Applejack and Pinkie Pie got off their train at the Canterlot station in the wee hours of the morning—well, calling it ‘morning’ was being charitable since you could only see the first glimmer of dawn on the horizon if you really squinted and looked for it, but still.
Pinkie Pie jumped onto the platform with open arms, only to cross them and puff up her cheeks, and Applejack looked around in confusion when they saw the station was completely empty.
“What gives?” Pinkie huffed. “Where’re all our friends?”
“It’s pretty dang early, Pinkie,” Applejack said, giving Pinkie’s ear a gentle scratch. “Or maybe it’s late? I kinda can’t tell myself anymore. Either way, I bet everypony’s still in bed.”
Pinkie sighed in acceptance, and while Applejack’s theory was sound enough, something still didn’t feel right to her.
“But hey,” Applejack said, “you wanna go swing by the library anyway? See if they’re open already?”
“Yeah!” Pinkie cheered and ran off toward the library, Applejack chuckling as she tried to keep up with Pinkie’s frantic pace.
Pinkie’s excited chatter as she recounted all the things she wanted to do with and tell Twilight and Spike and the others filled Applejack’s ears even as Pinkie raced ahead of her and left Applejack in the dust, only to suddenly go conspicuously quiet.
Applejack quickened her pace, knowing that a suddenly silent Pinkie never meant good news, and her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the withered, burnt out tree that used to house the Golden Oaks Library.
Pinkie stared in horror, her hands over her mouth, and Applejack didn’t even know what to say or do, or even how to feel. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
And then something else caught her eye; a white pony kneeling in the snow in front of the library.
“Rarity!” Pinkie screamed, and Rarity listlessly turned her head toward the two ponies as Pinkie rushed toward her, embracing her in a scared hug.
“What happened here?” Applejack asked tensely, looking around to watch for any other signs of danger. It looked to her like the library had been burned for a while, so whatever caused it probably happened yesterday or last night, but everything about this situation was fishy and Applejack wasn’t taking chances with her friends’ safety.
“The library burned down,” Rarity replied unhelpfully.
“Where’re Twilight and Spike?!” Pinkie asked desperately, shaking Rarity by the shoulders. “C’mon, Rarity! Tell us what happened!”
“Are they dead?” Applejack asked bluntly, and Pinkie gasped.
“Applejack!” Pinkie scolded, standing up in front of Rarity and pointing an accusing finger at Applejack, tears wetting her eyes. “You can’t just—how can you even say that!?”
“They’re alive,” Rarity said flatly.
Pinkie fell to the ground, hand on her heart, and breathed a sigh of relief, but Rarity’s tone only made Applejack more suspicious.
“Where are they?” Applejack asked, eyeing Rarity skeptically.
“I don’t know,” Rarity gave a listless shrug, staring off into space.
“Then how do you know they’re alive?” Applejack crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, wishing Rarity would start making sense already.
“Because I saw them fly off.”
Pinkie Pie inhaled sharply and backed up toward the library, looking pale as a sheet, but Applejack couldn’t really pay her any mind right now.
“They ‘flew off’?” Applejack asked, reaching the end of her rope with Rarity’s vague and unhelpful answers. “What the hell does that mean, Rarity?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Applejack,” Rarity threw up her arms and affected a bitter half-smile, “other than that our friendly librarian has been a dragon hiding in pony’s skin this entire time.”
Ugly pause.
Applejack put a hand over her brow, inhaling deeply. She let go of her breath and simply asked, “What?”
Rarity explained what happened; how she saw the dragon on the train, chased it into the mountains, how she fought it and it refused to fight back, and how Spike stopped Rarity from killing it, all while holding a doll that was a perfect likeness of the dragon.
Rarity’s story was utterly crazy, but there wasn’t a hint of irony or humor or dishonesty in Rarity’s telling of it. Applejack had no choice but to confront, and accept, the truth; her friend wasn’t real, it was a monster pretending to be a pony.
Except, nothing about that story made any sense.
“I have… so many questions,” Applejack groaned, rubbing her temples.
“Join the club,” Rarity chuckled bitterly, struggling to her hooves.
“Look,” Applejack put her hand firmly on Rarity’s shoulder, “first thing’s first; does Rainbow know about all this?”
“She does,” Rarity nodded slowly. “She found me right after Twil—er, the dragon left, and I told her everything that happened.”
“Okay,” Applejack took a deep breath. “Then first we gotta go get her, then the four of us can work together to figure out a plan to find her.”
“And do what?” Rarity sneered.
“Dunno,” Applejack shrugged and put her hands in her pockets. “We’ll figure it out one step at a time. I know that’s not ideal, but one step’s better’n none, right?”
“I guess,” Rarity sighed, “but I have no idea where she— or it— or whatever— would have gone.”
“Um,” Pinkie Pie gulped, “I think I know.”
There was another ugly pause as Rarity and Applejack slowly turned toward Pinkie, and Applejack got a bad feeling in her gut. How in the hell would Pinkie—
Welp, only way to find out was to just ask.
“Pinkie,” Applejack said cautiously, “how would you know where Twilight’s goin’?”
“Please promise you won’t get mad at me,” Pinkie backed up, arms held defensively in front of her, and it killed Applejack that Pinkie thought that either her or Rarity would turn on her.
“Pinkie Pie, darling,” Rarity said sweetly and approached Pinkie, who took another step back, so Rarity stopped.
Rarity got on one knee in front of Pinkie and bowed her head. “Nopony has any reason to be mad at you, sweetheart, and at the end of the day, we are friends, and we love you, no matter what. Right, Applejack?”
Applejack nodded and forced a delicate smile.
“I already knew what Twilight was,” Pinkie said, and her breathing got faster and faster as tears rolled down her eyes, “and I didn’t tell anypony.”
“For how long?” Rarity asked, biting her lip.
“Since we came back from the Everfree Forest,” Pinkie admitted, running her hands repetitively through a big knot of her hair.
“Okay,” Rarity breathed deeply and stood up, and she started pacing back and forth.
“How come you never told anypony?” Applejack was ashamed to admit it, but her first instinct was to get mad.
But after a second’s thought, Applejack realized she was being ridiculous. Pinkie was a sweetheart, but more than that, she had a good head on her shoulders. Applejack would be a darn fool to think that Pinkie would hide something this huge and dangerous without a good reason.
“I-I—I dunno,” Pinkie was trembling, and Applejack slowly approached her and gave her a hug, letting Pinkie wrap her arms around Applejack’s gut. “I dunno, I just didn’t wanna believe it was real. I wanted to just keep on thinking she was just Twilight Sparkle, the cute librarian, and my friend. I didn’t wanna think she was a monster.”
“Well she is,” Rarity hissed, and Applejack held Pinkie tighter as Pinkie pressed her muzzle into Applejack’s gut and wept. “And we need to find her.”
“You’re not gonna kill her,” Pinkie pleaded at Rarity as her tears gushed down her face like an exploded faucet, “are you?”
“What else can I do?” Rarity snapped.
“We need to talk to her,” Applejack said flatly.
Rarity choked and let out a bitter cackle. “Are you serious, Applejack?!”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” Applejack walked toward Rarity, but then paused. She held her hand out to Pinkie, who clutched it gently. “Pinkie Pie? Can you go grab Rainbow Dash for us? Knowin’ her, she’s probably awake at this hour, but if she ain’t, just come get me and I’ll get her up, okay?”
“Okay,” Pinkie said weakly and nodded. Applejack knelt and kissed Pinkie’s hand, getting a giggle out of her, and Pinkie ran off.
With Pinkie headed to Rainbow’s place, Applejack could focus all her attention on Rarity, and it was only now that Applejack could see the state Rarity was in. Bags under her eyes, which were red from crying, her mane was frazzled and her clothes looked awful; if Rarity had even slept at all since last Applejack saw her, it didn’t help any.
“Have you slept?” Applejack asked concernedly, and Rarity just gave a hissing cackle. Applejack wanted to put her hand on Rarity’s shoulder, but was half-convinced Rarity would bite her if she got too close.
“Three hours?” Rarity rolled her eyes, a manic half-smile on her face. “I think? Honestly, I feel like I’ve been awake for at least thirty-six hours, but that definitely isn’t right.”
Rarity paced away from Applejack, and while Applejack didn’t try to walk with her, she was prepared to chase Rarity down and keep her from doing anything stupid, should it come to that.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Rarity spat, and Applejack braced herself as venom dripped from Rarity’s every word. “’There’s no life outside the Hunt’,” Rarity said in a mocking impression of Celestia’s voice, “that’s what they always say, isn’t it?
“I suppose I just brought this on myself! This is what I get, for trying to have a life outside it all! This is what becomes me, for trying to be happy!”
“Rarity—”
“Applejack!” Rarity barked, and Applejack took a flinching step back, her eyes going wide. Rarity let out another cackle, that soon turned into a hacking, laughing fit.
“Applejack! I had one thing going for me in my life! One thing I got out of bed for in the morning, and now it’s been ripped away from—hell, it wasn’t even real in the first place!” Rarity shrieked, and clutched her face, digging her nails so deep into her brow that Applejack was afraid she might claw her own eyes out.
“We won’t know for sure,” Applejack said cautiously, taking a few measured steps toward Rarity, “’til we talk to Twilight.”
“Are you serious right now?” Rarity said, her tone laced with incredulity and disgust. “Since when did you become the goddamn dragon apologist?”
“Since I met Twilight,” Applejack answered firmly, crossing her arms. “Now I ain’t about to trust a damn dragon— not on my life—but you gotta admit there’s way too many things about this story that just don’t add up, Rarity!”
Now it was Applejack’s turn to pace as the gears in her head spun and she tried to unravel all the nonsense articles of this entire tale.
“Why didn’t it fight back?” Applejack asked, and Rarity didn’t respond, which was fine; Applejack wasn’t expecting her to. “Why did it just let you stab it half to death? And don’t try and tell me it was cuz of that magic exhaustion! It had enough steam left to fly away, and you said yourself that you left yourself open! It could’ve killed you, but it didn’t even try! And why the hay is that, Rarity?!”
“I don’t know,” Rarity uttered monotonously, and Applejack rolled her eyes with a frustrated groan.
“And what about Spike?” Applejack went on. “He knew all along, slept with a damn doll in his ma’s likeness! What, are you gonna tell me he’s a dragon too?”
“No, he can’t be,” Rarity shook her head. “If he was also in disguise, he’d have to be an even better mage than Twilight to pull off such a convincing facsimile of a child. Age-reducing spells are virtually non-existent, and you know how much magic a semi-permanent transformation spell uses.
“Obviously it’s possible that he could be some kind of prodigy, but I sincerely doubt it, because—”
“Cuz if he was a dragon,” Applejack sighed, “whether he really was a child or not, he would’ve transformed when you threatened his ma—”
“—instead of just raising his tiny little fists at me, yes.”
“So why’d Twilight wait this long before transformin’?” Applejack groaned, her brain coming apart at the seams trying to make sense of this nightmare.
“I don’t think she transformed on purpose,” Rarity said.
“Well that makes even less sense!” Applejack shouted, kicking the snow in frustration. “Why go through all the trouble of infiltratin’ a city—right next to Hunter’s Haven, no less—without doin’ anything to cause trouble! She never even interacted with the townsfolk, never tried to make friends with anypony but us, the ones who went out of our way to make friends with her! Why?!”
Rarity just shrugged.
Applejack put her hand over her face and took a deep breath. There was one more thing clawing at her mind, but she was hesitant to mention it, because it somehow made less sense than everything else.
“And what about Princess Luna?”
“I’m sorry?” Rarity asked, jolting her head up and staring Applejack down. “What do you mean?”
“You remember after Twi came back from the Everfree?” Applejack asked, and Rarity nodded slowly. “Remember, you came to the station with Princess Luna.”
“She shook Twilight’s hand!” Rarity gasped, her hand going over her mouth. “She’s an alicorn! Why didn’t she see through Twilight’s disguise?”
“That’s what I’m wonderin’,” Applejack said. “And I ain’t sure what makes more sense; that she couldn’t see through Twilight, or that she did see through her, and didn’t do nothin’. Unless…” Applejack turned to the ashen remains of the library. “Do you think Luna came here? Got into a fight with Twi, and that’s what forced her to transform?”
“No,” Rarity shook her head. “When I found that dragon, it was completely uninjured. I don’t believe she could have gotten out of a fight with Luna alive, much less without being wounded, especially with her magic exhaustion.”
“Right,” Applejack nodded, still looking at the library. She didn’t know Luna well, but she’d seen the Princess in action and she had to agree with Rarity on this one. “So why didn’t Luna say nothin’? Why didn’t she say anything right then, let alone not do a single thing in the weeks afterward?”
“I don’t know,” Rarity shrugged again. Applejack opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity cut her off with a pointed glare. “And don’t you suggest that Luna’s a dragon too! You and I both know damn well that Celestia would never let a dragon survive under her watch!”
Applejack shut her mouth and shrugged.
“Yeah, I know,” Applejack mumbled. “Luna’s a good gal.”
“It is a puzzle,” Rarity sighed.
“Which is why I think we oughta find out the truth,” Applejack finally felt comfortable walking up to Rarity, and offered her hand, “together. I ain’t abandonin’ my friends when they need me, and right now that means you, but honestly, it might even mean Twilight too.”
“Do you genuinely think,” Rarity lifted her hand but didn’t bring it quite up to Applejack’s, “that we could still be friends with that monster? Even after everything that’s happened?”
“I dunno,” Applejack half-shrugged, “but I ain’t gonna give up ‘til I know for damn sure either way. So you with me?”
“Yes, darling,” Rarity grasped Applejack’s hand, and Applejack pulled her in for a hug that, judging by Rarity’s quiet sobbing, Applejack figured she sorely needed. “Absolutely.”