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Description
Applejack was not a silly pony, but she certainly felt like one.

Tears that felt like molten lava were running down her muzzle and into the soft, white, slightly damp skin of her pillow. She prayed to Celestia and Luna and whoever else was listening that the pillow would turn blue, and sprout wings, and tell her that it was sorry for ever having said all those hurtful things, that it wasn't just a phase, that she was still hers, that there was no need for all this hurt...

Big Macintosh had heard the row, of course. And the one before. And the one before that. Anger had boiled away inside him, but the sobs of his sister broke it like a rock on an old window. He slowly - well, he did everything slowly, save thinking - trotted upstairs to Applejack's room and offered her his shoulder to cry on.

She'd bucked him hard. He stood there and took it.

She'd bucked him again. He stood there and took it.

For who knew how long - certainly not Big Macintosh, who'd sprouted a big hoof-shaped dent in the middle of his head and was finding words a bit tricky right about now, Mister Purple Badger - she'd just slammed her hooves into his strong body until the fight left her. He wrapped her up in his forelegs and nuzzled her, each of her great, wracking sobs breaking his heart, until she'd gone to bed. Wheezing like Granny Smith after a marathon, he made his way to the couch. He'd have to see a doctor soon but it had been worth it.

Now, if only he could remember what a doctor was, or a Big Macintosh...

*******

Rainbow Dash hadn't spoken to Applejack in weeks, and their friends were getting worried. They decided to organise some sort of peace talks, Twilight having seen something similar done in a book. Since neither Applejack or Rainbow Dash had been around to point out that real life worked differently to the steamy romantic fiction Twilight kept in the Special Happy Box in her shoe cupboard, they went ahead with the plan.

The row that followed could be called bad, but only if one wanted to miss out on a perfect opportunity to use the word apocalyptic.

Things were said, to everypony, even to Fluttershy - who had just tried to get them to stop arguing because she didn't like loud noises - and Applejack said most of them. The attack on her little yellow friend, which had gone on for two minutes without so much as a pause for breath and left Fluttershy sprinting for the door with tears in her eyes, showed AJ just how wrong things had one.

Nopony came to Sweet Apple Acres for a good, long time after that.

*******

Just after Winter Wrap-Up, Applebloom had caught her sister doing something she shouldn't. The copy of Playcolt dropped to the floor with a papery rattle as the sisters stared at one another for a time. Neither was quite sure how long.

Applebloom asked if her sister liked mares.

Applejack looked straight through the little filly and, imperceptibly, nodded.

Applebloom asked if that had been what all the fights with Ms. Rainbow had been about.

Applejack threw a mug at her sister's head.

Two days later, Applejack gave the little filly an apology and all was, ostensibly, well again. For given values of well. Big Macintosh had had a very serious talk with his oldest sister after that, his expression as thunderous as the glacially-slow to anger stallion could ever manage. Applejack had nodded her way through the conversation, but there was nothing in her heart.

She just felt as empty and cold and pointless as the patches of spring snow that she hadn't got round to clearing up yet.

*******

It was two years to the day since their breakup, and whilst Rainbow Dash and Applejack weren't the close friends they'd been before... before, they were at least able to keep a civil tongue in their heads when they spoke to each other. Dash's business with the Wonderbolts kept her out of Ponyville except on leave anyway, so most of her conversation consisted of anecdotes punctuated with the immortal phrase "well, I guess you hadda be there."

However, the jokes were good, and everypony laughed. In return, Rainbow Dash giggled like a tickled schoolgirl when AJ produced an acidly sarcastic joke from thin air about Trixie's latest gaffe or the paparazzi who followed Rarity like a flashbulb-wielding duck-on-a-string. Big Macintosh had introduced her to satire the previous summer with a couple of hoof-taped broadcasts of The News Quiz, a radio show based in Trottingham that poked fun at, well, everything, and she'd fallen in love with the genre.

She'd just finished a takedown of a hack at Equestria Daily who'd been stalking Princess Luna when Rainbow Tapped her wine glass with a hoof and introduced him.

He was a tall, toned-looking pegasus with a coat the colour of Mars' surface and a thick black mass of hair with a white streak running through it atop his head. Applejack supposed it had to be called a mane, simply because badgers didn't get that big. He had kind eyes and a ready smile and perfect, perfect teeth. He introduced himself as Sky Fox and Rarity immediately started gushing over them both. He and Rainbow Dash shared a slightly limpid look.

Nopony noticed Applejack slip out and gallop off up the street towards her pillow and her barn.

She convinced herself that it wasn't anything, that it was just Rainbow getting a colt for the novelty value, that she could be brought round, that she could be brought back to her. The counsellor Big Mac had sprung for from his own savings would probably say it was unhelpful, but she didn't care. She wanted Rainbow Dash to fail and she hated herself for it.

Applebloom looked at her sister as she charged up to the orchard, considered following her, and flopped down on the grass instead. News of her cutie mark - an apple in the curve of a horseshoe - would just have to wait.

*******

The gold-edged envelope, doubtless Rarity's handiwork, cordially invited Applejack to the wedding of Rainbow Dash and Sky Fox. Formal dress was required, although there would be dancing and boozing and so forth later. It was, apparently, going to be twenty per cent cooler than any other wedding in Equestrian history.

Applejack didn't come out of her room for days.

*******

On the day of the wedding, Applejack couldn't help but notice that Rainbow Dash (after Rarity had got her hooves on her, possibly by gluing the pegasus' hooves to the floor) could and did look like an absolute goddess. White dresses were always in, but even so, Ponyville's resident purveyor of fabulousness had added the merest pearlescent suggestions of the colours that made up her friend's mane. The orange farm pony smiled, despite herself. Rainbow looked so happy...

A stallion next to her opined, with the faintest trace of a Northern Snows accent, that he hated these things. Sky Fox's other friends had always dragged him to them, even the one in the cloud-built chapel that had require two of the other guests to spend the entire celebration just holding him up. Applejack giggled as quietly as she could and turned to look at the speaker.

He was an earth pony, skinny as a rake on a crash diet but with a kind of wiry strength to him. His coat was a shade of very light purple, like the colour one would use for the bedroom of a newborn foal when you weren't quite sure what sex it was going to be. His mane was silky-looking and iron grey with a pattern of silver highlights in it. They were roughly the same age, it transpired, and he gave his name as Cobalt. He was the owner of a huge array of ice mines in the tundra around Vladihorsetok, near the border with the Penguin empire of Pingustan. She assumed he would be dry as Applebloom's attempts at baking, but she was pleasantly surprised when he turned out to have a sense of humour and a sense of fun.

She was rather more surprised when she woke up next to him the next day.

*******

A good few years of exchanged letters later, and Applejack was looking forward to Ditzy Doo's visits again. Prior to meeting Cobalt, all her correspondence had been with people who wanted to take her money in either taxes or farming supplies, but now they bought the occasional note that whisked her off to faraway places.

This one was different. This one said that the Borealis Ice Mining Conglomerate needed a new place for its summer headquarters, and that the CEO (one unassuming stallion by the name of Cobalt) had suggested Ponyville. The Board had voted and the Chairman had got his wish, and so he was coming here to oversee production. He required a place to stay, but felt he could not impose, not after having been so far away for so long.

Ditzy stayed as Applejack belted out a letter, smoke billowing from her pencil. She said that it would be entirely fine if he stayed at Sweet Apple Acres, that Granny and Big Macintosh would love to meet him properly and that Applebloom had been looking forward to seeing him at all. The grey pegasus gave her a boss-eyed grin, took off, smacked into the wall, had another go, and managed to successfully navigate the door. Applejack's heart thumped in her chest as she bucked her way through the east orchard, the first time it had since, well... a long time ago.

A part of her realised she was latching onto Cobalt's feelings for her as a substitute for somepony else's that long gone from her life. Another part pointed out that, save for the equipment and mane colour, he looked distractingly similar to her as well. She silenced them both with a thought and went about her bucking, a happy tune humming from her lips.

Later that evening, Sandy from the News Quiz had read out a joke she'd sent in and sparked a two-minute segue on it from Jeremy Maredy. The day was therefore cemented as the best one Applejack had ever had.

*******

Five years had passed, and Sweet Apple Acres was now in the steady hooves of Applebloom. Profits had rocketed ever since Cobalt had stepped down from the Borealis Board and brought his business acumen to the farm, and the branded apple accessories were now the biggest sellers in the whole of Equestria. Big Macintosh had married a pretty mare that had come in with Borealis called Honeylove, and they made quite the pair. Indeed, they were on the packaging together as the picture-perfect down-homey farming couple.

Since they'd got hitched, Granny Smith (rejuvenated by the ascendant fortunes of the farm and by a lot of extremely expensive medical unicorns) had started directing meaningful looks at Applejack, when she wasn't directing outright dirty ones at Applebloom and her fillyfriend Dinky Doo. When they'd come out to her, the orange pony had forced a smile, and gave the two mares her blessing, but something inside her crumbled into that day and it had hurt slightly.

Cobalt had been looking ever more shifty recently, and Applejack began to suspect that he was hiding something. She confronted him, reminding him that it wasn't the best idea in the world to lie to the Element of Honesty when he said it was nothing and that it could wait for the right moment...

And so he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him.

*******

According to the gold-edged card, Rarity's handiwork, that had arrived in the mail that morning, Applejack and Cobalt were honoured to invite Rainbow Dash and Sky Fox to their wedding. There was to be formalwear unfortunately - and there one could detect a hint of Applejack's own hoof in proceedings - but there'd be barrel after barrel of hard cider to make up for it.

Despite Sky Fox's calls to her, Rainbow Dash fled to her room without knowing entirely why until she got there. She buried her face in her pillow, wishing she hadn't made the choices she had, wishing she could turn back time, wishing that the cloud's soft whiteness would darken to a pastel orange and tell her that it'd be alright, that she was forgiven for the stupid, stupid decisions she'd made, that it'd sprout those strong, strong legs to wrap around her body and take the pain away.

Sky Fox trotted in, but by that time she'd pulled herself together. They were going, she decided, and they would look their best. Carousel Boutique time.

She wanted to look good for her long-lost love.

Description
Applejack was not a silly pony, but she certainly felt like one.

Tears that felt like molten lava were running down her muzzle and into the soft, white, slightly damp skin of her pillow. She prayed to Celestia and Luna and whoever else was listening that the pillow would turn blue, and sprout wings, and tell her that it was sorry for ever having said all those hurtful things, that it wasn't just a phase, that she was still hers, that there was no need for all this hurt...

Big Macintosh had heard the row, of course. And the one before. And the one before that. Anger had boiled away inside him, but the sobs of his sister broke it like a rock on an old window. He slowly - well, he did everything slowly, save thinking - trotted upstairs to Applejack's room and offered her his shoulder to cry on.

She'd bucked him hard. He stood there and took it.

She'd bucked him again. He stood there and took it.

For who knew how long - certainly not Big Macintosh, who'd sprouted a big hoof-shaped dent in the middle of his head and was finding words a bit tricky right about now, Mister Purple Badger - she'd just slammed her hooves into his strong body until the fight left her. He wrapped her up in his forelegs and nuzzled her, each of her great, wracking sobs breaking his heart, until she'd gone to bed. Wheezing like Granny Smith after a marathon, he made his way to the couch. He'd have to see a doctor soon but it had been worth it.

Now, if only he could remember what a doctor was, or a Big Macintosh...

*******

Rainbow Dash hadn't spoken to Applejack in weeks, and their friends were getting worried. They decided to organise some sort of peace talks, Twilight having seen something similar done in a book. Since neither Applejack or Rainbow Dash had been around to point out that real life worked differently to the steamy romantic fiction Twilight kept in the Special Happy Box in her shoe cupboard, they went ahead with the plan.

The row that followed could be called bad, but only if one wanted to miss out on a perfect opportunity to use the word apocalyptic.

Things were said, to everypony, even to Fluttershy - who had just tried to get them to stop arguing because she didn't like loud noises - and Applejack said most of them. The attack on her little yellow friend, which had gone on for two minutes without so much as a pause for breath and left Fluttershy sprinting for the door with tears in her eyes, showed AJ just how wrong things had one.

Nopony came to Sweet Apple Acres for a good, long time after that.

*******

Just after Winter Wrap-Up, Applebloom had caught her sister doing something she shouldn't. The copy of Playcolt dropped to the floor with a papery rattle as the sisters stared at one another for a time. Neither was quite sure how long.

Applebloom asked if her sister liked mares.

Applejack looked straight through the little filly and, imperceptibly, nodded.

Applebloom asked if that had been what all the fights with Ms. Rainbow had been about.

Applejack threw a mug at her sister's head.

Two days later, Applejack gave the little filly an apology and all was, ostensibly, well again. For given values of well. Big Macintosh had had a very serious talk with his oldest sister after that, his expression as thunderous as the glacially-slow to anger stallion could ever manage. Applejack had nodded her way through the conversation, but there was nothing in her heart.

She just felt as empty and cold and pointless as the patches of spring snow that she hadn't got round to clearing up yet.

*******

It was two years to the day since their breakup, and whilst Rainbow Dash and Applejack weren't the close friends they'd been before... before, they were at least able to keep a civil tongue in their heads when they spoke to each other. Dash's business with the Wonderbolts kept her out of Ponyville except on leave anyway, so most of her conversation consisted of anecdotes punctuated with the immortal phrase "well, I guess you hadda be there."

However, the jokes were good, and everypony laughed. In return, Rainbow Dash giggled like a tickled schoolgirl when AJ produced an acidly sarcastic joke from thin air about Trixie's latest gaffe or the paparazzi who followed Rarity like a flashbulb-wielding duck-on-a-string. Big Macintosh had introduced her to satire the previous summer with a couple of hoof-taped broadcasts of The News Quiz, a radio show based in Trottingham that poked fun at, well, everything, and she'd fallen in love with the genre.

She'd just finished a takedown of a hack at Equestria Daily who'd been stalking Princess Luna when Rainbow Tapped her wine glass with a hoof and introduced him.

He was a tall, toned-looking pegasus with a coat the colour of Mars' surface and a thick black mass of hair with a white streak running through it atop his head. Applejack supposed it had to be called a mane, simply because badgers didn't get that big. He had kind eyes and a ready smile and perfect, perfect teeth. He introduced himself as Sky Fox and Rarity immediately started gushing over them both. He and Rainbow Dash shared a slightly limpid look.

Nopony noticed Applejack slip out and gallop off up the street towards her pillow and her barn.

She convinced herself that it wasn't anything, that it was just Rainbow getting a colt for the novelty value, that she could be brought round, that she could be brought back to her. The counsellor Big Mac had sprung for from his own savings would probably say it was unhelpful, but she didn't care. She wanted Rainbow Dash to fail and she hated herself for it.

Applebloom looked at her sister as she charged up to the orchard, considered following her, and flopped down on the grass instead. News of her cutie mark - an apple in the curve of a horseshoe - would just have to wait.

*******

The gold-edged envelope, doubtless Rarity's handiwork, cordially invited Applejack to the wedding of Rainbow Dash and Sky Fox. Formal dress was required, although there would be dancing and boozing and so forth later. It was, apparently, going to be twenty per cent cooler than any other wedding in Equestrian history.

Applejack didn't come out of her room for days.

*******

On the day of the wedding, Applejack couldn't help but notice that Rainbow Dash (after Rarity had got her hooves on her, possibly by gluing the pegasus' hooves to the floor) could and did look like an absolute goddess. White dresses were always in, but even so, Ponyville's resident purveyor of fabulousness had added the merest pearlescent suggestions of the colours that made up her friend's mane. The orange farm pony smiled, despite herself. Rainbow looked so happy...

A stallion next to her opined, with the faintest trace of a Northern Snows accent, that he hated these things. Sky Fox's other friends had always dragged him to them, even the one in the cloud-built chapel that had require two of the other guests to spend the entire celebration just holding him up. Applejack giggled as quietly as she could and turned to look at the speaker.

He was an earth pony, skinny as a rake on a crash diet but with a kind of wiry strength to him. His coat was a shade of very light purple, like the colour one would use for the bedroom of a newborn foal when you weren't quite sure what sex it was going to be. His mane was silky-looking and iron grey with a pattern of silver highlights in it. They were roughly the same age, it transpired, and he gave his name as Cobalt. He was the owner of a huge array of ice mines in the tundra around Vladihorsetok, near the border with the Penguin empire of Pingustan. She assumed he would be dry as Applebloom's attempts at baking, but she was pleasantly surprised when he turned out to have a sense of humour and a sense of fun.

She was rather more surprised when she woke up next to him the next day.

*******

A good few years of exchanged letters later, and Applejack was looking forward to Ditzy Doo's visits again. Prior to meeting Cobalt, all her correspondence had been with people who wanted to take her money in either taxes or farming supplies, but now they bought the occasional note that whisked her off to faraway places.

This one was different. This one said that the Borealis Ice Mining Conglomerate needed a new place for its summer headquarters, and that the CEO (one unassuming stallion by the name of Cobalt) had suggested Ponyville. The Board had voted and the Chairman had got his wish, and so he was coming here to oversee production. He required a place to stay, but felt he could not impose, not after having been so far away for so long.

Ditzy stayed as Applejack belted out a letter, smoke billowing from her pencil. She said that it would be entirely fine if he stayed at Sweet Apple Acres, that Granny and Big Macintosh would love to meet him properly and that Applebloom had been looking forward to seeing him at all. The grey pegasus gave her a boss-eyed grin, took off, smacked into the wall, had another go, and managed to successfully navigate the door. Applejack's heart thumped in her chest as she bucked her way through the east orchard, the first time it had since, well... a long time ago.

A part of her realised she was latching onto Cobalt's feelings for her as a substitute for somepony else's that long gone from her life. Another part pointed out that, save for the equipment and mane colour, he looked distractingly similar to her as well. She silenced them both with a thought and went about her bucking, a happy tune humming from her lips.

Later that evening, Sandy from the News Quiz had read out a joke she'd sent in and sparked a two-minute segue on it from Jeremy Maredy. The day was therefore cemented as the best one Applejack had ever had.

*******

Five years had passed, and Sweet Apple Acres was now in the steady hooves of Applebloom. Profits had rocketed ever since Cobalt had stepped down from the Borealis Board and brought his business acumen to the farm, and the branded apple accessories were now the biggest sellers in the whole of Equestria. Big Macintosh had married a pretty mare that had come in with Borealis called Honeylove, and they made quite the pair. Indeed, they were on the packaging together as the picture-perfect down-homey farming couple.

Since they'd got hitched, Granny Smith (rejuvenated by the ascendant fortunes of the farm and by a lot of extremely expensive medical unicorns) had started directing meaningful looks at Applejack, when she wasn't directing outright dirty ones at Applebloom and her fillyfriend Dinky Doo. When they'd come out to her, the orange pony had forced a smile, and gave the two mares her blessing, but something inside her crumbled into that day and it had hurt slightly.

Cobalt had been looking ever more shifty recently, and Applejack began to suspect that he was hiding something. She confronted him, reminding him that it wasn't the best idea in the world to lie to the Element of Honesty when he said it was nothing and that it could wait for the right moment...

And so he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him.

*******

According to the gold-edged card, Rarity's handiwork, that had arrived in the mail that morning, Applejack and Cobalt were honoured to invite Rainbow Dash and Sky Fox to their wedding. There was to be formalwear unfortunately - and there one could detect a hint of Applejack's own hoof in proceedings - but there'd be barrel after barrel of hard cider to make up for it.

Despite Sky Fox's calls to her, Rainbow Dash fled to her room without knowing entirely why until she got there. She buried her face in her pillow, wishing she hadn't made the choices she had, wishing she could turn back time, wishing that the cloud's soft whiteness would darken to a pastel orange and tell her that it'd be alright, that she was forgiven for the stupid, stupid decisions she'd made, that it'd sprout those strong, strong legs to wrap around her body and take the pain away.

Sky Fox trotted in, but by that time she'd pulled herself together. They were going, she decided, and they would look their best. Carousel Boutique time.

She wanted to look good for her long-lost love.