Words were not enough, and neither were explanations. No matter how many times Applejack tried to tell her that this would only be a temporary arrangement, she still didn’t believe it, even though she’d normally trust her relative through just about anything. Everypony around Coco tried to tell her things would be fine, that they wouldn’t let him get too far this time, but even that was just noise to her. She tried to focus on something, anything, that would take her away from the undeniable truth. First, it was her daughter’s voice, only to find that Babs had gone silent. Then, it was trying to speak on her own, only to meet with the same result.
She kept telling herself to stay strong and stand her ground like she had that night, the last time she’d seen him. But somehow, the shock of seeing him now—when he should’ve been out of her life to begin with—muffled not just that, but everything else around her except for his voice.
I don’t blame you for anything, Mosely had said as soon as he saw her, before she’d taken her train ticket without even looking back. A few hours without him was really the least fate could do, what with the way it seemed determined to block her in all directions it could.
You were under pressure, and you felt there was no other way. If you didn’t do what you did on stage that night, you wouldn’t be quite so well off as you are now.
That, Coco thought as she watched Manehattan disappear from the train window, was probably the only thing he was right about. She had been pressured to turn him in, and that much she couldn’t deny. Really, she ought to have known better than to think he’d understand, but somehow, hearing that brought her back to her naïveté. The way she’d been just after she first met him. Yet somehow, he always had a way of surprising her, and what he said next, she could barely even comprehend.
I get what it’s like now, to have a family that always pushes you to do what you don’t want. They were the ones that got you into this, and it started as soon as you checked into that hospital. Once they got you alone, they decided they wanted to turn you against me. I still haven’t pieced together everything about why they’d want that, or why they’d want to lie to you for that matter, but I won’t stand for it.
This time, I’ll definitely fight for you.
You don’t have to be under their spell anymore.
They were pretty words, for sure. But coming from Mosely, even beautiful things like that could be twisted until they corrupted or broke down. And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered how a pony could really be that delusional, not to realize that everything she’d been doing up until now, she’d done for her family. To think that she’d honestly throw something like that away for some stallion who’d only double-cross her in the same way he accused those closest to her of doing.
After I get all this sorted out, we can go back to the way we were before.
That was assuming there was even a before to begin with. That much was just about the only comfort Coco took in the entire situation—the only thing that’d kept her clinging to Mosely’s side had disappeared. With him in jail and with Wright taking his place, the blackmail agreement was effectively voided. And without leverage like that, there was no way in Tartarus he could bring her back to him, no matter how delusional he was.
As she took in the scenery without saying a word, she could just feel Babs budging in the seat next to her. Though the others hadn’t responded to Mosely’s presence right away, seeing as they were just as surprised about it as she had been, they’d certainly acted quickly about it, making sure neither of his two biggest victims were seated anywhere close to him.
Thankfully, they’d worked something out with the conductor, and now he was seated straight at the back of the train, strangely staying put for once. Instead, Coco sat between Babs and Cameo, a mare she still had some reservations towards but who had assured her that she would play no petty tricks on her. For the most part, Coco had been willing to believe her, if only because the two seemed to have so much in common and it would be better to get along with her for Babs’ sake. Bambi was sitting on the other side of the aisle, chatting with a green earth pony mare she’d never seen before. Judging from the two mares’ similar figures, though, Coco supposed the stranger was likely a relative of some sort.
A few seconds after asking the other two ponies beside her if they knew the unfamiliar mare, Coco instantly regretted it. Cameo, who she thought had seemed awfully tired to begin with, had her eyes closed and her head pressed against the chair’s front. Nopony around would possibly think she’d asked her instead of Babs.
“Never seen her before in my life,” the filly muttered. “Not even at the reunions, and every Apple goes to those. She probably isn’t the kinda mare who’d accept either of us.”
At that point, sayings like that were essentially a signal between the two of them, one that always translated to the same thing. Coco continued to stare at Bambi and the other mare, waiting for a cutie mark to come into sight. Forgetting to do this had been her most consistent mistake when encountering a member of the Orange family, and as long as she fixed that, spotting one would be effortless.
Keeping herself from approaching them and washing away her beliefs that at least one of them had to be a good pony like Bambi came harder. But for now, at least, it was for the better.
“Did any of those ones from the jewelry store try to hound you again?” Babs asked, keeping her voice to a whisper in case Cameo could still hear.
“No. But for all I know, they could try again at the reunion.”
Both ponies turned their eyes towards the landscape, trying their best not to think about the catastrophe that was just about to ensue. The clouds were clear, but they could both see the storm approaching.
“Anyway, I’ve got it planned out,” continued Coco. “That one, Belladonna, did say that I could refuse if I wanted to. So unless there’s a bigger trick to this whole thing, all I have to do is tell her no, and it’ll be the end of it. I may not like turning anypony down, but if it means having to keep siding with the ponies who called you illegitimate, I think I can definitely make an exception.”
“They didn’t all call me that,” Babs countered. “I never even got to know most of them.”
And yet somehow, Coco still feared. As much as she tried to see the good in them, just seeing them made her protective instincts go haywire now. Some ponies would say that she should consider them as different entities from Mosely, that they were innocent until proven guilty. As far as she knew, though, they were already convicted as soon as Bambi let her know how her father hadn’t been a plague upon her family.
He was just another symptom.
“I know they didn’t,” Coco whispered. “I know ponies can change, too, but what you said was probably right to begin with. It wouldn’t be good for either of us right now to talk to any of them.”
She let out a tiny, barely audible sigh before finally giving voice to her worst fear.
“Besides, out of all the Oranges we have to worry about, the ones from Cameo’s store barely even scratch the surface. And I’ll make sure to protect you from every last one of them if I have to.”
“And if he tries to make a move on you,” Babs replied, “I’ll do the same.”
“He really thinks you guys have manipulated me into leaving his side. I…doubt he’s going to go easy on any of us, but you and the rest are the ones I’m worried the most about.”
Just then, Babs stopped looking out the window and looked straight into Coco’s eyes, almost willing the sadness out from inside them.
“This time’s gonna be different, though. Everypony knows now, and everypony will be around to see. I tried my hoof at mystery-solvin’ as a Crusader, and I know that the culprit always waits until nopony’s lookin’ to strike. They make themselves look like a regular pony and expect nopony to see. But now that he’s probably gonna be watched like a hawk, there’s no point in committin’ any crimes. So as long as we keep doin’ that, we’re gonna be safe…probably.”
Coco knew all too well what that meant. As much as her daughter’s ideas might’ve applied to regular criminals, she had a bad feeling that Mosely could be different. He’d already lost everything, so what more could he lose if his restraint ebbed away?
That, plus the delusions he’d already begun to have, made her question whether seeing him as a harmless prisoner would count as letting her guard down. In any case, she’d will herself into enjoying the reunion as much as possible while still keeping an eye out, watching at all times for whenever he might strike.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe her family was finally out of the woods. Maybe, if they weren’t, everypony would manage to keep any permanent damage from being done.
Once more, Coco’s mind was filled with uncertainties. But she knew one thing for certain.
This time, I’ll definitely fight for you. You don’t have to be under their spell anymore.
A week in prison, watching everything he’d built crumble around him, and Mosely still hadn’t changed a bit.
Already bracing herself for what she knew was about to happen, Coco trotted away from her family as soon as she got off the train. While it’d been something she’d gone over with all of them already, it was still a shock for everypony, herself most of all. But if she had any hopes of making it through the day in one piece, she had to think on her hooves and ask herself the one question she never even wanted to consider.
What would Mosely do in a time like this?
Babs’ talk of detectives and such had given her this idea, one that she’d managed to formulate only a half hour before the train reached Ponyville. To get past a criminal, the first thing you needed to do was to understand him, if only a little. Saying that Coco had no desire to take it even further than this was an understatement. Just enough to throw him off and distract him from the obvious would suffice in this case.
And even if it wouldn’t, she had no desire to lose herself right after she’d finally found everything again.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Bambi asked skeptically just after hearing about the plan.
No, Coco wanted to say. I’m not a schemer. I don’t like adventures. Let’s just ignore it and have fun at the reunion just like we would any other time. Please.
“Of course I will,” she said instead. “As long as I can keep him away from you guys, anything’s fine with me.”
“What about what happened that night? Doesn’t he still think you betrayed him?”
No, she thought about answering. But the truth is worse. If you know why he’s still defending me, you wouldn’t believe it. Especially not from your own father’s mouth.
“I’ve managed to convince him. I had this sort of thing planned all along, ever since I found out he’d be here.”
“But are you really ready for this?”
I’m not. Celestia forbid, I’m not. I want to kick him to the moon for what he did to Babs, and to me, and to everypony. But when I look at him, I just end up going to the past. I can’t. I’m sorry.
"That doesn’t matter,” Coco answered. “It’s up to me this time to make sure the reunion’s safe. And this time, I intend on being a hero.”
I won’t stand by. Not anymore.
As soon as Babs, Bambi, and Cameo made their way towards Sweet Apple Acres, Coco made her way towards somepony else and began her act.
“Hello again, Mosely,” she whispered to the yellow earth pony standing next to her. “I’ve really missed you, you know.”
*
***
Somehow or another, Coco’s ‘lying curse’ seemed to have subsided, if only for a day. Trotting towards the main farmhouse to hear the opening ceremonies, she couldn’t help but notice that everything seemed to have gone back to the way things were a month ago, for Mosely at least. He’d barely needed any manipulation to believe she’d really gone back to his side, something that was either pure hubris or utter stupidity on his part.
What she had staged was a classic play technique, one that allowed a pony to be in two places at once. She’d split her activity between the Apples and the Oranges, taking care not to privilege one over the other. She’d appear oh-so-shocked when Mosely would be expelled from the family and lend him a shoulder to cry on, while everything inside her would be thanking the stars above.
Sure enough, everything at the event seemed to be broken apart between families, as much as it was supposed to be a reunion. It wasn’t the huge one Babs had told her about a while back, but it had many of the same activities. Just after the opening ceremonies, everypony split into groups, none of which had members from both families. The dividing lines were clear and not to be broken.
One thing was even clearer, though: neither side wanted anything to do with Coco as long as Mosely was by her side. Pitied glances towards her, hostile glares towards him. He’d told her the Oranges had already disowned him, but that didn’t stop him from trying for at least a half hour to get their attention.
In the meantime, the mare from the train stood nearby, examining the flowers the Apples had planted around their barn. She took each one under her hoof and carefully examined the petals, but even then, her blue eyes, clouded with confusion, were still turned towards her fellow Oranges.
Just after Mosely had finally given up, he noticed the mare just behind him, still caressing the plants.
“Valencia,” he muttered, his voice taking on the same commanding tone he would use on his former employees, “you know what your parents would think if they saw you playing around with those right now.”
With a start, she whipped around to face him, her nerves clearly shot from the way he’d seemed to sneak up on her.
“I understand completely, and it won’t happen again,” Valencia answered, trying to regain her composure. She’d puffed herself out and now stood erect in front of both of them. “And besides, they’re your parents too, you know.”
“Not anymore,” Mosely answered. “It’s…complicated. If you haven’t heard about it by now, you probably will. It’s been all over the papers, no matter how much everypony in our family’s been trying to hide it.”
Both mares gave confused glances at this point, one about the news itself and another about just who this mare was.
“Haven’t you heard?” Valencia questioned. “I was in Fillydelphia all week, patching up a deal with the Reining Terminal Market. Now that we have the biggest open-air food market in Equestria on our side, we’re sure to succeed. Just watch the other fruit families try to top that!”
“So you’re in charge of those sorts of thing in the Orange family?” Coco asked. “My mom makes those kinds of negotiations with her store, but I always figured a lot of you would be more involved in farming operations like the Apples.”
“Do we look like we are?” Valencia answered, chuckling slightly. “While I do admire the Apples for keeping everything in-house and in-family, that’s not quite how things work in Manehattan. Our farms are all around undeveloped territory surrounding the city, and let’s face it, it’s a ways to commute. So we do our best to manage and manufacture things on the urban side, and leave the rest to skilled, highly paid workers. It’s how we got from way down at the bottom of the fruit families all the way up to number two.”
Turning towards Coco and whispering in her ear, she continued, “But between the two of us, we will be number one. Even if the Apples are our family now, that won’t stop us from chasing the top.”
“I do apologize about that,” Mosely muttered with a sigh. “My twin’s always been a bit of the single-minded type. In the way we operate things—or used to operate things—that’s part of the territory.”
“Anything else is just a distraction,” Valencia agreed with a smile.
Sizing her up, Coco could barely believe she hadn’t noticed the similarities between the two sooner. Both kept their manes exceptionally short, though Valencia’s was slightly spikier than Mosely’s smoother manestyle. They looked at her with the same blue eyes, identical exactly to the shade. Even their cutie marks seemed to match. If it weren’t for their different body builds, the only way Coco would’ve been able to tell the two apart was the white ribbon on Valencia’s head and their opposite colors: the yellow of Mosely’s fur dying his sister’s mane and the green of her fur coloring his own.
“Anyway, the way I see it, and from what I’ve heard from the other Oranges, things seem to be looking pretty well for us,” Valencia rambled on.
“I’m sure I’ve probably heard all the gossip about it already,” Mosely answered with a chuckle.
“Oh, I know you have. I’m explaining for your marefriend here.” She winked at Coco. “You know, we Oranges have consolidated two other families already. My darling husband’s from the Prench Framboise division of the Berry family, and Mosely—well, his deal with the Apple family didn’t end quite so well, unfortunately. But what matters is that we were able to turn that around and keep being a part of their dealings, and hopefully we can catch a few of their secrets along the way.”
Coco merely stared at her blankly as she prattled on. No matter how seriously the Oranges might’ve taken the issue, to an outsider, it was nothing but a dry and boring dispute.
“You won’t tell the Apples we’re out to get them, will you?” Valencia said with a chuckle. “They’ll understand that it’s nothing against them. We’ve had that number one slot coming for generations, ever since a certain ancestor managed to botch everything for us.”
Predictably, she didn’t even wait for Coco to answer before assuming what her response would be.
“Um, could I ask you something?” Coco finally piped in.
“Of course!” Valencia replied.
“Why are you telling me all this stuff that should be secret? With all due respect, did you have too much to drink at the cider station?”
With another one of her signature grins, she gave only a single response.
“Because, Coco,” Valencia whispered, “as far as I can tell, we’re already family. And before you say anything about this just being a temporary relationship—we Oranges stay with our loved ones for life. So we don’t choose lightly.”
Finally, Valencia noticed another relative beckoning towards her and left with a gallop.
“It was nice meeting you, new pegasister-in-law!” she called out to Coco as she disappeared into the distance. “Next time, I’d like to hear a bit more about what you do!”
In that moment, Coco truly regretted leaving everypony behind more than she ever had. Even minutes after the ‘pegasister-in-law’ remark, her left eyelid was still twitching, and she sincerely hoped Mosely didn’t notice how sick she was suddenly feeling.
“And that,” Mosely muttered to her, “is what Orange brainwashing does to ponies. Funny how I barely even noticed how much it messed her up until…you know.”
You do your fair share of brainwashing yourself, she wanted to say.
“So you’re saying I’ll end up like that if I get into your family?” she said instead. “Always thinking about the business end of things and never the relationship end?”
“That’s right. I’ve heard about them trying to recruit you, and…I’d really advise that you not consider it. I’ve seen the way they use ponies before. If you’re not careful, you could turn into one of them.”
“Like you’ve never done the same thing?” Coco asked, her routine suddenly breaking into shreds. She placed her front hooves over her mouth in embarrassment just after saying it, hoping more than anything that he would still believe her even after the outburst.
However, instead of an angry glance, all she got from Mosely’s eyes was a sort of rare sympathy from him.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I mean, I understand. Of course your family’s thoughts are still going to influence you, just like they still do with Valencia. I should know how hard it is to get rid of them, but I’ll still give it everything I can to try by any means necessary.”
For the first time in the whole day, the full scope of Coco’s fear came rushing back to her. The emphasis on ‘by any means necessary’ said it all; she really wasn’t overthinking things. He had to be planning something here, and right now, all he was doing was biding his time in the most pleasurable way he could.
Once again, she was little more than a pawn for his bigger plans. But, then again, when had she ever been anything more?
“If you knew you weren’t going to be accepted here,” Coco questioned, “then why come all this way for nothing?”
“For you, of course,” he answered. “But between us, I do have other purposes in mind.”
Taking a moment to gather her courage, she finally asked back, “Then what are you planning?”
“You really do believe them, don’t you?” Mosely whispered, placing a hoof underneath Coco’s chin. “Then, I’ll tell you. In forty-five minutes, I have to go to a meeting with the Apples, where I appeal to them to keep me in the family. They didn’t exactly tell me what the meeting was for, but I can figure it out from there. I’ll put everything on the line to convince them, for their own good and for mine. But if they side with that foundling of yours instead, things will have to get a bit more…complicated.”
With that, he suddenly moved away from Coco as if he expected her to rear up and attack him over such a threat. Celestia knew she wanted to, at least.
Even then, though, she knew she’d gone too far. Any further and she’d move down the line from just being skeptical to being outright suspicious, and she couldn’t afford that. All she could do now was wait for the inevitable and brace herself for a fight.
With a tiny pause, she finally spoke, “Shall we change the subject?”
“Of course.”
Wracking her mind for harmless questions, she found one within the thoughts she’d had only a few moments before.
“When Valencia was looking at the flowers,” she said, “why did you turn her away?”
For once, even Mosely was at a loss for words. It was clearly a question that nopony had ever even thought to ask.
“She has bad allergies, that’s all,” he replied.
Only a lie could answer that sort of mystery.