"No, bees don't like apples," protested a sleepy colt from within the bucket.Īpplejack grinned, quickly removing more apples from the top of the pile inside the bucket. She approached a seemingly random bucket of apples, gave it a thorough examination, then turned and kicked it, though gently enough to only cause a few apples to fall out. Mostly mumbo-jumbo that didn't make any sense."Īpplejack breathed a sputtering exhale, scanning the apples she and Apple Bloom had harvested with hard eyes. "Lot's o' rustlin'?" asked Applejack, withdrawing from the cart and circling around to rejoin Big Mac. "Ya said ya heard somepony around here?" asked Applejack, addressing Big Macintosh as the two patrolled the west side of the barn, scanning carefully for the trespasser among the recently placed crates and buckets of apples.Īpplejack peered inside the emptied apple cart she had pulled the previous day, humming with perplexity. "I know what I need to do." Rainbow Dash kicked off the ground, her wings carrying her into town. After allowing her mind to settle, however, there arose clarity and directive. Rainbow Dash's thoughts bubbled and sloshed in one big, incomprehensible soup. Rainbow Dash's gaze was now set on the ground before her, her eyes animate with thought. Rainbow Dash's gaze turned to Ponyville, her brow furrowed. "Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. "Apple Bloom," Rainbow Dash whispered, her eyes shooting open. Like each of those break-ups were just yesterday." "I thought I had put that all behind me, but now it's so fresh in my mind. "What is going on?" Rainbow Dash asked herself, landing, sitting, and staring up at the sky. After that, Rainbow Dash recalled, Twilight had hurried out of the library in search of Spike. Rainbow Dash remembered talking briefly with Twilight Sparkle and how she had narrowly avoided revealing her recent unemployment. She remembered a trio of stallions, whom she considered to be excessively nerdy, hurrying out of the library to attend to whatever had befallen one of them. "Daring Do needs no coltfriend."ĭismissing her reading material as the cause of her renewed interest in Fluttershy, Gilda, and Monsoon Splendor, Rainbow Dash put greater effort into recalling the events of last night. "What a chump," Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes. Rainbow Dash considered the love interest to be insignificant to the plot and a poorly developed character, and had dismissed any of his involvement, limited as it was, as fan service. Though she did not consider her theory to be incorrect, Rainbow Dash did recall that she found the few lines of dialogue between Daring and the male character that she was supposed to have feelings for to be bland and uninteresting. "Maybe that's why I've got shallow relationships on the brain." "Maybe its Daring Do's new love interest," reasoned Rainbow Dash. Something that had happened at the library had spurred a sudden recollection of her first three failed relationships, yet she felt at peace with her decisions in a way that she hadn't before.
Though she knew no specifics, she recalled the night before. Rainbow Dash puzzled and puzzled, 'til her puzzler was sore. "I haven't heard from Gilda or Monsoon in a while," she thought aloud, "and Fluttershy's been quiet. She circled her property by wing, pondering what had suddenly brought these three to the forefront of her mind. Though she couldn't discern why, three individuals had been on Rainbow Dash's mind all morning.