In Which Rarity Is A Burly Scot With Shady Connections And Applejack Is Surprised
Lying in a fluffy robe with a towel draped over her head, Rarity would have groaned like a steam boiler on overdrive (the metaphor would, too soon, resurface in her memories as being eerily ironic) were it not for the fact that she was a lady, and ladies maintained poise at all times. That much being said, while maintaining poise probably involved maintaining pose, Rarity was not lady enough to keep herself from melting into a bubbling puddle of relaxation and skin.
There should have been a knock on the door. Aloe, co-owner of the Ponyville Day Spa, strolled through.
"Jeśli korzystasz z usługi tłumaczenia prawdopodobnie będziesz wiedzieć, to nie będzie żadnego sensu," rattled off Aloe.
Equestria was a free country, and Ponyville was about as tolerant a community as you could get when the range of coat tones was large enough to fill two catalogues. Which meant that Rarity had no problems with Aloe using her mother tongue, as long as Aloe had no problems with Rarity applying unfeigned ignorance.
So she did, sitting silently like a potato.
"Można powiedzieć, że są one będzie matowy," pressed Aloe, making gestures so loud that Rarity could see them underneath her face towel.
Rarity snorted and lifted the towel. "Whuddaya wunt?" she grunted.
Aloe pointed at Rarity's face, then back to her own, and made a scrunching motion, as if she were trying to cream a potato with her grip.
Rarity nodded, but did not blink, as her eyes were still closed. Now that was more her language.
"Yeh, U'll keep an eeh oot," she grumbled. "By the wae, have ye seen Apooljack? Lass was meant to be here by noe."
Aloe shook her head.
Rarity shrugged. She briefly considered venting about how Applejack had been so busy lately that they hardly spent any time together. But, on the other hand, it meant more steam for her.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before somepony knocked, and because of that she knew that it was Applejack.
"I'm so sorry," said Applejack, panting, with a towel around her head. "My chores, I don't know why I've got so many..."
Rarity lifted her towel to reveal a face so pruned it gave Applejack free bowel motion just by looking at it.
"Fookin A, Apooljack," said Rarity.
The day was bright and the birds were chirping, which was why it was a perfect day to spend inside an enclosed building doing nothing but lounge.
Twilight Sparkle and Spike were making their way up to Sweet Apple Acres when Rarity caught up with them. Immediately, the large sack Spike was pulling along the dirt road caught Rarity's eye. The sack was about as big as he was, and clanged conspicuously. There was also the suggestion of very tinny screaming.
"Why're ye dragging that sack around, Spike?" asked Rarity, amazed.
"Why?" said Twilight, giggling. "Spike, why don't you tell Rarity why you're dragging around the sack?"
Spike, on account of being a ten-foot hulking dragon on all fours, roared, shaking the leaves off the nearest trees.
"It's because he's a drag-on!" finished Twilight, bursting into laughter.
Rarity blinked. "Well, what's in the sack?"
"Get it? Drag-on? He's dragging it because he's a drag-on?" continued Twilight, punctuating each word with an adorable snort.
"Uh think the sack's not the unly thing bein' dragged," muttered Rarity.
They made their way past the farm gates, where the price of milk had just been slashed due to some arcane clause in the farmer-coop agreement someone had signed but not read on behalf of everyone else. Twilight waved to the back, and Spike pulled the sack around the back of the farm.
"Okay," said Rarity, for no reason in particular.
"Oh, and I forgot to ask you why you're here," said Twilight, looking around. "Why are you here, Rarity?"
"It's spa dae," said Rarity simply.
"Oh, right," said Twilight, nodding. "Good for you."
"Yer on business here?" asked Rarity politely.
"You know me. Every day is business day for Twilight Sparkle," said Twilight Sparkle, her sparkle on the twilight of fading.
The barn doors swung open and out came Applejack, covered in mud.
"Yer gunna hae to hae a bath first," grunted Rarity.
"I'm so sorry," said Applejack, looking pitiful beneath the curtain of sweat pouring from her brow. "Is it spa day already?"
"Uh sent ye five letters beforehand," said Rarity, "reminding ye."
"And Spike's just at the back. He knows what to do," said Twilight cheerily.
"I'll say," said Applejack, looking at her darkly before turning to Rarity. "Just give me, uh..."
"Another letter?" said Rarity innocently, as innocent as her butch baritone voice would allow. "That's okay. Uh'm made of bits for stamps and postal fees anyways. See?" She shook a hoof. Out came a pocketwatch, as well as a crowbar and some loose screws.
"You seem to have a loose screw there, Rarity," said Twilight, grinning as she sidled up to her. "You sure you wanna—"
"Maeke anuther dumb pun and Uh'll show ye a screw loose," growled Rarity.
"Woah, there," said Applejack hastily, stepping in between. "Language, Rarity."
Rarity glared and backed down. "Noot like anyune canna understund me. Or that language works for yew, seeing as we aren't at the fookin spa. Which we should be."
"Tell you what," said Twilight, "How about I handle the chores and you go and relax? You really should."
"Not to insult you or anything, Twilight, but are you sure you can handle it?" said Applejack worriedly. "I mean, my chores aren't the simplest to do..."
"Relax, it'll be fine!" beamed Twilight. "You should really go."
Applejack sneaked a glance at Rarity's brewing rage, and sighed. She took out a scroll and passed it to Twilight, who promptly ignited it.
"Wait, what are you doing?!" cried Applejack. "That was a list of instructions on what to do!"
"Lists, schidmt," said Twilight happily. "If it's a list, you know I'm on top of it."
"But you burned it! You didn't even read what was—"
Twilight slowly moved a hoof over the ashes, and gave them a gentle, deliberate twist.
"Fookin A, Apooljack, she's on top of it," grunted Rarity, rolling her eyes as she received an anxious nod seeking approval from Twilight. "Coom on. Time tae goe."
"Rainboe Dash," said Rarity, a sinister grin on her face as the pair approached her robed figure in the reception area.
"Rarity," said Rainbow Dash, nodding. "If it isn't the lord of disparity, good riddy. You seem chippy."
"What's a mare like you doing in a fru-fru place like this?" asked Applejack.
"What's a mare like you doing in a fru-fru place like this?" replied Rainbow Dash.
"That weren't a rhyme," said Rarity, frowning.
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Even the best rhyme words with words. Why not rhyme lengths with lengths? In the end, it's a textural landscape that I paints, takes brains bigger than our past three presidaints."
"Listening to ye is giving me a headache," groaned Rarity. "Coom on. The steam room ere woiting."
"You think you can escape my rhyme, but it's only a matter of time till they climb the walls of your misunderstanding, and you recognize their nature as fine and divine!" called out Rainbow Dash desperately, as the two headed down the hallway...
...and into somepony.
"By Jove," said Applejack.
"Cor blimey," replied Rarity.
As hard as it was to accept, it seemed like they were in somepony's chest cavity. Overhead, the biggest giveaway stretched out before them: the shape of the ribcage bent layers of capillary-covered muscle into wavy rolling plains. Below then, the ground heaved up and down ever so slightly. Rarity gave it a bit of a kick.
"The lungs," said Rarity.
"Uhuh," said Applejack.
"This is a bit of a pickle," said Rarity.
"Speaking of pickles, I think I see one," said Applejack, pointing.
"That dooesn't make any sense," said Rarity, turning around anyways to peer at the odd lump. "The stoemachs aren't anywhere near the lungs."
"You're right," said Applejack, her expression firm. "We have to get rid of it."
"We need tae leave," said Rarity patiently, "and find a way back to the spa room."
"But Rarity," protested Applejack, "we gotta fix this pony's plumbing! That thing over there doesn't look like it belongs at all! What if we were here for this reason?"
"Dae reason we're here," snarled Rarity, raising herself up, "is tae have a steam bath and tae get ye to relax!"
"You can't stop me!" snapped Applejack in return. And before Rarity could say another word, she was already off.
Rarity brimmed with fury, but with the magic of self control, managed to only blurt: "Fookin A, Apooljack."
As it turned out, like most feats of rudimentary engineering, simply removing the symptom—in this case, the pickle—was not enough to rid the problem for good. Eventually, the pony, who went by the name of Cirrus Scone, would be found dead in an alleyway in North Frunchia, having overdosed on a deadly cocktail of legal perispedirione and black market pickles. The family he left behind, a young wife of thirty and two children that were four and five, would devote their remaining lives to championing awareness of the dangers of black market pickles and the need for better law enforcement; the body he left behind, meanwhile, would make its way to Frunchia University's medicine department, where an intern by the name of Scalpel Palpable would discover that the issue of bits of food moving from the stomach to the chest cavity was, not, in fact, caused by the illegal pickles, but by the blatantly legal, bribery-entangled and government-approved perispedirione, as it had channel-widening properties that had, up until now, and would be forevermore, covered up by Big Pharma.
Rarity would later on hear about this in a report written in Big Pharma's hoofwriting herself, but since she had never gotten the name of the stallion she had been in, she would never realize the crucial connection she had in this event.
"Nawiasem mówiąc, jeśli nie ma, to naprawdę powinien sprawdzić mój blog na odcinku," said Aloe, as the three of them stood in line for the steam room.
"What did she say?" asked Applejack.
"Dooesn't matter," said Rarity, giving Aloe a meaningful look, "becoose whut maetters is whut she dues aboot this line."
"Należy także pamiętać, aby zapoznać się z bloga poprodukcyjnych na koniec!" said Aloe, more urgently.
"What did sh say?" asked Applejack.
"Dooes it look like I fookin knoe?" snarled Rarity. Then, to Aloe, she growled: "This line haen't been moeving fer ten minutes. Figure. Out. Wae."
Aloe met the glare with an impressive, but ultimately lacking amount of chutzpah. Head held high, she moved up to the front of the line, screeching indeterminate words as she did so.
To their surprise, Aloe came back in seven minutes, dragging a prissy unicorn stallion by the horn. Applejack winced; she could only imagine how much it hurt. Rarity, who knew how much it hurt, did not.
"Także też, jeśli lubisz tego rodzaju FIC związane odcinka, należy sprawdzić inne moje nich. Są mniej absurdalne niż to." Aloe looked proud of herself as she half-slammed the worker to the ground.
"Translate," barked Rarity, kicking him in the snout for good measure.
"I... I sorry!" wheezed the unicorn, looking like he was about to cry. "Please no hurt me!"
"Wae did Aloo bring ye here?" Rarity continued evenly. "Whut do ye hae to doe with this line?"
"I... I cause line because I give ponies towels! Hot towels!"
"And?"
"Hot towels laced with Roma licorice!"
Aloe's smile faded. Even Rarity's eyes widened at this revelation.
Applejack nudged Rarity. "Uh. Licorice?"
"Roma licorice," said Rarity quietly.
"What's so bad about licorice? I mean, I don't like it myself, but..."
"It's a metaphoor," said Rarity.
"A metaphor for what?"
Rarity sighed, shook her head, and in a rare moment of tenderness, patted Applejack on the head. "The less ye knoe aboot it, the better. Can we just put it daet wae?"
Mildly overwhelmed at this show of vulnerability, Applejack nodded, and resisted the urge to nuzzle her friend.
"And as fer yew..." Rarity bore down on the stallion so close that her whiskey-scented breath turned his coat amber. "Yew almost drugged me and mae friend. There are consequences, ye knoe?"
"Please!" the stallion whimpered. "I... I have keedz, it was just for the keedz—"
"Uh cun't take yae seriously with yer accent!" roared Rarity, rearing up and stomping the full force of her hooves into his foreleg. There was a loud snap, crackle and pop. His cry of pain echoed through the spa like fresh dairy pouring into a butter churner, and there would have been a more audible response were it not for the fact that most of the ponies were in a stupor. She motioned to him, and then to Aloe. "Yew knoe where tae taek him."
Nodding, Aloe dragged the limp body.
"So."
"Yeah, Apooljack?"
"Why, uh, was he lacing the towels with Roma licorice?"
"Damned if Uh knoe."
"Aloe didn't seem too concerned about it. Isn't that kinda suspicious? You know, how did she find him so quickly? And wouldn't she have been wondering about the line?"
Rarity shrugged. "Eh. Even if Uh aesked 'er she wunna tell. Aend even if she did it'd be in gobbledegook."
"I think that's vaguely discriminatory, Rarity," mumbled Applejack.
"Fookin A, Apooljack," said Rarity, shaking her head. "Maebe Uh really shoulda let ye do yer chores instead."
They returned to the farm to find the place covered in mud and squealing.
"Guys? Guys!" cried Twilight, running up to them from behind the bushes. She, too, was covered in mud, and while she sounded like Twilight Sparkle, any mudmonster could do that, so Rarity gave the rushing figure a good sock in the face.
"Oops," said Rarity, true regret in her voice, as the mud slid away to reveal Twilight's visage. Then she looked at Applejack.
"Looks like she wasn't on top of it after all," said Applejack ruefully.
"Whut is going on?" asked Rarity.
"She didn't follow my instructions," said Applejack, shrugging. "She must have tried to feed the pigs by just dumping food into the trough."
"And?"
"And because she failed to display proper dominance, the pigs took it as an opportunity to revolt, taking control of the farm."
Rarity was unsure of how Applejack did things, but she knew that when it came to revolts and control, she was pretty good. She was about to step forward when Applejack stretched a leg out.
"Rarity."
"Hum?"
"Rarity..." Applejack looked softly into Rarity's violet violent eyes. "I have to say I appreciate you trying to get me out of the barn. I appreciate you trying to get me to relax, I really do. You're a good friend, and even though we didn't get to do a steam bath, we got to spend time anyways. Just us. And I'm happy for it."
Rarity remained tense.
"But running the barn the way I do... it's like a business. You know yourself how hard it is to keep things in check. All the procedures you have to follow, all the things going on, and in the end all the decisions fall to your shoulders... But the thing is, I wouldn't have it any other way."
Applejack smiled. Rarity took a deep breath.
"I mean... I know why you've been trying to get me to relax. It was because you saw my list, right?"
"Hoe did ye knoe?" whispered Rarity.
"Because you tried to rewrite it in cursive, and you forgot to use a pencil instead of a pen so my list was covered in your hoofwriting," said Applejack kindly. "To be honest, I don't know why I gave Twilight that list when it was nigh unreadable. But hey—I don't blame you. It's okay for friends to want to know what friends are up to. And it's okay for you to be concerned when you saw the things I have to do every day."
"But..." Rarity replied weakly. "Opening the door then closing it?"
"Pavlovian response," said Applejack.
"Dangling yeself from a rope? Doing the chicken dance?"
"Invoking repressed memories of past traumas," said Applejack.
"Feeding the chickens une bae une instead of all together?"
"Controlling individual portions, altering them slightly, and revealing it in plain sight creates jealousy and a sense of unfairness, driving up resentment against each other rather than a system where the strong come out on top and the weak fall behind. The resentment of the strong breeds a much stronger motivation for competition than the depression of being at the bottom thus improving results much more than any other structural approach," said Applejack.
Rarity shook her head, speechless.
Applejack sidled up and gave her friend a hug. "I know you mean for the best, Rarity. But the organization I run is run tightly. And while a lot of ingrained organizational habits are bad for productivity, and often are harmful to its members... it serves for greater control."
As Twilight came to, mumbling about how Spike was busy fighting off the rebellion, Rarity let everything sink in. Applejack was right, and she knew that today she had learned an important lesson about her friend.
To which she simply smiled and said: "Fookin A, Apooljack."
This time, Rarity knew to let Applejack find free time at her own pace, which she managed by delegation: promoting a small committee of individuals who had shown ambition, an absence of concern for the welfare and rights of community they had been part of, and a propensity to backstab. They would run the show for a day, all the while keeping each other on their toes due to distrust.
Of course, the process took three months, and by that time it was winter, but Rarity liked steam baths while it was cold outside. It reminded her of the good old days.
"Yo yo yo," said Rainbow Dash, as the two stepped through the doors of the spa. "Whaddap, this is Rainbow Dash, flying fast, never crash. This whole scenario's based on a brief sheet, through rain and sleet, Rainbow delivers accuracy with unique ter-mete. Some ponies like Spitfire, but I'm the only pony that can spit fire."
Rarity massaged her temples with a hoof.
Meanwhile, Applejack, zurprised, exclaimed: "We came here just for that?"
THE END
Author's Note
Thank you for fav'ing, reading, liking and commenting. There's a post-production blog if you're interested on how this came to be, as well as other behind-the-scenes stuff.
If you liked this, check out Just The Usual, inspired by Newbie Dash, and Fork Everything, inspired by No Second Prances.
