Her orchard at night. The moon and stars above us, a light rain falling around us, the gnarled and hoary apple trees casting black shadows in the dark. We were here again, caught up in each other, and I never knew how it came to this, but somehow it always did.
She lay on top of me, the warmth and weight of her body a familiar comfort. Some nights she’d take the hat off, letting it fall aside like an old forgotten thing, but not tonight. Tonight her hat was planted firmly on her head. Under it, her blonde mane spread out, though it looked almost silver in the moonlight. Her mouth moved against mine, hot and soft and tasting predictably fruity.
Her orchard at night, and now it was a bit later at night, because it was over. We lay side-by-side, panting, wet with more than just rain water. Our backs rested against the rough old trunk of one of her trees. For a while, we said nothing. She turned her face skyward and watched the moonlight dapple brokenly down through the leaves. I watched her, and I knew she was beautiful, but I guess I had always known that. It was only lately that I had found that beauty impossible to resist.
At length, she spoke, and when she did, her voice was like cider—at least, that’s the image it always conjured in my head. Just like the beverage which was one of her farm’s claims to fame, her voice was sweet, strong, a little bit bubbly. Also much like cider, her voice had a strange tendency to make me feel lightheaded, warm, and tingly.
With her cider-voice, she said the words that she would always say, after it was over:
“We can’t keep doing this.”
On every night before, I had agreed with her. I had said “I know,” we had said our goodbyes, and then returned to our own houses. At least until the next time her orchard drew us in with the promise of being together.
This night, however, I didn’t agree. I can’t say for sure what made me do it. All I know is, almost before I was aware of it, I found myself saying:
“Well why not?”
She looked at me then, piercingly. I gulped, but held her gaze.
“First off, Rainbow, what would everypony say?”
“Um, congratulations?” I offered. “I honestly think they’d be thrilled if they found out we were together.”
“Are we, though?” she said. “Together, I mean?”
“We can be.”
She scoffed.
“I’m serious,” I said. “We can be together, if you want to. I want to.” Heat filled my face with those words, but I didn’t regret them.
“Is that so?” she said, shooting me a sidelong, appraising look.
“Yeah,” I said. “And if we made... y’know, us... official, we could finally tell everypony else. They’d be happy for us.”
“Maybe,” she said, “and maybe not.”
I sighed. “AJ, please don’t make me regret asking this, but what do you mean, ‘maybe not’?”
“What I mean is, they might’ve been happy for us if we told em right from the start. But we’ve been doing... what we just did... for months now.”
“And who says they have to know about that?”
“Well for one, I do,” she said. “It’s one thing to sneak around like we been—I don’t like it, but I can handle it. It’s another thing entirely to only tell your friends half the truth.”
“This truth business is an all-or-nothing deal, huh?”
“Yep,” she said. “You got a problem with that?”
“No,” I said, and I truly didn’t. With Applejack, truth, honesty, and openness were part of the deal, and I would have been crazy to want to change that.
“I’m sorry, Dash,” she went on after a moment, and her voice was softer, “but that would make me feel even more dishonest than I already do, and you know how much I hate that. Me and dishonesty go together about as well as long-tailed cats and rocking chairs.”
I had to laugh at that. “I know, AJ,” I said, and slugged her playfully. “But did you ever think you’re not giving our friends enough credit?”
“Ain’t sure I follow you,” she said, returning my punch with interest.
“I mean, sure, they might be surprised if we tell them about what we’ve been doing. They might even need some time to come to terms with it. But do you really think they’d abandon us totally over something like this?”
She was silent for a while, though I could still see her face in the dimness. After all the years we’d known each other, I could read her when I wanted to. The darkness showed me just enough to tell me that she was fighting with something. Her brows were knit, and her jaw clenched rhythmically.
Yet at last, she spoke again. “No, they wouldn’t,” she said. “Not after everything we’ve been through.”
“Exactly,” I said, “so what’s wrong with telling them?”
“Nothing, I guess. But if you want the whole truth, I’m scared.” She punctuated her sentence by hiding her face in her hat, in a way I knew meant she was blushing.
I laid a hoof on her. “Honestly, I’m kinda scared, too. But isn’t it better to tell the truth and face the consequences? I mean, this kinda feels like what you’d be telling me in any other situation.”
Her body shook as she chuckled. “When you’re right, you’re right, Rainbow.”
“So we can tell them?”
“Yep, I think we better.”
“But it’s not gonna be easy.”
“No,” Applejack said, and I could hear her take a deep breath. “No it ain’t. It’s funny, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the truth really is a double-edged sword. There’s a mighty fine line to be walked. It’s hard to know what truth ponies wanna hear, and what truth is only gonna hurt their feelings. Most of the time you don’t know til after you tell em.”
“But if there’s one thing I’ve learned,” I said, “it’s that sometimes you just have to take chances in life. I didn’t become a Wonderbolt by being scared of risks, you know.”
“I know. And even a crabby old apple farmer like me can’t avoid every risk in life. The way I see it, we made our bed with this situation. Now we just gotta lay in it. We’ll tell em tomorrow.”
“That sounds more like the Applejack I know,” I said.
“More like the one I know, too.”
“So...” I said.
“So what?”
“Are you gonna invite me to spend the night? Since we’re together now, and everything.”
“Rainbow, yer pushin it.”
“I know,” I said, smiling at her, “but can I stay?”
She nodded, laughing.