Celestia, was I alone. All around me, ponies chattered and clinked and giggled like hyenas, filling the air with noise and clutter. Twilight told me once that you’re never so alone as in a crowd, and I don’t know what old book she got it from, but whoever it was had had the right idea. Except that I was better out here, I guessed, than back in my room, the gold-plated hotel the Bolts had stuck me in while they went off to their performance at the Count of Trottingham’s manor. I bet he threw good parties. I bet they weren’t alone.
For an award so high in status, you’d think that they’d at least make it exciting. Oh, there had been ceremony, sure, boatloads of that, and every hour of it as long and painful as the last. My leg had been falling asleep, by the time the starting spark went up, and it was a good thing I’d practised so much, cause I almost missed the finish. I was starting to understand Spitfire’s solemn tone as she’d handed me the invite. Well, the Bolts had to be represented, I supposed. And I’d won, at least, despite the tedium. And it was cool, really, to be the fastest pony in Equestria! What I’d always wanted, even. Just I hadn’t thought it’d be so Celestia-damned boring.
The place had been so high-class there wasn’t even an afterparty. Just some elegant do that Rarity would have been right at home in, but left me feeling like a third wing on an earth pony. So I’d ditched that, and now here I was. At some fuck-off bar at the south end of Manehattan, drinking my sorrows away. Fastest pony in Equestria, and nopony gave a shit.
I was three beers down, and feeling pretty sorry for myself, when the weight of a pony slouched down on the stool beside me. I might have looked up, but I was fairly well past caring, at that point, and hey, fuck them, anyway. They should have come over when I came in, I’d have been far more open then. I pulled my drink closer, and took a long and sullen gulp.
“Buy a mare a drink?” a familiar voice rumbled, to my left.
Fine, I thought, and looked up.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Oh, y’know. I was in town.”
“I thought you were tied up at the farm.”
“I was. Till I wasn’t.”
“Uh huh.”
“Aww, c’mon, sugarcube. Aincha happy to see me?”
I was, of course, but I hardly felt like saying it. “I was fine before,” I said, stubbornly.
“Oh, yeah. You looked real great, sitting over here all by your lonesome.”
“How did you know I was here?”
She shrugged. “Hay, I knew you’d be somewhere near. That fancy soiree didn’t look much like your scene, I figured you’d be out here one of these places.”
“What if I’d gone back to my hotel?”
“Rainbow.” Applejack tilted my head to meet her gaze. Bright and green and true. “I do know you, y’know.”
It wasn’t fair, her pulling that on me. I couldn’t stay mad with her right there, I’d tried enough to know that. I curled my hooves around my glass and took another swig so I didn’t have to answer.
“Although,” said Applejack thoughtfully, chewing on a straw, “if you had been, I’d be kinda screwed. The sort of places the Wonderbolts put you up in ain’t the sort of places that like to let me in. I think it’s the hat.”
“It’s kind of crazy that despite having saved Equestria who knows how many times, there’s still places that just...just don’t,” I agreed.
“As if they could stop me,” she said with a grin.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “The hooves that felled Discord, Nightmare Moon, Sombra, and Chrysalis are standing there, and this fucking, this butler, is just politely shaking her head.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t,” said Applejack, shooting me a sly smile. “But that don’t mean I couldn’t.”
“Now that, I would pay to see.”
We laughed, and I felt some of that evening’s weight lessen on my shoulders. Alone in a crowd, huh? Well, fuck that crowd. I’d almost forgotten where we were, it was so easy sliding back into that simple connection, the comfort of a friend. We didn’t see enough of each other, these days. Oh, we still met, and talked – Twilight’s Council of Friendship made sure of that, and most of us spoke more often than that – but still, it was different. With all the planning and thinking and humming and hawing that went into getting everypony’s schedules lined up, I’d almost forgotten how easy it was to just be with them. Or maybe that was just an Applejack thing.
Enough sulking, anyway. It couldn’t have been easy for her to make it here, and I’d be damned if I stewed in my own disappointment any longer.
“So,” I said, as Applejack took a sip of her own drink. Cider, of course. “Where you staying, then?”
She made a face. “Aunt and uncle Orange gave me a bedroom for the night.”
“Yikes.”
“It’s only one night, I’m sure I can survive.”
“Well, if it gets too much you can always crash with me.”
She grinned. “What, and get turned away by the butler?”
“I’m sure they’d have to let you in if I was there beside you.”
“Mm, I don’t know.” Applejack tilted her hat with a flourish, so it fell almost rakishly over her eyes. “This hat’s some powerful stuff.”
I reached out to pull it down over her face with a snort. “Blindingly.”
“Damn straight.” She took another drink, peering at me coyly from behind the glass. “So.”
“So?”
“So,” she agreed. “Spill it. Whatcher doin out here, sugercube?”
I gave her a flat look. “Didn’t you literally just say that you knew.”
“Ah! No, I said I knew you’d be here, see, not what you were doin here. S’important distinction. I half-expected to come in and see you hanging from the ceiling, drinks all round, the whole lot of it.”
I looked down into my beer, the amber liquid pulling and twisting at the wood beneath it. “Yeah, not so much.”
“So what’s up?”
“It’s kind of difficult to explain.”
“Try me.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m here all night.”
“I don’t wanna bore you.”
“Oh, I’m all ears.”
“Applejack,” I said, squinting up at her through the glass, “can you stop being so damn accommodating? I’m trying to avoid the question here, you know.”
“No can do. Accommodating’s my middle name. After Honesty.”
“And Gertrude.”
“So out with it, filly.” She pointed a hoof at me, like a judge from on high. “What’s got yer all tangled up?”
“Hmm.” I leaned forward and bumped her hoof with my nose gently. She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m nearly drunk enough for that one, yet.”
“Come on, fastest flier in Equestria. I’ll buy you a drink if you say.”
That did sound like a fair offer. “I could buy my own drink.”
“That you could.”
I looked at her, long and hard. “Fine,” I said, eventually. “But you gotta get at least as bad as me, first.”
Her eyes lit up, that old spark of competition I knew too well. “Deal,” she said, and downed the glass.
So Applejack got some shots, and I cheered her on, and by the time I judged her as drunk as I was, we’d quite forgotten the reason why. I forgot, anyway – I’m not sure Applejack did. She wanted to know, of course, and talk about it, but what actually mattered was helping, and sitting there, in some fuck-off bar at the south end of Manehattan, Applejack stamping in time as I turned a pint glass down my throat with my teeth, I forgot why I was there in the first place. By the time the bar was closing, and we two stumbling out onto the street, not a thought of Wonderbolts or parties or racing remained. We were, as Rarity liked to put it, “thoroughly sozzled.” Or, as Applejack liked to put it, “drunk as three skunks inna, inna, inna bath, or something.”
It was good, then, that my hotel was so far away. I’d flown so long from it on purpose, to escape the sort of choking, well-bred lounges that ran alongside it, which would each, I imagined, be quite as dull as the afterparty I’d skipped out on. There was no question of flying back, though, even if I’d been able to carry Applejack.
“Look, Rainbow,” said the mare, trotting merrily alongside me, “look, I got your wing. Dash, yer too drunk to fly, I’ll hold onto them.” She let out a little “hic!” and clamped her teeth down on my left wing, just hard enough for me to feel it.
“Aww, AJ, you’re such a good friend.” I extended the wing to fill the space, and yelped as she nipped at its base. “Hey!”
“Jus checking it’s all, y’know, oper, operational,” she said, pronouncing the last word very carefully.
“It ti-i-ickles...” I complained, as she nipped at it again, and the night air felt warm upon my face as I shivered.
The butler held the door open as we hopped through, and if she had any comment to make at all about Applejack or her hat, she kept it to herself.
“Shh!” I told Applejack, as I pressed the button for my floor, and we both jumped as the lift shuddered into motion around us.
The bed was fresh and delightfully cool, the sheets soft and crisp and perfect as I flopped down on them. The frame creaked a moment later as Applejack clambered up beside me.
“So,” she said again, when the room had stopped spinning and hours had passed and the heat had calmed to a vaguely pleasant buzz at the back of my head, “what’s up, then?”
I let my head drop to look at her, those bright green eyes just inches from my own. “I don’t know,” I said, honestly.
“You’re kidding.”
I shrugged, and Applejack sighed, and we were both too tired to mind the smell of the breath that washed between us. “I guess...” I trailed off, bit my lip, and tried again. “I guess I just thought winning would be...different. You know?”
She frowned. “Dash, you’re the fastest flier in Equestria. That’s official, now, too. What, it didn’t live up to what you thought?”
I shook my head. Remembered standing there, my leg still aching, as they handed me the prize, a fluted crystal thing I was sure would break if I ever dared touch it again, as the presenter waffled on about the long, proud history of the award, and how important it was, and what an honour, and all I could think about was the fact that nopony who really mattered was there to see it. They didn’t care. The only ponies that cared were the ones on stage, dressed in their fine silks and gold ribbons, pointedly ignoring the polite, bored audience. I still won, though – it was still true, I was still the best, the fastest, nothing about the length of the ceremony made any difference to that. It was just...
“I feel the same,” I told her. “Like nothing changed. Like it was all just a big waste of time, maybe. I’m still me.”
Applejack raised one eyebrow, then the other. “Just you.”
“Yeah. Is that stupid?”
“Yup.”
“I’m not sure that’s what you’re meant to say, AJ.”
“What? It’s true.” She rolled her eyes, pulling closer, till our noses were almost touching. “Why should anything feel different? You were the fastest before you went in, an you’re still the fastest now. What’s there to complain about?”
I shook my head. “It’s like, I’ve had this, this image in my head, all this time, of what it meant, I guess, to be the best. I always knew I could be, but now everypony else knows I am, too. That’s supposed to mean something.”
I felt the covers crinkle as Applejack shifted against them. “So what, it’s not like you thought. We always knew you were the best. Or, uh, I did, anyhow. You’re still you. You’re still Rainbow Dash. That’s pretty amazing.”
I couldn’t tell if it was the light, or warmth, or lingering effects of alcohol that put the tinge of red on Applejack’s cheek, but whatever it was, I was pretty sure it was working on me, too. I felt warm, and cold, and strangely nervous. Much more nervous than I had at the race, more nervous even than my first Wonderbolt tryout. I swallowed. “But if I won, and nothing changed, what’s the point of winning?”
She laughed, and I closed my eyes against the rush of breath, and when I opened them again the glint of something more shone in Applejack’s eye. Like some mysterious spark, like a thread, and I knew that if I caught it, if I took it and pulled and held it close, it might become something. A tapestry, maybe, or a painting, or a fire.
“Sugarcube,” she said, quite simply, “that all depends on what game you’re trying to play.”
“So after that, me and your grandmother did some, heh, talking, and in a roundabout sorta way you could say that’s how it happened. How all...” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof vaguely around the room, the photographs, the filly sitting in front of her, “...this came about. Eventually, anyway.”
Pippin frowned. “Huh.”
“Huh? That’s all you have to say?”
“I didn’t know apple cider could get you so...” she waved a hoof vaguely. “...y’know.”
“I’m really not sure that’s the message you should be—”
“It sounds weird. Is it fun?”
“Absolutely not. No fun at all. Don’t even think about trying it until you’re at least sixty-five.”
Pippin narrowed her eyes. “You weren’t sixty-five.”
“And look where I ended up. With little insolent granddaughters giving me trouble I don’t deserve. I was the fastest pony in Equestria, you know.”
“Wow, really?”
Rainbow Dash sighed. What had she done, she wondered, to merit such things. “Well, anyway, the thing to remember here is not the cider. Not a word to your mother, either. Here, have an apple fritter to seal the deal.” She went to reach for the plate, and met only empty air. The cloth the treats had been sitting under lay flat upon the table, and a trail of crumbs led away down the hall. She blinked. “A distraction?”
Pippin only winked, and darted down the hall after the fritters.
“That filly,” said Rainbow, as they settled down for the night, “is going to be the death of me. She’s too clever by half.”
Applejack grinned. “She gets that from her mother. And her mother sure don’t get it from you.”
“Hmph.” Rainbow stuck her tongue out. “You know she wants to be an athlete? A runner, she says.”
“That’ll go down well.”
“Well, you never know. Maybe she’ll come to her senses. Become an architect, or something.”
“Hah! There’s too much stubborn in her for that. Too headstrong.”
“Wonder where she gets that from.”
Applejack nipped her gently, pushing her over with a hoof. “Get to sleep, you.”
Rainbow smiled, settling down against her wife in the warmth and the glow of the covers.
“Hey, AJ,” she said, when she thought she was asleep.
“Mmh?” asked Applejack, the familiar voice rumbling through her body.
“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said, and kissed her wife goodnight.
Rainbow Dash gave her a long, hard look. “You want to know how we got together, huh?”
Pippin nodded. “Course I do, granny!”
“Hmph.” Rainbow Dash seemed unimpressed. “Just last week you were trying to sneak your granny’s sweet apple fritters, and now you wanna know about that? You foals sure move quick.” The plate of them sat just at her hoof, safe from prying noses.
“Mm-hmm!” Pippin arranged herself neatly upon the floor, tail curled around her hooves like a cat. Ready to listen. “I, uh, know bits here an there, but other granny always said I’d get the full story when I was older.”
“Yeah? And how old’s that, then?”
“Almost twelve!”
“So you are.” Rainbow settled back in her armchair. Applejack would be a while back yet, and this seemed as good a way as any to keep the kids quiet. She only had so many games of hide and seek left in her, after all. Besides, Pip was old enough now. Old enough for some of it, anyway; the other parts, well... And the important bit, that was something she could do with knowing. She had a competitive streak in her, that one. “Lil Mac and the Gremlin still playing in the other room?”
Pippin nodded eagerly.
“All right,” said Rainbow, getting comfortable, “I’ll tell you. Not a word of this to your mother, you hear?”
“I promise.”
“Hmph. Well then. You know I was a Wonderbolt, right?”
“No, granny, I hadn’t heard that.”
“I’ll have none of that cheek.” Pippin giggled, and Rainbow tried not to smile. “Anyway. Back when I was just starting out, barely a year into the team, there was this big competition. End of year thing, sort of a ‘fastest pony in Equestria’ type deal. No big thing.”
“You won, of course.”
“Who’s telling the story here, filly?”
“Sorry, I just assumed you’d win.”
“You’d find out, if you’re quiet.”
“But you did win, right?”
Rainbow grinned, despite herself. “Well, yeah. Course I won. More importantly, though, was where the competition was being held. Big stadium in Manehattan, a hundred miles across. Your parents ever take you to Manehattan?”
Pippin shook her head.
“Sensible people, those ponies. Can’t think where they got it from. In any case, if you ever get the chance, don’t go. Horrible place. You can ask aunt Rarity about it, if you like. But this was after that, and Rarity was over in Ponyville. Nopony was around, as it happened, not even any of the other Bolts. They had some other show on, that night. Like I said, this was no big thing.
“So there I was, in Manehattan, just after the competition. I’d won. And I was completely alone.”
