Rainbow Dash was one of the luckiest mares in the world. She’d been lucky finding awesome friends like she had. And luckier still when she’d found the love— well... loves, of her life, among them. It was a good thing that she had so much energy, because with a couple of mares like those two, anything less would have spelled disaster for the trio. As things were, she was the happiest mare alive.
Dash groaned in exasperation. The Apple family fields, big as they were, felt too small for two temperamental earth ponies. She was stuck, figuratively speaking, between Applejack on her left, bucking apples from trees with more force than would strictly have been necessary. And Pinkie Pie on her right, who was stalking around inside the farm’s kitchen. She had gone on a baking spree right after they’d returned home, and was making more pies than they could ever safely consume.
“Dashie! Tell Applejack that, if she wants to talk to me, she should talk to you instead,” Pinkie yelled from the kitchen.
“Dash, if Pinkie wants ta be all uppity, tell ‘er that I don’t feel like talking to her at all.”
Dash wanted to fold her ears flat against her skull and call herself deaf to the heated argument quickly rising around her. With a couple of earth ponies shouting at one another, however, it might as well have been flying without wings for how much it helped.
"Well, you tell Applejack I didn't wanna talk to her anyway! She’s a lying meanypants."
While Pinkie’s expressions and body language were obscured by a sturdy wooden wall, Dash could very clearly see Applejack lower herself back into a standing position. The tree she had been about to relieve from its apples was left standing, its shining red treasures all but forgotten. “The hay I am! Yer the one makin’ stupid promises!”
“At least I keep my promises, and I don’t lie to my marefriends!”
Dash winced. That had been a low blow, Applejack was the most honest pony Dash had ever known, but even she couldn’t prevent a little lie every now and then. Sure enough, when she looked to her left she saw Applejack pale before shaking her head and walking away. Applejack had always been stubborn about letting her feelings show, and it only seemed to have gotten worse after Dodge Junction. Dash had forgiven her easily enough, not feeling the need to condemn her marefriend for a little white lie that hadn’t even mattered in the end. Their friends had been quick to follow, assuring Applejack that everyone broke a promise now and again. Pinkie Pie on the other hoof...
Dash pushed herself to her hooves and walked over to the farmhouse, stepping onto the porch and sticking her head in through the open window. “Damnit, Pinks,” she said to the pink pony currently sticking her head in the oven as if nothing had happened. “Why’d you say that?”
Pinkie turned around, tilting her head inquisitively. “Say what?”
“You know...” Dash wanted to groan again, she was no good at this. “Tell AJ that she was a liar?”
“Well she is!” Dash could almost swear that Pinkie had been replaced by Rarity with the way she huffed and stuck her muzzle in the air while trotting to the pantry.
“And you never lie right?” She said when Pinkie came back, balancing a months worth of eggs on her back. The eggs wobbled when the earth pony came to a sudden standstill, and Dash cringed in anticipation of the impending disaster. Miraculously, the eggs didn’t fall, though Pinkie’s mane wasn’t so lucky.
“B-but Dashie! She called my Pinkie Promise stupi—”
“She didn’t break her promise because she wanted to hurt you, Pinks. You know that.”
“But I just... and I...” Pinkie’s lips quivered. Dash ducked through the window and came to a halt in front of Pinkie, kissing her on the nose.
“I still love you, Pinkie. And AJ does too.” Knowing when Pinkie’s train of thought was about to derail into despair was an essential skill when you dealt with her on a regular basis, and Dash had become an expert.
Pinkie sighed heavily and began unloading the eggs from her back, wearing a pained expression. “I’m sorry.”
Dash smiled softly and nudged Pinkie’s side, wincing when the motion made at least a dozen eggs tumble to the ground and crack. Pinkie didn’t seem to notice. “It’s okay. I’ll go and find her.
“Dashie?”
Dash stopped in the doorway. “Yeah?”
Pinkie appeared beside her, having used her own brand of magic to unload the rest of the eggs lightning quick. “Tell Applejack, I’m sorry?”
“I’m sure she knows, Pinks.”
It was her turn to receive a nuzzle from Pinkie, who seemed to be trying to disappear into her side. “Could you tell her anyway?”
She briefly draped a wing around her marefriend and gave Pinkie a tight squeeze. “Sure.”
“And give her a kiss. From me,” Pinkie continued, regaining some of the bounce she always had when she hadn’t been hurt on a personal level.
“Uhm, okay.”
“And lots of huggles!”
Dash smiled. “Alright, alright. I’ll give her a hug as well.”
“And snuggles!”
Dash kissed Pinkie on the mouth to stifle any more suggestions, and then quickly took off.
The sun was setting, and finding Applejack would be difficult enough in daylight. Dash let out a sigh and increased her speed. “Now where’d that stubborn pony go..?”
Earth ponies were strange creatures. Dash reflected on the thought. No matter how fast she was, somehow Applejack and Pinkie always seemed to be able to keep up with her. They were faster than they had any right to be, and trying to find Applejack on her own lands was nigh on impossible.
She flew over every inch of the farm, and even searched a big part of it on hoof, but the farmer was nowhere to be found. She finally caught a break when she noticed Applejacks hat. It was stuck on a branch near a small grove at the edge of the fields. The trees, which looked older than Granny Smith herself, completely blocked it off from the sky and the surrounding lands. And inside, Dash found rolling patch of grassland and a small pond which somehow gave off light. Twilight could probably have told her how it worked, but right now she was more concerned with the pony being lit up by it.
She grabbed the hat off of the branches and entered the grove, moving towards her marefriend. Applejack had lain down at the edge of the pond, and Dash could almost believe she was asleep, hadn’t it been for her softly shaking shoulders.
“AJ?”
She told herself she wasn’t crying. No Apple would cry over something as insignificant as a row with her marefriend. It was just... the tears streaming down her face were determined to make a liar out of her. A liar, just like Pinkie said she was.
“AJ?”
She startled. Dash? Nopony but the Apple siblings knew about this place. She hadn’t even shown it to the rest of her family. How’d she...? “How did ya—?” She got her answer before she had fully formed the question when she saw Dash holding her old Stetson in her mouth. She’d lost it, and hadn’t even noticed? Applejack absently touched her mane with a hoof, as if to confirm that her eyes weren’t lying to her.
She turned away when she saw the look of concern on her marefriend’s face. She didn’t need anypony seeing her right now, least of all Dash. Nopony should have to see her crying, that was another thing she didn’t do.
“What’re you doin’ here? Don’tcha have some bakin’ to do?” The words out of her mouth were more bitter than she would have liked, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Eh, Pinkie can handle the kitchen just fine. I was doing something much more important.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She clenched her teeth when she felt, more than heard, Dash settle down next to her. She relaxed only after feeling Dash’s wing drape itself across her back.
“Ya weren’t supposed ta be here.”
“And you’re not supposed to run off without telling us, remember?”
She remained silent, trying to reconcile her conflicting feelings. She desperately wanted to sink into her marefriends embrace and cry about how every seemed to have gone wrong between them after coming in second at the annual rodeo. But some part of her resisted, told her that Dash might not like her if she showed weakness, just like Pinkie hadn’t liked that she could, in fact, lie.
“Hey.” Dash nudged her, running her muzzle along AJ’s neck in a show of affection.
“H-hey.” She cursed herself for her shaky reply.
Dash didn’t say anything more, using her wing to hold Applejack tightly. As if just a hug would make everything right. It did however make her feel safe. Unfortunately, that tipped her emotional balance over the edge, and Applejack found herself crying harder; hot burning tears of pain rolling down her cheeks and hitting the water of the pool, making it ripple.
“I love you,” Dash breathed into her ear. Applejack didn’t know how she did it, but Dash had managed to convey much more than just the three words. Any warning the resisting part of her brain could conjure was swept away by the simple proclamation. She could let her defenses down here, Dash wouldn’t hold it against her. It made her cry harder, taking the painful tears and mixing them with ones of relief and love.
Rainbow Dash always said that she wasn’t good at providing comfort or talking in general, and Applejack had always taken that as the truth. Right now, however, she was finding out that her marefriend had at least some romantic sense in that feathered brain of hers.
Dash wasn’t one to remain passive, however. She blew into Applejacks ear, making it flick, and murmured some benign reassurances. She probably remembered those from her own mother, rather than really knowing what to do, but Dash always went with her gut. And they served their purpose.
Applejack let herself be held for what felt like hours, until her tears dried up and her whimpering died down. When she looked up, Dash smiled softly and licked the bridge of her nose. “Pinkie wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry.”
“Is she alright?” Applejack heard herself ask. “I said some pretty mean things...”
Dash nodded. “She’s fine. Wanted me to give you a whole lot of...” Dash made a gagging motion “snugglies. So that’s what I did.”
Another squeeze from the wing wrapped around her withers, and she watched Dash’s expression turn serious. “You two need to talk it out.”
“How? She’s so angry that she won’t even listen’.”
“She will, first though, you gotta apologise,” Dash said with a sigh, likely expecting a rebuttal. Applejack wasn’t about to argue with something that would make everything right between the three of them again, however.
“I reckon that’s best.” She mirrored Dash’s sigh with one of her own. Swallowing her pride had never been easy, but they were worth it.
“Let’s go.”
She put a leg around Dash’s withers, keeping her down. “In a moment, I want a few more of those snugglies from ya.”
By the time they had made their way back to the farmhouse, the moon had long since risen, and they half expected Pinkie to already have gone to bed. What they found instead was a kitchen filled from floor to roof with pies in every shape and size, and a Pinkie Pie whose smile only looked a little bit strained. “Welcome back, Dashie.”
“Hey, Pinkie,” Dash replied with a smile of her own. “Applejack, has something she wants to say to you.”
Applejack stepped forward, keenly aware of how angry the pink pony could become, “Uh... hey there Pinkie.”
Pinkie’s smile twitched a little. She turned away from Applejack and back to the pegasus in the door opening. “Dashie, if Applejack wants to—”
“Pinkie. I’m sorry,” Applejack interrupted her, stepping back into her line of sight and blocking her view of Dash. “I did what I did ‘cause I didn’t want to disappoint anypony, and I still ended up disappointing you. I’m sorry.”
Pinkie leaned forward, looking at her searchingly. She then leaned forward a little more and kissed Applejack full on the mouth. “Forgive me?.”
“Huh? But I was just...” She looked between Dash and Pinkie. “Wasn’t I the one..?”
“I was being a meanypants,” Pinkie continued, not responding to her flabbergasted marefriend. “I promise never to do that again.”
Dash smiled as she watched her the earth ponies apologize to one another, before almost immediately getting into another argument over who was more sorry. Having the two of them for marefriends was often challenging. But more than worth it, she thought as she imagined snuggling up to them on the alicorn sized bed that took up most of the space in their room.
“I’ll settle for this.” She stepped in between them and silenced first Pinkie and then Applejack with a kiss. “I get it, you’re both sorry. Now, can we eat? I’m starving.”
Pinkie Pie and Applejack looked at each other meaningfully, then turned their attention back to Dash. Her self satisfied smirk vanished when they nodded to one another and turned to her. She didn’t even have time to utter a ‘waitaminute’ before both of them pounced, leaving the three of them in a heap of snuggling pony on the floor.
