//------------------------------// // 3. Official Investigation // Story: Crisis of Infinite Twijacks // by ObabScribbler //------------------------------// The paperwork said Apples. Looking around, Twilight thought it an uninspired name. Every tree was covered in bright red fruit. A sign above the entrance to the farm read: Sweet Apple Acres. It, alongside everything else she saw as she advanced on the front door, was decorated with apple motifs. I’m sensing a theme here, she thought. The door knocker was an apple. The door handle was an apple. She was willing to bet the wood of the door itself was applewood. Probably the porch, walls and rest of the sprawling house too. If you find a theme, stick with it, I guess. She lifted the knocker with her magic and knocked thrice, each one firm and loud. There was no way anypony inside could miss the noise. She added a small Increase Volume enchantment for good measure. Nevertheless, it took longer than it should have for someone to answer. The sensitivity charm she had laid on her own ears before arriving picked up on movement, at least three sets of hooves and three different whispering voices. Someone was being hustled up a set of stairs. When the door finally cracked open, Twilight smiled brightly. “Good morning. May we please speak with Mr and Mrs Apple?” “Um, in regards to what?” At her side, Raven levitated up her medallion; the pendant they both wore to identify them as bureaucrats. Raven’s was inscribed with her inkwell and quill cutie mark and the insignia of the Records Bureau: a pair of arrows crossed over a scroll, fringed on either side by wings. “We are here on official business, if you please. If you would prefer, we can conduct this investigation here on your doorstep but I believed you may favour some privacy on this particular matter.” The green eyes in the door crack widened, long lashes blinking faster. “You’re here from the palace?” “Sort of.” Twilight winced; Raven was excellent at her job but terrible at personal relations. “Could we please come in?” The green eyes hesitated before pulling the door open wide enough to allow ingress. Twilight fixed in place her best reassuring smile and walked ahead of Raven. Inside, the apple theme continued. The wallpaper was an apple frieze, the mats they trotted across bore apple stitching and when they sat down in the dowdy living room the couch had cushions sloppily crocheted with apples that looked like the work of a child just learning the skill. An old mare sat in a rocking chair working on some knitting, eyes narrowed at thew newcomers suspiciously. She did not get up, nor did she speak, but Twilight got the feeling this pony was the true authority in this household. She could feel the mare’s amber gaze between her shoulder blades as they began their conversation. “Mr and Mrs Apple,” Raven said austerely. “We are here in regards to your offspring.” “Big Macintosh?” said Mr Apple. “That is your son.” Raven consulted her clipboard. “We require consultation regarding your daughter.” The couple exchanged a look. “Apple Bloom?” queried Mrs Apple. Raven’s expression could have curdled milk. “If you please, I would request that you not pretend ignorance. You know to which of your three offspring we refer.” “We only have two,” Mr Apple protested. “Big Macintosh an’ Apple Bloom.” “Only two officially registered,” Raven corrected. The air seemed to leave the room. Twilight wished Raven was more circumspect about how she did things. “Mr and Mrs Apple,” she interrupted gently. “Please allow me to introduce us: my name is Twilight Sparkle, I’m a member of the Records Bureau, and this is Raven Inkwell, my personal assistant.” Raven cleared her throat. Twilight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “And technically I’m a princess – but it’s largely an honorary title.” The corner of Raven’s mouth turned down ever so slightly. On anypony else it would have been a full-blown scowl. “That is debateable.” “Not right now it isn’t,” Twilight responded in a clipped voice that strayed too close to annoyance for this conversation. She wanted to put the ponies whose home they have invaded at their ease and knew she was failing utterly. She rearranged her hooves beneath her and ruffled her wings. “Mr and Mrs Apple, I discovered some … anomalies in the records regarding your family.” The mare, a soft pony whose mane fell in waves she had caught up in a scrunchie and who looked like she dearly wished this wasn’t happening, fumbled for her husband’s hoof. He moved to hold hers, swallowing it up in his own massive one. By contrast, where she looked fearful, Twilight saw only anger in his face. It increased the more she talked. “We have records of your pregnancies, Mrs Apple. You home birthed all your children, yes?” Silently she nodded. “I was doula.” The old mare’s voice snapped out like a whipcrack. “Delivered all my grandfoals. Includin’ the ones who didn’t make it past their first breath.” Twilight turned to meet her gaze. The old mare’s was challenging, as if daring Twilight to contradict her. “We have records of five pregnancies,” Twilight said delicately. “You were doula on all five?” “Yessum.” The knitting needles clicked relentlessly. “An’ I helped with the three burials that were needed too. We Apples take care of our own, even in death.” “That’s very caring of you.” “Though not strictly truthful,” Raven chimed in. The old mare’s knitting needles did not miss a beat. “What’re you implyin’?” “I am implying nothing, Mistress Smith.” Of course Raven already knew who this was. She had a mind like a steel manticore trap. Inwardly, Twilight kicked herself for not realising too. This was the Apple Family matriarch. No wonder she had sensed such power from her. “I am stating plainly that you reported the deaths of three foals in childbirth when there were, in fact, only two.” Mrs Apple’s strangled noise made Twilight’s head snap around. She had half-collapsed against the gigantic stallion who was now glaring at her and Raven with unconcealed loathing. “Please don’t misunderstand!” Twilight hastily raised her hooves in a placating gesture. “We’re not here to punish you!” “Hmmph.” Mistress Smith managed to pour her entire eloquent response into that single grunt. Distrust of the crown rolled off her so thickly it was like a smell in the room. “We’re not!” Twilight insisted. “We h-have two children,” Mrs Apple said shakily. “Big Macintosh an’ Apple Bloom.” “We registered them fully an’ legally,” added Mr Apple. “All above board exactly as we were s’posed to. An’ we registered their brothers an’ sister who passed too. If’n you’re really from the Records Bureau you’d know that.” Twilight nodded. “I saw the death certificates.” She summoned the names from her memory. “Cortland Apple, Apple Flan and Applejack. Deaths registered at five days after birth, fourteen days after birth and day of birth.” Mrs Apple’s eyes filled with tears. Guilt sluiced through Twilight. This mare had carried each of those foals for eleven months. She could only imagine what that was like; to spend so long nurturing and looking forward to seeing your baby, only to have it snatched away by the whims of fate. She reminded herself why she was here. “Mrs Apple, Mr Apple, Mistress Smith … I know Applejack survived.” The knitting needles continued to click but now the noise was harsher, more aggressive, and the voice that came with it was too. “That is a horrific thing to say. Applejack died before she even left her mother’s womb. We buried her in the family graveyard over yonder ourselves, right next to her brothers. You’re plenty welcome to look.” “If she did, she wouldn’t find a body in that grave,” said Raven. “Whatever you buried, it was not your granddaughter.” Mr Apple got to his hooves. “These are cruel, untrue accusations an’ I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, if’n you please.” Twilight shook her head. “Legally you, ah, can’t actually throw me out. And I want to make it clear, I’m not here to punish you or anything like that. At this stage only myself and Raven know what I’ve discovered. And I have my reasons for not making it known to the Head of the Records Bureau like I was supposed to.” Raven’s nose twitched. Twilight knew she had wanted to skip over the Head of the Records Bureu and go right to Celestia herself with Twilight’s theory but she had deferred to Twilight on the condition that she come with her to Ponyville to confirm her findings. “You falsified your daughter’s death certificate, Mr Apple,” Raven said instead. “Legally, we could have you arrested for that.” “Get outta my house!” Mr Apple yelled. “Bright Mac!” Mrs Apple got to her own hooves and stood in front of him. “Bright! No!” He looked down at her, sides heaving. Whatever he saw in her face made his thunderous expression melt into something like despair. He sagged back into his seat, face in his massive hooves. “We knew this might happen someday,” Mrs Apple whispered, embracing him. “We knew.” “No, no, no, no,” he muttered brokenly. “We were so careful. It can’t all have been for nuthin’.” Twilight looked between them both. “I … what exactly do you think is going to happen here?” “You’re gonna take her away,” said Mr Apple. “You’re gonna execute her.” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Where in Celestia’s name did you get that idea?” Mrs Apple looked up at Twilight, her tears falling freely now. “She ain’t … she wasn’t born … normal. Ponies like her don’t … get to stay in Equestria.” Twilight frowned. She had suspected the reason they had lied about her premature death and roped in a doctor from their own family to fill out a false death certificate to perpetuate the lie. It had taken her a long time to track down the retired and reclusive Doctor Apple Pips after her gut feeling told her something was wrong with the Apple Family paperwork. She didn’t often have hunches but when she did, they were usually accurate enough that even a stickler like Raven was willing to let her see it through to its conclusion. Irritatingly, Raven seemed to think it was part of her ‘princess powers’, no matter how much Twilight tried to correct her. Twilight’s ears flicked. It took her a moment to realise what suddenly felt wrong. The knitting needles had stopped clicking. She turned to see Mistress Smith getting out of her rocking chair. “You’ll see,” she said simply. “An’ then you’ll see why she’s doin’ nopony no harm as she is an’ should be allowed to stay with us like she’s done all her life.” She creakily trotted past Twilight and Raven, indicating they should follow her. It took several minutes to climb the staircase. Twilight assumed the second floor was for bedrooms and at least one bathroom. Granny Smith faced a blank wall and Twilight watched in fascination as a hidden door revealed itself, opening onto a further set of stairs. She had not even sensed that door and her extra sensory perception was the strongest of all her peers! They ascended these too, past stark wooden beams and bare boards that lacked the apple motif from the rest of the house. The place had the lick of magic to it and she wondered whether this was a pocket of space hidden away where nopny from the Bureau of Architecture could see it on a blueprint. It would take a tremendous amount of power to achieve such a thing for any sustained amount of time. She watched Mistress Apple laboriously climb the stairs with new respect. At the top of the winding staircase was a door. It was plain and had no doorknob. Twilight sensed the extremely strong locking charm that had been attached from the outside. Whoever was in there, they could not get out unless they were released by someone from this side of the door. Mistress Smith unlocked the charm as if it was nothing and went in. Twilight followed, feeling Raven on her heels. Inside was a bedroom. Twilight stared. A lasso hung on a peg on the far wall, next to a hat remarkably like the one Mr Apple had been wearing. A little door to the right led to an en suite. Books were everywhere, crammed onto shelves and teetering in piles that all looked ready to fall over at the slightest breeze. They were even on the neatly made bed, spread out as if someone had been recently reading them. Twilight noted a few of the spines, realising they were all practical tomes about things like farming skills, mathematics and engineering. There were even books stacked beneath an electric kettle plugged into the wall and the jars of instant coffee and powdered milk next to it. On a nearby desk was a sheaf of papers covered with pristine diagrams and wobbly writing about a new design for something called a ‘combine harvester’. The pencil had teeth marks in its end. “Applejack,” said Mistress Smith curtly. “Come on out.” Twilight watched as an orange hoof slid out from up the bed, followed by a leg, then a torso, until an entire pony was pulling herself to her feet. She looked terrified, eyes huge as she looked at her grandmother and the ponies she had brought up here. Twilight stared at her in wonder. This was quite possibly the prettiest mare she had ever seen. Her mane was like wheat waving in the sun, her eyes green as grass in springtime. Though her body was thin and lacked the taut outdoorsy muscles of the rest of her family, her nose and cheeks were sprinkled with freckles that must have come from sun shining through the skylight above the desk. This was not a pony who went outside much even though everything about her spoke of nature and life. Granny Smith raised a wing. “Applejack here has the finest mind in all of Equestria when it comes to machinery an’ farmin’. Our yield increased twelvefold with her science an’ inventions. She’s a capable, valued, loved member of the Apple Family – even if she don’t got no wings nor horn.” Twilight swallowed her suddenly dry throat. “H-Hello.” She coughed. “Hello, Applejack. I’m Twilight Sparkle.” Applejack continued to flick her gaze between them all like a rabbit frozen before an oncoming cart. “I’m not here to hurt you.” Twilight put a hoof to her chest. “I … want to help you.” “Help me?” Sweet Celestia, even her voice was pretty. How could anypony ever want to cleanse the Equestrian gene pool of such a pony? Twilight’s resolve hardened as she thought of the ponies back in Canterlot at the Bureau of Purity and their hard-line rules about those born deformed. She had always thought those rules cruel but she was in the minority. Most families who did birth deformed foals were happy to turn them over to the Purity Ponies and ‘keep Equestria strong’. They had thoroughly bought into the rhetoric that Equestria only maintained its vaunted status over other nations by purifying its bloodlines. “Yes.” Twilight nodded firmly. “I’m from the Bureau of Records. I’m also Princess Celestia’s personal student, which affords me access to some of the more … restricted records around Equestria’s history. I’ve been doing research into an ancient magic called Ascension, from a time when Equestria was populated by ponies who lacked wings, or lacked a horn, or had neither.” All of them were watching her. She had already said this to Raven and, despite her disapproval, Raven’s loyalty had remained true. She would not report Twilight for this. Secretly, Twilight hoped Raven shared her dream that she could make her research a reality and put an end to the Purity Ponies once and for all. Twilight drew in a breath. This was the crux of her visit. If they rejected this … she wasn’t sure what she would do. She only knew she absolutely could not turn Applejack Apple in to the Bureau of Purity like she was supposed to. “Applejack … I want you to let me help you ascend to alicornhood.”