“The time has come,” the Weanling said, “To talk of many things: of hooves and ships and healthy flax, of princesses and flings. And why the stars are silly sots, and whether mares have wings.”
-Lewis Canter, from ‘Through the Saddle Rack’, 1872
“Ah don’t buy it,” Applebloom shook her head vehemently. “It’s just an old nag’s tale.”
“It’s true!” Sweetie Belle insisted for the third time that evening, “And I can even prove it!”
Scootaloo just shrugged and sat back on her haunches, thinking it best to stay out of the heated debate for now. A contented smile touched her lips, though she was quite certain her fellow Crusaders hadn’t noticed. It probably wasn’t the best time to admit it, but sometimes she liked watching her friends contend with each other over trifles like this. The night air was carrying a warm spring breeze through the open window of Applebloom’s bedroom that smelled of freshly hewn grass and hay – Scootaloo closed her eyes and flexed her wings, imagining herself being carried away on that very breeze to soar with the current above the clouds.
“—ain’t!” Applebloom bapped the mattress with her hoof, huddled in a circle with the other two fillies on her bed. The three of them were draped in the extra sheets and quilts they had been provided to engage in sleepover activities. Only the light of the full, clear moon poured through the window; softly gracing everything it touched with its luminous presence. “An’ an know whut yer ‘proof’ is gonna be. Th’ last time you tried to prove sumthin’, we all ended up wastin’ nearly all of Nightmare Night sittin’ in the back forty waitin’ for ‘The Great Apple’ to show up!”
“The Great Apple is real!” Sweetie Belle scoffed. “On Nightmare Night, he rises from the apple orchard and flies around, bringing toys to all the good colts and fillies!”
“Then why didn’t we get any toys?” Scootaloo finally inserted herself into the conversation. “We nearly missed out on candy that night. It was scary and I never saw a thing.”
“Because the orchard wasn’t sincere enough!” Rarity’s little sister shot back. “Or we weren’t sincere enough! Or…or…” Her brows furrowed, and she soon found herself tapping her chin with a hoof and staring at the ceiling. “Or…or however that goes. But he’s real!”
“Nope,” Applebloom folded her forelegs and let out a sharp huff. “Ain’t real. Besides, this one yer talkin’ about now? That ain’t how the story goes at all. Ah heard this one just like th’rest of y’all did, when ah was barely out of diapers. Shipshape wasn’t a pony. He was a griffon hero who saved his people from disaster, led them to the Promised Land, and…uh…” she faltered, “…founded Griffonstone, or sumthin’.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
Scootaloo waited for her companions to raise questioning brows before she continued. When their attention was firmly on her, she drew her lips back into the most coy, sinister smile she could and narrowed her eyes. “I heard that Shipshape was a pony who died from fatigue trying to get away from the Headless Horse. He galloped all over Equestria for weeks, and when he couldn’t run anymore he collapsed into a mirror that a peddler was selling, shattered it, and now,” she paused for effect, “If you stare into a mirror at night and say ‘Shipshape, Shipshape, can’t escape’ five times, you’ll see an image of his tortured face running for his life, and the Headless Horse will come for you!”
The silence lasted just long enough for Scootaloo to start feeling smug. Until her friends broke out laughing.
“Aw c’mon Scootaloo,” Applebloom guffawed merrily, “it’s alraight! We know yer afraid of the Headless Horse! Y’don’t have to make some story up just to air out yer fears.”
“W-what!?” Scootaloo sputtered, “I…I’m totally not! A-and I totally wasn’t!”
But it was no use. The young pegasus knew it was all in good fun, but the barbed laughter still managed to get under her skin. She gritted her teeth. “F-fine! Then let’s go try it Sweetie Belle’s way right now! Then we’ll see who’s scared!”
Applebloom sprawled out on a feathery pillow, her grin wide. “So whut yer tellin’ me is, you want to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom, say ‘Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date’ five times, and wait until an image of yer very special somepony appears? Seriously?”
“It really will happen!” Sweetie Belle repeated her by now tiring mantra. She slid off the bed and stood as tall as her filly legs would allow, thrusting out her chest. “And why would it be scary?”
“I’d rather it showed us a picture of what our cutie marks are going to look like,” Scootaloo observed. “A-and well…well it could be scary. I mean seeing a face in the mirror that doesn’t belong to anypony in the room is kinda freaky no matter who it is, right?”
“I think yer just yellow,” Applebloom bemusedly accused. Scootaloo slid of the bed and took up the exact same bold pose as the unicorn Cutie Mark Crusader.
“I’m not scared! I’m just as ready as any of the rest of you! You’re the one still lounging on the bed Applebloom, and who are you calling yellow, anyway?”
“A’raight, a’raight,” the earth filly shrugged, sliding off the bed. She stifled a yawn. “Whutever. But can we just do this real quick and then go t’bed? Ah wanted to stay up late, but trying to earn our cutie marks with every single piece of sports equipment at school’s got me plumb tuckered out.”
“Oh yeah, uh…how’s your eye?” Sweetie Belle blushed, recalling the events of the afternoon. Applebloom blinked hard a few times.
“Let’s not talk about that raight now.”
The door opened by itself before any of them could reach it. Applejack stood on the other side, looking haggard from a day in the fields. Without her hat, she smiled wearily at the fillies and batted unintentional bedroom eyes at them.
“Ah know yer havin’ fun,” Applejack began, “but it’s time fer all good fillies to hit the hay. Everypony’s gettin’ themselves washed up for bed, so y’all git to it too, ‘kay?”
Noticing the look of dismay in her friends’ faces, Applebloom spoke up, “We were…just gonna do that, sis!”
Applejack cocked an eyebrow and glanced between the three of them. “All three of ya at once?”
“Sure!” Applebloom took to shoving her friends out the door and past the confused, sleepy eyes of her elder sibling. “It’s uh…how we do it in school!”
The remaining crusaders nodded their heads in rapid succession. Applejack eyed them all again, but eventually just shrugged. “Don’t play with th’ bubble bath again. Y’all know what happened th’ last time.”
“We won’t!” The three sang in unison, the bathroom door swiftly shutting behind them. Applejack watched the door until it clicked in place before turning on her hooves to check up on a few things around the house before bed.
“…school sure ain’t the way ah remember it no more,” she muttered.
* * * * *
It took nearly five minutes for the three filles to organize themselves on the bathroom’s single stepstool such that they could all look into the mirror at the same time. They traded a few jabs about one another’s size and made a three-headed monster joke before Scootaloo finally cleared the air.
“So are we gonna do this or what?”
“Ah’m just here to prove this ain’t nuthin’ but a bag of rotten black crabapples,” Applebloom shrugged. “This is Sweetie Belle’s thing. She should do it.”
Sweetie Belle stared at her reflection until a stinging sensation in her eyes reminded her to blink. “Scootaloo should do it. She was the one that was scared.”
Scootaloo blanched. “What? No way! Applebloom should do it! She was the…the one that…the one that doesn’t believe in it!”
“So that means y’do believe in it after all?” Applebloom grinned.
“Of course not!” Scootaloo barked, her ears flicking in annoyance. “Just…you were the one who was all ‘it’s not real, it’s not real, blah blah blah’! You’re probably terrified and are just trying to hide it! Don’t you want to know who your very special somepony is?”
The color in the young farmpony’s cheeks deepened. “Ah ain’t got no very special somepony! Maybe you’re the one that wants to know!”
Sweetie Belle held up a hoof. “Hey, hey! Let’s just all do it at the same time, okay? We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, right? We can handle anything if we do it together!”
Invoking the special title that bound them all together as friends silenced further argument. Holding onto one another, the three touched their cheeks together and fixed their reflections with a confident stare. In unison they began their chant.
"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."
"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."
"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."
"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."
"Shipshape, Shipshape, everypony needs a date."
The clacking noise the stepstool made as it fell over echoed throughout the empty bathroom. A warm summer breeze wafted in from somewhere up in the starry night.