A Ballad of Eeyup and Nope

by ambion

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Main 6, Big Macintosh
Length: 32900

Big Macintosh has a day off, but he can't say his most notable two words

The challenge? Daunting. The reward? Worthy. Failure? Not an option. For Big Macintosh has accepted the bet, and thus begins A Ballad of Eeyup and Nope - in which he isn't allowed to say either.

Published 2012-09-25 15:14:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-12 20:57:17 UTC

Aay..?

Rainbow Dash’s face was buried in her hoof as she flitted back and forth. Luckily for her, there was nothing immediately about for her to bump into, save Big Macintosh himself. He was, of course, the source of her vexations.

“Again,” she commanded.

Big Mac’s breath whistled as he drew it. He held it a long second, awaiting the pegasi’s word.

“Am I Rainbow Dash, the most awesome, coolest, fastest flying and-” she spotted the stallion going a bit blue for breath - “all ‘round best pegasus?”

“Ayyy,” he wheezed out, the word grinding like dusty stone at his throat.

Dash stopped on the wing. “Big Macintosh?” she asked with perfect calm.

The red pony prepared himself best he could. “Aay-?” It felt like his whole head was twisting in on itself, trying to accommodate the alien phrase.

“Stop. Stop! Just don’t. It’s just...so wrong.”

The stallion sighed and his head hung low. “I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash. It just ain’t me.”

“I know that feel bro, I know that feel.”

“Still,” he began again, glad at least to have his real voice, not that...whatever it had been, “thanks for trying, anyway. I appreciate that.”

The blue wings of Rainbow Dash flared, suddenly she was all up in his face. “You think I’m quitting here?”

“But, it’s...”

Magenta eyes narrowed. “You think I’m quitting?”

“Nn-” her hooves were fast. Real fast, and clamped his mouth shut forcefully.

“If you think I’m letting you fail this challenge, you’ve got another thing coming!” Rainbow Dash declared. “Any challenge she issues, I gotta beat.”

“Thank you, Dash, but-”

Rainbow Dash whirled about, striking a pose towards the distance. “Oh sure, you might be Applejack’s brother, but I’m like her best friend. You just don’t understand the kind of...kind of...like...” Dash clapped her hooves together, grinding them intently, “kind of sibling rivalry we got going! This is clearly a challenge she’s put to me!”

Big Macintosh, frankly, wasn’t quite sure if the pegasus even remembered him being there. Then she whirled about again, her face again filling his entire view, her smirk very small but very sharp. Big Macintosh winced and gulped. He’d come out to the park to get away from books and crazy mares. He didn’t feel better at all for lack of books, though.

“Applejack does not beat me. You understand? Applejack. Cannot. Win.” Dash cracked her hoof down and beamed the sort of smile that erupts in cackling if not addressed by a trained professional. “Hence,” and her hoof prodded his chest, “You do not lose.”

Dash wandered off a few steps, laughing darkly under her breath. “Oh, Applejack. Clever girl. You knew you couldn’t beat me pony to pony, so you challenge somepony else instead. But I see through your game! I’ve got, like, hawk eyes! Eagle eyes! You’d have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to pull a fast one over on Rainbow Danger Dash!”

Big Mac very carefully shuffled away.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um, err, aahh,”

“You know,” she said, sharpening her smirk, “if you couldn’t say any words-”

“Rainbow Dash,” he called, half shouting, half pleading.

“She’s probably expecting that...” the pegasus muttered, then quite suddenly slammed her rear to the ground, steepling her hooves under her chin and clapping them anxiously together. “What’s your game, Applejack? What’s your game?”

“I’m...gonna go.” Dash nodded vaguely; Big Mac left her to her ponderings.

He had hoped to ask her for a favour, being the weather pony and all, but somehow it didn’t seem a good time just then. The stallion looked over his shoulder. It might never be a good time, to consider it. Well, that hole in the fields wasn’t going anywhere soon.

Big Mac took his time as he strolled, since there wasn’t really any hope of outrunning the fastest pegasus alive anyway. His eyes kept skimming to the trees, so familiar yet so subtly uncanny; not his trees. The stallion’s thoughts, however, wandered into territory stranger again by half.

Applejack had strange friends. What had Twilight Sparkle even been on about? And he’d more than enough Rainbow for the day, but something in his bones told him there’d be plenty more to go around.

It was such a good thing that he was a normal, healthy, sensible and well adjusted pony.

“Ey-yalp!” Big Macintosh squawked and fell over, head over hooves - then hooves over head.

“Hi!” called out Pinkie Pie, her face upside down over his vision. Her smile was huge, and nervous as he was, Big Mac couldn’t quite resist. He managed an awkward little smile of his own.

“Hello,” he said, mindful of his words.

Something in this was utterly hilarious; Pinkie Pie howled with laughter, toppling over so that she also lay on her back next to Big Macintosh. She stopped without warning, looked him in the eye, then erupted with giggles again.

“Oh Big Mac, you so silly! Getting roped into a bet like that with Applejack? You can’t say ‘yep’, ‘nope’ or ‘turpentine’!” she managed to say as her giggles lessened.

The stallion stood up. Pinkie Pie just seemed to explode and bounce to an upright position. “I can say ‘turpentine,’ he mumbled, sending the mare into another bout of hysterics. He was getting a little worried, in truth.

A blur of blue sped towards them both. “Pinkie Pie, what do you think you’re doing? Get away from my star player!” A pink hoof shot out, snaked around Rainbow Dash, shedding all the mare’s momentum with a deft twirl before setting the pegasus gently to her hooves. Rainbow Dash blinked.

“Oh Dashie, he’s not your star player.”

“Ey-” Two hooves, blue and pink, forced the stallion’s mouth shut, though neither mare even looked to him as they did so. He was starting to feel a bit degraded, actually.

“That doesn’t matter! What matter’s is that Big Mac is my ticket to beating Applejack.”

“Maybe it’s not about you-”

Rainbow Dash scoffed. “That’s a good one, but this is no time for jokes. Of course it’s about me,” she said.

Big Macintosh and Pinkie Pie exchanged ‘is this mare serious?’ look, before he realized that the other half here was Pinkie Pie, and if you had to ask her if somepony was serious or not...

“This is serious business!” The pegasus called out, fidgeting left and right. “Pinkie Pie, help me come up with ideas! I think we should tie his mouth-”

“Nnope.”

The word. The word was spoken! Big Mac’s eyes went wider than he thought possible. Dash reared back to the heavens and screamed a long, ululating ‘Noooo!’

Pinkie grinned, and the stallion realized he hadn’t actually said anything at all...

The party pony danced in jubilation. “I am so good, Unh! You totally fell for it!”

“Pinkie Pie!” both Dash and Macintosh cried. That’d just been harsh, tearing on his heartstrings like that.

“And I’m not taking sides!” the mare sing-songed. “Taking a side means only half as much fun, and there’s no fun in that!” Pinkie Pie reared back and cackled, her forelegs kicking at the air, her head flung back. Lightning crackled across the sky, adding the precise and proper accompaniment to it all.

Dash only sighed. “Derpy! I told you to get rid of that cloud last week! It’s too electrical!”

The gray mare blushed and moved the fizzing little storm cloud along. When they looked back down, Pinkie Pie had vanished.

“This can’t be good,” Big Mac mumbled.

Dash stomped the ground. “Darn! I can’t have her pulling...well, pulling a Pinkie Pie on my plans! If I have to use every feather I’ve got, I’ll tickle her schemes right out of her! As for you-” she whipped about, steely in poise and tone. “Do not fail me.”

Big Mac could only gulp and backed away hastily, afraid to meet Dash’s eye but more afraid to look away. The pegasus grunted once then leapt, a vertical ascent faster than terminal velocity itself, then she was gone.

He managed one good breath before the sound of magic filled the air. Like a spoing! kind of noise, accompanied by a flash of purple light.

“Rainbow Dash I need to--Ahh!BigMacintosh?!OhMyGoshSorryBye!” Spoing! rang out again as Twilight Sparkle exploded, disappearing as quickly as she’d appeared.

Big Mac shut his eyes and focused on breathing. He didn’t move, not for a few minutes. If his every step was going to lead him into some calamity...

Trembling slightly, he finally moved his hoof. Birds chirped. Leaves rustled in the breeze and flowers quickened the air with fragrance. The distinct lack of psychotic mares added a delicate delight to everything. The stallion sighed a good, long breath and went on his way, blissfully ignorant of the machinations of mares.

Close Calls

Big Macintosh was lost in the woods, which wasn’t half so dramatic as it sounded. This was Whitetail Woods, which by and large more closely resembled fluffy kittens than the vaunted Everfree Forest. They both had trees, and there the similarities ceased entirely. The red stallion was easily the largest thing around the halcyon groves, and calm as the escape made him, he was yet to fully shake the feelings of being hunted and coursed.

Worse still, his sense of fair play nagged him constantly. It wasn’t a rule, per se, but skulking about alone wasn’t in the true spirit of the contest. He was supposed to be in town, mingling. Cursing his good nature, Big Mac knew he’d have to head back into Ponyville. When he stepped onto the trackway for the Running of the Leaves, he let them lead him home.

The wind playing through the leaves set his mind at ease; sure there’d been a rough start, but there were plenty more ponies in Ponyville and he’d toughed out the bet so far. Feeling optimistic, some would say foolishly so, and warmed by the sunshine, the colt came back to town.

“Hiya Big Mac!” chirped Pinkie Pie as she strolled on by. He was one step into town, one step past the last tree of Whitetail, and he was faced with the most delightful and/or crazy mare around.

Oh, and she was adorned head to hoof in a spy mare catsuit. In the complete open, in broad daylight. A skintight, spandex catsuit.

What a broad.

For all that she wasn’t actually doing anything, not even affecting attempts at sneaking and stealth. Indeed, ponies milling about the place paid her no mind whatsoever, and for a moment Big Mac had the dizzying, inexplicable sense that this mare might be much, much more clever than she ever let on.

That, or she was just being Pinkie Pie.

He managed to smile for her big blue eyes as she passed, feeling somehow trapped, like a playing piece on a board, and she wasn’t even playing the same game as everypony else. She was bobbing her head as if to a catchy tune, whistling happily to herself.

“Seeya Big Mac!”

“Uh...see ya,” he managed to call back. He quickly shook off the feeling and kept onwards, keeping an eye to the sky. A glance at the clocktower to the edge of town told him it was just past noon, by seven minutes to be precise.

“Hiya Big Mac!” he heard and neary but totally didn’t jump in startlement, but this voice was notably higher, and coming from lower, than the similarly exuberant tone he’d expected. His smallest sister and her friends laughed. “You jumped!”

“Oh, Apple Bloom. Scootaloo. Sweetie Belle,” he said, giving a nod to each in turn. They fell into a formation of sorts around him, a ridiculous triangle of fillies flanking him, his sister in the lead.

“We decided,” she began, “we can give the Great Crusade a break for today. Instead we’re gonna help you out with this bet of yours.” The filly stopped and rolled her eyes, holding up the whole group. “As a thank you, and all that. And we ran into a few ponies who want to see you too, so yeah, you need all the help you can get.”

Before Big Macintosh could voice anything a sudden gasp of alarm came up from the left flank, err, from Scootaloo.

“Rainbow Dash,incoming!” the filly shrieked and indeed, a blazing blue blur had zeroed in on their position.

“Hey, champ, there you are!” the pegasus shouted from on high, rapidly descending like a bird of prey.

The fillies shared some sort of Meaningful Glances, resulting in the orange filly nodding just once. She broke away, interposing herself between the others and her idol.

“Run, you fools!” she hissed, then turned to face her fate. Big Mac was hurried along, and the last he saw of Scootaloo, the filly had transformed, channelling her gushing inner fan-filly with such shamelessly aggrandizing adulations for the greatest, the quickest and fastest, the most awesomely amazing super duper fantastic awesomest flier that Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but forget everything and bask in the praise.

“In here!” shouted the little unicorn, and the quite sufficiently stupefied Big Macintosh stepped from the daylight into the inviting shadows of Carousel Boutique. “Rainbow Dash won’t think to look for you here!” the filly chirped.

What had seemed shadowy wasn’t anything of the sort, not really. It was less bright than the open day certainly, but done so in such a way that created pale little shadows that somehow brought out the finer details of the colours, shapes and textures in everything that filled the dressmaker’s shop.

Everything was so pristine and perfectly placed. It gave the big stallion an edge of self-consciousness

“I wouldn’t think to look for me here either,” he rumbled.

“I know, right?” the white filly chirped happily, bouncing along on her hooves to a door near the back. “It’s perfect! Let me just get Rarity,” she said and bounded away.

Apple Bloom ushered him onwards “Don’t worry, Rarity’s pretty cool.”

Big Macintosh was less than confident. Eeyup and Nnope were a constant, droning backdrop to his thoughts now, and the very last thing he needed was another crazy mare. Please don’t be crazy. Please don’t be crazy

And there she was. Big Mac blinked. Rarity blinked. She had curlers in her hair, but other than her surprise at finding the stallion running with the Crusaders, she looked grudgingly tolerant of it as a clear part in her sister’s antics. It made him instantly feel they had something in common. On further examination she looked tired, though she covered for it well.

“Sweetie...”

“Yep?” the filly said with a chirp. Big Macintosh twitched.

Rarity sighed. “Aren’t you a little young to be bringing stallions home?” Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow, pouting with her attempt to understand. “Nevermind, dear,” Rarity added quickly. With a flourish and a tug, the curlers were tugged free. Luscious locks fell into place with a bounce. She went to the counter and poured herself a coffee. “How much of this story do I want to hear?”

Big Mac cleared his throat. “That depends, ma’am—”

Rarity waved a dismissive hoof in the air as she poured her drink.

Big Macintosh shuffled a bit on his hooves. “Short version then?”

“Yes, please.” Rarity drank a heady draught of coffee, then gestured towards the pot. Big Mac shook his head, declining the offer.

“Erm,” he began, trying to get the crux of the crazy issue. It was Sweetie Belle who did it for him.

“Big Macintosh needs a place to lay low ‘til the fuzz is off his back.” Mare and stallion alike gave the smiling filly wide, blank looks.

“Sweetie Belle?”

“Yeah, sis?”

“One day soon I’m going to have to find out what it is you Crusaders actually get up to when nopony is watching you, you know that?” Rarity sighed a brew embittered breath.

“Yep!” said the filly with utter cheerful confidence. Big Mac bit down on his tongue until the worst of the urge to say the forbidden word passed him by.

“My brother’s gone and got himself wrassled into a bet with my sister. Rainbow Dash’s gone a tad crazy what with deciding to be his coach to make sure he beats her.” The filly’s eyes went wide and watery; even her bow slumped, somehow. “Scootaloo sacrificed herself to get him this far. Please, miss Rarity, just for a little while?” The little unicorn added her pleading eyes to the request.

“Sacrificed herself?” Rarity repeated, her voice flat enough to put a spirit level to shame.

“Uh-huh,” Sweetie Belle intoned sorrowfully.

Apple Bloom patted her friend comfortingly. “It’s the way she’d have wanted to go.” In the meantime, Rarity and Big Macintosh exchanged looks of mutual confusion.

The bell above the door jingled. “Hey guys,” said Scootaloo as she came in.

Their mourning entirely forgotten in an instant, the other two crusaders perked back up. “So it worked?” asked Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo’s eyes had just the slightest bit of a glazed, faraway look to them, and she stared somewhere just beyond her friends. A bit of a silly smile snuck its way onto her lips. “Totally.” She blinked and recalled herself. “There any snacks? Oh hey Rarity.”

“Hello, Scootaloo.” Rarity grumbled daintily and sipped the coffee, not entirely hiding her pout. “I suppose you can stay for a little bit, Big Mac.” Rarity sighed into her cup, then topped it up. “I’m giving you fair warning. I was up all night working. I am very tired and short on patience right now.” She turned on the fillies with unexpected sharpness. They leapt together and leaned back from the baleful mare. “That goes doubly so for you three.”

She drifted away, her brief energy spent, mumbling about the work she still had to do. The fillies left, deciding that a short fused Rarity was hazardous even by their standards, promising to check in on Big Mac later. After all, everypony reasoned, he should be safe enough here. For now.

“Eey-yalp!” Big Mac choked, spluttering as he fell to his knees. It was getting harder to resist. He wasn’t going to give in, he wasn’t! “No-arrgh!” he growled, and toppled entirely.

“Everything alright down there?” Rarity called.

Big Mac considered the only two possible answers, so near yet so far away. He whined under his breath, stifling a sniffle. The livelong day had never looked so long before.

Stitchin' Time

Big Macintosh did his best to be unobtrusive and useful. He was better at it than many ponies would have expected of him, big and strong stallion that he was. He was a guest in a mare’s home, and while he may well be not one to get out often, he certainly knew what did and what did not constitute the social graces in this sort of circumstance.

He stayed resolutely to the downstairs, more open area of Rarity’s home. Her white cat, its name unknown to him, eyed him warily, following from room to room. Big Mac realized he was ambling about restlessly and got himself a glass of water, just to force himself to stop wandering the halls.

He knew he should try to relax, and for the most part he was calm, but true peace of mind perpetually eluded him. There was just too much going on today, both within his head and in the world at large. Opalescence came to her own conclusions, ignored him utterly, and set about washing herself in the doorway.

Rarity’s home was so very different from that of the Apples. It was a difference that started, quite literally, from the foundations. The unicorn had reclaimed the old disused pavilion in the heart of town, seeing a potential there nopony else had. She’d really done a number and a half and maybe even a fraction on the place, finding in the curved walls and reclusive corners space for home, workshop and store, all in one neat package. Everything from the cutlery to the curtains suggested her personal touch, her preferences and vision of what she wanted to have, and to be.

It was made to be welcoming but Big Mac, heavy hooves and shaggy coat that he was, felt self-conscious in this sanctum of soft colours and softer couch cushions. He rested for awhile, thinking, and petted the cat when it eventually came to him.

“Ah, there we are, much better for a proper greeting, don’t you think?” Rarity, all bouncy curls and lashes, pulled him from his reverie. Her eyes were bright, herself standing tall in a ready to face the day kind of way. She looked stunning, and she knew it. The beleaguered mare of earlier was obliterated or, at the least, obscured. She relaxed, completely and utterly, then lifted the cat to herself in a pale cascade of magic. “It looks like you’ve made a friend, Big Macintosh,” she said warmly.

He just nodded, mindful of his flapping gums today. “Reckon I have.”

She shushed him with a wave of her hoof before he could go further. “Think nothing of it, my good sir. We may not be the most well acquainted of Ponyvillians, but that only stands as something to be improved upon, don’t you think? You’ve always been such a gentlecolt, if I do say so myself.”

She set Opalesence down and strode across the room, a queen in her castle. He stood up, like a soldier called to attention, whereas the poofy cat could not have cared less. She curled up on a cushion by the wall, just under a shiny clock. “Thank you mightily, miss Rarity.”

She lowered her eyes on him and smiled easily. “You really don’t have to call me ‘miss’, you know.”

“If it’s all the same to you, miss Rarity, it’s just my way. I don’t mean nothing by it.”

“Of course not. It is rather endearing. If I’m honest it puts me in mind of gallantry and chivalry and all that sort of thing.” She tapped hoof to chin. “Though I suppose it would be dame Rarity...” She laughed like wine glasses being touched together, a fine crystalline note. “I’m prattling, do pardon me.”

As perfectly as the unicorn could hide her tiredness physically, no makeup could brush up the sleepy wits of one. Mac felt guilty for taxing her so, but she spoke before he did, and he realized that even as he observed her, she observed him right back. Apparently what she saw made her smile. That was pretty nice, and he smiled too.

“So, “ she said, slipping sumptuously to the sofa opposite him, “how’d it all start?” Somewhere along the way she’d gotten another coffee, and nursed it now.

How had it started? He had to ponder that one a moment. “Simply enough, I ‘spose. Applejack knows me too well for my own good. I thought this’d be easy.” He shuffled his legs around on the couch. “Or easier than this anyway.”

“And where does Rainbow Dash fit into all this?”

Big Mac rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. The cushions really were quite pillowy. “She caught wind of it, and she don’t want Applejack to win. Thinks I need her coaching me,” he added with some affronted pride, quite to his own surprise.

“Forgive my saying so, but doesn’t it all seem a bit...unnecessary?”

Big Mac didn’t immediately say Eeyup, nor Nope, on the honest principle that he didn’t quite know where his sentiments lay. “I reckon it may well be,” he cautiously settled with. “But a bet’s a bet, and an Apple’s an Apple. I don’t plan to give up or nothing.”

Rarity tossed her mane, the luscious locks falling as if gravity itself should feel grateful to hold them. “It’s just one of those things I guess."

Big Mac sipped at his water. “Eey-ppbth!” He was very fortunate that the fine spray fell short of the unicorn. As his cheeks burned red, she burst into dainty giggles. “‘m sorry,” he mumbled.”

“It’s quite alright,” she said through the laughter. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh!” she said, unable to reign in her mirth. Rarity put a hoof to her chest, forcing herself to calmer breathing. “Applejack certainly is wily. And this little contest goes all the way until midnight, you say? Just nod,” she added quickly, and a giggle slipped out.

He did so, thankful and throat-sore from his stint of choking on equal measures water and Eeyup.

“It is so like Rainbow Dash to butt her nose into any kind of challenge she isn’t part of.” The lady unicorn gave him an understanding look, and he nodded. Rarity clapped her hooves together and stood, swishing her tail. “Well, Mr. Macintosh, something I think would do us both a treat is a nice brunch. I absolutely refuse to get back to work until I’ve had some time to unruffle my feathers, so to speak. Would you care to join me?

It was an utterly pleasant surprise, how un-crazy Rarity was. Particularly so considering all the times Applejack, fuming and venting her frustrations, had portrayed her friend to be. “Yes,” he said, his voice hardly quavering at all on the inhospitable word, “that’d be good.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, actually. Rarity lead on to a corner cafe, where she ordered a salad, one done up nicely with thin slices of strawberry. At her light insistence, the stallion ordered something for himself larger than their smallest sandwich. It was, she insisted, her pleasure to treat friends. Amiable chatter and warm sunlight filled the air of the open cafe lending a vibrant, lively atmosphere to the whole thing, one that drew in customers like honey and sweetness, through which the waiters flitted like busy bees.

Pinkie Pie bounced out the door the waiters used typically, humming a made-up ditty to herself. She was still wearing the catsuit, but now it had tears in it as well, leaving ribbons of fabric to trail behind her in the breeze like streamers. “Hi Rarity, hi Big Mac!” she called. Had she just been in the cafe’s kitchen? a part of Big Mac wondered bemusedly.

Rarity took one look at the mare. You could almost hear her recite the adage of ‘Pinkie Pie is just being Pinkie Pie’ in her head before she spoke. “Hello, Pinkie. Has something happened?”

“Yeah, but it’s alright now,” she said with cheerful enthusiasm, stealing a slice of strawberry from the bowl. “Opalescence sure doesn’t like being woken up!” she said, wiggling the tattered fabric hanging at her hooves.

“Oh yes, she can be—were you in my house?”

“See you later! I got everywhere to go still. Tik tok, tik tok tok!” she called over her shoulder, bouncing and bounding away before anypony knew just what had happened or what to do about it. She slipped into the next shop along the street and vanished from sight.

Rarity poked at her salad and sighed. “She’s like that.”

“Mhmm,” Big Mac managed. It was a poor substitute, particularly so when a right proper Eeyup would have been so resounding, so fitting. “She’s harmless.” Honesty, being somewhat endemic to the family, added its two bits. “Mostly harmless,” he amended. Crazy, but good hearted.

The pair ate their meals in quiet contemplation.

The unicorn cocked her head to a side. “You look so very thoughtful, Macintosh Apple. Whatever could be on your mind?”

He looked up slowly from his reverie, which had comprised mostly of letting his eyes stare at whatever they pleased whilst his thoughts roamed elsewhere. “I’d meant to speak to Rainbow Dash today.”

“Oh?”

The stallion met her eyes and nodded. “But with how fixated she’s gotten about this whole thing...”

Rarity gave a dainty shrug. “I know a thing or two about handling her. I could talk to her for you.”

It was a tempting offer, but what he’d wanted to discuss with the brash and abrasive pegasus regarded the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their latest exploit. Rarity had a sister in that trio of havoc, and Big Mac felt it best to spare the mare the details of that particular incident for now. He’d just have to weather that blue winged storm himself. “Nnnah, it’s alright, I know what I want to say to her. Don’t you worry.”

An idea struck him, and because he was not one to often ask for favours, it had to strike him quite firmly. “There is something you could do for me though, begging the pardon.”

Rarity tilted her head the other way and smiled. “Oh? and what would that be?”

“I know you’re in well with Twilight Sparkle, and I don’t mean to be a bother but she’s been kind of...” something in the way his brow furrowed and mouth frowned conveyed what his words failed to.

Rarity blinked, her eyes opening all the wider, then blinked again for good measure. “Ah. I see. Yes, it’s certainly best that I handle this one. Of course I’ll talk to her.”

“She said something about me and Caramel, and that just didn’t add up,” Big Mac muttered, still fretting over the confusion the errant prodigy had saddled his morning with. Rarity watched keenly, filing a certain tidbit of that away for later scrutiny.

“Oh dear,” she said to the air in general, hiding her face in her hoof. “This wouldn’t happen to be part of, as she calls them, her extra studies? On relationships?”

“Those are the ones, Eey-mphmph!” Big Mac thumped his chest, drawing the confused gazes of ponies all around him. Rarity couldn’t help but giggle.

“I’m sorry,” she wheezed daintily, “I really am. But it’s just so funny when you do that!” Her smile made him smile, and that made it alright by his reckoning.

“Thank you, Miss Rarity,” he said as he bowed his head. “I’m much obliged.”

“Nonsense, it was my pleasure. As regards Twilight, like they say: a stitch in time saves nine. Considering this is Twilight Sparkle we’re talking about, maybe somewhat more than nine at that.” She glanced aside. “And speaking of time, has it passed so quickly? Oh, how it flies. I’ll see you around, Big Macintosh.”

He turned to look as well, at a clock that hung just by the door. Had it been the better part of an hour already? It certainly hadn’t felt like it. Still, he felt bolstered, ready not just to face the next challenges of the day, but to go and seek them out. So it was that, parting company with the fair Rarity, he went to seek out Rainbow Dash and have a word with her.

Cheer Up, Big Mac

Ponies went about their business through the streets of Ponyville or simply milled about, content to enjoy company and sunshine. Big Macintosh’s own spirits were lifted, for he felt he was beginning to get some traction on this strangest of days. Eeyup, he had to hit the ground running full pelt when the challenge had started, but between Cutie Mark Crusaders, mares who should know better and other mares whom he suspected actually did, he was holding his own. It wasn’t his nature to skirt around a problem for long, and with the resolve to confront Rainbow Dash came a certain confidence, a certain self-assuredness that he was, so to speak, gettin’ ‘er done.

If only he could find the silly pegasus. How could a pony so thirsty for the limelight disappear so consistently at a whim? Didn’t she have a job? To the work-horse, the implications were bewildering. Hay, even now he had half a mind himself to get back to his fields and work them, not that he could in fair-play, Nope. It had sort of been a stipulation after all, Eeyup, part of the bet was to be out and about, be seen and mingle. To talk and, if he didn’t mind himself vigilantly, slip up. Eeyup, that was the feat. Nope, wasn’t gonna happen.

Birds of red and yellows sang from rafters and branches, but the blue birdbrain he sought was yet to reveal herself. If she were still looking for him, it probably wasn’t in Ponyville centre.

The big stallion rested in the shade of a bustling veranda. A street vendor hawked his wares, but despite the numbers around his stall there was an air of calm about the street. Ponies regaled one another with gossip, gasps and laughter without rush or worry. Ponies that did buy did so quickly and distractedly, not wanting to miss a beat of whatever anecdote their friends recounted before hurriedly moving on.

“Macintosh Apple? It’s not often I see you out and about.” Big Mac blinked and shuffled about. It was easy to forget that while he watched the crowds go by, other ponies could watch right back.

“Miss Cheerilee? I didn’t see you there.”

The teacher shook her head with mock disparagement, smirking all the while. Near-empty saddlebags were slung over her back. “Still with the ‘miss’. Only my students call me miss, and I think you’re just a little bit big to be one of them." She nudged his flank with her hip to no effect whatsoever, save the smile that sprung on her face. "I’d have noticed by now if you were. You looked so very thoughtful, though. Something on your mind?”

The stallion was acutely aware of the straw of grass he didn’t have in his mouth. Had he one, he’d have rolled it across his teeth and back again with thought. As it was, he simply had to do without. “Could say that.”

“Oh, mysterious,” she said with that same smirk again. “You’ve made me curious now, Big Mac. I was just coming out to pick up a few things. How about you walk with me, or...?”

Sure, he’d been looking for Rainbow Dash, but he supposed he’d have found her by now were it possible to find her at all. She could be off anywhere or atop a cloud for all he knew. Even so, with ‘confront Rainbow Dash’ thoroughly scored into his mental to-do list, he felt confident enough to let it sit for a while longer. He wasn’t going anywhere...and neither was that blast crater in the back fields. “Alright then, miss Cheerilee. Let me hold that for you.”

The bags barely straddled his broad back and weighed next to nothing on him, but it felt good for him to be doing something resembling a chore, and she knew it. He wasn’t surprised with how little she bought, but it still was odd to him to see. Whereas the Apples tended for bulk deals and had a full house to feed, Cheerilee really only stocked up for the immediate short term. Teacher she might be, but cook she was not. On the one or two occasions he had met up with her he had very politely avoided calling any attention to that self-evident fact, something she’d had no compunctions about doing herself, to the point that he’d actually got embarrassed on her behalf about her quick and easy meals. That, of course, had only made her enjoy herself all the more-so.

She lead him along, first to a fruit vendor’s, then to one for vegetables. She was quick about it, no hemming and hawing at all. Pretty soon though he was telling her all the particulars of the bet as they walked; he liked Cheerilee, he felt comfortable around her and she understood him. After the fiasco with the love poison, the two had decided it best to talk, not as dopey, loopy ponies but as reasonable, rational adults to clear any air between them of confusion. One talk had turned to two, and from such unconventional beginnings a pleasant friendship had sprung up. She had a couple years on him he knew, but he’d never actually pressed for her for a specific number. Honestly, it didn’t matter.

If only Granny would stop giving him ‘clues’ and winks. It wasn’t like that between them.

“Ever the gentle-colt,” Cheerilee said as he gave her bags back to her. On her they seemed twice as large as they’d been a moment ago. Slyly she added, “You know, I think I saw Rainbow Dash heading out towards your orchards, just before I met you. It’s where I’d look for you too.” She held his gaze in an easy smile. “It’s good to see you again, Big Macintosh, and good to see you getting out. Maybe I should make a bet with you sometime too, what do you think? Thanks again,” she said as she turned to leave, “Best of luck with your bet!” she called over her shoulder.

The crowd gave him no trouble as he set his hoof to home. Big Mac was always very mindful of his step, though for the ponies of Ponyville it might have been more his ability to pull up trees like gardeners would weeds that made sure that the crowd flowed around him, because it certainly couldn’t flow through him. A few acquaintances of his hailed him with greetings, which he met in kind as he moved along.

“Hiya Big Mac,” Pinkie called, momentarily bouncing up into view. She’d ditched the catmare spysuit, but she’d replaced the look with blackened sunglasses. A few spatters of grease were on her hooves, and there was at least one uncoiled spring tangled in her mane. “Still in the game?—don’t answer that question!” she suddenly gasped, landing from a heroic bounce that carried her up and onto the stallion’s back. She pushed her front hooves into his cheeks, stunning his brain and stopping his mouth. “We happy?” she asked, the blacks lenses of her scrutiny showing Big Mac his own bewildered expression. After a moment’s checking, she smiled. “We happy,” she said simply, and let him go. She didn’t actually get off his back, but it was a start.

“I thought you weren’t taking a side in this?”

The mare laughed with awkward nervousenss. “Weeeell...” She huffed a steadying breath, somehow losing none of its seriousness despite her being balanced with easy poise atop his back. “I can’t lie to you, Big Mac. The answer is yes and/or a definitely possible maybe. Or not.” She shrugged apologetically.

Big Mac sighed. He had no way of knowing it, but this was the very same sigh that most ponies develop with exposure to Pinkie. “And that’s the best answer I can hope to get from you right now?”

“Eeyup!” she said heartily. Big Mac’s legs trembled at the word, his whole body wobbled. Pinkie Pie landed next to him with a leap and playfully punched his shoulder. He fell to his knees. “Keep strong, Big Mac! You can make. I’m sure of it!”

She bounced away and was gone once more.

Big Mac stood himself back up, shaking the tension from his hooves. At least Pinkie wasn’t trying to sabotage him...he thought. He wasn’t entirely sure, or more accurately to say: he was entirely unsure. He hadn’t failed yet though, that much was for certain.

If Rainbow Dash really was at the farm he could face her, grab a snack and see how confident Applejack still was about her side of the bet, all three at once. His hoof fell on the familiar soils of home, all in all he felt pretty darn good right then and there, warm under the noontide sun. Winona even ran up to greet him, barking excitedly.

He realized, Eeyup she was excited, but it was with upset, not cheer. Something was going down on the farm. No wonder he was getting that sinking feeling. Shaking his head, he let the collie lead him on to whatever woes lay ahead, sincerely hoping that Rarity was having a better time of it with Twilight.

High Stakes and Pancakes

“Rainbow Dash, you get your hooves outta our laundry this instant!”

“No!” The pegasus shouted back in stern defiance. A heap of various cloth filled her hooves, threatening with every whip and flap in the wind to fly away into the distance. Her head and neck were craned back just to fit it all, and Dash had no way to see where she was going. Just so long as that involved up and away, the rest didn't matter so much. Her wings flapped erratically under the precarious load.

“Get down here right this instant!” Applejack shouted, stomping her hoof on the dry dirt.

“I said n—” something small, frilly and polka-dotted leapt free of the heap and slapped itself across Dash’s face. With her hooves still full, she had to bite down and forcibly shoved the offending piece back into the folds. “I said no! I’m not letting you humiliate Big Macintosh!” Then she looked at what she’d actually just been putting her mouth to, glanced to Applejack, then connecting the two, looked anywhere but. “So there!” she added, but with less certainty than moments before.

“For the last time Rainbow Dash, our bet ain’t no concern of yours! Get that through your bird brain, you featherhead!” Her eyes narrowed, and there was a sensation like rattlesnake tails. “Don’t make me get my rope.”

The pegasus dropped the clothes she’d pilfered—everything she could find in the time it took Applejack’s bewilderment at her sudden speedy arrival to turn to anger—and crammed it into the bough of the tallest apple tree she could find. See her applebuck these apples!

Dash’s chest rose and fell. She ran her tongue, tasting only faintly of cloth, over dry lips. Her eyes wide and heart pounding, she looked back to the doorstep house.

Applejack wasn’t there, or anywhere else to be seen for that matter.

“Heh,” Dash said, denying her own anxiousness. “Looks like she gave up.”

The hissing cord that struck from below and snagged her leg suggested otherwise. The rope yanked Rainbow Dash’s shoulder socket like a suddenly loosed anchor. Rainbow Dash yelped as she plummeted, helpless against the force of the draw. It wasn’t just gravity, it was gravity that had caught you rifling through its undergarments.

“I. Don’t. Think so!” Dash cried, punctuating each statement with a resounding flap of her wings. The rope twanged with tension, Dash slowed from plummet to a tremendous crawl. This was one catch of the day that was getting away, if she had any say! Which she had just done! She pulled and pulled, but pull as she might she could only halt her descent. Her wings churned air, her hair stood on end, the rope dug into her foreleg...

“The rope!” Dash shouted. It’d caught around a branch, turning the whole tree into a pulley that worked against her, inadvertently choosing the pony who tended them, cared for them and watched over their well being over the one who had slept with them. “Traitorous tree, after all the naps we shared? Let me go!” She pawed at the lasso, scraping it from her hoof. With a sudden, final bite of rope-burn it slid free and recoiled down through the leaves.

“Darn it Rainbow, you’re getting on my nerves!”

Her back to the sunlight, Rainbow Dash pressed herself belly down into the nest of clean clothes and towels like a lizard. Applejack, she well knew, was good with that rope. She tossed a wooly sock to the open air; it met with the crack of twine and a sudden yoink, all with the speed that would have made a striking cobra stop and blink.

Correction—Applejack was scary good with that rope.

Dash’s logic stood, if somewhat wild eyed and drunkenly, thusly: if she took all of the Apples’ clothes, Big Mac couldn’t be made to wear any of them. If Big Mac couldn’t be humiliated, he couldn’t really lose.

It was very important to Dash that Applejack not win.

It was a strange feeling, one that came from deep within the pegasus. Whenever she thought of Applejack it was there and the cool, collected pegasus would find herself all blustery. Applejack smirking, Applejack making a difficult trick look easy as pie, that’s when it was strongest within her. Here, frantically holding to cover and pinned down, Dash finally put a name to this feeling welling up within her, the one that made everything about Applejack so special and wonderful and dear to her.

Rivalry.

It was a good thing.

Rainbow Dash peeked through the leaves. Applejack, grumbling under her breath, was gathering windfall apples to herself. Not so far above, Dash spotted a fat little cloud, hanging heavy and alone. A wild Everfree cloud, the sort that was moody at the best of times. A smirk very much like Applejack’s own made itself at home on Dash’s mouth. She bunched up the muscles in her legs and wings, tight as they would go. You’re on, Applejack. Then, like a sudden storm, Rainbow Dash sprung forwards.

How does one describe Big Mac’s expression here, when he came upon the scene? Often as not, one might say ‘like he’d seen a ghost,’ but really, what does that entail? Ghosts, by definition, aren’t known for their liveliness.

Do we describe the extent of his stun by the way his jaw slackened, the iconic straw of hay falling like a star? Do we describe it by his thoughts, of which he had none? Eeyup and Nope had sit down and shut up, huddled together silently at the furthest back of his mind.

Perhaps we can't describe it directly. Just perhaps, it’s a face best described by proxy, by using Granny Smith’s. Herself, having stepped outside for a better view of the spectacle, turned from the action to her grandson. Her grin beamed like the illegitimate love child of a radiant dawn and a very wrinkled raisin. Her eyes lit up and, hooting with unrestrained mirth, she gave the young ‘un a solid wallop on the side.

Big Mac blinked, the gears of his mind grinding slowly back into motion. He opened his mouth. He closed his mouth.

There was a wet, sparking explosion, and a curse. Rainbow Dash was flitting about the edge of the trees, tearing cotton-candy chunks from a dark cloud and hurling them at Applejack like a deranged thunder spirit. Applejack for her part had put together a quick barricade with a turned over wheelbarrow and the plough. She’d improvised a shovel into a rudimentary mangonel and returned fire with the windfalls. They were both giggling wildly.

The occasional undergarment wafted peacefully in the breeze.

“Does me good to see her have a bit of fun,” said Granny Smith contentedly.

Big Mac’s usual easy confidence had fled. “Should...should I do something?”

On the other hoof, she was as resolute and calm as he’d ever seen her. “Nope,” she said happily, her lips smacking together like a high-hoof on the last syllable.

Quite like a tornado, the havoc invariably drew his eyes back. Dash was strutting her aerial triumph; she’d caught one of the apples and made a big show of taking a bite from it. A second apple plunged through the heart of her latest depth charge cloud which exploded in her face, zapping Rainbow Dash and drenching her at the same time. More clothes than he even knew the family had fluttered like butterflies about the farmyard. “What about...?”

“Ain’t your problem, m’boy.” She waved him over, beckoning the stallion to follow. “Come on, Big Mac, I’ll fix you a snack o’ something.”

Eeyup and Nope being drowned out by a healthy dose of confusion, he complied, and with the closing of the door left the world and its crazy mares for a time.

“Come on then, sit yourself down.” Sprightly she might not have been, but Granny could have navigated her kitchen limited to any two senses a pony cared to name. “Pass me the milk there,” she said. While her hooves got to mixing, she turned to her reflection in the window, seemingly dedicating the entirety of her concentration on tongueing a bit of something free from her teeth. The whisk whisked with absolute precision regardless. “You look ruffled. Your contest with Lil’ Applejack got the best of you?”

Big Mac didn’t answer immediately. He filled his lungs, held it a peaceful moment, and then loosed the breath. “No,” he said, without the word stretching and striving away from him at all. “Still in it.”

Eggs tumbled into the mixing bowl. For a very long time, Big Mac had been convinced his Granny could crack eggs just by giving them a stern look. He’d believed this for such a long time in fact, that it encompassed his entire life up to and including this moment. He felt she had a similar manner about getting inside a pony’s head as well. “That’s good,” she said. “We don’t give in easy, even on the silly things.” The whisk halted and she turned a smile on her grandson. “Especially the silly things,” she said, and off again the whisk went.

Gleaming red apples were diced and flung into the batter, then the whole of it went into the frying pan with a satisfying sizzle and spit of oil. Granny Smith turned back to fishing the bit of something from her false teeth. “Oive aahhh..”she held up a hoof and settled the dentures back into place, testing them with a few clacks and clicks. “I’ve a feeling that this thing the girls got going is something ‘bout you.”

The smell of pancakes wrapped around him like warm, gooey blankets. “Very well could be,” he said. He considered what he knew of Rainbow Dash, and sighed. “Yeah. I’m sure it is.”

Granny nodded and hummed. “Alright then. Set an extra plate while you’re at it.”

“Granny?” he asked, but added the plate as asked.

Spatula in mouth, she flipped the first pancake like a pro wrestler going for the finishing move. There was a splat, and a renewed vigour to the sizzling. “Well o’ course I’m going to feed the girl,” she said. “Hardly the first pony to run off with...well, the first mare, ‘ceptin’ that one time, but...” She hooted her distinct laughter. “Nevermind all that. You got the plates down? That’s my boy.”

The first golden-brown pancake slid onto a waiting plate. Granny Smith poured in the next lot of batter, again to the satisfying hiss and sizzle. “So, how’s your day been?”

The stallion sat back in his seat, letting the scent filling the air hold him. “Been hectic, so far.”

For a second or two, only the frying pancake was to be heard. Granny Smith turned it over like a new leaf, rolling her false teeth side to side, as she did when thinking.

“I was in the town this morning, not long after you headed off that way yourself,” she began. Something in her voice, perhaps the softness of it, made Big Mac listen all the more attentively. “You been to the bakery lately? Carrot and Cup make it so invitin’. Fine a place as any to sit down and talk. Why, I was chattin up a storm, I was. That girl they got, you know the one, she had to wrassle my teeth off one of the foals!” the old mare chuckled. “Weren’t too long ago you and Applejack were like that; this put me right in mind of that.

“Didn’t have these back then of course,” she said, gesturing to the dentures, shrugging and smiling, “but that don’t matter. Why, I must’a been there an hour, and I was certainly gigglin’ all the way home. You know, I even forgot what I’d gone in there to get in the first place! Something silly or other, it don’t matter.”

Flip. Hiss. Sizzle. Granny Smith’s wrinkles jockeyed for position as she smiled. “I know you, Big Macintosh, and you ain’t dumb. You’ll figure it out.” The second pancake joined the first, twinned specimens of the spirit of good home cooking. “Get some juice out too, they’ll be thirsty girls.”

The stallion obliged and flicked open the icebox. “Apple or orange?”

The spatula slapped down on the counter, making Big Mac jump in place. “What do you take me for, you whippersnapper? In this house we have standards!”

“Apple it is,” he said, setting out the cups. Granny and him shared a chuckle as the next dollop of batter was poured into the pan.

“Woah Applejack, your house smells awesome!” Dash's cracking voice resounded through the house.

“You have no idea the treat you are in for if that smell is what I think it is. Come on with that towel already, you’re drippin’ on my floor!”

Well, Big Macintosh had wanted to get a chance to catch up with the errant pegasus sometime this afternoon, hadn’t he? But to actually hear her hooves, and Applejack’s as well, stomping along the hall, to this very table...

Big Macintosh readied himself to face his fate, gulping back his doubt. And the first bite of his pancakes, in one solemn forkful. He looked to Granny, wide eyed with the flavour. She winked at him, and nodded back towards the door.

The syrup of courage slathered itself across the fried apple-filled batter of his soul. He could face this. He cleared his throat. “In here.” he called out. “We’re waitin’ for you.”

Author's Note

More than any chapter so far, this one has changed the most from what it started as when I set out to write it. Particularily with Granny, who just sort of stepped in and demanded a bigger role. What do you think of her prescence? Was this chapter what you expected? Let us know in the comments-

Fun fact- I was playing with the notion of naming this chapter "Breakfast at (Granny) Smithannies."

Big Mac Attack

Watching Rainbow Dash eat Granny’s homemade pancakes was like watching a category five hurricane make landfall. It was tremendous and humbling, and yet one couldn’t help but secretly cheer it on, just to see how far it could go.

The first stack of syrupy goodness fell to the knife and the fork like so much dust in the wind, and still she showed no signs of slowing. Her table manners were just about on par with Apple Bloom’s. Just about.

Granny dropped a fresh pancake to Big Mac’s own plate and said something about the pleasure of seeing good appetites, though the stallion didn’t quite catch this on account of the noisy display.

Applejack chuckled, propping her chin up on a hoof. “You just got back from a desert island or something, Rainbow?”

The pegasi’s teeth gnashed in vicious mastication. “Pretty much,” she muttered around it all. “You ever try cooking for yourself?”

Applejack only gave her a deadpan expression, which rapidly warmed into a smile. “Yeah, all the time. Cause I can actually cook, remember?”

The hurricane stumbled for a second and blinked. “Oh, right.” Then, with great gusto, she returned to terrorizing the pancakes. Likewise Big Mac chewed through his own, pondering. He wasn’t all that hungry; it seemed to him that most every mare he’d run across that day had insisted on feeding him.

That being what it was, when ponies said ‘there’s always room for dessert’ what they meant was, even if they had no way to know they meant it, actually this: 'There may be room somewhere for dessert, but there’s a penthouse suite with free parking and baggage storage for Granny’s homemade pancakes, because they are so full of sweetness, warmth and love that windigoes would melt and changelings catch fire in their mere presence.’

So Big Mac ploughed on through his plate like he would through a field on the finest of spring days, because they were, after all, quite good.

He even started the dishes afterwards. Running water and shifting bubbles contrasted with ever greater feats of burping in the background, seeing as his sister and her friend had become suddenly entangled in a belching contest. Nopony was entirely sure how it had started, and neither contestant claimed that dubious honour, only saying things like “well I know it’s foolish, but if she really thinks she can do better than me...”

Granny smiled and gave him a wink, then left him to his devices.

“That...was good. That was amazing,” Dash reiterated, passing verdict for all the universe to hear. She groaned and leaned back in her chair, then scratched at her belly absentmindedly. She certainly wasn’t going to be flying any races today, if the rotund curve found there had anything to say.

Nor hound Big Mac about the challenge for that matter, he realized.

Sometimes it scared him, how clever his Granny could be. He glanced at the last pancake left. He could have sworn it winked back at him.

Applejack caught his looking awry at it. “You alright there?”

“Ey...” he started, but this was no near-slip, but a carefully measured experiment. Slowly, cautiously lest it go horribly wrong, he pinched off the sound down to a sort of ‘mhm’ and nod. That done, he turned as surreptitiously as he could to Rainbow Dash, whom hadn’t even lifted a hoof in protest to his apparent near-miss. Indeed, her hooves rested on her belly like two picnickers enjoying themselves upon having met atop a hill. She yawned.

“Remind me to steal your grandma, okay?” she said, yawning and chuckling.

Applejack rolled her eyes, passing the last of the dishes still to be done to her brother. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

Big Mac put the dishes to the sink, but didn’t start cleaning these just yet. “Miss Dash,” he started cautiously, fully aware that the generally genteel connotation of the word were somewhat out of place when applied to the pegasus. “Miss Dash,” he verbally prodded again.

“Hmm? Yeah?” She turned over slightly to face him, though a better word would have been slumped.

The stallion inhaled sharply between his teeth, picking and chewing his words like he would a stalk of hay. “About how much of a cloud would it take to make a pond, you reckon?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged, which meant the motion started in her shoulders and ended up as a rolling ripple of temporary stomach flab. She yawned again, and idly kneaded the bulk of her belly around for comfort. “It’d take a few clouds, at least. Good sized ones too, if we’re talking any sort of depth. Why, you need that done?”

Big Macintosh found himself more comfortable than he expected to be, even with his sister giving him a questioning look from her seat. “Could say that,” he said.

Applejack’s hoof came up, an orange accusation. “Hold up,” she said. “What’s this on about, exactly?”

Big Mac had never been one for skating, but that same feeling of melting ice beneath his hooves filled him, the sensation of leaning precariously far back in a chair. “It’s a surprise.” He looked Rainbow Dash in the eye, and she caught something of his seriousness.

Dash was not subtle in her questioning glances between the siblings, but Applejack didn’t notice, or at least didn’t pay it any mind. The pegasus’ eyes widened and her face bloomed into a smirk.

“Yeah,” she said loudly, and a little more energetically than she had before. “It’s totally a surprise. Can’t tell you.”

Applejack grumbled. Her hooves hit the floor solidly and she made her way to the door. “Well, Big Mac, I suppose I can wait on it then. Good to see you’re doing...whatever it is you’ve actually been doing today. Stuff."

Dash leaned over to the stallion, or tried to, but there was inertia to take into account now so it was rather like seeing a turtle stuck upon its back. Or a tortoise for that matter. With only the slightest of exasperated huffs, she said: “You’re going to tell me what it is, right? Right?” Big Mac nodded.

A yawn cut across Dash’s enthusiasm before Big Mac could say anything. The pegasus chuckled. “Later though. I am going to steal a couch and sleep this off. Those were seriously good.”

The voice of Applejack proverbially smacked across the back of their heads. “You sure can, sugarcube,” she started with faux-sweetness, “just as soon as help me get all the laundry back in and clean up this mess you made!”

Dash spun to her hooves with easy agility, her wings flaring out quickly enough to make the larger stallion recoil or get poked in the eye with blue feathers. “You made it too!” the pegasus shouted back to the door, her eyes alight.

The grumble of an inarguable point grudgingly conceded could be heard in the hallway. A moment of terse silence happened followed by Applejack’s voice, somewhat more restrained than it had been. “Just get out here, lazy bones. I’ll drag you out if I have to.”

The pegasus laughed a hearty guffaw. “You wouldn’t!” She blinked and remembered herself, and who she was addressing, rolling her eyes as she did so. “Wait, no, this is you. You actually would. Ugh, fine.”

She made to move, but Big Mac interjected by way of his big hoof gently to her shoulder. “You know the fillies’ clubhouse?” he asked in hushed, rumbling tones. “When you get the chance, that’s the spot. You’ll see what I mean.” He chewed his lip a second, knowing he was terrible at clandestine words and matters of intrigue. “Don’t let my sis find out.”

Rainbow Dash brushed his hoof aside and grinned. “Sure thing. Just don’t you go fumbling now, champ, you’re doing good with this bet thing.”

There had always been something about Rainbow Dash; her good spirits were always infectious, like the sort of ailment that required a tiny combed brush and special shampoo to combat, and would make for much embarrassment in pharmacies. “Alright,” he said, without even a hint of aural struggle.

Dash punched his shoulder and beamed. “That’s the stuff! Good on ya. Don’t give up! A.J.” she suddenly called out, turning to face the hall, “why can’t you be as cool as your brother?”

“I ain’t going to even dignify that with a response! And get on out here already, I’m getting impatient!” the earth pony mare bellowed back.

“Yeah yeah, alright!” said Rainbow, gesturing flippantly at the door. “See you later, Big Mac. I got you covered on this end, don’t you worry. Just don’t lose,” she said more sternly, her hoof prodding him in the chest on each word as she looked him in the eye. “Okay?”

With that she was gone, grumbling good-naturedly and dragging her hooves. Big Mac was alone with his thoughts. Eeyup and Nope were being as well behaved as they’d been in hours.

There were still a few dishes to finish up, and he felt like he could use the sudden quiet about the house as a much needed breather. His hooves worked quietly with the efficiency of practice, and as they moved through the sparkling white suds he wondered how Miss Rarity was faring with Twilight Sparkle. He hoped it had gone as smoothly there for her as it had been for him here. Rarity had been very good to him, Eeyup, and he’d hate to be the cause of any trouble for her, Nope.

How bad could it be? Big Mac sighed as he put the last plate away, doing his best to ignore his imagination's fervent attempts to answer that very question, filling his thoughts as they did with Twilight’s bloodshot eyes and frantic voice.

How had two little words gone about starting so much trouble?

Author's Note

How was I going to resist that chapter title? It just wasn't possible~

I promise this has been preread to the best of my abilities...which are still pretty woeful, likely.

EDIT* - really much better preread now, much yay.

Interlude

The drying line was mostly level with the ground, but lifted up at one end so that it curved gently to the underside of the branch it was tied around. It was here that Applejack started to struggle, straining her neck and haunches to reach the cord, pegs and laundry in tow. Every step it lifted just a little bit further from her reach, so that each small victory made for the same challenge again, but harder.

From a ways back Rainbow Dash watched her friend’s struggle. Shadows were dripping off the trees, and by the light of the afternoon turning to evening Applejack’s orange took on more of a syrupy golden hue. The mare stretched, fidgeting on her hooves as she tried to eke another inch of her back legs.

Her tail swished side to side and, put in mind of an agitated cat, Rainbow Dash smirked. With a groan and a muffled cry of success, the earth pony clicked the peg in place, suspending something frillier and more lacy than most to the open breeze. Applejack huffed and dropped her head back down, working out the kinks from her neck and back as she did so.

“You could help with this, ya know,” she said, turning to face the pegasus, rolling the tension out of her shoulders.

Dash shrugged and found her smirk had grown a little firmer. “I already did, didn’t I?” she said, gesturing the expanse of cloth and assorted lacy frilly thing-free ground and trees about themselves. Applejack only looked at her flatly, puffing out a breath that knocked some errant strands of mane away from her face.

“Fine,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, rolling her eyes. She lifted herself into the air slow and lazy, like a bumblebee. She wasn’t so much flying as sagging in an invisible harness. She drifted over, then down, down until her front hooves slid along the ridges of her shoulders and the base of her neck before interlocking at the crest of her chest, just behind those muscular, toned forelegs of hers. With ever so slightly more enthusiastic strokes the mare was lifted to her back hooves, then up into the air entirely.

Applejack looked up, squinting hard at her pegasus friend. “Ain’t exactly what I had in mind,” she huffed, her legs dangling in the breeze.

“Eh,” was all Rainbow gave by way of response. She moved so unlike herself, slow and controlled, and Applejack gave Dash a stern, questioning look. (Or at least her blue, fuzzy chin, for Dash was something between lifting and straddling her, and their relative positions to one another were not ones that favoured eye contact). Applejack did this for quite the long moment before realizing that she was, in fact, of a height to secure the last few articles of clothing to the line. Dash for her part seemed entirely unfussed and unfettered.

Dropping the non-issue, but not the pegs, Applejack clasped them in pairs to the line. “There,” she said with simple relief, “that’s everything. You can set me down now, Dash.”

Rainbow Dash did just that, her legs suddenly opening out from under Applejack. Just as quickly the earth pony braced herself and caught the landing easily, feeling pretty darn satisfied with herself. The pegasus floated back down to ground, touching down silently next to her.

Rainbow Dash scratched at her neck. “What’s with this whole bet thing anyway?” Her hoof wandered further north, picking idly at a nostril. Something of minor interest therein discovered was examined briefly, then flicked aside.

“It just seemed like a good idea, was all.”

Rather than wander back towards the farmhouse, Dash took the lead and curled away, leading out to the stands of trees. With nothing else in need of doing and no reason to turn away, Applejack followed. “It just seems odd, you know? You’re not exactly the spontaneous type.”

Applejack trotted the few steps to catch back up. “I’m plenty spontaneous!”

“Ha! Hardly.”

This made Applejack frown, but only with consternation. Her hooves seemed to move faster than her head, and once settled into their easy pace chewed through their path easier than her head ploughed through its own. “Well, you can’t argue that it wasn’t a good idea, ‘cause it is.”

Dash flicked her mane aside so as to glance back at the receding farmhouse. Somewhere in there, Big Mac was taking his bit of time to recuperate from the day. A day that wasn’t over yet. At the other corner of her eye there lay a fallow field, ploughed with unfailingly deep and straight furrows, row upon row of them, pooling up with evening’s shadows like drainage ditches.

“Yeah,” she said. “I suppose, yeah.” Dash looked ahead now, and paused in her stride. Her brow furrowed in thought, so that Applejack stopped also to watch and wonder what occupied her friend’s thoughts.

“Hey,” Dash began, as if hesitant to speak her mind without being absolutely certain in it first.

“What is it?” It wasn’t like the pegasus to be skittish about anything.

Now Dash turned to face her, the light of the lowering sun setting the corners of her eyes to molten glassiness. “If you don’t freak out, I’ll show you something.”

Applejack only gave her a flat stare. “Dash, I’m getting after you all the time for this, that or the other. What’s got you so mousy on this one?”

Blue wings hung lax, then fanned some air over the unkempt coat. “It’s not me you’ll freak out at though.” She rolled her eyes and jittered in place, sighing as the next words slid into inevitability. “And I sort of, kind of promised Big Mac I’d keep you in check for the rest of the day.”

Applejack whinnied with surprise. It was always a cute thing to see from her, especially as so few things surprised the steadfast farmer. “You did what now?”

The pegasus’ wings propped themselves up stiffly, casting shadows longer than either mare. “Well I am rooting for him, aren’t I?” Whatever tension there was found itself soothed in Applejack’s easy smile and those wings, shifting and fidgeting, came back down again.

“Me too,” said Applejack, “but don’t go telling him that.” She coughed to clear her throat and. “That bonnet still gets planted firmly on his head if he mucks this up, though. Gotta take the licks you get.”

Dash grumbled as she set off walking once more. “Well, yeah.” A moment passed, then she repeated the word ‘licks’, slower, more thoughtfully, as if tasting the sound of it.

The mares walked without words for a time.

“So what’s this thing you and Mac were keeping from me?”

Dash drew a breath through her teeth, one that whistled. “Well...” she began.

Applejack pressed her orange hoof to a blue shoulder. “Yeah?”

“How about I just show you?” Before she could answer, Applejack was lifted up once more in those blue hooves, up and over the treetops. The green of leaves and the rails of shadows cast from the trees made a checkered blanket of the landscape, with the exception of one black spot over yonder.

“I don’t quite remember that having been there before,” Applejack growled. Dash went ‘mhmm,’ both in agreement and respect. It was quite the sizeable hole, after all. A mare like her could appreciate the explosion necessary to make it.

“It was probably Scootaloo’s idea,” she said, but meant it entirely by way of compliment. As they glided back down, the pegasus gauged the depth and breadth of it. A day’s work could get it filled up nicely without too much trouble.

“The fillies are all fine, are they?” Applejack sighed out as her hooves touched earth and Rainbow Dash slid off her.

“What? Oh yeah, no, they’re great,” she said quickly before putting her proverbial Weather Management hat back on. “Big Mac wants to make a pond of it,” she added.

Applejack wandered over to the edge, kicking a broken stone into the pit. “I suppose that’s something. I’d have loved a swimming hole at their age. Still would, even. These long, hot summer evenings...”

Again, Dash went ‘mhmm,’ because this was Applejack thinking and monologuing all on her own, with Dash just providing the appropriate nudges to keep her steaming along.

“Actually, now that I think about it, Fluttershy could be bringing those extra frogs she’s always trying to rehome here. I’d be happier knowing she’s not sneaking off into the Forest as much, like you know she will if there’s an animal involved. Where she finds all those frogs I may never know.”

As she spoke she jumped, sliding and scrabbling down soil and broken rock. The bottom was quite dark, with just enough light to see where to put your hoof to stand.

“Good and deep. Ain’t going to just dry up with a couple days sunshine. And it’s right near their clubhouse, too.”

“Sooo...” said Dash doing something between falling and flying, with a backflip no less, to land next to her friend, “you happy with that plan then?”

Applejack took a deep breath and sighed it away. “Yeah. Suppose I am. Still going to get the hides of those three fillies for messing about with something this dangerous, but if we can make something good come of it, there’s that. You sure you can pull it off?”

“Ha, easily. Job like this? Mostly it’ll just be keeping the clouds centered above it. And giving them a right good kicking every once in awhile, to keep ‘em pouring steady. I can get a couple of the newbies out to do the actual work, while I ‘supervise’ the whole thing.” You could hear the inverted commas sliding neatly into place.

The strong hooves of Applejack tore deep into the sides of the pit, hoof by hoof she scaled the wall and pulled herself upwards. “And by ‘supervise’ you mean nap in my trees and check on them every once in awhile?”

Dash shrugged, and lifted off lazily. “Pretty much. Should be able to get it done tomorrow, if you like.”

Applejack crested the edge, then dusted the worst of the dirt off. She wasn’t even breathing harder, as if she in fact hadn’t just climbed out of a great big hole in the earth. “Nah. I’d say leave it off ‘til the next day. This ain’t going anywhere. Besides, I got a feeling that come whatever, tomorrow's gonna be interesting.”

“You mean Big Mac?”

“Yeah.” The earth pony sneezed, then grumbled about it. “Hey, Dash,” she said, “you don’t think it’s weird to make him dress up in mares clothing, do ya?”

Dash turned a most curious eyebrow back on her friend. “What? Nah, it’s not weird at all,” she said, but Applejack wasn’t looking convinced. “It’s not any different than when Rarity makes us do it, right? Exactly.”

And, because Rainbow Dash said it in such easy confidence, it took Applejack a couple of passes before the obvious flaw in that logic became apparent. “But Dash,” she said, “we actually are mares. He ain’t. He’s about as far from being one as you could get.”

Dash only shrugged. “Eh, that’s hardly the issue. Don’t worry about it.” She lead on again, this time back towards the farmhouse, leaving Applejack to ponder the ambivalence.

“Hey look,” said Applejack after some minutes had passed and they had stepped into more spacious fields, “there he goes.” Indeed, there he went. Silhouetted against the setting sun, Big Mac marched stoically along the road back into town. “Where do you suppose he’s off to now?”

Dash turned a gaze of utmost seriousness upon the farmer. “He’s going to face his destiny, of course.”

There they stood, these two mares, staring one another in the eye. Simultaneously they broke into hearty laughter.

“Want to spend the night here?” Applejack asked through the chuckles, “make a sleepover of it?”

“Yeah. You got nice couches.”

Applejack punched the mare’s shoulder. “My bed’s plenty big enough for the both of us.”

“Sounds good to me. Race you to the door!” And they were off, running and shoving and laughing.

From a ways away, Big Mac stopped, turned his head. He really wanted to say ‘Eeyup,’ it’d have been just so perfect a sentiment, he felt, and the word itched at the inside of his skull. All the same, he smiled wordlessly and turned back to the road before him.

A day was done, bedding down into evening, but a night still lay before him. With the setting sun at his back, he walked towards the Twilight, to face whatever might come of it.

Author's Note

I apolgize for the errors I'm certain there are in here.

I'm literally writing as I eat and drink and rest, because I'm only back from being one place last night, and to be off again very soon to go chase horsey's through fields and such. Life is great fun and havoc all of a sudden for me.

What do you guys think of the perspective change? I felt it was a good, but don't be worried, 'tis just for the one chapter.

Also, might have been publishing error... My bad~

A Study in Pinkie

It came as something of a surprise to Big Mac that Ponyville, town of his birth and upbringing, was unfamiliar to him at dusk. Oh, he’d seen it at this hour on the rare occasion, but those had always been just that: special occasions. Without the colours and costumes of Nightmare Night everything looked so...strange.

Not wrong, mind you, just...different. Things that by the light of day were familiar and known he saw for the first time. It was a realization that came as more of one about himself than about his town, and Big Mac was not sure what he felt about it. Eeyup and Nope crawled up in his mind, giving him the puppy eyes and wagging proverbial tails at him expectantly.

All about town, particularly the walkways and parks that edged it were benches, and it was on one of these that the stallion took a seat to ponder his situation. He had already faced Rainbow Dash, but that had come through as much from the wit and cookery skill of his Granny than anything Big Macintosh himself had brought forwards. If anything, he had hesitated, and maybe even now would still be bumbling about in his words and thoughts were it not for that crafty old Apple forcing the situation upon his metaphorical, and literal, plate.

He rubbed at his gut and sighed, while moths and the curious little flying things of the evening danced around him. What was with mares and feeding him, really...? If today could be anything to go by, he’d just as likely show up at the library and be subjected to a full course meal. While he didn’t expect such a thing from Twilight Sparkle...well, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? He didn’t know what to expect from her, and this time Granny wasn’t here to drag his big slow head along to the answer.

Sighing again, the stallion gently brushed some of the friendlier moths away from his face, careful in the utmost not to damage their powdery fine wings. The real party was dizzily fixated on a nearby street lamp in a hundred eccentric, wobbling little orbits, but enough of the insects had drifted over to him to make him mindful of his breathing, as much for his sake as any of theirs.

At least nothing was biting at him, save for his own thoughts. Big Mac pressed a broad hoof to his forehead and rubbed. If this were a field, he would set his plough to a corner and pull, tilling the earth into a neat row before turning about and doing it again, then again and again, ‘til the job was done. If this were a tree to buck, he’d spy out that enigmatic spot in the bark, the one you either saw or didn’t, and kick it for a shower of apples.

He just had to think. There was Rainbow Dash and Applejack, flashing blue and orange in his mind’s eye, bright and full of sunshine despite the quiet shadows of the hour. At the back of his mind he supposed he started with them because they were the simplest to ponder out. Applejack was his sister and Dash was, much like his own family, straightforward in her dealings. Likewise, he could count them as chores done. There was no need to fear either mare dropping in on him at this point. Even if they did, he didn’t expect much issue of it.

There was Granny as well, grinning at him teasingly from within his head. She was definitely on his side, if only she wasn’t so esoteric about what that actually meant. Still, if he couldn’t trust her than he couldn’t trust anypony at all. Besides, she’d be in bed at this hour, or at least tucked into her rocking chair. Her meddling for the day was done. Probably.

Further on the track the lights of Ponyville glowed, street lamps and windows alike. As he watched one winked out, and Big Mac knew that some pony, one he more than likely knew in at least some passing acquaintance, was calling it a night and winding down to sleep.

The next thought came unbidden to him, but it was no less true. It was just about his own bedtime, he realized. Not that anypony had him adhere to such a curfew, only his own unbroken routine of bedding down and rising early.

To be honest, he wasn’t as fussed about this as he might have expected himself to be. He didn’t feel tired. At least not in the sleepy sense, in the same way that you didn’t feel sleepy when you were halfway through bucking a field. Tired, maybe. Sleepy...not quite as much.

But it still meant that he was earliest to bed of the Apple family most days of the week, sometimes every day. Even Granny stayed up some nights to do this or that, because Granny Smith had hobbies. Applejack did too. Apple Bloom and her friends maybe had more hobbies than the three fillies knew what to do with, but there it was all the same.

Big Mac shifted his weight on the bench, stretching his legs by turn and easing the tension that had built up along his neck and shoulders best he could. His mind was wandering, he knew it. If this were a field under the plough, he’d have carved a great curved furrow of a thing across it. He tried to start over.

He had talked to Rarity today, and Twilight too. In their own ways, both had left quite the impression on him. Big Mac still wasn’t decided on how he felt about Twilight being as invasively friendly as she’d been this morning, and he hadn’t the faintest notion on where her eccentricity would have taken from that point in the intervening hours. Her intent was good, undoubtedly, but weren’t there sayings about good intentions?

When he tried to envision their next encounter, he couldn’t quite get it to sound good. Maybe he was missing something. Maybe he was being oblivious to something obvious, something that followed him and swirled around him and he noticed it not at all.

Like the mare scooching along the woodwork, for instance.

It didn’t escape Big Mac’s notice that Pinkie Pie had slid more than halfway along the bench before he’d noticed her, but whether that was her stealth or his inattentiveness he’d never now.

“Wow,” Pinkie Pie said, her limpid blue eyes ghostly in the waning light. “You must have really been lost in thought. I was doing the sound effects for that and everything.” Okay, so he would know. Inattentiveness it was. She leaned closer, but otherwise didn’t move. “What were you thinking about?”

Besides that the strangest mare in town had taken her equally strange habit of unexpected and unprecedented sudden appearances to a new level? But that would be rude, and Big Mac was anything but rude, and he knew that sentiment really only stemmed from his confusion and surprise.

“Just...thinking, I suppose.” Dusty and underutilized, he clutched at what social graces he could improvise on the spot. “You?” he asked quickly.

Pinkie Pie didn’t answer right away, which was as strange as any answer he could imagine coming from the mare. “Not really,” she said at last. “Just resting a bit now. Mhmm.” It was something like a sigh and something like a yawn, but definitely a sound someone could imagine the mare made when she snuggled into her pillows at night. “I’ve been everywhere in town today.” The few times he’d seen her, she had been constantly on the move. Nor did it sound like her usual hyperbole.

Pale as they were, there was a brightness to Pinkie’s eyes, like twinned moons. She seemed as much as anypony could be one caught up in her own ruminations. “Do you trust me?” she asked and leaned closer still, but there was no contact between them.

Eeyup coiled up on his tongue, so natural that he didn’t even think to stop it, but she moved faster. “No,” she suddenly said, shaking her head, dispelling the treacherous, beautiful word from Big Mac before he could utter it. “Not like that.” She frowned, her hooves gesticulating intricate geometries in the air.

She paused, huffed, and continued. “I mean...” she began again, like a mare translating one language to another and wary of all the misunderstandings that could spring from that. “I mean like, when you meet a new friend and they say ‘come by anytime, Pinkie Pie’ but you learn that while they’re super genuine what they're actually saying is ‘come by any—when it’s good and we’re not too occupied and maybe give us some forewarning as well and everything it’d be appreciated because no offense Pinkie Pie but we weren’t really expecting you at all and we had plans—time.’ Like that.” A quick gasp got the mare’s poor lungs back up to standard operating capacity.

At Big Mac’s bafflement she groaned and rubbed her temples, two opposing circles bordering a furrowed brow. “Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” he hazarded, but as he heard himself speak he wanted to facehoof. She gave him a flat stare, then cracked a smile and leant back into the backrest.

“Eeyup and Nope, ‘cause there’s something I’m trying to tell you but something else I won’t tell you because if I did you wouldn’t get it and change everything. Besides,” she added more playfully, “I put a lot of work into what I did. Not many ponies could find all the fiddly little windy metal thingies I had to use.” She nodded and her mane bounced in turn.

Big Macintosh blinked. One. One normal, reasonable, rational, uncomplicated mare. Was that too much too ask for? His mind harrumphed and conjured up a Cheerilee in response, but faced with Pinkie Pie he quickly brushed aside the distracting notion.

The pink mare slumped somewhere between resignation and relaxation, and for a moment neither pony said anything. Big Mac wondered if he should leave it at that, a mystery not meant to be solved, but she spoke as if in answer to that very thought.

“You’re planning on visiting Twilight tonight?” She quickly waved away his inquisitive glance. “I’ve been everywhere in town today. Everywhere,” she said, emphasizing it with overtones that made it equal measures silly and spooky. In a return to completely normal conversation, she explained that she’d heard about the matter from Rarity.

For a minute, the pair watched moths dance drunkenly around the streetlamp.

Pinkie broke the relative silence gently as could be done. “I’m not entirely sure what we’re doing,” she whispered. “I sorta kinda maybe have a plan and an idea, but mostly just a feeling.”

“Me too,” said Big Mac, because the words had roughly the right shape and feel to them, though truth be told he could barely follow what sense there might have been in the mare’s words.

And now Pinkie put her hooves on him, gently rocking forward and back as she pressed her weight against Big Mac’s shoulder. “Don’t be too mad with me, okay?”

“I don’t—” he started, but Pinkie bunched up her legs under her, sprung like a spring with an audible sproing, planted an apologetic kiss on his forehead and was gone, sudden as that.

The only thing to move for a while were the little fluttering things, both in his stomach and their cousins carousing about the streetlamp.

Finally deciding that he wasn’t all that good at planning anyway, Big Mac stood and marched solemnly into the night, towards the winking lights of Ponyville.

Author's Note

Chapter name is a reference to the BBC Sherlock Holmes series episode A Study in Pink (it's very good), itself a refernce to the original book, A Study in Scarlet.

I feel like rambling here a small bit~

Some writers have plans, structures and checkpoints in their stories, and when they write its like filling in the colours of a sketch that's already shaped and plotted. Some writers tend instead to fly by the seat of the pants they may or may not be wearing on their heads (if wearing pants at all), and it is this second style I find myself naturally in. I imagine some readers must get frustrated when dealing with this sort of thing, because it allows a lot more whimsy and disarray into the narrative process. I mean, even this here author's note is pretty whimsical, eh?

This chapter feels a little different than others to me, and not just because it follows on from the interlude. I'm not even sure it's strictly necessary to further the plot in any fashion, but it is what I found myself writing. I don't hide the fact that I have no editors or prereaders, so what gets put forward is always a pretty raw form of the story, despite how much or how little effort I might put into refining it. I at least do believe that the thriving populations of basic grammar errors have been culled significantly from what we all saw happening in earlier chapters.

On that note, let's mosey over to that publish button, shall we?

Sweet Victory

Big Macintosh descended step by step into the gloom. Then, to his surpise, it became light. The same little lanterns that filled the library were strung out here, and the clear handiwork of Spike’s domestic prowess was proudly on display for those few who ever came to the library’s basement. Of dust and cobwebs there was no trace, and even the air tasted fresh and clean as outside, despite being underground.

The stallion paused when he realized that one of the lights was not a lantern at all. Rather, it was a ruby and golden little bird, glowing like a candle, its head following him with a smooth, singular movement. Its eyes drooped in comfortable sleepiness. It cooed to Big Mac with a soft, friendly little chirrup.

Macintosh Apple reached up, stroked its chin and found that the phoenix chick was warm to the touch, and very soft. It murmurred happily and rubbed its head against him. The luminescent little creature was, by all estimates, very content with this. “Can’t be all bad,” the pony mused. He let the chick be, seeing that it fell promptly asleep once he had left it.

“Hello?” he hazarded. “Miss Twilight?” He had been listening for some kind of response, but while none was forthcoming, it did lead him to notice that there was a certain humming noise, some kind of machinery at work, droning away in the background.

That, he supposed, would be the contraption the mares had warned him of.

The underbelly of the library was nothing like the Apples’ cellar, Big Mac noted. The one was preternaturally dark, tucked away and compact, the very epitome of storage. This was open and spacious. There was more than enough room for strange quirks and stranger ideas to trickle down from all the untold millions of words shelved above.

The centre of the floor was dominated by...well...the Apple could finally understand the mares’ difficulty describing the Relationship Plotter. It made the alarming contraption that was the Flim-Flam brother’s locomotive factory look tame and simple by comparison. Snarls of wiring, blue and green and red and yellow chased one another every which way. Here a piston drove up and down and there interlocking gears - at least one as big as a tractor wheel, some small as a bit - turned every which way left and right and left and right and left and right until Big Mac got vertigo just from staring.

He’d seen an alarm clock once in a shop, one of the vintage windup kind that chattered little tin bells with a hammer when it was time to wake up. For curiosities’ sake he’d wound the mechanism and let it do its thing, but the shoddy old piece had shuddered and blown itself apart; springs and cogs and pins flying everywhich way, the bell ringing a doleful last chime. Embarrassed, he’d rushed to pay the angry shopkeeper and had promptly left.

This was like that, all that catastrophic breakdown just waiting to happen, but so much bigger. A lot bigger. And no clock the stallion had ever seen nor heard of had coloured tubes like that, meshed together by a series of little levies and valves and tanks through which water - at least, he hoped it was water - bubbled and surged, shooting up and down by means and for purposes unknown.

He peered closer and saw that each slim tube that slotted in and out of the main network had a marking on it. Big Mac squinted and saw, disconcertingly enough, that these were the faces of all the Ponyvillians, one resident to each. There were even markings, like a thermometer would have, along each pony’s representive piece.

There was a metal sigh and a piston wheeze, and the clockwork matchmaker slotted two apparantly random options into place. Valves opened and shut as the various pathways for the liquid to take rerouted itself, this time allowing only a modest sum of liquid that gurgled up into each tube.

Whichever two ponies these were, the machine seemed to decide that they were not all that into one another. The Relationship Plotter huffed out a gout of steam, sucked the fluids back down into the main resevoir, reset to default and rotated the two tubes back in amongst the rest.

Big Mac did not wait for the next unfortunate hypothetical couple to be scrutinzed mechanically, and gave the machine a wide berth as he stepped around it.

He found Twilight sprawled across a work table, papers strewn every which way under her. Worry gnawed the back of Big Mac’s neck and the tips of his hooves. She looked to have collapsed from utter exahustion. Her inkwell had tipped over, spilling its precious blackness across the manic lines of several graphs. Notes circled prominently in red were drowning like islands being reclaimed by an inky sea.

“Twilight?” he whispered, afraid to wake her, afraid to leave her. The mare muttered in her sleep, her head rolling over her legs in the futility of ekeing out some comfort from the awkward position. “Twilight Sparkle?” he tried again, ever so gently setting his hoof to her shoulder.

The mare propped herself up. Her head struggled to lift itself on a wibbly-wobbly neck. Bloodshot eyes peered out from the gummy curtains that were their eyelids. “Big Mah...Big Macintosh!” Twilight thumped herself with sudden shock as she bolted upright, sending herself and her chair hurtling over backwards. She scrabbled to her hooves. She clutched desperately at the sheets nearest her, hugging them protectively to her chest, pointing the hoof of bewildered accusation. “What are you doing down here?”

The stallion didn’t want to panic, and was uncomfortably aware that the horn she waved about would work weird and wonky magic at a whim, if she so willed it. “I just wanted to talk to you,” he said in the most soothing voice he could. He stepped closer to the little unicorn. “Are you feeling alright?”

“What?” She dropped the papers, letting them fall however they may to the floor and rubbed at her eyes. She shook her head as if to clear a haze from herself. “Yeah. No. I’m not sure. Why is it you?”

“Like I said, I came by to talk with you.” Not often did Big Macintosh feel the prickling urge to justify himself, but he felt it now. “It just felt like we had something to discuss.”

Twilight glanced dizzily upwards. The stallion followed her gaze; it was a clock. “So you came here, now? At ten minutes to midnight?” she said with more of her usual sarcastic candour.

Big Mac nearly bit through his lip, so desperate and eager and willing was ‘Eeyup’ to answer for him, to fill in this little piece of time and place in the universe so perfectly. He wanted to cry - so close to midnight! - but he found his resolve and carried the word, still burning and aching, in his chest. Big Mac nodded resolutely. “It’s important,” he said, but it just wasn’t the same, and he knew it.

Twilight circled around him, eyeing Big Mac from the sides. One side of the Plotter was all levers and it was one of these the mare pulled down, struggling with her full weight to move the stubborn iron. Macintosh Apple, minding to not touch her in any way, put his hoof to it; the lever dropped into place with a thump that shook little Twilight. Somewhere within the Plotter, new gears clanked and groaned into motion.

“Why’d you make this?”

She peered back at him. “Why wouldn’t I make it? You know how much we could learn? The whole process of relationships could be made so much simpler...” she mused on a whisper.

“It could be a lot of ruckus for a lot ponies, is what it is.” Big Mac chewed his lip. He looked up: PeeWee slept and glowed with not a care in the world. The stairs he perched over could lead the stallion up and out from this mess. Rarity had spent all day reasoning with Twilight, what hope did he have? He glanced to the clock - five minutes to midnight. He whistled in a deep, sharp breath, but she cut across his attempt to speak.

“It works. Every part works!” she insisted, stamping her little hoof on the floorboards. “It should work,” she sighed, and slumped to the floor, loose strands of her mane poking into the cracks.

“What do you mean?”

“I had it test the Cakes,” she said, not looking up as she spoke, instead switching dials and pulling levers. “I never let the machine know they were married with foals. It figured that out anyway. Just like it's supposed to. See?”

She stepped back. The Plotter clanked and whirred. Carrot’s and Cup’s little faces came front and centre, the tubing between them filling up quite full. A brown bauble floated up between them. “That’s supposed to be a single earth pony foal,” said Twilight. “That’s what it predicts.”

“But they have-”

“I know. It doesn’t matter.” She rubbed her eyes vigoursly, as if to push the red threads right out of them. “I mean, of course it matters, just not here. Not in this. It figured out their relationship perfectly. All the other test runs too.” The big lever clunked down again and the little faces went on their way. Big Mac was happy to see them go, they gave him the heeby-jeebies.

More gears turned, new tubes slid in and out of place as tanks gurgled. “I set it to start predicting relationships once it’d proved that it could. It should have worked,” she said, giving the metal a half-hearted whack, then headbutted the machine in her frustration.

Big Mac wanted to talk about this morning. He wanted to settle that issue, not get dragged into this one. The black feeling that they were one and the same snuck over him anyway. “What went wrong?”

“You did!” she cried out, wisps of smoke and tiny tongues of flame leaping out from her hair as her legs shot out in all directions. “You didn’t fit in neatly anywhere. The machine couldn’t comprehend you. The only way to keep the other shippings in the algorithm stable was to pair Big Macintosh with Caramel. The fact that Big Macintosh is not with Caramel is unbalancing the whole program!” Twilight huffed and stomped along to the far side of the Plotter.

Big Macintosh blinked, and didn’t say nothin’ for a long moment. “You’re mad at me because I don’t fit your numbers?” He thought he should expect to feel confused. Truth be told though, he felt angry. “You’re mad, at me, because I don’t fit your numbers?” he repeated, iterating each word more forcefully. Something strong was stirring in his chest, something he couldn’t hope to stop.

Big Macintosh breathed deep. Tried to quell the rising tide. He couldn’t. He glanced at the clock. A minute. One little minute. Sweat beaded on his brow. “That’s not on,” he said, measuring each word carefully. Anger filled him right up, the feeling being so rare for him that alarm filled him right up, too.

“What do you know?” The unicorn growled back. “You didn't even notice that...” her voice trailed away in vicious little mutterances.

“It doesn’t work that way, Miss Twilight. Can’t just turn ponies into numbers than multiply ‘em together to make it all work out neat.” The little hand and big hand clicked together like the key opening the lock to freedom.

Midnight.

“Nope,” he whispered. Nope filled him, flowed through him. The essence and idea of Nope made him stand up taller, stick out his chest further. “Nope,” he said again, pointing at the evil machine. All his feeling and sentiment, sharpened down to a single spearhead, was flung at the Plotter.

“Nope! Nope nope nope! NOPE!” he shouted, almost expecting the Plotter to crumble and be blown away by the word.

By the smouldering hot flanks of Celestia, it felt good to reconnect with his true self again. “Eeyup,” he whispered under his breath. “Ain’t nopony’s business but their own, who goes with who.”

Twilight, rather frayed and stunned by the whole display, blinked. The seconds ticked along into the first minute past midnight; a new day. “Who goes with whom,” she said, but the combative tones from before were dispelled. She sighed and sat down, lost amidst the scattered notes and charts. “This was a terrible idea,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.”

Big Mac huffed a breath of relief. That had sorta been his trump card, a stern talking-to, just like his Granny used to do when he was little and being bold. ‘Nope’ was pretty magnificent, when he got right down to it.

“And you won your bet,” she mused quietly, gesturing half-heartedly at the clock. The frantic mare was gone, replaced by one entirely more rational and sensible...and far more tired, it seemed. Too tired to be excitable.

Just as the stallion tried to contemplate what it meant to be victorious, Pinkie and Rarity came down, crashing and fumbling against one another on the stairs into the basement. Poor PeeWee was given such a fright, and a particularily eager leap from Pinkie Pie made both mares tumble. Rarity for her part hardly seemed to notice and rolled neatly to her hooves, whereas Pinkie found herself embedded in a heap of assorted tools and tomes that crumbled and fell atop her in a ruckus of noise.

“Whatever was all that shouting about?” Rarity asked, deigning not to notice Pinkie’s struggle to extricate herself, only raising her voice ever so slightly to deal with Pinkie’s muffled struggling. “Twilight, dear, you look dreadful!” The unicorn ran over to Twilight Sparkle, insisting that she help her to stand, as if ‘looking dreadful’ was a debiliating injury and required immediate medical assistance.

“You were right,” Twilight said. She was so shakey, it might as well have been an injury she’d endured. “About everything. I should dismantle the whole thing. It’s too much trouble. The Plotter would just upset everypony.”

Rarity ran her hoof through Twilight’s tattered mane. “It’s always a pleasure to see you come back to your senses. Though if I’d a bit of shouting was all it was going to take, I would have indulged myself this morning and saved us all this mess.” Twilight gave her a look, which Rarity laughed away nervously. “Nevermind that,” she said. “I am equally glad to see you’ve turned out well, Big Macintosh.”

The way she spoke, it always gave him the urge to bow and be as gentlecoltly as he could. To meet her high prose with something of his own. “Eeyup,” he said, feeling very satisfied with himself.

Rarity ran her hooves over Twilight, a purple pillow to be fluffed back into a suitably soft and presentable shape. “With a grin like that, I assume you’ve beaten Applejack in your little game as well? Pinkie was utterly distressed as we watched the seconds count down. I had faith in you, of course, but there was no consoling her.” Rarity giggled at her friend’s silly and misplaced doubt. “Can you hear me in there, Pinkie? All turned out well!” There was a certain smugness to be heard in Rarity’s voice as well, one that Big Macintosh found rather agreeable.

Pinkie Pie exploded from the debris as only Pinkie Pie could. Bits and bobs rained down around them as the mare heaved in a great big breath. “I changed all the clocks in Ponyville to be five minutes fast!” She rattled off, panting, heaving, eyes wild.

The meaning of the words struck Big Mac hardest. “You did what?”

“Adjusted all the clocks! Tik’d their toks! It’s not midnight yet!”

“Pinkie!” Rarity hissed. “How could you? What were you thinking?!”

She looked frantic, like she might cry, Big Macintosh thought. Just this moment, he nearly wanted her to. “I don’t know,” she said. “It was a feeling. A super feeling.” Pinkie stared him in the eye, there was that same lambent blue, full of unexpressible wit, now tinged with worry and guilt. “I had to do it,” she said as her gaze broke away. “It felt like the right thing to do.”

The stallion said nothing. Another lesson from his Granny; to say nothing at all if he could say nothing nice. He’d been so close, only to be cheated out of his rightful, hard earned win? Big Mac had a whole lot of nothing nice to say right about now.

Twilight waded through the mess over to her friend, perplexed, but with none of the fuming sentiments that both he and Rarity shared in. “Sabotaging Big Macintosh’s bet with Applejack felt like the right thing to do?” she asked.

“Yes,” Pinkie confessed, almost defiantly.

“That,” Twilight said slowly, “Makes absolutly no sense to me.” She didn’t say it like an accusation. Rather just that Pinkie was an amazing natural phenomenon that brookered further study. The unicorn closed her eyes. Her horn lit up and from that purple glow a ghostly clock floated into being, a purple circle with purple lines shining in the air. She looked between it and the mundane one pinned to the wall. They all did. “It’s not made up, either.”

“Geez, Twilight,” Pinkie mumbled, walking through the etheral projection, dispersing it. “A girl spends the whole day getting to every single clock and watch in Ponyville and changing them all, she should hope it’s not just made up. That took a lot of work, you know.” Pinkie turned to Big Macintosh with what he realized were puppy eyes. Big blue puppy eyes, ones that pierced right into him and proffered up a gift-wrapped apology. He wasn't ready to accept anything of the sort just now.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Big Macintosh Apple...you lose.”

He looked to each mare in turn, and they to him. Big Mac felt tired, tired as Twilight looked, like all the extra hours he’d stayed up tonight had attacked him, all at once. He sighed.

“Alright then. I’m going home now. Goodbye.”

He turned to leave and nopony tried to stop him. Rarity looked like she wanted to, but the words wouldn’t come to her, as if she too had been on a silly bet and the right ones, the ones that could explain and justify any of this were forbidden to her. He passed by PeeWee, not stopping to give the dozing chick a tickle under the chin. He stepped out into the dark of the night, fumbling about the road until his eyes adjusted to the emptiness of it.

It was a long walk home. He didn’t wake anypony up when he got there; the truth would be just the same in the morning, and that would come soon enough anyway. Big Macintosh did not sleep comfortably. He kept asking himself why, right on into his fitful dreams.

'...Don’t be too mad with me,

okay?...'

Author's Note

NOT THE FINAL CHAPTER
seriously, I don't know why people keep believing that. Sheesh.
Aiming for final chapter publishing by the end of September. This weekend even. We'll see.

The Bits that Matter

“I brought waffles!” Applejack’s cheeriness was the first thing Big Macintosh heard that morning. Just as soon as he blinked away the worst of the sticky, tacky gumminess from his eyes he saw it too, Applejack marching into his room, a bright and early smile on her orange face. The plate balanced neatly on her back, stacked high with softly steaming, syrup soaking succulence, promised a very fulfilling breakfast to kick off his three day reward. Like the gooey butter, Big Macintosh started to warm to the idea, but just as quickly the rest of the memory fell into place and he scowled.

He sat up, wiping at his eyes intently. “Mornin.’”

His sister stifled a laugh under her breath. “Ya know, I don’t recall ever actually seeing you in bed before. Ain’t that strange?”

“I get up before you,” he said. Gee, he appreciated the gesture and those waffles did smell good, but he didn’t really want to deal with this just now. Didn’t want to have to explain things until at least the aching drowsiness of troubled sleep had been chased away. His hind legs felt heavy as he shifted their weight from the mattress to the floor. He sat stooped over on the edge of the bed.

“Heh, not today you didn’t. Even Apple Bloom’s up and at ’m already.”

“Eeyup...” He stretched the kinks from his neck and, that done, slumped back down. His sister set the plate on his bedside stand. It was a big plate and the stand was small, but it wasn’t as if there was anything there to contest for space. Same with the shelves. Not even dust occupied the empty rows.

“They’re, uh, waffles,” Applejack said hopefully. “For you.”

Big Macintosh nodded and sighed. “Thank you, sis.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said and thumped his back heartily. “You got all the time you could want. Three whole days, so take it easy. See ya downstairs.”

Applejack whinnied at the appearance of Rainbow Dash standing half in the room, looking like something that had crawled up from a crypt, crazed and hollow eyed. Big Mac cocked an eyebrow, saying nothing. “I smell waffles,” the risen fiend uttered.

“Well ain’t this a first. Big Macintosh Apple and Rainbow Dash, up at the same time.” Applejack looked back and forth between the two, grinning at each in turn. “Must be the end of the world as we know it.”

“I smell waffles.” There was absolutely no change to Rainbow’s tone, not that she’d had much of one the first time. Her whole body looked as bleary as Big Mac’s eyes had felt; sleep ruffled feathers stuck up every which way from her wings, and at least one downy little one that had somehow gotten lost and now clung haphazardly to the mare’s ear. As Big Macintosh watched, the ear twitched to dislodge it. The feather held on, and Rainbow hadn’t seemed to be conscious of it at all.

She furrowed her brows and pouted for a second. “Teaches me to try and be funny. Come on then, Dash. These ones are his victory waffles, I made them just for my brother. You can’t have ‘em.”

She gently but insistently escorted the pegasus out, who offered only pitiable little cries of “but, waffles...”

Big Macintosh watched them go. He wasn’t even out of bed yet and his day was proving livelier than most. Definitely not a morning pony, he decided of Rainbow Dash, and left such ponderings at that.

What had Applejack said? Ah, right, victory waffles. The stallion stared, noting a trickle of syrup that had spilled over the side of the plate and pooled on one corner of his bedside stand. Of course Applejack had every confidence in him winning, even if she had been the one to set the bet against him from the get-go.

After a moment’s deliberation, Big Macintosh ate the waffles. He cleaned up the spill, picked up his plate and set out for the kitchen.

“I lost the bet,” He opened his mouth the moment he walked in, plain as that. He didn’t even pause in running the tap and scrubbing the plate as he said it. Three pairs of eyes: Rainbow Dash’s, Applejack’s and Apple Bloom’s, all went wide.

The breakfast Dash had at that moment been engulfing fought back with a spluttering vengeance. Choking and thumping her chest, she croaked out “What?!” Crumbs and chunks of waffle dribbled down her chin, and her wings shot right out. “How could you lose? You had it in the bag!”

Applejack wasted no time in shoving the pegasus back into the seat, neatly dodging a wing that nearly smacked her across the cheek. “Settle down, Dash!”

As they struggled, Apple Bloom leaned over from the other side of the table. “What gives?” she asked.

“I lost.”

Just as soon as the pegasus ceased her outburst, Applejack passed her a glass of apple juice, which Dash greedily gulped from. “I think she means more along the lines of ‘how.’ I’m wondering that too, Big Mac.” She glanced at the entirely more lively and awake peagasus staring keenly at the stallion. “We all are.”

Big Macintosh helped himself to a glass of juice as he tried to think his thoughts and decide what he’d say. Nothing came to mind, but the simple truth came spilling out his lips all the same. “I thought I’d won. Turns out Pinkie Pie had changed the clocks.”

Dash thumped the table hard enough to make the younger filly opposite her flinch back. “That...! I knew it! I shouldn’t have let her roam about the place and feather everything up!”

Her next attempt to strike the table was caught by Applejack’s strong hoof. “Stop it, you’re in my house,” the earth pony mare said gruffly. Dash huffed, but calmed down all the same, choosing to take her temper out on the surviving waffles with industriously overblown chewing. “That’s better, thank you.” Applejack then turned to her brother, her brow pinched together and a tight frown filling her face. “Sounds kinda mean for a prank. Huh. Did she say why?”

“Nope. Tweren’t funny. Nopony was laughing.”

“Not even Pinkie?”

“Nope. Seemed more sad about it than anything.”

“Sad? That’s not really her style.”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack chewed a mouthful. She drank the rest of her drink after sneakily stealing it back from Dash. “Then I don’t rightly understand why she’d do a thing like that. It just don’t seem right.”

“She’s Pinkie,” Dash growled, “does she need a reason?”

Applejack glared at the pegasus. “She’s our friend, Dash. Stop talking ‘cause you’re angry and start talking when you’re thinking. Pinkie might or might not be crazy, but malicious she ain’t and you know it.” The mares met gazes for a terse moment. Apple Bloom and Big Mac glanced worriedly to one another, but before either dare say something the moment seemed to resolve itself with Rainbow Dash sighing a deep breath.

“Yeah...” she mumbled.

“Does this mean big brother don’t gotta go dancing then? Surely it’s cheating and all that to change the time on him. Does it, like, end the bet or something?”

Applejack leant back in her seat. “I reckon it does. Kind of a sour way for the whole thing to go, I tell ya. Mac, I certainly ain’t gonna hold you to it, that’s for sure. Made the whole thing unfair, Pinkie did. I should rightly like to know why. She didn’t say nothing?”

Big Mac took the empty plates and cups, adding them to his task. “Just that it felt right to do.”

“Huh,” Applejack said, but offered up nothing further. Rainbow Dash wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof.

“Doesn’t make sense to me,” Dash said. After a moment’s thought, she wiped her sullied hoof on her hip. “I just hope I don’t have to drag her to your barn again, Applejack. Since when does cheating ever look like a good idea? Seriously.” Her mouth drew back in disappointment when her plan of action: wiping and ignoring, did not actually make the mess disappear.

Applejack propped her head on a hoof. She poked one of the non-sticky bits of her blue friend. “I dunno, Rainbow - I could beat you without my wings - Dash, the big Iron Pony champion.”

Dash scoffed. “You’re not still upset about that?” It seemed the pegasus was right about that anyway, Big Mac decided; both mares were sharing in a peculiar grin.

“You’re right. I ain’t. ‘Cause now it’s Rainbow - I’m just gonna nab all your family’s clothes and hide ‘em up a tree ‘cause that’s obviously a good idea and makes perfect sense - Dash.”

Dash threw a playful jab at her, which Applejack was quick to lean away from, mindful of the syrup rapidly winning its battle against the pegasus’ hygiene. “Gee, Applejack. Save some sarcasm for the rest of us. Anyway, I think I need a shower...” Dash said, looking herself over.

“Good! It’ll get you outa my hair for a bit.” Big Mac wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. Insulting one another was like a game for these two, strange as that was. Maybe that was normal though, he only knew that he wasn’t really the pony to know.

“Thanks for breakfast and all that,” Dash said as she scooted back her chair and made to leave, stretching and flapping her wings in anticipation of flight. “Again sometime?”

Applejack nodded. “It’s been fun, Dash. And sure.”

Dash paused in the doorway. “See ya Bloom See ya Mac. Bummer about Pinkie Pie. You’re still a winner, even if you, um...kinda didn’t. Heh, nevermind me. See ya.”

“Bye, Miss Rainbow Dash” the stallion rumbled. His littler-little sister chirped her goodbyes as well.

“She meant that as a compliment,” his bigger-little sister whispered as she leaned over towards him. “I’m surprised Dash took that news so well. She kinda takes winning seriously, you know.”

“Eeyup,” was all he could think to say on that.

Applejack flicked a downy blue feather from the edge of the table, both her and Big Macintosh watched it drift to the floor. It caught the slightest edge of a breeze and trembled. “Well, anyways, you know what it is you want to do about this?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, Big Mac,” Applejack said, throwing a hoof around his shoulder. “I’m sorry it got so messy.”

“Me too,” said Apple Bloom, hugging his knee, that being all she could reach.

“You still have some explaining to do, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said, her voice still sweet but now baited as well. Big Mac, hugged and immobilized as he was, felt rather a bit caught in the crossfire. Apple Bloom gulped.

“You mean, the uh, hole, don’tcha?”

“I mean the hole, yep. Spill it.”

A bead of sweat, then another, sprouted on the filly’s forehead. Her eyes flicked to the door, to the window, to Applejack. “Well, uh, you see... Me, I’m not really the spillin’ sorta filly. Course I’d like to help ya, but uh, the Cutie Mark Crusader ‘don’t incriminate your fellow crusaders code,’ yeah, um...I couldn’t. So you see-” She detached from Big Macintosh and very carefully readied herself to leap away. Big Macintosh recognized the same self-satisfied, smug smirk on Applejack, the one she had at breakfast the day before when she’d propositioned the whole challenge to him to begin with. She, too, made ever so subtle movements to ready herself. Big Mac tried not to blink.

“That so, is it?”

“Eeyup,” said the filly, squeaky as a bath toy.

“Right then...” Some unknown cue - perhaps Big Mac himself blinking, he didn’t know - and the race was on. Quick as could be, Apple Bloom leapt to her brother’s back, thwarting their mutual sister’s lunge to grab her. The filly then leapt over Applejack, ducked and dodged her way under the table and bolted out the door, Applejack slamming down not two steps behind, (having opted to leap over the whole table rather than attempt to fit under it). The blue feather was held neatly in her teeth.

There were the sounds of hooves, of a crash, a tussle, then a filly laughing uncontrollably. Intermittent cries of ‘I give up!’ and ‘I’ll talk!’ barely broke through the breathless, helpless laughter.

“You sure will!” Applejack shouted, full of laughter of her own.

For the first time that morning, Big Macintosh caught himself really smiling.

“You look cheery,” Granny Smith said as she hobbled into the kitchen. She winced as she sat down, but waved away her grandson’s attempt to help her. “Just one of them days,” she said with a resolute smile. “My hips and back been together so long, they can’t but help argue every once in a while. Get me a glass a juice, would ya?” Big Macintosh nodded and quickly obliged her. The glass wobbled and threatened to spill in her shaky hooves. “Oh stop frettin’ over me like a big ninny.” Granny tightened her chest with a deep breath and thumped her side. Something popped audibly. Her shaking stopped and she sighed relief. “There it goes.”

“I lost the bet, Granny. Sorry,” he added.

“Well what are you apologizing for? Bets, you’re practically supposed to lose ‘em sometimes. Why, I remember your grandfather got me playin’ Truth or Dare once. Course, we weren’t quite anypony’s grandparents yet, but...” she blinked, and the glassiness of her nostalgia settled down, though she did cackle, just a little. “But that’s besides the point entirely.”

“But you said-”

“What I said was that it’s important that you try your best.” She looked him up and down, like she did when scrutinized an apple for her most special of jam jars. “I reckon you did just that.”

“I thought I won. A pony cheated.”

Granny Smith poked her grandson in the chest. “Aren’t you a tad big to be sulking like a foal? So you lost, it ain’t no good, I know. But it’s a shame on them, not you.”

Granny’s cold dismissal of ‘them’ made the stallion suddenly want to defend Pinkie Pie, even if he could not have said why that was so. He was angry with Pinkie, he didn’t understand Pinkie, and he suspected Pinkie wasn’t entirely lucid. At least he knew who it was, though. He cut in front of the old green mare as she turned away. “Pinkie’s not a bad pony,” he insisted.

His Granny turned back on him with a swiftness that startled the bigger pony. She was smiling. “I know,” she said. “Why don’t you go figure out what this was about then?”

Big Mac set the last dish in the drying rack. “What about the chores?”

Granny waved away his concern like she would a bothersome bee. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll get Apple Bloom and her friends to help me.” She picked up a fluffy cloth and started to wipe down his face, regardless of Big Mac’s protests. “Oh, look at you. One day off the farm and you get into a nervous sweat, thinking the barn’ll come down or the trees’ll go to firewood. More to look at in this life than barns and trees, my boy. Now git!” she said, cracking the cloth like a whip. “Go have some fun of it. Trust your Granny.”

Big Macintosh felt rather like he was being shepherded about, like he himself would oft enough do for the sheep. It was the strangest feeling; his hooves practically lead themselves out the door. Once outside, he hadn’t the faintest notion what to do with himself. He glanced back inside. Granny was busying herself with something or other. He glanced over to the barn, then to the road into town. It called to him like unfinished business.

“Ain’t gonna sit right ‘til I get her done,” he mumbled to nopony in particular. He already felt a fool, what was dancing and bonnets going to add to that? He huffed, but already knew he was going to go. He hesitated and shuffled about, but once he took that first step, he couldn’t stop himself, nor did he really wish to.

He just had to pop upstairs for one small thing, first...

Pinkie Pie sprung from behind the last apple tree, scooting herself along to the Apples’ home with what she meant to be sneaky little bounces. She was, of course, making the appropriate sound effects for such an endeavour. Nobody spotted her, but she didn’t pause to congratulate herself, shake her own hoof and offer herself a promotion. There wasn’t time.

“Applejack!” she hissed at the open window nearest her. “Applejack!”

“Wrong window, my dear,” rattled the voice of Granny Smith. Pinkie drew a sharp breath with surprise, but Granny just rambled on, completely unfussed with the antics. “Come on in and quit that huffing. It don’t do at my age to speak to ponies I can’t see. Gives a bad impression to the young ‘uns.”

It was, Pinkie had to decide, a bit silly to panic any further. “Hi,” she said meekly as she popped in through the window. She took a seat, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she felt it was expected of her. Being in the same room as Granny Smith made her mindful of her posture as well, so she sat up straight, despite her urge to move and fidget.

“So you’re the one that made all that commotion. Got my boy in a right fuss over that, you did.”

“-” Pinkie started, but Granny wasn’t done yet and talked right on over her.

“Not that he’s that mad with you. Thinks he is, but he’s more confused ‘en anything. Cookie?” the old mare asked, offering a still steaming tray she pulled from the oven.

“They’re for bribin’ the girls with,” Granny whispered in conspiratorial tones. “That, and they just plain love cookies,” she added.

Pinkie nodded slowly, in what she hoped looked sagely and wizened a gesture. “That they do,” she said. Pinkie Pie took a cookie. Peanut butter, she noted with approval. She ate the cookie, also in what she hoped was a sagely and wizened manner. “Thanks,” she murmurred.

“So what brings you around?” Granny Smith asked as she swung the tray around, neatly depositing every last cookie in a heap on one of the plates Big Mac had just washed.

The urge to fidget was too much, and the cookies too good. Pinkie leaned over absurdly far, stretching her hoof, grasping fitfully at the edge of the plate, the whole thing going on behind Granny’s back. Just as the pink hoof made contact with one of the little baked treasures, a green hoof swatted it away. Granny hadn’t stopped or turned to look, she’d just known.

“Sorry,” Pinkie said, trying to keep her hooves to herself. “Oh, um, I sorta kinda need to know just what exactly it was Big Macintosh had to dance with if he lost the bet.” The silence (and another cookie) egged the young mare on to speak more. It all came out in a torrent.

“You see...Rarity was kind of mad at me all night and Twilight was kind of mad too but the other kind you know but now she isn’t and Dash and Applejack are probably Rarity-mad at me not Twilight-mad which is still pretty bad I don’t know I haven’t seen them yet but they probably are ‘cause of what I did and I don’t have a whole lot of time because Big Macintosh is headed into town and I need to get Rarity on board ASAP!” Pinkie wheezed the last strained syllables from her lungs and slumped chin-down on the table.

The dryness of the cookies and the long speech made her thirsty, but as soon as Pinkie could think this a glass of milk was passed over to her, again without Granny seeming to need to look at what she did.

The old mare slipped another tray of dough into the oven. “I don’t pretend to have caught half of that,” she said. “but ain’t it just a might silly that you're frettin’ so much seeing as how your prank is already won?”

Pinkie shook her head. “Not a prank, was never a prank. Pranks are funny. This is serious. Super serious! Big Mac’s future depends on it!”

Even Granny had to roll an incredulous eye at this. “Macintosh Apple’s future depends on it?” she asked flatly.

“Well...one future?” Pinkie asked with rhetorical hopefulness. “So what was it that he had to dance with?”

Granny Smith sighed, tut-tutted, and smiled. “A bonnet. In the middle of town. That was his bet."

“Okay thanks bye!” Pinkie shouted, the windows rattling with the speed which she dove out the window. She dove back in the window. “Thanks for the cookies!” she said politely and promptly disappeared again.

“Reminds me of myself at that age, heh,” Granny mused. She helped herself to a cookie. They really were quite good.

Despite his mood, the bonnet was exactly as fluffy, light and carefree as it would have been during its - and every other piece of clothing's - brief adventure with Dash the day before. Flapping about as it hung from Big Mac’s teeth, it smacked him once across the face when a sudden breeze lifted it. He growled, unwilling to open his mouth and risk this becoming a chase, instead swatting it back down.

It was frilly pink and, if he listened closely, Big Mac could just about hear it taunting him. “Nope,” he spat out around the edge of it. The fact that it kept flattening itself over his face somewhat deflated his sense of solemn purpose, but despite this he pressed on towards town, past the houses dotting the outskirts of Ponyville. His thoughts, as always, were on gettin’ ‘er done.

Pinkie Pie’s hooves beat the ground furiously. Her passing gave the grass whiplash and the fallen leaves of Whitetail Woods swirled dizzily in her wake. She flew over a hedge and bounded just as doggedly up the steps into town. Steaming along she ran up to Carousel Boutique, popped inside via the usual method ponies took and opened the window, then ran back outside, being sure to close the door behind her. She charged about in a circle in the middle of the road until she had the speed built up to dive clear over the porch and through the window to land in a slide that took her quite a ways on the smooth floor. Sliding and spinning slightly, she came to a complete stop with the gentlest of bumps into the appropriately awed and baffled unicorn. “Rarity!” she shouted. For her part, Rarity was still staring at her door.

“Did you just-” she began, but Pinkie threw herself at Rarity’s hooves.

“There’s no time! He’s almost here!”

“I don’t know what it is you’re on about.” Rarity frowned and pulled away, her nose most of all, which now pointed to somewhere up in the ceiling. “And if it is what I think it is, then haven’t you done enough in that regard?”

Pinkie wriggled her way forwards to latch onto Rarity’s hooves once more. “Pleeease?” she begged, her eyes wide and wobbling with moisture. “Don’t you remember The Doozie? This is just like that! Except this time I sorta had to help it along, had to help him along!” Pinkie sprung up to all fours instantly. “A smidgen-smudge-nudge!”

“I really don’t understand,” Rarity said, but the earlier venom was gone with a sigh. Her nose came back down to ‘commoner’ height. “Fine,” she muttered.

“Great!” Pinkie cheered, wiggling and bouncing and happy. “What we need is-” Rarity twirled on the spot to face her wayward friend, muffling her with a well placed hoof.

“- a rush job at the very last possible minute with a client or in this case friend that has barely comprehensible instructions and intentions, that being you by the way,” she iterated with a quick poke, “ and all the while having said job be good enough to, I presume, win your favour back with not only us your friends but return to poor Big Macintosh’s good graces as well, cheer him up about this mess,” Rarity snatched a sing-song breath, “ and, on top of all that, make some semblance of sense?” They stared into one another’s eyes for a moment.

Still hoof-muffled and now wide-eyed with awe too, Pinkie Pie merely nodded. “Right then,” Rarity said. “Let’s make it happen. She didn’t actually exhale embers when she huffed out that last word, nor were her eyes actually ablaze with fervour and fire, but Pinkie still felt that these visuals would have been appropriate.

Quick as she could ramble and explain and apologize, she did. Just as quickly as the words could spill out of Pinkie, Rarity’s magic lit up the shop. There was a lot to do.

“Not working today?” Cheerilee asked her unexpected but welcome companion of the morning. Rather than answer, she was met with a little cloth, frilly pink thing.

Cheerilee held up the headwear for her scrutiny. “Ah, The dreaded bonnet, oh my. The intolerable embarrassment,” she said flatly. “I would have expected bitter defeat to be less...soft?” She plopped the bonnet, lopsided, atop her own head. “And fluffy. This is definitely fluff lining in here. Have you felt the fluffiness?”

“Eeyup,” said Big Mac grimly, trying to remember that this was supposed to be his serious, solemn business.

The school teacher threw a hoof over his shoulder, pulling and pushing on the big stallion enough to make the pair of them swerve left and right through the street. “So you’re really going through with it then. Putting it all on the line. Honour before embarrassment.”

“Eeyup.” Her smile proved infectious, and he took to pushing back against her as well. They both laughed when they nearly marched headlong into a streetlight. The bonnet slid down over one eye, Cheerilee pushed it back up. “You decided on a dance to go with it?”

That gave him pause. “Nope,” he said resolutely. He didn’t want to think about it. This fun was strange and new and, not least of all, distracting him from the coming woe.

“Macintosh Apple! Do I hear the monosyllable of an ‘I-can’t-dance’ saying colt?” She cut ahead of him and swung about. Her smiling face was impassable.

“Eeyup...er...Nope?” He sighed. “I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m certain you will...” she mused softly and was mostly successful in stifling a giggle.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” She trotted promptly ahead of him. “How about a bite to eat? My treat. Might as well face fate on a full stomach.”

“Eey... I’d...like that, Miss Cheerilee.”

She turned about again, this time to drape tiny frilly bonnet around the stallion’s neck. “Just ‘Cheerilee’ is fine. You know that.” There wasn’t even half the slack needed to tie it on around his bulk; it was tiny in every way when held up against him. She let the ribbons hang loose over his shoulders.

He didn’t understand the gesture her eyebrows were making, but he got the impression the meaning was one he’d be happy to learn. “Just Cheerilee it is, then.”

“And they said you couldn’t teach a big stallion new tricks. Oh! Just over here, they do a great daisy sandwich, come on.”

He did feel a moment’s unease when the waiter, a haughty, mustache bearing stallion spotted and stared at the bonnet sitting on Big Mac’s shoulders, but this feeling was forgotten more or less the instant Cheerilee next spoke. For once he didn’t just listen and eat, but contributed his thoughts too.

“I could leave if you’d prefer that,” Cheerilee said. They stood outside the pavillion, Big Mac’s chosen Shaming Grounds. There were few ponies about, and those that were ambled about merrily as if somehow ignorant of the fact that this was the biggest day in the stallion’s life. In his distressed imagining of how this would go, he had kind of expected more hecklers.

He did have one, if Cheerilee could be counted as such. He wasn’t sure. “It’s fine,” he said. “Please stay.” He climbed the steps and took the centre of the floor as his stage. He tried to control his breathing, but even so his heart raced and a nervous sweat broke out. Big Mac gulped as he held raised the bonnet above his head. A few pedestrians stopped and stared, a young filly pointed from across the street. Big Macintosh trembled.

“Is somepony shouting?” Cheerilee asked, her ears flicking about this way and that. The stallion paused and listened for it.

“Eeyup, I hear it.”

“Wait!” cried the distant voice. “Over here!” It was Pinkie Pie, bouncing frantically at the front of Rarity’s shop. The unicorn was there too, waving them over.

The schoolteacher waved then turned back to the stallion. “How much of an audience did you want?” Cheerilee asked. “The more the merrier?”

Big Mac mumbled and muttered. “Suppose...” he finally admitted, and dropped the bonnet back on his shoulders.

“Come on then,” she said, dragging the reluctant stallion along behind her.

Big Macintosh had thought it just the two mares, but as he came more into view of Carousel Boutique he saw that there was more. A table had been dragged outside for starters. It had a lovely and perfectly flat table cloth, but nothing else was on it. This seemed to be the basis for a heated argument between Rarity and Pinkie, though he didn’t understand why. There was, however, Twilight Sparkle, waiting nervously on the far side.

“Hi,” she said. She gestured over to the other unicorn. “Oh, um. Rarity came and got me,” she managed to say. She ran a hoof over her mane, looking away and back again several times. “So this is really it.”

“Eeyup.”

As he said it, her hoof came up, but dropped back down. “Right...you can say it now. Sorry, I’m kind of rambling...” The mare chewed her lip. “I feel responsible, I mean-”

“It’s alright,” he said as he set the bonnet at the corner of the table. He was wondering how the confident, even eager mare of yesterday had become so mousey. Strange mares, he mused.

Pinkie’s shrill voice cut across them all. “Rarity, you’ve convinced me. I agree with you. Unfortunately, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the party cannon, and it’s calling for party decorations! Incoming! Big Mac turned just in time to see her hoof slam down on the button, and then all the world went ka-plooey.

Big Mac blinked glitter out of his eyes and huffed it out his nose. He glanced to Twilight who was even worse off; she sneezed a glittering rainbow of sparkles.

Rarity groaned. “Pinkie, you can just be impossible at times, you do know that?” For her part, the poofy pink pony was giggling.

Cheerilee was blinking and staring at them all. She, at least, had been clear of the blast. “You could say that again.” She hazarded the chips and dip now inexplicably on the table. “Not bad.”

Rainbow Dash swooped in and helped herself to the same. “Free chips? Sweet. Hey guys,” she added.

Big Mac was being turned about quicker than he could keep up. “Applejack here too?” Pinkie called over.

“Yeah, I just got here with Dash. You weren’t in the house, I figured that’d mean one thing.” His sister strode up and thumped his shoulder affectionately. “Figured right, didn’t I?”

He shared in her grin. “Eeyup. That’s me; predictable.”

“I dunno about that, Big Mac.” Applejack gestured the whole gathering. “I never saw any of this coming. Least of all you being caught up in the thick of it. You ready?”

The stallion looked over everything; from Pinkie bouncing away to one side to Twilight still frantically getting glitter out her hair at the other. Rarity caught him glancing over at her, she batted an eye at him. When he turned over his shoulder to Cheerilee she had a warm, open smile for him.

“Honestly, sis, I’m not sure. Not sure at all.”

“Huh,” Applejack replied. She grabbed his head and pulled it down to her height. “And there I was, sure you’d say eeyup or nope to answer that. When did you go and get so surprising?”

“I couldn’t say.” He leaned closer to whisper. “You know I can’t dance, right?”

“Yeah, I been looking forward to see how you’re gonna jump that hurdle.”

“Dance? I could teach him,” Cheerilee said, smiling as she stepped in between the siblings. “I don’t think the rules said anything about you having to dance by yourself, did they?

Big Mac glanced to Applejack, who was as slack-jawed as himself. Other ponies were wandering into the little gathering by ones and twos. Helping themselves to the free platter. Seeing what this was about. “Uuh...” Big Macintosh said.

“Brilliant! Then in that case I call first dance with Macintosh Apple!” the mare called playfully, loud enough for all present to hear. Cheerilee winked at the stallion. Rarity, who had been setting a line of ribbons along her doorway, nearly stumbled at the announcement. She recovered herself with blustery defiance. Twilight too seemed to pause suddenly and blush, though why this was so Big Mac didn’t know. He might have searched her expression for answers, except she resolutely wouldn’t look at him.

“Me too, me too!” Pinkie shouted. “I love to dance!” She wasted no time kicking at the air and dancing about, making her own little sounds to make-do as ‘music.’

“Rainbow,” Rarity called sweetly. “Could you be a dear and pop upstairs to get my record player. My fragile, expensive record player...Nevermind, I’ll fetch it myself. I wouldn’t want to drag you away from the, uh, fun.” The pegasus only shrugged and turned back to the budding celebrations. In a moment, something fun and bubbly began to play. Loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to leave the conversations alone.

“We don’t usually throw a party for losing, ya know,” Dash said. Cheerilee was already swaying in front of the stallion, teasing him as she explained the ways to move his hooves.

Applejack sidled in next to the pegasus, joining her in watching the spectacle. “Pinkie seems pretty much determined to make this an exception.” She pointed over to the mare in question, who was at that moment caught in animated discussion with Twilight Sparkle about something or other. The unicorn shook her head suddenly, made some incomprehensible gestures and turned away, but Pinkie simply grabbed Twilight around the barrel and dragged the mare back into the group.

“I’ve never seen your brother dance before,” Rarity said as she scooted in next to Applejack.

“Me neither, come to think of it.”

Dash chuckled. “What are you doing, Rares, asking her for permission?”

Rarity bristled almost visibly. “What?! I never-” but before she could finish Dash was in the air, pushing her onto the improvised dance floor.

“You can thank me later!” the pegasus called out. Applejack was chuckling when the pegasus retook her seat.

“Ain’t you the cheeky one?”

“You know it,” Dash said without hesitation, and the two friends laughed between themselves.

“Big Macintosh! Ain’t you forgetting something?” He wasn’t quite dancing, but was shuffling about to the beat, like he might start to do so at any time. He had a charming, relaxed smile plastered all over his face.

“Nope?”

Applejack pointed to her head, tried to make a little frilly shape with her hoof. “The bonnet!” she mouthed silently. Her brother whinnied audibly. His eyes went wide and his ears perked up. He glanced about, trying to see past Rarity and Cheerilee, Pinkie Pie and Twilight. All of them gyrating in their own ways or, in Twilight’s case, squirming to get away for some reason. He didn’t have time to think on that as he spotted the headwear of his shaming. It was still there, untouched on the table.

And then it was clenched in Cheerilee’s mouth.

And then it was on his head.

Unbearable shame. Burning embarrassment. Critical emasculation. These things failed to materialize. If anything, Rarity suffered more than he did.

“It’s just so silly” she whined. “Something so silly going on your not at all silly head, it really does offend my sensibilities.” Those sensibilities were offended even more when Cheerilee threw a hooful of party cannon glitter right at her. Rarity gawked and glared.

Her magic lit up, dragging a fruit-bowl from inside the house. In a flash it became the gaudiest fruit-bowl hat she could conceive of. Rarity planted it quite firmly on the school teacher’s head. The mares met eyes, smiled at some sort of understanding and rejoined the dance. Persimmons to pineapples, the hat wobbled precariously, but held together.

“That’s it, Big Mac! Put your hips and shoulders into it.”

“And your knees, too!”

“Move that neck of your’s as well. Like that, yes!”

Between the two mares, each teasing and poking at one another, Big Mac could hardly keep track of everything. Music filled his ears, scents swirled through one another in his nose and colours swamped his eyes. He half suspected the two mares were playing to see who could egg him on the furthest. There was sweat on his brow - theirs too - and his pulse was pounding under his skin. Feeling rather fantastic with it all, he had no qualms whatsoever in obliging them, ridiculous looking or not.

He stepped out after a song ended to fetch himself a drink. He wasn’t prepared to ask how the party cannon delivered, but he was prepared to appreciate the punch, which was only slightly too sugary for his tastes. His legs were noodley as he held the cup to his lips, which kept slipping into an easy smile.

“Well, ain’t this a day for firsts? You get one kick in the butt to get you into town, and look where we are.” Applejack, leaning back in her seat, prodded her brother. “You, dancin’. You, smilin’ ”

Dash dropped in from overhead. “And flirting! Or ‘flirtin’ as you’d say.”

Applejack swatted at the pegasus’ hooves. “That too,” she chuckled. “Hey look, here comes Pinkie Pie. Looks awful...focused.” Applejack’s next attempt was sudden and grabbed true, and she snagged the speedster’s hooves. “I reckon you and me should give ‘em a moment to talk over that thing, ya know,” she grunted as she worked, but her efforts to drag Dash away like a kite instead found Applejack lifted into the air by Dash’s powerful wings.

“Ha! Hook, line and sinker!” the pegasus cried triumphantly, carrying the now helpless, fidgeting Applejack away.

Even Pinkie stopped to watch that for a moment. Big Macintosh hadn’t realized just how close she’d gotten. The wiggliness the dancing had put into his limbs and into his thoughts evaporated.

“Heya.”

He nodded in polite acknowledgement. “Miss Pinkie Pie.”

The mare side-stepped closer to him. She sighed. “Sooo...you’re mad with me. I know.” She paused, but he didn’t speak. “I got you a party!” Her smile went wide, her hooves outstretched, but when the stallion still didn’t join in she slumped back down. She drummed a few quick thumps on her forehead. Her bright blue eyes caught his the instant she snapped out of it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Before any but-buts or explanations, I’m sorry.” Sincerity welled up at the bottom of her eye, it trickled down her cheek. A small smile found itself on her face. “Wow,” she said, blinking the tear away. “It feels really nice to just say something simple for once. I’m sorry.”

Big Macintosh looked at her. To see her fragile and hopeful, it felt petty, even cruel to keep himself mad at her. He looked at the celebration his defeat had been transformed into. He checked his head for the long-forgotten bonnet, and was both amused and surprised to find it still clinging on to one ear. He took it off and set it delicately on the table, confident he was done with it.

“Just needed a smidgen-smudge-nudge in a new direction?” Pinkie said. Why she made her statement a question, he didn’t know. There was, of course, a lot he didn’t know. Like what to say to her. Eeyup. Nope. Neither of them seemed to fit right.

He reached out and patted her shoulder. “Pinkie. I’m not mad. I was, but now I’m not. It’s turning out alright, and at the end of the day it was just a silly old bet. I shouldn’t gotten so serious with it. Friends?”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes glimmered. Her gaze flicked between his face and his outstretched hoof. “Friends? Friends?! Like, not just friends through Applejack and Apple Bloom and Granny Smith and Winona, but friend friends?!” She grasped his hoof in both of hers and shook it to with an inch of its life.

After a minute of hyperventilation the mare steadied herself, going perfectly tranquil. “Eeyup,” she said in perfect imitation, albeit a much higher pitched voice, her sneaky smile poking out around the edges. “Very very Eeyup. Oh!” She leaned in close. “You see Twilight over there? Looking all dazzle-frazzled?”

“Eeyup?”

“Well, I snuck back down to the Plotter last night, ‘cause I was thinking...” She paused and blinked. “Well, okay. I was thinking that it’d be fun to play with it before she dismantles it. She said she’s going to do that today, you know that?” She slunk down to her seat in what Big Mac recognized as Pinkie’s ‘being sneaky’ act. As usual, everypony that saw her doing it promptly ignored it as being utterly normal. “Well, I was down there, and I set it to match her and you...”

If her grin got any wider her head would pop off. “And?” Big Mac heard himself say. He was totally not caught up in the story. Nope.

“Aaaand...I found out she changed it! You remember how she said it didn’t work right? She changed it to not work right!”

He wanted to ask ‘how could you tell?’ but was wary. She answered anyway.

“She left a sticky note to herself on the back. So anyway, I pushed the button to make it normal again, and...” Pinkie giggled and blushed, "I set it to test you two!” When it was back to proper, the little Twi-tube, heh, ‘Twi-tube!’ Oh, right! Well, that one filled right up with pink! Pink, like me!”

Big Macintosh tried to take it all in. Pink, eh? “Why’d she change it? Still don’t make sense.” He stared at the scholar. Admittedly ‘making sense’ was always a bit abstract with her, but still. He glanced back to Pinkie in the hope for answers. She blew bubbles from a pipe he had never seen before, and inexplicably had a white moustache, which she flicked with one hoof.

“I reckon it’s a crush. A big crush. A Big Macintosh big crush,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Rather than deal with all the iddly, oogly, tickily feelings, she tried to prove, Prove, that she didn’t have one. That’s my theory,” she said. She took a drag on the pipe, but before Big Macintosh could point out that you weren’t actually supposed to inhale anything she blew the bubbles out her nose, still fixed with an expression of serious, intelligent thought.

She shook her face and both pipe and extraneous hair were gone. “I tested us too!” she said impishly. “But I’m not telling. No sir-ee, hee hee.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked playfully.

“Save a dance for me and we can find out together, okay? Now go help Twilight!” she said, shoving Big Mac forward and upwards with surprising strength. He glanced over his shoulder, but Pinkie was gone.

The giddiness of the dance floor washed right back over him. He ambled and scooted his way past couples and through groups. The whole thing was picking up more and more ponies by the minute. He found the little lavender one off to a quieter side. She didn’t seem to notice his coming.

“Hey, Twilight.”

“Oh! Uh, hi.”

Big Mac chewed his lip and steeled his resolve. He wasn’t one to normally take lead, but just now he had to. “Dance?” he managed to croak.

“Dance? Yes, there’s dancing...Dance! You mean with you! Dance! Us! Oh! No, nonono. I can’t dance.”

“Neither can I,” he said, the words were coming easier to him now. “I’ve just been pretending.” He took her hoof in his own.

“Oh, but...I’m still covered in glitter-” she sneezed as if to drive the point home,” and my mane’s all frizzy-”

“I’m wearing a bonnet,” the stallion added helpfully. Twilight smiled cautiously. He pulled her gently into the press of ponies, towards Cheerilee and Rarity, and they were welcomed warmly.

“Hey, you’re back!” Cheerilee said. She offered up her hoof, but thought better of it when she saw the squashed persimmon slide from it. She flicked the titbits that remained at Rarity, and was quick to dodge the banana of retaliation.

Soon enough, every last pony was dancing, right there in the street. They all looked ridiculous, and were making a right embarrassment of themselves. And the best part? Not one pony cared.

THE END

Eeyup.

Author's Note

And there you have it, humble readers. Conclusion. Completion. And if I've done this thing as I hope I have, resolution, too.

Props, kudos, and all other varients on the theme of thanks to Mercury Zero - http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Mercury+Zero - for spotting lots of little things, a few big things, and having put forward thoughts and insights I'd otherwise have surely missed.

Nope

Applejack beamed across the breakfast table with her golden, smug expression that lit up faster than the morning itself. Across from her sat Big Macintosh, who met her look, unflinching and non-expressive.

“That’s it?” he said in his rumbling voice.

“That’s it,” she said. “A day without talking and I’ll do all your chores for three.”

“If I lose?”

“Then you gotta dance in the middle of town wearing a bonnet.”

Big Mac went glum. “What is with you and dressing me up?”

“It’s funny,” she insisted.

“It’s weird, is what it is.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Fine then, it’s both. Still more funny than weird,” she said with a note of finality.

All the same she’d struck the bet, though why was beyond him. If Applejack said she’d do it, her word was binding. She’d have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull a fast one on him and he was always first to the table of the two. The stallion allowed himself a smile. He wasn’t going to be suckered into any traps, merely nodding to his sister.

“You can talk, ‘til we shake on it.” Still smiling, the red pony hoisted his hoof above the table. Applejack, however, frowned and did not return the gesture.

“Huh. Now that I think about it, it seems a bit off, don’t it?”

“Nope.” The monosyllable put a coy and dangerous glint to her eyes.

“Right, I got a better idea. And you’ll even get to talk with it. You pony enough to go for it?” His hoof was still out there, hovering over the woodwork, but now it was joined by Applejack’s.

“Eeyup.” Anything she threw at him, he could take. Three days off were worth no less.

“Righty then. New rules is this. You can talk, but you can’t say ‘Eeyup’ or ‘Nope’ for the day. The. Whole. Day. You get that?”

“Eeyup.” Applejack grinned. Big Mac felt the prickle of nervous sweat.

“That one slides, we haven’t shook yet. You still pony enough to try?”

“Eeyyy--yes.” The word tasted dusty, unfamiliar on his tongue. He gave his sister a look. “Playin’ dirty, though.” She grasped his hoof and shaked heartily.

“It’s playin’ clever. I thought there, takin’ away all your words wouldn’t actually be half so hard for you as taking away just two little ones. The ones you use most of all. Gotta admit, that’s clever whatever way you look at it.”

“Ee...yalp!” he managed to yelp, fighting off the encroaching word.

“I got this in the bag.” Big Mac shot her a defiant look.

“Noo...you don’t!,” he managed to drawl, his jaw struggling avoid the familiar. He breathed as if he’d just managed a long jump record. A bead of sweat had already formed on his brow, and they hadn’t even finished breakfast yet.

Applejack helped herself to a bowl of the sugar laden cereal that Apple Bloom favoured. She didn’t normally go in for it, but watching Big Mac struggle with the challenge was putting her into a playful, boisterous mood.

“Tell you what,” she said around a crunching mouthful. “I’ll do your chores for today, starting right here and now, win or lose. A consolation prize, you know?” The orange mare rolled her eyes. “Aaaand it’ll get you out and about, with that many more chances to slip up. Trees ain’t the best conversationalists. ‘Ceptin’ Bloomberg.”

“I ain’t lost yet,” her big brother growled around a piece of toast that bled slow dribbles of jam. Applejack’s hooves thumped the table.

“That’s the spirit! Now get on out there and give it your best.”

After a moment of laughing, she called him back.

“You could finish breakfast first you know.”

“Ee..Er, right.”

“Would you bring Apple Bloom and her friends some breakfast of their own?”

Big Macintosh merely nodded.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been camping out in their treehouse. This was nothing unusual, nor was there anything unusual about them, the house, or the tree in which it rested.

The smouldering crater a stone’s throw away was new though.

It had started innocently enough, with a simple observation. Such had been this: Old things tend to be under new things, because it was a lot easier to throw something on top of what was already there than it was to push it under.

Then, like one collective entity wielding three filly bodies, they had looked to the soil. The Apple family had a lot of it. They got vegetables and corn and a zillion types of apple out of it, and that was just from the stuff up top.

The more they thought about it, the more the ideas wound up to speed. Gems came from the ground. In their minds, this was always in the form of large chests meticulously buried at the end of a treasure map. The fillies didn’t even about how such a thing could possibly get deep underground. If they had at all, they’d have come up with a vague impression that such chests just sort of appeared.

And there were excavations and buried old cities and stuff, wasn’t there? And ancient cities were always cooler than modern ones, they had tombs and temples and all sorts of amazing things.

They certainly had never seen that kind of thing in Canterlot. They’d never heard of Daring Doo and the Kinda Old but not Really Ancient Stuff - or - Daring Doo and the kind of thing that Granny would have lying around in a dresser or something and call a memento from ‘in the good old days.’

For a start, they’d need a big book to fit those kinds of titles, and who’d want to read it anyway? It’d be almost as long and pointless as one of Granny Smith’s stories. At the edge of the crater Apple Bloom raised a hoof of objection.

“Hey, my Granny tells great stories.”

“They take three hours!” Scootaloo said.

“She knows how to pace ‘em.”

“She does kinda forget what she started with,” Sweetie Belle cautiously said, but Apple Bloom was having none of it.

“So? Why’d you want a story to end up where it started anyway? Seems silly to me.”

Scootaloo groaned. “We’re getting off topic here anyway. What are we going to do about this?” She made a sweeping gesture of the catastrophe before them, which considering the depth and breadth of it, took a lot of sweeping. Some of the rock had pooled at the bottom and was making soft plink noises as it cooled into interesting shapes and colours. Sweetie Belle wondered if it counted as art.

The unicorn turned suddenly on Scootaloo, rocks forgotten. “I told you we should have stuck to the shovels.”

“We weren’t going anywhere.”

“We were too! We were going down.” It was true, they’d managed a fine pit in the dirt, one that had necessitated a little rope ladder for the fillies to shuttle up and down on. They hoped nopony would miss it, or failing that, wouldn’t know it was them that had it last.

“Well yeah, but that mixture did it a lot better, a lot faster."

Apple Bloom shoved the pegasus. “It did it too well! We were aiming down but it nearly blowed us up!” She calmed in an instant and turned to Sweetie Belle. “What went wrong?”

The white filly consulted The Book. The capitals were justified entirely. Again, Cutie Mark Crusader reasoning had run its course. More or less like this:

The Love Poison had been amazing. It was wrong to use, and they understood that now, because it tampered with ponies. But, they had reasoned, there must be other sorts of potions that could do equally amazing things This was a book of such mixtures, and provided they didn’t make the ones that affected ponies, where was the harm in it?

It was going plink at the bottom of the hole.

“Err...” she said, skimming over the all the unnecessary words. Ones like Does Not accept responsibility for any kind for mishandling or misappropriation.

Fusion infusion: a brew to be applied to small boulders and stubborn stumps with sufficient bang as to dislodge them.

As one filly, they looked to the smouldering hole. If their treehouse had been made into a pit-house, standing on its roof might just have allowed them to see the grass. If they really stretched their necks.

The ingredients were written in poetic form.

Take a dragon’s puff,

add a phoenix tuft,

Stir with a sunflower

for explosive power.

“Sweetie Belle, you said you’d get the dragon’s puff. How much did you get?”

The unicorn shied away. “Well...it didn’t say what kind of dragon, and the only one I know is Spike, but Rarity says that most are way, way bigger, as he’s only a baby. I might have put in more than one puff, seeing that he’s a baby and all.

Apple Bloom gave her a hard stare. “How much is more than one?”

Sweetie Belle stared upwards in concetration. “Erm... I didn’t count. I just got him to breathe into a paper bag. How many puffs does it take for Spike to get dizzy and fall over? That many.”

“Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo shouted, but Apple Bloom cut across the pegasus filly.

“And you were supposed to get the tuft of phoenix!”

Scootaloo flickered her wings. “I totally did!” There’s that one at the library, you know? I got one feather, easy. Super easy. I got like a million of them!”

“A million.”

Scootaloo caught the icy glare from her friend. “You know what I mean,” she laughed nervously. “PeeWee was moulting, there was down everywhere. Twilight Sparkle even gave me a cookie for sweeping them up for her. I mean, he’s only a baby phoenix, so I thought a few extra would make it work properly.

“How many was a few extra?”

Scootaloo hesitated “All of them?”

Apple Bloom groaned aloud and fell back onto the grass.

“Well it still worked.”

“It worked too well! They’re gonna banish me to the moon! Except they we ain’t got magic so they’ll build a giant catapult and try to banish me to the moon but it’ll be too far and instead I’ll only be banished to the far side of the Everfree which isn’t the moon but it’s still pretty bad maybe worse 'cause I don’t think they have cockatrices and manticores on the moon!"

Each of her friends grabbed a flailing front leg. “Calm down and breathe.”

“Yeah, you need some air.”

“I’ll get plenty of air when I’m helplessly flying across the Everfree!”

Both fillies still standing shook her insistently, until Apple Bloom swatted them away and sighed.

“Still don’t know what we’re gonna do about this hole.”

Scootaloo nudged the earth pony to her hooves. “It’s not going anywhere. Let’s go in the treehouse and think.”

Nopony likes to think on an empty stomach, because what one invariably thinks of on an empty stomach is that they, in fact, have an empty stomach.

Cue Big Macintosh; entering stage whatever side of the treehouse that the hole wasn’t.

“Hey!” he called up amicably. It was strange, he had to wonder, how the place steadily improved the more the fillies made it their own. It looked very much a small, proper house. This was even stranger considering that anything and everything else the fillies took an interest in was in for a wild ride.

“Oh. Uh. Hey,” his sister called down to him. He carried a basket for them, wafting an essence of goodness that went beyond mere scent. “You brought us food?”

“EEes.”

“You feelin’ sick? Your face kinda went all scrunchy there...”

“NNo. Feelin fine.”

“Did it again!”

“No,” he managed to squawk, tendons and eyes bulging with the strain. The ‘ope’ fought savagely to get out.

“And again! What’s going on, Big Mac?”

He sighed. His whole family suffered from chronic honesty.

“I’m doin a bet.”

“What’s the bet?” Apple Bloom pressed the point like a sore tooth.

“Can’t say two words.”

The filly cocked her head to one side as she leaned out the window. “That it? What words?”

“Can’t say.”

“Oh. Right.” She thought for a moment. “Oh! I bet I know which ones, considering it’s you. ‘Eeyup’ and ‘Nope,’ right?"

“Ee...ya’ll just come down here and get this basket. Ain’t fair to try and mess me up like that.” The filly bounded down to the ground, followed quickly by the others.

“I wasn't trying to mess you up, honest! I wouldn’t even need to, them’s practically your answers to everything."

Big Mac managed to bite off the ‘n’ sound. “That ain’t true.”

“Is so!”

Arguing with the filly was a no win scenario, so he didn’t start. It had nothing to do with the fact that firm denial was trying to form his mouth to the sweet siren sounds of ‘Nope.’ Content, he passed her the basket and continued on his way.

“Come round the house sooner rather than later, and bring that back.”

“Big Mac, not that way!”

Not just Apple Bloom, but Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle as well tried to steer him away. It was an exercise in futility, and one that piqued his interest.

“There something this way you don’t want me seeing?” he grumbled.

“Nope! Nothing!” the filly insisted. Big Macintosh felt a moment’s terrible envy for her free vocabulary.

Those thoughts fell away into a chasm, one conveniently at his hooves in one of the unseeded, unplanted plots of ground.

Apple Bloom hung her head low. “I’ll go get my crash helmet.”

The red pony didn’t even try to figure out what that meant, not when he was still trying to gauge what he was actually seeing.

In the silence, cooling rock went plink, helpfully making it merely quiet.

“You all did this?” A chorus of sorrowful nods bobbed around him.

“And you’re all alright?” More nods.

“And you learned a lesson?" Again, the nods.

“Okay then.”

Apple Bloom fixed her brother with wide, teary eyes. “You’re not gonna build a catapult and fling me near as the moon as you’re able?”

Only the fact that he had to say ‘Uh’ before what came next spared him from failure. “Nnot at all. No.”

His first thoughts, after sighing his relief for a catastrophe avoided, was along the lines of ‘what to do with this hole?’ But he wasn’t working today, was he? It was a small shift, but the thought rewrote itself after a second’s consideration as ‘what can I do with this hole?’

A small yellow hoof prodded at Big Mac.

“You ain’t gonna tell sis, are ya?”

“Ee...course I’ll tell her. In a fair way though.” He sighed.

Scootaloo stifled a giggle. “That bet sure is giving you trouble!”

Sweetie Belle whispered in quick consultation with Apple Bloom, whom started again, more coyly.

“Say...it’d be awful nice of us if we didn’t get at ya and try to make you slip up on your bet. And it’d be awful nice if you kinda maybe in a way that wasn’t a lie at all didn’t tell Applejack about this ‘cause she ain’t half as cool a brother as you are and would surely take it the wrong way.”

Rather than speak, the big stallion raised one eyebrow.

Sweetie Belle furrowed hers. “Applejack is your sister though-”

“That wasn’t important,” the yellow filly said testily, pushing her friend away. Slowly, after some deliberation, Big Macintosh smiled.

“You know yourself it’s best to tell her upfront about this sort of thing, but alright.” Cheers were had. For Big Macintosh, they were a bit deafening.

The girls ran off, whooping for joy. He wandered the opposite direction, glad for a semblance of quiet. He loved his sister and her friends, he did, but there was only so much Cutie Mark Crusading a pony could be expected to cope with in a day. Those fillies needed something else to do sometimes, some way to have simple, non-destructive fun. Something to chill out with...

The idea that struck was of the simplicity that is nothing less than inspired. Holding it in his mind, Big Macintosh set off towards Ponyville. He had no particular haste, not with the whole day to enjoy yet. Provided he watched his tongue, he’d get three more out of it too.

Eeyup

There’s no pretending that Pinkie Pie didn't dance atop reason and orderliness. It was hard to schedule fun, but it could crop up if a pony let it happen. So she did just that, with great gusto.

And yet for all of it, few ponies had as orderly - if strange - a morning ritual as Pinkie Pie. Ever since the Cake foals had been born, the mornings around Sugar Cube Corner had been punctuated with jazzy, energetic music. Even those ponies who tended to avoid Pinkie Pie and her wild energy couldn’t help but bob a bit to the beat as they passed by.

After a warmup of silly faces, Pinkie Pie moved onto the next stage of the exercise.

“Happy! Sad. Happy! Sad. Happy! Sad.” The moves were grooving, the grooves were moving; all was good.

Stretches! “Eyep-yep-yep-yep-yep-yep! Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope!” She moved to rock the crib, but a gasp much too deep for either of the twins interrupted her rhythm. Besides, she could see Pound and Pumpkin sitting right there, so it probably wasn’t them.

Stopping the music, Pinkie poked her head out the window. Of all ponies, it was Big Macintosh she saw, wide eyed as he stared up at her.

“That...was amazing. Do that again.”

Pinkie leaned out the window, between her flexibility and his height, she could’ve reached out and touched his mane. “Do what?”

“You know. What you did there. All them Ey-ya-ah...ah...ahs!” Big Mac hunched up nervously, looked to the mostly empty street and hurried away. “Got to go! Sorry!”

The mare twisted around to watch him beat his hasty retreat, to the point that she hung upside down by the tips of her rear hooves. She prodded at her chin thoughtfully as Big Mac rounded the corner. It certainly left her something to think about, namely how she was going to get back up into the room. The tickles of a foal gumming at her hoof made for a treacherous ascent indeed. After a valiant effort, the pink pony gave in to the giggles of tickling and fell with a thud to the doorstep.

Big Mac slowed to a brisk saunter, then to his usual calm walk. That’d been close. Too close. Eeyup, much too close. Nope, thoughts inside his head didn’t count for the bet, and Eeyup, he was finding it harder to deny to himself he might have something of an attachment to the two words. Applejack had been insidious indeed.

He still felt embarrassed that Eeyup and Nope were somehow his words, like how his littlest sister had figured out the bet so easily. He’d never tried to have a catchphrase, or two, but they were just so perfect.

Big Mac knew he was a simple pony. He liked being a simple pony, and his lifestyle fostered a steady, well grounded frame of mind. Those two little words divvied the entire universe into neat halves and managed to leave no room for miscommunications. Got the north field done already? Eeyup. Think Apple Bloom’ll get her cutie mark in yoga? Nope. What kind havoc would it wreak on his life if maybe - terrible, monstrous maybe - managed to slither into his vocabulary?

He knew where he stood with Eeyup and Nope, and the great thing was that everypony else did too. He wandered as he pondered, finding himself at the library of all places. Ah yes, this is what he’d been thinking...even if he hadn’t been thinking it exactly.

Big Mac didn’t really know Twilight Sparkle that well, but when she wasn’t unleashing madness and mayhem she seemed a fair decent sort. She’d helped the Apples out of a bind or two, and if that were not enough to sway it, then a certain secret Smarty Pants doll placed the unicorn well and truly in the ‘Eeyup’ half of the universe.

She might be Eeyup, but she wasn’t up. Amongst the shelves it was quiet and orderly. To hear it from Applejack, Twilight was a bit obsessed with such things, possibly because she so rarely had a chance to enjoy them. Applejack brought home story after story of how the mare’s life was like a snowglobe in the hooves of a gleefully manic foal.

In a selfish way, it was nice to see that Twilight hadn’t come down yet. He wouldn’t inadvertently slip up if nopony spoke to him. Eeyup, he couldn’t slip up. Not at all, Nope.

The two magical little words itched restlessly inside his skull. It was like the time he’d been injured and forced to rest; not a day had gone by before his hooves had tingled with the urge to buck trees. These things weren’t just habit, they were part of who he was.

“Oh, hey bro, what’s up?” The pony blinked free of his reverie to find Spike addressing him.

Just like with Twilight Sparkle, Big Mac didn’t have a lot of first hoof experience to go on. What could a simple farm pony like himself have in common with a high flying - not literally - fast talking Canterlot dragon?

Besides having overbearing sister figures, the brunt end of responsibility in their respective homes, a deep and unspoken need to stand by their masculinity in a mare dominated town while also reconciling their poorly concealed shameless delight with certain girly fru-fru things...

Right.

“Nothing much.” Spike nodded with concurrence and shrugged nonchalantly. It helped to just accept the little apron and leave it at that. “Good thing you’re an early bird, like me. If Twilight knew we had a visitor she wouldn’t be happy until you took out half a shelf.” The dragon scratched at his chin. “You want a book or something? Woah, you alright?”

Big Mac’s brow knitted over his eyes. “Just...fine. Sore jaw...is all.” It was miserable to have to say that, because even though it was the truth - biting back those certain two wily words was a workout and a half - it worked like a lie.

But yeah, a book. As fine a way to spend a morning as any. It wasn’t sunshine and breezes, Nope, but he could read about sunshine and breezes in other places. Then find out where those places were. Then find a book on the curiosities and history of such places.

Big Mac let his trailing thoughts peter to a halt. That’s what’d happened to Twilight, wasn’t it? He borrowed of the silence to make a moment of his own for respect and consideration for the mare. He only had a fling with two words...how must it be for a pony who was keen on all of them?

Let sleeping mares lie, he decided.

Spike gave the stallion a look, one to say ‘you sure you’re okay?’ but said nothing more, as per the honourable unwritten code of masculine males.

Maybe it was the unfamiliar ground, maybe it was practice, or maybe it was the weight of so many words to muffle...

Maybes! Big Mac winced, cringed and stifled a whinny under his breath. Three in one thought, at that!

He flung his bright eyes about ‘til the clock was found. Half ten. Half ten and three minutes...four. Four minutes.

Ten thirty four. That left him - he applied quick and fancy mathematics - thirteen hours twenty six minutes.

The red pony grabbed the first book to cross his gaze and stepped promptly into the reading room.

Anecdotes of the great Accountants, Vol. III. Nnope nope nope.

The second book to cross his gaze then...

Daring Doo and the Serpent’s Shrine. Eeyup flared up within him - this was Eeyup indeed - Daring Doo was not the ‘maybe’ kind of pony! Nope! Eeyup!

The reading room was small - which Mac didn’t mind in the slightest, but so was the couch, which made him the tiniest bit self conscious. He sat down...it was more of a wide chair, really. Another pony on there with him would have had to be very close indeed to fit at all.

He was a chapter in when the soft mumbles of “Oh, hello,” drew his attention. Twilight Sparkle, yawning and rubbing her eyes, nodded to him. “Spike said you were here.”

“YE-es,” he mumbled in turn. At this rate, he was going to have jaw cramps something awful. The unicorn looked at him curiously, but made nothing more of it. The words wanted to be spoken.

Put that aside however, and the stallion found the unicorn completely at ease with him. She hardly lifted a droopy eyelid beyond the greeting, casually asked what he was reading, and offered him a cup of coffee.

A cup was magicked to him; it looked like Daring Doo would have to hold off on her adventure for now. Twilight scooted onto the couch and Big Mac realized he had been wrong about the whole thing. It didn’t force them very close, it forced them very very close.

As if things weren’t enough, and it wasn’t an hour ‘til noon yet. Twilight sat back and sipped at a concoction possibly more caffeine than water.

“I haven’t been up this early in a while,” she began. She didn’t seem oblivious so much as just unfettered for the proximity. The stallion could feel more heat from her than from his mug. He was fettered. He was very fettered.

“I forgot just how nice it is to have an hour of nothing much at all before the day starts.”

Big Macintosh caught himself, ready and waiting. “Mhmm.” That was a Eeyup substitute, wasn’t it? Right?

“You must be up before anypony else, now that I think of it.” Twilight let herself fall all the way back, her head lolling on the cushions, her hooves placid at her sides. Big Mac was acutely aware of it. And she was cute, too.

Three days, he thought. Three days, and every second of it would be cherished, because of what it took to earn them.

“With the sunrise,” he struggled to say clearly, but his teeth were having none of it.

Now, Big Macintosh had no way to know this, but he was entirely right in his apprehension - but for the wrong reasons. Were Twilight Sparkle’s mind a chalkboard on display, amidst all the equations, notes, scribbling-outs, D.N.E’s and at least one ‘Celestia is best pony’ scrawls, the one that would be presently written in thick text and thrice underscored would be ‘Friendship Problem.’

“You don’t usually come around here,” she hinted, and turned to him. She was very small and he was very big, but somehow she seemed to fill all the space. “In fact, I don’t think you’ve come here ever.”

“No...phrr...grr..urk....arrck.” the stallion heaved a breath, then another.

If anything, Twilight’s eyes lit up. The cup disappeared entirely in a flash and sound of magic.

“Is there something you want to talk about, Big Mac? Something that I, as an undergraduate of friendship, could help with?”

There was a certain hungriness to her eyes that was most off putting and unsettling. All her former ease was burned up with sudden interest.

“No-” Big Mac bit his lip and chewed, just to stop there. Oh, and Twilight apparently had forgotten the meaning of personal space. The lion’s share of his distress, however, was still in a four letter word battering his brain, not the four legged unicorn near-straddling him.

That was pretty awkward in its own right, though.

“A relationship problem then? I’m doing secondary studies on that! Don’t you want to talk about how you and Caramel had a quarrel and now the morning seems so lonely at the farm that you came to talk out your problems with somepony who cares and listens and can help?!” Twilight was wheezing and huffing by the end of it, but on the upside the stallion recognized the short-fused, ominously fizzling sparkle-sparkles of Twilight Sparkle’s usual self.

Also: Caramel? What?

“Caramel has a marefriend,” the red pony said slowly, his every syllable enunciated with the utmost care.

There are few times that a look can convey so much, but Twilight’s eyes were mere inches from his own, so that probably helped a great deal.

“He does?” Twilight blinked, and the cogs of her mind were so apparent at work that they would not have been any easier to see if her head had been opened up.

“Then you’re not... But they said... And there was... Hearts and Hooves...playing the other team!... And I- ” She looked down at herself, halfways climbed up over the Apple, the blush rising so fiercely in her cheeks her head looked fit to explode.

“I thought you were-” then she did explode. Magically, leaving no trace. The teleport was a crackling, noisey affair.

For a long, and long needed moment Big Mac sat there. Eeyup and Nope were as dumbfounded and silent as he was. Then, quiet and polite as he could - and the stallion could manage very quiet and very polite - he took his leave of the library.

No wonder Twilight was the way she was - trying to read was a dangerous, deranging activity.

Every mare in this town is crazy, he thought to himself.

Then he had a brief yet severe coughing fit because he had to fight ‘Eeyup’ from usurping his voice. A few ponies stopped to look, and some eyes lingered longer than others.

Minutes to Midnight

Big Macintosh stood on the front step. The library was ablaze with light despite the late hour. Voices within covered the silence like plush carpets. Soft, but indistinct. What had been a moment to collect his demeanor and breath had become hesitation. His resolve wavered.

Surely, what did it matter if he put off this ill-fated confrontation until tomorrow? There had been more than enough for the stallion to deal with. A simple, straightforward bet, now spun out of recognition or control. The more he thought on it, the more his reluctance to go through with this last hurdle in the final hours grew. Was it boldness to keep pushing, or just foolhardy?

And so Big Macintosh turned, an iceberg tumbling over and over in the currents of things even greater than itself, and left the library to the night and the whims of those within.

He went home. The walk was longer than he recalled.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack were surprised, but this was not their concern, and they knew it. They teased him gently once or twice, but let him be. Victory came not as a triumph, but as an inevitability. Congratulations came half heartedly, and those uttering them furrowed their brows, as if confused as to why they gave them.

By noon of the second day in idleness, Big Macintosh abandoned his pretense of ‘freedom’ and wordlessly nosed his way back into the familiar grip of the harness. He returned to work with a fervour he did not care to think much about.

Time passed. The day of his challenge slipped away from conscious thought.

The story ended. The work remained.

Big Macintosh stood on the front step.

His hesitation buckled with each stern breath he took, ‘til it broke and scattered like dust in the wind. He had come, there would be no sense or satisfaction in backing out now. He clamped his jaw and made for the door. It opened just ahead of his touch, creaking in a manner he had never heard from it before. “We’ve been expecting you,” a voice croaked, then descended into laughter.

Big Mac blinked his watering eyes against the sudden light, stepping half-blindly past the threshold. “Pinkie!” he heard a mare hiss in rebuke. “I cannot believe you actually went through with that awful greeting. And shut that door, you’re letting in a draft!” Pinkie Pie, no longer bothering to affect a spooky voice, giggled. With a harrumph and a swish of mane Rarity swept past them both. The door closed with a perfect absence of sound be it creak, croak or groan, with the exception of a forceful click as the latch caught.

Head and tail held purposefully high, Rarity strode out across the floor. “Ever so sorry about her. There is a time and a place for silly antics and this is decidedly not it!” She shot the other mare a look that, quite to Big Mac’s surprise, actually subdued her. Pinkie calmed, and murmured an apology. Not to Big Mac, but to Rarity. For him she had a bittersweet smile, one too knowing and almost sad to seem at home on a face usually reserved for exuberance.

The library was lit up with little lanterns, the sort mounted to the walls well beyond the reach of eager foals or careless visitors. The candles within cast a warm glow, the light did not so much banish the shadows that lined the shelves as gently tuck them back to sleep amidst the books for a while yet.“You been expecting me?”

Rarity rane her hoof through her mane, a gesture that spoke more of habit and stress than showing off in his opinion, not that the stallion minded her unconscious display. “Somewhat, yes.”

“I just knew you would,” Pinkie added suddenly. “So I came too, came first I mean, and told Rarity.” She had not moved from her spot, so that Big Macintosh looked first backwards then forwards and back again, unable to keep both mares in his line of sight.

Rarity bristled. “And you told Twilight.” Pinkie nodded, just once. “She told Twilight,” she said weakly. Suddenly she was stamping all four hooves as if she danced on coals, tossing her bouncing mane this way and that. “Why did you tell Twilight?!” she hissed. She sighed and again ran a hoof through the long wavy mane, but it was not quite so perfectly refined as it had been before the little outburst. “Now she’s stressed out again, and I’m stressed trying to manage her stress, and she’s gone back down to that...thing again. After I have spent half the day prying her away from it! Oh Pinkie,” she whimpered and slumped like so much silk, “you test my patience like nopony else can.”

Big Macintosh busied himself with trying to not feel embarrassed on Rarity’s behalf. On the other hoof, she seemed to have no issue with enacting all her drama in front of him. He supposed that meant good things about their budding friendship, that she felt comfortable with him. The mare leant back on a little reading chair, closing her eyes as she did so. “I suppose it will work out for the best, Pinkie. Somehow. It usually does with you, when you’re like this. Feelings and senses and all such things. If only it didn’t have to be so infuriatingly vague.” Her white hoof waved before the stallion, then settled across her eyes. “Poor Big Macintosh. You are caught up in this worse than either of us. We just have to try to manage Twilight. It’s you she’s got that infernal contraption below fixed on. Could you have expected any of this when you woke up this morning?

Again, that too-knowing, piercing, almost sad look from Pinkie. It stilled his tongue. “I think he expected just to work,” she said. The pink pony pulled a brush from somewhere and, holding it gently in her mouth, worked it through the unicorn’s mane. It was not the expert treatment that would make Rarity’s hair the masterpiece she presented daily, but it was a friendly, pleasant touch of relief all the same. The unicorn stretched and purred almost audibly.

Big Mac felt awkward on his hooves. He wanted to say Eeyup to those words, but part of him wanted to say Nope, and almost resentfully so. He shifted his weight from side to side, as he did when idle but not restively so. Maybe it was the mention of work, maybe it was being witness to something he’d never seen before, this thing that was almost intimate. Maybe it was the way those lambent blue eyes gripped him. There were questions in him bubbling up to the surface, but without the words to phrase them they were just feelings. Like Eeyup and Nope could be, in a way.

“What ‘thing’ would that be, Miss Rarity?” He had come to resolve any and all issues with Twilight after all. Figuring out just what in the hay she’d gotten into her head and done was as fine a place to start in sorting out this mess as anything.

“Did she told you about her ‘additional studies?’ The ones she has started for herself on ‘interpony relationships?’ ”

Eeyup itched along his jawline. Eeyup, Twilight had. Eeyup, it had sounded as nonsensical to him coming straight from the horse’s mouth as it did coming from Rarity now. He bit back the forbidden word and grunted in the affirmative.

“Well, she’s gone and done something quite...excessive with the concept.”

“Don’t you mean ‘eccentric?’ ” Pinkie asked softly. Rarity curled up, sat, and turned to her.

“Not at all. You are eccentric, Pinkie. Some ponies might daresay that I am eccentric.” Rarity sniffed disapprovingly to such a thought. “Twilight...” she shook her head, forlorn. Her hooves came up and she gestured, but half-heartedly, as if she knew there was no real way to convey the breadth of the present madness. “There’s metal...and wheels.”

“Mhmm.” Pinkie’s hooves had no such lack for making the attempt. They flailed about with manic intent. “Loads and loads and loads of tubing, going all over it this way and that, and levers and pumps and gears. Different coloured glass chambers of all different sizes, and gauges-”

“And the dreadful little faces.” Rarity shuddered.

“And the little faces,” Pinkie agreed, suddenly solemn.

Big Macintosh glanced left and right. Closing his eyes he ran his tongue over his teeth and nibbled at his lip, a mildly embarrassing habit he had when in deep thought, though one he didn’t mind showing now. Twilight wouldn’t go far, especially with something made up of so many parts. It’d be heavy. He felt the warm, dry stillness of library air. He felt his weight on the floor. His eyes popped open. “In the basement?”

“Yep. Mad scientists always go to the top of a tower or the bottom of a dungeon. I wonder if she needs lightning bolts—”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “It would be too heavy and too large to have built upstairs—”

“But Rarity, lightning bolts! There’s proper proceedings for this sort of thing” Pinkie pleaded in an insistent, irritating way, tugging the brush through the unicorn’s mane firmly.

Rarity sighed as her head was pulled this way and that. “It’s not even windy out, let alone raining. No, Pinkie, there will be no lightning. We are better off without it, thematically appropriate to the situation or not. It’s all beside the point, anyway. The machine is a ‘romantic relationship plotter and prophesier,’ as Twilight called it.”

“It was just a couple of graphs and a flow chart last week,” Pinkie said. There was unmistakable awe in her voice.

Rarity shooed the mare away, either satisfied with her hair treatment or resigned to the fact that it would take nothing less than full work to manage a proper restoration of it. “Yes, Twilight’s taken to this pet project of hers even more zealously than is her usual. I do worry about her, particularly because she insists everything is fine. I tell you in full confidence now, Mister Macintosh, that her mane is anything but fine. She just won’t listen to me.

“Or me,” Pinkie added, bouncing to her hooves and readiness. She sagged a little. “Not that I’ve been around long,” added. “I’ve been busy today,” she proffered quickly to the stallion’s blinking inquisition.

Big Mac was still chewing the inside of his lip. Quarter to midnight. That’s what the dignified old clock on the wall said. He was not a thick pony. Slow, perhaps, but only because he took his time reasoning and pondering. Quarter to midnight. He could believe in small coincidences, but not this one. He wondered what forces were at work, what he stood at the centre of this strangest of days. There was nothing for it, he decided. Onwards and upwards.

Or in this case, downwards. “Where’s the stairs?” he rumbled.

Rarity was smooth elegance as she moved to the spot “Just here. We’ll go with you.” She popped the basement door open with her magic, her mane full of barely managed snarls and knots, her eyes full of concern.

He remembered, sifting through his memory for guidance or clues. Instead, he found only mares. Miss Rarity, sitting and talking pleasantries that were actually pleasant. Miss Pinkie by turns solemn and saccharine, always odd. Miss Cheerilee, Miss Rainbow Dash, Twilight.

Twilight Sparkle. Her bright eyes, her nuzzled in close to him. Her sudden panic, her fiery explosion as she teleported away in an unexpected and unexplained fluster. Like the first sprout of an apple seed, Big Mac’s suspicion stepped up into the light.

“Thank you, but no...” his nibbling became a bite, just firm enough to ward away ‘Nope.’ “I’ll go alone.”

On that, he descended down into the gloom, and the darkness that straddles midnight itself.

Author's Note

My apologies for any and all typos - I'm packing to leave again even as I wrote/posted this. Likewise, my apologies for the extended delay in updating.