"Apple Bloom," bellowed Applejack from the entryway. "Ya got a little suiter come callin'.

Apple Bloom's galloping hooffalls clattered to the upstairs landing where she peered down through the balusters. Rumble stood patiently in the open doorway, a camera hanging from his neck.

"Applejack," she hissed loudly enough for the both of them to hear. "That's Scootaloo's coltfriend!"

"Ah know," smirked Applejack, turning into the kitchen.

"I told her to say that," he snorted with a hoof over his mouth. "Well, not in those words exactly."

Apple Bloom hurried down the stairs to meet him but was confused when she saw no one else outside.

"Ready for the shoot?" he asked.

"Yeah." She stuck her head out the door and looked around on the porch. "Wait, where's Scootaloo?"

"She's sick. Remember? That's why she wasn't in school today."

"Oh, yeah," she mumbled, furrowing her brow. Was this okay, she wondered. Doing something alone with someone else's coltfriend seemed odd but it was for a school assignment and it wasn't like Scootaloo didn't know what they were doing.

"Hang on. Ah'll be right out." She turned back into the house. "Ah'm gonna go do mah photography assignment now, she yelled before thundering back up the stairs.

"Be back before dinner," grunted Applejack.

Apple Bloom promptly reappeared at the door with her camera and joined Rumble outside where they started off down the drive.

"So what was the place you were talkin' 'bout again?"

"Old sanitorium on the edge of town," replied Rumble with a gleam in his eye. "It's a lot closer to you than me."

"That sounds cool," she nodded.

The two wandered down the dirt path and into the woods along a seldom traveled road that was well on its way to being retaken by nature. Rumble hummed to himself, sometimes muttering song lyrics.

"Burn it up. Then run away. Fire is the way to play." They passed an old road sign that was cracked with peeling paint and now illegible. "It's the only thing out here I think," mused Rumble. "That's why the road's so bad. No reason to come out here since the place has been shuttered for decades."

They came to a large faded sign, covered with graffiti and marking the spot where the road changed to weed riddled cobblestone and beyond that stood the facility itself. They stopped at a chain link fence which wrapped around the property with a clear 'No trespassing' sign every few feet.

Apple Bloom looked up at the closest sign and then back at Rumble with a knowing smirk.

"Don't worry," he said. "No one comes out here at this time of day… I don't think."

"You been in here before?" she asked.

"Once. I didn't get to stay long though. This is a good excuse for a revisit."

Her eyes ran the length of the fence. "Well how do ya get in?"

Just fly over the fence," he replied, fluttering his wings.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. "And fer the flyin' impaired?"

"There's a hole. C'mon." He turned and lead her along the fence to a little gap just big enough for a foal their size to squeeze through.

They crossed the grounds of the facility's main entry. Looking at the plants and remnants of brickwork planters, it was easy to imagine it as an immaculately kept space once upon a time. Now the little square shaped gravel path beneath their hooves had lost its fidelity and was overrun with weeds and breached by tree roots. The bushes and flowers that had survived neglect now overflowed from their planters.

The building was two stories with a dome and a big covered porch in the front where patients used to sit in wheelchairs, Apple Bloom surmised. Granny should be at a place like this, she thought. But even if they could afford it, Applejack probably wouldn't hear of it, even drowning in the added stress and inconvenience of having Granny at the house.

"Photo op," blurted Rumble, scampering over to an old bench being strangled by vines.

"Hold on," she protested. "The pony takin' the picture is s'posed ta direct."

"Oh, that's right," he grumbled. "Well then, direct me."

"Well first, get yer camera outta the shot."

"Oh yeah. That would look stupid." The colt lurched to his hooves and quickly ditched his camera.

"Just sittin' on a bench is too obvious. Why don't ya lay on it face up."

Rumble shrugged and laid down amongst gnarled and naked vines.

Apple Bloom hopped up on a boulder that sat right next to where Rumble rested his head and she pointed the lens down at him. The old vines surrounding him gave her composition an intriguing texture.

"Ah got it," she exclaimed, wobbling up high on her hind legs, trying to pull back enough distance to fit all of him in the frame. Before zooming the lens out, she landed on his face, then followed his barrel down to his nethers and before she knew what she was doing, she snapped a photo.

"Whoops," she laughed nervously. "That one's an outtake."

Ya just took a picture of his crotch, Apple Bloom. Maybe try ta just focus on the assignment. She wound the film forward and swallowed, trying to compose the shot again but instead continued leering at Rumble's sheath through the viewfinder. Don't take another picture, she thought to herself. Don't take another picture. She pulled her hoof off the shutter button, imagining Scootaloo glaring daggers at her. But Ah want to.

"Uh… So what am I doing?" asked Rumble, confusedly.

"Oh, yeah," she replied, clearly her throat. "How about hind legs crossed, left hoof behind yer head, right hoof stretched out toward the camera and smile a little."

"Wow. I never would have thought of something like that. You're like, really good at this." He reached up to her with one hoof and, with a little less distraction, she finally took the picture.

They continued to the porch and Rumble pushed open the front door with a squeal. Stale air filled their nostrils as they entered a spacious foyer. They strode across a big pentagram painted on the worn wooden floor. Apple Bloom's brain vibrated in rapture at all the glorious ruin surrounding her that she'd suddenly developed a taste for. It was always surface level interesting to her but now it felt like seeing a good friend that she never wanted to leave.

"Know what this is called?" asked Rumble seemingly unable to turn off his smile.

"What?" she asked, unsure of what he was actually referring to.

"Urbex."

"Huh?"

"That's what Lens Flare told me. Urban exploration. It's when you explore abandoned places like this."

In the commons area, Rumble got Apple Bloom sitting backwards in a chair that they staged in a beam of light shining down at a slant from a hole in the rotunda ceiling.

"Put your forelegs over the backrest," ordered Rumble, adjusting his aperture to help make the most of the heavenly aura the light was giving her.

The filly slumped forward and dangled her legs over the rest.

"No. Up higher and crossed," he corrected.

She crossed her forelegs and paused, trying to decipher the full meaning in his vague instructions.

Rumble let his camera down to hang on his neck. "I'll just show you."

With little warning, he grabbed her hoof in his and she felt chills as her heart began to pound in her throat. He gingerly laid her foreleg down to hug the curvature of the top of the backrest. Then he took her other hoof and paused to think before laying it atop the other just so. He grabbed her head and tilted it softly till her cheek rested on her topmost foreleg. He was so gentle and slow… suspiciously slow.

"Wow. This is a really beautiful… picture of you," he declared before snapping the shutter.

After that, Apple Bloom took photos of Rumble posing valiantly in the gap of a broken railing above her. His wings were splayed out and he was backlit by dingy broken window panes. After the shot, he fluttered down beside her.

"It was a good idea to shoot here," said Apple Bloom, advancing her film. "We're gonna have the best portraits in class."

They ventured into a large kitchen. It was empty except for the ovens. The once white tiles which lined the whole room were now grimey and chipped. Many were missing, having shattered or fallen out, probably from vandalism.

"Oh, this is a good spot," gasped Apple Bloom. "Go get on the wall."

Rumble smiled and set his camera down.

"Okay, how 'bout a cool guy pose?" she suggested. "Stand against the wall on two legs."

The colt backed up to the tile and continued walking up it with his hind legs until he was doing a foreleg stand. "Like this? "he asked, smirking up at her.

"No," she laughed. "You know what Ah meant." She quickly snapped a picture of his tomfoolery before he gracelessly let himself slide back to the floor and stood up the correct way.

"Okay… Take two steps away from the corner."

Rumble shimmied to his left and rested his back against the wall.

"Now cross yer forelegs and look away from the camera. Look down and to the right. And definitely don't smile," she added, taking a light reading on his face.

He adopted a sullen, brooding pose.

"That's perfect."

"This is for my album cover," he grumbled in put on gruffness.

"What instrument do ya play?"

"Pan flute... Bass pan flute."

Apple Bloom snorted and took a picture with flash, the would be hotspots dulled by the dirty tiles. She took four more from varying angles.

"Ah think that's good," declared Apple Bloom, putting her lens cap back on.

"Okay, my turn," said Rumble, dropping to all fours. "Go to the corner."

Apple Bloom set her camera down. She approached the corner, fallen tiles clattering under her hooves.

Rumble tapped his chin. "Let's see. Sit on your haunches with your back in the corner. Tilt your head back and look down your muzzle at the camera like it just told you to fly over the fence."

Apple Bloom snuggled into the corner, intending to look relaxed but exuding a conceited air. She was watching Rumble stretch out flat on the floor to frame a low angle shot when inspiration suddenly hit her.

Ah know what this portrait needs, she thought. She shifted on the broken tiles beneath her, spreading her hind legs wide apart and tucking her forelegs into her barrel, all but framing her nether region for Rumble.

"Like this?"

Rumble's red face popped up from behind the camera at seeing the overtly provocative display and his partner's half-lidded come hither expression on top of it.

"Um…Uh, close," he coughed, trying to look away from the inviting eyeful but failing. "Try- try sitting more… naturally."

Just as quickly as the brazen thought came over Apple Bloom, her inner voice dumped cold water on it. Her face heated up in embarrassment and she quickly adopted a more closed, modest pose.

Somewhere at the crossroads or artistic vision and wanting to impress Rumble, things went very wrong. What was Ah thinkin'? Ah can't let him take a picture of me like that fer a whole lotta reasons. Ah hope he thinks it was an accident.

Since starting her photographic journey, her imagination was now suddenly reeling with creative ideas and they all seemed like perfection from conception but sometimes when she ran them by again just moments later, they struck her as foreign and obscene. And sometimes what started out as foreign and obscene to her, inexplicably became a comforting obsession.

"That's good," nodded Rumble, relieved that he didn't have to get specific about what was wrong with the previous pose. He snapped a few photos and they continued exploring.

"I think I only have one picture left," said Rumble looking down at his camera.

"Me too," replied Apple Bloom.

"I know," he began, framing her in his viewfinder. "You take a picture of me taking a picture of you taking a picture of me taking a picture of you."

"That's a good idea," laughed Apple Bloom.

The two focused their cameras on one another.

"On three," said Apple Bloom. One… Two… Three." Their shutters clicked in the mutual yet strangely parallel photographs. They sat down across from each other and began winding up their rolls.

Apple Bloom looked up at Rumble, risking eye contact and another silent spark with him. Another exhilarating but uncomfortable moment that would be all but impossible to dismiss and play off as innocent awkwardness. She deftly avoided his gaze as he looked up at her. She couldn't ignore it any longer. She liked him the same way that Scootaloo liked him. She didn't know what to do about it and what was worse was that it seemed Rumble felt the same way back.

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