There are Things Worse than Second Place
“So….” High in the sky, there was the sound of an Apple with jack to say.
“Yes… so….” The sound of someone who always came second followed.
“How did we get here again?” Applejack sighed, her farm drifting below in a sea of green and red.
“Your sister suggested a fundraiser and we foolishly agreed.”
“Ah….” A moment of silence. “Is that why the basket is sticky?”
Luna frowned, letting the tree sap speak for itself. Her struggles so far had done little other than spread their adhesive prison around the rest of the balloon and it was a monument to her character that both she and Applejack were now plastered to the side of their ride—upside down and sideways.
“At least, we’re still airborne and all that.” Applejack glanced back towards Canterlot High. “I’m mighty sorry about your clipboard.”
And there was silence, save for a slowly boiling tea kettle.
“Plus, it could always be worse, you know?”
More silence as the sun set on the horizon.
“I mean, we could always be stuck with Rainbow Dash.”
Really, the quiet was deafening—like, a cudgel to the skull deafening. Luna had ceased struggling and was as still as stone; her eyes bored a trail of bloody murder into the ground below her as the balloon drifted on the wind.
“Or Pinkie Pie.”
“Miss Applejack, would you please be quiet?” Finally, there was a sigh.
“Just trying to be polite is all. Not much we can do here ’cept talk.” If she wasn’t stuck sideways to the side of the balloon, Applejack would have surely raised her hands. As it was, she tried to anyways, and there was the squeaky sound of rubber stretching—with a splorchy snap for good measure—as the glue kept her arms in place.
“You could always fetch my clipboard.” Luna’s frown deepened as she watched the setting sun as if it were a symbol of one thousand years of suffering to come. “I liked that clipboard.”
“It was made of some mighty fine wood.”
“Please, stop.”
“Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a knot.” Applejack sighed, returning to counting the apples as they passed below.
One… two… three… four…. Five hundred and seven apples later, Luna coughed.
Then, she coughed again.
And again.
“Cat got your tongue?” Applejack arched a brow.
“No….” There were several moments of silence mixed with the hacking coughs of internal struggling. “Just trying to remember how to say sorry. Frankly, talking is better than just drifting.”
“Ain’t it?” Applejack smiled.
“It’s still worse than falling, though.” Luna started vigorously fighting her restraints once more.
“Now that’s just stinkin’ thinkin’. You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” Luna tilted her head as she finally freed it, her goopy, matted hair dangling down towards the orchard below. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
And with another wriggle and sticky splorch, Luna dropped without a sound.
Applejack drifted for a few more minutes, humming to herself as the quiet closed in once more. The sun had finally set, and the stars were coming out; a shooting star blazed its way across the heavens before she too shrugged and began to wriggle her way free.
“I guess we will find out, won’t we?”
The audience waited with baited breath at the finish line, their eyes straining against the darkness. All the other hot air balloons had long since made it back—their racers gone home to do homework—but that didn’t stop the rest of the crowd from staying to see the last contestants come in.
At least, it didn’t for a few hours. Right now, the crusaders were at six odd hours, and everypony else had left for silly things like getting a little sleep or filing a missing person’s report.
“So, how long are we gonna wait?” Scootaloo blew a stray piece of her hair out of her eyes.
“They’ll get here. They’ll get here.” Apple Bloom waved her friend off with her one free hand as she continued to scan the sky with the goggles gripped tightly in the other. “Applejack’s the most dependable person I know.”
“Euurgh….” Rolling her eyes, Scootaloo gestured to the twinkling night before her. “You said that hours ago! Face it, Apple Bloom! Something happened! We should go look for them!”
“You mean like Rainbow Dash is?” Apple Bloom paused to give Scoots a level glare.
“Yeah!”
“Because she just ponied up and flew right off. If you want to go jump off the roof of the school and follow her, then be my guest, but I’ll take my chances here.”
“Me too.” Sweetie quietly sipped from her water bottle as she flicked through her phone. “Still no news from anybody else, by the way.” She tapped her way through a few apps. “Although, there’s this great new meme going around thanks to the picture Principal Celestia provided the police.” Smirking, she flipped her phone around, and the image of Luna’s mugshot made everybody snort.
“Wow, our vice principal was an edgelord. I mean, what kind of name is Nightmare Moon?” Scootaloo dug out her phone out. “Send it to me?”
“Sure!”
“Awesome.”
“Girls! We’re supposed to be watching for Applejack!”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but your sister won’t be crossing the finish line with me.” Luna might have hobbled from the shadows with a limp and a walking stick, but her glower made it clear she was a predator on the hunt. Her hair was riddled with dirt and sticks, and her leg was wrapped in a splint made from the lower half of her shirt—revealing a rather spikey navel ring that went with her mug shot perfectly.
As she neared the crusaders, she thumped the ground loudly with her cudgel-like walking stick, causing the three of them to jump back with a series of squeaks. “Now why are you three here at—” She glanced at her mangled wristwatch and squinted at it, a few choice words under her breath. “—one in the morning?”
She shook her wrist a few times, squinted again, and looked to the stars for confirmation.
“No… it’s definitely later than that. More like two in the morning.” Looking back down, she scowled even more.
“Well… uh… you see…” Apple Bloom shuffled from foot to foot, while Sweetie squirmed and looked down to the ground.
“What are we doing?!” Scootaloo huffed, taking a cocky step forward to puff out her chest. “What are you doing here?!”
Luna stared at the three for a long, long moment. “I am finishing the race you three coerced me into running if it’s the last thing I do, and I refuse to let little things like concerned nurses or trigger happy cops stop me.”
“Huh?”
A tired sigh. “I had to drop off Applejack at the hospital.”
“My sister’s in the hospital?!”
“Do not worry. It was merely a flesh wound.” Hobbling past the shell shocked crusaders and over the finish line at last, the Luna reached into her pocket and pulled out a sheaf of crumpled fliers. “Ooof…. Why did you give them that photo, Tia?”
“Applejack’s in the hospital ‘cuz of me.” Apple Bloom blinked, starting to tear up as the other crusaders rushed over.
“I told you it was just a flesh wound.” Luna snorted.
“We all know what that really means!”
“No, you very clearly don’t. You’re acting like she’s lost all her limbs.”
“You mean she hasn’t?”
There were several seconds of silence.
“And my sister wonders why I want to ban fun….”
“Heh… heheh….” Sweetie’s giggle trailed off as Luna continued to scowl. “That’s a joke, right?”
“Does it look like I’m joking?”
“No?”
“Good. That’s my job. Now go get in my car so I can get you all home.”
“We… aren’t in trouble?” Scootaloo was suddenly grinning.
Luna shrugged. “Right now, I’m off the clock. In about—” She glanced to the stars again. “—six hours I’ll be giving you so much detention that your kids will be going to school with you, but that’s six hours from now.”
There were three audible gulps.
“Regardless, let’s get you all home to your jailers, so I can go scream bloody murder at my sister.”
“Yes, vice principal Luna….” Three sets of shoulders slumped in defeat, heading towards the car.
“There she is!” There was the sound of several sirens as a sea of flabby donuts and coffee came panting around the corner. “And look! She’s kidnapping those three girls!”
“Celly was right. Mid-life crises are overrated,” Luna sighed, crumpling the flier in her hand and throwing herself back into her hobbling. “I’m way too old for this shit.”
And with that thought firmly in her head, she vaulted over the nearest fence to dive into an open manhole.
Author's Note
Getting this from 300~ words to 1000~ was annoyingly difficult. I had to add another scene.
