When Babs awoke the next day, she barely had to examine the situation to realize that it was no nightmare. After all, in all the nightmares she’d had, she’d always been offered some sort of chance to escape, whether through waking up or just finding a narrow pathway within the dream. This one offered no such shortcuts, and as such was all too real.
Not that she’d gotten all that much sleep the previous night, anyway. Even as she tried to push herself into it, she always seemed to have some level of awareness that she was not meant to be here, even as every other part of her drifted off. She almost wondered why she even bothered trying, knowing that she’d already been knocked out before she came here. Maybe it was out of tradition, or some sort of comfort that things could get better.
In any case, Midsweet had her off and running just after dawn. She’d told Babs that there was an important gathering at noon, though the filly had no idea why such an event required getting up so early. So here she was, being done up in a ridiculous manner for something that, in the end, most ponies would not end up seeing.
As it turned out, Midsweet had not consulted the rest of her family before carrying out her dubious deed, and only the ponies who’d accompanied her during the foalnapping and the unicorn attendant from before had any clue Babs was there. Even less knew just how grave the incident really was, or the consequences it would have on their family.
“As long as nopony blows our cover there, everything should be fine,” she told Babs with a hidden edge in her tone. “If you are to be an Orange, you really ought to know how we conduct business. This is the first step any new recruit has to face, and you certainly aren’t going to miss out on it on my watch just because somepony might see you.”
After the first statement, everything became a blur, and Babs was reminded once more of just how threatening the older mare could be. So far, she’d tried to mask her agenda in the utmost of respect, but every once in a while, Babs wondered how long that would last. Telling everypony at some huge gathering that she’d been foalnapped by the matriarch of one of Manehattan’s most esteemed families wouldn’t save her. If anything, it would bring only retaliation and make her captor even more on her guard. She knew far too much about these sorts of ponies to make such rash decisions, and she’d already gotten on Midsweet’s patience too many times for her comfort.
Babs gave a simple, silent nod and got into her dress, which she could only hope was a hand-me-down from an Orange foal who’d been the exact same size and shape as her. To her surprise, it was far from the ball gown or tea dress that she’d been expecting, almost a sort of business wear for foals. It showed off her cutie mark well enough, but for once, the stenciled image wasn’t what she was worried about here.
“Um, Midsweet,” she asked, hating herself for using the mare’s name but knowing she’d have to if she wanted to sweeten the deal. “What exactly is this thing we’re going to?”
The mare stayed silent, only opening her mouth a few times for meaningless chatter as Babs got ready. At the time, she’d just assumed that Midsweet was trying to surprise her, or that she didn’t have the right to ask about it in the first place.
Then, when the two trotted into the entryway of a neighboring hotel, she knew. Midsweet didn’t say anything because there was simply no way to describe it.
While the meeting room was certainly ornate and covered with golden decorations at every turn, nopony seemed to focus on the scenery. Everypony, even the foals, looked like they’d been through all this before and their eyes gleamed with an almost hostile confidence. Once Midsweet and Babs showed up to the meeting, all the seats at the table were full, and the filly couldn’t help but notice how small it was compared to the huge Apple gatherings she was used to. A single chair, which might as well have been Celestia’s throne itself, lay empty. Either the leader was not here yet or something very suspicious was going on behind the scenes.
Babs herself did not get a chair and was instead kept to the back corner of the room, almost as if being put in such a conspicuous place would keep ponies from noticing her. Instead, all it really did was make the mysterious goings-on all the more imposing, as the full-fledged Oranges towered over her like pieces of artwork.
A spark of hope surged through her as she realized where she was and what her family had been planning. She scanned through the crowd as best as she could without moving, knowing that Bambi had to have been invited now that she was pretending to be part of the Oranges again. Maybe the old mare holding her captive wasn’t so smart after all.
Her eyes darted from side to side as many times as they could, but to no result. None of the Oranges there were ones that she’d ever seen before except the one from the jewelry shop, and judging by the concerned look on her face, she might have already known. Like Babs, she seemed to be desperately looking for a way out of the room, and fear clouded every aspect of her eyes. She also happened to be the only Orange in the room who was completely silent.
While some of the others seemed panicked in their whisperings, just as many had voices quickening with intrigue over the latest news. Soon enough, they all seemed to blur together, creating an overwhelming barrier over the room that nopony outside of the family could cross. A few words were repeated over and over, but even as Babs tried to listen in, the subject was undecipherable, almost as if she was listening to ponies speaking a foreign language.
Just then, two escorters—ones that looked vaguely familiar from the kidnapping—brought a green earth pony mare in. At the same time, almost as if they had orchestrated it from the beginning, Midsweet got up from her chair. The two moved towards the center of the room and faced one another, almost as if an invisible line had been drawn. Almost as if a game was just about to begin.
Babs really wasn’t sure if she would have to take a side in this ceremony, and she hoped more than anything that she wouldn’t. For a slight moment, she’d almost considered supporting the unfamiliar mare, since she’d briefly forgotten that anypony could be worse than Midsweet. Then she looked the mare in the eyes, and she remembered.
The mare was such an exact copy that Babs almost jumped right where she sat. It took her a second or two to convince her that the other pony was even a mare to begin with, and then another few to realize that the coat colors were all wrong. She’d remembered seeing this mare at the Apple family reunion and not being anywhere near as scared then, but taking a good, full look at her and realizing how absolutely Mosely-like she seemed was too much for the filly now.
Midsweet made the first move, giving the other pony a glance filled with more hatred than Babs had ever seen from her. She took a white glove from her saddlebag and dropped it without warning, some rich pony signal that Babs didn’t understand but that made everypony in the room gasp profusely.
“She didn’t even drop that when it was him!” a stallion whispered, getting altogether too excited by the situation.
“His was never even public!” another replied. “So what could she have done that was so terrible that we had to come see it?”
Does anypony ever tell anypony else anything in this family? Babs thought to herself.
The younger mare was already caving, refusing to meet Midsweet’s eye and almost cowering before her very presence. She clutched her tail tight with her front legs, enough to cover up not just her cutie mark, but her entire flank itself. With the way she’d bragged constantly about her family during the reunion, Babs couldn’t help but fear what they’d done to this mare before the meeting to get her into such a state.
“Please,” she whimpered, “make this as quick as possible.”
“The sentiment is shared,” Midsweet answered. “After all, I’m sure nopony here wants to waste their time on anypony as insignificant as you, Valencia.”
Strangely enough, nopony’s mouth seemed to drop at this statement, even as Babs’ gaped almost to the floor. Sure, she knew Midsweet almost had to be capable of more than she’d personally seen her do, but it wasn’t even the remark itself that startled her. It came from the way it tore the Oranges’ rigid hierarchy apart; from what Babs could tell, Midsweet was sitting at a regular seat in the middle of the table, and Valencia was meant to be in the empty chair on the end. A clear-cut sign of leadership anywhere else, and yet the one in charge barely said a thing to protest it.
Unless she wasn’t. From what Babs knew with the Apples, prominent families would normally choose a representative to lead them and an older member to guide them through. While most ponies still thought of Granny Smith as the face of the family, for example, Applejack was the one running operations these days. Here, it seemed to be the precise opposite, though: the mare named Valencia was a puppet to make it look like the younger generations exerted influence in the family. Threaten her, and any sign of power would dissolve.
In any case, this was the first moment it really kicked in for Babs. Midsweet had far more control than she ever could have imagined. The older mare was never an ordinary Orange, and she knew it.
“I’m sure by now all of you have heard about the little infraction Valencia caused,” Midsweet began, never taking her eyes off the younger mare. “Needless to say, we have taken pains to ensure the news will not go any further outside our family. For once, our connections with the Manehattan news circuit have served to our advantage.”
Regardless of whether or not the coverup was part of Bambi’s own agenda with the Oranges, the idea of throwing money at the problem to make it disappear still terrified Babs. If it wouldn’t have been for her real family’s fight against the situation with Mosely, he likely would’ve had the same fate. And she couldn’t help but wonder if they had the same idea planned for the inevitable foalnapping allegations, assuming Midsweet wasn’t spinning her gears about it already.
“That, however, cannot erase the gravity of what she has done,” the matriarch continued. “Our family has very loose rules for the time being, ones that I sincerely hoped would not be broken as soon as they were. First, do not go anywhere near the Spellshock cast or interfere with the play in any way. Second, do not mention the two greatest failed Oranges in any way or acknowledge their existence in any form. Your acts as ‘Pink Lady,’ and a shoddy copy at that, almost placed our reputation in danger yet again. But more importantly, you chose that filth over us and your duties as family leader.”
The second that last sentence hit Valencia’s ears, her tail swept away from her flank and her body formed into a stance every bit as threatening as Midsweet’s. Every tiny hair on her fur seemed to stand on end. She had never resembled her brother more.
“Mosely isn’t filth!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “He was your leader up until a month or so ago. And you expect me, his sister, to let some shoddy rumor force me to forget about him just like that?”
The room suddenly exploded with more gasps than ever from the very second she uttered the stallion’s name. Valencia had a captive audience, and she no longer cared what would happen to her. In that moment, she almost became the real Pink Lady.
That instant had only been a tiny spark, though, that soon faded once Valencia stared out to the other ponies in the room. To them, her brother was still little more than a forbidden word, a pony who would not be remembered, a nameless monster. Not even she could change that.
She wanted to cry more than she ever had in her life. For the first time since she could remember, she had finally put every piece of her into something, and nothing was left. Nothing except to call out her opponent.
“I really don’t care if it was a rumor at this point,” she confessed. “If somepony were to come up to me and tell me the most important pony in my life had turned into somepony I couldn’t recognize, I wouldn’t care. Because either way, it wouldn’t bring him back. But what I do care about is the way this happened. How, if he was innocent, you’d hate him for all of history, but if he was guilty, you’d bury him away and never even tell the next generation what he did wrong. Either way, one account was enough to act like he was never one of us.”
Midsweet started tensing up, formulating how she’d make the younger mare regret these statements.
“Once, he was the most important thing in your life, too, Midsweet. For good or for bad, you made him the way he was. How could those feelings turn into hate just like that?”
“I met somepony better,” the older mare responded, shooting invisible laser beams into Valencia’s eyes. “I was faced with a choice. Getting rid of him was just the price it took.”
There was no more distraction to be had after this. As much as Midsweet’s statements had jarred Babs before, the ones about her being essentially the only reason she’d expelled Mosely to begin with and about how long her plan had really went on, she forced herself to keep listening.
The rest of the process was sharp and quick. There was a reading of the crimes Valencia had committed, many of which were crimes only within Orange terms, and then the harshest trial Babs had ever seen. There was no opposition, only apathy and resignation. Even as Valencia’s mother looked as though she was about to cry, she was forced into voting her out. There was no comfort in the jury, and the judge looked as though she had every intention of being her executioner.
Just as the decision had been cast, however, the one thing Babs expected least happened.
“Were you lying all this time?”
While Valencia was certainly not the courageous figure she’d been before, she was still every bit as frantic, seeming to have lost all reason. Nopony bothered to reply.
“You separated me from everypony else, and you said you’d never abandon me,” she said in a low voice. “You calmed my nightmares when I was a filly. You said I’d never be the one in the middle of this room facing expulsion. You said you’d never let me go.”
Looking at once fearful and desperate, she grasped onto Midsweet’s rear leg almost as if she was about to attack then and there.
“So I’m not letting go of you, either!” she shouted. Just then, though, everything was drowned out.
Just like Babs, she didn’t even see it at first. The way Midsweet’s other back leg thrusted towards her chest with a strength no elderly mare should have. The way the matriarch swung her leg out of Valencia’s grip and swerved a hoof into her face.
That was all it took to send the mare straight into the floor. Enough to send her a message, but not enough to send her to the hospital. Normally, the Oranges didn’t resort to violence, but Valencia wasn’t an ordinary Orange anymore. She wasn’t even an Orange to begin with.
So when the water hit her body, she didn’t even notice. Her cutie mark gaped out in the open for everypony to see, and she was too shocked by everything else for it to even register.
She could hear the whispers, but they were nothing more than static to her. Her head ached like Tartarus, and the almost certainly mocking voices were doing very little to help. The only thing she could hear, though, was the thing she feared most.
“I always knew,” Midsweet said. “Before you start praising your worthless brother again, know he didn’t do anything. I could spot that fake cutie mark from a block away.”
Valencia shook like crazy, half because of the cold water all around her and half from the implications. What sorts of games had her grandmother played with her all this time? If she knew, and she said non-Orange cutie marks were forbidden for blood relatives, then how long had she been waiting to spread the secret? Was she really able to tell what it was the moment she saw it?
Or had Mosely, as much of a toady as he’d been to Midsweet in his younger years, actually told her from the start?
She seethed with the thought, but tried to push it out of her mind as much as she could. Keep her loyalties to Mosely, they were the only thing she had left. But when everypony else left the room for a short break, she would find that even that could shatter on impact.
Another pony tapped her gently on the leg, and she feared what she would find more than anything. But rather than yet another aggressor, all she found when she opened her eyes was a small, strangely familiar, very non-Orange filly.
“You all right there?” Babs asked, not daring to look her in the eye. “It looks like she hurt you pretty bad.”
“I’ll be fine,” Valencia sighed. “My body, at least. My pride, not so much.”
Propping her head up slightly, she sized up the filly, trying to remember where she’d seen her last. The cutie mark threw her off at first, but once she realized it was likely a fake like hers had been, everything fell into place.
“You’re Coco’s foal, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”
“Long story,” replied Babs. Even if Midsweet had made a veiled reference to the foalnapping in the meeting, she still wasn’t sure if she should reference it considering how angry the Orange matriarch was.
“Right,” Valencia answered, nodding. “You can tell me about it next time we meet up. That is, assuming they’ll let our paths cross again once you become one of them.”
There was a tiny pause when she said “them,” but something about it felt all too natural somehow. Her mind was already beginning to switch into non-Orange territory as much as it could from what little she knew about how to live without them.
“So they really make everypony do that?” Babs asked. “Ignore everypony who’s had to go through this, no matter how close you were to them?”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant. They mainly keep you to Oranges in general here. But yes, that’s how it is.”
Valencia’s eyes drooped for a slight moment before she realized just how strange Babs’ statement from before was.
“Wait, you understand?” she blurted out. “You’re...not mad at me?”
“Even if I was, I know not to kick ponies when they’re down. I’ve had to go through enough ponies doin’ that to me that I don’t wish it on anypony else. Besides, I have a sister, too. I know I’d defend her, right or wrong.”
“But rumor or not, you still didn’t have the best relationship with my brother. And I messed up your mom’s life and everything else.”
Babs just shoved a hoof to the side and forced herself to look at the mare.
“Not as much as some of the other ponies we’ve run into on Bridleway, actually,” she replied. “And besides, I haven’t always been the best pony either. When I had a bad time, I used to hurt ponies, too. At least you didn’t physically hurt anypony. That’s better than how I did.”
The filly smiled, and Valencia had never been more confused in her life. How could anypony in Equestria be this forgiving? No yelling, just understanding and sharing personal stories. It almost made her want to hate Babs for just how unnatural this whole situation was.
“You’re not supposed to be here with me,” she muttered. “You’re supposed to cast me aside, and you’re certainly not supposed to see if I’m all right.”
“The way I see it, as long as you didn’t try to take over Equestria or traumatize innocent ponies or somethin’, nopony deserves that. My mama’s had enough problems forgiving herself, and I’ve decided: I don’t like any other ponies beatin’ themselves up like that. And that makes you right about one thing. I’m not supposed to be here.”
As much as her emotions surged towards that whole situation, that one last part still gave her pause, and she couldn’t help but ask about it.
“Can you keep a secret?” Babs asked, finally seeing an entryway come into sight.
“Better than Mosely can, apparently.”
The bitterness had popped straight out of Valencia’s mouth, and she placed her hooves over it as soon as she realized what she’d said. That one sentence made her blush even more than the entire embarrassment of a day had.
“That…really wasn’t like me to say that,” she whispered.
Babs just laughed at the whole exchange, the first time she’d been that happy in days.
“You made a bit of progress, at least,” she joked. “But anyway—“
She lowered her face, knowing that this might not be the right thing to do, trusting an Orange that looked all too much like her old enemy. Her one hope was that Valencia’s friendship with Coco would last beyond her family ties. Then again, though, there were certainly worse hopes to be had.
“You might not believe me, but I’m not here because I want to be. Midsweet—“
“Foalnapped you?” Valencia finished, so shocked that she almost forgot to keep her voice low.
Babs nodded and lifted a hoof just above her mouth, just in case Valencia felt tempted to tell anypony else.
“But why wouldn’t you want the other Oranges to know about it? They wouldn’t stand for it. She herself said we weren’t supposed to interfere with the cast, and doing that’s way worse than what I did!”
“It might not help me get away, and if it doesn’t, there could be consequences. Honestly, I’m afraid just talking with you might make her mad.”
Valencia gave a nod of understanding and winked at the filly.
“She can get pretty bad,” she whispered. “Even as a mare, I’m still afraid of her.”
“Because of that, right?”
A brown hoof went to Valencia’s cutie mark, not quite touching it out of instinct over her own flank.
“Yeah. It’s not exactly proper for us to have something like this.” She glared at her real mark with the utmost derision, wanting to cry just looking at it.
“Well, if we make it out of this, I’ve got some friends who can help you with that,” replied Babs. “They connect ponies with their cutie marks and all. It’d sure be a shame if you kept hatin’ a nice mark like that.”
Valencia didn’t want to believe the things this filly was telling her, but right now, her Orange morals were increasingly being shoved to the back of her mind. No matter what family you had or what status you were, when a foal told you they were foalnapped, you believed them. You helped them through. And Midsweet had already lied to her about so many other things, and it’d be so strangely satisfying to see her latest heir slip straight under her hooves…
“One more thing,” she spoke, knowing that the meeting would come back to order within minutes, and that Midsweet could never know that anything had happened here. “Something I’ve been wanting to know for a long time, and don’t spare me any pain.”
She stared the filly straight in the eye, this time noticing just how hard it was for Babs to look directly at her.
“We rich ponies have to deal with rumors and threats all the time. It’s the one way ponies know how to get to us. Since Mosely and I were so connected back then, everypony knew that hurting him would rile me up, and hurting me would do the same to him. It happened so much that I stopped even considering any of that could be true. Do you forgive me for thinking the way I did now?”
“Yes,” answered Babs. But the way she did it, right before Valencia even asked her real question, told her everything she needed to know.
The filly had been expecting her to ask the question that had started everything, and now she knew.
As Valencia left the building, she was already formulating a plan. Go to her husband and entreat his help once more, this time against the family she’d always known. Then, once she had the law on her side, consulting Coco would be as easy as anything she’d attempted.
It took everything to make a new purpose in her life, this temporary one, and everything to keep the old one from leaking in. But even then, the thoughts went through her mind like clockwork.
I’ve never tolerated ponies who hurt foals. My brother hurt a foal.