One
It was hot out. That much was blatantly obvious to Applejack as she stood, wishing the family's market stall was set up in the shade of a tree with a nice canopy, rather than out in the open right now, with not a bit of refuge from the sun's rays.
Not that she had anything against bright, sunny days. Days like this was what made the crops prosper as well as they did. Nor was she opposed to working in the heat of a summer day; being a farmer, that went with the territory, and she knew that.
If she had to pick anything to be dissatisfied with on this hot day when she was doing market duty, it was the complete absence of a nice, gentle breeze to get the air moving. If there was a breeze, it would all prove to more tolerable for her to be out here.
But unfortunately there was no cooling breeze to be had, and no clouds overhead to hide the full intensity of the sun. And it was still hours before the day was done, and she could return home.
"Hoowee," she exclaimed as she removed her hat to wipe her forehead with the back of her leg. "Ah'm roastin' like a marshmallow on one o' Twilight's s'mores at a slumber party," she muttered as she placed her hat back on her head. "Ah swear, Ah'm gonna put a roof on this here stall."
This wasn't the first time she'd made such a declaration. And it likely wouldn't be the last either. She always intended to make such a modification to the stall. But when it came time to do such, something always came up, left her distracted and forgetting, or she was simply too tired when the opportunity presented itself. So until the occasion better presented itself, she'd simply have to tolerate the sun trying to bake her like a raisin.
And she really hated raisins.
"Apples! Nice red, juicy apples fer sale!" she called, working her sales pitch to bring in customers. Those that were willing to brave the heat right along with her anyway.
Out of all the ponies that Applejack anticipated to be out braving the heat right along with her, she would admit that Rarity who was approaching her certainly wasn't among them. Twilight who was currently accompanying her, maybe, but not definitely Rarity. Not with how that mare went on about how much humidity was the bane of her fancy mane's existence.
Regardless, she was still glad to be seeing friends right now.
"Howdy girls," she greeted and waved towards them.
"Hey Applejack," Twilight greeted in return as she approached the stall. "How's it going?"
"Oh it's goin', jus' not as smooth as Ah'd be likin' it to," Applejack replied, before moving her hat to wipe her head again. "Wha' brings ya by?"
Rarity remained silent in response, opting to magically retrieve a hoofkerchief from her saddlebags, and used it wipe down Applejack's forehead.
"Nothing much. We just saw you out here, and figured we'd come by and say hi," Twilight explained as Rarity did her thing.
Rarity nodded in response. "Would you care for some lemonade, darling? It's positively beastly out here in the sun," she stated, before tucking the hoofkerchief away back in her saddlebags.
The sudden attention she was getting left Applejack confused. But confused or not, it was still appreciated on a day like today. "Well Ah've got a hankerin' fer iced tea right about now. But Ah sure wouldn' say no ta lemonade neither," she replied, the thought of something cool to drink, whatever it was, being mighty appealing right now.
"Oh?" Rarity asked. Applejack nodded. "Well if you could take a break from working the stall, I do have some iced tea back at the boutique," she explained.
"Yeah?" Applejack asked as she thought over the proposal. It was proving to be very appealing right now. "Much as Ah'd like ta do that, Ah need ta keep an eye on the stall; make sure none o' the apples wind up goin' missin'," she explained.
"Oh dear. You're not suggesting that somepony might steal them, are you?" Rarity asked, horrified by the idea.
"Ah'm not sayin' that they would. But..." she let her sentence trail off, rather than finishing it. It would be naive not to assume that nopony would pass up what they might view as a free sample, or a quick-hoof discount. They all knew that fact, how nopony was perfect.
"Oh I think I can make sure that doesn't happen," Twilight replied confidently, knowing that it would be easy enough to thwart any prospective apple thieves. A simple, temporary-duration force field would do nicely.
Applejack couldn't help but grin as she shook her head in thought. For all the quirks that Twilight and Rarity had about them, that sometimes rubbed her the wrong way, there was no denying that they made great friends.
"Ah tell ya what, you two 're certainly somethin' else..."
Much as she didn't want to, Applejack couldn't help but give a contended, relaxed sigh as she leaned back. Being in the shade of the indoors, with electric fans blowing about the parlor of the Carousel Boutique, and a tall glass of iced tea with just a hint of lemon and honey mixed in was just too nice of a change from just a few minutes ago. It was almost like being scooped right out of the pits of Tartarus.
"Ah tell ya what, that hit the spot," she replied, before downing the rest of the glass, and setting it back on the coffee table in front of her. She honestly didn't realize just how beat she'd felt until now. "Ah might've collapsed out there if ya hadn' come by when ya did."
"I wouldn't be surprised in the least. This weather is positively inhospitable," Rarity groaned. "Rainbow Dash wasn't joking when she warned us about how bad the coming summer was going to be."
"Remind me ta show 'er a little more consideration the next time Ah think she's exaggeratin' a might," Applejack commented. "Ah have seriously gotta see about puttin' a roof on that stand fer weather like this," she stated.
"If you'd like I could help. I've got a lot of books on carpentry," Twilight stated.
Applejack couldn't help but laugh in response to that. "Ah appreciate the offer, Twi', Ah really do. An' no offense to ya er nothin', but the stall is meant ta come apart fer easy transport at the end o' the day. Quick an' dirty like, not permanent like a home," she pointed out.
"Oh..." Twilight replied, mildly embarrassed at how easily Applejack had been able to figure out what she had in mind. "Well maybe I can still help with something. Maybe some poles at a tarp could work instead," she suggested.
"A tarp, darling?" Rarity asked, visibly disgusted with the idea. "Perish the thought. Canvas would be the way to go. Not only in keeping the sun off of Applejack's back, but it would provide a far superior look as well. Why with a little work, I dare say a collapsible awning wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities," she stated.
It was at the discussion of plans for putting a roof on her stall that Applejack started to regard the two a bit skeptically. Something about all of this was... off somehow. She didn't want to say that they weren't good friends to her, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being rubbed the wrong way by something. Rarity and Twilight weren't just being friendly to her, they were being very friendly. It was almost like how chummy Rainbow Dash got if she wanted something for free... but a lot less extreme.
"A'right ya two, Ah know that somethin' is up. What is it?" she asked, deciding to cut right to the heart of the matter.
Twilight and Rarity exchanged a look with one another, before looking back at Applejack. And Twilight was wearing a bit of a guilty expression on her face as she did.
"Alright. You caught us," she admitted. "The truth is we did have an ulterior motive for calling you here. There's something that I wanted to show you, but I wasn't sure how to when you were out in public."
"Ah'm listenin'," Applejack replied neutrally, wondering where this was going.
Instead of getting a verbal explanation, she was instead presented with a picture Twilight had dug out of her saddlebags. She supposed the saying "a picture's worth a thousand words" was being referenced here. Although as she looked over it, she wasn't sure a thousand words would be enough to explain it.
"Wha' exactly am Ah lookin' at here?" she asked as she looked it over.
"You know how Sunset Shimmer contacted us through the journal?" Twilight asked. Applejack nodded. "Well we've been keeping in contact with one another about stuff, one thing led to another, and... having some free time, we worked out a photo exchange. I brought a group photo of what we look like in this world, and they sent back a group photo of what we look like in that world," she explained.
"Huh," Applejack replied and scratched her head. "So that's the us from the other side of the mirror. Sure is a strange lookin' bunch."
"I'd gauge them as being more unfamiliar than strange, darling," Rarity replied. Strange, even though technically accurate, just seemed rather rude to her. Unfamiliar just had a more open flow to it.
"I'll admit, it's a lot to get used to. Walking on your hind legs, picking things up with hands, having no fur and wearing all kinds of unfamiliar clothing. But after a while, it stops being so unfamiliar. Although switching from human, to pony, and back again, can get a little jarring," Twilight replied.
"Ah'll take yer word fer it," Applejack replied, deferring to what counted as the voice of experience. "So how'd they react when they saw wha' we looked like?" she asked.
"I'd say positively. Rainbow Dash thought it was awesome that her pony self had wings for flying. Fluttershy... well I don't think I've ever seen her quite that excited before. I didn't even know her voice could go that high," Twilight explained.
Applejack chuckled in response to the mental image that was drawing. Somehow it made perfect sense to her that something like that might be the case.
"So all this over a photo?" she asked. It all just seemed a bit extreme for something so simple.
"Well it's really not the sort of conversation that I want to have with everypony. That would be... complicated," Twilight explained. "But besides that, you still looked like you could use a break from the heat. And the two just seemed to go together well enough."
Applejack just nodded in response. She could see that as being the case.
"Well Ah'm mighty thankful for the intervention. But Ah gotta get back ta the stall an' sell some apples before the day's done," she replied as she stood up again, bracing to walk back out into the heat again.
"Um. Before you get back to it, Applejack, could I... ask you a question?" Twilight asked, stopping her friend from leaving just yet.
"Wha's on yer mind, Twi'?" Applejack asked.
"Well a while ago I was comparing notes about the differences and similarities between the two worlds, and..." Twilight paused at feeling a nudge come from Rarity who sat not too far away from her. A subtle way of telling her that she was rambling, and should get to the point. "Well I was just wondering. What's your opinion of a pony that likes to... go bald?" she asked.
"Goin' bald? Like the ones in the picture?" Applejack asked. Twilight nodded uneasily. "Depends Ah guess. If it's in the privacy o' there own homes, an' ain' nopony gettin' hurt by it, Ah don't think it's any o' my business wha' they're doin'. Ain' like they're prancin' out in public, flauntin' anything in mah face. Why should Ah care?" she asked.
As the words left her mouth, she couldn't help but feel a sudden sense of tension in the room that hadn't been there just a few minutes ago. She suspected that there was something she wasn't being told, but she didn't know why. And right now she didn't want to jump to any conclusions. "Why?"
"Well..." Twilight started uneasily, even hesitantly. "Spending time in the other world, doing things the way they do, it sort of got me thinking on a few things. Then one day I found this spell in an older medical book about inducing baldness for lice. And I... sort of tried it. And I... sort of liked it..." she admitted, finding it difficult to actually get the words out. Where things had flowed so easily when telling Rarity, it was a great deal harder with Applejack, and she didn't know why. It was like her words had psychological weights to them that were holding her back.
"Yeah?" Applejack asked as she quirked an eyebrow in the process. Twilight simply nodded in response, reminding her a lot of when Apple Bloom was younger, and had a penchant for getting in trouble. She had that same nod when she would get questioned about doing something wrong. "Is that what all this was about?"
Twilight nodded again, finding it hard to maintain eye contact with Applejack. She felt like she was a specimen under a microscope right now. She thought that Applejack would be the easiest to approach, but so far that didn't look like it was panning out. Worse was the possibility that this was the easiest that hings would go.
"Twilight. Look at me..."
The tone that Applejack's words carried with them was of a very commanding nature, without being particularly forceful. Twilight felt compelled to look up at her friend, in the eyes, much like she was facing a parent, rather than another pony who was close to her own age. She had a feeling that this was the moment of judgement, and she flinched.
"No offense to ya, Twi', but ya still got some Canterlotian goofiness to ya, if ya were afraid Ah was gonna stop bein' yer friend, just 'cause ya like doing somethin' that might strike me as bein' odd."
Rarity might've been the one to let out a relieved sigh, but it was Twilight who nearly fell down at hearing Applejack's words. She'd been bracing for a much worse development to occur. And now that it hadn't transpired as she feared, she felt a mental weight being lifted off of her.
"Shoot, if bein' odd was all it took fer me ta stop bein' friends with somepony, Pinkie'd never be allowed on Sweet Apple Acres," Applejack continued and chuckled. She might've understood the reasoning behind the indirect approach, but still, there were easier ways Twilight could've gone about informing her about everything.
"So... you're not upset? You don't think it's obscene, or perverse to be doing this?" Twilight asked. Sure she was relieved and all, but it just struck her as... a bit strange. She knew Applejack was accepting and all, but she still thought that it would've taken a little more than this to get to the point they were at right now.
Applejack just shook her head. "Like Ah said, wha' somepony does in private ain' rightly any o' my business. Ah reckon ya've got good reason fer doin' wha' yer doin'. Besides, yer a grown mare, ya don' need mah permission ta do somethin' if it makes ya happy."
The next thing she knew, Twilight had come around the table and pulled her into a hug. Naturally she reciprocated.
"Thank you. I was so worried that things were going to go badly when I decided to tell you about this."
"Well Ah can understand why, but ya don' have ta be worryin' no more, Sugarcube," Applejack reassured her. "The only question Ah have, is why ya felt the need ta tell me. Not that Ah don' appreciate the honesty an' all. Ah'm jus' curious about wha' brought this all up."
It was at this point, that Rarity spoke up by clearing her throat. She'd been sitting silently, letting Twilight do most of the work. But letting her do all of the work herself wasn't what she'd signed up for when she decided to assist Twilight.
"Well, you see, darling, we still don't know why, but the crystal construction of Twilight's palace tends to prove cooler than their surroundings. And Twilight, being the good friend she is, didn't want us to be shocked should we make use of the palace during this unbearable weather, and stumble across the fact that she's a nudist," she explained.
That wasn't exactly the full truth of the matter. But it was still a truthful answer, and it got the important points across in an efficient manner. And it was truthful that Twilight didn't want the others to be surprised, hence why she hid her decisions from them.
"Wha's a nudist?" Applejack asked, blinking at the unfamiliar word.
"It's the human equivalent of being a baldy," Twilight elaborated.
"Ah. Gotcha," Applejack replied and nodded. "Ah appreciate ya thinkin' 'bout us like that, Sugarcube. But next time ya have somethin' ta tell me, would ya mind bein' a little more straightforward?" she asked.
"I think I can do that. I mean, after you tell your friend that you enjoy walking around, naked as a jaybird, what else is there to say that's shocking?" she asked.
"Naked as a jaybird? Where the hay did ya get somethin' like that?" Applejack asked, caught off guard by the unfamiliar phrase.
"Your human counterpart. Her term, not mine," Twilight explained.
"Huh," Applejack replied. She might have to remember that one. It certainly sounded like a countryism. "Well Ah'm sure there's a good story behind that, but Ah jus' don' have the time ta sit an' talk. Ah gotta be gettin' back ta the stall. Ah'm burning' daylight here," she replied as she let go of Twilight. "Thanks fer the hospitality though. Much appreciated."
"Applejack, just one more thing before you go, I promise I'll make it quick," Rarity spoke up, once again cutting off the farmer's escape. "Could you possibly come by for dinner tonight? We could talk more then."
"Tonight?" Applejack asked as she glanced up in thought. "Sorry, tonight's no good fer me. Tomorrow night would be better."
Twilight looked over at Rarity, who looked back at her and gave her a simple nod in response.
"Alright. Tomorrow night it is. Just come to the palace, and I'll do my best to answer any questions you might have," she stated, before making her horn flash brightly. "There. I adjusted the force field so it'll only last two more minutes. Plenty of time to get back to the stall before it collapses. If you get there before then, just give it a couple of good whacks and it should crack like a walnut."
"Ah reckon Ah can do that jus' fine. Like Ah said, Ah appreciate the hospitality, but Ah gotta get goin' now. See ya girls later," Applejack stated.
"Don't be afraid to come back, darling," Rarity stated as Applejack left.
The chime above the front door sounded as Applejack stepped back outside. That left the two of them alone, in the silence of the boutique, to contemplate what had happened.
"Well now..." Twilight spoke up slowly, "that went a lot better than I thought it would."
She knew that Applejack could be very understanding when approached correctly. But still, this almost felt too easy to her. Applejack had settled in for the conversation almost like they were talking about a new apple-related recipe.
Rarity simply walked over to Twilight and hugged her. Things had gone quite well in bringing Applejack into their little group. Even if it was just the initial stage, it had still gone quite well. But then again there had been little reason to believe otherwise. Perhaps tomorrow night would go just as swimmingly.
"Oh dear. I just realized something. We never asked Applejack to not mention this to anyone," Rarity stated, shocked that they'd managed to overlook something so important.
"That's right. We didn't," Twilight replied as she nodded. "I don't think she would though. She's not really the gossiping type. Especially not about her friends."
Rarity could do little but nod in response. Applejack really wasn't the sort that would go around spreading gossip for the sake of conversation. But still, with something of this degree of sensitivity, it was easy to assume the worst, in trying to control everything. Sometimes being a friend required a certain degree of trust in one another to do the right thing without mentioning it prior.
But still, just in case, she'd stop by Applejack's stall when she could, and bring it up in conversation at all possible. Perhaps even buy a few apples to help compensate her for her absence.
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Yay a sequal. Wonder how celestial would handle this.
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Knowing Celestia, she might use it for trolling nobles that darken her hallways.
Curious to see where this goes. It felt well wrapped up in the previous story.
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That's why I decided to go with a sequel, rather than a simple continuation. That way any fans that don't like this one, won't have the other one spoiled.
6487465 Hidden baldness runes for the unwary to trigger?
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"Oh Twilight! I'm so glad you told me!! Ever since Discord did it to me one time as a joke, I've been having him do it to me every time we're alone! It's just so freeing, so comfortable, and cuddling feels so much nicer when you don't have fur in the way!" *Nuzzles* "You can come out to my cottage and we'll do it together any time you want a secluded place for it with lots of fluffy animals to cuddle!"
Reading this again after transitioning... The egg shell might as well have been made of glass
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And here I am, really wishing I could get my head back into the same and continue this story, rather than just letting it sit there, incomplete but paused on a mostly positive note.