When Rainbow Dash first steps hoof into the New Place, a single thought comes to the forefront of her mind: It’s a wreck.
The mustard yellow wallpaper peels into strips, revealing spongy drywall behind it. The floors are carpeted and Rainbow can tell they’re sticky just from looking at ‘em. The windows are weirdly low on the wall, the ceiling’s got more cracks than a bad cover story, and the air’s staler than a one-on-one conversation with Maud Pie.
Rainbow works her jaw. “Applejack,”
“Yuh-huh?” The other mare’s voice rings out from deeper inside. Rainbow follows the sound, going airborne once she hears something squelch under her hooves. Now flying, she makes it to where Applejack’s unpacking her toolkit in the kitchen.
One look at said kitchen, and Rainbow blastoffs into the first stage of grief. “Tell me this is the wrong house,”
“Don’t y’all start, Dash,” Applejack nabs a paint scraper from her kit, not sparing a glance Rainbow’s way.
“Applejack, this place is a shit show!”
“It’s a fixer-upper,” the farmpony’s tail sweeps the kitchen’s dusty linoleum as she turns around. “Sure it ain’t pretty, but we got it at a good price. With a l’il work ‘n TLC—”
“Those are, like, the two worst things!”
“—it’ll be good as new. C’mon, Dash, y’all were all fer this before,”
Rainbow hovers behind Applejack, watching her scrape away at the peeling paint on the kitchen cupboards. “I’m all for moving in with you, not with reforming a nuclear wasteland!”
“Now ya just sound like Rarity,” finally, Applejack turns tail to face Rainbow, one brow raised to high-heaven. “You ain’t tryna back outta this, are ya?”
“What— dude, this isn’t about me dodging work,” she crosses her forelegs over her chest, “Aren’t you at least a little worried about the structural integrity here? AJ, this place is literally falling apart,”
Applejack waves her off. “That’s just stinkin’ thinkin’, RD. This here house has got plenty of charm; look’ere,” She nips open one of the cupboards, steps aside, and looks at Rainbow expectantly.
Rainbow blinks. Maybe all the mold in this place is getting to Applejack’s head, because she’s showing her a whole lotta nothing. “Uh…mind filling me in?”
Applejack grins and points at the empty space inside the cupboard. “See that? That’s potential! We can put anythin’ we want in there; Pots, pans, plates, cups…”
Rainbow scoffs. “Those are just normal cupboard things,”
“Aw yeah? What would you wanna put in here, then?”
Real subtle, Applejack. Rainbow decides to play along, if only because the tone Applejack gets when she’s leading somepony to a moral conclusion is sorta fun to listen to. “I dunno, Applejack,” she feigns some very hard thinking, stroking her muzzle with her forehoof. “How about a stick of dynamite so we can blow this place to smithereens?”
A frown mars Applejack’s freckled muzzle. “Rainbow Dash.”
“Ok, you can’t tell me you weren’t expecting that,” Applejack’s expression only gets darker. Rainbow gets started on damage control. “You’re really serious about this, huh?”
“You should be, too,” the farmpony’s irritation gives way to something softer. “This is our future, sugarcube,”
“Now who’s being dramatic?” With no little reluctance, Rainbow touches ground and trots up to Applejack’s side.
“It’s true, though. We’re gonna be spendin’ a wholeheap ‘o time here from now on. We’re gonna sleep here, eat here…this place is ours,” Applejack pushes up the brim of her Stetson, letting her eyes sweep across the room. Just for a moment, she’s someplace else, swallowed up by her thoughts and memories.
Then, she shakes herself, and returns her gaze to Rainbow. “It ain’t gonna be easy, Dash, but Ah doubt renovating’s gonna be the thing that does us in,”
Rainbow takes another good look at the kitchen surrounding her. The stained, chipped tiles, the worn-out cupboards, the rusted cooking knives hanging from the pegboard…whatever ‘charm’ Applejack’s speaking of is completely lost on her.
What she doesn’t miss, however, is the hope lining Applejack’s every word. She wants this dump, no matter how crazy it seems to Rainbow, wants to fix up its many problems and make it something worthwhile— and, somehow, that’s enough for Rainbow Dash to let her protests die in her throat and say, “Alright, let’s do it.”
•
The first room they tackle is the kitchen. They spend the rest of that morning with their muzzles to the grindstone; they scrub the floors ‘till they shine, and polish the metalwork, and toss out the old junk they find tucked away in dark corners.
Rainbow has just come across one such piece of junk. She brings it to her face, squinting. “What the hay is this?”
“Lemme see,” Applejack drops the soppy sponge she’s been wiping down the counters with and joins Rainbow in scrutinising the Mystery Junk.
When she ducks her head down to get a closer look, her cheek grazes Rainbow’s. She smells like wood and dust thanks to their day of cleaning, and her mane’s all trussed up from all the moving around. Rainbow wouldn’t say this out loud(it’s one of those weird, fleeting thoughts that give ponies the wrong impression) but she prefers Applejack’s hair when it’s messy over when it’s all drawn back and practical.
“Ah reckon it’s a salad spinner,” Applejack pulls back, smiling. “Ain’t got no use now, but it’ll sell well as a antique,”
Rainbow jolts to attention. “Hold up, you’re saying we could make bits off of this?”
“Yessiree bob,” Applejack nods her head towards the sack of weird old junk they’ve been filling up throughout the day. “Everythin’ we collected today’s gonna rack up enough bits for us to fix up this place proper,”
“A-and for other stuff too, right?” At Applejack’s blank stare, the pegasus huffs. “AJ, we found a goldmine of expensive old crap and you want to put all our winnings back into expensive old crap?!”
Though she’s rolling her eyes, Rainbow can see the beginnings of a smile on her soon-to-be roomie’s muzzle. “Ah want to put all our winnings back into our house, ya varmint,”
“But we could buy, like, anything! We could get one of those self-driving chariots, or, or a robot who does all our chores—” Rainbow gasps, now hovering above ground, “or tickets to Las Pegasus!”
“So we can blow all our bits on gamblin’?”
“Now you’re talking!”
“Rainbow, sometimes Ah wonder about you…”
“You and everypony else, sister.” Rainbow’s grinning wide enough to split her muzzle in two. “I’m one of Equestria’s 7 wonders, yanno! Right below Pinkie’s whole…Pinkie Pie-ness.”
“You gonna get back to cleaning, or do Ah needa get the lasso out?”
“No! I mean— I’ll just be over here.”
•
After Rainbow’s third over-exaggerated yawn, Applejack caves. “Y’ready to hit the hay, Rainbow?”
Rainbow brings a forehoof to her chest with a gasp. “How could you tell?”
When Applejack shoves her, she takes care not to apply too much of her deadly earth pony strength. “C’mon, Ah’ve got a couple sleeping bags lyin’ round. It’s gettin’ a mite late, anyhow…”
They migrate to the living room, which is worlds less filthy then it was that morning. Rainbow still makes sure to fly over the carpet, though; if there’s even the slightest chance of it being sticky, she straight up refuses to touch it. Applejack has no such luxury, however, and walks the length of the carpeted floor irregardless.
“Here’s one of ‘em,” Applejack pulls a bulky fabric thingy from one of the carboard boxes and lays it flat in the center of the room.
“Dibs!” Rainbow dives into the sleeping bag’s opening in the blink of an eye. She meets Applejack’s raised eyebrow with a smirk. “If ya snooze ya lose, cowgirl,”
“Reckon it’s the opposite in this case,” Applejack continued rooting through the assortment of boxes, her brows lowering further and further on her face in the process.
Rainbow flicks an ear, frowning. “What, you forget to pack it?”
“No, Ah’m certain Ah put it in here. Ah even checked it on the checklist,” when it comes to matters like these, Applejack reminds Rainbow of a certain neurotic alicorn princess. “It should be…”
The farmpony pauses, eyes alighting on a tuft of fluffy white stuffing drifting across the carpet.
“Aw, ya gotta be kiddin’ me…” Applejack’s hopes of being ‘kidded’ are promptly crushed when she finds the second sleeping bag at last, only in a state she never wanted to see it in. The poor sleeping bag is ripped into pathetic tatters, it’s filling seeping onto the ground like blood from a wounded beast.
Upon seeing the carnage, Rainbow whistles. “Damn,”
“It musta been those gul-darned rats— those varmints, coming in here and tearing up Apple Family property, Ah oughta wring their—”
“Dude, chill out! We’ll just see Flutters about gettin’ rid of them tommorow,” Rainbow scoots to one side of her sleeping bag as much as she can manage. “Here, hop in.”
“…Sugarcube, Ah appreciate the thought, but two grown mares ain’t gonna fit in there,”
“Not with an attitude like that, we won’t!” Rainbow shimmies over again and gives her friend a beckoning look.
Applejack looks at her very hard. Then, she sighs. “Don’t y’all blame me if ya end up crushed, ya hear?”
It takes a little over a minute for Applejack to wriggle into the very tight space beside Rainbow, but she manages. Soon, they’re both muzzle to muzzle, incredibly cramped, and staring straight into each other’s eyes.
“Yer jus’ full ‘a bright ideas today, huh Rainbow?”
“Hey, it isn’t my fault you didn’t rat-proof your sleeping back like a sensible pony,” With the other mare so close, Rainbow can make out each individual freckle on her cheeks. Each strand of orange fur, each highlight in those deep green eyes. Rainbow’s been this close-up with all of her friends before— heck, she’s been this close-up with Applejack plenty of times, like when they’re butting heads for whatever silly reason and do that whole challenging intimate stare contest thingamajig. Good times…the point is, this feeling shouldn’t be giving Rainbow pins and needles all over, and yet, somehow…
“This’ll be your first time in a while, huh?”
Rainbow blinks. “Wha?”
“Livin’ with somepony else, Ah mean. How was it, on your own?”
“Oh. Uh, I dunno— normal?” not keen on getting lost in her friend’s eyes again like one of the stupid character’s from Rarity’s prized novellas, Rainbow closes her eyes. “I just did whatever I wanted, mostly,”
“An’ you enjoyed it?”
“Duh. Who wouldn’t? Wake up everyday whenever you feel like, leave dishes unwashed as long as you feel like, play music as loud as you feel like…it was awesome.” Memories of that not-so-distant past flash through her head like a mental highlight reel.
“So…why do ya wanna live with me?”
Rainbow’s eyes snap open. Again she finds herself saying, “What?”
Applejack’s expression is all contemplative, like whenever she’s doing those fancy mathematics she resents so much. “Y’all loved things just how they were, when you were up in the clouds on yer own. You had all freedom you coulda dreamed of. So, why…”
And Rainbow wants to give her a lightning-fast answer. Say something reassuring and confident like, why wouldn’t I wanna live with you? or, I needed a change. A part of her she doesn’t consult on such issues is saying, I’m getting older, and I can’t keep living like I do now. Another part, a deep, tiny, shameful part, whispers, I don’t want to be alone, anymore.
But all of these parts are a few notches below or above what’s true. Too raw, too aloof, too far away from an answer that’ll wipe the doubt from Applejack’s face and replace it with that brilliant shining smile.
The truth is whatever words Rainbow lets spill out. So, she swallows back everything else and says, “Because I wanted to.”
Applejack blinks. Narrows her eyes. Shifts her jaw. And then, miraculously, beautifully, she smiles.
“Alright,” she chuckles. “G’night, Dash.”
“…good night, Applejack.”
•
They continue to chip away at years of decay, years of disuse. They paint, they polish, they rebuild. They get Fluttershy to come in and talk down the troupe of rats living in the walls, and the day after that they invite Rarity over to help them design new curtains, and with Twilight they find the best place to sell their sack of rusty ol’ antiques.
When the fixing up is finally done, Pinkie throws them a housewarming party and invites half of Ponyville. They spend that night drinking mugs of cider and busting it down on their no longer carpeted living room floor.
Of course, the morning after everypony’s wakes up with a wicked headache and a complete inability to remember the night before. Pinkie solves this with a much quieter, much smaller, Hangover Cure Bananza.
Eventually, the house stops being the New Place and starts being home.
Sometimes, Rainbow wonders. She wonders about what made her want to move in with Applejack. Then, she wonders what made Applejack want to move in with her. Applejack never shuts up about her family, visits them at the Acres on the daily, and seems to be maintaining a perfectly healthy and tight relationship with all of them. Why would she leave that?
Well, it’s like I said. Maybe she just wanted to, and there’s no better explanation than that.
Rainbow likes to think of it that way. She wanted to live with Applejack, and Applejack wanted to live with her.
They still bicker, they still get into silly completions, they still disagree vehemently over vacation spots. And, no matter what, they still want to be at one and other’s side.
Huh. That simple.
