That Thing We Do

by QuickFics

Well, That's Certainly...A Thing

The day after the horn-licking fiasco, Twilight was searching through the library in Canterlot Castle, hoping to find at least something that would explain how no pony had ever noticed the candy-like properties of unicorn horns before. It had been about five hours so far, and she hadn’t had any luck whatsoever. The only thing even remotely close that she had come across was a mention of a very sweet-tasting potion which had been banned long ago due to its inclusion of powdered unicorn horn, but that potion also contained a full cup of sugar, so it really wasn’t very surprising.
Her friends were helping to search the library as well, assuming that more hooves (and more importantly, more heads) would help the job to go more quickly. So far, none of them had discovered anything particularly interesting, either.
Twilight was just about to levitate another book down from the top shelf when she noticed Applejack walking over to her, with Rarity close behind. “Twi, we think you might want to know something,” Applejack said.
“What? Did you girls find anything?” Twilight asked, obviously hoping that the answer would be “yes.”
“Not exactly,” Rarity said. “But please hear us out.”
“See, the thing is, I don’t think that unicorn horns ever did taste like candy until yesterday,” Applejack said. She paused as if to let that fact sink in.
“How do you know?” Twilight asked. “It’s not like you go around licking ponies’ horns all the time.” She paused for a moment, and then cocked her head slightly, raising one eyebrow. “Do you?”
Applejack glanced over at Rarity, who nodded. “Well…uh…me and Rarity here kind of have this…thing we do sometimes,” Applejack said. “It’s not anything weird, you know – it’s just…uh…”
“She assures me that my horn had never tasted like marshmallow before yesterday,” Rarity said, picking up the slack after Applejack had trailed off in embarrassment.
“It’s true,” Fluttershy said, wandering over after having eavesdropped on the conversation. She immediately regretted saying anything.
“How would you know?” Applejack asked Fluttershy indignantly.
“I…uh…” Fluttershy said, seeming about to panic. Then, without warning, she flew away, fleeing before she could be asked any more questions.
Applejack turned back to Rarity. “You haven’t been…cheating on me, have you?” She was very hurt by even the thought of Rarity’s potential indiscretion. “With Fluttershy?”
“No! It’s not what you think. I…uh…” Now Rarity was the one who trailed off.
“We will have to talk about this later, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, barely keeping her anger contained.
“Okay, girls,” Twilight said, finally interjecting herself back into the proceedings. She felt a little bad for what she was about to ask, especially after what had just transpired, but she needed to know…for research purposes, of course: “Could you tell me a little more about this ‘thing’ you do sometimes?”
“That’s…private,” Rarity said slowly. “But really, you could probably infer…" She trailed off again, and then, looking back to Applejack, she said, “You know, if you could just be more open to…”
“To what?” Applejack said. “To what?”
“Never mind,” Rarity said. It had been a mistake to say anything – she was sure that there would be a better time and place to discuss their relationship issues than at this particular moment.
“Girls, please. This is important!” Twilight said. “I need to know what you’ve been doing so I can verify whether it truly means what it sounds like it means. If unicorn horns really didn’t taste like candy until yesterday, then something must have caused it to happen.”
“Fine,” Applejack said. “But don’t go spreading rumors or anything like that.” Rarity opened her mouth, seemingly about to protest, but closed it again when Applejack glared at her fiercely.
“Deal,” Twilight said. And so Applejack explained:

“Wow, that was certainly…a thing,” Twilight said when the story was finished. “I never even knew you could do that with a weather vane...” She definitely knew more about her friends now than she had ever known before, and probably more than she would have ever cared to know. Rarity had even chimed in a few times once it was clear that Applejack was going to go into every little detail whether she liked it or not.
Once the image of her friends doing…that…was sufficiently cleared from her memory, Twilight was finally able to return to the matter at hand. “Well, I believe you,” Twilight said. “But if unicorn horns didn’t taste like candy until yesterday, why do they taste like candy now?”

Off in his pocket dimension, Discord materialized another bag of popcorn from thin air and yawned. The relationship drama was interesting enough, and that story that Applejack had told was terribly titillating, but now that they were back to that question again, things were getting tiresome. The answer should be obvious – who else could have done something on that level? Picking up his remote control, he changed the channel to the Nightmare Network – “All Luna, all the time!”

Another hour or two had passed, during which the friends had switched gears in an attempt to figure out not why no pony had ever noticed unicorn horn flavorings before, but instead what could have caused them to be present in the first place. But even with this new direction in mind, there was still nothing to be found. Finally, they decided to give up for the day and try again in the morning.
“See you!” Rainbow Dash called to her friends as she dashed off. Hopefully no pony had noticed that she had been napping for half the day. Though she loved the Daring Do books, she still thought that dusty old library research was kind of an egghead thing.
Applejack and Rarity glanced at each other, and Rarity lowered her head and swiped one hoof submissively on the ground in front of her. “My place, eight o’ clock?” she asked, afraid that Applejack would refuse.
“Will we talk about the Fluttershy thing?” Applejack asked, her tone implying begrudging approval.
“Of course,” Rarity said, and they headed their separate ways, for a little while at least. As soon as she was sure Applejack wasn’t watching, Rarity turned toward Fluttershy’s cottage – they had just one hour to figure out how to get Applejack to agree to a threesome…