And It's Really, Really Weird
It was a hot summer afternoon. A little too hot, Fluttershy decided. Or, at least, that’s how she felt; especially when she caught notice of Applejack sitting across the table, the bright sunshine almost glistening off her weathered pelt and chiseled muscles. The split ends of Applejack’s mane shone like motes of golden … Dust didn’t sound beautiful enough, and sunlight was redundant. But the split ends of Applejack’s mane were a sight to behold all the same, just like the rest of her. She was beauty and imperfection, and imperfection through beauty and beautifully imperfect. Then Applejack wrapped her lips around the straw of her vanilla malt, and Fluttershy was suddenly all-too-aware of her flexing feathers and the drops of sweat trickling slowly down her spine. It was just the summer heat, really. Applejack’s straw gave a hollow gurgle, and Fluttershy quivered with pent-up … respect. Only somepony like Applejack could drain a thick milkshake that quickly. After all, Applejack was all strong muscles, even her tongue. A tongue that Fluttershy wanted in her mouth very, very badly.
Fluttershy decided, quite randomly and in no way related to the muscled earth pony sitting across the table from her, to display exactly how dextrous her own lips and tongue could be, by easing the cherry from her Shirley Temple off its extra-fancy toothpick with nothing but her natural, or quite possibly unnatural skill at delicate mouth-work. She’d picked it up from all the delicate stitching-work both dresses and animals occasionally required, and was modestly proud of all she could do with her hard-earned talent. Humming lazily, she spat out the maraschino’s stem, tied (by her tongue) into a neat bow. It landed squarely in the middle of her napkin, exactly how she’d pictured it in her head.
“Hey, that’s a neat trick, ‘Shy,” Applejack said. Fluttershy smiled brightly and took another sip of her fruity, festive drink. “Where’d ya learn to do that?”
“Around,” Fluttershy replied, off-handedly. Mares had to have a little mystery, after all. Rarity had said so on numerous occasions, and she was an expert on both mares and mystery, so it really made quite a bit of sense. Applejack raised an eyebrow in confusion. Fluttershy knew it was time for a little explanation. Mares couldn’t have too much mystery, after all. Then nopony would understand them.
Fluttershy was ready to explain how Rainbow had shown her the right things to do with her tongue to tie those sorts of knots in cherry stems, back in flight school, on a wild night they’d somehow gotten hold of triple-distilled rainbow juice. “That’s not all I can do with my tongue,” She said, instead. Funny, how her mouth seemed to follow exactly the wrong idea of what it was supposed to say. Then Fluttershy winked, and that same complaint applied to her eyes. Rarity coughed and took a large gulp of her iced tea pounding on her chest with a foreleg, her eyes teary.
Applejack looked like she was going to say something when two waiters arrived with all of their orders balanced precariously on trays. Fluttershy looked hungrily at Applej-- at the steaming oatburger the second waiter set down in front of her. The bun had been lightly toasted on the grill, so the insides of it looked crisp and brown; the perfect shade of orange-ish brown. Crisp lettuce and a ripe tomato also adorned the relatively simple sandwich. Fluttershy’s mouth watered and she sighed in anticipation of the meal to come. But before she bit into what was sure to be an amazing sandwich, Fluttershy grasped a particularly long hay-fry with her tongue and pulled it into her mouth with a luxurious moan. To her left, Rainbow Dash shifted nervously and tugged her wings in tighter against her body with a barely-audible whimper.
“I do love the way they make their hay-fries here,” Applejack remarked, taking a large mouthful of her own double-decker barbeque-tempeh monstrosity. She swallowed mightily, and her strong, beautiful tongue licked up the bits of sauce that clung to her chin. Fluttershy took another deep pull at her ice-cold soda. The sun was really starting to heat up in earnest. Then she grasped her oatburger in two hooves and prepared to bite into it.
Some of the ‘Special sauce’ (Fluttershy had long ago figured out the sauce was made of basil, mint, flour and flax-seed oil) had oozed out from the oatburger itself. Fluttershy took a moment to lick the worst drips of sauce away, to prevent messy eating. Obviously. Rarity coughed again, more violently than the last. Twilight stared at Fluttershy in mild horror, her mouth dangling open. Pinkie’s eyes just ping-ponged from Fluttershy to Applejack to Fluttershy again while her grin grew gradually wider.
Fluttershy took a large enough bite of oatburger and chewed it slowly. Deliberately. After all, food tasted better when it was savored. Chewing slowly allowed Fluttershy to enjoy the full range of flavors her oatburger had to offer. Mostly, those flavors were some variant on oats, or tomato, or lettuce, or “Special sauce.” But there were unexplored depths to the intricate flavors of oats, and Fluttershy intended to explore those depths vigorously. Her eyes fluttered, and another semi-voluntary moan escaped from her throat at the thought of thoroughly and unashamedly enjoying every sweaty, rugged flavor her sandwich had to offer. A half-eaten piece of arugula dropped from Twilight’s slack jaw, as the Princess’s wings slowly fanned out behind her. Without missing a bite of her soup, Pinkie reached a hoof out and forced Twilight’s wings into a more socially acceptable position.
Applejack belched mightily after gulping down the last of her sandwich and sank back happily onto her haunches. Fluttershy’s eyes were drawn to the splash of barbeque sauce that glistened on Applejack’s handsome jawbone.
“Um, Applejack?” Fluttershy mumbled. “You’ve got some sauce, right …” She gestured at her own jaw with a hoof. Applejack rubbed at the wrong cheek. “Other side,” Fluttershy corrected. Applejack missed the sauce by half an inch. Fluttershy sighed. “Do you mind if I …”
Applejack grinned broadly, and Fluttershy felt a few more drops of sweat begin a pilgrimage to her shoulderblades. “Not at all.”
Fluttershy shoved her plate aside, hoisted herself across the table, and licked the splotch of sauce off of Applejack’s face. She continued the same line of attack all the way up to Applejack’s ear, which she nipped gently, as a non-verbal reminder to Applejack to be more careful when eating in public. It was rude to get so messy where other ponies could see, after all. Normally, getting messy was meant for private venues, like bedrooms.
...Or kitchen tables. As she sat down, Fluttershy heard the distinctive and instantly recognizable sound of Rarity fainting dead away. Then she ate the last of her oatburger in a predatory snap and batted Rainbow’s quivering feathers out of her face.
“Thanks, sugarcube,” Applejack said, with another bright smile that sent a few more drops of sweat trickling in a few more … places. “I don’t rightly know how I got so much sauce on my face while eating. Glad I had a friend like you to help me out.”
“It was my pleasure, Applejack,” Fluttershy purred. “Really.” Fluttershy glanced around the table, at how Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Pinkie, and quite possibly Rarity’s twitching legs looked at her as if she were some unclassified wild animal. Fluttershy’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “Is there something on my face?” she asked. Twilight shook her head very slightly and contemplated her barely-eaten salad. For a moment, Fluttershy wished she did have some sauce splattered on her cheek. Applejack didn’t like owing favors, and Fluttershy really didn’t mind the idea of letting her return that one.
Fluttershy finished off her Shirley Temple with a hollow gurgle and smacked her lips happily before she noticed her and Applejack’s empty plates and compared them to her friends’ half-eaten meals. Applejack also seemed to have noticed as well, from how she pulled out her bit-bag.
“If y’all don’t mind,” Applejack grunted while counting out coins, “I’ve got some pig-sloppin’ waitin’ for me back at the acres, so’s I might duck out early.”
Fluttershy perked up instantly. “Oh! … Um, me, too, if that’s alright. You know how Angel gets when his blood sugar drops.” Rainbow, Pinkie, Twilight, and a woozy Rarity all nodded in understanding. Fluttershy left a stack of bits for her meal plus tip and walked out of the restaurant shoulder-to-shoulder with Applejack, much closer than was usual for the two of them.
In the awkward silence that stretched after their departure, Twilight contemplated her salad. Well, really, she stared at her salad while her mind re-played Fluttershy and Applejack’s interactions throughout their lunch. She nibbled at a dressing-soaked spinach leaf and remembered Fluttershy just … just licking Applejack, as if nothing were strange about putting her tongue all over her friend’s face like that!
“There’s something going on between Applejack and Fluttershy, isn’t there?” She asked. Suddenly all of her friends seemed single-mindedly focused on their respective plates of food. “C’mon, I’m not crazy!” No response. “I’m not, am I?” Twilight shovelled as many leafy greens into her mouth as possible, which is to say all of them, and crunched mechanically through her dense mouthful.
Suddenly, Pinkie jolted upright, as if she’d been struck by lightning. “Pinchy shoulder, itchy knee!”she screeched. “Pinchy shoulder, itchy knee!!” Rarity fainted again with a tiny sigh and her trademark *thwump*. Rainbow’s jaw dropped for a moment.
“Seriously?!” she squealed. Pinkie nodded rapidly. Rainbow flopped to the ground, somehow squealing in a way normally reserved for the Wonderbolts and laughing uproariously at the same time. Her wings twitched in what Twilight now understood meant extreme joy.
Within a few moments, one of their waiters showed up at the table, likely from all the commotion Twilight’s group was causing. Twilight swallowed a heavy lump of half-chewed vegetable matter and washed it down with water. “Miss, is everything alright?” the waiter asked, his face a mask of cool professionalism.
“Yeah,” Twilight assured him, bemused, “But I just realized… I have really weird friends.”
