Applejack paused to wipe her hooves on the doormat. She scraped them back and forth along its fibers, wincing at the unfamiliar sensation. She looked up at the blue sky, its brilliantly shining sun weighing down on her brow. Did Rainbow Dash really have to clear every cloud away? In the very least, she could leave a few drifting by the farm. She wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead with her hat, praying Rarity wouldn't complain, and pushed Carousel Boutique’s door open, signaling the shrilly door chime.
“One moment please, and I’ll be right with you,” Rarity called out. Applejack followed her voice to the back of the store, where she found the unicorn fussing over Pinkie Pie, or, more accurately, a frilly dress flowing over Pinkie's flanks. The unicorn levitated several pins, dancing them around her head. “Pinkie Pie, will you please hold still for just one moment while I fix these measurements? If you’re going to come to dinner with me, you absolutely must dress appropriately.”
“I am holding still,” Pinkie replied, twirling, bouncing, and generally doing everything but holding still.
Rarity groaned, causing the floating pins to shudder, rolling her jaw back and forth. Applejack eyed the shaky pins cautiously for a moment before clearing her throat loudly to draw her friends' attentions.
“I said just one moment,” Rarity shot over her shoulder, not turning around.
“Hey, Applejack,” Pinkie said, smiling and waving at her. “Me and Rarity are playing dress-up. I saw a sombrero in the closet if you wanna play too.”
Applejack fidgeted with the brim of her hat. “Eh, no. Actually, there’s something I need to talk to both of you about.”
“Hmm?” Rarity hummed, turning around. “Oh, sorry, Applejack. I didn’t see you come in. I suppose now is as good a time to take a break as any.” She narrowed her eyes at Pinkie for a brief second before turning back to Applejack, all smiles. “Would you like some tea?”
Applejack crinkled her nose up at the offer. “No thanks.”
“Ooo, I want some tea,” Pinkie said with a little bounce. “And hot chocolate too!”
“You just stay right where you are,” Rarity hissed, her voice like ice, but the corners of her mouth twitched in the barest hints of a smile. “I won’t have you spilling chocolate on your new dress before we’ve even had the opportunity to show it off."
"So," she said, turning back to Applejack with a wink and a playful smile, “how’s practice going?”
Applejack fumbled around with her hat some more. “I don’t know. That’s what I came here to talk to you about.”
Rarity cocked one eyebrow. “What do you mean you 'don’t know'?”
“That happens to me all the time,” Pinkie said, nodding like a school teacher. “I’ll just stop and look around and then I’m like, ‘What am I even doing right now?’”
Applejack sighed. “No, it’s not that.” Whatever that was.
“Then what’s wrong?” Rarity asked.
“I really don’t know.” Applejack shrugged. She wasn’t even sure what was supposed to be happening, really. “She’s acting the same as she always does.”
“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity shouted at the party pony, now enveloped in a shining, blue aura. “Stop bouncing or you’re going to crinkle the seams. Do you want to go to dinner with me or not?”
Pinkie froze in the air, her mouth half-open.
Rarity turned back to Applejack. “Well, she wouldn’t this early I suppose. You’ll just have to take things up a notch, so to speak.”
“Hmmm...” Applejack didn’t respond.
“What’s wrong?” Rarity asked.
“Isn’t this all a little crazy?” Applejack asked, looking back up. “I mean, how is this even supposed to work? Wouldn’t something a little more, eh, traditional work?”
“Well, duh!” Pinkie said, breaking through Rarity’s magic and jiggling her flank up and down. “It’s totally crazy. That’s the whole point.”
Rarity sighed in Pinkie’s general direction before answering, “Yes, I’ll admit it is rather eccentric, but if you want to catch a special fish you don’t use ‘traditional’ means. If you want to catch a special fish, you must use a special lure.”
Applejack chewed the inside of her cheek. “That actually makes sense. I think.”
“Good, now off with you,” Rarity said, pushing her towards the door. “I’m sorry for being abrupt, but I must finish this dress tonight.”
Applejack found herself being shoved outside and the door closed behind her before she even had a chance to reply. She heard Pinkie’s muffled laughter, along with another sigh from Rarity.
“Special fish, huh?” she said to herself.
She turned and trotted towards Sweet Apple Acres. She couldn’t help but smile at the analogy.
__________________________________________________
Rainbow Dash tried twisting her foreleg around to test the strap’s strength, but it held her leg firmly in place. She couldn’t do much more than squirm against it. She fidgeted back and forth on the board and her wings fluttered open and shut, begging to be set free. Something in her body, some primitive instinct forever fearing entrapment and loss of the sky, revolted against the straps holding down her stomach and chest.
“Could ya’ stop wigglin’, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, spitting out the strap she’d been trying to fasten.
Dash groaned and held her free foreleg out straight along the board. “This stinks. Can’t we wait and do this later?”
“Sooner or later, we’ve gotta practice doing the real thing,” Applejack said, tying the next strap. “Might as well be sooner.”
Applejack leaned down to fasten the straps that would bind her hind legs. Dash’s face flushed as her friend’s warm breath brushed fleetingly against her thigh, going to work on the straps. Dash leaned back, resigning herself to her fate and trying to forget that she was bound, flightless, to a wooden board.
The last few practices had gone well enough, even if they hadn’t consisted of much more than Rainbow Dash cheering Applejack on from the sidelines. On the one hoof, she was happy to finally get the chance to do something other than imitate Fluttershy. On the other, Applejack would soon be throwing deadly, sharp knives right at her head that were actually big enough to take off her head.
“Is this what every team’s gonna be doing?” Dash asked, willing herself to think about other things.
Applejack snorted, sending vibrations up Dash’s leg. “I don’t think any other team is gonna be doin’ this. I even had to get special permission just for us to.” She stood back up, finished.
Dash tested the strength of the straps again. She could barely move. If she had to suddenly fly away, like in the off chance that a knife came flying at her stomach, she would be helpless. “You’ve done this before, right?”
Applejack chuckled. “Where’ve you been the last week?”
Dash, unable to facehoof, settled for rolling her eyes. “No, I mean actually done this with a live pony, not just a ponyquin.”
“Well…” Applejack’s eyes shifted away.
Dash’s chest tightened, choking her throat. “Well what?” she asked, her voice a little higher pitched than normal.
“I’ve never done this with an actual pony,” Applejack admitted. “But you’ve seen me practice. I haven’t hit the ponyquin a single time.”
Dash was silent for several moments before replying, her voice shaky, “Let me out.”
“Wait a minu—”
“I said let me out!” Dash struggled uselessly against the restraints, her breath coming faster and faster in shallow gasps.
“Just listen to me for—”
“Now!” Dash yelled at the top of her lungs, wasting what little air she had left.
She writhed in the straps, her chest heaving with painful breaths. Her heart pounded so hard she was certain it would come crashing through her skin at any moment. It was pointless. The straps had her trapped. Why wasn’t Applejack letting her out? Why did she agree to this? Stupid, stupid, stupid. She knocked her head against the back of the board, pushing against the bindings with all her strength, her vision blurring.
Suddenly, two shining emerald eyes filled her view. “Hey, hey, sugarcube. Just take a deep breath.”
Dash’s muscles stilled as she lost herself in Applejack’s eyes. She inhaled slowly, the smell of apples filling her snout and warmth spread throughout her chest. She realized that Applejack was pressing up against her, hooves on her shoulders, easy heart beat contrasting and comforting her own.
“Are you feelin’ okay?” Applejack cooed, embarrassingly similar to a mother hen.
Heat flooded into Dash’s cheeks from somewhere deep in her chest. “Uh, yeah…” She looked away.
“I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t wanna do,” Applejack said, pulling away. Rainbow Dash pushed forward on impulse, trying to prolong the intimate touch, but the straps held her back. Her skin suddenly felt very cold.
“But,” Applejack looked her straight in the eyes, “I would never have even considered doing this if I thought there was any chance at all that you could get hurt. I will never hurt you. Do you understand?”
Rainbow Dash nodded.
“Say it.”
Dash blinked stupidly. “Say what?”
Applejack stepped forward until their muzzles nearly touched again. Dash wondered what it would be like if she wasn’t being held down, if she could just reach her head forward a single breath and meet her friend’s lips.
“Say you know that I’ll never hurt you.”
“I know that you’ll never hurt me.”
“Do you want me to untie you?”
Rainbow Dash shook her head.
“Okay.” Applejack tapped her on the shoulder. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Dash watched her turn around and walk up to the stool, picking up the knives. Mercifully, Dash’s breath and heartbeat held steady, like Applejack had imparted some of her strength to her. Applejack stood still with the knives in her mouth. It was the same stance Dash had seen her make at least a dozen times before, but it was an entirely different experience to be on the receiving end of that focused, fixed, almost angry stare. She had the uneasy feeling that Applejack could see through her.
Abruptly, Applejack began to turn. Dash braced herself against the board. Applejack spun around, once, twice, and then stopped. Then everything stopped.
Time stood still for a moment and then started again, slower than before. The knife spun through the air towards her as if in slow motion. She could see every little etch in the blade’s edge, every glint of reflected sunlight on its shining surface. At the very last moment, she screwed her eyes shut.
A dull thud reverberated next to her head and the entire board shook. She cracked her eyes open just wide enough to see a knife sticking in the wood beside her, less than an inch away from her snout. Four more thuds followed in quick succession, and knives appeared in each gap between her limbs, as if from nowhere. Her eyes opened slowly, her gaze never moving off that first knife.
“Heh, told ya’ you wouldn—” Applejack’s smirk fell when she neared the board. “Are you alright?”
Rainbow Dash didn’t respond, too fixated on the knife to even realize she was being spoken to.
“Hey, Rainbow!” Applejack shouted, waving a hoof in front of the pegasus’s face. “Please answer me...”
Dash couldn’t think about anything but the knife. If it had landed just one little breath over, it all would have been over. She wouldn’t even exist anymore. Dash felt herself fall forward as the straps holding her forelegs came undone.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…” Applejack whispered, wrapping her in a tight hug.
All at once, everything came back into focus. Dash wrapped her forelegs around her friend, returning the embrace. “That was so cool!”
Applejack stiffened. “What?”
“Did you see that?!” Dash grabbed on tighter as a delayed burst of adrenaline pounded through her legs. “That knife was like that close to hitting me! It was so awesome!”
“You… you liked it?” Applejack moved to pull away, but Dash held her close, still lost in the exhilaration of sweeping past death.
“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done!”
Applejack chuckled. “That’s great and all, but would you mind lettin’ go of me?”
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash looked down, noticing for the first time what the soft, warm thing she had been holding onto was. Letting out an embarrassed squeak, she released her friend from between her hooves. “Uh, sorry. I guess I got a little, uh, excited.”
“No problem,” Applejack replied, leaning in to undo the rest of Dash’s straps. “You ready to get down from there?”
Dash jerked to the side, moving away from the pony untying her. “No way! Let’s do it again.”
“What?” Applejack looked at her like she’d just suggested they go knock Granny Smith’s walker out from underneath her.
Dash spread her forelegs back into place to be tied. “Come on.”
“Alright… I guess if you say so,” Applejack said with a shrug. “You’re crazy though, ya’ know that?”
Dash smirked while Applejack retightened the straps. “Crazy awesome.”