This wasn’t Berryshine’s first time in the Ponyville jail. In fact, she was its most frequent occupant, thrown in the drunk tank night after night and released with a fine in the morning. She’d actually talked the constable into letting her buy new sheets and a softer pillow, though he’d balked at letting her keep part of her reserve there.
All that was going away now, she supposed. As the constable silently led her past empty cells, she pondered what it would be like in the real prison up in Canterlot. All she had to go on were rumors, but if half of what she’d heard was true, one night that could have been perfect had just bought her several very miserable years.
She followed the constable into the seldom-used interrogation room. Waiting at the table was a stallion she hadn’t seen before, a short earth pony with white fur and a red mane. He was wearing a blue overcoat that hid his cutie mark. To her surprise, he smiled politely at the sight of her.
“This could be your lucky day, Berryshine,” the constable snarled. “The victim hasn’t decided yet whether to press charges. I don’t know why, but he asked for his friend here to talk to you first. There’s little precedent for this, but no rule against it, and the victim takes priority—even if I’d sooner just toss you in prison.” He turned to the stranger. “I’ll be waiting just outside the door. Give me a holler if you need me.”
He slammed the door behind him, leaving Berryshine alone with the stranger.
“Hello, Berryshine,” the earth pony said softly. His voice was quite deep, but he was making an attempt at being gentle.
With her strange new senses, she snuck a peek at his aura. Even from outside the door, the constable’s hatred made her feel ill, but all she could pick up off the stallion in front of her was a vague confidence and friendliness. He wasn’t at all mad at her. That wouldn’t do.
“Who the hay are you?” Berryshine asked.
“You can call me Little Red. I’m a friend of the Cakes, and I’d like to ask some questions, if that’s all right with you.”
“And if it’s not all right, I go to Canterlot,” Berryshine said acidly.
“I’m sorry about the constable,” Little Red said. “This won’t be like a trial or anything. I know you’re scared, and I want to help you. I just need to . . . understand.”
Berryshine wasn’t accustomed to being this sober, and she wasn’t in the best of moods at the moment. She stomped up to the table and glared into Little Red’s eyes. “I did it because I wanted to,” she snapped. “That enough for you?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Little Red said evenly. “Mr. Cake was at his wits’ end when I talked to him. I tried to edge around the subject, and everything just poured out of him like I’d pulled a cork. He doesn’t want to press charges, and he doesn’t want to put you in prison, but he’s afraid it’s the only way to protect his family. If he thought you were just evil, I don’t think he’d be so conflicted.”
Berryshine’s eyes widened, and she felt something thump in her chest where her heart used to be. “Are you saying he still—” She choked on something in her throat. Still cares about me? she thought.
“N-not in that way,” Little Red said, looking flustered. “I don’t think so, anyway. But he wants to help you. I want to help you, too.”
Berryshine cursed at him, just a few words she’d picked up from a diamond dog. He stared stonily at her, his composure restored, and for a while, they stood in silence.
“You can go back to your cell any time you want,” Little Red said. “You don’t have to tell me anything. You’ll go off to Canterlot, and everything will come out in public.” He leaned on the table, shortening the distance between them, and his voice grew slightly louder. “There’ll be all sorts of rumors that Mr. Cake let you do it. There’ll be rumors about Mrs. Cake, too. Even the foals might get dragged into it.”
Berryshine sighed. “You first.”
“Um, what?” Little Red asked, drawing back slightly.
“Who are you?” Berryshine demanded. “What’s your deal? Why do you want to help me so much? You tell me, and I’ll tell you.”
“Like I said, I’m a friend of the Cakes.”
Berryshine just glared at him.
“To be honest, I’m friends with Pinkie Pie, too. She really wants to help you, but she’s afraid she’ll say the wrong thing.”
“So you’re just their friend from out of town, come to save the day?” Berryshine asked. “There has to be more to this. Unless . . . wait, I have seen you before, haven’t I? You just looked different then.”
Little Red’s expression hardly changed, but another quick peek at his aura picked up a spike of fear. “I’m not trying to deceive you or anything,” he attempted. “I just thought it would be easier for me to talk like this.”
She pressed her advantage. “Why? I’m not pretending to be anypony else. Why do you have to pretend in order to talk to me?”
Little Red seemed to shrink in on himself. “Um, I . . . Well . . .”
“Is this really about me,” she asked, “or is it about you? Do you just want to be the hero? Save the innocent young mare from her doom? I haven’t been young in years, and I’m sure as hay not innocent.”
“I think I could have been you,” Little Red said quietly.
Berryshine’s train of thought derailed and fell into a canyon. “What?”
“I think I could have been you,” Little Red repeated. “I’m not sure yet, but I think I might know why you did it. That’s why I want to help you.”
“Enlighten me,” Berryshine said. “Why did I do it?”
Little Red pulled himself together. It was barely even a figure of speech—he tucked his fear back inside himself and closed his confidence over it, like he was putting the stuffing back in a torn doll and sewing the tear shut.
“You’re Berryshine,” he said. “That’s who you are, and it’s what you are. You drink, you dance, you party. It’s what you know how to do. You don’t save bits. You’d never settle down. You just stay up all night and keep drinking.
“I was the opposite,” he continued. “I did what I should. I stayed in line. I thought that was who I was, the pony who obeyed. I didn’t even know I could do anything else.
“I was lucky. I made friends—so many friends—and they changed me. I didn’t have to be that pony anymore. But if nopony helped me, I think I would have broken. I would have done anything to change, even if it destroyed me. That’s why, isn’t it?”
Berryshine looked down at the table. Arguing further suddenly seemed like a waste of time.
“You know me and Carrot used to date, right?” she asked.
“I wasn’t sure,” Little Red admitted.
“It was right after I’d gotten out of school,” Berryshine explained. “He’s older than me, so he was already running the bakery back then. I know he doesn’t look like much, but he’s such a sweet stallion, and he seemed so mature.” She paused. “And I, well, I wasn’t. I drank too much, and I stayed up too late, and that just wasn’t his thing, so we had to break up. And now I’m older, and I’m getting so tired. He’s all domestic with his wife and foals, the kind of thing that used to make me want to put my hoof down my throat, but he seems so much happier than I am.” She sighed. “I’m such a scumbag.”
“Don’t call yourself that,” Little Red said firmly. “You’re just somepony who got caught in a bad situation.”
“It was just one night,” Berryshine said, trying not to look desperate as she stared back up at Little Red. “When that light passed through town, and I got all black and holey, I thought I could spend one night being Mrs. Cake instead of being me. The real Mrs. Cake would just have a little blank spot in her memory—” She paused. “She doesn’t remember it, right? I’m new to the whole ‘changeling magic’ thing, so I was pretty much casting at random.”
“No,” Little Red said, “but Mr. Cake told her what happened. He said he didn’t want the secret hanging over them.”
Berryshine sighed again. “I didn’t think he would snap out of it. Us together, me looking just like her, and then somehow he realized I wasn’t really her. And I know it was a terrible thing for me to do, but how do you say you’re sorry for something that big? How do I keep him from remembering it every time he sees me?”
“You leave,” Little Red said. “Appleoosa needs more settlers, and there’s room to grow in Dodge Junction. Or you could go north and try Vanhoover or Hollow Shades.”
“Or else I go to prison,” she said, “where they don’t have cider and they don’t have parties. Where this Celestia-danged cutie mark won’t matter one bit. Where I won’t be able to hurt anypony else . . .”
“You’re forgetting something,” Little Red said. His eyes flashed solid blue for a moment. “Changelings don’t have cutie marks.”
She felt like she’d just been cracked over the head with an empty bottle. “But my talent . . .”
“ . . . Is gone,” he finished. “You don’t have to be Berryshine anymore. You can make a new name, a new body, a new self. But they have to be yours, not somepony else’s.”
She stared at him. “To be honest, that sounds pretty scary.”
“Scarier than Canterlot Penitentiary?” Little Red asked.
When Little Red opened the door, he told the constable that he’d recommend Mr. Cake drop the charges. The constable was predictably unhappy about this. Berryshine wasn’t so sure what she thought of it herself.