take my hand and lead me there
Author's Note
For the longest time, I've been having the MOTHER of all writer's block. So this was quite literally 7k words of me writing whatever I wanted. It's also in a different style, as you will soon see. And it's not really... EQG?... like I borrowed some EQG lore but also incorporated some pony lore too. I apologise if there's some OOCness or weird pacing cuz I wrote this over months... (it was a really bad block). Whatever it is, I hope you enjoy :))
take my hand and lead me there
The evening Applejack confessed to her had been a peaceful one, for the most part. Hours of scaling the beaches and collecting trash for an organised student volunteer school trip by the bagful under the merciless afternoon sun had worn out the students of Canterlot High thoroughly, and everyone was relieved to be able to sit around and relax until the bus came to fetch them back to school.
Rainbow Dash was sitting just by the ocean, Applejack beside her. Here, the idle chatter of the students was drowned out by the crashing of waves on the sand. Technically, they were supposed to be with the rest of their classmates near the pickup bay, but Rainbow had never been one for following rules anyway, so she had— in stereotypical Rainbow Dash fashion— snuck off on her own.
Applejack had followed her here without her asking, something about "I dun rightly know what funny business yer up to this time" and "y'all should respect what the teacher said" on her lips, but she had stayed with her anyway. Now she had her sandals off, orange toes dipping into the water as she stared silently ahead into the sunset, seemingly mesmerised.
Rainbow couldn't blame her. The view was breathtaking; pinks and purples and oranges melded together in the sky, large and majestic clouds framing the glow of the setting sun. The waves, ebbing and flowing in constant rhythm, sparkled under the light in rivers of gold, rippling across cold, deep blue. The sunsets they saw everyday at Canterlot High were often just as beautiful, but here it felt like they were right at the cusp of it, like it was just within reach. Applejack might not have seen it the same way as her, but if Rainbow had wings, she wouldn't have thought twice about hurtling herself right into it.
Rainbow's eyes moved towards the girl beside her, who had just taken off her Stetson to knead it in her hands. The wind tousled her blonde hair, threatening to unravel the ribbon holding it in place, but Applejack made no move to secure it, and she still wasn't saying anything.
At first, Rainbow had felt the need to speak, rattling off about one thing or another while Applejack nodded and gave short replies. After a while, she gave up and fell into silence, too. Rainbow supposed Applejack didn't often had time to watch sunsets like this, being always preoccupied with farmwork or something during the time of the day.
It was then that Rainbow heard their teachers and classmates calling their names from the distance.
"Gee, it's about daaang time," Rainbow sighed in relief, dusting herself off as she stood up. "C'mon, AJ, let's go." She turned around, eyeing up the pick-up bay where a bus was parked and colourful figures were lining up to board. She dug her heels into the sand in anticipation, her next words second nature to her lips, "What do you say we race to the bus, huh? See ya there!"
She sprung off to a running sprint, for Rainbow Dash never waited for an answer. But suddenly, she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, pulling her back.
"Wait! Rainbow..."
Stumbling to a stop, Rainbow scrunched her brows, beginning to complain, "Dude, you're not allowed to do that, that's cheating-"
Then she turned around to face her. Applejack was still clutching her hat with one hand, the other still on Rainbow's shoulder. Shortly, she dropped that hand too, bringing it to her chest instead, which was rising and falling erratically.
Rainbow Dash had no idea what she had just gotten herself into.
"Uhhh, are you okay?" Rainbow reached out to steady her, but Applejack stepped away from her touch. Confused, Rainbow stared at her. After a few, excruciatingly long seconds, Applejack started speaking again.
"There's something important I needa tell you, Rainbow," Applejack said, fingers fiddling with the brim of her hat.
"Uh... Huh?"
"Yer a precious friend of mine, an' I don't wanna lose that. But it dun feel right hidin' something so important from you anymore."
Rainbow stiffened. Her outstretched arms fell uselessly to her sides.
"So, I wanted ta' say it now... " Nervousness coloured her country drawl, and though the light of the sunset blanketed her freckled cheeks, it didn't hide the unmistakable rosiness blooming on them. Rainbow suddenly felt a shiver run down her back, like she was listening to something she wasn't supposed to hear, but Applejack continued anyway:
"I really like you," she murmured, voice low. "I've begun to like you as more than a friend, that is. I guess I just wanted ya to know."
Applejack tilted her head upwards again to look at her. Her green eyes glittered, expression perfectly calm. There was Applejack for you— straight to the point, no beating about the bush, just saying what needed to be said. As for Rainbow herself, well, she felt like crawling into the sand and staying there for all eternity. But she couldn't, not when Applejack was still there, staring at her expectantly.
So instead Rainbow sank her face into her hands, and groaned long and hard.
"Uh, Rainbow? What're you-" Applejack started uncertainly, before being yanked back abruptly. "Whoaaaa nelly!"
"I had half a mind to leave you two here," Vice Principal Luna intoned as she dragged both girls unceremoniously across the beach toward the bus, "but alas, I cannot. Also, you two are on cleaning duty for the next month."
A sopping mop hit the floor with a wet thump.
Applejack looked up from where she was cleaning the windows. "I'm awful sorry, sugarcube. I didn't mean ta' hold you back."
"Don't be," Rainbow grumbled as she gripped the handle of the mop, "it was my idea to sneak off anyway."
Long after everyone else had left, the two juvenile rule-breakers were left in the empty classroom while Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, Sunset and Pinkie hit the malls. While she and Applejack were scooping mysterious dried gunk from under desks, they were presumably sharing ice-cream and giggling at jokes and pointing at trinkets and clothes or something.
…Alright, maybe it wasn't so bad missing out on that last one.
Reluctantly, she began to slide the mop from one end of the empty classroom to another, "Y'know, if you guys would just let me use my geode, I could've gotten this done lickety split."
"'Cept, we don't want our geodes going all haywire again," Applejack reminded her as she— almost seemingly in slow-motion— rubbed the window panes with her rag. Was she mocking her? "We dun have anyplace to be, so why rush?"
"I do," Rainbow whined.
Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Where to?"
"Anywhere outside of this stuffy room," Rainbow said, staring mutinously at the walls as she chased invisible dust on the ground with the mop. It didn't help that Applejack had insisted on turning off the fans, as ineffective as they were in cooling in the first place.
"Alright," Applejack let out a low chuckle. A slight pause later, she said, "So, about yesterday."
Rainbow froze.
Then, Rainbow belted out a long, chortling laugh. “Ahahahha! Right! Yesterday!” She did a little jig on the spot, gesturing wildly in the air with one hand. “I’m not sure if I told you already, but while you were with the other group Sunset got bitten by a crab and Twilight started trying to explain to it the stuff that makes up human toes and why it wasn’t good for the crab to eat or something, and we had to call Fluttershy over who made goo-goo eyes at the crab once and then it immediately left Sunset alone…”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Applejack deadpanned.
"Yeeeah. Yeeeeeeeah," Rainbow stopped at once, swivelling about to face her. "That."
The air suddenly felt a lot thicker and harder to breathe. The empty classroom only made this worse, like a cage trapping them in. It was the kind of tension, the kind of insufferably awkward awkwardness, that would've made an ordinary teenager's throat clam up, effectively jamming any words that threatened to surface.
It was a good thing, then, that Rainbow Dash had close to zero self-restraint. With a loud clatter, Rainbow threw down the mop gracelessly and stomped towards Applejack, jabbing an accusing blue finger at her.
"Months," she seethed, without any real bite to it, "months- almost a year- of me convincing myself it wouldn't work out, pretending I didn't think of you that way, and now you decide to tell me this?"
Applejack blinked uncertain green eyes. "Ya... Ya mean to say..."
"That I had a crush on you? Yeah!" Rainbow Dash howled piteously, clawing her hands into her hair.
Applejack's face fell. "Had?"
"I... uuuugh... I dunno," Rainbow took a few steps back and sagged into a chair, faceplanting on the desk in front of her. "Dude, I don't even know what to say now."
Dimly, she could hear the thudding of Applejack's boots, and the scraping of seat legs on the floor. When she looked up, Applejack was sitting beside her, knees knocking together as she offered a coaxing smile. "You can take yer time."
Rainbow stared... stared... and sighed. Silently, she raised her hand, elbow bent, fingertips to the sky. Meanwhile, Applejack looked on with complete and utter puzzlement.
"High five," Rainbow Dash uttered, not really sure what she was doing.
"Huh?"
"High five," Rainbow said stubbornly, because if she was going to do something stupid, she was going to see it through to the end.
"Uhh, okay. If you say so." Though still visibly confused, Applejack lifted her own hand, drew it back, and then sent it smacking against her palm, firm and forceful like their high-fives always were. But at the instant Applejack began to pull it back, blue fingers curled suddenly around orange ones, clasping their hands together.
Eyes widening in surprise, Applejack let out a little gasp, a dark red flush spreading rapidly across her cheeks.
And Rainbow's heart dropped headlong into her stomach.
Immediately, she let go as if it were scalding, her own heartbeat thump-thump-thumping wildly in her ears. Frenzied fantasies that she thought she had long repressed were swimming in her head, like a gushing river had breached the dam she'd so carefully built there ages ago. Holding Applejack– her best friend's– hand, like that, had felt so damn good it terrified her.
"See?" Rainbow had to avert her gaze, ignoring the way her voice was cracking every other word and how her face felt like it was going to burn right off. "It's, it's just really weird! Like, we already know each other and everything."
"But I don't get it," Applejack frowned, furrowing her brows, "If I like you, and ya like me, then ain't the answer plain an' simple?” She spread her arms like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We go out."
“Go out, she said,” Rainbow murmured to herself, pacing around the confines of her dormitory room. “Plain an’ simple, she said.”
It was really way too early in the morning for this, especially a weekend morning. And she would have been jogging her usual laps right now if she hadn't been standing in front of her closet like some lovesick protagonist in a badly-written romcom. Because, despite all of Rainbow’s protesting, Applejack had convinced her to go on a… a date with her.
“You don’t have to decide now,” she had said. “We can just go on a date… try things out… and then you can give me your answer at the end of it. Okay?”
(For what, Rainbow couldn’t for the life of her figure out. How different would it be from their normal going out together as friends, anyway?).
Still, though Rainbow didn't like to admit it, something was different about this.
She wouldn’t have been taking so damn long to choose her outfit otherwise.
Indecisively, she rifled through the rows of clothes jammed in the shelves for the millionth time that day. Contrary to popular belief, Rainbow Dash did have nice clothes. Being the friend of the resident fashionista did that to you– Rarity was just so talented at what she loved, and twice as generous. Rainbow's tiny dorm wardrobe was consequently filled with all manners of objectively nice stuff. Plain and laced blouses, stylish T-shirts, miniskirts, long skirts, airy dresses– basically, you name it, she got it. That wasn't counting the full-on bling-bling princessy gowns that were safe back at home, because even Rainbow couldn't bear to let those intricate things crumple up with the rest of the mess that was the constant state of her room.
She really didn't have to think so much, since everything was literally tailor-made and customised to look good on her, but at each time she put on something she found herself wondering if Applejack would like it.
T-shirt and slacks– would Applejack deem it too casual for a date, and think she wasn't trying hard enough?
Formal dress– Applejack did mention liking traditionally feminine clothes, but she also didn’t like anything too “frou-frou”... besides, this wasn't some kind of candlelit dinner or ball, after all… would Applejack laugh at her?
She should probably phone Rarity or something. But chances were that in less than a week her love life would be on broadcast for the whole school to hear. Rarity was super sweet and had changed over the years, but girl was still a massive gossip, especially when it came to her friends’ romantic affairs. So nope. Rainbow was going to have to count on Rainbow for this one.
She turned thusly to her advisor, who stared back at her in the reflective metal casing of her guitar, because Rainbow didn’t have a mirror in her dorm and wasn’t about to get caught awkwardly wrestling a pile of clothes in the hallway or playing dress-up in the communal bathroom. In the makeshift mirror, she could just make out the outfit she had just slapped together: plain white T-shirt and a glossy black A-line skirt that reached to her knees.
Rainbow thought it was kind of basic, but it was difficult to match anything with her hair colour and she was really running out of ideas. Sighing, she looked over at her bed, where an innocent-looking sweater laid. It was lavender. Pastel lavender. With a cat ear hood attached to it.
Shoulders tensing, she stared at the offendingly cute, girly design. She stared at it… stared at it some more…
And then, with a grand sigh, she leaned over, grabbed it and stuck her rainbow head in it. After a minute of fussing with the sleeves, she pulled it up and over, adjusting the hood at the back as she checked out her reflection in the mirror. She frowned and was about to deliberate scrapping it altogether, when her eyes tracked to the clock on her desk.
She was late.
Rainbow practically blurred down the streets in what would have been record time if she hadn't also stopped to save a few falling ice-creams and several falling pieces of glassware on the way. It was kind of second nature to her now, when she could run so fast it felt like time was slowing down.
All while speeding down the pathways, she shoved a hand in her pocket and pulled out her phone, swiping at the screen a few times to make sure she was getting to the right place. (Yeah, go on, laugh at her, she hadn't checked the directions beforehand.) She ignored all the horrified pedestrian screams and righted a tilting ceramic vase before it reached its concrete doom. Based on the EquestNet search results pulled up, Applejack had picked a random but nice-looking café. It was not too far from school, luckily. She'd passed by it before but never went in to actually try anything there. Maybe she would go back to visit it again if it turned out to be good.
Rainbow whizzed through the automatic doors of a shopping centre and mounted the escalator five steps at a time. She hoped the café wasn't too expensive, because she was getting the sinking feeling she hadn't remembered to check if she had enough money in her wallet. Now how was she going to treat Applejack? She rounded a corner, squeezed through the gaps in a passing crowd, and burst out into an open space where she finally caught sight of the café— as well as a familiar Stetson on blonde hair.
“Heeeey, Applejack!” Rainbow called out, waving. “Lookin’ great todaaaaay…” Her voice trailed off as she took in the sight in front of her. “Uhhh… what happened here?”
Applejack stood in front of the café, the door in her hand. As in, the glass door that was presumably supposed to be the entrance of the café was completely ripped off the hinges, and Applejack now clutched the entire door by just the metal handle as she pinned her with a dry stare.
“What do you think happened?”
“Uhh. Uhhhh,” Rainbow said, noticing the wildly-flashing orange geode that hung around Applejack’s neck. Then she craned her head down, only to see her own blue geode pulsating in matching fashion. “Woopsies?...”
Applejack glared at Rainbow Dash, which would have been more threatening if she hadn’t also been holding up an entire glass door with a death grip. Eventually, the café staff came over and took over the situation; Applejack, while still visibly very stressed, carried the door to the back of the store and offered along with Rainbow to come around another time to fix it free of charge.
Understandably, they weren’t allowed anywhere near the café, like, ever again, so that was a great start. Now Applejack and Rainbow Dash drifted along a lane of shophouses with absolutely no aim in mind.
Rainbow snuck a peek at the girl beside her. Under the brim of her hat, Applejack's hair was actually kind of neater than usual today, like it had been carefully brushed, and a Dutch braid was woven into its golden strands. Her signature red ribbon was tied differently, with two flaring loops at the back instead of its normal inconspicuous knot. Along with that, her outfit also seriously suited her: she had on a velvet red blouse with flowing sleeves, camel-coloured shorts and a matching necktie.
"You, um,” Rainbow coughed awkwardly, breaking the silence. “Look good.”
Applejack turned to look at her. She looked Rainbow up and down, and a chuckle escaped her. “What’s this? I’ve never seen you wear this.” She reached out and toyed with the cat ear hood of the sweater.
Rainbow turned away in embarrassment. “Ah, it’s, just a thing my mom bought for me. ”
“Well, I think it looks cute.”
"...Thanks." And with that, they fell into awkward silence again.
"I'm, uh, sorry," Rainbow began. "For just now."
“I... know,” Applejack sighed. Now it was her turn to press a hand into her face, those pretty blonde locks falling all around it. "It's okay. Let's just find somethin' else to do now, alright?"
"R-right!" Rainbow ignored the way her voice cracked as she ripped her gaze from Applejack, drumming her fingers against her thigh in thought. "Maybe let's get something to eat first? I know another café…"
"No more cafés, please."
"Ahh," Rainbow said. "Then…"
So Rainbow had taken her date to a convenience store.
A motherbuckin'. Convenience store.
Kneeling in front of the potato chips aisle, Rainbow Dash grumbled under her breath. "It's not my fault everything else is so expensive," She glared daggers at a pack of Sour Cream & Onion. "Friggin'... Even the fast food joints have such long queues on a Saturday morning… is the universe just out to get me or what?..."
"You alright there, sugarcube?"
"Aaaeeeiough!" Rainbow jumped, several packs of chips flying into the air. Scrambling, her hands moved at superspeed, catching all of them before they hit the ground. Quickly, she dumped them back on the shelf and spun around to face her. "Yeah?"
Applejack stood behind her, arms filled with packaged sandwiches from the chilled section. Good-naturedly ignoring the shitfest that had just transpired in front of her, she walked around Rainbow to deposit the goods into the shopping basket beside them, before pausing. Reaching up, she plucked a rustling Barbeque off the shelf and squinted. "Why in land's sakes are y'all lookin' at these? You can't eat chips for lunch."
"Yeah I can," Rainbow stuck out her tongue.
"No you ain't," Applejack said, rummaging through the rest of the shopping basket and scrutinising everything inside. Rainbow watched as several colourful boxes and packets made their way from the basket onto the ground in a sad little heap. “I know you got a high metabolism, but t'ain't good for yer health to gobble such junk. And yer an athlete an' all that, so you should know… huh?" Applejack stared at a pack of fruit sticks between her fingers. "Why is this even here? You don't even like these."
"W-well…" Rainbow fidgeted from side to side. "I thought you would like it. There are. Apples and stuff."
Applejack stared at her.
Rainbow sweated, scrambling to explain. "I mean, there aren't any actual apples in there, I know, it's all artificial flavouring, but, y'know, it's the closest thing I could find here, so-"
Rainbow suddenly felt a hand in her hair, mussing it up affectionately as Applejack laughed again, in that deep hearty chuckle of hers. "Yer so gosh darn adorable sometimes, you know that?"
"Uuuuhh," Rainbow babbled, flushing. Applejack then turned around, placing the fruit sticks back into the basket as if she hadn't just sent Rainbow's heart through, like, ten roller coasters, backwards and seatbelts off.
Slapping her own cheeks, Rainbow shook herself out of her daze and squatted down, beginning to put away the items in the ever-swelling rejection pile one by one back on the shelves. It was slow, boring work, so it was good for distracting herself from …whatever had just happened. Boxes of raisins went back on the shelf. So did a couple bags of mixed fruit gummy bears. Two bottles of sparkling vitamin water. Instant microwaveable apple fritters (on hindsight, Rainbow had really put a lot of fruit-related stuff in the basket. Down bad. She was so down bad.)
Rainbow shook her head exasperatedly and reached for the cans of soda, when suddenly she felt a hand over her own. She glanced up and nearly jumped. Applejack was hovering just centimetres from her, her fingers brushing over the back of Rainbow’s.
“Oops, sorry,” Applejack drawled as she sat back, withdrawing her hand and waving it casually. “I was going to pick those up. You go ahead, sugarcube.”
Rainbow could always tell when Applejack was lying, but this was… something else altogether. Biting her tongue, Rainbow nodded stiffly and plastered a wide grin on her face, grabbing another box instead. Strawberry Pocky. Scanning the shelves, she found where it was supposed to go and heaved herself up on one knee. But just as she was standing up, a shadow fell over her.
Beside her, Applejack was there again, towering over her shoulder to presumably return a box of chocolate wafers back where they belonged. Rainbow gulped down the lump that had formed in her throat, scarcely daring to breathe as her eyes followed Applejack’s maddeningly slow attempts at finding the correct place on the shelf for the wafers, adjusting the box’s position on the shelf, doing some weird thing or another that made milliseconds stretch into centuries.
And then Applejack looked down at her. Or, looked down at the long-forgotten Pocky in her hands, to be precise. Her eyes, green and flashing, scrutinised the product— then with no hesitation, she grabbed ahold of Rainbow’s wrist. And Rainbow’s entire brain turned to sludge.
“I think I’d like ‘ta keep this one,” Applejack said innocently, still not letting go of Rainbow’s wrist as she salvaged the Pocky from between her fingers and dropped it back in the basket. “Would you?”
“Uh, um!” Rainbow said intelligently. “Yeah! Sure!”
As they went back to being preoccupied with their… sorting, Applejack’s moves seemed to become more and more deliberate. The ‘accidental’ hand brushing continued, and so did the leaning over her shoulder to grab something. Sometimes, Rainbow would be putting back something, and when she turned around, she would come face to face with an Applejack who had somehow drifted behind her without her noticing, close enough that she could probably count all her freckles that dotted her cheeks.
And Rainbow… well. Rainbow simply continued trying to squeeze a bulging jumbo-pack of marshmallows into its compartment, caught between the instinct to recoil away from any contact and the desire to lean into Applejack and tuck herself in her embrace forever. After what felt like an eternity of the most awkward, repressed ten minutes of her life, she stepped away, pretty sure that her face was now entirely purple.
In fact, it was all so cheesy that Rainbow had to let out a raspy snicker.
"I bet this is the most romantic thing you've ever imagined," Rainbow laughed dryly. "Buying lunch at Seven Eleven."
Applejack blinked in surprise at being finally addressed by the other. Then, collecting herself, she shrugged. "Well, it's like they say. It's the company that matters."
"Yeah," Rainbow rolled her eyes, "but how is this any different from what we usually do? It’s not like this is the first time either of us have been to a convenience store, or been here together…”
“But now we’re here as a couple, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know, I just, haaaah…” Rainbow scratched her head, embarrassed. “It kinda feels like you’re trying so hard to make this,” she made shaky inverted commas with her hands. “romantic, but I have no idea how to do that…”
Applejack looked at her for a while, then cleared her throat. "Personally, I think yer doin' an okay job-"
"Face it, AJ, I have no clue what I’m doing and so far, I’ve done nothing but ruin the date," Rainbow interrupted. “You’re just so… good, and man, I still can't believe you actually like me when I'm. Uh. Me.”
“I do actually like you– it ain’t a joke, if that’s what yer askin’.”
"Nah, maybe, maybe you found out that I have a crush on you, and you’re just pitying me. Or you liked me at first, but you don’t like me anymore.” Rainbow frenzied. “You can just be honest. I’d be terrible as a, a girlfriend."
"I’m sorry, but— did you forget who yer talkin' to?" Applejack cut in, droning, and Rainbow finally got the clue to shut up.
"Look, I know this can be awkward,” Applejack traced circles on the floor, looking down, “and to be frank, I dun rightly know where this is going and what we're doing either. But if we both want this… and if you still want this… then I'm sure we'll be able to figure out somethin' together.” She glanced up at her, eyes shining. “Alright?"
"We're in this together," Rainbow murmured.
"Darn tootin'."
And then, tentatively, somewhat jerkily, Applejack placed a hand over hers, calloused palm warm against her skin.
"And if ya think it's not romantic enough, or if yer not being a good enough gurlfriend, then why not try to make it more so?" she continued, nudging her playfully in the side. "Where's that showboatin' braggart I know, huh?"
"Eheheh," Rainbow blinked and smiled sheepishly. “C’mon, that was a long time ago. I’m not like that anymore.”
“Not as obnoxious,” Applejack agreed. “But I wouldn’t mind if you tried to impress me.”
“Ahhh,” Rainbow could feel herself blushing again. She looked down at the floor, contemplating for a moment. And then finally, she smirked. "You're right. I'm totally gonna show you a good time today!"
"Alright then, champ!" Applejack beamed brightly. "Where are we off to next?"
Rainbow smiled to herself, deep in thought. Then her eyes fell on the basket.
"...Did you seriously put six packets of apple juice in there?"
"...And then I was diving straight for the ground, at, I dunno, a gajillion bazillion miles per second! I could feel the heat buzzing around my ears, the strain on my back, the trees below rapidly closing in…"
"Sounds mighty terrifyin', darling." Applejack took a sip from her apple juice packet, which she had complained was too sweet but continued drinking anyway. The bus they were on bounced along the road, and she kept a careful grip on the packet to prevent it from spilling.
"No, it wasn't terrifying, it was exhilarating!" Rainbow sat up, gripping the sidebar to sit up further. "And right at this moment, I could see Rarity– the pony Rarity, I mean– flailing her pony arms. Legs? Whatever. Anyway, she was kicking them so hard that she kicked away four other blue ponies that were also there, but I'm not sure why they were there exactly. Meanwhile I kept diving down and down and down until BAAAMMM! WHAZZAM!"
Rainbow made various incoherent sounds, hands mimicking explosions, to the disapproving grunts of the other passengers on the bus. Some of them also looked varying shades of concerned, which was to be expected with a teenager rambling about talking horses on public transportation.
Said teenager (who happened to actually be a talking horse in another dimension, not that anyone needed to know that) scratched her head and looked aside. “Heheh… whoops. Got a little excited there.” Shortly after, though, she was soon distracted from her attempts to seem apologetic as her eyes flicked out the window and lit up. “Ah! We’re getting off here.”
“...Can I open my eyes now?”
“No!”
“Then yer gonna have to lead me off the bus.”
“Oh. Ahhh. Right. ”
With a languorous hiss of its exhaust, the bus rolled to a stop. Rainbow hopped up on her feet, then— after a moment of hesitation or two— carefully, gently grasped Applejack’s hand. Embarrassed, she turned her head away and dragged Applejack off the bus by that hand before she could regret it.
Once off the bus, Applejack finally raised the brim of her hat to take in her surroundings. They were walking down a little sloping path, on the left a row of green shrubbery, and on the right a single-way road on which the bus they had just alighted from chugged along until it disappeared over the hill.
"Hmm," Applejack made a neutral noise, yawning a little. "That was a pretty darn long bus ride, all right. Now, where exactly are we?"
Rainbow's lips curled as she led Applejack around the corner. "Why not take a look for yourself?"
They stood at the entrance of a forest. There was a dirt trail leading into it, fairly wide across, and well lit by the afternoon sun despite the shade of the tall trees that bordered it. It was quiet, save for the rustling leaves, chirping crickets, and the occasional passing cyclist. Seemingly a normal forest like any other, to some, but…
"This is…" Applejack uttered, taking a moment to process it. "Whitetail Woods?"
"Yeah, remember? When we came here for the Running of the Leaves, back in first year."
The Running of the Leaves was an annual marathon event held every autumn in various parts of the country. In their town, the event was held here in Whitetail Woods, which offered a scenic running trail that looped over hills and around rivers, and was all the more beautiful in the autumn when the canopy became ablaze with fiery colours. The view, though, was not what she had been focusing on her first year here. She could remember it vividly: thundering behind the footsteps of Applejack, dried leaves crunching beneath them all while they yelled, pushed and shoved each other in a competitive bid to prove themselves the better athlete. How they'd both emerged at the finish line smeared all over with grime and tree sap, twigs clinging to their ragged clothes, completely wrecked. And then, the reconciliation: when Applejack had extended her hand to her in forgiveness, a smile on her face despite how much Rainbow had messed up. When they'd run through the forest again, side by side, the leaves scattering around them.
This was the place where Rainbow had learnt a valuable lesson: that sometimes it wasn't all about being the best, but being better.
It was also the place where… she’d…
“Heh, it’s really been a long time since I’ve been here,” Applejack laughed softly, stepping onto the trail where a white start line would have been. She tugged on Rainbow’s hand as she walked, blonde braid flouncing as she took a moment to glance over at her. “But, why the sudden urge to come here of all places?”
Calm green eyes, warm freckles, soft smile.
Looking at her in the same way she did all those years ago.
“I dunno,” Rainbow shrugged, “I guess I just felt like it.”
They continued walking down the path for a while. If the place had changed while they were gone, they couldn’t tell, since all the trees and bushes looked roughly the same. Still, it felt pretty nostalgic seeing all the old and recognisable landmarks, like the lookout point on the cliff, the rubber trees with latex taps, and the wooden signposts (now nailed in place, Rainbow noted with amusement). They pointed and laughed, reminiscing old times like they were a pair of grannies.
At some point, the grove opened up to reveal the winding river, and they could see the waterfall in the distance where the river began.
“You think that there would be a good spot to stop?” Applejack nodded in the direction of the waterfall as they crossed the bridge over the river.
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “Wanna race there?”
Applejack raised the bags of snacks they were holding. “Might be a little hard, sugarcube.”
“Right," Rainbow conceded.
The sun was still shining ever brightly, and the more they walked, the warmer Rainbow was starting to feel. Luckily, the canopy of trees loomed invitingly ahead of them, and Rainbow quickened her pace to get into the shade. She also shrugged off her sweater, which on hindsight wasn't the greatest choice for the weather, and tied it around her waist. She sighed in relief as the cool air touched her bare shoulders.
"Hey, AJ," she began on a whim. "Could you pass me one of the-"
WHAM!
Rainbow glanced back just in time to see Applejack walk face first into a tree.
"Ah!" She ran over immediately, catching hold of the stumbling girl. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Applejack said in her arms, her cheeks red for some reason. "I was just… uh…"
Suddenly, both of their voices were interrupted by an angry hum. They looked up to see a beehive hanging on the tree, thrumming dangerously.
They were in the Beehive Hollow.
"Uh oh," Applejack said.
"Run!..." Rainbow Dash wheezed.
Snacks be damned, the two bolted, sprinting for their lives down the trail as a ferocious black swarm of bees rocketed after them. They ran and they ran, until eventually the bees must have given up, because they couldn't see nor hear their enraged buzzing anymore. Exhausted, they both collapsed onto the ground, out of breath. They both lay there, grass tickling their ears as they puffed and panted.
"I… won…" Rainbow managed between breaths.
"Oh for Pete's sake," Applejack rolled her eyes. "I thought we done agreed we weren't racin'!"
"Too bad, I still won," Rainbow stuck out her tongue.
"But we weren't-"
"Don't be a sore loser, Applejack."
"Bullshit," Applejack sat up, "I touched the grass first, that means I won."
"I don't care, I won, I won, I woooaaaiiiieeee!" Rainbow's taunts dissolved into squeals as Applejack lunged for her, jabbing her fingers into her sides. "Ahahahha, ehehehheh, stop, stop," she protested as the latter continued to relentlessly tickle her. "Fine, you win! Stop!"
Applejack released her. The minute she did, Rainbow Dash pounced onto the girl, cackling as she dug her fingers into Applejack's sides. "Take that!"
"I ain't ticklish, ya know that already."
"Resistance is futile," Rainbow announced anyway, and bent over her to cage Applejack's head between her elbows. Applejack swatted at her, giggling. And then they both were laughing, their voices loud and free in the empty field.
Until the laughter eventually died down, and they stared at each other, shoulders heaving, faces still flushed with exertion. Rainbow was still on her knees, leaning over Applejack, who lay on the grass beneath her. Her eyes tried to look everywhere and nowhere at once, tracing over Applejack's face, her flayed-out gold hair and ribbon, her glistening green eyes, her ruddy freckled cheeks...It felt like they were both waiting for something. Rainbow's gaze flicked involuntarily to Applejack's lips, which were parted imperceptibly, and she felt her heart thumping faster and faster.
And then, without her having to say anything at all, Applejack reached up, smiling quietly. Rainbow felt fingers brush the back of her neck, guiding her downwards until they were nose-to-nose— like how they used to get whenever they squabbled, in the past.
But now it was different.
"Can I?" Applejack whispered against her skin.
Rainbow nodded.
They kissed. Rainbow wasn't really sure how it was supposed to go, or how she was supposed to do it. The angle or something must've been wrong, because their noses were bumping together awkwardly, her teeth might have hit against hers at some point, and Applejack's lips were still kinda sticky from the apple juice. But Applejack's hands moved to cup her chin and pull her in closer, and she stopped thinking so much. Whatever this was, Rainbow Dash decided that she liked it.
Finally, they parted for breath and looked at each other again. Applejack was blushing like crazy, and judging by the heat she was feeling, Rainbow probably was too. Groaning in embarrassment, Rainbow all but flopped down on Applejack. Chuckling lightly, the girl snaked arms around the back of her shoulders and allowed Rainbow to bury her face into the grass by her neck.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, y’know,” Applejack admitted quietly, after a while.
Rainbow rolled her head to look at her. “Since when?”
“I don’t rightly know,” Applejack hummed, closing her eyes. “I can’t quite tell when exactly it was. It’s like it just happened, y’know.” She cracked her eyelids open to look at her. “How about you?”
“Hmmm…” Rainbow thought of stamping feet through an empty forest, crackling gold leaves in the breeze, and an arm around her shoulder as two girls ran into the setting sun. She smiled. “It was here… I think.”
“That long, huh?” Applejack rested her head back on the ground to look up at the sky, then her eyes widened in comprehension. “So that’s the reason why you came here.”
“Probably, yeah,” Rainbow laughed breathily. “Ah… I’m such a honest-to-goodness sap.”
Applejack just squeezed her arms around her upper back. She pursed her lips in thought, then spoke again. “I don’t know if I liked you back then. I cared for you a lot, of course, but it wasn’t… Or maybe it was. There wasn’t a specific moment… it could be that I never realised, if that makes any sense.”
“Yeah, I mean, shit’s weird,” Rainbow affirmed. “People make it sound like you’ll just know, or something.”
“But didn’t you know already?” Applejack paused. “And since you did… why didn’t you say anything?” The tone was now probing, but cautious. It was clearly a question that Applejack had been longing to ask for a while now.
“Why else?” Rainbow mumbled. “I was scared.”
“Scared of?”
“You rejecting me, duh. There was no way for me to know if you liked me in that way, or not,” Rainbow gulped, shivering. “Every nice thing you did for me, every time you looked at me for more than a few seconds, could have just been friendly, or me just overthinking things. If I went and said something more… it might have ruined everything. I already felt so blessed to be best friends with you. I mean, heck, being friends and the magic of friendship is what our group is all about, isn’t it?” She ran a hand over her face. “I didn’t wanna lose all that because of some stupid dumb crush.”
“Well…” Applejack said. “If it makes ya feel any better, I also struggled with myself a lot before telling you about mah feelings.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Yeah. There right there on that beach, when we were sittin’ there by our lonesome. I’d already decided to tell you once and for all, but I kept second-guessin’ mahself, so I kept quiet for so long. Even when I pulled back at you to stop ya from racin’ off, I had had half a mind to give up and just say it was nothing.”
“But, like, why? You’re-”
“-Honesty?” Applejack sighed. “Not really. The reason why I’m Honest is because I choose to be, Rainbow. I’m not even a hundred percent honest all the time. You’ve seen that for yerself, even if yer always busy poking fun at me for it.”
“Heheh,” Rainbow rubbed her head sheepishly, “Sorry.”
“Point is, it was also a tough choice for me to make. Bein’ honest isn’t exactly easy, ‘cause ya never know if someone’s gonna take it badly. The things that you was thinking about, I thought about them a lot, too. But I figured that,” she shrugged. “I don’t wanna hide no truth from others, 'specially not from the people I care about. If I loved you, then I wanted to trust you with those feelings, however you would take them. I was confident that we wouldn’t stop being friends because of it.”
“Because I’m Loyalty?” Rainbow smirked.
“Because it’s you,” Applejack corrected. And then she flushed and turned her head to the side. “Land’s sakes, now I’m becomin’ just as sappy as you.”
“Well, don’t stop,” Rainbow giggled, but she could feel her face burning up too. Both of them were doomed. Both of them.
“Heheh… An’ like I said, you also chose to be loyal,” Applejack said fondly. “Strictly speakin’, you weren’t always the ‘loyalest’ chick in the hatch, if ya catch my drift. Always runnin’ off on yer own, tryna do yer own thing, leavin’ us all behind in the dust, remember?”
Rainbow opened her mouth to interrupt, but Applejack held up her hand, silencing her. The girl continued,
“But… I get why it can be hard to be loyal. It’s not too different from why it can be hard to be honest, too.” She waved her hand. “I used to get really mad whenever you did that, because I didn’t understand. But after a while, I realised that there was a reason for that, and that’s because... Because of that same loyalty, you’re scared of disappointing us, right? You act like yer always so full of yourself, but you’re only like that when you’re positive ya will win… but if not, you’d rather just run away, or cheat, or a combination of the two.”
“......”
Applejack thinned those green eyes, and pulled her closer into the impromptu cuddle-hug. “But, I just want ya to know that, no matter how much you think yer screwin’ up, we’re always gonna be right there whenever you need us. So, whether we end up as lovers or best friends after today, I want you to trust me like I trust you. Okay?”
Rainbow didn’t answer.
“Are you… crying?”
“…shut up,” Rainbow sniffled weakly, and wiped away tears that were definitely not forming at the corners of her eyes. Exhaling, Applejack smiled and simply patted her back gently as Rainbow buried herself into her again.
And finally, after a long while of rumination, Rainbow Dash came to a decision.
She had to admit, she was still scared. She wasn’t sure what challenges lay ahead of them, or what tribulations awaited them.
But one thing was for certain: that whatever they would face, they would face it together.
And if that were the case, then everything, she trusted, would be alright.
