Ain't Nothin' but an Eyebrow Thang
“Spike, take a letter,” said Twilight as she strode into the study, completely oblivious to whatever it was Spike was doing with a magazine in his lap. Her horn lit up as she grabbed a quill and some paper. Depositing them in front of Spike, she added, “Well, are you ready?”
Spike hastily stuffed the magazine under his pillow, saying, “Geez, Twilight, knock for once, will ya? I’m an adolescent dragon in a room all by myself with a magazine. I’m just saying, Twilight, you’re playing with fire here.”
“Duly noted.” Raising an eyebrow, Twilight said, “Ready now?”
Bending down, Spike scooped up the quill and paper. As he held them out, quill placed at the top left of the top of the scroll, he said, “Whenever you are.”
Twilight nodded. “Okay.” As she started to pace back and forth, she said, “Dear Princess Celestia… There are only a few things in this world that I’m sure of. I am sure that I will eventually die, along with everyone I know and love. I am sure that I will have to pay taxes until that day comes, and I am sure that you know what you’re doing. So, with that in mind, I feel compelled to ask… What. The. Hell.” Twilight cast a glance over at Spike. “Got all that so far?”
He scratched his head with the quill. “Yeah, but—”
“Just keep writing.” Twilight returned to her pacing. “I know that sometimes you work in ‘mysterious ways’, but are you actually being serious right now? Look, Applejack could probably a princess of many things: honesty, strength… apples, but making her the princess of eyebrows? What does that even mean!? Eyebrows? Eyebrows!? Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Letting out a sigh, Twilight glanced back at Spike. “All right, send it.”
Spike nodded. “Okey doke—Wait, what?” His eyes snapped back down to the letter he’d just finished writing. “Eyebrows?” He looked back up at Twilight.
Shrugging, Twilight said, “Eyebrows.”
16 hours prior
“So, I’m thinking that maybe the best option would be to just start over from scratch. Tear the whole thing down and just have another go at it. Redesign it.”
Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie stood on the outskirts of Sweet Apple Acres, staring at a single wooden plank that had been stuck into a previously-dug hole in the ground. The three ponies stared silently at the plank for a moment, sharing glances back and forth with each other and the occasional murmur. Finally, Twilight nodded. “Yep, it needs to be scrapped.” Her horn sparked with magic as she grabbed the plank.
Applejack held out her hoof. “Whoa, hang on there, sugarcube. We ain’t even got started yet. We stuck one piece of wood in the ground and you’re saying we need to start over?”
“Of course,” said Twilight like it was the obvious thing in the world. “It’s crooked, see?” She indicated where the plank had, indeed, been tilted slightly sideways. “We might as well just start over before we get too far into it and the whole fence ends up messed up.”
“Oh! Oh!” said Pinkie, suddenly jumping up and down. “Ooooooor, maybe it’d be better if we just walked around with our heads turned a little bit so it looks straight?” Pinkie turned her head slightly. “See, perfect!”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ya’ll are bein’ ridiculous. All we gotta do is move this thing a bit. Just give it a good kick and it should be fine, trust me.”
“Wait a minute,” said Twilight, stroking her chin. “Pinkie Pie might have a point here. I could devise a spell that could shift the entire planet’s axis just a bit, and that might fix the problem.”
“Kick’s all ya need,” said Applejack before turning around so her back was to the plank. She gave it a soft, but firm, kick. The plank jerked into place, and when Applejack turned back around, she saw it was now perfectly straight. “See? Easy as apple pie.”
“Oh man… now it’s all messed up the other way,” said Pinkie Pie, letting out a sigh.
“No it’s not, Pinkie. Ya’ll still got your head turned.”
“Oh, right.” Pinkie giggled, turning her head back straight. She let out a gasp. “You’re right! It’s fixed.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. She leaned in, getting as close to the piece of wood as she reasonably could. When her snout had almost touched it, she nodded, satisfied. “Huh, guess you were right, AJ. Everything looks fine now.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Ya think?”
Suddenly an explosion of light blinded the ponies. They were momentarily stunned, and when they’d finally recovered, Twilight and Pinkie Pie found themselves alone, with no Applejack in sight, and only a burnt ring of grass where she used to be. Pinkie Pie looked around wildly. “I didn’t know we were playing hide and seek.” She started searching behind every tree and under every rock… at least the ones in the immediate vicinity.
Twilight, meanwhile, narrowed her brow. “Wait a minute… I know this.”
Applejack rubbed her eyes. As she looked around the room, she guessed it was a room anyway, she was in, she started to notice that it was lined with what appeared to be memories. Upon closer examination, they weren’t just any memories, but memories of all the times she’d ever sarcastically raised her eyebrows in responding to someone. She started to walk forward through the mist and fog, happening to catch, out of the corner of her eye, a sign that read “Memory Ln.”
“Where the heck am I?” she asked whoever might be around, not really expecting an answer.
However, she got an answer, or at least started to get one. A figure appeared in front of her. It was a tall figure, and her mane was like a celestial river flowing from her neck. Her voice, like ringing bells, rang out, “You’ve come, such a long long—Wait, you’re not Twilight.” She stopped suddenly as the mist cleared and she saw who was standing below her.
Applejack, now realizing that it was Celestia standing in front of her, quickly removed her hat and bowed. “Princess, I didn’t realize it was you. Heck, I didn’t even realize anyone else could be here.”
“Only you and I may be here…” said Celestia with her trademark benevolent smile. In her head, however, she was quickly running through the list of names of Twilight’s friends. Spike, no; Rainbow Dash, probably not; Pinkie Pie, no; Rarity, maaaaaybe; Fluttershy, no; Applejack, no—Wait, apples! Yes, she’s got apples on her butt! This must be Applejack!. “...Applejack.”
Applejack chuckled awkwardly. “Uhh, yep. That’s me. Do ya think that maybe you could tell me what I’m doin’ here?”
“Yes, of course, Applejack.” I am nailing this. Celestia smiled again. She held out her hoof, which Applejack took, and she started to lead her yet further down the path. “You are here because…” All right, think, Celestia, think! Look around you. Use your context clues. Okay, what do we have here? There’s lots of memories, just like that time with Twilight, so that must mean Applejack is becoming a princess. But a princess of what? Celestia stole a glance at one of the memories. It showed Applejack raising her eyebrow in sarcastic response to a question posed by Rainbow Dash. Eyebrows? Celestia shrugged inwardly. I guess it’s a good reason as any. “Because you are becoming a princess, Applejack.”
Applejack stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait, what? Can I... ask why? What’d a simple farmpony like me do to deserve being a princess?”
“You have incredible eyebrows,” said Celestia with a sweet smile.
“Excuse me?”
“Other princesses, like me or Luna, are princesses of the Sun, or the Moon, or Love, or Friendship, but you, Applejack, you will be the princess of something physical, something real, something that you can reach out and touch.” Celestia stretched out a hoof and ran it across Applejack’s eyebrows. This almost sounds halfway believable. “Look at all the good your eyebrows have done, Applejack,” said Celestia, waving her hoof over the dozens of memories that floated around them. “Look at all the lives you’ve changed.”
Applejack glanced at one of the memories. The pony she was giving the sarcastic eyebrow to rolled his eyes and walked away. “With all due respect, Princess, I don’t think my eyebrows have really done a whole heck of a lotta good.”
Celestia laughed. “Nonsense! Just look over here.” She pointed at a memory where Applejack was waggling her eyebrows seductively at a passing stallion. “You, uh, convinced this stallion to, er, keep… walking. Just think what might’ve happened if he stopped!” Nice save, me.
Watching the memory a bit further, Applejack saw the stallion become distracted by her, and then walk right into a building. “Riiiiiight. Y’know, I just don’t think I’m ready for all this, uh, responsibility, Princess.”
“Oh, my dear sweet Applejack.” Celestia clicked her tongue. “I’ve been watching over you for… How old are you?”
“Uhh—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Celestia waved her hoof. “I’ve been watching you since you were born, and now I know the time is right for you to ascend to princesshood.”
“If you say so.”
“Now, we’ll work out the details with your castle and domain and all that later. For right now, return to your friends and spread the good word about your eyebrows. Change the world!” Unfurling her wings, Celestia lifted off the ground and slowly rose into the air. Waving her hoof, she disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Applejack standing around in a room full of her own memories… alone.
“So…” Applejack absentmindedly kicked at the ground as she looked around. Suddenly, like someone was pulling on her tail, she felt a tugging sensation pulling her backwards. The world collapsed around her and, a moment later, it expanded back again, but this time she was back in her apple orchard, right where she’d left from.
Twilight whipped around, seeing the flash of light out of the corner of her eye. “Applejack! You’re back!”
Pinkie Pie stuck her head out of tree she’d been climbing. “Whoa, what are those?” She pointed at Applejack’s back, but that caused her to lose her grip on the tree and she plummeted to the ground where she landed with a thump. Shaking her head, Pinkie got up and trotted over to where Twilight and Applejack were standing. "You've got something weird on your back."
Applejack craned her neck to look over her shoulder. "What in tarnation?" A pair of... well, they weren't wings at any rate, were jutting out of her shoulder blades like some sort of science fair project gone horribly wrong. She tried to move them, but rather than flap like wings, they merely contorted into an eyebrow-like expression of one up and one down. Applejack raised her eyebrows (the ones on her face) in alarm. "What the!"
Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Applejack, when you were gone, were you in a room surrounded by a bunch of fog and junk?"
Applejack's backbrows rose. "Yeah, why?"
"And was Celestia there?"
"Yeah, why?"
"And did she say she was going to make you a princess?"
"Oh... that's why."
Twilight nodded. "Yep, it's just as I suspected. Looks like you're a princess now, AJ."
Pinkie's eyes went wide. "Whoaaaaah. That's super duper cool! Now I have two princess friends!" She giggled then started bouncing around Applejack. "So, what are you the princess of, huh? Honesty? Apples? Running really really fast?"
"Eyebrows," said Applejack with a heavy sigh.
"Eyebrows?" repeated Pinkie Pie.
"Eyebrows."
"Why eyebrows?" asked Twilight, raising her own eyebrows.
Applejack shrugged. "To be completely honest, I don't know. Princess Celestia was pretty vague about the whole thing. She took me into this room and showed me some things, then she touched me."
"Oh boy..." Twilight muttered. "Lemme go get the doll real quick."
"Not like that," groaned Applejack. "She touched my eyebrows."
"Well that's just weird."
"Is it, Twilight? Really?" said Applejack with her trademark sarcasm. However, what wasn't trademarked, at least not yet, was what happened after. As Applejack went to raise her eyebrow into that universal symbol of sarcasm, her backbrows followed suit, and suddenly an explosion of light beamed out of her face and burned straight through a line of trees behind Twilight. Everyone fell silent. One of the trees, still smoldering, crumbled and fell over, breaking the silence. Applejack looked around awkwardly. "Uhh..."
"Yes," said Twilight matter-of-factly, "you did just shoot a laserbeam from your eyebrows."
Pinkie Pie whistled. "That was awesome! What else can you do?'
"Applejack just leveled half her orchard, and you want to see more? " said Twilight not so much incredulously as unbelievably terrified.
"Who knows what she can do? It'll be fun!"
"That's exactly what I'm worried about."
"Oh!" said Pinkie, ignoring Twilight. "Do this." She moved her eyebrows in a wave formation, starting with the far left side of her left eyebrow, and moving to the far right side of her right eyebrow.
Before Twilight could yell, "No! Don't!" Applejack had already started moving her brows. Nothing happened at first, but a second later, the ground started to shake as an earthquake rocked the area. Twilight tried to stabilize herself by leaning on the one part of the picket fence that was up, but it soon collapsed, dropping her to the ground.
"Thaaaaaat waaaaaas awwwwwwwwesome," said Pinkie, her voice shaking from the earthquake.
"No it wasn't!" cried Twilight, pulling herself up. "That was freakin' dangerous! We could have literally, not figuratively, died."
Applejack waved her hoof dismissively. "Calm down, Twi. We're just havin' a bit of fun. Plus, I know you like it rough." Applejack waggled her eyebrows.
Twilight stomped her hoof. "This isn't funny. Somepony could seriously—Oh... hey there, Applejack," said Twilight, her voice suddenly soft. She brushed a lock of her mane back behind her ear. Giggling, she said, "I've never noticed just how... taut your thighs are until right this moment."
Applejack's eyes went wide. "Whoa nelly. How do I turn this thing off?" She bit her lip, trying to force her eyebrows from waggling, which she did, after some effort. Once Twilight had stopped advancing towards her with the creepiest bedroom eyes Applejack had ever seen, she wiped her brow, letting out a sigh of relief. "That was a little too close for comfort."
As Twilight tried to clear her head, Pinkie Pie was staring open mouthed at Applejack. "And you can make ponies fall in love with you too!? What can't your eyebrows do?"
"Well, shucks, I dunno. I wonder if I can fly?" Suddenly Applejack's eyes lit up. "I've always wanted to fly!" She chuckled. "Y'know, I've always sorta been jealous of Rainbow's wings. Kinda wish I could just fly away sometimes. But now with these babies I can!" Applejack grinned widely as she started to pump her wingbrows. They flapped a few times, which in itself was a pretty disturbing sight, but she only lifted an inch or so off the ground before her wingbrows got tangled up and caused her to fall, which didn't even seem physically possible. As Applejack lay in a heap, she mumbled, "Stupid eyebrows got tangled up."
Twilight just shook her head in disbelief. "I don't even know how that's physically possible."
Pinkie Pie blew a raspberry. "Oh, don't be such a stick in the mud, Twilight. Anything is possible if you put your eyebrows to it!"
"Pinkie, I... What?" Twilight shook her head. "No, you know what? No, I'm not going to get sucked into this stupid debate. Applejack," she said, turning to Applejack, who was still busy trying to disentangle herself from her backbrows, "I think it might be best if we try to talk to Celestia and see if there's something we can do yo reverse this process. This whole thing can only end badly."
"Don't be such a spoilsport, Twilight," said Pinkie Pie as she bent down to help Applejack up. "Imagine how much fun we could have with this. Applejack is a princess now. A princess of eyebrows, Twilight. How many ponies do you know that are princesses of eyebrows?"
“Just… just the one,” Twilight admitted through a heavy sigh.
“Exactly!” Pinkie shouted, shooting her hoof into the air. Bringing down her hoof and pointing it at Twilight, she added, “And that’s why we need to take advantage of this situation as much as we can. Applejack is the only eyebrow princess in all of Equestria, although maybe not in the whole world, I don’t know, so we have to make sure we use her powers for good!” Pinkie turned to Applejack. “What’d say, AJ? Are you and your eyebrows ready to do some work?”
Applejack fumbled for words. “Uhh… I guess?”
Grinning as wide as a wide-grinned moose, Pinkie grabbed Applejack’s hoof and pointed it at the skyline. “Then let’s get out there and eyebrow it up!” She let go of Applejack’s hoof and started bouncing away, towards Ponyville. “C’mon, Applejack! Let’s go!”
Unsure of what to do, Applejack reluctantly followed. Twilight, on the other hand, stayed behind for an extra moment. As she stared at the area where Applejack had vanished, and then reappeared, she massaged her temple with a hoof. “Oh man… this is not going to go well at all.”
15 and a half hours later
Twilight paced back and forth, occasionally shooting a glance at Spike. “Well, anything yet?”
Spike shook his head. “Nope, no reply yet.” He rocked back and forth on his feet, whistling a nameless tune. Suddenly, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He walked over to the window. The light coming in from outside reflected off his eyes. It was red and orange. “Uhh, Twilight… you might want to come take a look at this.”
Twilight groaned. “Oh no, what now?” Trotting over to the window quickly, she peered out next to Spike. Flames licked the sky as fire engulfed the little hamlet of Ponyville. Everywhere she looked, Twilight could see hapless ponies running to and fro, screaming their heads off. “Well, great. Looks like the fires have spread. Guess Pinkie’s ‘Super Speedy Water Squeezy’ didn’t quite do the trick.” She sighed. “I suppose I better go out there and fix it.”
As Twilight turned to walk away, Spike suddenly felt something bubbling up in his chest. With a little jump, he burped, sending a letter flying into his outstretched palm. Twilight stopped, looking at the letter. She raised an eyebrow. “It’s from Celestia,” said Spike, noting the seal that held the scroll tightly furled.
Taking the note from Spike, Twilight undid the seal and unrolled the scroll. She cleared her throat before reading.
“My Faithful Student, don’t ask questions. It’s unbecoming.”
She lowered the scroll, her face contorted into a look of annoyed disbelief. She quickly lifted the scroll back up and read it again, then nodded as if to confirm something to herself.
“So…” said Spike, shuffling his feet.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Both Twilight and Spike turned to look, but before either of them could move to open it, the door was kicked open and a pair of ponies stumbled in. First Applejack, in a state of frenzy, and her backbrows conspicuously absent, and then quickly followed by Pinkie Pie who wore a huge smile on her face as she bounced in.
Wide-eyed and frightened, Applejack quickly ran up to Twilight and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “It went rogue, Twi! My eyebrows gained sentience!”
Pinkie Pie quickly followed this up with, “Yeah, and it turns out they can fly! I guess Applejack was just too heavy.” She giggled.
Twilight simply stared in silence for a moment, looking first at Applejack and then at Pinkie Pie, and then back at Applejack. She took out the letter Celestia had sent one more time, read it, then crumpled it up, tossed at a wastebasket where it bounced off the rim, and then said, “All right, screw it. I’m done. I’m starting my own country.”
Pushing past the pair of ponies, Twilight opened the door to see a Ponyville that looked like something out of a “Tartarus is Real!” pamphlet. Flames covered everything, and high above the town, Applejack’s eyebrows were flying around, shooting lasers and lighting more fires. Twilight nodded, then walked away, heading north towards wherever.
