> Shake Things Up! > by SnowOriole > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > 1- In Which Great Power Comes With Great Sacrifice > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- So far, Rainbow’s move to Canterlot for university has been cool. After having put up with years and years of dickheads in Cloudsdale schools (her parents insisted on enrolling her in those prissy private institutions where everyone seemed to only like talking about their new phones and new cars and new boyfriends or how ugly the girl sitting over there was), Rainbow had fully planned to spend her three years in uni putting on her surly face and avoiding everyone just so she wouldn’t have to go through the same thing again. Instead, now she had friends. You heard that right: plural. At first, the only person she had known in Canterlot had been Fluttershy, who was from Cloudsdale but not a dickhead; they had gone to the same kindergarten together and occasionally hung out. Despite Rainbow having been an absolute asshole of a kid and the fact that she had lobbed a ball of playdough in Fluttershy’s face the first time she approached her, Fluttershy had still, incredibly, continued to talk to her. Anyway, Rainbow had only ever been good at making enemies, but Fluttershy was good at making friends, and that was how Rainbow got to meet Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie. Now, Rainbow doesn’t want to seem… ungrateful. Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie and Twilight are all wonderful people in their own right. They get along well, Rainbow cares about them like they her, and they’ve helped each other out countless times. But when it comes down to certain things that Rainbow likes, none of the four of them are really… up to it. You see, Rainbow is a, well, YOLO kind of gal. She likes getting up to hijinks, y’know, doing challenges and other stupid shit for fun. But Fluttershy, Rares and Twi get embarrassed easily or care about things like personal safety, and refuse to join Rainbow in racing to the train station. Pinkie’s great for pranks, but she’s not exactly as athletic as Rainbow is, and it’s no fun armwrestling someone you can beat in ten seconds flat. So there’s that. But Rainbow’s happy enough with where she’s at. That is, until the Apple Shake Girl comes along. There’s a juice bar in one of the quieter malls in Canterlot’s main shopping district. Sweet Apple Shakes is a hidden gem: small, locally-owned, and produces the greatest fruit shakes you will ever taste ever—or so Pinkie Pie claims. Because Pinkie won’t stop raving about it, Rainbow Dash allows herself to be dragged along with the others to the store one cloudy Tuesday afternoon, even though fruit shakes aren’t really her thing. It’s quiet for sure: they’re the only ones there when they stroll up to the store. It has a bright and colourful shopfront, fruity pinks and oranges and greens. The counter has the pattern of pink shapes on a yellow backdrop while the signboard above has a simple illustration of a cup of fruit shake and an apple symbol in the centre. The menu boards behind show there are more than just apple shakes sold here; there’s a range of different fruits and vegetables, and a choice of juices, smoothies, milkshakes, et cetera. An interesting choice of music pumps from the speakers: country music, instead of the typical pop one would expect to be playing at a mall juice bar. Behind the counter in the kitchen, a girl in a similarly gaudy uniform—neon green polo and orange apron—methodically chops the skin off a watermelon. Her blonde hair is wrapped back in a hair net. “Jackieee!” Pinkie squeals her way over to the counter. “So good to see you again! I’ve brought some friends along this time.” The blonde girl looks up, setting the knife down. The four others stand around awkwardly as her green eyes travel over each of them. Finally she nods. “Howdy. What can I get y’all?” They each order something. Fluttershy gets a strawberry milkshake, Rarity gets the tropical fruit blend, Twilight gets grapefruit juice, while Pinkie’s order is some abomination like a banana peach smoothie with… chocolate milk and raspberry ice cream? Rainbow can’t even remember what she said. But the blonde girl, ‘Jackie’, carries out each of these orders swiftly, weaving her way around the juicing machines and blenders with mesmerising ease. She gets even Pinkie’s nightmare of an order perfectly. Which is why it’s so strange when it reaches Rainbow’s turn. Rainbow doesn’t think her order was that complicated. Apple smoothie. Yet the girl seems to take… longer to put together her drink. She lingers over the box of apples before choosing them, cuts up the fruit in slow movements, and drops it into the blender slice by slice instead of dropping in the whole handful. And also—Rainbow might just be imagining it, but—the girl keeps looking at her. It’s like she feels the need to glance over at Rainbow Dash every few seconds, as if Rainbow’s going to steal a pear or something while she’s not looking, which is frankly insulting because Rainbow doesn’t even like pears. When the girl finally passes Rainbow her smoothie, her intense green gaze doesn’t let up one bit. Understandably, Rainbow is super weirded out. She takes the smoothie and hightails it out of there. She tells Pinkie and the others about it, but Rarity says, “Well, rainbow hair isn’t exactly common, dear, of course people are going to stare.” Rainbow Dash already knew that, but this was different. Pinkie grins, “As for the longer wait time, well, the apple smoothie’s their specialty! The owners of Sweet Apple Shakes are really serious about their apple drinks, so they pay a little extra attention while making them.” “Besides, I reckon that she’s just tired,” Fluttershy adds. “She just prepared all of our orders in one shot, after all, and she had to work alone.” She hadn’t looked tired at all to Rainbow, though. “Especially after preparing Pinkie’s smoothie, too,” Twilight adds thoughtfully. Okay, fair. Rainbow looks over to where Pinkie Pie is sipping on her chocolatey-brown monster concoction, humming in blissful enjoyment. The others are wearing similar expressions as they sip on their drinks. Well, good for them, but no matter how amazing these fruit shakes are, there is no way in hell that Rainbow Dash is going back to Sweet Apple Shakes again. “Go on then, try yours!” Pinkie pauses to gesture at her. Rainbow Dash looks down at her own drink: a rich, creamy cinnamon colour. Lifting the cup to her lips, she braves a sip. What the fuck. ~~~ Rainbow tries visiting the shake store at different times other than Tuesday so she can avoid the blonde girl. There’s just a problem that she realises once she’s visited the store on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (they close on Sundays) — Jackie seems to work an incredible number of shifts. Some days a tall ginger-haired man takes over, but there’s no reliable pattern to their shifts. It seems completely random. Or maybe it isn’t random and it’s just Rainbow who can’t figure it out, but Twilight refuses to pause doing her maths tutorial to help her chart out their shift patterns (“you could just not go to the store” yeah, and with apple smoothies like that? Ridiculous.). So Rainbow Dash sucks it up and continues to visit Sweet Apple Shakes every Monday morning, because that’s when she really needs the energy boost before her 8 AM class. That’s a shift that Jackie works consistently, but Rainbow is prepared to do anything for that heavenly, ice-cold, sweet-spiced apple smoothie. And if that means waking up earlier so she can endure Jackie’s tortuously slow smoothie-making process and her long green gazes, Rainbow’s fine. More than fine. Until one day, Rainbow’s alarm doesn’t go off. “Shitshitshitshitshit,” Rainbow swears as she rushes down the street, dashing across traffic lights and ignoring all the loud honks that blare her way. She’d be able to run much faster if it weren’t for the peak hour crowds in Canterlot, but instead once she’s in the city centre, she’s forced to trundle at a snail’s pace behind douchebags looking at their phones and impenetrable gaggles of gossiping youngsters. By the time she reaches the mall and tears through the atrium to reach Sweet Apple Shakes, it’s 7.50 AM instead of 7.15 AM like she intended. Really though, 7.50 shouldn’t be an issue with her uni being 5 minutes’ walk from this place, but Jackie, sweet Jackie insists on taking up to half a goddamn hour making her smoothie. Rainbow timed her. “What can I get for you?” Jackie asks her. Rainbow fights the eye-roll. She sees the corner of Jackie’s normally stoic lips twitch and wonders if the girl discreetly enjoys this. She absolutely does, the bastard. It’s all a game to the sadist Apple Shake Girl. Rainbow watches as Jackie turns away and begins to roll apples around in her freckled hands. Having selected her apples, she lays them out on the counter individually. She looks them over again, before finally grasping one and setting it on the chopping board, all of this at an agonising pace. Rainbow coughs. And then Jackie gives her this look. Rainbow Dash becomes acutely aware of the huge knife in her hand and wisely keeps quiet. And also, it’s like. Look, Rainbow doesn’t want to be a Karen. She’s had more than enough time spent with her mother whenever she kicks up a huge fuss over anything imperfect given to Rainbow. One time Rainbow had gotten a kiddy meal that came with a Lego Robin figurine even though she had originally wanted Batman; Rainbow had been like “eh, whatever”, but her mom had yelled at the staff to get it replaced and threatened to call the cops if they refused, and Rainbow had to stand there the entire time bearing all the pointed stares and generally looking like the world’s most entitled brat. Hence Rainbow Dash makes it a point to be extra nice to service workers, if only to make up for a fraction of the suffering her mom extols upon the minimum wage worker population. She gets out her phone and starts to scroll through memes in an attempt to distract herself. But then the time in the corner of her screen blips from 7.52 to 7.53, and her professor’s face flashes in her mind. She has Dr Svengallop this semester, a small and grouchy man who Rainbow is solidly convinced has never felt love in his life for anything or anyone. He’s basically Severus Snape IRL, and Rainbow’s no Hermione Granger, alright, she’s already struggling in assignments and really doesn’t need more points taken off her course evaluation for being late. She looks up from her phone to see where Jackie is at in the smoothie-making. Only to realise that there is no smoothie, and there is no blonde-headed girl. Jackie is gone and there’s no one else behind the counter. What. The. Shoving her phone in her pocket, Rainbow whips her head this way and that to try and find her, but the door to the storeroom in the back is ajar and Jackie’s not in there either. Rainbow eventually figures out that Jackie must have gone to the toilet. Fucking insane! Rainbow thinks to herself as she glances furiously at the half-cut apples on the chopping board, only one red glistening apple left uncut. Couldn’t Blondie have just held her piss in until she finished making the smoothie for her only customer? If she doesn’t finish chopping those apples, it’ll be Rainbow’s head that’s gonna go on the block! This would probably be where a reasonable person would give up on the smoothie and just head to class. But Rainbow Dash is tired and annoyed and hungry, and also, she’s a YOLO kind of gal. She’s a YOLO gal who needs an apple smoothie, pronto. She looks at the empty storefront, looks at the half-chopped apples just sitting there, and thinks to herself: why the hell not? Twilight Sparkle would have been able to answer that question, but Rainbow’s not Twilight. Before she can deliberate it too much, Rainbow clambers over the little door and enters the mini-kitchen of Sweet Apple Shakes. Now it’s important to note here that Rainbow Dash has never done anything remotely resembling cooking. Yes, she’s 21 years old and yes, she lives alone in her dorm now, but her parents hardly cooked, and when she moved to her current residence in Canterlot there was only a shared kitchen that was so grimy she didn’t want to use it, and eating out was cheap enough that it wasn’t necessary for her to learn to. But hey, it’s only making a smoothie. There isn’t even a stove to burn down. Can’t be that bad, right? Rainbow picks up the last apple that lay on the chopping board. Moving aside the other apple slices, she holds the apple flat on the board and gets the knife. She aims it at the stem and sinks the knife into its soft flesh. Alright… But then her knife hits something hard. Rainbow frowns and presses harder, but the knife only digs in a little more before stopping again. Rainbow clenches all the muscles in her hands and forgoes stabilising the apple for leaning her whole weight on the flat of the knife. “Raaaaaarghhhhhhh!” she cries out with the effort. She struggles and heaves and pants, only managing to get the knife to squeak down a little fraction before the base of the apple slips away, and Rainbow’s weight and the knife goes crashing down onto the board, scattering the cut apple slices while some drop to the ground. Meanwhile, the whole apple has gone Superman. It flies into the air, ricochets off the fridge door and goes rocketing for the row of glass blenders. Rainbow, with a sudden surge of inhuman reflexes, dives desperately in the way of the rogue apple. She nearly topples over the blender behind her, but turns around rapidly to steady it. The apple pinballs off her shoulders and falls to the ground. It goes rolling until it bumps into the corner of the walls, coming to rest in a position that clearly displays Rainbow’s failed knife-cut. Only then does it occur to Rainbow that she shouldn’t have tried to cut straight through the core of an apple. Well. That could have gone worse. And it’s only 7.56. Quickly, she salvages the apple slices on the floor, rinsing them in water before gathering all the fruit in her palms. She runs towards what she hopes is a blender and not a juicer. Surely, (hopefully,) conventional wisdom would not fail her at this point. She dumps the lot in, and then tries her hardest to recall what else went in the smoothie. Now she wishes she paid attention to what Jackie was doing instead of pointedly averting her gaze every time while she waited. Trial and error it is. She speeds towards the fridge, finds an open carton of milk inside, and pours some into the blender. Okay… she looks around until she glimpses something that looks like a spice cabinet. She had always tasted a touch of cinnamon in the smoothie, so there should be cinnamon in it. Opening the cabinet, she gets on her tiptoes and grabs the shaker that says CINNAMON. She shakes a generous amount over the blender. Rainbow is a genius. Because she’s feeling smart, she also grabs shakers for ginger and nutmeg—even she knows those are apple-y spices. Ha! Who said Rainbow couldn’t cook? She stares into the mixture of apple slices, cold milk and brown dusting between the blades of the blender. It’s lacking something… Rainbow remembers that in the smoothie, there was a crunch to it. Not like the blended apples, but like that of crushed ice. She stomps for the fridge once more, flings open the freezer door, and sticks her hand in the ice tray. A lot of cubes had stuck together, but she managed to pry out a few good blocks. She plonks them into the blender and checks her watch. 7.58. Oh fuck, she’s going to have to run like mad later. She punches the big red power-on button on the machine. The blender doesn’t move at first. Rainbow moves to punch the button again, maybe check the main power switch, but it’s at that moment the blender lets out a terrible groan. It’s like something out of a horror movie soundtrack. And then, the blender starts to shake all over. Rainbow gets the feeling that something has gone horribly, awfully wrong, but is too horrified to move, and so she just stands there like an idiot, watching as the blender jar rattles in its housing like it’s experiencing a seizure, its contents sloshing about inside dangerously. The groaning doesn’t stop either, but only keeps growing louder and louder. On top of the groaning, a high-pitched buzzing noise starts. Then suddenly, a hand grabs the back of her shirt and hauls her away seconds before the blender shatters. ~~~ So, things are looking ugly. Very ugly indeed. For one thing, the time is 8.05 AM, and there is still no apple smoothie. For another, Rainbow Dash is currently standing in the middle of Sweet Apple Shakes’ kitchen, drenched in sour-smelling liquid, brown cinnamon and nutmeg smeared like soil across her face. There’s apple slices, ice cubes, and shards of glass all over the floor. Several of the blender machines lie tipped over, smashed on the ground, their different contents pooling together with the spilt milk to form a large, chunky puddle swimming in fruity colours. Someone walks past the store and their footsteps slow as they pause to stare in amazement at the carnage. In front of Rainbow Dash, there is also a very angry blonde-haired girl. She’s splattered in the milk-cinnamon-apple debacle; less than Rainbow, who had taken the brunt of it, but still a sorry sight. The girl doesn’t even say anything to her, just vaguely waves her dripping palms about the wrecked store and then gestures at her in a silent question: How? Rainbow can only shrug. Rainbow fucks up a lot, but this is a new level, even for her. Jackie actually looks murderous. Rainbow is unpleasantly reminded of the fact that Jackie is standing within reach of the big knife on the chopping board. Rainbow decides to open her mouth to salvage the situation, which is only the second-dumbest thing she’s done all morning. “Hey now, Jackie, I know this looks bad-” “Do not call me Jackie!” the girl roars. Rainbow clamps her mouth shut, quivering in her sopping-wet sneakers. The girl looks ready to continue on her tirade, but then she pauses to stare at Rainbow some more, and Rainbow guesses that this is the point where she takes in the shell-shocked, absolutely misery-soaked state that Rainbow is in and takes pity on her. The girl takes a deep, deep breath and runs a hand over her frazzled blonde hair. Then she retreats to the storeroom, emerges with a broom, and with the other hand tosses a roll of paper towel and a bundle of clothes at Rainbow. “Go to the toilet and get cleaned up,” she says gruffly. “Don’t go runnin’ off, now—I want ya back here lickety split. You and me, we’re going to talk.” Her piercing green eyes stare daggers into Rainbow. Welp. She hopes Dr Svengallop won’t miss her too much today. Rainbow squelches her way to the nearest toilet, cleans up as best she can, and changes into the clothes the girl gave her—the same bright green polo shirt and knee-length blue skirt that the girl is always wearing. By the time she gets back to the shop, the girl has swept up the shards and fruit and has gotten started on mopping up the smoothie swimming pool. When she sees her, the girl cocks her head and asks, “Why aren’t you wearing the apron?” “Uhhh,” Rainbow says, her hand still holding the neon orange apron that was wrapped into the bundle. “Look, I’m grateful for the change of clothes, but I don’t need the apron.” “The apron’s part of the uniform.” “Thanks, but I’m not really looking for employment right now-” “It’s not a request.” A hard look, and the reality of Rainbow’s situation begins to sink in. “In return for the property and equipment damage that you have caused, and the amount of loss that we’re going to make while waiting for new sets to come in, you will work here for the next year.” What? She can’t do that! Rainbow’s a full-time uni student, for goddess’ sake, with assignments and exams she can barely keep up with; a permanent job on top of that would most certainly kill her. Rainbow considers offering to compensate monetarily instead—her parents are rich, they could afford whatever sum this damage costed—but then there’s the nightmare of actually asking them for the money. Not that they wouldn't pay up, but Rainbow also knows that they would force her to pack up her bags and return to Cloudsdale at once, deeming her too irresponsible to handle things on her own. It had already been so difficult convincing her parents to let her move here. There are fates worse than death, Rainbow thinks grimly. She puts on the apron. Smiling cruelly at her, Apple Shake Girl reaches out and hands her the dribbling mop. > 2- Shake it Off! Shake it Off! > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The blonde girl’s name is Applejack. Rainbow prefers to call her Asshole. But only in her head, because if she said it aloud Applejack might really kill her this time (or worse, extend her contract another year), and also because Rainbow was cognisant of the fact that she had brought this mess upon herself and entirely deserved it. Knowing that fact, however, did not lessen her frustration any. Rainbow met with the manager of Sweet Apple Shakes first. To her surprise, it’s a little old lady called ‘Granny Smith’, who turned out to be Applejack’s grandmother. The other worker, the well-built ginger-haired man, had also come. His name was Big Macintosh, Big Mac for short, and he was Applejack’s brother. Apparently, that was the entire company. Pinkie Pie had said the store was small, but Rainbow hadn’t quite imagined that it would be three-people small. That did explain why Applejack had been such an unavoidable presence at the store each time Rainbow went there; the girl was working there half the time. Granny Smith had been far kinder and more forgiving than her granddaughter. The old lady let Rainbow bring over her uni timetable and they planned a schedule that would work for her over hot tea and a tin of butter biscuits. Unluckily, during enrolment period, Rainbow had chosen to cram all her modules in the first three days of the week so that she would have Thursday and Friday free for partying, but now she’s going to have to work both days plus Saturday. When Rainbow complained about this, Applejack reminded her stonily that Granny Smith was being generous, and shewould’ve had her work the entire week. Rainbow Dash really didn’t get why Applejack hated her so much. But again, she didn’t really have a choice, so she just chewed her butter biscuits a little more angrily. Come Thursday morning, Rainbow Dash reports for her first shift at 6 AM. None of the other shops in the mall are open yet at this time, so at least it saves her the embarrassment of being seen in the gaudy company uniform of Sweet Apple Shakes. She drags her feet up the escalator, which hasn’t been turned on yet, and walks up to the unlit shake store. Framed in the shadows like the high villainness she’s become in Rainbow’s life, Applejack’s already there, busily putting her hair up in a hairnet while holding a hairpin in her mouth. Seeing Rainbow arrive, she rummages around before tossing a hairnet at her too, soundlessly gesturing at her to put it on. With a grand sigh, Rainbow wrangles her hair into the net, definitely messing up the colours she had just separated that morning. For the first hour or so Applejack teaches her to do stock-taking, a task which bores Rainbow Dash out of her skull, and she keeps losing count of the strawberries because she keeps thinking about the crazy bash at Gilda’s house last night that she couldn’t go to because she didn’t want to start her shift on a hangover. After the strawberries, Applejack makes her count the blender machines. The sheet says Blenders - 5, and Applejack makes Rainbow tell her that yes, there is only one blender and four are missing, and by missing she means smashed to smithereens because a customer tried to make her own apple smoothie because she couldn’t wait for the worker to come back from the damn toilet. They couldn’t possibly work with just one blender, so Applejack brings out a small, cheap Kmart blender that would be their temporary replacement while they waited for the new ones to be shipped in. They cross out the 5 on the list so now the sheet says: Blenders - 1.5. And then comes the prepping of fruits and vegetables. “Now, I normally like ta’ peel and chop my fruits and veggies fresh,” Applejack drawls, condescension dripping off her every word, “but I reckon you’re gonna need a whole lifetime more of practice before you can do that. We’re going to start with something very simple, but very important if you’re gonna be workin’ here.” She raises a hand, and on it is a ripe red apple. It’s got a jagged cut at the top near the stem. The apple that Rainbow had unsuccessfully tried to cut. Applejack walks toward the chopping board, Rainbow trailing behind her. She motions for Rainbow to pick up the knife. Rainbow does. The withering look on Applejack’s face does not make her feel like the armed one in this situation. Goddess, if she knew lessons in Fruitshakes 101 were gonna be this bad, she wouldn’t have turned up here sober. “Why’re you holdin’ the knife like it’s a baton?” Blonde brows knit together. “Hold it properly!” Rainbow tries to move her fingers further up the handle, but Applejack hisses and smacks her own forehead. “No, not like that, just—give it here.” She takes the knife and holds it into position, with her index finger on the flat of the blade instead of all four fingers on the other side of the handle like how Rainbow had been holding it. She moves behind the chopping board while Rainbow scuttles out of the way in shame. “There’s a lotta ways to cut an apple, some of ‘em more dangerous than others,” Applejack talks while she demonstrates. “Them pros, they go into the core like this,” she mimes a position where she holds the blade near the tip, making a circling motion around the stem using her thumb as a pivot, “and pop, it comes right out, but it’s also easy for you to cut your thumb tendon along with it.” She pretends to swivel the knife in a full circle until it rests on the skin of her thumb. “And for you, I’d reckon you’d saw your whole thumb off, which means you wouldn’t be able to keep working at the store, and we can’t have that happening.” “We can’t,” Rainbow says gloomily. “So there’s an easier method. This is the easiest one. You’ll get it; a kid could do it.” Yeah, maybe if every kid popped out of the womb knowing how to chop apples like you. “Just cut the apple the same way you tried to, see, like this; but place the knife further away from the stem, so yer not hittin’ the core.” “Okay. I get it.” Warily, Applejack cedes the knife to Rainbow. “No, you’re holding it wrong again, hold it right,” and then Rainbow makes the first incision further from the stem as Applejack had showed her. The knife sinks further down into the hard flesh, but can’t quite cut through to the bottom. Rainbow’s hands start shaking with effort as she tries to lean her weight on the blade without removing her stabilising hand. “Dude. Stop, no, just do a see-saw motion,” Applejack’s voice interrupts. Rainbow glances up to see Applejack mimicking a back-and-forth motion while holding an imaginary knife. “Our blades aren’t that sharp around here, so you need to ease it through.” Rainbow copies the motion. Applejack corrects her so that she is rocking the blade up and down as well, and surely, the knife chinks lower and lower until, with a soft shhhp, the half falls free from the core and wobbles on the chopping board. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Applejack quips. “Now do the other side.” The other half was slightly harder since there was less apple left to grip onto, but with proper grip and the see-saw motion, Rainbow manages to slice it off in seconds. And it may be idiotic, but Rainbow’s feeling pretty proud of herself. Applejack must pick up on it, because she asks, slightly incredulously, “Was that your first time cutting a fruit?” “Yeah,” Rainbow goes to scratch her head, only she can’t because the hairnet’s in the way. She puts her hand down. “Uh, my parents never really taught me to do any cooking… or any cooking-related stuff. Or anyone else. Wasn’t allowed in the kitchen.” She stares down at her shoes, heated embarrassment crawling up her neck—Rainbow was good at a lot of stuff, and a show-off at heart, so feeling out of her depth at something that most people her age knew how to do was a foreign…and deeply unpleasant feeling. “That’s why you’re going to find that I’m a bit… heh, clueless about anything here.” She laughs nervously. At that, Applejack’s face is unreadable. Her expression doesn’t soften, but it doesn’t harden neither. She turns away from Rainbow Dash and continues to core the apple, then slicing up the halves into chunks. Sighing, Rainbow reaches and swipes another apple from the box, grabs a knife and starts cutting that up too. When Rainbow’s gone through four apples, Applejack holds up a hand for her to stop. “I’m gonna teach ya to make the apple smoothie now,” she says. “But first I’ll tell you exactly what went wrong with the smoothie you tried to make.” She points at their lone surviving big blender. “Our blender can’t handle big pieces of tough fruit, so the fruits have to be chopped into chunks approximately this size,” she waves at the apples she had just cubed on the board. “Secondly,” she opens the fridge and brings out the milk carton that Rainbow had grabbed, pointing out the expiration date printed on it, “this milk’s gone bad. I just hadn’t gotten around to throwing it out yet. Thirdly, our spices are very potent; you don’t need to shake on a whole dayum mountain, just a pinch of it would do. And lastly, our blender can’t handle blocks of solid ice, which is what caused it to explode. We have an ice crusher for that,” Applejack scoops out a handful of ice and walks toward the other end of the store, towards an appliance that looks like one of those big pencil sharpeners with the rotating handle you crank. Removing the lid, she drops the ice in. Then she cranks the handle, and shkshkshkshk, ground ice collects like pencil shavings in the box below. Rainbow groans. “How was I supposed to know any of that?” “That’s why yer not supposed to break into other people’s kitchens!” Applejack retorts. Her brief moment of patience seems to dissolve away. She unscrews the box of crushed ice from the appliance and storms around the kitchen, seizing bottles and jars from here and there without caring to explain anything. Rainbow watches with poorly-disguised envy as Applejack snatches the spice shakers from the cabinet without having to tiptoe like Rainbow had. Midget oppression, man. After everything, Applejack turns around. She pours out a cup of gorgeous, light cinnamon-coloured concoction. Rainbow thinks she’s never seen an apple smoothie made with such pure rage before. Applejack jerks her chin at her. “Well? Drink it.” Rainbow wastes no time in downing it. No doubt about it, it’s the creamy, heavenly beauty that graces Rainbow’s dreams every night. She would swear off alcohol if it meant getting to drink this smoothie every day. Intense green eyes study her. “How is it?” Rainbow licks her lips. “Fast.” “I beg yer pardon?” “I said what I said,” Rainbow leans on the counter. “Jeez, Jackie,” she ignores the sharp look shot her way, “you always take forever making my drink. Don’t think I haven’t noticed: I’m dumb, not blind. And you kept pausing to look at me all the time, like I was gonna rob your shop or something. Which is real offensive, by the way, if I’m shoplifting for the funsies, I’m not gonna steal something as lame as fruit.” Applejack looks completely bewildered, as if Rainbow had just spoken in a completely different language. But something in her face changes; her green eyes shrink, and she glances downward, avoiding her gaze. Rainbow Dash waits for Applejack to respond, but she turns away and says nothing. So they continue to open up shop in silence, and then the rest of the week blurs by in a haze of complicated recipes and snobbish customers and too much citrus. Ah, hell. At least she’s getting a free apple smoothie out of this. ~~~ Despite what literally anyone else would have you believe, Rainbow actually does have a sense of social awareness. It takes the form of a small voice in the back of her head that she likes to call Tiny Tank, because just like her pet tortoise Tank, he’s her confidant and the unfortunate witness to all her bad decisions. Tiny Tank is what stops her from blurting rude things impulsively, tells her when she should back down from a life-threatening stunt, and when sometimes, retreating is a better option than punching back. As it is, Tiny Tank is pretty overworked, and it doesn’t help matters that Rainbow doesn’t listen to him ninety percent of the time. Still, Rainbow is working 3 days a week with the least talkative coworkers on planet Earth, and Rainbow is as allergic to awkward silences as she is to shellfish (hives on a good day, anaphylaxis on a very bad one). Even though it’s in her best interest to just shut up, do the work and go home—so Tiny Tank advises—Rainbow just doesn’t think she can stand another 10-hour shift with nothing but the monotonous drone of the juicing machines in her ears. She glances over at her coworker. Rainbow’s still in training phase, so she’s not allowed to work alone yet. Today, she’s with Big Mac, the ginger-haired man, instead of Applejack. Where Applejack gives snippy, curt responses, Big Mac is a guy that Rainbow’s pretty sure is mute. The only sounds he makes are a low, affirmative “eeyup” when he takes someone’s order, or a grunting “eenope” when someone asks for 10,000th time if they sell chocolate milkshakes here. Still, with Rainbow’s irresistible charm, it’s worth a shot. “Hey,” Rainbow starts when there’s a lull in the crowd. Honestly, the lulls are long, and customers are few and far between, only picking up a little during lunchtime, which is when Rainbow gets really stressed out by having only one-and-a-half blenders. It truly is a quiet establishment. “We’ve been working together for a while now, but we’ve never really talked. Um… how are you?” Big Mac looks up from where he’s rearranging the towering stacks of cups. He tilts his head politely. “Good.” A pause. “You?” So, not mute then. “Um, cool! Yeah, I’m good too. Thanks,” she says, cringing at herself internally. The silence somehow feels even more stifling than before. Even the juicer has rumbled to a stop. Rainbow can already feel the hives coming on. Desperately, Rainbow reaches out mentally to Tiny Tank for help, but Tiny Tank seems to be on strike. So Rainbow opens her mouth again. “How’s your sister?” “Hmm,” Big Mac hums. Rainbow has no idea what’s that supposed to mean. “Y’know, I think your sister hates me,” she continues anyway. “Do you know why? Because I don’t remember ever having met her before, let alone done something to wrong her. I mean, other than that day, of course, but even before that.” “What makes you think she hates you?” “Uh, duh!” Rainbow waves her hands summarily. “She always takes forever making my apple smoothie!” A long pause. Then Big Mac says, “She doesn’t hate you.” “Sure she doesn’t,” Rainbow drones. Great, this entire family is full of cryptids. Granny Smith is the only normal person in here. Then Big Mac continues, slowly, “Applejack does tend to take quite long to make the apple smoothie… it’s a special drink to her and all of us, and she’s very proud of her work. Y’see, there was once when another company, the Flim Flams, tried to buy over Sweet Apple Shakes by making apple smoothies faster than us, but they didn’t succeed because our apple smoothies were of better quality. She likes to impress others with the smoothies she makes—she takes it as a personal challenge to never be outdone.” Rainbow stills. Very proud of her work, huh. “...And if it comes across as dislike to you, that’s simply not true. She’s just not very good with people. I reckon you should try talkin’ to her directly about it…” Big Mac’s still talking, but Rainbow Dash isn’t listening anymore. Applejack’s proud of her work… Takes it as a challenge to never be outdone… The gears in her mind are spinning, whizzing at top-speed. Big Mac cuts off his words in lieu of giving Rainbow a strange look when she stomps her foot on the ground and victory pumps the air. Rainbow’s got it. ~~~ 5 AM on a Saturday morning, when Applejack shows up, she finds Rainbow Dash behind the counter an entire hour in advance, myriad of fruits chopped and ready on the boards, blenders whirring pleasantly in the background. “What in the hay do you think you’re doin’?” “What does it look like?” Rainbow shoots back, slapping the lid aggressively on top of the Kmart blender before turning to the stack of drinkcups. “Smoothies, baby!” Applejack squints at her suspiciously. “Just what are you up to?” Rainbow puffs out her chest, whirling around to point a wooden spoon at her. “I’m going to prove to you that I can make a better smoothie than you!” Two seconds pass. Then five. Applejack continues to stare at her blankly, and Rainbow feels her smirk starting to falter. Not quite the mouth-hanging-agape, oh no! my smoothie business is under threat! shock and panic she had been expecting. Then suddenly Applejack’s an inch away from her, and a hand presses against her forehead, her palm warm on her skin. Rainbow, who’s been backed up against the counter, just about stops breathing. “Ya have a fever or somethin’?” Applejack asks, her voice deep, softer than usual. And, staring into those eyes of concern, having calloused fingers brushing over her temple, Rainbow gets this super weirdfeeling in her chest that she would rather not describe. It’s probably the queasiness from challenging the Fruit Smoothie Goddess to a shake-off. “No I don’t.” Rainbow bats Applejack’s hand away and shoves her way past to the blenders. She grabs one smoothie cup and holds it below the tap, allowing a beautiful amber liquid to fill the cup. “I’m serious. Drink up!” “An’ I suppose you remembered to do stocktaking while you were so busy doin’ things you weren’t supposed to be,” Applejack says dryly. “Checkmate, sucker, I did,” Rainbow rummages in her back pocket and brandishes the fully-filled stocktaking list, shaking it vehemently. “All fifty-three bags of berries. I counted them all and I didn’t squash any.” The look on Applejack’s face is making this so worth it. “Now drink!” Still unyielding, Applejack folds her arms. “Those are your basic responsibilities. There’s still no reason for me to drink the smoothie that you made unprompted, just ‘cause ya felt like doing a silly competition. It’s a plain waste of shop ingredients, I’d say.” Well. It’d be a low blow, but Rainbow didn’t spend a week watching smoothie-making videos, borrowing every drink recipe book from the library, and practising smoothies in her dorm’s grimy-ass common kitchen for nothing. Taking a deep breath, Rainbow sidles up to her, holding out the orange smoothie in both hands like a peace offering, hopefully close enough for her to get a whiff; Applejack’s nostrils twitch. And then Rainbow says sweetly: “You’re just refusing to drink it because you’re scared it’ll be better than yours.” Applejack’s nostrils flare. Rainbow grins as Applejack snatches the cup from her hands and takes the world’s tiniest sip. Her freckled cheeks move as she appears to swish the drink in her mouth; an unreadable look crosses her face. The awkward silence where Rainbow’s just watching Applejack taste the smoothie stretches on for so long Rainbow thinks she’ll need to be stabbed at any moment with an Epi-pen. Rainbow clears her throat. “Weeeeeeell? Is it or is it not the best thing you’ve ever tasted?” “It’s,” the girl says, “good.” “Better than yours?” Rainbow waggles her eyebrows. To her surprise, Applejack actually nods. She takes another mouthful of the orange smoothie, licking her lips thoughtfully. “How did you make it? It’s different from the one I taught you to make.” It’s a genuine question, with no snark behind it at all. Stars, Rainbow didn’t expect Applejack to really admit if it was good, let alone entertain the suggestion that it might be better than hers. Suddenly, Applejack doesn’t seem as unreachable and high-and-mighty as before. Still, Rainbow’s here with a game plan in mind. “I’ll tell you if you make a smoothie better than mine,” she says. “I challenge you… to a shake-off!” “Pfffft-” Applejack clamps a hand over her own mouth, evidently fighting not to spew out the smoothie in her mouth. A gulp as she swallows, and then she roars, a litany of hearty chuckles spilling from her lips, reverberating through the tiny juice bar. “Alright, ya dang varmint,” Applejack laughs, a sound deep and full—the first time Rainbow has ever seen her laugh. “Since yer so insistent and all.” Mission success. Rainbow returns with a brilliant grin of her own. “Let’s shake on it!” “You are so not funny.” Their hands clap together. ~~~ Cons of challenging your coworker at the local juice bar to a shake-off: one, Rainbow hasn’t been to a party in weeks because she’s been too busy researching smoothie recipes and grocery shopping for fruits to practise her smoothies with. Two, she’s started having to up her game by asking the people around her who are good at cooking for advice, so much so that she’s becoming known as a smoothie fanatic and she gets ribbed at whenever drinks are brought up in a conversation or when they pass by some other juice bar, which is super embarrassing and not congruent with her ‘cool’ image at all. But Rainbow’s a committed soul, so she keeps at it. And now she’s at Sweet Apple Shakes, whipping up smoothies at a maddening pace. Twisting within the small space of the juice bar, Applejack chops and mixes and measures in precise, decisive movements, going slow but steady. Rainbow’s going fast but assuredly not steady. She often grabs things without looking, sighs frustratedly, and goes back to switch it to the right one, or dumps too much of an ingredient in and has to try skimming the top of it off with a spoon. Their customer, a middle-aged man with a kid on his shoulder, stands behind the counter. Both sets of eyes are wide, two heads turning in tandem like they’re watching a table tennis match. The system goes like this. Because neither of them nor the Apple family members can truly be impartial judges, they turn the customer into their judge. They set up a Buy One, Get One Free deal for a select few drinks on the menu that rotates every day. When a customer orders the deal, it’s a contest to see who can slap down the drink in front of the customer first—often a close call—and who can make the drink they like more. A chart hangs on the wall on the side of the juice bar: a large sheet of paper with a line down the middle, an apple symbol for Applejack and a lightning-bolt for Rainbow Dash. Below each symbol, tallies are marked for each ‘shake-off’ won. “HAH!” Applejack barks as she smacks a cup on the counter, the raspberry smoothie within sloshing. “I’m first!” “Too late, boss,” Rainbow smirks, gesturing ahead. Applejack’s head swivels to see the man already holding a cup of pink concoction. The blonde girl lets out a long and loud groan, folding her arms. “Well, it’ll just have to come down to how it tastes,” she harrumphs. The customer laughs as he passes the cup to the kid on his shoulder. “Look, I’m sure they’re both lovely—” his voice wilts as he apparently takes in the stone-hard stares of the both of them. “Ah, so I do have to choose…” “Uh-huh.” “No question about it.” The man takes Applejack’s smoothie and tastes it. After a lengthy pause, he purses his lips together. “Well, I honestly think both are really good, I just can’t decide. Maybe I’ll ask the little peekaboo here,” he shifts the kid on his shoulder, who is already sipping on Rainbow’s smoothie. “Maymay, try this smoothie? The other lovely young lady made it for us.” The kid blinks. Pigtails swinging, she leans over to take a gulp of Applejack’s smoothie, blissfully oblivious of Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s hyperfocused glares. A beat. Then, they watch as she relinquishes her previous cup so fast that that the man had to lurch with a “whoaaaa there” in order to catch the falling cup with one hand as the kid greedily grabs Applejack’s cup and begins to gurgle it down happily. “I guess we have a winner,” the man says. Sighing, Rainbow smooshes her face into her hands. Behind her, she can hear Applejack crowing in delight and the scribble of the pen on paper as she adds two points to herself on the chart and one to Rainbow. One point for being faster, two points for being better. Then, she hears Applejack waving off the customer cheerfully, who gives her an amused chuckle in return, while the kid lets out a particularly loud burp. Rainbow collapses bonelessly onto a stool, exhausted. Does this whole challenge make Rainbow’s job a lot more stressful than it has to be? Oh, absolutely. Rainbow goes home every work night and crashes, lights out at 9-freakin’-PM. Her legs ache when she runs to three separate markets across the city to fetch the best-quality ingredients. And then there was last week, which she texted Fluttershy about: Me I am seconds away from committing a felony Fluttershy What happened? Me I went to the common kitchen just now and guess what cheese. Fluttershy Cheese??? Me There was cheese splattered over literally the entire kitchen Like if someone was trying to make a cheesecake and they looked at the kitchen walls and thought to themselves gee this sure looks like a cake pan Fluttershy my goodness So I’m guessing you didn’t make your smoothies this week? Me no. i just had to pick the cheese off the power socket so i could plug my blender in it was mouldy btw I am so sick of people and i still have to go buy a kilo of oranges after this And then Fluttershy would ask her: If it’s so tiring, then why do you still do it? Well. That’s certainly a question. It’s hard for Rainbow to explain, but… She cracks her fingers apart, peering at Applejack from between her fingers. The girl is practically glowing with her victory, humming as she chops a banana with renewed vigour. She stops for a moment to fix her hair, which has almost escaped her hairnet completely, sticking out in blonde whorls, but instead of looking like she’s out of energy, there’s a fire in her eyes, what could even be called a manic gleam. Rainbow feels her heart pound just slightly harder, watching her. You see, it’s the way Applejack comes absolutely alive when she’s hell-bent on making the best smoothie ever. It’s the way she doesn’t hold back. She doesn’t think it’s a waste of time or effort, or a silly game to be ashamed of; she’s taking the challenge seriously, giving it her all. And after a lifetime of being told to tone it down, to compromise, to let others have the win sometimes—Rainbow finally feels like she doesn’t have to hold back either. And it’s such an amazing feeling, Rainbow would scrape cheese from an entire basketball court just to feel it again. So, lying on the bed at night on her phone, this is what she replies Fluttershy with: cuz I think I’ve found it. My rival.