Shipshape's World

by WishyWish

9 - Love Knows No Sentience

Applejack yelped and leapt out of the way just before a rolling object nearly flattened her into the dirt. She squinted at the minty and cream-colored blob of mares, wrapped in one another’s legs and smooching like it was going out of style.

“Y’all know if that ain’t worked by now it ain’t gonna, raight!?” She called after them. As they rolled away, she stamped at the ground and traced their relatively flat path with her eyes. “…how d’they do that, anyway?” She wondered aloud.

“Applejack! Applejack!” A panicked voice called. Instantly on high alert for trouble, the apple farmer whirled around and readied herself. She hesitated when she found a lone Princess Twilight galloping towards her, wide-eyed and breathing heavily.

“Twi?” Applejack’s emerald orbs filled with concern, “whut’sa matter? Y’all look like y’been spooked by th’spirit of mah old great-grand pappy or sumthin’.”

Twilight stopped short of running into the solid earth pony. She flooded her lungs with needed oxygen before trying to speak, but the words came out labored anyway. “They…they’re gone! All gone!”

“Gone?” Applejack rubbed the side of her cheek with a hoof. “Who’s gone?”

“All our friends!” The exasperated alicorn replied. Applejack’s worried expression bled into a look that resembled pity.

“Ah know that Twi,” The farmpony replied carefully. “Ah been here the whole time, same as you.”

“Doesn’t that bother you!?”

Applejack touched her chin and glanced at the stars in thought. “Well, ah suppose ah’m a little concerned fer mah granny’s heart, mah cousin’s chastity, th’skeletons in my bruther’s closet, and since ah cain’t find Applebloom around nowheres ah’m prob’ly gonna have to have a little chat with her later, but ah ain’t really the worse for wear otherwise.” She tried offering her friend a smile. “Ah was worried when we first got here, but ah trust Princess Celestia and she explained whut all is happenin’. Ain’t nopony gonna git hurt or nuthin’, save fer mebbe a little heartache here and there.”

“B-but,” Twilight blubbered, “what about you? You know what you’re going to have to do to get out of here, right?”

“Eeyup.”

“And you’re not…upset? Or at least a little confused, or concerned, or embarrassed?”

“Eenope,” Applejack replied smartly. “But you sure are.”

Twilight found herself unable to look her friend in the eye. She dug her hoof into the dirt and felt her ears drooping. “It’s that obvious, isn’t it.”

Applejack nodded and placed a comforting hoof on her friend’s withers. “Try not t’think so hard about it, Twi. Ain’t nuthin’ what happens here is really gonna hurt nopony, raight?”

“Maybe not physically,” Twilight replied, “but what about emotionally? What about my brother and Princess Cadance, or Mr. and Mrs. Cake?”

“Ahm…”Applejack cleared her throat, “…pretty sure the Cakes are gonna be just fine, sugarcube. Cain’t say fer sure about their next generation, though.” She shrugged. “Ah don’t have all th’answers Twilight, but if whut they say about Shipshape is true, mebbe its better we all find out about it now, hm?”

“Maybe…” Twilight considered that line of reasoning, but a nacent thought shook her back to the present. “What about you though? The streets are starting to get pretty empty. I’ve heard Shipshape can’t take you if you really don’t have a very special somepony, but that doesn’t mean your somepony is necessarily here, right?”

“Aw,” the Element of Honesty chuckled and shook her head, “Don’tcha worry yer horn grey ‘bout that. Ah’ll be fine. Mah very special somepony’s already here.”

Twilight blushed. “You…have a very special somepony?”

Applejack raised a brow and frowned. “Ah’m here, ain’t ah? Whut, did you s’pose ah ain’t got nuthin’ in mah life other’n buckin’ fer apples from the time the cock crows to when th’stars come out?”

Twilight suddenly felt embarrassed. “I’m…really sorry Applejack, but I guess maybe I did sort of think something like that. I guess I’ve just never really seen your romantic side, but you’re right, you’re a pony like anypony else. I’m sorry for making baseless assumptions.”

“Naw,” Applejack chuckled as she tilted her hat to a few remaining passersby. “Ain’t no harm done.”

Twilight, happy for her friend, finally managed a more genuine smile. “So who’s the lucky stallion?”

Applejack was still nodding at passing ponies. She didn’t turn around. “Uh…well…”

Twilight tilted her head and flicked an ear. “Who’s the lucky mare, then?”

Applejack’s waving hoof moved to scratch at the back of her neck. “Well, ah…y’see…”

Twilight looked oblivious. “…Spike?”

“Whut!?” Applejack’s eyes widened and she whirled around. “Izzat where yer mind goes as soon as you don’t get a straight answer? I admit the little feller’s a sweetie’n all, but he ain’t exactly Apple family material, if’n y’know what ah mean!”

“Okay, okay,” Twilight held up her hooves and giggled a bit. “But you aren’t giving me much to go on. Are we still even talking about a pony, here?”

Applejack hesitated. When she finally did open her mouth to reply, the attention of both mares was drawn off the conversation and onto the galloping approach of a pegasus stallion who was calling out the apple farmer’s name.

“Miss Applejack!” The bluish-white coated stallion panted. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Applejack raised her brow and squinted at the stallion, as if trying to place him. “…ah know you, raight?”

Twilight had no such recognition problems, but her face was a mask of wary concern. “Soarin? I didn’t realize you were here. Is everything okay?”

Soarin the wonderbolt, in all his glory, looked as though he was about to lay some grave news about a monster attack on the two mares. To Twilight’s surprise, he instead broke into a soft, sheepish smile and lowered himself to his knees, gazing up at Applejack.

“Oh, everything’s just fine, now.” Soarin beamed.

“Come again?” The orange earth mare queried. She pulled up one foreleg as if to take a step back, but Soarin grabbed her hoof in both of his and held her fast enough that she’d have to kick him to get away. With no cause to hurt the oddly-behaving stallion, she was obliged to hear him out.

“I love your pie!” Soarin cried out.

“Mah…” Applejack finally blushed. “…mah pie, y’say.”

“Y-your apple pie!” The pegasus quickly corrected. “I might not look it, but I’m a connoisseur of pie! Your pie has got to be the most delicious pie I’ve ever tasted! It’s really an incredible pie!”

“Her…” Twilight blushed even deeper. “Her apple pie.”

“What? Yes! Of course!!” Soarin cried. “I can’t stop thinking about it – about you! I w-was wondering if…you’d consider…” he swallowed and tried again, “…you know, with me.”

Twilight made an ‘oh’ shape with her lips. Stepping away politely, she couldn’t help but smile. Applejack was a solid, honest, dependable, reliable friend – one she’d always been proud to know. The hardworking farmer never talked about things like this, but she had as much of a heart beating in her chest as any other pony. Twilight was determined to not let her own dour mood mess with Applejack’s blossoming relationship.

“I’ll…I’ll leave you two alone.” Twilight grinned. She threw one last glance at the two burgeoning lovebirds and was about to go, until Applejack, sporting an uncharacteristically demure expression, spoke.

“Well that…” The apple farmer yanked very gently at her hoof, giving up when she encountered some resistance just to save the wonderbolt’s feelings. “that’s sure nice of ya, an’ ah really do appreciate it, but, well…ah’m afraid ah cain’t take ya up on it.”

Soarin’s ears dipped down to his cheeks, and his expression cracked like fine china after a firm bucking. “O-oh. But…but—”

“Now,” Applejack smiled and finally managed to get her hoof away from the crushed stallion. “don’t take it th’wrong way. Yer a fine catch an’ a good pony.” She put a hoof over her heart and closed her eyes. “It’s just that mah heart b’longs to another.”

Soarin got back up to his hooves. Deeply embarrassed, he ran his hoof through his mane and resisted the urge to flutter his wings and retreat to the sky. “I just thought…I heard Shipshape tells you things you didn’t even know about yourself, so…well maybe…”

Applejack shook her head and smiled. “Oh, there ain’t no need fer that. There ain’t no doubt in mah mind.”

Twilight raised a brow. “Applejack, no offense, but how can you be so certain? I’m sure a lot of ponies were sure who their very special somepony was before tonight, and now they’re having to re-evaluate their entire thought process.” The princess’s natural curiosity had by now overwhelmed her sense of tact. “And who is this pony, anyway? There’s almost nopony left here. Maybe it would be a good idea to…you know…go ahead and let them know how you feel?”

Applejack held up her hoof and made a sharp shushing noise. She looked around, swiveled her ears, and sniffed the air for so long that the two other ponies tried doing the same, but they detected nothing out of the ordinary. “Shhhh!” Applejack hissed. “Y’all smell that?”

Twilight and Soarin shared a blank look. The princess put their feelings into words. “No? What are we supposed to be hearing? Or…smelling?”

Applejack nearly skipped on her hooves as she began trotting away. “That there’s a scent that beats fresh apple fritters on Sunday mornin’! He’s here! Ah knew he’d come!”

The pegasus and the alicorn shared another uncomprehending glance. Wordlessly they both fell in with the enchanted apple farmer. Neither of them had ever seen her act like this before, and discerning the object of her affection was at the forefront of both their minds.

The trio snaked through the enchanted streets. They could have simply walked straight through anything in their way, but like most other ponies who suddenly found themselves in this place, they still had a natural inkling to see walls as walls, illusory or not. Applejack’s snout emitted a constant snuffling noise – she never once turned to even recognize the presence of her followers. The princess and the wonderbolt peered in every direction, but could make out little through the hazy structures apart from the colorful images of what few ponies remained in Shipshape’s world. When Twilight was about to break the silence and ask if everything was okay, Applejack stopped so short the other two ponies nearly ran into her. The smile on the stoic, dependable apple farmer’s face was so full of fillylike innocence that Twilight almost didn’t want to spoil whatever elation brought it on by speaking.

“Aw,” Applejack sniffed, “now ain’t that just a sight fer sore eyes? Ah knew if’n ah waited long enough, you’d come fer me!”

Applejack took off down the block so fast her hat blew off – and she didn’t even stop to collect it. Twilight and Soarin followed her with their eyes, but stopped in their tracks when they saw where she was headed. The orange mare slowed her gallop to a trot, then a canter…and came to a stop right before a very solid, very real, apple tree. She then proceeded to just stand there, her tail swishing like a puppy, staring up at the sight before her. The pegasus and the alicorn finally followed, the former picking up the fallen Stetson cap in his mouth, while the latter spoke.

“Applejack…? What’s going on?”

When Applejack finally turned, Twilight was surprised to find tears on the surehooved farmer’s cheeks. “Ah told ye I was sure, an’ dern if’n ah wasn’t raight!” Her head snapped back, and, closing the rest of the distance, she nuzzled the rough bark of the apple tree with her cheek like a lover. “Oh, ah admit it. Ah really wuz a little bit worried. Just a little. But in mah heart ah knew y’all would come fer me. Mah tall white steed.”

Soarin’s jaw relaxed involuntarily until the hat fell out of his mouth. Twilight blanched.

“Tall white…? Applejack?” Twilight observed. “That’s a tree.”

“T’aint just any tree,” Applejack insisted, still nuzzling the unpleasantly rough wood. “He’s mah Bloomberg. Gone since the day he went on to live in Appleoosa. Ah ain’t never fergot him a single day, an’ it was a heartfelt goodbye, but he was needed elsewhere. An’ now he’s come back to me. Just like he promised.”

It took Twilight about eight seconds to realize she was gaping at this scene as if it were a train wreck. “Alright wait a minute, just…just wait a minute!” She blinked hard and shook her head, pausing in her words just long enough to glance again and confirm what she was seeing. “First of all, that’s a tree. Trees don’t make promises. Trees don’t talk. Secondly, how did that tree even get here? It’s a…it’s a tree for Celestia’s sake!”

Applejack sniffled and laid her head on a low-hanging branch. “Ah got him a mirror for his birthday last month. So…so he’d always be able to see himself an’ know what a wonderful thing he was doin’, even though it meant we hadda be so far apart!”

“Thirdly,” Twilight went on, “Are you trying to tell us that your very special somepony is…is a tree? I know you like apple farming Applejack, but…a tree?”

Applejack had her forelegs wrapped around the trunk of the apple tree. “D-don’t judge our love! Ah know y’all think it’s strange, but y’don’t know him the way ah do! Why, ah met him when ah was knee-high to a wagon wheel and he wasn’t much more than a sapling. Ah didn’t need friends after school or nuthin’, so long as ah had his branches to lay under. Why, the long talks, the frolicking in the fields—”

“Frolicking in the fields?” Twilight scrunched her muzzle, “Really?”

Applejack mooshed her cheek into the tree and stroked it with her hoof, “…an’ all those special nights t’gether after everypony had gone t’bed…”

Soarin cleared his throat. Twilight blushed.

“Applejack, listen,” She ventured, “nopony’s trying to judge you, just…we’re talking about a tree, here. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you…I dunno, need to get out more?”

Applejack, who had by now wrapped a thin, flexible branch halfway around her body, scowled. “Don’t b’lieve our love is true, huh?”

“It’s not that. I believe you’re…um…in love with this tree, but…we’ve all been under a lot of stress tonight. Soarin cares about you, and so do I. It’s okay to admit you’re just as frazzled about being here as we are.” Grasping at straws, a thought hit her. Shipshape knows what you yourself may not. She considered the apple farmer again, giving her a long once over, before taking a breath. “I’ll help you. You can kiss me—”

“Ah’ll prove it!” Applejack insisted. With heat on her cheeks, the matron of Sweet Apple Acres pressed herself up against the only solid flora in all Shipshape’s world. She took its rough surface in between her lips with a familiarity that suggested it wasn’t her first time. The lewdness with which she rubbed up against the tree was tempered only by the innocence in her tender visage. Her expression was, the remaining ponies had to admit, the most romantic one they’d seen the whole night through.

POOF

And they were gone. In the silence of the night, Twilight coughed and watched a sudden, small breeze scatter the impression the tree had made in the dirt and erase it from existence.

“A tree…” Twilight heard Soarin’s voice from behind over her shoulder. “I got shown up by a tree…”

Twilight, her brow heavy again, glanced at him sarcastically. “How do you think I feel? I got shown up by Devil’s Food.” Noting his defeated expression, she softened. “Where are the other wonderbolts? You seem like a nice stallion. Honestly I would have thought Fleetfoot, or maybe Spitfire—”

Without speaking or raising his head, Soarin pointed upwards. Twilight traced the trajectory of his hoof until her eye fell upon the floating forms of the very two ponies she’d just mentioned. Decked out in their performance jumpsuits, they were wrapped together in a gravity-defying embrace that couldn’t possibly be thought of as platonic. Twilight watched them caress each other’s jawlines, lean in, and make one another disappear.

“…oh.”

Twilight took wing just long enough to get a bird’s eye view of the phantasmal Ponyville. Her eye didn’t pass over the form of a single pony, princess, dog, or draconequus. Only the quiet town and the silent, patient dark were left – kissed by the light of a neverending moon. She returned to the earth to find Soarin in the same place she had left him moments before.

“So…” The Princess of Friendship muttered.

“…so.”

“Nice night, huh?”

Soarin glanced at the moon and coughed. “Guess so, yeah.”

The two might have played at uncomfortable conversation and half-glances for hours, if not for the curious timing of their stomachs, which growled in unison. The sound broke up the glacier that stood between them and elicited a small mutual chuckle. Soarin spoke first.

“I uh…skipped dinner. I wanted to work on my agility trials a bit longer and I was just too tired to bother eating.”

“I ate light,” Twilight commented just before her stomach rumbled again. “Apparently too light.”

Soarin glanced around at the empty town, which suddenly felt a little more foreboding. “I sure could go for some apple pie right now. What are we gonna do if we can’t get out of here?”

“We’ll be alright,” Twilight commented. She lit her horn just for effect and elaborated. “I’ve been working on a spell that sustains the body in survival situations. I’d intended it for things like search and rescue missions in larger groups. With only two of us, it will probably work better and last a lot longer.”

“Oh,” was all Soarin said. Twilight made an anti-climactic face the pegasus didn’t seem to notice. He was busy looking around at things he’d already seen many times, as if he were expecting an exit to simply open up out of nowhere. She studied him for a moment. He wasn’t bad looking. He had fame and was probably well off, and certainly enough mares were swooning over his posters all over Equestria. Twilight had always been far more interested in books than aerial acrobatics, but she found herself squinting at him and wondering. Was this what Shipshape had in mind? Or was the night not yet over?

“Hey, you don’t think—?”

They were both looking at one another now, and each noticed the other had uttered the same words, at the same time. They found themselves glancing away again. Twilight’s stomach rumbled, and her mind was suddenly on hayburgers. Indignity crept into her thoughts. She was tired of this whole night. Tired of being embarrassed, tired of being left alone, and tired of the sense of loss. Everypony seemed to be having fun too, and that wounded her all the more. Why did she have to be the only one not to know what was going on? Why did she have to be the wallflower? Why did she have to be the pony that didn’t get a date?

Narrowing her eyes, she marched right over to the hapless stallion and took out her frustrations on his lips, pinching his cheeks hard between her hooves first. The force of the kiss was like a blow. Soarin tried to pull away at first, but she was a princess, and he resolved that she knew what she was doing. After all, Princess Twilight was kinda cute.

Twilight pulled back. The ponies stared at one another. The shipping moon persisted.

Now what?

Author's Note: