I Just Don't Think He's Right for You

Chapters

Act One
Act Plus-One
Act Your Age

Act One

The Flamingo, located at the corner of Halter Avenue and Second Street in what out-of-towners charitably called “downtown” Ponyville, was not a gay bar. It was also not a lesbian bar, or a trans bar, or even a bisexual-but-leaning-towards-whatever-makes-their-parents-not-look-at-them-like-that bar — not because any creature of any identity was not welcome there, but simply because it was all of those bars at once.

The fact was, Ponyville was a properly small town even with a Princess-in-residence, and there just wasn’t a market for multiple iterations of the same core concept — a lesson which The Riding Crop, The Lumbermill, and sWitch had all harshly learned in unfortuitous years prior. And so rose The Flamingo, unanalogously phoenix-like, from the ashes of economic despair, along with its informal motto: “If you’re queer, you’re here.”

Frankly, Applejack would’ve rather been anywhere else at the moment — under a riding crop being beaten black and blue, for instance, or being run through a literal sawmill. But instead, she was in a half-moon booth at The Flamingo, both hooves throttling a largely untouched Old Fashioned, sitting next to two of her closest platonic friends and staring pointedly across the table at her dear cousin Braeburn, instead of at the stallion next to him who he’d introduced earlier that day as his new boyfriend.

“So,” Rarity said, distractedly swirling the stem of the cherry in her Tom Coltlins, “how did you two meet?”

“Oh, it’s just the cutest story!” Braeburn crooned, voice rising from tenor to treble as he threw a foreleg across the broad barrel chest of his beau. That beau, of course, being a hulking, red-horned, midnight-black warhorse self-styled as “King Sombra,” whose hoof alone was the size of an imaginary baby and who Applejack had last seen chaining up an actual living baby. “There I was, carrying a load of apples down the road, and I just stumbled right into him! He was lost, didn’t have a place to stay, so I took ‘im home, got ‘im fed and watered, and… oh, it was love at first sight, wasn’t it, my little stray puppydog?”

Sombra said nothing. Applejack glared at him. Braeburn stared lustily at Sombra’s bulging pecs, his hoof slowly creeping underneath them. “And now ‘stead of apples, I’m more often carrying his–”

“Oh, how precious,” Rarity interrupted in a loud monotone. “And descriptive.”

“What?” Applejack snapped, her glower briefly changing targets to the other unicorn at the table. “Gay stallions have sex sometimes. Just like straight ones. You got a problem with that?”

“We’re all friends here, Applejack,” was Rarity’s even-toned reply, punctuated with a sip of her beverage and a sizzling stare. “Do try to keep that in mind. Rainbow, you had a question for our guest, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. Squinting, she raised a questioning hoof towards Sombra. “Didn’t you die?”

“Rainbow Dash!”

“Sorry! Just, um… thought we killed you.”

Rarity shut her eyes, sighed, and took another sip. The unicorn’s attention thus diverted, Applejack went back to glaring daggers, swords, and claymores at her cousin’s nonplussed partner.

“You did,” Sombra said plainly, in a gravelly bass that sent an appropriate shudder down Applejack’s spine and, from the looks of it, an entirely inappropriate one down Braeburn’s. “Twice.”

“Huh.” Rainbow Dash gestured vaguely with her still-extended hoof. “Sooooo… you got better. That’s cool.”

“Much better…” Braeburn lustily added.

Before Applejack could get her objection out, an interjection interrupted her — an excited squeal from the sixth and final member of their bar-going crew. “Oh my gosh, this place is so much fun!” Twilight gushed, fluttering up over the table so she could land bodily in the empty booth seat between Rarity and Applejack, a colorful and umbrella-bedecked cocktail held tightly in her magical aura. “Pinkie and Fluttershy are really missing out!”

“Miss Pie is expecting, darling,” Rarity gently reminded her. As a tittering pair who were more pleather than stallion passed their table, her voice dropped a register into something more like a mutter. “And I imagine living with Discord makes this place seem rather quaint.”

“Well, I think they’re missing out,” Twilight declared. “I sure feel like I have been. I didn’t even know Ponyville had a gay bar!”

“We know you didn’t, Twilight,” Applejack said quickly, and sort of accidentally through her teeth. She meant to say the next bit that way, though. “Braeburn, can we speak privately for a moment?”

“Sure thing, sugarcube!” Braeburn replied, ignoring Applejack’s grimace as he craned his neck up and planted a smooch on Sombra’s chin. Rainbow Dash and Twilight stared after the two family members as they slid out of the booth and headed towards the bar. Once they had gone, the former returned to staring at Sombra, and the latter looked at Rarity.

“You know I… wait, what does that mean?” Twilight asked.

“Don’t worry about it, Twilight,” Rarity gamely replied.

“Was I supposed to know about it?”

“Drink your Mai Tai, Twilight.”

Twilight did, and immediately forgot she had been worried at all. “Oh, it’s good. Rarity, it’s so good.”

===

“What’s up, cuz?” Braeburn asked once they stopped, practically preening as he propped himself up against the bar. The bouncy club music pumping through the overhead speakers wasn’t that much louder here than it had been at their table, but Applejack shouted her response anyway.

“You know good and well what’s up, Braeburn!”

“Well, your hackles, for one,” came Braeburn’s catty reply. “You are in dire need of a stronger beverage, sweetheart. Yoo-hoo, bartender!” He raised a hoof and gave a dainty wave, leaning towards Applejack and whispering through his toothy grin. “What’s the bartender’s name?”

“Candy Corn,” Applejack said, before she could think better of it. “Don’t look at her, she’s an ex. Focus on me.”

Braeburn’s gasp could’ve kept him alive in Seaquestria for a fortnight. “She’s your ex?” he trilled. “Well, now I have to meet her…”

“Braeburn!”

“Whaaaat?” He followed Applejack’s glare — or with the “nc, nc, nc” of the music, maybe it could’ve just been a glance — back over towards Sombra. “Ugh, AJ, relaaaaax! You’ll love him once you get to know him!”

“Braeburn,” Applejack said, each syllable enunciated with surgical precision, “I do know him. He’s a monster.”

“Oh, tell me about it…”

“I mean a literal monster! The warlordin’, genocidal kind!”

“Pfft, come on, it was hardly a genocide. Not by the international definition, anyway.”

“Oh, stars above…” Applejack groaned — for more than one reason. The bartender had finally reached them, and regarded Applejack with a look that needed no poetic embellishment.

“Hey, Applejack,” Candy Corn muttered.

“Howdy, Candy…” Applejack answered, doing her best to hide beneath her hat.

Candy’s attention turned to the stallion who’d summoned her. “What can I do you for?”

“Martini, darlin’,” Braeburn said. “Up and dry as my cousin here, if you please.”

“Tell me about it…” Candy said under her breath.

“ThankyouCandythat’llbeall,” Applejack calmly informed her.

Candy departed, grabbing a bottle of gin from the nearest well as she went, and Braeburn watched her go with obnoxious fascination. “Oh, I like her,” he said. “Why’d you break up?”

“I made bad choices in high school, we’re not talkin’ about it,” Applejack quickly replied, before bracing herself with a sigh and a foreleg against the bartop. “Braeburn, I love and support you. Always. No matter what.”

“And yet I’m sensin’ a smolderin’ cigarette ‘but’ in that statement.”

“But… I just have some concerns, that’s all. About… things. Stuff. Your stuff.”

Braeburn rolled his eyes, his head, and practically his whole body. “Oh, Element of Honesty, my frog,” he said, daintily bumping Applejack’s shoulder with a just-so-angled hoof. “Just say what you feel, cousin. Promise I won’t be upset.”

“Okay, then,” Applejack said through a tight nod. “Your boyfriend’s a psychopath and I think you should break up with him before we have to kill him a third time.”

Despite the locale, a pregnant pause followed. “You understand that when ponies tell you to ‘say what you feel,’ it’s usually rhetorical,” Braeburn intoned.

“Braeburn, I’m serious!” Applejack insisted. “Sombra’s dangerous. He should be on trial for war crimes, not stringin’ you along until…”

“Until what?” Braeburn’s tone remained smooth and level, but his gaze took on an unsubtle pointed tilt. “Who’s being strung along, cousin?”

Applejack sighed and backed down. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I just… I worry about you, Braeburn. I want you to be happy. And–”

“And I am, darlin’,” Braeburn said, throwing a foreleg around Applejack’s stiff shoulders as he giggled. “Gosh, I love that word. Your friend’s Rarity a visionary.”

“Sure, but–” Applejack tried to say.

“Dry martini,” Candy Corn interrupted, sliding a stemmed glass her way. Applejack sighed again, took the glass, and raised it to her lips.

“Thank you, Candy–”

Candy’s eyes widened, Applejack felt a towering presence behind her, and her mouthful of gin nearly splattered all over Sombra’s chest.

“–Consarnit, don’t do that!” Applejack snarled once she’d finished coughing.

“Do what?” Sombra rumbled.

“Sneak up on ponies! It’s rude.”

“I addressed you three times in the last several seconds.” His gaze rose languidly to the bartender. “I wanted to know where the restroom was.”

Candy Corn’s brow rose, but she stood her ground. “Down the hall there, on the left.”

“You’re a doll,” Braeburn told her, before his own eyes landed — or rather, descended — on Sombra. “And you could use some company, I think.”

“Oh, for–” Applejack started.

“Don’t wait upppp!” Braeburn sang over her.

As her cousin dragged Sombra away, Applejack sank down onto the bar, face in her forelegs and hat feeling a thousand pounds heavier on her head. In the blackness around her, she heard somepony click their tongue.

“Well, no accounting for taste,” Candy Corn murmured.

“Thank you for your input, Candy,” Applejack growled without looking up.

There was an uncomfortable-trip-to-the-convenience-store pause.

“You still have one of my scarves, by the w–”

“Stop talkin’, Candy.”

Act Plus-One

The night more or less continued how it started. To her credit, Candy Corn made killer martinis, but not even the most celibate monks on the planet could’ve distilled a gin strong enough to keep Applejack’s teeth from grinding at the sight of her cousin — who she loved and supported no matter what — grinding and bumping and all but publicly humping on somepony who liked cracking whips over the the decidedly unsexy type of slave.

She had to put a stop to this, right? That was what family was for: to get you out of messes you’d gotten your damn fool self into. It wasn’t Braeburn’s fault, really. He hadn’t been properly out — drinking or otherwise — for more than a year or so. He just didn’t have the kind of experience with ponies that would’ve taught him to know better than this, to take one look at a stallion like King Crystals-Are-A-Great-Substitute-For-Basic-Equine-Morals Sombra and see exactly where even a one-night stand, let alone a relationship, was absolutely inevitably going to end.

She had the experience he didn’t, that’s all. She needed to guide him around the bramble patches she’d sprinted through headfirst. And more urgently than that, she needed a refill.

Applejack swiveled in place to flag down a bartender, and found Rainbow Dash next to her, pushing a half-full glass of half-melted ice cubes across the bartop. They exchanged a nod of greeting, and Rainbow Dash’s brow shot up at Applejack’s deep, involuntary sigh.

“Geez, usually it’s vodka that gets you like that,” the Wonderbolt remarked. “Striking out?”

“I wish somepony had,” Applejack grumbled, nodding towards the impassive black behemoth dominating the dance floor — and, of course, the rakish yellow stallion smeared onto him like butter atop a loaf of pumpernickel.

Rainbow gave a commiserating grunt. “Eesh, yeah. Be nice if villains would stay defeated for once, huh?”

Applejack grunted too — first at Rainbow Dash, then at the stallion behind the bar who asked her if she wanted the same as before. Rainbow ordered a whiskey cola, then turned her gaze back to Braeburn.

“He’s pretty different from when the rest of us first met him, isn’t he?” the pegasus mused. “Your cousin, that is. Kinda remember him being less, y’know…”

“Stupid,” Applejack growled.

“Fruity,” Rainbow Dash said at the same time, wilting a bit as Applejack leveled a stare her way. “But, uh, yeah, what you said too.”

“He wasn’t fully himself yet when y’all met him,” Applejack said after another sigh. “Sure you can guess why not.”

Dash shrugged and twisted her lips in a way that said she could — and then talked as if she couldn’t. “So, what, you don’t like the new him?”

At first, all Applejack could do was furiously sputter. “I love the new him!” she finally managed to spit. “You tellin’ me you don’t? You got a problem with stallions not being stalliony enough for ya?”

Rainbow Dash stared at Applejack like she’d grown a second head. Next to Dash, a maroon stallion with electric blue eyeshadow muttered, “Only in the mornings, honey…”

“Stars, I…” Applejack mumbled, wilting more with each ensuing word. “Sorry. I’m… I’m on edge.”

“No kiddin’,” Rainbow Dash agreed, though to her credit, she sounded more concerned than offended. “I’ve seen Mama Bear Applejack before, but sheesh.”

“I just… he’s still so new to this. To bein’ who he really is. He spent years bein’ somepony else, lost so much time, and now he… he oughta get a chance to make up for it. The world owes him that.” Applejack’s gaze settled back on the dance floor and became a glare again. “Owes him better than that.”

Rainbow Dash considered the dance floor and the dark nucleus around which the ponies on it revolved, then shrugged again. “Okay, not that I’m the most qualified pony to say this or anything,” she said, “but Sombra is hot.”

“Wha… no he’s not!”

“AJ, from one dyke to another, he’s gorgeous. We gotta be real here.”

“He’s a psychopath!”

“Yeah, a psychopath with a granite chin and washboard abs.”

“Washboard abs ain’t an excuse for war crimes!”

Rainbow Dash shrugged a third time. “Weeeell…”

“They ain’t! End of discussion!”

“Fine, whatever,” Rainbow Dash muttered into the fresh cocktail she’d just received. “Just sayin’, cockblocking your cousin’s gonna be tough when you’re blocking that much–”

“Got it, Rainbow, thanks.”

They stood together in silence for a bit, stewing and sipping in equal measure. Then, out of nowhere, Rainbow Dash laughed.

“Just occurred to me,” she said once Applejack looked her way. “This is the first time we’ve been back here in years. Like, us. You, me, and Rarity all together.”

“Yep,” Applejack said back. “Guess it is.”

“Remember her first time here? She was still all torn up over Blueblood, and we were like, ‘Come on, you oughta at least try,’ and then she didn’t even tell us she had tried until, like, four visits later?”

“Classic Rarity.”

“Classic Rarity.”

The chasm of silence returned, wider this time. “I don’t… miss it, really?” Rainbow Dash mused. “Like, being a dumb barely-not-a-kid, drinking too much, situationships, all that. But it was really fun too, despite everything. And it was so casual. No plans, just whoever wanted to go out, would. Now I’m touring and Rarity’s working, Twilight’s Twilight, and… we don’t get to all see each other a lot anymore, y’know? So it’s kinda nice.” She nodded knowingly towards the dance floor. “All that considered, and all.”

“Yeah,” Applejack distantly replied. Her gaze had lingered on the dance floor. She was glaring again. “Sure is.”

In the corner of her eye, Applejack thought she saw a strange expression flit over Rainbow Dash’s face. By the time she turned her head, though, Rainbow was just flashing her the same cocksure grin Applejack had seen a million times.

“And there’s classic Applejack,” Dash chuckled. “Gets her mind set to something, and it’s game over for everything else.”

“Sorry,” Applejack said, though she wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing. “I’m bein’ a bore. You wanna, uh…”

“Nah,” Rainbow Dash said, still grinning. “I’ma wander, see what other oldheads are still around. Don’t start any fights without me.”

Before Applejack could even think of anything to say to that, let alone say it, Rainbow Dash was gone, drink in hoof and a wing already raised in greeting to two short-maned mares that Applejack really wished she didn’t recognize. She also really wished she didn’t spot her wayward cousin heading her way at the same moment, but so far tonight had been full of everything but her best wishes.

“Phew!” Braeburn huffed as he flopped against the bar, occupying the space Rainbow Dash had just vacated. “Haven’t sweat like that since Sunday School!”

Applejack acknowledged him with a tight-lipped smile. Braeburn looked at her, looked at the pegasus she’d just been talking with, and put two and two together to make three. “Another one of your exes?”

“No,” Applejack grumbled. Suddenly, the mares Rainbow Dash had ambled over to were looking past the Wonderbolt’s wings straight at her fellow Element of Harmony, and Applejack lowered the brim of her hat again as they both chuckled at some inaudible joke. “They are, though.”

Braeburn squinted. “Which one?”

“Both of ‘em.”

Now his eyes went from almonds to tickled-pink dinner plates. “How many mares ‘round these parts haven’t you broken up wi–”

“I made bad choices in high school,” Applejack said through her teeth.

“And you expect me to believe Miss Small, Sleek, and Polychromatic over there wasn’t one?”

“She’s just a friend,” Applejack insisted. “A stubborn and obnoxious one at that.”

“Well, don’t that just remind me’a nopony at all.”

At this point, Applejack’s glares clearly weren’t having their intended effect on anypony present, but she gave Braeburn a fresh one anyway that he answered with an extended tongue. “Had enough of Sombra?” she grumbled.

“Oh, he’s just takin’ a breather,” Braeburn replied. “He tuckers out easy, the poor thing. All that weight he’s carryin’ around, I suppose. You know, he told me last week that–”

“Yeah, I bet he’s told you all kinds of things, Braeburn.”

She wasn’t sure where the bite in her voice had come from — why what had been frustrating all night long had suddenly become infuriating. She didn’t feel like taking it back, though, even as Braeburn pouted and all her exes laughed and Rainbow Dash wouldn’t look back her way even as she stared, or glared, or whatever it was right at her. Who was Rainbow to talk about classic Applejack, as if she was something other than that now — about oldheads, whatever the hell that meant? They weren’t old. Nothing had changed. Everyone was just being stupid, and it was always on her to be the sober, competent Mama Bear.

“Applejack, look–” Braeburn started to say.

“Applejack, look!” Twilight loudly interrupted. She was still in mid-stumble towards them at the bar, Rarity trailing a couple steps behind wearing a ‘just humor her, she’s having fun’ smile. Her hoof was extended straight in front of her, pointing at a tray of squat plastic cups filled with wobbling red and blue gelatin. “Jello shots! I’ve never had a jello shot. Can I have a jello shot, Rarity?”

“You may have a jello shot, Twilight,” Rarity told her, as she lit her horn and gently prized a mostly-full cocktail out of Twilight’s magical aura. The alicorn bounced in place for a moment, skipped over to the tray, and returned with four plastic cups stacked atop one another, already squeezing the gelatin out of the topmost one onto her tongue

“Oh, it’s… buzzy!” Twilight said, smacking her lips. “ Vodka? Is that vodka? Applejack, tell me if this tastes like vodka!”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Applejack said to the proffered shot, and for a moment she had two gratingly pouty faces pointed at her.

“They’re so good, though!” moaned the princess. “All the drinks here are so good! Rarity, why can’t straight ponies make good cocktails?”

“One of life’s great mysteries, darling,” answered Rarity, still smiling. “But perhaps a water would be good too?”

“Whaaaat? I’m fine! I’m sho… so fine, Rarity.”

“I’d like a water, personally.”

“I want a water too! I mean, uh… okay. If you… yeah.”

Face scarlet, Twilight slumped over the bar as Rarity signaled the bartender. Applejack closed her own eyes and bit back a sigh. She knew exactly what was coming next — and the thought of it sent consternation rippling through her gut in a way that felt exactly like bone-deep fatigue.

“I’m sorry, Rarity,” Twilight groaned. “I’m drunk. I’m straight and I’m drunk at a gay bar.”

“Indeed you are, darling.”

“You’re not drunk.”

“Ladies rarely are, darling.”

A don’t-worry-baby-I’ll-pull-out pause followed, and then: “You’re sho pretty, Rarity.”

Rarity chuckled and said, “You’re very pretty too, Twilight,” and Applejack bit her tongue. Here they went again: Twilight getting a few drinks in her, insisting she’d never in her life had an impure thought about anypony without a beard and rancid body odor, and then proceeding to say the gayest things Applejack had ever heard pass through a mare’s lips.

“All my friends are sho pretty,” Twilight slurred. “I’ve never seen a stallion who was prettier than you, Rarity. Not even here. Like, I get butterflies in my stomach and my wings get flappy and I’m not even… not that I’d mind if I was! That’d be great. Stallions can be such jerks someti… lots of times. I get so many love letters, and they’re sho gross, and you’re not gross, Rarity, you’re sho…”

It’d been an inside joke among their friend group for years: if someone who hadn’t figured out their identity yet was an egg, Twilight was a whole bisexual dozen, and Rarity was just chuckling at her now and even Braeburn was smirking. Even Braeburn could see how obvious it was — and yet he’d still go home with a monster who’d do nothing but hurt him, and Twilight would sober up and grit her teeth through dates with stallions and make miserable puppy-dog eyes at Rarity like there was nothing she could do to change her unfortunate lot in life.

They’d be so much happier if they just stopped being stupid, if they stopped lying to themselves about who they were, if the music was as good as it used to be and the drinks weren’t so heavy and she didn’t feel so moondamn–

“Ugh,” Twilight grumbled. “I’m old.”

Rarity’s eyebrows twitched. Applejack just about drew blood from her tongue.

“Oh, please,” Rarity said. “You’re not–”

“I’m thirty,” Twilight half-wailed. “I’m ancient. I wasted my whole twenties studying and saving the world and doing stupid grownup stuff, and I missed out. This is so much fun. I’m having so much fun. Almost wish I was, y’know… ugh. I guess I’m just drunk. Why does being drunk always make me so–”

“Twilight, you’re bi!”

Twilight’s mouth snapped shut. Rarity pulled her lips tight across her teeth. Even the music seemed to stutter into a lull as Applejack’s heart thumped in her ears like the beat of songs she used to know, like a drum she’d spent too long resisting the urge to pound for all it was worth.

“You like mares,” she went on, unsteady on her hooves, feeling like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff and could no longer fight the urge to fling herself bodily off of it. “We know. You might be the only pony in town who doesn’t know. And it’s fine! Go on and like ‘em! Or don’t, and quit carryin’ on about it like, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t mind, oh, wouldn’t that be nice,’ like it’d be so awful to stop lyin’ to yourself and just do it. Drives me up the moondamned wall, watchin’ y’all torture yourselves for no good reason, degradin’ yourself for ponies who don’t deserve to even…”

Applejack ran out of breath, and grabbed a jello shot before so she’d have something on her tongue besides the long-suppressed truth. By the time she swallowed, Twilight was blinking rapidly, Braeburn was stone-faced, and Rarity’s jaw was clenched so tight Applejack could’ve checked her pulse from the vein bulging out under her horn.

“Oh,” Twilight said, her voice husky at first and not much improved after she cleared her throat. “I, uh… didn’t know you feel so strongly about it. I’m… sorry. I should’ve…”

“Twilight–” Rarity started to say.

“No, she’s right, Rarity,” Twilight dully went on. “I’m… I’ve been silly, I guess. Clearly. I should, uh… I’m gonna just… b-bathroom’s that way, right?”

“Yes,” Rarity told her. “Would you like me to–”

“I’ll show ‘er,” Braeburn interrupted, wrapping a hoof around Twilight’s shoulder, face still hard as stone. For a second, his gaze lingered on Applejack like he meant it to come off as… no, because it was a glare. “Think everypony could use a bit’a breathin’ space right now.”

“B-Braeburn, just…” Applejack stammered. “I-I’m just sayin’...”

“Think you’ve said enough, cousin,” Braeburn coolly replied, and he left Applejack gaping in his wake as he led Twilight towards the restrooms. She’d screwed up. She knew that much. She just didn’t know how.

“Rarity, what–” she started to say, and again she was coldly cut off.

“You know, Applejack,” Rarity said, razor-sharp stalactites hanging from every word, “I’ve found many ponies upsetting in my lifetime. Very few of them can infuriate me as comprehensively as you.”

“I just told ‘er the truth…”

“Oh yes, the truth,” Rarity seethed. “That bastion of all things moral and good in the world, that perfect binary of noble honesty and contemptible lies. Has it ever occurred to you, my fellow paragon, that the innermost complexities of another living creature may extend ever so slightly beyond what seems on the outermost surface to be true?”

“W-Well…”

“No more candid invective for me? No more truth? Well, then allow me to offer some of my own: identity, who a pony is in their mind and soul, is not a binary matter. There are lies which give comfort to those uncomfortable with themselves, and truths which can stick in the heart like thorns and leave a shell of a pony in their wake, and a substantial component of being a grown adult is learning how to differentiate between the two.”

“But they’re just…”

“Doing what? Making mistakes? Suffering unnecessary pain? Dearest darling vexatious Applejack, that is what mortal creatures do. We bumble through life collecting endless ill-advised scars on our bodies and minds and hearts, and then after several decades of that, with noted and limited exceptions, we die. That is what we are. That is the ungainly mess of truths and mistruths from which identity is born. And frankly, the most dishonest thing a mare can tell herself is that it is her place, and no one else’s, to interfere in that process without being asked, so she can bludgeon another living creature’s identity into a shape she thinks is correct.”

Applejack gaped, then grit her teeth, then growled. “Oh, for… that ain’t what I’m doin’! Twilight was torturin’ herself. Sombra’s a monster.”

“Perhaps she was. Perhaps he is. And once you’ve dragged Twilight and Braeburn away from what might hurt them, what will be left of them to preserve? What will they have learned? How will they have grown into someone who won’t make even worse mistakes in the future?”

“The future is the future. They’ll be safe now. They won’t make the same mistakes that…”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed like a viper’s, and her words cut through Applejack like fangs. “That you did? My oh my, if only you’d had someone to protect you from your younger self. Imagine the misery you could be causing now.”

Applejack opened her mouth to retort, and at first nothing came out. “I’m just tryin’ to…” she eventually croaked. “I love him. I support him. I want him to be happy.”

“Is that so?” Rarity sniffed. “You might try acting like it, then.”

Then she turned away and stalked towards the restrooms, and Applejack stood alone by the bar as the din of the crowd washed over her.

Act Your Age

Applejack didn’t do much talking after that. She tried to apologize a few times, to Braeburn and Twilight both, and they both politely accepted her apologies without seeming at all cheered by them. So eventually, she just let them go their own ways — let Braeburn retreat to some dark corner with Sombra, and Twilight drape herself over Rarity on the dance floor and sway to the soft rhythm of a deep house track, and Rainbow Dash find a group of old acquaintances to swap shots and stories with.

And in the meantime, she had gone the way she’d earned herself: to the bar, by herself, batting a cocktail straw back and forth inside a gin and tonic that soured more in her mouth with every reluctant sip. It was a good moping drink, a G&T. Like a blanket to smother your brain under, and molasses to stick your tongue to your teeth before it could form around exactly the wrong thing to say to ponies you were just trying to help.

Or was that what she’d been doing? Had she ever really had Braeburn’s best interests at heart, or Twilight’s? Or had she just been annoyed by the kind of silliness she’d thought they’d all grown past and gotten too drunk about it, and on top of that felt inexplicably uncomfortable in a place that used to feel like a second home, and which now felt like an elementary school classroom full of fond memories she was too far grown to ever truly relive?

That was the trouble with going from a dumb teenager to a somehow dumber adult: not the bills or the work or even the increasingly rough hangovers, but the nagging dread of knowing that you were never really going to get comfortable with where you were at in life, because now you knew from experience that where you were at now probably wouldn’t be where you’d find yourself in a few years, and there was nothing you could really do but be a grown-up about it and hope the next version of you was the one who’d finally figure this life thing out.

Maybe she’d just wanted to spare Braeburn all of that — her goofy, happy-go-unlucky cousin Braeburn, finally living his best life, and maybe hitching that life to somepony who’d steer him towards an even unluckier one. Or maybe she’d turned thirty years old three months ago, same as Twilight and Rarity had a few months earlier and Rainbow Dash would in a few weeks. Maybe her friends all had great grown-up relationships or great grown-up careers, and she was still here in tiny little Ponyville tilling her tiny little family farm and scrambling to hold onto the tiny sand grains of the life with those friends that she’d only just gotten used to, and it had finally turned into the kind of pony that her past self wouldn’t have liked.

Could be that. Probably was that. If she was finally being honest with herself, it had been that from the moment Twilight had gone to Canterlot to take Celestia’s place and the last candle on her thirtieth birthday cake had gone out.

“I’m a bad friend…” she mumbled towards her glass.

“Yes, you are,” a booming voice next to her replied.

Somehow, Applejack’s flailing startle and shout didn’t knock over anyone’s drink or even attract much attention from the other patrons. It sure got her heart rate up a tick or two thousand, though — and that was before she saw who had suddenly spoken up.

“Luna bless a pig, Sombra!” she swore. “You ever heard of personal space?”

“There’s plenty of space,” he said, nodding towards the numerous empty bar stools on either side of Applejack — and then wedged himself onto the one directly to her right.

“That’s not what… don’t sit down! We’re not friends!”

“I am aware.”

“Then why’d you answer me? And for the record, it wasn’t a particularly friendly answer either!”

“You just said we are not friends.”

Applejack glowered at Sombra, and Sombra gazed impassively back. “Oh, go to Tartarus,” Applejack growled. “What’re you drinkin’?”

“Whiskey. Neat.”

“Go figure…” Applejack muttered, before signaling the bartender — Candy Corn, of course — and passing Sombra’s order along. The least she could do at this point in the night was cover a tab or two. It may have been a tiny farm, but it was a very productive one.

“I apologize for startling you,” Sombra said once he received his drink. “I am… unaccustomed to this.”

“To gay bars?”

“To bars. And… ponies, generally. Many things.”

“And yet here you are,” Applejack couldn’t help but grumble. “Doin’ who-knows-what with the sweetest stallion I’ve ever known. A war criminal, just…”

She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip. Sombra sipped his whiskey.

“Sorry,” Applejack said for the umpteenth time. “I’m… I don’t know why I’m sorry, but I am. You are a monster. I’ve seen you be one, more than once. And now you just look like… I don’t know what you look like. What you are. Are you any different from what you used to be? Should I pretend none of that stuff happened just ‘cause somepony I love seems to like you?”

“Would you like a comforting answer or an honest one?”

Applejack blinked, then blinked again. She hadn’t expected much of anything she’d heard from Sombra tonight, but that outdid all of it and then some. “I… what’s the difference?”

“One is comforting,” Sombra said plainly. “The other is honest.”

“Well… the honest one, then.”

Sombra gave a tight nod. “Then you should not pretend. Everything you said is true. I was a monster. I may still be one. And if you truly believe I will hurt someone you love, you should stop me from doing so by any means necessary.”

Applejack had to be wasted right now. That was the only way any of this made any sense. “Wha… what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“You asked for an honest answer. I gave it to you.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.” He gave her a glance that she could’ve sworn made him look puzzled. “That was what the comforting answer would’ve done. It was my understanding that–”

“Okay, just…” Applejack interrupted, holding up a hoof so Sombra would give her a moment to mash her thoughts into order. “Let’s just back up for a second. You said you may still be a monster, as if you don’t know.”

Sombra sipped his whiskey.

“Do you… do you not know? How could you not know?” After a moment, Applejack added the question that had never actually been answered earlier. “How are you alive?”

Something like a smile flickered across Sombra’s face, which seemed shrouded in shadows despite the strobes and spotlights flashing from the dance floor. “I am not entirely sure that I am,” he murmured. “Nor am I sure you should forgive me for what I was.”

He sipped his whiskey, swallowed, and continued.

“When you and your friends first defeated me, I died. My memories are… fragmented, to put it charitably, but I remember that. You did kill me. I passed on. To what, or where, I do not know, but it was something other than this, someplace other than here. And then Discord — or Grogar, as he styled himself then — brought me back… but not all of me. I was different, changed for the worse by whatever I passed on to. Or perhaps there were simply parts of me Discord chose to restore and parts which, through arrogance or incompetence, he excluded. Either way, I was a monster, worse than before, and you and your friends killed me again.”

Another sip, and a shudder — maybe from the liquor, maybe not.

“To directly answer your question: I do not know how I am alive now. I suspect Discord was involved, with what little I know for sure and for lack of any evidence to the contrary, but the most honest answer I can give you is that I truly do not know. What I do know is that whatever was taken from me when I last returned to this plane of existence is with me now — or perhaps what was restored with me last time was not this time. Either way, the outcome is the same. I remember what I did, who I was, and it…”

It hadn’t been the liquor. Sombra knocked back the final mouthful of his whiskey like it was water, and set the glass down on the bartop with a clack like the snapping of a whip.

“I will not ask for your forgiveness, nor your friendship,” he said, plain as ever. “I have earned neither. I know that. What I do not know is why you, among all your friends, despise me the most. I do not begrudge you your feelings, but I do not understand them either. I would… like to understand them. For his sake, if nothing else.”

Applejack swallowed hard, chased it with a gulp of her drink, and stared down at the bartop as she replied. “I… I made bad choices in high school,” she murmured. “Bad choices after too, with who I strung along and let myself get strung along by. I got hurt, and I hurt ponies, and knowin’ I hurt ‘em made me hurt even more, and I just… Braeburn’s done enough hurtin’ in his life already. Enough for ten lifetimes.”

“And you think I may cause him more pain. Because of who I was. Who I may still be.”

Applejack thought about trying to make it sound better than it was, and thought better of it. “Yep,” she said into her glass. “That’s the long and short of it.”

Sombra thought for a moment, then nodded. “I understand. In your position, I expect I would feel the same way.”

“Then help me feel some different way!” Applejack exploded. She was still angry — at Sombra, at herself, at life in general, and he was the only pony close enough to inflict herself upon right now. “Why him? What d’you have in common, what… how could you possibly think you deserve him?”

Her voice cracked during the last sentence, and she hadn’t meant for it to, but it had now and it was too late to act like it hadn’t been how she really felt about all this — especially once she realized that Sombra had flinched at the sound, and that realization got to her deeper than anything he’d said or done the whole night. Maybe this pony was still a monster, maybe he’d still hurt Braeburn more than help him, but whoever he was, he wasn’t the Sombra she’d thought she knew. She knew that now like she knew her own name.

“I try not to think about what I deserve,” Sombra told her. “About what I did. Because no apology could be strong enough, no works good enough to undo what some past version of me… what I did. And because, on some level, I still am that version of me — still inclined towards misanthropy, imprisoned by egotism and inferiority in equal measure. My memories are fragmented, and in the gaps between them is noise, this cacophony of thoughts I do not want and feelings I would deny if I knew how, and atop all of it is fear so deep it would drown me if I tried to swim through it alone. I did try in the past, and I failed, and so I wandered the roads of this kingdom in search of something, someone, I could not name or describe.”

He turned to her, and for the first time Applejack realized that his eyes — which she always assumed to be a dark and evil shade of red — were actually a soft shade of maroonish-orange, like sunlight-dappled clay.

“And I found him. I found Braeburn, and he… calms me. Centers me. Helps me float on the high tides and hold my breath through the low ones. I do not need to explain myself to him, and when I try to anyway, he will not let me. And in return, I am the pedestal on which he stands for the world to see him as he is and should be, the shadow beneath the effervescent light of his life, and it gives me purpose beyond what I thought I was capable of doing, of being. And I do not know how long this feeling will last, whether it should last, whether I deserve any of what he’s given me or could give me after this. But for the first time in what remains of my memory… I feel imperfect. I feel mortal. And it feels good.”

Applejack blinked, blinked again, and kept blinking even though it wasn’t doing a damn thing to clear up her vision or stop her from trembling or put the weight she needed into what she said next. “Don’t you hurt him,” she told the worst pony she’d ever met, tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. “Don’t you dare ever hurt him, Sombra, or I swear on this life and the next that I’ll make you wish you’d stayed dead.”

“I will not lie to you, Applejack,” Sombra softly replied. “‘Never’ is not a promise I can make. What I will promise is to do right by him, as much as I am able, until and after our paths diverge.”

Applejack grit her teeth, wiped her eyes, and sighed. “Guess that’ll have to do.”

Sombra nodded — and this time, he really did smile. “And if it does not,” he said, “history suggests that problem is one you and your friends know how to solve.”

Despite herself, Applejack chuckled, and she clinked her half-full glass against Sombra’s empty one. “Don’t tempt me,” she started to joke. “I’m still–”

But whatever she still was suddenly didn’t matter, because their duo had suddenly become a trio. Braeburn had wandered over and leaned hard into Sombra’s side, nestling under his foreleg and twitching his lips up when Sombra’s hoof wrapped around his shoulder.

“Y’all fightin’?” he mumbled.

“No,” Sombra said, beating Applejack to the punch. “Just talking. Your cousin cares for you a great deal.”

“Yeah,” Braeburn murmured, smirking Applejack’s way. “For better an’ worse. Mostly better. Don’t tell her I said that.”

A thin smile crossed Applejack’s face, and Sombra mirrored her — but his expression changed first, smoothing out into a tender frown. “Are you all right?” the beastly warhorse said, soft and sweet as candy floss.

“Fine,” Braeburn sighed. “Just tired.”

“Would you like to leave?”

“Just need a sec.”

And that was what Sombra gave him: a squeeze around his shoulder, and a body to brace himself against, and a pocket of silence in the middle of a pulsing and pounding nightclub. And finally, Applejack understood: they had nothing in common. They were total opposites in every way, as wrong for each other in theory as two creatures could possibly be. And that was precisely what had drawn them to each other, what had prompted one to save the other on a dusty road somewhere outside Appaloosa, and what drove them to continue saving each other day by exhausting day.

This — flamboyant, fruity, effervescent — was who Braeburn truly was, as Sombra truly was stoic and pensive and compassionate in that way which could turn to cancerous resentment if not carefully managed and maintained. They were both so much more than what they used to be, but neither quite knew yet how to be anything other than what they once were, and so the truth still felt like a performance that would grow less and less taxing with time, and the weight of their old lies still hung heavy on their shoulders but, day by day, was slowly sloughing off.

They would keep growing and changing, and maybe someday change into ponies who wouldn’t fit together at all. But they fit now, perfectly, like pieces slotted at long last into the correct puzzles instead of the ones they looked like they should be forced to fit into.

“Braeburn,” Applejack said. “I’m sorry.”

Braeburn made a little noise under Sombra’s foreleg. “Said that already, cuz.”

“I said I was sorry for what I said, not for what I thought,” she continued. “I thought I knew what was good for you better than you did. Tried to make you be somepony I wished I’d been, not who you deserve to be. I’m sorry for that. And you don’t need my blessin’ to be with whoever you want, but for what it’s worth, y’all have it.”

Another little noise — and then Braeburn smiled. “Thanks, AJ,” he murmured. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Brae.”

Sombra didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. He caught Braeburn’s eye, carried out a silent conversation through small movements of their heads, then gave Applejack a nod before leaving his stool and heading for the bar’s exit, Braeburn right by his side. Applejack watched them go, allowed herself one exhausted sigh, then finally addressed the bartender who’d been eavesdropping on them for several minutes now.

“I owe you an apology too, Candy,” she said as she swiveled around in her seat.

“Awww,” was Candy’s initial reaction. “Was trying to sneak up on you. You’re cute when you’re startled.”

Applejack rolled her eyes and didn’t acknowledge what didn’t really need to be spoken about. “Seriously. I… I know we didn’t leave off on a good note, but it was years ago and we’re adults. I should’ve been an adult about it. And I’m sorry.”

Candy Corn smirked. “Come on, AJ. Water under the bridge. And it’s not like I wasn’t a headcase back then too. You’re way too hard on yourself, you know that?”

“Startin’ to get that sense, yeah. Still, though. ‘Pologies. Lotta mares I owe ‘em to, I reckon.”

The bartender’s smirk widened. “I’ll let ‘em know. We have a book club, actually. Call ourselves the ‘Cored Apples.’”

“Just gonna assume for my sake that was a joke.”

“Probably for the best, yeah.”

Applejack’s eyes wandered, and soon enough landed on a mare who’d just approached the bar’s far end and landed heavily on a stool, ready to close her tab and see where else the night might take her. Applejack didn’t move — just stared at Rainbow Dash, and felt Candy Corn staring at her.

“Cadance on a bike, AJ, just ask her out,” Candy Corn insisted. “Stars know you’ve spent long enough lying to yourself about it.”

Applejack couldn’t argue with that, and for the first time she could remember, she didn’t want to either. “Been too scared not to lie. Scared of bein’ wrong about how we felt, even more scared of bein’ right.” She turned to face her ex. “Am I crazy? Bein’ afraid of happiness like that?”

“Think being afraid of happiness is the most normal a creature can possibly be,” Candy replied. “Not joking, though, if you don’t ask her out tonight, I’m giving you Twilight’s tab. And she’s had a lot of jello shots.”

“Thanks for the support, Candy,” Applejack grumbled through a grin.

“Any time, AJ. And for the record, you can keep the scarf. I’ll get a new one.”

Applejack stayed in her seat for a bit, finishing her tonic and ginning up the courage to do what she should’ve done years ago. A few minutes before last call, she finally got up and walked to the other end of the bar, and Rainbow Dash saw her coming and turned in her seat to face her head-on, pushing her hoof-stamped receipt away as she did.

“Hey,” Applejack began.

“Howdy,” Rainbow Dash replied.

They stared at each other, and Applejack felt drunk and tired and impossibly brave. “Wanna dance?” she asked, nodding towards the emptying floor.

Rainbow Dash smiled. “Not really.”

“Wanna get outta here, then?”

Dash’s smile grew, and for just a moment, Applejack felt giddy like a schoolfilly who could drink and party all night if she wanted. “Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Sure.”

She hopped off her stool, and Applejack followed her towards the exit. On the way there, Rarity saw them leaving, braced her hoof behind Twilight’s head so her muzzle stayed buried in her neck, and nodded while rolling her eyes in a way that said, “It’s about damn time.”

It really was. That was the honest truth. And for once, Applejack was truly ready to just see where honesty led her. Maybe she hadn’t earned it. Maybe she didn’t need to. Either way, it’d probably feel nice to give it a try.