to the stove. Applejack had placed her there for that reason. She wore an orange knitted hat that clashed horribly with her cherry-red mane, and although she was the only Apple family member still in her flannel sleepwear and slippers, the drafts sneaking in along the cracks and at the windows affected her small body the most. Applejack herself shivered every now and then. The stove was locked in mortal combat with the cold, and if the supply of wood was not kept constant, it would lose.

"Then get closer ta the stove. Are ya done with breakfast?"

Big Mac and Applebloom both got a hoof on the very last piece of cornbread. It broke and showered golden crumbs everywhere. The section in Big Mac's hooves was much larger, because of its owner's faster reflexes, but he let her have his share and nuzzled her forehead.

"Ah'll take that as a yes," said Applejack, shaking her head. "You two…" She gathered up the dishes and swept the table with her braided tail. With a sigh, she went across the cozy living room to where an elderly pony sat in her rocking chair, staring into the distance. The sole oil lamp in the room threw the Apple matriarch's wrinkles into deeper contrast.

She could have been staring at the floral wallpaper, or the plaster, or the logs and mortar and insulation beneath them. There was no way to tell. Granny Smith's vacant eyes saw everything and nothing. Applejack, standing in front of her, had the uneasy hunch that her grandmother did not see her at all, but instead looked right through her. Most attempts to get her into conversation or even to move her from that spot, once she was settled, were fruitless.

"Granny, ya gotta eat somethin'. Ya haven't moved since sunup."

Sunup, in this case, was misleading. The Apple family rose well before sunup. Cows and pigs and chickens needed to be fed and milked and attended to, and their needs did not change just because the sun rose later in the winter months than the summer, or because the weather made such chores unpleasant. Everypony contributed. Nopony ate breakfast before the livestock, and even Applebloom put a coat and boots on over her pajamas and went out in the pitch-black morning to see to the chickens. It seemed only fitting that Applebloom, the smallest of the Apples, was responsible for the smallest animals.

On this particular morning the Apples had finished their chores quickly and returned to the farmhouse. It was too cold to even loiter in the hastily constructed and expanded lean-to, and the cows were grateful for the wool blankets Applejack threw over them each night, but they still suffered. Their milk was thin. The two calves- nearly yearlings, and growing by leaps and bounds- drank most of the milk as well as the grass provided for them, which left little for Applejack and the rest of the family to drink. In the frigid air, Applejack had milked the small herd and given the hungry heifers plenty of hay. She didn't spend much time inspecting the attached barn and its surroundings like she usually did.

For one thing, it was still too dark to see ten feet in front of her muzzle. The edge of the main barn, torn to shreds by storms more than two weeks ago, was too far into the shadows. But the main thing that had made her jump to finish the chores, more than usual, was the air. Applejack had been getting up before daybreak for her entire life. She was used to early mornings and loved the way that the air, blowing across her farm and through the apple trees, felt fresh and vibrant. This wasn't the same. It was too deadened for her taste. Clouds blocked the stars and setting moon, but the air was desiccated, like a nearby desert had wrung it dry of water. The breezes were sporadic and came in spastic howling bursts.

The last big storm took out the barn an' two months' worth of hay and apples along with it. Ah don't wanna see what another one might do.

She presented Granny Smith with a cup of hot chocolate. "At least drink somethin' hot, or let me get ya another blanket."

But Granny Smith ignored the mug and Applejack along with it. She clutched at her quilt, almost like she was afraid Applejack might steal it away, and muttered to herself in a thin, reedy voice. "Coming back. Rides the shadows." This was all that Applejack could make out amid her sighs and twitches and faint whispering.

For days she had been like this: mumbling, staring glassily at the walls, and acting nothing like her usual unflappable self. The small bits of her monologue that could be discerned were all chilling. Darkness, shadows, eyes, boneless creatures, monsters. Things that lurked at night. Things better left in nightmares and ghost stories. And in addition to all these was always some sort of premonition that something was coming.

Applebloom, to her credit, always went above the call of duty to help her grandmother. The problem was that the help she needed, if it existed, was beyond the filly's abilities. It was beyond Applejack as well. Nothing seemed to break her trances unless she wanted to break them herself, and lately she spent more time in a daze than conscious. Applejack sighed and set the hot chocolate beside the rocking chair. Maybe she'll drink it when Ah'm not lookin'.

"Applebloom, will ya help me clean up?"

The filly reluctantly left the halo of warmth surrounding the stove, but she was more or less eager to help her big sister once she had. Applejack leaned down and put her hoof on the other's shoulder, meeting her at eye level. "Try not ta worry about Granny too much. Ah don't know what's wrong with her, or who could help."

"But sis, Ah am worried!" Applebloom exclaimed. "She's my granny and she's been sufferin' for weeks!"

She expressed in words an entire book's worth of Applejack's worries. If her memory served her right, Granny Smith had been perfectly fine until the night before the camping trip with Twilight and Pinkie. After that… she worsened. "Lost her giddy-up," as Granny herself might say. That day marked the beginning of a horrible run of bad luck.

Applebloom huffed as she washed the dishes. Big Mac, finished with stoking the fire, went to the window and stared out at the front porch, posts coated with frost, and at the shrouded landscape beyond.

"What are we gonna do today?" Applebloom asked. She transferred dishes into the drying rack with her teeth.

"Ah reckon we should finish clearin' up around the barn so there's room for the new one when we put it up." In an undertone she added, "If we can put it up."

Big Mac added a somber "eeyup". It was not his most enthusiastic one-word answer. No doubt he was thinking about the impossibility of the task before them: an entire ruined barn, jagged pieces of lath and beams and framing, and two able-bodied ponies (Applebloom counted as maybe one half) to haul away the wreckage.

With a bitter laugh, Applejack thought about how it didn't matter much either way. The barn was the largest structure on the farm and was always the biggest target for freak accidents. Whether it was storms, runaway wagons, or Rainbow Dash, they could scarcely go two years without the blasted thing going down. Ya'd think we would know how to make a stronger barn by now.

Most of the fall apple crop and the hay had been inside when the windstorm eviscerated it. The hay was saved, but the apples spilled on the ground and many were pulped by falling debris. That was why she looked sadly at the empty plate of apple fritters, during breakfast. Those apples meant more than just lost profits for the farm. They were the family's sustenance. Nearly half of them were destroyed. At least the seed corn and wheat and grass, which were grown primarily for the animals to eat, had been spared; a small blessing amidst a larger curse. True, they were surviving just fine so far, but if the winter continued like this…

Another four months of deep-freeze and apple fritters would be only a memory, a long-lost luxury; never mind about having a large surplus for apple cider in the fall. We've always pulled through though, and we always will.

"If y'all are done eatin', let's get a move on. Applebloom, are your chores done and your room cleaned up?"

"Well… about that, ya see, Scootaloo was over yesterday, an'-"

"Ah see. Maybe ya should think about doin' it before we head out." The filly raced up the stairs to her room.

Applejack went to the coat closet opposite the end table, where a number of heavy canvas coats hung on hooks. She shrugged into the same insulated one she had worn out to milk the cows. A set of sturdy rubber boots completed the outfit.

Today was finally clear enough to start work on the barn. The past six days had vacillated between whiteout conditions and windstorms that removed all the deposited snow with the force of a sandblaster. This meant long days indoors, and Applejack got cabin fever after just one day of it. There was no shortage of outdoor work to do, either.

"Ready, Big Mac?" she said. "Might as well get 'er done."

But Big Mac remained by the window. Dead silence reigned in the house, now that no breakfast noises or talk was around to punctuate it. The fire whispered and sparked. Outside, she could hear the dull thumps of something close to the house. Probably chunks of snow sliding off the roof. Ah hope.

"Big Mac?"

"Eeyup," he responded in a quavery voice not at all like him.

"Are ya comin'?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he raised his hoof and pointed. Applejack went to the other window and after she had scraped away the ice and condensation on her side of the glass, she easily figured out what had him so transfixed. "What could've done that-" he choked out.

For a pony of few words, the fact that something had shocked him into using several at once was alarming to Applejack. Of course, when she had her eyes focused on the east field beyond the yard, she understood. It had the opposite effect on her. All speech failed to express what she was seeing.

The sun was still thirty minutes away. The gloomy pre-dawn light threw everything into murky shades of gray and black: her apple trees, dormant and encased in ice like melted glass, and a path of pure destruction through them. There was the wrecked barn, and the magnificent apple tree beside it now lay in shreds on the snow.

"How?" she spluttered. The cold bit deep into her bones; she ignored it. "When- when did this happen?"

Now that her brother was out of the house and in close proximity to the carnage, he too was speechless.

"It's Bloomfield," Applejack managed to say. "The oldest tree on the farm."

She had to struggle to hold back the wetness in her eyes. Its wide canopy of branches was devoid of leaves, long since dead and stripped by storms. But the tree had stood on the Apple farm for over one hundred years. No matter that it produced only a few apples per year; it was a piece of history. No storm or freak tornado, stampeding buffalo, or falling barn had even bent its stout trunk. Granny Smith's pa- Applejack's great-grandpa- planted it here with his own hooves. Bloomberg, the prize tree of Appleloosa, was a descendant of this tree. Now, its trunk was bisected, not cleanly, but in an explosive way, as if bitten violently in half by a gargantuan beast. Its stately crown lay smashed on the ground and stiff with frost.

"What could've done this?" Applejack asked, brushing Bloomfield's trunk. "A storm strong enough ta blow it down would've taken the house with it."

"The other trees…" As if Bloomfield was not enough, something had done similar damage in a jagged line from the barn all the way to the eastern ridge at the border of the farm, right across the orchard. Tree after tree was rent to splinters, flung pell-mell into the branches of others, and trampled to the ground. It was enough to make any farmer sit down and cry, if they were the crying type. Applejack wasn't. She blew right past sorrow to roiling anger. Like a tainted blanket, it enveloped her until her whole frame shook with fury.

"Somethin' came through an' hurt our trees. Defenseless trees that never hurt nopony." She growled the sentence out through a clenched jaw, and she clenched it so hard she thought it might crack. Her hooves stabbed the snow. "We'll have a bone to pick with it if it comes back. A buckin' big one."

"Eeyup," said Big Mac tonelessly. He walked to the orchard's edge. Either he was much better at hiding his emotions than Applejack, or he was slipping into denial.

Over eighty mature trees destroyed. It would make a dent in next year's production, and replacement saplings would take years to grow back. She felt those fallen trees' injuries just as deeply as if the monster- or loose Hydra, or whatever in Celestia's name it happened to be- had torn her apart instead. These trees were part of the family. If not by name, she at least knew many of them individually by sight, and either she or her brother had shepherded each one to its full growth.

What had torn them down? In such a systematic path, like somepony had snowplowed them? Suddenly the chill eating at her overcoat had nothing to do with the wind.

"Well," Applejack said finally, "Ah suppose we should start with the barn. Before somethin' else bad happens."

Above the rolling hills of Ponyville and the rugged land beyond, the sun peeked over the horizon. It only highlighted the devastation.

Big Mac appeared at her side. He had slipped into the tool shed and donned his work harness, with its stout oaken collar, to help him haul heavy loads.

Two weeks had passed since the barn blew down and not much progress had been made on its cleanup. Applejack tried her hardest to focus on the task at hand and not on her poor trees, or what came after the old barn was removed. Somehow a new one had to be constructed. With only two ponies, it was quite impossible. Barn-raisings were affairs for sunny days and ample ponies around to help. The framing alone needed five or six strong stallions; family reunions were the perfect opportunity to find the required number. But now? The Apple family was far-flung from the Ukrein to Maregentina, and all of them probably busy with supporting their own families and keeping their foals and fillies warm through the winter. It wasn't fair to expect them to abandon their farms just to support hers, especially at a time like this.

No, she thought, if this thing's gettin' done it'll be by our own hooves. She could see the beginning, and the end. Only that pesky middle part of the plan was absent. Maybe Ah could ask Twilight an' Rainbow Dash an'-

She smacked her forehead. In her haste, she had almost thought of Rarity.

Twilight an' Rainbow, then. Ah bet the four of us could get somethin' temporary up to last us through the winter. It wasn't a question of convenience, but of necessity. The expanded lean-to, where the cows and pigs and chickens were crowded together, was both too small and too poorly insulated. They had lost two pigs already. It left the animals stressed, and the remaining provisions and next year's seeds were either stuffed in between the animals or stacked in the house.

Applejack hadn't heard from either of her friends since that day after Pinkie disappeared. Maybe, after all the work was done, she would go visit Twilight. She breathed deeply and started on the barn. Big Mac pulled the wagon up alongside the work area, with which he could cart the broken pieces to the trash heap. The wind gusted; she pulled her hat down and got to work.

She began with what was left of the front door frame. The two bottom posts still stood anchored to the ground, like fingers pointing skyward. Big Mac put his broad shoulder to the nearest one and began to push it loose.

"Applejack! Big Macintosh!"

A girlish voice called their names. Whirling, Applejack turned to the road and noticed two figures just starting down the path to Sweet Apple Acres.

They looked like ghosts, or snowponies given the gift of movement, trudging with steady determination. Then she blinked and it was only two ponies. One was wrapped in a white down jacket and matching accessories that blended seamlessly into the winter landscape around her. A white muzzle poked out from beneath a fur-lined hood. But what about the other one? Somehow he (or she) was much taller than the first pony, like a pony walking two-legged. And that strange robe, flowing around its ankles like a dress.

Of course they would come. As if the day hadn't gone downhill already, here were two more reasons that this day was the worst in recent memory. Rarity and Bryn.

Her mood darkened further at the sight of him, if that was indeed possible. She hated that unnatural hind-legs manner of walking, and the way he moved with limber grace, like a stalking panther. The human. With his hood covering his shoulder-length black mane, he looked mysterious, deadly even, and without realizing it, Applejack lowered into a fighting posture. She wanted nothing from either of them.

Bryn moved easily through the snow. Rarity's shorter legs broke through the hard crust into the powder beneath, and each time she faltered, he was there to steady her.

Applejack tasted acid on her tongue. Her vision wavered. For a moment, the rage rendered her completely senseless. Ah told myself Ah wouldn't lose my temper, that it's not my business. She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled; it did nothing to soothe the fire pulsing through her veins.

"Applejack!" said Rarity again, once they were within a dozen feet of her and Big Mac.

"What are ya doin' here?"

"Well, darling, I was serious when I told you that we'd help you fix the barn."

"And ya wait until now?" Applejack grumbled, disdain lacing her words. If her aim had been to put Rarity on a guilt trip, the unicorn deftly side-stepped around it. Rarity pushed back her hood so that Applejack could see her face.

"I assumed that you wouldn't start on it until this horrid weather cleared up. I do hope we're not too late to help."

Which left Applejack on the receiving end of her own blow. There was the barn, in all its ignominy; she had no easy response that would turn Rarity away, and she needed the help. Desperately. Unicorn magic could be quite useful in dismantling it. That didn't change her feelings, though. "Well gee, maybe take a look behind me an' state the obvious, because you're so good at it."

Big Mac, finally realizing the tension in the air, looked on nervously. Bryn stood even taller than the heavily muscled earth pony and as they sized each other up, a modicum of respect showed on Big Mac's face. His sister only spared the human venomous glares; he, on the other hoof, noticed Bryn's size and wondered if he would be of any use in lifting the heavier pieces. Many of them would be crippling loads even for a pony of his strength.

"Let me guess, Rarity, ya want ta sit inside an' warm up for a couple o' hours before ya get to any actual work."

"Oh, don't be dramatic, dear. Bryn and I came to help and that's what we're going to do." Rarity did her best to look ready for action.

Applejack snorted disdainfully. "Help clean up wood an' dirt an' broken trees, in that pretty white outfit?"

"Or just use your magic and stand fifty feet away from dirt at all times." Bryn spoke up for the first time, in that reserved deep voice, and Rarity's cheeks tinged pink.

"I will use my talents where they are the most useful," said the unicorn primly. "For example…" Her horn, poking out from beneath the hood, suddenly flared to brilliant cerulean life. Its energy seeped into the shattered frame beside Applejack and with a splintering crack, it rose from the earth. She beamed with pride. "Where should I put it?"

Applejack merely pointed to the empty wagon. With visible effort, Rarity dropped the entire thing onto the wagon bed. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. Lifting spells were simple in theory, but required significant magical outpouring proportionate to the mass of the object being lifted. In this case, a two-hundred-pound beam that dwarfed Rarity's one hundred and ten. Nevertheless, she did it, and wiped away the offensive sweat when Applejack's head was turned.

An' now there's no gettin' her to leave, Applejack seethed. Rarity was grinning as if she had single-hoofedly raised a skyscraper. No doubt she's just happy she can use her fancy magic to keep out of the dirt.

Bryn had none. He had to do the job in earth pony fashion, which meant hard physical work. Like Rarity, he had never done hard work in his life before. Skateboarding and reading books were nothing to compare to this. What he did have was a body in good condition, somewhat toned from two years of stretches and weight training on junior high track team, and good insight into the psyches of those who did this sort of work. Growing up in a town built on farming and gold mining and cowboys meant close proximity to people who relied on their hands and strong backs to make a living. Their sons and daughters were in his high school class. Former high school class, he reminded himself.

These ponies fit the description perfectly. They could blend right into Eureka society; he could see them congregating at the bars and gas stations, knocking back beers and talking for hours about the moisture content of hay, or trying to find parts for antique farm equipment handed down for four generations. Early to rise, hard at work, glib in speech, and simple in their ways and manners. To earn a farmer's respect, all you had to do was do the work he expected of you until quitting time and show him and his family the same level of integrity that he practiced. Applejack and her brother might as well have been his parents' friends from church, if they had not been ponies.

Another thought nagged him as he helped the other three tear into the barn. He, Bryn Hansen, was fifteen and pretending to be eighteen. Rarity was twenty-one, although to put an age to a pony using a scale of years standardized to humans was difficult. Perhaps Equestrians thought of aging in different ways. Did ponies show their age as humans did, with wrinkles and gray hair? Gray manes. Bryn watched Applejack with interest. She couldn't be older than Rarity. If she was, it was only by a year or so, and yet if she was twenty or somewhere in that range, she carried herself like somepony fifteen years older and with the forceful attitude of a veteran politician or businessman. There was only curt necessity in her greeting when they first met at Sugarcube Corner; it bordered on hostile, and not in Rainbow Dash's brash muscle-flexing way either. She was deadly serious. Now she tore into a buckled piece of siding like there was a lion caged within her. Such a personality seemed out of place on a freckle-faced mare with a braided tail and the flawless skin of youth.

Or she's just had to grow up faster than normal. If his childhood had been nothing but milking cows and hauling around bales of hay, he might have turned out similarly.

He and Big Mac tried to lift a particularly heavy piece of rafter, its twenty-foot length still intact. This one turned out to be even too much for both of them working together. Applejack watched them strain and curse its stubbornness, but eventually stepped in to stop it. It was the sort of weight that could do internal damage by just attempting to get it free of the ground, let alone carry at chest level.

"Ah think we might need ta cut that one. Or maybe the princess over here can use her magic an' do it for us."

"I'm afraid Severing spells are a bit beyond me," said Rarity.

"How hard can it be ta chop a log in half? Just shoot some sparkles or rainbows at it."

Rarity shook her head at the insult. "Magic is not sparkles and rainbows, Applejack. I simply don't know how to break logs. If it's a Destruction spell, you'd have to ask Twilight."

"Ah don't have time ta ask Twilight."

She backtracked when she saw Applejack's annoyed look. "I suppose I could try…" Concentrating very hard on the beam, she cast a charm that wrapped all of its three-hundred-plus pounds in blue energy. Perhaps she was trying to transmute it into a lighter material or force it to dismantle itself, but in the end all she accomplished was to put an absurd glittery magenta ribbon around it, like some sort of oversized piece of firewood being given as a gift on Hearts and Hooves Day. Her spell tied the ends into a dainty bow. Bryn began to laugh. He roared until tears streamed down his face.

"Oh yes, very funny, Bryn." Rarity was quite embarrassed at the results. She hadn't been trying to tie a bow at all. "If you can do it, feel free."

"That's what ya call tryin'?" Applejack thundered. "Of all the…" She yanked the ribbon off with her teeth and spat it onto the ground. "Use that liftin' spell and take off whatever weight ya can, an' Big Mac an' Bryn can handle the rest. And quit bein' silly."

With Rarity holding up some of the load, they got it into the wagon, but Bryn's muscles screamed in protest. It was like carrying his own weight on his back. He thanked the heavy gloves Rarity had made him. They kept the splinters and ice chips away from his hands, but the log still bore down heavily on his shoulder and clavicle. Big Mac gave him an approving nod when they finally tossed it into the wagon. It feels good, he thought, the same way it feels when I cut wood for Rarity. I'm doing something physically useful.

The unicorn watched him muscle his end of the log into the wagon and, to Bryn's great amusement, blushed brightly. "I didn't mean to laugh at you," he told her. "It was just… A pink ribbon?"

"I didn't mean to conjure a pink ribbon! It just sort of slipped out because I was thinking about that dress I'm making for a client. The sash is absolutely divine but it was just, I don't know, missing something. Pink ribbon. Perhaps a pink lining."

"You're cute when you randomly talk about dresses." He kissed her muzzle, fast enough that Applejack didn't notice. "Just don't try to stuff me into one, or I'll tickle you. A lot."

Cheekbones pink, Rarity brushed her tail against him. "Little chance of that. I simply adore the way you look in that coat. Those shoulders, so strong, and-"

She left the sentence unfinished. Last night, she had clutched at those shoulders, his bare shoulders and chest, pressed against hers in the most intimate of embraces. If she was turned on just by watching him carry wood, what would she do in a private setting?

Bryn shook his head and diverted his mind away, to anything but Rarity's flanks. Thoughts like that weren't safe for work.

He fell into an easy rhythm: one piece after another, and no stopping to talk or rest. The exertion (and the lingering thoughts of Rarity beneath him, calling his name) had him sweating beneath his jacket in no time. It was the perfect thing to balance out the subzero temperatures, and he found himself smiling cheerfully as he and Big Mac methodically dealt with the larger pieces.

If only Applejack shared his good temper. She stayed on the far side of the job site from Rarity and if her brother was happy in his work, she was the opposite. Even if she's wise beyond her years, how does the bad temper fit in? She said nothing and tackled chunks of the south wall with venomous growls. Finally she snapped at Rarity, who stood atop the pile and cast bursts of magic at smaller targets so they would leap into the wagon two at a time.

"Gee, Rarity, why don't ya just take only the ones lighter than your fool head? If liftin' heavy stuff's too much for ya."

"Applejack-"

"Shut it," the other mare snarled.

The others, bent under the weight of another big one, missed it, and Big Mac examined their progress so far. "Sis, Ah reckon ya should go in an' get warm while Ah dump the wagon." Another unusually long sentence from him; Rarity stared.

The wagon was piled high with the barn's remnants. How much time had passed, Bryn wasn't sure, but it certainly didn't feel like much, and not enough to fill it to that level. He let out a breath and wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve. To be honest, he was thirsty and muscles he didn't know existed were aching, but he would never have been the first to complain and give Applejack an excuse to lay into him as well as Rarity.

"Go ahead, Big Mac. Ah ain't headin' in yet. Noon's still a couple hours off."

Noon? That meant they had been at it for over four hours. No wonder his arms were sore.

"Eeyup," said the stallion evenly. Giving his sister a quizzical look, he hitched his collar to the wagon and hauled it around the farmhouse to the trash heap. The wood could, in time, be chopped and used for the kitchen stove. Even the nails might be reused later. Waste, to him, was a sickening concept.

"Go in, or don't, Ah don't give a buck," Applejack replied, turning away from them. "Ah'm gonna keep at it."

"Are you going to be like this forever?" Rarity burst out. "You're being a foal about all of this. I can only say sorry so many times before it has to start going the other way."

"Nopony told ya to come, and Ah didn't ask ya, so don't expect me ta think it's different just because a few days have passed."

Rarity sighed patiently. "It's not about change, it's about friendship. If my shop blew down and I needed help to get it back up, don't you think I would want your help?"

Applejack grunted. Apparently she didn't think so. With a shiver, Rarity said, "Can't we talk about this somewhere warmer? And don't argue about it," she added as Applejack opened her mouth furiously. "I can see you shivering. You're cold too."

The sun was strong above their heads, but did nothing to the chill, or the eerie silence only noticeable once the sounds of demolition and talking were gone. Once the sweat dried and rapidly cooled his body, Bryn agreed with Rarity, but again kept it to himself. If he were alone… then maybe, just maybe, he would phase, to forget the cold for a while.

But that's not an option. Ever. It wasn't even worth thinking about. He slid his hands into his jacket pockets and endured it.

"Fine then. Come in, but Ah'm not promisin' anything."

To Applejack's surprise, over half of the barn was in the wagon, and most of the troublesome pieces had already been dealt with. Begrudgingly she admitted that without help, the same amount of progress would have taken days. Another day of work would see it done. Torn between gratitude and irritation, she shook her head and led them to the house.

Bryn knew he liked it immediately after going through the doorway. The Apples' home was a delightful contradiction, an exercise in how to create comfortable surroundings out of frugality. It was exactly what he expected to find. While Rarity's decoration choices were like the unholy spawn of an Ikea store and a dollhouse, this place was full of bare wood, seldom painted. The varnish on the floors and tables and chairs showed off the solid hoof-made construction. Low ceilings and soft, arched doorways made an otherwise sparsely furnished house feel safe and cozy; in the corner, a black potbelly stove belched out heat. He suddenly realized why the place felt so achingly bittersweet. It's a lot like my old house. Not the trailer he had known most recently, but the house before that, in the valley. The broad boards of the living room and downstairs hallway floors were nearly twins of those in that Eureka house, and the carved shelves too. It was subtle touches like this that made all the difference.

Even the simple chairs were inviting. He chose one at the table and sat in it. Rarity sat beside him, giggling at how his legs stuck out. The furniture was sized for a sitting pony and his legs were cramped, as if he was back in elementary school at the miniature desks. Applejack poked the dying fire with a pair of tongs. Once it was stoked, she ignored the chairs completely, instead pacing back and forth in front of the window.

If anything, it was quieter inside the house than outside. Each creak of the floorboards made Bryn jumpy. It wasn't the only thing that ruined the ambience, either. In the corner nearest the stairs, Granny Smith sat in her armchair. She rocked mechanically and said her usual lines. "Death. Darkness. It makes all of us one. One of them."

"Applejack, dear, is Granny Smith all right?"

Rarity had noticed her catatonic mumbling, but not the words. Only Bryn picked them up. Hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Ah think ya heard me that other day when Ah told ya she's been like this for weeks. Not that it's your business."

"Go to the forest," Granny Smith said, in a tone that was almost pleading. "To the trees."

"And ya don't get to call me 'dear' so ya can go ahead an' cut it out." Applejack talked right over her grandma. In the breaks between speech, the rocking chair squeaked. The floorboards groaned. It's way too quiet here sometimes, Bryn thought. No wonder they ended up talking to themselves.

While the two mares bickered, Bryn's attention was now mostly on the elderly pony across the room. She said random nonsensical statements that, to him, were too close to that day, in the woods. "Walls within walls. Trees within trees. Staring."

"Can't we be civilized like we used to?" begged Rarity.

"Ah'm not the one prancin' around with him."

Rarity stood up to face her friend. "A lady does not prance. She saunters, or struts. Her walk is refined and stately."

"Buck it!" Applejack kicked a chair. Not satisfied with the loud bang it created, she gripped the thing between her teeth and hurled it against the wall. "Don't ya see that every time Ah see ya two together, it makes me wanna hurt somethin'? And then ya come over here today and rub my muzzle in it!" Her hooves pummeled the chair to pieces. "Don't think Ah didn't see that kiss!" She transferred her anger to the chair beside it. Applebloom's chair. It, too, was quickly smashed. "Ah love ya, Rarity. Or I used to, before Ah started hatin' ya instead."

Rarity, with soft tones, tried to calm her friend's temper. If she was afraid of sharing the chair's fate, she did not show it.

"Applejack, look out the window."

"Why the hoof do Ah need to look out my window-"

"Please?" Rarity asked. "Just tell me what you see."

"This is just some buckin' psycho hooey," she complained, but she stared through the frosty glass all the same. "Ah see my damn barn blown down an' all the livestock stuffed into the lean-to. Buckin' winter that if it's this bad at the end o' October, Ah don't wanna see December." She sucked in an angry breath. "Is that what ya wanted?"

"Winter. We work together to clean up winter, when Winter Wrap Up comes around, so shouldn't we work together during winter too?" When Applejack said nothing, the unicorn plowed on. "Bryn and I came to help you. That's all. We're not out to upset you."

"If you're not, then ya should just let me be."

"All of Ponyville's freezing, and Pinkie hasn't come home. Say there's five more months of this and you don't get the barn back up at all, and you still want to push us away?"

"If that happens, we'll wing it. We've done it before." Applejack's traitor voice, though, faltered at the end. If Rarity was clueless to Granny Smith's fatalistic monologue, she at least noticed the hitch in her friend's speech. She was on it before Applejack had a chance to breathe.

"I love you, Applejack, as the friend I've known for most of my life who's always been there for me. Bryn and I will come back tomorrow and the next day and the next, until you don't need our help."

"Comes in the night," Granny whispered.

Rarity turned, as if truly aware of the other pony for the first time. "Have you taken her to Nurse Redheart? Maybe she would know more."

"The weather's been too bad ta go, an' there's nothin' physically wrong with her. Strong as a bull, just… the other stuff." Applejack shook her head and looked at the furniture she had just ruined. "Look, Rarity, it's not that Ah'm not grateful for your help on the barn. Ah am. Me an' Big Mac both. If only it wasn't about more than just that…"

A rapid-fire thunder of hooves on the stairs announced the arrival of another pony. Applebloom's head poked around the banister, followed by the rest of her. Her eyes widened like saucers when she saw Bryn, but she went for Applejack first.

"What was that big crash, Sis? Oh, and Ah finished cleanin' my room. Just don't, ya know… look too close at the closet." She thumped down the stairs and trotted right up to Bryn. "Are ya Bryn? Sweetie Belle told me all about ya."

Applejack looked at the ceilings, at the curtains, at the table, anywhere but at the two broken chairs and the obvious dent in the wallpaper where the chair had met the wall with great force. Those freckled cheeks threatened to burn from embarrassment. "Um… nothin' happened, Applebloom, just a little accident." Finally she looked down at the chair. She had made that chair for Applebloom. It was less polished than the others, which were her brother's handiwork, but its size and imperfections made it unique. A moment's anger had destroyed it.

"Are ya really a yoo-man from outer space?" Applebloom wondered. "Why can't ya get home? Sweetie Belle said that ya got lost and came to live with her an' Rarity."

She jumped excitedly as she talked, her cherry-red mane bouncing. The filly was five different kinds of adorable and Bryn didn't know where to start: with the idea that he was some variety of alien, or that at the moment, getting home was low down on his list of priorities. She held out a butterscotch hoof for him to shake. He tried to say a simple "hello" but she talked right over him.

"If ya can't get home, maybe the Crusaders can help! Scootaloo said that she fixed up her scooter to go really fast. We could take you!"

"The Crusaders?" They couldn't be actual Crusaders of the sort he had read about in seventh-grade history class, the knights and soldiers that fought in religious battles. But she quickly clarified the term.

"The Cutie Mark Crusaders! Me an' Sweetie an' Scootaloo. We have a secret clubhouse and a secret hoofshake an' everything!" She looked up at him; the red bow tied in her mane nearly reached his waist. "We're on a quest to get our cutie marks an' we'll leave no mountain unclimbed, no river uncrossed, no-"

"Ah don't think Bryn wants ta hear about your cutie mark," interrupted Applejack. Like Sweetie Belle's, Applebloom's flank was bare.

"But sis, we're having a meetin' tomorrow at the clubhouse an' Bryn should come! Scootaloo wanted ta meet him too."

"That's up ta him," said Applejack. She surreptitiously collected the pieces of chair while Applebloom spoke. Gone was the anger of only a few moments ago; instead, she hung her head and looked quite out of character. Bryn, meanwhile, was quickly coerced into a secret Crusaders meeting involving such secretive things that even Applebloom, the co-creator of said secrets, couldn't share them with him. It was a matter of life and death. She drove this point home with whispered sincerity and with her ticklish muzzle in his ear, he only understood some of what she was saying. It involved blindfolds and solemn oaths, at any rate.

"Rarity," Applejack said finally, as she pushed the chair underneath the table, "can Ah talk to ya for a second?"

"Of course, Applejack."

"Somehow we'll get ya back into space, to where ya came from!" Applebloom crowed, drowning out Rarity. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ASTRONAUTS!"

Bryn didn't have the heart to tell her that his current situation- living with Rarity, the mare he loved more than he knew he could love anything or anyone- was what he wanted, despite a part of him that missed his family terribly. He missed his room and tucking Serena in at night. He missed normal human things like cars and running water and the Internet, but whenever the homesickness became too much to bear, Rarity was there to kiss it better. Applebloom began to describe the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse and in the background, barely audible over the noise of the stove crackling, Granny Smith whispered her own set of secrets.

"It's coming…"

---

Applejack led Rarity into the sitting room, through the door at the end of the hall where the living room met the kitchen. It was Granny Smith's favorite knitting spot when the front porch was too cold for comfort. For that reason, other than a few padded chairs, it was bare and in a more secluded part of the house. Its solitary window looked out onto the south field. Rarity had never set hoof in this particular room, but she could see how it could be a comfortable and cozy place in the afternoon sun. She picked the chair under the window and quickly slipped one of the quilts over her lap.

It was chilly, even in sunlight, and the room had an air of neglect. Rarity thought it strange that a room so well suited for sitting and working, or quiet thinking, felt so unused. The air tasted of abandonment. Applejack paced back and forth in front of the door. Her hoofsteps echoed on the floorboards, somewhat muffled by the quarter-inch of dust that lay thickly on every surface.

"Ah couldn't talk in front of Applebloom and she doesn't know about- about me."

"It's all right, dear." The farmer pony didn't object to the word. "And I'm sorry for putting you in that situation. If it were me, and I saw you with Bryn…"

Applejack sat in the other chair. "You're serious about him, aren't ya? Ah can see it."

"He makes me happy," Rarity answered. "He's everything I wanted when I pictured the perfect stallion. He does things for me without complaining and is great with Sweetie Belle. She adores him. I can't imagine how things would be if he ever left."

"But Bryn ain't a stallion."

"He's my prince, and he's a stallion in all the… right places. Those shoulders…" She let out a shiver of remembered pleasure and Applejack gagged.

"Ah get the point, ya don't have to describe his shoulders!" Applejack growled. "Ya love him and ya feel bad about rubbin' it in my muzzle. Ya don't have to." She paced back and forth while staring out at the south field. "Ah've got a hundred problems an' what's goin' on between you two isn't one of 'em."

"But are you going to be all right?"

The shadows seemed to add years to Applejack. "We're Apples. We always survive." In a much lower and more defeated voice she added, "The day when anythin' in my life gets easier, Ah'll be sure to tell ya."

Rarity extended a hoof. "Truce, then?"

"For what it's worth," the farm pony sighed, "Ah'm sorry. Sorry for losin' my temper."

Applejack opened her mouth to say more. When she looked into Rarity's eyes, those words jammed in her throat and she realized she had nothing else to apologize for. The disagreement between them was a minor irritation, nothing more; the real problems had nothing to do with Rarity.

A part of her felt awful for using Rarity as a punching bag, but the unicorn's look was far too patronizing for her taste, so she brushed her away. She was done saying sorry for who she was or how she felt. She certainly did not need a shoulder to cry on. Or, for that matter, a friend feeling sorry (or pretending to feel sorry) for loving somepony else.

What she needed was a reprieve from bad luck. She needed Granny Smith to recover her mental faculty. She needed the barn rebuilt and the winter over.

But that ain't happenin' anytime soon. Applejack sighed and tried to muster up a smile for Rarity, so she would drop the subject. A floorboard creaked. She whipped her head around and Bryn was in the doorway.

He had approached the sitting room and made less noise than a mouse. How in blazes does he do that?

"There's- well, something here to see you, Applejack."

He led them back to the kitchen. On the doormat, shaking snow from his scales, was Spike.

Bryn still had trouble believing his eyes, and he had been the one to open the door and let Spike into the house. Talking ponies were all well and good, but… a dragon? A dragon in the kitchen. This dragon was short and stocky, standing on two stubby legs. His scales were an iridescent reptilian green. Violet spines crested on the top of his head like a dinosaur. They extended all the way down his spine and terminated in a spade-shaped tail, which he held in his claws and squeezed nervously. Applejack said hello to him, but his wide emerald eyes never left Bryn.

"Applejack," the dragon gasped, "what is- that?" He pointed a claw at Bryn.

Bryn forced back laughter. The dragon sounded like a frightened eight-year-old boy, something he had not expected. He wasn't sure what a dragon was supposed to sound like. Definitely not that. The crest of the dragon's head reached only to the tops of his thighs; maybe he was an eight-year-old.

Applejack went into the kitchen, looking for the teapot so she could offer Spike something hot. He had walked all the way from town in nothing but his scales. "Bryn, meet Spike, Twilight's assistant. Spike, Bryn."

"Is this the dragon you were telling me about, Rare?" said Bryn, turning back to Rarity. He held out his hand for the little dragon to shake.

And then several things happened at once. Granny Smith suddenly jerked and began to chant under her breath, Rarity came through the doorway and caught sight of Spike, Spike did a double-take at seeing Rarity, and, unfortunately, Spike picked up on Bryn's pet name for Rarity. Rarity, in turn, hesitated. She hadn't expected to see Spike here.

"Rarity?" Spike chirped, ignoring Bryn. "Why haven't you stopped by the library lately? I made the most delicious jewel cupcakes and I saved some for you."

"Erm… things have been rather busy, Spike, but maybe Bryn and I can stop by on our way home today." Rarity smiled mechanically; it never reached her eyes.

Unnoticed in the corner of the living room, Granny Smith groaned and sat up straight in her chair. The only sounds she made were the creaks of the chair legs and a thin, pitiful squeal. Applejack set the kettle on the stove and busied herself with the tea.

Spike's eyes narrowed. "But- what's he doing here, and what IS he?"

"He's a human, Spike. It's a rather long story on how he came here but he's been staying with-"

Here, Rarity practically had to force her own hoof into her mouth. She was on the verge of saying he's been staying with me. Nothing would set Spike off faster than hearing that someone else, someone besides him, was staying with Rarity and- well, doing more than just staying with her.

"But- but-" Spike struggled.

"Spike dear, Bryn was helping us with Applejack's barn. You probably saw it on your way in. And what's my little Spikey-Wikey doing walking all the way to Sweet Apple Acres with no coat?" She lifted Spike's chin with her hoof. At her touch, Spike's face assumed a slavish, doe-eyed rapture. Bryn frowned. Something was weird between them. "You must be frozen! How's that tea coming, Applejack?"

Applejack spooned loose tea into a brown earthenware teapot and poured boiling water into it. Behind her, Granny Smith began to shake. She was rigid and her mouth was open in a soundless shriek. Nopony noticed.

"I had to!" Spike burst out. "Twilight sent me a message and I had to deliver it." He held up the object in his hand. It was a damp scroll, tightly rolled, and he slipped a claw underneath the sealing wax. "Twilight's in Canterlot and she sent it to me by magic. It's addressed to you, Applejack."

"Ta me?" Applejack wandered back into the living room, a mug clutched in her teeth. She handed the tea to Spike and took the letter. "What the hay is she doin' in Canterlot again?" Muttering, she went over to the window so she could easily see Twilight's words.

Bryn leaned close to Rarity. "Can I talk to you for just a second?"

When he had led the unicorn out of earshot, he faced her. "So, about Spike?" It came out sounding more blunt than he intended. Rarity reached for his hand, and the smile he received was genuine.

"I'm sure you noticed that Spike has a… er… thing for me. He's only a baby dragon, eight years old in March, and somehow he developed Equestria's biggest crush on me when Twilight brought him to Ponyville for the first time. I'm not leading him on, but I can't just break his heart by telling him the truth. It would destroy him."

"I guess that's why he sounds like a little kid..."

"And why I didn't want to tell him that we're dating or living together." Rarity looked over her shoulder at Spike. Like a hound on scent, his lizardlike eyes followed her every move. "Sometime soon I'll have to find a way to tell him. And no, my prince doesn't have competition from a seven-year-old dragon with a schoolboy crush." She gave him her special smile. It was not an artificial one like Spike received, all teeth and polite eyes, but one she reserved for him. He could write a novel about this specific facial expression. Rarity kept her lips closed but smiled widely, as if she had a delicious secret and only he was in on it. He loved her dimples, her kissable cheekbones, and her eyes that sparkled with passion. If Spike hadn't been standing six feet away, he would have kissed the daylights out of her.

"I never doubted you for a second."

"You'd better not, or you know what happens…"

Bryn only smiled back. "I know. Tickles. Lots of them."

Twilight wrote in minuscule, precise cursive. Applejack had to strain her eyes to read the letters. She read through it, her jaw slowly dropping as she read about the reason Twilight had traveled to Canterlot with Rainbow Dash. She never reached the second paragraph, though, about Fluttershy and the Windigoes and the dragon attacks and everything else. All of the attention in the room went to Granny Smith, who suddenly fell out of her chair.

The old pony's body thudded as it struck the floor. She began to scream before the other four could do much more than gasp. It all happened within the space of two seconds. "IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE-"

Granny Smith contorted into a series of impossible positions. A stream of moans and growls and gibberish issued from her mouth, but the trickle of spittle that followed soon muffled whatever she was trying to say. The seizure had her in an iron grip. Applejack, frozen with terror, watched her grandmother writhe and drool. There was nothing she could do. "Help her!" Rarity shrieked. "Applejack, we have to do something!"

Bent double, every tendon and muscle taut, Granny Smith flopped onto her back. Her eyes rolled upward until they were hidden behind the wrinkles in her face. She was thrashing around so wildly that Applejack was afraid to touch her. It was as if electricity was being injected into her frail form, making her legs twist at odd angles. Foam sprayed from her lips. Her breath came in hideous, gurgling gasps, and as her body remained rigid, she began to choke.

"Turn her over!" Bryn shouted. "She's suffocating!" He tried to rush in on Applejack's right, but a flailing limb caught him full in the face. The gagging noises intensified.

Just then, something scraped against the wall of the house. Nopony noticed it, because Rarity's frantic shrieks and the flurry of other noises drowned it out. Was it snow, falling from the roof?

Spike yelled counterpoint to Rarity. Bryn tried to reach Granny Smith to turn her over, and kept receiving kicks from the spasming hooves. Applejack remained petrified while her grandma's seizure intensified. Granny Smith let out a series of horrible rattling breaths, and then was still.

"…Granny?" said Applejack, her lower lip trembling. The pony did not answer.

"Granny, wake up!"

In the silence, the scraping continued. It sounded like fingernails being drawn along the siding.

"Sis, what happened? Ah heard somepony screaming-" came a small voice. Applebloom appeared once again at the top of the stairs. Then she saw the motionless pony on the floor and let out a howl.

---

Four ponies and one human surrounded Granny Smith. Some sobbed, others stood dumbfounded, but all had their backs turned away from the window. If they were alert, they would have noticed that the light in the room flickered. Those odd scraping noises became more frequent. A dark shape slithered across the yard.

It saw through the front windows of Sweet Apple Acres. It noticed the departed mare and felt pleasure at her demise. After all, it had a very long memory, and it could recall this particular pony as a young filly who went for a nighttime trek into the forest and saw something that could never be unseen. Something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. One glimpse inspired the sort of fear that fueled a thousand nightmares and a thousand sleepless nights. A second momentary glimpse, seen through the window, had terrorized the old pony to death, eighty years later.

Four more lives left within to take, it thought, vibrating with ravenous anticipation. But it was patient. Sooner or later, all would fall under its spell and be devoured. There was no shortage of prey.

It slipped away into the shadows, shattering apple trees in its wake.