The Rise of Passion

When the mares arrived in Applejack's office, they were greeted to a staring contest. Applejack's eyes had not left Gallus's face for several minutes, glaring at him. All the while, he'd stayed as expressionless as he could, trying to bait her into lunging across her desk at him. He'd really been laying it on thick today, questioning Apple Bloom's parentage, noting that somepony should be at home making sure Granny Smith was alright, and mentioning that Big Macintosh was surprisingly strong for how rotund he was. The final straw was when he mentioned that the most widely-consumed fruit in the world, and therefore the best, was the banana.

Neither one moved as the door opened. There was a lot of tension in the room, and Gallus wanted it to stay that way until Twilight was there to see it all break at once.

"What's going on here?" asked Twilight, filing into the room with Starlight in tow. "What are you doing?"

"Tell her," growled Applejack. "Tell her what you said."

Without averting his eyes, Gallus reached down and opened his lunch pail, pulling out a banana. "I was just telling Applejack what my favourite fruit is and why." Slowly, he peeled the banana and gave it a good sniff. "They're very soft and easy to eat, so you can feed them to children and the elderly, whether they have teeth or not. The seeds are completely harmless, so you can feed them to your dog with no need for a knife, and they come in great big bundles, so picking them is easy. Just one cut, and you can feed a hundred ponies two each." He took a bite, chewing slowly.

Applejack's hooves were digging into the desk to keep from shaking. "Ah want him gone, Twilight."

Twilight sighed. "Applejack, you can't have him reassigned just because of his choice of food. That's not a good reason to leave you exposed."

"Ah don't care!" shouted Applejack. "Remove him form mah office, the school, and Ponyville! He ain't welcome so long as Ah'm here!"

"Applejack, you're being unreasonable. Please, just calm down so we can talk about this!"

"Either he goes, or Ah go. Which is it, Twilight?"

Twilight was almost in tears. "Applejack..."

Applejack stood up and walked out of the room. Gallus immediately tried to chase after her, as was his duty, but she grabbed him by the wrist and secured him to the door with the same cuffs he'd used to make sure she couldn't ditch him in the bathroom anymore.

"Applejack, wait!" called Twilight as Applejack ran off. She was about to chase after her, but Starlight put a hoof on her shoulder.

"Let me go after her," Starlight said. "She probably feels hurt that you took Gallus's side, so a perceived neutral party will have more luck convincing her."

"I wasn't taking Gallus's side!" insisted Twilight. "They were both acting like jerks! She just didn't let me finish!

"Still," insisted Starlight, "It looked like you were. I'll have a word with her. You stay and correct Gallus's behaviour."

As Starlight took off after Applejack, Twilight turned to Gallus. "Why did you provoke her? You know she was on edge."

"I wanted her to hit me," answered Gallus. "She's been so stressed out recently that I thought it would be best if she had some kind of punching bag. I didn't want it to be somepony who couldn't handle it, so I've been trying to redirect her anger onto me."

"You know that wouldn't stop her animosity, right? She'd still think you were guilty."

"True, but I saw her frustrations coming to head. She almost kicked one of the students yesterday, and I have just as much of a call to protect them from her as to protect her from... well, anypony. I'd rather it was me than somepony who didn't deserve it."

Twilight snorted. "Does that mean you did deserve it?"

"Well, today, at least."

"Where's the key to this thing?" asked Twilight, holding up his cuffed claw. "I can only presume that the reason you haven't tried to unlock yourself from the cuffs you keep with you is because you don't have the key readily available."

Gallus gestured into the office. "It's in my lunch pail."

When Starlight caught up to Applejack, she was already outside. So far outside that she was off of the school grounds. She was actually not too far from Fluttershy's cottage.

"Applejack, hold there for a minute!"

Applejack, frustrated, started off again.

"Come on, I'm pregnant! I can't run like you do! I just want to talk!"

That slowed her down. She turned and sat down on the side of the road, waiting for Starlight to catch up. "Well, Ah've gone an' made a arse of mahself..."

"Yep."

"Yer s'posed ta tell me that it ain't so bad as all that."

"It's your lie," shrugged Starlight. "You tell it however you please."

Applejack chuckled. "Maybe Ah did go a mite overboard."

"Nah. Gallus can be a little prick sometimes. He's just frustrated. From what I understand, you didn't exactly make it easy for him to guard you."

Applejack sighed. "Ah can't do it. Ah couldn't even let 'im stand behind me. He can't be trusted. He knows that, an' 'e still tries to act like he can."

"Perhaps he's trying to build trust?" Starlight began rubbing Applejack's shoulder. "You have to give him at least a little bit of breathing room. After all, he guarded me successfully for over a month. The day he left, somepony tried to break down my bedroom door."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. I don't want Twilight to worry, though, so keep that all very hush-hush. She has enough to be afraid of as it is."

"On that, we can agree." Applejack took a deep breath. "What am Ah s'posed to do now?"

"Well, Twilight trusts in your opinion. She trusts you to make sure that her decisions are sound, and that they are based in facts and logic, rather than gut feelings. You're her anchor."

Applejack nodded. "Ah should apologise to 'er."

"I think you should take the shot."

Applejack nodded. "Ah will."

"Take the shot."

"Ah'll go back to 'er right now."

"Take the shot!"

"Ya don't have ta--"

Feeling a sudden pinprick in her back, Applejack's head began to spin. She fell back to her haunches as the world around her turned blurry and faded away.

"Why weren't you ready?!" scolded Starlight as Cozy approached.

"Oh, shut up! There was a snake on my branch, and I had to remove it!"

"How long until she wakes up?"

"About half an hour, I think. Plenty of time to take her back to the school."