If there was anything that made Rarity seethe, it was mud. She did not mind dirt in moderation, but mud caused her stomach to churn. The vile, churning filth sloshed with her every step, and she felt the chill of old rain seep into her bones with it. The sky, too, must've felt it, for storm clouds still hung low and dark in the sky, having emptied their contents to the ground below, where Rarity was slogging through the muddy, muddy road as fast as a filly her age could possibly canter.
But why?
Well, it was for a filly. She was the most uncultured filly in Rarity's class, and unlike sweet, dorky - oh, but in a positively charming way - Cheerliee, this little filly was stubborn, unchanging, utterly and unbearably local, and said every word on her mind so every comment could feel like a pebble underhoof with how blunt they were. An honest filly! Rarity always wondered if she simply had to tell the truth all the time. The filly who cried timberwolf in all the old bedtime stories must surely be a better friend than this filly.
Friends. How odd a term to apply to this young filly, whom Rarity was only taking purely charitable interest in as she charged through the mud of one of the most rural part of Ponyville, little white marshmallow muzzle crinkled with disgust and determination both.
She was not friends with this filly. Were she to at least share any hobbies and any perfectly civilized pursuits, or even the slightest interest in any of the arts, then Rarity could consider the brutish little filly who aced every math test and knew every local plant - but oddly, nothing about the true beauty of more delicate floral hobbies, which herb-growing certainly wasn't - a burning rival at the very least. They both worked hard enough!
Yet, there was still a kind of rivalry between them. Applejack was nice in most ways, but not to Rarity. She always brought the biggest lunches, and somehow something as simple as homemade apple pie had Rarity wishing to trade the watercress sandwiches she had made herself once, but she'd never admit that Applejack's lunch was good or desirable or tasty. She'd swallow politely, avert her eyes and not drool oafishly at such a sight.
Once, Applejack even spat sunflower seeds at Rarity. It was disgusting! The nerve!
But then, after one long weekend, Applejack did not come to school, and maybe that would be perfectly alright except Big MacIntosh, Applejack's older brother did not come to school either. That was unlike the Apple foals. Their mother, a mare of the Apple family, just as their father was of the Orange family, always had her mother, Granny Smith walk the two eldest to the schoolhouse every morning. Their granny also made sure that each of them had their lunch basket gripped between their teeth. Apples did not miss school unless they were sick, injured, or out of town, and even as Rarity ran through mud, Applejack had not been to school - though, for other reasons.
Apparently, Applejack's mother was out of town, and everypony was looking for her - Rarity thought that was strange, because there was record of her leaving, a few farmers on the other side of town had seen her walk off one night, and heard her voice. But then, she was simply gone. Rarity's mother had talked to Granny Smith a long time that day, and her father had to keep an eye on Sweetie, since she was such a fussy baby. And Rarity? She wasn't allowed to listen to the grown-ups talk, she just had to go to school the next day, and she wasn't going to be like her parents and Granny Smith whose worry-whispers were everywhere, kept hushed in hallways, where little fillies like Rarity could just hear bits of them.
Rarity was going to be a good, helpful filly. Today, Rarity was a filly of action. Everypony was hush and their words were muffled by wraps of long silence and indirect stares, but Rarity knew that simply wasn't going to do. Applejack's gaze was weighted toward her desk, her green stare fixed downward on what appeared to be nothing. The front of her mane wasn't properly combed, but Rarity wasn't going to bug her about that then, her mind was made up. She saw some lucid sadness in those green eyes, pouring forth from under a goldish mane that never sank into the eyes of the freckled filly before. She had even forgotten her lunch basket, and that wasn't anything like Applejack, because she knew that her mother always packed the two elder Apple siblings a whole basket full of homemade food.
Except Rarity didn't know what to say. Surely, her mother would be back the next day? The Apples took trips all the time, but they were always back eventually. She had a colt and two fillies to take care of, which was one more foal than Rarity's mother was used to, so it had to be very hard to live like that. Nopony's mother just floated away like a breezie.
But in math class, which was Applejack's favorite, Rarity watched in horror before anypony else noticed as Applejack put her head down on her desk and cried into the small pile of cheery white daisies that she was supposed to be sorting into fractions like the teacher had written on the blackboard. Applejack also had not spoken the Oath to Equestria - about working to preserve Harmony and better Equestria, thinking for the greater good and all related things - clearly enough while looking at the portrait of Princess Celestia every classroom in all of Equestria had, and her mumbles had spilled into nothing before the rest of the class had finished. That was strange too.
But Rarity said nothing that day. It was on the next, at lunch when Rarity walked over to Applejack on the playground, vowing to do what she had not been brave enough to do the day before. Sometimes, a lady must do what a lady must do.
Nopony else was talking to Applejack, or about why her mother wasn't home. Was it not said that Apples were born to their home, and they were buried there too? Their whole family were honest, respectful ponies, and now that Applejack's mother was gone, nopony was asking the honest questions.
Rarity had done what should've been done, and that was to stop whispering and hiding from what was surely the most simple answer there could be, and the one nopony seemed to want. While Applejack pouted over a poorly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich made by her older brother - why her father couldn't help, Rarity didn't know - and sat all alone, Rarity marched over to her, and she loudly asked Applejack why she didn't have a mother any more.
A teacher had to come out and hush a crying, angry Applejack. Two more schoolmarms were needed to keep a screeching Rarity in line. Her bloodcurdling wails made every head turn to see a filly whose face was contorted in rage and slathered with chunks of peanut butter that knotted her well-groomed mane, marred her lip gloss, and clung to her coat much like the mud she slogged through now.
For weeks afterwards, Rarity found it easy to refuse to talk to Applejack, even if they had every class together and occasionally liked to play at recess and in gym before their fight. Rarity couldn't see what the problem would be - Big Mac wasn't talking much either, even by his standards. Most ponies called him quiet, but Rarity always said the more elegant 'brooding' since it was a fine description for the youth.
Rarity's mother had told her that Applejack needed a friend like her more than ever, and Rarity didn't get the time to explain that Applejack wasn't her friend.
She was just... well, they were in a lot of classes, so they saw one another as often as friends did. There were those times when they played together. Occasionally they even saw one another at town events. At the last Foal and Filly Fair, Rarity won Applejack a particularly nice pinwheel and Applejack had given her one of her family's caramel apples for free, and then they snacked on ice cream before Rarity had gone to play with her friends and show the claw machine what a proper lady could do. Applejack had simply gone back to selling apples, and that day, Rarity felt like a foreign noble at an exotic bazaar - such was the excitement of the fair - and she lost herself in fleeting fancies that night, dreaming about what Princess Celestia felt when she saw foreign places. Was it anything like what Rarity felt that night?
That night was absolutely ages before Applejack's mother had run off, and Applejack had never looked so... defeated then, when her mother could not be found. She bucked apples for a living and did chores like storybook peasants did their hard shares of labor, working their way through the early Equestrian social staircase. Now, she didn't help anypony with their math homework - Rarity included - or do anything she used to, like playing with her new puppy, Winona, which Rarity remembered because she had made Applejack's dog a bow for her collar before their big fight.
Rarity was puzzled to how Applejack, a bright and talkative filly who rambled endless country phrases that Rarity used to think were riddles, could hide under her mother's old hat all day in class. But then again, Rarity was taken aback by how Applejack couldn't bother to wear mane bows at the least, which would be much more fitting for a filly, or how she never changed the color of which hair ties she wore. They were a classic, Rarity supposed. Rustic even, and they were worn by faithful, reliable Applejack with her cute freckles and a hearty laugh.
Once the rainy spring season came, and storm after storm battered Ponyville. Mud was everywhere! Many back roads were unusable, and none more so than the one that Rarity trudged through now, like some knight-errant of to rescue Fair Applejack from wallowing in self-pity. 'Sorry darling,' Rarity would tell her, 'but that's my job.'
It wasn't raining now, thankfully, but Rarity was sure that she'd hear her little snort-laugh above the sound of falling water if it had been raining.
Here was she, an aspiring designer whose self-taught beginnings somehow weren't enough to get her a cutie mark, cantering through filthy backgrounds and woods on a quest to discover why one of the brightest fillies of Ponyville's school and her brother hadn't been seen for so long.
It was even sillier not because Rarity had outgrown such play - at her age, they were properly called theatrics - but because every prince, daring knight, and honorable stallion who was dashing away on some pursuit was not just pursuing something.
They pursued somepony as well: a charming, kind, and woe-struck damsel most certainly in distress, whose love they sought. It was like something Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, young and under the sun's wing, would say - love was her domain, or so Rarity had heard of the sort of half-god princess that was adorned with wing and horn, but no divine Alicorn like her aunt.
But Rarity did not love Applejack. Most certainly not. She wasn't beautiful or well-mannered. Applejack was a little pretty but she also fought like a colt, even though she was a filly, and that simply didn't sit well with Rarity.
Rarity would still rescue her anyway. She had missed too much school. The playground felt strange without her, and that wasn't because Rarity liked the silence between them - she didn't, no matter how awful her post-peanut butter manecut was - but it felt better when Applejack was there.
Those floods could've taken anypony too. The waters could've swept any member of the local helpers and weather patrol away. It was even odd that the gawky teenager - truthfully, she wasn't much older than Rarity's short number of years - Fluttershy survived, and the old cottage she had been living in alone had - that, of course, was odd to Rarity, a filly who read every bit of noir fiction in the local library-tree. She knew that the odd teenager - her mother had called her an 'emancipated minor' at least would have had to be coping with heavy flood damage.
It really could've taken anypony, couldn't it?
Anypony other than Rarity, that is - she was singing to Sweetie Belle upstairs: hush now, quiet now...
Anypony could've died in that terrible, house-shaking storm.
Why did it take the old librarian? He was a kindly old earth pony that insisted on giving back to the community, so why did he have to give it his life? Who was going to remember which fashion magazines and mystery novels Rarity liked best? Who was going to make sure Cheerliee got her test prep books when she studied late? Or that Fluttershy got her animal guidebooks and Big Mac's acappella books were put on hold until he could walk down to Golden Oaks?
Not Crisp Pages - not any more, at least.
Most important of all: Why did that no good storm cut Applejack and Big Mac's father out of this world when he only wanted to help steady a bridge? Who was going to wait for Applejack's mother to come home now? What would Applejack's mother think when she did?
She was going to, wasn't she? What could she possibly be doing that made her spend so much time away from her family? She was an apple farmer, not a pop star like Sapphire Shores! She didn't need to go on tours or leave her farm, so why would she?
Rarity didn't have the answer to that, and Applejack didn't either, but Rarity wasn't about to let Applejack stay cooped up in the dungeon of mourning and never come back to school. It was like all the teachers just forgot about her, and that wasn't fair!
So when Rarity, with her chest heaving and her mane muddy semi-dreadlock tangles she would deeply regret when this was all over, reached the arch of the Apple family's property and charged up to the barn door, her trudging a foul sound as she stampeded across the property in search of Fair Applejack, and looking for any lights on in the barn windows.
In search of anypony, really... the farm looked so lonely, even to Rarity who was hyperventilating under globs of mud.
Then, as though she were imitating an uncivilized hillbilly, she raised her forehooves and banged the barn doors like a drum, pounding them mercilessly and screaming for dear life.
"APPLEJACK! OPEN UP, PLEASE! WE NEED TO TALK! IT'S FILTHY OUT HERE! PLEASE, APPLEJACK THERE'S MUD AND IT IS POSITIVELY DREADFUL! DISGUSTING! MUD!"
Rarity shivered and trembled under the filth that burdened her. "Please," she whimpered.
Silence rolled on. The absence of all but the chilly spring day's natural sounds - rustling leaves, brisk breezes - tolled in her ears.
"It's c-cold," the filly whispered, licking her lips delicately, tasting the morning's lip gloss. "Won't you let me in?"
Her hooves ached, and she was certain that she had chipped the lovely polish she had applied.
In the barn was the sound of hoofsteps, low, inconstant, muffled, and syrup-slow to her quickly pricked ears. She tried to hold her breath and strained to hear those heavy hoofsteps among the hay on the other side. She gasped, knowing that there was probably only one pony who could make such a ruckus.
"Applejack...?"
"Nope," came a familiar deep voice, startling Rarity, and it was not Applejack's.
She cleared her throat politely. "Ah, Big MacIntosh. H-Hello..."
He didn't move, but he didn't say anything either.
"...Is your grandmother home?"
"Eeyup."
Rarity paused. "Oh... well that is good. Is she well? Are you well? You sound sad and... well, none of you have been at school... Applejack and you, that is... is there something wrong?"
There was a long pause.
"Eeyup."
"A-Are you not in the mood to talk? I can come back later to talk-"
"With Granny?" Big Mac's sudden, deliberate interjection is like a thunderclap compared to the 'eeyups' and 'nopes' that she could have labelled a barrage if they weren't so passive.
"No," Rarity said, gently so not to seem abrasive, "I wanted to see if your sister was here. So I could speak with her. There is something I wanted to say to Applejack... even if I am covered in mud and... Applejack is home, isn't she?"
If Rarity's hoof wasn't covered in mud, she would have brought it to her face. How stupid! Completely and utterly stupid! What kind of a question was that, so nervous and meekly delivered for a high-strung filly like Rarity. 'Applejack is home, isn't she?' She might as well have asked if Apples bucked apples too.
Or, if she were truly despicable, she might have asked if they had heard from their mother, wherever she was. How had they still not found her? Equestria didn't look that big on the map, and Rarity could even see the most elite city, Canterlot, from Ponyville. Why would she go anywhere else? Did she go on a vacation in one of the southern nations?
"Nope," Big MacIntosh said firmly, but solemnly, startling Rarity out of her speculations - something the whole town stopped doing after a while, and no more search parties were sent out, merely 'inquires' mailed to Canterlot that never went anywhere, and missing pony posters stopped getting tips. Odd, odd, odd.
Rarity didn't know her jaw was hanging open until the wind tickled the back of her throat. "W-What?!" she sputtered, sapphire eyes wide as she looked around the empty, quiet farm in flabbergasted disbelief. "She is not here?"
"Nope."
"What happened? Did she leave?" Like your mother? Rarity added silently, heart fluttering in her chest a bit painfully.
"Eeyup."
Why didn't her older brother sound so worried? His sister had vanished, hadn't she! Did timberwolves take her, or some other forest creature?
"Do..." Rarity swallowed, mustering all the composure she had to keep speaking and stand up straight. She was a lady, after all, even though most ladies avoided such a desperate scenario such as this and did not speak through barn doors. "Do you know where she is? Applejack, that is?"
Ah, there was Rarity's heartbeat thumping in her ears. What could the answer possibly be...?
"Eeyup!"
A wave of relief washed over Rarity, and she swayed clumsily with it, letting out the bated breath she had been waiting with... and all over Applejack! How silly this would seem to her in hindsight, she the proper mare and future Canterlotian who got good grades, had good looks, and took fencing lessons with pride alongside martial arts - something everypony had a slight degree of envy for.
Everypony but Applejack and Sweetie Belle. Big MacIntosh probably didn't envy Rarity either, but he was an upperclasspony and they didn't talk all that much.
"Where is she, then?" Rarity said, blinking expectantly to nopony at all. If she had proper eyelashes like a real Canterlot lady, she'd flutter them, but alas, Rarity had no beautiful eyelashes and privately, and to her embarrassment she contemplated false ones.
There was shuffling on the other side of the door. Big Mac muttered something Rarity didn't hear.
"Pardon?" she asked, lowering her voice. "What was it that you said?"
"Manehatten."
Now, it was Rarity's turn to be silent.
Big Mac spoke again: "She's in Manehatten."
"Oh," Rarity whispered rather horasly, "Will she be back soon or...?
Or what?
"Nope."
Well, that was good to know. "Thank you, Big MacIntosh. I... I will be heading home now... Maybe I'll see you at school...?"
Wasn't that a silly thing to ask? She was going to run home, wash up thoroughly, and eat some lunch. They lived in the same town, not different worlds, so surely she'd see him again?
"Eeyup," he agreed, and then Rarity heard him shuffle off. That was that.
She turned and began her trot home even though it felt like a long way to Ponyville and her legs were clearly weighed down by the mud that was beginning to dry on her lovely, pearly coat.
Truthfully, Rarity wasn't sure what to do now. Forget about Applejack? Why? Applejack was... Well, they weren't friends.
They lived in the same town, or at least they used to. And now?
Rarity wasn't going to get a chance to say sorry. Probably not forever, and Rarity was no god. She wasn't like Princess Celestia. She wasn't even like Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, if she could live anywhere close to forever too.
But Rarity didn't want to forget Applejack any more than she wanted to forget about the handsome prince that would be waiting for her one day... even if Applejack wasn't her friend and wasn't there to play with her at recess or to help her math homework. Rarity wasn't sure if she was ever going to see Applejack again. Manehatten was a city of glamour and glitz in its own right, hosting Bridleway. She was losing Applejack to that... if she ever had Applejack at all.
She wasn't a prince - of course not, princes and any kind of royalty were as different from Applejack as possible. Rarity was going to spend the rest of her life with a prince... eventually. Applejack was... gone? What was Applejack to her? A romance novel always called a pony like Applejack 'the one who got away' but that was only for ponies who loved and pined for one another. Rarity did not and absolutely could not love Applejack, especially since she wasn't a prince. She probably had honest-to-gods cooties on the days when Rarity saw too much dust on her coat too, but that didn't make Applejack a bad pony.
Risking her hoof polish, or whatever remained of it, Rarity kicked a stone embedded surprisingly loosely in the mud with all the elegance she could muster alongside her dejected state.
Applejack really wasn't a bad pony, so why did this have to happen to her? In Rarity's novel's bad things only happened to good ponies because it was a story, and so the drama would be excellent, and maybe other reasons too. Even bedtime stories did it. The story of Nightmare Moon was to show how much Princess Celestia had been through - she defeated Discord on her own, after all.
But there was nothing grand about the lifestyle of stubborn old Applejack. She didn't live in a big city... or anything dangerous. She was an apple farmer.
Rarity knew that she would go home and things had to be okay. Probably. Her mother was likely baking cookies. Her father was probably chatting hoofball with a friend, or fishing in their little house by one of Ponyville's many ponds. Rarity might even get a chance to see any fish he caught before he released it - after all, it wasn't like anypony would keep the fish they caught, even if they were allowed to... though, some ponies did. The enchanted fish that sung cheesy songs and you could hang on your wall were nice. Rarity's father caught a salmon on one of his trips once, and now they had a singing salmon over the fireplace.
Sweetie Belle. Of course Rarity's thoughts would drift to the baby sister she had to look after half of the time. She would never remember Applejack, even though Rarity told Sweetie about all her friends at school... and Applejack too.
Not that Applejack was her friend, obviously.
But...
Rarity stopped, sniffled a bit and swallowed before raising her head to look at the sky. The gray clouds were lumpy and whirl-like and mostly blended in with one another in fluffy masses of varying shades of silver that held an odd grace to them. Why, one of them even looked like a hat!
Rarity blinked, and it most certainly wasn't because her eyes were watering. It was because rubbing them might smear the bit of eyeshadow her mother let a filly her age get away with and she wanted to see the clouds better. It couldn't be a hat.
Obviously.
She looked at the sky, squinting.
It was a hat. Like a cowpony.
Like Applejack.
Rarity swallowed the lump in her throat before continuing on the lonely road home. Was this what it was like to be a knight that failed to save the damsel from the dragons of despair?
Most likely.
Rarity sniffled again, and tried to hold her head just a little bit higher, because that little bit could make all the difference in... in... well, something. Right now, Rarity wasn't sure what. She was going to face something, she just didn't know it yet.
An adventure? No, she was Rarity of Ponyville, who had yet to meet her prince and go to Canterlot, so 'adventure' was not happening. School? She wasn't a horrid student, but she could always ask somepony else for help on math homework.
Gods know she was good at asking for plenty. Even her parents agreed on that! The truth?
The truth about what?
Applejack...?
Rarity paused, and silently regretted it because of how gross this particular bit of mud was. Ugh, why did she have to stand here?
What about Applejack...?
Rarity sighed and looked up at that hat-shaped cloud, which was now drifting apart into two large chunks, just like the two big things she would've told Applejack if she were there: 'I'm sorry' and...
Clearing her throat, Rarity flushed slightly.
Truthfully, she might have liked Applejack a teeny-tiny bit.
But not as a friend.