Shake Things Up!

Because Rainbow Dash’s life is one giant, cosmic joke, Dr Svengallop is the first person who notices.

If that name doesn’t ring any bells, that’s Rainbow’s professor. You know, the one who hates her and is always one assignment away from failing her for this module. And, as it seems now, Rainbow has finally turned in that deal-breaker assignment. An assignment apparently so goosebump-raising, stomach-sickeningly bad that Dr Svengallop has called Rainbow Dash to his ~~evil lair~~ office, probably to have a very long and serious ~~torture session~~ talk.

Okay no but seriously though. Even though Dr Svengallop is just a professor and is supposed to just have one cubicle of the department’s staffroom to himself, somehow his stuff occupies an entire row of five cubicles. Rumour had it that he was such an insufferable presence that none of the other professors wanted to sit next to him, and so the row of cubicles essentially belonged to him.

As Rainbow Dash followed her professor down the Svengallop Lane of Certain Doom, she didn’t see any torture devices, but she was sure that they were there, just hidden out of sight. In contrast to other teachers’ cubicles, which were stickied with class-photos, colourful handwritten Teachers’ Day postcards, and tacky fake flowers, his cubicles were as monotone as an Ikea showroom, stacked only with folders of essays and schedules, textbooks and encyclopedias. Any moment now, the man was going to sweep aside a sheaf of exam scripts and reveal the guillotine beneath it.

But that doesn’t happen. What instead happens is that Dr Svengallop sits her down in the middle cubicle, then sits himself down across from her. He lays out her latest assignment in between them, like a paper-thin wall of protection from the incoming axe.

And then he asks her:

“What’s wrong with you?”

Rainbow might have preferred the guillotine.

Dr Svengallop goes on to detail how exceedingly trash Rainbow’s assignment is, which is really saying something about how mad he was, because uni professors usually just failed you without telling you what was specifically wrong with what you wrote. But truthfully, Rainbow didn’t need her professor to tell her where went wrong—the stuff she had written was just completely nonsensical. Tank could’ve written a better assignment than this one.

After what feels like hours, Dr Svengallop finally finishes his rant. He pauses to catch his breath, shoulders heaving up and down like he’s just finished playing ten matches of tennis with himself. He looks at her, bespectacled gaze full of such disappointment that Rainbow Dash feels like she should be getting to her knees and apologising for her existence. Then he closes his eyes and sighs.

“Unfortunately,” he says very slowly, like each word is being squeezed out from him by one of his concealed torture devices, “I am both legally and morally obligated to ask you about your well-being.”

Oh, goddesses help her.

Catching the look on Rainbow’s face, Dr Svengallop clarifies, “I’m not going to interrogate you. It’s none of my business how you actually spend your time. I genuinely do not give a shit if you are cultivating a farm of snails or planning the prime minister’s assassination. But you’re a bright student with a lot of potential-”

“Yeah, right,” Rainbow has to interrupt here, “and that’s why you’re always failing me.”

“You have the right ideas, Miss Dash, but you don’t follow the course requirements,” her professor dangles the marking rubric in front of her. “You could do great things if you took things seriously. I hate seeing a mind like that go to waste, so stop it.”

“That’s a very nice thought, professor, but have you considered that maybe I’m just stupid?”

Dr Svengallop stares. Abruptly, Rainbow realises that she’s broken character. Her ‘self-assured, confident, I-can-do-no-wrong’ character. Here lies the real Rainbow Dash, world’s most self-aware piece of crap.

He eyes her. He’s almost as short as Rainbow, so they see eye-to-eye in an unexpected kind of way. “Look, I know you… have friends. Those four girls you’re always with. And the blonde girl in that TikTok.”

Rainbow flinches. “You saw that TikTok?”

“Everyone and their mother has seen that TikTok,” Dr Svengallop drones. “But the point is. You have friends. Family. Support system, yada-yada. Talk to them. Whatever.” He sounds like he’s reciting hastily-scribbled notes from a compulsory teachers’ meeting on mental health. Yet, somehow, beneath the onion-layers of cynicism, Rainbow feels some undercurrent of… sincerity, even if it's extremely awkwardly delivered.

That porcupine-spiked way of talking reminds her of someone else. It’s funny how a few months has taught her how to push apart the spines to find the soft fur underneath. And once she’s learnt to see, she can’t not see it. Can’t unsee the man, hunched and alone in his five staffroom cubicles.

“I don’t want to have to fail you because you’re in some kind of mood, so get your sh-” his voice catches. He takes a shuddering moment, seemingly to try and mellow himself out, and in the end his voice comes out in a strangled attempt at gentleness. “Get yourself together. Okay?”

And it’s like. If goddamn Dr Svengallop is concerned about her, then Rainbow Dash really has to do something, doesn’t she?

~~~

“Pinkie Pie, I need your help.”

“Yeeeeeeess?” Pinkie blinks up at her from the seats of the lecture theatre. The lecture had already concluded, and most people had left, but Pinkie was still packing up because she had been building a house out of her stationery on top of her table and currently took her sweet time detangling glitter pens from paperclip chains.

Well, it was good for Rainbow, because she had something to ask her. She stays behind, which isn’t that unusual really, because that’s what Rainbow does.

“Um, it’s,” Rainbow folds her hands inside her coat pockets. “I’m asking for a friend-”

“Uh huh.”

Rainbow wrings the inside of her pockets. “Do you know where Applejack lives?”

“Oho?” Pinkie raises her eyebrow dramatically. “Are you going to break into her house?”

“No!” Rainbow says, though the voice in her head adds ‘not unless I have to’, and she knows the both of them hear it. “It’s a house visit.” She jerks. “Not me! My friend. Wants to pay her a house visit.”

“Okaaaay, Dashie,” Pinkie says as she tucks away a sheet of gel stickers, bemused. “Introduce me to this friend of yours, and I’ll tell them where Applejack lives.”

“I can’t do that. Uhhhh… my friend’s really shy, they don’t like people. I can pass the message.”

Pinkie eyes her. “Give me their number then, I’ll text them.”

“Uuuuuuuh,” is the sound Rainbow lets out as she runs dry of excuses. She slumps. “Fine. It’s me, I am the friend. Now can you give me the address?”

“Oh,” she blinks. “I don’t have it.”

“Rnrnrnrnnrnrnrnrgh,” Rainbow tackles her to the lecture theatre seats. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Aeeieiiiiiiiiigh!” Pinkie squeals, rolling around like a trapped hamster. “You wouldn’t dare kill your only source of apple intel! If I die, the info dies with me!”

Rainbow finds herself laughing as she rolls back onto the adjacent seat, loud and echoing in the emptied theatre. Pinkie Pie sits up, grinning as she runs her hand through her messed-up hair, though the riot of pink curls looks exactly the same as before.

“Well, I’m glad you finally decided to do something about that mad-awful crush of yours,” she says, expression sly. Rainbow opens her mouth to retort, but not before Pinkie raises her hand. “Ah, ah, ah! Don’t even try to deny it. Pinkie knows all. Pinkie sees all.”

Rainbow holds up her hands in surrender. “I wasn’t going to say anything!” Pinkie levels her a flat stare. “Okay, fine, maybe I was. But… anyway…” she glances aside. “It’s not going to work out. I just want to end things on a better note than it did.”

“Mmmm…” Pinkie sobers, nodding to herself. “I see. So something had gone down between you two.”

“Why?”

“Hey, even if you didn’t tell us anything, I’m still one of Sweet Apple Shakes’ most regular customers,” Pinkie says. “Of course I’m going to notice when one of the workers is suddenly missing, or when Jackie is all sad. But she wouldn’t tell me anything, so I could only guess at what happened.”

“Wait,” Rainbow interrupts, “Applejack’s sad?”

“Yeah,” Pinkie affirms, “all blue like a kicked puppy! And if she had a colour, she’s supposed to be orange!”

Rainbow doesn’t know what the second half of the sentence was supposed to mean, but she sweeps it aside in favour of being filled with unspeakable fury. The fucking gall— “She was the one who fired me and told me to never see her again, and she has the nerve to act heartbroken? What the hell????!?!”

Pinkie sucks in a breath. “Ooooooh. Sheesh, gurl.”

“Forget the visit of peace,” Rainbow rages, “I’m going to break into her house and break all her stupid blenders.”

“I’ll literally help you,” Pinkie’s eyes are flaming. “How dare she mess with my bestie!”

Rainbow exhales through a weary smile. “Okay, but seriously though, if you don’t know where she lives, it’s fine. I’ll move on eventually. …….It might take a year of sobbing breakdowns, but I’ll get there.”

“Nonsense! Codswallop!” Pinkie rejects, as if the idea of Rainbow weeping like a widowed maiden affronted her. She zips up her bag, tosses the straps around her shoulders. “I’ll get you that address. Trust me.”

Rainbow watches her friend. They may be very different people, with not that much in common, but she’s still filled with so much conviction and determination on her behalf.

Slowly, she peels herself from the seats, standing up.

“Hey, Pinkie. Thanks,” she says, “for waiting for me.”

“? But you were the one waiting for me?”

“I said what I said.”

~~~

By hook or by crook, Pinkie does get ahold of Applejack’s address. It’s actually not all that far, which makes sense for how dastardly early Applejack gets to the store every day.

Rainbow Dash hops off the bus, twisting and turning around the apartment blocks while following the maps app on her phone. Even though she’s not really planning on breaking and entering, she’s still filled with the jitters. What would she even say when she got there? What if Applejack’s not even home? Is she just going to awkwardly eat butter biscuits with Granny Smith and ask for her permission to court her granddaughter?

Eh. Whatever. Thinking was never Rainbow’s strong suit. She forges onward.

She stands in front of the door with the indicated unit number on her phone. Praying to lords above that Pinkie Pie hadn’t decided to pull a practical joke and give her a random person’s address, she presses the doorbell.

Diiiiiiiing dooooooong!

Rainbow waits. Rainbow twiddles her thumbs. Taps her foot.

Finally, there’s a click of a latch, and the door behind the gate creaks open. Rainbow’s jaw drops, and her heart is filled with the same kind of irresistible delight that one experiences on seeing a puppy.

The girl that peeks out from behind the door literally looks like a smaller, cuter version of Applejack (not that Applejack wasn’t cute, though). She wore overalls and had a big bow in her red hair like a Powerpuff girl.

“Oh my goddess,” Rainbow can’t help blurting out, “it’s Apple Teeny.”

The girl crooks her eyebrow in a way that also screams Applejack.

“B. Starts with B. Uhhh. B-b-b-b-b-b- Apple Bloom!” Rainbow makes finger guns as the correct name finally surfaces in her memory. “AJ’s little sis!”

“Yes, Rainbow Dash,” drones Apple Bloom.

“Whoa,” Rainbow gawks, “how’d you know?”

With a withering amber gaze, Apple Bloom puts her hand out and gestures at her. Jabs her hand a few more times at Rainbow’s head for emphasis. Right. The rainbow hair.

Swallowing, Rainbow grins sheepishly. “Uh, I come in peace?”

Huffing, the little girl reaches up and unlocks the gate. It swings open.

“About damn time you came,” Apple Bloom says as Rainbow’s stepping out of her shoes and onto the welcome carpet. “If I have to hear Applejack mooning over you one more time, I’m packing my bags and moving to Manehattan.”

“Hey, your sister didn’t exactly make it easy,” Rainbow argues, “she blocked my number. And she has like, no social media presence. Like, come on, not even a ten-year-old abandoned LinkedIn profile?”

“Oh, no, she has social media. They’re just all secret accounts,” Apple Bloom replies. “If y’all don’t sort your… whatever out by today, I’ll tell you the usernames.”

“You’ll what????!?!” a familiar voice yells from another room.

“Here she comes,” Apple Bloom smiles savagely.

“Apple Bloom, who the hell did you let in the house-” Applejack’s voice dies as she sees Rainbow Dash standing in the middle of the living room. “Why are you here?”

“I come in peace!” Rainbow yelps. “And by entirely legal means! Also, you, you said ‘don’t come to the shop anymore’. You said nothing about coming to your house.”

Green eyes narrow. “Get out.”

“Nuh-uh,” Rainbow says.

“I mean it!”

Apple Bloom looks between them. And then, throwing her head back, she starts saying loudly, “Twitter. At.”

Both of them look at her, bewildered.

Undeterred, the girl continues, “Capital X, small x, dot, underscore, dot, small x, big X, big R, A, I…”

Applejack pales. “Don’t.” She looks to Rainbow, who already has her phone out and typing. “Nonononono, stop!”

Apple Bloom puts her hands on her hips. “Then y’all better talk it out!” With a flounce of her big bow, she turns around and storms into one of the rooms, probably her bedroom. Rainbow breathes out a sigh of relief. Thank the heavens for vicious little girls.

Applejack’s nostrils flare as she inhales and exhales. She gestures to the couch in the living room. “Sit.”

Rainbow does. Her shoulders sag as she relaxes into the couch, slinging the strap of her bag off her shoulders. She can feel Applejack’s eyes on her as she removes a thermos from her bag.

“What?” Rainbow says, uncapping it. “I wasn’t gonna visit a house without bringing something.”

“.......” Applejack watches her. “I’ll bring cups.”

~~~

Two mugs laid out in front of them on the coffee table.

In front of the coffee table, the television was still switched on, airing some kind of shitty local romance drama with a plot identical to a million other TV shows.

“You watch this?” Rainbow mutters as the female lead weeps in front of the male lead, her tears perfect and glistening under the staged lighting and CGI falling petals. But I’m Juliet and you’re Romeo, we can’t be together!

“No,” Applejack says. And then, she coughs. “Well, only sometimes. When I’m feeling… down.”

Rainbow eyes the screen for two seconds more. Then she reaches for the remote and zaps it off.

“You have some fucking nerve,” she says.

Applejack’s still staring ahead at the black screen. “Why are you here?”

“Because you owe me a damn explanation?” Rainbow hisses.

“What didn’t I explain at the party?”

“Nothing?? Everything???” Rainbow throws her hands up. “Ugh. Shouldn’t have listened to Twi. I knew I should have just muscled into the store and hammered all your new blenders.”

“You what.”

“I didn’t actually do it! But keep this up, and I’m going to seriously consider it!”

Applejack closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. “It’s not a good idea.”

“What isn’t? I think it’s a great idea. If I break all your blenders, you’ll have no choice but to employ me again for five years and twenty days-”

“I meant,” Applejack interjects, “it’s not a good idea for us to continue this.”

Rainbow’s heart pounds in her chest. “...Continue what?”

It’s at this moment Apple Bloom starts to cough really loudly from inside her room. Seconds later, anime music starts blaring from the crevice of her door.

Sighing again, Applejack leans back into the couch, blonde hair spreading out over the back of the cushion. She stares up at the ceiling. “My parents were an inter-racial couple,” she says. “Where I was from, they weren’t treated well for it. Sometimes I think, why did they choose to stay together? Even marry? It wasn’t like they were soulmates or something. They could just move on, find someone else, and their lives would have been a heck lotta easier. They wouldn’t have had to move here at all. They would still be alive.”

“But… then you wouldn’t have been around.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t have been around to care about that, neither.”

“I would,” Rainbow says quietly. "Care, that is."

TENSHI WA HOHOEMI DE!~~TSUREDASHITE!~~~ blares from Apple Bloom’s room.

Applejack glances at Rainbow. She glances away.

“For two women, it’s the same,” she says. “It’s not worth the trouble.”

“Dude, it’s 2024,” Rainbow says, incredulous. “People are gay. Companies colour themselves like me for pride month. Basic bitches are listening to Chappell Roan!”

“And yet people still debate every day about whether or not we should exist.”

“Okay, so we’re getting there,” Rainbow pans her hands. “But why do you think your Granny let your parents marry? And moved y’all here? Cuz she believed in love, your parents’ love!”

“What kind of future do you even see for us? You’ll be a uni grad, and I’m stuck working a dead-end job!”

“How are you stuck? Oh, I think I know,” Rainbow says. “Look, you need to stop blaming yourself for your parents’ death. They married because of love. They moved here because of love. They drove to go find you because of love. And they’d have wanted you to do what you want and love who you wanted to.”

By now, Applejack was curled up into a ball on the couch, her head in her knees, trembling. She kinda looks like a tortoise, withdrawn into its rock-hard shell. “Just leave.”

Lucky thing, that Rainbow Dash happens to be real good with tortoises.

“Stop telling me to leave, I’m not gonna!” she proclaims. “The moment you asked me to put that butt-ugly apron on, you made me a part of your life! And now you bet your ass I’m never, ever, ever gonna budge!”

Applejack lifts her head. “But why?”

“‘Cause I’m fucking stupid!” she yells. She can feel her face getting all red already. “And I can’t think ahead. But even if I don’t have brains, at least I got heart. So stop talking yourself in circles and just, just,” she doesn’t know what to say anymore, so she just sits there and hyperventilates.

Applejack stares at her. Then slowly, she unfolds herself, dropping her knees over the edge of the couch. She leans forward to grab the thermos, and pours out a drink: one for Rainbow, one for herself.

She tastes it. Raises an eyebrow. “You did something to the cider.”

“Yeah, it’s my new recipe,” Rainbow blubbers, feeling absolutely insane. “And I’m not telling you what it is unless you let me back in for a hundred, million years.”

“Heh. Okay.”

“What? What ‘okay’—mmph!”

And Applejack was kissing her, the taste like sweet cider.