Rise of the Furball Chapter 22: "Of Apples and Raspberries"
If Raspberry was asked what one of the worst things about being the most proficient dark magic user in Equestria was, she would immediately say her horn. While obviously the fact her horn was a dead-ringer for one of the most well-known features of her infamous predecessor, causing most ponies who saw its true form to run away in fear, the problems went deeper than that. Namely, she had to deal with the fact Sombra had manipulated the magic within him to shape his horn into a weapon, as both its curvature and razor-sharp tip were custom-made such that he could both impale and gore anypony he so desired. She, as his descendant, had inherited the more feral features of Sombra such as the fangs along with his blasted horn, but because she wasn’t a vicious tyrant with total disregard for others, her freakish forehead extension was extremely difficult to manage when she had to drop her disguise spell, which forced her horn to physically act like a regular unicorn’s. The only problem was her disguise spell couldn’t be set to be passive, needing her to be conscious while it was active, so she had to sleep in her unnaturally changed form.
She often mused that if pillows were sentient, they would fear her as the bloodiest murderer of pillows of all time. Unfortunately, on her usual income, burning through pillows rapidly was quite an expensive drain on her available funds, so having to sleep in odd positions often was the only way to ensure she could sleep on pillows at all. The fact there was a spell, a really easy one, that could protect pillows from being destroyed by accidental impalement, pissed her off to no end because for all her power as the bastard heir of King Sombra, she was useless at any kind of magic that were not of the dark persuasion.
Thus, it had taken her a long time to fall asleep in a way that was even remotely comfortable and posed no threat to destroying the most expensive bedding she’d ever been in contact with. So, it was understandable she was in a rather sour mood when some loud noise – she couldn’t really identify what it had been thanks to the magical soundproofing in the bedroom – had partially woken her up, and then slightly even more sour when she’d just fallen back to sleep only to be rudely re-awakened by a loud banging at the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” she hollered, groggily attempting to get out of the bed only to fall off it instead. It was probably one of the guards stationed outside her room, since technically she was still under judgment for more Equestriani law violations than the top three criminals in the country combined, going to ask if she’d known what that noise had been even though certainly other guards – probably batponies from the night guard fold- would surely have covered half the castle by now. It was her intention to make that fact clear to the poor sod on the other side of the door as punishment for interrupting her sleep.
So, when she threw the door open and found a ragged looking Twilight Sparkle on the other end, all pretense of giving some poor guard absolute hell disappeared. “O-oh, Princess Twilight! I had no idea it was you!”
“It’s fine, normally I wouldn’t bother anypony this late at night, and I’m sorry if I woke you up in any kind of bad manner,” apologized Twilight, who evidently was no happier to be awake at that hour than Razz, “but this is sort of a sudden problem.”
“No, no, I’m happy to do anything you need from me, your highness. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure what kind of problem you need me for that any other regular unicorn couldn’t handle, especially you since you’re the Element of Magic. No offense, of course.”
“None taken, but this isn’t something that regular magic can solve. I fear it may not even be something that can be solved. Not by me, anyway, I already tried to merely find a solution and I just made it worse.”
Razz paled. “Oh, no, don’t tell me that asshole who stole Heliodor still has the anti-magic hex I put on his horn! I mean, yes, I was going to kill him, but surely you understand that I wouldn’t burn more magic energy to permanently decorate his horn. If the crystal chunks haven’t fallen off by now-“
“Half of Canterlot would be singing your praises if you’d let that pompous nitwit live the rest of his days like that, to be honest! But, no, it’s much more serious and we’re kind of wasting time just standing here, so if you’d please follow me.”
“If it’s alright, I’d like Heelee to come with us.” As if on command, the phoenix suddenly appeared as he swooped down and took his perch on Raspberry’s horn. Twilight noted how Heliodor’s feet positioned themselves and that Razz’s horn, clearly being more oriented for digging into an enemy’s chest than Twilight’s own horn, probably was able to do what had seemed impossible by virtue of her horn simply being different. Investigation would need to be carried out later.
“Well, considering you nearly killed the entire ruling class of Canterlot when you temporarily lost him, there isn’t much of a choice, is there?” nervously chuckled the princess as she led Raspberry and her pet to see if she could shed some light on the one thing nopony wanted to return.
“Oh, I do hope this isn’t one of your pranks, Pinkie, a lady does need her beauty sleep!” complained Rarity, her face still slightly damp from Pinkie’s dragging her to the bathroom and splashing enough water on her countenance to fill an ocean.
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Rarity!” countered Pinkie, her hair noticeably a tad less curly and bouncy than usual, “And I’d like to think I’m good at knowing what matter is laughing and what laughing matter isn’t!”
“Oh, yes, pardon me for being so skeptical. After all, it’s not like that other time you and Rainbow teamed up to making me think it was raining lobsters with a raincloud and you throwing plastic lobsters at my window in the middle of the night!”
“You have to *snicker* admit that was pretty good, Rares.” Came the voice of Rainbow Dash, the pony attached to the voice appearing from an adjacent hallway with Fluttershy in a Rarity-colored robe alongside her, the humor in the blue pegasus instantly dying with her next line; “But trust me this isn’t a prank, unless Twi is trying to pull something on all of us.”
Rarity was shocked, turning to Pinkie for answers, “Why didn’t you tell me Twilight sent you? And why didn’t she get me personally like the rest of you?”
“She, uh, didn’t get me, either, Rarity.” Answered Fluttershy, “Rainbow said it was faster this way and, well, no offense, but Pinkie would have gotten you up faster than Twilight ever could have.”
“Oh…well, my apologies, Pinkie.”
With Pinkie and Rainbow leading the way, Rarity and Fluttershy followed their friends with concern. If what Twilight had told the two pranksters of their little group was as serious as to make Pinkie not even giggle at anything, then it couldn’t have been good. Especially not when their destination was revealed to be Applejack’s room. Or, at least right outside Applejack’s room, there was a small regiment occupying the area right in front of the door with an unusual mix of both day and night guards, bat ponies and regular pegasus ponies normally not even being awake during the same time periods, much less assigned to the same job.
“Oh, hey, girls,” half-yawned a tired Apple Bloom, sitting on her haunches and leaning on a slightly less sleepy Lightning Dust. “You know where Applejack went? All this commotion is ’cause nopony knows where she is, just that she’s not answerin’ the door.”
“To the contrary, Apple Bloom,” said Twilight, who came in from the other side of the hallway with Raspberry in tow, “I know Applejack is in there. The fact she isn’t answering that door is what concerns me.”
“Y-your majesty!” exclaimed one of the guards, “Princess Celestia ordered that the prisoner-“
“Miss Beryl is a guest, soldier, the business involving her will be handled by the crown and after the unfair treatment she received earlier it would be wise to not give her reason to go off on anypony. Furthermore, while my fellow princess has requested that if Miss Beryl is to leave her room at any time, she is to be accompanied by at least two guards, these are extraordinary circumstances and so I am temporarily suspending her orders.”
“Understood, your highness.”
“That still doesn’t explain why Raspberry needs to be here, Princess,” said Rainbow, “In fact, how do we know something’s the matter with Applejack? She is something of a heavy-“
Lightning Dust put a hoof on her fellow pegasus, stopping her. “Because I’m the one who got the princess involved here, but the reason I know something is wrong…well, most of you already know the ‘why’ of it.”
“What?!” exclaimed Apple Bloom, “You don’t mean she’s-“
“Yep. ‘Fraid so. Didn’t any of you hear that noise from earlier?
Everypony blanched. The guards didn’t know what the cyan pegasus was talking about and felt like they should, the ponies from Ponyville afraid of what had become of Applejack, Raspberry afraid of what this meant for her, and Heliodor only because Raspberry had blanched.
Twilight, needing to be the leader as due her role as princess, was the first to get her voice back. “So, now that we’ve established why Applejack may not be answering the door, who will go in?”
To everypony’s surprise, Raspberry merely shook her head to regain composure before answering; “I’d say it’s probably for the best if I go in there.”
“No!” exclaimed Fluttershy. “You don’t know what we know-“
“Applejack told me earlier, after my little, um, ‘incident’ at the trial.”
“Oh, well, um, it’s probably still not a good idea to-“
Raspberry nickered in annoyance, “Look, while I appreciate the concern, if this is at all involved with what we all seem to think it is then I’m the pony for the job. It may not be obvious, but I had my throat torn out by an angry ghost a few nights ago and the only reason I’m not dead is because I’m the closest thing to a resurrected King Sombra currently alive. So, just give me a few minutes and-“
She intentionally cut herself off as she teleported into the room without warning. Heliodor, caught off guard by the sudden disappearance of his roost, flapped madly for a brief second before landing on the ground next to Fluttershy, who was his favorite of the ponies from Ponyville. This went unseen by Razz, who found herself on the other side of the door and in a completely pitch black room.
“Wh-who’s there?!” came the unusually husky but still identifiable accent of the orange farm pony.
“Applejack, it’s me, Raspberry Beryl. Why aren’t you answering the door?”
“B-because Ah can’t…can’t let anypony see me right now! Personal business and all!”
“Come on, whatever it is, you probably look better than me. I mean, I’m an evil-looking red-and-black unicorn with a horn meant for stabbing things. No, wait, I’m all of that and my mane is a total mess. Though I probably do still look better than Rarity when she isn’t wearing a solid half-inch of makeup on her face, come to think of it.” That got a stifled chuckle from Applejack, which initially was a good sign to Raspberry, prompting her to walk slowly to the source of AJ’s voice, “It’s going to be alright, but everypony is worried sick about you and-“
“DON’T COME NEAR ME!” barked Applejack angrily, “Please, for both our sakes, Ah…Ah don’t want to hurt you!”
“I’m afraid if you don’t want me to see you, Applejack, you’re going to have to make me stop walking clos-“
Applejack sprang from her spot in the corner to pounce on Raspberry, desperately hoping the unicorn would sense it in time but not see the horror concealed within the shadows. She got within a foot of Raspberry before she found herself grind to a halt in mid-air, floating with what felt like magic keeping her up. The room then instantly became bathed in light as Raspberry’s horn lit up like a Hearth’s Warming Tree, revealing what Applejack had been hiding.
“Oh,” was all Raspberry could make out.
“Y-yeah, now do you understand why Ah’ve been tryin’ to hide in here? Ah can’t let anypony see me like this! Me bein’ a werewolf…that was supposed to have been licked last year!”
“As you told me earlier, Applejack. But, clearly, whatever ‘cured’ you was wrong, and if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past few days, it’s no good hiding something like a monstrous appearance such as ours from those who really want to help. Now, I’m going to let in your friends and your sister, and we’re going to get to the bottom of why your lycanthropy is back, okay?”
“O-okay.”
“Good.”
Celestia woke from her trance to discover somepony was knocking at her door.
“Come in,” she hastily replied before getting back to work. No point in hiding it now. Especially when at the sound of the door closing she turned to see Discord assuming his true shape from his unicorn disguise.
“You know, it’s very unbecoming of one who is the princess of the sun to be doing late night business like this, summoning one such as I to a private chat and…late night reading?”
“Don’t play coy, Discord,” chided Celestia, turning to face the small mountain range of documents littering her bedroom’s floor, “I know it was you who gave Lightning Dust and Apple Bloom the feather and told them to lie about where they found it.”
“Are you accusing me of having stolen the phoenix? Why, I never!” The chimera pretended to be greatly offended with dramatic over-exaggeration of arm movements, “Even after I told you my motivations were purely in the interest of your mother, you treat me like filth!”
“But in stealing the phoenix long enough such that he temporarily died at just the right time to flush out Raspberry’s true form sounds like something you’d do. After all, you managed to spin the millennia-late sprouting of those plunder seeds that kidnapped me and Luna into giving Twilight an important ‘friendship’ lesson, did you not?”
“Oh, please, I know you’re like your mother enough such that you got a slight kick out of watching the entire country go to pieces because their beloved ruling pair vanished for a couple of hours. You thought the whole thing Twilight caused with the doll was a riot, remember?”
“I beg to differ, I had no such-“
Discord raised an eyebrow. “You were laughing hysterically in the royal gardens right before you went to deal with it, which if you recall I’d been left in following my second imprisonment in stone. Like I said a while back, I wasn’t deaf to the world while stoned.”
Celestia just shook her head. “Oh, fine, I admit it was somewhat nice to see a little chaos happen because everypony looks to me and Luna as goddesses. Though on the bright side, it did help reassure Luna of her standing with the public, she’s still sort of touchy on how the public perceives her.”
“See? Everything worked out in the end, all thanks to a little unintended chaos!” Discord chuckled, “But, getting back to the business at hand, I suspect the impromptu sea of parchment in front of you has something to do with recent events? Also, just to clear the matter up, I truly had nothing to do with Blueblood stealing the phoenix, if anything it went against what is dictating my actions as per your mother’s requests.”
The alicorn nodded, acknowledging the latter topic and continuing the discussion on the former subject; “Yes, as you probably know by now, Raspberry Beryl isn’t in the census records. Her birth was submitted like any other foal, but it’s the only reference to her within any official documents. It’s as if there was something – or somepony – was trying to hide her. Heliodor, too, for that matter, as any inquiries for registration for him as a pet came back negative.”
Discord smirked “You’re looking too hard, your highness, and so are overlooking the obvious.”
“What are you talking about?”
The dragonequis shrugged, “Think about it. This mare is scared of what other ponies think when they see her real body. It’s almost certain she skipped town because somepony learned the truth, that’s the impression I get as to why she never really settled down; so that when she inevitably needed to leave she could cut all ties easily. No point in registering anything, it would just make it harder to cover her tracks.”
“True…” conceded Celestia, “but as I discussed with Luna a little while ago, there’s still no explanation as to why a magic evaluator never was sent down to check her magic when it started to manifest.”
“Well, first off, she says dark magic is the only kind she can use, so obviously nopony wants to be responsible for raising a unicorn who at that young an age was skilled in the stuff Sombra loved, and second, I’d suggest looking at that a bit more closely.” Discord gestured to one particular sheet; a faded news article that had been attached to one of the many papers now scattered on the floor.
Celestia lifted it up with her magic to look at it up close, but when she realized what Discord had noticed about the document, her blood ran cold.
Back at Applejack’s room, the guard outside remained at their posts, though they didn’t know what was going on, for when Raspberry had opened the door she insisted only the princess and her personal entourage were allowed in. The reaction of said entourage to Applejack’s lycanthropy was mixed, though everypony tried to make the best of it.
“AJ, look at me, AJ, come on…” pleaded Twilight, who was trying to make direct eye contact with Applejack and not getting anywhere.
“Ah…Ah can’t! How am Ah supposed to look y’all in the face when Ah can’t even bear to look at mah own in the mirror no more?”
“Oh, please, we went through this before, darling,” said Rarity, “everything turned out fine then, and honestly you still look better than me in the morning after I wake up and tidied myself up.”
“You mean like that one time on the train where you kept demanding we be quiet and you appeared with pickles on your eyes?” snarked Rainbow, trying to lighten the mood.
“The pickle slices were for preserving my beauty, Rainbow, you should try it some time.”
“Can’t. Lightning would probably lick them off my face when not trying to doodle a handlebar mustache on me.”
“Oh, come on!” whined Lightning, “I don’t like pickles, anyway. Though if you used ham slices-“
“GAH!” barked Applejack, pulling the sides of her hat down over her ears with her paws while taking care not to puncture her father’s headpiece, “Ah don’t wanna eat meat again, it took me forever to get the taste out of mah mouth, that terrible, awful taste!”
“Oh, right, the whole…yeah…” Dust grimaced apologetically, “Sorry, Applejack, didn’t mean to…um…”
“Well, if need be, I could always, er…” interjected Fluttershy, trying to get off the awkward topic,” well, that thing I was doing before when Applejack hadn’t fought Sable Loam, I could still do it.”
“But what about an alternative? Like, I don’t know… bones maybe? Oh! What about a bone-shaped cake?” Piped up Pinkie, naturally upbeat in the worst of situations, “No, that wouldn’t work, dogs like burying bones, not eating them. But why do dogs like burying bones? They never go back to get them.”
“Actually, Pinkie,” started Twilight, nerd mode engaged, “since dogs are descended from wolves, it an instinctual artifact of their biology of when they would bury unfinished food for later. Since over time the need for that was eliminated for dogs, they only like to bury them.”
“And since werewolves aren’t really connected to dogs biologically…” finished Fluttershy, “there’s no reason to assume bones are an actual alternative.”
“What Ah’d like to know is if there’s an actual alternative to bein’ a werewolf!” complained Applejack, somewhat oblivious to the discussion at hoof, “Ah mean, wasn’t it in that book of yours, Twi, where that one stallion said killin’ the werewolf who bit you was how you cured this damn curse?”
“Wait, what? Asked Raspberry, skeptically, “While I admittedly don’t know the first thing about how the whole lycanthropy thing works, if it’s a curse from dark magic…simply killing the one who spread it isn’t going to remove it.”
“And that’s why I wanted you here, Razz!” declared Twilight, a bit of self-satisfaction in her voice, “But if that wasn’t the cure for lycanthropy, then what did Sable Loam’s death accomplish?”
The dark unicorn could only give a sheepish grin, “Well, er, any number of things, I can’t say right off the top of my head a definitive answer since I haven’t ever examined a lycanthropy spell, nor was I there for whatever happened when this Sable Loam was killed, though I’m guessing he was the werewolf who bit you, Applejack?”
“And Lightnin’ Dust. Possibly.” Added AJ, “We’re not sure how she got it, really.”
“Then if we’re going to get anywhere, somepony needs to tell me what exactly happened when the ‘cure’ was achieved.”
And so the ponies recounted the time Applejack was a werewolf, from the beginning when Applejack was first attacked in the salvaging of the car, her weird behavior that led up to her first transformation, the Cerberus incident, Applejack’s mysterious summoning by Sable Loam, the chase with the car and the truck, Applejack’s weird glowing after dealing the fatal blow, and how they’d all temporarily been transported to another plane of existence where even the spirits of Queen Faust and the Apple Parents had been sure lycanthropy had been extinguished. Then it was explained how Lightning Dust noticed her first, small changes months after he tussle with Applejack, Twilight’s ill-advised attempt to diagnose the problem herself landing Dust into full werewolf status, and how the only rational explanation for the delay being how pegasus ponies have thinner blood compared to unicorns and earth ponies. Raspberry took it all in, trying to work out the exact underlying events, which wasn’t easy as while she knew the ins and outs of dark magic like back of her hoof, she hadn’t been one to really exercise that knowledge in regular practice.
But she eventually came to some conclusion, which made her heave a heavy sigh. “Okay, I think I can explain why the ‘cure’ didn’t work, but none of you are going to like it.” The eager, inquisitive looks on all present ponies indicated she should go on, which she did, “First off, I’m guessing my infamous ancestor made it such that the lycanthropy curse was something of a parasitic type curse nature, one that feeds off the internal magic well inside all ponies. Since non-unicorns have mostly passive magic conducted through their blood, the curse probably was refined to best work on earth ponies as for the experiments up in the Crystal Empire, that’s mostly what Sombra had to work with, and so it’s not as effective in the short term on pegasus ponies with their thinner blood, like Lightning.
“But what about unicorns?” asked Apple Bloom, “Ah mean, Fair Vista tore out your throat an-”
*THUMP* went Rarity as she immediately passed out from the gruesome mental imagery. Everypony glanced over quickly, saw she was fine, and then focused back on Apple Bloom.
“Yes, well, ahem, she did that weird ‘now she isn’t a ghost-now-she-is-now-she’s-not’ kinda thing and made your throat bleed all over the place, all the while sayin’ you were either gonna die or become a werewolf yourself.”
Raspberry chuckled, “Well, the latter wasn’t going to happen, based on what you all have told me, lycanthropy can only be transferred from the infected to the victim if there is contact between moisture from one to the other, usually exactly as the legends say in saliva from the werewolf being in contact with the blood of the victim via a bite to a vital point like the jugular. Since Fair Vista was a ghost, she therefore didn’t have the bodily parts needed to generate the saliva to do the act in the first place.”
“But don’t that mean you should be dead?” pointed out Applejack.
“If I was anything like a normal unicorn, then yes, I should have died then and there. But, as a side effect of the dark magic within me, I naturally can recover from fatal wounds very rapidly. I don’t know if I could simply re-attach a limb if it was cut off, though I never want to be in such a position, but while things like having my throat torn out really bucking hurt when I am wounded, most fatal injuries are no worse to me than if you made a large cut on my foreleg with a knife, they’d heal up in practically no time at all.
“But enough about how I’m suddenly some stupid Mary Sue right down to the stereotypical color scheme, I’m a terrible example of what happens to unicorns if they get bitten. With regular unicorns, the bottom line is that while they too are about as slow to show any signs of lycanthropy as pegasus ponies, if the werewolf bites down long enough to prolong the connection, it doesn’t matter what kind of pony is the victim, they’re going to turn almost immediately.”
“But that still doesn’t explain what happened to Applejack, in either case,” said Lightning.
Raspberry took a deep breath, “yeah, I know, consider everything I just said a primer for how lycanthropy works. Reason being that, if Sable was basically a super prototype werewolf, his strain of the curse would be more potent than the regular, though after a thousand years where he was the only survivor, it’s probably the only strain left in existence. Regardless, with his version of the curse, it’s got a secondary parasitic that creates a connection between the original werewolf and every single other pony he’s turned into a werewolf, giving him some control over them.”
“Like that howling thing he did on Applejack’s final night as a werewolf, “ rationalized Rainbow, “or, at least when she stopped being one for some time”
“Exactly. Killing him –and I do feel the need to stress this, but it didn’t need to be Applejack who killed him, whatever that Bronze Shield said was wrong since there’s no aspect of dark magic that works that way – severed the connection, and if it had only been a single strand curse connecting him and Applejack, that would have cured her. But because it’s a two-strand curse, it only weakened it by half to the point Applejack appeared cured but was a passive carrier. Her blood mutagen that gives her immunity to the magic well drainage also helped keep the curse down, but it’s always been there.”
“But then…how did Ah turn back into a werewolf?” asked Applejack.
Raspberry’s brow furrowed, “that’s where I’m drawing a blank, since the only way for the curse to become active again is to be exposed for a moderate amount of time to dark magic. Not any old dark magic, mind you, but the same general wavelength as the one who originally cast the spell, so you’d need to be exposed to magic similar to King Somb-“ The realization hit her hard. “Oh…oh, no…”
“Wait, isn’t your magic similar to King Sue?” inquired Pinkie, “And there was the whole freezing everypony thing you did with your magic, which Applejack reacted really weird towards? And then-“ Pinkie shut up when Twilight shot her an angry look, but the reason for Applejack’s return to lycanthropy was clear enough.
“Are you tellin’ me you’re the one who made me into this again?!” raged Applejack, her self-control quickly fading as she stood up, “The one pony in the entire world who is the bastard child of that damn king…and all because you did it accidently?!”
Any attempt by Applejack to once again attack Raspberry was stopped by Twilight holding the werewolf down with her magic. “No, stop it, Applejack! Hurting Raspberry won’t solve anything!”
“Ah know it won’t!” shouted the enraged werewolf, “But Ah’ m gonna make her understand what it’s like to be me and Lightnin’, that this isn’t somethin’ Ah can just brush under the table!”
“Ah don’t think we have a choice!” suddenly retorted Apple Bloom, who trotted over to position herself in-between the now horrified-at-what-she’d-accidentally-done Raspberry and the enraged apple farmer, “If what Ah remember from the whole affair is true, Sable was pretty darn close to King Sofa, and in that book Sandalwood and Lyra found about werewolves, it mentioned how King Somber actually was scared of what he’d made Sable Loam into! Don’t you think he’d have made it so no werewolf who got the chance to bite him would be able to infect him? Our blood carries a mutabot or somethin’ that makes us immune to whatever it is Lightnin’ has, so it’s probable you couldn’t make Raspberry a werewolf since she shares King Shamalayan’s blood!”
All of Applejack’s rage vanished in having to be verbally berated by her younger sister, leaving the room quiet. But then a burning question posed itself in her head. “Apple Bloom…what do you mean by ‘our blood’?”
The filly sighed. “Look, if what Raspberry says is true, then you were a werewolf the whole time you were ‘cured’, and you did more harm as a werewolf accidently than you ever have done as a full werewolf then or now!”
“What are you talkin’ about, Apple Bloom? It’s not like Ah went around bitin’ other ponies…oh, no, don’t tell me ah did anythin’ like what Ah think you’re about to say.”
“No, Applejack, you didn’t do nothin’. Least not intentionally and Ah don’t blame you for this…“ Apple Bloom, who up until that point had been avoiding direct eye contact with her big sister, then made it a point to look Applejack dead in the eye, “But it’s the only way to explain what Ah’ve been hidin’ from everypony.” She did not even blink as she joined her sister in wolf form.
Silence once again, this time it was both out of shock and of the somewhat awkward feeling in the air.
“So, I’m guessing you’re not going to let me throw a ‘werewolf sister’ party?” asked Pinkie to Twilight.
“Uh, no, as much as a party would help lighten the mood, Pinkie” replied the alicorn, “I think we need answers from Razz and Apple Bloom more than anything right now.”