His Little Pet

The Daily Life of Twilight Sparkle, and Spike, and Fluttershy - Volume 15

It was Pinkie Pie's birthday today, and I must say it was... interesting. I think there's more to Pinkie that we don't know about. But then, there are sides of ourselves that we don't let others see, and sometimes we don't want to see ourselves. Perhaps it will become more important later, but for now she seems alright. I'll keep an eye on her.

But what I wanted to talk about was the beginning of operation Fuck Applejack's Fucking Brains Out Until She Squeals Like A Fucking Pig (working title). Looking back to what's happened between our first date and now it seems as if every pony has had some sort of crisis in the past month. First Rarity was kidnapped before our date, then Fluttershy was forced into modelling (which she still does for Spike and myself, though the clothing she wears is of a different nature), The CMC went on a hunt for Rainbow Dash, Applejack got us into a sticky situation involving the Buffaloes, and now Pinkie's had some sort of mental break. I shudder to think of what will happen to me sooner or later. But I will not worry about that now.

The Grand Galloping Gala is in just under a week and I am more excited than that time Spike paraded me around the palace gardens during shift change. (We weren't seen. I still don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.) I have never gone before because Spike had been forced to (due to some by-law of the draconic-equine treaty) and said that the whole affair was boring and generally not worth the time. What he failed to mention was that the whole thing was presided over by Princess Celestia herself. I'm getting giddy just thinking of all the one-on-one time we'll have in a non-formal environment. But for now I will go over what has been done during the operation so far.

As mentioned earlier, Applejack has shown interest in Spike before this, so we thought that it would be easier if he approached her himself. And, while the direct approach might have worked, I wasn't going to let her in the herd without at least a little fun. She did move in on my (and now Fluttershy's) turf without permission or even asking.

So what we did was we got Spike to go over to the Apple's farm and help out around the place once a week. It didn't really cause any alarm, seeing as how he already helps Rarity and Fluttershy on occasion, so they welcomed what little he could do with open arms, and, in perhaps the most normal approach to getting a mare friend he just talked with her. Chatted about weather and harvests, family, what it's like in Canterlot and Manehattan, etcetera, etcetera. And slowly he made progress. She smiled more often when he was around, and they tended to walk together when we travailed in a group, and she would hug him more often than the rest of us. In fact, were I not aware of what was going on, I would be quite jealous.

So this has gone on for a few weeks. Pretty much from three days after the whole rescue Rarity thing up to Pinkie's birthday, then we put the final touches on it. As Spike tells it they were relaxing after a pretty hard day, drinking some of Applejack's hard cider out in the fields, watching the sun go down. Quite romantic, if you ask me. So he pops the 'ever had a coltfriend' question, and thanks to a little birdie, we have the full conversation, which I'll let Fluttershy transcribe tomorrow.

Spike and Applejack are sitting underneath a tree on a small hill on the west side of the farm, overlooking the whitetail woods and the blue hills. Applejack is laying on the grass and Spike is sitting beside her, back against the tree, they're passing a large bottle of hard apple cider back and fourth and not saying much, then Spike says, "Hey, Applejack?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever, y'know, been with somepony else before?"

"Like, romantically?" Applejack asks.

"Yeah, had a coltfriend or marefriend?" Spike passes the bottle and Applejack takes a swig.

"Just once," She says, "When I was in Manehattan. Pretty feller by the name of Cotton Swab, learning to be a doctor. Met him at a fancy dinner party, and we got to talkin' 'bout how neither of us liked the food or the conversation. Not much came of it. We went on a few dates but it just wasn't really our thing. I visit now and then when I'm in the city, but we're just friends now."

"Nopony else? Nopony from Ponyville, even?"

"Nah. I'm related to most of the Stallions around here more closely than is safe, and besides which, I ain't got to much time for window shopping, let alone actual dating." Applejack sighs, "It'll be a long time before the pony right for me comes along, that or they're already here and keepin' a very low profile. But it's not all bad. I have my family, and my friends," She toasts Spike, "So I ain't lonely or nuthin'."

"Still," She says after a moment, "It'd be nice to have somepony to curl up next to at the end of the day, somepony to talk to, y'know."

"Yeah." Spike takes another drink. I'm pretty sure they're well on their way to being quite drunk at this point.

"There are rumors, y'know, about you and Dash."

Applejack groans, "Not the rumors. If I ever meet the halfwit who started them, I'll make 'em regret it."

"So I'll take that as a no?"

"Yeah, no. Dash is nice, but there are two major things that's stopping that from happening. One, is she's straight as an arrow. As she tells it she did all her experimentin' in flight school and if she ever settles down it'll be with some hot piece of pegusus stallion that's, as she puts it, 'nearly as awesome' as her."

"Huh," Spike says, "Never took her for the puritan type."

"Oh, she ain't, she's just got her eye on somepony, I think, probably one of them wonderbolts she keeps goin' on about."

"I don't suppose you'll tell me any of the fun details of her time in flight school?" Spike grins.

Applejack chuckles, "Ain't my story to tell, sugarcube, you'll have to get it straight from the horses mouth. But if you ever do, ask her about her fun in the sun with Gilda." Applejack winks at him, "It's a doozy."

"Tease." Spike lightly punches her shoulder, "But you said there were two reasons. What's the other one?"

Applejack takes a long pull from the bottle, finishing it, "Ah! Th'other reason is she ain't mah type. Belive it or not, Ah like 'em pretty, and, y'know." She makes a curvy motion in the air with her hooves, "Though the only two that really meet that description here in Ponyville are Rarity and Fluttershy, and quite frankly, I dun think Ah would get along all that well with either of 'em enough to really get into it, y'know?"

"Really, just those two? I can think of at least one other who might fit that description, if you're willing to stretch your definition a little."

"Really? Who?"

Spike just grins at her. "Did you like your first taste of dragon?"

Applejack blushes, "Was wonderin' when you'd bring that up." They sit in silence for a moment. "Ah almost want to call it a mistake, but that wouldn't be quite right. I knew what I was doin', but it was kind of a spur of the moment sort of thing, y'know? Ah'm not sure if I actually wanna pursue it."

"Well, we could start at square one and see where it goes." Spike suggests.

Applejack grins, "Ah guess we could, couldn't we? C'mere you."

The robins tells me that they made out sloppily for nearly half an hour before Applejack stumbled home and Spike came back to the library. There's a lot more work to do, but I think that we're making progress. We'll start phase two after the Gala, or perhaps during it.

We've already won by my counting. Now all we need to do is reel her in.