Couples Retreat

by bats

Rating: teen
Tags: Romance, Applejack, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash
Length: 32262

AJ and Rainbow head off to Whinnypeg to find a friendship problem at the convention center. The only real issue is that the con is a couples retreat, everypony is flashing them knowing looks, and the two of them aren’t together like that … anymore.

Following the Cutie Map, Applejack and Rainbow Dash head off to Whinnypeg to find a friendship problem somewhere in the convention center. A con is poised to start when they arrive and they check-in as attendees, ready to search high and low among the staff and the con-goers for whoever needed their help. The only real problem is that the con is a couples retreat, everypony is flashing Applejack and Rainbow Dash knowing looks, and the two of them aren’t together like that.

At least, they haven’t been together like that since they were teenagers …

A novella told in three parts.

Editing by JetstreamGW and bookplayer. Cover art by mousse.

Published 2021-07-26 20:00:03 UTC
Last updated 2021-07-30 20:07:04 UTC

Part One

Applejack let out a sigh of relief as the train station came into view. She rubbed her eye and leaned away from the window, jabbing Rainbow in the side. “We’re almost there now, Dash, so quit your fidgetin’.”

Rainbow grunted and rubbed her side. “I could’ve flown us, you know.”

“You might’a been able to, but ain’t no way in tartarus I was bein’ carried halfway across Equestria just ‘cause you didn’t wanna sit still on a train for a couple hours.” She crossed her hooves over her chest and narrowed her eyes at Rainbow. “Somethin’ botherin’ you, sugar cube? You ain’t normally so wiggly on a train.”

Sighing and slumping back on the bench, Rainbow raised her hooves up in surrender. “Well, normally I have a book or something to distract myself with, but I forgot, because getting a call from the cutie map’s always, like, this big thing, you know?” She gave Applejack a begrudging pout and let out a long, slow breath. “Sorry for being wiggly.”

Applejack cracked a smile and rolled her eyes. “Apology accepted. Sorry for bein’ cross. You were just makin’ me feel like I’m covered in ants.” With a distant squeal of brakes, Applejack felt herself get pulled forward by the inertia of the train slowing. She went with the flow and stepped down off the bench.

Rainbow hopped down after and popped a kink in her neck. “So what do you think the map wants us here for, anyway?”

Applejack walked slowly toward the door as the train gradually came to a halt. “Beats me, the map don’t talk much. You ever been to Whinnypeg before?”

“Couple times.”

“What sorta place is it like?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. The stadium’s nice.”

Applejack furrowed her brow and turned back toward Rainbow. “Wonderbolts shows?”

“Wonderbolts shows.”

“Figures. Kinda hopin’ for a Darin’ Do convention or somethin’, too. I guess I’d be askin’ too much for that, seein’ as we’re goin’ to the convention center.”

Rainbow grinned. “The map doesn’t talk and it doesn’t make stuff easy.”

Applejack returned the smile and bumped her shoulder against Rainbow playfully. “That it don’t.” The doors swung open and Applejack jumped out onto the platform. A rush of crisp air ran through her mane and made her hat billow, and she took in a deep breath.

Rainbow jumped out of the train and spread her wings, swooping around overhead in a circle before hovering next to Applejack. “Aw, yeah, freedom again!” She let out a contented sigh and corkscrewed in place. “Can we take a hot-air balloon back when we’re done? Making you feel like you’re covered in ants sucks for me, too.”

With a sigh, Applejack led the way down from the train platform. She checked a map painted on a freestanding wall and started counting blocks between the station and convention center. “We’ll see how many more bits doin’ that’d be, and if’n it’s more than the cost of gettin’ you an extra Darin’ Do book instead.”

Rainbow swooped down and jabbed Applejack in the shoulder. “That … is a good idea.”

Snickering, she led the way out of the station. The streets of Whinnypeg were paved and bustling with carts, reminding her of Manehattan, but on a smaller scale, with fewer ponies out and about and only a couple skyscrapers dotting the skyline. She checked the street signs, then started walking. “You hungry, Dash? I told Rarity we were comin’ out here and she said I gotta try puttin’ while I’m here. Least I think that’s what she called it. Not puddin’, I asked and she said it was somethin’ different.”

Rainbow frowned in confusion. “Putting? Like, this conversation’s putting me to sleep?” Her eyebrows shot up and she grinned. “Oh, wait, did she say poutine?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Hah! Putting! Yeah, sure, I’m up for some poutine.”

Applejack gave Rainbow a reserved look as she stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the carts to go by. “So Rarity wasn’t shinin’ me on, and there really is somethin’ called poutine?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. And Rares is right saying you should try it, you’ll probably dig it. Kinda surprised she likes it, it’s a little … uh … heavy for her.”

“If you say so. I ain’t even got the foggiest idea what it is.” She stepped out into the street as the light changed with Rainbow following along to the side and slightly above her.

“It’s, like, hayfries with cheese and gravy on it. It’s really good. Not the best thing to eat right before a Wonderbolts show, though, trust me on that.”

Applejack slowed down and laughed, dipping the brim of her hat over her eyes. “I believe you, sugar cube. And that does sound mighty good. Wouldn’t wanna go buckin’ trees with a belly full’a that, but wouldn’t say no after a day’s work.”

“Yeah, the next time I came here, I saved the poutine for after the show.”

“Don’t blame ya.” Applejack lingered at the corner. “Hungry now? Is there a special place we oughtta go for it?”

“I could eat, but I could wait, too. And nah, you can get poutine pretty much wherever here, I think. The convention center probably sells it. How much further we going, anyway?”

Applejack gave a half smile and pointed across the street at the large, rounded building in front of them, its roof a scalloped dome, like a gigantic clam shell. The sign directly across from them read, Whinnypeg Convention Center.

“Oh, nice. I knew I didn’t have to pay attention to anything.”

Applejack faltered as the light changed. “Come again?”

“Well, I don’t have to. You’re here, and you keep track of all that stuff, I can just follow along and not pay attention.”

With a sigh and a chuckle, Applejack headed across the street. “You might wanna start payin’ attention, I don’t always know what I’m doin’ or where we oughtta go any more’n anyone else does, we’re all just flyin’ by our tails here.”

“Aw, c’mon, you know when Twi’s around, you sit back and let her be in charge of everything.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Psh.” Rainbow darted ahead to meet Applejack face to face, then flew backwards to stay in front. She flashed a mischievous grin. “Don’t pretend like you weren’t zoned out thinking about apples when we met Daring Do, miss all right, Ahui … whatever your name is.”

Applejack tried to keep her expression neutral, but cracked and gave Rainbow a chagrined smile. “All right, fine, I try to pay attention, but it don’t always work. Plus you were payin’ attention, then, so I knew it wasn’t gonna only be Twi doin’ it.”

Rainbow giggled and swooped away to hover at Applejack’s side. They got to the other side of the road, then started rounding the building to find an entrance. “Fair. Anyway, I’ll pay attention once we find some ponies and need to figure out whatever the heck they need our help with, but I knew I could count on you to make sure we got to the right place.”

“Guess I can’t be too sore at you callin’ me reliable. Just so long as you don’t go disappearin’ on me for the friendship problems.”

“Course not, you got my full attention.” She nudged Applejack in the ribs. “And I’ll keep an eye out for a poutine place, too.”

Applejack laughed and shoulder-checked Rainbow, who wavered away in the air, then bumped her back. She got Rainbow in a headlock and was about to start dishing out noogies when they got to one of the convention center’s main entrances. Rainbow shrugged out of the headlock as they looked over the sign announcing the weekend’s activities: Woe-be-gone Couples Retreat in Downtown Whinnypeg.

Applejack raised her brows. “Huh. Well, we’re in the right place, that’s for sure.”

“A couples retreat? At a convention center?” Rainbow rubbed her cheek and frowned. “Doesn’t seem like a great place for that to me. Aren’t those normally, like, out on ranches or something?”

“I don’t suppose everypony can afford to go out to a ranch if they live in the city,” Applejack said. She smirked. “Plus, I bet you’d be happy as a clam here with a stallion if it were a Darin’ Doconvention.” She snickered to herself.

Rainbow’s snout curled in mock distaste. “A stallion? What kinda girl do you take me for? One like you?”

“Ugh, how dare ya, Dash.” They both shared a chuckle. “That joke ever gonna stop bein’ funny?”

“Maybe if one of us magically started liking boys. Ugh, stallion at a Do Con, you’re making me think of Quibble Pants like that.” She shuddered.

“Sorry, sorry, mare at a Do Con, that puttin’ better thoughts in your head?” Applejack’s grin turned more mischievous. “You’n the lucky missus could take turns playin’ dress-up as Darin’.”

“I’ll have you know it’s called cosplay, not dress-up,and … yeah, that sounds pretty hot.” Rainbow winked at Applejack, then turned back to the marquee. “It doesn’t look like it’s a Do Con, though.”

Applejack shrugged. “We’ll find out what they’re doin’, I guess. C’mon.” She led the way and held the door for Rainbow. They slipped inside, and Applejack looked upwards at the inside of the clamshell dome. She had to squint from the bright, polished marble, catching light from the magical sconces and reflecting it back as a shimmer.

“Huh,” Rainbow said. “Guess that makes a bit more sense why ponies’d wanna spend all weekend here. Swanky.”

“Mm.” Applejack looked around the room, her expression guarded, feeling her hooves sink into the plush carpet with every step. “I think I’d prefer a ranch, myself.”

“Me too, probably, but swank can be fun.”

Flashing a wan smile at Rainbow, Applejack stopped at the ticket box office. She rested her forelegs on the counter and smiled at the mare behind the glass, who had a curly red mane and half-moon reading glasses. “Howdy, there.”

“Good morning, dearie. Are you two here for the retreat? Did you book ahead?”

Applejack blinked and felt heat rise to her face. “Uh …” She glanced sidelong at Rainbow, who had dots of pink on her cheeks, but gave Applejack an amused smile. “No, uh, we didn’t book ahead.”

“Not to worry, still plenty of spaces open, today’s check-in day and most of the planned activities don’t start until this afternoon.” The mare cracked open a ledger and flipped through a few pages. “The royal suite in the hotel is booked, so you’ll have to make do with a single or a double, if that’s okay with you two. The standard package comes with the room for the whole weekend with breakfasts included, three instructor-led yoga classes, three group therapy sessions, tonight’s meet and greet with the other attendees, tomorrow’s movie night, and access to all of the amenities in the convention center and hotel.”

Applejack’s brows slowly raised as the mare spoke. “Uh …”

“And the deluxe package includes everything in the standard, plus three sessions each of private, one-on-one couples therapy and full body massages at the spa.”

Rainbow flew in closer, nudging Applejack out from the center of the box office window. “Ooh, massages. Let’s get the deluxe, AJ.”

“Rainbow,” Applejack said sharply. She turned back to the mare in the box office and gave her a polite smile. “’Scuse us for a sec.” The mare gave her a knowing nod that made Applejack’s cheeks flare up again, but she pushed those thoughts away for the moment and dragged Rainbow aside, out of earshot. “We ain’t here for—”

“We’re here for the retreat,” Rainbow said, jabbing Applejack’s side. “Maybe not in the way they expect us to be here for it, but that’s still what’s going on. Which means paying to get in. And I want massages.” Applejack’s expression sharpened, and Rainbow leaned in, whispering, “It’s official friendship problem business, we’ll send the bill to Twi.”

Applejack groaned and slapped her hoof over her muzzle. “We are not sendin’ the bill to Twi.”

“Why not? You and Fluttershy didn’t pay for that Las Pegasus trip, did you?”

“… No …” Applejack grumbled. “But we didn’t take advantage none, and it wasn’t Twi who paid for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, royal treasury, not Twi, but same dif. We’ll just get a single and make up for it a little bit that way, if you’re that worried about using royal money, okay?” Applejack gave her an unconvinced look, and Rainbow crossed her hooves over her chest. “What if the friendship problem has something to do with the spa ponies here and the only way we’ll find out is by getting massages? Ever think of that?”

Despite herself, Applejack snickered. “Oh, cut it out, you and I both knowyou don’t believe that and you’re just anglin’ for a massage.”

“Obviously. Am I wrong, though?”

“… No, I guess not.”

“Then it’s settled.” Rainbow flew back to the box office. “Deluxe package it is!”

With a heavy sigh, Applejack trudged back and gave the mare a nod. “Eeyup, deluxe package.” She squinted at Rainbow from the corner of her eye. “And a single, we reckon.”

The mare slid two lanyards, already filled out and stamped with a D, through the slot in the glass. “I figured as much,” she said in a chipper tone. “Registering for the con also counts as your check-in. Here are your room keys.”

Rainbow snatched up one of each. “Score! I’mma go find our room, you pay, okay?” She flew off around a corner, disappearing deeper into the convention center.

Applejack let out a slow breath through her snout, rolled her eyes, and took off her hat. She fetched her bag of bits from inside the brim liner and dropped it on the counter.

“That firecracker always gets her way, huh?” The mare gave Applejack a conspiratorial grin.

“Um. Yeah, guess so. Sometimes I can talk her outta stuff. Sometimes.”

“My sister’s the same way with her husband.”

Applejack tried to keep her complexion even as she counted out far more bits than she was comfortable spending all at once. “Does she drive her husband up the wall, too?”

“Seems like it. I think that’s all partners, though. I will say that you two came to the right place, this is the third year in a row of retreats, and I’ve yet to see a couple leave without having their hooves all over each other, and a lot of them come in the first day at each other’s throats. I’m sure you’ll be back in your honeymoon phase once you’re done.”

She huffed through her snout and weighed just how forthcoming she wanted to be with a random, slightly nosy mare at a box office in a strange city. “… We, uh, actually ain’t together like that, we’re here for other reasons.”

The mare raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh.”

A wave of regret over saying anything crashed over her as she felt transported back to her days as a school filly dealing with the town gossip—who was, of course, Rarity. “I mean … once upon a time …” Applejack’s face warmed up and she looked down, shuffling her bag of bits around. “But that was years ago. Didn’t work out too good then. We’re better friends than lovers, ya follow me?”

“Well … if she dragged you here, I think she might be trying to tell you she wants to try again. It isn’t my business,” she said, her tone as if it were entirely her business, “but it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep an open mind?”

Applejack grunted something noncommittal as she slid the bits through the slot. “Thank ya kindly,” she said as she collected her lanyard and room key.

“Try to relax and have fun with your firecracker!” the mare called, as Applejack rounded the box office and headed down the hall in the direction Rainbow had flown off.

She felt a powerful blush come on as soon as she was out of the mare’s line of sight. She shook her head. “I guess I gotta get used to that happenin’ all weekend,” she said to herself. “If I ain’t careful, Dash is gonna start doin’ it, too, just to get a rise outta me.” She stopped and took a steadying breath, willing a flurry of old thoughts away, thoughts she didn’t like considering. Feeling calm again, she checked her room key and followed the signs toward the convention center’s hotel.

Winding her way to the back of the building, Applejack passed through the main convention center. The large, circular floor area was carved up into rooms and hallways, with the walls extending upwards about twenty feet, then ending, leaving the domed ceiling disconnected. She peeked into the rooms as she went, spotting signs of the convention’s special amenities still being put together. One banquet-sized hall had several stacks of workout mats ready to be spread across the floor, with a boombox sitting on top. A second, smaller room had two massage tables stacked high with supplies. Another banquet sat filled to the brim with chairs, and Applejack spotted a pair of workers in a frustrated conversation as they poked and prodded at an ancient projector. One of the rooms even had what looked like the makings of a library, full of cheap shelves and boxes overflowing with books, the floor littered with beanbag chairs.

“Huh,” Applejack muttered to herself. “Not a bad lookin’ setup.”

The signs brought her to an archway in the clamshell and she left the convention center itself, the plush floor turning to stone tile and the staff ponies shifting to hotel workers. The hotel itself felt a little claustrophobic in comparison to the vaulted dome of the center, but no less opulent, and Applejack let out a long sigh as she found their room.

She slipped inside and let the door lock shut behind her, then sighed again at the room, which looked like something out of the princesses’ castle in Canterlot, complete with a crystal chandelier. “Ugh, why’s it always gotta be fancy?”

“Yeah, this is a little much for me, too,” Rainbow said, stepping out from the en suite bathroom. She crinkled her snout in distaste. “The toilet’s got, like, gold leaf patterns and stuff on it. The toilet.”

Applejack groaned, crossed over to the single-sized, canopied bed, and sat down, sinking into the down pillowtop. “What the heck are we even doin’ in a place like this, Rainbow?”

Rainbow grinned, then sat down next to her. Despite her sinking nearly half a foot, Applejack didn’t feel any movement in the mattress. “We’re going undercover as a couple to help fix someone’s problems.”

“I don’t mean that,” Applejack grumbled. “And we ain’t goin’ undercover, Dash.”

“Aw, c’mon, it’d be fun.” She giggled and jabbed Applejack in the side. “We’ll say you’re Apple Blossom, and I’ll be Spectrum. We met five years ago working as stuntponies and have been married for two. We live in Fillydelphia.” She waggled her eyebrows.

Applejack opened and shut her mouth a few times, then started laughing. “Ya had me goin’ for a second there.” She let out a light breath and shook her head. “Thanks, Rainbow, I needed a laugh.”

“Hmph,” Rainbow said, trying to pout out her bottom lip through a smile. “Rarity would have played undercover spy with me.” She jumped down from the bed and stretched out her back. “C’mon, I don’t want to spend any more time in this room than I have to, there’s gotta be other stuff to do.”

Applejack nodded and stood. “Yeah, we probably ain’t the only couple who’s here already, maybe we can find whatever problem we’re here to fix and get outta this rich pony’s nightmare room before the weekend’s over.”

“Hey, I’m getting at least one massage, AJ.” She flashed a wicked smile. “Or are you gonna make Twi pay for all of those and then not use them?” Applejack muttered under her breath while Rainbow snickered and added, “Nah, this weekend’s gonna be weird enough as it is, and the sooner we do whatever we’re here for and can leave this trashy romance novel room, the better. You want to ask around or grab some grub first? There’s a restaurant in the hotel that serves poutine.”

“Temptin’. Let’s see if we can’t find anypony first.” She got to the door and opened it, only for Rainbow to grab her fetlock and pull it shut again. “What?”

“Remember, Apple Blossom, stuntponies, known each other for five years, married for two, and if you get caught, there’s a cyanide pill under your hat.”

She stared at Rainbow, then snorted and started laughing. “All right, Spectrum, ain’t nopony takin’ me alive.” Rainbow joined in on the laughter as they headed out into the hallway. She let out a sigh and wiped her eye. “Least you got that timeframe right, if I really were married to ya for two years, I’d be needin’ a retreat.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know every day with me’s a vacation. And we both know the reason why I’d drive you so crazy you needed this was because bugging you is hilarious.” She flashed a grin and winked. “For real, though, you’re fun to bug because you can take it and’ll fight back.”

Chuckling, she bumped Rainbow’s shoulder. “Like that?” Rainbow rammed into her again and they laughed together as they crossed through the hotel, earning a sharp look of disapproval from a bellhop. They left the hotel and stepped back into the convention center. “Any ideas where to start? I didn’t see nopony who didn’t look like they were workin’ here on the way in.”

“… No. Um. I, uh … wasn’t really paying attention.” Rainbow looked away and cleared her throat. “We could split up and wander around ‘til we find somepony. Try and meet up in, like, an hour? Then we’ll grab food?”

“See? You can plan just fine, featherhead.” She ruffled Rainbow’s mane, then took off to the right, circling the outer edge of the dome counterclockwise. She waved as Rainbow headed the other direction. “Last one to find someone pays for the poutine.”

“You’re on!”

Applejack smiled to herself and felt her pace pick up without even thinking about it. She glanced in and out of rooms as she passed, seeing amenities in various stages of construction, looking for anypony else who arrived early and didn’t want to be cooped up in a wretchedly overdone hotel room. Even if the competition was a stupid one, having something to butt heads with Rainbow over always put her in a good mood.

“Who knows?” she asked herself. “Maybe we’ll be headin’ home before we even need to stay in that room.” She had a bounce in her step as she circled the halls, her eyes open and searching for a couple in need of help.

The waiter slipped the platter onto the table. Applejack pressed her mouth together and tried to keep from curling her snout. The platter had three separate containers on it that contained things Applejack recognized as being made of food, but weren’t presented in a way that seemed edible. A ramekin took up most of the space and was filled with hayfries. At least, Applejack was pretty sure they were hayfries, it was a little hard to tell, as each individual piece of hay had been woven together with the others, forming what looked like a mini wicker basket. Next to it was a gravy boat, but instead of gravy, it was full of a thick, white sludge that Applejack hoped was a cheese sauce. Taking up the third spot and giving Applejack the biggest headache was a mini ice-bucket, filled with cloudy brown cubes of ice.

The waiter bowed and said, “Your poutine déconstruite, madams. Will there be anything else you need at the moment?”

Applejack glanced over at Rainbow, who poked the ice bucket with a look of morbid fascination on her face, then turned to the waiter. “Uh … no, I think we’re good, thanks.”

As he left, she watched Rainbow pick up a cube and touch it to her tongue. Rainbow made a face and dropped it to the table. “It’s frozen gravy.”

“I, uh, take it this ain’t how poutine’s normally made.”

“Yeah, no.” Rainbow sighed and shook her head, slumping in the chair. “Should’ve known a place like this wouldn’t know how to make food right.” She jabbed the ramekin with the tip of her hoof and it slid an inch, the basket of hayfries staying tightly woven. “So, uh, you wanna just eat this, or should we go find something that’s actual food?”

Applejack mumbled under her breath and rested her cheek on a hoof. “Let’s just eat it, I don’t wanna pay for two things right now. How the heck do you think we’re supposed to eat it, anyway?”

“Beats me. Is the cheese stuff hot?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe … fill the basket with ice cubes, then pour the cheese on top to melt it? That’s, like, almost what poutine’s supposed to be.” With a shrug, Applejack picked up the cheese boat and watched Rainbow invert the ice-bucket into the ramekin. Applejack caught a few sharp looks of disapproval from passing waitstaff and snickered despite herself as she poured steaming cheese sauce over top. Rainbow cocked her head to the side and poked the outer edge of the basket, the hayfries starting to soften under the cheese and cold, melty gravy. She pulled a hayfry free and gave Applejack a look full of misgivings. Applejack freed her own hayfry, and the two of them tried it at the same time.

Applejack chewed hers. “… That’s … weird.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that what poutine’s supposed to taste like?”

“Not really.”

She swallowed the mouthful. “… Ain’t bad.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Nah, it’s alright.”

They exchanged a look, then both tried to hold in laughter. Applejack let out a long sigh, picked up what she was pretty sure was a salad fork based on the gasp she overheard from a waiter, and broke the basket up until they could fish hayfries out of it. She scooped up several and popped them in her mouth.

“So did you find anypony?” Rainbow asked as she chewed around a bite.

“Nah.” Applejack swallowed her mouthful. “I talked to a couple’a ponies here for the convention, but they didn’t really have no problems I could see. I’m sure somepony’s here ‘cause they’re on their last legs with their partner or somethin’ and are tryin’ to fix things, but so far it’s just couples lookin’ for a nice weekend together.” She took another bite. The ramekin was already half empty.

“Can’t really blame them,” Rainbow said as she shoveled more hayfries into her mouth. “There’s a lot of stuff here that looks like it might be nice. Did you see they have a library?” Applejack nodded. “The hotel’s got a pretty nice gym, too, and there’s a pool.”

Applejack cracked a smile. “Were you lookin’ for ponies, or lookin’ for stuff to do this weekend?”

“Both, obviously.” Rainbow grinned around a few hayfries sticking out of her mouth. “Look, I know you don’t want to spend any longer here than you have to.” Applejack grimaced and shuffled in her seat. “Hey, I get it, I don’t want to spend time in that room, either. But, like, we’ve both been on these wild pegasus chases from the cutie map, and sometimes you have to wait around a lot to figure out what’s going on with everypony.” She grabbed the rest of the hayfries as Applejack chewed on what was left of her half, leaving the dregs of cheese sauce and half-melted gravy cubes at the bottom of the ramekin. “If that ends up happening, I’d rather be doing something not awful instead of hanging out in a room that looks like a fairytale queen threw up in it.”

Snorting, Applejack covered her mouth and shook her head. “Yeah, I getcha. Places like this just always put me on edge, ya know?”

Rainbow nodded. “I do know. I’ve gotten pretty used to it with all the Wonderbolts junk, but it isn’t my favorite, either. One of the annoying things about traveling with Rarity, she’d be arguing about how fabulous everything here is.”

“I guess I’m bein’ kind of a stick in the mud complainin’ about how fabulous everythin’ here is.” The waiter came back with the bill and she offered him a strained smile as he set it down. She winced at the total and slipped her bag of bits out of her hat. “Figures. Twice as many bits for half as much food.” She stacked up some coins, then looked over at Rainbow, a rueful smile growing on her face. “… Do you wanna go grab some real food now?”

Rainbow snickered and got to her hooves. “I’m okay, but if you need more I’ll keep you company.”

“Nah, I’m okay, too.” She stepped down from the chair and followed Rainbow out of the restaurant. “I’m gonna need somethin’ bigger’n that for supper.”

Rainbow nodded. “We’ll save actual poutine for tomorrow then, or something. One of the workers said that the library would be set up around now, and there’s a yoga class in like an hour, so maybe we’ll find somepony.” She flashed a grin over her shoulder as she opened the door leading back into the hotel proper. “I’d say we could go to the gym or something, but weird poutine’s still poutine.” She patted her stomach.

“Yeah, it wasn’t much food, but it still feels like I ate a brick. Readin’ seems like my speed, if we don’t find nopony else who—”

As the restaurant door closed behind them, a sharp huff of frustration drew their attention down the hall. “I’m doing this for you, Party, the least you could do is act like you want to be here.”

“Oh, please, Double, look at this place! I tried to tell you that it wasn’t our style, but you didn’t listen.”

Applejack raised her eyebrows as the two stallions rounded a corner, then stopped and widened their eyes as they spotted her and Rainbow. Applejack smiled. “Double Diamond? Party Favor? Don’t that beat all.”

The two of them exchanged a brief glance, then gave her and Rainbow strained smiles. “A-applejack!” Double Diamond said. “And Rainbow Dash.” He looked back and forth between the two of them, then his expression relaxed. “You two here for the convention?” As he said it, tension left Party Favor’s shoulders.

Applejack’s smile faltered, and she willed her cheeks to stay cool. “Uh, we are, but it ain’t …” she scuffed her hoof on the floor as Rainbow stopped next to her and hoofbumped Double Diamond. “The cutie map sent us here.”

“Ahh.” Party favor and Double Diamond nodded at each other in understanding. “Starlight told us that map sometimes likes to force the issue for your friends,” Party Favor said. “Seems a little presumptuous to me. Then again, I’m not a magical artifact in a tree, so what do I know? Still, it’s good to get everything out in the open with a partner, isn’t it, Double?” His tone grew an edge as he spoke, and he glared sideways at Double Diamond, who muttered under his breath.

Applejack felt her stomach squirm and chewed her lip.

Rainbow laughed and shook her head. “Listen, if the tree was trying to save our love lives, it’s like eight years too late, me and Applejack tried at the whole couple thing ages ago and it didn’t work out, we’re just friends now.” Applejack felt the ball of snakes in her stomach untie itself, and gave Rainbow a grateful smile. “We’re here to help somepony else out with something.” She nudged Applejack in the side. “Maybe it sent us because we know what it’s like for a relationship to catch fire.”

“Heh. Eeyup.” Applejack cleared her throat and looked from Double Diamond to Party Favor, their expressions shifting back guarded. “Listen, uh … we ain’t tryin’ to pry into y’alls love lives, ‘n I can see them daggers you’re both starin’. If you’re just havin’ a weekend together away from home, we’ll leave ya be.”

Their eyes met again, then Party Favor glared, his cheeks turning red, and he snapped, “See, Double? Nopony cares! Nopony cares!” He stomped off down the hall, heading toward the convention center.

Double Diamond watched him go, his expression wilting from a glare into misery. He slumped and let out a long sigh. “Sorry,” he mumbled, dropping his gaze and scuffing his hooves on the floor. “We weren’t trying to not be friendly, this is all just …” He sighed again. “It’s my fault.”

Applejack glanced in the direction that Party Favor went, then at Rainbow, who gave her a silent, helpless shrug. Applejack gave Double Diamond a pained smile. “You, uh, wanna talk about it some?”

He glanced up and down the hall with reluctance, then nodded and started slowly walking toward the convention center. Applejack fell into step next to him, with Rainbow next to her. Double Diamond chewed his lip. “I, uh, booked this trip because Party Favor’s angry at me over us … needing to keep our relationship a secret.”

Applejack frowned and raised an eyebrow. “A secret? Why you gotta keep it a secret?”

“It isn’t my choice, even if Party thinks it is,” he said, his tone defensive. “It’s because of my parents. They wouldn’t understand.”

Applejack exchanged a bewildered look with Rainbow. “Understand what? What the heck about Party Favor’s somethin’ your parents wouldn’t get? You ain’t makin’ any sense.”

“That he isn’t an athlete!”

Applejack stopped in place just outside of the archway into the convention floor and stared at him. She pushed her hat back on her head and scratched her mane. “Uh … it might sound to you like that explains everythin’, but ya lost me. Does that mean anythin’ to you, Dash? Your folks ever jump down your throat for not datin’ athletes only?”

“No. Course, I do date athletes only, strong mares are hot.” She jabbed Applejack in the side and winked. “But seriously, no, my mom and dad would probably, like, throw a party for anypony dating me.” She shuddered.

Double Diamond groaned and leaned up against the wall. He rubbed his face. “Listen, I know my parents aren’t the most understanding ponies in Equestria, them being the way they are …” his mouth curled up in distaste and he shook his head. “I shouldn’t say that, it isn’t fair. Let’s just say that from all the pressure I had on me as a colt, there was a reason I found the idea of a world without cutie marks appealing.” He shrugged. “I’ve … mostly made peace with them, and I’m trying to keep them in my life because of my little sister, trying to … shield her from the worst of it, you know?”

Applejack felt more and more on the back hoof as he spoke, and turned to Rainbow, feeling a wave of relief when Rainbow nodded in understanding.

“I get what you mean,” Rainbow said, “Fleetfoot’s dad’s kinda like that, it’s sorta weird and uncomfortable when he’s around.”

“Yeah,” Double Diamond said, his tone defeated. “Weird and uncomfortable.” He took a deep breath. “I’m … getting ready to tell them. Allie Oop is going away to college in a few months, after that if things break down with them, it won’t matter as much. But until then …” He shrugged. “Party Favor doesn’t understand. He wants us to be able to go out and spend time together around other ponies, do things as a couple … maybe even move in together.” A small smile crossed his face and he looked down. “It’s … getting far enough along for that to maybe happen.”

Applejack smiled and bumped his shoulder. “Well that’s good ta hear.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “This was supposed to be a chance for us to be out in the open with it around other ponies, since it wouldn’t really have a way to get back to my parents, but, uhh …” He looked between the two of them. “Have you seen what the rooms are like here?” They both grinned and nodded. “Yeah, not our style, either. And then we ran into you, and I froze up a little because since we know you, it might somehow get back to my parents, which made him freeze up a little since he’s really trying for me even though it hurts him, and—” He groaned and covered his eyes with his front hooves. “I’m messing everything up.”

With a sigh, Applejack rubbed his shoulder. “Well, you can count on us to keep our mouths shut with your folks.”

Rainbow nodded. “Totally.”

“I know I can.” He straightened up and gave them both a strained smile. “And I know I can trust our friends at home to do the same. I appreciate you listening to me about all of this, but I really don’t think your friendship mission has anything to do with us, I already know what I need to do.” He chewed his lip and glanced down the hall. “Throw myself at his hooves, tell him I love him, and tell him I want to tell ponies, starting with our friends, so long as we also explain the situation to them. Then, after Allie’s off in school, we can fly a banner made out of balloons over Las Pegasus for all I care.” He gave them both a shy look. “Think that’ll work?”

Applejack grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

“I’d swoon for it.”

Double Diamond smiled and straightened. “Thanks Applejack, Rainbow Dash. I’ll see you around, probably, if Party’s up for staying.” He steeled his stance, then headed off with purpose through the arch.

A beat of silence passed, then Rainbow looked around at her side. “Dang it, that wasn’t the friendship problem.”

Applejack chuckled and bumped her shoulder. “Cryin’ shame, that, else we might’a had the record for fastest friendship problem all sewn up.”

Rainbow raised her brows. “Wait a minute, who has that record now?”

“Spike, I think, his was like an hour.” She tapped her chin. “Course he was his own problem, ain’t sure that should count.”

“No, obviously.” Rainbow grinned. “If Spike doesn’t count, who’s next that would?”

“Me and Fluttershy with the Kirin, I reckon.”

With a scoff, Rainbow jabbed Applejack in the chest. “But you were gone for like a week!”

“But we were in and outta there in just a couple hours, the travel time to and from don’t count.”

“Yes it does!”

Applejack chuckled and bumped Rainbow’s shoulder. “How about me and you get movin’ and wrap this one up real quick, then we’ll have the record.”

Rainbow bumped back, giggling. “And we can make Twilight get us a trophy!” Their laughter grew as they shoulder-checked each other back and forth, heading into the convention, then stopped as they got to the main corridor that looped around the dome. A few ponies passed in front of them, other attendees of the retreat, judging by the way they looked around, taking everything in. Rainbow turned to Applejack. “Still want to go to the library, or should we walk around again?”

“Uh …” She frowned in thought for a moment. “Let’s go to the library, I guess. I think I still need to sit off some’a that sorta-poutine. We’ll walk around in a bit.” With a destination in mind, she started off. “When did you say the yoga thing started?”

“Hour. Little less than that now.”

“Mm. We’ll read for just a bit, then. Or … I’d say try ‘n talk to somepony in the library, but if Twi ever found out, she’d kill us.”

“We’ll just have to whisper talk,” she said, dropping into a stage whisper, then giggling.

Applejack joined in, grinning at Rainbow as they walked together. Even if the cutie map’s missions liked to turn into wild pegasus chases, she could at least count on having a little fun on the way.

Mr. Esthenics banged the gong, signaling the end of the yoga class, and Applejack let out a breath as she straightened back up. Muscles she didn’t know she had felt warmed up and limber, but the boulder from lunch still sat heavy in her belly. She shook out her shoulders and watched Rainbow unfold herself from a tangle of hooves and wings. “Hate to say it, sugar cube, but I’m gonna need a heck of a lot more practice ‘fore I could match ya at yoga.”

Rainbow grinned as she got back on her hooves. “Is that your way of saying that I won?”

“We weren’t competin’.”

“Yep, I totally won.” She stretched out her back and shook out her wings, then strutted toward the door.

Applejack flashed a polite smile at Mr. Esthenics as they passed. “Thank ya kindly, Kale.”

“Thank you for attending, Applejack, Rainbow Dash. Good work at the sesh today.”

“Thanks. You see or hear nothin’ about a friendship problem while we were busy workin’?”

“Only good vibes and aligned chakras today, my dudes. I’ll stay on the lookout, though. Namaste.”

As they left, Applejack snickered to herself, then shook her head. “You understand a word’a that, Dash?”

“Huh?” Rainbow glanced up, refocusing on her. “Oh, yeah, those Applewood ponies are something.” She smiled and pitched her voice into an accent, waving her forelegs for emphasis. “Like, shah, you’re harshing my mellow, AJ.”

They shared a laugh as they approached the group therapy room, then paused, frowning at Rainbow’s neutral and distant expression. “What’s on your mind, Dash?”

“Huh?” She glanced up again, then shook her head to clear it and let out a breath. “Sorry, AJ, just, like, thinking about stuff.”

“Stuff with the friendship problem I’m hopin’.”

Rainbow blinked, then smirked at Applejack. “Yeah, the friendship problem, that is one hundred percent what I’m thinking about, and not how even with waiting an hour it was a mistake to do yoga after poutine.” She winced and gripped her stomach.

Applejack laughed and shook her head. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Don’t worry, though, as I said, you’ve got my full attention on this, we’re just not doing anything right now.” Rainbow slowed and frowned around the hallway. “What are we doing right now, anyway?”

Still grinning in amusement, Applejack jabbed Rainbow’s chest with a hoof. “We’re goin’ to that group therapy thing. Good thing one of us is payin’ attention.”

“Yeah, yeah, my stomach hurts. But now that I know … I’m gonna beat you there.” She thumped her shoulder into Applejack playfully, then hurried ahead.

Applejack’s muscles tensed as she started to take after Rainbow, then her stomach gurgled and she stopped herself. “Just gonna make the bellyache worse!” Applejack called after Rainbow, chuckling to herself. She rounded the hall at a sedate pace, following a few stragglers into one of the rooms.

Applejack looked around as she crossed the threshold. It was one of the smaller convention center rooms, not big enough to accommodate more than a dozen or so couples at a time. A collection of two-seater benches set in a circle filled up the center of the space. Different pockets of conversations dotted the room as couples milled about before the start. Rainbow had already joined one.

The therapist, a unicorn mare with a white coat and and a smooth black mane, just a hoofful of years older than Applejack, stepped out into the middle of the room with a clipboard floating in front of her face. “Hello, everypony, my name is Morning Breeze. I see the conversations have already started, which is perfect, that’s exactly what we’re all here for. Feel free to use the space how you’d like, if that means joining the circle, or having smaller conversations, I’ll be here and available to listen if anyone has topics they need to get off their chest.”

“Interestin’,” Applejack muttered to herself. She paused and glanced at the other groups, then over at Rainbow. “Splittin’ up to cover more ground ain’t been gettin’ us nowhere …” she muttered to herself, then shrugged and slipped in next to Rainbow.

“You guys just here to get away from stuff, or for, like, the therapy?” Rainbow asked a pair of ponies that made Applejack blink and double-check who Rainbow was looking at. Rainbow flashed a smile and prodded Applejack’s ribs. “Oh, and this is Applejack. AJ, Guff and Daisy, Guff and Daisy, AJ.”

Applejack looked back and forth between the two, still trying to accept they were a couple. Daisy was tiny and mousey, reminding her of Coco Pommel twenty years older, while Guff looked like he’d be right at home in the gym with Bulk Biceps, and Applejack inevitably ended up imagining Coco and Bulk together. She supposed it could work.

“Pleased to meet you both,” said Daisy. “And we’re here for a little of each, I suppose, wouldn’t you say, dear?” She smiled at Guff, who returned the look with tenderness, and Applejack’s surprise wore off. If Coco and Bulk looked at each other the same way, it would definitely work. “The therapy isn’t really for us, though, we come to the retreat every year.”

Applejack raised her brows. “Every year?”

“Yep, every year for the past twenty, and still going strong,” Guff said, hugging his wife closer. “Little strange of a holiday choice, we know, since so many couples are here because things are on the rocks. We like talking to ponies, though, right, hon?”

Daisy smiled and nodded. “We maybe can’t do much helping for those who are struggling, but I suppose being a living reminder that relationships can last for decades is helpful in its own way. Mostly we just like seeing how other ponies get along with each other.” She patted Guff’s foreleg, then smiled at Applejack and Rainbow. “So how long have you two been together?”

Applejack felt her back go rigid, then glanced at Rainbow out of the corner of her eye. She sighed.

Rainbow giggled and jabbed Applejack in the side. “Together for five, married for two, right?” Their eyes met and the smile vanished. Rainbow straightened up. “Nah, we’re just friends. We’re here on, like, official business.”

Guff frowned and cocked his head to the side. “Business? What sort of business would lead you to a couples retreat?”

“The friendship kind.”

Daisy straightened. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Princess Twilight, would it? Do you know Princess Twilight? Do you think you could get her to sign my book?” She swung a saddlebag around and started to rifle through it.

Rainbow and Applejack looked at each other from the corners of their eyes with their mouths pressed thin. Rainbow muttered, “Should we split up?”

Daisy gasped. “Wait, Rainbow Dash and Applejack! You two have to sign my book, too!”

Applejack cleared her throat and gave Daisy a strained smile. She muttered out of the corner of her mouth at Rainbow, saying, “Unless we want this happenin’ all day, probably a good idea.”

Rainbow whispered back, “Race you to find the friendship problem, loser pays for dinner.”

“You’re on.”

Daisy broke through their whispered conversation, shoving a copy of the friendship journal under their snouts. “I loved your story about the running of the leaves! It sounded just like my daughter’s relationship with her husband, the two of them are always making up little competitions with each other, do you two still do that?”

A sea of questions fell over her while Daisy looked less and less mousey by the moment. Guff gave them both an apologetic smile and Applejack muttered noncommittal answers while she signed the book, then backed her way out of the conversation. As Rainbow covered her escape with a story about Discord, Applejack let out a sigh of relief and headed for a different crowd.

“That’ll keep her busy for a while, looks like I got a head start.” Her smirk fell, and she scowled at herself. “Race or no race, stop temptin’ fate hopin’ Dash can’t find nothin’, else we’re gonna be stuck here the whole dang weekend.” She let out a slow breath, then looked over the options of groups to join. She spotted a few familiar faces from earlier in the day dotting different conversations and tried to focus on the others, searching out expressions of discontent. A pair of mares off in the corner caught her eye, their smiles looking strained and fake. She headed over.

“Howdy, folks,” Applejack said as she slipped between a middle-aged business pony with a waxed mustache and a mare several years younger than her who looked ready for a dance party. “How’s the convention treatin’ y’all so far? I’m Applejack.”

“Fairly well so far,” said the business-pony in a mild Manehattan accent. “I’m Rising Stocks and this is my partner, Bear Market.” Bear Market gave the group a small smile and nodded their head.

The raver girl smiled. “I’m Candy Crush, he’s High Score,” she said, prodding her boyfriend, a gangly stallion with his mane flopped in front of his eyes. “The convention’s been … um … it was a gift from my dad.”

The corner of Applejack’s mouth curved up in the ghost of a smile, then she turned to the two mares, their expressions still locked in rictus grins. “I’m—” they both started at once, then clicked their jaws shut.

“Sorry, Bun, you go ahead,”

“No, you go ahead,”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind if you go.”

“No, it’s fine, please, unless you want me to go.”

“I don’t insist.”

They both stared at each other for a beat, then turned to Applejack and said, “I’m—” at the same time before falling silent again.

Candy Crush cleared her throat. She pointed a hoof at the first mare, a teal pegasus with her blonde mane cut shorter than Rainbow’s. “Applejack, meet Bunnyhop.” She pointed at the other, a robust earth pony with a white coat and strawberry mane in a messy bun at the top of her head. “And Clydesdale.” She lowered her tone to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “That’s as far as we got, too.”

Applejack looked the two of them over, both of them about her age to maybe a little younger, and tried to imagine how on Equestria two Fluttershies could possibly manage to work up the courage to start dating each other. “Con treatin’ you two well?”

“Yes,” they both answered in a clipped tone, meeting each other’s eyes for a moment, then widening their smiles.

Shifting her weight from one set of hooves to the other, Applejack chewed her lip. Conversation might have been awkward, but it was the most promising one she’d had so far, and she pressed forward. “So, uh … what’s everypony do for work? I’m a farmer.” The Manehattanites gave her an answer involving investments that she didn’t quite follow, and the party kids giggled over the idea of having jobs, while she narrowed her eyes at the two mares stumbling over each other. She let out a breath and picked one at random. “Bunnyhop.”

Bunnyhop straightened. “Yes?”

“What’cha do for work?”

“Oh, I’m a roller derby girl.”

Applejack blinked.

Bunnyhop cast a tense look at her girlfriend, then said, “Clydesdale is, too. We’re co-captains of the Las Pegasus Punishers.”

Applejack looked them over again with her eyebrows raised, noting that although Bunnyhop was a slight build compared to Clydesdale, both of them were almost pure muscle, and were crisscrossed with pale scars that faded almost entirely into their coats. “Roller derby, eh? Ain’t never tried it, but it sounds dang fun.”

“It is!” they both said at once and Clydesdale stepped forward, her expression flashing with excitement. Bunnyhop’s voice wavered and she flashed Clydesdale a split-second glare before stepping back.

“I’m a blocker,” Clydesdale continued, “we form the pack and block the other team’s jammer from getting by. You’d probably make a good blocker, too, if you wanted to give it a try, maybe a pivot, you look like you could be fast enough to jam if you needed to. Your girlfriend’s got jammer written all over her, though, just like Bunnyhop, who—”

Applejack felt a twinge of unease run up her spine as she glanced back over her shoulder at Rainbow, who was deep in a conversation with Daisy still, and sighed internally. Couldn’t even get away from it while splitting up. She returned her attention to the two mares and raised an eyebrow.

As Clydesdale had mentioned Bunnyhop’s name, she’d turned toward her girlfriend, then froze mid-sentence. Applejack glanced back and forth between them as they both looked caught in each other’s gazes, then Clydesdale whispered, “Sorry, did you—”

“It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go ahead.”

“I don’t want to take up—”

“If you want me to talk, I’ll talk.”

“I just don’t want to talk over—”

“You’re not talking over, you can talk.”

Applejack’s brows rose higher and higher as they went back and forth. She looked over at Rising Stocks and Bear Market, who watched the two with a look of morbid fascination, then at Candy Crush and High Score who had fallen into their own, private conversation, both of them looking bored.

Applejack cleared her throat, and the two mares looked up with the same caught expression. Applejack gave them a strained smile. “You, uh, end up talkin’ over each other a lot?”

“No,” they both said, and the same look of irritation passed over Bunnyhop’s face.

“Why, uh, don’t you tell me more about this whole blockin’ thing, Clydesdale, ‘n then you can tell me about jammin’, Bunnyhop. That sound good?”

They both brightened, and Bunnyhop smiled at Clydesdale expectantly while she got into the mechanics of the game.

As Applejack's interest grew the more she learned about the game and considered how well a derby team somewhere as small as Ponyville could work, the other two couples eventually excusing themselves to other groups and new ponies joining them, Applejack watched the pair closely. Neither of them struck her as being all that much like Fluttershy the moment they spoke on their own—if anything, Clydesdale reminded her of a dry-witted Pinkie Pie and Bunnyhop of Twilight when she found something technical to talk about—they both grew meek and deferent the moment they came close to stepping on each other’s hooves. She knew some relationships just starting out could be a bit rocky with everypony always trying to not cross lines, but going on a couples retreat for a new relationship struck her as a little odd. Applejack’s curiosity mounted.

She let out a long breath through her snout when the conversation lulled as the two of them fell into another whispered battle to concede. “… How long you two been together?” she interrupted.

“Huh?” they both said, glancing up, then shrinking back again.

Clydesdale cleared her throat and brushed her mane aside, shooting Bunnyhop a shy look. “Oh, um, is it six years now, Bun?”

Bunnyhop nodded. “Six last May.” She shuffled her hooves and smiled. “We met in school.”

Applejack cocked her head to the side as the picture in her head of the two of them shredded itself. “Dang, I was thinkin’ …” She cleared her throat again and straightened, her thoughts jumping to other potential explanations. “What brings you two here on the retreat? Did you have a big row and are tryin’ to patch things up?” They both gave her a blank look. “A fight, did ya have yourselves a fight.”

“Oh,” Clydesdale said.

“No, we didn’t have a fight.”

“We don’t fight.”

“We’ve never had a fight at all,” Bunnyhop said, then smiled at Clydesdale with a hint of pride. “We came because—”

“We’re here because it seemed like it’d be nice,” Clydesdale interrupted, then sucked in a breath. “Sorry, you go ahead.”

“No, it’s fine, you can—”

Applejack cut through them. “Might not be my place to say, but not fightin’ can be as bad as fightin’, you know that, right?” They furrowed their brows at Applejack. She held the gaze and shrugged. “Bottlin’ everythin’ up and not thinkin’ or talkin’ about it’s a good way for stuff to stay the way it is, and if things ain’t workin’ good, the problems are just gonna get worse ‘less you fess up and talk about it all out in the open. Ain’t always easy, but—”

“But we don’t have problems like that,” Clydesdale interrupted, then gave Applejack a chagrined smile. “Sorry, but it’s true. When you’re throwing shoulders in the ring, you don’t have the energy to get angry at things outside of it. Yeah?” She turned to Bunnyhop.

“Absolutely. If you save your anger for the jams, your performance is better, and I have the statistics to prove it. The rest of the time you can be calm, cool, and collected.”

Applejack frowned in thought, tapping her chin. “Interestin’. Guess bein’ together six years says well enough that it works, ‘specially …” Applejack bit her tongue and opted not to say that they’d probably started the same age she and Rainbow had tried to make it work, if not younger, and managed to stay together roughly ten times as long. “Guess I ain’t winnin’ the race that easy,” she muttered under her breath, then raised her voice, saying, “Well, if it works for you, then it works for you.” She grinned, then turned to one of the couples that had joined up with their group. “Sorry, we’ve been hoggin’ the conversation, how’s the con treatin’ you two?”

The conversations alternated back and forth as they wove in and out of groups, with Applejack eventually sitting down at the more formal circle of benches, listening in on different conversations, hearing about ponies’ lives and hints of problems as the session wore on.

Rainbow let out a breath as she slumped down next to her on the bench.

Applejack grinned, dropping her tone low to not interrupt the others in the circle. “Finally get away from Daisy?”

“A while ago, thank Celestia. You find anything yet?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nuh-uh. Might have to coinflip for dinner.” She grinned and winked. “Unless I win now.” She hopped back to her hooves and walked over to a different group.

Applejack chuckled, shook her head, and climbed back to standing, scanning for a pocket of ponies she hadn’t spoken to yet. She glanced at the clock. Still plenty of time to go. Maybe she could win, and not just dinner. She knew it was stupid, but she wanted Twilight to make them a trophy, too.

Author's Note

Well, hello there, folks! It certainly has been a bit since I’ve written pony, but here we are. Couples Retreat is a novella published in three parts, the first part kicking us off with Applejack and Rainbow Dash fetlock-deep in a friendship mission that just happens to be in a, ah, decidedly awkward place. Tune in Wednesday for part two, then again on Friday for part three.

This story is originally published on Offprint, a new fiction-sharing site that’s still in alpha, with the first update going live July, 19, 2021, giving each update an exclusive period on Offprint before being posted to Fimfiction.net or AO3. That means if you are reading this on the day it went live on Fimfiction, Couples Retreat is already available in its entirety on Offprint. The exclusivity will continue until the story is complete, and will be the case for all my future My Little Pony and other fanfic stories as well. If you want to be the most up-to-date and/or catch future projects of mine when they first get released, consider joining Offprint and keeping tabs on me there. No pressure, though, as I said, everything will be crossposted after the exclusive to AO3, and also to Fimfiction.net when applicable.

And if you don't follow my blogs here and have been wondering what I've been up to lately, you can check out some recent stories I've written for other fandoms on both Offprint and AO3. No pressure on that, either.

Thanks so much for reading, TTFN.

—bats | Offprint.net | AO3 | Fimfiction.net | she/her

Part Two

Applejack slumped back in the chair and rubbed her face. The other attendees of the group therapy session got up from the sitting circle en masse and headed out of the room with mixed levels of enthusiasm, some lingering to talk to each other or grab a word with the therapist, others bee-lining their way out into the convention hall. Applejack sighed and got to her hooves.

Rainbow stretched out her back and popped a kink in her neck. “Anything?”

“Nah, not really, just li’l stuff here ‘n there. Them city-slickers from Manehattan ain’t none too happy with each other, but, uh … I don’t think we can help ‘em out.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow as they stood in place and lingered in the room, watching the others slowly file toward the door. “Why not?”

The corner of Applejack’s mouth curled up. “The problem with them’s in the bedroom, if ya catch my drift.”

“Oh.” Rainbow snickered. “Yeah, no, not that kind of friendship lesson.” Her eyes glittered with amusement. “They actually told you that? Must be a pretty big problem.”

“They didn’t say it in so many words, but they didn’t really need to. Any luck on your end?”

“Nah. I mean, a lot of ponies are here because things are a little rough between them, but, like, it isn’t really the same sort of thing that the map likes sending us places for, you know? They came to a couples retreat because they want it to work. They’re trying.”

Applejack nodded. “Eeyup, they are. That don’t always mean much if they’re tryin’ in a way that makes things worse, but goin’ to a couples retreat don’t really feel like that sorta problem, feels like they’re doin’ what they can.” She let out a long sigh and shrugged. “There might be somethin’ we can find that’s more like what was goin’ on with Double Diamond and Party Favor, where somepony’s tryin’ to make up for problems by comin’ here and just puttin’ a bandaid on top of somethin’ that’s rotten. ”

“We’ll probably need more than a group therapy session and ten minutes of talking to find something like that, you know.”

“Eeyup,” Applejack huffed. “Been a couple’a things I seen that felt like they might be that sorta problem, I guess, like them two derby girls that ain’t willin’ to have it out with each other over nothin’, but the two of ‘em said they make it work when playin’, so I ain’t so sure there’s even a problem there at all. Plus maybe it ain’t even a couples problem, it could have to do with the staff, too. I think we’ll just have to keep lookin’.” She gave Rainbow an encouraging smile. “’Course it ain’t like it’s been a bad time so far, they got some nice books here.”

Rainbow grinned. “And that yoga class made me forget about lunch.”

Applejack winced and patted her stomach. “I wish it did for me.” With the crowd mostly filtered out, Applejack headed toward the exit. “You saw that schedule thing, remember what’s goin’ on now?”

“Not much before the meet and greet thing after dinner, worse comes to worse we can meet everypony there, maybe it’ll be obvious after that. ‘Til then, the spa’s open now, we could go get massages.”

Applejack chuckled. “You and your massages.”

“Hey, you just said that it might be a problem for the staff, we have to get massages to check on the spa ponies, it’s our duty to the map.”

“You are so full’a—”

“Excuse me, you two are Applejack and Rainbow Dash, correct?”

Applejack paused just before they left the room and turned back toward the therapist, standing in the circle of benches with her clipboard floating in front of her face. Applejack smiled. “That’d be us, what can we do ya for, Mornin’?”

She gave them a practiced professional smile, and flipped a page over on the clipboard. “I have you on my list for one-on-one therapy sessions as part of your package.” A quill floated from behind her ear and she scribbled on the sheet. “Would you like to schedule times for those now over the weekend?”

Applejack’s eyes widened and she glanced at Rainbow out of the corner of her eye. Rainbow met the look, her expression just as surprised.

“… You are under no obligation to attend any one-on-ones,” the therapist said, her expression shifting to understanding. “Many couples select the deluxe package for its other add-ons. If you’d like to schedule sessions we certainly can, but there’s no pressure.” She scribbled on the sheet, then raised a brow. “I do have time for a session now, if you wanted to give it a try and see how you felt about the rest of the weekend.”

Applejack shifted her weight from one hoof to another, glanced at Rainbow, then gave the therapist a polite smile. “Mind if we talk it over for a sec?”

She returned the smile. “Of course not, take your time,” then turned and walked a few feet away, her snout buried in the clipboard. As she wrote, chairs started lifting up in her magic and rearranging themselves in the room.

Applejack turned to Rainbow and lowered her voice. “You up for a session?”

Rainbow blinked, then frowned in confusion at her. “What? Why? We don’t need therapy, AJ!” She crossed her hooves over her chest, her expression turning grumpy. “Unless you’re gonna try and get her to gang up on me about sleeping in your orchard, because that’s not fair.”

She chuckled, then shook her head. “I’m not sayin’ we should do it for us, the therapist’s staff, too, ya know.”

“Oh.” Rainbow chuckled nervously. “I get it. I mean, I guess we can.”

“How ‘bout we do this, then go get massages, then grab supper.”

Rainbow immediately brightened, jumping back up straight. “Yeah, okay, that works.” She turned toward the therapist and hurried over. The room had been rearranged during their conversation, with the sitting circle replaced by a single chair facing a foldaway bench. “Okay, we’ll do the thingie now, miss, err … doctor …” She glanced back at Applejack with a chagrined look. “Morning …?”

“Morning Breeze,” she said again. “Morning’s just fine.” She gestured at the bench as she sat down on the chair. Applejack heard the door click shut behind her, and she headed over to join Rainbow at the bench. “Is there anything you two would prefer to go by?”

“Applejack or AJ are both fine ‘n dandy for me.” She gave Rainbow a smug smile from the corner of her eye.

Rainbow stuck out her tongue and grinned. “I saw that, you think I was going to say Spectrum. Well I wasn’t. Rainbow, Dash, or Rainbow Dash are all fine. Codename’s Spectrum, though, but that’s a secret.” She jabbed Applejack in the side, making Applejack giggle.

Morning Breeze smiled and flipped to a fresh page on her clipboard. “Well, Applejack, Rainbow, I took note of the fact that you didn’t participate much in the group therapy, but you seem to be a warm couple. Did you have any issues you would like to discuss today?”

Applejack clenched her jaw and winced internally as Rainbow snickered. “Well, uh, to tell ya the truth, Mornin’ …”

“We’re not a couple,” Rainbow finished, her snickering growing louder. “We’re just friends.”

Morning Breeze’s gentle, professional smile faltered for a brief second, then smoothed out again and she raised an eyebrow. “Really? That suggests that there’s an interesting story that has led a pair of friends to a couples retreat. Would you care to share it?”

Applejack’s nerves settled and she smiled, prodding Rainbow to try and get her to stop giggling. “Funny you should ask, we’re here tryin’ to help somepony else out.”

“It’s royal friendship business,” Rainbow said, her smile widening.

“O-oh. Oh.” Morning Breeze looked up from her notes again, her gaze darting back and forth between the two of them. “You’re Princess Twilight’s colleagues?” She smiled and scribbled on her clipboard at a furious pace. “I thought the names felt familiar for some reason …” she shook her head. “An official friendship mission, then? I imagine those could be quite stressful, depending on the circumstances.”

Applejack shifted on the bench. “Yeah, guess so. Depends on the circumstances is doin’ a heck of a lot of heavy liftin’ there, though.”

Rainbow snickered and flashed a grin at Applejack. “It is kind of a toss-up whether or not we have to do something like teach a griffon how to bake or escape from being held prisoners by a cult.”

Chuckling, Applejack nodded. “This’n seems more like the bakin’ sorta thing, ‘less you seen anypony on the retreat tryin’ to take over Equestria, Mornin’. We were thinkin’ we were here to maybe help somepony out who’s on the retreat ‘cause them and theirs are on the ropes. Sorta what you’re tryin’ to do, I guess.” Applejack frowned and shuffled her hooves on the bench as a wave of unease settled over her. “I’m not … real sure why we’d be any better at doin’ that, though. We ain’t therapists.”

Morning Breeze raised an eyebrow, her quill halting in midair. “So you’re unaware of what your missions are?”

Rainbow shook her head. “Nope, no idea. Some sorta … like … spirit of magic in the tree of harmony just tells us we need to go somewhere, because somepony needs our help. Yeah?” She glanced at Applejack, who nodded. “It’s kind of hard to explain, I dunno that Twilight understands it all the way.”

“Alls I know is our cutie marks started flashin’, and when we went to check the map, it had us floatin’ over the Whinnypeg Convention Center, so that’s where we showed up. Dunno for what, dunno for why.”

Morning Breeze nodded along as she wrote. “So it’s only an assumption that you’re here to help another attendee.”

“Eeyup. Might be somepony workin’ here. You ain’t havin’ no trouble gettin’ along with nopony, are ya, Mornin’?”

Morning Breeze frowned in thought and tapped her chin. “Can’t say that I have.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Figures. It’s probably a couple of the guests, there’re more of them than anypony else here, just makes sense.”

With a sigh, Applejack turned to Rainbow. “Yeah, but it don’t make sense, though, if ya think about it. They’re here for a couples retreat, if they’re havin’ couples problems, what’re the two of us supposed to be doin’ about it? We ain’t therapists, what’re we gonna offer ‘em that they aren’t gonna get better from somepony like Mornin’ Breeze?”

Rainbow straightened and frowned, her tone getting an edge of defensiveness to it. “I don’t know, when do we ever know what we’re doing, AJ? We just stumble into stuff and hope for the best, and then it usually ends up working out because we have, like, something special that makes us the right mares for the job somehow. I just try to not think about it and go with the flow.”

Letting out a long sigh, Applejack sunk into her shoulders. “You ain’t wrong,” she muttered.

Morning Breeze brushed her bangs away from in front of an eye. “Interesting, it must require a lot of improvisational talent. Are there any special qualities that you share that might make you well-suited for helping a couple?”

Applejack knit her brow. “Uh …” She turned to Rainbow.

Rainbow smirked and jabbed her in the side. “Well we do know what it’s like for a relationship to burn to the ground.” She jabbed Applejack again, earning a snort and a slap to the shoulder.

Morning Breeze looked back and forth between the two of them, leaving a gap of silence.

“Sorry, inside joke.” Rainbow chuckled and rubbed the back of her head. “We, uh, used to date a long time ago, we were still pretty much foals. It kinda didn’t go very well.”

Applejack felt her face warm up, but forced herself to smile. “I’ll say.”

“We’re friends, though, and, like …” Rainbow shifted back and forth on the bench. “I dunno. Maybe hearing from two mares that their relationship didn’t work out but they’re still friends isn’t gonna make anypony feel better about stuff.”

The quill flew across the page on the clipboard. “How did things end between you two?”

Applejack clenched her jaw and froze in place for a moment, then rigidly turned to Rainbow, who returned the look with a grimace. Applejack cleared her throat. “We, uh … what’s it matter how things ended at this point?”

Morning Breeze gave a small shrug, focusing more on her notes than either of them. “This is a one-on-one couples therapy session, even if you are a couple of friends rather than lovers. Processing through these things out loud with each other could be cathartic for your friendship. Have you discussed your break-up in depth out in the open?”

Applejack turned back to Rainbow and their eyes met, then they both looked away from each other. Applejack took a deep breath and shrugged. “Not, uh … really.”

“… It’s been easier leaving things in the past,” Rainbow mumbled.

With a polite smile, Morning Breeze leaned forward on her chair. “Perhaps you’d like to talk about it now?”

Applejack looked at Rainbow from the corner of her eye and shrunk in on herself. “We, uh … erm … the mission,” Applejack mumbled with growing anxiety.

“I’m afraid I can’t be much help for either of you there,” Morning Breeze said. “I haven’t had any interpersonal drama in my life recently, and even if I didn’t have doctor-patient privacy concerns to worry about, you two are the first ponies I’ve spoken to individually this retreat, so I couldn’t even point you in a helpful direction. What I can do is give you a safe space to speak to each other.”

Applejack slowly lifted her head and met Rainbow’s gaze, seeing the same trepidation in Rainbow’s expression as she felt. She chewed her lip. “… You wanna, Dash?”

“… Okay.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Applejack nodded. “Alright.” She turned back to Morning Breeze. “Where, uh, do we start, I guess? Ya asked how we broke up …”

“Seems weird talking about that first,” Rainbow said. “There was … a lot that led up to it, huh?”

“Eeyup.”

Morning Breeze pursed her lips and nodded. “Let’s start with a more basic question. Is there a memory you could each think of, in a time of your lives when you were together, that sums up the nature of your relationship as a whole?”

She exchanged another look with Rainbow, this time both of them smiling. Rainbow puffed up her chest and said, “I know the perfect one!” She leaned forward. “It was back maybe eight or nine years ago, we’d been dating for a few months, and Applebuck Season had just started on the farm …”

As Rainbow spoke, Applejack didn’t need to pay that close of attention to follow along. She had thought of the same memory, too, and couldn’t help having it come to her mind and play out as Rainbow told the story. She closed her eyes and remembered.

“C’mon, AJ, I’ll race you, it’ll be fun!”

“Fun ain’t work, sugar, I gotta get the harvest in.”

“Aw, c’moooooon.” Rainbow stuck her head out from inside the canopy, hanging upside down and letting her mane dangle, snarled with twigs and leaves. She grabbed Applejack’s cheeks. “You’re just afraid I’m gonna win.”

“Fat chance,” Applejack said through a laugh. “You ain’t never done a hard day’s work in your life, what makes ya think you could beat me at buckin’ trees?”

“Psh, you’re just scared.” Her grin widened and she rubbed her snout against Applejack’s, then they both started laughing.

“Get down outta that tree, or I’m gonna buck you out, Dash.”

She leaned in and whispered in Applejack’s ear, “Do you promise?”

Applejack shivered, feeling her chest swell up. She grabbed the back of Rainbow’s mane and yanked.

With a surprised laugh, Rainbow tumbled out of the tree, corkscrewed in mid-air, and caught herself in a hover just off the ground, muzzle to muzzle with Applejack. “Hah, thought you could surprise me?”

She pressed their snouts together. “I’m gonna beat the everlovin’ tar outta ya at buckin’ trees, sugar.”

“Yeah right.”

Both grinning, they turned and rushed away from each other, up and down the rows of trees in a flurry of kicks and shouts. Neither of them started with any finesse, and a rush-job that would earn a frown of disapproval from Granny Smith a few hours later quickly turned dirty, with them spending more time thwarting each other than actually kicking any trees. The air filled with the sound of their panted laughter.

Rainbow shoved Applejack aside as they got to the final tree in the orchard and turned in place to kick it, only for Applejack to grab her under the forelegs, heft her off the ground, and throw her into a heap in the clearing. With a shout of triumph, she turned and bucked the tree without squaring herself, stumbled away, and fell down on top of Rainbow. She grinned down, panting through her clenched teeth. “I won.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did—”

Rainbow’s words were swallowed up by a kiss. Applejack shoved her way into Rainbow’s mouth with a burning need, forcing air in and out of her snout as she pressed Rainbow into the ground. Rainbow’s hooves flew into her mane and wings wrapped around her back. Rainbow moaned into her mouth and pulled her down closer. A hoof slid from her mane, down her back, lower and lower and—

“And then we started kissing, and, uh, yeah.” Rainbow chuckled nervously, dots of pink on her face. “Think I’ll stop there, you can guess what happened after that.”

Morning Breeze flipped to a fresh page. “And how about you, Applejack, what event … oh, pardon, is everything okay?”

Applejack swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to will her stomach to untie itself from a rat’s nest of knots. “Mm?” She swallowed again and focused on getting her heartbeat to slow down. “Oh, uh … I thought of the same memory, too.” Her voice sounded rough and wavery to her ears and she coughed. “Tryin’ to, uh, one-up each other was a big part of how we got along. Is a big part. Most of the time it was pretty fun.” She gave Rainbow a weak smile, who frowned in worry at her. She forced in a breath and cleared her throat.

Rainbow reached out a hoof, but hesitated, hovering a few inches away from her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said, turning away. She could feel her cheeks burning. “Just, sort of, uh … made me think about stuff that I don’t …” She looked at Rainbow from the corner of her eye. “Us buttin’ heads was how we broke up, too.”

Rainbow pulled her hoof back. “… Yeah, it was.” She looked down. “A lot of our bad times have to do with that competitive streak, huh?”

“Our good times, too,” Applejack said softly. She rubbed Rainbow’s shoulder until their eyes met again.. “Mostly it’s been fun all these years. Heck, we were doin’ it this mornin’. I just … thinkin’ about that time felt a li’l close to the end of it, I guess.”

Rainbow gave her a sad smile and patted her hoof.

Applejack turned back to Morning Breeze. “Couple months after that buckin’ race in the orchard, we were doin’ the same thing again, almost. There was a whole ‘nother crop to bring in ‘n it was all hooves on deck. All hooves. Includin’ my little sister’s. Apple Bloom was maybe…five or six? Somethin’ like that? It was her first year really helpin’ out as best she could, and she was stickin’ awful close to Big Mac—my big brother—for it. He was the whole world to her when she was that age …” Applejack closed her eyes and pulled the brim of her hat down low, her tone dropping. “So, uh … me and Dash thought we had the whole section to ourselves …”

Rainbow sighed and hugged herself around the middle, her ears drooping. “It … started out pretty much the same. We raced around and fought dirty, ruining each other’s bucks and stealing trees back and forth, and it turned into shoving and throwing, and … then …”

Applejack closed her eyes again. The memory was still sharp and fresh, like it happened that same morning. She didn’t know if it would ever not be fresh.

She kicked out, braced for her back hooves to connect with the trunk, but a sudden tug around her middle made her glance off, and she tumbled over and upwards. She let out a laugh of surprise as she saw Rainbow under her, throwing her out from the orchard. She grinned and clenched her teeth, flexing for when she’d skid along the dirt, ready to bounce back to her hooves and race to the next tree.

“Howd—”

The chipper squeak of Apple Bloom’s voice cut through her thoughts like a knife through butter. The thump and gasp that followed gripped her heart in an icy claw as she felt herself slam into something warm, soft, and small. She relaxed her muscles and tried to ragdoll herself away, maybe twist off and land somewhere else, do something, anything to stop—

The tree knocked the air out of her lungs as she slammed into it, just below her shoulders. She could feel the bark prickling on her neck and lower back, everywhere along the contact, save for the small, soft, warm lump in the way, pinned between her and the tree. She flopped to the ground and spun to her hooves, her breath hitching as she tried to refill her lungs. “O-oh …” She heaved in air as she looked down at the tiny, crumpled body at the base of the tree. “Oh, Celestia, Apple Bloom!”

She fell to her haunches and fought against every instinct in her body screaming at her to grab her little sister, shake her, make her open her eyes and smile. Grateful to feel the stern, steady hoof of Granny Smith and Big Mac both in her head, reciting every little thing she needed to remember about dealing with farm accidents, she forced herself to be slow, deliberate, and careful.

“Okay,” she forced out breathlessly, “Don’t move her, check for … check for …” She gingerly pressed a hoof to Apple Bloom’s neck, and a shiver of relief almost drove her to the grass as she felt the heartbeat, steady and normal. She felt under Apple Bloom’s muzzle, feeling little puffs of breath with the same sedate, unconcerned pace. She could’ve just been sleeping.

“Oh, thank Celestia,” she moaned, the adrenaline still vibrating in her skull. “Please don’t be hurt too bad, please don’t, I can’t, I’ll never forgive …” She gingerly patted and moved Apple Bloom, looking for bleeding or anything broken.

Apple Bloom stirred with a grumpy, dazed mumble, and she opened her eyes. “… Whuh …?”

Applejack shot up from checking a back hoof and pulled Apple Bloom’s lids up, checking her irises. “AB! You doin’ okay? Does it hurt anywhere? Can you move everythin’? Say somethin’!”

“What happened?” Apple Bloom sat herself up and rubbed her head. “Did I die?”

“No, sugar cube,” Applejack said, a breathless, delirious chuckle forcing its way out. “No, you didn’t die. You don’t have nothin’ broke, do you? Anythin’ hurt? Can ya walk?”

She got to her hooves and trotted in place. “Seems fine. My back’s a li’l itchy. What hap—”

Applejack swept her into a hug and pinned their chests together. “Thank the stars,” she breathed. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.” Apple Bloom squirmed against her and she loosened up, wiping her face. “Sorry, AB, I just … you came up at the wrong time and I crashed into you, and we laid up good against this tree together.”

She turned and looked around. “Oh, wow, it must’a been somethin’ … AJ! You’re bleedin’!” She frowned, her eyes watering as she touched Applejack’s shoulder.

Feeling the sting from the contact, Applejack looked over her shoulder, seeing a crisscross of little cuts and scrapes all down her back. She shrugged. “Eh, I’ve had worse.” She spun Apple Bloom around, getting an indignant squeak of protest, and checked under Apple Bloom’s mane. “You, on the other hoof, ain’t got a scratch on ya. Somepony’s watchin’ out for ya, thank Celestia.” She let out a breath. The adrenaline had drained away and she felt worn down and shaky. “Did Mac or Granny send ya to check on somethin’, or were ya comin’ over to help me for a bit?”

“Oh, uh, I was comin’ to see if you needed some help, Big Mac’s takin’ a break.”

Applejack nodded. “I think I’m gonna need a breather myself right now after that. What I want ya to do is go back in the house and have yourself a drink of water.”

“Aw, but I’m okay, I can help, I wanna help!”

“I know ya do, AB, but this ain’t no laughin’ matter. Ya seem fine and I don’t think you got a concussion or nothin’, but it’s hard to tell right away sometimes, and last thing me, you, or anypony else wants is for you to buck some trees ‘n fall over ‘cause you got knocked around more’n either of us thought. Your job right now’s to listen to your body and make sure you ain’t hurt for real.” Apple Bloom gave a pout. “Before you start, this is a real job for grown up ponies, li’l missy, if’n you were any younger you’d be bawlin’ your eyes out right now for attention, ‘stead of wantin’ to help. That’s why I’m trustin’ you to listen to your body and make sure you ain’t hurt for real, judgin’ that ain’t a job for little foals. If I didn’t think you could handle it, I’d just be takin’ you straight away to the hospital to make sure you’re okay.”

Apple Bloom’s pout faded and she nodded. “Okay …”

“If you get real dizzy or somethin’, or start feelin’ really bad, I want ya to ring the dinner bell right away, okay? Can ya do that for me, AB?”

Apple Bloom only had a hint of annoyance in her tone when she said, “Yeah, I can do that, Applejack.”

“If after a half hour or so you’re feelin’ fine and dandy, come back and find me or Big Mac and we’ll keep workin’.”

Apple Bloom nodded, smiling again, then took off toward the farmhouse. As she walked with a spring in her step, almost skipping, Applejack let out another long breath, sinking toward the ground. She closed her eyes and started shaking. “Oh, Celestia, thank you, thank you, thank you, she ain’t hurt, I wouldn’t have—”

“Hah!” Rainbow shouted. “I won! Take that, in your face, AJ!” She landed next to Applejack and prodded her in the shoulder. “Oh, c’mon, don’t be a sore loser, I just mopped the floor with you, that’s all that—”

Applejack sprung up from the ground, her eyes stinging and a crushing weight in her chest. “You dang fool, you threw me into Apple Bloom, do you have the faintest idea how close ya came ta—how close I—what in tartarus were you thinkin’, ya daft good-fer-nothin’!?”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, then narrowed into a scowl. “What I was thinking? Maybe you should’ve watched where you were landing if somepony else was here!”

“Don’t you dare, Dash!”

“Don’t blame me for your problems and I won’t!”

“Ya reckless, irresponsible idiot!” Applejack grit her teeth and glared daggers at Rainbow, who was muzzle to muzzle with her own scowl. She could feel her pulse pumping in her ears and her chest burn with a swarm of hot white emotions.

“What did I even do that was so bad, huh? I threw you at Apple Bloom? She isn’t even here!”

The indignation and confusion cut through the burning anger and shame enough for Applejack to bite her lip and step back. She forced in a breath and tried to cut the edge out of her tone. “I—we, we came really close to hurtin’ Apple Bloom, Rainbow Dash. I crashed into her and we both smacked into that tree.” Applejack pointed, then turned and showed the crisscross of cuts along her shoulder. “I sandwiched her into the tree, Dash, knocked her out cold, it’s an honest to goodness miracle she ain’t laid up in a hospital bed right now.” She swallowed a lump in her throat and clenched her eyes shut, turning away. “I’m angry and scared and wanna cry and scream at the same time.”

Rainbow’s anger faded to a wary frown. “Okay. Um. That sucks, but, like, she’s fine, though, right? She’s not really hurt?”

“No, thank Celestia. She got knocked out, but woke up not hurtin’ or nothin’. I sent her up to the house to sit ‘n have a glass’a water, and she’s supposed to ring the dinner bell if she starts feelin’ bad.” She sighed and rubbed her face.

“Okay, so what’s the problem then?”

Applejack’s eyes snapped open and she stared at Rainbow, anger churning hot again in her stomach. “The problem is that we could’a k … the fact that it’s a miracle she’s okay should say dang well enough, Dash!”

“But she is okay, so who cares?”

“I fuckin’ care!” Applejack snapped. “She’s my little sister! If you don’t care none, that’s fine and dandy, and you can get the hell off’a my farm.”

“But she isn’t even hurt!”

“Get outt’a here, Dash!” she shouted, ramming her shoulder into Rainbow, not in playful fun or to get by to get to a tree, but with years of hard-working muscle thrown into it. Rainbow scrambled to stay upright, then crashed down, splaying out in the dirt. “Ya won the race and against all odds didn’t hurt my little sister while doin’ it. Good job! You’re amazin’! Now get outt’a here before I throw you out!”

Rainbow got to her hooves, her jaw squared and eyes narrowed. She snorted through her snout. “Fine. When you cool off, you’ll know where to find me.”

“I ain’t gonna be lookin’,” Applejack hissed. “You’re a self-absorbed layabout that ain’t got room in your heart for anypony but yourself. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”

The anger in Rainbow’s eyes crackled with sudden, sharp hurt. She glared harder, snorted again, then spread her wings. “Whatever. You’re too boring for me, anyway. It was a fun, meaningless fling while it lasted. See you around, AJ.” Rainbow flapped, leaping into the air, then streaking away from the farm as a blur.

Applejack watched Rainbow leave, then let out a scream of frustration. She pummeled the tree she and Apple Bloom had crashed into with her forelegs, knocking loose a few hard, unripe apples and a shower of leaves. The bark came away in strips, and then with a loud crack, a branch overhead snapped off, tumbling into the path. She forced in several heaving breaths. With one last glare toward the sky, she turned and walked back toward the farmhouse on shaky hooves, nursing the start of a limp in her back left leg.

Applejack opened her eyes and looked at Morning Breeze, unsure if she had the strength to look at Rainbow square in the face. “We, uh … didn’t see each other much after that for about a year, just some here and there stuff. ‘Bout two months after it happened, we saw each other in the market, and Dash said she was glad that Apple Bloom weren’t hurt or nothin’.”

Rainbow nodded. “We were, like, polite after that, but that was about it. Then that year or so later was the town getting ready for winter and we got teamed up together. It was a little awkward at first, but by the end of it we could talk to each other again. We weren’t really friends at that point, though, that wasn’t for another couple years, when, uhh …”

“When Twilight came into our lives,” Applejack finished. “We started over then, more or less, and learned how to get along and be real close friends again. Best friends.” She closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. “I, uh … never really did tell you that I was sorry for blowin’ up at you like that, Rainbow. I was scared outta my mind over what almost happened, and so angry I couldn’t think straight, and some of that anger was at you, but most of it was at me. I was just as much of a reckless idiot runnin’ around them trees, and I knew AB might’a come to help us out, I knew that. I lashed out at you, ‘cause you were there, and I was sixteen and scared and angry, and you didn’t deserve to get a face full’a that when you were sixteen and just tryin’ to have some fun helpin’ your girlfriend with her chores. I’m sorry, Rainbow.”

“I know,” Rainbow said, her tone low. “I figured it all out later, thinking back on it when I wasn’t pissed off and feeling attacked. I get it. You don’t need to apologize.” She cracked a half-smile. “Thank you for apologizing, though.” She turned away and rubbed her foreleg. “And … I’m sorry for trying to push all of it away and pretend like it didn’t matter just because nothing bad happened. I knew that didn’t change that what happened was dangerous and stuff, but I figured that if we could make it not a big deal, then you wouldn’t expect me to apologize for anything.” She turned back to Applejack with a chagrined smile. “Because I was sixteen and proud and full of myself, and didn’t like apologizing for things, which a scared and angry sixteen-year-old definitely didn’t need to deal with from her girlfriend, just to protect her girlfriend’s pride. I’m sorry, AJ.”

Applejack returned the smile. “I knew all that, too, without you sayin’ it. Thanks for sayin’ it all the same, though.”

Rainbow held her hooves out. Applejack scooted across the bench and into the hug, crushing Rainbow back. “I’m sorry we ended that way,” she murmured. “We just … brought out the worst in each other. And the best a lot of the time, too, but the worst was always there, no matter what we did about it.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow breathed. “I’m just … glad we met Twilight.”

“Me too. Even just because it means we got her in our lives, I’m glad we met her, but if I’d be lyin’ if I said that havin’ you as a friend again didn’t mean somethin’ special to me.”

Rainbow hugged her tighter.

She returned the squeeze, then sat away, scooting back to where she’d been on the bench. She wiped her face and pretended not to notice Rainbow doing the same.

“Going through something traumatic like that can be hard,” Morning Breeze said. “I’m glad to hear your little sister’s okay, Applejack, and that despite your falling out, you’ve both moved past it. Normally I’d recommend different exercises for helping to heal rifts in damaged relationships, but honestly, I think you’ve both done that on your own.” She smiled and flipped back several pages on her notepad. “I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that friends of Princess Twilight Sparkle are good at mending relationships with each other.”

Applejack smiled and shrugged. “Well, if nothin’ else, I’m … real glad we talked about this today.” She turned to Rainbow. “I dunno if apologizin’ would’a come up some other way, and I’ve been thinkin’ about you deservin’ that from me for a real long time.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, smiling back at Applejack. “Same.” Rainbow glanced down at her side, then let out a mock sigh. “Darn, the tree didn’t send us here to make us get those apologies off our chests, guess we still have work to do.”

Applejack laughed and shook her head. “Ain’t never that easy, huh?” She stepped down from the bench. “Thank ya kindly for the time, Mornin’. I ain’t sure we’ve got no reason to take up any other one-on-ones with ya this weekend, but maybe if ya run across anypony who’s in hot water that ya can’t help ‘em with, you can let us know? Maybe just point ‘em our way, if’n the whole privacy thing makes it sticky.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” she said as she got down from the chair and walked them over to the door. “I hope you both have the chance to relax and enjoy your friendship some this weekend, too.”

“Thanks,” they both said, then headed down the hall at a sedate pace side by side.

Rainbow let out a long breath. “So, uhh …”

With a grin, Applejack bumped their shoulders together. “Massages?”

“You read my mind.” She picked up her walking speed and they headed through the convention hallway, looping past the hotel. “I dunno about you, but, uh, going through all that again left me a little tensed up.”

“Yeah, I ain’t gonna say no to a massage right now, neither.” She let out a long breath. “But I am glad we went through all of it still.” She smiled. “Made comin’ here worth it for me, don’t matter what else the weekend throws at us, I think. Too bad it wasn’t why the dang tree sent us here, though, still have to look for somepony, huh?” She jabbed Rainbow and chuckled.

Rainbow’s brow knit and she met Applejack’s gaze. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then mumbled and turned away.

Applejack raised a brow. “What’s up, sugar cube?”

Rainbow stiffened for a split second, then she shook her head and waved Applejack off. “Nothing, just had a dumb idea, but I realized it was dumb before I said anything. C’mon, let’s go find out if the spa ponies are, like, fighting with each other, then maybe we can find some real food somewhere.”

“All right,” Applejack said, frowning at Rainbow. “Sounds good to me.” As they walked down the hall, a smile slowly grew on Applejack’s face. “Hey, Dash, you think we’d get enough ponies up for it in Ponyville that we could start a roller derby team?”

Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up and she grinned. “Man, I hope so, because that sounds awesome.”

Grinning at each other, they paused at the room that had been transformed into a miniature spa, then stepped inside.

“Go sit down, I said I got this one.”

Applejack raised a brow. “You sure? You brought bits? Where’re you even carryin’ ‘em?”

“Pegasus trade secret. Go on, AJ, jeez.”

Applejack chuckled and sat at a diner table, then watched Rainbow head to the counter. At some point during the exchange, Rainbow had a bag of bits in her hooves to pay, and Applejack had no idea where it came from. She stared in bewilderment as Rainbow counted some out on the counter, and then made the bag vanish again. Applejack smiled to herself and shook her head.

A few minutes passed, then Rainbow flew over with three trays balanced precariously on hooves. She plopped two down on the table, both sporting identical bundles of food, wrapped up in paper like a pair of hayburgers, then carefully slid the last tray with their drinks into place. With a flourishing bow, Rainbow sat down opposite her and grinned. “There! Real, actual food, I hope.”

Applejack chuckled and dragged her tray closer. “Breakfast was actual food.”

Rainbow crossed her hooves over her chest. “Buffets aren’t food, AJ, they’re traps. We’re lucky we got out of there alive.”

She laughed. “It ain’t my fault you ate biscuits ‘n gravy.”

“Yes, it is, you actually said to me, oh, I bet you can’t eat this without passing out.”

“I did, but that don’t mean you had to eat it.”

“Yes, it did!”

They both grinned at each other, then Applejack shook her head and unwrapped her food. “With all the times ya end up buggin’ me, it’s only fair I get to bug ya back. What’cha get, anyway? This don’t look like poutine.”

“They didn’t have plain poutine,” Rainbow said with a sigh. “I asked the salespony about it, and they said that if you want for real, actual poutine, you gotta get it from a street cart.”

“Ah, gotcha. Didn’t know that, ‘cause they always just had it for ya at the Wonderbolts shows?” Rainbow nodded as she peeled back the wrapper, finding a sandwich on thick-sliced bread toasted crispy. “What’cha get, then?”

“They’re poutine grilled cheeses,” Rainbow said, and Applejack raised her brows. “Hey, it sounded good to me, and I already just destroyed my diet on this trip, might as well go as hard as possible at this point.” She grinned and held half her sandwich up. “Cheers, AJ.”

Giggling, Applejack lifted hers up and tapped it against Rainbow’s. “Cheers, sugar cube.” She took a bite. “…Mmf, dang.” She took another bite. The cheese, soft, mild, and melty, held everything together, and each bite had crispy bits of hay and unctuous pockets of gravy. She savored the mouthful, then swallowed and took a sip of iced tea. “This what poutine tastes like?”

Rainbow slowly chewed on her own bite. “Not really, but I’m not complaining.” She stuffed almost a quarter of the grilled cheese into her mouth. “Mmmoh, myeah …”

“Chew with your mouth closed, Dash.” Applejack smacked her lips and took a huge bite of hers, stooping forward as gravy threatened to dribble out the back of the sandwich. She wiped her face, took a sip, then sat back on the bench with a sigh. “Well, at least we got one good thing here.”

“Hey, the massage was nice, too.” Rainbow crammed the rest of the half into her mouth, then got the second wedge of grilled cheese from the wrapper. “But I know what you mean.”

“I still can’t believe that meet ‘n greet, never been so dang disappointed to meet a bunch’a happy ponies.”

“And of course Party Favor and Double Diamond had to patch everything up between lunch and then instead of asking for our help.”

“Dang selfish a’them.” Applejack grinned and shook her head. “And stars almighty, sleepin’ in that room.”

“Ugh, I know, it’s worse than trying to stay in Canterlot. Canterlot’s at least the real deal, here it’s like they’re trying to fake it and just don’t really know what it’s like being in the castle.”

Applejack forced a smile and nodded, thinking to herself that it wasn’t just the décor that had made it awkward with Rainbow pressed up against her all night, but she kept silent.

Rainbow gave a lopsided smile and rested her cheek on a hoof. “Course, I guess most ponies haven’t been in the castle a bunch of times. Our lives are weird.”

Applejack chuckled. “They are. Whinnypeg’s weird, too, though, more I see around it. It ain’t like Canterlot for lots of reasons. And everypony’s nice ‘n friendly, it’s like we’re in Ponyville or somethin’, but instead it’s a whole city and it feels wrong, as stupid as that sounds. Maybe I’m just used to Canterlot ‘n Manehattan.”

“Nah, this place is definitely strange, I noticed that the few other times I’ve been here. Didn’t say anything because, like … how do you say ponies being nice gives you the heebie-jeebies without sounding like you’re totally crazy?”

Applejack popped the last bite of her sandwich half in her mouth. “Ya can’t really, but I already knew you’re crazier’n a fox in the henhouse.”

“Oh, psh, you love it.”

“I do, wouldn’t change you for nothin’.” She smiled fondly at Rainbow, then felt a twinge of unease. Her grin faltered and she dropped her gaze to her tray to unwrap the second half of her lunch. “Startin’ to get a li’l worried about all this. Don’t usually take so dang long to find somepony who needs help.”

Rainbow sighed as she wiped the crumbs from her muzzle. “Yeah, guess so. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out why the map sends us anywhere, this must just be one of those times.”

“Eeyup, that it is, but even then, I can’t think of a time it’s taken a whole dang day to figure out. Takes longer’n that to solve a lot of the time, but that’s the part that takes work. We checked in ‘bout this time yesterday, we’ve been here workin’ on this for twenty-four hours. At this rate, we ain’t just outta the runnin’ for fastest friendship problem, we might end up bein’ the slowest. What’re we doin’ wrong?”

Sighing again, Rainbow shook her head. “No idea, AJ. I keep trying to think if maybe we, like, did figure out who needs our help already, but just haven’t realized it yet? That’s happened a few times. Definitely isn’t Double Diamond or Party Favor, did you see them at breakfast?”

Applejack snickered. “We might have’ta start shoppin’ for weddin’ presents pretty soon there.”

“Totally. And the only other thing that even felt like it might be a problem was, uh …” Rainbow’s cheeks turned pink and she looked down. “That, uh, one-on-one thing we did yesterday. But, like, not that it was a problem, more like it felt like we were …”

“… Solving one we didn’t really know was there,” Applejack finished. The unease ate at her and she focused on the few bites remaining of her sandwich. She chewed slowly for a moment, buying herself a bit of silence. “… You ain’t … still sore at me over all that and are just bundlin’ it up, are you?”

“What?” Rainbow sat forward. “No, AJ, absolutely not. I’m …” Her frown deepened and she sunk back on the bench. “I’m not angry at you about it.”

“… But you are angry still.”

Rainbow turned her head away, averting her gaze from Applejack. “… I really came close to seriously hurting AB back then, huh?”

Applejack winced and looked down at her sandwich.

“I didn’t really, like, see you or her when it happened, AB had already gone inside, so I just saw you a little scuffed up and didn’t have anything else to go off of but what you said to me then. The way you told Morning Breeze about it, though … it was almost really bad, wasn’t it?”

“… I told Mornin’ about how after I kicked the crud outta that tree that I limped my way inside, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was limpin’ because I broke somethin’ when I hit the tree. Fractured my pelvis. Had to wear a cast on my keister for a bunch’a weeks. One of the reasons you didn’t see me none after the fight.”

Rainbow gave a wan smile, then looked down at the table. “That sounds funny and I want to laugh, but …”

“Yeah. I dunno how Apple Bloom came out the other side’a that just a li’l shaken up. Part of me thinks it really was a miracle. Some force of magic or fate smilin’ on me, sparin’ me from … from that.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“… I’m really sorry, AJ. I wasn’t trying to hurt Apple Bloom, and it would’ve torn me apart if I had.” She rubbed her muzzle. “I maybe didn’t get all that close to her until later, but all the same. I get why you blew up at me so hard. I deserved it.”

“… You didn’t deserve it, sugar. You didn’t see it happen, all ya saw was me shook up and angry at you for somethin’ that the both of us did all the time.” Rainbow fidgeted, casting a surprised look at Applejack, then turning away. “What?”

“Y-you, um … you called me sugar just now.” Her cheeks darkened. “You haven’t called me sugar without the cube in a long time.”

Applejack felt her face heat up. “S-sorry.” She stuffed the rest of the sandwich in her mouth. A pause dragged out as she chewed. She felt eyes on her and slowly looked up, meeting Rainbow’s uneasy gaze. She swallowed the last of her sandwich and took a sip of tea, still holding the eye contact. A blanket of tension fell over her, getting heavier and heavier, suffocating in the silence.

Rainbow opened her mouth.

“Hey, Rainbow, AJ, you two are here!” called out Double Diamond.

A flash of panic crossed over Rainbow’s expression, then was quickly replaced with a smile. “Hey, Double! Party!” she called, waving as they headed over.

Applejack searched Rainbow’s face for a moment, still feeling a chasm of tension that had opened between them, making the table feel like it was miles across. She shut her eyes and pushed all her thoughts aside as she turned toward Double Diamond and Party Favor. She smiled at them. “How’re you two doin’ today?”

Party Favor pressed into Double Diamond’s side and nuzzled his neck. “We’re doing great.”

Redness rose to Double Diamond’s cheeks and he nuzzled Party Favor back. “I don’t know if you’ve talked to Morning Breeze—she’s the therapist—outside of the group therapy sessions at all.” Applejack and Rainbow Dash both nodded, looking at each other sidelong for a moment. “Isn’t she nice? She helped me think through some stuff about my parents and put things in perspective.”

Applejack raised a brow and grinned. “Yeah?”

He smiled back and kissed Party Favor’s cheek. “Yeah.”

Party Favor, who’d been smiling so hard since he’d walked in that Applejack felt sympathy pains in her face, pressed into Double’s neck with a sigh of happiness before straightening up. “So this place any good?”

“We’re desperate for something other than that awful restaurant in the hotel,” added Double Diamond.

Rainbow nodded. “Get the poutine grilled cheese, it’s awesome.”

“Might wanna take a nap after, but eeyup.”

“Sounds good,” Party Favor said. He raised a brow at Double Diamond, who nodded. “I’ll get this one, babe.” He winked and headed for the counter.

Snickering, Rainbow shook her head. “You two are gonna make me barf.”

“It’s cute and you know it, Dash.”

“That’s why I’m gonna barf, AJ.”

Applejack chuckled, then turned back to Double Diamond. “Glad to hear things’re smoothin’ out more’n more for the two of ya, Party Favor looks like he’s over the moon. What’d Mornin’ say?”

He shuffled his hooves on the ground, looking down with a pleased, if shy smile. “Honestly? She just asked me what I’d think would happen if I did have a falling out with my parents right now, if things would go the same as they did the first time, or if things were different now, and … they are different now, and it isn’t going to go the same way, either between me and them, or between me and Allie.” He shrugged. “It was a good conversation and I’m less worried about things now. I’d still rather it didn’t get back to my parents before Allie’s out of there, but I was thinking if it did, that would mean it was all over and I’d let Allie down just like I did before. But it only means that if I decide to walk out of her life all the way again, mom and dad can’t force me to do that, Allie’s too old for that now. I was just worrying about the wrong thing.”

Applejack pursed her lips and nodded. “Ain’t a bad way to look at it at all.”

“Yeah.” Double Diamond’s smile faded and he looked between her and Rainbow Dash. “I-I’m sorry, we meant to just say hello, not go into all of this with you, I’m sure you two are busy dealing with your friendship mission.”

Applejack waved him off. “It’s fine, I was the one askin’ about you two, don’t worry none.”

“Still, if I’m interrupting, I can go wait on the food with Party Favor.”

The vast expanse of the table between Applejack and Rainbow seemed to shudder as their eyes met. She searched Rainbow’s face with unease, as Rainbow searched her back, making her feel exposed. For a moment, she was sure Rainbow was going to say whatever she’d been about to say earlier, but then it passed and Rainbow turned to Double Diamond with a smile. “You’re not interrupting anything, we were taking a break from all that junk anyway. You and Party want to join us?” She grinned and winked. “Or do you want some privacy?”

Double Diamond blushed and cleared his throat. He glanced over at Party, who headed toward the group with a tray on his back. “We’ve been invited to join Rainbow Dash and Applejack, Party.”

Applejack matched Rainbow’s mischievous smile. “Ain’t no pressure, though, if’n you lovebirds want some alone time.”

He smiled and slid the tray onto the table. “Sitting at lunch with some friends who know we’re together and it’s all out in the open? You’re spoiling me, Double.” He sat on the bench next to Rainbow, who slid over, and Applejack made room for Double Diamond. Party Favor turned to Applejack. “There, almost like it’s a double-date now.” He grinned and Applejack kept her gaze carefully on him, refusing to look at Rainbow and trying to keep heat out of her cheeks. “Though let me guess, he’s been talking your ears off about us all this time, hasn’t he?”

Double Diamond pouted through a grin as he pulled his wrapped up sandwich closer.

Applejack cleared her throat. “It ain’t his fault, I was busy askin’.”

He shot a teasing look at Double Diamond as he unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. “Mm, that is good. So how’s Whinnypeg treating you both? Have you found whatever friendship problem you were sent here for?”

Rainbow groaned and sunk down on the bench. “Not yet.” She straightened up again. “And Whinnypeg’s been nice. It’s cool to see more than just the stupid stadium. Though I guess I’ve mostly just seen the stupid convention center …”

The conversation shifted and jumped as Party Favor and Double Diamond ate their food, covering gossip from both Ponyville and Our Town, the convention, and the various catastrophes that threatened to destroy everypony’s way of life every couple of months. As they chatted, Applejack caught the occasional little glance between her and Rainbow, before they’d both focus back on hanging out.

The unease in the pit of her stomach grew.

Daisy smiled as Applejack crossed paths with her in the hall. “Hello again, Applejack, is your girlfriend around? I wanted to ask her about Rainbow Falls.”

Applejack felt a shudder run up her spine and she tried to keep the wince off her face. “Sorry, Rainbow’s off somewhere else, Celestia knows where.” She cleared her throat. “And she ain’t my girlfriend, we’re just …” Applejack shifted her weight from one set of hooves to the other and forced herself to say, “we’re just friends,” for the thousandth time that day.

Daisy looked at her blankly for a moment in the silence, then sucked in a breath and said, “O-oh, right, sorry, I keep …” She shuffled her hooves on the carpet and looked down. A few ponies circled around them, heading off to somewhere else in the convention, while Daisy let out a long breath. “I know in my head that I don’t know either of you, or Princess Twilight, or any of the other amazing ponies in your group. You’re strangers to me, and the things you all put into your diary are just a part of you that you’ve shared with everypony else. I don’t know the real you, I know an image of you that I’ve made up in my own head from what I’ve read. I know that.”

Applejack gave her a strained smile and nodded. “It’s all right, Daisy, I get how it’s hard to see sometimes.”

“I just ought to stop …” she shuffled her hooves again, meeting Applejack’s gaze for a moment and looking down. “In hindsight, reading into an implicit romance is kind of creepy if both of the ponies are real.”

Applejack blinked. “Come again?”

With a sigh, Daisy chewed her lip, transformed back into the mousey first impression Applejack had gotten of her. “In reading the diary, I kind of thought that … maybe you and Rainbow Dash were together.” Applejack felt her face warm up. “I assumed you hadn’t said it directly in the diary proper because you wanted your privacy, but the pieces seemed to fit, and, um …” she cleared her throat as dots of pink rose on her face. “I … um … maybe have written fanfiction of the two of you together.”

“Wh-whuh …” Applejack felt another shiver go up her spine and tried to will the blush away. Her face felt hot enough to fry an egg. “We, um—it ain’t—”

“I understand,” Daisy blurted out. “I was just reading into things and picturing you as characters in a book, not real ponies. I’m sure the last thing you want is some mare your parents’ age shipping you with your friends.”

Applejack shook her head slowly and muttered, “Even in the dang diary,” to herself. She rubbed between her eyes. “What, uh, what sorta stuff in the book made you think me and Dash were together?” she asked, feeling miles away from the conversation.

“Oh, uh, there were lots of things, I suppose. The biggest is how much you two remind me of my daughter and her husband, though.” She smiled fondly to herself while Applejack felt out of focus and numbed. The more she spoke, the more confident she sounded again. “You remind me a lot of her, very down to earth and dependable, while her husband is more like Rainbow Dash. Their relationship always has little competitions, like I was telling Rainbow Dash the other day, it’s just like your chapter on the Running of the Leaves.”

“Uh-huh,” Applejack said weakly.

“It isn’t just that, though. It’s clear in the diary how close of a friend group the six of you have, and I’m sure you all care for each other deeply, but it always felt like there was something deeper between you and Rainbow Dash. I suppose what I was seeing in that was just that you’re best friends outside of the group dynamic, but in reading it, it didn’t just feel like that, it felt like something more. Like there was a real history there.”

Applejak’s ears drooped. “It was just for a couple’a months …” she mumbled under her breath, “we were sixteen, and it was over in just a couple’a months …”

“I’m sorry if my assumptions have made you uncomfortable,” Daisy said, dropping back into a reserved tone. “I’ll do my best to remember that you’re only friends in reality. If you want me to leave you and your friend alone for the rest of the convention, I will. I know I’ve crossed enough lines already for that to be fair.”

“Huhn?” Applejack shook herself all the way awake again and gave Daisy a strained smile. “It’s all right. I maybe didn’t think it’d ever happen growin’ up a country girl on a farm, but I’ve gotten the chance to get used to bein’ in the public eye. Important thing’s that you can see where them lines are, because a lotta ponies can’t. No hard feelin’s.”

Daisy let out a breath of relief. “Good, I’m glad. I-I should go find Guff, excuse me.” She turned to leave, then paused. “Oh, and thank you. Not just for being understanding, or everything you and your friends have done for Equestria, but for writing that diary. I know when it was brand new a lot of the conversations around it weren’t the most fair to you all.”

A smile cracked through Applejack’s expression and she let out a low chuckle.

“I got caught up in it, too, to be honest. But after the initial … excitement died down and everypony had a chance to just judge it for what it is and not what they were imagining it ought to be …” She smiled warmly at Applejack. “It changed my life for the better. And I know it’s done the same for a lot of other ponies, too. So thank you.”

Applejack returned the smile, feeling a well of pride push out some of the butterflies, and she said, “You’re welcome.”

As Daisy left, Applejack let out a long breath and sagged where she stood, nearly sinking to the floor. She glanced around the hallway at what rooms were open, and let out a sigh of relief when she spotted the little library. She dragged her hooves inside, finding it completely empty, and dropped into a bean bag chair, letting the silence of the room swallow her up.

“It was only a couple’a months …” she murmured to herself. “That’s all it ever was, a couple’a months. We were just a pair of firecrackers. We caught fire together, burned white hot, and then everythin’ exploded so big and so loud that there wasn’t nopony in Equestria who couldn’t tell it was over. It was just a li’l fling between two teenagers figurin’ themselves out, didn’t work, and that was that, it didn’t matter none.” She sighed and pulled her hat down over her eyes.

“… So how come it don’t feel like it don’t matter none?” she asked the empty room. Her own voice sounded miserable to her ears. “How come I feel like there ain’t nothin’ in the whole world that matters more? Why can’t I just forget it and leave it alone?”

She rolled over on the bean bag and felt her hat slip off and fall on the floor as she stared up at the ceiling. “Dash leaves it alone,” she told herself. She covered her eyes with her foreleg and shook her head slowly. She wanted to feel driven by the thought, like it was a challenge, something she could rise to and prove to Rainbow Dash that she could leave it alone just as well, too. Instead the thought made her feel hollow. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Dash leaves it alone,” she whispered again. “I need to leave it alone, too. I have to.” She let out a long breath. “I don’t want to, but I have to. I just want …” She grimaced and shook her head again, rubbing her eyes on the inside of her foreleg. “I just want for it to’ve gone some other way back then. I can’t do nothin’ about it, I just … I just wish there was somethin’ more to it than there was. That it wasn’t the end of our story.”

She heard the rustling of hooves on the carpet and lifted her hoof off her face. A pair of unicorns crossed over toward the shelves. One of them glanced over at her, smiled, and mimed zipping his lips before heading for the books.

Applejack grimaced and sat up in the bean bag, then rubbed her face with both hooves. She turned to scoop her hat off the floor and stood up.

Back in the hall, she glanced one way, then the other at the ponies heading back and forth through the amenities of the convention center. A small grin broke through her melancholy, and she glanced back over her shoulder at her flank. “Dang it,” she said, “the friendship mission wasn’t gettin’ Daisy to start seein’ me and Dash as real ponies, neither. Guess I gotta keep workin’.” She straightened up, let out a steadying breath, and waded her way back into the convention.

Author's Note

As the weekend winds on and with no clear direction on what the Cutie Map even wants of them, tension starts to mount. Tune in on Friday for the final part of Couples Retreat.

This story is originally published on Offprint, a new fiction-sharing site that’s still in alpha, with the first update going live July, 19, 2021, giving each update an exclusive period on Offprint before being posted to Fimfiction.net or AO3. That means if you are reading this on the day it went live on Fimfiction, Couples Retreat is already available in its entirety on Offprint. The exclusivity will continue until the story is complete, and will be the case for all my future My Little Pony and other fanfic stories as well. If you want to be the most up-to-date and/or catch future projects of mine when they first get released, consider joining Offprint and keeping tabs on me there. No pressure, though, as I said, everything will be crossposted after the exclusive to AO3, and also to Fimfiction.net when applicable.

And if you don't follow my blogs here and have been wondering what I've been up to lately, you can check out some recent stories I've written for other fandoms on both Offprint and AO3. No pressure on that, either.

Thanks so much for reading, TTFN.

—bats | Offprint.net | AO3 | Fimfiction.net | she/her

Part Three

Applejack groaned as she tromped down the hotel hallway. Everything felt like a disaster. The afternoon had drifted to evening, which swirled by in a rush of faces and voices, strong hooves in her spine and a mostly disappointing dinner, sights, sounds, smells, and overwhelming, mind-numbing frustration. “What’re we even doin’ here, Dash?”

“No idea,” Rainbow mumbled, her expression worn.

Applejack sighed and fetched her hotel key out from under her hat. She pulled the door open and flicked on the light, igniting the crystal chandelier. “Ugh, and this awful room ain’t no different, can’t believe we gotta stay here.” She groaned again and stamped across the floor. “How can nopony, nopony have any problems goin’ on? Even when the map’s been none-too-friendly about sendin’ us somewhere with a problem front and center, we should’a stumbled into it by now.”

“Yeah.” Rainbow pulled the door shut and leaned against it as the lock clicked.

Applejack glanced back at her, winced, and forced herself to take a deep breath. “Sorry, me bein’ bent outta shape ain’t helpin’, I don’t mean to be unloadin’ on ya, you been there, too.” She rubbed between her eyes with a hoof and sat down on the squishy bed. “Thanks for bein’ there. And for skippin’ the dang movie night.”

Rainbow gave her a wan smile. “Psh, it’s fine, When Berry Met Jolly seems like more your sort of movie, anyway.” They shared a grin, then Rainbow’s expression drifted back to reserved.

“… You doin’ okay, Dash? You been kinda quiet all day.”

Rainbow stopped mid-step in the center of the room, her expression guarded, then she chewed her lip and looked away. “Sorry, just thinking about … stuff.”

The anxiety which had been simmering in Applejack’s stomach all day grew hot again and she fidgeted on the bed. “What sorta stuff? You can talk to me about anythin’, you know that, right?”

“… Yeah.” Rainbow’s preoccupation only grew on her face, and she quietly slunk over and sat down next to Applejack. “… I know I can, but I dunno if I should.”

Applejack fidgeted again, then put her hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. Rainbow’s muscles tensed for a bare moment at the contact, then relaxed. “If it’s buggin’ you, I wanna hear it, don’t matter what it is. If I’m doin’ somethin’, I’d want you to tell me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just …” She chewed her lip. “I’ve been kinda thinking about, like, why the cutie map might’ve sent us here. Nopony really needs our help. There isn’t really anything special going on where it makes sense for us to be here. The only thing that’s even felt close to being a reason for us being here is …”

“… Us talkin’ out when we broke up,” Applejack finished, hesitating for a moment before taking her hoof back. “You still sore, Dash? AB is fine ‘n all, it happened years ago, there ain’t a reason to hold onto bein’ angry over what we almost did.” Rainbow cast a look from the corner of her eye. “Yeah, Dash, we, you weren’t racin’ against yourself. It’s somethin’ we bring out in each other’s all. Can’t really help it none, don’t think. And we can be cross with ourselves all we want for gettin’ that way and nearly hurtin’ AB, but I don’t see no point now, it was a long time ago, ‘n we’ve grown up.” She gave Rainbow a half smile. “Comes a time when ya gotta forgive yourself for stuff.”

Rainbow let out a long breath, drawing circles on the bedspread with a hoof. “I know that, and I’m working on it, it might’ve happened a long time ago, but me feeling like this about it’s kinda new, I just need a bit, y’know?”

Applejack nodded.

“And …” she turned and met Applejack’s gaze, then turned away again, dots of pink on her face. “… B-being angry at myself over what almost happened isn’t really what I’ve been thinking about with all of this, anyway.”

Her brow knitting, Applejack cocked her head to the side and leaned forward, trying to catch Rainbow’s eyes again, but Rainbow sunk further down, hiding her face. “… All right, Rainbow, what’s on your mind about it?” Rainbow shrunk in more, and Applejack’s frown deepened. “… Y … you think the friendship problem’s still between us.”

Rainbow took another deep breath and ran her hoof through her mane, sitting up straight and giving Applejack a guarded look.

Applejack rubbed her muzzle and looked away, staring at the wallpaper’s ugly paisley pattern. “Are you still angry at me?” she asked as a whisper.

“No. Are you still angry at me?”

“Of course I ain’t, Rainbow.”

“… Then how come every time anypony’s even, like, looked at us and smiled this weekend like we were a couple, you’ve flinched? Is the thought of being with me like that really that bad? I know I messed up then and you don’t owe me your forgiveness, but if the cutie map sent us here to fix whatever the heck’s wrong between us, then I want to fix it. You mean too much to me to let it go, anyway, and if I knew you were still angry over this, I would’ve done anything about it before, but you’ve gotta talk to me. Please. Please.” Rainbow grabbed Applejack’s shoulders and looked Applejack in the eyes, her expression full of pain.

Applejack felt a ball of guilt well up in her stomach, curdling her dinner, and she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the look. “I ain’t …” She chewed her lip and turned away, hugging herself around the middle and staring at the wall. “I ain’t angry at you, Rainbow, I swear it, I forgave you a long, long time ago and there ain’t nothin’ you need to do to make up for nothin’. Took me longer to forgive myself than it did you, and there’s nothin’ there for us to fix. You’re my best friend, Rainbow Dash, and what happened then don’t change that one bit.”

Rainbow slowly turned and joined her in staring at the wall. The beat of silence stretched out as they sat, until finally Rainbow asked, her voice barely above a whisper, “So what’s going on with the flinching stuff? I thought it was funny at first, but I can tell it’s bugging you for real. You don’t want to think of us being together, even for a minute. I know I wasn’t a good girlfriend …”

“Dash,” Applejack said sharply, cutting Rainbow off. She looked at Rainbow from the corner of her eye, feeling her pulse in her ears and letting the swirl of emotions that had been threatening to overwhelm her throughout the weekend wash over her. She huffed and closed her eyes. “I ain’t tryin’ to not think about us bein’ together because it was bad.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m tryin’ to not think of it because I miss it so much it hurts.”

“Wh-whuh …?”

“The two of us are bad for each other, but we’re so good for each other, too, and even when we ain’t gettin’ reminded of what we used to have, I still think about it a lot. I miss how it felt bein’ with you, and it makes me feel like a lovesick filly still holdin’ onto it, but I can’t help it, ‘cause all I remember is …” She dared a sidelong glance, catching Rainbow’s dark blush and look of surprise. “… All I remember’s the smell of you under the apple trees.” She closed her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I ain’t done much datin’ since we, uh … ‘cause every time I try, I keep measurin’ ‘em up against you, and truth is, nopony measures up. Nopony makes me feel the way ya made me feel. And it’s over, and I know I gotta let it go, but I don’t know how.” She ran a hoof through her mane and let out a long sigh. “I’m sure if I just tried with somepony, I’d figure out how, and I’d get someplace where I could feel that way about somepony else again, but life keeps me busy enough I ain’t really got time for that sorta thing. Maybe someday I’ll have time for that and’ll be able to let it go for good, but right now I’m just sorta stuck with … me and my thoughts. So I just try not to think about it.”

Feeling her cheeks burn, Applejack hugged herself tighter and looked at the floor. The awful paisley pattern continued in the carpet. “This weekend’s been makin’ me think about it a lot, whether I want to or not, though, and seein’ everypony look at us and smile like that just makes me jealous of the version of us they’re imaginin’.” She felt the strength in her voice trail off, and forced out barely about a whisper, “Sorry for flinchin’ left ‘n right about it, Dash. Wasn’t tryin’ to make you feel bad.”

Rainbow shuffled back and forth on the bed. “… You know, I haven’t really ever dated anypony longer than, like, six months?” She let out a weak snicker. “Part of that’s just me, I think, but I’m pretty sure I push everypony away, too, keep them from getting too close, and eventually they figure out that I’m not gonna let them in, and they get tired of it and leave. It hasn’t really bothered me, either, I haven’t wanted to let anypony in since …”

Applejack felt some of the shame in her guts unravel as Rainbow spoke, and a heavy, bittersweet wistfulness settled over her. “Yeah …”

“… I still think about it a lot, too. I didn’t have to, like, dig deep for that memory I told Morning Breeze. It’s just in my head. A lot.”

“… We had somethin’ real good together, sugar—” her voice caught and she cleared her throat “—cube. I wish we didn’t bring out the worst in each other, too, but we did. We still do. We still drive each other into doin’ stuff that can hurt us ‘n the ponies we love, like we almost did with …” She reached for Rainbow’s hoof, hesitated, then let her leg fall to the bedspread. “Ain’t we a fine mess,” she muttered. “Couple’a mares lookin’ for a problem to fix, but there ain’t anything for us to fix. We both want the same dang thing, but know we can’t have it, because all it’d do is end up hurtin’ some more.” She closed her eyes.

Rainbow reached a hoof toward Applejack in the silence, then let it fall to the bed. She turned away and fidgeted in place. “… Do … do you think if we were harvesting the orchard right now, it’d end the same way?” She rubbed her shoulder, her gaze dropping to the floor. “I’m not sixteen anymore, and neither are you. I know we can still bring out the worst in each other sometimes, but you’ve grown up so much, AJ, and you were already way more of an adult than I was back then, your worst now is a lot better than it was then.”

A beat of silence passed as Applejack held her breath, looking at Rainbow.

“… Have I changed at all to you? Am I more of a grownup now, or am I the same dumb kid trying to argue that Apple Bloom wasn’t hurt so why should I have to say sorry?” She turned back to Applejack. “Is that still me?”

Applejack kissed Rainbow.

Rainbow gasped in surprise into Applejack’s mouth, then pressed in. Applejack felt hooves in her mane, wings on her back, and she tumbled forward until Rainbow was pinned beneath her on the bed. Rainbow smelled the same as she remembered.

A knock at the door cut through the silence, and Applejack sat up with a tiny groan. Rainbow panted as she stared up at Applejack, face dazed and flushed.

“Who’s there?” Applejack called out.

“It’s me, Double Diamond,” he called back through the door. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything, there’s just something going on I think you’ll want to see.”

Applejack cleared her throat and climbed off of Rainbow. “Be right there.” She ran a hoof through her mane, then fetched her hat off the floor where it’d fallen.

Rainbow got back to her hooves and straightened out her feathers, then patted down her mane, not meeting Applejack’s eyes. She gave a nervous chuckle. “Our, uh, cutie marks still aren’t flashing. Guess that wasn’t it.”

Applejack pressed in close until their muzzles were almost touching, earning another gasp from Rainbow. “If it is or ain’t, either way we’re continuin’ this … conversation … later.”

Rainbow’s blush darkened and she smiled. “Okay.”

“Sorry for kissin’ without askin’ first.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“No,” Applejack whispered, close enough to feel Rainbow’s breaths on her muzzle. “You ain’t.” She lingered for a moment, feeling the tension between them catch on fire, then turned and headed for the door. She heard Rainbow clear her throat and shuffle in place behind her, and she smiled in satisfaction. It was an old, familiar feeling. She opened the door out to the hallway.

Double Diamond gave her a strained smile. “Hi, sorry, I know it’s late.”

Applejack shrugged and glanced past Double Diamond, but he was alone in the hallway. “Ain’t a problem. What’s goin’ on Double?”

“Well, uh, I’m not sure, but I think maybe your friendship problem finally showed itself?” He turned and took a step, then hesitated, looking back at them. “It’s back in the convention center.”

Applejack nodded and stepped out of her room. She glanced back and watched Rainbow fumble with closing the door. She smiled and rolled her eyes, then followed alongside Double Diamond. Rainbow caught up and walked next to her, close enough to where she felt Rainbow’s wing brush her side, then Rainbow flinched, fell behind them a few steps, then caught back up, giving her a wide berth. She looked at Rainbow from the corner of her eye and smiled.

Rainbow smiled back, her cheeks pink.

“… You two, um, having a good night?” Double Diamond asked, his tone somewhere between amused and puzzled. “I definitely interrupted something, didn’t I?”

Applejack’s smile faltered and she chewed her lip as her face warmed up. “… Maybe ya did interrupt somethin’. Somethin’ that, ah, probably should’a happened earlier.”

Rainbow shot her a smoky sidelong glance and closed the gap between them by a step.

Double Diamond giggled out, “Sorry,” and Applejack felt her blush darken. “I thought that there might have been a, erm, reason why you skipped the movie night, especially after seeing you two at lunch today. This all could maybe wait until morning …”

With a sigh, Applejack shook her head. She muttered, “‘Course now everypony’s knowin’ looks are right,” to herself, then turned back to Double Diamond and answered, “Figurin’ out why the dang map sent us here’s real important, and our somethin’ can wait a bit.” She looked to Rainbow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’d be super awful if we missed fixing the stuff we got sent here for because we didn’t check.” Rainbow flashed a lopsided smile. “Plus I think that afterwards you’re gonna have the chance to pin me to the bed a bunch of times.”

Double Diamond snorted as Applejack’s eyes shot open, her steps faltering. “Rainbow!”

“What, is it a secret now?” Rainbow grinned and stepped closer. “You’re right it should’ve happened earlier.”

Applejack smiled despite herself. They’d fallen behind from Double Diamond, barely moving forward in the hallway as they paid closer attention to each other than where they were walking. “Yeah, but …”

Rainbow stepped closer again, until their flanks were touching, and she dropped her tone to barely above a whisper. “Everypony here thought it already, anyway.”

Applejack let herself snicker and pressed her neck into Rainbow’s. “All right, fine, you’re right, sugar, it don’t matter none who knows or not, ‘n they can think what they want while we figure out what all this is now.”

A bit of the uncertainty reentered Rainbow’s expression. “You want me to give you some space ‘til we figure this out?”

“… No.”

After a few steps in silence, flank to flank, Rainbow opened her wing and slipped it over Applejack’s back.

Applejack felt her heart thunder in her chest as a nostalgic hum of emotions made her shiver. She pressed into Rainbow. “Oh, stars and moon, I missed how that felt.” She resisted the urge to bury her face in Rainbow’s mane. “We really gotta talk all this out, sugar, I still ain’t sure this is a good idea of if I’m just lettin’ my feelin’s drag me along, but wonderin’ about that that can wait ‘til later. Right now, let’s just … let our feelin’s drag us along some, and see where they take us. Stay as close to me as ya want, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered back.

Applejack straightened up, but kept close enough for the wing to stay on her back, and they sped up to rejoin Double Diamond, who looked like he was about to start whistling nonchalantly. They crossed out of the hotel hallway and walked into the convention center. “So what all is it you’re showin’ us?”

“It’s, uh, somepony put up … I guess graffiti outside of the movie room. You’ll see in a second.”

“Figures,” Applejack grumbled. “Spend all day lookin’ high and low for anythin’, and somethin’ happens at the first thing we decide to skip.”

Double Diamond flashed a knowing smile. “I don’t blame you for skipping to try and sort out your something instead.”

Applejack chuckled. “That wasn’t why we skipped, it just sorta ended up workin’ out that way.” She lowered her tone and said to Rainbow, “Really I wanted to skip ‘cause sittin’ through a romantic movie with you when I was tryin’ to not think about this sounded like torture. Watchin’ it sounds a lot better now, but, ah, I recall that somepony said it wasn’t her style’a movie, huh?”

“I’m up for watching it if we can just make out the whole time.”

Applejack chuckled and shook her head as they slowed, stopping just outside of the convention room that had been set up for the movie night. Double Diamond turned away from the door, facing the outer circle of the convention hall, and pointed at the wall.

Across the wall, scrawled in spray paint, read, ‘The honeymoon phase never lasts,’ in jitters and drips. A jagged spray underlined it back and forth, making the message look far angrier than the words itself would imply. Double Diamond gave a strained smile, swept his hoof in a circle, and said, “Ta-da …”

Applejack frowned at the wall and shook her head. “Eesh. That probably ain’t the healthiest thing to be writin’ on a wall.” She felt Rainbow’s wing slip off her back and tried to ignore the pang of disappointment she felt.

Rainbow jumped up and hovered in the air a few feet off the ground, just in front of the writing. “I don’t think an earth pony could’ve done this, unless they had a ladder.” She moved sideways the few feet the message took up on the wall. “And enough time to move the ladder a few times.”

“Well, they might have had time, the movie basically just started, it’s still going on,” Double Diamond said. “I only noticed it because I had to use the little colt’s room, and between that and getting you two, it’s been a few minutes and it doesn’t look like anypony else has seen it yet. They could’ve painted it right when the movie started and nopony would have bothered them.”

With a shrug, Rainbow turned to Applejack. “Still, probably more likely it’s a pegasus or a unicorn, don’t you think, AJ?”

Applejack looked the wall over with a frown and took the few paces down the hall to cover the length it took up. “I ain’t so sure. I reckon I could probably write it without needin’ a ladder or nothin’ if I used my tail.” She gave a faint smile. “I mean, I reckon I could if I practiced for a while first, ain’t never used a can’a spray paint before. But I learned how to lasso with my tail, spray paintin’ ain’t gonna be that much different.”

“Huh.” Rainbow landed and shrugged. “So I guess it could be anypony, then.”

“Eeyup.” Applejack turned to Double Diamond. “Know if anypony else skipped the movie night?”

He shrugged. “No idea, but probably. It isn’t a packed room in there.”

“Hrm.”

The door to the movie room opened and Party Favor slipped out into the hall. “Oh, that makes sense,” he said, glancing around. “I was wondering why it was taking so long, Double. I thought maybe you fell in.”

Double Diamond smirked and rolled his eyes. “Not getting rid of me that easily, Party.” Party Favor snickered as he walked over and nuzzled Double Diamond’s neck. “Sorry I’m missing the movie.”

“It is awfully cold without you in there.” He straightened up and looked over the wall. “I understand why, though.” He flashed a look over at Applejack and Rainbow. “Can’t catch a break, huh?”

Applejack shrugged. “It’s nice to have somethin’ to go off of for why we’re here, at least.” She added in a mutter under her breath, “Could’a waited ‘til mornin’, though.” Rainbow snickered and Applejack cracked a grin. “Heard that, did ya?”

“You’re not wrong.” She pressed into Applejack’s side.

Party Favor looked from Rainbow to Applejack, then turned and gave Double Diamond a wry smile. “Did you interrupt them, hon?”

He sighed. “Of course I did, my timing’s always terrible.”

“Well, thank Celestia there was something to interrupt, I thought I was going to have to meddle.” He flashed a smile at Applejack and Rainbow, then looked over the graffiti.

Applejack muttered, “Is it really just ‘cause we’re at a couples retreat that everypony’s been thinkin’ it, or is it that everypony could tell we were makin’ moon eyes when the other wasn’t lookin’?” She sighed. “‘Course I’m the last to know.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Hey, I thought you were still pissed at me.”

Party Favor shrugged at the graffiti and said, “Well there’s at least one couple that didn’t skip the movie to resolve their relationship issues, I guess.” He turned to Applejack and Rainbow again. “So what sort of thing happens now? Do you interview people or something? Do you have any leads?”

Applejack cracked a smile and shook her head. “We ain’t exactly the city guard or nothin’, Party, we’re just a couple’a ponies who’re gonna try and …” She looked at the graffiti and let out a little sigh. “Fix a broken heart, I guess. Or at least try and push ‘em in the direction of fixin’. We’ll keep pokin’ around ‘til we find somethin’ out, more or less, and hopefully things’ll start to fall into place.”

With a nod, Party Favor said, “Sounds messy, I like it.” He pressed into Double Diamond’s side, and feeling Rainbow’s warmth next to her, Applejack realized the two couples were mirroring each other. “Need our help?”

Applejack frowned and turned to Rainbow, who felt tantalizingly close as she shrugged. Applejack shrugged back. “’Preciate the offer, but I think we can manage for now. If we need some extra hooves or somethin’, we’ll ask, all right? Y’all can go back to enjoyin’ your movie.”

Double Diamond muttered, “It wasn’t the movie I was enjoying,” making Party Favor’s cheeks turn red and Rainbow snicker, then the two waved and headed back into the movie room.

Applejack sighed again as she stepped away from the warmth of Rainbow’s side and looked over the graffiti with a frown.

“… You, uh …” Rainbow cleared her throat. “You want to see what we can figure out about this tonight, or …”

Biting her lip, Applejack buried her face in Rainbow’s mane, making Rainbow let out a breathless chuckle and nuzzle back. “What I wanna do is kiss you again, sugar, but I’m afraid I got an idea about where to start lookin’, so we better not.” As Applejack leaned back from the nuzzle, Rainbow’s hoof caught her jaw and led them muzzle to muzzle.

Applejack closed her eyes as Rainbow kissed her, pressing into her mouth with a firm, but calm certainty, far away from the electrifying kiss in the hotel room. Applejack let out a sigh through her snout and pulled Rainbow closer. Rainbow felt more gentle than she remembered, more patient. As the kiss broke and Rainbow pressed their foreheads together, Applejack didn’t feel overwhelmed by nostalgia. She wondered if maybe change could be a really good thing. She grinned. “I said we better not now, sugar.”

“I kept it short.”

“You’re a real pain in the rump, you know that?”

“Duh.” Rainbow straightened and turned to press into Applejack’s side again. “So what’s your idea for where to start looking?”

Applejack straightened her hat on her head, then started walking down the hallway, heading back past the entrance to the hotel. “It ain’t much of an idea, to be honest, but seein’ it up on the wall like that reminded me that the ticket salespony said honeymoon phase to me after you headed for the room.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “She did?”

“Eeyup. It ain’t much of a phrase only she says or nothin’ though, but it’s somethin’, anyway, and plus I ain’t sure Double Diamond told anypony else ‘bout it but us, too, so we oughtta tell somepony who works here about it.”

“I guess so.” Rainbow frowned and rubbed her cheek as they walked. “Why’d she say it to you, anyway? That’s sort of a weird thing to just say when buying tickets and stuff.”

“We weren’t talkin’ ‘bout tickets then. She said she reckoned we’d be back in our honeymoon phase after the weekend was over, seein’ as she thought we’d come as a couple’n all.” She felt her mouth twitch up in a half smile. “She also called you my firecracker. Didn’t seem so fittin’ at the time, but I gotta admit …”

Rainbow snickered. “I bet you were super annoyed by the end of talking to her.”

“The real thing that’s annoyin’ is that it’s lookin’ like she was right about us. Feelin’ less and less like ponies assumin’ things and more that everypony knew it before we did.” She bumped her shoulder playfully into Rainbow, who bumped back with a laugh.

“To be fair, they were just assuming things, right up until the point where they weren’t anymore. And, like … maybe they won’t all end up being right.” Rainbow’s smile faded and she gave Applejack a guarded look as they walked.

“Listen, Dash …”

“I know, we’ve still got stuff to figure out and we’re just enjoying this for now, I’m cool with that. And I’m cool with it if, when we do figure out the stuff, we decide to just, like, leave it here as a weird weekend or whatever.”

Applejack frowned in thought. “You feelin’ right now like you’re gonna wantto leave it here as a weird weekend?”

Rainbow fidgeted. “… I mean, I dunno. I could deal if that’s what we end up doing. Whatever happens …” She stopped short and met Applejack’s eyes. “Whatever happens, this time it’s not gonna end with me lying again and telling you it didn’t mean anything to me.”

Applejack studied Rainbow’s face for a moment. For all the years they’d known each other, it had gotten really easy to tell when Rainbow was being earnest. It poured off her like heat from a fire. “… You really have grown up a lot since then, sugar.”

Rainbow cracked a lopsided smile, then turned back toward walking. “Still bounce around on trains without something to read, though.”

“I said grown up, not keeled over.”

Rainbow laughed as they rounded on the doorway they’d come in through the day before. The ticket box office sat dark and empty, and the doors outside had been locked up for the night.

Applejack stepped up to the box office and peered inside through the glass. The small room was also shut down and dark, with the desk cleared and the register tucked away somewhere else out of sight. A lone bell for service sat on the counter, just in front of the opening in the window. Applejack dinged it.

Rainbow lifted up in a hover and squinted into the tiny office. She landed with her hooves up on the counter next to Applejack and rubbed their shoulders together. “Think they’re closed up.” A sly grin spread across her muzzle. “We could check in with her in the morning and for now go back to our hotel room and continue where we—” the light in the box office snapped on and Rainbow’s teeth clacked together. “Rats,” she muttered, stepping back from the glass as the back door in the office opened.

Applejack shot an amused smile at Rainbow as a member of the convention’s staff came into the box office. It wasn’t the same pony that sold them their tickets, but rather a stallion just a scant few years older than Apple Bloom, looking anxious and like he hadn’t quite finished growing into his teeth. “Can I help you, ma’am? Is something the matter?”

Rainbow grumbled and said, “We were looking for—”

“Actually,” Applejack interrupted, “we wanted to make sure y’all knew that somepony defaced somethin’ on the wall outside the movie room.”

He raised his brows. “Defaced?”

“Yeah. It looked like somepony took a spray can to it and wrote somethin’.”

He let out a long sigh, then gave Applejack a strained smile. “Thank you, ma’am, someone will have it cleaned up right away, ma’am.” He turned away, muttering, “Sternbuck’s gonna love this, he’s probably gonna make me clean it,” under his breath.

Applejack called after him. “I also got somethin’ I wanna ask you.” He stopped short, then cast her a wary look, and Applejack got the impression he was fearful she was about to dump more work on him. She gave him a polite smile. “Do you know if the ticket salespony who was in this booth yesterday’s here right now?”

His brow knit. “The, uh, salespony …?”

“Mare, red mane in curls, wears readin’ glasses, couple years older’n me?”

“Oh, Candy Drop,” he said. “I’m not sure she’s working tonight. I could, uh … check for you if you want …” He shuffled his hooves, the wary look growing stronger.

Applejack sighed internally. “That’s all right, I’m sure ya got the paint to deal with already, we’ll check in the mornin’.” She stepped away from the box office and turned to Rainbow.

Rainbow waggled her brows. “Checking in the morning now?”

She gave Rainbow an amused glare and headed back down the hall. “Real temptin’ and all, but we gotta at least try.”

“I know, I know,” Rainbow giggled, catching up and pressing into Applejack’s side. As they walked, Applejack felt Rainbow’s wing slide over her back and grip her flank, feathers tickling along her sides, sending a shiver up her spine. “Not totally ruining some poor teenager pony’s night isn’t a good reason to stop, we still have to do the whole cutie map friendship thing if we can.” She pressed in closer to Applejack’s ear and murmured, “A girl can still think about other stuff, though.”

Applejack shivered again.

Rainbow chuckled, nipped Applejack’s ear, then refocused on looking ahead of them. “So where should we look next and stuff? Do you want to, like, poke around looking for Candy Drop, or whoever, or should we just see what we can find?”

Applejack cleared her throat and tried to will the fine hairs of her coat to stop standing on end. “Li’l of both, I’m thinkin’. We’ll see what we can find while keepin’ an eye out for Candy Drop. Worst comes to worst, we can take a gander at everypony soon as the movie’s over, see if anypony there looks like they know somethin’ or they’ve got a guilty conscience.”

“Sounds good. After that, if still nothing, we calling it a night?”

“Eeyup, reckon so, there ain’t gonna be a ton of ponies hangin’ around after that.” She leaned in closer. “Plus we don’t wanna be up that much later before headin’ back to the room, if we plan on sleepin’ at all tonight.”

Rainbow’s cheeks turned red and she bit her lip. “I like where this is going.”

“Figured you would.”

They crossed back in front of the graffiti and movie room, rounding the convention center together. Most of the other rooms sat dark as they passed, poking their heads in here and there where lights were on, looking for anypony out of the ordinary. The warmth of Rainbow’s body right next to hers grew more distracting to Applejack over time, as their slow circuit around the convention center felt less like a search for somepony and more like a quiet walk. A quiet walk at night with a pony who made her heart race. Applejack wasn’t positive she took much of anything in from their surroundings, but was pretty sure they didn’t pass by anypony who wasn’t convention staff, none of whom were Candy Drop.

They slowed in their circling as they came to the movie room again, casting sympathetic looks at the poor teenage stallion up on a stool scrubbing off the graffiti.

Rainbow murmured, “Oof, we did ruin his night.”

“Had to ruin somepony’s, I guess.”

“Only fair after Double had to go and ruin ours.”

Applejack dropped her tone lower. “Our night ain’t ruined yet,” she said, and Rainbow ran the tips of her feathers over the base of Applejack’s tail, making her laugh.

The stallion glanced down at them as they passed. “Oh, excuse me, ma’am?” As Applejack glanced up, he offered a strained smile. “Candy Drop’s shift ended early this afternoon, but she’s scheduled tomorrow morning. I checked the board for you.”

Applejack sighed inwardly, but returned the smile. “Thank ya kindly, sir. Hope that paint’s comin’ off without too much fightin’.”

He shrugged and returned to his work, muttering, “It beats cleaning the toilets,” mostly to himself.

As they circled away again, past the same empty rooms, Applejack said, “There went my idea.”

“Another time around, see what we see?”

Applejack nodded. “Guess so.” She cracked a grin and pressed her shoulder into Rainbow. “And knock that off with your wing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Rainbow flashed a grin as they continued their loop around the building. A loop made up of far more light touches and stolen glances than any sort of focus on what they passed, followed by a third loop with even more distraction. Between everything, Applejack couldn’t even be sure if they ran into any of the staff as they went.

She let out a chuckle as Rainbow’s feathers drifted over her cutie mark. “You’re doin’ that on purpose, sugar.”

“What, and that thing you’re doing with your tail isn’t on purpose?”

She flicked her tail back into Rainbow’s side. “Course it is.”

Rainbow giggled and flicked her back. “AJ, I thought we were supposed to be looking for somepony, not trying to see who can get the other one worked up the most.”

“We can do both.” She winked and flicked Rainbow harder, earning a small gasp. “Plus we both know who’s gonna win.”

Rainbow’s blush darkened and she smiled. “Maybe. Something like this really isn’t about winning, though.” She leaned closer. “Also I can still try to win.” She pressed in the rest of the way and licked Applejack’s neck.

Applejack let out a laugh, then bumped shoulders with Rainbow as she giggled. “Knock it off, sugar, we are distractin’ ourselves too much, we’re gonna miss somethin’ important if we’re not care—”

“You’re both enjoying the con, I see,” said Morning Breeze, peeking out from the therapy room with a smile.

“… Ful,” Applejack finished as they came to a halt. She felt a chagrined smile spread over her face at the same time as a blush heated up. “This is your fault, Dash,” she muttered under her breath.

Rainbow snickered and bumped her. “I think it’s both our faults.” She turned to Morning Breeze. “Pretty good con so far.” She flashed Applejack a sideways grin.

“Is this a recent development?” she asked, looking back and forth between them with a polite smile. “It wasn’t my place to say it, but after our initial session, I suspected this might be the outcome of the weekend between you two.”

“Tellin’ you, everypony knew except us, sugar.”

“If everypony knew, they could’ve waited for the dumb graffiti ‘til morning and given us a break.”

Morning Breeze’s smile vanished and she raised an eyebrow. “Graffiti?”

As Rainbow explained what happened to Morning, Applejack let her thoughts wander and found herself focusing on the feeling of the wing over her back. She pressed in closer to Rainbow’s warmth, feeling a well of different emotions churn inside. In the brief reprieve, an antsy thought broke through the giddy excitement, and she wondered if letting her emotions drag her through the night was actually a good idea. She wondered if they ought to sit down and sort everything out soon as they could, before things got out of hoof and they ended up hurting each other. She knew they were too close for there to be any possible way for their friendship to be in jeopardy, but it didn’t make any sense to cause each other pain just because it would be okay in the end. Another part of her was really, really content to let her emotions drag her through the night, because she knew exactly where they’d end up.

“Hmm,” Morning Breeze said as Rainbow finished. “And you believe the graffiti is likely the friendship problem you’ve been sent to fix? Is it a typical sort of friendship problem?”

Rainbow’s smile faded and she exchanged a look with Applejack. “I mean …”

Applejack sighed and shook her head. “Bein’ honest, no, not really. Friendship problems from the cutie map are about somethin’ breakin’ down between ponies, somethin’ that’s leadin’ them to hurt each other, ‘n maybe everypony around ‘em, too. Bit’a paint on the wall ain’t really a friendship problem, it’s a problem for the staff, maybe the city guard. All we’re goin’ on from it is maybe whatever led to somepony puttin’ it up is what we’re here for, that it ain’t the friendship problem, just a sign of the real one.”

“Plus it’s, like, the only thing that’s happened this weekend,” Rainbow added. Her eyes narrowed and she gave Applejack a thoughtful look. “Only thing that happened that wasn’t … y’know.”

Applejack searched Rainbow’s face, letting herself cast a fleeting, fond smile, then sighed and nodded. “Eeyup, ain’t gonna try and deny that none. Only thing that’s really felt like it’s what we’re here for was what’s goin’ on between us.”

Rainbow gave a rueful smile and shook her head. “But then our cutie marks didn’t flash and now we’re back at the start.” Her smile turned warmer and she pressed her neck against Applejack’s. “Well, okay, not totally back at the start.”

Applejack chuckled and hugged her close.

Morning Breeze tapped her chin. “Hmm, that is quite interesting. I can’t say I’m an expert on, ah, magical forces by any stretch of the imagination, but it strikes me as odd that you’d get sent all the way here and go through an emotional upheaval like rekindling a relationship, and for that to be a coincidence.”

Applejack held Rainbow’s gaze in silence for a few moments. “… That is pretty dang odd.”

“But our cutie marks didn’t go off.”

Applejack chewed her lip. “We, uh, still got some talkin’ to do, though, huh?”

A brief look of dread passed over Rainbow’s face, then she sighed and nodded. “Yeah, guess that’s true.” She turned her attention to Morning Breeze, her stance suddenly feeling rigid and awkward against Applejack. “We, uh, haven’t really, like, decided anything with this yet, it just sorta happened.”

Morning’s expression smoothed back into a mask of polite professionalism as she glanced back at the door to the convention’s couples therapy room. “Well, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, if you wanted a safe space to talk these things out, you do have an unused private session for today. It’s a little late, but …” her doctorly smile cracked to something more genuine for a moment, “for colleagues of Princess Twilight, I’m comfortable making an exception.”

A wave of unease settled over Applejack again, and she saw it reflected in Rainbow’s face. “… Um,” she muttered. Rainbow forced a smile. Applejack leaned in closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “Ya wanna, sugar?”

“… Um.”

“… I know we were plannin’ on …” she dropped her tone lower for a moment, “goin’ back to the room next.” She felt her face warm up at the same time as Rainbow gave her smoky eyes. She cleared her throat and shuffled her hooves, trying to not feel reluctant as she continued. “But, uh, we probably oughtta talk it out first. If not with Mornin’, then on our own.”

“… Yeah, you’re probably right.” Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane and glanced sidelong at Morning Breeze. “Think I’m … feeling a little private about it right now.”

“I getcha.” Applejack felt some of the tension unravel in her stomach. “Me too, I think. Might be better if we did, though, it was talkin’ things out with her that got us here in the first place.”

“We were, like, working it out on our own before, though.” A lopsided smile crossed her face. “And I don’t mean before we got interrupted, we’ve been talking about figuring all this out off and on all night, we’ve just been busy with the graffiti thing.”

“Fair.” Applejack shifted her weight from one set of hooves to the other. “… If we don’t figure it out just us before tomorrow, you up for another therapy thing then?”

Some of the tension left Rainbow’s shoulders. “That works.”

Applejack smiled, then turned back to Morning Breeze. “I think we’re gonna pass for the night. If’n things still ain’t on solid ground, we’ll take ya up on it tomorrow.”

Morning gave them an indulgent smile and nodded. “That sounds reasonable. I hope you two have a nice night then.” She headed off in the direction of the hotel while the anxiety grew back in the pit of Applejack’s stomach.

Rainbow shuffled next to her. “Should we, uh …” She glanced around the empty hallway. “We could probably grab a spare room and talk? Or, like, are you hungry or something? We might find some place that’s open where we could sit with coffee …” She scuffed her hooves on the ground. “Or, like, we could go back to the hotel room.”

The antsy feeling in her guts flipped and Applejack chewed her lip. Coffee or a spare convention room sounded really public to her, even if they were left well enough alone, but the hotel room’s privacy carried other tantalizing distractions and thoughts. Applejack wasn’t sure that was a negative. After a moment, she said, “Hotel room okay with you? We can put up the do not disturb tag’n know nopony’s gonna bug us.”

“Okay.”

As they headed in the same direction Morning Breeze had gone, the late night walk turned stiff and nervous, their bodies still side by side, but the playful touches and stolen glances vanished as they pointedly kept their eyes trained forward. Tension mounted as they crossed the convention center and Applejack felt swallowed up by the silence, trying to think of something to say. She let out the breath she was holding as they approached the movie room and hit the crowd of ponies milling in the hall. “Looks like the movie’s out,” she said as they got swallowed up by the group. As they walked, the flow of ponies pushed them closer to the outside wall, and Applejack slowed as they neared what remained of the graffiti, mostly scrubbed away to a faded haze. A small group of ponies stood around beneath the teenager as he cleaned, and Applejack raised her brows.

Bunnyhop and Clydesdale stood next to a staff member, a unicorn stallion a touch on the portly side with sharp features who Applejack guessed must be Sternbuck. With the crowd noise, Applejack could only barely hear the string of conversation coming out of Bunnyhop and Clydesdale as they talked over each other.

“I’m so, so sorry this happened—”

“I wasn’t thinking straight and immediately regretted it, that’s why we’re telling—”

“Bun and I just had a … not really an argument, but—”

“I’m so embarrassed—”

“If you need to get the city guard involved, I understand, and we’re happy to pay any cleaning fee—”

Applejack let the crowd push her along and she shook her head. “Figures.”

Rainbow leaned in closer. “You say something, AJ?”

Anxiousness danced back to life in her stomach. “Oh, nothin’, just, uh, got reminded why leavin’ things alone forever ain’t always the best idea.” She cracked a small smile. “Also, our cutie marks ain’t flashin’, so it wasn’t the dang graffiti, neither.”

Rainbow glanced over her shoulder and gave Applejack a chuckle. “Of course it wasn’t. Everypony’s just messing with us at this point.” Rainbow bumped her shoulder into Applejack, who laughed and bumped back, taking care to be gentle and not send Rainbow careening into somepony else. Some of the tension felt like it left with the laughter, and Applejack reveled in the reprieve of needing to think of something to say, if only for a few minutes. She knew they had to face things head on, before one of them ended up painting something on the wall. They crossed into the hotel surrounded by the hum of the crowd.

As they broke away from the group and approached their hotel room, the tension redoubled in force so hard, Applejack wondered if the comfortable moment even happened. Her throat felt dry as she unlocked the room and stepped inside. Rainbow headed deeper into the room as she put up the card on the door, then chewed her lip as she turned to face Rainbow.

“So, uh …” Rainbow said, rubbing the back of her head. “Are … do you wanna figure out if this is a good idea?” She scuffed a hoof on the carpet, looking down. “How, uh, do we figure that out?”

“… I dunno, sugar. I dunno how we figure that out. I wasn’t plannin’ on thinkin’ about this ‘til tomorrow.”

“… What were you planning on doing tonight?” Applejack met Rainbow’s gaze in silence. A blush spread over Rainbow’s face. “O-oh, right.”

“I was just … lettin’ my feelin’s drive,” Applejack said quietly. “There’s a lot new I noticed walkin’ around with you tonight, Dash, but a lot I remember, too. Lot of … missed things.” She took a step forward, which Rainbow matched. “If this just ended up bein’ a weird weekend, and nothin’ else, I wanted to feel some of that again and …” She sighed and shrunk back a step. “But I don’t wanna hurt you none. I don’t wanna turn this into somethin’ ‘n then we decide it ain’t what we want. It’s probably better to not, and figure it out now.”

“… Maybe you taking me to bed is part of us figuring it out, though.”

Applejack felt her face heat up and she searched Rainbow’s expression. “… Maybe. I don’t wanna hurt you, though, sugar.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, either, AJ.” She stepped closer, turning the gap into inches. “… Maybe we’re gonna hurt each other a little bit no matter what we do, or maybe not. Stuff like that just sorta happens sometimes. Either way, I’m not gonna get angry at you over it, we’re both figuring this out.” She took another step, their muzzles close enough that all Applejack would need to do was sway forward for them to meet, then Rainbow hesitated, leaning back again. “… We could still try to figure it out now, though. Where’d your feelings end up driving you, AJ? Do you know what you’re wanting from this any more than you did when you kissed me?”

Applejack’s throat still felt dry, but the tension in the room had shifted the closer Rainbow got and the more she spoke, and Applejack’s thoughts felt scattered and half-formed. Being honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she knew anything about her feelings, with one exception. She took the step forward, their muzzles almost touching. “I want you, sugar,” she breathed. “I dunno the other stuff, but right now, I …” She felt Rainbow sway closer and their lips met again, not frantic and rushed like the first kiss, nor sweet and gentle like the second, but instead bare, earnest, and yearning. Applejack leaned into it, feeling Rainbow slip backwards, and swept Rainbow up in one leg.

Rainbow wrapped her hooves around Applejack’s neck and let herself be carried, the kiss breaking for a bare moment as they crossed to the bed, just long enough for Rainbow to whisper, “I’ve missed you,” before pressing in again.

Applejack slid Rainbow onto the bed and kicked the canopy closed behind them. Rainbow felt warm and wild underneath her, nostalgic and new, rough and gentle, a delirious whirl of contradictions and sensations Applejack couldn’t hope to make heads or tails of in her thoughts. She didn’t try to.

The sunrise filtered through the canopy drapes as Applejack fell asleep with Rainbow in her hooves.

Applejack stretched and felt Rainbow against her. She stifled a yawn and blinked herself awake while staring up at the bed canopy, then rolled over and wrapped Rainbow up in her legs.

“Mm,” Rainbow murmured, pressing back into her. “Hey, AJ.”

“Mornin’, sugar.” She kissed Rainbow’s neck.

Rainbow chuckled. “It’s afternoon now. Late afternoon. The convention’s over in, like, half an hour.”

Applejack let out a sigh and nuzzled in closer. “Course it is. We should probably get up then.”

“Ugh, why would we do that?” She reached back over her shoulder and stroked Applejack, running her hoof along Applejack’s jawline and into her mane.

“Mm.” She kissed Rainbow’s neck again. “Stayin’ like this is awful temptin’. You’re gonna miss out on that last massage if we do that, though.”

“Aw man, you’re right.”

“And if we were gonna take Mornin’ Breeze up on that last round of talkin’, we’d need to get a move on now. Probably ain’t got time for both.” She felt her stomach rumble. “Plus I’m gettin’ hungry, might be better to grab … lunch, I guess? Dinner? The heck time is late afternoon, anyway?”

Rainbow chuckled and rolled in the embrace until she could press her face into Applejack’s neck. “Too late for lunch and too early for dinner. But food sounds good, even if we miss out on massages and stuff. Maybe we can actually for real get poutine this time. I asked around a bit yesterday, there’s a food cart a block and a half away that’s supposed to be good.”

“Maybe third time’s the charm.” Applejack cracked a grin. “How angry are you gonna be if it turns out the cutie map sent us here to get me to try real poutine?”

Rainbow snorted, then laughed against Applejack, hugging her closer. “After this weekend? I’m not gonna be angry at all.”

Applejack’s grin widened. “Me neither.”

After putting it off for several more moments, languidly stretched out in each other’s embrace, they got out of bed and milled around the room to get ready. Cleaned up and straightened out, they headed out of the room, through the hotel, and out to the streets in a comfortable silence. Past an office building and a series of apartments, they came to a little wedge of a park running between buildings. Calling it a park was maybe a stretch of the word, Applejack thought, as it was barely more than a patch of grass with a hoofpath and a few cement picnic tables, but she couldn’t think of a better thing to call it. A food cart sat on the sidewalk just in front of the park. Applejack paid for a pair of poutines, then they crossed over to a picnic table.

“So,” Applejack said, looking down at the light brown blobs of gravy studded with pops of white cheese and fried hay in paper baskets, “is this real poutine?” She slid one over to Rainbow.

“Yep. We found it.” Rainbow took a bite and smiled. “And it’s good poutine, too!”

“The search is over, Rarity ain’t gonna be cross with me, it’s a miracle.” Applejack took her own bite, feeling the cheese squeak in her teeth. Crispy and gooey, mild and savory, she recognized bits and pieces of the almost-poutines she’d had over the weekend, and understood why Rainbow had kept saying not really when asked whether they tasted like the real thing. Applejack understood why Rarity pushed for her to try it in the first place, too. “Well, that hits the spot. Real stick-to-your-ribs sorta thing.”

Rainbow nodded as she demolished her order. She sat back on the bench and mimed looking down at her side. “Crud, that wasn’t the mission, either.”

Applejack snorted and shook her head. “I’d be havin’ some choice words with the dang map if it was.

“So that means the only thing left is that it wants us to start a roller derby team, right?”

“That’s gotta be it.” Her smile turned small and shy as she looked over Rainbow’s face, her tone lowering to match. “Jokin’ aside, I think we both know what the mission is for real.”

Rainbow met Applejack’s gaze and returned the smile. She ran a hoof through her mane and dropped her gaze back to her food. “You, uh, wanna try and figure it out now?”

“Reckon we probably oughtta.”

“So, uh … last night was really fun. You, um, have any thoughts?”

She reached a hoof across the table and took Rainbow’s. “You keep askin’ me how I’m feelin’ about it, how are you feelin’, sugar? You ain’t never been one to dither in as long as I’ve known ya, and I’ve been thinkin’ you’ve been just keepin’ quiet on your feelin’s to try and give me space.” Applejack took a bite of her food.

Rainbow mumbled under her breath and shuffled on the bench. “I was just … what was your plan when you kissed me?”

Applejack started laughing and nearly choked on her mouthful. She reigned herself in and swallowed. “Plan? I ain’t got a plan, and I definitely didn’t have one when I kissed ya. If you wanna know why I kissed ya, it’s …” She paused and chewed her lip. “I’ve just been … overwhelmed, I guess. More this weekend’s gone on, the more it’s felt like a fight to keep my hooves off you, ‘cause I’ve just wanted to feel close to you again. I was just tuned up and …” She smiled and felt her face heat up. “Tuned up and turned on, I reckon. All I knew for sure was that I wanted last night so much it made my dang teeth hurt.”

Rainbow gave her a wan smile, then shrunk in on herself. “I know what you mean. I guess for me I was seeing where it goes with you, is all.”

Applejack let out a long sigh and took Rainbow’s hoof again. “This ain’t somethin’ where it’s right for me to just take the lead and you figure I know what I’m doin’ and can go along with the ride like we’re walkin’ to the convention center. I don’t know what I’m doin’ here, Dash, I’m stumblin’ along and hopin’ I can find my way as we go.” She sat back to rub her face, then took another bite of food.

Rainbow shuffled in place, looking down at her mostly gone lunch.

“… I meant what I said about you not ditherin’. And I know it can’t just be that you’re worryin’ how I’m gonna take it and maybe don’t wanna say, ‘cause we’re both the sorts’a ponies to lay everythin’ out plain and simple. Just tell me what you’re feelin’. I think you probably know better’n me.” Rainbow gave her a wary look, and she smiled. “We’ll figure this out together, sugar.”

Rainbow held her gaze in silence for several moments. Eventually she straightened up and let her focus fall back to the table. “I don’t want to just let this go as a weird weekend, AJ. I want this. I want you. I want us.” She slid her hooves back and forth over the cement tabletop in little patterns. “I, uh, wanted us when we were sixteen, and I thought I just sorta screwed it up forever, but if we’ve grown up and it isn’t screwed up forever, I want to try again. Or … try for real this time, whatever. Not just, like, a fling, not something for six months that doesn’t mean anything. I’ve loved you as a friend since forever, and …” she looked back up and met Applejack’s eyes again with a smile much more timid than Applejack usually saw from her. “I want to love you as a partner someday, too.” She chewed her lip and looked away. “Like, what I said yesterday’s still true, if we end up leaving it here in Whinnypeg, I can deal, but the truth is, I don’t want to deal. I want you.”

Applejack stared at Rainbow in silence. She glanced for a bare second at her half-finished poutine, then got up and circled the table. She sat down next to Rainbow and swept her up in her hooves. Rainbow sighed into her neck and hugged her back.

Applejack nuzzled into Rainbow’s mane. “And if we bring out the worst in each other again?” she asked in a whisper. “It still happens sometimes. We poke and prod and get caught up in it, and the whole world falls away, and it feels so good, but we need the world there, too. We need to be there for Twilight, and for all our friends, and Ponyville, and all of Equestria if they need us. What if we let everypony down ‘cause we can’t let go?”

Stirring in the embrace, Rainbow pulled back enough to study Applejack’s face again. “… You never answered me last night, AJ. About if you thought I was the same pony I was when I was sixteen. If that day in the orchard would’ve ended the same way now as it did then.”

Applejack closed her eyes and breathed in deep. “… Of course I don’t think it would, sugar. You’d be askin’ after AB, hopin’ she was okay, and worried just as sick as me about it. I knew it was the plain truth the moment you asked me, and I couldn’t help kissin’ you again and lettin’ my guard down. It’s just like what Mornin’ Breeze told Double Diamond ‘bout his sister. We ain’t the same ponies we were then, and we ain’t gotta make the same decisions if we don’t want to. If we got too rowdy and somethin’ went wrong all over again, you wouldn’t be tryin’ to not apologize any more’n … any more’n I’d be tellin’ you to get out and that I wouldn’t be lookin’. There ain’t a single chance it’d end the same way as it did then.” She opened her eyes as a growing sense of unease expanded in her stomach, threatening to curdle the poutine she’d just eaten. “… But I can still see us crashin’ into AB in the first place.”

Rainbow winced, then nodded slowly, looking down. She ran a hoof over Applejack’s chest, making Applejack shiver. “I can see it, too. I can sorta see it even if there isn’t an us and we’re just messing around as friends. We just sort of do that sometimes. We try to not, but, like, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to stop all the way.”

“Probably not,” Applejack said. “We’re both too dang stubborn.”

They shared a rueful smile, then Rainbow ran her hoof through her mane and pressed back into Applejack’s embrace. “Maybe being together will make it worse, I dunno. I’d rather struggle to try and be better about it like this, though.”

Applejack breathed in deep with her face buried in Applejack’s mane, smelling the hint of their wild night mixed in with shampoo. She tightened her hug. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Let’s try it, sugar. I wanna try it. I want us, too.”

Rainbow pulled away enough to find Applejack’s muzzle and they leaned back into each other. Without reservations weighing her down, the kiss felt happy and hopeful, the start of something new built off of something old, familiar, and warm. As they pulled away and Applejack smiled at Rainbow, wondering just how long they still had the hotel room before they’d have to check out, a pulse of light flashed around them.

Applejack let out a low chuckle as they checked their sides, watching their cutie marks flash in sync. She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “I ain’t too sore about this one, but we oughtta give the cutie map a talkin’ to about meddlin’. Helpin’ ponies out is one thing, but actin’ like a matchmakin’ aunt is another thing entirely.”

Rainbow laughed and bumped her shoulder into Applejack. “Who knows, though, pretty sure the last thing for the con just got over now, maybe it’s just mission accomplished because it wanted us to have a good weekend.” Her eyes glittered with amusement. “A weird weekend, but a good one.”

Applejack returned the grin and pulled Rainbow close again. “Eeyup. A real good one.”

Rainbow kissed her on the muzzle, then said, “Your poutine’s getting cold.”

Laughing, she got up off the bench and crossed back to her meal. “What’cha wanna do after I finish up? Wanna hang around a bit longer, or check out of the hotel and head on back home?” She took a bite, and while it had cooled off a little, her meal still hit the spot. Heavy as it was, though, the hanging around option might need to include a nap.

“We should probably say bye to Double Diamond and Party Favor first, and maybe thanks to Morning Breeze, but yeah, heading back sounds good.” She flashed a wicked smile. “Or we could go back to the hotel room and take turns cosplaying as Daring Do.”

Applejack snorted and shook her head. “Speakin’ of Darin’ Do, wanna stop and grab a book someplace first?”

“Eh. I’m not gonna be bouncing around if we’re making out the whole train ride.”

Applejack laughed around a mouthful of food. “Ain’t so sure everypony else on the train’s gonna be too happy with us if that’s our plan.”

“We could take a balloon back instead and have the whole place to ourselves.”

“More temptin’. I think I’d rather be sittin’ for a while after eatin’ this, though.”

“Fair. Is us falling asleep against each other on a train gonna bug anypony?”

“Probably not.”

Rainbow reached across the table and took Applejack’s hoof. “Let’s do that, then.”

Applejack laughed again and finished up the last few bites of her poutine while holding Rainbow’s hoof. After they tossed out their garbage and headed side by side back toward the convention center, feeling overfull and a little sleepy, Applejack couldn’t help but have a growing sense of optimism. She knew Rainbow drove her crazy sometimes, for good and for ill, and that she did the same to Rainbow. She knew there’d be bumps and scrapes along the way, too. But for as bad as things could get, she knew they brought out the best in each other all the same.

Rainbow slid her wing around Applejack and pulled their sides close. “You know what the worst part of all this is, AJ?”

“What’s that?”

“Even if a whole weekend hadn’t taken us out of the running for the fastest friendship problem record, everything went right, and we figured all of this out on Friday … if Spike’s didn’t count, then this one wouldn’t have counted, either. We’ve totally got this next time, though.”

Applejack snorted and pressed into Rainbow’s neck. “Ya know what’s really the worst part’a this, sugar? Even if the dang map’s why we came here, it ended up bein’ the two of us goin’ on a couples retreat together, and there ain’t no way I can in good conscience send the bill for our couples retreat to Twi.”

“… Crap.”

Rainbow snorted, then they both started laughing, pressed into each other as they stepped back into the convention center.

Author's Note

Well now, that was a fun ride. I enjoyed the hell out of writing this, even if the story itself fought with me as it went. Some stories like to kick you off like you’re riding a bull, but I think this one’s all the better for it at the end of the day and I’m very pleased with how this turned out. I hope you enjoyed it, too, and I’m so grateful that you took the time to read it, it means the world to me.

As an interesting point of trivia, this story was originally conceived of as an entry for an AppleDash contest that just sort of fizzled out before it got off the ground. I’d be disappointed about that, but, well, I’m happy with my end result, so things ended up working out pretty well, all things considered.

Up next on my plate, I’m putting the finishing touches on a rather spicy She-Ra one-shot, with some plans to return to pony relatively soon for another big’un. Might be a bit, as I’m probably gonna jump around a little first. Either way, the writing shall continue.

This story is originally published on Offprint, a new fiction-sharing site that’s still in alpha, with the first update going live July, 19, 2021, giving each update an exclusive period on Offprint before being posted to Fimfiction.net or AO3. That means if you are reading this on the day it went live on Fimfiction, Couples Retreat is already available in its entirety on Offprint. The exclusivity will continue until the story is complete, and will be the case for all my future My Little Pony and other fanfic stories as well. If you want to be the most up-to-date and/or catch future projects of mine when they first get released, consider joining Offprint and keeping tabs on me there. No pressure, though, as I said, everything will be crossposted after the exclusive to AO3, and also to Fimfiction.net when applicable.

And if you don't follow my blogs here and have been wondering what I've been up to lately, you can check out some recent stories I've written for other fandoms on both Offprint and AO3. No pressure on that, either.

Thanks so much for reading, TTFN.

—bats | Offprint.net | AO3 | Fimfiction.net | she/her