So...this is Ponyville..., I think to myself as ‘Shy and AJ -- as she permits me to call her -- escort me into the main square of the town. We have still yet to meet back up with Dash, who’s likely still ahead of us, and Derps has decided to take an afternoon nap...on my back. Fortunately, she doesn’t weigh much, so I’m not bothered by it. Right now, AJ and ‘Shy are trying to find two ponies named ‘Twilight Sparkle’ and ‘Rarity’, both of whom I have yet to meet. However, I do remember Dash more-or-less comparing me to ‘Twilight’...twice, but other than that I know nothing about them yet. Luck seems to be with us, however, as the two ponies we’re searching for find us instead.

“Applejack! Fluttershy! Over here!”

I turn to look towards the source, and I spot two unicorns, and a quick glance from Fluttershy tells me that that’s them. It isn’t very difficult for me to determine who is who. The unicorn on the right has a purple coat and an indigo mane, with violet and magenta streaks along it; I can infer that she is Twilight Sparkle, by comparison of her color scheme to Luna’s night sky. The other unicorn has a white coat and a blue-violet mane, as well as from the distance looks like heavy make up. Her mane flows as elegantly as she acts. I can tell that she’s a fashionista, judging by stereotype alone. Undoubtedly this is Rarity; the ‘elegance’ of the name gives it away.

“Hey guys!”, the purple unicorn says as we get closer. Once she sees that I’m with them (and wasn’t just someone who had happened to be standing near them), she adds “Oh, and who’s this? A friend?”

Fluttershy introduces me. “Yes. This is Golden Flame. He was best friends with Rainbow Dash, Derpy” -- she motions to the sleeping gray pegasis on my back -- “and me back when we were all in the Junior Speedster's Flight Academy. Gosh, I don’t know how many times he stood up to bullies for me...”

“Dash did that much more often than I did, you know that.”, I add honestly.

“Yes, but Rainbow Dash would only take my place as the bullies’ target; you, however, deflected their mean jokes back at them.”

“And that’s precisely why I wasn’t able to stand up for you as often; they wouldn’t give me an opportunity to do so. They were rather efficient at that, I must admit.”

The two unicorns look at me with intrigue, and the elegant unicorn says “How’d you manage to accomplish that, darling?”

I pause, and motion for them to wait momentarily for my reply. I jut my right shoulder slightly to justle Derpy in to waking up, which she does. She raises her head and gives me a “why’d you do that” look, to which I respond by whispering something in her ear, causing her mood to immediately lighten up, although she is still visibly drousy.

She yawns then exclaims “SAIKOLOJICKAL MANEEPULAYSHUN!”, before going back to sleep with a smile.

Mass giggling ensues. Afterwards, the purple pony looks at me quizzically and asks “Wait, couldn’t you have just said that yourself?”

Showing the two unicorns my trademark half-smile for the first time, I explain my actions. “Well, it was Derps here who actually coined that term back when we were at the Academy. As a result, I felt that it would be more fitting if she said it.”

Suddenly, the purple unicorn nearly jumped as she realized something. “Oh! We haven’t even introduced ourselves yet! My name’s Twilight Sparkle.”

“...and I’m Rarity.”

“It’s a pleasure.” I say, bowing my head slightly to each.

“By the way, darling, do you have a place to stay yet?”

“Actually, I do no--”

Before I am able to finish, I get broadsided. The bad part, Derpy is knocked off of me, but somehow manages to flap her wings just enough to be able to land on her hooves. The good part, I’ve found Rainbow Dash -- tackle, roll, pin; same as always.

As soon as we stop moving, Rainbow says “WRONG!” She leans in closer to my face. “You’re stayin’ at my place, Goldie.”

She winks -- as obvious an innuendo as I have ever seen, which leads me to believe that she did so as a joke.

I could be wrong, though.

“Now hold on there, sugarcube”, AJ says, the first time she had in a while now. “Whatcha doin’ makin’ decisions for ‘im? An’ on that note, why’d ya need to tackle ‘im for?”

“Don’t worry, she’s done it to me for years.” I say in Dash’s defense, turning my head towards AJ as I do so. “And besides...” I turn back towards the cyan pegasis with my trademark half-smile. “...it makes for one less thing for me to be concerned about, doesn’t it?”

I can see Rainbow grin from ear-to-ear as my half-smile tells her that I’m going with her innuendo.

“He has a point, Applejack.”

That’s all the patience that Rainbow had.

“ALRIGHT! C’mon!!!” Before anypony could say anything, Rainbow had already grabbed me by the mane and took off to the sky, forcing me to do so, also.

After we get into the air, we take off at high speeds toward her residence. After several minutes of flying, I break the unexpected silence.

“...you could use some patience, you know.”

“Don’t need it.”

“You’d be surprised...it comes in handy sometimes.”

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

“Alright.” I intentionally don’t say anything else after that, as I await her reaction.

“Well...?”

“Patience!”

“I told you I don’t have any!”

“Then get some!”

This was the way we had always joked with each other.

“I don’t want some!”

“Why not? I have some patience I could give you! Huh?! You want some of that patience?!” As I say that I mimick some boxing punches.

After a second or two of awkward silence, we both burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the tangent we had gotten on.

Several minutes later, we arrived at Rainbow’s place. I had visited there once before, albeit it was several years ago, and I had gone straight there and back, never visiting the town below. Hell, I can’t remember if I had even noticed the town.

We landed and went inside, at which point things remained disturbingly quiet -- let alone awkward -- for some time. As it would turn out, that awkwardness was only the beginning. For some reason -- one which is still uncertain to me -- Rainbow shocks me...by giving me a kiss...on the lips. When she pulls away, she blushes to the point that her face is nearly as red as that in her mane. I didn’t want to make her blush any worse -- unlike most ponies, I knew that such actions were only taken for a reason, which enabled me to remain stoic.

The aforementioned reason may not necessarily be a good reason, but it’s a reason nonetheless -- a reason I was going to find out...

“Would you like to tell me what that was about?”, the half-smile I now have telling her of the positive connotation.

...and being blunt is one of many ways to go about doing it.

“I...I don’t know. I acted on an impulse.”

“Adrenaline?”

Rainbow thinks for a second...”More like excitement...”

I put my logic to work. “Excitement...for seeing me for the first time in years?”

“That...would be my guess...”

I decide to crack a joke to try to allieve some of her embarassment. “Damn impulses...always taking action before they let you think about them...maybe I should give them some of my extra patience...”

Rainbow chuckles at my reference to my earlier joke.

My half-smile is now a full smirk. “Now that I think about it, Rainbow...I never would have imagined the ‘toughest pony in all of Equestria’ to be such a romantic...”

She playfully punches me in the shoulder, clearly able to tell that I’m messing with her now. I slap her back with a wing. She tackles me -- not flying this time -- and we roll on the floor, play-fighting.

We start laughing at the circumstances, the events that took place...well, I’m not certain if we were laughing at anything. We could have been laughing just to laugh.

Whatever we were laughing at, it definitely rid us of the awkward mood that had shrouded us no more than a few minutes earlier.