//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13: Family Matters 
// Story: Quantum Leap Forward 
// by Halira 
//------------------------------//

The walk back to the Apple farm was miserable. She was disheartened after having this new major obstacle thrown in her path right after thinking she'd gained ground earlier in the morning. Would Pinkie still believe her after hearing this diagnosis of her sanity? That was hard to say. Marble's views of her would definitely be colored by this, as she would be told she was treating a filly with multiple distinct personalities. Of course, Luster Dawn was not a psychologist, and Marble might choose to dismiss or counter Luster's theory. There was at least some hope of that. 

The journey back to the farm was made worse by Ma Apple, who now was taking it upon herself to try to jog Candy's memories. She would frequently stop and point to ponies and creatures and ask if Cheerilee could remember them, or try to remind her who they were. Cheerilee barely paid it attention, and just gave mumbled responses telling the mare that didn't know most of these ponies and creatures. A few she knew, but not as Candy. 

"Hey look! There's Miss Autumn Blaze," Ma Apple said as she stopped and pointed at a middle aged kirin. "Do you remember Autumn Blaze? She was one of the first kirin in Ponyville, and has a musical theatre that I've taken you to many times. Her son, Autumn Fire, is in your class. You're friends with him. Do you remember Autumn Fire?"

"No, I don't know Autumn Blaze or Autumn Fire. I don't know any kirin. I only learned about and saw kirin for the first time a few months ago in my own time, and there weren't any living in Ponyville yet," Cheerilee grumbled. She sighed and looked at Candy's mother. "Look, I know you are worried about your daughter, and I am too, but I'm not her, no matter what that crazy mare said. So you aren't going to stir any memories."

Ma Apple sighed. "At least this is one of your less difficult personalities. I hope I don't have to deal with you being Sombra again, and definitely not Dazzling Star-- you said and did such inappropriate things for a little filly when you were that one."

"Is that the one that did the sex talk in front of the class?" Cheerilee asked, somewhat curious about what her predecessors in Candy's body had been like. Perhaps there was some similarity they shared, though she couldn't think of any similarity she shared with King Sombra.

"Do you remember doin' that?" Ma Apple asked hopefully. 

Cheerilee shook her head. "I don't know anything about what came before I showed up. I know my life, not Candy's or any of these other ponies and creatures. Can you tell me about Dazzling Star?"

Ma Apple blushed. "She-- you claimed to be… something that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company, or that a filly should even know anything about. It was a very… adult… profession. Oh, the things you said while you were that one. To think that is one of your personalities just makes me-" Ma Apple stomped a hoof, then took a deep breath. "Let's not talk about that one, alright? That personality can stay away!"

Okay, she was getting a pretty clear picture of what that pony was like, and could guess at the profession. It would explain why she went straight to the highly inappropriate sex education lesson in the middle of school. Hopefully that was as inappropriate as it got with that one. She was afraid to ask if that were so, and decided against it quickly. That was another pony she couldn't imagine having anything in common with. 

However, there might be a pattern to those that took over the body still. "Was Sombra the first?"

"No," Ma Apple replied mournfully. "I'm not even sure when the first was now. Was it before or after what happened in the woods? I don't know. There were some before, but not so well formed. The first after the woods was that warrior from Unicornia; then the crying one, then the diamond dog-- I believe. I honestly lost track. Lately you've been other personalities longer, except for when you claimed amnesia, but looking back, I think some other personality was at work, because you behaved strangely, always sneakin' about at night, and you put up a new drawing after that passed." Ma Apple then started crying. "Maybe that's a sign it's gettin' worse, and soon you will stop bein' yourself altogether."

Cheerilee shivered. If these were lasting longer lately, then how long would she be stuck here. They'd said that amnesia one lasted two months. She didn't want to be stuck in this body for months. "Whether you believe me or not that I'm not Candy, I do want this to stop happening to her."

"I feel like such a fool for not seein' this earlier," Ma wept. "How am I even goin' to explain this to your pa, or the rest of the family? I don't even know if Applejack will believe it."

Cheerilee gave the mare a considering look. Ma Apple was at least willing to treat her as not fully Candy now. Maybe that meant she could be reasoned with. "You realize that what you claim are personalities don't seem to come back, right? Shouldn't that be a sign that this isn't just some disorder? I'm sorry to be pushing this when you're upset, but I need to make my case that I really exist and am not something Candy dreamed up."

"I don't know. I'll need to talk to Marble about it. She'll know better than me," Ma replied while wiping her nose with a leg.

"Can you at least tell me what happened to Candy in the Everfree, and why Applejack in particular won't believe anything she says?" Cheerilee pleaded.

The older unicorn gave her a look. "Okay, come close to me, and I'll tell you about it." Finally! Cheerilee did as instructed, and got right up next to Me Apples hooves. The Apple matriarch gave her a frown. "You'd been pretendin', you were doin' that a lot before things happened. We didn't think anything of it, and it seemed normal pretend, not like what came later. At first, you'd pretend to be all the normal things a filly might pretend to be, then you started pretendin' to be ponies in town. You pretended you were Diamond Tiara runnin' her store, or your teacher, or Miss Autumn Blaze. It would be for a few hours, and there was always a sense you knew it was just pretend."

The mare looked away. "But then one day you pretended to be Granny Smith, and you took her scarf from Applejack's room. Applejack was really possessive of that scarf, it meant more to her than that hat does. When your great-granny passed it was really hard on her, even more than your other aunt and pa. She wore that scarf everywhere after that, to remember your great granny. She got so angry when you took it, and even more angry when you were pretendin' to be Granny Smith. You got your feelins' hurt that she was so angry, because you two used to be so close, and I guess that was what made you run away into the Everfree."

"And Candy started behaving like that unicorn warrior immediately after?" Cheerilee asked, knowing for sure what the answer would be.

Ma nodded. "You were sayin' you were Platinum Gilt, warrior of Unicornia, and this was all an evil earth pony plot when we finally found you. We were all so scared for you when you went missing, and we never found the scarf, which hurt Applejack a lot. Applejack, all of us really, took your pretendin' to be another pony as you didn't want to take responsibility for what happened to it, or for runnin' away."

And like that, the pieces of why nopony believed Candy fell into place. Candy had scared them half-to-death for her, and done something that deeply hurt Applejack. "Didn't Candy ever try to explain, when she was back to being like herself?"

Ma shook her head. "You never wanted to talk about what happened. I couldn't tell if you were scared or angry, maybe you were both, but you refused to talk about any of it. The only times you have tried to talk about it is when you were sayin' you had amnesia, and needed us to tell you what happened, and now."

And now any mending of fences would be done with the belief that Candy wasn't in her right mind. As a pony that worked with foals all the time, she could understand why Candy didn't speak about what happened. It wasn't logical reasons, but it was reasons that lined up with the mind of an eight-year-old, even an intelligent and gifted one. Candy had her feelings hurt by her incident with Applejack, she didn't fully grasp how much what had happened had hurt her aunt, because Applejack's feelings revolved around grief and loss that Candy at her age had yet to be exposed to. Then there was the anger, the anger of a foal that felt that she was being treated unjustly, even if she didn't really understand the situation, made worse by the fact nopony believed her. Then finally, there was fear; fear about what was happening to her, and feeling completely and utterly alone in facing it. That, and fear of whatever had happened in the forest. Something clearly had happened there, but the only pony who knew for sure of what was Candy.

This was a fine mess, and she had no idea how she could fix it. She could only continue to look for clues, and continue to do her best to make the case that something really was happening to Candy, something beyond some psychological problem. 





The rest of the journey back to the farm was done largely in silence. Neither she nor Ma Apple were much in the mood for talking. A kirin colt had come up to them and tried to see how Candy was doing, and it was explained this was Autumn Fire, a friend of Candy's class. He looked the part of his name, with a mix of fall colors between his fur and scales, with a bright red mane that reminded her of a blazing fire. Ma Apple had interceeded on her behalf and told the colt that Candy wasn't feeling well today, and to try visiting her some other time. The colt had walked away in disappointment, dragging his long tasseled tail in the dirt as he went. It was enough of a dejected look Cheerilee had almost broken down and pretended to be Candy, just to give him words of encouragement. She didn't do that, because she wasn't going to pretend to be who she wasn't.

He made her remember the two foals she'd seen arguing the day before, and wondered if kirin and ponies could have foals together. Were kirin just another type of pony? They had scales, which was very unlike ponies, but she remembered to the discussion earlier about how dragons and ponies may indeed be close relatives, which might explain how an outlier tribe of ponies cut off from the other tribes could have scales. Pegasi had wings like birds, and nopony questioned if they were ponies, why question whether a pony with scales was a pony? It was just idle musings, something to try to distract herself from her thoughts before they could drag her down into depression. Sometimes ponies just needed to think of something unimportant or the important stuff would crush them under the heavy weight.

At least Candy couldn't be that anti-social a filly; not if she managed to keep some friends despite the sheer amount of time she wasn't herself. That was heartening to know for the filly's sake, but it did nothing to help with the current situation. 

After reaching the farm, Ma Apple took a slight detour into the apple orchard, and Cheerilee followed. The orchard was not small, but Ma Apple seemed guided by some unknown sense to where Big Mac was busy loading barrels of freshly bucked apples onto a cart. The big stallion took one look at his wife's face and immediately stopped what he was doing.

"Big Mac, find your sister and your son, and all of you come back to the house. We have a family meetin'," Ma Apple ordered. "Is Rainbow here right now?"

Big Mac shook his head. "E'nope."

The unicorn huffed. "I didn't think she would be, but I needed to ask all the same. We can have the meetin' without her, and Applejack can catch her up when she comes home tonight."

The big stallion looked back and forth between them, ears laid back. "Somethin' wrong?"

Ma closed her eyes and looked down. "Yes, but I'm goin' to talk to the whole family about it. Just find Applejack and Bright Pear. I'll tell you when we're all together. This is me talkin' as the head mare of the family. I don't invoke that much, but I am now."

"Caramel too?" The stallion asked.

The matriarch paused and considered. "Leave him be. Let the adults have a full understanding of things first, then we can sit him down and talk about it. He needs to know too, but we need to be sure we explain it to him in a way he understands. This is goin' to be a lot to take in, and we need to explain it the right way." She looked up at Big Mac with tear filled eyes. "I just got back from the magic test on Candy. Big Mac, our daughter has a problem, a big one. Can you hurry, please?"

Big Mac stood up straight and his expression firmed up. ""E'yup!" And with that, he took off galloping deeper into the orchard.

Cheerilee had been thinking of Ma Apple as the Apple matriarch up to this point, and had noted the title name, but it hadn't really occurred to her that the unicorn was the head of the Apple clan. She'd assumed it would be Big Mac or Applejack, rather than somepony married into the family. The once Sugar Belle had said she preferred to be referred to as Ma Apple, and now it occurred to Cheerilee that this really was a sign of how much the unicorn embraced her identity as an Apple and her matriarchal role within the family. Ma Apple might have married into the family, but she was an Apple to the core. She wondered if things had gone differently with her and Big Mac if she would have done the same. It was pointless speculation, but it left her still wondering at what might have been.

As they were reaching the house they saw Applebloom come walking up the path. Ma went wide eyes and hurried over to her. "Applebloom! You didn't come runnin' all the way over here, did you?"

"No, I waddled. I waddled the whole way like an overstuffed duck," Applebloom said with a labored breath. "Luster told Starlight about what she found, and then Starlight told me-- Luster apparently didn't realize we're relatives. I left as soon as I found out. It cain't have been more than a few minutes after you left. Both Sweetie and Starlight offered to teleport me, to save me the waddle, but I don't trust my womb with being disappeared and reappeared."

The matriarch gave the younger mare a sour but concerned look. "I've been through pregnancies three times. I can tell you that exertin' yourself so much when you're this late into it isn't good for you."

Applebloom chuckled. "Ya don't need ta tell me that, my legs feel as if they're about to fall off." Her expression then lost its humor. "But this is family business, and Candy's my niece. I should be here."

Ma gave her her sister-in-law a smile. "I appreciate you doin' that." 

"One of our own is in trouble, couldn't do nothin' less. Just like when she was lost in the woods, we all came together to find her. Now she's lost in her own mind, and I'm here again," Applebloom replied stoically. 

"Do you know any potions that could help her out?" Ma asked pleadingly. Cheerilee took a few steps back. Applebloom no doubt was a skilled master of potions at this point, she'd written a book on them after all, but her last incident with Applebloom's potions still made her nervous. 

Applebloom shook her head. "If she were grown, then maybe, but there ain't nothing I can brew that I feel safe usin' on a foal. The types of potions I'd need'ta whip up are too potent, even if I water'em down. It'd be like choppin' off the leg to save the hoof."

"Didn't you have a student that got in trouble with a temporary agin' potion?" Ma asked. "I know it sounds extreme, but if you need her to be grown-"

Applebloom's eyes went wide. "Best not to let foals even know that potion can even be made," the mare hissed. "It'd wouldn't work anyhow. That be mixin' powerful potions together, and that is always a bad idea." With how often things seemed a bad idea with potions she wondered how Applebloom or anypony in Ponyville managed to survive an education in them. Where was Zecora anyway? Had she moved away?

"Sorry," Ma said dejectedly. "I just want to find a way to help her, and I am willin' to try anything. This is my little filly we're talkin' about."

Cheerilee filed that little tidbit of information about the aging potion away. It was an insane thing to try, but if she needed to find a way of getting to Vanhoover, or anywhere else out of town, she would have a much easier time of that if she had an adult body, even if it were Candy's adult body. A foal doing that type of thing would get up to their heads in trouble, but she wasn't really a foal, and wouldn't make the kinds of mistakes they would. It wasn't something she was intending to do, as it could get Candy in a load of additional trouble she didn't need, but she wanted to keep aware of all her options.

"I'll help as much as I can," Applebloom replied. "It will mostly be moral support, and if my sister treats this like a heap of malarkey I'll help you put her in her place. I might not be a fancy unicorn from the school in Canterlot like Luster Dawn or Sweetie Belle, but I know a thin'or-two; enough to know what Luster was describin' sounds legit." Sweetie Belle had attended the School for Gifted Unicorns? That was a little unexpected. Maybe the filly didn't end up apprenticing under her. She couldn't imagine that Sweetie Belle would have the time to apprentice and to take classes in Canterlot. The logistics just didn't work.

"By the way," Applebloom continued. "Starlight and Sweetie want to run their own tests on Candy. It ain't that they don't trust Luster, but they haven't heard of the like either, and want to independently verify. It will have to wait until after the graduation, but they want to check. Luster is fine with it, she said 'all new discoveries need to have multiple verifications'-- she's definitely Twilight's student."

Great, so she was going to be used as a magic experiment, what a joy. Still, maybe the other two could find something that crazy pink unicorn hadn't. From what she gathered, tomorrow was the last day of the school year. It was most likely just a day to review with students their final grades, congratulate them on their progress, wish them a happy summer if they weren't the graduating class, and give direction on what they should be doing next if they were graduating. Actual graduation day might be a few days after. Given that the last creature to occupy Candy's body took a month to go away gave a strong indication she'd still be here for that, if she didn't find a solution for this first, and she didn't intend to sit around and let it run its course.

The two regressed to small talk about Applebloom's upcoming foal-- which the mare had avoided finding out the tribe or gender from the doctor, wanting it to be a surprise. When Ma Apple pointed out that Applebloom was big enough to have more than one in there, Cheerilee's former student confessed she wasn't sure about that either. All she and her husband wanted to know from the doctor was expected due date, was everything going well, and did the life inside her seem perfectly healthy. From what she heard in the conversation this was now a popular trend, with the idea in mind to put no early expectations on the new foals before they were even born. She personally thought this was kind of silly, but to each their own. Candy's new cousin (or cousins) weren't going to be Cheerilee's problem.

She kept her mouth shut through all of this, resolving to hold her defense of her existence until all were gathered, rather than exhaust herself trying to repeatedly say the same arguments over and over again. 

Though she was going to need to ask for a snack or something soon. She hadn't had lunch, and she was for the moment the caretaker of Candy's body, and Candy was a growing filly who needed to get three good meals a day. That, and Candy's stomach was being very loud about Candy's needs at the moment. It might be a little foalish on her part, especially since she couldn't help but think of other parts as her hooves, her legs, or her head, but she refused to acknowledge it as her stomach. Maybe being in a foal's body was regressing some of her logical thinking. It was a scary thought she didn't want to consider, but might be forced to. Especially since she was considering options like making an aging potion and running off to Vanhoover, which at any other point she'd have considered insane. It sounded like something a foal would come up with. How much was the biology of Candy's brain impacting her thinking or emotional state? 

Well, at least after today she had the benefit that the Apples would recognize she wasn't a game or a lie. It still wouldn't be seeing her as who she was, but progress was progress, she guessed. She needed to be prepared to be in this situation for weeks, and to do the most she could to make progress every day.