It has been said many a time that the grass is greener on the other side; yet from whatever vantage point I situate my gaze, sweeping to and fro Sweet Apple Acres, the lush greensward will always be vibrant of equal color. If I am to squint my eyes and tilt my head, I may be able to glimpse how a strip of sunlight would turn rainbow across the field. How humid was it last night, that even in this afternoon the lawn is still-wet with the morning dew? The infinitesimal crystal droplets wink with a flash of prismatic scintilla, aglitter with delicate sparkle.
Windy, cloudy, and sunny all the while, the temperate weather marks that brief transition from winter to spring. What various flowers bold enough to bloom so early in the season open their petals into the hot afternoon, their buds adding a sweet taste of color to the farm.
I am almost tempted to rest my hooves for a moment and spend time tossing idle grazes at the floras beneath. The grass tickles and licks at my legs, eliciting giggles that mares in high society are prohibited to emit. It is surprising to me that I even have to consider indulging in this unladylike behavior that–as I will later think–is unacceptable public decorum regardless of how natural it may be. And if anypony sees me, I will never hear the end of it.
Especially not her, she who is already so near enough as it is.
From where I stand, it is already not difficult to observe the details of Applejack’s features and actions. She is standing adjacent to an apple tree, the rim of her Stetson covering her eyes. She traces her hooves against the barren trunk as though to assure it of her cordiality. Then, smiling, she turns around and rears back, before slamming her back hooves against the bark. The tree responds, shakes its branches, and entrusts its fruits to the line of wicker baskets waiting below.
Applejack adjusts her Stetson–or is she tipping it, perhaps?–as each basket is then filled. She carries them one by one and removes its contents to the cart.
I approach, finally, and address my friend, “Good afternoon, Applejack.”
“Howdy, Rarity,” she responds, without raising her head. No doubt it is my accent that gives me away. “What brings ya to mah humble farm?”
“Oh, you know me,” I laugh, “just… passing by.”
She pulls her head from the cart and finally looks up to me. No different than the grass and the leaves and the hills of Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack’s eyes shine a bright emerald. The familiar quality of its radiant twinkle is there; so clear and so alive are they that I am able to see my smile in them. But how sacrilegious it is that such shining gems be set upon a body of a work horse–just there, on her right cheek, somepony must get a napkin and wipe that smudge off. The rest of her coat, too, a burnt sienna, is already muddled from the afternoon’s sweat and dirt from the fields.
“Really?” she says, more than asks, raising a brow.
“Yes, really. Why do you ask?”
Applejack chuckles. “Cause ah know ya, Rare. Sweet Apple Acres ain’t really the kind of park ya'd walk into."
"Presumptuous, much?" I answer. "Can't a friend stop by once in a while to visit?"
"Mighty sweet of ya," she says. Then, adds, "Even when we just saw each other this morning in the stall.”
"Why, Applejack," I exclaim. "I cannot believe what I'm hearing! Is it so implausible, so inconceivable, that I visit a friend out of the sheer fact that I want her company."
Applejack looks at me. "Here in the farm?" she asks, laughing. "Pigs and all? Ah find that hard to believe."
"Alright, alright," I sigh. "You got me. I actually–"
"Ha! Knew it,” she blurts out.
"–have a favor to ask of you."
"Ya ain't gonna ask me on that date again, are ya?"
"Date?"
My memory flips to the recent past, trying to remember when and why would I ask Applejack out on a… a date… Nothing comes to mind until Applejack rephrases her sentence:
"Ah told ya ah ain't got time for that Canterlot frou-frou nonsense."
I now remember how, two days ago, I extended a particular invitation to her to join me in a casual gathering among members of the Social Register. "Hardly a date, darling,” I explain. “I simply wished for your company as an... escort. Twilight is busy with her studies, Rainbow Dash has her Wonderbolt, err, thing, Fluttershy cannot leave the animals and Pinkie Pie... is well... she's... Pinkie Pie."
She returns to the tree, grabs another one of the filled wicker baskets, and proceeds to deposit its contents in the cart. “Gee,” she says, “ya didn’t bother to remember that ah'm busy with mah apple buckin'?"
"Oh please, Applejack. Applebuck Season is still several months away, and surely these... fruits of yours…” I grab an apple from the cart with my magic and levitate it before me, “can wait a week or two. It won’t go that bad..."
Applejack snatches the apple from my magical grip and returns it to the pile. "And let Big Mac do the heavy lifting while ah bore mahself at a party?"
"Surely, you can find a way to entertain yourself." A moment of silence, and I clear my throat. "I can even introduce you to a stallion or two."
"No way. Ah ain’t got no time or patience for that nonsense."
"Very well..." I sigh. "But my invitation, though it still stands, is not exactly the favor I came for you today."
"It ain't?”
"Nope."
"Oh... well…” she shrugs. “What is it? Always glad to help."
In the few seconds of silence when Applejack takes the third and last apple basket to the cart, I know I will have to shed a decent amount of pride if I am to spare myself the embarrassment of asking for the apparently ridiculous request.
I clear my throat and prod my hoof against the dirt. "It's... kind of... difficult to ask."
"Uh..." She looks around; there is nopony else to hear us. "This ain't something ah should be worried about, right?"
"N-No! O-Of course not..." I stutter. "Not really..."
"Not really?" She raises an eyebrow.
"Applejack," I say, this time with renewed confidence. "I... I want to smell you."
"Ya what now!?" Applejack is flabbergasted, jaw dropping open, and stepping back.
Surely, such is an overreaction to her part. But, then again, I do not really expect anything less from a statement so blunt and so absurd. I am completely aware that the favor I am asking is rather unprecedented and of questionable nature, but Applejack looks as though I have asked to shave her mane and color her pink.
"W-Wait…” I interject, before her thoughts are malformed, “please let me explain."
"Why'd ya even want to– Y'know what, I don't even wanna know." Applejack adjusts herself into the cart, locking the handlebars to her sides and the girth over her back. She starts to pull, away from me, a little too hastily.
"There's a perfectly justifiable explanation for this," I call out, cutting across her path.
Applejack stops, staring at me with deadpan eyes.
"It's actually a fashion thing..." I clear my throat, opening my hooves up as I explain. "You see, during my trip with Coco Pommel–you remember, the mare who returned me my trophy back in Manehattan–she mentioned something about Suri and her recent trend... About how she's using a special kind of unknown fabric that has recently won attention in Canterlot."
"And how does this relate to you sniffin' me?"
"Sniffing? Well… you see... the fabrics Suri was using have a natural... scent to them. They're made of..." I look around me, and whisper, "...Earth ponies."
Applejack's face, which was crimson from work, has unripened to a sickly green. "W...what...?"
"I mean... they're made up of Earth pony mane and tail.... and some coat I believe. Stitched together to create a new kind of fabric. It seems that, Coco tells me, Earth pony fibers have a natural scent to them, one that specifically relates to their cutie mark, that lingers for years even without perfumery and... well... Applejack?"
Nose wrinkled and upper lip pulled up, Applejack's expression has not changed. It is still the same half-nauseous, half-stupefied look tipped with vertigo. "W... what...?" she repeats.
"I am... quite curious to know if you really do smell like apples."
Applejack's face has not moved an inch.
"So, if you don't mind," I say, leaning forward to her.
Applejack holds a hoof up, pressing against my chest and pushing me back. She rattles her head as though to shake herself back to her senses. "You're serious...?"
"Of course. For the sake of fashion I'm willing to take it upon myself to verify this rumor. If I have to smell every Earth pony then–"
"Rarity!” she practically shouts, stomping her hooves on the ground. “D'ya have any idea how crazy you sound right now!?"
"What is so crazy about this?"
"Ya just don't approach ponies asking to sniff'em."
"Again, must you make it sound so distasteful? It is but a simple whiff. Something so trivial should not even be a bother to best of friends."
"I... Ah'm not so sure about this."
"Please, Applejack," I moan and bat my eyelashes, out of that coaxing habit which had victimed many a stallions. Why I would think that such obvious flirtation would convince her is beyond me. But, to my surprise, Applejack's grimace eases.
"So if ah let ya do this," she sighs, "ya promise ya'd let me go back to mah work."
"I was hardly in your way."
"Yer literally in my way. Now promise."
"Very well."
Applejack relaxes as she sighs again. Then, her green eyes set upon me, she stills her body and waits my approach.
And, under the weight of her eyes, I find myself suddenly immobile for the briefest of moments at the thought of what I will have to do to this mare in front of me. That I will have to approach her, press my muzzle against her nape, and take in her scent; and that she will offer no resistance but her reluctance, fully conscious and self-aware of what is being done to her. If only I had waited for the opportunity to present itself–say, to slip oh so clumsily and have her catch me–then I would avoid being placed under such a disposition. Too late now, I think, Applejack is here, waiting for my advance, waiting to get this over with.
In front of Applejack's living and breathing form, my own breath is taken away from me. What is it that suddenly has me taken aback so? Is it that I have to approach her so dangerously close–past her personal space–to the point that our bodies would touch?
"Just so ya know," she whispers, "ah still don't completely approve of ya intrudin' on somepony's intimate space."
Must we be intimate?
I clear my throat and move forward. Surely in our numerous misadventures there had been several occasions in which our bodies collided against one another. And have we not, on more than one occasion, already slept side-by-side in bed? Surely there is no reason why this needs to be more ill at ease than it needs to be.
I raise my hoof–"Ehem," I cough–and place them gently on her shoulders. I feel the hardened marmoreal muscles of her forelegs against my hoof. The sunkenness on her cheeks, the tightness of her chest, I observe it all unknowingly as I close in on her. And, as I lean ever forward, our faces brush against each other as I bury muzzle against her mane and the coat of her neck.
I take a whiff of her, and Applejack's nature enters me. The smell of her sweat is certain, and had been expected, but beneath it is the familiar scent of the land: the crusted and still-moist musk of dirt, the minty aroma of leaves, the fragrant pollens, and, underneath it all, is a hint of the sweet scent of apples.
Caught in the sensuous experience, it is too late for me to realize that I am already breathing against Applejack's neck. I lean back, finally, surprised to find some resistance on the back of my head. Applejack has been holding me the entire time and I have not noticed.
I return to my hooves and hold on to Applejack's gaze for a while longer. It is difficult to discern, with the color of her coat, whether that hint of red upon her cheek is imposed by my own imagination or not. But as I feel the heat of my body rise, I cannot help but think that, right now, as she stares at me, a similar indecent blush smears the dove-white color of my face. I immediately turn my head to the side.
There is a moment of silence, with even the hills sharing the awkward pause. There is not a sound, except for the brief instance of Applejack's cough to breach the confines of her throat.
"S-So..." she stutters, looking to the sides. "We done here?"
I nod, unable to form words past my lips. I brush a misplaced lock of mane behind my ear.
"You... ya sure?"
I nod again, batting my head furiously up and down.
Another moment of silence, and another minute of us not moving.
"Alright then,” she says, "ah guess ah better get back to work now."
I nod for a third time and step aside.
"U-Unless ya need anythin'... or something."
"N-No." Finally, words are broken from me. "That's alright."
Applejack walks past me, her movements somewhat slower than usual.
Outside her field of vision, I expel the trapped air that has tightened my chest. I fan the heat of the sun out of me with my hoof, fighting, at the same time, to control the mad drumming of my heart. It is as though I have raced a dozen miles with how it palpitates. And, as I turn my eyes to her, to Applejack, the beating only quickens.
I shudder to consider what it is that causes this sudden change in me. Would simply being in such close proximity with her flutter me so? And flutter with what, I wonder. Surely, not romance...
Romance!? Sweet Celestia! Applejack and I? I laugh, if only to undermine the fanciful notion. What would my peers in Canterlot think?
And yet...
She stops immediately, almost prematurely. "What?" she asks, looking over her shoulder.
“Excuse me?” I can only mutter in response.
“Ah thought ah heard ya gigglin’. Was it something ah said?”
“N-No. I mean– Wait!”
And why, by Celestia's holy beard, did I ask her to wait?
But she does wait, for a few seconds longer than necessary that it should have warranted an obvious inquiry. She stands idle, waiting, knowing that I have yet to form any words from this clouded mind of mine. She must know that my pause results from that emotion we both must feel but embarassment refuses to acknowledge or even admit.
"P-pardon me for asking," I say, "there is no other way around this question but... Applejack, have you... bathed already?"
"Uhh... no," she says, as though it should have been obvious. "Ah take mah showers after farm's work done... not before."
"Well that... that makes sense..." I mutter. "I ask because I can imagine that it is actually Sweet Apple Acres which I have picked up from your coat rather than your more… natural scent."
She shrugs.
"Do you mind if I catch a whiff of you again once you are properly tended and refreshed?"
"...Sure ah guess."
"Splendid!" I say, clapping my hooves. I hope that my exaggerated display would somehow fan away the air of awkwardness which had been so unwelcome. "Shall I set you up for a day in the spa?"
My strategy works, and Applejack is able to smile without being coy. "Actually, ah'm about to finish,” she says. She points deeper into the woods. “Just gotta take care of a dozen or so apple trees just at the foot of the hill yonder. Since yer already here and if ya don't mind waiting... There's a lake there that I usually swim in."
A brief recall of my empty schedule for the day is all I need to make my decision. "Oh, well... now that I think about it, it will actually make more sense as the spa's shampoos and scents might just be too much. And since I'm already here, I might as well accompany you... Why, I might as well help you with your apples if... if you wouldn't mind."
"Ah appreciate it."
Applejack and I venture deeper through the long line of apple trees and into the thick forest. I have had little occasion to enter these parts, if at all, and have only just now realized the expanse and diversity of Applejack’s land. The trees here are thicker, with branches and leaves forming a green canopy over us; yet the vast number of chestnut-shaped spots welcomes enough sunlight that the afternoon is not lost to us and the trail is lighted.
She stares back at me every few minutes or so, thrice with curious eyes and once with a raised brow. She must wonder–as do I–why I have not said anything as of yet. She expects me–I’d like to think–to complain and nag about the environment's condition or the length of the seemingly endless distance we will have to cover. Yet I refrain from doing so if only to prove to her that I am capable of handling myself in such conditions.
She bucks a tree or two on our way, the early bloomers which had already grown a bountiful produce. I follow with a steady pace behind her, not saying anything. I find myself already entertained with the simple subtle role of a passive observer, watching and studying her with an abject awe. There is a rustic beauty in her movements, an aggressiveness that is all too gentle. I see it in the way she fondles the bark of the tree trunk, in the way she bothers to place baskets for the apples to fall in–why not land them all to the cart?–and the way she looks at every bit life around us as though it is a part of her own.
"So..." she asks suddenly, unable to bear the silence, “why me?”
"Excuse me?"
"Any Earth pony stallion’d be more than happy to help ya for yer... fashion experiment?"
What is that suppose to imply? I want to ask.
But why her, indeed? All too immediately I am reminded of a brief comment innocently remarked by Coco Pommel. It was months ago, when I first decided to pay her a visit with a trip to one of Manehattan’s more luxurious spas: "Your friend is a very handsome colt," she had said, fidgeting her hooves and blushing like a schoolfilly, "Is he… dating anypony?" I responded with a laugh and continued on to say that she must be mistaken, for among the friends of mine she saw not one of them is a stallion. Masculine perhaps, I remember joking, but not a stallion.
Looking back now, how strangely evident it was that, even without uttering a name, we both knew that it was Applejack we both refer to.
She, that tomboyish southerner. If she would tend to herself as she did when she was Appejewel, then she could avoid being mistaken for as a cute colt. Her brash and straightforward manner does not help, and neither does the taut hardness of her body.
Does she even have any idea as to what other ponies think of her? Does she even care?
I almost forgot that she has asked me a question, and I proceed to answer:
"Because you're– Well,” I clear my throat, “you're the closest Earth pony friend I can do this to without it being awkward."
"Why would it be awkward?"
"Oh, you know..."
"And why not Pinkie Pie?"
"It's superfluous to discuss this now, is it not? I am here, so let us get this over with."
"Fine," she sighs. "But this is just fer yer experiment. If it turns out that ah do smell like apples when funky fresh, yer not planning on cutting my mane and tail, are ya?"
"Of course not... yet."
"Rarity!"
"I'm kidding..." I laugh. "Kidding."
A few minutes later, we finally arrive at a point where the green and rosy trees of Sweet Apple Acres shake their branches with those of the brown and maple White Tail Woods. The forest is pregnant with the open clearing before us. A blast of air is the first to welcome me: a freshness that smells of almonds and fir leaves so invigorating it lulls me to sleep. The wind is not invisible here. It winks its eyes of mote dust and flaps its wings of bladed grass. A fairie of nature that tiptoes on top of Applejack's hat.
From the belly of the moist earth, where jagged silver boulders grow from the verdant turf of green, out pours a crystal blue spring of what seems to be sparkling water. Not a ripple wavered on its steady surface that one may very well think it to be glass or, if eyeing the various collection of colorful pebbles below, a portal to a rocky desert.
I spot five apple trees scattered here and there, with fruits a furious blush. No doubt these are the object of Applejack's harvest for today.
"Y'might be wondering if there's anythin' special about the apples growin' in these parts," she says, turning back at me.
"Now that you mention it..."
"Well, it ain’t special in the tiniest bit,” she laughs as she walks to one of the trees. “Except that Granny Smith believes otherwise."
"She does?"
"Well, there’s a story behind it really.” Applejack returns to the cart, takes out all of the wicker baskets, and places them all just beneath the branches. “Ah find it hard to believe mahself but Granny Smith swore that when she was young–ah mean, really young–she once travelled to this place alone, looking for some berries. And she claims that right here, in this very clearing where we stand, she saw an entire herd of alicorns."
"Alicorns?"
"Dozens, Granny Smith says. Dozens of'em.” Applejack grows bigger with each word. “Blue, white, red, yellow. Their colors vibrant, wild just like that! Some of them takin’ a drink on the lake, some grazin’ on the grass, some flyin’ to eat the apples, some tendin’ their young. Heck, Granny Smith said she saw Princess Celestia and Princess Cadance there... among others."
Applejack approaches a tree, rears back and bucks the trunk. The apples fall flawlessly into the separate baskets, and one directly on Applejack's hoof.
"And ever since then," Applejack says, "Granny keeps saying that the apples that grow in these parts must be special if alicorns would bother to fly in here."
"So again..." I ask, "what makes it so special?"
"Like ah said, it ain’t.” She shrugs, and tosses the apple to me. “But if it is, then maybe ah have yet to find out."
I catch the thrown fruit with my magic. I take a small bite, expecting to experience something different, only to feel disappointed when I find none but the same sweet, tangy taste.
With my magic I pluck some other apples hanging from the farther trees and levitate the collection into Applejack's baskets.
"Thank ya kindly," she says. She first inspects for damaged goods before depositing all contents to the cart.
"Not a problem."
I look around, surveying the surrounding trees for any more bead of red to fill Applejack’s basket with. There is nothing more between the leaves but the rays of sunlight that peek.
A cool wind breezes through the branches, carrying with it the howling moan of the hills. It takes me a moment to appreciate the prevailing silence of this sudden pause. The only thing I can hear now, beside my own beating chest, is Applejack's steady and rhythmic breathing. Here and there are blue jays that chirp but, like the rustling leaves, they are mute and devoid of sound.
She, too, remains quiet and still. And when I look to her, I find her face bathed in the sunlight. Her eyes are closed gently as though she is simply sleeping. Yet in this second where the quiet hangs, she is open to the earth around us as though listening to a whisper that only she can hear.
Then, opening her eyes and seeing me first, Applejack smiles.
"So..." she says. "Guess ah should take that dip now."
I nod. "Take your time."
Applejack takes her hat off and lays it on top one of the silver boulders. She undoes the red ribbon binding her ponytail and lets loose the golden waterfall that is her mane. Underneath the full afternoon, the threads of gold glistens. And as the sun shines upon them they do not reflect the light but, rather, seem to emanate a brightness of their own.
She trots to the edge of the lake, and where I expect her to simply jump in like the ruffian I believe her to be, Applejack treads down carefully on the water. The surface barely ripples in her descent.
With each step, the water rises from her hooves to her thighs, then to her navel, and stops to her chest. Applejack looks back to me and smiles.
I can only smile back.
Turning back to the waters, she plunges headfirst into the lake, submerging herself entirely. As soon as she has gone, the water folds its creases and remains still and constant as though undisturbed. A small riffling bubbles from the very center of the lake, and from it Applejack resurfaces. She looks around, until her eyes set on mine, before she submerges yet again.
As she busies herself in her bathing, I grab her hat and her small red bands. I hold them against myself as I take my place beneath the shade of a nearby apple tree. A polite gesture for my part as, despite the messiness of her accessories, I would hate to see them just lying on the piece of rock where she left them.
Applejack continues her swim, which must tantamount to bathing for Earth ponies. I myself cannot imagine being refreshened without a few minutes in the steam room or devoid of my select assortment of conditioners. But I do not judge much...
This is their lifestyle I guess.
Having grown up in Ponyville, I can understand the serene charm of such simplicity. I may not completely approve of it, but I do understand. There is a peculiar spell, an attraction even, to the everyday ritual of the countryside. As though to break sweat in the arduous labor is, in itself, a modest expression of one’s freedom and love for life. I see it every time in Applejack’s eyes, often when she is right in the middle of her work: how the corner of her lips would curve upwards, how her tail dances to the wind, how she treads not on dirt but on sacred ground.
Applejack swims farther and farther away. As the distance between us grows, I feel a momentary realization to my own current privacy as well as the enduring weight of her hat on my hooves. Slowly, once I figure Applejack to be out in the distance, I raise the hat a few inches to my muzzle and take in a whiff. Whereas I expected to smell dirt or buckwheat from the Stetson, it is startling that it is the sweet scent of apples–and cinnamon?–that lingers here.
I look up; Applejack is still there in the distance, unmindful of me. Again, less conscious of my surroundings this time, I raise the hat to my muzzle and take in another of the sweet scent. Why, I wonder, has the peculiar smell aroused in me a sudden attraction that must be all but innocent? And why, in my grasp, am I so ready to jerk this Stetson behind me at the slightest hint that Applejack may witness what it is I am doing to her beloved treasure?
As Applejack comes to mind, I notice how the lake seems to freeze in its disquieting stillness. There is neither a ripple nor a movement on its steady surface. A whole minute passes, and the stillness remains undisturbed.
Panic overwhelms me.
Where has Applejack gone? Did she drown?
Of course not. I shake my head. It couldn't be!
I stand up, trotting to the edge of the lake. I survey the clearing. There is not a speck of the orange Earth pony in that mirror of blue.
But, distraught as I am by my morbid imaginings, I do not notice that movement beneath me until it is too late. From the deep moss-covered, algae-filled bank of the lake, Applejack bursts forth and without warning–without warning at all–takes me in her hooves and yanks me into the water!
I hear the sound of her belly laugh before I feel anything else: before I feel the cold wash all over me, before I am stirred wide awake, before I realize where I am. I open my eyes and stare at the crystal lake from the inside. Applejack is in front of me, dragging me by my hoof, as she leads me forward. Below me, multi-colored pebbles sparkle in different colors, barely lighted by the ribbons of light that permeates the water.
Applejack leads me to the white glow above in our ascent.
We break through the surface of the water and I fill my lungs with much needed air. I wrap my hooves over Applejack's shoulder–not endearingly of course–and proceed to summon an artificial temper.
"Y-You... you… you ruffian!" I cry out, slapping her chest.
She giggles in response.
"T-That's not funny..." I stammer. "Applejack, I-I can't swim... properly."
"What!? No..." Her laughter only grows louder. "Course ya can swim."
"No, I can't really," I explain. "I can... I can only dog paddle. I can't... tread..."
Applejack grabs on my hooves and unwraps them from her shoulders. She lets me go and I am once again back under the water. I paddle immediately, upwards, until I break the surface to see her laughing. She rears back and starts to float on her back.
"T-That's not funny," I say, pedaling furiously as I follow her.
"Just makin' sure."
"Making sure of what? That I can't swim!?"
"Actually, ah really just wanted to see ya dog paddle for once. Here–" she grabs me again and my hooves found their way to her shoulders once more. "Before ya tire out and sink to the bottom like a rock."
"L-Like a rock!?" I moan, aghast and appalled. "Are you implying that I'm heavy?"
Still clinging on to her, I grab a hoof-full of water and splash some to her face with each word. "I. Am. Most. Definitely. Not. Heavy."
But as I hear another one of Applejack's endless laugh, my apparent anger subsides. Hearing her joyous mirth like that, a guffaw so loud and hearty it should be indecent, I cannot help but return, at least, the faint shimmer of a smile.
I bat my hindlegs and feel nothing beneath my hooves but the water. How deep is this lake? I think. Absent solid ground, a rising feeling of vertigo and displacement shakes my stomach. Is this how pegasi feel when they fly? My clinch around Applejack's shoulders tightens.
But, as I feel her chest pressed against mine, I am then made aware of our closer proximity, of how close our lips could already be for a kiss–a kiss! the scandal of it all–and how we would both appear to any outside onlooker.
But there is none; there is only the two of us. And the question of how we would have looked in each other's eyes.
Here, swimming hoof in hoof at the center of a lake, at the heart of the mountain, where once the most magical of creatures are said to have trodden and grazed, she and I hold each other together.
"Guess ah'll carry ya back now," she says.
I nod and she proceeds to guide me back to the edge of the lake where she pulled me. She stops for a moment, seeing the green moss. I brush those away with my magic.
"Applejack," I say as we neared.
"Yeah...?"
"Don't tell anypony I can't swim... It's... embarrassing."
"Ya have my word..."
"...And m-maybe some time in the future you can... I don't know... teach me how..."
"Hmm... we'll see."
By this time, I can already feel the pebbles beneath my hooves and I would have no need for her to pamper me so. But still I refuse to let go, even as she grabs me by my hips with her strong forelegs–how strong is she?–and places me on the raised tuft of grass.
We remain there; I sitting with my rear hooves dangling on the edge of the surface, and she, standing there by my side, her body invisible from the navel down, and her hooves not letting go of my sides. I make no attempt to remove her hooves from me. I can only avoid eye contact momentarily, pretending my attention is not focused on her touch, as I proceed to wring the lake from my mane.
"Rarity," she says.
"Y-Yes?"
"Ya gonna... take a whiff of me now or what?"
I am silent for quite some time. I clear my throat and nod.
I lean forward, towards her, once again our cheeks barely brushing as I lay my muzzle against a lock of her golden mane. At the slightest intake of breath, the sweetest scent of apples fills me, a fresh, fruity aroma touched with a hint of mint and olives. I move lower, to her warm shoulders, where I bask onto the unnatural heat radiating from her glistening body. Here the redolence is stronger, sweeter, that if I close my eyes It reminds me of the revitalizing boon of spring to which every flower and every heart blossoms to receive the touch of life.
When I come to, from the paralyzing sting of awe and wonder, I realize that my body is locked with that of Applejack’s. My hooves, around her shoulder and back, and my face buried against her broad chest, I do not know what face she is making. Nor can I bring myself to look up and see, even as she raises her hooves and wraps it against me in an embrace.
"Rarity..." she calls.
I hear but make no response, knowing I cannot look at her without the glow of a red flare upon my cheeks.
"Rarity," she calls again.
There was a time when Gaia was to me a figure of a formidable war goddess whose shrieks quaked the earth and whose breath stirred hurricanes. But as the year wore on that image was slowly reduced to that of a mere little forest nymph, foxtrotting through the alleyways of trees; and it is Applejack, taming mountains with her plow and conjuring fruits at her command, who took the place as my image of the spirit of the earth.
In one of my more fanciful imaginings, I picture Applejack to have been orphaned–not from ponies–but from the belly of the mountain itself, unearthed from the rubble fully equipped and full-grown. Her toned body is a mass of hard marble, tempered by the heat of the world’s core. Her coat as well, sun-tanned to perfection, is of grain and barley.
Demeter or Gaia, goddess or god-feminized, the moment’s disillusion begins to cast a hypnotizing spell that I am within the embrace of one so earthly yet so divine. Yet all too knowing of this enchantment, I still am not willing to separate. That in my submission to the enticement, I condemn her to my worship.
"Applejack," I clear my throat. "S-Since we're already like this... I... I might as well find out if... i-if you taste like apples too."
Our chests pressed against each other, I do not know whose heart it is that jumps and takes the wind out of me. With tremendous effort, I lift my head up to hold her gaze.
Applejack's expression is frozen to that of absurd disbelief, but it is not the face of one who is aghast. Her face, solid and firm, and warm to the touch of my hoof, is the unflinching zealotry of a stoic.
Don't look at me me like that, I want to say to her. Please don't look at me so seriously... Or else I might think that...
It's not even a kiss, it's just a taste of her lips...
Just a taste...
Beholden beneath the pull of those emerald eyes, from which I see myself hesitate, I make my choice.
I know that when I kiss Applejack, and forever wed my unutterable visions to her perishable breath, my mind will never romp again like the mind of Celestia. So I wait, listening for a moment longer to the horseshoe that has been struck upon a star. Then I kiss her. At my lips's touch, she blossoms for me like a flower, and the incarnation is complete.
The nectar that is her lips melts upon mine, and I receive the sweetness heartily. I cherish it, the taste and the mare that makes it possible, regretting all the wasted years how something so aphrodisiacal can pass unloved.
I pull back, resisting the urge to push deeper into the kiss lest reason falls to unbridled emotions.
I remain in a daze for a second, seeing more of the sunlight from behind my dearest than Applejack's own pained visage. And when I do see her face again, I am surprised to find that my kiss has not elicited that slightest change.
Must she be so cruel? Does she do this to torture me? With her fragrance a coition of spring and autumn, and her warmth a fierceness of summer, must it be ruthless winter that holds the icy grip on her still-beating heart?
But I am proven wrong the second I feel the quake of her shudder. It is not a quick or hurried motion, yet the explosion of her movements is all too fast, and all too unbelievable, for my mind to conceive. She rises from the water. She grabs hold of my body. She pins me down the grass.
"A-Applejack! What are you–"
Her shadow eclipses the daylight and the anger in her eyes becomes my world. Anger at what? I do not have time to think. She covets my lips and I feel the hot touch of her mouth against my mouth, the weight of her chest against my chest, the pressure of her hooves against my ribs.
The kiss she forces upon me is not at all the same than that which I planted upon her lips. It is wet, savage–appetitive–driven by the force of a wrath to which I am the outlet. It is too late to realize that I am under the restraint of her body. I shut my eyes. I taste the burning sweetness of honey in her breath.
I raise a hoof; she holds it down. I writhe beneath her; her knee clamps against my inner thighs. I pull my face away; she grabs my cheek.
I feel her kisses getting deeper and deeper into me as my own mouth has opened to receive it. The better half of me struggles to escape, yet another half–one which I will later find hard to forgive–cannot find it in myself to tear away from what it believes to be an act of desperate affection. And it is not wrong. For underneath this crude brutality, I feel a tenderness so self-tortured it cannot be expressed in any other form.
The anger–I understand now–is not directed to me, but to herself!
My cries turn to sweet moanings, and I yield to her the command of me.
I grab on to her and pull her close; for her body is the only rock I cling to as I drown in the dizzying swaying world of her lips.
Applejack rears back, breaking the lock of our kiss. She stares at me for a moment, blinking only once or twice, as reason dawns upon her once more. In that pause, I see myself once again upon her emerald eyes; there, lying on the grass, face scarlet, mane spread and mouth partly open, hooves crossed against my chest, as confused and wanting as the Earth pony over me.
"Ah'm... Ah'm s-sorry," she stammers. She dismounts me, jumping, and trots a few paces back. "I... uh... Ah'm sorry. Didn't mean to... to do that..."
Aware of the indecency of my current position, I jump up to my hooves. I turn from her and take a few steps back myself; not out of fear, but–unsurprisingly–of embarrassment. I trace my hooves to my coiffure, tending it the best I can to a proper arrangement. "T-That... that was... something," I manage to blurt out.
"It got out of hoof," she admits.
"Y-Yes," I say. "It was definitely a little bit more... aggressive... than I would like..."
"Sorry."
"It's alright, darling. I apologize too if my advance was... uncalled for," I say, digging a hoof against the dirt. "But it's not like you stopped me so I saw no reason to not go through with my little… ehem... experiment."
Applejack trots to the tree where I sat. "A-Ah was just too shocked when you suggested kissin' me," she says, tying her hair with the red ribbons.
"Kiss!? Darling, like I said, it was for experimentation. It was hardly a kiss. Nopony said anything about kissing. Why, truth be told, it was y-you who kissed me... Suddenly forcing me on the ground a-and... and doing all that."
"'Truth be told' my flank!" she exclaims, slamming her Stetson back on her head. "Ya moved first. Our lips touched. That counts as kissin' in mah book."
"And I suppose you were similarly just tasting my lips when you–"
She turns. And upon meeting her eyes, and seeing that rosy-red tinge on her cheeks, the embarrassment makes my lips recall the sweet taste, and touch, of her body on mine. And I know, by how briskly she turns from me–as do I from her–that the awkward sentiment is mutual.
“After all your talk about intruding on one’s intimate space,” I mutter to myself.
And you weren’t even intimate...
A whole sixty seconds pass with neither of us speaking. There is but the occasional glance, if just to be sure that the other is still there.
I can leave at any moment, yet to suddenly depart without a passing word–after all that was done–is the crudest sign of indecorum that could very well mean the end of our friendship. But no matter how I try to form words, my lips cannot speak them. And, as always, it is the braver pony who speaks first.
"S-So..." It is Applejack's word that cuts through the silence. "D'ya... got what ya came here for?"
"E-Excuse me?" I blurt out. I heard her, of course, but it seems that phrase has never been more ready on my tongue that I would have spoken it regardless of what she said.
"Y'know... for yer fashion thing."
"Oh, that. Well…”–clear my throat–“yes. I did."
"So...?"
"So... what?"
"Whaddya find out?"
"Well," I bite my lip, remembering the sensation, "You really do smell like apples... and tastes like apples..."
"Oh..." she responds. She shrugs. "T-That's good to know ah guess."
"Right..."
"Yeah..."
"I guess... I better go then." To rid ourselves of whatever awkward situations this encounter may bring about in the future, I return my voice to its usual cheery intonation. "Thank you for participating with my little experiment, darling Applejack. I knew I can count on a friend like you."
"Well, yer welcome," she answers back, returning to her higher tone. "And if ya need another help with somethin', it'll be mah pleasure to help you."
Does she mean she wants to…?
But seeing the warm innocent smile on her face, the same expression is reflected upon my own. "I look forward to it," is all I can say.
Running a hoof across my mane, I turn to the path from where we have passed.
Above me the afternoon is ever bright and sunny. The slanted sunbeams fall through between the eyes of the branches and leaves, lighting a straight path back to Sweet Apple Acres.
I walk, hoping that with each step the memory of today will be left behind in that lake where Applejack and I shared a moment. But it has the reverse effect, for with every hoof step that spreads the gap between us I shrink further into myself. Nature surrounds me; and within her world but without her, I can only think fondly of this Earth pony mare whom I have given my first kiss.
Was it also her first? I think. Of course not, a fine mare of her quality should have received one from a suitor by now. But if not... then will this afternoon bear significant weight to her memory as well? Will she also look back to this moment?
As though to answer me, the hill upon which I stand blows its breath and a powerful gust sweeps my path. Around me, the trees and flowers stir and tilt their heads to nod; and their leaves, rustling with the wind, make the sound of a delightful laughter.
Will she look at me the same way again? I think, brushing a lock of mane behind my ear.
"Hey, Rarity!" a voice shouts from behind.
I turn around. Applejack is there in the distance, standing tall and waving her Stetson at me.
Will I look at her the same way again!?
"Just in case yer wonderin'," she shouts for the whole Sweet Apple Acres to hear, giggling and drunk with joie de vivre: "Ya taste like marshmallows!"
* * *
The whole of Ponyville sleeps but for me. Sleep will not come so easily tonight, I suppose. There are too many distractions. I keep seeing orange wherever I look, and what sick trick of Discord has been humored upon me that the only orders I am to work with for the weekend are Stetsons for an Appaloosa-inspired fashionista?
I tear away the eye-wrap, the thing doing little to help me sleep. I remain fetal, my whole body curling against a large white pillow.
Irritation gets the best of me and I find myself hoof-punching that pillow, imagining it to possess twin emerald eyes. Even more frustrated with my obnoxious display of apparent anger, I wrap my hooves around that pillow and squeeze it tightly to my chest.
I mutter only one thing: "Hmph! ‘Tastes like marshmallow’ she says..."
