The Core of the Problem

No matter what course of action she thought up, nothing sounded exactly perfect. Whether she considered just pretending like Rarity’s conversation never happened, or taking her advice and confronting Applejack, telling her the truth, and confessing she was at a loss—everything had a catch. In the end, she was even more confused about everything than she was before she even ran into Rarity.

She ended up making her way to the edge of town, the moon high in the fall sky, the stars seemed to be her only confidants at that moment. She took a deep sigh, resting on the rocks just before the cliff that overlooked the rolling hills of Equestria. Twilight never told anyone, but when she felt like she needed some time alone, she would come out here just to relax and to think. Usually, it was so she could study in peace. But tonight, Twilight had a lot bigger problems than spells or incantations. She had to think about her reputation, her position as a princess, but more than anything: she had to think about what this would do to Applejack.

“I just wish that I could fix this where no one gets hurt, but I know if I do that, I won’t be able to be as close to Applejack as I have been,” she thought aloud. “I want to make everypony happy.”

“But what about you, Twilight?” a soft voice came from behind her, but as she turned around, she only saw a dark shadow under the veil of a nearby tree. As that form took shape, she saw long, pink hair and a soft face: Fluttershy.

The pegasus only smiled at her, stepping nearer, before sitting next to her on the edge of the cliff. “You know… I don’t like to follow ponies—but something told me you needed somepony to talk to. You don’t mind, do you?”

Twilight nodded, a small sniff and a giggle breaking through her sorrow. “I definitely needed somepony to talk to, Fluttershy. I just—” she sighed, wondering where to even start: “I’m sorry. For earlier. I know I went a little overboard. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Fluttershy shook her head dismissively. “It’s alright. You’ve already apologized. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. What’s wrong?”

Twilight once more gathered her thoughts, staring up at the stars as her mind began to draw lines between both the sparkling specks above, and the tangled web of questions in her mind. She began to speak slowly, letting the words pour out as she thought them. “Something was just strange about her. I know there was. She invited me over ten times in two weeks. She invited just me. That’s not normal—not for Applejack. So, I figured something had to be wrong. I asked her, and she wouldn’t talk about it. So, I decided just being there would solve the problem. So, I did. And… things seemed to be getting better. But then she said I was the pony with the problem? I… got confused.

“Spike said that I was changing, but I didn’t think it was like that. I thought I was just being… less stressed. Happier, in my own way, but not life-altering, foundationally different. I still can’t quite say I think I’m any different. But now that was weeks ago, and… Applejack seems to be the one that changed. I thought that maybe, just maybe… I could look past this new version of her and ignore what might be wrong deep down that’s causing this personality shift. I thought things could go back to normal, or at least a new normal. But I couldn’t leave it alone. I kept prying. I kept pushing, trying to find out her secrets. But now things are changing again.

“Rarity says ponies think that something happened between us, and rumors are swirling. I feel like rather than making steps forward, we’re just going backwards. It’s going to cause more secrets, and more changes. And I just don’t want to tell AJ, because that might put her right back where we started—if there was anything there in the first place.. I just—I’m stuck…”

Fluttershy sat a moment, watching the stars in the distance dance, just as those reflected in her eyes. A small twinkling star shown just over her shoulder as she faced the young princess. A deep sigh, and she spoke: “If I’m going to be completely honest, I think this is just a very large lack of communication.”

“You—what?” Twilight was confused. A lack of communication? “You mean we…” The words faded as she tried to piece together a translation. Why would there be a lack of communication? They talked all the time. Ponies were starting rumors because they talked too much.

Fluttershy giggled, shaking her head. “Applejack and you—you’ve been spending so much time with one another that you’ve managed to, somehow, not talk as much about your feelings. So now you both think that whatever you have to say is going to somehow ruin what you both have.”

Ruin what we have… Twilight thought. But that’s the thing… we’re just friends. Opening up to AJ; telling her about what others are saying—that’s what might ruin our friendship. Not whatever this nonsense is about me changing… “I don’t quite understand, Fluttershy. Why do you think we quit talking in the first place?”

Fluttershy laughed a light, airy laugh. “Twilight, you both came to us, separately, to ask for help for one another—right around the same time. You quit talking… not in general. I imagine you talked about just about everything… except the important stuff. Why? I don’t know. I can’t quite see into your minds. That requires a magic that I don’t quite know. Yet there is a way you can see into each other’s… you could just talk to her, you know.”

“Talk to her… and just ask her what happened?” Twilight began, her voice turning to confusion as she tried thinking aloud, “I just walk in and ask her why she did all this to me? And tell her why I did all of that to her? Do you think she would even listen? I don’t want her to go back to how she was before... She has been happier lately than I have ever seen her. And what about the rumors? If people start talking, she could get hurt.”

The pegasus shook her head in reply. “I can’t speak for Applejack, but what I do know is that the talk of other ponies doesn’t nearly amount to the affection of those close to you. The support from a single friend is worth more than the gossip of a thousand strangers, Twilight. No matter what happens, she’ll understand, especially if you two are as close as I think you are.”

Twilight frowned, staring at the ground between the two of them. Just talk… one more time. The idea was little more than a novelty, in her mind. She had tried that approach countless times, without any sort of success. But how long had it been since she had asked, point blank, what was wrong? And how high were the stakes when she had asked? She mentally sighed, knowing in the end, Fluttershy was right. It wasn’t a great plan—but honestly it was about the only one she had left. “Thanks, Fluttershy. I will talk to her as soon as possible, tomorrow morning.”

Fluttershy once more shook her head. “I wouldn’t wait that long, Twilight. I think we both know that she’s probably still awake.”

The young pony hesitantly stood up, taking a deep breath. She couldn’t quite force her own protests to fall away. She couldn’t quite keep from telling herself this wasn’t going to work. But in the end, the sooner she got this over with, the sooner she could maybe figure out what was even happening. And despite what she said in her mind… she still desperately wanted to know the secret piece of her puzzle: what was originally wrong with Applejack. “You’re right. This… it just isn’t easy to piece together. Thank you again, Fluttershy.”

Without even looking back, she took off in a steady, slow pace toward Sweet Apple Acres. Her hoofs plodding on the cobbled path. How similar of a pace this was to what had happened three weeks before. But how different the situation had been three weeks before, as well. What began as simple concern for her friend was now something that bore down societal pressure on her as a princess. Everything was a mess in her mind, and everything was pointing toward a possibility that it all only existed in her head. But it didn’t even matter anymore, because Twilight was going to straighten everything out, starting with the one thing that mattered the most: the truth about Applejack.

Twilight neared the orchard, and, not even stopping to knock, she entered into the always unlocked farmhouse. Having attended more than one sleepover in the past three weeks, she shot right up the stairs, taking the second door on the right in the hall. One more deep breath, she opened the door, striding with a fake confidence into her friend’s bedroom. Immediately, Applejack sat up in her bed, wondering who the late-night intruder was. “What ‘n tarnation—Twilight? What’re you doin’ here?” she asked, more surprised than accusing.

“Applejack,” Twilight began, lifting her head in a confident air as she began the hardest conversation she had ever tackled, “we need to talk.”

She arched an eyebrow in confusion, but patted the edge of her bed, despite her confusion. “I’m listenin’, sugar. What’s got ya so riled up?”

Twilight wasn’t even hesitant about her words, this time, throwing all caution to the wind: “It all started about three weeks ago, I noticed you had been inviting me to a lot more sleepovers, and parties, and just generally being a lot nicer to me than usual. I didn’t think much of it, until Spike told me maybe there was a reason why…”

Twilight told her everything, starting with her conversation with Spike, and going forward from there. She even threw in the smallest details, how Rainbow Dash said Applejack was staring up at her whens he was flying, and how Fluttershy said Applejack had zoned out, being in deep thought. Her mind was swirling with all of the details, all of the possible explanations Applejack could present to her. Whether she would react with calmness, or if she would even go so far as to throw her out, right then. Twilight was terrified, but in the end, she knew it didn’t matter. Because even if Applejack was mad for just a moment, she knew that their friendship would last. Just like Fluttershy said: she would understand.

“And then Fluttershy, she came to talk to me this afternoon, just as I had completely ran out of ideas. I didn’t know how to fix anything—or even if I really need to. She told me that… in her opinion… I should just come and talk to you. She said she didn’t even know what was wrong—but that if we both came together and just talked… we could figure it out.

“Applejack, I don’t know what any of this means, but you do. I don’t care if you tell me you never want to see me again after this, I just need to know. I need to know what was wrong before; I need to know what changed over the past three weeks. I need to know if this is really just all in my head; I need to know why you asked me to do all those things; I need to know what you want to do about these rumors; I need to—“

Applejack giggled once again. Twilight immediately stopped talking, watching her friend visibly laugh at Twilight’s list of demands. She couldn’t even believe it. This was a laugh of joy, not of annoyance, not of anger—just a pure laugh. “Darlin’, you got yourself a deal. I’ll spill, alright?” she relented, raising her hoofs in defeat. “Let me tell my part of this story, okay? It all started about a month ago:

“I don’t know about this, girls, it seems pretty dangerous…” Fluttershy looked down at the cliff the six friends were standing at the face of. Applejack knew where she was coming from. This drop had to be at least two-hundred feet high, if not even more. But as much as she wanted to call it quits, she also knew that if the group didn’t find a way down there soon, that something really bad could happen.

“Ah don’t really think we got a choice, here, Fluttershy,” Applejack pointed out. “Twilight said we gotta get some thingy down there, so we gotta go down.”

Rarity interjected, slightly annoyed by such an important artifact taken with so little seriousness. “It’s not a ‘thingy’, Applejack. It’s a spellbook written by StarSwirl the Bearded. It has the power to manipulate the past. If anypony gets ahold of it, they could rewrite history.”

“It’s still a ‘thingy’,” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “It’s just a really serious thingy…”

Spike rolled his eyes, being with Rarity on this point. “I don’t think that a serious ‘thingy’ exists. It is either a ‘thingy’, or it’s called… what was it that Twilight said, an ‘artifact’?”

Pinkie Pie let out a heavy sigh. “It’s a thingy, just not a thingy thingy. A thingy thingy is something that has no other word to describe it, so you just call it a thingy. A thingy is a thingy when you know there’s a name, but you can’t think of a word to describe it.” Despite her logic actually kind of making sense, Applejack just let it go. It seemed as if everyone else did too, as the group just kind of sat there, staring at the party pony. “Look, I need a cupcake, and thus this thingy needs to be thingied so I can go get one. What’s the plan?”

Rainbow Dash, jumping into the self-proclaimed pony in charge, just stood at the edge of the cliff, but she didn’t seem sure, herself. “Fluttershy and I can fly down there, but you other four can’t. We could carry you, Spike, but I’m not sure if we’re strong enough for everyone else. We could possibly help walk you three down the cliff, but that’s dangerous if it doesn’t quite work. We could…”

“JUMP!” Pinkie Pie shouted, hopping up and down at the edge of the cliff. “There’s a pool of water at the bottom! Fly down there and see if it’s deep enough!”

“Oh dear, this isn’t going to end well…” Fluttershy whispered. No one but Applejack heard it, but she agreed wholeheartedly with her.

Applejack wasn’t quite sure what happened after that. All she knew was that she wasn’t fit out to follow in her Granny’s footsteps with her diving. She was the second to jump, which wasn’t saying much with Rarity being the last one. But after Pinkie Pie jumped down and came away fine, she was pretty confident that she’d be okay, too.

“To be honest, Twilight, the rest of the trip is pretty fuzzy. But all that I remember is that I was the only pony there, and I ended up handin’ you this spellbook, thing alone. I looked right in your eyes, and said: ‘Here ya are, Twi. I hope this helps.’ I handed that spellbook to ya, and the smile you gave me just kinda… stuck in my head. I couldn’t really tell ya why, even right now. It wasn’t any special smile. It wasn’t different than any other—it was just… you. In your purest form. I still can remember what ya said: ‘Thank you, Applejack. I really wish I could have been there with you.’.”

“After that, I just kinda wanted to make ya smile again. Whether it was asking ya over to have a sleepover, or if I just asked ya to be with me when I was workin’, it didn’t matter. I just wanted to make you happy. But after a while, I realized that it wasn’t so much about me makin’ you happy… it was you bein’ with me that made me happy. At first, I just thought I was just bein’ a little crazy, but the longer time went on, the stranger these feelins’ got. Eventually I realized somethin’, and it shocked me: I wanted to be with ya almost all the time, Twilight. I wanted your attention, and I wanted you to be as happy with me as I was with you.

“And… that’s when y’all noticed that I quit bein’ myself. That morning that ya came to the farm? I told myself the night before that I wasn’t gonna ask ya over again, because I knew that these feelins’ weren’t right, and that I needed to stop ‘em. I knew it wasn’t fair to you. I knew you had things to do, and me being selfish wasn’t helpin’ anypony.

“But when ya went on ahead and told me that somethin’ was wrong, and you knew it, and you would just be there for me, I honestly cried after ya left. You just bein’ so amazin’, I couldn’t help it. I honestly wanted to be with ya more than ever after that. Because I knew if you were that amazin’ and didn’t even know what was goin’ on, that if you did, it woulda just been perfect.

“But I knew we couldn’t be. It took me awhile, but I eventually decided that I would rather be your best friend, than possibly push ya away. I gave up. I wasn’t going to risk being happy for a chance to be even happier. We were gonna be together forever. Even if we were just friends. So that’s why I kinda started bein’ myself again.

“That afternoon where ya told me you noticed that somethin’ had changed between us, and that it felt really great? I wasn’t lyin’ when I said I was talkin’ about you. I really did go to our friends and ask if you were actin’ alright. You said I was different—and you were right… but you were actin’ different, yourself. You were actin’ like… like I was broken, somehow. You kept on tryin’ to fix me, and I was worried that you were goin’ to somehow break yourself.

“So that afternoon, I asked if you were okay with how I was… because if you were—I knew you wouldn’t mind tryin’ to fix me for the rest of our lives. Because I’ll be honest… if me havin’ a mighty big crush on you means that I’m broke… I’m gonna be broke for the rest of my life, Twilight. This crush that I managed to get—it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Twilight sat on the edge of Applejack’s bed, her eyes wide with shock. Applejack… she had feelings for her? All of this—was because of her? Because she wanted to be around her—wanted to be with her? She had never even thought that everything was because Applejack had feelings for her—sure, the people talking was because of that possibility, but everything for the past month was because of this?

But worse yet—what could she say? She never even thought of the possibility that Applejack did have feelings for her—that was the impossibility in this situation. That was the byproduct of the actual problem. It was a throwaway that would resolve itself once everything else was figured out. Now that it was reality…

There definitely wasn’t a book for this.

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