Author's Note
I will probably regret this in the morning. Que Serra, Serra.
*Small clean up/edit performed 9/2/2024*
0: Mare Code
Sunday Evening.
As much as Applejack loved the work she did at Sweet Apple Acres, she dreaded the aftermath of working from ten to twelve hours straight. Her body ached, she struggled to walk, and was so thirsty not even the water tower in Ponyville could quench her thirst. Luckily, she had ways to help drown out the pain without, thankfully, actually drowning herself.
Applejack kicked back on the pillow she currently sat on in the library and took another sip of her cold beer. While not as good as her home made cider, beer never had a “season” in which it was appropriate to make. It went with, well, everything, and at any time. Especially at a time like tonight, where the only thing on her mind was her drink and her friends.
“Fluttershy, I do believe it is your turn this week,” Rarity’s voice spoke up, dragging Applejack from her relaxation.
“Oh, um… I-I’m not so sure…” Fluttershy stammered, setting down her juice box.
“Please, darling, we all agreed that we would take turns telling stories of our first flings. We’ve all gone but you.”
Applejack coughed, clearing the mucus in her throat. “Come now Rare, if ‘Shy don’t wanna tell us about it, she don’t have to.”
“She did agree to it, AJ,” Rainbow Dash said, slamming her beer bottle onto the table a tad hard. “If she didn’t want to, she would have said so then. She’s just nervous.” She laughed. “Twi sure was.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair!” Twilight said, setting down her wine cooler with more gentleness. “You’ve all had other friends to get together with when you were younger. This has been my honest to goodness first real mare talk I’ve ever had. You all have had more experience with it.”
“It helps when you’ve also got older sisters to tell stories with!” Pinkie Pie smiled through her squiggle straw, sipping away at her rum and soda.
“Seriously, Pinks, how do you hold all that alcohol? It ain’t natural,” Rainbow Dash said, watching as the low ball glass was quickly drained of its liquid.
“It’s a gift!” Pinkie said, popping the two ice cubes into her mouth and chewing on them.
Applejack shuddered, amazed how a pony who ate so much sweets still had teeth strong enough to actually chew ice.
“All I had was my brother, and even then by the time colts started getting my attention, I was at Celestia’s side as her new student.”
Rarity’s ears perked up at that. “So, did you and the Princess ever…” Rarity stopped, rolling her hoof in the air. “Talk about them? Together I mean.”
“Well, there was that one time she told me about her first special somepony.”
Rarity set down her glass of wine and clopped her hooves together in excitement.
“Well go on dear, don’t keep a friend waiting. Do tell! Do tell!”
“Hey, we have an order system, remember?” Rainbow Dash cut in. “You had your turn.”
“That’s true. And besides, I don’t think the Princess would appreciate me gossiping of something so personal.”
“Goes to show ya she had a lot of trust in ya, Twi,” Applejack said with a smile.
“Yeah yeah, okay can we get back to Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash asked, then took another swig of her beer.
“I do think you’ve had enough time to compose yourself, dear.”
“Well, o-okay,” Fluttershy said, sitting up straighter on her pillow.
All the girls, save Fluttershy, sat up straight as well, placing their forehooves on the circle table they sat around. All the ponies gave their fullest attention to Fluttershy as she stared at her juice box.
“W-well, it was sometime after me and Rainbow got into high school at Cloudsdale High. He was a nice colt, same grade as us. He’d even helped me pick up my books once when some of the meaner fillies knocked them out of my hooves.”
“He sounds really nice,” Twilight said with a smile.
“Oh, he was. We’d bump into each other all the time at lunch, and he’d apologize and I’d apologize and he’d laugh about it but then Dash would pull me away because she couldn’t stand such ‘sappy stuff’ as she put it. But, as time went on, well…” Fluttershy stopped a moment to sip at her juice, then continued. “Somepony started a rumor about me.”
Rainbow Dash slapped her forehead. “Oh jeez, not the rumor. It was The Rumor, wasn’t it?”
“What rumor?” Rarity asked, taking another lady-like sip of her wine.
“It was when I learned my first friendship lesson, pre-Twilight coming to Ponyville,” Dash said, ears laying flat.
“Are you saying-”
“I screwed up. I started a dumb rumor about Fluttershy as a joke, but before lunch the rumor spread throughout the entire school. She was laughed at and picked on real hardcore from then on out. It was… my fault.” Dash took a sip of her beer, ears laying flat as her eyes looked to the table.
“Dears, may I ask, what was the rumor?”
“That I was, um.. a…” Fluttershy muttered quietly.
“A what?” Applejack asked.
“A filly fooler.” Rainbow finished for her friend.
All the ponies were quiet, except for Pinkie Pie who continued to suck through her straw at her empty glass.
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, if we brought something up you’d rather not speak about... I didn’t realize that-” Twilight was cut off.
“I’m not though, nor was I.” Fluttershy let out a sigh. “But the rumor pretty much destroyed any hopes I’d had of asking him out.”
“I felt so bad after that…” Rainbow Dash said.
She gave a start when Fluttershy leaned over and hugged her. Dash simply patted Fluttershy’s back, not speaking anymore on the subject.
“So!” Rarity broke the tension in the room. “Is there anypony now you’ve got your eyes on?”
Applejack rolled her eyes. Here we go.
“Oh, um, well, there is somepony, but you all already know from last time.”
“Oh, right. That,” Rarity said.
Pinkie Pie giggled. “Oh boy, how could I ever forget that night!”
Rainbow Dash snorted a laugh, then opened another beer. “Tell me about it.”
“That was rather informative,” Twilight agreed.
Applejack looked around the room at her friends, confused. “I don’t get it. What’re y’all talkin’ about?”
Everypony froze stiff, Fluttershy dropping below the table with a “oops”.
“Wait a tic, y’all have one of these get’n’gethers without me?” Applejack asked.
“Well, kiiiiiinda,” Rainbow Dash said, avoiding eye contact with her farmer friend.
“There was a good reason for it though, dear.” Rarity stepped in. “I asked everypony to come to my boutique some time ago to have a… mare talk about something.”
“And I wasn’t invited because…?”
“Because it pertained to you. Well, not you you, but your family.”
“What in the hay does my family have to do with mare talk?”
“More like one member of your family, specifically,” Twilight said, trying to hide a faint blush with her wine cooler.
Applejack stared at her friends, all looking away at anything else. The gears in her head began turning, but she wasn’t exactly sure of the product being made.
“Hold on a tic,” she said, the pieces on the assembly line forming a shape. A big, muscular, red shape. “Are y’all sayin’ Fluttershy has a crush on my brother?” Applejack chuckled. “It’s no big deal, I can rightfully understand it with Fluttershy bein’ all quiet like.”
Rainbow Dash was the first to react, nearly spitting up her mouth full of beer. Fluttershy was now completely under the table. Twilight chugged the rest of the contents in her canned wine cooler. Rarity began fanning herself with a sly grin. And lastly, Pinkie Pie was sitting back with her rum and cola, and an evil grin on her face.
Then, and only then did Applejack’s face of surprise go to pure horror.
“YOU ALL HAVE A CRUSH ON MY BROTHER?”
“I wouldn’t say a crush, dear,” Rarity said, resting a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder.
“Fluttershy does,” Rainbow blurted out, causing a meep from the other pegasus in the room.
“Rainbow Dash! That is no way to say such a delicate matter like somepony’s crush. I’m shocked at your behavior.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dash went back to her beer, taking another swig.
“So wait, y’all don’t have a thing for my brother then?”
“Eenope,” Pinkie mocked in a low voice. “We all want some of that Big Mac.”
Applejack blinked.
“That’s no way to put it either, Pinkie Pie. Darling, see, the thing is… well…” Rarity began to stammer at her orange friend’s glare.
“Applejack, we’re all mares. Adults. You must understand that.” Twilight took over the reins, a fresh wine cooler floating in her magic. “And so is your brother. It isn’t teleportation magic, Applejack. Your brother has a lot of features that catches a mare’s eye.”
“I know that!” Applejack spat. “I’m just upset y’all had some sorta secret meetin’ about him, without me.”
“Well, I don’t think you wanted to hear us talk about his… characteristics,” Rarity said with a sip of her wine.
“Or how good of a flank he’s got!” Pinkie said, causing Rarity to nearly spit her wine back out. “I wonder if he works out...”
“Of course he does, Pinks. All he does is buck apples all day,” Rainbow said. “He just walks up to a tree, turns those hard, rippling flanks towards it, tenses his muscles, and swiftly kicks with the power of-”
“Rainbow Dash! You can stop now, please!” Twilight said, fighting to keep her wings folded.
Rainbow Dash failed to notice that her own wings were fully erect, so she downed the rest of her beer to try and cool herself off. When did it get so warm?
All the while Applejack slacked back into her pillow, staring at nothing in particular as she tried to ignore her friends practically drooling over her brother. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take, so she took another swig of her beer.
“Applejack? Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked, taking a seat next to her.
“Honestly ‘Shy? I dunno. I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet I am.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. If it helps, I can, um, stop having a crush on your brother.”
Applejack looked at her friend with an earnest smile. “Nah ‘Shy, ya don’t gotta do that. It’s just, well…”
“Oh, and how his sweat just trickles across his chest when plowing?” Rarity said with a shudder.
Applejack took another swig of her beer. “I don’t wanna be hearing this.”
“Hey, you brought this upon yourself,” Rainbow Dash said with a grin.
“I did not! Y’all are the ones havin’ secret meetings about my brother! Look, it don’t matter none. If Fluttershy has a crush on my brother, then fine. I won’t stand in her way if she musters up the courage to ask him out,” Applejack said, closing her eyes and folding her forelegs across her chest.
“Wait, what?” Fluttershy stammered.
“Well, technically she has to wait her turn.”
Applejack opened her left eye, glaring at Rarity. “Beg yer pardon?”
“See, Applejack, while you understand what transpired at our little meeting, you’ve not been told the actual reason for it being held in the first place,” Rarity said.
“What?” Applejack deadpanned.
“To put it quite bluntly, or honestly in your case dear, I wanted to know if any of the other girls had a thing for Big Macintosh. I’ve been having some… thoughts as of late, after I got turned down by Fancy Pants a few weeks ago.”
“She didn’t want to step on any hooves, in case one of us possibly had the same idea,” Twilight added.
“Quite right, dear. So, one thing led to another, and as it turned out, we all did!”
“Aaaand that’s when Rarity went all mare code on us,” Rainbow Dash said with a humph.
“What’s that mean?” Applejack asked.
“Well, other than Fluttershy having more of a crush than the rest of us, we all seemed rather equal on our feelings for him, so being the hostess of the get-together, I suggested that if the chance ever arose of Macintosh ever becoming available, I would go first.”
“She called dibs!” Pinkie Pie shouted, slamming her empty lowball glass onto the table. All the mares looked at her in shock. “And according to mare code, once a friend calls dibs, you can’t do anything until she admits defeat and gives up, allowing the next mare to go.”
“I did not call dibs, Pinkie Pie.”
“Oh you sooooo totally did. You even had that sly grin on your face. THERE! That one! Right there!” Pinkie pointed an accusing hoof at Rarity.
Rarity tried her best to hide it, but she did have a smirk on her face.
“I don’t believe it,” Applejack said, tossing her empty beer bottle behind her. “It’s like he’s just a big hunk of meat.” All her friends let out a snicker. “I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!” Applejack shouted, frustration building as she slapped her forehead with a hoof and dragged it slowly down her face.
“Look, Applejack, if you want us to stop, we will,” Twilight said. “Right girls?”
Everypony nodded, giving her sincere looks. If Applejack was honest with herself like she was with everypony else, would she believe that if she said it?
No… I wouldn’t... Applejack thought intently. She looked across the table at her friends. Their smiles showed sincerity, but their eyes, oh how they showed the truth. The heat, the desire they held within; there would be no stopping them. If she was to nip this thing in the bud, it needed to happen sooner than later before things could drag out and escalate.
Whether it was due to the alcohol or simply a brain fart, she didn’t know, but finally an idea came to Applejack. She laughed a good, hearty laugh, all the while her friends giving her confused looks.
“Whatever is the matter, Applejack?” Rarity asked.
“Oh, nothin’, I’m just tryin’ ta imagine any of you gals successfully wooing my brother.” She let out another laugh.
“What, are you saying we can’t?” Rainbow Dash smacked her forehooves on the table.
“Well, I’m sayin’ that if any of you gals could manage to seduce my brother, y’all would have done it by now.”
“Now Applejack, we didn’t say-” Twilight began.
“I beg your pardon, Applejack,” Rarity cut off, a hoof raised to her chest, “But are you saying that you believe none of us beautiful, eye catching mares could attract your brother?” She raised a brow, curious.
Applejack gave a sly grin. “Oh, I’d love to see you try…”
