“Yo, Ponks.” Rainbow Dash plucks a cookie off of Fluttershy’s lunch tray as she walks by their lunch table. “You seen AJ?”
Pinkie leans slowly and protectively over her lunch, which is all dessert. “I ain’t seen her since high noon, cowboy.”
“It is noon,” Twilight points out from behind Rainbow, offering Fluttershy a cookie of her own. The bustle and clatter of dishes and conversation in the packed lunch room emphasizes her point.
“It’s always high noon,” Pinkie whispers darkly, eyes squinted.
“Super helpful,” Rainbow says before tossing the entire cookie in her mouth. She turns to say something to Flutterhy, but sees a cookie in her hand. “Dude, fo’ meh? Thanksh.”
Whimpering, Fluttershy surrenders the cookie.
“What do you need AJ for?” Sunset asks, handing Twilight two cookie despite the girl’s wordless protest.
Rainbow shrugs, still chewing. “Jush ‘caushe.”
“I could get her for you,” Rarity offers. She then adds her cookie to Twilight’s stack, saying, “I’m cutting back, darling.”
“Naw – “
“Swallow, please.”
Rainbow does, loudly enough to be heard against the background rumble in the cafeteria. “Nah, I’ll catch her ‘round eventually.”
Rarity watches fondly as Twilight splits her charity funds with Fluttershy. “Oh, it would be no trouble. You know Applejack has a way of always answering my call. We’re close like that.”
“Yeah, I seriously doubt – oh, thanks, ‘Shy – doubt that.” Rainbow bites into her newly acquired cookie. “I know you’re kinda clueless, and I hate to break it to ya, but she’s just not into you.”
Rarity smiles wryly and sarcastically says, “Oh, my poor heart. I’m calling her.”
“It’sh finhheh.” Rarity glares at the crumbs that fall from Rainbows mouth. Rainbow wipes them off the table lazily. “I’ll shee her lay-her.”
“So siddown and eat with us!” Pinkie chirps, but her expression is dark as she looks between her last cookie and Fluttershy. She sighs a heavy, tired sigh and thrusts the dessert to Fluttershy while looking the other way.
Rainbow shakes her head. “Nah, not hungry. Had an energy bar in class.”
“She did,” Twilight confirms. “I was there when she got in trouble for it.”
“You should eat,” Rarity advises.
Rainbow backpedals from the table. “Nah, not hungry. ‘Cept I’m a slut for cookies,” she adds as she picks the cookie out of Fluttershy’s fingers. “Fluttershy gets that about me, y’know? Unlike you and AJ.”
“Applejack gets me very much,” Rarity calls out as Rainbow departs.
Rainbow clicks her tongue and winks before munching away on the cookie. “Thanksh, F’wuffershy!”
Fluttershy waves sadly.
Sunset turns to Rarity. “You worry too much.”
“I worry enough,” Rarity argues.
Sunset raises her hands defensively. “Okay, sure.”
Elbow on table, Rarity leans her chin on her palm. “Applejack would have understood me.”
“Applejack would’da understood me,” Pinkie says, toothpick in mouth. “It’s still high noon.”
Everyone collectively returns to their lunch and idle chatter, Twilight looking at the remains of Pinkie’s lunch as she talks to Sunset, and Pinkie staring down Twilight as she explains to Fluttershy why it’s high noon, not low.
Rarity herself is distracted, looking out at the cafeteria doors.
Rarity pulls herself over Applejack’s desk and sits cross-legged.
Applejack looks at her, waits, then returns to packing up her bookbag. “Howdy.”
She opens her mouth to say something, then frowns, and instead says, “Oh dear, you actually do speak like that.”
“Talk like what?” Applejack asks, stopping her work. “Talk like this? I always talk like this, what’re you talkin’ about?”
“I forget sometimes. Blame it on Pinkie this time,” Rarity sighs. “But do you always have to make it a fight?”
Applejack crosses her arms. “Make what a fight? I ain’t fightin’.”
Rarity leans back on her palms. “Of course. Listen.”
“No.”
“You should talk to Rainbow Dash.”
“Uh,” is Applejack’s immediate answer.
“You’ve been avoiding her.”
As she resumes her packing, Applejack makes a face and shakes her head. “I talked to her yesterday. An’ she didn’t have a problem with the way I talk.”
“Not – oh, ta-ta, Roseluck! – not like that. Like, talk.”
Applejack says something, but the last students quickly filtering out knock over a chair and Rarity squeals. She repeats herself: “And you say I talk weird. You always say things and expect all’a us to just get’ch’ya.”
“Ugh!” Rarity groans.
“Uh-huh.” Applejack slings her bag over one shoulder and starts walking off. Rarity pushes off the desk and follows.
“She wants to talk to you,” Rarity says from behind her in a tone thats deceptively flat for how heavy it sounds.
“Sure. Let’s talk.”
Falling in step beside her as they walk out of the classroom and down the hallway, Rarity gives Applejack an easy smile. “You should talk to her.”
Applejack looks at Rarity, rolls her eyes, and sighs through her nose. “Look, it – no. I ain’t tryna be insensitive, but it’s been like half a year. She would’da come t’me sooner about that.” She returns Rarity’s gaze. “Am I gettin’ yer drift, honey?”
“Yes, but you’re sending it downstream.”
“No. Nope. Im’ma stoppin’ you there.” She stopps dead-centre in the hallway and gave Rarity a scrutinizing stare down. “Listen.”
“No.”
“I know you think you know us, and that you’re all insightful and know us, and sometimes you do. But sometimes you just have no clue how people think.” She eases back a bit, pushes her hat up. “And lemme tell ya: RD don’t wanna get all heart-to-heart ‘bout anything right now. She just keeps pushin’ forward, stubborn as a mule. That’s RD for ya.”
Rarity purses her lips, hesitates to answer. “Well, yes. But still. She was asking for you. And she’s stubborn. She wants to talk to you about it. Because you’ve been through it – and because she relates to you!” she adds when Applejack’s stare hardens.
Applejack half-chuckles as she starts walking again, sidestepping a group of girls. “You’re readin’ too much into – yeah, see ya, Roseluck. So needy – too much into things. If Dash wants t’talk, she’ll talk. Simple as pie.”
Rarity snorts in her unconvinced way. “I’m more of a cookie person myself.”
Applejack shrugs. “I don’t know why you do this. You’re so – look, there’s Dash”
The both of them wave automatically as Applejack calls out to Rainbow Dash, who’s leaning against a locker and talking to Fluttershy.
“Look, I’ll talk t’her now, and it’ll be normal. ‘Kay?” She glances sidelong at Rarity softly, quickly. “You’re a kind soul, sugarcube. But you’re also kinda bizarre about it sometimes.”
They catch up to Rainbow and Fluttershy before Rarity could say anything, and fall naturally into a conversation that starts with the weird way Applejack talks and ends with a new inside joke none of them really know the source of.
All the while, Rarity is distracted by Rainbow’s laugh.
“Rarity.”
“Yes, darling?”
“How did you get into my room?”
Rarity sits in the middle of a large circle of maybe a hundred Girl Scout cookie boxes. “Is that seriously your first question?”
Rainbow pokes on of the boxes with a socked toe. “Hmm. Yeah.”
Sighing like it’s a chore, Rarity explains. “Your father let me in. He even helped me get all of these in.”
Rainbow nods, shrugs – “Aight.” – and steps around the landslide that looks very in-place surrounded by an equally disorderly room.
“Umm?” Rarity squeaks out. “Are you not going to ask anything else?”
Sat in her chair at her desk, Rainbow looks back and hums. “You wanna watch some vids with me?”
Rarity rolls over her side so she can look Rainbow dead in the eye with arms outstretched. “Perhaps after a snack?”
“Look, when I said I was a slut for cookies I forgot who I was talking to. You’re on a whole other level of slut. Like,” she holds her hands up, two feet apart, “I’m a chill slut down here, and you’re like, slutty up here.”
“Um, have you seen your room, or can you with all this chaos?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Rarity lifts her chin. “Slut used to be used to describe people with messy rooms.”
Rainbow looks at Rarity as if she’s grown a second head. “Where are you even getting this BS from?”
“Reputable. Articles.” Rarity emphasizes. She then lifts a hand. “But we’re getting off-point. Do you not care that I brought you five hundred cookies in the hour it took you to finish your ridiculous contest with Applejack?”
Rainbow’s face relaxes almost too much. “Oh, nah. That’s pretty normal for you. You’re extra that way.” She turns back around to her laptop.
Rarity stares at the back of Rainbow’s head for a few solid seconds before biting out, “I don’t like how unsurprising my surprises are getting.”
“We don’t either,” Rainbow says without turning around. “Do you wanna just watch one of those funny compilation vids?”
“I want to talk.”
“Ugh.” Rainbow turns her head back again. “Dude, seriously.”
“Why did you want to talk to Applejack?”
“Because she came and said hi to me? You were there.”
“No,” Rarity gets up and tries to find a way out of her cookie trap without stepping on anything that wasn’t the floor, “before that. At lunch.”
Rainbow gives her a blank look. “I wanted to talk to her at lunch?”
She takes a gamble and hops over, landing on a t-shirt. “Yes. And I said I’d call her and you said no and you ate cookies.”
“Oh. I dunno man. Prob’ly no big deal.”
With the shirt in hand, Rarity closes the distance between them. “Well I think you wanted to talk to her about things.”
“Sure.” Rainbow shrugs. “You wanna watch this one? videos i think about when my friends crying about her dead dog?”
“See?”
“See what?”
Rarity points at Rainbow’s computer screen. “Subconsciously, it still bothers you.”
“Dogs dying?”
“Just dying.”
“Oh,” Rainbow says simply. “Oh. Oh. Huh. That. That’s reaching.”
“No.”
“Yeah. Yeah, no.” Rainbow shrugs, half laughs, and smiles. “I’m good. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”
Rarity doesn’t say anything for a moment. Neither does Rainbow Dash.
Then, “Is that what the cookies are for?”
“Well they aren’t for your looks, darling.”
Rainbow glances over at the cookies again. “Oh. I mean – “ she laughs a bit more, grins a bit wider – “like, thanks, dude. But you’re a little late.”
When Rarity doesn’t join in the laughter, Rainbow just shrugs at her. She frowns, sits herself on the desk, and kicks her legs glumly.
“I suppose I did act on my own assumptions today, didn’t I?”
Rainbow gives her a sympathetic look. “Aw, don’t be so rough on yourself. It’s just your thing.”
Rarity shakes her head, and looks down at the shirt she’s started to wring in her hands. “And here I thought I was to be the one consoling you.”
“Hey, crazier things have happened. Some dude I never met died and I went to his funeral and felt kinda crummy.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Rarity offers.
“Not really. I mean, yeah, he is – was? – my dad, but I never knew that ‘til I was thirteen, and that was a whole other thing with mom and dad and – “ Rainbow runs a hand through her hair and sniffs. “You heard me whine about that back then.”
Rarity nods, slowly. “I did. Except back then I didn’t understand you much, and I thought when you didn’t say something, you weren’t thinking about it. But maybe that’s how it is.”
Rainbow leans back against the chair, hands behind her head. “Maybe. Or not, I don’t always know. Maybe in another six months it’s gonna actually hit me and I’m gonna freak or cry or something.” She tries to kick at Rarity’s swaying feet. “And I’m not gonna go around saying I wanna talk about it.”
“Well, I would imagine the cookies will last you that long,” Rarity says wryly.
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I’m a slut for cookies.”
“And I know sluts.”
“Yeah you do,” Rainbow chuckles, and Rarity joins in. When the laughter peters out, Rainbow adds, “And maybe you know me better than we think you do. You just like making a scene outta everything.”
Rarity throws the shirt at Rainbow Dash, and leans over to get a view of the computer monitor. “You know, we might end up watching these compilations until two in the morning. Would help to have a snack.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow sighs. “Wanna see if there’s a bag of chips in my pantry?”
They share a laugh before Rainbow grabs a chair and cold fries from the kitchen for the three-hour funny video marathon that distracts herself and Rarity from the mountain of cookies they’ll have to deal with eventually.
Author's Note
Sometimes you want to write what's in your head. Sometimes, it comes out very differently. Let's see what comes of it.
