alicornparty | THE WORST FEARS MEME

Somehow, Kyouko found herself in a strange Equestria. There was little she recognized about this place; everything was a loud and often ugly parody of itself. She recognized a single pony amid the chaos: the orange one sitting in Apple Acres.

She approached her friend and sat down next to her. "Weird place. This where ya live, huh?"

Jappleack doesn't say anything, not at first, and doesn't so much turn to face Kyouko as much as jump a little from her sitting position and stare at her. No one comes to talk to her on Sweet Apple Acres; it's always just Big Mac or Granny Smith, her family the only other ones who care, who ever cared. She looks at Kyouko with surprise, then a little bit of fear.

"I-can I help you?" The tone, the words, are all wrong, not fitting Jappleack at all. Far too quiet, too subordinate, to be Japple. Nor is there any sign of recognition although....Jappleack can't help but think she's met this girl before. Though she pushes it out of her mind quickly.

Kyouko frowns. Jappleack's very, very different. It's somewhat startling. "Well... yeah. Jappleack?" She waves her paw in front of the pony's face. "Hey, c'mon. What gives? Ya... feelin' all right?"

Ya feelin' all right?

That question might have been the one thing that could set her off. Get the usual feelings of anger and hurt flowing again. For a moment, she thinks of snapping at this bear - this...bear that's oddly familiar and she doesn't know why - but thinks better of it. She shouldn't. The bear doesn't deserve it, although who heard of talking bears before, let alone talking bears obsessed with getting in your business.

Instead, Jappleack shakes her head and, getting up on her hooves, starts to slowly try and walk away.

"I'm fine. ....Please. If you don't mind? Leave me alone."

"I do." Not gonna leave a friend like this. Instead, she flops down next to Jappleack and digs a package of crackers out of her hoodie. She rips the small bundle open with her teeth and chews on one.

"Everythin's a lot dif'rnt here. Dunno how ya stand it."

"I stand it okay."

She says that, but the words are weak. Jappleack isn't sitting back down quite yet, but just staring at Kyouko, a small, sad frown plastered on her face.

"You learn to, I guess. Or go crazy. I were you, I'd get the hell out of here when you could....Kyouko?"

She doesn't know how she knows that name. It sure as shit isn't a name you hear around here. But she knows it somehow, and somehow, she knows it fits.

"Dunno how I got here. Dunno how ta get back." But Kyouko's heart skips a beat when Jappleack mentions her name.

"C'mon. We gotta get ya outta here, too. This place en't good for ya. Somethin' in th'air, maybe."

Jappleack's eyes widen a little bit, and she backs away from Kyouko, shaking her head in fear. It's so unlike her it's almost comical, if it wasn't for how sincere the reaction is.

"No I-I can't leave! This is all I have left!"

She trembles a little. So much of her would like to leave, maybe go to some magical place and just run. But that's a fantasy, a fairy tale. Things like that don't actually happen. Even if...if in some part of her, sometimes....she thinks she can imagine something like it.

But that's just fantasy.

"Just just leave me alone! Stop it and get out of here, alright?!"

And finally, Kyouko understands that something has gone horribly wrong. She's not sure what, but that's the look of trauma in Jappleack's eyes. This isn't the Jappleack she knew. It's almost like she's an entirely different pony.

"Okay. Okay." She swallows the crumbs and takes out another cracker. "Geez. Calm down. S'not like I know how ta leave here anyway." She pats the ground next to her again. "Not gonna take ya anywhere. Just wanna talk."

Talk. It's been so long since she's had anyone other than family to talk to. Part of her doesn't really trust it, not at the moment. Everyone else just wants to beat her down. Doesn't care about what she has to say, just wants her to shut the hell up and smile and say stupid sassy, obnoxious shit like the rest of them.

She looks at Kyouko for a moment, before relenting and taking a seat.

"You wanna talk about what?"

"I wanna know what happened ta ya." She holds out the cracker package, still half-full. "Just wanna talk. Can't a coupla friends talk?"

She tries to project a sense of casualness about her, but really she's watching Jappleack's every move. Trying to figure out what to do. If she can help.

"What happened?"

She's confused. Beyond confused, as if expecting someone to actually ask or care was alien to her. She looks down at the ground for a moment, shaking her head.

"I...It...It doesn't matter. You don't need to worry about it."

She'll just be told to shut up or get chided for it when she starts to talk anyway.

"Too late." She scowls. "Dunno how many times ya've been there for one pony or th'other, but part o'th'deal is ya don' get ta just suffer alone for doin' that."

She takes one of the crackers out of the package and places it in Jappleack's empty hoof. "There. Start chewin' on that. Ya remembered my name, maybe there's other stuff ya remember, too, huh?"

"Been there for one pony or another..."

Jappleack just looks at the cracker for a moment, staring at it as she tears up slightly, the tears falling on the cracker and dampening it, if just a little. For a moment, she can...see. See others she's met, and that she's helped, and she-

She can't take it. She grimaces, frowns in anger, before turning on Kyouko.

"I was never there for anyone else! Not a goddamn one! Not for anyone who mattered, and not for her! I-I...I was always awful to her! Because, I..."

Because...she never knew why she was so awful to Apple Bloom. Because she was angry at her for some petty reason? Because she thought the abuse might help her fit in with her 'friends', with their quirks and behaviors?

She didn't know any more. She guesses it didn't matter.

"And then...when I could tell her I loved her, she...she..."

She drops the cracker to the ground, crushing it under her hoof and working it into the dirt, tears freely hitting the ground around it.

"Why are you torturing me? What did I do?"

She hisses the words through clenched teeth, trying to resist bawling.

Jappleack's in a horrible state, and for a time, Kyouko can only stare, open-mouthed. It's JA's final action that finally snaps her out of her stupor. She suddenly grabs Jappleack by the neck.

"I told ya not ta waste food," she snarls. "Ya know what that is, what tha' means ta me." It's just a cracker. It's food Kyouko wouldn't have had when she was starving. It's food Kyouko wouldn't have given unless she trusted JA absolutely.

She breathes hard, still holding Jappleack. "An' ya gotta snap outta this or 'm gonna start hittin'. Cause yer one o'th'best ponies I know in Equestria, an' I don' give a damn wha ya think ya did, but s'not worth doin' whatever yer doin' ta yerself now."

It's shocking just how easily Japple let's Kyouko grab and pull her towards her. She at least tops her crying as Kyouko reprimands her, though it's hard to tell if anything gets through to her.

"My sister is dead," she finally chokes out, "She's dead. He killed her. And then I-I..."

She pauses, her brow furrowing. And then she did what? Came back her, crying and deteriorating, and that's it?

That's not right. Sure feels like it, but it isn't. Apple Bloom died, and she mourned, and then-and then-

"Then the apples spoke to me..."

Edited 2014-10-31 17:46 (UTC)

"And then wha' happened?" Kyouko's got her confused. Maybe she's on the right track. With her other paw, she pokes down at the muddy mess Jappleack's made from the remains of the sludge. One or two pieces of cracker stick out of it, and Kyouko picks both of them up and eats them. It's not the best tasting cracker ever, but she's not going to let it go to waste.

"Then I did what the apples said. And I-then it was dark, and then light again and I was on my farm but it wasn't my farm and-"

She's son confused, and god. Her head hurts so bad. She closes her eyes for a few seconds, for a minute. And when she opens them again?

There's a bit more of Jappleack there.

"And the I ended up in Equestria Prime, because that was the first time I crossed the Void."

She looks around, then frowns.

"Damn. What the hell is all this shit?"

"Dunno." She finally releases Jappleack, looking at her carefully. "But ya've told me abou' the Void. Been there with ya, too. So I bet yer rememberin' some stuff ya've forgotten."

Kyouko glances down at the Equestria that Jappleack lives in. It's a little bit of a scary place, actually, and Kyouko doesn't scare easily. "Ya remembered me, at least. Tha's important. But ya gotta remember th'rest."

"Well, yeah, course I remembered you. I just-"

She rubs her head a minute, trying to compose herself. To remember.

"I had my adventure in the real Equestria. And then shit got...rewritten here, and I had to come back. And for a while I was happy, but-I didn't stay here?

I mean I didn't meet you here, I met you in a different Equestria? Right?"

"Yer gettin' it." She nods. Places the crackers between them. Within reach of Jappleack. She munches on her third cracker.

"Remember anyone else? I wasn' th'only one there. Other ponies, other bears." Well, other bear singular.

"Well,"

Jappleack sits down beside Kyouko, taking one of the crackers. They aren't apples, but hey what is.

"There's the non-asshole versions of my friends and myself there, and all the messed up versions of ourselves too. There's you, and...Minako. The other one who went into the avoid with us. I went in there again too, with...this science guy, guy I didn't know too well, and this teen girl named...Yukiko, I think. ...Oh yeah. And Dandy. I guess I can't forget about him.

Who else? ....Cameron. Dunno if you know him, he's a kid maybe a couple years older than you. Weird dude with the wrestling mask...Strong Bad. There's....there's someone else I'm trying to remember and I just can't it's..."

She narrows her eyes.

"It's....shit. I dunno."

"Tha's some of 'em. Few yer forgettin'." The crackers mostly finished off, Kyouko takes out a box of Pocky and starts in on that.

"Teds, th'Agency, the magical girls, all the... the weird ones." Which doesn't narrow things down. "Th'Princesses... Calice, of course."

THE WORST FEARS MEME

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