Applejack and Rainbow Dash were driving on the road that led to the White Tail Woods. Exactly one week ago, the route they were driving had been the course for the Running of the Leaves, but the two had become overly fanatic. Rainbow, a sky blue Lamborghini Gallardo with rainbow-colored racing stripes, had started cheating by reversing some of the signs, leading Applejack – and the other drivers as well – on a huge detour through a canyon. To catch up on the fast sports car, Applejack started taking shortcuts. Although ‘skipping half the course’ would have been a better description.
Unlike Rainbow, who was so low to the ground that she had to slow down for the off-asphalt parts, Applejack was a Dodge Charger muscle car. Whereas the Lamborghini was near unbeatable on tarmac, on dirt roads Applejack had the advantage. Combined with the fact that she knew the little back roads of the White Tail Woods like the profile on her tires, she had soon caught up to the sports car.
With both cars focused on winning, the last part of the course had been the scene of what became more and more a battle of simply ramming the other off the road, rather than trying to overtake the other fair and square. It was only a matter of time before things would go wrong, and in the last few bends before the finish, they did.
No-one knew exactly what happened, except that the two had finished last – behind even the regular sedans and station wagons that had also taken the huge detour. Busted suspensions, clipped side mirrors, and not to forget the numerous dents and other various scratches from repeatedly hitting the other had seen to it that they had to spend the next few days in a garage.
The mess they had made of the annual event had been so big, that it had warranted a visit from the Royal Limousine, a timeless classic Mercedes S-class. A little version of the Carquestrian flag stood on both sides of her hood, waving in the soft breeze that blew through the garage as she rolled into it. The ruler proceeded to explain both her disappointment in the duo’s ability to set aside their competitive nature for an event like this, as well as express her concern for the fact that not all the leaves had fallen yet because of the detour through the treeless canyon the majority of the drivers had taken. It was essential that all the leaves were brought down soon, while they could be cleaned up from the important roads. Once the autumn storms came in, not only would they be blown everywhere, in combination with heavy rain they could lead to dangerous driving situations as well.
The Princess couldn’t stay long, due to having other royal obligations back in Camperlot that evening, but long enough to make the two friends promise to drive the course again as soon as they were fixed up, to blow the remaining leaves from the trees with their wake. This time without bothering who won, but simply to partake in the joy of driving, how the Running of the Leaves was intended to be.
Not wanting to disappoint their ruler a second time, Rainbow and AJ had set out to do just that, on a sunny autumn afternoon.
***
This was what Dash lived for. The speed. The forces she felt in a corner, or the sheer acceleration that came right after it. Despite being able to reach incredible high speeds on long straights – high enough for a rainbow contrail to appear whenever she looked in her side mirrors – it was nothing compared to the constant braking, turning, then accelerating again on the winding asphalt road on the outskirts of the White Tail Woods. Especially the accelerating part. That never got old.
Flames spat from her rear as she braked hard and shifted down through the gears, scoping out the S-bend that was up ahead. She took it effortlessly, swerving from one side of the road to the other, clipping the apexes on the way through. Once clear, a small straight loomed, and she immediately put on the gas again. The revving of the engine was all she could hear, filling the air for miles around her with its sweet music.
After half a minute or so of this, she slowed down to a less frantic pace, allowing Applejack to close the small gap between them again.
***
In the far distance, the unmistakable sound of a revving engine could be heard, a high-pitched whine that tore through the countryside. Seconds later, it was joined by a low growl, barely audible above the rapidly-approaching whine, but definitely present. Together, it sounded almost like a melody.
A speck arrived at the horizon – barely visible, for it had the same color as the blue sky above – and the sound intensified, drowning out the natural sounds of chirping birds and rustling leaves. Most of the south-going birds had yet to begin their long journey, so if something was able to drown out their chittering from afar, it must have been quite a thing.
The low growl was back now, an orange car coming into view, driving behind the blue one. The blue one flew past, followed moments later by the orange. In their wake, leaves stirred up from the ground and fell from the trees, twirling this way and that, until at last the sound of the engines diminished into the distance as they entered the woods proper. The leaves settled on the ground, the birds once more filling the air with their singing.
***
Applejack had been driving behind the sports car for most of the time on the tarmac road that led to the woods, winding its way through the landscape. More than once her vision had been entirely filled with Rainbow’s rear, when the Lamborghini in front of her suddenly braked hard for a corner, and Applejack, being a heavier car with slightly less powerful brakes, had nearly crashed into her backside.
At such a close distance, she could clearly smell Rainbow’s exhaust fumes, even more so when she was nearly on top of her. It was an enticing scent, smelling of speed and lightning. After a few times of nearly crashing into the sports car by accident, she anticipated it, yet she didn’t act on it. Why did she let herself be surprised by the brake lights every time? More importantly, why did she think, of all the things she could think of, about how to best describe Rainbow’s exhaust scent?
She needed to get the sports car out of her mind for a while. Out of sight, out of mind, they sometimes say. Lucky for her, they had just entered the woods proper, leaving the perfectly smooth tarmac behind them, trading it for the dirt roads through the mass of trees. Rainbow Dash, probably fearful of hitting a small bump or dip and damaging her carossery, had slowed down when they entered the woods. Slowed down really a lot, to be precise. In fact, they were barely doing twenty five miles an hour now.
On a small but wide enough straight, the muscle car overtook the sports car, her being the superior of the two on this type of terrain. She looked back every now and then to make sure that Rainbow could almost keep up with her, returning the favor.
Applejack loved driving on dirt roads. Most of all, she loved drifting through bends. Sure, she could do that on asphalt as well, but on dirt it was so much different, easier and more difficult at the same time. On asphalt, she had to drive quite fast to even get her tail to break out, and when it did, it was quite easy to control. On dirt, both were exactly opposite; getting to slide, pretty much any car could do that, but holding it under control, and slightly – almost imperceptibly – letting off the gas for a split second to get back in a straight line, that was a whole different matter.
A matter which, judging by the somewhat annoyed looks she got whenever she looked in her rear view mirror, the sports car couldn’t do. Dash was used to grippy surfaces, never drifting to keep up the speed, but that wasn’t how things worked on dirt. The sports car didn’t know exactly how far she could go before she would start to slide, and let out a small ‘eeep!’ whenever her backend threatened to go out of control, quickly braking and hoping Applejack hadn’t heard her.
Of course Applejack heard it. It didn’t take her long to figure out how to go slow enough for the Lamborghini to become slightly overconfident – not so much that she would just give up altogether, but fast enough that Rainbow had to corner at speeds a little over what she was comfortable with on such roads. She didn’t do it at every corner of course, but enough times that if Dash were Rarity, she would be getting a ‘you can never tell anyone about this’ after this was over.
There it was again. That little squeak. Barely audible over her own engine, but undeniably present. Dear Celestia, it was cute. If Scootaloo, the little rally car, was the definition of ‘cute,’ then this was the redefinition of it. Dash looked adorable every time she gave that slightly annoyed look.
Applejack thundered over the sand road barely two cars wide – if another came from the other direction, the only way to pass was if both cars went to the far right of the track. In fact, the track was so narrow at points, that in some corners, her front would be almost touching the trees on the inner side of the bend, while her backside was all the way at the other side, essentially moving sideways.
When the road became wider again, signifying that they were about to exit the woods, she kicked back a bit, allowing the Lamborghini to drive next to her.
***
Rainbow Dash wondered how Applejack did that. That sliding... thing. Sure, she had started to slide a bit on the dirt roads a few times, and knew that if she pushed herself hard enough, she could do it on tarmac as well, but at best, it had always been uncontrolled. Applejack’s sliding was different. Controlled. Elegant. So... awesome?
Well, not as awesome as herself – naturally – but definitely 20% cooler than most other cars. She should really ask how the muscle car did that one day. Though, it didn't look very difficult, she could probably just figure it out on her own.
Now that they had left the woods behind and were back on the tarmac, the pace picked up again. Nowhere near the blistering speeds they had achieved on the way up, just two friends driving side by side. One moment Rainbow was perhaps half a wheel in front, then Applejack gave a spurt of gas and she was in front, followed by Rainbow doing the same again. This would repeat until the next corner was upon them, and they reduced their speeds. One look at each other, and they were laughing again, and once they were out of the bend, it would start over again.
***
Applejack noticed something happening over the course of the next weeks; something she wasn’t even aware of at first. Whenever she heard the characteristic high pitch of Rainbow’s engine in the distance, she subconsciously hoped that the sports car was headed her way, or that she could go and join her. But Rainbow was about impossible to keep up with pretty much anywhere, as long as there was asphalt. And apart from a few patches in the White Tail Woods, she pretty much drove exclusively on asphalt. The Running of the Leaves was about the only exception.
She found herself longing more and more for the next Running of the Leaves, even though that was still almost a year away. Rainbow, on the other wheel, didn’t seem to pick up on the fact that ever since the Running, the orange muscle car had become a lot quieter around the blue sports car. Or that increasingly often as Rainbow was boasting to her about some new record time, all Applejack could do was stare at the Lamborghini’s many features.
It wasn’t strange for cars to stare at Rainbow’s carossery, for it was one of the finest in Carquestria. It was eye-catching and shouty, but not over the top – barely, but still. For Applejack though, who saw Rainbow often, and the two being good friends, she found it a bit weird whenever she caught herself staring at Dash. It wasn’t like she was seeing anything she hadn’t seen before, and although she had a very good idea as to why it was happening, she kept that to herself.
However, Applejack wasn’t the only car admiring the fancy sports car. The Lamborghini had dozens of admirers, and she knew that posters of the sky blue sports car adorned more than a few garage’s walls across Carquestria. She was a dream car, in the most literal sense of the word, because after a while, she started showing up in Applejack’s dreams as well.
It was then that Applejack knew something had to be done about it, that if she was going to crop up her feelings much longer, one day she would be distracted and crash into a tree or something. But what was her chance? Even if Rainbow was still single, why would a sports car such as herself choose a simple muscle car, when she could have her pick from dozens of other exclusive vehicles?
It totally didn’t help – or perhaps it did – that the blue sports car came to her sometime later, asking whether she could learn her how to drift. It meant spending a lot of time, probably alone, with Rainbow Dash, so she had more or less jumped at the occasion.
***
Over the course of the days and weeks following the Running of the Leaves, Dash secretly experimented with that drifting thing she had seen Applejack do earlier. At first, she had tried it on asphalt, finding it very difficult to even begin sliding, and when she did for a split second, she instinctively lowered her speed immediately to regain control. But because of that, she ended up being slower than what she knew she could achieve.
It didn’t make sense. She’d seen Applejack doing it on both dirt and tarmac roads, so there was no reason why she couldn’t do it on tarmac either.
After a week or so of trying it – and failing – on her own, she swallowed a lump of her pride and approached Applejack about it. She had half expected the muscle car to laugh at her about it – okay, she did laugh a bit – but she had also offered her to teach it if she wanted that. While Rainbow found the idea of someone needing to explain something to her very unappealing, she still found herself in the field Applejack had pointed out to meet her in the following day.
“Now, the first thing you gotta learn is that that ‘sliding trick’ has a name. It’s called drifting. The second is that you don’t need to go super-fast for it. In fact, if y’all want to learn this so badly, we should probably start out slow.”
“How slow is ‘slow’, exactly?” Rainbow winced.
“Thirty, thirty-five miles an hour tops.”
“What!? You’re kidding, aren’t you?” When Applejack gave no reply, she added, “You’re not kidding.”
“Dash, you have to get a feeling for it, ya know?” said AJ with a serious tone. “It’s not something you can just ‘do,’ and you should expect to spin out a lot in the beginning. I... I don’t want to see you crashing into a tree because your ego tells you to only do things at over a hundred miles an hour!”
Rainbow Dash, oblivious as she was, completely missed Applejack’s small pause and undertone of worry, instead taking it as a challenge that she actually could do things at lower speeds. Though what was Applejack worrying about anyway? She never crashed at low speeds. Probably because she drove fast almost all of the time.
“Uh, hey Rainbow, you still with me?”
“Huh? Oh, right. So, where do we start? Are we going driving now?”
“In a minute.”
She went on to explain a few basics of it, though only the bare minimum. She knew Dash didn’t like being lectured, and she wasn’t going to do so if it wasn’t necessary.
***
Dash stood content in her garage that evening. She was thinking about what a great time she’d had today, even though she didn’t go anywhere faster than forty all afternoon. Sometimes, speed really didn’t matter. She still loved speeding, of course, but if there was some sort of fulfilment attached to it, then drifting had that as well. A different sort of fulfilment, but it was definitely enjoyable.
Her thoughts started to drift towards Applejack, whom she owed all this to. Of all the cars she thought she would go to if she ever needed advice on something – ha! As if a car as awesome as herself needed any advice in the first place! Wait... – Applejack was really the last one. She’d always known that the Dodge was fast, just not faster than her on asphalt. As such, there was never any need for Dash to seek the Charger’s advice, much less actually listen to it.
Yet here she was: she’d gone to ask about that drifting thing, and when AJ had offered to teach, Dash had actually accepted. At first, she had been a bit wary about the whole ‘not-speeding’ deal, her sights set on learning the trick, then leaving AJ and trying it on high speeds. But the moment she had her first drift actually under control for more than a second, all those thoughts flew right out the window. She still spun out in the end, but that one second where she got it right made it all worth it.
Then, a week or so later, as she had it much better under control, and was about to quit with the newness starting to wear off, AJ had introduced her to tricks. Suddenly, it wasn’t just ‘taking a corner in a different way’ anymore, it was teamwork. Dash was usually a one-car team on the road, but here, on the dirt, they were equals. Well, actually they weren’t. She hated to admit it, and never said it aloud, but on dirt, AJ was far better than her. That Dodge made everything they did look easy.
The trick they’d done today was, for Applejack’s standards, a pretty simple one. They would drive a couple of seconds behind each other, Dash at the front, AJ at the back. When Dash went left, AJ went right, followed by a drifting turn in the opposite direction, until they ended up in the middle again with their rear wheels lined up, but facing opposite directions, so that they couldn’t see each other. That last bit – making her rear actually lose control and break out completely, but come to a stop in an exact position – was especially tricky. She didn’t always get it right. But neither did AJ. Sometimes, they would end up yards apart; other times, Applejack would give her an oh-so-slight bump. A bump so light that it didn’t even damage her precious paint job.
Right then, she suddenly realized something. Hearts. They’d been making heart shapes. She only thought of it now, having been too focused on her own performance during the afternoon. Thinking about it a little more, she could say that they had been flank-bumping too. Dash didn’t really care much about romance in general, but had a pretty good idea of what those two signs meant: affection.
She had to laugh at the idea of Applejack having a crush on her, or more precisely, the idea of actually returning the feelings. A sports car as herself was way too awesome for a simple muscle car.
Or was she?
Her laughter died down, as realization sank in that out of all the muscle cars, AJ was definitely a pretty awesome one. Besides, the heart-shape might just be one of the easier tricks to do, and she knew that even AJ didn’t always stop exactly where she wanted. It could all just be a coincidence. She would have to remember to keep a closer look on the Dodge tomorrow, see if she could discover any more hints.
When Dash asked about the heart-shapes the next day, AJ confirmed that it was indeed one of the easier tricks. She added that she didn’t yet trust Dash enough to swap places, for while Dash was definitely starting to get the hang of things, AJ could prevent crashing into the Lamborghini much more easily than the other way around if Dash went off-course. It made a lot of sense. But Dash soon found herself lost in the excitement and concentration and completely forgot to keep an eye on AJ for possible clues. Besides, AJ bumped into her much less often than the day before, so maybe she really was just seeing things that weren’t there.
Another week later, Dash’s drifting skills had improved immensely. They could do figure eights now, which was quite easy on the drifting part, but had timing added as a challenge. It was especially important to not meet up in the middle at the same time, as AJ had put it.
Other times, they had moved closer to the edge of the field, where the trees stood, to let Dash get a taste of what drifting in the forest would be like. AJ had expected that Dash would have tried it by herself by now, but the Lamborghini had admitted that she was actually a bit scared. In the middle of a field, it didn’t matter that much if she spun out or overshot a corner. They could just try again. But in a forest, with trees on either side of an already thin road, there was no room for such errors. The chances of even the smallest mistake resulting in a crash were ones even Dash wasn’t ready to take. It was a rare thing for the Lamborghini to say, but at least it showed that she was aware of the dangers.
They had started by driving at a steady speed towards the line of trees, letting Dash decide when to turn. Later, Applejack would be standing somewhere along that line, so that Dash would have to make it sharper. The distance between Applejack and the line of trees decreased and decreased, each time challenging Dash to take a tighter turn, sometimes coming within inches of contact with a tree. Dash had figured out halfway through why Applejack was doing this. The technique was still the same, but Dash had to overcome her instinct of slowing down when she saw the wall of trees coming closer. Which proved to be a lot harder than she thought.
Today however, there would be no class, as they had begun to call it. She hadn’t really questioned why – probably AJ just had to go somewhere, maybe visit some of her family or something – but for some reason, Dash felt empty. Even though her fuel tank was full.
She’d gone drifting in the field for a bit, but without Applejack, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t fun. Subsequently, she went speeding like she did in the ‘old’ days, but even that couldn’t cheer her up. She was bored. And why was it specifically AJ she wanted to hang out with, when she had plenty of other friends as well? Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t been around her other friends a lot since this drifting thing started. What was going on?
‘Ugh, all this stuff is making my hood hurt,’ she thought. So she did the thing she always did in those situations – or in any situation, really – take a nap.
Said nap must have lasted longer than she thought, because when she woke up again, it was already around supper time. Except that she wasn’t hungry, because she’d driven so little today that her tank was still very full.
She was about to start her engine and do whatever she was going to do for the rest of this boring day, when she noticed a note had been stuck under her windscreen wiper.
Field. Eight tonight.
‘Wow. Can a note be any shorter?’ she thought, turning it over to see if there was anything on the backside, which there wasn’t. Still, unless someone was playing a very mean prank on her, the likelihood of that note being put there by a certain orange car was very high. Which meant that unless Applejack was pranking her by not being in the field at eight, they actually were going to do something today after all. That was an exciting thought.
***
At eight o’clock sharp that evening, Applejack arrived at the field. As she suspected, the Lamborghini was already there, slowly driving in circles, waiting for time to pass and her to arrive. Dash didn’t seem to have noticed her yet, so she took the time to admire all the angles as the sports car drove yet another round. The sun was slowly beginning its descent, though it would be light for at least another hour, a soft glow framing every one of Dash’s features perfectly. Celestia, she was beautiful. And it wasn’t just the looks, she was sure of that now. She would have to tell her tonight. How she... how she felt about the sports car.
That’s why she’d stuck that note under Dash’s windscreen wiper earlier today. She wasn’t really sure if the sports car felt the same about her, or at least would give her the chance, so above everything, she wanted to have at least one good evening drive together. That, and she’d found out earlier that week that she simply couldn’t muster up the courage to say it straight in the eye, parked opposite each other. She really, really hoped it would be a bit easier if they were just out on a relaxing drive, otherwise this would all be for nothing.
‘Well, here goes,’ she thought, as she snapped out of her thoughts and made her presence known to the field’s other occupant by slowly rolling into it. As she expected, the moment the sports car caught sight of her, she was bombarded with questions. “Hey Applejack. Was it you who put that note under my windscreen wiper?” “What are we going to do today?” “Isn’t it a bit late already? It’ll be dark soon!”
“Dash...”
“Oh! I completely forgot to ask. How was your d–”
“Dash!” Applejack repeated, more firm this time. Seeing that she finally had the Lamborghini’s attention, she went on to explain – in her typical short and to the point way – what she wanted to do tonight. “We’re not practising anything tonight. I just thought it’d be fun to take a drive through the forest. Ya know, take a break from training and stuff.”
It took Dash a couple of seconds to actually process the information AJ had just told her. On one wheel, she was a bit disappointed that they wouldn’t be practising anything new tonight. On the other, the prospect of just taking a forest drive, together with AJ, was one that certainly looked at least as good, if not better. “So... no training? Just driving?”
“’s What I said.”
“Awesome!” said Dash, revving her engine a few times as she said so. “You think I’m ready for that though?”
“Don’t see why not,” said Applejack plainly. “Plus, I wouldn’t have asked it in the first place if I didn’t think so.” Without so much as another word, she started to reverse around, heading towards one of the exits of the field that lead into the forest. She stopped when she heard Dash calling out to her. Apparently, the Lambo hadn’t moved an inch yet.
“What’s wrong, Sugarcube?”
“Nothing! I mean, not really. No wait, what I meant is...”
“Just spit it out already.”
“Can we... can we not go too fast?” Dash asked in a small voice, before she realized how silly that must sound coming from her of all cars. ‘Awesome job, Rainbow,’ she thought to herself. ‘Of all the words you could use, you used that.’ She was subconsciously already counting down the seconds before the muscle car would laugh at her, even if she didn’t mean it so.
Contrary to her expectations though, Applejack never laughed about it. Instead, if her offer to let Rainbow go in front and set the pace for at least a while was anything to go by, she seemed to understand that while Rainbow never declined a challenge, that didn’t mean that she wasn’t afraid of crashing too. An additional, purely personal reason could be having a great view as well.
After about three quarters of an hour of driving and drifting through the woods, they switched places, Applejack now in front but keeping the pace Rainbow had set, still heading deeper into the forest. Their headlights, which they had both lit when they entered the mass of trees, were slowly becoming actually useful.
There wasn’t much talking going on between them, simply because there wasn’t much to talk about. Rainbow still had to concentrate quite hard on overcoming the urge to brake all the time, especially since it was for real now. Meanwhile, Applejack was just waiting for the right moment to say what she wanted to say.
With the sun finally starting to sink behind the horizon, turning the sky an orange color much like her own paint job, Applejack decided that now was that time.
“Hey Rainbow,” she said.
“Yeah?” she heard the Lamborghini shout back from somewhere behind her.
“There’s another reason why I wanted to do this tonight. Wanna know why?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while now, but...” She fell silent. She could still turn back if she wanted to. That is, if the sports car wasn’t already on to her.
“But what?” she heard from behind, reminding her that she had started a sentence and never finished it. Besides, she really needed to tell it tonight, needed to let Dash know and stop dancing around it.
‘Well, here goes nothing,’ she thought, as she finally brought herself to say it. “Ever since that whole Running of the Leaves thing, I’ve begun to kinda like you.”
Well, it was out now. She didn’t dare to look in her rear view mirror just yet, though when she heard the sports car’s next words, it was clear that her words had been all but understood.
“Huh? Weren’t we friends before that already?”
If she could, she would have liked to whack some sense into the sports car right now. Of course that wasn’t how she meant it. “No, I mean... I meant that I’ve really begun to like you. Ya know, like, like like?”
Wow, that sure sounded awkward. But if Dash had any brains at all – a thing which at times, she actually doubted – she should be able to figure it out now. She had to. Dash sometimes did stupid things, but AJ knew she wasn’t stupid. After a few seconds of no response, and another bend, she dared to look in her mirror, not knowing what expression she should expect to see on Dash.
The last thing she expected though, was to not see anything in her mirror at all. Besides trees, of course. It was as if the sports car had vaporized into thin air. Slowly, AJ brought herself to a halt in the middle of the road, calling out, “Dash?”
When no response came, she turned around, and called again, “Where are you, Dash?” Irritated, she added, “This ain’t no time to be playing games! I’m serious!”
Still, there was no reply, so she started backtracking a bit, through the bend... and then she finally saw Dash. She was just... sitting there, in the middle of the road, her engine idling, her eyes empty, like she wasn’t aware of her surroundings.
“Dash?” Applejack inquired. Again, no response. Though this time, she never really expected one in the first place. ‘Well, third time’s a charm,’ she thought, and flashed with her high beam.
That seemed to work. The sports car, seemingly to have drifted off – figuratively – to another world, snapped out of it, becoming acutely aware of the other car in front of her.
“A-applejack?” Rainbow stammered.
Rainbow never stammered like that. At least, not as far as Applejack was aware of. She had been friends with the big-engined sports car – figurative, because technically Applejack’s was bigger – long enough to know Dash actually did have fears, just didn’t go around showing it much. The fact that the sports car had actually asked for help instead of trying drifting on her own was a surprise in itself. Besides, she also had this whole cool image deal to keep up, which had become clear as day when Applejack had not-so-subtly asked why she went to her specifically, and not, for example, Scootaloo.
But this didn’t look at all like that one time where the sports car was really nervous, scared to the point of forfeiting a big race entirely. It hadn’t been a question of whether she would get a podium place or not, but the competition was strong, with four or five cars still in the race for first place. With twenty-something laps to go, the only thing that could have stood between her and at least a podium place would have been a crash. The nerves were starting to get to her, even though she usually loved all the attention from the crowds, and Rainbow had at some point concluded that it might be better to just not race at all, rather than trying to win and crash while trying.
Applejack had managed to talk her friend back into the race that time. The Lamborghini had almost been a terror to Ponyville’s outroads in the week before the race, and she sure as petrol wasn’t going to let her friend chicken out now. It turned out that all Rainbow had to really do was pretend the crowds weren’t there, that the racetrack was just one of Ponyville’s roads, and once she was concentrating on fast driving again, rather than not crashing, she had won the race in the end by almost half a lap. Once the race was over, her self-doubt melted like snow on Winter Wrap-Up day, though she had come to thank Applejack a few days later.
That had been Rainbow’s scared face, and what Applejack was seeing now didn’t look anything like it. Instead it was a mixture of pretty much every best and worst case scenario combined all into a single expression, which unfortunately led to a very blank look as well. She usually picked up on even the slightest expression pretty fast, but right now there was virtually no lead to go on. Though, she drove on unleaded fuel anyway, and was pretty sure that that had absolutely nothing to do with the current situation at all.
“Rainbow? You, uh, you okay?” Applejack inquired, pushing her other thoughts to the back of her mind for now. When she made her confession, she did it mainly to rid herself of this feeling of uncertainty that had been haunting her for a while now. If Dash didn’t want it, well, of course she would be a little sad at first, but she would move on. She hadn’t really thought much about what it could mean to their friendship, but wanted to keep that nevertheless.
“I’m... I dunno. Did you just... whoa.” The sports car always prided herself by being about the fastest in pretty much everything, but these last weeks she had been proven wrong by Applejack on numerous occasions. At least she could use the excuse that she was still learning then, but that didn’t apply now. Sure, this was a new experience for her, but it probably was for Applejack too. Plus, some of her fans sometimes said things in this direction, but it had never been accompanied by the mixed-up feeling she had now.
It wasn’t that she disliked Applejack or anything like that. If anything, the orange muscle car was one of her best friends. She just wasn’t on the lookout for romance yet, but didn’t want to turn a good friend down either. She never felt uncomfortable around her, well, except for now. She would have to say something though; Applejack was waiting for an answer, and since she hated it when people kept answers from herself, she wasn’t about to hold back.
“Applejack...” she began.
“Yes, Rainbow?” came the reply, sounding quite overexcited. The orange car was gazing at her intently, and Rainbow found that the rainbow-colored stripes on her nose were suddenly very interesting.
“I, uh, I don’t know...”
“Oh...” When she heard that, she looked up to see Applejack drooping, as if she had just outright rejected her. She wasn’t that good in reading others’ emotions, but even worse with using words.
“No no no! That’s not how I meant it!” Rainbow said quickly.
“Oh?” Applejack’s voice had a hint of hope again.
“I just...” She stalled again, lost for words. She decided to approach it differently, and not think too much about what she was saying. She never did that often anyway. “Okay, I certainly don’t dislike you all of a sudden or anything...”
“... But?”
“... But I don’t know about the... other thing. It’s kinda sudden, you know?”
“I guess so.” Applejack paused for a moment, pondering what to say next. ”But where does that put me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you would like to stay just friends, nothing more, I’m fine with that. Though I would like it if you were to give it a try. I want you to know, this isn’t... this isn’t something I decided yesterday or something.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t really realize it until after the Running of the Leaves, but it must have already started somewhere before that.”
“Oh wow...” The Running of the Leaves – the one where they didn’t try to crash the other – had been a while ago now. And they’d been friends for years. If Rainbow wanted something, she always wanted it now, so she was a bit jealous, no, admired Applejack’s ability to hold things off for so long. Rainbow could never do that herself, she didn’t have the patience.
“I still don’t know, AJ,” Rainbow spoke up. An awkward silence had begun to set between the two, but unknowingly, she averted it from prolonging and making things awkward. “You’re nice, and I always hang around you anyway, but... I don’t want to lose you – as a friend – if things don’t work out in the end?” she half stated, half asked.
“Don’t see why that would be a problem. I can promise it if you want, but then you gotta promise me as well that you’ll give it a try, and that you’ll just say it if you don’t like it.”
She was silent for a moment, thinking it over at most once, before she answered, “If it means we’re doing this more often, then it’s a deal.”
Applejack’s nose couldn’t have become much brighter as she said that – literally, for except for the high beam, she turned on every light she had, before reversing back a bit and doing a couple of donuts, accompanied by a loud “Yeee-haw!” which was clearly audible even over the noise of the engine. All Rainbow Dash could do was just stare in amazement, Applejack’s tail swinging within inches of the trees surrounding them as if she did this all the time. She probably did, too.
Eventually, she stopped and returned to the Lamborghini, her initial excitement wearing off, and they decided that now would probably be a good time to start getting back.
Apart from the narrow sections in the forest, they drove out of the woods side by side whenever they could, sometimes silent, other times chatting about everything and nothing in particular. On one occasion, Rainbow asked if Applejack had really told the truth when she had asked about the heart-shapes and bumping into each other thing.
“Technically, I wasn’t lying,” replied Applejack. “It really is one of the easier tricks to do together, and although I might have sorta bumped into you a little often on purpose, it really happened by accident other times too. ’Sides, you never asked through about the whole thing.”
“Huh?”
“I was hoping you’d think there was more behind it – which there was, I’ll admit it – so I was a bit disappointed when you just accepted my answer without further questions. I wasn’t about to bring it up myself either, that would’ve been just weird.”
“Heh, makes sense.”
***
“Hey AJ?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember that night where you, ya know, confessed everything?”
They were spending the night in the barn at the Acres again. They’d been a few times at Dash’s house – a huge white mansion, with fountains in all sorts of colors everywhere – but Applejack didn’t really like it there. It wasn’t uncomfortable by any means, especially not with Dash around, it just wasn’t her thing. The barn had pretty much become their place now; it was a bit colder – cooler? – than the house, but had the benefit that they wouldn’t have to worry about Applebloom listening in on their conversations, or when they did other things than talking.
“Sure do, Sugarcube. I’m glad everything turned out as it did.”
“Yeah...” Rainbow paused for a moment. She was glad everything turned out this way too. Recently though, she had remembered a particular detail about that day. “You also remember how there was no drift-lesson that day?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I was so bored that day. Like, really bored. I had plenty of friends I could hang out with, but I only wanted to hang out with you. But since you weren’t there, I tried doing the things I used to do, like driving fast, but it just wasn’t the same. Like something was missing. I think I finally figured out what it means though.”
“Oh? What’s it, then?”
“I suck at sappy stuff.”
Applejack snorted, obviously expecting a different conclusion, before she answered, “That’s one way to look at it. You’ve improved a lot though.”
“I did?”
They lightly touched bumpers again, rubbing their noses together, something they’d done often since then, followed by giggles.
“Yup. Definitely improved,” said Applejack when they calmed down a bit again, as if it needed any reassurance.
In time, cars said about them that they had simply drifted together.