>>34006741
Thanks Anon, you made me feel like a big pathetic sap.
>"Hey, listen."
>"We've been friends for a long time, you an' me."
>"I thought you were pretty cool because you were an alien, and naturally you thought I was awesome because I'm... well, me."
>"I didn't like you at first.  I thought you were taking away all my friends."
>"The egghead wanted to study you.  Fluttershy wanted to hear about all the animals on your world.  Even Rarity was thrilled to have a new body-type to create clothes for."
>"I still feel bad for that lightning prank... you know it was fake, right?  The thundercloud was a sheet-lightning type, and the lightning wasn't ever going to go anywhere near you.  I just wanted to scare you with the thunder; I had no idea you'd freak out that badly at the sight of it."
>"But you forgave me for that."
>"Most stallions would have pitched a fit - not that I'd blame you if you did that - and decided that we were enemies for life."
>"I'd never hear an end to the accusations for things I never did."
>"So, we talked.  We both liked Daring Doo, and you thought it was rad how I could fly so well.  And once you started telling me about the adventure books and movies from your old place, I was hooked."
>"...hooked on YOU."
>"Don't tell anypony I said that, alright?"
>"You're okay with me when I'm being stupid.  You don't get mad when I make a mistake, or if I don't pay attention to something you were saying, or if I get impatient because everypony here moves SO SLOW."
>"You don't think I'm lazy for taking naps, 'cuz flying all the time takes a lot of energy.  You laugh when I make dumb jokes, even when they're ones about stallions."
>"You're one of the few ponies - people, whatever - I know who can appreciate how much work goes into achieving the rank of Wonderbolt."
>"And even when I work late because of an emergency, and that dinner you cooked for us got cold, you don't get mad at me."
>"Even when I have to leave to train and you don't see me all day, you don't get sick of being with me."
>"There are days I'm gone from 5 AM to 9 PM, and we talk for all of 30 minutes before I go to sleep and do it all over again, but you never once suggested we herd with another mare because you're feeling lonely and neglected."
>"You've always been loyal to me, even when it wasn't easy."
>"And I've always been loyal to you, too."
>"I want to keep being loyal to you for the rest of our lives."
>"I wanna have foals that we can raise to be big and strong, and I want us to all sleep together in a big nest-bed."
>"I want to have all these things in life, but most of all... I want to experience them with YOU."
>"Because I don't think a big bed and foals and working hard is really even worth if it you're not there by my side, Anon."
>"Forever."
>"So, here. This is a primary feather: you've spent enough time around me to know what this means."
>"..."
>"Marry me?"

---

>"Howdy, partner."
>"Nice evenin', in'nit?"
>"It's just about time to harvest those apples.  They're about as ripe as they're gonna be.  Can you smell it in the air?"
>"Sweet an' crisp, like the first bite of a fresh apple on a cool morning.  The whole orchard is filled with this smell right when it's about time to start harvesting."
>"I'm rightly glad yer here to give me an' my kin a hoof today, Mouse."
>"Don't fuss, now, you know y'love it when I use yer nickname.  Ain't my fault yer Ma and Pa done named you like a pair of darned fools."
>"..."
>"...Granny's not doing too well lately."
>"She wanted to help the harvest by carrying around empty baskets fer us, but we were firm with her; she needs her bed rest."
>"Can you believe it took Mac to put on his puppy-dog eyes to get her into bed 'fer his sake'?"
>"Say what you will 'bout that mountain of a colt, but he knows how to put on the mas-cue-line charm when he needs to."
>"Thing is, farm life don't really provide him much reason to need to."
>"Mares and stallions don't exactly come marchin' in onto the fields when they're hot-to-trot, you know."
>"Mac ain't getting any younger, and stallions his age have at least... Y'know."
>"Y'all know!"
>"Aw, don't make me say it."
>"Heck, Mouse!  DONE THE DEED! I done 'spected my brother to have been bedded by now!"
>"Now look at me - y'all got me all flustered, like I was granny talkin' about how colts used to never even show off their fetlocks if they was raised right by their daddies..."
>"Granny might not like the idea of her only grandson going into herdlock 'despoiled', but it ain't her time no more.  Things are different now."
>"Not that we'd approve if he was a slut, though.  And frankly, my big brother has a good enough head on his withers to know better than to be a whore."
>"He's so dedicated to his place on the farm that sometimes I think that the idea just plain don't enter his head."
>"Like I said, not a lot of opportunity fer romance here on the farm."
>"...Not 'til you came 'round these here parts."
>"Now, don't give me that look, Mouse.  Neither of us really did any wooing of the other, but it still happened."
>"Almost like the Great Apple herself willed it to be."
>"...that makes us sound like we was made fer each other, dun'nit?"
>"It sure as apple sauce feels that way sometimes."
>"...well, more than just that; a lot of the time."
>"I know this sounds so darn... colty.  An' the Great Apple knows I feel a right sen-tee-mental fool fer saying this out loud, but... I can still remember the night we first kissed."
>"It was harvest season; just like today."
>" 'Member that?"
>"You had been working on the farm with us fer a few months, an' we'd got to know each other."
>"At first, me an' my family thought you was just a colt with an attitude problem an' a chip on his shoulder big enough to fill the Ghastly Gorge."
>"An' maybe you knew this, 'cuz you always had this look of determination in yer eyes.  Only we didn't see it like that at first - we just thought you were as stubborn as mule on a ferris wheel."
>"Anyway, harvest season officially ended late in the evening, an' Granny had just ushered Apple Bloom to bed."
>"She told us that she was gonna stay inside fer a few minutes to make sure Bloomy didn't sneak out and celebrate a successful harvest with her little friends, but we all knew it was 'cuz she was tired and was lookin' fer an excuse to go to bed."
>"She came from a different time, an' she never wanted us t'think she was weak or nothin'."
>"Mac was off enjoying his free night by going out with his colt friends, and that just left you an' me."
>"Harvest week was over, an' we were about as giddy as parasprites with a whole town to gobble up.  But we was also exhausted at the same time.  I felt like I was just about to collapse on the grass right then an' there, but I also felt like I was ready to run a marathon like it was time to help Father Earth usher in autumn."
>"The stars were bold that night, an' the new moon was invisible in the dark sky.  It was so darn peaceful, 'specially after a solid week of workin' from dawn to dusk; an' even a few hours after that, once we found our old oil lanterns."
>"Ah don't know which was louder - the sound of crickets singin' their praises to Celestia, or the THUMP THUMP THUMP of my heart hammerin' against my ribcage.  I was afraid you could hear it too; how couldn't you if it was already strikin' me deaf?"
>"It always beat like that when you was around, Mouse... but I didn't figure out what it meant until that night."
>"Maybe it was the exhaustion combined with that giddy energy you get when you overwork yerself, but I swear I heard a little apple whispering in my ear."
>"The little apple told me to kiss you, and so I did."
>"Y'see, Earth Ponies are straight an' to the point like that.  It's one of our more admirable traits."
>"I was worried that you might not like bein' kissed by a mare out of nowhere, but I knew deep in my belly that you weren't one of them city colts who cry fer help if their mares touch'em without their express permission."
>"You kissed me back... softly, like you thought this was worth bein' gentle for.  Yer lips were hot and smooth, and they fit 'gainst mine so well that I reckon we was born to kiss each other."
>"I can still remember the blush on yer face, barely visible in the light of the autumn stars.  Ah pulled back - on account of wantin' to give you some air and spare you a case of the vapors - but you matched me inch-fer-inch by movin' towards me."
>"And just like that, we was where we belonged again."
>"Together."
>"Hoo-wee, Mouse!  Look at me, blushin' like I was implyin' we made love that night!"
>"Say what you will 'bout big ol' Apple families, but we wait 'til we're properly married or in herdlock a'fore we receive our stallion's most precious gift that he can give."
>"Maybe a few things from Granny's day done carried over, after all."
>Speakin' of, the looks Granny gave us the mornin' after... you'd have thought we done run off and got hitched in Las Pegasus!"
>"Granny's always had a bit of a love-and-hate relationship with y'all, Mouse."
>"Granny hated the idea of you working here back when you first started, did you know that?  She couldn't decide what irked her more; the way you didn't listen to her when she told you to stop 'cuz you were 'bound to screw up the mare's work'... or how you kept proving her wrong 'bout you."
>"But when you fell off that ladder in the barn and broke yer arm - Granny was beside herself."
>"She didn't realize how fond she had grown of you 'til she saw my friends hauling you off to the hospital with yer arm cradled against your chest, hunched over like you was a father and yer arm was your newborn colt."
>"She looked like she was about to throw up."
>"That's why I couldn't visit you on the first day you were in the hospital - Granny had yelled at me an' my kin 'til our ears were red about how we let you get hurt when you was just trying to help."
>"...Granny's had a lot of experience with losing loved ones, Mouse.  I reckon seeing you laying on the ground, face screwed up in pain as sweat pouring off of you like yer body didn't want water no more reminded her of a few faces and moments she had wanted to forget."
>"That's when she started inviting you over fer dinner, remember?"
>"Granny saw another close call, an' it reminded her of how you can't sweat the small stuff, or get upset 'bout things that don't matter none."
>"An' now, the same thing's happening to me."
>"I done told you, Granny's not doing so well."
>"She's old, even fer an Earth Pony.  She's been dreamin' 'bout her kin more an' more, and she says they're gettin' ready to welcome her back home with them."
>"...Ma and Pa say 'hi', by the way."
>"So now, I'm starting to see things in perspective."
>"The farm's always come first, but... who says love can't also come first?  Why a first an' second place, when the farm AND love can stand side-by-side?  Who says workin' yerself to the bone is the most important thing you'll ever do?  Why do I have to do this alone when I have a perfectly good sweet, handsome hoo-man stallion to stay with me to the end of our days?"
>"You've been here fer so many things - birthdays, heartaches, an' even a patented Apple Family Reunion - that you're practically already part of the family!"
>"...I figure the only thing I can do to go past this is to make it official."
>"I like you."
>"I like you a lot, an' I reckon you like me just as well."
>"If I may be so bold and risk offending yer delicate sensibilities - hush, now, don't you laugh - I reckon I could go so far as to say that I love you."
>"A lot."
>"And I'd bet my hat that the feelin's mutual." 
>"Me an' you, we've been through a lot together."
>"Pegasi and unicorns might make this more complicated than it has to be.  They court, and they dance around each other, and they never just spit out that they wanna share a life together."
>"They've spent their whole lives with their heads in the clouds up in Cloudsdale and Canterlot, that they've forgotten what it's like to be salt-of-the-earth"
>"Well, I'm an Earth Pony, an' we don't faff around when a bit of honesty is all it takes to get the job done."
>"An' unless I'm right properly mistaken, Honesty is my game."
>"I can't provide you with a lot.  Not like those city mares might."
>"I can't buy you trinkets, an' the farm budget don't allow us to paint the town red more'an a few times a year... 'specially since we all have to rise at 5 AM to get the chores done.  I reckon we'd get back home just in time to put on our work saddles on!"
>"I don't even have a ring to put on yer horn - not that you have one - or a feather to braid into your mane.  Earth Ponies don't see the sense in buying a bauble to represent the love we have fer one another, an' I can guarantee the love I feel fer you can never be captured by even the brightest jewel or the sturdiest feather."
>"I might not have much money to spend or time to spend on fun... but I can provide you with a simple, honest living."
>"The work is hard, but it's satisfying - an' you can see the result of your work an' hold it in your hooves."
>"You just... I reckon I can... Yer eyes were so easy to get lost in, an' I..."
>"...aw, heck.  There are so many things I wanna tell you, but it feels like all them words are gettin' in my way."
>"My tongue wants to say them all at once, an' it's getting muddled in my head."
>"I guess I'll do what I do best an' get to the point."
>"Mouse?"
>"How do y'all feel 'bout takin' my barn name and becoming Anonymous Apple?"
>"Because all I can give you is all of my love.  And I promise that it's yours to keep."