Applejack awoke to the sudden, rhythmic shaking of her bed. She knew right away that it was her brother. Somewhere along the way growing up, Big Mac had figured out the fastest way to get Applejack out of bed was to start shaking it; it worked best when he hit a very specific rhythm. Needless to say, he had become very proficient at the task.
“Dang it, Macintosh, it’s Saturday!” The agitated mare exclaimed. “Why don’t you let me sleep in for once?”
“Nope, you got to get over to Miss Twilight’s place today.” He replied, continuing to rock his sister’s bed.
“What for?” She snapped.
“You promised Miss Pinkie somethin’ about gettin’ her a book.”
“Oh, right... that book about kumquats...” She groggily turned to her brother with a stern glare. “Now, will you quit shaking my bed.”
Admittedly, it was hard to take her too seriously when she wobbled back and forth. Her glare just wasn’t as intimidating when she couldn’t keep it leveled at him for more than a second. The big stallion grinned as he continued to shake the bed. “Nope, if I stop you’ll just go back to sleep.”
Applejack let out a frustrated groan. He never did let her sleep in.
She begrudgingly climbed out of her soft, warm bed. She cast a longing glance back at her pillow; she could swear it was calling out to her, “Come back to sleep!”
She shook her head to clear away some of the morning’s drowsiness. “You got breakfast up yet?” She asked as she retrieved her hat from its spot on the wall rack.
“Yup, the usual.”
“Good, I’ll see ya at the table.” With that, the siblings departed towards the kitchen.
Breakfast was a simple ordeal at Sweet Apple Acres, often just a bowl of cinnamon-apple oatmeal. Applejack downed her oatmeal quickly, as she always had, leaving her to begin the trek to the town library.
“Sheesh, why’d I agree to this?” She asked aloud in hopes that some inanimate object might speak up with the answer. After all, what better reason to stay home and sleep than if you start hearing rocks talk back to you?
I can’t believe Pinkie wants a book on kumquats. And why does it have’ta be today? Sure she’s stuck helping the Cakes fill that massive catering order, so she can’t get it herself, but I don’t get why she can’t wait until she actually needs it? She thought as the library came into view.
Applejack never understood why somepony had decided to turn a big tree into a library. Perhaps it was meant to be ironic? Here ya go, we’ll just fill this here tree with the remains of its kin. Admittedly, she laughed more at her own joke than she should have.
She reached a hoof up and knocked on the door. To her surprise, the door simply swung open. Guess Spike forgot to close it properly. Oh well, Twilight should be up by now. Without further hesitation the farmer let herself in, making sure to properly close the door behind her.
As always, the place was immaculate. Not a visible speck of dust, nor a single book that wasn’t perfectly flush with its neighbors. It might not seem like it to the average pony, but Twilight - or Spike - put as much effort into keeping the library tidy as Applejack did for the farm. Before meeting Twilight, the farmer had never suspected how much time and effort a pony could put into running a library. Granted, Twilight was more than a bit obsessive over it. Most librarians didn’t have the entire town’s population fill out questionnaires about what genres of books they like in order to adjust their stock accordingly.
Applejack looked around to see if anypony was downstairs. Finding neither Twilight or Spike on the main floor, she decided to head upstairs. Twilight had a habit of holing herself up in her room to make all sorts of checklists and things in the morning, so it was a good bet she was still on the ‘triple check the checklist to make sure she didn’t miss anything when she double checked the checklist’ step.
The door to Twilight’s room swung open. “Hey, Twilight, I just need to...” Applejack’s thoughts came to a halt when she saw what her friend was doing.
Rainbow Dash was perched on top of Twilight, their bellies pressed together. There was a visible layer of sweat that gave their coats a glossy sheen in the morning light that poured in from the window. The pair had frozen up the moment Applejack had spoken, leaving an awkward silence hanging in the air.
What. The. Hay... Okay, just calm down AJ. This may be the most awkward thing you’ve caught your friends doing since you walked in on Rarity flirting with her mirror, but you can still get out of here with some dignity intact. Her mind raced as the pregnant pause grew steadily more awkward.
Bingo! Just play it off like you have no idea what you just saw. Yeah, that’ll work... I hope.
“RD, why didn’t you tell me you wanted to practice wrestlin’? You know I’m a better match for ya than little Twilight here.” It was a fact that Applejack was a terrible liar. She held no expectations that this would work, which made what happened next that much more surprising.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were off today, AJ. Why don’t you join in?” Rainbow replied casually.
Did she just buy that load of-
“Yeah, we can have one of those ‘battle royale’ matches I’ve read about.” Twilight grinned, her excitement bleeding into her tone as she squirmed out from under Rainbow Dash. She sat up and clapped her hooves together, “This will be much better exercise.”
Uh... Okay, I guess I”m wrestlin’ this morning. “Alright, but I ain’t goin’ easy on ya.” Applejack charged over to the bed, tackling Rainbow Dash as she leapt up.
“Whew, you’re better at that then I thought ya’d be, Twilight.” Applejack spoke between staggered breaths.
“Well, not to brag, but Rainbow’s been giving me plenty of practice recently.” The unicorn replied with a satisfied grin and a sideways glance at the mentioned pegasus.
And time to get out of here. Definitely don’t need to hear any details. “Well, I guess I’ll get goin’ then, see ya.” Applejack blurted out as she swiftly slipped out of the room and off to the safe, unawkward freedom of the outdoors.
“Huh, did she seem a little strange to you, Twi?”
Twilight smiled. “Oh, I’m sure she just had somewhere to be. At any rate, I had a lot of fun today, Rainbow. Thanks so much for helping keep my promise to the Princess about getting more exercise.”
“Yeah, no problem. Wrestling is a great workout, and it’s pretty fun too.” Rainbow Dash paused. She pursed her lips as she found herself thinking back to Applejack’s earlier entrance to the room. “You know, I still think AJ might have misunderstood what we were doing.”
Twilight waved a hoof dismissively, “Don’t be silly. She knew we were wrestling, she even joined in. How could she possibly have misinterpreted anything?”
Rainbow crossed her forelegs and shot a skeptical glare at her friend.
“Besides, even if she did think we were doing something weird, who would she tell?”
Boy am I glad to be out of there. I guess I’d better tell Pinkie I couldn’t get the book. Applejack thought, as she let out a sigh of relief. She turned her gaze forward as she stepped into Sugarcube Corner.
“Hey, Applejack!” The excitable bundle of energy appeared next to the farmer in a pink blur. “Did you get that book I asked about?”
Applejack shook her head. “Nope, sorry, Pinkie, Twilight was too busy to help me find it. I can check back later if you want.”
Pinkie gave Applejack a confused look as her head tilted to the side. “What was Twilight busy doing? I mean, at this time of day wouldn’t she just have been triple checking her daily checklist?”
Do I really wanna tell Pinkie about it? Maybe I should just... “Actually, Pinkie. That reminds me of somethin’.”
“Ooo, really?! What is it?” The excitement immediately returned to the pink mare’s expression.
“Well, remember how you said you wanted to throw Twilight a surprise party when she finally lost her virginity?”
