When Applejack walked out of the dressing room, she wasn’t really surprised by the over-enthusiastic gasp that promptly escaped the lips of her friend. “Why darling, it’s magnificent!” Rarity cried, looking almost in tears at the sight of her good friend that now stood dressed in white, a dress of her own making adorning the freckled skin. “You look radiant, as splendid as a ray of sunlight! Oh, it’ll be perfect!”

“You don’t think maybe it’s a bit much?” Applejack asked, eyeing herself in the mirror with some degree of uncertainty. Maybe it was because she was never really all that fashion-forward, or much of a dress person in the first place, but this didn’t seem like the sort of outfit that really suited her. Yes, it was clearly a nice wedding dress, but was it really her? “It’s just- I dunno, kinda just… a lot.”

“Nonsense, Applejack, you look glorious! Why, when Princess Celestia sees you walking down the aisle in that dress she wouldn’t be able to lay eyes on anything but you!” Rarity countered. “You’ll be the perfect bride for the perfect woman and you know it.”

“I guess. Just seems a bit revealing, is all.” The cut on her bust was lower than what she was used to normally seeing against her own skin- and the dress itself was rather flattering, seemingly too much so. “I dunno, Rarity, you think maybe they wouldn’t like it?”

“Who, Princess Celestia?”

“Well… all those fancy nobles, I guess.”

“Then let them think what they want. You’ll be just as wonderfully dressed as Princess Celestia, and just because you’ve never admitted you have a figure doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Rarity said firmly. “Now please, put your doubts aside for a moment and look at yourself in the mirror again.”

Applejack tried to hide her self-consciousness before it could make a smile show on her face, glad she had to look elsewhere rather than her friend and dressmaker. It was nice to wear something so flattering to her body, even if she didn’t fully feel that something this -nice- was the proper sort of dress for a wedding. But Rarity had been endlessly helpful and encouraging throughout the entire ordeal, helping her sort through nerves and all sorts of jumbled emotions. The dress was just the cherry on top, if she were honest.

“You really think Celestia’ll like it?” Applejack asked meekly.

Rarity gave a confident bark of laughter. “Darling, she’ll be every degree as awestruck as you’ll be when you see her. I promised you both that you’d be the best-dressed brides in history and I don’t make promises I can’t keep. You and she will be the envy of every woman on earth for the rest of time.”

Applejack really couldn’t hold back a blush this time and she let the smile come unabated. “Alright, then. I do like it.”

Rarity, ever-confident in her abilities, simply smirked. “Of course you do, darling,” she said. “I wouldn’t have let you wear it unless you were going to.”

The fashionista reveled in her victory; Applejack was taking more time to admire herself in the mirror, more and more taken by the beauty of the dress she was adorned in, allowing herself to be lost in visions of coming days and the very beauty she herself exuded so naturally. It was something to be jealous of, really, to be graced with such natural loveliness. Applejack had strength, power in her frame- yet such a body! Rarity worked to keep hers in shape, yet this farmgirl went through life so casually and had never given it a second thought. Thank heavens Princess Celestia had decided to do something about it.

“Since the dress seems to have your eye,” she continued, “let me know if anything doesn’t feel just right. I know your measurements by heart, dear, but does anything feel too rough? Something uncomfortable?”

“Not that I can tell,” Applejack answered as though from a distance, eyes misted over as thought turned from her present circumstances to more pleasurable matters. “Uh, Rarity, you made Celestia’s dress too, right?”

She wasn’t a successful businesswoman for nothing. “And if you think I’ll let you have a preview of what the Princess will be wearing then you’re positively deluded, Applejack. I’ve said nothing of yours to her, either, so just enjoy the surprise.”

“I know, but- come on, I want a hint,” Applejack said.

“Your hint is that you’ll be marrying the loveliest woman in the world,” Rarity said flatly. “And you’d be hard pressed to think anything else when you see her.”

“Don’t you call Fleur lovely?”

“I call her gorgeous, darling, and my preferences aren’t what matter here. So, just to make sure: you want to wear the dress.”

Applejack smiled and gave a nod. “Yeah, I… I love it, Rarity. I’ll take it.”

As the farmgirl walked off to change out of her wedding dress, the fashionista gave a small, contented sigh of satisfaction. She really was good at this. And it never hurt to hear any outside confirmation of it, too.

“You know,” Applejack said as she reappeared in her usual work clothes, “I’ve been thinking about something.”

“Oh? And what of?”

“Well… you’ve made me and Tia’s wedding dresses,” Applejack said as she plucked away at fingers. “Pinkie Pie is helping with the catering. Twilight is working on invitations and ceremony, Fluttershy is helping to select music… I’m just thinking that someone’s missing.”

Rarity tried to control herself. For one thing her feelings regarding Rainbow Dash were never going to be very kind ever again, but the rumor she’d heard from other sources didn’t have much kindness to spare either. With so many helping to make Applejack and Celestia’s dream wedding come true, was it really fair to let them know everything?

“Where’s Rainbow Dash been through all of this?” Applejack inquired. “I haven’t seen her in a while, she OK? I was- well, hoping she’d be willing to do another sonic rainboom for the wedding and all, but I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her. What’s she been up to?”

Rarity, knowing she’d be more than a little biased, decided to let the truth slide in the matter. “Darling, I have no idea,” she lied.

“Two weeks. How in the holy mother of ass did I let it get this close?” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “Sitting around and trying to conceive of stupid-ass plans that aren’t worth shit and hoping that this whole bag of bullshit somehow saves itself…”

She’d allowed herself to become like this more and more as the dreaded day approached, the horrid, unfathomable union of Applejack and Celestia that would plunge the world into a darkened future of unimaginable agony. What sort of depraved nightmares would spawn from this? What untold atrocities would result if the filthy bag actually married that beautiful, wonderful, glorious woman of the apple cider? Rainbow didn’t like to imagine the thought, and so of course she couldn’t help but to think about it just as much as she spent time pondering what it would be like to eat Applejack out like she was a ripe Red Delicious, dribbling with juices. One was just as pleasant as the other was awful, and found a way to comfortably coexist in her unhappy mind.

Well, she’d need one last good ounce of reconnaissance before she tried to put some of her schemes into action, harebrained or not. One was hopefully all it would take, but that was a bit much to ask. Maybe three, if she were lucky. “And if I want luck, then I want-”

“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” That over-eager voice of a zealous baker rang clearly in her ears as Pinkie Pie raced across the village square and practically threw herself into the arms of the rainbow-haired conspirator, she more than happy to have time to spare for her dear friend. “Miss me?”

The truth was that Pinkie’s tonguework had made her feel like a pudding cup but that wasn’t here nor there; she wanted Applejack and she was gonna get Applejack, so this overweight pastry chef was just gonna have to accept that when the time came. But right now, her ability to defy reality was more than a little helpful and that was what Rainbow needed.

“Hey, I’m going back to that hill today,” she said, hoping to sound casual. “You feel like coming with?”

Pinkie took the suggestion in a different way and her eyes became slits, gleaming like cherries in the sunlight. “So you had a good time, did you?” she said softly. “I hope you don’t mind sharing this time.”

Oh fuck. “Maybe another time, but I wouldn’t mind the company. So come on!” Rainbow knew she wanted the company, the physical embodiment of luck and insanity wouldn’t hurt. She’d been busy last night.

As she lay there on the hillside overlooking the most sacred place of cider, Rainbow tried to drown out Pinkie Pie’s yammering that seemed to be as endless as a waterfall. She wanted to make sure that her observations remained correct- sometime about early sunset the two would be walking through the orchards together.

“Hey, look!” Pinkie Pie cried, pointing to a pair of silhouettes that emerged from the farmhouse far below. “I bet that’s AJ and Princess Celestia- aww, they look so pretty together even when they’re really far away! They’re gonna be so great together.”

Actually, Celestia looked better as a corpse and AJ looked better eating Rainbow out, but that wasn’t common thought just yet. Rainbow watched as they tread the same path they had always done, strolling peacefully beside each other through the endless rows of trees. She’d been down there plenty enough to know which ones were a bit more unstable than others. Would be a pity if one of them fell just enough to take one person down and not the other-

“Ohmygosh!” a sudden cracking of timber and bark echoed through the area as an old, sickly apple tree fell down to earth with Celestia in its sights, the massive trunk more than capable of squishing a person into jelly-

And just as instantly as it had begun to fall it was cast aside, the girth of wood settled on the ground gently and with care. Even from afar, Rainbow Dash could see Celestia pondering the issue alongside Applejack with some measure of distress. Of course she was, it was the Apple family orchard, that was something that needed to be tended to. With a movement of a hand that she couldn’t see from such a distance, the Princess did something to the trees across the orchard and sent several tumbling down.

All the ones Rainbow Dash had primed to fall. Well, that was no matter, because she wasn’t stupid enough to try and make a plan hinge all on one project succeeding. She had several waiting just around the corner that would surely bring that rat-bag royal to her death-

“Wow, I didn’t know a hole was there,” Pinkie Pie remarked brightly, watching as Celestia and Applejack skirted about the oversized pit with given care and continued on. “You think we should try to help them fix all that up? Applejack’s already really busy with her wedding and I’d hate for her to be thinking about Sweet Apple Acres when she should be super-duper excited about getting married instead!”

Rainbow tried not to grumble, lest her role in the events be revealed. So maybe her devilish plan had needed a little tweaking, it wasn’t her fault, was it? More time at the drawing board wouldn’t hurt. “I’m fine here,” she managed eventually.

“Oh, OK. Then can I suck on your tits?”

And it was said so casually. “Pinkie, I’m a fucking surfboard, I don’t have tits.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Pinkie said with a shrug, already letting her hands dive underneath fabric to trace along areola.

Rainbow didn’t mind the sensation whatsoever, but her bad mood made no effort at desire for the moment. “Another time, Pinkie,” she said quickly.

“OK. Just let me know when I get to fuck you raw,” Pinkie Pie replied pleasantly, taking a kiss from Rainbow’s lips before there could be protest, happily bouncing away from the hilltop like nothing had happened.

She was the weirdest thing Rainbow had ever seen. The absolute height of bizarre, an utter amalgamation of humanity and utter weirdness. Why was she like this, and why was it all the time? Surely she couldn’t always keep this up, and why did she choose Rainbow? Beyond the obvious, of course. But surely there had to be more to it, something beyond just being an overweight slut. Rainbow couldn’t imagine the thought process at all.

“I suppose you think that was terribly clever.”

The ten-foot leap into the air wasn’t the most dignified thing Rainbow Dash had ever done. A good kick in the stomach as a reflex would also have been better than the girlish screaming and her heart was still pounding when she turned to see midnight-blue hair and a deepened scowl that gave no sign of mercy-

“Luna!”

“Princess Luna, mind you,” was the reply, eyes still brilliantly cold as she regarded Rainbow Dash. “Enjoying the view, are we?” She had somehow crept up on Rainbow without the athlete noticing, or maybe had simply popped out of the ether, the proud woman standing there with an expression that suggested this was to be no ordinary chat.

Fuck. “I like apples,” Rainbow managed to say, a horribly weak response.

“Yes, and you like the woman who farms them even more,” Luna remarked. “So much that you dumped a very pretty woman to completely fail in wooing her, and now sulk because said apple farmer is getting married. Am I somewhere in the ballpark here?”

Perhaps a little too much so, and Rainbow’s fiery temper decided it needed the reigns. “Why don't you go fuck yourself?” she snapped, the next half-moment immediately after spent in stark terror at the clearly inevitable oblivion that was about to come.

Instead, there was a horrid smirk that dwelled on the Princess of the Moon’s features. “I don't have to, your best friend likes to do it for me,” she crowed.

An utter slap in the face. Rainbow should have seen that coming from a mile away, or at least bothered to remember. Fluttershy had been dating Luna for a while now, right- not exactly something easy to miss, yet Rainbow had achieved that in spades for a year’s worth of time. “Oh fucking come on.”

“Not near me, you won’t,” Luna commanded. “So how about you go on home and be happy with what you have rather than what you wish you’d gotten instead? You might even enjoy it.”

Rainbow, however, was a fighter; not intelligent by any means, but a master of holding one’s ground. “I am not leaving,” she said with a stomp of her foot for added emphasis. “And you can’t make me! This isn’t anyone’s property!”

“Ooh, I do love a challenge,” Luna cried. “Why Rainbow Dash, you sound like you’re going to be very fun.”

“Oh yeah? Well get fucked. You don’t get to tell me what to do any longer, Princess!”

“Have I been here before? I swear I've been here before,” Luna mused, seemingly distanced from the prismatic rage of the woman standing before her and off to a very different sort of memory.

“There's only one person who can marry Applejack, and that's GONNA be me!”

“Oh God help me, I was the one spouting this sort of garbage last time.”

Confusion underneath colored hair. “You wanted to fuck Applejack??” Rainbow asked.

“Well, no,” Luna replied, “but if your goal was to sound like an evil demigod hell-bent on fratricide, I'd say you're well on your way.”

“What- wait, the fuck?”

“Not here, if you please,” Luna replied. “Now, since I’ve given you plenty of time to think about how many ways what you’re doing right now is a bad idea, let me recommend sound advice to you one last time: drop this, and let my sister get married.”

“Or what?” Rainbow felt no great desire to even pretend to be compliant, much less polite.

“Or what? What’s going to happen is that you’ll have a very painful –and quite messy- end to your attempts,” Luna said, bending down and coming dangerously close to eye level, a powerful fire burning in her cold gaze. “Because you’ll deal with me instead, and I am way too eager to see my sister truly happy and marrying someone she loves for some speed-demon dumbass to try and mess it up! So help me, if you ruin her happiness then I ruin you!”

Rainbow knew she had a great response, but she just couldn’t find it in light of such a ferocious gaze. Maybe the silence was taken as compliance, for her new adversary gave a nod and began to back away from the sleek woman’s immediate presence.

“Answer Applejack’s wedding invitation,” she ordered, tossing a gold-laced envelope at Rainbow’s face. “They’d still be happy to have you there, and she doesn’t know what you’re doing. If I have to deal with you, then she most certainly will.”

With a snap she was gone, and Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out at her. Stupid, skin-bleached bimbo. Tearing the invitation up wasn’t quite satisfactory but it was all she had for now. She needed more time in her war room, and more up-close involvement with Pinkie Pie to make it come together. Rainbow was going to kill that stupid Princess, even if her idiot sister tried to get in the way.

Rainbow half-wondered if she should put an end to Pinkie Pie’s infernal skipping along. When the work you’re about to is meant to bring about the end of a particularly popular member of royalty, one would think that some manner of discretion would be in order. But despite Rainbow’s request for the excessively excited woman to actually display some level of quiet, there was no lack of enthusiasm to be found in even the simplest step towards their destination that was Sweet Apples Acres, where that accursed Princess of skin cancer had decided to spend the summer.

“Pinkie, could you possibly be more obvious?” Rainbow demanded to know, feeling no small amount of frustration. “This is supposed to be a secret that we’re here!”

“I know, but I’m with you!” Pinkie Pie cried, somehow finding the strength to lift herself even further off the ground. “This is so exciting already and we haven’t even started, I’m already having so much fun!”

Rainbow wanted to make this insufferable woman take this thing seriously. There were on the actual mission of assassination and she was treating it like a game. But when she was being used as your good luck charm, maybe it was better to keep said charm in a good mood rather than screaming curses down upon her insanity. “Whatever,” she groaned.

“Oh come on, Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie said happily, suddenly rushing up to her companion so as to grant a kiss that stopped the prismatic woman in her tracks. “We’re here together and all alone- I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember what we were even wanting to do, especially when I start thinking about how good you taste!” Those eyes of hers that always seemed so open and clear suddenly became slits. “You want a taste of me?”

“Not right now, Pinkie,” Rainbow replied, though she felt herself shudder at memory of their previous encounter together that was somewhere close to the touch of gods. “Is that whole flock here yet or not?”

“Yeppers!” Pinkie replied- and on cue came the sound of a cacophony of Baa’s that could only be found in those of goats, the trees parting to let the gargantuan flock be seen in greatest breadth. Speckled, spotless, and what seemed to be every color available were now walking before them, chewing at the grass and –if Rainbow Dash was right- waiting for further command.

“Wow. And how much did this cost you?” Rainbow asked.

Pinkie shrugged. “I dunno.”

That was only slightly suspicious. “Where’d you even get them?”

“Some weird guy in a coat was selling them yesterday and he offered them to me for a few bits so I said it was OK and he suddenly brought out a bunch of these little guys!” Pinkie reported, running up to the nearest goat and giving it a cuddle, receiving a happy Baa in return. “They’re gonna be so much fun to watch, I can’t wait!”

“OK, OK!” Rainbow replied, eager to see her desires come to fruition. “And what do they go for?”

“Go for?”

“Seek out! You told me they hunt shit!” Rainbow cried.

“Oh yeah! Yeah, whatever smell you tell this little one to look for,” Pinkie answered, reaching a hand into the flock to draw forth the smallest ewe one could ever imagine. “Ignore the eyes, he’s a cutie!”

When the eyes made it look like a deformed fish, such a task was hard to manage. “Cool. Now look, you- ewe,” Rainbow said, summoning forth a bottle of perfume she had so cleverly snatched from the stocks that wretched Princess kept in her beloved’s quarters. “You eat things. You’re gonna smell this, and you’re gonna eat whoever’s wearing it! Do you understand me?”
“Baa-a!”

“Damn right do you.” With a single press of the sprayer, a sickly scent that made Rainbow want to vomit came forth into the world with putrid intent, directly splashing into the tiny ewe’s face and making its bulbous eyes twitch. “Now, attack! Find the person who uses this, find them! Eat them alive!”

The ewe gave another bleating cry and began to writhe in Pinkie’s hand, demanding to be set to ground so as to go on the hunt-

“That’s it! Pinkie, let it go!”

“Yeppy-yeppers!”

The ewe plopped onto the ground and rushed out into the wilds in search of its quarry, violent Baa’s of war echoing behind it as it ran, across grass and soil and rock and time until it would at last find its prey… before turning right back around and coming to an immediate halt at Rainbow and Pinkie’s feet, setting teeth to tender earth so as to begin its grazing.

Rainbow didn’t know she could feel so angry about something. “Pinkie?”

“Yes, my sweet Rainbow Dash?”

“What the hell’s it doing?”

“Hmm…” Pinkie scrunched her face together in concentration as she went to earth for further observation, coming close to the flock and mingling with its numbers as she made her investigations. When she had personally inspected everyone and left Rainbow Dash positively seething, she at last returned to her place of authority beside her partner in crime and began to look over her notes. “Aha!”

“What?”

“I know exactly what they’re doing!” Pinkie Pie said.

“And that is..?”

“They… are eating grass!” Pinkie Pie concluded.

“You told me these dumbfuck goats kicked ass!” Rainbow shrieked.

“Oh, that’s what you thought I said?”

If anyone had been anywhere near them at that particular moment, or perhaps anywhere in the wide world of Equestria, they would have heard some rather spectacular screaming that echoed out from the lips of one rainbow-haired, furious woman.

“And you’re sure they actually attack things,” Rainbow demanded.

Pinkie nodded several times too many, her smile far too broad for such matters of purposeful destruction. “I promise they do!” the sugar-haired woman replied, giving her thick body a jiggle to help free it of further excitement. “They came from an apothecary over near Baltimare and they didn’t want them because the city has too many and these weren’t friendly and the city wanted them gone so they decided to-”

“OK! I get it,” Rainbow muttered. “So what do we have to do to make them attack something?”

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer and then promptly sealed it shut as she turned away from her friend and tried to summon the knowledge that would equal an answer. “Umm…”

“Pinkie…”

“I remember, I promise!”

“Then what is it?!”

“Oh yeah! The creepy-looking old guy who was really sweet and we talked for a little while and I made some cupcakes so we spent most of the morning together and then-”

“PINKIE!”

“He said that we just point and say, ‘fly’ is what he told me- I think!” Pinkie replied without skipping a beat.

I think. After yesterday’s debacle, Rainbow found herself in no mood for any lack of certainty. “You think,” she growled, leaning close to her compatriot and giving the bouncy woman an evil eye.

The lack of distance made Pinkie blink- and then kiss Rainbow again for good measure. “I’m sure, silly!” she said, wrapping her friend into an unwanted hug that she most definitely wanted anyway. “Don’t worry, they’ll do what you ask them to, I swear!”

“Just checking,” Rainbow replied. “So I just point and tell them to fly, and you’re sure?”

“Definitely, Dashie!”

There was no other way to find out other than to try. Rainbow went to the top of the hill and sought out the presence of her prey, looking for that insufferable robe of white that draped like fat curtains across that low, no-good, useless-

“Aha!” Rainbow cried, finding Celestia walking down to the barn; unprotected, alone, and most definitely vulnerable. With a single finger outstretched, she pointed down at the barnyard and cried, “Attack!”

At once the pigeons rose to the air as a single entity and went skyward as they raced down the hill towards Sweet Apple Acres with clear intent on display. This was a mission and these foul rats with wings clearly longed to see it done, screaming down like a multitude of feather missiles that would bring about an end to the stupidest woman that ever lived-

Celestia looked up and took notice of the incoming horde that signaled her doom and Rainbow wanted to give a cry of triumph-

As if on cue, the pigeons crept low… and a great splattering of white feces fell, earthbound and coming to meet soil right at the feet of the Princess, a great symphony of shit and furious rank that came into such a pile that it was visible even from such a distance. When at last their bird-brained bowels had been emptied, the pigeons gave a single, unified Coo before flying back to their master, positively brimming with success.

Rainbow should have known better. “Pinkie Pie?”

“Oh! Sorry,” Pinkie said, actually having the dignity to look abashed. “I guess pooping is what he meant by attack.”

“And the obvious miss?”

“They… are blind?”

Rainbow heard the incoming flock and sighed, pointing to a nearby tree and ordering, “Land.”

The flock made to the commanded direction, claws outstretched to take hold of their intended object and smacking into every branch as though their very lives depended on it, knocking themselves unconscious or leaving themselves in such levels of incapacitation that not even debowelment would have awakened them.

Rainbow sighed.

Pinkie screamed.

“No more animals!” Rainbow roared, axe held firmly in hands as the couple walked back to the hills above Sweet Apple Acres. “This time we leave no room for error and do it ourselves. Agreed?”

“You bet!” Pinkie cried, trying to form her face into some sort of snarl and looking more like she was having stomach pains. “But if we screw this up too, can I eat you out so you’ll feel better?”

The complete lack of subtlety was a good indicator of honesty. “Uh… maybe?”

“I’ll take those odds! What are we doing?”

“Alright, we are… cutting down trees,” Rainbow said, trying to ignore the multitude of feathers that still remained about the trunk of the accursed tree. “This tree. Right here, and now. This is really weird, help me do this before it gets weirder- now, now, now, now-”

“I think I stepped on a bone!”

“Watch out for gizzards-”

“For- WHAT?”

“Now kick it down the hill!” Rainbow ordered-

Pinkie was flouncing away from the rocking, nigh-destroyed tree as she tried to peel excess feather from her slippers while also trying not to cry and most clearly ignoring her friend’s words-

“Dammit all,” Rainbow growled, giving the thick trunk a quick strike that sent it toppling down the hill and towards the open barnyard where Applejack and Celestia were standing. Rainbow’s aim had been true, it would only swipe that miserable miscreant away and leave Applejack in awe of her actual true love’s clearly superior skills. She only had to wait now-

“Ooh, what are you up to?”

It wasn’t Pinkie’s voice. Rainbow’s blood ran cold and she wheeled herself about to stare into the furious eyes and grinning face of Princess Luna-

“Fuck-”

“Not here. Enjoy the show for a moment,” Luna whispered.

There was a sudden rustling beneath the earth and a mighty tree sprouted just before the route of the oncoming log, crashing into its kindred and rolling up along its branches. Flying high into the air it went, sailing through the sky like a drunk buzzard or perhaps- a deflating blimp- before rushing back towards earth and heading directly towards Rainbow-!

She gave a scream that definitely wasn’t cool and ducked, awaiting the inevitable crunch that would be the sound of her bones and instead felt only the butterfly kisses of air as it passed over head. Rainbow dared to look up. Was she alive? Did she have a head? A quick summation of her senses said that she probably did.

A glance behind her spoke to the log continuing to roll up along the hill and well away from her. It was time for a bit of braggadocio and Rainbow knew it. “Your aims sucks, Moonbutt! Protector of Equestria, my perfect ass!” she called out, eyes searching for any sight of the numbskull lunatic that Fluttershy supposedly was fucking-

“It does?”

A crunch of grass beneath fast, hard movement somewhere above her. Rainbow felt a cold chill of horror and leapt only just in time to avoid being crushed by the profound weight of rolling, wooden death that was a fairly sizeable log. Back down the hill it rolled until it came into contact with one of its wooded brethren yet again, crashing into it and turning into little more than a horrid mass of bark and splinters. It had come so close.

Luna appeared right before her and looked as though she would rather enact a very murderous judgement right then and there upon her rainbow-haired subject. “Anything to say in your defense?” she inquired lightly.

“Fuck’s sake.”

“Not quite what I was hoping for,” Luna remarked. “You’re testing my patience, Rainbow Dash. Make me intervene again and the protection I’ve been granting you goes away. Do you understand?”

Was it worth it to answer? Not really. Rainbow stuck out her tongue in a fit of bravery and promptly found it yanked, the force of it sending her sprawling.

“That was rude,” Luna said angrily. “You have one warning. You won’t get another.” And with a loud Crack! of air she had disappeared.

As the rampaging silence took hold, Rainbow found herself struggling to find words, or even any semblance of thought, to properly conjure. It would have been great to have a boulder or something to throw, something that would fly across the skies and crack somebody’s skull- even if it were her own! Wait, maybe that one next to her would do… and as she picked it up to find it about the size of her fist, Rainbow’s desire for screaming or tears were starting to go into overdrive. All of this was quite horribly awful and she just wanted it to end. Let her kill Celestia, start fucking Applejack like no tomorrow, and actually enjoy her life again! What more did she have to look for?

“Rainbow, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Pinkie cautioned, an uncharacteristic expression of worry clouding her bright features.

“Of course it’s a good idea!” Rainbow countered. “It’s a catapult! It throws boulders, right?”

A catapult it was indeed, and a very rickety one that clearly showed its hasty construction. Rather than sleep like any sensible, normal person, Rainbow Dash had remained on the hill throughout the night while Pinkie had gone home. When her frizzy-haired friend(?) returned the next morning, the results weren’t the most stellar of objects that the partygirl had ever seen.

“Yeah, but this seems- Rainbow, please don’t use it!” Pinkie asked. “If you hurt that perfect ass, I swear-!”

“What? It’s tossing a boulder, not me!” Rainbow replied. She of course knew better, she had always been the smartest of the bunch. A quick flash of a knife and the release rope was severed from the main rig, the bucket beginning to rise toward the sky and send its destructive payload out into the open air where it would squash Celestia like an insignificant bug-

The bucket rose, splintered through the frame, and immediately splashed down into the ground before it, sending a filthy spray of earth and muck out into the air that threatened its nearest targets-

Pinkie shrieked and summoned her umbrella-

Rainbow tried to accept that it was just going to be one of those days when she felt the first tinge of splatter. Really, she was truly trying. But instead of being able to accept the cavalcade of mire that covered her from head to toe, she only found herself entering into a new stage of anger. Was screaming good enough for this? She knew quite a few good curse words, but that still didn’t seem satisfying. Why was she so destined for failure on this one simple goal that she so definitely deserved? She’d built everything herself, and it had worked in the dry fire! Why couldn’t life just give her what she deserved?

Pinkie watched in some measure of concern as her dirt-coated object of desire went about the hill in a furious storm of foul language and screams that weren’t at all decipherable into any conceivable language. For one who was so often keen on talking to the point of blather, it was something exceptional to find her so silent in comparison. “Rainbow?” she at last inquired.

“Goddammitsonuvabitchcotton-assmotherfuckerifIcouldjusthaveonethinggorighttodayI’dbesodeepinherassI’dbeseeingherupperintestine-!”

“Rainbow Dash? Are you alright?”

“JustfortwosecondsIneedsomethingtodowhatitactuallysaysitwillorelseI’mgonnahaveafuckingseizureandkillhalfthisgoddamnmotherfuckingtownsohelpmegod-”

“Rainbow Dash, please tell me you’re-”

“Weapon!” Rainbow Dash screamed, looking like the picture-perfect example of insanity. “Weapon, you have one! Tell me you have one!”

“Of course I do, silly!” Pinkie replied happily, her bouncy self rejuvenated as she retrieved the oversized firearm from a place none could imagine and placing it at her feet. “All yours, Dashie!”

“Great!” Rainbow snarled, pointing it down the hill towards her hated target. “Now all I have to do is get one clear shot and I’ll-” she paused mid-rant. “Pinkie?”

“Yes, Dashie?”
“This is just your party cannon, right?”

Pinkie nodded happily. “It’s got a bunch of confetti in it right now, if that’ll make you feel better,” she offered.

There was nothing else for her to do but pull, and that Rainbow did, sending a fantastic spray of confetti and confections out into the air and down the hill in a spray that made Pinkie cheer, and her want to cry. She could feel the stinging in her eyes at this next step of failure she’d taken, the brilliant athlete now feeling more despairing and idiotic than ever before. What was she even doing anymore, when she couldn’t even save her one true love?

“Rainbow! What’s wrong?” Pinkie demanded, suddenly coming to her side and looking horribly distraught at the sight of Rainbow’s distress.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” Rainbow muttered. “I’ll think of something.”

Pinkie’s efforts of kindness had been rebuffed and left the enthusiastic woman somewhat deflated. She stood there beside her friend with frizzy hair slowly turning flat like a dying beach ball when it suddenly was revived by the onset of a marvelous idea. “Want me to make you feel better?” she asked. “I can eat your ass if that’d help.”

“Pinkie, just stop for a-”

She felt the first stray tracings of a finger and her breath didn’t last much longer after that. Rainbow’s eye twitched; and that had only been the first stroke, not even any real effort behind it!

She gave a small nod and allowed Pinkie Pie to indulge herself. Out of kindness, of course.

Just a little.

Author's Note

This took entirely too long to write. Holy shit.

More to come. Trust.