November 16th, 1000 Domina Solaria
Rainbow Dash sits at the window of the Carrot House, her forelegs crossed under her muzzle. She is still dressed in her Rarity designed winter garb, a purple hat with a little cotton ball covering her mane, red scarf around her neck, and purple booties with rainbows on the back. Her custom saddlebags, the ones she uses to fly Scootaloo around, lay crumpled by the front door, the torticopter next to them.
She sighs; a long, forlorn sigh, full of reminiscing and disappointment and regret over missed opportunities. She looks out over the southeast part of Sweet Apple Acres; past the main farmhouse, past the fallow fields of wheat, all the way to the tree by the river where she buried her friend.
Well, not buried, buried. He is only hibernating, after all. And he did half the work, covering himself back up. But that doesn’t make the loss any easier.
She flinches as a gloved hand slips under her hat and caresses her ears. She immediately pushes up against him, letting the cold fingers dig deeper into her. Doug is still wearing his light winter outfit, the ones he wears when he’s around the house or working (or playing) hard outside.
“You doing okay?”
Rainbow’s eyes flick back, noting Doug’s soft smile. She can’t manage to bring out one of her own. “Yeah, big guy. I’m doing okay.”
Several seconds pass, the fingers scratching along each color, leisurely traveling from purple to red. “I still think my plan would have worked,” Doug says with a cheeky grin.
Rainbow rolls her eyes. “Come on, Doug. We’re gullible, but we’re not that bad. I know ponies would have noticed that after Fall Wrap Up yesterday there wasn’t any snow on the ground, and the temperatures were rising. I know you said the math works out, but I’m pretty sure that we would have needed Princess Celestia on board. Just having clear skies wouldn’t have been enough.”
“Okay, okay, you’re probably right,” Doug concedes. “It still might have been too cold for him. I don’t know how warm he needs it, and you didn’t like the idea of changing the Cloudominium into a greenhouse. Still, it’s a better plan than blowing up the weather factory.”
“Hey! I wouldn’t have blown up the whole weather factory.” Rainbow chuckles to herself, a smile finally appearing. “Just the winter part of it. And even then, all I’d need to do is sabotage the water storage tanks. Without water, you can’t make clouds, and without clouds, there isn’t any snow!”
“Okay, but why go to those lengths when you can just schedule clear skies and no snow? You’re head weathermare in Ponyville, and I write the schedules. We’re back to my plan all over again. Without the destruction of property charges and, what, community service?”
“Well, there had to be some reason, or ponies would complain to me.” Rainbow pauses, then sighs in defeat. “Yeah. I guess my plan was a little shortsighted.”
“A little?”
Rainbow plows on, “Plus, they probably would have just used up the aquifer to replenish Cloudsdale’s water tanks. Or made me haul buckets.” She grins at the tree. “I’m just glad I was able to cash in some leave, spend as much time as I could with the little guy.”
“And what a good two weeks they were.” Doug shakes his head. “Never thought I’d see a tortoise get the drop on you with a snowball.” Doug digs into Rainbow a little deeper. “You going to be okay?”
“Well, I’m not going to be alone,” Rainbow replies, back to staring at the tree, this time with a smile on her face. “I’ve got you, and Scootaloo, and the rest of the herd.”
“And it’s not goo-”
“Hey!” Rainbow softly shouts, a mock glare at Doug. “What did I say about using the ‘g’ word?”
“That it’s ‘I’ll see you again, soon’.” Doug smiles as he rubs Rainbow’s mane. They sit in silence for a few minutes, just watching the trees shake in the cold wind. Doug breaks the silence with an apologetic whisper, “Well, the mail’s gonna be here soon, and…”
Rainbow grips Doug’s hand, tugging him back to her with a shake of her head. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispers back, her voice trembling.
“I’ll stay as long as you need me,” Doug whispers back, hand rubbing against the hoof gripping him. “But it’ll just be a moment, okay?”
Rainbow sinks down as she releases his hand. “Okay,” she sighs, turning to watch as Doug gets up, walking over to the couch. Her eyes brighten as he lifts, zipping over to the other side to help him drag the couch to the window. A smile breaks out on her muzzle as he lays down, happily hopping on top of him. She looks out the window, still able to see the tree. “You can read those reports from there, right?”
“Long as I’m not too distracted,” Doug replies with a wink. “But, I might get a little hot. Probably need to lose the jacket.”
“Mm,” Rainbow sultrily purrs, “Might need to lose the pants, too.”
Several minutes later a loud ‘thud’ comes from something smacking into the front door. “It’s open,” Doug calls. The door opens after a few seconds, a gray pegasus mare peeking her head in.
“Hi, Doug!” One yellow-orange eye focuses on the human laying on the couch, then the mare relaxing as she lays straddling his hips. “Hi, Rainbow!” She lifts the heavy mailbag. “I brought the mail!”
“Thanks, Derpy,” Doug says with a smile, not moving from his spot. “Just sling them over here.”
“Okay!” Derpy says, whipping the mailbag towards Doug as hard as she can. Doug raises his arms just in time, blocking the stuffed mailbag from smacking him in the face. It falls to the floor, papers spilling out. “Oops!”
“It’s fine.” Doug forces a smile and wave. “Just close the door on your way out.”
“Have a good lay, you two!” Derpy says with a smile, waving as she leaves. Several seconds later she returns, a sheepish smile as she closes the door.
“Now,” Rainbow grins as she starts sliding her body up and down, “where were we?”
“Let’s see.” Doug sifts through the scattered envelopes, stacking up the thick reports off to one side. “Hey, there’s a letter from Applebaum!” He glances over as the door opens, Applejack making her way inside.
“Just saw Derpy,” Applejack says with a hopeful smile as she shakes a bit of the snow off her blue jacket. Her eyes widen as she spots the letter. “It came?”
“Looks like it.” Doug rips open the letter as Applejack trades a nuzzle with Rainbow, then lays next to the couch. “Seems a bit bigger than her previous ones.” He pulls the letter out, reading aloud.
Dear Applejack, and the rest of the herd,
Sorry, I’ve been-
“Hey!” Applejack interrupts, nudging Doug, the hint of a tear welling in her eye that will never escape. “Read it like her!”
“Fine,” Doug says, crinkling the page as the door opens again, this time Rarity and Sweetie Belle entering. Rarity rolls her eyes, levitating a blanket to cover Rainbow, much to the pegasus’ chagrin. She removes her teal hat and purple glasses, Sweetie Belle taking off her green coat. More and more of the herd arrives as Doug begins reading.
Sorry, Ah’ve been so busy workin’ that Ah haven’t been able to send more than a short letter the last two weeks. Ah had to catch up with mah schoolin’, ‘cause even though Ah told mah teachers that Ah wouldn’t be in class the week of the trip, they still made me do the homework. But, Ah can already hear you tellin’ me that Ah need to do the work Ah should, so Ah did it without complainin’. Much.
Doug looks over, Applejack mouthing exactly that.
But, on to the trip! They had me doin’ inventory, which was fun and all, Ah guess. But then, when we got to the temple? It was huge! The two pegasi we hired to clear out the sky, Raindrops and Sunshower, they didn’t want to step hoof anywhere near it. So they just stayed outside the entire time. They were supposed to be on the lookout, too, but they never told me for what. So, at first, it was just Dr. C and Withers that went down while everypony else got the airship secured.
They came back after a couple minutes. Well, not to the airship, but to the stagin’ area we set up underneath. Ah rode down with Biff and Rogue, and since there weren’t much to do they let me come along. Well, if Ah thought the temple was big on the outside, it was even bigger on the inside! There were these giant stone doors, most of which were already open and empty. But Dr. C asked me if Ah thought we could crack the others open. The way the smooth stone was carved, normally you wouldn’t, not without breakin’ the stone into pieces. We had some dynamite, but we wanted to just open them in case the valuables inside were fragile or something.
So, we got out these metal pry pars and pitons, and sunk them into the stone. There was a little latch that you needed to lift up hidden along the side. You needed some key to unlock it, but slippin’ a pry bar in between the door and the wall and liftin’ worked just as well. Biff and Rogue are really strong, like, almost Big Mac strong, and they dragged that stone right away while Ah held the latch up!
After we opened the door, Dr. C got really jumpy, like he was afraid somepony would be attackin’ right then, or comin’ in to swipe something that was rightfully his. Well, none of this stuff was ‘rightfully’ his, but as far as lootin’ a forgotten temple goes it’s pretty much like Herd Dinner at the Apple’s, first come first served and no gripin’ about missin’ a dish you wanted. Ah asked him what he was afraid of, and this dreamy look fills his eyes for a brief moment, kind of like when Sweetie Belle talks about Spike when it’s only us fillies in the room-
Sweetie Belle gulps, nervously looking around as the entirety of the herd has crammed themselves into the room. Fortunately for her, everypony, including Rainbow Dash, seems enraptured by the story.
-and then he shakes his head and snorts. He tells me it ain’t none of my business, that we should just keep goin’ on like nothin’s wrong, but he’s gettin’ excited like Daddy does whenever Rainbow comes home early.
Eyes in the room turn towards Rainbow, the pegasus stopping her up and down motion. “What?”
“She’s not wrong, per se,” Doug says as he rubs the rainbow mane, a slight shake of his head as he continues.
Ah can’t tell you exactly what we got, but you wouldn’t believe how much stuff we were able to get out of the temple! Mister B was confident that the Priestess could take it, so we kept loadin’ her up with rock after bigger rock! Most were really shiny, and some were statues in weird geometric shapes. There were also two sets of these sun and moon figurines that Dr. C said the Princesses would be really happy to see! Ah think they were the reason we were there in the first place, because he stopped looking so frantic and everypony relaxed after we got them back to the Priestess.
There were a couple more doors, including this one secret passageway that Dr. C stumbled into. It was really scary, when he fell down, ‘cause the passageway closed up after him! Biff was all for blowin’ the ceiling to get to him, but before we tried anything rash he told us to wait fifteen minutes first, while he searched for another way out. Wouldn’t want rocks fallin’ on him, of course. Ah searched around until Ah found a thinner section of wall. We’d have to blow it up to get him out! It was hard, because the room he was trapped in wasn’t that big, and the walls pretty solid. Well, Ah didn’t blow it up so much as weaken it, so that we could make a hole big enough for him to climb out. He must have been searchin’ really hard, because he was pantin’ and sweaty when he came out. Everypony was really proud of me then!
So, we pack everything we can carry into the Priestess. There were three pegasi helping us clear out the Everfree storms on the way back. Ah don’t know where the third one came from, and she called herself Ms. Amy K. Maybe Mister B sent word to Cloudsdale, and got more help? Because the storms were really bad.
Then on the way back Ah did inventory of everything we got. One of the figurine sets was missin’. Ah told Dr. C, but he said to not to worry about it, that the Princess would be happy with the set she got. Ah was confused, because Ah thought both Princesses wanted a set, but he didn’t seem too concerned. So Ah let it drop.
The rest of the work that week was real boring, since Ah mostly practiced diggin’ and shorin’ up tunnels proper-like. Ah hate it, it don’t feel right, but if Ah can convince myself that Ah’m diggin’ to get to something to break open Ah do a lot better. School was fine. Ah miss your cookin’.
Love you all,
Applebaum
P. S. Ah got paid! Applejack, what do you do when you get all your bits from makin’ cider? And you better not say save for winter!
Applejack sniffs as she looks around at the herd, all smiling back at her. She nudges Rainbow’s head to the side, clearing the way to Doug’s mouth. He slips the paper back in the envelope, one hand leaving Rainbow’s flank to caress Applejack’s muzzle. He slowly guides her to him, exchanging a soft kiss.
“Doug,” Applejack says softly, just loud enough for the others to hear, “Ah want another.”
Doug smiles back at her, hand rubbing a bit more vigorously.
“And when you’re done with Rainbow,” Applejack whispers for his ears only, a short flick of her eyes to the pegasus still rocking up and down, “Ah want to practice.”