CCC-Back Home Again

by Fresnor

A touch of familiarity

I spent a while reading my book as I hadn’t planned to see Twilight until sometime in the afternoon. I knew she would definitely be awake by that time if she still kept it up with her late nights that I remembered. I also wanted some time to skim through my book as I expected her to ask many questions about it after seeing it as well if I can’t distract her. Still it felt nice being back in Ponyville even if I was using aversion charms to stay unnoticed for now. Even after the bad first impressions it was nice to hear the sounds of the younglings playing, the chatter of the adults gossiping, the sound of someone falling into a nearby pond.

I pause at the sound coming from the pond, but after hearing someone else helping whoever it was I go back to my reading until someone calls out to me. “Excuse me ma’am, but may I be able to borrow a towel from you? My companion here misjudged her landing a bit and crashed into the lake.” I glance up to see a tan stallion with a brown mane near a soggy mass of a blond mane though I can’t quite see the rest of her from here. I shrug as levitate a couple towels out of my bag towards him before I go back to reading. “Sure, but how did you know that I had a towel on in my bags?”

I also wondered how he saw me but shrugged it off as I knew that there were flaws in the spell to keep attention off of me. “It was just a guess but I recognize the book you’re reading, wonderful book by the way, and I’ve found that it’s common for ponies to follow the advice they find in it for some reason. I would have used my own but I always manage to misplace them whenever I really need them.” I think on that and really can’t find a reason to argue with him as it makes some sense as I knew how useful towels could be.

I stop once more as he hands me the towels back again which I dry with my magic before putting them back into my bags. As they were leaving I catch a glimpse of the mare to see seven bubbles on her grey flank and I speak up while distracted. “Oh hey Derpy, say hi to Dinky for me when you see her.” I focus back on my reading again even after hearing the stallion saying “What?!” as I tune the world out again. I absently note that their hoof falls had stopped for a moment before they pick up again at a rapid pace. It isn’t until I’m halfway down the next page before I stop and look up in the direction they went.

“Wait a second; did I just say what I think I did? How in the..?” I catch a flash of blond going around a corner and I put my book away before giving chase. I catch sight of them turning another corner once I get to the first one as if they knew that I was following somehow. After a few more turns I see that they are finally pulling away until I finally lose sight of them. I look around and am surprised to find myself in front of a familiar gingerbread building as a strange grinding noise is going off somewhere in the background. I’m not sure if I should be surprised or not that this place is still standing, though I wonder if those two were who I thought they were.

Turning away from the building I find myself staring into some bright purple eyes that are uncomfortably close to my face. I seem to recall being in this situation once before so I bring a paw up to rub my eyes to make sure I’m not seeing things and when I lower it the figure is gone. “Maybe I should go take a nap. I’m starting to see things that aren’t there.” A familiar voice from above causes me to jump in shock. “Ooh, is there something hiding over there? Where is it, I can’t see it?”

I look up to find the owner of the eyes peering intently in the direction that I was facing and I have to pinch myself to make sure that I’m actually not dreaming. How in the world? She looks exactly like Pinkie Pie, well, if she was a white pegasus and had a bright yellow mane. But other than those little things I could swear I was looking at her. Even her voice is freakishly similar. Eventually she lands in front of me again looking a bit disappointed. “Aww, the must have run away. I really wanted to see whatever it is you were looking at.” She perks up once again though as she turns back towards me.

“Ooh I almost forgot about you you don’t look familiar which means you must be new here as I know everyone in Ponyville and if you are new here that must mean you don’t have any friends and I said to myself ‘Surprise Pie you should be friends with her so that she has some friends’ so I came over here to meet you and then you started staring at whatever you were looking at and do you know what this calls for?” It is only because I had gotten so used to Pinkie Pie doing the same thing that I understood what she said and I wasn’t surprised that she was part of the Pie family but my mouth was still on auto-pilot. “A party?”

I wince as I say this as Surprise just stares at me as if she didn’t know what to make of me. I was about to apologize when she suddenly gave a little hop in place before shouting. “That sounds like the perfect idea! I’ve never thrown a party before though.” She takes a thinking pose and it’s only now that I notice that she hasn’t earned her cutie mark yet. Oh dear, why do I get the feeling that I may have unleashed something the town isn’t ready for. I noticed something odd though as my gaze shifted further back and my mind went into a panic. “Twitchy Tail?”

Some reactions just never go away as they get so ingrained into your psyche, and the sight of a twitching tail on a being looking like Pinkie Pie is one of them. I soon saw what it was heralding as I spotted a piano being lifted up towards an upper story of a building and the rope on it was starting to come apart. Looking below it I saw a pair of fillies walking towards the area under it obliviously and my body just reacted. The fillies were just underneath it when the rope snapped causing the ponies hauling it to shout out but when the two looked up to see the piano falling the instead cowered in place, grabbing onto each other.

Everyone else in the area was shouting out in a panic as the piano fell but I had enough time to get under it myself and send up a burst of telekinetic energy slowing its fall until I held it completely in my magic. I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding as I look down at the two fillies and waited for them to move away. When they just sat there shivering in fear I just had to say something. “Um, you two might want to move to somewhere safer now that I’ve caught this.” One of the two looks up at me slowly and gasps when they see me holding the piano up in my magic and she quickly pulls her friend out of the way.

I just shake my head and smile now that the two are safe and turn my attention up towards the workers who are still frozen in place. I look at them in disgust as they hadn’t moved an inch since the thing feel so I push the piano upwards myself and slide it in through the opening that they were lifting it towards. “Next time you might want to double check that your ropes are in a better condition before you lift something this heavy.” I start to walk away again when I am reminded by the reason I was able to get there in time as Surprise bounced in front of me.

“Wowie Zowie that was amazingstupendouslyawesome how you were like all *gasp* and then suddenly *zoom* before you caught that piano like it was nothing.” She pauses for a second as her ears start moving strangely and she turns towards my bags before she suddenly dove into one of them. “What the- What do you think you are doing?!” I was about to turn and drag her out of there before she suddenly popped out of the other one holding that ball that Pinkie Pie had given me.

“Ooh I haven’t seen one of these before but I think I know what it is do you know what it is because I do and do you know where I can find a cannon or show me what one looks like?” I feel a headache coming on as my mind tries to catch up with what is going on but I register enough to react. “You mean something like this?” I create an illusion of Pinkie Pie’s Party Cannon as it is the first one that comes to mind.

I watch as Surprise sticks her head inside the barrel of the illusionary cannon before pulling it out once again. “Yes this looks perfect thanks for this I’ll see you later, Flarie.” With that she grabs the cannon and takes off with both it and the wrapped ball leaving me there to stare after her in shock. What the? How did? Hoowubbagubba? I probably would have sat there longer if she didn’t appear from out of a nearby plant to hand me a card before speeding off again. Looking down at the card I see that it is an invitation to a party later today. “Nope, I can’t deal with this right now, at least not without a couple glasses of hard cider, especially since I don’t remember telling her my name for her to come up with that nickname.”

Shoving all thoughts of what just happened out of my mind I turn towards the side of town opposite of where my home is and start walking. I get some odd looks as I leave the area but I ignore them as I am in no state to deal with much else right now. Soon the town starts to thin out as I reach the edge of it and I begin to enter path to the nearby apple orchard. On seeing the sign over it proclaiming it to be ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ brings a smile to my lips. “It’s good to see that this place hasn’t changed that much since I was last here.”

I make my way down the path and soon find myself at the long-time home of the Apple Family to find that, other than having grown larger, it is relatively unchanged. I can hear the sounds of ponies working in the orchard gathering apples and I ponder where to go to find whoever is in charge. As I walk up to the house though I see a blonde-maned and white furred earth pony on the porch that looks to have seen me. She looked to be about the same age as Surprise and Aurora and I debated looking for someone else until she approached me.

“Good morning dearie. May I ask what brings you to my fine home here at Sweet Apple Acres?” I’m surprised at hearing such a fancy accent out of someone that is working on a farm. Taking a closer look a notice that she has a figure similar to what I would expect out of someone that bucked trees daily, but I could see the care she took of herself as her coat and hooves shone under the light. Her mane and tail are done up like I remember Applejack used to have hers and they carried the shine that came with good care as well. “Sorry for just showing up like this, but I just returned to town today and found myself in need of something to drink of a more hard variety. I remembered the reputation of Sweet Apple Acres so I decided to head to the source since I’m not sure yet where I would find any in town.”

She looks at me suspiciously for a second before speaking again. “And why, may I ask, is it that you need something like that so early in the day? Usually ponies only have drinks like that later in the evening.” I roll my eyes at the ‘ponies’ part before answering honestly. “I normally wouldn’t need something like that, but I just had a small run-in with a Surprise Pie and found myself needing it before dealing with what I saw.” I see her wince when I say the name before it turns to one of sympathy.

“Yes, I guess that would be a good enough reason for that. It takes a while to get used to her little idiosyncrasies. Well follow me and we’ll see if we can get you something to help with that, though don’t expect me to indulge you too often.” I chuckle as she gives me a little glare after saying that. “Oh don’t worry I just wasn’t ready for her this time. I’ll be ready next time and there’s no way she can get worse than an old friend of mine was.” She looks at me in pity after I say this. “Oh you poor dear, you have no idea some of the things she can get up to.”

I decide not to return a comment to that as we make our way into one of the nearby barns. “Anyways you are lucky that you came back when you did. We’re reaching the end of cider season now so everything will be nice and fresh. I’m just glad that someone did something about that beastly weather so that we could get in the harvest more easily.” I decide not to mention that fixing the weather was my doing as we head down into the cellar where they store the cider. When we reach the bottom a sound reaches my ears that sound remarkably like snoring which brings a scowl to her face.

“Excuse me a moment dear, there seems to be a discipline problem that I need to take care of.” The look in her eye makes me feel sorry for whoever is down here as she makes her way deeper into the cellar. Soon I hear a loud yelp and her voice echoes towards the entrance. “ALL RIGHT YA LAZY HORSEAPPLE I’VE WARNED YA ABOUT SLEEPING ON THE JOB BEFORE SO NOW YA GET TO BE ON FETILIZER DUTY UNTIL THE END OF NEXT SEASON!” I stare in shock as a purple coated stallion blazes by me up the stairs, but I was more surprised as the mare went from a proper fancy accent to one that I would have expected to hear around here. I tried to shake it off when I saw her coming back again looking a little bit abashed.

“I’m terribly sorry that you had to hear that dear, but the hired help doesn’t listen well if I speak like this. While I like working out in the orchards I like to think that when I’m not required to be doing that I can actually be a proper mare. It helps when dealing with some of our more stuffy clients.” I just give a small smile at this. “Oh don’t worry I think I know what you mean. One of my old friends that used to work here could have used your help with that I think. She didn’t care for anything fancy and I think it would have cost her a bit of business if it wasn’t for some of the friends she had helping out at times.”

She looks at me oddly for a second. “You used to know someone that worked here before? Who was it? I might be able to call them in for you if they are still here.” I just shake my head sadly. “I know for a fact that they aren’t here. It was so long ago that all that would be left of them is memories and their descendants. All I have left of them now are some pictures, one of her hair ties, and a few bottles of Zap Apple Cider.” I watch as a look of complete shock crosses her face as I say the last bit and she drops a bottle she had been carrying, which luckily doesn’t break.

“Z-z-zap Apple Cider?! How did you get your hooves on a bottle of that, let alone more than one?! We lost the secret of how to make any more years ago and the last few bottles are only owned by the Apple Family!” I feel saddened that they haven’t made any in a long time and made note to ask Twilight about that since I know she wrote down how to make it somewhere. “You’re also forgetting honorary family members as well in that. If it really has been that long then there are probably only four that still fit in that.” She glares at me in suspicion once again but doesn’t do anything beyond snarling out. “Oh yeah? And who might those four be?”

I sigh and hope that she doesn’t do anything rash. “Well there is me of course, along with Spike, a dragon, and both Princess Selene and Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Her jaw drops as I rattle off the names. “My mother told me that some of the Princesses were just like family, but we never tell anyone outside the family about it. I’ve also heard that there was one dragon that we could trust but I never knew the name. I can tell that you aren’t lying but just who are you?” I smile as I get her to believe me, though I suspect it’s mostly due to the Apple trait of being good lie detectors.

“Just call me Flarenza. If you want to know more then you’ll have to wait until later during the party after I speak with Princess Twilight.” I get an odd look at that. “Party? What party?” I just point to the hat that she is now wearing that I noticed Surprise slip onto her while she was distracted. She looks up and takes off the cowboy hat and reads the invitation that was in the hat band. “When did she manage to slip in here and put that on my head? Actually, let’s just forget about that though we are sharing this bottle you hear me?” She lifts up the bottle that she dropped and I just nod in agreement.

“Since you are a friend of the family I’ll let the first one go free, by the way my name is Barnack Beauty Apple but please call me B.B. I know how the name sound but my parents wanted to be ready for either a stallion or a colt so they chose a name that could have one part or the other removed but the hospital made a mistake.” I nod as I lift the glass she poured for me before raising it to her as the urge to make a toast comes to me. “I’ll be sure to remember that, as for this though, a toast to family and friends no matter who or where they are.” This is met with a grin and raised glass from her as we both drain them to help with dealing with memories of Surprise.

<><><><><><><>

I left the farm a while later and made my way back towards town, though the hard cider didn’t help as much as I liked. I was tempted to pull out the good stuff I had but I wanted to wait until after meeting with Twilight again. I did manage to distract myself though as I thought about the three ponies that I had met and wondered who I would meet if I ventured to some of my other old haunts. With that in mind I made a detour towards the Everfree Forest to see if a certain cottage was still there or not.

I was sad to see that the Everfree had also advanced a bit in this area as well, but the cottage was still visible and looked to be in good condition. The forest came all the way up to the back of it but it was clear to see that it was still outside of it, while the path into the forest extended to the new edge interestingly enough. I was crossing the bridge when I heard a voice call out from off to the side. “Hello there, what brings you to my humble abode?”

I turn to look along the forest edge leading towards my home to see a turquoise colored unicorn mare with a slate grey mane and tail. I saw her surrounded by a crowd of animals, which she was feeding, but there was something else that grabbed my attention about her. It had been so long since I had the feeling but I knew for a fact that she was a changeling. I would have done something except for one important difference from the ones I dealt with before and that is because she lacked that oily feeling that I got from the others.

I decided to find out more before doing anything as I signaled to Rose to be on guard but to wait for further orders. “Sorry to interrupt what you are doing. I’ve just moved back into town after being gone for a long time. I was just visiting a few of the places that my friends used to live but I didn’t realize that someone new moved in here.” She cocks her head to the side as if trying to remember something before answering. “Well I was just finishing up here, so why don’t you come inside for a bit and talk about it. I found this place abandoned and would love to hear about the previous owner.”

I nod to her as I watch her lean down to nuzzle at a nearby bunny before she leads me into her home. She offers to make some tea, which I accept, and I take a look around her living room as I extend my magical senses out. The room is set up much the same as I remembered but it is now filled with the personal effects of the new owner. What is strange though is that there is a lack of pictures, and from what I can sense she is living here alone. This is so strange, I know that she is a changeling yet I can’t sense anyone around that she could feed on. Not only that but being out here would be bad for her as anyone coming out here would make her a suspect if they just up and vanished, even with the Everfree right there. Also why does she feel so different from the other changelings that I had met?

When she returns with the tea and a pair of cups I decide on a simple course of action as she wouldn’t be much of a threat to me. “So can you tell me about who it was that lived here before? I had to fix up a few things but this place is just so fascinating with how it was designed.” I sigh and take a small sip of tea, after checking for anything in it and finding nothing more than a simple zebra blend, before setting it down and looking right at her. “We can get to that in a bit, but would you mind telling me what a changeling is doing out here all alone?”

My question brings an expected response as she accidentally inhales some of the tea she was sipping leading into a coughing fit before she can respond. “What do you mean by that? What makes you think that I’m a changeling?” I can see and hear the fear in both her eyes and voice as I let out another sigh. “Let’s not fool ourselves here. I’ve had plenty of experience at finding changelings so I know one when I see them.” She shrinks back in fear as her eyes start darting around looking for an escape. “But that’s impossible. Ponies don’t have any way to do that without removing our disguises.”

I can tell she is cracking a bit as she forgets to keep up the charade though I sigh at once again being called a pony. “You know it’s getting annoying that everyone keeps assuming that I’m a pony. Sure I’m about the same size but there are a few other races that are of the same size and I’d think the lack of sound when I walk would be a giveaway.” I push my hood back to show off my vulpine features to her which causes her pupils to shrink which I expected. What happened next was completely unexpected.

“No! Not the Fox Demon, the Eater of Changelings! You can’t be here!” She topples off the back of her seat as she flees backwards away from me in terror until she reaches a corner of the room where she curls up and starts shaking. “Please don’t eat me!” With that her disguise vanishes in a burst of cobalt flames as I sit there staring. “Now what in Tartarus is all this about?”

Author's Note:

Two in one day? I haven't done that in a while though considering they were supposed to be part of the same chapter and I had to split it into yet another part? But yeah some of this is getting fun to write and I'm not even done yet. Expect even more mind twisting shenanigans next chapter as well. Please leave any comments, complaints, and typos below as I really want to know.

Name for this newest character is still up in the air if anyone has any ideas, though I have a couple I'm toying with.

Comments

[HgSpartan]

An exciting continuation of your previous venture. The last story was riveting. The way it was written gave it a feel of being a lead-in to this story, which, I suppose, it was. The way it ended... It left you reeling at her loss and questioning her future. This story appears to continue your trend of improvement in writing. The way you slowly release information on Equestria's plight leaves the reader with many questions. I am shaking with anticipation for her eventual reunion with Twilight, so make it good! Though I do not doubt you will. There were a few writing flaws that could be ironed out throughout all three stories, little quirks that even the best author is likely to miss. I good pre-reader would help with that. The only major issue I have is concerning emotional response. Her husband, parents-in-law, and countless others all died recently. On top of that she just lost what was her home for roughly the past five-hundred years. Yet here she is, back in Ponyville, traipsing around like nothing happened, self-assured, happy even. There should be some breaks unless she has secretly been a sociopath this whole time. I'm not saying she should be a weepy wreck, her character is too strong for that when she is needed, but at the very least a bit depressed, not so open to other ponies. Perhaps you have a plan already, but from my observation, she is taking it all a bit too well, there should be an underlying sadness in her actions. In anycase, this story is unique and interesting, I eagerly await the next installment, until next time, HgSpartan

[Fresnor]

5477653 Thanks for the comment and yeah I have been improving over this all as I test out different things. I see what you mean about the happiness but think of it this way. She's coming back to the place she once thought of as home and is practically immersed in her memories of it all. Don't worry the breakdown is coming but she won't be alone during it. As for Twilight... Well I'm still planning some of that out but expect a bit of hilarity as well as a temporary return of another old friend.

[Crescent Glaive]

My face after reading the end is a combination of these:

[DerpTape]

Don't you love learning about reputations you never knew you had?

[Asolem2]

“No! Not the Fox Demon, the Eater of Changelings! You can’t be here!” She topples off the back of her seat as she flees backwards away from me in terror until she reaches a corner of the room where she curls up and starts shaking. “Please don’t eat me!” With that her disguise vanishes in a burst of cobalt flames as I sit there staring. “Now what in Tartarus is all this about?”

It probably has something to do with your old playmate, you know, good ol'Citrine Eyes