//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Fear Of The Fall // by TheVulpineHero1 //------------------------------// The Carousel Boutique was a trendy establishment, with a considerate owner and many interesting wares; therefore, it was frequented by many a pony, even from places as far off as Manehattan and Canterlot. However, if it had a flaw, which of course it did in the owner's mind, it was that so very few of those ponies happened to be Applejack. Rarity adored Applejack's visits, she really did, because they were just such an interesting stew of social conventions. Her farming friend was just so wonderfully ambivalent about everything, and it was a pleasure to speculate on the things she did. She secretly thought that perhaps AJ knew this, and was simply indulging her, but that was simply another layer of intrigue on top of a very delicious social cake. Their visits always went the same way, at first. The top priority was to shoo away Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, if they were around, a task which usually consisted of pointing one filly at the other, then nonchalantly mentioning some small hobby they hadn't yet tried. Things would be shouted, Scootaloo would be called, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders would visit havoc upon the streets of Ponyville, safely away from the Boutique. Rarity did not know exactly how many bits worth of property damage she had indirectly caused due to this strategy, but it seemed less than a thousand. The second step of Operation Applejack was tea. In many ways, this was Rarity's favourite part, because it was Applejack's least favourite part. Applejack wasn't a fan of tea in the first place, but absolutely despised the Lady Hay blend Rarity loved so much. Yet, despite Rarity asking her (every time, without fail, before a single sip had been taken) if she would prefer coffee, Applejack never once took her up on it. That was exactly the kind of thing Rarity adored. Was the reaction one of defiance, a signal that she was Applejack and she could drink tea with the best of them? Or perhaps a hint of compromise, bowing to the host's wishes? Perhaps a subtle blend of all of the above, with a little guilty pleasure thrown in to the mix? It was a thrill, and many times Rarity's own cup went cold before she had tired of her observations. Step three was the most volatile: small talk. Upon Applejack's first visit, Rarity had found herself completely taken aback by AJ's skill in the matter. The brief time spent in Manehattan as a filly had nevertheless taught the farmer how to talk, at considerable length, about absolutely nothing- a skill very few ponies outside the higher echelons possessed. The question of religion she left unanswered, and in politics she was perfectly neutral. Talk about controversial music went unlistened to, and diatribes about art went unobserved. No matter what topic Rarity breached, the farmer never put a single hoof wrong, and sat across from her wearing the small, polite rictus of the social elite, the little stifled grin that could say so many things at once. In Rarity's experience, Applejack's variant could mean one of two things: 'I have all the skills of a high-society mare. The only reason I behave the way I do is because it makes me happy', and, more interestingly, 'This is a side of myself that existed, once; you are the pony I choose to show it to.' Rarity could almost taste the potential scandal of it all. After roughly thirty minutes of rapier-point social manoeuvring, Applejack would clear her throat, a signal that she was now done indulging her friend and that it was time to get down to business. Today's conversation had reached just such a point. "So, Rare. Has Rainbow Dash paid y'all a visit in recent memory?" AJ asked, her business frown well and truly on. "Why, no, now that you mention it. Most rude of her, actually. I recently saw a dress and corset combination that would suit her down to the ground, darling, and you know I just had to throw my own twist on it when I got home-" "-and you wonder why she doesn't visit. Ah reckon it's hard enough to breathe at high altitudes without one o' yer fancy rib-breaking devices," AJ deadpanned. "Anywho, I spoke to her yesterday, and she was goin' to fly over here to get some advice from ya. Guess she must've got distracted." Rarity tittered behind one hoof. "Oh, so that's why she was flying so low in town! The poor dear hit a window. Did quite a bit of damage to that nose of hers, I'm told." "Well, ah can thank mah lucky stars fer double glazing, then. Y'see, I got to thinking, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to send her to you fer advice," Applejack said as gently as she knew how, which was not especially gently at all. "Oh! I never! Are you implying that my advice would be unhelpful?" Rarity asked, traces of a wail creeping into her voice. A wail, in Rarity's hooves, quickly became a whine, which quickly led to either the dropping of the argument or the evacuation of the building. "Now, now, Rare, I'm sure yer advice is plenty helpful, fer a certain definition of 'help'. But, hear me out. Now, I told her to go to you because her problem was all about the romance, and ah reckon y'all know plenty about that," AJ explained, tipping her hat a little further forward over her eyes. Rarity let out a squeal that quickly morphed into a veritable torrent of words. "Rainbow Dash needs romantic advice? Oh my, I never thought I'd see the day! Oh, I'll give her such a makeover that any pony worth two bucks would go gaga for her, you see if I don't, darling, and a few etiquette classes, too, nothing special, just how to perhaps eat a meal without half of it ending up on the other side of the restaurant. She'll be the most eligible bachelorette in Ponyville, mark me!" Rarity babbled. Applejack halted the monologue by tapping her hoof on the table in true manehattan style. Rarity caught her tongue and held it, a little positive reinforcement for AJ's new sense of manners. "Now, y'see, this is what ah was afraid of. Yer fallin' over yerself to push her into all this romance nonsense. Honestly, Rare, I don't think that's such a good idea." Rarity looked at Applejack. Mainly at her eyes. She was trying to ascertain if her farmer friend had gone mad at some time in the past five minutes. Or been replaced with some sort of evil, identical twin. "How could encouraging our friend to embrace amour ever be a bad thing, darling?" she asked pointedly. "'Cause she's not really interested in romance, Rare. She was just reading one of them Daring Do books, and got a little confused by some kissin' scene. It ain't like she's looking to get married. She's just tryin' to figure out if it's cool or not," Applejack sighed. She felt like she hadn't explained it very well at all. "Oh, how cynical! What if she's secretly lovelorn for some lucky suitor, her passions awakened by new and exciting experiences? What if she's languishing on a cloud this minute, hardly able to move for the heartache?" Rarity said theatrically, affecting a small swoon. "Rare, have you actually met Dash? She's probably more worried about what's for dinner than some romantic getaway. Anyhow, say she did suddenly get turned on to the idea of romance, which she shouldn't unless you start spouting nonsense into her ear. Who exactly do ya think her most likely crushes would be?" Rarity took a moment to think, magnanimously deigning to ignore the crack about her spouting nonsense. She sipped her tea as she did so, and was annoyed to find it quite cold. "Well, darling, the ponies she's closest to at the moment would be Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and yoursel- oh." "Yeah," Applejack snorted. "Oh. Ah can't speak for Pinkie and 'Shy, but I'd like to get some work done this year, and I don't think I'll manage it if Dash's hanging around my apple trees all day. Besides, y'ever consider that it might not be good for her? She's an athlete, Rare, trying to get into the Wonderbolts. She won't stand a chance if she's all distracted by silly crushes. But, say she does get in, one day. They're a travelling group. Y'all think Fluttershy'd bear to leave her cottage an' her animal friends to pack up and follow her when she has to move from town to town? Y'all think Pinkie Pie'd skip out on the Cakes after they gave her a home and a job? Y'all think I'd ever quit the family farm to traipse around Equestria after her?" Rarity was quiet. As much as she hated to admit it, Applejack had, in her over-practical way, got a point. A rather good point. An argument-winning point, in fact. One that didn't have any obvious counter. She would have to settle the debate by other means, then. A little lateral persuasion. It always worked with the Canterlot crowd. "I say, darling. You've given this a suspicious amount of thought," Rarity said finally, and watched all the colour drain away from Applejack's face, only to be replaced with something between crimson and puce. "Y'all keep yer smart-aleck observations to y'self! Ah'm just thinking of the best thing for m'friends, unlike somepony I know," the farmer blustered, flicking her tail so hard it almost cracked like a whip. "Now, you listen here, Rare. From what I figure, chances of that mare listenin' to yer advice are slim to none, but-" "But what, Applejack?" Rarity interrupted, with false sweetness. "-but just in case, I want ya to promise me you're not gonna try and sell her the moon with this romance thing. She's got it pretty good where she is, and she don't need to be riskin' it all on the hope of finding something better." "That's just sour apples, darling, and you know it," Rarity sniffed. "I shan't rob our dear friend Rainbow Dash of the chance to feel the most noble of emotions by underselling it. Love, darling, is the gift that keeps on giving." "Like your cookin', I guess. No one wants to get stuck holdin' it. Y'all do what you want, Rare. As fer me, next time ah see Dash I'll tell her straight-up how ridiculous this whole thing is," Applejack snorted, standing to leave. Her eyes were narrowed, and her tail still flicked from left to right. "Well, as long as you're being foalish, your advice is like your dress sense: unambitious, boring, and with no flair in the execution," Rarity said primly, before remembering her manners. "I hope to see you again soon, Applejack." The farm pony snorted, and opened the front door. "Yeah, well, hope harder. Thanks for the tea," she added, cursing her own manners, and shut the door firmly behind her. After Applejack's departure, Rarity cleared away the cutlery, and retreated to her inspiration room. There, she sat down, and she began to think. To do so, her friends would doubtlessly have remarked, was unlike her. Long hours of pondering did not suggest the effortless grace and confidence that she exuded, but they nonetheless produced a great deal of it. That was the crux of it all, the caveat in the terms: effort was the base of all beauty. Here, she had been presented with a situation that might be beautiful... The problem was that, her lack (or distaste) of refinement aside, Applejack was not a stupid pony, particularly when it came to supporting her friends. Everything the farm pony had said was, to a point, true, if you excused the crack about her cooking. Of all that, the most important points were, firstly, that Rainbow Dash probably wasn't all that hooked on romance, just confused by it, and secondly, that she probably wouldn't listen to any advice Rarity had to give on the matter, especially if it carried even a hint of so-called dweebishness. So, giving her pegasus friend advice she wouldn't like on a subject she probably wasn't especially interested in was not the way to go. Rarity liked this conclusion. She wasn't changing her plans because Applejack disapproved, she told herself; it was because they simply wouldn't work. Yes, that was it. However, the Daring Do book may well have created a chink in the armour, an opportunity for growth. It would be a waste to throw it away so easily. If events would just fall in such a way that Dash herself decided to take an interest in matters of the heart... Rarity, having found her conclusion, sighed. If events were to fall the way in which you wished them to, they usually required a helping hoof. Whilst she was sure she was quite capable of lending one, the whole idea of a concerned matchmaker secretly opening up a world of romance for an unwitting friend was, on the whole, cliché, passé, and smacked not a little of foul play; it was an idea dredged from the tattered pages of a two-bit romance novel. The thing to remember, she told herself as she reached for her diary and began to scheme, was that two-bit romance novels almost always had a happy ending. Elsewhere, Rainbow Dash had actually forgotten about the whole Daring Do thing. This was mainly because she was in trouble, which was much like saying she was solid: it was a fact, and short of some very dodgy spells from Twilight Sparkle, it would pretty much always be true. "Oh, Rainbow Dash, I can't- I'm sorry, but you...I really-" Fluttershy stuttered, managing to seem incredibly agitated whilst still being enviably graceful. "Listen, Fluttershy. I did something wrong. You don't have to be sorry. Let's take it from the top, okay? Say, 'Rainbow Dash, you are a jerk,'" Dash said. "Rainbow Dash, you are a...oh, I'm sorry, you're not a jerk, you're just a teensy weensy bit-" "No, no, no. Let's try something different, okay? Angel, you seem to wear the pants in this relationship," she said, looking across at the bunny who had free reign of the breakfast table. "Tell Fluttershy to tell me that I'm a jerk." Angel looked up at his pony and twitched his whiskers, which Dash took to mean that weird animal telepathy had occurred. Fluttershy finally nodded. "He says to tell you that you're a jerk and that you smell bad." "Okay! Awesome! Now that we've established that I'm a jerk and that Angel should make a habit of sleeping with one eye open from now on," she said, dropping an octave, "why am I a jerk, Fluttershy?" "Oh, Dash. You're not a jerk. You just don't, I mean, sometimes you-" Dash turned to Tank, sitting faithfully at her side, and sighed. "We're not getting anywhere, are we little buddy?" "It's just...I'm just so disappointed in you, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy whispered finally, in a voice that could break hearts. I almost got away with it this time, Dash thought, before being hit by a wave of guilt that had tamed dragons and cockatrices alike. She'd been trying forever to trick Fluttershy into being, like, normal-pony angry and just yelling, but no, she was Fluttershy, the gentlest and kindest pony in all Equestria, a fact she used like a cudgel to beat guilt into your brain. Delicately, of course. "I mean, I'm very sorry, but Tank may have saved your life once, and how do you repay him? By riding around on him and putting pressure on his delicate little back. That's not nice at all, Dash." If it had been any other pony, up to and including Princess Celestia herself, Rainbow Dash would have taken that moment to announce that Tank saved her life by letting her ride on his back, that back-ridership was one of the very building blocks of their relationship, and that he really didn't mind so long as she slipped him something delicious and semi-edible at lunchtime. But in Ponyville, there were rules and there were Rules, and one of the Rules was that if Fluttershy was angry at you then you deserved it, no questions asked. (Other Rules included 'Pinkie Pie never smells the same two days in a row,' and 'Never, ever, ever give Twilight Sparkle alcohol. Ever. Even if it's one percent proof. Even if it's only a drop. Even if that drop is only used to bake a rum and raisin ice cream cake. Even if that drop is spread across three rum and raisin ice cream cakes and then those cakes are then spread across five continents in the form of two million crumbs, that Twilight Sparkle will have to find and devour over the course of the next five hundred years. Just don't do it.') So, for the next five minutes, Dash followed the Rules and listened attentively as Fluttershy gave her such a gentle scolding that she couldn't help but want to rush outside and drown herself in the bird bath. The bird bath, of course, was just slightly too narrow and shallow for a pony with all the requisite facial features (nose, eyes, two thirds of a tongue) to drown themselves in. It was a comforting fact, because it suggested that she wasn't the first pony to have developed that response, and probably would not be the last. "So, tell Tank that you're sorry," Fluttershy finished, looking at her friend balefully from under her pink mane. "Tank, Fluttershy told me to tell you-" Dash began, but caught herself before her stupid mouth got her in even more trouble. "I'm sorry, Tank. I promise I won't ride around on you again." "Oh, how wonderful. He says he accepts your apology! Isn't that great?" the yellow pony said breathlessly. "I think I have some cake left somewhere from Pinkie's last party. We should celebrate this big step you've made, Dash." Dash flashed what Twilight had called the Accountant's Grin, the smile of a pony who has just made a promise and has every intention of keeping it, mainly by being more creative within the scope of that promise. For, whilst she wasn't going to be riding on her tortoise, she was pretty sure that, with the right harness and one of those little red wagons... "So, why did you come to see me?" Fluttershy asked, depositing cake upon the table. That was the nice thing about her lectures. If you could just resist the temptation to find the nearest body of water and hurl yourself into it, she'd be convinced you'd made a big step and that big steps should be rewarded with baked goods. One day, some nutty pony would land on the moon, and Fluttershy would be waiting there with a plate of victoria sponge to celebrate the giant leap for Ponykind. "Well, Pinkie says there's a Doozy on the way. The weather team managed to nix the last of those storm clouds thanks to my awesome efforts the other day, and Twilight says she's going to quit fiddling around with the space-time continuum...whatever that means. So, I came to ask you if there was anything screwy goin' on with the Everfree Forest," Dash asked, glaring as Angel stealthily crept over to the cake she had earned. "No, I don't think so..." "No cockatrices building pony rockeries?" "No, they prefer water features anyway." "No random outbursts of Poison Joke?" "If there is, nopony's told me." "No rampaging bears to speak of?" "At this time of year, they're all on picnics." "Huh," Rainbow Dash said, and thumped the table with her hoof. Ostensibly it was for dramatic emphasis, but pragmatically it was to get Angel the hay away from that cake. "Must be something to do with AJ or Rarity then. Maybe even AJ and Rarity." "I don't know, Rainbow Dash. Why do you think that?" Fluttershy asked, needlessly nervous. "Because everypony else in the gang is spoken for, and when have you known a crisis to not involve us?" Dash deadpanned. "Anyway, that's all I really came round for." "Well, I'll, um, keep my eyes open." "Thanks, Fluttershy. I'll go tell Twilight to talk to Rarity, and then I'll go see AJ later today. We'll head this thing off before it even starts! I'll see you at this week's flying practice, okay? I'll get a Rainboom out of you yet," Dash smirked, and reached over to affectionately muss Fluttershy's mane. Fluttershy's expression was caught halfway between terror and pleasure, which was at least better than the usual 25-75 ratio. "Oh, and thanks for the cake." "You're welcome. Good luck stopping the Doozy," Fluttershy said, following her to the door. "Hey, hey. You're talking to Rainbow 'Danger' Dash. I don't need luck. Keep safe, 'Shy, and tell Angel I'm going to murder him in his sleep," Dash said, scooping up Tank and taking off. Fluttershy watched her go, tracing the rainbow contrails with her eyes until they faded into the distance. "Angel? Rainbow Dash says she's going to-- oh, you heard? I'm sorry," she said to her little rabbit friend, and retreated back to the peace and quiet of her cottage.