//------------------------------//
// Once a Carrot, Always a Carrot? 
// Story: Another Life, Another Carrot 
// by Talon and Thorn 
//------------------------------//

Carrot Top wished there was something she could do.
 
Next to her lay the insensate form of Trixie looking almost peaceful, if Carrot Top didn’t know better she would almost think she was sleeping. However, it had only been this morning that the two versions of Princess Luna, had brought the unconscious bodies of the Trixies and Twilights back from the Everfree, but none of them had stirred since. Doctors and nurses had rushed in and out, setting up strange equipment that Carrot Top didn’t understand. For the first few hours Carrot Top and her fellow alternate universe refugees had hung around Trixie’s bed waiting for her recovery, but it was not to be. Ditzy, always compassionate, had also requested they had kept an eye on their Twilight as well, while this universe’s element bearers cared for their own Trixie and Twilight. Eventually the medical staff had gotten annoyed with their hovering (literally in Rainbow Dash’s case) and had shooed most of them away. Unwilling to completely abandon their friends each group negotiated to keep one of their number on guard at any time just in case their friend should recover.
 
Now it was Carrot Top’s turn and she had never felt so useless.
 
She’d made sure that Trixie and Twilight were comfortable in their beds, then made sure the curtains were in place, then considered reading to them, but she couldn’t find a book and didn’t want to disturb the staff to ask where she could get one. Looking around the room she wondered if some flowers might brighten up the place, but she didn’t know where she could get any. So she had slumped down, defeated, and waited, and waited and waited. The boredom and frustration weighting increasingly heavily on her mind. Until she felt like screaming, she had to do something, anything!
 
She was about to find a nurse to offer her services to when the door opened and Raindrops trotted in. “Any change?” she asked.
 
“No,” said Carrot Top relaxing slightly now she had company, “She hasn’t moved an inch. Neither of them have.”
 
Raindrops walked over to Trixie’s bed and to Carrot Top’s surprise ran a hoof tenderly through Trixie’s mane. “I just wished we knew what happened to them.” She turned a scowl on her face. “We should have done something to help them!” She angrily stamped on the floor.
 
“The Princess said they were fighting some sort of evil alicorn, there was nothing we could do. Even if we had our elements they might not have done anything.”
 
“We should have been there to help! Then they wouldn’t be like this!” snorted Raindrops.
 
“They over channelled, but the Princesses got them back here quickly, I’m sure they’ll recover,” said Carrot Top trying to sound more reassured than she felt.
 
“Isn’t there something you can do? Some potion? You helped Lyra in the Everfree!”
 
“This is different, she didn’t pass out so deeply. I’m sure the Doctors know more about this than I do. They’ve given them mana, all we can do now is wait.” She wasn’t sure she could follow her own advice, she needed to do something!
 
Raindrops nodded. “I know, but I hate to see her like this.” She indicated Trixie, so still.
 
Carrot Top nodded, she remembered her grandmother's funeral, her body lying there in the coffin, so still. No! That was not going to happen to Trixie!
 
“You should go before the staff get restless,” noted Raindrops looking towards the door.
 
“I can stay if you want.”
 
“No, you should head back to the hotel. I’ll be fine for a few hours.”
 
“Are you...”
 
“Yes, I’m sure. Go, get settled in, maybe look around town... it’s different to home, the way the us’s are different.” Carrot Top nodded, she’s spent a short time with her double before whatever had happened to Trixie happened. “Mine she... she doesn’t get angry, just my luck to end up the bad me,” said Raindrops bitterly.
 
“Raindrops, you’re not the bad you!” Carrot Top nuzzled the pegasus. “You’re just the right you for us.”
 
Raindrops sighed. “Maybe. Anyway, get out of here, I’ll see you in a few hours. Get!” She motioned towards the door.
 
Carrot Top looked back at her friend for a moment, as the yellow pegasus settled down into the chair by the bed, before making her way to the door.
 



 
Carrot Top was making her way towards the exit when she saw an orange tail swish around a corner out of the corner of her eye. She paused for a moment, she recognised the tail like it was her own, because, well it was. What was her duplicate doing here? She turned and started to trot after herself, she supposed her twin was the only native pony she truly knew, they’d talked a little earlier, maybe she’s have some chores for her to help with, anything to take her mind off of Trixie’s condition.
 
Carrot Top turned the corner to find her twin passing over a number of potions to Nurse Redheart who was placing them on a cart and quickly wheeled it away. The native Carrot Top turned back towards the exit only to jump in surprise when she saw her twin standing there. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
 
“I’ve been looking in on Trixie. Why are you here?” said Carrot Top.
 
“Oh, the hospital exhausted its mana potion supply on the Twilights and Trixies. I’m delivering all the spare ones we have in stock.”
 
Oh, thought Carrot Top, that made sense, she’d forgotten her twin worked as an apothecary.
 
“Are you ok?” asked the local Carrot Top.
 
Carrot Top tried to plaster a smile on her face, “I’m fine, I’m sure Trixie and the others will be better soon, then we can see about heading home.”
 
“Hey,” said her twin, apparently not deceived, “I’m sure they’re all going to be fine,” she stepped forwards and gently nuzzled Carrot Top.
 
“Thanks I just wish there was something I could do,” muttered Carrot Top.
 
“Look, I’ve got the afternoon off, do you want to go somewhere and talk for a bit?” her twin offered. “Maybe you’ll feel better.”
 
“Oh, thanks,” maybe it would help to take her mind off of things.
 
“I think I know just the place.”
 



 
The place turned out to be a bar, a little larger and a little less well lit than Berry’s in her own world. Given it was still only mid-afternoon it wasn’t a surprise to Carrot Top that the place was almost empty with only a few grizzled stallions propping up the bar.
 
“Um, this place looks a little, well, um...” said Carrot Top trying to think of the right word.
 
“It’s a bit of a dive, but Written thinks it has ambiance. It’s not that bad really, Fizzy, the landlord, holds a monthly quiz night,” said the local Carrot Top nodding to the stallion behind the bar. “A pitcher of sensation please.”
 
Fizzy has his own place here? thought Carrot Top. “Oh, is Written Script going to be joining us?” she’d enjoyed her time chatting with her twins coltfriend.
 
“No,” frowned her twin. “He had to leave on business this morning.”
 
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
 
“It sometimes seems like the only time I see him is at the train station,” she sighed, “But there’s not much work for a scriptwriter out here in the sticks, he’s always got meetings in Canterlot or Manehatten or Los Pegasus.”
 
The bartender walked over and gently put down a large glass container full of an orange liquid along with two glasses.
 
“What is this?” asked Carrot Top as her twin poured them both drinks.
 
“It’s called sensation, its carrot, passion fruit, lemon, worcester sauce, honey....”
 
Carrot Top tried a mouthful and savoured the mix of flavours, she swallowed and gasped a little as it burnt going down.
 
“... and gin,” her twin continued sipping her own drink. “I thought you might need something a bit stronger than just juice. It took me a while to get used to it, but I really like it now.”
 
“It’s not bad,” said Carrot Top taking a smaller mouthful. She supposed her twin here had more time on her hooves to go out drinking without all the farm work, the thought made her scowl a little. “I’ll have to see if I can get any at home.”
 
Her twin must have noticed her expression. “So, hard day then?” she said leaning forwards.
 
“It all seems such a blur, the Princess collecting us, arriving here, Trixie’s condition,” she tried unsuccessfully to put the sight of Trixie’s insensate form out of her head. “I just feel so useless and your world, it just seems so strange. Everything’s just a little off, I keep thinking I’m at home then some little difference will pop up.” She looked around the bar and her eyes bulged. “Like that,” she said pointing to two stallions, one light blue the other jet black kissing each other gently in the corner.
 
“What you don’t have public displayed of affection in your world? They only got married last week, it’s still their honeymoon.”
 
“That’s Ditch Digger! He tried to proposition me, Cheerilee and Raindrops in a single night! One at a time them all together!” she blushed a little, he’d been quite persuasive.
 
“Really? I didn’t think he liked mares. He’s always been a one stallion stallion as far as I know.”
 
“See!” exclaimed Carrot Top. “Just strange differences,” she took another mouthful of her drink, it didn’t seem to be helping her nerves much.
 
“I’m sure the Twilights and Trixies will be better soon,” said the other Carrot Top soothingly. “Twilight’s done a lot of good for us, the whole town will be wishing her well.”
 
“But what about Trixie, my Trixie, won’t they be hoping she’ll get better to?”
 
“Oh, I’m sure that everypony hopes she gets better as well, well most ponies anyway.”
 
“Why wouldn’t they all want Trixie to recover?” asked Carrot Top her body tensing up.
 
“Oh, well I’m sure your Trixie is a really nice pony, well apart from brainwashing a few of us, which I totally understand was an honest mistake,” she added quickly. “It’s just that our Trixie, well there’s been a few incidents, she sort of, well, enslaved the town for a while.”
 
“What?” cried Carrot Top loudly drawing a few glances from around the room.
 
“Oh, she wasn’t herself, she was sort of cursed and she seemed very sorry about it all but there are a few around here who might hold just the tiniest of grudges.”
 
Carrot Top slumped back, how could this world be so different, she couldn’t imagine her Trixie taking over the town... well maybe she could, but, she’d probably do it for the best of reasons and would only demand a tribute of bourbon or something. She smiled at the image, then it was replaced by Trixie as she currently was, so still. She sighed, maybe drinking wasn’t the best of ideas, too much booze just got her depressed. She glanced up at the almost empty jug, where had it all gone? she thought. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up,” she said, “But I think I better make my way to the hotel, the girls will be wondering where I got to.” She finished the last mouthful of her drink and dropped from her seat, the ground seemed a little unsteady under her hooves but quickly levelled out. Maybe she should have gotten something to eat before going drinking.
 
“Do you need a hoof?” asked her twin standing somewhat unsteadily herself.
 
“No, don’t worry, it’s not far and a trot will probably straighten me out.”
 
“If you’re sure?”
 
“Yes, thanks for trying to take my mind off of things, and I hope Written’s back soon.”
 



 
Carrot Top stepped out of the bar and into the growing gloom of the evening’s chill, she found the streets had mostly cleared out. A scene that well reflected her own increasingly dour mood. Despite her twin’s efforts her nerves were still jangling, her inability to help Trixie gnawing at her conscience.
 
The strange almost-familiar landscape around her didn’t help. She set off with no real destination in mind, just needing to move her hooves and work the mounting tension from her body. Her aimless route took her past the town hall. At first she was comforted to see it standing intact exactly as her expectation told her it should be. On a second glance, however, it too felt unsettlingly wrong. Something about the upper levels seemed disturbingly incongruent with the rest of the structure, as if recently reconstructed.
 
As she continued to wander the town, all around her lights flickered on within the houses. Some familiar, but others unusually steady and nothing like the candles or firefly lanterns she was used to.
 
Without quite realizing when, how, or even why, Carrot Top eventually found herself on the outskirts of the town. Somewhere behind the haze of the evening's drinks she knew she was making a mistake of some kind, but what that mistake might be eluded her. Then she looked about and her eyes widened, this was the place she had subconsciously been aiming for, her home, Golden Harvest farm.
 
Only it wasn’t her home in this world, her double had sold it, and to Applejack of all ponies. She’d known that intellectually but it was only now, now that she saw the few green shoots poking out from the snow that filled her fields, but they weren’t her fields, that the implication struck home to her.
 
Despite all ration, her mind rebelled against this revelation; it shouldn’t be this way! At home the fields were green with summer’s life, not buried beneath winter’s snow. At home Trixie should be healthy, not comatose in a hospital! At home she would never feel so useless. At home she could do something!
 
But this wasn’t her home, wasn't even her world. She... she was lost.
 
Trying to centre herself, Carrot Top forced her gaze to follow the path from her gate to her house. If only she could find some small measure of familiarity, it might calm her... she blinked, her home! It was gone! The snow continued as far as the eye could see.
 
Where was the cosy little building that she’d spent so many happy summers in, which she had lived in for the last half dozen years? The house with its drafty windows and its warm bedroom, its creaky stairs and its grand view of the farm, its outside toilet and its great cast iron bath, her grandmother's house, her house. It was gone and there was hardly a trace of it remaining. It felt like her hooves had come unconnected from the ground, like she was all at sea with nothing to anchor her. Her eyes began to sting slightly as tears began to gather.
 
Without thinking she rushed over and tried to pry open the gate, but it was nailed shut. A sign, only slightly weathered, mocked her ‘Property of Sweet Apple Acres’.
 
“How... How did this happen?  Where... Where did it all go?” She asked herself in a daze. First she couldn’t help Trixie, and now... THIS — here own farm, sleeping for the winter, but otherwise clearly no worse for wear in her absence. Just how much worse could this backwards world possibly get?
 
"Are… are you okay?"
 
Startled, Carrot Top whinnied in alarm at the unexpected query. She spun sharply on the spot, only to come face to face with… herself.
 
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” said her other self holding up a conciliatory hoof. “I saw you head off in the wrong direction, so I followed to see where you were going.”
 
“What... what happened here?” demanded Carrot Top her voice becoming increasingly shrill.  “How could you sell it all? You said the Apples made you an offer but how could you accept it? What happened to the house, was there a fire of something?”
 
“The... the Apples didn’t need another farm house, they took it down and moved it. It’s mostly a barn now. You don’t understand,” pleaded her twin. “You’re a great farmer, your Trixie showed me that, but I’m... I’m not and never have been. After Gran left me the farm I couldn’t do it... I knew I’d never be as good as her.”
 
“It’s not like I started out being all that good a farmer, I made more than my share of mistakes before I learned, it was all trial and error,” said Carrot Top her tail flicking as she tried to bring herself more under control.
 
“Maybe... but it was always different for me. Even when Gran was... was still here to lend a hoof, I’d flood the fields or harvest the crop to early, it was only her that kept this place going, there was no way I’d have managed on my own,” she moaned sinking to the ground, “Don't you see? I had to sell it.”
 
At the sight of her double's despondence Carrot Top felt her own confused resentments soften, even if only ever so slightly. "I used to feel the same way, and I made all those same mistakes too, but I learned from them!" or at least that what she'd always tried to tell herself. Still, as she thought back on just how rough those earliest years had been, Carrot Top couldn't help but wonder how much of her meagre successes had truly been skill, or just dumb luck. "I suppose maybe if you'd just tried a little longer things could have worked out for you too."
 
However, rather than comfort the other mare, those words only seemed to leech the colour out of her coat, reducing her normally yellow coat to a creamy grey. “But that's the problem, I... I never even tried in the first place.” She shied back as if Carrot Top would attack her.
 
Carrot Top's gaze froze as something inside her finally snapped. "You didn’t even try…?" She wasn’t normally a violent pony, quite the opposite. However, the stress of the last day, her feelings of impotence over Trixie’s condition, and perhaps a few too many drinks all fed into an ever growing inferno of rage. For one brief instance she wondered if this was how Raindrops felt, but then that thought was also consumed by the blaze. "YOU DIDN’T EVEN TRY!"  she yelled advancing on her twin. “How could you? How lazy can you be? That land was gran’s dowry she and grandpa Gingold built the farm up from nothing! As long as there’s been a Ponyville there’s been Toppingtons farming the land! Gran she... she,” her voice cracked, “She left it to us,” she mumbled.
 
“I know, I know,” moaned the other Carrot Top, eyes awash in freely flowing tears. “But I was just too afraid. What if I'd failed? Then the bank would have foreclosed and sold Gran's farm to some housing project. At least Applejack still uses it to grow crops I’d always thought maybe that was good enough. Wasn’t it?” She looked up at her twin with pleading eyes.
 
“GOOD ENOUGH! Gran, she... when she left the farm to us, she said that no matter what she trusted us to do what was right. Those were her last words before she… went." Memories of grief took hold of her eyes, flooding them with tears of her own. Yet rather than sooth the flames, that only seemed to make her rage burn all the hotter. “It was even named after her! And you just gave up, how could you do that to her? How could you give up the feel of your magic flowing into the ground, nurturing the life? The sense of the plants growing? The smiles on the ponies eating things you grew? How could you give all that up?” She paused, waiting for her doppelganger to offer up some feeble excuse.
 
“I don’t... I can’t... I’m so sorry, I’m sorry!” with a cry her duplicate turned and ran a little unsteadily back towards the town sobbing as she went.
 
Carrot Top stood snorting for a moment pawing the ground in anger before sanity returned to her.
 
What had she done?
 
She’d... Whatever had possessed her?
 
Even if she was drunk, that was no excuse. The shame of it all welled up in her, finally damping the flames, leaving her heart feeling cold and laidened with guilt. She had to go after her duplicate, had to apologize. Things might have been different here, worse, it shouldn’t be her place to judge yet still a small flame of resentment lingered on.
 
How could this other her sell her inheritance? Did she even wait for her grandmother's body to cool before she betrayed the legacy left to her?
 
If her twin never even tried, had she even ever cared at all? She let the Apples take their home, Gran’s home. Around her the darkness was growing ever more fridge, and Carrot Top could no longer tell if it was because of the winter chill or her own half-hearted guilt.
 
Should she apologize now? Even if she knew how to start, she wasn’t sure if she could find her double’s house in the dark. Maybe that was just as well. What if her own temper only flare up again?
 
No, she needed to cool down, to sober up first. She could think tonight, sleep on it, then she’d apologize tomorrow… hopefully.
 
Turning her back to the place that in her own world should have been home, Carrot Top began trek back into the town… so like her own, but so very different.
 



 
By the time Carrot Top made her way to the hotel it was fully dark and rain had started to fall. Ditzy met her at the door looking worried, the grey pegasus asked her where she’d been but she managed to fob her off with some mumbled explanation of getting lost. No one commented on Carrot Top’s mood, none of her friends were much happier given the situation. Even Cheerilee’s attempts to lighten the atmosphere fell flat. Carrot Top made her excuses and went to her room, lying on the unfamiliar bed her thoughts running around and around.
 
She hated what she had done, she had made another pony, sort of, cry, what sort of monster was she? But how could her other self have sold the farm? She might not have lived there all her life, her parents may not even have worked the land, but that farm was her life, her soul. It didn’t have to make sense, it was how she felt. But that was it, it didn’t make sense.
 
And if her other self could have lost the farm, could she too? Was she just one bad year away from packing it all in? Was that why she was so enraged at her actions, because she had come so close to doing them herself?
 
With a groan she shoved her head under the pillow. She wasn’t normally big on self-reflection, she preferred to get things done rather than think about herself, but here, here there was nothing for her to do. She couldn’t help Trixie, couldn’t help her farm.
 
With a grunt she tried to empty her mind and hoped sleep would take her.
 
Eventually it did.