please tell me you need me
The impact spreads up and out along the branches, and the shaking leaves produce a gentle percussive sound, like a muted round of applause. Good buck, girl! Job well done! Apples fall into the expectant buckets with louder thuds, piling up. Applejack waits for the final fruits to drop, checks for any hangers-on, and, finding none, nods in satisfaction, then moves on to the next tree.
"C'mon, you gotta let me do one…!"
"I 'ppreciate the offer, Rainbow, but really - I can take care of it. Don't you worry yer pretty little head none."
Rainbow flits around at canopy level, restless as ever. She circles around the tall tree as Applejack bucks the apples out of it, and thinks about flying through the falling barrage, dodging the aerial assaults, trying not to let a single one touch her… The leaves encourage her, but the apples thud with disdain for her idea. She frowns, then shakes her head to clear it. Applejack is already on her way over to her next target. She's been hard at it for close to an hour now, working her way through the eastern orchard, with Rainbow trailing behind at a casual distance, watching the master at work. Tree after mighty tree yields its bearings to her, and her alone - much to Rainbow's increasingly verbalised annoyance.
"I'm not worried, I'm bo-o-ored! Let me have this one. C'mon, I can clean it out in--" But the farmer is too efficient to let her finish that sentence. Leaves shake, apples fall. Rainbow sighs. For a moment, she thinks about heading home - but the thought is dismissed as something catches her eye; a single apple stuck in place, attached to one of the highest branches. "Aha!" She sees her opportunity. Zooming straight towards it, Rainbow reaches out with her forehooves and triumphantly grasps--
-- nothing. She looks down to see her quarry, wrapped in a lasso, resting in the hoof of a very amused looking Applejack.
"Oh come on!" she yells petulantly, throwing up her hooves in exasperation. "That was mine and you know it!" She hears how stupid the words are, and she doesn't care, because they're still true. It was her apple. She knows it.
Applejack smirks. "It's property of Sweet Apple Acres, sugarcube."
"That's not what I meant…!" She eases her flapping, slowly beginning her descent.
Applejack inspects the apple with feigned intensity, still wearing that infuriatingly smug expression. "If it were yours, hun, I think you'd be the one holdin' it." She looks up at Rainbow, and her face softens, ever so slightly. "I told you, I can take care of all this."
Rainbow stops mere centimetres from the ground and flutters over to her companion, still fuming. "Then why am I here at all if you won't even let me do anything?!" she yells, landing in front of Applejack indignantly. She shoves her face towards the stealer of apples, locking eyes at a dangerously close range. She's not entirely sure who she's asking, but still she knows the answer she's going to get.
And she wants it. Not just for the satisfaction - not just to quell that infuriating, persistent urge she gets every time she looks at Applejack to fly straight over to her and pull her as close as physically possible and kiss her so hard she feels like either of them might just burst - but because she can't think of a better way to wipe that stupid grin off her marefriend's face.
It works.
"Had you considered," Applejack says softly, breaking away momentarily, "that maybe all I wanted was the pleasure of your company?"
Rainbow pulls her in again, trying to give herself time to think of something clever to say back. After a few moments, she's forgotten what Applejack said in the first place.