For the next day and a half, Fluttershy found herself hoping the train ride would never end.

Not that she wanted anything bad to happen to the city of Vanhoover, of course: she'd never been there before and imagined it would be a very lovely place. But still, snuggling with Applejack that first morning aboard or sitting across from her in the dining car or beside her in the observation car, Fluttershy couldn't help wishing that the train might somehow get shunted onto a sidetrack and keep going around and around in circles through the beautiful forests for a few extra days or weeks.

She was fairly sure that wouldn't happen, though. Almost as sure as she was that things were going to get a lot less pleasant when they arrived in Vanhoover and went looking for Applejack's father...

So she did her best not to think about it, a skill she'd gotten quite good at over the years. And Applejack made it easy, especially when Fluttershy came awake that second morning to find Applejack watching her with a blush on her cheeks and her hat in her mouth. "Just wondering...," she mumbled around the hat's brim, her gaze darting up and down.

It took Fluttershy a few blinks to realize what Applejack was asking, and a cold dizziness washed over her. "You...you want me to wear your hat?"

"I..." Applejack set the hat down on the blankets between them. "I'm doing what'cha said, honeycomb, following my own advice and talking 'bout...'bout things I needs to talk about." She didn't seem able to hold her eyes still. "It's just, I really, really, really liked it when you...when we first got on the train and you...took charge." The tip of her tongue peeked from the corner of her mouth. "I'm asking if that might be something you'd like to try again. Just maybe not so—" She shivered. "Not so intense this time..."

Fluttershy shivered, too, so many things mixing around in her still-sleepy brain. "I...I don't really like being in charge," she whispered, focusing on the pine trees rushing past under the lovely spring morning outside the window since she didn't want to see Applejack looking disappointed.

"Oh, but honeycomb." A strong hoof gently stroked her mane. "You're so good at it."

"What??" That brought Fluttershy's attention back in a hurry. "How could you—? Why would you—? When have you ever seen me being good at being in charge??"

"Might be I mentioned two nights ago?" Applejack's smile made Fluttershy's face heat up. "Or might be you recall taking charge of a certain dragon and saving all of Equestria from a hunderd year smoke screen?"

Shifting under the blankets, Fluttershy wanted to look away, but Applejack's honest sincerity held her transfixed. "And ev'ry time I been to your cottage," Applejack was going on. "I mean, with all them critters tucked up inside that place, it oughtta be a howling, squeaking, squawking mess. But instead? What'cha got there is the peacefulest spot I ever seen. And you wanna know why?" Her hoof touched Fluttershy's chest. "'Cause all them animals loves you and trusts you and respects you. And they know if'n they got any problems with anything, you're the pony they needs to see, the pony who's got 'em covered, the pony in charge."

Quivering, Fluttershy could hardly breathe, and the longing in Applejack's eyes didn't help one bit. "Now, I loves you and trusts you and respects you just the same, but—" Her mouth tightened. "Could be you've noticed I'm a mite headstrong. And you, honeycomb, well, you ain't. So seems to me if'n we just let things take their natural course, we'll end up doing things I wanna do all the time. And that ain't healthy for us."

"But...why?" Arguing was one of the few things Fluttershy ever used the word 'hate' to describe, so she tried to think of a way to get out of this conversation without it turning into one. "I...I love you, too, Applejack, and I love doing things with you no matter whose idea they are."

"Ain't the point, honeycomb." Applejack had that determined look about her that usually made Fluttershy feel better. "You and me, we're friends, equals, and partners in this." She moved her hoof back and forth between her chest and Fluttershy's. "Now, maybe you ain't comfter'ble being in charge, but, well, I ain't exactly comfter'ble being number two, either." That sly little smile crept over her snout. "Though after t'other night, I reckon I sure could get comfter'ble with it ev'ry now and then..."

"I— I just—" Fluttershy didn't want to say this part, didn't want to think about it, just wanted to pretend none of it had ever happened, but...she had to make Applejack understand! "Maybe you remember the Grand Galloping Gala? Or Iron Will?"

"Oh, honeycomb,—"

"Because that's me in charge!" She clenched her eyes, spat out the words, sharp as fishhooks in her mouth. "That's what happens when I want to have things, and that's why forcing myself on you the other night, the way I tortured you and had my way with you, it was so...so terrible! Inexcusable!"

"No!" Hoofs grabbed her shoulders roughly, snapped her eyes open, Applejack glaring at her from maybe an inch away. "Honeycomb, you didn't—! It weren't—!" A light seemed to flare in Applejack's eyes, and then...then she was kissing Fluttershy harder and more thoroughly than Fluttershy had ever been kissed, her embrace tight and fierce and melting Fluttershy like butter.

Her heart soaring, Fluttershy let herself be swept away in the waves of Applejack's passion till a timeless time later when those lips pulled away, moved against hers, asked in that sweet, rough voice, "Reckon you like that, honeycomb?"

"Mmmm-hmmm," was all Fluttershy could manage.

She expected to hear Applejack's low chuckle, and when she didn't, she opened her eyes to find Applejack looking across at her, a tiny sour sliver of fear in her scent. "Well, turns out I like getting swept off my hoofs that way, too, sometimes. To tell you the honest truth, I never woulda imagined I had that in me, but you—" She reached out a hoof to Fluttershy's cheek, and Fluttershy almost gasped at the way it was trembling. "You done changed ev'rything, and you...you're the only pony I'd ever let do that to me." She squirmed, reached under the tangle of blankets, pulled out her hat, and popped a couple of dents out of the crown. "So,...please?" she whispered.

Fear and love wrestled in Fluttershy's head. "But—" Knowing her hoofs were shaking, too, she still stretched them out to take Applejack's hat. "But what if I start getting all mean and scary?"

Excitement crackled over Applejack's face, her breath coming faster. "Well, I'll just ask for the hat back. We'll both do that, how 'bout? Whichever of us is wearing the hat, if she starts getting too bossy or whatever, the other one'll just ask for the hat, see? It'll be like...like an emergency brake and'll stop ev'rything smack-dab in its tracks wherever we are and whatever we're doing!" She gave a crisp nod. "That make you feel better?"

"I...I guess..." Though she wasn't really sure, Fluttershy still turned the hat slowly in her hoofs, swallowed, and set it gingerly atop her head.

A happy little squeak flicked Fluttershy's ears, and she wondered for half a second how a mouse had gotten into their compartment. But the way Applejack's eyes shone, her hoofs drawn up to her chest, Fluttershy realized that her tough, strong marefriend had just made that noise. "Now," Applejack said breathlessly, "you wanna get up and go to breakfast, we'll get up and go to breakfast. You wanna get up and do some dancing, we'll get up and do some dancing. Anything you want, honeycomb. Anything at all."

The first thing that popped into Fluttershy's head she brushed away immediately. But it stayed, made her think about how...how nice it would be. "Well, umm, I...I don't know if this would really be what you have in mind..."

"Don't matter what's in my mind." Applejack's mouth went sideways. "Only matters what's in yours."

Fluttershy took a breath. "Preening, then."

Applejack blinked. "You what now?"

Pushing the blankets away, Fluttershy rolled onto her stomach, tucked her legs underneath, willed herself to relax, and let her wings drape open across the bed. "It...it's how we pegasi take care of our wings." She bent her neck around and winced, tugging at her primary remex feather with her teeth. "I usually do it myself, but I've never been very good at it and I can't have them do it at the spa very often because I—" She blushed. "I find it a little bit arousing. So I was hoping maybe you wouldn't mind me teaching you how to...how to preen me?"

She peered out from under the brim of the hat and saw Applejack looking back like Pinkie Pie in a candy store, her wide eyes focused on Fluttershy's wings and her mouth partway open. "Oh, yeah," she said, and she leaned forward, touched her snout gently to the tips of Fluttershy's pinions. "Just tell me where, what, and how."

Fortunately, the basics were pretty simply and Applejack picked them up quickly. Because as the earth pony got more and more into it, Fluttershy found herself less and less able to form actual words. "Like this?" Applejack would ask, then she would nuzzle Fluttershy's ulna in a way that would make her splay her secondaries and moan with pleasure. "Or how 'bout—?" And she would lick the base of Fluttershy's alula, the group of feathers rotating exactly the proper amount and sending joyous shivers ricocheting through Fluttershy's body.

Halfway done with her right wing, Applejack's tender lips and firm teeth were causing so much pressure to build up behind Fluttershy's lacinia that she had to shift her hips. "Ev'rything all right, honeycomb?" Applejack asked.

"Better than that," Fluttershy managed to say before the next series of little nibbles robbed her of speech again. She could smell Applejack's arousal by then, too, and that only added to the growing fullness behind her flap. And when Applejack finished off that first wing with a lingering caress of a kiss right at the base, Fluttershy had to cry out, her lacinia practically bursting open, her penis sliding out all hot and hard along her stomach.

A gasp behind her, then the crinkle of Applejack's flap unzipping: Fluttershy drank in the air, spicy with her beloved's scent. "Honeycomb," Applejack more choked than said.

Fluttershy didn't look at her, couldn't look at her. "Left wing," she forced out.

"What??" Applejack's voice was a strangled growl. "I'm hanging open here! I need you! Right now!"

"And I need you." Gritting her teeth, Fluttershy dug for every ounce of restraint she'd learned living her whole life as a mare with stallion parts lurking just under her lacinia. Eyes open barely a slit, she watched the countryside whisk by outside the compartment window and flapped her left wing once. "So please hurry."

Applejack's panting and groaning tore at Fluttershy the way she'd always imagined the claws of a dragon would, but she refused, refused, refused to move her hips at all, her penis throbbing against her like an abscessed tooth. Not wanting to think about Applejack's frenzied mouth, already a quarter finished with her left wing, she found herself unable to think of anything except not thinking about it, her entire consciousness a white-hot needle stabbing into the part of her that simply would not think about Applejack perfectly tonguing, lipping, and toothing every last barbule of her feathers with a speed and precision that would have taken her breath away...except Fluttershy wasn't sure she was breathing anymore.

By the time Applejack was halfway done with her left wing, Fluttershy began to hear the pitter-patter of liquid on linen: Applejack literally dripping with desire, her every breath a rasp in Fluttershy's ears and against her flanks, the aroma of her arousal swirling around Fluttershy as thick as smoke. That was the moment Fluttershy knew she wasn't going to make it, knew she was going to spin and leap onto her marefriend like one of those tigers she'd read about in a book on jungle animals that she'd had to lock away in the attic afterwards because she just couldn't sleep otherwise.

Three-quarters of the way along, her every muscle screaming "Spin and leap!" at her as harshly as her mother, as gutturally as her father, as whiningly as her brother, Fluttershy still held her place. She was wearing the hat, after all, so she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to. Or something: she wasn't quite able to remember what Applejack had said since the lightning storm that had replaced her nervous system had blasted her brain to ash.

And then Applejack tugged the last feather into place, her mouth vanishing from the center of Fluttershy's universe. Feeling both light and heavy, a storm cloud floating lazily despite the furious rain lashing within, Fluttershy rolled over, her legs spreading, her penis jutting into the air like Canterlot Tower, her slitted eyes locking on Applejack at the end of the bed, the earth pony's mane wild and sweaty around her face, her nostrils flaring, her teeth grinding. "All right," Fluttershy heard a voice that was too impossibly calm to be hers say. "Now."

With a snarl, Applejack sprang forward, and—

Another book that Fluttershy kept locked up was one she'd found at the bottom of a box of flower pots she'd bought at a garage sale last summer. Smoke Jumper told of a massive fire that had swept through part of the Everfree Forest several decades ago; the author, Ice Slicer, was the pegasus whose team had spent three days fighting the fire and had saved Ponyville from burning down. Fluttershy had stayed up all night, unable to stop reading, every hair on her head standing up at Ice Slicer's vivid descriptions, then she'd crawled upstairs just after dawn to tuck the book away in the attic with all the other things she had that were just too scary to leave lying around the house.

And somehow, those next few minutes in the train compartment—she wasn't even sure how long it went on, Applejack slamming herself down onto her with the force of a flash flood, wrapping herself around Fluttershy in every way one pony could wrap herself around another, and pumping, pumping, pumping with a ferocity that shot bolts of solid pleasure straight up Fluttershy's spine and into her head as hard as hammer blows—the whole experience got tangled with her memories of Smoke Jumper like she'd been caught in one of the updrafts Ice Slicer wrote about, the flames that had come roaring out of the Everfree fueled by its odd magic, that had instantly superheated the air and had flung the fire fighters fetlocks over tail sometimes a mile or more away from where they'd started.

Of course, in this case, it was sheer physical ecstasy crashing over and around her, hurling her screaming through multiple tumbling orgasms that shouldn't have been possible—or even survivable—Applejack's body seemingly so famished for Fluttershy's that she sucked every last bit of her in and left nothing behind but a quivering vapor of pure bliss.

The quivering went on for another uncountable stretch of time until she became aware of a lovely little breeze, cool and drifting over her face at regular intervals. It let her know that she still had a face, at least, but it took her several long seconds to remember how to work her eyelids.

Cracking them open finally, she flopped her head over and saw Applejack sprawled half beside her and half across her, her steady exhaling the breeze she'd been feeling. Fluttershy craned her neck a little further, saw the hat wedged between the two of them and the window, and the shadows among the pine trees outside told her it wasn't even mid-morning yet. So they'd only been passed out for maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes at the outside.

Applejack stirred, her eyes slowly coming open, and just the thought of this wonderful, exciting, miraculous pony lying tangled with her in the sheets and blankets was all it took for Fluttershy's heart to pick up. She couldn't help smiling, couldn't help giving a happily contented sigh, and if she'd been able to move, she would've scooted closer to her beautiful, beautiful marefriend.

"Whoosh," Applejack said, a smile spreading over her own muzzle. "Thought for sure I said something about 'not as intense' earlier..."

By the time they got themselves cleaned up and out the door for breakfast, it was already lunchtime, but Applejack didn't mind in the least. She felt pumped up full as a balloon at wunna Pinkie Pie's parties, giggling in a way she weren't sure she'd ever giggled before ev'ry time the train lurched and sent her and Fluttershy bouncing into each other. At lunch, she just couldn't stop touching her, couldn't stop looking at her, couldn't stop smiling at her marefriend, her fiancée now all true and official, the pony she loved more'n a little bit of a tongue-curl and a puff of breath like the word 'love' should even be able to express.

Turned out they had to eat quick since the train was coming into Vanhoover, but that was OK, too, since the workout she'd just shared with Fluttershy had left her more famished than half a day of apple bucking did; she sucked the food down fast enough to make Big Macintosh proud and had to make an effort not to stare at the graceful and demure Fluttershy, never seeming to rush but somehow managing to keep up with AJ bowl for bowl and cup for cup.

Back at the room, she spared a thought for whatever poor pony hadta do their laundry, but with the hilly outskirts of Vanhoover winding by outside the window, she just grabbed her and Fluttershy's saddlebags and tossed a couple extra bits onto the pillow. Then the train was pulling into the big, square-windowed station, and they were stepping out onto the loud and bustling platform, the place a whole lot closer to Manehattan-busy than to Ponyville-busy. But if'n there was one thing ev'ry train station had, it was—

A glance found the newsstand over by the front doors, so she tapped Fluttershy's shoulder, pointed at it with her snout, then started through the tangle of ponies moving back and forth between the trains. Fluttershy kept up, things getting quieter the further from the engines they got, and by the time they reached the stand, she could ask the big brown earth pony behind the counter in a near-to-normal tone of voice, "Y'all carry the shipping news?"

He gave her a sideways look from under his plaid hat. "What, you think the biggest port in Equestria's gonna have some kinda magazine that lists the ships coming in and out? That what you think, lady?"

Fluttershy was cowering some behind her, but AJ just gave the vendor about a quarter of a glare. "Please," she said with just enough of a Manehattan accent. "The second biggest port in Equestria."

That got a guffaw outta the news pony, and he slapped a pamphlet onto the counter. "Normally, that's a bit. But for you, it's two."

She flicked three from her saddlebag. "So the next wunna'll be half-price."

Another guffaw from the newsie, and Applejack rolled the pamphlet up, tucked it into her bag, checked that Fluttershy was still with her, then stepped outta the station. The park across the street looked inviting under the early afternoon sunlight, so she pointed it out: "Reckon we can set some and check for the Heron's Laugh."

The trembly way Fluttershy nodded told Applejack her honeycomb was feeling the pressure of all the buildings and ponies around 'em, another reason the park'd prob'bly be the best place for a minute or twenty. Fluttershy pressed mighty close to her, too, as they took the hoof bridge over the steady stream of carts and cabs going to and fro from the station—not that Applejack minded at all, though she did hafta get the lacinia-closing spell going in her head a little quicker'n usual...

The park, it turned out, wound along the top of a little bluff, so picking a shady tree, AJ settled herself and Fluttershy where they could look out over mosta Vanhoover. The city didn't seem to have buildings as tall as Manehattan's, but it sure spread out more, quite a patchwork between here and the ocean, vague and cloudy-blue just past where the grid stopped.

Fluttershy was still cuddled up to her, and AJ could feel her shaking even though the weather didn't have much of a chill to it at all for northern Equestria three weeks after Winter Wrap-up. "Honeycomb?" she asked, nudging the side of Fluttershy's neck gently with her snout. "You wanna find a café indoors somewhere?"

"Oh, no." A bigger shiver. "That...that would probably be even worse."

"Worse?" Applejack cocked her head. "You ain't cold?"

"It's just—" Fluttershy peered out from behind her bangs, something AJ didn't think she'd seen her do in a couple days. "In Manehattan, all the tall buildings looked so much like walls, I didn't really...didn't feel all the other ponies there. But here, I—" She ducked closer to the ground between Applejack and the tree. "I'm pretty sure they're all looking at me."

Fighting her first impulse to laugh out loud, AJ gave a quick look around the park. A few ponies strolled along or relaxed in the grass, and a few of 'em coulda been glancing in their direction with a mite more interest than was polite....

The thought that popped into Applejack's head was too good not to share, and nuzzling the fine hair below Fluttershy's ear, she murmured, "Y'know? I reckon you're right."

A tiny "Eep!" from Fluttershy, and she went so still, she might as well have turned to stone.

"And y'know why they're staring?" Applejack gave her another nuzzle. "Exact same reason I stares at you. 'Cause anywhere you go in the whole wide, wide world of Equestria, my ever-sweetest, orange-blossom, sugar-candy honeycomb, you radiate an aura of beauty so intense, it affects the surrounding area to a radius of two hunderd and fifty-seven miles."

This time, a little giggle came from down amongst that gorgeous pink mane, then Fluttershy's head was moving, deep teal eyes gazing warm and wide at Applejack. "Two hundred and fifty-seven miles seems very large," she said, more giggles behind her words. "And very precise, too."

Grinning, Applejack tapped her own chest. "It's what us science ponies call the 'Fluttershy Zone.'" She waved a hoof like she was Twilight giving a lecture. "All these folks in this entire parta the country are feeling a little better, smiling a little wider, walking along with just a little more zing in their steps. They're all of 'em looking 'round, too, wondering why the day's suddenly brighter, and the ones who are the luckiest and the closest, they're looking over and—" Her throat caught, and lost in Fluttershy's eyes, she realized that she meant ev'ry single word she was saying. "And they're seeing you, honeycomb. The very luckiest ponies in the whole entire world right now are seeing you."

Once again spellbound, Applejack just watched Fluttershy breathe; then Fluttershy sat up straighter, ev'ry last trace of fear gone from her scent. "Then I shouldn't be all skulking and trying to hide," she said, her gaze never straying from AJ's. "Because if they can all see me, then they'll see that I'm with the most wonderful pony in the world. And the science ponies'll call it the 'Applejack Effect' because it makes everything in the Fluttershy Zone three hundred and fifty-seven times better. And they'll all be wondering—" Her voice broke, her eyes shimmering. "They'll wonder how we managed to survive so long without the 'Applejack Effect' in our lives...."

Tingling, Applejack thought she must be floating higher than even pegasus wings coulda lifted her. She leaned forward and touched a kiss to Fluttershy's lips as gentle as ever she could. "Let's just go," she found herself muttering, her head spinning. "Get back on that train, head home, and just...just be us like this for the resta our lives, OK?"

"We will be," came the reply. "But we...we've still got something we need to do here first...."

Downy softness pressed Applejack's forehead, and managing to focus, she saw it was Fluttershy, her eyes closed, resting her mane against her. "Yeah." AJ took a breath. "We do." Pulling away from Fluttershy took more strength than bucking four dozen trees, but she did it, shifted around to pull the rolled-up copy of the shipping news from amongst her bags, and spread it over the grass in front of her. A few minutes, and she found the listing for the Heron's Laugh. "Two o'clock this afternoon, Pier S-27." Swallowing, she got herself together. "Reckon we can grab a cab down to the shore, get us a hotel room for tonight, then head out along the docks and see what's what."

The feather-light stroke drifting across her back made AJ sigh, a sense of well-being pushing in around the tightness in her stomach. "We don't have to go yet, though, do we?" Fluttershy asked.

And as much as she wanted to just stay right there for the next couple or three years,— "The sooner we get a room somewhere to stow our packs, the better I'll like it."

"All right." Fluttershy stood and stretched in a way that made Applejack wish they was in that room right now. "If it's this nice up here, it'll be nice down by the water, too."

Hailing a cab took half a minute, and Applejack asked the cabbie, a solid black mare nigh as big as Macintosh with a single rose for her cutie mark, about hotels down around the harbor. "You looking for 'quaint' or 'cheap'?" the cabbie asked.

"Little of both," AJ answered.

And that got the conversation started, the cabbie asking what they was in town for, Applejack telling her, and the cabbie starting to talk about her brothers who was all shipped out on various cargo runs up and down the coast. "Water!" the cabbie said, tossing her head. "I don't even like drinking the stuff, but try and keep the resta my family off it!"

She trotted them down through the main part of town, lotsa ivy-covered brick and wrought iron with little bitty parks every other block it seemed, and even Fluttershy got involved in the conversation, asking the cabbie how she liked living in Vanhoover and that sorta thing.

Half an hour later, she was pulling 'em up in front of a rambling stone building overshadowed by the eucalyptus trees of the fair-sized park right next door. "Tell 'em Dusty Rose sent you," she said. "Doubt it'll get you any special treatment, but at least Cracker Barrel'll know you got friends in town."

Climbing down, AJ set to digging out the fare and a healthy tip, but Fluttershy had already leaped from the carriage, was hovering at the box and nearly pouring bits into it. "Thank you so much, Dusty! It was wonderful meeting you!"

"Easy now." Dusty laughed. "Too much coin, I'll never get back up the hill." She gestured with her muzzle further down the street. "Port's just a block and a half that way. You were looking for S-27?"

Applejack nodded, and Dusty nodded back. "Cargo docks'll be to the left. Couple good taverns down that way, too, but I s'ppose your pop'll know if he's been shipping 'round these waters as long as you said." A tap of her hoofs against the cobblestones, and she pulled away from the curb. "Have Barrel gimme a call when you need a lift back to the station!"

"Good-bye!" Fluttershy waved, then settled onto the sidewalk beside Applejack. "She was so nice!" Sudden as a warm spring breeze, she spun to nuzzle Applejack's neck. "Look how brave you make me! I talked to a pony I'd never even seen before!"

And if Applejack's heart hadn't already been mush when it came to her honeycomb, that moment woulda melted it for sure. Smiling, she nuzzled Fluttershy back, then turned for the little stone path winding up the lawn to the front door of the place, 'Harbor House,' she noticed now, spelled out on the sign above the screen porch.

Inside, the lobby smelled like cinnamon and sawdust, a portly yellow unicorn not much older'n them reading a woodworking magazine behind the desk. "Ah, Dusty Rose," he said after he'd introduced himself as Cracker Barrel and AJ had given him her and Fluttershy's particulars. He pressed a hoof to his chest, his nor'western accent as thick and warm as soup to Applejack's ears. "If them brothers of hers hadn't always been about, giving a feller the hairy eyeball..." His horn wavered like sunlight on water and wafted a key over the counter. "Got a lovely room right down the hall here for you."

Following him through the lobby, Applejack started liking the place more and more, the hoof-made furniture maybe a mite crooked here and there but all the more honest for it. "Here you go," Cracker Barrel said, unlocking a door marked '3' and pushing it open on a large room with just a few too many ruffles 'round the windows for Applejack's taste. "Anything you need, just gimme a holler."

"Thanks," Applejack said. "Reckon we'll be—"

"Dusty Rose!" Fluttershy burst out, suddenly airborne beside her. "She said her brothers were all out at sea! So they won't have their hairy eyeballs there if you—!" Her front hoofs clapped over her snout, her face going as pink as her mane, and she drifted back to the floor, ducked behind Applejack with a squeak.

Cracker Barrel's eyes got a bit wider, and his smile did, too. "Well, now, thankee kindly, miss, for the information." The key drifted into the room and clattered onto the desk beside the bed. "Be seeing you." And he took off at a trot for the lobby.

Shaking her head with a grin, Applejack took a step into the room only to have Fluttershy shoot overhead with a giggle and bounce to a landing on the bed. "Oh, Applejack! What if he calls her and asks her out and they get along so splendidly that they get married and live happily ever after?? It'll all be because of us!"

AJ pushed the door closed with a hind leg and wished she could just clamber up onto that bed beside her marefriend. But the hands of the little clock on the wall between the windows were both already past one, and the tightness in her stomach wouldn't let her forget where they were and what they were doing. Still, she turned her grin toward Fluttershy while she let her saddlebags slump to the floor. "That's us, honeycomb: spreading joy and love ev'ry durn place we goes."

Of course, Fluttershy came all over serious, the way she picked up ev'ry little emotional wobble. "Oh, Applejack, I'm sorry." She hopped off the bed. "Do you want to be waiting on the dock when your father's ship comes in?"

"Honestly?" The words jabbed her throat like chunks of rock, and AJ had to look away from Fluttershy's earnest gaze, had to keep her attention on unzipping her big bag to pull out her walking-around pack. "I wanna get myself as far away from this place as I can."

The silence behind her was full of Fluttershy. "But you won't."

"Nope." She slung the pack 'round her middle, straightened her hat, and turned to her marefriend. "'Cause an Apple don't run." She shrugged. "Leastwise, this Apple don't run, not from this no more." The words got rocky again. "'Sides, I made you face down the volcanoes your folks turned out to be. Reckon I can face my own more settled sorta awfulness."

Fluttershy was shaking her head almost imperceptibly. "You didn't make me. You gave me every chance not to see them again, but I...I thought maybe after...after so long..." Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head harder. "So. One more, and we'll be done with them forever."

As much as she doubted it—family never left, she'd learned, even when they actually did up and leave—AJ still nodded, grabbed the room key from the desk, and dropped it into her pack. "Might be he's not even aboard anymore, moved on and didn't leave no forwarding address." She stepped to the door. "A pony can always hope."

In the lobby, a little grass-green pegasus mare with a couple gold rings through one ear now sat chewing gum behind the desk, and all the way down the street to the harbor, Fluttershy giggled and spun elaborate tales 'bout how Cracker Barrel and Dusty Rose had already run off together—they'd bought wunna them giant airships, they ended up deciding, with Barrel running the passenger part while Dusty steered it from city to city. It all helped AJ not to think about what was coming up at least....

The air got saltier and spicier the whole block and a half, then they came to the corner, the street near to as busy as around the train station. Right across the way, all along that whole side of the road, stretched a fence, a big round gate in it with a sign over it: 'Port of Vanhoover.' What had to be warehouses sat on the other side, but Applejack could see shops and diners further along to their right. Masts from windjammers stuck up here and there past the warehouses, and she could see teams of pegasi flying back and forth with cargo nets, some empty and some fulla crates.

A whistle drew her attention, a uniformed unicorn out in the street signaling for the cross traffic to stop; AJ hurried across with Fluttershy, moved through the gate, took a left the way Dusty had said, and started along the warehouses.

They were labeled with the letter 'L' hereabouts, so 'S' took 'em another ten or fifteen minutes to get to, and by then the whole look and smell of the place had changed, ev'rything a little smaller, a little dingier, a little sleepier. Fluttershy had stopped talking and was walking close enough for Applejack to feel the brush of her feathers, but it didn't seem so much like she was scared as it did she was being supportive, something AJ appreciated more'n she'd ever be able to say.

Around the 'O' warehouses, she'd started noticing guard ponies stationed at the walkways that led out through the warehouses to the docks themselves, and 'S' weren't no different. With a clock somewhere in the city chiming two, AJ swallowed, grinned at Fluttershy, and stepped up to the little guard stand. "'Scuse me," she said to the earth pony there. "We's looking for Pier S-27."

He gave her a look, gave Fluttershy a longer look, then tapped the clipboard resting on the plywood counter in front of him. "What'cher business?"

Applejack shrugged. "My poppa's the cook aboard the Heron's Laugh."

The guard blinked. "Gravy's gotta daughter?"

That made AJ cock her head. "He know you call him Gravy?"

Already a light gray color, the guard pony got even paler; he picked up a pencil in his teeth and scrawled something on his pad. "How 'bout I just put down 'Personal'?"

"Much obliged." Applejack nodded to him. "This way?"

"Follow the signs." He waved a hoof down the walkway, the two warehouses on either side towering up a good four stories. "Twenty-seven'll be left, then seven berths down: you oughtta see the Laugh pulling in."

Another nod, and Applejack moved into the shadow of the warehouses, Fluttershy beside her. A long couple of minutes finally brought them back into the sunlight, and ahead across a stretch of concrete lay the bay, blue wavelets sparkling all the way out to the horizon, she thought at first. Pretty quickly, though, she noticed the breakwaters stretching all across the surface: channels for the ships to travel down, she reckoned, and something to bust up the incoming waves. She could see the shape of the cove now, too, the land curving out to the left and right to further protect the harbor from the open sea.

The port looked a lot busier off to their right, the part they'd walked past; turning left, she saw just one ship pulling in, a fair-sized two-master, pegasi flitting among the rigging and lashing the sails into place along the crossbeam—or whatever them sailor ponies might call it: Macintosh was the one knew all that nautical terminology. Still, Applejack couldn't miss the ship's name carved along the bow, and blowing out a breath, she started toward the Heron's Laugh.

Laughter did reach her ears, too, the closer she got, a couple dozen mares and stallions, earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, gathering on the front deck as the ship slid to a halt, the last couple pegasi tying it to the dock before joining the others. Applejack tried not to, but she couldn't help scanning the crowd in search of a dark red—

A cheer went up from the group, and a whole slew of pegasi seemed to burst from the deck and scatter toward the city. AJ saw one, maybe two flashes—unicorns popping out, she guessed—mosta the other crewponies heading toward a gangplank that lead down to the dock. Picking up her pace, she got to the base of the gangplank just as the ponies disembarked.

And not a one of 'em was even close to the right size or the right color.

Fluttershy was huddling behind her, a couple of the stallions aiming a glance or two their way. One of 'em, a lanky pinto with his mane slicked back, came trotting over with enough smile on his snout for three regular ponies. "Evening, ladies," he said with a bow, his voice lilting and musical and slicker'n ice cream on a hot sidewalk. "Might I be so bold as to ask how we can be of assistance?"

Applejack swallowed. "Y'all got a cook aboard called Red Gravenstein?"

The pinto's smile faded, his brow wrinkling, and for a quarter of a second, hope wrestled with fear inside Applejack that his answer would be 'no.' Till he called over his shoulder, his voice nowhere near as smooth as before, "Yo, Red! You got some mighty pretty visitors down here asking for you!"

Her blood tried to freeze, but the warm, sweet touch of Fluttershy's wing across her back let Applejack move her neck enough to look up at the deck. Nothing for a moment, then a large shadow appeared in the cabin's open doorway, stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, a few strands of silver streaking that deep brown mane, bigger and darker than Mac, his apple tree cutie mark exactly as she remembered it, those caramel-colored eyes locking on her, and—

"Red?" the pinto was calling somewhere. "What'sa problem? You OK?"

Another second, and a gravel-coated whisper drifted down to her: "Yup."

He blinked, and Applejack found she could breathe again. "Y'all head on out," Poppa said, his voice still rough and odd to AJ's ears. "Ev'rything's gonna be fine here."

The resta the crew didn't look convinced, and Applejack wasn't so sure herself, her heart pounding like Pinkie's party cannon was going off inside her. The sailor ponies moved along, though, and another figure stepped outta the cabin, a tough-looking, dark-blue mare in a long black jacket. "Trouble?" she asked.

Still standing at the railing and looking down at AJ with half-closed eyes, Poppa said, "It's nothing, cap'n. Nothing at all."

"Poppa?" Applejack squeaked out, instantly hating herself for it.

The mare—Poppa had called her the cap'n, and AJ could well believe it, the way she wore her authority as easy as she did that jacket—her eyes narrowed. "Red Gravenstein," she growled. "That your daughter down there?"

Poppa nodded once, sharp and uncomfortable. The cap'n took a breath and pointed a front hoof at the gangplank. "I'm giving you leave the resta the day. Don't gimme nunna that palaver 'bout you not liking to go ashore, and should I catch you back aboard afore nightfall, your hide'll be redder'n you ever thought it could be! Do I make myself clear??"

Half a second, and Poppa gave one more nod, turned, and started thumping down the gangplank. And before Applejack could even start thinking about pulling herself together, there he was, standing right in front of her, looking down at her with his jaw set and—

And his eyes shimmering? Why would he be—?

"So." Tension filled his voice like he'd stomped into a patch of stinging nettles. "Reckon you've come to tell me my ma's passed on."

"What??" It busted outta AJ almost before she could untangle what he'd said and follow it back to what he musta thought seeing her so suddenly after so many years. "No! Poppa, Granny Smith's fine! Never been better!" She turned to Fluttershy. "Ain't that right, honeycomb?"

Fluttershy nodded frantically, and Applejack turned back, Poppa standing stock still as a wooden statue. "But..." And as quick as it took him to blink, he sounded exactly like Applejack remembered from nigh onto a decade ago. "Why else'd you come tracking me down, AJ?"

Coughing a little laugh, she threw herself forward and wrapped her front hoofs around his neck. "You're my poppa! Ain't that reason enough??"

She felt one leg touch her back, but all uncertain like an ant's feeler. "It ain't never been afore," he rumbled.

That hit home, and Applejack sniffed, stepped back, nodded so he could see her do it. "You're right. But now—" She gestured to Fluttershy, watching all cute and befuddled. "Poppa, this is my fiancée Fluttershy. Fluttershy, this is my father, Red Gravenstein."

Fluttershy gave one of her slow smiles, the kind that always made AJ think of the sun coming out after a long and foggy morning. "A pleasure to meet you, sir."

"Call me Red," Poppa said. He looked from her to Applejack and back again a couple times. "You getting married, AJ?" he finally asked.

Applejack nodded, unwilling to trust her voice to get any words out without cracking 'em.

"Well, now." Something that coulda been a smile tugged at the edges of Poppa's face. "Reckon that's maybe a half-step better'n a funeral." He tapped a hoof against the concrete. "Could you girls use some corn chowder? 'Cause I've had me a powerful hankering for some corn chowder the past day and a half."

And just like that, they were walking back toward the warehouses, AJ in the middle, her poppa on her left, her honeycomb on her right, around a corner, and into a hole-in-the-wall tavern she hadn't even noticed when her and Fluttershy had come by this way not ten minutes earlier. Poppa was asking how they'd met, was ordering three sourdough bowls of corn chowder and three mugs of cider, Applejack not even sure what she was saying to answer him, her whole body fulla bubbles at the thought of actually sitting and talking with her poppa.

More cider followed, and Applejack and Poppa ended up trading stories back and forth, her telling about the adventures she'd shared lately with Fluttershy and their other friends in Ponyville while Poppa told 'em summa his adventures up and down Equestria's coastlines.

But funny as Poppa's stories were—and they was mostly gut-busting, tales of dancing dolphins and singing sea ponies that AJ didn't more'n half believe—he seemed to smile less and less. Not long after Fluttershy had chewed the last bite of her sourdough bowl, in fact, her mug still a good three-quarters full though AJ was pretty sure she'd had three and Poppa'd had four, the first real silence fell over the table, no other ponies in the place at all 'cept the cook.

Poppa wasn't frowning exactly, but looking at her, he swigged back about half his cider. "Married," he said, his head shaking. "It ain't gonna last, but, well, reckon it's your life, AJ."

"Ain't gonna—?" Applejack had been feeling a nice little buzz—if it weren't precisely hard cider they was drinking, it sure weren't soft, neither—but as she blinked at him now, that buzz started taking on more of a wasp or hornet quality than she generally cared for. "And what's that s'pposed to mean?"

"Love." His snout curled, his eyes narrowing. "Ain't nothing but sex misspelled if'n you want the stone-cold truth, and anypony tells you different is either stupid or trying to sell you something."

Outta the corner of her eye, Applejack saw Fluttershy, around the table to her right, go completely still, but AJ was too busy focusing on Poppa right then, her guts all a-twist inside her. "You don't know what'cher talking 'bout, Poppa."

His snout curled even further, his eyes getting all hard and glittery. "Yeah, that's it. Ain't like I didn't have my whole life torn to shreds and stomped into the mud 'cause somepony and I bought the lie, is it? And it surely ain't like I didn't ruin near to half a dozen lives since I was young as you and idiot enough to b'lieve in love."

The sneer he put into the word this time sliced through Applejack like a freshly-sharpened plow blade, opened up her chest and turned over ev'ry fear she'd been keeping hid since her and Fluttershy had first kissed. 'Cause if what'd happened to Poppa and Mom happened to her and Fluttershy—

"No!" She stomped a hoof hard against the table, plates and glasses rattling. "You gotta lotta nerve, Red Gravenstein, telling me—!"

"Applejack!" It wasn't loud but it was sure as sugar was sharp, AJ wincing and glancing over at Fluttershy, her honeycomb stretching out a front hoof and somehow managing to look both stern and scared at the same time. "The hat."

Hot and cold crashing through her, Applejack was absolutely positive she'd misheard. "You what??"

Fluttershy's hoof trembled, but she kept it extended. "The hat," she said again. "Please."

A little twitch jerking her left eye, Applejack could almost hear herself start shouting, could almost feel herself pounding and kicking, smacking Poppa around and yelling at him till he took it back that she was being as stupid as he and Mom had been. But while she could almost hear, what she actually could hear was herself earlier in the day telling Fluttershy what it'd mean if either of 'em ever asked for the hat.

Quivering with rage and fear she couldn't and damn well didn't wanna express, AJ managed to flip her hat onto the table instead of slamming it down, managed to nudge it toward Fluttershy instead of flinging it.

Nodding, Fluttershy touched the hat brim, then turned one of her serious looks toward Poppa. "Red, I can only imagine what a terrible nightmare it must've been, what happened between you and Marmalade."

Poppa flinched at Mom's name, his hard, hard gaze softening and drooping a little to rest on the table.

"But the thing is," Fluttershy went on, her voice like a dewdrop of quiet in the last-night's-beer stink of the tavern, "you didn't mean for things to turn out the way they did, and neither did she. You didn't know each other, you didn't understand each other, you didn't even have a way really to talk to each other at all." She leaned forward, rested her delicate yellow hoof against Poppa's rough red one. "But I can tell you right now that you two loved each other. I see it in Applejack's face and in Big Macintosh's face and in Apple Bloom's face; I saw it in Marmalade's face, and I see it right here right now in you."

Poppa's eyes rolled closed, and he sorta sagged backwards.

"But the thing is," Fluttershy said again, "love's not magic. Friendship is magic, and love without friendship is, well, you don't need me to tell you about that." She patted his hoof. "I'm so, so sorry for your loss, Red, and maybe Applejack and I won't last, either. But we were friends long before love came into it. And I think that might make a little bit of a difference."

More quiet followed, then Poppa gave a rumbling grunt, looked up with more of a smile than Applejack had seen from him so far. "Might be you got yourself a keeper here, AJ," he said.

Author's Notes:

Red quoting Harlan Ellison's line about love being sex misspelled came as a surprise to me: my fingers just typed it out, and it fit so well, I decided to finish his thought with a paraphrase from William Goldman's The Princess Bride. 'Cause why not?