Stage 1 | Brightshadow Hills - Whitetail Wood
By rights, Rarity had absolutely no business running about outdoors. The thought of her manicured hooves brushing against the wild, dewy grass and bare dirt would have sent her to the spa for a full day of Princess-level pampering. There was the countryside, and then there was Canterlot, and the fashionista had her choice carved into an iron slab.
Yet here she was on the brink of a race that would spirit her throughout all of Equestria at the side of a most unlikely ally. Applejack—how the mere name grated on her ears! The farmpony was as earthy as earth ponies came, and she had no head for the subtler points of, in her words, “gittin’ along with the ponyfolk”. Sweet Celestia, she probably bathed only once a day.
But Rarity couldn’t help but grin as she approached the starting line. Nothing had brought her and precious little Sweetie Belle together more than that “Social” Applejack and her family had cooked up. And stars above—what she had taken to be a one-time fling had planted in her the kernel of a new line of fashionable exercise apparel. Her decision to sew herself this training ensemble (and not just a “track suit”, dear Applejack) the very next week had turned out to be incredibly foresighted now that she was here.
Now that she was here, she wanted to run.
“How are you feeling, darling?” she asked her ensemble-less partner.
“Hoo, nelly,” Applejack beamed, throwing a little tap into her gait. “Look at all these other ponies competin’ with us. There’s gotta be at least two hunner’d participatin’ in this phase alone, or else you can call me a daisy’s auntie.”
“There, now. The only flower in your family that you need worry about is dear little Apple Bloom.”
“That was nice. Much appreciated, Rarity. ” Applejack suddenly jabbed her in the shoulder. “Land alive, would you look at this?”
Rarity grumbled under her breath from Applejack’s uncouth display of camaraderie. They had stopped before a verdant, undulating forest bridging the horizons, its canopy teeming with the twittering of rousing songbirds and the chatter of squirrels. A chain of tall, dome-shaped hills rose behind the trees, casting their contours against the warming glow of the sky.
A wooden scaffold spanned the wide, stone-paved road leading into the woods, with a painted white stripe serving as the starting line running just beneath the scaffold. The large, cloud-blue banner stretched above the stripe displayed the name of the Summer Solstice Steeplechase’s first venue for everypony to see.
← S T A G E 1 →
D A Y • B R I G H T S H A D O W H I L L S • D A Y
WHITETAIL WOOD • WHITETAIL WOOD • WHITETAIL WOOD • WHITETAIL WOOD
Applejack whistled. “I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since Rainbow and I raced each other here.” The farmpony frowned amid the throes of recollection. “Let’s just hope this competition doesn’t tempt her to cheat this time. I worry that that filly cares more about winning sometimes than what it takes to win.”
“I don’t think you should worry about her. She won’t be racing until tomorrow, after all.” Rarity gathered her mane back into a ponytail and snapped an elastic over it. “There. How do I look?”
“My stars, missy. That’s some getup you’ve got there.”
“Thank you kindly, Applej—” Rarity paused. Her friend was standing in front of her, but the voice she’d heard came from behind. She turned around.
The best word she could summon for the trio of earth ponies appearing behind her was “rustic”—literally for the so-colored stallion on the left. His muscular build reminded her of Applejack’s older brother, but the newcomer diverged from his counterpart by wearing his sand-colored mane cropped close and his tail docked. The mare on the opposite end had some sturdiness to her, too, but the slight sheen of her chocolate-tinted coat and her neat almond side-braid hinted at some refinement. She also wore moon-sized spectacles, the poor thing, though they did bring out her pale orange eyes.
The drawling remark on Rarity’s “getup”, however, had come from the yellow-eyed mare in the middle. Her coat was the color of road dust, and although denim was not a material the unicorn normally gave the time of day, the blue fabric did form a reasonable collar along the mare’s neck line. A tan-colored mane fell freely on one side of her lanky body.
“Oh.” Something about the way the mare stood there caused Rarity’s tongue to tumble in her mouth. “Thank you.”
“Honest to goodness,” the mare replied, “where’d you come up with the notion of wearing a lil’ scene like that?”
With her back turned on Applejack, Rarity failed to notice the sudden venom boiling behind the farmpony’s eyes. The unicorn did, however, wonder at the look the newcomer was giving her—they were both taller than the average mare and all but stood muzzle to muzzle, but she could not shake the feeling that she was somehow being looked down upon.
“It was just a little idea I had,” she said, putting on the warmest smile she could manage. Everypony was a customer, after all—they just needed to learn they were one in the first place. "The fabric is a special material that repels dirt and water while keeping your coat cool and dry as you exercise. I'm simply giving my newest product a test run, if you will."
"Izzat so?" The mare broke out into a smile of her own, one that Rarity rated as about as warm as the far side of the moon.
"A—Absolutely."
Rarity picked up a snicker from the stallion to her left. What did he find so funny?
"She looks like one o' our lemons went and sprouted hair, don't she?" he blurted.
What? Rarity’s ears reached temperatures reserved for branding livestock. Did he just say—?
"Meyer!" The mare turned on her brother like a landslide. "Don't you go insultin' our produce by comparing 'em to fancy-dancin’ mules, you lunk!"
Rarity was not slow by anypony’s standards—especially after suffering through Twilight’s training regimen—but it took her more than the span of a few blinks before she realized the chastised stallion was not his sister’s true victim.
“That’s all y’all get to say, Lemon Tart!” An orange hoof yanked Rarity back before she could launch into a tirade of her own. Applejack shoved her way past the unicorn, digging into the dirt between the two mares. “I didn’t think the organizers allowed rattlers like you to compete in this here race.”
“Still nothin’ but shortness and spunk, ain’t you, Applejack?” The taller mare grinned down at the farmpony with enough teeth to give a shark pause.
Applejack tossed her head. “Get.”
“We’re goin’,” Lemon Tart purred, raising her tail high as she turned away. “ We’re goin to beat ya’ll silly, of course. Take care of the mule out there, will ya?”
And that was that—the denim-collared mare and her siblings slithered off to the far side of the starting line. Most of the racers had arrived at the line by then, and ponies clogged the air with jokes and words of encouragement like they hadn’t seen anything (and if they had, what business was it of theirs? Rivalries happened). As the general mood of the staging area lightened with the sky, Rarity tapped Applejack on the shoulder with her thoughts about as bright as the center of a quagmire.
“Of all the things she could have called me—a mule? She had to compare me to a mule?”
“Rarity?” The farmpony didn’t bother to look back. “Whinin’s not exactly the most productive thing you could be doin’ about now.”
Rarity fell back, stunned. “Whining? I am not whin—”
“Racers, take your marks!” called a race official on the scaffold. He then bowed in deference to Princess Celestia as she touched down next to him.
Still seething from her encounter with that Lemon Tart and her roughshod posse, Rarity shot her partner an unmistakable look: we’re talking later. She would burn her boutique and wear pug boots if Applejack didn’t have some prior run-in with those hooligans to discuss.
With the last racer packed into the peloton, Princess Celestia walked to the middle of the scaffold and raised her head. Her horn suddenly flared with a soft gold aura. Even Rarity, always the paragon of decorum, couldn’t help but gasp as the Princess took to the air with a powerful sweep of her wings.
Rarity’s heart counted down with the wing beats, watched as the Princess’ horn grew brighter with every stroke.
Three.
Two.
One.
The Princess threw her front legs high into the air, her horn glowed white hot—and a flood of hot light surged between the span of her wings like a gospel.
Cheering and hollering, two hundred ponies thundered into the underbrush.
***
She was only a few miles into the heart of Whitetail Woods, and Rarity knew closing Carousel Boutique for the week had been the right call. Despite the tree cover, the sunlight found ample places to penetrate the canopy, casting what would have been a somber forest into a warm tapestry of trees, brooks, and stones no weaver could hope to duplicate. Greens like creek emeralds rushed past her in tandem with the russet earth beneath her hooves. If only she had the means of capturing half the vibrancy of these hues for her fabrics! The breeze teased her nostrils with notes of pine and pollen, and the thrumming of hooves around her echoed the pounding of her heart.
She was not all that surprised to find herself near the leading edge of the peloton—with the road this flat this early in the race, breakaway groups would find themselves absorbed back into the pack in no time at all. For the moment, everypony ran together—including the likes of Lemon Tart and her kin.
“The mind can only imagine where you met such... charming specimens,” Rarity aired, cresting a small rise in the dirt road.
Applejack shot a glare at her agricultural rival. “Lemon Tart there runs an operation called Golden Envy Orchards, and her lemonades are regular contenders at Hocktoberfest.” The farmpony’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Well, her folks got caught bustin’ up the competition last year—breaking barrels, saltin’ pots, all that—their top honors got stripped and went to a lil’ outfit called Sweet Apple Acres.”
Rarity made an impressed noise. “I still remember the party Pinkie threw for you that evening. I’ve never had so much cider in one night.”
Dirt sprayed up from under Applejack’s hooves as she led Rarity around a corner. “Darn tootin’. And it was all because of this pony, right here, who was keepin’ an eye on those varmints. Why, it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to get even with me for that.”
Rarity nodded. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“I think they’re up to no good,” Applejack replied, her face set. “Keep your eyes about you—Springpost Hill’s coming up in a little bit. I bet you a bushel of apples that’s when they’ll make their move.”
Rarity opened her mouth to speak—and kept it there when she heard somepony scream behind her. Her eyes flicked to her left, and only the dumb momentum of her limbs kept her moving forward.
She had had a nightmare in which a dress for an important client exploded in her sewing machine. Snarls of fabric—brown and yellow and olive and periwinkle and Celestia knew what else—erupted from beneath the needle, ruining everything. The nightmare had, of course, come from the notion that she’d even consider matching such discordant colors together in one outfit, but the ruptured bunches of cloth from her dream bore no small resemblance to the ponies on the opposite side of the peloton—those in front had crashed to the ground, and those behind them tripped and fell on the growing pile.
“We should help them,” she shouted.
“No can do,” the farmpony spat back. “Look who’s tryin’ to crawl away there.”
Rarity followed Applejack’s gaze to a trio of earth ponies emerging from the pile-up as spotless as champagne glass—they didn’t look for a second as if they’d been caught off guard or hampered by the crash. The smirk on Lemon Tart’s face and the slant of her eyes almost suggested she expected it to happen...
“Hey, now!” Applejack hollered. “Couldn’t even wait for the first hill before you started sabotagin’ the competition, could you?”
The rival glared back as her family broke away from the pack. “That wasn’t us, sugar!” she yelled over her shoulder. “We don’t need to cheat to beat you!”
“Why, that little—!” Applejack’s eyes crossed as she fumbled for words. “It couldn’t be any more obvious that she was lyin’ through her teeth, Rarity. That’s why we gotta keep runnin’—I caught ‘em cheatin’ once before, and I’ll catch ‘em at it again! C’mon!”
“A—Applejack!”
The earth pony simply lowered her head and forged onward.
The trees of Whitetail Wood retreated to both sides as Springpost Hill’s granite slopes rose into view, and a new breeze picked at the sweat on Rarity’s brow. Only her impeccable sense of decorum kept her from tearing her training ensemble off, but it was getting toastier by the second. The ground kicked up beneath her hooves, and little streams of pebbles trickled past her as she and Applejack pursued the Lemon family.
And to think I complained when Twilight sent me up and down all of those stairs in the library, the unicorn thought, her lungs feeling like paper bags. “Applejack, do you think you could slow down a little bit?”
“Not a chance, sugarcube!” Steam puffed from Applejack’s nostrils. “I’m not gonna lose ‘em!”
“You’re going to lose me if you insist on pursuing this barbaric grudge of yours!” Digging deep, Rarity drew even with her partner. “Ugh, you may not consider this to be much work with your applebucking and all that, but I’m getting a little tired—”
“Rarity—” Applejack gave her a sidelong glance, her voice even. “Save your breath. You’ll need it for this hill. Now keep up, will you?”
Rarity called to mind the old saying: one’d sooner move the earth before they could move an earth pony bent on some pursuit. Falling in behind Applejack, she concentrated on matching the rhythm of her partner’s gallop: cah-da-duk, cah-da-duk, cah-da-duk, cah-da-duk. As they stormed around a rising hairpin, Rarity peered over the edge of the road and saw the peloton fragmenting into clumps below her.
Twilight Sparkle’s voice floated into her head from another night in the library: “This book, The Perfected Particulars of Pony Pursuit, says that races truly begin on the hills, where ponies gain or lose the most on these sections alone...”
Rarity looked toward the top of the hill. Despite its modest status as a “grade three” climb, the purple and gold pennants planted at its summit towered above her like the eyes of a snake, the coiled road its body, and it gazed upon her as if deciding whether to devour her then or later. Lemon Tart and the rest of her breakaway group were kicking up dust some two switchbacks ahead.
The unicorn turned a ferocious red as something bumped into her from behind. She turned to look, a scathing retort burning on her tongue, only to realize it was Applejack flattening her hat against her fundament.
“You’re daydreamin’ and they’re gettin’ away!” she cried. “Focus, Rarity—I need you to stay with me!”
Rarity disengaged herself in indignation. “I’m going, I’m going!”
But could she keep going? Could she really keep up with the pace Applejack demanded of her? They had yet to pass through the first third of the stage, and her legs were already aching. Her tendons only tightened with every gallop, grit began to congeal on her tongue, and, worst of all, her ensemble was gathering dirt at the cuffs!
She had to relent. She had to make Applejack understand. She had to be clean!
And yet she still galloped. And galloped. A new voice piped up in her head, one she only heard with her back pressed against the wall. Relent? This wasn’t, to use another one of the farmer’s quaint colloquialisms, her first rodeo. She may not have fit the definition of a traditional marathon mare, and she was certainly happier trimming selvage edges in her boutique than split times in some sweaty physical contest—but banish it, she knew how to push herself.
Had she not succeeded in sewing over ten dresses a day for Hoity Toity, Canterlot’s premier fashion authority, and his “Best of the Best” Boutique that one week?
Had she not, despite Sweetie Belle’s best efforts to stymie her fabric supply, created and delivered twenty caped robes for a Trottingham client in one night?
Well, then! If Applejack wanted focus, let her witness the focus of a professional. Setting her jaw, Rarity pressed ahead. Every bend in the road was just another hem to close, and she was in “the zone”...
“D’at-choo! Ahht-choo!” Ugh, what was with this dust all of a sudden? It was getting all in her mane and everything!
“Bless you.”
“Thank you, dear,” Rarity replied, nodding at Lemon Tart’s sister. “Would you simply believe how messy it gets out in the coun—trabazawah?” One double take later, Rarity confirmed her eyes were not playing tricks on her. She was neck and neck with the same chocolate-colored mare who’d stood by that unsavory lemon farmer at the starting line. So, if she was here, so was—
“Lisbon!” Lemon Tart’s voice cracked the air like a whip. “Haul those haunches up front this instant!”
“Coming, sister!” The bespectacled mare shot Rarity a strange look before peeling away from Rarity.
Thoughts ground together in the unicorn’s mind like an ill-set needle striking the plate, and it took her several moments to set her brain back in working order. If Lemon Tart had left Applejack and her behind, but she had somehow spoken to one of her siblings—
Gold and purple pennants flashed in the corner of her eyes as the road sloped down from her hooves. She saw more ponies waving flags off to the sides or sitting on folding chairs in front of camping tents, and all of them were looking back at her, cheering and thrusting their hooves into the air.
Rarity shook her head—she often forgot about her surroundings whenever she put herself in “the zone”, but look where it got her!
Applejack came up and bumped her on the shoulder. “I knew you had the hustle to catch ‘em at the top! We should stick to ‘em like a cutie mark on the downhill and make our move when we get to the Greyhart River.”
“What? Why don’t we just make our move right n—”
Gravel skittered beneath her front hoof before she could finish speaking, and her leg shot toward the heavens as the rest of her tumbled forward. Just before the road could give her face the peel to end all exfoliations, however, somepony bit down on her tail and hauled. She slid to a stop just inches from a drop large enough to dwarf Ponyville Town Hall. It all happened so quickly that she didn’t even have the time to squeak.
“Speed don’t matter if you fall off the course,” Applejack snapped, spitting Rarity’s tail out of her mouth. The sudden fury in the earth pony’s eyes could have reflected a lightning bolt in a cyclone. “Gettin’ down in one piece is the goal here, Miss Fancy Pants!” Applejack’s voice softened as she turned to go. “And try and stay on the road this time? I don’t want you gettin’ hurt.”
One last look over what could have been her last step, and the heat drained away from Rarity’s face. As always, Applejack was being the sensible pony. “Well,” the unicorn sniffed as the two started down the road again, “You don’t think it’s possible that somepony just... tripped back there, and that Miss Lemon was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
Applejack shook her head. “Cheaters are like wax apples. The whole point’s for them to present themselves all nice and pretty, but they’re still fakes when you bite into ‘em. Why on earth would you even think Lemon Tart wasn’t cheatin’?”
Rarity recalled the look that mare—Lisbon, if she remembered correctly—had given her back at the top of the hill: the way her head dipped, the way those orange eyes grew huge and her pupils small when her sister called. That meant something. Sweetie Belle was calamity wrapped in the shape of a pony at times, but she never stopped looking up to her big sister.
“I’m just saying we should give them the benefit of the doubt for now,” she offered. “Innocent until proven guilty. That sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh. Can we get back to racin’ now?”
Rarity rolled her eyes. The explanation was there inside her head, and she knew it was inside the earth pony’s, too. The Lemons had some family issues to work out, and if there ever was a pony who knew how to solve domestic problems, it was the stubborn orange mare galloping in front of her.
***
They heard the river before they saw it: thunderous and swollen like a stampede of desert buffalo. The sun had crossed its zenith in the sky, yet further upstream Rarity could see the water did not shine in the light but churned and boiled with dull, gray silt.
“I hope the bridge is still there,” Applejack said. “There was that flood upriver last week—I don’t think folks up there’d ever seen something that bad!”
Rarity had nothing to say to that. She kept her eyes where Lemon Tart’s family had pulled ahead of the peloton by a considerable margin. A hairpin some ways off curved beneath the edge of the bluff overlooking the Greyhart River, and Lemon Tart was the first pony through the corner.
“Ain’t that just like her, pushing her brother and sister like that,” Applejack continued. “Mark me, she’s gonna run ‘em into the ground by the next hill.”
“Goodness,” said Rarity. “Where have I heard that before?”
“We’re pacing ourselves,” said Applejack as she watched the rest of the pack turn into the hairpin. “There’s the differen—”
The road heaved beneath their hooves without warning, like sompony was pulling out the carpet from under them. Rarity heard noises cannon fire and the tumble of loose boulders, followed by a forest-shaking splash. The look on her face matched Applejack’s as they glanced at each other—open-mouthed confusion—and they hurried to catch up to the pack.
They didn’t get far. The moment they rounded the bend, Rarity’s horn was pointing straight at another pony’s rump. She slid to a stop within a whisper of visiting pointed ruination on the unwitting mare, and the seamstress withdrew before the other could notice what had almost come upon her.
The pack had stopped in the middle of the road, and most of the ponies were either murmuring among themselves or pointing further along the way. A substantial number of pegasi flapped about in the air, some of them with other ponies in their hooves.
Rarity didn’t take long to figure out what the problem was. She craned her neck and saw the road a hundred feet ahead as it descended toward the riverbank. The hundred feet of road in between, on the other hoof, would have been like a bouncer who didn’t understand that his job allowed some ponies to pass—except there was no road to speak of. The Greyhart River thrashed and whirled in the newly-made gap.
“What happened here?” asked Rarity.
“Are you blind?” A stranded unicorn jabbed her hoof forward. “The road’s collapsed!”
“Oh my, I must have missed that little detail—” Rarity ground a hoof into her forehead. Barbarians were free to act as they pleased, but she was a lady and she would continue to speak like one no matter how dire the circumstance. Ladyship, however, had no laws against scowling at those who deserved it. “I mean—how did this happen?”
“Do you even have to ask?” Applejack yanked Rarity’s head further downriver.
A stone bridge spanned the river some hundred yards off, its breadth just sufficient for two carts to trade splinters if they tried to pass each other. The top of it could not have been more than a couple of inches above the water, and the current surged over it in several places.
Three moving shapes in the middle of the bridge caught Rarity’s eye, which she had no trouble recognizing as the Lemon siblings. Their closest competition, all pegasi, were even further behind than before.
“Still feel like defendin’ those no-good nellies?” Applejack demanded while jumping down to the rubble. “You can’t tell me Lemon Tart had nothin’ to do with this.”
“You honestly think they demolished the road?” demanded Rarity.
“My brother can tow a barn if he sets his mind to it, and that hulk over there’s on his level at least. C’mon, we’ve got to get to the bridge!”
“And how do you propose to do that if you’re not a pegasus? Hm?” She suddenly wished she had Rainbow Dash with her. “Teleporting’s against the rules, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“Then do this! ‘Scuse me, pardon, comin’ through, beg pardon...”
“Applejack! What are you—” The nerve of that pony, walking away from her like that! What did she hope to accomplish by wading her way to the front of the pack? Why, if she didn’t know Applejack any better, she would have said that the farmpony was gonna jump for it—
“Oh Celestia!”
Rarity caught a glimpse of a stetson and orange haunches launch above the other ponies. Instinct took over from there—she hardly felt herself shoving pony after pony out of the way while she clawed her way up front. Her own voice sounded distant to her: “Move aside! Out of my way!” Celestia smiled upon her as she burst onto the very edge of the road, tottered for a terrifying moment, then stabilized.
She saw nothing but rubble sloughing off into the river.
“Over there!”
Rarity followed where the earth pony beside her was pointing. Broken roots as thick as a pony protruded from the exposed bluff. An orange mare used them as stepping stones, bounding over them one after the other with gazelle-like grace.
“Applejack!” Rarity called once the farmer touched down on the other side of the gap. The gall—! She’d have to see a dentist if she kept grinding her teeth like this all race.
“Your turn, Rarity!” Applejack yelled back. “I’m no good over here if you don’t finish the race with me!”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to try that!”
“Then stop stallin’ and find another way to get your purty lil’ rear over here!”
“Ugh! You—you—!” Her voice dropped to a dark mutter. “Talk to me like that, will you? Very well, then.” She looked next to her and saw opportunity right away—a tall, silver-coated pegasus, and a stallion, to boot.
“My good sir...” Rarity sidled up against her mark and ran a hoof along his neck line. “I was wondering if a stallion as strong and handsome as you would—”
“Get lost, toots!” The stallion unleashed one of the most atrocious Broncox accents the fashionista had ever heard upon her. “It’s my teammates and no one else!” He swept up a green earth pony in his hooves and kicked off across the gap.
“Calabash! Cretin! Crustacean! How dare you speak to a lady like that?” Rarity shook her hoof after the hooligan, but he gave no indication of having heard her. “And how dare you ignore me, you—!”
“Rarity—!”
“I know, Applejack! Give me a moment here.” Scanning over the rest of the pack, Rarity found nothing but frowns and shaking heads from the rest of the pegasi on her side of the gap. They had no idea how powerful an enemy she could be. But, she had to put the issue to rest for the moment. She looked down at the river once again, struck by a sudden hunch not unlike the ones that came about from the spell she’d created to find gems for her apparel.
A hunch? Now was hardly the time to expect a thirteen-thousand carat diamond to come to her rescue then—but she did notice the roots of what looked to be a sizeable tree sticking out from the river. She glanced up to estimate the distance of the gap versus the probable height of the tree. With luck...
“I need all unicorns in attendance front and center immediately,” she barked. “Every other pony, stand back and give us room. We’re going to lift that tree out of the river and make us a bridge.”
“Are you kidding?” piped up a unicorn Rarity recognized as the one she’d nearly impaled moments earlier. “We can’t possibly lift that thing up here!”
Rarity stomped over and pressed her forehead against the dissident so hard that she would undoubtedly feel the dimple in her personal space for weeks afterward. “There was once a time when unicorns lifted the sun on a daily basis!” she snarled. “I’ve heard nothing but ponies being nasty and unhelpful to each other all morning, and I don’t want to hear any more complaining from this moment on. Not from you, or any other pony here. Understand?”
Squeaking in terror, the pinned unicorn nodded.
“Help me lift this tree.”
A line of unicorns scrambled to the road’s edge. Standing in the middle of them, Rarity pointed out the tree they were to raise from the river and cried, “All right, on three! One!”
Hooves dug into the ground.
“Two!”
Beads of sweat gathered on Rarity’s brow.
“Three!”
Perhaps she needed to consider a side career in motivational speaking. Either the tree hadn’t caught itself under anything when it tumbled into the river, or else her little tirade had inspired the ponies working with her on the line. But the bridge-to-be shot out of the water almost like a torpedo, wreathed as it was in a rainbow of unicorn auras. It turned over in the air, water gushing out of its foliage, before it crashed down to span the gap in the road.
“Whoa-a-ah!” Rarity dug her hooves into the road as her hold on the tree fizzled—one whole side of it teetered over nothing but air. This wasn’t good. In the corner of her eye, those she’d recruited to help her bucked and bit with the rest of the pack as they all tried to clamber on the tree at once. Rarity’s horn flared alone, and she slammed the tree against the bluff as hard as she could manage.
Brutes. Here she was, channeling the spell preventing them from an untimely swim in the river on her own, and they couldn’t at least give her a “thank you” for her troubles?
“Heeeeads up, y’all!”
“Whaaa!” “Ouch!” “Hey!” Every exclamation followed a smacking sound like a pony tackling other ponies—which, when Rarity looked up, was what was happening. Applejack’s hat bounced up and down as she charged up the tree, launching stallions and mares alike straight into the air.
“C’mon, sugarcube!” Without so much as a by-your-leave, Applejack slammed onto the ground behind Rarity and pushed up against her rump.
“I’m up, I’m up!” Rarity cried. No words—no words to describe her violation, her burning indignation! Applejack might as well have suggested green was a good color for her mane or dropped in on her while meeting with important Canterlot clients—oh! Rarity found her second wind chasing that harlequin down the tree either because that mare’s will-do spirit had rubbed off on her, or so she could wring that country bumpkin neck like a rag the moment she could get her hooves around her.
However lost in her haze of rage as she was, though, she couldn’t miss the sudden tremor shooting beneath her hooves for the second time. She heard the terrible clash of rock on rock, the scrape of something massive against the bluff, and another titanic splash.
“Don’t tell me that was...” Rarity shut her eyes for a moment as dread pooled inside her. She knew what she’d find if she looked behind her. Whatever she did, no matter how tempting it was to look, she had to refrai—
Banish it, she looked.
Though everypony who’d needed it had crossed it by then, the tree had plunged back into the river with its roots pointed downstream, the ledges it once rested upon carved off by the unrelenting water. With the current sweeping it along like it was a feather brush, Rarity couldn’t help but see it more like a battering ram.
“Double time, Rarity!” Applejack hollered.
“It’s gaining on us!”
“Then run!”
Rarity tried. The slope of the road, the wind whipping past her ears, her stomach floating against her spine as her momentum continued to build—her hooves flashing over the ground as she struggled to keep them under her body—and all the while, the tree sliding in from the edge of her vision... she couldn’t do it. The roar of the river went quiet. Her lungs seized in place, trapping her heart against her ribs. Everything gained bright, sharp outlines, everything fell into focus—she saw everything.
Applejack tucked into the turn feeding into the bridge and slid sideways, prompting her to do the same. Every bump of her hooves on the road kicked up little puffs of dust in which she picked out individual grains as they floated across her eyes. Coiling her legs, she pushed off the ground and forged ahead, even as darkness filled one side of her vision.
“Jump!”
A sonic wave passed through her body without her hearing it, and gray shapes buckled and melted away before her. In the air, a storm of leaves and branches brushed against her hind legs. They found more of her—her flank was covered in an instant, and more of them raced up her neck, her cheek—
And then the leaves vanished, a flooded bridge snapped back into place in the center of her eyes. Her hooves touched solid stone.
“Rarity!”
The unicorn blinked. There was Applejack galloping at her side with the most unbecoming grin plastered on her face. Rarity shook her head, feeling some lingering blurriness in the corners of her mind. When she looked ahead for the end of the bridge, she saw nothing but forest before her—the Greyhart River tumbled behind her by several yards and counting.
“A-Applejack?” Rarity’s jaw bobbled as she dug for the words she wanted to say. The farmpony spared her the hassle.
“You should’ve seen yourself back there!” Applejack whooped. “I was terrified either you or me was gonna trip up somethin’ fierce on the way down—I can’t even believe how fast you were haulin’, missy! That tree o’ yours hit the bridge as soon as I got on it, and the jump you made for it right afterwards—! I want you in the next rodeo that comes to town!”
Something flopped onto Rarity’s head—the top edge of her sight went dark and she sniffed a hint of sweat. “Eeek! What in Equestriaaaa—”
Hat.
She was wearing Applejack’s hat, she realized. Next to her, Applejack flashed her a wink. “Not bad,” she said. “I reckon you’d knock the regulars dead with that look.”
“I never!” Try as she might, Rarity couldn’t summon any vitriol into her voice. She was far from tired—on the contrary, even after the river crossing, she’d never felt this way since the day she’d spent flying around Cloudsdale after Twilight bestowed her a pair of temporary wings. The corners of her mouth tugged upward. “It’s sweaty and sure to damage my beautiful coiffure—but I suppose I can wear it for a while if it’s getting heavy.”
“I guess I’ll have to take that!” said Applejack, following the road as it curved to the right. “Ready to make up for lost time?”
***
Curving like a dragon’s back against the early afternoon sky, Autumnpale Ridge never once ducked out of Rarity’s sight as the Equestrian Way lead her through Whitetail Wood. The miles passed in moments, it seemed. Applejack was much more pleasant to run with when all she concerned herself with was running—she’d tell Rarity to watch as she charged along the side of a curving berm with her legs parallel to the ground, and logs along the edges of the road turned into springboards for aerial spins and flips. Her rodeo-honed athleticism played second fiddle to nopony Rarity had ever met. She tried one of Applejack’s stunts for herself—Applejack told her to stand on the far end of a fallen trunk, and the air she’d achieved when her friend pounced on the other end carried her over a creek by a good several yards.
Her elevated mood couldn’t last for long, however. Much to her surprise, she and Applejack were passing ponies well before they reached the foot of Whitetail Wood’s second grade hill climb. Many of them were pacing themselves for the steeper slope ahead, their heads held high and level, but the others—panting, dripping with sweat, crawling in one case, even... Rarity had no delusions regarding her stamina. She was running on adrenaline and an uncluttered mind, but not even Twilight’s conditioning anticipated she’d be fishing trees out of rivers and holding them up. Like the Autumnpale Ridge, Rarity’s wall was there in the distance—only she couldn’t know exactly how far off the latter lay in wait for her.
Celestia willing, it stood somewhere around the finish line—preferably well behind it.
“Ready for the climb, partner?” Applejack tilted her head at the orange-and-purple banner marking the start of the climb. The sweat on her brow kept her forelock pasted on her head, but she still managed to flash her friend a conspiratorial grin.
“I can only hope so, darling.”
They passed beneath the banner, though its presence there was more ceremonial than functional. Rarity knew the climb had begun when the road turned from paved stone to a wooden walkway and bucked upward like an enraged bronco. The change of pitch certainly felt like a kick to the ribs, and her legs faltered for the first few strides. She kept them pumping and pumping even as her shoulders and haunches threatened to cramp. The clatter of her hooves on the boards matched only by the pounding in her ears.
Springpost Hill had been far from a prance through the daisies. If this was the start of a “grade two” climb and she was feeling this way—in her mind, her wall advanced several miles forward, doing whatever passed for the wall equivalent of mad cackling.
Focus, Rarity, she told herself. Take in the sights, get back in the zone. Remember why you’re here. Here the pitch of the road worked to her advantage as it drew her gaze skyward—
Rarity never stopped dreaming of rising into the upper echelons of Canterlot society. If her continued correspondence with Fancypants was anything to go by, her dreams had yet to fail her. And yet she emerged from such humble origins. The daughter of a stay-at-home mother and a hoofball coach on the outskirts of Ponyville, there had been a time when she’d been perfectly happy playing in the forests west of town. She’d stick wild blossoms in her mane and weave skirts out of the leaves because she was the Jungle Queen of Shadowblossom, and she’d paint her cheeks red and charge through the woods waving sticks and hollering at the top of her little filly lungs, her brave warrior-princesses at her side...
“Hey, Rarity?” Applejack was looking up at the incoming climb with a distant smile on her face. “I don’t know if you happen to remember this or anythin’, but—”
“Oh, yes, ‘Wild Apple’. You bet I remember.”
The spark in Applejack’s green eyes flared like a bonfire. Then she threw her head back and unleashed a howl of war that echoed all the way back to the years of their shared fillyhood: “Ay-yiyiyiyiyiyiyi!”
Had they not been busy running at that moment, Rarity would have hugged Applejack and never let go. Back in his school days, Big Macintosh had spent a season on her father’s hoofball squad, and the colt’s apple-butted little sister often found herself at the unicorn’s place while the team practiced out back. Rarity had earned her cutie mark by that time too, but that didn’t stop her from inviting the other filly into the woods to play.
The forest of those fillyhood days had since vanished in the name of development (clearing the space that would later become the grounds of her Carousel Boutique), but Rarity would never forget the treehouses she and her friends had built in there once upon a time. And, here at Autumnpale Ridge, those memories were returning to her. The ponies stationed at the former outpost had lived in airy, spiraling towers hollowed out of the trees. Sturdy, curving walkways connected these towers together in the light of bright, bough-hung lanterns in every color of the rainbow, and flowering vines ran all up the towers’ exteriors. The pennants indicating the top of the climb were nowhere to be found, presumably residing somewhere on the hill above the foliage.
“Stars, Rarity,” said Applejack. “Why’d you have to get so up and fussy ‘bout your own appearance and stuff? You were perfectly happy gettin’ into worse messes alone than Apple Bloom does with her friends.”
“I...” The words were there, loaded in her lungs and ready to fire for the hundredth time in the name of presentability and etiquette. Pulling that trigger came to her secondhoof, like sewing two backstitches at once, and she would have pulled it then—and then she imagined she caught a glimpse of her filly self peeking out at her from one of the towers. Little Rarity scampered when Older Rarity took a second look, of course.
The fashionista chuckled. If only she’d known about this place sooner—what would have been different? She saw Little Rarity standing at the edge of this forest fantasy world, her jaw slack and her huge blue eyes wide with wonder...
“What do y’think we’ll find at the top, Shadeflower?” somepony broke in, bumping into her side and out of her reverie.
Shadeflower. What a ridiculous name, a child’s name—the only name she could have used back then. “I dunno, Wild Apple!” Fillyhood exuberance and malapropisms rushed back to the forefront of her mind. “Maybe the Princess is in trouble, and we’re gonna go rescue them!”
“But we rescued Princess Celestia last week!” Wild Apple protested, her green eyes flashing with mischief. “We’re royalty too, y’all know! She doesn’t rule over us!”
Shadeflower shook her head as any jungle queen would when declining a suggestion from her war council. “That doesn’t matter,” she squeaked. “If Princess Celestia’s in danger, then the sun doesn’t rise for the entire world! And that includes the Jungle of Shadowblossom, too!”
“How do you even know if the Princess is in trouble, though? It’s not as if we’re hearin’ anypony screamin’ for—”
“Help! Beggin’ your pardon, can you stop for a moment and help?”
The illusion shattered—Shadeflower and Wild Apple were sucked off their hooves and vanished into the past, returning Rarity and Applejack in their place. Grown mares once again, they exchanged looks as if to ask, “did you hear that, too?”, agreed, and hurried further on.
Like Springpost Hill, Autumnpale Ridge slashed its way upward in long chains of switchbacks and spirals. Unlike Springpost Hill, the nearby trees twisted—turned upon themselves, even—as Rarity and Applejack climbed higher. Tall ferns began to grow up at them from the ground, and mosses and vines snaked down from the canopy with increasing frequency. The air congealed around their coats, and their hoofsteps didn’t carry quite as far into the woods as before. As they leaned into a section of walkway wrapping its way up outside a tower, the pleading voice from before returned.
“Only askin’ a minute of your time, sir—no, please don’t go—!”
Rarity frowned. That somepony’s accent flicked her ear in a familiar way. “That can’t be...”
“What’s that, sugarcube?” asked Applejack.
“I don’t know if you’re going to like this,” said Rarity as she reached the top of the tower. A plank and rope bridge bowed across the next gap, feeding into a blind corner, and she all but forgot herself as she charged across its length. She turned the corner—
“Please, could y’all stop an—oh, I’m sorry.”
“Lisbon?” Rarity skidded to a stop.
The chocolate-colored mare looked away and motioned Rarity to pass by. She was alone. “I-it’s fine, Miss Rarity. I wouldn’t want to hold you up. Go.”
Rarity raised a brow. “Lisbon, darling—” She put her hoof on the mare’s shoulder. “What happened?”
“Never you mind her type,” Applejack cut in, swatting Rarity’s hoof away. “It ain’t our business to fall into some kinda trap.”
“W-we’re not cheaters,” stammered Lisbon. If her ears flattened any more than that, she could have swept the walkway with them. “But your friend there’s got a point. I’d rather not inconvenience you—”
Snarling, Rarity hooked her hoof around the lemon farmer’s neck and pulled her in until their eyes were almost touching. “Now you listen here, young lady. Applejack may have some legitimate grievances against you and your kin, and perhaps I am being played for a soft-hearted simpleton. But if I recall correctly, you and your family were here to win this race, and if that’s still the case, lagging behind has got to be one of the strangest ways to go about winning I’ve ever heard of. Now—” She squeezed her foreleg against the base of Lisbon’s skull. “—calmly and thoroughly, tell me what happened. Did it involve your family?”
Lisbon’s spectacles only magnified the tears rippling along her lower eyelids. “How’d you know, Miss Rarity?”
“Haystacks, Rarity, let ‘em look after their own.”
“What else could it be?” asked Rarity, shutting her friend out of her head. “You’re not with them right now. Did they leave you behind?”
Lisbon shook her head and sniffed. “No, ma’am.” Her hoof trembled as she pointed toward the outer edge of the corner, where a set of scuff marks spilling into the air confirmed the mare’s story. “My—my older sister fell off.”
Rarity’s stomach dropped into a horrible hole. Releasing Lisbon, she dashed over to the other side of the path, flopped onto her stomach and peered over the edge. The ground was still some several stories beneath her, but a wide, flat bough jutted into the intervening space beneath a partial screen of leaves and vines. She didn’t have to look around for long. Something shifted on the bough below—something the color of road dust.
“Lisbon?” The voice’s owner let out a hacking cough. “Lisbon? You still there?”
“I’m right here!” Lisbon blurted, scrambling over to join Rarity.
“You willy-willow!” Lemon Tart’s strident abuse had no trouble carrying through the thickening forest air. “I though’ I told you and Meyer to keep headin’ toward the finish line! Where’s he now?”
“He’s headin’ there now, sis,” Lisbon called back.
“Now why by Celestia’s holy hair is Meyer the one with the brains? I took you for the smart one!” The lemon farmer groaned as she crawled over to a gap in the foliage where she could glare at her sister more easily. It didn’t take her long to realize Lisbon wasn’t alone. “What in Tartarus is the fancy mule doin’ here?”
A vein twitched in Rarity’s temple. “Isn’t that charming of you?” she fired back.
“I think I’ve heard enough!”
Strong jaws clamped down on Rarity’s tail and dragged her back from the edge like she was a bale of hay. “Hey!”
“Rarity—” Applejack clamped her cheeks between her hooves and gave her such a colossal stink eye that all she wanted to do at that moment was take a long, three-bathtub soak. “—I understand you’re of a generous persuasion, but you can’t let that turn your head all mushy, hear? You’ve no obligation to help those who don’t want your help. Fer cryin’ out loud, ponies like her’d sooner take another shot to the jaw if you lay ‘em out rather than accept a stranger’s kindness. Their pride won’t let ‘em do that.”
“Pride?” Rarity all but spat the word at her hooves. “I’ll tell you something about pride—!”
“It’s fine.”
A hoof touched down on Rarity’s shoulder. She turned around to see Lisbon standing there, her head bowed.
“There’s an aid station a mile up the road,” the bespectacled mare continued, pointing up the way. “That’s all I really wanted. If y’all could tell the medics to come get my sister, that’d be enough. Y’all don’t need to trouble y’allselves over us anymore than that.”
Rarity opened her mouth to protest—and closed it again. Of course. In a race as big as this one, ponies were certain to wander out of bounds or hurt themselves. Rarity remembered passing by a few aid stations earlier in the race—obvious, red-and-white striped affairs that wouldn’t have any trouble getting spotted even in a candy-cane and barber pole factory. When she got down to brass tack, alerting the paramedics to do what they were hired to do made more sense than trying to help uncooperative, mule-headed ingrates on her own.
“Understood,” she said, nodding. “Applejack, you’re not going to argue with that, are you?”
The farmpony adjusted her hat. “I reckon we could drop them a word or two. No tellin’ whether or not they’re game for yankin’ a pony outta the Everfree Forest, though.”
Rarity blinked. The twisting trees, the vines, the thickening air... “You can’t be serious?”
“You need to pay more attention to things, girl,” said Applejack, starting up the road once more. “It was there on Twilight’s map this morning. Autumnpale Ridge touches the Everfree Forest. Why else would you think this place used to be an outpost?”
“Ah baa...” Rarity stumbled. She looked over her shoulder at Lemon Tart’s little sister. The way she sat there on the road, her back arched and her head hung low, as if she didn’t know what she’d done wrong despite her genuine best intentions—
“Sweetie Belle.” Her little sister’s name left her lips before she realized it was even there. She turned around, eyes focused on the road ahead. “We’ll have to see what they say,” she said, following after her friend. “And if they refuse—”
Applejack looked back at her, her brows lifted as if to say, “yeah, what?”.
“You won’t be able to stop me from going back there, even if you break my legs.”
“So, are you gonna need those casts now, or later? I reckon you should answer ‘now’, since we’ve got the wrappin’s here and you’ll save yourself a lot of pain for the last few miles.”
Of all the worst possible things the aid station could have done—Rarity almost wished she had her fainting chaise nearby. The front flaps of the tent had been pulled closed, a hoof-written sign strung up between them:
WE WILL RETURN SHORTLY
A large number of reports have closed our station
as our staff are currently escorting injured contestants
from the race course. We apologize for the inconvenience.
“C’mon, Rarity.” Applejack pressed against Rarity’s shoulder as other racers overtook them. “You know this ain’t the worst of news. The paramedics’ll probably find Lemon Tart on their inbound sweep and take her up, too.”
Rarity brushed her friend’s hoof away. “I can’t believe they wouldn’t even leave out a notepad or something for us to write on,” the unicorn ranted. She stuck her head through the flaps. “Is anypony in here?”
“Rarity! There ain’t no staff on hoof here!” Applejack’s hooves hooked over her shoulders and began to yank her back. “Trust ‘em to their job, okay?”
“They should’ve prepared for this!” Rarity screamed. She lashed out with her hind legs—the blade of her hoof barely grazing Applejack’s flank. “Let me go!”
“Only if you’re headed toward the finish line!”
Rarity whirled on her friend. “The finish line? Why’s that so important so suddenly?”
“It’s more like why’s it important you don’t waste your time on a lost cause!” The farmpony slammed her hooves on the walkway hard enough to leave impact craters. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘cept where we need to go!”
“You know well where we need to go, Applejack!” Rarity leveled her horn at her partner’s throat. “I will ask you to move nicely once, and if you do not comply, I will remove you by force.”
“You ain’t gonna bust through that pride o’ Lemon Tart’s, I guarantee ya!”
“That pride thing again, huh?” Rarity dragged her hoof on the walkway, preparing to charge. “You know, I was interrupted before I could make my point earlier.”
“That’s ‘cause your point matters less than a skeeter in a bog.” Applejack advanced upon the unicorn. Every stern hooffall sent tremors up the latter’s legs. “She ain’t gonna break.”
Rarity’s riposte was precise as she advanced in turn. “That’s just the issue, dear. The three of us have had our days with pride. As I recall, it didn’t go very well with two of those ponies, and the third looks like she’s on track for having the same kind of day. You remember what happened with you?”
“I do,” Applejack snorted. “Ain’t important.”
“Well, I recall you spent an entire week trying to harvest every apple on your farm by yourself, and you only managed to clear half of it. You were glad to have our help after that. Then I went off insisting I make us all not one, but two dresses for last year’s Gala, and the things I came up with almost torpedoed my career before it even began!”
“Thanks for openin’ old scars, Rar’.” Muzzles collided and pushed against each other. “Mighty generous o’ you, ain’t it?”
Rarity’s face flushed with open rage. “More like telling the truth, darling! Sometimes we have to swallow our pride, and she’s going to do that right now and accept our help.”
“Not a chance! We’re marchin’ to that finish line and settlin’ this once and for all!” Applejack dug her hooves in and pushed.
“Is that what this is all about, then?” Rarity’s hooves slipped backward over the wood despite her greatest efforts to remain in place. Applejack had the lower center of gravity. If she was going to prevail, it had to be—! “Is this about beating those rivals of yours?”
“That’s exactly what it’s all about!” Applejack dislodged Rarity from her stand and was now forcing her backward at will. “We need to beat those cheaters once and for all to show them that deceit and dishonesty will never work! We need to win!”
Applejack’s final words echoed through the trees, and everything stopped. The leaves stopped, Rarity stopped, the forest light crystallized around them. She had cast no spells, nor had she done anything to prepare this moment ahead of time. She had laid one trap and one trap only, acquired in desperation—
The farmpony’s eyes drifted off toward the horizon, and her jaw descended by shades over the next several moments. Then her face hardened, and she spat to the side. She knew what she’d said.
“Applejack.” Rarity tipped her hoof under her friend’s chin with a relieved smile. “Perhaps you need to pay more attention in the morning, too. You sounded just like Rainbow Dash for a moment. Think a minute on what that poor pony behind us needs now.”
Applejacks’ reply was slow to come, even as more ponies passed them by on the walkway. “I messed up, didn’t I?” She wouldn’t look Rarity in the eye.
“Don’t we all?” With a gentle hoof, the unicorn turned Applejack back down the path. “I don’t expect you to forgive Lemon Tart for her atrocious manners or whatever underhoofed gambits she pulled at some brew competition. All I know is that I see a family in trouble, and I know firsthoof how good you are for getting families out of their troubles.”
***
“You made it!”
Pow!
“Whuh-huh!”
Pinkie Pie blinked. There was nothing else in her life like inhaling the fumes of a freshly-fired party cannon, and she made a point of savoring the smell of every shot. The papery confetti, the bitter notes of balloon rubber—they were there, all right, but the air had also acquired another aroma with this last volley. An aroma like—atomized cake? And there’d been that splattering sound, too. That wasn’t normal.
Just a few yards beyond her finish-line fortification, a pair of cake ponies stared at her with confusion in their eyes—“Oh, wherefore should we be cake, fair Pinkie Pie?” she thought she heard them say. “Wherefore? Wherefor-r-r-e?”
All right—she knew real ponies lay beneath the globs of vanilla sponge cake, butter frosting, and glazed berries. She just didn’t want to admit that she’d loaded the cannon with the wrong kind of round by accident—again. Plus, cake ponies were a lot more fun to think about than real ponies, and science would back her up on that someday.
“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight Sparkle leveled a pointed glare at her friend as she trotted out with a pair of floating terry towels. “I apologize, ladies,” she said, wiping the pastry-puffed ponies down with a flurry of quick, efficient strokes. “Congratulations on a good race.”
The two mares—both pegasi—stormed off toward the timekeepers’ table for their results.
As soon as they were no longer paying attention, Twilight stormed over to Pinkie Pie with one of the frumpiest scowls the earth pony had ever seen. Fortunately, she knew how to deal annoyed customers: unrelenting, up-tempo perkiness.
“Hi, Twilight! Wow, that was really nice of you to help those ponies clean off all that cake. I hope they enjoyed it, though. I mean, how it tasted. I’m sure they got to taste some of it. See, I baked super-special ‘Congratulations For Finishing The Race’ cakes to last us through the week, but I guess I could always whip up some more as we go along. Do you think you could get me into the airship galleys later? I’d also like to bake those ponies a ‘Sorry I Blasted Your Faces With Cake’ cake just so they don’t feel left out, you kno-hmm? Imm gmm hmm gm mm mmm mmm mm mm...”
She hardly noticed her lips had turned into a sealed zipper by that point until Twilight spoke over her. “Pinkie—”
“Mmmm?”
Twilight groaned. “Listen. You’re doing this for Applejack and Rarity once they get here, right?”
“Mm-ggmm!”
“Just nod or shake your head. Thing is, Pinkie, you’ve also been doing it to ponies you keep thinking are Applejack and Rarity but aren’t—and you’ve been at this all afternoon.”
Pinkie Pie’s mane hovered in place while her head bobbed up and down, like a woodpecker, even making the noises woodpeckers made when they pecked on trees. Woodpeckers sure made funny noises. Ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka—
“I’m gonna make this clear, Pinkie,” Twilight growled, sliding her hoof under her friend’s chin. “I had two organizers come up to me earlier—big, unpleasant stallions—and they were threatening to disqualify us from the rest of the race if I didn't stop my team from assaulting our fellow competitors like this.”
“Hey, wait a second! I thought I was the team leader here!”
Twilight glanced up at the colorful pegasus perched on a small cloud just a few feet away. “Rainbow Dash, I was the one who filled out the registration paperwork for everypony, figured out who was racing with who for each phase, and, lest you forget, helped everypony get themselves in shape before today. What have you done to lead the team?”
Rainbow made a swatting motion with her hoof. “I delegated those duties to you ‘cause that’s what leaders do. Duh.”
“Ugh.” The unicorn turned back to Pinkie. “As I was saying—”
Pinkie unzipped her lips as she spotted something behind Twilight’s shoulder. “Hold onto that thought for a moment, would you? You might want not wanna be in front of the party cannon in a second."
“Pinkie, I—!”
Plucking one of her signature Pinkie Pie party shells out of her saddlebags, she swung the back end of her cannon open and stuffed the round inside in one fluid sweep. Slapping the cannon closed, she squatted behind her sights to line up her next shot.
Lock on! “You made it!”
Pow!
“Uwagh!” Twilight dove out of the way just as a blast of glitter and balloons exploded out of the barrel.
The party shell’s celebratory contents settled on two ponies Pinkie Pie recognized and two she didn’t, though she reckoned the latter would sort itself out soon. “Hey, Applejack! Hey, Rarity!” She bounded over to her friends just as they crossed the finish line. “Boy, you sure took your time getting here. But hey, at least you brought some new friends!”
Before she could say anything else, however, a swift rainbow contrail rushed between her and the arrivals, resolving into the crouched form of a Rainbow Dash on a short fuse. “For Pete’s sake, Applebutt! What took you so long?” Her rose-tinted eyes flashed over to the tall denim-collared mare hanging onto the necks of Rarity and the stocky mare she didn’t know.
The former’s head hung low, her mane was tangled and full of leaves, and her back leg was wrapped up in some yellow fabric Pinkie knew she’d seen from earlier. When she’d started the day, Rarity’d been wearing some kind of exercise outfit—she wasn’t wearing it anymore. Dirty smudges covered most of her white coat.
They must’ve had a huge adventure out there!
“And could you explain why in Equestria you’re dragging these two along with you?”
“It’s a long story, Rainbow,” Applejack replied, her country twang breathy and faint. “You’ll have to ask Rarity, though—I still have no clue what that filly was thinking on the Ridge.”
“What?” Rainbow whirled on the unicorn in a blaze of color. “You brought them here? Why?”
Rarity impaled the pegasus with a glare so intense that, for a moment, Pinkie felt her own blood catch fire. To say Rarity had caught Rainbow off guard was understating the issue a little—she was more using a moon laser to vaporize a parasprite.
“You should be asking why would I feel compelled to help others who’ve clearly been hurt without anypony around to help them.” Hey eyes shifted for the briefest of moments to the apple farmer by her side, who simply pulled her hat lower over her eyes.
“Yes,” Rarity continued, “I stopped because this mare needed my help. I was able to provide it. That’s all you need to know for now, young lady. We can discuss this once we are on board the airship for Brindlebrook Village, but for now, you will let this matter rest.”
A hoof, chipped around the edges and scuffed over with dirt, darted around the back of Rainbow’s neck and hauled her in. “Applejack and I have had a very. Long. Day. Do not make it longer.”
Rainbow swallowed. She couldn’t nod her head fast enough.
“Thank you.” Rarity allowed the pegasus to totter off toward the airship before turning to her guests. “I apologize, dears. Rainbow Dash is quite the competitive pony.”
The stocky mare emitted a quiet giggle. “There’s a lot of ‘em ‘round these parts, ain’t there?”
“So it seems,” said Rarity, casting another glance at Applejack. “Lisbon, darling, it’s been fabulous getting to know you on the way over here. If you ever need another pony to talk to, please feel free to come see us. We’ll all be happy to have you.”
“Uh-huh! Would you like a cupcake?” Pinkie all but pounced on her cue, zipping over to her saddlebags and returning with a chocolate-frosted special with coconut shavings and crumbled toffee. The other mare all but jumped out of her coat at Pinkie’s random act of friendship.
“Let her be, Pinkie,” said Rarity, pushing her cupcake away from Lisbon’s face. “She’ll take you up on that later.”
“Okie dokie!” Chomp. The cupcake vanished inside Pinkie’s mouth in a surge of gooey, chocolatey bliss. “Mmmmm...”
“It’s really nice of y’all to offer,” Lisbon added, looking between Pinkie and her friends with a tired smile. “I think it’s best that Lemon and I go off and look for Meyer, though. We’ve got some family things to talk about.”
“Very well,” Rarity replied. She unslung the taller mare’s foreleg off of her neck and helped Lisbon keep her steady and upright. “There we go—oh, oh—all right, we’re good. You should probably take her to the aid station to have her looked at. I think she’d like a proper bandage around that tendon instead of strips from my clothes.”
With her bigger sister secured, Lisbon nodded at the unicorn. “Thank you, Miss Rarity.” She looked over at Applejack, too. “Thank you too, Miss Applejack. For givin’ my sister an’ me a chance to make it out here. We won’t forget y’alls kindness.”
The apple farmer glanced at her from the corner of her eye, then tilted her head the slightest of fractions.
Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but sigh as she watched Lisbon and Lemon disappear into the herd of milling ponies beyond the finish line. Still, she had Applejack and Rarity with her, and she took what she could get every time. She bounced over to them and drew them up into a big hug along with Twilight, who joined moments later. No matter how a pony’s day went, anytime, anywhere, it always got better with a hug.
“What was that all about?”Twilight asked.
“It’s quite the story.” Rarity exhaled a breath she seemed to have been holding for a while. “But I think it worked out. I won’t say Applejack and Lemon Tart there were getting along at the end, but the way they carried on at the start—! And as for Lisbon there...” The unicorn paused for a cultured chuckle.
“Yes? What about her?” Pinkie piped up.
A spark gleamed in Rarity’s eyes. “Did you notice that collar Lemon Tart was wearing earlier? For such crude material, it was actually quite fetching.”
Twilight’s brows furrowed. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Lisbon made it for her sister, the darling,” said Rarity as everypony withdrew from the embrace.
“Tha’s right,” said Applejack. For the first time that afternoon, the corner of her mouth ticked upward. “Turns out Lisbon there wants to go into fashion. Heh. Would you believe the things in this world...? And she’s a fan of Rarity’s, apparently.”
“Wowza!”
“That’s amazing!”
“Yep.” Applejack poked Rarity’s side while she wasn’t paying attention. “Not too shabby for her and her frou-frou profession.”
“Hey!” Rarity’s objection was swift and decisive: she tipped the earth pony on the ground.
“You’re just full of surprises today, ain’t you!” Applejack lapsed into full-throated laughter, and everypony joined in with her soon after.
“You two should head to the airship and get some rest,” said Twilight after the commotion died down. “There’s a full service spa on it and everything, Rarity. Massages, pedicures, hot baths—you’ll love i—Rarity?” The lavender unicorn blinked at the puff of dust where her friend had stood a moment earlier. She sighed. Motioning Applejack after her, they set off for the airship as well, but not before Applejack held up her hoof.
Turning to face Pinkie, Applejack said, “I said it back in Ponyville and I’ll say it again. Best o’ luck with you and Fluttershy tonight. Try and get through Blackhoof Bayou as fast as you can, though. I’m runnin’ with Rainbow in my next race and I’m never gonna hear the end of it if the team’s in the back of the pack.”
Pinkie Pie saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”
Satisfied, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle departed, leaving Pinkie to pack up her party cannon and do the same. This was becoming one of the best days ever! Meeting new ponies all afternoon, seeing her friends crossing the finish line even if they’d done so dead last, hugs! And she still had her race with Fluttershy that evening—bring it on, she thought, stuffing her cannon into her saddlebags with a grin. Bring it all on!
“Pinkamena? Pinkameeena?”
Pinkie’s ears twitched. It’d been months since she’d last heard that voice. “Inkie?” She slung her bags over her back and dove into the throng of ponies. “Inkie? Where are you?”
“Over here!”
Pinkie all but butted two ponies into the air as she reached the base of the airship gangplank. A young gray mare with a darker straight-cut mane over one side of her face spotted her there, her amethyst eyes wide with panic. She rushed over to Pinkie and hugged her tight.
“Inkie?” Pinkie stroked her younger sister’s mane in an attempt to calm her down. “What are you doing out here?”
“I came to find you,” Inkie blurted into her coat. “You’re the only one who can help us right now!”
Pinkie held her sister out in front of her. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a second. Is something wrong?”
“Y—yes!” Inkie stepped back and wiped her muzzle on her hoof. “It’s about Papa! He—he’s at home. And he’s fallen terribly ill!”
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1: How did part of this chapter end up on WTF Pony fanfiction before it was posted?
2: Is thee going to be enough time for all 15 possible pairings of 2 out of 6 mane 6 ponies to race together or are you being more selective?
3: This is really really awesome.
359115
1. ponyshrug.gif
2. I'm not going to put all 15 pairings in races together -- that would be suicide! I do plan on having shorter interludes between the races so that I can at least touch on those pairs. Stories change, however. We'll see what happens. XD
3. Thank you <3 Asking folks to swallow 12,000 words at a time is definitely a lot to ask, haha. dA gets pissed off at me for trying to upload them. X)
359399
DA has quickly risen to my least favorite site for reading fiction.
Steeplechase - Valient Thorr
Very good fic thus far.
Long adventure fic? This is so right up my alley you might as well buy a house there--I've really enjoyed what I've read thus far, and I certainly don't mind the long chapters-- definitely tracking this one.
383583
Replying 'cause you seem to love using dashes as much as I do--but also to thank you for your support, too XD
And to everyone else who's read this little offering, thank you! I know there's a lot of fic out there these days, so I'm always humbled to think folks actually spend time reading mine!
385522
Anytime! And yes, a lot of the proof-reading I do to my writing involves me trying to curb my unhealthy obsession with dashes... [/wrist]
"and the latter, friend to all living things and scared of even more"
oh man, that's gold.
You're doing a great job with Applejack's dialogue, too. One of the harder things for myself. On a broader sense, working actively with all six mane cast at once is always tricky. The show gives them very strong personalities and presences in conversations, and even the writers in canon tend to narrow scenes down to just 2 or 3 active participants among the mane cast. It is a challenge to juggle all six, especially for the extended period you are aiming for here.
Chapter two, and we have best pony called a mule by the competition. A mule. Clearly, they must be destroyed. Let me also note that this fic is what can be called a "simile rich environment." It reads beautifully, but I know as an author that it slows you down a bit. It can be hard to maintain that level of detail in your prose.
Rarity's charms crit-fail for once? Broncox ponies play for keeps. Ain't no pretty face gonna change dat. More seriously, you've got some very good interaction here. I had expected you'd do the entire chapter purely from a Rarity and/or Applejack point of view; Pinkie provided a little outsider diversity, and it was a good call. The little bit of backstory we get between Rarity and Applejack was also appreciated, and it helped frame the way they act around and see each other, in general and in the competition.
I'll have to add to my favorites list in FIMfiction. Looks like this membership is going to be handy.
"returning Rarity and applejack in their place" Watch your caps here.
Loving this story. Pitch-perfect A.J. and Rarity, looking forward to seeing your treatment of the others.
This is amazing. I think the best part is that since this is the second fic of yours that I read, I can start pinning down your style! Well, okay, that's a minor lie; the best bit is everything, that's what.
You use the full mane cast, you give them all glorious love and characterization, and you manage to induce tears that I can't even identify the cause of. The thematics and the issues etc., it's all so deliciously show-close and pure on a level that just has me smiling still. When I now use the word "harmless", I mean it as the highest level of praise that I can give on a subjective level.
And, you know, it's well written, expands my vocabulary (peloton? Merriam-webster ho!) and just... I don't know, it comes together so well. Guh. I love the antagonists of the chapter (though I must admit, more detail on their issues wouldn't have hurt), I love the way you can have ponies run for over 10k words and not make it boring, and love Rares and AJ's memories.
Thank you for writing this. It's almost enough to make a notorious shipper write normal fics.
Almost.
Awesome stuff! Really liking Lemon and Lisbon too.
*Tries to stop nerding out*
but the newcomer diverged from his counterpart by wearing his sand-colored mane cropped close and his tail docked. How are you defining docked? because from my experience with horses Big Mac *does* have his tail docked. images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb58378/mlp/images/2/2e/Big_McIntosh_onstage_S2E05.png I'd love to hear a differing opinion though.