Home is where the House is
Princess Celestia scribbled down her signature on another set of forms placed on her desk, the movement so regular it may as well be mechanical. She had been working as Princess of Equestria for a long while now, longer than she cared to admit, and she had become able to tell the time just by looking at the quantity of papers left for her to work through. By the looks of things, she had another hour before it was officially time for Luna to take over ruling the country... not that she ever dealt with things like paperwork, or heaven forbid, actually appearing in court. One of the perks of being the night shift, Celestia suspected.
She heard the heavy hoofsteps of her sister making her way from the tiny sleeping quarters she had claimed as her own, just above Celestia. The Princess of Equestria didn't mind refurnishing the room above the observatory to suit her sister's tastes: she knew how much Luna liked her altitude.
The Princess of the Night in question was barely fit to be seen in public: wearing slippers and a night cap, she yawned as she made her way into Celestia's office and observatory.
"Evening, sister," Celestia greeted. Luna didn't make a noise, just crawled closer to a small coffee maker she had placed in the office like a zombie. Celestia felt like chuckling: anypony seeing the regal Princess would have a hard time believing she was any more distinguished than a regular pony.
Celestia heard a loud thunderclap from outside, and turned to face the window. "Sounds like you'll have a storm on your hooves tonight," she said on a conversational tone.
Luna nodded blearily. Celestia kept on staring at the vast expanse of Equestria, blanketed by the dark storm-clouds, each as black as sin. All but one...
Celestia peered closer at a small, white speck that was moving towards Canterlot. It couldn't be a bird... not in this weather, or a chariot.
"What on earth..." she began, but was interrupted as the object hurled itself closer and closer. To Celestia's alarm, it was much bigger than a bird.
Applejack had been relaxing, taking a few moments to lean back and enjoy the sunshine. Between work and an active social life, she didn't get that much time to herself. Of course, either one of those two things eventually came to disrupt her peace and quiet, and today was no exception. Applejack opened her eyes and lifted the hat from her eyes as she heard the sound of beating wings, sliding through the air. She smiled. There were some advantages to having a rather active social life, after all, and one of them was getting daily visits from a loving pegasus.
She rolled off her rocking chair, a rickety old thing that had been there for as long as she could remember, and got to her hooves lazily. Rainbow Dash circled her once before landing, her mouth tightly shut and her muscles tense. Applejack couldn't help but wonder why she looked so anxious: it wasn't as if Rainbow was ever nervous around her very often.
"Hi there," she called, beckoning the pegasus closer. Rainbow looked over at her, and reluctantly slunk over to the waiting earth pony. Applejack narrowed her eyes: she could recognize a guilty pegasus when she saw one, and there was one on her front lawn right before her eyes.
"Hi AJ," Rainbow called back.
"What did you do?" Applejack asked, deciding to get whatever was on Rainbow's mind out of the way as soon as possible. Rainbow tried pouting, annoyed at being found out so quickly, but she couldn't hide anything from anypony, let alone Applejack, whom she all but shared a house with these past days.
"Well... it's a bit embarrassing, 'kay? So maybe promise not to tell anypony?" she said. Applejack sighed. She had heard a few of these stories, and whilst it was a real honour to be entrusted with Rainbow's day to day troubles and problems, her somewhat erratic and haphazard nature made them more than a little ridiculous. She had crashed into libraries, woken up drunk behind the town hall, crashed into houses, stolen a Daring Do plush from a toy store, crashed into trees... the list went on, and at least half of them were a story about how she had crashed into something. It was a wonder she didn't have a permanent concussion.
Applejack chuckled to herself as she pondered that perhaps she did. It would explain an awful lot, she thought.
"Hey, no laughing. I may have... lost my house."
Applejack went quiet. Suddenly the thought about Rainbow having a concussion didn't sound so funny. In fact, it sounded downright worrying.
"What do you mean, lost it?"
Rainbow sighed, and sat down heavily on the grass. "I mean, lost it. About a week ago. I can't find it anywhere."
"How can you lose a cloud house? Ain't it... in the sky, someplace? Can't you just look up?" Applejack asked incredulously. Rainbow shook her head and shrugged.
"It's a bit too late for that. You see... well, there was a storm a week ago, apparently, and somehow the spiritual tether broke, and it just... blew off."
"Blew off."
"Blew off. And... well, I didn't notice for a whole week."
Applejack scoffed. "That ain't possible! Where do you normally sleep, then, if not your house?"
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you've forgotten."
Applejack closed her mouth. Rainbow had been sleeping over almost every single night recently. But even so, there had to be something she did at her own home.
"What about dinner?"
"You kept on saying about how you always made too much food..."
"Do your laundry?"
"Most ponies don't wear clothes... except for you, of course."
"Feed Tank?"
"We moved him here, remember?"
Applejack paused. She had run out of arguments, and even if she hadn't, it wouldn't change much now. She held up her hooves in defeat.
"Fine. Okay, so you lost your house."
Rainbow nodded. "And since it's obvious that you're partly to blame for this, I need you to help me track down my house."
"I'm to blame?" Applejack spluttered. "That's jes' outrageous!"
"Oh yeah? If I hadn't been snuggling up here every night with a certain somepony, I would have noticed my house was gone by now," Rainbow retorted. After suffering Applejack's glare for a full five seconds, she relented somewhat in her accusations. "Well, I'm not saying it's one hundred percent your fault, but..."
She sighed. "I need your help. I need to check my mail, do my bills and stuff, but I can't. Nopony's answered my flyers, and I can't see it anywhere."
"You set up flyers?" Applejack asked, a little amused.
"Yeah, at least six. I stuck them on trees and walls about town yesterday. Nopony answered, though."
Applejack smirked. "What did you write, 'house missing, If found, return to Rainbow Dash', like it were Opal?"
Rainbow seethed quietly. "Something like that, yes."
Applejack chuckled at Rainbow's discomfort, and laid a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "Well, why didn't you ask me yesterday? I could have helped or somethin'."
"I didn't want to ask for help," she snapped. "I... I mean, most ponies just lose their keys, or their lunch money, but I had to go and lose my whole house..."
Applejack felt a little stung by her aggressive reaction, but to look at her, Rainbow was having a hard time bringing herself to admit she needed help. She was avoiding eye contact and shying away, as if expecting to be insulted or reprimanded. For a second, Applejack felt sorry for her: did she really think she would get angry at her for something she had no control over?
"Don't worry about it none. It can't be that hard to find, right?" Applejack supplied helpfully. She nuzzled Rainbow affectionately, which cheered the pegasus up no end. "C'mon, let's go ask around town if somepony saw a giant floatin' cloud-house a week ago."
"Oh, so that was your house, was it? Goodness, I just thought... well, I imagined it was just a really unusual cloud," Rarity said.
The pair hadn't had to search for long before they encountered a pony who constantly searched the sky for any sign of wayward weather. Rarity made a point of avoiding rain, and when she felt she had to brave the wet projectiles, she definitely wanted to have enough time to get to her umbrella. Rainbow grumbled to herself behind Applejack, who was wondering why Rainbow hadn't started with Rarity in the first place.
"Most stormclouds don't have rainbow fountains!" Rainbow snapped back, frustrated.
"Well I'm sorry I didn't immediately call lost and found for a house," she retorted snarkily. When she realized that she had perhaps damaged Rainbow's dignity to the point of making the pegasus bite her lip and look away, she tried relenting. "However I can't be too harsh on you missing it for so long, I suppose, what with you spending so much time at the orchard..."
Rainbow narrowed her eyes, sensing a double meaning in Rarity's comment. "Is that supposed to be funny?"
Rarity back-pedalled. She hadn't realized that what she said might have been taken in the wrong way.
"I just meant that out of all the reasons to not notice you've lost your residence, being with your marefriend has to be among the better ones," she continued. "But I'd rather you didn't quite snap at me all the time: I think I can remember which direction it was going."
Both Applejack and Rainbow went quiet as Rarity tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I was at my boutique, and it was floating off towards the town hall... So that's... north?"
"North," Applejack confirmed. She nudged Rainbow in the side. "C'mon then, we'd better get searchin'."
The pair strode off in the general direction they needed to. When both ponies were out of sight, Applejack glanced over at Rainbow.
The pegasus always puzzled her: there were some things, most things, in fact, that she would dismiss as unimportant, not worthy of attention. Then there were other issues she had, however, sometimes the tiniest things, and Rainbow would panic over them, blowing them completely out of proportion. This was one such time, Applejack could tell.
She looked tired. Not in the way she usually did, when she had been practicing or flying all day and crawled next to Applejack in the evening before snoring loudly like a kitten fat on milk. Here, she looked like she had been exhausted mentally. Her eyes were drooping and her mane looked a little less colourful than before. Applejack had learned to tell how she was feeling by checking the vibrancy of that mane: it wasn't hard to tell when something was bothering her with all the signals she threw around.
"Sugarcube, you look like a dog without a bone. You know it ain't the end of the world if'n we can't find your house, right?"
Rainbow grunted. "Well, where am I going to live, then? It's where I live. It's my home."
"Rainbow, it took you a full week to notice it were missin'. Maybe you don't need it as much as you think you do."
Rainbow looked back at Applejack, her eyes hard as rocks.
"It's my house. I want it back. I don't want to be on the street, and I don't want to have to rely on anypony else. I want my house back: I don't think that's stupid at all."
"I never said it was stupid, sugar'. I just wanted to help."
The pair continued on the trail that led away from Ponyville, flanked by barren fields as they headed up north, towards Canterlot.
The time they spent walking across the countryside had been filled mostly by observing the countryside, and occasionally talking amongst themselves. Far away from Ponyville, Rainbow relaxed a lot more, less afraid of being embarrassed in public. Her concern for her house had not lessened, however. Applejack could tell by her constant scrutinizing of the horizon, and those worried eyes of hers. And always, the duller shades of colour on that magical mane of hers. Applejack considered trying to get her to loosen up by playfully attacking her, but for once her marefriend didn't seem in the mood.
She was normally so playful, even when she was being teased. She liked to fight back with twice as much energy, and whenever Applejack instigated a wrestling match they almost always ended up panting on the ground, exhausting each other. Applejack felt that if she tried that now, she'd just get an angry glare in exchange.
Applejack hadn't even thought of Rainbow having her own house these past week. The pegasus could almost always be found on the farm with her or her family, as if she had always been there. She had gotten used to sharing her breakfast table with her, waiting to use the bathroom after her, and sharing the same room as her. It was almost strange to remember that there was a time not so long ago when Rainbow wasn't part of her daily routine. It was a far less enjoyable time.
She wondered if that was part of what was troubling Rainbow: the fact that she was remembering what it was like apart from her. It felt egotistical to think that, but it made sense, if Applejack herself was pondering the issue.
"There!" Rainbow exclaimed suddenly, drawing Applejack from her thoughts. She followed Rainbow's gaze across the grassy field towards a small speck of light grey jutting from the flora. She narrowed her eyes, unsure why it was so small.
"You sure that's your house?" she asked. Rainbow shook her head.
"Oh, no. That's my bedside cabinet," Rainbow replied. Applejack stopped, surprised.
"Your bedside..."
Both ponies trotted over to the small, white box tipped on it's side. It looked a little battered, but otherwise intact.
"It must have fallen out during the storm," Rainbow muttered. "Boy, I wonder how messed up the kitchen is, if this thing fell out."
Applejack nodded. "And a good thing you moved Tank over to our place to play with Winoa."
Rainbow widened her eyes as she considered the consequences of leaving Tank at home. "Yeah, he might have gotten banged up pretty bad. I mean, I'd have figured out about the house a lot sooner, since I have to feed him and all... but I'd rather have him at the orchard, safe."
Rainbow pried open the door of her bedside cabinet with a grunt. "Better check that there's nothing valuable in here..."
Applejack craned her neck to see what she would pull out of there. She had to admit that she was curious: being tethered to the ground, she had never even visited Rainbow's house once. Now with it gone, she might never get the chance to see the cloud-house from the inside.
"Y'know, I sometimes wonder how you lived on your own for so long," she confessed. Rainbow stuck her head inside the cabinet.
"Uh... how so?"
"Well, I've always been with family, so it's a bit different for me."
"Oh, yeah, right," Rainbow replied. Before she answered, however, she gave an exited shout as she pulled a book out of the bedside cabinet. "Whoa! Can't believe I almost lost this!" she said, holding one of her prize Daring Do hardbacks. Applejack chuckled.
"Good to see you found something of your home. Better'n nothin'."
Rainbow nodded, already stroking the cover of her book. Applejack peered inside the cabinet at the jumbled contents. She grinned mischievously as she saw exactly what kind of late night reading material her marefriend kept.
"Nice magazines," she commented, pulling one out and flicking through the pages, much to Rainbow's horror. "Jeez, I didn't know a pony could bend like that."
Rainbow snatched the magazine back with a swift movement. "One of the perks of living alone, I guess. I can read whatever I want."
"I don't think there was much to read in there, sugarcube," Applejack said, smiling. "Plenty to look at, though."
"There are puzzles, too, you know. And anyway, that was before I asked you out," she told Applejack defensively, tossing the magazine back into the bedside cabinet. "We'd better carry on. Unless you want to rifle through some more of my private things..."
Applejack snorted. "Sugar, there ain't nothin' you got that's private no more. But fine, let's keep on moving."
Celestia made a point of memorizing how each of her subordinates behaved in her presence, and how to make sure they worked efficiently, obeyed orders, remained happy, and, when the situation called for it, annoy them. This was one such situation.
Colonel Flashfire, an up and coming stuffy military commander, was rattling on about an endless list of conspiracy theories relating to the recent house that fell through her ceiling a week ago. These theories had ranged from a terrorist cell in the under-city, the Crystal Empire rebelling against Equestria under the tyrannical rule of Princess Cadence, and most hilariously of all, the Griffon Empire getting jumpy. In all of her thousand years, not once had the Griffon Empire been even remotely close to being an actual military power.
Still, the higher ups thought that Flashfire was useful. And perhaps he was, in a certain way. He was probably the sort of pony to blast through endless paperwork in mere minutes, and head up presentations that conveyed all that 'useful' safety information ponies needed to know.
But the most important thing to know about him was that if you instantly agreed to everything he said, he'd get suspicious. He'd want feedback, and overwhelming him with positivity threw him off guard. And that was what Celestia was currently doing.
"...and of course, we can't forget that Cloudsdale may have had a hoof in this, your majesty. Cloud houses are their speciality, I'm told."
Celestia nodded.
"Oh yes, they are certainly worth investigating. You know best, colonel."
Flashfire paused. Celestia wondered why she was bothering to listen to him again... she had told him that it wasn't any sort of conspiracy... in fact, she knew exactly who the house belonged to, and there was no way she would do anything to purposefully harm her. But of course, Flashfire had to insist that he give her the full and extensive list of all the possible threats to her life, because that was his duty as a soldier.
"Yes, of course. I mean, I defer to your judgement, your highness. But I think those are all the major threats. Who should I begin investigating?"
Celestia shook herself awake again. Did this mean that it was finally over?
"Oh, whichever you think is best, colonel. But above all, do not contact Rainbow Dash about this."
"Rainbow... Dash..."
"Yes. She's a pegasus from Ponyville, and she wants to join the Wonderbolts. I want you to steer clear of her."
Flashfire nodded, a little confused that Celestia would mention a pony he had never heard of. Still, like the professional he was, he nodded.
"Of course, milady. She was not part of my list anyway."
"Good. I have a little... experiment I wish to conduct."
"As always, your highness knows best."
"It's four o'clock," Rainbow suddenly declared, stopping in her tracks. It took Applejack a few seconds to catch on and slow down. She looked back at the pegasus, confused.
"Uh... yeah, looks like it. There a reason we're stoppin'?"
Rainbow looked around the field for something. "It's four o'clock. I need a nap."
Applejack gaped. "But—..."
"Four... o'clock!" Rainbow repeated. "I won't operate properly if I don't get some rest! I get... all slow and stuff. I need a tree."
"I thought you needed a nap?"
"I like to sleep high up. You get more wind that way."
Applejack decided that arguing wouldn't get her very far in this case. It occurred to her that Rainbow falling asleep regularly every day had become quite predictable. Applejack just didn't realize that it was something she took so seriously.
"Well, I don't see any nearby trees. And anyway, you've napped on the ground before, like that time a few days ago when we were at the park."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well that was different. I was with you, and that made it okay."
Applejack chuckled, and settled herself down on the grass, making herself comfortable. "Well, you're with me now, so there ain't no problem."
Rainbow beamed. Somehow, Applejack figured that Rainbow had planned for that reaction. She was more than a little impressed: usually Rainbow was far more direct when asking for something.
"Thanks," she said, and floated over to her comfortable earth pony, resting her head on Applejack's side.
"You know what I find strange?" Applejack asked. "It's strange that nopony's found it yet. It's the sort of thing that I would tell the guard about, y'know?"
Rainbow replied to Applejack's comment by snoring loudly. Applejack sniggered: it hadn't taken Rainbow long to fall asleep. Perhaps a little too quickly, in fact. She wondered what it was that sapped Rainbow's energy so much that she felt she was falling to pieces without a daily nap.
Applejack shrugged gently to herself, careful not to wake Rainbow up. She'd deal with only one of her marefriends problems at a time, she decided. She had more than enough time, after all. She was almost always around town, and she wasn't difficult to spot.
Applejack wondered how often Rainbow even went to her house. She napped outside, she had lunch around town, and she never brought anypony back to her house. It didn't make a lot of sense to Applejack: her own house, Sweet Apple Acres, was more than just a place to sleep at night. It contained her family, memories of time spent being happy, miserable, and everything in-between. It provided for her more than any other place could, and more recently it was even the place where she could find the pony she wanted to spend her life with.
It had been egotistical to imagine that Rainbow felt the same about the farm, but the way she had fit in there, sharing jokes with Macintosh, playing with Applebloom, and helping Granny around the house had tricked Applejack into thinking she too treated it like home. It had felt like Rainbow was as much an Apple as any of them. She had even moved her pet tortoise down so he could play with Winoa.
Obviously Applejack had been wrong: it wasn't home for Rainbow at all, just the place where Applejack lived.
Their rest only lasted for a half hour: a short power-nap was all Rainbow felt she needed, apparently, and once she opened her eyes, that was it. She was back to one hundred percent, and shook Applejack back into gear.
Applejack's fur was still warm from where she had been in contact with Rainbow, and she felt like it was her who now wanted to keep on napping. She continued regardless.
"How big was this storm, again? We've been walking for hours and we haven't seen anything else yet," Applejack said, getting tired of their expedition. Rainbow shrugged.
"It was pretty big. It went from Ponyville all the way to the northern border."
Applejack grumbled. "Well, if we go much farther, we'll reach Canterlot soon," she said. Peering into the distance, she sighed. "Actually, I think I can make out the palace now."
Rainbow sighed. "Well, maybe Celestia saw it? Or one of the guards, or something."
Applejack nodded, keeping her eye firmly fixed on the mountain Canterlot was perched upon. Her eyes widened as she began to make out the tallest tower.
"Uh, Rainbow?"
"Yeah, what? Did you see it? I can't see any sign of it on the ground, so..."
"Well... did Celestia's tower always have that cloud stickin' out of it?"
Rainbow snorted. "Celestia doesn't have clouds in any of her towers. She's not really into modern design, I think."
"I think she might have refurnished, then, cause I'm lookin' at somethin' pretty darn modern."
The affair of the cloud in Celestia's observatory had all but taken over the city. It was discussed in shops, mentioned in conversation, and ponies stopped to look up at the damaged castle. All the while, Rainbow was beginning to sweat heavily through her once pristine blue coat.
"Of all the places for it to land..." she muttered.
Applejack didn't know much about the weather, but it made sense that the cloud house would hit something tall, if anything. And the tallest thing on it's trajectory was, of course, Celestia's castle. Applejack couldn't bring herself to explaining what had happened to Celestia.
"Well... this'll be an interestin' visit."
Rainbow didn't reply. Applejack nudged her gently, trying to draw her out of her stupor.
"I... this is the worst day ever."
"It ain't that bad."
Rainbow shook her head. They had just passed the drawbridge towards the inner walls. "Celestia's gonna' kill me. And then, for almost killing Celestia with my house, Twilight's gonna' kill me. And then I'm not going to have anywhere to live and it's all my fault," she ranted.
"I thought you were blamin' me for this?" Applejack asked in an effort to lighten Rainbow's mood. It was painful for Applejack to see Rainbow tear herself up in this manner. Rainbow wasn't responding to her efforts, however.
"I lied. It's my responsibility, and I messed up."
They both stopped at the large portcullis, guarded by a pair of guards eyeing the two ponies suspiciously. Rainbow bravely stepped forwards.
"Uhm... I'm here to retrieve my house, please."
Both guards looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. Thankfully for them, a loud, commanding voice from above interrupted whatever it was they were going to say next.
"Rainbow friggin' Dash. Why am I not surprised this is your mess?"
Both Applejack and Rainbow looked up. A blue suited pegasus was soaring down towards the pair, orange mane streamlined aerodynamically. Rainbow instantly recognized the mare, but Applejack couldn't quite recall her name. If the outfit was anything to go on, however, she was a Wonderbolt.
"Oh, ponytails and horseapples. Not Spitfire..." Rainbow muttered, eyes wide. The Wonderbolt landed in front of her, angrily shoving herself into Rainbow's face.
"Yeah, it's me. Do you know how big the mess you've made is? I got called in to evaluate the risk of rogue weather alongside my spineless brother because you couldn't maintain a bloody tether."
Rainbow backed away. "It was an accident... There was a storm, and I was working, and..."
"This was going to be my week off, Dash," Spitfire continued. Applejack finally decided to interject.
"Listen, can we just talk to Celestia about this? We're real sorry."
Spit Fire eyed the earth pony suspiciously. "And who might you be?" she asked.
Rainbow grunted defensively. "That's my marefriend, Spitfire. She helped me get here."
The Wonderbolt sighed, her rage finally dying down. "Ugh. Let's just get this over with. I would have contacted you sooner, but Celestia's been keeping me on a tight leash."
The portcullis opened, and all three continued into the courtyard. Celestia was already there, enjoying a late lunch, going through her papers out in the open. When she looked up at Rainbow Dash, she smiled.
"Oh, hello there. You know, I really should have begun working outside sooner: it's far more relaxing."
Applejack and Rainbow sat themselves opposite their ruler. Neither could really tell is she was just stringing them on before she exploded with anger, or wether she had already forgiven them. Celestia wasn't quick to anger after all, and was very forgiving by nature, at least in their experience.
"Uh, we're sorry about the house, ma'am," Applejack told the princess. Rainbow quickly interjected.
"I'm sorry. Applejack had nothing to do with this."
Celestia put down a dainty teacup onto her table thoughtfully.
"Hmm. Well, it's quite all right. Nopony was hurt, after all."
"Hooray for that," Rainbow said, relieved. Celestia nodded.
"Unfortunately, my ponies tell me that the house is beyond repair. I left all your things inside, so you can go and get them whenever you want to," she told Rainbow. The pegasus groaned.
"Aw... are you sure it can't be fixed? I kind of need my house."
Celestia nodded. "Quite sure. I have kept Captain Spitfire here to get rid of it when you finally showed up," Celestia said, which solicited a rather startled reaction from the Wonderbolt.
"Excuse me, ma'am? How am I supposed to get rid of a cloud house on my own?"
Celestia smiled. "Colonel Flashfire is on my payroll. I'm sure that, together, you can figure something out."
Spitfire growled. "You want me to work with that spineless, jumped up—"
"Yes," Celestia snapped, "And I expect you to enjoy it."
Spitfire grumbled, but settled down. "Gotta' get promoted again... how he became colonel I'll never know..."
Celestia smirked. "If you want, you can head up to the house now. Luna is still up there. Apparently she has taken a liking to some of your reading material."
Rainbow groaned, and spread her wings. "Dammit', she probably found the good stuff."
Applejack was about to demand that Rainbow wait so they could go together, but Celestia stopped her. "I would like to have a word with you alone, Applejack."
The farmpony frowned, and sat herself down again. Celestia took a sip from her tea calmly.
"Okay..."
"Are you at all curious why I never sent any word to Rainbow about her house?" Celestia asked. Applejack nodded.
"I did wonder."
"I was curious how young Rainbow would react. I was of course aware that she was quite taken with you... Twilight mentioned such in her letters."
"That sounds like somethin' Twi' would do," Applejack replied sceptically. "Were you just playin' with Rainbow then?"
Celestia shook her head. "Goodness, no. I wanted her, and yourself, to realize something about yourselves. Specifically, how much you mean to her. Consider that it took her a full week to notice her house went missing. I suspect you realize the significance behind this."
Applejack nodded. "Yes, I do. She spends all her time at the farm, and she never needed to be anywhere else. Or at least, that's what I thought..."
"I take it Rainbow has been very enthusiastic about getting her house back."
"Aside from stoppin' to take a nap, yes," Applejack said, a little saddened. "I didn't realize she never thought of my home... as her home."
It surprised Applejack to find that saying that had sapped some of her energy, as if admitting that she and Rainbow were more distant than she had initially believed was a tiresome exercise. Celestia simply nodded knowingly, as a counsellor might to a patient.
"I think that maybe if you give Rainbow a little time, she might find out how she truly feels. It is sometimes harder for a pony to understand themselves than to understand others."
Applejack looked up at the cloud house, perched precariously on the castle observatory. Somewhere inside was her very own pegasus pony, sorting through the debris of her former residence. It was well past time that Applejack went and found her.
"I'd better head up there. I don't suppose you have some special cloud-walkin' spell I might borrow?"
The place was a mess: plates had scattered and broken across the floor, the table in the dining room had been upturned, and Tank's food had scattered across the hallway. Rainbow was trudging through the wreckage with a heavy heart, and not just because she had lost most of her life. For the first time in forever, she felt remarkably helpless.
Applejack tentatively prodded the floor with her hooves, checking that she wouldn't fall through to her doom. Rainbow Dash lifted her head as she arrived.
"Uh, hey. Sorry I left, I forgot you don't, er... have wings or anything."
"It's fine, sugar'. The princess wanted a word with me anyhow."
Rainbow nodded. She looked like her mind was elsewhere, leaving her body vacant and empty. "Uh, that's interesting."
"What are you gonna' do now?" Applejack asked. Rainbow shrugged.
"I don't know. Get a new house, I guess. The Princess was right: this one's done for. Best thing to do now is to evaporate it."
"Evaporate it?"
Rainbow nodded. "Yeah. Clouds are mostly water, and they can be sort of... demolished by heating them up a lot, or by regulating the pressure, or by just hitting them really hard. I don't know how they're going to go about doing that, though... the house is so big, and mixed up with the tower. It'll take them a while to do it properly."
"I don't really care about the house, Rainbow. I just want to know how you're copin'."
"Well, I'm officially homeless, so that's something."
Applejack bit her lip. It was now or never, and she hoped that she wouldn't get shot down.
"Uh, well, I... y'know, you're not exactly homeless, you just don't have a legal residence."
Rainbow frowned. "How so?"
"Well, you've got my place. That can be your home, if'n you want."
Rainbow went quiet. Applejack began to worry that she might refuse. If she did, would that put a strain on their relationship? How would Rainbow react to her proposal? How would Applejack react if she said no?
"I don't want to rely on anypony for anything, AJ. It's nothing personal, I just think I should have my own home to go back to."
Applejack's heart plummeted at the realization that, despite her telling to herself that she was worrying for nothing, Rainbow had indeed rejected her proposal. Applejack swallowed: she wasn't ready to give up just yet.
"Why can't you rely on me?" she asked.
"Well, what if you don't want me around sometime? Things happen, and it's more likely for us to have a fight if we're together twenty-four seven, right?" Rainbow explained, doing her best to sound logical.
"Sugarcube, we've been livin' together for the past week, and if anythin', we've gotten on better now than ever. You've even fit in with Granny and the others. I'm not lyin' when I say that we'd all love to have you around more."
"Okay, sure, but are you sure you can, uh, afford me?" Rainbow asked. Applejack raised an eyebrow.
"Perhaps ya'll should elaborate."
"I mean, your farm is barely getting by as it is without the extra mouth to feed," Rainbow continued. Applejack snorted.
"That ain't a problem and you know it, Dash. You've got a job, you pull your own weight at the house, and with your 'athletes diet' you don't eat much either," Applejack said, evidently unimpressed by Rainbow's opinions on nutrition.
Rainbow huffed angrily. Applejack could tell she was running out of arguments, but that just meant that she was getting closer and closer to the truth. Something had been gnawing at her mind this whole trip, something that was bothering Rainbow, and she had to know what it was.
"Well, what if... What if you hurt me? Then... I'd have no-place to go."
And there is was: right at Rainbow's core, was a glistening nugget of fear, and it genuinely surprised Applejack to find out that Rainbow still didn't trust her completely.
"Sugar', I'd never hurt you. You don't need to be afraid of that, since it'll never, ever happen."
Rainbow looked away, more embarrassed than ever. Her cheeks flushed bright red, but she was reassured by Applejack's calm statement.
"Well, I know, it's just that I don't like... not having a way out."
"It's okay to be scared, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd trust me," Applejack told her, leaning towards her, pressing the side of her muzzle against hers. "I only want you to be happy."
"I don't want to lose everything, is all."
Applejack smiled as Rainbow closed her eyes and leaned closer to her. "I know. But not makin' a commitment to have anythin' in the first place ain't the answer."
Rainbow chuckled for some reason, getting her bearings back. "I guess..."
She took a deep breath and smiled.
"Okay then. I'll get some of my things and officially move in."
She grinned happily, and pulled away from Applejack, finally unburdened with worry. "I'm trusting you, 'kay? So don't go... breaking my heart or anything like that."
Applejack wrapped her hoof around Rainbow's neck and dragged her as close as she could, before firmly and reassuringly planting a kiss on her lips. Rainbow went utterly limp whilst in the farmpony's embrace, but when Applejack pulled away she was beaming like a lovesick filly.
"I'd never," Applejack told her. "I think I rather like havin' you help out around the house," she joked. Rainbow smirked.
"What kind of help were you talking about, again?"
Applejack sighed. "You always have to have the last word, don't you?" she said. After a moment of thought, she continued. "You know there will be paperwork to handle?"
"Blech. I'll get Twilight to do it, or something," Rainbow retorted.
"I don't think that will be necessary," came Celestia's ever regal voice as she flew down into the wreckage of the cloud house, flanked by Spitfire. "I think there's a certain Princess of the Night who has been avoiding her duties for too long under the pretence of catching up on 'modern literature'. Luna will gladly sort out the details for you."
Rainbow Dash cackled. "Sounds good to me! Lemme' just pack some of my stuff. That isn't broken, of course."
One Daring Do plush and a stack of mementos later, and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Celestia, and Spitfire were all outside, staring at the remains of the house. Rainbow was looking through her things and quietly packing them into a bag.
"What are some of those?" Applejack asked. She wondered where she'd be able to put them... her room, almost certainly, but it was a large bag, and she didn't want some of Rainbow's most important keepsakes stuffed under her bed just because there wasn't enough room.
"Oh, I'll show you later when we get back. Now, I really want to know how you're going to get rid of the house," she said, turning to Celestia. Spitfire harrumphed.
"Once my good-for-nothing, upstart kid brother gets here, we'll be able to get started," she said. Celestia sighed.
"Colonel Flashfire earned his name quite well, I think you'll find," she explained. "He'll just be escorting Luna down from the house, and then we'll begin."
Rainbow Dash looked over at the entrance to the observatory, and indeed, two ponies were exiting the premises. Luna was smiling and waving at Rainbow and Applejack happily, and the gloomy looking unicorn next to her just kept on staring at Spitfire.
"Oh good, she's here. Ma'am, I don't mean to be a bother, but do we really need her brand of psychopathic madness here?" he asked. Celestia nodded.
"You'll find that teamwork will serve everypony well," she told him as she eyed Rainbow Dash and Applejack, "As well as a little communication."
"You're going to evaporate it, right? Is there some magic spell that can do that? Because I thought that most clouds were magically inert, so only unicorns with special cutie marks could affect them," Rainbow went on. Celestia raised an eyebrow.
"It's good to see Ponyville's weather is in capable hooves. That is correct, but the Colonel and Spitfire have a very unique way of circumventing that problem."
Flashfire nodded.
"I suppose I'd best get this underway," he said. "Try not to create your signature collateral damage, captain."
Spitfire growled angrily. "Just 'cause you're a colonel doesn't mean I can't make your life a living hell. Get started already."
Flashfire grunted, and his horn flashed bright orange. He widened his stance, as if preparing to receive a tackle.
"So it is a spell! Neato!" Rainbow exclaimed.
A single, tiny spark flickered from the tip of the horn. Rainbow's face fell, dissapointed.
"...is that it—" she began.
The spark hit the ground with a tiny fizzing sound, and instantly a massive inferno burst across the entire room. Flashfire took a few steps back.
"Better get a move on, Spitfire, or you're paying for a new observatory."
Spitfire spread her wings wide, her feathers fluttering as the tumultuous air passed across them. Suddenly, they went completely taut, and the wind reflected off them like light off a mirror. Spitfire grinned and flapped her wings, each feather controlled and flawless. Rainbow's jaw dropped.
"...so...cool...."
The fire was swept away by the gale of wind caused by Spitfire's powerful wings, and they spread into the house. Steam poured out, bleeding into the air around it. Whatever Rainbow had left inside was incinerated instantly.
"Well, that's one way to evaporate a cloud, I guess," Applejack commented. Celestia smiled.
"I thought it would be best to have Dash's old house go out with some style," she said.
The fire had burned through the entire cloud in mere moments. Spitfire folded her wings against her side.
"Finish it," she said. The Colonel nodded, and his horn flickered. The fire was extinguished instantly, reducing itself back to the spark it came from, which died out quickly.
"That... was really awesome. I love explosions," Rainbow told them. The Colonel adjusted his uniform proudly. He was about to comment, but was quickly overshadowed by Spitfire who shoved him out of the way.
"That is why they call me Spitfire, after all," she said. Flashfire snorted.
"And not because you once drank an entire bottle of Rainbow Spice on your birthday..." he muttered. Spitfire then hit him.
"Well... I suppose we'd better be going," Rainbow told Celestia. "Thanks for everything."
Applejack and Rainbow both bowed respectfully. Luna and Celestia smiled in return, and gave their own bow.
"Do come again!" Luna told them.
"Please do. And, Luna, Rainbow has a job for you. I'll provide the details once we clear up the observatory," Celestia added, leading her sister into the slightly charred observatory. Amazingly, the fire had been moved to the cloud house before it could do more than singe the surfaces, which was nothing a little magic couldn't clear up.
Applejack looked over at Rainbow Dash, eager to get under way. Now more than ever, she felt closer to the pegasus now that they lived together properly. Applejack wasn't sure if it would be a large adjustment, or a small one. In any case, she couldn't wait to get started.
"Shall we go home, then?" she asked. Rainbow nodded.
"Yeah, that's sounds great."
The orchard was quiet at this time of day. Applejack and Rainbow had been gone all afternoon, and by now the sun had almost set over Ponyville, reflecting warmly against Rainbow's mane. As the pair trotted up to the house, Granny Smith slowly clambered out of her chair.
"Where'd you two been all day? I haven't seen you anywhere."
Applejack smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I didn't expect to be gone so long. We actually walked to Canterlot."
Granny Smith widened her wrinkled eyes in surprise. "Why the devil'd you walk all the way there? Don't 'cha know there's a train that goes there now?" she asked. "And they say I don't move with the times..."
From inside the house, Applebloom scurried around Granny's feet towards her older sister. "Wow, you were gone a long time!" she exclaimed. Rainbow nodded.
"Yeah! And I saw the coolest thing today, you won't even believe it," she said. She handed her bag and plush over to Applejack. "If you wanted to know what's in there, go ahead. I'm just going to tell AB' here 'bout Spitfire and that neat fire-trick."
Applejack narrowed her eyes. "You're just gettin' me to carry your stuff, ain't y—"
Rainbow had already escaped with Applebloom in a flash of colour, disappearing inside. Applejack sighed, and once again turned to Granny Smith.
"Oh, I... that is, we, decided that Rainbow Dash is going to live here from now on, if that's okay with you."
Granny Smith raised an eyebrow.
"Ain't she already livin' here?"
"I suppose that means you're okay with it, then," Applejack replied, glad that she hadn't promised anything she couldn't go through with. With a spring in her step, she began carrying the bag upstairs, the playful sound of Applebloom and Rainbow following her as she went. Her load was quite heavy, and when she dumped it on the bed it bounced up and down twice before staying still, the supports in the bed creaking under the weight. She placed the plush over on Rainbow's side of the bed, figuring that would be the best place to put it.
"'Kay... I'll need to make some space for this stuff..." she muttered, opening the bag. To her surprise, there were no posters or endless Daring Do books. In fact, most of the contents were just photo albums. Applejack couldn't help but smile.
"Didn't figure you to be all that sentimental, sugarcube," she muttered to herself. Glancing at her own dresser, covered with pictures of her family and friends, she chuckled. "I ain't judgin'."
She heard hoofsteps from behind her. It was Rainbow Dash: she had quite distinctive hoofsteps. Big Macintosh's were slow and ponderous, Applebloom's were obviously far lighter, and Granny Smith's were erratic and jumpy.
"I figured you'd like to have a whole new bunch of pictures and stuff, since you like them a lot," Rainbow said. "I have an album for every one of the gang."
Applejack flicked through some of the pictures happily. "I'm sure we can find a spot on the wall for 'em," she replied. "I'm glad you decided to stay here."
Rainbow shrugged. "You were being super-reasonable and stuff. I can't say no to that. Nopony could be that cold."
Applejack smiled, and put the photo album next to the plush. She didn't say anything, but she had noticed that even though Rainbow had pictures of all their friends, she was the one to feature most prominently among them. And though she didn't know what Rainbow's feelings were on the matter, Applejack was adamant that Rainbow's things should have a place of honour in the house, if she was going to live there permanently.
Applejack couldn't help but beam as the feeling of living with the pony she loved finally sunk in, and even though nothing had really changed since last week, she knew that things wouldn't be quite the same again.
In fact, they would be better.
