//------------------------------//
// Appledash's Turn 
// Story: Trouble at the Finish Line 
// by shortskirtsandexplosions 
//------------------------------//

	As the rooster crowed the following day, sunlight glinted off the eastern windows of the Carousel Boutique.  Applejack strolled up from the western farm fields while Rainbow drifted in from the eastern cloudbanks.

"AJ."  Rainbow frowned.

Applejack strolled to a stop.  "RD."

Dead silence.

"Hmmmph..."  Applejack smirked evilly.  "Are them some wrinkles I be seein' under yer eyes, speedy?  Reckon it'd be a cryin' shame if y'all lost sleep over this!"

"Huh?!  Pffft!  As if!"  Rainbow Dash folded her forelimbs, tilting her chin up.  "I-I slept like a bug under a rug... a... a-a cloud rug."

"Uh huhhhh... Real believable."

"Besides, if anypony's been stressing overnight, it's you!"

"Are y'all kiddin'?  I was sawin' logs so hard last night, Big Macintosh and Granny Smith asked me to sleep in the barn!"

"But I-I already thought you guys—"

"The other barn!" Applejack growled.  "Anyways, just look at you!  Can't even touch the ground, yer so tense!"

"Dude!  I'm always flying like this!  What's your deal?!  I bet you're just trying to psych me out so that I'll forfeit and let Twilight receive your story as a birthday gift!"

"Uh uh!  Nopony needs me to cheat!  Yer story's more rotten than a basket of apples soakin' under the Gallop Gate in summer!"

"Yeah, well, your story has as much a chance of winning Twilight's approval as a snake playing badminton!"

"Yer story couldn't hold itself up if it was stripped of all its money shots and cheap effects!"

"If someone held your story up to their ear, all they'd hear is the roar of every poet who's ever lived rolling in their mass graves!"

"Yer story is a cheap Stallion Wars knockoff!"

"Your story wreaks of Clint Eastwhinny!"

"Oh yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

Silence.  The two mares glared at each other, red in the face, huffing and puffing.

This carried on for half-a-minute, every second a sweaty one.

Eventually, Applejack turned and glanced at the Boutique.  "The hay are we doin' here so early, anyhorse?"

"You tell me!  You're the farm filly!  Aren't you used to it?"

"Yeah, but it's plum weird for Rarity to ask us to come here at such a time."

"Come to think of it..."  Rainbow Dash scratched her head.  "You're right."

"Maybe she realizes how pressed we all are for time, so she wants us here as early as possible."

"Then what's holding her up?!"  Rainbow frowned, then cupped a pair of hooves over her muzzle.  "Open the freakin' door, already, ya vampiric melon fudge!"

"Rainbow..."  Applejack pointed.  "Shhhh... look."

Rainbow squinted.

The door was cracked open.

Both ponies stopped frowning at each other just long enough to exchange confused glances.  One by one, they trotted/hovered toward the door, peering in.

"Rarity...?  Sugarcube?"

"Yo, Rares!"

Silence.

"Should... sh-should we go inside?" Rainbow asked.

"Heh!  So what?"  Applejack frowned.  "We might interrupt her story and then she'd have no choice but to choose mine!"

"Uh uh... she'll be choosing mine for Twilight!"

"Are you full of tree sap or somethin'?!  You heard how much Rarity was goin' on and on about yer literary shenanigans!"

"Yeah—well... d'uhm... it w-was no worse than how she was prattling off about your bookish boo-boos!"

"Snkkkt... 'bookish boo-boos?'"  Applejack smirked.  "Is that the best y'all got?!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake..."  Rainbow rolled her eyes.  "Nnngh!"  She kicked the door open and flew in.  "Rarity!"

"Rainbow, be mannerly!"  Applejack winced as she galloped after her.  "She's savin' our skin for Twilight's birthday, after all!"

"Only cuz you're trying to drown us all in your bad prose.  RARITY?!"

"Stop shoutin' for her!  I've got a louder voice!"

"Do not!"

"I does too!  RARITY!  WHERE ARE Y'ALL, DARLIN'?!"

"We're here to figure out whose story gets to be the gift, remember?!  It's totally mine, right?!"

"Dun listen to her, Rarity!  We all know it's my western drama!"

"Nuh uh!  It's my sci-fi epic!"

"Darn it!"  Applejack spun and hissed at the other mare.  "For the love of apples, will you stop insistin' that—"

"Hey..."  Rainbow Dash pointed straight ahead.  "Look."

"Huh?!"  Applejack spun. She blinked.

In the center of the room, lying alone on an ivory pedestal, was an open manuscript written on enchanted comic book paper.  The illustrations were still only in black-and-white, but even from afar the two ponies could tell that the sheets crackled with magical energy.

"Is that what I th-think it is?" Rainbow Dash stammered.

"Well, I'll be hog-tied and dragged through the latrine," Applejack exhaled.  "She gone and done it!"

"You mean she wrote a friggin' story overnight?!"

"It's been known to happen.  But where is she?"

"Wait—check it out."  Rainbow pointed, flying closer to the pedestal.  "There's a note."

"Huh?"  Applejack squinted.  "Lemme see..."

Sure enough, hanging from the edge of the pedestal was a white sign on silver string.  In elegant font, it read with Rarity's clear hoofwriting:  "Speak 'Fuzz' and Enter."

"Huh... well I'll be..."  Applejack lifted her hat to scratch her scalp.  She glanced up at Rainbow Dash.  "Reckon she wants us to hop in there on our own?"

"Well, it is the best way to test out what she's written," Rainbow said.  "After all, that's what she did for both of us."

"Yes, well..."  Applejack plopped her hat back on.  "Anythang Rarity's conjured up can't be even a sneeze better than the tearjearkin' story I penned!"

"Pffft!  Yeah... and my space battles would blow both clear out of the water!"

"Says you!"

"Dang straight, says me!  None of your pony sass can make a difference!"

"As if Twilight would like yer story better than mine or Rarity's!"

"As if Twilight would like any story better than mine!"

"We don't even know what Rarity wrote!"

"Fine, you wanna find out?!"  Rainbow Dash growled.  "Or are you chicken?!"

"Is that a challenge?!"

"Darn straight, Applejerk!"

"Fine!  Consider yerself met!"  Applejack flung her hoof up.  "Now grab my hoof!"

"Ungh..."  Rainbow rolled her eyes and touched down, oblidging the farm filly's request.  "Only because we gotta enter the book."

"Now... say it when I say it—"

"I don't need a friggin' tutorial!" Rainbow yelled.  She then took a deep, fuming breath.

As did Applejack.  Afterwards—

"FUZZ!" they both hollered in harmony.  Milliseconds later, tendrils of magical energy leapt out of the comic book, grabbed them, and shrank both mares into ethereal ribbons before dragging them into the tome's enchanted pages.