Water buffalo?
Check.
Hula skirt?
Check.
Bongos?
Check.
Bunny suit? Tomatoes? Magic? Raspberry lemonade?
Check.
Pinkie Pie suited up and readied her equipment. She poofed her mane, polished her hooves, brushed her teeth, brushed her tongue, brushed her coat, brushed her mane, brushed Gummy, brushed Gummy’s teeth, poofed her mane again, and wiped icing war paint over her cheeks and nose. She grinned, and the bouncing Pinkie Pie in the mirror grinned back. They were both agreed.
It was a good day to die.
__________________________________________________
Applejack pushed the barn door open and stepped outside, but instead of landing on the hard-packed dirt that normally surrounded the barn she felt her hoof sink down into ground. Looking down, she found that she wasn’t standing on dirt at all, but sand.
And not just in front of the barn, the sand was everywhere and everything else was gone. Where before there was grass and tilled soil, now there was sand. Where before there were acres of apple trees and farmland, now there was sand. Where before there was a house, a chicken coop, a hayloft, and a yard, now there was only sand. Even the barn she had just stepped from had been replaced by the hot, loose piles of sand that now surrounded her.
She followed the sand with her eyes as it sloped gently down from where she stood, down and down past small patches of palm trees and scattered seashells, down until it fell into water. More water than she had ever seen, even more water than sand. Blue waves stretched forever, farther than she could see and past a distant horizon, and such noise it made as it rushed up and then collapsed back down onto itself, that she could hear nothing else.
It was a long while before the cogs in Applejack’s mind began turning again, staring stunned at her surroundings. She screwed her eyes shut and quickly opened them again to see if Sweet Apple Acres would return, but the sand and water remained.
“…A beach?” she murmured, her voice lost in the sound of the waves breaking on the shore.
Having said it, she realized it must be true. Everything she saw before her matched every picture of beachfronts she had ever seen. It even smelled how she had always imagined a beach should smell. A bitter scent of salt water, seaweed, and fish food hung over everything. A quick sniff confirmed that even her hat now smelled of the stuff.
“Mac?” she called out into the wind as loud as she could. “Granny?”
No one answered her.
She sat down and scratched her chin. Somehow she had been lifted up out of Sweet Apple Acres, carried over and across Equestria, and then discarded on some faraway coast, all in the time it had taken her to walk through the barn door. She quickly thought of possible explanations.
Could Discord have recanted the ways of good and spread his chaos over the world again? Could it be some fiend’s dark, foul magic, hoping to separate her from her friends in order to eliminate the Elements of Harmony? Or perhaps she had gone a little overboard on the cider the night before?
She spotted a palm tree roof through a nearby copse of trees. Looking closer, she saw that the roof belonged to a meager shack that stood on four shaky little poles, rippling along with the wind and the trees. Outside, a pink pony bounced up and down, an unmistakably familiar giggle on her lips. Applejack set towards the shack at a quick trot, but her hooves sank into the sand with each step, and walking was difficult.
After fumbling through the sand, she made her way past the trees and came upon the shack. She found not just one, but three ponies, and three long beach chairs. In the first sat Rainbow Dash, lying on her stomach with her eyes closed. In the second sat Granny Smith, lazily patting on a pair of bongos in front of her. The third was empty. Behind the shack’s counter, Pinkie Pie jittered on her hooves in time with Granny’s drums, sporting a fashionable hula skirt, coconut bra, and lei necklace. She was dancing, her flank and skirt swaying back and forth with a melody only she could hear.
“Applejack!” Pinkie cried, still dancing. “You’re finally here!”
Rainbow Dash peeked out at her and groaned. “Jeez, AJ, what took you so long?”
Applejack stopped dead in her tracks, too confused to even understand what she was being asked. “What?”
Pinkie Pie huffed and frowned. “We’ve been waiting for like five whole minutes!”
“Slowpoke,” Rainbow Dash mumbled.
“Now we’re way behind,” Pinkie said, looking down at a piece of paper. “We’re gonna have to go double-time just to catch up.”
Dash folded her legs over her chest. “Way to go.”
“Double-time!” Pinkie cried.
“…What?” was all Applejack could think to say.
“Triple-time now!”
“Come on, sit down already,” Dash said, pointing to the empty chair.
“Quadruple-time!”
“Are you just gonna stand there, or what?”
“Quintuple time!”
Applejack took a deep breath, steadying her shaky, weary nerves. She needed to stay calm, stay calm and figure out what the hay was going on. “What is this?”
“Oh right!” Pinkie beamed and threw the paper behind her back, propping her front hooves up on the shack’s counter. “This is Pinkie Pie’s Perky Pastel Beachside Bouncing Bullpen. We sell lemonade! What can I get for ya?”
“No, what is all of this?” Applejack asked again, waving a hoof through the air.
“Um…” Pinkie Pie tilted her head to the side, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth. “Equestria?”
“A beach?” Rainbow Dash guessed.
“No!” Applejack cried, taking another breath. “I mean where are we?”
Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Equestria?”
“In sand?” Dash tried.
“Your imagination?”
“In a chair?”
“In the future?”
“By a tree?”
“In a chair in the sand in your imagination in the future by a tree?”
“Uh, not underground?” Rainbow Dash tried, scratching her head and looking very seriously down at the sand around her.
“Oh! Definitely not in space,” Pinkie said, beaming like she’d solved a riddle.
“Or underwater,” Dash pointed out.
“Probably not in a vol—”
“Never mind! Never mind!” Applejack threw her legs into the air to silence her friends. “Just never mind,” she said, trotting to where Granny Smith sat.
“And what’s your excuse?” she asked when she reached the apple matron.
Granny Smith peered up at her over the bongos, staring at Applejack like she had just suggested they start growing oranges instead of apples. “I’m layin’ down the beat.”
The old mare continued pattering on the drums, but not in any ‘beat’ Applejack could discern. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Granny, I thought you were better than this.”
Granny Smith chuckled. “Huh? I’ve been hankering for a vacation for ages.”
“Granny!” Applejack nearly shouted, her patience wearing thin. She expected this sort of nonsense from Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, but not from the very mare who had scolded her for ducking chores as a filly. “You said you were goin’ to finish fryin’ those apple fritters, and I need to start bucking the north field. This is hardly the time for goin’ on vacations.”
Granny continued pattering away on her drums, giving no indication that she cared or had even heard Applejack’s words. “Girl, you should sit down.”
Applejack’s mouth crumpled into a frown. “I’ll sit down when there’s not work that needs doin’, and I would have expected the same from you.”
“Jeez, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said from her chair, turning over onto her side. “I’m sure your apples can stand not being bucked for one afternoon.”
“Yeah,” Pinkie said, waggling her eyebrows. “My apples haven’t been bucked for weeks, and they’re doing just fine.”
Rainbow Dash groaned. “Pinkie Pie, do you even hear what you’re saying right now?”
“Nope.” Pinkie rubbed her chin in a surprisingly convincing imitation of thought. “You know, you really should have done all that apple stuff already. I mean, did you think we weren’t going to put a beach on your house today? That’d just be silly.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed. “At a certain point this becomes your fault.”
Among the waves in the distance, Applejack watched a pair of dark-furred cows grunting through the water. She recognized them as water buffalo.
“What—” Applejack stopped herself, fighting the desire to surrender to the thought that nothing would ever make sense again. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Sooner or later they would get bored and let her go back to her work. Knowing Rainbow Dash, who had an attention span slightly shorter than that of a goldfish, it would likely be sooner. “What are the buffalo doin’ here?”
“Hey, yeah.” Rainbow Dash frowned, rolling over to look at Pinkie Pie. “Since when are there buffalo at the beach?”
Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Since always.”
“Pinkie, have you ever been to the beach?” Dash asked, one brow raised.
Pinkie smiled, fluttering her eyelids innocently. “Have you?”
Rainbow Dash grumbled something Applejack couldn’t hear and rolled back over. She looked to Applejack. “Are you gonna sit down, or not?”
“Not,” Applejack replied, walking up to the shack. “Pinkie Pie, that’s enough. You’ve got whatever it was you wanted. You’ve had your laugh. Now let me get back to work.”
Pinkie pulled the paper she had been reading earlier out of her tail and inspected it closely. “Hmmm…” She abruptly looked back up, smiling so much like only Pinkie Pie could that Applejack couldn’t help smiling a little back. “Nope, we’re not even close to done yet.”
Applejack sighed for what she figured must have been the dozenth time that afternoon. “Great. How’d you guys do all this anyway?”
Pinkie bit her lip. “Do you want it from the very beginning?”
Applejack shrugged. “I guess.”
“Well alrighty,” Pinkie chirped with a smile. “When a mommy pony and a daddy pony love each other a whole lot—”
“Seriously, Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash interrupted, screwing her face up.
Pinkie snorted. “I’m always serious.”
“Whatever, just skip ahead like twenty years.”
“Aww,” Pinkie pouted. “That was the best part.”
“Absotutely it is!” Granny Smith cried, her bongos falling to the ground.
“Granny! Show a little modesty,” Applejack cried, before turning back to Pinkie. “I meant right now. You know, the sand and beach and such.”
Pinkie’s mouth formed a little ‘O’, and she abruptly ducked behind the counter, leaving Applejack standing alone with the shack. Just as abruptly, she reappeared next to Applejack, throwing a leg over the apple farmer’s neck. Pinkie leaned in close, bumping snouts with her. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to keep it a secret.”
Applejack brushed Pinkie’s leg away, stepping back. “Keep it a secret from who? There are only four of us here.”
Pinkie Pie stepped forward, bumping snouts again, conspiratorially looking from side to side. “We can’t take any chances. Somepony might be listening.”
"Like who?"
"Like somepony with a totally super cute rainbow tail," Pinkie whispered loudly, narrowing her eyes.
Applejack scratched her forehead under her hat. “You mean Rainbow Dash?”
Rainbow Dash’s ears perked up at that. “What?”
“Sshhh!” Pinkie Pie hissed, pushing Applejack back and throwing Rainbow Dash a shamelessly obvious covert glance. “Don’t let her hear you!”
Rainbow Dash sat up, grimacing. “You realize I’m sitting right here, right? Like, not even three feet away.”
If Pinkie Pie had heard she gave no indication, leaning closer to Applejack. “Do you promise?”
Applejack shrugged again. “Uh, I guess.”
“Pinkie promise!” Pinkie barked as she jabbed Applejack in the chest, her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“Hey,” Dash said from her seat. “And you realize that I set this up with you, yeah? So I already know the secret, right?”
Applejack chewed her lip, trying to remember Pinkie’s promise mantra. “Uh, throw some cake in your eye and, uh, wash your clothes. Or somethin’.”
“Close enough,” Pinkie said, throwing her leg back over Applejack’s neck, her coconut bra chafing against Applejack’s coat.
Rainbow Dash rapidly waved a hoof back and forth through the air in front of them. “Hey! Are you guys listening to me?”
“It’s…” Pinkie indicated for Applejack to lean closer, and Applejack obliged with a frown. Pinkie stuck her muzzle deep in Applejack’s ear, her tickling breath causing Applejack to grimace and shiver. Pinkie Pie, uttering only a single word, whispered, “Magic.”
Applejack rolled her eyes, her ear twitching as she pushed the bouncing pony away. “You don’t say.”
“No, I definitely just did say, silly,” Pinkie replied with a giggle.
“Pinkie Pie…” Rainbow Dash brought a hoof to her face. “Just hurry up and ask her. This is taking forever.”
Applejack looked between the two of them. “Ask me what?”
Pinkie huffed, shaking her hula skirt and making a face. “She hasn’t even sat down yet.”
“Applejack!” Rainbow Dash shouted, pointing a hoof at her. “Go sit down so we can finish this already.”
“If I sit down, will you guys let me finish my work?”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Dash mumbled, lying back down. “Just sit down.”
Applejack trotted to the open chair. “Good. I've just got one thing to ask though. What does Granny Smith have to do with any of this?” she asked, looking to where the old mare continued pitter-pattering on her bongos.
“She’s here—huh.” Rainbow Dash scratched her head. “Uh, I have no idea. Why is she here?”
“Um,” Pinkie Pie said, reappearing behind the counter with her paper. “I dunno. I thought you invited her.”
Granny smiled coyly, winking at Applejack. “I should be taking my nap right now, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“No problem,” Applejack replied, shaking her head and quickly sitting down. She smiled at the idea that the ordeal would soon be over.
And then she just as quickly jumped back up onto her hooves, her eyelids flying open and her hair standing on end. She pointed to a hopping monstrosity that had just jumped behind her. “What the hay is that?!”
The monster hopped forward on two great hind legs, long ears flopping over its head. Stopping, it towered over Applejack, wiggling its poofy tail and whiskers in an almost unbearably cute fashion. It was covered in smooth, white hair everywhere except its face, which was red, freckled, chewing on a wheat sprig, and saying, “Eeyup.”
“Big Mac?” Applejack asked, leaning forward and examining the monster closely.
Big McIntosh peered down at his own furry chest and legs, apparently confirming the answer for himself. “Eeyup,” he said, looking back up.
Applejack took a cautious step forward. “Big Mac, are you a bunny-rabbit?”
Big McIntosh peered back down again and nodded. “Eeyup.”
Applejack looked to Rainbow Dash, who simply shrugged back and said, “I’m as lost as you are right now.”
“Pinkie Pie,” Applejack said, wondering why she was even bothering to ask. When she looked to the bouncing pony, she saw that she was dancing again, twisting her tail around in the air in tempo with Granny’s perpetual bongo tapping. “What is this?” she asked, pointing to bunny Big Mac.
Pinkie Pie froze mid-dance step, her rump raised high in the air for all to admire. “Looks like a bunny,” she said, before promptly continuing her dance.
“He’s a rabbit,” Rainbow Dash declared, puffing out her chest like a filly showing off in math class. “Bunnies are girls, rabbits are guys.”
Applejack frowned, watching Big McIntosh set about licking down his fur. “I don’t think that’s right…”
“Uh huh,” Dash insisted. “Fluttershy said so.”
“I can guarantee you Fluttershy’s never said anything of the sort.” Applejack turned back to Big McIntosh, ignoring Rainbow Dash’s grumbling about who had just spent a week helping Fluttershy count the latest bunny census. “Mac, why are you dressed up like a bunny?”
“Rabbit.”
For some time Big McIntosh looked all about himself, as if searching for something he had dropped, before looking back to Applejack. He shrugged.
Applejack sighed and massaged her forehead. “Do you have any idea why you’re dressed like a bunny?”
“Rabbit.”
“Eenope."
Applejack looked between the still-grumbling Rainbow Dash and the still-dancing Pinkie Pie, waiting for an explanation. When neither of them answered her stare, she let out an exasperated groan, throwing up her hooves. “Well?”
Rainbow Dash simply stared back. “Well what?”
“What am I supposed to do with the giant bu—rabbit?” Applejack cried, feeling that she had very nearly exceeded her limit for the absurd for one day. “Y’all have some kind of plan, don’t you?”
“You could give him a tomato,” Pinkie Pie suggested.
“Okay, why?”
“To eat, duh.” Pinkie laughed, dismissing the question with a wave of her hoof. “Silly Applejack.”
Rainbow Dash fixed her with a stare. “I don’t think rabbits eat tomatoes.”
Pinkie Pie smiled back. “Why not?”
“I don’t know.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “They just don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yea—er…” Rainbow Dash hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
“What if he won a bunny luxury weight loss cruise, but then got really fat on salad, and fell off the side of the boat during the Zumba class, and then washed up on a desert island that didn’t have anything to eat except tomatoes. Would he eat tomatoes then?”
“Well, I mean, maybe, but—” Rainbow Dash fumbled around her words. “But that’s not—”
“Is this the joke?” Applejack interrupted.
Rainbow Dash frowned at her, looking annoyed. “Is what the joke?”
Applejack opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she would have said was lost when Big Mac hopped to the center of the clearing, apparently having decided to take his new role as a giant talking, walking, singing, dancing, sneezing bunny rabbit seriously. When he reached the center, he stopped and struck a sensational pose. Then he danced. He danced like no other bunny rabbit had danced before. He wiggled, and he jiggled, and he wriggled, and he bopped, and he hopped, and he flopped, all in time with Granny Smith's bongo beats. She sped up her drumming, and he sped up his wiggling, jiggling, wriggling, bopping, hopping, flopping. She sped up again, and so did he. They went back and forth, each daring the other on, until Big McIntosh had become a veritable whirlwind of movement.
He was so lost on his dancing that he spun straight into Rainbow Dash's chair, knocking it over and sending her and her drink tumbling to the ground. "Hey!" she cried as juice dripped from her mane and down her face.
"What the hay is goin' on right now?" Applejack asked, not sure if she should be angry, confused, or annoyed. She settled on angry.
Rainbow Dash held her hooves up defensively. "I swear I didn't plan this."
"Nope, we're almost back on schedule," Pinkie Pie said, examining the paper she had been inspecting earlier, and then folding it up again.
“Give me that!” Applejack said, snapping the paper up out of Pinkie Pie's hooves. “It’s about time I got some answers.”
“No! Wait” Pinkie Pie cried, lunging for the paper.
Applejack spun around, holding Pinkie back with one outstretched hind leg while she held the paper in her front hoof, balancing awkwardly on two legs. “I’m sorry Pinkie Pie, but I’ve had more than enough of this.”
“No really! You can’t look at that,” Pinkie said, struggling all she could against the hoof resting on her forehead, her own hooves digging grooves in the sand as she futilely tried to gallop forward.
“What in the…” Applejack muttered as she unfolded the paper. She had expected to find some brilliant master plan, elaborate charts and diagrams, or in the very least some small words of explanation.
Instead, she found a series of crude stick-pony drawings. In the first drawing were two ponies, one pink and one blue, connected by their mouths, a big red heart hovering over their heads. In the second, the blue pony appeared to be offering the pink pony a ring, while the pink pony smiled and fainted. In the third and final drawing, the two ponies stood together before an altar, covered in scribbles Applejack could only assume were meant to be dresses.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” Applejack flipped the paper back and forth, scanning every corner to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Finding nothing else, she glanced back at the pony behind her.
“You can never tell!” Pinkie cried, grabbing onto Applejack’s hind leg.
Applejack tried to hobble around, but Pinkie Pie desperately held to her leg, tripping her and very nearly bringing them both to the ground. “Alright, alright, just let go of me.” Applejack shook her leg back and forth, but Pinkie didn’t so much as budge.
“Pinkie promise!” Pinkie wailed, flailing up and down along with Applejack’s leg. “She can never know!”
Applejack gave up the effort to dislodge the hysterical pony with a resigned groan. “I would if you’d just let go of me.”
“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said quietly, standing over her overturned beach chair, dripping cold juice, a paper of her own clamped between her teeth. Covering her paper were scribbled drawings nearly identical to Pinkie’s own, telling another heartwarming tale of pink and blue stick-ponies in love.
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of—”
Pinkie gasped, tightening her grip on Applejack’s leg. “Rainbow Dash, I knew it!” She jumped forward, over Applejack and over the beach chair, hurtling into Rainbow. They rolled and spun and kissed over the sand, a whirling, slobbering mess of pink and blue.
Granny Smith clapped her hooves together. “It’s like a fairy tale!”
Whether Pinkie Pie had simply forgotten that she had been holding onto Applejack’s leg, or if she hadn’t wanted Applejack to feel left out, or if it was just another in a long series of bad jokes, Applejack didn’t know. Either way, Pinkie Pie did not let go of her leg, and Applejack went tumbling down into the sand with them.
Applejack fought, kicked, and pushed her way up out of the slabbering pile, grimacing at the intimate moans rising from her friends' mouths. She stood over them, rolled her eyes again, and walked away saying, “I’m done.” She wholly and truly could not care any longer.
When she reached the edge of the clearing, walking to anywhere else on that accursed beach, she heard a sound like a record playing backwards, scratching behind her, and then, “Applejack, you’re finally here!”
Turning around, she saw that Pinkie Pie was back dancing behind the counter, Rainbow Dash was back lounging and dry on the beach chair, Granny Smith was back pattering on her drums, and Big Mac was gone altogether.
Rainbow Dash peeked up at her and groaned. “Jeez, AJ, what took you so long?”
Pinkie Pie huffed. “We’ve been waiting for like five whole minutes!”
“…What?” was all Applejack could think to say. Again.
“Now we’re way behind,” Pinkie said, looking down at a piece of paper. “We’re gonna have to go double-time just to catch up.”
Dash folded her legs over her chest. “Way to go.”
“Double-time!” Pinkie cried.
Applejack opened her mouth to ask, closed it again, shook her head, and turned around. “Nope.” She started to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Pinkie asked.
“I have no idea,” Applejack replied.
“You can’t leave yet though!” Pinkie cried.
“Yes I can.”
“Nuh uh,” Pinkie said. “You have to order a drink first.”
Applejack stopped and looked over her shoulder. “If I order a drink, can this please be done?”
Pinkie Pie smiled and nodded. “Yepperdoodles.”
“Pinkie, I’m serious. I’m not enjoyin’ this and I want it to be done.”
“Definitely,” Pinkie said, smiling and nodding some more.
“Fine.” Applejack sighed and trotted past Rainbow Dash and Granny Smith, not giving either of them so much as a glance on her way to the shack.
“Welcome to Pinkie Pie’s Perky Pastel Beachside Bouncing Bullpen,” Pinkie said when Applejack reached the counter. “We sell lemonade! What can I get for ya?”
“Pinkie, what did I tell you about playin’ your games at Sweet Apple Acres while I’m workin’?”
“I dunno,” Pinkie replied with a grin. “But I do know that you haven’t told me what you want to drink yet.”
“I said, ‘don’t do it’. That’s what I said about playin’ games at Sweet Apple Acres while I’m workin’. Don’t do it.” Applejack drawled the words slowly, drawing out each syllable to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding.
“Sure thing,” Pinkie said with such a playful smile that Applejack had trouble staying angry at her. “But could you hurry up and order? You’re holding up the line. This is a business, you know. Time means money, and money means balloons. Waste time, and you’re wasting balloons.”
Applejack glanced over her shoulder to confirm that she was the only pony in line. “Right, we wouldn’t want that,” she said, looking over the menu hanging over Pinkie’s head. The only item listed was raspberry lemonade.
“I guess I’ll have a raspberry–”
Before she could finish, Pinkie slammed a glass of the juice onto the counter. “This one’s on the house,” Pinkie chirped, dropping a twisty straw into the glass.
Applejack glanced between the bouncing pony in front of her, nearly shaking with poorly concealed excitement, and the clear glass sitting on the counter, sweating in the heat. She shrugged and leaned forward, sipping from the straw, deciding things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
It tasted tangy and sweet, but no plastic snakes jumped from the glass, or dancing snowmen jumped on the counter, and, as far as she could tell, her coat didn’t turn green.
All the same, the three ponies around her exploded into laughter. Pinkie Pie, her chest seizing violently, fell back behind the counter. Rainbow Dash rolled over the side of the chair, her legs kicking empty air. Even Granny Smith laughed until she had to lie down.
“What? What’s so funny?!” Applejack cried.
“Your—your drink!” Rainbow Dash managed between laughs. “You ordered raspberry lemonade!”
“Yeah, so?” Applejack asked, stomping towards the pegasus, confusion and panic rising in her stomach. “What’d you do to my drink?”
“You ordered—heh—ordered raspberry lemonade...” Rainbow collapsed and lost herself to another fit of giggles, only coming to when Applejack grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her back up.
“You ordered raspberry lemonade.” Rainbow Dash wiped a tear from her eye, laughing. “But we gave you strawberry lemonade!”
Applejack deadpanned, dropping the pegasus to the ground. “You did all this,” she waved a hoof through the air, “all this just to switch my drink around?”
Rainbow Dash smirked, finally calming down. “Yeah, it was the perfect plan!”
“I didn’t think it would work,” Granny Smith said.
“What was the point of the rabbit, the buffalo, the beach?!” Applejack cried.
“Plate of hoof,” Rainbow Dash said, grinning like she’d just said something smart. “Duh.”
Applejack simply stared back. “I don’t think you even know what you’re sayin’ right now. You mean sleight of hoof?"
“No, I mean plate of hoof," Rainbow insisted. "Twilight told me about it."
"Do you even know what sleight of hoof means?"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Duh. It means doing something somepony can see so that they don't see what you're actually doing. Like in a magic trick, or something."
"What does that have to do with any of this?"
"You're kinda slow sometimes, huh?" Rainbow Dash said, tilting her head to the side. "We showed you the beach and stuff so you wouldn't see us mixing up the drink. If we'd just done the drink shack by itself, you totally would have known something was up."
"You're right, I never suspected a thing," Applejack deadpanned. "Because turning my farm into a beach wasn't suspicious at all."
Rainbow Dash grinned. "See? It worked."
"And the buffalo, and the bunny suit, and the dancin' were a part of that too?"
"Er, I think that was all Pinkie Pie." Dash shrugged. "So, uh, yeah, I guess so."
Applejack sighed. "And you and Pinkie kissin' all over each other?"
Rainbow Dash looked down and blushed. "Uh, well, yeah sure, I mean we didn't—er, yeah definitely..."
Whatever else Rainbow Dash said was lost in sounds of hysterical laughter. They both turned to see Pinkie Pie rolling over the sand, laughing louder than ever.
Rainbow Dash stared at her, one brow raised. “Jeez Pinkie, are you okay? It was funny, but not funny enough to hurt yourself over.”
Applejack felt like pointing out that it wasn’t funny at all, but was fairly certain it wasn’t even worth bothering with anymore.
“No, you don’t get it,” Pinkie said between laughs. “I totally got you, Dashie!”
Rainbow Dash’s brow rose higher. “What?”
“I told you that I switched Applejack’s raspberry lemonade with strawberry lemonade.” Pinkie laughed again. “But I really did give her raspberry lemonade. You had no idea!” Pinkie explained, before prompting falling onto her back in laughter, knocking over and cracking a glowing totem that had been hidden behind the shack in the process. If Applejack had walked over and inspected the totem closely, she would have recognized it as one of the dozens of old, dusty magical artifacts that Twilight kept stored in the library's basement. One of the dozens of dusty, magical artifacts that Twilight had very explicitly told them all, and especially Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, never to touch.
But Applejack didn't inspect it closely, because she had just facehoofed so hard she had almost fallen over.
She heard Rainbow yell something at Pinkie Pie, but couldn’t concentrate on anything over her stinging face and ringing ears. She turned and walked away from the ludicrous scene transpiring behind her.
As she trotted, listening to Rainbow Dash’s indignant cries and Pinkie Pie’s giggles, the illusion around her faded, its source broken. The blue sky dripped away, smearing the world and pooling into the edges of her vision like wet paint falling from a canvas. Beneath her hooves, the sand flew into the air and out of sight. The water fell beneath the ground, giving way to familiar apple trees and grassy hills, all of the beach receding and flowing back into the totem behind the shack, from whence it had come. Applejack didn’t even so much as blink.
“Hey, where are you going?” Rainbow Dash called from somewhere behind her.
Applejack kept walking. “I'm goin' to sleep.”
“Didn't you say you had work to do, or something?” Dash asked.
"Yeah, and now you and Pinkie Pie are gonna do it," Applejack said, not looking back.
"What? No I'm not!" Dash cried.
"Yes you are," Applejack replied with a smirk. "Call it, er, payment for all my time you wasted today. If you don't, you can both just forget about gettin' anymore of my apple pies or fritters."
"Oh, what?! That's not fair!"
"It is too fair," Applejack said, turning around briefly. "If it wasn't for you two, I would've been finished by now anyway. Makes sense to me that you two should be the ones to do it."
"Yup," Pinkie Pie agreed.
Rainbow Dash jabbed her in the side. "Ssshhh!"
Applejack chuckled and shrugged. "Somepony's gotta do it. And it's not gonna be me. I'm on break." She walked to the house, ready for some lunch. "I'll check back in an hour. I expect to find you workin'."
"Aww jeez..." Rainbow Dash muttered, kicking at the ground. She looked at Pinkie. "Way to go."
Pinkie Pie grinned. "Totally worth it!"
