"Alright, class. Today we'll be talking about vectors, so I hope you all completed your preparatory homework."
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as Twilight Sparkle nodded her head fervently - the only one of the students to do so - and adjusted her glasses. That girl was such an egghead.
As the other students took out their pencils and tried to resign themselves to the prospect of sitting in math class for the next forty-five minutes, Rainbow Dash found herself spinning around in her seat and eyeing the classroom for lack of anything better to do.
There were thirty-three tables in the room, three of which were built for two people to share and the rest of which were ordinary one-person seats. Rainbow waved to Pinkie Pie, who had intentionally nabbed a seat at the very back of the room (probably so she could plan parties and eat cupcakes without anyone else noticing). Rarity and Fluttershy were sitting in adjacent one-person seats a few rows ahead of Pinkie, talking quietly as they waited patiently for class to start.
Rainbow sighed. There was nothing there that she hadn't seen before.
Feeling grouchy, as she always did when forty-five minutes of math was imminent, she slowly turned herself around and slouched in her chair, casually crossing her legs on the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Twilight feverishly checking and double-checking her preparatory homework. Rainbow stifled a snicker as the math teacher eyed Twilight approvingly. She was the class favorite of just about every teacher in Canterlot High, and sat directly in front of the teacher's desk in literally every class. That seat was generally saved for the smartest student, so most of the other kids referred to it as the 'Smart Seat', but Rainbow Dash preferred to call it the 'Nerd Chair'.
A warm body suddenly slipped into the seat next to hers, and Rainbow found herself face-to-face with Applejack. "Sorry Ah'm late," the farm girl greeted her cheerfully with a dazzling grin, her grass-green eyes twinkling from beneath the rim of her trusty Stetson as she gave Rainbow a friendly one-armed hug. "Th' ol' pickup stalled again. Ya know how it is."
Rainbow laughed quite a bit longer than Applejack's statement warranted, trying to disguise the way she shivered with glee whenever Applejack hugged her. "Yeah, sure! I know how it is... heh...". Her voice trailed away. Why was she being so bizarrely loud and cheerful? Real smooth, Rainbow. Real smooth.
Fortunately, Applejack didn't seem to notice her strange behavior. Rainbow sighed in relief as Applejack laid a couple sheets of ruffled notepaper on the table, simultaneously flicking her golden bangs out of her eyes.
She and Applejack had somehow ended up right next to Twilight at the front of the class, sharing one of the three two-person desks in the classroom (one of the other similar desks was occupied by BonBon and Lyra and the last one was occupied by Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, both of whom were established couples). It was no wonder, then, that a whole bunch of dirty rumors regarding Rainbow and Applejack were flying through the school. To Applejack's credit, she either didn't know about them, or didn't care. In her mind, it was perfectly acceptable for best friends to sit together if they liked, and that was that.
As for Rainbow Dash... she mostly just wished that those rumors were true.
Yes, Rainbow was definitely in love with Applejack, and she had been ever since the beginning of high school. They'd become fast friends when they met in kindergarten, and and only been growing closer and closer since, but Rainbow had taken far longer than she should have to realize just how dear Applejack was to her. And it wasn't just her looks, although Rainbow would be the first person to admit that AJ's Southern charm and tomboyish features were insanely hot (actually, maybe she wouldn't be the first to admit it. The whole school knew Applejack was a total looker, and she already had at least twenty guys, not to mention a few girls, hard on her heels). No, it was her attitude, her outlook on life, that was attractive; the way she smiled at Rainbow, the way she hugged her, the way she always had Rainbow's back. She was so honest; so ridiculously nice that it hurt to even look at her smile. She was so optimistic and friendly and bold. She was so humble. And she was stubborn, too. Stubborn as hell. Not to mention insanely clever (even if not many people knew it), stoic and thoughtful, ridiculously athletic, fiercely competitive, overprotective, sarcastic, and both overly cautious and dangerously reckless all at once.
Exactly Rainbow's kind of girl.
If only Rainbow had the courage to tell her.
She sighed unhappily, feeling dejected, and -
Applejack suddenly flicked her with her pencil. "Hey, Dash. Could ya move yore big feet? Ah'm tryin' t' write."
Rainbow shook herself out of her reverie and shot Applejack a sneaky grin. She'd never stop enjoying moments like these, despite the feelings she may have had for her best friend. "Make me."
Applejack's lips curled slyly; she was evidently taking this as a challenge, just as Rainbow had known she would. "Alraght." Her eyes glinting mischievously, she reached out and lightly brushed her hand against the underside of Rainbow's knee.
Rainbow doubled up with laughter and instinctively took her legs off of the desk. "Hey!" she wheezed, still giggling. "You cheated! You didn't say tickling was allowed!"
Applejack shrugged. "Sorry, sugarcube. Ah won fair an' square."
Rainbow was about to deliver an indignant response that may or may not have involved a fair amount of cursing, but was interrupted by a dry cough. "Ahem... Miss Dash?" Their math teacher peered down at her irritably. "Would you care to share the reason for your mirth with the class?"
She opened her mouth to claim responsibility for the incident before Applejack could get in trouble, but was interrupted yet again. "Sorry, sir. It was mah fault. Ah won't let it happen again."
Rainbow stared at her friend in amazement as the teacher accepted this explanation, sighing noisily, and returned to the front of the classroom. Part of her was touched by Applejack's willingness to stand up for a friend. The other part was annoyed that Applejack had stolen the words right out of her mouth.
"Alright, class," the teacher announced, quieting the muffled snickers and whispers of 'Awww, they're so adorable together' that had ensued after Applejack had spoken up. "Time to get started. Can anyone tell me what a vector is...?"
Rainbow Dash barely listened as Twilight, predictably, rattled off the correct answer and the teacher continued his lecture after nodding approvingly. A few random words occasionally assailed her ears - 'vector' and 'scalar' among them - but she neither knew nor cared what they meant.
Her patience reached its limits after no more than a minute, and Rainbow could practically feel her already minimal attention span heave a sad sigh and die out completely. Bored, she allowed herself to stare around the classroom, idly tapping her foot and her pencil in an obnoxiously synchronized beat (which Applejack paid no attention to, much to Rainbow's annoyance, already being far too used to Rainbow's antics). Her eyes settled on Applejack, who was... taking notes?!
Rainbow's eyes widened and she sneaked a closer look. Applejack was staring up at the teacher with rapt attention, occasionally pausing to scribble down notes in her firm but graceful handwriting. Her ruffled blonde bangs fell into her eyes, but she made no move to brush them away, and Rainbow had to resist the temptation to reach out and move them herself.
Dash spun around to glance at Twilight Sparkle, who sat on her left. Twilight and Applejack wore identical expressions of interest. Turning around again, she cracked a smile. Who'd have thought it - AJ was a secret nerd! This warranted some teasing after class.
"Vectors have both magnitude and direction, while scalar quantities possess only magnitude," the teacher droned on, his gaze flat and unwavering. Rainbow groaned quietly, just about ready to tear her hair out. She gave up all hope of understanding the lesson and decided to spend the remainder of class watching Applejack (well, why not? She was frickin' adorable). Currently, the farmer girl's tongue was poking out of her mouth just a little as she wrote down a particularly complicated vector equation in her clear, sure script. Her freckly forehead was scrunched in concentration, and Rainbow suddenly noticed that her hair was still tousled from sleep.
Rainbow smiled with a hint of longing at how adorable she looked, and then nudged her bare leg with her own. Applejack jumped as her concentration was shattered and looked over at Rainbow, misreading the seductive 'Hey, sexy' grin on her face as a 'please-talk-to-me-I've-got-nothing-better-to-do' grin. With a quick smile and a flicker of a wink, she squeezed Rainbow's hand under the table and returned to her work, shifting her booted feet into a more comfortable position. Rainbow felt a thrill of pleasure as Applejack's boots brushed against her sneakers. It was quickly replaced by a feeling of helplessness. How could anyone be so close to you, and yet so far away at the same time?
She groaned and massaged her forehead, sensing an oncoming headache (induced both by mathematics and by her current romantic situation - that is to say, her nonexistent romantic situation). This was going to be a long class.
***
Exactly forty-seven minutes later, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy stood in a huddle near the wall of Canterlot High's circular main atrium, enjoying their few minutes of break before the next class was scheduled to start. Rainbow idly watched hordes of people stroll by her, ranging from first graders to high school seniors, and mused over the fact that this was the probably one of the only schools in the country where you could find such a diverse student population. Although their school was generally referred to as Canterlot High, mainly because highschoolers comprised the greatest part of the student body (well, duh, why else?), it actually taught all grade levels. The school was separated into three buildings, arranged in a three-sided rectangle: highschoolers were in the middle, and the elementary and middle grades were on the left and right respectively. The highschoolers' building was the largest, because it contained a cafeteria that was shared by all of the grade levels as well as the principal's office. The school grounds were split up into three separate areas divided by grade level (much to Rainbow's relief - she didn't want any elementary-school midgets running around and getting in the way of her awesome athletics).
Right now, the group wasn't doing much. Rainbow Dash herself, apart from silently seething about the amount of math homework they had been given, was watching the people in front of her killing themselves as they practically trampled each other trying to get to their next class on time. Pinkie Pie was peering at all of her friends through binoculars - a pointless exercise, as she was no more than two feet away from each of them - but no one bothered questioning it, because Pinkie Pie was Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as she fed her animal friends, snuffling hungrily at her fingers, inside her backpack. She was succeeding, too. That girl could even blend in with a wall the color of Pinkie Pie's hair. Rarity had pulled a piece of fabric out of her purse and was examining it critically, poking it with her perfect fingernails, her sapphire eyes narrowed in concentration. Twilight, naturally, had her nose buried in a book, her shoulders hunched beneath the weight of a backpack that probably contained a horde of fat tomes.
And Applejack... Applejack was watching the proceedings with mild interest, her arms crossed casually over her chest and one of her legs tucked up against the wall. Applejack could probably carry Twilight's backpack as easily as she could pick up a table... Rainbow Dash found herself dreamily imagining that scenario as her eyes traveled over AJ's smooth neck, her prominent collarbones, protruding from beneath the low, rumpled collar of her orange plaid shirt...
No. No, bad Dash. Unstick your eyes, you idiot. Think about something else.
With an effort, Rainbow managed to tear her eyes away and nearly sighed with relief as a conversation topic presented itself to her. She gave Applejack a rough nudge. "So, I didn't know Twilight had a twin, AJ," she teased.
Applejack flushed, knowing exactly what Rainbow was talking about, but reluctant to say so. "Huh?"
"C'mon, tell me! Why the sudden note-taking and stuff? You're turning into another Twilight!"
Twilight frowned, her dark hair hovering over her forehead as she lifted her head and snapped her book shut. "Rainbow, don't be crude. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking notes. In fact, Applejack, I'm very proud of you."
"Uh, thanks," Applejack muttered, blushing further and pulling her hat lower over her eyes, as she always did when someone complimented her.
"But why?" Rainbow pressed impatiently. Pinkie Pie's binoculars suddenly vanished inexplicably and Rarity and Fluttershy halted their respective tasks as all three of them looked up, curious to hear Applejack's answer.
Applejack shifted her feet uneasily, embarrassed by all the attention. "Well... Ah ain't th' smartest out o' y'all, but Ah don't see no harm in doin' my best. 'Sides, Ah'm gonna take over the farm someday, so Ah need to be real good with numbers so's Ah can calculate profits an' all. Y'know?"
Before Rainbow could comment on how boring a reason that was, Twilight tapped AJ's shoulder. "Hey, did you write down everything the professor said about applications of vectors in physics?"
She furrowed her brow. "Uh... most all of it, Ah think. Ah'm pretty shore Ah missed what he said 'bout polar form t' rectangular form conversions, though. Might hafta ask ya fer help on that."
Twilight smiled brightly, pleased that her expertise might be needed. "Of course!"
"I might need some help too, Twilight," Fluttershy murmured in her soft voice, deftly brushing a stray strand of soft pink hair behind her ears. "If you don't mind. I didn't really understand the lesson at all."
"Ditto," Rarity chimed in, barely glancing up from her piece of fabric.
"Yeah, ditto!" Pinkie agreed cheerfully. "Whatever that means! Isn't ditto a color of ink, or something?"
Dash groaned. Not only was this conversation rapidly decreasing in awesomeness, but it was also becoming increasingly random (well, that was to be expected whenever a certain curly-haired party planner was around). Time for a change of topic.
Her lips curled in a slow smile as her gaze settled on Twilight Sparkle, who was absentmindedly pushing her glasses higher up on her nose as she reopened her textbook. Rainbow tapped her elbow, intentionally almost (but not quite) causing her to drop the book. "Do you even need those nerdy glasses, Twilight?"
Twilight rolled her eyes, huffing loudly as she closed her book for good - it was impossible to keep reading when she was surrounded by so many distractions. "Yes, of course. I can hardly see the blackboard without them."
Dash snickered. "You're already, like, in the Nerd Chair." Seeing Twilight's look of blank confusion, she added, "You know, where all the smart ones sit. You're so close to the blackboard anyway! How do you even need glasses?"
Applejack suddenly intervened, picking up on Twilight's embarrassment. "Stop teasin' th' poor gal," she scolded Rainbow, draping a protective arm around the purple-haired girl's back. "And if th' front o' th' class is fer the smart kids, then how come yore sittin' there, huh?"
Rarity applauded from the sidelines, her rich purple curls bouncing as she laughed daintily. "Bravo, Applejack! Fabulous comeback."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow at the implied insult, but chose to twist it to her advantage. "Because I'm such a troublemaker the teacher needs to keep an eye on me," she answered smoothly, flipping her polychromatic hair over her shoulder. "Why are you there?"
Some of the fire vanished from Applejack's eyes as a faint blush tinged her freckled cheeks. "Jus' so's Ah can keep ya company, Ah guess," she answered softly.
And, honestly, she was such a good person that Rainbow suspected she was probably telling the truth.
Applejack shuffled her feet and looked away, slouching against the wall and seeming far more embarrassed than the situation warranted. Rainbow just decided to attribute it to her lack of having an awesome reason to sit at the front of the class, like Rainbow did.
Suddenly Applejack looked over at Twilight, her eyes brightening as she found a different conversation topic. "Hey, Twah, can Ah try those glasses o' yores on? Ah wanna see what they're like."
"Sure." Twilight carefully removed her glasses and handed them over.
Applejack perched them over her ears. They were a bit too big for her pert nose, and slipped a bit. She blinked and stumbled backwards. "Whoa. Ah can hardly see in these things!"
"You look kinda cu- er, crazy," Rainbow corrected herself hastily, suddenly feeling her heart rate speed up but doing her best to disguise it. Applejack did look pretty adorable; it was almost a pity that she didn't need glasses herself.
Applejack punched her playfully. "Oh, keep yore cakehole shut."
All of a sudden, a loud voice proclaimed, "Don't move! Say cheeeeeeeese!" Startled into submission, Applejack stood stock-still, blinking, as Pinkie produced a camera apparently from thin air and snapped a picture of her wearing glasses. "That one's going in the yeeeearboooook!" she sang out gleefully, stowing the camera away somewhere... where? In her hair? In her pocket? The movement had been too fast for Rainbow to see.
Applejack groaned with disgust and quickly handed the glasses back to Twilight. "Great." Lately, the group had become seriously skeptical of Principal Celestia's mental faculties, as she had, for some unknown reason, elected Pinkie this year's Yearbook Photographer. Ever since then the girl had been walking around the school taking pictures of anything (and everything) that caught her fancy, including plenty of her friends' most embarrassing moments.
Rainbow cackled with laughter and crossed her arms casually. "Get me a copy of that picture, Pinkie."
Applejack's emerald eyes looked positively icy. "If ya get yore hands on that picture, Rainbow Dash, so help me Ah'll -"
Fluttershy cleared her throat softly, and Applejack stopped talking at once. Most people wouldn't even have heard her quiet attempt to break up the argument that had surely been about to start, but Applejack had remarkably good hearing. "Um... excuse me. Sorry." Her voice faltered as all of her friends stared at her, and she cowered down and tried to hide behind her hair. "I... I think it's time for your class," she whispered, her words barely audible through her pale rose waves of hair.
Applejack's face paled as she instantly forgot her annoyance. "Consarn it! Yore right, 'Shy. Thanks."
Rainbow felt her face fall at the prospect of being separated from Applejack for an hour. Every Tuesday, she was allowed to skip English class so that she could take remedial French instead. Rainbow would have laughed her head off if she hadn't had to take remedial math every week. On Mondays and Fridays.
This was probably the only school in the country where you were allowed to skip another subject in order to take remedial studies. But Principal Celestial had allowed it because Applejack's English grade was, perhaps surprisingly considering the amount of 'ain't's she tended to use in her speech, a steady A - second only to Twilight's. In fact, all of Applejack's grades were higher than average, because she was a hard worker and so stubborn that she refused to stop tackling a problem until she'd figured it out. It was kind of funny, actually. French was the only subject that she just couldn't seem to get a handle on, no matter how much Rarity tried to help her (Rarity, of course, the only other one of the group who took French, had flawless pronunciation and a good memory for all of the words and phrases). Poor Applejack could barely even say 'Bonjour' with her Southern accent, let alone spell it. She was a good speller, but that only applied to English. "How'm Ah supposed to spell somethin' when Ah can't even say it an' hear what it sounds like?" she'd groused to Rainbow more than once.
Of course, Rainbow Dash had tried to convince her to take woodwork with her, but Applejack hadn't listened, arguing that she already knew how to do woodwork and wanted a challenge. Canterlot High's system was strange: you could choose between taking a language or a hands-on elective. Rainbow had chosen woodwork as her elective, while Fluttershy and Pinkie stuck with painting. Twilight, naturally, had chosen both, electing to take Latin and painting...
There was only one word for that, in Dash's mind, and it started with 'egg' and ended with 'head'.
Dash was shaken out of her reverie as Applejack bid a hasty farewell. "I'll see y'all at lunch." She gently nudged Rainbow's leg, a tiny smile tugging at her lips. "Bye, ya idiot." Without waiting for a response, she turned around and strode confidently away, her booted feet thumping authoritatively on the linoleum floor.
The atmosphere grew noticeably duller as she left, and everyone felt themselves letting out a collective sigh. When Applejack was around, she brought so much warmth; so much vivacity. When she wasn't... well, Dash felt like there was an apple-shaped hole in her heart.
Twilight shook herself and turned back to the group, excitement bubbling in her eyes. "I'm so excited for English class! I can't wait to opine my thoughts on the last book we read."
Everyone stared at her blankly.
"Doesn't anyone remember yesterday's word list?" she asked exasperatedly. "Can't any of you tell me what 'opine' means?"
"Opine: to hold and state as one's opinion," Rainbow Dash said slowly.
Twilight stared. "Rainbow? How did you -"
"Your English notes are sticking out of your backpack," she said, grinning devilishly.
Twilight looked genuinely disappointed in Rainbow's lack of interest in English as she stuffed the notes back into the pack slung over her shoulders and zipped it up. "I do wish you all could be a little more sesquipedalian," she remarked with a touch of irritation.
She was met with another round of stares, and opened her mouth again - probably to ask, "Haven't any of you ever taken English class?" - but was interrupted by none other than Rarity.
"Il ya plus à l'intelligence que de grands mots, ma chère," she said smugly, tossing her hair.
Twilight looked furious, evidently desperately wishing that she knew French. For once, she couldn't answer back.
The five of them, even Twilight (eventually), indulged in a hearty round of laughter as they strolled off to English class. But Rainbow Dash's laughter was merely a facade. She only barely heard Twilight begging Rarity to tell her what she had said in French; she only barely heard Rarity's impressive arsenal of different ways to say 'No'; she only barely saw Pinkie Pie dancing around and madly snapping pictures of every speck of gum on the wall; she only barely saw Fluttershy hastily shoving the protruding head of Angel Bunny back inside her backpack... no, she was occupied with thoughts of one person and one person only.
Applejack... I wish you were here.