//------------------------------// // Chapter XXV // Story: A Dash of Shyness // by TM2 Dinobot //------------------------------// Chapter XXV "Soup's on, every pony!" Granny hollered, ringing the diner triangle. "Applebloom, would you set the table?" "Yes, Granny." Little Mac came through the back door, looking spiffy and clean, if not a little wet. Had he showered at the pump outside? Why would he not just use the upstairs stall? Granny took one glance his way and sighed. Applebloom looked around, once more not understanding what was happening. Fluttershy helped Dash from the couch and walked her into the kitchen where supper was prepared at the table. It looked delicious; corn on the cob and fried okra, garden salad, cornbread with honey, apple tarts and lemonade. It was enough to make both Pegasi's mouths water. "Little Mac, would you go get your sister?" Asked Granny. "Eyup." Mac headed up the stairs. He returned just a few minutes later, sitting down on the bench without comment. Granny slowly pulled out her chair at the head of the table, creaking into it. Applebloom hopped up, parking herself in her booster seat between her brother and grandmother. Fluttershy and Dash looked around, picking the spots closest to the wall. Dash sat down next to Granny, keeping the empty spot as far away from her as possible. Fluttershy finally let go of her hoof, sitting down close beside. Now they were just waiting on the last member of their dining party. "Applejack, darlin'. We're waitin'!" Granny called. Slowly the orange filly descended the stairs, taking her sweet time of it. Dash almost expected her to come stomping down, rolling into the room like a storm front. Instead she entered almost meekly, gaze downcast, sorrow etched on her features. She knew she'd messed up, even if her pride wouldn't let her apologize. Maybe she and Dash could get along after all. Until she looked up. Applejack froze, knees locked in place as she glowered at the two Pegasi. This wasn't just about Dash; she was glaring at Fluttershy too, who only scooted closer to Dash and shrank down. AJ's face turned from light orange to a burnt umber, rage tugging at the corners of her eyes. She had the attention of every pony in the room. "Y'all don't sit there." She whispered. "I'm sorry?" Asked Fluttershy. "I said. You. Don't. SIT THERE!" AJ lurched forward, screaming at the strangers. Mac had his sister by the shoulders as her wrath spilled forth. Fluttershy was hiding behind Dash, quaking but for once not crying. She didn't know what had set the strange Earth Pony off. Neither did Dash, but she was in full protection mode, fore hooves on the table and wings locked, wounded or no, ready for round two. No one yelled at Fluttershy and got away with it. "Applejack!" And with one word from Granny Smith all tension alleviated. Applebloom and Little Mac, still holding his sister, looked to their Grandmother. Fluttershy raised her head up from behind her friend, paying heed to the elderly pony. But Applejack never moved. She just locked eyes with Dash, anger threatening to boil over. And Dash just stood there, unwilling to abandon her friend. "Applejack. Sit down, girl." "No!" AJ finally turned, eyes pleading with her grandmother. "Granny, they can't sit there. They've gotta move! Please." "It's been three years, child." "Please, Granny." AJ begged. Granny Smith sighed. "Applebloom, set two more places." "I set the table already! You told me to set the table!" Applebloom, just a little foal, started to cry. She wasn't entirely sure what the problem was, but Applejack probably hated her. Again. "Hush your tears, peanut. For land sakes, no pony is angry with you. Now get up and set two more places." Applebloom did it quietly and efficiently, squeezing in two more places at a table designed for six. Fluttershy and Dash moved. They didn't know what the problem was, but ever pony shuffled around to make room. Applejack finally sat down at the end, with her brother squished in next to her. Then Applebloom, Fluttershy and Dash shared the bench furthest from the wall. Granny Smith got to stay in her chair, but she moved over to give Dash some elbow room. At last they were all seated, all staring at the two empty place settings and pretending to ignore them. All except Applejack. She kept watching the empty places like she was waiting for ghosts to speak. Dash glowered at her. Little Mac watched Fluttershy when he thought she wasn't looking. Fluttershy watched the floor. "Applejack." All eyes turned to Granny Smith once more. "Pray." Applejack sighed. “Celestia, our ancestors cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. When it rains, we eat. When it droughts, we starve. We worked and fought dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you just the same for the food we’re about to eat. Amen.” Dash didn't know what to think of such an obtuse prayer. Her family wasn't religious, not by any stretch, but her mother still made sure Dash said her prayers before bed. But to openly mock the princess, their goddess... It just didn't sit right. Apparently not with Fluttershy either, as the two feathered fillies glanced at one another. Perhaps it was just what remained of the Pegasi loyalty to Princess Luna. In the last war they'd sided with the Princess of the Night, and their religious chaste suffered greatly because of it, now all but gone. Such was the price of following a dead goddess. The Unicorns had no such problem; their clerical sect still flourished, serving Princess Celestia, and all of Equestria, to this day. These Earth Ponies apparently got along just find without monks or chapels. The young Apple family didn't seem to care given the way they ate their food, and Granny Smith merely frowned before following suite at a much slower pace. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, old enough to care but too young to know what to do, shrugged at each other and joined in the meal. It was delicious, as expected. Dash helped herself to copious servings of okra, corn on the cob and some more dried sugar beet pulp from lunch. She almost started an eating contest with Little Mac over the cornbread muffins. They kept glancing at one another as the muffins dwindled lower and lower. Little Mac took the last one, setting it on his plate with a grin. Applejack never said a word. She just knocked his Stetson off his head. While he bent over to get it she took his muffin from his plate and tossed it to Dash, winking at her. So what, they were friends now? She could just give her food and a wink and everything would be okay? Dash touched the bandage on her head and looked away. No, she wasn't willing to be friends that easy. Applejack was a thug and a bully; nothing more. "Applejack, I need you to bunk with your sister tonight, so our guests can have some place to sleep." Granny Smith instructed. "Great, what else is new? Now I've even lost my own room." "Then I want you to take these two with y'all into town tomorrow." Granny nodded to their guests. "See if they can't find a ride back home, or at least send a letter to their folks lettin' them know they're safe." "Yes Granny." AJ chewed her salad. "And glory be, don't leave them alone like you did that Cheerilee girl when she first got to town neither." "She had it commin'." muttered Applejack, looking away. Her brother took note of it but never said a word. "What was that?" "I said 'yes, Granny!'" she grinned. "An' come home after school. I've got stuff for you to do." "Can't Mac do it? Or how about Applebloom? She don't do nothin' all day!" "You know very well Little Mac is working as hard as he can. He's college bound. And your little sister is a... wonderful help around the house, but we wouldn't want to put her in the yard and risk a repeat of the other night, would we? Don't argue with me, young filly. I need you straight home." "Aw, Granny! I was going into Ponyville to pick up some power converters!" "You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done." Granny served herself a wobbly helping of jam. "Yes, ma'am." Applejack grunted. Pushing her corn around her plate with her snout, she went back to muttering to herself. "What friends?" They went back to eating in silence. Applebloom and Granny finished first, with Applejack was right behind them. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were left to polish everything off once Little Mac bowed out with a groan. He just couldn't believe that two little girls could eat more than him. Everyone reclined for conversation as the Pegasi licked their plates clean, quite literally in Fluttershy's case. She stopped once she caught Mac watching again. "Granny," Applejack cleared her throat. "I was thinkin' about our agreement? About me stayin' on another season? And if the harvest comes in good this year... I want to go stay with Aunt and Uncle Mosely Orange." "You mean the next semester before the harvest?" Granny rocked back, thinking. She'd known this would come up sooner or later. Applejack would leave; there was no question about that. But she needed to stay here for now; she was still too little, too angry. She might hate Granny Smith for it, but sometimes that's what adults were there for, to be hated by children in order to keep them safe. "Sure." AJ smiled. Or tried to anyways. "Harvest is when I need you the most, AJ. You know that. Maybe this year we'll make enough money from the harvest that we can hire some more hands. Then you can go to Manehattan next year. You know I need you here, Applejack." "But that's a whole 'nother year!" Applejack tried not to whine, but to put just enough inflection into her voice to be annoying. Based on how Little Mac ground his teeth, she got it right. "It's only one more season." "Yeah, that's what you said when Braeburn and Barbara Seed left. That's what you'll say when Mac goes." pouted AJ. "It's a moot point anyways, AJ. Looks like we're in for a poor Zap Apple crop this year." Granny commented, lighting her after-supper pipe. "Why?" Applebloom chimed in. That was all she said most of the time. "The magic's all gone wrong. Something happened. I woke up the other night and my rheumatism was actin' up somethin' awful." "Magic?" "Zap Apples grow on magic, don'tcha know? The Everfree forest is tryin' to right itself from where the magic was ripped from the very fabric of nature itself. Zap Apples are the magical runoff from the cold spot in Equestria. But even voids have ebbs and flows, and this season don't look good. Some kind of magical fallout." "There was some kind of explosion there the other night." Applejack commented. "It woke me and Mac up, didn't it, Mac?" "Eyup." "Oh, that was us." Rainbow Dash smiled. "What?" Four sets of eyes turned to the new comers. "The explosion? That was us, right Fluttershy?" "Oh, yes, it was." nodded Fluttershy. "Honestly I'm surprised you could hear it this far away. Maybe we were luckier than I thought." Granny leaned forward, tapping on her pipe. "How can two little ponies make such a big noise, if you don't mind my asking?" "Well, we didn't explode if that's what you're asking." Dash laughed. "It was Apollyon. He blew up." If a fly had been on the wall right then, gone home and found his wife who was waiting for him, and started screaming for her husband to swat her like a naughty fly, the ponies would have been privy to every embarrassing, buzzing sound. No one spoke. No one dared breathe. Dash and Fluttershy glanced at one another, beginning to realize they may have done something wrong. "He... exploded?" Mac chose his words carefully. "Yep. We killed him." Dash's grin was difficult to tame. "It took like, I don't know, ten seconds. Flat." "You. Did. What?!" Applejack contained her shriek, even if just barely. "We... killed him?" Dash sank a little lower. "He'd dead?" "How?" Mac asked the question one sister wouldn't think of and the other currently couldn't get out. "He fell to his death." Dash felt some shame. She thought she'd done a good thing. "Rainbow Dash is a hero. Apollyon tried to eat me, and she saved my life. She's my best friend and you all should be thanking her instead of scolding her." Fluttershy spoke up, coming to Dash's aid. "We ain't scoldin' y'all, little ones. In fact, I'd say y'all downright did a good thing. We're jus' a bit surprised is all." Granny tussled Dash's mane. Applejack stood up, a hollow look in her eye. "I'm goin' for a walk." And with that she was gone. Granny Smith called after her but she had already disappeared into the cool of the evening. Mac and Applebloom stood, clearing the table. "We didn't mean to upset her." Fluttershy apologized. "Don't worry about it. Some ponies 'round here have been lookin' for revenge for a long time. It can come as quite a shock to discover everythin' you've been livin' for is gone." Granny smiled. Granny retired to her rocker in the living room where she promptly fell asleep. Little Mac took Applebloom upstairs to, under much protest from both of them, give her a bath. That left the two Pegasisters downstairs. Able to relax for the first time in days they played cards with an old, mismatched deck lying around. Old Maid may not have been the most adventurous thing ever, but it sure beat slaying dragons. Playing with her best friend, there was nothing else Dash would rather be doing, given the past few days they'd had. Little Mac came back downstairs half an hour later, soaked from nose to tail with bubbles in his ears. Fluttershy tried not to laugh; Dash didn't bother hiding it. Mac just turned a slightly darker shade of red, sitting down at the small writing desk in the corner. Opening his text book, he began logarithms, doing his best to ignore the giggles. Even though he had a farm to run he couldn't let his grades slip. The Pegasi played a few more hands before Dash couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Yawning, she was asleep before her cards even hit the floor. Fluttershy gently pulled a throw blanket over her, biting her lip. Now she was alone with a strange young stallion. Should she say anything? Should she leave? Wandering over, Fluttershy peeked at his arithmetic equations. He was steadily pounding them out, summing them up longhand, rather than using an abacus. Fluttershy could mostly follow them; she tried to say ahead of her grade, having repeated it twice already. So she'd study more difficult math problems in her off time. She didn't tell Dash because she already thought her an egg head as it was. Fluttershy didn't need to give her further ammunition. "Um, that one is five. I think." Fluttershy pointed to the problem Mac was having a particularly difficult time with. He quickly summed it up on paper. "Eyup." It went like that for a little while longer, with Fluttershy running equations in her head and Little Mac checking them longhand. Finally she yawned. She needed to take Dash to bed, so they could get some proper sleep. Though it was nice to finally be with some pony as quiet as she was, Fluttershy never came within six feet of him. That was just fine by Mac as well. Finally the grandfather clock started chiming, hammering out steady beats. A lot of them. Was it really that late already? Fluttershy really did need to go to bed. Little Mac must have thought the same thing, because he stood, closing his text book. "Granny." Mac nudged her gently. "Wha? Landagotion! Mac, ya scare me." "You told me not to let you sleep in the chair again." "Right, right, sonny. Let me just catch my breath. Is Applejack in bed already? I want to talk to her." Mac and Fluttershy exchanged glances, the first time they'd ever met eyes. Except now they weren't thinking of themselves, but confirming what the other knew. Applejack never came home.