What Happened To Yesterday

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 9 [Interlude] Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 1

Arc 1: The Way Things Are

An excited feminine voice vocalized a happy tune that carried its way across the sun kissed apple orchards that covered the lands just outside of the small hamlet known as Ponyville. The scenery was exquisite, beautiful strong apple trees, their blooms just showing through. It was a sight that ponies all over Equestria envied.

But the tune that wafted through the blooming trees brought it all together. It was jovial, but not extremely so. To most ponies it brought to mind a mother’s touch, or a home cooked meal around the family table; a state of pure bliss and relaxation.

It made sense, this pony’s special talent was to make ponies happy. It was this particular pony’s duty to make sure that nopony ever frowned or felt bad, therefore singing such a jovial tune was a wonderful way to accomplish that.

The stallion’s pink fluffy tail bounced up and down, as did his equally pink and fluffy mane and his whole body for that matter. It was an efficient way of travel, well…for him at least. Most ponies didn’t bounce like that, they found that it suited this particular pony was a much more bouncy individual than themselves.

“Ooooooooh Applejack~!” The joyful vocalizations stopped and out came that long call. “Where are yooooooou~?” It was their weekly meeting at Sweet Apple Acres, after all the two earth pony males of their tight knit almost all female group needed to stick together.

“Consarnit, can you quiet down?” A hulking figure stepped out from behind a particularly large apple tree. His orange coat gleamed with a fresh coat of sweat, acquired from working hard amongst the many trees, and a Stetson rested upon his golden locks. “Do the words ‘secret rendezvous’ mean anythin’ to you?”

“Nope!” The word was accompanied with a large smile. The orange pony facehoofed, here he thought he was the element of honesty.

“Course not…” The orange pony sighed. “Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with you…” The heavily accented sentiment was accompanied with a low chuckle and a slight smirk.

“Cuz you loooove me, duh~!” In a single bound, the pink pony was practically on top of his friend, so much so that their noses were touching. Quickly and discreetly, the larger farm pony pecked the pink pony on the lips.

“And don’t you forget it, Berry Bubble.” Applejack smiled down at the smaller stallion, it wasn’t often that he demonstrated affection publicly…well if secluded in a rarely patrolled part of the orchards could be considered public. After all, what kind of stallion would he be if he wore his heart on his metaphorical sleeve? A weak one, and he was not a weak stallion.

“Aww, only a little kiss? C’mon Jackie, Berry needs his loving.” Berry puckered up for a bigger smooch, his companion gave a hasty glance around, making sure no pony would see this, and kissed his overly-affectionate(in his mind, at least) coltfriend.

Once the kiss went on for more than a few seconds, Applejack could feel his cheeks start to blush. Why did Berry have this effect on him? Every time the stallion hugged him, or even looked at him with the right look, he would blush furiously. It was maddening! He knew he had affection for Berry, or else they wouldn’t be unofficially dating, but he didn’t know why the pink ball of energy had such a…a compromising effect on him.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity out in the open, the kiss ended. Applejack licked his lips, the taste of icing and baked goods always hung around after kissing Berry. It wasn’t unpleasant or unwelcome, it was just distracting when there was work to be done.

“Hey AJ, Can’t you just take the day off this once? I still have that super-duper-awesome-spectacular day planned.” Ugh, this again. Berry had been pushing Applejack to take a day off so they could go on a date the overly-hyper pink pony had planned. Applejack had told him time and time again, he couldn’t just leave the farm with Big Macintosh in charge and only Applebloom as help. That would slow down the harvest, and that could hurt the farm, and the farm came before anything else.

“Berry…” He sighed quite loudly. “Y’know I can’t just up and leave, I’ve told you a hundred times. I have to shoehorn in these meetings as it is…” Berry’s perky exterior visibly dropped, his mane sagged a little and his ears laid flat. “Do you want the farm to go under?” Berry just shook his head. “Then I can’t leave, this farm is the most important thing in my life. I can’t let any harm come to it.” Aaaaand he just realized what he said. To his colt friend. Time to remedy the folly. “But you rank a close second, Berry, I promise!” That probably didn’t help anything whatsoever. Sometimes, being the element of honesty honestly sucked.

“Okay Applejack, I understand…” Applejack visibly flinched, he didn’t like hearing that tone of voice coming from Berry. It hurt him in his heart of hearts, like something fundamental to his whole being was being stabbed. It didn’t feel right. “I’ll just go, you probably need to get back to work…” Now it was being wrung from his very body, Applejack just wanted to embrace Berry and never let go…but he couldn’t. He had a farm to run, sadly.

As the now solemn form of Berry Bubble walked away, Applejack took off his hat and let his head hit the tree beside him a few times, maybe they could beat some sense into him.

Berry walked into Ponyville, an oppressive cloud of despair hanging over him. Not one big enough to send him spiraling into an episode of insanity, but one big enough to radiate sadness in every direction.

That seemed to be more common these days. When he and AJ had started secretly dating four months ago, everything had seemed like a Technicolor paradise of love and joy, now it was a monochromatic hell. Every time he brought up a date, or just hanging out outside of their secret meetings, Applejack would just shoot him down and bring up how the farm was what mattered, not him. It hurt, like realizing you forgot to get oven mitts a little too late.

So Berry set a course for the same pony he always went to when Applejack did something, the one pony who ate up his drama like none other. Rarity. She was the one to offer sage advice for relationships, and love hearing all about the problems that plagued ponies.

Carousel Boutique was not busy, he could see that from a mile away. Then again, it never was. Nopony ever went to the shop to order a dress, nopony who was close enough to the shop could afford it. All of the orders came via mail, then if a follow-up visit was needed, some noble would stop by for their measurements. Today was a no-noble kind of day, thank Celestia.

Berry nosed the door of the boutique open and took a look around. Rarity was nowhere to be seen, she was probably upstairs taking a nap, or in her design room sorting through her organized chaos.

He took a step in. As soon as his hoof clacked against the tile beneath it, the marble white unicorn he was looking for was already at his side. Even he wasn’t sure how she moved so fast.

“Berry, darling. How are you today?” Her pseudo-Canterlot accent always seemed rather pleasing to his ears, calming almost.

“Not good, Rarity…not good.” The fashionista took this as a sing and made Berry sit on her plush red divan. It was their talking-spot.

“Oh dear, more trouble with your lover?” Berry nodded. “Well you just sit down right there and tell Rarity all about it.” She cooed gently and stroked his mane. Like his mother used to when he was upset, it was nice to have a friend like Rarity. She was just so easy to talk to, sure all of Ponyville knew Berry was gayer than rainbow colored chaps, but he only talked to Rarity about his relationships. Not that she knew who he was dating, Applejack was very specific about making sure nopony knew, he was still hiding deep within the closet.

“Well I went to go see him during his break again…” Berry sighed, he hated bothering Rarity with his nonsensical relationship problems, but he also loved her help. “I asked if he could take the day off, y’know for that date I’ve been planning, and he just told me..” He gulped, desperately trying to fight back the tears he could feel forming in the corners of his eyes. “He told me that his job was more important than me…”

“Well I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous stallion! He says he loves you then says that? A cur, that’s what he is! Nothing but a filthy cur, not worthy of your affection.” Rarity wiped away his forming tears with a perfectly manicured hoof. “Anypony who would dare say that is not worthy of all the love you have to give, Berry. Trust me.”

“B-But I love him, Rarity…” It was true, Berry had dated other stallions before but Applejack was something special. He could feel it. It was something he could explain or identify, he just knew this. “I don’t wanna leave him…”

“Well it doesn’t seem like he loves you. Why, you’ve never even been out together, You only get to see him on his breaks, and he puts his work above you. You could do so much better, Berry.” He could only offer a sigh in return, Rarity had been pushing for a breakup since the first problem popped up. Berry’s been fighting that, but now…it just seemed inevitable. What if the next time Berry visited Applejack he chose work over him permanently? It was a thought that kept Berry up at night, it was terrifying.

“But…I love him…” There was nothing else to say, no argument against her points. He could only repeat that single mantra.

“Then let him go.” Rarity spoke calmly, surely. “If he loves you, then he’ll come back to you…if not, then I’m afraid you will have to move on.” It was the truth…no more denying that. Something had to be done, Berry couldn’t stand the pain anymore.

“Okay…” It was a defeated sound, one Rarity dreaded. All of the poor stallion’s relationships seemed to be doomed to fail. “Rarity, why can’t you be a stallion…? I’d date you in a second.” Berry always ended their little chats with the same joke, and every time Rarity responded with:

“Why can’t you be straight?” It was just a little something to lighten the always oppressively sad mood that accumulated when the pink pony entered the boutique. “Now on your way, handsome. I have work to do.” Rarity, in a very ladylike fashion, got off of the sofa and left the room, leaving Berry to his own devices.

“Applejack…?” The voice came to the farm pony and messed him up mid-buck. Like always, the voice threw off his concentration…this time that meant one of his hooves slipping, spreading his legs and making him rack himself on the apple tree. Applejack sang soprano before collapsing to the ground in agonizing pain. “Ohmygosh! Applejack, I’m so sorry!”

AJ heard the hooves beating against the ground as they came over, then the bright pink hooves entered his now lowered frame of view, then bright blue eyes consumed his entire field of vision. They looked worried and sad, not normal for them.

“Berry…?” Applejack’s voice was a few octaves higher than it’s usual tone. “W-What’re you doing here…?” Applejack found his strength and got up on shaky legs. The pain he just experienced was the kind that stayed with you for an excruciating period of time, he wouldn’t be bucking any trees for at least another hour.

“I-I came to talk to you…sorry for making you…yeah.” Something was wrong with Berry, Applejack could tell that from just the tone of the pink pony’s voice.

“I-It’s alright…” Applejack picked his hat up from where it fell and put it on his head. “And don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’m a big stallion.” He coughed and swallowed the pain, it could wait to be dealt with. “So, what’re you here to talk about?”

“W-Well I was hoping we could talk…” Something was definitely off…was Berry still upset about what he said earlier? AJ sure as hell hoped not. Berry could bounce back from most things in an instant, if something was staying with him it spelled bad news.

“Alright, guess we could go to the barn…Big Mac and Applebloom went to town for a spell.” Applejack shifted uncomfortably, still feeling the pain from his run in with the tree. “And I could use a break…” Berry nodded and started towards the barn, Applejack followed close behind. After all, the old saying goes: ‘I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you walk away.’ This went double for Berry, such a nice plump flank bouncing as he walked…

“Applejack?” Berry looked back to see Applejack trotting along mindlessly. He followed the orange pony’s gaze to his own flank. The little action brought a smile to Berry’s face. He knew Applejack worshipped his rump, it was how Berry first got Applejack to show his love in a more…physical way. Just the thought of their first time together made Berry smile, it was so much fun watching Applejack fumble around, trying to figure out what to do.

Berry, forgetting why he was here, added a little more bounce to his walk. He could just feel AJ’s lustful gaze on his rump. He enjoyed the attention, it brought back the earlier days of their relationship. Happier times.

As soon as the duo entered the barn, Applejack kicked the barn door shut and put the lock on. Whatever Berry was here to talk about could wait, Applejack was all bothered now and he needed some relief. Berry turned around and opened his mouth to talk, but not a word came out because AJ was on him instantly.

While it was true Applejack wasn’t very affectionate in public, in private he was so very passionate. More so than any of Berry’s past coltfriends, or even all of them combined. The best part was his drive, if he wanted something, he would get it. Right now, Berry knew what he wanted and knew that while it was useless to fight it, that he wanted it too.

His tongue tangled with Applejack’s in his own mouth. Applejack had the dominance, Berry just followed his lead. In one fluid motion, Applejack lead them over to a stack of hay and pushed Berry onto it. Berry had learned early on in their relationship that he loved Applejack’s dominance, it was refreshing to have somepony whose personality was more consuming than his own.

“Berry, y’alright with this?” Still a polite stallion like always, a true gentlecolt, and here they say chivalry’s dead. Berry gave a nod, he couldn’t lie…mainly because a certain part of his anatomy was giving away what he really wanted, the same part of his anatomy that was using the blood meant for his brain, which had totally forgot why it came here in the first place.

Applejack preferred making love to his coltfriend like this, face to face. He couldn’t stand mounting, they’d tried it once but it just didn’t feel right. Berry liked to kiss, and Applejack just loved watching his face become enraptured in pure pleasure.

Applejack didn’t give a thought about lubricant, he could feel his own natural lubricant covering that base. The pain from his injury didn’t even register in his brain anymore, he was too busy focusing on his lover, who moaned when AJ’s member prodded at his entrance.

Berry let his mind wander as its pleasure center erupted when Applejack pushed himself into Berry. Even just a little bit of Applejack went a long way, he was larger than most stallions…they knew how to grow ‘em on the farm.

Applejack closed his eyes and just relished in Berry’s tightness. AJ wasn’t sure how the hyperactive pony was so tight considering all of his past coltfirends, then again a lot of things about Berry didn’t make sense.

He pushed deeper, then retreated. It was a rarely practiced dance that Applejack had quickly perfected. Push deeper, then retreat. Applejack took a forehoof and stroked Berry’s throbbing member. While it was true Berry wasn’t as big as Applejack, he was still a good size…well, Applejack thought so. He didn’t have a lot to go off of in that department.

“A-Applejack, I love you!” Berry wrapped his forehooves around Applejack’s neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss to keep himself from screaming in pleasure as Applejack finally bottomed out, his full length firmly buried in Berry.

Applejack could only agree as Berry let loose a small scream of ecstasy in his mouth, it was one of the downsides of Berry, he was quite….vocal. There was always the chance of being caught and having to explain…this.

Berry and Applejack were too lost in each other’s embrace and love to notice the window on the upper level of the barn swing open and an equine form enter through it. The pony watched for a few minutes, either out of shock or interest. When she finally found her voice…well, it wasn’t at the opportune time.

Applejack’s stamina had improved in the months he had been with Berry…considering Berry was his first and he had never pleasured himself…well it was actually impressive. With one last push, he drove himself as deep as he could and unloaded inside of his lover with a long, loud moan. At the same time, he felt Berry’s member twitch in his hoof and shoot its load over both of their chests.

“Huh, you two sure know how to go at it.” Both stallions froze mid-climax. Two pairs of eyes, one green one blue looked up and met with a pair of magenta eyes beneath a polychromatic mane. “Always knew Bubble Butt here was a colt cuddler, never figured you for one, though.”

Applejack quickly pulled out of Berry and covered his shame with the only thing available, his hat. This was the most shame and embarrassment he had ever felt at one time. It was so excruciating it was actually painful.

“Hey Dashie.” Berry sat up, obviously not worried about the mess that covered the lower half of his body, and waved at the cyan blue pegasus sitting on the loft.

“Sup Bubble Butt. So how long have you and Mr. Tree-trunk over there been an item?” Rainbow Dash’s calm attitude and bluntness did not help AJ’s mood. It’s like she didn’t just see both of them going at it.

“Oh about f-” Applejack cut him off.

“We’re not an item.” Both ponies looked at him, one curiously and the other hurt.

“You’re telling me the pony you were just plowing like a field is not your coltfriend?” Once again, blunt euphemisms do not help anything, AJ was beginning to think she was doing this just to make him feel even worse.

“Well…uh…y’see…” Applejack was scrambling…he wasn’t a good liar, so he chose something that was true and just decided to leave out some stuff. Not lie, just…alter the truth to benefit the situation, he just hoped Berry could forgive him. “I haven’t had…that in a while, and I knew Berry was a colt cuddler and couldn’t turn me down, plus he kinda looks like a mare…” The look Berry was giving him was going to haunt him for a long time, he could tell. It was like Berry had just been told he was adopted or that he had a terminal illness. Shock, and pure hurt.

“Yeah?” Dash was suspicious, he could tell. “You that hard up for some tail that you had to go to Berry? Sheesh, you could at least have a little pride, buddy.” Applejack watched Berry leave out of the corner of his eye. Once the pink pony left the barn, the faucet outside turned on, signaling he was getting cleaned off.

“I just needed something before I burst, y’know?” AJ chuckled, trying to hide the worry he was secretly feeling about Berry. He hated this charade already, it hurt to even think about Berry like just some cheap lay.

“Trust me, I know the feelin’ well my friend. Just surprised you’d bat for the other team to get some.” Dash rolled off of the loft and landed gracefully on her hooves. “But uh..we can talk about this later, I think you need to clean yourself off. You’re covered in Berry juice.” Applejack craned his head to look under him, his chest fur was indeed matted down with the sperm of his lover.

“Good idea, I’ll clean up an we can talk about why you decided to break into my barn.” Applejack pushed open the door of the barn and trotted over to the water spigot, it was still on from Berry’s use of it. Applejack pushed the bucket under it, filled it to the brim, then ungracefully poured it over himself. He wanted to get the smell of sex off of him as quickly as possible.

“Soo the reason I wanted to talk to you was that Twilight doesn’t have the gall to talk to you.” Dash was hovering above the now soaking wet stallion. “Say, you look good with a wet mane. You should keep that up, maybe you won’t have to go to Berry anymore.”

“Right, now what in tarnation do you mean: ‘Twilight doesn’t have the gall to’?” Applejack ignored the Berry barb, he wanted to get done with Dash so he could run after his pink special somepony and apologize until he lost his voice.

“Well the egghead’s been pining over you. ‘Applejack this’ and ‘Applejack that.’ It’s getting annoying, and she won’t ask you out. So I, being a good and awesome friend, decided to take the situation into my own hooves. Even set up a date. Tomorrow, Sugarcube Corner, six PM. Be there and I guarantee you won’t have any more trouble getting any. Trust me, Twilight’s hotter for you than the sun.”

Things just got a little bit more difficult around here…

Chapter 2

Berry trotted through Ponyville,he had been doing so for a few hours now. He wasn’t sure if he should be sad about what AJ said…or just downright pissed. It was a mixed bag. He felt sad that AJ said he was nothing but an easy lay, but he was mad that he felt used…like some sort of cheap floozy.

He thought about just going home…but that didn’t seem appealing. It was fun being surrounded by sugar and sweets, but only if you were in a good mood. Then he thought about Rarity’s, but he’d already bothered her for the day. He didn’t think that a subsequent visit would be appreciated. Twilight was…well, Twilight. Sometimes Berry wondered if the element of magic was a robot. Fluttershy would just agree with whatever he said…everyone just seemed like a lost cause.

“Hey Berry!” Somepony bumped into him and hiccupped. A glance revealed it to be none other than Berry Punch, the town…well, drunk. She ran her own bar and regularly partook of the stock.

“Oh, hey Berry…” Yes, it was weird sharing a name with the town drunk. Yes mail sometimes got switched around, and yes he secretly found it annoying. “What’s up?”

“Wh-why the long face, Bubbles?” Like usual, Berry Punch was smashed and it wasn’t even five o’clock. “S’got you down?” She leaned heavily on him.

“Just stuff, Berry…nothing a little party can’t fix.” He smiled at the thought of a party. He would invite Twilight, and Rarity, and Fluttershy, And Rainbow Dash, and Apple….jack…and so much for a smile.

“I-I think I got the perfect party for you, mister. Come step into my office…” She pulled him towards her establishment, Punch Drunk. Berry tried to pull away, but resistance was futile.

“I don’t drink that stuff.” It was true, other than the occasional hard cider during cider season, he was as sober as a Horsmon preacher. His parents taught him, who by the way were Horsmon, that drinking was a contemptible sin.

“Awww, c’mon buddy. Berry Buddy, Bubble Buddy. Bubbly Berry Buddy. J-Just one drink, I promise you’ll like it.” He was about to protest again when Berry Punch stuck an alcohol covered hoof in his mouth. “It’ll make me super happy~” While he was trying to get the taste of various hard liquors out of his mouth, he condemned his cutie mark. He couldn’t deny somepony their happiness. That wasn’t how he operated.

“Okay…one drink. Something sweet.” Berry pushed the door to the bar open. It was dark, some old band was playing over the jukebox and only a few patrons dotted the seats. Berry Punch sat him down at the bar and went behind the counter.

“I-I got jus the thing for you, Bubdy.” Silently, Berry Bubble wondered just how drunk the other Berry was. “S’called the Apple Berry. Super good, trust me.”

While the drink master went about making her concoction, Berry lamented this choice. AppleBerry…it was the name Berry came up for his and Applejack’s relationship. Y’know, celebrities have all of those mish-mashed names, so Berry took it upon himself to make one for them.

He wondered what Applejack was doing…

“Well howdy, Rarity.” Applejack too the hat off of his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. It had been a few hours since the incident with Berry, and he had decided against running after the pink pony. If Dash was watching, she might figure him out. But right now, he was wondering what in the hay Ms. Prissy herself was doing out on his farm. She hated the dirt and grime that one would often accumulate while walking around here.

“Yes, ‘howdy’ to you as well Applejack.” She seemed mad, well not just mad. More like…vengeful? “I just had the most interesting talk with Rainbow Dash.” Applejack’s blood froze and his eyes widened. “That’s right, you and I are going to have a little discussion, mister.”

“Can we go inside at least…?” Applejack could feel his face starting to warm up, wherever this was going it wasn’t going to be good.

“No we certainly cannot. We will stand right here and talk.” Who knew her eyes could be that cold? Applejack didn’t, and now he wished he didn’t know that small fact. Unceremoniously, he plopped down on his rump. The faster he did what he was told, the faster all of this would be over. “Good, now Berry and I have been talking for quite a while. I do enjoy the relationship drama that stallion seems to attract, simply the juiciest gossip around.” Rarity’s eyes briefly flashed with her usual self, then returned to cold dark hatred. “For the past month he’s been coming to me and talking about his mysterious new coltfriend and how, after a few months, this colt had just taken to ignoring him. At first I couldn’t believe it: Berry Bubble being ignored? ‘How preposterous!’ I thought. After all, Berry is such a loveable young stallion. Don’t you agree?”

Applejack was going to answer in the affirmative, but Rarity cut him off.

“Then today he comes to me in tears saying how this rapscallion said that his work is more important than Berry! Poor berry was devastated, heartbroken. I told him that this stallion was no good for him, not one bit, and it was time to cut his losses. I can guess that’s what he came here to do, break up with you.”

In an instant, Applejack’s world shattered. He had guessed that Berry was bearing bad news…but nothing like that. If he had known how Berry was feeling…he would’ve…he would’ve…what would he had done? Okay, so he didn’t know…but he would’ve done something to make everything better!

“Then Rainbow Dash comes to me and says she has ‘the juiciest piece of gossip ever’ and being me, I simply had to know what it was. To my surprise, it was that she caught Berry and yourself in a compromising situation in your barn. Now I knew that my Berry would never cheat on somepony he was in a relationship with, so I knew this stallion was you. Then she goes on to tell me, that once you’re finished and she intervenes that you say Berry was a last resort, and that you ‘needed it before you burst.’ I knew I was right in telling him to break up with you, you were just using him.” The last words came out in a low snarl that caused Applejack to flinch. But he was not going to sit there and be insulted.

“Now hold on just one minute, Rarity. You have no right stickin’ your nose in my business, and you sure as hay don’t need to be lecturin’ me on my relationships when you can’t even hold onto a stallion yourself!” Once his rage subsided, Applejack realized what he said…and the shocked look on Rarity’s face. “Aww…Rarity, I’m so sorry..” He slowly reached out to her, to comfort her, for a hug. He didn’t know, it just seemed like the right thing to do. However, his hooves were thrown away with magic.

“Don’t touch me, you cur! You are the worst possible pony I have ever met. I was right in telling Berry to leave you!” Rarity stormed off, leaving Applejack sitting down in the dirt, confused.

“Then he jus’ goes and tells me that his dumb ol’ farm is more important than me.” Berry was hanging on a stallion in a booth. At this point he had one or ten drinks in him, he didn’t quite care at this point.

“No way!” The purple unicorn stallion he was sitting with seemed to be intent on his story. Then again, if Berry was sober he probably would’ve seen the type writer in front of the unicorn and found out why.

“Yeah! He jus’ doesn’t appreciate me, tha’s his problem…” Berry let his head fall, his muzzle falling into the glass in front of him. His tongue explored the glass and discovered it was empty.

“Thank you so much, Berry. I needed a talk like this.” The unicorn downed the last of his white Russian, picked up his typewriter and got up from the booth. “See you tomorrow night, Berry.”

“Catch you later, BT. Happy….whatever the hell it is you do!” Berry waved at who the male Berry could only guess was a regular patron. “Soooo Berry, no more mopin’?” Berry shook his head a little too much and became dizzy from it.

“Eeenope. All smiles and bubbly feelin’s for me, Berry! I mean you Berry, not me Berry…even though I said ‘me, Berry‘. But I meant you Berry, not me Berry. Berry Berry Berry Berry!” The stallion let out a sharp giggle that turned into a snort. “We have the same names!” The pony devolved into one large giggle fit and fell onto the floor to punctuate his laughing with rolling.

“Alright Mister Giggles, I think you’ve had enough. I need you to go on your way before I get a noise complaint.” Berry Punch came over, showing surprising sobriety by picking up the full grown stallion and carrying him outside into the now cool night air. She sat him down on shaky legs and pointed. “Sugarcube Corner’s that-a-way, Tipsy.” Berry retreated into her bar, leaving the stallion on his own.

“Uhh….what…way?” Berry Bubble looked around through alcohol-laden eyes and decided on going left. Left seemed to be a good idea for some reason, so left he stumbled. Not man ponies were out at….what time was it? Hell, Berry didn’t know. It was dark’o’clock. That’s what time it was.

In a fit of spontaneity, Berry burst out singing. Well not really singing, more like vocalizing. It’s what he did, it made him Berry Bubble. He had a tune in mind, but it kept changing, as did his tone. It shifted from happy to sad, to elated, to angry. It was a song that could not keep one form.

“Berry…is that you?” The stallion stumbled out of his song, fell forward with his rump in the air and looked around for the voice. The fact that his vision was blurry did not help locate the owner of the voice. “Berry, That is you!” Okay…he knew that voice from somewhere. It was…umm…uh..okay. It was a pony. He knew that much.

“The one and…wait…no. The second and only Berry!” He giggled, snorted, and let his rump fall to the ground with the rest of him. A white hoof entered his vision.

“I have been looking everywhere for you, Berry. Where have you been?” White hoof…pony…uh….Vinyl? No she doesn’t sound like that. Celestia? Nah, her hooves are massive. Shining? Wait, no. His hooves are blue, his fur is white. Uh…yeah, no clue.

“Been at the bar thingy, Punchy said I needed a drink…Boy was she right!” He rolled onto his back in order to see who was above him. Oh, it’s Rarity! Of course, how could he forget her?

“That dingy establishment? Heavens, I didn’t think you indulged in such elicit activities.” He saw her horn light up blue, then he saw the glow circle him. He didn’t feel unicorn magic often, but when he did it always made him smile. It just felt…sparkly.

“It cheered me up!” Berry felt himself get lifted off of the ground and carried away. “Kinda like magic, it made me feel all warm and smiley!”

“Honey, alcohol is never the answer to your problems. Maybe a sip of wine here and there, but never a binge, dear. Now you are coming home with me until you crash and burn, Celestia knows what will happen if you have a hangover in a bakery.” Berry quietly wondered what a hangover was and why one would be bad in a bakery…

“Right…I can do this. Just go in there and tell ‘er you can’t do this…simple. It’s not like you’re cruelly shootin’ her down or destroyin’ her only chance at a relationship for the conceivable future.” Applejack was standing in front of the library, his hoof raised to knock on the door. He was going to tell the nerdy librarian the truth…that he was gay and that he would still love to go out, as friends. Nothing else.

He was just about to knock, when the door opened. The purple unicorn he was looking to talk to was standing there. She wasn’t looking ahead of her and ran into him, her muzzle bumping into his neck, causing her to look up.

When Twilight realized who she bumped into, a deep blush crossed her face. She stood up and looked around for a few seconds before she spoke.

“H-Hey Applejack…I was uh, just coming to talk to you.” This caused AJ to raise an eyebrow.

“At this time of night? You do know I get up early right?” He knew that was a little hypocritical, but it was a legitimate question.

“W-Well I was just thinking that maybe I could get you one on one with none of your family, and Spike just fell asleep. I didn’t want him worrying, and I was just wanting to…to…I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” She looked down at her hooves and kicked one idly.

“Well I’m here now, so what’d you want to talk to me about?” Dammit, he wanted to get this out of the way, not watch her bumble about. He could feel the roguish grin cross his face. Double Dammit! Why did he have to be such an attractive stallion

“W-Well Rainbow Dash told me that she set up a date for us…a-and you said yes. I was just going to tell you that you really don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I understand, trust me.” The first worry that Applejack had was that Rainbow Dash had told Twilight what she saw. He couldn’t handle another friend knowing that. With that secret that seemed to be looming over him, he decided on a course of action. He wanted this situation rectified, he needed to do damage control.

“Well I came here to accept the proposal. I know RD already said it, I just feel that it’s better to do so to your face.” Oh Celestia, what in the hell was he saying? “I would be delighted to go on a date with you.” Alright, well that was done now. No going back.

“Really? Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She jumped out and hugged him tightly. “Come in, come in. We’ll have tea.” Applejack was pulled into the lion’s den, ready to be devoured.

“I’m disappointed in you, Berry.” Berry felt soft blankets envelop him. Somewhere in the boutique, Berry felt the world spin and decided to close his eyes. It was easier. “You know if you ever have problems that you can come to me. There’s never any need to resort to drinking.”

“I’m sorry…” Berry opened his eyes to see an upset unicorn standing over him. That would never do. So he reached up and pulled her into a much needed hug. “I won’t do it again: cross my heart hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He didn’t do the accompanying motions, his hands were kind of tied up at the moment.

“You better not…I’m not going to let you destroy yourself because of some idiotic stallion who’s not good enough for you…” She hugged him tight before letting him go. “Now you’re going to stay with me tonight, tomorrow you’re going to wake up feeling miserable. So you get some rest, alright?”

The next day Berry woke up feeling refreshed and better than ever! He was in the kitchen of Carousel Boutique with Sweetie Belle. He loved working with her, always so eager to try and cook. That’s what they were doing now, attempting to cook.

“Okay. Now you just gotta take the spatuler there and flip-flop that there flapjack.” He liked talking to kids, it was fun. He got to use even more ridiculous words and sentences than usual, and they actually enjoyed it! Sweetie Belle grabbed the spatula between her teeth and worked it under the pancake. “Alright, now just flip it. One quick jerk upwards and make that a flyjack.

Sweetie Belle did as she was told and sent the flapjack skywards. The two ponies watched as the pancake fell down smoothly on the skillet. Both of them threw their hooves up and cheered.

“That’s two pancakes for you, three for Rarity, and seven for me! Good job Sweetie.” He ruffled the little unicorn’s mane and returned the gigantic smile she was giving him. “Now you go set the table, I’ll go wake your sister.”

“That’s not a good idea, Berry.” Sweetie grabbed him, trying to stop him. “Rarity’s a monster when she’s woken up…”

“Don’t worry, I can handle her.” He gave Sweetie a wink and set off towards Rarity’s room.

When he entered the room of the diva, he saw what he expected. Rarity lay in the center of the bed, the sheets around her not even wrinkled, wearing a sleeping mask and some kind of green stuff on her face. He didn’t know what it was, mainly because he wasn’t that gay.

He crept across the room and loomed over the sleeping mare. It was time for the patented Berry Bubble Breakfast….wake-up…thing. Okay, so he didn’t have a perfect alliteration for that, but it still worked. He drew in a giant breath and leaned in close to Rarity. In a single breath he whispered gently into her ear:

“Tom the rock…”

Rarity bolted upright, ruining her perfect bedding, tore off her sleeping mask with magic and glared daggers at Berry.

“You were told to never speak of that again…” Berry, not surprisingly, fell to the floor laughing wildly. “Berry Bubble! You apologize right now!”

“I-I’m sorry, Rarity…” Berry was too busy laughing until it hurt to give a proper apology, but that would have to do for now. Rarity got up, kicked him in the ribs sharply, and stomped off towards her personal bathroom. “O-Ow..” His laughing calmed down to nothing but a few giggles. “O-Okay. I’m super-duper sorry, Rarity. But Sweetie Belle and I made breakfast and I volunteered to wake you up.” Berry stood up and followed Rarity, as she climbed into the shower he leaned against the doorframe.

“Berry, I’m taking a shower. Would you kindly leave? It’s improper for a gentlecolt to see a lady in the shower.” it was obvious by her glares that she wouldn’t move until he either moved or gave a rebuttal.

“Rarity, I’m gay. Seeing you with a wet mane isn’t going to set me straight. Plus, I sorta wanna talk.” With a grunt of obvious disapproval Rarity turned on the shower knob. “So…I wanna say I really am sorry for last night…it’s just…my coltfriend and I, we had another incident…”

“I know, Darling. Rainbow Dash stopped by and told me what happened between you and Applejack.” Berry gaped. “Yes, I know it’s Applejack. And after knowing what he’s done and what he did I gave that rapscallion a piece of my mind.” Berry opened his mouth to speak. “Ah-ah. You be quiet. I had every right to intervene as your best friend. I told him that you were right to break up with him.”

“But…I didn’t break up with him, Rarity.” Rarity stopped with the lathering of her mane to give Berry a confused look.

“What?”

“I-I couldn’t do it. I mean, sure he can be a little too involved in his work…and what he said to Dashie hurt me. But I knew he said it because he’s not ready to admit he’s gay yet…I can give him time. Love takes patience, after all.” Berry gave a sad smile. “Don’t worry, it will all work out.”

Rarity smiled back and gave a curt nod. “I see your point. While I do not agree with your decision, as your friend I must support it.” Rarity decided to leave out the fact that Applejack was going on a date with Twilight tonight. The poor colt probably couldn’t handle it.

Applejack stretched languidly, keeping his eyes firmly closed. It felt like he slept on a rock, now he knew his bed was the most comfortable thing in the world. This was definitely not his bed. His first thought was that he was at Berry’s. The poke his sheath received only reassured him of that. He knew how Berry loved to wake him up, and Applejack was quite okay with the method. He smiled as he felt his member start to slide out of its sheath. Looks like his (not-so)little buddy was already awake.

“Oh my…” The voice was distinctively female. Not like Berry’s. His still sounded like a stallion’s voice, just on the higher end of the stallion scale. This…this was female. Thinking the worst, AJ opened his eyes and looked down. A curious purple unicorn’s head was a little too close to his emerging friend.

“Whoa! Twilight! What in the Celestia’s name are you doing?!” Applejack rolled over from his back, which he had been sleeping on, to his stomach. Which painfully pushed his semi-erect member against his stomach.

Twilight could only blush and turn her head away. “S-Sorry Applejack. Just…uh…studying up on male anatomy?” Ugh, he didn’t have time for this. He was late getting up anyways. First order of business, a nice cold shower. He didn’t care about what Twilight saw, he just needed to get to the farm quickly.

He stood up from the couch, painfully aware of his raging erection and the gaping look that Twilight was giving it, and headed to use her bathroom. He would sort out this mess later.

“I’m so proud of you, Sweeite!” Rarity praised her little sister for making a meal that didn’t require a hazmat suit to get near. A first time for everything. “And thank you too Berry for helping.”

“No problemo, Rarity! I love working with your little sister. She’s the best.” Berry stuffed a syrup laden pancake smile into his mouth and gave Sweeite and gooey smile, at which the little unicorn giggled.

“Rarity?”

“Yes Sweetie Belle?” Rarity cut up her pancake into manageable bits, the complete opposite of Berry. Speaking of, the earth pony was washing down the pancakes with a glass of orange juice.

“Is Berry going to become my brother?” Two things happened, Berry did a spit-take with his orange juice, and Rarity choked on her pancake. Both of them coughed violently from the small ordeal.

“Wh-where would you get an idea like that, Sweetie?” Rarity answered because Berry was still busy working the OJ from his pipes.

“Well you guys are spending a lot of time together…and he went to wake you up and didn’t come down when you took a shower. I just kinda figured you guys were doin’ stuff grown ups do when they’re alone.” That earned another coughing fit from berry and a shocked look from Rarity.

“A-and what would that be, dear?” Rarity asked, clearly concerned about what her little sister knew of the birds and bees.

“Iunno. Kiss and stuff?” That earned a sigh from both ponies.

“No Sweetie, berry is not going to be your brother. Trust me when I say that I am not his type.” Rarity went back to eating her breakfast.

“But you’re pretty and nice. Why wouldn’t you be his type?” Rarity, obviously not wanting to take this one, looked to Berry. Luckily he was already on top of the situation.

“Well Sweetie I don’t like mares. I like colts…some colts like other colts and some mares like other mares.” Berry had scooted his chair closer to Sweetie Belle and put a hoof on her little head.

“So you’re a colt-cuddler?” Sweetie looked up at Berry innocently with her bright green eyes.

“Now Sweetie Belle, that’s a hurtful term. That’s only used by ponies who don’t like ponies like me. Don’t you like me, Sweetie?” Berry looked down at Sweetie with big eyes.

“Of course I do, Berry!” Sweetie defended herself. “I’ve just heard Diamond Tiara say that before…” Berry mentally made of note of that and gave Sweetie Belle a big hug for reassurance.

“It’s okay, Sweeite. You just didn’t know…And to answer your first question; I would love to be your big brother, even if I’m not married to Rarity.” Berry kissed the top of Sweetie’s head and smiled.

“Really?” The little unicorn squealed in delight, then increased in volume when Berry nodded in the affirmative. Seeing somepony this happy? This is what Berry lived for, it made his day.

Chapter 3

“Alright Sweetie, get ready for school. I’ll be up in a minute to fix your mane.” Rarity levitated the dirty dishes into the sink and hummed a small tune. Berry was busy picking up the covers from his bed on the couch and putting them in the hamper. He knew Rarity’s obsession with cleanliness, and he was being a good guest.

Berry smiled as he heard Sweetie Belle vocalizing the same tune Rarity was humming. The little filly was simply an amazing singer, he hoped that one day she would realize that was her special talent. But you’re not supposed to help somepony get their cutie mark, that was for them to do themselves.

“Hey Rarity?” Berry called into the kitchen, he had something he wanted to ask the mare.

“Yes, Berry?” Rarity walked into the main room and smiled at the sight of her guest tidying up.

“Can I walk Sweetie Belle to school today?”

“Of course you can, Berry. But I simply must run a few errands, so I hope you two don’t mind a little company from me for some of the trip.” He didn’t expect any less from her, after all Sweetie was her little sister. She was just looking after her younger sibling. “Now I have to do her mane, those curls don’t come naturally after all. She’s not you.” Rarity and Berry both laughed at the small joke as the unicorn went up the stairs.

Berry looked up at his mane, the tangled mess of hair that set atop his head was a constant annoyance for him. You wouldn’t believe how often it got caught or pulled on by the Cake Twins. Maybe one of these days he would ask Rarity for a little help taming it…or at least see if it can be tamed.

“Hmm…” Berry went to one of the many full length mirrors that dotted the boutique and looked at his appearance. His pink coat was perfect as always, soft, shiny, healthy. His mane and tail were totally different stories, though…they were tangled, had split ends, and he could spot some frosting deep within his mane. He could do with a makeover…

Berry spent the next few minutes looking over himself, when he heard the two females coming down the steps he quit examining himself and turned around. Sweetie Belle looked just like usual, her two-tone mane in short curls.

“Sweetie Belle, is it alright if Berry walks with you to school today?” Rarity grabbed her little sister’s saddlebag from a peg on the wall and put it on the little unicorn.

“Sure! Ooh, can I ride on your back Berry?” Sweetie started bouncing excitedly, which caused Rarity to frown and steady the bouncy filly with a hoof so she could clasp the saddlebag without it catching on any fur.

“Sweetie Belle, that is uncouth. A lady does not ride on a fine gentlecolt like Berry.” Sweetie flattened her ears and looked down, she obviously didn’t like being scolded by Rarity.

“No, It’s okay Rarity! I like to give ponies rides, it’s fun. Plus I’m a big tough earth pony.” Berry drew in a breath and stood heroically, before dropping the pose and scooping Sweetie on to his back. “I think I can carry a little filly for a few minutes.”

“Well alright Berry, if you’re alright with it.” Rarity started towards the door, giving an unseen smile at the small act. She honestly liked the stallion and thought he was the best with little ones. It was quite endearing.

“Hey Berry?” As he was trotting out, the little filly spoke drawing his gaze up to her. “How come you’re pink? Is it because you like boys?” Rarity turned back, looking appalled at the question, Berry simply laughed heartily.

“Nah, I don’t think you can be pink because of that. I’m pink because my Granny Pinkie was pink. In fact I look just like her except, well, Imma boy! That‘s like me asking you why you‘re white. It‘s cuz your mom and dad are.” Berry giggled and started bouncing, his preferred mode of transportation. “Okay, my turn to ask you a question: what are you and the Cutie Mark Crusaders up to today?

“Ooh! Today Applebloom and Scootaloo want us to try for our apple-bucking cutie marks. I’m kinda surprised we haven’t tried that sooner. It’s cool because Applejack said he’d help us!” Berry didn’t let the mention of the farm pony, but Rarity did.

“Oh, I’m sorry Sweetie Belle but you must come right home after school today.” Rarity desperately did not want her sister around that ruffian, especially after everything he’s done.

“Why?”

“Well…Umm…you see…” Rarity was floundering, Berry knew why and he could see his friend needed help. So he threw her a line.

“So you can help Rarity give me a makeover!” Both unicorns gave him a questioning look. “Yeah, Rarity and I talked last night. My mane’s just one big ol’ messy mess and I asked if she could help fix it up.” Rarity’s eyes sparkled at the implications, she had been asking to chop his mane down to size for years, now she would have her satisfaction.

“And I thought that maybe you could do some crusading with Berry and I. perhaps you will get a beautician cutie mark.” Sweetie’s eyes sparkled, just like her sister’s at the mention of getting a cutie mark.

“We’re going to make you beautiful, Berry!” Sweetie chirped excitedly.

“Aww, I thought you were going to be the Beauty. I always wanted to be Beast.” The reference made Sweetie giggle. “Rarity, you can be Cogsworth.” That made them both devolve into a fit of laughter and snorts.

“Oh Berry, why can’t you be straight…?” Rarity lamented under her breath.

Applejack trudged silently back to Sweet Apple Acres. He wasn’t happy about the morning that had transpired. First he woke up in the library with Twilight practically smelling his nether regions, then he goes to leave and Twilight steals a kiss right as he’s walking out the door for the whole stinkin’ town to see. It was like she was trying to claim him as her own.

“Good fer nothing…”He silently cursed as he looked around. The apple trees were in perfect form as always, the sky was clear of any clouds, and the air was the same perfect quality. Everything in the world was perfect except for him…it was vexing. He was a good pony, took care of his family, paid his taxes, turned his library books in on time…it just made no sense.

The image of a pink pony flashed through his mind. Berry…could that be it? Granny always said that homosexuality was the sure way to a bad life, but he just took that as the ignorance of a past generation…but it was getting to him now. Maybe Granny was right…just maybe.

Twilight was watched out the window of the library, just thinking of her strapping young stallion. She thought she was in love with him before…but seeing his massive package hang free…oh sweet Celestia…that sealed the deal. She was going to have that stallion if it was the last thing she ever did.

“Okay. My turn.” Sweetie Belle and Berry were still playing this game. A few minutes ago Rarity had left them for her errands now it was just them. Sweetie still riding on Berry’s back. “How come you like boys?”

“Hmm…” Berry thought about that for a second. “I don’t know. I just do. I just like who I like because I like them.” It was a confusing answer, but he hoped Sweetie could keep up.

“Oh…have you ever dated a mare?” Berry shook his head in the negative. “Then how do you know if you like ‘em or not? Scootaloo always said you gotta try everything once, or else how do you know if you like it or not.” The question made Berry stop in his tracks. For such a young filly to have a perspective like that…it was odd.

“Well, I just know. Sure I never dated a mare, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know if I like them or not. When you get old enough you figure this kinda thing out.” Sweetie nodded and let her head lay in the tangle known as Berry Bubble’s mane.

The rest of the trip was taken in silence. It wasn’t very long trip now to the schoolhouse, as soon as they entered the grounds he let the little filly slip off of his back and onto the ground. The little unicorn quickly bounded over to her fellow crusaders without even a goodbye, allowing Berry to do what he was here to do. He picked Cheerilee out of the crowd and made his way over to her.

“Hello Berry Bubble. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Cheerilee gave a kind smile to the stallion. Always a kind pony, that Cheerilee.

“Well I was talking to Sweetie Belle earlier and she said some things that she said she learned at school.” Berry’s voice wasn’t playful or happy, it was serious. He was quite capable of being serious, and this was a serious time.

Cheerilee’s mood sobered as well. She was used to a few complaints from citizens about what their kids were learning, but a visit from Berry Bubble? That was quite a thing to behold.

“She called me a ‘colt-cuddler’ and said she heard it from a classmate here at school.” Cheerilee’s eyes widened in shock. She wasn’t used to complaints about foul language or slurs.

“Oh I am so sorry, Berry. If you tell me the name of the student I’ll make sure their parents receive a letter about this behavior.”

“Well actually I had a better idea.” Berry flashed his trademark smile to the teacher and pulled a card out of his mane. “I’m actually a spokespony for the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Alliance of Equestria, and I was wondering if I could give a little assembly one day.” Color Cheerilee surprised. Sure, everypony knew Berry was gay, but a spokespony for the most well-known activist group in all of Equestria? That was quite the shocker.

“Well I’ll have to run it by the school board but I would love to have you in the classroom one day.” Cheerilee’s eyes flashed with a mischievous glint and the schoolteacher leaned in and whispered. “Tell you what, Berry. Maybe you can set up a little seminar in town and I’ll tell the kids about it. It’ll pass all of the red tape. Or I can even assign them an essay on an interesting pony in town, I know you’ll be flooded with requests.” Cheerilee smiled, she loved helping ponies get around the terrible slowness of the school system. It was so rewarding.

“Ooh, Ooh. The paper. I like the paper idea! I like planning parties but a seminar is the opposite of a party, so blah on that.” He punctuated his ‘blah’ by letting his tongue stick out.

“I’ll make sure to work that in somewhere, don’t worry about it Berry.” Berry gave Cheerilee a quick hug and an excited squeak. “Now you get going, class is going to start soon and I’m sure you have to get to work.”

Work. Crap. Berry had forgotten all about the bakery! With all the speed of a toothless alligator, Berry turned and sprinted for the candy coated bakery he called home.

Sugarcube Corner was closed. Color Berry confused because Sugarcube Corner never closed! The eatery was always open and ready to serve the wonderful ponies of Ponyville their delectable snacks. Well, except when the Cakes went on trips, then it closed. Berry could never run the place on his own…but the Cakes weren’t out of town.

Berry fished the spare key from somewhere in his mane, slid it in the lock, and let the bakery door swing open. The inside was dark, the display cases were emptied of their various pastries, the ovens weren’t going, and it was eerily silent.

“Helooooo!” Berry called out into the dark. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake, where are yoooooou?” Berry, a smile plastered on his face, bounced around the first floor, looking for any sign of the two ponies who ran the establishment or their foals.

Curious. Usually at least one of them were in the kitchen at all times. Berry quit his bouncing, he didn’t like this…the uneasiness of it all. He trotted upstairs, his door was open. He never left his door open when he was out of the house…mainly because he had things in his room that the Cakes didn’t need to see.

Berry nudged open his door, inside Mr. And Mrs. Cake were sitting on his bed with a box sitting in front of them. Berry wasn’t sure what was going on here, but he didn’t like it.

“Berry, come in here please.” Mrs. Cake looked at him, the remnants of tears in her eyes. Berry did as he was asked and took a seat on the floor in front of the couple. “I-we need to talk to you…” Mrs. Cake turned to her husband, obviously signaling his turn.

“Berry, we’ve been looking over our bills.” Mr. Cake’s orange hoof pulled receipts and official looking bills from the box in front of him. “Now, we love you Berry-”

“Like you were our own.” His wife interjected quickly

“And the bakery isn’t doing too well, we’re spending a fortune on supplies and not selling it all.” Berry felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach, his Berry-sense was telling him bad news was about to be delivered. “We’re sorry, but we can’t let you live here for free anymore…we’re going to start charging you rent.” Berry’s mind, not wanting to accept the news it just heard, decided to remember the time he and Dashie saw ‘Rent’ on Mareway in Manehattan. Good musical, sad though…

“Or you can still live here for free…just, no more using our supplies for your parties.” Mrs. Cake said hopefully. “We know you like to throw parties, but you can’t waste supplies like that for free…” Berry’s mind decided to hear all of that, and shatter. No more parties…? B-But…parties. Who could not love a good party?

“It’s your decision, Berry. I want you to make it before tonight though, Ms. Sparkle rented out the whole bakery today. Her and her date will be coming around six, I want you taking orders.” Mr. Cake, obviously holding back any true emotion, picked up the box of financial matters and left the room.

Mrs. Cake trotted over to Berry and gave him a kiss on the forehead. A sad smile accompanied it, but Berry decided not to even acknowledge it…he was too stunned. He had to choose between sacrificing probably most-if not all- of his paycheck for one little room, or throwing the parties he loved and lived for. This was all so…overwhelming…he needed time to think. He needed to take a walk.

Mindlessly, he put food in Gummy’s bowl, then left. He didn’t know where he was going, he just wanted to walk. Maybe the boutique? Rarity was always there for him, maybe she could help…so his hooves carried him along that often-trodden path.

Rarity hummed as she sorted the fabrics she picked up from her suppliers. They were colors she didn’t have in stock, so needless to say they were hideous, so she had to get them from specialty stores. The customer may always be right, but sometimes the customer has horrible taste. She shivered when she looked at the puce and brown fabrics that were paired together.

Yes, on her way back she may have taken a little detour to make sure Sweetie Belle got to school safely. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust Berry…it was just she wanted to make sure her little sister didn’t steer the easily distractible stallion away from their destination. Luckily she didn’t, Sweetie was in school and Berry was talking to Cheerilee when she passed by.

Berry Bubble…the name conjured up a few feelings. Pride, friendship, love…strictly plutonic love! Not like…love-love. She loved the stallion like a little brother, he was just as goofy and had as many problems as one so it fit.

But she had to admit, she could see why Applejack fell for Berry. He was goofy, almost always in a good mood, carefree, and flamboyant as the day is long. Opposites attract, and those two were polar opposites…though sometimes that wasn’t a good thing, especially in their case.

She let her mind wander as she got some fabric off of a shelf and began cutting a pattern out. Her mind wandered to the bubbly pink stallion once again, this time about the makeover she was going to give him later today. First order of business was to straighten that mane out. She had only seen it at full-length once, and then it was quite long for a stallion. Then her and Sweetie would determine how much they would cut off, she was already thinking he would look oh so dapper with a Fancy Pants-esque hairstyle. Always a possibility.

Rarity’s finely tuned ears picked up the sound of her front door closing. No customers had appointments today, so she guessed it was one of her friends. Rarity pirouetted on her rear hooves, a hold over from the days when she took ballet, and left her work studio.

To her surprise, a bubblegum pink stallion was standing in her parlor. Now the sight was common nowadays, but she expected him to be at the bakery. It was Monday, yesterday was his day off.

“Berry, to what do I owe this visit? Did the Cakes send for more interior decorating help? I told them I cannot work with so many sweet-themed decorations.” Rarity sauntered over to her friend with a joking smile.

“Nah, the bakery’s closed for the day. Something about Twilight renting it out for later…a date or something like that.” Rarity’s brain connected the events. They were going to have a date….at Sugarcube Corner…where Berry works? Oh Applejack, that’s cold.

“O-Oh. Is that so?” Rarity fiddled with her mane, it was a nervous habit that she just couldn’t seem to break. It was a terrible giveaway.

“Yeah, I have to work as a waiter for her. I’m sure it will be fun though.” Berry’s trademark smile flashed at the thought of helping a friend on a date.

“You poor, clueless foal…” Rarity whispered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“O-Oh. I said: This design needs soul. Sorry dear, just going over some dresses in my head. You know me.” Good save, Rarity. “Now, are you here to discuss your makeover or is it something else?” Change the subject, even better save.

“Oh, yeah. The Cakes are going to start charging me rent…” Berry seemed saddened by the news, Rarity cocked an eyebrow.

“You didn’t pay rent before?” She was sure the Cakes would at least charge a little rent, not just provide room and board for free. Especially for Berry. He just shook his head. “How bad can it be, Berry? How much do you make and how much is rent?”

“Umm...I usually get one-thousand bits a month, and when I first moved in they were going to charge six hundred bit’s a month…but since I also got the job, they decided to just give me the room.” Rarity did the calculations in her head: one-thousand minus six hundred, four hundred. Times twelve…forty-eight hundred a year? That’s nothing! No one could live off of that!

“Oh dear…” This certainly was a predicament. She wanted to fault the Cakes, but the price was pretty on the nose…above the most popular bakery in Ponyville, full bath, walk in closet, view of main street. Berry’s little confirmed-bachelor pad was prime real estate. But she could fault them for such a meager paycheck. She knew they made good money off of the bakery and that Berry was a good worker…even if he could get distracted from time to time.

“Yeah…it’s either start paying rent or stop throwing parties…” Ooh that’s a low-blow, Cakes. Considering his cutie mark, this was a hard decision…and it was her duty as his friend to help him out.

“I’m sure we can figure something out. Do you have any money saved up?” It was a long-shot, but even Berry had to have a bank account. To her surprise, the stallion pulled an account book from seemingly nowhere and flipped it open.

“Well I’ve been saving all of my bits for the past six years…” Rarity once again did the calculations: One thousand times twelve, Twelve thousand. Twelve thousand times six…seventy-two thousand bits… “I have ninety thousand in savings…”

“W-What?”

“We all got those bits for saving Equestria, remember? Applejack and I saved ours, you all spent it.” Right. The ‘thanks for saving Equestria’ gifts. She had blown hers on a Canterlot weekend; the best hotel, the best spa, the best company. It had been marvelous.

“So why don’t you just pay rent? You have enough money. Celestia knows I wish I had that money.” Rarity sat down to keep herself from fainting. She knew earth ponies could be a bit frugal, but in Berry’s case it was ridiculous.

“Because it would drain my savings…Granny Pinkie always told me to save as much money as possible because you never know what life’s going to throw at you.” Berry gave a determined nod with his statement, obviously sticking to his grandmother’s principles.

“Berry…” Generosity quite frankly sucked, pardon the French. She was going to regret this later. “I have a guest room, if you want you can stay here with Sweetie and I.” Oh Rarity, what in Tartarus are you doing?

Chapter 4

Applejack pulled a cart through the orchards. Today he was going to make up his lateness by helping Big Mac. Sure, his brother didn’t actually need it but he needed to apologize somehow.

He saw his older brother amongst the trees. The stallion was massive, even compared to himself. AJ learned the hard way how strong he is, after all brothers like to wrestle.

“Hey Big Mac, mind if I work with you today?” Applejack jogged towards his brother with a crooked smile and helpful hooves.

“Nope.” Big Mac said calmly as he turned around and bucked the tree behind him. The apples fell off in bushels into the buckets Mac had placed around the tree. Applejack envied the precision his brother had, no matter what some apples always missed the buckets when he bucked.

“You still upset about me missin’ the morning?” Applejack went around and picked up the buckets and loaded them into the cart for his brother, he was going to be working his flank off to make it up to Macintosh.

“Nope.” Mac answered as he moved to the next tree, which already had buckets around it.

“Really?” Big Mac repeated the age old process of bucking an apple tree; turn around, dig your forehooves into the dirt, raise your back legs, coil ‘em tight, then let it rip. Once again the apples fell perfectly.

“Eeyup.”

“I just…I’ve been a little distracted as of late..” Once again, AJ collected up the buckets and put them in the cart.

“Berry?” Applejack froze when his brother said the name, the shocked look on his face obviously was amusing to Big Mac because the larger stallion smiled.

“Y-You know….?” Applejack stood in stunned silence as his brother bucked another tree expertly.

“Eeyup.”

“H-How…?” Applejack thought about every encounter he and Berry ever had, then it hit him. “Berry’s not quiet…” Applejack’s hoof met his face in a painful union of pure stupidity.

“Nope. Screamer.”

How Big Mac wasn’t freaking out or running to tell Granny AJ would never know. This was earth shattering, big news. How was Big Mac not disowning him?

“B-But…aren’t you upset? I’m gay, doesn’t that upset you just a little?” Applejack moved forward with the cart and picked up the buckets from two trees that Big Mac had bucked while he had been stunned.

“Nope. Love’s love.” Big Mac shrugged and moved the hay stalk from one side of his mouth to the other.

“B-But ma and pa…Granny. They always told us it was wrong…” Applejack was desperately trying to catch up with his brother, but found his hoofing faltering from confusion and disbelief more than once.

“Old thinkin’.” Big Mac stopped and tapped his noggin. “Outdated.” He smiled and trotted over to his little brother. “I’ll always love ya, AJ.” With a mighty hug and a weak noogie Big Mac went back to work, leaving Appleack to think about what his older brother had said.

“OhthankyouRarity~!” Rarity found herself engulfed in a Berry hug. Haha, it’s a pun. Bear hug, Berry hug. Ugh, snap out of it Rarity! No time for jokes, process what you just said. Berry Bubble, living with you. Didn’t really think that one through, did you?

“O-Of course, Berry. It’s my pleasure…” Oh come on, that’s all you can say? Not: ‘Let’s set some ground rules’? ‘How about we think this through first’? Nothin’?

“I promise I’ll be the bestest roomie ever!” Oh god…roommates. Berry is your roommate now. Well, I suppose it can’t all be bad, right?

“Yes…well, if you’ll excuse me Berry…I have work to do.” Rarity pried herself from Berry’s iron grip, made sure he didn’t ruin her mane, and went back to her workroom so she could think this through.

Berry on the other hoof was simply ecstatic! He got out of making a hard decision, got a new rent-free room, and he got to live with his PFF! What’s not to be happy about? THIS CALLED FOR A PARTY!

Berry’s mind was exploding, he needed to throw a party! It’s been a week since his last one and he needed to throw one now! But…he couldn’t just throw one for moving in here, Rarity wouldn’t like that…he had the perfect idea.

“Alright class, I have a special assignment for you all today.” Cheerilee called the class’ attention to the front. Those who were done with their work had been socializing with their friends, and the others will working hard to finish the worksheets to prevent any homework.

“Since Ponyville’s eighty-second anniversary is coming up soon I want you all to write an essay on the most interesting Ponyvillian you know.” A collective groan came from the little ponies. “Now now, this assignment can be fun if you know who to talk to. I even have a few suggestions; like the Mayor, Granny Smith, The Elements of Harmony, Filthy Rich. Think of ponies like those.” Cheerilee watched as sparks of realization lit inside of her pupil’s heads.

“Well everypony knows my dad is the most interesting pony here, so I’m going to get the best grade.” Even Cheerilee wanted to roll her eyes at Diamond Tiara. Sometimes she could be such a pest, but she had to provide her students with encouragement.

“Your father is interesting and I’m sure your report will be delightful, Diamond Tiara.” Cheerilee smiled. “Now I want you all to come up with who your essay is going to be about and tell me so I can write it down.”

The class came to life with the chatter of excited foals. As soon as Cheerilee sat down at her desk she was met with the beaming faces of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Well that was quick. Then again, I’m not surprised.” Cheerilee popped open her book and grabbed a quill. “Applebloom?”

“Well since Granny Smith came to Family Day, ah’m gonna write mine about Applejack!” Of course she would choose her big brother, it was only natural.

“Scootaloo?”

“Rainbow Dash, duh.” The little orange pegasus’ wings buzzed excitedly at the thought of interviewing her hero. Once again though, this wasn’t a surprise. Scootaloo was obsessed with the Element of Loyalty.

“Sweetie Belle?” Cheerilee already had the R in Rarity written, she was just seeking confirmation.

“Berry Bubble!” Cheerilee’s quill went clear across the page, leaving a large black mark in it’s wake.

“You’re not going to write it about your sister…?” Cheerilee was expecting someone to say Berry, but not Sweetie Belle…perhaps Pipsqueak or Featherweight, but not the little unicorn standing before her.

“Nope, I wanna write mine about Berry. He’s always over at my house anyways.” Cheerilee shrugged, crossed out the ‘R’ and wrote Berry Bubble in big letters.

“Well alright, I’m sure that will be interesting.” As everything is with that stallion.

“Heeeeeeeeello Twilight!” Berry burst out of a book Twilight had opened, confetti following him. He was wearing his party invitation tuxedo and his traditional smile.

“AHH!” Twilight dropped the book and fell backwards. Berry pulled himself from the pages of the tome and landed gracefully on the ground. “Berry! What have I told you about hiding in my books?” Twilight stood up, fire in her eyes. She couldn’t count how many times shed told Berry NOT to hide in any books, bookshelves, or floorboards.

“I know Twilight, I know. But I have a party invite for you!” From his tux Berry pulled an envelope and handed it to his purple friend. She grabbed it from his grasp with magic and opened it.

“A mane-cutting party?” She asked curiously.

“Yep! Rarity’s going to chop my big ol’ mane down to size! I want to give it a good send-off!” His smile was met with a curious glance.

“Well alright, I’ll be there…but I have a date at six, so I don’t know how long I will be able to stay.” Twilight took the invitation and stowed it on the table in the center of the library.

“Okily-Dokily, Twilight. See you there!” Berry jumped high in the air, then swan dove into the book he came from, causing it to close behind him.

Twilight watched the book, half expecting it to explode or something.

“Psst. Fluttershy.” The yellow pegasus with her home on the edge of the Everfree Forest heard her name get called from somewhere around the chicken coop. So that’s where she was investigating. Most of the time she would be afraid of something calling her name, but she knew this voice belonged to none other than Berry Bubble. A harmless creature.

She stuck her head in the chicken coop and was met with the most bizarre sight she’d ever seen. The coop had been transformed into the study of a Victorian era home, complete with fireplace and high-backed chairs.

In one of the high-backed chair sat Elizabeak, in the other sat Berry in his chicken costume from Nightmare Night, which he was wearing underneath a tuxedo. In his hoof was what looked like a glass of grape juice.

“I wondered how long you were going to take, Elizabeak and I were having a riveting discussion on the socio-economic trends of Modern day nobility.” Berry nodded towards his compainion, who shocked Fluttershy by actually talking.

“Quite.” The chicken said in a haughty female voice.

“Anywho, I have an invitation for you.” From within his breast pocket Berry pulled an invitation and hooved it to the confused pegasus. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” Fluttershy pulled her head out of the coop and stepped aside to let her strange friend pass. Without even taking a look at the envelope, Fluttershy looked back into the coop, which was now back to normal…save the chicken with a wine glass full of grape juice next to her.

Rainbow Dash was flying lazily through the sky. She wasn’t doing anything in particular, just flying. It was fun to just feel the wind blow through your mane and feathers, exhilarating even.

“Beep beep! I’m a cloud!” A pink fluffy cloud sped past her at mach speed. Surprised, Dash lost her synch between her wings and nearly stalled. Luckily she was Rainbow Dash and recovered masterfully.

“Come back here, cloud!” Dash flew after the speeding cloud, wanting to catch it and beat it into fog for disturbing her peace. Strangely enough, the cloud stopped, turned around and flew towards her.

Dash let out a scream as she collided with the cloud, which burst into cloud bits and sent Rainbow Dash hurtling through the sky attached to Berry.

“Berry?!” It was a legitimate question. After all, how could an earth pony fly in a cloud? Well don’t worry about that, there’s a story happening! Pay attention!

“Hi Dashie!” The duo came to a halt mid-air when Berry spoke. Dash looked down at the ground, her eyes wide. Berry let go of her and waved. “Bye Dashie!” She fell like a rock.

Rainbow Dash was not unfamiliar with ground collisions. She had her fair share, that’s how she knew this was going to hurt….bad. When she collided with the earth, she didn’t connect with a solid, immovable object. It was like hitting a cloud, which wasn’t exactly a good thing because she penetrated the dirt and rock for a few feet before coming to a complete stop.

Berry fell to the ground like a feather, gently landing by the hole his speedster friend left. He reached his hoof down and pulled her out by the scruff of her neck, Dash was simply dazed. Berry, not feeling like giving her a spiel, took an invitation out, stuck it in her polychromatic mane, and sat her down.

Dash didn’t question what in the hoof just happened, it was a bad idea to question Berry Bubble…it would drive you mad. So instead he fell onto her back, looked up at the sky and said two words:

“Stupid cartoon…”

Applejack was busy bucking apples, he had left Big Mac to his own devices and decided to continue his work from yesterday. The east orchard was about fifty percent done at this point and there was still a lot to go.

“Hey…AJ?” Applejack’s heart skipped a beat, or maybe ten. There was one thing he wasn’t expecting to hear today, that was Berry’s voice. Granted, he hoped to hear it…he hoped to hug the stallion as hard as he could and never let go. But for now, simply seeing him would do.

Good news; he looked good. Not sad or tired. He was wearing a tux, he looks good in a tux. Bad news; his eyes were sad…oh so sad.

“Oh…hey Berry.” There was an awkward silence that seemed to pervade the deepest parts of the universe, the win stopped blowing through the leaves, the birds stopped singing. The only sound was of two broken hearts in close proximity to each other. “Listen, about yesterday…”

“Applejack..please. Don’t….I just came here to give you this…” Berry reached into his tux and pulled out an invitation. Instead of handing it to the other stallion, he put it on the ground. “You don’t have to come, but I would like you to…”

Berry didn’t do anything ridiculous. He didn’t turn into an apple, he didn’t jump into AJ’s hat, he simply walked away. Applejack didn’t deserve a whimsical exit.

Sweetie Belle was standing outside of the schoolhouse with her two best friends. It always felt great to leave the stuffy building that smelled of books, it was like being released from prison after a forty year sentence.

“I can’t wait to get our cutie marks in apple bucking!” Scootaloo yelled happily. She was always the most gung-ho Crusader, her way of compensating for her lack of flight.

“Ah know! Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” Applebloom interjected. “Ah mean ah live on the farm, shoulda tried this years ago!” The earth pony and pegasus looked to their unicorn friend.

“I can’t come today. I’m helping my sister today.” Both of them let their jaws fall, Sweetie wasn’t the most prestigious Crusader, but she still had a duty to them. “We’re giving Berry a makeover, so maybe I can get a beauty cutie mark.”

“Didn’t we try that already…?” Applebloom asked.

“We tried it with mares, not colts. Maybe there’s a difference.” Sweetie defended her stance. “But don’t worry, I’ll be crusading tomorrow, I promise.” Two-thirds of the CMC watched as their last member sprinted off towards her home. They turned to each other, shrugged, and turned towards Sweet Apple Acres.

Sweetie Belle on the other hoof was thinking about what she was going to ask the object of her essay. She knew he was born a rock farm, he told them that during his cutie mark story. But when did he come to Ponyville? Where’s his family? Does he have a special somepony?

She had so many questions for her adopted big brother.

“A little to the left, Berry. We want this perfectly centered.” Somehow Berry had acquired a barber’s chair. Rarity didn’t ask how, she didn’t want to know. She did want the chair to be perfectly centered for this celebration he was planning though. Leave it to Berry Bubble to set up a party for his mane.

The earth pony easily pushed the chair across the chair. Don’t worry, Rarity already made sure it wouldn’t scuff anything, it’s padded on the bottom.

“Right there.” It was perfect. When the time came she could turn all of her lights on the chair and make a true spectacle of the act! Centered and ready. “Thank you Berry.”

“Nah, thank you for letting me throw a party here. I’ve never thrown a part in the boutique before. It’ll be super fun!” Berry had already put streamers and banners up, then assured Rarity that they would come down without leaving any unsightly holes in her walls or ceiling.

“So who all did you invite, Berry? Only close friends I hope.” Rarity went about, moving more sensitive materials out of the room and laying a tarp around the chair to make sure her perfect floor didn’t get pink hair all over it.

“Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Applejack. So yep, close friends.” Rarity froze.

“You invited Applejack…?” berry nodded, too caught up in his own world to register the shock and worry in Rarity’s voice.

“Course I did! He’s still my friend, Rarity. He may be acting like a meanie, but that doesn’t mean he’s not my friend.” Berry gave a smile to mask the pain behind the statement itself. It’s like calling a murderer a good guy, it just didn’t feel right.

“Well…alright. But if he says anything to you just tell me and I’ll kick him out, okay?” Berry acknowledged her with a nod and went back to his own preparations, humming a little tune as he did so.

“I’m home!” The call came before the door even opened. As soon as the little unicorn entered and spotted Berry, she smiled. “Berry, what’re you doing here?”

“Oh nothin’…” He said rather nonchalantly. “Just…Throwing a party!” He shouted the last words with gusto, which caused the Sweetie to cheer with the same excitement. “I figured my mane needed a going away party, so I organized one!”

“Good, because we got an assignment at school today to write a paper about an interesting pony we know and I want to write mine about you!” Sweetie hopped up in the barber chair and opened her saddlebags.

“Are you sure Sweetie? I am right here, after all.” For her part, Rarity actually looked offended. Like she had just been delivered a slap across the face.

“Yeah, but I live with you. I already know everything about you, Rarity. I wanna learn stuff I didn’t know…that and I heard Silver Spoon say she wanted to write hers about you. It would be unfair for me to deprive a filly of learning about you.” Berry watched as Sweetie manipulated her sister expertly. He saw Rarity assume her ‘holier-than-thou’ pose and fluff her mane.

“You do have a point. I would hate to see a young filly robbed of the chance to learn more about moi.” Rarity gave a self-assured giggle and smile. “I applaud you for acting like a true lady, Sweetie Belle.”

“Alright.” Berry took a seat in front of Sweetie Belle. “I’ll answer a few questions before the party starts. So shoot!” He watched as the little unicorn took out a notebook and a quill. He was surprised when he saw Sweetie actually use her magic to hold the quill. He’s never seen the filly use magic before.

“When were you born?”

“Pfft, easy one. February fourteenth, Nine hundred and eighty-nine.”

“You were born on Hearts and Hooves day?” Rarity spoke up, she never actually knew that. Every year they had his birthday in the summer. “Why did you tell us June twenty-second?”

“Because I like to have a surprise party every year, duh!” Berry laughed. “Nothing’s better than a birthday party you forget about!” Rarity ungracefully face hoofed, Sweetie jotted down the weird answer she was given.

“Where were you born?”

“Oh man, I am so going to ace this.” Berry said confidently. Whether he was serious or not was yet to be seen. “Pie Family Quarry, Badlands, Equestria.”

“Pie family..?” Sweetie Belle questioned. “Your last name isn’t Pie.”

“Well no duh. Only the girls in my family have the last name Pie. Like my sisters Inky and Blinky Pie. Or my Granny Pinkie Pie. We’re a matriarchal family.” Berry seemed to be lost in his explanation. “That means the mares run the show, us stallions are just the stagehooves.”

“Oh.” Rarity could tell Sweetie Belle didn’t understand some of what was said just by that one word. She’d help her little sister translate it all later. “Umm, when did you come to Ponyville?”

“Ooh! I like this one, it was in…nine hundred and ninety-five. I was only fifteen.” Berry’s eyes drifted to the door, which had an athletic blue pegasus standing in it. She saw the conversation and decided to intervene by flying up behind the note taking filly and grabbing her shoulders.

“And you know who the first one ol’ Bubble Butt here met was? Why none other than the amazing, the spectacular, the awesome….Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash took her spot next to the pink stallion and affectionately put a wing around him. “You haven’t changed much in seven years, Bubblegum. Well, you’ve gotten taller and helped defeat numerous threats to Equestria…but besides those, you’re still the same old colt who tackled me into a snow drift because you said you like rainbows…” Dash contemplated for a second. “Shoulda known you were a flamer.” Berry and Dash hugged, Rainbow Dash being affectionate was very rare. “But that’s why I love ya.”

“D’aww. Love you too Dashie.” Berry nuzzled his friend lovingly, he was met with playful hooves pushing away.

“Alright, alright. Get offa me. I don’t want your rainbow-ness rubbing off on my Rainbow-ness.” Berry laughed at his friend and took his spot beside her. “So when’re we chopping off your mane?”

“We have to wait for everypony else to get here, Dash. It would be rude to proceed without the proper audience.” Rarity came over and joined her friends. “Unless you want me to cut your mane, you will wait.” Dash looked appalled at the idea of somepony touching her mane with a cutting implement.

“Alright Sweetie, next question.” Berry urged the unicorn.

“Do you have any hobbies?”

“You mean besides sucking-” Dash’s vulgar reply was met with a pink hoof going into her mouth.

“Well..” Berry said, slowly removing his hoof from Dash’s mouth while making sure she wouldn’t finish her question. “I love to throw parties! But you know that…I like to watch Dashie fly, that’s really fun because she’s a super good flier. Oh! I’m a spokespony for the LGBTAE.”

“The…what…?” Both Rarity and Sweetie Belle were fairly confused by the acronym.

“He likes to teach ponies why being a colt-cuddler’s a good thing, squirt.” Rainbow ‘Brash’ spoke before she could think. She was used to referring to Berry with the slang term.

“That’s a mean word, Rainbow!” Sweetie Belle squeaked defiantly. “That’s not nice!” The pearl white unicorn filly stood up as tall as she could. In a second Berry was making her sit down again.

“It’s okay, Sweetie. Rainbow doesn’t mean it in a mean way, she says it like a joke….haha. Hoho. Heehee. A joke. But still, it’s a bad thing to say and she shouldn’t say it around impressionable fillies.” The pseudo-glare Dash received from her long time friend made her give a weak defeated smile. “But I think that’s enough questions for now, the party’s going to start soon.”

Chapter 5

“So Berry, how short are you going to cut your mane?” Berry Bubble, who was sitting proudly in the barber chair, was surrounded by his friends in a semi-circle…sans Rarity and Sweetie Belle. They were behind him.

“Iunno Twilight. I’m leaving that up to Rarity and Sweetie. I trust them, so they can do no wrong when it comes to my mane!” Berry punctuated his outburst by thrusting a hoof skyward in triumph.

“What about your tail…?” The shy pegasus asked quietly.

“My tail…?” Berry looked back at his fluffy, soft pink tail.

“Of course we’re going to fix his tail. You cannot have a mismatched mane and tail, that would be a disaster.” All of the females nodded in agreement. Applejack and Berry simply shrugged, not understanding what the big deal was.

“Hey Berry, can I talk to you?” Everyone’s attention was drawn to the only stallion in the room besides Berry, who was standing up now.

“Sure thing, Applejack!” Berry hopped out of his chair and followed his orange friend into the next room. Three pairs of eyes followed their journey; one out of lust, one out of worry, and one out of curiosity.

“Hey Rarity…” Rainbow Dash was already at the unicorn’s side and whispering in her ear. “Think they’re gonna do it? Can’t blame AJ, I don’t think he and Twilight are going to hit a home run on the first date.” Rarity looked at her friend in disgust.

“No I do not think they are going to ‘do it’ here. Not in my home and one room away from my little sister.” Rarity hoped to Celestia that she was right and that Berry had more self-control than he let on.

In the other room Berry was up against the wall, Applejack’s tongue was invading his mouth and he didn’t hate it.

“I’m so sorry Berry…” Applejack managed to get out when he came up for air. His hoof caressed his loves flank gently. “I never meant to hurt you…I just wasn’t ready to admit this to anypony.” Berry was just blushing profusely, so Applejack took that as a sign and nuzzled the crook of the smaller pony’s neck. “I love you so very much…”

“AJ…I-I don’t know. What you said…it really hurt.” Berry tried to ignore the shiver that went down his spine from the well placed licks Applejack was giving him along his neck.

“I’ll make you feel a lot better, I promise.. Applejack couldn’t ignore his feelings for this stallion, he wanted to make him happy no matter the cost. “I’ll even go out there right now and tell them all I’m in love with you.”

“Do it.” Those were the only words Berry needed to say to get Applejacks attention back from his own body.

“What?”

“Do it…go out there and tell them.” Berry’s eyes met with Applejack’s. The former’s were determined and serious, the latter’s were scared. “If you do…I’ll take you back.”

“Fine.” Applejack gave Berry a defiant glare and let him go. “I’ll do it right now.” Partially, Berry didn’t believe him,, but was excited to see this happen. Sure enough, Applejack headed out the door, Berry making sure to stay close behind.

The group of females were all chatting away idly, most likely about Sweetie Belle’s day at school given how interested Twilight was in the conversation. Applejack cleared his throat loudly, drawing all of their attention.

“I-I have something I want to get offa my chest…” Berry watched the farm pony’s legs shake nervously. “I just want to say that…I..” He took a deep breath and steadied himself. “Im in love with Berry Bubble…” Shock and awe pervaded every corner of the room…well, almost every corner.

“Yeah, that’s great Jack. But can we cut Bubble Butt’s mane already? Scoots want to interview me for a project or something.” Rainbow Dash got up and pulled Berry into the chair. “C’mon Rare. Snip snip.”

“Umm…Twilight?” Fluttershy nudged her unicorn friend, who happened to be in a state of pure shock. “You owe me twenty bits…”

“I…yes. Well…” Rarity cleared her throat and grabbed the scissors with her magic. “I think we can all agree that while this is interesting, Berry’s mane is much more wild than this.”

“But…I-I just came out of the closet.” Applejack was most likely the second-most stunned pony in the room. Four of the six ponies in the room had just shrugged off his announcement.

“Well we always just sorta…knew.” Fluttershy was the one to speak. “I-I also sorta heard you and Berry out in the orchards once…enjoying yourselves.” Both Berry and Applejack blushed terribly.

“Enjoying themselves?” Sweetie Belle chirped up. “What does that mean? Were they playing a game?” Everypony looked at the little filly…well, everypony except Twilight. She was still focused solely on Applejack.

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash piped up. “They were playing ‘hide the pole’.” No one who had the courage to punch Dash was near her, so the jab went unpunished.

“They were just playing around like stallions in love do, dear. Don’t listen to Rainbow Dash.” Rarity gave a comb to her little sister, who gripped it in her emerald green magic. “Now brush. We need to get all of the tangles out of this mane.” So they set off on their arduous task.

It was grueling work, even with Rarity’s specialized detangler combs it took close to half an hour. When that was finally done, Berrys straightened mane almost reached his shoulders. Yes, everyone commented he had the mane of a teenage filly and yes everyone chanted ‘cut it off’ whenever Sweetie Belle had the first piece of mane in the grasp of her scissors.

So it began. Piece by piece his once gloriously messy mane was chopped away. His bubblegum colored locks fell to the floor, now severed from the place they once called home. It hurt Berry a little to watch his mane go, but he simply looked at it as the start of a whole new chapter in his life.

Once the mane was cut down to size, so it barely hung halfway down his head, Rarity got out the styling supplies. Quickly, the unicorn sisters styled his mane and watched as Berry Bubble transformed from a hyperactive stallion with a rat’s nest for a mane into a hyperactive stallion with a GREAT mane.

Even Berry admitted it looked good. They made the front of it do this thing where it had a little swirl hanging down over his forehead. Rarity said it looked ‘roguish’, Berry said it was entertaining to watch. They didn’t do anything special with the rest of his mane…well, not that he could tell anyways. It was just combed and parted to the right. But it did look good.

While Sweetie Belle sweeped up the mounds of pink hair, Rarity went about with the grooming of Berry’s tail. It didn’t take long, ten minutes at the least. She just made it match the style in which she did his mane. Straight and orderly.

“Woop woop!” Berry jumped up from the chair. “New and not-improved-but-more-handsome!” Everypony gave a cheer, well…everypony but Twilight. Startin’ to see a pattern here?

“Tell you what, Berry. If you were straight and I was sloshed out of my mind, I might actually consider dating you now.” Dash gave her buddy a playful punch with her hoof. “Now you and Apples over there have some fun for me tonight, I have to go see Scoots.” With that Dash lifted off and flew out of an open window.

“Yeah, I’m really happy for you two…but I have to go. It’s Angel’s lunchtime and he won’t eat his seafood medley without musical accompaniment.” Everypony, except Ms. Stalker Eyes over there, turned and gave Fluttershy a questioning look as she left.

“Umm…Twilight? Don’t you have a date to get ready for? You’ve been staring at Applejack this whole time. Trust me, nopony enjoys a good staring contest like me but this is starting to get creepy.” Berry got up and poked his friend. “Twilight.”

“N-No….something tells me that the date’s cancelled…” Twilight calmly got up and left, all the while not taking her eyes off of Applejack.

“Boy, what’s wrong with her? Methinks she’s gone coocoo for Cocoa Puffs again.” Berry laughed as the two other grown ponies in the room shared awkward glances.

“Sweetie Belle? Could you go up to your room for just a few minutes with Berry? I’m sure you two need to work on that paper.” Sweetie Belle nodded, grabbed Berry’s hoof and pulled him upstairs.

“Rarity…” Applejack started out, he even took off his hat as a sign of respect.

“No. You’re going to be quiet and let me talk.” Rarity growled out, making Applejack flinch. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I don’t like it. The only thing you’ve ever done is hurt him, and you’re likely to do it again. If you do…you won’t just have me to answer to. That little filly up there will be devastated if she sees Berry sad…you think Im mad now? You don’t want to see me when my little sister’s upset.”

Applejack had a very bad feeling about all of this…

“Does this mean you’re going to get married to Applejack?” Sweetie sat on her little bed, which had sheets the same color as her mane.. Berry joined her on the bed and gave her a smile.

“I don’t know, Sweetie. Maybe if everything goes right…now was that a question for the paper?” Berry kicked back, relaxed, and waited for the questions to start rolling in.

“Right. Paper…umm. Shoot, I left my stuff downstairs.” She looked towards the door and heard her sister yelling. “I-It’s okay, I’ll just write it down later. So do you keep in touch with your family?”

“Uh, yeah…” Berry’s whole being seemed to sadden a bit. “Th-the reason I left the quarry…my family got caught in a rock slide…they were in the house…I was setting up a party in the silo. I-It got them all..” He could feel tears coming to his eyes. No, Berry, no. Happy thoughts…laughter, a basket of kittens, Gummy…don’t let Gummy near that basket of kittens. That’s a math problem that’s been done before.

“Oh…I-I’m sorry Berry…” Sweetie Belle reached out for a hug, which Berry accepted with vigor.

“No, don’t be sad…I just…it’s still hard to think about. It’s okay…I mean, I’ve found a whole new family here in Ponyville. Rainbow Dash is a lot like Inky…you remind me so much of Blinky…and Rarity is just as fussy as my mom. It’s like I never lost them…” Berry pulled Sweetie close to his chest and stroked her mane. “I have all of the family I’ll ever need.”

“He’s gay?!” Twilight slammed her bedroom door behind her. “A-And Berry? Really? He’s basically a mare anyways!” Quickly after leaving the ‘party’ Twilight’s shock had turned into bubbling rage. That little….stupid…COLT CUDDLER stole her stallion! He was probably the one that turned Applejack too!

How could this happen? Twilight had it all planned out! All of it! She had their wedding decorations, the names of their foals, even their burial plots! All picked out! And this…pink menace goes and ruins it!

“Berry Bubble thinks he has my Applejack…? Well I’ll show him.” Twilight pulled out a few books and immediately began studying up on her new master plan to win Applejack.

End of Arc 1

Chapter 6

Arc 2: The Way Things Might Be

“Got all you need, Sweetie?” Berry and Sweetie Belle were sitting at a small table the filly had in her room specifically for tea parties, but for now it was being repurposed as an interview table.

“I think so…” The little unicorn said with trepidation. “I just hope I can remember it all.” The duo had been talking for a good hour at this point and Berry couldn’t be happier. He loved telling stories, be it about himself or others, any story was a good story.

“I have faith in you, Sweetie.” Berry mussed her two-tone mane with a hoof and gave her a smile. “And hey, if you don’t I get to tell you all of my stories again!” His smile widened at the thought, as did Sweetie’s.

“Umm...I think you better go check on Applejack. I’m scared Rarity might’ve turned him into a dress…” Sweetie had been listening to the ambient sounds of the Boutique during the whole conversation. Sometime around the thirty minute mark all sounds from the lower level had stopped. Knowing the confrontational streak the farmer and the fashionista had, that couldn’t be good.

“Hmm…he might look cute in a dress…” Berry’s mind wandered for a few seconds, images of cross-dressing Applejack crossing his mind. When the little voice in his head reminded him there was a filly in the room “Right, go check on AJ.” He got up from the table and bounced out of the room.

“I was scared, okay…? You try bein’ told your whole life that what you are is wrong and should be punished. It ain’t so easy to admit to others, it was even harder admitting it to myself…” Applejack was near his breaking point. He had been trying to talk Rarity into trusting him for the past hour, and so far…nothing. The unicorn was not budging. “its hard bein’ the element of honesty when you can hardly be honest with yourself…”

Rarity was sitting on the other side of her bedroom door, hooves crossed and a scowl across her features. Some time ago, she wasn’t sure how long; she had decided to remove herself from the situation by sequestering herself in her room before she did something rash to the stallion.

She was tired of hearing his spiel, his constant pleading for forgiveness and trust. She was being generous with her words by not calling him every obscenity she could think of and kicking him out, but that’s all she could give him.

“Hey-hey AJ!” Her ears twitched at the sound of Berry’s muffled voice. “What’s my big handsome stallion up to?” A little voice somewhere inside her head pointed out that he sounded happy now…it reassured her that he would shed no more tears. It reminded her that as long as he was happy everything was golden, that’s what this was about.

“Okay…I forgive you, Applejack.” Rarity stood up and listened, a silence came from the other side. “But just because I forgive does not mean I forget, and neither should you, Berry.” With her magic she opened the door, expecting to see two stallions happy about her forgiveness. Instead she saw two stallions kissing passionately. “And I will not be able to forget this either, thank you both for that…” With a wave of her horn, the two were separated.

“Aww c’mon Rarity, I need my apple-flavored kisses.” Berry smiled and blew a kiss at Applejack, who was too busy looking ashamed of himself to reciprocate the gesture.

“Yes. I’m sure you do, but I have a seven year old running loose around here-and while I’m sure kissing is no big deal-I don’t want to have to explain anything I do not have to. Berry that means that whatever you do in your room on your own time, keep it quiet and make sure the door is locked.” Rarity pulled a key from her own boudoir that belonged to the guestroom and gave it to her new housemate. Inwardly, she hoped that neither herself or Sweetie Belle walked in on Berry doing anything lewd and/or lascivious. She knew how stallions were, and Sweetie did not need to figure it out.

“Wait…what?” Applejack had caught all of what Rarity said, but he was certain he was missing something. “Why are you stayin’ in Rarity’s guestroom, Sugarcube?” He was sure Berry had a room pro bono from his employers.

“Oh, right.” Berry giggled and smacked himself on the forehead. “Totally forgot to tell you; Cakes are going to start charging me rent or make me stop throwing parties. I couldn’t decide-y’know because I hate making tough decisions, it hurts my thinker box-so Rarity said I could stay here!” Applejack fully understood what was said, Rarity was still hung-up on the words ‘thinker box.’

“Why didn’t you come to me, Berry? You know I would take ya in.” Truth be told, he was a tad hurt. He always told Berry that if he was ever in need, he could come to the Apple Family…then again their little spat yesterday changed just a few things.

“I know AJ, but I also know how Granny Smith is around me. No offense to her-old ponies are awesome, after all they have the best stories-but I don’t like how she thinks all gay stallions are foal-fiddlers. It makes me uncomfortable.” Eh…yeah. That. Like Big Mac said: Old thinking. Outdated. But it’s how she was…and it made him all the more nervous about coming out to his family.

“Do not worry yourself, Applejack. Berry will be fine here.” Rarity gave the larger stallion a little nudge with her magic, signaling he should go. “I still have to make dinner and check over Sweetie Belle’s homework.” Rarity trotted off, warily leaving the two stallions alone.

“Well…see ya tomorrow?” Applejack was slightly annoyed that Rarity was rushing him. He was still making-up with his coltfriend, there’s no rushing that.

“Well I still need to go back to Sugarcube Corner to tell ‘em Twilight isn’t coming and that I’m moving. You can come with me!” Berry, without waiting for a response, grabbed Applejack’s hoof and pulled him along.

Twilight was surrounded by books. Now I know what you’re thinking; ‘She’s always surrounded by books, she lives in a library.’ I know, now quit being a smartass and pay attention, there’s exposition coming up.

Stacks and stacks of books surrounded the purple librarian. Most of them were old and well-read tomes on magical theory and psychology. There were some that were rarely read and she had to get Spike to search for them. Such tomes were; Bonding Spells: A Creepy Guide to Keeping Your Loved Ones Close, Guilt and How to Cause It, Self Hate: How to Get Over The Pain of Hating Yourself, and Homophobia: The Wonderful World of Gay-Bashing! You can see why these books were rarely read…

The mare was forming a plan, well revising a series of plans that she had yet to choose one from. Plan #1 wouldn’t work, it meant getting passports and that was a pain in the flank. Plan #2 involved the moon, so Luna’s approval was needed…and Plans #3-199 all involved murder and/or rape/slavery….so those were a definite no.

Plans #200-203 were promising though…perhaps if she combined them. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult…it might take some ingenuity to alter the Want It, Need It spell that much…and bonding spells were a pain.

This could work. But it would take cunning…it would take skill, it would take a week of stalking her prey and learning his every move so she could set up a-*Ding Dong* Doorbell? When did the library get a doorbell? The library didn’t have a doorbell.

Suspiciously, Twilight got up and headed to the door. With her magic she sorted away the various books that might arouse suspicion into the bookshelves, she didn’t want any incriminating evidence before a crime was even committed.

She opened the door with a fake smile and good intentions to tell this pony to leave, now. However she was surprised, neigh, shocked to find herself face-to-face with Applejack and Berry Bubble. The former was looking awfully ashamed while the latter was knocking on the doorframe, a doorbell sound coming from every knock.

“Hey Twi…” He spoke in his rich accent, his dulcet tones flooding her ears with a sense of pure bliss. It was weird, she had never noticed just how attractive his voice was…

“Hiya Twi-ya!” Berry piped up. His voice was like hooves on a chalkboard, excruciating to even think about let alone hear. She flinched when the pink stallion spoke. “Jackie here wanted to talk to you before we headed over to Sugarcube Corner.”

“Sure. C’mon in Applejack.” She smiled warmly and held the door open. Once the farm pony was inside, she slammed it shut just as Berry was bouncing in, leaving the pony’s nose to meet with solid oak. “So what’s up?” Twilight was desperately trying to hold herself together…but the more she stared at his ruggedly handsome features, the harder it was.

“Well I came to apologize…I’m mighty sorry about cancellin’ our date like that.” The stallion automatically took his hat off of his head and looked towards the floor. “My life’s been a twister over the last couple of days…not a lot of time to go and think things through. Can I be honest with you Twi?” Twilight nodded her head vigorously. “I didn’t even agree to the date, RD just told me to go.”

Have you ever had your dreams crushed? No? Well it’s a little like the first time that you’re told Santa isn’t real. That shock and disbelief? Yeah, now add a little internal pain and a sprinkle of crippling depression and there you have Twilight’s state of mind right now.

Kudos to her though, she hid it well. Not a muscle on her face twitched, not a hair in her mane moved, not even her pupils dilated. Pure stillness.

“Well, it’s fine AJ. I perfectly understand…it was nice talking to you, maybe we can hang out tomorrow?” Sometimes when your mind goes into a severe emotional shock, your subconscious takes over and just sets you on auto-pilot. Twilight’s was leading her out of the danger zone by getting Applejack out of here.

“Well sure Twi, I’d like that.” The stallion gave a country grin and popped his hat back on. “I’ll meet’cha here when I got the time to.” Satisfied that it all went well, the stallion left his shocked friend behind.

“I don’t know why you’re shocked.” An extremely squeaky and high-pitched voice called out from Twilight’s periphery. When her brain finally decided to turn it’s head, she was met with a most unusual sight; it was her…only a lot smaller, and a pair of wings sprouting from her back. “He came out. Honestly, why are you surprised that he didn’t even accept the date?”

“W-What are you…?” Those were the only words to escape from Twilight’s mouth, albeit in a mumble of sorts.

“Oh you can speak! How interesting, it seemed you were a mute when Tall, Orange, and Homosexual was talking to you.” The little purple alicorn flew from Twilight’s shoulder and landed on her muzzle, causing the unicorn to cross her eyes. “As to what I am. Well you read ‘Delusions of the Stressed Mind.’ Figure it out, genius.” The snaky little alicorn was actually bringing Twilight out of her shocked state.

“Y-You’re a delusion? But why do you have wings?” Twilight, always one to question inaccuracies. Good on her.

“No clue. Maybe it’s because all of those cheesy clichés of characters always become alicorns in the stories? Or maybe it’s because you secretly want to have them. Either way these wings are awesome!” Twilight was honestly confused about the little enigma on her nose. She didn’t feel stressed enough to create the delusion that was preening itself upon her nose, then again a mind was an incredibly complex thing that could be very temperamental.

In order to calm her troubled mind, Twilight closed her eyes…only to hear the voice again. “Hey, hey Twilight. Look.” Twilight opened her eyes to see her little delusion in a very familiar looking blue hat and cape with fireworks erupting all around it. “I am the GREAT AND POWERFUL TWIXIE!”

With that joke out of it’s system, the delusion fell to its knees laughing uncontrollably, it’s little props disappearing one by one.

This was going to be a long night…

“Well she took that well.” Applejack told the pink pony, who was still rubbing his sore nose. “Not surprised though, Twi’s a level-headed pony.” Applejack gave a slight smile. “I’m actually glad everything’s coming up roses for once.”

“Well what’d you expect, silly? Ponyville’s an super-awesome place with super-accepting ponies. Ooh! Does this mean you’ll finally come to Pokey’s Poker Night with me?” Berry’s eyes lit up at the thought of going to the famous all-gay poker night held by Pokey Pierce with his coltfriend.

“Uh…I don’t know about that, Berry. Im not good at poker. Remember that time we all played it? Y’all took me to the cleaners.” Applejack’s wallet still hurt from that night. So many bits lost to the cosmic powers of Berry Bubble.

“That’s where I got my first kiss from you~” Berry said in a sing-song voice, almost mocking the bigger stallion. “Couldn’t pay your debts, so I settled for a kiss. You fell for me like a rock in a pond~” Okay, now he was definitely mocking him.

“Now hold up. Y’act like I was the only one with a crush. If I do recall, you came to the farm beggin’ for a little piece of Applejack in your life.” That barb got the pink pony to blush and turn away.

“Can you blame me?” He asked innocently.

“Not for a second.” Applejack responded quietly.

“No way!” Both stallions turned their head to see Lyra Heartstrings, a local musician, sitting on a park bench in her usual manner. “I knew you were gay!” She shouted triumphantly. “Bon Bon so owes me!” In a fit of joy, the unicorn galloped off, her lyre flying behind her.

This rumor was going to spread faster than a rash in a nudist colony.

Quickly, both stallions made their way to Sugarcube Corner without another word. Mainly because Applejack told Berry to keep his gob shut so the rumor didn’t spread with the voracity of a wildfire through Appleloosa.

Once at the eatery, Berry unlocked the front door with a key he produced from his now in-check mane. How none of that stuff was discovered by Rarity or Sweetie Belle, no one knew.

“Hey Cake Family! I’m back!” The bakery was lit rather romantically, candles decorated a few choice places, giving the usually sickly sweet décor a more subdued look to it. Even Applejack had to admit the atmosphere had shifted dramatically, as had the smell. Usually the constant smell of burnt sugar pervaded the establishment, but now only pleasant scents wafted from the back room.

“Hello, Dear.” Mrs. Cake called from the Bakery proper. In a moment the plump blue pony entered, her usually icing stained attire replaced by a fancy looking apron. “Oh, hello Applejack. Sorry dearie, but the bakery’s closed for a private event tonight. Berry wasn’t supposed to bring anypony except Twilight and her date over.”

“Actually Mrs. Cake. I was Twilight’s date.” Applejack gave a nervous smile to the proprietor.

“Oh, congratulations!” Mrs. Cake’s smile only widened. “I knew I saw something in you two-wait did you say was?”

“Uh, yeah. Y’see, I sorta didn’t actually say I would go on a date…Rainbow Dash just told me to go and left before I could say anything else…well that and the fact that I’m dating Berry.” The last statement caught Mrs. Cake on the chin, causing her to give a look to Berry, who was cradling a baby alligator in his hooves.

“I sure can flip ‘em, can’t I Mrs. Cake?” Berry gave a wry smile as the baby gator clamped down on his hoof and began gumming it to death.

“Yes Berry…” Mrs. Cake deadpanned. That was five stallions Berry had now pulled out of the closet in Ponyville alone. Honestly she was a little worried that something about the stallion just up and turned others gay like something out of a ridiculous story.

“Oh, I also kinda made up my mind about the rent thing.” At that, Mrs. Cake’s melancholy lifted and her prospect of recuperating a profit from the bakery. “I’m moving out!” And there went her hopes of making a little money from her employee.

“W-What? To where?” Shocked, that what she was. After all, what else could she be? She was dead certain that Berry would pick living here for rent before he gave p parties.

“Well Rarity offered me her guest room free of charge, so I’ll be there.” Before Mrs. Cake could formulate a sentence, Berry picked up the pace. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your mane by tomorrow. But Imma stay one last night here.” In a flash the pink pony and his coltfriend were gone up the stairs, leaving a stunned Mrs. Cake in their wake.

“Berry, I really need to be getting home. The work may be done for the day, but I have to get up early in the morning.” Applejack was being dragged through the upper hallway by his hoof. He wasn’t positive how Berry pulled his full weight around, but he did.

“Don’t worry, AJ. I need to get up early tomorrow too! Those ovens won’t start themselves.” Once the couple had crossed the threshold of Berry’s room, the door closed by itself. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t stay the night…right?” Berry gave him the look. Early on Applejack learned it was impossible for him to resist: Pouty lips, teary eyes, and a voice so sweet you could contract diabetes from it.

“Alright, alright…but I’m mighty hungry at the moment. Think we could grab some dinner?” Applejack’s stomach rumbled to reinforce his point. “See? He agrees.”

“Ooh. Rarity said she was making dinner! Let’s eat there!” Berry was already pulling him, but Applejack stopped them both by digging his hooves into the carpet beneath them.

“Whoa there. All the way across town again? I don’t know if I can do that, my stomach’s mighty hungry.” Applejack’s stomach growled even louder.

“Oh don’t worry, I can get us over there lickity-split!” Berry smiled widely, crazily almost, and held Applejack’s hooves tightly. The world around the duo started to melt away in what could only be described as a euphoric sense of majesty.

“Wh-what’s that voice?” Applejack asked in a panicky voice.

“Oh, that’s just the narrator. Ignore him, he’s just here to help.” Berry explained calmly as the world started to come back together once more. To Applejack the voice faded into the ether and from it sprang the visage of Carousel Boutique in all of its glory. It was pure magic, Applejack decided. He wasn’t sure how Berry did it, he didn’t want to know, but it was pure magic. He knew that much.

“I…Berry. Never do that again…are we clear?” Applejack felt a tad bit nauseous from the experience, but he pushed it back down so he could gather his thoughts. “I don’t know what that was…but never again.”

“Oki-Doki-Loki!” Berry chirped as he turned towards the towering carousel. “Now come on, dinner’s going to go cold.”

Chapter 7

“Oh fair Rarity..fairity. Haha. It’s a joke.” Berry’s Shakespearean accent devolved once he made the joke into his usual manner of speech. “Anywho, we’re here~!” Berry was looking into the boutique, waiting for the mare to poke her head out from somewhere. Instead he was tackled from the side by yellow, orange, and white blurs.

“Berry!” All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders shouted at once, nearly deafening the poor stallion they had on the ground.

“Helloooooo CMC!” Berry yelled back at the same volume. “Here for dinner?” One by one the group of fillies piled off of Berry to allow him to get up.

“Nah, we’re here for a sleepover.” Scootaloo said excitedly as her little wings buzzed. “Rarity said we could because Sweetie didn’t come Crusading today.”

“Say, what’re you doin’ here big brother?” The little filly with the red mane asked inquisitively. “I told Big Mac I was comin’ over here.”

“He’s Berry’s coltfriend, Applebloom.” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “They’re in looove~” Scootaloo made a scandalous ‘oooh’ to add to Sweetie’s statement. Applebloom however simply stared at her brother.

“Nu-Uh. Applejack would never date a stallion.” Applebloom waved off Sweetie’s ridiculous claim. “I’ve seen the dirty magazines in his room. All mares.” Applejack was in shock, mainly from discovering the fact that his little sister has gone extensively through his room. “Uh…I mean…I just know these things…?” Applebloom laughed nervously at her own folly.

“Right!” Berry exclaimed, hoping to change the direction of the conversation. “Come on, girls. Go wash up for dinner, no time to waste!” With what little tail he had left, Berry ushered the girls to the washroom to clean up with them.

“Hmm. So how much truth was in what you told Rainbow Dash?” Applejack jumped and turned to face Rarity, who was standing in the doorway to the dining area. “Because from where I am standing, it seems it’s more truth than cover-up at this point, no?”

“Those magazines are Big Mac’s, Rarity.” Applejack lowered his head and barely spoke audibly.

“Mhm. Well listen here. One of these days you’re going to have to choose which lie you want to live, and who you want to get hurt. I only hope the words of our ancestors ring true; Love Conquers All.” With that ominous statement, Rarity left to the kitchen, leaving Applejack to ponder his life.

“Mmm! Smells delicious, Rarity!” Berry proclaimed as he leaned over the mare’s shoulder so he could get a whiff of what was in the oven. “Need any help?”

“No need, Berry. It’s almost done.” She turned to face the stallion, who was looking through her spice rack now. “But do you need any help?” She asked curiously. She felt like he should be upset about what his coltfriend was hiding.

“With what?” He turned to face his friend to see her nodding to the kitchen table where Applejack was putting his over-sized hat on his little sister’s head. “With Applejack? Nah, we’re all good now, remember?”

“And the supposed…magazines he was harboring?” She cocked her eyesbrow and leaned against the counter.

“Those? Probably just Big Mac’s or something. It’s cool, I have dirty magazines under my mattress too.” Berry smiled, when he saw Sweetie Belle giving him a funny face, he returned it with his tongue touching the tip of his nose, which elicited a giggle from the filly.

“But not ones with mares in them, I would hope.” Rarity was suppressing her disgust of stallions and their…periodicals. It was positively…gross.

“Well I have one or two.” Rarity gave him a look. “What? I was curious about what the big deal was.” Before Rarity could rebuttal the oven timer went off and she had to turn her attention to the task at hoof.

Berry hopped off to the table to let Rarity work on dinner. When he sat in his seat, the small group was talking about cutie marks.

“-So we didn’t get to buck any apples, cuz Carrot Top needed our help with the rabbits trying to eat her carrots.” Applebloom let loose a heavy sigh, at which Scootaloo picked up the story.

“We didn’t get our cutie marks in garden protecting, either.” Both of the little ponies let loose a heavy sigh, their efforts foiled. “You guys are lucky, you got your cutie marks from a sonic rainboom.” Applebloom nodded in agreement, Sweetie Belle was too busy having a funny-face-off with Berry to take part in the conversation.

“Berry, quit that. Your face will get stuck like that.” Applejack scolded his coltfriend, who was in the middle of pulling a funny face. He stopped, as did his compatriot. “And Scoots, it just takes time. I keep tellin’ y’all that. I swear it’s like talkin’ to a brick wall.”

“Hey AJ, leave ‘em alone. I think they’re doing it right. After all, they’re trying everything! What’s more fun than that? If I didn’t grow up on a rock farm, I would totally be a cutie mark crusader!” Berry smiled at the three, who basked in the element of laughter’s praise. “I think you’re just being too hard on them, Jackie.”

“Jackie…?” Applebloom asked curiously. “I thought you said only mom and dad called you that.” Applebloom had been told every detail about her parent’s lives by her siblings and Granny. Seeing as how she was barely a year when they perished, AJ and Big Mac saw it important to keep their memory alive within her.

“I told you Applebloom, they’re in love! Berry can call him whatever he wants.” Sweetie Belle persisted with the truth, even though she doubted her thick-skulled friend would listen.

“Nu-uh. Berry’s in love with Rainbow Dash, you’ve seen ‘em together!” That got a look from everypony in the room, especially Berry and Applejack. “She even calls ‘im pet names like Bubble Butt and Bubblegum. They’re practically married!” One by one, everypony except Berry shook their heads in disbelief.

“Umm, Applebloom. You know I’m gay, right?” Berry asked curiously.

“What does religion have to do with this?” Asked the little earth pony. “Why can’t you just stay on topic?”

“Uh, AB? Gay’s not a religion. It means he likes boys.” Scootaloo interjected. “Y’know, like kissing ‘em and junk.” Applebloom looked at the pegasus in disbelief, then audibly scoffed.

“Pfft, Scoots you’re always making stuff up.” The yellow filly waved her friend away with a hoof. “What a kidder, right?” Not even the crickets answered her. “Right?”

“Well she’s right, Applebloom. I like stallions like most stallions like mares.” Berry spoke slowly, calmly. “And she’s right, your brother and I are in love, right Applejack?” The farm stallion was sweating bullets…wait. I need a proper metaphor, Equestria doesn’t have bullets…umm…spears! He was sweating spears. Knew I would get it.

“Well would you look at that!” Rarity set a tray of quinoa and fresh baked rolls on the table. It wasn’t a hard meal to make, but quinoa was pretty pricey and fresh baked rolls weren’t a household occurrence. “Food’s here! I’ll say grace!”

“Grace!” Yelled Berry loudly. He snorted out a giggle that radiated to just about everpony except Rarity, who sat demurely at the head of the table. “Dig in everypony!” What happened next could only be described as a massacre of innocent foodstuffs. The rolls and quinoa were passed around chaotically to whoever needed them, and as soon as the guests got a taste of the delectable treat they were consuming, they began devouring it…politely. If one can do such a thing.

In a little under fifteen minutes, it was all gone. Three grown ponies, two of which are earth stallions, and three fillies can consume a lot of food when there’s enough and it’s delicious enough.

“Urgh…” Applejack groaned. “Thanks for the meal, Rarity…I appreciate it…” He managed to get out after a sufficient struggle.

“You gotta give me the recipe, Rarity! That quinoa was awesome! What’d you put in it?” Berry was fine. His bottomless pit of a stomach ingested all of the food just fine. In fact, he was still hungry.

“Oh, it was just a recipe my parents brought back from their third honeymoon to Marexico. A delightful country, I am told. Wonderful cuisine.” Everypony in attendance heartily agreed to that statement after the meal they just had.

“I ain’t one to compliment other countries, but them Marexicans know their way around food.” Applejack took off his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow. “I don’t know if I can make it back home tonight.”

“I know! You and Berry can stay here with us! We were going to build a fort in the main room to sleep in, you can sleep in it with us!” Sweetie chirped out, Rarity was busy cleaning off the table so Applejack fielded this one.

“Well I guess we can stay the night…but Berry, Applebloom and I need to get up early to go to work.” He noticed a slight decrease in Berry’s smile, that was equivalent to a normal pony’s frown.

“Well there goes what I was hoping to do tonight…” The flamboyant stallion said under his breath. It wasn’t that he was a sex addict or anything like that…he just found that when he liked something he needed it every day or else it put a slight dent in his mood.

“And I know Berry’s a good blanket fort builder, I remember buildin’ one with him and Dash when we were younger. It turned into the clubhouse, no joke.” Okay, so maybe he was exaggerating a little, Berry’s fort was just the inspiration for the clubhouse. However, all of the CMC believed him and looked at the pink stallion with wonder.

“Well, let’s get started girls.”

“At least their surrounded by little fillies…they won’t do anything around fillies will they?” Twilight ‘Stalker Extraordinaire’ Sparkle sat outside of one of Carousel Boutique’s many windows, a bush concealing her location. She was just keeping tabs on her two targets, yeah. Call it research.

“Some ponies are quiet, might still do the horizontal monster mash if they’re left alone.” Twilacorn, that’s what Twilight named her little delusion friend, was hovering in front of the window.

“Applejack would never. He’s a gentlecolt.” Twilight vehemently defended her crush from her own psychosis. “Plus, his little sister is in there…”

“Some ponies are freaky like that, Sparkles.” That was Twilacorn’s nickname for her originator. Twilight wasn’t sure if it was meant to be an insult or not, but she took it as a compliment. “Speaking of freaky; why are we stalking them? We haven’t even formed a plan. I think this is jumping the gun just a bit.”

“What’s a gun?” The little delusion often used strange phrases that Twilight had never heard before. “Not important.” The mare shook her head, making the distracting thought go away. “What is important is that we do have a plan which I just came up with.”

“Like Java, an update is required.” There was another strange turn of phrase.

“Right…what I mean is have you ever heard of magical truth or dare?” As soon as Twilight said it, the little Twilacorn’s grin turned almost evil.

“Oh you are good, Sparkles.”

“See? That’s a fort.” Berry stood back to admire his masterpiece. Almost every spare sheet was used in the creation of the fort, it stretched from one end of the main room of Carousel Boutique almost to the halfway point of it. Chairs and mannequins made the various cornerstones and the inside was even divided into three different rooms. The main room, and two separate ‘bedrooms.’ It was his best work to date.

“Knew you were amazing, Berry.” Applejack stated as he walked into the tent. Yeah, it was so big he can walk into it without slouching. “But dang, you really outdid yourself.”

“Hey! We helped!” The little pegasus cried indignantly. Indeed the Cutie Mark Crusaders had helped, heck they had done most of the work. Berry thought it good experience if he was just the forepony and he let the fillies actually build it.

“Alright, alright.” Applejack conceded. “Y’all did a good job. Better?” The three fillies all nodded in approval. “I’m going to take a wild guess, one room for Berry, one room for me, and the big one for y’all?”

“No.” Answered Sweetie Belle. “One room for us, one room for you an Berry, and the foyer.” Her attempt at sounding classy failed when she pronounced foyer as it was spelled.

“Woohoo! I gets to cuddle with my Jackie!” Berry popped inside of the fort and landed on Applejack’s back. The sentence and the act itself elicited a strange look from Applebloom. The little filly still wasn’t sure what to make sure of this…relationship her brother supposedly had with Berry.

“Yuck. Boy cuddling.” Scootaloo made a gagging motion, that Berry laughed at.

“I think it’s cute.” Sweetie Belle protested.

“You think everything’s cute, so that doesn’t count.” it was obvious that if this train wasn’t stopped, Sweetie and Scoots would just keep going. So Berry jumped off of his coltfriend’s back and popped in between the two of them.

“How about we hit the hay, huh?” Inwardly, Berry cheered at his own alliteration. Outwardly he only smiled bigger. “We all need to get up super early in the morning, and Berry needs his sleep.” At the mention of sleep, Applejack yawned.

“But we’re not tired.” Applebloom stepped up to Berry, a defiant look in her eyes.

“Well that’s okay.” Berry met her fire with his glee. “You can stay up and talk, AJ and I will go to bed.” Applejack was already walking into their ‘room’, so Berry turned tail and followed.

As soon as the couple left the main room, Applebloom turned to her compatriots and whispered. “Are they really….y’know?” Both Sweetie and Scootaloo let loose a loud sigh.

“Coltfriends?” Scootaloo said rather bluntly. “C’mon Applebloom, who cares? Let ponies love who they want. Love is love.” The complexity of the statement sailed straight over her friends’ collective heads

“They’re happy, Applebloom.” Sweetie Belle was up to bat now. “And how can you be against happiness?” Applebloom looked as if she was going to open her mouth to retort, but gave up. “So wanna plan our crusade for tomorrow?”

“I love those little fillies…” Berry sighed in pure contentment. He had often discussed foals with Rarity, just because he liked the idea. He had easily settled on adoption once he settled down with whoever he married. It’s better to help a foal who needs it than bring another one into this world, after all. He had even decided he wanted one little pegasus and one earth pony. He had considered adopting a unicorn, but he had seen the destruction unicorn foals could cause, so that was a big no.

“Little troublemakers is what they are.” Applejack took off his hat, put it on a mannequin that was holding the structure up, then fell to the ground. “See, that’s what happens when you’re real parents ain’t around much. You get fillies with a penchant for chaos.” Applejack rolled onto his side, his hoof tapping the ground next to him.

Well that killed Berry’s mood. He wasn’t sure what Applejack meant by ‘real parents’ but the way he said it didn’t bode all too well for Berry’s dreams. They would talk about it later, he silently decided. For now they needed sleep.

Berry laid down next to his love, Applejack’s foreleg draping around him to pull him closer. When the warmth of AJ’s love hit him, like it always did, it calmed Berry down. The pink stallion closed his eyes and drifted off to dreamland.

Dreams are a funny thing. Most say they are what our subconscious is really thinking, what it really wants. But for Berry, dreams were just another way to catch up with old friends.

A moonlit field, the stars twinkling above was the meeting place every night. There was a single tree, scarred by years of lightning hitting it, that served as the beacon to his friend. Of course, he appeared right beneath it every night, she had to come to him.

As if on cue, she did. Well…he did. In his dreams everypony was a stallion, but he knew that it was really a mare.

“Good evening, Berry.” The regal voice called out. The visage was familiar at this point, if not still a little odd. A pony taller than others, his dark blue wings spread proudly, his mane shining with all of the glory of the night sky, and his royal adornments sparkling in the night.

“Hi Princess Luna.” Yeah, if that description didn’t give away who it was, it’s the Princess-well Prince here-of the night. Shortly after the little Nightmare Night incident, Berry had been meeting with her every night in his dreams. Why? Well the Princess had decided she needed to learn how to be more contemporary and nicer. Who better to teach her this than a gay stallion who was always happy?

“What is wrong, Berry? You do not seem as jovial as per the usual.” Her speech has improved greatly, but she still spoke in longer sentences than a normal pony would. He guessed it was just a Princess thing.

“You know Applejack, right?” The gender warped version of Luna nodded. “I’m just starting to doubt all of this…” It was great to be in the dreamscape. It was the one place he didn’t have to keep up his smile, mainly because it was his subconscious taking over.

“Well I do not pretend to understand mortal love. My only love is the moon and the stars, their love is eternal.” As if on cue, the stars and moon seemed to shine even brighter, bathing the Princess of the night in their light.

“And the whole ‘anypony you love will inevitably die’ thing.” Berry added on, making Luna’s mood visibly drop.

“Yes, and that.” She/he sighed. “But we understand your plight. The moon and stars were under our sister’s control for one thousand years. I believe you mortals call that ‘sloppy seconds.’ It was as if they were cheating on us.”

“Yeah, but it’s like Applejack is cheating with another life. Part of him wants to be with me and part of him wants to be what his parents raised him to be…” A terrible wind started to blow across the field, Luna saw it as a stressful mind taking action on a peaceful state.

“He will decide his life soon, Berry. Forces are working against you though, terrible forces. I can feel the darkness edging in on Equestria even now…Tia and I both can. It’s only a question of what it is and when it will strike. We fear that the elements of harmony are the targets…” Berry had learned to trust the Princess over time, she seemed to be a bit of an oracle at foreseeing danger. “But we need you and your friends to stay vigilant.” A silver clad hoof touched Berry’s shoulder. “And calm.”

Chapter 8

“Smile smile smile~!” The wondrous tenor sang through Carousel Boutique, amazingly only one soul had been awoken by it. Granted it was before she wanted to wake up, but the voice wasn’t an unpleasant thing to be awoken by.

The little unicorn peered into the bathroom, what she saw made her giggle. Berry was sitting on a stool, hooves full of pomade in his mane. Even though he seemed to be failing, his singing voice was jubilant.

“Umm Berry, do you need help?” The stallion looked down at her surprised. His song, effectively cut off, tapered off to nothing.

“I don’t know how you and Rarity do it. This stuff is all oily and blech!” he held his now shiny hooves out for her to see. “I can’t do anything with it.”

“That’s because we can use our magic. Now your hooves are going to smell like that all day.” Berry hopped off the stool so Sweetie could hop onto it. “I wanna know how you can sing like that. It’s beautiful.” Said the little filly as she pulled herself onto the stool.

“Tell you what kiddo, you help me with my mane and I’ll teach you how to sing my song.” Berry knew he might be cheating when it came to directing Sweetie Belle to her cutie mark, but it was worth it.

“Really?” She asked with wide, excited eyes.

“Really really.”

With that, Sweetie Belle took over fixing his mane. Her unpracticed magic gently worked his mane, it already had more than enough product in it, so she didn’t need to add more. The little filly expertly recalled how her sister had done it just yesterday and soon enough she had a picture perfect mane for Berry Bubble.

“Done!” The squeaky unicorn chirped once her job was done. She sat as Berry examined it, even if it wasn’t perfect he wouldn’t say anything negative about it, but it was perfect.

“Love it!” The pink stallion exclaimed, his blue eyes lit up with the usual vigor. “Guess I gotta hold up my end of the deal, huh?” The white unicorn nodded. “Alright, let’s just start out with the chorus. It’s super fun to sing!” With that, he launched into teaching his new charge his most practiced song.

“Urgh…” Applejack sat up, now noticing the body beside him had left sometime during the night. His head turned around the blanket-room, Berry was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his hat for that matter. Now Applejack knew Berry loved his hat, but he had told the rambunctious stallion over and over again that it was not to be taken or worn without his permission.

The muscular stallion stood up and stretched out his tight muscles, trying to force the sleep out of his system. He needed to find Berry before the pony ruined his hat somehow.

Quietly, the stallion pushed the blankets that acted as a door out of the way. Instead of finding a larger room like he expected, he was met with Granny Smith’s disapproving glare.

“Granny…? How did I get here…?” Applejack looked around the kitchen of the Apple Family’s homestead. He could’ve sworn he was at Rarity’s when he went to sleep.

“I always knew you were a good fer nothin’ Colt Cuddler!” The anger in his usually kind Granny’s voice sent him to his rump. “I always knew it! To think I let you in the same house with Applebloom. You probably done stuff to her!” He could feel his throat tighten at the accusation.

“Wh-what? I would never…Granny…you know I would never hurt Applebloom.” Applejack could feel his Granny’s hate radiating off of her, her disappointment boring into his core.

“You stay here, I’m gonna gather up a posse and run that pink prissy right outta my town!” Miraculously, an entire crowd of Apple Family members appeared behind the matriarch, pitchforks and torches primed. All of them were calling for Berry’s blood.

“N-No! You can’t hurt him!” Applejack stood up on shaky legs, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing…what was happening. It was a nightmare!

“Applejack!” The soft voice came from somewhere in the crowd. It was Berry, he could tell. Applejack wanted to tell the colt to run, to run away as far as he could and never come back, but no words would come.

“Applejack!” He wanted to tell him one last time that he loved him, but no sound would was leaving his mouth.

“Applejack!” He just wanted to protect Berry, not just from everything out there…but from his own family. He closed his eyes as the crowd turned on something, the tears started when he heard pitchforks digging into flesh.

“APPLEJACK!”

The orange stallion sat up, sweat covering most of his face. He looked around, Berry wasn’t here! Where was he? The worst came to mind.

“Applejack! You had a nightmare…you alright?” His little sister was sitting at the opening to his blanket room. He needed to make sure this was real…he needed to make sure what he saw wasn’t. That…nightmare was way too real.

“W-Where’s Berry…?” His heart was racing, as was his mind. He couldn’t let what he saw come to pass.

“He’s singin’ in the bathroom with Sweetie. Why?” In an instant, Applejack was up on his hooves and running through the blanket fort. As soon as he exited it, he made a beeline for the bathroom.

He stopped when he saw what his little sister had said. Berry was sitting next to Sweetie Belle on the floor, one hoof on her back and one on her chest to keep her posture right. The little filly was belting out a tune that Berry sang often. To Applejack the important thing was that Berry was indeed fine.

Applejack hesitated, he wanted to tackle the stallion to the ground and kiss him until they both couldn’t breathe. On the other hoof…he didn’t want what he saw to become a reality. The lingering image of his family out for blood flashed across his mind, the pain of hearing them calling for Berry’s head.

He decided to not tackle Berry, instead just walk back to the main room. He needed to think things over…

“That was really good, Sweetie. Can we try the whole song now?” Berry had seen Applejack and had decided he was going to see what was wrong as soon as he was done with Sweetie Belle.

“You cannot believe your eyes, Twilight Sparkle. Even now your mind starts to falter.” The little creature known as Twilacorn sat above its sleeping host. “Once my plan starts to appear, it will you who will be the pony to fear.” The little alicorn let out a throaty laugh.

“Smiiiiiiiiiiiiile~!” The duet finished in a marvelous demonstration of talent. Berry loved hearing the filly’s voice, it was a delight to hear. Even more than his own. Once the note had died off, Berry glanced down at the little songster. He had to suppress the biggest smile he ever could imagine when he saw a navy blue music note upon the little filly’s usually bare flank.

“D-Did I do good?” Sweetie Belle was out of breath, she had never sang a song like that before. Well, not that long anyways. It left her feeling like she could go to sleep for another eight hours.

“You did great, kiddo.” Berry ruffled her already messed up mane, a huge grin plastered across his face. “In fact, I think you can sing with me anytime!” He wrapped his hooves tightly around Sweetie Belle. He was so proud of her, but he couldn’t tell her why. He wanted her to realize she was all grown up by herself.

“Yay…” Sweetie Belle could feel the stallion crushing the air out of her, but she knew that Berry knew his limits. Sure enough, he let her go just as she started turning blue.

“Now how about you get some bowls set up for breakfast?” She gave a nod and trotted off. Berry turned to look at the mirror, a dapper looking stallion looked back at him. He wasn’t sure where his life was taking him, but two paths were in front of him. Both of them portraying how his life might be, no finite path. “No time for that Berry..” He reminded himself, something was wrong with AJ.

He exited the bathroom and headed to the main room. Where both Applebloom and Applejack were taking down the blanket fort. A cursory glance revealed that Scootaloo was still asleep on a little pallet that was set aside. The poor little thing probably wasn’t used to waking up before the sun.

“Good morning!” Berry cheered happily to those who were awake. Both of the Apple siblings ignored him and continued their work. “Sheesh, tough crowd…” He decided that it was due to the work that was going on, those Apples submerged themselves in their work completely. So he sat.

He waited until they were all done folding up the multitude of blankets that were used in the creation of the now destroyed blanket fort. He trotted over to the stallion he called his love and hugged him from behind.

“Berry…” Applejack audibly sighed. “Can we…do this later?” Berry let go, even he sensed the usual reluctance that AJ had, but it was stronger now. It was as if he was actively trying to push him away.

“Alright…I’ll just go check in with Sweetie Belle, then.” He trudged off to the kitchen, where Sweetie was putting bowls onto the table. She was still blissfully unaware of her own special talent. “Hey.”

“Oh hi Berry.” Sweetie hopped up into a chair, all of the bowls on the table. “Wanna eat?” He nodded and sat right next to his little friend. They both looked over the assortment of cereals at their disposal. Berry chose an apple flavored one, considering it was his newest favorite flavor, and Sweetie chose the chocolatey one that turned your milk into chocolate milk. Both admirable choices.

Once their cereals were poured, Berry took the job of pouring the milk. He wasn’t sure just how much the filly could lift with her magic, but he didn’t want to test her limits. Once that was done, they ate in silence until the Apple siblings filed in.

“Morning Sweetie.” They both said at once, the filly whose mouth was full of cereal could only nod back. Sadly, Berry noticed the distinct lack of his good morning. He wanted to say it to them, but he could feel that something was off with the both of them.

They both chose the apple flavored cereal as well, no big surprise there, and Applejack poured the milk for both him and his little sister.

For the first time in a long time, a table that Berry was sitting at sat in silence. It was odd for him, and probably only him. He could imagine that the Apples and Sweetie Belle were used to eating in silence, look at their families. But not him, he was usually energetic and always talking, or the Cake Twins were there. No meal was silent with those two at the table.

Berry and Applejack were the first to finish their meals, they were grown stallions after all. They could wolf down any meal in ten seconds flat, cereal was nothing. So they both got up at the same time, Berry saw it as fate. When they were out of earshot of the fillies, Berry approached his coltfriend.

“Hey AJ, why so cold this morning…?” Applejack put his bowl in the sink, giving Berry the chance to lean on him affectionately. “I didn’t want to leave you, but I needed to figure out my mane. It’s like a hairy puzzle now or something!” He let out a laugh, hoping Applejack would pick it up. He didn’t.

“It’s fine, Berry.” Applejack was hurting. He wanted to embrace Berry and never let him go, but something was stopping him. His own conscience. He could feel that if he and Berry went all the way with this thing, that he would get hurt. His nightmare reinforced that, heck it was a sign. He couldn’t go on with this without Berry getting physically hurt. “But…I-I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what, Jackie?” Applejack knew this was going to hurt, he just had to be quick like a band-aid.

“Us. I can’t do this thing with me and you…together. I-It’s too tough, alright? My life is just…it’s busy alright?” Okay, so the excuse wasn’t elegant. It didn’t need to be, the point just needed to get across. “I can’t devote myself to a relationship that is stressing’ me this much. With apple buckin’ season happenin’ and cider season coming up…it’s not going to work.” His own heart was hurting, he could only imagine what Berry was feeling.

Berry was devastated. His heart was collapsing in on itself again. The second time this week…it was…it was…he didn’t have a word extreme enough to explain his hurt. He just knew he was hurt…but he also knew there was a little filly in the next room who had gotten her cutie mark today and he wasn’t going to ruin her day by breaking down in front of her.

“Okay, AJ…whatever you want.” He said it in a voice that was barely a whisper. He was containing himself, barely. He could feel that one little thing trying to break, something in the back of his mind that he kept caged. But it was trying to break out and consume him now.

Applejack just nodded, he was trying to hold back the tears as well. It was hard though, he just had to remind him it was to protect everypony involved in this.

“OH MY CELESTIA! MY CUTIE MARK!” Both stallions turned on their heels to see Sweetie Belle’s eyes practically glued to her own flank. “MY CUTIE MARK!” The little filly let loose a scream so high pitched and loud that both Rarity and Scootaloo could be heard waking up from it.

In a flash Applebloom was at her side, mouth agape. The earth filly even touched it to make sure it wasn’t fake. It was not.

“I can’t believe it…” Applebloom landed on her rump, physically stunned.

Sweetie Belle had contained herself, she brought her scream of enjoyment into a single smile that said all it needed to; She had earned her cutie mark. She embraced Berry as he approached, putting two and two together and realizing his song did the trick.

“Thank you so much Berry! I-I owe you so much…” She was crying, she could feel the tears stream down her face and onto Berry’s coat. He returned the hug two-fold, and it felt so good.

“What is going on in here?” Rarity entered the room in her robe, curlers still in her hair, and her sleep mask raised above her horn. “All I ask for is silence at this ungodly ho….ur….” Her voice tapered off when her eyes hit the blue music note on her sister’s flank. “Sweetie Belle….is that…?”

“I got my cutie mark, Rarity!” With those six words, Rarity’s magic snatched Sweetie from Berry’s grasp and pulled her into her own monumental hug.

“My sister finally got her cutie mark!” Rarity looked towards the ceiling, dramatic tears flowing from her eyes. “Thank you for blessing us, Celestia!” Both Berry and Applejack rolled their eyes at the drama queen’s antics. “I cannot believe it, a singer. My Sweetie Belle is going to be a singer.” The hug turned into a gentle and proud thing that everypony could admire, it was what every sibling wanted to give their own at one point.

“Berry helped me, Rarity. He taught me his Smile song earlier.” Sweetie was returning the hug, she may have been the happiest that she was in her short life but she knew who to attribute it to.

Rarity’s eyes turned to the pink party pony, who was smiling as wide as she had ever seen him. She could only admit one thing…that stallion had definitely earned his place here.

Berry crept into Sugarcube Corner quietly, there was no need for the Cakes to know he left last night. As if on auto-pilot, he went into the kitchen and cranked on the ovens. It was what he did every morning, the Cakes needed their rest since they had twins that woke them up regularly.

His mind wandered while he went about the usual business. While he was ecstatic about Sweetie Belle getting her cutie mark, he was perplexed by Applejack. Just yesterday the stallion had him pinned against a wall, tongue in his mouth, and had begged for him to come back. Heck, he’d even come out of the closet to prove his love…so why did he do a complete one-eighty?

Berry racked his mind for the answer. He had been just as affectionate as usual, he had made sure not to flaunt Applejack, he’d even avoided the conversation of homosexuality whenever Applejack had obviously shrugged the subject off.

Then it hit him…Lyra. This thing was going to spread. Applejack wasn’t ready for that…and if he wasn’t actually dating a stallion, he could deny it completely. Plausible deniability. But why didn’t he just say that? Why did he have to crush Berry’s heart?

Berry wasn’t exactly sure if he wanted to know the answer or not.

“So are you and Berry…y’know?” Applebloom wanted to get her mind off of the fact that her dopiest friend had gotten her cutie mark first. It had been gnawing at her, then again so had this. Whatever this brought would be better than just walking home in silence.

“No Applebloom…we’re friends. He’s just…affectionate.” See? Applebloom knew that was the case, after all what kind of colt would actually date another colt? It was silly. “Sweetie Belle doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about, alright?” And there it was, that made Applebloom all the more confident about herself.

“I knew it.”

“You’re not jealous of Sweetie Belle, are you Applebloom?” Applejack nudged his little sister with his hoof. He needed to get his mind off of Berry and his little sister was not helping.

“Who, me? Jealous?” She made a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “I’m not jealous. That one of my best friends in the world, who happens to be an airhead, got her cutie mark before me? That’s ridiculous.” Applejack just raised his eyebrow. “Okay!” The filly cried out. “I’m jealous! I’m happy for her, but I’m just so…mad. We were supposed to get our cutie marks together!”

“Together?”

“Yeah, like you and your friends. Together…I mean look at you guys, you’re closer than anything. I just want that for us…” Applebloom let her head fall, a heavy hoof landed on her back.

“Y’know how rare that is? It’s a miracle that even happened, AB. Trust me, you can’t use my life as a template for yours…you don’t want my life. It’s too crazy. What you need to do is just roll with the punches, alright? Take what life throws at you and just make it work.” Applebloom nodded, her brother was usually right…and this might be one of those usually times.

Chapter 10

“Wow Sweetie Belle, you actually got your cutie mark? About time one of you blank flanks stepped up.” The nasally voice of Diamond Tiara echoed off of the walls of the small schoolhouse, drawing the attention of every foal in the room.

“Leave them alone Diamond Tiara! They’re going to get their cutie marks and they’ll be a million times better than yours!” Sweetie Belle stood on her chair, a sneer across her face. Today was her special day and she wouldn’t let Diamond Tiara ruin it! “I mean look at me? I’m a singer? What’s your special talent? Being a spoiled brat?” At that the pink filly looked offended, she was about to say something, but apparently decided against it. For the first time in a long time, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had gotten Diamond Tiara to shut up.

“Wow, good job Sweetie.” Scootaloo patted her friend on the back. While she had been the last pony to wake up and see Sweetie’s cutie mark, she had been the most energetic about it. She had been the one to tell her that she was still an illustrious member of the Cutie Mark Crusader, heck she was the first alum.

Whenever Applebloom arrived at school to meet her two friends that had walked their together, Scootaloo had been the one to convince the obviously jealous farm filly that Sweetie Belle could still help them get their cutie marks. After all, who better to get help from than somepony who already had theirs?

“Yeah. We won’t be hearin’ her annoyin’ voice for a long time.” Applebloom agreed with a smile. Scootaloo was happy that her friends were all happy about this, it would be really easy for something like this to tear them apart.

“Good morning my little ponies!” The overly-awake schoolteacher came in and took her spot in front of the class. “I hope you all did your homework.” A collective groan echoed across the small room.

Twilight sat at the table in the main room of the library. The bust that usually occupied the space was on the floor, haphazardly discarded. The once pristine table top was now having a knife dug into it, ancient runes an lines being carved into it.

Twilight knew how this worked, she had studied up on it in ‘Banned Spells and Forbidden Magics’ It was foal’s play. She simply had to carve the leylines from the center of the table where the spell would be cast to the place where her friends hooves would be placed. This was the easy part, the hard part was perfecting the spell.

The spell in the book would work of course, but it would need to be tweaked. In the book the punishments were random magical enchantments. She needed to make it so the punishments were predetermined. She already had the punishments in mind…most of them fair…others not so much.

“I believe I have an idea for Berry’s.” Twiliacorn pulled a book in front of her bigger self. Twilight glanced over the page, her eyes widening.

“I can’t do that. Im not powerful enough! Only the highest level of unicorn could cast that spell.” Twilight knew she was strong, heck stronger than any unicorn she knew, but she wasn’t the top tier yet.

“That’s just what they want you to think. Imagine it, the power. How could the farmer not be attracted to something like that. He admires power, just look at him.” Once again, she found Twilacorn to be right. Then again, how could she not? The little thing was her after all.

“Well alright, I’ll try. But I’ll have a backup just in case it fails.” She created one last set of circles in the table, the intricate design now done. It was time for her to try to write this spell out…magical formulae were her specialty, so this shouldn’t be too hard.

“Someone’s coming.” Twilacorn disappeared in a poof of magic as she usually did when somepony came near. Twilight found that odd, after all only she could see the little delusion….right?

“Hey Twilight. I got those invitations all written out.” Whew, it was only Spike. The baby dragon had been doing errands for Twilight all over the town over the past few days. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the time to do them herself, it was just that Spike was faster at doing them and he was more personable than her.

“Thank you Spike. Mind having Owlyicious take them to everypony?” She already had a notepad and quill before her, the formula already coming to her. She heard the little reptile behind her sigh, but she knew he would do it. “Thank you.” The unicorn idly said, not even remotely phased by her assistant’s bad mood.

Berry, like everyday in the kitchen, had the radio blaring. Everything seemed to go by faster when there was music present, even if it wasn’t his own. Right now one of Mareoon 5’s newest songs was playing. While he loved their music, the lead singer was the reason he listened. Who could resist Atom Leavin? Not Berry, he was a sucker for stallions with tattoos.

“How could you do it?” He sang along, his rump swinging back and forth to the beat. “Oh, you better watch yourself. I think that mare’s insane.” Luckily, both Berry and Atom had exceptionally high voices for males, so the song was no problem to keep on key with.

As the chorus approached, Berry spun and slid the muffin tray into the open oven. He started to hum the chorus as he picked up the icing tool with his mouth. Of course the greatest thing about music was that it could take the mind off of anything at all. That’s exactly what it was doing for Berry, taking his mind off a certain farmer and letting it wander in the fantasies of a tattooed stallion.

He began icing cupcakes only the way he could, in colorful rainbow patterns. It was his calling card, though for some reason Dashie didn’t like them. When she came near them it was like she was riding some sort of…rocket to insanity or something. Just another thing about mares that confused him.

Just as he finished icing this batch of sweets, his song ended. He was sad to hear that angelic voice go, but he was happy to hear another song come on. Like himself, his favorite station was a bit eclectic. The pop of Mareoon 5 turned into the classic rock of Queen.

Oh Berry loved Queen. When he left the radio-less pit of the Quarry, it was one of first bands he had heard. When he had learned about the lead singer, Freezing Mercury, was a gay stallion…well, Berry found that he liked the band even more. When he heard about how he died…well that was another story.

“Empty spaces. What are we living for?” This was from their last recorded album, Innuendo. It was a great album, Berry had a physical copy of it even. “Abandoned places, I guess we know this door~” Ah, The Show Must Go On. Such a lovely message, and such a touching back story behind it.

“Berry, three cinnamon rolls!” The call came in from Mr. Cake, who leaned in the door to shout orders when needed. Berry put the cupcake tray on the shelf labeled ‘ready’ and danced his way over to the dough.

Through the window flew in a very familiar looking owl. In his beak he held an envelope. Berry grabbed one of the oversized taffy twisters on his way over to use as a makeshift microphone for his singing. When he was close enough, he snatched the letter from the bird’s beak and opened it.

“Oooh. Twilight’s having a party? I am so there~!” With a dab of icing he took from the counter, he checked the yes box that was next to his name and put it back in the envelope. Before he could think about giving it back, the owl snatched it from him and flew away.

Rarity hummed her favorite Canterlonian instrumental as it played from the speaker in her workspace. Her ruby red glasses pushed up close to her eyes as she tried to focus on the task at hoof. This was intricate work, stitching her own cutie mark into the inside of the dress as her trademark.

It was a thing of beauty to see her mark on a dress that was going to be worn by THE Fleur De Lis in a few scant weeks. After this debuted, the orders would pour in, she could just feel it this time.

“Oh how I wish all of my orders could be this important…” She murmured to the dress. She did love all of her creations equally, after all they were all Rarity originals. How could somepony not love them?

As she finished the outline of the three diamonds on the inside of the dress, she decided that a break was in order. This dress was done, it was going to do it’s work later. For now, a little rest.

She turned off her personal record player, hit the lights, and made her way to her bedroom. It was the ultimate place of personal zen in her home, it held all of the memories of yesteryear that always made her calm down.

Once she entered her boudoir, she took a seat on her personal sofa and picked up a familiar picture with her magic. It was taken about five or six years ago…gosh they were all so young back then.

Berry was hugging Rainbow Dash with all of his might, a smile on both of their faces, Fluttershy was hiding behind her then absurdly long mane, and Rarity, well she was sitting there holding up a dress she had made that had won the local dress design contest. The picture always seemed to make her smile. Especially the way they looked.

Berry with his mess of a mane and bright blue braces, Rainbow Dash with her ponytail and aviators, Fluttershy’s mane that hung down to the ground, and herself with the awful design of the dress. What? You expected her to insult her own appearance? She just looked younger, if not prettier than she did now if that was possible.

Where was Applejack you may ask? Well that was around the time his parents perished in that tragic accident. The farmer was at home taking care of his family as he would for the coming lifetime. He had no time to celebrate a milestone in her career, and nopony could blame him.

But Rarity always noted one important thing. No Twilight. It was before she came to town and turned them all into stressed out elements of harmony. Now Rarity loved the fame that came with the title, what she did not love was the stress lines and sleepless nights that came with it.

“If only we could live in the past forever.” Rarity commented as she put the picture down. “If only if only’s came true.” She leaned against the back of the couch and closed her eyes, remembering the years past.

“Who?” Rarity jumped and looked around, noting the owl sitting at the other end of her sofa.

“Owlyicious? What in Equestria are you doing here?” As if to answer her, the owl held out his talon which had an envelope in it. Curiously, she took the package from the bird and withdrew the paper within. She read it only once. “Twilight is holding a soirée? Why of course I will be there. Something interesting always happens at her little parties.” Noticing Berry’s frosting mark by his name, Rarity grabbed the quill from the inkwell on her desk and checked the box next to her own name with a flourish.

Applejack and Big Macintosh were working the orchard together again. Their plan was to have three fourths of all of the trees done by the end of the day. With them working as a team, they figured that would be a breeze.

The sun was a little unforgiving though, even in the shade of the trees. Both stallions were sweating in the heat, it was hard to do good work when the heat was bearing down on you. Unexpectedly, Applejack’s brother started to beat his hooves in a familiar beat. Then, he started to sing in his familiar bass.

“Buckin’ these trees in the hot sun.” His hooves hit the tree with a tremendous force, the apples even fell down with the even beat he was stomping out with his hooves. “I fought the law and the law won.” Applejack knew this song well, so he joined in.

“I fought the law and the law won.” They moved quickly, their hooves still keeping the beat while expertly sorting the apples into the cart they were towing around.

“I wanted money and I had none.” Applejack belted out, taking over the song from his brother, who he knew was content with the chorus.

“I fought the law and the law won.” Both brothers sang together. “I fought the law and the law won!”

Onto the next tree they went, hooves still keeping the simple beat that went along with the song. Big Mac hit the tree while Applejack kept going.

“I left my baby and I feel so bad!” Applejack was going to continue, but an owl landed in front of him with an envelope in its beak. The song ended with that, Applejack snatched the envelope away from the pesky bird, whose name escaped him.

It was an invitation to a get together Twilight was throwing. He saw Berry and Rarity’s names were checked. Then two things hit him at once…the last few lyrics he sang of that song and Berry. Talk about a freight train of emotion with cars full of irony.

He felt so bad about leaving Berry…this stupid thing just had to bring it all back didn’t it? The stallion fought to keep control of his emotions, of course he won out in the end…but he knew he couldn’t suppress them forever.

Reluctantly, Applejack retrieved the red crayon that he knew Applebloom stashed in the wagon and marked next to his name in the affirmative. He wouldn’t miss making up with Twilight just because Berry was going to be there.

Above the hustle and bustle of Ponyville, a watchful guardian sat on a cloud. She wasn’t just looking over the city, but over a certain pink friend of hers as well. While sleeping on a wandering cloud early this morning, she had heard the sad ramblings of said friend. He was lamenting the fact that, once again, he and Applejack were through.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. Rainbow Dash loves all of her friends and wants to make sure they’re all happy, but she was tired and it was early. The decision to not confront him right then and there was a matter of being too tired to move.

However, now she was just making sure the baker didn’t do something rash or regrettable. She had almost been found out when Owlyicious had flown by earlier with a letter and been hooting like there was no tomorrow. She had to check her little name and send the bird on his way.

Just thinking about him made her smile. They had been best friends for years, and more happy memories than she could even count flowed from the sheer thought of him. Some very funny ones as well.

Like the time they went to one of Rarity’s parties when they were sixteen and played spin the bottle. Oh man, kissing Berry had been an experience. Just seeing him trying to wipe the ‘girl germs’ off of his tongue was so worth it in RD’s eyes.

Then there was the time she had caught him yanking it in the backroom of Sugarcube Corner. Now that was quite the moment. Granted, it was the first time she had ever seen a male in…that situation. But they both had to laugh it off or risk it becoming too awkward to hang out with each other.

Then there was the best day she could ever think of. The day Berry said he wanted to fly like her. At first, the idea was completely laughable. An earth pony flying? Who could ever make such a thing happen?

Berry could.

It was the conception of his ‘Bike-O-Copter’ that Gilda had broken about two years back. At first, Dash didn’t think it could fly…it looked way too convoluted to achieve lift-off. But sure enough, it did.

The greatest flying experience she ever had was that day. Greater than a sonic rainboom, greater than auditioning for the Wonderbolts or flying at a royal wedding. She got to spend the whole day doing the thing she loved with her best friend in the world. The memory still lifted her spirits.

Now if someone ever threatened to take that stallion away from her, or hurt him in any way that he changed? They were going to pay. Big time.

Chapter 11

Quittin’ time. What a glorious time of day. Sure, Berry loved his job with every beat of his heart, but he loved getting off of work. It meant it was time to hang out with his friends and for today it meant packing up his room and moving it over to Rarity’s.

It wasn’t that hard to box everything up. He actually didn’t have a lot of personal stuff in his room, he didn’t have a bunch of personal stuff in the first place. His party cannon, his welcome wagon, which had all of his party supplies in it, his bed sheets that had his cutie mark on it, and quite a lot of pictures of his friends. Oh, and Gummy. He couldn’t forget Gummy, that little gator was too important to forget.

Wanna know how a pony got an alligator as a pet? No? Too bad, it’s an interesting story. It was just a few years ago, actually just a few months before Twilight moved to Ponyville, Berry was helping Fluttershy move some critters out of Froggy Bottom Bog.

Berry, being the pony he was, was distracted by almost everything in the new place. Every bug, every log, and every swamp bubble drew his attention. Then he saw a little egg left all alone. Fluttershy had looked at it and determined it was an alligator egg, and that whoever laid it had forgotten it when they moved on because there was no nest and no other eggs or reptiles in sight.

At first Fluttershy had wanted to take the egg and hatch it, but Berry had been wanting a pet to call his own and what’s better than a cute and cuddly alligator? Nothing, that’s what! So Berry had said he would take it, of course Fluttershy had kept a close watch over him and the egg, but it all worked out in the end. Case and point, right now Gummy is swatting at Berry’s tail….who is actually teasing the poor thing by swinging his tail back and forth.

“Right, come on buddy.” Berry lowered his tail so Gummy could clamp onto it, he did, so Berry put most if not all of his boxes on top of his welcome wagon and looked out the window. “Now how do I get this downstairs…?”

It was quite the predicament. He was sorta banking everything on the welcome wagon making it easier to move all of this stuff. Now it just presented a big problem. He thought about the stairs, that would just make everything spill.

He was Berry Bubble! He could do anything within or outside of the laws of known physics! He could move some silly boxes…he thought about his whole teleporting thing, but he couldn’t do that with inanimate objects. His eyes were drawn to the window.

A terrible idea, a terribly brilliant idea entered his mind. It was just crazy enough to work but still possibly fail in a blaze of glory. But no time for thinking! Thinking was for ponies who didn’t have things to move!

Hastily, the pink pony used some spare two by fours in his closet from when the Cakes had to renovate his room due to a….malfunction with his party cannon. He put the boards an equal distance apart leading up to his now completely open window. Was it big enough for his wagon to fit through? Only a test could tell.

Berry only kept one box on the wagon, and that was filled with his various costumes, so nothing was going to break if this epically failed. He got behind the wagon, lined it up with the boards perfectly, brought it back all the way to his door, and started to gallop. He made sure to put all of his weight into the small wagon.

As soon as he hit the boards, he skidded to a halt and watched as the welcome wagon sailed right out of his window and into the town below. His pre-celebration warm up was interrupted by the sound of something wooden splintering and a scream of surprise.

“Uh oh…” Berry picked up the four other boxes he had packed up on his back and headed downstairs. The Cakes were busy fulfilling orders, so he waltzed right past them and out into Ponyville.

The sight outside of Sugarcube Corner was not a good one. A shattered Apple Family apple stand was right below his window, a welcome wagon and a box on it…and a very mad looking Applejack beside it all.

“Berry! What in the hay is this? Do you gotta destroy my stall every week?” In a second Applejack was nose to nose with Berry. The former had a righteous fury in his eyes, the latter was trying to make himself as small as equinely possible. “You’re payin’ for this, Berry.” The stallion managed to growl out. Applejack stormed off to his destroyed stall and kicked the wagon over to Berry.

Berry simply took his wagon and pushed it along, he didn’t want to stick around there…and neither could Gummy. Berry could feel the little reptile bite down harder on his tail when Applejack yelled at him. He’d rather not have another incident…he’s sure Animal Control was serious about taking away a ‘dangerous animal.’

Quietly, he trudged through Ponyville towards Carousel Boutique. He could hear the whispers about ‘lover’s quarrels’ and the scandalous ramblings of the town gossips. He didn’t like being the center of attention in this regard…it was a little like being an ant underneath the magnifying glass of a cruel colt. It hurt.

Thankfully, he got to his destination quickly. Was that because he didn’t like being scrutinized? Possibly. Was it because he wanted to hide in a room for awhile? Probably. Either way, he was happy to reach the gigantic Carousel, he was even happier to finally get inside.

“Oh Hello Berry, I didn’t realize you were going to be moving in so early.” Rarity was moving about the main room, fixing up her mannequins with new designs so potential clients could get an idea of what they were working with. Berry just trudged down the hallway to the guestroom, the key he produced from his mane perfectly fit in the lock and unlocked his new room.

It was bare, if not tasteful. Of course Rarity had fixed it up with her own personal flair that Berry was going to completely redo to fit his own tastes. He knew he probably shouldn’t, but he needed to feel at home.

First order of business: He pulled Gummy from his tail and set him down. Like any pet, Gummy had to approve of the new home. The little gator waddled around the room, sniffing at the various items. Instinctually, he found his way under the bed and laid down.

So he approved. Gummy would never fall asleep in a place that he didn’t like. A bit like a cat, but scalier and capable of swimming. At least that was going for this place. With his pet’s approval, he started unpacking his various belongings.

The sheets on the bed were thrown off and his pink, cutie mark embroidered sheets and blankets replaced them. The dresser was filled with his costumes, pajamas, and socks. The closet, which previously held nothing, was filled with suits every color of the rainbow…even a rainbow one. Finally, the pictures he brought were either hung on the walls, or placed on the dresser and nightstands.

Oh the pictures…they were doorways into the past. Most of them were of just him and Rainbow Dash, but those were some of the best.

“I think you beat me when it comes to photos of our friends, Berry.” He turned around to see Rarity in the doorway, admiring all of his photos. She approached one on the dresser. “I didn’t know you and Rainbow Dash went to the Wonderbolt Derby in Canterlot.” The picture was of a very excited Rainbow Dash nearly falling over the railing watching her idols race in the background, Berry was the only thing keeping her grounded.

“Yep. We went for her twentieth birthday. I got the tickets from a friend of mine.” Ah, good times. Fun times, before things like what was currently going on happened. “I just like to have pictures of my friends, it reminds me why I’m here. To see them smile.” There wasn’t a single picture where everypony involved didn’t have a huge grin plastered across the face, just one of the things that came with being friends with Berry Bubble.

“Oh look, it’s our trip to Las Pegasus. I believe this was for my...nineteenth?” She vaguely remembered the picture being taken, Berry and herself were at Photo Finish’s fashion show in the city of lights. They were posing in front of the runway itself, Rarity in a beautiful homemade gown and Berry in his Tuxedo, complete with monocle and top hat.

“Yep. Ooh, remember when we ordered room service and the bellhop turned out to be that actor guy?” The two simply laughed at the memory, not really remembering who the actor was or why it was funny. Just that it was a good memory to have.

Rainbow Dash watched as the stallion yelled at Berry, telling him he was going to pay. Then she watched as Berry slinked off, obviously embarrassed and beaten. She didn’t like this, Applejack needed to be talked to.

Without a moment’s thought, she dove off of her cloud and descended towards the apple farmer, who was now picking up the apples that survived the stall being crushed by the welcome wagon.

As she landed, she heard Applejack mumbling curses under his breath as he salvaged his fruit. The mare made a mental memo about how irritable the usually laid back stallion was.

“Hey AJ, what happened?” Might as well get his point of view, she thought.

“Oh, hey RD….” The stallion sighed in annoyance. “Berry destroyed my stall…again. I swear, that colt had better get his act together or else I’m going to…to..” He growled, obviously not sure what he would do.

“What? Break up with him? From what I hear it’s a little too late for that.” Applejack looked up at her, eyes widened in surprise. “Oh come on, I know everything. Don’t be surprised.”

“What business is it of yours? Don’t you have some stunts to do or something?” Applejack’s voice turned cold and distant, his shoulders slumped and he was attempting to hide his face with the shadow cast by his hat. “Go practice for the Wonderbolts and leave me alone…”

“Nu-uh. I’m all done with that for the day, I’m going to be your new best friend until you tell me why.” To prove her point, she hovered right by him and kept nudging his side.

“Can’t you leave personal lives personal, Rainbow?” Applejack gathered up the baskets of apples that had survived the massacre and put them on his back. As he started walking, Rainbow kept pace with him.

“When it comes to Berry? Not really. Sorry, but the guy’s practically family. Can’t really let his bad mood go uninvestigated.” She turned over, flying upside down just to show AJ that she could do this all day. “So you tell me why you dumped him again, and I won’t make your east orchard die of thirst. Deal?” Yeah, she just did that. Rainbow Dash was the pony who organized the weather schedule, and she was not above threatening ponies with her position to get what she wanted.

“Fine.” Applejack said, both mad that he was beaten and a little reluctantly. “I…I had a dream, alright?”

“Yeah? Was it that one day earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn children would play together and we’d all enjoy a meal at the table of brotherhood?” Yeah, Rainbow Dash knew history. Because she was awesome.

“Can you let me finish?” Rainbow waved him on. “Alright…my Granny found out about Berry and I. Her and my family went after him…and…got him. I don’t want that to happen…” Applejack’s mood had visibly darkened. Rainbow Dash could only imagine what he meant by ‘got him’, but everything she thought of was not good.

“So you did it to protect him?” The stallion nodded. “Well good job, you hurt him. Trust me when I say this AJ, a hero isn’t supposed to do what’s the easiest, they’re supposed to do what’s the best for the ponies they’re trying to save.” Ah, a tried and true lesson the friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash had learned over the years. “So you, instead of standing up for the pony you love, decided to give up on him. Good job there, Supercolt.” Rainbow Dash patted his back once, then took off. It was up to Applejack to see the folly of his ways now, she had said her part.

For now though, it was time to check on Berry. Maybe hangout with him a bit, it had been awhile since their last hangout session. So she banked left and headed to the easily spotted landmark that was Carousel Boutique.

Now Rainbow Dash was never one to use doors. Wasn’t her style. Where there was a window, there was a way. The window in question was the one right above the door, it was open and just big enough for her to fit through.

At the last possible second she tucked her wings to her side and slid through the opening like one of those acrobats from that Prench circus act. Of course she knew that a conventional landing wouldn’t do, so she tucked and rolled. It had been a landing she had to learn time and time again.

No one was in the main room, but her acute senses picked up laughter coming from down the hall. They were probably in Berry’s new room, she deduced. The lone pegasus made her way down the hall to the open door.

“Oh, and the time Applejack had to grow watermelons for a year on a dare?” That was Berry talking, then both of them burst into laughter at the memory. It even brought a smile to Rainbow’s face, she remembered poor Applejack complaining all year about how the melons weren’t as regal as apples.

“Hey, what’re we all laughing about? Please tell me it’s at the expense of others.” Rainbow strode into the room and hopped on the bed where her two friends sat, a photo album in front of them.

“Oh hello Rainbow Dash.” Rarity wiped away tears of laughter from her eyes and tried to compose herself. “We were just looking over some old photographs.”

“Hi Dashie.” Berry gave her a nuzzle, which she returned lightly. “Ooh, look! Here’s one from when you had to get your mane cut.” Rainbow looked at the picture and immediately recognized it from about five years ago when Berry had gotten a few wads of gum stuck in her mane and it had to be cut almost all of the way off. Rarity and Berry burst into another fit of laughter.

“Hey, that’s not funny. Ponies thought I was my own twin for like a month!” She snatched the album away from the guffawing ponies and looked at the picture. She looked like a pony straight from one of Berry’s LGBT meetings. Not flattering. Then again, she supposed the rainbow mane didn’t help. “Hey look, isn’t’ that our trip to Canterlot together?”

Sure enough, it was the five friends all in the capital city. It was the year before Twilight showed up and they all pitched in to take Berry to Canterlot for his birthday so they could catch a DJ-Pon3 concert. In the picture they were posing in front of the castle, and in the background a familiar purple pony was standing, her nose deep in a book.

“And isn’t that Twilight?” Sure enough, it was. That drew the attention of the two ponies who were laughing at her misfortune. They looked at the picture intently.

“Indeed it is. It’s a bit of serendipity, is it not? All six of us in one picture before we knew her.” Rarity smiled at the odd coincidence.

“Anyways, I was wondering if you wanted to hangout today Berry.” Rainbow closed the book and tossed it on the bed. “It’s been awhile, y’know?” Rarity took the cue to leave when Dash put her wing on Berry.

“Well sure, Dashie. What do you wanna do?” Berry was always so intent on pleasing others, he rarely suggested things he wanted to do around her. “I can watch you fly, or we can go watch clouds.”

“Actually, I was thinking we could just hangout here and talk, like old times.” Berry’s hoof went to his mouth.

“I don’t have to get braces again do I? I hated those things…I couldn’t eat anything sticky.” He rubbed his now perfectly straight teeth at the memory of the metal constraints.

“Nah, because I am not putting my mane into a ponytail…though I wouldn’t mind finding my aviators again.” She still had her regular old sunglasses, but those aviators were her babies, and she had lost them a few years ago during a tornado. “I might just buy another pair…”

“So what do you want to talk about? Ooh, is it boys? Did you finally find a stallion? What’s is name? Is he cute? Please tell me he has a tat-”Dash’s hoof went over his mouth, the universal gesture for ‘shut the buck up.’

“Yes it is about boys. No I did not find a stallion, and you know if I date one he has to have a tattoo.” As she removed her hoof, Berry’s smile revealed itself. “Yeah yeah, grin all you want. You rubbed off on me.” She wiped her hoof on the covers of the bed. “But it’s about Applejack.”

“Dashie…” His voice was pleading, but Dash just shook her head.

“Nu-uh. Don’t you ‘Dashie’ me. We’re going to talk about this, Berry.” The stallion fell onto his back and groaned. “How many times has he done something like this?”

“I don’t know…three…four? He’s always looking for reasons to not date or hangout.” Berry crossed his fore hooves and Dash just looked at him like a big sister would at a stubborn little brother.

“And you still took him back?”

“I love him alright…?” Rainbow Dash face hoofed. Sometimes Berry could be so…thick. It was such a pain.

“Sweet Celestia, Berry. You’re like a battered mare. Grow a backbone, alright? I know you like making ponies smile, but some ponies just aren’t worth it if you’re not smiling.” Rainbow Dash had to put up with this behavior for years, Berry was colt-crazy and it was never a good thing.

“But…”

“No Berry! I know you’re hard up for love, but do you really have to hurt yourself to get it? Can’t you see that almost everypony loves you? I mean, you’re basically family to everypony in this town.” She shook her head, some things just didn’t translate to other ponies. Some ponies were just crazy about love.

Chapter 12

Twilight put the punch bowl down on the table. Her guests would be arriving soon, and then the real party would begin. Of course she couldn’t let her guests be too tight at the party, that might make them suspicious…so she might have spiked the punch with a little inebriation spell. Alcohol would be way too noticeable, magic was the way to go.

The unicorn had sent her dragon assistant to spend the night with his little friend Scootaloo, she didn’t need him here to potentially mess things up. Luckily Scootaloo’s parents didn’t mind keeping the little dragon over, both of them being dragon enthusiasts probably didn’t hurt.

Oh, her plan was going to go over swell, she could feel it. The spell had come together oh so perfectly, ever nuance harmonizing into a ball of pure magic that was ready to lash out when she wished it to. Even the more advanced spells had worked into the ball easily, she supposed it was from Twilacorn’s ‘help.’ While the delusion’s horn did glow, Twilight knew it was just her subconscious helping her out.

“Now all you need is for those ponies to agree to your little game.” Twilacorn was hiding like she said she was going to, she said that her friends might think Twilight crazy if she was talking to someone who wasn’t actually there. So now, the little delusion was just a voice.

“Oh, I know they’ll play it. Once they drink my punch I don’t think they’ll be able to resist.” Twilight rubbed her hooves together evilly. “But I still don’t know how I’ll get Berry and Applejack to lose…” It was a big hole in her plan…she needed Applejack and Berry Bubble to legitimately not tell the truth or skip out on a dare in order for her spell to work. Applejack can’t lie…so a dare would probably do him in…but Berry was a tough nut to crack. He was so open with everypony that he would never lie, and he was crazy enough to do any dare.

“Umm…Hi Twilight.” The purple plotting pony turned around to see Fluttershy in the doorway. “I-I’m not too early am I? Oh, I’m so sorry…I saw the time but I wasn’t sure if that was a hard eight or more of a guideline for when to come.” The pegasus was about to leave the sight of her friend, when Twilight stopped her.

“No Fluttershy. Come in, come in. I was just talking to myself.” Twilight offered her shy friend a warm smile. She had no qualms with the pegasus, why would she? Fluttershy had never wronged her, nor hurt her chances with anypony she loved.

“Okay.” The pegasus walked in, still awfully sure of herself that she was being a burden. Twilight had the strangest feeling that she should get up and embrace Fluttershy, but it was quickly suppressed by something. The unicorn simply shrugged the feeling off.

“See anypony else on their way?” Twilight was eager to hear news of her targets, after all that was the whole reason for this thing.

“Well I think I saw Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Berry all at Carousel Boutique…and I passed Applejack in town. B-But I want to talk about something…” So they were all at Rarity’s? No surprise there. That seemed to be a congregating point for treachery lately. Twilight could still hear Fluttershy talking, but frankly she just didn’t care. The pegasus was probably going on about her animals or something, wouldn’t be a shocker if she was. “-really understand if you don’t want to anymore…”

Huh…that might have been important…probably should’ve actually listened to that. Oh well, too late now.

“Uh-huh. That’s really interesting, Fluttershy. I’ll think it over.” Twilight was on autopilot with her friend, Fluttershy ranked very low on the importance scale at the moment. “Why don’t you have some punch while you wait?” Her hoof gestured towards the green punch bowl.

“Umm, alright I guess…” Fluttershy found it odd how Twilight was acting. Usually Twilight would be ecstatic about a friendly get-together…but now she just seemed hyper focused on something specific. It was even more odd that the unicorn did not greet her with the customary hug she was used to at this point…It was almost as if Twilight completely forgot that-

“Hello party ponies!” Berry burst into the library, Rainbow Dash and Rarity right behind him. “Or just Twilight and Fluttershy. Not exactly party, but definitely ponies!” Berry bounced into the center of the room and headed straight for the punch bowl. “Ooh, punch!”

“Hey Berry, pour me a glass would you?” Rainbow Dash yelled from her spot just through the threshold of the library. Rarity raised her hoof, so Dash added onto her statement. “Oh, and one for Rarity too.” Rainbow moved forward with Rarity towards the hostess of the shindig.

“Thank you for inviting us, Twilight. But I must ask what this is all about?” Rarity gave her purple friend the customary friendly hug and sat beside her.

“Ah well I just knew that there was some bad blood going on with some of our friends, and I saw this as kind of a neutral ground where we can all just get along.” Twilight had practiced this excuse before a mirror, just to make sure she said it perfectly with the right tone of voice, with the right smile, with no hint of deception.

“How very noble of you, Twilight.” Rarity gave her friend a smile and a gentle nudge. “Now let’s see how good you are at making punch.” Berry was carrying three cups of punch , one on his nose and two on his back. Rarity elected to take one from his back, as she took a sip she noticed something odd about the taste. “Hmm…”

“Wowee Twilight, this punch is really good. What’d you put in it?” Berry gulped down the whole cup in one go, letting go a refreshing ‘ahh’ when he did so. “I just want to drink the whole bowl!”

“Mmm, yeah Twi. This punch is actually pretty good. I expected some store bought crap.” Dash threw back her drink similar to Berry and held the glass out to him. “Mind getting me another?”

“You know me, always eager to try something new…” Twilight grinded her teeth, she actually had bought it from the store. Inwardly, she noted how appropriate her punishment was for Rainbow Dash now.

“Howdy all.” Every pair of eyes in the room turned to the stallion who just entered the tree. They all were looking at him with varying degrees of intensity…and two certain ponies wanted to jump his bones and tell him just how much they loved him. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?

“Hello Applejack.” Twilight was up on her hooves, a glass of punch being readied with her practiced magic. “I’m so glad you could make it. Punch?” She held the hastily made glass to the stallion, who just looked at his hooves. Once the unicorn realized that he couldn’t hold it, she took a straw, stuck it in the glass and set it down. “Sorry…forgot. Earth pony.”

“Unicorn master race for the win, am I right?” The little voice in her head called out. “Can I hear it for magic? No? Not even a booyah? Sheesh, stick in the mud.” She sincerely wanted to tell the little voice to shut up, but couldn’t without looking like a crazy mare.

“Thank you kindly, Twilight.” She looked around. Everypony was drinking the quite literal punch, everything was alright.

Everypony was hammered. I’m not even talking about the run of the mill drunk, I mean hammered. That special kind of drunk where you might’ve just gotten so drunk that you might actually be around to being sober again.

Berry was wearing the punch bowl as a hat, Rainbow Dash was riding him around, Rarity was talking Fluttershy’s ear off about her parents, Fluttershy was clinging to Twilight like a magnet to a fridge, and Applejack was speaking in long eloquent sentences.

“Right!” Yelled Twilight over the constant cacophony of her drunk friends. “Who wants to play a game?” She immediately regretted saying that because Berry was on top of her in a second…which meant so was Rainbow Dash.

“Oh me! I wanna play a game! I wanna play a game so hard that the game plays me!” Actually…Twilight wasn’t sure if Berry was drunk. He might not even be capable of it…that wouldn’t surprise her one bit.

“If Berry’s playing then count me in!” Dash leaned over her buddy’s head. Now she was drunk…the bubbly look in her eyes, her messed up mane. Definitely messed up.

“I know that I cannot say no to a good romp with all of my acquaintances.” Applejack stumbled into a wall. “I do say, count me in.” One of these days, she would figure out why in Equestria he spoke like that when drunk…

“Oh you can count Fluttershy and I in, we still need to finish our conversation about my good-for-nothing parents who always leave my little sister with me and never seem to compensate me in any way because I’m her big sister, but I need money!” And Rarity was speaking in run-on sentences…not very ladylike. Inhibitions gone.

“Good. Now I need you guys to sit around the table and put your hooves in the circles.” Twilight took her place at the head of the table and put her hooves in the circles to demonstrate. One by one, her friends stumbled to their spots. To the right of Twilight, this was the order: Rarity, Berry, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Applejack. That meant AJ was right next to her! She could even feel their flanks touching-oh she wanted to faint. “Now hold still.”

She concentrated as she cast the spell, slowly forming the ball in the center of the table. She weaved every spell that she had planned into the magical orb, every set of guidelines, every single aspect of her plan.

As soon as the orb was fully formed, the magic did as it was instructed and latched onto everypony’s hooves, making sure they couldn’t move. All of them gave a few tugs, just to test it out.

“What gives, Twilight?” Berry asked as he looked at the magic. “What game are we playing?”

“Well Berry, we’re playing magical truth or dare. We used to play this all of the time at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. See, we each pick somepony to ask truth or dare then if you lie or don’t do the dare the orb in the center of the table delivers a random punishment.” That statement was so full of holes that not even Chrysalis would accept it. She knew it, and didn’t feel one bit of remorse or guilt. However, it was met with a long silence. “It’s truth or dare!” She yelled in frustration. “Pick somepony! I pick Applejack!” She had to make sure that was set in stone.

“Oooh, I call Dashie!” Berry exclaimed.

“I will take Berry.” Applejack stated flatly.

“I-I want Twilight.” Fluttershy whispered out.

“Guess I’ll ask Rarity.” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“Conversation, good. Perhaps we can continue our Fluttershy…” Rarity took a moment to analyze her words, then burst out laughing. “I-I mean…switch those.”

Good. Everypony was accounted for, that was one more thing out of the way.

“I’ll start. Applejack; truth or dare?” The earth pony looked thoughtful for a second.

“Well it would be a little unfair to choose truth since I cannot tell a lie. So dare.” Fantastic. Just like she planned.

“I dare you to stop being gay.” Little unfair? Yes. Was it technically cheating…well…sort of. To Twilight it was simply a loophole. What better way to make somepony lose at truth or dare than make them do something that they physically can’t do…it was Twilacorn’s idea. She’s a trickster, that one.

“Umm…I-I can’t do that. It’s not even possible…” Applejack didn’t like this, he sobered up in ten seconds flat and was trying to pull his hooves from the table. “Do-over?” The orb in the center of the table sent a flash down Applejack’s lines straight to his hooves. The whole table watched as something orange and magical was withdrawn from Applejack, as was something purple from Twilight. Then the two connected and did not separate.

“Oh no.” Twilight said in a very bad shocked voice. “A bonding spell, how unexpected!” She heard her little voice laughing wildly in her head, but she ignored it. “It looks like we’re stuck until it wears off!” Silence pervaded the room. “Your turn Applejack.”

“I-I don’t wanna go, Twilight…Fluttershy you go.” Applejack was scared out of his mind, the sudden realization that this might not be a game at all came to mind, and that scared him more than any threat to Equestria ever could.

“Umm…okay. Twilight: truth or dare?” The timid pegasus asked quietly.

“Truth.”

“Why don’t you remember?”

“…” Everything seemed hazy. The ponies around the table started to turn fuzzy as her brain fought some kind of mental block. She wanted to answer the question…she had a response that she wanted to say…but it just wouldn’t come. “I…I don’t know…” Nothing happened…she was telling the truth. What didn’t she remember?

“I suppose I will go next.” Rarity stated. “Fluttershy: Truth or dare?”

“Truth…I guess. Unless you had a dare in mind, then I wouldn’t mind doing a dare…” Fluttershy hid behind her mane and squeaked.

“What is Twilight not remembering?”

“Well...everything. Like how her and I are-” The pegasus was cut off by a purple bolt of lightning coming from Twilight’s horn.

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” Twilight’s voice was laced with something that wasn’t her own. It was deep and foreboding. It made everypony around the table look at her with pure fear. Twilight wasn’t sure why she did that…she just knew every time Fluttershy spoke, it made her head hurt.

“Stuff…she’s forgetting stuff…” Technically it was the truth, so nothing happened.

“Umm…Twi?” Rainbow Dash asked, fear and nervousness pervading her voice. “Can we stop this…? I-I think this game is sorta done..” Twilight’s magic infused glare told her all she needed to know. “Right…guess not…Rarity: Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” At this point, pretty much everypony involved was sober enough to operate heavy machinery, so all of the mirth had left the room.

“Umm…uh…” Rainbow Dash couldn’t think of anything…she didn’t want anything to happen to Rarity, so she needed something easy. “Why are your parents never in town?”

“Oh…that. Do you know when they had me? My mother was sixteen, she had to drop out of her specialty school just to raise me.” Rarity seemed to forget they we being held hostage by a crazy Twilight, and just went on. “They always said I took the best years of their lives away, so now they gallivant all over the globe just so they can futilely try and reclaim their lost youths…and now poor Sweetie Belle is paying the price.” Rarity grimaced in dismay. “Happy?” Nothing happened, so yeah. Everyone was relatively ecstatic.

“Ooh, my turn?” Berry had somehow regained his usual bright composure within these terrifying times. “Dashie: Truth or dare?”

“Dare.” Rainbow Dash immediately regretted the decision, but she was a daredevil at heart…Dare being the key part of that.

“Oooh, brave Dashie. I dare you not to fly for a whole week!” Twilight nearly guffawed at how perfectly this was working out. She knew if Rainbow Dash refused the ridiculous dare, that her wings would be rendered useless for that exact amount of time. So either way, she had her vengeance.

“Berry, I need my wings for work. I can’t just give it up for a week.” Dash’s gaze turned to the ball in the center of the table.

“Oh come on, Dashie.” Berry pleaded to his friend. “It’ll be fun! You’ll get to see what it’s like being an earth pony like me!” Dash just gave Berry the dead air.

“No way. Not doing it. I knew I should’ve protested you picking me, you always give dumb dares…Do your worst, magic.” It did exactly that. The tendrils shot down to her hooves, then straight to her wings. The purple magic went along the edges of the wings that connected to the pegasus’ body, with an airtight sucking noise, Rainbow Dash was now a flightless bird.

“Hey! I-I can’t move my wings! Not cool!” As Rainbow and Berry were looking at the former’s wings and trying to figure out what was wrong with them, the stallion next to Twilight was staring at the table with a deep look in his eyes.

Applejack had been thinking about this. While the completely unfair punishment he had been given was ridiculous, he could use this to his advantage. He was next, and he was going to make sure he used this to his advantage.

“Berry…truth or dare?” The farm stallion asked seriously, cutting off whatever Bery was about to say to Rainbow Dash.

“Truth!”

“Do you love me?”

Everypony froze and turned their eyes to the couple. Rarity and Rainbow Dash were both holding their breaths on this one…they had a lot riding on this answer. Mainly what their course of action would be with Berry, but that was still quite a lot.

“Umm..” Berry’s heart was racing, he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead. He remembered what Rainbow Dash had said…his top priority was supposed to be his own happiness…not Applejack’s. He took a deep breath and with confidence in his voice, answered. “No.”

With that, the orb lashed out and Berry Bubble disappeared from sight.

Chapter 13

The magical bonds that kept them all tied to the table released once the final question had been answered. Luckily Twilight had only set the game to one round, she didn’t want to be stuck here for longer than she needed to. While Twilight was busy rubbing her hooves so that the magical numbness would recede, her friends jumped into action.

“Oh my Celestia…” Rainbow Dash and Rarity were rarely in sync, this was one of those rare times. Both of their eyes were focused on something just below the table. Applejack wasn’t sure what it was, but it could not have been good.

When he finally got a glimpse of what they were looking at, he nearly fainted. This game of truth or dare had been surprising, sure. But this…? This was just a little too extreme.

Their on the ground, was Berry Bubble. Pink coat, straightened mane and tail, and bright blue eyes looking at everyone with curiosity. But two things were wrong; 1. He was about eighteen years younger than he should have been. 2. The distinct lack of male qualities.

“Twilight! What did you do?” Rarity glared at the purple unicorn, who was making sure the magical punishment ball was dissipating properly.

“Me? I didn’t do anything. It was the ball. I said the punishments were random, I never said just how random.” The unicorn then went to her notes about the spell and disintegrated them with a simple wave of her horn.

“How long does this last, Twilight? I don’t know how long I can handle thinking of Berry as a little filly..” Rainbow Dash sat in front of her little pink friend, who was still looking around curiously, still trying to figure this out.

“Oh, about a week. That goes for all of the magic, including your flightlessness, Dash.” As soon as Twilight got more than then feet away from Applejack, the stallion disappeared then reappeared a second later next to her. “Oh, and that.”

“Where am I?” The little female Berry asked, obviously confused. “Where’s my mommy and daddy?” Every set of eyes focused on the little filly who was asking strange questions.

“Your parents? Berry…” Rarity sat down next to the confused little filly. “Don’t you know who we are?” Her question was met with the shake of a head. Twilight was busy mentally cheering that it actually worked. A localized time reversal spell fused with a gender swap spell. At first she had doubted that she could even cast such powerful magic, but Twilacorn had pitched in somehow.

“N-No…” The little filly backed away from everypony into the room. His…er…her parents had always told her to never talk to strangers. Strange ponies would lead to strange things. “I just wanna go home.” Tears welled in her bright blue eyes.

“Whoa there little guy…gal.” In a second Dash was by Berry’s side, a hoof around the scared filly. “There’s nothing to cry about, alright? None of us are going to hurt you.” She was speaking calmly, soothingly. Much unlike the usual Rainbow Dash.

“Berry, we’re your friends. Okay? You can trust us.” Rarity joined in with Rainbow Dash to try and soothe the filly before she burst out crying. “Do we look like scary ponies?” The filly shook her head, her hooves wiping away forming tears.

Fluttershy wasn’t even sure what was going on anymore, this had turned into-excuse her language-one big clusterbuck. She just decided to leave and check up on the situation later, her head would hurt less then.

“Twilight, let me go. I need to check on Berry.” Applejack was looking at Rainbow and Rarity circling his newly filly-fied love. He wanted to run over there, but he knew what would happen…well he had a theory at least.

“Sorry AJ, I can’t undo this spell. It has to undo itself.” Twilight nuzzled his big strong neck. “Plus why would I want you to get away?” Celestia, she had been waiting for this. Being this close, with no escape available to him.

“Twilight. We can’t do this, I have to get up early tomorrow to work. You have a library to run, this isn’t a game.” He was practically glaring at the mare now, she had orchestrated this, this was all part of her plan and he knew it.

“You are so right Applejack. I’ll close the library until this spell wears off and we can both stay at your house. Your job is more important.” Applejack was about to agree, then he caught what she actually said. “I’ll even help, you know my magic is a big help around the farm.” Consarnit. She had a point…with magic they could get done in twice the time it would take to normally do it. He wanted to tell her no, but the boat they were in together had no life boats, not even floaties.

“Fine. But let me check on Berry first.” The mare nodded in agreement and they both trotted over to the now-filly Berry.

“C’mon, don’t you like anything about us?” Dash asked the filly, who still refused to come anywhere near them.

“I-I like those pretty colors in your mane…” Aha. Of course, Berry’s cutie mark story. He loved rainbows. Dash now had a plan.

“Wanna touch it?” She held her head down so her mane was hanging freely towards the ground. The little filly edged closer to the mare until her hoof poked her mane, then began stroking the polychromatic masterpiece. “It’s pretty isn’t it?” The filly nodded. “It’s called a rainbow, just like me. Rainbow Dash.”

“I like rainbows…they’re pretty.” Berry was now entranced with the pretty colors. Back on the farm they didn’t have any colors like this, everything was always so gray and neutral.

“Wanna be friends? You can hang around the pretty rainbows all you want.” Rainbow Dash was tiptoeing around this little filly. She had only heard stories of Berry before he got his cutie mark, and he was a bit of a shy shut-in wreck.

“But I’ve never had a friend before…what if I’m not a good friend” The filly was still stroking the rainbows, but her mind was racing with the implications of having a friend. Back on the rock farm she had imaginary friends, like Gummy, but she never had a real friend.

“I know you’ll be great at it, Berry.” Rarity watched in silent amazement as Rainbow Dash played this filly like a fiddle. She only knew Rainbow as a brash, impulsive, tomcoltish mare who was too full of herself to care about most anypony else. But with this little Berry, she was like a natural caregiver.

“Okay…I wanna be friends.” The pink filly muttered.

“Hugs?” Rainbow sat up from her slouching position and open her hooves. The filly cautiously entered the open hooves and gave Rainbow Dash a hug, which the mare returned kindly. “Rarity…I think we should go to your place..” Rarity nodded. “Hey Berry?” The filly looked up at her. “Wanna go for a ride on my back?” The filly nodded so Dash stood up, picked Berry up with a hoof and put him/now her on her own back.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Applejack spoke out as he and Twilight came over. “Why do you get to take Berry? I think I should take him, after all my family is better equipped to handle a foal.” He knew that Rarity would be busy making dresses, Rainbow would be busy being Rainbow, but Granny loved little fillies and wouldn’t mind taking care of one.

“I do not think so, Applejack. If I recall, you broke up with Berry. I do not believe being around you is healthy for him in his...current state.” Rarity wasn’t exactly sure what that magical orb had done to Berry, but she knew that it was not good for anypony’s mental health. “We are taking him.”

“Yeah, plus with my wings tied down I can’t exactly go to work so I’m free to hang with him all day.” Rainbow Dash interjected as Berry was poking at her wings.

“Fine.” Applejack grunted. “But I’m gonna check up on him tomorrow.” He could only glare as the two mares left with filly-Berry. This was going to eat at him all night.

“What are these?” Berry asked as he poked RD’s wings. He had never seen something like her on the farm before, he had only seen his parents and sisters…and none of them had these things.

“They’re wings, Berry. Y’know like birds have.” She wanted to spread her wings to show the filly her impressive wingspan, but still found them to be cemented to her sides.

“But ponies aren’t birds.” Berry commented. “Why do you have wings? Are you a bird?” Rarity let out a little giggle at Berry’s statement. He was just as goofy as when he was grown up.

“You’ve never seen a pegasus before?” Berry shook her head as she looked around the town they were in. There were a lot of buildings here…a lot. All of them were bigger than his family’s house, but smaller than the silo. “What about a pony like her?” Rainbow’s hoof pointed at the white pony that was walking beside them. She looked pretty normal, except for the thing poking from her head.

“She has something on her head.” Rarity put a hoof to her chest in mild shock. She had never heard of a pony who had never seen a unicorn before. Why, it was unheard of!

“I am a unicorn, and a lady. I will not stand for this, why even Princess Celestia has a horn. Surely you’ve seen her before.” Rarity was sure the comparison between herself and the goddess of the sun was a fair one.

“Who’s Princess…Ce…Celsta?” The filly flubbed the pronunciation. It was a hard word for a four year old, sue her. “Is she your imaginary friend? I have one too, his name is Gummy.”

Both Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked at each other in worry. Just how sheltered was Berry when he was young?

“Twilight…I’m not happy about this.” Applejack felt he needed to vocalize that. He knew his mood was doing that just fine, but he needed to say something.

He may have not been happy about this, but she was. He couldn’t even get ten feet away from her, the implications were pretty great. Had to sleep in the same room, had to eat together, together all day long! Oh it was going to be glorious!

Applejack hated his life right now.

“Am I a filly…?” Both grown mares flinched at the question. They were sincerely hoping this subject would only come up once they got somewhere private.

“Uh…yeah. About that…” Rainbow didn’t want to approach this subject with a ten-foot pole. How do you tell a little colt that he miraculously transformed into a filly without freaking them out?

“I am a filly! I finally get to be a Pie!” The filly raised her hooves victoriously, which almost sent her tumbling off of Dash’s back, but Rarity caught her. “Oh, I know. I wanna be Pinkie Pie, like my granny.” Both mares had heard of the privileges of being a mare in Berry’s family, such as the family name, but they never suspected that Berry was envious of it. Plus, Pinkie Pie? That didn’t even sound remotely right.

“Berry, you’re still a colt. You’re just…uh…umm…” Dash couldn’t think of a legitimate excuse for this, then again who could? It was a rare and ridiculous subject.

“But I have the parts of a filly.” To punctuate her point, Berry began to open her legs, which were subsequently closed by Rarity with her magic.

“Yes Berry, we know. It is not polite to open ones legs in public, though.” Rarity kept her magic ready, just in case the little filly decided to pull a stunt like that again. With Berry, one could never be too careful.

Rarity unlocked the door to her home as they drew near to the door, she held the door open for the mare and filly. It was an odd feeling, holding a door for somepony else. Almost felt degrading, she didn’t like it.

“Wow. That’s a lot of dresses…” Berry commented as he looked around Carousel Boutique. It was much bigger than his house, had a lot more stuff in it too. “They’re all so pretty…”

The way the filly’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the dresses, the way she seemed to take in every detail. Rarity immediately knew she just had to make a dress for Berry, she would look absolutely adorable!

“They’re alright.” Rainbow Dash stopped at the sofa and let Berry slide on to it. “Alright, now I need to ask you some questions. That okay with you?” The filly nodded. “Who controls the sun and moon?” It was best to evaluate exactly what Berry knew, just to see what they were dealing with.

“Somepony controls the sun? I thought they moved by themselves…” Rarity nearly fainted from the blasphemous filly. How could somepony raise their foals to believe that the heavenly bodies moved themselves? That didn’t even make any sense!

“Alright. Who rules Equestria?” This was the most simple question she could think of. He might not know who controlled the bodies, but Berry had to know who ruled the country.

“What’s Equestria?” Or he didn’t even know what the country was. Seriously, what the hay? “Is it another one of your imaginary friends? I didn’t think grown ups had imaginary friends…”

“Okay…so that’s a no.” Rainbow Dash tapped her chin trying to think of a simple question that even Berry could get right. “What are the three types of rocks?” It was worth a shot, he lived on a quarry and all.

“Igneous, Metamorphic, and Sedimentary.” Well…there seemed to be a huge lapse in knowledge here. “But Inky counts minerals as rocks, I try to tell her that they’re two different things…but she never listens to me. She always says ‘you’re a boy, Berry. You don’t know anything!’ But ha! I’m a filly now, so I know I was right!” The backwards nature of the Pie family was confusing to outsiders, but to anypony actually in the family it was pretty simple.

“Rainbow Dash, may I speak to you in private?” Rarity stepped far away enough from the filly so that she could not hear anything said.

“Sure. Hey Berry?” The filly looked up at her. “You stay right here, alright?” Berry nodded. Somehow, Dash knew this wasn’t her Berry and doubted the filly would flip out and do something out of pure impulse. So over she walked to Rarity.

“Is it just me, or is it all falling into place now?” Rarity asked. “Being told females are better than males, wanting to be a filly, him being gay…it’s all starting to make sense.” Rarity wasn’t a psychologist, but even she could connect the dots when they were provided.

“If I grew up around a family like that and I was him, I’d be sick of mares too. Celestia knows just how bad they messed him up in fifteen years…he never even talked about his family much to me.” Rainbow Dash looked back at Berry, who was sitting quietly on the sofa, keeping her hooves to herself. “And how did that turn into Berry?”

“Seeing how….tame he is now, it’s amazing. How could your rainboom make somepony do a complete turn-around with their attitude?” It was puzzling, oh so puzzling.

“Hey, who is that?” Both mare’s ears perked up at the sound of Sweetie Belle’s voice. “Why does she look like Berry?” Rarity and Dash both sprang into action. Rarity rushed over to her little sister, and Dash rushed to hide Berry behind her.

“That…umm…do not worry about it, Sweetie. I promise it’s nothing.” Rarity was leaning every which way her little sister did in order to hide the filly-fied Berry.

“Umm…why am I being hidden?” Berry asked quietly. Apparently young Berry knew the finer points of secrecy. “I was going to say hi to that filly…” Dash’s eyes went wide as she realized what was about to happen, she knew Berry. She knew that when Berry said he was going to do something, he meant he was about to do it. “Hi other filly!” Son of a-

“There is somepony here!” Sweetie Belle, knowing her sister like the back of her own hoof, kicked over the mannequin that stood behind her. While Rarity was using her magic to catch her prop, Sweetie Belle rushed by her. The next obstacle, Rainbow Dash, was going to be a bit harder. She had to think fast…but faster than Rainbow Dash? Sweetie Belle wasn’t even sure if that was possible or not.

Berry wanted to see this other pony, she sounded a lot like him. Maybe she was friendly? But Rainbow was blocking him…how was he supposed to make it by her? Quietly, he got up, walked to the other end of the sofa, and hopped off. That worked.

Sweetie Belle wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. It looked like Berry, but it was a filly…and it was really young. Like, not even capable of getting it’s cutie mark, young.

“Umm..hi…?” It sounded kinda like Berry, if Berry was a filly. Sweetie wasn’t exactly sure what was going on here, but she didn’t like it. Might as well figure this out.

“Hi. I’m Berry-” Before the filly could finish its sentence, Rainbow Dash intercepted it.

“-’s…daughter.” What in the hay was she saying? She said it now though, no going back. “Pinkie Pie. This is Berry’s daughter, Pinkie. Yeah.” Right. The lie was out there, now she just had to justify the lie somehow.

“Berry has a daughter? How come he never talked about her? Who’s the mom?” Oh come on, who would ever expect to be grilled by a filly? Not Rainbow Dash. She was not a very good liar, the time she had to lie to Berry about his party came to mind. Not a good liar at all.

“Why Rainbow Dash is, of course.” Rarity took the lie and ran with it.

“What?” All three of the other females in the room all asked incredulously at once.

Chapter 14

“You are not sleeping in my bed.” Applejack an Twilight were in his room, standing in front of the sturdy-framed bed. “I made a pallet on the floor for a reason. You are not sleeping with me.”

“Oh come on, Applejack. Don’t be such a prude.” Did Twilight Sparkle just call him a prude? Twilight Sparkle…what topsy-turvy world did he fall into? “It’s not like anything will happen. I promise.”

“No.” Applejack got in his bed and laid down. “You are sleeping on the floor. Beds are for ponies who didn’t cause this mess.” He didn’t really mean that, he was just in a bad mood and didn’t want to deal with the lovestruck Twilight.

“Fine...be that way.” Twilight curled up on the pallet on the floor and pulled the blanket over herself. She was going to have Applejack. When he was asleep, she would pounce and cast the modified want it, need it spell. Then he would want her to sleep in his bed.

“Yes. Rainbow Dash’s filly…her and Berry had one…together.” Rarity really wasn’t comfortable with the words coming out of her own mouth. It was like they were never supposed to go together, not in a million years, not in a million universes.

“I thought Berry was gay.” Rainbow Dash glared at Rarity. If looks could kill, Rainbow Dash would be charged with first degree equicide. Because of Rarity, now she was a fake mother! She wasn’t ready for that kind of fake responsibility!

“Well ponies…sometimes make…bad decisions when they drink.” Rarity finally concluded. Making a lie was a bit like solving a puzzle, if one piece didn’t fit then the whole picture just looked wrong. Thankfully, Rarity was good at puzzles. “That’s why I tell you not to drink alcohol, Sweetie.” Tie in a good old fashioned moral into it…that balances out the lie, right?

“Yeah. You know me, the star athlete. I love to drink until I make bad decisions.” Rainbow Dash just wanted to say that out loud, just to show Rarity how ridiculous it sounded.

“Well how come you or Berry never talk about her?” Sweetie Belle was just going to make them keep lying, wasn’t she? “Are you ashamed of her?” Maybe not, looks like Sweetie Belle was just spoon feeding lies to them at this point.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, when she realized just how excited she sounded, she pulled it back to a nice melancholy. “I mean..yeah…” Better. “We were so ashamed of Pinkie that we had to send her away to live with some of Berry’s family.” Okay, the lying was getting easier. It was even getting harder to feel the pit in her stomach. “Berry went up to visit them, so he sent Pinkie down here.” Two problems, one lie. It all worked out in the end.

“When is he coming back?”

“In a week, dear. Now go back to bed, you have school in the morning.” Rarity felt great about telling the truth again, it was like being released from prison. It felt so good.

“But I want to talk to Pinkie.” Sweetie was drawing closer to the other filly, which just made Rainbow and Rarity even more nervous.

“No no, Sweetie Belle. Pinkie’s…really tired. She needs her rest.” Rainbow pushed Sweetie away with a hoof. “You can talk with her in the morning, I promise.” Sweetie Belle looked at Rainbow skeptically, then finally gave up with a sigh and trudged back to her room. As soon as the little unicorn was out of sight, Rainbow headed straight for Rarity.

“My daughter? What were you thinking?!” Rainbow’s voice was filled with disbelief and rage, it was about time she let all of these pent up feelings out. Because that felt like a lifetime, not ten minutes.

“I had to say something!” Rarity defended herself. “You were over there tripping over yourself, and I was not going to say it was mine. She would know I was lying!” Both mares were nose-to-nose, eyes cold as ice.

“But my daughter? Why not say ‘we don’t know’? You know how this is going to look if she goes to school and tells all of her little friends that Berry knocked me up? Not good at all! And if this goes all the way up to the Wonderbolts I‘ll never get on the team!” Rarity was about to scold Rainbow for only thinking of herself, when a little sob came to both of their ears. Both mares turned to see Berry-well Pinkie now thanks to their lie-with her head in her hooves and crying. Both mares’ motherly instincts took over and they were at the filly’s side in a flash.

“I-I don’t like when ponies fight.” The little pony wailed out. “W-Why can’t you just smile and be happy?” The tears were flowing freely from the filly’s eyes. Both mares hugged her gently.

“We’re sorry, dear.” Rarity cooed into Pinkie’s ear as she stroked the filly’s mane. “We didn’t mean to upset you..” Pinkie latched onto Rainbow while letting her head rest on Rarity.

“Yeah, we’re sorry kiddo. But listen, you have to play this game with us. It’s playing pretend, alright?” Pinkie nodded, her little hooves wiping away the tears. “Until we say to stop, you have to be Pinkie Pie, got it? And I’m your mommy.” Rainbow Dash was desperately hoping this would work.

“B-But what about my mommy and daddy?” Berry/Pinkie liked playing games, Inky and Blinky never invited him to play any games with them. He had to play pretend a lot…

“Don’t worry, you’ll be back with them in a little while okay? Just think of this as a little vacation.” Dash was tired, all of today’s events…all of the crazy stuff, had taken its toll. “Eesh, I’m beat.” Rarity yawned as well.

“As am I. Some rest is in order. You two are welcome to sleep in the guestroom, after all it is his.” Rarity let go of the little filly and trotted off down the hall to her own room.

“Well squirt, looks like you and I are sharing a room…” Rainbow observed. “You don’t mind, do you?” The filly shook her head. “Good, because I need somepony to keep me company. Think you can do that?” Another nod from the filly. Dash got up and lead the little filly to the room at the end of the hall, as soon as she opened the door she regretted it. The room was littered with pictures of Berry with his friends…and mainly her.

“Wow…is that…me?” Berry…Pinkie…You know what? I’m kinda tired of trying to figure out what the hell to call him…her…you know what I mean. So from now until this situation is resolved, I’m calling her Pinkie. And all feminine pronouns, because trying to decide is giving me a headache and I don’t have any asprin. Keep up.

Pinkie trotted about the room, looking at all of the pictures. The look the filly was giving the photographs a look that could only be classified as terrified. Imagine seeing an entire life you’ve never lived laid before you in pictures. Memories you haven’t made yet being pre-screened to a young mind that has never ventured out from the hole in the ground it calls home.

“Umm…right. I can explain.” Rainbow Dash knew there was no conceivable way for her to explain what the filly was seeing, heck there wasn’t even a way for her to explain how the filly was here. “Sit down…this is going to take a while.” She was going to tell the truth, Dash wasn’t sure how traumatizing this might be to be told your own future. But it couldn’t be any worse than waking up in your own future, surrounded by friends you don’t know yet, and in a world that’s impacted by things you haven’t done yet.

“Hey Sparkles. He’s out cold.” Twilight had been biding her time, acting like she was asleep while she waited for her target to pass out. She hadn’t been expecting Twilacorn to keep a look-out though, the little alicorn had been MIA since before the party started.

“And where have you been?” Twilight asked her little delusion. It wasn’t very nice to leave the mind that created you alone for extended periods of time, why she might start to think she’s going mad!

“I’ve been busy, Sparkles. It would be in both of our best interests to avoid any questions of what I do in my free time, you may not like it.” The little alicorn floated over to Applejack and tapped his head, the stallion snored and shifted. “Yep. Out cold. So let‘s get this party started, huh? Maybe you‘ll even get lucky tonight.” Twilight was still hung up on the fact that she may not like where her delusion had been. How in the hay does that work? Was it in a repressed memory or something?

“Okay. Just let me get the spell ready…” Twilight concentrated. Putting together the Want it, Need it spell took a lot of concentration to weave properly. Not to mention she had to modify it. Ever since her brother’s wedding she had been studying Changeling magic, including the love spell that Chrysalis had used on Shining Armor. Coupled with the Want it, Need it spell it made the afflicted pony fall in love almost naturally while only being able to be reversed by an extremely powerful magician.

The spell, once locked in, practically flowed from her horn. The pink tinted magic bled through the air to its target, the sleeping stallion. As soon as it got near him, it snaked his way under his skin and into his heart.

Of course, this did not go without incident. When somepony’s heart is as dedicated and openly honest to someone like Applejack’s was…well, it gets nasty. Imagine an idea, something you think to be true so vehemently that you would die before it was proven wrong. Now imagine that idea was taken away, ripped from your mind without any explanation or counter…then another idea was placed in the hole and you were forced into believing it. In short, he fought it.

Applejack fought the intruding idea as if it was a disease in his bloodstream rather than love in his heart. Something in the back of Twilight’s mind told her that this was just going to a false love…Applejack would never truly love her like he did Berry. But then another more sinister idea crushed the smaller voice and told her to claim her prize.

Do you know what the difference between love an lust is? Twilight was soon to find out it was not the content of the heart, but the volume of the moans.

Rainbow Dash was in the bed with Pinkie now. The poor little filly had been so confused after Rainbow explained all of the pictures to her. It had been…enlightening. Strangely, at the time Pinkie had taken everything the older pony said in stride. Every time she had a question, she asked it and it was promptly answered…but there was this look behind the little filly’s eyes that just screamed confusion.

Rainbow felt that she was doing irreparable damage to the little filly…but it needed to be done. Refusing to answer questions like that would only make Pinkie not trust her, that was something she could not afford at the moment

Chapter 15

Rainbow awoke slowly and unwillingly. There was a very soft, warm presence just below her chin snuggling up to her chest. She embraced this fuzzball of warmth that was cuddling into her and smiled, it felt a little right...and a little comforting. But just a little, mind you.

"Mmm, you're soft..." Dash mumbled out at the object. Maybe it was a stray cloud that drifted through one of her windows again. She was okay with that, clouds were the best cuddle buddies.

Slowly, the speedster cracked her eyes open and realized this was indeed not her room. The whole previous night flooded back to her, her wings were bound to her sides, Berry became a little filly, and she was hungover. The last one was more of an immediate realization than a memory.

The sunlight struck her eyes and made her wince and block it with a hoof. She hated hangovers, it was like your body's way of getting back at you for having fun. Dumb body. rainbow groaned quite loudly in frustration and sat up, pushing the fuzzball that was resting against her chest away.

"Aww, we're done cuddling...?" The little voice came from below her. It was a whisper, but it rebounded around in Dash's head like church bells. She whimpered and flattened her ears.

"Sorry B-uhh...Pinkie..." She whispered, barely audible. "But I am not feeling....good." Good was far from what she was feeling, in fact she was closer to terrible than good. And that was not good at all. "I need coffee..." Was the ultimate conclusion her mind came to. Even the fastest pegasus in Equestria needed a jump start every now and again.

"Coffee? My dad says caffeine is Discord and we shouldn't drink it." Ugh, now this. Dash didn't need this from some filly who would be the king of caffeine when she was older. What she did need was some of said caffeine.

Rarity felt fantastic, as always. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and best of all she looked fabulous. Of course, being a unicorn meant knowing a hangover spell or two to rejuvenate yourself. She hummed as she moved around the kitchen, throwing together a hearty meal for her two new house guests.

Egg whites with the proper garnish, hay bacon strips, some orange juice for the little ones and coffee for the mares. It was not a lady's ideal breakfast, but it would do for now.

"Breakfast~!" She called out loud enough to wake everyone in Carousel Boutique up to be sure. Undoubtedly, at least one of them would not be happy about her yelling.

"We were up, no need to yell..." Rainbow Dash trotted into the kitchen looking like hell with Pinkie on her back. Quickly, Rarity fired up her horn with her hangover spell.

"You look simply dreadful, Rainbow! Hold still and let me fix that." She saw her friend's ears lay back flat as she spoke, her voice unwelcome to her sensitive senses. She let the spell loose and in an instant Rainbow Dash looked a million times better. The bags under her eyes were gone, her mane was relatively in place, and she stood a little straighter. "Now fear not, I did prepare some coffee and food for you."

"Coffee is-" Pinkie found a hoof in her mouth and a glare being given to her.

"Big ponies need their coffee, squirt. Don't argue..." Rainbow sat Pinkie in the chair beside her and took her first drink of coffee. To Rarity, it looked like everything was right with the world once that first sip hit the back of her throat.

"Umm...c-can I get my eggs cut...?" Dash, without saying a word, obliged. She cut up the bacon and eggs for her little charge then went back to her own food.

Rarity looked on with admiration. Rainbow Dash was a natural at this, caretaking. It may not seem like it, but she had an unspoken bond with the filly. There was love there, the same love she had for Berry translated into something much deeper now, something more....maternal. It was heartwarming.

Twilight stretched out luxuriously, she felt simply fantastic. Why shouldn't she? She just made love with the stallion of her dreams for the first time, her first time actually, and she felt aglow with happiness. Speaking of stallions of her dreams, Applejack was finally waking up.

As his eyes fluttered open she traced her hoof along his broad, muscular chest. Oh how she liked the soft yet toned chest she used as a pillow nearly all night. And now....now he was all hers. No more silly Berry Bubble, no more anything standing in her way. It was perfect..

"Mornin' Twily." Oh, his voice. That drawl, it was so melodious....so perfect. And all hers.

"Oohoohoo! The plan is working, Bugsy!" Twilacorn appeared in a craggy cave, while her horn lit up the immediate area around her, the rest of the cave remained shrouded in darkness. Whomever she was talking to, not even she could see.

"Yes, of course it is." A raspy voice called back. "The one thing we never took into account...the element of magic is the most powerful." A weak cracking came from the darkness, as did a strong cough.

"And the hardest to corrupt, trust me. I've tried before." Twilacorn answered, her front hooves crossing in anger.

"Yes, but with what I know, it's oh so easy.." The voice let out a very weak laugh. Love Conquers All, my dear friend, Even harmony..."

Chapter 16

Sweetie Belle was sitting down at the table, intensely staring at the new houseguest sitting across from her. This filly looked exactly like Berry. Not a bit like Rainbow Dash. That was suspicious....and Berry leaves town just as this new filly appears? More and more curious...

"Sweetie Belle, don't stare. It's impolite." At Rarity's admonishing, Sweetie looked away from this new pony. This strange,strange new pony...

"So Pinkie...where are you from?" Staring may be unacceptable, but perhaps asking questions was not. That loophole was going to serve the newly cutie-marked crusader well.

"The Macintosh Hills, my family has a rock farm." The filly responded as she gobbled up some of her hay bacon greedily. It was as if she had never eaten before or something. Yet another oddity.

"With her grandparents...and her aunts." Rainbow Dash, the filly's 'mom' added on to the statement with haste. "I-It's an okay place to live, ain't it Pinkie?" The nervous smile given by the pegasus was enough to make Sweetie more and more suspicious. Something just wasn't right here.

"I guess, but it's really hard work." The little filly commented as she scarfed down some more of her breakfast with gusto. Rarity didn't even bat an eyelash at the brutish display! If Sweetie would've done that, she would be scolded. But this filly doesn't even get a look of disgust!

Now Sweetie Belle was sure something was up here.

Twilight was baffled by the looks she was getting from Granny Smith and Big MacWas it so hard to believe that Applejack may have slept with a mare? Or was it the fact that she was the mare? Either way she found it to be completely credulous.

“Er...hello Twilight…” Granny said with extreme confusion. “I didn’t know y’ll were….spendin’ the night.” Twilight decided since now that she was practically family that she would sit down at the table and enjoy a nice home cooked breakfast.

"Oh, you know, some things just kind of happen.” Twilight said with a smile as she levitated a piece of toast over to her and buttered it. It wasn’t very often she did her own...lacky work whilst eating. Usually Spike did the trivial things and she simply consumed to keep her fueled up, but she supposed hard work was part of the Apple Family, and so was she.

"Nope.” Big Mac siad simply and left the kitchen. “Nope, nope, nope.” Twilight arched her eyebrow, then decided it was best to not waste brainpower on the thoughts of the simple-minded.

"I think AJ will be down in a few moments. I told him he best tidy up, lest I be seen as a mare who can’t control her stallion.” At this, Granny Smith arched her own eyebrow then got up and left the kitchen. She knew something was wrong, and she didn’t want to deal with it first thing in the morning. This was an afternoon or evening problem.

At that moment, the conservation of matter kicked in, because as soon as Granny Smith walked out a very tired looking Applebloom stumbled in. One for one, it all works out in the end.

“Mornin’ Twilight…” The very tired earth pony said as she hopped up on her chair and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She looked down at the eggs in front of her, instead of trying to use silverware in anyway, she just took a bite out of it.

“Good morning, Applebloom!” Twilight chirpedhappily at the youngest Apple. Twilight duly noted that no big red bow was in place atop her head, nor was her mane combed. It was odd to see her without the traditional trimmings she usually had.

"Wait…” Twilight saw the realization in Applebloom’s eyes. Something was off...something just wasn’t right here. “This is juice, not milk.” She looked at the glass with sleepy disgust and pushed it away. “How’s a filly s’posed to start a day without milk?” The little pony hopped off her chair and trotted over to the refrigerator.

Twilight giggled at the overly dramatic crusader and sighed happily. This is what she wanted. This. The simple family life...nothing to worry about, no threats, no constant OCD getting to her, no Spi-wait. What was she saying? No Spike? She loved Spike...he was practically her adopted brother, how could she want to get rid of him?

A pain shot through her head that made her drop the subject as quickly as it popped up. The headaches have been popping up more and more over the past few days she noticed, when she had a certain train of thought or tried to remember something of importance...even when she thought about her own happy past, pain flooded her mind.

Three quiet knocks came from the door in the kitchen. They were so quiet that Twilight had to physically strain to even make sure they weren’t a figment of her imagination. Curious, and a little bit annoyed, she got up and went over to the door. Who could be here at this time?

She grabbed the door with her magic and opened it. Standing on the other side, so near the ground that most earthworms would be jealous, was Fluttershy. The shy pegasus was panting and sweating, looking like she had flown a marathon.

"Oh, hi Fluttershy. What’s wrong?” That should be the standard greeting for Fluttershy, decided Twilight. Something was always wrong with her, most likely it was something she deemed terrifying that was, in fact, not.

"I...I’ve been looking for you...weren’t at the library…” Fluttershy took a deep breath and wiped some sweat from her face. “Came here…” That explains it. She flew the length of Ponyville twice, that should tire any weak pegasus.

“So why were you looking for me? Is something wr-before Twilight could finish her inquiry, her mouth was caught up with something. That something being Fluttershy’s mouth. At first, Twilight was shocked. How dare Fluttershy!? Twilight was Applejack’s, no hers. But then, an odd familiarity came with the other emotions….it was calming...strange. The constant dark cloud that hung over her thoughts seemed to dissipate the more the kiss lingered.

This all felt so wrong, but also very, very right.

Chapter 17

Boredom was not something that Rainbow Dash was used to, well not in the conventional ground pony sense. If she was ever in need of something to do, she would usually just go flying...or if she was truly-really-super-bored; she would do her job.

Today was not like most days, though. It was her first full day of being flightless and being a surrogate mother to a gender swapped younger Berry Bubble. Yeah, today was not like most days.

“This sucks, Rarity…” Dash, half of her body hanging over the arm of the couch, groaned out. “Like really, majorly sucks.” Rarity, for whatever it was worth, did her best to keep her eye roll to a minimum at her friend’s overexagerated dramatics. “Like, almost-as-much-as-Berry-used-to sucks.”

“Yes, well you can make as many colorful analogies as you want, but it won’t help you become any less bored Rainbow.” Rarity was keeping herself occupied with her work; sewing up an old dress of a favored client. It was work she could, quite feasibly, do in her sleep but it was also enough to hold her attention.

“Well it better be enough until Berry wakes up…” Dash rolled over to face her unicorn friend. “Stupid kids with their naps…” Rainbow grumbled quite audibly. It turned out that the little...filly, man that’s still weird to say, was the only thing to keep Rainbow to keep herself from going out of her gourd bored.

“You mean Pinkie, dear.” Rarity corrected the flightless pegasi. “I know it is strange, but we must respect her choices...until this is all sorted out, anyways.” Rarity wasn’t one to be closed minded, even if it was over something this bizarre. She might’ve not totally agreed, nor understood, what was going on here but it was best just to go along with it for the time being.

“It’s still technically Berry, just a little....different.” Rarity raised an eyebrow at her friend’s remark.

“A little different? Rainbow Dash, Berry switched genders, reversed in age, and lost all of his memories. That’s quite a bit different.” Rarity put down the dress, and lifted her glasses to rest above her horn. She could feel that something might start soon with this conversation. “You seemed alright with all of this earlier, why the sudden...hesitation with the subject?”

Rainbow sat up, a contemplative look upon her face. Her back muscles visibly strained, as if she was trying to flex her wings. She was agitated, that much was obvious.

“Why are we so accepting of this? I mean, Twilight practically held us all hostage and put some kind of hex on Berry, and we didn’t do anything! We just let her go! One of us should’ve went after her and done something!” Rainbow got up from the couch and started pacing. “Instead we let her go off with Applejack and do Celestia knows what, Rarity!”

“We had more pressing matters to attend to, you know.” Rarity levitated the dress to a nearby rack and let it rest atop the myraid of hanging clothes. “Berry-or Pinkie as it were-needed our help, and still needs it. It would’ve been irresponsible to just leave to go after Twilight.” Rainbow, on her next go round of pacing, stopped face to face with the seamstress.

“But just doing nothing? That’s not how Rainbow Dash operates! I should’ve done something!” Rarity could see the hurt on Dash’s face, her words were true but they were also hurting her.

“But you couldn’t leave her.” Rarity read the speedster’s subtext aloud. It was a little touching, Rarity had to admit, that the headstrong Rainbow Dash held back for her best friend. The only response that came was silence from the daredevil.

“I’m going for a walk, gotta get in my excercise somehow.” And with that, she left. She opened the door and lefr. What was Rarity supposed to do or say? You can’t force someone like Rainbow Dash to bear it all on the spot, that would take time.

Rarity could only sigh.

Applejack was fighting through the fog of his own mind. It was an uphill battle that he was losing, and it was taking its toll. Imagine it like a snake that has winded its way around your throat; you can try to pull it off, you can try to scream for help...but you’ll just be wasting your strength.

This thought, this obsession with Twilight, was keeping his mind in a vice and the more he struggled against it the more powerful it became. The simple farmer was trying to keep his focus on one thought to keep a hold onto his mind for a little bit longer.

Right now he, or at least his body, was with Twilight. They were in the orchards and the insane mare was hanging all over him. Her hooves were wandering over the body, leaving a much needed chill sitting at the base of his spine.

“How did we ever go on without each other, Applejack?” A thick layer of magic and confusion made the words come through his ears slowly and malformed as if he was a few seconds behind the rest of the universe.

“I don’t know, Twilight.” Each word was a monotonous battle through thick sludge to get out. He was saying these things, but they weren’t his words. The evil enchantress’ magic had a firm grasp on his mind, manipulating his words and forcing sounds that were not his through his throat.

“Neither do I, my love...neither do I…” She leaned in for a kiss, which his body shakily and without his consent, reciprocated.

This was torture, plain and simple.

Rainbow Dash didn’t mind running. It was good exercise, good for the heart, and a pretty simple way to make sure her wings weren’t too overpowered compared to the rest of her body. It was refreshing at times, hooves pounding the ground to carry her among paths many had gone down before.

Today was not a refreshing exercise run. Today she was running from her problems, like she had done few times in the past. The speedster could handle many things; old mares’ tales coming to life, gods of chaos turning the whole world upside down, even a fear demon made of smoke that tried to enslave crystal ponies, but this whole situation? It was just too...weird for her sanity.

Rainbow had been friends with Berry for years now, ever since they had both been in Ponyville. They had gone through their awkward teenage years together, they had lost loved ones together, and they had saved the world together. But now…? He wasn’t himself, heck he wasn’t even a he anymore!

Appearance didn’t matter, not usually anyways. If Rainbow met a new pony, she didn’t care what they looked like, as long as they were awesome on the inside. That’s how Rainbow viewed Pinkie at first, an entirely new pony...But then they looked through the photo album. This was Berry Bubble, her closest friend and wackiest comrade! Maybe if Berry had been regressed into a little colt she could have coped… but now she couldn’t.

Add to it this whole thing with Twilight and it’s just a mess. Rainbow needed guidance, she needed somepony whose head was still firmly on their shoulders.

Rainbow Dash needed to go see Fluttershy.

“I’m sure she’ll be back, darling! in fact, I promise you she’ll be back!” Rarity was trying to calm down a very very upset Pinkie the best she could. It was safe to say, however, that her best was not good enough.

The filly, despite all of Rarity’s begging and pleading, was still sitting on the bed with tears staining her bubblegum pink face. She missed her cuddle-buddy, and she wasn’t going to be happy until Rainbow came back.

“B-but why did she leave…?” The pure hurt and betrayal that came with Pinkies words made Rarity’s own heart ache. Empathy may not be an element of harmony, but Rarity sure was adept at it.

“She just had some errands to run, sweetheart! She will be back later today, alright?” She was trying to hide the slight panic that was rising in her chest with a thick layer of false certainty. Truthfully, she didn’t know when or if Rainbow Dash would come back, and it was mostly her fault. She could’ve tried to stop her somehow, instead she just sat there and gawked at the spectacle.

“O-okay..” Pinkie wiped her eyes to free them of tears that plagued her peepers. “What about your sister, Sweetiebelle? Did she leave too?” Rarity had to suppress the frown that was trying to force its way onto her face. Her parents, hearing that Sweetie had gotten her cutie mark, hurried back to Ponyville and arrived early this morning-after Rainbow Dash left and before Pinkie woke up- to pick up the squeaky unicorn.

“She’s with our parents, they wanted to celebrate her earning her cutie mark.” A weight had been lifted from Rarity’s chest. This was the first time in what seemed like forever that she was actually telling the truth. Recently her life had been lie after lie in a hellish blur, but now...telling the truth felt surprisingly good.

“Oh…” Pinkie circled her little hoof around a spot of tear stained fabric on the couch. “I wanted to play with her…” Great, now Rarity was going to have a bored Pinkie on her hooves. She would’ve asked the young filly if she wanted to go to the park, but that was absolutely out of the question. What if somepony saw her? Celestia forbid if somepony realized who she actually was! “Will you play with me Rarity?”

“I would love to Pinkie.” A warm smile spread across her face, which quickly became contagious, as Pinkie was soon grinning ear to ear. “You stay here while I go and get some of Sweetie’s old toys, alright?” The surprisingly obedient filly nodded and crossed her hooves, a smile upon her face.

Rarity quickly trotted upstairs and as she passed her own room she saw something that made her stop in her tracks and made her jaw hit the floor. A collection of prototype dress designs she had been working on late last night to try and calm her nerves were now in tatters all over her floor.

The culprit was still at the scene of the crime; Opalesence was laying upon the shredded fabric, perfectly content and unaware of the storm she had started.

“OPALESENCE! YOU GET OFF OF THOSE RIGHT NOW!” Rarity, while breathing through clenched teeth, thought how good it felt to actually yell at something. It was good to scream at something like this instead of the problem sitting in her living room.

‘Problem? Pinkie’s not a problem. Why in Equestria would I ever think that?’ As she stopped to consider her own thoughts, her berated feline made a quick exodus from the room.

“Is everything okay, Rarity? I heard you yelling…” A small timid voice came from behind her. The unicorn turned to see Pinkie poking her head round the corner just enough that she could see everything.

“Everything’s fine, darling. Opal just ruined something I’ve been working very hard on for a while and I got mad. I shouldn’t have and I apologize.” Her head was still swimming with rage, but she would not let it loose on an innocent pony who did not deserve it. “I just-I don’t know if I’ll be able to play with you now. I was supposed to get these to Canterlot next week and now I have to do all of this work from scratch…” Rarity’s ears fell flat. It was a little depressing to know all of her hard work was seemingly for nothing. It hurt even more knowing that her creative process was going to be completely on a different track now and the dresses weren’t going to be anywhere near her original designs.

“Oh...okay.” Rarity watched silently as Pinkie slowly trotted down the stairs, her tail and hooves dragging along. Her heart was near breaking, but there was a subtle undercurrent of relief...and that part terrified her.

Chapter 9 [Interlude] Bad Moon Rising

The day was as black as night, the sun shadowed over by an evil presence and corrupted by ancient magic. Every plant was withered, every drop of water was as red as the lifeblood that flows through all living things’ veins. It was a landscape transformed by fear.

In the middle of it all, the epicenter of terror formerly known as Ponyville stood a unicorn formerly known as the element of magic, herself corrupted beyond recognition. Her once pristine horn was not cracked and curved by hatred, her once two-tone mane turned completely black, and her eyes cracked and sparkled with the shades of dark magic.

In front of her, two stallions stood. One as pink as the beginning of the dawn, and the other the same orange of a dull flame. The two were trapped in place, their hooves shackled to the ground by dark magic. It was at the unicorn’s will that the two earth ponies were before her, it was at her will that these two stallion’s live rested.

“Twilight…just let us go…we can all walk away from this.” The orange one spoke in his accent, his tones pleading. He was fighting against the bonds, desperately trying to break free…the exact opposite of his pink friend.

“NO!” The corrupted unicorn screamed, rage and pain flowing through every word she spoke. “You don’t get to walk away from this! You broke my heart and walked all over it!” Her horn lit up and a long stream of dark magic slammed into the orange stallion, making him cry out in pain.

“I-I’m sorry Twilight…I never meant to…” Another slam from her magic hit him.

“You don’t get to be sorry, Applejack! Y-You don’t get to apologize, you get to be hurt…just like me…” Her gaze turned to the pink one, whose eyes were consumed with the same fear magic as the unicorn’s, the only difference was that he was a victim of it, not a controller. “But him….he gets to be sorry.” Her horn flared and the glow around the pink one’s eyes only intensified, sending him into a fit of screaming and crying.

“Twilight, stop! D-Don’t hurt him!” Applejack struggled against his bonds, but found they were secure. He wanted to just break out of these and hold the pink pony, to tell him everything was fine.

“Say it…” Were the only words that came from Twilight. “Tell him that you love him…tell him that he’ll be okay. Lie to him LIKE YOU LIED TO ME!” Black tears rolled down her cheeks. “Lie to him as he dies….do it.”

“B-Berry…?” Applejack’s own eyes were tearing up, he knew what was coming and he was desperate to stop it. But the look of pure hurt and fear that Berry gave him through those enchanted eyes, it just broke his resolve. “I-I want you to know that everything will be okay…a-and that I love you…I love you more than anything in the world. I never want you to forget that…” The tears were flowing now, and Applejack’s throat was closing in on itself. He saw Twilight’s horn grow darker as she performed a long-forbidden spell, he saw as the magic faded from Berry’s eyes, then the life. He watched as the magic shackles dissipated, and he watched as Berry’s lifeless body fell to the ground.

“How’s it feel? To have something ripped away from you? I kow it hurts, I know you’re scared I’m going to kill you next…” Twilight advanced on Applejack, her voice softening as she did so. When she was close enough, her hoof brushed against his cheek. He didn’t resist or flinch, he was too numb to do that. “I’ll tell you what, you come with me and you’ll never fear again. You’ll never hurt…and you’ll never lose anything ever again.” The magical bonds released him.

Applejack wanted to do so many things at the moment…he wanted to run over to Berry, he wanted to cradle the body he once loved in his hooves one last time. But he also wanted to grab Twilight and throttle her until the life left her body, he wanted to strike her down where she stood.

“Promise…?” Even he was surprised by the words that came out of his mouth.

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He flinched at the Berry promise, but he knew that promise was eternal, unbreakable. With that knowledge under his belt, he walked over to Twilight…and embraced the darkness that ruined him.

With the last bastion of light gone, her goal completed…Twilight disappeared, As did Applejack. The body of Berry Bubble simply laid upon the ground, untouched. The laughter in Equestria died…as did the honesty. Screams echoed from Canterlot Castle, it can be assumed it was Twilight dealing with the princesses. It can be assumed that it was also the last hope for Equestria dying.

Zecora pulled her head out of the cauldron. She could feel her heart racing from fear and her eyes streaming with tears. This was not what she was expecting when she looked into her vision cauldron.

She did not like what she saw, it was a vision of a future that was coming. The worst of it was that it was going to happen whether she did something or not. The vision cauldron showed fixed points in time, things that could not be changed.

“There is trouble on the way, I fear my only hope is to run away.” Quickly, Zecora gathered up her essentials of a few herbs and her trusted cloak. It may have been last minute, it may have been hasty. But if there’s one thing Zecora knows, it’s bad omens such as that should not be ignored…and that Equestria was about to become a very dangerous place.

One last nostalgic look over the cabin was all the zebra needed. She was used to uprooting her life and moving in a moment’s notice. The rest of Equestria better get used to it as well.