Chapter 08: Awakening
“So this is Sweetie, now, huh?” Applejack asked as she stood before the equoid. “She seems… similar, I guess.”
Rarity sighed, tugging the power cord free before stowing it back into the equoid’s body. “You don't have to try to make me feel better about this. I'm not blind.”
“It scares me a little,” Applejack replied with a shake of her head. “Can’t really place it, but it’s kinda creepy.”
With a disapproving hum, Rarity gave a small nod. “I did the best I could to make her look normal. Just don’t mention that when she wakes up.” Grasping the torn page in her magic, Rarity floated it over in front of herself. “Thank you for being here. I know this whole equoid thing makes you uncomfortable.”
Taking a step away from Sweetie, Applejack bit her lip. “Are yah sure you’re ready for this?”
“I need to hear her voice again,” Rarity replied without a moment’s hesitation. Then, she cleared her throat before reading from the paper, “Activate override protocol: breakfast is signaled with a silver spoon!”
“Hrrng?” Sweetie Belle stirred with a petite groan. The voice was absent of the buzzing from before. Her eyes blinked open, revealing emerald-colored irises cut with lines reminiscent of a camera’s shutter. “Rarity?” she asked, raising a hoof to rub the sleep from her eyes. “Why am I in your workroom?”
Smiling through her tears, Rarity shook her head. “Never mind about that!” Without another word, she lunged over, wrapping her hooves around Sweetie. “It’s okay now. It’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re really hot,” Sweetie said, squirming a bit in her sister’s vise-like grip.
“I’m okay,” Rarity said as she dared to let Sweetie go. She did her best to wipe away her tears without Sweetie Belle noticing. “I’m okay.”
“More important, how’re you feeling, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, her eyes glued to the filly.
Sweetie’s head tilted a bit as her face scrunched up. “I’m fine. I mean, I think I had a nightmare, but I hardly remember it.” She held a hoof to her chin and her eyes trailed skyward. “I think I was stuck. I couldn’t move or see, but I could hear Rarity’s voice.”
Stepping between Sweetie and Applejack, Rarity tried to move the conversation away from that avenue. “I think what Applejack means is, does anything feel… different? Does it hurt anywhere?”
“Hurt?” Sweetie repeated the word, raising an eyebrow. Her brow furrowed as her memories came flooding back. “Wait.” Her eyes widened. “I fell!” Rearing up, she patted all over her barrel. “It really hurt, but… I’m okay now?” Continuing to look herself over, she let out a shriek when her eyes wandered to her flank. “My cutie mark! Where’s my cutie mark?” she cried out.
“Sweetie Belle, it’s okay,” Rarity said. “Just take a deep breath and try to calm down.”
Following her sister’s instruction, Sweetie opened her mouth to take a deep breath. None came. In or out, air refused to pass her lips. “I can’t breathe!” Sweetie shrieked. “I can’t breathe!”
Racing to put out the fire she started, Rarity reached out, cupping Sweetie’s face in her forehooves. “It’s okay! It’s okay,” she said, forcing her own voice to be calm, despite the panic in her own heart. “Just look at me. It’s okay.”
Shaking her head as much as Rarity’s hooves would allow, Sweetie’s voice trembled, “I can’t breathe. Am I gonna die?”
“No!” Rarity replied, this time her own fears showing in her voice. “No, Sweetie. You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me?”
Applejack stepped in, separating the panicking unicorns from each other. “Just… everypony calm down.”
“Calm down? I can’t breathe!” Sweetie shouted, her tiny hooves grasping at her throat. “How am I even talking?” A smile formed on her lips. “I’m dreaming! This is just another nightmare!”
“Sweetie, you’re not—” Rarity tried to reason with her, but Sweetie didn’t hear a word of it.
“Wake up! Wake up!” Sweetie screamed as she rapped her hooves against her head. The unnatural thunking sound made Applejack and Rarity wince. The sound didn’t register with Sweetie Belle. Instead, all she felt was the dull pain of hitting herself in the head. “Oww,” she muttered, rubbing her skull. A new panic washed over her. “That hurt.” Dreams don’t hurt.
Trembling, Sweetie Belle turned back to her sister, a pained expression on her face. “What’s wrong with me?” she begged, her voice drowning in desperation.
Rarity embraced her. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeated the mantra, even as her voice hitched. Clutching her sister in a forceful embrace, Rarity rocked back and forth a bit. “It’s okay.”
The ministrations did little to soothe Sweetie Belle. “It’s not okay! What’s going on?” She pushed Rarity away, finding it easier than it should have been to shove her sister’s weight. “This isn’t a dream. Why can’t I breathe?”
Rarity only continued to recite her simpering mantra. Instead, Sweetie’s desperate gaze found Applejack. “I, uh…” Applejack started, breaking eye contact. “Yah remember the fall, right?” Though Sweetie didn't say anything, she gave Applejack a nod. A ragged sigh, and Applejack looked back at Sweetie Belle. “Yah didn't survive.”
“What?” Sweetie shrieked.
“Don’t say it like that!” Rarity shouted, stirring out of her desolate trance. “You’re still here with us!” she insisted, turning back to Sweetie. “You’re okay!”
Applejack kept her eyes locked on Sweetie. “Just… look in the mirror,” she replied to Sweetie, pointing over at one of Rarity’s full-body mirrors.
A powerful dread shook Sweetie as she looked toward the mirror. At this point, she didn't even want to look down at her hooves, let alone her reflection. If she were dead, how was she still here with her sister? Why couldn't she breathe? And why didn't her chest ache, begging for air?
Her curiosity burning, she found the drive to walk over to the mirror. She half-expected to see a ghost, or even no reflection at all. Instead, she saw a twisted version of her own reflection. Her facial features struck her as both familiar and alien. Her eyes, though. The reflection’s eyes weren’t her eyes. They weren’t eyes at all.
“Wh-what… I don’t,” she muttered, her head shaking almost imperceptibly. Her tiny hoof reached out, touching the smooth glass. It almost seemed surreal, watching the reflection match her every movement.
Rarity draped a leg over Sweetie’s withers. “Sweetie, it’s okay.”
Sweetie shrugged the hot leg off of herself. “No! It’s not okay!” Spinning around, she squared up to Rarity. “What happened? What am I?”
“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity whispered, her voice trembling and fresh tears spilling from her eyes. “I…”
“Your sister saved you,” Applejack said, patting Rarity on the shoulder. “She did everything she could you help you.”
“This isn’t me!” Sweetie retorted. “I’m not me!”
“Yes! You are!” Rarity put both her forehooves on Sweetie’s shoulders. “You are Sweetie Belle!”
Sweetie shoved Rarity away again, but this time, the unnatural force of her shove caused Rarity to stumble back and fall to the floor. A fleeting pang of regret surged through Sweetie before being drowned in the sea of emotions coursing through her. “That’s not me!” She screamed as she thrust a hoof against the mirror. A high-pitched peal sounded as the hoof met the pane of glass.
Rarity shrieked, “Sweetie Belle!”
Recoiling, Sweetie withdrew her hoof to cover her head as glass shards rained down over her. She could feel it. The razor shards tearing through her skin. Her flesh yielded, splitting in several places.
It didn’t hurt.
Though she felt her skin parting, it didn’t hurt. She raised a foreleg to see not a single drop of blood. It wasn’t even skin. The cuts showed a white, smooth surface beneath a fabric. It wasn’t bone or even a foreleg. It was… something else. She grabbed the fabric with her hoof. Even though it felt like her skin, it wasn’t. The feeling of it stretch and tear made Sweetie flinch, but her driving emotions pushed her to rip the fabric free from her leg.
Neither flesh nor bone showed. Her leg was composed of solid, white material with soft, black stuff covering each joint. Sweetie screamed. Though unable to draw a breath, her screaming went on and on. Her heart didn't pound in her chest. Her eyes wouldn't even cry. So she screamed.
Then, silence. Crying out muffled wails, Rarity let the list of commands slip from her aura. She wasn't sure if it would work with Sweetie screaming like that, but sure enough, as soon as she stammered out the command, Sweetie lowered herself to the ground and was still.
“Is she okay?” Applejack asked.
Rarity shook her head, trying her best to suppress her sobs. “What have I done?”
Rushing over, Applejack snatched up the paper Rarity had dropped. Her eyes skimmed the page. She realized she hadn’t heard what Rarity said over Sweetie Belle’s screaming. “What did you do? What happened?”
“She’s sleeping,” Rarity replied, her voice still choked with regret.
Applejack let out a sigh. “Don’t scare me like that. For a second I thought…” She sighed again. “Thank goodness.”
“Don’t look so relieved!” Rarity snapped at her. The fire in her voice died away as she turned back to Sweetie’s still form. “You saw… You heard her.” Shards of fallen glass crunched beneath Rarity’s hooves as she stepped toward Sweetie Belle. “I knew. I knew this wouldn’t be easy for her.” A curtain of blue magic brushed away the glass shards from Sweetie’s false hide.
“Rare, this ain’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Rarity shouted back, though her eyes never left Sweetie Belle. “Look at how much pain I’ve caused her. Because I put her in there… because of me.”
Glass cracked under Applejack’s hooves as she shuffled over. “You’re not the one that hurt her,” she said, placing a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. The shuddering of silent sobs resonated through her hoof. “Look, Rare, it was that monster bird that hurt her. You saved her.”
Rarity shook her head. “At what cost?” Brushing a fetlock across her eyes, she breathed out a ragged sigh. “I can still hear her screaming.”
A painful constriction seized Applejack’s chest as the sound of Sweetie’s horrified screams echoed in her ears. She made a deliberate effort to pry her eyes off of Sweetie Belle. “She got hurt somethin’ awful, and the worse somepony gets hurt, the more painful it is. You managed to spare her life, but you can’t spare her the pain.”
“What do I do?” Rarity turned her teary eyes to Applejack, begging for an answer.
Applejack’s gaze fell away. “I… I don’t know.”
The only sound that could be heard in the Carousel Boutique was the drone of a sewing machine. Rarity drew the flexible fabric that served as Sweetie’s skin through the machine, mending the various rips and tears left by the falling glass. Applejack had left nearly an hour ago, agreeing to talk to Rarity’s parents about Sweetie Belle. Rarity hoped that with her parents for support, it might be easier for Sweetie Belle to adjust. Either way, her parents needed to know the truth.
Sighing for what had to be the thousandth time since Applejack left, Rarity pulled the repaired fabric free from her sewing machine. It wasn’t that she was unsatisfied with her work. Even under the crushing weight of her anxiety, Rarity managed to seal up the tears with nary a visible seam. No, it was the memory of Sweetie tearing at those holes in a fit of abject horror that plagued her so. Even if her parents were here, how could they help to ease Sweetie’s pain?
Clutching the skinsuit tight to her breast, Rarity dared to peek over at the naked equoid. Sweetie’s screams still echoed in Rarity’s ears. No matter how perfect the disguise, that wretched body now housed her sister’s spirit. How could Sweetie ever come to accept that? Rarity knew that, were it her and not Sweetie, she never could.
A pounding on the door tore Rarity from her anguished thoughts. “Applejack! It’s about time!” she called out as she wiped at her wet cheeks. Her blue aura pulled at the door’s handle, flinging it open with haste. Rarity’s tentative smile vanished, replaced with a malicious scowl. “Twilight Sparkle.”
The alicorn met her with a smile and a wave. “I heard you got released from the hospital. Properly, this time. I just wanted to stop by and make sure everything is okay.”
Rarity matched Twilight’s smile with a flawlessly saccharine one. “Everything is just peachy, darling,” she said in her sweetest tone before grabbing the door with her hoof and slamming it shut in Twilight’s face.
“Okay. I probably deserved that,” Twilight muttered. Silence met Rarity for several seconds before a softer series of knocked echoed from the door. Twilight shouted, “Can you let me in, please? I just… I wanted to apologize to you.”
Rarity lingered behind her door. Her teeth clutched at her lip as the memories of Twilight’s offenses flashed through her mind. Twilight refusing to prevent Sweetie’s injury. Refusing to save Sweetie’s life. Refusing to do anything but watch as her precious baby sister’s body failed her. Angry words burned in her throat, trapped there by a thousand other memories—better memories—filled with happiness and trust.
“I’m sorry, Rarity,” Twilight said through the door. “I know you must be angry with me for the way I handled things. I admit that, perhaps, there might’ve been a better way, but I was just worried about you. All of your friends have been worried about you.”
“Then why haven’t any of you been helping me?” Rarity snapped back, flinging the door open to glare at Twilight. She roughly thrust a hoof into Twilight’s chest, forcing her to back away from the door. “Least of all you!”
The genuine, hurt expression on Twilight’s face dimmed Rarity’s fury, if only a bit. “I’ve been trying to do everything I can, really.”
“You’ve done nothing!” Rarity shouted stepping forward to match Twilight’s retreat. “You, and Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy have done absolutely nothing to help!”
“Rarity, I’ve been talking to doctors and lawyers and doing everything in my power to make sure you stay safe and well,” Twilight said. “And everypony else probably still thinks you’re in the hospital. I’m sure as soon word gets out—”
“Excuses!” Rarity barked.
Twilight’s ears fell back as she looked away. “You’re right. But you have to know that we all care about you. It’s just… it’s like we’re stuck watching you suffer. We all want to help you, but we’re just so afraid that, if we try, it’ll just end up making it worse.”
“At least Applejack tried! Even if it was trying to stop me at first,” Rarity argued. “She and Short Circuit are the only ones to help me at all! The only ones to even try to save Sweetie Belle!”
Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know you want to believe him. He even seems to believe it himself, but what he claims is absolutely impossible.”
“It’s not!” Rarity retorted with a stamp of her hoof. “He saved her! She’s alive!”
“She’s dead!” Twilight replied, matching Rarity’s fervor. After a moment, she softened. “She’s dead, Rarity. You need to accept that.”
“No!” Rarity shouted. She raised a hoof, poking Twilight in the chest again. “Talk! That’s all you are! You won’t even give Sweetie Belle a chance!”
“Rarity, Sweetie Belle is dead,” Twilight said, taking a step forward and forcing Rarity to withdraw her hoof. She never broke eye contact. “She died last night.”
“You’re wrong!” Rarity turned, thrusting a hoof through the doorway toward her parlor. “She’s right in there! But you won’t hear a word of it, will you?”
“It’s not her,” Twilight said, putting a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “I know you want to believe that it is, but it really just isn’t possible.” She shook her head. “You need to let it go. You need to let her go.”
Rarity threw Twilight’s hoof away with a shrug. “Since when were you so closed-minded?”
“It is scientifically impossible,” Twilight replied. “I know, I looked into it extensively after talking to Short Circuit. I even checked in with the best scholars in Canterlot. It. Is. Not. Possible.”
“How can you say that when you won’t even see for yourself? Hypocrite!”
Twilight growled. “Rarity, I know you want it to be her. You want her to be alive, but you’re just deluding yourself. You need to come to terms with this.”
“She’s alive! If you’d just—”
“She’s dead! You killed her!” The moment the words left Twilight’s mouth, her eyes went wide. “Rarity, I—”
“Leave!” Rarity roared, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sobbing, she turned and ran inside, kicking the door shut behind her. “Don’t you ever darken my doorstep again!” she shouted through the door.
Rarity raised her hooves to her ears trying in vain to silence the words so haunting her. The vehement apologies coming from the other side of the door failed to register over the echoing torment that first began tearing at her mind ever since she pulled that lever and the glass tube closed over Sweetie Belle, forever stopping her breathing. The fact tormented her every thought, but until now, never spoke itself aloud.
You killed her!
The words resonated through Rarity’s mind, repeating over and over again. “Stop it!” she cried aloud. Her guilt refused to release her. Her memories flashed by, forcing her to relive her failures. Seeing the bloodstained Rainbow Dash. Sweetie Belle, sickly and still in a hospital bed, only kept alive by tubes and wires. Her exhaustive argument with her parents to keep Sweetie tied up to those machines. Rarity didn’t keep her precious little sister safe. She couldn’t even keep her alive.
You killed her!
“No!” Rarity’s eyes shot open. Her gaze fixated on the still equoid. “I didn’t… I didn’t,” she whispered through the sobs choking her lungs and throat. Sucking in a lungful of air, she shouted with all her might, “I saved her!”
A long, deep breath and she quelled her sobs. “I saved her,” she said. “She’s alive.” She wiped at her wet cheeks as she stood. Twilight’s mocking accusation dwindled, and no sound met her from behind the door, either. “She’s alive,” she repeated herself as she set her sights on the equoid. A flick of magic brought the repaired skin before her. The voices in her head quieted, but the feelings and doubts remained.
Stumbling forward, Rarity stopped just before the sleeping equoid. Breathing out a few ragged breaths, she threw the pseudo-skin onto her sister, hiding the bare material and making her look almost like how Rarity remembered her. Before she desecrated her body and forced her soul into this cold, unfeeling machine.
Just one look at that body that now housed her sister’s precious soul spoke of an unforgivable sin. Applejack was right. What Rarity did to save Sweetie could only be described as sacrilege. Could Sweetie ever forgive Rarity’s desperate violation of her body and soul? Would Sweetie hate Rarity for forcing her to forever live in that monstrosity?
Rarity bit her lip until the metallic taste of blood reached her tongue. She shouted, “Activate override protocol: breakfast is signaled with a silver spoon!”
A soft hum emanated from the equoid as Sweetie Belle’s eyes opened. “Hnng,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
Her sister’s voice reached her ears at an uncomfortable volume. “Sweetie Belle!” Before Sweetie could even manage to fully wake up, her sister’s forelegs were around her, wrapping her in a hot, tight embrace. “Sweetie Belle.”
“Rarity?” Sweetie asked, squirming in the uncomfortable hug. “What’s going on?”
“I’m sorry,” Rarity whispered, her grip slackening. “This is all my fault. I had to! I just… I couldn’t lose you.”
“What are you…” Her words fell away as her memories rushed back to her. A seeping dread spread throughout her as she remembered tearing away her own skin to find that underneath wasn’t a pony at all. “It wasn’t a nightmare?” She raised a foreleg to her face. There, where hair met hoof was a band. A band that was never there before. She fired up her horn and, sure enough, the skin pulled away. It was like an outfit she could feel. Perhaps just as worrisome, her once green aura now shone with the same blue as her sister’s.
“I can’t ask you to forgive me,” Rarity said, her voice wavering. Sweetie could feel Rarity trembling, too. “Just please, please don’t hate me for doing this to you. Please.”
“Rarity, what—I don’t—what happened to me?” Sweetie asked. Her sight fixated on the foreleg she could feel. The foreleg that was hers. The foreleg that wasn’t hers. The sight of her alien eyes in the mirror flashed through her mind. Though a crushing panic burned in her chest, it didn’t beg for air. Air she couldn’t breathe. “I don’t understand!”
Rarity shook her head. “It’s my fault,” she replied, squeezing Sweetie Belle tight. “Because I couldn’t let you go… because I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without you.”
Sweetie pried her sister away from herself with ease. “You’re not making any sense! What’s going on? What happened to me? Why?” she shouted, emphasizing the last demand with a thunderous stomp of her little hoof.
“This—” Rarity extended a foreleg, pressing her hoof gently to Sweetie’s chest “—this is your body now.” Rarity’s hoof fell away along with her bleary eyes. Sweetie watched tears fall from Rarity’s eyes and to the floor. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t save you, Sweetie Belle.” Rarity looked back up and gave her head a little shake. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Sweetie’s eyes struggled to find anything other than her sister’s crying, begging face. A cold, empty feeling spread throughout her as she remembered what Applejack said. The fall. “Applejack, she… she said that I died.” A painful feeling clenched in the back of her throat, begging for release, but no sobs came. “Is that… but how can I?”
“After your fall, the doctors couldn’t save you,” Rarity replied, sending fresh tears down her wet cheeks. “Twilight wouldn’t save you. I had to do something. I had to.” Reaching out, she placed her forehooves on Sweetie’s shoulders. “I was going to lose you, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I don’t understand!” Sweetie shrieked. “How am I still here if I…”
Rarity traced her hooves from Sweetie’s shoulders down to her tiny, trembling hooves. “We… I couldn’t save your body. It was too far gone, and I refused to let it take you along with it.” Letting go of her hooves, Rarity cupped Sweetie’s face to force her to make eye contact. “I put you in this one to save you. This is your body now. And I’m so, so sorry!” Rarity again pulled her into a tight hug.
“I… died,” Sweetie muttered, too numb to move. “I’m dead.”
The hug went from uncomfortable to painful as Rarity redoubled her grip. “No!” she screeched. “You’re right here. You’re not dead!”
Sweetie shook her head. The painful constriction failed to register over her numb realization. Her sister was warm. This close to her, she could feel every shuddering breath in and out. She could even feel the pounding in her sister’s chest. “No… I can feel your heart beating. But inside me… Nothing!” Her arms struggled against Rarity’s grip to wrap around herself. The empty feeling wouldn’t leave her. She opened her mouth to try to suck in air. Nothing. “I’m so scared, Rarity. I can’t… I can’t cry. I can’t breathe. My heart won’t beat!” Closing her eyes, wishing tears might come, she buried her head in her big sister’s chest. “What am I?”
“Alive!” Rarity replied. After a few seconds of silence, she slackened her grip to move a hoof to rub Sweetie’s back. “I… there is a stallion. Short Circuit. He made this body. He called it an equoid.”
Applejack trudged through Ponyville. Off in the distance, her destination waited for her: the Carousel Boutique. The dwindling sunlight shone through the windows, giving a warm, welcoming glow. But the bright, alluring colors failed to speed Applejack’s shuffling hooves. Rarity trusted her to talk to her parents and have them come help support Sweetie, and she had failed. What was she supposed to say to Rarity?
Stopping in her tracks, Applejack tore her gaze away from the boutique, putting her sight skyward. A splash of color from a low, nearby cloud caught her eye. “Rainbow Dash, you catching 40 winks up there?”
The cloud shook. Rainbow Dash leaned over. “What? No, I was just… enjoying the view.”
There wasn’t a lick of confidence in her words. Judging from the bleariness of her eyes and the bits of hair still clumped together with wetness under her eyes, she was up there doing something she’d rather not confess. “You okay, Dash?”
“Well, no. Scootaloo is taking Sweetie’s death really hard. I really tried to help, but I think I just made things worse.” Rainbow Dash dropped from the cloud and landed next to Applejack. “She blames herself and I can’t convince her otherwise.”
“Sounds familiar.” Applejack glanced back over at the boutique. “There seems to be a lot of that goin’ on here recently.”
Dash sucked air through her teeth, making a hissing sound. “I guess Apple Bloom is going through a lot of the same, huh?”
Apple Bloom was having a hard time, though the thought of her hardly passed Applejack by all day. With all of the hullabaloo with Rarity, and the fact that Sweetie had indeed survived the fire, Applejack had been consumed with the matter at hoof. Apple Bloom would be so relieved to learn that Sweetie had survived, at least in some form. It just might put Scootaloo’s mind to ease, too.
Applejack’s eyes went wide. “That’s it!” she exclaimed, causing Dash to jump.
A few lazy flaps kept Rainbow’s hooves above the ground. “Uh, what?” she asked, scratching her head. “You got an idea to help Scoots?”
“Yeah.” Applejack nodded. “Her an’ Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, too. I reckon all they really need is to be together.”
Dash’s eyes shifted from side to side. “Just what are you talking about? They can’t all be together. Sweetie Belle… Sweetie’s gone.”
“Well, not quite,” Applejack replied. “Look, it’s a mite complicated, but Sweetie’s body was the only part of ‘er that went and kicked the bucket. Rarity and a right shady feller by the name of Short Circuit put her in this creepy doll-body thing.”
"You're pulling my leg, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"I ain't." She pointed a hoof at the Carousel Boutique in the distance. "Sweetie is in there, stuck in that body that ain't hers and she's frettin' about it something awful. It’s downright unnatural, but Rarity insists it was the right thing to do."
"You're serious? She's in there? Alive?" Rainbow Dash asked, wide eyed.
"Yes, yes, and uh..."
Dash performed a midair backflip, coming close to crashing into Applejack. “This is great! Scootaloo will totally feel better when she sees Sweetie Belle alive!”
“Now, just hold yer—”
“Apple Bloom, too! I’ll go get ‘em!”
Applejack clutched her hat as a rush of wind blew over her. “Hold on, Dash!” she shouted at what was now a fading rainbow trail in the darkness. And, just like that, Rainbow had vanished from sight, half-cocked and not having a durn clue just how complicated things had gotten in just a few short hours.
“I really hope this works out,” Applejack muttered as she trudged once more toward the boutique. The welcoming blaze of sunset’s colors had gone, sunken into the long shadows of night. She’d failed in her duty to convince Rarity’s parents to leave the side of Sweetie’s corpse. In Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, she at least had a backup plan, but was it really such a good idea to throw those two innocent fillies into the middle of this atrocity?
Not like there was much of choice in the matter now. Dash wouldn’t wait around for two seconds to think through whether or not they should. Hay, she probably didn’t even hear Applejack when she mentioned that Sweetie wasn’t exactly Sweetie any more.
Arriving at Rarity’s door, she raised a hoof to knock, but hesitated. “Dash?” she muttered, as a shadow zipped by overhead.
“We’re back!” The bright words accompanied a booming landing, sending up plumes of dust as Rainbow Dash skidded to a halt next to Applejack. She pulled a wing back and leaned over, letting two fillies off of her back.
“Is Sweetie Belle really okay?” Apple Bloom asked, running up to Applejack with a big smile and wide eyes.
“She’s alive?” Scootaloo asked, taking only a small step away from Rainbow Dash. While Apple Bloom was looking a little rough around the edges, Scootaloo looked like ten miles of bad road. Her mane stood a frizzled mess, and her bleary, bloodshot eyes refused to look up.
As much as Applejack wanted to give the fillies a reassuring smile, she couldn’t even muster her grimace away. Seeing those two fillies so desperately looking to her for hope tore at her something awful. Applejack sighed, though it did little to ease the turmoil building in her chest.
“Sweetie’s in there,” Applejack said, putting a hoof on her little sister’s shoulder as she looked her in the eye, “but she’s far from okay. She’s gonna need both of ya’ll to be there for her.” Looking over at Scootaloo, she gave a nod. “I can count on the two of yah, right?”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo muttered.
“She’s gonna look different from how ya’ll might remember her,” Applejack said. “Rarity did all she could for Sweetie Belle, but nopony could’ve survived that fall. It was a miracle that Sweetie survived as long as she did.”
“I thought you just said Sweetie Belle was alive?” Apple Bloom asked, her brow furrowing as her eyes glistened.
“Her body couldn’t survive that awful fall. The only way Rarity could find to go and save her was to get her a brand new body.”
“She’s… I don’t understand!” Scootaloo shouted, her wings springing open as she stomped. “Is Sweetie Belle alive or dead?”
“I don’t reckon I know,” Applejack replied, hanging her head a bit. Then, she looked up to meet Scootaloo’s gaze. “Here’s what I do know. Rarity had to put her in a fake body to save her, and now she’s stuck in there. It ain’t her body and she’s scared and it’s gonna take a whole heap of help for her to adjust.” She looked down to Apple Bloom. “She needs you two right now—more than she’s ever needed you before.”
Getting up, she raised a hoof and let it rest on the door handle. “So, can I count on you two to help Sweetie Belle?”
“Yeah!” Apple Bloom replied.
When Scootaloo didn’t respond, Rainbow Dash gave her a nudge with her wing. “You okay, Scoots?”
“Sure,” Scootaloo said, her voice devoid of the energy and enthusiasm embodied by Apple Bloom. She stepped over to stand next to Apple Bloom. “Sure.”
Applejack looked over to Rainbow Dash, raising an eyebrow in a silent question. Dash, looking a mite unsure herself, just shook her head in reply. Sighing, Applejack turned back to the door. “Remember, it’s still Sweetie Belle, and she’s gonna need the two of you for support.” Raising a hoof, she rapped on the door.