The Refrigerator Light

by Petrichord

Sunday

Ember stirred, eyelids fluttering open.

This room…she recognized the room. It was the room she had slept in the night before. Applejack’s room.

And she realized what, or rather who, she was looking at: Applejack, sleeping softly, partially blanketed by her twisted, knotted, unkempt mane.

All was right with the world.

Ember let her eyelids drift shut again.

---

“Any chance you’re gonna share your recipes with me before I head out?”

Applejack chuckled, clinking the tines of her fork against her now-empty plate. “Well, I suppose I could, but then what would you be able to look forward to while you’re away?”

Ember snorted in amusement, setting her fork down and taking another gulp of apple juice. “How mercenary of you.”

“Learned from the best.” Applejack winked. “Besides, wasn’t it you who was sayin’ that they wanted to eat my cookin’ for the rest of their life?”

Ember grinned. “Mmmmmmmaybe.”

Applejack slid out of her chair. “Here, lemme just write those down real quick—”

“Uh uh. Changed my mind.” Ember held up a claw. “You were right! Even if I somehow manage to make them on my own, it won’t be the same.”

Applejack arched an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Ember sighed happily. “Just one more good reason to come back, right?”

“I getcha.” Applejack blushed, then—after a brief pause—reached over and grabbed Ember’s empty plate and utensils. “Lemme get these outta your way real quick. Oh, one more thing—I took a look at your notes real quick while you were in the bathroom this morning.”

Ember froze. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Applejack gathered up her own plate and utensils, stacking one set on top of the other. “Gotta say, Ember, I ain’t entirely comfortable with what you’ve got laid out there.”

An unpleasant chill ran down Ember’s spine. “Oh.”

“I get that havin’ a rail network runnin’ all the way out there is gonna do wonders for openin’ up the dragonlands, but even if you could finance it out of your own savings, you’re giving no reason for the Equestria side of things to want to maintain their side of the railways. Even if they charged a fair price to build a rail line out there, without havin’ a moneyed interest in keepin’ it working all the time, all the good it’s gonna do is to keep bleedin’ you dry.”

Ember’s jaw dropped.

“You’re expectin’ commerce to just flow into your borders once you plunk down a way to get to an’ from the dragonlands, and that ain’t how it works.” Applejack hoisted the tableware up onto one hoof and began an awkward three-legged walk back to the sink. “If you can get an industrial interest to want to keep transportation as shipshape as possible, that’s different, but that depends on if you have something to extract—”

“Gems.” Ember raised a talon. “Plenty of copper, too.”

Applejack slid the tableware into the sink, turned around and walked back over to the table. “Copper’s good, but don’t y’all eat gems?”

“You think dragons could survive somewhere where the gems aren’t bountiful? Of course there’s tons of gems here.” Ember leaned back in her seat and gestured at her notes. “I figured you would have picked up on that in the part where I talked about buying excavation and farming equipment. I thought we’d be able to sell those en masse—”

“They’re mostly decorative out here. You’d flood the markets right quick if you did it mostly for exports. Copper’s good, though.” Applejack eyed the notes again. “Lotta fancy doo-dads need copper these days. That’d mean lettin’ ponies mine things out of you, though, an’ raw resource exportation only props up an economy until the exports run dry. Plus, you gotta figure out where they’d be able to start mining. If it’s somewhere that dragons are already living on, then…”

Ember’s eyes sparkled. “...Oh, wow. Applejack, you’re actually a genius.”

Applejack took a seat again and cocked her head to the side. “Eh?”

“I’m, like, eighty percent positive I’ll be able to spin that to my advantage.” Ember grinned and started sifting through her notes again. “Not sure I’ve written it down here, but a lot of our elder dragons are effectively squatting on our lands and doing nothing with their absurd wealth but sleeping on it. So if I can…”

---

“Can’t believe the size of my headache right now.” Ember rubbed her temples and leaned back. “Ugh. Flying home like this is going to be a pain.”

“You’re tellin’ me. Whoof.” Hooves and mouth smudged with ink stains, Applejack sat up and stretched her legs. “I’m gonna get a mug of proper cider now. Want any?”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t drink before flying.” Ember yawned. “I really should have bought a canteen while I was here.”

“I got a thermos I could lend you.” Applejack hopped out of her chair. “Lemme go get it.”

“What? No way. I can’t just—”

“Too late.” Applejack trotted over to one of her cupboards, opened it up, grabbed a thermos between her teeth and set it on the kitchen counter. “There. I’ll just fill it up real quick. I don’t think it’ll keep warm the whole flight home, but—”

“Why don’t you hate me?”

Applejack stared at Ember, who stared impassively back. Or, at least, tried to. Any other creature in Applejack’s position would have seen Ember’s expression as neutral, maybe even bored.

“Eh?” Applejack replied.

“It’s…Making breakfast for me is one thing. But helping me out with my notes is…I didn’t think you’d even want to look at them, or acknowledge they existed at all. But…how is this just…” Ember’s neutral face belied her voice, which abruptly cracked. “...How do you not just hate my guts right now? I’m basically rubbing this in your face, aren’t you?”

“Sugarcube, you ain’t—”

Ember laughed; a hollow, bitter thing. “And now you’re the mature one of us. One talk, and…and a dance, and suddenly everything’s better? That’s horse app—”

“It ain’t better.”

Ember fell silent. Applejack took a deep breath.

“Crying on the inside, remember? Or at least, not the outside? It’s…it’s hard, it is. An’ I reckon I’m projectin’ a little harder than you are to try an’ keep calm. Though…” Applejack chuckled, dipping her head a little. “You are, too. Don’t lie.”

“Aheh. Caught…caught in the act.” Ember’s voice cracked again, and the corners of her mouth twitched a little. “But…I still don’t get it. It’s like you’re deliberately trying to hurt yourself.”

“It ain’t entirely that. It’s more like…” Applejack looked over at the fireplace, tipping her hat up slightly. “It’s more like I’m tryin’ to figure out exactly what we need to do, so we can do exactly what we should do. An’ I know there’s gonna be some sort of random chance to that, an’ things ain’t gonna go exactly to plan. But…”

Applejack opened her mouth, but fell silent. Ember sat up a little, rubbed one of her eyes, and took a breath before replying. “Not like building a cabin, huh?”

“Not in the least.” Applejack’s voice cracked as she looked back at Ember. “I think I’m lost.”

“So am I.” Ember chuckled.

Applejack giggled in reply.

And then, abruptly, the floodgates opened up again. Cracked, ugly laughter mixed with half-stifled sobs. Shoulders spasmed with all the regularity of an inebriated judge. At some point in time, Ember stood up, and she and Applejack began walking in each other’s direction, still making atonal hacking sounds in cacophonic harmony. It was as if both of them had borne witness to the world’s saddest joke, and were the most inarticulate audience in the world to express their appreciation for it.

And, at some point in time, Ember’s arms wrapped around Applejack’s back as she hoisted the pony into the air, and Applejack’s forelegs wrapped around Ember’s back, until neither laughed or said anything at all.

And in the background, faintly, the radio continued to play.

---

“I think…” Ember started, standing outside Applejack’s cabin, claw clutched around a small satchel containing her notes and Applejack’s thermos. “Okay, first, I think it’s really cold out here.”

“Ain’t that right.” Applejack shivered. “Temperature fell faster than I thought. Guess it won’t be long afore it’s time to bring back winter. Do y’all get…?

“Snow in the dragonlands? Not even close. Ash clouds, sometimes, but those aren’t fun at all. I guess it’ll be warmer, though.”

As if to emphasize the contrast, the wind picked up again, plucking red and brown leaves from their trees and kicking up a batch of leaves by the side of the trail.

“Hey, uh…” Ember started again. “The notes…”

“Yeah?”

“I think they’re gonna help as much as anything. It should be six months. Eight, tops. And I’ll hold myself to that.” Ember sucked in a lungful of autumn air. “You hold me to that too, okay? If I don’t hit the six month marker, feel free to, I dunno, punish me somehow.”

“Like what?” Applejack cracked a wry grin. “Kiss you until your beak’s sore?”

“Beak? My maw is perfectly contoured, I’ll have you know. You’re such a cruel pony.” Ember smirked, then shivered again as the wind sent another gust of leaves between and around them, swatting as the leaves danced around her face. “Gah!”

“Forever an’ always cruel to you. Just like you said on friday, remember?” Applejack chuckled, then paused. Ember stood in place, unmoving, staring at her fist, looking utterly shocked.

Then Ember opened her fist. Inside it was a bright red leaf, too hearty-looking to have wasted away on the ground.

The wind died down, and the two stared at the leaf in silence. Then, still silent, Ember reached out and threaded the leaf into Applejack’s mane.

“Huh?” Applejack replied, touching the leaf, taking care not to dislodge it. “Weren’t you tryin’ to catch one on friday?”

“I was. For a wish. But I figure that if I made one now, you’d know all too well what it was and it wouldn’t count. So I’m giving it to you. Make an awesome wish for me, okay?”

“Don’t you figure—”

Ember cut Applejack’s reply off with a kiss. For one final time, they lingered, mouth embracing mouth, still and silent, and the world around them fell away. In those moments, there was only stillness, silence, warmth.

And when Ember pulled away, it was only with the mutual, unspoken understanding that there was nothing left to say.

Ember paused, then—smiling as much as the circumstances permitted—spread her wings, steadied her grip on her satchel and took off into the sky. Applejack watched, silently, as Ember grew smaller and smaller, until she seemed a mere dot against the sky, slowly drifting above the trees until the canopy shielded her from view.

Then Applejack turned and walked back to the cabin, ready to finish up the last of the tasks she needed to do before heading home. And the tear that trickled down her cheek belied a genuine, peaceful smile.

Comments

[packrat85]

This was an excellent read, such an unusual paring but you made it feel so natural and good. I hope to see more from this.

[Cerulean Blue]

It was good to see Ember and Applejack work out how they could stay together.

[Daedalus Aegle]

That was really nice. Thank you for it.