Home is Where the Hearth is
It was like having someone to look up to, only it wasn't. She frowned. It was like having an older sister, only, no, it wasn't like that either, because she already had a perfectly wonderful older sister. With impatience, she stamped her hooves, the sound like a double beat on the floorboards of the upstairs room of the Pie family home. It was a sign of nervousness, an involuntary response to feelings of anxiety that she had employed unbidden since childhood. Sometimes the feelings were too big, and the only way that Apple Bloom could deal with them was to express them physically, a swift stamp of the hooves, one-two-one-two.
The whole business was a source of anxiety for her, this family trip to the Pie family's rock farm made her feel uncomfortable not just because of the uncertainty of it all, the marked and now very obvious differences between the Apples and the Pies, but because she simply didn't know how she felt about Maud Pie. Not that she even really knew Maud, she reminded herself, having seen her only briefly during her visit to Ponyville, and not thought too much of the matter.
Yet here, on the rock farm, at Hearth's Warming nonetheless, she felt a special closeness with Maud despite the obvious differences between them. Again, she stamped her hooves. It hadn't been that she wanted to come all the way out here, or that she was entirely comfortable with the way the Pies celebrated the festival—it was a far cry from the way they celebrated Hearth's Warming at home—but she wasn't entirely uncomfortable either, and a lot of that had to do with how Maud made her feel.
"Okay, Apple Bloom," she said to herself, "how do you feel then?"
It frustrated her. She had words, but none of them seemed to fit the feelings, not properly anyhow, and that frustrated her, because whenever something was left unresolved, she felt incapable of resting, as if the problem was constantly there, constantly nagging her.
"It's just a part of growing up," she told herself, trying to sound convincing, trying to talk herself into believing what she was saying.
Was it really part of growing up though, a voice asked at the back of her mind. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo never seemed to worry about anything comparative to what she felt whenever she spent time with Maud. Well, perhaps she was just more emotionally mature, said the voice, and she nodded to herself. That was probably it. More emotionally mature. It wasn't anything else, it was just that she was mature, sensitive.
"Something on your mind?" a voice asked from the doorway.
She jumped, stamping her hooves once again, nervously turning to find Maud Pie looking in on her, expression unreadable.
"Ah, no, everything's fine here, no problem here at all," Apple Bloom lied.
Maud nodded slowly.
"It's just that you looked like you were worried about something." She glanced down at Apple Bloom's hooves. "And I heard you stamping when I was downstairs."
"Aha, no I'm fine, honest," the younger pony said, her stomach twisting in knots, her heart in her throat.
"Okay. If you say so," Maud replied, and stepped backwards.
She made to leave, hesitated, and looked again at Apple Bloom.
"I was thinking, maybe you'd like to go for a walk with me."
An apple red flush coloured the younger pony's cheeks.
"Ah, why me?" she murmured. "I mean, not that I don't want to, but why would you want to waste your time with somepony like me?
Maud did not smile; her tone did not change.
"I like you," she said, her voice flat, "I like spending time with you."
The blush deepened on Apple Bloom's cheeks.
"I like spending time with you too!" she blurted out. "I like everything about you, Maud!"
Maud nodded as if considering this.
"Then we should spend more time together, it seems."
Apple Bloom nodded also, enthusiastically.
"It does seem so," she agreed.
It seemed then, thought the younger pony, that the corners of Maud Pie's mouth lifted slightly.
"Good," Maud said, "that makes me happy."
Outside, from somewhere far aware, came the faint chime of Hearth's Warming bells.