A wave of relief washed over the Cutie Mark Crusaders when the moonlight revealed a wholesome helping of Apple family, served in a haphazard pile down an alleyway. Applejack, her hat cast into the dirt, was writhing and mumbling under a respective heap of Big McIntosh, Granny Smith, and cousin Braeburn, who had been visiting from Appleoosa.
“—offa me!” Applejack choked. “Y’all had too many apple fritters after dinner! I cain’t breathe under here! An’ who went and tracked a buncha dirt into the house!?”
One by one, the fallen Apples dusted themselves off and got their bearings. They were set upon by the three terrified fillies almost instantly. The young crusaders tried to tell their tale, but the words congealed into a writhing mass of babbling about the Headless Horse, apple orchards in the middle of the night, and a number of accusations as to whose fault it all was. Applejack gathered the fillies around her and put on a reassuring smile.
“Now now, don’tcha fret none,” she cooed, “whutever’s goin’ on, big sis’ll have it all cleared up in two shakes of yer tails. Never you worry.”
“Hey cuz?” Braeburn, who was standing near the perimeter of the thatched magic wall, reared up and smacked it with more force than any of the crusaders could muster on their own. “Ah think the young’uns may have been onto something. Looks like this thing’s got us lassoed into town tighter’n a hogtyin’.”
Applejack frowned and turned to Big Mac, who had his face stuffed in an incorporeal café table like an ostrich. “How ‘bout all the stuff around here? Anything that ain’t…well…not really there?”
“Eeenope.”
The Element of Honesty straightened her hat and spat on her hooves, rubbing them together. “Well, I ain’t gonna take bein’ shut in like cattle lyin’ down. Ain’t no wall was ever made that could stand up against Bucky McGillicutty an’ Kicks McGee. Ah’ll have us back home ‘fore the rooster’s even up!” Stretching her aptly named hind legs one at a time, Applejack approached the wall, spun around, reared up, and delivered a blow solid enough to buck the apples off the largest tree in Sweet Apple Acres, all at once.
Nothing happened. All eyes fell on the hapless apple farmer.
“That wus just…a warmup,” Applejack betrayed a moment of uncertainty before rearing back again, this time tight enough to snap out a blow that would split a smaller apple tree clean in half. “Y’all get ready to mosey on back to yer beds!”
Applejack found herself lying on her side in the dirt moments after the slamming noise finished reverberating in everypony’s ears. She rubbed her hind legs and winced, waving off offers of help and looking as embarrassed as she felt.
“Ah’m a’raight. Sorry everypony. Ah must be tired from the day’s haul or sumthin’. I guess mebbe this here wall is—”
Before Applejack could finish her thought she was smooshed into the dust again, this time with a muzzle full of something soft and violet. Choking on the half breath she had left, she grabbed at the foreign substance that was dominating her vision and pulled at it from below until she could free her nostrils and replenish her lungs.
“Whut th—??” Coughing once again, she batted the dust out of her lashes and gazed up to see what had unceremoniously assaulted her from above. Her eyes widened.
“…Twilight?”
“Applejack?” The form atop the orange farm-mare, now given shape and name, stared right back down at her, looking no less bewildered. “What’s going on? I was just brushing my mane out before bed, and…” Twilight glanced around, “Apple family? Girls? How did I get outside?”
Applejack blew out a snort at Twilight’s rump. “If y’all wouldn’t mind endin’ yer time as the fourth pony to appear out of the sky and crush me t’night, ah’ll tell ya all we know.”
Sheepishly Twilight removed herself from her friend and helped the felled Apple back to her hooves. When the tale was recanted for the second time that night, Twilight furrowed her brow in thought and examined her hoof as it passed straight through a set of storm doors.
“Incorporeal substances…probably a magical barrier…and you’re saying all of you were getting ready for bed at the time this happened?”
The assemblage nodded.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Twilight went on. She glanced at the three fillies, who were all trying to keep from looking any adult in the eye. “I don’t know how you girls did it, but somehow whatever effect you activated must have pulled us all straight through our mirrors to…” she glanced at the wall above, “…wherever this is. The effect must not be localized either, since it brought me here as much as it did all of you.”
“W-we didn’t mean it!” Sweetie Belle squealed, wrapping her forelegs around both of her friends and dragging them in to ensure the blame was shared. “This isn’t what’s supposed to happen when you call for Shipshape!”
Twilight adopted a typically inquisitive expression. “…and that’s another thing. What’s this ‘shipshape’ thing you all keep mentioning? I admit there are a couple of Equestrian legends even I probably don’t know, but you’re all going on as if it’s the most common thing, and I don’t recall ever having read about any of this before.”
Applejack raised a brow. “…ya ain’t never heard of Shipshape?”
Twilight shook her head.
“Shipshape?” Applejack repeated. “Very special someponies? Th’kinda thing colts and fillies tease each other with?”
“You just told me it was new to you too,” Twilight riposted.
“W’ll sure it is,” Applejack replied, an expression of vague pity on her face. “Ah mean, all this gettin’ sucked through mirrors and some ghost town and whatnot. But everypony what’s anypony knows ‘bout the whole ‘shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’ in front of the mirror and see your very special somepony’s face thing. Ah mean…y’have to have at least heard of it.”
“Ah heard of it!” Applebloom called out, raising her hoof high. “Just I thought it went different. But ah did hear about it, sure.”
Twilight’s stare was as hollow as the tree she used to live in. She turned to the assemblage. “You’ve all heard of this too?”
“…eeeyup.”
Braeburn, who was still poking at the rippling thatched wall with a hoof, blushed slightly. “C’mon now, everypony played around with that when we were small. But nuthin’ ever really happens. Sure’n not all this.”
“Wait a second,” Sweetie Belle perked up. “Applejack, what did you just say?”
“‘Shipshape, shipshape, everypony’s got a date’, sugarcube. Why?”
The crusaders cast glances at one another. Applebloom spoke first.
“Ah thought it was everypony needs a date.”
Applejack snerked out a breath. “Aw, don’tcha all fret girls. It don’t matter how ya said it. It’s just a silly old nursery rhyme.” Pausing, she glanced at Twilight, who was lost in self-depreciating mutterings regarding her ignorance. “…it don’t matter how they said it, raight?”
“How should I know?” The violet alicorn rolled her eyes dramatically. “Apparently I’m the most in the dark pony here. If it’s some sort of magic incantation I guess that’s possible, but—”
The burst of nigh-maniacal cackling that rattled through the quiet town instantly disrupted everypony’s thoughts and forced their attention towards the old green nag, who had been until now peculiarly quiet. Granny Smith was alive with glee so uncharacteristic, it sent chills down the spines of all the observers.
“Yew young’uns’re so busy chasin’ yer tails that y’ain’t never gonna have yerselves a good time!”
“Good time?” Twilight repeated, “Granny Smith, what do you mean?”
Twilight’s inquiry was met by another chorus of laughter that sounded like appleseeds being shaken up in a tin can. “Aw, they done changed the words a coon’s age ago ‘cause they thought us young’uns were up t’no good, but Shipshape’s still Shipshape! Ah ain’t never heard it said th’raight way since yer auntie Applesauce, Apple Rose ‘n me wuz prowlin’ fer stallions! Hoo-wee!”
“Prowlin’ fer—” Applejack touched the brim of her cap, just to have something solid to hold onto in this illusory landscape. “Granny, whut’re you sayin’? You know whut’s goin’ on?”
“A’course ah know!” Granny Smith, despite her frail figure, was dancing in place to a hoe-down only she could hear. “This here’s Shipshape! Ah ain’t shipshaped since the back forty were all saplings, an’ mind you me, everypony’s gettin’ a date! Wooo!”
Applejack was planning to ask her grandmother if she knew a way out of the strange echo of Ponyville, but she lost the ability to form words when the nag grabbed Braeburn, spun the hapless stallion around, and planted a kiss so romantic on his lips that both Applejack and Twilight felt the need to shield the eyes of the fillies. When Granny Smith finally came up for air, Braeburn collapsed into a twitching mass in the dirt.
“Yee-haw!” The old nag announced, “That there’s sweetern’ a ripe gala! C’mon colt! Let’s show ‘em what Shipshape’s all about!” With purely adrenaline-infused strength, Granny Smith hefted the shocked, white-eyed form of the Appleoosan up on his knees and forcibly locked her lips with his a second time. The poor stallion could do nothing but flail helplessly.
POOF
In that instant, both excitable nag and mortified stallion simply popped out of existence. Applejack broke the full minute of shocked silence that ensued.
“Whut…whut just happened?”
Applebloom’s jaw was practically in the dirt. Her words were nothing but internal monologue given voice. “…mah granny just kissed mah cousin…an’ that weren’t no ‘hey how ya been’ sorta kiss…”
Twilight felt eyes on her. “What…?” She stammered, trying to cover the blush on her cheeks. “D-don’t ask me!”
“Well,” Applejack pointed out in exasperation, “ye’re usually the one we all turn to when some weirdo thing happens that nopony else can explain. And whut just happened t’mah granny and mah cousin is a dern weirdo thing, that ah sure as the apples on mah rump cain’t explain at all!”
“I-I told you I don’t know!” Twilight took a calming breath and placed a hoof on her chest. “Look, just…let’s all just calm down. There has to be a perfectly rational reason for what’s going on here, and what we just saw. I’m sure there is. If we just think it over.”
Applejack imposed herself between Twilight and the gossiping fillies, who were already throwing around every theory from voodoo to alien abduction. She lowered her voice. “Better think fast, Twi. Far as I can tell we cain’t touch a single thing here, an’ that means we cain’t eat or drink a single thing here, neither. And that wall out there is as solid as a herd of stampeding buffalo on the Appleoosan plain, whether or not y’can see raight through it.”
“I know,” Twilight responded, her perturbed gaze going back and forth between the eldest remaining Apples. “I’ll…think of something.”
The moon hung high. The air was unsettlingly still.