Applejack took a deep breath as she watched herself in the mirror, Pinkie throwing Applejack’s jacket across her broad shoulders.
Applejack knew Pinkie was chomping at the bit to get to making the feast for the library party tonight, but Applejack just couldn’t bring herself to get ready on her own, so Pinkie was a real sweetheart and decided to help Applejack out before she got started in the kitchen.
“Y’know you really don’t have to be so nervous,” Pinkie said with a giggle, and Applejack just rolled her eyes.
“I ain’t nervous,” she insisted, scrunching up her face instinctively the way she always did when she told a lie.
“Oh yeah,” Pinkie laughed, “you definitely don’t look nervous!”
“Alright,” Applejack huffed and fell onto the bed behind her with a loud FOOMPH, “I may be a mite nervous. But can ya blame me? I’ve been daydreamin’ ‘bout this exact thing for like a year almost!”
“Yepyep,” Pinkie nodded, sitting on the bed next to Applejack and playing with her blonde mane, “it’s a big deal, I get it. I just don’t think you need to be nervous cuz I know she’s gonna super like you!”
“You say that—”
“Cuz I believe it!”
Applejack sighed and sat up, dragging her hands slowly down her face. She’d been harboring a crush on Rainbow Dash practically since the two met somewhere around a year ago, when Rarity introduced Applejack to her new partner. Said partner immediately tried to show off her flying skills and then, when Applejack cheered for her, slammed face-first right into a steel beam.
But Applejack’s first impression of Rainbow wasn’t that she was a klutz, or even a blowhard, but that she was very uniquely herself. She was genuine, in a way a lot of ponies Applejack knew just weren’t. Or at least that was the impression Applejack got at first, and it was something that always stuck with her.
She’d always meant to ask Rainbow out, but the pegasus always seemed to find some way to avoid being alone with her, until Applejack just took the hint that Rainbow wasn’t interested. And while Applejack had tried really hard to move on, her feelings stayed put and they ate at her all the time.
Eventually Pinkie convinced her to go ahead and ask Rainbow out, if only to finally clear the air and know for absolute certain whether Rainbow’d be interested in her.
But there was no way she was gonna be. Rainbow was so Rainbow, and Applejack was just so… Applejack.
“Deep breaths,” Pinkie said, rubbing Applejack’s shoulders, “calm blue ocean.”
Applejack thought about last week, when she finally managed to sorta kinda ask Rainbow out.
She was walking home with Rainbow and Pinkie Pie, and they reached Rainbow’s house. Rainbow seemed hesitant to go inside for whatever reason, and Applejack thought that might be her chance to ask Rainbow what had been on her mind the entire walk, but Applejack completely choked.
Pinkie Pie though, wasn’t having any of it.
“Look, look!” Pinkie said, pointing to Rainbow as she stood on her front porch, staring at the doorway like she didn’t want to go in. “She’s hesitating! Now’s your chance!”
“I dunno, Pinkie,” Applejack muttered, “I just don’t think—”
“Applejack, she is soooooo into you!” Pinkie insisted, rolling her eyes and putting her hands on her hips. “Did you see the way her whole face turned red when I told her she was all you wanted to talk about?”
“I didn’t see that, Pinkie,” Applejack said sternly.
“That’s cuz you were too busy looking at your hooves the whole time, you useless lesbian!”
“Hey! I am not—”
Pinkie gave Applejack the most unimpressed scowl she’d ever seen on a pony, and Applejack tapped her thumbs together and muttered, “Okay, maybe I’m a bit of a useless lesbian.”
“The uselessest,” Pinkie joked, elbowing Applejack in the side. “Now go talk to her! This is your chance!”
Applejack looked over at Rainbow, who was opening up the door to her house, and Applejack sighed as she watched her ‘chance’ totally evaporate in front of her face.
At least that’s how she felt until Pinkie shoved her into the gate around Rainbow’s home, and Applejack shouted out almost instinctively, “Rainbow! Hold on a tick!”
And it was that easy. All she did after that was go up and ask Rainbow if she wanted to spend some time together, even if the excuse she made up on the spot about shopping—while technically true—was just that; an excuse.
“You are gonna have an awesome time!” Pinkie said to Applejack as the older mare walked out the door of their house, into the snowy morning air of Canterlot’s Moon District.
“Yeah,” Applejack said distantly, at least trying to sound confident. Failing, obviously, but at least she was trying. “I’m gonna have an awesome time.”
“You both are!” Pinkie cheered. “And I wanna hear aaaaaaall about it tonight, after the party! Okay?”
“Will do, Pinkie,” Applejack gave her best mate a smile, and she couldn’t help but laugh as Pinkie returned the smile with one that was twice as bright and affectionate. “Thanks, for all yer help.”
“Pffft, it’s my pleasure, you big silly!” Pinkie said. “I just want you to be happy!”
“Yer the best,” Applejack knelt down and gave Pinkie a big hug.
“No you are!” Pinkie said as she nuzzled her cheek against Applejack’s.
“Team effort then,” Applejack laughed, “we’re both the best.”
“I can live with that!” Pinkie grinned, bumping her forehead against Applejack’s. “Now shoo! You have a hot date to get to!”
“Alright,” Applejack stood up and gave one last confident-ish nod before heading out, “see you tonight, Pinkie Pie.”
Applejack tried very hard, especially for Pinkie’s sake, not to think of all the ways this whole situation could go horribly wrong on her way to Rainbow’s house. She practiced what she was gonna say over and over; she was gonna say hi, gonna ask Rainbow if she still wanted to go shopping with her, then suggest maybe the two grab some coffee after shopping.
Though her growling stomach reminded her that maybe she needed to fit breakfast into her plan somewhere. But no, breakfast could wait. It’s not like she could eat anything with this raging storm of anxiety wrangling her stomach into knots anyway.
The important thing was to not come on too strong. If Rainbow realized just how interested in her Applejack was, what could Rainbow possibly do other than laugh? Rainbow was so far out of Applejack’s league, it’d be hilarious to think that Applejack had a chance, if it weren’t so pathetic.
She took a deep breath and slapped her face a couple times as she saw Rainbow’s house come into view. Truth be told, it wasn’t that far from her and Pinkie’s place.
She opened up the gate surrounding the building and immediately felt like throwing up. She cursed her total inability to fib for a sec, cuz she knew she couldn’t bail out of this and make some excuse up to Pinkie later, and if she did bail and just told Pinkie the truth, boy that girl would be sooooo mad at her.
So Applejack closed the gate behind her and walked up the steps to Rainbow’s porch, each step being accompanied by a thousand beats of her frantic heart pulsing in her ears.
She walked up to the porch and could hardly breathe, but she forced herself to take a deep breath regardless as she raised her fist to knock.
She banged the back of her knuckles against the door three times and caught herself prayin’ that Rainbow’d be too sleepy to answer, or maybe she got called away on a mission all of a sudden, or—
The sound of the door latch flushed every thought out of Applejack’s head.
The door opened slowly.
Rainbow yawned as she opened the door and revealed herself to Applejack, and Applejack’s entire face turned bright red as her eyes widened and she stared like a slack-jawed moron at Rainbow.
Rainbow Dash was completely naked.
If Applejack had even remembered her practiced speech past all that heavy breathing and heart racing before, it was sure gone now.
Truth be told, Equestria didn’t have such a thing as a nudity taboo; ponies greeting visitors at the door in the buff wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, at least in the summer time, and that was all well and good but Applejack couldn’t really think about that or anything because HOLY HELL.
She is SO hot.
Applejack loudly cleared her throat and Rainbow looked up at her, her eyes widening for a second before she let out a wheezy laugh.
“Hey, Applejack,” she ran a hand through her mane and held her other hand on the door frame, leaning lazily against it. “Fancy meetin’ you here.”
“I, uh,” Applejack cleared her throat again and prayed Rainbow couldn’t see how red she was; she could still play this off like it was a normal interaction and Applejack wasn’t totally turned on right now. “We had a thing? We were gonna do shopping together? You remember that? I mean, it’s fine if you don’t! Or if you’ve changed your min—”
“Why would I change my mind?” Rainbow crossed her arms and scoff. She looked down at herself and chuckled, and Applejack tried not to swoon at how coolly she was playing this off. “I mean, I can’t really go out like this, not in the middle of winter, so just give me a sec to grab some clothes, okay?”
“Yeah,” Applejack nodded and affected a smile, subtly putting her hand in her pants pocket just in case she needed to cover a suspicious growth in that area, “sure.”
“Wanna come in?”
Ah. There was the growth. And Applejack’s face turned red as an apple. Again.
While Applejack’s first instinct was to utter a string of complete gibberish and fall on the ground, she decided that if Rainbow could play it so cool, she could at least try to do the same.
“If you’ll have me.”
“Make yourself at home,” Rainbow said with a wink and turned her tail on Applejack, giving her an eyeful of Rainbow’s lean, muscled back as she walked away.
And as Applejack walked into the house and watched Rainbow right up until she disappeared into her bedroom, all Applejack could think was:
UNF