What Happened To Yesterday

“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