The Sunshine Chronicles

Chapters

ACT ONE: The Foaling
Birthday
Trebuchet
Wish
Breakfast
The Quest for Applestuff (part 1)
The Quest for Applestuff (part 2)
The Quest for Applestuff (finale)
Get a Room
Shop 'til it Drops (part 2)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 3)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 4)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 5)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 6)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 7)
Shop 'til it Drops (part 8)
Shop 'til it Drops (Finale)
Lunar Council
A Pregnant Silence
A Random Slice of Life Pie
Let's Try This Again
Memories
Up to Something
Check-Up
What Happened to Sleep?
A Stupid, No-good, Dumb, Cruddy, Awful Morning...
Lala Land
Shop 'til it Drops (part 1)

ACT ONE: The Foaling

Rainbow Dash. A professional sleeper if there ever was one. It had always taken quite a lot to shake her out of her slumber, and usually nothing short of a small parade or a clap of thunder could pull it off. The impregnability of her dreams had been the stuff of legends in flight school and around Ponyville alike.

Over the past couple months, however, she had found it more difficult to sleep alone. Something about having a warm body laying against her had spoiled the pleasant sensation of napping in trees or on clouds alone. To be comfortable, she needed a body pillow, and if that body pillow happened to be a certain somepony, so be it. Otherwise, she became restless as a rabbit and twice as easy to disturb.

So it hadn't so much been the sound of the creaking house that woke her as much as her missing mate. Magenta eyes glinted against the silvery moonlight filtering in through the thin curtains as Rainbow peered out from under the heavy, warm blanket of sleep and yawned.

Dizzily, she peered over to the clock and the ungodly hour it marked. The familiar scent of apples had vanished, not to mention the silky soft coat she had grown to adore.

Her face melted into a scowl and she reached over with her hoof to turn up the lantern on the bedside table.

A second sound got her attention, and compelled her to stand.

It had a peculiar abruptness to it. Judging from the angle and distance it had come from downstairs. Rainbow trod gently out of her room and dodged the creaky spots on the stairs she had grown familiar with to avoid disturbing anypony else in the household.

Little felt out of order on the ground floor except for the front door standing wide open.

Rainbow crossed the room slowly with a wary eye, peering through shadows for intruders and glancing around to make sure all items of value were still in their rightful place.

She leaned out the door and gazed into the cool night. The moon made a magical shifting garden of shadows out of the Acres, and the gentle rustle of the midnight breeze whispered comfortingly across the peaceful nightscape. Starlight glimmered off the grass freshly glazed by dewdrops, and lent a mystical quality to the ghostly mists rolling off the hills.

It took a moment for Rainbow's eyes to finish adjusting to Luna's demesne, but she found her missing wife just out the door and off the porch. She had settled near the side of the house, hunched over a group of bushes.

"There's my squeeze!" Rainbow sauntered up to her mate and nudged her cutie mark with her muzzle. "What's the big idea leaving me-"

A sudden retch from Applejack and the emptying of her stomach contents on the bush's roots sent her scurrying back a ways.

"Ohhh... not feeling good, huh?"

Applejack looked over her withers with bloodshot eyes. Her words were laced with bitter sarcasm. "Nah. I just come on out here and spill mah guts in the middle of the night 'cause it's a heap of fun."

Rainbow bit her lower lip and made sure to gag the laugh forming in her throat.

"Yeah, guess that was a stupid question."

Her wife answered her with another gurgle and the always-pleasant sound of vomit hitting the soil.

"Granny Smith's veggie soup?" Rainbow hazarded a guess. She smirked and reached forward to stroke her wife's convulsing back. "Eh, stuff probably looks better on the way back up than in if you ask me."

Applejack snorted. She heaved again, but came up with little, other than a gag and a cough.

Rainbow's hoof massaged in gentle circles as she waited.

"Done?"

Her wife shuddered and her back legs gave out from the effort. Her breathing had become labored, pained and uneven. Her coat, usually so bright and colorful, seemed dull and sickly from fatigue in the twilight. Her freckles faded a bit into the pallor of her cheeks.

Applejack coughed again.

"Yeah... I think so..."

Rainbow smiled and wrapped a wing over her mate's back and pulled her close to support her.

"Then how about we clean you up and get you back to bed?"

Applejack nodded in agreement and forced herself under pain of exhaustion to stand again. The shaking of her legs gave her the appearance of being made of matchsticks, like she would blow over in a stiff breeze.

She draped a hoof over Rainbow's back, and allowed herself to be guided back up the stairs to the bedroom. Pride would dictate that she could not be carried of course. She held no objection, though, to being given a hoof up into bed. Her wobbly and unsure steps the whole way spoke volumes of just how violently ill she had been.

"There. Better?"

Rainbow received an uncomfortable grunt as her lover collapsed beneath the covers. Her head met the pillow with a weighted thud.

"I'll take that as a, 'Shut up and get me something to gargle.'"

Applejack groaned.

"Ya read me like a book, sugarcube..."

The pegasus smirked and trotted to the bathroom before coming back with a small cup of mouthwash. Applejack spent the better part of a minute sloshing the liquid through her mouth before spitting it back into the mug.

After emptying the mug in the sink, Rainbow returned with a wet washcloth in-hoof, and rubbed it over her mate's muzzle roughly.

"'Ey. Would ya knock it off?" Applejack grunted.

"Oh, clench yer teeth. I'm almost done."

Applejack moaned in protest and tried to wriggle away from the damp assault before Rainbow chucked the soiled rag into the hall.

"There. Now at least you're kissable."

"Oh, shut up..."

Rainbow Dash smirked and reached over to the lantern to banish the light once more, before a glint of it caught off a pair of copper eyes peering in from the doorway. The commotion had dislodged the youngest member of the household from her sleep, and Applebloom had come to investigate. The little filly hesitated and peered in on the ruckus.

Rainbow's expression softened.

"Hey, squirt. What are you doing up?"

Applebloom yawned and rubbed her eyes as she stepped into the bedroom. Her anxious gaze met Rainbow's first before she glimpsed around to mare in bed behind her.

"I could ask y'all the same question..."

Rainbow smiled. "Oh, your sister's not feelin' too hot." She reached over and covered Applejack beneath a pile of blankets. "She and her stomach had a fight, and her stomach won. She'll be okay."

The little filly's face twisted in concern.

"Applejack's sick? But... Applejack don't hardly ever get sick."

A smug grin crossed Rainbow's face.

"First time for everything, kid." She reached out and fluffed the little filly's mane. "Nothin' left to see here. I got this. You can get back to bed now."

Applebloom regarded her sister with a furrowed brow.

Applejack managed to muster a rather meager smile, though even in the lantern's dancing flame, her green eyes had lost much of their usual luminescence.

"Scoot," Rainbow insisted, nudging the filly towards the door. "I'll bring everypony up to speed in the morning."

Stubbornness obviously ran in the family, and she initially believed she'd have to carry her sister-in-law back to bed and tuck her in herself. A moment later, however, Applebloom conceded and retired to her room up the hall.

Smiling for the little filly's obeisance, Rainbow trotted around the pair's bed and climbed in behind her wife. She looked her over for a moment, softly stroking her amber flank with her wing.

"But she is right, y'know. I don't remember you getting sick much when we were growing up. And you haven't been eating much the past couple days either. At least, not for you." She crossed her hoof over Applejack's chest and embraced her from behind. "Think we should take you to the doctor tomorrow."

Applejack didn't seem to have much to offer in the way of argument. She countered with half a grunt and folded a hoof over her eyes to block out the lantern's light, too tired to protest.

"So is that a yes?"

No answer. Only her arduous breathing and the distant chirp of crickets pierced the silence between them.

"And we'll go tomorrow?"

Rainbow could tell from the way she tensed and her brow creased that the thought of being anywhere near doctors didn't make for pleasant thoughts. Thankfully, whatever days of misery she had gone through seemed to weaken her resolve enough that she had resigned herself to its necessity.

"Whatever gets that dang light turned off quicker..."

Rainbow chuckled.

"Good." She reached over her lover's stationary form and turned down the light source to a dim flicker. "'Cause I can't rightly kick your butt in anything if you're only at fifty percent."

Her wife lay still and offered no reply. Rainbow smiled and snuggled closely, pressing a gentle kiss to the earth pony's cheek, before draping her hoof and wing around her.

"Goodnight, AJ. She glimpsed over to the clock again, then smiled and leaned in to her ear. "Happy birthday, by the way."

The farm pony's tension faded in favor of a smile as Rainbow pressed against her back, and the two returned together to sleep's delicate embrace.

...

The Sunshine Chronicles
written by TwilightUCrazy

ACT ONE: The Foaling

...

Birthday

Nothing bothered Applejack more than the waiting. In fact, if anypony could match the wet-paper-napkin-delicate patience of her mate, it was her.

For all the sharp, pointy, cold objects that doctors had at their disposal, for all the spooky, torturous instruments and beeper machines and medicine that she gagged on every time she tried to take it, none of that could measure up to just sitting in a starch white room, and doing nothing. Just breathing. Killing time. Wasting daylight. Existing.

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have bothered her as much. Waiting came naturally in life, and as much as she loathed standing around doing nothing, she had come to enjoy the quiet times on occasion. They felt like rewards for her hard work.

Sitting in a hospital waiting room, however, didn't qualify as any kind of reward. Applejack didn't even like to play doctor.

And it had happened on her own birthday of all days too. Applejack had always hated the medical profession, and she had found herself even less enthused than usual because of that simple reason. Typically, Rainbow could at least say or do something stupid for her and she could in turn put the pegasus in her place to help pass the time.

But her wife had picked up a magazine and had begun leafing through it like it was the most normal thing in the world.

For some reason, it lit a burning anger within the farmgirl. If she was nervous, then that gave everypony else a reason to be, as far as she was concerned.

"What the hay could you possibly be readin' at a time like this?" she found herself scolding her wife.

Rainbow looked up from her fashion magazine and blinked. She adopted that annoying grin of hers and turned the magazine to show off the "article" that had caught her attention. Or the centerfold in that case.

Applejack took one brief look at the mare and her sultry saddle before firmly punching Rainbow's side.

"Ouch," Rainbow deadpanned through a chuckle. She tossed the magazine down to the table in front of her and turned to face her mate. "So, what 'time' is this?"

"What?"

"You said 'at a time like this'. What time is it?"

Applejack fumed and turned away with a snort.

"Nothin'. Forget I said anything."

She felt a powerful but soft blue wing wrap around her opposite side and pull her in against her, where the smell of rainwater and spring soothed the nerve-frying irritation she had felt.

"You scared?"

She couldn't help but detect a hint of playfulness in her mate's voice.

"No!" she snapped a bit more harshly than she meant, drawing the eyes of several other patients.

Rainbow was unfazed.

"Oh come on, AJ. Lots of ponies are afraid of the doctor. Foals, wimps, crybabies..."

Applejack growled angrily and wriggled free of the other mare's wing as she burst out into a fit of giggles.

"I ain't afraid of the doctor none, okay? It's his cold hooves and needles I don't much care for..."

Rainbow reached over and clapped her hoof on her back a couple times.

"Eh, I bet he probably won't even do anything. He'll probably just give you a pill and send us home so we can get down to your birthday party."

Applejack didn't seem convinced by her lover's reassurance, and seemed even more skeptical when the nurse called her name.

After the standard weight, blood pressure and temperature readings, the only thing Applejack had left to dread was the doctor coming in and doing whatever it was doctors did. That, and more waiting.

She swore she spent more time sitting there than in the actual waiting room itself. The examination room smelled of rubbing alcohol and cleaning solutions that made her more nauseous than she already had been. She did all the best she could do to take her mind off things, and paced about the room nervously. Still, the walls felt as though they were closing in.

It felt like an hour when the doctor opened the door, even though the clock said only ten minutes had passed.

"Well, howdy there!"

The unicorn physician's accent hurt rather than helped Applejack's immediate opinion of him.

He levitated a pair of glasses out of his pocket and perched them atop his muzzle. His eyes skimmed over a clipboard that hovered closer.

"Applejack, hm? Well, it's certainly been awhile since we've seen head or tail of ya! And yer vitals are lookin' healthy." He peered over the rims. "So what is it I can do for ya?"

Applejack would have told him nothing just to be able to escape the suffocating environment. The room had grown more claustrophobic with the addition of yet another pony.

Before she could answer however, Rainbow Dash spoke for her.

"She's been having stomach problems lately."

The doctor looked from Applejack to her wife, and acknowledged her with a nod. "I see. Has anypony else in the household been ill in the past few weeks?"

Rainbow shook her head. "Nope."

"Been exposed to anypony who has been?"

Applejack blinked and pouted, shaking her head.

"Anything taste off or unusual?"

"Not that I could tell. Granny Smith's food doesn't always look the best but it's never made me sick before."

Applejack interjected sharply. "Granny never feeds bad food to nopony! It weren't nothin' I ate. I just... ain't been feelin' good. It'll go away..."

The doctor looked her over and stepped forward, hovering a stethoscope to his ears and pressing the end to her chest. She shuddered against the cold sensation and tried to keep still as he levitated it down along her stomach.

"Had any other unusual symptoms?" he asked, telekinetically tapping his pen against his cheek.

Applejack paused and cleared her throat timidly.

"Umm, well... I ain't had my..." She glimpsed towards Rainbow, waiting to hear what she had to say, and waved the doctor closer and whispered in his ear.

"Hmm..." He widened his eyes and looked at her again. "Interestin'." His gaze traveled over towards Rainbow Dash waiting with bated breath.

"What's wrong, doc? It's not serious, is it?"

The doctor turned back to Applejack. "Well, these symptoms're a clue, but I wanna confirm my suspicions first." He levitated a clipboard and scribbled something on it, then opened the door. "Nurse? Couldja let Ultrasound know that Ms. Apple-Dash'll be droppin' by?"

***

Applejack had never heard of sonograms before, but she was pretty sure the goop they spread across her stomach to do it with had become her new least-favorite thing about visiting the doctor's office. It felt cold on her thin coat and melted all over her. She didn't appreciate being told to lay so still either, or being told when to hold her breath.

Rainbow hovered nearby and peered over the shoulder of the nurse doing the test. She narrowed her eyes at the screen and twisted her head.

"Looks like a bunch of mush to me. What're you looking for anyway?"

Nurse what's-her-Heart levitated the firm and uncomfortable device across Applejack's belly. It felt like she was probing at her belly with a gigantic plastic spoon handle.

"I'll know when I see it. The doctor will have to make the final call on what it is," she said. Her free hoof tapped across a few buttons and the fancy machine chirped a couple times.

The nurse moved the cursor around a bit and dragged the annoying device across the prone farmpony's stomach.

"Rainbow, would ya quiet down? The quicker she's done, the quicker I can get outta here..."

The pegasus smirked. "Hey, could you do one of her head too and find out why she's been such a crab lately?"

Applejack's glares would probably scorch steel if she focused her attention on it long enough.

"Oh keep talkin', sugarcube. I just ain't decided whether I'm gonna take away yer cider privileges or make ya sleep on the couch fer a week."

Rainbow laughed. "See? Grumpy!"

The nurse smirked but wisely kept herself out of the lovers' squabble. She levitated more of the jelly over and squirted some more of it onto Applejack's stomach before traveling up a bit further.

Suddenly, her wand came to an abrupt stop.

"Hmmm... well that certainly appears to be something," she murmured. She raised her glasses a bit, squinting at the screen, and smiled. She skillfully skittered her hoof across the console again, unleashing a series of indeterminate beeps and chirps once again.

Rainbow bolted to her side.

"What? What is it? Show me!"

Applejack sat up from the bed and started to lean forward and catch a look at the screen, but the nurse had removed the wand from her stomach, and whatever image it had been faded.

"Give it to us straight, doc! How long does she have?!" Rainbow asked melodramatically as she clutched the farmpony against her.

Applejack gave the pegasus a grave look. "'Bout however long it takes me ta dig a grave big enough fer that head of yers. Might take me the rest of my life."

The nurse chuckled at the pair's banter, and unplugged something from the machine.

"You two stay put and I'll go get this to the doctor. We'll let him decide what he thinks it is first."

Silence settled over the couple as the nurse left the room. Rainbow scratched her mane awkwardly and looked over to her wife laying on the table as she wiped a towel across her gel-soiled coat.

"So..." Rainbow said, coming to rest on the table. "Pretty sure it's nothing."

Applejack felt the weight of Rainbow trying to comfort her hit her like a runaway cider barrel. It occurred to her that if she hadn't said anything, she never would have even thought to worry. Because Rainbow Dash was, however, it gave her reason to.

"Y-yeah... nothin'."

She rested her head on the cold hard surface beneath her.

Rainbow, not one to be ignored, nudged her muzzle beneath Applejack's chin. She fluffed her wing, and gave it up to her mate as pillow to rest against. Applejack accepted the offered appendage wordlessly.

"I mean... it's not like she sounded worried or anything."

"They never do..." Applejack answered and nuzzled closer, burying her face into the mound of feathers to be alone with her thoughts.

Not one to be lame either, Rainbow kept quiet, and curled around to rest her chin atop Applejack's chest.

The room had no clock, so neither mare had any real way to tell just how much time had passed before the doctor came into the room, flipping on the lights overhead and smiling to the curled up pair on the bed.

"Don't bother sittin' up," he said. "You'll probably just fall back over again."

Neither Applejack nor her mate knew what to make of the doctor's words, and gave each other an unsettled expression. Their eyes tracked back to him and she swallowed her nervousness for a time.

"So... is it good news or bad news?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, that depends..."

He took something out of a folder he had been carrying with his magic aura and levitated a print-out of the sonogram down in front of the farmpony. A small shape in the middle was circled for attention.

The pair looked up at the doctor curiously.

"Just how do you feel about bein' seven weeks pregnant?"

The stunned silence that followed was palpable.

Trebuchet

The walk home to retrieve her sister and Big Mac had been a silent one. Neither mare had anything to say to one another. The doctor and nurses had been on the receiving end of standard questions like when the foal would be born. "How?" was added to the mix for good measure.

It was a question he had been ill-prepared to answer.

More than anypony, Applejack felt she had a basic need to understand just how the laws of nature had decided to stay home sick for a day. Sex had certainly never been sparse between the couple, but no matter how magical love and love-making ever felt, it had never felt... transcendental. As far as she knew, her body was beholden to all the same rules of reality as other mares.

It seemed that her reproductive system hadn't gotten that memo.

She sat dumbfounded in one of the wooden chairs of Golden Oaks and watched Pinkie spin a pair of albums on the far side of the room. She had no real fascination with the party pony or any real appreciation of the music, but it was better than staring at the blank wood wall behind her.

Her thoughts raced with a thousand questions and not a single answer. Each circled in on itself back to the lingering "How?", only to be nudged aside by worry and guilt that she shouldn't have had any business feeling in the first place.

Applejack was an honest pony. She loved Rainbow Dash with all her heart. She had adored her since they were little fillies, and they had spent more time together than anypony she knew of. And she certainly had never cheated on her beloved wife. The very thought of it made her sick to her stomach all over again.

It was a strange sensation, being pregnant. On one hoof, she was over-the-moon with joy and excitement. At another time in her life, nothing had mattered more to her than finding a mate, settling down and having foals to build her own family around. Foals of her own had been something she had thought about since she was young. She had always dreamed that one day, she would bring a young filly or colt into the world. She had imagined their first cries, those bright eyes opening to look at her for the first time. It had only been her imagination, but it had filled her heart with such emotions that she swore her cheeks could burst from the smiles it gave her.

When she had agreed to marry Rainbow Dash, she had reconciled to herself that she would never bear a foal. They had gone to Twilight and asked her to work her magic. No traditional magic existed, she remembered her friend saying, that was powerful enough to create a living being with a soul from nothing. And Applejack had shuddered at the thought of letting some strange stallion's seed fall into her belly.

She had discarded that dream to the bin of impossibilities. It had broken her heart to do it. She hated it. For months she had wanted to be angry at Rainbow Dash for being her ideal mate. She wanted to be bitter at her for forcing her to choose between which she wanted more.

"Not even gonna try the carrot cake?" came a familiar voice to her left.

Applejack, of course, couldn't bring herself to be bitter towards a pony that had given her the nerve to dream again in the first place.

She stared at Rainbow's outstretched hoof, holding a small paper plate and a napkin. The cake didn't even move her appetite. Silently, she shook her head.

Rainbow plopped into the seat next to her and watched Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy blitz the dance floor amongst other townsponies that had showed up for the party. Applejack recognized a few of them. Applebloom and her Crusader friends appeared to be going for dancing cutie marks amongst the flailing adults, while Big Mac attended the cider bowl.

"What's up, babe?" Rainbow Dash asked from around a mouthful of cake.

She sighed, but refrained from replying beyond a shake of her head. She was afraid that her vocabulary would fail her, and be unable to express just what she was feeling. She felt betrayed by her own body, and it scared her.

"I thought you'd be happier than this..." the pegasus murmured next to her.

Applejack didn't have the words to express the odd mixture of elation and self-disappointment she had. Her tongue was still, and her speech dry.

"I mean, it's what you wanted, right?"

"It is," she finally said, choking on her words. She reached to wipe a tear out of her eye.

"So why the long face?" Rainbow joked.

Applejack couldn't help snorting a short laugh at the stupid pun.

"That ain't funny," she murmured. "That's just stupid."

Rainbow smirked. "You laughed."

"You just caught me off-guard, that's all. Ain't nothin' funny about puns, sugarcube."

"I know. Every once in awhile I get lucky, though," her mate said with a wink, nudging her with a wink. "I mean, if I just wanted to make you laugh all the time without the challenge, it'd get boring."

She watched from the corner of her eye as her wife messily devoured the cake in a few bites, then pitched the plate like a discus to see who she could hit with it.

The stubborn silence again fell over them. It stood like a bulwark between the two, dauntless and unrelenting, but it was a wall that could not stand. Applejack squirmed in her chair as she felt Rainbow's eyes dart between the dancing Ponyvillians, her and back again. She struggled for words.

The music pounded.

The dancing ponies writhed about.

They sat together, unmoving and unspeaking.

It was from a barrage of realization and a trebuchet of emotion that the walls finally crumbled.

"I don't even know what you did..." she muttered, feeling the sentence swell painfully in her throat. She never got to finish her statement. The burning sensation of tears derailed her train of thought and spun it into fragments that disappeared into her mindscape like fragile tufts of cloud.

Rainbow's angelic wing wrapped around her like a comfort blanket, curling about her form and pulling her closer.

"Twilight said it was impossible..." Applejack choked.

A chuckle.

"Well, you know me... Everypony said a Sonic Rainboom was impossible too."

All the strength in her mighty earth pony limbs left her.

"How...?" she managed in a squeak, before leaning heavily into Rainbow's hooves. She buried her face in the downy cyan coat and let the tears flow.

"C'mon, AJ," she heard as the pegasus leaned in and held her closely. "I thought you'd be happy... now you're crying all over me?"

It was phrased as rhetorical. Applejack knew that. The only response she could formulate was more tears. She clutched to her wife like she was a life-raft.

It didn't matter how she had done it at that point. What mattered was that she was pregnant.

She was going to have a foal.

They were going to have a foal. Together. Nopony else was involved in it.

"I love you," she sobbed, summoning the only words her many scattered thought processes could concur on together. "Sweet Luna, I love you so much..."

Rainbow leaned back and grinned her adorably obnoxious grin.

"Yeah... I love me too."

Applejack couldn't help laughing. Her loud hearty guffaws rang across the library and drew a few short-lived looks. She'd normally give her wife a hard stare, the look she always gave whenever the pegasus said something silly or annoying.

Her outer crying was betrayed by her inner jubilation. Music sounded in her heart and warmed her soul with the rays of happiness. Joyful tears intermixed down her freckled cheeks, speckling her mate's cyan coat with dark splotches of moisture.

She paid no attention to the worried whispers around her, instead tucking her forehead up beneath that perfectly-placed jawline, and nuzzled the underside of her wife's chin.

"So, uh..." the pegasus said nervously, scooting back from her iron-like grip, "did you wanna go check out this party or something?" She chuckled. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there are a couple signs hanging around the room that say, 'Happy Birthday, Applejack!' on em."

She looked up and over to the crowd. They tried to hide the fact that they'd been fretting all that time.

"I-I guess..." she sniffed, "a little partyin' wouldn't be too bad." Applejack grinned. "You still need somepony to whup ya in a dance contest."

Rainbow giggled and pranced in a circle around Applejack as they padded towards the center of the room where their friends writhed to Pinkie's music.

The pegasus leaned in and whispered into her ear, "So, when do we tell 'em?"

Smiling, the farmpony chuckled and nudged her mate's cutie mark with her own. "I ain't exactly sure I'd know what to say, sugarcube... I mean... it's a foal right? My foal?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Our foal," she agreed, draping a wing over her form.

"M-maybe just... just a little while longer?" she said softly. "I ain't even sure I believe it myself yet..."

Her wife smiled and nuzzled her nose softly. "You got it, girl. So what do you say tonight we let the party do the talking?"

Applejack nodded.

The party then transformed, and her world became alive with color, noise, and life.

Author's Note

Edited

Wish

Rainbow stood at one edge of the bed, smoothing out the blankets into the immaculate fashion her Wonderbolt training had instilled in her. Applejack trotted quietly into the room behind her and draped herself over her back.

The pegasus looked over her withers and away. "So... pretty good birthday, huh?"

"Eeyup," answered the farmpony simply. She waited patiently for Rainbow to finish her military-style bed-making.

A pause materialized between them. Then...

"Applejack?" Rainbow asked softly as she ran her hooves over the sheets one last time.

Her mate looked up with those emerald eyes of hers. They still shone distantly, like the skies of another world.

"Look, I know something's still bugging you, but–"

"'Buggin' me?'" she echoed. Her ears wilted a bit and a smile crossed her lips. "I don't reckon I know what ya mean, sugarcube."

"Oh, come on, AJ. You wanted to know since you figured it out at your party. You looked like you were all freaked out that I thought you'd cheated or something," she said, rolling her eyes. "I know you don't like not knowing how–"

"Can we..." Applejack interrupted. She averted her eyes, examining the floorboards, the setting sun out the window, and anything but Rainbow's face. "Can we just not talk about it right now?" The floorboards groaned as she pulled herself onto the bed.

Rainbow's ears wilted like a dying flower.

"Are you serious?" she asked, draping a hoof over the pillow on her side. "It's gotta be killing you. It'd be killing me."

"Rainbow?" her wife asked, looking up with those same eyes that could shame the deepest oceans, and made her roil with the same uncertainty as before. "Would you just hold me for now? Please?" Her smile was solemn and genuine, loving, but pleading. "I don't really wanna think about how or why right now..."

When Applejack asked for something in such a manner, Rainbow found it quite impossible to say no. She crawled up onto the bed next to her lover and snuggled in close. In spite of the heat beneath the covers, they still found comfort wrapped in their mate's hooves.

Rainbow let out a breath. "You know, sometimes I think I get you totally. Then I'm glad I don't. 'Cause then it'd get boring too fast," she chuckled.

The farmpony chuckled and reached up, booping the pegasus on the nose.

"I'd just as soon chalk it up to you wishin' on a star and leave it at that fer now." She blinked and paused, turning over on her side with a suspicious stare. "I sure don't wanna ruin this moment by bein' mad at ya for you doin' somethin' stupid and dangerous."

The atmospheric temperature dropped a degree or two. "Eheheh," Rainbow chuckled, scratching her mane. "Yeah... that'd kind of be a buzzkill wouldn't it?"

Applejack stared up into her eyes and nodded. "Mm-hm," she mm-hm'd and tucked her head up underneath the pegasus's jawline. Her mane still smelled faintly of cinnamon.

An uncomfortable groan escaped her, and Rainbow pulled back.

"Everything okay?"

The farmpony clutched her stomach uncomfortably and offered a pained smile. "Just belly pain... it'll go away."

"Want some water or something?"

"No..." her mate replied, shaking her blonde head. She rolled onto her back and breathed in deeply. "Just holdin's fine, for now."

Rainbow adjusted herself and lay over the top of Applejack. A quick flick of her hoof to the nightstand and she dimmed the lantern to where the flame gently danced across the walls. The light flirted with the shadows in an erotic dance and played across her mate's oceanic eyes, speckling them with candlelight and dusting her golden mane with stars.

"I guess you're not far off."

The farmpony blinked and tilted her head curiously.

"About me making a wish, I mean," she grinned, softly brushing her hoof over the other mare's stomach and earning her an appreciative hum. "You're kinda not-wrong."

Applejack smiled.

"I mean, I know two weeks is an awful long time just to make a wish, but..." she admitted, averting her eyes.

"Yeah." An orange hoof brushed through her multihued mane and provoked a smile. "But yer home now... and that's all that matters to me right this second..."

Rainbow felt at war with herself. On one hoof, she had wanted to tell somepony of the journey she'd made, the countless miles she'd covered. It'd been too awesome a quest for her not to want brag about it. It was an accomplishment by any definition of the word.

Thoughts still lingered, however, on how angry Applejack would have been for her to put herself in such peril for only her sake. She wasn't the kind to worry over her safety, for she knew that she was capable of handling most anything thrown her way. It was the fact that she would have put her life in peril for the farmpony's sake that she'd be upset over, and she couldn't see that changing. Applejack had always been so used to being reliant on herself. If she wanted something, she would get it; and if she couldn't, she would live without it.

And then, there were the thoughts of the even-more-drastic consequences of honesty that made her shiver inwardly.

"Yeah..." she smiled. She stroked a hoof along that beautiful mane so soft and inviting, like the beds of straw in the barn on those hot summer nights all those years ago... "Yeah, that's all that matters."

The kiss was as warm and welcoming and spirited as the night she came home. It was as familiar as fillyhood crushes, and as comforting as the wind beneath her wings. It was Eternity condensed into a few moments.

It was home.

They separated, and Applejack looked up at her, resting both front hooves against her chest. "You... promise everything is okay?" she asked. "Ya didn't go 'n sell yer soul fer some zebra-magic voodoo-macallit, didja?"

Rainbow covered her mouth and suppressed her raucous laughter.

"Nothing like that. I promise, everything's okay."

A pause separated them from a second kiss.

As their lips parted once again, a smirk blossomed on Rainbow's lips.

"Heck of a birthday present though, huh?" she asked with a grin.

Smiling, her mate half-lidded her eyes alluringly. "Best ever, darlin'."

"But if you want to put it all out of your mind, I'd be more than happy to think up a nice distraction for us," she said with a wink. "Then we can just spend all night telling each other how awesome our kid's gonna be."

Applejack snorted loudly and bit her lip with a wink. "You really don't think about much else in bed, do ya?"

Rainbow grinned and climbed atop her mate, burying her back deeper into the comforters.

"That's never bothered you before!" She paused. "Besides, you do make it kind of easy," she said in a husky tone, and continued her lust-fueled assault.

And somewhere up the hall, Big Mac, with book in-hoof, looked up from his reading and blinked at the sudden delighted squeal that came from a few doors down.

He sighed in exasperation, and reached over to his nightstand for a pair of cotton balls.

"Eenope," he grunted. He stuffed the cotton into his ears, and went back to his book.

Author's Note

Edited

Breakfast

Applejack stretched out her sore legs before her and felt the joints pop and creak. Pinkie Pie's party had done a number on her the night before after Rainbow yanked her out on the dance floor, and she was only beginning to feel the effects. The day would bring worse with work, and there would be words with her wife about dancing competitions the day before a harvest day later on.

Looking over to her left, it looked like Rainbow had pulled herself out of bed early and started her day with the rest of the Apple family.

Applejack frowned.

Usually she allowed herself to sleep in an extra hour or two after her birthday. It was kind of a present to herself. But if that meant that her lazy wife was up before her, she wasn't sure she could allow that tradition to continue.

She groaned uncomfortably as she pulled herself out from under the covers and let her hooves hit the floor. Stretching her back and feeling a few more bones pop, Applejack started towards the stairs.

Judging from Applebloom's excited racket with Rainbow Dash, everypony was sitted around the breakfast table, readying for the day ahead.

She hit the first floor with a bit more spring in her step and trotted over to her chair next to her wife.

And everything grew silent.

Rainbow Dash smiled unnervingly.

"Uhh... mornin' family," she stammered nervously.

"Mornin'!" "Mornin'!" "Eeyup."

More silence.

Applejack's ears folded against her head. Her green eyes took in everypony's giant smiles towards her. Even Big Mac, typically of stoic expression and levelheaded kindness, had a big goofy grin on his face as his gaze reflected her visage.

She turned to her wife seated next to her, still grinning that same grin that she knew was going to make her angry somehow. The little hairs in her coat bristled in anticipation of a necessary scolding.

"Alright," she said, "what's the deal? Y'all were chattin' it up and havin' a good ol' time until I sat down. Then it's like somepony dropped the Spell bomb and everything's dead."

Applebloom giggled, and Big Mac gave her a look to silence her.

Granny gave her a knowing smile.

Rainbow just kept smiling.

Suddenly, Applejack clued in on the signals. Her falling ears and frown were born less from anger than disappointment.

"You told 'em?"

For the first time since she showed up downstairs, Rainbow Dash's smile faltered. Her ears pinned back, and a frown crossed her lips. "Uhh... w-was that bad?"

Granny scooted her chair back before Applejack could form a response, and she felt her grandmother's decrepit hooves wrapping around her from behind. "Oh, sugarcube, I'm so happy fer ya."

Her disappointment swiftly gave way to heartfelt emotion as the elder pony held her in her forehooves. Big Mac and Applebloom followed suit and scooted their chairs out.

"I am too, Applejack," she heard Applebloom mutter into her belly.

"Eeyup," her big brother uttered as he brushed his chin over her mane.

Rainbow Dash tried in vain to hide her warm smile. "Ugh!" she said, feigning disgust, "You guys would make maple trees go, 'Man, that's sappy!'"

Tired of the faking, Applejack darted out her forehoof and pulled the newest addition of their family into the fold by the neck.

The pegasus gagged and struggled a moment, trying to wriggle free. It was all for naught, and she rolled her eyes. "Aww, sheesh. I can feel my mare-cred screaming in agony..."

"Shut up," she snapped into her wife's ear with a smile. "Yer ruinin' the moment."

"You're killing me, AJ," Rainbow Dash chuckled and wrapped her hooves around her.

"This is so excitin'! I ain't never got to help with a baby before! Maybe I could get mah cutie mark in-"

"Don't you even finish that statement, missy," Applejack snapped.

Applebloom pouted while the rest of the huddled mass chortled humorously. The group hug ended when a sudden growl of the farmpony's stomach caused everypony's ears to perk.

"Boy, howdy!" Applejack chuckled, sitting back in her chair. "What's fer breakfast, Granny? I could eat a... tree!"

A tray of green landed in front of her.

The farmpony blinked down at the table. The plate was full of leaves, lettuce, carrots, celery stalks... and not a hint of apples drenched in the honey she liked in the morning. She nudged at the green stuff with her hoof, thinking that the sweet stuff was buried for some reason. But no sugar-dusted apple cubes rolled out and shouted "suprise!"

She lifted the plate, blinking confusingly up at the underside, before setting the dish back down. Politely as she could, Applejack pointed to the plate and asked, "Uhh... Granny? What's this crap?"

"Breakfast, sugarcube."

"Uhhh..." She stared at it as if she was seeing it for the first time. She took a curious sniff and shuddered. She looked back to Granny, clearing out dishes and divvying up the wash load, while Rainbow sat grinning at her.

Never one to turn down food, the farmpony leaned forward and took a small sampling of the veggies into her mouth.

She had to muster all her willpower not to spit it right back out, and instead forced it down her gullet with a pained swallow.

Rainbow snickered next to her, but she paid her no mind.

"W-what's on this?" she asked, quickly reaching for her glass of... water?

"Lemon vinaigrette!" Rainbow Dash said with a smile. "One of my favorites! You like?"

"It's..." Applejack paused, then eyed her water glass again. She grabbed it and gargled for several moments to give her brain a chance to formulate an a not-rude response. Spitting back into the glass, her eye twitched, body shuddering to match her disgust. "I-it's certainly got a mighty... interestin' flavor..."

"Good! Granny says it's the best thing for a growing foal!" She couldn't help but notice her wife's cruel snickering.

Applejack poked at the stalk of celery and sighed. She gave the pegasus the Stink Eye, and crunched into the veggie, rolling her eyes at the underwhelming taste. At least it didn't have... vinaigrette on it.

"Y'all coulda at least sprung fer some Ranch..."

"Ranch is unhealthy!" Rainbow sing-songed.

Applejack snorted and crunched into her breakfast some more.

"Momma always told me there'd be days like this..."

"Oh, and Big Mac's gonna be training me to take over your job for you until the kid's born!"

"..."

The Quest for Applestuff (part 1)

Applejack’s stomach groaned in protest as she lay out flat on the couch. The belly juices started pounding on the walls of her gut in complaint of there being nothing to… juice. She rubbed her hoof in small circles to try and ease the symptoms, assuring herself that she would eventually find something to sate it.

It just wasn’t fair! How was a stack of bay leaves, celery, and the most disgusting, non-appetizing excuse for a salad dressing ever supposed to appease her ravenous appetite?

Certainly apple products couldn't be bad for foal development. She didn't know much in the way of nutrition, but most doctors she'd heard of endorsed apples as a healthy food overall. Why on earth would Granny put her on such a diet in the first place?

Her brain refused to give her a reply with a lack of energy. She rolled onto her front and buried her head beneath the pillows to try and block out the scathing agony of starvation.

It was a little-known fact that Applejack wasn't exactly a lightweight pony. In fact, many of the foods she ate led to a rather impressive girth for her age. Apple fritters, apple pies, apple dumplings, apple tarts – all fattening foods for a regular pony.

Granny, however, had always lived by the philosophy that a pony with a bit of meat on their bones was a happy pony, and happy ponies were healthy ponies. She couldn't count how many times her grandmother had tried to get Rainbow Dash to eat more substantially, only to have her wife turn her down.

"A whole apple pie? Uhh... Granny? You know I'm an all-star athlete, right?"

"What's that got to do with anything, sugarcube?"

"Well, it means I can't afford any extra weight. And that means I can't have an ounce of fat below my jawline."

"Nonsense! Nopony ever got healthy eatin' vitamins and drinkin' mineral water!"

was the way such conversations usually went.

Still, none of it made sense given her current situation. If ponies with meat on their bones were healthy, why did it feel like she was being starved? Could it have had something to do with her impending stationary lifestyle? Was Granny afraid she'd get too fat to move?

Tired of thinking, Applejack growled and shoved herself off the couch and started towards the kitchen. She perked an ear and listened.

Granny, from the sounds of it, was upstairs sewing, judging from the creaking rocker. Applebloom had taken her friends out for a shake. That left Big Mac out in the fields with Rainbow Dash, showing her the ropes of how to applebuck in her stead.

With those four accounted for, that left the house mostly to herself.

A mischievous grin crossed the farmpony's lips as she rubbed her forehooves together.

"Ain't nopony starvin' this mare," she whispered to herself, slinking through the dining room and towards the kitchen door.

Peering into the kitchen, she didn't see any signs of recent use, and no occupants as of the moment. Smiling at her good fortune, she slithered in like a serpent, avoiding touching the butter churner and stealing a peek out the window. No signs of her wife or her brother. She perked her ears a moment more and listened, straining to hear any movement. Granny hadn't moved from her current task by the sounds of things, and nopony else had come back in the house.

Secure in her loneliness, Applejack's emerald eyes scanned to the left and practically watered at the sight of the beautiful, still-steaming apple pie that had just come out of the oven twenty minutes or so ago.

She leaned up against the counter and sniffed in the wondrous aroma.

"Ah had a dog, and 'er name was 'Bingo'!"

"WOOF!"

The sound of Winona barking at her tail nearly caused Applejack to lose a good portion of her coat. She paled a moment at the border collie's volume, and waved frantically at the panting, tail-wagging pooch. She held a hoof to her lips and shushed the dog softly.

"WOOF, WOOF!" Panting.

"Winona! Shh!" she snapped sharply.

Her faithful dog perked her ears and sat, tilting her head expectingly.

"Good girl. Hush," she said quickly, looking around for something to distract her companion with. Grabbing a wooden spoon from the utensil jar on the counter, she held it up vertically in front of the dog and waggled it in offering.

Winona stared and tilted her head the other way.

"See the stick?"

Silence was her reply. The dog yawned and continued to pant.

She waggled the spoon closer to try and entice her. "Play fetch?"

Winona snorted.

"Awww, c'mon! You always wanna play fetch!"

Disinterested silence.

Growling in frustration, Applejack frowned and looked about for something else to rouse the dog's excitement – more specifically, to other locations away from her.

She eyed the side door.

She turned back to Winona. "Ya wanna go play outside?" she asked excitedly.

Winona pounced into readiness, her tail going wild. "WOOF!"

She opened the door for her pet. "Let's go!"

Winona rocketed out the door like her tail had caught fire, and Applejack slammed it shut a moment later, breathing a sigh of relief. She heard her pet jumping at the threshold and pounding against it with her paws, yapping in protest at being tricked.

"'At'll keep 'er busy," she said triumphantly.

Turning back to the pie, Applejack reached up and claimed a plate for herself. Reaching for the pie server, she reached towards the object of her desires and pierced the golden crust.

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” came a sudden, loud, mechanical voice from overhead.

It scared the bejeepers out of the earth pony, and she jumped back reflexively, her green eyes widening in surprise.

"What in tarnation?!" she shrieked.

Then the metallic cage dropped from the ceiling, trapping her in its bars.

Applejack gaped in surprise at her new prison. How had she not seen it when she'd walked in?

Turning back to the counter, she watched in abject horror as her prize apple pie lowered into the counter through a panel, and disappeared out of her reach forever.

"HEY!" she shouted in protest, reaching towards the counter. Too late.

A moment later, Rainbow Dash opened the side door, hovering in with Winona in her forehooves.

"Hey, Applejack!" her wife shouted. "Lightning-Butt here got out somehow! She kept bothering us in the-"

The pegasus froze in mid-air, and Winona wriggled out of her hooves to the floor. Her faithful dog bounded over to the cage and slipped through the bars to sit next to her.

Big Mac breathlessly ambled up behind Rainbow Dash, sweat pouring from his brow.

Both stopped dead at the sight.

Applejack could feel her stomach turning.

"What in tarnation's all that racket?" sounded the old voice of Granny Smith. "Ah'm tryin' ta get to work on a blanket fer the baby and y'all're-" Granny peered in from the dining room she had come from a few moments ago and gaped, her teeth nearly falling out of her head.

Her wife and brother looked at each other and had begun to form the merest of smirks on their faces, both suppressing their urges to laugh.

"I don't even know where to start," Rainbow Dash snickered, shaking her head.

“Don’t neither one of you say a word!” she growled threateningly, pressing against the bars. “Just git me outta here already!”

Author's Note

New prompts will be taken in the form of what you'd like to see the Dash-Apple family get up to.

The Quest for Applestuff (part 2)

Applejack trudged towards Ponyville near noontime in attempt to get her mind off her embarrassment. A lousy breakfast and a need for lunch combined into a crippling hunger, and her stomach cursed her for going so long without a decent bite to eat. Not even in wintertime, when food was a tad harder to come by, had she ever gone so long without something to fill her gut. Granny had always made sure she was well-fed.

She got desperate enough to pull out a cluster of early dandelions from the ground at the side of the dirt path. Her belly was a resounding cacophony of squeaks, burps, and uncomfortable whistles, and even the grass was starting to look mouth-watering by that point.

The dandelions didn’t provide much substance, however.

She thought about visiting Sugarcube Corner, and ordering one of their apple pies. Though the Cakes couldn’t make one anywhere near as tasty as Granny’s, they certainly were more appetizing than weeds.

On the other hand, knowing the resident party pony, she’d catch wind of it and start wondering why she didn’t just bake her own pie. Then there would be inquiries. The Royal Guard would likely get involved and launch an investigation of where the real Applejack had gone.

So, Sugarcube Corner was out.

Applejack had once gotten a look at one of Rarity’s dishes. It was a wonder the poor thing managed to keep a figure at all. Her plates were always so sparsely populated that she couldn’t tell if they were meant to be hung on a wall or eaten.

With Fluttershy living out-of-town, that only left Twilight as her remaining source of relief. Twilight wouldn’t get suspicious. She was just oblivious enough about these sorts of things to provide her with a solid meal and be none the wiser about her error. Thoughts of strawberry cupcakes and broccoli salads with heaping amounts of Prench honey dressing danced in her head.

She was pre-drooled by her thoughts the time she stopped at the entrance to Golden Oaks. Two quick knocks on the door later, Twilight peered out at her.

“Oh. Hi, Applejack!”

“H-howdy, sugarcube,” Applejack stammered, doing her level best not to keel over from weakness. “H-how ya doin’, pony girl?”

“Oh, I was just about to sit down for lunch and do a bit of light reading.”

The farmpony’s stomach burbled.

“‘Light readin,’ huh?” she asked, trying to keep the conversation casual. She subtly attempted to peer around the librarian’s egg head. “Well, knowin’ you, that means ya got a couple books to read before sundown.”

Twilight chuckled and blushed behind a hoof. “Eheh… umm… yeah.”

Nothing in the kitchen from what she could see, she tilted her head the other way, peering towards the center of the room where a chair had been pulled up. “So… uhh… w-watcha readin’ about?”

“Oh, I’m not sure if you would be particularly interested. I’m trying to reconcile the Vermillion paradox of the late Vanhoofsen phenomenon for a research paper I’m doing. See, there’s this magical sciences convention coming up in…”

Applejack’s attention trailed off and she nodded, trying to seem as engaged as she could. She could smell fruit on the air. Her sharp nose picked up traces of strawberry, banana and... w-was that cucumber?

Her belly rumbled loudly once again.

“Applejack?”

There! The plate on the table! Just on the other side of the creepy horse head statue!

“Applejack!”

The farmpony started and shook out the cobwebs. “Whuh? Huh?”

Twilight blushed and scratched her cheek. “Yeah, I guess that was all kind of hard to follow, wasn’t it? It’s a little tricky for the uninitiated, even if it is rather basic.”

“R-right… sure.”

The princess stepped aside. “But, you know, if you’d be interested in hearing more about it, you’re welcome to come in if you-”

Before she was able to finish her sentence, Applejack was wiping off her hooves on the welcome mat. “Thank ya kindly, Twilight! Mighty kind of ya to offer!”

The door closed behind the two with a thud and Twilight returned to her seat at the center table. She levitated a fork and sampled a strawberry, covered in what looked like flour or some other kind of powdery substance.

She lifted the book and hovered it over in front of her, flipping a few pages back.

“See, I’m trying to understand the quantum arcanic effects between the grey matter in a unicorn’s frontal lobe and their cranial extrusions – or, in laypony’s terms, the horn. It’s crucial in how the synapses are able to cross dimensional boundaries to establish control over portions of the Ether without causing…”

Applejack had trained herself to phase out of conversations with Twilight after a sentence contained a certain number of syllables.

Her interests lay more with what was on the table in the first place.

Twilight pierced another piece of fruit as she continued talking magical thingamahoosits and other jibberish.

Applejack gritted her teeth as she watched Twilight’s tongue wrap sultrily around the grape, and dragged it into her mouth. The way she moaned in pleasure, the way her teeth ground out every bit of juice of the precious piece of fruit was unbearable. Just imagining its sweet and sour flavor hit her senses like a freight train.

She felt dizzy from hunger. Every fiber of her being screamed for her to gorge herself. Twilight would be taken aback by the action, but if she explained the situation after, she was sure she’d understand.

“Applejack?”

“Huh? I wasn’t doin’ nothin’!” she replied in a kneejerk reaction, crossing her forelegs on the table.

The princess stared at her, wide-eyed.

“I-I was just going to ask if you’d heard of the Morpheus Redundancy. It’s basically the primary cluster of nerves at the tip of a unicorn’s brain that connects to the horn. Magical science recently discovered that there are multiple-”

“O-oh, yeah… sorry, Twilight. Morphin’ Rangers and… stuff,” she chuckled nervously, pulling off her hat and fanning herself with it. “I guess I just ain’t in the right mind fer this here uh… uhh… magic-talk stuff. ‘Cause I, uh… ain’t had lunch yet. Yeah… that’s all there is to it.”

“Oh! I see!” Twilight said with a smile. “Well, we can always just chat a bit then. How was your morning?”

Oh, you dirty tease of a pony…

“M-m-my mornin’?”

“Do anything special with Rainbow Dash? I just realized this morning that you two’s six-month anniversary is coming up!” The princess consumed another piece of fruit; a sharp and crisp orange slice. She slid it off of the utensil with her lips pursed against the metal.

Oh, work that fork ya filthy filly – WORK IT!

Applejack licked her lips involuntarily as Twilight pierced a cherry.

Her gut growled like a feral cat.

In that moment, everything stopped. The silence was so thick that for a moment, she thought all the air had been sucked out of the room.

She looked up and found Twilight staring across the table at her, blinking, then at the fork in her magical grasp. For a moment, the farmpony thought she’d be put on the gallows for the heartless murder of common etiquette. Her cheeks burned from embarrassment, and she wished nothing more than to fall off the face of Equestria.

Then…

“Oh, I’m sorry! Where are my manners?” Twilight naïvely muffled through her napkin. “Would you like some of my fruit salad? Spike made it fresh. There’s enough for two!”

“O-oh, sugarcube, I wouldn’t wanna impose…”

Give it to me! Give it to me now, dangit!

“Oh, it’s no problem,” the alicorn waved, standing up from her floor pillow and trotting into the kitchen. She returned with a community plate full of fruit, and Applejack’s heart skipped a beat.

“Sorry if it tastes a bit on the sweet side. I gave him a big bowl of gemstones for dinner the other night and he dusted it with some powdered sugar as a thank you.”

Thank you, Spike! Thank you thank you thank you thank you! Thanks!

Applejack licked her chops at the glistening bowl of fruit set before her. It all looked sugary and sweet and delicious and fulfilling. The thoughts of the salad before her made Applejack feel as though there were an orgy already going on in her mouth. Her tail flicked in anticipation, violently knocking over a tower of books.

Twlight levitated a fork over to the bowl and pierced a fresh, bright red strawberry with it.

“Dig in!” she said, continuing on her own salad.

Uncaring of how stupid the giant grin on her face might have looked, Applejack reached for the fork, drooling in anticipation.

Her hoof hadn’t even been in contact for an instant.

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!”

Applejack froze immediately in her surprise and waited for whatever godless horror-contraption would come out of the blue to make her life miserable next.

She received it in the form of a pink blur plowing into her with all the force of a cannonball.

“APPLEJACK!” squealed Pinkie Pie happily. She felt her bones giving as they creaked and crackled under the pony of party’s relentless hug.

“Pin… kie…” she groaned, wriggling under the vice-like embrace. Her green eyes rolled back into her head and felt like they wanted to pop out of her skull. She struggled for breath. She landed a hoof on her friend’s face and pushed, giving herself room to gulp for air.

Pinkie, however, held fast with her crushing grip.

“PINKIE!” Applejack squeaked breathlessly.

Two metal hands extended from the ceiling and grabbed both bowls from the table. The alicorn blinked in surprise and watched as the mechanism hauled its cargo up and away.

“No! NO!” Applejack screamed, flailing her hooves towards the ceiling where the fruit salads vanished into.

The tears were unstoppable. Her lip jutted out like an infant filly ready to bawl.

“That ain’t fair,” she choked through Pinkie Pie’s merciless squeeze.

Twilight’s eye twitched. “Did my ceiling just steal my lunch?”

The Quest for Applestuff (finale)

The day had been a miserable one filled with feasting on fields of grass in the park, earning her strange stares and chuckles. She'd tried to bargain for a meal at a restaurant, but the fact that she'd forgotten her bit purse at home had made that point null and void. She'd settled for another patch of early dandelions near day's end before deciding to head home with the strength she had left.

Heaving a deep sigh, her tired green eyes met the glistening millions of apples of her farm reflecting the moonlight off their flawless surfaces. Each and every one of them cried out to be eaten. She was sure she could knock an entire tree loose of its tasty cargo and devour it all, and still have room enough left for a tasty dessert.

As she wandered back onto Sweet Apple Acres proper, the sweet scent of apples enticed her stomach back to life. It rumbled uncomfortably with the hours of sub-par eats it had had to endure, and protested her neglect with the utmost vigor.

Surely, she thought, surely the trees wouldn't be trapped. All she'd tried all day were things that were fattening; everything her body had screamed at her to eat. And every one of those things had been booby trapped to keep her out and fit. It made little sense. No matter where she went, it was like somepony was a trot, skip and a jump ahead of her every time.

Sighing in exasperation and bracing herself for the worst, Applejack approached her favorite tree to eat from. Tasty Ted always gave the best-tasting fruit, and she tended to keep his harvests all to herself.

Applejack closed her eyes and bit her lip as she turned to face away from him. Raising a back leg, she kicked out against the trunk of the tree, sending its branches aquiver and knocking several dozen apples to the earth in a rainstorm of thuds.

She paused. She waited.

A cold, evening breeze tickled her ears and ruffled through her mane. The leaves hissed softly in the cool evening. But no rabid wolverine attacked her. No parasprites came out of nowhere to devour her hoard. No magic spell turned the apples to crystals. Nothing moved. Nothing happened.

Inhaling a breath of relief, Applejack finally allowed herself to smile. She looked through the pile of apples she’d knocked loose and rooted around for the best one of the bunch.

“Hah!” she scoffed, spotting the perfect specimen glinting in the moonlight. It was plump, had a perfect sheen, and excellent color, and had landed in the soft grass.

She trotted over triumphantly and made to claim it. “No roughage diets fer me, thanks!”

Her hoof brushed against the skin.

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” she heard from the tree overhead.

Her orange coat paled several shades as her eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, you gotta be kiddin' m-” NYOINK!

Applejack squeaked in surprise as a large lasso tightened around her fetlocks. She was yanked up off the ground by all four legs, and bobbed about on the tense rope that hung from the tree branch. She dangled like a piñata and swung back and forth before being brought to a dizzy stop by gravity.

Once she had gained a sense of what had happened to her, her blood began to boil. Her first thought was to find the culprits and introduce them to the process of making applesauce in a very personal manner.

The second thought was of the growing pain she felt from all the blood suddenly rushing to her head.

A small bush nearby rustled, and out sprang three young fillies, who trotted over to observe her.

She recognized their outlines, even in the dark of the night. A blood vessel in the farmpony’s forehead throbbed.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER TRAP-MAKERS! YAY!” the trio high-hooved.

“APPLEBLOOM!” Applejack yelled in uncontained fury. “You get me down from here this instant, little filly!”

“Uh oh…” muttered Scootaloo, her ears falling. “Is it past our bedtime already?”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that’s what she’s mad about, you peacock.”

“Hey!”

“ALL O’ YOU!” Applejack bellowed loud enough to wake the dead. “Y'all better cut me down this instant, or so help me Celestia, I’m gonna give ya blisters fer cutie marks!”

All three fillies flinched.

Applebloom's ears pinned back in fear of her coming punishment, and she looked between her two friends. "Come on, you guys. Let's get this over with..."

Her little sister produced a small switchblade, and Applejack couldn't help but wonder where she procured such a thing.

The sound of sawing met her ears, and the next moment she knew, she was on the soft ground. The three fillies let go of the rope and trundled over.

"That's more like it. Now if y'all would be so kind as to-MMPH!"

An apple immediately found itself lodged in her teeth.

All the rage in the world wouldn't have been enough to dwarf Applejack's temper in that moment.

"C'mon," Applebloom said hurriedly. "Let's get 'er upstairs."

"Ready!" shouted the other two. Sweetie Belle carried over what looked like some kind of bar. Her horn sparkled green, lighting up around the bar and slipping it between her fore and hind legs..

"MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!" Applejack muffled around the apple, her ears steaming from purest anger as Scootaloo and Applebloom each grabbed a side of the bar.

Oh, don't you dare, little filly! she thought gravely.

"Sweetie Belle, you can help Scootaloo with that side. I got this side."

Oh, they dared...

"MMMMPPH-MMPH-MMPH-MMPH-MMPH-MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMPH!" she struggled to get out. The apple was wedged tightly in, however.

"C'mon, let's go, already!" Scootaloo complained. "She's heavy! And I think she's getting madder!"

"Take it easy, dodo. We're going." Sweetie Belle said playfully, grabbing the bar in her teeth.

The three carried Applejack inside and towards the stairway.

She felt her backside smack against every single step as her sister and her friends hauled her upward. By then, her furious, muffled shouts had devolved into frustrated mumbles. She didn't have the energy leftover to maintain her fury for long.

As they reached the second floor, Applebloom kicked open the door to her and Rainbow’s room and carried her in upside down.

Somehow, she just knew...

She didn’t need the proper perspective or viewing angle to see her wife in the combat helmet and black paint on her cheeks. She was decked out for war, and it was all against her, she realized.

“Rainbow Dash! We caught her nine times today!” chirped Scootaloo proudly, puffing out her chest.

Applejack rotated her head, and she narrowed her eyes dangerously at the pegasus as she trotted into view. She angled her head towards the floor, bit hard on the apple, and spat out the remains. “PTOOIE! I shoulda known you had somethin’ to do with this!” she grunted, wiggling around on the crossbeam she was fixed to.

Rainbow puffed on her bubble pipe and grinned straight at her. “Well done, troops! Go have a couple bottles of apple juice on me to celebrate!”

The Crusaders cheered as one and clattered down the hallway and downstairs, leaving the two of them alone.

Applejack focused her eyes on her mate, as if willing to lobotomize her with her stare alone.

Rainbow kicked the door shut and locked it before picking her up and depositing her on the soft bed. She only glared harder.

“In case you're wondering, I told Granny Smith that apples would be bad if we were having a pegasus foal. Something about stunting their wing growth or something.” The pegasus grinned. “She bought it hook, line and sinker.”

Her green eyes narrowed.

“Then this... this whole 'no-sweet diet' business was yer idea the whole time?”

Rainbow Dash grinned even wider. “Yup!”

She paused, her lower eyelid twitching. She felt something in her psyche fray and strain, as if it were a rubber band being stretched to its absolute limits.

"And all them traps...?"

Rainbow chuckled. "Also my idea."

Applejack gaped dumbly. For once in her life, she didn't know what to say to her wife.

“W-why you... you...!”

Her mate perked an ear, and Applejack lost her cool.

"Why you featherbrained, mangy, no-good stool pigeon! I oughta get a sack of taters and beat you merciless fer this!"

Rainbow Dash blinked and frowned.

“‘Mangy stool pigeon,’ huh?” Her wife made a face and snorted. “And here I was thinking,” she paused, hopping off the bed and reaching for something underneath, “about letting you have this.”

Applejack's attitude did a complete one-eighty at break-neck speeds. Her heart frozen with icy malice wanted nothing more than to grab her precious mate and squeeze her when she watched the tray of food emerge. There was a small pile of apple fritters, an apple salad heavily soaked with dressing and topped with croutons, and a giant, frothing mug of apple cider, all just waiting to be consumed.

Her stomach growled and whimpered thankfully. It was almost too beautiful a sight for words.

Rainbow Dash's scowl morphed into a warm and loving smile.

"There's seconds of everything downstairs, too. And there's your leftover birthday cake and an apple pie for dessert."

Applejack broke down and wept.

“Oh, Rainbow!” she tearfully squeaked, bouncing elatedly on the mattress to the best of her ability, “I love ya to death! I’m sorry I called ya such a mean thing!”

"Where's all this comin' from?" Rainbow asked with a playful smirk, chuckling smugly. "What happened to 'mangy stool pigeon'?"

She couldn't help it. The tickle in her stomach was just too much, and the farmpony chuckled heartily. "Yer still a mangy stool pigeon, but yer a mangy stool pigeon who brought the goods."

The pegasus winked and leaned in for an affectionate nuzzle. "Hey, if I gotta stop messing with you while you're pregnant, I wanted this last prank to last me a good long time."

Their muzzles parted and Applejack's eyes softened, her brow smoothing over.

“It's okay if'n ya make fun now,” Applejack said. “When I start getting' mah moodswings though, ya better watch it around me. 'Cause I'm gonna remember this...”

Rainbow Dash giggled into her hoof. “I'll keep that in mind. You looked like you were ready to kill me. I'd hate to see what you'd do when your hormones start messing with ya.” Her wife laid the tray on the nightstand and returned her attention to her again. “So what do you say to one of Sweet Apple Acres' finest meals to take the edge off?"

Already the drool factory kicked in and Applejack licked her lips in anticipation. “I'd love that right about now.”

She blinked and paused.

“Umm... c-could ya untie me first, though?” Applejack asked, struggling with the rope. “Kinda hard to eat with my hooves all done up.”

Rainbow smirked and leaned in, grabbing a fritter off the tray and holding it tantalizingly close.

“What say I feed it to you instead?” Her mate put on a sultry smile and leaned in close enough to tickle Applejack’s nose with her breath. “Then we’ll see what you feel like getting up to after that…”

The farmpony bit her lip and giggled, her freckles swimming in a sea of red. “You feed me quick enough, and I just might do some tricks for ya...” she winked.

Rainbow's wings flared involuntarily.

"Fastest-meal-ever, coming right up!" her wife said excitedly, and reached forward with the fritter.

The instant Applejack’s teeth touched it…

“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!”

Applejack's face was one of horror at the tell-tale sound of a trap being unleashed. Her eyes looked frantically every which way for the source of the incoming threat.

“B-but... no... wait... I didn't-!”

Mechanisms were set in motion nearby.

She shrieked.

Something popped out of a panel in a nearby wall. She didn't see it coming.

Rainbow Dash, however, did. She yelped in surprise and threw her forehooves around Applejack before shooting up towards the ceiling. The low-voltage wire netting that sprang out of some unseen corner of the room shaved past the longest lengths of her tail with only millimeters to spare.

Applejack, still bound and tied, was wide-eyed and pale, and stared at the sparking metallic lattice covering the comforters. She looked at her mate with pinprick irises, then down to the apple fritter that had sacrificed itself for her.

"Wow... they're good..." Rainbow muttered disbelievingly, before looking back to her wife. Moonlight reflected off the sweat dotting her brow and she chuckled nervously. "Uhh... are you okay?”

Nodding in spite of her tremors, the farmpony gulped, and looked back down to their bed. "I think I might need to have a talk about 'Twilight Time' with our little princess. I ain't sure I like what she's teachin' 'em over there..."

Get a Room

"Fer the last time, no."

"Why not?! I think it's a great idea!"

"Sure ya do, but ya never had any taste to begin with."

"I do too! You said so yourself! You said I taste like morning dew."

"That is most certainly not what I'm referrin' to, and you best start apologizin' to Big Mac before ya scar 'im for life."

Rainbow looked up at her brother-in-law. "Sorry about that big guy. Sometimes I forget you're there. You okay?"

Big Mac smirked as he tossed a sprig of hay between his teeth. "Eeyup."

Applejack sniffed in frustration. "Rainbow, you are not using Wondercolts paintin's fer our baby's wallpaper. I'd sooner choke on a pear and die."

"Okay, first of all, it's the 'Wonderbolts', not 'Wondercolts'. Second of all, they're not paintings. They're 'posters'. Paintings are lame and belong in a museum or something. Posters are what's gonna be on my future foal's bedroom walls!" she said, quickly flourishing around the room.

Her wife fumed and looked up at her.

"Fer the last time, I said no!"

"Oh come on, AJ! You never let me have anything!" the pegasus pouted, coming to a landing in front of her. "First you wanted to not even let me bring 'em in the house. Now you keep trying to get me to throw 'em away!"

"'Cause that's all they're good for! Landfill!"

Rainbow grabbed one of the rolls of paper from the floor and flicked it out, unfurling it and revealing Spitfire in her academy uniform. "Give me one good reason why this wouldn't make the most awesome wallpaper ever!"

Applejack looked up and gave her a flat look. "'Cause it's tacky and in bad taste."

Rainbow crossed her forehooves and made a face. "I said a good reason," she muttered.

"The only good reason those things have to exist in the first place is as a trash bin liner!"

"Are you kidding?! Do you know how long I had to wait in line to get Major Slipstream's autograph?! They're priceless! I have the biggest collection of Wonderbolt memorabilia in all Ponyville!"

"Yeah, and just look at how much space all that junk takes up in the attic!" Applejack countered. Neither she nor Rainbow Dash took notice of Big Mac turning to leave the pair alone to argue more.

"Exactly! So we get rid of one bin of stuff and put it to good use! You get a little bit of your attic back, and I get to use my posters! Problem solved!"

"Problem not-solved! Next thing you'll wanna do is give the poor kid yer old Wondercrud jammies!"

Rainbow opened her mouth to respond.

She paused and put her hoof to her lips as her magenta eyes considered the ceiling.

Applejack's eyes widened. "Oh no..."

"Hey, yeah!"

"OH, NO!"

"We could totally do that! Granny Smith could knit a new pair of pajamas out of my old ones from when I was a little filly!"

Applejack scowled.

"Then I could decorate the dresser with those models of Spitfire, Soarin' and Fleetfoot!" she continued. "She could get my clock radio and nightlight too! And my rug could go right under the bed!" The pegasus squealed excitedly.

Her wife buried her face in her hoof, then reached up and snatched the pegasus out of the air with a quick grab of her tail. Spinning Rainbow around, Applejack confronted her with a firm expression.

"Does 'no' have some secret second meanin' I ain't aware of? It don't mean 'let's discuss it some more' or 'keep tryin' to convince me'. No means no means no!"

"Awwww, come on, AJ! She's not just gonna be your foal, y'know!" Rainbow pouted.

Applejack paused and turned her eyes to the side. She didn't have an answer for that.

"Rainbow..."

"Oh, come on! We're talking a baby foal here! The kid won't care! And then when they get older, they'll want to be just as awesome as their heroes are! I mean, of course our foal's gonna be way past awesome anyway, but..."

Applejack sighed and shook her head. "Why can't we just paint it a nice and soothin' sky blue? We could even paint little clouds in it if ya want!"

Rainbow Dash plopped down onto her rump and frowned, crossing her hooves tightly over her chest. It was the same movement she made when she absolutely refused to move on an issue.

Applejack sighed and used the only weapon left in her arsenal. She'd used logic. She'd used yelling. She'd even threatened no sex earlier. She thought that it'd worked for a moment when the pegasus gave a moment's pause. Rainbow had realized, though, that Applejack enjoyed the sex just as much as she did, so that was a non-starter.

All she had left was guilt.

The farmpony lowered her rump to the ground and pinned her ears back. "Rainbow, pleeeeeease?"

It worked.

Rainbow bit her lip so firmly that she drained the color out of it. She could physically see the willpower leaving her as her stiff and combative wings drooped towards the floor slowly.

Her wife sighed heavily and slumped defeatedly to the ground. "Fine..." she grumbled.

Applejack thought she'd want to leap for joy and thank the heavens that her mate had seen logic and entrusted the choice to her.

Something about what she had said though... those words she'd spoken: "She's not just gonna be your foal, y'know!"

They'd bothered her.

Much as Applejack wanted to take credit for carrying the baby, nourishing it, sheltering it, and growing it to birth, she knew she couldn't take full responsibility for it. Heavens knew what Rainbow Dash had done those two long weeks to earn her her life's dream... what dangers she might have put herself in for her sake.

She looked at Rainbow, her mate's ears lowered in defeat, wings resting against the floor. Even her rainbow-hued mane and tail seemed to shimmer less brightly.

It was like somepony had taken the sun from the day.

It wasn't victory she felt, but guilt in equal measure of her own.

Rolling her eyes, Applejack heaved a heavy sigh and smiled half-heartedly at her wife.

"Alright, you win..." She raised a hoof to her forehead and shook her head. "You can have yer silly Wonderbolt wallpaper..."

A wash of air brushed over her coat and caused her to flinch as Rainbow bolted upright and nearly crashed straight into her in excitement. "I can?!"

The farmpony offered a slim smile. "You can."

Applejack could hear the excited squeak leaking out of her wife. She tried to contain it. She was failing.

The farmpony cut her off.

"But yer puttin' it up yerself!" she snapped, shoving her hoof into the pegasus's chest. "And I get to make all the other decisions about decorations, the crib, and furniture too!" she snorted.

Rainbow Dash's smile was no less brilliant than before, collapsing into her and squeezing her affectionately. "I woulda settled for one poster, y'know," she whispered with a smirk.

"Ugh..."

Author's Note

Next prompt: Shopping

Shop 'til it Drops (part 2)

Rainbow slipped to the door of the train car and peered out into the busy station. The Canterlot Terminal was the busiest mainline platform in the entire country. Peasant ponies, to the rich, diplomats, and even royalty on occasion used the station for entries and departures. As such, there were a lot guards posted throughout, and that was in addition to the routine traffic.

The doors hissed open as the conductor passed by, unlocking the cars as he went. “Canterlot Station! All passengers for Canterlot Station!”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes and looked around for any signs of familiar faces in the crowd. Her sharp eyes picked up nothing, and she slipped out onto the platform.

She crouched low and snuck forward.

“Dun. Dun. Dun DUN dun. Dun-YAUGH!”

A sharp yank on her tail brought her back several steps.

Applejack spat out her tail and scowled at her. “Ya mind not doin’ that? We’re tryin’ to blend in here, not play Secret Agent Mare.”

Pouting her lower lip, Rainbow sagged and trundled along normally. “Why do you always have to kill my buzz, AJ?”

“‘Cause yer a rowdy drunk. Now move yer limp rump and keep an eye out fer Twilight and the others.”

The pegasus blew a lock of her mane out of her face and huffed. “My way would’ve worked.”

“Sure it woulda. Now move.”

The pair navigated the heavy throng of ponies. Rainbow’s magenta eyes were sharp as a hawk’s and could spot the first changing leaf of autumn from a mile up. Keeping their heads low, they managed to wind through the stinking, sweaty crowd and out onto Mane Street.

The two double-timed it up the twisting boulevard, past glass-front shops, five-star restaurants and hotels. A quick turn onto the Boulevard of the Amareicas, and the Market Royale came into view.

Both mares’ jaws dropped.

Letting the sight sink in didn’t make it any less amazing. The marketplace of Ponyville wouldn’t have even qualified as a newsstand by comparison to the Canterlot Mall. Gleaming white storefronts of marble and violetstone lined the street as far as the eye could see; and that was only the first street. There were at least three other roads packed with shops that were even bigger. Cabs lined the street, and foals and adults alike ran every which way, albeit at a more dignified pace than Manehattanites.

“Holy turd moles…” Rainbow gaped.

“I hear that.”

“How the hay are we supposed to find a store that sells baby furniture in all this crap?”

“Hay if I know. Twilight said ‘er parents used to take ‘er shoppin’ here all the time. I just figured it’d be a regular ‘ol mall like they had in Manehattan.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, AJ, but, these stores look a little above my pay grade.” Rainbow scratched the back of her head. “I’m seein’ a lot of ponies in suits and dresses here. This doesn’t look anything like the shops back in Ponyville.”

Applejack rubbed her cheek. “Now I’m kinda wishin’ Twilight was here.”

Rainbow sighed. “You didn’t think to ask her anything about a map or any areas we should look for or something?”

“I did, but she started goin’ off about the history of how the style of the buildings could be ‘traced back to personal stylistic preferences of Princess Platinum’, and then I kinda just tuned ‘er out…”

“Great…”

For what it was worth, the cobblestone streets were immaculate, and judging from all the lesser-dressed ponies dusting the sidewalks, it was easy to see why.

“Well,” she said, shrugging her wings open, “I guess I can always do a flyover and get a sense of where everything is.”

Applejack’s ears pulled back. “I ain't sure that’s a good idea, sugarcube.” She cast her green eyes to the sky. “I ain’t exactly seen many pegasus ponies flyin’ around since we got here.”

“Well, duh!” Rainbow smirked, rolling her eyes. “This is a city full of unicorns! There aren’t any pegasus ponies around to make the sky a more awesome place.”

Applejack shuffled her hooves nervously. “I don’t know about that, darlin'.”

“Trust me. We’ll find what we’re looking for and be outta here in half the time! You just stay here and look pretty. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Rainbow began towards the skies, streaking up past windows and towards the low-hanging clouds when a buff, armored pegasus darted into her flight path.

“HALT!” he demanded in a deep voice.

She screeched to a stop just above the rooftops, nearly barreling straight into him.

Rainbow’s brow furrowed angrily. “Hey, buddy! Watch it! I’m flyin’ here!”

“You’re in a no-fly zone, citizen!” he replied, narrowing his eyes.

The pegasus’s magenta eyes widened. “Huh?”

“The law states that no pegasus ponies in the vicinity of Canterlot may fly above rooftop level. You’re breaching standard city security protocols.”

Rainbow Dash’s head spun from the sudden declaration. “City securi—What the hay are you talking about?! I just want to go find a furniture store for me and my wife to shop at!”

“Be that as it may, citizen, I’m going to have to ask you to lower your altitude and remain below rooftop level.”

Logic was never a prevailing force in the pegasus’s mind. Anger, however…

“What the heck kind of stupid rule is that, anyway?! How’s that supposed to improve security?!”

“I’m going to ask you to lower your voice.”

His stately and professional demeanor served only to irk the pegasus further, and her forehead twitched from the building levels of frustration.

“Yeah, I’ll lower my voice when you guys take the royal stick out of your—”

“R-Rainbow?” she heard a nervous voice utter from below.

She ignored it and pressed her muzzle against the guard’s. “No, y’know what? This is dumb! I’m a pegasus pony! I’ve got wings! And I’m a Wonderbolt Reservist, too! I should be able to fly wherever the hay I wanna fly!”

“Not within the Canterlot city limits, ma’am,” his voice deepening threateningly. His icy blue eyes narrowed. “Now I’m going to ask you again to lower your altitude to acceptable levels.”

She didn’t notice three other guardsponies twitching their wings agitatedly on the rooftops nearby.

Even if she had, it wouldn’t have cooled her temper.

“Look here, guy! I’m the pony that did that Sonic Rainboom at the closing ceremony for Princess Cadence’s wedding, and I flew a heckuva lot higher than the rooftops! I’m a personal friend of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna for pony’s sake!”

“Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are personal friends of everypony, ma’am.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “And if you continue to insist on this course of action, I’ll be forced to detain you, pending an investigation.”

The three other guardsponies took wing and surrounded her. It did little to intimidate her, and if anything only set the fire in Rainbow Dash’s gut to burn all the hotter.

“How ‘bout I let your nose investigate the painful side of my hoof you—”

“Rainbow Dash?” she heard a soft and demure but urgent voice call to her from below. It carried a familiar accent, but with a bit less firmness than usual.

She looked down to see Applejack smiling nervously up at her.

“Please don’t make the nice guardpony’s job even harder than I’m sure it already is.”

The pegasus paused, finally noticing the other three guards glaring at her, hooves threateningly-close to the spears they each carried. All of them were huge, probably twice her size in muscle mass alone, and the way their wings bulged with muscle probably meant that they weren’t slouches when it came to flying either.

And for that one moment in her life, Rainbow Dash understood what the word “humility” meant.

She turned back to the other guardpony who started the ordeal and narrowed her eyes. Pressing her snout against his and poking his armored chest for emphasis, she snorted, “You’re lucky she puts me in a good mood, bucko. Otherwise I’d go right to the Princess and tell her what a creep you are.”

The guard seemed unmoved by her words, but seemed to sense the incident was over. The intensity of his glare subsided somewhat; though he still eyed her with a frigid stare.

With her will to carry on the confrontation gone, Rainbow Dash fluttered back to the ground with a frustrated huff.

“Jerk,” she snorted.

Applejack heaved a heavy sigh. From the corner of her eye, she saw the four guards return to their posts on the rooftops.

“Are you crazy?!” her wife snapped angrily as she stomped up to her. “Those guards coulda thrown you in the dungeon, Rainbow!”

Rainbow Dash was about to snap back, but was interrupted by a pair of trembling hooves wrapping around her neck.

“Don’t you ever do somethin’ stupid like that again!”

The fire in Rainbow’s belly smoldered and sizzled out, and she rolled her eyes coolly, throwing a hoof around her wife. “Yeah, well, I guess all these lame-o unicorns wouldn’t have anything awesome to stare at if I just flew by all day.”

Applejack snorted a relieved chuckle and walloped her on her side.

Rubbing the sore spot, Rainbow frowned. “Now what do we do? Ask one of these rich snobs where everything is in this stupid city?”

“That’d be a lot better than makin’ angry-eyes at a Royal Guard. But I was figurin’ we could just take a cab,” the farmpony said, motioning towards a yellow-and-black checkered wagon attached to a burly stallion.

Rainbow Dash made a face. “Seriously? A cab?”

“Better than talkin’ to a bunch of snobby unicorns, ain’t it?”

With no argument to make to counter that logic, the pegasus shrugged and harrumphed to the ground, crossing her front legs. She cast an angry glimpse to the sky, and saw the same four pegasi staring back at her with suspicion in their gazes.

Applejack trotted to the curb and held up a hoof. “Taxi!”

A stallion, eager for a payout, trotted hastily up to the pair.

“Afternoon, ma’am! Where can I take ya?”

Applejack grabbed Rainbow by the tail and gave her a soft tug to spur her into motion, and the pegasus growled, hopping up into the cart. Applejack followed suit.

“Would ya happen to know where a nice—”

“Reasonably-priced!” Rainbow quickly interrupted.

Applejack scowled at her and cleared her throat, smiling sheepishly to the cab driver. “—reasonably-priced furniture store might be in the area?”

The cab pony quirked an eyebrow at them and smirked. “You two’re from outta town, ain’tcha?”

The couple blinked and shifted nervously as he took off in a northerly direction and hung a left.

"AJ?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"On three, we jump out and run the other way."

"I'm with ya."

"Yes sirree, ma'am! I know this perfect little furniture store right on the other side of town! Perfect place for all your shopping needs! Reasonable prices galore and in a nice neighborhoo- uhh, well it's on the other side of town and good prices!"

Rainbow blinked and turned to her mate.

"Onetwothree," Applejack said.

The pair leapt out of the moving cart and bolted in the opposite direction. Neither looked back nor cared whether the cab pony noticed their disappearance.

Shop 'til it Drops (part 3)

“Ohhh, Canterlot,” Rarity sighed happily, brushing her white hoof through her glimmering violet mane. “This is truly the stage upon which I was truly meant to perform the act that is life.”

The group paused to reflect on the magnificence of the capitol with a newfound appreciation. Most of the group hadn’t been back since the Summer Sun Celebration, and memories of its magnificence could be easily forgotten in the chaos of life.

“It’s a very pretty stage,” Fluttershy smiled.

“Why thank you, darling! It is rather suitable for me, isn’t it? The Crystal Empire may be beautiful, but it lacks a certain degree of elegance.”

The pegasus chuckled.

“What’re we doing first, Twilight?” Pinkie asked, hopping from one side of the princess to the other. “Can we visit the bakeries? Oh! Please tell me we can visit the bakeries! They have bakeries in Canterlot right?”

Twilight scowled up from the map in her telekinetic grasp and draped a wing over her hyperactive friend to still her for a moment.

“Pinkie, please! I’m trying to plot out the best path for the day. There’ll be plenty of time to do everything on everypony’s list if we’re organized about the way we go about it.”

“Well, the north district has to be first on my list! Trenderhoof just did a piece on the latest fashion lines that Fancy Pants is putting out and I have received an exclusive invitation for myself and one friend to the runway show!”

“Oh. I can go with you to the fashion show, Rarity,” Fluttershy offered with a flourish of her tail.

“You won’t be sorry, dear! This year, Fancy Pants is theming his line after natural inspirations. There’s this lovely gown he’s come out with made entirely out of eagle feathers that I’m sure would look just lovely on you.”

Twlight blinked and looked at her map. “Well, I guess we can always hit the aviary for Fluttershy while we’re over that way. Antiques and Arcane Accessories is over on that side of town as well, and I’m sure that—”

The princess felt hot breath on the nape of her neck and a weight upon her back.

Tilting her head backwards, she viewed an upside down Pinkie Pie-head, baby-blue eyes glittering with excitement.

“Bakeries?!” she chirped.

Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Pinkie, it’s the shopping district. It’s enormous. There are restaurants all over the place. I’m sure we can find a couple bakeries in there somewhere.”

“Whee!” the party pony exclaimed.

“Well, the fashion show starts at one o’clock, so Fluttershy and I best be moving in that direction if we—”

“Oh!” the pegasus gasped, something startling her.

The other three turned to face her curiously.

“What’s the matter, darling?”

“O-oh… umm… I thought I saw…” Fluttershy gulped and blushed as all of her friends eyed her. “Umm… never mind,” she muttered.

Twilight, Pinkie and Rarity looked amongst themselves and shrugged.

“Well, as I was saying. We should be getting a move on if we hope to make the show on time, Fluttershy,” Rarity said with a smile. “Now come along. We don’t want to be the last ponies in line now, do we? Fancy Pants said he had front row seating reserved just for me and a guest.”

“Oh. Umm… that’s… nice. Sorry.”

“We’ll meet you girls at Van Hoofington’s restaurant in the central plaza!” Twilight hollered with a wave as the two departed.

“If you see any bakeries, tell me where you found them!” Pinkie shouted.

Twilight sighed and smiled. “Come on, Pinkie. Let’s go find you something sweet before my tail starts looking like licorice to you…”

“Don’t be silly, Twilight!” her friend chirped, bouncing alongside her. “Your tail doesn’t look like licorice! It looks more like taffy! But the long stretchy kind. You look like the kind that comes in multiple flavors? Probably grape and raspberry, or maybe strawberry!”

“Pinkie, I’m not sure I like you thinking about what flavor my tail might be…” she said and started walking. “Come on. Antiques and Arcane Accessories is this way.”

“Hey! What do you think Fluttershy thought she saw earlier?” Pinkie asked.

“Heck if I know. Rainbow Dash, maybe?”

“Well, that would be silly. What would Rainbow Dash be doing in Canterlot on Saturday? Shouldn’t she be making sexy-times with Applejack right now?”

“Pretty sure Fluttershy didn’t see Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie.” She shuddered under the glow of a blush. "And I'd rather not think too much about Applejack and Rainbow Dash's... 's-sexy-times'..." she muttered.

“Or what if she did?!” her friend asked, grabbing her about the neck. “What if Rainbow Dash is sick?! What if she came to get treated for something?! She might need a brain transplant!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “If that’s the case, I doubt she’d be on this side of town. The hospital is just across from the palace.”

“Or! Or! What if Rainbow Dash is a top secret agent for Princess Celestia?! She could be on some kind of covert mission! What if she’s tracking a dangerous double-agent for-hire for the Blue Meanie kingdom?! She could be the only pony standing between Equestria and them stealing all the music away from ponykind forever and ever and ever!”

Twilight was unflinching, eyes instead staring at the street signs as they passed.

“Just think!” Pinkie continued, “No more spontaneous songs about smiles or cheese or farts! No more choreographed dance scenes with everypony in Ponyville!”

“No more montages,” Twilight interjected with a roll of her eyes.

“Whuh—yeah!”

The princess shook her head softly. Pinkie would be Pinkie. “I don’t think so. Rainbow Dash isn’t the kind of pony to keep secrets, Pinkie Pie, especially not from us.” She paused. “And I’m pretty sure if she was, she’d at least tell Applejack, and Applejack would tell us.”

Pinkie seemed to consider a moment. “Well… maybe…”

“And besides, do you really think that Rainbow Dash of all ponies would have the discipline it would take to be a secret agent in Princess Celestia’s service?”

Pinkie shrugged and bounced along behind the princess. “Yeah, you’re probably right. She’s probably still in bed back at home right now. No way she’d be here.”

Shop 'til it Drops (part 4)

"Seventy-five hundred?! Are you yanking my tail, or what?!" she shrieked in gobsmacked awe.

The store was so quiet that the pegasus's complaints echoed across the immaculate walls. If she noticed the other ponies glaring her way, she didn't act on it. She was too preoccupied by the price tag she clutched in her hoof, and trying to relate how one crib could cost so much.

One well-dressed pony furrowed his brow in her direction and made his way through the store to confront her.

"Ahem," he coughed into his hoof forcefully. "Madam, is there something that I might be able to help you with?" he asked in his unmistakable Trottingham accent.

Rainbow looked up and gave him an annoyed sneer. "Yeah, you can help me understand something." She shoved the price tag into his face. "Is there some reason that this price is in elephant turds, 'cause this can't be Equestrian currency! I don't even know how I'd carry seventy-five hundred bits without breaking my back!"

The manager quirked his eyebrow and sighed.

"Madam, this particular crib is inlaid with the purest ivory donated by the elephant tribal elders of Zebrica. They believed the magic infused in their bones and tusks would increase the vitality of those exposed to it." He shoved his expensive-looking glasses up his muzzle and lit his horn, levitating the tag for her. "This crib is made out of materials over three hundred years old and was hoof-crafted over two months' time."

Rainbow Dash blinked and looked down at the starch-white material. "Ivory, huh?"

"Indeed, madam."

"And two whole months for a crib?"

A sigh. "Yes, madam."

The pegasus scratched along her jawline. "And they said it increases their vita— vitamin... uhh..."

The store manager lowered his ears and narrowed his eyes in an expression that probably expressed his disgust with her more overtly than he intended. "Vitality... madam..."

"Awww, that's a bunch of horseapples. I mean, just look at me! I've got tons of... of that! And I sure didn't have a fancy crib when I was a filly!"

"It perhaps would have been beneficial your cerebral growth... madam," he muttered, though it went unnoticed by the pegasus.

"And what's so great about ivory for magic, anyway? Wouldn't a unicorn's horn be better for magic?"

He sighed, and stared at her in as close to hostility as he was likely comfortable with in front of paying customers.

"It is simply an old superstition held by the elephant tribal elders for centuries. It has very little bearing on the sale's price; that is reserved for the fact that ivory is extraordinarily rare and valuable... madam."

Rainbow Dash was either oblivious to it, or simply didn't care about all the angry glares she was receiving from the other patrons.

She hmm'd in mid-hover, agitating the spruced up storeowner's mane with every flap of her wings and ruining the extensive styling he'd had done. His eye twitched irritably, though it too was lost to Rainbow Dash.

"Eh, I like the color, but I'd have to hang myself for paying that much for a baby bed..."

"Woe that we should be so unfortunate..."

Rainbow turned back to him with bright and optimistic eyes and smiled. "Don't suppose you've got anything less—"

"No."

The mare frowned and pouted. "Oh, come on, Jeeves! You've gotta have something that doesn't cost so much hiding somewhere in this place! Something more like a hundred bits?"

Forehead twitching, the manager raised his nose with a huff and glared. "Madam, we are a retailer of only the finest furniture and home decor available. We sell only hoof-made furniture of the most exquisite detail and finest craftsponyship to the highest-paying customers in Equestria." He snorted a huff of steam into her face. "We certainly do not carry merchandise of that price range."

Pouting, the pegasus slumped in mid-air and let out a dejected sigh. "You don't happen to know anyplace else I could shop, do you?"

"Not for that price-range, madam!" He pointed a hoof towards the entrance. "Now if you would, kindly leave my store at once; you have disturbed my other customers."

Blinking, Rainbow looked over to the other patrons, and her ears sagged.

“Oh.” she said as she stepped around the store owner. “S-sorry about that.”

As she turned to leave, she brushed against a well-dressed unicorn wearing a tux, contrasting well with his white coat and blue mane.

“Rainbow Dash?” he asked in his distinctive accent.

The pegasus blinked and looked up.

“Rainbow Dash, dear! It is you! What a wonderful coincidence!”

“Fancy-Dude?” she asked, her ears perking. She grinned. “‘What's up?” she said, raising her hoof.

Fancy Pants chortled merrily and good-naturedly raised his hoof to receive her high-clop. “Quite a lot is ‘up’, Rainbow Dash! Lovely to see you again! I must say, I wasn’t expecting to run into you in Canterlot today!”

Rainbow ruffled her colorful mane with a chuckle. “Yeah, well, life’s full of nice surprises, isn’t it?”

The rest of the store’s occupants were speechless.

Fancy Pants chuckled and nodded. “Indeed it is! I say, how is Rarity these days?”

Blinking, Rainbow shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Oh, y’know… making dresses and… being fancy… and stuff.”

“Yes, well then…” he said, looking around. “So, what drew you to our humble city today?” he asked. “I must say, you have an excellent taste in establishments.”

Rainbow looked over her withers and over to the crib she had been eying. “Well, actually, I’ve got a kid on the way, and umm… I kind of was looking at cribs.”

“I say! That is marvelous news! My sincerest congratulations, my dear! If I may be so bold, would I know the father perchance?”

The pegasus blanched and had trouble continuing to hover as she stumbled over herself for words.

“Uhh… y-you could say that?”

The store manager, apparently having stood on the sidelines long enough, stepped nervously up to greet his newest guest.

“W-welcome back, Mr. Pants, sir,” he said, wiping his brow and neck with a kerchief. “I-is there something I could be of service with?”

“Well, perhaps you could, good sir!” the stallion said, turning back to Rainbow. “This lovely young mare is with child, and it seems she is in the market for a crib. It was this one she had her eye on I do believe, yes?”

“Eheheh… yes sir. A lovely selection, that. A mare of fine tastes.”

Rainbow scratched her foreleg and chuckled nervously. “Uhhh… I like the color and everything, but it’s too rich for my blood.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Fancy Pants said with a frown. “Perhaps another establishment would be in order, then.”

“Y-yeah… maybe.”

Fancy Pants turned to the store owner and whispered something in his ear, before sidling up next to the mare and smiling. “Come then, shall we? You will accompany me for a while, won’t you?”

“Uhhh… sure!” Rainbow chuckled, following him to the entrance and outside.

Fancy Pants turned to her as soon as they were a block or so away. “I would advise against that particular store, Rainbow Dash,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “While they offer lovely and rare items, especially for collectors such as myself, their prices are often unreasonable for what you get in return.”

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Kinda got the message with the price tags.”

He chuckled. “Indeed, I trust you did.”

“I mean, who would spend a thousand bits on a tea set?! Or ten thousand on a bed?!”

“Nopony in their right mind, I can assure you! It certainly takes a pony of questionable tastes to spend such money on decorative items, I find,” he said with a wink. “Say, while we dally on the subject of taste, would you be at all interested in accompanying me to a fashion show I'm hosting this afternoon?”

“A… fashion show?”

“Certainly! It’s what I do for a living after all, my dear.”

“Oh, well… right, uhh…”

“In fact, that’s exactly where I was going just now when I thought I spotted one of Rarity’s friends shopping. And lo, here you are.”

Rainbow wrestled with her scattered mind trying to come up with something she could say to turn the polite stallion down. He’d never done any wrong to her or any of her friends. She certainly didn’t want to be crude and insult him with a flat turn-down. Not only could it hurt Rarity’s reputation, but her career. Association, she learned from the fashionista, was everything.

“Oh, uhh… well, gee, Fancy-Dude, I’d love to. Really. But I’m kind of looking for somepony right now, and—”

A flash of orange appeared from off a side-street just to her left. A familiar blonde mane glinted like the sun, and her wife’s look of panic was unmistakable.

“Applejack?” she blinked.

“Rainbow, we got a problem!” she said through great puffs of air as she trotted up to her.

The pegasus’s ears pinned as she rushed forward to tend to her wife. “Oh great. Can’t wait to hear it…”

“Applejack! Of course!” Fancy Pants said with a warm smile. “Charmed to make your acquaintance again, darling!”

The farmpony blinked and smiled. “Uhh… h-howdy do there, Mr. Pants,” she said with her best attempt at a curtsy. “Wouldja mind if Ah borrowed my uhh… friend, here?” she asked, pointing to Rainbow Dash.

“But of course.”

Applejack ushered her aside a few feet just so they were out of earshot.

“What’s goin’ on?”

Her wife leaned in and whispered. “I think Pinkie Pie might’ve seen me.”

Rainbow felt as though all the color drained out of her. “Are you serious? How’d that happen?”

Her mate fidgeted in-place. "Well..."

* * *

Applejack sighed in relief and reached up to grab the chain and flush, stepping up to the sink to wash her hooves off.

She couldn’t believe how hard it had been to find a public bathroom in a sprawling metropolis like Canterlot, and the fact that it’d taken a confectionary shop to do so baffled her.

“Do rich ponies not poop or somethin’?” she sighed to the mirror.

Adjusting her mane a moment, a rapid clopping of a hoof on the door jerked her attention to it.

“Whoever’s in there, could you please hurry up your business?!” she heard.

Applejack rolled her eyes, swept her hoof through her mane. “Some ponies… sheesh.”

She paused just before grabbing the door handle. Whoa, she thought. Deja-vu.

Pushing the door open, she was nearly bowled over by a pink blur. Had she not ducked out of the way, she probably would have had her tail slammed and locked in the threshold.

“Good gravy, girl,” she thought, trotting back towards the front of the store. “Yer almost as bad as—”

Applejack froze, pupils dilating in terror.

“Nah, it couldn’t be…”

Frantically, her eyes darted across the throng of ponies over to the exit.

Her heart practically stopped when she saw Twilight sitting at a table over a hot beverage and levitating a book before her. There was an empty chair with a small pile of cupcakes across from her.

“YEOWCH!” she yelped, as somepony crunched her tail underhoof.

Her familiar voice must have carried over the chatty crowd, as Twilight looked up from the book she was engrossed in, and Applejack just barely ducked in time to avoid her sweeping eyes. She peered between the forest of legs and limbs, waiting for her alertness to wither away.

The princess shrugged at last and returned to her drink and book.

Applejack’s relief was short-lived, because not two seconds later, she heard a toilet flush behind her.

She quickly swam into the forest of legs, worming her way under the bellies of mares and stallions alike.

Aw, nuts, she thought, eying the exit. Twilight couldn’t have picked a seat closer to it. There was no way out without being seen.

Thoughts of awkward questions and even more awkward answers flashed through her thoughts as Pinkie trotted back into view. Her expression was as if she’d seen a ghost, and she was carefully looking the crowd over.

The farmpony’s mind scrambled, and she quickly thought through her options. Twilight could sit there reading her book for hours if left uninterrupted and Pinkie could devour more cupcakes in that time than should have been physically feasible.

Looking back towards the counter, Applejack bit her lip and made up her mind…

* * *

“You snuck out the back?” Rainbow asked, blinking. “How’d you manage that?”

Applejack frowned at her and averted her eyes, her blush notable. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

The pegasus quirked her brow and let the barest hint of a smile onto her face, making a mental note to explore the subject at a more appropriate juncture.

Applejack sighed. “Look, that ain't important right now. The point is, we gotta find a place to hide!”

“Okay, fine, but unless you know somepony besides Rarity or Twilight who knows Canterlot—”

Rainbow froze and side-glanced at Fancy Pants.

He smiled pleasantly at them.

Rainbow smiled back. “Hey, Fancy-dude. Got room for two in your party?”

Fancy Pants absolutely beamed. “Why of course I do, Rainbow Dash!”

Applejack blinked and yanked Rainbow closer by the foreleg, whispering into her ear. “Uhh… what do you think yer doin’?”

The pegasus turned to the left and smiled at her mate. “Hiding us! Duh.”

“I know, I know, but… at a fashion show?” her wife asked with a grimace.

“Awww, come on. It can’t be that bad. We can always make fun of the dresses while we're bored,” Rainbow Dash breathed, smirking at her own brilliance. “ Besides, it's not like anypony’s gonna be lookin’ for us in a fashion show.”

Shop 'til it Drops (part 5)

Applejack stared deadpan at the scene before her, eyes seeming to not even see the sizable crowd in the seats around the runway. She looked through the high-class ponies and the colorful characters. She saw past the intricate, zany and at-times weird personalities.

Her eyes were more focused upon the white and yellow mares sitting in the first row chatting each other up and having a merry time of things.

Silence stilled the duo as Fancy Pants rubbed his chin contemplatively with his hoof.

“It is rather more crowded in here than I would have expected. A rather large turnout this time!”

Rainbow coughed. “Eheheh. W-well, that’s a shame. Guess we won’t be able to make it after all…” she muttered to the fashion designer.

“Oh, nonsense, my dears! All it will take is a bit of musical chairs, if you will! Just a bit of rearrangement and everything will be right as rain.”

Applejack forcefully chorted. “Oh, don’t put yerself out there Mr. Pa—”

“I’ll just be a moment.”

“W-wait!”

Too late. Fancy Pants disappeared into a thick crowd.

Rainbow Dash sweat bullets and looked to her right where her wife was. She could see the pent-up agitation just waiting for a reason to be unleashed—probably upside her head. Her green eye twitched as she eyed the crowd.

“U-umm…” she started.

“What was it that you said, sugarcube?”

Applejack’s voice was eerily-level.

Oh, please don’t let the hormones be starting already…

“What was it?” she repeated.

Rainbow bit her lip.

“I believe it was somethin’ along the lines of, ‘Oooooh, nopony’s gonna be lookin’ for us in a fashion show!’”

The pegasus frowned. “Hey! That was my plan! Where’s yours?”

Applejack snorted and looked towards the stage, the exit, and every which way. Fancy Pants was headed their way again, and she knew that her wife wouldn’t just tell her to run.

“Just follow mah lead,” she uttered.

“Uhh… AJ, are you sure that’s a good idea? You know how I am with thinking on my hooves…”

Her mate glared at her. “Just do it!”

“Yes, ma’am…”

Rainbow blinked and watched as Applejack walked up to the party’s organizer.

“I, Applejack! I managed to find a few ponies who would be willing to relocate their seating arrange—”

“Uhhh, actually, darlin’, we were wonderin’ if there was a chance that ya could get us backstage, maybe?”

Fancy Pants and Rainbow Dash both gave the earth pony a look.

“B-backstage access, you say?”

“Y-yeah. I-it’s just, Rainbow and I are really, really big fans of yer work and we was wonderin’ if we could maybe get a closer look at some of them… uhh… d-dresses.”

Applejack had the worst poker face in the world. It was how she had known when it was okay to bug the mare or not on the farm in their youth, how she always knew when to brave annoying her further, and how she had mustered the courage to ask her for her hoof in marriage.

It was painful to watch her wife try and come up with a lie in such a manner.

She never expected Fancy Pants to buy it.

“Well certainly! I had no idea that the two of you such aficionados of the craft! Come, follow me right this way!”

Rainbow and Applejack fell into step behind him.

“Oh!” Applejack continued, “and wouldja mind not tellin’ Rarity or Fluttershy about us bein’ here?”

Fancy Pants blinked at her quizzically.

“I-it’s kind of a game we’re playin’… Ponyville thing and… stuff. Kinda like hide ‘n go seek?” A pause. Sweat, and lots of it. “Eheheh.”

Rainbow Dash barely contained her instinct to facehoof.

Instead of being caught, however, Fancy Pants surprised her yet again.

“Oh, how I wish to one day visit your little hamlet,” he said with a warm smile. “All of your small-town customs and traditions; truly, I would simply love to take part one day.”

Applejack apparently noticed her own good fortune and heaved a huge sigh of relief. “W-we’d be happy to have ya, darlin’.”

Rainbow glimpsed aside at her wife, jaw unhinged.

“Don’t you say a word,” the earth pony whispered, her cheeks aflame.

Fancy Pants led them up a small staircase and behind the curtains. A huge assortment of ponies in the latest fashion designs were crammed in the small space. The sights caused both mares’ jaws to drop.

“Feel free to peruse at your leisure, ladies. If you have any questions, please feel free to speak to my event manager.” He cast a glimpse around the curtain and smiled at the couple. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be returning to my guests before they wonder where I am. I hope you both enjoy the show!”

And with that, he was gone.

Rainbow looked at Applejack. “‘Hide and seek,’ huh?”

“Shut up.”

The pegasus chuckled and pulled her wife close for a hug. “Oh well. At least we’ll never be seen back here,” she muttered.

“GIRLS!” came a loud shrill voice.

Rainbow and Applejack’s ears both perked. Galloping up to them was a straight-maned mare in a vest and tie with a small pair of reading glasses perched on her muzzle.

“There you both are! What took you two so long in getting here?!”

Rainbow Dash looked at her wife looked at her, then back to the event manager.

“Uhhh—”

“Where are your dresses?!” the mare asked, stamping her hoof. “Come on! Put some hot in your trot, girls! The show’s going to be starting any minute, and you aren’t even ready yet!”

The pegasus snorted a short laugh. “Oh, no way, lady. We aren’t here to be in the—”

“No excuses! No backtalk! You’re late!” She turned around shrilly whistled, and a group of mares rushed over, seizing the couple in their hooves.

“W-waitaminute! What do you think you’re—”

Then the fashionistas were upon them.

“Getcher mitts offa me! WHOA! Watch what yer grabbin’!”

“HEY! Watch the hooves, toots!”

“What do you think you’re – ‘Ey! Gimme back mah hat!”

“Not the wings! NOT THE WINGS!”

“No! Anything but perfume! Anything! Ah'm gonna—GACK!”

“Oh no! NonononoNONONO! You are NOT bringing that gel near me!”

In a flurry of chaos, shouts, hooves and make-up, Rainbow Dash and her wife were released, and the beauty crew stepped back to take pride in their work.

Rainbow got a look at Applejack first, wearing an elegant robin egg-blue gown and tiara. Her hair had been curled into two large spiraling bunches, ending in a neat and tidy ponytail. She received the same treatment with her tail. From her barrel flowed a misty silken sash, and her hooves were adorned with glittering see-through slippers to match the rest of her color scheme.

“What in tarnation?!” she shrieked aloud, looking at the calamity that was herself.

Rainbow couldn’t help her wing’s natural reaction to the beautiful display, though for some reason found them heavier than normal.

The pegasus looked behind her, and gaped in horror.

Strapped to her wings were a slew of giant peacock feathers that extended out well past her tail. How they'd managed to fit them and make them stay was beyond her. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, and saw the green, shimmering dress she was in, with a fan-like headpiece to match the namesake bird. The slip on brass talons were stylish but uncomfortable.

“Fancy Pants's designs eat,” she said pouted, flexing her extended wings uncomfortably.

The manager from earlier trotted up at a hasty pace and looked the pair over. “Are we all ready? It's showtime!”

“W-wait... but... huh?!”

“Come on you two, move it! You're holding everything up! Fashion waits for nopony!” she barked.

“B-But, we’re not—”

“Hush!” the director said, levitating a clipboard over to herself. She adjusted her glasses and narrowed her eyes.

“Look, lady! Would you just slow it down and listen for a—”

“Quiet! Quiet, everypony!” the straight-maned mare demanded loudly. “The show is about to begin!”

Rainbow bit her lip, eye twitching.

“You, orange one. You’re our leading model. Get up there.”

Applejack scowled at being called ‘orange one’. Her expression melted into abject horror when she heard she was the lead-in.

As the fashion herd moved away, Applejack’s head slowly turned to meet Rainbow Dash’s gaze.

There was a boiling fury beneath those blank, green eyes.

Rainbow gulped. “Y-yeah, but—”

“AH-AH-AH-AH-AH!” Applejack interrupted loudly, raising a hoof to her face. “You are fired from talkin’!” she said pointedly.

“But—”

“ZIPPIT!”

Rainbow whimpered.

"Fillies and gentlecolts! Welcome to the Fancy Pants thirteenth annual Fashion de Elegante!"

When the curtains flew open, the pegasus knew from the look on her wife's face that there would be no sex that night, and probably the night after too. Cameras and thunderous applause from the audience exploded in twinkling flashes and immortalizing her forever as a fashion icon for the high-brow crowd.

Applejack froze, her four legs quivering in terror. Only a firm clap of the event manager's hoof against the wooden floor off to the left awoke her from her stupor. She looked back at her, and Rainbow urged her on with a nod of her head.

With light glinting off the nervous sweat on her brow, she edged out into the stage.

"Eep!" One of the models behind Rainbow Dash forcefully nudged her forward.

Applejack turned a few times down at the end of the runway, though from the way she nervously eyed the applauding Rarity and Fluttershy, her mind was less-occupied with being fabulous.

Feeling herself practically kicked out into the spotlight, Rainbow Dash stumbled, caught herself, and was nearly blinded by the light barrage.

She gulped and considered just running; nopony recognized her (she hoped) and she could likely make a quick escape without anypony catching her. But that would mean abandoning her wife to her lonesome, and likely facing a very angry and hormonal mare. Applejack was mad enough at her as it was with all the jinxing she'd done for them.

Swallowing her dignity, the pegasus forced as convincing a plastic smile as she could manage onto her face and strode out onto the runway.

Applejack turned back towards her and started her direction. They passed at the halfway point.

Despite the pounding music and flashing lights, Rainbow was present-of-mind enough to hear her wife's jovial tone.

"I'm 'onna kill yooooou..." she chirped.

"Not if I do me fiiiiiirst..." she replied through her forcefully-gritted teeth.

It was awful. Rainbow Dash loved attention. She loved being awed at. She loved ponies showering her with praise and adoration.

Unfortunately, it also came at the sacrifice of her self-respect. She felt like a parade float. She was a vehicle carrying clothing on her back, not the mare that everypony admired for her abilities and beauty. She felt objectified, and secretly, she wondered how anypony could subject themselves to such prying eyes. She could practically feel them undressing her with their eyes, and it made her want to wretch with every step she took.

Her eyes flickered to the right, and there they were.

Rarity, Fluttershy and Fancy Pants all sat together in the front row, admiring the passing mare. The clapped their hooves appreciatively, and somehow, knowing they were all her friends only made it all the creepier.

Her magenta eyes flashed over Fluttershy's teal, and suddenly, the yellow pegasus froze.

Rainbow immediately averted her gaze and flashed her smiled to the crowd again. She extended her wings to show off the dress a bit, performed a twirl, and faced back towards the stage.

Despite her better judgement, she glimpsed to her left again.

Fluttershy stare slack-jawed at her, her aqua-colored eyes absorbing her identity like a sponge to water.

Oh, super... she groaned inwardly and looked away, hastening her pace ever so slightly. She received applause for her dress as she passed, but couldn't feel any of her usual enjoyment of it.

That was replaced by a churning sensation in her gut, and a humiliation. Perhaps they could explain away the baby with honesty. Perhaps their friends might not be all that mad at them for avoiding telling them the truth for so long.

Fluttershy, however, would tell Rarity, and Rarity would be insufferable 'til Doomsday.

"Gottagogottagogottago..." she chanted to herself as she hastened her steps through the throng of models. "Applejack!"

Her wife looked up at her with a deadened expression.

"This was supposed to be a shoppin' trip..."

Rainbow snorted. "Well, I don't know about you..." she said, yanking off the talons on her hooves and sighing in relief, "but I think Rarity's officially off her onion to like this stuff." She looked about, everypony else distracted by the thought of being on-stage.

"We gotta get outta here," the farmpony said determinedly.

"How?! Everypony'll see us if we try and go back out the front."

Applejack blinked and looked around, scratching her freckled cheek. Her eyes landed on the door leading out to the alleyway, like a gift of the gods.

"Back door," she said. "Let's go."

"Wait!" Rainbow whined, trotting after her the best she could. Every stride reminded her of the painfully-heavy feathers attached to her wings.

Applejack reached up to open the door, when it flew open in their faces.

There, standing at the alleyway entrance, stood a navy pegasus with a windswept streaked mane, and a peach-colored earth pony with a yellow mane.

Rainbow and Applejack blew by them in a hurricane of movement, not even pausing to spare them a glimpse.

"Uhhh... AJ?"

"Not now, Rainbow!" her wife shouted back at her.

"I just wanna know where we're going!"

"Ah'm workin' on that part!" she said sharply. "Just gimme some time to–"

Applejack never got to finish her statement. She slapped face-first into a lavender-colored unicorn, sending both herself and the pony before her straight to their rumps.

Rainbow and Pinkie managed to screech to a halt before their faces merged in a most painful way.

The two pairs stared at each other, eyes widened in disbelief.

The bouncy party mare even managed to stop chewing on her strudel for a moment, surprise pushing her sugary appetite to the backburner.

Silence. Nopony moved.

A wind blew over the unsettled ponies.

Pinkie Pie was the first to break the silence.

"Hi!" she chirped happily.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack responded.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGH!"

Pinkie responded in kind. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA – this is fun! – AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGH!"

Without another word spared, Rainbow Dash yanked on her wife's forehoof and took off like a stabbed rat, leaving dust in their wake.

Shop 'til it Drops (part 6)

They ran, and they ran, and they kept on running through the zig-zagging alleyways, leaping over garbage pails and dumpsters. They thundered past rats, mice, and even an illicit-looking encounter between a well-dressed stallion and his escort, before bolting out of the alleyway.

Throwing themselves breathlessly against the wall, Applejack peered around the corner.

“Any… anypony coming?” Rainbow panted.

Applejack leaned back and relaxed, slowing her breathing. “Nah… I think… we lost ‘em…”

Rainbow heaved a sigh of relief and looked around. “Well, we sure as hay can’t stay here. Twilight and Pinkie saw us, but we don’t know that they know it was us yet,” she said.

Applejack scowled at her.

“Rainbow, we ran straight into ‘em, screamed in their faces, and ran off. They’d have to be blind deaf and stupid to not figure it out. ‘Specially Twilight.”

Rainbow Dash blinked and considered a moment.

“Well, you screamed first…” she muttered.

“I did not! You were the one shoutin’ like a dang banshee! I just started in ‘cause you did!”

“Okay, first of all? I don’t even know what a banshee is. Second of all? No.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Yer right about one thing though,” she said, looking up and down the street. “We need a place to hide while we sort out what to do next.”

Her wife looked both ways, then picked a direction and started walking, seemingly at random.

“Uhh, where we goin’?” Rainbow asked.

“Followin’ plans ain’t worked in keepin’ low so far,” Applejack huffed. “So we’re tryin’ to find someplace random to duck ‘n cover ‘til we can figure out a plan of what to tell the girls.”

“Random?” She grimaced. “You sure that’s a good idea? That’s Pinkie’s specialty, y’know.”

“Oh, would you quit yer bellyachin’ and just keep up?”

Falling into silence, the pegasus obediently followed her mate and walked along behind her. She was never one for silence, though, and after a couple minutes of simple walking, she felt she had to speak up.

“So what kind of place are we looking for? A bar? A restaurant?”

A loud growl reached Rainbow Dash’s twitchy ears, and she turned to look at her mate with wide eyes.

Applejack blushed. “P-pardon.”

“How are you hungry again, already? I only got like one of the snacks on the whole train trip! You—”

Her wife glared at her.

It was Rainbow’s turn to blush. “Oh. Right. Preggers. Yeah.” She giggled.

“Restaurant sounds good, actually.” She looked at her. “You got any money left over, sugarcube?”

The pegasus looked at her. “What? You don’t?”

“I spent all ‘o mine on a diaper-changin’ table.” Her mate paused mid-stride. “Why? Didn’t you get anything?”

“Buuuh…” Rainbow nervously averted her eyes. “Well, I’ve got some left…” she muttered.

Applejack grinned. “Great! Then yer treatin’!” she said, continuing her march.

“But why do I have to treat?” she pouted.

“’Cause yer the hubby, and that’s what hubbies do for their pregnant wives.” Applejack sidled up next to her and nuzzled against her neck, smirking. “Right?”

Rainbow huffed. “What if I wanted a turn being the wife?” she muttered.

“That ship’s sailed, darlin’.”

Groaning, she leaned back against her mate and sighed. “Being the husband stinks.”

Applejack looked at her with a wicked grin. “Oh, believe me, it’s only gonna get worse.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes and smirked. “Is it wrong to say I wish I’d kept my cloud house?”

“Heheheh!” Rainbow Dash felt her wife's powerful front hooves wrap around her neck, probably trying to find a good position to strangle her from.

Then she felt her tuck her head up beneath her chin in that way she liked, and she couldn’t stop the smile that crossed her lips.

* * *

The princess pushed open the door to the back stage of Fancy Pants's theater and stepped in as she and Pinkie Pie peered around.

“Rarity! Fluttershy!” Twilight’s voice echoed across the backstage.

The yellow pegasus looked up, blinked at her as she approached, then turned her attention back to something sitting on the table they stood next to.

“Sorry we’re late! We got a bit distracted on the way here. We didn't miss everything, did we?”

No reply from either pony.

Pinkie bounce-bounce-bounced to a stop next to Twilight and looked at her quizzically. The pair walked up behind Rarity and Fluttershy.

“Uhh... watcha girls lookin’ at?” she asked.

Silence.

The two exchanged glances again and peered around them, then their jaws dropped simultaneously at the sight.

“Is that—”

“Indeed,” Rarity said.

“And she was back here somewh—”

Fluttershy nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Twilight gawked at the abandoned Stetson just sitting there, like it didn’t belong to anypony.

“Then that means…” she started.

“…that Applejack and Rainbow Dash…” Pinkie said.

“…are really here?”

“In Canterlot?”

Rarity’s expression was unreadable. “It would seem so.”

“And they were here…”

“…at a fashion show…”

“…backstage?”

Fluttershy seemed equally emotionless. “They were on the runway modeling, too.”

Twilight felt her face go numb.

Pinkie’s jaw quite literally hit the floor.

“You girls know what this means, right?” Rarity asked with a firm and determined voice.

Fluttershy blinked and scuffed her hoof against the floor.

Twilight blinked. “Umm... do you?”

Pinkie shot upright. “Oh! I do! I do! I know what it means!” She paused. “But let me hear Rarity say what she thinks it means, just so I know we’re all on the same page.”

“It means that our friends… Applejack and Rainbow Dash… have been replaced…”

She slowly turned to meet her friends’ eyes.

“…by changelings!”

Fluttershy gasped. “That’s awful!”

“That’s terrible!” Twilight echoed.

“That’s silly!” Pinkie said with a giggle.

Twilight and the others stared at her deadpan.

“Really?” Rarity asked haughtily. “And I suppose you would have a better explanation as for why our most culturally-averse friends are here in this city, modeling the hottest fashion trends of today of all things?”

“You have to admit, it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” the pegasus next to her muttered.

“Can you think of any other reason why they might be here, Pinkie?” Twilight asked.

“Well, I dunno,” the pink pony shrugged. “Maybe Dashie got pregnant and they came to Canterlot to shop for a crib and furniture for the baby’s room. But they saw us coming to Canterlot too on the same day and didn’t want us to know about it so we wouldn’t start asking questions. And then they saw us wandering around and went to the fashion show with Fancy Pants to try and hide from us!”

Her three friends frowned.

“Pinkie Pie, darling, honestly,” Rarity said with a roll of her eyes. “Do you ever listen to yourself when you talk?”

“Not really! I just let everypony else do that for me!” Squee!

Twilight sighed and facehoofed. “Pinkie, you’ve said some silly things in the past, but I think that takes the cake.”

“I… umm… I think I agree with Twilight.”

“Perhaps we should inform the Royal Guard,” Rarity said worriedly.

“You’re right. There’s no time to lose! Every second we waste theorizing is a chance we could lose the opportunity to find out what the changelings did with our real friends!” Twilight charged towards the door. “We need to find them!”

The three dashed out the door.

And with that, Pinkie was alone.

“Hmmm…” she considered as she bounced in pursuit. “I wonder what their baby would look like...”

Shop 'til it Drops (part 7)

“TWENTY BITS FOR TWO CORN-ON-THE-COBS?! YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”

From the corner of her eye, Rainbow Dash saw ponies looking her way, and Applejack dropping her face into her hoof. Snorting, her breath steamed up the glass separating her from her objective. After a glare at the annoyed food vendor, she sighed in disgust and threw down the money.

“I hope ya choke on it, pal,” she muttered, grabbing the two buttered snacks and trotting over to the grass in the shade of a tree where her wife lounged.

Applejack squee’d happily and snatched one stick out of Rainbow’s hooves, messily gorging on the simple meal.

Rainbow stared, half in amusement and half in awe, until she quickly found the other ear plucked right out of her grasp.

“Hey! That was mine!” the pegasus squeaked in protest.

Applejack finished with one and was about to bite into the second before she turned to her.

“Yeah, well, I’m eatin’ for two. you're only eatin’ for one. I get dibs,” the farmgirl said, before taking another unnervingly large bite out of the clusters of kernels – and from the looks of it, part of the cob too.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and couldn't help her smile, or the giggle that got away.

“What’s so funny?” her mate asked with a full-faced scowl, flecks of corn all over her cheeks.

“Nothin’.” The pegasus shrugged.

The farmgirl slowly smiled and leaned against her. The two shared a comfortable silence. Applejack finished her emergency meal, and the duo relaxed back against the tree, bringing a sleepy yawn out of the pegasus. She nuzzled against her wife’s scented mane and sighed contentedly.

“You should try wearing perfume more often…” she muttered with a smile.

“It’s sticky, it smells unnatural, and it burns my eyes,” her wife replied. “And that doesn’t say anything about how expensive it is.”

"What if I bought you some? Would you wear it?"

Applejack leaned back and looked up at her. "After I bonked ya on the head for buyin' it, yeah." She paused. "Only in the bedroom, though."

"That'd work for me."

The farmpony rested back.

Rainbow chuckled and held her closer. “Never change, AJ.”

More silence. Applejack stretched and used her as a makeshift lawn chair. She stroked a cyan hoof through her blond mane and glimpsed up at the progress of the sun.

“So, what’re we gonna do?”

“Hm?” Rainbow muttered, shaken out of her reverie. “Do about what?”

“What’re we goin’ to say to Twilight and them about why we’re here?” Applejack scooted up and tucked her head beneath her chin.

“Hmm…” Rainbow pondered. “Could get bad…” she admitted. "One thing's for sure... I'm not ready for all the drama..."

“I mean, what would we be doin’ in Canterlot on a day like today?” she asked, elbowing her softly in the stomach. "We'd usually be out... ahem, 'frolickin'' in the orchards when it's this nice."

"That's still an option if we get back in time," Rainbow said as she wrapped her hooves around her mate, resting them on her belly. There was no evidence of her pregnancy as of yet, but knowing their baby was there made it feel real.

"C'mon, be serious. What would we come up her for?"

"Lawn gnomes?" Rainbow yawned and reclined, sneering at a curious, well-dressed stallion as he trotted by. A thought suddenly hit her, and she grinned to herself. “Toys?”

Applejack jerked and whipped around to glare at her.

“What? It was just a suggestion!” She smirked. “I found this great little hole-in-the-wall place in the shopping district with a ton of—”

“Rainbow!” she snapped, her freckles vanishing in a scarlet sea of embarrassment. She lowered her voice and leaned in. “How many times have I talked to you about mummin’ the word in public?”

“Are you keeping track of the number of times, or would I be okay ballparking it?”

Applejack sighed.

Rainbow waggled her brow. “Have I told you how hot you are when you’re embarrassed?”

Her mate shook her head. “Rainbow…”

"'Cause I did keep track of how many time's I've told you that."

"Rai—"

"Thirty-seven times."

She groaned and slumped defeated against her chest.

She sighed. “Look, I don’t know, okay? Maybe we have… like, secret twin sisters or something and they’re in town on their honeymoon.”

“You’re worse at lyin’ than I am.”

“Don’t hear you coming up with anything.”

Applejack was silent.

Suddenly, a surge of light and heat washed over them. The curtain of clouds overhead parted to make way for Celestia’s beaming sunlight.

“Okay,” she grunted, standing up with a huff. “I’m ditchin’ the threads,” she said, yanking the peacock headdress out of her hair.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Applejack asked, her mouth muffled around the remains of one of the corn cobs.

The pegasus managed with some difficulty to pull out the giant feathers that had been laced into her right wing, restricting her ability to fly. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea? It’s really hot outside, it’s keeping me from flying, and I don’t like this flippin’ dress anyway…”

“It’s kinda helpin’ us blend in better, wouldn’t ya say?”

“Yeah, I’d say… if everypony and their flippin’ grandma hadn’t already seen us in ‘em,” the pegasus muffled, wrestling out of the gown. She flicked a hoof through her gelled mane to return its natural, windswept appearance and she sighed in relief, flexing her free wing delightedly. “Oh, sweet Celestia, that feels better than sex.”

Applejack snorted playfully. “Good to know. That'll save me some time next Saturday.”

Rainbow stuck her tongue out at her grinning wife and glared at her left wing. “One to go.”

She paused, looking down at Applejack and her corn-covered face looking up at her.

“You don’t wanna lose that dress?”

Her wife looked down at herself and conceded with a sigh. She stood and slid out of her gown back-first, flinging herself free with a flick of her mane.

Rainbow giggled at the corn kernels all over the pristine cyan garment and pitched all the garments in a nearby trash can. Then she paused. Something seemed off to her, but she was having trouble putting her hoof on it.

When Applejack shook out her limp and undone mane, it all became clear to her.

“Umm… AJ? Where’s your hat?” she asked nervously.

Her mate looked at her like she had spoken a foreign language. “Whaddya mean, darlin’? It’s right—”

Her hoof met the tiara that had come with her gown instead of her old beat-up Stetson.

Applejack’s eyes widened, her pupils dilating into pinpricks as she brushed her hoof over the foreign-feeling object. “Uh oh…”

Rainbow waved her hoof. “It’s cool. I’ll just zip back to the fashion show and ask somepony what they did with it. Nopony in this city would be looking to own a—”

Before Rainbow Dash could do any zipping however…

“THERE THEY ARE!” came a familiar, accented voice.

The couple turned their widening eyes to the other side of the park and saw Rarity pointing at them, a familiar hat illuminated by her horn’s grasp. She was flanked by Twilight, Pinkie and Fluttershy, as well as a half dozen snorting and angry-looking guardsponies.

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “Oh, spit.”

“GET THEM!” shrieked the fashionista.

The whole group charged at them with a cry of war.

Applejack blanched and easily jumped her own height into the air. “SWEET ROVER!”

“RUN! Rainbow screamed, and the two took off up an alley in a technicolored blur.

Shop 'til it Drops (part 8)

“DON’T LET THEM ESCAPE!” shouted the fierce voice of Rarity somewhere behind them. Neither Applejack nor herself were brave enough to look back and see how close they were. They dodged around trash cans and leapt fences, trying to buy some distance between themselves and their pursuers.

Applejack gave her a panicked look. “Rainbow! C’mon! Fly!”

“I’m trying!” she shouted, furiously flailing her left wing to try and shake the peacock feathers loose, but they clung stubbornly to her, weighing down her appendage.

As the pair bolted out of the alley, Rainbow veered left sharply, pushing her mate to turn with her.

“Where the hay are we goin’?!” she demanded mid-run. “Mane Street’s back—”

“Just trust me!” Rainbow shouted, her hooves carrying her faster and faster. “I’ve got an idea!”

“What did we agree on about you and ideas?!” her wife yelled as they thundered down the boulevard.

“I just need to buy a little time!” she squeaked.

“I sure hope you know what you're doin’ darlin’!” Applejack exclaimed, looking back with wide eyes. “’Cause we got company!”

Rainbow braved a single glimpse back and saw Twilight and Fluttershy angrily bearing down on them from above.

”Horseapples!” she squeaked.

Rainbow Dash felt a surge of adrenaline carry her forward, and Applejack began falling behind. Her eyes began skimming various stands as the opened up to an open air market. Her magenta eyes caught off the glint of something red ahead.

The pegasus beat her hooves against the cobblestone walkways even as her legs screamed at her brain for a break.

“Applejack!” she snapped behind her. She watched her wife perk up. “Think fast!”

She snatched an apple stem in her teeth and tossed it over her withers despite the salespony’s protests.

Her mate’s eyes glinted green off the reflecting sunlight, catching the soaring apple in her sight. She darted ahead and raised her hindlegs.

The apple went flying straight and quickly as an arrow, virtually turning to mush mid-flight at the force of her wife’s kick.

The weaponized glop of fruit flew straight into Twilight’s muzzle, barely giving the princess time to gasp in surprise much less maneuver out of the way. It covered her face with what was left of it and blinded her.

She was only destabilized in flight for a moment, but it was enough for her to smash into Fluttershy’s side, and send them both careening into another stand in a shower of goods, dust and shattered wood pieces.

Applejack winced. The look of regret lasted only a moment as Rainbow grabbed her by the fetlock and the two rocketed from the scene, bolting up an alleyway, the single path forked off into three.

“Which way?!” shouted Applejack earnestly.

“Umm…” Rainbow’s eyes darted between the three choices. “Eenie, meanie, miney…” Her eyes locked on the left path. “MO! Take mo!”

The two turned hard and bolted up the path…

Right into another wall of guards.

Applejack grabbed Rainbow’s tail and dropped her rump, yanking both of them to an abrupt halt.

“Stop right there, criminal scum!” the unicorn captain demanded gruffly.

”MINEY! GO MINEY!” Rainbow whipped around and hauled them back in the direction they came.

Reaching the fork, Rainbow instinctively threw her gaze back down the corridor they had come from, only for the group of guards that had been tailing them before to burst into the fork.

The shrieking duo just barreled past the unfortunate lead guard of the group. He and his fellow soldiers found themselves mobbed by the squad that had just taken up the case. The two groups merged chaotic crash of clattering armor and shouts of surprise.

The noise dissipated behind them as the pair blew out the corridor and into the street. Flicking her eyes back, Rainbow still saw a small group of stallions bearing down on them.

Cursing to herself, the two zig-zagged down bustling Mane Street, diving into the thick of a dense crowd. Rainbow ducked with Applejack down another alleyway and emerged the next street over.

Hanging a hard right into a building, she led the two of them up a spiraling staircase to a higher street level.

Five blocks from the scene, the two finally found a moment to breathe on a ledge overlooking the market district.

Rainbow reached over and began obsessively gnawing at the peacock feathers entangled in her restrained wing.

“C’mon, C’MON!” she growled through her teeth.

Applejack pulled her closer. “Rainbow, hold still for a second.”

“What? Why?”

Applejack reached into the mass of feathers, ruffling through her wing and causing her to shiver and blush.

“U-uhh… AJ? Not that I’d complain about you being all flirty, but I don’t think this is a really good time…”

Applejack ignored her and dug deeper. After a moment, a series of snapping noises caught her ears, and she felt the weight that bore on her left wing fall away.

She blinked and looked back as Applejack emerged from her feathers with a large, what-looked-like a belt in her teeth that the giant feathers were strung to.

“Huh…” she mumbled, flexing the appendage.

“You're welcome,” her wife said with a smirk.

"Eheheh... thanks," Rainbow said with a smile. "So... uh... what's our story gonna be?"

Applejack discarded the belt of feathers without a second thought and turned to look at her.

"I mean, all we've got right now is that we're Rainbow Dash and Applejack's twin sisters on their honeymoon story..."

"Seriously, you can't come up with something less harebrained than that?"

She shrugged. "Meh..."

“Can we please just get the hay out of here now? I’d rather not find out what we’re wanted for to begin with…”

Rainbow grinned and enveloped the orange mare with her wings and forehooves, flexing her wings. "Maybe putting on perfume isn't allowed in Canterlot if you're too pretty," she said with a wink.

"Quit suckin' up and fly."

Smiling smugly, Rainbow wrapped herself around Applejack. “When did you stop being fun?“

“HALT!”

The pegasus’s eyes widened. She looked up and saw a group of six pegasus guardsponies hovering in the air just in front of them.

She slapped her forehead with her hoof. “Oh, give me a break, already…” she groaned.

“Uhh… Rainbow?” Applejack said, looking at her nervously.

“On it!”

Rainbow Dash flung her hind legs around Applejack’s stomach, and the powerful farmpony crouched before launching them skyward.

The guards only had time to gape as the powerful legs of the farmpony and muscular wings of her wife combined to turn them into a hurling comet of color. The couple whipped headlong through their number like a bowling ball through pins, knocking half of them out of the sky and sending the rest reeling through the air from Rainbow’s wake turbulence.

The pair shot skyward in a rainbow-colored blur and turned back to bolt south and towards the open skies over the valley…

…and into another crowd of spears and bad attitudes.

“IS THE EQUESTRIAN LEGION CONVENTION TODAY, OR SOMETHING?!”

The Royal Guard narrowed their eyes and snorted angrily, leveling their weapons at them.

Gritting her teeth, Rainbow leaned in and squeezed her mate. “Hang on!”

Applejack tensed and did as she was told, clutching at her forelegs and pressing herself as tightly as possible against her chest.

The pegasus bellied-up and nose-dived straight towards the lower city below. The wind buffeted at her and carried Applejack’s nervous shouts back to her ears.

Rainbow ignored her and flapped harder, the force of the whistling air peeling back her lips and eyelids.

The ground rushed up to meet them.

Applejack winced.

The pegasus’s cyan wings blossomed like a like a late spring flower and caught the wind like a kite, slowing her speed massively and angling her upward.

Rainbow Dash held her dive until the last possible moment. She hit the deck, diving to mere feet over the city streets and angling sharply around, above, and below merchants, bystanders, carts, and through alleys as they rushed by.

Throwing her gaze to six o’clock high, she saw that the Princess’s guards had given up the dive several dozen meters overhead and continued to pursue them from above.

Using her superior maneuverability, Rainbow hung a hard right through another alleyway, feeling Applejack kicking frantically outward to keep from being turned into an orange grease on the wall.

She angled herself back to the right in the direction they’d come from and burst out into open air again. The guards followed close behind, though struggled to match her turning ability in their heavy armor.

Applejack whimpered in her grasp, covering a sickly-green muzzle. “Okay. I’m ready to go to the dungeon now…”

Ignoring her, Rainbow threw her eyes around frantically, using the guards’ slowness to think.

Directly ahead, a low-lying cloud bank hung in the air, obscuring most of Canterlot’s skyline. It’d be risky, but it was the best shot she could imagine.

She bit her lip and angled towards it, licking her lips and flapping harder.

“Rainbow… what’re you doin’?” the farmpony asked nervously.

Rainbow streamlined her body and beat her wings ever faster to ascend and keep some distance between herself and their armored entourage.

“Just hang on!”

“But that way, there’s—!”

“HANG ON!” she demanded, blasting through the air back towards the shopping district.

She spared a glance back. The Guards were gaining.

Applejack covered her mouth and quieted her arguments to a whimper. Her eyes shut tight and Rainbow felt her golden tail wrap around her own.

The pair knifed into the cloud layer. Whooshing sounds of spires passing by on all sides at over a hundred miles an hour rang in their ears, and Rainbow narrowly avoided skewering the two of them on a weather vane.

The shadow of another large spire loomed in the shroud ahead and she was headed right towards it.

More screaming.

As the pair dove closer, Rainbow flexed her wings, preparing to bank away. Something caught her eye though – an opening – and she beat her wings for more speed.

The pegasus flipped sideways through an open window in the top dome of the spire. Screams and yelps of surprise exploded all around them as they flew through the sauna. A telescope and several potted plants were knocked over as the pair flew in one side of the steamy building and out the other without so much as slowing.

The Guards, focused on capturing them, bottlenecked in the window and crashed into the tower with a series of heavy and painful-sounding thuds and shouts behind them.

She glimpsed over her withers and guffawed loudly at their pursuer’s misfortune.

“All this excitement can’t be good for the baby…” Applejack muttered dizzily, rubbing the side of her head.

“Take it easy, babe. Let me just get us out of this fog bank and—”

A distant and heavy rumble sounded over the whistling air. The heavy vibration grew nearer and with greater intensity, shaking Rainbow’s bones.

“Uhhh…”

“Rainbow, what the hay is that?”

“Ummm…”

A propeller-driven air yacht loomed out of the clouds moving at high speeds.

“OH, LUNA FARTS!” she shrieked, spreading her wings to catch the wind. She squeezed her panicking wife closer as the rotating turbines sliced closer.

She felt her feathers pulled at as the aircraft just shaved past. As soon as it had appeared, it was gone, banking sharply away to avoid splattering the two ponies against the forward decks.

It was the trailing wind behind the yacht that pulled Rainbow off-balance. As she struggled to put air beneath her feathers again, a powerful gust tore at her wings, sending her reeling through the air.

The pair spun, twisted, and were flung apart.

Applejack yelled and went into a free-fall.

Rainbow managed to reclaim some semblance of control and shook the cobwebs out of her spinning head. Half a second later, she nose-dived after her mate as she streaked down towards the city.

She wasn’t difficult to spot mid-fall. There weren’t many things that her wife blended in with.

She caught her a moment later. By then, the two were skimming low-lying rooftops.

She flapped like she never had before. It felt as though she were trying to go from Sonic Rainboom-speeds to a dead stop, the way the air resistance tugged at her wings. She heard Applejack’s stomach lurch beneath her before she emptied their contents onto a crowd of posh ponies below.

Struggling with her aching wings, Rainbow almost missed the high-rise apartment approaching out of the mists.

She flapped.

Not enough time…

The white marble sidewalls loomed closer. Several unicorns below shouted in surprise as the pair blurred by.

Rainbow clenched her teeth.

This is gonna hurt…

The walls loomed closer. A hundred feet. Fifty.

Rainbow closed her eyes tightly, pulled herself vertical, retracted one wing and extended the other.

The air resistance on one side caused the pair to twirl in mid-air, and the pegasus absorbed the impact for her wife. Applejack grunted as the pair crushed against the wall, forcing the air out of her lungs.

Rainbow saw stars as her mate shakily dropped to the ground a few feet below, before turning back to look at her with those oceanic eyes.

A low, pained groan escaped from somewhere – probably from her – as gravity peeled her out of the wall and brought her to the ground with a thud.

Somepony nearby was shouting her name urgently, though it was lost in the white noise of her mind fading in and out of consciousness.

Rainbow’s attention returned to the celestial bodies orbiting her vision.

“Lookie… stars! Ready with the moon, Luna?”

A dizzy chuckle was all she had left in her before the rain started and the world faded to spinning apples, rainbows and blackness.

Author's Note

Look! I did a thing!

Shop 'til it Drops (Finale)

Rainbow groaned and shook her throbbing head. The light pierced her eyes as she flicked her eyes open, and hissed as she clasped them tightly shut.

Dammit... where'd this hangover come from? I don't remember any cider parties...

Then she remembered and reached up to rub the side of her head.

She reached up to rub the side of her head.

She reached up...

She...

What in the sweet name of Hurricane is going—

Rainbow painfully opened her eyes.

She saw the rope.

“That'd do it...” she muttered.

“Good to finally have one of you awake,” a familiar voice said. “Now maybe we can finally start getting some answers.”

The pegasus blinked and looked up, hissing at the painful glare of sunlight as it reflected off the metallic bars of the cage. Grunting and averting her eyes, she sneered. “Hey, whoever's the bun-bag in charge of the light show, couldja set it to 'me-not-wanting-to-buck-your-teeth-out'?”

“U-umm... are you sure that isn't Rainbow Dash?” a timid voice asked somewhere off to her right. “It sounds a lot like her."

Rainbow cracked open the corner of her eye and saw Fluttershy hovering nearby. Between her forehooves was clutched a piece of wood paneling with an Applejack-face-shaped indent in the middle of it. Judging from the pained groan behind her, the pegasus didn't need more than one guess to figure out what had happened to her wife.

Finally adjusting to the light, Rainbow peered past the scorchingly-bright interrogation lamp aimed directly in her face.

"Will somepony kill the brightwork, please?!" she snapped, wriggling in her bindings. "And untie me already! My wings are cramping up!"

"She certainly bears a great many likenesses to her, dear, but she's by no means inimitable."

"Rarity?" Rainbow squinted and looked around, but the white unicorn was veiled in the shadows of whatever room they were in.

The silhouette of a horned figure moved through it, her straight and well-kept mane a dead giveaway.

"Twilight?" Shaking her head, the pegasus's eyes crossed, and she thought back over the events of the last few hours. "What the buck is going on? I must've hit my head harder than I thought..." She considered a moment and blinked as her recollection returned to her. "Oh yeah... that happened."

"Oh, goodness..." the soft, familiar voice of Rainbow's foalhood friend said nearby. "You aren't too uncomfortable are you? Should I get you a pillow for your head?"

"Fluttershy?" she asked incredulously. She struggled a moment. "Ummm... mind telling me why we're tied up? I mean, I know I'm into some kinky stuff, but I'm not a fan of orgies." She turned and saw her mate strapped to her back, facing away from her.

"Don't talk to her, darling! She could still be dangerous..."

"What the hay are you talking about?!" Rainbow demanded loudly, grunting against the rope. "Is this some kind of practical joke or something?!"

"Well, she's certainly not lost any of her spirit..." Twilight's voice said from the shadows. "Now if we could just get the other one to wake up."

Rainbow felt Applejack stir and groan behind her. "Mmmph... three teaspoons of cinnamon in the mix for perfect flavor..."

"Oh, for the love of turds..." She reached up and elbowed her mate against her back, earning a startled snort. "Hey, AJ! Quit dreamin' about your apple nutmeg and wake up!"

"Whuh...? W-where the hay are we?"

Rainbow narrowed her eyes as the light was refocused on her. "The Twilight zone, from the looks of it..."

"Huh...?"

"Glad to have you both with us..." Twilight said ominously, stepping into the light and casting a shadow over the two of them. Rainbow finally saw the windowless, plain cinderblock room the two were housed in, and the small cage surrounding them. Several guards moved in the shadows, their agitated eyes trained on them. "I hope you both had a nice nap."

"Who clocked me over the noggin...?"

"Oh. I-I'm sorry..."

"Will somepony please explain to me what the buck is going on?!"

“Eep!” Rainbow’s adjusting eyes saw Fluttershy jump back into Rarity’s protective hooves.

“Don’t worry, darling. She can’t get you from in there.”

The silhouetted pegasus whimpered.

“Enough!” a loud, authoritative voice reached her ears. Twilight slammed her forehooves against the bars of the cage, causing Applejack to let out a startled yelp. The princess glared icily at the two of them, and Rainbow felt her feathers clasp against her sides. “No more games! No more lies! No more faking!” The entire makeshift prison rattled as their friend pushed off and started walking in wide arcs around them like a predatory cat stalking its wounded prey. “I want answers, and they had better be the TRUTH!”

“You couldn’t handle the truth!”

Rainbow couldn’t see all the eyes in the room rotating towards the shadowy blob in the corner, but she knew they were there.

“What? I told you guys what I thought they were doing here, but you didn’t believe me!”

“Pinkie, dear, please try not to make this more difficult.”

Rainbow heard her friend sigh in the darkness. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only sane pony in the whole room…”

The atmosphere shifted again as everypony and their mother rolled their eyes.

”I told you they’d find us out!” Applejack broke, flailing in her bindings. “I knew this whole trip was a bad idea from the start! Why didn’t you listen to me?!”

“AJ! Shut your face!” she hissed.

Twilight turned her attention back to them and leaned up against the cage again. “Quiet! I want information! Tell me what you both know! NOW!”

“Know about what?! What the hay are you talking about?!”

Twilight’s teeth ground together and her eyes and horn glowed threateningly.

“OKAY! OKAY! I uhh…” The pegasus gulped and shrunk. “It wasn’t Rarity’s customer who farted in her dress that one time! IT WAS ME!”

Rarity’s eye twitched dangerously nearby.

She lunged towards the cage in a bestial rage, clawing out at her with her pearly forehooves. “SNUFF HER! SNUFF HER NOW!”

Rainbow had never come so close to fainting.

It took two large royal guards to pry Rarity off the metallic bars and pacify her.

Twilight recovered her composure and wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead and turned back to face the pair. “So… you want to play dumb, huh?”

Rainbow and Applejack gulped simultaneously.

“Well, if that’s the way you want it, what say I just open this gate and let Rarity show you what she thinks of your little… faux pas?” she asked with a wicked smirk.

The pegasus blinked and looked towards the unicorn in the corner, still being restrained by the same pair of guards. The way her usually-immaculate mane was ruffled and draped over her face was… a disturbing sight to say the least. She still frothed at the mouth and snorted large clouds of steam. Her horn crackled with unspent energy.

“W-well whaddya want us to confess to, then?!” Rainbow whimpered, still feeling Rarity’s eyes burning a hole into the side of her head.

Pinkie walked into the light and leaned against the cage sipping a cup of soda. “They think you two are changelings,” she said with a shrug.

Rainbow and Applejack looked at each other with eyes wide as dinner plates.

”WHAT?!

“I know, right? I thought it was silly too!”

“’Think’?! We know it!” Twilight interceded, pressing against the bars. “You two have been out of our lives for weeks at a time doing pony-knows-what, and now after this trip, it’s all finally starting to come together.”

Rarity strode calmly up and set her hoof against the bar, her eyes only slightly softer than before. “You two were never so difficult to find time with before.”

“And you promised you wouldn’t forget about us when you got married…” Fluttershy said with a pout.

“And what’s more, you both have been acting very strange…” the princess said, her violet eyes narrowed and suspicious.

“S-strange?” Applejack stammered, gulping and looking at her.

Rarity’s eyes were sapphire-like daggers. “The real Applejack wouldn’t be caught dead in a fashion show,” the unicorn snarled.

Applejack paled.

“And neither would Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy asserted, before blinking and shrinking. “Umm… I mean, unless you are Rainbow Dash… and you would do that… umm, s-sorry…”

“We’re not changelings, okay?!”

“I’m as much an earth pony as the day I was born! I didn’t hatch from no egg!”

“QUIET!” the princess boomed.

All ponies who heard obeyed and straightened up.

“I want to know what you did with my friends — my REAL friends! NOW!”

“Twilight! Twilight! Listen! This is crazy!”

“You’ve got it all wrong, sugarcube! We… we ain’t really... uhh..." Applejack looked at her.

“No! Twilight! Really! You have to believe us! We’re not changelings! We’re… we’re…” Rainbow bit her lip and scrambled to think of something. She looked over her withers for help.

Applejack shook her head frantically.

“You’re what? Spit it out!” the princess demanded, punching the bar with her hoof.

The couple looked in panic at each other.

“W-we… uhh—”

The farmgirl swallowed. “W-would you believe that we’re long-lost twin sisters of Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and we’re in town on vacation?” she asked with a lop-sided grin.

Rainbow’s forehead twitched. ”OH, GREAT BUCKIN’ IDEA! How was that different from what I suggested?!”

Applejack glared at her sharply. ”’CAUSE I SAID ‘VACATION’!”

Everypony recoiled in shock.

The color left Applejack's cheeks as all eyes turned to her, wide and vacant.

“Eheheh… S-see… w-we just done found out about Rainbow Dash and Applejack gettin’ hitched here a few months ago and we were gonna come ‘round and congratulate ‘em. W-we were just uhh… l-lookin’ for a present to send ‘em?”

Nopony else said a word. The disbelief rolling off their stares was tangible.

Rainbow rolled her head and whacked an imaginary hoof against her face.

“We are so doomed…”

The other girls shook their heads and looked at each other.

“That was… quite possibly the worst lie I have ever heard in my entire life…”

“I would have to try to tell a lie that terrible…” Fluttershy agreed, aqua eyes wide.

“Only one pony could pull off a falsity that badly…” Twilight said, edging towards the cage. She came around and leaned closer, peering into the farmgirl's face. “…Applejack?!”

Her wife looked over at her, and the pegasus sighed, sagging back against her. “Oh, the hay with it already…” She shifted uncomfortably. “Anything’s gotta be better than this…”

Applejack frowned and sighed. “Yeah… it’s us…”

“Toldjaaaaaa~!” a jubilant voice sing-songed in the background.

“Hang on, Pinkie…” Twilight blinked and narrowed her eyes straight at Rainbow Dash. “I’m still not entirely convinced…”

“’Convinced’?” Rainbow double-took. “What? You want more?”

“YOU!” Twilight said suddenly, eyes narrowing into knife-like slits. “Rainbow Dash… if that’s really who you are…”

“It is me!” she squeaked, bouncing against the cage floor. “Itisitisitis!”

“Sugarcube, honest! Do you really think I wouldn’t know my own wife from a fake?!”

The alicorn quirked an eyebrow. “Hmm… I wonder…”

A violet light pulsed from the tip of her horn and she looked to her left. Fluttershy yelped in surprise, and a large primary emerged from the pegasus’s wing, hovering over near to the cage.

Rainbow’s eyes widened in abject terror.

“W-w-w-w-what’re you gonna do with that?”

Twilight stared levelly with her.

“Whatever I have to do to get some answers…”

Fluttershy’s feather twitched in the air near Rainbow’s nose, and she bit her lip. The feather brushed past her chest, teasing the fur on her stomach.

Rainbow nearly had a coronary when the feather stopped by her leg.

“NO! NO, NOT THE HOOVES! NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT! I’LL TELL YOU ANYTHING!” she screamed, her hooves scraping against the metallic floor of the cage.

Twilight narrowed her eyes and the feather drifted closer.

“OKAY! OKAY! I… uhhh, I didn’t stop wetting the cloud ‘til I was twelve! I used to be scared stiff of the ground! And when I was six, I had a mondo-huge crush on Gilda!”

“Rainbow…" Applejack grunted behind her, "yer squishin’ me…”

Twilight stroked her chin and slowly withdrew the feather, much to Rainbow’s endless relief.

“No hoofsies for this one… she’s got that part right… but I don’t know if that’s enough to go on…” the princess said suspiciously. “Anypony might not like having their hooves tickled after all.” She crossed her forelimbs and considered her as Rainbow recovered from her near-panic attack.

Twilight turned away and trotted a few steps.

She froze in her tracks then suddenly whipped around, pointing directly at her.

“TELL ME! What is Rapid Fire’s highest recorded top speed?”

Without even a moment of hesitation, “Five-hundred seventy-two miles per hour!”

Twilight paused and considered.

“What is Soarin’s total average wingpower under optimal flying conditions?”

“Thirteen-point-eight!”

“Hmm…” Twilight bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. “Very good… Rainbow Dash would know those facts by heart… but anypony could learn them if they studied hard enough, now couldn’t they?”

Their gazes met, and the two stared at each other for several long moments.

“But some things about a pony simply can’t be imitated…”

Twilight straightened herself and Rainbow Dash sweat bullets.

The princess stamped her hoof demandingly. “Who would win in a race – Colonel Spitfire or Captain Fleet Foot?”

Rainbow blinked and considered the top of the cage for half a moment. “Well, it depends on the weather conditions. Fleet Foot’s really lightweight so she’s a fair weather flier, so a race between them in clear skies would be really close. Fleet Foot’s a little more maneuverable so she could run an obstacle course quicker. But Spitfire’s faster than her in adverse weather, and she’s had a lot more training in crosswind conditions. See, she has this routine where—”

“Okay, okay! You’re Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said, cutting her off.

Relief for the bound pony was like water on a parched tongue. She looked over her withers and offered a nervous smile.

“S-see?” the pegasus said through a cracking voice. “Nothing to worry about…”

Applejack sighed at her but said nothing.

“But quite honestly all of this raises more questions than it answers,” Rarity said in wide-eyed bewilderment. “What in Equestria’s name could have possibly possessed you two to come here to Canterlot of all places on a Saturday morning?”

“And why didn’t either of you tell us?” Fluttershy asked.

“Buuuuhhhh…” Rainbow gulped and looked to Applejack.

“Those’re reeeeeally good questions, sugarcube, but… ya think y’all could untie us first?”

“Seriously. I can’t feel my wings anymore…”

Nopony took notice of the massive shadowy figure looming in the dark staircase until her booming voice echoed off the walls of the chambers.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Rainbow jerked her head to the left.

Princess Luna was larger than life in most situations, but the way her mane and tail shimmered in the dark of the doorway made her appear as big and vast as the cosmos she was custodian of.

Twilight blinked and looked between Rainbow Dash, Applejack and the diarch.

“I… w-well…”

“My sister made it most clear to me upon my return that cruel and unusual methods of information extraction became forbidden to practice more than five hundred years ago,” the alicorn said, narrowing her eyes on the feather that Twilight held in her telekinetic grasp.

The younger princess blushed and hid the feather behind her.

Luna stared at her expectingly.

“U-umm… it’s… kind of a long story, your highness…”

“Rainbow,” Applejack said softly behind her, nudging her with her elbow “I think we got some fessin’ up to do…”

She squirmed and bit her lip.

“Aww, hayseed…”

Lunar Council

Everypony’s eyes were wide with surprise as Rainbow Dash wrapped up her tale and slumped back against Luna’s bedsheets, nearly blending in with the cyan fabric. Shrugging, she looked from one of her friends to the next, all resting on the blankets on either side of her.

“So, yeah… long story short, I got Applejack pregnant. We just found out about a week ago. So we were in town today shopping around for stuff…”

Luna’s subtle smile from nearby as she sipped her tea was a warm contrast to the disbelieving stares her own friends were giving her.

“Wait… it was Applejack who was pregnant? Shoot! I must be losing my touch…” Pinkie huffed.

“And… that’s what this whole thing was about?”

“You were shopping for... umm... baby furniture?”

Twilight shook her head. “And what possible reason could you girls possibly have for not telling us about all this?”

Rainbow looked to her left at Applejack. Her wife sat on her rump, and shuffled in her spot, rubbing her stomach in idle thought.

“Well… part of us was scared to…”

Her wife looked up suddenly at her and blinked. “’Us’?”

Rainbow pouted. “Okay. I was a little freaked out about it, alright?!”

“But why, darling?” Rarity asked. “This is splendid news! …A tad hard to wrap my head around, admittedly, but—”

“But you two are having your own baby!” A cream-colored blur swirled around Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy zipped back and forth, wings beating like a hummingbird's. “Oh! I’m so excited for you two! I just can’t wait!”

“Heh… yeah,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Knew you’d be on board, Fluttershy…”

“And you didn’t think we would be?”

“Just the opposite, darlin’,” Applejack addressed Rarity. “We figured y’all were gonna be head over hooves over the news. And… that’s kinda what made us a-scared to tell ya…” Applejack looked Rainbow in the eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked, furrowing her brow.

“Look, you guys are all awesome, okay?” Rainbow stepped into the middle of the group, ducking Fluttershy's beating wings. “But we didn’t exactly wanna make a big deal out of all this. As far as we’re concerned, it’s just AJ having a foal – nothing special, nothing world-breaking.” She paused, noting Luna's knowing glimpse from the corner of her eye.

“I’m just disappointed that I found out this way,” Rarity said with a pout. “I thought we were friends, girls. Why hide something like this from us?”

“It wasn’t gonna be forever, honest! We were gonna tell y'all eventually… just…”

“We needed to figure out how, first,” Rainbow finished.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “And saying, ‘Oh hey, by the way, Applejack’s pregnant, we’re looking for cribs and stuff, wanna come with?’ never occurred to you?”

Applejack looked her way. “Ummm…”

“Come on, Twilight,” she said, interrupting her wife again, “you guys are the best friends anypony could ever ask for, but AJ and I are kinda gonna have a family now. We don’t exactly want Rarity coming over all the time and playing dress-up doll with our foal—”

Rarity blinked and blushed.

“—or Fluttershy blabbing about it to the first pony who corners her about where we’ve been—”

Fluttershy smiled timidly, playing with her hooves.

Rainbow turned pointedly. “—or Twilight sticking a bunch of sciencey probey-stuff all over her head when she’s born.”

Twilight’s jaw hung.

“OH! OH! What about me?” Pinkie asked excitedly.

The pegasus chuckled nervously. “Ohhohohoho, you!” A pause. Rainbow cleared her throat and turned back to the rest of the group. “Look, guys, the point is, we don’t wanna sweat it. It’s our first foal, y’know?”

“Why…” Twilight stuttered, “w-why would you think I would ever want to experiment on your foal?”

“You experimented on me.” Pinkie said cheerfully.

Twilight blinked and grinned sheepishly, shifting in-place. “Th-that was different…”

Luna arose from her spot on her bed. With stealthy steps, the Night Princess glided across the mattress and laid down between the couple, taking Rainbow Dash beneath her wing and embracing her.

Her long-lived silence shattered with her soft words. “I am grateful that you returned from your journey safely, Rainbow Dash. I am more delighted still to learn that you were met with success.”

Twilight and the others – even Applejack – blinked amongst one another.

“Umm… princess?” Applejack asked, green eyes wide, “You… knew about all this?”

Luna turned to the farmgirl and nodded. “Indeed, fair Applejack. I daresay, I was instrumental in Rainbow Dash’s noble quest.”

Rainbow couldn’t help her chuckle and bit her lower lip. “Heh… ‘noble quest’, huh…? I like that.” She turned to Applejack and waggled her eyebrows. “I hope you heard that, AJ – I went on a ‘noble quest’. Pretty sexy, huh?”

Her wife bit her lip and rolled her eyes, the hint of a smirk giving her away. “You’re gonna be insufferable now, ain’t ya?”

The rest of the girls couldn’t help their laughter.

Luna brought Applejack closer with her left hoof and hugged the earth pony in turn. “Regardless, this is a time of much jubilation. If it should come to pass that I cannot be there to offer the child my blessing personally upon the date of birth, I would like to take the opportunity now to do so…”

Her wife looked up at the princess with widened eyes. “A… a royal blessin’?” The farmgirl swept her hoof back through her mane, a blush highlighting her freckled cheeks. “G-gosh I… I don’t think an Apple’s gotten a royal blessin’ since great-grandpappy settled Ponyville...”

“T’would be appropriate in this situation, however, Applejack.”

Rainbow blinked at her wife and looked up at Luna.

The princess turned and looked at the pegasus, their eyes meeting in a mutual understanding.

Rainbow looked back nervously as everypony's gaze turned to face her again.

"I-I... uhh..." she stammered.

Luna smiled and continued. "After all, your mate spent much time and traveled quite far just for a chance to glimpse a falling star... for the slimmest hope of giving you the family that she never could give you on her own. If ever there were a more powerful demonstration of one’s devotion, I know not of it.”

Applejack paused. She blinked. She looked from Luna, then over to her friends, then finally back to mate, green and worldly eyes inquisitive.

Rainbow fidgeted and averted her gaze.

“T'was an arduous process, Applejack, but ultimately, a challenge worth undertaking.” Luna retracted her wings. “Rainbow Dash came to me, seeking the means and the magic to grant your heart's deepest desire. Falling stars, as many know, are quite rare and are only predictable by the most determined astronomers.” The princess straightened with pride. "This is why she approached me for help. Being a good friend of Twilight Sparkle, how could I deny her such a request?"

Everypony else murmured amongst themselves.

“A falling star?”

“They really do grant wishes?”

Luna stood and stepped down to the floor and turned to face her friends. “So you see there truly is reason for celebration, my little ponies. T'was Rainbow Dash's own determination, will, and devotion that made this miraculous foaling possible. And such a joy is deserving of the observation of a Royal Blessing Rite. Truly, even my old and hardened heart weeps for this occasion.”

Rainbow felt her cheeks turn red as everypony turned to look at her and she lowered her head to try and hide her embarrassment. “So I’ve got a little bit of sappiness in there somewhere… sue me.”

Twilight turned her violet eyes to her, brow creased.

She felt her wife move to look at her and she winced. Instead of the tongue-lashing she thought she might get for her secrecy though, she felt her soft pelt brush against her coat. Applejack’s orange muzzle hooked under her jawline, her tear-soaked cheek pressing against her throat, and her powerful forehooves wrapping around her neck.

Applejack sniffled and smiled up at her. “If… if Rainbow’s okay with havin’ our baby blessed… then I’d like that too…”

Rainbow Dash blinked and looked down at her wife, her weeping eyes in defiance of the anger she thought she would have felt.

“You’re… not mad at me for not telling you?”

Applejack rubbed her muzzle on the back of her leg. “No, sugarcube… never. That's the rule with fallin' stars, ain't it?” She sniffed and switched over to an unconvincing glare, poking her in the chest with every other syllable she spoke. “But if you ever do somethin’ that sweet again, I’ll beat ya.” She squeezed, momentarily strangling the pegasus in her tight embrace. "I was worried about you being gone so long, ya crazy mare..."

Rainbow bit her lip, trying to stop herself from grinning, and enveloped her mate in her wings. “Y-yeah... sorry 'bout that...”

Looking up, she saw Luna staring back and smiling neutrally at her.

The pegasus cleared her throat. “Soooo… how ‘bout that blessing? I mean, we are kind of having the most awesome baby in the universe…”

The alicorn smirked. “Indeed.”

“Ummm… how do we do this? Do we need to spin around and click our hooves three times or something?”

“Applejack shall be facing me, held by the hooves of those who love her,” Luna said.

The farmgirl nodded and stood. The pair descended to the floor, and Applejack leaned back into Rainbow's embrace.

A series of hoofsteps reached her ears, and Pinkie bounced into view – “WHEE!” – throwing her legs around Applejack’s neck. She was quickly joined by Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight embracing them all in her wings. All leaned in to share their nuzzles and affection with the mother-to-be.

Rainbow squirmed.

“Guys?”

“Y-yeah, Pinks?”

Pinkie sniffled and nuzzled Applejack’s mane. “This is a Kodiak moment.”

The group shared a laugh.

Luna stepped forward and raised her hoof. Her horn gained a soft, silvery luster. “Now may the witnesses place their hooves upon the child.”

Rainbow slid her hoof down Applejack’s chest, crossing legs with her. They were joined by the soft touches of their friend’s hooves. The farmpony chuckled at the sensation.

“May the Sun brightly guide you through all your days,” she said, lowering her hoof to Applejack’s belly. “May the Moon watch over you and keep safe your dreams. May the stars whisper their wisdom unto you. May your skies be clear, peaceful and free. May your loved ones be ever-near, and may happiness, grace and good fortune follow you through all the days of your life. So speaketh Princess Luna de Estrella.”

Luna’s horn pulsed.

“May the world and all things in it bless you, my child.”

Silence.

The Princess stepped back and nodded with a thin smile. “It is done.”

Pinkie tackled the pair into another enthusiastic hug, and was quickly followed by their remaining friends.

"Sooooo..." came the pink mare's first words, "do I get to be you guys' foalsitter?"

Rainbow's eyes widened and she looked at her wife with a pale expression. "Uhhhhh..."

Twilight gazed on with inquisitive eyes.

A Pregnant Silence

Rarity sighed exhaustively and stretched her back as she slouched back into her seat. The train rocked and swayed back and forth in a hypnotizing motion, as though a cradle rocketing along at sixty miles an hour.

"Ah, the thought of home…” the fashionista sighed. “I always wonder whenever I go to Canterlot why in Equestria I would ever want to leave. And then there are moments just like these to remind me. Hopefully Opalescence and Sweetie Belle weren't too bored without me.”

Fluttershy yawned in reply. “I can’t wait to see Angel-bunny. I hope he and Spike got along today.”

“I can’t wait to see Gummy! I just hope he didn’t get into the sugar again. He gets hyper if he eats too many sweets.”

Applejack heard none of her this as she leaned against Rainbow Dash. The pair sat quietly by themselves on a nearby bench, the conversations and activity around them long having faded into the background. The train car may as well have been empty except for the two of them. They leaned against each other, eyes closed, oblivious to the rest of the dark, moonlit world as it flashed by on either side of them.

The earth pony's eyes peered out the flashing windows, out to the silvery fields illuminated by Luna's moonlight. Fireflies flitted between the reeds like speckled stardust, and Saddle Lake shown like an ocean of silver in the distance.

She looked up to her mate. It would have been romantic if they had been alone.

Rainbow looked down at her, giving a quick nuzzle after glimpsing around to make sure they wouldn't be noticed.

A smile crossed Applejack's lips and she cuddled closer, enveloping the pegasus in her forelegs in spite of her wife's uncomfortable squirming.

The pegasus bit her lip and wrapped her wing around her, an indigo color crossing her cheeks.

“Sooo…” she said, “does this mean I’m out of the doghouse?”

Applejack blinked obliviously. “Doghouse? What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

"Y-y'know... f-for what happened earlier, and all that."

A clueless moment passed for the earth pony.

Rainbow's eyes crossed and she bit her lip.

"Uhhh... n-never mind."

Applejack's brow wrinkled, then smoothed over with realization. A smirk adorned her lips, giving her cheeks their distinctive dimples. "The fashion nonsense?"

Rainbow winced and chuckled nervously. Applejack felt her gulp. “Y-yeah… that.”

Applejack shrugged. “I dunno, sugarcube… that was a pretty lousy thing to get us dragged into. Sure made a right big mess of things, y'know? We nearly landed half the Royal Guard in the hospital. Not to mention I'm probably gonna have my face plastered all over every fashion magazine from Tall Tale to Neigh York City...”

The pegasus pouted in that irresistible manner.

"It wasn't all my fault, y'know..."

The farmgirl frowned. "Come again?"

"If I remember right, you were the one that dragged us backstage.

“But…” she continued, snuggling closer, “ya did earn some brownie points, judgin’ from all the mumbo-jumbo Luna said…”

Rainbow brightened.

“Brownie points… brownie points are good. Everypony likes brownies.” Her wife grabbed her and hugged. She then paused, stroking her chin a moment and donning a sly smile. “B-but I’d prefer apple brown betty points…” she whispered into her ear.

Applejack sat up and looked at her with a knowing smirk.

“Flattery’ll get ya nowhere, sugarcube.”

"I have no idea what you're talking about," her wife said with a broad grin.

"Yeah, I bet you don't. All you think about anymore is when ya get yer next nookie."

"Hey! That's not true! I think about a lot of stuff!"

Applejack raised her eyebrow.

Rainbow paused. She grinned. "In addition to nookie."

The earth mare leaned against her wife and chuckled – slightly louder than she had intended to – prompting the pegasus to do the same. The duo settled into a lasting silence. Miles went by like ticks on the clock, and the pair got lost in the embrace of one another.

The rest of the train car staring variably at them went unnoticed.

By the time the silence between the two of them ended, the flickering golden lights of Ponyville shimmered on the horizon. Applejack looked up with a happy sigh, eyes weighed down by the time and exertion of wakefulness. Rainbow's pelt felt like a plush blanket against her thin coat, and the earth pony danced on the verge of sleep.

"The kid's really working one over on ya, huh?" her mate whispered softly, stroking a hoof through her mane.

Applejack yawned and breathed in, taking in the musky aroma of her wife's oily coat. "Just need somethin' to eat," she protested. "Then I'll be lit up like a firecracker."

"Didn't you already eat a huge dinner at the palace?" She felt the soft grazing of feathers supporting her heavy-feeling body and keeping her upright.

"It wasn't a huge dinner. It was normal-size..."

Rainbow giggled. "Yeah... for a cow."

"Hey!"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to insult the cow..." Her mate winked playfully.

Applejack blinked and scowled at her. "What's gotten into you? Are you askin' to be put back in the penalty box?"

Blocking her wife's smack to her forehead, Rainbow's chuckling faded as she engulfed her in her hooves once again. "S-sorry... just... thoughts, y'know?"

The earth mare's eyes softened. "Thinkin' about what, darlin'?"

Her mate shifted uncomfortably. "About you... the baby. All the stuff that happened today. I... I dunno..." Rainbow looked at her, ears sagging. "Are you sure you wanted it to be me, AJ?"

A pregnant silence settled between the two.

Brushing her hoof down her wife's fuzzy chest, Applejack nuzzled against the soft cyan coat. The smell of fresh rainfall filled her nostrils. "I ain't sure what you mean, sugarcube. You were the one I said yes to, right?"

"Y-yeah..."

Applejack raised her ear, revealing a small gem glowing in a rainbow of colors. The apple-shaped ear piercing glittered in the soft light. "And you were the one who gave me this, too." She looked the pegasus in those magenta eyes of hers and leaned in to kiss her muzzle softly.

Rainbow blushed, looking to make sure they hadn't been spotted. To her paranoid eye, somepony from Ponyville lurked in every shadow of the train car.

"Well... I guess as long as you don't think I'm a complete screw-up..."

"You ain't seriously gonna let that mess in Canterlot get ya down, are ya?" Applejack asked with a chuckle.

Rainbow fidgeted. "Hey... if I bucked up there... what if I buck things up with... well... y'know...?"

Applejack's expression mellowed. "Sweetheart, it's okay. I'm gonna be right there beside ya the whole way. Don't get all panicky on me now."

The pegasus glared. "I'm not getting panicky!" Rainbow blushed and lowered her voice. "But... what if I'm no good at, AJ? What if I can't do this... this parenting thing? What if I completely screw up everything and our kid winds up hating me, or something? W-what if–"

Applejack interrupted. "Darlin'... if life's taught me one thing since I met you and Twilight and the girls, it's that life's nothin' but a bunch of 'what-ifs' strung together. If ya go and keep wonderin' all about the 'what-ifs', then yer never gonna have the time to find out the answer."

Rainbow blinked at her.

The earth pony grinned inwardly at her wife's ever-amusing cluelessness. "I'm sayin' it's way too early to start worryin' about the future already, sugarcube. Let's just let it take care of itself for now..." She pressed her head up in the space between her mate's jawline and her neck. "Let's you and me focus on how we're havin' a baby. Together. Let's focus on bein' happy about that."

The pegasus averted her eyes and wrapped her up in the soft texture of her cyan wings. "Y-yeah... g-guess I'm just making a big deal out of nothing, right?"

Satisfied with her mate's answer, Applejack's eyes didn't see the lingering worry just beneath the surface, nor did she feel her anxious shifting. To her, the train was as serene as her foal's cradle as it whisked the pair gently home.

Her thoughts returned to the distant cries of children and the warmth found in the promise of family.

And Applejack smiled, blissfully unaware of Twilight's inquisitive stare as she drifted off to sleep.

A Random Slice of Life Pie

It was just after four in the morning when Rainbow Dash sensed that Applejack was missing from her sheltering embrace. She glimpsed at the clock to be sure of the time and groaned, rubbing her tired eyes. It was early, even for the farmgirl who liked to be up before the break of dawn, and that was generally cause for suspicion.

Given the rough day the pair had had, Rainbow’d expected even her work-a-day mate to remain bedded a few hours after daybreak the next morning.

Flashbacks of Applejack vomiting in the flower bed mere days ago came to her attention. She winced at the thought of being charged with hosing it out again the next morning… and trying to come with an excuse for why she couldn’t.

Big Mac was simple. He wasn’t stupid.

Pulling herself out of the messed-up covers – seriously, why couldn’t Applejack keep them neat and save her the trouble of re-making the bed everyday? – Rainbow leapt to the floor and followed the lingering scent of expensive perfume to the stairs.

She followed the smell down to the kitchen, where a refrigerator light illuminated the room, half the contents of the ice box, and the silhouette of her gorging wife.

Applejack blinked up at her with what appeared to be a giant spoon of vanilla ice cream wedged in her mouth.

The two looked at each other.

Rainbow smirked.

Her mate scowled and pulled the spoon out of her mouth.

“Don’t you fay a fing…” she growled with a mouth full of food. Dipping the giant spoon into the carton of ice cream, she took an aggressively-insistent bite of the dessert, the size of which likely could have choked Big Mac if he weren’t careful.

Rainbow did as she was told and crossed the room quietly, plopping down right next to her. Applejack took another large angry chomp of ice cream, before producing a fork weighed down by a large bite of apple pie.

The farmpony watched her as a wolf watched a coyote, as though she though she were eager to steal her hard-earned meal from her.

She finally finished with her current bite and looked at her. “What’re you doin’ up?”

Rainbow Dash grinned wickedly. “I was just coming down to see if there was anything left for a midnight snack.”

She received a sharp, dangerous glare, and quickly raised her hooves defensively. A nervous chuckle squeaked out of her.

“Well, har-dee-har…” the farmgirl muttered, taking another large bite of ice cream and discarding the empty carton. She turned on the remains of the apple pie next. “If ya want somethin’, speak up. I can’t get enough right now…”

The pegasus shrugged. “Nah, I’m good.”

The two sat together in mutual silence.

Rainbow simply watched her wife eat and eat and eat, with no ending in sight. A few times she thought of a wisecrack, but every bite the earth pony took shook loose images in her head of those same, voracious teeth clamping down on her leg or a wing, and introducing her to a world pain.

Apparently, Applejack had anticipated such smartassery and looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.

“You got fomfin’ you wanna fay?” she asked, showering Rainbow’s face with particles of apple pie. Probably did it on purpose too.

Rainbow grinned, causing her wife’s eyes to narrow expectingly.

“You know something,” she said, winking, “you’re really pretty in the light of the refrigerator, stuffing your face.”

The tension was on a knife’s edge. Applejack’s twitchy expression was a mix between wanting to knock her over the head for the backhoofed compliment, or not bother wasting the effort.

The farmpony turned back to her pie after a few seconds.

“Go suck a sow…”

Rainbow laughed and threw her hooves around the earth pony’s neck, pulling her closer, receiving a frustrated growl for her efforts. She was pulling a feeding wolf off its kill, after all.

“So, got anything else I could nibble on?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows flirtatiously.

In reply, a half-eaten plate of fritters was slid in front of her blinking eyes.

“Knock yerself out,” Applejack said with a devilish smirk.

Rainbow pouted disappointedly. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind…”

“I know exactly what you had in mind,” the farmpony snorted. A smile crept on her face. “One-track mind, sugarcube. Remember?”

Rainbow nuzzled into her wife’s mane as another big bite of apple pie disappeared down her gullet. “Yeah, but, uhh… I was thinking more about my achy-breaky body… my back still hurts something awful y’know.”

Her wife leaned back and looked at her with a quirked eyebrow.

She flashed a smile of her own. “Loyalty, baby. I’d take an arrow to the knee for ya.”

“Aww, poor thing,” Applejack cooed with a sly grin. “Does you gots a boo-boo?”

Rainbow’s ears wilted. “Yeah… a boo-boo. And it could use a little attention… if ya know what I mean.”

Her mate snaked her forehoof over her withers and pressed the fork against her lips, feeding her a dry, crusty bite of the apple pie. “Reckon I could be persuaded to help ya out with that if’n you were willin’ to make a concession…”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” the farmgirl said with a smirk. “Go up ‘n get me a chunk ‘o cloud and make me some of that fancy pegasus whipped cream.”

The pegasus’s eager expression one-eighty’d in half a second.

“But… the closest clouds? I mean… it’s just so far… and you like Granny’s pies enough without whipped cream, right?” she asked, biting her lip.

“The whipped cream weren’t for this pie, sugarcube…”

“…Oh.”

Silence.

Rainbow’s eyes stared deep into Applejack’s half-lidded gaze, the barest hint of a smile on her mate’s lips.

“OH!”

A feather shook loose and several items in the fridge clattered noisily behind the pegasus.

Applejack smirked. “It’ll be worth yer while – I promise.”

“Saynomore! Roger! Ayema’am! Ten-four! And altogether yes!” Rainbow answered, turning into a multihued blur, clumsily knocking over a jar and sending pie servers, ladles, and other kitchen utensils to the floor.

“I’ll clean that up!” Applejack heard her wife shout from outside.

She turned her attention to the kitchen window where she watched a dimly-illuminated Rainbow struggle awkwardly into the air on stiff wings, and was gone, headed east and skyward.

“Huh…” the farmgirl huh’d, quirking her brow, then continuing her feast.

If only it was that easy to get ‘er to help with apple-buckin’…

Let's Try This Again

According to the clock, not an hour had passed since Applejack's "back therapy" before the sound of a tractor starting up six inches away set Rainbow Dash's ears a-twitchin'. It was the sound of a tree being torn into by the loudest saw in the world. It was a snore that could wake the dead.

It wasn't enough to wake Rainbow Dash. The sun took care of that well enough. The way it peeked in through the curtains allowed just the right angle to strike the edge of her eye and spare her wife's dozing form completely.

We should really switch sides of the bed... she thought, groaning and covering her head with her pillow.

Incessant minutes ticked by, and between the clock and the building heat beneath the comforters, Rainbow growled, thrashing back up to the surface.

She turned to her wife, agitated by the ease of her sleep.

Normally, Rainbow found no issues with snoozing the night away. The lingering memories of the day before, however, combined with Applejack's heavy snoring -- something that had never used to bother her before -- combined into a cinderblock wall of hell-no.

Eyes adjusting to the low light, she stared at the blonde laying on her side in a puddle of her own drool, and realized just how rarely she had ever seen Applejack truly, contentedly asleep. Normally, Rainbow was gone to dreamland long before the earth pony, and up long after.

There was nothing graceful about the sight, but it brought her a happy smile regardless. She wasn't sure if it was the humorous nature of the way her mate lay tied up in the sheets, the way she snorted through her muzzle like a dragon with a cold, or simply the happy realization that she somehow woke up every morning with the most wonderful mare in the world.

"ZZZZZ!"

A sudden, loud snore almost brought the pegasus to tears. She bit back her laughter and rested her chin against her hoof, simply watching the other mare sleep. She couldn't remember the last time she'd thought about how much she loved Applejack, but something about such a funny, and at the same time endearing sight made her realize just how lonely life would have been without the farmgirl to keep her in line.

Not that she could ever say such horseapples out-loud... she had a reputation to keep, after all.

Rainbow Dash had never considered herself a sentimental pony -- she barely knew what the word meant. She did, however, occasionally wish she had a way to capture such moments and preserve them forever.

Then, in that moment, it came to her.

Sitting up as quietly as she could, Rainbow edged towards the bed's edge and quietly tip-hoofed down to the floor. No flying or hovering. Applejack was easy to break out of her sleep with sudden noises -- probably an earth pony thing -- and even the breeze or the brush of her wings could cause her partner to stir.

Sneaking out of the dark room and up the hall, Rainbow peered into Big Mac's room. Not finding him there, she snuck down the stairs and peered into the kitchen. Every step she took caused the house to creak deafeningly.

"Hey, Big Mac..." she whispered. Even at her lowest register, her voice hit her own ears like a crashing freight train, and she winced with every word.

"Big Mac!" she rasped slightly louder.

She hoped he hadn't gone out and started farmwork already.

"BIG MAC!"

"Eeyup?" came a soft voice behind her.

Rainbow jumped and nearly hit her head on the ceiling.

Big Mac's giant hoof was quick to ground her and his shush quick enough to drown out her squeak of surprise, keeping her from waking the entire household.

He held one hoof to his lips before taking a bite out of an oat bar.

Rainbow's heart finally stopped beating at a million miles an hour and she collapsed to her rump with a slight scowl. "How the hay are you so big and quiet at the same time?!" she huffed with a blush.

He simply smirked and sipped a mug of milk.

"Listen, big guy, you gotta help me out."

Never one to turn down a request for assistance, especially from family, Big Mac looked at her quizzically and set his breakfast aside.

"Eeyup."

Rainbow's eyes sparkled. "Awesome!" She caught herself and covered her muzzle. Clearing her throat, she lowered her voice and leaned in. "Please tell me you guys have a video camera stashed around here somewhere."

Big Mac blinked.

Rainbow Dash grinned.

Memories

...

"Is it on?"

"Eeyup."

"I can't see a thing! How do you know that? ...I know, I know, you flicked the switch, but I still can't see anything!"

...

The world opened up before the viewfinder of the video camera as the lens cover was removed and set aside by Applejack's older brother. A quaking, black-and-white grassy field blinded the camera for several moments before the lens readjusted to the newfound light.

"Oh... that makes sense."

"Eeyup."

The camera swept to the right to find Big Mac and the family's porch behind him. He flashed a warm smile for the camera and took a sip of his milk.

"Oh, this is sooooo sweet!"

The camera panned to the left, recording the skies and the apple orchards, then left more towards the barn where Applebloom and her Crusader friends, donned in their cloaks, were setting out on another adventure.

"It's a little old, but I guess it'll work. Sure wish it picked up color, though."

The audio receiver picked up Big Mac's chuckle in the background, and Rainbow turned the lens back towards the front door.

"Alright! Let's go put this puppy to work. Thanks, big guy."

A faint 'eeyup' faded into the background as the front door gently swung open. The camera paused, recording carpet fibers for several moments as the front door drifted gently shut behind. The image righted itself and swung left and right, scoping out the surroundings before Rainbow trotted quietly towards the stairs.

She ascended quietly, each hoofstep just barely registering with the camera itself. An exaggerated movement near the top of the stairs indicated where Rainbow avoided the squeaky floorboard at the top. The recorder adjusted to the low light and moved to the door at the end of the hallway.

The lens nudged the door open with a faint squeak and peered around the corner, past the nightstand and oil lamp, and focused on the sleepy form in the bed.

Applejack's chest continued a steady rise and fall. Judging from her snoring and the position she was still in she hadn't been bothered by Rainbow's departure from bed earlier.

The camera wobbled slightly as its carrier maneuvered around the bed, stumbling for just a moment with a faint grunt.

"How do you zoom this dang thing?" a soft whisper said, before the image focused on Applejack's face began expanding. "Oh, there we go."

The pegasus's wife's tongue lolled out of her mouth like she had been drugged. Her blonde hair was a loose mess, and her messy tail twitched in her sleep.

Whatever dream she must have been having must have been a good one.

"Aaaaand behold, the prettiest, most awesome pony in all of Equestria," Rainbow said with no small amount of amusement in her voice.

She trotted gently around the bedside and mounted the mattress, zeroing in on her wife's humorous expression. Applejack unconsciously grasped at a pillow next to her and squeezed it against her chest.

"Uh oh... looks like somepony's missing me..."

Rainbow leaned closer, to the point where even the old-fashioned black-and-white camera could make out the individual freckles and fuzz on her rosy cheeks. For some reason, Applejack chose that moment to close her mouth and smile, stirring slightly in-place.

The position she came to rest in put her eyes in the growing sunlight peering through the curtains. The earth pony winced and stirred, even as the room began to grow lighter.

"Mornin', Slim," Rainbow said playfully.

"Nnngh..." she received in reply. Applejack reached for a pillow and pulled it over her head.

"Hey! Come back here!" The pegasus rotated the camera around to the crease in the pillow. Her wife's silvery hair poked out, frayed in every direction imaginable.

"Can't Celestia ever sleep in...?" her mate muffled through the pillow.

"Heheh. Don't see this side of you too much..." The camera angled awkwardly, showing Rainbow's side as she leaned forward to nuzzle into the pillow fortress, kissing the top of her mate's head.

"Ugh," the earth pony muttered, tossing the pillow across the room and rolling onto her back, covering her eyes with her forelegs.

The camera honed in on the blonde again.

"Okay, AJ. Look up into the camera, state your name, and what you love most about me."

Applejack peeked wide-eyed out from behind her hooves and squeaked, yanking the covers up over her head. "Take that stupid contraption away!"

Rainbow recoiled with the camera, and judging from the angle of the image, nearly fell off the bed.

"Hey! Get back here and smile for the camera!"

"No! Goway!" her wife said, her tail twitching.

The image spiraled wildly as Rainbow pounced on her tail. The sound of a scuffle unfolded, barely able to be heard over the ruffle of blankets, and the stray image of a cyan wing poking at a trio of a ticklish apples imprinted on the earth pony's flank.

"--bow! HAHAHAHAHA! Get offa me!"

"Come back here and give me a smile and I'll think about it!"

"No! I'm hideous!"

The camera received a quick thump to its side and spiralled to the floor with a loud clatter. Peering beneath the bedskirts, it picked up the frantic scuffs of orange hooves hitting the floor and fleeing the bedroom.

The recorder was lifted off the floor, and a striped mane and the edge of a grin appeared in the picture.

"Oh, I'm gonna have fun with this thing..."

The image cut out as Rainbow hit the Stop button.

Up to Something

The morning was filled with cleaning the kitchen after Applejack's midnight raid. The farmgirl spent most of it returning smirks with scowls and mopping up melted mess that she had failed to do away with the previous evening due to her wife's... overeagerness, and her own exhaustion thereafter. Granny Smith's calm, knowing smile was enough to keep her from blowing her already-short fuse.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, had become strangely scarce since the camera incident that morning. She had yet to see anything but glimpses of the pegasus, and those times she did, her mate was quick to vanish. Applejack had spent the better part of her morning washing up and preparing for her barrage of taunts and general messing-around she thought she was sure to receive after gorging the previous night.

The fact that it never came, except from her own kin, didn't sit well with her.

She'd spent the last hour prepping for the onset of apple season with Big Mac and Applebloom, and neither hide nor hair of her dunderheaded wife since breakfast had made an appearance. After being stubbornly dismissed by her big brother -- she honestly wondered where he got it from -- she went back inside.

After a large and hearty lunch, she dragged herself back into the orchards.

They had yet to smell like the sweet fruit she loved. The season was too early, and the crop had yet to come in fully. That was fine with her. The smell of apples made her hungry, and being hungry kept her from sleeping.

It was one of the few times a year that Applejack could comfortably relax beneath the boughs of her trees without being distracted by either weather or the thought of eating, though typically she was too busy preparing for the harvest except for the occasional nap she snuck.

It occurred to her just how much Rainbow had rubbed off on her over the years.

She wasn't sure where the smile came from, but she didn't mind it. Settling herself down into the cradle of the tree's roots Applejack closed her eyes and yawned.

The time passed slowly, though judging from the gray clouds being blown in from the southwest by the Las Pegasus weather ponies, it was more time than she figured.

The clouds blotted out the sun, providing welcome relief from the intrusive light, but sending a chill surging up through the valley.

Applejack winced and curled up into a tight ball, holding determinedly to her napping spot. A little weather wouldn't drive her off without a fight. The slicing wind, however, seemed to disagree.

She got up and rounded to the protected side of the tree. It was less comfortable than the wide-spaced roots facing the open valley beyond, and the view wasn't nearly as nice. Still, the view of Ponyville wasn't bad either, and she once again settled in for a nap.

The second interruption put her in a foul mood, and her tail twitched irritably to whatever had snapped the twig behind her.

The intruder wisely circled around to her left. The familiar smell of ozone and rain reached her nose.

"There you are," came a familiar voice.

Applejack's ears twitched. "Yeah. I was gonna have a nice nap."

Rainbow grinned and hovered up next to her before touching down. She noticed a peculiar absence of a particular recording device on her person. "What's stoppin' ya?"

"A flyin' mouth that won't quit."

"Catty," the pegasus replied, waggling her eyebrows.

"Where've you been?"

"Out looking for you!"

Applejack peeked an eye open. "Lookin' at me with a camera's probably more like it..."

"Camera? What camera would that be? I don't know anything about no cameras."

"Bullcrap," the farmgirl muttered, closing her eyes again.

Familiar chuckling rang in her ears that somehow irritated her further, and at the same time made everything better. She yawned and turned away, resting her other cheek against a root.

Rainbow came closer from the sounds of her hoofsteps. The next thing Applejack knew, she felt the pegasus's relatively-soft hooves press against her back.

Applejack grunted from the weight bearing down on her.

"Why're you bein' so annoyin' today?" She paused. "More'n usual, I mean..."

Rainbow softly ran her hooves up and down along her spine, immediately driving all sense of irritation out of her head and replacing it with moans of appreciation.

"Who's being annoying again?"

"You..." Applejack grunted, tensing a moment before turning to putty in her wife's care. She could just imagine the smug, self-satisfied smirk her mate wore. That was okay, though. She could have it for now. "But yer makin' up for it pretty good..." she sighed with a smile.

"I'll say. It feels like you have a rock right here..." the pegasus said, massaging insistently at a particularly sore spot.

Applejack's eyes rolled back into her head and all sense of tension fled her like a flock of birds amongst a pouncing tiger.

"There we go..." Rainbow said soothingly. All too soon, the massage was over prompting a disappointed frown from the farmgirl. It was swiftly replaced by the equally-pleasurable soft, warm coat of the pegasus snuggling down atop her like a bird to a nest and wrapping her wings securely around her barrel. Grunting, Applejack adjusted herself for comfort, and let out a contented breath.

A kiss to her cheek returned a broad smile to her lips.

She opened one eye and fixed her wife with it.

"What do you want?"

Rainbow's ears pinned back. "Huh?"

"What're you butterin' me up for?"

"Oh! U-uhh... n-nothin'..."

Applejack opened her eyes and grinned at her mate. "You only start kissin' up to me when you either want somethin' or you've made a despicable mess outta things. So which is it this time?"

"N-nothing! I swear!"

"'Kay. You done somethin'."

"I did not!"

"Bullcrap the second." She smirked. "If'n ya fess up now, I won't let it hurt as much."

Rainbow jutted out her bottom lip. "I've been good, AJ. I swear."

Applejack eyed her.

Her wife smiled a frustratingly-genuine smile.

Applejack sighed and frowned. "I'm still waitin' for the other horseshoe to drop..."

"No horseshoes! No dropping! Promise!" Rainbow hugged her tightly around the chest. "Truuuust me..."

"Oh, this is gonna be a doozy..."

Check-Up

"And no other problems?"

Applejack shrugged. "Not really. Just a little..." She coughed. "Just a little, uhh... hungry lately." She paused and glimpsed to her family -- Rainbow Dash chief amongst them -- grinning at her like she were a comedy act. "Like I... can't eat enough..." she muttered, blushing and turning her head away.

The doctor grinned and snorted a laugh. "Yeah, pregnancy'll do that." He pat her on the side. "You're pretty much eatin' for--"

"Eatin' fer two. Yeah, yeah. I got it," she muttered.

Rainbow Dash snorted a chuckle. "That's not exactly new, by the way..." she said, earning herself a sharp warning glance.

The pegasus mimed the zipping of her lip and threw away the key.

Ain't no lock strong enough to keep that mouth shut. She rolled her eyes.

Then came the familiar sensation. With a rude noise, an icy-cold jelly was applied to her stomach, earning a surprised yelp from the earth pony.

"Still the worst feelin' in the world..." she grumbled.

"Oh, sorry." The doctor smiled sheepishly, clicking a switch. "Guess I didn't get the gel-warmer goin'. I'm not usually the one usin' this thing."

Applejack sighed and tried to relax onto the soft bedding again, but the irksome sensation of the sonic probe poked at her gut, rolling over the surface of her exposed stomach. She bit her lip and crossed her legs against each other.

"Could ya uncross your hind legs?"

Applejack looked up to her doctor. "Aw, come on. Seriously?"

He smiled at her apologetically.

She sighed and did as instructed, wriggling helplessly beneath the wand.

"Wouldja mind keepin' still as ya can?"

Applejack scowled at the physician. "Easy for you to say. You ain't the one bein' poked at..."

"Couldja see if she has a heart in there while you're at it?" Rainbow asked with a wink.

Doctor Rhythm laughed despite Applejack snorting in annoyance. "'Fraid we'll have to schedule another test for that one. For now, let's see if we can..." He paused, the wand pressing firmly against a spot on the farmgirl's belly.

She winced at the uncomfortable sensation, but kept as still as possible.

"Thar she blows," the physician said, eyeglasses glinting off the screen's reflection.

Disregarding the wand, Applejack leaned her head up and tried to peer around to the screen.

The doctor rotated the ultrasound equipment slightly towards her, revealing a small, blurry gray blob in the center of the monitor. A tiny heart rhythm bar pulsed quickly down along the bottom.

"See that?"

Applejack's heart skipped a beat and her breath hitched in her throat. She was so distracted that she didn't even see her wife flutter down around behind her to get a glimpse at the screen. Granny, Big Mac and Applebloom weren't far behind.

"I-is that..." she asked, not sure where the sting in her eyes was coming from.

"That, darlin', is your little foal in the makin'," Dr. Rhythm said with a warm smile. "Already sixteen times bigger than before."

Annoyance and immaturity be damned, Applejack eagerly clutched her wife against her. The happy tears she spilled went largely unnoticed by her.

"Th-that's him! H-her!" she said, voice breaking in her elation. She wiped away the moisture on her face to see more clearly. "That's my baby!"

"Yeah... your baby..." Rainbow wheezed, rapping softly on the leg wrapped around her neck. "Can your other baby breathe now?"

***

The magnet clacked sharply against the refrigerator door, and Applejack's eyes darted between the first picture taken, and the print she had been given mere hours before. After a quick lunch, wherein Applejack had dominated all conversation between her family, wife and friends, she was eager to come home and compare photographs... or sonographs, such as they were.

She let out an uncharacteristic squeal of delight, hopping from hoof to hoof and prancing about the kitchen like a foal on Hearth's Warming Eve.

"Oooooh, she's gettin' so big so quick!" she said for what must have been the tenth time since arriving home.

Rainbow bit her lip in amusement and crossed her hooves smugly, leaning against the counter. "I thought the doctor said you could still barely hold something that size in your hoof." She snickered. "I wouldn't exactly call that big."

Applejack turned to her and gasped. "Rainbow! How couldja say that?!" She turned her attention down to her belly and softly rubbed her hoof in circles. "Don't you listen none to mean 'ol Papa Dash. She's just jealous 'cause of all the attention yer gettin'. Yer gonna be a big and strong foal before ya know it. Yes you will!" she cooed.

"AJ, you're talking to yourself." Rainbow paused and tilted her head with a smirk. "And what makes you think it's gonna be a 'she' anyway?"

"Well... just lookit 'er!" Applejack said, leaning up against the fridge and peering closely at the print. "She's just such a gorgeous little thing. How could she be anything else but a little filly-to-be?" The farmgirl nuzzled the picture. "Oh, yer gonna be such a pretty little thing..."

"You're not gonna be talking to an unborn blob for the next nine months, are you?" Her wife pouted.

Applejack blinked and turned around. A smirk blossomed on her lips. "Awww. I think somepony really is a mite jealous..."

Rainbow turned and huffed. "Well, it's not like I didn't do anything to make it all happen. I figured somepony might shower me with a little more gratitude and--WHOA!"

A flying Applejack broadsided her and brought her sprawling to the floor. The weight of the earth pony landing on top of her was enough to force the air out of her lungs, and being squeezed around her barrel didn't do much to help her breathing.

Applejack nuzzled against her wife's neck.

"Geez..." the pegasus wheezed, fluffing her wings to catch a breath, "I can't remember seeing you more... cuddly than this..."

Applejack grinned. "Shut up and let me love ya."

Rainbow struggled for another lungful of air. "Only if you agree to not kill me in the process!"

Author's Note

Prompt by: Sidetrack

What Happened to Sleep?

"Rainbow."

"..."

"Rainbow, wake up."

"Zzzz..." Rainbow Dash's chest rose and fell, smacking her lips and grinning in her sleep. "Yeah... I'll have the apple tarts..."

"Rainbow!"

The pegasus bolted upright. "Whatwhatwhat?!"

Applejack stared at the wall and looked to her side, green eyes wide. "What if it's a colt?"

Rainbow reached up and rubbed her sleep-wrinkled face. Her magenta eyes blinked widely, reflecting the moonlight and bedside lantern. Her eyes drifted around the room in a daze.

"A colt?" she asked in confusion, scratching an itch. "What colt?"

"A colt!" the farmpony said, looking at her. "What if our little foal turns out to be a colt?!"

Rainbow blinked at her wife and rolled her eyes. With a loud yawn, she laid down. "Then we'll need to get Big Mac to do the potty-training thing with him I guess..."

"Rainbow, I'm serious!"

"So'm I..." the pegasus muttered, closing her eyes. "I never bothered handling any of that crap before..."

"You ain't kiddin'!"

Rainbow opened her eyes and looked at her mate. "Uhh, actually, yeah, I kinda was."

"I mean, if'n it turns out to be a little boy, how're we supposed to help 'im with... y'know... 'b-boy problems' and such? How're we supposed to be real parents if'n we can't tell 'im from experience?"

Rainbow sighed and rubbed the side of her head. "Pretty sure his uncle wouldn't mind hanging around to help out..."

"But..."

"AJ," the pegasus said, brow twitching, "unless we're on a steady diet of stupid-pills, I'm pretty sure we can figure it all out."

"I dunno..." Applejack leaned back against the headboard, fidgeting on her side of the bed. "I mean... we'd have to have 'the Talk' with 'im eventually and... and what about the kids in the schoolyard?"

Rainbow closed her eyes again, nuzzling back into the alluring embrace of her pillow.

"What about 'em?" she droned.

"Well, what if they started callin' him stuff like 'two-momma's boy' or... or what if he... what if he just winds up hatin' us for not bein' able to be a real daddy to 'im?"

"It's two o'clock in the morning, AJ. Can you at least save the freak-outs for sometime other than when we should be sleeping...?"

She could feel Applejack clutching the sheets against herself.

For a short bit, Rainbow actually believed she was going to make it back to the comfortable clutches of slumber.

"Do you think I'm gonna make a good momma?"

Rainbow's eyes opened, magenta eyes hot and sharp enough to burn coals. "What?"

"I just... I don't know if I'll even know how to be one..."

"Yeah. You'll be great. Now go to sleep..."

"I was just thinkin' how good ma and pa were to me and Big Mac when we were growin' up. Momma'd always come in and lay with me so I wouldn't be a-scared of the dark." A pause. "I used to be scared of the dark somethin' awful, y'know..."

Her ear twitched irritably in regard to the subject. A picture of Applejack's parents hung on the wall above the bed, staring down with happy expressions to a young son and foal. There were no signs of Applebloom in the portrait.

She'd never considered it before – it'd never occurred to her to look too much into family history. There would be conversations... things would come up...

"That'd explain why you're burning my retinas with the lantern..." Rainbow grouched, turning over.

"There was an old bedtime story my momma used to whisper to me way back when to make me feel better..."

I thought the sleep-loss thing was supposed to happen after the kid was born...

"I just wish they'd been around longer... I really woulda liked to learn a little more about bein' a mom..." Applejack probed the covers in circles with her hoof. "I mean... she never raised a hoof to me. Not once. And I can't remember one single time where she ever yelled at me. She was always so nice and pretty... like an angel or somethin'... and I always remembered wantin' to be just like 'er..." She frowned. "Now I can barely remember 'er face without lookin' at an old picture..."

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and sighed, offering no response. Instead, she folded her ears and buried her head beneath a pillow.

"I always used to wonder what kind of mom I'd be," Applejack continued. "Figured I'd try and follow her example. She was so perfect in every way. Never really had to discipline me or Big Mac... it was just the way she'd lookit ya, and ya'd feel horrible about misbehavin'. I always tried so hard to make 'er happy with me... just so she wouldn't never get upset with me." She exhaled. "Guess there was somethin' magic about 'er motherin'. I don't even know if..."

Silence filled the room, except for the faint, muffled sound of snoring.

"Rainbow?"

Her mate replied with more vocal lumber-making beneath her pillow, and Applejack settled back onto her own with a dejected sigh.

Sleep didn't come for her that night.

A Stupid, No-good, Dumb, Cruddy, Awful Morning...

Rainbow awoke in a foul mood. The first stirrings of consciousness, and already she knew she was going to have a rundown, drag-out brawl with the day -- it happened most Mondays. To her, Celestia could have saved everypony a lot of grief and just left the sun-forsaken day off the calendar in the first place. Nopony, she was convinced, liked Mondays, except for the crazy ones out there.

Rolling over onto her side, the pegasus escaped from beneath her hot, morning breath-stanked pillow and was blinded by an eye-searing burst of mid-morning light. It may as well have been noon as far as she was concerned. She let out a startled yelp and quickly covered her eyes with her hooves again. The drapes were open, and no smell of breakfast saturated the house's air like on a typical Apple morning.

"Oww... my awesome eyes..." she groaned painfully. She felt to her left with her hoof.

No Applejack.

"Sure... didn't know what I was expecting..." she mumbled to herself.

Rolling onto her stomach, Rainbow peeked through her eyelashes at the bedside clock.

9:21.

"Aw, crabapples... I'm LATE!" she snarled.

Where had the alarm gone? Where had been her wake-up kiss from Applejack? Where was the cover-pulling that would spill her out on the floor?

Struggling to free herself from the sheets and still with a dazzling number of spots in her vision, Rainbow stumbled hastily out into the hallway, dragging half the bedclothes with her around her fetlocks. Despite bucking and kicking, she was only freed when the blanket got snagged on a nail sticking out of the floorboard.

Forward Rainbow tripped and tumbled down the stairs, squeaking painfully over each step and with every bounce. She landed with the wind knocked out of her, and her impact caused one of the fire pokers to shake loose of its holster by the hearth.

The iron instrument landed heavily against the top of her skull with a loud CLANG.

Rainbow sat up sharply, grasping her head. "OWWWWIIIIIIIIEEEEE--" She froze. "I mean... that almost hurt..."

The pegasus rubbed her throbbing head and looked at the empty dining table, clean of dishes, vittles and utensils alike. Granny Smith peered in out of the kitchen with curious eyes, and chuckled dryly as she observed her daughter-in-law fumbling to put the poker back into place.

"Sorry, sugarcube, but yer too late. Breakfast ended over an hour ago. What's left over is all cold 'n soggy now," Granny said, ducking back into the kitchen.

"WHAT?!" Rainbow squeaked.

She started after the elder pony, but was held back at the landing. She blinked down at her left hind leg and saw the bedsheets still stubbornly clinging to her, the other end wrapped around the bannister post. With a frustrated growl and a sharp buck, Rainbow at last kicked herself free and darted into the kitchen, where her mother-in-law was just finishing the dishes.

"Why didn't anypony wake me up?!" she squeaked with a pout.

Granny smiled at the pegasus. "Well, Applebloom was gonna 'fore she headed off to school, but Applejack said ya were tired somethin' fierce last night..." the elderly earth pony explained. "Said we should let ya sleep in."

The sting Rainbow felt in her throat was a familiar one. Her ears folded at her recollection of the night before as the memories of the previous evening came back into focus. Or... at least her relative definition of the term. Something about AJ's parents or being her parents...

She'd been groggy at the time.

"Kinda strange, that," Granny continued, drying a dish. "She's normally draggin' ya outta bed whether ya wanna or not... or at least gives Applebloom the go-ahead to do it." The Apple matriarch shrugged. "Big Mac said ya've been workin' awful hard at the table this mornin'. Guess Applejack figured ya could really use the rest."

All of a sudden, the events of the previous evening rushed back in like an arrow to the gut.

"Oh." Rainbow fidgeted, her face becoming heated. "Umm... wh-where is AJ now?" she asked softly.

Granny pondered a moment, pausing in her dish-washing.

"Well, if I reckon back, I think she said somethin' about headin' into town for a few hours. Had some things to take care of." The elder pony shrugged. "Didn't say what it was, though. Figure she probably went shoppin' or to see one of 'er other friends."

The elder Apple paused.

"But if that was the case, I always figured she'd take ya along fer that..."

"Oh..." The pegasus's ears wilted and she looked towards the door. "Th-Thanks..."

Granny Smith set the sink to drain and turned to the pegasus. There was a wisdom that hung over her... experience that was almost tangible.

"Did somethin' happen last night?" the elder pony asked. "Applejack didn't seem herself at breakfast. Awful quiet all mornin'..."

Granny looked at her inquisitively.

Rainbow sighed and trudged defeatedly towards the front door. "I have a feeling it was my fault..."

Lala Land

Angel stamped his foot in contemplation, staring at the checkerboard – and across at his most worthy adversary that he had ever faced. He was facing down the one being in all of Creation that could challenge his awesome intellect, might, and courage… and patience. The one creature that could outmaneuver him, outthink him, and outplay him at this one game he had mastered over the course of many years.

That was what he’d told Fluttershy anyway.

As Angel considered his next move, she watched Tank reach slowly – as he did with all things – into the bowl for a bit of the salad she had provided him.

It was all meant to be a temporary living arrangement while his real master rooted around for a suitable quarter on the farm. He seemed to appreciate her tender care as much as he ever did, however, and from how the tortoise described it, it was certainly quite a sight better than being scared out of his shell every time Winona came running up to play…

Rainbow Dash could take her time so long as that excitable dog was still around as far as he was concerned, he’d told her.

“It’s your move, Angel,” the honey-voiced pegasus mare reminded her pet softly.

The rabbit rubbed his paw across his chin and reached for one of the red pieces on the board.

Without warning, he squeaked and pointed somewhere behind Tank.

The tortoise spent about two minutes turning to see what it was…

Angel took the opportunity to switch a few red and black pieces on the checkerboard, and grinned smugly.

“Angel…” Fluttershy scolded firmly.

The rabbit frowned and, with a frustrated huff, kicked the game and its pieces across the length of the room, before stomping off to parts unknown.

The pegasus giggled. “Guess you win again, Tank.”

The tortoise paused a moment and grunted in satisfaction.

A gentle knocking came at the door, and Fluttershy turned her head, pricking her ears at the unexpected interruption.

“Who could that be?”

Crossing the room, Fluttershy opened the door.

Applejack stood on the other side of the threshold, a storm cloud hanging over her head.

Her smile of greeting was a false one. “H-howdy, sugarcube…”

Fluttershy blinked and quickly remembered her manners. “O-oh! Hello, Applejack. Umm… what brings you here?” She paused. “I mean, n-not that you’re not welcome here anytime of course…”

“Uhh… well…” The farmgirl shuffled in-place. “I was wonderin’ if I could maybe… talk with ya a little bit about somethin’… somethin’ private.”

Sudden realization struck Fluttershy like a flying checkerboard.

“Oh, goodness! It isn’t the baby, is it?”

Applejack blinked and quickly shook her head. “Oh no. Nothin’ like that…” She bit her lip and looked around. “It’s just… look, would it be okay if I came in for a spell? I don’t really feel like talkin’ about it out here…”

“Oh! O-of course! Please!” the pegasus said, leading Applejack indoors and to the couch.

The farmpony smiled and pat Tank gently on his head as she passed.

Fluttershy laid across the cushion of the sofa.

Applejack remained standing as her eyes turned to the pegasus.

“It’s… about Rainbow…”

Shop 'til it Drops (part 1)

“Ain’t you ready yet?”

Rainbow’s brow twitched as she stared into the mirror. “Yeah, yeah, gimme a minute.”

“I swear, it’s always some dang thing with ya…”

She ignored the farmpony standing outside the bathroom door and swept her wing through her mane once again. All the hairs settled to the left side of her head.

“Nope,” she said, scowling at her reflection.

“C’mon, Rainbow! Yer takin’ longer to get ready than Rarity does!”

“Am not!” She leaned her head forward and nodded up and down rapidly. Her mane settled straight, favoring the right side a bit. She flicked her tail out to ruffle it a bit, and smirked. “There!”

Her eyes met Applejack’s annoyed gaze as she opened the door.

“Y’know, you could just run around the house a couple times.”

“Oh, get real! If I’m gonna be dragged to Canterlot for a shopping trip, I’ve gotta have the ‘max-awesome’ look – and awesomeness takes time, babe!”

“You better have ‘max-horsepower’ too if’n we wanna catch the train! It leaves in half-an-hour!”

“Cool your jets, AJ. We’ve got plenty of time!”

“Only if ya get yer flank in gear and start beatin' dirt!”

The two bolted out of the house after grabbing snacks for the trip and their respective bit purses, and scorched earth up the path towards Ponyville.

They made a race of it like they did with everything else in their lives, jockeying for first place, leaping over carts and bystanders. To any passersby, nothing was different from the norm. Only those with sharp eyes and who particularly knew the duo well could recognize that Applejack had begun lagging behind, and her pelt color was a bit paler than normal.

If anypony took notice, they said nothing.

Rainbow Dash bolted to the ticket counter and slid to a stylish stop, kicking up dust at her hooves.

“Made it! A winner is me!”

She looked over her withers to find Applejack just trotting breathlessly up the steps a few pony lengths behind her.

She couldn’t remember a time where she had ever beaten her wife so handily at anything. It was… disconcerting.

She turned back to the ticket window and placed a hoofful of bits on the counter. “Two for the morning Canterlot Express.”

Rainbow turned back to her wife and frowned, receiving her with a hug around the neck.

“You okay?”

Applejack panted. “Fine…” she replied, fanning herself with her hat. “Don’t know where all my energy went all of a sudden, though.”

She fidgeted. “Probably ‘cause you were up all morning doing chores and I wasn’t. That’s all,” she said encouragingly.

She knew she was lying.

“Yeah,” the farmpony smirked, her breathing evening out. “That’s probably it…”

Rainbow led them to the train platform and took a seat on one of the benches, patting the spot next to her.

Applejack looked around to be sure they were alone, and snuggled up under her partner’s wing.

Neither said anything. The pegasus couldn’t tell if it was a comfortable silence, or one where they were each was just waiting for the other to say something first. It was hard, however, to believe the latter when her mate looked so content cuddled against her.

Smiling, Rainbow glimpsed around to be sure they were still alone, then nuzzled the earth pony’s muzzle. “Kid’s taking a lot out of us. We were never this busy a week ago.”

“Mmmm…” Applejack purred pleasantly.

She smiled and brushed her wing along her mate’s back, eliciting further noises of appreciation.

A glimpse at the clock showed the time to be 9:47. Not long until the train arrived. She turned back to her wife and gave her a soft kiss.

“You realize this is the first chance we’ve gotten to relax together since we found out you were preggers?”

“Mmm-hmm…” Applejack moaned tiredly, nuzzling into her soft coat.

Rainbow Dash chuckled and encircled her wife with her forehooves. “I’ll shut up now.”

“Mmmm…”

Comfortable silence it was. At least, it was for a minute…

With a sharp, sudden gasp, Rainbow Dash inhaled half the air in a twelve block radius, and grabbed Applejack before darting down on the protective side of the bench.

“Hey—!”

The pegasus shoved a hoof up against the earth pony’s lips to silence her surprised protest.

“Shhh! Keep it down!” she demanded in a whisper.

Applejack’s bright green eyes blinked.

Rainbow leaned in closer. “Intruders at six o’clock!”

The earth pony pushed her hoof from her lips. “Waitaminute. Yer six o’clock or mine?”

“Mine! Duh!”

Applejack began to sit up.

“Don’t look!” Rainbow Dash whispered shrilly, squeezing her tightly against her.

“Well, who is it?”

“It’s Twilight and the other girls!”

Green eyes distant with onset of confusion, her mate scratched her freckled cheek. “Wait, I don’t get it. Why’re we panickin’? They know we’re together.”

Twilight and their closest friends had been the only ponies to know of her and Applejack’s relationship since the beginning. A few other mare couples had picked up on it and kept it hush-hush to that point.

That, however, wasn’t what worried the pegasus.

“We’re supposed to be panicking ‘cause Pinkie Pie’s gonna wanna know what we’re doing at the train station waiting for the Canterlot Express on a Saturday morning!”

Applejack blinked.

“Then there’ll be questions… lots and lots of questions.”

“Yeah, I can see how that might get bad…”

“There’s a bench over here, girls!” Rainbow heard Twilight’s hoofsteps approaching. The ‘fwomp’ of a bag landing just behind her head and the contented sigh froze her like a statue. Rainbow held a hoof to her lips and shushed her.

Applejack nodded, eyes nervous and shifty.

“I can’t believe how beautiful it is!” she heard Rarity complimented. The swish in the air gave her a vision of the fashionista fanning herself. “I can hardly believe it’s so early in the spring!”

“Maybe we should have invited Applejack and Rainbow Dash along. They like good weather more than anypony,” she heard Fluttershy say.

“Oh, I don’t think that would have worked out, girls.”

“Why not?” Pinkie’s excitable voice said. “It’s not like there’s a lot of applebucking to do yet! And we hardly ever get to see them anymore!”

“Indeed. Every since those two traded vows, they’ve become rarer than a vein of baby blue sapphires.”

“I’ve been meaning to make my way over there to give Winona her checkup, but Angel’s been rather demanding lately.”

“And I don’t have anypony to go pranking with anymore!” A balloon deflated somewhere. “It’s no fun when you don’t have anypony to laugh with.”

“I would have invited them. It’s just that, the last time I went over to Sweet Apple Acres on the weekend, those two were up to things that would have probably involved a public indecency charge.”

Applejack’s mortified face lit up like an apple and she buried herself in Rainbow’s chest.

“Darling! You... you caught them?”

“Oh… my…”

“Heeheeheeheehee!”

“Yeah, yeah. I caught them. They were just as humiliated as I was, though. And it’s not like I saw too much.”

“I should certainly hope not! Walking in on a pair of lovers like that…” Rarity’s voice paused ominously. “It does make me wonder, however, what you did see.”

“Rarity! Shame on you! Like I would ever share the details of such a thing!”

Applejack softly breathed in relief.

“I mean, it’s not like I got a good look before I left or anything. It was just Rainbow Dash on top of Applejack, really…”

Rainbow smugly grinned and nodded. Sure as hay was.

Her wife scowled and shoved her hoof roughly against her chest.

She noticed the reason. The conversation her friends were having had an unfortunate reaction on her wings.

Rainbow clenched her eyes shut and tried to envision colts, bloody murder, Granny Smith in a bikini – anything to keep the problem from getting worse.

“Oh! Here comes the train!” Pinkie said.

“Goodness. I’m glad we made it on time.” The four friends stood up and hoofed it over to the platform edge as the express screeched to a stop.

Rainbow Dash sighed quietly.

“Now what the hay do we do?!” Applejack whispered.

“Uhhh… get on at the other end of the train?” she asked, beads of sweat speckling her brow.

“Are you nuts?! They’re gonna see us if we move!”

“Well if we don’t move, we miss the train!”

“We’ll just go another time then!”

Rainbow frowned. “Buck that! I already paid for the tickets! This is our train; we’re going!”

Applejack squirmed.

“Boarding call for the Canterlot Express! Please have your tickets ready!”

The pegasus cast her eyes around frantically and tapped her hoof against her chin. She spied a conductor’s uniform wrapped in plastic laying across a pile of luggage.

“AJ, how do you feel about being a pain in my butt?”

“Huh?”

***

“Guh,” she heard Applejack say beneath the long conductor trench coat. “I don’t think whoever owns this thing bathes regularly.”

“Shhhh! We’re almost there!” she whispered harshly, pushing past short lines of ponies showing up for the train.

A young filly gawked at the pair as they trudged past.

“Mommy? What’s wrong with that pony?”

The mother grabbed her child around the head. “Don’t look at it, sweetie.”

Rainbow grimaced. Okay, so it hadn’t been a perfect plan, but Twilight and the others standing towards the front of the train hadn’t thrown so much as a glance their direction. With Applejack’s forelegs up on her flank, it was hard to tell, other than from the lump behind her, that there was a second pony up the coat from a distance.

The conductor held out his hoof to the duo as they approached.

“Ticket… uh… tickets… please,” he said, blinking at the spectacle.

Rainbow rummaged around for the tickets in the coat pocket.

“I-I’m sorry, Miss, but… what is…?”

She flashed him one look. “Uhh… b-butt cancer?”

Applejack whacked her on the rump under the coat.

“O-oh, I’m so sorry,” he said flatly, eyelid twitching.

She shoved both tickets into his hoof, receiving an odd look in turn. His experience told him that most ponies trying to sneak on a train would try to sneak on with one ticket only. He shrugged and Rainbow hastily claimed the stubs before stepping past him, her “tumor” stumbling after her.

“Th-thank you?”

As soon as they had found a seat nearest the caboose, Rainbow burst out of the hot trench coat and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Next time…” her wife said, brushing back her mane and sneering at her, “you get to be the butthead.”

“Hey, come on! They didn’t see us, right?”

“Don't figure so." Applejack snorted. "I never took Twilight to be blind and clueless.”

“Oh, would you relax? Two hours from now, and we’ll be home free. Twilight and the girls’ll never see us in a station as packed as Canterlot Terminal. We just have to stay right here,” she said, patting the seat on the bench next to her.

Applejack sighed and softly rubbed her temple before accepting the seat.

“Y’know, eventually they’re gonna find out, one way or another.” She softly rubbed her hoof over her stomach. “It ain’t exactly gonna be hard to guess why I’m gettin’ so fat eventually.”

Rainbow sighed and lowered her head, wrapping a wing around her mate. “Yeah… I know.” She gave her wife a look. “I’d just rather not jump right into it with them, y’know?”

Tilting her head softly, Applejack leaned against the pegasus’s shoulder. “Why’s that, darlin’?”

“Well, Rarity’s a gossip queen for one. I don’t know how much I trust her to keep it to herself. And even if she does, the maternity crap she’ll start making for you is gonna tip somepony off eventually.” She blinked. “And then you’ve got evil genius-Twilight. I don’t know how much I’d appreciate her poking at your gut with magicky-sciencey stuff.”

The thought of Twilight nudging her belly with some kind of magic rod-thingy obviously didn't sit well with the earth pony. She shivered. "Thanks for makin' yer point..."

"And don't forget Pinkie. We'd never get a moment's rest again until we told her she could be our foalsitter. And then there would be party ideas and cakes with the number of days left until the birthday and visiting all the time to feel your stomach and ask if she missed anything..."

"Uh-huh..."

“And if somepony with a clue ever corners Fluttershy, our secret’s as good as out.”

"Okay! Okay! I get it..." Applejack sighed and rubbed her forehead. "We'll just lay low 'til we lose 'em."

Oh, sure. It sounded that simple.

Author's Note

Prompt by: Lilith Evanson