Wannacradleherinmyarmsandnuzzleheruntilshebecomesabigoldbucketofbluegooinmyfuzzyfetlockscelestiadangit
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Applejack the Freckle Pone and Her Fessin' Hat
Wannacradleherinmyarmsandnuzzleheruntilshebecomesabigoldbucketofbluegooinmyfuzzyfetlockscelestiadangit
There were tens of thousands of fruit hanging in Sweet Apple Acres, but none of them were nearly as juicy as the little mare bucking them off their branches. A full day's work of kicking trees and pulling wagons had made Applejack the paragon of sweat. But she managed it with a certifiably degree of down-home country grace. Pausing in the shade, she stuck her belly out until her orange, freckle-speckled chest-fwoof caught the warm rays of the dying day. Brushing her hoof across her tummy, she shook the sweatdrops loose and smiled into an undeniably natural aroma. It resembled honey lemon with a hint of musk.
"Hmmmmm..." Applejack tilted the brim of her hat forward as she inhaled and exhaled. "Like Ma used to make."
Then, from above...
"Hiya, AJ!"
FWOOOOSH!
Applejack jolted in place, only to be throttled by the following sonic boom of a certain speedster's dive.
"Guhhh!" Applejack clung to her hat, gritting her teeth. "Rainbow Dassssssh!" she pretended to growl.
"That's my name! Don't wear it out!" Rainbow winked in mid-hover and stuck out a playful raspberry tongue. The afternoon shone off her blue coat like a second sky. "Unless, of course, you've got a sandbelt to do it for you."
"Buh?"
"Ducks!" Rainbow pointed straight up towards a flying "V" of mallards flocking in from the furthest horizon. "The Ponyville Weather Commission put me in charge of getting them home!"
Applejack was still reeling from the fowl word. "They did?"
"Uh huh! Fluttershy's already packed them lunch bags. I just need to get them back north before the summer solstice. Tax season and all."
"Why are you telling me this?" Applejack wheezed.
"Becaaaaaaause..." Rainbow Dash flew higher with a toss of her mane. A prismatic fan blocked out the sun temporarily. After the liquid half-second eclipse had run its course, the silken bangs fell delicately around Rainbow's head, framing a squishy smile with sparkling rubies for eyes. "...I need to borrow your sky. For ducks! Is that cool, orrrrrr..."
"Uh..." Applejack fought a dry lump in her throat that didn't know how to put on the brakes. "I reckon it's... just fine."
"Cool!" Rainbow cool'd, then whipped out a fake duck bill deep out of hammer-space. "I read somewhere that birds have a fifty-minute memory. So that only gives me ten more minutes to lead then north before they realize I'm not the feathery tour guide that the local geese hired them."
"Okay..."
"Thanks for the shortcut!" With the use of some simple string, Rainbow snapped the cute bill over her cute face and bellowed cutely to the sky: "QUAAAAAAAAACK!"
The lofty mallards returned her call and accelerated. With a streak of color, Rainbow rocketed over the treetops of Applejack's orchards. The petite pegasus even threw in a few twirls, barrel rolls, and loopty-loops for measure.
Applejack watched... dead still.
Well, not for long.
First her left ear twitched. Then her right—just as fuzzy as the first. Then her tail flicked and flicked over again as if the poor workhorse lady was about to blow a gasket. Then—as shivers ran up and down her withers—Applejack's freckled cheeks finally puffed like a levitating orange blowfish. Her body lunged forward in a vomitous motion...
...and that was precisely when Applejack whipped off her hat and stuck her face muzzle-deep into the hollow of the article.
What followed was a series of syllables compressed savagely within the space of a single, regurgitating grunt:
"IWannaFluffRainbow'sFeathersAndMakeHerTailCurlInLittleFruityLoops!"
With that completed...
"Duaaaaaaaah!" Applejack teetered backwards from her hat, blue in the face. She inhaled... inhaled... inhaled... then relaxed. "Whew..."
Silence.
"Rnnngh... mrmmfff... phweeeee..."
Finally calm...
...Applejack proceeded to the next tree and bucked it with careful, well-practiced precision.
The next day... in Sugarcube Corner...
"So I wrote my client back!" Rarity smirked at Twilight and Applejack as she delicately balanced a cup of tea in her hoof. "And I said, 'Three layers, sir?!? Good grief! Do you know just how rare griffin silk is?!' I mean... sure... some of my clients can be eccentric at times. Avant-garde, even..." She took a dainty sip of her tea, then barked: "'But three layers? My good stallion, you've already got a sheathe! Why invent three more?!'"
"Wow." Twilight blinked. Hard. "That's... uhm... very poetic."
"Mmmmhmmmm." Rarity sipped again.
"Been... uh..." Twilight fidgeted with a nervous smirk. "...hittin' the E.L. Jockey books, there, Rarity?"
"Oh Twilight..." Rarity laughed airily as she waved a hoof. "Don't be so plebeian." Her eyes hardened. "They're 'novellas.'"
"Girrrrls..." Applejack grumbled, her fetlock propped up and mushing up against her freckled cheek.
"Yes, Applejack?"
"... ... ...what in the hay are we even talking about?"
Before either could respond—
"Hiya, guys!" Rainbow's voice cracked. It alwaaaays cracked.
Applejack's eyes shrank immediately into tiny green pinpricks.
"Gwwaaaaaaaaah..." Drooping in mid-air, a thoroughly sweaty, thoroughly panting, thoroughly sopping wet Rainbow Dash flew in from the bakery's entrance. She plopped down on the stool opposite Applejack—fuzzy legs spread—and leaned forward with her tongue hanging out. "Guhhhhhhhhhh... I haaaate flying through hailstorms. It took me twiiiice as long to get here from my weather rounds." She then proceeded to stretttttttchhhhhhhh her tiny nubile body waaaaay back—moist sea-blue chest fuzz sparkling and curving in the blush-red lantern light from above. The stretching continued, curving, approaching impossible felinesque limits, producing multiple tiny cracks along her tight spine that served as percussion to a deep, resonating trilling sound—more like a foalish squeak—that lilted from Rainbow's bunny-soft nostrils and brought warmth and playful vibration to the otherwise tepid room. "Mwaaaaaaaaah..." She finished with a yawn, then tilted back forward in glorious high definition 3D. As she did so, a loose tear or two squeezed adorably from the corners of her eyes, and she finished the squeaky yawn with her muzzle hanging wide open and a playful hoof rubbing the last drops of rain from her plushy azure cheeks. "Yeahhhhhhh... I could sure use something large... hot... and warm." A contented smile. Lingering. Glaciers melting in the distance. "Hey Pinkie!" She called over Applejack's head, practically leaning over the farm mare and causing her left ear to ring. "How about a blueberry muffin?! Piping hot and extra thick?!?"
"Guhhhhhh!" Applejack hopped off like there were springs in her fetlocks. She landed with a few noticeable bounces. "I... uh... gotta go... uh..." Her eartips fondled an invisible lightbulb above her hat. "The little fillies' room!"
"Really?" Rarity remarked.
Twilight also raised an eyebrow. "But you haven't ordered anything to drink—"
"Don't care! Can't care! Emergency! Uh..." Applejack galloped off in a storm. "Super serious lady stuff! You wouldn't understand!"
And the restroom door slammed shut in the distance.
"But..." Rarity blinked, cradling her cup of tea. "We're all ladies here." A beat. "Well..." She sipped. "Maybe not Rainbow."
"Hey!"
THUD!!!
Applejack locked herself up in a cramped bathroom stall.
She hugged herself, teeth chattering.
Her eyes darted left... then right.
"Gnnngh... guhhhhh... dangitall! Geeee-eee-eeee-eee—!"
Once again, her muzzle scrunched. Once again, her cheeks puffed out. Once again.
"Hrhgggggggggghllkkkk—!"
She whipped her hat off, hunched over, and threw her pent-up breaths into the inside of the Stetson.
"IwannaburymymuzzledeepinRainbow'swarmchestfluffandlistentohergiggleforever!"
And just like that...
...Applejack's body went limp.
She exhaled long and hard, her muzzle frozen into a drooling smile of contentment. She hugged her hat to her chest as her body lazily slid down off the toilet seat and onto the polished bathroom floor.
"Hmmmmmmmmm..." Her heavy eyelids fell over a dumb grin. "...could fancy myself some... c-corn flakes..."
"So ya see, Fluttershy..." Applejack trotted down the main street of Ponyville with her close friend one day. "...I'm not sayin' that I hate all squirrels. Or—shucks—that I hate even a single one of 'em! Why... I happen to like a lot of the bushy-tailed critters that hang out on the farm! I even let Apple Bloom play with a few of 'em! It's just that..." She blew out the side of her muzzle in mid-step. "I feel that there's a whole heck of a lot of squirrel-on-squirrel violence that ain't reported in the popular newspapers these days, and it's a cryin' shame to act like it ain't so."
"Well, there's just as much pony-on-pony violence, Applejack," Fluttershy said, trotting leisurely. "And... uhm... by that, I mean... none whatsoever. Because we're ponies. And for a moment there it almost sounded as if you were trying to make some wildly hyperbolic social analogy for something that couldn't and shouldn't exist in our nice, kind, family-friendly equine universe."
"Even still..." Applejack proudly tilted her head up. "...it's what I believe in and I stand by it."
"Wow, Applejack..." Fluttershy smiled warmly at her. "It must take an awful lot of... honest integrity to just 'say it like it is.'" A few seconds passed. Her eyes crossed. "Ow. Ow... my head..."
"I dun understand it either but I thank ya kindly just the same."
"Heehee..." Fluttershy smiled. "You know... it must be hard being the Element of Honesty all the time. Have you ever thought about it?"
"About what?"
"Oh..." Fluttershy shrugged in mid-trot. "I dunno. Just... being compelled to tell the truth... in all circumstances... in all situations... without any thought towards lying whatsoever. Why..." The pegasus' turquoise eyes wavered empathetically. "...I would constantly be afraid of exposing my deepest, darkest, moistest secrets to the world!"
"Uh huh..."
"I mean... Celestia above! I would mortally burst like a pressurized water heater unless I found some extreme and perhaps even comical outlet for relieving myself of all the most sacred bits of information I have to hide from the cosmos!"
Applejack opened her muzzle to respond.
"Hey guys! Look at me!" SWOOOOOOOOSH! A spectral streak followed an adorable blue asshole who was presently buzzing the rooftops of Ponyville overhead at Mach 5. "THROOOOOOOOOOOM! I'm a tactical nuke! Better duck and cover! Heeheehee!"
Applejack's jaw locked in place. Her eyes bulged and her muzzle opened wider and wider, almost like a fifty story atomic reptile preparing to exhale radioactive flame upon an entire urban sprawl, decimating hundreds of thousands of the local island populace while the rest of the globe quivered in fear.
Instead, she converted it into an adorable freckled sneeze that landed smack-dab into the inside of her hat.
"GORGEOUSSCAMP!"
Followed by a second eruption.
"PUTAPINKLEASHONIT!"
And...
A-and...
...a-a-and a third.
"LICKYOURHAPPYTEARSCLEAN!"
Silence.
Fluttershy blinked. She squinted up at the pegasus-sized chemtrail fading overhead... then arched an eyebrow at Applejack.
"Hrmmmf... snfffff..." Applejack slapped her hat on, rubbed her nose, and gave Fluttershy a tired smile. "Heh... would you imagine that."
"Applejack, are you... okay?"
"Sure, sugarcube!" Applejack stood tall and proud and faithful and strong. "Reckon I'm doin' a peach!" She winced. "GULDARNIT!" She shook her head. "I-I-I mean doin' just peachy queefs! BUCK!!!" She stomped her hooves in place. "Rrrrrrrrrrgh!"
Fluttershy stared at her, gawking.
Applejack froze in place... then pointed over Fluttershy's shoulder. "Is that bird bath on fire?"
"What?!?!?!" Fluttershy spun around, tears already fountaining as she pulled at her horrifically down-lit facial muscles. "Ohhhh the aviananityyyyy!!!"
"Zoop!" Applejack galloped away.
Later that afternoon...
Applejack sat on a park bench. Alone with her freckles.
She sighed, ears drooping... hair drooping... everything drooping.
The warm kiss of the early summer day did little to melt the frozen nub in her heart. Even still—she thought she could hear a dainty pegasus somewhere sobbing over the deaths of phantom burn bird victims—and Applejack sighed with guilt and shame.
"What am I becomin'...?"
She gazed into an inexplicable puddle lying next to her bench. A sad, yellow-tinted apple pony stared back.
"...I ain't used to runnin' from the truth. It all just smells so... so..."
Her freckles disappeared beneath scrunched face-fuzz. She took a sniff of the air just above the puddle, then glanced behind her.
A dog finished lowering its leg, panted, then bounded off with a drooling bark.
Applejack looked at the puddle again, at the dog's exiting paws, then back at the—
"Awwwwwwww fuss-budge it!"
She hopped up to her hooves and stormed off, fuming.
"I get it, alright! Ain't subtle in the least!" She found herself pacing and pacing angrily in the center of the park. "It's just a passin' phase! Soon I'll get over it! Ain't like she's... she's..."
Her jaw twisted into a mutating grimace as her ears flopped spasmatically above her cranium.
"Grggggh... ain't like... she's... the... m-m-mostttt... grnnnnghhhkkt..."
She writhed all over from invisible sparks, sending crackling needles through her body. She crawled along the earth. She gnashed her teeth against a weeping sea of fire.
"...grnnnnngh... danggggg... varminttttt... soooooo... scampyyyyyyyyyy..."
Rivulets of sweat ran down Applejack's body as she shook all over. Continents collapsed. Fault lines caught aflame with lava while angelic cherubs spontaneously combusted in far off dimensions.
And it was then that Applejack realized that maybe... just maybe...
...if she got it all out...
"Grkkkgggghhh... fuuuuuuuuu—"
...all of it...
"Humina-humina-humina-humina—"
...so long as the hat could actually contain it.
"Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" She took the deepest, heaviest, most intense breath of her life.
And then.
She slammed her hat squarely over her face.
"Rainbow Dash is such an adorable little jerkfaced cider-stealin' peppermint-breathed wind breakin' chest-foowf'd cloud huffin' giggle-chortly cattle annoyin' daredevilish hair tossin' tomcoltish teeth-glintin' wet dreamt voice crackin' colorful sunshine makin' bag of nuzzable fuzzy lumps and I wanna marry the ever-steamin' Tartarus outta that bite-sized feather duster and carry her over the threshhold and tease her so rotten she'll gasp and scream and holler my name foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
At long last... Applejack's lungs had emptied.
Every cell in her body vibrated with relief. She felt like a newborn foal. An incalculable weight had been yanked off her shoulder.
So, it was with a sweaty... melting smile that she graced the world as she lowered the hat...
...and it was with several shades of ghostly pale that she reacted to the gawking little pegasus who had just landed in front of her.
"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Rainbow Dash leaned back from the farm mare, her left eyebrow twitching. Her wings stuck out like metal antennae. "Apple...jack...?"
"Mmmmmmmmmmm..." Red in the freckle-frecks, Applejack bit her bottom lip until it bled.
"Did you just..." Rainbow did a double-take. "Was that a shoutgasm?"
THWUMP!
Applejack's hat flew squarely over Rainbow's face. "Mrmmmmffff!"
"Oh lawd!" Applejack galloped for the hills, leaving a faint trusty trail behind. "Oh lawd oh lawd oh lawd oh lawd!!!"
It took a bit of fussing—to say the least—but Rainbow Dash finally freed her face from her best friend's Stetson with an audible POP!
"Guhh!" Reeling, Rainbow Dash nevertheless took a moment to sniff the hat's interior. "Hmmm?" Another sniff. "Hey! Honey lemon!" A dumb blink. An even dumber smirk. "Musky!"
