Big Macintosh strolled unhurriedly through the reddening afternoon light that shone across the orchard. The first chirps of the evening crickets were piping up, and Big Mac's stomach was starting to stir with hunger; time to go break bread with the rest of the Apple family. All except Applejack.

Applejack had suddenly run off with Twilight and all those other girls after some hullabaloo in the corn fields. He found it best to steer clear when those six got together; they all talked too much and too fast, and their scents drove him mad anyhow.

The sound of a rustling branch made Big Mac slow and stop. He cocked his head, ear straining to pick the sound up again. He heard it, this time followed by a snap the yelp of a pony. He whipped his head around to the left, and two rows deep into the tidy grid of trees he saw a grey-coated pony flat on his back, a single wide and startled eye fixed on Big Mac.

The trespasser had fallen pulling an apple down from the nearby tree, but the apple had stubbornly clung to the branch and the whole thing had come down on top of him as he fell. He peered out from between the mass of twiggy branches and leaves that lay on his face, apparently frozen in surprise. The heft of the branch lay across his body.

Big Macintosh sighed deeply. Moseying over to the grey pony with apprehension, he looked the little thief in the eye. Mac noticed the apple he held in his jaw was an unusual shade of blue-green.