Celestia slowly made her way up the winding track to Sweet Apple Acres. Orchards rolled away on either side of her, field upon field of the glossy-leaved trees, their branches laden with heavy red fruit. Birds sang softly in the distance, and Celestia turned her head to watch them flit from branch to branch. Though flying would have taken half the time that going on hoof did, the walk was a lovely one, and Celestia was glad that she had taken the time to land at the very edge of Apple land and work her way inwards.
She felt fresh and rejuvenated after her peaceful weekend in the Everfree, and she hadn’t been able to resist a quick visit to Sweet Apple Acres to see how Zap Apple’s date with Leaftail had gone. She hoped that she had struck the right note for Zap Apple at last. His personality certainly seemed to align well with Leaftail’s, but chemistry and romantic compatibility were strange beasts, and could be tricky to predict accurately.
Just outside the low fence separating the orchards from the home farm, Celestia spread her wings and took flight. Her mane flew behind her like a pennant, billowing in the wind. She flew low, close to the treeline, and skirted the farm. Charming as the Apple clan were, she was due back in Canterlot for a three o’ clock meeting, and she needed to ensure that this visit didn’t stretch beyond the time she had allotted for it. She was headed straight for Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s cottage. No stops to visit Sugar Belle or Granny Smith this time.
She alighted on the little cottage’s garden path and folded her wings neatly by her sides, rustling the feathers until they were comfortable. Then she took a few paces forwards and raised a hoof to knock twice on the thick oaken door.
Hooves sounded on the stairs, and Zap Apple himself opened the door to her. Celestia gave him her most winning smile, and studied his face carefully as he smiled back up at her. His happiness seemed genuine, with no edge of sadness or worry. Celestia’s spirits lifted. Surely this was a good sign; the meeting must have gone well.
“Hi, Auntie,” Zap Apple said breezily. “Didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“I happened to be in the neighbourhood,” Celestia replied. “I hope you and your family are doing well?”
“Pretty good, thanks,” Zap Apple answered, his tone changing to one of polite disinterest. He was clearly not a pony who enjoyed small talk.
Celestia decided to cut to the chase. “Are your mothers home? I was hoping we could all catch up.”
“All of us?” Zap Apple sounded surprised, but he stepped back from the door to admit her. “I think they’re round the back having coffee. Come on in.”
Celestia ducked her head to look into the little dwelling, and balked a little at its low ceilings and tightly packed rooms. “They’re already outside, you said?”
“In the back garden,” Zap Apple said, puzzlement in his voice, but his face cleared when he looked back and saw Celestia awkwardly stooped in the doorway, blotting out the daylight. “Ah. Right.”
“Yes.” Celestia smiled to soothe his discomfort. “I’ll just walk around the outside of the cottage.” She thought longingly of Canterlot, where it was a legal requirement that buildings conform to the Celestian Standard Height. But there was nothing to be done about it here. She backed up, and then walked briskly along the little path that hugged the wall of the cottage. She rounded the corner just in time to hear Zap Apple telling his parents in a lowered voice about her presence.
“The Princess is here?” Applejack said, and Celestia coughed politely to announce herself. Applejack swung around, jumping out of her garden chair and to trot up to Celestia and offer her hoof. “Mighty warm welcome to ya, Princess Celestia.”
Rainbow Dash took off from her own seat — a manoeuvre that she made look deceptively easy, but actually required a great deal of technical skill. Celestia knew that many pegasi would not be capable of it, and had to suppress a smile. Rainbow Dash never missed a chance to display her talents.
Rainbow flew over and hovered at Celestia’s head height, and Celestia was able to look directly into her eyes while she greeted her. The exact same shade of pink as her son’s. It was very refreshing, actually, not to be forced to peer down at somepony.
“Hey again, Princess,” Rainbow Dash said. “Come to check in on the kid?”
“Yes, actually,” Celestia confirmed. “I wanted to hear in person how Zap Apple’s first meeting with Leaftail went. The postal service is a wonderful thing, but for some conversations face-to-face contact can’t be beaten, don’t you think?”
“For sure,” Rainbow Dash said. “Pull up a chair, Zaps; I’ll grab one from inside for the Princess.” She was back in a blur of rainbow light, bearing one of the same stout chairs from the kitchen that Celestia had used on her previous visit.
Celestia thanked her and sat down, and Applejack poured out coffee for both Celestia and Zap Apple. “Here ya go.”
“Thank you.”
Expectant eyes turned from every side to Zap Apple, who clutched his steaming mug a little tighter and shifted his weight uncertainly. The silence began to stretch.
“Go on, Shuck,” Applejack prompted him.
“He already told us about it,” Rainbow Dash said in an aside to Celestia.
“But it won’t do him no harm to tell us again,” Applejack said sternly. “Come on, Zaps. Don’t go gettin’ all tongue-tied on me now.”
“Sorry,” Zap Apple apologised, almost instinctively. “I didn’t mean to. Uhm…it went okay. I think it went pretty well. Leaftail is very — very cool. I had a nice time.” He fell silent again, and his heavy fringe fell forward across his eyes, almost like he was trying to shield himself from them all.
Applejack turned back to Celestia. “An’ that there’s about the sum total of what we could get outta him, Princess. Ah’m not sure he’ll say too much more’n that.”
Celestia waved Applejack’s concerns away with a small smile. “Come now, Zap Apple, you must give me a little more to work with than that. What did you do together?”
The simple question seemed to reassure Zap Apple, and he uncurled a little. Like a snail coming slowly back out of its shell, Celestia thought.
“Leaftail took me climbing.”
“How did you find it?”
“Really tough.”
“More of a flier than a climber, this one.” Rainbow Dash leaned over to tousle her son’s mane, her words belied by her obvious pride in this similarity between herself and her child.
“Mum!” Zap Apple laughed and leaned away. He was visibly relaxing now.
Celestia kept her questions simple, but kept them coming. “And what did you do after the climb? Did you talk?”
Zap Apple coloured a little. “Y-yeah, we did.”
“What did you talk about?”
“The future.” He waved a hoof vaguely. “We both said we aren’t sure what we want yet. Just to take things slow, and see how they go.”
“That’s good,” Celestia nodded. “It sounds like you’re both on the same page. What else did you talk about?”
“Our interests,” Zap Apple answered. “We’re both pretty sporty. Leaftail climbs, and I fly. She told me a bit about growing up in kirin lands.”
“The Perilous Peaks are beautiful,” Celestia agreed. “Well, this all sounds wonderful. Do you think you would like to meet with her again?”
Zap Apple blushed a little brighter. “I-I think so.”
Celestia turned to the two parents. “And do you think you would be happy with this match? And the Apple family more broadly, of course; would they be satisfied?"
“Well, Ah would prefer if she came from farming stock,” Applejack began slowly.
“—But all we really want is for our kid to be happy with the partner he picks,” Rainbow Dash added sharply. “We can guide, AJ, not choose.”
“O’course,” Applejack said hastily. “Ah never meant to say he couldn’t pick for himself. Ah was just sayin’.”
“I believe that Leaftail’s mother is the chief berry cultivator and gatherer for the kirin village,” Celestia offered. “Leaftail tells me she helped out a lot with that in her youth. I think she shares the Apple family ethos of hard work reaping rewards.”
Applejack visibly relaxed into her chair. “Oh. Well, why didn’t ya say so sooner?”
“Wonderful,” Celestia said, already mentally picturing the lovely moment when she could close two files forever and see them off into their new life together. “Well, it seems that all is going smoothly for now. Perhaps the best course of action is for the two young people to keep exploring their needs and where they want this to go, and we can reconvene to discuss in a few weeks.”
Rainbow Dash nudged Zap Apple’s chair hard. “You’ve not even told her the best part yet, kiddo!”
Zap Apple’s face immediately flooded with crimson. “Mum!”
Celestia’s eyebrows rose and she zeroed in on Zap Apple. “The best part? It sounds like I should hear this.”
“Ah don’t believe Ah’ve heard whatever you two are referrin’ to either.” Applejack folded her front legs as she spoke, looking more put out than stern.
Zap Apple buried his face in his hooves. “Mum, I told you that in confidence.”
Concern flashed briefly across Rainbow Dash’s face, but then she brushed it away and patted Zap Apple on the wing. “Sorry, Zaps. But I think you just gotta have little more confidence in yourself, kiddo, and tell AJ what you told me.”
Zap Apple spoke from behind the shelter of his hooves. “Leaftail and I were getting on really well…really well, and we…we got quite close.”
Celestia tried to peer behind the obstructions blocking Zap Apple’s expression from her. What little she could see of his face behind his hooves and that untidy mop of hair was beet red.
“What d’ya mean, close?” Applejack frowned.
“We…got physical.” Zap Apple’s voice was almost a whisper.
“That’s my boy!” Rainbow Dash crowed. “Getting some on the first date! Just like his old lady.” She elbowed Zap Apple, hard enough that he made a small whimper in protest. “Come on, kid. Give me a high five.” She held out her hoof, but Zap Apple only groaned and leaned his head further into the tabletop. Rainbow Dash waited for a few moments, and then leant over to drag one of Zap Apple’s unresisting hooves out and clop it against her own. “There we go,” she grinned, satisfied.
Applejack seemed torn between smiling at her family’s antics and disapproving. “Ah’m not sure that was the best idea on a first date, Shuck.”
Celestia’s eyebrows lowered, and she looked in bewilderment from one Apple to the next. “Pardon me — but am I to understand that you and Leaftail slept with one another?” Perhaps she was wrong. Certainly she hoped she was. Perhaps Zap Apple only meant kissing; he seemed easily embarrassed, so it could be as simple as that.
Looking down at Zap Apple’s bowed head, the myriad colours in his mane tangled together on the table, Celestia thought of her niece. Cadance was a great fan of thrusting ponies together and encouraging them to follow their hearts. She believed that a pony’s instincts, no matter how base, should be listened to. “The heart knows what it wants,” she would say, but Celestia knew that it often wasn’t the heart that Cadence was referring to. While the marriage rate in the Crystal Empire was high, so was the divorce rate, and Celestia suspected — not that she would ever say this to her niece — that Cadance’s more permissive approach to love was responsible.
Celestia preferred a different approach, and that was what she had established Auntie Tia’s Matchmaking Service to achieve. She advocated a calm, measured attitude to romance, with serious thought given to each party’s ideologies, personality, goals and family background. That was why she involved the families. Not because their preferences would actually impact the ultimate choice of the pony concerned, but because it encouraged them to take the whole matter seriously, and think hard about the life they wanted. It was a tough ask for young ponies, but Celestia had seen firsthoof the results it provided.
To hear that one of her own clients had gone against her wishes and embraced Cadance's careless attitude to falling in love was more than a little galling. Celestia shuddered a little as she remembered the horror Cadance's headstrong teenage years and the endless parade of colts and fillies that she had snuck into the palace. Celestia had been forced to more than triple the royal guards' patrols, but all that had resulted was a corresponding increase in Cadance's ingenuity. The memories of the rumours, the circling paparazzi, the whispered discussions on what was proper royal etiquette that ceased abruptly whenever Celestia entered a room.
She felt a headache coming on.
Hesitantly, Zap Apple raised his head at last. “Would…that be a problem, Princess Celestia?”
Celestia drew herself up, feeling the air around her heat up suddenly as her magic responded to her emotions.
Hastily, she dispersed the effect, and quelled her rising irritation. Centuries of diplomatic training had prepared her for moments like this. It would do no good to lose her temper.
“I would be very disappointed if that were the case,” she said calmly.
Zap Apple moaned once more and disappeared back behind his forelegs. Rainbow Dash sobered at once, and exchanged a quick, meaningful glance with Applejack.
“Why’s that, Princess?” Applejack asked. “Surely it don’t matter. A little thing like that.”
Celestia shook her head firmly. “That is not the way things should be done, when the intentions of the ponies involved are what they are. We are aiming to match ponies for marriage.”
Rainbow Dash’s ears went back. “But surely it’s just a bit of fun—”
Celestia raised a hoof to cut her off, and Rainbow Dash fell obediently silent. Celestia had expected no less; after millennia of rule, her little ponies would always respect her. “I don’t usually think it necessary,” she went on, “to explain in detail to my clients the comportment I expect from them, but perhaps I should have been more explicit in this case. I expect ponies using my service to treat every match seriously, to approach each individual I offer them as a serious prospect for life partnership. That means getting to know them, spending time investing in their personality and mind. Not rushing into bed with them.”
Zap Apple looked up, his pink eyes huge and anxious in his thin face. “But I—”
Celestia cut him off just as she had his mother, her eyes narrow. “I am not running a dating service, Zap Apple. We have been trying to find you a soulmate.”
“Now hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute, Princess,” Applejack interjected. “Ah think you’re comin’ on a little strong—”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash added, her wings spreading protectively over her son. “It was just a hook-up.”
Celestia bought her hoof down on the table. The motion was gentle, the impact scarcely made a sound, but the other three ponies still flinched.
“There is no such thing as ‘just a hook-up’,” Celestia said firmly. “Imagine how things might go if this happened with every pair of ponies I match — if they got intimate too soon, then things went wrong afterwards and contact was cut. Feelings might be seriously hurt, things would be complicated.” She ran a hoof through her mane. “My match-making service would become just another cheap dating agency. The goal of life partnership would be lost in favour of finding the next one-night stand.”
She shook her head. "I cannot tolerate that sort of conduct from my clients."
Zap Apple made a strangled sound in his throat and stood up very suddenly. All eyes went to him, and Celestia wondered if he was about to have some sort of outburst — if he would shout at her, or cry — but instead, he turned and fled from the room, the kitchen door banging shut behind him.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash both jumped to their hooves. “Zaps!”
“I’ll go after him,” Rainbow said to Applejack. “This whole mess is my fault. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She glanced over at Celestia. “He’s a really good kid, Princess. He never meant any harm.”
“I know,” Celestia replied, a little doubt finally creeping in. Perhaps she had been too harsh? Zap Apple was much more fragile than his outward bravado had initially suggested. His mothers were both such tough and confident characters that it was hard to imagine their seemingly similar offspring would be different. But perhaps, Celestia mused, that was the very reason. It might be hard to be genuinely confident in yourself with such powerful and famous ponies for parents.
Rainbow Dash hurried after Zap Apple, her hooves drumming loudly on the stairs, and Applejack sighed and sat back down beside Celestia. “Ah’m sorry, Princess.”
“Don’t be,” Celestia said. “I fear that I owe you an apology too.” She sighed. “I perhaps should have been clearer from the beginning. Zap Apple is quite…uncertain about what he wants from life, is he not? And that is perhaps not the best position for a pony using my services to be in.”
Applejack rubbed a hoof across her forehead. “Actually, Ah hoped usin’ your services might give him some of that certainty. He’s a real good boy, Princess, and we jus’ want to see him happy an’ settled. A supportive partner’d do wonders for him.”
Celestia rested her chin delicately on one hoof. “It’s clear that both you and Rainbow Dash can see that. But Zap Apple has to see it too. He needs to know what he wants.”
“Ah know,” Applejack said solemnly. “And Ah’ll talk to Zaps, make sure he understands too.”
Celestia nodded thoughtfully, and then leaned down a little to make real eye contact with Applejack before speaking again. “I hope you can understand my perspective on all this, Applejack. Sex is fun, we all know that—” Applejack’s eyebrows rose sharply to hear Celestia say that word, “—but marriage is serious. The important aspects must be focused on before the fun ones.”
“Ah know,” Applejack repeated. “Ah’ll make sure Zaps gets it. Will…will ya still work with us on this? Or is it one strike an’ he’s out?”
Celestia spread her hooves. “As long as Zap Apple is sure about what he’s doing, I can help to guide him to the right partner.”
Applejack exhaled. “Right. Well, that’s mighty kind of ya, Princess.” There was a slight pause, and Celestia saw Applejack’s eyes flicker to the larder; she was probably about to offer some Apple family hospitality. Applejack was always a gracious host, but Celestia had a schedule to stick to — a schedule that she had forgotten in the heat of this discussion — and in this moment it was clear that Applejack’s family clearly needed her more.
“I think I had better take my leave now,” Celestia said, rising gracefully from her chair. “I must go and speak with Leaftail and clear this matter up with her as well.”
Applejack nodded. “Of course. Thank you for comin’, Princess.”
“It’s always a pleasure to visit you and Rainbow Dash,” Celestia said, and meant it. Though she always intended to get to know them a little more, it had been too long since she spent any length of time with the close friends of her faithful student. “And truly, I am sorry if my arguments for waiting came off a little too…forceful. It’s a debate Cadence and I have had many times, and I fear I may have…shot from the hip, perhaps.”
Applejack didn’t answer; her gaze was already straying to the door that Zap Apple and Rainbow Dash had vanished through.
Celestia made her way along the garden path and paused at the corner of the cottage to look back at Applejack one last time. “Encourage Zap Apple to think seriously about whether this is the right path for him. I can’t genuinely encourage him to meet again with Leaftail, or match him with more ponies, if he does not genuinely want to be matched.”
Applejack nodded. “Ah understand. Ah’ll be in touch soon, if Zaps isn’t.”
Celestia raised her head in a final goodbye, and then spread her wings and left the little cottage and its sentinel apple trees behind her.