Let's Do The Time Warp Again!
Rainbow Dash sighed once again. Despite the clouds above blocking out Celestia’s gift to the world, her burning spirit hadn’t dampened a bit. Applejack’s near-obsessive focus on the hunk of metal and wires before them, however, was harshing Dash’s flow. “C’mon, Applejack! If it feels like time’s standing still! That battery isn’t gonna get glowin’ if you glower at it!” she pleaded.
After a minute, Applejack conceded. Leaning back, she swiped a river of sweat from her brow, the drops slapping off of her Stetson hat nearby. “... you’re right, Dashie. Jus’ frustrated, is all.”
Before both mares, the power battery - one that Twilight had given them to fix - lay unresponsive. In front of the workbench holding that battery, a giant rusted pod-ship loomed over them. It was quite the monolith in Sweet Apple Acres’ empty field.
And it was Applejack and Dash’s job to get it working again. “Well, I think we just need to get some Zap Jam into the joints! That could get the sparkplug in the battery working, right?” Dash suggested.
“Assumin’ this is the sparkplug.” Applejack pulled on the straps to her black overalls - a poor choice in the humid air, but all she’d had to wear. Wouldn’t do to get all dirty, not in front of Dash. Even now, thinking her name settled Applejack’s heart. “Ah still don’t know why Twilight wants us to do this,” she grumbled.
Ever the literalist, Dash answered A.J. “Because unicorn magic isn’t budging this hunk o’ junk, Fluttershy nearly hit the library’s roof when she saw who was in it, and Pinkie’s… well, Pinkie.” Shrugging her shoulders, Dash raced back into the barn. A minute later, she returned with a Zap Jam jar. “C’moooon, A.J., if it doesn’t work we can claim it was busted when we found iiiit..”
“Twilight’s got plenty of issues keeping explosions from happenin’ now, Dashie.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess! Still don’t even know how the hippogriffs and dragons found out that we found this ship. I don’t even know why they’re about to come to blows over it!”
“Well, both… both Novo and Torch came almost minutes after we found it right?”
“Yeah… despite Torch barely being able to fit behind the library…”
Applejack couldn’t hold back a chuckle at that mental image. Lord Torch, craning down to look into the giant library’s top floor, his eye big enough that it filled the window when Twilight’s vision fell upon it. What a sight for Twilight to wake up to. “Y-yeah. But really, Dash; they came within minutes?”
“Sure did.”
“And that ship we saw was full of pearls like the one we saw on Novo’s neck? Of gems like the ones they said Torch’s clan only found recently?
“Yeah… oh wait!” Dash's eyes twinkled with realization. “You think that ship’s passenger might have found riches before in those lands? Before even they did? Awesome!”
“Ah Think it’s simple, Dash. If it’s Princess Amore… well, this thing’s a priceless ‘hunk o’junk’ then.” Applejack's mind pored over the possibilities. The late Princess Amore, Cadance’s grandmother, possibly the pony skeleton they’d found in this ship’s cockpit? If so, then the pod was likely thousands of years old. “Don’t need a telescope t’see why dragons would lay salvage claims to it. Or why the Hippogriffs would break a decade long break from the rest of us to claim it’s ‘dangerous’.”
“Yeah, that’s rich! But… I guess I could see it.” Dash rubbed a hoof along the side of the ship. “Looks like it’s a relic! Ooooh, you think Daring might know something about it?”
“Y’can ask her when she comes, Dashie!” Applejack grinned at the giddy pegasus. No matter how many times she saw it, that grin always brightened her day. “O’course, it’ll help if it’s workin’ when she sees it.”
“Got it, A.J.! Actually…” Dash’s voice got lower. “Actually, well... d'ya think we could talk for a moment?”
“Sure. What is it?”
"Well I was thinking, since this rusty ship washed up several hours ago, and all we learned about it... nah, you'll think it's silly."
Applejack's brow creased in concern. " Now you look here, Dashie. Your plowin' through Twilight's library when that Poison Joke got ahold'a your wings, that was silly. This is dead serious, and I'd never think less of ya for being curious." Her eyes narrowed. "An' Ah definitely won't think less of you for bein' honest with me. So, spit it out, Dashie."
“Well... when I was young, I always kept thinking about the future.” Dash’s eyes locked onto Applejack’s. “The first Sonic Rainboom I had, I wasn’t just giddy I’d broken a wing speed record. I… I thought it’d spin me into the future. Where I could see all the awesome things we’d do together.”
“Yeah, that’s our Dashie!” A.J. ruffled Dash’s mane. “Prolly read the end of books first too, Ah reckon.”
“Hey! You and Daring both know I don’t do that!” Dash playfully stuck out her tongue at Applejack. “C’mon, don’t tell you never wondered.”
Applejack paused at that. Am Ah thinkin’ too little about the future? she thought. Bending down, she picked up the tools before her, quickly working on the battery again. “Wonder what?”
“Y’know. How this day’ll turn out. How our lives will.” Dash’s eyebrows wiggled. “Who you’ll fall in love with. Marry?”
“Knowin’ the future and expectin’ it are two different things, Dashie.” Though Applejack had to admit, some knowledge could be useful. Crop harvests. Possible droughts. How Dash would react when Applejack said she… “Ah’m fine with what Ah know now.”
“Really? Starswirl pops up in front of you, offers to take you a decade from now - and you wouldn’t?” Dash asked.
Applejack slowly looked up to the rusted ship. Then the thought of the dragons and hippogriffs arguing in Golden Oaks right now hit her. “Some things might be better left a mystery,” she replied. “What else can Ah say? If we don’t get this fixed and Twilight get all orner-”
A rush of wind signaled Dash’s re-visit to the barn. This time, Dash’s offered hoof gave her a drill. “Thanks, Dashie.” Applejack said.
“Anytime.” Dash held down the batter as Applejack drilled a new hole in the side to move the wires into.
“What about you though, Dashie?”
“Say what, A.J.?”
“Ah mean... well, say there's some future-tellin’ book you could study. Y’know it’ll find ya the special somepony you marry one day. Would you wanna know it?”
“I mean, of course!” Dash chirped.“Think of how awesome it’d be!All the places we’d go, the times we’d share, the awkward dates I could avoid…”
Applejack fought down the flutter in her heart. “An’ one day, ya meet that somepony. You go through all the dates. Pop the question. She says ‘Ah do-’”
An’ then she hugs your and breathes in the wonderful shampoo in that rainbow mane of-
“-an’ ya live happily ever after.” Applejack finished. “Now, did ya do it for love, or cuz some pages in a book told ya to?”
Dash pondered it for twenty seconds - A new record! Applejack thought. “Well,” Dash replied, “We’re both living happily ever after! I don’t… really think it matters how. Right?”
Applejack took solace in that fact. It really didn’t matter how happiness was found, did it? Almost as if to reward her epiphany, the nudged wires finally glowed, the battery lighting up before them like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree.
“Woohoo! You did it, A.J.!” Dash said, snapping her back to reality. “Think I saw the same circuit in the ship, too! We could rig them up!”
“Good idea, Dashie. Let’s get this ship moving!” Applejack said. “Good thing that it’s empty now!”
“Hear, hear!”
As they approached the ship, the first rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds, Applejack smiled. “Now, if you’re talking about the past, Dash, Ah’d be there in a Manehattan minute.”
“Really?” Dash bubbled, her blush growing. “But.. it’s the past, A.J. What could you wanna see there that hasn’t already been talked about?” Dash chuckled. “Y’know, besides me?”
Applejack laughed too, one that she hoped didn’t sound as wistful as she thought it did. “Ah always wanted to see a bugbear. Y’know, before they all got moved to Tartarus.”
“Sure they wouldn’t make a meal of you when you did?”
“C’mon, Dashie. You an’ Fluttershy both know bugbears eat plants.” She braced her hooves around a loose panel on the ship - the same shape as the battery thrumming behind them. “In that book she showed us yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Dash said, as her forehooves fit under the other side of the panel’s lid. “Might like goin’ to the past too. Have an idea what year I’d pick too.”
“Which one?”
Dash snickered. “1833.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Why that one, Dashie?”
“Year the charter for the Wonderbolts was made.”
“Somepony named Dash probably penned that too, Ah’d reckon!” Both mares grinned, then braced themselves and pulled back. The panel creaked under their combined strength, but finally opened with a sna-
As they approached the ship, the first rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds, Applejack smiled. “Now, if you’re talking about the past, Dash, Ah’d be there in a Manehattan minute.”
“But.. it’s the past, A.J. What could you wanna see there that hasn’t already been talked about?” Dash chuckled. “Y’know, besides me?”
Applejack laughed too. “Ah always wanted to see a bugbear. Y’know, before they all got moved to Tartarus.”
“Sure they wouldn’t make a meal of you when you did?”
“C’mon, Dashie. You an’ Fluttershy both know bugbears eat plants.” As Applejack moved to the ship’s side, Dash’s eyebrows rose. Wait, didn’t I just hear A.J. say this before? Right before she said it was- “In that book she showed us yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Dash said, as she moved to help A.J move the panel. fit under the other side of the panel’s lid. “Sure we didn’t talk about this before, A.J.?”
“Nnope. Don’t feel like it.”
Dash shook her head, hoping it banished that eerie thought. “Well, nevermind. I might like goin’ to the past too. Have an idea what year I’d pick too-”
“-1833?” Both mares said that number this time. Now it was Applejack’s turn to blush.
“Okaaay… we might be spendin’ a bit more time together than we thought.” she said. “Didn’t even know you were gonna say that.”
“Eh. Time flies when you’re having fun!” Dash replied. With a yank, they heaved the ship’s panel off with a sna-
As they approached the ship, the first rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds, Applejack smiled. “Now, if you’re talking about the past, Dash, Ah’d be there in a Manehattan minute.”
“Really? But.. it’s the past, A.J. What could you wanna see there that hasn’t already been talked about?” Dash chuckled. “Y’know, besides…” Then Dash stopped immediately. Turning to Applejack as she chuckled, Dash's lips moved before hers did. “I always wanted to see a bugbear. Before they all got moved to Tartarus.”
Applejack’s hooves ground to a halt. “Sure they wouldn’t make a meal of me when Ah did?” she echoed.
“No that’s impossible... because both Fluttershy and I know bugbears eat plants.” Dash finished Applejack’s sentence for her. Turning back to the battery, Dash gulped. “Okay, we might need to book it over to Twilight. Pun intended”
“Lead the way, Dashie.” Both mares stumbled toward the battery, their forehooves clasping around it just as the sun’s ray finally broke free of the clouds. Both Applejack and Dash bathed in its warmth together. Their eyes met again, and for a moment, they both understood. Not just their last sentences, but the reason for their last times together.
And both of them smiled, their heartbeats syncing.
Then a blast of fire emerged from the direction of Golden Oaks Library. “Let’s go, Dashie!” Applejack said, swiping up her Stetson. “Ah knew the dragons would crack first!”
“Hold onto your hat then, A.J.!” Dash shouted, her forehooves wrapping around Applejack’s barrel. With a rush of rainbowed light, both mares were off, rocketing toward the library.
After all, Twilight definitely needed them now.
