Rainbow woke up to the feeling of something warm wrapping around her. For a second she though that it was actually a pony, but after her senses got a bit sharper, she noticed that it was something quite different, much to her disappointment. She groaned loudly and opened her eyes to see Twilight standing in front of her bed, casting her magic on Rainbow, holding her up in the air.
“Oh, you’re awake. Let me put you down,” Twilight said in a teasing tone, not a slightest bit of anger present. What was going on? Rainbow didn’t have much time to think about that as Twilight’s magical aura disappeared and she fell down on the luckily-soft cloud floor.
Rainbow didn’t have time to react, and seeing that she had just woken up, she ended up landing face first. This managed to amuse Twilight, judging by the little giggle Rainbow could hear. She quickly got up from the floor and tried to hide the small blush that had managed to form up on her cheeks. It was no use, though.
“Well, what brings you here, Twi?” Rainbow asked, trying to get Twilight’s attention away from her rose-red cheeks. This actually managed to work and Twilight got all serious.
“I need you to come to the northern cliff at sunset. It’s pretty important, so you shouldn’t miss it,” she said blankly, not giving a single hint what this all was about.
“Uhh… Okay, I guess I can come…” Rainbow answered, running a hoof through her mane. This was bad. Twilight had realized that she had lied. Twilight would surely give her a good lecture about “how not to lie to your friends”. She was doomed.
“Great,” Twilight said with a smile and turned around to leave. After a second she turned back, opened her saddlebag with her magic and floated out an envelope. She then let her magic to guide it to Rainbow’s hoof and when it had safely reached the cyan hoof, Twilight let her magic fade away, dropping the envelope down on the hood.
“There, you go, a nice card for you,” she said before turning around and once again activating her magic. In a bright purple flash she was gone and Rainbow was left alone to the large house, a nasty feeling of worry in the back of her head.
After some seconds of standing still and trying to figure out what had just happened, Rainbow decided that she should investigate the contents of the envelope before doing anything. They could answer some of the questions rolling around in her head.
She flipped the envelope around in her hoof, revealing the open side of it. It was not even sealed, seeing that Twilight had brought it by herself. Rainbow stuck her hoof in and pulled out a pinkish card with a big red heart in the middle of it. The heart had some black text in it, written in stylized hoofwriting.
You are the light in my life,
The moon in my night sky,
The sun that shines during the day,
The day we share together.
Love.
Rainbow read the text out loud, actually blushing for a bit when she saw the last word. That one single word was starting to light up the hope inside her.
But the envelope had been brought by Twilight. Didn’t that mean that the card was also made by Twilight?
Rainbow quickly took another look at the card, trying to see even some hint of the writer. It was obviously written in Twilight’s style. This fact was starting to convince Rainbow more and more about the fact that Twilight loved her, until she flipped the card around and took a look at the back of it.
This card was written and delivered by Twilight Sparkle, by the orders of somepony else. Sorry Rainbow, no hints.
Rainbow felt both relieved and disappointed by the fact that the card was not from Twilight. Sure she was a great friend and all, but she just wasn’t exactly Rainbow’s type.
But now she had to find out who had sent the card. It could have been anyone. Many of the ponies of Ponyville were surprisingly romantic and lyrical and it could have been basically anyone. While the options weren’t exactly limitless, they were too big for Rainbow to go through in a day. The best way to find out who this mysterious pony that apparently loved her was, was to go to the northern cliff at sunset.
After a quick look out of the window Rainbow realized that it was already close to noon and decided that it was time for some quality time in the form of breakfast. She walked into the kitchen of her cloud house, grabbed a box of cereals out of one of the cloud cupboards, poured herself a bowlful and started chomping down some hay-based crispy circles, thoughts still not leaving her alone.
----»«----
Applejack woke up to the sound of something hitting the window of her room. She rolled around to her left side, perked her ears up, lifted her body up a little and tried to listen, but after hearing nothing she decided that it had been just some goofy bird or something and let her body collapse back to the soft mattress.
But after the sound repeated itself, she decided that it would be necessary to go and check what the source of it was. She groaned pretty loudly and forced her body to get up from the bed, causing her back to protest by sending a wave of pain through her body. She would have to do something about it later on.
She walked over to the window, moved the curtains out of the way and took a good look out, trying to find the source of the noises that had made her leave the wonderful world of dreams.
But after investigating the scenery behind the window for something like two minutes, she still saw nothing that could have made such sound. Whatever it had been it was gone now, and that suited Applejack just fine. She’d be able to return to the bed. Implying that she would still be able to return to the world of dreams, that is.
She turned around in order to perform an agile dive straight to the comfortable bed, but had to stop mid-turn as she found a pink face a bit too close to hers. And in this case, a bit too close meant that Pinkie had pressed her snout against Applejack’s.
“Hi Applejack!” Pinkie shouted, causing the orange mare to wince a bit. She had just woken up and her ears surely weren’t ready for Pinkie’s high-pitched shouting.
“Hi Pinkie,” she replied as soon as she managed to recover from the voice of her friend. “Wait, how did ya get in?” she added. She had not seen Pinkie come in.
“Well, as you didn’t come and open the window I had to use the door. By the way, you really should have a mechanism to open your window faster. You never know when ponies want to visit you,” Pinkie answered with the always-merry tone of hers, wearing the same wide grin on her face.
“Uhh… I thought that the door was locked,” Applejack said with a blank expression. Pinkie had managed to confuse her once again.
“Well, it was locked, but it isn’t anymore!” the pink pony replied merrily, bouncing up and down while she said the sentence. How did that pony have that much energy?
“Well, uhh, did you have anything to tell me or did you just break in with no good reason?” Applejack asked, causing Pinkie to stop mid-bounce.
“Yeah, I actually did!” she answered before pulling out a decorated piece of paper that appeared to resemble a card of some kind. “Here you go,” she said while lifting Applejack’s left forehoof up and placing the card on it, still managing to maintain perfect balance. Applejack looked at the card; It had been originally white, but now the original color was buried under the layers of hoof-drawn pictures and something sparkly, probably glitter of some kind. All in all it was quite beautiful and mildly chaotic at the same time.
“Did you make this by yourself?” Applejack asked, flipping the card around in her hoof, still trying to figure out the purpose of it.
“Yeah, I did. But it’s not from me, it’s from somepony else. Somepony that apparently likes you. A lot!” Pinkie answered happily, bouncing next to Applejack and pushing her face closer to the card. “Read the text!” she excitedly demanded, pointing a hoof at the spot that was filled with hoof-written text instead of decorations and other stuff like that.
Applejack realized that she had no other option as Pinkie was already looking at her with those big eyes of hers, excitedly rubbing her hooves against each other. Applejack focused on the text and started reading it out loud.
You are the sun in my sky,
The moon of my night,
The wind that keeps my skies clear,
I need you.
A Pony.
After she had finished the last line, she looked up from the letter and her eyes met Pinkie’s. There were even more questions rolling in her head, but she decided that it was no use to start firing all of them at the pink pony. She decided that it would be the best to take it easy and ask them one at a time.
“Pinkie, what’s the purpose of this all?” She started with the easy one.
“It’s an invitation!” Pinkie replied, managing to confuse Applejack yet again. The card had had nothing about invitations of any kind.
“Uhh… An invitation for what exactly?” she asked after double-checking the card, making sure that she was not asking a stupid question.
“A meeting at the northern cliff at sunset. Be sure to be there, you don’t wanna miss it!” Pinkie answered before turning around and starting to bounce towards the window behind Applejack.
“Uhh, Pinkie, what are you doing?” Applejack asked while taking a few steps back from the same window. But before she could ask any further questions, Pinkie flung the window open, jumped out of it and landed on a trampoline that surely had not been there yesterday, managed not to bounce back up in the air, simply hopped down from the trampoline, waved her hoof at the amazed pony behind the now-open window and started bouncing towards Ponyville with no signs of physical or mental harm caused by the jump.
Applejack just stood there, staring at the distant figure of the most random pony that had ever lived, her mouth open and her brains trying to process what just had happened.
But after a couple of minutes of processing, she had to settle for the same old explanation of her “just being Pinkie Pie”. Even Twilight had failed to completely explain the pink pony, so Applejack wouldn’t even have a chance.
She simply turned around and decided that it would be the best for her to simply go downstairs and make some breakfast as she surely wasn’t going to fall asleep again, not with the increased amount of unanswered questions in her head.
She walked over to the door and opened it, careful not to make too much noise as the others were probably still asleep. She stepped out on the hallway and started her long trip to the kitchen, still trying to completely process what Pinkie had said.
----»«----
Rainbow looked out of the window. The sun had started setting fast and was already getting dangerously close to the border of horizon. The time between the events of the morning and this moment had seemed like forever, but after all it had gone too fast for her to be prepared.
She jumped up from the couch she had in her living room, managing to tangle her hooves in the air and clumsily land on the thankfully-soft cloud floor.
She wanted to be ready for the meeting of the mysterious lover of hers, but she also didn’t want to be late. She had spent the whole day just thinking and lying on her bed, sofa, table, floor or whatever had happened to feel comfortable enough. She had paid some thoughts towards getting ready for the meeting, but she had always told herself that she would have plenty of time to do that later on.
And now, when it was later on, it was too late to do a thing.
But she was Rainbow Dash after all. She didn’t worry about getting ready. It wasn’t her thing. She would just go there and use her natural coolness. Her mane was still the same awesome one, no need for brushing. And it wouldn’t have gotten any better even if she would have brushed it, the messy style was somewhat natural to her.
She would need no make-up, that was more like Rarity’s thing. Wearing clothing while participating to a meeting was overrated. After all, regular clothes would just reduce her awesomeness.
After deciding that she was ready without further adjustments to her look, Rainbow quickly got up from the floor, dashed over to the door of the cloud house of hers, swung it open in one swift move, slammed it shut behind her and flew off towards the barely-recognizable dot near Ponyville, also known as the northern cliff.
----»«----
Applejack looked out of the window. The sun had started to set, but it was still safely above the horizon. She would have loads of time to prepare for the mysterious, and apparently romantic, meeting.
She jumped up from the bed of hers, landing on the floor with perfect balance. She then proceeded to walk towards the window to have a better look. Usually the beautiful scenery of the Apple family lands managed to sort her thoughts and bring some certain quality to them.
Would she even need anything to wear? She wasn’t the kind of pony who would wear all kinds of fancy clothes on a meeting. That was more like Rarity’s thing. She would not need any kind of make-up either. Again, she could imagine Rarity using it, but it just wasn’t for her.
All she needed was her beloved cowpony hat. She would never abandon it, and this case was not an exception. She walked over to the bed of hers, picked up the hat, flung it back on the top of her head and decided that she was ready to go. She took a final look out of the window and estimated that she had something like an hour to get to the northern cliff. Seeing that it was just outside Ponyville, she would make it there with no troubles.
She walked over to the door, swung it open, carefully closed it behind her and started peacefully trotting down the stairs, towards the mysterious meeting.
----»«----
Rainbow was flapping her wings as fast as she could, but no matter how hard she tried, she was desperately running out of time. She would either just make it or miss the meeting by seconds. But no matter what, she would be there.
The northern cliff was getting bigger and bigger as she got closer, revealing its total glory in a beautiful way. The cliff was extremely popular among young couples, as it gave an astonishing view at the sun setting behind the horizon, illuminating the hometown of the ponies. The rumors were that no place in the wide world of Equestria was more romantic.
And now that the meeting was being arranged here, Rainbow was starting to get even more and more nervous. Who was it? That was the main question. And no matter how hard she tried, she could not pick a single pony that could have given Twilight orders to write that card. Maybe it was only because of her emotions, but it was just a task too hard for her to complete.
As the end of the cliff was directly under her she brought her focus back to the real world and attempted to land without crashing and making herself look like an idiot. She started rapidly lowering the altitude, using her wings to go to the right direction and her hooves to create a more aerodynamic position. As she was just about to hit the ground, she opened her wings wide, lowering her speed dramatically and allowing her to land on her hooves without breaking any bones. At least something had gone well. The landing did manage to form up a small cloud of dust and dirt, however, but that wasn’t too important.
She brushed herself off a bit, knowing that she had some dirt in her fur, and started walking towards the said meeting point. For her slight surprise, there was nopony there. Had she been the first? No, it was not possible, as the sun had only just started disappearing behind the horizon. Had the other or others left her here because she was late? No, it couldn’t be that. She was only a couple of minutes late.
But what was she doing here? She had no idea. She simply walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked at the scenery in front of her. The rumors about it being beautiful had not been false. The buildings of the town were casting their silhouettes over the fields between them and the cliff. The glow of the sun was making its way behind the buildings, creating an amazing contrast against the dark houses and shops. And the final thing that made the scenery perfect was the fact how the forests near the town were positioned exactly on the sides of the town, allowing the sunlight to effectively hit the town and the town only. All in all, it was one of the most beautiful things Rainbow had ever seen in her life.
But still not as beautiful as Applejack…
Rainbow let out a silent sigh. She was alone. So alone.
She was about to turn around and leave when she heard sounds. They came closer and after a couple of seconds she could hear a familiar voice.
“Rainbow, is that you?”
----»«----
Applejack was trotting down the lumpy path, making her way up towards the northern cliff. The path had been in a worse condition than she had thought, making it difficult to travel. This was the reason why Applejack was desperately running out of time. She was going as fast as she could on the path, but apparently it was not fast enough, as the sun was already starting to disappear behind the horizon.
The cliff had some reputation among the young ones of the town. It had an amazing view over the hometown of the ponies and as the sun started to disappear behind the horizon, it created an incredible light-show with the dark silhouettes of the buildings of the town.
But now she would miss both the starting of this event and the mysterious meeting. What if the sender of the card had already left? What if she would never have such chance again? What if she would spend the rest of her life alone?
She shook such silly thoughts out of her head immediately. There was no reason to go all dramatic about this. It wouldn’t be too late. She would get there early enough.
As the path started getting wider and officially entered the area of the northern cliff, she concentrated only on the real world. Immediately when she could see the whole area she started looking for a pony, a pony that could change her life.
And there, dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, stood a pony, illuminated by the setting sun. The cyan fur looked even better as the lighting was ideal and the rainbow-colored mane was reflecting colors all around the place, creating a heavenly display around the mare that stood there, the mare of Applejack’s dreams.
She didn’t hesitate any more, she simply walked behind the mare and asked probably the stupidest question a pony has ever asked in the history of Equestria.
“Rainbow, is that you?”
----»«----
Rainbow turned around to face the mare of her dreams. She smiled a little and answered the obvious question.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Applejack seemed to be a bit embarrassed because of her question. Rainbow found this slightly amusing, but decided not to burst out laughing. That would quite possibly kill the mood.
“Beautiful sunset, eh?” she asked, seeing that Applejack could not come up with anything. Her voice was calm and full of comfort. That apparently managed to ease Applejack’s mind as she replied with the same tone.
“Certainly. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
At this point Rainbow didn’t even care about the questions in her head. At this point she didn’t want to know how Twilight had managed to arrange this. At this point she didn’t want to know what Pinkie had done with the trusted information. The only thing that mattered to her was the pony in front of her.
Without a second thought she leaned forward, slowly enough for Applejack to pick up on the hint. As their lips met, she felt the most fascinating feeling in her whole life. A feeling that was beyond the ones she had felt during the sonic rainboom, what she had felt when finally getting to the Wonderbolt Academy, what she had felt when saving her friends from certain death and winning the Best Young Flier competition at the same time.
That feeling was love.
And as the two ponies shared their special moment, the sun reached the ideal position and the beams of light illuminated the birth of a new, beautiful relationship.