Vacation for Three Please

by Blues Rider

9: The Door With The Key

Sleep didn't come easily for anybody that night.

The Rain continued to tap on the windows to Sunset's apartment, but the later summer heat had left the evening awash with muggy air. Rainbow tossed over in her bed to face away from Applejack's camp bed. At this moment she greatly desired her girlfriend's embrace, but to respect Sunset's home she figured the best thing to do was to roll over and look away from the mare-girl.

Applejack set herself uncomfortably in one position and attempted to relax her muscles to eventually allow her to drift to sleep. Meanwhile Sunset led awake, staring at the ceiling above her. She thought about the girls sleeping beneath her on the first floor. She wanted to call them her 'new friends' but she felt she had definitely not earned that title over the last two days.

Rarity was so emotionally exhausted from the last couple of days that she fell sleep instantly. However she wasn't comfortable in sleep, her body felt hot and sweaty, like she had been running through a forest away from a wild creature. And although she felt this sensation, it only registered in eight percent of her consciousness, while the rest was dreaming, focused on the events that kicked off this whole fiasco.

---

The sun blinded Rarity as she trotted out of Canterlot train station. The sharp rays jabbed into her skin, warming her body in the cool air. She looked around, observing the white hazy sky from behind her shades. The familiar sound of Applejacks heavy hooves shortly joined her.

"Ah still think you're crazy." Applejack insisted. "Every time Twilight was there, they always had some kind of evil magic forces going on."

"Yes but darling, she only ever went there during emergencies. and this is most certainly an emergency." Rarity replied, focused on getting her relaxing holiday. "And anyway, there's so much for me, you and Dashy to explore there."

Applejack refused to be consoled by this statement.

Now Rarity was stood on a street in the centre of Canterlot, directly in-front of Twilight's favourite cafe. She looked around for signs of the train station. Instead her eyes met a silhouette of Twilight trotting towards them through the blinding white light behind an archway at the end of the street. Rarity let her mane settle on the left side of her neck as she observed Twilight in motion.

"Oh my goodness, Rarity, Applejack I didn't know you'd be coming here!" Twilight approached them, excitedly offering them a hug each. "It's so good to see you both... What are you doing here? Nothing bad has happened has it?" Twilight's thought's instantly turned to the worst possible scenario.

"Oh no darling no! We just came to see how you were doing and have a catch up." Rarity felt the words leave her mouth automatically, as if she didn't say them. Applejack gave a sly cough next to her which prompted Rarity to go on. "And we may have an itsy-bitsy favour to ask, if it's not too much trouble?"

"Oh of course! Come on in, let's get some lunch, I don't have much time on work days." Twilight directed them inside.

Rarity eyed the shining white windows of the cafe, Twilight sat in front of her, her purple mane shimmering and flowing in the still air. Applejack was saying something Rarity didn't hear or understand. An iced danish appeared on the table in-front of Rarity.

"Yes darling, your mane looks just gorgeous, how does it happen?" Rarity inquired. She felt the urge to say those words but didn't know why or what the conversation was about.

"Yes it does doesn't it!" Twilight replied, she seemed very pleased with the new look. "I believe it's the same thing that must have happened to Celestia and Luna's manes. There's something magical about the sun and the moon, I'm not sure what it is yet, Luna reckons Starswirl was onto a theory when he used to tutor them, something about an ancient connection between the caster and the celestial object, but he never completed the work, and he's so far away at the moment I'm not sure how I'd contact him. I'd love to work on it with him one day though."

Rarity sat up. She had been intrigued by Twilight's reply until she realised she had heard it before. She examined the walnut coffee table, the coffee counter, the bright-white-light windows until her eyes set on a door on the far side of the room. It was half open, but behind it seemed to be complete darkness.

Suddenly they were on the top of Canterlot Castle, stood on a concrete platform approximately four meters by four meters but Rarity was talking as if it was perfectly normal.

"We can't go anywhere in or around Equestria, so we were wondering if we could perhaps... not go on holiday... IN Equestria..." Rarity flirted with an upwards inflection. Suddenly the concrete platform started to move, Rarity was suddenly in shock. She looked over the large city of Canterlot below them, a slide appeared. The slide looked like something from one of Pinkie Pie's dreams, it had loops and twists and turns and it didn't end until it reached the gates of Canterlot.

And the platform was going to slide down it.

"Well you could go to Discord's void, but he's not going to be around in the next few weeks...." Twilight replied in nonchalant thought. The platform started to pick up speed.

"We were aware of that, Fluttershy told us. We weren't thinkin' of Discord's realm. We were wonderin' if ya'll might let us use the mirror in the Friendship castle." Applejack replied straight up. Rarity looked Hopefully into Twilight's eyes.

Then the slide lurched to the left, Rarity was shook into the reality, she could fall off at any moment. She tried to use her horn but it disappeared. She crouched down, the platform persisted to move faster and faster. Twilight and Applejack stood casually on the sides of the platform, unaffected by the movement. Rarity caught Twilight's gaze again out the corner of her eye.

"Okay I'll see what I can do, and it will take a few days, but no promises okay?" Twilight seemed very hesitant about the idea. Rarity wanted to scream at her to stop the platform, but she physically couldn't. Out the other corner of her eye she noticed the waters of Canterlot were oily and blackened. They seemed to evaporate some kind of deadly smoke. Rarity didn't know how she knew it was deadly.

Applejack nodded to Twilight thankfully.

"I'll be at my school on Saturday to meet with Starlight and discuss our Hearts-Warming eve plays. The School of Magic and School of Friendship casts will be performing at each other's schools. It's very exciting. I'll see you there at one o'clock?" Twilight said.

Suddenly the platform lurched upwards. Rarity followed the path with her eyes, she didn't understand how she was still on the platform as it climbed vertically up the track. It looked as if it was about to perform a loop-the-loop. Then it slowed. It slowed so slowly that Rarity fell off the platform.

She looked around, she was directly above Canterlot waterfall, a drop that would almost certainly kill her from this height, and she was falling. Applejack and Twilight seemed to disappear, she was alone. A thought ran through her head. 'Yes I can work that in, I've got to get to Canterlot by five for Sassy Saddles though.'

Then she screamed.

The black oily waterfall drew closer and closer, faster and faster. As Rarity's velocity grew it reminded her of the time she fell down the waterfall escaping the Storm King. She took a deep breath, covered her face with her front hooves and screamed one last, blood curdling scream.

---

Day three came about in Sunset's Maisonette and everybody was groggy from the night's unrest. There seemed to be no urgency to get up, and even Sunset opted to turn over and get a lie in after her eight A.M. alarm went off having been pre-set.

At that point Rainbow had stirred, thrown out the comment, "Urrrghh do I have to get up?" in the groggiest manner.

She was met by Sunset's extremely lazy, "Nooommhhpp." Before the alarm was turned off.

It was a slow, unenergetic, uninspired wake up call for everyone in the maisonette. Applejack got up first, eventually years of farmhand work got to her preventing her from laying in. She sat on the side of her bed and looked over to Rainbow. Her girlfriend turned over in her bed in an attempt to get another fifteen minutes sleep, in doing so she involuntarily faced Applejack.

As uncertain Applejack was about getting up, she felt the need to at least do something. So she dropped off the bed onto her legs, gave Rainbow a quick forehead kiss, and then headed to the bathroom. The crank of the door locking stirred Rainbow enough to make her vaguely open her eyes, notice the blurry outline of Applejack's empty bed and return to her not-quite-sleep state.

Rarity's scream pierced the silence of the room. The shrill cry terrified Rainbow and Sunset awake. Rarity's body shot straight up into a sitting position. Her breathing was heavy and her heart-rate was racing. She could feel her pyjamas drenched in
sweat, the uncomfortable feeling settling on her back, arms, thighs and stomach.

"OH MY GOD!" Sunset cried from upstairs, running to the railing of her balcony to look over the lounge. "WHAT'S WRONG?" Adrenaline was coursing through her body from the onset panic. Rainbow equally jumped out of bed. Rainbow found herself in the centre of the floor preparing to fight the non-existent enemy in the apartment.

A clutter came from the bathroom as Applejack knocked some items off the side of the sink. She fumbled with the lock, attempting to open the door as quickly as possible having caught a tube of toothpaste. "What in hayseed is goin' on!" She exclaimed, toothpaste in hand, noticing she had cut her pinkie finger on the stainless steel tap.

Rarity slowly calmed her breathing. She felt her body slowly return to a state of normality. Then she started to chuckle, first quietly, then harder and harder until she started to struggle for breath. The sound of her oddly well spoken chuckle filled the apartment as everybody else slowly calmed down.

"OH MY!" Rarity exclaimed through heavy, breathy chuckling. "Oh, OH my!" She stopped the laughing and got her breath back under control again. "Oh I am so sorry, I am so, so sorry!" She couldn't help but laugh some more, but she managed to control it this time.

Everybody in their groggy states came down from their adrenalin rush, the panic and confusion morphing into annoyance and relief. Rainbow stepped back to the pillow end of her bed and body-planted herself straight back down. Sunset took a sigh of relief and sat on her bed. Applejack rolled her head back around to the mess she had made in the bathroom.

"Oh my..." Rarity repeated, coming back around to the reality around her. "What time is it?" She asked reaching out to find a watch, unfortunately the watch was back in Equestria and she had to remind herself of exactly where she was.

"Foo Eaghlie!" Mumbled Rainbow into the quilt beneath her, which Rarity failed to interpret.

"It's eight fifteen." Sunset said gently from the balcony above.

Rarity led back on her bed, took a sigh of relief and examined the sloped ceiling above her. "Oh dear." She chuckled to herself.

Applejack returned to sit on her bed having cleared up the mess in the bathroom. Meanwhile Sunset made her way downstairs in her pyjamas and headed straight for the kitchen.

"I'll stick some tea on and make some breakfast." Sunset offered in a half awake state.

"Ah'll give ya'll a hoof... hand... Ah'll help." Applejack settled.

"I was going to make pancakes if you wanted." Sunset mentioned in a way to make sure Applejack was okay with putting in the effort. She picked the kettle up an turned the tap on.

"Well at mah last rodeo, mah pancakes were voted best in the whole of Appaloosa!" She boasted quietly, jumping off the bed and over to the kitchen. "Just guide meh towards the pans."

So with Applejack and Sunset working together they slowly awoke the groggy Rainbow Dash from her bed, and encouraged the amused Rarity from her shocking nightmare. The rising smell of hot tea and fresh pancakes filling the senses and souls of the group. And with their souls filled with pancakes, the mood was good between the group.

Pancakes are good.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Author note 2: Prologue is optional.

Then why add it?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Short, but rather exciting. Can't wait to see what comes next.

[Blues Rider]

10418416
Ah well I figured some people might want to jump straight into the Equestria Girls part of the story. But that was right back when I fist started this story.

10418456
Cheers, thanks very much for the support.