Intensive Training

Applejack grunted. A hobnailed boot slammed into the trunk of an apple tree, knocking a few stragglers from the upper branches, but her heart wasn't really in it.

Darn that Rainbow!

For months now, there had been something going on with that mare. She'd been doing better in their frequent competitions, for one thing. She'd been awake in the mornings and doing things, when Applejack was long used to Rainbow barely existing before noon. She'd begged out of parties and meet ups, which wasn't like her at all, but she seemed to have more energy than ever.

Been properly tight-lipped about it, too.

Applejack wasn't one to stick her nose where it wasn't wanted. Wasn't one to gossip, neither. But as it went on and on, and Rainbow never got around to blabbing, the mystery of it all was starting to drive her nuts. That distracted her when she was around Rainbow, which meant she lost their contests even more, and that plain wasn't no good.

Bending to pick up the stray apples, Applejack tossed them one by one into the basket beside her. In truth, the harvest was finished days ago, and under normal circumstances a couple of strays here and there didn't warrant gathering. This was about distracting herself.

The way she'd figured, to see that kind of improvement, Rainbow had to be doing some kind of physical training. So she'd asked. And yep, while Rainbow still didn't spill the beans, she did start hinting about some kind of hard exercise sessions she was up to. Some trainer was really putting her through her paces, somepony Rainbow really respected.

Best as Applejack could guess, that'd be that Wonderbolt instructor, Spitfire. There was this look that Rainbow got when she talked about Spitfire. Last time they'd met up at Pinkie's, Spitfire had been there, and Applejack had spent pretty much the whole party keeping an eye on her, trying to spot some sign she was right.

Still, no matter how many times Applejack had sidelong suggested that she was looking for somepony to put her through her paces, Rainbow hadn't seemed to pick up on it. Not until today, anyway.

Applejack's boot thudded into the tree again. Darn that mare! How dare she-

A tawny streak flashed by overhead.

"Hey!" hollered Applejack upwards, before she could even stop to think. "Hey, you!"

Oh, what now?! Spitfire's wings flared, cupping the air as she discarded her forward momentum. Rainbow was nowhere to be found, and she knew better than to miss one of their sessions! Thwarted anticipation and pent-up lust sharpened her annoyance at the interruption, and she called back crossly, "What? What is it?" as she looked down.

Down below, amongst the greenery, she caught sight of an upturned face beneath a familiar hat.

Applejack.

Spitfire's heart juddered in her chest, a tingling making her feathers stand on end. Coughing, she added, "Hold on." Slowing her wingbeats, she began to descend towards the other mare.

The farm pony nodded up at her. "Howdy, Spitfire. Thought it was you. Going someplace?" The question sounded casual, but there was an odd edge to her tone.

Despite herself, Spitfire felt the prickling of goosebumps race over her skin. Rainbow must have had the conversation, hadn't she? She should have, days ago. Did this mean...?

Trying to keep her tone casual, Spitfire asked, "Have you seen Rainbow? She was supposed to meet me at her place. We have a - I was expecting her." She wore a dark blue flight suit, clinging fabric tight against her body, and there was a playbag of toys and tools strapped between her wings, ready for their weekly special appointment.

"Oh, Ah know. One of your special training sessions, right?"

Spitfire froze.

Applejack nodded to herself. Judging by the way Spitfire's expression changed, she'd hit the nail right on the head. Jackpot. Spitfire was Rainbow's trainer!

"...yes, that's right," Spitfire agreed slowly, an odd, half-reticent, half-eager expression on her face. "She's had the talk with you about that, has she?"

"She sure has! She came down here earlier today and talked about it," answered Applejack firmly. And the damn nerve of her! Rainbow had spent half the darn morning talking in circles, hinting about the training she was doing, trying to creep up sideways on the idea of inviting Applejack to join her. And when Applejack had gotten fed up of the rambling and said that she wanted to be part of the exercise sessions - why, Rainbow had suddenly changed her mind!

Apparently, it was a bad idea to invite Applejack, and she wouldn't like it anyway. Apparently it was mostly held in Rainbow's house, which was difficult to get to for earth ponies, and it was for pegasus types like her anyway, and a whole rack of rotten excuses! "She talked about inviting me to the training sessions she goes to, and Ah said Ah wanted to do it," Applejack declared. "So if she's skipped out on you, you can come and do it with me instead."

Spitfire swallowed, her gaze drifting over Applejack from head to toe. "Look, Applejack. I don't know you like I know Rainbow. Let's not rush into anything. I'll talk to her first."

Applejack frowned with annoyance. If she wanted to train the way Rainbow was training, and Spitfire was willing, then it wasn't any business of Rainbow's to begin with! "Look, Ah want to do this, and Ah don't see why you need to go running off to talk to her first," she replied crossly. "I know you've been training Rainbow up. Well, anything she can do, I can do, and you can ride me as rough as you like. I know I'm not a pegasus, and I don't fly, but you tell me to jump, and I will jump so high you'll think I've got wings. One session, alright?"

Spitfire's cheeks reddened, and her lips pressed together.

Applejack folded her brawny arms across her chest, waiting.

"...you realise that if you sign up for this, I am going to treat you roughly," Spitfire said in a lower tone, her gaze locking onto Applejack's. "I need to get a sense of your limits. I will give you orders, and you will follow them. And if you can't take it, if it's not for you, you tell me 'I quit' and we'll stop then and there. We'll need an enclosed space, obviously. Somewhere private."

"Right. You better believe you won't hear those words from me," Applejack answered firmly. Anything Rainbow could take, she could take, that was for damn sure! "There's room in the cider barn, and nopony'll be wandering by there."

Throat dry, Spitfire turned to follow Applejack as the other mare headed purposefully off across the fields, winding her way between the endless rows of trees. Celestia's mane, Applejack was tall. She easily had six inches of height on Spitfire, and more on Rainbow, not to mention far broader than either of them; the earth pony was a wall of a mare, dressed casually in loose, tatty jeans and a checked green shirt.

Where to even begin? The first time dominating Rainbow... well, she'd known Rainbow, even if they hadn't slept together before. She knew the tells that the lithe flier gave off when she was scared, or sore, or toughing it out. But this mare... they'd barely talked before. Where do you start with a pony that's nearly a stranger?

"Here," Applejack remarked, stopping by one of the large, red-painted barns that stood along one edge of the central working area of the farm. Seizing the sliding door, she pulled it back, then gestured Spitfire inside. "In y'go."

Spitfire stepped through the doorway.

It was a big space, standing mostly empty but for a complex tangle of fermenting equipment at one end. Heavy wooden beams supported the arch of the roof, a couple of empty lanterns hung on chains. The walls were roughly made, as were the floorboards, but the wood had darkened and grown smooth with age and use. Small chinks between planks let in rays of sunshine from outside, filling the place with a soft golden glow. The air smelt sharply of apples.

The heavy clonk of wood against wood behind her drew Spitfire's attention. Applejack had braced a plank between the wall and the framework of the closed door.

Dusting off her hands, Applejack nodded firmly. "Right. Nopony's coming through there. Private enough for you?"

"...yes, that's fine." Spitfire nodded once, swallowing a surge of uncertainty. She had to focus, now. She had to look in command, sound in command, feel in command. Hardening her tone, she straightened her back and ordered, "Stand over here. Right in the middle."

"Uh... sure. Guess we're going to need some space for all this." Applejack walked over to the centre of the barn, then turned and gave a half-shrug of her broad shoulders. Her lips pressed together, her hands fidgeting at the seams of her pockets. A slightly uncertain tone in her voice, she added, "Now what? You tell me what to do from here, right?"

Taking a deep breath, Spitfire let it out in a long, controlled exhale. "That's right, Applejack. I tell you what to do from here. If I tell you to do something and you don't feel like you can do it, you know how to make it all stop. You say-"

"Ah know, Ah know. 'Ah quit'. Well, that's the only time you'll hear that from me," replied Applejack stubbornly. "Whatever that stripe-tail pain in the butt can take, Ah c'n take it too."

"Be quiet." Spitfire's voice snapped out like a whip.

Blinking, Applejack opened her mouth to retort, then shut it again, put her hands on her hips, and glared.

"Firstly, while you are following my commands, you will show me the proper respect due to your superior. That means addressing me by title, and not interrupting. Secondly, I've been training Rainbow for a year now, so don't get cocky, and don't discount what she's achieved with me. You will be lucky if you even do as well as she did the first time. Understood?"

Applejack's glare intensified, a baleful green light under the brim of her worn Stetson. She held her stare for a long moment, then looked down at the floor and growled, "Yeah, Ah understand."

Spitfire's fingers drummed against her thigh, her eyes narrowing. This isn't going to work.

There was a core of iron-hard determination in this mare, Spitfire could feel it, and if she tried to set her own will against it, she knew that all she'd do was make a fool of herself. Rainbow liked being pulled up short, liked being put in her place. But Applejack...

If she was going to get anywhere with Applejack, she needed that determination to work for her.

"Applejack."

Applejack looked up, visibly confused by the sudden shift to a gentler tone. Before she could say anything, Spitfire rested a hand on her shoulder, and looked up into her face.

"This isn't an endurance contest, where you keep doing things you don't want until it's over. I want to push you. I want to see what you're capable of. I want to show you what you're capable of. I don't know you as well as I'd want to, but we can learn each other as we go, as long as we keep talking. I think you can make me proud. So. Do you want this?"

"I..." Applejack hesitated, then nodded once, firmly. "Yeah. Ah want to know what Rainbow's been going through, and Ah want to match her."

"Right. Rainbow calls me Ma'am, or Commander, during our sessions. What title do you associate with authority, Applejack? Try a few if you want."

"Uh. Uhm." Applejack's eyes flicked to the side, then she muttered, "Uh, Ma'am will do fine then, Ah guess."

Spitfire let a little of her natural authority creep back into her voice. "Are you going to work hard?"

Applejack nodded, her face setting into an increasingly familiar stubborn look. "Ah'll work hard. Ma'am."

Now they were getting somewhere. "Again," Spitfire commanded.

Squaring her shoulders, Applejack stood a little straighter. "Ah'll work hard, Ma'am!"

"You will follow my orders until the session is over," Spitfire said firmly.

"Ah'll follow your orders, Ma'am."

"Again!"

"Ah'll follow orders, Ma'am!"

Spitfire stepped back, and gazed directly into Applejack's eyes. "Tell me you're going to do your best to make me proud."

"Ah swear, Ah'll make you proud, Ma'am!"

Spitfire gestured, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

Raising her voice loud enough to echo around the barn, Applejack declared with absolute sincerity, "Ah will make you proud of me, Ma'am!"

She meant it. Applejack stood tall, looking down at the trim, lithe figure of the flight instructor, and in that moment, she truly wanted nothing more than to show the other mare that she could work hard. She could work harder than anypony born, Princesses, Wonderbolts, the lot. All she wanted - all she'd ever wanted - was to make those she cared about proud of her. And in some way she couldn't understand and wasn't even trying to, at this moment making this pony proud of her mattered more than anything.

She was ready for anything, no matter how hard. Drag a boulder a mile? Carry a cart on her back? Heck, the way she felt, she could buck down a castle!

"I believe you," Spitfire said, with a kind of quiet certainty. "Now. Let's see what I've got to work with. Strip."

...Applejack was not ready for that.

"Strip?!" she echoed dumbly, blinking. She couldn't possibly have heard right!

"That's right. Right here, right now. All of it," confirmed Spitfire levelly.

"Buh... but those're mah clothes," Applejack protested incoherently. "Rainbow did this?!"

"That's right. First session, every session. You're surprised?" Spitfire looked slightly taken aback.

Rainbow's big secret was that she was exercising naked? What the buck?

The silent moment stretched as Applejack fumbled for words, suddenly finding it hard to meet the other mare's gaze. But when she finally did glance up, there was something on Spitfire's face that Applejack just couldn't bear to see. Held back, covered as best she could, but unmistakable disappointment.

"...if that's too much for you, we can-"

"No, Ma'am!" Applejack cut her off, hammering certainty into her own voice. "Ah c'n do this!"

After all, she reasoned to herself, it was only the two of them. They were all mares, here. No wonder Spitfire had wanted privacy! Was this why Rainbow had told her she wouldn't be able to train the way she did? Well - well, what nonsense! She wasn't scared of a bit of bare skin! Not at all!

Her hand moved, slowly, to the top button of her shirt.

Spitfire barely dared breathe. Whatever Applejack might have been anticipating, obviously she hadn't expected things to go straight to getting naked. The slightest wrong move now, and either the farm pony would just call it off, or she herself would have to. But to her own surprise, Spitfire found herself abruptly consumed with the need to see just what the other mare kept hidden under her baggy, work-torn clothes, so unlike the form-fitting uniforms she was used to. Her nails dug into her palms as she watched, prickles of excitement racing up and down her spine.

One by one, the buttons came undone, exposing an ever-widening slice of freckled cleavage, and a heavy-duty black bra frayed with wear. There was no sound but for their breathing, shallow and rapid, falling in and out of sync.

Applejack shrugged out of her shirt, pulling the sleeves down her arms, and tossed it aside.

Spitfire's breathing caught.

There wasn't a hint of the fat she'd been expecting. Applejack's stomach was flat and ridged, her whole upper body powerfully built and hard with well-earned muscle. Not the demonstrative swells and curves of a bodybuilder, but the tough, robust physique of somepony with a lot of hard labour to do, and the stamina to see it through. Compared to the slender, wiry bodies of the professional fliers Spitfire spent all her time with, the big mare looked like she could punch through a mountain.

Applejack looked down and to the left, her cheeks burning with a crimson blush. Gesturing at her bra, she muttered, "This too, Ma'am?"

Celestia's mane, yes, yes... Spitfire nearly whispered it aloud. Catching herself and forcing authority back into her voice, she said clearly, "That, and the rest of it."

"...yes, Ma'am."

Spitfire watched with a flaring, urgent hunger as Applejack reached behind herself, and with a twist of her fingers, unhooked her bra. With blunt, straight-forward movements, she tugged the straps loose, and let the tattered garment fall.

This time, a low whimper really did escape the pegasus's parted lips. The earth pony's breasts were huge, thrusting out for inspection, dusted with darker orange freckles across the upper slopes and capped with delicious brown-orange nipples that practically cried out for the tender attentions of her tongue. A shudder wracked Spitfire's body, her own nipples rock hard against the clinging confines of her flight suit, her wings flared out behind her.

"...very good, Applejack. Keep going."

Long, long after, that was a memory that lingered. Applejack, slowly stripping before her for the first time, almost glowing in the dim golden light, and the sharp scent of apples hanging in the air.

Bending down, Applejack tugged the laces of her boots loose, then kicked them off. The thick, heavy soles thudded loudly against the floorboards, like punctuation. A long moment of hesitation, then she abruptly unfastened her jeans and shoved them down with her underwear in one push, hopping out of them, then tossing them aside to land in a crumpled heap atop her boots.

The farm pony straightened, breathing fast and shallow, stark naked but for her hat. "Right. Done. Let's git on with it."

"Not yet," Spitfire contradicted. Shrugging off the shoulder straps, she dropped her canvas bag to the floor with a dull metallic clink. "Stand straight, and don't move. I want to inspect you."

Applejack's gaze dropped to the floor once more, as she squared her shoulders and stiffened her spine. "...yes, Ma'am."

Walking slowly, holding onto an expression of calm authority, Spitfire began to circle the naked pony. Only when she was behind Applejack did she drop the mask for an instant, lifting her gaze to the unseen skies and thanking Celestia, Luna and anypony else that felt responsible. The earth pony's body was unbelievable.

Take, for instance, her ass; broad and firm, almost unbearably tempting to squeeze and caress, to feel that muscular hardness directly. Powerful, tapering thighs led up to her bare sex, where a surprisingly neatly-trimmed strip of blonde hair led to the big mare's exposed pussy. Skies above, it was all she could do not to just bury her tongue in Applejack that very instant! Calluses on her heels, and the occasional pale scar on her orange skin cemented the impression of a body that was hard-used, and not just for show. She'd hidden all this under those baggy clothes all this time?

Finally, Spitfire spoke, in a calm, level tone. "You have an incredible body, Applejack. I can see you've worked hard for it. I am very impressed."

It took Applejack a second to answer.

Plainly, she'd been nervous about getting undressed in front of somepony she barely knew - anypony would be. Somehow it didn't feel like a surprise that Rainbow would just charge into something like this; it wasn't like those leotard things they wore left much to the imagination anyway. Well, anything she could do, Applejack could do too, that was that.

But the thing was...

...the thing was, that when Spitfire ordered her to stay still while she looked her over, something changed. The nervousness dwindled. She was being inspected like a piece of livestock, and somehow, that didn't feel bad. Little by little, her shallow breathing grew slower and deeper. Her green eyes half-closed, barely seeing at all. A strange calmness settled over her. She didn't know what was coming next, and for the moment, she didn't care. All she had to do was stand still, and be seen.

And then Spitfire spoke.

Spitfire was proud of her. The rush of approval, of having pleased the ones she cared about, of having done a good job... it was every good feeling, rolled up together. The echoes of Spitfire's words played over and over through her head, filling her with warmth. She'd never felt so joyously satisfied about her own body.

Finally, almost without thinking, her voice heavy with sincerity, she breathed, "Thank you, Ma'am."

"Good girl," Spitfire said quietly, sending another twinge of happiness through Applejack. "Stay right there."

There was a subtle tugging on Applejack's tail, as she felt Spitfire's fingers run through it. Then, before she could fully process the realisation, Spitfire's hand moved to her ass and squeezed firmly.

"Whoa nelly!" Applejack yelped, jerking forward and twisting around. "What'n the hay are you doing?"

Spitfire recoiled as though she'd been slapped. "You don't want to be touched? Did you tell Rainbow that? She hasn't told me what you agreed-"

"Why'd you need to touch me at all? All you need to do is explain the exercises-"

"Exercises? What are you talking about?"

Realisation thudded home, like an anvil falling out of the sky. Her voice high with incredulousness, Applejack spluttered, "Wait, this is a sex thing?!"