Rainbow Dash decided it was definitely a pattern as she rubbed her aching forehead. Blinking slowly, the myriad blurs in front of her coalesced into trees, clouds, apples, baskets, dirt, and an orange pony with a brown hat.

"Seriously AJ, maybe you could warn me before you do that? I swear I'll get up if you just gently shake the tree..." Rainbow groaned and shook her head. She thought she heard Applejack grumble something, but it wasn't particularly audible. Getting onto all four hooves, she saw Applejack walking away from her to another tree.

That was different. Even when Applejack wasn't making unreasonable demands to have an inconsequential cloud problem fixed or soliciting stupid, mushy advice, she never passed up on the opportunity to get in a good playful jab about how Rainbow should try out for the 'Wondernappers' or something. Rainbow might not have been the most observant pony in Equestria, but even she noticed the striking absence of banter from her friend..

"Uh... AJ?" Rainbow began stretching her wings as she watched the earth pony plod up to the next tree and give it a kick that was, by her best estimation, about 20% sulkier than the norm. When not all the apples fell out of the tree, she growled and kicked it again much harder, and Rainbow heard the sound of wood creaking from the force. The rest of the apples fell obediently.

Rainbow rubbed her eyes. Was AJ... frowning? That was weird. Apple bucking was one of AJ's favorite things, normally. Rainbow couldn't even recall the last time she saw her unhappy while doing farm work, which was weird considering it was farm work and therefore obviously not fun at all, but still. This was Applejack's bread and butter. Seeing her in a bad mood while doing it was almost unsettling.

"AJ? You okay?" Rainbow asked hesitantly.

"I'm fine," came Applejack's grunted reply as she kicked the next tree even harder than the last one, sending the apples cascading down while the tree lurched back upright in the aftermath.

'She is definitely not fine.' Rainbow thought as she approached her. "You sure? Because you look kinda angry." Rainbow winced as Applejack bucked the next tree harder still. "Er, really angry."

"I said I'm fine, Rainbow." Applejack spat on the ground. "Now I'm mighty busy today; I got time to buck apples and that's it. So unless you wanna start bearin' fruit and wait your turn, ya'll best skedaddle on out of my hair."

"You know we're friends, AJ. If you're upset about something, you can talk to me about it," Rainbow offered, but Applejack didn't even respond. A sense of dread and uneasiness gripped her stomach as her brain finished waking up and a conclusion dawned on her. Oh no...

"Uh... Did you talk to Pinkie yesterday?"

Applejack stopped in the middle of lining up her hooves and glared at Rainbow. "That's funny, if I squint a bit you kinda look like you could be a zap apple tree..." If Rainbow didn't know better, she would've sworn she'd heard wood splintering under Applejack's hoof as she delivered the interrupted kick.

"Alright..." Rainbow sighed, not sure what to say. "But if you change your mind, come find me, I guess." Rainbow grabbed her pillow and blanket out of her tree and flew off for Ponyville, glancing back to watch the increasingly smaller orange dot kick the other increasingly smaller green and brown dots. Maybe Applejack wasn't in the mood to talk, but Rainbow wasn't about to let her friend continue being that upset without at least trying to help. First things first, though, she needed to find out what was going on.

She needed to talk to Pinkie Pie.

------

Rainbow arrived at Sugarcube Corner within a few minutes of leaving Sweet Apple Acres. Pushing the door open and stepping inside, she saw it was pretty dead inside today. There wasn’t even anypony at the counter, so she stepped up and rang the bell.

“Coming!” She heard Pinkie’s sing-song voice come from the kitchen, followed immediately by the mare herself.

“Hey Pinks!” Rainbow said as she tried to decide on the best way to bring up her questions.

“Hi Dashie! What can I get you?” Pinkie smiled her usual smile as she put her forehooves up on the counter.

“Oh, I don’t--” Rainbow was about to wave off the offer of food until she heard her stomach rumble as if on cue. She had been doing some pretty hardcore napping just a few minutes ago. She was already here, why not get something to eat while she tended to her other goal? “Actually, yeah, I could eat. Gimme the usual.”

“Coming right up!” Pinkie called as she dashed back into the kitchen and returned with a tray that held a cranberry walnut muffin and a milkshake. She shifted it off her back to the counter and smiled. “That’s four bits.”

“Thanks Pinkie.” Rainbow said as she placed the bits on the counter and took the tray. Rainbow took a sip of the milkshake and smiled. There really was nothing better to wake up with in all of Equestria.

However, Rainbow couldn’t afford to bask in the glory of the milkshake for too long, as she still had a mission. At first she thought about just asking Pinkie if Applejack had confessed to her, but then she realized that if she hadn’t, she’d be blowing up her friend’s spot, and even as sick of Applejack’s dilly dallying as she was, she wouldn’t betray her friend like that. The better option, she decided, was to play it cool and see if she could trick Pinkie into telling her what happened.

“So, Pinks, have you seen Applejack lately?” She asked, adopting a relaxed posture against the counter.

“Yep! She came by yesterday! That reminds me, actually, she forgot her gift!” Pinkie chattered excitedly before reaching behind the counter and pulling out the red and white striped box and setting it in front of Dash. “It’s a hat bow made of icing! I think I’m really onto something here, but Rarity said it would never catch on. If you’re going by Sweet Apple Acres later, do you think you could take it to her? I’d go myself, but the Cakes are going out tonight so they asked me to watch Pound and Pumpkin tonight, since I’m Pinkie ‘Responsibility’ Pie!”

Rainbow Dash was more than a little confused. Pinkie’d given her a gift? That was a good sign, wasn’t it? That didn’t explain Applejack’s mood at all. “Oh, uh, sure.” Rainbow frowned. Maybe she was irritated because she’d forgotten to take her gift with her? That didn’t make much sense, though, why wouldn’t she just go back and get it? Still thoroughly puzzled, she decided to press on. “Did you guys talk about anything…?”

“Hi’s and bye’s and some stuff in between, but I only had a short break, so we didn’t get to talk for too long.” Pinkie paused as if she’d been considering saying something else before disregarding it. Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, I’ve got several cakes in the oven, and I think I hear the egg timer going off. I’ll see you later Rainbow!” She smiled once more and bounced through the swinging door to the kitchen.

“Bye Pinkie…” Rainbow muttered as she looked at the box on the counter, sipping again at her milkshake.

Well that answered… Nothing.

Rainbow gulped down her muffin and the rest of her milkshake as she grabbed the box and was about to turn to leave the store when Pinkie burst back out of the kitchen and tackled her from behind, forcing her into a face plant. “Oh my gosh Rainbow I just realized today is thursday and tomorrow is friday and if friday is tomorrow we should totally have a party! We can have cake and balloons and dancing and streamers and fun! Are you free?”

Rainbow pulled her face off the floor and sighed. Nurse Redheart had warned her about getting too many concussions after her last flying accident, and lately it seemed like her two best friends were solely intent on making her promise to be more careful a lie. “Yeah, I don’t have any plans,” she grumbled as she shook off her annoyance. “What time?”

“If I start getting everything ready right after work, I can have it set up by six! Hey, if you’re gonna take the bow to Applejack, can you invite her to the party for me too? Again, I’d do it myself, but I won’t really have time to go out there tonight.”

“Yeah, fine. See you tomorrow, Pinks.” Rainbow said as she spread her wings and flew out the front door. As she flew back towards Sweet Apple Acres, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everything which had just happened seemed a little off.

------

Applejack was fine. She had her farm, and her apple trees, and plenty of work to do before the rest of the apples ripened and Applebuck Season got into full swing. She had her family. She had Winona. She had a group of wonderful friends. Realistically, she had everything she could possibly need. Wanting anything more wasn’t just greedy, it was downright selfish.

Unfortunately, all the self assurances in the world couldn’t make Applejack feel anything but distinctly south of fine. So what if she said she’d come by the farm and then didn’t, she tried to tell herself. She probably got held up with some important… Something. Applejack couldn’t honestly come up with a reasonable explanation. Pinkie’d said she’d come by; She’d specifically requested that Applejack let her be the one to come see her. Why would she not follow up on it, then? Applejack groaned. She didn’t want to be angry, but being angry was easier than admitting to herself that she was hurting. A lot easier, in fact.

It wasn’t fair to take that anger out on Rainbow, though. An entire afternoon of kicking trees had been fairly therapeutic, giving her ample opportunity to work out her frustrations, even if she’d overdone it on a few. She knew she owed Rainbow an apology, and fully intended to make good on that debt when next she saw her.

The blue sky over Sweet Apple Acres was beginning to turn gold as the sun reached the tops of the trees over the West Orchard when Applejack decided to take her apple cart in for the day. Just as she finished putting the apples into barrels for storage and turned to look back at the sunset, she saw Rainbow’s unmistakable contrail quickly approaching. Quickly descending.

Too quickly.

“Look out below!” Applejack barely had time to dive out of the way as Rainbow zoomed past her, through the open barn door, and directly into the neatly stacked apple barrels, slamming into them like a bowling ball and spilling their contents across the barn floor. Applejack stared wide eyed for a moment and then shook her head.

“Consarn it, RD, I just finished puttin’ all those away!” Applejack scowled, watching Rainbow’s eyes roll in their sockets as she slumped, upside down, against an overturned barrel.

When Rainbow’s eyes finally refocused, she giggled slightly. “Oops. Sorry.” Rainbow righted herself and shook her head. “I’ll help you clean it up.”

Applejack watched Rainbow start to pick up the apples and sighed, remembering her earlier intent to apologize. “Thanks Rainbow. I’m sorry I was so cross with you earlier, by the way. ‘T’ain’t right to take out my problems on you.”

“No worries, AJ.” Rainbow brushed it off. “I was serious when I said you could talk to me about it though. I know I’m not a therapizer or something, but…”

Applejack grimaced. “Ya mean therapist?”

“Yeah, I’m not one of those, but I am your friend.”

Applejack looked down at her hoof as she rolled it against the ground. “I know. I do appreciate that Rainbow, but I’m just not sure I wanna talk about it.” To be fair, that much was true. Applejack could just see Rainbow’s reaction if she told her how Pinkie’s deflecting was getting to her. She’d laugh and call her silly for getting upset about something so, as she would put it, ‘mushy’. Even if she didn’t laugh at her, Rainbow was such a hothead that she might run off and take matters into her own hooves, and there was no way that could lead to anything good. No, she definitely couldn’t tell Rainbow what happened.

It was then Rainbow came across the red and white striped box and picked it up with a wing. “Oh yeah, Pinkie gave me this for you. Said you forgot it yesterday.” She offered the box to Applejack, who took it and stared at it.

“Oh… Plum forgot about this. Thanks, RD.” Applejack wasn’t sure what to do with it but stare silently as she mulled over her thoughts on the last 24 hours.

“Yeah, and she said she’s gonna have a party tomorrow night at 6, asked me to pass along the invitation.”

That was weird. Pinkie never delegated her invitations. Usually she made a spectacle out of them nearly as big as the parties themselves. Applejack felt something drop in her stomach. Was Pinkie really avoiding her? But if she was avoiding her, why invite her, albeit by proxy, to a party? Applejack would have pondered the pink mare’s motivations further, but found it too jarring to make any sense out of them. “Yeah… Sure. I’ll be there.” Applejack said, her voice sounding far away even to herself.

After about a minute of silence, Rainbow spoke up. “So… Did you chicken out?”

“What?” Applejack finally looked up to see Rainbow had already collected all the apples and righted the barrels.

“I mean, is that why you were so upset this morning?” Rainbow was looking right into her eyes. Applejack knew there was no way she could get away with lying to her face, but she distinctly didn’t want to admit the truth. Since it was apparent that Rainbow didn’t know what happened, there wasn’t any harm in letting her think she was right.

Applejack turned around, sat down and chuckled as her nose scrunched up. “Yeah, something like that.” Please don’t question it, please don’t question it, please don’t question it…

A few moments later she felt a wing drape across her back and turned her head to see Rainbow next to her, smiling. “It’s alright AJ, you can always try again tomorrow at the party, right?”

Applejack nodded, unable to tell if her muzzle had unscrunched in time. Rainbow didn’t seem to notice, though, so she let out a sigh of relief. “Right. The party. Okay.”

“Anyway, I kinda gotta jet, there’s supposed to be a few light showers overnight, so I’m on the graveyard shift tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow at the party.” Rainbow put out a forehoof, which Applejack quickly bumped with her own.

“See you tomorrow, Rainbow.”

Rainbow Dash flew out of the barn and into the sky.

The nausea Applejack had been suppressing all afternoon immediately returned as she slowly made her way to the farm house. Maybe I’ll feel better after dinner… She thought as she pushed the front door open and headed for the kitchen.