"You ain't so good at magic, are you?"
I growled softly and dug in a little deeper. The plastic tray shuddered as I moved, and the plates on it clattered against each other. The sound was alarmingly similar to that of my own mind's grinding gears.
Applejack chuckled softly. "Sorry, sorry."
"You are not!" I spat back. The tray wavered violently, right side dipping towards the tile floor.
"Whoa, there!" Applejack rushed forward, one hoof cupped under the tray. "Careful, Chunks."
I released my grip on the tray, purely out of spite. It was sort of funny to watch Applejack bobble the tray before it careened onto the floor.
As promised, the hefty, diner-quality plates did not shatter, merely shot off in a thousand different directions across the waxed floors.
Applejack slowly pulled her eyes up from the floor to meet mine. She didn't say anything; just glared at me with all the power she could muster.
I shrugged. "You did say they wouldn't break," I reminded her.
"Well, I sure as hell didn't tell you to throw 'em on the floor for fun," Applejack muttered. "C'mon, now. Help me pick these up."
She began stacking the plates on the tray once more. I joined her without hesitation or argument, and the room was filled with the sound of ceramic plates gently settling into one another.
Being inside of a diner after hours is its own unique emotion. There's something about the way sound bounces off the walls, the way the empty chairs squeak along the tiled floor, the way the lights hum quietly under it all. It's not the sort of thing that's likeable, exactly, but it had taken on a comforting familiarity after only a few days. The space was starting to become a little bit mine.
I'm sure Applejack would have a thing or two to say about that, but I don't care.
"I am sorry," Applejack said. It was stronger than I'd expected-- not that I'd have expected her to apologise at all. "Just so we're clear."
I sighed lightly. More of a huff, really. "I know."
"Sure you've noticed by now that I can be a might abrasive," she continued. She dropped another few plates onto the tray with a light sound, the ceramic equivalent of shuffling cards. "My auntie always did say I could stand to be a little less honest. Harder than it sounds, though."
I reached one foreleg under a table to retrieve a plate. "I guess it just…"
I trailed off, straining with the effort of reaching the distant plate. At last, I managed to grab hold, and let out a sigh.
"It sometimes seems like you're enjoying it," I said, as casually as I could.
"Oh, I am." Applejack laughed. "If some good-natured teasin's wrong, I don't wanna be right."
I must have made a face.
"Just… not everypony sees it that way, I s'pose."
"Hm."
"Some do!" Applejack was quick to correct. Then her face sort of crumpled. "Most don't… like you."
I blinked. For some reason, I held the plate in my hoof against my chest. "Oh, I-- I don't mind it." I gave the plate a slight twist, feeling the dense fur over my heart slip over it. "It's kind of nice to be known well enough to be teased. If that makes sense."
Applejack nodded. "Sure do," she agreed, the shadow of a smile crossing her face.
"It's just--" I dropped the plate onto a low stack and made a small sound of frustration. "Well, the magic stuff. I’m just a little more… sensitive to it than other things.”
“Fair enough." Applejack sniffled. Not a sad sniffle, more of a… country sniffle. "I have my sore spots, too.”
I waited a moment. I'm not sure why, but I was a little bit hurt that Applejack didn't ask why. Didn't she want to know? Didn't she care?
Then again, I likely would have been pissed off if she had asked. Privacy and all that. The endless conflict of wanting to be known, yet terrified of being vulnerable.
“Can I ask what they are?” I asked.
I'm not sure why I thought Applejack would be willing to be vulnerable when even I couldn't manage it.
Applejack cocked her head. "Hm?"
Too late to put the words back, now-- even as my cheeks burned with regret. "Your sore spots." I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "I was just wondering what they were."
Applejack said nothing, but the corners of her eyes crinkled ever so slightly. A nearly imperceptible sign of anger.
Then she loudly dropped a pile of plates onto the tray. A much, much more obvious sign of anger. In case I'd missed the first.
I nearly jumped out of my skin. “T-to avoid them!" I blurted. "Avoid!”
This, for some reason, did nothing to diminish Applejack's anger. “My family," she said, holding her powerful steely gaze.
"O-oh…" I must have looked like a trout. What are you supposed to say to that? "Does that include Sunflower and Babs?"
Applejack clucked her tongue. "For you, yes."
My cheeks burned brighter.
“I don’t like talkin’ about ‘em," Applejack said, throwing in another country sniffle to prove her apathy. "That’s all you need t’know. Got it?”
I nodded urgently. “G-got it.”
She was silent for a moment.
Curious as I was, I suddenly realized how ill-equipped I was to handle a conversation like the one which may result. What do I know about family problems? Or Applejack, for that matter?
I opened my mouth to speak, then snapped it shut before a word could even form.
"Let's get back to it," Applejack said, gesturing to the tray on the floor.
I looked down at the tray.
Stupid thing. Stupid empty plates-- like I'm not even good enough to practice with glasses of water. Or dry toast.
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I wasn't.
This whole set-up was giving me some serious chest pains. I couldn't help but flash back to those early days of studying magic. Oh, the headaches…
“I was supposed to go to Celestia’s School.” It just sort of rolled out as if the words had been hanging on the back of my tongue, waiting for me to tilt my head forward and send them spilling out.
Applejack's brows furrowed, though only slightly. “Didn’t ask.”
“I know." I traced one hoof along the edge of the tray. "I know. I just… I dunno. I want to talk about it. I want you to know.”
Applejack hesitated, then sat down on the tile floor. “Why?”
I blinked. “I dunno," I said. "I feel like it’s an important part of who I am. I feel like you should know."
“I don’t need to know who you are, I just need to know whether or not you can carry a tray from the kitchen to the dining area.” Applejack laughed her easy-going, molasses laugh.
And, for a moment, it was like I'd know her for years.
Or… no. Not like that. I still hardly knew her. It was like there was something between us, though. Some spark. Something almost magical.
I could see the dappled sunlight on her shoulders as she ripped back her stetson and smirked. I could see a pony, instead of just an obstacle.
And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the sunlight vanished.
Back in the diner.
I blinked once--hard--and, when I opened my eyes, Applejack was staring back at me.
Her face was so much softer than I'd ever seen it. All the tension and the suspicion and the walls had melted away, leaving her all freckles and wide-eyed wonder.
What did she see when she looked at me?
I cleared my throat, and Applejack face hardened again.
She swallowed, and her eyes drifted back down to the tray. “If you gotta talk, then talk," she said, but her voice had lost its edge. "Don’t expect me to have an opinion on it.”
I nodded. "Okay.”
“Much less advice.”
“I’m not asking for advice.”
“Somehow I feel like you’re gonna find a way to ask for advice.” Applejack looked up at me, and there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.
I pursed my lips, waiting for Applejack to let something else slip. She, of course, was stony as ever.
“I was supposed to go to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns," I said. I paused here, waiting for some kind of gifted-foal lecture, but Applejack made no attempt to ridicule me.
Nothing special, though. She was just listening to my polite request.
"My parents thought I’d do well there because-- well, I’d been sorta… magic-obsessed, I guess you could say," I continued, trailing off to near silence. I coughed once. "All I did all day was study magic. They wanted me to be in an 'encouraging environment'.”
“Sounds like they wanted their hyper foal to be in any environment that weren't theirs.” Applejack raised one eyebrow in my direction.
I glared back at her.
So much for listening.
“Sorry, sorry." Applejack shook her head, poorly disguising a smile. "Go on.”
I huffed lightly and tossed my mane. “Well, I had to pass an entrance exam to get in," I said. "And I… didn’t.”
I stopped.
The diner was so still and so empty. All the plates stacked on their tray. All the chairs with their legs to the air.
Had I admitted something like that in a diner filled with ponies, perhaps the resulting silence wouldn't have felt so silent. I could have closed my eyes and focused on the distant shouts from the kitchen, or the full conversation from the next table over.
But it was just me and Applejack.
And the silence was heavy.
“That’s it?” Applejack asked.
"What?" I whipped my head up. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?"
Applejack looked genuinely taken aback. She said nothing, just looked back at me with real, actual shock.
I spluttered a moment, trying to figure out what to say. "I-it totally messed me up as a foal!" I stomped one hoof on the floor, weaker than I would have liked. "I had to go to Canterlot Public and be told for the rest of my life how shitty I was at magic, and how I’d better find something else to do with my life.”
“The rest of your life?” Applejack whispered.
I couldn't quite tell if it was a question, or a statement, or just an echo, but it sounded so… sad.
“Well… yeah," I said. "Until a few weeks ago. Yeah."
“Hm.”
I wished I could understand the emotion which curled her lips and tightened her eyes, but there was no hope. Good old inscrutable Applejack
Honesty, my ass.
I sighed. “It’s just… not being able to do magic has been held against me for so many years." I reached up to scratch at my head, just because I wanted something to do. "When I was younger, I kept trying to learn, but as I got older I just said… well, fuck it.”
Applejack snorted. “Fuck it?" She repeated. "Fuck what, exactly?”
“Fuck trying to be good at something I clearly wasn’t meant to be good at.," I said. "Fuck trying to meet their standards of excellence. Fuck being left behind.”
Applejack's brows furrowed. “Left behind?”
For fuck's sake, did this pony have anything of her own to say?
I sniffed. “Yeah."
Applejack sort of cocked her head. She didn't exactly ask for more, but I could see that she was struggling to understand.
"I mean, before I failed that test, all I ever heard was what a great little student I was," I said with a little snarl. "How smart I was. How being studious and obedient and malleable was so wonderful."
Applejack said nothing, though I could see her ears beginning to droop.
"Then, when I didn’t get my cutie mark for magic, it was like… everypony was worried about my ‘development’." I scoffed, and my voice dropped to nothing but a murmur. "Like they were somehow confused that I turned out to be such a mess.”
The air conditioning kicked on in the kitchen. Or… I dunno, whatever cools the fridge or something. Some big, whirring thing that made the preceding silence seem all the quieter.
“When it was so clearly their fault I got left behind in the first place!" I shouted, now unafraid of volume. "They were the ones who encouraged me to put all my eggs in one basket on magic.”
Applejack didn't say anything. She didn't move. She didn't even breathe.
I clenched and unclenched my teeth a few times, gnashing the crooked ones against one another. “By that time, I still didn’t have any friends or social skills or a cutie mark," I said. "All of a sudden, I was this totally lost cause. I'd missed all the years when I should have learned that shit.”
“Huh," Applejack remarked. I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that. Then again, I'm not sure she did, either.
I cleared my throat. “So… I just said fuck it." I chuckled. "Y'know? I’m not doing that. Whatever you want me to do, I’m not doing it.”
Applejack, at long last, smiled. It was a rather mischievous sort of grin, with a lopsided curl and a devious squint.
She chuckled, too. Just lightly. More of a scoff, if I'm honest. “Just like a real city rebel.”
Real rebels do things. City rebels just don’t do things.
I nodded. “You bet.”
Applejack let out one big laugh. “Ha! Fuck it all, huh?” She was shaking her head, as if it were crazy, but her smile seemed so genuine and involuntary.
“A-absolutely!" I agreed, loud enough to mask my hesitation. "Fuck it all!"
Applejack kept laughing. It wasn't a humorous laugh or even a mocking laugh-- it was purely filled with joy, perhaps even a strange tinge of rebellion.
It was a sound as warm and golden as the sun itself. Something you just wanted to soak in, y'know? Like a cat napping in the window.
I think that's the first time I understood the Summer Sun Celebration.
I can see why you'd want as much sun as you could get.
Applejack's laughter tapered off long before I had a chance to join in (though I'm sure I was smiling like a great big dope). She sighed in deep satisfaction, and I got the sense it had been a while she'd laughed like that.
She looked at me, and seemed to register my stunned silence at last. "What?" she asked, almost defensively.
I shook my head, painting on the most innocent expression I could manage. "Nothing!"
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “I ain’t telling you about my baggage," she told me, pointing an accusing hoof in my direction. "That was your choice. To share.”
“No, no. It’s not that."
"Well, then, what is it?" she asked.
I opened my mouth, closed it. Opened it again, closed it again. Like a fish out of water.
"Spit it out," Applejack said. Not like an order, though. More of an encouragement flavored like an order. "C'mon, now."
"Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked at last.
It was Applejack's turn to be surprised.
"Just… I kinda thought you hated me."
"I don't," Applejack said. Sort of quickly, actually. “And I ain’t. B-bein' nice, that is. I’m bein’ your boss.”
Right.
The boss who hires you, even though you have no skills.
The boss who listens to your problems, even though she professes not to care.
The boss who stays after hours to train you in an outrageously simple task, even though she seems to have no patience at all.
The boss who hates you.
And yet does not.
Applejack looked down at the floor. “We should stop," she said, tugging the tray towards her a bit. "It’s alright, I’ve got other ponies who can--”
“No," I said.
Applejack blinked. “No?”
I took a tiny breath. “I can learn this." I got to my hooves, digging into that wide stance once again. "I want to."
Applejack smiled. She nodded, just once, as if she were the sage of waiting tables. “Well, alright, Chunks," she said in admiration.
I saw my chance. “It’s Twilight," I corrected.
She knew this, of course. But she had been waiting for me to remind her.
The admiration deepened. “Well." She smirked. "Alright, Twilight.”