Shake Things Up!

Applejack is late.

And that’s perfectly fine, Rainbow mentally grouses as she skulks around the stairwell. Only an idiot shows up to parties on time.

Said idiot, Rainbow Dash, is currently criminally early to a party, held in a house so big it might qualify as a proper manor. At Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash grew up surrounded by rich and stupid-rich friends. Gilda definitely falls in the stupid-stupid-rich category. Upon being let on the premises via the giant electronic gate, you walk through a sprawling lawn, past three fountains, before getting to the stone-sculpted front steps. The manor itself has four floors in total, and a small glass elevator that travels between them. That’s not even counting the basement, where there’s a private swimming pool and a separate jacuzzi.

The upper floors have the gym and the soundproof karaoke studio, but also the guest rooms. But the stairs are blocked off today, guarded by actual security guards, who will only let the people Gilda believes “won’t trash the rooms too much”—though Rainbow thinks people who want a way, will find a way in regardless.

Now, Rainbow generally pretends to be invisible, hiding behind the bar counter while checking her phone. She fiddles with her notes app and opens up the 37-minute long Youtube video on cocktail-mixing she has bookmarked. Unlike with smoothies, she hadn’t had the chance to practise, so she’s planning on winging it, but she’s sure Applejack will wing it too, anyway. Not everyone can waste alcohol like water the way Gilda does. Gilda’s bar counter (an actual bar counter, not two tables shoved together and hidden under a sheet) is insufferably well-stocked: Rainbow finds in the oaken drawers the exact gadgets that Mr. Jeff Solomon in How To Make Every Cocktail details. Shakers, strainers, jiggers, muddlers, everything’s in there, in all shapes and sizes. And, of course, no shortage of spirits, either.

Goddess, Rainbow fucking hates Gilda. With a bar counter like this, Gilda could absolutely afford to hire actual bartenders, but no, she just has to ask her ex who happens to have a couple hundred thousand views on Tiktok for fruit-blending. Whatever this weird fetish of Gilda’s is, Rainbow really should've stayed far away from it—but alas, here she is anyway.

At least Applejack will be here soon. She has to be here soon.

Instead, someone else strides down from the stairs. The security guards part ways to let the woman through. Rainbow’s heart plummets. Fervently, she wishes she could dissolve into the bar like sugar disappearing in an Old Fashioned, but instead she's like a big, fat chunk of ice, and she’s not melting nearly fast enough. She’s conspicuous. Trapped within a chilled-glass of her own making. Speak of the devil.

It’s Gilda.

Here’s the thing. Gilda is like, objectively hot. There’s no other way to put it. She’s straight out of a movie cast, a character like lady mafia gang leader that could beat you within an inch of your life and you’d beg for more, with her high cheekbones and narrow gaze. Her eyeshadow is deep, seductive glittering rings of violet around mascara-laden lashes, so sharp they could cut steel. And her dress, too—strapless, draping from below the cleavage, an opulent leopard print surely custom-tailored to cling to the curves of her body.

Rainbow does not care. She is done with Gilda and she’s never going back. But Gilda stalks across the room toward her like a predator cornering prey, and Rainbow has nowhere to run.

“Hey,” Gilda’s voice drips.

Rainbow’s hands are not trembling. She shoves them below the counter, pretending to search for cobbler shakers. “Fuck off.”

“So unfriendly,” Gilda tuts. “I must be the only person willing to tolerate you.” There’s a gold chain necklace dangling around her neck, with a charm in the centre.

“Far from it,” Rainbow grits her teeth. Her fingers find the cobbler shaker, grabbing it, and she slams it on the counter. She turns around, whirls back with a bottle of cold whiskey in hand. “I came here to mix drinks, not to talk. What do you want?”

“Just you,” Gilda’s eyes sparkle. Rainbow really wants to smash the whole bottle in her face, but it’s probably some kind of antique whiskey dating back to the Qing dynasty, so she refrains.

“Come on now,” Gilda continues. “How many friends from Cloudsdale have you actually kept, aside from me? Don’t say Fluttershy—we all know that girl would sooner chop off her left tit than offend anyone. The poor thing’s probably too scared to tell you the truth.” She laughs, an ugly sound, gesturing at the room around them, which is gradually filling up with partygoers. “And where’s your partner? Oh no, it looks like she bailed on you, too.”

“No, she didn’t,” Rainbow snaps, “She probably had something come up, she’s just late.” But even as she argues, she can’t wave the thought from her head. This is Applejack, who is the most punctual person she knows—even Twilight is late to classes sometimes, too absorbed in her work to watch the time.

Discreetly, Rainbow checks her phone again, but there’s no message there in the way of explanation. Her skin crawls. Of course. How many times had Applejack looked at her with that silent, judgemental gaze every time she related one of her crude stories? Even if she humoured her silly competitions, in the end, Applejack wasn’t like Rainbow Dash. She’s a normal, hard-working good-girl, with not a single thing in her life out of line. Applejack, at a house party? Rainbow can’t even imagine that woman dancing. She was a fool to think Applejack would actually come.

“How sad. You have to put on a nice front in front of everyone else. But who’s held your hair when you’re puking your guts out? Who’s picked you up when you were snivelling on the roadside with a black eye and broken knuckles? I let you walk through my gate and drink my booze, even if you refuse to get along with me. So what if I sleep around?” The gold necklace on her neck swishes, and Rainbow can see the charm clearly now—a heart-shaped locket, likely inlaid with the picture of Gilda’s latest conquest. “In the end, I’m the only one who sticks by you through everything, Dash. Why can’t you?”

She pauses before turning around. “Just think about it, alright? You’ll always have a room upstairs.” She nods to the staircase, then gives Rainbow a once-over. “It would be a waste, since you dressed up so pretty and all.”

Rainbow doesn’t think. She lunges over the bar and grabs the necklace, dragging Gilda up into a choke with it. From the stairwell, the security guards step forward warningly, but Gilda holds up a hand, stopping them.

The broad smirk on her face is the same as before. Sometimes it’s like she has a bird’s beak, when she smiles. Rainbow used to kiss that smile. Fuck. Muscle memory nudges at her, the urge to just pull Gilda in, like she used to. And objectively, there’s nothing stopping her from doing so. She’s not dating anyone, and if there’s nothing else to do, she might as well have some fun.

...Yet, she feels like it would be wrong, somehow. But why?

Before she can dwell on it further, the front door opens, and all her worries evaporate.

On the stone steps is Applejack. Except, this isn’t the Applejack that Rainbow sees at 6AM every week. Gone is the stuffy hairnet, garish apron and vomit-polo; in its place is a redwood waistcoat, showing the long sleeves of the cream blouse underneath. Instead of that poofy blue skirt, she’s wearing dark maroon leggings below her leather belt, stretching all the way down her legs, which have never looked this long. And curtaining the legs, there's also a goddamn white, flowy skirt hitched from the belt, which should look stupid but somehow works on her. Blonde hair spreads down over her shoulder, tied with a crimson ribbon, and she’s wearing a brown cowgirl-hat.

The people near her are too busy stumbling in intoxication to really notice the woman, but Applejack’s outfit eats up absolutely everyone else in Gilda’s foyer—a near-identical ocean of black body-con girls and T-shirt-hoodie-jeans guys. Rainbow honestly forgets how to speak, or do anything really, when Applejack crosses the room, the heels of her riding boots clacking on the polished marble floor.

Abruptly, in her stupor, she realises that she’s still been holding onto Gilda’s chain. She lets go far too late, but Applejack doesn’t even seem to care when she strides up to Rainbow. Released, Gilda goes off and does… something. She could have jumped into a volcano for all Rainbow cared; all of Rainbow’s attention is currently occupied.

Applejack grins, looking more confident than Rainbow has ever seen her. She tips her hat at Rainbow when she reaches the other side of the bar counter. “Howdy.”

Rainbow marshals her thoughts together enough to form a coherent sentence. “Yo,” she ends up saying, then, “you look different.” Great, absolutely brilliant. Rainbow wants to slap herself into next week.

Applejack’s smile is a distracting thing as her green gaze travels over Rainbow’s body. “You look amazin’ yourself, too.” You’re one to talk, Rainbow thinks, because she might have agonised over her emo-punk-rock-ish look—black croptop and box-plaid skirt, replete with stockings, curb-stomper boots and a million chains—for ages, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to Applejack's.

“Sorry for bein’ late,” the woman adds, “I hope it hasn’t been too tough mixin’ drinks on your lonesome.”

Somehow, Rainbow had completely forgotten about that part in the past 30 seconds. “Nah, I haven’t been mixing much of anything. People seem to prefer self-serve.” She gives a pointed glance at the already shit-faced man clambering over the counter to grab the bottle of whiskey she had left out. “But right, where were you?”

Applejack looks sheepish. “Well, Apple Bloom was released late from school today while I was picking her up. Aaand… I might’ve taken a mite too long with choosing my wardrobe. I haven’t been to a party in ages.”

Rainbow pauses. “Wait, you’ve been to a party before?”

Applejack raises a brow. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

“I… uh,” Rainbow struggles to find the nicest way to say I thought you were a prude. “I figured you weren’t really the partying type?”

Applejack snorts, letting out a gravelly laugh. “I didn’t think there was a type for partyin’, sugarcube. But I assure ya, I’m plenty capable of shaking one out at a hoe-down.”

She slides behind the bar by Rainbow’s side, leaning over to pluck the whiskey bottle out of the drunk man’s pudgy hands. As she’s doing that, her hair brushes past the skin of Rainbow’s arm, making Rainbow shiver. Cool glass touches her palms as Applejack hands the bottle back to Rainbow.

“Now, why not you mix a drink for this poor lad here?” She nods at the still-snivelling man.

Rainbow gulps, that weird flutter about her nerves again. Still, she steels herself and scoffs. “What, so you’re not gonna mix any drinks, after all? Is liquor is too much beyond the scope of Apple Shake Girl?”

“Oh, I know my liquor alright,” Applejack drawls, “I’m just giving ya a headstart.”

Rainbow feels the familiar fizz in her gut, the corners of her lips rising; and a matching grin spreads across Applejack’s freckled face. They don’t even do the countdown out loud, now—just meet each other’s eyes, and give a sharp nod. And then it begins.

Mixing cocktails is delicate work. This time, Rainbow actually doesn’t blast her way through the process. In her early smoothie-mixing days, she’d been prone to brute-forcing through everything like a tornado, but begrudgingly, she’s learnt over the time that she’s spent together with Applejack how worth it patience and careful measuring is. Even if the final product eventually took longer to make, the results yielded a taste evidently stayed with the recipient for a far longer time. And Rainbow wants to impress. Which is also why, even though she could’ve gone for an easy whiskey highball, she cranks the difficulty scale all the way up to a Vieux Carré—a cocktail supposedly as complicated as its name.

She watches Applejack out the corner of her eye as she’s finding a substitute for Benedictine in the cabinet. She knows she’s getting distracted, but she can’t help it. Beside her, Applejack rifles through the bar cabinet, selecting her ingredients with ease, and Rainbow is filled with a sense of… awe. Even though Rainbow Dash barely knows what she’s doing, armed with only Youtube as she is, she can tell from the way Applejack handles the equipment and drinks that this is far from Applejacks first rodeo. Rainbow wonders at it: has Applejack worked in a bar before? There’s still so many things about Applejack she doesn’t know. She wants to know more.

By the time they finish their first round of drinks, a small crowd has already gathered to watch them. Applejack has her drink out while Rainbow’s still straining out her Vieux-ish Carré. There goes one point.

“Old Fashioned?” Rainbow guesses, nodding at Applejack’s drink.

“Nah. That’s a Manehattan.” Applejack raises the glass. “Taste test?”

Rainbow’s about to reach over to take it when she blinks, realising that Applejack has held the lip of the glass right up to her mouth. From beneath the brim of her hat, green eyes sparkle. Feeling her cheeks flush involuntarily, Rainbow tips forward a little and takes a sip. It’s good, ridiculously good. Rainbow doesn’t have the professional cocktail-y terms to describe it, but the mixture of flavours is balanced, smooth and refined, nothing like the shit that Gilda’s friends slap together when they claim to be able to mix drinks.

Applejack’s tasting Rainbow’s drink, too. She puts down the glass, furrowing her brow. “A Vieux Carré? That’s a tricky one to make.” She looks over at her. “Not the worst attempt, but you definitely need practice.”

“Aw, c’mon!” Rainbow complains. But they move on rapidly to the next round. All shapes and kinds of orders come in from the party guests, and they have a wild time playing bartenders for them, and with all the phones out, Rainbow knows what’s gonna be the next video trending on TikTok tomorrow. But for tonight, she’s here, wrestling bottles of cognac and mashing syrups beside Applejack—her coworker, but also a woman who’s come to be her best friend, and rival.

Between the general chaos, though, she notices Applejack shooting her lingering glances. For some reason... she seems somewhat sad. But it must be a trick of the light; what reason could there be for Applejack be sad? Rainbow turns away and focuses on her mixing.

After a while, the guests dwindle away from the bar, most of them already with drinks in hand, migrating toward the centre of the foyer where people have begun dancing up a storm to the music pounding in from the speakers. Gilda shouts at some of her security guards to shut off the lights, and the bar goes dim, too dark for Rainbow to see what drinks she’s grabbing. Relentlessly, she squints her eyes, knees up on a barstool as she searches for the next spice she needs from the shelf.

It’s then that Applejack stops her with a quiet breath. “I think it’s enough for tonight, Rainbow.”

Rainbow turns. The bar is lit up only by the reflection of Gilda’s obnoxious party-lights, neons sliding along glossy oak. But it paints Applejack’s face with soft hues of pink and blue, catches in the rim of her silhouette, the edges of her blonde hair that have begun to tangle.

A movement distracts her. Applejack’s leaning over to rummage in the bag she’d brought with her, and belatedly, Rainbow realises that she’s been staring. Abruptly, Rainbow swivels her gaze away and tries to play it cool, drumming her fingers on the bar while she pretends to be interested in the gaggle of jocks jumping on the tables, shaking their butts and laughing to themselves.

It’s then that she hears Applejack clearing her throat awkwardly from behind her. Rainbow glances back to see Applejack holding a simple, corked bottle. It’s unlabelled, and Rainbow hadn’t seen anything like it while looking through Gilda’s collection. Whatever it was, must’ve been taken directly from Applejack’s bag.

“What’s that, a secret ingredient?” Rainbow quips, dropping off the barstool, holding a hand up to examine the bottle that Applejack passes to her. It’s hard to tell in the dim lighting, but the liquid within looks clear and golden, a faint bubble rising to the surface as she tips the bottle upside-down.

“It’s something I brought from the farm I used to live on,” Applejack says.

“Let me guess,” Rainbow says, “Is it… applejack?”

“Very original,” she deadpans. “But close enough. It’s apple cider. I’d mix you a drink with it, but I think that it’s the best on its own. Go on, have some. Don’t go crazy.”

“Hah, as if! It’s only apple cider,” Rainbow says, to the roll of Applejack’s eyes. Rainbow hasn’t really had apple cider before. She wasn’t that huge into apple-related drinks. Then again, she’d said the same thing about apple smoothies.

Tentatively, she uncorks the bottle.

From the mouth of the bottle, the aroma of the cider wafts upward. Closing her eyes, Rainbow inhales deeply. It’s musky, rich and intense, unlike any apple cider that Rainbow’s ever smelled before. She takes a hearty swig, and the aroma envelops Rainbow’s senses completely. This cider is warm, like a woollen blanket, if it were woven from an autumn breeze and woodfibre instead of yarn. Yet, there’s nothing soft about the flavour: there’s hardly any sugar in it to mellow the acidity of the raw, fermented apples. It’s tart all the way through, sending zapping-harsh tingles across her tongue and leaving her throat dry when she swallows.

Applejack eyes her. “How is it?” she asks, just like how she had on that very first day she’d stomped around the kitchen, making Rainbow an apple smoothie.

“It’s…” Rainbow wavers. “It’s a lot like you.”

“That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

“I don’t know how else to put it.”

“Well,” Applejack tilts her head, “do you like it?”

Party lights glide over Applejack’s skin. In her eyes it glimmers, like fireflies humming over the still surface of a lake at night. Watching her, Rainbow can’t believe she used to be afraid of those eyes. Applejack’s gaze on her is still as intense as ever, but it doesn’t make Rainbow want to bolt, anymore.

“I-” Rainbow starts.

“—Heeeeeeyyyyyyy!”

Both their attentions are snatched away by a loud BANG on the bar countertop. Gilda has her fist on the counter. She waves her other hand at them, full nine-inch acrylic nails on display (on all but two fingers, of course), jagged-sharp like talons.

“I didn’t invite the two of you here to lurk around the bar looking like total losers,” she drawls, jabbing at them. Rainbow honestly cannot tell if she’s drunk or just being Gilda. “Join in on the fun, you chums.” She throws herself at them, looping her arms around both her and Applejack’s shoulders, dragging the two of them into the room’s centre.

The music is head-splittingly loud here, being so close to the speakers and all. Rainbow can feel the pumping of the beat in her ribcage, and she winces, covering her ears at first, before her hearing slowly gets used to it. The stench of cigarette smoke hangs heavy and cloying in the air. Elbowing past people, Gilda eventually pushes them into a large ring of people. They're standing in a circle, cheering and clapping for someone who’s in the middle of stripping themselves. It’s soon apparent that it's a game of Truth or Dare is in progress.

The people in the ring explode into hoots when they see who’s joined them. The stripping person is left forgotten, and they hobble awkwardly into the obscuring shadows, underwear trailing around their knees. “It’s the Apple Shake Girls!” someone hollers, and Rainbow wonders wryly when she, too, had become an Apple Shake Girl.

“Truth or Dare?!!” another voice screeches in their ears.

“Who are you asking? Me or her?” Rainbow yells back.

“The cowgirl, duh!” the person waggles their tongue. “Everyone knows you won’t ever back down from a dare. We want to see how the newcomer does!” The partygoers surrounding the challenger exclaim their agreement. “So, what is it? Truth or Dare?”

“Dare,” Applejack answers, voice low, but loud enough to be heard. An appreciative woooooooaaaaaaaahh rumbles through the crowd.

“Go easy on her, Smoky!” someone says.

“She’s dug her grave,” Smoky proclaims, “now she’s gotta lie in it! Pass her a glass.” A glass is passed around the ring. Applejack took the glass, weighing it in her palm as she looks at Smoky questioningly.

Smoky leans over and grabs another shotglass, gesturing at the line of bottles on the table with their hand, a collection diverse enough to be its own separate bar. “Outdrink me.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You’ll have to drink from the Mexican,” Smoky’s eyes glint as someone waddles over with a new bottle. Rainbow recognises that bottle—the Mexican Hooker. It’s the world’s most god-awful, life-ruining combination of ingredients known to mankind: tequila (not just any tequila, Jose Cuervo) with hot sauce, tuna fish juice and a ‘generous’ jizz of fucking mayonnaise, used as punishment for those who chicken out from their truths or dares. Anyone who’s been a victim of the Mexican before will tell you that it tastes like the marriage of rotting corpses and salmonella. And even after your tastebuds are nuked, you won't be able to scrub the taste out of your mouth for three days and three nights, no matter what you do. Rainbow can testify to that.

“You’re insane,” protests Rainbow, shooting a look at the woman beside her. “Applejack, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” Did Applejack even drink? Sure, maybe she parties and maybe she dances and maybe she’s worked in a bar before, but Applejack is… she’s a good-girl. This is her coworker, who forbids her from running down the escalator, who makes her put on seatbelts, who tells her to stop eating so much junk food and to not get into fights and not pickpocket even from big soulless corporations. There’s no way she drinks regularly enough to have alcohol tolerance… right?

Applejack shrugs and steps forward, holding out her glass. “Deal.”

Smoky smirks, holding out their own glass. Both glasses are filled with bubbling shots. Then, everyone watches as the two of them knock it back. Drink disappears down bobbing throats, and both slam their emptied glasses down on the table only milliseconds from each other, waiting for the refill. The crowd shouts, egging them on. Beer, whiskey, vodka splash into the glasses, round after round after round—”pour more carefully,” Smoky sneers, “don’t waste it”—with no clear victor in sight.

Tension mounts in the air; Rainbow’s lost count of the number of shots by now. Smoky is the best drinker she knows—Rainbow’s no lightweight, but she can’t outdrink them, not by a long shot. Yet, as the contest wears on, Smoky begins to look wobbly, their cheeks flushed red, while Applejack remains tall in her riding heels, slamming her glass down for another shot.

Finally, Smoky looks at the refilled glass in front of them. She takes a deep breath, as if in dejected acceptance, and pushes the glass away. The audience jeers, and two people rush forward to haul the stumbling Smoky to their feet, and their head is tilted back. The mighty Mexican Hooker descends upon them like an angel delivering divine judgement, and after one glug from the bottle, Smoky’s eyes loll back, passing out.

Meanwhile, from where she’s standing, Applejack barely gives Smoky a glance. She downs the remaining glass, wipes her lips.

And then, everyone watches as she reaches for one of the bottles on the table. Without a second’s warning, Applejack tosses her blonde head back and plugs her mouth with the rim. The crowd screams.

“Chug! Chug! Chug!” the chant rocks the foyer. Applejack’s throat bobs and bobs as the remaining vodka in the bottle disappears down her gullet. By the tenth “Chug!”, Applejack's wrenched the bottle from her lips. She turns it upside down, shaking it, splattering droplets across the floor.

Applejack spits. The wild cheers of the crowd are so deafening it almost drowns out the music.

“Holy shit,” Rainbow gasps, though she can’t hear herself over the screaming.

Carelessly, Applejack tosses the bottle back on the table, letting it roll to a stop against the shotglasses. She walks back toward where Rainbow’s leaning against the wall, still gawking.

“Holy shit,” Rainbow repeats. “How?”

“When I told you I knew liquor,” Applejack says, turning her back to lean on the wall beside Rainbow, “I meant I knew it. Intimately.” She removes her hat from her head, leisurely fanning herself with it.

“Okay, well, I sure as shit hope you didn’t drive here,” Rainbow groans, running a hand over her face. “Don’t you have work tomorrow? It’s not gonna be such a fun night carrying your ass back to Canterlot.” She casts a nervous look at the glass, the emptied bottle. “Or to the hospital. You better not croak on me because of some stupid dare.”

“Heh.” Applejack’s eyes are thin and smiling. “Now who’s the naggy one?”

Rainbow cuts herself off mid-speech, mouth hanging open. Shit, yeah, she’d sounded like Applejack for a second there. It feels weird, being the responsible one for once.

“You…” Rainbow trails off, then laughs breathily, shaking her head. “And here I thought you were a good-girl.”

Applejack crooks an eyebrow at her. “Might as well go ahead an’ call me a stick-in-the-mud.”

“A prude,” Rainbow says. “Are you even drunk?” She reaches out a hand to touch Applejack’s forehead, still feeling a little more than buzzed from the drinks she’s had throughout the night. Applejack doesn't attempt to shrug her off as Rainbow slides her hands down her temples, feeling Applejack’s cheeks, her jaw, her neck.

“No,” Applejack answers, uncharcteristically placid.

“Right, and I’m a saint,” Rainbow scoffs. Applejack's face isn’t flushing visibly, but a fiery heat runs under her freckled skin, warm and alive. “You’re a hilariously bad liar, you know. And yet, for all that I’ve told you about me… I still feel like I don’t know much of anything about you,” she muses. “Like, yeah, Pinkie said that some of it is my fault, but it’s not like you’ve been upfront with what you do say.”

Quiet, Applejack watches her. Finally, Rainbow takes her hands off her.

“Tell me,” Rainbow prods. “Where’d you learn to drink like that?”

At first, Rainbow isn’t sure if Applejack will respond to her less-than-subtle interrogation. Drunk Applejack certainly seems to have been silent up till now, and she feared that Applejack may be more shutdown-drunk than blabbermouth-drunk. But then, after a long, stirring moment, she speaks.

“When I was fourteen, I ran away from home," Applejack says slowly. Rainbow's eyes widen, and Applejack continues, "That time, the reason why my family had moved out of our village was because of discrimination. My parents’ marriage was frowned upon by the neighbours, and my Granny would have none of it, so she took my parents, my brother and sister and me and left for Canterlot. But even though most of the Apple family had ostracised them so, my parents still wanted to carry on our knowledge of apples and other fruits in the city, and so they started Sweet Apple Shakes."

Applejack pauses. She stops fanning herself, and her hat rests on her chest. When she speaks again, her voice sounds thicker than before.

"But I.. I didn’t like Canterlot and its capital-city, glass-and-skyscraper industriality. I wanted to be in sophisticated Manehattan, living surrounded by grand archways and redbrick bridges. So, one day, when my parents left home on a business trip, I set a plan in motion: I told my Aunt Orange, who lived in Manehattan, that my parents had allowed me to stay at her place for the timebeing; and then I told Granny, Big Mac and Apple Bloom that I was going for boarding school out of town. It was at Manehattan where my Aunt had me learn to mix drinks.”

“Your Aunt let an fourteen-year-old mix drinks?”

“You’d be surprised,” Applejack said. “My little cousin Babs was 3 years old at the time and mixing martinis. Not very good ones, but the point stands. I also learnt all sorts of other things: ballroom dancing, dining etiquette, so on and so forth. It was goin’ well at first. I was livin’ the life I’d dreamt of. But it wasn't lost on me how my classmates looked down on me; I always got the sense of being left out.

Later, I realised why I wasn’t fitting in with the Manehattanites. After school, my classmates would strip off their evening gowns and sneak out to the backstreets. They would do all sorts of illicit things. Cigarettes, drugs, fights, vandalism, visiting escorts, stealing… I followed them, and began to finally find a place with my classmates.

Of course, it wouldn’t last. My parents hadn't gotten back from their business trip yet, but they called and found out from Granny that I was at a boarding school that they had never signed me up for. They panicked and went searching for me. On the road, they met with an accident.”

Applejack's fists are clenched on her lap. She's quivering; Rainbow can see tears shining at the corners of her eyes, but they never spilled. Rainbow isn’t sure what to say, if saying anything would even be appropriate. But then Applejack continues.

“I’m not a good-girl. I’m not even a good person, Dash. I’m selfish,” Applejack whispers, looking at her. “Even now, I still am.”

“What do you mean?”

Applejack takes several deep breaths, as if preparing herself for something. She lowers her head, eyes hidden by the brim of her hat. “I came to this party because I had something to tell you.”

Rainbow suddenly feels afraid, but still she braves and asks, “What is it?”

"Don't come to Sweet Apple Shakes anymore," is what she says. "I'm sorry."

"Wh-What??"

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Applejack retorts, jerking her chin up to glare at her with watering eyes. “You’ve served out your sentence enough. There—you’re released, dismissed, fired, however you want to put it. It’s for the best.”

“Y..you’re drunk,” Rainbow objects. “We can discuss this when you’re sober.”

Vehemently, Applejack shakes her head. “No. I'd already thought about this beforehand. The cider is a parting gift.” She shoves the bottle into Rainbow’s cold hands. “I’ve called a cab for myself, already. I mean it: don’t come back to to the shop, and don’t talk to me again. I’ll have mall security take you away if you show up.”

In a daze, Rainbow watches as Applejack lurches off the wall and stumbles away. A few seconds later, Rainbow breaks out into a run to chase after her, but at this moment, Gilda says something, and the crowd of partygoers surges, pushing her in the opposite direction.

After fighting her way through the crowd, Rainbow bursts out of the doors into the cold winter wind, running down the steps. But Applejack's already out of the gates, sliding into the cab waiting in the road.

And Rainbow… Rainbow's still feeling more confused than anything. And here Rainbow had been thinking she got to see a little more of Applejack today, delighted in the thought of them getting closer. Had Applejack really just spent the entire party goofing around with Rainbow, knowing she was going to drop the news on her at the end? How long had she been planning this for? And most importantly, who the hell does that?

Yet, another part of Rainbow reminds her that, just months ago, she would’ve been ecstatic being told to leave. The Rainbow of months ago would’ve jumped at the chance to be free of 6AM mornings and dumb aprons and annoying customers.

So why is the idea—of never clocking into shop to see Applejack scooping her hair into a net again, never unloading groceries from the van with her again, never laughing and blending and tasting smoothies with her again—so unbearable?

Rainbow realises, that, thinking back on it, she knows perfectly the reason why. She thinks she's known for a very long time. She'd just never wanted to face it again—giving her devotion to someone, only to have them treat it like it was nothing, nothing at all, and then leaving in the end.

It’s only now, standing on the front porch of Gilda’s manor holding a bottle of cider, watching the tail-lights of the cab fade into the black night, that Rainbow Dash admits it to herself.

She’s in love with Applejack.

And she's been proven right once again.