Rainbow Dash and Applejack stare at each other across the table.

Both mares are a mess - a destroyed pie tin sits at Applejack’s hooves, it’s undercooked yellow and red contents splattered over her legs. Rainbow Dash has a smear of dried vomit down the side of her chest and wing, and tear stains on her face.

“She’s…what?” Applejack asks, voice high and tight.

“Pregnant.” Rainbow Dash states for the second time, voice devoid of any feeling.

Applejack shakes, her whole body quaking in a way Rainbow had never seen before. She sits down, and neither mare comments on the orangish goop she’s sitting in. Rainbow Dash stares at Applejacks face, and Applejack stares at Rainbows hooves.

“I know who did it. She told me who…raped her.” Rainbow dash says, grabbing one of the dining chairs and slowly climbing into it. She looks down at her hooves, and at the table, and at the running and open oven, and now anywhere but Applejack. Applejack’s jaw falls open.

“Fluttershy says it was an ‘accident’. That he’s a ‘good stallion, really’ and that it’s just her heat, it’s the heat that did it, you see. She can’t blame him. She could never blame him.” Rainbow dash stares out the window now, her teeth clenched. The nothing that was in her eyes before is filled now, a seething rage replacing it. The shock flows out of her and is replaced by a deep, pulsing anger - Applejack and taste it, smell it over the cinnamon apple covering her floor.

“Don’t you know the things it makes good stallions do, Applejack? He couldn’t control himself. It’s not his fault.” She spits on the ground, her teeth clenching shut tight enough they make a sharp grinding noise.

“Celestia be damned, Applejack, and Twilight too. I’m gonna kill him. And Fluttershy can hate me all she wants for it. I’m going to kill Mr. Shy if it’s the last bucking thing I do.”

Fluttershy wakes up in bed, her fur damp and her throat sore. The muscles in her abdomen ache from her wrenching - but, thankfully, her stomach has settled for now. She stares blankly at the ceiling, too asleep to feel things but too awake to fall back asleep.

The door creaks open, and Fluttershy tenses up. Her ears press back against her head and her nostrils flare, and all the panic in the world comes rushing back into her bloodstream.

“Sugarcube, can ah talk to ya?” A familiar voice - not his voice - comes from the door, and Fluttershy forces her muscles to relax.

“Y-yes, Applejack?” She squeaks, sounding more like one of her injured mice than she does like herself.

Applejack steps in, carrying a piece of warm apple pie on one hoof. Her eyes are red and irritated, and her fur looks matted in some places with something that’s dried onto her. Fluttershy briefly wonders if she, also, threw up. Applejack walks up to her bedside in silence, even her hoofsteps muffled by apprehension.

She places the pie on Fluttershy’s nightstand, and sits down on the floor. “Well, y’know…” Applejack starts, then stops again. “The things is…”

She looks around the room as if hunting an exit. Fluttershy stares at her face and sees sweat bead underneath her fur.

“Applebloom was still so little when Ma an’ Pa died. Not old enough to do just about anything alone. So I reccon, y’know…I can help ya, if’n that’s what ya want.” She says, accent strengthened by nerves, words nearly blended into a run-on sentence.

Fluttershy stares at her blankly for a moment, and Applejack gestures towards Fluttershy’s belly. Fluttershy’s eyes widen.

“Rainbow told me, she couldn’t not, y’know?” Applejack says, looking off towards the window. She hears the door slam downstairs, and chooses to ignore it. “We want to help you, Fluttershy.” They lock eyes, and Applejack reaches a hoof out to hold down the blanket as Fluttershy tries to hide under it. “All of us. Ah don’t have to let the other girls know if ya don’t want me to, but I reccon we all want to help. You’re not in this alone, Fluttershy, not now, not ever.”

Tears mix with cinnamon as Fluttershy pulls her into a tight hug, knocking the slice of pie onto the floor. Applejack hums as she holds her, not worried about the mess in the least.

Author's Note

This chapter is rather short, but it felt like a good place to stop. And I just really wanted to get something published haha motivation is returning however, so expect another chapter soon!