Her Frontier

by FromTheMoon

Her Life

Her Frontier

By FromTheMoon

---

Chapter 1: Her Life

Boredom

Dullness

Repetitiveness

These were all things that seemed to plague Rainbow Dash nowadays. The prismatic Pegasus was used to doing so much more. It was she along with her friends that saved Equestria numerous times from the forces of evil. They had stood up to the darkness that was Nightmare Moon, held strong against the manipulative ways of Discord, fought an invading army of changelings, and even saved an empire from a powerful Unicorn King!

It seemed that those days were gone however. Nightmare Moon had reverted back into Princess Luna, Discord was by some unforeseen miracle now a ally, Queen Chysalis had not been seen in years, and the Crystal Empire was flourishing up in the frozen North. To top it all off now Twilight Sparkle had been crowned Princess. For once in a almost a millennia everything was perfect.

"Ugh, why does everything have to be so damn perfect around here now?"

Or at least everything was perfect for the other residents of Equestria. For Rainbow Dash however every passing day in PonyVille was now a living hell. Not the kind of hell where you get poked with sharp sticks and flung over vats of boiling lava. No, that hell would at least be somewhat exciting if you could handle the pain. This felt like the other kind of hell however, the kind where a pony is strapped to an upright bed and forced to watch paint dry for the rest of eternity. It wouldn't even be an exciting color of paint, it would be egg shell white.

Worst of all was that the rest of Rainbow Dash's friends were happy with everything being perfect! They didn't care for adventure anymore and wanted to just live out the rest of their boring old lives at home doing absolutely bucking nothing. It seemed like she was the only one who remembered that she was a national hero and she'd be deep in the ground before she let her vice grip on that loosen.

---

"Stupid annoying Mayor Mare, how can she possibly expect me to make sure that every single plant around the town center is watered properly? I mean don't we have professional gardeners that do this?" Rainbow Dash was finishing up placing the last rain cloud over the cherry blossom tree in the town center. "Oh Rainbow Dash! I don't mean to be a burden on you except I do since I'm much too lazy to get off my fat ass and do anything myself but since you were just about to take your afternoon nap how about you move all rain clouds to the center of town and water the plants hmmm?" Rainbow Dash said in a mocking tone. She finished up her job and flew off towards Sweet Apple Acres to meet Apple Jack for lunch and maybe even snatch a little shut eye in one of those comfortable trees. "How is this my life? I used to be an adventurous Pegasus that flew all over the place doing tricks and stuff while also being a hero for saving the world. Now look at me, I've been reduced to...ugh...gardening duty" She landed next to the local watering hole and walked up to the waters edge and stared at her reflection. Her reflection stared back at her with tired eyes and a horribly long face. She had bags under her eyes, her coat was losing its sheen, and worse still the colors in her mane were starting to dull. She angrily stamped her hoof and broke the stillness of the water shattering the reflection before flying back into the air towards her destination.

She would never admit it to any of her friends but she was not happy. Whenever she would see them she would put on a fake smile and just nod her head. "Of course it was easier for them to get used to boredom, before Twilight came to town all they lived was boring lives. I was the only one who actually loved to go on adventures in dangerous places. I was already used to life in the fast lane doing crazy stupid things! Heck if it wasn't for me they wouldn't even have their cutie marks!" She snorted angrily and squinted her eyes when her friends farm came into view. Apple Jack would probably be finishing up the day's Apple bucking...Apple Jack. "Wait a minute, the others would be content with their lives but Apple Jack had always been a fighter too! How can she put up with all of this boredom? Huh, maybe I'm not alone after all. OH OH maybe me and AJ can go on like a safari or something! I'm sure I could convince her its a great idea." Rubbing her two front hooves together eagerly she picked up the pace as she flew past the first apple tree.

"Hey Apple Jack! Yo AJ where are you?" Rainbow Dash landed on top of the farm house and looked around her surroundings for the orange Earth Pony. She always found it funny how every other pony in her family had a coat that matched an apple's color but Apple Jack was well...the color of an orange. Rainbow Dash took a deep breath before openning her mouth again "HEY APPLE JACK! WHERE ARE YO-"

"Sweet Celestia Rainbow will ya pipe down? My Granny is trying to sleep! I heard ya the first time." The voice seemed to have come from the window directly below the Pegasus. Rainbow looked over the edge of the barn roof and sure enough she saw a familiar face with a stetson perched on its head. "Oh s'up Apple Jack, so you ready for lunch? I seem to remember you saying that you were buying today."

The nonchalant way that Rainbow said this and the look on her face forced Apple Jack to let out a long sigh. "Well howdy to you too sugar cube. Yeah ah guess you could say ah'm a bit starved, didn't really have time for any chow this morning. Wait, when did ah ever say ah was buying? As ah recall last time was the fif' time this month you ducked out of the bill."

"Oh come on AJ, I mean that's what friends are for right? Paying the bills when you forget your bits in your other spare saddle bag. Besides you know I'm good for it, its not like I'm never going to pay you back." Rainbow flew down so that she could speak to Apple Jack face to face at the window. "Now how about we get a move on, I'd rather avoid getting stuck in line behind some old geezer from the retirement village."

Apple Jack gave Rainbow a stern look and thought to reprimand the Pegasus but thought better of it. "Ya'll know that there's a difference between forgetting yer' money and being too lazy to pay? Right?" Apple Jack wasn't sure if there was anything in her previous sentence that sounded offending but Rainbow Dash just simply blew up in a fit of anger in front of her. "LAZY!? Who are you calling lazy!? Maybe the rest of your girls are lazy now but not me! I'm like the only one that hasn't gone soft over the years!" Rainbow was huffing heavily, her breaths coming out in ragged bursts, and her wings flapping at an erratic rate. Apple Jack considered backing away from the window but held strong in front of her friend.

A few moments passed before Rainbow Dash manged to calm herself down. She looked at Apple Jack and was surprised to see that her friend was still there with her head poking out the window. Rainbow Dash wanted to speak but Apple Jack beat her to it. "So...that was definitely something. How bout' we go get lunch now. Some food might do y'all some good RD, ah'll be down in a minute or two."

"Right, yeah...maybe we should get going. I'll wait for you down at the farm gate AJ."

---

The two friends walked in silence from the farm back towards town. Rainbow Dash had simply nodded when Apple Jack had met her at the gate. Neither one of them were speaking to the other, at least until Apple Jack's curiosity got the best of her.

"So Rainbow, maybe y'all want to talk about what happened back..."

"No." Rainbow Dash stated bluntly.

"You sure? Something seems to picking at you like a humming bird to a flower."

"Uh huh, nothing at all is wrong with me, how can anything be wrong with everything being so...so..."

"Perfect?" Apple Jack finished.

Rainbow's ears perked up and she looked at her friend with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "You noticed it too AJ? I knew it! I knew I wasn't the only one bored out of her bucking mind around here! Listen I've actually got this great idea for us to go on a safari or some junk like that someplace dangerous. It'll be just like the old..."

Rainbow Dash was stopped in her tracks by Apple Jack stepping in front of her. "Easy there Rainbow, lets not jump on that wagon yet. Look ah know that life around these parts may have gotten a bit..."

"Boring, dull, repetitive, or d) all of the above?" Rainbow said sternly.

Apple Jack let out a small chuckle before continuing. "Okay look, ah know where you're coming from, sorta. Yeah life sorta slowed down for us now but that's not really that bad of a thing when you look at it the right way."

A sigh escaped Rainbow's mouth. "You're right AJ, looking at it the right way its not that bad of a thing."

A smile started to creep up on Apple Jack's face. "There, ah figured ah could talk some sense into..."

"ITS A BAZILLION TIMES WORSE!" Rainbow shouted at the sop of her lungs. She stared at Apple Jack with a fierce look in her eyes. Rainbow Dash was visibly shaking and for the second time that day Apple Jack considered leaving her friend. "No" She thought to herself. "That's not who I am."

With a roll of her eyes Apple Jack stepped out from in front of Rainbow Dash and began again to walk towards town. She looked back and saw that Rainbow was still standing in place. Apple Jack let out a shrill whistle. "You coming or not RD?"

Rainbow Dash wanted to speak but thought better of it. She realized that the next words that might come out of her mouth would possibly put a strain on her and Apple Jack's friendship. Better to stuff something into her mouth to both help her calm down and also to keep her from saying anything else stupid she thought.

---

The duo had walked the rest of the way to town without even so much as looking at each other. It was only after they had crossed the bridge that lead into town that Rainbow spoke again but not before carefully going over what she wanted to say in her mind first. "Look Apple Jack, I'm...i'm sorry for yelling at you back there."

"Come again RD? Ah don't think these old lazy and soft ears of mine quite caught that, mind repeating it?" Apple Jack looked back at Rainbow Dash with an expressionless face.

"I'm sorry."

"What was that?"

"I'm sorry."

"Third times the charm Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. "I said I'm sorry for acting like an asshole before. Both back on the farm and on the road here." Apple Jack walked up to Rainbow Dash and put her hoof around her showing a genuinely warm smile on her face. "Think nothing about it Rainbow but if ya don't mind ah'd really like to get m'ah hooves on some food. We can talk about this after lunch. That sound good to you?"

"I guess."

"Good." Apple Jack said obviously content with herself. "Now come on, ah hear there's this new place in town that just opened up last week. Been meaning to check it out for some time now."

---

The food been had been below sub-par and barely even edible. Supposedly the restaurant was one of those new age health food locales that had been growing in popularity recently."Ah'm paying forty bucking bits for this hogwash?" Apple Jack whispered to Rainbow across the table. Both Rainbow Dash and Apple Jack had ordered cucumber sandwichs believing there was no way that any pony in the world could screw up a simple sandwich. Although as they both soon discovered anything was possible. When Apple Jack had asked to speak to the chef they had been told there wasn't one. Their server claimed that most of the food was brought in and prepackaged from some factory in SanFrancisColt.

"Well ain't that just swell? Apple Jack stated once their server was out of earshot. "No chef, overpriced hogwash, and worst of all..." Apple Jack pointed to their two bottles of Professor Honey Dew's Real Cider. "The apple cider here tastes like mule piss." Both friends nodded their heads and poured their drinks on the ground, the only time either one of them had wasted apple cider.

Rainbow Dash let out a small laugh before turning to looking Apple Jack dead in the eyes. "So you gonna make me talk about what happened earlier today or what?" Apple Jack pushed her plate away from her before speaking. "Look here sugar cube, you and ah've been friends for years now, ah know when somethings eating you."

"Wait, AJ, so you're not mad at me for yelling at you twice today and acting like a total bi..."

"Rainbow..." Apple Jack started. " Ah'm not angry at you for yelling at me, although ah'm a little upset that you wouldn't trust me to help you out." Silence found the two friends for a moment before Apple Jack continued. "Now will ya please just tell me whats bugging you?"

The Pegasus closed her eyes and thought for a moment. She considered lying to her friend rationalizing that maybe it was best to just put her outbursts behind her as quickly as possible. She pushed that thought out of her head realizing that if she didn't get this off her chest now she would never do it. "Apple Jack, the truth is I'm not happy with my life right now. I guess you can say I even hate it."

"But why sugar?" Apple Jack asked with a tone of concern on her voice.

"Because...because everything is so bucking damn perfect!"

Now the farm pony was starting to put two and two together. It made sense with Rainbow Dash being well Rainbow Dash logic dictated that of course the Pegasus would get frustrated with nothing to do. "Rainbow Dash, life is good for all ponies in Equestria now. There's no more fighting, no pony goes hungry, and love along with kindness wash over the land around us."

"But AJ come on, you can't just sit there and honestly tell me that you don't miss the good old days when we would fight against the forces of Evil as heroes of Equestria. Compared to what we used to do now we might as well be nobodies."

Apple Jack took a moment to take in what Rainbow Dash was saying. "Honestly RD, ah do somethings wish things would go back to the way things used to be but life is just so much better now in the long run. With all the free time ah've had since Twi's coronation ah've been able to focus more on the farm. Look at Rarity, her boutique has grown now that she only needs to focus on dresses."

Apple Jack's words were starting to make sense to Rainbow but she continued to press the issue. "But what about Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie? I'm sure they..."

"Stop foolin' yer'self Rainbow. You know that Fluttershy never liked saving the world and the only reason she would go with us besides being the Element of Kindness was to make sure none of us got hurt. As fir Pinkie well...shes well...she was just being Pinkie Pie."

Rainbow felt a lump building up in her throat. She wanted to talk but Apple Jack wasn't finished yet. "Ah realize that you feel like you've had all your dreams crushed with the Wonder Bolts being..."

"I don't want to talk about that!" Rainbow Dash said sternly.

Apple Jack just simply rolled her eyes and sighed. "Rainbow when are you going to learn to let that go? It wasn't yir' fault."

"I know it wasn't my damn fault!" Rainbow Dash said loud enough that the entire restaurant was able to hear her before she lowered her voice again. "It was her fault."

"Look here Rainbow, Twilight had a point in shutting down the Wonder Bolts..."

"No she didn't! There was no bucking good reason for doing what she did!" Rainbow Dash said loud enough to get her point across but soft enough so that the rest of the restaurant wouldn't be able to hear her.

"She did Rainbow and whether you like it or not whats done is done. She had to make budget cuts some where for the Equestrian military spending and well she was right when she said that over the years the Wonder Bolts had been ineffective in dealing with disasters, invasions, and rampaging dragons."

Tears started to flow down Rainbow's face, she did her best to hide them from her friend fearing that she would also lose her image of being a strong tough pony. "I...I...I just don't know what to do with my life anymore AJ." Rainbow Dash said choking on her words. "My dreams, my hopes, my titles feel like they've all been taken away from me. I feel like I'm the only one in this world that's not happy! It's not fair, how come life is good to every pony else but not me? What did I ever do to deserve this!?"

Apple Jack felt her heart melt at the sight of seeing her friend so distraught. "Rainbow Dash look, ah don't claim to have all the answers to the whole dang universe, ah'm just a farmer after all. Ah can't go with you on any safari or adventure because ah've got responsibilities at home. Maybe all you need need is get of town for a little bit though, ah'm heading up in a few days to the North West Frontier to see family. Maybe you'd like to join me? Who knows it might actually do you some good." Apple Jack got off from her seat at the table and moved towards Rainbow placing her friend in a tight hug. "How does that sound?"

Rainbow Dash took several deep breaths before calming down and answering her friend. "Sure...if its okay with you I guess."

Apple Jack paid the check and both friends made their way out of the restaurant. Rainbow Dash thanked her friend with a hug before both went their separate ways. The prismatic Pegasus flew in the direction of her cloud home thankful that out of all the things she had lost over the years she still had most of her friends. She was glad that she'd taken AJ up on her offer believing that it was better than doing nothing in PonyVille.

Comments

[mist runner]

This is a start to a great story

[Skeeter The Lurker]

Question!

If this is adventure, why not tag it as such as well?

~Skeeter The Lurker

[schmitthappens21]

Its just Applejack not Apple Jack. Just sayin'

[notapony]

I can understand the point about dismantling the Wonderbolts as a military group because of budget cuts and ineffectiveness in dealing with threats to Equestria, but it seems like there could have been a better way to justify shutting them down. They were introduced as a stunt flyer group first in canon, before they later became established as a military unit as well. It seems like the Wonderbolts should have been justified by the income generated by their stunt shows alone.

[Yubella]

Now the farm pony was starting to put two and two together. It made sense with Rainbow Dash being well Rainbow Dash logic dictated that of course the Pegasus would get frustrated with nothing to do. "Rainbow Dash, life is good for all ponies in Equestria now. There's no more fighting, no pony goes hungry, and love along with kindness wash over the land around us."

Lie