8- Chase the Sky
Applejack hasn't felt this relaxed in ages.
The private bath Rarity reserved for them is a cosy, round little chamber in the back of Le Canterlot Spa. Low lights in the shape of white lilies hang from the domed ceiling, their glow faint in the steam that clouds the air. The bath itself is a basin carved into the centre of a wooden platform, surrounded by stacks of rocks and pebbles all draped in the fronds of ferns. Calming harp music issues from some speakers cleverly hidden away by the decoration.
Where Applejack sits in the bath, a smooth and continuous stone ledge, the hot water swishes languidly past her skin, around her shoulders and under her legs. The water smells fragrant, floral with hints of eucalyptus, and the heat sinks in throughout her tired muscles, soothingly massaging the cold and the tenseness out of them.
With a deep, rumbling sigh, she closes her eyes and leans back on the wall of the bath, letting her hair fan out in the water behind her.
When suddenly–
“Yaaaaaaargh!”
“Eep!”
Applejack’s eyes open in time to see Pinkie Pie crashing to the surface, a cannonball of bubblegum-pink that aims straight for Fluttershy, who squeals in terror and dives over to Applejack’s side of the tub.
Twilight Sparkle clucks disapprovingly at them from her corner of the bath. Rarity, as if resigned to all of their antics, has sequestered herself beneath the wall of her facial mask, in her own imaginary bubble of zen. Even the WHAM! from the chamber entrance that follows right after does not stir her in the slightest.
“Sorry I’m late!” a voice cracks like thunder.
Applejack looks up. Rainbow Dash has slammed open the door to the bath with her leg, huffing and panting. Pushing off on it, she stomps into the room and wrenches her hair free of its high ponytail, snapping the hairtie on her wrist. Next she reaches behind her back. The sash securing her fluffy bathrobe comes loose, and Rainbow shrugs it off her shoulders and discards it haphazardly on a bench by the door, leaving her in her swimsuit. And oh. Wow.
It's not that Applejack hasn't seen Rainbow in revealing clothing before; her wardrobe favours short-shorts and skirts with safety shorts, her insisting that jeans or leggings restricted her freedom of movement too much. But that black one-piece is tight, and hugs Rainbow's figure in all the right places. Her thighs are far from pillowy-soft—there's the hard, defined lines of muscle along each of them, and below that the curve of her calves look… hoo-whee… rock-solid.
Applejack can always appreciate a well-trained physique, and if the bath water suddenly feels hotter than it was a minute before, it has nothing to do with her.
Then Twilight's voice rouses her from her reverie. “Rainbow Dash, don’t divebomb into the bath. It’s shallow,” she's calling out.
By the edge of the bath, Rainbow pauses, knees bent. “How’d you know?”
“Yer predictable,” Applejack supplies, once the wiring in her brain has stopped frying.
“Me? Predictable?” Rainbow’s eyes boggle.
“Yeah,” Applejack laughs. “Come on in normally, ya rascal.”
“It's a wonder how any of you are alive,” Twilight sighs into the steam and sinks below the bubbles.
Rainbow still chooses to swing her legs over the edge and drop to the bath’s base instead of walking down the steps. She wades over to Applejack’s side to sit on the ledge beside her.
Their hands are positioned so close to one another that their fingers are almost brushing; Applejack fights the urge to link their hands together. Even with all that happened—in the fashion club room, pressed onto the train platform of Dodge Junction, holding hands five floors up in the dorms (wow, that’s a lot of times a lot happened)—they haven't made anything official.
So instead, with a sweep of her leg through the water, she hooks her ankle around hers.
At the contact, Rainbow stiffens, wide rose eyes snapping to Applejack. Applejack smiles; after a moment, an amused smirk breaks out on Rainbow's face too. She shakes their joined ankles and scoots closer towards her anyway, and if her fingers end up overlapping Applejack's fingertips, neither of them mention it. Applejack just has to bite down on her lip to stop the stupid grin that threatens to erupt.
“How was flight school today?” she asks.
Rainbow throws her head back with a groan. “Ughhhhh. I was held back because I got the strict instructor today. I swear, I make one tiny slip-up, and he lectures me for decades. I think he has it out for me personally.”
“Maybe ‘cause you’re the Wonderbolt-to-be, and all,” Applejack says. “Also, you think every professor is out for you personally.”
“And what if they are? Huh??”
Applejack snickers.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Nah, it’s just funny that you’re in flight school, but complain about it just the same way as regular school.”
“Hey, flight school’s still school. It’s not so different.”
“Today I learnt,” Applejack surmises.
“Me three!” Pinkie chirps as she drifts by them, bobbing in the water.
Twilight splutters, gaping. “Pinkie, why do you have that?”
“I brought it!” Pinkie replies, back-down on an inflatable unicorn float, legs thrown over the side of its lavender doughnut-ring body.
“For goodness’ sake, this is a spa, not a pool.” Twilight pinches her nose.
“It's pretty much a pool, Twi,” Pinkie says. “It's an area with water in it!”
Twilight has this look on her face that can only be described as mildly constipated. “T-that’s not- it's not a swimming pool,” she manages to choke out.
Pinkie flips tummy-down on the float and does a little doggy paddle in the water. “But you can swim in it! See?”
“Is a pool a soup?” Fluttershy muses.
“Now Fluttershy here is asking the right questions,” Pinkie nods sagely. “Is cereal a pool? Is a spa a cereal? Twilight, your input please,” she points an imaginary microphone at her.
“I am not participating in this conversation.”
Possibly unable to resist her curiosity, Rarity has lifted one of the cucumber slices of her mask to get a look. Her eyes bug at the sight of the unicorn float. “Where in heavens did you get that from?”
Pinkie frowned. “Didn't you hear just now? I said I brought it.”
“I didn’t see you bringing it in…”
“I hid it in my hair.”
“But it’s enormous.”
“It was deflated, silly. I blew it up!”
“But when did you- how-” Twilight slumps in defeat. One does not explain Pinkie Pie. “Never mind.”
“Aww Twi, don't look so glum,” Pinkie says. “It kind of looks like you!”
“How on Earth does that thing look like me?”
Pinkie pulls out a marker from her hair and squiggles a pair of black glasses onto the unicorn's rubber muzzle. Applejack has to admit it does kind of look like Twilight.
“I want to try the float,” Fluttershy's quiet voice breaks in.
“It's mi-i-ine,” Pinkie hugs the inflatable neck of the unicorn. “You should've brought your own.”
Applejack raises her brows. “What happened to you gotta share, you gotta care?”
“Capitalism,” Pinkie says soberly. “And please never bring up the second year musical, like, ever again.”
“Nah, I need a piece of that too,” Rainbow says, the only warning from her before she curls a hand around Applejack's wrist and lunges for the float. Applejack's dragged with her, her surprised yell joining Pinkie’s shriek, who tries to paddle the unicorn away but doesn’t get very far in the bath-pool.
Rainbow squeezes agilely onto the ring with Pinkie, and valiantly attempts to haul Applejack up the float too, but not before Pinkie brandishes a pool noodle at her and knocks her off with a surprising amount of force for the flimsy thing. Rainbow is next on target, and she goes tumbling into the bath in a splash of perfumed water.
Pinkie tries to coax a begrudging Twilight into getting onto the float while Rainbow and Applejack plot a joint strategy to nab the Twilight Float. By coax and plot, of course they mean flinging water at each other and cackling at the top of their lungs.
Rarity is trying to cover her face with her arms, muttering something about uncouthness and ill decorum, when the crest of a water wave sloshes over her, soaking her completely. Gargling bathwater, Rarity stands in dripping-wet glory, facemask dangling off her chin for a full five seconds before, with an enraged screech, Rarity launches herself into the quickly escalating battlefield. (Pinkie has water guns out now. It's chaos. It's great.)
By the end of it, they're all floating on their backs or slumped against the stone ledge in exhaustion. Fluttershy is the last one standing, left stubbornly clinging to the float, basking in her victory–that is, until the five of them launch a coordinated attack on the float, overturning it and her into the water.
One cucumber slice slides down Twilight’s cheek while Rainbow plucks the other from Applejack’s hair. Laughter echoes all around the walls of the chamber, and Applejack feels so happy her heart could burst.
~~~
The market is a booming success. There's more people gathered on these sun-drenched fields than Applejack's certain she's never seen in her entire life while in Ponyville. There are still familiar faces, but there are so, so many more that she doesn’t recognise. She later finds out that the Berries had talked Filthy Rich into pulling a few strings to get those in the neighbouring towns and cities to come pay a visit.
With the combined strength of Ponyville's farmers, there's no reason for any of them to pay attention to the Super Squeezy bus parked up the hill. If the Flim Flam brothers can dance, so can the kids from Miss Cheerilee’s class. Apple Bloom is with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo in the front, Sweetie singing sweet melodies while Scootaloo plays the guitar, all of them dancing while Apple Bloom’s completed fountain, gurgling, gives a pleasant chime every now and then. And people would much prefer watch their earnest performances than the over-the-top schtick that the slimy businessmen put on. Realising now that their schemes are making them more losses than profits, the brothers high-tail it out of their village with their straw fedoras tucked between their legs, and the residents of Ponyville boo them the whole way out.
But with the incredible success comes other things, like the fact that there needs to be thirty apple fritters in the next ten minutes and they've already run out of the batter they mixed up the day before, and Applejack feels like she hasn’t breathed since five in the morning.
She has to stand there for a moment, trying to figure out who ordered what first and how long she can leave the fryer unattended while she makes a mad dash for the flour and butter and whip it all up and oh consarnit those fritters are about to burn and people are looking impatiently this way and someone else wants to order–
Then in a blink, Big Mac is beside her, steady as a mountain as he scoops the fritters from the oil before they can turn to coal lumps, and covers the existing orders. And on her other side, Carrot Top slings an arm around her shoulder. “What's wrong, Jack?”
Applejack inhales as best she can and holds her arms out. “We need like, this many fritters,” then she waves vaguely at the scraped batter bowl, “and, there's that.”
Carrot Top, bless her soul, understands Applejack’s stressed-out attempt at communication. She pinches two fingers to her lips and lets loose a shrill whistle. Instantly, three teens come bounding over from their stall.
“Go help,” Carrot Top tells them. They make a beeline for the flour, eggs and milk respectively.
“Christ, I could kiss the ground beneath yer feet,” Applejack sags in relief. Things move along so smoothly, she even has the time to sit down on one of the apple crates and catch a breather. “Will y’all be alright, though?” she has to ask.
“Blah, we’ve got plenty of manpower to spare. You asked me to be prepared for crowd control,” Carrot Top says as she hops up on the crates beside her, waving unconcernedly at the Harvests’ stall. Applejack looks over to see that, sure enough, at least forty other people are behind their booth, consisting of Carrot Top’s siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins… “Lo and behold—crowd control!”
“Horsefeathers, is that a new babe?” Applejack squints at the wailing newborn swaddled in someone’s arms.
“Mhm, that’s my new niece,” Carrot Top says. She points to further off where another baby is crawling over a picnic mat towards a line of bottled carrot juice, before being picked up by someone else and reproached gently. “And there’s two of them!”
“What I wouldn’t give for a larger family at times,” Applejack muses wistfully, now glancing over at where Granny is meanwhile tending to the jams and preserves stall on her own. It may not be as busy there for now, but Applejack will have to return to the fray once it picks up again.
“It’s just the four of y’all, huh,” Carrot Top rubs her chin. “Funny thing, but I remember there bein’ a whole lot more Apples during yer family reunions.”
“Most of them moved out years ago, at least generations before I was born,” Applejack says. “To Manehattan, Appleloosa, Fillydelphia, all them other states…they’re only here for reunion. Growin’ up, it was just us in Ponyville.” She exhales. “Maybe Apples were born to be globetrotters.”
Curiously, Carrot Top eyes her. “You gonna be one, too?”
“I dunno,” Applejack admits, tracing her fingers over the coarse surface of the worn wooden crate, the bumps and ditches of it. “The farm’s always my first responsibility. If it’s the farm or college, I’m choosin’ the farm, there’s no question about it.”
“But what if,” she continues, “I didn’t have to choose between the two? If I can get one of those scholarships for rural students, get some special arrangements made just like I did for high school in the city, college in the city ain’t gonna be all that different. Moreover, the schedule for college is usually more flexible than high school.”
It’s an idea that she was once used to brushing off without a second thought, but now that she’s actually giving herself the opportunity to really, really consider it—it’s possible. And just like that, it’s like striking a match, hope blazing to life in her. Like that spark she’d felt when she first accepted Canterlot’s offer.
Now that she’s seen the world, she wants more.
“Ahh,” Carrot Top scratches her head. “So Canterlot’s colleges has those kinds of programmes?”
“I was actually thinking…” And Applejack tells her about the idea she’s toyed with in her mind for a while now.
Carrot Top gasps when she listens. She sits forward on the crates, amazed. “You're doggone wild.”
“I am doggone wild,” Applejack concedes, chuckling. “But it’s just a thought! I’ve still gotta work things out here, research more, after all. And who knows if they’ll even accept me.”
“You’re gonna do great things, Applejack,” Carrot Top says fiercely, moving over to clap her back. “Tell you what, ya go out there and chase yer dreams. If Sweet Apple Acres is ever in a pinch, mah folks will always be here to give y’all a hand.”
“That’s downright neighbourly of you, Carrot Top. I couldn’t thank you enough,” Applejack says. But her brain’s also already running ahead, thinking of musty desert winds and fluttering cherry trees. “In the long run though, I’m also thinkin’ about hiring farmhands from outside, if I can get Granny to approve it. I could start a website for it.”
Carrot Top whistles, grinning. “Yer really a city girl proper now.”
“Nah, I'll always be a country girl through and through,” Applejack grins back. Then, “Oh shucks, I’ve taken long enough of a break, haven’t I,” she jumps off the crates in a hurry. “I gotta go help Granny.”
But then she stops short as she catches sight of the extra figures behind the counter of the jam stall.
It’s Grand Pear shelving jars of jam, with his signature green scarf and stringy white hair tucked in an apple-printed cap. There’s also a couple of other Pears she’d never gotten to know before, curly-haired adults and teens and kids. They wave at her, jubilant smiles on their faces. Winona romps circles around a corgi, the two dogs yapping excitedly at each other with wagging tails.
Smiling, Applejack waves back. Right, she’d nearly forgot. Their family, too, is a little bigger now.
~~~
“Can someone pass me the streamers?”
“I think this corner needs more balloons.”
“Hey, help me hold the other end of this…1, 2, 3!”
On Thursday afternoon, the hall of CHS is a flurry of activity. At first, it had just been the fifteen of them from Decor Club, but then the doors opened and more students came in armed with stepladders and boxes of decorations, ready to help.
Between everyone's networks of friends and Twilight's persuasion skills, they’ve managed to gather around twenty more students to pitch in. There’s many people who want this event to be a success as much as any of them, and Applejack has to admit that the extra help makes the job feel solvable–like a small herd of buffalo instead of the nine-headed hydra it had been before.
Right now things are kind of a mess, but a productive kind of mess. People on ladders pinning up wreaths of sparkly tinsel, people on the ground sorting out balloons by colour, people snipping out a billion shapes from construction paper. Familiar faces are all around. Bulk Biceps heaves a punch dispenser onto the designated food-and-drink table. She sees Lyra Heartstrings from the anthropology club tottering around the scene. Not all of them might be artistically inclined, but everyone can pinch off pads of blu-tack to stick paper cutouts to a wall.
Applejack's own friends are scattered across each corner of the hall. Rarity and her fashion club friends are gathered at the photobooth, holding up streamers of different types–crepe paper, glittery coils, multi-colour–and chattering noisily amongst themselves. Pinkie whizzes by on roller skates, arm-in-arm with Cheese Sandwich, who sprays a length of graffiti paint on a huge sheet of paper.
Applejack’s getting up to fetch an extra gluestick when she almost crashes into a boy with a brown bowl cut.
“Sorry,” Wizkid winces from behind a teetering stack of plates he was carrying. “Goddesses, I am such a klutz.”
“Not at all, I was the one who wasn’t looking where I was going,” Applejack says, reaching over. “Sorry, let me help you with that.”
Half of the plates secured in her arms, they walk toward the line of tables together. As they lay out the tableware, it occurs to Applejack that despite being clubmates, they haven’t really talked to each other about anything outside of club work. So she decides to strike up some conversation.
She picks a general question. “Are you excited for the Formal?”
Wizkid peeks up in surprise from behind a chair. He gives a sheepish, awkward chuckle as he arranges the napkins. “I’m more nervous than excited, to be frank.”
“Nervous that our decor won’t work out?” Applejack questions. “Don’t be, I think it’s looking great so far. With all the hands on deck, we’ll finish it in time no issue.”
“Ah, not about that,” Wizkid shakes his head. He lifts his gaze to somewhere across the hall. “I was just planning to ask someone to the dance.”
Applejack raises her eyebrows. “Really?”
Wizkid’s mouth pinches into a pout. “Why does everyone look so disbelieving… Okay, you have a point. He’s more likely to be the one asking me than me asking him. But I just wanna initiate something for once.”
“He?”
“Yeah.”
Applejack blinks, following Wizkid’s dreamy-looking gaze to a tall guy with curly blue hair wrestling a bundle of fairy lights. There’s no one else Wizkid could be looking at.
“You’re…uh, asking him as a friend?”
“No,” Wizkid says, “he’s my boyfriend.”
“Oh,” Applejack says. “I didn’t know that you also…uh, that you were…”
“I’m bisexual, yeah,” Wizkid finishes for her. He chuckles.
“Oh, I see.”
“And you? Are you going to the Formal with anyone?”
“Ummm…”
“Any girl out there you’re fancying a chance with?”
Applejack flushes. “H-how’d ya know?”
“You said ‘also’ just now,” Wizkid smiles.
“...Ah,” Applejack says. “Reckon I’m not used to people bein’ so accepting, that’s all.”
“I mean, I think in Canterlot people are pretty okay with it,” Wizkid shrugs. “People still assume you’re straight by default, but most people leave us alone. Is there something bothering you?”
“Well…I dunno,” Applejack contemplates not sharing, but it’s not often she runs into a chance like this, to talk about this with someone who might understand. So she tells him. “I’ve just kept it a secret for so long. Only my family suspects, but they weren’t happy about it, especially my Granny, so I stopped, well, doing or mentioning anything of the sort. Like, now there is a girl, and… by now I’m pretty certain we both have feelings for each other, but I don’t know if I can go for it ‘cause of that, you know? How would I tell them?”
“You don’t have to tell anyone if you’re not ready,” Wizkid says. “And your safety comes first as well.”
Applejack's heard those stories before. She knows for a fact, though, that Granny would never kick her out of the house. But at the same time…
“...It'd break her heart,” Applejack says. “She'd never see it as normal. Never see me as normal. She'll think she brought me up wrong, or that the city was a bad influence on me. People in my village aren't much more accepting either, I don’t think.”
She remembers vividly middle school. Her middle school had been in Manehattan, and it was where she’d had her first big crush, pretty smiles and leather jackets. And then the fallout afterwards: a ripped-up Valentine’s card shoved at Applejack’s chest, the revoltion twisting her once-kind face. The gossip and rumours by the ‘nice’ people she’d trusted so earnestly.
She’s not in Manehattan anymore, but she’s too afraid of a similar reaction from her village, a place that, unlike Manehattan, she couldn’t just turn tail from. Now that they’re all older, Applejack’s not so scared of something like bullying now, but she knows enough to know she wouldn't be accepted the same if she married a woman instead of a man. It pricks something in Applejack to think that she might never be able to trust those closest to her since her birth with something so important to her.
“Well, I just wanted advice, I guess,” Applejack breathes. “Do you think it’s wise to still pursue a relationship with her?”
“People do date for a lot of reasons. There are some who say not to date someone you don’t see a future with, but I think we’re still young and it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy things for as long as they last,” Wizkid says. “If you want to make it a long-term thing though, you can leave little hints here and there to judge their reaction. Maybe one day they could change their minds.“
“Maybe one day,” Applejack agrees. “Well, as for you, go and get your man.”
Nodding, Wizkid salutes. Then, as Applejack’s turning away, she hears, “Go get your girl!”
Her face is instantly hot.
~~~
ME: Fluttershy
You said that I can talk to you about personal stuff, right
I thought I'd take you up on that
Only if you want to though
FLUTTERSHY: Of course!!
Do you want to call?
ME: yeah
Fluttershy's voice comes wobbling in over the receiver a moment later. “Hello, Applejack.”
“Hi there,” Applejack says. “I just wanted to talk because… uh. Well… man, where do I even start.”
“Mmhmm,” Fluttershy hums, a gesture for her to continue, despite her totally undignified beginning. Applejack doesn't deserve Fluttershy. She pauses to line up her thoughts in a row, then says:
“So like…you grew up with Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale, right?” An affirmative noise from Fluttershy. “Yeah, so I reckoned you'd know her the best. And I guess, before I say anything else, I'll have to come clean about somethin’.”
She steels herself, filling her lungs with air. “I like girls.”
Silence.
“I mean, like-like,” Applejack decides to add. “Romantically. By the way.”
“...Oh!” Fluttershy says, after a moment. A longer, “Ohhhhhh.”
“...What’s that supposed to mean.”
“Well, just that it explains- nothing!” Fluttershy says, not very convincingly. “I meant, thank you for telling me.”
“Please don’t tell anyone though, yet,” Applejack tacks on with haste. “I want to come out to each person in my own time.”
“Mm, of course,” Fluttershy promises. “Don’t worry, I’m good at keeping secrets.”
“Yeah, I hope yer really good at secrets, because here’s the next one,” Applejack says. “I like Rainbow, and I’m planning to tell her about it.”
“Uh huh.”
“.......Well,” Applejack doesn’t quite know what to do with herself now that she’s shared this information. “I guess I just wanted to ask if, you know, Rainbow might have, I dunno, said something?...”
“I’m good at keeping secrets,” Fluttershy’s voice betrays a smile, “but I can say that you don’t need to worry about a thing.”
“Oh. Okay, cool,” Applejack says, giddy. “Thanks.”
~~~
Because Applejack is surrounded by bourgeoisie friends, she goes to the Fall Formal in a limousine instead of cramming her dress in her schoolbag and changing in the toilet stalls behind the cafeteria like she’d planned to.
Coming to school at night is always a rather exciting feeling. Applejack adjusts her dress awkwardly as she shuffles onto the short flight of concrete steps into the school with her friends after thanking Rarity’s chauffeur. Around them, other students are flurrying up the steps as well, dressed to the nines in tuxes and dresses small enough to graze the borderlines of school regulations—not that anyone’s really in the mood to enforce said regulations tonight.
Rarity had done an excellent job incorporating Applejack’s requests into her dress, and the final result is composed of a smart-looking, sleeveless green vest with gold buttons, and an inner cream-coloured bodice with puffed sleeves and a satiny gold butterfly bow at the neck. The ruffles of the forest-green skirt, hemmed with the same gold ribbon, brushes her mid-shins when she walks down the corridor leading toward the hall, short heels of her nicest-looking dress boots clicking on the tile.
Not a hint of lace. Applejack smirks.
After some registration procedures, they’re in the hall. Applejack’s already seen the decorated hall, of course, but it’s something else to be here now, with most of the big lights turned off, and replaced by the twinkle of the fairy lights wound around the pillars and the gigantic disco ball hanging from the centre of the ceiling, revolving as it spits out spots of neon light across the walls and the floor, gradually cycling through different colours.
And the tables, empty yesterday, are now laden with aluminum trays of food. The hungry devils of their pack immediately split off from the group, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie abandoning them for pizza bites and popcorn. Rarity is next to go, claiming she needs to serenade guys, tugging Fluttershy along by the arm for moral support. That leaves Applejack with Twilight, and they’re content to situate themselves by the drinks bar.
“This doesn’t really feel like a Fall formal,” Applejack says, making air quotes as she leans against the bar. The ‘bar’ is a long table with dispensers of various different drinks: lemonade, orange soda, raspberry punch. A bunch of guys are knocking back paper cups of the stuff, and from the way they’re screaming and laughing at the top of their lungs, you wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t alcohol they were chugging.
“None of these formals ever are,” Twilight says, taking an empty cup from the stack and pressing the tap for lemonade. Applejack gets a cup of the orange soda. She gives it a sip and winces. Shouldn’t have poured that much in the first go.
“Heh. Why, I bet that those research universities in Trottingham will have much fancier events than this,” Applejack remarks, swirling her soda around.
There’s a long pause as Twilight swallows her lemonade. “Oh. Actually, I might not be doing research in uni anymore.”
Applejack blinks. “Yer not?”
“Mhm,” Twilight says. “After doing some programmes in school, I just don’t think it’s what I really want to do.”
“Oh,” Applejack says. “Was there something else you wanted to do?”
Twilight looks down. “I’m actually not so sure. Is that surprising? I’ve wanted to do research my whole life, after all.”
“I mean, I don’t think it’s so strange. Whatever your reasons were, I’m sure you must have them,” Applejack shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, man. You’re smart. You can do anythin’. You’ll find something.”
“Ah,” Twilight says softly. “Thanks. I really appreciate it, Applejack.”
And it’s really something to think about, that even the likes of Twilight Sparkle is unclear on where she would be, when she always seemed like she had her entire future roadmapped and well-prepped for like she did her exams. It’s a comfort in a way, knowing that all of them are just young and inexperienced in the grand scheme of life, and they can not know what to do and it’s normal and completely fine.
It’s at this moment that Pinkie Pie swoops down and grabs Twilight. “Come on, what are you standing around for! Let’s dance!”
“Yer not takin’ me?” Applejack points at herself.
Pinkie jabs her finger in another direction. “Your own will be right with you in five chicken nuggets!”
“My… own?” Applejack ponders, heart beating faster. But Pinkie and Twilight are already gone.
A voice clears from behind her.
Applejack turns around and barely refrains from scrunching her cup into her fist.
“You.”
She nearly doesn’t recognise her. After all, she hasn't seen Lightning Dust in three proper years. She looks different after all this time. Gone is the aquamarine ponytail, replaced by a black-dyed bob, but the sharp cut of her face and narrow gaze are unmistakable.
“It’s me,” Lightning Dust agrees demurely.
Applejack narrows her eyes. “What do you want?”
“No need to be so unfriendly, Apple.” she sighs, eyes rolling. “I was young and stupid in first year. I can promise I'm not that same person anymore.”
Applejack regards her for a long second, parsing her tone for any sort of threat or ill intent laced within it. She comes up short.
She shrugs. “Question still stands.”
Lightning Dust sits down on a nearby stool, leaning her elbows on the table. “I just heard some things about you lately.”
Slowly, Applejack lowers her cup. “What things?”
“About you going missing for a week,” she says. “Not the full picture, I'm sure. But I overheard rumours about the big guy who showed up outside the gates and asked random students where you were. We thought he might've been a stalker or something at first.” She shrugs. “None of my business what happened to you exactly, but… I hope you're okay?”
Of all things, Applejack hadn't been expecting to hear that. “Well, yeah I am. Thanks.” A pause. Then, awkwardly, she tries to ask back, “...How's track?”
Lightning Dust shifts, folding her legs one over the other. “I was banned from track for a year because of the race. Even after that, no track team wanted to accept me. If they did, people wouldn't stop talking shit about me, and it pissed me off enough to make me quit.”
“You kind of got it coming,” Applejack says, blunt.
“I know that, jeez! You think I haven’t been told enough?” Lightning Dust snaps. “I just don’t think it’s fair one mistake I made when I was fourteen could determine the rest of my life.”
Applejack keeps silent, but she sees her point.
“Ugh, whatever. I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Lightning Dust sighs hotly and leans back to rake a hand through her hair. “Anyway, long story short, I don’t run anymore.”
“Really? Couldn’t ya just run on your own?”
Lightning Dust looks at her like she’s sprouted another head. “Are you daft? I just said I can’t compete!”
“You’d just quit if you couldn’t compete?”
She frowns. “What, you’re suggesting that I run for passion?” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
“Well, I heard you were the best runner from yer middle school and elementary school.” Applejack had learnt a thing or two after that day, when Rainbow had run a background check on her for curiosity’s sake. “You must’ve been running for a real long time. Surely you wouldn’t have stuck with it for so long if you didn’t like it.”
Lightning Dust scoffs. “Of course you’d be simple-minded enough to think something like that.” A pensive pause. “But I really did use to love running. I guess somewhere along the way, the competitions mattered more to me.”
“I just think it’s a plum waste that you stopped,” Applejack says. “I might’ve run competitively myself, had I the time for it. I think yer still plenty young, and that one mistake wasn’t really the end of your opportunity. Who cares if people talk?”
“So you’re saying I should just grow a thicker skin?”
“Yep,” Applejack says. “Grow a thicker dayum skin.”
At that, Lightning Dust throws her head back and chortles. “Pfffft-ahahahahh! I really just said all that just to get talked smack to by a farm girl!”
She recovers, rubbing at her glittering eyes. Applejack merely regards her.
“But you’re right. I didn’t come all this way just to be a washout.” Her grin is knife-sharp as she stands up to leave, and that’s the last Applejack hears from Lightning Dust for the year. As she watches her retreating figure, she can’t help but think that this girl really was just like Rainbow Dash.
Applejack downs the rest of the orange soda and throws the cup in a trashbag tied around a chair. She walks around for a bit, her eyes determinedly tracking the room, searching for someone like it’s second nature.
This time, she doesn’t have to look for long. In fact, she’s already making her way towards her, jostling past floral tablespreads and chairs draped in green and chatting teens to cross the hall.
Rainbow Dash’s dress is a peachy pink, the top half of it secured by two thin straps, while below the waist the skirt flares outward, overlaid by a sheer white gossamer that extends beyond the hem. A river of swallows are embroidered into mesh to look like they are flocking around the skirt. Applejack’s already seen Rainbow in her dress while at Rarity's house, but under the neons of the party lighting, the silver threads of the each swallow have an iridescent shimmer. And the seven colours of her hair—colours that Applejack put there with her own hands—are almost glowing, loosely braided over her shoulder and fastened with a silver clip.
Lords save her. Applejack can't believe she asked this girl to the dance.
“Enjoyed the chicken nuggets?” she teases when she spots the crumbs speckled around Rainbow’s lips.
“More than the raspberry punch, at least,” Rainbow says, wiping her mouth off with the back of her hand.
“Feh. The orange soda was not much better, rest assured.”
Rainbow snickers, but narrows her eyes to glare off in the direction Lightning Dust had disappeared in. So she had seen her. “Was she bothering you?”
Her voice is low and threatening. Applejack can practically see the violence sparking in those deep rose eyes. Applejack could've swooned.
“She's changed. Kind of,” Applejack reassures her. “Still rude as all get out, but she wants to change, at least.”
“Huh,” Rainbow says.
Out of the corner of her eye, Applejack sees Wizkid with his arm around the tall blue-haired guy he’d had his eyes on in the hall. She watches as Wizkid tugs on that arm and whisks him away behind a pillar. And it’s like—shucks. If clumsy, timid Wizkid is putting himself out there, what in tarnation is Applejack doing?
Rainbow seems to be having similar thoughts, because she wastes no time in grabbing her arm. “Now, I seem to recall you owing me a dance.”
Applejack lets herself be led onto the dance floor, which is half of the hall marked off by a line of duct tape, already peeling off in several places by the shoes scuffed across it. There, it’s a mass of teenage bodies that grows thicker and thicker around Applejack as they weave their way deeper into the crowd. Finally, they’re somewhere that could roughly be called the centre of the mob.
Rainbow scoffs as she looks around them at the students with arms around each other and jumping up and down, out of sync from the pop music pumping from the speakers. “Psh, none of these people know how to dance.”
“Can you dance?” Applejack inquires.
“Obviously I can, I’m not lame. Check this,” Rainbow lets go of her arm and shooes her away with a flicking gesture. Applejack takes a few steps backwards, as much as she can in such a dense crowd of people, anyway. Rainbow begins to move, stepping around as she holds out her arms and bobs her head to the music which forces more of the crowd backward, making a little circle for them.
Rainbow’s dance can be described as jerky, with shoulders that move up and down in waves, legs that kick out at odd angles, her entire body in a state of constant motion. It's erratic and obviously made up on the fly, but there's a mesmerising quality to it that leaves Applejack unable to take her eyes off it.
At the end of it, Rainbow strikes a pose, chest puffed out like a proud rooster.
Applejack claps earnestly. “What type of dance is that?”
“Freestyle hiphop, baby!” Rainbow says. “Now your turn, AJ.”
“To be frank with ya, the only dance I’ve done before is square dancin’,” Applejack admits.
“Pfffft-” Rainbow breaks into a snort. “Square dancing? Really?”
Applejack puffs out her cheeks. “Square dancing’s a dance all the same!”
Rainbow giggles and gestures at her. “Well, go on then, do your square dance thing.”
“But I can’t square dance by myself,” Applejack frowns.
“Oh?” Rainbow arches her brows, eyes twinkling. “If you wanted to dance with me so bad, you could just say so.”
“T-t’ain’t what I meant!” Applejack’s face heats up. “A square dance has eight people in it. Four pairs to form the square.”
“Fine. Think you can make it work with two people?” Rainbow says, and proceeds to step very close to Applejack. Applejack has to keep herself from stepping back on instinct, taking deep, controlled breaths as she stares into Rainbow’s eyes.
“I guess…” Applejack scratches the back of her neck, hoping the heat worsening there is obscured by the dark lighting. “But it would be less like a square dance an’ more like a square circle.”
Rainbow scrunches her brows, then bursts out into a peal of sniggers at her slip-of-tongue. “You mean a circle dance? Ahahahahaaa—what's a square circle?”
“Screw you,” Applejack says, stepping forward to place her hands on Rainbow’s waist. She hopes they aren’t trembling from the nerves. “Hands on my shoulders, we’re gonna do a motherbuckin’ square circle.”
“Fine,” Rainbow says as her arms go wrapping around Applejack’s neck, “how do we do this.”
“Usually there’s a caller who calls out what we dance, but since we don’t have one I’ll do the callin’,” Applejack says, tightening her hold on Rainbow's waist. “Here we go.”
Applejack starts with the easy, self-explanatory moves, like circling to the left and right and walks forward-backward, side-to-side. Then they progress to swings and spins and the like. It’s rather funny doing these classic moves to pounding dubstep instead of jaunty acoustic, but music is music and the steps fall into its rhythm anyway, a strange, but not unpleasant twist on the dance.
Rainbow is a quick learner. After letting Applejack lead for a while, she switches the position of their hands and tells her, “I want to do calls this time.”
At first, it’s normal. Rainbow calls out a string of commands in random order, only occasionally calling a move by the wrong name. Then, as she gets the hang of it, Rainbow starts being the little troll that she is and does things like calling circle-left eight times in a row and butchering the names on purpose.
“Calling the allemande an alley man really isn’t that hilarious,” Applejack informs her.
“Whatever! Dorito!” Rainbow bellows in lieu of do-si-do. Applejack rolls her eyes hard as they turn towards each other, step past each other’s shoulders, and turn back around.
Meanwhile, the commotion they're stirring up draws the attention of the students around them. Excited grins are thrown their way, and the ones that had been jumping up and down screamed their encouragement at them. Some who had merely been standing around waving their arms half-heartedly began to jiggle their hips a little.
Soon, the noise around them grows too loud for Applejack to hear Rainbow’s calls even as she strains her ears. After several attempts to get her to call louder, they give up on it and start to dance without any commands, just going with the flow. Without any form of coordination, they keep stepping on each other’s feet, but Rainbow’s smile is electrifying, pure energy rippling through the air and the crowd around them, and Applejack really can’t bring herself to care about a little pain in her toes.
The songs come and they go. The people around them have also rotated out, fresh faces joining in on the fun. Applejack and Rainbow keep on dancing until Applejack feels like she might throw up her soda if she pants any harder than this, and Rainbow looks no less wobbly on her legs. Slowly, they pull themselves away from the centre of the crowd and into a darker, less packed corner.
Applejack’s all ready to collapse against the wall there when Rainbow says, “Not so fast.”
“You can go ahead and dance if you want. I’m plum tuckered out,” Applejack flaps her hand wearily at her.
Rainbow appears to rack her brain. Then, she smirks. “Guess I win, then.”
Applejack braces her hands on the wall. “W-what, since when was it a competition?”
“Since just now. But since you’re oh-so-tired, it’ll just have to end here-”
Applejack groans and hauls her own butt up. Rainbow really knows exactly what to say to get Applejack to do what she wants. “Fine. Just one more call.”
And Rainbow’s guiding her hands to her waist again. She leans in close.
“Lift me and spin me around,” she says, her face looking a little pink, though in the coloured lights it’s hard to tell, “like you did that time.”
Applejack nods, understanding what she means. She leans down to lock her arms around Rainbow, then tips back to lift her off the ground, bracing the weight upon her own chest. Though a thick layer of petticoated skirts is bunching up around their legs, Applejack can still feel the warmth of Rainbow's body where it's pressed against hers, hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, leaving no space between them.
They’re whirling around until Applejack can’t tell if she’s dizzy from the spinning or from watching the way Rainbow's laughing: a beautiful, crackling thunderstorm of noise and emotion. Applejack's laughing, too, and she can feel the backs of their dresses flaring out in wide circles, and they must be a damn spectacle right then and there in the middle of their crummy CHS hall.
At the end, Applejack lifts their joined hands above their heads and Rainbow does a last spin, long braid whipping around her. When they’re face-to-face again, Applejack keeps one side of their hands clasped together while her other slips under Rainbow’s back. Then, she gently lowers Rainbow into a dip, concluding the dance.
They’re both breathing heavily. Applejack’s leaning over Rainbow, their fingers are interlaced, and Rainbow’s face is so close that Applejack can see the glitter behind her lashes, silver like the moon. Her eyes go wide, the darkness making it impossible to tell the colour of her irises, but flecks of disco light still dance within them like shots of light through a kaleidoscope. There’s nowhere else Applejack can look; nowhere else she wants to look. It’s then Rainbow’s lips part with a pop, as if she wants to say something, but she hesitates, gaze flickering all about—
In a rush of applause, the world around them comes flooding back. As Applejack rights Rainbow Dash onto her feet, she sees the students around them clapping. In the distance, she sees Pinkie Pie pumping her fist in the air and whooping in their direction, Cheese Sandwich and Twilight Sparkle by her sides. Wizkid passes on by and gives her a knowing wink.
But Rainbow Dash’s face looks tight. With a hurried ‘I gotta go’, she gives her a quick bow and turns around, slipping out and away through the crowd before Applejack can say a word.
Pushing past the people, Applejack follows her.
~~~
Applejack finds Rainbow Dash outside the hall. The hall’s back door opens into a walkway, and Rainbow stands there alone, leaning against the railing looking out, the cold wind ruffling her hair.
“Isn’t it cold out here?” Applejack comments, closing the door behind her, shutting out the noise of the party. Even in her vest and long skirt, she’s shivering. Not to speak of Rainbow’s own dress, which stops at the knee.
“It’s freezing,” Rainbow intones, turning to face Applejack.
“Is something wrong?” Applejack questions.
Rainbow exhales heavily, her breath a fog around her face. The silence isn’t really silent—from somewhere distant, the honking of cars and cacophonous cawing of crows drifts up onto the walkway, while muffled music issues from inside the hall. But Rainbow Dash never goes for this long without saying something, and the resulting quiet is so thick Applejack feels like she could hear her own heartbeat if she concentrated. Thump. Thump. Thump.
She turns to the railing again, drumming her knuckles on it. Applejack walks up to stand beside her. The cold breeze stings her cheeks when she cranes her head outward to gaze up at the dark sky, and sends her hair into a blonde tangle behind her.
From the corner of her eye, she sees Rainbow suddenly point up. “Star.”
Applejack sees it. One pinprick of light in the midst of vast, unforgiving space.
“You know, when we were all out in Appleloosa,” Rainbow began to talk. “I couldn’t sleep, so I snuck out of the farmhouse. ‘Course, I knew it’d be cold as hell in the desert at night, but the cold helps me clear my head sometimes. The moment I stepped outside though, there wasn’t a single light for miles. It was basically pitch black, and there were what sounded like howls coming from the forest. I decided I didn’t want to get mauled by some lion and started to head back in.
“But then, as I turned around, I looked up past the tree canopy and saw that the entire sky was blanketed in stars. Like someone had just dumped a bag of diamonds and glitter all over it or something. There was one part where the stars were clustered together so tightly it was like a river of light—I guess that had been the Milky Way, hadn’t it? For all the states and countries my parents took me to on vacation, I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.
“It was incredible, but I couldn’t enjoy it one bit.” she bites her lip. “I was too busy being confused and worried and then angry, about how you could turn your back on your family and friends and everyone in an instant. There I was, standing under the brilliant star-covered sky, but it was just cold and dark and lonely. And finally, I realised just how terrified I was, of losing you.”
She forced the last few words out, like it pained her to admit that. But it also sounded like something she had kept bottled up for far too long and had simply become tired of hiding.
Applejack’s head swims. “Losing me?”
“Losing all of you guys, I suppose,” Rainbow’s nails pick at her skin. “It started when I began preparing for the Wonderbolt tryouts. It was the first time I wanted something badly enough to work my hardest for it. But it came with sacrifice. It was putting boring work over hangouts, over and over again. I said to myself, it’s fine, once I get in I won’t have to do this again. But then it just never stopped. I spent less and less time with you guys, and,” she hesitates briefly, before putting out words slowly, “I wondered, if I kept going down this path, would I eventually become a stranger? Or could I already be one?”
Applejack’s own harsh words to Rainbow from not so long ago resurface in her head. Big talk, comin' from the one who's been a stranger the most outta all of us. But she knows that’s utterly wrong. Rainbow’s their dearest, most loyal friend, and she’s proven that more times than any of them can count.
“You’re not a stranger,” Applejack rebuts firmly. “You’ll never be.”
“That’s a nice thought, but what about in the future?” Rainbow Dash counters. “When we’re all graduated from this school, we won’t exactly be best friends forever, will we? Everyone will be busy with their careers and families and whatnot. As for me, I won’t even be in driving distance. We might well never see each other again.” She breathes out a laugh. “I just wish I didn’t have to choose between my lifelong dream and the people I care about.”
“Yeah, well…” Applejack shrugs. “That’s life, I guess.”
Rainbow exhales, smiling wryly. “Life, yeah.” She casts her glance far out. “You know, things like this never used to bother me. It wasn’t like I didn’t move all the time, but back then it was just me and my arse. No one to miss, no one to miss me. Easy.”
“Alas, miss High-an’-Mighty finally got friends.”
“I still had Fluttershy,” Rainbow protests, face flushing.
“That’s because Fluttershy is much too precious a sweetheart and puts up with anything, even the likes of Opalescence.”
“You did not just put me on the level of Rarity's demon cat.”
“Right, sorry. Yer worse.”
They share a brief laugh. The silence stretches on for a while.
“Rainbow, I’ll tell the truth,” Applejack says finally. “I always thought you were the one who would leave me behind. You were gonna be a big fancy Wonderbolt, while I was gonna be workin’ on my ol’ farm forever. I didn’t know you felt the same way.”
“That’s how you felt about me joining the Wonderbolts?” Rainbow widens her eyes, like she’s mentally scrolling back through the school year they’ve had so far. “Like I was ditching you?”
“Yes,” Applejack says, resigned.
“Oh,” Rainbow says faintly. “I had no idea. I always thought you were…super happy to be on your farm. I was kind of envious, actually.”
“Whatever do you mean by that?”
“No, I mean like,” Rainbow pans her hands. “It was like you were so sure of what you would do. You knew your place in life already since you were a baby, while I spent most of the past twelve years fooling around until suddenly I had to really decide if my childhood dream was what I wanted to and could do for the next six decades.”
“Well, it ain’t that easy,” Applejack folds her arms. “If yer born and raised to do one thing in life, ya feel like that’s the only place you can go. That you’re expected to go. And until very recently, I thought that was just a fact of life I couldn’t change.”
Rainbow looks surprised. “It’s something… you want to change?”
“The city’s a place of opportunity,” Applejack smiles. “And I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading online. I realised that there are people out there who are trying to give those with circumstances like mine a choice, things that most of us would’ve only thought to be possible in our wildest dreams.”
“...Wow,” Rainbow utters, a genuine shine in her eyes. “That’s amazing, AJ. I’m happy for you.”
“Yeah, watch yer back, RD. One day I could be even more famous than you,” Applejack jibes, and narrowly dodges the punch Rainbow socks her way. She stuffs her hands in her vest pockets, still smiling. “But, yeah. It’s funny how different things can turn out to be if you dare to hope for them.”
Rainbow laughs, but then goes curiously quiet. The wind continues to rustle about them. Someone bursts out in laughter from within the hall, and car horns wail from somewhere further; but all that sounds so far away now.
“Dare to hope, huh,” Rainbow mutters into this quiet, her voice so soft it could’ve been drowned by the wind alone. “Hey, can you answer me something?”
Rainbow's voice is serious, not a lick of the impulse or carelessness that often peppers her speech. Like this is something she's turned the words for over and over again in her head.
“Of course,” Applejack replies.
“Why’d you ask me to the dance?” she asks.
“.........” Applejack shudders. If the blustering wind wasn’t enough to get through Applejack’s thick skin, this certainly is. “Don’t ask such stupid questions,” she grumbles eventually.
“Because I’m in love with you.”
And it’s easier than she thought it would be. Applejack may not be the world’s perfect, nor its most honest person, but telling this one truth is just natural. Like it’s something she’s always meant to say to her, and something that she’ll want to say to her again a thousand times now, if she would allow her.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash has gone completely still, her face almost as red as the poppy stripe of her hair.
“Well, don’t just leave me hanging,” Applejack says. “Say somethin’. You know me—I want the truth, and nothing less.”
“I like you too!” Rainbow blurts, with cheeks that might as well be on fire. “Of course I like you. I've liked you for goddess knows how long, Applejack. Years, probably, but it feels like it’s been forever.”
And see, it’s one thing to suspect something. It’s one thing to wonder if the flirtatious banter was just jokes, to indulge in the casual friendly contact, to scream mentally about the what-ifs and the what-if-it’s-nots. It’s an entirely different ordeal to hear it said aloud, so plainly.
Distantly, Applejack thinks her insides have been replaced by an active volcano.
“...So what now?” Rainbow lets out an awkward laugh.
“For starters, I would very much,” Applejack says honestly, “like to kiss you right now.”
“Y-y-you—” Rainbow sputters. Her embarrassment is deathly cute, and Applejack is learning very quickly exactly how she can get that rise out of her. “You can’t just say that!”
“Is that a yes or no?”
“Yes,” Rainbow says, breathless.
Applejack has never kissed anyone before. She’s certainly never kissed a girl before. She has no go-to method, no instruction, and barely an inkling of how it’s supposed to go. But before her brain can worry itself into rot, she’s already got her hands cupping a warm face, and she tilts her head in to meet Rainbow there.
Multicoloured hair tickles her cheeks. Rainbow tastes sweet as sugar, and her breath like raspberry punch, hot and ghosting over Applejack’s lips. It’s over as quickly as it started, but even as Applejack pulls away, her chest is impossibly light, like there’s all this warmth spreading out from inside her till it reaches the tips of her fingers, stretching the corners of her mouth, so much that she feels like running to the roof and screaming to let it all out.
Rainbow’s simply staring at her. She touches her fingers to her lips, lingering there, as if still in disbelief about what just happened. Then, she throws herself at Applejack, clutching her arms around her shoulders to kiss her again, wild and desperate and passionate in all the ways that Rainbow Dash is.
“How could you,” she complains when they part for breath, “like me back all this time, and not say a word?”
“Neither did you,” Applejack shoots back.
Rainbow hauls the collar of Applejack’s front in, burying her face in the crook of her neck. “Oh my god. Everything makes sense now. What the hell. I thought there’d never be a chance that you would reciprocate.”
“Am I really that good at hiding?” Applejack is more confused than anything at that.
“I don’t know,” Rainbow groans, running a hand over her face. “I guess maybe I just assumed that if you had something to say, you’d just say it straight.” She fidgets. “Well, not straight. But you know what I mean.”
“You’ll find that I’m not always honest,” Applejack says, toeing the floor. “As for you—wait.” Her thoughts screech to a grinding halt. “All those times you flirted with me, you weren’t just joking?”
“I was playing it safe,” Rainbow says, standing up straight again to look at her. “If you called me out on it, I would’ve easily claimed them as jokes. And plus, it always starts as jokes until they’re not.” She bites her lip. “I didn’t dare say anything for real because I was scared of messing it up and losing you for good. I’m still scared now. Even if we got together now, it’d only be for half a year.”
“I thought about that too. But, land’s sakes,” Applejack says, reaching out to hold Rainbow’s hand. “I want to have this. I’m darn sick of pretending I don’t, and sicker still of comin’ up with reasons why I can’t or why I shouldn’t. Even if it’s for half a year, I want it. And after that… we’re graduating in half a year, not dying, so don’t make it sound like we are. I rightly think there’s a chance for us if we try.”
Rainbow stares down at their joined hands. “It’s going to be difficult.”
“And when have you ever backed down from a challenge?” Applejack squeezes her hand. “Don’t worry yer rainbow noggin’ so much, I’m supposed to be the worrywart here.”
“...Right,” Rainbow exhales.
They both look up. Their gazes land upon the single star that glows in the sky. Light from billions and billions of kilometres away, piercing into their atmosphere. Though its battle against Canterlot’s lights is utterly insignificant, it still burns bright and unflinching for anyone who would care to look upon it from anywhere on this planet. Applejack kind of admires it, for that.
“Even if you can’t always see me, I’ll be with you,” Applejack lets slip, eyes still on the sky. “If you want to fly, I’ll run.”
“I could never lose sight of you if I tried,” Rainbow says. “You’re my brightest star.”
And Applejack’s breath catches in her throat as she whips to look at Rainbow again, at her shining rose eyes, her messy colourful hair, the smile on her face. Everything in her wants to reject that notion, call it silly and laugh it off. Of course Rainbow’s the brightest star, and Applejack’s the one faded into obscurity—that’s the way it’s always been. But after what they’ve been through, she wants to believe that, one day, she could burn as bright in her own way, right alongside Rainbow.
“I didn’t know romance was gonna make you such a big sap,” she snorts.
Rainbow sticks out her tongue. “Well, get used to it. It’s gonna be another half-year of this.”
Applejack can’t stop the huge grin blooming to her face. So she doesn’t.
“A whole life more of this,” she corrects.
“A whole life, huh,” Rainbow Dash hums. “That sounds nice.”
And that night, and the night after that, and the nights that followed…
…Applejack dreams.
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My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
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Waa!! I just finished reading this and it is now one of my favourite fanfictions! I always appreciate good character work and everyone is so themselves here, all while fitting into the universe you made! Good job, friend!
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It means a lot!
Aww, thank you so much!