Fragile

by runujhkj

Chapter 7: Keep Upright

Twilight, still reeling from the nausea and now hit with this new revelation of what exactly had been their crime, hit the ground in a daze. Her horn's glow flickered out and the letter swayed to the dirt. Dash and Pinkie stepped forward to get a better look at it, neither of them wanting to touch it; not only because of the ordeal it had seen that day, but out of some fear that touching it would instantly incarcerate all of them somehow.

Dash stuttered out her thoughts as her voice cracked. "Wh... H... But... How in the world did they get... This idea?"

Pinkie read it over again, and replied, "Well, you've gotta admit, Dashie, you and Twilight were being pretty secretive. The ponies around town were starting to wonder."

Rainbow backed up. "Yeah, but... this? Is this even a real law? Why have I never heard of this before?" Her mind reeled with questions, but it wasn't anywhere close to as confused as Applejack, who hadn't heard any of this before about an hour ago.

"Y'all, this is the first I'm hearin'a this. Any of it. Do you two - or three, what-the-hay-ever - mind explaining what exactly is going on? Why'd you get a summons accusing you two of... That?" Applejack's head swiveled between the three of them, desperately hoping one of the three would let her in on the joke.

To her great relief, Rainbow Dash stepped forward. "AJ, you mean you don't believe it?"

AJ gave it a millisecond of thought. "'Course not. Nothing neither you nor Twilight's ever done has ever even made me consider it. Not one time."

Rainbow put a hoof to her chin. "Yeah, you've got a point there. This really comes out of nowhere."

Pinkie attempted to speak up. "Well, there was that time when- no, wait, that's not really the same thing. What about when- no, that was somepony else. Yeah, AJ, you're right! Where did they get this idea, anyway?"

Applejack held a hoof into the air to raise another, more important question. "Great. Now that we've made it clear that that's absolutely not what's goin' on here... What is goin' on here? What've you two been doing all this time, anyway?"

Dash gave a cursory glance around to make sure no one had suddenly appeared within the miles of empty forest in the last fifteen minutes. She looked at Pinkie with an eyebrow cocked. "Whattaya think, should we tell her?"

Pinkie gave a snort. "Oh, I see. Make me promise to not tell anypony, but the instant you want to tell AJ, it's open season! Fine, then! Tell whoever you want!" With that, she turned and walked over to check on Twilight. Dash moved slightly closer to Applejack, still worried that someone would somehow hear her confession, miles away from civilization.

Her mouth inches away from AJ's ear, Dash was just about to speak when Applejack backed up. "Uh, what are you doing? Can't you tell me without gettin' in my personal space?"

Dash stepped back about a half an inch and looked around again, this time much more thoroughly. Applejack sighly loudly out of frustration. "For Celestia's sake, Rainbow, what the hay is wrong with you? What's goin' on here?"

Rainbow turned to look at Twilight, seeing if she'd give a sign that it was alright to tell Applejack. Twilight was still unconscious. No answer there. She gave up and looked at Applejack one more time for good measure. "We've kinda, sorta, a little bit, maybe been... Actually, what do I call it?" She put a hoof to her chin. "What should I-"

"Out with it!" Applejack had had enough.

Dash was startled into answering. "Twilight'sbeenillegallymagicallysecretlyupgradingmywings"

AJ scratched her ear. "Care to run that by me again?"

RD took a deep breath. "I asked Twilight, for the last few months, to use some magic thing she found to upgrade my wings."

Applejack was getting it now. A little bit. Kind of. "And... that's illegal? Really? What isn't illegal 'round here?"

Rainbow shrugged. "I didn't know either. Twilight found this spell or whatever that sounded like it would be able to make a pegasus permanently faster. I asked her to use it on me, but she insisted that there was some obscure law against it written millenia ago or something. Luckily, she's still not immune to guilt trips."

"So, what, this thing takes months to work?"

Rainbow pointed at the still-sleeping Twilight. "Well, according to her, it would take days of constant magic…ing…ness to cast this thing, but if she did it just a few hours at a time, it could be spread out over months. We didn't really feel like standing perfectly still for like four days or something, so we picked number 2."

Applejack scoured her mind for a question left unanswered, and found the last one left. "Why're you even tryin'ta upgrade your wings? Pete's sake, you're already the fastest pegasus in most of Equestria."

Dash looked agitated. She mumbled, "Well, clearly, being the fastest in most of Equestria isn't enough yet."

"Enough for what?"

Rainbow eyed her friend. "Uh, duh? To get into the Wonderbolts!"

Applejack rolled her eyes. "You still on about that? Ain't you met Spitfire four times or somethin' now, and she's been nothin' but a jerk every time?"

Dash ignored her, or at least pretended to. "Anyway, that's what's goin' on here. So now we're hiding out until we get this thing done."

Applejack nodded, but another important question bubbled up. "What's y'all's plan here?"

Dash gestured at herself, Pinkie, and Twilight. "We're gonna hide out here until the spell's finally done, then we'll head back into Ponyville and try and get this... other thing sorted out."

"How do y'all intend on doin' that? Far as I'm concerned, they ain't got any evidence anyway, and it hasn't seemed to stop them serving Twilight with the summons."

Pinkie rejoined the conversation. "Ooh! Ooh! I know, I know! Pick me!" Dash would've picked her, but she hadn't even put her hoof up yet. She continued anyway. "AJ, since you're the only one besides us three that knows all this-"

"Wait, Spike doesn't even know?!"

Pinkie waved her off with annoyance. "Shh! Since you're the only one besides us three that knows all this, you should go back into Ponyville and snoop around to see what kinda dirt they got on Twilight and Dashie!"

Applejack gave it some thought. "That actually ain't a bad idea. Not like I'll be able to help with... whatever it is Twilight's doin', which... Well, right now she's passed out, so not much. I guess it'd be best if y'all had someone back in Ponyville who knew what was goin' on.”

The three of them stood there for a while silently soaking in the brilliance of their plan. A few feet away, Twilight slowly struggled to her feet. Another question popped into Applejack’s head. Dash recognized the face and groaned before Applejack managed to ask, “Actually, I do have one more question. Why was Pinkie the one you two confided in? No offense, Pinkie, but I ain’t never known you to take anything serious in your whole life.”

Pinkie shrugged it off. “None taken, silly! The only reason I’m here is because I walked into the library without knocking one day and saw Twilight shooting some glowy blue lasers at Dashie’s wing, and they wouldn’t let me leave until I Pinkie Promised both to not tell anyone and to help out if they ever got caught.”

Applejack nodded. “Well, I think that’s all the questions I’ve got. I better head back to Ponyville, assuming I still know which direction it’s in.” Twilight walked over to the group and offered to give Applejack a teleport back to town. AJ cocked an eyebrow and replied, “You sure, Twilight? Weren't you just out cold? I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

Twilight yawned and waved her off. “Oh, come on, Applejack. I’ve done this one so many times, I could’ve done it while I was still asleep.” Without waiting for Applejack to give her approval, Twilight’s horn began glowing purple, and a ball of light appeared around AJ. A loud crack sounded, and AJ disappeared.


Dash moved to where Applejack had just been, looked at the dark spot on the ground where she'd been, and turned to Twilight. “And you’re sure you sent her back to Ponyville?”

Twilight yawned again. “Probably.”

Comments

[Emerald Comet]

Three years in development? Damn, I totally get how difficult it is to write something you can be happy with but I hope your work pays off.

[runujhkj]

4595373

Yeah, it's more or less been taunting me since summer of 2011. Every time I got to a place where I was kind of happy with what I had written, I would stop for a few months, and the next time I read over it I would just detest every word I saw. Ugh.

[Emerald Comet]

4595642 yeah, it sucks when that happens, but in a way it's a good thing since you really have to over what you've written with a fine comb until you think you can work with it and people will like it and from what I've seen so far, I think it's pretty good.

[Emerald Comet]

One thing I would say though, make sure that two character aren't speaking in the same paragraph, I noticed a lot of that in the previous chapter, really easy to fix though.

[runujhkj]

4595845

Yeah, I've had problems with formatting dialogue for as long as I've been writing. it's getting better all the ti-i-ime