Autumn is Rainbow Dash's favorite time of year... because it coincides with the Apple Family's famous Cider Season.
What's that? Nightmare Night? Eh, it's okay too, she guesses. Candy, costumes, prank-playing; it's no Cider Season, but it's not bad. Pity that some of the entertainment is kind of hokey. Like the Apple Family hayride — that lame old routine where they take ponies around the farm on a cart whilst a bunch of cheesy special effects go off. It's not scary, it's never been scary, and they're never going to change it because it's traditional.
Except maybe she shouldn't have said all that to Applejack's face. Because Applejack, well, she takes that sort of thing as a challenge. And Rainbow Dash? Well, she's never backed down from a challenge, either. Especially not one that seems as easy as this: sit through the hayride without making a single reaction, and get the very first barrel of cider on Cider Season, all to herself, for free?
Well, how can she possibly turn that down? After all, it's not like Ms. Traditionalist can really make something new enough to scare her.
...Right?
Read it here
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Tropes found in this story include:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Played for laughs; if Rainbow Dash wins, then she gets the very first barrel of cider to herself, and for free, and nopony else gets served until she claims it, but if Applejack wins, then Rainbow Dash not only has to work for Applejack for the whole first day of Cider Season, she isn't allowed to drink any cider on that day.
- Berserk Button:
- Applejack's a staunch traditionalist anyway, but this particular hayride routine is one of the few things left she feels she has to remember her father by. Rainbow Dash's statement that it's boring, whether or not it's true, really gets to her.
- The breaking point for Rainbow Dash is a "future historian" sketch, where a pair of actors claim that, in the future, nopony will remember her or bother to write about her, even dismissing her place amongst the Elements of Harmony.
- Break the Haughty: Applejack deliberately sets up the hayride to push all of Rainbow Dash's buttons. Including some that are far, far harsher than either of them would normally be comfortable with.
- Brutal Honesty: As is usual for Rainbow Dash, once she gets going on something she thinks is factual, all sense of tact goes right out of her head.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: After accidentally letting slip her disappointment that Applejack was just talking about the hayride, Rainbow Dash goes ahead and insults it as boring and in desperate need of a revamp, unwittingly hammering on Applejack's Berserk Button in the process.
- Heel Realization:
- After she loses, it really sinks in for Rainbow Dash just how much she hurt Applejack by, as the Earth Pony saw it, dismissing Applejack's father.
- More subtly than Rainbow Dash, as she's not the viewpoint character, Applejack realizes she went way too far in driving Rainbow Dash to react, and she tries to make amends at the episode's end.
- It's Personal: Rainbow Dash really hurt Applejack by, as the Earth Pony sees it, insulting Applejack's father. In response, she feels justified in going to lengths like setting up a faked Crash & Court-Martial delivery, something that would see Rainbow Dash booted out of the Wonderbolts if it was real.
- The Unapologetic: Rainbow Dash never says sorry, to the point that, at the story's end, when she finally says it, Applejack's first response is to splash her with some left-over waste cider to make sure she's not a changeling.
- Wager Slave: Applejack's victory prize if she wins is that Rainbow Dash has to legitimately work for her on the first day of Cider Season. This ends up being the case.
