3- Girl Talk
“Hey, Dashie.”
“Uh huh…” Rainbow scrolls on her phone. Chemistry notes are spread out in front of her on the table. Half of them belong to Twilight sitting across from her, thickly scrawled with neat annotations in the margins, pieces of highlighted and underlined text. Meanwhile, Rainbow’s are pristine, almost sparkling in how white and clean they are, the only clean thing that Rainbow Dash owns.
“Dashie. Rainbow. Rainbow Daaaaash.”
Rainbow double-taps another meme.
“Rainbow, I’m eating all your snacks. Your hair’s on fire. A bird pooped on your bag.”
No response.
“Oh, look, Applejack’s here.”
“Huh?” Rainbow jolts, dropping her phone over her stereochem assignment. “Where?” She looks up, casting her gaze around the uni study hall, packed to the gills as always. Students gather hunched at the tables, clattering away on laptops, scribbling notes or deep in discussion, but no familiar blonde-headed girl in sight.
“Where is she?” she demands, turning to Pinkie, only to find her with a hand down Rainbow’s cheese crackers. “Hey- those are mine!”
“If thou wants not thy snacks to be eaten, thou shalt not leave them out in the open for others to take,” says the fiend matter-of-factly as she shoves her ill-gotten booty into her mouth. “And stop looking around for Applejack, she doesn’t even go here. It’s payback for ignoring me.”
Indignantly, Rainbow clutches her half-empty cracker packet, mourning the loss. “Well, what is it then?”
Pinkie wipes the crumbs on her fingers on her skirt and brandishes her phone. On the screen is a TikTok featuring a very familiar-looking juice bar. “You’ve gone viral!”
This wasn’t news to Rainbow. Ever since they had introduced the two-for-one deal, unusually large crowds of people had begun turning up. People pulling out their phones and filming them in amusement wasn’t exactly unexpected, but apparently, the videos had gone on to kick up quite the fuss on social media.
“Yeah, I’ve seen that one.” It had appeared on Rainbow’s For You page the night before. Several clips spliced together, ranging from them chopping fruits at scary paces to wrestling over the ice crusher like it was a rope in tug-of-war, as well as that one time when Applejack was using up both blenders (jerk) and Rainbow was trying to whip bananas with a fork.
Rainbow blinks and leans over, looking closer at the numbers below the video, a string of digits that had only grown longer since she last saw it. “Oh shit, that’s a lot of views.”
Nodding, Pinkie Pie grins from ear to ear. “You’re a celebrity!”
“Meh,” Rainbow folds her arms behind her neck and leans back, though she can’t deny the feeling of her ego swelling up within her. “Just means more hell at work for me. I need a raise, I swear.”
“With all the good business, I’m sure Applejack’ll will give you one.” Pinkie assures her. “Sweet Apple Shakes has needed some… well, juice for quite a while, after all. Applejack rewards fairly.”
“Hm,” Rainbow squints at her. “Just how did you come to know Applejack, anyway? Is she in your course?”
Pinkie wriggles her fingers. “Gimme more cheese crackers, and I’ll answer you.”
“You already ate so much, no, fuck you. Get your own,” Rainbow opens the packet and slobbers all over the remaining crackers. Pinkie wails—earning a death glare from Twilight across the table—then relents.
“Nah, Applejack doesn’t go to uni,” Pinkie says. “I just passed by the store by chance, and while she was making my drink, I chatted her up!”
Jesus. Rainbow considers herself an extrovert, but even she can’t match up to Pinkie’s level of social confidence.
Then it’s Pinkie’s turn to give her a strange look. “Wait, why don’t you know she doesn’t go to uni? Aren’t you friends?”
“Uhhhh,” Rainbow sweats. “We’ve might’ve been a bit busy just focusing on making smoothies…”
“......”
“And I may or may not do all the talking in the conversation…”
Pinkie slams the table and snatches up a calculator, pointing at her with it. “Rainbow! You spend, like, three days of your week with her. Stop subjecting the poor girl to your endless tales of high crime and start actually talking to her!”
It’s at this moment when Twilight covers her ears and snaps, “Will you two kindly shut up? Some of us are trying to study!”
“Sorry, Twi…”
~~~
It’s nearing the end of shift when Rainbow’s phone buzzes in her pocket. On the screen, the caller ID flashes: it’s a call from her mum. Rainbow knows that ignoring her mum’s calls brings nothing but disaster, so she glumly forfeits her three-pointer kiwifruit smoothie and hides herself in the storage room.
The blurry, extremely zoomed-in, upper half of her mum’s face appears on the screen, cut off at her nose at a very unflattering camera angle.
“Honey, how are you?” she asks, face wrinkling,“You haven’t been calling lately, you had me and your dad so worried.”
“I’m fine, mum,” Rainbow rakes a hand through her hair, only to wince in frustration with the hairnet in the way. She puts her hand down. “I’ve just been a bit busy. You know, uni stuff.”
“I’m sure it’s busy, but you still have to make time to call,” her mum says. Then her eyebrows scrunch as she leans even closer to the camera, eyes peering at the screen. “Just what are you wearing? ”
“Uh! Um,” Rainbow’s brain scrambles. Shit, her video was turned on. Rainbow pivots the camera up away from where the collar of her Sweet Apple Shakes uniform had been visible. “Normal clothes, what do you mean?”
“It just seems… rather gaudy. And why’s your hair netted?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Well, it just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you would wear.”
“Yeah well, it’s trendy lately. Hahaha!” Rainbow sweats. “I’m getting on with the times, yeah.” And then it occurs to her that Rainbow never wears trendy clothes, so she tacks on, “Uh, my friend made me wear it, so. You know, Rarity, the girl who likes fashion.”
Rainbow's mum squints some more. “And where are you right now? That doesn’t look like your dorm room.”
"Uh! Um. I'm at the mall. Just out, shopping and stuff. Haha."
Her mum raises an eyebrow quizzically. Oh hell, Rainbow never goes shopping. Her mum doesn’t seem to entirely believe her, but luckily, she also seems too confused to ask any questions. She instead goes on with her usual nagging, “Well, if you’re outside of the dorms, I hope you remembered to bring your Epipen with you.”
“-yeah, I did-”
“And remember, if you’re getting anything to eat or drink, you have to ask if it contains shellfish. Or if it could contain shellfish. Or if it could have come into contact with shellfish-”
“Yeah, yeah…”
“-it’s for your own good, okay? Your dad and I worry a lot when you’re living alone interstate, you know. Look both ways when you're crossing the road, and remember not to talk to any strangers.”
“I know all that,” Rainbow groans. “Okay, I’ve really got to go now. See you, love you,” and then she hangs up. She opens the door.
The shift had already ended by then. Leaning against the counter, Applejack looks up from her phone at Rainbow. “Good news. The new blenders have arrived.”
Rainbow throws her hands up in the air. “About damn time!”
Exasperated, Applejack splays her fingers. “Look, t’ain’t me who controls how fast the shippin’ is.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Rainbow thumps her weary body onto the counter.
Much like any other day these days, throngs of people had visited just to watch Rainbow and Applejack compete over their smoothies like it was some kind of local attraction or performance in the vein of Great British Shake-Off. And while Rainbow thoroughly enjoyed fame, it remained insanely stressful working with just two blenders. Just thinking about it gave her a headache. Though Rainbow had been trying to make it a point of pride that she could run the shop on just two blenders, she’s secretly and seriously relieved.
She whistles. “Well, at least today’s the last day of that hell.”
Applejack’s chewing her lip. “About that…”
Rainbow’s heart, which had just begun to soar with relief, plummets. Her gaze narrows into razors. “What?”
“I would probably only be able to get the blenders in on next Monday,” Applejack says, apologetic.
“Whaaaat?" Rainbow gasps. "Why not today?”
“Yeah, well, it’s late today, and I don’t wanna go anywhere when it’s all dark,” Applejack responds as she locks up the storage, keys jangling. “On Friday, shift starts before the post office opens. They’re closed on Saturdays and Sundays. Only on Mondays, Big Mac is taking the morning shift, so I can go get ‘em. You’ll be able to use the blenders next Thursday.”
“But it’s Thursday today,” Rainbow moans. “That’s like- two whole more work days!”
“You’ve survived this long,” Applejack says dismissively, “You’ll live.”
No, she fucking won’t. “Can’t Big Mac go get the blenders?”
“He’s busy at his babysittin’ job on those days.”
“Rnnnrnrnrnnrghhhughhhh,” Rainbow racks her brain because she is not spending another hour with two blenders if she can help it. Then it clicks.
She snaps her fingers. “The post office is still open now, isn’t it?”
“Uhh, yeah,” Applejack frowns. “But it’s dark out.” With the onset of winter, sunsets had become very early. “I don’t wanna go anywhere alone at night.”
“Aaaaand?” Rainbow crosses her arms. “You have me!”
Pocketing her keys, Applejack shakes her head. “I can’t make you do that.”
“What, stay up late? Pshawww, I’m already doing that every day!” Rainbow flaps her hand. “And don’t worry about safety! I’ll fight anyone who comes at us!” She throws a few mock punches in the air. Then she sobers her tone. “I’m serious, by the way, I can actually hold my own in a fight. Remember the petrol station story?”
Applejack gives her a look, that mixture of disapproval and concern that bubbles up whenever Rainbow brings up her slightly-more-than-dodgy history. But then she lets out a soft sigh. “You really want those blenders, huh.”
“Darn tootin’, fam.”
Applejack barks out a surprised laugh. “Now I know you’ve lost it. Fine, follow me.”
~~~
After locking up the place, Applejack leads her to the shopping mall’s elevator, which they take down to the basement parking. They weave their way around roaring cars reversing out of their lots and exiting the carpark, headlights bright in the dim evening, leaving shining clouds of exhaust in their wake. Finally, they glimpse Applejack’s ride.
It’s a musty, old-looking pick-up van, the colour a sooty grey. Rainbow can’t tell if it had always looked that way or it had faded from white over time. Rainbow's seen Sweet Apple Shakes’ pick-up van before when she helped Applejack or Big Mac to unload boxes of the week’s ingredients. She'd usually challenge Applejack to a race there, from the white line of the parking lot to the door, but today she's way too beat for that.
This is also the first time she's actually going to get in Applejack's van. The thought fills her with a strange kind of nervousness.
“Hold on just a second,” Applejack says as she opens the door to the shotgun seat. The leg room is crammed full of random boxes that she begins to clear out. Rainbow helps to haul them to the boot, before Applejack motions for her to climb in.
Rainbow clambers into the seat. As she settles in, musty heating blows at her from the sidevents, making the dust in the air dance in the yellow interior lights. The engine of the van is a steady rumble that thrums through the scratchy polyester seats. And while Rainbow isn’t tall (midget rights), her legs are still awfully cramped in the oppressively-small leg room that Applejack had just cleared.
As Rainbow twists around to see if she could move the seat backwards, she spots a child booster seat folded in the back, where there was a small bench in lieu of seats. Huh.
Actually talk to her. Actually talk to her, the phantom of Pinkie chants in her mind.
At that moment, the door to the driver seat creaks open and Applejack climbs in.
“Yo.” Steeling herself, Rainbow cocks her head at the back. “You have a kid?”
“What?” Applejack stops midway through buckling her seatbelt, flabbergasted. Her eyes land on the booster seat behind. She chuckles. “Oh, nah, that was for my baby sister, when she was younger.”
“You have a little sister?”
“Oh, yeah. Apple Bloom’s a little runty thing. She’s usually at school, so you don’t see her at the shop,” Applejack says, plugging her seatbelt in. “Buckle your seatbelt too, lass.”
Reluctantly, Rainbow moves to untangle the seatbelt. It takes her a while, it being jammed in the gap between the door and the seat. “It’s not like you’re gonna be racing in this bucket of bolts.”
“This beauty’s long past her racing years, I’m afraid,” Applejack chuckles. She’s connecting her phone to the car radio system. Rainbow stares at her and thinks to herself, Twenty bucks it’s country.
Twangy guitar streams from the speakers. “Country rooooaaads…”
Happily, Applejack bobs her head and hums as she reverses the van out of the parking lot.
In her seat, Rainbow shifts. “I can’t figure it out. Are you from the country, or from here?” Applejack had an accent that wasn’t quite full-southern, but wasn’t Canterlot either.
There’s a lengthy pause at first. The van rolls over a speed bump, and then they’re on a side road leading out from the mall. Applejack’s green eyes remain fixed on the road ahead, but slowly, she replies, “I grew up in a village down south. I moved here with my family when I was eight.”
“Ohh, wow. That’s a long time,” Rainbow sits up. “I just moved here last year for uni. Just me though, my parents are still back in Cloudsdale.”
The van rolls onto the main road, rumbling. “Do you miss them?”
“Ehh. Not really,” Rainbow scratches her neck. “They’re textbook helicopter parents. I like my freedom here.”
A brief silence. Then, “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the sort to have overprotective parents.”
Rainbow laughs. “Yeah? Is it because of all my adventures? You thought I had the kind of parents who just let their kid run all around the neighbourhood unsupervised as long as they returned alive within three nights?” She taps her fingers on the dashboard, smirking. “Strict parents don’t make well-behaved children. It just means you learn to hide your tracks better.”
“...I see.”
“Mhm. I mean, they’ve been like this ever since the first time I got hospitalised,” Rainbow plays with her seatbelt in her hands. “8 years old. Uh, I ate a prawn. Dropped to the floor and started wheezing, it was really embarrassing. In the hospital, they thought I was gonna die. And it was really weird, because I’d eaten shellfish before with no problems, but it just happened all of a sudden one day.
Afterwards, my parents just got really scared of everything. Like, they discussed taking me out of school, because what if my classmate’s eating shrimp crackers next to me and I get a whiff of it and fall over? Stuff like that.” She sighs. “But I don’t wanna live my life behind glass, y’know? If I’m gonna die, I’d rather it be cool. Being killed by some shrimp? Totally doesn't suit my style.”
Applejack doesn’t have anything to say to that, which, well, fair. Great, you ended up just talking about yourself again, Rainbow berates herself internally. She’s never shared this much with anyone else before, not even Fluttershy. When it comes to Applejack, Rainbow often just ends up yammering everything on her mind.
But just as Rainbow’s about to ask back the obligatory ‘what about you?’, her eyes wander to the string looped around the rear view mirror. Hanging from the string is a pair of matching golden wedding rings.
Rainbow thinks back to the company meeting, when she had just seen Applejack’s grandmother and her brother. And fuck. Rainbow has a pretty good guess.
This is why you don’t have any friends, Tiny Tank dutifully reminds her. But seeing as Applejack isn’t keen on sharing more, Rainbow shuts her mouth and lets the country guitar on the radio pour into the silence left behind. It remains that way after Applejack has parked the van outside the collection centre, and remains that way when they walk in for the blenders, and after they've loaded the blenders into the back of the van. So much for actually talking.
Rainbow slides back into her cramped seat as Applejack starts up the van. Seeking a diversion, Rainbow checks her phone for new messages.
The name Bitchass flashes across the screen. It's Gilda, whose messages Rainbow has been letting pile up in greyticks for the past month or so. She sighs and opens the channel, skipping all the way to the most recent messages:
Bitchass
if you finally died
at least do me the courtesy of letting me know
so i can come piss on your grave
Me
what the fuck do you want
Bitchass
why havent u been coming to parties
Gilda is… Gilda. Not exactly a friend, not exactly a foe. Rainbow may or may not have been involved in a six-month-long situationship with her. Even after Rainbow broke it off, they still keep in contact. It’s worth segueing around the woman’s piss-poor attempts at trying to win her back in exchange for her killer parties and free booze. Funny how life works out like that.
Me
I’ve been busy with work and uni
Bitchass
Yeah like you have it in you to be that responsible
You have a girlfriend now? That why?
or a boyfriend. I don’t judge
Me
What. no
Bitchass
Oh no you absolutely do have a girlfriend
I saw you in that tiktok
who’s that babe next to you
Me
She’s just my coworker
Bitchass
I mean, u could do better than that, obviously
But I guess birds of a feather shit together
Something in Rainbow’s gut coils, hot and angry. Her anger must roll off her, because Applejack shoots a glance at her. What the fuck does she mean by that? Who does Gilda think she is, saying that Applejack-
Rainbow types rapidly.
Me
Nah I’m not interested. Fuck off
Bitchass
Ur so cute when ur angry hun
But come on, I really need your help this time
I don’t need a lot, I just need someone to help me mix the drinks but no one else I know is free
pleaaaaaaaaase
And you can bring your gf along too I won’t try anything funny in front of her
You remember how many times I’ve helped you in freshman year, right?
Me
…
What time
Bitchass
I knew you had it in you to help out a friend
Tuesday, 7 PM
Me
you’re no friend
Bitchass
Then what am I
Me
a bitchass
“Hey, Applejack,” Rainbow says cursorily, into the echoing air of the van. “Wanna go to a party?”
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Well, there's no way this can end badly...
11903225
none whatsoever
Snow, I don't mean any disrispect, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed "Chasing the Sky" just as much as I'm enjoying this one, but I really have to ask: why are they conjugated in present tense? It's a bit distracting that the whole fic is written like that. Again, don't get me wrong, everything else is great: the characterizations are on point and your interpretations are a bit funny at times (like Swift said, Dash's mom being a Karen is an interesting take), but the fact that it's written like that feels weird (for me at least). Hope I didn't come off as rude and sorry if I did.
11909026
Eh... save for the flashback part, Chasing the Sky was written entirely in present tense too?
I write in present because I think it makes the narration very immersive. I've been inspired by the writing style of contemporary LGBT romance fiction like Red White and Royal Blue, She Gets the Girl, Some Girls Do, I Think I Love You, etc, which write in present tense. I understand it can be hard to get used to, but I write in present.... because I feel like it, lol, and I'm gonna keep writing like that. It's cool to see you reading my story though, and I'm glad if you're still be able to enjoy it somewhat.
11911740
Completely understandable! I was torn between thinking it was a stylistic choice or if it was an actual mistake. This doesn't take away the content from the plot, I'm still hooked to know what will Rainbow do.