//------------------------------//
// I Mean, Clearly It Doesn't Go Well, Otherwise This Would Be Like 500 Words Long 
// Story: Rainbow Dash Explains To All of Her Friends What Updog Is 
// by Aquaman 
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The day had yet to fully break by the time Applejack stepped outside, but she didn't mind the darkness much. Half the sun blazed atop the horizon while its opposite still slept below, and between the two portions the air hung crisp in Applejack’s nose like the scent of a fresh mountain spring. This morning came just the way she liked them: bright, early, and without a cloud in the sky. She would’ve thought she knew better than to thank Rainbow Dash for the weather at this hour, but no sooner had she trotted out amongst the orchard with apple-bucking baskets on both withers before the telltale shuffle of flapping wings reached her ears.



Despite Rainbow’s coat blending in perfectly with the spotless sky above her, Applejack was able to pick out her brilliantly-hued mane easily enough, though not without a little suspicion. The sight of one of her friends was never a sore one, but in Applejack’s experience Rainbow Dash only got up early for two reasons: making trouble, or escaping from some she’d already made. Judging by the cock-eyed look Dash wore as she dove in for her approach, she had a mind to believe today would bring about the former.



“Hey, AJ,” Rainbow called out once she'd landed on a branch overhead, eyes wide and hooves gathered underneath her like an overlarge owl watching its more-than-wary prey. She was doing her best not to smirk, and doing a characteristically lazy job of it.



“Howdy, Rainbow,” Applejack replied, keeping one eye on the tree behind her as she prepared to buck its fruits loose. “What’re y’all up to this mornin’?”



Rainbow shrugged, her lip still between her teeth. “Nothing. How ‘bout you?”



“Apple-buckin’.” Applejack proved herself honest in the span of the same breath, a healthy shower of apples tumbling into her baskets as her hind hooves fell back to earth again. “Feels like a good day for it, I reckon.”



Rainbow Dash nodded in her trademark off-kilter fashion, the one that told Applejack she hadn’t really been listening to her answer. “Yep. What kinda apples you got out here?”



Applejack raised an eyebrow at the question, but after thinking it over saw no good reason not to answer it. “Well, these here are Red Delicious, and over yonder’s Green,” she said, nodding her head towards the rising sun for the second name. “I’m hopin’ to get ‘em all cleaned out by noon.”



Her head bobbed again, but this time Rainbow didn’t speak at first, instead seeming to hold back a snort. Once she’d gotten herself together, her restraint over her grin had all but disappeared. “You, uh…” she managed to squeak, “you think there's any updog in those trees?”



Now Applejack’s eyebrow dropped again, joining its twin in a low ridge over her crinkled eyes. “Up-what?”



“Updog.” The branch groaned as Rainbow rocked back and forth on it, shaking a couple apples loose before Applejack could move to catch them. “What, you’ve never heard of updog before?”



For a moment, Applejack tried to sort out what Rainbow was trying to say, but in the moment after she realized she’d be wasting her time. If Rarity claimed she needed her beauty sleep before she could look her best, maybe Rainbow hadn’t gotten enough of her brainy sleep today. “Can’t say I have,” she said.



“Aw, really?” Her friend was practically quivering now, though Applejack was near enough now to gather up the victims of her motion and keep them from bruising against the ground. “I know what it is. I could totally tell you. Want me to tell you what it is?”



Between the tree’s complaints and the thumps of apples colliding inside her baskets, Applejack found it thankfully easy to keep her sigh quiet and hidden from Rainbow’s ears. “Maybe later,” she told her. “I got work to get done right now.”



Applejack turned around and waited to hear Rainbow flap off before she kicked the rest of her roosting tree clean, but no such sound came out. When she looked up, Rainbow Dash stared back down at her with forced amusement, her grin plastic and peeling down at the edges. “C’mon, just… real quick?” she said, her voice not half as brash as it’d been a moment before. “Just ask me what updog is real quick?”



“Rainbow, I don’t know what in tarnation updog is, and I don’t much care to find out ‘fore I’ve finished all the chores,” Applejack said, squeezing her explanation out before the end of her patience could cut her off. “Now would ya mind movin’? I’m gettin’ behind schedule.”


For a few seconds, all Rainbow did was stutter and blink a lot instead of taking flight like she’d been asked, but eventually she puffed up her cheeks and emptied them with a huff as she slumped off into the air. “Oh, forget it,” she grumbled as she rose up above the orchard’s canopy, then turned on a tenth-bit and rocketed back towards town. Applejack watched her go at first, then scowled as she remembered the third tree she’d meant to have cleared by now.



“Updog…” she muttered, picking up her pace to make up for the time she’d lost. “What’ll she think of next?”




• • •




“Do I know of any books on what?”



Twilight thought she saw Rainbow Dash grit her teeth out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned back around her friend’s impish smile had returned. “Updog,” she repeated. “You know what updog is, right?”



Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought, but came up unfortunately blank. “I’m not sure that I do, actually,” she admitted. After considering the look Rainbow gave her, she raised her voice in order to pursue the matter further. “Spike, have you ever heard of something called updog?”



At the other end of the Crystal Castle’s lengthy dining room table, Spike’s head tilted up from where he’d leaned it against his hand, his small frame looking even tinier in the cavernous hall meant to hold hundreds of ponies at once. Halfway between them, Owlowiscious stood balanced on the back of an empty chair, his head swiveling back and forth as he followed the flow of conversation. 

“What about frogs?” came Spike's slurred, echoing reply.



“No, updog,” Twilight said, smiling in sympathy as Rainbow buried the bridge of her snout behind her hoof. She’d never realized how dependent Spike was on his coffeemaker every morning until they’d discovered—to his horror—that their new home didn’t have any place to plug one in. “Why don’t you come over here and join us?”



“’M good,” Spike mumbled into his mug—filled with hot chocolate he’d melted himself as a seemingly ineffective placebo for the cup’s proper contents.



“But Rainbow Dash and I are over here!”



“And neither of you is Mr. Coffee.”



Twilight grinned again, and Rainbow Dash returned her apologetic look with something between apathy and impatience. “You’re really making this a lot more complicated than it’s supposed to be,” Rainbow Dash told her.



“Oh, it’s no problem,” she assured Rainbow right back. “Spike’s just grumpy we’re not on the technomagical grid yet. (“How are you not?” he moaned from afar.) Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out."


“Oh my g…” Rainbow pressed both her forehooves hard against her temples, then glared at Twilight between them. “Updog, Twilight. I know what updog is. Do you—not me, not Spike, not Mr. Coffee—know what updog is?”



All Twilight could do was frown and shrug. “Sorry, Rainbow. I’ve got nothing. What is…” All at once it hit her, like a bolt from the blue pegasus suddenly on the edge of her seat. “Ohhhh… updog!” she said, giddy with the excitement of a mystery solved. “I get it!”



“You ge… wait, what-”



Twilight was gone before Rainbow could catch her attention, already warped off in a flash of purple light to who knew where. From opposite sides of the hall, Spike and Rainbow Dash stared at each other in silence, Owlowiscious motionless in between. Spike took a slow, slurping sip of hot chocolate, and then Twilight exploded back into existence with a thick green book clutched in her forehooves.



“Geez, Canterlot’s warm today,” she said, grabbing the book with her magic as she used her freed hoof to wipe her brow. “Anyway, here we are!”



Twilight turned the book over and laid it flat on the table, flipping it open just after Rainbow got a chance to read the title: What’s Up With Dogs? The Encyclopedia for the Perfect Pony Pet. “I don’t know of any dog breeds that can fly, but I can definitely see why you’d want one,” she went on, turning pages and giggling as she spoke. “And I must say, that’s not a bad nickname for one that could. Updogs. Pretty funny, actually.” After skimming a chapter or two, Twilight finally paid attention to the corner of her eye again, and in doing so noticed the slackjawed, deadpan look that she hadn’t seen wash over Rainbow Dash’s features. “What?”



“Seriously?” Rainbow said, just before she bolted from her seat straight out one of the windows set between the arches in the dining hall's ceiling, the square pane of glass inside it spinning on its axles but luckily not shattering. Once she thought better of trying to follow her, Twilight shrugged again and pressed her lips together.



“Well, I thought it was a good name,” she said, turning her attention back to the book. As the emptiness of the hall weighed down on her again, a happier thought than Rainbow’s sudden departure occurred to her. “Maybe we should get a dog!”



Spike jerked his head up towards Twilight, just as Owlowiscious’ big yellow eyes slowly rotated around towards him. “Don’t even start,” he growled at both of them before sweeping his mug up into his claws and stomping back upstairs. Once he’d gone, Owlowiscious hooted, and Twilight shrugged once more. Maybe Applejack knew what Rainbow Dash had meant. She was usually good at figuring these sorts of things out.




• • •




“Okay,” Rainbow said, inserting each word into Fluttershy’s ears like an extraordinarily tense surgeon would an abnormally sharp scalpel, “one last time: I know what updog is. You do not know what updog is. When somepony doesn’t know something that somepony else does know, they ask the pony who does know what it is, what it is. So, if you put all of that together, your response to me telling you about updog would beeee…”



The last drawn-out syllable dug deeper into Fluttershy’s eardrum than all the others, and she squirmed in discomfort as she did her best to make sense of it. “I, uh…” she mumbled, “I would ask why I, um… why I need to know what… updog is?”



Rainbow Dash pressed her lips together as her face went blank. From deep inside her throat, something that sounded like a quiet, far-off scream reverberated inside her shuddering cheeks. “I’m actually kind of afraid of dogs,” Fluttershy added, not sure if it would help but feeling like she should say something more anyway. “Well, really just the big ones, but sometimes the smaller ones are mean and bark a lot, and one time Winona accidentally almost bit me even though I know she didn’t mean to, so maybe I could ask about upcat instead? Or upbunny, or even upmouse? Would upmice be okay, Rainbow Da-“



Rainbow Dash didn’t answer. While Fluttershy had stared at the ground and thought out loud, Rainbow Dash had vanished, four hoofprints in her rhododendrons and a thin cloud of dust all that remained of her unexpected landing in Fluttershy’s garden. 



"I’m so confused...” Fluttershy whispered to nobody. When nobody answered, she slunk back inside to make a cup of tea and lie down for a while, resolving to go visit with Winona later if Applejack was free.




• • •




The ringing of the bell over her front door registered only as a faint tinkle in Rarity’s mind, but the weighty thump that followed it proved much more difficult to filter out. She shook away the fabric patterns dancing through her head and turned to discover with a patient smile what Sweetie Belle had knocked over this time, only to find a different beloved klutz slumped over the barrel of one of her mannequins, all four of her hooves dangling slack and bumping gently against the bone-white plastic.



“Rainbow Dash?" she asked. "Are you feeling all right, darling?"

Some sort of affirmative noise warbled out of Rainbow’s throat, but otherwise she got nothing else out of her. Rarity stood still for a moment considering whether she should move Rainbow over to the couch, but soon after decided against it with a shrug. Put simply, the couch was covered with design sketches and delicate embroidered lace, and the mannequin wasn’t. In any case, Rainbow seemed to be doing all right where she was.



“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to find you so exhausted,” Rarity said, speaking over her shoulder as she turned back to her work. “I’m told you’ve been flying all over town all day, asking about some silly thing… oh, what was it? Updog?”



Again, Rainbow answered without words, this time with a throaty grunt that came close to sounding like a growl. “Sorry to bring up a sore subject, dear,” Rarity went on, a wan smile threatening to spoil her sympathetic tone, “but with all the commotion you’ve made about it this morning, I’m afraid I can’t help but be curious. If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is it?”



Rarity turned around to the sound of the mannequin creaking on its stand, and found Rainbow Dash staring at her with bleary—but oddly attentive—eyes. “What’s what?”



“What is updog?”



The mannequin merely creaked again underneath her, but Rainbow Dash started as if it had jumped up and bitten her. First her jaw popped open and remained so for a few seconds, then she pulled it back up far enough to thread her lip between her teeth, and then her cheeks flushed red and her whole body shook with the effort of containing a snigger, a snort, and finally an outburst loud enough to set Rarity’s hair on end.



“PfffffffHA-HA-HA-HAAAAA!”



Rainbow clutched her stomach as she rolled backwards off the mannequin, already bent over double even in midair. Her impact against the ground came fast and sounded rather uncomfortable, but between the laughter in her lungs and the tears streaming down her beet-red face, Rainbow Dash seemed not to have noticed it at all. Rarity watched her roll around gasping for breath as long as she could bear, but confusion won out over civility sooner than she would’ve preferred. 

“I’m… not sure I understand what’s so funny,” she said, hoping Rainbow could hear her over the commotion she’d all of a sudden felt the need to make. “What is updog?”



“Notmuchdogwhat’supwithyouuuu…” Rainbow wheezed in a single breath before descending into a fit of coughing, near-silent guffaws. Rarity found her friend Rainbow Dash admirable in a great many circumstances, but so too did she find her aggravating in nearly an equal number.



“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” she cried out, stamping her hoof as frustration got the best of her for a moment. “What in Equestria are you laughing about?”



After a few last chuckles and a couple deep breaths, Rainbow Dash composed herself enough to reply. “You… you said, ‘What’s up, dog’,” she said, still smiling and a little bit hoarse. When Rarity’s expression didn’t change, Rainbow’s did, her brow crinkling as her grin started dropping back down from around her ears. “It, uh… it sounded like you asked, ‘What’s up, dog’.”



“I’m quite aware of what it sounded like, Rainbow,” Rarity said, still thoroughly unamused. “But what is it?”



“It’s… y’know, what’s up, dog?”



“I don’t follow.”



At the bottom of her incredulous look, Rainbow’s jaw hung open a bit again. “It’s… it’s a joke.”



With a huff and her best attempt at suppressing an eyeroll, Rarity gave up and turned back towards her desk. “Well, I don’t think it’s a very good one,” she said as she sat back down to her work. Her back was turned to whatever Rainbow Dash tried to stammer out in response, but evidently she saw no need to bother saying it in full. With a gust of wind and the sound of a hoof knocking against something solid and thick, she was gone. 

And good riddance, Rarity pouted as she set her sewing machine spinning again. At least Fluttershy didn’t get it either.




• • •




Pinkie Pie could usually tell how her friends were feeling just by looking at their faces, but with her whole head buried in her hooves, Rainbow Dash was making it pretty hard to see any of her face at all. Pinkie’s best guess was “mopey”, mixed with “grumpy”, with maaaaybe just a pinch of “forgot again that Rarity’s really bad at getting jokes”, but she couldn’t be sure unless she got close enough to check.



“Hiya, Dashie!” she said as she bounced up to her friend’s table outside Sugarcube Corner, half to get her to look up and half just because “hiya” was way more fun to say than just plain old “hello”. In any case, it worked on both counts: Rainbow lifted her head up at the sound of Pinkie’s voice, and Pinkie couldn’t help but grin at the sight in front of her. That was as clear a mopey-grumpy-Rarity face as she’d ever seen on anypony. “What’s up?”



With her forehooves squishing up into her cheekbones, Rainbow Dash looked like a goldfish trying really, really hard not to scream really, really loud. “Don’t say updog,” Rainbow said. “I swear to Celestia.”



Updog? Like a dog that went up, or maybe an up that acted like a dog? Either way, Pinkie had never heard of such a thing, and to be honest kind of regretted it. “Don’t you worry, Dashie,” Pinkie said, since “Dashie” was also a lot more fun to say than “Rainbow Dash”. “I’ve never seen an updog in my life! But I have seen that thing under there!”



Rainbow Dash blinked and looked around, trying to see what Pinkie had gestured towards. “Under where?” she asked, only to crinkle her nose when Pinkie snorted and poked her in the snout.



“Hee-hee,” she giggled. “You said underwear.”



For once, Pinkie couldn’t read the expression on Rainbow’s face at all. It was almost like looking like at an empty chalkboard, or at a glass plate somepony had just shattered into a million-bazillion pieces. “I…” Rainbow Dash mumbled. “You… guh…”



Before she could finish, a buzz on Pinkie’s left hind hoof broke her concentration for good. “Oh, shoot!” she said once she read the watch attached to that hoof and saw what time it was. “Later, Rainbow! Gotta dash!” She giggled again at her second joke in as many minutes, then zipped off to her urgent appointment with Twilight at the pet store. In her wake, Rainbow Dash stared after her for a bit, then slammed her face back down into the table, presumably—judging by the more recognizable twitch in her eye—planning to stay that way for the rest of the afternoon.




• • •




“I don’t care what happens or who it happens to,” Rainbow Dash swore into her pillow that night, “I am never, ever, ever, never, ever getting up early again.”



• • •



FIN