I like the dialogue here. I might still use it at some point. The prose between lines needs a serious re-write, though; I had fun putting it down, but . . . let's just say it serves me right for trying to mix my own romantic experiences, my sense of humor, and my taste for schmaltz and weird metaphors, and trying to write an emotionally heavy scene. I mean, there's a bit here worthy of Ayn Rand describing a street lamp. It's that bad. You'll know it when you see it.

“So, you know, things are going to be changing. What with Twilight being princess, and . . . things.”

“Uh-huh,” said Applejack, trying to keep her voice level as her mind raced ahead to where she suspected the conversation was going.

“And that’s fine! I hope it’s all for the better.”

“Right,” said Applejack. Certainty lurched into her mental harbor, dropped anchor, sprung a leak, and polluted the mind with dread. Oh, no, she thought. Not now. Please, Rarity; I knew this was coming, but I was hoping I’d be ready for it!

“But before they change too much, there’s, uh, something I should--”

Applejack couldn’t bear it anymore; her friend was looking positively wretched, struggling to keep eye contact and fidgeting as if she wanted to stand on one leg and couldn’t decide which. It was a wonder she didn’t fall over.

“Go on. Out with it,” said Applejack, with a sigh.

“What?”

There. Now that Rarity’s wandering speech had been tripped, their eyes met and locked.

“Let’s just say I have reason to think I know what you’re trying to, uh, well, say,” said Applejack, as kindly as she could.

“Sorry?”

“Just go ahead and get it over with, sugarcube. You’re such a bundle of nerves I’m surprised you haven’t widdled yourself.”

There was a blush, but it didn’t stop Rarity glaring and drawing herself up to strike a haughty pose. “Excuse me, madam,” she said, very nearly spitting the honorific, “but there’s no call for--”

Despite herself, Applejack laughed.

“And now that we got Rarity back,” she said, “how about you just get it off your chest? And there ain’t no point trying to make something up; you’re almost as bad a liar as me.”

“Well,” huffed Rarity, “if that’s the--”

“Ain’t no point taking an attitude with me, neither, missy,” said Applejack.

“‘Missy’?!”

This time, Applejack just kept on smiling. And it was a smile, but at the eyes, which never left Rarity’s, it seemed to invert itself and turn into a sorrowful, but sympathetic, grimace.

Embarrassment to sniffiness to indignation. Progress had been made; the emotional seltzer bottle had been charged and vigorously shaken. Now to aim and fire.

Rarity slouched and said, her face radiant with blush, “I, uh. What would you say if--”

“No point asking ‘what if’, neither. There's just what is and what ain't. ”

“AJ!” pleaded Rarity.

“Just be direct. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ve sort of been holding a torch for you for a while now,” said Rarity, in one breath. "Crush. Flame. Whatever."

It was then that Applejack allowed herself to slouch. And away we go, she thought. Cat’s out of the cliché. Just be gentle.

“I know,” she said.

“What? How?”

“Mare’s intuition?” suggested Applejack, lamely.

Rarity was silent. The two mares watched each other.

“And I’m . . . darn it, Rarity,” said Applejack, scraping at the ground with a hoof. “I know that cain’t have been an easy thing to say, neither. Never had no occasion to say that sort of thing, myself, but I know it must’ve took a lot.

“Sorry I done forced it out of you, but it didn’t look like you were gonna get anywhere anytime soon, and you just looked so miserable, and I cain’t be having with that. No, ma’am.

“And . . . shucks, I ain’t used to talking like this. I mean, I ain’t blaming you, sugarcube; it’s just who I am, see?

“And the thing is--and I want you to know I really mean it, sugarcube--yeah, sure, I love you.

“Hell, I ain’t scared of the word. No shame friends saying they love each other. World would be a better place and all that if they did, you know.

“And I’m flattered you think so high of me, and I’m glad you shared it.

“It’s just . . . I don’t love you that way,” said Applejack.

“I’m sorry,” said Applejack.

The gadget thus deployed, Applejack felt herself cringing against whatever shockwave was about to come her way, but she forced herself to maintain eye contact.

Rarity unfroze, and her breast swelled as she took in a slow breath that trembled slightly, but which was slow and measured, as if she were counting to herself. The hiss of air flowing through her nostrils came with a squelch as mucus backed up and Rarity tried to restrain the waterworks, but it wasn’t enough to stop her eyes glistening.

"I see," she said, weakly.

The atmosphere could have been carved into blocks and sold as building material.

Applejack knew when to fold. She did so, looking down at a forehoof and using it to draw circles in the dirt.

"So,” said Rarity, “if I were to say that, sometime, I'd like to, well, I don’t know what, but it’d start by going somewhere nice, just you and me?”

"I'd say I'd love to, but it'd just be as friends.”

“So. That’s that, then.”

“I am so sorry, sugarcube.”

Now the atmosphere could have been blown up and used to dam a river.

There came a long, moist sniff. Rarity drew herself up.

“Oh well!” she said. “Stiff upper lip. Plenty of other fish.”

The forced brightness would have fooled nobody, and it certainly did not fool Applejack, but she smiled and nodded anyway, if only for Rarity’s benefit.

“That’s right, sugarcube,” she said, wondering how many times she had used the word in the last few minutes. It was starting to sound funny, and worse, it was starting to sound insincere.

The atmosphere underwent gravitational collapse and formed a singularity.

Rarity blinked as the sheen of tears finally grew to overwhelm their surface tension, bead, swell, and run from the corners of her eyes in two tiny streams. She averted her gaze down and to one side, nervously rubbing one foreleg against the other.

“So what happens now?” she said, meekly.

“I don’t know,” said Applejack. “I ain’t much good at this sort of thing. What was your plan?”

“Plan?”

“Well, you cain’t have known how I was gonna react.”

“Oh. Right. Plan. Well, I’d thought about that.”

“And?”

“I got as far as ‘don’t panic’.”

“Ah.”

She needs me to hold her hoof through this, thought Applejack. Oh, land sakes . . .

“Well,” said Applejack, taking a vague stab in what she hoped was at least the general direction of the right answer, “I figure, what happens now is, I walk you back to your place--”

Even if she did not feel the same way, the hopeful look Rarity gave her shoved Applejack’s heart up into her throat, jammed tight somewhere above the larynx.

“--and then I go back to the farm.”

It was even worse watching the hope crumble, accrete around the atmosphere, and seed a small galaxy of despair.

And it was too much.

Applejack sighed, managed to suppress a sniffle of her own, and drew Rarity against her in a tight embrace around the withers.

“It’s been a crowded week for all of us, hon,” she said. “I figure it’s best we all just calm down, and then we see what happens next, alright?”

Rarity trembled, clung, and snuffled into Applejack’s mane. Something came from her voice; it might have been words, but if they were, Applejack could not register them.

“Because I don’t know what happens next, neither.”

Author's Note

"Galaxy of despair." Yep. That is a thing I wrote. Amanda McKittrick Ros would be proud.

It was a glass globe filled with light.