The sun wasn’t nearly as hot here as it was in Appleloosa.

Braeburn wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead as the mid-afternoon rays bathed the parts of him that weren’t shielded by his hat. It was hot enough, and constant applebucking didn’t make things any cooler. It was still nothing compared to the almost searing heat of the desert though; so strong you could see the air wiggle in front of you, and wave your hoof through the wind to bring it away like you’d run it under hot water.

Braeburn watched his cousin from time to time out of the corner of his eye. There was an admirable focus in the way she worked; a simple process, built up through practice and repetition to become second nature. While Braeburn had bucked his share of apples, he still had to give three or four kicks to knock everything off the sturdy branches of any particularly tough looking trees. Back home, the ecosystem for apple trees was less accommodating, so their boughs and payload as a result were easier to deal with; he could usually get them in just two kicks.

But here, Applejack lined up her buckets, turned swiftly with her forelegs as a pivot, and kicked once. A good, solid, hearty kick that knocked every single piece of fruit off their branches and into the containers waiting below.

Braeburn gave a low whistle the first time he saw Applejack’s work in progress, and she grinned at him underneath the brim of her Stetson.

The work wasn’t particularly arduous. The fact that Braeburn had done so much of it in the past let him zone out, thinking of other things as he worked. Particularly the words he was still mulling over in his head.

Every time there was a moment of silence, either himself or Applejack finding a new tree to empty, he thought about saying something, but the words wouldn’t come. He didn’t know how to begin. It was possible that once he said the first part, the rest would come flowing like a river from a broken dam, and the whole thing would be over with before he had time to second guess himself—but he couldn’t be sure of that, and his conscience wouldn’t let him take the chance.

They didn’t speak much. Applebucking, while subconscious, was still a concerted concentration of effort.

Applejack gave a particularly loud kick to the giant trunk of a likely looking tree, and its holdings plummeted downward, the red-skin of the fruit sparkling as it passed through the ever-present wash of sunlight.

“So,” Applejack said, breaking the relative silence of kicks and grunts for the first time since the pair had started their work. “Does she have a name?”

Braeburn almost choked. His tongue offered its services in lieu of anything substantial to gag on, but he suppressed it.

“Does who have a name?” Braeburn asked, a trickle of uncertainty creeping into his voice.

He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew what Applejack meant. The confusion was at his cousin asking him such a question in the first place.

Applejack grinned at him from beside her now-empty tree.

“Aw, c’mon, cuz. I ain’t slow.”

Braeburn furrowed his brow, his stare set on his cousin. She kept her grin on as she moved to her next tree, lining up the buckets underneath the low-hanging branches.

“I saw the looks you got from all those girls on our way home,” Applejack said. “Doesn’t take a genius to realize you’re a good lookin’ stallion, and runnin’ your own town besides. Girls like a stallion who’s in charge of his own life.”

Braeburn stared on as Applejack continued her runaway logic.

“I figured that was what you wanted to tell me this morning, but you got all gummed up when it came down to it, so I’m makin’ it easy on you. You can tell me if you got a special somepony waitin’ for you at home.”

Braeburn coughed. His apple-collecting buckets lay forgotten around his hooves.

“Applejack,” he started “there's no mare waitin’ for me back home.”

Applejack didn’t lose her grin as she dragged buckets to their next destination. “Well, shoot, you coulda fooled me. Still though... you musta thought about it. It’s around the time to start lookin’ for a nice girl and settlin’ down for a bit, don’t you think?”

“You don’t have somepony you’re fixin’ to settle down with,” Braeburn countered, lowering his voice.

“Well, I mean, I got a farm to run, and I ain’t never run into a boy that’s caught my fancy. Plus, they ain’t exactly throwin’ themselves at me. But you had half a townful o’ mares lookin’ at you like a prize pony on display on your way through! You could pick and choose somepony if you were lookin’ for a gal, no question.”

“I ain’t exactly interested in that, Applejack.” Braeburn dragged a bucket with him as he walked, his eyes shielded from the sun, as well as his cousin’s gaze, by the brim of his hat.

“Shoot, you don’t gotta tell me twice then. You’re a discernin’ stallion. You want a girl who’s up to snuff, I’m guessin’.”

“AJ...” Braeburn let the tiniest hint of frustration creep into his voice.

“Just promise you won’t steal away any of my friends,” Applejack said, kicking the last of her buckets across the grass, where it landed perfectly in its spot underneath the apple tree behind her. “I know Rarity says she ain’t the type to go for someone so... ‘rustic’, she’d prob’ly say... but I caught her givin’ you an eye or two when we was visitin’. She’ll probably try to smooth-talk you, so make sure you’re on your guard when you meet her again—”

“Applejack!”

Braeburn’s yell shook the branches of the apple-tree over his head, jostling the well-sized pieces of fruit hanging above, not quite as hard as a kick to send them tumbling from their branches.

Applejack looked up. Her smile broke for the first time since her questioning had started.

“Somethin’ the matter, cuz? Don’t tell me you’re getting your mane in a tussle over me teasin’ you about how all the girls want’ you—”

“I don’t wanna talk about this, AJ,” Braeburn interjected.

“Well... if you say so.” Applejack sounded genuinely perplexed. She looked up at Braeburn and found him staring at the ground, kicking his hoof against the grass.

“Are you... are you havin’ lady troubles, Braeburn? Is this a touchy subject? I’ll drop it if you—”

“No, I’m not… I ain’t havin’ lady troubles, AJ.”

Applejack finally stemmed her tongue, staring towards Braeburn, trying to read him.

In Braeburn’s head, the words were burning white hot across the anvil of his sudden agitation.

There was no better time than this, he reasoned.

Applejack tried to be the first to speak again. “Do you—”

“Listen, AJ,” Braeburn interrupted. “It’s not a ‘touchy subject’. I’m just... you’re just barkin’ up the wrong appletree.”

Applejack scratched her head through her hat, her mouth squashing into a confused tilt.

Braeburn could feel the pull of his tongue, yearning to let the words in his throat go. He sighed and tried in vain to swallow the lump clogging the way between his thoughts and the syllables that would let him voice them. It remained, so he settled for trying to clear it with willpower alone. His tongue felt like soggy, improperly chewed taffy.

Just say it.

“AJ,” he sighed, tilting his head down. The brim of his hat hid his eyes away from his cousin. “I’ve been meaning to tell you this since... well, since yesterday.”

Applejack forgot about her applebucking for a moment. She opened her eyes wide.

Braeburn sighed again and ran his tongue over his lips. They were dry.

“Applejack... I’m...”

Too blunt.

“...I like... stallions.”

There. He'd said it. All the waiting and thinking and anticipation and pushing the weight of his own worth into what his family—what Applejack—would think of him, was there, laid bare in front of him. Braeburn’s chest tightened as his lungs fought to drive the last of the air from his body. He tried to remember to breathe.

The seconds passed like years, too agonizing to count.

“Well,” Applejack started, ambling her tongue over the word, “...I think I get ‘ya.”

Braeburn didn’t want the force of his smile to break through his composure, but a hint of it crept out on his cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but Applejack interjected before he had a chance.

“I mean, no offense to Twi and the girls, but you’re definitely onta somethin’; sometimes stallions are just more fun to be around. Ain’t as high-maintenance, if ya’ know what I mean.”

Braeburn’s sunlight grin died as quickly as it had been born. He should have known things wouldn’t be that easy. But now he had started the ball rolling, and there was no part of him strong enough to stop it.

“No, AJ, that ain’t what I mean. I mean... I like stallions. Instead of mares, I mean.”

Applejack took less time to process Braeburn’s new statement. After a few seconds she nodded knowingly.

“I hear ya. You only had to be around Rarity fer’ one day; I get an earful of her every day, not to mention all the other mares in town. Always squawkin’ about somethin’, blabbity blah, this that and the other, y’know? Stallions is better company sometimes, no doubt about it.”

Braeburn felt a redness creeping onto his cheeks, fueled by disbelief instead of embarrassment. “No, AJ,” he started again, looking up from the grass and staring deadset at his cousin. “You're not understandin’ me. I mean I...”

Applejack held back a full-blown interruption, but couldn’t stay her tongue as Braeburn’s sentence ambled off into nothing after several seconds.

“Yes, cuz?” she asked, leaning forward curiously.

Braeburn swallowed a thick mouthful of awkward anguish. He had known this wouldn’t be easy, but he hadn’t expected it to be this hard. He had thought about it for what felt like years prior; in a way he'd been thinking about it his whole life. But now, here, with the whole of his being under the scrutiny of the only pony he'd ever felt truly close to, all that planning was pointless. There was the brick-wall of Applejack's misunderstanding, and there was Braeburn on the other side of it, throwing himself futilely forward in hopes of forcing his confession through.

“I mean I... like stallions. Like, like ‘em like ‘em. Uh... physically. And such.”

Applejack looked like sour apples. She bit her lower lip and scrunched up her face.

“You mean—”

“For... datin’. And... other stuff.”

If the summer had been more poetic it would have wafted an appropriately time breeze through the apple orchard. Instead, the only sound was the beating of Braeburn’s heart inside his own ears.

“I’m not sure I follow,” Applejack said.

“For gosh sake AJ, what’s so hard to follow? I like stallions—”

“I got that part,” Applejack said, waving her hoof effusively in the air, “but I’m not sure I get what you mean. Like... more than mares?”

“Instead of mares,” Braeburn qualified.

Applejack curled her mouth like she’d eaten sour zap-apple jam. “Well, that just don’t make no sense.”

Braeburn’s heart screamed at him in his chest. “What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?” he asked.

“Well,” Applejack started, chewing on her sentence before letting it dribble out, “that just ain’t how things go. Stallions don’t go with stallions—they go with mares. Fact o’ life. I mean, that’s just how it is.”

“Half your friends are filly-foolers,” Braeburn said, holding the volume of his voice inside his chest. It wasn't a rebuttal he cared to consider. His tongue moved of its own accord, spurned on by the heat of frustration consuming his thoughts.

“Well that’s different,” Applejack rejoined, scraping one of her hind-hooves against the bark of the tree behind her. “There’s lots of mares in Equestria, way more than stallions, so it makes sense that some of ‘em would end up together. But there ain’t no wantin’ for girls for every boy. It doesn’t make sense that one stallion’d wanna be with another. Doesn’t add up. Simple mathematics.”

“So what I feel is wrong ‘cause of ‘mathematics’? Is that what you’re sayin’, cuz?” Braeburn hid his angry glare under the brim of his hat, but he couldn’t look away from Applejack, hoping behind his eyes that she might burst into flame and carry him away from the fast accumulating ball of regret that was this conversation.

“Well… I suppose you could say that. I’ve heard about a few stallions likin’ other fellas, but it don’t take much figurin’ to tell it ain’t right. You’re a smart pony… I’m sure you’ll come around. You sound like you’re just confused.”

“Confused.”

“Yeah. I mean...” Applejack let the silence between her words hang for a second. “Have you ever, y’know... tried it, with a mare?”

“I’m done,” Braeburn spat, turning away from his cousin’ towards the appletree awaiting his kick. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

It hurt. It hurt and he didn't want to think about it. If he kept his mind elsewhere, maybe the weight of how badly things had gone would stay off his shoulders. Of how the pony he most needed to tell who he really was had...

Applejack pondered for a moment. She lifted a heft of apple-buckets onto her shoulders after a minute, balancing the two of them on the wooden pole that held them in the same apparatus.

“Well, I ain’t,” she said, readying herself for the haul of the buckets towards their holding place. “I’m glad you brought it up.”

Despite himself, Braeburn allowed a glimmer of hope in his eyes as he lifted his head, his irises sparkling with the tears he was holding back.

“Wouldn’t be right if us Apples didn’t share our problems,” Applejack continued.

That was it. Braeburn finally let his mouth distend, unable to contain the shock that burst through his body.

“Problem?” he asked, his voice finally tinged with the fiery disbelief that he’d kept hidden in the interest of civility.

A problem. What he wanted was a ‘problem’. He was a problem. Not just him, but the way he felt. Who he was. The pony he had been his whole life, built up by years of being himself, and he was a problem. He was someone Applejack didn't understand. He was someone who was wrong. And Applejack told him all of this, through her words and lack thereof. She told him that no matter how hard he had thought and felt and dreamed of telling the pony he hoped most dearly would understand him, none of it mattered, because he was just a 'problem' to be aired out.

Applejack caught Braeburn's tone. She opened her mouth to speak, but Braeburn was quicker in his anger.

“I’m a problem?” he asked, throwing the empty buckets on his shoulders to the ground and letting them clatter onto the summer grass.

“I didn’t say that,” Applejack said. “I’m just sayin’ you’ve gotten a little confused, and you probably need some help figurin’ out what’s right, sortin’ yourself out—”

Applejack heard the tumbling of apples from wooden containers before she could raise her head. When she did, the sight of spilled fruit greeted her, as well as the noticeable absence of the pony that had stood beside the same buckets seconds before.

She looked from side to side as though her cousin might reappear in either direction, executing the performance of an unannounced magic trick. She found him after a moment, the flicker of his sandy-blonde hair and brown vest caught in the top of her eye, speeding quickly toward the horizon.

“Wait... Braeburn!”

She called out, but his tail had already swished into nothing, leading him away into the setting sun.