Baking Apple Pie in Space
Applejack presses her hoof up against the glass. Earth seems so small from up here. Empty blackness stretches out beyond what she can see, only cold, distant stars breaking up the vastness of the universe.
The only thing separating her from the relative warmth of the spaceship and the icy cold blackness of space is the wall-length window of glass she’s currently looking out of.
Her attention is slowly drawn to her hoof, pressed up against the glass. She doesn’t think ponies were ever meant to reach the stars. Their hooves were only meant to till soil and raze the earth, and yet here she is, an uncountable number of hoofsteps away from her home.
Shaking her head, she looks away from the planet, turning her gaze to the pony floating outside. As the airlock closes, Pinkie Pie turns around and notices Applejack, excitedly waving at the mare- beaming smile clearer than ever even through her tinted helmet.
Excitedly, Pinkie moves to make her way towards the window, her exuberance getting the better of her as she struggles against the lack of gravity and somehow manages to almost become entangled in the cable connecting her to the ship.
The other mare was.. odd, to say the least.
Granted, so had Applejack been during her first month on the ship.
Stepping into the cafeteria, Applejack took a moment to survey her surroundings. It was important to acquaint herself with as much of the ship as quickly as possible if this was going to be her home for the next few years. Ponies crowded every nook and cranny of the space, a constant reminder of how large and unfamiliar this new place was for her.
Taking a seat at one of the empty tables nearer to the edge of the room, Applejack scrunched up her nose at the food. It looked (and quite frankly, smelled) like one of Appleblooms’ disastrous attempts to earn her cutie mark in ‘mud pie baking’. They hadn’t been able to get the stench out of the oven for weeks.
Just as she had drifted off into reminiscing about her baby sister, a loud bang startled her out of her thoughts. Applejack almost jumped out of her seat, instead whipping her head towards the sound and the metal tray that somepony had slammed down on the table.
“Omigosh!! You’re new aren’t you? I’d know, because I know everypony around here and I didn’t recognise you!! I’m Pinkie Pie!”
Applejack was immediately taken aback by this pony, somehow so exuberant even with somepony she didn’t know.
Taking a good look at the mare, several things immediately stood out to her. First and foremost was the thick, curly, bright pink mane framing her face. Absently Applejack wondered how annoying it was to wear a helmet over it.
“..Howdy. Applejack.”
Somehow the other pony’s smile widened even more.
“It’s so amazing to meet you!! I’d throw you a party but because of what happened last time I’m ‘not allowed’ and ‘a danger to the crew’, whatever that means!”
Opening her mouth to ask whether or not this Pinkie Pie was safe to be around, she was cut off as the mare kept on talking.
“Anyway, I saw you sitting here all alone and I thought ‘thats not good!’ Why has nopony come to greet you? Well I guess that doesn’t matter because I’m here now! Did I say it was amazing to meet you?”
Applejack didn’t know why she kept sitting with Pinkie at mealtimes- it wasn’t as if their respective jobs (electrical engineer and communications officer) had much overlap so they didn’t see each other outside of the allotted timeframes. Maybe it was because the pink pony’s energy was infectious and her constantly upbeat personality kept her mind off home. Maybe it was because she was admittedly kind of pretty.
“The food here is awful.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“Well it’s true. I’d wrestle a timberwolf for one of my ma’s homemade apple pies right about now.”
“…”
Applejack lay face up in her bunk, focusing on the soft snores of her cabin-mate drifting up from below her and trying very hard not to think about the hunger pains keeping her from sleep. While the food on board the ship wasn’t as bad as Applejack had initially asserted, it was still painfully bland and the dull ache of homesickness had comfortably settled itself squarely in her gut. She probably wouldn’t be able to eat even if Celestia herself personally prepared a feast in her honour.
Sighing, Applejack rolled over to face the doorway and almost screamed.
There Pinkie Pie stood, inches from Applejack’s muzzle, hoof held up to her mouth in a shushing motion, cheeky expression framing her face.
“Pinkie!” she whisper-hissed, “you almost scared me half to death! What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Well, she thought wryly, whatever counts for night up here.
“Hang on a sec- how did you even find my quarters?” By this time she had finally manoeuvred out of the bunk, climbing the ladder down as quietly as possible so as to not wake her cabin-mate (a lovely mare by the name Coloratura) and have to explain away her friends’ odd behaviour.
“The hallways are labelled, silly!”
Oh, right. Sometimes she thought Pinkie was smarter than she let on.
Applejack led the other mare out into the hallway, closing the door which had previously been left open so as to let light filter in.
“So. Care to explain crashing my room while any sane pony would be asleep at this hour?”
Pinkie gave her a worried look, “You didn’t eat anything at dinner tonight.” Her face was laden with concern and Applejack briefly felt extremely guilty.
“Ah… Yeah, I just wasn’t very hungry.”
As if on cue, her stomach let out a loud grumble.
“See! No way you’re going to be able to sleep on an empty stomach!”
“Yeah.. but-“
“No buts! Follow me, I have a surprise for you!”
Applejack affectionately rolled her eyes and let herself be dragged along by her friend with only halfhearted complaints to accompany them.
After a few minutes of being pulled around the ship, the two mares stopped at the entrance to the cafeteria. Applejack turned to Pinkie, one eyebrow raised, “if you think i’m gonna eat that slop then you must be nuttier than a squirrel in spring.”
Her companion shrugged, “You’re going to have to get used to it eventually, buuut in the meanwhile I made you something!” With her piece said, she opened the door revealing… a pie? There was a freshly baked apple pie just sitting in the middle of one of the tables in the empty cafeteria.
As Applejack approached the delicacy as though it was a foreign object, Pinkie kept talking, “It was a bit of a hassle to get all the ingredients but I thought- Applejack is going to love this, so it’s worth it!”
It wasn’t a feast personally curated by Princess Celestia and it didn’t need to be.
“Want to share a piece?”
The words slipped out of her mouth unbidden and Applejack immediately blushed, “Sorry- uh, that didn’t come out right. I mean- you don’t know how much this means to me. Thank you so much.“
Pinkie Pie beamed. “I knew you’d love it! And uh,” she seemed to stumble over her words, “I’d love to share a bite too if you want..”
Applejack smiled, a warm feeling settling into her gut as she cut a piece and held it out to the other mare, offering it to her.
The two ponies leaned in closer and…
A sudden knock against the glass shakes Applejack out of her reminiscing. Looking back up from where her gaze had drifted, she barely contains a chuckle at the sight of Pinkie still struggling with her cable, now having drifted to the point where she’s bumping up against the window.
The mare finally stops fighting against the mutinous cable and turns towards the window, giving Applejack a sheepish look.
Affectionately rolling her eyes, Applejack mouths ‘I’ll be right out’ before standing up and stretching out her cramped muscles.
‘Thank you’ Pinkie mouths back, gently resting one of her free hooves against the glass.
As she also presses her hoof to the glass, a perfect reflection of the other mare, Applejack thinks that maybe it’s not so lonely up here after all.
