Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Four

Applejack poked her head into Carousel Boutique. "Hey, Rarity?"

Rarity looked up in surprise over her little red eyeglasses. "Mm, yes darling?"

Applejack approached, pausing to take note of the huge and elaborate period dress Rarity had in her sewing machine. "Ooh, that's nice…"

Rarity nodded. "It's for a big gala scene in Snowdrop. What can I do for you, Applejack?"

"Ah, well, I had an idea recently…" Applejack said, absently caressing the gown's stitching. "What if I told you I could get you out of the pact?"

"I don't want to get out of the pact, darling. I like the pact."

"I know, and that's nice of ya, but hear me out before you turn me down, all right?" Applejack said seriously.

Taken aback by her intensity, Rarity set her glasses aside and calmly beheld her friend. "All right."

"What if… I set you up with Braeburn?" Applejack said tentatively.

"Oh?" Rarity said with interest.

"Yeah," Applejack said, relieved at her response. "He's lonely. He used to go out with Little Strongheart, but they had a messy breakup, I guess, and now they're travelin' together and I can see how much it drives him crazy. I think he needs some companionship to get his mind off things."

"Companionship, you say?" said Rarity, now even more intrigued. "Well, while I've never thought of Braeburn that way, he is… he's so sweet. Such a sweetheart. Attractive, too. Unusually refined for a country fellow." She sighed. "I'm very tempted, Applejack, but then what will happen to you?"

"Ah, I'll be fine," Applejack said dismissively, animatedly waving the question away. "You can still help me meet the guys. But who says we have to be contractually bound to let each other suffer? I see a way outta this for you, and I'm offerin' it to you."

"I don't want to leave you out in the cold like that, Applejack," Rarity pouted.

"Rarity, come on, it's okay," Applejack laughed. "Forget about me for a second: what do you really want?"

Rarity shivered a little as she thought about it, her resistance visibly crumbling. "Okay," she said quietly, sounding ragged and conflicted. "I accept. If you can, in fact, set me up with Braeburn, I will go through with it wholeheartedly."

Applejack's face broke out in a huge smile. "All right. You're doin' a good thing here, Rarity. I think he needs you as much as you need him."

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At Sweet Apple Acres, Braeburn sat on the farmhouse's porch swing, rocking forward and back very slowly and hanging his head.

Abruptly, Applejack joined him. "Heyyyy, Braeburn," she said in a sing-song voice as she appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Gotta be so glum, cousin?"

"Hmm," he responded with an attempt at a smile. "Sorry if I've been bringin' ya down. I know it's not my usual way."

"Oh, that's all right," Applejack said amiably, sitting beside him on the swinging bench. "You know what I think would make you feel better?"

"Yeah, whatsat?"

"How about I set you up with one of my friends? I've discussed it with Rarity, and she's game if you are. Why don't you go out with her? How's tonight sound?"

Wide-eyed and taken aback, Braeburn stared at her as he processed this. "Rarity…" he pondered. "Is that that real pretty yellow pegasus who's around here on the farm all the time?"

"No, that's Fluttershy," said Applejack. "And she's around here all the time because she lives here."

"Oh," he said. "Heh, like I pay attention." He glared at the ground bitterly.

"Don't worry about it," she said hastily. "No biggie, I noticed you had trouble… noticin' things."

"So, which one's Rarity?"

"She's the white unicorn."

"Ooh, she's gorgeous too," Braeburn said thoughtfully. "Well, they're all gorgeous, your friends."

"Ain't they, though?"

"If I had to pick, though," he said, "I'd rather you set me up with Fluttershy. Can ya do that?"

She smirked at him. "Maybe I shoulda been more specific: she lives with Big Mac."

"Ohhhhh…"

"Yeah, they've been datin' for like seven months. You really don't pay attention, do you?"

"Oh, man, spring break flashbacks," Braeburn breathed, putting a hoof to his forehead.

"Has it really been only seven months?" Applejack pondered, staring into space. "Dadgum, feels like they've been together forever."

"Just like high school again, bein' Big Mac's wingpony. He gets the perfect cheerleader, I get her wingpony."

Applejack broke out of her reverie and smirked at him again. "Is that when you two were pickin' up chicks at the family reunion?"

He gawked at her in surprise. "AJ!" he exclaimed.

"Hehehe…"

He scowled, trying to hide his amusement, then let it slide. "You sure you wanna set me up with a date tonight? I leave town tomorrow and I don't know when I'll ever find my way back to Ponyville."

"Sure," Applejack submitted. "Thing is, Rarity… tonight might be all she needs. If you know what I mean. Might."

"Hmm," he replied. After a long pause and a moment of realization, he said it again. "Hmmmm."

"Yeah," she said. "Just… make it an unforgettable evening for her, all right? She's a real fancy, classy lady. It's gotta be a real date."

"A real date for a fancy, classy lady. Right. I can do that. …Can I borrow some money?"

Applejack chuckled. "You bet."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"For you." Braeburn presented Rarity with a huge bouquet of bright red roses.

"Oh my!" she exclaimed, starry-eyed. "You won this for knocking over some milk bottles?"

"Yup."

Rarity brought them to her nose and inhaled deeply. "Ah… they smell like heaven."

She looked around the fairgrounds, a location she had never thought of as romantic before. But in the dark, with all the rides and booths edged in twinkling lights, the place had a surprisingly warm and welcoming air.

"I've never been here at night," she said softly. "Pinkie Pie drags me here all the time, of course, but who ever thought it had such atmosphere? What inspired this destination?"

"Applejack told me you like the finer things: tea, hors d'oeuvres, high-society gatherings," said Braeburn. "And, well, the only thing I know about any of those things is, meh…" He gestured to the spinning teacup ride.

She laughed. "That's cute. Not a bad idea, all things considered. I do like the spinning teacups. Especially if I have somepony to lean up against…" She leaned on him affectionately. "To hold me tight and protect me…"

She batted her eyelashes at him, while plucking one of the roses off of its stem and slipping it into her mouth, chewing slowly and sensually.

Braeburn started sweating a little, and he nervously adjusted the collar of his vest. "You, uh, wanna go on the teacup ride?"

"Yes," she whispered. "We should definitely do that while the night is still young." After a short pause, she carefully said, "Applejack told me that you know what I want from tonight. I just want you to know that you're well on your way there."

She tilted her head upward, and the very moment their lips met, a voice yelled out "ALL RIGHT!"

Rarity jumped backward in surprise. She and Braeburn looked around wildly until they saw the source of the voice: Little Strongheart, standing in the middle of the road and looking defeated.

"All right, Braeburn," she said in a wrecked voice. "You've made your point."

"Strongheart?" he said blankly. "What are you doin' here?"

"Like you don't know," she retorted.

"I don't remember tryin' to make a point," he said, puzzled.

"So you did all this by accident, huh? Ugh, how about that." She scuffed the ground, ashamed. "Braeburn… you were right, and I was wrong. I always knew that, I just couldn't admit it to myself. I'm sorry."

"What are you talkin' about?" Braeburn demanded.

Strongheart pulled off her little feather headdress and held it to her heart in a gesture of submission. "When I heard you had a date tonight, the idea of you with somepony else, it made me so mad I could've just…" She furiously stomped a hoof. "And I realized that must've been how you felt when I… I'm sorry. I've been really unfair to you. I see that now. I want you back, Braeburn. Can we do that? Can you ever forgive me?"

Braeburn's eyes twitched; he was utterly flabbergasted. "Strongheart, you… I dunno what to say or do here. You know I love you, but—I mean…" He bit his lip, but it was too late; she had brightened gleefully. "Uh… uh, what should I do? What do you think?"

Rarity, who had been in the process of edging away so she could disappear into the fairgrounds, realized he was addressing her and froze up. "Me?"

He nodded, wide-eyed and earnest, genuinely desperate.

"You really want to know what I think?" Rarity asked. "Well… while I don't pretend to know the whole… scope of your situation…" She gestured vaguely. "I think that, in general, the right decision is to choose to be with the one you love."

Braeburn's eyes welled up with tears. "Yeah," he said, choked up. "Heck yeah! Strongheart…"

He had barely turned around when she was upon him with a crushing embrace. He kissed the top of her head, and they made eye contact before sharing a full-on kiss on the lips.

"We're back together," Strongheart breathed. "This is… awesome. I'll… I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

"All right," Braeburn replied quietly.

And with that she was gone, walking off into the distance with a delighted spring in her step.

"Where is she going?" Rarity asked.

"The inn where she's stayin', I reckon," said Braeburn. "And me, I guess I should go back to Sweet Apple Acres and get packed for tomorrow mornin'." He eyed the bouquet that Rarity was still holding with her magic aura.

"I'll… ride the teacups by myself then," she said flatly. "Be blessed in your endeavors."

She walked away, the bouquet hanging limply at her side.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

The next day, as the train departed the Ponyville station, Braeburn and Little Strongheart sat side by side once again, intimately snuggling with each other.

"THERE YOU ARE!"

Applejack galloped onto the train platform, her eyes burning with fury. "Thought y'all could escape, didja?" she sneered, walking alongside the slowly-moving train. "Well, not in a million years!"

She tossed a huge ceramic jug at them, which shattered against their window. The two of them cowered, beholding Applejack with terror and confusion.

"That's right, ride on outta here, you friggin' sociopath!" she fumed. "Don't y'all ever dare set hoof in my town again, you hear me? NEVER!"

As the train began to chug, she jumped off the platform and hurled another jug against their car, galloping after it. "I NEVER WANNA SEE YOU AGAIN!" she screeched hoarsely.

The train overtook her, and she threw an elaborate blue-and-white vase, which fell short of its mark and broke on the tracks.

She slowed her pace, her vision completely obstructed by angry tears. "Get outta my sight," she wheezed futilely. "Don't ever come back…"

Rarity slowly came up behind her, gathering up all the pieces of the vase with her magic. "Oh, darling, you bought this at the Bazaar," she chided. "It's an antique. That was a foolish thing to do. I'll do what I can to repair it, but it'll never be the same, you know."

"I don't care," Applejack grumbled.

"Darling, you must calm down."

"He—he went and—what he did to you—" Applejack spat.

"I know what he did to me," Rarity said calmly. "I was there. And yet, I am sanguine. As should you be."

Applejack seethed in response. "He used to be my favorite cousin. Amazin' how quickly that kinda thing can turn around." She spat on the ground. "I hate him now. I hate him so much for what he's done."

"It was a first date, Applejack."

"It could've been so much more that!" she said in frustration.

"Like what, a one-night stand?" Rarity said coldly. "So that didn't happen for me. I really don't care. I'm not angry with him in the slightest. There's nothing sinful about choosing the one you love over other considerations. If anything, I'm happy for them."

"Yeah," Applejack scoffed. "He got exactly what he wanted, and he burned you bad to get there."

"Listen to me: I don't care," Rarity enunciated.

Applejack glared at her. "Of course you don't care. You stopped carin' about yourself a long time ago. I'll care about you for you, ya hear? He burned my friend and I will never, ever forgive him."

Rarity beheld her with interest. "Do you remember Pierce?" she said. "Derpy and Rainbow Dash burned him rather badly, wouldn't you say? Do we hate them for that?"

"Well, that's… that's different," Applejack blustered.

"Why?" Rarity said bluntly. "Because the one being hurt was a stranger instead of somepony we care about? That's not cool, Applejack."

"I… you… but he…" Applejack stammered, pointing accusingly at the retreating train, her arm quivering helplessly. With nothing else to say, she roared in rage and started kicking the railroad tracks. "Stupid—stinkin'—friends!" she snarled. "Always pointin' out when I'm bein' a hypocrite! Buncha bitches…"

She turned to Rarity, sobbing. "I was expectin' to see you," she gasped. "At my house this mornin'. But you weren't there, and instead I found out that he got back with… I couldn't…" With intense effort, she inhaled, then slowly let it out and fell silent. "He didn't do nothin' wrong, did he?" she admitted grudgingly.

"No, Applejack," Rarity said solemnly. "He really didn't."

Applejack sat down in the middle of the tracks, looking disturbed. "Well, I sure weren't a pretty sight just now. Went and alienated my favorite cousin."

"You'll be fine, Applejack," Rarity said reassuringly. "He's family. Family can forgive anything." She glanced at the shattered remains of the two jugs. "Well, after a fashion. Might want to give him a couple years."

She patted Applejack on the rump, much to her bewilderment.

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Endnotes

Let's talk about math. Math makes me wonder if the Bazaar makes any sense at all, because I simply don't know what equations to use to determine that. Simpler math, I can do, and I've tried to make the story pretty consistent about certain numbers. Those numbers being years. Sure, this story isn't nearly important enough for people to notice number-related continuity errors, but… I put the numbers in there, I might as well make sure I did it right, right?

I suddenly realized one such continuity error: in Chapter 43, Rainbow mentions that same-sex marriage has been legal for 400 years. I figured that was a nice, big number that illustrates just how progressive and idyllic pony society is. I had apparently forgotten about that by Chapter 101, when Vorpal Blade refers to the same number of years in the past as a time when (implicitly) homosexuality was unacceptable but girls were courted from a very young age. Having just noticed that, I figure I'll decrease the number in 43 and increase the number in 101. I haven't yet decided exactly what level to take that to, but I'll get around to it. Hey, there's a lot of crap going on, you can't expect me to make it all perfectly consistent with itself all the time. Soon, it will be, just on the off-chance that someday there'll be someone who'd notice that sort of thing.

Another thing I pieced together: I established long ago that Big Mac is in his 30s; this chapter has a gag that relies on Braeburn and Big Mac having spent time together in high school, indicating they're the same age; and yet, I described Little Strongheart as being slightly larger than a pony, making her nowhere near the size of the adult buffalo seen in the series. She's probably not terribly young—after all, I've established that the Crusaders are 13 despite being teeny-tiny—but the fact remains that I paired Braeburn in his 30s with Little Strongheart in her teens. I guess I'm saying this just to acknowledge that I noticed that, even if it was a little late. And hey, maybe they're a prime example of what Rainbow said earlier: that sometimes a couple who say that it's right are actually wrong. Looking back at the way I wrote them, they certainly don't give the impression that they're good for each other. Nearly every word they've exchanged with each other was cribbed from interactions between me and my ex, so maybe on some level that's what I was going for. Sometimes I can be accidentally profound.

I also realized that, by my math, little Macintosh who appears in AJ's cutie mark story was 19 then. Well, hey, maybe that's how old Little Strongheart is. Apparently, I took the "teenagers in fiction are short" rule and really ramped it up.

Another way this story has jumped the shark: I just can't shut up anymore. This story's gotta be like 40% author's notes. I don't know how to stop…