//------------------------------// // Aay..? // Story: A Ballad of Eeyup and Nope // by ambion //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash’s face was buried in her hoof as she flitted back and forth. Luckily for her, there was nothing immediately about for her to bump into, save Big Macintosh himself. He was, of course, the source of her vexations. “Again,” she commanded. Big Mac’s breath whistled as he drew it. He held it a long second, awaiting the pegasi’s word. “Am I Rainbow Dash, the most awesome, coolest, fastest flying and-” she spotted the stallion going a bit blue for breath - “all ‘round best pegasus?” “Ayyy,” he wheezed out, the word grinding like dusty stone at his throat. Dash stopped on the wing. “Big Macintosh?” she asked with perfect calm. The red pony prepared himself best he could. “Aay-?” It felt like his whole head was twisting in on itself, trying to accommodate the alien phrase. “Stop. Stop! Just don’t. It’s just...so wrong.” The stallion sighed and his head hung low. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash. It just ain’t me.” “I know that feel bro, I know that feel.” “Still,” he began again, glad at least to have his real voice, not that...whatever it had been, “thanks for trying, anyway. I appreciate that.” The blue wings of Rainbow Dash flared, suddenly she was all up in his face. “You think I’m quitting here?” “But, it’s...” Magenta eyes narrowed. “You think I’m quitting?” “Nn-” her hooves were fast. Real fast, and clamped his mouth shut forcefully. “If you think I’m letting you fail this challenge, you’ve got another thing coming!” Rainbow Dash declared. “Any challenge she issues, I gotta beat.” “Thank you, Dash, but-” Rainbow Dash whirled about, striking a pose towards the distance. “Oh sure, you might be Applejack’s brother, but I’m like her best friend. You just don’t understand the kind of...kind of...like...” Dash clapped her hooves together, grinding them intently, “kind of sibling rivalry we got going! This is clearly a challenge she’s put to me!” Big Macintosh, frankly, wasn’t quite sure if the pegasus even remembered him being there. Then she whirled about again, her face again filling his entire view, her smirk very small but very sharp. Big Macintosh winced and gulped. He’d come out to the park to get away from books and crazy mares. He didn’t feel better at all for lack of books, though. “Applejack does not beat me. You understand? Applejack. Cannot. Win.” Dash cracked her hoof down and beamed the sort of smile that erupts in cackling if not addressed by a trained professional. “Hence,” and her hoof prodded his chest, “You do not lose.” Dash wandered off a few steps, laughing darkly under her breath. “Oh, Applejack. Clever girl. You knew you couldn’t beat me pony to pony, so you challenge somepony else instead. But I see through your game! I’ve got, like, hawk eyes! Eagle eyes! You’d have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to pull a fast one over on Rainbow Danger Dash!” Big Mac very carefully shuffled away. “Where do you think you’re going?” “Um, err, aahh,” “You know,” she said, sharpening her smirk, “if you couldn’t say any words-” “Rainbow Dash,” he called, half shouting, half pleading. “She’s probably expecting that...” the pegasus muttered, then quite suddenly slammed her rear to the ground, steepling her hooves under her chin and clapping them anxiously together. “What’s your game, Applejack? What’s your game?” “I’m...gonna go.” Dash nodded vaguely; Big Mac left her to her ponderings. He had hoped to ask her for a favour, being the weather pony and all, but somehow it didn’t seem a good time just then. The stallion looked over his shoulder. It might never be a good time, to consider it. Well, that hole in the fields wasn’t going anywhere soon. Big Mac took his time as he strolled, since there wasn’t really any hope of outrunning the fastest pegasus alive anyway. His eyes kept skimming to the trees, so familiar yet so subtly uncanny; not his trees. The stallion’s thoughts, however, wandered into territory stranger again by half. Applejack had strange friends. What had Twilight Sparkle even been on about? And he’d more than enough Rainbow for the day, but something in his bones told him there’d be plenty more to go around. It was such a good thing that he was a normal, healthy, sensible and well adjusted pony. “Ey-yalp!” Big Macintosh squawked and fell over, head over hooves - then hooves over head. “Hi!” called out Pinkie Pie, her face upside down over his vision. Her smile was huge, and nervous as he was, Big Mac couldn’t quite resist. He managed an awkward little smile of his own. “Hello,” he said, mindful of his words. Something in this was utterly hilarious; Pinkie Pie howled with laughter, toppling over so that she also lay on her back next to Big Macintosh. She stopped without warning, looked him in the eye, then erupted with giggles again. “Oh Big Mac, you so silly! Getting roped into a bet like that with Applejack? You can’t say ‘yep’, ‘nope’ or ‘turpentine’!” she managed to say as her giggles lessened. The stallion stood up. Pinkie Pie just seemed to explode and bounce to an upright position. “I can say ‘turpentine,’ he mumbled, sending the mare into another bout of hysterics. He was getting a little worried, in truth. A blur of blue sped towards them both. “Pinkie Pie, what do you think you’re doing? Get away from my star player!” A pink hoof shot out, snaked around Rainbow Dash, shedding all the mare’s momentum with a deft twirl before setting the pegasus gently to her hooves. Rainbow Dash blinked. “Oh Dashie, he’s not your star player.” “Ey-” Two hooves, blue and pink, forced the stallion’s mouth shut, though neither mare even looked to him as they did so. He was starting to feel a bit degraded, actually. “That doesn’t matter! What matter’s is that Big Mac is my ticket to beating Applejack.” “Maybe it’s not about you-” Rainbow Dash scoffed. “That’s a good one, but this is no time for jokes. Of course it’s about me,” she said. Big Macintosh and Pinkie Pie exchanged ‘is this mare serious?’ look, before he realized that the other half here was Pinkie Pie, and if you had to ask her if somepony was serious or not... “This is serious business!” The pegasus called out, fidgeting left and right. “Pinkie Pie, help me come up with ideas! I think we should tie his mouth-” “Nnope.” The word. The word was spoken! Big Mac’s eyes went wider than he thought possible. Dash reared back to the heavens and screamed a long, ululating ‘Noooo!’ Pinkie grinned, and the stallion realized he hadn’t actually said anything at all... The party pony danced in jubilation. “I am so good, Unh! You totally fell for it!” “Pinkie Pie!” both Dash and Macintosh cried. That’d just been harsh, tearing on his heartstrings like that. “And I’m not taking sides!” the mare sing-songed. “Taking a side means only half as much fun, and there’s no fun in that!” Pinkie Pie reared back and cackled, her forelegs kicking at the air, her head flung back. Lightning crackled across the sky, adding the precise and proper accompaniment to it all. Dash only sighed. “Derpy! I told you to get rid of that cloud last week! It’s too electrical!” The gray mare blushed and moved the fizzing little storm cloud along. When they looked back down, Pinkie Pie had vanished. “This can’t be good,” Big Mac mumbled. Dash stomped the ground. “Darn! I can’t have her pulling...well, pulling a Pinkie Pie on my plans! If I have to use every feather I’ve got, I’ll tickle her schemes right out of her! As for you-” she whipped about, steely in poise and tone. “Do not fail me.” Big Mac could only gulp and backed away hastily, afraid to meet Dash’s eye but more afraid to look away. The pegasus grunted once then leapt, a vertical ascent faster than terminal velocity itself, then she was gone. He managed one good breath before the sound of magic filled the air. Like a spoing! kind of noise, accompanied by a flash of purple light. “Rainbow Dash I need to--Ahh!BigMacintosh?!OhMyGoshSorryBye!” Spoing! rang out again as Twilight Sparkle exploded, disappearing as quickly as she’d appeared. Big Mac shut his eyes and focused on breathing. He didn’t move, not for a few minutes. If his every step was going to lead him into some calamity... Trembling slightly, he finally moved his hoof. Birds chirped. Leaves rustled in the breeze and flowers quickened the air with fragrance. The distinct lack of psychotic mares added a delicate delight to everything. The stallion sighed a good, long breath and went on his way, blissfully ignorant of the machinations of mares.