Questions from a Featherbrain
It had been a few days since Aj came out as Ace to her partner, Rainbow, and she’d received nothing but acceptance from her. No prodding around about sex and if she was somehow related to plants or somewhat interested in the letter A for whatever reason. But there was also a very noticeable lack of further questions. Normally she wouldn’t have been bothered about this fact, but knowing Rainbow as well as she did, she knew Rainbow wasn’t the type to not be curious about something like this. At least one question about where Aj fell on the spectrum, or if they could have some kind of sexual pleasure, but nope. Nothing.
At least, that was how it was until this morning. During a breakfast Rainbow was invited to by the Apples as an honorary Apple, Rainbow had blurted out the last question Applejack expected.
"Are you Aromantic?" The mare was staring expectedly at her partner with wide beady eyes.
Applejack nearly spat out the juice in her mouth, instead it went down the wrong pipe and she started coughing. She hit her hoof against her chest trying to calm herself down, even Rainbow started patting her on the back.
"Sorry, sorry! Was that rude?!" Rainbow asked in a mild panic, trying to stop her marefriend's coughing.
In about a few seconds, her coughing stopped, and she regained her ability to talk. She turned to face Dash, making sure she kept eye contact, "To answer yer question Dash, no. No, I’m not Aromantic. Can’t speak for everyone, but from what I’ve heard, they don’t like to be in romantic relationships, right? We’re in one, I’m happy with ya as my partner, I just don’t think that… the fun in the bed time is needed to have a fulfilling relationship. Get it?"
Rainbow nodded unsurely, "Yeah…? Don’t those two things kinda… go hoof in hoof… or is that… not how that works?" She toyed her forehooves together in a nervous habit.
"No, they ain’t the same thin'." Applejack picked up Rainbow's plate and her own before heading to the sink. "Wan'in' to pleasure yerself is real different from wan'in' to be with somepony and do romantic stuff with 'em. I love goin' dates with ya, I love sayin' I love ya, I love sleeping next to ya, and I love bein' yer marefriend and vice versa. That’s very different from me likin' sex. Sex is like… pie… someponies, or most ponies, love pie but someponies just don’t. I’d rather have cake than pie, anyway though." She kept the dishes to dry, then trotted to Dash and leaned in to whisper, "Get it now?" before planting a rather tender kiss on the mare's cheek.
Rainbow grinned like a three-year-old as she nodded vigorously. "So… sex is pie and all that ‘I L word you' is cake? Like that?"
Applejack stared at Rainbow for a second, then laughed, "Ya know what, Dash? That’s exactly what it is." Aj headed to the barn door, then looked back expecting Rainbow to follow. Dash got the cue and got up from her seat at the kitchen table and made her way to her marefriend.
The next half hour was spent doing some farm stuff. Bucking down the apples from the trees, collecting them in baskets then taking said baskets inside. Rinse and repeat this cycle about a dozen or so times and there you have Applejack's entire morning to lunch. Rather tedious, but at least she had a little cyan featherbrain helping her this time. Rainbow was a pretty fast learner, contrary to popular belief. She picked up the apple-bucking method quickly, and it nearly looked as if she had been doing this all her life. Made Aj just a tad bit envious, though. They competed to see who’d manage to get more trees bucked in an hour, and unsurprisingly Applejack was in the lead by a good chunk.
While losing at something her competitor had been trained from before her teens, Rainbow asked another peculiar question. "You're not hetero, right?"
This caused Aj to have to take a physical halt. Her head darted in Rainbow's direction, a very blank expression on her face, "What?" was all that she could even ask.
"Like, you said that romance is different from sex… so if you’re not into ponies… sexually, then you have to be into ponies… non-sexually… right? Otherwise… you wouldn’t be with me, right?" Even to her, that logic seemed very obscure, but it made enough sense for Rainbow to ask the question.
"Well… don’t hetero mean you’re into the opposite sex, alone?" Rainbow nodded in response. Aj heaved a sigh as Rainbow bucked down the tree that was exactly right to Applejack, "Then how the hay does that make any sense?" She asked flatly.
Rainbow seemed to take a second process, and when she did you could’ve easily been able to tell. Her cheeks turned a shade of bright red, and her head fell to the point where she was able to cover her face with her mane, "Oh… well that’s embarrassing…" she then looked up just a little, narrowing her eyes in flustered fury, "We’re never speaking of this, ever again. You hear me?"
Applejack laughed, "We’ll see." She smirked proudly before bucking down a row of two trees.
Rainbow growled loudly, and continued bucking.
About ten minutes passed by with no more random questions from Rainbow. Ten minutes of absolute silence. Something that would normally drive the pegasus insane with boredom. Today, however, seemed to be a day of dumb questions and a lot of reconsidering and thinking for her. But it wasn’t over. The questions, that is.
"So what are you?" Rainbow asked a little before they hit the fifteen minutes mark.
Applejack cocked an eyebrow, "A pony. Proud earth pony to be precise." She bucked yet another tree down, granting her the very old position of first place, with Rainbow way behind her.
"More like really annoying." She grumbled under her breath, "I mean, like what are you… like bi, or pan, or poly, or gay… just with Asexual mixed in."
"Oh! See now, Rainbow, that’s a pretty good question ta ask. Not a dumb one." Applejack smirked, "And ta answer, I’m biromantic. And if ya don’t know, it’s basically bein' bi without the sexual attraction part. Ya know what bi is right?"
Rainbow nodded, "Yeah, when you’re into… two or more genders, right? Twi's also bi, she told me." She was very confident in her answer. For good reason too.
"Exactly!" At least she knew that. She had better know that. "Bisexual means you’re into more than one gender, sexually and also romantically. I mean… I’ve heard o' ponies bein' into multiple genders sexually but not really wan' to get with them. But! That ain’t the point 'ere. I’m sayin' I’m biromantic, which means that I’d wan' to be with ponies o' my gender an' others but I’m also sayin' that I'm asexual, so no sexual stuff for me." Applejack bucked another four trees and proudly remained in first place in their little competition. "By the way, Rainbow, only twenty minutes left for y’all to catch up."
Rainbow glared, "How do you know I’m not already in the lead?! There's no counter!" Rainbow pointe,d huffing.
"No, there is one. That’s up 'ere." Applejack tapped a hoof against her hat.
Rainbow rolled her eyes, and bucked down another tree, before quickly getting to the next, and so on. After having knocked out apples from six separate trees, she stopped and turned to her partner, who at that same time managed to get down double what Dash managed. "…I’ve heard ponies… uh say that they don’t think aces don’t really… belong in the community. And before you assume anything! I think they do belong in the community like really do. But some aces don’t want to be in the community and don’t recognize themselves as a part of the community. And most do… where do you… you know…."
"Fall on that spectrum?" Rainbow nodded as her reply, "Well, yeah, I’ve met a few other aces who’ve said that they don’ want' to be in the community. Personal reasons I suppose. But, nah, I believe aces belong in the community, and I believe I’m in it as well. Ain’t gonna judge anypony else's opinion on it, just not something I agree with, personally."
"Yeah! I agree with that!" Rainbow"s wings flared up in excitement, then tucked itself back into place. "Like, I’ve heard that aces don’t face as much… what was the word… oppression- yeah! -like the rest of us. That sounded crazy to me, just 'cause if you’re a part of the community then you’ve gotta have to face some kinda… badmouthers in your lifetime, right?" She bucked another tree in the midst of talking.
"Right." Aj smiled softly. "Folks say we don’t have all that much discrimination 'cause we're 'technically straight', or some other bs I didn’t pay much attention to. Again, it's all shit. Ya know? Just sayin' that is discrimination. Invalidatin' ponies' identities is discriminatory and I don’t think they get that."
"Massive douchebags if you ask me," Rainbow muttered sourly, earning a rather pleasant chuckle from her marefriend.
"Aphobes. Those douchebags got a name somewhere along the line; aphobes." Her expression turned from a scowl to a rather smug grin, "Also! Ten more minutes Rainbow, hurry it up." Applejack sat down on the floors, under an already buck apple tree. She leaned back and laid her back conformably on its stable frame. "I'm even gonna play the hare for ya."
"Ha, ha." Rainbow quickly bucked down a few more trees before her mind thought up another little thing to ask. A little thing she didn’t want to have to ask, but she needed to know at that point. "So… I know you wouldn’t want me asking this… but…"
"Repulsed. Absolutely repulsed. I like jokin' about it, 'cause, well, it’s a joke to me, but no. I never really wan" it for myself."
Rainbow blinked. She let out a short, "huh" before it clicked in her head. "Oh wait, no! I wasn’t asking that!" She flailed her hooves in front of he,r and shot up into the air. "I kinda figured you weren’t a fan, considering what you said the other day."
Applejack sat up and stared Rainbow dead in the eyes for about the seventh time that morning or something like that. Rainbow was a featherbrain. A very, very confusing featherbrain. Granted, that was one thing Applejack absolutely loved about Dash, bust still! "Then?"
"I was talking about the whole plant thing. I talked to Twilight about the whole ace thing and she said something about plants, and also said I should’ve learned about it in school somewhere along the line, but I don’t really remember anything, and that whole thing had me confused. Are you somewhat related to plants?"
Aj shook her head, "Is that all? Alright, ya had me questionin' stuff for a second there. But no. We’ve got nothin' to do with plants. I personally do, bein' an earth pony an' everythin', but most ponies aren’t plants."
"Oh, okay cool! And thanks!" She grinned happily, before quickly resuming her apple bucking.
Rainbow was surely not the fastest when it came to apple bucking- if that wasn’t evident enough -but she did manage a lot more than Applejack had expected. She managed to get five trees down in three minutes, while Aj was expecting something along the lines of two in ten minutes. Five in three minutes was definitely not going to help her win or anything, but it was something.
"Hurry it up, tortoise! I’m gettin' bored o' just watchin' y’all struggle to beat me. Oh, and there's only five minutes left. I’ve got around one-sixty, y’all have got one-twenty." And another three trees down within a minutes, "Make that, one-twenty-eight."
"Shut up!" Rainbow exclaimed, "I'm gonna do it! I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it." She kept mumbling to herself, trying her very best to speed up her bucking if just a little. She did manage something, she managed to get eight in two minutes. Close to Aj's count, but not close enough.
And in five minutes, her time was done. "And that's time!" Applejack announced as he strode over to Rainbow with a little smug look on her face, "Nice game partner." She held out a hoof that was expecting a little bump from a cyan hoof.
"Alright, one more question."
Applejack cocked an eyebrow. She’d figured Rainbow was done with the questions, not that she had much of a problem with it.
"Ace or asexual?" She grinned randomly.
"What- well, that ain’t soemthin' I’ve got before… uh… ace… I guess, I dunno."
Rainbow, with one hoof, grabbed onto Aj's neck. Her wings fluttered out, letting her hover a little above the ground, and use her other hoof to draw an imaginary word in the sky, "So, Acejack or Jackace?" She grinned goofily.
"Rainbow!" Applejack scowled earning a rather happy snicker from the other mare, who was now just a little higher than the trees she had been bucking down for the last hour.
"What?! They’re pretty good if you ask me." She could hardly keep herself from laughing, "Don’tcha think Acejack? Or do you prefer Jackace? Or both?!" She gasped loudly, "Acejackace! You’d been the most aceiest pony alive!"
"Alright, that's it! Get over 'ere!" Applejack growled, pulling her trusted lasso out of nowhere.
"Try and catch me Acejsckace!"
Author's Note
Now, Aj's repulsed by it, so don’t go thinking anything naughty!
Anywho!
Hey folks!
A little follow up to my last story. This one's more focused on the asexual part of the story, a little more obscure questions I’ve received in the past. Most of them were in a more "trying to hurt me" kinda way, but here it’s obviously not that. Rainbow's trying her best, okay! I kinda left out the ones that are more heard of like "where do you fall on the a-spectrum" or just simply what it is. I felt like some other questions could take have some spotlight.
Anyway, if you spot on anything to correct, do lemme know, I always appreciate constructive criticisms! Hope this was worth your little looksie, and I’ll see you some other time!
MSz Out!
Questions from a Featherbrain -- A Rewrite
It had been a few days since AJ came out as ace to Dash and she’d received nothing but acceptance. No prodding around about sex and if she was somehow related to plants. But there was also a very noticeable lack of further questions.
Normally she wouldn’t have been bothered about this fact, but knowing Rainbow as well as she did, she knew Rainbow wasn’t the type to not be curious about something like this. At least one question about where AJ fell on the spectrum, but no. Nothing.
At least, that was how it was until this morning. During a breakfast Rainbow was invited to by the Apples as an honorary Apple, Rainbow had blurted out the last question Applejack expected.
"Are you aro?" The mare was staring expectantly at her partner.
Applejack nearly spat out the juice in her mouth; instead it went down the wrong pipe and she started coughing. She thumped her hoof against her chest trying to calm herself down, even Rainbow started helping as best she could.
"Sorry, sorry! Was that rude?!" Rainbow asked in a mild panic once AJ had calmed herself down.
Applejack shot a look at Dash, unamused and, quite frankly, disappointed.
"To answer yer question Dash, no. No, I’m not aro. Can’t speak for everypony, but from what I’ve heard, they don’t like to be in romantic relationships, right? We’re in one, I’m happy with ya as my partner, I just don’t think that… the fun in the bed time is needed to have a fulfilling relationship. Get it?"
Rainbow nodded unsurely, "Yeah…? Don’t those two things kinda… go hoof in hoof… or is that not how that works?" Her wings fluttered close to her, in what Applejack now knew to be a nervous habit for the mare.
"No, they ain’t the same thing." Applejack picked up Rainbow's plate and her own before heading to the sink. "Wanting to pleasure yourself is real different from wanting to be with somepony and do romantic stuff with 'em. I love goin' dates with ya, I love saying I love ya— in non-sexual settings— I love sleeping next to ya, and I love bein’ your marefriend. That’s very different from me liking sex.”
“Sex is like… cake… someponies, or most ponies, love cake but someponies just don’t. I’d rather have pie than cake, anyway though." She kept the dishes to dry. "Get it?"
Rainbow grinned like a three-year-old as she nodded vigorously. "So… sex is cake and all the sappy stuff is pie? Like that?"
AJ stared at her for a second and snorted. “Yeah. No wonder you hate all the sappy stuff, ay?”
Dash rolled her eyes and laughed too.
The next half hour was spent doing some farm stuff. Bucking down the apples from the trees, collecting them in baskets then taking said baskets inside. Rinse and repeat this cycle about a dozen upon dozens of times and there you have Applejack's entire morning to lunch. Rather tedious, but at least she had a little cyan featherbrain helping her this time.
Rainbow was a pretty fast learner, at least in these hooves-on type of areas. She picked up the apple-bucking method quickly, nowhere near to the mastery Applejack had of it, but that was to be expected.
As all things usually went when the pair were put together with little to no supervision, they ended up competing for who could get the most apples bucked before lunch.
With Applejack well in the lead due to— well, having done this since she could walk— Dahs found her own tactics to win; try to win. Namely to distract AJ with the dumbest questions that popped up in her mind. At least AJ liked to believe Dash only asked to be distracting and not out of genuine curiosity.
“So, you’re still not hetero, right?”
Applejack shot her head up at the Pegasus. “What,” she asked, flat and dry, hoping to convey the stupidity that was Dash right now.
"Like, you said that pie is different from cake, so if you don’t wanna bone anypony, then you have to be into ponies non-sexually, right? Otherwise… you wouldn’t be with me, right?" Even to her, that logic seemed very nonsensical, but it made enough sense for Rainbow to ask the question.
"Well… don’t hetero mean you’re into the opposite sex, alone?" Rainbow nodded in response. AJ heaved a sigh as Rainbow bucked down the tree that was exactly right to Applejack, "Then how the hay does make any sense,” she asked flatly.
Rainbow took a second to process, and when she did you could easily tell. Her cheeks turned a shade of light pink and she ducked her head ever so, "Oh…”
About ten minutes passed by with no more random questions from Rainbow. Ten minutes of absolute silence. Something that would normally drive the pegasus insane with boredom. Today, however, seemed to be a day of dumb questions and a lot of reconsidering and thinking on her part. But it wasn’t over. The questions, that is.
"So what are you?" Rainbow asked a little before they hit the two hours and fifteen minutes mark.
Applejack cocked an eyebrow, "A pony. Proud earth pony to be precise." She bucked yet another tree down.
"More like really annoying,” she grumbled under her breath, "I mean, like what are you… like bi, or pan, or just gay, just with your ace-iness mixed in."
"Oh! See now, Rainbow, that’s a pretty good question to ask. Not a dumb one." Applejack smirked, "And the answer; I’m bi— technically speaking I ain’t bisexual; I’m biromantic, which ls like the same as bisexual just without the sex part."
Rainbow nodded slowly. “Um, okay.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Now, ya better hurry. There’s less than an hour for ya to catch up!”
Rainbow scowled. "How do you know I’m not already in the lead?! There's no counter!" Rainbow pouted, huffing.
"No, there is one. That’s up 'ere." Applejack tapped a hoof on her head.
Rainbow rolled her eyes, and bucked down another tree, before quickly getting to the next, and so on. After having knocked out apples from six separate trees, she stopped and turned to her partner, who at that same time managed to get down double what Dash managed. "So–”
Applejack mentally braced herself.
“Rarity told me that some aces don’t really think they’re part of the whole queer community. Like some people don’t wanna be and others think aces don’t belong and all that... What’s your take on it…?”
Applejack found herself stumped. She had never really thought too deeply on the matter; thought it was obvious and didn’t need further considerations.
She sat in her thoughts, considering what to say before piping up a minute or so later. “I mean– I definitely think we’re queer enough, ya know? Never knew ponies thought otherwise. I don’t see why they would but it’s not like it bothers me too much, ya know? We’ve got our own shit to deal with, so I think we belong— I don’t see anything inherently wrong with thinkin’ otherwise though.”
“What about non-aces saying you don’t belong in the community?”
AJ snorted. “They’re dickheads.”
Dash laughed along, bucking down a few trees as she did so.
"Also! Ten more minutes, RD, hurry it up." Applejack sat down on the floor, under an already buck apple tree. She leaned back and laid her back conformably on its stable frame. "I'm even gonna play hare for ya."
"Ha, ha."
Rainbow quickly bucked down a few more trees before her mind thought up another little thing to ask. A little thing she didn’t want to have to ask, but she needed to know at that point. "So… I know you wouldn’t want me asking this… but…"
"Repulsed. Absolutely repulsed. I like jokin' about it, 'cause, well, it’s a joke to me, but no. I never really wan" it for myself."
Rainbow blinked. She let out a short, "huh" before it clicked in her head. "Oh wait, no! I wasn’t asking that!" She flailed her hooves in front of her and shot up into the air. "I kinda figured you weren’t a fan, considering what you said the other day."
Applejack sat up and stared Rainbow dead in the eyes for about the seventh time that morning or something like that. Rainbow was a featherbrain. A very, very confusing featherbrain. Granted, that was one thing Applejack absolutely loved about Dash. "Then?"
"I meant, like, are you part plant? I asked Twi about the whole ace thing 'cause i didn't really know anything and I wanted to-- nevermind! Point is; all Twi knew was that asexual was something to do with plants-- so~"
AJ could do nothing but sigh. She sure had a thing for idiots, huh? “Dash, do I look like a plant to ya?”
Dash shrugged. “You seem to like them a lot. Remember that time you read a bedtime story to a tree?”
AJ found herself stumped yet again. She– she had forgotten about Bloomberg. She cleared her throat, willing the pink in her cheeks to vanish. “That was– that’s different. I am, in no way, related to plants, thank ya very much.”
Dash rolled her eyes and laughed. “Different time, different place, right?”
“Right. Point still stands. I ain’t no fucking plant.”
“Yeah, got that.”
Dash said no more as she continued to try and catch up. She had a long, long way to go before she managed to do so, and Applejack let her fuel her own delusion.
Ten-ish minutes past and Dash still wasn’t all that close to surpassing AJ’s grand total of one-sixty trees before lunch– a personal record.
“Hurry it up, slowpoke, only got five minutes to spare. Y’all still got forty– fifty trees left before ya catch up!”
Dash picked up the pace, going from three trees per minute to five-ish. Which was roughly twenty-five after five minutes.
"And that's time!" Applejack announced as she strode over to Rainbow with a little smug look on her face. "Nice game partner." She held out a hoof that was expecting a little bump from a cyan hoof.
"Alright, one more question."
Applejack cocked an eyebrow. She figured Rainbow was done with the questions, or simply lost interest in asking them right now.
"Ace or asexual?" She grinned randomly.
AJ raised an eyebrow "What- well, that ain’t soemthin' I’ve got before– ace– I guess, I dunno."
Rainbow lifted off the ground effortlessly. She swung her hooves in the air in what Applejack could only assume to bw her attempt at writing something in it. “Acejack or Jackace?”
Applejack blinked, staring nearly owlishy at her marefriend. After a moment, she simply rolled her eyes, not at all fighting the fond smile that crept up. Dash was a featherbrain, no questions asked. But at least she was a lovable featherbrain.
The farm pony shrugged. “I like AJ better, honestly.”
The pegasus scoffed, apparently displeased with her partner’s answer. “Well, me too, but that has no– like– no POP to it, ya know?”
“Pop,” Applejack echoed.
“It’s boring! So pick one or I’ll do it.”
Applejack laughed. “Jackace sounds like you’re calling me a jackass, so that fits you better.”
Dash clapped her hooves together. “I was hoping you’d say that! Also--" the pegasus grinned widely, "--race you back to barn, Jackace!” And she zoomed off, leaving Applejack hollering after her.
“Oh, you get back here!”
Author's Note
'Cause I realised that Dash being an oblivious dork doesn't really fit very well with the totally understanding, totaly chill Dash we got in S&T, I have come to the decision that the two are no longer related with one another. Do with that what you will
Also, rereading the fic was actual torture for me, i'll be honest. The story wasn't awful but like the constant use of labels and terms I really can't imagine these guys using is so, so jarring and off-putting. In the rewrite i tried fixing it as much as possible without altering the original point too much The og felt so much like an infodump and not at all like a proper story-- I have tried fixing it but the effects of the og are still kinda there. It's def a whole lot better than what it once was, at least in my eyes
