//------------------------------// // Interlude // Story: A Ballad of Eeyup and Nope // by ambion //------------------------------// The drying line was mostly level with the ground, but lifted up at one end so that it curved gently to the underside of the branch it was tied around. It was here that Applejack started to struggle, straining her neck and haunches to reach the cord, pegs and laundry in tow. Every step it lifted just a little bit further from her reach, so that each small victory made for the same challenge again, but harder. From a ways back Rainbow Dash watched her friend’s struggle. Shadows were dripping off the trees, and by the light of the afternoon turning to evening Applejack’s orange took on more of a syrupy golden hue. The mare stretched, fidgeting on her hooves as she tried to eke another inch of her back legs. Her tail swished side to side and, put in mind of an agitated cat, Rainbow Dash smirked. With a groan and a muffled cry of success, the earth pony clicked the peg in place, suspending something frillier and more lacy than most to the open breeze. Applejack huffed and dropped her head back down, working out the kinks from her neck and back as she did so. “You could help with this, ya know,” she said, turning to face the pegasus, rolling the tension out of her shoulders. Dash shrugged and found her smirk had grown a little firmer. “I already did, didn’t I?” she said, gesturing the expanse of cloth and assorted lacy frilly thing-free ground and trees about themselves. Applejack only looked at her flatly, puffing out a breath that knocked some errant strands of mane away from her face. “Fine,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, rolling her eyes. She lifted herself into the air slow and lazy, like a bumblebee. She wasn’t so much flying as sagging in an invisible harness. She drifted over, then down, down until her front hooves slid along the ridges of her shoulders and the base of her neck before interlocking at the crest of her chest, just behind those muscular, toned forelegs of hers. With ever so slightly more enthusiastic strokes the mare was lifted to her back hooves, then up into the air entirely. Applejack looked up, squinting hard at her pegasus friend. “Ain’t exactly what I had in mind,” she huffed, her legs dangling in the breeze. “Eh,” was all Rainbow gave by way of response. She moved so unlike herself, slow and controlled, and Applejack gave Dash a stern, questioning look. (Or at least her blue, fuzzy chin, for Dash was something between lifting and straddling her, and their relative positions to one another were not ones that favoured eye contact). Applejack did this for quite the long moment before realizing that she was, in fact, of a height to secure the last few articles of clothing to the line. Dash for her part seemed entirely unfussed and unfettered. Dropping the non-issue, but not the pegs, Applejack clasped them in pairs to the line. “There,” she said with simple relief, “that’s everything. You can set me down now, Dash.” Rainbow Dash did just that, her legs suddenly opening out from under Applejack. Just as quickly the earth pony braced herself and caught the landing easily, feeling pretty darn satisfied with herself. The pegasus floated back down to ground, touching down silently next to her. Rainbow Dash scratched at her neck. “What’s with this whole bet thing anyway?” Her hoof wandered further north, picking idly at a nostril. Something of minor interest therein discovered was examined briefly, then flicked aside. “It just seemed like a good idea, was all.” Rather than wander back towards the farmhouse, Dash took the lead and curled away, leading out to the stands of trees. With nothing else in need of doing and no reason to turn away, Applejack followed. “It just seems odd, you know? You’re not exactly the spontaneous type.” Applejack trotted the few steps to catch back up. “I’m plenty spontaneous!” “Ha! Hardly.” This made Applejack frown, but only with consternation. Her hooves seemed to move faster than her head, and once settled into their easy pace chewed through their path easier than her head ploughed through its own. “Well, you can’t argue that it wasn’t a good idea, ‘cause it is.” Dash flicked her mane aside so as to glance back at the receding farmhouse. Somewhere in there, Big Mac was taking his bit of time to recuperate from the day. A day that wasn’t over yet. At the other corner of her eye there lay a fallow field, ploughed with unfailingly deep and straight furrows, row upon row of them, pooling up with evening’s shadows like drainage ditches. “Yeah,” she said. “I suppose, yeah.” Dash looked ahead now, and paused in her stride. Her brow furrowed in thought, so that Applejack stopped also to watch and wonder what occupied her friend’s thoughts. “Hey,” Dash began, as if hesitant to speak her mind without being absolutely certain in it first. “What is it?” It wasn’t like the pegasus to be skittish about anything. Now Dash turned to face her, the light of the lowering sun setting the corners of her eyes to molten glassiness. “If you don’t freak out, I’ll show you something.” Applejack only gave her a flat stare. “Dash, I’m getting after you all the time for this, that or the other. What’s got you so mousy on this one?” Blue wings hung lax, then fanned some air over the unkempt coat. “It’s not me you’ll freak out at though.” She rolled her eyes and jittered in place, sighing as the next words slid into inevitability. “And I sort of, kind of promised Big Mac I’d keep you in check for the rest of the day.” Applejack whinnied with surprise. It was always a cute thing to see from her, especially as so few things surprised the steadfast farmer. “You did what now?” The pegasus’ wings propped themselves up stiffly, casting shadows longer than either mare. “Well I am rooting for him, aren’t I?” Whatever tension there was found itself soothed in Applejack’s easy smile and those wings, shifting and fidgeting, came back down again. “Me too,” said Applejack, “but don’t go telling him that.” She coughed to clear her throat and. “That bonnet still gets planted firmly on his head if he mucks this up, though. Gotta take the licks you get.” Dash grumbled as she set off walking once more. “Well, yeah.” A moment passed, then she repeated the word ‘licks’, slower, more thoughtfully, as if tasting the sound of it. The mares walked without words for a time. “So what’s this thing you and Mac were keeping from me?” Dash drew a breath through her teeth, one that whistled. “Well...” she began. Applejack pressed her orange hoof to a blue shoulder. “Yeah?” “How about I just show you?” Before she could answer, Applejack was lifted up once more in those blue hooves, up and over the treetops. The green of leaves and the rails of shadows cast from the trees made a checkered blanket of the landscape, with the exception of one black spot over yonder. “I don’t quite remember that having been there before,” Applejack growled. Dash went ‘mhmm,’ both in agreement and respect. It was quite the sizeable hole, after all. A mare like her could appreciate the explosion necessary to make it. “It was probably Scootaloo’s idea,” she said, but meant it entirely by way of compliment. As they glided back down, the pegasus gauged the depth and breadth of it. A day’s work could get it filled up nicely without too much trouble. “The fillies are all fine, are they?” Applejack sighed out as her hooves touched earth and Rainbow Dash slid off her. “What? Oh yeah, no, they’re great,” she said quickly before putting her proverbial Weather Management hat back on. “Big Mac wants to make a pond of it,” she added. Applejack wandered over to the edge, kicking a broken stone into the pit. “I suppose that’s something. I’d have loved a swimming hole at their age. Still would, even. These long, hot summer evenings...” Again, Dash went ‘mhmm,’ because this was Applejack thinking and monologuing all on her own, with Dash just providing the appropriate nudges to keep her steaming along. “Actually, now that I think about it, Fluttershy could be bringing those extra frogs she’s always trying to rehome here. I’d be happier knowing she’s not sneaking off into the Forest as much, like you know she will if there’s an animal involved. Where she finds all those frogs I may never know.” As she spoke she jumped, sliding and scrabbling down soil and broken rock. The bottom was quite dark, with just enough light to see where to put your hoof to stand. “Good and deep. Ain’t going to just dry up with a couple days sunshine. And it’s right near their clubhouse, too.” “Sooo...” said Dash doing something between falling and flying, with a backflip no less, to land next to her friend, “you happy with that plan then?” Applejack took a deep breath and sighed it away. “Yeah. Suppose I am. Still going to get the hides of those three fillies for messing about with something this dangerous, but if we can make something good come of it, there’s that. You sure you can pull it off?” “Ha, easily. Job like this? Mostly it’ll just be keeping the clouds centered above it. And giving them a right good kicking every once in awhile, to keep ‘em pouring steady. I can get a couple of the newbies out to do the actual work, while I ‘supervise’ the whole thing.” You could hear the inverted commas sliding neatly into place. The strong hooves of Applejack tore deep into the sides of the pit, hoof by hoof she scaled the wall and pulled herself upwards. “And by ‘supervise’ you mean nap in my trees and check on them every once in awhile?” Dash shrugged, and lifted off lazily. “Pretty much. Should be able to get it done tomorrow, if you like.” Applejack crested the edge, then dusted the worst of the dirt off. She wasn’t even breathing harder, as if she in fact hadn’t just climbed out of a great big hole in the earth. “Nah. I’d say leave it off ‘til the next day. This ain’t going anywhere. Besides, I got a feeling that come whatever, tomorrow's gonna be interesting.” “You mean Big Mac?” “Yeah.” The earth pony sneezed, then grumbled about it. “Hey, Dash,” she said, “you don’t think it’s weird to make him dress up in mares clothing, do ya?” Dash turned a most curious eyebrow back on her friend. “What? Nah, it’s not weird at all,” she said, but Applejack wasn’t looking convinced. “It’s not any different than when Rarity makes us do it, right? Exactly.” And, because Rainbow Dash said it in such easy confidence, it took Applejack a couple of passes before the obvious flaw in that logic became apparent. “But Dash,” she said, “we actually are mares. He ain’t. He’s about as far from being one as you could get.” Dash only shrugged. “Eh, that’s hardly the issue. Don’t worry about it.” She lead on again, this time back towards the farmhouse, leaving Applejack to ponder the ambivalence. “Hey look,” said Applejack after some minutes had passed and they had stepped into more spacious fields, “there he goes.” Indeed, there he went. Silhouetted against the setting sun, Big Mac marched stoically along the road back into town. “Where do you suppose he’s off to now?” Dash turned a gaze of utmost seriousness upon the farmer. “He’s going to face his destiny, of course.” There they stood, these two mares, staring one another in the eye. Simultaneously they broke into hearty laughter. “Want to spend the night here?” Applejack asked through the chuckles, “make a sleepover of it?” “Yeah. You got nice couches.” Applejack punched the mare’s shoulder. “My bed’s plenty big enough for the both of us.” “Sounds good to me. Race you to the door!” And they were off, running and shoving and laughing. From a ways away, Big Mac stopped, turned his head. He really wanted to say ‘Eeyup,’ it’d have been just so perfect a sentiment, he felt, and the word itched at the inside of his skull. All the same, he smiled wordlessly and turned back to the road before him. A day was done, bedding down into evening, but a night still lay before him. With the setting sun at his back, he walked towards the Twilight, to face whatever might come of it.