Chapter 126

“What do you mean? How much faster can you go?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I’ve never actually tried to go as fast as I can, so I don’t really know how fast that is. It… kiiiinda gets to a point where everything’s happening so fast I can’t react quick enough.”

“Hmm…” I glanced to my right at Rarity and Fluttershy, rubbing my chin.

They watched me curiously, no doubt wondering what I was thinking.

“Is that why you attacked me the way you did that first night?” I asked, turning back to Dash. “When you were basically just shoulder-checking me really hard?”

“Ehh… yeah. I kinda use myself as a cannonball, I guess. It put you on your ass, didn’t it?” she gloated, adding a smart little smirk.

I rolled my head around in a circle and then sighed. “It packed a punch, I’ll give you that; but it was also predictable as hell, which why you ended up on your ass not long after.”

Applejack adjusted her hat and chucked. “Heh-heh! He’s gotcha there!” she teased, to which Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

It was the wee hours of Tuesday morning, the 7th of February. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and I were gathered in the Riverfield for training, spending some time exploring the rainbow-haired girl’s magic. The sky was clear yet again; it had been a lucky streak of good weather during recent weeks, which was favorable to teach in—especially with a new recruit.

“So what, like… basically, when you go too fast you can’t see what’s happening?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nah. If I ran as fast as I think I can through town, I’d be bumping into all kinds of shit cuz I wouldn’t be able to see it coming.” She gave her shoulders a shrug. “There’d be no time to react, and I’d probably kill a shit-ton of people, too.”

“Hm…” I pursed my lips and stepped past her with my hands on my hips, pondering for a moment as I stared down at the moonlit grass. “That doesn’t really make sense.” I pointed to Fluttershy and Rarity, who were standing hand-in-hand, close to where I had been. “I mean, each of you have certain ‘rules’ to your magic, rules that you had to learn, that govern your limitations. Rules that, once you learn them —as well as how to break them— also let you take full advantage of your abilities.” I faced Dash again. “But you… not being able to use yours to its fullest seems like a contradiction. I don’t get it.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I dunno what to tell ya.”

“Well, I might point out, darling, that we have this massive, open field all to ourselves for a reason,” Rarity pointed out, gesturing around the place.

“That’s right,” I agreed, facing Dash again. “Why don’t you take a run around the tree line?” I swung a finger around the perimeter of the field as I spoke. “Let’s see how fast you can go.”

Dash took a tentative glance at the trees. “Ehh… I dunno.”

“Aw, c’mon, sugarcube! Ya got all the space in the world out here; no one’s gonna see ya fuck it up,” AJ chuckled, adjusting her hat again.

I nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Just take a loop around the edge and then come back along the river,” I said as I traced an imaginary path with my finger. “Show us what you got.”

Rainbow Dash sighed and looked to Fluttershy, who gave her a reassuring smile. She shut her eyes and shook her head. “Ugh… fine!” she growled.

“A’right! Giddy-up, partner!” AJ rubbed her hands together, eager to see what was going to happen.

“Where do I start? Right here?” Dash asked as she leaned forward, planting her toes in the ground, readying herself for takeoff.

“Whatever you want,” I replied.

“OK. OK.” She cleared her throat and let a few breaths puff through her lips. Then she took off like a shot, her path indicated by a five-foot-tall strip of colour.

It was fast, as always. We watched as the bright ribbon streaked toward the edge of the field, following its curve. It was quite obvious when she turned up the wick: the rainbow trail became significantly brighter and an audible whoosh became evident, but before we knew it, she peeled off into the woods, making a series of chopping sounds as she zipped through the dead weeds and low-hanging branches, ending with a heavy thud that shook the top of a tree roughly thirty feet in.

All four of us cringed.

“Dang…” AJ said, removing her hat to scratch her head. “Well, that sucked.”

“Oh dear…” Fluttershy strode forward suddenly, placing her hands to the sides of her mouth. “Um, excuse me, woodland creatures?” she announced, her voice barely audible even from a few feet away. “Um… my friend is practicing going really fast; I’m sorry to bother you all, but I think maybe you should find another place for tonight… for your own safety. Please and thank you—and, um… sorry.”

I glanced at Rarity and then Applejack when I realised what the shy girl was doing. “How can they even hear her?”

AJ shrugged and chuckled quietly.

Rarity rolled her eyes, smirking. “It’s Fluttershy, darling. There is simply no need to question it.”

Fluttershy was coming back by then, hands folded in front of herself with a satisfied smile on her face.

“Happy now?”

She nodded. “Mm-hm.”

Rainbow Dash had emerged from the trees in the meantime, picking twigs and dried leaves from her hair.

I threw my hands in the air and shouted in reply to the inaudible grumbling that drifted across the grass toward us. “HEY! WHAT WAS THAT?”

She paused for a moment and looked our way, her expression obscured by the distance and the darkness. ”UUHH, WELL, I THINK THAT WAS A FUCK YOU!”

Applejack snorted.

“Grace under fire, as always,” Rarity commented, inspecting her nails in the moonlight.

I chuckled and patted the fashionista’s shoulder, drawing a smirk from her. “HEY, DASHIE! YOU KNOW A TREE LINE IS THE EDGE OF THE WOODS, RIGHT? IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU MAKE A LINE THROUGH THE TREES!”

“I KNOW THAT! I WAS GOING TOO FAST! I CAN’T GO IN A CURVE LIKE THAT; I STARTED SKIDDING SIDEWAYS WHEN I SPED UP AND THE NEXT THING I KNEW I WAS KISSING WOOD!”

“Heh-heh!” Applejack chuckled as she put her hand next to her mouth to shout. “Y’ALL KNOW ‘BOUT KISSIN WOOD, DON’T YA, DASH?”

“OH, YOU MEAN LIKE HOW YOU KISSED THAT REDWOOD THAT YOU FOUND IN YOUR BROTHER’S BEDROOM THAT ONE NIGHT?”

AJ froze, then a scowl appeared on her brow. “God dang it,” she whispered. “’EY! I THOUGHT I TOLD YA TA LAY OFF WITH THAT INCEST SHIT!”

“YOU STARTED IT!”

I stood nearby, pinching the bridge of my nose. “OK!” I shouted, raising my hand. “YOU TWO SHUT UP! I DECIDE WHO KISSES THE WOOD AROUND HERE! GOT IT?”

Rarity rubbed her face and huffed. “Well, this session certainly has gone off the rails, hasn’t it?”

Fluttershy giggled. Her timing couldn’t have been more awkward, yet hilarious.

“OK… SO WHAT AM I DOING THEN?”

I scanned the moonlit field as I ruminated, running my tongue along the inside of my teeth. Then I faced the little blue spec next to the tree line and pointed at the river. “OK, JUST… GO ALONG THE RIVER; IT LOOKS PRETTY STRAIGHT.”

A pause, then Dash put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She said something in reply, but it was too quiet for any of us to hear it. She shook her herself off and kicked her feet, then she got into position, ready for another sprint.

And sprint, she did; a strip of colour sliced through the dark field like a razor, brightening after passing the halfway mark, its speed increasing exponentially.

Then it stopped.

The four of us stood there, watching Rainbow Dash, who’d stopped more than a quarter of the way from the opposite tree line.

“What happened?” I asked, not having to shout so loud since she was a fair bit closer. “Why’d you stop?”

Dash scratched her head. “I… I didn’t mean to! I was trying not to run into the trees again, but I was going too fast; it’s hard to tell when they’re coming.”

I glanced at AJ, who was chewing her bottom lip, thinking.

“You want me to try again?” Dash asked.

“Was that as fast as you can go?”

“No.”

I swung my arm and pointed to the other end of the river where she’d started. “Then go again! We’re not leaving here tonight until I see your top speed.”

“Ugh.” Dash took a deep breath and got into position again.

She took off, her spectrum-coloured trail beaming right from its starting point. In an instant, she disappeared into the woods at the far end, her sprint ending with a cacophony of rustling leaves and snapping wood.

“Whoop, she’s in the woods again,” AJ said.

Rarity sighed. “Oh dear. That’ll do nothing for her mood, I’m sure.”

Moments later, Rainbow Dash emerged from the trees once again, picking sticks and leaves out of her hair. Again.

“LET ME GUESS,” I shouted. “YOU OVERSHOT IT?”

“GEE, HOW’D YOU GUESS?” Dash gestured to the forest behind her. “IT’S TOO FAST! I CAN’T TELL WHEN THEY’RE COMING UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE; THAT THING THEY DID WITH THE MILLENIUM FALCON IN ‘THE FORCE AWAKENS’ IS BULLSHIT!”

“YEAH, NO SHIT, DASH!” Applejack shook her head and then faced me. “I been sayin that all along, and now she listens ta me,” she said quietly so Dash wouldn’t hear.

“Um… I don’t think the field is big enough for this, Goldie,” Fluttershy interjected. “Maybe we need to find a long road or something like that.”

I drew a breath, watching as the girl in the distance picked a few more pieces of brush from her hair. “Ehh… I dunno, Flutters.”

“We would have to find something very long and straight,” Rarity asserted. “And it would have to be deserted; if someone were to see us, or, heaven forbid, if she ran into someone, it could be disastrous.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, exhaling through my lips with puffed cheeks. “Yeah, that’s kinda what I’m worried about. I don’t know if it’s worth the risk. At least out here, we know we have privacy, you know?”

Fluttershy folded her hands and toed the ground, her face showing red even in the dark. “I-it was just a suggestion. We d-don’t have to—“

“It’s alright, darling,” Rarity cut in, stepping closer to wrap an arm around her girlfriend. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. T’was a fine idea; it just puts us at risk of exposure, that’s all.”

“And it doesn’t mean we can’t at least look,” I said, prompting the shy girl to look up at me as a pair of frosty-white lips planted themselves on her cheek.

Dash’s voice rang out in the distance. “UH… SO WHAT ARE WE DOING?”

I stepped past Fluttershy and Rarity, pointing at the far end of the river while facing Dash. “AGAIN!”

I could just make out Dash covering her face in the distance. “UUUUGH! WHY? THIS SUCKS, GOLDS! THERE’S NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR THIS!”

I nodded and looked down at the grass. “I KNOW, I KNOW. TELL YOU WHAT: WE’RE GONNA TRY TO FIND A LONG ROAD OR SOMETHING FOR YOU TO USE. BUT FOR TONIGHT, THIS’LL HAVE TO DO, OK?” I held a hand out, gesturing to her position. “YOU’RE ALREADY STANDING AT THE FAR END; JUST GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY. AND I WANNA SEE YOU GO AS FAST AS YOU CAN THIS TIME. CRASH INTO THE WOODS IF YOU HAVE TO. IT’S NOT GONNA HURT YOU!”

Dash let her head fall back, her mouth hanging open as she stared into the sky. Then, after a moment, she looked at me again. ”FINE! BUT YOU GOTTA GIVE ME SOME MONEY FOR SOMETHING FOR THIS.”

“HE GAVE YA A FREE CAR. RUN, BITCH!” AJ yelled with her hands cupped around her mouth.

Dash paced around for a moment as some barely-audible grumblings floated across the grass toward us. Finally, she faced the far end of the river and dug her feet in to ready herself.

Then, Rainbow Dash took off like a shot, much faster than before. What the four of us witnessed this time was a streak of colour that zipped about a halfway along the river; then, right in front of our position, there was a bright flash that illuminated the entire field, followed by what sounded like the sharp crack of lightning.

This was the fastest the rainbow-haired girl had ever gone—by a significant margin. She knew damn well that, within the next instant, she would have a face full of sticks and dead leaves again, but she knew she needed to show the others what she was made of. Rainbow Dash does not disappoint, and no one ever called her a bitch without having to eat their words soon after.

This time, however, something happened. The instant after she launched, Dash expected to feel the whipping of branches on her face, or her body bouncing off of an unmoveable tree trunk.

This didn’t happen though.

Instead, there was a bright flash, and everything suddenly stopped.

There was nothing but total silence, save for Dash’s own breathing and the slapping of her shoes along the dried mud that lined the river’s edge. She was still running, but was no longer enhanced by her magic; only the power of her muscles propelled her now.

She slowed her pace to a jog, looking down at her legs. What the...? Why’d it stop? She looked forward and gritted her teeth, determined to re-activate her magic. Pushing to her very limits, she charged forward, her feet slamming along the ground as she went.

But that was all she could muster. Why isn’t it working anymore? Rainbow Dash became flustered, watching her feet after slowing to a jog once again. She glanced over at the others, who were all standing still, their faces blank. She closed her eyes and shook her head, her heart thumping in her chest as the anxiety began to boil; her power was lost, and the others couldn’t have looked more disappointed.

Ugh… great, she thought, looking up to the sky as she ran, desperate for her speed to kick in again, but it was an act of futility. Way to go, Rainbow Dash. You broke your magic—in front of everyone, too! Feeling a knot begin to form in her chest, she surrendered her resolve and veered to the left, away from the river to jog back to the group.

She kept her eyes down, unable to summon the nerve to look up at her friends. Through the tall, dried grass she tromped, approaching them with utter reluctance, embarrassed that her powers had konked-out and that she didn’t understand why.

“Ehh, I… Sorry, guys. I don’t know what happ—“

The sentence came to a halt when she glanced up and noticed something peculiar: the others weren’t looking at her; rather, they were still looking toward the waterfall, close to where she’d started out. That was when she noticed something even more peculiar: the waterfall wasn’t falling.

Rainbow Dash blinked and then rubbed her eyes. She squinted and looked again, focusing closely on the suspended sheets and droplets of liquid, sparkling in the moonlight like a curtain of diamonds—thousands upon thousands of them.

Maybe it was a trick; Rarity could create diamonds. Yes, that must have been it.

With a sly smirk, Dash turned to face the fashionista, ready to call her out on the prank, but she stopped when she noticed the look of indifference on everyone’s faces—and not only that, Rarity’s eyes were mostly closed.

The athlete sneered. “What the hell are you guys doi—“

She stopped when she noticed Rarity’s eyelids moving downward, very, very slowly. Rainbow Dash froze when she saw it; she gasped deeply, her eyes widening as the realisation set in: Rarity was blinking.

Time had apparently slowed to a near standstill, but not for Rainbow Dash. She was still moving about normally.

“Holy crap,” she whispered, a whisper that was nearly deafening in the cavernous silence that surrounded her. The sound of her breath echoing across the field caught her off guard, and she slowly turned back to study the still waterfall.

That was why the absence of sound was so overbearing: nothing was happening, at least not at a perceptible speed. This left Rainbow Dash’s world completely devoid of the white noise that is ordinary life.

Dash stared at the suspended water, her hand pressed to her forehead as the revelation continued to sink in. Then she combed her fingers into her hair and pulled on her bangs, her excitement rising along with her breathing as she began to giggle with wonder, and she took off through the grass, away from her friends to have a closer look at the waterfall.

It felt strange not having her magic kick-in. She’d grown accustomed to it over the years and not feeling that burst of speed at her toes was disorienting. She nearly tripped because of it, but was quick to regain her footing, having to remind herself intellectually that she already was travelling at tremendous speed—possibly even beyond that of light.

Or maybe it was a manipulation of time? Perhaps that made more sense than her perception simply speeding up. Rainbow Dash did not know, either way; she wasn’t that type of thinker. This would be a better question for Twilight.

As she sprinted along, Dash glanced up at the moon, wondering how long a single day would take to pass by in this state when something dark passed in front of the pale satellite, causing her to grind to a stop. Curious, she backed up several steps to search the sky for whatever had caused the eclipse.

She found it before long; the light illuminating its fur and glowing through its leathery wings made it easy to spot: a bat, suspended in flight, its wings locked in mid-flap. Dash’s mouth hung open as she gazed up at the floating spectre, her eyes widening with delight.

Rainbow Dash laughed out loud, her voice shattering the permanent quietude once again as she leaned back and to the side, lining the animal up with the moon to see how much it would look like the Bat Signal. It didn’t, really, but she was still ecstatic over her newfound abilities and promptly resumed her trip to the river.

“Hahaha, awesome!” she laughed to herself as she approached a particularly tall tuft of grass, through which she swiped her fingers as she passed. “This… is… SO… coo—“

She stopped suddenly. Another peculiarity had caught her attention: the grass. Rather than feeling the tough, dried-out stalks slip through her fingers like she expected, the sensation was more like passing one’s hand through a spider web, or stretched-out cotton candy.

Intrigued by this, Dash leaned down, squinting her eyes to focus in the moonlight as she studied the tall weeds that she’d passed her hand through seconds earlier—microseconds, to be exact.

What she saw amazed her.

There was a gap in the stalks; a clean sweep where her hand had passed through, and the tops were still floating above. Air filled her lungs —with some delay— when she realised what’d happened: she was moving fast, so fast that her hand had cut the grass clean off, and the tips hadn’t yet fallen.

What a weapon this could turn out to be! What else could she go through? Could she punch through steel?

Rainbow Dash continued on to the riverbed in search of something to test her theory on. She was immediately distracted when she reached the edge, however, by the water, its flow locked in place. The image differed from that of ice, which is often porous and white; this water was clear as glass, and the moonlight shone directly through it, illuminating every pebble and every creature that assumed was hidden below those flowing depths.

Dash’s mind was numb by this point, her sense of what the reality of physics had always been completely shattered. Something in the middle of the river caught her eye, though, and brought her back to the moment.

A pair of rocks sat there, parting the flow of the river; the water gushed around them, but was captured in a still-frame of the moment.

She could test her strength on this.

Dash looked down at the water at her feet. It was perfectly still, but was it solid? It certainly looked solid, but in reality she knew it was nothing more than thin fluid.

Was that still true?

Tentatively, Rainbow Dash reached out with her toe and let it touch the surface, testing its structure. She felt resistance; while not solid, it was quite firm. Seconds later, however, she could feel the support beneath her toe waning.

She was sinking. It was a liquid still, but the microscopic amount of time used to take a step was much too brief to allow it to give way, which meant it must have been possible to walk on it.

Rainbow Dash didn’t think on this for long. After a quick breath, she decided to throw caution to the wind, and across the water she went. The surface felt soft and smooth; not level by any means, but certainly slick to the touch, which made her steps very cautious as she didn’t want her feet to slip out from under her.

She perched herself on the smaller rock once she’d reached it, standing up straight and rubbing her hands together as she looked down at the larger rock, sizing it up.

“OK, Rainbow Dash,” she said aloud, “let’s see what you got!”

With that, she wound her fist above her head and brought it down like a hammer, dropping to one knee to amplify the blow. Her knuckles collided with the stone’s flat surface and stopped dead, the strike punctuated by a dull thud.

Withdrawing her hand immediately, Dash shook it and grimaced hard. It didn’t hurt, obviously —having Golds’ power made certain of that— but every bone in her arm buzzed, vibrating like a bell that’d been struck at midnight.

“Hooooooo… that feels weird,” she groaned, looking down at her hand before clenching it into a fist. She glanced at the rock again, noticing a faint mark left behind on its surface. Obviously, despite its real-time speed and momentum, the strike lacked significant weight or power. “Huh. I guess the big hits are still AJ’s thing,” she muttered to herself, slightly disappointed by the result. Still, the grass had been sliced off quite easily, and therefore it was easy to assume that a human body would be dealt a great deal of damage by an attack like this.

After a quick glance at the waterfall, Dash stepped off of the stone and walked calmly along the river, making her way to the curtain of glimmering droplets that hung before the jagged stone cliff hidden beyond.

She waded through the cold mist and stood close the shimmering wall of water, studying each drop, even touching a few of them, all of which shattered against her skin when she did. As captivating as the sight was, Dash found herself becoming frustrated by having to step in place repeatedly to keep her footing; standing still would cause her feet to sink into the water like quicksand, so she turned and made her way back to solid ground before her clothes got too wet for comfort.

She trudged back to the group, glancing up at the bat again as she passed under it, noting that its wings were now extended downward, ready to be brought back up for the next flap.

As Rainbow Dash approached the group, she watched their eyes to observe their stillness, their inability to see these infinitesimally tiny events taking place as they stood there like statues, unaware of what the rainbow-haired girl was doing with her new discovery—which she was eager to show off.

But Dash was still Dash, and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a little retribution…

Only a second after Dash’s streak had ended with that flash, there was another flash behind me to my left. Then Applejack was suddenly struck from behind by an unknown force. Knocked from under her hat, she toppled forward and skidded face-first along the ground before coming to a stop several feet ahead of us.

The screechy laughter of Rainbow Dash rang out from behind us, prompting us to take our eyes from the downed farmer to find Dash clutching her stomach with laughter.

Perplexed, I spun around to glance at Rarity and Fluttershy —who looked just as confused as I was— before looking back at the athlete again. “Whoa! Did you just teleport? How’d you do that!?”

“Psshh! Nah, man!” She waved me off. “I’ve been running around this place for like the last five minutes!”

“Pfft! What in tarnation!?” AJ growled and spat as she lifted herself and looked back at Rainbow Dash, her clothes, face and hair mashed full of dirt. “PPFFFT! Dick move! What in the hell was that fer?”

Rainbow Dash pointed and laughed. “Hahaha! Look at you! HAHAHA! I got you good! Call me a bitch again, AJ; I dare you!”

Applejack groaned and shook more dirt from her head as she brought herself to her feet, brushing herself off.

I raised a hand and closed my eyes, trying to understand what’d just happened. “Wait, wait, wait… what the hell, Dashie? What d’you mean ‘you’ve been running around here for five minutes?’”

Dash threw her hands in the air, her face overflowing with excitement. “Dude! I totally slipped into some other time zone… or something… but anyway, everything was moving super slow, like basically frozen still, and I was still moving around like normal. It was AWESOME! You guys were just staring off into space with that ‘Captain Marvel’ look on your faces, and there was a bat floating in the air…” She paused abruptly to stare at the waterfall, as if the sound of it was something new to her. Then she brought her arm up to gesture at it. “Even the waterfall was stuck there; it was like a bunch of jewels floating in space or something—I dunno, but it was so cool! I was running around, cutting things up just by touching them, and I was running on the water, and I—“

“I’m sorry, I beg your pardon, darling,” Rarity cut in, hand raised. “You did all that… just now?”

Dash nodded quickly. “Yeah!” She paused suddenly, curious. “Wait, how long was I actually gone for?”

The rest of us glanced at one another.

“Uh… like a second?—if that.” I replied, pointing to the edge of the river where she’d disappeared. “You were going across there, and there was this big flash and then you appeared behind AJ and knocked her down. Just like that,” I snapped my finger on the last word.

“Fer NO reason!” the farm girl added angrily.

Dash laughed at AJ’s expense. “HAHA! I totally got you! It was hilarious!”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Maybe fer you. Don’t worry; what goes around, comes around.”

“HA! You gotta catch me first!” the rainbow-haired girl chuckled as she leaned closer to me and gave my arm a nudge. “Am I right, Golds?”

I gave her a smirk. “I guess so!”

*****

It was close to morning, and we were back at Fluttershy’s house. Everyone, with the exception of Applejack, was seated on the couch, discussing Dash’s new discovery, which she was extremely excited about and was eager to learn to use more fluidly. Apparently, repeatability was something of an issue when trying to reactivate it.

I had to leave the conversation, however, when Dash, in her excitement, was bouncing on the couch and caused me to spill half a cup of coffee on my lap. After cussing Dash out in a different language and then chugging the second half, I headed to Fluttershy’s bedroom to change my pants and check on AJ’s clothes, with had been washed and were now in the dryer.

Applejack herself was using the shower after being unable to brush the mashed-in dirt from her hair. Her clothes were still damp, so I closed the dryer and pushed the button to restart it. It was then that I noticed the shower had stopped, and the sound of the curtain being pulled back could be heard.

Thinking little of it, I turned to leave the room, but stopped when I patted my pockets and realised I didn’t have my phone. “Shit.” I turned back to pick the coffee-soaked jeans up to search their pockets. Just as I found my phone and pulled it out to check for messages, I heard AJ’s voice, muffled inside the bathroom.

“Shucks… no dang towels in here,” she muttered aloud.

Then the doorknob turned, prompting me to spin around and warn her that I was in the next room. “Wait, I’m in here!” I shouted as I spun around to face the door.

It was too late though; she’d already swung it open, revealing her water-beaded, freckled and tan-lined figure. “Jeez!” she barked when she realised I was there, and she quickly reached out to yank the door closed. The knob snapped off in her hand, however, causing the door to bounce off the jamb, the latch rendered useless. It swung open again, slowly, revealing her a second time, standing there with wide eyes, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

When she found herself in full view again, Applejack dropped the broken knob to the floor and folded her arms to hide her breasts, pinning her thighs together to hide her nethers—which really didn’t work all that well.

I held my hand out to gesture at the damage. “Dammit, AJ! You broke Flutters’ door! I thought you had that shit under control?”

“I-I do!” AJ stuttered as she adjusted her arms, which unintentionally created very pronounced cleavage. “I mean… usually I do; I… kinda panicked there, just now.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead, then I slipped my phone into my pocket. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s a pretty easy fix.” I shook my head. “Sorry I was in here; I was just changing my pants,” which were a little tighter than usual.

“Oh... it’s fine, I… I shouldn’a been bargin out here like that anyway.” She chewed her lip for a second before speaking up again. “Do ya... think I could get one a’ them fresh towels from over there?” she asked sheepishly, nodding to the basket that sat next to the dryer.

The question reminded me of her nudity, which placed a subconscious need on me to look at her again. “Uh… sure,” I said absentmindedly as I stepped closer to the basket of towels.

I didn’t get one step before something caught my eye, though, causing me to stop. Something was different about her.

“Uh… Golds? D’ya think ya could pick up the pace a little?”

Her words went in one ear and out the other, and I continued to stare at her naked mound.

Exasperated, Applejack’s eyes rose to the ceiling as she shook her head and huffed. “D’ya think ya could be any more obvious ‘bout starin at my cooter!?”

The nails in her voice caught my attention, and I met eyes with her again. “S— … sorry, I… what…” I paused again as my eyes dropped back down to her crotch. “What happened to your bush?”

“Mah—“ She looked down at herself, then back at me again. “Oh… that? Uh, well… funny story…”

“You trimmed it?”

She stared blankly, unprepared for my candidness. “Yeah.”

Indeed, her pubic hair had been groomed—somehow. It had been trimmed fairly short, with its edges brought inward to a trapezoid-shaped block just above her slit, with the wider end at the top. Everything else was bare, including her labia, which were decorated by a smattering of light freckles.

I shook my head and frowned. “How? You can’t… like… once you turn, you can’t do any of that stuff. You can’t cut your nails or any of those things.”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“So... how’d you do it?”

“Well…” She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “It was b’fore I turned.”

Brows furrowed, I blinked a few times. “But… when we did it… like, at the shop, it wasn’t like this; it looked like you had an orange tabby fuckin curled up in your lap.”

AJ rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. It was big. I get it.” She paused to look down at herself once more. Then she sighed and, to my surprise, unfolded her arms to place her hands on her hips, apparently deciding that trying to hide only her breasts was pointless. “It was after that, when I came back here fer dinner and Fluttershy was fixin that cut on my arm,” she explained. “When I told her what’d happened, well, she was excited at first, but then all the sudden she got all serious and started askin me ‘bout my armpits n’ stuff likes that; said I should shave ‘em before I turn so I wouldn’t be stuck like that ferever, which I guess kinda made sense. But then she asked me about… that…” —she pointed at her crotch when she said this— “and started tellin me I should do somethin with it —which I thought was kinda weird, but anyway— she makes me show it to her and then she gets the trimmer and razors out ta start cuttin it herself, and I’s like: ‘ey, the fuck’re ya doin!?’”

I rubbed my forehead as I listened to her story, chuckling silently to myself. Oohhh my god, Flutters…

“So, I… I went at it myself while she watched,” AJ continued. “Seemed like a weird thing ta worry about at the time, what with bein about ta turn inta some kinda god er whatever, but Fluttershy had a good point, I guess. The problem was… I never done it before, so… it got kinda screwed up.”

“Screwed up? It looks fine to me.”

“I…” She looked down at it again. “I didn’t actually mean ta make it this small, but I kept gettin the edges all crooked, so I had ta keep fixin it and it got smaller and smaller… not ta mention my arm was hurtin like hell.”

“Why didn’t you just take it right off?”

AJ sneered. “Nah. I didn’t like that idea. I didn’t wanna look like a eight-year-old.”

“You wouldn’t have, but fair enough.”

I stroked my lip and watched as the farm girl talked. I always enjoyed seeing a beautiful woman in her most natural state, and as Applejack became more relaxed, she became more and more appealing to the eye. The way her wet skin glistened was quite enticing, especially when a drop of water would run down her abs or drip from her nose —or her nipples— and how her hair was stuck to the side of her face and shoulders, drawing the eye to her features, especially those innocent-looking freckles.

Seeing her from several feet away made her breasts look smaller than I remembered, but they were still lovely to behold; she was tall, with a strong, chiseled upper body, and that bust suited her well by not being too overbearing. They kept the eye on what made her build unique, while still being beautiful on their own with a neat, round shape, and by sitting proudly at a nice height on her chest.

I’d found myself captivated by how they bounced when she moved her arms around to emphasize what she was saying; this was when I remembered that she was actually saying something, and I brought my mind back to reality and locked my attention onto those green emeralds of hers.

“…such a pain in the ass gettin all a’ them little strays from ‘round my camel toe.”

The statement made my eyes dart downward to steal another glance at those smooth lips, pinched together between her thighs. Then, after a little boost of will-power, I looked her in the face again. “Uh… oh, yeah, well, you did fine. It looks great.”

Applejack froze. Her eyes darted back and forth, and her mouth began to make tentative movements to speak, but she seemed to be having trouble finding the words she was looking for. “I… uh… hmm.” Her gaze dropped once more, and she brought her hand up to place it on her hip. She shifted her weight onto that leg, letting her hips swing to the side to strike a pose far sexier than I thought AJ could ever pull off. “Y— … ya like it?” she asked, cocking her head.

My pants got tighter. Fast. “Um… uh, well I-I don’t not like it,” I said, my voice cracking like a thirteen year old’s.

AJ kept her eyes locked on me as she slowly bit her lower lip, then she ran the fingertips of her other hand down her chest, between her breasts and then down her midsection.

I felt a tingle erupt in my loins when I saw this. If it hadn’t been for my fear of the structural safety of Fluttershy’s house, I wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation of walking right up to her, lifting her off her feet and plunging deep into that well-groomed slit. I’d already witnessed her busting a knob off in her hand; I’d have had no problem letting her bust my knob off in her—

“Oh, darlings? Is everything alright back there?”

The sound of Rarity’s voice from the front room frightened AJ out of the pose and she stood straight, folding her arms below her bust.

“Uh, yeah. We’re just chatting,” I replied, giving my head a shake to realign my thoughts. I then plucked a towel from the basket and then tossed it to her.

“Ah. Very well, then. Carry on.”

“Thanks, sugarcube,” she said quietly after she caught the towel and began to dry herself off.

I nodded and cleared my throat, watching her run that towel all over her skin for a moment before looking away. “So, uh... what do you think of Dashie’s new thing? Pretty crazy, eh?”

“Yeah, who’d a’ thought she could do that all this time and didn’t know it?” she replied, forcing a casual tone, her breasts dangling as she bent forward to dry her legs.

I took me a moment to gather a reply, as I was distracted yet again by the blonde’s figure. “Yeah. Um… all of you seem to have certain things about your magic that have yet to be uncovered... opened up, spread, and uh... probed… deeply, and repeatedly. Until I cum.”

“That sounds an awful lot like a sex analogy,” AJ said as she stood upright and wrapped her hair in the towel, her breasts perked up with her arms raised above her head. “’Specially that last part.”

I cleared my throat and furrowed my brows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Applejack rolled her eyes as she finished wrapping the towel around her head and then placing her hands on her hips, her figure now smooth and dry.

We stared at one another for a moment. Then I drew a breath and looked down at the floor. “Uh, anyway… yeah. Dashie. I wonder if she’ll be able to learn how to—“

BUZZ!

I glanced down and pulled my phone out to see who’d messaged me. “Oh… it’s Sunny.”

SUNSET: I found a lead. Just letting you know. Gonna go after it today. It’s out of town, wish me luck.

“Huh. She found a lead.”

“Well that’s good,” Applejack said as she stepped over to Fluttershy’s bed and flopped down onto her back. “Ya knew she would b’fore too long; hopefully she’ll find that sum’bitch sooner rather ‘n later.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at the farm girl.

AJ’s arms were behind her head, acting as a pillow as she stared at the ceiling, focused on nothing in particular—perhaps wondering what having their revenge was going to be like. Her breasts had flattened a bit, with nipples that pointed outward slightly, like little beacons to attract horny dudes like me. She’d laid on the bed on an angle, separating her knees to let them straddle the corner, her left calf hanging over the side, and her right over the foot.

This put her in a position where her thighs were parted a fair bit, showing off just how thorough a trim-job she did on her nethers; that little blonde patch sat nicely on her mound, just above her crease, which had opened up enough to let those ruffled, pink layers peek out.

My pants were literally throbbing by then. “So… AJ? Uh, did you, by chance, happen to drop your modesty in the grass when Dash hit you?”

Her eyes shifted from the ceiling to me. “No. Why?”

I stared at her for a moment. Then, saying nothing, I brought my eyes back to my phone to reply to Sunset.

After a pause, AJ spoke as I typed. “I reckon by that tent yer pitchin, yer fixin ta plant my south forty, ain’t ya?”

“Shh.”

ME: Be careful. And if you find this guy, DO NOT engage. Read him, learn all you can, find out where and when he’ll be so we can all pay him a visit together.

SUNSET: Got it.