Applebloom and Scootaloo climbed the ramp leading to their clubhouse. The spell that the mystery changeling had cast on her would only last another day at most, so if Scootaloo wanted to stay in Ponyville she would have to learn to change on her own. School had been canceled due to Cheerilee being out with a concussion and a broken foreleg. So they had Friday and the weekend to themselves.
Upon entering the small yellow structure, Applebloom immediately drew the curtains across the windows. “Before we start practice’n you need to know that I don’t know enough magic to force a change on ya’. So you’re prob’ly gonna be stuck looking like a changeling until you figure it out.”
Scootaloo swallowed hard at that. “Okay, how do I do that?”
“It’s not too hard, once you figure it out. Changelings don’t really use ‘spells’ to change themselves the way unicorns do,” explained Applebloom, “Those are illusions, something that’s meant to just trick the eyes. What we do is tune our bodies to the magic we want and it physically changes us.”
“You just made that sound even harder.”
Applebloom laughed, “Using words to explain something simple like this does that. Just watch me, I’ll do it slow.” With that she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m focusing on my heartbeat. Feeling the love I’ve absorbed humming inside me. And I’m sort of … smoothing it out.” As she spoke a green crackling slowly ran up around her hooves, leaving behind it a trail of black chitin. When it got to her back the thin membrane of wings formed and unraveled. Finally the embers reached her head and Scootaloo could see her friends’ forehead contort and slowly sprout a bent and gnarled horn. “And I’m done.”
“That’s,” Scootaloo looked for the words, “wow. You’re taller as a changeling”
“What?! Are you serious?” Applebloom groaned, “After all that, that’s the first thing you notice?”
“No, seriously look,” Scootaloo said, pointing to the small mirror. “We were the same height a moment ago. Now you’re like, a whole hoof taller than me.”
“Seriously?” Applebloom looked in the mirror to check. “Well I’ll be hogtied. It must have something to do with the holes.”
“You don’t spend much time like this, do you?”
“Tch, you kidd’n? Best thing that’d come of it would be getting run out of town. More likely I’d be captured and sent to some dungeon or a sciencey lab where they test me to death.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
Applebloom scowled, an expression that was a good deal more intimidating in her changeling form. “Where is Sweetie Belle again?”
Scootaloo hung her head at that. Sweetie Belle had been discovered before either of them even knew she was a changeling. Now she was in the Ponyville jail surrounded by armed guards from Canterlot. Technically all three of the crusaders were criminals who hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not on purpose. It was a matter of either hiding, running, or getting captured.
“Okay,” Applebloom stated, bringing Scootaloo out of her negative train of thought, “before we have you undo the forced tuning that other changeling gave you, I’m gonna show you how to change into a pony. I’ll show you how to do it a few times. Then I’ll do you so you can have a baseline, but it should be pretty easy for you to do yourself."
"You have to think about how that pony feels, the emotions that certain parts of them create. Normally you need to get close enough to absorb some of their love first, but with practice you’ll find out how to pick out their most defining characteristics and picture how they feel.”
“You mean I’ll sympathize with them?” asked the orange filly.
“No that’s the other one. Sympathize means you’ve been through the same things as them,” she explained. “What you want is empathy. Focus on how their situation must make them feel.”
A flash of green flames enveloped Applebloom’s chitinous form and dissipated to reveal a copy of Diamond Tiara strutting around the clubhouse. “My family is rich. I can afford to have a real diamond tiara and stand tall and straight so everyone can see me and how important I am.”
Another flash of green revealed Pipsqueak . “I’m … kinda shy and intimidated, ‘cause … well, I’m new and I don’t look exactly like everyone else,” after that his ears perked up. “B-but when someone notices me and says something nice I get real excited, and I’m sure we’ll all be the best of friends.”
Scootaloo laughed at this display, “Haha, wow. You’ve really got them pegged.”
Applebloom changed back into her changeling form. “Yeah, it may not exactly be nice to think of them like that, but it can help you focus.”
“So, why do you sound like Applebloom as a changeling, but you sound like other ponies when you change into them?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Applebloom admitted. “It could be our voice-box changes to suit the first form we take, or something else.”
“Huh, weird,” Scootaloo tried to wrap her head around that for a moment, but quickly shook it off for more important matters. “Okay, do me, but slowly so I can see it.”
“Okay, just …” Applebloom paused.
“Just what?”
“I just … I want you to know, I don’t really see you like this. I just … it’s how I imagine you feel most of the time.”
“Oh … okay?”
The changeling closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Hi, I’m Scootaloo.” Green embers crackled up her snout and face altering to an orange hornless one in the same shape as Scootaloo’s. “I’m a bit self-conscious about my wings being smaller than most.” The thin membranes of insect wings burned away to reveal small feathery ones. “But I don’t let that stop me from being excited and up-beat.” The black hooves crackled green, shortening her stature as they were replaced with orange fur and hooves. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing fast. Then we can have fun doing even more of it.” With that the green embers which had started in separate areas all met, and two identical orange fillies stood in the middle of the clubhouse.
Scootaloo tucked her wings in and looked away sheepishly. “Heh … wow,” she said, unenthusiastically, “you’ve really got me pegged too, huh?”
“No … Scoots I … I don’t mean it like that.”
Scootaloo’s eye got wide and she stared at her copy. “Wow! It’s … It’s really weird hearing myself talk.”
“I jus- … wait … you’re over it that quick?”
“Well,” Scootaloo shuffled her hooves a bit, “I mean, it kinda stings hearing it from somepony else. But it’s true. What’s that saying Applejack always says about honesty?”
“That it’s the best policy?”
“No, the other one.”
“Lies can only get you so far, but the truth can set you free?”
“The other, other one I guess. The one about yourself … and others.”
“Oh, right. The best way to learn to be honest with others is to learn to be honest with yourself.”
“Yeah that’s the one. I really am like that, and I know it. You told me you didn’t mean anything by it, and I know you didn’t. So there’s no point in getting upset over it. That doesn’t just make it easy to hear though.” Scootaloo nodded, feeling a small amount of pride. Then she quirked an eyebrow at her doppelganger “Wow, she’s really got a lot of those sayings, doesn’t she?”
“Tell me about it. Sometimes I think she got the element of brutal honesty. But that’s enough about my sister. We’re here so you can practice.”
“Right, right,” Scootaloo shook her legs out similar to a runner about to take their mark. “Deep breath, center myself,” she closed her eyes and breathed, “and reach out and feel the force.” With that she held out her hoof in front of her, trying hard not to smirk.
“I’m going to knock you if you keep that up.”
“Fine, fine,” Scootaloo scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Spoil sport,” she grumbled. She closed her eyes again and thought about those emotions that Applebloom was talking about, those things that were part of her and who she was. Taking a deep breath in she imagined pulling those emotions close to her heart, and as she breathed out she felt herself let go of them, allowing them to float out into the ether.
“How’s that?” she asked
The orange look-alike pointed towards the small mirror on the wall. “See for yourself, ya great big goofball.”
Looking over to the mirror Scootaloo could see that she had indeed fully turned into a changeling. “Alright, that was pretty easy.”
“Well, yeah, it’s who you really are. You should be able to be a changeling or your host form,” she said gesturing to her disguised self, “whenever you want.”
“Oh … Yeah, my host form.” Scootaloo’s blue eyes dropped to the ground as she thought for a moment, “Hey, AB. If Applejack thinks you’re her sister … and, well … let’s face it, you’re not. Doesn’t that mean there’s a ‘real’ Applebloom out there? Somepony who’s … a pony?”
It was strange for Scootaloo to see her own face become solemn as Applebloom took a deep breath. “Try not to think ‘bout it, okay?”
“But … but why-”
“Because it ain’t right and it ain’t fair,” she snapped. “It ain’t right that I have to live in hiding over something I ain’t done, and it sure as Celestia ain’t fair that I’m liv’n somepony else’s life with their family.” Applebloom took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. “Look, we’re changelings. We need energy from love as much as food. This is the only way we can get it with the situation we’re in. There’s noth’n we can do about it, so … so we just gotta muddle through it. And the only way for me to do that is to just not think about it.”
Scootaloo was surprised at the outburst from her normally level-headed friend. It wasn’t so much the righteousness behind it, but the heat of the emotions that flowed from her was palpable. “So,” she started, but cut herself off.
“What?”
“You’re … really upset about not being a pony … aren’t you.”
Applebloom dropped the disguise, her voice changing back to sound more like herself. “I … I don’t know. It’s just that … every time I talk to my family. I know I’m lying to them. Everything Big Mac and Applejack know about their little sister is a lie. All those memories, the time spent with each other, the shared secrets, the stories, absolutely everything they know about me has been one big lie.” Applebloom’s blackened hindquarters slumped to the floor.
Scootaloo considered how all this had affected Applebloom. She’d been forced to hide who she truly was from her best of friends, her own family. She loved her family with all her heart and she couldn’t be honest with the one thing that really mattered. Yet she’d managed to put on a brave face despite all that. She’d carried on being the pony all of them expected her to be, and, knowing her, Scootaloo was sure it wasn’t just because her friend was scared for herself. She was scared of what it would do to her big sister and brother if they ever found out.
It was at that moment both of the changelings heard a set of hooves out on their clubhouse ramp. “Applebloom,” they heard Applejack’s voice call out, “are you in there?”
In a hushed whisper the younger of the Apple Clan urged, “Quick, change now. Turn into yourself if you can but we’ll play it off no matter who you are. Yeah, sis, I’ll be out in a second.”
Scootaloo gave a panicked nod and closed her eyes. She focused her feelings in around her heart. Both of their bodies were enveloped in green flame. When the flames dissipated there stood one yellow filly with a red mane tied up in a pink bow and one yellow filly with a red mane tied up in a pink bow. “WH-,” the real Applebloom had to keep herself from yelling at her doppelganger, “what are you doing!?! You aren’t supposed to be, me.”
“I’m, sorry! I don’t know why, it just-” a hoof over the fake’s mouth silenced her. In another flash of flame the real Applebloom transformed herself into Scootaloo. Just a moment later, a rather upset looking Applejack entered through the undersized doorway.
“Applebloom, I specifically told you to head straight back to the barn when you found your friend! Not to go gallivanting across the orchard where ain’t nopony could’a heard you if something happened.”
The orange filly stepped forward. “Sis a’-…ahemhm” she caught herself and cleared her throat. “So sorry, Applejack,” she corrected, “I convinced her to come here. I figured as long as we were on the farm it would be okay so long as we closed the windows.” She gestured a hoof at the drawn curtains to indicate that they had been trying to stay as safe as possible.
Applejack scrutinized the orange filly as if she were coming to some sort of internal conclusion. Without any apparent decision being made the Orange mare continued. “Even still, she knew better than to go off without tell’n nopony.”
The yellow filly felt as if Applejack was towering over her. ‘Ohmigosh, she’s gonna find out’ her mind panicked. ‘I’m pretending to be the sister of the element of Honesty.’ She knew she couldn’t just stand there. Applebloom never stopped and stared at anypony, least of all her sister. It wasn’t until she felt her friend give her a slight elbow that she found her voice. “Oh, uhh … s-sorry Applejack,” she said meekly. “I guess I-”
“Well, you guessed wrong,” snapped Applejack. “Get on home and get to work in the kitchen. Granny Smith’s gonna need help bake’n.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Uhh,” the orange filly interjected, “could I talk with her alone real quick? It’ll take just a second.”
At that point it was Rainbow Dash’s turn to walk in. “That’ll have to wait till after your training session,” she said. “I’ve got a short lunch and then it’s back to weather patrol. Cloudsdale has a big shipment coming through and it’s all hooves on deck to keep them from raining as they move on through.”
Now it was her turn to stop and stare. “I, uhh, wow Rainbow Dash. This’ll take just a second, and it’s … kin’a private.”
“Psh, you’re just nervous.” Rainbow Dash moved forward and picked the little orange filly up in her arms. “C’mon kid, no time for a pep-talk, we’ve got work to do.” And a few moments later they were flying high above the orchard towards the edge of the forest.
Applebloom held on as tight as she could as Rainbow Dash carried her away. Despite the fact she didn’t want to give anything away she couldn’t help but mutter “Oh, horse-apples,” under her breath.