Legend of the Shotgun

by SleepIsforTheWeak

Rating: teen
Tags: Applejack, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance, Original Character, Comedy, Rarity
Length: 10447

It's time to meet the parents.

Rarity and Applejack must struggle through their toughest challenge yet as parents: meeting the so-called 'holders of their children's hearts'.

Pffft. Please.

Published 2013-11-03 02:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-03 07:01:58 UTC

The Eldest

His hoofs trembled. The bag that he was holding onto trembled. His heart palpitated. Taking step after apprehensive step, he let out a ragged sigh as he meandered past potholes and open drains. A paper advertisement lay on the black dirt-covered ground beside him, informing him of the location of ‘Hot Pink Night’.

He shuffled to his left to avoid a rather large puddle in a pothole, only to clench his jaw when he realized that he was right next to a moss covered stone wall. His eyes widened slightly and he pursed his lips.

He was not averse to dirt, or nature. He was just unfamiliar, and the nervousness and anticipation that he was feeling was taking a toll on him.

He unconsciously yelped and jerked away when a frog suddenly jumped out from an opening of someone’s rusty green-painted gate.

Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he only knew the clean wide alleyways of Canterlot. He only knew of polished floors and wiped crystal clear windows. Wherever he went, nothing larger than an ant scurried around. Whether it rained or snowed or shined, the roads were always the same, always smooth, always clean, and never littered. If something fell and wrecked the road, it would be repaired before sundown. Never had he ever had to walk to anywhere. He was always driven right up to the entrance of his destination. Riches filled his world; only the best of the best appeared before him.

And just a year ago, the best of mares appeared before him and within eight months of constant wooing from him, became his. She was perfect, except for everything that surrounded her and made her, her.

He bit his lower lip, eyes wandering around, searching for the number 12, amongst all the 2, 7, 26, 9, 15, and 10. He gulped, wondering if he had lost his way among the maze of buildings. Every turn he took seemed the same to him and every house he saw seemed like a clone of the last.

He knitted his eyebrows as his nervousness doubled. His breath came marginally faster. He clenched his jaw so tightly that his maxillary muscles ached.

So, this was Ponyville? Harmph.

He contemplated calling his driver for directions when he spotted her waving at him just a short walk away.

“Silverplate. Over here.”

Relief washed over him like a rush of hot water on a cold wintry day as his eyes sparkled and a smile lit up his face. Running towards her without a thought about potholes and frogs, he rushed head-first into her and wrapped his forelegs around her, clinging onto her like a survivor gripping a piece of driftwood from a shipwreck out at sea.

“Topaz,” he gasped as she steadied herself from the impact that almost knocked her off her hoofs. “I’m so glad to see you.”

They stood there for a little more than a moment, during which his heartbeat returned to normal as she patted his back. With her around, everything that was unfamiliar and different became understandable and, maybe, even a bit homely.

“Why? Is this your first time walking through the alleyways of a commoner’s neighborhood?” she joked while smoothing his fringe as they broke apart. “Was our widdle Silver scared?”

“Tsk, was not,” he lied, rolling his eyes.

She shot him a look of disbelief and he returned it with one of indignation.

She fixed the lapels of his suit and let her hoof sweep down its front, like she always did whenever she saw him, except with more care now.

“Ready to go?” she asked.

“I’m scared,” he admitted even as he nodded. She put a reassuring foreleg around his shoulders. She was notably taller than him, and while it used to annoy him, now he gladly snuggled into her even if it made walking kind of awkward.

“Come on.” She guided him through the many identical alleyways of Ponyville with a surety that said she could have done it in her sleep. “My parents won’t eat you.”

“’Paz, do you think they’ll be okay with my gift?” he whispered as they emerged from the maze of the Ponyville residential area and took up a narrow dirt road. In the distance, a sign welcomed them to Sweet Apple Acres.

“I told you, you don’t have ta bring anything,” she huffed, but her smile stayed in place. Seeing the apprehensive look on his face, she hugged him closer. “Yes, Silver, they’ll be fine with whatever.” They passed under the sign ahead and suddenly were surrounded by apple trees. “They’re just glad to see me bring somepony home after all these years.”

“You mean, I’m not the first?” he asked, his pitch a little higher and his tone marked with jealousy. Beside him, he felt her stiffen just the slightest bit.

“No, it’s… it’s not that,” she said, her tone unusually quiet. More trees passed them, and the path they were walking on moved up into a hill. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and his breathing became shallow as they began climbing. A gentlepony like him was not accustomed to such physical tasks as climbing a hill.

Silence fell between them, punctuated by his gasping breaths, for the rest of the climb. Finally, they made it up the hill and the ground began to level again. A short walk ahead of them stood a red barn house, old but proud atop it’s hill surrounded by apple trees.

A sharp bark broke the melody of the summer birds and crickets that occupied the air, and Silver jumped. “D-dog?” he squealed.

“Eyup. He’s my sister’s little mutt,” Topaz explained, and a small brown dog trotted up to them. Topaz leaned down and rubbed the dog’s head. “She named him Warrance,” she informed her coltfriend, who cringed away from the melogouros beast.

Ugh. He hated dogs.

“Oh, hello,” a new voice greeted him as he glared at the dog.

He looked up from the sight of his marefriend still scratching the beast, and met pale harlequin eyes.

“Oh, hey, Jasper,” Topaz said, looking up also. She rose from her squatted position and turned to Silverplate. “Silver, this is my baby brother Jasper. Jas, this is Silverplate.”

The unicorn stallion extended a hoof and a million-dollar smile. “Charmed,” he greeted, the way most Canterlinians do when introduced. Yet his voice carried a warmth that simply could not be found among the Canterlot nobility. He actually sounded like he was pleased to meet Silver instead of following through the motions of social etiquette.

“The same,” Silver said quietly, shaking the hoof offered to him and taking a moment for a once-over.

Jasper was, quite easily, the most aesthetically pleasing pony Silver had ever laid eyes on. He had the natural grace and unsurpassed perfection of somepony who belonged on a catwalk, and yet the light blanket of sweat on his pristine white coat told Silver that this young stallion not only lived on a farm but also worked on it.

His eyes had the same sparkle of kindness found in Topaz’s, and the coiffure of his crimson mane was a little behind on the times; frankly, he supported a manestyle that was mainly popular in Canterlot some twenty years ago, but, oh, how he pulled it off. He wore nothing but a peculiar neckerchief around his neck. It was old; very, very old, but spoke of tender caring. It was orange with a white trimming, and depicting red apples.

“Was my Granny’s,” Jasper informed him, clearly catching his stare. There was a note of some emotion that Silver could not recognize in his voice.

“I see,” Silver said carefully, but Jasper didn’t seem offended at all. In fact, the other stallion smiled cheekily at him, displaying dimples that could be found in his sister.

“C’mon, lets go inside,” he suggested. “Everypony else wants to meet you, too.”

The inside of the barn house smelt absolutely wonderful, that was the first thing Silverplate noted when Jasper opened the old screened door. The smell of food was thick in the air, so thick that it could practically be tasted.

“Mother? Ma?” Topaz called out into the house.

“In here, darlings!” came a chiming reply in an accent that was familiar to Silver’s ears. What was a member of the Canterlot nobility doing living on a farm?

Topaz led through the house and he followed her. His ears perked as the screen door slammed shut behind him and moments later Jasper appeared beside him, walking just a hair closer than was necessarily allowed by social etiquette in Canterlot. Silver decided he liked it.

The inside of the house was decorated nicely, but humbly. The front door led into a modest living room with a light lavender couch, loveseat, and armchair. An old, thoroughly holed area rug acted as the only padding from the hard, creaky wooden floorboards. Pictures absolutely crowded nearly every inch of the walls and every other surface where pictures would fit. There was an old fireplace, unused because of summer, and some three windows with dark blue, hoof-sewn curtains. An old rocking chair sat abandoned beside the stairs that led to the upper part of the house, and yet somehow, it seemed to be the most important part of the room.

Topaz led into the kitchen, which was past the small dining room, and the smell of food became stronger. Inside, two mares stood around the various appliances preparing what looked like a mountain of food.

“Hey, there they are!” An orange mare with a blond mane exclaimed warmly when she caught sight of them. She paused her preparation of the salad and trotted over. “Name’s Applejack,” she informed Silver, shaking his hoof firmly with a nearly bone crushing grip. “You must be Silverplate.”

“You can call me Silver,” he muttered back, liking the kind twinkle in Applejack’s sap green eyes. They were different from her son’s eyes－brighter in color－but lacked none of the warmth.

“Silver it is,” Applejack agreed, and stepped aside as the other mare came closer to them.

“Rarity. Pleasure, darling, I’m Topaz’s mother,” the other mare greeted in the accent that Silver had heard previously. Indeed, this mare looked like she did belong on the streets of Canterlot.

She had bright, sparkling blue eyes, just like Topaz. She was not grand and stately like Silver’s own mother, nor was she sickly thin and plastic-looking like the other mares in Canterlot. Her skin was not tight and taut but instead was made more beautiful by lines that had formed through years of laughter, sadness, worry. It made her look wise, and gave her face character. She had the aesthetic perfection found in her son and the celebrity mothers that he had seen both in posters and around his neighborhood, but she looked more familiar and approachable.

And just like with every character presented to him under the name of Apple, he liked her immediately.

“Charmed,” he replied, meaning it for the first time in his life.

“How long until dinner’s ready, Ma?” Topaz asked Applejack. “I wanna introduce him to Opal.”

Silver’s ears perked at the new name. There was more?

“‘Bout ten minutes, ‘Paz,” Applejack replied as she trotted back to her previous station and picked up the large knife that she had been using to cut vegetables. “I’ll ring the triangle when it’s ready.”

“Thanks, Ma. Actually, do you know where she is?”

“Out in the fields,” Jasper replied. His brow creased. “I kind of left her out there when I saw you guys.”

“I cannot believe you, Jasper Jackson!” a unicorn whom Silver guessed was Opal snapped when she caught sight of them wandering through what the Apple siblings had dubbed the ‘western field’.

Jasper winced, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, sis,”

“Jasper Jackson?” Silver whispered to Topaz. What an odd name.

“Jasper Jackson Rara-Avis Magnum Jonathan Apple,” Topaz replied with a nod while Jasper continued to apologize to his sister in the background. “He’s named after both of my mothers and grandfathers.”

“Oh,” Silver deadpanned.

“Mouthful, ain’t it?”

“Quite.”

“－Look, I went to deposit the apples in the cellar and I just saw ‘Paz with her coltfriend. I’m sorry, I got preoccupied,” Jasper pled.

“Fine, fine,” Opal said with a haughty sniff. “But after dinner, I’m not coming out with you.”

“But Opaaaal. I hate night buckin'. It’s creepy out here.”

“Well maybe you should have thought of that before you abandoned your sister after she was so generous to help you. And please quit whining like a little foal; you are nearly sixteen years old,” Opal said with finality, and then trotted closer to where Silver and Topaz stood observing the exchange. “My apologies for that,” she said pleasantly. “You must be Silverplate.”

“Just Silver is fine,” Silver said, shaking the hoof she offered him. “You’re Opal, I take it.”

“Indeed, darling. Charmed.”

Her voice carried hints of her mother’s accent, and her face hints of her mother’s beauty, but not in the ‘drop-dead gorgeous’ way that Jasper’s did. Nevertheless, she was very beautiful. Her coat was a pale yellow, and her mane a platinum blond that didn’t exist in either of her mothers. Her eyes were a brilliant orange color with long, seductive lashes.

“Yes, charmed,” he replied.

A melodious sound rang through the air then, followed by the happy barking of Warrance and Silver internally cringed at the reminder of a dog on the land.

“That’d be dinner,” Topaz announced. “Let's start heading back.”

“So, what did you think o’ him?”

Rarity rolled her eyes at her wife’s muffled voice coming from their bathroom. “Spit your toothpaste out, darling, then ask.”

“What did you think of him?” a much clearer voice came a second later, and Applejack ducked from the bathroom, turning the light off. Rarity watched her through her mirror as she climbed up onto the bed.

“I thought he was a fine individual,” she admitted, swiping at the back of her left eyelid with a moist towelette.

“Yeah,” Applejack sighed, frowning.

“Problem, dear?” Rarity asked curiously, switching towelettes and eyelids.

“Naw, just…” Applejack leaned back into the pillows and fidgeted, staring up at the ceiling, where a bamboo fan rotated slowly. “You don’t think she’s just… I don’ know… trying to kill time?”

“What do you mean by that?” Rarity asked, peeling away one false eyelash, and then the other.

“You know damn well what I mean, Rare. She’s just… tryin’ to distract herself. From him.”

Rarity sighed deeply and scooted out of the vanity seat. “She may very well be, yes, but what are the chances of them being together? That colt has less interest in romance than his mother did at his age.” Rarity slid carefully under the duvet. “I honestly don’t see him ever falling in love.”

“I suppose so,” Applejack admitted. “But she’s hurting. Did you see the way she barely said anything to Silver during dinner? Heck, Opal flirted with him more than she did.”

“Sadly, yes,” Rarity sighed. “He’s just like the last one. And it’s a shame, I actually really like Silver. He’s the best one yet.”

“Best one yet, maybe, but he’s no Lightning Dash.”

“Yes. He’s is no Lightning Dash.”

The Youngest

Beauty.

He’s often wondered what ponies mean when they speak of beauty. What is this wonder often spoken of as if it were the essence of everything holy?

The dictionary defines beauty as a pleasing quality associated with harmony of form or color, excellence of craftsmanship, truthfulness, originality, or another, often unspecifiable, property. Even the dictionary is unsure what the term encompasses. True, it states many categories that the word may apply to in speech, but in all these complicated, condescending descriptions, does it truly state what beauty is?

Someone may look at a young mare or stallion with fairly pleasing features and a somewhat welcoming air about them and pronounce the subject beautiful, but is this really beauty? He’s often thought of beauty as something more than a nice face and agreeable manners. Something more than a simple smile or a well-proportioned body.

Indeed, to him, the ideal presentation that so many of them believe to represent beauty, he finds repulsive.

He grew up around the word beauty. As soon as he could remember, he himself had been described as beautiful. One would think that his understanding of the word would be less muddled, but instead the fact that he is supposedly ‘beautiful’ only makes him more confused.

He had hoped that when he started school things might have been different. They were not. They were worse.

Oh, the emphasis his generation puts on aesthetic perfection.

And the whispers! The prying eyes! The sly glances that speak of carnal thoughts about him. It made him struggle to get out of bed every morning. He wonders, sometimes, for the most fleeting of moments in his most brooding of days, if, perhaps, he could be homeschooled instead.

But alas, idle, fleeting wonderings is all they are. His mothers both worked, of course. Mother had her clients, and Ma had her fields. He couldn’t possibly. They were the best of parents, and his asking such a thing would deem him an ungrateful whelp. They already gave him and his sisters everything.

“Are you gonna be a sourpuss, sour patch?” Stormee moans next to him, and he glances at her. Dramatic as always, with her head on the table, her two-toned grey mane splaying out as much as it can given its shortness.

Stormee is beautiful. Celestia in the Great Beyond he’s dead if Opal hears him say that, but it’s true. It’s different for him, he supposes, since he’s known her basically his entire life. Saying Stormee is beautiful is like saying that Opal is beautiful, or Topaz, or Lightning, or… well any of the Dashes really. It was a simple observation, and hid absolutely no carnal… craving or whatever it was that Stormee often blabbered on about. Sex appeal?

He tilts his head at her. He seriously can’t see it, but the looks in the hallways do not lie. Physically, Stormee is attractive—in ways that makes her aesthetics more persuasive of the ‘boyish’ side of beauty than the soft perfection of the more feminine side of it that Opal possesses. He guesses, maybe, that ‘handsome’ would be a better word for what Stormee is.

Other than her looks, he supposes its Stormee’s attitude that gives off that appeal that the mares and stallions fall for. The rebel-without-a-cause, devil-may-care approach to life that she possesses, the cool exterior hiding her absolutely passionate and intense real nature. He wonders if they can see it like he can see it—the fire in her eyes. He’s sure that they can. It’s probably what attracts them in the first place.

Not to mention that Stormee was kind of a flirt. Like, a natural one, and a deliberate one. Her special talent was charm—nopony truly stood a chance. Stormee could work a room full of ponies like none other he had seen previously—and he had Fancy Pants as a godfather.

“Opal!” Stormee calls across the crowded cafeteria, breaking his thoughts about her. Storm’s voice carries resolutely and within half a minute, Opal joins them at their table and sits beside her paramour.

“Thank Celestia you’re here,” Stormee wails softly, throwing herself at the unicorn with all the flair and dramatics of a pony who's drowning and then pointing a hoof at him. “Jasper was being broody again.”

Opal tsks, playing along. “Now, Jas, we’ve talked about this brooding business.”

He rolls his eyes, playfully so, but his mood is not one for games and Opal clearly sees this. She gives him a look. A worried look that only mothers and elder siblings can give you.

“I’m fine,” he replies smoothly and then looks around the cafeteria. “Where are Sky and D?”

His leg twitches and he scowls around the cafeteria. Didn’t they say they were going to come? He thought he heard Sky talk about finishing a test or something, but that doesn’t—

“Relax, Jas,” Storm says in a very relaxed way and he glances at her, seeing her cuddled into Opal as much as she can possibly be without crawling inside the other mare. “They’ll be here.”

He barely hears her, his anxiety growing. His tail twitches and then curls and he fights back the foalish habit of clutching onto it. He seriously needs Sky and D if he has any chance of—

“So is today the day?” Storm asks. “Is that why you’re being so jittery, jitter bug?”

He scowls. “Why must you insist on calling me such things?” he sighs, rubbing the area between his eyes where the first sparks of a headache sting. Storm shrugs and doesn’t respond, and he huffs. “Yes, yes, today is the day.”

“Great,” Stormee replies, overly accentuated and almost a drawl. “I’m so tired of her.”

“She’s alright,” he replies noncommittally and the look both Opal and Stormee shoot him makes him shrink several sizes.

“She most certainly is not ‘alright’.” Opal sniffs, her gaze snapping over to her left.

“She deserves a chance,” he mutters, fidgeting.

“C’mon, Jas, you know they’ll never approve of her. And you don’t even like her all that much,” Stormee says.

“And how do you know that?” he retorts. “Were you confident that they would like you when you met them?”

Storm stares at him like he’s stupid and then flips her mane. “Well, duh. I’m me.”

He grunts, and goes back to sulking.

They tell him that he’s putting himself down in dating her, but he doesn’t understand why they say that. She’s a very beautiful mare, with looks that nearly match up to his own. Why should it suddenly matter what her personality is like, when nopony truly cares about it? He's overheard countless confessions of the deepest, most heartfelt love in the dusty corners of the library, but not once, in all those magnificent renditions did he hear love on account of something besides beauty. It was what everypony focused on, and they still do, trying to find their ideal of beauty in this unaccountably dismal world.

They look good together, that's the point—the epitome of a beautiful couple, kind of like Stormee and Opal.

Except he’s a fool to compare himself to Stormee and Opal. Stormee and Opal are in love—the big, mature, scary kind of love. The kind on which marriages and homes and kids are built on. He's utterly sure that their love isn't that focused on looks, even though neither is missing in that department, and even though there is plenty of desire there. Hmm.

Opal and Stormee bickered like an old married couple, knew each other like best friends, and wanted each other like the teenagers that they were.

He wants that kind of love, that kind of bond, that if broken, would break him.

Was it right of him to be jealous? He thinks so one minute, but feels shame as soon as he starts to.

“Hey, there they are,” Opal breaks through his inner thoughts. She waves a foreleg and he turns around in his seat, scanning the area wildly. A grin lights up his face and he feels his entire body relax when he catches sight of his two best friends.

Diane and Skylar Dash—twin elder brother and sister of Stormee’s, born one week, four days, two hours and fourteen minutes after him, he’s literally and truly known the two his whole entire life. Lightning likes to joke that he is the Porthos to their Athos and Aramis, and he thinks that Stormee thinks that the three of them are engaged in some sort of… ménage á trois or even polyamory. Although, if they were in that kind of relationship, which they’re not, but if they were, it would be love triangle. A, a split-object love triangle, since Sky and D don’t do incest.

But that’s absurd, since he has a marefriend and the three of them are indeed just friends. Best friends who are really close, yes, but just friends.

The two weave their way through the crowd of ponies in the lunchroom and then make their way to the table, sitting on both sides of Jasper like they always do.

“Sorry ‘bout the wait,” Diane mutters, but it sounds like she doesn't mean it. Such was her speech, usually, if anything at all. Diane was a quiet one. He supposes that growing up around such dominating personalities such as Lightning and Stormee and even her own mothers was to blame. Celestia knew that when Stormee or Lightning walked into a room, all eyes were on them, mostly because their entrances involved much flair and volume.

“It’s alright,” Jasper breathes out, feeling all the anxiety flowing out of him as if carried off by an invisible breeze. “How was your test, Sky?”

“Easy, naturally,” Skylar gloats smugly.

“Yes, ‘easy’, because it’s not like it’s calculus or something,” Jasper snorts.

“Well of course not,” Sky agrees with a small smile and a roll of his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Storm snaps impatiently and slams her hoof on the table, the effect ruined by her close, affectionate cuddle with Opal. “I think there are more pressing matters than how fantastically brilliant Skylar is.”

“Pressing matters?” Sky asks, completely ignoring his little sister’s jibe. “What kind of pressing matters?”

“Her.” Stormee seethes.

“Ah yes,” Sky retorts dryly, rolling his eyes so hard Jasper wonders how they don’t pop out of their sockets. “The elusive ‘her’.”

“Jasper’s marefriend, idiot,” Storm shouts.

“Anger management: you should look into it,” Skylar quips.

“Would you two shut up, please?” Diane drones, stabbing her siblings with her eyes. “What about Jasper’s marefriend, Storm?”

“He’s breaking up with her today!” Stormee snaps back, probably going for elated, but coming up short and landing on irritated as she glares at Skylar, who only smirks back icily.

“He is not breaking up with her,” Opal patiently explains, jabbing her marefriend in the side so hard that Stormee yelps. “He’s simply asking her to dinner with our family.”

“Wait, you’re serious, Jas?” Sky balks, breaking his condescending stare-down. “Like the entire nine yards of introducing her and all the courses and your Ma’s apple pie?”

“Yes?”

Nopony truly had a glare like Skylar Dash, Jasper muses. Clinical and condescending and colder than ice, making the subject feel like a complete idiot who’s being bitch slapped by an iceberg.

“There is only a fifteen percent chance of this evening ending even remotely nice,” Skylar sniffs, “And the percentage is only that high because your Mother has the patience she does.”

“Truly a saint,” Diane mutters admiringly. “The few, the proud— the ones who are able to put up with Stormee’s shit.”

“Hey!”

“It’ll be fine,” Jasper growls, the power of so much negative scrutiny unnerving him and weakening his resolve. His lungs tighten in anxiety, taking his breath away.

“And if it’s not?” Skylar challenges.

“Then it’ll be my damn problem, I guess, Skylar,” he chokes out, and then swallows tears. It wasn't fair; Sky and Diane were supposed to be his rock, and Opal was supposed to support him or at least protect him. Hell even Stormee—she, she was his friend, right? They were very similar, he thought, surely she understood…

“Jasper really,” Opal huffs. “This is getting ridiculous! You’re nothing more than an accessory in that relationship. She’ll just dump you when the next best thing comes along, and you know it.”

He gapes at his sister for a long moment, feeling his heart bottom out and then strain weakly as thoughts fly around his head like cartoon birds. His resolve breaks then, with one dry and strangled sob and he rises from his seating briskly.

The bathroom door slams open and then ricochets off the wall behind it, slamming closed faster than it usually would—the pneumatic shock absorbers on the door hissing in alarm as they catch it and slow it down. He growls and then leans onto the door, powering through the absorbers both in an attempt to get away from the outside and because he’s in the mood to hear things slam. He’s like his Mother in that regard, his Ma always tells him, wanting to be closed off and smashing stuff when hurt or upset.

He wonders briefly if that’s a good thing—surely it’s not the most productive way to take out one’s frustration and anger. Maybe he needs anger management. Maybe Stormee and him could go together.

He almost smiles, but then remembers that he's upset and doesn't want to smile, so he scowls instead.

He stalks to the full length mirror that’s hanging on the wall next to the sinks. It’s absolutely filthy and cleaned only half-heartedly with cheap glass cleaner that seemed to only serve the purpose of spreading the filthiness around instead of actually cleaning the glass.

Through the glass, he meets his own pale green eyes.

The truth is, Opal was right. Rosevale treated him like an accessory—flaunting him around in front of the whole school, and then leaving him when her eye caught the next best trend—i.e, any other stallion in the school.

His stupid beauty eluded him! What did it get him, anyway?!

Nothing but ponies who used him. He truly was an accessory.

Maybe even to his own family; his favorite cousin Junior oftentimes called him ‘gorgeous cousin’. Naturally, it was a joke, but what if it wasn’t?

His whole life, he’d been complimented on being good-looking. What if that was truly what ponies saw about him, the only thing they saw about him?

His own mothers; would they have dumped him in an orphanage if he had been birthed unpleasing to the eye?

His hoof connects passionately with the cheap, thin glass of the mirror and he registers pain and a distant crash as the glass cracks apart and spiderwebs around his reflection so that it cannot be seen anymore.

He hates mirrors, he decides then. He hates them and their stupid reflective properties.

He was cheap. Nothing more than a vase, or a purse, or one of his Mother’s dresses—meant to be worn and torn and thrown away. Meant to be looked at and appreciated, but then stored in the attic to gather dust once the owners repainted the living room.

His chest is killing him—a heavy rock sitting on his lungs without a care in the world. He gasps once, twice, and his vision swims and blurs from lack of oxygen and tears. He stumbles on his hooves, trying to breathe but not being—not, not being able to. His brain recoils in alarm at the lack of oxygen and he twitches and breaks out in cold sweat.

Panic attack, he realizes through the haze as the corners of the bathroom blacken into tunnel vision.

He’s suffered them before—Ma had an accident a couple of summers back and had to be rushed to the hospital. One look at her had sent him spiraling and hyperventilating and heaving in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before Mother found him and calmed him down.

This one is not as strong, but it feels just as bad. His stomach turns and forces a dry heave out of him, but he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast—actually, his breakfast only consisted of tea—so the only thing his stomach manages to do is give a strong lurch and force up some stomach acid half-heartedly.

He closes his eyes and tries desperately to remember the breathing exercise his Mother had him do in the hospital bathroom all those summers back. What was it she said?

He can’t think clearly anymore, the blood rushes away from his brain defensively and he flounders, except he can’t feel his body so he doesn't know if it gets him anywhere.

Something settles on his withers, a warm pressure of—Celestia what is that?—and he gasps out and tries to recoil but can’t move and can’t speak.

“Jasper,” a low, intimate voice murmurs soothingly in his ear and he flicks that same ear. “Jasper you have to calm down. I need you to breathe with me, okay?” Opal says, and he just barely manages a nod and then hears her inhale loudly and dramatically right beside his ear. He does it too, deeply and gradually like she does, and then exhales when she does—again, gradually and slowly, ever so slowly.

“You’re doing great, darlin’, just keep going. Count to five on the inhale, then hold it for two seconds, and count to five on the exhale, okay? Slow and deep now.”

He nods, and does it. Five-two-five, over and over again until he can breathe regularly and the bolder on his chest rolls off, destined for places unknown.

He slumps on the ground, closing his eyes as his heart slows down little by little. The porcelain tiles are cold under him and feel wonderful, and he notices for the first time that the air carries a strong hint of lemon-smelling bathroom cleaner.

At least it doesn’t smell like urine, he thinks gruffly, like it usually does.

And then he freezes and glances at his sister patiently sitting beside him and looking at him.

“This is the stallion’s bathroom, Opal,” he mutters, heat coming to his face.

Opal gapes at him, incredulous and offended, looking like she’s about to smack him, and his face flushes deeper. “S-sorry! I don’t know why I said that! Sorry.”

Opal sighs sharply, shaking her head and glaring at him. “The doctor told ya to lay off the tea, Jas. Caffeine—makes your anxiety—worse,” she snaps, and punctuates the point by biting his ear hard enough to genuinely hurt.

“Ow! Jeez, what was that for?!” he hisses and then fondles the ear. It’s sore when he touches it.

“You just had a panic attack!” Opal screeches incredulously in explanation. “What if I hadn’t followed ya in here, huh?”

“I would have calmed down eventually,” he mutters, brushing his hoof over his ear once more, feeling thoroughly scolded like that one time Ma chewed him out for swimming in the lake without supervision. He was only about nine, then, and she had used scary words like ‘foalnapping’ and ‘drowning’, along with a really, really loud voice. And then when they got home she grounded him from seeing Skylar and Diane or doing anything besides eating, sleeping, school work and farm work for about three weeks. Thoroughly scolded, indeed.

This is very similar to that. He slumps and hangs his throbbing head, fiddling with his crimson tail like a little foal. Briefly he entertains the idea of spilling everything that was going through his head; briefly he entertains the idea of asking if Opal would love him as a brother if he didn’t look like he did, and then walking back into the cafeteria and asking the same of Skylar and Diane and Stormee, and then, when he went home after school, posing the question to his mothers and to Topaz.

But he doesn’t. Mostly because he’s afraid of their answers.

Opal sighs again, still exasperated, still mad, but not as much anymore. “When we get home, I’m informing Mother about this,” she decides, her speech shifting from slight country to its usual refined sniff. He opens his mouth for half a second to argue but then closes it again.

“Tonight is the dinner with Rosevale,” he mumbles weakly.

“Oh boo-hoo, Jasper,” Opal snaps. “Stop being stubborn and break up with her. That mare is not good for you.”

His tail has split ends, he notes. It was probably time for a trim. He wonders if his mane has split ends too. Perhaps when he visited Barber Cut, he should also look into changing his coiffure. He was getting thoroughly tired of this one and the time he put in every morning to make it—maybe he should just go the easy route and simply start slicking it back. Would that lose him fabulousity points? Does he care?

“Jasper are you listening to me?”

“Sure, sis,” he replies breezily. No, no. He decides that he doesn’t care.

“The pasta salad was wonderful, ma’am,” Opal comments to Mother politely, breaking the stifling silence of the dining room. She shoots him a surprisingly good equivalent of one of Skylar’s glares. “Don’t you agree, Jas?”

He sighs. Those glares are getting really old, really fast. “Ahaha, yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, stretching his lips in a too wide, too fake smile. “Excellent as always.” He glares at his tall glass of boring water, wondering if there was a spell that could turn it to a glass of iced tea, or maybe even a mug of hot tea, and wondering if he can charm Auntie Twilight into making a spell like that, and then teaching it to him.

“Very good,” Topaz agrees on a mutter, joining in.

Mother lets out a polite, tinkling laugh that is almost as thin and fake as his smile. “Thank you, my loves,” she says gratefully, and he’s sure that she’s actually thanking them for breaking the silence instead of complimenting her pasta salad—which is actually not half bad tonight. Usually it’s pretty bland. But of course, they complement it anyway.

One did not simply not complement Mother’s cooking.

The entire evening had been terrible, frankly. But not one of those outwardly terrible evenings; no, no, those were easier to deal with. No, this evening was one of the stifling and uncomfortable kinds that Jasper only thought could be found among the ballrooms and garden parties of the rich nobles of Canterlot. This was the kind of terrible that was just on the tipping edge of being full blown horrible—that tipping edge was, in this situation, a fifty-fifty chance of being something that either his Ma or ‘Paz said.

He could never truly recall a time where dinnertime in their house was this… electrified with so much negative energy. Sure, there was other electricity in the air during some of their dinners—usually when Stormee ate over, and she and Opal would throw smoldering glances at each other all evening, like they couldn’t wait one lousy dinner to jump each other’s bones.

Ahem.

But dinner time in their house was fun and loud and warm and comfortable. It had always been that way; full of laughing and teasing and the unpretentiousness of a warm family. Their family. The Apple family.

The only time that dinners in their family had been this cold was when—

He squirms uncomfortably in his seat and his coat brushes against Rosevales’s, who’s sitting ridiculously close to him, as if trying again to play the part of dotting marefriend.

They all saw clear through the act. It was evident from Mother’s strained smiles to Ma’s furrowed brow to Topaz’s dark glare at mare by his side. Opal seemingly couldn't decide between glaring at him or her, so she did both. They did not approve. Not one bit.

Rosevale hadn’t done anything to earn their approval, really. She cut him off when he went to speak about their relationship; she made cooing baby talk at him, and brushed his mane with her hoof—always finding a way to touch him, always just… too close.

He was sure that he wasn’t supposed to find that unpleasant, and yet every instinct in him told him to bolt. Run, run, get out of there!

Ma clears her throat awkwardly, “So, pie?” she offers.

“That would be lovely, dear,” Mother murmurs with a small diplomatic smile.

“Sounds great,” Topaz exhales.

Ma nods again and disappears into the kitchen, maybe a tad faster than usual.

The awkward silence scrambles back into its place of hanging over their heads until Ma comes back, juggling the hot pie in her hoofs. She sets it onto the table, and then takes her seat once more.

“Guests first,” Ma announces naturally, but doesn’t even glance at Rosevale.

“Um,” he does glance at Rosevale, and finds his so-called marefriend looking at the apple pie in a manner that expresses both deep loathing and disgust. “I… don’t really like apple pie.”

The tension in the room turns up significantly. Ma’s eye twitches almost comically, and Topaz furrows her brow, looking deeply contemplative, as if she doesn’t understand how the words ‘don’t like’ and ‘apple pie’ can fit together in the same sentence.

“Well, that’s perfectly alright, dear,” Mother says, but it’s as cold as ice. “More for us, right, ‘Paz, Applejack?”

“Um, yes, ma’am,” Topaz says, snapping out of her state and then proceeding to serve herself a precut slice. Jasper thinks he hears her mutter the words ‘don’t like apple pie’ in wonder.

Opal takes the pan next, and clumsily fishes out a piece.

Next to him, just because she’s so close that he can see her out of corner of his eye, Jasper sees Rosevale scowl in something like disgust.

“Can I ask a rather… forward question?” she asks, and he bites his lip because he thinks he knows where this is going.

Mother hesitates, glancing at Ma and then smiling a fake smile. “Yes?”

“I’ve noticed through dinner, pardon my blatancy, that none of you use your magic to serve yourselves,” she says, and then, not glancing at either Topaz or Ma, adds, “at least, the ones of you who are capable of it.”

He stiffens, just like Ma, Mother, Topaz and Opal do. Mother smiles again, but it’s more a sneer than a smile, now.

“I was just wondering why, is all?” Rosevale finishes, not noticing the malice in the air.

“The dinner table,” Mother begins pointedly, shooting Topaz a warning look when she opens her mouth, “is a place of equality within our family, as it should be in every. And since we can’t very well give magic to those who are not born with it, then we have to take our own away. In order to be equal.”

“But shouldn’t a close family embrace differences?”

“And we do,” Mother says smoothly, “but not at the dinner table, and not out in the fields either. But… that is more a matter of tradition than anything else.”

“But, wouldn’t that be… forced equality?” Rosevale argues.

Mother fully gapes, now, looking horrified and scandalized. Her cheeks redden and puff out, in a look that was incredibly familiar.

He coughs out a laugh, loudly and pointedly. “Best to save those types of words for a rally, Rosevale,” he mutters meeting his soon-to-be-ex-marefriend’s eyes. Then he looks at Opal, “pass the pie, sis?”

His door slams with a satisfactory loud bang, unlike the bathroom door at school. His hoofs are muffled by the thick carpet of his room as he stalks across and to the set of drawers beside his bed.

He didn’t own many clothes, but what he did own was probably more than any other stallion in Ponyville, and probably most of the mares, too. Storm and several others, both friends and strangers, often made passes about his sexuality whenever he wore clothes to school, so he stopped wearing clothes to school. Therefore, most of his clothes went unused unless for a surprise trip to Canterlot, or the chill of the colder months.

He digs around the top drawer for a moment and then pulls out what he’s looking for.

It’s an old thing—as old as him. Faded blue in color, but nearly unrecognizable because of its stains, his baby blanket was a gift specifically from his Auntie Rainbow and even had her cutie mark sown into it as to remind him exactly who gave it to him. A bit pretentious of her, naturally, but he had carried this thing until he was nearly six.

He wonders what some of the ponies who often made passes at his sexuality would think or say if they knew he still sometimes dig out his freakin’ baby blanket to comfort himself, but then he decides that those ponies could go do unmentionable sexual things to themselves, because sometimes a stallion just needed the comfort that only a baby blanket could provide.

Humph.

He pulls it to his nose instinctively, breathing in. It doesn’t smell like anything, really, having suffered one too many washes to really retain any sort of telling scent. He pretends that it smells of his foalhood, regardless.

He then walks to the bed and curls himself around the dilapidated thing, sighing.

“That bad, huh?”

He doesn’t jump at the sound of the voice, as he had expected somepony to come sooner or later. He had slammed his door closed pretty loudly.

He opens his clenched eyes and drags his head to see Topaz leaning against the doorframe.

He jerks his body in something like a shrug, and ‘Paz sighs deeply and comes all the way into the room, closing the door softly behind her. She crosses the distance and sits on his bed. He sits up awkwardly, instincts telling him to wrap himself in her like he used to all the time when he was a foal—back when she was his knight in shining armor, and he would always run to her, even before he ran to either of his mothers. He smiles a bit as memories flash through his mind—Celestia, he used to think she was the neatest thing in existence. His eldest sister; so old and mature and strong and brave.

Topaz shifts on the bed beside him, and then chuckles, but it’s a sad and almost bitter sound. “Been one helluva evenin’,” she comments. “Gotta tell ya, it threw me for a loop that my baby brother is old enough to date.”

He stays silent, but Topaz doesn’t say more.

“Bet you didn’t expect his marefriend to be such a bitch,” he mutters finally.

Topaz gives a more sincere chuckle this time. “Ah, she wasn’t that bad.”

“Liar.”

“No, really,” ‘Paz insists, and then frowns contemplatively. “I couldn’t really tell if she was a racist scoundrel, or a passionate equalist, though, what with that one argument. But I can tell that she was at least educated,” she smiled a bit, “sounded like Mother and Opal, though. Didn’t think I’d find anypony else that sounded like them ‘round these parts.”

“She was from Canterlot originally,” he grumbles, and the conversation goes dead again. Topaz gives another sigh, and then roughly pulls him to cling to her. And he does, because he wants to, and because ‘Paz doesn’t give him a choice.

“So, how did the walk go?” she asks him after a while of sitting like that.

“Quiet,” he responds. After dessert he had, naturally, walked Rosevale home like a proper gentlecolt. The evening had been subpar, but manners and doctrine would be observed, or he wasn’t his mother’s son.

The evening had been chilly for springtime, and prickled delightfully in his chest when he took a deep breath. Ponyville was dark and shadowy in the light of the glorious moon, but the air was full of the melody of crickets and even a few hidden frogs. She had walked close to him, and even pushed closer when a particularly cold breeze blew.

Her house was deep in the heart of the town, and he led her through the darkened, identical streets easily until they stood at her literal white-picket-fence-framed house. This house had belonged to Rain Gatherer, the last of the old Gatherer clan that he vaguely remembered from his Granny’s tales.

She had turned around at the fence, and they looked at each other for a long moment. She truly was beautiful, he had thought. She didn’t go to kiss him, and he was glad for it.

“I guess this is it, huh?” She had asked, and he read the double meaning of the words.

He had nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She had shaken her head with a fond chuckle. “You’re an incredibly decent stallion, Jasper,” she whispered, and her eyes shone with the reflection of the stars. Then, she laid one hoof on his chest for a long moment, before turning and unlatching the gate with her magic and walking the short distance to her front door before disappearing inside. She didn’t look back.

He had stood in front of the white fence for a while, not sure how to feel, before picking his way back home.

It had been a miserable relationship, frankly, and he was glad to see it come to an end, but a part of him, the one that could never be satisfied, wondered if it was necessarily a good sign that the break up involved no… second thoughts on his ex-marefriend’s part. There was no ‘are you sure’s or any other arguments. She simply accepted it, maybe because she expected it, or maybe because he just wasn’t appealing enough to bring forth any of those reactions.

The thought formed an invisible chain and bolder and attached itself to him, sinking him rapidly into the ocean of familiar sulking. And the cruel trick of nature was, he hated ponies like himself; the ‘oy vey, my life is miserable!’ types, who brought others down with their endless moping and whining.

But, he guessed old habits died hard.

He brought himself back into the present with a jerk, frowning slightly. Maybe old habits died hard, but was there really a reason for this to control his life?

“Ya alright, Jas?” Topaz mutters near his ear. “Zoned out on me.”

“I’m fine,” he whispers, and suddenly feels a stirring in his chest. He pulls away from Topaz rapidly, looking her dead in the eyes. Words flash in his brain, things he longs to know about how other see him, about the nature of beauty, about every single thing that has been weighing him down for the longest time.

He opens his mouth and inhales, ready to speak.

But then he closes his mouth again, and exhales.

The words and his release in them, both escape him rapidly, never to return again.

Old habits died hard.

Author's Note

Finally done.

You guys have no idea how long this chapter has been kicking my ass. But now I'm DONE, and I'm never touching it ever again because of how thoroughly this thing wore me out.

But like, if it sucks, please tell me that it sucks, and also catch any grammar, spelling mistakes that I didn't catch, please. There are several parts where it could be stronger, and less... drag-y, but like I said I'm not rewriting it. Ever. Again.

The Middle

Few things about this chapter, cause I know I'll be asked; Lightning and Stormee are the offspring of RainbowPie. Opal is the middle child of Rarijack. 'S why the chapter title is Middle. For more information, see almost every single fic I've written previously.

“I say we tell them,” Opal piped in from the club chair in the corner. Her hind legs hung over one arm, and her head lulled back over the other like a ragdoll.

“Sitting: you’re doing it wrong,” Stormee muttered.

“Conversing: you’re doing it wrong,” Opal retorted.

“Letting big brother read in peace on a Saturday afternoon: you’re both doing it wrong,” Lightning added from the couch. Both mares locked eyes, released quiet snickers and then looked at the young stallion. “What?” Lightning asked. “Go flirt in Storm’s room. The living room is communal territory.”

Opal arched an eyebrow. By definition, communal meant that they were all allowed in the living room whenever they so pleased.

“Marefriend’s Brother, do you even know what communal means?” she asked.

“Sister’s Marefriend, don’t you go there,” Lightning sing-songed. “We went over this. You don’t need to teach me words. I know them all.” He peered over his book top at the young mare sprawled over their Mama’s club chair. Opal beamed back at him and Lightning shook his head at the adorable sight. “I hate that you’re so freaking cute.”

“I know, right?” Stormee huffed.

“It’s a burden, trust.” Opal rolled her eyes.

“Oh, shut up. And we’re not telling them. End of story,” Stormee said, and Opal guffawed.

“I’m flabbergasted at the fact that you won’t even consider it!”

Lightning snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’m flabbergasted that you can work words like flabbergasted into regular conversation,” he mumbled. Both mares shot him amused eyes and then turned their attention back to each other. Stormee crossed and uncrossed her hind legs, and then reached over the coffee table and grabbed The Three Ponyteers, flipping it open to where she had left off.

“Stormee.”

“Opaaaal,” the pegasus hummed in reply and then flipped a page.

“Can we put the book down?”

“Can we?”

“Will you?” Opal groaned. Stormee rolled her eyes and then snapped the book to hug her bookmark once more, giving her marefriend her undivided attention.

“I am listening, my dear highness.”

“And totally whipped,” Lightning added, eyes still on his book.

Stormee glared and launched a pillow at her brother’s face. It landed hard, dead center. Lightning froze and slowly peeled his face to Stormee’s with a murderous glare. He pointed a hoof at Opal, without taking his eyes off of Stormee.

“When she leaves, you will regret that move.”

Stormee snorted snidely. “Please. I am the undisputed pillow fighting champion of this household. I’d like to see you try.”

The two Dash siblings held their glares for a few moments more before Opal chuckled. Lightning threw her a wink before returning to his book.

“Don’t be winking at my marefriend!” Stormee snapped, catching the gesture.

“’Fraid I’ll steal her from you, baby sister?”

“As if,” Stormee flaunted, flipping her short mane.

“I don’t know, Storm,” Opal began easily. “Lightning’s cute.”

Stormee just stared. “Opal, he’s Lightning. And, like, five years older than you.”

“Your point, love?”

Stormee sputtered for a few seconds, before finally crossing her front hoofs over her chest.

“Careful, Miss Opal,” Lightning muttered. “You’ll make her pout.”

“You were saying, Opal?” Stormee pressed, her wings bristling in clear indication of annoyance, but otherwise not acknowledging her eldest brother’s teasing in any way.

“I was saying; why not? I mean, we already told your family, why not mine?”

“Because,” Stormee elucidated.

“Because,” Opal deadpanned.

“Because,” Stormee insisted.

From the couch, Lightning smirked into his book, which he had long since stopped reading. Somehow, his book quickly became less entertaining then these two. What was more entertaining about Daring Do going into an all-out war with all of her past nemeses than his petulant little sister and petulant little sister’s pompous marefriend arguing over coming all the way out of the closet?

Resting his case, Lightning chuckled to himself.

“Babe, I just don’t think it’s smart. I mean, your Ma has a shotgun.”

Opal glared so hard her eyes started to hurt, and then she rolled them. “That shotgun is a myth. I’ve never seen it, and I live with her.”

“She could be hiding it,” Stormee insisted, receiving a deadpan stare.

“So you’re afraid, is that it?” Lightning asked, giving up and abandoning his book face down on his barrel.

“No!” Stormee shot instantly, bristling.

“Then what is the problem?”

The brown pegasus fidgeted nervously, brushing her hoof over the well-worn, faded patch on the chair she was occupying. “Well… we just told you guys about us. Can’t we wait to tell the Apples? Like, a few days, or weeks?”

Lightning sighed. The two mares had indeed sat the entire Dash family down and revealed their relationship. Last night, in fact. And now it seemed as though Opal wanted to ride that victory and spread the joy. She thought it time to tell their friends, their classmates, and more importantly, her own family. So, basically, the entire friggin' world.

Lightning couldn't blame her.

“I think it's a good idea, Storm,” he advised. Opal shot to her hoofs, one leg stretched and pointed at Lightning while beaming at Stormee.

“Your brother! Your own brother is on my side!”

“He's always on your side, you troll,” the pegasus groaned and tossed pillows over herself, burrowing down into the couch. She just wanted the conversation to go away, far away.

Opal laughed at the pathetic sight, walked over and sat herself down on the pillows on Stormee's stomach. She leaned back into them and sighed.

“Couch is comfy,” she winked at Lightning and Stormee groaned from below.

“That's what she gets for calling you a troll, huh?”

“Mhm!” Opal smirked.

"Trolls are cute and cuddly!" came huffing out from below the pillows. Opal shifted around, digging in harder until there was a groan of displeasure from below.

“No, they have freak-of-nature hair, boils, and are creepy. Not to mention, they smell atrocious!”

“…You said it,” Stormee mumbled. Opal gasped and ripped the pillows off her marefriend’s face, leaning in close and scowling.

“Don’t make me hurt you in front of your brother,” she warned.

“Don’t let me stop you,” Lightning replied, interest in his book renewed.

“Look at that, even your brother…”

“Opal,” Stormee pleaded, her eyes falling seriously vulnerable and darting away. The unicorn watched fear transport itself across Stormee’s face and she leaned down into the pillow-free hole.

“Hey.”

“What?”

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered, and placed a light kiss on Stormee’s lips. “I promise you it will be okay.”

This was not okay.

Frankly, it hadn't been okay for a long while. About six months, actually. Ever since her precious baby girl turned sixteen. Rarity was actually thankful that the Apple family traditions had given her that long.

Sixteen was still way too young, in her opinion.

Ever since Opal had turned sixteen, Rarity had been holding her breath, in dread of the day. If she was to be honest, the fact that it took six months for Opal to find a suitable enough partner to bring home for dinner shocked her.

“Will ya stop pacing like that?” Applejack groaned from the couch. “You’ll wear a hole in the rug.”

“The rug has already accumulated several holes, darling. One more cannot possible hurt it,” Rarity snapped back, and then glowered at the rug in question. “We should get a new one.”

“That rug was made by my great-granny,” Applejack explained patiently for the seventeenth time since her marriage to Rarity. “Y’all know that, just like I know that you’re simply complaining about the rug because Opal is bringing a special somepony home with her tonight. For dinner,” she added quickly when a venomous glare was shot her way.

“Since when did she even start developing interest in dating?” Rarity grumbled, finally sitting beside Applejack on the couch.

“Probably when she started locking her door?” Applejack guessed with a shrug.

“Something you allowed,” Rarity accused with an edge to her voice. “I was never allowed to lock my door as a young mare.”

“Don’t tell me you never did,” Applejack said with an eye roll. She reached for Rarity’s hoof at the sight of the grumpy expression on the unicorn’s face. “C’mon, Rare, cut ‘er some slack,” she coaxed.

“I am,” Rarity insisted with a downturn to her lips. “I'm allowing him to come over, aren't I?”

“My idea,” Applejack muttered.

“And a bad one,” Rarity quipped. “If we give her the impression that we're okay with her dating—"

“Which we are—”

“Says you. If we give her the impression that dating is okay, then she'll think sex is okay, and before you know it she’ll be bringing all sorts of characters to her room in the middle of the night.”

“You seriously believe that?” Applejack asked with an exasperated eye roll. “That filly takes after you like a clone, prim and proper-like.”

“Well it didn’t stop us,” Rarity argued.

“We were older! Like, way older.”

Rarity sniffed haughtily, turning her nose into the air. Applejack pressed her hoofs into her eyes until she saw little bits of color from the pressure, and sighed.

“Look, Rare, we’re not… encouragin’ her to have sex.”

The remark made Rarity give a defeated sigh and slump down into the couch cushions. "I know…” she started shakily. “I… I know that. We're not providing her with a window into sex that she wouldn't get on her own. What we're doing is equipping her with the knowledge that if and when she's ready, she can come to us because as her parents, we aren't going to be closed off and ignorant to the fact that she's maturing into a sexually aware mare." The very words made Applejack’s stomach ache, but she nodded along to her wife’s rant. Rarity often needed moments like this, to convince herself of something. And even though Applejack strongly wanted to geld every stallion that dared come within one hundred feet of her beloved Little Gem, she had to reassure Rarity first. If only for the reason that Rarity could then reassure her in return. And maybe convince her not to bring out the shotgun.

Deep in thought now, Rarity stared at the ceiling, muttering to herself. "Yes, yes, it is imperative that we stay by her side during these crucial adolescent moments of raging hormones and curiosity in order to show her that we're 'hip' parents and when she's ready, we can take the necessary precautions to ensure she practices safe intercourse."

Applejack felt like her head was going to explode. Just as she lifted her hoof to rebuff Rarity’s soliloquy, the doorbell rang.

Opal soared down the stairs with surprising speed and shouted, “I'll get it!” over her shoulder. Rarity blinked, lips twisted in amusement as she began to stand up. “Should we go with her?”

“No, no,” Applejack assured as she grabbed Rarity to pull her back down into her side. “I don't wanna see him 'fore I have to.”

Rarity scoffed at Applejack’s reluctance, but melted in the other mare’s side anyway.

“What do you think he looks like?” Applejack asked.

“Strong, blonde, maybe with a country accent,” Rarity teased with an easy smile. “What about you?”

“Gorgeous unicorn, kind of stuck-up.”

“Applejack!” Rarity gasped, affronted.

Applejack perked up at the sound of hoof falls coming toward them. “Shh,” she hissed at Rarity as she carried critical eyes to the doorway. Rarity turned around in Applejack’s arms to find Opal in the doorway.

…Flanked by Stormee Amelia Dash.

“Oh,” Rarity said softly. “I see.”

The pause between the four mares was pregnant. Then, with flat eyes never leaving Stormee's face, Applejack opened her mouth.

“Hey Jasper, baby?” she called through the house.

“Yes, ma’am?” came the distant reply from upstairs.

“After dinner, you and me are going to board all of Opal's windows shut.”