Sweet Apple Acres was beautiful.
Autumn Blaze couldn’t help but notice it. Even as ponies shuffled past her in droves, she was rooted to the spot just outside the orchard’s sign. The weathered wood had been done up in bows and ribbons, swirling around the sturdy posts that held the land’s namesake aloft. Trees dotted with earthy colors from crisp fall leaves framed the sight, picturesque in a way that a playwright would only dream of being able to capture—and she would know, having formerly been one.
It was crazy to her that ponies took their own landmarks for granted. Maybe she was just overly sentimental, but if she had a whole farm in her village, she would’ve spent each and every day celebrating it. A fresh source of fruit and a reliable family that was always there when times were tough were blessings.
But then again, it must have meant something if the place was so packed.
The flow of guests was akin to a steady stream, constantly rushing inward and constantly making noise. Now that she was paying attention to more than just the scenery, she realized it wasn’t just ponies at all—there were griffons, dragons, and changelings funneling through the entrance as well. And even if she was the only Kirin present, that still counted for something, didn’t it? There were so many creatures all over Equestria, all here for one reason.
Two of the Elements were getting married.
Two of Equestria’s saviors! Why wouldn’t there be such a crowd? Honestly, it was more of a surprise that more of her fellow Kirin hadn’t joined her. The invitation her village had received was open to all of them, but few were actually free. Queen Rainshine almost joined, but she declined when a certain name was mentioned.
Applejack.
The Element of Honesty, rodeo champion, hardworking and determined to the point of stubbornness. The first pony Autumn Blaze had ever met, who reconnected her to her village and her village to their emotions, the first creature in general who sat down and really listened to her.
She loved the words that formed those sentences. They were easy to picture, easy to smile about. Even the words “Applejack” and “getting married” were beautiful when she didn’t think about them too hard. That’s why she’d been overjoyed when she’d received her invitation in the mail, even when she started crying happy tears that sizzled across her face like Nirik flames.
And they were happy tears. What else could they be? Queen Rainshine had looked at her with cautious sympathy when she’d sobbed the news to her, but she was happy for her friend. That’s why she was here.
Even if she was the only creature not making a single sound at the entrance.
Even if it took her a considerable amount of strength to pick up her hooves and move forward.
જ⁀➴
The altar was beautiful.
Finding her way into an open chair had been like dragging herself through honeyed molasses, but it was worth it to see the ceremony’s centerpiece. Applejack had sent the occasional letter and package to her, and of course that included a description of her parents’ trees. The multicolored leaves and the heart in the negative space hardly needed any decorating, but bows, ribbons, and lights adorned the spare twigs regardless. With it being autumn, the pears and apples nestled in the intertwined branches were perfectly ripe, glistening in the sunlight. A few of the bored foals had woven through the decorations to grab a fallen snack before the ceremony started, which admittedly made her giggle.
She thought about joining them, but she didn’t. She wanted to be present and prepared in the moment to come.
At some point, she’d started chatting with the ponies sitting around her. Bits and pieces stuck in her mind—the names of fruits and the joy of the ceremony to come—but she couldn’t remember a single word they’d exchanged. Every sentence spoken evaporated like a snowflake falling on a hot fire.
She was laughing at something when the conversations around her started to die down. She hoped it had been a joke.
A polite silence swept over the crowd as a trio of teenaged foals galloped down the aisle, the baskets clutched in their teeth sprinkling flower petals on the grass. She recognized one as Applejack’s little sister, mentally clocking the other two as her friends. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, was it? They certainly were excited. They didn’t even have any flower petals left to distribute for the last third, their ecstatic leaps and bounds having emptied out too many. They bounded up to the side of the trees, where an older mare with a gray mane hobbled around the bark to meet them.
And then.
Every creature instinctually turned their heads to the very back of the field at the sound of grass rustling, and Autumn Blaze followed their lead. She rested her hooves against the backrest of her wooden seat and felt the world grow hot.
The mares of honor sauntered through the center side by side, both of their eyes covered by blindfolds. They, of course, were in elegant wedding gowns, hard to see in detail from such a distance but still blindingly gorgeous. Each was led by a different pony—Autumn Blaze recognized Big Macintosh as the stallion holding Applejack’s hoof, occasionally checking the aisles to make sure he wasn’t running into the chairs.
When the entourage finally approached her row, she was spellbound. The white gown was cropped short for the earth pony, cloth pinned by her flank with an apple-shaped brooch. Tiny floral patterns swirled through the cream-white fabric, as though bleached vines had imprinted into her very nature. Her hat was decorated by a crown of rainbow flowers, circling the worn leather brim. The blindfold was actually a red bandana with a white checkerboard pattern, and the fur underneath…
Autumn Blaze reached out to touch it. To feel the softness in the farmer’s face, the grit in her muscles, and the sharpness in her bones. To feel the tangled blonde strands of Applejack’s mane between her cloven hooves.
But her eyes drifted.
Sky blue fur, a messily curled mop of rainbow poking through the gaps of the blindfold around her face. A stallion significantly older than Macintosh guiding her, whispering praise to his daughter in breathless awe.
She let them pass.
Only once they were at the base of the trees were the blindfolds removed with a dramatic flourish, the two mares gasping at the other’s appearance. The lighthearted teasing between them sounded like a strong wind to her, a stormy gust that threatened to blow her away.
Despite her promise to herself, the ceremony faded out in her mind. She sat and stared at nothing, smiling vaguely just to seem like she was paying attention. The older mare—the town’s mayor, as it turned out—recited a lengthy speech. Vows were exchanged. Tears were wept. Some of them were her own.
She stomped her hooves when the two kissed, each one leaving an indent in the dirt. When flames began to lick the bottom of her hooves, she stamped them out just as hard.
She made sure she cheered the loudest.
જ⁀➴
The reception was beautiful.
It was inside the barn, obviously, since the sunny afternoon had faded into dusk by the time everyone had piled in. Desserts had piled onto the tables as equines and non-equines alike stepped up on a literal soapbox to talk about the happy couple. Rainbow Dash’s parents had gushed until their daughter was red in the face. Big Macintosh only got a couple sentences out, but it was enough to make his little sister beam with pride. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo spent most of their speech debating who should get to catch the bouquet, which somehow led to their sisters reluctantly agreeing to let them go cliff diving to ‘see who was strong enough to wield ultimate flower power’. Pinkie Pie told a story about her friends’ courtship that made everyone laugh so hard that the ache in Autumn Blaze’s chest momentarily felt like it belonged there.
When all the plates were cleared, a group of Apple family musicians had piled themselves into a corner, and the evening quickly became a swinging party. Kegs of apple cider rolled in, confetti started shooting from random banisters, and a full-fledged hootenanny flooded the barn’s center. The happy couple had to practically fight for a spot to have their own dance, and even then, the hoedown throwdown that followed was a far cry from the slow dance she’d been expecting.
Nothing was slow or meandering. Everything was at full force, full power, full speed.
Which was why it was so odd that time seemed to come to a crawl when she heard a raspy squeak from behind her.
“Hey, you’re Autumn Blaze, right?”
The mug of cider she’d been floating with her magic fell, and she quickly caught it in her hooves. The whinny of surprise that followed surely wasn’t her proudest reaction, but the music thankfully dampened it.
She faced Rainbow Dash with an embarrassed grin, ignoring the burning hot coal of dread that ignited within her.
“Yeah! Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to finally meet you! Applejack writes about you all the time! Well, not all the time, just some of the time! She can’t write letters all the time, that would be silly, she has work to do!”
She chuckled, and the blue pony followed suit.
“Wow, she was right. You are a talker.”
Applejack thought she was a talker. And she was right. She was considerate that way.
“I know, right?? Isn’t it great! I love talking. Y’know, since I couldn’t. It’s crazy, right?”
“Hay yeah.”
Rainbow Dash held up a hoof, and Autumn Blaze shook it politely. Instead of the reaction she expected, the hoof shake caused the mare to tilt her head in confusion.
“Do you guys do hoofbumps?”
“Huh—oh, no, not a lot, actually! See, one time my friend Fern Flare tried to hoofbump my other friend Blossom Burst, but she hadn’t filed her hooves in a while, so she ended up poking Blossom’s hoof really hard by accident. She got really mad! Then we all got really mad because she was mad, and the fire got really out of hand, and we ended up nearly burning down one of the nearby groves, so we haven’t done that in a while.”
To her surprise, Rainbow Dash nodded in understanding.
“Yeah. That happens.”
“It does?”
The pegasus rubbed the fur on the back of her neck with a hoof, suddenly looking a little sheepish.
“Long story, but one time I tried blowing up the Cloudsdale weather factory so my turtle didn’t have to hibernate.”
Autumn Blaze blinked, and for a moment, genuinely smiled.
“Yeah. It’s a lot like that.”
The two shared another laugh, and the kirin quietly scanned the dance floor. Her eyes landed on Applejack automatically, talking to a few Apple family members she didn’t recognize by name. She watched longingly as the orange mare ran a hoof through her mane, still drenched in sweat from dancing. Though it had lost most of its luster and hung in limp strands, it was like looking at the softest golden hay.
“Applejack was my first friend. I don’t think I’d be here if it wasn’t for her.”
She felt Rainbow Dash clasp a hoof around her shoulder and heard a love-filled sigh escape her lips.
“Don’t I know how that feels.”
And despite the vise on her heart that clamped shut like a trap, Autumn Blaze nodded in complete and total belief.
જ⁀➴
Applejack was beautiful.
It was no secret, not to her. Her physicality was nothing to scoff at, with toned musculature, bristly fur that was somehow soft to the touch, and sharp features that made her silhouette stand out in the brightest sun. But she was also smart and brave and bold and brash and borderline reckless. She stated her mind and had no problem standing up for what she believed in. She was able to learn from her mistakes with humility. She had witnessed the deaths of her parents and grandmother, had gotten sad and angry enough to run from home, but she returned. She continued living. She was filled with so much love and compassion that Autumn Blaze didn’t have a word for it in her entire vocabulary. She was strong in both body and mind.
From the moment Applejack helped to restore her village, citing her as the reason why she risked being dunked in the Stream of Silence, Applejack had her heart.
But she didn’t have Applejack’s.
She sat outside the barn doors as ponies exited, nursing an empty cup of cider. She listened as friends and family exchanged farewells and congratulations, all of them disappearing in swirls of leaves and fireflies.
Rainbow Dash had Applejack’s heart. Rainbow Dash had known her for longer and had been there before kirinkind was even known to Equestria. They’d competed, they’d adventured, and they’d joined each other in a blissful happiness that she only knew from plays.
She was angry. She was jealous. Those words were understatements, and she knew much better ones to describe exactly what she felt. The seething bitterness haunted her; the waves of anguish hammered against her heart.
But she knew how this ended. She’d lived as a Kirin long enough to know that becoming overwhelmed with fury did nothing but scar herself and others. She didn’t want to be the kirin who hid underneath an opera stage, biding her time to steal somepony away. She couldn’t do that to Applejack.
She couldn’t do that to Rainbow Dash, either.
Autumn Blaze picked herself up off of the grass and stretched out her legs. There had been a pause in the creatures trickling out. It was her last chance, her final chance.
She spotted Applejack immediately, finally alone. The earth pony smiled as their eyes met, cheeks red from exhaustion and glee.
“Hey, sugarcube! Thanks fer comin’! Glad y’could make it!”
Autumn Blaze didn’t reply. When she had finally closed the gap between them, she gave Applejack a hug. Her mane smelled like apples and cinnamon, and tears welled up in Autumn’s eyes. She pressed a feather-light kiss to it, gentle enough not to budge a single hair out of place.
When they separated, Autumn Blaze smiled so hard that her cheeks hurt, and Applejack’s own momentarily faltered as tears ran down her friend’s cheeks.
“Y’alright?”
Autumn Blaze hiccuped out a laugh, wiping her face with her hooves. The cloven ends scratched at her face.
“I’m so happy for you.”
