Rainbow Dash peered into the window, her gaze darting back and forth across the dark room inside. Nothing, she thought to herself in disappointment. She glided towards the next, still not entirely sure what it was that she was looking for. She had spent all afternoon searching the apple farm without success. She had spotted Big Mac plowing a field when she first arrived, but the rest of the Apple family seemed to have disappeared. Dash began to suspect that Mr. Cake had lied to her.
Spying in another window, Dash noticed an ancient looking mare napping soundly in a rocking chair. She didn’t know Granny Smith well, or anything about her really, besides that she was Applejack’s grandmother. But if Pinkie Pie was around the farm, she would probably know. In the very least, she could tell Dash where Applejack was hiding. After breaking a few hinges, the pegasus forced her way through the window and into the room.
“Hey, Granny Smith, have you seen Pinkie Pie anywhere?” she asked, talking casually as possible.
The old mare muttered a reply too quiet for Dash to hear, apparently still lost somewhere in her dreams. Dash wondered absently what old ponies’ dreams were about. Pickle juice, perhaps?
She grabbed Granny in both hooves and shook her roughly. “Hey, wake up!” she shouted.
Granny’s eyes flashed open wildly. “Whozits, bandits?!”
“No.” Dash shook her head. “Have you seen Pinkie Pie?”
“A pink what now?” Granny asked perplexedly before waving her away with a hoof. “Just shoo it off with the broomstick.” She dropped her eyelids again, grumbling something about ‘youngins never knowing how to get things done on their own.’
“No, Pinkie Pie,” Dash said slowly, drawing out each consonant. “The pony. Have you seen her?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Granny answered, opening her eyelids. The old mare eyes lit up as if she was seeing Rainbow Dash for the first time. “Well, my, my, my, ya’ sure are a mighty fine specimen of a stallion, now ain’t ya?” She looked Dash over approvingly.
“Thanks, but I…” Dash paused, replaying what she’d just heard over in her mind. “Wait, did you just call me a stallion?”
Granny Smith eyed her coquettishly. “You oughta’ be put to work. Ya’d make a fine farm colt.” She leaned her head forward, dropping her voice, “And good lookin’ to boot. Why, if I was only a few years younger…”
Rainbow Dash began backing away nervously. “Uh… yeah…” Clearly, Granny Smith had gone senile many years ago.
“There you are,” she heard a familiar voice call from behind her.“ Macintosh said he saw you flyin’ around the farm.”
Applejack trotted up to her side. “Ah assume you’re here for Pinkie?”
“She’s here?” Dash asked in disbelief. “I looked everywhere.”
“Yup, she’s sitting down in the barn right now,” Applejack answered with a nod. Of course, the one place she hadn’t looked. “I’ll walk with ya.”
As they turned to leave, Rainbow Dash heard the crazed mare behind them yell out again. “This one here sure is handsome Applejack. Ya’ should git a ring on ‘im before he takes off!”
“No problem Granny,” Applejack called back, winking at the blushing pegasus.
__________________________________________________
Rainbow Dash and Applejack walked along the path to the barn silently. Dash had never had any trouble talking with her friend in the past. The farm pony always seemed willing to hear about her latest stunt or prank, but now it felt like there was some kind of wall in between them. It seemed like she was supposed to say something, but Dash wasn’t sure what that something was.
“So what took ya’ so long?” Applejack asked, shattering the quiet. “We’ve been waiting for you all day.”
The question hung in the air for several long moments while Dash considered how to answer. “I… I needed to figure some stuff out.”
Silence fell over the two friends once again. Dash opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again when Applejack abruptly stopped walking. “Listen, there’re some things I need ta’ say.”
So here it was, the lecture. The Dash briefly considered making a break for it and flying to safety before the other pony could begin talking.
“Ah’m disappointed in you Rainbow Dash,” she said sternly. “Ah understand you were upset, getting outed like that. Ah probably would’ve been angry too if somepony had given away a secret of mine in front of everypony.”
Dash absent-mindedly folded and extended her wings, waiting for the reproach to end. “Yeah, it’s—"
“But that ain’t how you should’ve handled it,” Applejack continued. Dash flicked her tail in annoyance. She hated being interrupted.
“Don’t get me wrong, what Pinkie did wasn’t right either, but yellin’ at her and calling her names was not the right way to deal with it. And then ya’ just flew off, not giving anypony a chance to speak. What you did was immature and inconsiderate.”
“Immature?” Dash cried, angrily. “That’s a load of—“
“Let me finish.” Applejack’s voice softened as she placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “We’re your friends, whenever there’s a problem, we can sit down an’ work it out with ya’.” She flashed a small smile. “Next time, I expect you to stay and talk, no more shoutin’ and flyin’ off, ya’ hear?”
Rainbow Dash nodded and looked away, unable to meet her friend’s eyes. “I’m sorry you know.”
“Ah know,” Applejack said, starting to walk again. “And you’re here now. That’s what’s important.”
“So, you’re okay with this?” Dash questioned apprehensively, but Applejack only gave her a puzzled look in reply. “You know… me and Pinkie Pie… together…”
Applejack laughed. “’Course Ah am, Ah’m happy for you. Can’t say Ah’m surprised actually, Pinkie always was sweet on you.”
Dash sighed inwardly, another pony who apparently already knew. She was beginning to wonder if there was ever any point in trying to keep it a secret in the first place. “So you don’t mind that we’re both… mares?”
“Shucks, why would I?” Applejack asked, looking somewhat offended. “And if you find anypony who does, just send em’ on over to me, I’ll straighten em’ out.”
Dash grabbed her in a quick hug. “Thank you.”
Applejack blushed, embarrassed by the sudden display of affection. “Whoa now, it’s no big deal, Sugarcube.”
“It’s a big deal to me,” Dash replied, letting go. She found herself standing in front of the barn door. “Do you think she’ll forgive me?”
“Ah’m sure she already has.”
Dash faced the barn. Pinkie Pie was in there, right on the other side of the door. A sharp chill ran down the course of her spine as she reached a hoof out towards the handle. It was the same feeling she had whenever she stood on a cloud, high above the ground, readying to dive off into the abyss. A familiar mix of excitement and tension washed through her body. Something was different about this though. Her stomach was tightening and a hard dry lump was forming in her throat, making breathing difficult.
Applejack must have sensed what she was going on in her head. “Just go talk to her, everything’ll be fine.”
Applejack had never been one to lie. Besides, she was Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash wasn’t afraid of anything. With one final gulp, she pushed the barn door open.
Rarity’s voice wafted towards her through the open door. “I told you already, you have to wait for her to come to you.”
The inside of the barn was typical of what Rainbow Dash figured the inside of a barn should look like. There were piles of hay in the corners, a variety of farming equipment littered the floor, and several groups of stalls lined the walls. What struck her as odd was how lifeless the barn was. She had expected to at least find some cows or chickens milling about, but instead the barn was completely devoid of life. All save for two ponies sitting on a bench in the corner.
Pinkie Pie’s face immediately brightened when she saw who had entered the barn. “Dashie!” she yelled, running up to the pegasus and wrapping her forelegs around her. Dash returned the embrace wordlessly. She held on tight, trying to stretch the moment on for as long as possible.
Rarity trotted up to them with a snort. “Don’t you know that it’s impolite to keep a lady waiting?”
"I’m sorry Pinks,” Dash said, finally pulling out of the hug.
“I wasn’t talking about her,” Rarity interjected. “She wanted to stay. But do you know how long I’ve been sitting in this distasteful barn?” she asked with a look of deep revulsion. “It’ll take weeks to wash this stench off.”
Dash rolled her eyes. “How terrible for you.”
Rarity held an offended hoof to her chest. “I need to smell my best, I’ll be dating again soon.”
Dash groaned. The last thing she was worrying about at that particular moment was Rarity’s love life, but she needed to be polite. “Oh yeah?”
“Oh yes,” Rarity answered. “I was holding out for a certain pony, but...” She looked away dejectedly. “Well, it’s beginning to look like that isn’t going to work out. I was really certain it would too. I’ve never met anypony more driven or ambitious…”
Ugh, she looks pretty down. Dash knew she was good at a lot of things, but words weren’t one of them. That was Twilight’s territory. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there, and Pinkie didn’t seem to have anything to say, so the task of cheering up their friend fell to her. Great...
“Yeah but you’re, you know, pretty and stuff,” Dash said, waving a hoof. “I’m sure you’ll be able to get any stallion you want.”
Rarity’s face flushed. “You really think so?”
“Why would I lie about that?” Dash had to fight to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
“Thank you so much, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried, smiling extravagantly.
“Uh huh.” Dash waited for the unicorn to say something else, but she just kept smiling and staring at her. Dash cleared her throat loudly. “So, maybe Pinkie and I could get a minute alone?”
“Oh yes, of course,” Rarity replied, walking towards the door. Abruptly, she stopped and turned around.
“Rainbow Dash, if you and Pinkie ever…” She seemed to think better of whatever it was she was going to say and shook her head. “Just know that I’m always here for you,” she said with a smile that almost looked sad.
Dash nodded. “Yeah, sure thing.”
Rarity walked up to the door, pausing to look back one final time before exiting the barn.
When they were finally alone, Dash turned to face Pinkie Pie. She was smiling her usual goofy grin, almost as if nothing had ever happened, but there was something missing. The constant excited melody of the hyper pony’s voice was gone. For the first time since Dash had known her, Pinkie was remaining quiet.
As soon as she opened her mouth, the overflow of words that had been building up in Dash’s head began to spill out. “I’m so sorry Pinkie. I didn’t mean to say any of that stuff. You’re not disgusting, you’re amazing, and I love you. You know me, I never think, and I say the dumb—“ Dash’s voice began to falter but she forced herself to go on, “dumbest things, I’m so sorr—“
Suddenly, Pinkie stuck a hoof in her mouth. Dash blinked furiously, fighting back the urge to cry. The situation was uncool enough already.
Pinkie beamed her a smile that could have fragmented a brick wall. ”Dashie, there’s no reason to cry when No-Cry Pinkie Pie is around,” she said softly. “Sometimes you act silly and say silly things, but I can handle silliness better than anypony. So I forgive you.”
A wave of relief crashed over Rainbow Dash’s chest. “Thank you,” she said, bending her head down and nuzzling her marefriend’s neck affectionately, causing her to giggle.
“Sometimes, I act silly too you know,” Pinkie admitted. “Like last night, you asked me not to say anything, and I shouldn’t have. From now on, nopony else will know.”
Dash drew back to look her in the face. “No, that’s fine. It’s better now that our friends know. We should have told them way sooner.” She leaned forward until their snouts were nearly touching. ”Actually, I want everypony to know I have the coolest, funnest, most awesome marefriend in the whole world.” Dash tipped her head forward, pressing their muzzles and lips together.
Pinkie’s mouth flew open in a dramatic gasp that sent the unsuspecting pegasus tumbling backwards. “Oh! We have to tell everypony then!” she cried excitedly. “I’ve been waiting soooo long for this!”
“Yeah…” Dash replied, an idea forming in her head.
Her mind drifted back to a sappy romance novel Rarity had lent her recently. During the climax, after the two lovers had declared their feelings for each other, they soared across the rooftops of Canterlot, proclaiming their love to the ponies in the streets below. “Let’s do it right now!” she shouted, grabbing Pinkie up in her forelegs and shooting out the door as quickly as her wings would take her.
__________________________________________________
Ah-ah-ah-AH CHOO! Dash had been sneezing since she’d left Sweet Apple Acres. While she couldn’t be certain, she suspected it had something to with the bushy pink tail in her face that had been tickling her nose the whole way.
“Pinkie, why are you upside down?” she asked the pony dangling in her hooves. Indeed, Pinkie was upside down. Her forelegs and bouncy mane were waving wildly in the wind beneath the pegasus, while her legs and tail wiggled in the air above her head.
“Why aren’t you upside down?” Pinkie asked, pointing a hoof up at her courier.
Dash carefully considered the question. Now that she thought about it, there was no particularly good reason for her to be right side up. “Fair enough.”
She looked back to the barn and Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity and Applejack were still standing outside, though they looked much smaller now. Dash noticed that they appeared to be standing unusually close to each other.
Are they… hugging?
“Wheeee!” Pinkie yelled, rocking back and forth and causing Dash to sway dangerously.
“Pinkie!” Dash shouted, “Don’t swing like that, I’m gonna drop you!”
Rainbow Dash grunted from exertion, her wings were struggling to keep the two ponies in the air. Surprising considering she’d once carried four ponies at once. “Jeez, you need to lay off the cupcakes for a while, Pinks. You’re almost too heavy for me to carry.”
Pinkie let out an insulted gasp. “You take that back!”
“Only if you promise to go on a diet,” Dash said with a smirk. “Could you climb up onto my back? It’d be a lot easier to fly with you that way.”
“Okie dokie!” Pinkie reached her forelegs up, gripping onto her marefriend’s shoulders and scrabbling over her head. Pinkie then laid herself out on the Dash’s back with a contented sigh, her head resting near Dash’s cutie mark.
Dash peered up at the tail now resting on her head. “That isn’t what I meant,” she muttered under her breath.
She felt a sudden tug on her own tail. “Hey, don’t mess with my tail!”
“Sorry,” Pinkie replied, spitting the prismatic tail out of her mouth. “It’s sooo colorful, I couldn’t resist.”
Dash continued to fly without interruption until a question popped into her head. “Hey Pinks,” she called back. “What were you doing in that barn all day?”
“I was waiting for the cows,” Pinkie answered. “I thought they would cheer me up. I love those sounds they make."
"Moooo!” Pinkie’s cow impersonation was surprisingly accurate. Dash couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with her recent increase in size.
“Well, you’d fit right in— OW!” she cried out, feeling a stinging pain on her hind quarters. “Did you just bite me?!”
“Mm hmm,” Pinkie chirped. “Your flank tastes a lot different than your tail. The tail was really bland, but this was salty!”
Rainbow Dash scanned the ground for a suitable spot to land. As incredible as her physical endurance could be, even she had her limits. Fortunately, she was nearing one of Ponyville’s many parks. Angling herself down, she began her descent.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t properly taken into account the extra weight added by Pinkie (and the tail in her face hadn’t helped either), resulting in a not-so-spectacular crash. However, she’d managed to keep the number of smashed park benches down to two, which counted as a success in Dash’s book.
Popping briskly out of the wreckage, Rainbow Dash inspected her surroundings. A small crowd of passersby had already gathered, attracted by the fizzled landing, but it wasn’t nearly large enough to suit her purposes. An event as big as this one needed an appropriate audience to match. Dash excitedly flew laps around the park, waving her hooves in the air and shouting to nearby ponies, “Everypony gather round, I have an extremely important announcement to make!”
After she had the attention of a sizable assembly of park-goers, Dash took her place beside Pinkie Pie on the wrecked bench. “This is Pinkie Pie,” she called out to the gathered ponies in the most impressive voice she could muster, “and she is the most amazing, coolest, awesomest pony I’ve ever met.”
She turned to look Pinkie in the eyes, ignoring the crowd’s confused stares. “And I love her!” she announced, turning back to the onlookers. “And I’m proud of that.”
Then silence. For several moments, not a word was spoken among the gathering of ponies. Even Pinkie was being uncharacteristically quiet. Soon, a low murmuring began to develop. Dash had rushed through Rarity’s novel (she was almost as fast a reader as she was flyer) so her memory was somewhat vague on its ending, but it definitely hadn’t been like this. From what she could remember, there had been cheering and congratulations all around.
“Are you kidding me?” a dark coated pegasus near the front she recognized as Thunderlane cried. “That was your ‘extremely important announcement’?” A general rumble of discontent was moving through the crowd.
“What, did you think we were going to clap for you or something?” Thunderlane continued angrily.
“Well…” Dash’s voice died in her throat. Actually, that was exactly what she thought was going to happen.
“I thought there some big emergency going on!” he shouted, pointing a hoof towards her. “You had me really worried.”
Dash felt a wave of anger swell in her stomach. She’d bared her soul in front of a mass of ponies. The least they could have given her was a courtesy cheer and a little ‘Nice work Rainbow Dash, you’re such a radically wicked pony, can I get your autograph?’ But no, instead all she got was criticism.
“Oh, buzz off Thunderlane! This could have been a big special moment, but now you’ve ruined it.” He looked away embarrassingly.
“You can all go now, thanks for nothing,” she yelled to the crowd, bucking a piece of broken wood lying by her hoof.
Rarity and her stupid novels...
With the spectacle over, the crowd began to disperse, leaving Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie alone with the broken benches. “Well, I thought it was sweet,” Pinkie said warmly, speaking for the first time since they had crashed. “You know,” she said, putting a hoof to her chin, “if you and a cupcake were trapped in a giant toaster, and I had a giant pair of tongs and I could only save one of you, I’d probably pick you. I’m like ninety-nine point nine percent certain. Well actually…”
Dash felt a tapping at her shoulder and turned around to see that one of the other pegasi from the weather team, Blossomforth, had returned. “Ugh,” she groaned. “What do you want?”
Blossomforth smiled sheepishly. “Hey, I’m sorry about that, Thunderlane can be a bit of an idiot sometimes. I wanted to congratulate you,” she said, holding out a hoof.
Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up. Apparently the show hadn’t been a complete bust after all. “Thanks,” she replied, shaking her hoof.
“Yeah,“ Blossomforth continued, a smirk appearing on her face, “you finally came out of the closet, good for you!”
“Yeah, yeah…” Dash responded with a scowl, her ears drooping as the cheeky pegasus flew away. Was there anypony who didn’t already know? Turning back to Pinkie, she found that her marefriend was still debating whether to save her or a cupcake from the imaginary death toaster.
“…there's a lot of variables. Like, since it’s a giant toaster, is it a giant cupcake? Is it a giant Rainbow Dash?!” Her blue eyes opened wide at the newly discovered possibilities.
Dash thought about the sappy novel’s ending again. After their roof top announcement, the two lovers had shared a passionate kiss, concluding the story. Dash leaned forward to press her muzzle against Pinkie’s. Even if there announcement hadn’t gone as planned, at least she could end it right. To her surprise, the chatty pony didn’t seem to notice her advance and was still rambling away.
“…I think I might actually like to try a toasted cupcake sometime, but not so much a toasted Rain—“
“Pinkie!” Dash interrupted. “Could you shut up? I’m kind of trying to kiss you here.”
“Oh, that’s what you were doing,” Pinkie said with a giggle. She puckered her lips as far out as possible, in what Dash could only assume was her best imitation of a goldfish. “I’m ready!”
Dash facehoofed with a groan. “Never mind, let’s go get something to eat.”
Rarity and her stupid novels...
__________________________________________________
Spike watched his two friends trot out of the park together, side by side. “Man, that was really cheesy and cliché, huh Twilight?” he asked, looking up at her.
“Yeah,” she answered with a sigh. “It sure was cute though.”