The scenery of Equestria rushed past the window of the train. The ride from Ponyville to Manehatten was a few hours, travelling across across some of the more pleasant fields and through several small towns. Applejack had not done much traveling in her life aside from the trips she’d taken with her friends, almost always to large and well known cities like Manehatten or Dodge Junction.
Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, kept pointing out the window at some of the towns they passed. She had been to all of them and then some, and, as was per usual for Pinkie Pie, she was able to remember everypony’s name, birthday, hat size, and favorite color.
Applejack listened to all that Pinkie Pie had to say about each town as they passed, but often had to tap her on the shoulder and ask her about the upcoming town or else she was liable to continue on an explanatory rant through the next two or three. Applejack enjoyed the informative niblets of her marefriend’s eclectic knowledge but if Pinkie got backed up she would likely talk about the various towns over their entire trip to the beach. Applejack loved the conversations she had with Pinkie, but the party pony could talk up a storm if given the chance.
“Oh oh oh!” Pinkie began to bounce up and down in her seat, her face pressed against the window. “Applejack! Applejack! Applejack!”
“Yeah, sweety pie?”
“We’re here!” Pinkie Pie tapped the window excitedly with her hoof. Applejack looked out and, sure enough, Manehattan was in view, and coming up fast. The mares shared a look and Pinkie Pie pecked Applejack on the lips while they embraced.
“Ah’m excited for our vacation, sweety pie,” Applejack said, resting her head on Pinkie’s shoulder.
“I know, me too!” Pinkie Pie said, squeezing Applejack’s shoulders and beaming a bright smile. “Our first vacation together! And the beach! I love the beach, don’t you?”
“Darn tootin’," Applejack said, “Warm sun, sound of the ocean, all the booze ah can drink. Eeeeyup, relaxin’ is just what the doctor ordered.”
“Don’t forget the beach parties and beach volleyball and boogie boarding and body surfing and fiestas!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly. “Oh! We should throw a beach party while we’re there! I haven’t thrown a beach party since I was a little filly! Its a good thing I brought my emergency beach party kit.”
“Partyin’s fine,” Applejack said, “but ah really would like to get some relaxin’ in while we’re here.”
“Of course!” Pinkie Pie said. “A nice relaxing party!”
Applejack only rolled her eyes in response, but smiled all the same. Pinkie Pie was always a bundle of energy and, despite her preference for a quiet vacation, there’s nopony else she'd rather be alone with for a few days than Pinkie Pie.
The pair headed up the stairs to the second floor, Applejack carrying most of the heavier luggage while Pinkie bounced ahead, opening the door and holding it for her marefriend, giving Applejack a playful bow as she entered.
The farmpony stopped abruptly as she entered, though, and her brow creased as she noticed the pair of twin beds that occupied the room. Her worries about sleeping arrangements with her partner were interrupted, though, as a pink blur shot past her, jolting the beds together with a force normally associated with the party cannon Pinkie seemed to haul nearly everywhere.
Pinkie turned to Applejack with her ever lively expression and used her hoof to shut the farmpony’s slack jawed mouth.
“Silly hotel ponies!” she chirped, grabbing Applejack and pulling her to the now adjoined beds.
“How are we supposed to have super-fun snuggle time with such teensy-tiny separate beds?”
Applejack simply grinned and buried her muzzle in Pinkie’s mane, intent on sharing her marefriend’s idea.
A short while later, the two ponies wriggled themselves free from the mess of sheets that had tangled around them, and Applejack poked Pinkie on the nose.
“Okay, time to get out there and enjoy that sunshine.”
The couple walked to the beach with their beach-going-things split between them. Applejack carried the umbrella and blanket, while Pinkie Pie carried the basket of snacks and drinks. The tan, sandy beach was clean and bright, and both ponies let out a sigh of deep satisfaction at the distinct smells and comforting sounds of the ocean.
Applejack laid the blanket on the sand far enough from the water so the waves wouldn't get up to them.
She reclined on the blanket, setting out the umbrella to shade her head and forelegs while her hindquarters were left to bask in the sun, and she let out a quiet breath of serenity. Pinkie, on the other hoof, had slid the picnic basket under the umbrella’s shade and was trotting a quick circle around their blanket as she looked around.
“Oooh! Applejack! Look! Volleyball! Beach volleyball! Its like regular volleyball but sandier!” she exclaimed.
“Ah hear ya,” Applejack said with a yawn. “You go on and join ’em. Ah’ll come join ya in a little." As Pinkie bounced off towards the volleyball game, Applejack closed her eyes and yawned, ready to take a nap. The sound of the surf was peaceful and the gulls were being rather quiet, their squawking distant enough to be more soothing than annoying.
Applejack did not know how much time passed while she napped. When Pinkie Pie came back calling her name, Applejack figured it had to be a couple of hours. The lower half of her body was now covered in the shade while her upper body was now uncomfortably warm by the sunlight. Her hat had been keeping her eyes covered, which was probably the only reason she hadn’t woken sooner.
“Huh, wha?” she muttered as she rolled over onto her hooves.
“Applejack! Applejack!" Pinkie was saying in an excited tone of voice. "Look who I met at the volleyball game!"
Fixing her hat and wiping her eyes with her hoof, Applejack blinked against the sun and covered her eyes with her hoof until Pinkie Pie and her blue-maned friend came into focus. It was Vinyl Scratch, the DJ from Ponyville.
“Oh, hey there, Vinyl,” Applejack said.
“Hey, AJ,” Vinyl Scratch said with a grin. “I was surprised to see Pinkie join the volleyball game.”
“What are the odds that she’d be here on vacation too!?” Pinkie Pie asked. Applejack assumed that it was rhetorical and did not bother to answer.
“Always nice to meet some friends at the beach," Vinyl said.
“We’re gonna go boogie boarding!” Pinkie Pie said with a big smile. “I’ve never been boogieboarding but it sounds like such a fun thing to do because its a fun thing to say! Boogieboarding! Boogieboarding! Boogieboarding!” she giggled, “Wanna come?”
“Uhhhh,” Applejack said, glancing to the side. “Ah’ll, uh, ah’ll join ya later," She said, trying to find a nicer way to say that she’d rather take another nap than go out in the water, but Pinkie Pie did not seem to need an explanation.
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie said, giving Applejack a quick hug before trotting off towards the water with Vinyl Scratch. Applejack watched them leave and felt a little guilty for not being with her marefriend on their first vacation, but it was also Applejack’s first vacation in a long time and she really needed to unwind.
As the sun was setting over the beach and Applejack was packing up the blanket and umbrella, Pinkie Pie returned with her mane wet and her smile glowing. Literally.
“Loo ah ish!” Pinkie said as she beamed her white teeth at Applejack. Pink, green, and blue light seemed to be coming from within her mouth. A moment later, Pinkie Pie stuck out her tongue, on which sat three small sticks each glowing with a different colored light.
Pinkie Pie spat them onto her hoof before she continued talking. “Vinyl gave them to me! They’re party sticks! Aren’t they so awesome!? I’m totally going to use them at my next party!”
“Heh, that’s real nifty," Applejack said as Pinkie put them in the basket. They bundled everything up and began to walk back to their hotel. All the while they walked, Pinkie told Applejack about what she and Vinyl had done that day. Volleyball, boogieboarding, bought some ice cream, built sandcastles, and a whole slew of things that Pinkie Pie had wanted to do. Applejack listened earnestly for a while, but by the time they were in their room she was a little less enthusiastic about hearing how awesome Vinyl Scratch was There was also some guilt edging-in on her psyche because she knew that she should have spent more time with Pinkie Pie than she actually had.
“And tomorrow,” Pinkie continued, “She’s going to teach me how to surf! It’s gonna be great!”
“Sure sounds like you two had a hoot and a half," Applejack said. She hung her hat up by the door to the room and crawled onto the bed where Pinkie Pie was already laying down. Applejack leaned in to give Pinkie Pie a kiss, but she was already asleep, snoring softly. Applejack frowned, having hoped to spend this night with her marefriend in a more enjoyable way. Instead, she pulled the blankets up over both of them and wrapped her hooves around Pinkie Pie, laying down with her face in the curly pink mane and drifting off to sleep.
The next day, Applejack roused herself from sleep earlier than she would have liked. It was not the crack of dawn as it would have been on the farm, but it was still earlier than her ideal vacation sleep-in; to that end, she was going with Pinkie to the beach early so that she could watch Vinyl her a lesson in surfing.
On the beach, Applejack was sitting in the sand while Vinyl showed Pinkie Pie the best way to stand on a surfboard. When Pinkie gave it a try, Applejack’s posture became a little more rigid. Vinyl was being very hooves-on with Pinkie Pie, moving her legs into the right stance and pushing her lightly to get her to shift her weight properly.
No no, Applejack thought, trying to calm herself. Ah ain’t gonna be one of them jealous marefriends who causes trouble. Nope. Not gonna say a thing.
Pinkie Pie giggled when Vinyl wrapped her hooves around her waist to teach her how to lean for control and balance while out on the water. Applejack felt her teeth start to grind together, and she shook her head to try and get the unwelcome thoughts out of her head.
“You okay, AJ?” Pinkie called.
“Uh, yeah!” Applejack called back. “Just still wakin’ up!” She watched as Pinkie shrugged, letting Vinyl go back to teaching her methods to control her balance. Why was watching Pinkie and Vinyl grating on her nerves like this? She usually wasn’t this sort of pony. Then again, she never felt the way for another pony the way she felt for Pinkie, either.
Watching Vinyl be so carefree with how she held onto Pinkie was beginning to grate on AJ's nerves. She wasn't jealous, per se, she just felt that Vinyl should at the very least be more aware of the fact that she was very close to anotherpony’s marefriend. Close, touching... too close.
AJ tensed up as she watched the two banter casually about how to stay on the surfboard once it was on the water, somewhat tuning out the important tips, but Pinkie's giggles were almost deafening in her ears. Pinkie laughed at everything… Applejack knew that she shouldn't be so aware that she was laughing for somepony else now. That would be absurd.
Yet... here she was, having this inner debate with herself.
Getting up from the blanket, Applejack took hold of another surf board and pushed it down towards the water.
"This can't be too hard... ya' jus' gotta stay on the board, ride the wave, and get back to the beach in one piece, right?"
Walking past the other two mares, Applejack made her way to the water. The wet sand against her hooves felt nice, right up until she had to will herself to swim out a long ways, or at least far enough to be able to catch any proper wave. It was only halfway out that she realized that this might not have been the best idea. Still, the drive to try and show up Vinyl drove her to keep paddling out.
“Applejack!” Pinkie’s voice called from behind. Glancing behind her, Applejack saw Vinyl Scratch and Pinkie riding a surfboard, together, out towards her. Pinkie Pie’s eyes were wide and her grin was threatening to stretch her face to a breaking point. “I didn’t know you could surf!”
“Aww hay, sure ah can!” Applejack lied through her teeth. She had never set hoof on a surfboard before a few minutes earlier, but she wanted Pinkie Pie to know that she could be just as wild and energetic as she needed to be for her.
“Awesome!” Pinkie said. Her voice, normally rather loud and easy to hear, was drowned out by the sound of rising water breaking in the distance. Applejack looked ahead of her and saw a wave rising.
“Horseapples," she muttered as she tried to turn her surfboard around and paddle away. As she moved, the wave continued to approach and she felt the subtle sensation of herself being lifted. Rising on the water, Applejack stood up on the surfboard and tried to balance on all four hooves, desperately thinking about what she’d seen Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch doing before she, in retrospect, lost her mind.
“W-w-w-ooooooooaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!” She yelled as the board zigged and zagged through the water. The ocean spray on the back of her neck was too much of a reminder of the wall of water right behind her.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Pinkie Pie’s squeel came from not far away. Applejack glanced to the side, watching Pinkie Pie crouch on the surfboard as Vinyl stood up on her hind legs and controlled the board expertly.
A few second later Applejack felt herself come to a stop. She was crouched on the board, shaking slightly, her hat drenched and covering her eyes. After realizing that she was still she fixed her hat and opened her eyes. Somehow against all odds, she had made it back to shore and the surfboard was lodged in the sand.
“Applejack!” PInkie Pie said, tackling Applejack from the side “Applejack! That was awesome! That was the coolest thing I ever saw! I never saw anypony make it all the way back to shore like that before and you did it just like standing there not doing anything it was so cooooool!”
“Heh!” Applejack chuckled, spitting out some wet sand that had gotten into her mouth when Pinkie knocked her down into the beach. “It weren’t nothing,” she said, understanding now why Rainbow Dash was so boisterous. Normally Applejack didn’t go for that sort of thing since her ego was in control, but Pinkie’s admiration meant more to her than she could explain.
“Can you boogieboard also?” Pinkie Pie asked once Applejack was up on her hooves again. “After we’re done surfing Vinyl and I were gonna boogieboard again!”
“Of course ah can," Applejack said, feeling her stomach clench a little. What had happened to her relaxing vacation? A mare with a spiky blue mane had to appear and show Pinkie Pie a good time, and Applejack couldn’t just let it be. That’s what happened.
That day became an incredibly long day for Applejack. Her second and third attempts at surfing were far less amazing than her first and lent great credence to the term “Beginner’s Luck”. After that she was boogieboarding with Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch. It was not as difficult as surfing, but it involved staying half-submerged in the water all the time and she could not keep up with the others to try and keep Pinkie Pie from focusing on Vinyl for too long.
Every time she was preparing to call it quits and get back to some good ol’ relaxing, she would see Pinkie and Vinyl say something to each other and start laughing. Against her better judgement and her best intentions, she felt upset and on the verge of angry each time that happened.
Boogieboarding was followed by volleyball. Volleyball was followed by frisbee. Then kite flying. Then racing. Swimming, snorkeling, water volleyball, boogieboarding again and beach volleyball again, the activities seemed endless. They took a short break for lunch, during which Applejack was able to enjoy a little bit of a lie-down but spent most of the time eating a copious amount of food, much to Pinkie Pie’s entertainment. That had been the highlight of the day and the rest of the afternoon was a repeat of the morning.
By the end of the day Applejack had to drag her hooves up the stairs to the hotel room, following the ever-chipper Pinkie Pie. Applejack was so tired that she could not even enjoy the cute bouncing that Pinkie Pie used, and she usually loved watching her bounce along.
When they got to their room, Pinkie Pie watched Applejack crawl onto their bed and stretch across it. She quirked her head to the side and looked at Applejack. She seemed more tired than usual, and Pinkie Pie usually saw her after a long day of farmwork.
“Did you have fun, honey?” Pinkie Pie asked, jumping onto the bed and sitting next to her.
“‘Course ah did, Sweety Pie," Applejack answered dishonestly, her eyes closed and a forced smile appearing on her lips.
Pinkie Pie heard the lie and decided to pry. “Are you… lying?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“‘Course ah ain’t.”
“Pinkie Promise that you-”
“Okay, fiiiiiine," Applejack groaned, taking her hat off of her head and tossing it over her shoulder. It landed on the coat rack by the door perfectly while she sat back up and gave Pinkie a tired frown.
“Ahm sorry that ah lied," Applejack said, “But, really Pinkie, ah was hopin’ this vacation would be more of a relaxin’ thing. Ah know ya’ll like to have fun, and you’ve got more energy than a pack of rabbits drinkin’ soda, but ahm used to movin’ around from dawn ‘till dusk.”
“Awww," Pinkie Pie said with a frown. “If you just wanted to relax you could have. You didn’t have to do anything if you didn’t want to.”
“Ah know,” Applejack admitted, running a hoof across her face to try and wipe her eyes, which she was sure still had some sand or salt water in them. “But… ah guess…” she did not want to say this part, but it needed to be said, “Ah was kinda jealous.”
“Jealous?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking quite surprised. “Jealous of what?”
“You ‘n Vinyl," Applejack said, “Ah mean, she was out there with ya, playin’ all yer games and showin’ ya a good time, bein’ a better friend than ah was.”
“Wait wait wait,” Pinkie said, giving Applejack an incredulous look. “Did you think that just because I was having fun with another pony that I would get feelings for them that could possibly come even remotely close to what you and I share?”
Applejack’s heart thumped a few times at what Pinkie said. Deep down she knew that that was not the case at all. She knew that she could have all but ignored Pinkie Pie their entire vacation and it would not have made their relationship any weaker.
“Maybe jealous isn’t the right word…” Applejack muttered, “Inadequate might be closer to home. Ah just didn’t wanna-” She was cut off from speaking when Pinkie Pie kissed her, forcing her to stop talking.
“Applejack,” Pinkie whispered after she pulled her face an inch from Applejack’s. “There is nopony more perfect for me, than you.”
“Pinkie Pie…” Applejack muttered before hugging her. “Ah love you so much, Sweetie Pie.”
“I love you more!” Pinkie said cheerily. “And if you’re not too tired, I know one more energetic activity we can do tonight," She added suggestively.
Applejack’s ears perked up and she smiled. “Oh… ah think ah can manage that much," She said with a wink. Pinkie Pie winked back, then grabbed a pillow off the bed and smacked Applejack across the face with it.
“Pillow fight!”
