It’s a quarter past two, and instead of milking ol’ Betty back on the homestead, Applejack’s listening to her Financial Management teacher drone on about blockchains.
“Now, all the companies claiming to ‘break’ the industry with blockchains have yet to yield any actual results. That’s the issue with you upstarts, all you’re good for is throwing out crazy ideas and never following up,” Mr. Doodle mats down his dark combover, and Applejack notes his hair has the same synthetic shine as those pompadour wigs she found in the cellar a few months back.
She drops her eyes to her notebook. All I’ve written is ‘Intro To Financial Management’. Not for a lack of trying— in her 16 years of life, Applejack has yet to listen as hard as she is now. I’m listening, alright, but this fella’s got his head so far up his hiney, all that’s coming out his mouth is dookie.
Giving up on her efforts to keep up with Mr. Doodle’s raving, Applejack busies herself with doodling in the margins of her page. Sweet Apple Acres has been using the same branding since back when Granny was still spry enough to crouch down without keeling over from her back pain. As of late, there’s been talk of updating the logo to something ‘with the times.’
Applejack knows why modernizing is good for business— folks prefer flashy stuff over the vintage charm they’ve got going— but hiring a stranger to make Sweet Apple’s image more appealing to the public rubs her in all the wrong ways.
I’m no artist, but it can’t be that hard to come up with a logo, right? Applejack knows she’s better suited to blueprint sketching than concept art— back in elementary, the art teacher failed her drawing of a bottle of cider, claiming it was ‘wildly inappropriate’.
Applejack’s still a little sore about that one.
Leaving her childhood gripes aside, the farmgirl carries on doodling for a spell before a noisy creak draws her attention to the classroom door.
In walks a girl dressed up to the nines, her chin held high and her polished pumps clicking with every measured step she takes. She flashes her watching classmates a smile before turning to Mr. Doodle and handing him a slip of paper.
“Do excuse my tardiness, Mr. Doodle,” she tosses her curled violet hair over her shoulder. “I was…otherwise occupied with an important matter,”
“Show up late again, and you’ll be ‘otherwise occupied’ with detention,” he takes the proffered slip with a sullen frown. “Find a seat, Ms. Belle.”
A shadow flickers across the girl’s face, though she recovers quickly, turning to scan the classroom for a vacant seat.
She realizes at the same time as Applejack that the only available spot is next to the farmgirl.
Hold on, that face…
The girl makes her graceful way over and pulls out the chair. Her perfume washes over Applejack as she flumps down on her seat, a smell best described as ‘expensive’.
In hushed tones, she mutters, “What a miserable, insipid man. No wonder his wife left, the poor thing,” she stops herself short of further complaining, turning to face Applejack with a strained rendition of her earlier smile, “Ah, this isn’t a great first impression, is it? Hello, I’m…”
“Rarity,” Applejack utters the name the moment it washes up on the shore of her mind, freed from the sunless depths of her memory. “Good grace, it is you!”
“How— oh my,” Rarity’s mouth drops open. “Applejack!”
“It’s been— well, years! Ah can’t believe…” Applejack breaks into a grin. “Rares, it’s great to see y’all again,”
A sequence of expressions flash on Rarity face, each brief and each unreadable, before she settles on a tentative smile. “W-why, yes. Great. At first— I didn’t recognize you, at first,”
“Same here,” Applejack notes Rarity's lipsticked mouth and the touch of red on her cheeks. “Y’all look like a proper lady now,”
This comment seems to spur Rarity to give the farmgirl a once-over of her own. “And you…have a hat,” she titters, “a very fitting hat, that is— you do still work on the farm, don’t you?”
“Sure do,”
“Right, of course. I was just wondering if…” Rarity purses her lips. Then, she reshuffles. “What brings you to CHS? You weren’t attending last year,”
Principal Celestia’s stern face pops to the forefront of Applejack’s mind. “Well. Principal Celestia offered to have me ‘n Applebloom— my l’il sis, if ya don’t remember— start goin’ here, and…” and what? “Ah accepted, and here we are,”
“Here we are indeed,” Rarity shifts in her seat, her eyes not quite meeting Applejack’s.
A flag shoots up in the back of the farmgirl’s head. If her memory serves her correctly, Rarity couldn’t stand an awkward silence anymore than she could a smear of dirt on her blouse. For her to be letting the conversation snuff out this easy, she must be some flavour of teed-off.
Applejack makes to say something— to ask Rarity why she was late, or how her life’s been the past 6 years, or if she forgives her— but Mr. Doodle beats her to the punch, announcing their very first in-class assignment. Besides throwing off her momentum, the assignment takes away her excuse of not having anything better to do, and she resigns herself to working.
Their conversation hangs open-ended in the inch wide distance separating their desks.
•
After Financial Management is pre-calc, which plays out without any ghosts of the past or eraser-ruiners popping up, and is better off for it.
Applejack doesn’t enjoy maths, but she sure as sugar understands them. No confusing metaphorical nonsense to puzzle out here— only cold, hard, axiomatic facts.
Continuing on the thread of good and understandable things, Applejack’s next class is Phys Ed with Mr. Magnus. The first half of today was just a flunk. There’s no backing out now— everyone’s adjusted to me and Bloom being away already, and Principal Celestia is keeping an eye on me. I gotta make the best out of this, for their sakes.
Applejack gets changed into Canterlot High’s mandatory gym clothes(mesh shorts and a t-shirt with the CHS logo slapped in the middle) and switches her pointed-toe boots for a pair of old runners that Big Mac lended her. The runners are too big for her on their own, so she shoved wads of crumpled paper inside to make ‘em fit.
Alrighty. The door to the girl's changeroom swings shut behind Applejack as she spills into the gym, where a smattering of students sit around and talk amongst themselves in hushed tones. Let’s get this over with.
“Is this everyone?” The gym teacher, Mr. Magnus, stands before the students wearing a tracksuit and the harried frown of someone who’s sucking the hind teat. “Really? There’s like…” his eyes sweep over the group again. “twelve of you. Tell me everyone’s still just changing?”
His plea is met with dead silence. Mr. Magnus takes a very deep breath. “Cool. Awesome. Guess no one likes gym anymore, huh? Everyone’s too busy with their, their earbuds and MP3’s to run around and play with balls, is that it?”
Applejack’s hopes of a normal Phys Ed class die a very sad, and very fast, death. She looks to her classmates and finds some comfort in the fact that they all look just as baffled as her.
This comfort is short-lived, though, because it’s this very moment when a familiar voice makes itself heard;
“Coach, we gonna start doing stuff sometime this century?” Rainbow Dash says while stretching her hamstrings in the hurdler position.
How didn’t I notice her when I first walked in? Rainbow’s hardly inconspicuous, with sneakers that look like they were dipped in liquefied rainbows and with a lightning bolt emblem on her t-shirt instead of the typical CHS logo.
“Sure. Just ignore me and my concern for the youth, I don’t mind,” Mr. Magnus’ exasperation is so clear he might as well have the word defeated tattooed on his forehead. “Right, uh…who’s up for dodgeball?”