"STOP!"
"Twilight, wake up!" Her loyal pet dog Spike commented in response to the asleep girl's mumbling and irregular body spasms. The girl jutted awake and anxiously looked around as if expecting something horrific to greet her vision, yet as her senses came back, she remembered their present location.
"We can't stop silly, we're not there yet!" Pinkie replied cheerfully as she peeked over the seat infront of her, oblivious to the emotions she girl was feeling in her nightmare.
"Hey, are you okay?" Sunset asked kindly from next to Pinkie on their shared seat, placing a hand on the startled girl's shoulder which caused Twilight to gaze up at her.
"I'm fine!" Twilight uncertainly replied, the smile she portrayed leaking with fake. Sunset didn't know whether she was greatly perceptive of human emotions because of her newly learnt mind reading abilities or her general empathy, but she could tell something was off. Initially beginning to contradict what Twilight said, she was interrupted by Pinkie going off on a tangent about marshmallows.
"We are going to have so much fun! We're going to roast marshmallows, eat marshmallows and sleep on marshmallow pillows!"
Rainbow heard the odd conversation behind her and turned around to reply to the comment she eavesdropped on.
"Yeah, we're probably not going to do that," she said, butting into the conversation causing her friends attention to switch over to her figure leaning over the back of the chartreuse bus seat. Pinkie began to mutter something in response but Dash was already beginning to turn back around and face the chair occupied by Rarity and Fluttershy who were huddled over in conversation about something related to crochet. Noting the hook with pastel yarn wrapped around it in Fluttershy's hands, she concluded Rarity was asking about what fashion garments she could curate with those skills.
Sitting next to herself was Applejack, her hat lowered to cover her face slightly as she napped with wire headphones in her ears. AJ had asked Rainbow if they wanted to listen to music together, but identifying from the past how her taste in music was heavily country, she politely refused and pulled on her own headphones to play her mixed taste of rap. For most of the ride they didn't talk, they didn't even intend to sit together, Dash intentionally going to sit with Fluttershy, but Rarity waved her over to AJ and insisted they sit together. She thought it was suspicious but Applejack didn't seem to mind so she took the gesture with a grain of salt.
Rainbow let the time pass by staring out the window, admiring the nature they passed and their unique formations, how they differed from their flora and fauna back home. Whilst eyeing a particular river they were passing over, an orange juice truck passing by on the other lane of the bridge, she felt a sudden heaviness on her left shoulder. Pulling her sight away from the babbling water flow, she glanced at what was causing her posture to sink, surprised to find Applejack leaning on her shoulder, presumably eyes still closed. At first she just stared and didn't move a muscle, it wasn't a 'oh she's so cute,' stare, because Dash is too cool for that corny stuff, but more of a 'what is she doing,' gazing. Half of her was unafraid to move as to not disturb her friend, but the other half was considering how coupley it looked and what the others would think of it, this thought only weighing on her mind due to her friends subtle, totally wrong, hints at their flirting.
"Attention students!" Principal Celestia announced to the bus they were on, introducing the beginning of her small speech. Vice Principal Luna was on another bus with some other classes, Ms Cherilee on the third with the last sets of students, their whole grade being quite small. The load broadcast of the teacher startled AJ awake, her body's shock response small but noticed by Rainbow who laughed discreetly at her temporary fear. Taking the hat off her head, Dash held it over her so she could glimpse the girls tired expression.
"Wake up sleepy head."
"It's so unfair they made us get up at 5am for this," she grumbled, snatching back the hat and putting it on her head where it belongs before removing her headphones.
"Your own fault, you should've slept earlier," Dash replied shrugging.
"Oh as if you sleep before 12 Rainbow Dash," AJ mumbled at her, shooting her a dirty side-eye, still trying to pay attention to what Celestia was saying.
"...we made our favourite memories in these woods and I'm sure you will too," she was finishing up, directing her hand to gesture to the windows where the woods were slowly enveloping them as they continued down the country road.
"Are you excited?" Rainbow asked as tried to gain eye contact with her.
"Are you kidding? Living out in the wilderness? Basically camping? This trip is speaking my language RD," Applejack excitedly replied, grinning at her as their eyes met.
"Hey you haven't called me that in a while," Dash picked apart her sentence.
"Yeah I guess I haven't, why is that?" She seemed genuinely perplexed at why she suddenly stopped using the nickname she intentionally had matched with her best friend. RD, AJ, it worked.
"Well you used to call me that when we were...you know," Rainbow began to start answering yet hesitation came with her realising what she was once again bringing up.
"Dating? Yeah I think I remember now," Applejack softly acknowledged, unafraid to speak the word of truth.
"Do you ever think about it?" Rainbow boldly suggested, trying to act collected and chilled out in her body language to not send the wrong idea.
"Sometimes I guess, accidentally through. Just because you were my first everything you know, funny how things work out," AJ tried to be careful with her word choice, not trying to absurdly hint at them being more than friends. Because they're not. They're just best friends. Who have seen eachother naked. Nothing wrong with that. "But I guess you don't think about it much right? I mean, you had been dating around for ages before me," she continued, in a way digging a hole for herself.
"None of them really lasted longer than we did," Dash commented, tilting her head in consideration of her exes and the different experiences she had with them, a small part of her weirdly happy to hear that AJ would think about their history from time to time.
"Well that was because of the old Sunset," Applejack was seemingly hinting. "You think we still would be together if she didn't get involved?" She asked, the question hanging in the air as soon as it left her mouth. It was a simple ask yet she had no idea why it seemed so daunting.
Rainbow just stared at her, hard to tell if she was actually thinking hard about her response. She subtly looked AJ up and down in consideration, slowly brewing the idea in the others head that her inquisition was a mistake. As Applejack was about to open her mouth to take back her word, she received her answer.
"Who knows?" Dash safely stated, her response tipping on either end of the scale. Yet the gaze that lingered on AJ's lips as she brought her eyes up said slightly otherwise, before looking away.
"We've arrived students!" Cut the rest of their conversation short as the bus drove through the wooden pillars exhibiting the name of the camp, the other two vehicles with the rest of the cohort not far behind. Everyone immediately stood up to try and gain a better view of their accommodations for the next few days, gathering the few belongings they hand carried before ready to make their way out of the bus to grab their luggage from the side compartment.
"Wow! Dash look! There's a dock! Which means we probably get to go out in the water on boats!" AJ exclaimed, shoving an arm past the girl to point at the features of the land that stood out most to her, reminding Rainbow of their shared love for adventurous activities.
Dash simply smiled at the girl, a fondness in her cheeks at watching how excited she was getting. Typical best friend things.
Right?
----------
"I'm just looking forward to roughing it, make my own shelter, forage for food!" Applejack was explaining to Fluttershy after fishing their bags out from under the bus as they shared what they were looking forward to. Rainbow was standing a few feet away, listening to their interaction as she slipped by.
"Uh you know they provide the food and tents right?" She commented with a smirk on her face, alerting the girl of her presence by dragging a hand from her left to right shoulder as she passed by.
"Yup! Still going to forage though!" Applejack continued to commit to, ignoring the warm shiver sent down her spine at her contact with her friend.
"So you two are okay now?" Fluttershy asked with a small smile on her face, her intentions pure.
"What do you mean...? Applejack asked, her happy expression transitioning to a different kind of, 'you're playing with me,' face.
"Oh! Never mind, must have just misinterpreted it. I'm glad you two are okay!"
"Yeah of course, why wouldn't we be?" AJ replied unsurely still with a persistent warm aura.
"No reason! Let's go join the others," the girl deflected, grasping her wrist and guiding the conversation to move to a group setting which Applejack chose to brush off despite how unusual that interaction was.
Her and Fluttershy made their way to join the others who were all crowded around Rarity's pile of bags, unsurprisingly unable to follow Twilight's list, as they spoke about the terror Canterlot High had to go through the past few years.
"-and two demon friends!" Their socially unaware pink group member concluded her recap of their life as if it were a movie series. In reaction to mention of her past, Twilight nervously glanced down, cradling her arms within eachother as she hoped one day she could be thought of as a normal someone and not identified by her past mistakes. Sunset noticing her mood swing down, reflecting back to how she felt when she was new to getting called out like that, she slung an arm around Twi's shoulders in a comforting manner.
"No offence!" Pinkie slipped out as if plastering a bandaid over a broken bone.
"Ha, none taken," Sunset rolled her eyes with a playful grin on her face towards the girl. "You get used to it," she whispered to Twilight, giving her a light friendly punch to the arm as they smiled at eachother. Raising a hand to give Sunset's arm a light grateful squeeze, they then separated as Applejack came over to express her opinion on how their school had become a 'magic magnet' and was ready to get away from it all.
"Yeah I agree, we don't have to worry about that here," AJ heard Rainbow say from behind her as the girl came to rejoin them from wherever she disappeared to, probably some other friends she had as the social butterfly she is. Speaking of other friends, Flash had entered their sphere and everyone observed him approach a certain purple toned girl. AJ and Dash stood near eachother as they watched an awkward conversation between Flash and Twilight unravel, his attempt at what could barely be described as flirting, falling short of the qualifying line.
"Maybe our relationship lasted long because we flirted better than that," Applejack felt Rainbow whisper into her ear and letting out a hidden chuckle right after as she shot her a quick glance. She met the face of a girl equally grinning back at her, proud of her own joke. AJ laughed because it was funny and nothing more than that.
Just a humorous, platonic joke.