It was dark. So dark you could not see your hoof before your eyes. But he knew he was awake, that his eyes were open. He could feel them blink. He could feel, though everything seemed ice cold. His hooves, his backsides, his tail, all were telling him that it was cold, even his breath. “Where?” he muttered.
“Questions are good,” came a voice, echoing across his mind. He couldn’t be sure he heard it, but it did register somewhere deep within him.. “The trick is to ask the right ones.”
“What... what’s happening.”
“Not bad, not bad. A perfectly logical inquiry. Unfortunately, not the right one.”
“Who?”
“You’re getting colder... Oh, no, wait, you already are cold. You really can’t be getting colder if you already are. At least not metaphorically speaking.”
Macintosh thought for a second.
“When?”
The voice gave off a firm laugh. “Now you have it. When is just right and brings all the answers you want to those other questions in due time. It’s the very nature of when.”
“Prove it,” said the stallion.
The world went white for a moment then refined itself into a late night street scene. Somehow, the street looked familiar. Macintosh looked around, then finally recognized it. It was the street outside his Uncle and Aunt Orange’s place in Manehatten, though for some reason it didn’t look quite the same. Everything looked, well dingy. He’d always remembered the townhouse as being well lit and painted in tasteful, yet strong colors. Warm earth tones had been replaced by grey limestone and only about one third of the street lights worked. Patches of snow covered the sidewalk explaining why he had felt so cold.
Climbing the short flight of steps to the front door Big Mac found a series of different buttons, each indicating a separate apartment rather than the large, single brass one that he’d remembered. At some point, the old townhome had been subdivided into half a dozen small apartments. He glanced at the nameplates and found one with the name Mr. & Mrs. Orange. He pressed it and was rewarded about a minute later by a rather shrill, unpleasant feminine voice.
“Who the hell is ringing me at five in the morning?”
“Uh... Aunt Orange? It’s me. Big Macintosh.”
There was a rather lengthy pause. “Who?”
“Macintosh... Macintosh Apple.” He paused for a moment, then added, “yer nephew from Ponyville?”
The voice abruptly became shriller and much more abusive. “I don’t have any nephew. And if I did, he certainly wouldn’t be from any ghost town.” She was joined a moment later by a male voice.
“You *#(%D)* drunks gotta quit sleeping on our front porch. Now CLEAR OUT before I come down there with a cricket bat and chase you off myself.” There was a slight whine as the speaker button on the other end was abruptly cut off.
Big Mac simply stared at the brass nameplate, unable to understand what had just happened. It made no sense. His aunt and uncle were close with the Apples. He couldn’t count how many times they’d been out to the farm, using it as a kind of retreat from city life. Why wouldn’t they know him? And why would they call Ponyville a ghost town? He sat down on the bottom step and tried to puzzle it out.
He sat there long enough to see dawn begin etching a silhouette of the surrounding buildings against the sky, but as hard as he thought, he couldn’t understand what was going on. His silent musings were abruptly interrupted by a sharp rapping on the bottom of one hoof. The stallion looked up and found himself staring into the face of a young Manehatten police filly.
“Hey buddy...This is private property. I wouldn’t suggest loitering around here, especially since I live here.”
Big Mac rose to his hooves then paused. Something about her seemed familiar. He couldn’t quite place it, not until he glanced at the nameplate on her shirt. It read Seed.
“Babs?”
The police filly looked at the stallion curiously. “Do I...know youse?”
The filly was much older than she had been the last time he saw her, but there was no mistaking the dark caramel fur, two-tone red mane and tail, green eyes and freckles. The only true difference was the police shield she carried as her cutie mark, complete with an embossed apple. She looked to be about Applejack’s age.
“Uh...maybe not directly,” the stallion said cautiously remembering his Aunt’s reaction. “Ah’m Macintosh Apple.”
“Then you’d be from my mom’s side of the family. I didn’t think there was many of youse left, let alone any unicorns.” She smiled, “Say, why don’t youse come on up for some coffee. Ay’m just getting off shift an’ Ay could do with some friendly company.”
“Y’all sure it a good idea bringin’ a strange pony inta yer house?”
“S’okay! Ay gotta nose for when some pony’s slinging shit my way and when their being honest. Your story ‘feels’ right. ‘Sides,” she said bringing a hoof up to her hip and patting her sidearm. “No pony messes with me when Ay’m packing Old Pete here.”
“What about yer aunt and uncle? They weren’t happy to hear from me earlier.”
“Screw ‘em,” she replied. “They may own the building, but Ay still pays them rent and they can’t say jack about whose I let into my own place.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open, allowing Macintosh to step into the lighted foyer and out of the cold darkness of the street. He shivered slightly, ruffling his wing feathers in the process.
Babs saw this and her eyes went as wide as saucers. “Wings? Youse got wings? Holy Canarsie...You’re...you’re...an alicorn!” she whispered intensely.
“Uh...Eeeyup?”
“QUICK. We gotta get youse outta sight...NOW!” She shoved hard against Big Mac’s flanks, until they were next to a door marked with a large letter ‘B’ on it. She unlocked it, then practically bum rushed her larger cousin inside before closing it more with a bit more force than normal. Instead of turning on the light, however, she busied herself dashing around pulling down every window shade in the place. It was only after the room was completely obscured from the outside that she flipped on a small lamp in one corner of the room.
“Ah don’t understand. What the problem with ma bein’ an alicorn?”
Babs looked at him in a sideways kind of way. “Geeze... Where have youse been the last ten years? Hiding on the bottom of a lake? Ain’t no alicorns allowed in Equestria since I was a foal.”
“What about Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?” he asked.
“Never heard of no Luna,” Babs said as she put on a kettle. “Celestia disappeared the day Nightmare Moon took over. It was months before anypony knew what happened to her, ‘cept maybe Queen Nightmare.”
“Didn’t the Elements o’ Harmony defeat her?”
“The Elements of Whosits?”
“Harmony,” Macintosh explained. “Six mares that went inta the Everfree and brought back magic powerful enough ta defeat Nightmare Moon.”
“Ay heard about them, Ay think. A bunch of mares from Ponyville followed this wacky unicorn who claimed to be Celestia’s student. She led ‘em into the Everfree then got herself and her cellist friend killed falling off a cliff. Without her to lead ‘em the others gave up and came home.”
Macintosh shook his head. “That ain’t right. Twilight weren’t killed, Applejack saved her.”
“Applejack...Youse talking ‘bout my cousin, Applejack Apple?”
“Eeeyup.”
“No way!” Babs replied. “She wasn’t even living in Ponyville at the time. She moved in with Uncle and Aunt Orange after her Granny Smith passed away.”
Now it was Big Mac’s turn to stand there, looking sideways at the young mare. What was happening? Everything she said rang as the unvarnished truth, but none of it was. It couldn’t be. The stallion knew more about the adventures his sister had with her friends than anypony else, but none of that seemed to matter. Somehow, his whole life had changed, as had Equestria’s history.
“Hey...youse okay?”
“Nnnope.”
The whistling of the kettle drew their attention to the kitchen. Babs quickly scooped up a couple of mugs and looked at Big Mac. “Coffee or tea?”
“Uh...tea,” he replied absent-mindedly.
As she fixed a cup of tea for Mac and an extra strong instant coffee for herself, Babs couldn’t help but worry. Everything the strange alicorn had told her was true. She knew it, all the way to the tips of her hooves. But it wasn’t possible. How could something be absolutely true but not true at the same time? She passed the tea to her ‘guest’ and took a contemplative sip on her own drink. “Is your drink any good?”
Macintosh nodded. “Eeeyup.” He looked back at Babs, his voice thick with choked up feelings he was trying to hide. “So Equestria is under the rule of this Queen Nightmare?”
The police mare shook her head. “Not anymore. She was deposed after about a year.”
“What happened?” he asked fearfully.
“Well, things was pretty bad during that year, what with living with no sun. Crops wouldn’t grow and a lot of ponies starved. We lost about a quarter of the population of Equestria and might have lost more if we hadn’t learned to grow moon flowers.”
“Moon flowers?”
“That’s what we call mushrooms. We also discovered there was some kinds of mosses we could eat, though the flavor was kind of....missing. It was really tough”
“Who deposed Lu... uh, Nightmare Moon?”
“Youse can imagine how crazy things was in Canterlot, what with the coup and Queen Nightmare’s insane decrees. Anyways, all the chaos she created wound up waking HIM up.”
“HIM?”
“We don’t say HIS name...it might attract his attention,” Babs whispered. “He’s too busy entertaining himself over in the Gryphon Kingdom to bother with us, at least for right now. Just kind of leaves running the things to us, more or less. Unfortunately, what was Equestria is now a loose confederation of city-states.”
Big Mac took a thoughtful sip on his tea. He was pretty sure he knew who his cousin was referring to. The mug in his hoof trembled slightly with suppressed anger. Thank Celestia he hadn’t tried levitating it earlier because if he had there’d be a tea stain on the wall right about now. “What happened next?”
“Well, the first thing HE does is turn Queen Nightmare to stone. He then brings back Princess Celestia and turns her to stone as well. He sets them both up on like a pair of bookends just outside the main entrance to the royal palace. After that, HE outlawed alicorns and ordered any who were found had to be arrested on sight.”
“Then y’all are taking a big chance with me,” the stallion replied.
“To tell the truth, Ay try to ignore as many of that snake’s edicts as Ay can safely get away with. HE’s screwed up Equestria enough with his own brand of insanity. Chocolate rain, molasses snow, days that are never the same length. It’s crazy enough out there without enforcing equally crazy laws. ‘Sides, youse family.”
“And Ah thank ya fer that,” Bit Mac replied. Something occurred to him. “What ever happened ta Princess Cadence?”
“No one knows,” the police mare replied. “She disappeared the same day Nightmare Moon took over. Rumors say she was imprisoned by the Nightmare, but Celestia’s captain of the guard helped her escape and they’re hiding. One story even has them married and living happily in some idyllic chrystal palace somewhere in the far north.”
“Eeeyup.”
“Youse know something ‘bout that?”
“Just rumors, like y’all said.” Big Mac took another sip of his tea and tried to calmly sift through a whole range of conflicting emotions. He thought about what Babs had been telling him. Everything seemed to change with the death of Princess Twilight and Nightmare Moon’s return. The thought of his Luna still trapped by that evil spirit made him cold inside. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He still had to nail down exactly how things had gone wrong, and that would involve some very personal questions.
“Can you tell me more about...Applejack, and her big brother?”
“Yeah, I can tell youse anything you want to know ‘bout Applejack. But to the best of my knowledge she never had no big brother. It’s too bad too. If Granny Smith had had somepony able to help her she might not have lost Sweet Apple Acres or passed on so early. I think losing the farm kinda broke her heart.”
Big Mac simply looked at Babs, not believing what he was hearing. How could she say that? Of course A.J. had a brother. He was her brother! “Are y’all sure about there bein’ no older brother?”
“Absotively posilutly,” she replied. “She did have a little sister by the name of Applebloom. But they were split up when Granny Smith passed away. She would have been my age ‘bout now.”
“Would have been?”
“She was sent to live with her cousins in Appleloosa. The whole town was wiped out by the Nightmare Queen when it rebelled ‘gainst her a couple of years ago. No pony survived.”
Big Mac slowly shook his head. “Nnnope!”
“No what?”
“Nnnope! It didn’t happen! None o’ it. It cain’t be true.”
Babs looked nervously at the alicorn. “What can’t be true?”
“Yer story...it ain’t possible. Applebloom cain’t be gone. Sweet Apple Acres cain’t have failed.”
“Youse saying I made all this stuff up?”
Again the stallion shook his head. “Nnnope...Y’all are telling the truth, but even though it’s the truth, it ain’t true. Luna NEVER would have destroyed a whole town o’ ponies like that. Ah know her...she ain’t evil like that!” Mac’s voice shook with repressed emotion. Fear, anger, confusion all mixed together within him.
“Whose Luna?” asked Babs as one hoof quietly crept up towards her service belt.
“Princess Luna, ma fiancé. We’re goin’ ta be married sometime in the next few months.”
“But there ain’t no Princess named Luna,” Babs insisted. “There was just Celestia and Cadence. ‘Sides... It was Queen Nightmare who destroyed Appleloosa. Not some Princess named Luna.”
“Princess Luna WAS Nightmare Moon!” Macintosh blurted out. “She’s Celestia’s sister. She was possessed by an evil entity that was driven out by the Elements o’ Harmony. Ah know! Applejack was there. She told me all about it. She’s the Element o’ Honesty!”
“Why would Cousin Applejack confide all this with youse?”
“Because AH’M HER BIG BROTHER!” The stallion looked over at the police mare and noticed she had her service revolver drawn, but was pointing it at the floor, her mouth agape.
“You’re telling the truth,” she half-whispered.
“So are you.”
“But we can’t both be telling the truth. One of us has to be lying... or crazy.”
“Well,” muttered Big Mac, “Ah’m not crazy and yer not lyin’.”
“And youse ain’t lying and Ay’m not crazy,” she added. “That only leaves the rest of the world. Maybe every pony else is crazy.”
“About now, Ah’m almost ready ta believe that.”
Babs holstered her weapon then went over to a cabinet above the stove and pulled out a large bottle of amber liquid and two glasses. “Ay think we needs to loosen our brains a little so’s we can wrap them around this conundrum better.” She filled each glass with about two inches of the liquid, then passed one to Macintosh.
This time the stallion did levitate the drink towards him. He downed it in one quick gulp, something he normally didn’t do, even with the hard cider at home. Babs did the same. The drink burned going down and seemed to evaporate enroute to the stomach. “Not bad,” he muttered, levitating the glass onto a nearby table.
“What do youse mean, not bad?” the mare responded. “That’s genuine Blue Grass Bourbon. Brewed and bottled before Ay was even born. It’s the good stuff.”
“Eeeyup... but it don’t hold a candle ta Sweet Apple Aged Cider.”
“Maybe not, but then there aren’t many places brewing aged apple cider anymore, except Flim-Flam distilleries. Ay prefer my bourbon. It’s normally pretty hard to get, but A.J. brings me a fresh bottle from time to time.”
“You’ve seen Applejack?”
“Occasionally. We kinda keep in touch, though Aunt and Uncle Orange won’t have anything to do with her no more.”
Macintosh hesitated slightly, almost afraid to ask the next question. “How’s she doin.?”
Babs poured herself one more inch of bourbon, then capped the bottle and put it away in the cupboard. She contemplated the drink for a moment, then downed it as quickly as the first before looking at Big Mac.
“She’s doing well enough.” There was another moment of hesitation. “She works over at a place called the Carousel Boutique over on 42nd Street.”
The stallion sat up and took notice. “Ah know a place with the same name back where Ah come from. It’s a clothing boutique run by a fashion designer named Miss Rarity Belle. She must have moved her shop from Ponyville. Never thought Applejack would ever be involved in the dress making business.”
Babs chuckled some. “Well, youse got the owner’s name right, and the fact she came from out of town, but your sister ain’t no dress maker.”
“She’s not?”
“No,” Babs said, chuckling a little more. “Youse see, the Carousel Boutique ain’t a clothing store... It’s a bordello.”