The building Braeburn’d led her to was not an old house, but it wanted to be.

The architecture of it was antiquated, pointedly so. Its wooden struts looked like they’d been painted black with varnish, though whatever the substance actually was remained a mystery to Applejack’s eyes. The stairs leading up to the house’s porch squeaked as she followed Braeburn up them, yet felt sturdy enough under-hoof to fully support her weight. Its windows flashed gold in the light of the setting sun, the dark curtains behind them causing the reflection of sky, Appleloosa and a mountain ridged horizon to stand starkly out.

It was like a parody of a haunted house, as if the builders had visited a fairground at some point, and then had left, thinking ‘We can do better.’

“All right, Braeburn.” Applejack muttered the words; despite her disbelief, the house still had some sense of presence about it, one that made her reluctant to speak too loudly. “What’s going on? I know you don’t live here, else you’d have shown it to me before. Just whose house is this?”

“Well, cuz...” Braeburn’s ears were up and swivelling and his head flicked between her face and the house’s door. “You see, you might not recognise this house 'cause it wasn’t part of Appleloosa when you last came to visit. I know it might look like it’s an old building.” He gave the door a quick glance, then stage whispered, “But it really ain’t!”

Applejack stretched her hoof out towards one of the beams, a dark chunk of wood riddled with circular bore holes. She tapped against it, and the clunk in response was both solid and loud.

“I kinda figured that part out on my own.” She frowned. “I don’t even think you can get woodworm out in the desert...”

Braeburn took over: “Look, cuz, point is that I don’t so much live here as stay here. Lady kinda insisted after she came down, an—”

“Lady?” Applejack titled her head to one side, the action causing her mane to flip sides and spread into a collection of looser, messier strands of a rich golden-yellow, peppered by clumps of desert sand. “Which lady’s this, Braeburn? How come I ain’t never heard of her?” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’ve—”

“No, cuz! You’re gettin’ it all wrong!” Braeburn give another glance towards the door, then leaned in, the motion causing his hat to slip forwards and cover his eyes. A quick hoof nudged it out of the way, leaving Braeburn free to whisper, “It’s the house of the Lady. And I don't quite live here.”

“The?” Applejack leaned back, expressions perplexed. Sunlight flashed off her eyes as she mouthed the word out again. The... Her eyes widened. “You mean the the? Oh, hay no, Braeburn! I ain’t going in there; not on your nelly.”

“Look, cuz, I know you don’t like her, but this is the only place we—”

“No!” Applejack interrupted, following it up with a quick hoof stomp, the combination achieving the impossible and succeeding in silencing Braeburn. “I ain’t going in any house of hers, Braeburn. She put me in dresses!”

Applejack leant forwards, eyes narrowed down to two thin slits of green. “Dresses, for hoofs sake! Do I look like a pony who should be wearing any of that frilly fro fro nonsense to you?”

“You look like a pony who’d benefit, that’s for sure.”

Applejack's mouth clamped shut, her mind only now realising just how loud she’d been. Braeburn’s face had frozen, his expression buried under a rictus grin and his eyes screwed tight shut. She glanced round him, to the black rectangle where the door used to be.

And there she was, dark frown hovering over a pair of piercing blue eyes that seemed far too lively for the wrinkled face they were sunk in. Applejack gulped, having suddenly shrunk two feet and aged backwards, mind delving into the memory of a reunion in Manehatten. The feeling left a millisecond later, though the impression of it remained.

Lady Hamilton stepped out of the house, light-brown coat seeming to crease over as she walked. A blossoming tree stamped upon her flanks glowed in the dying sunlight, patchy grey mane—curled up so tightly in its bun that not a hair was out of place—bouncing as she stepped out of the doorway and onto a brown, featureless welcome mat. And through all of it, her frown remained.

“Applejack, isn’t it. Of the Ponyville Apples.” She raised a hoof to stop an Applejack who’d made no efforts to speak. “I already heard you two talking; no need to confirm it. And I’m guessing if you’re here, on my doorstep, you’ll be looking for a place to stay.” She stopped, just a bit beyond Braeburn’s shoulder, and ran her eyes over Applejack, eyes that then tightened.

“I don’t remember any letters saying you'd be coming to Appleloosa.”

Applejack’s jaws locked together. “Well that’s funny, cause I don’t remember any letters saying you were in Appleloosa. How’m I meant to warn someone I don’t know’s there?”

“I sent word to Marigold... Sorry, to your Granny Smith a month back.” The tightness round her eyes loosened a fraction, and she stepped forwards. “Though I suppose I can’t blame you for what my sister-in-law does or doesn’t tell you.” She stopped next to a still silent Braeburn, eyes still locked onto to Applejack’s.

“You get one night, you hear me? One night inside my house, and then you’re out. Don't let it ever be said that I ain't good to my husband's family, but it's one night only and then you get. I don’t want you being a bad influence on Braeburn.” And with that, she turned and walked back into the house.

Braeburn’s eyes opened, and Applejack’s were there to meet them. Bad influence? she mouthed, face all contained fury and dirt.

Not here, was the reply, before, with a worried glance back, he followed after. With a shake of her body, Applejack, too, followed, pausing only to tap her hooves against the door's edge, shaking off the worst of the dried-on mud.

"Look, it's mighty kind of you to make this offer," Applejack called out, before stepping inside and onto the fuzzy softness of a second mat. "But I don't have any plans to stay here." She blinked, eyes adjusting to the inside's gloom.

The inside of the house was dark and horribly clean: cobwebs would’ve brightened the place, giving at least some reminder that living things had once been here. Applejack stopped in place and tapped her hooves against the door frame again, eyes wandering round. The inside was wholly featureless, with no curtains, candles or even carpet to speak off; the only change in texture was the glow around the curtained windows.

"So you won't be staying after all, then?" Applejack turned her head down and to the right, and the figure of Lady Hamilton materialised in what she thought was the centre of a corridor, insubstantial enough that Applejack wasn't sure if there was an actual frown or if that was just what she'd come to expect. "Well, I think that begs the question of just what are you here for?"

"She's here to get one of my hats!" Braeburn stumbled out of the gloom next to her, passing through an outline that Applejack had taken as a wall. Not a corridor, then. "And she's gonna be needing a place to stay 'cause I told her she could bunk with me when she came down here."

Applejack‘s eyes shot over to Braeburn. He was a surprisingly clean liar.

The flash that was Lady Hamilton's eyes swiveled between the two of them. "And I guess you didn't tell her that you were staying with me now, hmm?"

Braeburn nodded. "Yeah, sure. That's right. I forgot to tell her that I had to move in with you after you came down here from Manehatten and took your house with you."

Applejack couldn’t help herself. "You did what now?"

"What I did," Lady Hamilton said, "is unimportant. What is important is figuring out what exactly we're going to do with you." There was a pause in which Braeburn evaded Applejack's attempts to catch his eye. Lady Hamilton sighed. "How long?"

[Insert talking here]

"Then I think we should be able to manage you." And with that, she turned and vanished. Applejack turned to her cousin:

"Brae—oof!"

Braeburn’s head barged hard into the side of her, powering them away from the scene as quickly as he could. Applejack tried digging in her hooves, tried to stop the sudden abduction, but the floor had been polished just enough to keep her from gaining any traction: her hooves slipped and slod over the floor, occasionally kicking at an unexpected rug or section of skirting and knocking into tables and chairs cloaked inside the house's darkness.

They reached a set of stairs and kept going, her hooves clicking madly as she skittered up the stairs, watch thudding against her chest like a second, off-kilter heartbeat.

And then Braeburn stopped, suddenly. Carried by the momentum, Applejack slid on for a few moments more as Brabeurn paused in place, head pointed back the way they’d been. Then, after having disentangled herself from the set of curtains she’d landed in—the disruption failing to open them and let even a little light entry to the house—Applejack marched towards him.

“What in the—” Braeburn shushed her. “No, I ain’t gonna shush! What in the hay is this all about? Moving houses! My great auntie here in Applelossa! Bad influence!" That last one, she felt, bore repetition: "Bad influence! What is she on about? I'm an element of harmony, for Celestia's sake! How in the holy apple orchard's a national hero meant to be a 'bad influence'?"

Braeburn made more frantic gestures at her, a tinge of panic in his eyes. Applejack would still not be shushed: her tongue had been held for long enough.

"I—" she started, but it seemed Braeburn had had enough too, for with that his head was slammed back into her, and she was driven into a room off of the main hall, the door being barged open and then quickly kicked closed.

"Look, cuz, I get that you've got questions," he said, and his face was clearer in the brighter room, "but asking them questions loud like is what got us into this mess before I could talk you out of it in the first place."

Applejack opened her mouth to reply, before thinking better of it and quietly retorting instead. “Ain’t the same thing now, though, is it? She already knows I’m here.”

“Ain’t no reason to go shouting about it, though,” Braeburn replied, turning round and rummaging about in a cupboard behind him.

Applejack blinked, and for the first time realised that the room she was in was different, being lighter and more furnished with... well, furnishings. There was a pair of curtains and a window to the left of her, both open and looking out over the loosely clumped Appleloosan skyline, the mildly tousled heads of the orchard and the great expanse of desert encircling it all. One wardrobe and a chest of drawers flanked the bed like sentries, and a great splash of colour across the un-windowed wall turned into a map of Appleloosa after a moment's examination. She shuffled where she stood, and noticed there was carpet.

“I take it this is your room, then,” she ventured. Braeburn turned round, a worn-looking brown hat in his mouth.

“Swate ove,” he mumbled, and flicked his head up, hat spinning through the air and landing fairly neatly upon Applejack’s head. “It’s the room I spend the most time in, anyhow. Don’t quite know if that means I can go round saying it’s mine and all.”

Applejack’s hoof raised up, fumbling the hat round on her head. It was a fairly good fit, being just loose enough to not feel confining and just tight enough to not feel like it was about to fly off. Still didn’t crinkle right, though.

“Good enough?” Her cousin’s grin was hopeful, and she smiled back.

“Sure is. All right then, let’s talk. I promise I ain’t gonna shout.” She gave him a half-grin. "Much."

Braeburn nodded, walking past her towards the window. “Guess we’d best start with the main part, then.” He nodded out the window. “The orchard.”

“What about it?” Applejack said, her sentence ending in a long, drawn out yawn. She tossed her head about, shaking some focus back into her, and then followed after him.

“It ain’t... normal, I guess. Ponies been trying to get stuff to grow down south since the time of the Lying King, and it ain’t never really worked. Least, not permanently worked. You come from the heartland, cuz, so I guess it might not mean the same thing to you, but to us down south, this here orchard’s something special.” Braeburn paused and shook his head, before snorting. “Something weird, too.”

“And?” Applejack stretched herself forwards, front half dangling out of the window and nose snuffling slowly at the air.

“And... well... It’s working.” Braeburn looked over to her, eyes shining. “Really working. ‘Cording to the memories of Princess Celestia, most anybody’s ever been able to get out of the badlands is a single apple harvest. We've gotten six, with another one coming up in a fortnight’s time. That’s enough to get some attention turned this way.” He blew out, ears swiveling flat as his face took on a resigned look. “Planter attention. Seeders too.”

Applejack perked up a little, straightening herself. “That lot down here?”

“Planters ain’t yet, though we know they’re a comin’, but the Seeders sure as heck are. We got a heap of them camped up over where we used to hold the Western Dances.” Braeburn shifted where he stood, forelegs folding and unfolded as he mimicked Applejack and leant out of the window. “Keep going on about your Bloomberg. Reckon he’s a one of a kind specimen, and aren’t too pleased that we ain’t got plans to take any seedlings off of him.”

“Well wadya know. Them fusspots finally got something right after all.” Applejack knocked her hat back, allowing her grin to beam free. The fading sunlight felt just right against her brow. “Bloomberg’s sure as certain a one of kind specimen, all right. Think they’d wanna talk to the mare who raised him since he was a seedling? I could do with some good, old fashioned farmer talk round about now.”

Braeburn chuckled. “Given their reaction when we told ‘em he’d come from half a country away, I’d guess not. You know what their type's like when it comes to re-plantin'.”

“Oh.” Applejack deflated. “So, er... What’s this got to do with anything?”

Braeburn blew out again, and the breath was strong enough to ruffle the ends of his forelock about. “Well... See, I was the first pony to plant a tree in that orchard, right? And I was kinda heavily involved in getting us all here in the first place, and... well...” He blew out yet again, harder still this time. “Planters have kinda decided that it was all my doing that this time worked out, and have put me up for recruitment. And that ain’t something which sits right with me.”

Applejack rose. “Ain't something that sits right with you?! What, you objectin’ to all the not having to worry about the red line, deals that nopony else can get and free trade routes that come with being part of the Planters now?!” Applejack's voice was a little raised and almost startling against the somewhat laid-back air that’d fallen over the two. A small part of her was aware that she was snapping at him, that he’d done nothing to truly deserve the outburst, but she was too tired to act on it.

“Do you know what I’d give to be part of that sorta network back in Ponyville, Braeburn?! Why, hardly a darn day goes by back there without us nearly losing the farm, or worse, and—” Braeburn raised a hoof, and Applejack, with a sudden flush of red across her face, toned her volume down to silent.

“I said it don’t sit right, cuz, not that I ain’t grateful. Appleloosa and its Orchard ain’t all my doing, so it just ain’t fair at all that I’m the one getting credit for it. It’d be like saying that Princess Twilight friend of yours is the only one who defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon and that you weren't nothing but a hanger-on. Other ponies worked hard on this, and I don’t feel right taking that away—”

A sound rang out from somewhere in the house, loud and overriding and with a deep brass undertone. The two pulled back from the open window, Applejack’s head turning to Braeburn for explanation.

“Dinner gong. She’ll get cranky if we both don’t go. We can carry on talking after we've least shown our faces.” Braeburn walked forwards, then paused and half-turned when Applejack didn’t follow. “I mean it. She’ll take it as a slight, cuz.”

“And what if I ain’t hungry?” Applejack said, following him anyway out into the annoyingly dark corridor.

“I don’t think she much cares if you eat or not,” Braeburn muttered, and his noticeably lower tone made him that much harder to locate in the gloom. “S’all about whether you show up. Manners, you know.”

Applejack nodded, and then felt foolish. “Why’s it so dark?”

“I dunno.” There was a creak up ahead of her that she replicated a few seconds later.

“You ain’t ever asked?”

“Course I asked.” The steady clumps of somepony going down stairs. “She ain’t never given an answer.”

Applejack half-yawned, stopped herself, and then followed after, her hooves sliding noisily about as they located each step. Three steps down, and she hit Braeburn.

“Braeburn?” The darkness sighed.

“Cuz, you can get a message to the Princess, right? To Celestia up in Canterlot?” Wood squeaked out as he moved. “I... I reckon I got something to ask her.”

Celestia. Canterlot. A cloud of fuzziness left her mind as Applejack remembered the crack across the midnight sky, the memory sharp and piercing, still shocking after all this time. She’d forgotten again, slipped into the nowness just like the others had, just like it was so damned easy to.

None of this mattered, not Braeburn nor Settlers nor Planters nor Appleloosa itself. The world would not be saved through her sweating small stuff; she needed to be vigilant, to actually keep the promise she had made to herself when limping from the orchard not half-an-hour before.

“No. No, I can’t.” She brushed past him in the darkness, coat rubbing against the smoothness of his jacket. “We send letters to her through Spike, and he’s back in Ponyville.”

She paused at the foot of the stairs, uncertain of which way to go. Braeburn caught up to her. “Well, shoot. I was hoping she could help me out with the Planter problem.” He moved past; Applejack trailed behind, her ears perked to the sound of him moving. “I’d been hoping you could put in a good word with her ever since I heard you were in town.”

“What’s this about now?” The voice was sudden out of the darkness; Applejack’s ears flattened.