AppleDash and the Celine Dion Concert (or, Vegas Vacation, AppleDash style)

The sun was beating down on the endless void of desert. Anyone in the area would say the most notable thing about the area was the dry, sweltering head that slapped any organic life form across the face when they stepped out of the shade. It may as well be a living oven, and maybe that's why no one had tried to build houses this far out in the sticks.

No intelligent life would be likely to see anything going on in this desolate area, and maybe that was for the best. One afternoon, there came a bright white light with a slight purple tint that spontaneously grew progressively larger and larger over the course of about a minute. Had someone actually been paying attention and seen it as anything more than a simple trick of the sun, you could imagine the fit of utter panic that could occur.

Heck, this is an area so hyper-focused on alien lifeforms that there's a beef jerky company with an alien for a logo. There's a baseball team in the nearest city whose mascot is an alien. So it's a good thing that more fuel was not added to the conspiracy theorists' fire by having someone witness two beings coming out of the light...

With the sun getting near its hottest point of the day, a white bulb of light that had been steadily growing for the last minute was now large enough to spit out two ponies. At that moment, Rainbow Dash and Applejack flew out so quickly they couldn't regain their balance in time to not fall flat on their faces. Both picked their heads off the desert floor and began spitting out the sand and rocks that were in their mouths. As they regained their composure, they turned around to see the light close up behind them, shrinking much quicker than it had grown.

"What the - dang it, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash started, speaking more loudly than needed. "Somehow I had a feeling we weren't going to end up the other end of Equestria. Why did we even agree to test out this crazy idea of hers? I don't have any idea where.. AHHHH!"

Rainbow quickly opened her wings and shot up about 10 feet in the air, suddenly becoming aware of the heat of the ground.

"Who turned up the heat?! Wherever we are, the weather pegasi must love seeing ponies in pain. Why would anyone need this much scorching sunlight? I can't imagine there are a lot of ponies living out here. This is extreme even for the hottest of Equestrian deserts."

Applejack had been listening to Rainbow's ranting and figured now was a good time to speak up. "Well, it was voluntary, sugarcube.  Ya didn't have ta go if ya felt it wasn't gonna work. Ah agreed already, so why did ya say yes?"

"Because of that little remark you made about how great a friend you are because you can be depended on to try something like this and how it makes you the better adventurer. Don't pretend like you didn't egg me on to get me to come here."

"So yer blamin' me because ah figured having a partner would be good for something like this, and ya just happen to be really easy to convince?" Applejack smirked at her friend, who now had her mouth wide open like she was hoping to scoop a good response out of the air with her mouth.

"You know what? Whatever. You got me, but you owe me!" Dash said when she finally came up with a retort. "Seriously, I had no idea I'd end up in this fiery inferno. For that matter, how are your hooves not burning from this?"

"Ah buck trees everyday and run through dirt paths like this all the time, Rainbow," AJ said. "You'd be surprised how strong of callouses form on the bottom of yer hooves when ya do manual labor every day."

"Are you suggesting that I don't work hard?" Rainbow asked, clearly offended.

"O'course not! Ah'm just sayin' that as important a job as the weather is, kicking clouds of soft water in the sky is kinda... dainty... compared to us rough'n'tough farm folk." Applejack gave a wink and a smirk to her as she said this, which clearly was setting Dash off. AJ realized long ago that when Rainbow Dash was at all flustered, she became annoyingly irritable, so instead of fight against her temper, she'd decided to toy with it instead.

She actually really got a kick out of seeing how easily Dash could be led into a given reaction. Still, the first couple times she did feel bad about it. But when she would apologize, Dash took it in stride and played it cool, saying she should be able to handle such minor irritations better. At one point she actually encouraged AJ to mess with her just because she wanted to get better at playing it cool during stressful situations. After going through this routine so many times, Applejack could honestly say... if she's gotten any better about not sweating the small stuff, it darn sure isn't by any noticeable amount.

"OH! So I'm some kind of prissy flower compared to you?! Ha! You wish you were as awesome as me! Just to prove it, I'm going to use my incredible flying skills to scout out where we are," Rainbow Dash was waving her hooves around like she was in the middle of an over-the-top ritual to summon some great sky spirit.

Applejack stifled her laughter long enough to respond before Dash took off. "Okay, Daring Do II. You do what ya need to. Ah'll be waiting around here. But be quick about it. According to this here portal... key... thing Twilight gave us to return..."

"She called it a 'portkey,' Applejack. At least we know who the better listener is..."

"According to the clock on it," Applejack said, a little irritated at the display of arrogance. Maybe we're more alike than ah'd like to admit, "it says it will release the spell to return us to the library in 10 hours."

"Ten hours? I thought it was only an hour."

"Well clearly the journey affected it some."

"Brilliant work Twi. Top of the class," Rainbow said as she flew off.