“…I see.” said Twilight, as Applebloom was taking her back to the farm. “But if they were willing to solve their quarrel peacefully, why do you need my help for again?”
“Well, it’s just that none of us found a good solution, so Applejack said I should go find you, because she said you’re very smart and it’s true you’re very smart so I agreed and I came to your new castle and I asked you to come.”
Applebloom was having fun at that point, even if she didn’t really know why. For her, it didn’t really matter. Having fun was satisfying enough to not search for a cause or an explanation. Happy people who try to figure out why they are happy usually aren’t to begin with.
“How come you didn’t find any solution?” Twilight asked, curious to know more before arriving on the scene.
Applebloom look down. Not because she was sad, as she wasn’t, but because she was trying to remember what had happened three hours ago when she had come back, showed the creatures to her family, and when they had all sat down around the table with a good apple pie in the middle.
It hadn’t gone so smoothly to be honest, mostly because Applejack had corrected Applebloom on the famous quote the filly had used. The real quote originally came from Braeburn and it said that there is no conflict that cannot be solved with an apple pie, which was quite a different philosophy altogether. Nonetheless, the farm pony had accepted to host those “negociations” as she wasn’t the kind not to lend a hoof if she had the possibility to.
Then stuff became very boring and Applebloom lost a lot of her focus. She could still remember things. Applejack was sitting at her right. Lielle and Leilel were sitting in front of them, still holding their precious sphere. The pie in the middle was still too hot to eat yet.
“So…” Lielle began that conversation. “The easiest way to solve all this is for you to convince Leilel to stop trying to steal my body and I will forget everything about that incident.”
“What?” rhetorically asked back Leilel. “If we want all this to be peacefully resolved, you should begin by stopping to try to lure people into lies. And when you’ll be done doing that, you will only have to give me back my body, apologize for trying to steal it and I’ll forget everything about the incident.”
“Huluberlu!” Lielle insulted Leilel.
“Ecornifleur!” Leilel insulted back Lielle.
The pie was cooling down slower than the atmosphere was heating up, but there was something funny to see those two little squirrels looking creatures argue and threaten each other with their tiny shrieking voices. They were sort of cute. Applejack internally noted that maybe she had understood a part of why Fluttershy loved taking care of animals so much.
“Wait just a moment.” the orange earth pony told the two Leliels. “Couldn’t you share that white sphere of yours?”
Both creatures looked at her with surprised eyes.
“What do you mean share? How could we share a body?” asked Lielle.
“Well, one of you could take it for a week and then the other one could take it the next week and so on… that way you would both have it and the problem is solved!” joyfully said Applejack with a great smile, certain to have made a very reasonable and sound proposition.
Lielle looked at Leilel and Leilel looked at Lielle, both communicating through their looks how stupid they were judging the orange pony, but also their disarray to reply as they were too polite to say it directly.
“I don’t think you understand the problem.” tried to say Leilel with a compassionate tone.
“Here, take a piece of pie.” said Lielle, with the same tone one would use to comfort a little child.
That moment was etched in Applebloom’s mind for some reason. She didn’t know which one because she was just too young to understand what had happened, but had enough instinct to subconsciously understand that Applejack, who was supposed to be the mediator in the quarrel, had lost every bit of credibility with that very single proposition.
The rest of the conversation was more blurred. It was always following the same path again and again. The two Leliels would argue and threaten each other, demanding for the other to back down, then Applejack would come up with a proposition and both creatures would reject it, usually in a very condescending way.
And quickly, Applejack came to panic. She was out of ideas. Sharing the sphere hadn’t worked. Splitting the sphere hadn’t worked. Locking the sphere somewhere hadn’t worked. Creating a new sphere had only created some harsh laughter and the Leliels didn’t even responded when she proposed that they both give up on the white sphere.
At that point, she had woken Applebloom up from her daydreaming and had asked for Twilight’s help, as it had become clear to her that she wasn’t fit to help those two creatures. Even more, she was getting worried as both Leliels were getting angrier and angrier by the minute, treating each other of all sorts of bird’s names and showing some strong signs of agressivity.
“Don’t worry.” Twilight told Applebloom, as they arrived near the farm’s door. “I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.”
She opened the door and immediately reevaluated her statement as a cat and a dog jumped right in front of her, clearly pursuing each other in a very loud and chaotic way. All around them, the room was a gigantic mess. They had clearly run and jumped everywhere, breaking the furniture, the lamps, the everything. And in a corner, barricaded behind the table, were Applejack, Big Mac and Granny Smith who had preferred to stand back in order to not get hurt and, also, not to hurt anypony, hoping for the two creatures to simmer down out of exhaustion.
“Twilight!” happily shouted Applejack. “Quick, do something, those two are unmanageable.”
The alicorn focused her magic and stop both animals in their pursuit, lifting them into the air.
“Hey! Let me go!” shouted the dog to Twilight’s surprise. “I have to take it back, there isn’t much more time!”
“Could somepony explain to me what is going on? Where are the two squirrels?” she asked, before quickly realizing that her questions were kind of useless as it was pretty easy to figure out who those two animals were and how the negotiations had ended up.
Nonetheless, Applejack decided to reply:
“I’m not sure to know. We were still talking, well, they were pretty much just arguing with each other, when I finally came up with another idea. So I proposed that if they didn’t want to let go of the white sphere, they should just accept to live together.”
Twilight was about to make a comment about that proposition, mostly that there should be a better solution, as being forced to live with someone else can be very difficult, but decided not to as she knew she should better not say anything before being certain she was understanding the situation completely.
“Never!” shouted Lielle, who was the dog. “I would rather live with a skunk than to spend one day in that kanak!”
“And I would rather bath everyday into a giant’s worm saliva than to have to put up with that pignouf’s existence!” shouted Leilel who was the cat and holding the white sphere into one of her paws.
And then, very naturally, in order to get the information she needed, Twilight asked the one question she shouldn’t have, just as Applejack had done before her, before the same Applejack could prevent her to.
“No, don’t!” shouted Applejack, in vain, as Twilight just asked the words: “But why?”
It sounded like an explosion. Both Lielle and Leilel were shouting at each other, enraged at each other and told what they had on their hearts in a very honest way:
“Because he is nothing but a bloody lying, stealing, good for nothing, dangerous, betraying and stinking monster that wants me dead!” shouted Leilel on his side.
“Because he is nothing but a thief, a liar, a traitor, a parasite and the worst kind of Leliel there can be and I’m going to make sure she will never threaten me anymore!” shouted Lielle with a deadly look and a loud barking, certain to be bigger and stronger than the cat in front of her.
“Is that so?” replied Leilel with a grin.
And suddenly, the cat he was began to grow very quickly and became a big monstrous bear. Surprised, Twilight lost her focus and her spell broke, freeing both animals who immediately attacked each other, as the dog grew into a giant wolf. Both Twilight and Applebloom jumped behind the table with the rest of the apple family, but then heard a loud noise, felt the vibration of the flour and the walls around them and, when they looked over the table, saw a giant hole where the door previously was, as both Leliels were gone.
“It’s bad…Those two are really going to hurt each other.” stated Applejack.
But Twilight had another worry in head, seeing how those creatures were growing and how aggressive they were. She told the apple family to stay indoors, knowing only too well both Applejack and Applebloom would follow her anyway, and then rushed outside in the hope she could act before the matter would get any more serious.