Rainbow Dash's ears tickled with laughter. She looked over from where she perched in a dead tree along the edge of the Everfree Forest.
Stu and Applejack were just finished with packing up the last empty baskets into the apple cart. Most of the pegasi had flown away, leaving Rainbow and a few of the Cloudsdale Weather clerks lingering along the woodland fringes.
"Hah hah hah!" Applejack guffawed, waving a hoof. "Stop it! That's too much!"
Stu smirked. "Well, it's a proven fact that pegasus flight formations are always ruined by spontaneous flatulence!"
"Hahah... I simply refuse to believe that hogwash!"
"Pffft! You'd wish for hogwash instead! Believe me! Have you ever smelled a fart flying into your nose at eighty-five miles per hour?"
"Snkkkt—hahaha! Good lordy, Stu..."
"This one time, at flight camp, they let us eat baked beans for lunch. Nopony could fly straight for a solid three hours afterwards! And believe me! We tried!"
"Hahahaha... whew..."
"I think we would have been a lot better off if we weren't practicing wingponying that day. Yeesh... I got to know my flight mate's insides pretty well that afternoon. But hey... that's what you get when living in a cloud. Just one big... floating water fart."
"Snkkkt... heehee... Celestia spare us all..."
"Heh heh heh..."
Rainbow Dash's nose scrunched and unscrunched. She gazed deep into the Everfree Forest... gnashed her teeth... then flapped her wings. Fwooosh! She hovered above the wagon, suddenly sporting a smile. "Say... uhm... hey, Applejack. Do you... y'know..." She gestured at the cart. "Need help pulling that home or anything?"
"Hahahah... nah, sugarcube," Applejack said. "We got it just fine."
"Oh... erm..." Rainbow gulped. "You do, huh?"
"Besides... I ain't particularly in a hurry to get back to Sweet Apple Acres," she said as she hitched herself to the front of the cart. "It's such a nice... cool... breezy evenin'. Stu and I were fixin' to just stroll along and gab for a bit." She looked aside. "If that's okay with you."
"Oh! I've got nowhere else to be!" Stu smirked. "You know... living in Ponyville has given me a new appreciation for what it means to just... trot places and get a feel for one's surroundings."
"Alright, T.S. Hayliot. Nobody was askin' ya to get all poetic." Applejack rolled her eyes. A twitch of her ears, and she smiled up at the other pegasus. "Yer welcome to join us, if you want."
"Join... you...?"
"Yeah! I mean... shucks..." Applejack adjusted her hat with a smirk. "Feels like ages since we caught up! I've been busy... you've been busy..."
"I've been busy too!" Stu said with a grin.
"Erm..." Rainbow winced. "You haven't... both been busy, have you?"
"Huh?"
"I mean!" Thwooosh! Rainbow Dash flew down and sat in the cart, situating herself between Applejack and Stu. "Sounds awesome! Let's stroll back to town together!" The hint of a devilish smirk. "...catch up... all three of us."
An hour and a half later...
Rainbow Dash's smile was gone, replaced with a dull, drooping muzzle.
Her ears ached from Applejack and Stu chatting and laughing on either side of her as they rolled down the dirt path that skirted the edge of town.
"Hah hah hah!" Applejack grinned, looking over Rainbow Dash's head. "And so... when the rich, hoity toity businessstallion from Upper Manehattan asked me who did my mane, I was all 'You want it? I can cut it off for ya!'"
"Hahahaha!" Stu held a hoof over his chest. He smirked over Rainbow Dash's shoulder. "Yeesh, you didn't hold back when you were a kid?"
"I-I know!" Applejack wiped a tear from her eye, smirking. "Eheheh... Auntie Orange tells me that I even grabbed a carving knife and tried cuttin' my hair off for the feller."
"Whoah! You mean you don't even remember it?"
Rainbow looked aside as Applejack replied.
"Pffft! I was tinier than a pile of apple-seeds at the time! Almost everythang I remember about that trip to Manehattan was just how plum homesick I was."
Rainbow looked to the other side as Stu spoke.
"Well, no wonder you were distracted. Did you end up giving your mane to him?"
"Pfft! Of course not. But when next summer came, Granny Smith sent me to Camp Friendship instead of Manehattan. Boy, that sure did keep me occupied. And I kept my mane too!"
"Camp Friendship, huh? Did you meet anypony special there?"
"Eenope!" Applejack smiled over Rainbow Dash's head. "How about you, Stu? Ever did anything embarrassing as a colt?"
"Erm... well." Stu brushed a hoof through his mane. His eyes twinkled from the starlight above. "When I was super... super little, I might have accidentally touched the exhaust pipe of a cloud-making machine."
"Get out of town!" Applejack giggled. "Why on earth would you have done such a thing?"
"I dunno! I got second degree burns all over!" Stu chuckled dryly. "Had to wear a sock over my fetlock for a month so I wouldn't hurt myself while trotting."
"Hahahah... awwwwwwwwww..."
"Heh. It sounds cute. You ask me, it was just plain stupid."
"Yeah, well, stupid can be cute, y'know."
"Heheheh..."
"Heh heh heh..."
"Uhm..." Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, ears perking up. "This one time... I... uh... outflew another colt so fast that I sent his body slamming violently through a column of sky marble! Heheh! Heh..."
Applejack blinked.
Stu winced. "That... that sounds... erm..." He cleared his throat. "...adventurous?"
"He wore a neckbrace for half-a-year!" Rainbow's voice cracked. "That's... that's cute, right?"
"Ehhh... uhm... I suppose..." Applejack wheezed.
Stu blinked. "Was it a pink neckbrace?"
"Err..." Rainbow fidgeted where she sat on the wagon. "I don't remember."
"Huh. Well then." Applejack glanced forward—then suddenly brightened. "Oh! I just remembered something?"
"What's that, AJ?" Stu asked.
"Heheh... this one time—according to Auntie Orange—I mistook the apartment's ironing board for a bed. So I slept in it one night, with a blanket and everythang, y'know?"
"Go on..."
"Well... eheheh... reckon this next part is plum embarrasin'..."
"Honesty never hurt you before, huh?"
"Well, as a wee little filly, I always had... erm... trouble holding it in at night..."
"Oh no..."
"And... to make a long story short... when Uncle Orange went to iron his workshirt the next morning..."
"Oh goddess—snkkkt—"
"I swear! It's a miracle the whole apartment complex didn't smell it! Snkkkt—hah hah hah! Ohhhhhhhh heavens to betsy, I did so many silly little thangs. It's downright crazy I made it to adulthood in one piece."
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth—
"Say! That reminds me of this one time I had to babysit for my cousin's infant one week in Las Pegasus."
"Oh gosh. Do I wanna hear this story?"
"I dunno. Do you?"
"Trick question! Hah! Lay it on me, Stu!"
Rainbow Dash stifled a groan. She slumped until she rested her chin on two hooves. Meanwhile, Stu and Applejack continued their aching conversation directly over her skull.
"So, you see, I was in Las Pegasus for the week and my family caught wind of it. So, naturally, they asked me to look after their little one when all I expected to do was hang out at the casinos and try my luck. But then out of nowhere—"