Going Home

A couple blinks cleared Dash's eyes to reveal the most glorious sight she had ever seen and would ever see staring at her from across Flim and Flam's carnival booth. "Dash?" AJ asked, her voice quivering.

"AJ!" Dash launched herself straight into her marefriend, every bit of the fatigue she'd been feeling just plain gone.

Not that she was worried about hitting her too hard, of course. AJ caught her as solid as an oak, held her close, and kissed her so deeply and thoroughly, Dash forgot everything else in the whole wide world except for that taste and that touch and that scent.

Then AJ was pulling away, those amazing lips quirking into one of her gentler smirks. "Reckon you musta had nigh as much fun in there as I did."

Dash took a second to get her breath back. "Can you say 'none at all'?"

"Can I ever." Those lips moved close again, and Dash stretched her neck to meet them, lost herself once more in their warm perfection.

"Still!" Flim's voice folded Dash's ears, not a trace of its earlier uncertain anywhere. "Happy reunions all around, and stories to tell the grandfoals before the fireplace on a winter's evening!"

"Indeed!" Flam sounded every bit as exuberant as always, too. "And think of how proudly you can tell your friends that you beat the Portal Popper XTE even when a malfunction had swept you away from each other!"

Spinning away from AJ, Dash was about to ask him how exactly the scam they'd been trying to pull had been a malfunction, but she couldn't miss the twitch that tugged the corner of Flim's eye.

'Cause this'd be one more mistake, wouldn't it? One more scheme gone wrong that Flam could keep jabbing and jabbing and jabbing into Flim, especially if Flam learned that Dash had figured out what they were up to...

Not that she owed Flim anything, the jerk. Except maybe to show him how this stuff was supposed to work.

She spun back to face AJ. "You were right," she said. "This was really a bad idea."

AJ shrugged. "You've had worse. And I gotta admit: with the right company, this sorta thing might actually be fun."

"Really?" Flam's mustache squirmed above his smile. "Then would you say, friend Applejack, that, despite the unfortunate magical glitch, the experience was all that we advertised it to be?"

"What?" This time, Dash didn't just spin; she shot across the booth till she was practically snout to snout with Flam. "You're really gonna ask us for the other ten bits?"

Flam sat back and slowly spread his front hooves. "I'm merely going to ask that Applejack honor the terms of the bargain we struck on this very spot not that very many hours ago." Something in his eyes went as hard as a lightning strike. "Was this or was this not a unique competitive opportunity?"

"You crooks!" Dash cocked a foreleg back, ready to smack him right in the middle of his smug little face—

Except a strong but gentle hoof touched hers. "It ain't no thing, Honeycomb," AJ said into her ear. "Step on back, now, will you?"

Another spin brought her around to AJ. "But—!"

"Please?" And there was absolutely nothing Dash could do when AJ gave her that look and put that little chuckle in her voice. Absolutely nothing...

Glaring at Flam, she flapped back a couple paces, and left AJ still standing in front of the big jerk. All she had to do was open her mouth, too, just tell AJ the truth about everything they'd been through today, just blow the whistle on whole thing, just—

Just hang Flim out to dry....

AJ had dug her coin purse out of her kerchief. "Ten more bits, I b'lieve, will satisfy things?"

To Dash's ears, she drew out the word 'satisfy' to give it a weird sort of emphasis, and Flam's lips tightened when she did it, too. He didn't say anything, though, just sat with his mouth a little sideways while AJ took one bit at a time in her teeth and set them on the counter around the edge of the booth. The music and the shouting and the crowd noise washed over Dash pretty heavily; she hadn't noticed it since they'd come back, but the silence between Flam and AJ made her realize that the festival was still going on all around them.

When she'd set the tenth bit on the counter, AJ gave Flam a good long look, and Dash, who considered herself an expert when it came to AJ's face, wasn't as all sure what kind of a look it was. It wasn't angry and it wasn't smug and it wasn't sad...though it was maybe more that last one than the other two. Was she—?

Was AJ feeling sorry for Flam?

AJ turned away, then, nodded to Dash, and said, "C'mon, Honeycomb. Unlike some folks, we got a home we can head on back to."

Flam winced a little, and Flim had his face turned away as if he was looking at something else out on the midway. 'Serves them both right,' Dash wanted to think, but she couldn't quite feel angry or smug about the whole weird situation, either. So she just said, "You guys take it easy, all right?"

They didn't answer. AJ came up beside her, her smile looking as tired as if she'd bee bucking apples all day. Dash pressed her shoulder to hers, draped a wing across her back, and walked in step with her out of the booth.