Applejack sighed contentedly as she slipped off her boots. Although the hardworking earth pony was used to putting in her fair share of legwork, heels (even the low, flat, and utterly practical ones that Rarity had designed) were an unfamiliar strain on her legs, and she was glad be rid of them. Carefully she stowed the boots away in a box labeled “fancy stuff,” along with the rest of her Gala outfit. Shoving the box to the back of her closet, she shook loose the cramps in her legs and hopped into bed. At long last, this day was over. Applejack closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the farm through her open window as she drifted off to sleep: the lowing of the cows... the rustle of the curtains... the quiet clop of hooves creeping closer and closer to where she—
“Heya, AJ! You busy?”
Applejack sighed; she had long ago accepted the unfortunate fact that being friends with Pinkie Pie meant occasionally being interrupted in the middle of the night. Sometimes Pinkie wanted to share her latest party plans, sometimes her visits were a little more... random. Usually the pink pony was kind enough to bring coffee, at least. Cracking her eyes open, AJ muttered, “Ah suppose I shouldn’t have expected y’all to take the night off just because o’ the Gala. Well Pinkie, whaddaya—” she paused as she got a good look at the pony standing by her bedside, illuminated by the full moon. “Rainbow Dash?”
The blue pegasus smiled brightly. “The one and only!” she exclaimed, but then she frowned. “Wait, you were expecting Pinkie?”
“Well no, it’s just that she’s—”
“WOAH! I don’t wanna hear it. Whatever you two do late at night in your bedroom is your guys’ business, alright? No need to tell me all the juicy details.”
Applejack’s face went red. “Now, hold on a minute there, sugarcube! That ain’t—”
Dash held up a hoof. “No no, I really, really don’t want to know. Um, I guess I’ll come back tomorrow, if you two are gonna be... you know, busy.”
“AH AIN’T SLEEPING WITH PINKIE!” screamed Applejack. Then, realizing that the rest of her family was still asleep (and probably didn’t need to hear that, anyway), she plunged her hoof into her own mouth. A few awkward seconds ticked by before she heard a voice from down the hall:
“Eee-yup.”
“This really is the worst night ever,” Applejack muttered under her breath.
Dash shrugged. “Whatever. Anyway, you got a minute?”
Applejack strongly considered throwing the pegasus right back out her window, but ultimately decided against it. After all, she was curious what Dash wanted, especially if it was important enough to cut into the notoriously lazy pony’s sleep schedule.
“Ah suppose. What’s wrong, hon?”
Dash shuffled her hooves. “Um... could you teach me how to bake an apple pie?”
*****
“Alright, now let me get this straight,” Applejack said tiredly. She and Dash were downstairs in the kitchen, Dash wrestling with a chef’s hat and apron while AJ nursed a fresh mug of coffee. “This Wonderbolt stallion, Soaring—”
“Soarin’,” corrected Dash, “He’s Romaneian.”
“Soarin’,” AJ continued, “was the fellow who bought a pie from me at the Gala. And he liked it a lot.”
“He said it was the best pie he ever tasted! It was like, the only thing he would talk about!” Dash exclaimed as she unsuccessfully tried to free her wings from the apron’s strings.
“So now you want to make a pie for him, and it needs to be done by dawn—”
“—Because tomorrow morning the Wonderbolts leave for their overseas tour of Zebrica! This is my last chance to make him one before they come back for the Fall shows!” Dash’s voice was somewhat muffled, as her chef’s hat had fallen down over her face.
“And you want to bake this pie for him so badly because you think then he’ll let you into the Wonderbolts.”
“NO! Well, maybe a little. Look, it couldn’t hurt, right?” Pulling the hat back up and straightening her apron, Dash smiled. “Besides, how hard can cooking a pie be? Pinkie does it all the time, right?”
Applejack sighed. "You know, we’ve got extras in the pantry. Ah could just give you a pie to take to Soarin’.”
Dash shook her head. “No, it’ll be more personal if I make it for him myself. It needs to be something he remembers me for, you know?” Dash started pulling out pots and pans from the cupboards, apparently at random. “So, do we need a special pie-making bowl or something?”
AJ forced a smile to her lips. “How about I get out the ingredients and materials. Meanwhile, you can try puttin’ that thing on the other way ‘round.”
Dash looked down at her inside-out apron and frowned. “Man, cooking is hard.”
*****
Dash stared at the little numbers on the ring of spoons in frustration. How could something so simple be so deceptively difficult? Turning around, she shouted, “AJ, I forgot again! Which one’s the tablespoon and which one’s the tea—” she cut herself short as she saw Applejack curled up on the ground, face resting on the cookbook in front of her. Careful not to disturb her friend’s slumber, Dash slid the book out from under Applejack and propped it up against the sack of flour. AJ had already helped her get all the ingredients and stuff ready—surely even an idiot could follow the book’s directions from here?
She glared at the next line of instructions, ‘Cut room temperature shortening into flour until mixture is uniform and shortening resembles large peas.’ Shrugging, she grabbed the shorting and a knife and started chopping off bits into the bowl. She’d cut about half of it up when it occurred to her that the shortening was still brick-cold. Oh well, she thought, that probably doesn’t matter.
As work on the pie continued apace, Applejack slept blissfully on.
*****
Applejack woke up with morning’s first light, as was her wont. She stretched her hooves as she yawned, and noticed two things in rapid succession:
First, she noticed she had a terrible crick in her neck, probably from sleeping on the linoleum in the kitchen all night.
Second, she noticed that there was a pile of dirty dishes several feet tall sitting right next to her. This latter point she observed immediately after inadvertently bumping it with her hoof, and immediately before being buried in an avalanche of pots, pans, and cutlery.
Upon extricating herself, she saw a note taped to the counter in front of her. It read:
Thanks for the help! You fell asleep halfway through, but I had everything under control. I, uh, had to make a second pie though, because the first one didn’t turn out quite right. And a third. And a fourth. And a... anyway, the rejects are on the counter, you can have them. No need to thank me, I know how awesome I am.
-Dash
Applejack saw a large pile of blackened, irregular lumps sitting on the counter. Turning the note over, she saw there was more writing:
PS: When it says 30 minutes at 400 degrees, you can’t do 3 minutes at 4000 instead.
PPS: did you know that with a few simple household tools, you can jury-rig an oven to go to 4000?
PPPS: you should never put the microwave inside the oven, even if it seems like a good idea at the time.
PPPPS: Since I baked the pie, I figure you can do the dishes. Also, you need a new microwave. And a new oven. And you’re out of flour. And eggs. And... well, I think there’s still some apples left in the pantry.
Applejack sighed as she looked at the disaster zone that had once been her kitchen. “Aw, heck,” she groaned to nopony in particular, “Ah’m gonna have to clean this all up mahself, aren’t I?”
From the room above the kitchen, she heard a deep voice affirm, “Eee-yup.”
*****
Dash made it to Canterlot mere minutes before the morning train to the coastal city of Tampa Neigh departed. The Wonderbolts usually kept their travel schedules secret to avoid crowds of fans, but Dash had managed to finagle the morning schedule out of Spitfire last night—well actually, she’d gone through Spitfire’s purse when the orange-maned pony went to the bathroom and found the tickets, but that was just a matter of semantics.
She came running up to Soarin’ just as he was boarding the train. “Hey Soarin’! Wait up!”
The Wonderbolt turned when he heard his name being called. “Yeah, who’s there—Oh, hey! You’re that pony from last night, aren’t you?”
Dash puffed up her chest, doing her best to look confident. “Name’s Rainbow Dash! Hey, uh, I know you guys are leaving for a while, so I made you a gift...” she shoved the tinfoil-wrapped fruit of her labors into Soarin’s hooves. “I know you like pies, so I kind of—”
“You baked a pie for me? No way, that’s so awesome!” cried Soarin’. At that moment, the train whistle blew. “Woah, looks like we’re going. Hey, thanks for the pie, Rainbow Dash!” Soarin’ waved once, then hopped aboard. The train quickly sped off, leaving Dash standing alone on the platform.
For a moment, she was silent. Then she whispered, “He knows my name. Soarin’...from the Wonderbolts... knows my NAME!” Joyfully she cried, “This is the BEST DAY EVER!”
*****
Aboard the train, the other Wonderbolts looked on in disgust as Soarin’ munched contentedly away at his gift. “Soarin’, please,” Spitfire pleaded, “You’re going to be sick if you eat that... thing.”
“Mfrre—are you kidding? This is the best pie I’ve ever had!” Soarin’ blubbered between bites.
“I know, but you say that about every pie. Look, it’s black. There’s an apple core sticking out the top. I can see at least six different ponies’ hairs in it—look, there’s a red hair, and there’s an orange one—”
“Don’t care. Good pie.”
Spitfire sighed. “Soarin’, I’ll buy you two pies when we get to the next station if you’ll please just throw that away.”
Soarin’ considered the offer for a minute. “Hmm... nah.” And with that, he plunged his face back into Rainbow Dash’s pie.