Me Time

Applejack sat, still and silent, in her bed. Her eyes wandered with her thoughts, aimlessly tracing the patterns of her sheets. The shadows of her legs shifted as an errant breeze made the flame of her bedside lamp sputter. "Natural" light, she often found, helped her think, but today it was nothing but a distraction—one she was honestly thankful for.

Sadly, dancing shadows could only distract her for so long before her thoughts returned. She contemplated her actions over the past three weeks—her avid avoidance of conversation with her fashionable friend and hushed conversations with her younger sister—and wondered about the use of her time. For the most part, her schedule had been unchanged. She woke early and set herself to work, pruning and tilling and bucking apples from sun-up to noon before she stopped for lunch. After that it was more of the same, with the added responsibilities of caring for the various animals that lived on her estate.

There were times when she was ahead of the work. Sometimes she found herself hours ahead of schedule with the help of her family members. Of course, extra time was used to rewrite the schedule to account for the efficiency—a task that she would drag out as long as possible to keep herself occupied.

The farm mare turned her head, feeling a faint stiffness from her prolonged stillness. Her eyes settled on an ornate pair of saddlebags hanging from a hook on the wall. She stared somberly at the heavy looking bags, her head rising and falling with a slow breath.

Surprisingly, the owner of those bags hadn't asked for them back. She hadn't said anything about them actually. Or their contents. Applejack had expected Rarity to bring it up, at least discreetly, the next time they met, but the smiling unicorn had given no indication that she even remembered their existence. Indeed, she hadn't acted as though they spent a whole night talking about sex at all. It may as well have been a prolonged conversation about the weather for all the effect it had had on her attitude toward her earth pony friend. Applejack wasn't sure whether to be comforted or confused by it, but she was thankful at least that no one else seemed to change their behavior either. She wasn't suspicious that her confidant would have gossiped the story to anyone but embarrassment had always made her paranoid.

The freckled farmer blinked slowly. She moved her forelegs, busying them exploring the texture of her comforter. Then she flipped the sheets off of herself and pushed off the bed. Today was a day when the work had finished early, and she had been left with hours upon hours of time to herself. Her friends were busy or out of town. The spa had closed for renovations. The theater was only showing reruns of some old movie for its anniversary—one that that Granny had made her sit through as a filly. Applejack had found herself with half a day's worth of energy and no way to occupy herself.

That was what she thought as she unhooked the bags from the wall.

There was nothing to do. Apple Bloom was off with her crusader friends, Big Mac was doing whatever it was he did in town, Granny was at the theater the entire day watching her movie – there was no one, friend or family, to spend the time with. She threw horseshoes for a while before tiring of it, baked a pie or two for fun, and wrote up a list of groceries before realizing everything on it was available around the farm. Twice. She had done everything she could think to do.

This was her excuse as she set them on her bed.

Applejack paused for a moment with a hoof on the bed, considering returning the bags to the hook on the wall. She ran her tongue over her teeth in silent thought, once again busying herself with the stitching of her bed sheets.

She did not feel bad. Not necessarily. Rarity had explained time and time again that she was totally within her right to abstain from activities that made her uncomfortable. It was not a question of whether her avoiding the treatment her friend had suggested made her feel bad.

It was a question of whether she could actually attempt the treatments without having a heat stroke.

Applejack chewed her lip as she stared at the bags for another painfully long moment. Without a thought she flicked her hoof and one of the buttons was undone. She stood taller, reaching over the other side, and opened that bag as well. With a brief hesitation she took the bags in her hooves and lifted and turned them, dumping their contents onto her bed.

The orange apple farmer quickly pointed her attention somewhere else. Heat flooded her face and the gallop of her heartbeat filled her hears. She closed her eyes, steering her head back to the bed, then reopened them and forced herself to look at the box.

It was a stark, nondescript parcel, wrapped in twine, taller than wide – the same as it had been when Rarity had given it to her. Nothing of the packaging could give any indication as to its contents, but the knowledge of what it held was enough to make Applejack paranoid all the same. She looked at her door, ensuring it was locked, then back at the package. Again she was still, watching it with vacant eyes for a long stretch of time. She moved away from the bed to the door, physically testing the lock’s engagement and strength, then hesitantly made her way back.

Already her face was burning. The earth pony wiped her forehead with a sigh and climbed up onto her bed beside the mess of paper and packaging. She picked up one of the scrolls and unfurled it, running her eyes over the odd symbols and sigils inscribed within.

Applejack was no stranger to the language colloquially called Arcanum by most unicorns (despite it’s not actually being a secret). She had used scrolls similar to the one she held on occasions when she or her brother had injured themselves during busy harvest seasons. The spell was a familiar one, but no two ponies wrote their scrolls the same way. It took some study to realize just how Rarity had worded the scroll through her odd shorthand and surprisingly articulate hornwriting. Once she had worked it out, however, a simple word was all it took to extract the stored magic from the scroll.

Applejack felt her breath catch as magic filled her. The sensation was not entirely alien, but it was incredibly different from when magic was done upon her. This was her magic, amplified by the scroll with the intent of casting one very specific spell. She closed her eyes, focusing on the center of her forehead, and felt a warm tingling sensation reaching out through her skull into a phantom horn. The mare tested the magic, focusing on the scroll she had expended and lifting it with her channeled power. A small smile touched her lips as she waved the paper around, adjusting to the feeling of extending her innate magic beyond her body, then carefully set the blank parchment on the nightstand to her left. Her eyes went to the other scrolls, and they lifted off the bed, neatly arranged themselves in a pyramidal stack, and floated over to her dresser. A drawer opened and the rolls of paper settled inside. The drawer closed.

The pseudo-unicorn nodded her satisfaction to the dresser and turned her attention back to the bed. The smile left her face as she eyed the package once again. Almost without her guidance, the ribbon of twine untied itself and the crinkly brown paper began to unfold. Applejack stopped as the crackle became too loud, releasing her magical grip and opting to use her more dexterous hooves to stealthily open the package.

Several careful folds later, the paper fell away, and Applejack covered her reddening face as the true “package” came into sight.

The box itself was plastered with images of its charge. The front displayed the long silver bullet in its full glory, a small circular picture at the top including a close-up of its base. Applejack pursed her lips and rotated the box, her blush darkening as several smaller pictures showing the toy within at different angles met her eyes.

The Silver Surfer: 100% guaranteed to make a splash! Become a screamer or your money back!

“Land sakes,” Applejack groaned, covering her face.

She turned the box to view the back, finding more pictures displaying the unique features of the dildo and other such innuendo filled taglines. She rubbed her face, staring at the image of the thing inside the box. It took several seconds for her to realize she had been doing so, and she cleared her throat and took up the box her magic after. One more time she hesitated, then unlatched the top of the box and dumped its contents onto the bed in front of her.

The long metal rod dropped out of the box, crackling the papers it was packaged with as it flopped onto the bed. Applejack flinched as she felt its weight hit, moving her leg just a little further away from it. She took a breath as she ran her eyes over it, realizing that the box had not been exaggerating with annotation of *Actual size, and suddenly became acutely aware of the size of her own body. She took the dildo in her magic, lifting it from the bed and examining the smooth, rounded thing. She frowned, almost disheartened by its sheer size, but shook off the notion as quickly as it came. To be disappointed, after all, would mean she had expectations of it.

Carefully, Applejack set the dong on the bed and turned her attention to the papers. One was a scroll, one she had never seen before, while the other was a set of instructions. The farmer cocked her head, inwardly questioning what kind of instructions there could possibly be for such a thing, then read on.

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of the Silver Surfer: Platinum Edition! This special edition diletto is highly modular and can be adjusted for any number of methods of stimulation. Take note of the symbols around the base of the device.

Applejack looked back at the dildo, noticing the tiny images etched into the shaft above a ring at the base.

These symbols will note what mode the Silver Surfer: Platinum Edition is currently in. By default, the toy should be sleek and smooth. If this is not the case, please contact the manufacturer at the number included—

“Hmph,” Applejack sighed, skipping ahead to the word “scroll”.

The included scroll provides a soundproofing spell, capable of neutralizing all sounds entering or exiting a single room for up to two hours.

The mention of time made the farmer remember that her levitation spell would last less than thirty minutes more, and she hurriedly skimmed through the rest of the instructions. Each symbol, she gathered, indicated in some abstract way what the function of that specific mode was. Each mode was a latent enchantment that would activate when set, and could alter the shape, size, texture, or other basic properties of the dildo. Applejack’s deep blush persisted throughout reading through the small booklet, flaring at the end as she found an addition to the manual in a very familiar hornwriting.

The instructions don’t make note of this, but this toy has a self-lubricating enchantment that activates with heat. Wonderful for situations when some extra lubrication would be required. ;)

“For the love of. . . Did she. . . How did she. . .?” Applejack sputtered, thoroughly flustered. She was sure she had seen Rarity carry the package to the kitchen and set in her bags once it had arrived and the added instruction baffled her with its appearance.

But then, as she stared at them, the letters gradually faded and disappeared from the paper, the lopsided winking face lingering a moment longer than the rest before vanishing from the page. Applejack’s confusion faded with the letters, replaced with a fresh wave of embarrassment and annoyance. Rarity had, she realized, left a spell on the page to give her that message, and it had deactivated once it was read. Even being as far removed from a scholarly type pony as she would say she was, Applejack was knowledgeable enough to know that a unicorn’s magic never fully replenished while a spell remained active. Rarity, being as active and dependent on her magic as she was, likely wouldn’t notice the small influx of energy that dispelling her message would create at any time during the day, but in the morning Applejack just knew she would wake up a little more refreshed and peppy than she had been in about twenty three days.

Applejack whipped the instructional booklet across the room and glowered at it as it lay on the floor. She crossed her forelegs and silently fumed at the trick her fashion-fanatical friend had played on her. Angrily she scooped up the dildo and pushed it back into its box, folding it closed, and floated it into its resting place in the saddlebags on the wall.

“I swear,” she growled, massaging her face, “that mare’s gonna give me an ulcer someday.”

Applejack muscled her way through throngs of ponies walking, strolling, and striding purposefully along the main drag of Ponyville. She moved quickly but carefully, painfully aware that the cargo in her saddlebag no longer had the protective nondescript packaging she had received it in—if the bag were somehow to open, anypony passing by could catch a glimpse of what she was carrying through the streets. Briefly she wondered if Rarity would be so nervous in her situation, but, remembering the collection of toys she had alluded to, she doubted it.

The farmer’s fears went unrealized, and she was soon approaching the Carousel Boutique. She arrived at the door red-faced and annoyed but considerably calmer than she had been when she left her house. She reached to bang on the door, hesitated, and then knocked as calmly as she could manage.

A muffled word, Applejack assumed “Coming!”, answered the knock. The orange earth pony shifted her weight side-to-side, glancing around with a paranoid suspicion that somepony would approach her about the contents of her saddlebag, and jumped as the doorknob turned.

“Oh, Applej—what? What’s wrong?” Rarity started to greet her friend cheerily but frowned with concern at the look on her face.

Applejack pushed lightly on the door and the pearly unicorn stepped back to let her in. Applejack kicked the door shut once inside—a little harder than she meant to—then turned on her friend with a sharp whisper.

“What the hay is wrong with you?” she hissed, listening if the Crusaders were somewhere in the house.

“Darling, what do you mean?” Rarity asked, blinking in confusion.

“Extra lubrication?” Applejack growled. "Don't think I don't know what you meant."

Rarity blinked again with a look of surprise, then leaned closer. “You already opened it?”

Now Applejack looked surprised. “What the buck d’you mean ‘already?’”

“I mean. . . well I’m surprised,” Rarity explained, raising her hooves defensively. “I didn’t think you’d open it so soon. Honestly, I thought you’d come by to talk again at least once before, y’know. . .”

“Wha-Well—Whatever I do and whenever I do it is my business! Not yours!” Applejack snapped, deciding that they were alone.

“O-of course it is,” Rarity agreed, confused, “I didn’t say tha—“

“Then why the hay were you spyin’ on me, huh? Slippin’ some time-release read-to-complete spell into my—m-the-the thing?” she stuttered, her face growing redder.

“Well how else was I supposed to tell you?” Rarity scowled. “You don’t like to talk about sex at all; I didn’t want to ruin breakfast. And you showed the interest in anal penetra—“

“I-I. . .” Applejack cut in, “I said. . . no such—“

“Applejack, please, half of your questions were about anal,” Rarity interrupted in kind, making the farmer splutter and gawk. “You really don’t have any tact, darling, I’m sorry.”

Applejack floundered for words for several seconds, her face burning and thoughts confused, before the voices of a couple passing by the door beside her broke her trance.

“You uh. . . you weren’t keepin’ an eye on me?” she tentatively asked once her thoughts were collected.

“Why would I do that?” Rarity frowned. “It’s a personal matter—I have no more reason or need to know your habits than I do those of Celestia. Interesting as that might be,” she mused quietly to herself.

Applejack nodded and licked her lips, focusing on the floor. “Y' didn’t set that spell to let you know when I’d opened it,” she said more than asked.

“Applejack, I had so little energy devoted to that spell I wouldn’t have any idea if it had activated if I hadn’t used magic in three days,” the fashionista affirmed. “I just wanted to get the message to you. I really did think we’d talk again before you opened it and you’d be a little more comfortable by then.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. Clearly I don’t have my best ideas in awkward situations.”

A short memory of the incident that had spawned their lengthy conversation flashed through Applejack’s mind and she nodded an agreement. “Can’t say ya do,” she smirked. “I uh. . . Sorry. Fer accusin’ and whatnot.”

Rarity waved her apology. “I might have done the same.”

“Mm. Might.”

“Oh hush,” Rarity grinned.

A silent moment passed as Applejack adjusted her stance to be less aggressive and Rarity fluffed her mane. The two mares cleared their throats one after the other, finding the patterns on the walls and floor suddenly very interesting, before Applejack finally coughed and made a move toward the door.

“I guess uh. . .” she trailed off, motioning toward the exit with her head.

“If you must,” Rarity shrugged, opening the door for her friend.

Applejack nodded a farewell, but paused outside the door.

“Didn’t you say you were busy earlie—“

Click!

Applejack stared at the closed door, surprise quickly fading into a scowl. She pursed her lips, considering knocking again and finding out what her friend had been so anxious to get her away from. After a moment’s thought—and realizing only now that Rarity’s usually well-kept mane had seemed a little disheveled and her lily white face had been tinged with pink—she decided against further inquisition. She probably didn’t want to know anyway, she reasoned.