//------------------------------// // Questions from a Featherbrain // Story: Questions from a Featherbrain // by MistyShadowz //------------------------------// It had been a few days since Aj came out as Ace to her partner, Rainbow, and she’d received nothing but acceptance from her. No prodding around about sex and if she was somehow related to plants or somewhat interested in the letter A for whatever reason. But there was also a very noticeable lack of further questions. Normally she wouldn’t have been bothered about this fact, but knowing Rainbow as well as she did, she knew Rainbow wasn’t the type to not be curious about something like this. At least one question about where Aj fell on the spectrum, or if they could have some kind of sexual pleasure, but nope. Nothing. At least, that was how it was until this morning. During a breakfast Rainbow was invited to by the Apples as an honorary Apple, Rainbow had blurted out the last question Applejack expected. "Are you Aromantic?" The mare was staring expectedly at her partner with wide beady eyes. Applejack nearly spat out the juice in her mouth, instead it went down the wrong pipe and she started coughing. She hit her hoof against her chest trying to calm herself down, even Rainbow started patting her on the back. "Sorry, sorry! Was that rude?!" Rainbow asked in a mild panic, trying to stop her marefriend's coughing. In about a few seconds, her coughing stopped, and she regained her ability to talk. She turned to face Dash, making sure she kept eye contact, "To answer yer question Dash, no. No, I’m not Aromantic. Can’t speak for everyone, but from what I’ve heard, they don’t like to be in romantic relationships, right? We’re in one, I’m happy with ya as my partner, I just don’t think that… the fun in the bed time is needed to have a fulfilling relationship. Get it?" Rainbow nodded unsurely, "Yeah…? Don’t those two things kinda… go hoof in hoof… or is that… not how that works?" She toyed her forehooves together in a nervous habit. "No, they ain’t the same thin'." Applejack picked up Rainbow's plate and her own before heading to the sink. "Wan'in' to pleasure yerself is real different from wan'in' to be with somepony and do romantic stuff with 'em. I love goin' dates with ya, I love sayin' I love ya, I love sleeping next to ya, and I love bein' yer marefriend and vice versa. That’s very different from me likin' sex. Sex is like… pie… someponies, or most ponies, love pie but someponies just don’t. I’d rather have cake than pie, anyway though." She kept the dishes to dry, then trotted to Dash and leaned in to whisper, "Get it now?" before planting a rather tender kiss on the mare's cheek. Rainbow grinned like a three-year-old as she nodded vigorously. "So… sex is pie and all that ‘I L word you' is cake? Like that?" Applejack stared at Rainbow for a second, then laughed, "Ya know what, Dash? That’s exactly what it is." Aj headed to the barn door, then looked back expecting Rainbow to follow. Dash got the cue and got up from her seat at the kitchen table and made her way to her marefriend. The next half hour was spent doing some farm stuff. Bucking down the apples from the trees, collecting them in baskets then taking said baskets inside. Rinse and repeat this cycle about a dozen or so times and there you have Applejack's entire morning to lunch. Rather tedious, but at least she had a little cyan featherbrain helping her this time. Rainbow was a pretty fast learner, contrary to popular belief. She picked up the apple-bucking method quickly, and it nearly looked as if she had been doing this all her life. Made Aj just a tad bit envious, though. They competed to see who’d manage to get more trees bucked in an hour, and unsurprisingly Applejack was in the lead by a good chunk. While losing at something her competitor had been trained from before her teens, Rainbow asked another peculiar question. "You're not hetero, right?" This caused Aj to have to take a physical halt. Her head darted in Rainbow's direction, a very blank expression on her face, "What?" was all that she could even ask. "Like, you said that romance is different from sex… so if you’re not into ponies… sexually, then you have to be into ponies… non-sexually… right? Otherwise… you wouldn’t be with me, right?" Even to her, that logic seemed very obscure, but it made enough sense for Rainbow to ask the question. "Well… don’t hetero mean you’re into the opposite sex, alone?" Rainbow nodded in response. Aj heaved a sigh as Rainbow bucked down the tree that was exactly right to Applejack, "Then how the hay does that make any sense?" She asked flatly. Rainbow seemed to take a second process, and when she did you could’ve easily been able to tell. Her cheeks turned a shade of bright red, and her head fell to the point where she was able to cover her face with her mane, "Oh… well that’s embarrassing…" she then looked up just a little, narrowing her eyes in flustered fury, "We’re never speaking of this, ever again. You hear me?" Applejack laughed, "We’ll see." She smirked proudly before bucking down a row of two trees. Rainbow growled loudly, and continued bucking. About ten minutes passed by with no more random questions from Rainbow. Ten minutes of absolute silence. Something that would normally drive the pegasus insane with boredom. Today, however, seemed to be a day of dumb questions and a lot of reconsidering and thinking for her. But it wasn’t over. The questions, that is. "So what are you?" Rainbow asked a little before they hit the fifteen minutes mark. Applejack cocked an eyebrow, "A pony. Proud earth pony to be precise." She bucked yet another tree down, granting her the very old position of first place, with Rainbow way behind her. "More like really annoying." She grumbled under her breath, "I mean, like what are you… like bi, or pan, or poly, or gay… just with Asexual mixed in." "Oh! See now, Rainbow, that’s a pretty good question ta ask. Not a dumb one." Applejack smirked, "And ta answer, I’m biromantic. And if ya don’t know, it’s basically bein' bi without the sexual attraction part. Ya know what bi is right?" Rainbow nodded, "Yeah, when you’re into… two or more genders, right? Twi's also bi, she told me." She was very confident in her answer. For good reason too. "Exactly!" At least she knew that. She had better know that. "Bisexual means you’re into more than one gender, sexually and also romantically. I mean… I’ve heard o' ponies bein' into multiple genders sexually but not really wan' to get with them. But! That ain’t the point 'ere. I’m sayin' I’m biromantic, which means that I’d wan' to be with ponies o' my gender an' others but I’m also sayin' that I'm asexual, so no sexual stuff for me." Applejack bucked another four trees and proudly remained in first place in their little competition. "By the way, Rainbow, only twenty minutes left for y’all to catch up." Rainbow glared, "How do you know I’m not already in the lead?! There's no counter!" Rainbow pointe,d huffing. "No, there is one. That’s up 'ere." Applejack tapped a hoof against her hat. Rainbow rolled her eyes, and bucked down another tree, before quickly getting to the next, and so on. After having knocked out apples from six separate trees, she stopped and turned to her partner, who at that same time managed to get down double what Dash managed. "…I’ve heard ponies… uh say that they don’t think aces don’t really… belong in the community. And before you assume anything! I think they do belong in the community like really do. But some aces don’t want to be in the community and don’t recognize themselves as a part of the community. And most do… where do you… you know…." "Fall on that spectrum?" Rainbow nodded as her reply, "Well, yeah, I’ve met a few other aces who’ve said that they don’ want' to be in the community. Personal reasons I suppose. But, nah, I believe aces belong in the community, and I believe I’m in it as well. Ain’t gonna judge anypony else's opinion on it, just not something I agree with, personally." "Yeah! I agree with that!" Rainbow"s wings flared up in excitement, then tucked itself back into place. "Like, I’ve heard that aces don’t face as much… what was the word… oppression- yeah! -like the rest of us. That sounded crazy to me, just 'cause if you’re a part of the community then you’ve gotta have to face some kinda… badmouthers in your lifetime, right?" She bucked another tree in the midst of talking. "Right." Aj smiled softly. "Folks say we don’t have all that much discrimination 'cause we're 'technically straight', or some other bs I didn’t pay much attention to. Again, it's all shit. Ya know? Just sayin' that is discrimination. Invalidatin' ponies' identities is discriminatory and I don’t think they get that." "Massive douchebags if you ask me," Rainbow muttered sourly, earning a rather pleasant chuckle from her marefriend. "Aphobes. Those douchebags got a name somewhere along the line; aphobes." Her expression turned from a scowl to a rather smug grin, "Also! Ten more minutes Rainbow, hurry it up." Applejack sat down on the floors, under an already buck apple tree. She leaned back and laid her back conformably on its stable frame. "I'm even gonna play the hare for ya." "Ha, ha." Rainbow quickly bucked down a few more trees before her mind thought up another little thing to ask. A little thing she didn’t want to have to ask, but she needed to know at that point. "So… I know you wouldn’t want me asking this… but…" "Repulsed. Absolutely repulsed. I like jokin' about it, 'cause, well, it’s a joke to me, but no. I never really wan" it for myself." Rainbow blinked. She let out a short, "huh" before it clicked in her head. "Oh wait, no! I wasn’t asking that!" She flailed her hooves in front of he,r and shot up into the air. "I kinda figured you weren’t a fan, considering what you said the other day." Applejack sat up and stared Rainbow dead in the eyes for about the seventh time that morning or something like that. Rainbow was a featherbrain. A very, very confusing featherbrain. Granted, that was one thing Applejack absolutely loved about Dash, bust still! "Then?" "I was talking about the whole plant thing. I talked to Twilight about the whole ace thing and she said something about plants, and also said I should’ve learned about it in school somewhere along the line, but I don’t really remember anything, and that whole thing had me confused. Are you somewhat related to plants?" Aj shook her head, "Is that all? Alright, ya had me questionin' stuff for a second there. But no. We’ve got nothin' to do with plants. I personally do, bein' an earth pony an' everythin', but most ponies aren’t plants." "Oh, okay cool! And thanks!" She grinned happily, before quickly resuming her apple bucking. Rainbow was surely not the fastest when it came to apple bucking- if that wasn’t evident enough -but she did manage a lot more than Applejack had expected. She managed to get five trees down in three minutes, while Aj was expecting something along the lines of two in ten minutes. Five in three minutes was definitely not going to help her win or anything, but it was something. "Hurry it up, tortoise! I’m gettin' bored o' just watchin' y’all struggle to beat me. Oh, and there's only five minutes left. I’ve got around one-sixty, y’all have got one-twenty." And another three trees down within a minutes, "Make that, one-twenty-eight." "Shut up!" Rainbow exclaimed, "I'm gonna do it! I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it." She kept mumbling to herself, trying her very best to speed up her bucking if just a little. She did manage something, she managed to get eight in two minutes. Close to Aj's count, but not close enough. And in five minutes, her time was done. "And that's time!" Applejack announced as he strode over to Rainbow with a little smug look on her face, "Nice game partner." She held out a hoof that was expecting a little bump from a cyan hoof. "Alright, one more question." Applejack cocked an eyebrow. She’d figured Rainbow was done with the questions, not that she had much of a problem with it. "Ace or asexual?" She grinned randomly. "What- well, that ain’t soemthin' I’ve got before… uh… ace… I guess, I dunno." Rainbow, with one hoof, grabbed onto Aj's neck. Her wings fluttered out, letting her hover a little above the ground, and use her other hoof to draw an imaginary word in the sky, "So, Acejack or Jackace?" She grinned goofily. "Rainbow!" Applejack scowled earning a rather happy snicker from the other mare, who was now just a little higher than the trees she had been bucking down for the last hour. "What?! They’re pretty good if you ask me." She could hardly keep herself from laughing, "Don’tcha think Acejack? Or do you prefer Jackace? Or both?!" She gasped loudly, "Acejackace! You’d been the most aceiest pony alive!" "Alright, that's it! Get over 'ere!" Applejack growled, pulling her trusted lasso out of nowhere. "Try and catch me Acejsckace!"