Paradise

While Pinkie played with the dogs outside, Applejack stayed inside and looked around the house. It was decorated tastefully but lightly, mostly with copies of modern art paintings and sculptures. There was a fireplace and sitting on the mantle were several pictures. There was one with Scoria and another mare, assumedly the other aunt, who still remained nameless.

Scoria walked over and joined her. “That’s Willow,” she informed Applejack, seeing where the mare was staring.

“Oh,” Applejack said, passing her eyes over a picture of the two mares in white dresses. It was a wedding picture. “How long have you two been married?”

Scoria hummed. “Three years. We moved out here about five years ago.”

“From where?”

“All over the place. We were traveling for a long while, and then when we got married we settled down, as the saying goes.”

Applejack turned her attention to the other pictures, one being an action shot of an extremely young Pinkie and a younger Scoria dancing. “What’s this?”

“Dance lessons.”

“You taught her?”

Scoria laughed. “For a year or two—she quickly grew much more talented than me. Won every competition she was in.”

“I never knew,” Applejack muttered, intrigued to learn such a seemingly small part of Pinkie’s foalhood, yet one she never knew. She suddenly realized that there was a lot that she didn’t know, about Pinkie’s past. Why was that? Had it just never come up in conversation? It certainly wasn’t because of a lack of interest.

“AJ!” The door slammed shut behind Pinkie as she burst inside the house. Both Applejack and Scoria jumped. “I totally forgot!”

She grabbed Applejack and dragged her up the stairs to their bedroom, and then started furiously shuffling through her saddlebags after the obligatory burst of confetti and balloons sprung from their depths. It didn’t even freak Applejack out, anymore. That was something to be proud of, she thought with a fond smile as she watched Pinkie burry her entire upper body and head into a space that they shouldn’t have fit into.

“Found it!” Pinkie warbled, extracting herself from the apparently bottomless saddlebags. She presented her find to Applejack. “I made it for you.”

Applejack stared at the yellow, lumpy and deformed… thing… that Pinkie shoved into her face. It was probably a duck. Maybe. Or at least an impressionist’s take on it, since it had absolutely no resemblance to the animal. The bill was uneven and the head and body were lumpy, probably the result of too much stuffing in some areas and not enough in others. She could see the stitches that held the eyes in place.

“It’s gorgeous,” Applejack deadpanned. “I’ll call it Picasso.”

“You’re mean!” Pinkie pouted teasingly. “I worked hard on it, and, well, mouthstitching has never been my strong suit. I tried to get Rarity to teach me, but she stopped after some fires started at her place.”

Applejack blinked and tilted her head. It was a funny thing, Pinkie having a skill that she wasn’t prodigiously talented in. She took the duck from Pinkie.

Huh.

“What’s the occasion?”

“No reason. Just felt like making something for a friend,” Pinkie chirped.

Applejack laughed, because the thing was hideous and Pinkie was adorable. “I’ll treasure it for the rest of my life,” she said with a flourish.

“You’re mean. Mean, mean, mean!” Pinkie cried, hitting her over the head with every exclamation with a pillow from the bed. Applejack ducked, protecting her head, and grabbed the other pillow.

Together they shrieked and laughed as they fought, and then, when they’d exhausted themselves, they collapsed on the bed with fading chuckles and stared up at the ceiling together.

“I’m really glad you decided to come along, AJ,” Pinkie said, and then nuzzled into Applejack’s side. She was snoring within seconds.

Applejack smiled up at the ceiling, feeling pleasant tingles spread all over her body, but restraining herself from identifying what caused them, too scared to take that step yet. She fell asleep with her face nuzzled into Pinkie’s mane.

It was a slam of the downstairs door and a loud call that woke them up several hours later. Pinkie jumped out of the bed immediately, apparently wide awake in seconds. It was more than a little intimidating.

“Aunt Willow’s here!” she enthused, and bolted downstairs. Applejack smacked her lips; feeling dehydrated from sleeping in the middle of the day in the middle of summer, and got up also. She walked down the stairs much slower, senses still adjusting.

“There she is,” Pinkie announced, and then pushed Applejack, head to butt, to her other aunt. “Aunt Willow, Applejack. Applejack, Aunt Willow.”

“Nice to meet you,” Applejack yawned, and then blushed. “Pardon. Just got up.”

Willow smiled tightly. “It’s alright.”

Applejack got the distinct impression that she was not liked, for some reason. They shook awkwardly, and then Willow turned back to Pinkie. “When did you two get in?”

“Last night,” said Pinkie.

“Mm, sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Well, if either of you want to help me in the kitchen, I’d love for somepony to make the pasta,” Scoria announced, feeling the conversation run its course.

Pinkie’s hoof shot up. “AJ and I will do it!”

Without waiting for Applejack’s consent in said making of pasta, she grabbed her and hauled her into the kitchen. Applejack suddenly realized that she didn’t, in fact, have any say in anything anymore, and that she was probably going to be doing a lot of things, regardless of if she wanted to or not, simply because Pinkie gave her no choice.

It wasn’t a problem.

Pinkie wouldn’t steer her wrong.

Willow’s eyes followed the two out of the room, but she didn’t speak until they were out of earshot.

“I don’t like her,” she said immediately.

“You say that about everypony Pinkie’s ever brought to meet us.”

“Yep, and none have come to make a second visit, so I was right.”

“You’re the most overprotective aunt I’ve ever met,” Scoria said fondly, nuzzling her.

“One of us has to be.”

The two of them made their way to the kitchen, and observed as Pinkie and Applejack worked together. They were a natural team in the kitchen, respectful of each others’ talents and knowledge, never ordering or even suggesting, but instead trustful enough to request things of each other.

“This is super weird,” Pinkie hummed to Applejack as they worked side-by-side, brushing against each other as they busied the counter.

“What is?” Applejack asked, mindful of the fact that they were being watched.

“Every one of our friends that I’ve ever baked or cooked with—”

Applejack laughed. “I know, right? You have to steer them like cattle.”

Together they chuckled at their friends’ expenses, and went back to work. They ended up finishing the entire meal together, too caught up in the mutual hobby.

Their companionship was lost during dinner, however, and Applejack sat in awkwardness, listening to Pinkie talk to both of her aunts about things that she didn’t know about, memories and inside jokes she was not a part of. It was alright, though. Applejack understood that Pinkie hadn’t seen her aunts in a while, and tried to not look too bored.

It suddenly hit her that Pinkie was literally her one and only friend for the summer and in moments like this she couldn’t turn to one of her other five friends to occupy herself until Pinkie paid attention to her again. Feeling stupid and needy, she stuffed herself with spaghetti, marveling at how her and Pinkie’s respective family recipes came together to create a taste that was both familiar, but unique. It was delicious.

“So, Applejack, tell me about yourself,” Scoria finally asked, and Applejack winced, feeling suddenly put on the spot.

“There’s not much to tell, really,” she said. “I was born, raised, and live, in Ponyville. I farm apples.”

“A farmer?” Willow asked, in a way that Applejack couldn’t read.

“Um, yes,” she said, and then frowned internally when she felt a shot of… was that embarrassment?

It should have been a shot of pride. She wasn’t ashamed of being a farmer, and certainly not ashamed of being an Apple.

“Applejack’s farm produces all kinds of neat stuff, right, AJ?” Pinkie prompted, and Applejack looked at her. Encouragement and genuine excitement shone in her eyes, as if this was the first time she’d heard about all the things that the Apple farm did, and was eager to learn all about it. Grinning and not taking her eyes off Pinkie, Applejack slowly began to talk, and in minutes the unease of being sorta interrogated by Pinkie’s aunts washed away from her.

She talked at great length about cider season and zap apple season: what went into them, all the products they made, what they sold for, and even some funny memories from the the two respective busiest times during her family’s farm. She talked until the table was cleared off, and then finally she finished with a sigh and a “well, that's just about everything”.

Pinkie applauded and then dragged her outside to do… something. Applejack didn’t really hear because she was too busy focusing on the markedly impressed expressions on Scoria’s and Willow’s faces.

“You know your niece is about as gay as you, right?” Willow said later, while the two of them watched from the kitchen window as Applejack and Pinkie frolicked with the dogs and sprayed each other with the hose.

“Of course. I didn’t tell you? I’ve known since she came to me and asked to learn all the leading parts in dances so that she could dance ‘with all the pretty fillies’.”

“Then you know that she’s head over tail for that friend of hers.”

“I’ve known it for a while. She wrote me a letter, once, and it just snowballed from there.”

Willow pecked her cheek. “Just checking.”

“Pinks, it’s freezing out here,” Applejack moaned. It was early morning, just after sunrise, and they stood on the beach. Pinkie had hauled Applejack out of bed before sunrise, insisting that it was unacceptable that the two of them had been in Baltimare for three days already and had not visited the beach once, and that she sought to rectify this fact.

“Can we go inside and wait until it’s warmer? And until the sand isn’t trying to peel all the skin off our bones?”

“I like it!” Pinkie shouted over the strong wind. Applejack sat, and folded her forelegs over her chest in both a show of displeasure, and to keep herself warm. Her mane whipped in the wind, untamed by the usual ribbons, for some reason. Why hadn’t she put them in, again?

She watched as Pinkie walked over to the water and let the waves splash against her hooves. Sighing, Applejack got up to join her, but jumped back when the water hit her.

“It’s freezing!” she complained, eyeing the waves distrustfully. Pinkie walked over and hugged her, nuzzling gently.

“Better?” she teased, and Applejack swallowed, unsure if she should inspect the contact as being deeper than friendship or not. She nodded silently, gingerly removing herself from analyzing the sensations of tingles spreading through her.

She coughed and peeled herself away from Pinkie. “I’m heading back to the house.”

Pinkie pouted. “But…”

“We’ll come back,” Applejack promised. “Just, when there’s other ponies here and it’s not cold, okay?”

Get a hold of yourself, she told herself, not liking the way her heart beat loud enough to be heard in her ears.