“Apples,” Applejack said, her teeth gritted, “have natural, teeth-cleanin’ properties. I live on an apple orchard. I work on an apple orchard. I eat all kinds of apples. My chompers should be darn near perfect. So why in the name of all things good an’ green an’ growin’...”
She glared up at the florescent light, nostrils flaring as they took in the antiseptic stench of the dentist’s office. “Ya there, doc?”
“Hmm?” Colgate’s voice was a bit distant, like she was in another room. “Oh, sorry, Applejack. I believe that, but you still have to—”
“I am a grown mare and can make my own decisions regardin’ my mouth!”
Colgate didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “So... why are you here?” She walked into the room, facemask and latex gloves giving Applejack just the faintest chill.
Applejack mumbled something.
“I’m... what?” Colgate asked.
“Granny Smith said I had to go to the dentist,” Applejack said, wearing the sort of expression the word ‘hangdog’ was invented for.
“Ah.”
“There ain’t been nothing said ‘bout actually letting ya poke around inside my piehole, mind you,” Applejack said, dropping down off the dental chair—why yes, that is in fact what it’s called, thank you very much.
She poked a hoof right at Colgate’s chest. “So if we got that clear, I reckon I’m about done here! My teeth are just fine, and if I have any problems, that’s what we got that pair of pliers in the barn for!”
Colgate pulled a face that suggested that Applejack had just proposed using a rusty pair of pliers to rectify any potential dental issues, mostly because that was what just happened. “Well, I can’t say that I’d recommend doing that—”
“This whole darn thing’s a pile of hooey designed to scam good, hard-working ponies outta their money and doin’ things that they could do just as well all by their lonesome with a five-bit pair of pliers and a ten-bit bottle’a whiskey! Why, I have half a mind to get y’all in touch with those Flimflam brothers! They could learn a couple’a things from you hucksters! And anyhow—”
“Applejack.” Colgate said the name cautiously, deliberately, like you would release a dangerous animal from its cage. Or approach a Cutie Mark Crusader who had just been investigating the spare tube of laughing gas. Please don’t ask too many questions about that last comparison. “I can be done pretty quick if you sit back down.”
“Miss Colgate,” Applejack explained patiently, “I wasn’t born yesterday. I know darn well that you want to root around in my mouth looking for all sorts of unlikely nonsense, and ain’t nothin’ gonna stop you from makin’ me pay enough ta—”
“Free of charge,” Colgate said.
Applejack scowled. “I don’t need yer charity.”
“Five bits, then. Leaves you enough for the ten-bit bottle of whiskey if you change your mind.” Colgate’s face was a mask of professionality, but there was at least a bit of warmth and good humor in her voice.
Or, in any case, that’s what it sounded like. Applejack knew better. Dentists ain’t got any of that. Ain’t nothing left but a shell filled chock-full of calculation, ruthlessness, and whatever golldurned motive makes a pony stick pointy metal implements in another pony’s mouth for no readily discernable reason whatsoever.
But there was defeat in the breeze. Applejack could smell it, like the sickly sweet stench of rotten apples. “Fine,” she sighed, sitting back down in the seat. “Ya happy?”
Colgate shrugged. “I relish every last opportunity I get to stick my hooves into the face of an unhappy pony.”
“I figured.”
“Alright then. Open your mouth.”
Applejack obliged. Sort of.
“Wider, please.”
“Ish open!” Applejack objected, with the aggrieved dignity of someone lying on a dentist’s chair and arguing with the dentist, which is to say none whatsoever.
Colgate gave the sort of look all dentists are specially trained to give past a facemask. “I can’t do anything if you don’t open your mouth wider, Applejack.”
“Fine,” Applejack mumbled, obliging her with an extra couple of inches of clearance.
“Thank you,” Colgate said, retrieving a metal rod.
Applejack’s eyes widened. Her face went white as a sheet. “What the heck is that?!”
Colgate sighed. “It’s a mirror. I’m going to use it to look inside your mouth. How long has it been since you’ve been to a dentist?”
“I do believe I’m up to zero years, zero months, an’—”
“I mean before now.”
“Oh. I reckon it’s been nearing up on seven years now.”
“Oookay. Well, if you’ve been keeping good care of your teeth that shouldn’t be a problem. Have you been flossing regularly?”
“Ain’t nobody that flosses regular!”
Colgate sighed. “Okay. Open your mouth again?”
Applejack gave a look that would have fit in equally well on the gallows, and complied.
“Wider.”
Applejack rolled her eyes.
The metal rod moved towards her face, its shiny contours ripe with menace. And then it was in Applejack’s mouth. It had the bitter iron taste of blood.
And fear.
Mostly fear, to be honest.
Colgate hmmed. “Looks pretty good from what I can tell.” She retrieved another tool from the side.
It was a diabolical-looking implement, a metal rod the size of a pencil, with something that looked like a bent needle at the end. It shone in the deathless glare of the fluorescent lights.
(This instrument is, in fact, called a dental explorer, or a sickle probe. But its true name can only be expressed in screams.)
“I’m just going to use this to check out your enamel, okay?”
Applejack weighed the question. Of course it wasn’t okay, but considering that she lived in a world where that thing existed and that nothing would ever be okay ever again, it was really a question of degree. She shrugged.
“Alright,” Colgate said, with just a hint of enthusiasm.
Applejack opened her mouth, and the thing-that-should-not-be disappeared into it. She closed her eyes. Blood pounded behind her ears.
And then it touched her tooth, like a snake slithering past her leg. Applejack shuddered a little.
“Hold still, please.”
It touched again, except now it was pressed against her tooth, the sharp point digging into it. It was like the sound of hooves on a chalkboard, a screeching assault on the senses, even though the only sound was the soft scratching of the devilstick against her teeth. Applejack’s ears flattened against her skull.
After roughly an eternity and a half, Colgate said, “Your enamel is a little thin.”
“Sho’s mah ‘atience,” Applejack said, past Satan’s toothpick.
“Sorry?” Colgate said, pulling the single greatest argument against the existence of a loving god out of Applejack’s mouth.
“Nothing.”
“You need to brush more. But we’re also gonna do a fluoride rinse.”
Applejack didn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re gonna do it anyways,” Colgate said.
“I figured.”
“Smart mare.”
Colgate wandered out of Applejack’s line of sight. “Do you want apple flavor?”
Applejack sat up. “No, Miss Colgate, I do not darn well want something good and pure and sacred defiled in whatever unholy swill you’re about to expect me to put into my piehole.”
There was a heavy pause that hung in the air listlessly, like a party balloon a week after the main event.
“Ya got bubble gum?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take that.”
“Okay.”
Colgate came back to the chair with a small cup of a sickly pink fluid. Applejack looked suspiciously at it.
“Swish for a minute and a half, then spit.”
“Alright, alright,” Applejack said. “Gimme this nonsense.” She upended the contents of the cup into her mouth.
It tasted like sadness and unrequited love, an insipid taste that still somehow offended. Applejack swished it around in her mouth.
Colgate stared patiently at her.
Applejack spit it out abruptly. “We’re done here.”
Colgate nodded. “Yes. Yes we are.”
Applejack got up, and extended a hoof to Colgate. “Ms Colgate. Thank ya for this. Let’s never do it again, agreed?”
Colgate shrugged. “Could you send in your brother?”
“Depends.”
“What’s it depend on?”
“Train to Appleloosa mighta left already.”
“Oh.”
“Yup.”
Author's Note
I claim no responsibility for incorrect terminology or procedure. Please direct any of your technical complaints to Einhander, who bears no culpability for this whatsoever, but he's a nice guy and will probably take it well.
