A Sound at the Window

You push open the door, the hinges utterly silent in the gloom, the room only lit by the fire underneath the cauldron you remember from the last time. You move up to the counter and wait, looking around the for proprietor herself. You take the moment to look around the room in greater detail.
As expected, there are candles of different shapes, sizes, and scents, lining the walls. Boxes of them and open containers showing off interesting decorative shapes that swirl, and amusing colours. Scents that are meant to increase energy, induce relaxation, and even improve libido. You had no idea if any worked, but assumed most were for show in order to sell better.
Among the candles, there were some wax figures. Things like the masks she had shown you last time, but there were also fully-formed ponies, if in smaller scale, and different wax figurines of other creatures known throughout equestrian. They didn’t appear to be in any order, but were squeezes into small spaces throughout the shop. You found a timberwolf hidden between the cash box on her counter, and a cup filled with pencils. You bend down to look for a moment, admiring the minutiae of its wooden body, then stand back up to see Waxworks at the counter.
You jump back, startled. You hadn’t even heard her hoofsteps.
“Your order.” She pushed a box of candlesticks across the counter to you.
Her mane is down in front of her left eye again, and her mouth is drawn to a thin line. Her green eye just stares at you, and you glance back, fidgeting. You look around the room to avoid her gaze, and she finally sighs.
“I understand. You didn’t come for the candles, did you?” She said. “Not everyone can choose their guests at all times of every day. I don’t hold it against you, but very well. Sit down, and I’ll tell you about some other uninvited guests.”

The house was big, but not massive. Solid, but not extravagant, and decorative, without being opulent. It was a nice place, and Applejack was sorry to have to sell it, but the location was terrible.
She’d received word from some lawyer around Baltimare that a family member had passed away. It wasn’t anypony she really knew, and the letter had changed hooves several times before coming to her. Goldie Delicious hadn’t wanted to take charge, and aunt and uncle Orange didn’t have the time in their busy schedule to deal with real estate, so Braeburn, who also couldn’t go take care of it due to building a new town, had sent it to her.
It wasn’t Apple Bucking season, and Big Macintosh could take care of the farm without her, so Applejack had decided to take a little vacation and take a look at the property at the same time. When she had arrived, she had met with the executor of the will, who had given her more information about the pony who had passed.
He had been a stallion by the name of Corkscrew, and Goldie Delicious had confirmed he was a member of the family, though by marriage, not by blood. Still, that connection to the family aside, it was left to them, and Applejack saw an opportunity to maybe get some more real estate for the family, or at least make some bits by selling it.
The first idea was gone the moment she’d arrived, however. The soil around the building was swampy, and unsuited to growing apple trees. The vermin would be plentiful and she would have to determine a way to naturally prevent pests, or she’d have to spend bits on magical prevention or pesticides, whose costs would need to be offset by the income from the fruit itself. Then there was the question of preparing the soil in the first place, and with such moist ground she didn’t see that happening easily.

All in all, it was a bit of a wash. She would probably end up selling the whole kit and caboodle and making off with the bits. Still, there was the matter of the house and the items inside. She would need to make a tally of everything there and the value of it all before making the sale. Any family items would have to stay with the family, but the rest could be passed on to other hooves.
After getting the paperwork from the executor as well as the key, Applejack made her way up to the double-doors of the building and unlocked it. She stepped inside to the impressively ornate entryway and whistled softly. Although the house itself was nothing particularly impressive on the outside, Corkscrew must have had expensive tastes, because the inside was where it truly shone.
Paintings of all types covered the walls, leaving barely an inch of the wall itself bare. Ornate pottery stood against the lower sections. Urns, vases, and things Applejack didn’t know the name of were everywhere. On tables, stands, shelves, and everything else. She really didn’t know what to make of it, and it did nothing for her own down-home sensibilities and tastes, but she was at least sure it was probably worth something.
She walked through the rest of the house, and all of it, save a single bedroom upstairs, were the same. Even the kitchen had decoration on the areas you wouldn’t expect a pony to cook. No paintings, of course, given the humidity of such a part of the house, but strange figurines and pottery. She was amused at the bathroom, which had one of those bathtubs with hooves in it. She could almost see herself having one like it herself. She rather enjoyed the aesthetic.

Applejack had a good laugh at the tub, and took a picture of it to show everypony when she got back home. She went through the house taking stock of what each room contained, took photos to showcase the quality of the inside, and began making several long and tiresome lists of the items in the house.
By the time night fell, Applejack realized she was probably going to have to make multiple trips to take care of all this. The items in the house were going to cost a mint if they were worth what she thought they might be. She couldn’t very well include them with the house, because what if the pony who wanted the property didn’t like the furniture? She couldn’t charge them extra for getting a bunch of junk they didn’t want.
No, she was going to have to sell things separately, and that meant itemizing and pricing out absolutely every single one of these. She determined she could get a good start on it while she was here right now, and maybe have a look at the property and figure out if the place was properly waterproofed and insulated. That would be a good selling point for something that was a little bit out of the way. The house would have to be the main selling point, because the property wasn’t good for much beyond looks, and it was lacking in that department. At least, to her.
Applejack decided that would be that for the day, and thought she might as well enjoy herself while she was here and sleep in that opulent-looking four-poster bed with the sheets dangling from it. The mattress, when she had touched it earlier, had seemed extremely soft, and there were so many pillows! It looked and felt expensive.

Applejack took the opportunity to bathe in the hooved tub, and laughed almost the whole while. She kept poking her head over the side to look at the hooves holding her up, and giggled every single time she did it. When she got out and drained it. She looked underneath at the piping going down into the floorboards, hidden behind some of the hooves, and laughed again. She loved that thing.
When she bedded down in the plush cushion of a mattress, Applejack thought it felt incredibly comfortable at first, but she swiftly realized that the squashy mattress provided no support for her body whatsoever, and her limbs kept ending up in strange positions, and her neck was getting twisted above her spine in an awkward manner. It had looked nice, but the execution left a lot to be desired for her. In the end, she pulled out her own bedroll and slept on the floor next to the bed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was far more comfortable for her than that pile of marshmallow fluff Corkscrew had called a bed. Maybe rich folk got used to it? She didn’t think she could.
In the morning, Applejack went outside to investigate the roofing and walls of the house. Being exposed to the elements as they were, she expected them to be weathered and covered in mildew.
She was partially right. Instead of mildew, there was a strange breed of moss climbing up under some of the wall’s boards and beginning to damage the insulation. Not a problem yet, but could develop into one if left unchecked. She made a note of it and moved on.
The roof shingles were made of wood, and she could see the beginnings of moss on those as well, which would need regular maintenance. There were no holes that were immediately apparent, and the wood was a good and solid hardwood, so they had some life left in them yet.

Applejack worked for a good portion of the day on checking the rest of the houses outside, and was generally satisfied with the work done on it. She finished her perusal of the house itself and took a walk of the perimeter of the property in the afternoon. There was a lot of acreage to cover, and it took her a good while, but it told her a lot about the property and why nothing had been done with any of it.
 Moss dangled from trees, and the trees themselves were large and thick of trunk. The sounds of birds and other animals calling in the thick were loud and clear. There were shrubs of several types, but the most common was that type of shrub that grows thick, and chokes the life out of much of the other plants that grow down on the ground in such swampy locales.
The ground itself was much as she expected. Swampy, and moist wherever she went. The water saturating the soil didn’t appear to be as prominent as she had assumed. She wondered how and why somepony would build a house in such wet ground, and she had to assume the foundation of the house was either placed on top of something solid, like a rare bit of rock in this otherwise damp location, or the foundation he had built for it was situated precariously in the ground and was holding out against all odds. She didn’t know, because living in these areas wasn’t her forte, but it had to be one or the other she was sure.
While she was heading back to the house, she thought she saw out of the corner of her eye, somepony running down the road toward the house. She turned her head to look, and there was nothing. She started walking again, and she thought she saw it approaching her once more, but when she turned back to look, again, there was still nothing.

Applejack stared in the direction she thought she had seen the pony for a minute, eyes flicking back and forth as she searched for something out of place. Her ears twitched, straining to hear any telltale sound like hoofsteps or labored breathing. When nothing became immediately apparent, she shrugged and went back to the house proper.
She prepared herself some supper in the expensive-looking kitchen, feeling a little guilty about preparing something as mundane as a sandwich when all these strange and fascinating kitchen utensils and devices were hanging about, but she got over it. She looked about the house and thought about cataloguing some more things before bed, but decided to take another bath in that hilarious tub instead.

Outside Applejack’s newly acquired property, the emaciated figure peered out from its hiding place at the top of the tree. The building was so close. So close. If he could make it there, he would be safe. Safe from his brother. Safe from his brutish, angry, violent, muscled, brother! There was safety inside that house if he could just get in. He had seen the pony who lived there. She was strong herself. Not stronger than brother, but could maybe put up a fight. He just needed to be in the house. She would be brother’s problem. Not his. Not once he was inside.
He extended a long and thin leg down from the branch he was clinging to, and descended head-first down the tree. His legs clinging to the branches, wrapping around them and lowering his thin body down to the ground with smooth efficiency. Once he was on the ground, he gave a furtive glance behind himself, and all around the wet property, before slinking toward the house. He kept his body low, his limbs scuttling over the mossy ground toward the building, carrying him to his destination.

Further away, not quite on the property, a large and imposing figure reclined under a tree. The heat of the day was finally dissipating, leaving the cool cover of darkness to lower itself over the land, and finally remove the oppressive heat from him. The large pony sat up as the last rays of direct sunlight finally moved away. He sighed and wiped a hoof over his brow. His body radiated heat all on its own, and the sun was just far too much for him to take sometimes. It was a terrible annoyance. Because he had such a hard time in sunlight, his brother always escaped during the daylight hours. His slimy, cowardly, fearful, scrawny, brother!
But it was no matter. He could find him. He could smell his brother, and no matter how far he ran, he could never escape. He’d been chasing him from house to house for years, and he wouldn’t stop until one of the two of them were dead, no matter how many ponies he had to go through to get him. He pulled himself up to his hooves, and sniffed the air, searching for the oily, sickly scent of his brother. When he picked up the smell, he loped off, his muscular hooves carrying him off into the swampy landscape.

Applejack, meanwhile, was finishing off her hot bath, laughing at the hilarious hooved tub as she got out of it. It was still amusing, and she couldn’t wait to show off the pictures of it she’d taken. She wanted one of herself in the tub, but she didn’t have anypony else to take the photo, so she’d just have to settle for the pictures of it alone. She dried off and went back to the bedroom, where she laid down on the bed again, trying to get used to it. If it was good enough for other ponies, there must be something to this much fluff.

Outside, the skinny figure was creeping around the house, appraising it up and down with his eyes. He kept himself low to the ground, hooves pulling his torso along with him just above the mossy ground. He sniffed at the walls, touching them, and caressing them with his hooves. He even licked the foundation right where it merged with the soil. He nodded in seeming approval, and scuttled about the perimeter until he reached the front door. He reached a hoof up to grab the handle, and tested it with a tentative tug. When it didn’t open, he grunted and moved to the window. His bony hooves poked at the glass, as though testing its strength. He didn’t try to smash it, but instead he shook it gently, trying to get the windows to swing outward the barest bit.
He was unsuccessful, and moved back to the front door. He tried the handle again, quiet as he could, but when he found out it was not going to open, he stepped back for a moment and looked at the upstairs windows, seeing if any of them had been left open. He scurried in a circle around the building, looking for any that might allow him entry to the house, and spotted a single one in the darkness, shutters open, and the curtains blowing in the breeze.
He gave an excited gasp and reached up the wall with his hooves. He began crawling up the side of the building, hooves clinging with ease to the wall as an insect might. With quick movements, he reached the window, stuck his head up and peered inside.
The room was dark, but there was a four-poster bed inside up against one wall. A bedroll had been placed on the floor, but it was left empty. Instead, pressing the middle of the mattress down, lay the pony he had spied earlier, sleeping.

Applejack lay sleeping in relative silence as the skinny pony slipped inside her window. Her breathing was accompanied by the sounds of night creatures calling outside, and the small *SHFF SHFF* of the pony sliding along the rug. He scurried across the immaculate floor and disappeared under her bed.
Once he was there, he looked around, his breathing a lot more even and calm than he had been. He looked at the closet door, currently shut, at the bedroll laying out on the floor, and the end table and dresser, with several items on top of them. He extended a hoof, and his eyes glowed. He mimed opening the closet from his hiding spot, and the door opened up, without him even touching it. He looked at the contents of the closet, then moved his hoof to shut it again.
The click of the door made Applejack snort in her sleep, and he winced, but stayed where he was. When her breathing went back to normal, he reached out and mimed opening the door to the room itself. It opened for him with a quiet click, and he slid out the door, and deeper into the house, leaving Applejack to sleep alone.

Outside, the large and brutish pony was sniffing about, his muzzle moving this way and that, and his breathing taking short breaths to take in the air. He was walking in a zig-zag pattern around the outskirts of Applejack’s property, following a path to different trees, through bushes, but all leading toward the house itself. He wasn’t subtle, and just walked brazenly through everything that got in his way, flattening bushes, thumping against tree trunks, and stomping across any flower or shrub that was unlucky enough to be in his path. He reached the front door of the house, sniffed the air, and balked, stumbling backward.

The skinnier pony crawled down the halls of the house, opening doors from afar as he went. He looked inside each room, giving them all a cursory glance before moving on to the next one. He investigated the cupboards in the bathroom, pulling out a few bottles of different fluids and sniffed some of the soaps. He shifted some of the paintings on the walls, and picked up a few vases. He looked inside some, and then placed them back where he found them. When he made it to the kitchen downstairs, his face lit up at the sight of all the knives, skewers, pots and pans that littered the room, hanging from walls and filling drawers.
He was still in the kitchen when his ears perked up at a sound coming from outside. He crawled to the front of the house and looked out one of the windows. He saw the brutish pony stamping about in the dirt outside the house, his anger apparent on his face. He was pounding his hooves in a circle, but made no noise larger than a grunt here and there.
The skinny pony grinned and tapped lightly on the window until the brute noticed. The larger pony thundered up to the window, but stopped just shy of it, pulling back a little. He pointed at the skinny one and pointed at the ground at his hooves, baring his teeth at him. The skinny pony shook with wheezing laughter, pointed at the larger pony, then pointed at the front door of the house. The larger pony shook his head and grunted, breath coming in hyperventilating huffs.
The one inside the house turned away from his brother, and continued looking around the house, appraising its contents. He had the upper hoof now, but it wouldn’t last. He had to force his brother inside the building somehow, or he would be stuck here. Fortunately, there was a pony he could use for just that purpose, once she woke up.

Applejack awoke with a crick in her neck, and regretted sleeping in the bed. It was better to fall asleep in last night, but now while waking up she had aches all over from having slept in unusual positions. Maybe she could get used to it with time, but why would she want to? This was terrible.
She dragged herself out of bed and stretched, trying to fix some of her aching muscles, before plodding downstairs to get some breakfast. She had to stop and stretch again on the stairs before she could feel comfortable walking down them safely. She passed by the front door and glanced outside to check on the weather.
Applejack noticed that the small cluster of flowers that had been in front of the swamp were trampled and destroyed. Were wild animals having a scuffle outside last night? She hadn’t heard anything, and she would have expected some wild animal fight to have made enough noise to wake her. She didn’t think she was that heavy of a sleeper. She’d check the prints out after getting something to eat. It would be important to know if there were dangerous animals living in these woods. Hopefully not cragadiles. She shuddered at the thought.
Applejack made herself some pancakes with the mix she’d bought the other day, and used some of the expensive-looking syrup in the cupboard. It tasted less sweet than she was used to, but it wasn’t bad. She didn’t recognize the brand at all, and she wasn’t even sure it was Equestrian in origin. Now that she was looking at it, she hoped it was syrup at all. She shrugged and finished eating.
When she was done, she heard a knock at the door.
She wasn’t expecting guests. The executor of Corkscrew’s will had made it explicitly clear he was finished with the whole thing when she hoofed the keys off to her, so who was this?

Applejack approached the door and peered out of the windows next to it first. She wasn’t going to open the door until she had ascertained who it was. The door was locked and the windows were sturdy, so whoever it was would have a heck of a time getting through at her if they meant to do her harm, but she was no fool, and wasn’t going to take any chances. She couldn’t see anypony in front of the door from the side windows, so either they were incredibly skinny, or they had knocked and then left. She thought it more likely they were harmless, but if word had spread that the old pony living in the woods had passed, there might be mischief-makers out to have some “fun”.
“Hello? Who is it?” Applejack called out.
There was no response, so she shrugged and started back upstairs to collect her notebook and catalogue more of the house, but the knocking came again. She hadn’t made it very far, so she jumped back to the window to try to spy the perpetrator, but she saw nothing, not even movement. Her eyes were drawn to the flattened flowers again, and she wondered if it hadn’t been wild animals, but instead ponies.
“Hello? If you want something, y’all need to stick around long enough to talk to me,” Applejack said.
There was still no response.
Applejack stayed put for a moment longer, but when no further knocking happened, she pulled away and started toward the stairs, keeping one eye on the front door. She reached the steps and started up, and the knocking didn’t immediately come again. This time it waited until she had entered her room upstairs. She rolled her eyes and grabbed her notebook instead of rushing back down to the door. Whoever was there wasn’t doing this to talk to her. They were here purely to cause mischief, she was sure.

When she got back down to the front door, she checked the window and still saw nopony at all. She called out the door: “Listen, if y’all’re tryin’ to get in, y’all got another thing comin’. I ain’t lettin’ y’all in, and in a bit, I’m comin’ out there, and y’all better be ready to chat.”
With her threat spoken, Applejack searched about the house for something she could use as a weapon. Just in case. The kitchen was filled with knives and other sharp objects, but she didn’t want to seriously harm anypony. She didn’t know anything about her antagonist yet, and if it truly was just a younger pony being mischievous, she wanted to scare them off or subdue them, not kill them.
Applejack eventually settled on a rolling pin. It was sturdy enough to deal some damage, not likely to break instantly, but wouldn’t cut anypony to pieces. With her weapon gripped in her teeth, and a squaring of her shoulders, Applejack went back to the front door, peered out of the windows one more time, then unlocked it and cracked it open.
As soon as the door was unlatched and swinging, it slammed open, striking Applejack in the shoulder and knocking her to the floor. The rolling pin went fell out of her teeth and rolled away. Applejack scrambled to her hooves and looked to the door to see… nothing.
There was nopony there at all.
She hadn’t pulled on the door that hard, so what had caused the door to swing open with such force? Surely that had been a pony that did it, but she couldn’t see anypony. She didn’t hear anypony but herself, and she didn’t smell anypony.
She quickly sniffed herself just to check, and she found herself smelling faintly of the expensive soap she’d used in her bath last night. She then sniffed the air and detected nothing but the damp smell of the flora outside, and the musty smell of the wood inside. Nothing else.

Applejack collected her rolling pin again, then went up to the door. She stuck her head out with care and looked to both sides, scanning the area. She saw nothing moving except the occasional bird or insect fluttering along. There had been a knock at the door several times, so somepony had been here, so she bent down to check the front porch.
Sure enough, hoofprints carrying mud had been here, leaving a trail along the ground. But something was odd about them. She could locate her own hoofprints easily, where she came in the house straightaway. These other hoofprints she found came up to the door, then went to the windows, then came back to the door. Not only that, where her hoofprints were evenly spaced apart like an average pony would be, these prints were wide, and smaller than their distance from each other would indicate. There also appeared to be something occasionally dragging between them. Applejack thought it might have been the pony’s tail, but it seemed to leave a track that was too heavy for that to be the case.
Applejack followed the tracks off the porch, making sure to lock the door behind her, and went around the house, looking to see where they went. They appeared to go in a full circle, but there were places where they went by twice, and the second time around the hoofprints disappeared.
She was confused where they might have gone at first, but as she looked around, through the nearby grasses, marshy puddles, and through the bushes, she noticed the muddy prints had left the ground entirely and traveled up the wall and inside her bedroom window!”
“What in tarnation?” Applejack said. “Some bugger crawled up my wall? That varmint could be stealin’ whatever they want while I’m out here jawin’!” Applejack dashed back around to the front of the house, eager to get back inside and confront the pony breaking and entering!

Applejack made it to the door and began fussing with the keys, trying to find the right one again. That one was for the wine cabinet. That one was for the bedroom. She still hadn’t figured out what those three were for. Ah, that one was for the front door.
She had the key in the lock when she heard the sound of hoofsteps behind her. The pony making them wasn’t trying to be subtle, but he wasn’t calling out to her either, so in all likelihood he had bad intentions. She left the keys in the lock and focused on the steps, waiting until he was just about on her, then she sidestepped around, ducking out of the way and moving around to a more wide-open area of the yard. When she stepped to the side, she got a better look at her assailant as he swung where she had been. Her eyes widened in alarm and surprise.
This pony was massive. Easily twice her size, with absurdly-sized muscles on his legs that bulged in comical yet awful ways. The hooves that stamped down where she had just been standing were as big as her head, and his own head, which she saw was wild-eyed and drooling, was also comically too small, looking out of place on his muscular body.
The pony’s hooved smacked down where she had been standing with immense force, the sound of the impact resounding through the woods. She was almost upset over her own fright at the fact that she’d have to replace the porch, but she her ears stopped ringing and the beast turned to face her, she noticed with surprise that the porch was perfectly intact. Not a single scratch had been made on the wood. Did he just look imposing like Bulk Biceps? Strong, but kind? Applejack had no more time to think, as the pony rounded on her and charged headlong in her direction.

Applejack yelped and hopped away, easily stepping out of the pony’s way as he charged past her, hooves swinging with wild abandon. He was angry, but she wasn’t sure if it was at her or not. He was drooling, so he might have contracted rabies, but that was neither here nor there. If he was attacking her, she had to defend herself. Her rolling pin was on the porch where she’d left it, so she settled for her old friends; Bucky McGillicutty and Kicks McGee.
The pony swung around and swiped a massive hoof at her, and Applejack ducked underneath, spun around, and delivered a two-hoof kick straight into his beefy chest. Her hooves impacted the solid mass of muscle with a solid *SMACK*, and he shifted backward, but he didn’t slow. He telegraphed a second hoof swipe and Applejack rolled away through the moss. His hoof struck a tree next to where she had been standing and tore a massive chunk out of its trunk, spraying splinters and wood everywhere.
“What in tarnation?” Applejack said.
Her jaw dropped at the damage he had wrought on the tree, and she glanced back at her porch. If he’d done that much to a tree, how had her porch survived intact? The force of two hooves had struck her porch, yet there wasn’t a scratch on it, so what was the difference here?
He moved closer and swung at her again, and Applejack easily dodged him. He was powerful, but there didn’t seem to be any subtlety behind his blows, and he movements were all very sluggish, as though he were tired or sick. She thought back to the possibility that he had been infected by rabies or some other disease, and she felt a little sorry for the fellow. If she could knock him out, she might be able to get him some help, depending on the disease or sickness.

He swung again, and Applejack stepped in closer, and delivered a single-hooved kick to his jaw. His head snapped back and Applejack eared she’d hit him too hard, but his head looked back down at her, with that bleary-eyed gaze, and he just swung at her again. Once more, she stepped around his hoof and kicked him right in the head. It was a solid hit, but again he shrugged it off and came at her again.
Applejack delivered a few more blows to the pony, ringing his skull like a gong, but he refused to go down, despite the blood leaking from his nose and a puffy eye. She thought she’d even seen some teeth, but guessed he didn’t really care about them. She didn’t think he cared about any of the hits she’d delivered at all. He was a brute, through and through, and he could probably outlast her if his current behavior was any indication. She’d get tired, and all he needed was one hit. Her eyes flicked back to the tree and she shivered.
She decided that if he could damage trees, but not a porch, then whatever the reason behind that was, magic on the porch or not, she would probably be safe inside her house. If Corkscrew was paranoid enough to enchant his house with protection spells, so be it. It would help her in this instance.
Applejack dodged another swing, leaped up and over the pony’s back, then swept his hind hooves out from under him. He tottered to the side and crashed to the ground, and Applejack bolted for her front door. The key was already in the lock, so she only had to turn it, and…
The key wouldn’t turn.
She jiggled the key in the lock, but it refused to turn. It was like something was blocking it. She heard hoofsteps coming from behind, and knew she only had a few short seconds more. She needed inside, now!

Applejack wrenched the key sideways, and felt something give way as the door unlocked. She pulled it open and dove inside, and heard the strangely quiet *tap* of the brute’s hooves hitting the open door. She looked back and scrambled to her hooves, expecting him to be coming in after her, but she was surprised to see that he balked at the door. The impact of his hooves hadn’t even swung the door shut. It was sitting wide open, and he was just grunting stamping his hooves just outside on the porch, but he refused to come in.
Applejack pulled herself up, and cautiously approached the front door, keeping an eye on him. “What do you want?”
The brute stared past her more than directly at her, and he said nothing, just snorted, stamped his hooves, and paced restlessly back and forth.
“Are you sick? Do you need help?” Applejack asked.
He gave a heavy snort, but said nothing.
Applejack didn’t quite know what to do with him. She could probably outpace him to the nearby town and maybe get some help, but she didn’t want to leave the house unlocked with him storming about just outside. She didn’t want him getting inside.
Applejack remembered! Somepony had gotten inside the house! It certainly wasn’t this fellow, as he had been waiting outside for her, and the door had been locked. He was likely the one doing the knocking, trying to goad her out for… his friend.
Applejack’s eyes narrowed, and her ears flicked about, listening for something inside the house. If this pony’s friend was inside with her, it didn’t look like he had done anything just yet. Nothing was broken that she had seen, nor was it missing. Empty spots on the walls would be quite conspicuous in a house this decorated. She needed to investigate the area of entry first and foremost.

“Alright, pal. I don’t know what you and your friend’s deal is, but ah ain’t lettin’ y’all rob my house while I’m here.” Applejack inched closer to the front door, watching the brute for any sudden moves, then, when she thought it was safe, she reached out and pulled the door shut, locking him outside. She didn’t know what enchantments Corkscrew had on the house that prevented damage, but she was thankful for it.
Once she was satisfied the door was locked, Applejack took one last look at the brute outside through the window. He stomped off the front porch, and went over to a tree, where he laid down and seemingly went to sleep. He was still right outside, so she didn’t feel safe, but at least he wasn’t sitting directly outside the door.
She turned away from the window and looked around the house. There was another pony inside with her, and she had to find him. Her rolling pin was outside, but after the way the pony outside had treated her, she wasn’t willing to believe the one inside would be any nicer to her. She listened for any sound, her ears swiveling back and forth, but picked up nothing. She’d have to go upstairs to her room, and see if she could find anything. Maybe he would still be hiding in there, though she doubted it.
There didn’t appear to be any wet hoofprints on the stairs. Any beyond her own that she was leaving behind her, that is. She checked both directions down the hall before turning toward her room, padding along as silently as she could. Once there, she peeked in with just one eye, looking for the pony who broke in. Her window sat open, and she could see the hoofprints crawling inside, but they disappeared under her bed, and then she saw nothing more of them.

“Alright pal, ah don’t know who you are, and you don’t know me, but you’re breakin’ and enterin’, and ah don’t take kindly to that. Your friend couldn’t take me out, so ah’m afraid ah gotta ask you to leave,” Applejack said. “Ah’ll give you to three to come on out. This doesn’t have to devolve into a fight.”
Applejack waited, but there was no response. She realized that whoever had gone under there probably had enough time to wipe his hooves dry and then move elsewhere in the house. She bent down to get a better look under the bed, and sure enough, she could see directly under it. There didn’t appear to be anypony there at all.
“Well shoot.” Applejack moved closer, checking behind her before she went into the room, and stuck her head underneath the bed.
Nothing at all.
“Darn it. I did not need to deal with this in addition to selling a house out here,” she said.
She straightened up and turned around, only for the door to slam shut all by itself.
“Hey now!” Applejack ran to the door and pulled it open. She waited a moment, then rolled out of the room, expecting somepony to be hidden to either side of the door.
There was nothing outside the door, but there at the far end of the hall, she saw a pony, crouched low like Winona did when she’d done something bad, as though he expected to be struck at any moment. His face was gaunt, and she could see his ribs. His legs were skinny almost to being bony, and his eyes were abnormally large, taking up most of his face.
“Hey you! Your friend is outside waiting for you! Get the heck outta mah house or I swear to Celestia, I’ll beat you out of here!” Applejack said.

The pony in front of her, who she felt a small amount of sympathy for just from looking at him despite his having broken into her house, didn’t say anything. She wasn’t really expecting him to, if his friend was any indication. Still, he looked at her, with an almost-grin on his face, and crawled toward the stairs. Applejack stomped a few steps closer, trying to drive him on faster. Some muscles on his back twitched, but he didn’t go any faster. He just crawled headfirst down the stairs, his body held low to the ground. His posture weirded her out, honestly.
He reached the landing in front of the door, then turned to look back up at Applejack, who was still standing at the top of the stairs, then scuttled off through the house toward the kitchen.
“Oh no you don’t! Ah swear ah’ll beat ya within an inch of your life if y’all think you can turn my knives on me!” Applejack pelted down the stairs after him.
No sooner had she stepped down a few stairs whenthe staircase dipped, becoming a flat surface. Her hooves, expecting a bumpy set of steps upon which to land, slipped and skidded down the wooden slide, dropping her in a heap at the bottom landing.
“What in tarnation?” She looked back at what she’d fallen down, but the stairs looked like they were simply stairs, with no sliding surface apparent at all. “Did ah just trip? That’s not like me at all.”
The sound of clanging metal came from the kitchen, and Applejack pulled herself to her hooves. If that pony was thinking he could fight back, he had another thing coming. She was no pushover, and she for sure wasn’t going to let some scrawny, emaciated little creeper and his brute of a friend take advantage of a dead pony’s house.

She came close to the door to the kitchen and looked inside. Not much seemed out of place, and there were far too many different cutting and stabbing tools for her to know where each and every one of them were supposed to be, so she couldn’t tell off-hoof if one was missing. Still, she needed to be cautious, because if that pony intended to kill her, a knife would be the best way a scrawny little thing like him could do it. He wasn’t a unicorn, so he would have to get close, and she excelled in close-quarters.
Applejack stepped into the kitchen. The moment she did she heard a *SHING* sound and yanked herself back out of the doorway and behind the wall. Three large knives stabbed into the wooden floor where she had been standing, embedding themselves deep in the wood.
She did a double take at the three knives wobbling beside her. There were three of them, meaning he had lobbed three knives with unerring accuracy at her, at a speed which would embed them into the wood for half of their length, from a place she hadn’t seen.
After some quick thinking in her head, Applejack had to conclude she had underestimated this pony, and the possible enchantment on the house. From the knives he had thrown, this pony was incredibly dexterous and quite strong, which would explain how he’d made it into an upstairs window, and the enchantment either didn’t work on the inside, or this pony could get past it somehow. If the former, she really couldn’t let that brute get inside. If the latter, she was up against a powerfully magical pony.
“Alright. You done and messed up real hard there, pardner. Ah ain’t gonna take it easy on ya from here on out. Y’all made your bed, now you get to sleep in it,” Applejack said.

Applejack took a moment to listen, trying to hear the pony inside the kitchen. She heard no movement at all, so she took a chance and reached out to grab the biggest knife from the floor. With a yank, she pulled it out of the floor and held it tightly in a hoof. She took a few deep breaths, then turned the corner to duck inside the kitchen and hopefully hide behind the counter.
Her head bashed into a wall, and she tumbled back onto her flank. “Wut in tarnation?” She looked up at the door to the kitchen, only to discover that it was no longer there. It had somehow moved to the other side of the dining room. “What in Equestria?” Applejack had no idea what had just happened, but the first thing that came to mind was that there was some sort of magic involved.
She brought up what she’d seen of the pony she had just seen crawling down the stairs. He had been small, with big eyes, no hair to speak of, ugly as a donkey’s teeth, but he had most definitely not had a horn. She hadn’t seen one on either of them. So was there a third pony she wasn’t aware of? There had only been one set of hoofprints climbing her wall, so she doubted it. That meant that this pony was magical somehow, and that was incredibly bad news.
While she was sitting there thinking, the pony stuck his head out of the kitchen door on the far side of the wall bordering the kitchen, and grinned at her. He stuck out a hoof, and moved it up and down in a waving motion and pointed toward the front window. Applejack felt the floor beneath her start to swell, and she was thrown along a bucking, violent floor. The furniture all stayed put, but Applejack herself was tossed about like a rag doll, thrown toward the front window!

Applejack tried to grab hold of something, but the undulating floor kept her off-balance and far enough away from anything that might hold her still that all she could do was try to remain upright. The floor bullied her toward the front of the house, then with a final heave, tossed her toward the front window. She covered her head with her hooves and waited for the impact of the glass, but it never came. She sprawled on the front porch and looked back at the window to see it wide open. She scrambled to her hooves and dashed back toward it, but the windows closed of their own volition, leaving her stuck outside.
“Ah don’t know what in the hay you are, but you’re in for an ass whoopin’ when ah get back in there y’hear me?” Applejack yelled.
She couldn’t see the crawly little gremlin inside, but the kitchen door had moved back to its previous position, and the knives were no longer sticking out of the floor. She was grateful for that, at least. He was able to modify her house at his own whim, but he wanted to keep it intact. For what reason, she had no idea, but at least it meant he wasn’t going to trash the place.
Applejack went back to the front door and pulled out her key. She’d just go back inside and deal with him again. She put the key up to the door, but was disappointed, if not surprised, to see that the keyhole had disappeared. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Of course.” She was about to go find a way to climb up to the window herself, when she heard heavy hoofsteps behind her. “Aw, Celestia’s sunny flank this is tiresome. Ah don’t have a moment to even collect my thoughts.”

She jumped to the side and flipped herself around to look at the brute. He hadn’t reached her yet, but she was prepared to be safe rather than sorry. He was slowly plodding toward her, his face a confusing mask of unreadable emotions. He looked tired, first and foremost, but he might also just be simple. Either way, he was likely intent on doing her harm, and with hooves like his, he easily could.
Applejack didn’t know which was worse: The brute or the gremlin, but at least the brute was easy to understand. Applejack rushed him before he could pin her on the porch, and swung a hoof at his face, landing a heavy blow that gave a satisfying *CRUNCH*. She was pretty sure she’d broken his nose, but he didn’t slow down or flinch. He reared back and swung a beefy hoof at her, which she easily dodged. In the time it took him to recover from that, she landed five more hits on his head, rocking his head back and forth as she alternated hooves. He swung again, and she stepped out of the way, pummeling him in the temples, on the forehead, between the eyes, and in the jaw. Blood poured out of his head from nearly every orifice, and before long, both the brute’s eyes were swollen shut, and his jaw was hanging sideways.
Applejack stepped back to watch the brute, breaths coming fast. “Are you done yet ya varmint? Ah don’t wanna kill anypony if ah can avoid it, but this is self-preservation.”
He made no response, but he took a step toward her voice before he crumpled to the blood-spattered ground.
Applejack heaved a sigh of relief and flexed her bloody forehooves one after the other. “Thought he’d never quit.”

Applejack turned away from the brute and looked back at her house. She couldn’t go back in the door, but if the awful little gremlin had left the bedroom window open, then she might be able to climb a neighboring tree and jump in that way. She went around back to check, but was disappointed to see that he had remembered to shut the window. Now that she had been made aware of his presence, he didn’t seem to feel a need to be sneaky anymore. He was just straight-up shutting her out.
She went back to the front and looked at the porch. The brute hadn’t even been able to break any of the wood, despite being able to rip chunks out of trees, so what chance did she have? However, he hadn’t actually hit the glass of the windows. Maybe that was weaker than the rest?
Applejack went up to one of the windows and gave it an experimental tap. It sounded like you’d expect glass to sound when tapped with a hoof, but so did the wood of the porch. She punched it a little bit harder, and it still felt like glass. She grit her teeth, stepped back a bit, then turned around and gave the window a quick kick with her hind hoof. To her surprise, the glass cracked! That meant the glass could be broken!
Gleefully, Applejack reared back for another quick kick, her head turned to make sure she didn’t miss, when she felt a hoof slam into her side, and she was thrown along the porch. She bounced off the porch swing, broke through one of the awning supports, and went skidding through the wet grass, her hat flying from her head.
Once she had stopped, Applejack took in a wheezing breath and looked up. The brute, his face looking immaculate, without even a hint of swelling or blood, was trying to break the porch swing, his hooves slamming into it again and again as he tried to push past it.

Applejack’s head swam with pain as she hefted herself up. She was positive something was cracked, if not broken. Sharp, stabbing pains shot through her chest as she struggled to her hooves, each breath causing her more agony.
Thankfully, the brute hadn’t made it past the porch swing, as he was seemingly unable to break it, despite his efforts. But this raised a question for Applejack: She had cracked the glass, and smashed through the railing, yet here this pony was beating at it in frustration with hooves that had sent her flying, and he couldn’t even make it swing?
Something strange was at work here, and she needed to figure it out. He hadn’t wanted to go inside, and seemed unable to break any part of the house itself. So long as it was part of this pony-made structure, he seemed unable to affect it in any way, not even able to get the porch swing swaying. Meanwhile, his accomplice inside was able to make everything move without even touching it. They were opposite in every way she could imagine.
Applejack moved back behind the house, looking for a different window. She found a small one behind the kitchen next to the back door, and wasted no time in punching the glass in. She winced at the motion, but didn’t wait for it to subside before clambering in through the shattered frame. She nicked herself on the shards, and had to grit her teeth from the pressure on her rib-cage, but she was inside.
She glanced around, breaths sharp and short, but no knives came flying her way. The little fellow probably knew she was here, but she assumed, like most Unicorns, he would have to have line of sight to her and the object he wanted to manipulate. That would hopefully be her saving grace.

Applejack didn’t bother grabbing a knife. If he could toss them so easily, her having one would only be detrimental for herself, not for him. He’d just grab it out of her hooves and stab her with it before she could even say “y’all”. Instead, she blindly stumbled about, waiting for him to show himself.
Applejack bumbled about downstairs, staying pointedly away from the staircase. She didn’t want him to have an upper vantage point over her. She needed to be on the same floor as him when they finally came face-to-face. It was the only way she figured she had a chance.
Applejack wandered through the rest of the house, where not a speck of dust seemed to be out of place. Nothing was taken down off the wall, there was not a hoofprint to be seen on any of the rugs or on the hardwood. She had no idea what he wanted, but he had even put the knives back in place. She’d almost think him beneficent if he hadn’t hurled knives at her and tossed her out of her own home. He was keeping everything exactly where he had found it, and it was confusing.
She didn’t bump into him throughout all of the lower floor, and she finally admitted she might have to risk going upstairs, when she approached the front of the house. She could hear the brutish pony, still struggling and flailing and grunting just outside on the front porch. He was probably still trying to push past the swing. She cautiously approached the front door to look out the window, when she finally located her quarry.
The awful little gremlin was actually stretched up next to the window, staring out of it at the brute struggling with the porch swing. He had a gleeful grin on his face, and his eyes were transfixed by the sight, as though he was garnering some schadenfreudian pleasure from the brute’s struggle.

In that moment, Applejack had an epiphany: They weren’t accomplices at all! They were trying to get at each other, and Applejack had been caught between them in some sort of spat the two were having with each other, and the gremlin had run inside her house to hide! She felt insulted that the little pest had tried to offer her as a sacrifice or peace-offering or whatever to the brute, but she was past that, and she wasn’t going to get a better opportunity than this. The little beast was distracted, and she was within jumping distance. It was now or never.
Applejack coiled her legs beneath herself, took a short, painful breath, and leaped forward, aiming for the emaciated pile of bones and limbs staring out the window. It was a perfect jump, and if it weren’t for the sharp pain in her chest, Applejack would have enjoyed the look on the gremlin’s face as he realized what was coming. By then, it was far too late.
The gremlin pony was bowled over. Long, skinny limbs tangled up under Applejack as she grabbed whatever bony protrustion she could get her hooves on. He squirmed in her grip, and boy, was he slippery. His body bent at weird angles as he desperately tried to free himself. At first, a forehoof was in her grip, then a rear hoof, then somehow she ended up with a hoof around his middle. His bulging eyes were wide and wild, and strange squeaking noises emanated from him as he tried to free himself.
That wasn’t all he attempted, once he realized he couldn’t immediately get away, he started throwing the house in strange directions. It was all unfocused, but the floor spun in circles, windows opened and closed. Walls moved from place to place, and doors slammed then reopened as he struggled in her grip.

Applejack wasn’t willing to let go, however. Stabbing pains shot through her every time one of the gremlin’s body parts impacted her chest, and she saw stars as her breathing went quick and shallow. The spinning room did nothing to alleviate the problem, and she was utterly disoriented. Eventually she closed her eyes and focused on feel instead of sight, relying on her years of pig-wrangling to guide her.
She felt a hoof. That was a rear hoof. Then she worked up to a struggling forehoof. He twisted in her grip so he was facing her, and he tried to push her away. She responded by letting him push out, then spun around him so she was behind him again, and she finally managed to get a leg around his neck and under his chin. She had him in a chokehold. This was the beginning of the end.
He struggled, flailed, and batted at her ineffectually with his hooves, but his desire to leave the house intact, and his poor physical condition, all led to him losing this fight. He kicked, getting weaker by the second, then he twitched, and finally went limp.
Applejack waited a second longer. Just enough to ensure he was unconscious, but not dead, then loosened her grip. When he didn’t immediately fight back, she loosened a bit more, then finally let go.
She pulled herself up, clutching at her chest for a second as she just let herself breathe. She waited for the stars to leave her vision, then picked him up and tossed him on her back. She had no idea what the brute would do with him, but she had an inkling. She almost felt bad, but both of them had tried to murder her. Not to mention they were both horrifically unnatural, so she didn’t want to be responsible for any of this.

Applejack went to the front door, discovered it still had no lock, then just unceremoniously tossed the body through the cracked window.
“Here’s your friend, you ugly brute. Stop whacking the swing, take him, and clear off my bloody property!” Applejack said.
Upon seeing the smaller pony, the brute let loose an ugly, gurgling howl, and stomped over to him. He stepped on his forehooves, easily snapping them, then did the same with rear hooves. Applejack turned away, sick to her stomach, and limped further into the house, trying to ignore the noises coming from out front. It went on for some time, but eventually the sounds stopped, and Applejack went to go see what was happening.
The brutish pony had picked up the mangled body of the gremlin and had him slung over his back. He was walking off into the distance. Not toward the town, or even following the road. He was just heading straight for the wilderness. Just before he disappeared into the trees, Applejack saw the smaller pony’s body give a small twitch, and attempt to move its head.
She hoped it was her imagination.

With those two gone, Applejack took the time to clean herself up. She fetched her hat from outside, and went into the bathroom to check herself over.
She was covered in minor scrapes, cuts, and a massive bruise on her chest, but she was otherwise intact. She’d need a doctor’s opinion on her ribs, but she was alive, and for that, she was thankful.
Before she limped off to town, she gave the house a once-over, just to be sure. She went through the upstairs and then made her way to the kitchen, the living room, and the dining room, and…
There was a door she didn’t remember here. It was beneath the stairs, and upon trying to open it, she found it was locked. She looked at her key ring, but decided she had had enough. She went to town, and didn’t look back.

The End.