There was a soft knock on my door, "Olly?"
I let out an aggravated sigh, "Yea, come in."
Applejack calmly let herself into my room and sat in front of me on the floor. It was their third day of school and we had just finished eating, so I made my way up to my room to work on some things.
"How ya doin', sugarcube?" she asked with a small, amused smile on her face.
"Wish I could be better," I grumbled, pushing my guitar off to the side, "How am I supposed to learn this by Friday night?"
"Aw, I'm sure you'll get it. It's gettin' better, I reckon."
"Yea, I guess. But not good enough to be on stage."
About a month ago, Ryan and I had auditioned for the school talent show. We were planning on doing a comedy act in song form, but it involved me playing the guitar. Sure, I had taken guitar a couple years earlier and had minimal knowledge on how to play, but now I had less than two days to get the song down perfectly.
"Ya know," she raised an eyebrow accusingly, "Ya shoulda' been practicin' before this week."
I stuck my tongue out at her, "Well, I'm sorry. I had a little bit of a distraction."
She laughed a bit and stared down at her toes. My features went from amusement to concern as she awkwardly played with her fingers. I motioned for her to sit next to me on the couch, "You okay?"
"Yea, I'm fine I jus'…," she paused for a second, "Well, Pinkie Pie was tellin' us the other day about how… well…"
I sighed, "She told you about the panic attack, huh?"
"Yea…" she stared at her toes.
I shook my head and put a friendly arm around her, "It's not something you need to worry about. Trust me, if it was worse, I wouldn't be here right now."
"Olly," I saw her cheeks begin to turn red, "Could 'ya please stop tellin' me not to worry?"
I was taken back a bit, "Wha…"
She sighed a bit and positioned herself more comfortably under my arm, "It's jus… ever since the first day we've seen ya in pain. But still, ya' done nothin' but be kind to us and help us out. Please, stop tellin' us not to worry. I wanna worry about you."
I blinked a few times, and was instantly reminded of what Rarity had said the other day. Slowly, I nodded. I still didn't understand why she felt like this, but I decided not to question her any further. If there was one thing I knew about Applejack, it was that she knew what she was talking about. She WAS the element of honesty, after all.
"Can I ask ya' somethin'?" she asked suddenly. I nodded to her again.
"Its jus… darn I jus' can't even imagine Applebloom livin' in another home. I mean there's not much I can do about it right now, but if she lived right there…"
I really didn't understand what her question was. I knew she missed Applebloom, but what did this have to do with me?
"I guess what I'm try'na ask is… where yer sister is?"
My eyes widened at this, and I began searching my brain for some kind of careless excuse. That's how I tended to answer the majority of my friends when they asked about this kind of thing. But then it realized it; this was Applejack. She'd be able to tell if it was an excuse.
"W-which one?" I stuttered out.
"Not the one in school," she clarified, "I can understand bein' held up in yer studies."
"Ah…" I twiddled my thumbs, "She… she just kind of moved out. Most people… once they grow up… they move on and buy a house of their own."
"Right," Applejack nodded, "But yer here all alone. Why aren't ya over there? Er… why isn't she here now?"
I chuckled a bit and shook my head, "I wonder that myself, sometimes. She practically raised me. No, that's wrong, she DID raise me. She was more like a mom than anyone. But once we both got older she just… moved out. Had two kids of her own."
Her eyebrows were raised at this, obviously not sure what to say. I knew her situation was similar; raising Applebloom as a mother would since their parents weren't around. I assumed it was a lot for her to take in that my sister would just leave like that.
"It's not like we NEVER see eachother," I continued, "She lives… um… up by the school. We see eachother when the family gets together and things like that…"
"Why'd she hafta' raise you?" she asked, "I thought yer parents were still around…"
"They are," I assured, "But things were a lot like they are now. They go on business trips a lot, sometimes for months at a time. To be honest, they were really busy when I was a little kid. When they weren't traveling, they were either working or out with friends."
She suddenly nodded in understanding, "So that's why…"
"Huh?" I let myself drift away from my thoughts.
"Ya must' a depended on yerself a lot, right?" she asked with a small smile.
"I… I guess so…" I was completely unsure of what to think of this new advancement. It was like she was trying to understand how my brain worked. The thought made me uncomfortable, and I pulled away from her, grabbing my guitar off of the floor. I needed to get this song down before Friday night.
"Buuuunnyyy!" I heard Pinkie Pie sing, "Someone's at the doooorrr!"
For the past couple hours, I had been working on playing the guitar. While Applejack still sat in my room with me listening, she never brought up the topic of my sister again. It left me to focus on the guitar rather than my thoughts.
"Coming!" I yelled out the door, "Go ahead and get it! It's Ryan!"
"Hey hey!" Ryan greeted suddenly, walking into my bedroom. Apparently, Pinkie Pie didn't see any need to wait for me to give her the okay before answering the door.
"Hey," I groaned, striking a wrong chord.
"You ready to practice?" he smiled.
"I wish," I replied, sliding the guitar off of my lap, "Why is it so hard to play the guitar?"
"Relax, you're good," Applejack reassured, reminding us that she was in the room.
"Yea, right now," I rolled my eyes, "But I can guarantee I'll forget how to play it once I'm on stage."
"That's fine," Ryan shook his head, "It's a comedy act anyway. Just pretend its part of the act."
"I guess so," I yawned.
"Wanna go watch a movie or something?" he suggested.
I nodded at him quietly and the three of us made our way down to the basement, abandoning the guitar on my couch. Ryan happily slid down the stairs while Applejack had an arm around me. I decided that, just this once, I would let her help me out.
"Hello, darlings!" Rarity greeted as we walked toward the living room, "You're guitar is sounding quite a bit better."
"Thanks," I grumbled, still not convinced, "We're gonna watch a movie in the basement. You guys wanna join?"
"That sounds… nice," Fluttershy smiled softly.
"Got any good adventure movies?" Rainbow Dash turned to me.
I grinned a bit, "Well, I may or may not have something extremely similar to Daring Doo… but other than that…"
At this, Rainbow Dash shot up and ran towards the basement, shouting different questions as she ran, "Really? What's it called? How could it be similar to Daring Doo? I thought they only had Daring Doo books in Equestria."
"There's really something similar to Daring Doo?" Twilight raised an eyebrow, walking up next to me.
I nodded, "It's called Indiana Jones. Not the same story, but they do things pretty similarly."
We all made our way downstairs and I put the first Indiana Jones movie into my DVD player. To their surprise, it really was similar to Daring Doo. It was fun watching Rainbow Dash's reactions to all the different events. Who knew Dash could be such a movie geek?
"Wow, I never really got inta' Darin' Doo myself but…" Applejack started.
"Wee! That looks like so much fun!" Pinkie Pie cheered, running around the room as if to copy Indiana Jones's movements.
"Yea, I never really got into Indiana Jones before…"
"Really?" Twilight raised an eyebrow, "Then why do you own the movie?"
"My dad is really into it," I shrugged.
"Oh? That's… that's very interesting…" Fluttershy pondered.
"Hey yea!" Pinkie Pie shouted, bouncing back over to where I was sitting, "You've never told us about your Dad, Bunny!"
Ryan glanced over at me skeptically, to which I shrugged and turned back to the TV, "There's not much to talk about. He's an engineer and he likes Indiana Jones and Basketball. He used to play baseball, but he got hurt too much so he stopped playing. I think he might like to golf too…"
"So he's into sports?" Rainbow Dash seemed to perk up.
"Kind of," I replied, "He's into watching sports, but then again so are the rest of the guys in my family. He doesn't really play sports anymore."
"Oh…" she shied off a bit.
"What about your mom?" Twilight asked, obviously very interested in the topic, "What's she like?"
"Uh…" I scratched my head, "She's a librarian at a middle school… when she's home she watches a LOT of TV… and she has a lot of friends that she works with. They go on vacations together sometimes. Usually to Mexico or something. She tries really hard to be into the new technology like TV and the internet, but she usually just ends up watching cat videos."
"But cat videos are the best!" Ryan interrupted.
"I know," I laughed, "But it's all she does."
"Cat videos?" Fluttershy perked up a bit, a smile spreading across her face. I shook my head.
"A wonderful internet phenomenon," I laughed dramatically, "Where people post videos of their cats doing funny things. These videos are sweeping the nation and getting millions of views."
"What? Why?" Rainbow Dash was completely bewildered.
"Because it's hilarious," Ryan replied laughing, "But your moms gotta be into other things too."
"Besides watching TV? Not really."
"…What about your sisters?" Applejack asked reluctantly.
I flinched and looked over at her with a disappointed look on my face, hoping I wouldn't have to get into this again. She looked down at her feet apologetically, and I sighed.
"The one in collage is a little… different. She's really, REALLY into Disney cartoons. As am I but… I don't think we're into them in the same way. She's… almost obsessed."
"Is that why she has all the dolls in her room?" Pinkie asked.
"Exactly," I nodded, "It's all she thinks about. She's going to art school right now to learn animation, and I think she's going to try to work for them. I'd be more interested in writing for them, myself…"
"…And your other sister?" she pressed on. I sighed audibly and began, "I… don't know too much now, really. She's the manager of a kind of green house store called English Gardens. It's over by school. She used to really like music and things like that… she's pretty easy going."
"You don't know much about your own sister?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. I flinched again.
"Well… no I guess not. Back when she lived here she was always fussing over me and just doing whatever I wanted to do. When she wasn't doing that she was usually just doing school-work."
Applejack nodded, thankfully deciding not to press the matter any further. Everypony else, however, had looks of complete confusion on their faces. Instead of getting more into it, I just continued to watch the movie, casually punching the air along with Pinkie Pie during the action scenes.
To my surprise, the mood had lightened up quite a bit toward the end of the movie, and we decided to watch another.
"These movies are sweet!" Rainbow Dash cheered.
"I have others I think you'd like, too," I smiled, "Like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. They're a little bit different, but they're long adventure films like this."
"Can we watch them all tonight?" Rainbow asked me almost childishly. I chuckled.
"No, we have school tomorrow. You guys should get to sleep soon."
Twilight raised an eyebrow at me, "Shouldn't you?"
"W-well yea," I was taken back a bit.
"Hey, my mom's here," Ryan prodded my shoulder, "I'm gonna get going. I'll see you on the bus tomorrow, kay?"
"Okay, gurl," I laughed, "See ya."
With that, Ryan made his way up the stairs and it was just myself and the ponies littered around my basement. I wanted to practice the guitar a little more, but I knew that it would probably keep the others awake. I decided to make my way upstairs as well just so I could sit in my room and think.
I sat on my bed quietly listening to reviews of the new MLP episode. I had to admit, Maud Pie was probably one of my favorite episodes of season four. I was thankful that the others were out on a walk when it came on, because I probably laughed more than I should have. Then again, according to all these reviews, EVERYONE laughed more than they should have.
"Hey, Bunny!" Pinkie shouted, suddenly bursting into the room. I jumped and my computer fell off of my lap and onto the floor.
"Ahh… Hi Pinkie," I replied, attempting to snap myself out of my own confusion.
"Hey, what's that?" she asked, pointing to my computer. Before I could say 'nothing', she dove to the ground and snatched the computer out of my reach. I grimaced, waiting for some sort of sad reaction to what she saw on the screen.
"Hey!" she shouted happily, "That's Maud!"
After getting over my initial shock, I nodded happily, hoping to avoid another emotional situation, "Yea, she was in the new episode on Saturday. It was about the time she visited Ponyville before she went to rock school."
"Ohh yea! I remember that!" she laughed, "We all went to the rock farm and made rock candy necklaces! It was so fun!"
"Do you still have any of those rock candy necklaces?" I asked with a smile.
"Nope!" she announced proudly, "They're all in my tummy!"
I chuckled as she slid the computer back towards me, and I exited out of YouTube, proud of myself for avoiding a catastrophe.
"Is your big sister like Maud?" she asked suddenly.
I thought for a minute, "Kind of… I think. Actually now that you mention it…"
"They both really like one thing, and don't have as many friends as we do! And they're both going to school for the things they really like!"
"Hey yea!" I suddenly realized, "Our sisters are pretty similar…"
"Oh! Oh!" she laughed, "Does that mean WE'RE really similar? Are WE the same people?"
I laughed along with her, "Rainbow Dash said I reminded her of you the other day…"
"Wee! We're like twins! We should throw a twin party!"
"Um… Pinkie?" I heard a soft voice call into the room. I turned to see Fluttershy tiredly peeking in through the crack of the door, "I think… you should let Olly get to bed…"
"Awwwww but Fluttershy, he's not sleeping anyway! We were just about to plan our twin party!" Pinkie pouted.
I shook my head, "Go on, Pinkie. You need to get to sleep anyway. I promise we'll talk more about our 'twin party' tomorrow."
"Pinkie Promise?" she put her hands on her hips.
"Pinkie Promise," I agreed, going through the motions, "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
"Okey dokey lokey…" she sighed, beginning to skip out of the room. I smiled as she skipped past Fluttershy.
"O-Olly… you should really be getting to bed too," Fluttershy came further into the room.
"I will, Flutters," I reassured, "Just let me take care of a few more things."
She seemed reluctant, almost like she wanted to continue arguing with me. But then she sighed, and softly closed the door behind her. I shook my head and opened up YouTube once again; racking my brain for where I left off in the video I was watching. I picked up a can of tea that was on my bedside table and gulped the rest of it down. I wasn't even remotely tired; it was going to be a long night.
"Olly? Hey, Olly...," I heard a familiar voice calling out to me.
"Hmm?" I began to open my eyes. As soon as I realized it wasn't the middle of the night, I shot up in panic, attempting to find the time, "Huh? What?"
"What are you doing down here?" Twilight was looking down at me with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical expression. I looked around in confusion. I was downstairs in the living room sitting up against the back of the couch.
"Huh… I… I dunno," I shrugged, gripping the couch to pull myself up into a standing position, "Man, I don't remember half of last night."
She looked concerned at this, "Do you think you could've been sleep walking?"
"No way," I laughed, "I'm never in a deep enough sleep for that to happen. Must've come down here for some reason and passed out."
I looked over to my side. There were at least four cans of iced tea and two paper plates. I must've just been thinking really deep about something, and wanted to get out of my room.
"Well, it sure looks like you planned to be down here for a while," Twilight pondered, gesturing to the mess I left.
"Meh, I dunno," I shrugged, "I'm gonna go get dressed. Is everyone else awake?"
"Rarity was just waking up when I came downstairs," she confirmed, "I'm sure Pinkie will be up in a few minutes and running around getting everyone else awake."
"Good," I yawned, "I'll start breakfast in a few minutes. How'd you sleep?"
"Pretty well," she nodded, "Being here now seems more natural, so I'm not waking up as much. And I expect to wake up here instead of at home."
"That's good, I think," I grinned, beginning to walk up the stairs. She casually followed behind me.
"How'd you sleep?"
"I don't remember going to sleep," I admitted, "It must've happened when I got downstairs. But as far as I know it was okay."
"Hm… good… I think," she tried to smile weakly.
"Oh hey," I realized once I started walking up the stairs, "Could you go to the counter and get that little blueish bottle?"
"Yea sure," she replied swiftly, "What's in it?"
"Just medications," I yawned again. She quickly made her way back to the kitchen and returned with a clear-blue medicine bottle.
"Nitro… Nitro…glycerin?"
"Yea; Nitroglycerin," I shrugged as she handed the bottle to me.
"What's it for? What does it do?"
"It's heart medication," I calmly explained, "it's to help prevent angina, which is chest pains that come from the heart. Not a huge deal, really. Just helps things along."
As much as I tried to make things seem not so bad, she looked extremely concerned with every word I spoke. I shook my head and began walking up the stairs again to my room to pick out some clothes. Once there, I casually looked out the window only to see…
"You've got to be kidding me," I groaned.
"Wh-what?" Twilight asked, still getting over her shock.
"IT'S FREAKING SNOWING! DAMNIT, I THOUGHT THIS WAS OVER!"
"Uh…" she seemed confused, walking up to the window next to me, "Nope, I guess not. It's defiantly snowing out there."
I growled and buried my face in the couch, "Can't Winter just be over, already? I can't take any more of this polar vortex."
"When's the first day of spring?" she asked casually, "How much longer do we have to wait." I laughed a bit at this.
"It's March twentieth. But the day doesn't influence how the weather changes. We call it the first day of spring, but sometimes it can still feel like winter until the end of April."
She was taken back a bit, "What? Then why would you call it the first day of spring?"
"I think it used to get warm around that time a long time ago," I explained, "But since we can't control the weather at all, there's no real way we can predict when it's going to get warmer."
"I thought the weatherman…" she seemed to be doubting herself.
"Weathermen predict the weather using technology. They're not always right, though. They just give a rough estimate," I tried to explain while pulling a shirt out of my drawer.
She gave me a long, dazed look. I raised an eyebrow and pulled my shirt from the day before off and began putting on the new one.
"Olly," she started, "Why do you always wear white?"
"Huh?" I looked down at my shirt and realized that it was, indeed, pure white, "Uh… I dunno. What do you mean?"
"Well, at first I just thought it was something humans did. Since ponies are usually represented by their coat color, I just assumed humans were represented by a certain color of clothing," she started going on a rant that only could come from Twilight, "But I noticed at school that the majority of students have multiple clothing colors. So… why do you always wear white?"
"Uhh…," I honestly had no idea, "I dunno… I guess I just like the color…?"
That wasn't true. In fact, white was my least favorite color of the mix. I wasn't exactly sure why I didn't like it, but it was last on my list of favorite colors. Maybe I just looked good in it? I wasn't completely positive.
Suddenly, in the distance, I heard some peculiar music. It sounded a bit tropical, but I couldn't tell what it was. That is, until I heard:
"You may call it a crash I'd call it a fly in here to perform on this deserted island."
"Are you guys listening to brony music?" I asked, bursting out of the room. I looked down to see Rainbow Dash playing with my cell phone.
"What's this song about?" she called up to me, not taking her eyes off of the phone.
"It's about DJ-PON3 and Octavia."
"Octavia?"
"The cello player. I'm not sure if they're actually good friends in Equestria, but everyone here seems to think they are," I sighed, pulling out a white and blue hoodie with Vinyl's cute mark on the sleeve. I shook my head at the irony. Unable to convince Rainbow to turn the music off, I decided to just go along with it.
"One, two, three, Tavi dance with me. Though we're lost at sea, depressed is just no way to be," I sang quietly as I fixed my hair in the mirror. Suddenly, Fluttershy walked calmly out of her bedroom. Out of flirtatious instinct, I grabbed her hands and we began sloppily waltzing across the hallway.
"Come on let's take things slow. Help is on the way I know, so we've nowhere to go!" I sang happily, dragging Fluttershy in my dance.
After getting over her surprise, she giggled a bit at my attempted to rap the lines of the song as perfectly as the song. Rainbow Dash glanced up at us, and began chuckling as well. She called Applejack over and instantly started the song over, turning up the volume. Rarity poked her head out of her room to see what the commotion was, which allowed be to drag her into my fun as well. At this point, AJ, Dash, and Twilight were all in hysterics, watching me force the other two to dance along with me.
"Ohh! I wanna play too! I wanna play too!" Pinkie cheered, bursting out of her room.
As we danced, I grabbed all the things I needed for school. The others took the hint and did so as well, and then we all danced out the door.
In Product Team class, I happily listened to the same song while working on a recent story I had been writing. It was about a young kid simply living a complicated life in the city of Detroit. I admit, it was based a bit off of my own life years before, but there were many changes made in order to make the story flow better. Rainbow Dash was sitting next to me, apparently working on some sort of math homework. We weren't in the same class, since we were technically in different grades, so usually I wouldn't be able to help her. However, she just happened to be in math studies, which worked on elementary school type material at this point.
Just then, the teacher announced that we could leave the classroom. I groaned, wishing my entire day could just be a product team class.
"What's up with you?" Rainbow Dash laughed. I rolled my eyes.
"I have a stupid debate in health class. Man, you don't even know how much I hate working in groups with other people."
"It's not THAT bad," she smirked, "As long as they all know you're awesome."
"I wish they did," I stuck my tongue out, "I got stuck finding statistics. I don't even care about this whole thing. Our group barely even worked on it."
"Oh, well good luck with that," she punched my shoulder before she turned the corner to walk to her next class. Soon, I ran into Kendall in the hallway. She simply ruffled my hair and continued walking, talking to Twilight about something. I glanced back to see Twilight looking a bit solemn, but I decided to ignore it and go on to Health class.
When I got to the lunchroom, I was surprised to see Applejack sitting alone. Not only that, but she had taken the table that I used to claim before they showed up in this world. She glanced up at me and proudly gestured to my usual seat.
"You're literally the best," I thanked her, happily taking my seat; "This table is the greatest table. Not too close to any walls, but not directly in the middle so we don't get attention. Perfect table."
She laughed, "Does it really matter that much?"
I shook my head, "I think you guys might need to work on your sarcasm skills. It's a big joke I have. Yea, I prefer this seat and this table, but not for any real particular reason."
She rolled her eyes and began eating her food that she had no doubt bought just before I had entered. I took out a notebook and began writing down whatever drabble came to my mind. The ponies, especially Applejack, had begun to learn the extent of my social skills. Some days, I would talk non-stop about whatever. However, most of the time I was satisfied just being around people. I didn't really find it necessary to be speaking about something all the time. The quiet was really nice, and I liked being around people at the same time.
"Heeeyy," Ryan walked up to us, ruining my quiet environment. I didn't let it show and I smiled up at him.
"Eyy baby, what's happenin'?" I said in a mocking tone. He laughed and took his usual seat across from me.
"Help is on its way I know, so we've nowhere to go," I sang to myself as I put my notebook away. I noticed Ryan smiling at this, and I stuck my tongue out at him.
"It's just stuck in my head, man. Robin was playing it this morning, and I just couldn't help it." He laughed and took a bite of his food just as Rainbow Dash approached the table along with Fluttershy. I was glad to see them adjusting to school so well and so quickly. I was afraid it was be extremely difficult since they had no doubt not attended school in several years. But they seemed to be getting the hang of it, so I figured there wasn't much to worry about.
"I was listening to some other songs on your phone this morning, too," Rainbow Dash brought up again, "There was this one song called… uh… Rainbow Factory?"
I nearly choked on my juice box and looked back up at her, hoping that she wouldn't understand what the song was talking about.
"I couldn't really figure out some of the words," she explained, "But it was talking about Cloudsdale… and the chorus was kind of weird."
I looked over to see Ryan practically falling out of his seat from laughter. I sighed and looked back over at the rainbow haired girl, a really tired expression on my face.
"Ask me before you go through my music," I sighed, "There's some things on there that you shouldn't be listening to… including that one."
"O-oh?" she was taken back for a second, but then she regained her cool, "It can't be so tough that I can't handle it. It was a cool song."
"The meaning is terrible," I explained awkwardly, "You can listen to the song I guess… but try not to pay attention to the lyrics."
I could tell she was about to strike back with another comment, but the look on my face told her that I was serious about this one, so she shut up. Soon after this, a small bag of carrots was placed in front of me, and Julia took her place at the table.
"Hiii," she said in a voice that would sound awkward to some, but I just found it cute.
"Hey," I laughed, beginning to go through my carrots as I usually did.
"You're eatin' those carrots real weird," she laughed as I took a bite out of one as if it were an apple. I shrugged and continued, not really sure how to reply.
"Hey, hey Olly, guess what," Ryan had a smirk on his face. I raised an eyebrow to answer him, and he pulled a large, red apple out of his bag, "Apples!"
As soon as he realized he made not only a Friendship is Witchcraft reference, but one that was mocking Applejack, he threw a hand over his mouth. I lost control of my laughter and literally fell off of my seat.
"Dude, I know you think that's funny but damn," Julia laughed a bit along with me. That's when I realized she still didn't realize that the girls were from Equestria, which honestly just made me laugh even harder.
"Um… I don't… understand the joke," Fluttershy began to shy into her hair. I shook my head and lifted myself back onto my seat, "Don't worry, it's a terrible joke. I shouldn't have laughed so hard."
"Wait… it's a pony thing, right?" Julia tried to clarify with me.
I blushed and put my face in my hands, "Yea, yea it's a pony thing."
Ryan began laughing himself now at the awkwardness of the situation. I watched to see if Applejack would have a reaction, but she still just had a confused look planted on her face. Suddenly, I heard the word 'apples' in a similar tone coming from Julia.
"Apples! Apples! Buy some apples!"
"Dude!" I shouted, putting my hand over her mouth, "Dude, shut up!" This time, it was Ryan's turn to fall out of his seat laughing, while the girl's expressions didn't change whatsoever. I was incredibly glad Twilight wasn't in this lunch, or she would've gotten the joke by now.
"Oh!" Julia shouted, pushing my hand away from her mouth, "Wanna know why Liz is literal Applejack?"
Ryan only laughed harder, and I wanted to bang my head on the table, "Can it wait? This is awful timing."
"Wait… what?" Applejack was beginning to realize.
By some great miracle, people began standing up to leave the lunchroom, meaning lunch was over. I took a breath of relief, grabbed Julia's hand, and ran straight out of the doors ahead of everybody. She laughed as I pulled her along behind me.
"What's up?" she asked half in curiosity half in laughter. I shook my head, "I'll explain later, okay? Not with so many people around."
"Okay?" she seemed the tiniest bit concerned, but shrugged it off as soon as we entered the physics room, and she ran over to talk to our friend Brooke about something or other. Shortly after, Rainbow Dash walked into the room with a completely bewildered look on her face.
"Dude," she walked up to me, "What was that about?"
"She was out of line," I chuckled to myself, "I'll explain it to you later, but I think I might have to tell her about you guys."
"What? Why?"
"Because she made a ponies joke," I sighed, "And if she knew it would keep her from going out of line. Plus, she's going to be asking me about why I dragged her out of there and why Ryan and I were laughing so hard."
"Oh…"
"Don't worry," I reassured, "She's my girlfriend. She was probably going to find out eventually; especially since you guys are living at my place."
"Oh, okay cool," she replied simply. But for some reason, I could still sense a little tenseness in the air between us. I raised my eyebrows, attempting to get her to speak what was on her mind.
"So… what was the joke about? I mean, what did it mean?"
"Oh," I chuckled a bit, "It's really not a HUGE deal. This guy on YouTube makes videos dubbing over the show, and it's a joke from that. It's basically talking about AJ's apple obsession."
"Really?" she seemed confused by this. I couldn't say I blamed her; Applejack being obsessed with apples was just a given. She ran an apple farm, and her cutie mark was apples. Since they were friends, Dash probably just saw it as natural.
"Like I said," I sighed, "It's not a very good joke. We take it a bit farther that most people."
"And what was Julia about to…"
"A worse joke," I laughed, "She told me it before. See, her sister Liz works at an apple orchard close to home… and Liz really likes apple cider. So she was just making a joke about how Liz and AJ could be the same person."
"Oh hey!" she seemed more confident now, "I get that one!"
I nodded in accomplishment and walked to sit down in my place next to Julia. A little later, Twilight and Mr. Swanson walked in around the same time. I threw a thumbs-up at Mr. Swanson, who shot one back in reply.
"Hey, Olly!" Twilight sounded a bit excited, running up to my desk.
"Yea, Tara?" I was a bit confused, which caused me to almost say Twilight instead of Tara. Thankfully, I caught myself before I got passed the letter 'T'.
"I was talking to the teacher," she went on excitedly, "He said we're going to start a lab in Chemistry!"
"Greeaaat," I rolled my eyes, suddenly dreading my next class.
"What's the matter?" she suddenly sounded more disappointed. I shrugged, as to not make her feel bad about getting excited.
"I like the LAB part… but we always have to do labs in groups," I cringed a bit, "I'm not the kind of person who likes working with other people; especially when it's a class like that, where not many of my friends are in it."
She shot me a disapproving look, but then smiled, "Are you forgetting about Promise and I?"
A relieved grin spread across my face, "Oh yea! Thank goodness. The only friend I had in that class before you guys was Nic, and he usually dragged me along into a group of his friends."
"Well, you don't have to worry about that this time," she winked at me and walked across the room to her seat next to Rainbow Dash.
In Chemistry class, Twilight had taken it upon herself to do the majority of the lab work, leaving myself and Pinkie Pie to sit back and wonder about the work. I had a green composition notebook sloppily lying across my lap, the pages filled with messy, unfinished equations and questionable data. On the bottom of the page, there were a few lines to a new song I was writing.
"What'chya doin Olly?" Pinkie asked with an innocent grin. I shrugged.
"Working on a song," I sighed, "It's like I know exactly what I want to write down, but it's not coming out on paper."
Normally, this is the point where Twilight would intervene, talking about how we had to focus on the lab and this was no time for singing. But she was so distracted by this apparently complex delusion that she barely even glanced up at us.
"Songs are easy, silly!" Pinkie giggled a bit, "As long as it rhymes!"
I shook my head, "I wish it were that easy. But for songs to get recognized nowadays, they have to mean something… actually, I take that back. If you want to be a GOOD musician and have an actual, meaningful following it has to mean something. Otherwise, you can just write about whatever, put a good beat behind it, and you'll be on most pop stations."
Pinkie seemed a little bewildered by this explanation, and I had to admit that it was confusing even to me. I simply shook my head and glanced back down at my paper, "That's not the kind of musician I'd want to be. I want to make a difference."
Just then, a little light bulb went off in my head, and I scribbled down a couple lines onto the paper.
"I want to be a part of something, I want to know I can try," Pinkie read out loud over my shoulder. I laughed and pushed her face away.
"It's bad luck to look at unfinished projects."
"Awwwww," she whined, sticking her tongue out at me. Suddenly, my hands began to shake and I dropped my pencil. Pinkie's face went from silly to surprise as she raised an eyebrow at me. I quietly shook my head and walked myself out of the room.
I kept a quick pace walking down the hallway, taking deep breaths in counts of fours and hoping for my life that Pinkie didn't follow me out of the room again. I glanced behind me and sighed in relief when I was met with an empty hallway. All I had to do was make it to the bathroom and wait to calm down. I was going to be okay…
"Boo!" I heard a raspy voice shout from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my shoes and my back hit the nearby wall.
"Whoa kid," Rainbow Dash was taken back a bit, "What's up with you?"
I took me a second to comprehend what she was talking about, but then a quickly shook my head and continued my way to the bathroom, "Go back to class, Robin."
"…Is this the thing Pin… Promise was talking about?" she asked in a quieter voice. I said nothing; I just nodded quietly and scurried into the bathroom door. I was breathing heavily and listening to see if she would walk away. The second I heard footsteps, I leaned on one of the sinks and attempted to breathe slowly.
After a while of struggle, I was finally able to calm myself down. I took a step out of the bathroom, only to reveal someone waiting for me. There stood Applejack; a concerned yet strict look planted across her face and Rainbow Dash standing uncomfortably in the background.
"You… you told on me?" I stuttered out without thinking.
Her eyes widened and she put up her hands, "No way! I just mentioned it! She's the one that freaked out!"
"Rainbow," Applejack breathed out, "Let me talk."
"It's 'Robin' here…," Rainbow grumbled quietly.
Applejack shot Rainbow a stern look and then turned her attention back to me, obviously unhappy, "Ya told me this was nothin' to worry about."
"It isn't anything to worry about," I defended myself; "I'm fine. I calmed myself down just fine."
"Yea," she took a breath, "But Robin said you right leaped out of yer skin when she saw you."
"Because she scared me," I rolled my eyes.
"No one would get as scared as you did," Rainbow Dash raised her voice a bit, causing Applejack to shoot her another look.
"I'm sorry I was a little on edge," I was going to say sarcastically at first, but then it turned into an apologetic whisper. Applejack's glare seemed to calm down a bit, and she sighed, bringing her arms to her sides.
"I jus'… wanted to make sure you were okay…" she finally admitted. I grinned a bit at this, while Rainbow rolled her eyes.
"Yea," I smiled, "I'm okay, really. But you should really, really get back to class. Your teacher is going to start wondering…"
"What about your teacher?" Rainbow asked, finally accepting the end of the situation.
I smiled, "It's just Swanson. Plus he expects me to be out here for a while."
"See ya, kid," Kendall laughed, ruffling my hair before she took the turn to her house. I smiled and continued walking as the girls trailed behind me, talking amongst themselves. I stayed quiet, just enjoying their company and the somewhat warm weather.
"This is so strange," Fluttershy giggled quietly, "It's warm, but there's snow on the ground."
"Yea?" I laughed a bit, "Welcome to Michigan."
"I'd actually like to know more about this location," Twilight sped her walking and landed herself next to me, "I was reading that each state has its own qualities and exports. I want to know about our state."
I nodded slowly, "Michigan is home to the automotive industry. We export a lot of cars and technology and things like that."
"Ah I see… nothing natural?"
I paused for a minute, "…there's apples…"
Applejack's head perked up at this, and I couldn't help but let a chuckle escape my mouth, "We have a lot of apple orchards… especially in rural areas like this one. There's one that my girlfriend's sister works for over in downtown Romeo. Actually, I think there's two over there…"
"Why didn't ya say somethin' before?" Applejack cheered, "I coulda' started workin' weeks ago!"
"You didn't get here that many weeks ago," I laughed, "I was thinking you'd have to adjust to school before we even thought about getting jobs. Besides, the orchards don't work quite the same here."
"Jus' bein' on an Apple farm again would be really nice," AJ reminisced, which caused Twilight to look down at me with pleading eyes.
I was beginning to see a small change in Twilight. As soon as she got adjusted to this world, she was doing everything in her power to help her friends adjust. This meant asking me for a lot of favors and taking a lot of field trips.
"I… guess we could take a trip over there this weekend if you want," I got Twilight's hint.
She seemed to brighten at this, "Really? Yeee-haw!"
"Yaaay!" Pinkie joined in, bouncing up behind her, "AAAApple orchard!"
"Do they sell cider there?" Rainbow Dash asked excitedly. I nodded, and she nearly did a back flip.
"That'll be… nice," Fluttershy said quietly, but I could tell that she was very excited as well. The only one who didn't look completely excited was Rarity.
"I'm sure it'll be a delightful little trip," she grinned quietly.
"There's a ton to do at this orchard," I tried to get her into it, "A lot of activities and things. And if anything, it's really beautiful out there."
She nodded, trying to get into the spirit as well. With that I continued walking with my eyes closed, happy to have something for the girls to look forward to.
"Um… Olly?" I heard a voice call.
I opened my eyes and turned to face Fluttershy with a raised eyebrow. She shied away and then muttered out, "You… you're taking a wrong turn."
My eyes widened and I looked around to see that I was indeed beginning to turn onto the bad side of the neighborhood. I hurriedly made my way back to the path and attempted to walk as far away from that turn as possible. I could tell some of the girls wanted to say something, but they refrained from it.
"Gaah," Rainbow fell onto the couch, "Too… tired… can't… do… homework…"
Applejack proceeded to smack her upside the head, causing everyone in the room to chuckle a bit. I laughed, "I know exactly what you mean."
I walked into the kitchen and started to get dinner ready, but Rarity walked in and pulled a pot out of my hands.
"We'll take care of this tonight, darling," she winked, "You have a talent show to practice for."
"A-are you sure?" I stuttered out, not prepared for this change in routine.
"Don't ya worry yer' head about it," Applejack walked into the kitchen as well, "Get on up to yer' room and work on yer' guitar."
I smiled in thanks at them, and then made my way down the hallway to the stairs. Before I could even begin to start walking up, Pinkie was behind me, ready to catch me if I fell. I sighed, knowing arguing wouldn't get me anywhere.
"Ya know," I started with a sigh, "If you all keep helping me like this, I might just get used to it."
Sorry it's been a little longer than a week. See, I usually write this during product team like I stated a while ago. Since I had Spring break recently, I didn't have any product team class. But we're back in school now, so it'll be one chapter a week from now on.
By the way, just in case anypony didn't know, the song that Rainbow Dash was playing is called 'A Tropical Octav3Animation.' It's a pretty dang good song.
And since I just so happen to be doing an author's note in this chapter, I'll put my disclaimer here.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC OR ANY OF IT'S CHARACTERS. All characters of this show are owned by Hasbro.