"Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!" Dash slammed her mug onto the table, the fruit bowl—nothing but apples in it, of course—jumping and rattling. "Everything! All wrong!"
"Uhhh..." AJ blinked, the kitchen behind her shadowy in the not-quite-midnight darkness. "Weren't you just spouting off 'bout how good the cider is this year?"
Now it was Dash's turn to blink. "What? Yeah! I mean, of course! Your cider's always the best!" Leaping into a hover, she grabbed the jug beside the fruit bowl and refilled her mug. "It's everything else that's wrong!"
AJ's arched eyebrow said more than any words ever could, but Dash pretended she didn't hear it.
See it.
Hear it.
Whatever. She just rammed a hoof through the mug's handle and took a double snootful of pure liquid gold.
"Ev'rything?" Apparently AJ hadn't been paying attention to her eyebrow either.
"Fine." Dash set the mug down. "Not everything everything." Her mind drifted back to the ceremony yesterday at Wonderbolt HQ, the big public party that followed, the after party with her friends and teammates, the after-after party with just the girls in one of the little party rooms or whatever they were at Canterlot Tower, and now, back home again, the after-after-after party, her and AJ here in this kitchen at this table with these mugs the way they'd done for so many years.
Warmth spread through her, and not just from the cider. "Being number two on the squad'll be pretty sweet, and having all of you there when Twilight pinned the badge on me?" Just a sip this time: no need to get carried away. "She's really making a great princess, y'know?"
"Eyup." AJ took a swig from her own mug. "So Twilight being in charge. That's another thing that ain't wrong?"
"What?" Almost waving her hooves in the air, Dash stopped when the weight reminded her that she was still holding her mug. "Of course that's not wrong! That's, like, the whole point! We're the awesomest ponies in the world, so now we're running the place! Nothing wrong with that!"
"Okay." Sitting up straighter, AJ didn't look nearly as relaxed as Dash thought she should—or wished she would. "So us being on the Council and helping Twilight rule Equestria also ain't wrong. Mebbe you don't like just being a guest lecturer now at the school? Or mebbe you don't think Starlight shoulda been made headmare?"
Her stomach tightening, Dash rolled her eyes like she didn't care. "The school was great, and it's still great! Better'n great, and I don't care what anypony else says! So give it a rest, huh?" She tried to sound all tough and resolute, but it came out all whiny and sulking in her ears. "Why're you asking so many weird questions all of a sudden?"
AJ leaned forward, something both fierce and tender in her face. "Mebbe 'cause the best gal in the whole wide world just told me ev'rything's wrong." She tapped the tip of a hoof against the table. "And I intend to make it right for her."
More emotions sloshed back and forth through Dash than she'd ever suspected she actually had in her. I was just kidding, she wanted to say. Or make her voice all bored and say, How 'bout we talk about something else? Or she could give a laugh, clink her mug against AJ's, and say, You're being way too serious, buckaroo.
Or maybe she should jump across this table, bury her face in the gorgeous fall of AJ's golden hair, snuggle close to that broad chest, and tell her in whispered and delicious detail the exact ways she could make everything right.
But instead of any of that, she raised her mug and tipped it over her mouth so she wouldn't have to say anything. And when she swallowed, she could almost hear the cider splashing down through the aching chasm inside her chest, her whole body feeling hollow and heavy at the same time. Which was totally impossible! If a pony was heavy, she couldn't be hollow, and if she was hollow, how could she be heavy? It didn't make any sense!
That didn't stop it from happening, though...
"It's okay," she said, not sure she was even saying it out loud. "Really. It's...it's just the cider talking."
"Not my cider, it ain't." AJ reached out a hoof and rested it on the one Dash wasn't busy using to keep a death grip around her cider stein. "Lemme take a guess and ask if it might be all the marrying that's been going on 'round here lately that's got'cha in a tizzy."
Dash's heart gave a few too many beats, but she forced her lips to purse. "'Tizzy'? Really?"
AJ's eyebrow did its thing again.
Squirming under the pressure of it, Dash shrugged. "Cheese and Pinkie'll be great together: you just look at 'em and you see that. And yeah, thinking about Discord and Fluttershy rolling around or whatever back at her place might get me a little queasy." She managed to twitch her lips into something that felt like a smile. "But hey, I always knew Shy had the biggest freak flag of any of us, and it's great seeing it fly, y'know?"
To judge from AJ's face, though, whatever Dash was doing didn't look much like a smile. "All righty, then." AJ leaned forward even further, set her other forehoof so she was holding Dash's between both of hers. "Starting to sound like there's nothing left could possibly be wrong. We're all just ticking along pretty much same as always. Ain't we?"
This wasn't how this was supposed to go, not with her and AJ. Talking? Touching hooves? Gentle moonlight drifting through the window and all over the kitchen counters? Her and AJ should just happen like ice breaking up or leaves budding or—
Or any of those other things that ponies caused out in the world. Things that wouldn't happen if ponies didn't stretch their wings and flex their legs and get to work doing them.
"It's just—" Dash found herself staring at the fruit bowl. "Sometimes you see an apple sitting out in the orchard and it looks all big and juicy and you reach for it thinking you're totally the luckiest pony ever. And as soon as you touch it, it...it mooshes, all brown and stinky inside." She didn't want to look at the apples anymore, didn't want to smell the cider she'd splashed on the table getting warm and sour anymore, didn't want to feel AJ's hooves pressing against her in case they broke through and showed how hollow and awful Dash was. "How do we know everything isn't that?" she whispered.
Those warm hooves started stroking Dash's fetlocks. "'Cause we don't let it be that." The quiet strength of AJ's voice raised Dash's head, and the light of her eyes held Dash's gaze. "We keep sharp, grab all the apples we can, and insteada letting 'em rot the way nature wants, we make 'em rot the way we want. With sugar and yeast and a little squeezing, we turn 'em into cider." Her smile said way more than any eyebrow ever could. "And we's both had a spoonful too mucha that tonight, ain't we?"
Dash found herself nodding but kept focused on AJ, didn't want to focus on anything else the rest of her life.
"So." AJ leaned back. "Since you ain't fit to fly, we'll pour you into a guest room and call it a night. Unless—" Something about her wavered like a candle uncertain under a gust of wind. "Unless you don't wanna be alone tonight?"
"I don't." Her throat dry, Dash shoved the words out anyway. "Maybe...I could stay in your room...with you?"
"Well, now." Her smile spreading slow, AJ reached up and pushed her hat back. "Reckon that'd make ev'rything all right, Sugar cube?"
No words left, Dash just nodded again.
Standing, AJ swayed a little, walked around the table—
And her smile touching Dash's tasted sweet as cider.