P. Granny Smith—Equestria, a sitting room in Canterlot Palace. Noon on Day Five.
The young ponies who had been switched, learning that they were to be sent to their separate homes at the end of Day Five, decided to have their own get-together, to figure out what they were going to do going forward.
That’s the plot of the next section. This one is about their parents being gathered at the same time, by order of Princess Celestia. The Princess also arranged transportation for the Apples and for Fluttershy’s family to Canterlot. The Pies were represented by Maud.
The train and subsequent carriage ride had not been kind to Granny Smith’s hips, so it was somewhat gingerly that she walked into the sitting room, accompanied by her grandson Big Mac. Her granddaughter Apple Bloom was in a papoose hanging from Big Mac’s neck.
Having entered the room, she cast her eyes about her, noting everypony in the room. She had known that Applejack had been switched. Adding Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to the “switched” category was easy enough—the new set of parents were obviously Fluttershy’s from their behavior. But also Rarity? And not only another unicorn, but apparently another earth pony as well, both of them from outside Granny’s wide network of acquaintances. She narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment, before snapping out of it.
“Hello!” she said to Bow Hothoof. “I didn’t get a chance to talk when you were passing through town a couple days ago.”
“Granny...Smith, right?” Bow asked. He introduced himself, his wife, and Fluttershy’s withdrawn parents...and also Zephyr Breeze.
“This is nuts!” Zephyr told her. “My little Fluttershy, visiting another dimension? That’s unicorn craziness!” He looked over at the unicorns. “Uh...no offense.”
“None taken,” said Shining Armor with a laugh. “I’d be thinking the exact same thing if I were in your horseshoes.”
“I’m having trouble placing the accent,” Granny asked Shining. “Are you from the Applewood colony?”
Shining laughed again. “No, ma’am. I was recently posted out there, though, and have been deliberately adopting the accent. It’s a lot friendlier than my native Canterlot accent.”
“I wish you’d tell that to our daughter,” Cookie Crumbles said.
“Canterlot,” she said, pointing at Twilight’s family. “Ponyville,” to Rarity’s family. “Or actually Rockville if we’re talking where our daughters were when this all started. Cloudsdale?” she asked Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s parents, to which she got nods. “And my granddaughter was in Manehattan.”
“Pinkie was also in Rockville,” Maud added. “If you’re building a mental map, Cloudsdale was right over Rockville.”
“But Ponyville and Canterlot are pretty far away from Rockville, and Manehattan is really far away,” said Granny, gathering the facts. “Six ponies, so far apart. Two pairs knew each other, but that was it, right?”
The others looked at each other, and then nodded towards Granny.
“And they all get their cutie marks out of it. This is big, bigger even than any of the mental shenanigans. Those six have got...a soul bond.”
(“Soul bond” is an Equestrian term with no precise English translation, so the reader should forget any meaning the phrase might have for them already. Equine has terms for a variety of relationships between people, focusing on friendships in contrast with human languages’ obsession with romantic love. English has “soul mate” as a term to refer to a pair that were meant to be romantic lovers from the moment of their birth. The bond does not have to be supernatural, although it often is.
The word I’m translating as “soul bond” refers to a similar “meant to be together” relationship, but applied to any group of people, not just lovers. And like “soul mate”, the relationship doesn’t have to be magical, beyond the everyday magic of cutie marks and destiny.)
Mr. Shy nodded. “We would appreciate any friends that our daughter could get. She was already soul-bonded with Rainbow Dash.”
“I also agree with your assessment, Mrs. Smith,” Princess Celestia said as she entered the room.
The other ponies all bowed. She said, “Rise, My Little Ponies,” like you knew she would. She closed the door with her magic and applied a soundproof spell before continuing. “It is my belief that two separate events happened simultaneously four days ago. The first was the sonic magi-boom—”
“Sonic Rainboom, Your Highness,” Windy Whistles quietly corrected.
Celestia smiled. “Yes. The Sonic Rainboom. This event is what united the six mares, and showed them their soul bond. They might have spent the rest of their fillyhoods never learning about the other fillies who were affected by that event.
“But then came the second event: the malfunctioning of a powerful magical artifact being kept in Canterlot.”
“The magic mirror,” said Twilight Velvet.
“Oh, the mirror did that, too?” asked Windy. “Well that makes me feel even guiltier leaving my daughter alone with the thing.”
She had clearly not been paying attention during Raven’s explanation.
“Believe me, things would have become a lot more complicated if you had been in the basement throughout that third day,” Celestia commented.
“The mirror reacted to the magic of the Rainboom to switch the minds of your fillies,” she continued. “The world they found themselves in is one that I have been watching with wary eyes for quite some time now. Its inhabitants call it Earth. It is a world largely devoid of magic and Harmony.” She smiled slightly as she added, “although at least a few of the humans who live there try to make that world a better place than it currently is. That your daughters returned safely to their bodies is in large part because of the positive qualities of these beings.”
“What happens next?” asked Cookie.
“You return to your homes with your daughters,” Celestia told them. “And you try to make sure they have as normal an upbringing as possible. Unfortunately, that means that knowledge of Rainbow Dash’s Rainboom must be suppressed. I hope that you’re aware of the reason?”
Bow and Windy looked at each other sadly. “We are, Your Highness,” Bow replied for the both of them. “We’ll do our best to explain it to our Dashie, but I don’t think she’ll take it well.”
“It isn’t to be helped,” Windy said with a shrug of her wings. Unlike most of the others, she was aware of the prophecy that Harmony had given to Fluttershy: that her daughter and the others were meant for greater things when they grew up. She only hoped that she and Bow could help their daughter grow into her destiny.
“It is my hope that you learn to support each other in your future trials with your extremely talented and promising girls,” the Princess said. “As I hope they told you, each of them received magic books, allowing them to communicate with the humans you briefly met during this adventure. I would encourage you to partition a part of each book for yourselves, so you may communicate with your own counterparts. If there is some parenting problem you do not know how to handle, perhaps they will, and vice versa.”
“Good idea,” said Fluttershy’s father Cloud Cover.
“The Crown can provide limited support, but I would encourage you not to use it,” Celestia told them. “It is my profound hope that all six of your daughters grow up to be happy, well-adjusted mares, and spoiling them with easy answers will hurt in the long run far more than they will help.
“Now, are there any more questions before I leave? Your transportation to your homes leaves in less than an hour.”
The parents and siblings looked at each other.
“I’ll write my parents and let them know of all of this,” said Maud Pie.
As nothing more was said, the Princess walked over to a window and looked down at Equestria: her cue that the meeting was over.
The others left, murmuring among each other as they tried to find common ground for future friendships. Only Granny Smith stayed behind; she had gestured to Big Mac to leave her alone with the Princess for a moment.
“Ah, Annie,” Celestia said when the two of them were alone. “I keep wishing you had accepted my offer to become an Agent.” She still faced out the window, watching the slow approach of the train from Ponyville.
Granny Smith stood behind her, idly watching the flow of her mane and tail. “I stand by what I told you then: I’d make a better mother. And grandmother. I’m a much better grandmother for my three kin than I was a mother.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Annie. I wound up in a parenting role recently, and I completely botched it.”
Annie, unseen, raised an eyebrow, but decided to say nothing. “Just confirm what I already figured out: Applejack’s never inheriting the farm, is she?”
“No,” Celestia said simply. She turned to face the old mare. “I wasn’t the one who picked her for greatness.”
“Bullhockey,” Granny replied, her voice even. “You’ve had your eyes on the Ponyville Apples from Day One. You’re just equivocating on me like you do with everypony else. You didn’t ‘pick’ my granddaughter, but you sure knew who would, sooner or later.”
“You’ve read Raven’s files. You know that Equestria is far overdue for a crisis of epic proportions.”
Granny smiled. “I know. And I’m proud that my girl is going to grow up to fix all the problems you kicked down the road. I’m just using my age-earned right to gripe anyway.”
Celestia frowned at the accusation, but did not refute it. “I expect we won’t see each other for quite some time. Maybe, this might even be our final meeting?”
Granny snorted derisively. “Hardly. I’m not kicking the bucket until I see Applejack’s second stained-glass window with my own eyes. I might even wait for the third.” She roughly shoved Celestia’s moving mane out of the way to look down at the approaching locomotive. “Well, I’ve got to git. See you around, Princess.”
“See you around, Apple Annie.”
The pony “Mane Six”—A ballroom in Canterlot Castle. Noon on Day Five.
A large table had been set up against one wall of the ballroom, laden with all kinds of pony junk food. In a corner, Vinny and Whinnyfield, both mostly recovered from their separate attacks, stood as chaperones. Currently, their main job was to keep Twilight away from the stuffed-to-bursting saddlebags full of magic texts that Pinkie had confiscated as soon as she arrived. Other than that, their main instruction, told to them by their Princess and reinforced with the bribe of plenty of junk food, was to pay no attention to whatever “weird” subjects the fillies might decide to discuss.
Right now, that weirdness consisted of naming the best part about Earth.
“The video games,” said Fluttershy. “They’re a lot better than Equestria’s. I mean...that’s my choice. Yours’ are perfectly OK as well.”
“Well I’m going to say the movies,” said Rainbow Dash. “The planes are great, but I like flying under my own wing-power much more. Did any of you happen to see Inception?”
“Yeah, I reckon that those movies are pretty neat,” said Applejack. “But why do so many of them have to be so sad! That part in Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf dies...”
“Ah! Spoiler!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I didn’t get a chance to see that one yet! Now it’s ruined.”
“When were you expecting to see it?” Twilight Sparkle asked. She had largely stayed out of the discussion, for obvious reasons. Oh, and because she kept looking longingly back to all of those amazing books.
“Next time the mirror opens. I know most of us, and most of the humans, will prefer to visit Equestria, but there’s some things I’d like to see on Earth, like a rocket launch.”
“Oh, those are amazing!” Twilight exclaimed, her attention now fully turned back to the fillies. “I’m definitely taking you to one, assuming the timing works out. We don’t just have them every day.”
“Err...sorry about the spoiler,” said Applejack. “But you don’t have to worry, because later—”
Twilight put a hoof vertically over Applejack’s lips. “That’s another spoiler.”
“...Right.”
Twilight pulled away her hoof and looked at it. “Did I do that right?” she asked. “A hoof has got to be different from a finger. Culturally speaking.”
“Actually, we usually shove that hoof right into their mouth!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
“...Ew,” Twilight replied.
“What was the best part for you, Pinkie?” Applejack asked.
“The inventions are all nice,” Pinkie replied. “But for me, the best part was lying on the roof of my counterpart’s house, looking up, and communing with the universe.”
Rarity, who had started off the conversation with the boring answer of “fashion” and had committed the additional faux pas of using her precious photo album to try and laboriously argue her point, took in a quiet gasp of wonder. She knew that Pinkie was being literal, and imagined her coming into mental contact with thousands of different species and individuals that night, each of them subtly different than the ones she knew from the pony universe.
“This is only the beginning,” Pinkie said, extending her forelegs towards the others. Every pony took each other’s’ hooves, forming a circle. “I hope we six stay friends forever, bringing happiness to everypony we meet. And that includes you too, Gilda! I know you’re spying on us!”
There was a muffled grumbling from the other side of the door, causing the fillies to giggle.
“I...I’d like to be friends with you,” said Fluttershy. “As long as I don’t screw it up by saying something awful.” She looked over at Rarity, and imagined having to use her Stare to put her down. “Or do anything.” She shuddered with fear of her own power.
Rainbow broke the ring to pull Fluttershy into a hug. “You’re not awful, OK? You’re the exact opposite of awful.”
Twilight looked down at her hooves. “I...I’m more likely to do something awful than any of you,” she said quietly. “I nearly vaporized New Brass Sky once. Well...it was only a 78% chance, but still... And there’s the time I tried to mind-rape Shining—”
She was stopped by Pinkie’s hoof inserted into her mouth. Pinking pointed at the occupied hoof with her other one. “See, Twilight, like that,” she said. “And we don’t talk about the indmay-aperay.”
Rarity snorted a must unlady-like laugh, stopping herself with a hoof. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. It’s just...‘ape ray’...”
“And now you’re picturing a big hairy ape with a teeny-tiny Smash Fortune ray gun in his big fat fingers, aren’t you?” Pinkie said with a big grin, leaning in towards Rarity.
This caused Rarity to burst out in full-fledged laughter. “I am!” she exclaimed.
The others laughed a bit too, but most of them didn’t find the image as hilarious as Rarity or Pinkie did.
“Look, none of us are quite sure how long until the portal opens up on the human side, but for us ponies, thirty moons is an awful long time,” Applejack told the others. “If you promise not to come by during planting or harvest, I’d be happy to host all of you all at the family farm in Ponyville for a day or two.”
“Thank you, Applejack,” Twilight said with a small smile. “I could probably use the break to my busy schedule. Besides hanging with friends,” (the two italicized words spoken like they were loan words from a foreign language) “it’s a known fact that the greatest mental breakthroughs came during moments of relaxation, like Kekulé with the structure of benzene.”
“Or Choleric with Kubla Khan,” said Pinkie, after closing her eyes for a moment to pluck the idea out of her counterpart’s head.
“What’s Kubla Khan?” asked Rainbow Dash. Looking over at Twilight, she added, “I won’t even bother to ask about ‘benzene’, as it’s obviously egghead stuff.”
Pinkie waved a hoof dismissively, saying, “It’s just some poem I should have read when I was on Earth.”
The others, assuming she had misspoke when she said “should”, moved on to other topics. Rarity gave Pinkie a sly smile, and Pinkie just shrugged in response.