A rooster crowed its morning song to the horizons as Celestia's sun rose to existence, lighting up the town of Ponyville to a new day. Its hues of orange light painted the sky, clashing against the white turfs of cloud scattered against the scene as if the Pegasi were not too sure what they wanted to do with them the day previous.
While many ponies preferred to remain in bed during this time, opting to get a couple hours of extra sleep, the farmers of the town tend to awaken at this hour to get an early start to their chores. Cause, as the old saying goes, the early bird gets the worm.
Applejack rose to this new day, a lot less glum then on the one previously. Beaming a brilliant smile out towards the partially cloudy day, as if not even the sub-par weather could get her down.
And why would it? Yesterday she had finally bagged the colt that she had been crushing on for as long as she could remember. And, as an added bonus to an already great prize, she found out that he had been feeling the same for her for as long as he could remember too!
She practically skipped out of her room, along the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen, finding Granny, Mac and Applebloom sitting down to their breakfast of honey oats and milk. They looked up at her as she sat at her place and gave them a smile. “Howdy y'all!”
“Why yer as chipper as a cat with a new ball o' yarn,” Granny replied, raising an eyebrow at her. “Did somethin' happen wit' yer friend yesterday?”
“Yeah AJ, did somethin' happen wit' yer friend?” Big Mac also inquired, putting extra emphasis on the word 'friend', as if trying to imply that her friend was anything but. After all, he and Rainbow made sure everything played into their hooves so that Applejack and Soarin could finally admit their feelings towards one another.
Applejack gulped down her mouthful of oats and grinned nervously. “Uh...Well Ah guess...”
She was interrupted, however, by the voice of her little sister. “She got a coltfriend Granny!” She declared, having seen her sister and the Wonderbolt that frequently bought baked goods from them hanging out around the fair yesterday, leaning against one-another, nuzzling into each-other's cheeks and just doing everything else that 'typical couples' do.
She honestly thought it was a little clichéd but, hey, as long as it got her sister out of her funk the days before that, then she'll take clichéd any day!
“Applebloom!” The orange pony hissed, blushing bright red, unaware that the littlest Apple pony even knew about her relationship status.
Granny, however, didn't seem to care who the information came from and just smiled ear to ear. “Well good fer you, honey, Ah was wonderin' when you were goin' ta git around ta that,” She said, relieved as she nudged Big Mac on tha shoulder. “Took this'n longer than Ah'd wanted, but Ah didn't think he'd beat ya to it! Now ya might be able ta bear some more little'uns fer tha family before he does!”
Big Mac spat his milk out, causing a spray of dairy to paint the table in front of him and his chin, and gave a wide-eyed look back. “Granny!”
“What? Ya didn't think Ah'd want great grand-foals 'fore Ah kick tha bucket, ya darn tootin' Ah want great grand-foals!”
“So are they gunna make an order ta tha stork?” Applebloom inquired, innocently, causing Applejack to shake her head.
“Neither o' us is gunna be orderin' from him anytime soon!”
“Aw shucks, that mean Ah'm gunna have ta wait fer lil' Bloomy ta come o' age?” The two elder siblings cringed when they heard that, because it could only lead to one response.
“Hey! Ah'm old enough ta have a foal! Ah'll go have a foal right now if'n ya want, Granny!” The two scrambled to grab Applebloom before she ran off.
“Applebloom! No! You're not givin' another letter ta Fluttershy askin' fer a foal! We're still tryin' ta explain that one ta her!” Applejack stressed, her hoof wrapping around her hind leg while Big Mac grabbed her tail with his teeth.
“Eeyucsh!” Big Mac replied, sort of muffled by the red fur in his mouth.
Applebloom pouted and trudged back to her seat, after her siblings had released her, and slumped back in her seat, folding her forehooves in a grumpy manner.
Granny, however, laughed out loud. “Applebloom still thinks foals come from tha stork! Ya outta tell her tha truth ya know?”
“What truth?!” Applebloom replied, shocked by the new development. Big Mac and Applejack just turned to her, shocked.
“Granny!”
“Granny!”
“Mac, AJ?” Granny replied to them confused.
“AJ!” Applebloom whined, pulling on Applejack's leg.
“Applebloom!” Applejack stressed to her, shaking her head.
“Pinkie!” Pinkie yelled out, bursting in through the front door.
“Pinkie!” The other four yelled back in surprise of her sudden appearance and sort of confused as to why she was here.
“Sorry for bursting in like this, guys, but Rarity's called an emergency meeting!” The pink pastry ninja replied, grabbing AJ by one foreleg and Big Mac by the other. “I'll drop 'em back off in twenty-five minutes and twenty seven point nine seconds!”
Before Granny or Applebloom knew what was happening, or even before Big Mac and Applejack did, the red and orange ponies were suddenly whisked away in a blur of pink.
A few awkward seconds passed before Applebloom shrugged and took their remaining oats and started eating them herself, only receiving a grin and a shake of the head from her grandmother.
“So Rarity, why did you call us all here again?” Twilight asked, stifling a yawn at the end of her sentence, wishing she could join Spike who was blissfully napping on her back.
Rarity turned to the Princess and calmly passed her a cup of coffee that she had taken to making for everyone when they arrived. She was aware of how early it was, of course, but the situation called for a meeting of all their friends. So she enlisted Pinkie to gather everyone while Cheese...
...Well she didn't actually know what he's currently doing.
She shook the thought from her head and smiled at her. “All will be explained when the others are here, Darling, just please try to remain awake,” She then glanced at her back. “That includes you Spikey!” She added in a slightly sharper tone.
“Dear Celestia, not the bees!” He cried out, falling over the other side of Twilight's back and landed on the ground in an unceremonious heap.
The two rose an eyebrow at the strange remark but decided against asking about it. Opting, instead, to supply him with a topaz. Apparently some sort of 'high energy' crystal according to him.
“Okay Rarity, I got Soarin,” Thunderlane called from the doorway before wiping his hooves on the welcome mat, as per tradition in the Carousel Boutique, and instructed Soarin to do so.
Soarin gave his friend a puzzled look. “We flew the entire way, my hooves are clean,” He said, twirling his hoof in front of Thunderlane's face. The dark-grey Pegasus just rolled his eyes.
“Just do it, Soarin, it'll take five seconds out of your day,” Soarin rolled his eyes back and dragged his four hooves across the mat in an exaggerated manner.
“Happy?”
“Thrilled,” Thunderlane joked, punching his friend in the shoulder, playfully, getting a laugh out of him. Twilight turned to look at Rarity with a confused look.
Rarity noticed this and answered the unasked question. “They find it amusing to joke about nothing.”
“...Huh?” Twilight replied, even more confused. How can you joke about nothing? That simple answer just raised even more questions.
Luckily for Rarity's mentality, Twilight's questions were put on hold when Pinkie burst through the open door and pushed Applejack and Big Mac into the room, before leaving again.
The two Earth Ponies blinked in confusion, now being in the decorative and fancy Carousel Boutique as opposed to their plain and rustic farm house.
“AJ!” Soarin exclaimed, happily, nuzzling his cheek into hers. Applejack chuckled a bit at his sappiness, but reciprocated in kind. Mac, for his part, just grinned jokingly.
“Yeah an' you give me an' Rainbow a hard time,” He stated before spying coffee on the table and rushed over there like Winona being offered a treat.
The two ignored him and pretty much everyone else in the room, before they heard a loud sigh of relief. “Oh finally! I thought you two would never get that sexual tension sorted out!”
“Spike!” Twilight scolded the young dragon. Though, honestly, she couldn't blame him for saying it. The two had been skirting around the metaphorical bush for months.
“What? You know it's true! I swear if they waited any longer they'd of probably given everyone else in the world the blue...”
“Okay Spike! Seriously! Knock it off!” Twilight stressed, grinning sheepishly at the couple who had blushed bright red. Rarity and Thunderlane, having sussed what Spike was about to say, had given him a surprised look while Mac had started to turn green.
“Aw, Spike! That's mah sister you're talkin' about!” Mac shuddered, trying his hardest not to think about it.
Luckily, Pinkie came as a welcome distraction as she entered the room again, this time dropping off a scared looking Fluttershy in the middle of the room as well as a sleeping Rainbow Dash.
“P-P-Pinkie!” Fluttershy yelped, hugging a mess of white fur, that may or may not be Angel, against her chest. “H-How did y-you get into m-my house?!”
“With my keys of course!” Pinkie declared, taking a massive ring of keys out of her mane. “I have a key to every building in Ponyville! For breaking and entering emergencies.”
The whole room stared at her for a solid minute before Twilight's horn lit up and swiped the keys from Pinkie's hoof, quickly teleporting them into the library to be destroyed later. Pinkie's eyes widened in horror as she stared at Twilight. “No! Now how will I be able to help if someone gets locked in a building or falls over with no-one else around or...”
“What're all of you guys doing in my room?!” Rainbow cried out as she was awoken by the aroma of the coffee that Rarity was waving under her nose.
“We're not Rainbow, you're in Rarity's living room,” Spike explained, taking another bite out of his topaz.
“Oh...” Rainbow replied, swiping the coffee out of air and taking a mouthful of the, now lukewarm fluid. The information then processed in her mind and she spat out her mouthful, sending the spray onto the coffee table. “Wait, what am I doing at Rarity's?!”
“I brought you here, silly!” Pinkie said, as if that explained how she magically got into her cloud-house, found her room, picked her up without waking her up, got down from her home and rushed to the Carousal Boutique...
...But then again, this is Pinkie.
So Rainbow just nestled herself onto the sofa, between Mac and Fluttershy, and sighed through her nose. “Yeah, okay, whatever.”
“I think that's everypony,” Rarity declared, before Pinkie rushed towards the hall closet and pulled Cheese out of it, who was smiling as if nothing had happened. “Um...What were you doing in the closet?”
“Well I couldn't come out of the closet unless Pinkie said I could!” Cheese replied, not noticing the weird looks he was getting.
“Why does Pinkie want you in the closet?” Spike asked.
“She's afraid I'll go off on the road again if she doesn't know where I am one-hundred percent of the time!” He answered again, as if he wasn't basically being held against his will.
“...Yeah, okay, whatever,” Everyone just mumbled, not sure if explaining what Pinkie was really doing to him would actually get...well...either of them to understand the full implications of it.
They all turned back to Rarity, still unsure of why they were there. To answer them, she levitated todays newspaper and dropped it on the table.
They were confused at first, before the headline and the picture finally registered to them.
“Wonderbolt And Farmer Make It Official?!” Applejack cried out in horror, swiping up the paper, noticing the picture of her and Soarin on top of the Ferris Wheel, lips interlocked and holding onto one-another. Her hat was slightly askewed and their manes were slightly messed up...this was obviously taken on their second trip up.
The group had mixed reactions. Soarin, though slightly worried, was mostly jaded about media coverage by now, good and bad so could easily put his mind at ease...mostly. Fluttershy and Twilight were a bit red in the face at seeing a snapshot of one of their closest friend's most intimate moments.
Rarity and Thunderlane had already seen the picture so had already gotten their reactions out of the way. Cheese and Pinkie were whispering to each-other, the words 'get-together party' being overheard more than once. Spike looked worried, remembering the Gabby Gums incident a couple of years back and how much that affected the group. Rainbow was letting out a few barely heard giggles and Mac...was looking very green in the face again.
“Ah geez! Nuzzlin' Ah could cope wit'! This is jus....GAH!” Mac cringed, having just seen his sister and one of his closest friends making out in a picture. Rainbow suddenly couldn't help but laugh with the combined hilarity of her coltfriend's and best friend's reaction to the picture, trying her hardest to contain it with her hoof.
“Rainbow, this is serious!” Rarity scolded, taking a magical hold of Rainbow's ear and yanked it, causing the prismatic mare to yelp and swat at the air around said ear, as if trying to get the Unicorn away from it.
“What tha heck is wit' this article?!” Applejack exclaimed again, after readin through it a little. “ 'Yes mares of Equestria, it's true! The playcolt, Wonderbolt Co-Captain has publicly made his relationship status known when he (Seen left) was seen kissing the local apple supplier to the small town Ponyville, Applejack (Seen right).' ”
“Oh wow, sure! Leave out Element of Honesty, hero of Equestria and rodeo champion, at least, eight years running!” Rainbow complained, throwing her hooves into the air. Rarity shook her head.
“They couldn't print that, it'd be boring,"
Rainbow turned to Rarity, a confused expression on her face. "What do you mean, Rares?"
"You see, dear, if it was a story about a celebrity and a celebrity getting together it wouldn't be interesting and wouldn't sell papers. Celebrities are always getting together with other celebrities,” She explained, taking another sip of her coffee, only to realize it had gotten cold and made a face before setting it down. “No, most writers know how to leave certain bits of information out so the public can jump to their own conclusions. It's technically not lying, it's leaving things out certainly, but not lying.”
"...But why does it matter whether she's a celebrity or not?" Rainbow asked.
"Well, the ordinary public can then read the story and find out that there's a chance that a big name icon could possibly like them. They'd be able to create their fantasies for themselves and give them a little more merit," Rarity answered, before shrugging. "I can't say for certain that's true, but it's what I did when I still had a crush on...He who shall not be named."
“Oh listen ta this! 'If this is the mare he's gonna settle fer, or if he'll continue his search is still debatable!' ”
“What?!” Soarin yelled, moving closer to Applejack to look at the article to see that it did, indeed, say that. “Okay! I was willing to let the 'playcolt' thing go, but that's out of line!” He growled, taking note of the newspaper's name. The Daily Trumpet? What a weird name.
He shook the thought from his head, pecked Applejack on the cheek and took off out of the door much to the shock of the group.
But he didn't stop when they followed him out and tried to coax him back. They'll, no doubt, try to persuade him not to do this. But those pencil-pushers crossed a line. How dare they imply I'd ever cheat on her?!
It was one thing to judge him based on his single status before he met Applejack. But to judge him on his relationship before anything came of it was something else entirely.
He grinded his teeth so hard he swore he could feel a few chips of teeth in his mouth and he made his way to The Daily Trumpet's Ponyville headquarters.