Appleoosa. A mesa overlooking the town.
July 27 of the Year 1 PRE. A week after “Feeling Pinkie Keen” and during the events of “Over a Barrel”. Tuesday.
Applejack led the expedition in search of Spike, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Her thoughts were on how the situation with the native buffalo threatened the very existence of this Apple Clan-settled town.
Appleoosa was supposed to be the backup, she thought to herself, in case our efforts in Ponyville fell apart. A town we control from the beginning, and far enough away from Canterlot that it might escape notice. If this goes south, what will we do?
There was a second reason for this trip, one that had so far failed: trying to trap the Basilisk. A very large trunk of “bits” had been loaded on the train at Ponyville with considerable fanfare, but the infamous train robber had refused to bite, somehow knowing that the cargo was fake.
Applejack was followed onto the mesa top by Braeburn, who had seamlessly transitioned from being Ponyville’s spokespony to being Appleoosa’s. Braeburn was followed by Fluttershy and Rarity. And trailing far in the back was a panting Twilight Sparkle.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this hot in my life! she thought to herself. Why didn’t I think to drink some water before we left? Or bring some, for that matter? She looked back ruefully at her empty saddlebags. All this for Spike. Falling asleep in a tree! Why can’t that runt stay out of trouble? Now we have to save Rainbow Dash and Pinkie from the buffalo holding them hostage, all because of him!
“Ow!” she heard Rarity cry out.
Twilight raced up the rest of the trail, to find that the fashion mare was merely complaining about Applejack tightening her saddlebag straps too tight. Rarity’s bag, in contrast with Twilight’s, was quite full. Although it looked like it was mostly packed with beauty accessories.
“Sorry, Rarity,” Applejack said around the strap in her teeth, “but our friends are out there, and we have to be ready for a long hike into buffalo territory if we’re going to save them!” She reared up heroically on her hind hooves for a moment. “Let’s go!” She then set off in a gallop.
Twilight tried to collect her strength. She glanced down at the town. Are we really high up? she asked herself. It feels like the air is thin here. And then she took off to catch up with the others.
Their gallant run to rescue their friends lasted all of five seconds, before they suddenly came upon Rainbow Dash, Spike and Pinkie Pie.
“Hi, guys!” Pinkie exclaimed.
Fluttershy was so relieved to see the others safe that she sprang forward, landing atop the earth pony. “Pinkie!” she exclaimed. “We’re so glad you’re safe.”
Twilight and Applejack also expressed their thanks to Celestia for a happy reunion.
“How did you escape from the buffalo?” Twilight finally asked.
“We didn’t!” Pinkie exclaimed cheerfully.
At a gesture from her, the buffalo calf who had tussled with Rainbow Dash on the train hopped over a boulder and into view, causing Applejack’s group of ponies to gasp in surprise.
"We promised the buffalo a chance to talk,” Rainbow Dash explained.
At that moment the rest of the buffalo tribe stepped into view. There were dozens of them, but they were more than a dozen strides away, far enough for the nervous ponies to feel safe for now. As for this calf…
“Oh yeah?” Applejack asked, eyeing the calf and her offer to “talk” suspiciously. “About what?”
“We brought our new pal Little Strongheart here to explain to the Appleoosans why they should move the apple trees off buffalo land,” said Rainbow Dash. And then she shoved Little Strongheart into Braeburn’s face to make her explanation, leaving the buffalo calf a little nervous.
Braeburn, as the town representative, smiled warmly at the buffalo shoved into his face. “That information would be quite help—” he tried to say.
Applejack meanwhile had become more and more suspicious of what was happening, and suddenly shoved Braeburn into Little Strongheart’s face in order to force a confrontation. “That’s weird,” she said sarcastically. “Because my cousin Braeburn here wants to explain to the buffalo why they should let the apple trees stay.” Braeburn tried to look back, clearly uncomfortable with where Applejack was steering this conversation.
Little Strongheart, visibly intimidated by the pony in her face, pulled her head back and tried to speak. “That would be a useful thing to—”
Rainbow Dash, refusing to let her defuse this situation, stepped towards Braeburn. “The land is theirs!” she declared. “You planted the trees not knowing that. Honest mistake. Now, you just got to move them, that’s all.”
Braeburn maneuvered himself out of the forced confrontation with Little Strongheart and rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof. “Well…” he said, trying to find words to explain. “Heh…”
Applejack shoved the ineffectual Braeburn out of the way to confront Rainbow Dash directly. “They busted their rumps here!” she exclaimed. “And now they’re supposed to bust their rumps again, just because some buffalo won’t stampede someplace else?”
“Plant the trees somewhere else!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
“Where?!” answered Applejack, gesturing down at the small valley that contained Appleoosa and the neighboring orchard. “It’s the only flatland around these parts!”
“The buffalo had it first!” Rainbow Dash demanded.
“The settler ponies need it to live!” shouted Applejack.
“Come on, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash cried.
“You’re being unreasonable!”
“I put my hoof down!”
By this time both of them were shouting over each other, not even bothering to hear what the other pony said.
Twilight swayed uncertainly upon her hooves. The argument she was witnessing was strangely making her giddy. “Look!” she said, pushing herself between her two friends. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a group of settler ponies coming over the ridge, drawn by the shouting. The buffalo too had begun to draw close. “Both the settlers and the buffalo have good reasons to use this land. There must be something we can do.”
She looked around. There were clearly two sides now, with only Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and herself trying to remain neutral. (And Spike, but to Tartarus with Spike!) Affairs were reaching a breaking point.
Desperate, Twilight decided to resort to song. After all, it had worked so well for Pinkie Pie against those possessed trees in the Everfree.
“We may be divided,” Twilight began, getting the attention of everyone. “But of all of you, I beg. To remember how fat buffalo are, balanced on those twiggy legs!”
“Hey!” exclaimed the chief of the buffalo, stepping forward.
Twilight, somehow not noticing that the words coming out of her mouth did not match the ones in her head, assumed that she had just heard a complement on the originality of her verse, and so continued. “No matter what the issue, you’ll lose this land to thieves. Those ponies will secretly infect you, with hoof-and-mouth disease!”
“Hey!” exclaimed the pony sheriff, stepping forward.
“Arguing is the way. Hey show them how we play! Blood boils over today. So what do you say?”
Both ponies and buffalo were now glaring at each other.
“You gotta stare!” Twilight belted, getting to the chorus of her song. “You gotta prepare! It’s the right thing to do! You gotta stare! You gotta prepare! And the last survivor will find the way through!”
She stopped her song to look triumphantly around her.
“She’s just as stupid as the rest of you ponies!” declared the Chief to the buffalo behind him.
“Twilight Sparkle’s right!” the Sheriff shouted to the ponies behind him at the same moment.
The Chief stomped forward to stand beside an oblivious Twilight. The Sheriff stomped—not as successfully—to get into the Chief’s face.
“The time for action is upon us!” the Chief said over his cheering tribe. “Our stampede will start at high noon tomorrow. And if that orchard is still there, we’ll flatten it into lifeless dust…along with every pony in the town!”
The ponies gasped in horror, which turned to rage.
Little Strongheart tried to appeal to her father. “But, Chief!”
She was pushed back by his hoof.
“And we Appleoosans…” The Sheriff began, waiting until he got an encouraging cheer from his fellow settlers. “We Appleoosans say you’d better bring your best, because we will be ready and waiting with the best defenses and offenses Pony ingenuity has to offer. You try to besiege us, and the dust of the prairie will be wet…by your blood and tears!”
“But Sheriff…” Braeburn began.
He was silenced by an angry glare.
The two sides shouted their rage at one another.
Twilight had a hard time hearing any voices over the heartbeat that thundered in her ears after her warped song.
And then there was a mighty shout, and she was struck by two near-overwhelming streams of magic, each one nearly as strong as the one she absorbed during her School of Magic entrance exam.
Suddenly Twilight’s fatigue was gone. She felt better than she ever had in her entire life—with the exception of that time the Princess had personally admitted her into the School of Magic after that entrance exam. She looked around at her friends, seemingly blind to the two crowds parting in opposite directions to prepare for their upcoming battle. “So, how did I do?”
As far as Applejack was concerned, her honest concern over the plight of her clan in Appleoosa had fed organically into the inevitable shouting match between the buffalo and the ponies. Clearly race war was the only solution, and wouldn’t the buffalo be surprised when they had declared war not on puny little ponies, but unstoppable changelings!
These thoughts were rudely interrupted when her level of rage was completely overmatched by the two waves she felt pass over her, to be completely absorbed by Twilight Sparkle.
And that’s when all of her danger sensors went off.
“What just happened?” she exclaimed as she looked around her. Rainbow’s ears and wings were pointed outward, and her pelt was fluffed out in a dominance posture. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were both darting their angry heads around from one sound to another, unable to decide which target was worthy of attack. Rarity had taken a knitting needle out of her saddlebags and was trying to sneak up on Little Strongheart—apparently to plant the dull tip between the impenetrable shoulder blades of a buffalo. Twilight looked like she was drunk, and the look on her face was unfit for mixed company.
Spike was hiding behind a rock. Whatever Twilight had done to them with that song, it didn’t affect him. Frankly, Applejack considered joining him—after all, this mess was being caused by the unicorn who had lifted a baby star bear with her magic alone and a few weeks later had completely lost her mind over Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie—not a pony you’d want to cross single-hoofedly.
Luckily for Applejack, she wouldn’t have to face the elephant in the room just yet. She saw Rainbow Dash begin walking off to join the buffalo, and imagined her a day from now in war-paint, flying down from the sky to maim Applejack for the crime on being on the wrong side in a silly little…
“Rainbow Dash!” she cried in desperation. “What are you doing?” She looked over at Twilight. “And what did you do?”
Rainbow turned to face her, rage distorting her features. She looked ready to start a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Applejack right then and there. “Do you want to make something of it, mud pony?!” she shouted.
Applejack gasped at the slur—Rainbow had never shown any signs of being a supremacist. She took a few deep breaths to collect herself. And then, calmly but still loudly enough to be heard by all of her friends, she asked, “Is that any way for an Element of Harmony to act?”
That broke the spell. Fluttershy gasped, looking around her as if the angry yellow pegasus from a moment ago was somepony other than herself. Pinkie dropped into a heap, trying to let her extra-puffy mane and tail absorb her as she stared forward in shock and shame. Rarity dropped her needle in horror and slunk back to a spot behind the other two—a spot where Applejack’s accusing eyes could not see her.
Rainbow Dash lowered herself back to the ground, breathing heavily as she opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to think of what to say. “I…I don’t know what I was thinking just then, Applejack. Honest I don’t!” She sank fully down to the ground, clasping her forehooves together piteously. “I…I would never call you something like…that.” She looked off into the distance. “I just became so angry. It came from outside. It came from…her.” And she pointed at Twilight Sparkle. The others looked at her with varying degrees of shock.
None of them appeared to be angry with her. Yet. But Spike nevertheless left the safety of his rock to walk up to Twilight and pick up a hoof in his claws. “Twilight…?” he asked gingerly.
The words “Elements of Harmony” washed over Twilight, finally setting her mind straight. She saw clearly everything that happened, everything she had done to make it happen, and the way she had fed upon the resulting anger. It was true! It was true, it was true!
Twilight looked up at the shocked faces of her friends. She opened her mouth to explain herself, but then she caught herself and held her mouth closed with her forehooves. A moment later, her horn glowed and a set of glowing letters appeared above her head, an illusion Twilight had picked up from Trixie’s act a month earlier.
I’M SORRY! The words read. MY WORDS TURNED YOU AGAINST EACH OTHER AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT! I HAVE TO—
Without completing her thought, Twilight yanked her hoof out of Spike’s grasp. After looking sadly down at him for a moment, she turned and ran—not towards Appleoosa or towards the buffalo camp, but at right angles to both destinations, into the open desert.
“I’ll get her back!” Rainbow cried out, popping into the air.
“No!” ordered Applejack. “Follow her, but don’t try to talk to her until she’s calmed down.”
Rainbow stopped to hear her words, then nodded her agreement with their wisdom. “I’m still sorry,” she told Applejack. “Even if some crazy spell did that to me, I should have been able to resist, like I did against Nightmare Moon.” She then took off to follow the galloping unicorn at a discrete distance without waiting to hear a response.
“Well, you don’t exactly put up defenses against your best friends,” Applejack said out loud.
Spike stood there; his claws clenched into fists. Plenty of past examples had taught him that there was no possible way he could keep up with his stepmother when she got into a gallop. He took a moment to collect himself and then turned to regard the others with a cold eye. “So, Twilight is a Siren. Or a part-Siren.”
“Or possessed by a Siren,” Fluttershy suggested.
“Or something,” Spike concluded. “That explains a lot. When this is over, we need to fix her. Permanently. I don’t want her to be like that anymore.” He looked over at the nearby town. “I’m going to write to Princess Celestia as soon as we get back into town,” he said.
“Wait until we get Twilight back,” Applejack said, stepping forward and putting a hoof on his shoulder.
“She’s just going to try to convince me not to,” Spike said dully. “She never really wants to change.”
“Well, I won’t let her convince you,” Applejack said.
“Ditto,” Pinkie added in an unusually serious tone.
~ ~ ~
Rainbow Dash followed Twilight for more than an hour, before she zeroed in on an abandoned cabin on the edge of the mesa. It had views of both the distant pony town as well as the distant buffalo camp. With a frightened look back at Rainbow, Twilight entered the cabin. A spell then locked the door and both of the windows.
Rainbow sighed. Rising up to be far above the cabin, she looked around to be absolutely sure of her bearings, and then flew rapidly back to her waiting friends. She told them where Twilight was located.
“Take me over there,” said Spike. “I’ll keep her company. From outside if necessary. I’ll be warm enough.” He looked up at the sky with uncertainty. “It’s not going to rain tonight, is it?” he asked.
“No,” said Rainbow.
“But will you be safe?” Fluttershy asked.
Spike puffed himself up. “You have no need to worry about that! Dragons are extremely resistant to unicorn magic. Twilight can’t even levitate me if I don’t want her to.”
He reached out his hooves towards Rainbow, who reluctantly picked him up.
“The rest of you should try to fix this,” he said, gesturing in the two directions of the settlers and the buffalo. “Just in case I can’t get through to her in time.”
Rarity, impressed by Spike’s initiative and bravery in the face of unknown crazy unicorn/siren/whatever magic, stepped forward. “Good luck, Spike,” she said warmly.
Spike nearly melted on the spot. “Will do…Rarity.” He didn’t even notice being picked up and carried away after that.
Applejack stood there for a moment, thinking furiously. If this was love magic, then she could probably do something about it. But hate…
Hate was not the opposite of love, Applejack knew. If it was, she could handle it. But hate—enough of that could kill a changeling. Both hate and love were extreme emotions pointed in opposite directions. The most awful things that a pony ever did were motivated by a mix of both hate and love. So even though these conditions were desperate enough that Applejack was willing to reveal her true identity, she knew that nothing she could do as a Changeling would actually help under the circumstances. With a heavy heart, she turned to follow Fluttershy and Rarity down the trail that led to Appleoosa. Pinkie instead walked back to the buffalo camp, but without a trace of hope. Just as with the final confrontation with Nightmare Moon, she felt that her talents with lifting hearts with jokes and banter would not be successful in making things better.
That night and the following morning, all of Twilight’s friends tried to diffuse the coming explosion. But all in vain.
After trying and failing at the direct approach of knocking on the door and begging her to let him in, Spike racked his brain to find a better solution for hours, until his stomach interrupted his thoughts. Then he ate the turquoise gems that Little Strongheart had given to him and went to sleep.
The whole time he heard nothing from inside the cabin. Given Twilight’s past use of the Silence spell, it was probable that she was crying.