Author's Note

So, Content Warning here, things come to a head between two alphas and Sunset goes off the rails and it brushes the edge of non-con. Nothing actually happens, but I figure you all deserve a warning in advance.

Other than that, we're a few chapters from the end, thanks for sticking with this weird project of mine thus far.

Chapter 7

“I’m going to miss you.”

I chuckled as I leaned in and kissed Fluttershy, pulling her close as she draped herself over me before nuzzling against my neck fondly.

“I’ll miss you too, Flutters,” I replied, nuzzling her back.

The O’Mare International Airport of Canterlot was one of the largest and busiest airports in the world, and it was consequently loud. That said, it probably saw this scene better than a thousand times a day, as well as its opposite number just as often; with alphas and omegas being parted by distance and travel, and likewise being reunited after time apart, short or long, and kissing as though it had been the passage of ages.

Cinderblock- sorry, Grindstone -was standing nearby, Fluttershy’s surprisingly meager amount of luggage in tow behind him on one of the little dollies that the airport offered.

“Keep’er safe, Mister Stone,” I said, fixing him with a playfully withering glare.

Per usual, Grindstone didn’t reply or respond. He just stared at me as impassively as ever, although I liked to imagine he had gained some respect for me over the weeks of our acquaintance. His silence felt moderately less hostile than it once had, or maybe that was just my imagination.

I waved as Fluttershy passed through the final boarding gate, and I wish I could say that I felt that aching pull in my chest that any alpha should feel when they’re watching their omega leave, the one that would urge me to go with her, or to keep her by my side, but I didn’t.

There was a feeling of loss, sure, but nothing crippling. I was just sad to see someone I cared about leaving for a long time. I cared about Fluttershy far more than even I expected… she was great company, a fantastic conversationalist, a phenomenal lay, and I just really liked spending time with her.

But it was nothing compared to the ache in my heart anytime I so much as thought about Rainbow Dash.

“This has got to stop,” I muttered, lowering my hand with significantly less enthusiasm than I had raised it with now that Fluttershy was out of sight. “I have to do something.”

I turned and stalked out of the boarding zone, heading for the parking lot with an increasingly dark cloud over my head. I was tired of being torn in two directions, I was tired of being hounded by these feelings I couldn’t account for, and I was tired of being haunted by what I’d done to Rainbow Dash.

But what do I do with all of that frustration?

Chase her down?

For all I know that would make it worse? We couldn’t be together, that was insane! I’d be a freak and she’d be a laughingstock!

My foul mood must’ve been showing on my face because when I got onto the elevator that went up to the garage level I’d parked at I managed to clear the entire cab as its occupants suddenly remembered the incredibly urgent business they had to attend to on that precise floor.

How fortunate for them.

My foot beat out a staccato tattoo as the elevator rose.

I hated being stuck in a place where I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t made for inaction, I was an alpha, we were born to act!

Most of my breed weren’t the deepest thinkers in the world, and I knew that. I was a rare sort of alpha that favored the more cerebral aspects of life over indulging my libido at every chance, however my recent poor record of control around Rainbow Dash argued otherwise.

It was a point of pride that I wasn’t an average alpha. I was extraordinary in multiple ways and I’d always flaunted that fact.

Now I had to wonder if maybe my exceptional nature had bred in some equally exceptional flaws.

My mood didn’t improve as I got to my motorcycle, and for once not even the comparatively long drive back to my apartment soothed my nerves, although the shitty downtown traffic was partially to blame for that.

Either way, I was not in a particularly charitable mood when I finally got to my complex and had to jockey for parking around some real sterling examples of automotive assholery including a triple-parked uhaul and a buick with a flat tire that had somehow contrived to block almost an entire lane in the parking lot.

“One bad day,” I muttered angrily, trying to keep a lid on my rising temper as I stalked to the stairs and started climbing, “it’s just one bad day.”

Of course, as a famous villain once said: all it takes is one bad day.

“You lyin’ varmint!”

Applejack’s drawling snarl was the only warning I had before her fist connected with the back of my head, sending me sprawling the moment I reached the fifth floor landing. Only the thick riding leathers I was wearing kept my knees from skinning open on the hard concrete as stars exploded behind my eyes and I dropped to my hands and knees.

I tasted blood, and a cursory sweep of my tongue along with the answering sting told me I’d bitten my cheek open.

A heavy workboot connected with my gut before I could get my bearings, blood spattered as I dry-heaved, but I kept enough wits about me to roll with the kick and put some distance between me and the furious alpha advancing on me.

Her emerald eyes were backlit by volcanic rage, and I could only blame my own distracted brain on having failed to smell the stink of pheromonal violence that soaked the air around us.

She must have been waiting for me here for some time.

“What th’fuck?!” I spat between gobbets of blood as I staggered to my feet, backpedaling away from Applejack as my instincts caught up to the situation. “I don’t know who put a snake in your boot, hayseed, but I am not in the fucking mood!”

Applejack pulled her cowboy hat down more firmly onto her head, those cold, green flames in her eyes never leaving my face for a moment, and I had a second to appreciate just how utterly and righteously mad she looked.

“Your word, Sunset,” Applejack hissed, her voice kept low and deadly. “You gave me your word you’d leave’r alone, and you lied to mah face.”

“What?!” I felt my own blood begin to boil as an adrenal cocktail shot through my veins. My alpha instincts, already itching and frayed, were suddenly roaring. “I’m a lot of bad things you mud-gargling cousin-fucker, but I am not an oathbreaker!”

I cracked my knuckles, satisfied that my jab at her family slammed home as Applejack let out a howl of mindless fury as she barreled down at me.

She was bigger, no doubt about that. Applejack and I were in the same weight class by alpha standards, and she had muscles born of a lifetime of backbreaking physical labor to fall back on.

What she didn’t have was skill.

Applejack was powerful, but at the end of the day she was still just a regular alpha; dumb, angry, and with little more than an extra cock between her ears, even if she did have a decent moral compass.

I squared up, then dropped and melted underneath her charge in a single dizzying instant that left her targetless.

One-two.

Two jabs directly into her gut blew the wind out of her, and Applejack heaved, staggered, and swung drunkenly around me as I bobbed under her vision. I followed her belligerent stagger, landing a hard right hook into her floating rib, and grinned maliciously at the satisfying crack it gave me, followed by Applejack’s breathless snarl of pain.

I ducked under her wide haymaker, she was still trying to use her stature and reach, but I was well inside her guard from here it was clear that she had no idea how to actually fight beyond crude brawls.

My dodge carried me behind her and I landed another set of twin jabs directly into the back of her head, using her skull like a speed bag and sending her to the ground where I’d been tossed just moments before.

My blood was up and pounding in my ears as I followed her down, slamming her to the ground as she tried to rise and wrenching her arms around her back to pin them painfully across one another.

All I could see was red, and I was grinning a bloody rictus as I struck her hard in the meat of her back between her shoulders, shocking the muscles to slackness.

Everything was red and hot and fast, the air was tinged with hormone and fury, pheromone and lust.

I’d beaten a powerful alpha, and my instincts were clangoring victory bells in my ears, egging me on to make this win into a far more permanent one. And why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I teach this little mongrel alpha just who was the bigger beast between us?

My hands were at my waist before I could think twice. I’d already done it once, after all, and I was already so goddamn hard.

Of all the things to knock me out of my lunatic haze, it was the tiniest whimper of abject terror that escaped Applejack’s lips at the sound of my belt buckle snapping open.

She could undoubtedly feel the steel-hard length of my restrained cock against her jeans-clad ass, so the sound of my belt could only be heralding one thing.

What. The fuck. Was I doing?!

I jolted off of Applejack like I’d been electrocuted, staggering off of her gracelessly and falling onto my ass behind her while she curled up in a ball as sharply and quickly as possibly while small shivers of fear rippled over her body.

For several moments, I just stared at her. Applejack; proud, stoic, stolid Applejack, reduced to a gibbering mess as her alpha instincts desperately tried to recoup from the pheromonal suppression I’d hammered into her.

The body of an alpha responds to being beaten more than just in the mental sense of acknowledging a loss. Alphas have always battled for supremacy, and it’s in our nature to bend knee to the stronger alpha. When we’re beaten the way that I’d beaten Applejack just now, our own bodies, our own biology, goes renegade on us.

Of course, with that said, it’s a rare thing for even a beaten alpha to be threatened with what I’d almost done to Applejack.

What I had done to Rainbow Dash.

“Get away from me,” I spoke the words in a low, lethal whisper as I yanked my belt closed again. “If I ever see you again…”

I let the last word hang in the air, hoping Applejack’s mind would fill in the blank space with a threat of continuing what I had almost done.

I wouldn’t, of course. If I did to someone else what I’d done to Rainbow Dash I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself. That said, if it kept her away from me and kept us out of a repeat of this position, I’d gladly let Applejack think that I was that kind of monster.

After all, I kind of was, in a way.

Naturally, I’d barely gotten to my door when I heard Applejack scrape and rise slowly to her feet.

“Is that,” she started, horror and fury coloring her words in equal measure, “what you did t’Rainbow?”

I kept my back to Applejack as I closed my eyes and silently urged her to leave. My temper and mind were like a pain-maddened rat in a steel trap right now and if she kept poking it.

“Are you still doin’ that?” Applejack continued raggedly.

I had to bite my lip to keep back a response.

“ARE YOU STILL HURTING HER LIKE THAT?!”

With a monumental effort of will, I sucked in a breath, blew it out, and turned to face the red-faced and shaking farmer. All of the bravado was gone from her posture, there was grit still stuck to the side of her face where I’d pinned her to the concrete, and salty tracks cut through the dust on her cheeks from a combination of pain, fear, and shame.

“No, and I don’t care if you believe me, Applejack,” I started, and something in her expression changed at the absolute, bone-deep weariness in my voice.

I was too tired to keep up the act in front of her. I was too tired to anything but tell her the truth.

“I haven’t spoken to Rainbow Dash in better than a month,” I continued, dutifully ignoring the small indiscretion of the texts we’d shared a week or so prior, though I’d only actually responded to tell her to knock it off. “I haven’t even seen her except at a distance on campus a few times… I don’t know what fucked you up this bad that you had to attack me but I promise, I wasn’t involved.”

She stared at me hard for a long moment before wiping her bloody nose and giving me a grim look.

“Did you do that to her?” She asked, rather than reply to my statement, and I sighed. “Did you-?”

I sighed, then turned and shouldered my door open and gestured for her to come inside. She followed only grudgingly, and I started to speak as I doffed my jacket and hung it up.

“Remember when I went into rut in the middle of class last year?” I replied, and she nodded slowly, then flinched, and I watched the color drain from her face as she picked up my logic. “Yeah… she caught me in the showers and tried to pull this,” I gestured between us, “except she isn’t half the alpha you or I are.”

“Aw… dagnabbit, Dashie,” Applejack snarled.

“I was… gentler,” I offered, as if that meant anything. “She was no match for me, and she… she yielded so easily that I… I bitched her, and I don’t know if I can honestly say I couldn’t help it, because I can’t remember even trying.”

“And y’all just kept at it didn’tcha?” Applejack accused, and I flinched again at the barb.

“Yeah, I did,” I admitted as I kicked my door shut, walked over to my chair, and slumped down it. “But believe me when I say I gave Rainbow tons of outs, I did everything but throw her out on her ass to get her to leave me, no questions asked and no repercussions, and she just… she wouldn’t fucking do it!”

“Horseshit!” Applejack snarled. “Rainbow ain’t some-”

“She won’t leave me alone!” I bellowed over Applejack’s words. “I broke things off that day we talked! And since then I’ve stayed away from her but she won’t stop texting me and calling me!”

Pulling out my phone, I clicked open my contacts, slid open the old messages, and tossed her my phone.

“Here!” I snapped. “Listen!”

I hadn’t deleted the voicemail, partially out of some masochistic urge to emotionally self-flagellate because every so often I would listen to it just to remind myself how badly I’d fucked up.

Applejack looked down at it and I could see the war of emotions cross her features. A part of her, I knew, didn’t want to listen to the message, because she knew what was probably on it, but I knew the honest farmer couldn’t just ignore it either.

She hit the play button and held up the phone to her ear.

I watched what was probably a mirror of the expressions I’d worn when I’d first listened to it cross Applejack’s face as she endured the voicemail’s contents. I also knew I was probably destroying something in her by letting her hear it, but this was reality and Applejack had to face it, just like I did.

Eventually, she lowered the phone, and with it her head.

“I’ve tried to let her heal,” I said softly as Applejack passed my phone back to me in silence. “I’ve stayed away from her… I don’t want to hurt her.”

Slowly, Applejack put a hand in her pocket, then drew out her own phone, clicked through it, and as she did she spoke up in a grim tone.

“Reckon that mighta come too late, Sugercube,” Applejack said. “F’what it’s worth, I believe ya kept to yer word… but that don’t change what you did.”

“No,” I agreed. “I guess it doesn’t.”

“Here,” she handed her phone to me, having apparently found what she’d been looking for.

I didn’t want to look but, like Applejack with the message, I felt compelled to. I took her phone, turned it around, and what I saw on the screen almost made me choke on my own tongue.

It was an image from Rainbow’s MyStable, posted several hours ago of Rainbow, by herself, wearing a loose canvas jacket over a white tanktop, and what looked like military surplus fatigue bottoms. What bothered me was how it all hung a little on her, giving her a thin and almost frail look.

That said, her hair had recently been cut short to an adorable pixie bob which, my mind unhelpfully informed me, had enough left in the back for a firm handhold. It was a really cute haircut, honestly, and one that I liked, and it would’ve been a lot more positive if it weren’t for the long two-tone lock of hair she’d left dangling over her face.

Per her name, Rainbow’s hair was prismatic, bearing the striating colors of the rainbow in perfect order.

That was no longer completely true because that long lock had been divided in two and dyed separate colors from the rest of her hair, putting her entire head out of order.

Scarlet and Gold.

She’d dyed that part of her hair, from tip to root, in scarlet and gold, and it was the exact same shade as my own hair.

The comment she’d posted along with the photo was short and clear.

‘I know where I belong, do you?’

As if the hair wasn’t bad enough, I could tell there was something else off with her. Rainbow’s face looked thinner and leaner than it had last time I’d seen her, and there were bags under her eyes that no amount of foundation could fully erase.

She looked like a junkie who’d gone too long without her fix.

“This wasn’t me,” I hissed, pushing Applejack’s phone back into her hands. “I’ve told her to let it go, alright?! I told her!”

“Ain’t sayin’ it was,” Applejack replied quietly as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. “Leastwise, I ain’t sayin’ it anymore… ain’t gonna apologise for the sucker punch, though.”

“I deserved worse than that,” I agreed, then wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. “She needs help.”

Applejack nodded at that, then sighed. “Way I hear it, her daddy tried talkin’ to’er but it was like tryin’ t’uproot a stump with a spoon.”

“Can’t you try?” I hated the note of pleading that entered my voice but at this point I’d go on hands and knees if it meant making things right. “You’ve known her forever.”

“Ain’t sure I have,” Applejack said stiffly, and I knew she was hearing Rainbow’s voice on that message in her head again. “But if’er daddy ain’t gettin’ through then I doubt I’ll have much better luck.”

“Well we’re kinda running out of options, then!” I snapped. “Fluttershy’s gone on vacation, and I’m pretty sure both of us agree that I’d just make things worse, because that’s apparently all I’m good for!”

Applejack didn’t reply, she just stared down at the ground as the silence grew between us. I wasn’t sure what to do or say… that picture of Rainbow Dash had done its work though, and my heart was breaking all over again. My instincts had gone from ‘Fight’ straight into overdrive, and my hindbrain was hammering at me that my omega needed me, that she was in danger, that she was hungry and in pain, and I was failing her.

My omega.

She was neither mine, nor an omega, but try telling my idiot brain that.

“It ain’t natural, y’know,” Applejack said finally.

“Me and Rainbow?” I asked, and Applejack nodded. “Well tell her that, maybe she’ll listen to you, because she refused to hear it from me.”

“Stubborn jackass,” Applejack grumbled, and I couldn’t disagree, then she looked up at me more sharply. “Can I ask ya somethin’ personal-like, Sunset?”

“Shoot.”

What did I have to lose by this point? My dignity was already out the window and my reputation would’ve been too if Applejack was the type to gossip and if anyone would actually buy this story which I doubted.

“You really tried to break things off, right?” She asked, and I nodded. “And you really gave Rainbow all those shots at gettin’ out from under you, right?” I nodded again, not really sure where she was going with this rehash. “Except, thing is, you ain’t struck me as the generous sort, nor the type to let go’a someone once you got’em by the short’n’curlies.”

I glared at her for a few moments before sighing. “Fair, what’s your point?”

“Why’d you try and let’er go?” Applejack asked finally.

“Because I was hurting her!” I snarled. “You said it yourself, it’s unnatural!”

“And with the best will in the world, so the fuck what?” Applejack shot back. “You ain’t ever had a problem hurting other folks nor breakin’ the rules if it suited ya!”

“BUT NOT RAINBOW!” I roared, my heartbeat was thundering in my ears, and that furious red mist was starting to fall over me again.

How dare she even suggest that!

HOW DARE SHE IMPLY THAT I’D HURT MY-!

I swallowed hard, forcing that instinct back underneath the troubled waters of my mind again as Applejack gave me a level look, then shook her head and let out a slow, quiet breath.

“Damnation,” she muttered. “Y’all’re good as pair bonded, huh?”

The words cut through my anger like a frozen knife. Pair bonded? Ridiculous! We weren’t bonded! Neither of us had even marked the other, and I said as much.

“Don’t matter,” Applejack countered. “Marking just speeds it up, but if’n y’all’re compatible enough, and spend long enough together, it can still happen, ya didn’t know that?”

“How the fuck would I know that?” I bit the words out as I waved my hands wildly. “I’m an orphan! I never even met my dam and sire! My cup doesn’t exactly overfloweth with good examples!”

“Guess that’s fair, but that ain’t the part that bugs me, Sunset,” Applejack chewed her lip thoughtfully as she eyed me, her mouth becoming a thin, hard line. “What bugs me is ain’t no two alphas oughta be compatible like that, which means it ain’t just her.”

The bottom fell out of my stomach at her words as Applejack advanced a couple of steps and eyed me cautiously. Those emerald eyes of hers, no longer lit with fury, were now drilling into me as she looked me up and down for several moments before she forced herself to step back.

“Dammit, Sunset,” Applejack breathed. “How much pain’re you actually in right now?”

That struck the nail on the head, and I didn’t have it in me to deny it either. I couldn’t say with a straight face that I hadn’t been in agony since I’d left Rainbow behind in the quad a month ago. I couldn’t tell her my heart hadn’t been aching, my stomach cramping, and my guts churning as I went this long without seeing her, scenting her… laying with her.

It must’ve shown on my face, too, because Applejack could only sigh again and lean back against the wall of my apartment.

“Landsakes, Sunset,” Applejack said after a moment. “You really ain’t any better off’n Rainbow ‘cept, unlike her, y’all can hide it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said thinly. “Like you said… it’s unnatural, I shouldn’t be this way and neither should she.”

“Maybe,” Applejack nodded. “Then again, maybe not… ain’t like I know all the secrets’a the universe or nothin’.”

“I’m an alpha!” I snapped. “I’m supposed to breed an omega! Not-!”

“We ain’t animals, Sunset,” Applejack cut me off flatly. “Take it from a farmer, Sugarcube, y’all can’t just focus on instinct and drive… that ain’t how it works, leastwise not anymore.”” She moved past me to my window and looked out over the city. “Alphas, Betas, Omegas… tell ya what, my poppa was one heckuva’n alpha, right?”

“What’s your point?” I asked dryly.

She shrugged. “Momma was a beta… a fertile one, but that was chance, and I know you ain’t ever met my parents afore they passed, but I can tell ya, fertile or no, Bright Mac, my daddy? He woulda married my momma either way, Apple’s are stubborn like that.”

“But two alphas-!”

“Ain’t natural,” Applejack agreed. “But natural or no, I ain’t fixin’ to watch one’a my best friends die’a bondbreak all because’er crapsack bondmate can’t take responsibility.”

I was out of my chair and in Applejack’s face before the last word left her lips, and only my self-restraint stopped me from giving our brawl outside an encore performance in the middle of my tiny living room.

Applejack didn’t back up, didn’t flinch, and didn’t move as I stopped inches from her face, my fists raised and my face twisted into a rictus of fury.

She’d done it on purpose.

The thought filtered through the haze of instinctual, hormonal rage that was pickling my amygdala, and I forced myself to calm down and lower my fists.

“See mah point?” Applejack said flatly. “You acted like a bondmate defendin’er omega right there, and Rainbow ain’t even in the room.”

“Fine, so I’m a freak too,” I growled as I stepped back. “Happy?”

“I’ll consider it when mah friend ain’t fallin’ apart at the seams,” Applejack jabbed a finger into my chest. “T’be clear, I ain’t happy ‘bout any’a this, but Rainbow’s in pain, and near as I can tell you’re the only one who can make it stop!”

The wind went out of me as Applejack advanced on me, every salient point followed by another jab of her finger.

“You got’er into this mess,” jab, “you dragged it out,” jab, “and then y’all dropped her the moment it got hairy!”

Jab.

“That’s not how it went!” I tried to put some oomph into my words but I wasn’t even sure I believed it.

“Well that’s how it is,” Applejack replied grimly. “So now yer gonna nut up, knuckle down, pull on your big-alpha panties, and take some goddamn responsibility for once in yer damn life.”

For once, the alpha in the back of my head had nothing to say. I just stood there, withering under Applejack’s verbal tirade as she scowled at me. Finally, I let out a quiet breath, shivered, and wrapped my arms tightly around myself as I spoke in a voice so small I barely recognised it as belonging to me.

“W-What if I hurt her again?” I whispered.

“Then mah east apple orchard’s gonna have some new fertilizer,” Applejack replied tonelessly. “Should be good stuff too since it’ll be full’a shit.”

A weak laugh escaped me as I nodded.

“Sounds like a plan,” I wiped at my face and sighed. “Tomorrow, then… I’ll go see her tomorrow morning.”

“You damn well better,” Applejack said before shouldering past me, but she paused as she reached the door, then turned around.

“Y’know Sunset,” she started quietly. “For what it’s worth? Rainbow’s always been a little soft ‘round the edges… lotta bark in that one, but when push came to shove she was never the bigger alpha.”

“So?” I asked.

Applejack shrugged. “Just thinkin’, maybe y’all ain’t changed all that much about’er… maybe she’s just finally the sorta alpha she wants to be.”

“That’s kind of a stretch,” I replied dryly, and Applejack shrugged.

“Ain’t sayin’ it ain’t,” she allowed. “But are you sayin’ it’s impossible?”

I thought back to all the times I’d been with Rainbow Dash. How it had only taken a matter of hours for her to slip comfortably into the role of my bitch. I thought about how she never complained when I made what, to me, seemed like unreasonable demands, like keeping my bed warm for when I got home, or staying late at places just to prove to her that I could.

All that time and I only ever got the most token amount of resistance out of her, and I had a feeling that was just her nature as a brat, not any actual defiance.

“I… I guess I’m not,” I admitted, and Applejack nodded and turned away, but before she could leave I called out to her again.

“Applejack, wait!”

She tossed me a look over her shoulder as I crossed the room to stop in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment. “About what happened outside? I… I didn’t… I’m sorry, okay?”

Applejack turned a little pale and shivered, but nodded.

“Ain’t ever been beaten like that before,” she muttered. “Scared the daylights outta me… you’re one helluva potent alpha, Sunset… even I was ready to crumble.” She let out a slow breath and shook her head. “If I weren’t in your league, I probably woulda gone with it too, so I can see why Rainbow wants you so bad. Even if she is an alpha, and even if she swings that way… if you can even make me question it then, uh… yeah.”

“I still had no right to let my instincts get the better of me like that,” I pressed. “So, I’m sorry.”

“We’re alphas, Sunset,” Applejack replied. “Dominance is how we’re wired, and actually, I figure any other alpha woulda just kept right on goin’… so I’m mighty glad yer better than that.”

“I like to think our breed has more honor than that,” I said stiffly, but Applejack just gave a weak chuckle.

“So would I,” she agreed. “But alpha instinct’s a mighty powerful thing, and it’s why we ain’t in charge… s’why most big decisions get made by betas and omegas… left up to us, hell, we’d probably just kill each other.”

She turned and held a hand out to me as she finished speaking. I eyed it cautiously for a moment before reaching out and grasping it in a firm handshake.

“I ain’t ever liked you, Sunset,” Applejack admitted. “But I reckon you ain’t as bad as I thought… take care’a Rainbow Dash, y’hear?”

“I will,” I promised. “And thanks… for helping get my head on straight.”

She didn’t say anything, she just nodded, turned, and left.

Once Applejack was gone I was left with a much more pressing problem. Namely, what was I going to do about Rainbow Dash tomorrow. I had to follow through with it, not only had a promised Applejack I would, she had made a number of surprisingly good points.

At the end of the day, I had to deal with reality as it was, and that meant that I had to confront whatever this was between Rainbow and I.

At least I didn’t have to feel guilty about the matter with Fluttershy. We’d both agreed to put anything kind of actual relationship on hold while she was gone; long distance wasn’t healthy for a newly minted pair, physically or mentally.

If whatever this was with Rainbow Dash turned into something more, well, I’d just have to alpha up and admit it. Fluttershy might deserve better, but she also deserved the truth.

Shit… tomorrow’s gonna suck.