Rainbow Dash’s Future
Chapter 2 – I Want to be With You
As an organized and an occasionally laid-back pony, Applejack doesn’t find herself stressing out a lot when she’s out on the farm. Even though she doesn’t feel stressed now, she did feel a little bit of tension building up inside of her. All of last night and the following morning, Applejack only noticed one thing of herself: she was distracted by Rainbow Dash. Whenever she had a little crush on somepony, she normally would just wave and smile at that somepony. Not Rainbow Dash, though. She was special for some reason.
Applejack had been awake for a couple of hours, but she had only done a few of her morning chores. She felt bad that she was falling behind on what she needed to do, but she didn’t want to do anything unless she was completely focused on it. As we have seen, AJ wasn’t focused at all. She simply paced back and forth in her room as she waited for her “date” with Rainbow Dash.
Oh yeah, the date. AJ still wanted it to be an actual date, mainly to test to see if she really liked Rainbow Dash the way that she did. A crush is just a crush, Applejack thought. It could mean anything and it could mean nothing. She was actually considering treating the lunch as though it were an actual date, even if Rainbow Dash didn't think of it that way. Though, that would turn out to be too awkward for the both of them.
Applejack continued to pace around her room for another moment until there was a knock at her door. Applejack turned around and noticed her sister, Applebloom, walk in.
“Hi, Applebloom. Is there something you need, little sis?”
“I was just wondering why you’re making so much noise. The Crusaders and I are trying to think of something to get our cutie marks, and we keep getting distracted by your pacing.”
Applejack looked over her sister and noticed Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle peeking into the room. “I’m sorry Applebloom. Just a little distracted is all. Why don’t you three fillies go down to your clubhouse? I’m sure you’ll get a whole lot more quiet in there.”
“We want to, but one of Scootaloo’s bright ideas made the clubhouse… not good.” Scootaloo blushed and tried to look away, obviously knowing what Applebloom was talking about. “Is everything alright, Applejack? I tried talking to you at dinner and breakfast, but you kept looking out the window or something. Is it something I said?”
Applejack wanted to tell her sister the truth and reassure her that this wasn’t her fault, but at the same time, she didn’t. So… she did a combination of the two. “I’m just having a little problem with Rainbow Dash. Nothing to worry about, though.”
Scootaloo walked into the room somewhat excitedly. “Rainbow Dash? What could be the problem between you and Rainbow Dash? She’s just too awesome to have problems.” Applebloom made a motion with her hooves for Scootaloo to calm down since she was “fan-girling” again.
Yeah, she is pretty awesome, Applejack thought to herself. After shaking the thought, she returned her focus to the young orange pegasus. “It’s a little complicated and I don’t want to involve the three of you in it. Why don’t you three get back to what you were doing and I’ll get out of your hair? I have some chores to get done, anyways.”
Applebloom did seem a tad bit skeptical, but she knew that she could trust her sister’s judgement. Applejack is the Element of Honesty, after all. She just simply left with the rest of the crusaders and returned to her room.
Applejack felt a little ashamed of herself that she couldn’t even tell her own sister about her crush, but she was feeling tension and anxiety, so it didn’t seem reasonable. It was almost as if she was ashamed of actually having a crush. Though, she didn’t let that get to her head. She headed downstairs and saw Big Mac and Granny Smith in the kitchen. She said hello to the both of them and went out to continue her chores, feeling a little better than she did before.
A couple hours later, Applejack checked the time and noticed that it was 20 minutes until noon, the time that she was expected to meet Rainbow Dash. She finished whatever it was she was doing and went inside the home to get washed up. She didn’t want to be anything special for Rainbow Dash, but she surely didn’t want to be dirty and sweaty for her.
After an incredibly short bath, AJ told her family that she was going out with Rainbow Dash for lunch. She went out into the streets of Ponyville and looked around the market to see if she could see a cyan pegasus. It didn’t take long for Applejack to catch a glimpse of Rainbow Dash’s rainbow hair in the distance. She walked up to her.
“Hi, Rainbow. You ready for lunch?”
“You, bet. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. I was hoping you would have a plan.”
“Well, I do, but I thought I would ask first.” The two of them smiled and giggled. “There is this one café that I’ve been keeping my eye on.” Rainbow Dash giggled to herself again. “It was actually the café that Twilight was at when she had the Great Grand Galloping ticket when it began to rain. Good thing I was there to make sure she and her food stayed dry.”
Applejack gave Rainbow Dash a straight, but funny look. “Yeah, and all I see is one big cheater who was just trying to get her hooves on a Gala ticket.”
Rainbow Dash faked a shocked look on her face and said, “What? Me?”
Applejack chuckled to herself, finding it funny that Rainbow could pull off such a face. “Alright, sucarcube, very funny. Here, let me take you to that Ponyville Café. I’ve been there once myself, and I think it’s worth getting rained on to eat there.”
Applejack began walking and Rainbow Dash followed at her side. “Alright. The thing that Twilight was eating actually looked pretty good before I… never mind.”
“Before you completely made it rain on top of her, making her absolutely miserable with her soggy food. Oh… I was there, Rainbow.”
Rainbow Dash faked a smile. “Heh. What can I say? I wanted to go to the Gala really badly. If only it didn’t turn out to be so terrible. The Wonderbolts didn’t even notice me at all.”
“Well, they must’ve noticed you somehow. You’re in the Wonderbolt Academy, and Spitfire knows what you’re capable of. You’re the fastest flyer in Equestria.”
Rainbow Dash’s faked smile turned into a real one. “Thanks, AJ. I really could use the confidence boost, especially with what’s been going on lately.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, uh… nothing. It’s not that important.”
Applejack was a little concerned for Rainbow Dash, but she didn’t bug her. She clearly didn’t want to talk about it. A few moments later, Applejack noticed that she was only a few feet away from the Ponyville Café. “Here we are, Rainbow. Let’s get a table.”
The two of them enter the café and found a seat just for the two of them. The waitress pony smiled at them, asking them if they wanted any appetizers.
“No thanks,” Applejack responded.
“Are you sure,” the waitress asked. “We have a large salad that the two of you can share.”
Applejack seemed interested. “That sounds like a good idea. Do you want to share, Rainbow?”
However, Rainbow Dash had a different idea of this ‘date’. “Nah, I’ll just stick with my own food. You can have it yourself if you want.” Rainbow Dash then buried herself in her menu to find something that even relatively interested her.
Applejack, disappointed, looked up at the waitress. “I think we’ll just have to skip the salad today.”
“That’s alright. You two look over the menu and I’ll be back soon.” The waitress then went to tend to her next group of customers.
The two of them reviewed the menu for a brief moment before the waitress took their drink and food order. After the waitress left, there was a long period of time with awkward silence with only a few gaps of mild conversation. Applejack knew this was her fault, and she felt silly that she is letting her small little crush meddle with her friendship with one of her closest friends. Unfortunately, to add salt to an open wound, Rainbow Dash was catching on to this.
“AJ, are you okay? I’ve been trying to talk to you for the past 30 minutes and you’ve been coming up with all of these really short answers. What happened to the buddy that I remember who could keep a conversation going?”
Applejack wasn’t even paying attention to what Rainbow Dash was saying until she said the last sentence. She shook herself out of her silly guilt and responded tentatively. “I just haven’t been in the mood for the past couple of days, sugarcube. I’ve just been real distracted about something, and I just can’t get it out of my mind.”
“You seemed fine yesterday. Is there something I can do?”
Maybe you can say how you feel about me, Applejack thought to herself. Even if you say you don’t like me like that, it’ll at least give me some closure. End my suffering. Applejack wanted to say all of that, but she knew that she couldn’t. Not yet, at least. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Oh, well… if you’re not up for eating right now, we can just leave.”
“No, of course not. I wouldn’t do something like that to you. Not for my sake. Besides, you being here with me is making me feel better already.”
Rainbow Dash blushed, but it wasn’t enough to be noticeable from the naked eye. “Well, that’s what I’m here for. To make you feel better.”
And just like that… it was as if the engine of their friendship was started once more. Their conversation made it all the way through the meal. Applejack didn’t seem quite so stressed out anymore, because she threw that crush of her’s to the back of her mind and brought out her friendship. Though, she knew that she wasn’t going to keep it that way forever.
Upon finishing their meals, their plates of leftover crumbs were taken away and the two were left with full stomachs. “You were right, Applejack. This café really is amazing.”
“Next time, I’ll see if I can get you to Cloudsdale. There’s this restaurant that’s been there forever, and their food is to die for. I’ll pay, too.”
“You don’t have to do that, sugarcube. I’ll fully capable of paying for myself.”
“Alright.”
“So… what are you going to do after this?”
“Oh, I have plans with some of my friends from the Wonderbolt Academy. I promised them that I would show them a bit of my stuff. They’ve been asking for me to do a demonstration for a long time.”
Applejack smiled, though she frowned on the inside. She knew that her time with Rainbow Dash was coming to an end. “Alright, I guess I’ll just go back to the farm to just get some more chores done.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be busy or not.”
Applejack nodded her head and Rainbow Dash walked herself out. Soon after, Applejack left to see Rainbow Dash fly off to the Wonderbolt Academy. She sighed, even though she was happy for RD’s success at the Academy.
She returned to the town center and looked around. At this time of day, there is a lot of activity on the streets of Ponyville. Lyra was sitting on a bench, looking over Bon-Bon’s shoulder to see what she was reading. Derpy was walking around with a brown colt with an hourglass as a cutie mark. AJ didn’t recognize the colt, even though she knew most of the residents in Ponyville.
She then saw Fluttershy at a vegetable stall, holding a bag with lettuce on the inside. She walked up to the shy yellow mare and grabbed her attention.
“Oh hi, Applejack. I haven’t seen you in a few days.”
“Yeah. I’ve been busy.” On impulse, Applejack spontaneously asked Fluttershy something. “Are you going home after this?”
“I’m going home right now. Why?”
“Do you mind if I tag along? I need to talk to you about something… personal, and I would rather we be alone for me to say it.”
“Oh, of course. This sounds urgent.”
The two mares then went back to Fluttershy’s cottage.