Pinkie puffed out a lungfull of air and giggled as her breath condensed into a cloud in front of her. It wasn’t really funny, but it made her feel less like she was just waiting. Waiting made her think of the snow and ice, and thinking about snow and ice made her think of cold.
Pinkie had a complicated relationship with cold. On the one hand, she loved to wear her big poofy coat and mittens and hats and scarves and all sorts of warm fuzzy things that were just too hot most of the year. On the other hand, she really loved winter activities like ice skating and snowball fights and cuddling under blankets. On the third hand, not that she had three hands, but it would be fun to have extra appendages, she didn’t like the cold. Cold was all shivery and not cuddly. It always brought to mind the lonely howl of the wind across rock strewn fields from her childhood. Somber was a word that Pinkie wasn’t fond of, and the cold made her think of somber thoughts.
She scrunched her shoulders inside of her fluffy coat and tried to bury her face in her scarf and she rapidly shuffled in place.
“Hey, Pinks!”
Pinkie Pie snapped her eyes open and grinned, even if her scarf kept anyone from seeing it. With a whoop of delight she flung herself at Rainbow Dash. Between the icy ground and her winter gear, there was rather less flinging than normal and quite a bit more stumbling forward and falling against. But Rainbow’s and her arms wrapped around each other. Which was the important part.
Dash chuckled as she brought her face close to Pinkie’s. “At least I assume Pinkie’s in there somewhere.” She placed a quick peck on the bridge of Pinkie’s nose. One of the few bits of skin she hadn’t covered.
The comment, more than the kiss, elicited a quick gigglesnort from Pinkie.
“You got your skates?” Dash asked. At a nod towards her bag, Dash smiled and hefted it up onto her shoulder. “Then let’s get the best hearths warming eve day ever started!”
“I still don’t see how you skate so well in all of that.” Rainbow twisted, turning to skate backwards, as Pinkie’s figure eight took her behind Dash. It was a new skill for Rainbow, but already she hardly wobbled while performing it.
“It’s just a lot of practice!” She replied. “Plus, Marble always liked to cheer me on.” At the head of her figure eight, with Rainbow now facing forward again, Pinkie hopped into the air and despite her bulky clothing, spun around and landed on one skate, curving into a wider circle.
Rainbow pushed forward and caught up to Pinkie, who shifted her feet and sent the pair into a quick spin that ate their momentum and left them still near the edge of the rink.
“You’re getting better, Dashie! Soon we’ll have you doing triple lutzes with your eyes closed!” A pair of mittens pulled Rainbow in and Pinkie raised her chin enough for a brief kiss. “Brrrr!” Pinkie shook her whole body dramatically.
“We’re inside! It’s not even that cold, you goof!” Rainbow planted another kiss on Pinkie’s forehead.
“It’s the principle of the thing! Ice skating means ice and ice means cold!”
Whatever Rainbow was going to say was cut off with a spray of ice that caused Pinkie to squeal. Rainbow turned to glare at the person who’d interrupted them and found a grinning Applejack.
A moment later Rarity slid to a stop beside her. “Applejack, dear. Was that necessary?” She punctuated her complaint with a light slap against her arm.
“Hi, Rarity! Hi, Applejack!” Pinkie shouted and waved at both of them as if they weren’t within normal conversation distance. “Are you here on a date too?”
Rarity titled her nose into the air and her voice took on a haughty tone. “Alas. I’ve not been asked on a date by anyone I’d care to enter a relationship with. Least of all this miscreant.” A light blush stained her cheeks as Applejack shifted her weight nervously.
Pinkie leaned forward to whisper to Rainbow. “It’s not like I like you or anything.” Which caused the two of them to break into laughter.
Rarity and Applejack ignored the laugher save for a deepening of their blushes. Before embarrassment could prod Applejack into doing something reckless, the PA system popped and crackled. “Skaters, please clear the ice! We’ll be taking a short break while the Zamboni does its magic!”
“Oh! We can use the time to get snacks!” Pinkie began to drag Rainbow towards the exit.
“Fluttershy and Sunset are gonna meet us at Joe’s if you wanna come.”
“Ooooh! Donuts sound great! Can we go, Dashie?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Sure. But you do know it’s basically a coffee bar these days, right?”
Pinkie stiffened. “He- he still makes good donuts.”
Pinkie felt a light wave of sorrow come over her as the four of them entered Cuppa Joe’s, formerly Donut Joe’s. It wasn’t that he hadn’t served coffee before, but something had changed about the place. It had lost its dinner quality, and that loss made Pinkie a little sad. Not really sad, but some small part of her mourned the passing of such a classic feeling place.
On the other hand, Joe’s smelled fantastic now. It hadn’t been stinky before, but the smell of roast beans beat the odor of stale oil any day. It’s too bad that coffee beans were liars. Their sweet, earthy aroma covered up a sludgy bitter sadness of a drink. Even sugar, cream, and various flavors like hazelnut couldn’t cover up.
“Come on though!” Rainbow pleaded with Rarity. “If we were in a coffee shop AU, I’d have to be the sassy owner. That way Pinkie could be girl who buys coffee just to flirt even though she doesn’t drink it.”
“Yeah,” said Applejack, “but why am I one of the baristas? I don’t know diddly squat about making coffee. Plus I got the farm to look after.”
Pinkie giggled. “Well duh, my most Apple-y of Jacks. You have to be a barista because coffee shop AUs always split couples into customer and employee!”
“We. Are not. Dating!” hissed Applejack.
“Who’s not dating?” Sunset’s arrival caused Dash and Rarity to start. Despite her red and blonde hair, Sunset had a way of just appearing behind someone. Two years ago it had been terrifying, but now it was the fun kind of scary.
Fluttershy leaned out from behind Sunset. She was stooped over, using the shorter girl as a sort of shield. Pinkie didn’t think Fluttershy was the kind of person to like spooking her friends, but the slight grin on her lips was making her rethink that assumption.
“Rainbow waved a hand at Rarity and Applejack. “The denial twins. Who else?” She paused mid gesture. “Actually, if they were twins–”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity fixed her with a glare. “You will not complete that sentence.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and Pinkie stifled a giggle. Rarity made fun faces when she thought she should be upset. Dramatically Upset Rarity was very different from Actually Upset Rarity.
“Ah,” said Sunset. “Yes. Rarity and Applejack are not dating. That is a true statement.” Sunset drew several bemused looks from the rest of the group. Bemused being bewildered or confused, and not similar to amused. Pinkie would not forget Twilight’s lecture on the subject. Who knew that was anyone’s pet peeve? “We’ve got a table in the back and it should be big enough for all of us.”
The group made for the indicated table near the back wall, worming their way between smaller two and three tops. Rarity, her flair of anger forgotten sidled up next to Rainbiw Dash.
“Dear, I wanted to know if you’d thought more about that little idea we discussed early?”
Pinkie didn’t pay too much attention to Rainbow’s reply or the subsequent conversation. She was too busy trying to sort out all of the aromas permeating the room. There were strong overtones of caramel and hazelnut, but lilac and raspberry, probably from the obligatory tea section, and of course the ever present aroma of roast bean underscoring everything.
A tremor in her calf brought her attention back to her friends, who were mostly seated around the table. Rarity was still engrossed in conversation with Rainbow, but had sat next to Fluttershy. With Sunset on her other side, that left Applejack frowning at the open spot across the table from Rarity.
As Applejack reluctantly took the chair, the tremor ran down Pinkie’s leg and made her toe itch. It was a new combination and she had no idea what it could mean. How exciting!
“You know. For someone who can do rings around anyone else on skates, you sure suck at dealing with ice.” Rainbow Dash stepped around another hazard.
Pinkie blushed from her place on Rainbow Dash’s back and squeezed tighter to the other girl. “Sorry, Rainbow. I didn’t want to cut the snowball fight short.”
“Nah, it’s cool.” Somehow Dash was able to wave her hand dismissively without tipping Pinkie off of her back. “Scoots and them are cool, boot stomping freshmen gets old after a while. I’m just glad you had enough padding to keep from getting actually hurt.”
Pinkie cringed a little. Rainbow hadn’t meant it like that, but Pinkie couldn’t help but think of the ways some people used to draw attention to her pudge.
“Ok. I felt that. What did I say?”
Pinkie smiled. It had taken the entire semester, but Rainbow Dash was way more comfortable asking about things like this. Twilight’s example of bluntly telling her friends she knew something was wrong, but didn’t know what had probably helped.
“It wasn’t anything you said. It’s just…” Pinkie sagged a bit. Part of encouraging Dash to actually ask about feelings was answering. “Snails used that phrase to call me fat.”
“Snails is an idiot,” Rainbow snapped. “You’re fine. But if you wanted to be running buddies, that would be super cool.”
Pinkie smiled and snuggled against Rainbow’s back, the warm feeling inside dispelling the ever present cold for a moment.
“Alright.” Rainbow let go of Pinkie’s legs. “We’re here.” After a moment, she said, “Come on, Pinks. I can’t get up those stairs carrying you.”
“But it’s so comfy here.”
“Well, we could stay outside in the cold for the next hour or whatever. Or we could go get hot coco, and—”
Pinkie was off of Rainbow’s back and halfway up the stairs in a flash. She turned and gave Rainbow her best pout. “Daaaaaashie! I need hot chocolate!”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, but hustled up the two flights of stairs to the apartment she shared with Fluttershy. The other girl was spending the night at Sunset’s place, so they had the run of their two bedroom for the evening.
Pinkie impatiently hopped from foot to foot while Dash dug out her key. Once the door was unlocked, Dash jumped back as Pinkie shot into the room ahead of her, shedding layers of warm clothing as she skipped towards the kitchen.
“You got real chocolate this time?” she called over her shoulder. “And milk?”
Rainbow laughed and replied, “yeah. And the espresso frother is clean too. You want me to boil some water?”
“What?!” Pinkie popped her head out of the kitchen. “Water?! No!” Pinkie hopped over to the fridge and pulled out the half empty milk she found there. “One percent. At least it’s not skim.”
She quickly heated some milk in a pot, whisked in some cocoa, and dropped in a double handful of chocolate pieces. As Rainbow wandered over to watch, Pinkie began to explain. “You really want to use two percent, or even whole milk to get that extra creamy feeling. But anything will work, actually. Even almond milk! The key is not getting it so hot that it melts the marshmallows. Speaking of marshmallows, where are yours?”
Pinkie looked up and found Rainbow holding a jar of marshmallow fluff up towards her. They locked eyes and Pinkie didn’t make a sound as she stared at Rainbow Dash.
“Wrong thing?”
Pinkie nodded once, inhaled deeply, and reached into her curls to fish out a small white envelope.
“I thought you banned me from powdered hot chocolate!” Rainbow said.
“Desperate times, Dashie!” Pinkie located a small strainer, and dumped the packets’s contents into it, sifting out the marshmallows and then tossing them into her pot. Before the drinks could cool too much, the two were seated on Dash’s couch, sipping coco and cuddling while some kung fu flick began on the TV.
As they settled in under a floofy blanket m to watch what was apparently the seventh movie in a series Pinkie had never heard of, she reflected on winter again. She hated the cold, but there were a lot of activities she loved. And she was doing the best two right now.
Fin
Applejack lay awake in bed, staring up at her phone rereading Sunset’s last text.
I know that dash can be an ass sometimes
and pinkie isn’t quite as good as seeing
when they go too far, but if you want
rarity to stop being mad at you, then
you need to accept that dash is a bit of
a jerk and just deal with the fallout
and ask rarity out
Like she’d say yes to me
I swear to celestia that she is all but
begging you to do that. She’s just
being subtle because she’s scared and
rarity. And she thinks you're just
being "a charming darling" or something
I just wish I knew she wanted
from me y’know
👏 rarity 👏 wants 👏 you 👏 to 👏 ask
👏 her 👏 out 👏
```
seriously. She wants you to ask her
not the other way around. It's a thing
```
Applejack stared up at her phone. It was impossible. She’s been crushing hard on Rarity for almost a year, and Sunset was saying that Rarity felt the same way? About her?
But despite being a pony from a parallel world, Sunset was crazy good at reading people, especially her friends. And that was before she got literal mind reading magic. Not that she’s use that. Or well. Not on purpose. If Sunset said Rarity like her too, then she was probably right.
After a minute of contemplation, she swiped back and started a new message. When her phone beeped at her.
and do it in person! With flowers. If
you ask her out with a text she will
murder you before saying yes.
Author's Note
It's fluff. I hope it's cute. And I hope y'all enjoyed it.
