//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 // Story: The Siren // by McPoodle //------------------------------// A few hours later. The Apples had just finished setting up lunch on a table outside the barn when Twilight Sparkle arrived with Spike on her back. “Thank you for inviting me out here,” Twilight said. “Although you were sort of vague in your invitation as to why.” Applejack pulled out a chair with a booster seat for Spike to sit on, and then moved to the next cushion over to pull it out for Twilight. “Well first of all, I invited you over for lunch. You’ve been working for me in taking down monsters for quite some time now, and I thought it neighborly to break bread and share apples with you.” Already sitting at the table, Lemon Peel raised an eyebrow. If the phrase worked the same way as “share lemons” did among her own clan, Applejack was practically inviting the personal student of Princess Celestia to informally join the Apple Clan. Twilight looked at Applejack with joyful tears in her eyes. “After what I almost did to your family in Appleloosa?” She sat down on the offered seat with care, as if she expected it to bite her for what she had done. “That is in the past,” said Applejack. “I appreciate you confiding in me. Even the parts you didn’t think I would believe.” “Well, alright,” said Twilight. “And thank you! I really appreciate it.” “And I heard that Spike here wanted to know more about us.” Spike, who had already started digging in, looked up in surprise. “That’s right. Oh hey! Are you Apple Bloom?” “That’s me!” Apple Bloom—who of course was back in her pony disguise—exclaimed from the other side of the table. “You must be Spike. I’ve never met a dragon before.” She held out a hoof for bumping. Spike surprised her by grabbing the hoof and shaking it up and down. “Nice to meet you.” He looked over at the orchard. “Must get rather busy around here, taking care of all these trees.” “Oh, I’m only just starting. My brother and sister, Big Mac and Applejack, do most of the work. And Granny does most of the supervising. I just do what’s left.” “Twilight, have you met Checker here?” Applejack asked. Checker extended a hoof, and Twilight politely bumped it. “I’ve seen him around. You run the taxi service, yes? Chubby Checker’s Taxis?” “That’s right,” the rather rotund Chubby Checker said. “And just call me Checker. And this is—” “—Hi!” Twist exclaimed, popping into view and extending a hoof. She had seen that neat hoofshake, and wanted one herself. “My name’ss Twissth. Are you a real dragon, or ish that ssome sort of cursth?” Spike was going to shake Twist’s hoof like he had Apple Bloom’s, but he stopped on hearing her treat being a dragon as being exactly as awful as being under a curse. “I’m a dragon,” he said curtly. “Not a curse.” “Oh,” Twist said, slowly lowering her hoof. “But you’re a niceth dragon!” “Yes…?” “That’ss weird.” “Peppermint Kalamazoo Twist!” Checker exclaimed. “You will apologize this instant!” “What?” Twist asked defensively. “It’s not weird to be nice,” Checker explained. Twist furrowed her brow. “I want to be nice,” Spike explained. He looked back and forth between Twilight and Applejack before continuing. “I want to be like a pony.” “Oh,” said Twist. And then she looked at the disguised changelings around her. “Oooooh!” she exclaimed. “That’s great, Shpike!” “I’m glad you think so,” Spike said, offering his claw. Twist was so excited that she hooked her hock around it and did the shaking herself, earning a laugh from the others. After the meal was finished, Applejack led the group out to the same little dirt patch where Apple Bloom had had her test. Checker and Twist assumed similar positions as before. “Twilight, these are all ponies I trust with my life,” she said. Twilight stopped, the smile from the lighthearted tone of the earlier meal fading from her face. “They keep my secrets, and they can keep yours.” “Um, Applejack…do we really need to go over…that…again? Here?” “They’re going to help you, Twilight,” Applejack said gently, trying to use her hooves to position Twilight so she would be facing Checker. When the unicorn failed to move she added, “Trust me.” Twilight sighed, but allowed herself to be positioned as Applejack wanted. “As you’ve learned, some ponies are…different from the rest.” On hearing this, an alarmed Lemon Peel started to quickly advance on the pair. “Relax, Mrs. Peel,” Applejack assured Lemon. Looking at Twilight, she said, “We don’t need to talk about all of it. Just the fact that you have a bad reaction to anger.” Twilight looked over at Peel and nodded her head in relief. “Yes. I’ve got an anger…issue.” “Well, I’m a little different too,” Applejack said, with Peel watching warily. “I can sense emotions. It was how I was able to break free of a certain spell back in Appleoosa.” “Oh!” Spike exclaimed from Twilight’s side. “I was wondering about that.” “OK, I can accept that,” Twilight said. “And Checker over there, he can project emotions. Even those he doesn’t really feel. Do you see where I’m going with this?” Peel, seeing that this was all that Twilight was being told about Applejack’s abilities, sighed with relief and returned to her spot beside Pipsqueak. A spot pointedly out of Checker’s line of fire. She held her son close. Twilight nodded. “I…think so. I just need to…not feed on it.” “No, you absolutely should do that.” A confused Twilight looked around to be sure that only Spike and Applejack were in earshot. “Are you crazy?” she whispered. “Siren Me is hunger motivated!” Applejack leaned in close. “And that’s why I fed you first,” she whispered smugly. “Look, how do you tame a wild dog? You feed it, you get it to trust you, and then you show it who’s boss.” “And it will all be in your head, which is practically your playground,” Spike helpfully added. Twilight sighed, then looked over at a waiting Checker. “Let’s get this over with,” she said. Spike and Applejack backed away, the former a few steps to the side, while Applejack joined the other Apples next to the two Lemons. “Go gentle on her,” Applejack told Checker. “She hasn’t got any shields yet.” Across the field, Checker took in a deep breath, then let it out. “Please don’t take this personal, Miss Sparkle!” he told her. “I won’t!” she replied. “Well in that case…I hate you.” Twilight felt herself lose control as the siren came to the fore, eagerly feeding on the stream of hate being directed at her. From the back of her head, Twilight idly wondered if enough hate would cause her to spawn a little copy of her like real Sirens did, and then profoundly wished for that scenario to never ever come to pass. Hey, Twilight thought awkwardly at her other self. Is this it? Is this feeding all that you care about? Twilight felt a bored but alien presence staring deeply into her soul. “Eh,” was all that echoed back to her. And does it have to be hate? Twilight asked next. Can it be anything else? A dim memory appeared in the mind’s eye of Twilight: she and her friends floating before Nightmare Moon, the power of Friendship surging through them. You liked that? Twilight incredulously. She was answered by her head nodding outside of her control. But that was a positive emotion. Twilight’s body shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ an echo of her voice came back to her, a dull voice mostly devoid of emotion—the voice of Siren Twilight. ‘Came from/through you. Maybe that make it good.’ Alright, alright, Pony Twilight thought. That emotion was so much that it spilled over. How about this? And Twilight shared her emotion of gratitude to Applejack and Checker for helping her at this moment. ‘Good! I like that!’ Alright! Pony Twilight thought, happy that she had made a breakthrough. I will share my emotions with you, and you won’t have to come out to feed anymore. There was a pause. ‘Can I come out if I wanna see?’ There was a lot of concentrated thought behind that one. Being able to see was important for Siren Twilight. Alright, thought Pony Twilight. I can let you out. But not if you hurt my friends. And not around Spike. ‘…Spike isn’t bad,’ Siren Twilight thought back after a moment. ‘Showed some steel in his spine back there. He tricked me good!’ “Oh, you know that Spike tricked you.” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Spike had been carefully watching Twilight go through her mental episode for the past minute or so. By now he was adept at spotting which personality was in charge from one moment to the next. The latest revelation made him a little nervous. ‘That’s right,’ Siren Twilight thought. ‘Sirens good at deception. Spike would make a good siren.’ I’ll be sure to let him know, Twilight thought dryly. ‘And that! I like that part of you. The snark. Very siren.’ This revelation stunned Pony Twilight into silence. ‘We agree now. I’ll go now, so you can stop looking so silly in front of everypony.’ And with a quiet snicker, Pony Twilight was left in control of her body again. The first thing she did was groan. “Alright, you can stop,” she instructed Checker. “And thank you. That helped a lot.” “Did it?” Applejack asked, once she reached whisper range. “Well, it’s a start. Sirens are known for stabbing their allies in the back, so I’m not exactly hopeful that everything will be hunky dory from this point forward.” “So, is that it?” Spike asked. “No,” said Applejack as she headed for the orchard. “Come with me.” Applejack said nothing as she led Twilight and Spike away from the others. They stopped before a bunch of trees that were laden with ripe apples. Sitting on a log waiting patiently was Apple Bloom. She hopped off of the log and stood at attention. “Hallo, Sis!” she cried out in an exaggerated country accent. She then carried out a salute involving waving a hoof in a circle a couple of times before striking her forehead with it. Twilight looked back and forth between the enthusiastic filly and the slightly frustrated mare. “Where did you come up with that?” Applejack asked. “I dunno. I figured I needed to do something,” the filly replied. “Right, we’ll cover that later. You don’t mind if Twilight and Spike watch our lesson?” Apple Bloom sighed. “Alright, I guess.” Turning to the two guests she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Spike. Ma’am.” Apple Bloom said that last word to Twilight with a curtsy. The precisely correct greeting for the countess of a property without tenants. Twilight looked rapidly back and forth between the two Apples. Then she rolled her eyes in defeat. “You know what? Fine. A-very-pleasant-day-back-to-you.” She said the last part like it was a well-worn formula…or the proper response to Apple Bloom’s greeting. “You’ll notice I left off the customary muttering of ‘you filthy peasant’ at the end.” She sat down on the ground facing Apple Bloom. “Much appreciated,” Applejack said with a grin. Spike looked around to see if he was supposed to speak next or not. “Hi again,” he finally said to Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom grinned. “Now Apple Bloom, could you show us how you buck an apple tree?” Applejack sat down next to Twilight. Apple Bloom ground one hoof into the ground. “But Applejack, you know I’m still no good at that!” “It’s alright, Apple Bloom. We won’t hold that against you. Will we, Twilight?” “Oh no, I won’t,” said Twilight. “I’m probably much worse than you.” “Well…alright. Here goes!” And she kicked. The tree swayed a little. Apple Bloom immediately grew resentful. “See? That was awful.” Applejack rose to her hooves. “It wasn’t too bad. You had enough force; you just didn’t apply it to the right place.” She walked over to the tree. “Now where is the center of weight distribution for this here tree?” Apple Bloom backed up, looked the tree up and down, and then returned to her place and showed a line on the tree with her hoof. “Right about there, I think.” “Yes, that’s right,” said Applejack. “And the center of swaying is another line.” She put a hoof against the tree and pushed with enough steady force to slightly bend the tree, and watched as she released the hoof and watched how the tree swayed back into position. “About here.” “Oh!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “I see! But that line’s too high for me to reach.” “Right, so you have to use one of the influencer lines. You start with halfway up, right here. And then…” ~ ~ ~ Twilight watched as Applejack walked Apple Bloom through all of the steps in deciding precisely where to buck an apple tree. She noticed the patience that Applejack showed, even when Apple Bloom failed to grasp the concept the first time…or even the third time. Twilight sighed. Even with her new arrangement with her siren self, would her relationship with Spike actually change? And what if something else happened between them? Even in her fillyhood, in the years when she acted like a normal pony, thought like a normal pony, the exception had always been how she had thought about Spike. It had been a full month since she had moved to Ponyville. And it was time she finally did something about her problem. ~ ~ ~ Applejack had Apple Bloom buck that tree a couple of more times, then moved on to a couple more trees. “You look tired,” she said finally. “I am. A little,” Apple Bloom admitted. “Well, I think you’ve done fine for today, and it’s time for you to head back and have a piece of Pinkie Pie’s cake.” “Wow, really?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “Hot dog!” She started to run off towards the farmhouse, then stopped and walked back. “Who’s Pinkie Pie?” “She’s the one who will be giving you a ‘welcome to Ponyville’ party tomorrow,” Applejack said with a grin. “Try to act surprised. She brought over a ‘preview cake’, just in case you didn’t like the flavor she picked out. There’s a slice for you too, Spike.” Spike looked pleadingly over at Twilight. Siren Twilight rolled her eyes. Spike smiled craftily. “I’ll eat your slice while I’m at it,” he said in his best imitation of a greedy dragon. “Go on, get out of here,” Siren Twilight said with a good-natured smile as the dragon ran off to catch up with Apple Bloom. Pony Twilight groaned and put her head in her hooves. Applejack watched all of this, especially the interplay of emotions. “Well, go on,” she said finally. Twilight tried to look at Applejack, but all she could see was the horrified stone face of Sonata Dusk. “I don’t love my parents,” she said finally in a rough voice. “Go on,” Applejack prompted. “I mean, I appreciate what they did in bringing me into the world, and in everything they sacrificed so that I and my brother could succeed in life,” Twilight said. “Intellectually, I think they are the most-wonderful ponies to have ever lived. But in here,”—and by here she tapped her heart—“there is nothing. “I love Princess Celestia. For her I feel everything I should feel for my biological mother, and frankly way too much more than that, but I cannot feel the correct emotion towards my actual parents. “Spike is my son. That is how I care for him. I have the same hopes and dreams for him that any parent would have for their biological son. But there is no emotion—it’s all, only, in my head. And any time he does anything wrong, he stops being even that, and becomes just a monstrous dragon in my eyes. It’s only when he treats me like scum that I have any respect for him.” “Are you sure that isn’t just the Siren part of yourself, Twilight?” “I…I dunno. She’s too much of me. Especially in the last few years. At least 65%.” She gestured a hoof at her head. “I’m broken, Applejack. I’m broken and I don’t know if what we did with Checker is going to fix it. Spike doesn’t deserve a ‘maybe’ fix after everything I’ve done to him.” Applejack wordlessly rubbed a hoof between Twilight’s shoulders. “You’re…so much better at this than I am,” Twilight admitted, tears in her eyes. “And I think…no, I need help. I…I’d like to split the raising of Spike. With you.” Applejack stayed silent for a moment longer. Then…“And what does he think?” Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Oh, he’s never forgotten your offer. I can tell he feels awful when he brings it up, but at the end of the day he’s right. I can’t be 100% of the mother that he needs. Are…are you interested?” Applejack nodded. “I am.” “And…and you don’t mind that he’s not family? I know how important that is to you. I think the family thing is going to be a bigger barrier than his species.” “You’re right about that,” said Applejack. “But you see, the Apples have always been flexible when it comes to ‘family’. We have quite a lot of honorary Apples in our ranks. Maybe not as many as when we first came to Equestria, but still quite a lot. And we trust them with…with everything, really. If just one of them wanted to take us down, then that would be it…we’d be finished. Have to move down to Klugetown in shame and everything.” Twilight opened her mouth to ask what kind of secret would be devastating enough to have that effect if exposed, and then wisely shut her mouth instead of saying the question. “So, you’ll do it?” she asked instead. “I’ll do it,” she said, spitting on her hoof and extending. “Are we good, bond sister?” Twilight hesitated for just a moment, before spitting on her own hoof and grasping Applejack’s with it. “We are, bond sister.” She sighed in relief as she lowered her hoof to the ground afterwards. “That’s a relief.” She then brought up that hoof, now spattered with mud. “Ew.” “Come on,” Applejack said with a laugh. “Let’s get you cleaned up. And introduced to your new relations.” Granny Smith had only the one question for Applejack when it was safe to ask it: “Why?” “Because it’s the right thing to do,” Applejack said firmly. “I know that there’s a risk of exposure. But you haven’t seen those two like I have. They need this. “Maybe it will make a difference when the truth comes out, sooner or later, but frankly I don’t care. There are times when what I want is more important than what the clan wants. And this is one of those times.” “Alright,” Granny said with a nod. “I respect that. But we need to get ready for when she figures out the truth.” “I’d be more worried about what happens when Spike learns the truth,” said Big Mac.