The Scarlet Ribbon

His words were soft, confident, and dangerous. She could tell he was smiling by the sound of his voice. His lips were so close to her violently trembling cheek that she could feel his warm breath. She could practically smell the salty tears that streaked his muzzle, even as they began to dry. "Perhaps I should start with a few questions? Hmm? Would you like some questions?"

Her response came, first, in the form of a choking sob, followed by panicked pleas. "No! Please! I'm sorry! I don't know what I was thinking! I'll do anything you want to make it better. I'll do anything!" She didn't look up off the floor. She was hunched inward, and her chest was heaving. She wanted to crawl backwards inside of the wall that her croup was pressed against.

He patiently listened to her as she begged, relishing every syllable. Something about the last plea tickled him. He breathed deeply, and his voice still trembled from the crying he was doing just moments earlier. "Oh you'll do anything will you?" He choked out a raspy and satisfied laugh.

She screamed out a yelp of shock as he suddenly bucked a nearby table with a shattering crash, sending it flying across the floor and into a nearby wall. She jumped, and sobbed as tears streaked down her muzzle. She swallowed down her remaining screams, and continued to stare at the floor. "Yes! Anything!"

With a scrape of chains, he brought his hooves close to her. His shackles still hadn't been removed. It all happened so fast. He grabbed her by her muzzle, and forcefully lifted her gaze to face him. Tears rolled down onto his hooves. "Let's start with a request then."

"Cryin'?" Applejack asked with an incredulous look.

Twilight Sparkle reiterated herself. "Yes! Just walking through the rain, crying her eyes out. And now I don't know what to do, and it won't come off, and it has the same markings as that horse collar Big Mac got from Zecora. Those markings are bad, Applejack! Bad! And I couldn't find any more books on it and I was scared that Spike would touch me and--"

"Shug'!" Applejack called out to halt Twilight's nervous tirade. She held the flat of her hoof and took a deep breath.

It wasn't the first time Twilight ran screaming across Sweet Apple Acres seeking Applejack's council on how to deal with some new disaster, like the time she whipped herself into a fit of worry that she might hear a spoiler when somepony leaked the final Harry Trotter novel. Applejack had come to be known as one of the most dependable of ponies. It was a heavy burden to carry, at moments like these.

Holding the flat of her hoof out to Twilight, Applejack spoke slowly. "Maybe we should stay at the beginin'?"

Twilight nodded. "Yes! Exactly! There was a crying mare. A crazy, kooky, super-nutso mare who ran up to me and just started saying a bunch of stuff like she was panicking and she was talking too fast and I couldn't keep up and it was super rude!"

Applejack grit her teeth, squinting. "Go on."

"She just went on and on saying some... uh... things, about ... personal ... things."

Applejack blinked. This is taking a turn for the bizarre. "She dun come up to you and start rantin' an ravin' all about sex?"

Now that Applejack had said it, there was no sense holding back. She cried out, "Yes! All about how she's a slut and she wishes she could cum on me and she wanted to masturbate in the street, and I told her not to, but she wasn't listening, and she was reaching down real slowly, and she started describing various sizes of--"

Applejack cried out an almost shrieking halt to the description, "Land sakes! Stop with the nasty details!"

Twilight loosed an annoyed moan and dropped her chin to the ground, leaving her hindquarters in the air. She wrapped her head in her fore hooves in distress and worry, frizzing up her mane. "And then she kissed me." Her face lit up with a blush.

Applejack blinked. "Well that is a doozy ifn' I ever heard. Didja like it?"

Twilight cried out shrilly with disbelief that Applejack would ask such a thing, turning her hooves toward the heavens with her muzzle still touching the ground, "No I didn't like it! Who would ever want to kiss some crazy lunatic like that?"

Applejack took stock of Twilight's lack of self-awareness, but all in all, she couldn't disagree with that. "Right. And... she was cryin'? While kissing you?"

Twilight's forelegs came back down to earth limply with a flump. "She was, and I think she wanted to do more things to me, but there was a red flash, and she stopped, and that's when I got this." She pointed up to the adorable red bow wrapped up around the pink streak that ran down her mane. "First it was on her tail, and then it was in my mane."

Applejack leaned in to examine the bow. It was a vibrant scarlet no bigger than her hoof. The ribbon was almost completely matte, except for thin, shiny red lines, which drew sharp angular runic patterns into the fabric.

Applejack used all of her magical knowledge to ponder the problem at hoof.

"Ah'll get the scissors," she said, and started off toward the farm house.

Twilight chased after her friend, and released another aggravated moan. "Applejack! I tried that already! I tried using magic, I tried cutting it, I tried cutting my mane so it would fall off, I even tried setting it on fire. Nothing worked!"

Applejack had been wondering about the singed fur. She stopped and turned to Twilight. "Well then ah guess it all comes down tah all yer fancy book learnin' dunnit?"

Twilight whimpered. "You're right! This does call for science." She bopped one hoof into the other.

Applejack asked, "So less go talk to this mare then?"

Twilight hung her head with resignation. "She's gone. Soon as the red light flashed, she ran off. It was scary, Applejack. She was really really relieved. I think the ribbon was doing something to her and it terrified her. She kept telling me she was sorry and just made a break for it."

Applejack frowned. That did make things complicated. "What did she look like?"

Twilight thought about it for a moment. "Um. Short?"

Applejack facehoofed. She couldn't believe it. "Twilight, ain't y'all supposed tah be the rememberinist rememberer that ever done remember things?"

Twilight said, "It was dark, Applejack!"

Applejack nodded resolutely at Twilight. "Whelp. What's dun is dun then."

"It's not what's done that worries me! It's what's going to happen to me! Do you think the ribbon is going to turn me into a raving lunatic?" Twilight shot up to her friend's face. Her jaw was clenched and the mandible was slightly offset. One eye twitched slightly.

Applejack sighed, and started walking back toward her apple cart to resume her bucking. "What could be worse?"

Twilight cried out with frustration at Applejack's question. "That time I got caught masturbating by Spike!"

Applejack stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes were wide and still staring at the blue yonder in front of her. She didn't turn around. There was a deathly silence now, interrupted only by gentle gusts of wind and the the soft chirping of a jay bird. The stunned silence stretched on until Applejack, still wide eyed, slowly turned around.

Twilight was covering her face and blushing heavily, with her chin pressed on the grass.

Applejack finally broke the silence. "Ah guess the ribbon's startin' its business already, sugarcube." As much as Applejack valued honesty, she saw fit to give Twilight a chance to back out of this and save face. "Y'all just dun been possessed by that there ribbon, and ah know y'aint been caught doin' nothing untoward where Spike could find ya. Right?"

Twilight tried to press the words down, but she coughed, and blurted them out rapidly. "Nope! I was going to town in the kitchen thinking about Flut--"

Applejack waved her forelegs, "Stop!"

Twilight whimpered, and lifted her hooves from her eyes to give Applejack a mortified expression.

Applejack took a deep breath, and looked around the orchard. "Right. Ah'll just... chalk that one up to the ribbon too." She awkwardly turned around with a forced smile and kept walking.

Twilight called out, from some ways behind. "Applejack! I'm stuck!"

Applejack turned around, to see Twilight exactly where she was, still lying in the grass. She was starting to worry now. Turns out this wasn't just some insignificant crisis. Whatever this ribbon was doing, it's not good. She made her way back to her friend. "What's wrong?"

Twilight whimpered, tugging on her legs, but she could only get them to jerk slightly. "I can't walk."

Applejack ran back and circled her with distress. "What do I do?"

Twilight was just as distressed when she replied, "You're an apple farmer!" Twilight's brow curled into a perturbed expression.

"Well slap me sideways, Twilight, that ain't what I--"

Twilight reared back and crashed her forehoof across Applejack's muzzle.

Applejack's head had been twisted to the side, and she stared at the grass for a moment. She slid her jaw with a tiny crack of cartilage and released a gentle chuckle. "Hunh." She very slowly turned her head to face Twilight.

"Applejack! I swear! They did that on their own! I swear I was paralyzed."

Applejack plunked down on her haunches, and lifted up her fore hooves, gently cracking her ankles. She stretched her neck and back with a few gentle pops in casual preparation for what promised to be a spectacular ass-whoopin'.

Twilight seemed to be able to move well enough now, she backed away from applejack and leaned forward. Her horn lit with a violet glow, and she swallowed Applejack up in a wave of magic. Applejack twisted and squirmed, flailing with all four legs furiously. "What y'all doin' naw?!"

Twilight nervously replied, "I'm just going to hold on to you until you calm down."

Applejack wrenched in all directions, flailing her limbs independently. "It's fer yer own good! Naw let me down an get ready for a four-hoofed flank stompin' ye varmint!"

Applejack crashed to the earth. With a groan and a shake of her head, she steadied herself back up on four legs, and blinked at a most surprising sight. Twilight was presenting her hindquarters to Applejack, waving her rump back and forth slowly, and blushing brightly. Applejack growled. "Yer tryin' mah patience!"

"Applejack. It has to be the ribbon! You know I wouldn't do things like this!"

Applejack's baleful glare softened. "Ah know sugarcube, but yer startin' tah frustrate me, and mah jaw hurts."

Twilight lowered her ears self-consciously. She pouted. "I know. I'm really really sorry it's just I don't know what to do and every time we try to talk about it something interrupts... us... Applejack? Start talking?"

Applejack looked away with thought for a moment, and reluctantly complied. "Uhh. Ah.. um.. yankee doodle had a farm, an.. uh.. on that farm there was lotsa ponies?"

Twilight walked up to Applejack and stared at her with the kind of happy grin that can only come from an unadulterated dose of science. She waited patiently for the next disaster while Applejack continued to try to come up with things to say. "Do you have any scrolls, we should be writing down everything you say," Twilight asked.

Applejack winced. "Twilight, ah don't know if ah'm causin' this."

Twilight sighed. For once, she was disappointed that the ribbon wasn't causing a catastrophe. "If only we could retrace our steps." Twilight leaned forward, and Applejack felt the familiar weightless sensation of being levitated. She struggled immediately. "Naw Twilight, ah ain't foolin! Put me down!"

Twilight's magical field disappeared instantly, sending Applejack to the dirt with a thump. Twilight gasped gleefully!

Applejack was not nearly as amused. She groaned and looked up, only to be scooped up again.

Applejack snarled. "Naw Twilight, I've given you a lot of patience, but this is goin' too far. Stop this right now, ye hear?"

Once again, Applejack fell, and she groaned out a bitter chuckle at the aching of her sore bones. In a flash, Twilight was over top of her, beaming. Applejack didn't want to share in her jubilation. "No more, Twilight. Please."

"Don't you see?! I'm doing everything you tell me! You told me to stop, and I stopped. You told me to prepare for a .. uh.. 'four-hoofed flank stomping', and I did that! You told me to slap you sideways and I did!"

Applejack's assumed a look of astonishment. She squirmed to her feet. "An I asked ya to tell me somethin' worse than bein' a ravin' lunatic."

Twilight bounded around with glee. "This magic is incredible! I've never known anything that can do this! I have to study it." She zipped in face to face with Applejack with a cloud of dust in her wake, coming to a stop inches away beaming delightedly. "Okay, tell me to do something!"

Applejack grinned a slow, sinister grin.

A flock of birds erupted from a nearby tree at the sound of the slap.