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.
AJ Sings the Blues
Chapter 2
......
“So...Rahoofna.”
“Everyone wanted to be Rahoofna at my school. He got all the best lines.”
“You know, when you look at all the books though, he wasn’t really a villain.”
“What? He’s, like, the uber-villain.”
“No, no...I remember, cos I wrote this paper on it, he was this really philanthropic figure, he made regular tributes to Celestia and Luna, he built proper infrastructure on his island...”
“Yeah, but he kidnapped Applejack.”
“I know, but that was actually the only sort of bad thing he did, the rest of the time he was a noble figure.”
“How’d he get to be the pirate king, then?”
“I think it might actually be a mistranslation. He was never a proper pirate, he had a homestead on an island and he spent hardly any time at sea.”
“We can’t put that down though. The whole point is he crossed the sea to kidnap Applejack, that’s pretty much a pirate thing to do.”
“Well, no, he didn’t cross the sea just to kidnap her. He happened to be there and it just...happened.”
“Fine, fine. Can you remember what he was doing in Ponyville? I’m stuck on that part and we’ll lose marks if we leave it out.”
“I think it was an accident? Like he was trying to get to Canterlot but ended up in Ponyville instead.”
“Don’t look at me, I only have the cliff notes and they’re not helping.”
“Whatever. He ends up on Sweet Apple Acres...”
“This I remember. He was ill with a fever and Applejack nursed him back to health by feeding him cider. Then he was like ‘You’re my wife now!’”
“Wasn’t it the cider’s fault? Like she fed him the best stuff she had and he demanded that she marry him and make cider for him forever?”
“I think it was a bit of both. And she was the first filly he came across.”
“And she was like, ‘No thanks.’”
“I wish. The original text has a sixteen-page speech about staying true to the one you love, recited by her in rhyming couplet.”
“Pfh! Was he just standing there listening to her and then when she was done he just grabbed her?”
“In the musical version he did.”
“Don’t start talking about the musical, please.”
“Ugh, I had such a crush on Hoof Jackman...”
“Anyway, yeah, he grabbed her once she was done talking. Stuffed her into this magical sack he had.”
“But if she was in the sack, how did she drop the appleseeds?”
“What appleseeds?”
“The ones she dropped that lead them to her later. She dropped them from Ponyville to Rahoofna Island.”
“That’s true, you can see the trail of trees from space.”
“The Rahoofna trail isn’t made up of apple trees, it’s all kelp.”
“Okay but Rainbow Lake starts at the trail.”
“Yeah, because Rainbow Dash came back to the farm, found Applejack missing, and cried for thirty days and thirty nights. Her tears made the lake.”
“Guys, it’s a freshwater lake.”
.....
After copious amounts of apple pie, wig massages and a particular act in bed that Applejack didn’t normally do because she found it distasteful, Rainbow Dash finally left Sweet Apple Acres to go back to work with a renewed sense of optimism.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bummer to be around,” she said at breakfast.
“Don’t mention it, sugarcube,” Applejack said through gritted teeth as she flipped a new batch of fritters in the pan.
“No, seriously. It’s not that big a deal, really. Nothing to cry about anyway,” the Pegasus chuckled.
“That’s the spirit.”
“Heck, things could be worse.”
“Don’t say things like that, you’ll jinx yourself,” said Applejack, tossing a hoof-ful of salt over her shoulder.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. She found the superstitious stuff cute sometimes, the rest of the time it just seemed bothersome. But, it was primo material for getting a rise out of your normally unflappable marefriend....
“Well, I just mean, like I could have gotten up there and had a terrible accident...” she said with a wicked grin. It had the desired effect.
“Rainbow! Don’t talk like that! It’s bad luck.” Applejack knocked her hoof against the floor twice, then once more for good measure.
“Or Ponyville could have been attacked by a swamp monster...”
Applejack growled and walked backwards through the doorway.
“Or you could have been kidnapped by some wandering bad guy!” Rainbow Dash called after her.
“Don’t you have to be in work in ten minutes?” Applejack asked as she walked back in, sprinkling grated mint leaves over the table.
“Okay, okay, I’m going. Promise you’ll be here when I get back?”
Applejack smiled. This was something Rainbow Dash always said as she was leaving to go somewhere, always casually but with a hint of insecurity behind it, as if she could never quite believe that Applejack was sticking with her.
“I promise.”
Rainbow Dash kissed her, quickly but thoroughly, and flew out of the front door. Applejack watched her climb the sky and disappear behind the clouds. Then she noticed a patch of red on the cusp of the south orchard’s hill.
“What in tarnation...?” Applebloom was at school and Big Macintosh was selling apples at the market.
With trepidation, taking a rope and a small barrel of cider just in case the person was either dangerous or needed reviving, she cantered up the hill.
Stretched out under a tree, groaning loudly, was a large minotaur. His horns were crooked, one pointing towards the sky as the other pointed to the ground, and both were adorned with long golden chains that connected to the ornate and very heavy looking golden ring through his nose. His long black fur was coarse and matted and he wore just a pair of elaborately embroidered puffy-legged pants.
“My head...” he moaned. “My poor head...”
Bizarre as he looked, Applejack couldn’t leave a creature so obviously in need alone while she went for help. She reached around his thick body and, struggling with his weight and his awful stench, she pulled him to a sitting position against the tree. Then she unbuckled the cider barrel and raised it to his mouth.
“Get that into you, you’ll feel right as rain in no time,” she told him with confidence. Cider, especially Apple Family Cider, had many amazing healing properties.
He took a sip, then his bloodshot black eyes widened and he downed the entire barrel in a single gulp.
“Oh, miracle of miracles!” he boomed, shaking the trees with the resonance so that a few apples dropped to the ground. “This is a wondrous brew! Forsooth, I must have more!”
With that, he threw the barrel to the ground where it splintered to a hundred pieces. Applejack blinked.
“Okie-dokie,” she said slowly. “I’ll go fetch some more from the seller. Good to see you’re feeling...better.”
The minotaur followed her, spouting a lot of long words that she didn’t understand. He stopped once they reached the cellar and downed a large barrel. Then another. Once he started on the third Applejack voiced her concerns for the sake of their inventory.
“Say, uh, good sir, that much cider on an empty stomach ain’t good for you,” she began. “I have some fritters in the kitchen, you’re more than welcome...”
“The hospitality of your establishment pleases me,” he boomed, standing. “I will partake of these fritters you speak of.”
In the kitchen, his manners were no better. He demolished a full pan of fritters, two pies, four crumbles, nine buckles and a garden salad. Finally, to her immense relief, he seemed to be finished when he let out a resounding belch and rested his dinner-plate-sized hands on his bulging stomach.
“A grand feast indeed,” he boomed. “You have pleased me, my little pony.”
“Good. I aim to please,” she chuckled nervously. Surely that meant he’d be on his way....
“I have deemed you worthy to become my wife,” he bellowed.
“Beg pardon?”
“You are a most comely maiden, a brewer of fine beverages and an exceptional cook. I claim you as my wife in the name of Rahoofna of the southern seas.”
The urge to run away was building in Applejack’s legs, but she had been raised to remember her manners. She chuckled nervously again.
“I’m very flattered...I think,” she began. “But I’m already seeing someone, so I’m not looking to get hitched right now.”
“You can no more deny Rahoofna of his prize than you can deny the sun to rise in the morning,” the minotaur roared at her.
“I can and I just did,” she retorted. “And I think you’ve overstayed your wel...AUGH!”
She’d been expecting to argue with him some more, possibly a spot of brawling which ended in her kicking him off of her property, maybe even a frenzied chase to town where she could let Big Mac practice his overprotective big brother skills on the hooligan. She hadn’t expected to be unceremoniously picked up, shoved into a burlap sack and carried off like a bag of potatoes, bumped by Rahoofna’s thick rear all the way. Bucking and trying to chew her way out did sweet buck all.
“Ugh,” she groaned as she felt herself being loaded onto a boat. “This is gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.”
.....
When Rainbow Dash returned from work, expecting to see dinner on the table and an ever-accommodating marefriend ready and waiting for a night of hot and heavy snuggling time, she found the kitchen in ruins, broken cider barrels strewn about the place and the outline of a struggle between Applejack and some strange being outlined in flour on the wall.
Gulping, Rainbow Dash grabbed the salt cellar and chucked the entire contents over her shoulder.
.....
What Wouldn’t I Do For That Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3fa1KVU4vM
