“Twilight?”
“Hmm?”
“You ever wonder if things would’ve gone very differently if we were all the opposite gender?”
Twilight lifted her muzzle out of a particularly riveting volume on metathaumics and gazed at Spike, lounging on the couch with a comic book in hand. “What brought this about?”
He shrugged. “Yesterday, some girls said that anything colts can do, fillies can do better.”
She frowned. “That’s not true at all. But if you want to get down to specifics, I’m sure that there’s going to be some discrepancy in skillsets, depending on the context. What are you thinking about?”
“Well, it’s kind of hard to imagine Shining Armour becoming the Prince of Friendship if Princess Celestia had taken him on as a student instead of you.” He scratched the back of his head, then continued, “I mean, are you the Princess of Friendship just because of what you’ve done, or does being a girl have something to do with it?”
“That’s… a very complicated issue. There are hundreds, no, at least thousands of variables that could contribute to my experience and actions leading up to ascension. To isolate gender’s effect alone would be an incredibly difficult—”
Spike tilted his head. “I know that look. You’ve figured out a way to test it, haven’t you?”
Twilight grinned. “Test? No. Observe? Oh, yes. It’s pretty simple, actually. I know a spell that would enable us to visit an alternate realm where everyone was born or hatched the opposite gender. We sure could have a look.”
Spike blinked. “Umm, okay. But why do you even have a spell like that lying around?”
She leapt up and dashed over to her study, where she began flipping through her notes on the aforementioned spell. “For exact situations like this, of course. There's no such thing as a useless spell.” She squealed in delight when she found the right sheets. “Aha, there we go! Brace yourself, Spike.”
“Wait, what? We’re going right now?”
“Yes,” she replied, her horn already glowing brilliantly with the magic necessary to cross inter-dimensional and temporal barriers. “Don’t worry; we’ll be back in time for lunch, and I already know the perfect friendship problem to observe!”
“But—”
Blazing light engulfed the world. For a second or two, nothing existed beyond the blinding whiteness, until with a heavy lurch and a pop, they appeared back in normal space and thumped onto a patch of dirt in the middle of Ponyville.
“—I wanted to finish that chapter…” Spike finished lamely. He then glanced at his empty hands and sighed. “All right, where are—oh. I think I remember this…”
The male version of Twilight stood in front of the town hall, scowling at Trixie’s male counterpart as several dozen townsponies watched from all sides. Pinkie Guy sat forlornly on the ground a little ways off, gazing sadly at the pie in his hooves that he could no longer eat due to the lack of a mouth. A blue streak that was most probably Rainbow Dash with one hilariously oversized wing was spiralling and twirling drunkenly across the sky. Farther in the background, they could see the entirety of Golden Oaks Library hovering upside-down in the air, engulfed in an angry-red aura, spilling books all over the ground.
I’d forgotten about that…
It almost hurt to see her home again.
“Twilight, shouldn’t we be hiding or something?”
She shook her head and turned to find Spike glancing around nervously. “We’ll be fine; we cannot interact or otherwise tamper with the outcome of events in this universe at all. Nopony can even see us.” To demonstrate, she trotted over to the nearest townspony – a male Lyra – and put a hoof harmlessly through his head. “See? We’re actually incorporeal right now.”
“Oh.”
Just then, the light-blue stallion sauntered forward, stroked the Alicorn Amulet around his neck and drawled, “So, what’ll it be, Dusk Shine? It’s best not to keep the Great and Powerful Trixter waiting!”
Scowling, Dusk Shine growled in a voice that was just a tad higher than Shining’s, “Fine. Let’s duel.”
Trixter’s face lit up with glee. “Excellent!”
Golden Oaks righted itself and crashed back into its foundations just as a cloud of red mist washed over everypony affected by his malicious enchantments, reverting them to their original states. All except Pinkie Guy, who glared at Trixter and mumbled something whilst gesturing at his non-existent mouth.
Trixter grinned smugly. “If I lose, I’ll never set hoof in this dump of a town again. But if you lose, you’re the one getting banished!”
As Dusk Shine and Trixter faced off in silence, sizing each other up, Twilight glanced at Spike and nodded approvingly. Despite the fact that she was going to indirectly relive the humiliation of being thoroughly outmatched by Trixie in front of everypony, she couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied that everything had so far matched up with her memories. Friendship should be more important than gender roles, after all.
“Draw!” Trixter cried, sending a blazing beam of red magic right at somepony’s cart by the roadside.
Right on track.
Twilight hummed to herself as she watched history replay right before her eyes. Dusk Shine caught the cart before it could give somepony a concussion; he summoned a parasprite to devour the pies Trixter threw at him; he melted the mountain of snow that Trixter dumped over him, and then retaliated with a magical bolt of his own, causing Trixter’s mane to bloom into gleaming, luxuriant, sweeping waves that even Cadance might’ve envied.
Twilight blinked.
Okay, that’s a little different from the moustache…
After Dusk’s friends had finished sniggering at the sight, Trixter haughtily sheared off his excess hair and growled, “Spice, Sugar, to me!”
Two fillies that she recognised as Snips and Snails nervously trotted over to him, and as expected, he turned one into a foal and the other into an elderly mare.
“An age spell? No way. That’s only for max level unicorns!”
Trixter smirked. “Ready to give up, Nerd?”
She bit her lip and winced as Dusk tried to reverse the spell, only to fail and slump in defeat just as she had.
“Hah! Trixter is the max level unicorn!” He cackled maniacally. “And now, it’s time for you to leave Ponyville – forever!”
Like clockwork, Dusk’s friends came to his defence, standing between him and the rogue unicorn.
“That’s enough, Trixter!”
“You’ve made your point, but you can’t possibly expect him to leave Ponyville!”
Trixter snorted and grabbed Dusk bodily in his magic. “You fools, he’s already—”
“Wait!” Dusk yelped. “You initiated three challenges and I only got one. At least give me one more chance!”
All eyes turned to him, and Twilight felt her brain grind to a halt. She did not remember coming up with a Plan B at that point. Not at all. And that was a massive deviation from her experience.
Spike had clearly noticed, too. “Huh. I don’t remember that.” He proceeded to grin at her. “I guess guys really do things differently.”
“Not enough data,” Twilight murmured, shaking her head. “Let’s see how this plays out.”
Trixter gave him a condescending smirk and unceremoniously dropped him on his rump. “Oh, this’ll be good. Fine, you get one more challenge, and the Great and Powerful Trixter will even allow for the same terms. If you can beat me, I’ll never come back.”
Female Spike dashed over to Dusk Shine and whispered, “Dude, he’s totally decked out with magic. You want us to go look for Zareco while you stall or something?”
“Nah, Barb,” Dusk whispered back, gazing determinedly at his opponent. “I’m pretty sure I got it this time. We just need to get him to take off that amulet.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Dude, any dungeon master knows a super-charged magical artefact when he sees one. Just look at that thing; it practically screams chaos magic!”
“Well? Don’t keep us waiting, Nerd!” Trixter jeered. “Anything you can do, I can do—”
“I bet my horn’s bigger than yours!” Dusk shouted.
“Say what?” Applejack blurted.
Once again, everypony stared at Dusk in silence. Trixter in particular still had his mouth half-open, and whatever words he’d meant to say had already died off on his tongue.
“Are you for real?” some mare in the crowd cried out.
At that point, Trixter had recovered enough of his composure for his tongue to work again. “Seriously? Of all the things we could be doing, you’re challenging me to a horn-measuring contest?”
Dusk retaliated with a slightly off-kilter smile. “You got a problem with that? Worried about something, maybe?”
“No, it’s just that—argh, fine,” Trixter sputtered. “Let’s just get it done with, you unimaginative buffoon. When this is over, Trixter will have revealed your woeful inadequacies in more ways than one!”
Dusk sighed. “Elusive, you happen to have anything we could use to… you know.”
Rarity’s counterpart nodded and levitated out some measuring tape. “Right here, Dusk.”
He nodded and lowered his head. “Somepony care to do the honours?”
Elusive glanced around and found that everypony had retreated a couple of paces away from him and Dusk. He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he proceeded to measure Dusk’s horn. “To be quite frank with you, I feel mildly… sullied by all of this.”
“Just get on with it, already!” Trixter called out. “Less chatting, more announcing!”
“Patience, friend,” Elusive huffed. “His horn is nineteen-point-seven centimetres long.”
“Aw yeah. Totally good size for a bro,” Rainbow Guy cheered. “Beat that, you glorified pylontechnician!”
“It’s pyrotechnician, you imbecile.” To Elusive, he added, “Now get over here and measure mine, pleb.”
Elusive flushed pink, but retained his calm as he trotted over to take Trixter’s measurement. After a moment of flicking his gaze between Dusk and the measuring tape, he bit his lip and nervously announced, “Uh. Well… Trixter’s horn is twenty-one-point-three centimetres long.”
A collective gasp of disbelief swept through the crowd. Trixter’s grin widened to horse apple eating proportions, but before he could crow out in victory, Rainbow snorted and said, “I call bull! There’s no way yours could be that long. You must’ve used that necklace thingy to enhance it!”
“Are you accusing the Great and Powerful Trixter of cheating?”
“Blitz is right,” Dusk said. “I’ll bet it shrinks the moment you take it off!”
Trixter threw them all a look of disgust and ground his teeth. For a moment, his eyes glowed red and he looked ready to start blasting at his adversary with magic. Dusk sweated bullets as everypony retreated to allow for a twenty-pace blast radius around him, but Trixter’s glowing eyes eventually petered out as he tore off the amulet.
“There, measure it again and this time—”
“Now, Blitz!” Dusk roared.
In the blink of an eye, Rainbow Blitz ripped forward through the air and swiped the Alicorn Amulet out of Trixter’s magical grasp, leaving a trail of rainbow-lightning in his wake. He zipped back around and tossed it to Dusk, who conjured a lockbox to catch it and offered it straight to Barb for her fire breath. One second later, a plume of green fire and smoke rose into the sky, heading towards Canterlot.
Trixter gritted his teeth. “Oh, now you’ve done it. Prepare to suffer!”
Purple lightning forked out from his horn and struck Dusk and all his friends, but instead of writhing in agony, everypony fell on their backs giggling and flailing about. That continued for about ten seconds or so whilst Trixter stared at them, slack-jawed, until Dusk righted himself and zapped away Trixter’s lightning with a counterspell.
“Okay, that’s enough. Game over, buddy,” he said, grinning as he wiped tears away from his eyes.
“But… but how?”
“Dude… Evil. Magical. Artefact.” Dusk gestured to all his friends and the townsponies. “Did you even stop to think about what you were doing to everypony?”
“You…” Trixter looked around at everypony’s disapproving frowns and hung his head. “Trixter supposes you’re right. I wasn’t thinking straight… I’ll just be leaving now. Sorry.”
And just like that, the whole town erupted into cheers. That gave Twilight the perfect opportunity to pick her jaw up from the ground. “Well, that was… educational.”
“Twilight?”
“Huh?”
“I thought you said nopony should be able to see us.”
“That’s right. They can’t.”
“Uh…”
Twilight followed Spike’s gaze and saw a still mouthless Pinkie Guy squinting at them.
“Time to go?” Spike asked.
“Time to go,” she hastily agreed as Pinkie Guy began trotting towards them.
They popped back into the crystal palace in a flash of light and smoke. Twilight promptly collapsed onto the couch and stared at the ceiling as she attempted to process what she had just witnessed.
Everything had been going so well…
“Well, that settles it, I guess. Guys are totally better at solving friendship problems than girls,” Spike concluded with a smirk. “He figured out what was up with Trixie and got her—him to take it off before he even got banished!”
She frowned. “But that’s the thing. He didn’t utilise friendship to solve it. There’s no way this Dusk is on the right track to becoming the Alicorn of Friendship at this rate!”
“Dude, are you kidding?” Spike threw his arms in the air for emphasis. “Didn’t you see the way Dusk and Blitz kept communicating just by looking at each other? There’s no way they could’ve pulled that off so nicely without a bit of coordination. Either that, or they’re such good friends that they could plan it out on the go without saying anything!”
“But I… I must’ve missed that,” Twilight admitted. Then, she raised an eyebrow. “Also… dude?”
He shrugged. “It fits what I want to say. It’s kind of cool, and it just sounds right when Dusk says it.”
Twilight felt a twinge of jealousy and annoyance that Spike was already gravitating so much to her male counterpart after just one visit to his world. She shook her head. “Still, that’s just Rainbow. Elusive might’ve helped a bit with the measuring, but Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy didn’t really do anything!”
Again, Spike shrugged. “Maybe they’ll do more in solving other problems where you just needed one friend, I dunno. Like you said, we’re working with limited data.”
She stared at the floor. “I… I’m going to need to think about this.” She grinned weakly at him and added, “I’m having a hard time coming up with a conclusion to what we’ve learned. A serious one, I mean.”
Spike rubbed his chin in thought. “Everything’s different but still the same if we’re all the opposite gender?”
“Huh. That could work.”
“Lunch?”
“Yeah.”
As they trotted down the stairs towards the dining hall, Spike sighed and said, “Would’ve been nice if we’d stayed a little longer, though. I want to know whether Trixter’s horn was really bigger than Dusk’s.”
“What? Why?”
Spike grinned. “Come on, did you see the look on his face when Elusive said Trixter’s was longer? He’s totally insecure about it.”
“I am n—ahem—I am sure that he’s not too bothered about that,” Twilight huffed. “Horn length is superficial.”
Spike’s footsteps immediately ceased, and Twilight turned back to find him stroking his chin as he gazed at some point above her forehead. “Hmm. I wonder…” he murmured.
Twilight felt heat rising to her cheeks, and she quickly whirled back around to continue down the stairs. “No, Spike. We are not measuring my horn.”
“Boys…” she muttered to herself as Spike giggled behind her back.
Author's Note
Ah, just the cheap, tactical brain fart I needed to demolish some nasty writer's block. 
“Hey Twilight, you in here?” Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed out from the corridor, punctuated by the regular clip clop of hooves on the castle’s crystalline flooring.
Twilight pulled her snout out of her book and called back, “Yes. Second door on your right!”
She made a mental note to consider some thick carpeting specifically for the corridor outside her reading room. Especially since it was more like the size of a hall, which didn’t help with its tendency to facilitate echoing. She could even distinguish a second set of hoof steps accompanying Rainbow’s.
A moment later, Rainbow Dash barged in with a somewhat less enthusiastic Applejack in tow. Rainbow had a camera slung around her neck, and she grinned mischievously upon spotting Twilight on her reading couch.
“Spike told us about the thing. We want to see it.”
An irrational surge of panic welled up in her chest before she realised that Rainbow hadn’t specified anything. Twilight took a moment to steady herself and then looked at her warily. “There are lots of things. What ‘thing’ are we talking about right now?”
“You know…” – Dash waved a hoof around vaguely – “the alternate universe thing where you got to see yourselves as the opposite gender and stuff.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “It was a private extra-planar excursion. He wasn’t supposed to talk about that so openly.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, you know, sometimes a dragon just—”
“Gets bribed with ice cream from grown-ups who should really know better?” said Applejack with a raised eyebrow.
“Applejack!”
“But nothing, sugarcube. It’s a bad habit.” Applejack shook her head at Rainbow Dash, then turned to Twilight and continued, “Mighty sorry to bother you for this, Twilight, but Rainbow just won’t stop sticking to me like a burr, going on about how interesting it would be to see if our stallion selves are exactly like us. Personally, I’d wait until after harvest season, but since she’s already more excited than a sheep dog on roundup…”
Twilight sighed and set her book aside. “Sure, why not? I could use another data point, anyway. Is there any specific event you would like to revisit?”
Rainbow looked at Applejack, who shrugged and said, “Any one’s fine with me, but I reckon we’d get the most out of a friendship problem involving both of us.”
That got a grin from Rainbow Dash. “Yeah, and I know just the one! Iron pony competition. Let’s go.”
Applejack hummed thoughtfully. “That’s nice, but how’s about we see the Running of the Leaves instead? We didn’t learn anything until our, uh… disagreements landed us in last place. We’ll even get to see Prince Celestia while we’re at it.”
Rainbow Dash glanced at Twilight. “Can we do both?”
She shook her head. “The spell doesn’t have enough staying power to keep us there overnight, and, well, it’ll be pretty tiring for me to skip time within an alternate universe. Sorry.”
“Eh, we’ll roll with Applejack’s plan, then.”
“Running of the Leaves it is. Just give me a minute to plot our trajectory and we’ll be off.” Twilight rose from the couch and trotted over to her worktable, where she conjured a pair of scrolls to pass to her friends. “In the meantime, you’d better read up a bit on some of my notes regarding the nature of this spell. Sorry to say, but that camera’s not going to work at all…”
* * * * *
“So let me get this straight,” said Rainbow Dash as they popped into existence atop a hill overlooking Ponyville. “Just about everypony here has different names but Applejack’s still called Applejack?”
“Yes.”
Dash grinned at Applejack. “Aww, that’s too bad. I was hoping we would get something else. I mean, I’m called Blitz in this universe. How cool is that?”
“That’s okay.” Applejack shrugged and smirked back. “You know you’ve got a good name if it needs no changin’ just because you have something different in your undercarriage.”
“Right, girls,” said Twilight before their conversation shifted further to something she didn’t quite want to discuss. “Let’s find the starting line and we can begin our observations from there. Since we’re non-corporeal, running won’t be tiring and we can easily keep up with the racers. Rainbow, if you want to fly, just make sure not to leave us behind. I don’t want us all getting split up in an alternate universe.”
They got to the edge of town just in time to see the participants lining up at the starting point. Bubble Berry was off to one side getting the balloon ready whilst Barbara watched from a distance, apparently working up the courage to ask him if she could be his co-reporter.
All around them stood the trees of White Tail Woods, ablaze in all the colours of autumn, ranging from fiery red to shimmering gold, just waiting for the rumble of hooves to shed their leaves. Twilight smiled and made another mental note to remind herself to take part in the event when fall next came in her part of the multiverse. She missed it.
Dash and Applejack had their attention elsewhere, though. Twilight chuckled as they gawked at just about everypony present; she’d made several trips back since the first one and had already gotten used to it, but her two friends clearly needed some time to process it as Rainbow Blitz came strutting up to Male Applejack, who was doing his warm-up routine at the starting line.
They traded verbal jabs for a bit, and since neither Dash nor Applejack reacted aversely, Twilight surmised that everything matched up with their memories of the event. So far, so good. But she knew that it probably wouldn’t stick to that script the whole way through.
And then Dusk Shine came trotting up to them.
“Dusk? What in tarnation are you doing up here?” asked Applejack.
Dusk Shine grinned. “I’m racing!”
Rainbow Blitz burst out laughing and thumped him on the shoulder. “Hah. Good one!”
Twilight shot a sideways glance at Dash, who simply smirked when she made eye contact.
“Umm, I’m not joking,” said Dusk.
Blitz choked halfway through his laughter and sputtered, “Bwuh? But, but…” He sighed and placed a hoof on Dusk’s shoulder. “I hate to break it to you, bro, but you’re not an athlete. You’re a nerd.”
“True, but I’m sure the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Research indicates that—”
Blitz yawned. “Sorry, what was that? I kind of zoned out for a minute. Or was it a year?” He gasped and whipped his head wildly to the left and right. “What did I miss? Has the race already started?”
“Nah,” said Applejack. “It’s already over. But if you hurry, you can still finish second-last.”
Dusk simply stared as Applejack and Blitz broke out into fits of sniggering. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. But I’ve crunched the numbers, and based on my caloric intake and daily activity, I believe I have sufficient stamina and speed to finish without deviating too far from the mean. If I pace myself, I might even have a shot at performing above average!”
Applejack barely managed to suppress a snigger. “Haystack, have you ever run in a race before?”
“No, but I know a lot about it.”
“And you know this from…?”
“Books. I’ve read several on the subject.”
Blitz flipped over onto his back and rolled around, laughing. He then paused just long enough to catch his breath and looked up at Dusk. “Bwah-ha-hah! Oh, that’s awesome! What’d you read? The Oubliettes and Ogres Rulebook for Running? Eh? Did you remember to put on your horseshoes of plus five stamina?” He laughed some more until his eyes teared and then wheezed, “Get it? Plus five stamina? Because you need more of it!”
Dusk opened his mouth, but whatever he’d planned to say didn’t come out. His ears flattened as he stared at the ground, apparently rummaging through his thoughts. A moment after that false start, he kept his eyes low and murmured, “Whatever. In any case, the Running of the Leaves is a Ponyville tradition, and I might as well get the experience.”
“Don’t you mean EXP?”
“Well, that’s just dandy, haystack. Good luck!”
“Gonna need a trinket to boost some of that, too,” Blitz added before they both succumbed to another bout of sniggering.
“I get it. You think I’m hopeless,” Dusk muttered.
“Well, that word’s a mite strong,” Applejack said, “but sometimes the truth is that—”
“This isn’t your kind of event,” Blitz finished for him. “Sorry to say it, but books just can’t replace good old muscle mass.”
And there it is…
She remembered being somewhat exasperated by Dash’s and Applejack’s teasing, but from the way Dusk had stiffened up, something they said had clearly gotten under his skin. A quick glance at her companions confirmed her suspicions; they both looked a little puzzled by his sudden shift in mood.
“By the way, you seem to know an awful lot about those counter top games and stuff. What’s that about?” Applejack half-whispered to Blitz.
Twilight involuntarily ground her teeth when Rainbow’s male counterpart didn’t even bother to lower his voice when he rolled his eyes and said, “He showed it to me. Total yawn-fest. Too many numbers, and there was even this ridiculous dice with twenty sides.”
She turned to Dusk and found him looking away from their direction, though his cocked ears were clearly picking up on their conversation. He was blinking somewhat rapidly, and his eyes looked a little red at the edges.
Oh dear…
“All right, ponies, are you ready?” Bubble Berry’s voice rang out from the speakers.
Barb cried, “Get set!”
Blitz and Applejack appeared to have worked the laughter out of their systems and largely ignored Dusk as they crouched at the starting line and gave each other mean looks. Dusk, on the other hoof, stared straight ahead with a creased brow and stiff jaw. A vein throbbed at his neck. Twilight didn’t remember seeing him this tense even in the duel against Trixter.
The bells rang to signal the start of the event, and as expected, Blitz and Applejack tore ahead of the competition. Dusk brought up the rear of the thunderous column of ponies, glowering so much at no one in particular that Twilight almost expected a personal thundercloud to materialise over his head.
Twilight saw Dash and AJ watching her from up front, and judging from their fidgety cantering, they were hanging back just because she was lagging behind with a mopey Dusk Shine. After a moments’ consideration, she put on a burst of speed and left him behind, too.
“You sure you don’t want to keep an eye on him?” asked Applejack when she caught up with them.
“Yeah, if you want to, we could just, you know…” Dash trailed off.
She smiled at their generosity and shook her head. “It’s all right. You both came here to observe Blitz and Applejack, and that’s what we’re going to do. In any case, Dusk’s trajectory will intercept ours at some point down the line.” She glanced back at him and murmured, “Probably…”
Things proceeded according to memory from there. Blitz and Applejack did their best to sabotage each other the whole way, losing their massive lead bit by bit whilst Bubble Berry and Barb provided mostly relevant commentary from above. The stallions even cheated every now and then with road sign tampering, beehive catapulting, impromptu tree-slingshots and balloon rides. At least Dash and AJ had the grace to smile sheepishly at her when she saw their male selves doing it. They’d apparently downplayed the extent of their bumbling around, from what she remembered.
Unlike her experience, though, when Dusk did cross paths Blitz and Applejack, he did not say a word to either of them.
Blitz and Applejack continued one-upping each other with dirty tricks right up to the final stretch before the finish line, oblivious to the ponies overtaking them as they stooped to an all-out brawl when Blitz attempted to fly to victory.
Twilight winced when Blitz punched Applejack in the face. In return, he got a swift kick in the jaw.
“Hayseed, there’s no need to be a sore loser, Blitz!”
“Right back at you, Loser!” Blitz growled back as he rubbed his chin. “Just admit that I won already!”
Applejack grimaced as he rubbed his swelling right eye, then scowled at his opponent. “What in the hay are you yammering about? I won!”
“Actually, you tied!” Barbara called out.
Both stallions froze for a moment, then slowly turned to the floating balloon that housed Bubble Berry and Barb.
“For first?” Applejack asked weakly.
“Nope. For last!” Bubbly Berry said with a grin. “Boy, you two must’ve really wanted it badly to fight so hard.”
“Wha—but, that’s insane!” Blitz sputtered. “How?”
After picking up his jaw, Applejack shook his head and asked, “Then who won?”
Right on cue, Dusk Shine came trotting up to them with a bronze medal around his neck.
Blitz blinked. “Oh. No way. You have got to be kidding us. You won?”
Dusk didn’t smile. “No. But I did get third place. Not too bad for a first-timer, huh?”
“But… how? Hayseed, you were hardly putting your back into it whenever we saw you!”
“A simple matter of keeping a steady pace all the way through, just as the books instructed. And when everypony else was worn out at the last stretch, that’s when I accelerated to full speed.”
“Oh. That’s… not a bad idea, I guess.” Blitz wilted under Dusk’s penetrating gaze and looked around awkwardly before turning to Applejack. “Unbelievable. Dusk actually beat us!”
“Yeah. Who’d have thought?”
Dusk snorted. “Plenty of sports coaches would’ve. Statistics show that athletes who follow instructions often do better than those who don’t. It’s all in the books.” He then shot them a glare before continuing, “Oh, right. You wouldn’t know much about that, would you? After all, books are no use and this event was clearly just a spatial-temporal anomaly created to mess with your heads. So, how does it feel to be beaten by a nerd?”
Without waiting for a response Dusk spun around and trudged off into the woods, leaving his two companions staring in silence.
Blitz recovered first. “I… I think my snark meter just blipped. Did Dusk actually snark at us?”
“He did seem a mite upset…” Applejack shifted uneasily and pawed at the ground. “You think we might’ve ragged on him a little too hard?”
“What, that? That was nothing!” Blitz snorted and gestured at the now empty pathway. “Not our fault if he takes it that personally.”
“Takes what personally?”
Both stallions spun around and found Barbara standing right behind them with her arms folded, smoke trailing out of her nostrils as she tapped one foot in anticipation.
“Oh, you know, stallion stuff,” Blitz said as he made a swirly motion in the air with a hoof.
Applejack said nothing.
Barb raised an eye ridge. “Did you hurt him?”
“Hurt him?” Blitz's eyes darted around as he nervously laughed. “Nah, he’s probably just tired after a crazy run like that. Crazy for him, I mean. It’s not that big a route. And—” His eyes widened as he stared at something behind Barb. “Wait, is that Prince Solaris?”
“Whoa Nelly,” said Applejack as he took his hat off. “We’d better go pay our respects before—”
Barb cut him off by snorting out a plume of fire. She didn’t even turn around to look at the prince. “Solaris can wait; he’s a patient guy. You can first talk to Dusk about whatever you did to him. I know when he’s hurt, and right now, I see only two possible suspects.”
Blitz and Applejack stared at her for a moment.
“Well, I suppose we could go talk to the haystack and see what’s wrong, but shouldn’t we wait for him to—”
A deep growl resonated from Barb’s throat. “Now.”
Both stallions shared a look before wisely deciding to appease the smouldering dragon. From the way they trotted into the woods with reluctant steps and their ears laid back, Twilight thought they looked like prisoners marching to their execution. Barb followed at an uncomfortably close distance behind them. Twilight glanced at Dash and AJ, who both looked mightily impressed by Barb’s display.
A little ways in, Blitz cast a sneaky glance back at Barb and whispered to Applejack, “Do we really have to do this? I’m not sure what the point is.”
Applejack stole a look at Barb, who casually popped a couple of topaz gemstones into her mouth and crunched on them rather noisily. He whipped his head back and put on a burst of speed. “I don’t know about you, but I have a pretty good reason.”
Blitz raised an eyebrow and looked back. Barbara met his gaze with a steely one of her own and snacked on a pair of aquamarine gems the same way as the topaz ones. Maybe a little more enthusiastically this time around, as gem dust puffed out of her mouth when she chewed.
“Okay, forget I said anything.” Blitz’s pupils shrank as he hastily resumed his march.
They had some trouble finding Dusk, though. The path ended abruptly in a clearing surrounded by trees, half of which were evergreens. It didn’t help that some of the deciduous ones still had their leaves on thanks to a half-done Running of the Leaves.
“Dusk, where are you?” Applejack hollered. “We just want to talk!”
“You’re not crying, are you?” Blitz called out. He then yelped when Applejack punched him in the shoulder and growled, “Dude, what was that for?”
Applejack shook his head and trotted in amongst the trees. Blitz followed.
“Dusk?”
Somepony sighed. “Over here.”
They found Dusk sitting underneath a shady maple, facing away from them as he gazed deep into the woods. After giving her two charges a pointed look, Barb climbed up onto a tree stump and sat down to observe from a reasonable distance whilst they both gingerly approached Dusk.
“Hey, you okay?” Applejack asked.
“What do you think?” Dusk slowly turned his head and stared at them. His eyes looked a little red.
“Oh wow, you really were cryi—oww!” Blitz hissed when Applejack casually back-hoofed his swollen cheek. He then glared at him and growled, “Right in the pain! What is wrong with you?”
Applejack ignored him and trotted closer to Dusk. “Mind if I sit here?”
“I won’t stop you.”
Applejack sighed and sat on his haunches, right next to Dusk. After a moment of silence, he turned to look at Blitz and motioned for him to sit on Dusk’s other side.
Blitz frowned and mouthed a silent ‘What?’ at him.
Applejack patted the ground emphatically in response.
Eventually, Blitz got the picture. But he shook his head and muttered, “The Blitz doesn’t do touchy-feely stuff.”
For a moment, Applejack stiffened and glanced worriedly at Dusk, apparently fearing that he might react poorly to that remark. But when Dusk simply stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard anything, Applejack rolled his eyes at Blitz and said, “Look, for a guy who keeps calling him ‘bro’, I don’t think it won’t kill you to act like one for a bit. Get your butt over here.”
Blitz snorted and planted his backside on the leafy ground next to Dusk. “Right. So there’s three of us, just sitting in a row. A bunch of crazy stallions in a row. What now?”
Applejack shot a glare at Blitz to shut him up. Then, he tentatively put a hoof on Dusk’s shoulder and said, “Look, I’m mighty sorry for the way I acted. I didn’t mean to make fun of your – what’s that word again? – athletic prowess and such. You’re not a nerd, you’re just—”
“Yes, I am,” Dusk interjected.
“Beg pardon?”
Dusk turned and locked eyes with him. “I am a nerd, and I don’t have a problem with either of you calling me that. But…” He stared at the ground and scratched at the dirt with a hoof. “I… never mind. It’s stupid. Just forget it.”
“That probably won’t help any,” Applejack said. “Could you please tell us? ‘Cause we messed up, but we don’t know exactly how or why we hurt you.”
Dusk inhaled deeply and released a ragged sigh. “This’ll probably sound stupid, but… I never got into sports. My big sis was a real killer on the field, but me? Never dared to try because I didn’t have friends who were into it. Then I found you guys, and I…” He paused for a moment to wipe his eyes. “I was kind of hoping to get some practical learning from you. Instead, all I got was, you know…”
Silence filled the space between them, save for a few leaves rustling in the wind.
Eventually, Applejack groaned. “Aww, darn it. I… I’m so sorry, haystack. I didn’t know you were looking up to us for that kind of support. Why didn’t you say anything about that?”
“Didn’t think I’d have to,” Dusk murmured. Then, his eyes narrowed as he turned to Blitz. “And you…”
Blitz leaned back and raised both hooves defensively. “Whoa, easy! What did I do?”
“I showed you Oubliettes and Ogres because I thought you might find it ‘cool’, as it were,” Dusk growled, jabbing a hoof at him. “But then you threw it back in my face and—argh…” A choked noise escaped him, and he blinked his eyes furiously as if dirt had gotten into them. “You made me feel ashamed back there for liking it. And what did the D-twenty ever do to you?”
Blitz blinked. “Umm…”
Dusk sniffed and shook his head. “Ugh, just… forget it. Like I said, it was stupid.”
He attempted to get up, but Applejack put a hoof on his shoulder and said, “It ain’t stupid, Dusk. If anything, we’re the stupid ones. Could you please stay and hear us out?”
Dusk looked at him for a moment and reluctantly sat back down.
Applejack took his hat off and set it aside. “I think I understand now, haystack. We had no idea our ragging was hitting that close to home, and for that, we’re awfully sorry. We didn’t want to make you feel unwelcome or inadequate. We were just… having a bit of fun.” His ears drooped. “At your expense. More than we had a right to take. Sorry.”
In the silence that followed as Dusk seemed to ponder on Applejack’s words, Applejack shot a glare over his back at Blitz, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Applejack quietly slapped his forehead and discreetly pointed at their friend and mouthed a rather forceful ‘Apologise!’ at him. Blitz simply stared back as if he’d been asked to decipher a piece of ancient, idiosyncratic calligraphy.
“Right,” Applejack growled, “I think Blitz has something to say to you too, haystack.”
Blitz’s narrowed eyes promised vengeance for the farmer, but he first had to deal with Dusk.
“Yeah, what he said. Sorry for making fun of you,” he muttered.
Dusk took a while to answer. The corners of his eyes were still red and a little puffy. After a while, he turned to look at him and said, “Do you really mean that?”
“I, well…”
Blitz gulped and flicked his gaze over to Applejack, but got only an unhelpful nod from him. He winced when he turned back to Dusk and ground his teeth. Then, when Dusk sighed and looked away with flattened ears and sagging shoulders, he groaned and said, “Aww, fluffing heck, dude. Do you really have to look like a kicked puppy? I… All right, just… just don’t tell anypony this, but I actually think your table top thing is kind of cool, okay?”
Dusk’s ears immediately perked up. “Wait, you actually like Oubliettes and Ogres? You’re not just saying that to—”
“Gah, I mean it! Don’t say it out loud!” Blitz cried, glancing around as if expecting a hundred ponies to pop out of the ground and go ‘Aha!’ at his admission. “Here, I’ll prove it to you. I remember that fighters get twelve hit points per level and start with, like, sixteen base constitution and fifteen strength. And I never remember anything with math in it. There! You happy now?”
“Oh ho, that’s some mighty useful blackmail material!” Applejack said with a grin.
Blitz glared at him. “Applejack, I swear, I will—”
Dusk cut him off with a chuckle. “It’s actually fourteen base Con, but I’m convinced.” He then put his forelegs around their shoulders and added with a small smile, “Thanks, guys. I needed that. I’m sorry I got so upset and made Barb come after your blood. I hope she didn’t do any damage.”
“Oh, believe me: you’ll know if they took any damage!” Barb called out from her perch.
“So… are we good now?” asked Applejack.
“Yeah, I think we are. I get it now; I’ll try not to take it so personally when you make fun of me.” Dusk nodded, then turned to grin at Blitz. “By the way, your dirty secret’s safe with me. Game Night’s on every Thursday. If you like the fighter, you’re going to become best friends with the D-twenty.”
Blitz moaned and covered his face with both hooves. “I’m doomed. Every mare is going to hear of this. Reputation gone. Poof.”
“Sounds to me like an important lesson was learned,” said a voice that resonated with equal parts authority and cheer.
“Prince Solaris!” all three of them cried in unison as they scrambled onto all fours.
Twilight gulped. Up close, Prince Solaris looked just as regal and imposing as Princess Celestia – maybe a bit more of the latter because of his broader form and rugged beard. She could see Dash and AJ also looking a little dazed on either side of her.
“Wha—what are you doing here?” asked Blitz. “Uh, not that you can’t do whatever you like, but—”
Prince Solaris chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Fall’s one of my favourite seasons, so I came over to celebrate the Running of the Leaves.”
“Darn. We’re sorry you had to see us being such poor sports,” said Applejack as he bowed. He then winced as he rubbed his eye and added, “Ouch. I think I’m going to have a pretty shiner in the morning. Sorry about your chin, Blitz.”
“That’s all right. It’s easy to get swept up in the competition.” Prince Solaris swept his gaze around at the still-leafy trees and added, “By the way, it looks like the trees would benefit from another lap or two of running…”
“Sounds like a fine idea, Your Highness.” Applejack turned to the others. “Fancy another round? Let’s see you push your limits this time!”
Dusk grinned. “For science. Let’s go!”
“Wait, didn’t we just learn this lesson?” asked Blitz with a frown.
Prince Solaris raised an eyebrow. “Hmm? What lesson?”
“Not to be too competitive.”
Solaris blinked. Then, after a moment, he chuckled and nodded. “Oh, that. That’s a good lesson too, I suppose.”
“Wait, then what were you—”
Solaris leaned in close and whispered gravely into Blitz’s ear, “Never mock the dungeon master. This purple one is especially cruel with traps and puzzles, and he has a long memory.”
Blitz’s eye twitched. “Uh…”
“Well, then. I must be off, and you have another lap to run. Have fun, boys!”
And with that, the prince spread his mighty wings and disappeared in a flash of light.
“Uh, Rainbow Blitz? You okay?” asked Dusk as he waved a hoof in front of him.
Blitz shook his head to clear it. After taking a while to gain his bearings, he shook his head at Dusk and grinned, “Oh, okay, Book Butt. If you want The Blitz in on Game Night, you’re going to have to earn it. Let’s see you run like a real stallion!”
“Yeehaw! Up and at it!” cried Applejack as he broke into a gallop.
After the three stallions had thundered off down the path and left a cloud of dust in their wake, Applejack piped up, “Well, that was something. Twilight, I’m not sure if rightly remember, but did we hurt you on that day, too?”
Twilight tapped a hoof on her chin. “Actually, I don’t think so. It didn’t really bother me.”
“So… does this mean that stallions are bigger softies than mares?” Dash asked with a grin.
“Rainbow…”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m kidding,” she said, waving a hoof dismissively a Twilight. “Spike was right. Little bit of same here, little bit of different there.”
“I’ve got to say, though, Girly Spike is a real feisty one,” Applejack said with a glance at Barb, who was making her way back to the rest of the townsponies, sporting a rather self-satisfied smile.
“Oh yeah, she’s a total hardflank in this universe.”
“Dragons are extremely matriarchal, so it does make sense,” Twilight added thoughtfully. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Yeah. The Dash is hungry.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I see the cross-dimensional contamination is spreading already. Let’s go.”
When they popped back into her reading room, Twilight wasted no time in opening up her notebook to jot down the finer details of their encounter for safekeeping. “By the way, girls, please try to keep this under wraps, okay? This isn’t something ponies in general need to know about.”
“Sure thing, sugarcube.”
“Rainbow?”
Twilight found her gazing rather thoughtfully at the reflective surface of one of the windows.
“Say, some of those guys were kind of hot…” Rainbow turned to Twilight, and a wicked grin slowly twisted her mouth. “You saw them. Did any of them, you know…”
Temperature rising… “No.”
“But—”
Heart rate climbing… “No.”
Applejack started grinning, too. “Really? What about—”
Blood flow to wings increasing! “No. Bye!”
Twilight instantly teleported out into the hallway and had to take a moment to wait for everything to settle down properly.
“Girls…” she muttered to herself as their giggles echoed out of her room.
Author's Note
Oh hey, another chapter. Needed it to get over a blockage again.
I'm still leaving the story tagged as complete, though it's certainly possible for more chapters to pop up down the line. Never know when something might be worth adding.
Toodles! 
