It was a dark and stormy night. (A corps of pegasi weather workers certainly beats central irrigation any day; rain at night was just more convenient.) At Sweet Apple Acres, their workday had come to end. Another would start bright and early tommorow; but even farmers get some rest at the end of the day.
Applejack didn't come into Apple Bloom's room much; she had her own schoolwork to do, if she could even be found at home at all these days. She was secretly glad her 'sister' was taking so readily to her new friends; seeing Apple Bloom coming out of her shell and open up had brightened up the old farmhouse considerably.
I just hope that what I have to say doesn't kill that smile...
"Blooms?"
"Oh, hey Applejack!" Apple Bloom looked up from her bed, where she lay reading.
"Heya, Blooms. Whatcha got there?"
Apple Bloom grinned, and held up the book. The hardcover binding was new, but the painstaking watercolor artwork, depicting a trio of fillies racing down a mountain road in a handmade contraption, was an iconic work of Equestrian pop art almost as old as Applejack herself.
"Soap Box Hero? Heh, I used to love those books as a filly myself."
"I know! I think I'm going to get the girls to try to get soap box derby cutie marks. I'll design it, Scootaloo can build it, then Sweetie Belle can drive it-"
Applejack grinned, and leaned against the bed as she listened to her improbable plans. Fans, fame, fortune, and the coveted cutie mark; Applejack had heard it several times before. At least this time, they've got a plan beyond 'run into a forest'.
"That sounds great, Blooms," Applejack grinned, leaning over to tousle her hair. "Just as long as you don't forget to muck the barn tomorrow."
"I won't," Apple Bloom promised, just a bit of sourness in her voice at the unnecessary 'reminder'. Then, she looked at Applejack warily. "Hey now... why are you being so lovey-dovey?"
"What? Can't I just come check in on my-" tell her "-little sister?"
"Normal sisters, maybe. But you only ever come up here to talk about chores."
Applejack grinned, lopsided. "Well... okay. There is something we have to talk about-"
Apple Bloom reared back in fear. "If it's about the cream cheese, I swear Twist told me it would be really easy to make and it was going to be so delicious but I didn't know that you can't use a whisk like a blender and I know you told me to be careful washing it but we really thought the lemon juice could-"
"Whoa, whoa! Slow down there, girl!"
Apple Boom froze, with her hooves over her head in mid-denial.
"No... this is something else. It's... about mom and dad."
Apple Bloom's heart leapt to her throat.
"M-mom? Dad?"
"Yeah... I think you're old enough to know the truth." Applejack got up, and sat on Apple Bloom's bed. She hadn't done that since the last time she had read to her 'sister' in the cradle.
"And... it has to do with why Dad's not around..."
you've known this day is coming for years
Applejack sighed. "... I'm sorry. It's still hard to talk about..." She shook her head. She was proud, but she didn't hide her tears.
you know she's old enough
Apple Bloom didn't know what to say. Her emotions had shut off, her heart being assaulted far too quickly by things she had spent most of her life not talking about. She didn't know she could be so detached as she lay a hoof over her sister's, comfortingly.
"... you don't have to say everything right away, sis. If... if you don't want to."
she deserves the whole story
Applejack shook her head, but couldn't open her eyes through her tears. "I- I really miss him..."
why can't you just spit it out, girl?!
Apple Bloom let much older sister lay her head in her lap, brushing her mane softly. "It's... it's okay, Applejack. We don't have to talk about this... if you're not ready."
For a moment, there was only two sisters on the bed; one crying her heart out, and one doing her best to hold her sister close and keep from sobbing herself. Finally, Applejack's own tears had dried, and she nuzzled up.
"I - I'm sorry it all came out like that." A wry little grin appeared. "I had spent so long on wondering if you were ready, I didn't think to wonder if I was ready..."
Apple Bloom managed to smile, and pulled her sister up into a hug. "It's okay, sis. When the time is right, you'll tell me."
Carted up somehow by her sister's strength, Applejack smiled and returned it tight. "Gee... sometime when I wasn't looking you became wise, Blooms." She had to laugh when the filly quickly turned her head to peek at her flank to see if she had got a wisdom cutie mark. With a smile, Applejack shook her mane out. "But... I really want to get this weight off my heart, soon. Can - can we talk about this tommorow?"
"Of course... I'll tell the girls something came up. I hope they don't get their cutie marks without me," she grinned.
Applejack gave her sister a hug, and slid out of the bed. "Well, I guess I better call it, then. We got a big day tommorow."
Applejack slid back under her covers, reluctantly. "I guess we do, huh."
With a sigh, Applejack clicked off the hallway light, and began walking to her own room. But it wasn't too long before something occurred to Applejack...
"Now wait just a minute! What was that about cream cheese?"
The forest really was beautiful that time of year. Spring's fussy awkwardness had passed, but the creaky age of autumn was still two months off. Summer, according to Applejack, was the most beautiful season of all.
And the thermals were going to be delicious.
Having a few hours off, Applejack had snuck down to the old riverbed. It was on the far edge of the Sweet Apple Acres property, so the entirety of the Apple farm was between her and Ponyville. It was about as private as she could get on short notice. And so, her masks fell.
Stretching her wings felt good, but she didn't fly; not at first. Simply not being squished inside her own skin was a pleasant enough sensation - anypony who thinks alicorns don't represent the best of earth ponies obviously has never seen one work thighs like these! - that she wasted the first hour simply rolling about, stretching out on the dusty riverbed and enjoying the beating of the sun on her wings.
You're an earth alicorn. You know perfectly well you don't need to spend all your time literally in touch with the earth.
I'm justifying this and you know it. Doesn't it feel good, though?
Eeyup...
After an hour's cat nap, however, she was getting antsy. She came out here to stretch, not to go to sleep! So, with a single beat of wings - a feat few mere pegasi could match - she sprung into the air and took off. It was the hard way to do it, of course, but powering into the air on her sheer muscle power meant she could really work those kinks out of her old wings. In a second, she was higher than all the clouds, seeing the beauty of Equestria laid out underneath her.
Rivers and railways split areas dotted by tidy little cities and towns, separated by broad forests and the occasional bog. From the perspective of an Earth pony, this view of Equestria was foreign; she rarely got used to it, filled with wonder with every flight. But there was one way that she truly enjoyed seeing Equestria...
"Going down!"
Tucking her hindhooves behind her, she splayed her wings, forehooves pushed far forwards to break the wind resistance as she allowed gravity to turn her. Freefall was wild, chaotic - and slow. This - this was a dive!
At that altitude, the height you're at isn't readily apparent. As she went faster and faster, her secondary feathers could apply less and less resistance to the air, while more and more air pressure was centered on her hooves. Unlike horizontal flying, where the world underneath you becomes a blur, a vertical dive seemd to be focusing in on one particular point. That old hill with the apple tree was coming in nice and clear every second, like tuning a microscope, and any second it was going to pass the point of focus - except, of course, that here the 'point of focus' meant diving into the ground and hey it's getting awfully close now-
And out!
As forcefully as she could, Applejack kicked off the pressure she had created before her forehooves. That was only good for a ten degree alteration; it was up to her wings to do the rest. Throwing them out, Applejack lurched her back, primary feathers staying into the airstream to maintain control as secondary feathers arched backwards, making her turn sharply, leaving a golden trail as she raced between treetops. With momentum being converted into lift, her speed dropped dramatically - it was merely ridiculously unsafe, as opposed to patently dangerous.
"YEEE-HAW!"
She had covered altitude, and the sheer reckless joy of speed; now it was time to put her agility to the paces. Marking out adjacent hilltops, the speed flattened out as she arched into a series of loops, circling around each tree a little tighter with every pass. She had to pedal hard with each turn to kick into the next; maybe she could--
On the horizon, a burst of light, in every color of the rainbow. Only one pony kicked up a rainbow flash like that as she flew - and it was getting closer.
That rainbow blaze followed followed her, ignoring every attempt Applejack made to lose it. Pure speed down the old riverbank. Agile twists and turns amid the trees of the Everfree. Not even the maze-like canyons left by the clouds could shake Rainbow Dash.
Captain of the weather team. Of course trying to lose her in the clouds was a bad call.
Speed, agility, intellect - every challenge that Applejack left for Rainbow Dash was being defeated. And she wasn't even able to rely on her incredible endurance; if anything, Rainbow Dash was enjoying it more the longer it went. There was only one thing Applejack had left, a dirty trick: raw power.
It was easy to get Rainbow Dash to fly along the riverbed - under the canopy of the trees over the river, it was a straight course, perfect for a chase. And the blue pegasus was gaining. All Applejack had to do was to trick Rainbow into keeping her eyes focused on her, and not on the sound of the falls ahead. She hardly even noticed as they flew over the lip of a picturesque waterfall.
I'm so very tired... oh, please let this work...
Applejack tucked her wings and sliced hard, looping back the way she came in a tight circle. She knew this waterfall from memory; being a waterfall in the most literal sense, it was open to the air. She could simply burst through. Rainbow Dash would hestitate; or, at worst, be knocked cold by the water, and she could use a Greater Parting spell to pluck her from the --
boom!
Impossibly, the much smaller pegasus burst through the waterfall right behind her - her forehooves that broke her wind resistance punched through it, the water bursting from the impact in every color of the rainbow: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red .... black? Each circle expanded, until the red filled her world, and the black circle in the center grew to encompass her, a patchwork parody of Rainbow Dash made wholly of teeth that tore and claws that ripped...
"Aaaaagh!"
Applejack screamed as her sudden kick bucked her off the bed.
It was the sixth night in a row that Applejack had had that dream, ever since the close encounter at the old riverbed. It had haunted her, and every time, the demon in black got closer to her, overwhelmed her just a little more. Rainbow Dash's eyes stared at her from behind those teeth every time she woke up. It had got bad enough that she had been avoiding her friend, for fear of seeing the beast behind her eyes.
Oh, what's that, Rainbow Dash? You want to know why I've been avoiding you? Well, you see, I've been having screaming fits waking up from nightmares of you every day for the past week! Funny, huh? It all began when you almost discovered my true nature out by the waterfall. You know, that seemingly impossible feat whose every detail is fixed in your memory that you've been bragging about for days? That was me! Strangest thing, too; I almost never recall my dreams...
Applejack sat bolt upright in realization. She never did recall her dreams. And yet, she was suffering from recurrent nightmares, the same images playing out in the same way, embellished yet getting all the basic details right. The nightmare seemed almost ... tailored to make her feel guilty.
Applejack's panicked heartbeat became the beat of a snare drum, as she snarled.
"Why, that low down no-good..."
Not even bothering to tie her hair up, Applejack trotted out as quietly as she could to not wake her family, then burst into a gallop into the night as soon as she had crossed the border of the farm. She knew just who was to blame, and it was time for a reckoning.
Spike looked at Twilight Sparkle with a grumble. He had been "taking" this letter for almost an hour, now, and it was very much past his bedtime. At this point, he was only going through the motions of writing so he wouldn't have to waste another quill...
"I've got it this time. 'Dear Princess Celestia'..."
Spike lifted his quill and moved it behind the paper, stifling a yawn.
"Today, I learned that I should trust my feelings. When my friends cast terrible aspersions on each other, I should trust my own feelings, rather than allow myself to doubt..."
The sight of Lyra's tear-soaked face filled her mind, next to Applejack's terrified face. And in a way, she was responsible for both, because she hadn't doubted.
"Aaaagh!"
Twilight Sparkle's purple magic lanced out and tore the scroll out of Spike's grip, tossing it into a corner with dozens of other balls of paper. Something else to add to the shopping list, assuming there was any paper left to write it on.
"I just don't get it. It ended, and the fight between Lyra and Applejack is over, but..."
"... but you didn't really learn anything because all you did was sit back and watch your friends fight," her assistant grumbled as he grabbed another scroll from the nearly empty stock.
"That's it!"
Twilight Sparkle rubbed her hooves together. "Spike, take a letter."
"Here we go again..."
"Dear Princess Celestia. Today, my research in the magic of friendship opened up a new avenue of research: Trust. Trust is like a living thing. It connects me to my friends, but it also connects my friends to each other. Today, I learned that these connections can be strained, but I do not feel satisfied that my understanding of them is complete. I hope that I can send a more formal report soon, on the ways that trust is created, nurtured, injured and broken." She knew Applejack had forgiven her, but she remembered how Lyra had stomped off and hoped her tangential friendship hadn't been broken. "This is a broad field, and I am hesitant to misstep, but my knowledge is, always, ever incomplete. I will report again soon on my continuing findings. Your faithful student - Twilight Sparkle."
Spike looked at Twilight disbelieving. "That's it?"
"Yep! I didn't learn anything, because all I did was learn I had not learned something to learn. So that's what I wrote! I hadn't learned but I learned what I hadn't learned so I wrote I had to learn what I hadn't learned." Twilight Sparkle almost bounced, where she caught a peek at the paper. "... and you didn't write it down, did you."
"I wasn't going to waste all that ink!" Spike irritably dipped the quill in ink once more, and lifted it to paper. "Once more from the top..."
With a frustrated sigh, Twilight Sparkle dictated her letter once more. This time, Spike sent it off in a puff of dragonfire.
"Are we done, Twilight?"
"You are done," she said, nudging Spike gently towards the stairs. "I'm going to talk with Fluttershy about this." Twilight Sparkle beamed, imagining "Her entire world operates on trust. If anypony can teach me about trust, it's her."
"... have fun with that. I'm going to bed."
Weather wasn't in her portfolio as an alicorn, but with all the anger she had to work out, Applejack had gotten awfully good at it as she flew. A knot of clouds followed in her incredible wake, turning dark from her anger. Arriving, she circled once so the clouds became a barrier as tall as the sky, built up into a swirling black storm.
Thunder pealed as she landed amongst the old cherry trees; the force was the shock the clouds needed to burst into rain. Winds howled and lightning glinted off the golden alicorn's body; her personal hurricane. She looked totally a mess - she was completely exposed in the center of a freak storm that would draw the attention of anyone for miles around - and she didn't care.
With a blaze of her horn, pegasus and unicorn magic met. Miles above her, clouds in her golden grip were ripped aside, clearing a path to let the full moon shine on her. Her snarl was low, but it was growing. An alicorn's voice could sound out through the whole of Equestria, if it suited them; but for this matter, Applejack didn't need the whole of Equestria to know. Only the moon's mistress, the princess of the night - the nightmare incarnate.
"I KNOW YOUR SCHEMES! I DEMAND AUDIENCE RIGHT NOW, PRINCESS LUNA!"