An Internal Interlude
The night had not been kind to Rainbow Dash. After her admittedly enlightening run-in with Rarity, she had decided to do a few laps of Ponyville’s perimeter to let off some steam and mentally berate her insubordinate brain. She wasn’t exactly sure how the whole internal berating of her own mental faculties worked, (it seemed somewhat counter-productive) but there was clearly a disconnect going on between her muzzle and her mind, given that she could hardly control anything that came out of the former anymore. She was undoubtedly suffering from a serious case of Motor-Mouth Syndrome – Pinkie Pie had probably given it to her. It would be just like the party pony to infect her with something like that – hadn’t they shared a water bottle on their most recent pranking expedition? Sharing isn’t always caring, Pinkie Pie.
In any case, flapping about in a tizzy over her favourite little town had done little to calm Rainbow’s thoughts, despite the impressive number of barrel-roles she had performed, and so her newly rekindled concerns followed her into her home and under the covers, where she could presently be found tossing and turning in particularly emphatic turmoil.
“Nggh…Guh…Mmgh….”
Tank had ceased trying to latch onto and climb his pegasus’s dangling comforter long ago, and had settled for plopping down on the fluffy floor by the side of her bed, beady eyes open and trained on the one blue appendage he could spot from his chosen place of vigil. To him it was one appendage (pony anatomy seemed to blur together for a near-sighted tortoise) but with the amount of thrashing about the pegasus managed, it could just as easily have been a wing as a hoof or a tail that he observed flailing through his limited field of vision.
“Twilight’s starry seat-meat! Why can’t I fall asleep?” This latest exclamation was complimented by a rather vehement toss of her everything, and Tank quickly found himself enshrouded in darkness. Plush, warm, fabricy darkness, to be sure, but his sudden lack of sight was distressing all the same.
Rainbow Dash flopped back disconsolately onto her now naked bed, stretching her limbs as if she meant to reach all four corners of its surface at once, before withdrawing and curling into a tiny ball on her side. Her eyes, previously closed tightly – as if forcing them shut as hard as she could would induce the much sought after sleep – finally grew tired of glaring into the inside of their own lids and so opened to reveal dark rings and weary pupils. The relaxing effects of the sauna had long since worn off, and her mane and fur were ruffled in all the wrong ways, so that if anyone were to spot her through her open window (which would be odd and more than a little concerning, given the hour) they would be much more likely to dub her pathetically dishevelled rather than daringly windswept, which was a distinction that could be hard to make in the best of circumstances.
“Hey, Tank?” the voice that issued forth lacked the previous heat, and encouraged the loyal tortoise to blindly bump around beneath his impromptu tent at an increased pace. The change would have been imperceptible to most ponies, but Rainbow had acquired what she liked to call an in-built ‘Tank Sense’ that let her read his minute movements and expressions with an accuracy that could only come from prolonged interaction and attachment. “Aw, sorry, buddy.” Rainbow reached down and unearthed her pet from the ensnaring folds of her comforter, before rolling onto her back and plonking him down on her chest. The tortoise took this opportunity to nudge his knobby snout under her own, burying his wrinkly neck into her fur. The close contact both relieved and inflamed Dash’s concerns, given the nature of her distress, but it didn’t stop her from reaching up and wrapping a hoof around her tough little pet, using the other to stroke the smooth contour of his shell. He was particularly cuddly, for a tortoise.
“You know, sometimes I wish I was a tortoise like you, Tank,” said Rainbow absently, eyes wandering over to the fading stars outside her window. “Then I could just nap and eat cabbage and chill in my shell all day, and I’d never have to worry about girls or guys or feelings or hugging or anything.”
There was an almost painful nudge to Rainbow’s throat, and she realized that Tank had nipped her with his crinkly beak. His eyes were reproachful when they met her own. “Aw, crap, I didn’t mean it that way, Tank! I know you lo – er – ” Tank’s head creaked upwards, then downwards, before repeating the motion just as resolutely. “Alright, I know you love me. I love you too, you crazy reptile. I just…” she sighed, “I don’t even know anymore. Do you think – do you think I should keep going with the experiment?” Naturally Tank had listened quite closely to his pegasus’s rantings before she had finally collapsed onto her bed to continue the battle with her thoughts and pillows, and now he paused for a bit, clearly mulling over her question. Rainbow waited with unusual patience. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do this late. Or early. Whatever. And he was worth waiting for – Tank could be surprisingly wise for a pet that couldn’t talk. Or maybe he was wise because he couldn’t. Huh, my brain goes to weirdly philo-so-whatsical places when it’s sleep-deprived.
Just as the sun’s light was beginning to caress the horizon, Tank nudged his glassy-eyed owner, making sure she was paying close attention.
He nodded firmly.
Rainbow felt a small smile curve its way across her muzzle, and, strangely enough, a large weight lift from her shoulders, courtesy of the one currently propped upon her chest.
Tank observed his owner, taking note of the decreased frequency of the hoofstrokes over his shell, and the slower, more even breaths that moved his body up and down in tune with hers. Golden-pink rays were gracing the sky when he finally felt her drift off to sleep, and, his work done, Tank re-nuzzled into that perfect hollow above her collarbone, beak curled into a matching, if perhaps wrinklier, smile.
* * *
Mayor Mare was not impressed. Her morning coffee had been too cold and too sugary, she had nearly been scalped by a falling flower pot on the way to the office (she clearly needed to issue a ban on second story window boxes, if ponies were so unable to keep their plants in line) and now, to complete this unfortunate trifecta, the weather schedule for the following month was not perched primly upon her desk, as it should have been. After a cursory inspection of her papers and folders (though she could not imagine Dash taking the trouble to actually file the schedule, if her past submissions of “Oh, the schedule? Yeah, I chucked it on your desk” were anything to go by) it was obvious that no such document had ever been submitted, and that Mare’s day was about to get even more tedious. She pressed a button, which opened up a magic conduit between her desk and the secretary’s a floor below. “Flo, cancel my eleven o’clock meeting. I have a feeling that the weather schedule isn’t going to fly itself in here anytime soon.”
* * *
“Dashie!”
“blgh.”
“No, silly, it’s Pinkie Pie!”
“Blaghh…”
“I don’t know who this ‘Blaghh’ is, but if you wanted to hang out with them so much you should’ve asked me to invite them!” There was a very audible gasping noise, so that Rainbow Dash, currently in the process of trying to suffocate herself with her own pillow, could still hear it clearly in all its glory, “There’s a new pony in town and you didn’t even tell me?! Rainbow Dash, how could you?”
Rainbow Dash knew she needed to properly reacquaint herself with the world of the living, stat, or Pinkie was likely to drag her all over Ponyville in search of this new, non-existent foreign pony. “Hey, Pinks,” she mumbled lethargically, “‘mover here.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before her covers were yanked free and the cruel glare of sunlight assaulted her eyes. Too late, she realized that she was still clutching Tank to her chest, shading his shell with a wing.
“Aw, Dashie, you and Tank look so snuggly together!”
Rainbow quickly straightened, running a hoof through her mane and shielding her still-sensitive vision with the other. “Oh, uh, yeah. He gets really chilly at night if I don’t keep him close. You know, him being cold-blooded and all that.”
Such an excuse probably wouldn’t have flown with anypony like Twilight or Fluttershy, but Pinkie Pie took it in stride. Or bounce, given that she was dangling about under half a dozen balloons, her flailing earth pony hooves making temporary troughs in the floor. “Ooh, that’s so smart of you, Dashie! Gummy doesn’t usually like to cuddle, so I made him pyjamas instead!” her grin became even wider, the glare off of her teeth easily matching that of the pearly cloud walls behind her. “Ooh, I know! We should totally have a reptile slumber party! I could make PJ’s for Tank, too, and then him and Gummy could eat sweets and play games and all that fun stuff! And obviously we’d have to do it too, because we’d have to taste-test the sweets to make sure they were good enough, and play-test the games, to make sure they were fun enough.”
Rainbow Dash was completely fine with a reptile slumber party if it kept Pinkie off the topics of imaginary ponies named ‘Blaghh’ or her sleeping habits. The surprise that may have once accompanied Pinkie drifting in through her bedroom window while she was out like a light had long-since been replaced with a kind of amused resignation, and so Rainbow plodded off to the bathroom to snag a quick shower while the other pony rambled on about matching onesies and which type of pastry would be best for consumption by two toothless animals.
“And so I said, ‘what’s with the long face?’ Get it?”
“Gyah! Pinkie! Shower! You – out! Now!”
“Aw, what’sa matter, Dashie? It’s not like we ever really wear clothes, anyway. It’s like I’m talking to you in an itty bitty rainstorm!”
With a valiant gust of her wings, Rainbow Dash wafted Pinkie (still bobbing along on her balloons) out from her shower cubicle, muttering all the while. The words “personal space” and “boundaries” could be made out frequently. “Restraining order” may have also popped up once or twice, but if later asked Rainbow would say it was a heat of the moment sentiment that couldn’t possibly survive past a retasting of Pinkie’s triple chocolate layer cake.
Amidst the grumbling and muffled curses, Rainbow managed to wash up and towel off, and she re-emerged feeling twenty times better than when she had entered, interruption and all. She ran a hoof through her damp mane, spotting Pinkie floating over near the window, oddly silent. As she got closer she realized that Pinkie’s gaze was rather pensive as she surveyed the tapestry of Ponyville laid out before her. She was gripping Tank and petting him softly, much like Dash herself had been the night before as she had sought the elusive ghost of sleep.
“Uh, Pinks? You Okay?”
Pinkie whirled around, an impressive feat considering she was dangling from multiple unruly bags of helium. “I’m just dapper, Dashie! Why d’ya ask?”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, feeling like she had caught her friend in a moment she shouldn’t have. “Oh, well…I guess you just looked a little…thinky.”
Pinkie giggled. “Silly Dashie, that’s not a word. I like it!” she paddled through the air towards her, patting Tank on the head as she went. “Make way for Thinky Pinkie!”
Dash felt a silly grin work its way across her own features. “I think Tank likes Thinky Pinkie, too,” and she pointed to where the tortoise was arching his neck so Pinkie could scratch closer to where it met his shell, making the weird little crooning noises Dash assumed all tortoises made. Or maybe Tank was just funny that way. She couldn’t be sure.
“Well of course he does!” Pinkie chirped, “Everything’s better when it rhymes! Why do you think people like Zecora so much? The way she talks is fun on a bun!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, but the grin that had taken up residence on her face apparently wasn’t moving out any time soon, rent money be darned. “You would find a way to bring food into this.”
“Dashie, that’s it!” Pinkie relocated Tank to her back and squashed Rainbow’s unsuspecting face between her freshly unencumbered forehooves. “A fun sandwich! I could make it with party pastrami and pickles, and tomfoolery tomatoes! Carousing ketchup and celebratory celery! With mariachi mayo and mustard, and jiving jalapenos!”
“Uh, Pinkie,” Rainbow managed to sputter into the small space between them, “I’m no language whiz like Twilight, but I think it’s jalapeno with an ‘H.’”
“Hmmm…” Pinkie paused in her exuberant litany, removing one vice-like hoof from Rainbow’s face to tap her chin thoughtfully. Rainbow saw her chance and took it, prying herself from the remaining foreleg and scooting backwards a good three feet. “Aha!” exclaimed Pinkie, apparently not noticing anything amiss, “Happening jalapenos!” She giggle-snorted. “Wow, alliteration can be hard.”
Rainbow massaged feeling back into her face. “Heh, sure. I’m not sure what you have a litter of, but why not? So – ” Rainbow inched back to a friendly distance, knowing that if Pinkie decided to pounce again, it wouldn’t matter how far away she was. Her voice took on a conspiratorial tone – if Pinkie was going to break into her house early in the morning, she may as well make the most of it. “You manage to get the stuff we talked about last time? For the,” Rainbow looked around, but only she, Pinkie, and a studiously oblivious Tank, who had retreated back into his shell, were present. “Thing?”
Pinkie repeated the process of glancing left and right (checking under Rainbow’s covers and within her own mane for good measure) before she leaned in, almost as close as before, her mouth mere millimetres from Dash’s tensed ear, “Yeperooni!”
“Gah!” Rainbow fell back, clutching her ringing ear. “Pinkie Pie! Haven’t we written a friendship letter about not screaming ponies’ flippin’ brains out yet? If we haven’t, we should.”
Pinkie frowned. “I don’t think so,” she eyed Rainbow’s grimace, and her frown deepened, the lines of concern around her mouth flitting up about her eyes as well. “I’m sorry, Dashie. I just get super excited sometimes, and I forget that eardrums can only handle excitement from far away.”
Rainbow gave her ear a final rub before slipping a hoof around her dejected looking friend. “Hey, no worries. Just, uh, try not to do it again, alright?”
Pinkie nodded, but a bit of her pep seemed to have leached away into the brightening sun. Aw, crud, she still looks kinda mopey. C’mon, Dash, put on your awesome pants and figure out a way to cheer her up. “So – you got the stuff, and we both have some free time, right?”
Pinkie nodded again, frown wavering, eyes taking on a curious tint.
“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Dash zipped over to her dresser and pulled a pair of sunglasses from the top drawer. She slowly pulled back the arms – she had picked up the technique from Spitfire – and positioned them on the bridge of her muzzle, low enough so she could peer over them in the coolest manner possible. Her pranking shades were indiscernible from her regular ones, save for the curly pink “P” Pinkie had bestowed upon the right arm. Dash had left it there because it seemed to mean a lot to her friend, who had painstakingly, her tongue alongside the paintbrush between her teeth, etched the surprisingly intricate letter on after their first successful pranking mission, and, incidentally, their first outing as real friends. Pinkie said it stood for “prank,” which would make sense, but the colour made it extremely easy to associate it with the party pony herself.
Pinkie brightened considerably upon spotting them, and she air-bounded over to Dash, silly grin in place. “You don’t mean – ”
Dash pulled Pinkie close with one leg, using the other to gesture to the patchwork of Ponyville below, as if inviting her to envision the endless possibilities before them. “Oh, I do. It’s the perfect time to lay the groundwork for our ultimate prank.” Meaning it’s the perfect time for you to get your mind off of other things.
Rainbow’s right eye twitched. Hey, shut up, brain. If I want to go and have some completely distracting and possibly dangerous fun with one of my best friends instead of thinking about complicated emotional junk I don’t need permission from you. In fact, you’re not even invited, so go away and be a snooty worry-brain somewhere else.
Her left eye twitched. Of course you don’t need me. That’s what I’m afraid of. If you ever used me in the first place you wouldn’t even be in this situation! You’d rather take advice from a turtle, for Celestia’s sake!
Both eyes spasmed in tandem. It’s tortoise! Gah, that’s it – hit the road, buddy, from here on out, consider us divorced. I’ll get Twilight to write up the paperwork later. There was a final ocular jitter. Fine! But I’m taking the Wonderbolt’s posters! You’re lucky we don’t have kids!
Dash broke free of her silent battle of facial contortions to see Pinkie wearing a disturbing and highly improbable expression. “Whoa – Pinkie! You – I didn’t even know nostrils could do that.”
Pinkie giggle snorted, releasing her hold on her muzzle. It slid back into place with an ease Dash didn’t think any other pony could manage – not without surgery, at least. “Teehee – I don’t know why you even bother with silly face competitions anymore, Dashie. I always win, and you already said you don’t want lessons.”
“You don’t mess with perfection, Pinkie. I’d be letting ponies down if I made it so they couldn’t stare at this –” she tossed her head dramatically - “all day.”
Pinkie giggled again. “Sure, Dashie. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you lost.”
Dash cuffed her upside the poofy mane. “Ah, shut it, you. So, anyway – back to our ultimate prank.”
Pinkie withheld a spluttering gasp. She did so very poorly, air escaping noisily from around the hooves she had shoved over her mouth, but Dash gave her points for effort. Friends did that sort of thing. “You mean the prank that’s so epic, so awesome, that we had to develop a codename for it? The super special awesome prank of epic proportions? Or T.S.S.A.P.O.E.P for short?”
Rainbow nodded, though her daring smirk faltered slightly. “You know, we should really think up a new codename. That went from cool secret society wordy to nerdy Twilight wordy faster than Celestia at a cake convention.”
“Mmm, cake. With frosting, lots and lots of frosting…Vanilla, chocolate, raspberry ripple…”
Rainbow waved a hoof in front of Pinkie’s face. Her eyes were glazed over, and a drop of drool dripped from the corner of her open mouth. “Aaand, she’s out. Probably quicker for me to get us both down there, anyway.” Dash scooped up the prone Pinkie, dropping her unceremoniously onto her back. Once her weight had transferred to Dash, the balloons round her middle seemed to return to their normal-not-able-to-support-a-fully-grown-pony state and settled for bobbing above the two equines jauntily. “Hey buddy, think you can hold the fort down while we go shake things up a bit?”
Tank emerged from his shell in reply, his right leg creaking upwards in what would, ten minutes from now, be an unmistakable salute. Dash took it on good faith that he’d complete the gesture, made sure Pinkie was secure and that not too large a quantity of drool was getting on her fur, and sped off into the sunlight, sights set on an unsuspecting Ponyville.
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5449804
Thanks for commenting - it means a lot. I'm glad you're enjoying it, despite the lack of updates. I really hope to be more productive in the writing department in the future - it's one of my New Year's Resolutions and everything
I am a total sucker for snuggles!
this! 
It is Alive!!!!
This updated! HOT DIGGIDY DAMN IT UPDATED!
Yay! Love this story.
You don't happen to have a link for the cover art, do you?
5455153
http://www.fimfiction-static.net/images/story_images/154037.jpg?1387571216
Does this work? If not, just go to google images and type in Appledash Hugs. Hopefully that'll bring ya to it.
Ah okay, thanks!
Squee! Snuggly updates with perplexing prankster ponies!
I almost thought Dash would cheer Pinkie up with a hug, thus completing another test. Maybe Pinkie isn't dejected enough for Dash to sneak one in without too many awkward questions.
Of course, this is Rainbow Dash; not the smartest tool in the shed.
Tank! Best written Tank I've ever read, in fact. Most stories don't include him, or if they do, they don't bother writing him as anything other than "moves slower than continental drift".
Epic Tank, no doubt ^^ And great chapter ^^
barrel-roles
rolls*
I'm going to have to remember that one.
Are we getting any updates anytime soon?
What a great fic! I hope we could read new chapters soon :)
I know I'm late, but is there gonna be more?
6383314
Ideally, yes. Realistically? Eventually. I am a terrible person for not updating/finishing this story sooner, and my aversion to leaving things half-finished will ensure that I complete it - it's just that I'm not entirely sure when that will be. I'm newly entering a super stressful (yet hopefully super rewarding) job that will take up most of my time, but that also means I'll probably need to write snuggly cuddles to chill out properly, so...
Yes, eventually.
6387539 Oh, ok there's no rush, I just wanted to know. But you have a great story going here.
Tis good, hope it ain't dead
Please at least make an update, I want to hear more about this stowy.
awww this story is really cute!!! i hope it will get an update someday
awww man this was such a good read :’( ik it’s been a couple years but i want to hold out hope it’ll update someday, i was enjoying everything about this ! how u wrote the characters was honestly some of the best i’ve seen on here and the humor was great too </3