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!53BKYS8dZU 01/13/11(Thu)23:17 No. 22602251 File1294978646.png -(249 KB, 1920x1080, 1292489293363.png ) >>22602205 ------------------ She remembered her pappy, in those long last days, confined to his bed at Sweet Apple Acres. He’d looked just like Rarity did now – pale and sweaty, and so weak! Her pappy had always been such a huge and robust stallion – Big Macintosh was the spitting image of how he’d looked in his younger days, dragging his plough out in the fields in the broiling sun, the sweat of the heat and the labour beading on his flanks and withers. Applejack remembered how she used to skipped behind him, planting the apple seeds from her little saddlebags, and all the while he’d pull the plough and look back at his daughter now and then with pride and love in his dark eyes. And when he’d fallen ill, the weight and muscle had fallen away from his frame, and he’d become so thin and fragile that Applejack and Big Macintosh had had to help him into bed – and he’d felt no heavier than a single bushel of apples. “Don’ worry, little sis,” Big Macintosh had told her one afternoon as she’d sat crying on the porch of the homestead as so often she had in those terrible days, “Pappy’ll be fine. He jus’ needs ta git his strength back. Ee-yup!” But Applejack had seen the tiny glimmer of doubt in her big brother’s eyes, and she’d known at that moment that their pappy wasn’t ever going to get better. Rarity was unclothed now, lying on her side, her chest rising slowly as she breathed shallowly and with difficulty. Applejack nuzzled her, but she didn’t respond.