//------------------------------//
// Apples 
// Story: The Sky's the Limit 
// by aurorablaze 
//------------------------------//


omg gaiz dont i haz teh msot riginil titelz evar.
~cough~ This actually isn't based off a song, but from a FiM flash game I was playing earlier. There was some random mishap with the flash. Rainbow's character was near to a bucket of apples, and the animation made her put her head into it. xD It was such an inspiring moment to me, and gave birth to this glorious piece!






Rainbow Dash had never really thought about it, and had always taken it for granted - 
How did her marefriend always have the smell of apples on her? Was it her shampoo, her conditioner, her body wash? That would just be crude; AJ's family seemed to practically live, eat, sleep and breathe apples enough as it was. If they washed themselves with apples too.... that would be stepping over the line of 'original' to plain 'obsessed'. Dash had noticed that Applejack did eat a lot of apples, which meant that she tasted like apples [which Dash was also already knowledgeable of], but that affected her breath. It didn't explain why even her hoofnails smelled like apples. 
Maybe she got it from bucking apples all day, but she wasn't exactly taking them and rubbing herself all over with them as she bucked. Instead of smelling like something just baked, she should smell like a wet gym sock. Did the aroma of the apples carry itself over to Applejack as she carried them in their baskets? Perhaps her family made perfume from the apples. But that, again, would be obsessive, and AJ wasn't exactly a frou-frou perfume 'dunker'. 

Rainbow turned herself over, getting comfortable with a different position on her cloud. There was nothing quite like flunking off work and hypostatizing about the scent of your marefriend. 

Maybe instead of using water, she used cider or apple juice when she bathed. Rainbow imagined a dripping wet AJ in a tub of cider, with her loose mane slicked against her neck.  
That would be an option she could agree with. 

Dash couldn't exactly pinpoint what apple product she smelled of, though; maybe your typical old apple, cider, apple pie, apple fritters, apple crumble, caramel apples... apple sauce? An idea was beginning to conceive in the pegasus' mind -Twilight would be proud of her- she'd have to conduct an experiment! 

She energetically leaped off her cloud and glided to the market square. Work could wait until later, she was about to bring  pride to the name of science! Everypony was going about their daily business, sale stalls were packed into every sizable nook and cranny that could be found, and the general atmosphere was buzzing with activity and chatter. 
Rainbow easily located the Apple's stall and trotted over, gently shoving her way past the crowding ponies. Big Macintosh was tending the stand, nodding at each pony as they purchased their apple merchandise. She let her gaze roam, until she locked focus onto what she had been looking for, and smiled. Test subject number one. 
She made her way over to a bucket of apples, and casually stuck her head deep into the barrel as if she was apple-bobbing, disputing several out of the container and onto the ground as she did so. She inhaled the smell vigorously, unaware of the many stares her upwards rump was getting.  
One of Big Mac's customers got his attention, who was pretending he didn't see his sister's fillyfriend shoving herself into a barrel and nonchalantly counting out correct change.  
"Sir, you do realize about that pony over there, yes?" 
"Eeyup. Guess we can't sell that bunch today." 

To make matters worse, Dash dislodged herself and came flouncing over to the stall, cutting in front of the customer and grabbing an armful of treats from the cake shelves.  
"Yo Mac, mind if I borrow these?" 
"S'okay Dash, y'all don't have to return them." 
"Sweet, thanks!" On that note, she flew off into the sky and out of sight within seconds. If Big Macintosh knew anything, she'd be headed to the farm. He'd rather not think of what Dash had planned for his sister.


	~ 


Dash soon reached the orchard. She divebombed into the forest of apples, coming to a stop behind the thick trunk of a tree. She wanted to surprise Applejack with her intelligent philosophy instead of flying right to the farm, and anyway she'd gotten tired of holding them in her hooves. Some of the goods were slightly squashed from their rough journey, but they'd still be fine. The only thing she regretted was having no cider, the one thing she'd have preferred to have AJ test monkey. In a big tub. 
She smartly walked into a tree during this daydream, bringing her back to reality. She'd narrowly avoided stepping on her treats, so she outstretched her wings and delicately placed them on her feathered limbs one by one with her mouth, carrying them all the way to the farm. 
It hadn't helped that she didn't know what way she was going from the view of the ground, and she couldn't fly up and place her surroundings right now. Celestia, this science stuff was hard. 
Eventually, after wandering around in circles for a while, she reached an end to the sight of apple trees, and the shape of the barn house loomed before her. She stuck her head around the doorway, and saw Applejack sorting bales of hay. She must be so bored, trapped in here, counting individual strands of hay! Setting down her precious apple goods, she prepared to leap in the doorway.  
"I'LL SAVE YOU, APPLEJACK!" 
Before she could even react, AJ found herself flung halfway across the barn by a blue airplane, which was now standing over her victoriously. 
"Sugarcube, what in tarnation you doing?" 
"No need to thank me AJ! Anything to save my damsel - oof," Dash was interrupted by an orange hoof roughly pushing her over. Applejack stood up and shook the dust off herself, and Rainbow was properly graced with AJ's smell ever since she had made her dramatic entrance in the barn. She quickly leaned over and took a good sniff of everything - Applejack's hat, her mane, her neck, her back, her legs. Applejack again shoved her away before she could advance, and Rainbow responded by also sniffing the offending hoof. This smell was teasing her to no extent. She hadn't ever realized how fragrant it was.
"RD, what's gotten into ya? You're nosing like a dog," Applejack asked with concern, disturbed by these actions. 
Rainbow let off a huge grin. "Science!" 
This only led to heighten Applejack's concern. 

Rainbow briefly explained her query, and Applejack's eyebrow raised up further and further as she spoke. 
"That don't sound like no science to me, just sounds like a crazy pegasus with too much time on her hooves." 
Dash harrumphed and knocked AJ's hat down over her eyes. "You don't know how much this has been bugging me all day. So we'll conduct an experiment!" 
Applejack looked skeptical as she followed an excited pegasus out of the barn, her bales of hay forgotten. She looked at what Rainbow had brought to the farm with her, and started laughing. 
"You've just proven that I'm right, sugarcube. You really are crazy." 
Rainbow dismissed the comment airily with a russle of her wings. "You sit here," she indicated with her hoof at a random spot on the ground, and Applejack decided to comply. 

Thus followed a delicate operation of sniffing, smearing, and comparing between various bakings made from apples with and on Applejack. But nothing satisfied Dash - the smells compared with her Applejack were either too sweet, too sour or too musty. 
Perhaps it just meant that Applejack's smell was a special characteristic of who she was, and that no animate object could be pinned down to match her beautiful fragrance. 
Or else she just hadn't tested enough apple products. Applejack was covered in all sorts of cake, and was enduring it surprisingly well. Dash would have thought it'd have been all over the farmyard by now. An idea struck her for another experiment and also as a method to clean her farmpony off. 
"AJ, you got any cider around?"