"Good morning, Applejack!"
"Mornin', Twi." Applejack waved as Twilight came climbing up the path to Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight thought Applejack was impressive, the way she was always at work on some thing or another.
"What's going on, Applejack? Anything exciting?"
Applejack chuckled to herself. "Sorry, Twi. If you were lookin' for excitement, here's not the place to get it. Rainbow 'r Pinkie might be more your speed."
"Oh. Well, it's been a while since I've been by, so maybe I could stick around and chat?"
"'Appreciate the offer," Applejack said, "but I'm mighty busy today. Ain't gonna have much time for gossipin' like wood larks. Ah'll see you 'round, Twi." Then Applejack turned around and headed back into the barn.
"W-wait!" She hadn't expected Applejack to so quickly brush her aside. "Can't I stay, maybe help you with the work?"
"'Less you know howta bale hay and detangle all the brambles out'f it, you'd only be gettin' in the way. No, thank'ye kindly." She said all this without even turning around. She only kept pulling down her pitchforks and hay bale ties as she spoke.
"Come on, there really must be something I can do to help!"
Through gritted teeth, she responded, "Please, Twilight, you're distracting me."
"I'm sorry, I didn't... what?" It wasn't the words that stopped her this time, but the intonation. Whether Applejack had intended it or not, that one word--distracting--had carried more... more rancor than Twilight had ever heard in any one pony. As though it were only Twilight's position and magical power that kept Applejack from jumping on her and pummeling her into mulch.
Applejack must have read Twilight's facial expression, because she loosened her tensed-up muscles immediately and tried to smile. "I 'pologize, Twi, but I really am busy. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow. You could get the rest of the girls, make a day of it."
If that had been meant to assuage Twilight's concerns, it had the opposite effect. "Wait, is it just you and me, then? You don't want to hang out with me alone? What's the matter?"
Applejack's face darkened further. "Nothing's the matter, I'm just busy right now!"
That tone again! "If there's something you're not happy about with me, you can just say it, you know. I'm your friend; I can take it."
"Consarn it, Twi, I don't like you! Now leave me alone!" At this outburst, all of the pitchforks in her mouth tumbled to the ground, and she grumbled and cursed while she tried to pick them back up.
Twilight felt like her entire body had frozen up. Space and time seemed irrelevant in that moment. Everything was upside-down and wrong. "You... you don't... I... I don't... I can't..."
"Ah thought you said you could handle it," Applejack said.
"I thought I could, but to hear you say something like that..."
"What, that I don't like you? Why does that matter to you?"
"We're the keepers of the Cutie Map; before that, we were the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Being friends is literally in the job description!"
"No, it ain't!" Applejack turned on Twilight in an instant. "Mah 'job description' is to hang around with you, keep you from gettin' yerself killed, 'n teach you about Honesty! None of that, not a bit of that, says I need to like you."
"If you didn't like me, why would you hang out with me? Why would you protect me?"
"Because it's my job! Ah swear, do you even listen to anypony but yerself?" Applejack stormed over to the other side of the barn and waved her hooves about in an apoplectic fit.
"So you're only nice to me because you have to," Twilight said slowly, as though the words were in a foreign language.
"That's about the long 'n the short of it, yes." Applejack paused for a moment to catch her breath. She added, "Don't feel bad none, Twi. I don't like most ponies. I have to be nice to them when I'm sellin' apples, or when I'm savin' em from stampedes 'r whatnot. But I try t'keep my interaction with 'em to a minimum. Livin' on an orchard miles from the rest of 'em helps an awful lot."
"So who do you like--"
"My family," Applejack said, quick as light. "Ah love them with everythin' I've got."
"...Right." Her head was still swimming, so she sat down and tried to put her life back together while Applejack got back to work collecting her hay-baling supplies. “...Can I ask…?”
“Hmm? Oh, why I don't like you?” Applejack asked. “Thought I'd made it clear by now. You're uppity, smug, self-centered, a know-it-all, and too ambitious for my liking. You think your magical powers and your transformation into a princess make you better than ponies like me with our hooves on the ground. Honestly, I don't know how the rest of them get along with you. Maybe they fake it, too.”
“They don't! They're not completely heartless like you!”
“Oh, really?” Applejack stomped over towards her, almost sneering. “Ya don't think Fluttershy's dead terrified of you and only treats you nicely 'cuz she's afraid you'll stop being nice to her at any moment? Ya don't think Rarity's jealous of yer position and yer background, and that she only treats ya nice 'cuz she thinks it'll get her a marriage with some snooty prince? Rainbow Dash thinks you're just a joke when you're not being a stick in the mud, and Ah think Pinkie Pie speaks for herself.”
Twilight gasped. She'd only just had that conversation with Pinkie. Had Applejack figured out Pinkie's “facade” all on her own? She found herself struggling to come up with the words to definitely prove Applejack wrong. There was that one time… no, she'd only been helping with a problem then. There was that picnic… but no, all six of them had been there, so they all would have been trying to look nice in front of everypony else. The Amblene paradox at its finest, she thought to herself. But if that were true…
“Do any of our friends like any of the others?”
“Couldn't tell ya.” Applejack shrugged. “Not my problem.”
“You've…” Twilight swallowed, but her voice wouldn't rise out of a death-whisper. “You've ruined everything. Every time I talk to one of them, I'll be second-guessing our conversation. Is Rarity actually being generous, or is she just trying to schmooze me? Does Fluttershy want me around at all, or is she one breath from bolting? I… I feel so alone now. Like I'm back to that little filly in Canterlot… It's all gone.”
“You're welcome. Now please.” Without turning away from her tools, she gestured to the barn door.
Twilight took a few slow steps in that direction, but she needed to get one last barb out of her system. “I… I don't ever want to see you again, Applejack.”
“Sorry, but it don't work like that.” Applejack hefted the pitchforks and balanced them on her shoulder. “We've still got our jobs to do.”