Tension
She was the first to admit that she wasn’t perfect at it, but Applejack liked to think that she was pretty good at knowing when Rarity was trying to hide the fact that she wasn’t comfortable. It was when she was at the point where her poise had given into tension. A certain tightness in the lips, a crispness in her eyelids. The way that her posture seemed just a shade more stiff than deliberate. Her ears rigid, as if they wanted to flick down but were being held up by sheer force of will.
She waited until Rarity noticed that she was looking at her to give her a reassuring smile.
“Don’t you fret none, Rares. I meant what I said. I invited you here. It ain’t like you’re somewhere you’ve got no business bein’ in.”
Rarity gave her an apologetic look, her forehead between her eyebrows scrunching up.
“Oh, I know that, darling. But I can’t help but think of how Granny Smith did not seem quite too fond of the idea.”
“Ah, don’t you mind her none. It ain’t like she don’t want us comin’ back here,
‘smore like she don’t want comin’ back here to feel like just another day.”
Not that that applied to Granny Smith. After all, somepony had to maintain the well-manicured grass underneath their hooves, which Applejack scraped at to feel.
“She wants this place to feel special, y’know?”
“Yes, and it does.” Rarity turned to look behind them. “Even just where it is. Why, one wouldn’t be able to even know this part of your farm existed, unless one were on the very top of that hill. And it’s so quiet here, tucked away far from everything else.“
“We’re right at the edge of the land that Celestia gave us!”
Rarity smiled, her pose relaxing a bit. Her eyelids drooped.
“And I meant what I said, too. This does mean a lot to me.”
Applejack just smiled back at her in silence, taking in the beauty of her brilliant blue eyes.
“Yeah.”
She then turned back to face what stood in front of them. Two slabs of stone, laid upright, their faces blank except for the designs carved into their centers. One, the outline of an apple; the other, that of a sealed jar.
“Just wish my parents were the talkative type.”
Rarity made a sympathetic noise, before letting the silence settle in once more.
It really was quiet back here.
Applejack broke the silence.
“But hey, I bet you wish your parents weren’t so much, huh?”
Rarity gave her a guilty look.
“Oh darling, I’ll never complain about them embarrassing me again.”
“What, on account’a my parents? Nah, that just means I hafta tell embarrassin’ stories of me growin’ up myself, even more’n what Granny Smith already does.” Applejack took the hat off of her head, and held it in her hooves. “Why, did I ever tell ya this hat used to be my dad’s?”
“Oh, no, you did not. Truth be told, I assumed you came out of the womb wearing that thing on your head, and it just grew with you.”
Applejack laughed. “Nah, it was always this size. It was the hat my dad wore when he was workin’. An’ I remember I’d always be out there watchin’ him plow the fields wearin’ this thing, and how I couldn’t wait to grow up to be just like him, workin’ to help support the family.”
Rarity tittered. “I can imagine that so well. You always were just you, weren’t you, Applejack?”
“Heh, I suppose I was! But yeah, one day he takes me aside an— hey, y’know the yoke Big Mac always wears?”
“Yes?”
“Well, one day he lets me try it on, and, as you might imagine, I can hardly lift the thing, much less pull anything it was attached to! Oh, how he laughed. And then he lets me try his hat next, an’ at least I could walk around with the thing on, even though it was so big that it’d cover my entire face an’ I couldn’t see a darn thing. Could you imagine?”
“It must have been quite a sight.”
“Yeah! He was laughin’ even harder than the first time. But lil’ me was so excited Dad let me wear it that I wouldn’t let him take it back off, an’ instead I tried to run back home with it, and ended up runnin’ into a tree.”
“Oh no!” Rarity put her hooves to her mouth. “Were you all right?”
“Well, it hurt, but I lived, as you can see!” Applejack gestured to herself with a hoof. “I was cryin’ of course, and my dad ran up to me to hold me and rub the spot on my head I hit the tree with to make it feel better. And I was sayin’ sorry for bein’ so foolish, and I remember how soft his voice was tellin’ me it was okay. That I shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up, because it wouldn’t be long before Mac and I were old enough to help out, an’ that before we knew it, we’d be just as big and strong as he was—”
Applejack stopped, and looked down at the hat in her hooves, a frown on her face. Long enough for Rarity to come closer to her and lay a comforting hoof on her thigh.
“Are you all right, darling?”
“Yeah I’m all right, Rares. I…” Applejack sighed. “It’s just easy to forget sometimes y’know?” She gripped the hat in her hooves. Her throat grew tight and strained. “That they wouldn’t even know I’m a mare.”
Rarity got closer, touching Applejack’s cutie mark with her own while laying a foreleg across her withers. Applejack leaned into her, and Rarity held her tight.
“I was happy as a colt, y’know? I wasn’t like you as a filly.“
“Oh, darling.” Rarity stroked her withers soothingly. “Nofilly was like me as a filly.”
Applejack chuckled, loosening her throat. “Ah, yeah. I should say that I wasn’t like most fillies. But maybe if I had been, I’d’ve figured things out sooner.“ Applejack covered the hoof Rarity was holding her with with her own. ”I liked being a colt. Who’d’ve guessed that I’d want to become anythin’ other than a stallion? I sure didn’t.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that, darling. You have nothing to blame yourself for. If you had been any different, you wouldn’t have grown up to be the same you, and the you that you are is wonderful.” Applejack felt Rarity’s forehead press against her cheek, Rarity’s mane brushing against her downturned ears. “The mare that you are. So headstrong and confident. So rugged and handsome. So beautiful.“ She kissed her warmly on the cheek before nestling her own cheek into the curve of Applejack’s neck. “I wish they were still here with us, too, to witness the mare that you’ve become. I’m sure that they would love it.”
“Yeah. I’m sure, too.” Applejack squeezed Rarity’s hoof, holding it tight. “It’s just… It’s just another thing, that’s different, y’know? Another thing they never got to know. Just like how Apple Bloom will always be a lil’ foal to them, never even havin’ learned to speak. And maybe that’s why I kept the same name, because…”
Applejack let those words die.
She felt Rarity press her cheek into her neck. She felt the soft pressure of it against every breath she took. In the silence of the cemetery, her breaths slowed to a calm.
She spoke.
“Sorry about that, Rares. Didn’t expect all that to come out of me. But I guess this is what we’ve been talkin’ about, huh? ”
“It is,” Rarity agreed from under her chin. Her voice sounded contemplative. A bit distant.
“We’re just so different, aren’t we?” she added.
Applejack took a breath.
“What do ya mean?”
“I… I don’t know my grandparents. I know their names. I know they’re why my parents’ itineraries always include a stop in Whinnyapolis and a stop in Sire’s Hollow. I know that Sugar Fondant has an unfortunate love of bowling shirts. But that’s it. I never really thought about where I come from as something that mattered. I never really thought that it should.“
Applejack waited for Rarity to continue talking, but she did not. She looked down at Rarity, and saw that her eyes were not focused on the graves of her parents in front of them. Instead, they were gazing at the rest of the gravestones that lay beyond them, each with its own cutie mark. Then, they looked up at her, and their gazes held each other for a few silent moments before she spoke.
“Did you know that when I was little, I was jealous of ponies like you?”
Applejack blinked in confusion, not knowing what to say. “What?”
“Oh, I should say, the ones who are the other way around.” Rarity lifted a manicured hoof in front of her as if examining it. “I was already reïnventing myself in so many ways, even as a young filly. I figured that the change would come naturally to me in time, and that I was only being smart in preparing for it. I even picked out a name. ‘Elusive’.” She looked back at Applejack. “Clever, isn’t it?”
Applejack snorted a laugh, as she finally understood. “Guessin’ things didn’t turn out like you wanted?”
“They did not. I waited and waited, but the feelings never came. The idea of becoming a mare felt, well, sadly predictable, but never wrong. And when I thought of the changes that would come with becoming a stallion, even the kind that I wanted to become, it always left me a bit uneasy. To my disappointment, I remained Rarity.”
She flipped her mane with a flourish at the last word, accidentally hitting Applejack’s face with its coif. Applejack gave her a look. Rarity pouted.
“I know, I know! I even knew back at the time that it was such an awful thing to think. After all, I saw the deep pain that came with such a pressing need. But for me, that just added to the romance of it all…”
Applejack cracked a smile. Rarity’s pout melted into one as well.
Her eyes glittered.
“You always were just you, weren’t you, Rares?”
“That I was,” she declared, before flopping against Applejack’s side once more.
And then they held each other, just like that, sitting side by side in front of the graves of Applejack’s parents, feeling nothing but the warmth of their bodies against each other, hearing nothing but each other’s breathing. The only breathing that there was in this quiet place.
And Rarity asked her,
“Are we going to be alright, darling?”
And Applejack studied the graves where her parents lay forever side by side as if she would find an answer in them. And she tried not to think about how not finding an answer in them was itself an answer to her question.
And she answered as honestly as she could.
“I dunno. But I hope we will be.”
And she thought of that young colt being soothed by his father’s words, and wondered if the stallion he had looked forward to becoming was out there somewhere, living out the future he had dreamed of in some place that Applejack couldn’t reach. And she held onto that thought.