Light from the morning sun filtered in through the window of Twilight’s bedroom. It slowly made its way across the bed, warming the two ponies that slept in it. As it always seemed to, the light came to a stop right as it reached her eyes, pulling her from her restful slumber. Not wanting to give up her comfortable position, she snuggled deeper into Rainbow’s back, trying to block out the light.
Despite what most ponies thought, and despite her early schedules, Twilight Sparkle was not a morning pony. Especially after a long night of studying, she found nothing more desirable than pressing her face into Rainbow’s soft mane and drifting off for another hour of sleep.
Rainbow Dash on the other hand, was awake and alert the moment she opened her eyes. The act of being squeezed and the sunlight coming through the window roused her. She let out a yawn before turning over and smiling at her partner, who was still trying to stay asleep. As much as she knew Twilight liked to sleep in, she also knew that she hated being late for anything and they definitely had something to do today. With another mighty yawn she spoke up, running a hoof along Twilight’s foreleg as she did.
“Hey Twi… Time to wake up.”
“Mmmm… Five more minutes…”
Rainbow’s muzzle turned up into an evil smirk as she extended her wing and gently ran it along Twilight’s side. At first there was no reaction, but after the third pass she could see Twilight fighting to keep the smile off her face. By the fifth pass she was smiling and trying her hardest not to laugh. Finally she had had enough, letting out a boisterous laugh and pushing Rainbow away from her.
“Alright, Alright! I’m up!” She yawned and rubbed her eye with a fetlock. “Would it kill you to let a pony sleep in a little?”
“Normally I’d be all for sleeping in, but we kinda have something important to do today.”
The gears in Twilights head slowly started to turn, shaking off the cobwebs of sleep. Almost a full minute later she began processing what Rainbow had said, memories of yesterday flooding back to her, waking her up substantially faster. Then she remembered her research from last night. She knew Rainbow wouldn’t go for her idea if she just came out and said it. She had to introduce the idea slowly.
Giving herself time to think, she got up and made her way over to her dresser to tame her bed mane.
“So, Rainbow, did you ever wish things had gone further between you and Applejack? Was there ever a time when you thought you could get into a serious relationship with her? Say we had never gotten together, would you have tried to take it further with her?”
Rainbow stopped to think about that, rubbing her temple. “Hmmm, I mean sure, I had considered it. Maybe if we hadn’t gotten together, things might have gone differently, but I never really thought seriously about it.”
She saw Rainbow turn towards her in the mirror with an eyebrow raised, a questioning look on her face.
“Where’s all this coming from, Twi?” She started slowly. “If you’re worried that I’m going to leave you for AJ now that she’s wanting to be with me, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“What? No, I was just… Curious is all.”
Rainbow could tell she wasn’t being fully honest with her. She moved over beside Twilight and put a hoof on her withers.
“What’s the real reason Twi? You’re almost as bad a liar as AJ is.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “Well, I was doing some reading last night, and I came across something that might help us. There was a chapter about something called herding.”
“Herding?” Rainbow looked confused. “Isn’t that what AJ does with Winona? What’s that going to do for us?”
“This kind of herding is just a little bit different.” She replied with a forced smile. Lighting up her horn, she picked up the book and brought it over to her dresser, setting it in front of them, and opening it to the proper page.
“Back in older times, ponies would form herds, usually several mares and a stallion or two. This was generally done to make farm life easier and to help defend themselves from predators when Equestria was largely unsettled.” Flipping a couple of pages, she continued on. “As time progressed, the practice lost much of its functionality, but it was never completely stopped. These days it’s become more popular to just form relationships between two ponies.”
“So… What? You’re saying you want to have a three way with AJ?”
“What?!” Twilight blushed furiously. “No! I mean-”
“Well thats what it sounded like to me.”
“Listen,” Twilight sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose and trying to gain her composure back. “What I’m trying to say is that we… I guess “invite” her into our relationship.”
“So we both date AJ, and each other?” Rainbow looked doubtful. “I don’t know Twilight, I’m not sure how well that would work out.”
“Don’t think of it as a bunch of individual relationships, it’s more like one big relationship that all three of us would share.” Rainbow gave her a skeptical look, but didn’t say anything, so she pressed on. “Okay, think of it like this. When we go out to spend time with our friends, spending time with one of them in particular doesn’t make us any less friends with the rest of them. If we did have AJ join us, it would be like that.
“We would be one big relationship, but that wouldn’t mean we would have to do everything with all three of us. If you two wanted to do something that I didn’t care for, that wouldn’t make us any less together because I didn’t go with you.”
“I dunno, Twilight. I don’t want anything to ruin what we already have. Besides, do you even like her like that?”
“I’ve never really thought of it before. I mean, I could always try. She is a close friend already, and not exactly hard on the eyes.” She finished, blushing.
“That doesn’t exactly sound promising. What if she doesn’t even want to do this? It just sounds like it’s destined to fall through.”
“Well what if we just try it out for a while and see if it would work or not? If it doesn’t work out then we can just go back to being us again.”
“Which would put us right back where we are…”
“It’s better to try this than do nothing. If it fails, we’re no worse off than before, but if this works, then it could be something incredible for all three of us. Please, Rainbow, do this for me?” Twilight begged, giving her the best puppy dog eyes she could muster.
Rainbow hung her head, knowing she couldn’t refuse her after that look. “Ugh! Fine! Now would you quit it with the look?”
“Oh, thank you, Rainbow!” She tackled her in a bonecrushing hug, kissing her fiercely. “I love you so much.”
“Love ya too, Twi.” Rainbow said, still feeling a sense of foreboding about this whole thing. “Promise me something though.”
Twilight looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“If we are going to do this, make sure you’ve thought it all through. Take today and see if you really feel that this is something that you could live with. Could you see yourself sharing me with Applejack for the rest of your life?” Twilight started to speak but Rainbow put a hoof over her lips to silence her. “Just promise me Twi, and if you still feel the same way tomorrow, we’ll go talk with her.”
Twilight was silent for a moment before speaking again. “I promise, Rainbow.” She replied, nuzzling into Rainbow’s neck.
Applejack removed her hat and wiped the sweat from her brow with a foreleg before fanning herself. Today was a hot one and even though she was used to working in the heat, it still made the farm work tough. Placing her hat back on her head, she moved on to the next tree, placing the baskets around the trunk before giving it a mighty buck. Once all the apples were down, she picked up the few that had missed the buckets and began loading them into the nearby cart.
She enjoyed the hard work. It took her mind off of some of her problems, while letting her think through other ones. Her thoughts kept going back to the conversation that she had with Rarity last night over the tub of ice cream. Rarity had been right, she may not be able to have Rainbow the way she wanted to, but they would atleast still be friends. She could live with that. Better to be her friend than have her hate her over a stupid crush.
Moving on to the next tree, she repeated the process. as she was loading the apples into the cart, she heard the sound of wing beats, followed by the soft thumps of two ponies landing behind her. Judging by the stumble from one of the landings, she knew exactly who it was and she wasn’t ready to have this conversation so soon. Placing the empty basket on the ground beside the cart, she simply stood there for a few moments, not willing to face her friends.
“Howdy Twi… Rainbow.” She said, still not facing them.
“Applejack, can we talk?” Twilight asked.
“I reckon y’all want to tell me to keep to myself. I understand y’all are together. Got yerself a mighty fine gal there Twi, ya better treat her right, ya hear?” She had to stop talking before she broke down completely. She wondered why they hadn’t left yet, she heard them whispering but didn’t pay any attention to it, wishing for them to just go.
“Actually thats not what we wanted to tell you. We actually came here with a proposition for you.” Twilight said finally.
This caught her attention and she spun around to face them.
“Whaddya mean a proposition?”
“Well… After you came by, I did a little bit of research and I think I may have found a way for all of us to come out of this without any of us getting hurt.”
Applejack immediately scowled.
“Y’all think its funny to go around messing with other pony’s emotions?” She was fuming. “I’m trying my best to get over this thing, and it doesn’t help that y’all are coming around and getting my hopes up all over again!”
“Woah, calm down AJ!” Rainbow shouted. “Twi’s being serious here. “Now I’m not entirely convinced myself that this will work, but she put up a pretty good argument. I think it’s at least worth hearing her out.”
“Fine. But y’all got one chance. If’n I don’t like it then y’all best just head on out, ya hear?”
“That’s fine,” Twilight answered. “ But please, actually give this consideration, even if it does sound a bit… strange.”
Applejack gave a snort but said nothing further, prompting Twilight to continue.
“After you left, I found the bouquet you dropped and realised what you had come there to do. After I had gotten over the initial shock, I wondered why you would do something like that and then I realized that we never made our relationship public, so I couldn’t blame you when you didn’t know.”
Applejack’s features softened a little as she continued.
“After that I knew you would feel hurt and I had to find a way to keep you from being hurt by this. I guess it’s a little late but I did find something in one of my older books. I came across a chapter called ‘herds’ and it detailed an older style of relationship that really isn’t used a lot anymore.”
Applejack’s scowl came back, but she made good on her word and waited to see if there was any more.
“If we formed a herd it would allow us all to be in a relationship together so that none of us would have to suffer while the other two were happy.” Twilight finished with a smile. It didn’t stay long as Applejack shook her head before speaking up.
“That’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard of Twi. I know you’re smart’n all but this one really takes the cake. I appreciate the effort to come up with this but y’all will never convince me that something like this actually exists.” She let out an exhausted sigh.
“She’s not making it up! It really is in some old book she found-”
“Give it a rest Rainbow. I think y’all should just go. Now.” She went back over to the tree and grabbed the next basket full of Apples and began dragging it to the cart.
“But!-”
“Twi.” Rainbow said, cutting her off. “We agreed to leave if she didn’t like the idea so lets go.”
Twilight let out a whine but let Rainbow lead her away. She was so sure that this was going to work. Now she wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She hung her head and let rainbow guide her along as tears blurred her vision. Why couldn’t one of her books have a spell that could make everything better?