AJ Sings the Blues

“So it starts with the kidnapping, right?”

“No, no, there’s like five chapters of stuff before that.”

“Stuff? What stuff? The book’s about the kidnapping...”

“No, the actual kidnapping makes up less than half of the book.”

“Really? It’s been years, I can’t remember most of the other stuff.”

“I remember some of it, ‘cos I was in this play...”

“Then you should start, I know the rest of it.”

“Everyone knows the rest of it, you can’t pass 5th grade without it. That’s hardly fair.”

“So what, I do the start, and you two do the rest? Sounds good to me...”

“Not really. The first few chapters are really boring, that’s why I can’t remember.”

“Shut up! Go on then, what happened in the beginning?”

“Okay, so, there were the six elements of Harmony, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie....uh....”

“Cadence.”

“No, Cadence was another princess but she wasn’t an element. She’s not even in the book.”

“Right, right. I think I saw her in a movie once...”

“Rarity! I was Rarity in the 7th grade!”

“Yeah, and the other one.”

“Was Twilight Sparkle a princess then? I thought she got that after...”

“No, she was, cos she was away on official business when most of the drama went down.”

“Pfh! Business! What kind of business?”

“I dunno, royal something or other, anyway, that’s why Rainbow Dash didn’t get her spot on the Wonderbolts, that’s why she was still in Ponyville.”

“I remember that part! I think...”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the first five chapters, like her missing her spot and crying about it for ages and Applejack’s like, ‘Ooh don’t worry, I still love you!’”

“Did she say it like that? Hoof gestures and all?”

“I dunno, probably.”

.......
“But why now? Why this week? Of all the weeks...gaaah!”

With a frustrated yell that, despite the later depictions in books written about this particular time, held not a single trace of a tear in them, Rainbow Dash flopped across the haystacks of the Apple Family barn and kicked her hooves repeatedly against the nearest wall.

“Careful, that walls’ the shaky one,” Applejack admonished gently, sweeping up the hay her marefriend was knocking everywhere.

“ Pfh, you’ll be rebuilding it like what, next week? Tomorrow? After dinner?”

Applejack took this slur against her family’s building abilities with gentle good humour, mentally filing it away to be used at a later date. After all, Rainbow Dash was feeling particularly raw. She’d finally gotten her true heart’s desire and been accepted into the ranks of the Wonderbolts, only to be told that with Twilight away on official royal business, all of the remaining Elements of Harmony had to remain in Ponyville. The Wonderbolts filled her spot and the next one wouldn’t open up for another full year.

“What kind of official business is Twilight on, anyway? What’s so bucking important that it couldn’t wait?”

“The kind that’s so official she couldn’t tell us about it. Must have been mighty important.”

Rainbow Dash grabbed a hoof-ful of straw and shoved it over her head, letting out another frustrated howl. Applejack sighed and rolled her eyes. Spitting out the broom and abandoning the hay-filled barn as a lost cause, she sank down in the straw beside Rainbow Dash.

“Now sugarcube,” she began, in the manner of someone comforting a small filly who had spilled her ice cream, “ there’s no use hashing it about in your head like this, you’ll just drive yourself wackier than Cooter Brown.”

“Maybe I wanna be wackier than Cooter Brown,” Rainbow Dash muttered sulkily. “Who the hay is Cooter Brown?”

“Don’t rightly know,” Applejack shrugged.

Rainbow Dash let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Look AJ, I appreciate you letting me mope in your barn, but let’s face it, I’m not gonna be good company for a while. Maybe you should go wait it out somewhere else until I’m in the mood to be a good marefriend again.”

“Aw, come on now, don’t talk like that,” Applejack said as she snuggled in closer, slinging her tail across Rainbow Dash’s hindquarters. “What kind of marefriend would I be if I abandoned you in your time of need?”

“Well, it’s not that bad,” Rainbow Dash grudgingly admitted. “I’m just being dramatic. A year isn’t that long a wait...”

“Dramatic or not, you take as much time as you need, I’ll still be here.”

And that was it, Applejack had done the impossible. She’d made Rainbow Dash feel better about missing out on the Wonderbolts. A very small, miniscule even, smile creeped across the pegasus’ face. Out of the corner of her eye, Applejack spotted it and did an internal victory lap around the farm.

“Anyway,” the orange pony said, rising to her hooves and brushing the dust off of herself with her tail, “this ain’t the best place for moping. I reckon you’d get some fine moping done in the kitchen. And there’s pie there.”

Mentally, Rainbow Dash cheered.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “There’d better be pie.”

“As much as you need, darlin’,” Applejack chuckled.

Sitting in the bright, airy kitchen a few minutes later, munching the biggest slice of apple pie she’d ever been given (cinnamon and sugar were good for shock, apparently) and watching Applejack washing dishes, Rainbow Dash figured there were worse ways to spend the next year. A gorgeous marefriend who could cook, put up with her moping and actively tried to make her life better, who wouldn’t be perfectly content with that? Except....

“Why are you washing the dishes like that?” she asked. Applejack had her front hooves in the water but the rest of her was off to the side. It looked awkward as all get out.

“If I get water on me while I’m doing the dishes, I’m gonna marry a drunk,” Applejack replied matter-of-factly.

“Pfh! Says who?”

“Granny Smith.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rainbow snorted. “I’m not that miserable. Yet.”

“And who says I’m gonna marry you?” Applejack joked.

Three knots miles away, drifting slowly on a sturdy seafarin’ vessel towards Ponyville harbour, the pirate king Rahoofna downed his fifth bottle of rum, belched loudly and threw the empty bottle at a passing seagull.
.......
Here We Are, Annette Hanshaw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2boszZXGvQc

Author's Note

AJ Sings the Blues

Why did I write this? A combination of not enough people knowing about ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ and just how much RD and AJ make sense as a couple to me. Spreading two gospels, as it were. If anything was going to get me back into fanfic writing...
So, here’s a quick guide to the reading of this fic. Anything written like this is the conversations of ponies thousands of years after FIM studying the old books and trying to make sense of the stories. Anything written normally is the viewpoints of the FIM crew and other assorted characters. Anything in bold is a song you should be listening to right now. I don’t have Nina Paley’s amazing animation to help the story along, but you get the idea.