The sound of the air hissing under Rainbow Dash’s feathers was luscious and anticipated by her ears. Her focus zoned in, dodging clouds in a stylized way. Her wings snapped vertically, halting her speed rapidly and allowing her to make a ninety degree turn towards the sun.
Her eyes dryly reddened by the whipping winds, as the sun drew nearer and nearer. She twisted her wings again, allowing her body to horizontally even out, and she zeroed in a singular cloud. The moist and fibrous looking cloud stared Rainbow Dash down as she approached at rapid speeds.
The moisture swallowed Dash and began to trail behind her at a distance, caught up in the aftermath of her speed. With a quick glance behind her, Rainbow smirked in anticipation. Intricately turning her wings, she looped up and over, now dropping rapidly towards the earth below. Her peripheral vision warped and blurred as her speed grew exponentially until, finally, in an adrenaline filled moment of sureness, Rainbow ripped her wings and feathers open wide, catching the air in their feathery grasp.
Crack!
The sound of the wind hitting her extremities numbed her mind, leaving her ears ringing loudly. As the water of the cloud splashed onto her, he body began to shake with wind chill and her wet fur froze her nerves. Tears streaming from her red eyes, Dash’s wing bent backwards, the force of the air too much for her to bear. The numbness of her cold joints couldn’t mask the pain, and her yelp echoed the streets below her as the wealthy unicorns all looked up into the sky.
She had no time to properly internalize the faces below, but they came closer rapidly. She closed her eyes, waiting for the impact.
1, 2, 3…
Nothing?
When her eyes opened, Dash saw a flexing and distorted array of color. Her eyes readjusted and watered as her mind attempted to understand what happened. It took a moment for Dash to think of looking down, because she didn’t feel the ground beneath her. As her sore eyes glanced downwards, the face of a terrified unicorn stallion peered up to her, as if pleading that his magic would keep and the pegasus above would stay suspended.
Stunned, Dash simply kicked mindlessly, still somehow expecting earth beneath her. The unicorn stepped back, his mouth slightly wedged ajar. Then, slowly, the magic descended and carried Dash along with it, taking her safely to the ground. As her hooves firmly touched the ground, she looked directly to the stallion that had caught her.
His face seemed so strikingly familiar that she was a little taken aback, and her mind reeled to remember.
However, her memory stunted as the pain from her sore wing finally ebbed back into her consciousness. She yelped but did not wince, determined to be tough enough to handle it. Unfortunately, her wing was stuck outright, too injured for Dash to pull it in towards the body heat of the rest of her body, and the combination of the cold and the pain left the wing tingly and searing.
“Oh, dear. Is that you Rainbow Dash? Are you… alright?” The stallion asked, approaching slowly. Although Dash’s eyes were tearing up, she refused to let this stranger see, so she looked back at her wing and made herself stand up straight as if nothing was wrong.
“Just a flesh wound. I’ll be fine.” Dash took a step back, avoiding the colt.
“Rubbish, this won’t do. We need to get you some care.”
Laughing, Dash shook her head. “No, I’ve gotten into worse accidents than this.” Her achy bones resilient, Dash used her strength to tug in her injured wing. The bones cried as the limb tucked against Dash’s side. She refused to allow this injury to ruin her vacation, and played it off as such.
The unicorn tilted his head in order to get a better view of the wing, but then smiled, almost smugly. “So be it. Are you here with that charmingly rustic group of friends you were last here with?”
“Charmingly… Wait a sec, you’re Fancypants!” Finally remembering, Dash met eyes with him. “I knew you looked familiar.”
“Why, yes. And you are Rainbow Dash, Equestria’s Best Young Flier, and, of course, entertainment for the recent royal wedding and envy of the Wonderbolts.”
“Yes, yes, it’s all tr – wait, what was that last part?”
The colt made a charming laugh. “You saved their lives, dear. You think they haven’t noticed you?”
The pain suddenly felt minimal as a welling sense of excitement washed over Rainbow Dash. Too excited for words, she simply shimmied slightly in her place. Fancypants picked up on her excitement and chuckled.
“Are you and your friends here to see the big Wonderbolts show?”
Still anxious and pleased, Rainbow Dash could hardly spit up a response. However, after a moment, she grinned and nodded. “Yeah, duh! Well, it’s just Rarity and me.”
“Rarity?” Fancypants said, with a small smirk that, although usually a malicious smile, on him seemed natural and benign. “Well, well, well! That’s good news indeed. Do you know where I may find her?”
“Uhh, she was in the hotel room last I checked, but that was almost an hour ago. But…”
“But?” Fancypants answered, awaiting the final comment.
“I don’t know how much fun she’ll be. She’s a little… stressed right now.”
-----
Nighttime loomed over Ponyville. While Fluttershy sat awake in her cottage, staring down at another intricate hair piece she received at her doorstep, Twilight treated a guest at her library; none other than Noteworthy asking to check out a music book. The Apple family had already begun to get ready for bed, but there was still one figure moving in the shadows of the trees.
The shadow was Caramel, working overtime even after Applejack had told him it was okay to go home.
“I don’t know, I just,” he mumbled allowed to himself, his tone annoyed and bothered, “ugh, it isn’t funny.”
The sound of his hooves hitting the trees was dull, partly due to his strength already being drained from the long day’s work, but mostly because that simply wasn’t where his head was. He was previously helping Applejack do her daily chores because he had nothing better to do. The Apple family had been kind to him, although he was clumsy and sometimes awkward. They gave him a job and meals when he couldn’t take care of himself.
But while helping Applejack, his girlfriend so gratefully came to him to complain that he had been spending too much time at the farm, and not enough time with her. The fight escalated and he eventually heard her make a comment about leaving him. Naturally, his clumsy antics gave him no tactful ways to respond and he spat insults at her instead, chasing her away and inescapably breaking the two of them up.
Applejack was kind enough to tell him to go home, but to him, home would mean that it was time to clean up all the pictures of them together, all the knick-knacks he valued so highly. He’d much rather stay here and work, ineffectively taking his mind off of the break up.
Thump, thump, thump.
The sound of his hooves hitting the bark of the tree was just loud enough to echo through the trees towards the Apple family home. He slowly realized the volume of his blows against the silent backdrop of the wind gracing through the leaves and he stopped momentarily to listen for any other sounds that his hooves may have attracted.
There was silence.
Now surrounded in the silence, he sat down and allowed for sweat and, perhaps quite likely even tears, slid off of the curve of his jawbone. A few moments passed before he decided to stand again, but he was startled back to his feet when the sound of a voice calling for him echoed through the apples groves. The southern sling in the mare’s voice was unmistakable.
“Caramel, Caramel, ya’ll still out there?”
He was stubborn to respond. “Y-yeah.”
There was no response, but he had assumed she was working her way over to him. He stood, preparing to just look natural, and began bucking onto another, nearly barren tree. The tree shook and an apple fell, falling into a nearly full barrel. The thunk of the apple hitting the others in the barrel probably helped draw Applejack to Caramel’s location, but for some reason he did not find himself caring.
“There ya are, Sugarcube.” Applejack said as she approached. She yawned and brushed her disheveled mane out of her eyes, and it brought a slight shadow of guilt down on Caramel for keeping her awake. “Now, what are ya doing here still? I thought I told ya to go home after that incident with Sassaflash.”
“Nah.” Caramel shook his head. “I’d rather stay here and help out.”
Caramel expected Applejack to protest, to tell him he needed rest and that he was being stupid, but instead she smiled and it caught him off guard.
“Caramel, if you need time to vent, why didn’t you ask instead of killing my trees?”
She motioned a hoof to a tree that he had previously been kicking. The bark had fallen off and the bare yellow underbelly of the tree was visible. Caramel sheepishly looked away, embarrassed by the state of the tree.
Caramel refused to respond.
Applejack yawned once more, shaking her head. “Come inside, Sugarcube. You can stay over tonight if you don’t want to go home that much.”
The offer retrieved Caramel’s attention, and his ears perked up in interest. “Wait, really? You’d let me do that?”
“You’ve been a lot of help, despite your, er, mess-ups.” Applejack responded softly. “It’s the least I can do for tonight. It’s better than ya overworking yourself out here.”
For some reason, Caramel couldn’t help but smile at the offer. He stood and felt lighter from the weight of his depression and shook his head. “Thanks, but I can’t do that to you. I think I’ll go home now. I have,” he paused to breath, “I have a house to clean.”
Applejack watched as Caramel took a stand. He looked over to her and their eyes locked for a moment, but Applejack quickly looked away. “Okay, Sugarcube. Just be careful out. It is dark out and I know you have a tendency to, uh, trip.”
After the conversation came to a close, Caramel waved and made his leave.
-----
Applejack went back to tuck herself into her bed. After closing the front door, she got a teasing jeer from Applebloom. Applejack laughed heartily and smirked. “Aw, jus’ leave me alone about it.”
She opened her bedroom door and turned on the light. A drawer was opened on her nightstand, and the golden tickets shimmered as the light danced across them. Applejack smiled and felt a blush on her cheeks.
Recalling the conversation with Twilight, she felt a little happy to hear that she had been given an extra ticket. Her fondness for her farmhand was long-lived, and developed at least a year ago but she withheld them on the account of his girlfriend. Although it may be cruel for her to feel the way she did, she was a little satisfied that they broke up, and the cruel aspects balance out with her guilt and feelings of regret that he was so upset about it. However, she was aware that the odds of him going with her to the gala was slim, but she still had a week or two, perhaps she could convince him to go as a friend.
Applejack turned off the light in her room. Shutting the door and the drawers, she pulled the sheets over her and said goodnight to herself.