A handsome stallion and a red-headed mare stood side by side in front of a farmhouse. They smiled calmly while two foals--a young colt and a baby foal--clung to their strong legs atop the porch deck. The mare held one hoof out, cradling an infant with a sprout of crimson mane hair.
“And just where’ve ya been, Rainbow?”
“Hmmm?” Rainbow blinked back to reality. She pivoted away from the family photo and gazed down at Apple Bloom in the middle of the Apple Family living room. “Whazzat?”
“I haven’t seen you in the skies lately!” Apple Bloom remarked with a curious smirk. “Just where’ve you been off to? Them clouds seem awful lonely without you bein’a round to kick ‘em!”
“Heh… Been doing grownup stuff, kiddo,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Grownup stuff?!” Apple Bloom’s amber eyes went crooked. “You, Rainbow Dash?!”
“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said, then blinked. Her eyebrow lifted. “Yeah…?” She over the package in her gift. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“Well, I always figured you were too plum awesome to bother with boring stuff!” Apple Bloom trotted gaily across the room. “Scootaloo’s goin’ on and on about how each day yer always ‘shreddi’n up the skies’ and ‘kickin’ thunderstorms into a burnin’ blaze of glory’ or some nonsense.”
“Yeah, well, too much coolness would make the sky freeze, now wouldn’t it?” Rainbow Dash smirked and pulled at the hem of her yellow apron. “Besides, a mare’s gotta do what a mare’s gotta do, from time to time.”
Apple Bloom paused in the doorway to the rear porch, eyebrow raised as she gazed quizzically back at Rainbow. “You mean directin’ traffic?”
“Huh?!” Rainbow’s muzzle scrunched up. “I… it… that… No!”
“Heehee! Whatever you say, Rainbow.”
“Look, kid, I’d love to chat, but I really gotta get your big sis or big bro to sign this--”
“They’re out workin’ in the fields right now. I’ll go fetch them!” Apple Bloom waddled out the back door, letting the screen shut behind her with a slap. “Just make yerself at home!”
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to protest. She shuddered, floating in a limp fashion, looking around at all the walls as if they were going to cave in.
It was a rare thing to be inside the Apple Family home. Rainbow had brushed through the interior a few times while checking in on her farm filly friend, but this was the one time she had gotten a chance to levitate in the center of it, encompassed by its rustic foundation and crossbeams. The place had a musky smell, as if it had inhaled and exhaled decades of every dust known to ponydom. And yet, there was something remarkably clean about it, as if the ponies who dwelled there--simply by living the shapes and contours of the place in--had somehow cleansed it of all the chaff.
Rainbow glanced left and right, noticing frame after frame of family photos. The sheer scale of all of Applejack’s relations--both distant and close--utterly flabbergasted her. She saw ponies from Manehattan, Stalliongrad, Fillydelphia, and even a few from Baltimare. Every other pony carried the same tell-tale freckles, but the one true commonality between the relatives was that none of them featured wings or horns.
“Hmmm… I guess it’s true what they say,” Rainbow Dash murmured aloud as she hovered past a row of pictures, package in her grasp. “Earth ponies are the stickiest.” She smiled, contemplating on all the skies that pegasi had at their disposal… and the sheer distance that it afforded them. The sound of her own flapping wings turned louder, and she suddenly felt very lonely.
Thus, it was with a shock that the door swung open, startling Rainbow.
“For the last time, Big Macintosh, we can’t be share-croppin’ with no Radish Ranchers!” Applejack grumbled. “Judgin’ from the way they messed up their western crops last winter, they ain’t in the business of preparing for the changin’ seasons! So I ain’t havin’ none of them near our land! I don’t care how desperate we are--” She skidded to a stop, jerking so hard that her hat flew off. “Land’s sakes!” With bright eyes flickering a glossy green, she gulped. “Rainbow! Apple Bloom said that we had a delivery pony! The lil’ filly said nothin’ about you bein’ here…”
“Errrrr… th-there’s a reason for that,” Rainbow Dash shrugged, trying her best not to look at Applejack’s sweat-glistening coat, bright freckles, or freshly tousled mane.
Applejack squinted. “Wait a tick… are…” She pointed at Rainbow and her apron. “Are you…?”
“Here!” Rainbow darted down to the mare’s hat. “Lemme get that--”
“No!!” Applejack practically shouted.
Rainbow jolted backwards, almost toppling over an old vase full of flowers.
Applejack had leapt on her hat as if it as a live grenade. She gulped, then chuckled nervously. “I’ve been… uh…” She scooped it up with great care and tipped the thing onto her scalp. “I’ve been workin’ mighty hard on the orchards all day, and I’ve gotten this thing mighty sweaty. It… uhm… wouldn’t be proper, ya hear?”
“Uhhhhhh s-sure!” Rainbow Dash smiled nervously. “I hear!”
“Yeah… uhm…” Applejack fidgeted. “Nice apron.”
“Pfft, yeah, as if--” Rainbow Dash’s eyes twitched. She stared ardently at Applejack. “You… r-really think so?”
“AJ?” Big Mac thundered into the room. “I know the Radish Family have made an awful bunch of mistakes in the past, but they could use our help as much as we could use theirs. Besides, wouldn’t it be neighborly to--” Big Mac saw Rainbow Dash and froze like a crimson ice-sculpture, his eyes locked on hers like a deer in a spotlight.
“Uhhhh… hey there, Mac Attack!” Rainbow Dash waved.
“...” Big Mac practiced still life.
Applejack cleared her throat. “Big Macintosh, we have company.”
He inhaled. Exhaled. “Eeyup.”
“Didja know that Rainbow was workin’ the town’s delivery routes?”
Still frozen. “Eenope.”
Rainbow’s brow furrowed in perplexity.
Applejack rolled her eyes and nudged Big Mac in the side. “Take five, Big Mac. Why don’tcha go see if Fluttershy finished with the medicine for the hogs?”
“Ahem…” Big Mac slowly trotted away. “Eeeyup.”
Once he was gone, Rainbow Dash hovered closer to Applejack. “He… uh… he’s a regular Gettysbuck Addresser.”
“Depends on who he’s addressin’.” Applejack tilted her hat back. “So, Miss Speedy Delivery...”
“Hardy har har…”
“Reckon I need to sign for something.”
“Yeah, then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Pfft…” Applejack smirked. “You say that as if yer a nuisance or somethin’, Rainbow!”
“I… uhm… er…” Rainbow took a shuddering breath, avoiding Applejack’s eyes again.
“Somethin’ wrong? I think that apron’s ridin’ you the wrong way.”
“I just… c-can’t afford to be distracted for too long, Applejack.”
Applejack squinted at her. “Distracted?”
“Busy schedule and all that!” Rainbow Dash said, her smile big and fractured. She tried not to sweat. She tried.
Applejack stared at her for a long while, then shrugged. “Whatever. I’d be a dag-blame’d fool if I did anythang to hurt yer job. C’mon now.” She motioned as she trotted into the kitchen. “I think I left the family pen in here somewhere.”
“Family… pen?” Rainbow blinked as she levitated after her. “You mean you guys only keep one between the four of you?”
“Apples ain’t like writin’ a novel everyday.”
“Heheh…” Rainbow’s voice cracked. “I’ll take your word for it.”