Because
I planned for a picnic today.
It was something simple in the orchard as we usually did for one of these dates. I say simple but if you know Rarity you know it’s anything but. I don't mind none, just so you know. It’s time with my wonderful girlfriend and we both enjoy it to the fullest every time.
Rarity has me ask her a question every day, it’s a silly thing, really. At first, I just rolled my eyes when she proposed it, but let's be honest, how can I not humour her?
Today, though, she had a question for me instead.
“Why do you love me?”
Rarity’s question hit me like a biting cold breeze in the middle of a summer afternoon.
It wasn’t unlike Rarity to ask me strange questions. ‘Did I gain weight during Hearth’s Warming?’ or ‘Does this hat match my eyes?’ Some questions hit you harder than others, though, but none hit me harder than this one.
“Beg your pardon?” I asked as I held my eyebrows back from jolting upwards.
“Why do you love me?” Rarity repeated. “I know why I love you, Applejack, but honestly, I don’t know what could you see in a pony like me.”
“I could make you a list, but what’s this all about? We’ve been together for years, why are you asking me this now? It ain’t like you to be insecure.”
You see, for a farm pony such as myself, it’s hard to read between the lines sometimes. But being with Rarity had taught me things I thought I wouldn’t ever be able to understand otherwise. In the past, I would have said I love you because I love you and left things there, it would have been enough for me, but not for Rarity. Now I understood that Rarity wanted more, no, needed more.
“I’m vain, and selfish, and bossy, I’m honestly a nightmare girlfriend and—”
“Rarity, I love you.”
The words halted Rarity’s rambling and she stared silently at me when I lifted her chin with a hoof. When our gazes met, Rarity's mouth opened and closed; caught for words.
“But why?” The question finally slipped out.
“I love you,” I echoed with a beaming smile as bright as the sun itself, “because you are generous, because you are selfless, because you’re hard-working,” I listed all the things I saw in Rarity, still holding her chin up. “I love you because whenever I look into your eyes I gaze on my future—our future. I see us together then, but you know what else do I see? I see all we’ve been through.”
Now if you know anything about me, you know I’m the kind of pony that cries on the inside. But even my walls can crumble when I lay my heart bare for the mare I love, I reckon.
Rarity blinked once, twice, thrice; the final blink causing tears to run down her alabaster cheeks as a smile tugged up at the corners of her mouth. “But… why?” she said in a trembling voice.
I chortled, locking my eyes onto Rarity’s. “Because your eyes tell me that I’ll never be alone.” I reached for my stetson and took it off, flipped it over and showed Rarity the inside of the hat, showing her the one thing that I kept tucked into the band.
A photograph of Rarity.
“Because you’re right here, always with me.”
Being with Rarity for so long let me know what the fluttering of her eyelashes meant, or what she was thinking when her mouth hung agape.
“I love you,” I said again after putting the stetson back on, “because I am a better mare because of you. Rarity, to me, you are more than family. In you, I found a soulmate.”
Black streaks painted themselves along Rarity’s cheeks now, but her smile kept dazzling through them. “Oh, Applejack! Darling! You’re just saying everything I wanted to hear you say.”
“Yeah,” I admitted with a hearty chuckle. “But that don’t mean none of it is true. It’s been tough, that's for sure, you ain’t an easy mare to please and I’m stubborn to Tartarus and back, but I’d be a fool to deny you are my heart.” I took in a deep breath and sighed, remember what I said about crying on the inside? “Rarity, you’re perfect to me, how could I live without you?”
Rarity smiled and made a playful roll of her eyes. “I’d like to see you try!” she chirped and giggled in a way that made my heart soar as she wiped her tears away with a tissue.
“I darn well couldn’t.”
We looked at each other, then lost ourselves in each other’s eyes. Rarity in a sea of green and I in a sea of blue. I could look into those sparkling sapphires for hours, and she said once to me that she could gaze upon my ‘effulgent emeralds’ until the end of time.
“And you can ask me again tomorrow if you want,” I said, breaking the silence as I winked and gave Rarity a knowing smile.
Rarity simply lifted a hoof to giggle loudly behind it, amused beyond words.
Reminding myself that we were in the middle of a date, I realised that now there was no greater sign of my love than to ask what I was about to.
"So... with all of that said, Rarity, are you gonna marry me today?"
The way Rarity's face lit up made my belly flutter.
"Ask me again tomorrow." The usual singsong response, but it was one that made us both smile.
"I always do." I took her hoof in my own and smiled. “Did I tell you that I love you?”
Rarity wiped the tears from her eyes and grinned. “Yes,” she said, “but say it anyway.”
Now, you may think me a fool, or a silly pony, but trust me when I say that I wouldn't change a single thing.
“I love you”.