Trial
It was a bad idea, all things considered. In the dead of night, Rainbow had arrived at the mansion tired, physically outmatched, and without a plan. She felt the urge to walk back to Fluttershy’s cottage, accept defeat before it was forced on her, and keep the apples in her saddlebags as a midnight snack. Yet the manor doors stood before her. When she pushed, they swung open without resistance.
The fainting couch in the foyer was empty. Rainbow imagined Applejack lying in wait for her, and the thought made Rainbow’s neck, still sore from the lasso, ache. She pushed aside the fear and willed herself to put faith in the idea that the pony who had spared her had no reason to lure her into a trap.
She might lash out if startled, though. Rainbow entered, stomped her hoof against the floor, and allowed a few seconds for the sound to echo.
“Applejack!” she called out. “This is Rainbow Dash. I was the blue pegasus from this morning. You know, the one you said could give a good whupping?”
Only an empty hiss came from the house in reply, until it was interrupted by Applejack’s voice meandering down the hallway. “You weren’t too good at getting one, as I recall.”
A shiver went down Rainbow’s spine. Then she snickered as she realized how her attempted bragging had earned her that comeback. “Look, we need to talk about earlier today,” she said. “I’m here by myself. We can meet in the foyer, or I can come in there. That’s your decision to make.”
There was a long silence before Applejack’s voice came again. “Get on in here and speak your piece. I’m in the library.”
Rainbow started down the hallway leading to the library. “Catching up on your reading?”
“Maybe. Got any recommendations?”
“Now that you mention it, there’s this thing called The Adventure Book…”
“You mean that foals’ toy?”
Rainbow stopped. “What do you mean, ‘foal’s toy’?”
“I mean a toy that foals play with. The libraries in Canterlot were giving them away last Hearth’s Warming Eve. Damn near every colt and filly was running around the city escaping fairy tale monsters all winter.”
“Huh.” Rainbow resumed walking. If Kyubey was right about The Adventure Book reacting to psychic energy, maybe the monsters it told her and those foals to run away from weren’t all fairy tales. But that would have to mean someone in Canterlot knew about witches and made the books to keep foals safe from them.
It was a lead, but Canterlot was too big a city to wander around based on a hunch. Besides, she had to focus on talking to Applejack for now.
Rainbow reached the last corner before the library, took a moment to compose herself, and entered. The room was neat except for the far corner where Applejack lay upside down in a reading chair, her mane pooled around her head on the ground. The chain of her necklace bit into her throat as if strangling her.
“What’s up, Sparky?” Applejack said.
Rainbow held her tongue and evaluated the scene around Applejack. A knocked-over table with a checkerboard pattern lay beside her head. Mismatched black and white pieces were scattered around it.
Applejack glanced at the board. “Sorry if you wanted to play. I’m not in the mood, as you might have guessed.”
“That’s fine.” Rainbow produced a brown paper sack from her saddlebags. She placed it on the floor near Applejack and unfolded the top so the fragrance of the apples could waft out. “I brought you these.”
Applejack watched her every move, and for a few seconds after, watched her stillness. When Applejack’s gaze turned to the paper sack, she considered it for a few seconds. Then she reached one foreleg out and tipped it over. A half dozen apples rolled out and circled each other on the floor.
“I hate apples,” Applejack said. She raised her head from the ground and coiled up into the seat. Her cutie mark, three apples with stems attached, faced Rainbow.
“How can you not like apples?” Rainbow sputtered.
“I said you could come in and talk. Didn’t expect to do much conversating myself.”
“Okay…” Rainbow began to realize how far out of her depth she was. Fluttershy had always been good at talking to ponies about emotional stuff, even to ponies who didn’t want to talk. It was something Rainbow had always shrugged off, but at that moment she envied Fluttershy’s skill more than anything. She decided her best chance with Applejack was to stick to what she knew. “Rarity told us about you, so I know you grew up in Ponyville, about what happened to your parents, and how you didn’t get along with your dad when he came back. It sounds like you’ve been to Canterlot, too.”
Applejack’s ears flicked. “Got me there.”
“Well, Ponyville has changed while you’ve been gone,” Rainbow said. “This town is really jam-packed with witches. Rarity, Fluttershy, and I were in three labyrinths over two weeks, and Rarity might have been dealing with more by herself. She’s gone, though, and as far as I know, you and I are the only hunters in the area. That means it’s up to us to take care of all these witches.”
Applejack snorted.
“Instead of fighting or avoiding each other,” Rainbow said, trying her best to sound brave, “we should team up. You could teach me, and I could be your backup. Even an awesome hunter like Rarity needed backup, you know? But we can’t team up unless we trust each other. I want to believe you’re a good pony, but I have no clue why you went after me and Fluttershy earlier. I’m here now, so if you want to tell me what that whole thing this afternoon was about…”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, ‘nope’?” Rainbow snapped.
“It’s slang, means the same thing as ‘no.’”
“I know what it means!” Rainbow was jittery. Her cheeks felt flushed. “How can you not want to talk? What’s wrong with you?”
“You done speaking your piece yet?”
A snarl coiled in Rainbow’s throat, but she swallowed it back. “You know what? No, I’m not done. Fairy tale monsters get you talking, huh? You’re in luck, because I’ve got a fairy tale about monsters for you. Want to hear it?”
“Nope.”
“Too bad.” Rainbow planted her haunches on the floor. “This story is about a totally normal pony who lived a totally normal life. She had some good times, and she had some not so good times, too. There were even times when things got really dark and depressing, but it never lasted for long. All in all, things were pretty okay, right up until two ponies who were close to her died.
“This pony felt like her heart had been ripped to shreds, and she felt darkness and depression like you wouldn’t believe. She waited and waited and waited for them to go away. Only they never did. In fact, they got worse. She started to blame herself for the two ponies who had died. She started to feel like she was the one who should have died.
“This pony knew there was a magical creature who could grant incredible wishes, but his power had an enormous price: once he granted you a wish, you had to spend the rest of your life fighting the worst kinds of monsters for him. This pony was already fighting the worst kinds of monsters inside of her, so she was ready to pay that price. She went to the magical creature and wished for the two ponies to come back to life.
“But the magic creature told her there was a catch: she could only wish for one of them back. If she wanted to make his deal, then she faced the hardest decision of her life.”
In the seconds that followed, Rainbow watched Applejack’s shallow, silent breaths. Then Applejack twitched. “Well, what happened next?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said, savoring her success, “because it’s your turn to tell the story. Why did she choose her dad?”
Applejack’s head jerked up, and her glare almost made Rainbow jump. Almost. Rainbow held her ground, met Applejack’s gaze, pulled her shoulders back, and pressed her chest out.
A moment later, Applejack broke her glare and left the chair. She drifted to the middle of the room in drawn-out, shambling steps. When she reached the bag of spilled apples, she stopped in her tracks.
“I flipped a coin.”
Applejack looked back. Rainbow was shocked, but she knew Applejack was judging her reaction, so she relaxed her shoulders and forced a friendly, accepting expression.
“That is the lousiest poker face I have ever seen,” Applejack said. “C’mon, tell me what you really think.”
Rainbow felt her cheeks flush. “There’s no good way to make a choice like that.”
A faint smile haunted Applejack’s lips until her head rolled back towards the floor. “When Kyubey said I could only bring one pony back, I thought up a bushel of different schemes about how to get them both. The only one Kyubey didn’t shoot down was for me to wish one of them back, and the first one would wish the other back. All I had to decide was who’d go fighting witches with me and Rar’. It didn’t much matter to me, so I pulled out a bit right on the spot and tossed it in the air.
“Come to think of it, I don’t remember whether it was heads or tails. It was Pa’s side, though, and that’s the wish I made. Sure enough, Bright Mac showed up at the gate to Sweet Apple Acres the next morning. The only problem was, he wasn’t my Pa.”
While Applejack spoke, Rainbow approached the chair and righted the checkerboard table lying on its side. She didn’t recognize the game pieces scattered around it—dark grey pillars and busts of different pony races—so she set them around the edges of the table. It seemed like a nice gesture to put this piece of furniture back together.
“Mind you, Bright Mac looks just like Pa,” Applejack said, “and does a mean impression of him, too, but it was off in the little things. The way he hugged us, so warm and strong, but I could feel him clinging to us for dear life. The way he labored dawn to dusk, never flagging, but I saw how scared he was of lying down and not getting back up. The way he laughed, even more wild and roaring than before, but I heard him screaming underneath. Then there was the cider, and I swear, every night it was like watching him drown.
“I knew Ma would come back as bad as him. Imagine the two of them, commiserating over what’d been taken from them, frightening each other over what’d be taken next. Imagine all that languor infesting our home. I could never let that happen, could never let Apple Bloom grow up around two ghosts of flesh and blood. In the back of my mind, though, I was always thinking about how much I missed her. All I had to do was tell Pa and he’d bring her back, wouldn’t waste a second thinking on it. I resisted, but when the temptation got too much for me, I ran. That’s the real reason I ended up in Canterlot.”
Applejack grew quiet. With the last game piece on the table, Rainbow came to her and side stretched a foreleg around her withers.
“Okay, so your wish didn’t work out like you expected,” Rainbow said. “That’s bad luck, but it doesn’t make you a bad pony. You can’t change what’s in the past, so you just have to focus on what you can do now. If you start doing good stuff now, that means you’re good.”
Applejack snorted. “Sparky, with all due respect, you still sound like a little foal. Here’s what being good is all about.” She pawed through the apples on the floor, picked one, and held it up. “Look at this good apple here. A nice and bright one. Give it a decent start and make sure it sticks to the straight and narrow, and it’ll go as far as the eye can see, right?”
She placed the apple on its side and, with a flick of her foreleg, started it rolling across the floor. It bounced along in a straight line for a few paces, but then without warning veered off to the side and crashed into a wall.
“Aww, what a shame,” Applejack mocked. “That apple just had some bad luck, though. Or maybe it was a bad apple at heart.” She picked a second apple up and showed it to Rainbow. “Bu this one will turn out fine, right?”
“I get it,” Rainbow said. “When your parents’ boat sank, it wasn’t because anypony on the boat deserved it, and it wasn’t because you did anything wrong. It happened even when you were trying your best. Then you got a chance that millions of ponies never will: you could bring your dad back to life. When he came back, though, he was different, hurt in ways you didn’t understand and that you couldn’t heal, no matter how much you tried. All this terrible stuff happened when you were trying to be good, and it feels totally cruel and unfair.”
A smile twisted its way onto Applejack’s face. “That’s the pain. It’s what’s lurking around the corner you have to take when all you were trying to do was walk the straight and narrow. Some ponies go through their whole life thinking that the more pain they get through, the more points they score for when they go back in the ground. Others, they think you only get the pain because you’ve done wrong by the world and you gotta suffer it for what you’ve done.
“I know better, though. We all get more than our share of pain, and we all taste the same to worms. When the pain comes for you, if you’re lucky enough to have four good legs and the brains to see it, you run. You run and you don’t let anything get in your way. If everyone’s doing anything they can to escape that pain, then there’s no cause to worry yourself about doing something bad to someone good, because none of it means anything. There is nothing bad, there is no one good. Only thing that matters is surviving to the next day. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. Then I met your buddy Flutters, and…”
Applejack shook her head as if an invisible yoke had fallen on her neck. “It was during the spat you and I had. I’d already been mighty fierce to her, and she knew she wouldn’t have a chance against me. So when I was on you I figured she’d go galloping out of there like she had a wasps’ nest on her backside, but she didn’t. She stayed put, begged me to stop, fought in her own way for you. I don’t know why, but all the salt and vinegar seeped out of me when I thought about that. Right now, I have no idea what’s left inside.”
Rainbow and Applejack sat together. It seemed to Rainbow that Applejack had started to lean against her.
“Here’s the thing,” Rainbow said. “Life’s almost entirely out of your control, but only almost. You’ve got this minuscule sliver of history that’s all yours to do whatever you want with. Sure, there’s going to be a lot of pain and you can spend your whole life running away from it. Or you can take that life you’ve gotten for no reason, use the good legs you lucked into, and do something that’s worth doing, whatever that means to you. Life is short, but it’s a gift, and your biggest choice is whether you’re going to spend it trying not to get hurt, or take some risks and feel a little good about what you’ve done.”
She gave Applejack a gentle shake. Applejack swayed side to side, her mouth flexing silently. When she swayed into Rainbow, she seemed to linger, and as the time passed, her moments of lingering against Rainbow grew longer.
“Life’s a gift, huh?” Applejack said. “It’s funny. When you started telling me your fairy tale, I figured it was about you.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Honestly, it started out that way.”
Applejack stopped swaying and for a moment was motionless. “Hey Sparky, how about you take a turn telling the story?”
Rainbow frowned. She sensed that Applejack had taken all the puzzle pieces she had laid out, but she couldn’t tell how Applejack had put them together. “What do you mean?”
“Who were you trying to bring back?”
“Oh,” Rainbow said. “I tried to bring back Rarity and Cup Cake.”
“Cup who?”
“The baker at Sugarcube Corner.” Rainbow recalled the eulogy at Cup Cake’s funeral. “I guess she was born Chiffon Swirl.”
Applejack blinked, and then her face lit up with glee. “Wait, Chiffon Swirl? So Cup Cake’s her maiden name? Are you saying Chiffon and Carrot got hitched?” Applejack chuckled and shook her head. “Shucks, am I ever sorry I missed that! You never did see a sweeter couple than them.” The glee left. “What happened?”
Rainbow tried to think of a gentle way to break the news to Applejack. She couldn’t. “They had a daughter. When foals started going missing in Ponyville, Cup and Carrot had a fight about taking their filly out of town, and one day Carrot and their daughter went missing. Cup blamed herself, and…yeah, she blamed herself.”
When Rainbow stopped talking, Applejack made a theatrical gesture of looking around the room. “I don’t see Rar’ around, so I guess I can figure out who you chose.”
“No, I…”
“Chiffon must have been an awful good friend of yours,” Applejack said, talking over Rainbow. “That, or you gave up your future for some of her homemade desserts. Not that I’d blame you, of course, she was one fine baker. So what’d she have to say when she popped out of the grave?”
“I didn’t wish to bring her back.” Rainbow said. “Remember all that darkness and depression stuff? I wished it away.”
Applejack slid out of Rainbow’s grasp. “You had a chance to revive somepony who did everything she could to deserve her life, and instead you wished away your own pain. That about the gist of it?”
Rainbow grimaced. “I tried to bring them both back! I even asked Fluttershy…”
“You were gonna make that little thing spend her life fighting witches,” Applejack interjected, “and give up her own wish for you?” She whistled. “So that’s what y’all were really fighting about. I could hear you lay into her after she told you no. That was some cold-blooded selfishness, Sparky.”
Rainbow hung her head.
Applejack smirked. “I suppose the moral of our story is, it’s fine and dandy that a good-for-nothing rascal like Bright Mac gets a second bite at the apple, while a decent pony like Chiffon gets left for worm food, as long as you feel happy about it in the end.”
Rainbow had nothing to say in her defense.
“I do appreciate your visit.” Applejack climbed into the chair. “I believe I was suffering a mild test of faith, but thanks to you I discovered I was right all along. Everypony in the world really is doing what they can to run from the pain, no matter the claptrap they preach. Tell you what, though, since you say this town’s been overrun with witches, and since you’ve been so accommodating in my time of need, how about I let you keep half of Ponyville?”
For a quarter hour afterward, Applejack laid out her terms, listing streets, directions, and times with surgical precision. Sometimes she posed questions to Rainbow about her chores around town. Rainbow answered but otherwise listened mutely.
“All right, we’re done here,” Applejack said at last. She absent-mindedly knocked over the game table and let the pieces skitter across the floor. “Head on home, and take those apples with you. They don’t even smell right anymore.”
Rainbow resigned herself to collecting the apples into her saddlebags and leaving the library. As she wandered through the hallways of Rarity’s, then Fluttershy’s and her, and now Applejack’s, mansion, she considered where she could go. There was home, for rest; there was Fluttershy’s, to prove another pony right; there was downtown, to waste time strolling through the late night shops.
It struck Rainbow as odd that getting a drink at the cider bar held only minor appeal.
“You forget something?”
Rainbow looked up. In her daze, she had wandered back to the library, and again stood before Applejack.
“Sorry. I got lost,” Rainbow said.
“Not the right kind of getting lost, if you ask me.”
Rainbow turned around. Even with her worried state of mind, it seemed peculiar that she could lose track of where she was so completely. She took a step forward.
And in classic Rainbow Crash style, ran her muzzle right into a mirror. She scampered back, trying to hide her embarrassment, and looked behind her.
Applejack was up and out of the seat, but she wasn’t watching Rainbow. Her eyes were on the mirror. “We got a familiar,” she said. She already had that rope, the weapon that was so much cooler than Rainbow’s stupid spark toy, ready.
Rainbow heard a scraping sound coming from the mirror. She turned around and saw huge lance swinging over her. Rainbow felt like such a scaredy-cat as she ran away from it, but she didn’t know what else to do. A marble statue of a hulked-up pegasus slid out the mirror, ready to beat some respect into them with its lance. Rainbow knew the two of them didn’t have a chance against it. If she impressed it by showing she was tougher than Applejack, though…
Applejack glanced at her. “You got it in your head to do something to me?”
“Maybe.”
“We gotta focus,” Applejack said. “This thing’s messing with our heads, so tune it out and help me. Familiars always have a weak spot somewhere near the center of their labyrinth. It’s gonna be something that ain’t quite right. We find that, hit it hard enough, and we’re home free.”
Rainbow saw The Adventure Book on Rarity’s bookshelf. She had an idea then, a stupid idea like all her others, but it was better than doing nothing and getting whaled on by that statue.
She grabbed the book and showed it to Applejack. “If the book is always trying to get you away from labyrinths, then if we do the opposite of what it says, it’ll take us towards the center.” She didn’t wait for Applejack to respond and flipped open the book.
“There’s nothing of interest here,” it said, “but from the west you hear a soft voice crying for help.”
“Which way’s east?” Rainbow asked.
Applejack nodded towards the mirror.
“Do you think I’m dumb?” Rainbow snapped. “I already tried to go that way.”
“We ain’t got time for this. Either we go now, or we’re taking on this thing.” The mud lover was right: the pegasus statue was paces away from them. With a growl, Rainbow grabbed Applejack and took a flying leap over the statue. She aimed for the mirror but held Applejack in front. If one of them was going to eat glass, she didn’t plan on it being her.
There wasn’t any need, though; they passed right through. The great Rainbow Dash, pranked again.
They landed in a heap. Rainbow was up before Applejack, so she was first to see that they were back in the library. Except, not really. Everything was flipped, even the book spines. The mirror was still in the doorway, keeping her pinned in.
Her reflection wobbled, and she got her vajra ready. She was done running. Once that statue showed up, she was going to unleash every ounce of fury she could muster on it. A piece of stone emerged and she almost zapped it, but it wasn’t the lance, it was a shield. Two more popped out on either side of it, and with another scraping sound, three earth pony statues appeared behind the shields. Rainbow let loose, but the statues used their shields to knock the blast away. Then the pegasus statue was back, and this time it brought a friend.
The five of them moved on Rainbow. She stood her ground, ready to face them like she’d faced Fluttershy’s bullies. Five against one was pretty bad odds, but Rainbow didn’t care. She could lose this time, could get pummeled to death for all she cared, but at least she’d give these chunks of rock a fight they’d remember.
“Over here!” Applejack called out. Rainbow glanced over her shoulder, and saw Applejack at the other side of the library with her rope wrapped around a sixth statue, a nerdy unicorn with a telescope. “This has got to be the weak spot.”
Rainbow turned back to her statues. They were getting close, and she was stoked to lay into them.
“C’mon, Sparky,” Applejack barked, “you know how this works. I do the tightening, you do the lightning.”
This pony. This mud-loving, rock-licking, hay-hoarding earth pony thought she could tell Rainbow Dash what to do. Rainbow turned on her, already imagining the thunderbolt arcing across to Applejack, until she saw the look on Applejack’s face. Pinprick pupils. Ears swept back. Nostrils big as mine shafts. Rainbow recognized that look like she was in front of a mirror: Applejack knew she could lose this time, could get a marble horn right through her for all she cared, but at least she’d give that unicorn a fight it’d remember.
Rainbow was happy to help. The lightning twisted away from Applejack’s face, connected to her rope, and shot up it to the statue. One thundering crack later, it was a pile of gravel.
The other statues were easy after that. They didn’t even fight back as Rainbow bucked and blasted them down to size.
Breathing heavily, letting the marble dust coat her throat, Rainbow finally stood down. She heard the remnants crunching under her front hooves as she fell to all fours. Her head hung. The vajra dropped to the ground, joining the pebbles, sweat droplets, and a few downy blue feathers.
“Nice teamwork,” Rainbow said between pants. The silence lingered. Rainbow stretched, flicked her tail, and glanced up.
The mirror was still there. It was how she saw Applejack throw the lasso around her neck.
Rainbow bucked uselessly. She tried to twist away, but Applejack was so strong as she dragged her to the floor and crushed her chest. Rainbow got a vajra out, launched a bolt into Applejack. It didn’t even faze her. Rainbow tried again, a tree-splitter this time, nothing. Her tongue swelled after that, and she couldn’t hold onto the vajra, so she let it drop.
This was what she deserved for trying to outthink anything. What she deserved for being so weak. A loser. A failure.
Her head lolled towards the mirror. Even with her vision going dark, what she saw was awesome. There she was, holding Applejack down and sending so many volts into her that the earth pony’s bones glowed. Applejack writhed, shuddering helplessly, her mouth open in a silent howl. That was how Rainbow wanted to go: watching herself paying that mud lover back ten times over for what she’d done to Fluttershy.
There was a problem with the mirror image: they didn’t have their necklaces. It was different, wasn’t quite right.
Rainbow flailed at her Applejack again. She missed, but she got ahold of the necklace, and the clasp snapped. Rainbow threw the necklace with all the remaining force she had at the mirror, even twitching her wings for the extra torque, and the mirror shattered on impact. The noose slackened, and she twisted back with a sucker punch that plowed a hole through the shadowy monster’s head. There wasn’t any resistance to the next swing, and by the third the illusions all around them were fading away into blazing light…
…of a fire raging in the library.
“What is this?” Rainbow shouted. She sprang up. “Where did the fire come from?”
“Golly, that sure is a mystery.” Applejack locked eyes with Rainbow. “It’s almost like someone was shooting lightning bolts around shelves of flammable books.”
Rainbow scowled at her.
Applejack met her gaze for a moment, but then looked to her hooves and pursed her lips contritely. “Truth be told, I always thought what goes on in a labyrinth couldn’t affect the real world.”
“We’re going to have to figure it out another time,” Rainbow said. She pointed to the exit. “Come on!”
The two galloped out of the library, only to find the fire had raced ahead of them. Blinding orange flames devoured every wooden surface in the hallway, and heavy smoke billowed up to the ceiling. Applejack tapped Rainbow on the haunches.
“Reckon you can carry me up that skylight?” She pointed down the hall.
Rainbow looked in the direction Applejack pointed, and could barely detect a hole letting in a piece of the night sky. She tried to remember if there had been a skylight there. “Let me check it out first, make sure it’s okay.”
Applejack might have said something like “Good idea,” but Rainbow was already soaring through the inferno, navigating the eddies that buffeted her and knocked her off balance. Every flap tried her strength, but she kept in the air until she felt a sudden updraft. She landed, and looked up into the night sky.
There was no skylight. The stars were framed by a flaming hole in the ceiling and second floor.
Rainbow was puzzled. The library, where the fire had started, was still mostly intact. It made no sense that the second floor and roof of a totally different part of the mansion had already burned through. She started to report what she’d found to Applejack when a cracking sound thundered through the scorching air, and a crushing weight tackled her to the ground.
“Sparky! What happened?” Applejack’s voice was a like murmur over the cacophony.
Rainbow tried to push herself up, but the mass on top of her wouldn’t budge. A glance back revealed that a beam had fallen from the ceiling and pinned her. “I need some help! The whole place is caving in.” The mansion groaned around her.
Applejack’s face popped into view and instantly retreated. Then Rainbow felt the vibrations of hooves drumming the floor in a galloping rhythm. The tremors were receding.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Sparky,” Applejack said. “I really am.” Rainbow got a glimpse of Applejack’s tail waving away.
There was a second in which Rainbow thought she would give up.
It was only a second. Then the rage came. She felt it possess her, surround her, and take its vengeance. Her ears filled with the sound of the world tearing apart, her nose with the stench of ozone, her mouth with ash. She pushed against the floor, and the floor bent to her will, then broke under it, as the timbers beneath her snapped.
The weight pinning her was gone and a vajra was in her mouth.
She looked up. The hole through the house had become a gaping chasm. Without a second thought she took to the air and flew into the smoldering gorge above her. The air was arctic against her skin and the moon was a grey disc against the inky black sky. Rainbow let herself glide around the mansion in a wavering circle, searching in vain for a cloud to help extinguish the fire. She struggled to stay even.
Almost the entire mansion was burning. Most of the windows glowed with a tempest of orange, black, and white, accompanied by the occasional burst of sparks like a beehive cracking open. While the exterior walls stood against the fire, the central roof had collapsed, and plumes of smoke rose unabated from the interior.
One set of windows along the north side of the house were still dark. Rainbow floated towards them to look inside. She saw two mannequins wearing the dresses Rarity had made for her and Fluttershy toppled onto their sides. Then she noticed the sewing machine, shears, and other tools of Rarity’s craft room strewn under the window as if thrown there. The gas lamps were out, and one fixture hung from the wall where it had been partially knocked off. She peered deeper into the room until she saw Applejack huddled beside the entryway, illuminated by the flame licking at the bottom edge of the door. Applejack saw her too, as her emerald eyes held steady on the hovering Rainbow.
Applejack had been right all along: as soon as she stopped running, the pain caught up. Rainbow pushed up and away with a few strong flaps.
But Applejack was wrong about so much more, and as Rainbow turned herself in midair, she angled towards the mansion and plummeted into the window, smashing through the glass, and grabbing Applejack around her middle. She bucked against the floor, her wings still outstretched, while the door crashed open. They reached the shattered window, its glass shards raining down, when the gas caught and a surge of shrieking air hurled them out of the mansion. There was no grace to their fall, only ballistics and drag, until the ground caught them. Their momentum spun them like tangled rag dolls into a bramble bush.
When the sky and ground finally decided to stay put, Rainbow relaxed her hold on Applejack. Applejack stayed wrapped against her for a few rapid heartbeats before looking up to Rainbow. Applejack’s pupils were like pinpricks against her bloodshot whites.
“That you, Sparky?”
Rainbow couldn’t help but smile. “Who else would it be?”
Applejack tried to slip away, but sank deeper into the brambles. Rainbow pulled herself out and offered Applejack a helping hoof. Applejack stared at Rainbow’s hoof disbelievingly for a second, but finally accepted it.
“Funny you should ask,” Applejack said. “I suppose I owe you an explanation about my mysterious blue-feathered pony.”
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I like AppleJack’s little speech here.
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Yeah, she got a lot of time to philosophize hanging out in her warehouse turned ware-home, and given her circumstances she ended up with a pretty negative worldview. I like to think this chapter is the first time that got challenged.
"Rainbow produced a brown paper sack from her saddlebags. She placed it on the floor near Applejack and unfolded the top so the fragrance of the apples could waft out."
...I see what you did there.