Biology: A Romance

Chapters

1 - Red
2 - White
3 - Yellow
4 - Green
5 - Gray
6 - Blue
7 - Pink

1 - Red

"Today's the day," Applejack muttered, the light of dawn glowing just enough at her bedroom window to show the red circle around the date on her calendar. Unless, of course—she rolled over, snuggled deeper into her pillow—she put it off another month same way she'd been doing all year.

But no. Apple Bloom had been making like her name and blossoming ever since she'd started hanging around with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and if Applejack waited any longer, well, The Talk was s'pposed to get a filly ready for that awful, messy moment when she became a mare. Didn't do a licka good to wait till it'd already happened: that, she knew all too well.

Consarned biology...

Sighing, grumbling, rolling her hoofs onto the cold wooden planks of the floor, she bit into the brim of her hat, flipped it from its peg onto her head, and stepped into the hallway. Apple Bloom'd be up—that girl was definitely an Apple when it came to waking with the sun—so Applejack crossed the hall and tapped her sister's door.

A muffled "C'mon in!" from the other side, and Applejack pushed through, Apple Bloom sprawled over her bedspread among six or seven books, the pencil in her teeth making neat little marks in a notebook.

"Well, now!" AJ leaned against the door with a grin. "Didn't I hear somepony say she had her homework all done yesterday when she was asking to go crusading with her friends? Didn't I hear that?"

Primmer than any schoolmarm, Apple Bloom gave a purse-lipped look and set the pencil down. "I knew I'd have time afore school this morning, so it wasn't like I was telling a fib or nothing. It's all about being prepared, y'see?"

Which made Applejack feel all the more that first telltale tightness just below her stomach. "Well, what I gots to show you's all about being another kinda prepared." She nodded toward the door. "You're right near old enough, I reckon, so off that bed, sugar cube. It's you and me in the bathroom for a couple minutes."

Apple Bloom's ears perked, and she leaped to the floor. "This gotta do with me getting my cutie mark??"

"Different thing altogether." Applejack moved out into the hall, heard the clatter of hoofs as Apple Bloom hurried to catch up. "This ain't about what you got on your flanks. It's about what you got between your hind legs."

"Y'mean my flap?"

Halfway into the bathroom, Applejack gasped and spun. "Where'd you ever hear a filthy word like that??"

Eyes wide, Apple Bloom took half a step backwards. "From...from Sweetie Belle. She said—"

"Rarity!" Applejack couldn't hold back a snort. "Saying such things to foals! Ain't she got no decency??"

"'Tweren't Rarity! It was Sweetie Belle's ma and pa!"

Applejack's ears folded. "Huh. Well." Rarity's folks were great—Applejack wouldn't stand for anypony thinking otherwise—but, well, she had to admit the only reason she didn't call 'em dumb as posts was because she found posts to be pretty darn useful....

A little flush glowed at Apple Bloom's cheeks. "A month or three back, Sweetie Belle said her folks'd been sorta giggling at each other all day, and when it got on toward nightfall, they told her to head on over and spend the night at Rarity's place. She got about halfway there when she remembered she'd forgot her schoolbooks, and when she went back to get 'em, her folks were— Well, she didn't rightly know what they was doing!"

Which was more than Applejack needed to hear; she held up a hoof. "All right, let's just—"

"Sweetie Belle said her mama was all stretched out on the sofa moaning and laughing, and her daddy kept saying how much he loved licking her flap! And he had his nose pressed right up between her—"

"Enough!" Only thing that stopped Applejack from stomping the floor was her not wanting to wake Granny Smith and get her in the middle of all this. Or worse, Big Macintosh! Taking a breath, she struggled to keep her voice down. "First off, I don't ever wanna hear you using that word no more. It ain't proper. You calls it your lacinia if you gotta call it anything, y'hear?"

Apple Bloom blinked up at her. "Lacinia?"

"That's right." No matter how much Applejack didn't wanna do this, she was determined to do better than Granny's stammered explanation that awful day all those years ago when AJ had come screaming and running in from the fields with blood gushing out of a place she hadn't even had five minutes before. "Our lacinia's wunna the things that separates us ponies from the less-civilized folks and the rude animals of the forest, y'see: we keep our parts back there all nice and tucked away inside insteada having 'em flop around out in the open."

"Parts?" Half a second, and Apple Bloom's face brightened like the sun coming up. "Oh! You mean like on cattle and sheep with their pizzles and cunnies?"

"Apple Bloom!" The air heating up around her, Applejack had to struggle again to keep her voice down. This was the main reason she preferred dealing with trees: plant biology weren't anywhere near as gruesome. "If you hafta—and far as I'm concerned, you don't ever hafta—the polite word for a male's part is 'penis' and for us females, it's 'vulva.'"

"Y'mean—" Somehow, Apple Bloom's eyes got even wider. "I've got a cunny same as a cow??"

"What did I say 'bout that word??"

Her sister flinched. "Vulna—or something?"

"Vulva." Another clench in her stomach, and Applejack nodded, moved into the bathroom, tried to push every horrible detail of her first menses back into the part of her head where she kept stuff she didn't wanna think about. "Now, sometime soon—maybe before you get your cutie mark, maybe after—your lacinia's gonna open up, and, well, blood's gonna come out."

Apple Bloom's ears folded even tighter. "Blood?? I ain't never seen no cow bleeding back there!"

"That's 'cause cows ain't ponies." Applejack popped open the cupboard under the sink, pulled out her box of sanitary napkins, set it on the counter. "We're special in a lotta ways, and this is one of 'em." Which weren't a lie: after all, just 'cause something was special didn't make it good. "Now, lemme show you how it works."

"What??" The filly was standing in the doorway smelling scared enough to bolt and run, a feeling Applejack knew all too well when it came to this sorta thing. "You're gonna start bleeding right now??"

"It gets you once a month, give or take." She pulled a paper-wrapped packet from the box with her teeth, tore the covering off, positioned the clean white cottony strip on the closed toilet seat, and settled her hindquarters over it. "It ain't that big a deal long as you're careful. It's like you said: you gotta be prepared."

Apple Bloom had sidled into the bathroom, was craning her neck, trying to peer along Applejack's stomach. "So this lacinia just...opens up? And your guts don't fall out?"

Sometimes feels like it, she wanted to say, but instead: "It's kinda like an eyelid." Rising a bit from the napkin, she swallowed and let the clench in her stomach have its way. "See?"

A shudder rippled the muscles all along her flanks, and while it didn't hurt, it just didn't feel right, a sudden wet slipperiness sloshing between her hind legs, things sliding and curling that stayed straight and firm the rest of the time. She heard Apple Bloom gasp, and she couldn't help but look down past her chest as well, her tawny orange hide folding open like some weird meaty flower, the skin underneath all pink and shiny and damp.

More heat flooded her face, and she pressed her nether parts back onto the napkin. "Like...like that," she stammered.

"Whoa!" Apple Bloom said, and when AJ looked up, her sister was bent around on the bathroom rug and staring at the smooth yellow between her own hind legs, unbroken and unblemished in any way. "And that's gonna happen to me??"

"It ain't that big a deal," she said again, more to herself than to Apple Bloom. Happened to ev'ry mare in Equestria, after all, maybe even to the princesses themselves, though it plain made her queasy to think that....

"Cool!" Apple Bloom was grinning from ear to ear. "What about colts?? Do they bleed back there, too?"

For a second, Applejack could only blink, then her mouth went sideways. Weren't that always the way? Tell foals the awfullest thing in the whole wide world, and they come all over bright-eyed and interested. "Actually, boys've gotta open up ev'ry time they wanna pee."

"No way!" Apple Bloom's jaw dropped. "But if they open up all the time, how come I ain't never heard of it afore??"

Another shudder along her flanks, and AJ felt her flow slacken, the last bit of tightness in her stomach loosening and letting her sigh with relief. "'Cause it ain't polite anytime anywhere anyhow! The boys, they gets taught a special little chant early on to help keep 'em from opening up when they gets too excited or rambunctious, and Miss Cheerilee'll teach you gals the one y'all need soon as you start needing it."

"Y'mean...magic?"

"Yep." Yet another parta this whole process that set her teeth on edge. Magic weren't bad, Applejack had to admit—getting to know Twilight Sparkle had shown her that time and time again—but combining the worst of biology with magic spells all just plain made her itchy.

"Wow..." Apple Bloom had a fascinated look on her face that AJ wasn't sure she liked. "Real magic! And...and you use this chant-thing, too, sis?"

Applejack gave a snort, one final tickle trickling from her hindquarters, her innards just about setted back into place. "Don't need to! Once a month I do this thing 'cause it's the way us ponies're built, but the resta the time, I'm sealed up smooth as ev'rypony always oughtta be."

Not that most ponies were, she didn't tell her little sister, not if even half the stories Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie told 'bout the ways they fooled around with stallions and mares and each other and themselves were true! And for all that Rarity never told stories, summa the talks she'd had with the fancy unicorn since they'd gotten to be friends told AJ she weren't no stranger to all that sex stuff.

And sure, AJ knew she weren't all that normal herself, the way she'd never felt anything like what Rarity called "the tingle of desire" for neither stallion nor mare. No question she loved a lotta ponies—her family, her friends, mosta the folks in town, the princesses—and she could even see herself maybe deciding someday that she needed to get hitched for the good of the farm and for carrying on the Apple line. But all that romance like Rarity obsessed over and all that rutting like Dash and Pinkie got so lathered about?

AJ shook her head. None of it struck her any different from what she was doing right now: plain ol' stupid biology, and nothing she wanted in her life.

Apple Bloom had bent herself practically into a horseshoe looking at her stomach again, but she finally sprang back to her hoofs with a squeal. "I can't wait to tell the girls 'bout this!"

"You just hold up there a minute more, little missy." Applejack stood, stepped away from the toilet seat, heaved a sigh of relief as she felt her lacinia sealing back up all tight and proper. "We ain't quite done yet."

Her sister's gaze, just like Applejack had figured, went straight to the bloody swatch of cotton, and AJ was glad to see the sight and smell finally got Apple Bloom making the proper face: her lips a little curled, her snout a little scrunched.

"That," Applejack went on, "in point of fact, ain't no different from what's inside a chicken's egg."

"What??" Apple Bloom kept looking back and forth from the napkin to AJ.

"You know how a chicken lays eggs that don't hatch when she ain't had a rooster in her? Well, a mare gets blood like this when she ain't had a stallion stick his penis inside her vulva. You seen a ram cover a ewe before, ain't'cha?"

Wordless and wide-eyed, Apple Bloom nodded. "Well," Applejack went on, waving a hoof at the cotton swatch, "if you ever open up and let a fella do that to you, it's 'cause of this stuff that you'll grow a brand-new foal inside you."

Apple Bloom looked like she'd been kicked in the gut. "You telling me true?" she asked in a wobbly voice.

"True as I know how." Reaching under the sink, AJ shoved the trashbasket out, swept the napkin in, and pushed it back under. "Like we both been saying: you gotta be prepared. Knowing how your body works means it won't take you by surprise if it ever starts making you wanna do things you really shouldn't wanna do." She smiled at her little sister, gave her a nuzzle along the side of her neck. "No pony's gotta be a slave to her biology, y'know? It's weird and it's stupid and it's maybe a little scary, but long as we can think, it can be us making the decisions and doing what we know is right."

A light came into Apple Bloom's eyes. "Like the Everfree Forest!"

AJ blinked down at her. "You what?"

"Ponies don't make the decisions there, so it's all wild and dangerous." She turned to the little bathroom window, and when Applejack followed her gaze, she saw the careful trees of Sweet Apple Acres standing in the early morning sun. "But here on the farm, we do what we know is right, and we make something good for ev'rypony." She looked back. "It's like that, ain't it, sis?"

Tears welled, Applejack's throat getting tight. "Exactly like that, sugar cube." She touched her nose to her sister's, proud and glad she'd finally followed through to make this day be the day. "Exactly."

2 - White

"Today's the day." Fluttershy pushed her half-eaten oatmeal away and told herself she didn't notice how much her hoof was shaking. Looking up at Angel Bunny gnawing his breakfast carrot on the other side of the table, she said it again: "Today."

Angel arched an eyebrow at her.

Warmth blossomed over Fluttershy's face. "Please don't, Angel Bunny." Her voice, she could hear, was shaking now, too. "I know I say that every morning, but this time...this time, I mean it!" Stressing those last two words, wanting to say them forcefully and make them true, she instead had to flinch when they squeaked out of her like she was a rubber bath ducky.

Lowering his brow, Angel went back to the carrot.

And he was right, of course. After all, how many years had it been since Rainbow Dash had first dragged Fluttershy out to Sweet Apple Acres to meet Applejack? How many years since she'd gotten her first glimpse of Big Macintosh plowing the fields, his muscles straining and bulging?

Her breath caught, warmth starting up in places other than her face.

And even better when Applejack had introduced him, so kind and calm and gentle and, oh, so much bigger up close.

The warmth settled between her hind legs, shocked her out of her daydream, the spell her brother had taught her so many years ago springing automatically into her head, the spell that was second-nature to her by now, the spell she counted on to keep everypony from learning—

But, came a whisper she'd spent most of life wishing she could ignore, they're not here. They'll never know.

Another ragged breath, and she clenched her eyes, started muttering the spell out loud.

After all, the whisper went on, if Big Macintosh showed up all sweet and bashful with a dozen red roses—

The scene rushed over her, one of her favorite fantasies, the warmth between her legs getting bigger and hotter—

You would blush, invite him in, and put the roses in a vase while he watched you with smiling, eager eyes: always the gentlecolt, though, always polite, the wonderful masculine scent of him flavoring the air—

She moaned, stepped away from the table, the warmth now a fire, burning the words of the spell from her thoughts, making the magic of the chant trip and fall and—

An all-too-familiar slippery pop behind her, the sudden pressure between her hind legs forcing her into a wider stance, a shudder icing through her as the cool morning air caressed her damp and swelling—

Eyes still closed, she turned and galloped from the kitchen, through the front room, up the stairs, and into her bedroom, a route she knew so well, she didn't need to see the way. Quivering all over, she clicked her bedroom door closed with a hind hoof, desperately wanting to ignore the parts of her now hard and dangling back there, pulled open the bottom dresser drawer with her teeth, wrenched out one of her special blankets, tossed it over the bedspread, and leaped onto it, its softness snuggling around her and making her groan again.

Only then did she open her eyes, only then roll onto her side and peer down past her stomach at her—

She really, really, really, really, really didn't like any of the words for it. Dick, cock, prick: they all just sounded so harsh and unpleasant. Even 'penis' slapped her ear more like a sneer than anything else, and looking at her rounded yellow sack and firm yellow shaft, she always thought they deserved prettier words.

Because for all that she wished she didn't have them, whenever her flap opened up and her shaft pulsed out, that pink tip nudging from the end and making her gasp, she had to admit how very much she liked looking at it, liked touching it, liked thinking about what Big Macintosh's must be like—

And, oh, the pulse it gave then, its head, big as a strawberry almost, pushing free with another wonderful shiver of pleasure.

Big Macintosh would know how to touch it so gently and so perfectly, Fluttershy knew, and one of her other favorite fantasies was imagining him alone in his room, his flap opening the way hers just had, his penis springing from his smooth red hide, big and growing bigger as he fantasized about her....

Panting now, she rolled onto her chest again, squeaked with joy at the sweet, soft pressure of her penis nestling in between her stomach and the blanket. She closed her eyes, grabbed the soft, fluffy end of the blanket, and cuddled against it, gave free rein to the best of all her fantasies, the one where she somehow found the courage to tell Big Macintosh how much she loved him, how much he meant to her, how much she wanted to touch him and help him and be with him for all the rest of his life, and he...he said the same!

Her hips began a gentle bucking motion, sliding her penis the barest inch back and forth, but oh, the luscious sensations that started shimmering through her like sunlight on a summer lake!

Because Big Macintosh would say he loved her too, and they would kiss and snuggle, and when his flap opened to let his penis out, she would let hers do the same—she would tell him about it beforehand, of course!—but when hers came out and she showed it to him, he would look at her with those big, beautiful green eyes, that slow, wonderful smile spreading over his face, and say, "It's you I love, Miss Fluttershy, and that means all of you."

Squealing at the thought, she squeezed her front legs tighter around the blanket and pumped her hind legs harder and faster, the ecstasy building, building, building like the electricity in the air before a thunderstorm, and Fluttershy threw herself into it, imagined that she was stretched out beside Big Macintosh, that he was rubbing against her while she rubbed against him, that the glorious madness pounding through her now was pounding through him as well, was spinning and flaring and exploding into—

Pure liquid pleasure blasted from her, snapped her spine out straight, Fluttershy keening as wonderful, white-hot blasts of ecstasy pumped from her penis. Burying her face in the blanket, her teeth catching and gnawing on a corner, she flailed against the warm softness beneath her, lost herself in beauty, every throbbing orgasm so perfect, she never wanted it to end, never wanted to be anywhere but here, never...never...never...

Finally with one last spurt, her penis started settling, and she could open her eyes, take a deep, langorous breath. Warm stickiness dampened her stomach and chest, but she knew it wouldn't soak through: she'd ordered these blankets especially with that in mind. Relaxing in the afterglow, she imagined Big Macintosh spooned along her back, both of them lovingly spent, cuddled together and not needing to say a word. How warm and safe she would feel with her head tucked into the crook of his neck, his front legs wrapping her loosely but firmly. Perfect, it would be, in every single way—

Except, the little whisper inside her said, that it will never happen.

She sighed, the last sparks of her orgasm trickling away, and she rolled onto her side again to watch her shaft and balls shrinking, the yellow skin between her legs puckering, the flap drawing them back inside, sealing over as smooth as every pony ought to be when out in polite society.

Unbidden, her dad's voice shouted through her thoughts, made her wince to remember her first time at home, running out of the bathroom scared out of her mind at this...this thing growing between her legs the way her brother's had started doing the year before. Because she was a filly, wasn't she? And she knew from the talk her mother had given her that fillies were supposed to open up to show an 'innie,' not an 'outtie.'

Dad hadn't stuck around after that, and Mom hadn't spoken more than ten words to her since. If her brother hadn't taught her the spell all colts learn to keep themselves closed up, she never would've made it through flight school. And even then, she sometimes thought the boys had picked on her so much because they could tell somehow...

Shaking herself, she stretched, gently wiped herself off, then fluttered up from the bed and settled onto the floor. Carefully folding the soiled blanket, she carried it to the laundry hamper, dropped it in, turned, and caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror.

The spring morning light flowed over her from the window, made the pink and yellow of her mane and coat shine, and she could almost see it, could almost see why they all talked about how pretty she was, Rarity and Photo Finish and everypony she'd met when she was being a model. Stepping closer, she peered into the blue-green of her own eyes. Was it because she was half and half? Because no matter if it was a mare or a colt looking at her, they saw or smelled or sensed something of the other in her?

One more sigh, and she nudged the faucet, fetched her washcloth, soaped, rinsed, and dried herself before tapping downstairs into the kitchen, Angel Bunny still at the table finishing his carrot. Picking up her stone-cold bowl of oatmeal, she was carrying it to the sink when a thump-thump-thump from behind made her turn and look back at the bunny.

He was glaring, his little paws on his hips.

Fluttershy blinked and set the bowl down. "Is...is something wrong, Angel?"

He crooked a claw at the wall calendar.

She blinked some more. He rolled his eyes, hopped over to the counter under the calendar, and tapped today's date.

"Today?" Fluttershy asked, then she was suddenly hearing her own voice from earlier, her own voice saying what she'd been saying every morning for as long as she'd known Big Macintosh: Today's the day.

Shock rattled her. "Oh, no, Angel. No, I...I couldn't. Not now. Not after what I just did."

He tapped the date on the calendar even harder.

She wanted to quiver, wanted to hide, wanted to do anything in the world other than stand there staring at the gruff little bunny. Well, anything other than head out to Sweet Apple Acres. Because— "He'll hate me," she whispered.

Angel Bunny folded his arms and glared harder.

"Well, all right," Fluttershy had to admit. "He won't hate me. Big Macintosh is too nice for that. But..." She felt as wilted as a daisy in autumn. "But even if he's nice about it, he'll still say 'no.'"

The sound of paper flapping, and she looked up, Angel flipping through the pages of the calendar that hadn't happened yet. Reaching the current month again, he turned his eyes back to her and jabbed a claw at today's date once more.

"I never thought of it that way," she had to admit, realization dawning on her. "'Cause if I do it today, it'll be done, and I...I won't hafta worry about it any more days in the future! I can tell him how I feel, can show him my—" She stopped, wouldn't use any of those horrible words for it. "Then he can be all blushing and polite and tell me he's not interested, and—" A knot of muscle between her wings loosened so suddenly, she gasped at the feeling of relief. "I can let it go! Can stop wishing and hoping 'cause I'll know! I'll know once and for all that it won't ever happen!"

She had to swallow against the sudden tightness in her throat, but she knew the truth now, knew it in a way she'd never known anything before.

For her own peace of mind, she had to fly out into the first real warm day of spring and—

And crush her every hope and dream.

Quickly, before she could run back upstairs and hide under her covers, she rushed into the front room, pulled open the door, and took off for Ponyville and past that, the fields of Sweet Apple Acres.

3 - Yellow

Out in the full light of Princess Celestia's sun, Fluttershy automatically started the spell mantra going in the back of her head. Not that she really thought she might open up and expose herself, and not that there was anypony around to see if she did. But she'd had too many close calls in the past to risk it.

Normal fillies had a chant, too, she knew from health class back in her school days, and there were times she found herself needing to use both—when Big Macintosh had gotten hurt and Fluttershy had gone with all their friends to help Applejack with the apple bucking, for instance. Seeing him standing there watching all bandaged up and miserable had made her want to go over and comfort him—and that had sent her thoughts spinning off in directions that got her a little hot and bothered. And when he would look her way, the things she imagined him thinking...

She reached the outskirts of Ponyville, then, waved to Roseluck and Lily and the others who waved to her as she flew overhead. Knowing their eyes were on her always made the spell work better, after all, made the spot between her hind legs feel more secure and closed-up than anything else ever did.

A few more minutes of flight, and she left the town behind, glided along the treetops in the morning breeze till she saw the peak of Applejack's barn rising out of the leaves ahead.

Which was all it took for panic to blast through her; suddenly unable to catch her breath, she folded her wings, dropped through the tree canopy onto a branch, and wrapped herself around it. What had she been thinking, coming all the way out here?? She couldn't just fly out to wherever Big Macintosh was working, tell him she was in love with him, then open herself up to show him her penis! That was crazy!

Eyes clenched, she pressed her face into the bark of the branch, refused to imagine his shock, his disgust, his—

"Well, howdy, there, sugar cube!"

The sudden call made Fluttershy bleat like a goat, her hoofs flailing, her wings splayed and frozen. Losing her grip on the branch, she tumbled, leaves and twigs swatting her till she smacked headfirst into the ground, her ears ringing like she'd slammed into a gong.

"Fluttershy?" Applejack's familiar accented voice asked. "You OK?"

Squeezing her eyes open, Fluttershy saw her cider-colored friend standing upside-down—

No, she realized quickly; she was the one upside-down. Standing on her head, in fact...

Fluttershy managed to unclench enough to flop onto her back, her hoofs in the air, her eyes blinking at Applejack's concerned face above her. Drawing her first breath in what felt like minutes, she squeaked out, "I'm fine."

"Uh-huh." Applejack cocked her head. "Hope you don't mind if'n I disagree with you."

"No, that's OK." Fluttershy took another breath, shifted her weight, tipped herself over till her hoofs touched the ground and she could climb shakily upright. "I was just saying I was fine to be polite," she murmured.

Air burst from Applejack's lips. "Land sakes, Fluttershy! We're friends! Ain't never no need for you to be polite to me!"

That made Fluttershy grin. "Thank you. I'll remember that."

"You'd better!" Applejack grinned back, and just like always, that was all it took for Fluttershy to start feeling better. "Hope I didn't bother you helping some bird up there," the earth pony went on, craning her neck to stare up at the tree Fluttershy had just fallen out of.

"Oh, no," Fluttershy said, and immediately wished she hadn't. Because Applejack's next question, of course, was:

"Well, then! What'cha doing all the way out in these parts?"

"I—" But her thoughts were so tangled—if she couldn't tell Big Macintosh, then she certainly couldn't tell Applejack even though Applejack was her friend and maybe wouldn't scream and shout and run away like Fluttershy's dad had—she couldn't get anything to come out of her mouth except: "Do you need any help today?"

Confusion crept over Applejack's face, but she gestured to a cart sitting in the orchard's morning shadows not far from the tree Fluttershy had just fallen out of. "Well, we's clearing stumps, and we can always can use help with that."

Fluttershy could see gnarled roots sticking crooked from the cart, and—

"Wait." A chill rippled Fluttershy's wings as Applejack's words finally sank in. "We?"

Applejack was starting back toward her cart. "Any trees don't make it through the winter, me and Big Macintosh kicks 'em down, then he pulls the stumps out, and I hauls ev'rything back to the barn to chop into firewood."

"Big Macintosh??" Unable to stop herself, Fluttershy stretched her neck, let her wings flutter her a few inches off the ground, strained for some sight of the wonderful red bulging muscles of—

She stopped, swallowed, settled back to the ground, but it was too late. Applejack's grin had widened. "You're here to see my brother, ain'tcha?"

Fluttershy didn't answer, but, well, she was pretty sure that the blush spreading over her like warm maple syrup spoke louder than any words ever could.

Applejack smacked the ground. "Well, it's about time! I swear to Granny, the way you two been making cow eyes at each other all these years, I didn't reckon I'd live to see the day!"

"You—" Fluttershy stomach quivered. "You knew??"

"Oh, sugar cube." Applejack smiled, and it was so friendly and honest, most of Fluttershy's shivering just smoothed right away. "Ev'rypony and her sister knows how you and Big Mac feel 'bout each other! I mean, I been trying for two-and-a-half solid years to get that boy to ask you out! He's plum crazy for you!"

Ice and boiling heat shot through every part of her, and Fluttershy couldn't move, afraid she'd shatter like a dropped porcelain figurine. Applejack was going on: "Five or six times, I got him all cleaned and combed and strung 'round with wunna Poppa's ol' bolo ties as purty as a big galoot like him's ever likely to be, but he'd come all over stubborn at the last minute, wouldn't budge outta his room, said he didn't wanna disturb you!" She gave a snort. "Ain't got as many brains as a goose, that one sometimes."

"You mean he—" It came out more like a cricket's chirp than anything else; ears folding, Fluttershy cleared her throat. "He likes me?"

Still grinning, Applejack nodded, and another blast of pure, unadulterated panic tore through Fluttershy. "No!" Flaring her wings, she sprang from the dirt, focused on the clear blue sky just visible between the—

"Nuh-uhh!" came a grunt from behind her, and teeth clenched the feathery hair near the end of her tail. It didn't hurt, but the shock bulged Fluttershy's eyes, whiplashed her wings, and dropped her thudding onto her hoofs. The teeth let go, and Applejack went on: "Nunna that, now. Not when you've come so far already."

Her knees wouldn't hold her, and Fluttershy folded all the way, cowering against the ground. "Please," she whimpered, covering her eyes. "Don't...don't make me do this, Applejack. I...I can't..."

A sigh. "I won't make you do a thing, sugar cube." Leaves shuffled beside her, and Fluttershy peered out from between her front hoofs to see Applejack's sad face above her. "But I'll tell you that nothing in this whole wide world would make Big Macintosh happier than knowing that you'd come out to see him. I mean, can't you just picture him smiling at you? 'Cause I reckon you can..."

And Fluttershy could, too, suddenly couldn't think of anything other than Big Mac's slow, sweet smile, the way his face always seemed to light up whenever she looked over to see him looking at her. The warmth all through her got warmer, like the sun had just come out, and for an instant, she felt the tightness in her middle loosen a bit.

But that, of course, made certain other parts of her anatomy feel looser as well, and she gasped, covered her face again, whispered, "No, Applejack, I...you...you don't understand...."

Firm but gentle hoofs pressed against her wrists, pushed till nothing was covering her face, Applejack looking down at her with more patience than Fluttershy knew she deserved. "How 'bout you explain it to me, then? 'Cause knowing Mac and knowing you, I've gotta say you'd be darn close to perfect together. So I just ain't of a mind to let you outta my sight till you tell me what in blue blazes is going on in that little yellow heada yours."

Staring at her, Fluttershy felt as if she'd been sucked into a sudden wind shear, swept upward by the incredible news that Big Mac liked her only to be dashed downward by the knowledge of what she had inside her flap. But she focused on Applejack's calm green eyes, drew on the strength of their friendly, steady gaze. "I can't tell you. I...I'd have to—" Swallowing again, realizing she had absolutely no choice at this point: "I'll have to show you."

***

Applejack always found herself breathing extra slow and careful around Fluttershy, but today she was darn near holding her breath as she hauled the cart of tree stumps toward the barn, her pegasus friend flitting ahead from one side of the path to the other like a moth not quite sure which lamp to slam into.

"What exactly you gonna be showing me?" she asked for maybe the fourteenth time since Fluttershy had dropped outta that tree back in the north forty. That the gal was all het up was plain as the snout on her face, but then there hadn't been a minute since AJ had known her that Fluttershy hadn't been all blushing and stammering 'round Mac—more blushing and stammering even than she was 'round other ponies.

"When we get inside." She could barely hear Fluttershy's words, as whispery as a breeze through the upper boughs of an apple tree. "Somepony has to know, and you're good and honest and always try to help me. You can tell me if Macintosh...if he won't...if he'd think..."

She trailed off again, and AJ stifled a sigh, afraid the gust of air would blow Fluttershy away. Seemed like ev'ry time Applejack turned around today, she was finding another reason to dislike what biology did to folks!

Around one last hillock, and she pulled her cart into the yard around the barn, Fluttershy glancing back and forth across the empty space like she was afraid somepony might be spying. Putting one hoof in front of the other, Applejack got the cart through the big door, Fluttershy zipping in just overhead; AJ slipped outta the harness, trotted back to the door, gave it a shove with a hind hoof, and nodded when it slid shut, the place cool and dim and quiet after the hustle and bustle of the early spring outside. "Now," she said, turning back to Fluttershy. "What's so all-fired secret that we gotta—?"

The rest of the words jammed in her throat at the scene before her, Fluttershy stretching herself out on a pile of straw more gracefully than Applejack had ever thought a pony could move. "I just," she murmured, her eyes closed, "just need to...to think of Big Macintosh, just need to imagine that he's here, that...that he's lying down beside me and...and...and..." Her voice trailed off into a silky kind of a purr that made all the hairs along Applejack's neck shiver like a cool breeze had puffed by. And when Fluttershy rolled halfway over onto her side with her front hoofs tucked against her chest, the smile that curled her muzzle made the air around Applejack seem to heat up about twenty degrees. "And then," Fluttershy whispered in a voice that Applejack swore she could feel stroking her mane, "then he'd just touch his lips to my— And I...I'd—"

Applejack sucked in a breath, and the aroma of the air, the taste of it, wild and spicy and sweet and sleepy and strange and lively, it punched right through her skull and into a part of her brain she hadn't even known she had. Fluttershy's hind legs spread slightly, a swelling there, her delicate skin bulging till her lacinia parted like a perfect apple blossom, and—

Cold and sweating at the same time, Applejack couldn't look away from Fluttershy's gorgeous curving body sprouting the most beautiful penis. The sight hit her harder than any tree branch that she'd had fall on her, every inch of her responding to this wonderful, impossible, incredible, monstrous, glorious vision: her heart pounding, her lungs quivering, her knees near to buckling, her hide goose-pimpling, and her—Applejack gasped, her hindquarters suddenly as melty as butter on a stack of hotcakes—her lacinia springing open with a snap of pure lusty desire, something that had never, ever, ever happened to her afore.

4 - Green

Ev'rything inside her crashing and spinning, Applejack did the first thing that popped outta the mess that till just a minute ago had been her brain: she sat down, scootched into the straw covering the floor of the barn to hide her shameful hindquarters and winced as the stuff jabbed into the sensitive skin beneath her lacinia. How in Celestia's name could Fluttershy have a...a—??

Her pegasus friend was still lying on the unbaled hay, her eyes clenched and her ears tight against her head. "I'm really sorry, Applejack," she whimpered, and even though the penis jutting from between her hind legs weren't gigantic compared to Big Macintosh the times AJ had caught him peeing out in the orchard, well, anything sprouting outta Fluttershy's extra-girly body like that was way more than oughtta be there! And for no reason Applejack could figure, this unbelievable mix of stallion and mare just kept blasting roar after roar of lust through her, made her clamp her jaw against the whimper that wanted to creep outta her own throat.

She could run, she thought wildly, gallop clear to Manehattan, see if her Aunt and Uncle Orange would take her in again: anything to get away from the horrible, wonderful feelings coursing through her when she looked at—

"You see?" Fluttershy asked, dropping her hind leg, her eyes still closed, her cheeks burning like clouds at sunset. "I couldn't tell you 'cause you never would've believed me. I...I had to show you."

It took all Applejack's strength not to leap forward, part of her wanting to shove Fluttershy's leg out of the way so she could feast on the sight again, another part of her just wanting to smack Fluttershy as hard as she could, wanting to shriek and rage and kick the pegasus out of her barn, away from her farm, out of her life so that maybe AJ could deny that first part, the part that wanted to go on looking.

But then...then Fluttershy opened her eyes, brought her gaze up from the floor. And the gorgeous blue-green of those eyes, all full of trust, wavering and deep as the farm pond on a summer afternoon, Applejack felt herself teeter on the brink of 'em for half a second; then in she fell, the suddenly splintered parts of her brain agreeing that she would never be free of those eyes again for as long as she lived.

***

The silence went on and on, Fluttershy scarcely able to breathe. What if Applejack started screaming like Fluttershy's dad had? What if she ran into town and told all their friends that Fluttershy was a freak and a monster, and that made them all start screaming, too? What if—??

"How?" Applejack asked, her voice shivering, her eyes rimmed with white, her sweat salty with the one thing Fluttershy had never thought she'd scent there: fear. "Didja...I mean, when did it...where did it...?"

Fluttershy had to drop her gaze. "It was always in there, I guess," she told the hay on the floor in front of her and tried not to think about the lovely sensation of her penis squeezed between her legs. "But when I was supposed to open up so I could have my first...you know..."

"Menses," Applejack said, and she sounded so far away, Fluttershy couldn't help looking back to see if she'd run to the other side of the barn to get further away from her.

Applejack was still sitting in the exact same spot, though, solid and unmoving like she'd sprouted roots, and her face was so pale and drawn, Fluttershy wanted to leap up and try to comfort her. But that would be a really bad idea right then, she knew, so she just nodded. "My brother taught me the spell colts use to help keep their lacinias closed, and, well, that was pretty much the last time I ever talked about it—or anything else, for that matter—with my family. And you—" She stopped and swallowed. "You're the first pony other than them I've shown it to."

"And now you wanna show it to my big brother?" Applejack sounded every bit as doubtful, Fluttershy thought, as she would have if Fluttershy had mentioned that she was planning on flying to the moon.

Still, she wasn't running or screaming, and Fluttershy took heart from that. "I have to," she said through the tightness in her throat. "If, like you said, he really likes me, then he...he needs to know about this right away, don't you think? That way he can decide whether—" She didn't want to finish the thought, but turning away again, she did anyway: "Whether he likes the real me or not."

Another stretch of silence, Fluttershy focusing on the floor some more. Then: "You reckon you love him?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, yes." Fluttershy raised her head, met her friend's deep green eyes. "Yes, I very much do."

"Well, all right, then." Applejack nodded, her paleness almost gone, her smile very close to the one that always made Fluttershy feel better. "Gimme a day or two to ponder, and we'll see if'n I can't figure out a way."

And Fluttershy couldn't help it: happiness flooding her, she let her wings flare out, leaped into a hover, her front legs tucked against her chest, her back hoofs barely touching the floor. "Oh, thank you, Applejack! Thank you so—!"

Applejack had stopped breathing, her eyes wide and focused on the area between Fluttershy's hind legs, her lacinia still open, of course, and her penis—horrible, horrible word!—no longer erect but all too present.

Squeaking, Fluttershy folded herself to the floor again, embarrassment roaring through her and finally wilting her enough; she felt the flexing of the muscles along her flank as her lacinia drew closed, the skin sealing itself smooth and hiding those parts of her that should always stay hidden. "I'm sorry," she managed to say. "I know it's disgusting, but—"

"Don't say that!" Applejack's words hit her as hard as a slap, and ears folding, Fluttershy turned to stare at her friend, the cider-colored earth pony standing, her four hoofs spread and planted like she was about to charge into a fight, the look on her face so fierce, Fluttershy couldn't keep from cringing back.

A blink, and Applejack slammed herself to sit in the straw again, her own ears falling and a blush spreading over her from forehead to shoulders. "I...I mean, you gotta be positive, y'know? Not talk yourself down and all. That...well, that li'l wiggler you got there, it's a parta you, and you, you're—" Her expression softened in a way that Fluttershy didn't think she'd ever seen from Applejack. "You're a great pony and a real good friend, Fluttershy. And if'n you needs Mac to make you happy, then by root and by branch, I reckon I'm gonna make that happen."

For an instant, all Fluttershy could do was gape; then tears slurred her vision, and leaping forward, she threw her front legs around Applejack's neck, buried her face in the rich, damp-earth smell of her mane. "Oh, Applejack, thank you! I've been so afraid of this for so long, but you've made it all— Well, not OK, because, I mean, it's still there and I'm still a—" Stopping, sucking in a breath, making a resolution, she pushed away enough so she could look Applejack straight in the eye. "No! I...I'm going to be positive! It...it's just a little wiggler like you said! And that's not scary at all!"

Applejack was smiling, her eyes half-closed, almost dreamy, Fluttershy would've thought if it'd been any other pony. "Oh, sugar cube," she murmured, and Fluttershy felt the gentle stroke of a hoof through her mane just behind her ear.

Then a gasp, Applejack blinking, shaking her head, scooting back till Fluttershy had to let go her embrace. "Now," she said, everything about her all business the way it usually was, "you go on home, and I'll come fetch you when I've got ev'rything set up."

"Of course!" Once more, Fluttershy couldn't keep her hoofs on the ground, the joy bubbling through her carrying her aloft more than her wings, she thought with a giggle. "And thank you again so, so much, Applejack! I should've come to you about this a long time ago!"

Another strange expression pulled at Applejack's face, sort of happy and sad at the same time, Fluttershy thought. It was a lot better than anything Fluttershy had been expecting, though, and she gave Applejack as big a smile as she knew how to give. "You're the best friend a pony could ever have!"

Applejack's expression somehow got both happier and sadder. "Git along with you, then," she said with a wave of her hoof. "I'll stop by your place later and let'cha know."

Spinning in the air, Fluttershy sighted on the open doors of the hayloft above them and shot out into the clear blue of the spring morning.

***

With a steady stream of silent curses, Applejack stomped her boots up the road toward Ponyville, every rustle of her consarned Gala dress twitching her ears, every brush of the skirt against her rear fetlocks nearly making her jump like a snake was whisking past.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" an all-too-familiar voice called from above, and Applejack forced her teeth not to grind together, forced herself to keep stomping. Because of course—

Zipping so close to the tips of her ears that AJ could feel the backwash whip through her mane, Rainbow Dash wheeled in the afternoon above and landed with a solid thump right in the middle of the road ahead. "I'm seeing it," she said, that big ol' stupid grin plastered over her muzzle, "but there's no way I'm believing it!"

Without slowing, Applejack fixed her glare on Rainbow and kept marching. "There something I can help you with?"

"Me?" The innocence on the pegasus's face was as phony as a Nightmare Night mask. "Naw, I'm fine, thanks. Not like some ponies I could mention who maybe think there's some sorta ball going on in town or something."

Applejack pushed by her. "So happens I was cleaning out a few things, reckoned there weren't no use me cluttering my closet with this get-up, and figured I'd take it in to Rarity, see if'n she can't salvage it for parts." Which weren't exactly a lie: she'd been thinking about doing exactly that for a bushel of months now.

"Huh." The unmistakable sound of wings unfolding rustled behind her. "'Cause with anypony but you, AJ, it might just look like a dating situation going on."

A nose nudged the fabric along Applejack's flanks, and the shocks that rippled through the skin inside her still wide-open lacinia sent her leaping sideways. "Blast it all!" Squaring up all four legs, she swiveled her head around to shout at Rainbow. "You step it on back, and I mean right now! Or I'm gonna buck you so hard, you'll crash straight through into the middle of next week! You hear??"

The words came out two or three hundred times angrier than she'd meant, and Rainbow Dash took a genuine step back, her wings drooping and her eyes going wide. "Yeesh! It's somepony's time of the month!"

Blushing so hard she was surprised her hat didn't catch fire, Applejack looked away, heard Rainbow suck in a breath. "Oh, wow. Gee, I'm sorry, AJ. I...I didn't know."

Applejack gave a snort and nodded 'cause, well, that weren't no lie, either. "It'll pass afore nightfall. Always does." She managed to drag out a smile and point it toward her friend. "And don't you go telling me I should exercise my parts back there more so this stuff wouldn't hit me so hard, neither!"

"But it's true!" Hovering, Rainbow spread her front hoofs. "I mean, it works for me!"

"Well, I ain't you." Applejack started back up the road. "Sorry I snapped like that, but I'll see you later, OK?"

"OK." Another wash of a breeze, and Rainbow's voice drifted down over her. "You take it easy, now!"

Step followed step, her whole body as clenched as she could make it against the tickling of her hindquarters, the picture of Fluttershy's sweet curves and outrageous erection never leaving her thoughts. But worse than that—and how surprised she'd been to find there was something worse than that—the memory of Fluttershy hugging her, the perfect joy that had pounded through her at the sudden and completely transformed touch of her pegasus friend...and how that joy had crumpled and festered when Fluttershy had said she loved Big Macintosh. No! a crazy shrieking voice that Applejack knew was her own kept echoing around inside her skull. You're mine! Mine!

Step followed step, and thankful that no other ponies stopped her to chat, she focused on the spire of Rarity's place rising above the other roofs of town till she wound her way through the streets to the shop's doorstep.

The bell tinkled when she pushed inside, and Rarity at her workbench in the back of the showroom waved without looking away from the needle and thread wrapped in purple light in front of her. "Welcome to Carousel Boutique!" she called, the needle diving quickly up and down to stitch a white bow onto some sort of pink frou-frou or other. "Half a moment, and I'll be—!" She turned, those little glasses perched on her snout, and her smile seemed to freeze in place, confusion flooding her eyes, the needle clattering to the workbench in the sudden silence. "Applejack?" Rarity asked then. "And you're...dressed?"

Her blush crackling back, AJ almost turned and ran. But she knew she couldn't. "You maybe gotta minute, sugar cube?"

"Of course!" The glasses floated from Rarity's face, and she gave a tentative smile. "Are we throwing a party I don't know about?"

Looking at the floor, Applejack managed to mutter, "It's private."

More silence, and when Applejack let her gaze dart up, she saw Rarity trotting past her to the front door, the magic of her horn carrying a fancy-lettered Back in 1 hour sign. "Will the parlor be all right?"

"I reckon. And thanks, Rarity. I don't wanna cause no trouble, but I don't...don't—"

"Tut, tut." Rarity pinned the sign to the door, closed it, and came back across the room, a spring in her step that seemed just a little forced to Applejack's eye. "If you've walked all the way from Sweet Apple Acres in a ball gown, I'm guessing the matter must be a bit on the serious side." She gestured to a hallway, and Applejack followed her down it and into the tidy little sitting room. "Can I get you anything? Water? Juice? Tea?"

Applejack shook her head, unable to meet Rarity's eyes. "I need the spell for keeping a lacinia closed." Might as well get right to it.

Another stretch of silence, then: "I beg your pardon?" Rarity asked.

"The spell!" Applejack wanted to stomp the floor, kick in a wall, pump some of the pain from inside her to outside. But instead she swallowed, took a breath, started over. "We was both in Miss Organdy's class when she taught it to us, but I...I's never had no need of it till now, so I don't remember—"

"No need?" Rarity sounded so shocked, Applejack had to look up. "I mean, I know you've never dated, but surely you've had to use the spell whenever, well, whenever certain thoughts came into your head?"

"Thoughts??" This time, Applejack did stomp the floor. "All my life till today, I never had nothing but good, pure, natural love and friendship in my head! But now without no kinda warning at all, it's all..." She fought for the words, couldn't find them, ended up waving her front hoofs in the air and shouting, "Sex! Filthy and unnatural!"

Rarity's eyes had gone so wide, AJ half expected her eyelashes to pop off from the strain. "Darling! There's nothing unnatural about sexual attraction! It—"

"It ain't nothing but unnatural!" Her throat felt as splintery and rough as an unsanded plank. "Loving a pony and liking a pony, that's right and true and controllable! But this sex stuff, it's no more natural than a tree growing all by itself in a field or a storm that blasts in from the Everfree and don't lead to zap apples! It's useless and hurtful and I just wants to get myself all closed up again and...and forget all about it!"

Which was a lie, she realized as soon as the words butted their way clear of her teeth. The honest truth woulda been that all she wanted for the rest of her natural born days was to be touching Fluttershy all soft and hard and gentle and thrusting and—

"Applejack! Please!" More than a little panic rattled in Rarity's voice. "Let's just...let's slow down a moment! Are you saying you've fallen in love with—?"

"It ain't love!" The urge to shout it fought with the way she really wished she didn't hafta say it at all, so the words came out in a strangled sort of cough. "It's sex!"

"All right! All right!" Rarity held up her front hoofs. "I just want to understand! You're feeling...physically attracted to somepony, is that it?"

Something like a fire alarm bell went off in Applejack's head. "I ain't saying who, so don't go asking!"

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it!" Though Applejack could almost smell Rarity's desire to know. "But is it somepony local? Or—?"

"I mean it, Rarity! What I'm feeling ain't proper, and this other pony—" Applejack had to do some swallowing before she could go on. "This other pony ain't interested: I learned that today, too."

"Oh, darling..." A tappity-tap across the floor, and Applejack looked up to see Rarity right in front of her, her alabaster complexion even paler than usual.

"So, please." It took as much strength to keep talking, AJ felt, as she usually woulda spent bucking a dozen trees. "If'n you could kindly teach me the spell so I can close myself up the way I oughtta and gotta be, I...I'd be much obliged."

A hoof settled on her shoulder. "Of course, darling."

5 - Gray

Words were the problem, Fluttershy had decided long ago, back before she'd come to Ponyville, back before meeting Rainbow Dash at school, back even before her lacinia had opened up for the first time to reveal her—

Her little wiggler, Applejack had called it, and just having a word that didn't sound sneering and harsh and awful got Fluttershy giggling. Knowing it was in there behind her lacinia had always been horrible, but now every morning when her wiggler came out all big and wanting another session rubbing against her special blankets, it didn't seem as scary as before. Thinking about Applejack, too, and the way she was taking care of everything somehow made the build up feel even better than it always did, and the spurting at the—

"Fluttershy?"

She blinked, turned her head where she'd been resting it along the edge of the spa, the water warm, Rarity in the tub beside her, a few stray strands of purple mane frizzing from the bottom of the towel wrapped around her head. "You seem quieter than usual today." Concern shone in the unicorn's eyes. "Not feeling poorly, I hope?"

"Oh, not at all!" Fluttershy had been debating all week how to—or even if she should—tell Rarity the news. She was fairly sure Rarity would be interested, but she was a lot less sure how to bring the subject up in a way that wouldn't interrupt the conversation. Now that she'd been given the perfect opportunity, though, she had to stop and shiver, had to focus a little more on the spell to keep her lacinia closed. "It's just that I went and talked to Applejack, and...and she said she'd help me talk to Big Macintosh!" Joy bubbling over inside her again, she reached over and took Rarity's hoofs in hers. "I'm actually going to talk to him!"

"Darling!" Every bit of concern vanished from Rarity's face, and if her smile had been any bigger, Fluttershy thought with another giggle, she would've needed more teeth. "That's wonderful! Tell me everything!"

Which dried up the giggle pretty quickly, what with the certain little wiggling parts of the story that Fluttershy would never tell Rarity in a million, billion years. "Ummm, well, I...I mean, Applejack, she said that Big Macintosh liked me and that she'd set up a..." She swallowed at the thought. "A date, I guess you'd call it."

"Where? When?" Rarity gave a giggle of her own. "If you feel you'll need another chaperone, I shall gladly volunteer!"

"Oh, no!" It came out more explosively than Fluttershy had meant, and she pulled her hoofs back, the water suddenly cold. "I...I wouldn't want to impose, and I don't...I don't know any of the details yet. Applejack said she'd come and tell me when she had everything set up, but I haven't so much as seen her since all this happened."

"Ah." The concern came back into Rarity's face. "Well, you might need to wait a bit longer on that, then. Applejack, she—" Rarity puffed out a sigh, and since it wasn't one of her big swooning ones, Fluttershy knew it was real. "She's just had her heart broken, the poor dear."

"What??" Without thinking, Fluttershy sprang to her hoofs, sent the calm and tranquil waters sloshing almost over the rim of the tub.

Rarity was nodding. "She came to me earlier this week distraught in a way I'd never imagined I would ever see her. She refused to give me the details, of course, but from what I could gather, she'd just learned that somepony for whom she had feelings did not return those feelings."

"Impossible!" Wings quivering, stomach tightening, Fluttershy almost stomped the bottom of the tub. "How could anypony not like Applejack?? She's strong and smart and brave and funny and pretty and...and everything!" Fire was building inside her, the same sort of fire she felt whenever the Stare came over her, the same sort of fire she'd let consume her after her first meeting with Iron Will. And even remembering how terrible that had all turned out, Fluttershy fed the fire, wanted it to grow bigger and bigger. "Who was it?" she asked, her voice such a growl, she almost thought somepony else must be speaking. "Who was it that made Applejack sad?"

Eyes wide, Rarity had shrunk back against the wall of the spa. "She...she wouldn't say. Darling, are you—?"

"I'm fine!" Leaping from the water, Fluttershy couldn't keep still, darting back and forth above the tub, her mind racing. "Applejack's never gone on a date, so maybe somepony she's just met? No, Applejack wouldn't lose her head over some stray stallion like that! It must be somepony she works with, somepony she's known for a while, somepony she thought she knew, somepony she thought she could trust! And when she told him how she felt, he just...he didn't...Oh!"

Trying to think, she settled onto the platform above the spa, started pacing. "Could it be Caramel? Grass Cutter? One of the Tinker brothers? But they're not good enough for Applejack! How dare one of them break her heart??" Overwhelmed, she lashed out with a hind hoof and kicked a sponge from the bucket, knocked it out onto the platform, sent it bouncing down the steps.

The sudden violence shocked her back to herself. "Oh! Oh, dear!" She swooped down, took the sponge gently in her front hoofs, and flew it back up to nestle in its place on top of the bucket. "I'm so sorry, Rarity! I...I just—! I mean, Applejack's done so much to help me, I don't...I can't...she shouldn't..." Unable to understand the strength of the feelings that had surged through her, she let her voice trickle away, took refuge in her oldest friend—embarrassed silence—even though she wanted to shout from the rooftops about the injustice of somepony hurting Applejack.

Surprisingly, though, when she glanced over, Fluttershy saw Rarity smiling. "It's quite all right," the unicorn said. "Outrage at a friend's shabby treatment in affairs of the heart is always the correct response. But Fluttershy—" A bit of uneasiness came into her scent. "Stomping out to Sweet Apple Acres and threatening to Stare at any and all stallions who might've jilted our dear Applejack isn't the answer. Remember, she's a very private pony when it comes to her personal life, and we mustn't do anything that might embarrass her."

"You're right, of course." Fluttershy hung her head and vowed once again to keep a tighter rein on her wild, impulsive nature. Still, she had to look back up and ask, "But what can we do, Rarity? We have to help her! She...she's our friend!"

"And we shall." Rarity rose, took the steps from the tub to the platform, her horn flaring to lift a towel and drape it over her back. "We shall be there for her in whatever way she needs us, and whether it's by word or by deed, we shall bring her comfort in this, her hour of need."

A pang twitched Fluttershy's chest. Applejack had looked so peculiar when she'd seen her the other day, and while Fluttershy had blamed her little wiggler for most of that, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely that Applejack had been hurting about this even then! "Oh, Rarity! All my talk about being in love with Big Macintosh, it must've been terrible for poor Applejack! Her own heart broken, and me prancing around like a...like a..." She couldn't think of a bad enough word to call herself.

"Now, now." A towel wrapped itself loosely around her, the purple glow of Rarity's magic wavering from it. "You had no way of knowing. From this moment on, however, we must be attentive to Applejack's needs and alert to any signals she might give us regarding how we can help her."

Swallowing her guilt, Fluttershy nodded and made a silent resolution: she would do everything she could to make Applejack feel better.

***

The spell Rarity had taught her, Applejack had to admit, sure did the trick. Soon as she'd started them words running through her head, her lacinia had closed up good and proper, and it hadn't popped back open since.

When she was awake, at least...

And thinking about the dreams she'd been having—opening her window to a soft tapping only to find Fluttershy outside, blushing but erect; or the one where she rescued her friend from some rampaging dragon or other, and in joy and gratitude, Fluttershy stretched out on her bed with her wiggler jutting hard and gorgeous into the air so Applejack could slide herself slow and juicy down over it till she was—

"AJ?"

"Gahh!" Startling up, spinning, almost tripping over her own hoofs, Applejack stared at Big Macintosh, her brother blinking from behind the sprig of hay he always seemed to have going between his teeth. "What'cha mean sneaking up on me like that??" she shouted.

Mac only blinked some more. "Saw you was finished is all." He gestured with his chin, and AJ looked back at the field, the saplings she'd been planting all evenly set in their rows beneath the blue afternoon just like they oughtta be.

Except that, last time she'd checked, she'd only been halfway along...

"You was laying here," Mac was going on, "like you was sleeping. But your eyes was part open and you was smiling like you was eating summa Granny's special peanut butter 'n' chocolate ice cream, so I figured I'd better check if you was having heat stroke or something."

Hearing the word 'stroke' made the fire in her hindquarters flare, and she rattled the spell faster through her brain, her lacinia staying closed but, well, consarned magic didn't do a thing about the awful, luscious melty feeling inside it.

She shook her head, tried to focus. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, her ears folding at the tightness in her own voice. "Reckon I'll knock off for lunch, head on into town, take care of some...some business I gotta see to. OK?"

He looked at her, his face all big and serious like always, and AJ found herself frozen in place: she wanted to start yelling at him, wanted to throw her arms around his neck and cry like when she was a filly, wanted to tell him ev'rything about Fluttershy's crush, wanted to whirl in place and kick his fool teeth down his throat for being the one Fluttershy was looking at instead of her—

The stalk he was chewing twitched. "If'n you're sure you're all right," he said.

Nodding was about the hardest thing she'd done in months. But hey, pretending she was all right was just another lie to add to the list she'd been running all week, weren't it?

She turned, trotted for the house, not galloping 'cause she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to stop, would charge over the hills, through the forest, across the mountains, down to the ocean however many months that might take. And maybe not stop even then. After all, hadn't Poppa—?

It took a fair piece of effort to slam that thought back into the part of her brain where she kept things she didn't wanna think about. It was getting plum full up in there was the thing, and strolling into the house, nice and easy through the door and upstairs, she commenced to not thinking about what she was gonna do, just stepped into the bathroom to wash her hoofs, then into her bedroom, closing the door as quiet as she could, flicking the lock she'd only been using since the start of this week, drawing the curtains on the sunny spring day. Only then did she allow herself to let go of the spell she'd had buzzing in her head like a swarm of hornets, let herself breathe a sigh at the half a second of peace before—

Bam! Like a flashflood, like a whirlwind, like a rockslide, the lust thundered over her, her teeth clenching her lower lip so she couldn't cry out. Her lacinia tore open with a force that almost knocked her over, and she threw herself onto the bed, pressed her face into her pillow, fumbled her hoofs down between her hind legs, and let herself picture Fluttershy laying before her, all soft firmness, all ruthless innocence.

Frantic, shivering, Applejack dug into her vulva, found that place she hadn't even known she had till four days ago, and just the first stroke of a touch up inside there twisted her whole body completely around, flopped her onto her back, the crackling, electric pleasure snapping her spine straight and slamming the crown of her hat into the bedstead. The high-pitched keening that whined from her throat made her think of Winona having a nightmare, but then another twitch from her hoof, another imagined thrust from Fluttershy, and ev'ry thought blasted outta her head, her interior muscles clamping as the vast and sudden orgasms blindsided her, the glorious horror wracking through her again and again and again.

Slowly, the crashing waves subsided, and Applejack drifted in sweet, mind-numbing oblivion. Didn't take long, though, for words to start shattering the calm, words like phony and traitor and two-faced. 'Cause who was s'pposed to be setting things up for Fluttershy and Big Macintosh? The same pony who couldn't stop doing this disgraceful thing ev'ry day while dreaming about having Fluttershy all to herself, that's who!

It had to stop. One way or another, it had to, and leaping upright, she whacked the door unlocked, stopped just long enough to wash the shameful stickiness from her hoofs, then charged downstairs, outside to the path, to the road, straight on till she was galloping through the streets of Ponyville and doing her best to ignore the stares from folks she passed on the way to Carousel Boutique. 'Cause if anypony would know how to keep this from happening, it'd be—

Fluttershy's scent caressed her from ahead, made her screech to a halt, her stomach clenching and her mind racing to start the lacinia spell rolling around her thoughts again. Perfect as water sprinkling a mid-July tomato plant, warm as the breeze through a wheat field, deep and still as midnight in springtime with just a hint of something spicy around the edges, Applejack had to wonder how she'd never noticed the way Fluttershy lent a touch to the air that nopony else in the world did.

She could hear her now, too, saying good-bye to Rarity and moving off and away. Leaning into the scent, AJ drank great gusts of it, tried to capture as much as she could before it faded, diluted, ev'rything around Applejack seeming to grow dimmer as the regular smells of Ponyville took over once more.

Her whole body buzzing, she sprang around the last corner, shoved her way panting into the boutique, blurted out to Rarity, blinking in surprise across the room: "How?? How do I stop it, huh?? How do I make it go away??"

"Applejack?"

"The...the yearning!" She'd never used that word before in all her born days, didn't even know where she'd ever heard it, but there weren't no other way to describe what she was feeling. "I can't have what I want: I know that. But my body, it won't...it doesn't...it can't stop wanting it!" Her knees buckled, and she didn't even try to stop herself from slumping forward onto Rarity's floor. "But it's gotta...it's gotta stop!"

A clatter of hoofs, an arm slipping under to support her head, Rarity's voice soft in her ears: "Oh, my poor, dear Applejack! That your first taste of love should prove so bittersweet!"

"It ain't love!" Anger surged her upright, pulled her away from the surprise on Rarity's face. "I told you that! All this...this biology, it ain't got nothing to do with love!"

Rarity's muzzle got a little pinched. "Since you're upset, I won't argue with you, but—"

"Argue nothing!" AJ gave a stomp. "This is just like my folks all over again!"

More blinking. "I'm afraid I don't see how—"

"The one time I talked to Poppa 'bout it after the divorce, he told me him and Mama didn't never really love each other, y'see? It weren't nothing but lust! Her getting on the wrong train from Manehattan and ending up out here 'stead of Canterlot and Poppa locking eyes with her at the depot where he was waiting for his seed order, they didn't have one thing in common 'cept they got each other's flaps flapping, and the marriage and her moving out here and them having the three of us, there weren't nothing like love in any of it!"

"Now, really, Applejack! That can't be—"

"Oh, they tried, the both of 'em! But once her looks started going and his, too, there just...they just didn't have anything else keeping 'em together!" The words poured out of her, pent up for so long, she felt like a dam that had busted a seam. "They was all very civilized, explaining to us kids how they was breaking up, but last I heard, Mama didn't last a month back in Manehattan 'fore she ended up in a sanitarium! And Poppa just plain signed the farm over to us, set off for the coast, shipped out as cook on board a steam freighter, and ain't spent a night on dry land since!"

Shivering, she forced herself to meet Rarity's wide eyes. "So that's what happens when lust takes over! Good folks go crazy and ain't nopony nowhere lives happily ever after!" She managed to take a breath, not sure exactly how long it'd been since she'd last had one. "So you gotta tell how me to get out from under it, Rarity! I ain't had no experience with this sorta...these feelings and such, but it...it—" She couldn't keep her head up, the dang thing way too heavy for her neck to hold all of a sudden. So she let it droop, said into the darkness behind her closed eyelids, "I plain can't take it no more...."

Silence dripped down to fill the room, but after a moment, gentle hoofsteps tapped closer to her through it. "I am so very sorry, Applejack," Rarity murmured. "I remember how devastated you were in school after the divorce, but I never...I never imagined..." A hoof touched her shoulder. "I wish I could teach you a few words that would take the pain away, but, well, there's no magic in Equestria—or anywhere else, I dare say—that can cure a broken heart. Only time can help and the continued living of one's life as truly and fully as one knows how."

"Living?" That made her look up, Rarity's face about as serious as Applejack had ever seen.

"Truly and fully," Rarity said again. "Remember who you are and that you have many friends who love you." Half a smile pulled her muzzle sideways. "And should you find you need a night out on the town to remind you, you know that I and the others are always at your beck and call."

Applejack could only stare while for the first time in days, the right kind of warmth spread over her, not a bit of lust anywhere in it. She even dug up half a smile of her own and pointed it at Rarity. "Might be I'll take you up on that." Even though any sorta get-together would naturally involve Fluttershy: taking a breath, Applejack felt sure that, with the others around, she could find a way to live with that. She just needed to remember who she was.

Blowing the breath out, she reached for Rarity's shoulder. "Thanks. You always knows the right thing to say."

"Of course." Rarity tossed her mane, and Applejack couldn't help laughing.

"I'll see you later, then." AJ turned, started for the door, and Rarity called out behind her:

"Will you be all right, Applejack?"

"I reckon so." She looked back at her friend. "It's just I promised somepony I'd set up a meeting for her, but I ain't been myself enough to do it. Could be I am now." She touched the brim of her hat, gave Rarity a nod, and stepped outside for the road back to Sweet Apple Acres.

6 - Blue

"Maybe today," Fluttershy said, licking the last of the oatmeal from her bowl.

Angel Bunny didn't even look up from his breakfast carrot.

Which almost made the Stare flare up in Fluttershy's gut, but she breathed steadily till it faded and she could say in a more or less civilized fashion, "I will not have you implying such things about Applejack!"

One of the rabbit's eyebrows rose slightly.

"I know it's been a week!" Fluttershy waved a hoof at the calendar. "You remind me every day!"

Ears drooping, he gave Fluttershy a glance that sent guilt washing over her. "Oh, Angel Bunny, I'm sorry. I don't mean to get upset, especially when you're just concerned for my happiness. But Applejack, she...and I...and we..."

She had to let her voice trail off. That she was confused didn't surprise her much: she usually was in one way or another. Mostly it was because she had so much trouble finding the words to describe what was going on inside her, but ever since Rarity had told her about Applejack's broken heart—

The fire hit her so hard this time, it pushed her to her hoofs; leaving her bowl on the table, she stomped outside into another beautiful Spring morning, only three birds left tapping their beaks at the remains of the seeds Fluttershy had scattered before seeing to her own breakfast. Fortunately, fewer birds meant fewer startled looks and frantic leaps skyward for her to feel guilty about.

Except—and this was what confused her—she didn't feel guilty. Yes, she was angry, but this was something worth being angry about, was something every pony, every bird, every cow and stoat and rabbit in or around town should be angry about! That Applejack, who had saved Ponyville all on her own more than once, who everypony knew they could count on any time they needed help, who was the best pony anywhere in the whole wide world, that she had opened her heart for the very first time only to get it slapped back into her face! It was wrong in every way that anything could be wrong, and whenever she thought about it, Fluttershy could barely keep her hoofs on the ground, wanted to storm straight to Sweet Apple Acres and demand some answers!

Because as much as she loved all her friends, Applejack was... Stopping, thinking, searching for the word, Fluttershy finally came up with 'special.' Yes, Applejack was special, had been special since the very first time Rainbow Dash had introduced her. Self-possessed but never self-serving, self-deprecating but never self-conscious, she'd immediately made Fluttershy feel welcome, something that Fluttershy hadn't felt anywhere in years.

She made her feel safe, too, made her feel that, no matter what the problem was, they could find the answer together. Like during that whole horrible dragon experience! Without Applejack, Fluttershy was sure she wouldn't've survived! So it would just be returning the favor to track down whoever'd hurt Applejack like this, give him a stern talking-to, and make him understand what a terrible thing he'd done!

Except—and this thought deflated Fluttershy's anger so much, all she could do was blow out another breath, step into the shade of the big oak beside her house, and settle into the grass—Rarity was right. Applejack had always kept her private life private, so much so that Fluttershy had even heard Twilight make a joke once about Applejack's apparent lack of a social life. It was another reason Fluttershy had always felt so close to her: Fluttershy's little wiggler had kept her from dating, and Applejack had just never seemed interested in the concept. So if Applejack needed some time to get over her own heartbreak before helping Fluttershy get her own heart broken—

But that might not happen! she wailed internally. When I showed my wiggler to Applejack, she didn't run away screaming! And Big Macintosh, he's her brother, isn't he?? He should react the same way she did!

Which let the fantasies she'd been doing her best not to think about burst into her thoughts: she and Big Mac getting married, her moving out to Sweet Apple Acres, the whole Apple clan taking her into their family. And best of all, most wonderful dream of all wonderful dreams, Applejack would become her sister-in-law! So she could see her and talk to her and be with her every day! It set Fluttershy's heart to beating fast, drove away the last bits of her anger, got the sun shining inside her the same way it was shining outside.

Everything would turn out all right, she told herself. She would have Big Mac with Applejack's help, then she would help Applejack find a new beau, a beau worthy of her—though Fluttershy couldn't think of anypony off the top of her head who would fit that description. Still, that's what would happen, and they would all live happily ever after!

***

The road from town up to Fluttershy's place had never seemed so steep; Applejack thought about stopping to take a quick rest ev'ry couple dozen steps even though she weren't anywhere near tired.

Well, not tired in any way that a rest'd help her with...

Nothing to it but to do it, she told herself. Apple Bloom was at school, Granny Smith was off playing canasta with her cronies at the senior center, and she'd nearly nailed Mac to the floor back home, told him he'd better be all cleaned up and handsome in the parlor when she got back with Fluttershy. And as fretful as he'd looked, the excitement in his scent told her he'd be there.

Only thing was, of course, she couldn't help wishing that he wouldn't be, that he'd run away and leave Fluttershy to—

No! She gave herself a mental slap. Fluttershy's done made her choice, and it's Mac, not you!

Thinking those words, she'd found the past couple days, worked better'n the spell to keep her lacinia closed and her hindquarters quiet. She still had her shameful dreams, but that was just stupid biology acting up. No way was she gonna let it take over her life the way it almost had.

She crossed the bridge outside town, saw the porch of Fluttershy's house sticking out 'round the next bend, took a breath, and caught the full, round, gorgeous scent of the pegasus like a hoof to the chest, her resolve shattering and her lacinia twitching. Quick as a bunny—No! Don't think of bunnies!—quick as she could, then, Applejack started the spell going in her head, felt it smooth her middle, and following her nose, she made her way around the house to the side yard, her heart picking up at the sight of Fluttershy nestled among the roots of the big oak.

And because she wanted nothing more than to stand there the rest of her life and drink in that perfect picture, she cleared her throat, stomped her hoofs good and loud, and called out, "Morning, Fluttershy! How's y'all been?"

Fluttershy started back, her neck twisting around, her eyes wide and alarmed and hitting AJ even harder than her scent. "Oh! Applejack! Good morning!" She sprang to her hoofs. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you before; would you like to come in for some breakfast?"

Yes! parts of her screamed, but Applejack pushed the impulse away. "Already ate, thanks." She forced herself to wink. "Besides, I reckon there's somepony out at the Acres might take it amiss if we kept him waiting."

A quiver shook Fluttershy from the tips of her ears to the end of her tail. "Oh! You...you mean he...he...he—" Her voice rose to a squeak so cute, AJ's knees almost buckled. "He really wants to see me?"

Swallowing, she somehow stayed steady. "I told you, sugar cube: Mac's crazy about you."

"Even with..." Fluttershy's head dropped, her mane half-covering her face. "Even with my wiggler?"

Emotions threatened to flood her again, so Applejack shoved a couple pallets of mental sandbags against 'em. "Only one way to find out," she managed to say.

Not looking up, Fluttershy nodded, took a shaky step, then another, and Applejack couldn't stop herself, was completely unable to keep from moving to her side and bumping her with her shoulder. "He ain't a dragon, y'know."

That got Fluttershy's attention, made her glance over with a smile and slowly lift her head. "You're right," she said. "He's the brother of my very best friend in the whole wide world!"

Applejack put on her best confused look. "Rarity's got a brother?"

Fluttershy laughed, nudged Applejack's shoulder with her own, and AJ filed the memory of that touch away for tonight when she was alone in her room. She gestured with a hoof, and Fluttershy started across the grass for the road, Applejack falling into step beside her.

The trip through Ponyville and out to Sweet Apple Acres was exquisite torture, another couple words Applejack was sure she'd never used afore, but again, nothing else described what she was feeling, walking alongside Fluttershy like ev'rything was normal, saying howdy to folks they met, answering Fluttershy's brightly-stated comments about how pretty the day was with whatever mumbles she could manage to squeeze out. 'Cause this was it. Soon as she got Fluttershy to the farm, it'd be her and Mac, and Applejack'd be on her own again.

Of course, Fluttershy'd prob'bly be moving in once she and Mac got hitched, and being so near to the only pony who'd ever flipped her flap, well, AJ expected that was gonna be a mite unsettling.

She'd live, though—same as always—and someday find a good stallion somewhere to carry on the family with her since Fluttershy didn't appear to have the mare parts for foal-bearing in the two quick but absolutely unforgettable views she'd had. But still, as the barn came into sight through the orchards around them, Applejack took a breath, blew it out, and resigned herself. No pony was ever gonna make her feel the way Fluttershy did, not even if there was another half-stallion, half-mare anywhere in Equestria.

Fluttershy had gone quiet, and as Applejack pushed the weight of her thoughts out of the way, she also noticed the sour stink of fear in Fluttershy's luscious scent. Not daring to touch her again since she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to stop, she just muttered, "It's gonna be OK."

"I know." Fluttershy's voice trembled, but her steps didn't falter. "And since you'll be there, I won't—"

"What??" She barely stopped herself from shouting it. "I ain't gonna be there!"

At that, Fluttershy froze. "You...you...you...you have to!" she squeaked. "I can't be alone with Big Macintosh when I show him my wiggler! He might...I mean, what if he...if he..." The words kept getting higher and higher like her throat was squeezing in till it was too tight for the words to get out.

"All right, all right." No possible way AJ could stand being in the same room with Fluttershy opening her beautiful self again and not go completely crazy. So— "This has gotta be personal between you and Mac, see, but I...I'll be right outside, OK? Right outside and waiting for you two to come out all happy and together. All right?" Without thinking, she touched a hoof to Fluttershy's chin, turned her head so the pegasus had to look directly at her—

And the rush of warmth and love and trust that filled those eyes almost undid Applejack's ev'ry resolution, almost sent her leaping forward, wrapping Fluttershy close, pressing her lips to hers, telling her the whole unvarnished and honest truth—

Which would destroy Fluttershy, would destroy Big Mac, would destroy ev'rything Applejack believed about herself, and would let consarned biology win in the end.

Stepping back, then, tearing her hoof away, keeping the smile on her face, she gestured to the house and said, "You go on in, sugar cube. Nopony else's home, and he's waiting for you in the parlor."

A moment, then Fluttershy whispered, "Thank you, Applejack." Her steps toward the front door were so light, AJ didn't think she was touching the ground though her wings stayed clenched against her sides same as they usually did.

At the porch she looked back, and Applejack gave her the biggest grin she could. Soon as Fluttershy drifted inside, though, the silent explosion in her chest nearly made AJ leap to her hoofs and start running—where, she didn't care; just away from here, away like her Mama, away like her Poppa, away from the choice between her mind and her body, between ev'rything right and natural and ev'rything warped and biological.

And she did start moving—not running; no way in sweet green Equestria was she gonna let herself actually do that—but, well, she couldn't just stand there in her own front drive and stare at the house like an idjit. She could be chopping firewood or oiling wheelbarrows or any number of mindless jobs that always needing doing 'round the place.

Glad to have any sort of a plan, she turned, stumped away from the house and crossed to the barn, muscled the door open, all the while refusing to let her ears stretch after any stray sound that might come drifting out of the—

The slam of a door, the clatter of big hoofs, panicked panting: AJ spun, stared back at the house, an all-too-familiar red figure bounding across the yard toward the north forty, his mane, nicely combed for once, tangling as he ran, his polished hoofs already dusty.

Staring a moment, then sprinting after him, she shouted, "What in tarnation?? Big Macintosh! Hey! What's the idea??"

He wasn't moving fast—not that he could outrun her over distance anyway—so she caught up pretty quickly, had to wrinkle her nose at the fear steaming off him. "Hey!" she shouted again, stretching a bit to get out in front so he'd be sure to notice her. "You big coward! You ain't running out on Fluttershy, are you??"

"Fluttershy!" he blurted, stumbling to a halt. "She—! I mean, he—! I mean—!" He swallowed so hard, Applejack could see the bulging gulp travel down inside his neck. "I can't even rightly tell you what I mean!"

Applejack waved a hoof. "I knows all about it, you dang galoot! But what did you—??"

"You knew she had a—a—??" His already wide eyes got even wider. "And you didn't tell me??"

"How could I?" She stomped the grass. "We both knows it right now, and you still can't say it!"

"But—!"

"But nothing!" Rearing onto her hind legs, she grabbed Big Macintosh by the collar and shook him till he rattled. "What happened to—??"

A streak of yellow caught the corner of her eye, and Applejack turned in time to see Fluttershy vanishing beyond the trees. "I couldn't—," Mac was saying, "couldn't do nothing but stare when she started opening up, but when that...that...when it come out, I...I—" For all that he was already bright red, Applejack had always been able to tell when Mac was blushing. "I reckon I maybe turned and ran..."

Applejack realized she was panting and sweating almost as much as he was. Because if— "Then you don't want her??" she just about yelled.

"Her??" Big Macintosh stared at her like she'd grown wings and a horn. "I ain't even rightly sure she is a her no more!"

With a joyful whinny, Applejack pushed away. "Big brother, might be you just saved my life!" And she took off for the road to Fluttershy's place faster'n she'd ever run before.

7 - Pink

Huddled in the corner, she knew where she was—home, of course, or her house, she should say, since a thing like her could never really have a home—but she couldn't quite remember how she'd gotten there. The sharp little pinpricks of pain all over her, though, made her think she must've crashed straight through the window when she arrived...

Unless maybe they were just the shards of her shattered dreams jabbing into her. But the salty stink of blood that curdled her nose every time she dragged in a breath leaned her more toward thinking it was actual broken glass.

She'd been nudged more than once in the however many minutes she'd been laying there, had heard concerned chirps and shuffles, had felt tiny claws gripping her here and there and a lot of odd little tugging sensations, but she'd found she couldn't quite manage to care enough to open her eyes and see what was going on. Maybe her animal friends had turned on her, too, were tearing bits and pieces from her to take home and feed to their families. Which would be fine, actually: she might as well be useful somehow...

A pounding curled her into a tighter ball, and when it was followed by Applejack yelling, "Fluttershy! You in there??" she couldn't even muster a whimper.

More pounding. "You open this door right now, you hear?? Or I swear to Celestia I'm bucking it down!"

"Go away," she whispered, but with all the pounding, she doubted the words got through. A familiar patter of paws over the carpet, though, caught her ear, and she cracked her eyelids, unraveled her front legs from the tangle across her face, saw Angel Bunny leaping for the lock on the front door, catching it, swinging his whole body around on it till it clicked.

The door burst open, then, Fluttershy squinting in the flood of light, a pony silhouetted there, her legs firmly planted, her hat set back on her head, her chest heaving. "Sweet mercy!" Applejack shouted.

Fluttershy covered her eyes again. "Don't look at me," she tried to say, not sure if she actually made a sound. "Please don't..."

Then hoofs were stroking her, the bunched-up end of a mane brushing over her, a voice that would've been Applejack's except for the cracking and the sobbing in it: "All my fault! Oh, Fluttershy, I never shoulda...shoulda just...oh, I'm so, so sorry!"

Which roused her enough to roll over a bit, fresh little points stabbing her, and look up. It was definitely Applejack crouched there beside her, but the pain and tears in the earth pony's sweet green eyes, that didn't seem right at all. And what had she said? "You're sorry?" Fluttershy asked, and this time, she could just barely hear the words. "Ummm, actually, I'm sorry." Her throat wanted to bunch up again, but she forced it to stay open long enough to get out: "The sorriest thing that ever lived..."

"Nunna that." A snort, and Applejack almost sounded like herself again. "Can you get up? Looks like the birds and the mice've plucked mosta the shards outta you, but we'll needta—"

"Why?" she asked, letting her eyes clench once more. "What's it even matter?"

The growl snapped Fluttershy's eyes wide, the look on Applejack's face fiercer than anything she'd ever seen there. "I'll tell you what it matters, little missy! It matters that I done this to you outta my own pigheadedness, and I ain't about to let you get hurt any worse 'cause of me! So now, you stand up if'n you can, or you tell me if'n you can't!"

Without even thinking, Fluttershy sprang quivering to her hoofs, and birds swarmed her—through her tail, up and down her shanks and flanks, along her back, between the feathers of her wings, over her withers, in and out of her mane—their beaks and claws combing her closely and thoroughly and so quickly, it was over before she could do more than gasp.

A robin settled on her nose, cocked his head to look at her first with one eye, then with the other; a flutter of wings, and he lit on the floor next to Angel Bunny, gave him a nod, and Angel turned to Applejack with a nod of his own.

Applejack's smile made her look more like herself, and the way she touched the brim of her hat and said, "Thankee kindly," pumped a little life into Fluttershy's deflated insides.

Angel nodded once more, and the pain in his eyes when he turned toward Fluttershy made her hang her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to cause a fuss. And thank you."

With a shuffling hop, Angel came over, reached out tentatively, touched her right front hoof; then he scurried away to the part of the front room where squadrons of mice and squirrels were picking broken glass out of the carpet and carrying it all to a couple raccoons with paper bags in their paws.

"C'mon, then," Applejack said, Fluttershy swinging her attention back to—and that she hesitated even for a moment before thinking of Applejack as her friend washed shame through her yet again. Of course Applejack was her friend! Even if Fluttershy didn't deserve her...

She was still speaking, though: "Looks like just a couple little bleeders on your forelegs. Nothing too serious, I reckon, but let's get you to the bathroom and check 'em to make sure."

Fluttershy swallowed, unable to look up from the floor. "I'll be fine."

Another growl. "Don't you dare try that on me! Not after I sent you into that house when I shoulda knowed exactly what was gonna happen! If'n I'd been thinking, I—"

"You??" Something burst inside Fluttershy, caught her so completely by surprise, she couldn't've stopped it if she'd wanted to. Stomping one front hoof, she crooked the other at the center of her own chest. "I knew exactly what was going to happen in there! I've known ever since I first laid eyes on Big Macintosh what would happen if I ever dared show him what sort of a monster I truly am! Because it's the same thing that always happens, and I was only fooling myself when I went in there thinking this time it'd be different!" A lump rose into her throat, but she forced the words around it, the throbbing in her head making her neck droop. "Still, he didn't scream or break any dishes or hit me. I...I'll have to send him a thank you note."

The very air seemed to crackle around her. "You listen to me," Applejack said, her voice rough but quiet. "In the first place, you ain't anything like a monster. Anypony ever tells you diff'rent, you let me know about it so I can set 'em straight, y'understand? And in the second place,—" She stopped so suddenly, Fluttershy glanced up in alarm, hoping she was all right, and—

As usual, she couldn't find the word for what she saw on Applejack's face: angry and sad at the same time, her teeth clenched but her eyes wavering and shiny again. "You knows it ain't always the same when...when you shows yourself. 'Cause when you showed me, I...I..."

Another silence fell, this time real and deep. Fluttershy stared at Applejack's tears, and everything that had happened the past week, it all shifted in her head like a cloud changing shape as she flew around it, the realization making her knees go weak. "It was me," she whispered, her vision blurring. "I was the one who broke your heart."

***

All day long, Applejack had felt like she was running through a lightning storm, dodging thunderbolts of emotion deeper and stronger'n any she'd ever known she could have. Even just in the bushelful of minutes since she'd run full tilt outta Sweet Apple Acres, her joy at Mac not wanting Fluttershy had soured at the thought of what Fluttershy must be going through; finding the house locked up, pounding till the door opened, then seeing the pegasus sprawled on the floor, blood-speckled glass and varmints ev'rywhere...

And now, her whole mind and body clanging like a bell, AJ blinked at Fluttershy saying, "I was the one who broke your heart," and the words stripped her soul bare as a tree branch in winter. "Rarity told me," Fluttershy was going on. "She said you'd found out...you'd found out that somepony you loved didn't...didn't... Oh, Applejack, I'm so, so sorry. I didn't even know you were attracted to mares..."

"I ain't attracted to mares." She wanted to collapse, just wanted to fall right over dead right here and right now rather'n deal with the horrible, horrible joke biology had played on her. "And I ain't attracted to stallions neither. Ain't never been attracted to no pony till...till you opened yourself up, showed me your true, honest self. And ever since, I..." Gazing into the turquoise depths of Fluttershy's eyes, she couldn't hold back any longer. "I been thinking of nothing but you, been dreaming of you ev'ry night. You're the only pony I's ever felt this way about, but you wanted Mac, so I...I set that all up never once thinking he'd turn you down!" Love and lust slammed together inside her, and she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming. "I mean, I was hoping he would, sure, but I knew as sure as I know the princesses are gonna bring on the night and day that there weren't no way anypony could turn down the most succulent pippin ever to grace the earth and sky of Equestria!"

A long moment of silence, then: "Succulent pippin?" Fluttershy whispered, her ears back, her wings partially unfurled. "Me?"

"Oh, sugar cube..." The air warm as bathwater around her, Applejack smiled, couldn't keep from stepping forward. "'Cept you're a thousand times sweeter'n sugar, ain't you?" Another step. "You're honeycomb and honeysuckle, rose and lavender." One more step. "Fresher'n fresh water and more glorious'n the sunrise." Not even a half step, and their noses brushed, AJ tilting her head in a way she never had before, stretching the tiniest bit to touch her lips to Fluttershy's, the strange mix of tension and relaxation coursing through her making her want to growl and sigh and sing all at the same time.

Perfect. Oh, so perfect...

A little flexing of her midsection told her what was about to happen, but for the first time in her life, when her lacinia pulled open, shame didn't flood her. 'Cause it was her choice for once, her taking the elements of rude biology and making 'em natural like she'd done her whole life out on the farm. She drank in the sensations—the firm softness of Fluttershy's lips, the gentle wildness of her scent, the taste of her ev'ry bit as succulent as Applejack had imagined—and forced herself not to think about how it didn't mean a thing since Fluttershy didn't want her, didn't want—

Fluttershy's lips moved against hers with a low moan, and AJ heard a wet crinkling sound, the muskiness of the air shooting up ten or twenty fold. "Oh!" Fluttershy gasped, and she pulled back the same time Applejack did. 'Cause AJ knew all too well nowadays what a lacinia sounded like when it opened. And since hers already was, it hadta be—

Standing less'n an inch away, she could feel the heat of Fluttershy's blush, could see the shock and alarm in her eyes. But when those eyes closed partway and Fluttershy leaned forward to kiss her, the shock raced through Applejack's body like the lightning she'd imagined herself dodging. Another little moan, and Fluttershy was sliding her head along Applejack's neck, her lips touching ev'ry inch or so with an explosive force that rocked AJ down to her hoofs. "Can you ever forgive me, Applejack?" she asked.

"Forgive you?" A whole 'nother part of AJ's brain seemed to have taken over, a part that didn't think or know or care about anything as long as Fluttershy kept doing what she was doing. "Whaddaya—? I...I don't—"

"I've been a fool." Fluttershy pulled away, brought her even-more-gorgeous-when-she-looked-so-serious face back around to where Applejack could gaze upon it. "You asked me when this all started if I was in love with Big Macintosh, and I said yes, but...how could I be? I don't know him; I've never even really talked to him! Everything I thought I loved about him—how strong he was, how kind he was, how gentle and deep and firmly-rooted he was—I only thought he was that way because you were that way, and he was your brother! I made him into the pretend pony I loved when the real pony I loved was right here all the time! Right—" She leaned forward again, rested her nose against AJ's. "Right here. All the time."

Applejack didn't want to move, didn't want to breathe, felt like she had a butterfly perched on her snout that might fly away any moment. But when Fluttershy flexed her neck and began stroking AJ's forehead with that thick, soft pink mane, she couldn't help whispering, "Sweet mercy, yes."

"So," Fluttershy was murmuring, "if you still think we should check my cuts, there's a bathroom upstairs. We...we'd kind of have to go through my bedroom to get to it, though, so if you wouldn't mind, could we maybe...maybe stop off there first to...to—" The warmth of her blush blossomed against Applejack's face again. "To check out some other things?"

Yes! her body shouted, and this time, AJ could only agree.

***

Tucked against Applejack's wide, wonderful chest, her wiggler still happily nestled inside her friend, Fluttershy drowsed, more contented than she'd ever been. She barely remembered getting up the stairs, the rich, earthy scent of Applejack's open flap driving out every other thought, though sheer habit had forced her to throw one of her special blankets over the bed when they'd charged into the bedroom. And then...then she'd had literally no idea what to do next, her little wiggler neither little nor wiggling, sheer desire howling through her like a midsummer thunderstorm.

Fortunately, Applejack—and oh, the lovely jolt that ran through her every time she thought that name—Applejack had taken charge at that point, had directed Fluttershy to lie on her back, her wiggler jutting eagerly into the air, had straddled her midsection with a smile, leaned forward, kissed her so dizzyingly that Fluttershy had almost fainted, and had slowly impaled herself, the sensation making Fluttershy cry out with joy.

Applejack had sucked in a breath, her eyes wide, her hoofs tightening on either side of Fluttershy's torso, and when Fluttershy had shifted her hips, sliding her wiggler into the liquid depths between Applejack's legs, the earth pony had cried out, a hot, damp explosion soaking Fluttershy's wiggler and making Applejack pitch forward to sprawl over Fluttershy, her hat flying off onto the floor.

Not sure what to do but not wanting to stop, Fluttershy had rolled the both of them onto their sides to more easily keep the gentle motion going. That seemed to have been the right thing, though, the way Applejack grabbed her and kissed her and exploded internally another nine times while the most incredible pleasure built and built and built all over and around and inside Fluttershy. Panting, thrusting, nearly swooning, she'd finally burst over the top herself, and Applejack's matching cries signaling explosion number ten were the last thing she remembered for a long, luscious while.

Drifting back to consciousness, though, she sighed to feel strong legs around her, to hear a relaxed in-and-out of breathing, to let her eyelids slide open on the marvelous, incredible, impossible sight of Applejack holding her, of Applejack pressed against her, of a smile quirking Applejack's muzzle as Fluttershy felt her wiggler puff up a bit in the warm embrace of Applejack's vulva.

"Well, now." Applejack's eyes rolled open, too, but only partway, the love and the desire in them making Fluttershy gasp and her wiggler give a larger twitch. "I'd been thinking that, soon as I could feel my legs again, I'd best be getting started on an apple pie I could carry with my apology over to Rarity's." She bent her neck to kiss Fluttershy. "But right now, I'm liking your idea a whole lot better."

Fluttershy kissed her back. "Were you and Rarity arguing?"

"Kinda." Applejack moved, and Fluttershy almost whimpered, it felt so wonderful. "I was saying love and sex didn't have nothing to do with each other and that consarned biology weren't nothing but the gruesomest sorta trouble." Hoofs stroked her mane, and Fluttershy gazed into Applejack's eyes. "I ain't never been so happy to be wrong in all my born days."

Moving her own hoofs, losing them in the depths of Applejack's blonde tresses: "Because you love me?" Fluttershy asked, the perfection of it all keeping her voice a bare whisper.

Applejack's smile was even more perfect. "Because I love you."

"Oh, yes!" Fluttershy wrapped herself around Applejack, both of them gasping as her wiggler surged again. "And I love you! Now, always, and forever!"

Author's Note

This isn't the end! History: A Romance Continued picks up pretty much immediately where this one leaves off.