When You're Playing House
Apples ran on an different time than most folks, being farm ponies and all. Their mornings didn't start with the sun or the heart-filled song of a rooster crowing her majestic rise over the earth. It started in the late night blue, the smooth sky bare and boundless cept for the countless stars and the moon drifting elsewhere yonder.
What was morning? What was evening?
For an Apple, there was only today and tomorrow. Then events: Work-time, break-time, lunchtime, supper. Then bed. All dividing a long day into the rest-giving night. Maybe they'll think of yesterday when the day got slow, work was easy and their minds wandered to thoughtful shores. There was only today and then what would always come after was tomorrow.
So Applejack didn't consider her current activity, lounging in bed and listening to the mare in the shower screech her heart, as sleeping in. That would imply her mornings started with the day and today, there was nothing of the sort. Her chores were taken care of. Her day clear for some idle fun. The heavenly light glared through the blinds, casting the back orchard of harvested apple trees in hues of thread-spun gold. Applejack ignored the familiar sight and the ache in her hooves that told she should out there checking the grounds.
She'd do all of that and more, tomorrow. Not today.
Instead, her eyes went to the blue feathers scattered from the late night... wrestle. They sat in twos and threes, keeping the favorite side of the bed of a certain cocky pegasus warm.
“I'm heading downstairs.” Applejack shouted, moving on to picking up the feathers with her mouth and dropping them in a chest already filled to the brim. With a sneeze, one of the bigger feathers escaped, whirling through the air like the mare it came from. Applejack chased after it, knocking and banging into her dressers in a frenzy until a draft of cold, autumn air swept it straight out the window.
She stared at the scene, watching the feather mock her with a dozen of flips and twirls while being carried by the wind. It vanished into the open sky without hardly a goodbye. Constarn it, that was one of her favorite feathers. Applejack closed her eyes, feeling a moment of silence was necessary to mourn her loss. It always hurt to lose one of them.
Then Rainbow Dash belted the chorus of Warmare, War On, likely slapping her hooves against the tiles on the wall. “Wonderbolts, straight and blue. My mecha crossbow shall shoot through! Warmare, Warmare, Warmare!”
“You better not flap your wet wings all over the floor while I'm gone.” Applejack said instead, closing the chest and placing it back under her bed. “And again, I'm heading downstairs and these sheets will not be here when you get out. Today's laundry day.” The mare yawned and pulled off the used sheets off the bed with a tug. She bundled them together and threw them into the hamper by the bed.
The off-tune song ended with a grunt and the curtains being yanked opened.
“What do you mean, today's laundry day?” Dash's voice boomed, confused and sluggish from sleepiness, before lowering into a husky purr. “I thought you liked smelling like me on days like this. Don't make me have to rush out there and give you the Rainbow Rub-down if you need a fresh dose.”
“You are hilarious.” Applejack wrapped her tail around the handle of the hamper and pulled it along. She opened the door and walked out into the hallway. “You remember whose turn it was to make breakfast today? I'm pretty sure I did it last time.”
“Is that a trick question? You've wouldn't have had to cook last time had you agreed to the plan.”
Applejack rolled her eyes, a faint chuckle escaping her lips. “You and me and a bottle of maple syrup? That is not a well-balanced breakfast.”
“Oh, it would have been super well-balanced when we changed positions.” Dash explained, the water turning off. “Then awesomely well-balanced when I brought out the special chocolate.”
“What makes the chocolate special?”
“Duh. When I eat it off those sensitive cutiemarks of yours and you start moaning like a bi-”
The knock at the door rattled the aged hinges, sending the vibrations through the wooden pillars holding up the front door to the metal tin bell that rung through out the farm house. “It's open! Come on in.” She hollered, reaching the end of the hall as Rainbow Dash popped her head out the bathroom. Applejack sped up her pace, tugging the hamper downstairs and placed to the side.
The knocking, if one could call it that now that Applejack was standing next to the door, hearing the shaky and half-hearted taps on the door, continued. One tap, two tap. Applejack opened the door, a name right in her mouth as she gazed at the pony on her steps. “What brings you by, Fluttershy?” The mare blinked, taking in Fluttershy's mangled appearance. A dirty dancing dress and a messy mane.
“I'm sorry to be coming by so early.” Fluttershy swayed on her hooves. “But Rarity won't be here to tomorrow and I was just walking and I saw your farm and I thought about you. Can I? Can I? Come in, that is. It is morning right? Not evening? It might be evening. I can't tell. Everything spinning-”
The pegasus fell forward, passing out before Applejack caught her in her hooves.
“You sure can, Fluttershy.”
“Are you two together?” The question swiftly swung from the right, soundly beating Applejack silent before she could even stutter out a coherent response. “Are you keeping it from the others?” Fluttershy continued, eyes red and puffy while her words, tender and slurring, went for the jugular.
“Fluttershy.” Applejack blurted, looking away to the blue pegasus in question working the stove and humming a song. The smell of pancakes and hash browns took to the air, bathing the kitchen in the sweet aroma of good home cooking.
Rainbow Dash acted like she didn't hear what her good old buddy had to say but Applejack knew she heard. And rolled her eyes cause she expected to handle this. Element of Loyalty, her right hoof.
“You shouldn't be thinking so hard. Probably have one heck of hangover after your uh...”
“Bad date.” Fluttershy squeaked, hooves tight around the glass of water she been lent. “Thanks for letting me stop by.” She murmured, her pink unraveling curls cascading down her face that was caked with green runny mascara. A blob of hot-red lipstick where her lips used to be. “He stood me up and when I get stood up, it's hard for me to leave. I just kept ordering and ordering and then a waiter suggests wine and I can't help myself because I don't to look like it was my fault because that makes ponies feel bad and... and...”
“I feel you. Relationship pains.”
“And well... I'd usually head to Rarity's in the morning to tell her about it. But she went on that trip to Canterlot and won't be back to Monday... And I sipped more than I should've of...”
Fluttershy's head dipped, her mouth sighing an alcohol-rich fog that had Applejack twitching as she identified the various drinks that the poor mare had sampled. She was lucky to be talking. Not passed out on roads or in alleyways or any place a mare ought to be avoiding. “And I saw your farm while heading to mine. Or I was running from mine and I saw your house... I can't remember but I saw the door and I knocked.”
“I know.” Applejack said softly, a faint smile quirking her lips. “I let you in. All of that happened just a few minutes ago.”
“Right.” Fluttershy nodded, eyes flickering like she just remembered something important. She blinked once. Then twice. And attacked. “So, are you and Rainbow Dash together?”
“That depends on Applejack.” Rainbow Dash shouted from her station, flapping her wings to fly up to the higher cabinets. The cupboard creaked opened and Dash pulled out three plates to sit on the counter. “I wanted to hook up again like weeks ago but she kept on trying to be all faithful to Caramel. I mean, have you seen Caramel? Banging him would be banging a uncool version of me. With no wings. I almost lost respect for her.”
“I felt the same way when you were with Thunderlane.” Applejack threw out. “He was cute and all, fine dimples where they oughta be-”
“That's code for him having a nice ass.” Rainbow Dash added. “Apple Bloom isn't around, Madamn 'The Walls Are So Thin, That Granny Smith Can Totally Hear Me Fly Out The Window'. You are free to talk about the quality of a stallion's rear. Thunderlane has a nice ass and if we weren't on break, I would be uh...”
Fluttershy squished up her face, eyebrows rising. “Are you talking about your old boyfriends? That doesn't seem like... I uh... Is that okay?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged, flipping the hot food out of the pan.
“To answer your question, we aren't together in the most romantic of senses.” Applejack said as Dash brought over the plates of pancakes balanced on her wings. “It's just today.” As she passed, Applejack felt the slight deliberate jerk of the pegasus' hip brushing over her cutie mark. “If that helps.”
“What does today mean?” Fluttershy asked, tilting her head to the side.
“She likes the way I make eggs, I guess.” Applejack replied, taking to the store and using a new pan. In and out of the frigebox, she brought eggs and cracked a few into a bowl to be mixed. “According to her, I don't make 'crappy scrambled ones' like Thunderlane always does.”
“Caramel shakes the bed too much. Restless legs.” Dash pipped up. “Applesauce here likes grabbing ponies in bear hugs when she sleeps. It doesn't feel all that bad, because I could get out any time I wanted, but they're pretty good.”
“Mistress Prism has a rope fetish.”
“Mr. Rough and Tough Jack likes toys.”
“And Caramel and Thunderlane don't for some reason?” Fluttershy sputtered. “What are you guys doing? Just say that you love each other and get a room or married or...” She heaved, lifting herself out of her seat. “Don't do this kind of dancing around each other! So many ponies need love and you're both lying to yourselves and them.”
Dash shook her head and walked over to Fluttershy's side, grabbing her in a one-sided hug. “Shy, please. It's exactly, freaking unbelievable, what Applejack said. It's only for today and she means it in some weird, I mean super weird, earth pony way. Holy Celestia, you should've seen my face when she tried to explain why she broke up with me for Caramel's creamy butt. But really, what do you know about us? For real since you came in all drunk and crazy?”
“I'm not drunk. I'm mostly drunk! It's legal for me to fly home, girls!” Fluttershy babbled. “I just think it's unfair that you're... taunting me. Oh, I'm Applejack and Rainbow Dash,” She mocked in a tiny, quivering voice. “I'm so cool and dependable that I can get any stallion to fall in love with me and have a mare to be by my side whenever I feel like it. And I make private jokes, ha ha ha.”
“Applejack once told me this, 'I might own you today.' Bla blah in that It's not you, it's not me kind of way. 'But your future owns your tomorrow no matter what you take from yesterday.' I thought she was weird but I thought about it, you know, while I tried to screw up her and Caramel's relationship cause I thought it was a dumb reason to break up with someone. And I-”
Applejack walked in with a pan full of sunny-side up eggs. “Y'all talking about me?”
Fluttershy sniffed at the air and puked.
"C'mon, I just showered!"
