Hoofed by Your Own Petard

by Tortfeasor

Our Doubts are Traitors

Hoofed by Your Own Petard

Disclaimer: If I owned stock in Hasbro I could say I own some infinitesimal part of My Little Pony.

Chapter Fifteen: Our Doubts are Traitors

Applejack was clearly related to her brother, sister, and grandmother. It was perhaps an obvious statement, but Twilight had never met Applejack’s family before. Applebloom was close to cuteness incarnate and showed every sign of knowing just how dangerous that made her. Big Macintosh was probably the biggest pony Twilight had ever seen. She supposed that a lifetime of working on a farm combined with hearty food might do that to a pony. Granny Smith joked that she was older than dirt and she spent most of her time sleeping, but Twilight got the sneaking suspicion that she was smarter than everypony else in the room combined.

Rarity had tearfully latched onto her sister when they’d arrived at the farm and had refused to let go. After being together with her for so long nopony was surprised at the over the top drama coming from Rarity. Twilight had heard enough from Rarity about Sweetie Belle to recognize her on sight but she was still surprised at the family resemblance, but for the two-tone mane and olive green eyes Sweetie Belle was Rarity in miniature. She didn’t seem to be as much a drama queen as her older sister, but Sweetie Belle seemed perfectly content to cry along with Rarity.

Twilight was pointedly reminded that she hadn’t had word from her parents since before the Summer Sun Celebration. She hoped, and thought, that they were safe from all this and after they got the elements and brought back Celestia she could make sure they were okay. For not even the first time that day she hoped that some miracle would keep her from running into Shining Armor until this was all over. She hoped beyond hope that going so long without meeting him meant that Nightmare Moon had no clue they were related, but long and hard experience had taught her how dangerous hope was.

The others were quite content to stand watching and drink in the sensation of not being in imminent danger for the first time in an unpleasantly long while. The happily reunited families however were determined to share their joy. The resulting ponypile, unsurprisingly she thought, had Twilight Sparkle at its bottom.

“Can’t breathe,” she croaked from the bottom of the pile. It took a little bit for her words to penetrate but once everypony knew what she was saying they jumped off her.

“Sorry about that,” Applejack had barely participated in the pile for obvious reasons.

Granny Smith whacked her on the head. “Yer brains didn’t get rattled out there. Talk like ah raised you and not a fancy city pony. And howdy to the rest of ya, welcome to Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Yes Granny Smith,” Applejack’s drawl made her sound like a completely different pony. “Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, y’all know Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. This here’s Rarity and Twilight Sparkle, they’re helping us with… well y’all know what we’re up to. We’re here fixing to do something, so ah’ll get into bed, rest up, and we can head out before you know it.”

“Pleased to meet you, and thank you so much for taking all of us in on such short notice.” Twilight made sure to get the pleasantries out of the way before turning to Applejack. “I know you want to come with us, but Nightmare Moon is looking for us. And if we stay in one place for too long we’re going to wake up one morning to find an army surrounding us. I’m sure we can find a way to mark our trail that Trixie and Gilda can’t follow so you can catch up to us when you’re better.”

“Pish-posh,” Granny Smith scoffed, “everypony here knows what a bad apple that Nightmare Moon is. If she wants to send any of her ponies here she’ll have to go through everypony in Ponyville. Even if she does come here we’ll know about it with plenty of time to spare. I wouldn’t go setting down roots here quite yet, but you don’t have to let Nightmare Moon run you out of here just as soon as you got here.”

“Oh, um, that’s good to know.” Twilight was used to failure, but not being shot down so quickly or thoroughly. “What do you think girls? Can we afford to spend a day or two here and still get where we need to go?”

She carefully avoided mentioning where they were going or what they were looking for. What Sweetie Belle and Applejack’s families didn’t know they couldn’t be forced to tell.

“You know that Trixie and Gilda will be there before us.” Granny Smith didn’t look like she cared for Rarity’s ‘fancy city speech,’ but not being related to her there wasn’t much she could do about it. “I think we’ll be better served by planning our way through this the way we did back in Manehatten. And I certainly won’t object to having some more time to spend with Sweetie Belle.”

The others nodded agreement and Twilight sighed at being unanimously outvoted.

“Okay, but don’t get too comfortable. We still might have to leave in a hurry, and we’ll still want to leave as soon as possible.”

“Oh don’t be such a party pooper Twilight,” Pinkie Pie giggled, “this is our first chance in like forever to let our manes down and relax.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Twilight whispered as she followed the others towards the farmhouse.

As much as she wanted to leave right away Twilight found it hard to argue with a real home cooked meal after weeks of canned food and even grass. She felt a little guilty for eating food that she didn’t know if Applejack’s family could spare or not, but if they were worried about more mouths to feed showing up on their doorstep they hid it well.

“I hate to talk business after such a delicious meal,” Twilight patted her belly to show just how delicious she thought it was, “but if we’re going to be staying here for a few days it would be a real help if we could take a look in the town library.”

Twilight had in mind looking at any maps of the Everfree Forest she could find as well as seeing if there was anything more she could learn about the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters.

“Nnnope,” Applejack’s brother said.

Twilight waited close to half a minute of silence before asking, “Um, why not?”

“Y’all can go to the library,” Granny Smith answered, “but it’s just an empty tree. About a week after the sun went away a bunch’a goons in black robes showed up and took everything out of there. Books, papers, even the statues and paintings, it’s all gone.”

“Gone? But without knowing where we’re going we’ll never find the…” Twilight stopped herself before she could say anything everypony would regret.

“It won’t be that bad Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “All we need to do is find where all the guards and Nightmare Children are going and we’ll know where to go.”

“Not quite what I was hoping to hear,” Twilight sighed, “but thanks for the thought anyways. I guess we’ll have to spend as much time as possible while Applejack’s getting better thinking about what we’re going to do.”

“You could try Zecora,” Applejack’s sister piped up.

“Zecora?” Twilight was unsurprisingly unfamiliar with the name.

“No,” Applejack said in her Manehatten tone before going on in a drawl. “Everypony knows that Zecora is a bad apple. Ah only spend a couple of weeks a year here in Ponyville and even ah know that. Twilight’s a smart pony. She’ll find another way to get what we need.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she was even close to being as capable as Applejack was saying but Apple Bloom shot back before she could demur on the praise.

“No she ain’t. She’s just a zebra, and she lives in the Everfree Forest. So everypony thinks she’s evil or something. She’s just different, and she won’t hurt anypony unless they try to hurt her first. Plus I bet she knows all about the forest, so she might know about what y’all are looking for.”

“Apple Bloom’s right,” Sweetie Belle came to her friend’s defense and shrugged off Rarity’s effort to keep her quiet with a hoof on her shoulder. “Zecora’s just trying to get by like any other pony, or zebra I guess, and she’s not hurting anypony. I bet she doesn’t like the sun being gone any more than we do. I’m sure if you give her the chance to help she’ll help you.”

“Nnnope.” Big Macintosh seemed to pack nearly a lecture into that one word.

“That’s right Big Macintosh,” Granny Smith seemed to understand that lecture. “I’ve spent all my life around the Everfree Forest dagnabbit. It’s a bad place any anypony, or zebra, who wants to live there is a bad apple.”

“That’s not true!” Apple Bloom was remarkably unfazed by her grandmother’s glare. “It’s not. Have you ever seen Zecora do anything evil? Ah mean have you ever even talked to her?”

“Don’t need to talk to none of those Nightmare Children to know they’re evil,” Applejack pointed a hoof at her sister. “And ah don’t need to talk to Zecora to know there ain’t nothing good in that forest.”

“Um, excuse me.” Fluttershy proved brave, or crazy, enough to enter the argument. “I don’t know whether this Zecora is evil or not, and I don’t know whether or not her living in the Everfree Forest has anything to do with whether or not she’s evil. But I don’t think she likes the sun being gone any more than we do. Even if she doesn’t like us that much she might be willing to help us fight Nightmare Moon. But if we keep thinking the worst about her then we might just make her want to help Nightmare Moon.”

“Ah ain’t saying I believe you,” Twilight still couldn’t believe how different Applejack sounded, “and I ain’t saying I don’t believe you. But what do we do if we go see this Zecora and it’s a trap?”

“Then it’s a trap,” Fluttershy said, “and we can be ready for that. But Trixie and Gilda probably already know we’re around here, and they know what we’re here for. So even if it is a trap, as long as we get away they won’t be any better off. And if we can get this Zecora to show us where we need to go then we won’t have to spend days wondering around the Everfree Forest hoping we don’t run into Trixie, or Gilda, or any of the things in there that could gobble us up in one bite.”

“I’m with Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said to nopony’s surprise. “I mean for pony’s sake I’ve screwed up more times in my life than I think anypony can count. If I just went off what everypony said about me I’d probably say I was evil too. I say we at least give her a chance.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie smiled, “I’ve never had a party with a zebra before. I’m going to need to learn a bunch of new songs, and I’ll need new party favors, and oh, I wonder what zebras eat? Now I really wish we could get into the library. What if I say something wrong, or zebras don’t like pink hair, or what if they don’t even like parties? Oh now I’m so worried!”

Pinkie Pie grabbed onto Rarity’s hoof and started worrying. The white unicorn was clearly not sure what to make of her friend’s actions and so did nothing.

“Y’all are grown mares,” Granny Smith grumbled. “Even you Applejack, ah think. And if’n y’all want to runoff and get yerselves killed then fine.

“I guess that settles it then,” Twilight said, “we’ll let Applejack get better and then we’ll go see Zecora, and from there… I guess we’ll see what we do from there. Thanks again for letting us stay here. I wish we could tell you what we’re doing, but it’s probably best for everypony that we don’t say anything.”

“Eeeyup.” Big Macintosh was clearly not a stallion of many words.

--

Was there any good in marking a difference between day and night when the moon was perpetually overhead? Twilight Sparkle supposed that ponies still needed to sleep, and a clock to know when stores and such opened. And, she thought, so that ponies like her could complain that they were up all night without sleep without sounding plain silly.

Her job meant that Twilight had long since become used to staying up late. But for once she wanted to get to sleep and she couldn’t. Ever since the Summer Sun Celebration she’d normally been so tired at the end of a day she fell to sleep almost before her head hit the ground. But for some reason tonight was different.

Her crazy and insane plan was actually coming together and she was worried that she’d be the pony to drop the ball. All her friends were so talented and accomplished that she didn’t know how a pony like her had ever fallen in with them. All she could do was heft around a lot of magic, and, well… shake her rump. In a fight the risk that her inexperience with magic could hurt her friends, innocent bystanders, or even guards who were attacking them against their will was too great. Yes there was their fight with the Ursa Minor, and she was incredibly proud of herself, but circumstances like that were a major exception to the rule of how things normally went for them. Her second, talent was really not the right word, was only marginally more useful. It had proven useful earlier today, but she still felt dirty having done it and there were far too many ways it could have gone horribly wrong for her to count on it ever working again.

And there was always the fear that she might lose control of her magic again. Pinkie Pie had helped her get over it, but at the back of her head she kept seeing that horrible destroyed landscape of her dream. She knew it was just a dream, but the possibility that it could ever come true… well, there maybe there were worse possible worlds than the one Trixie had made for her back in Manehatten.

Before the Summer Sun Celebration Twilight had loved the night. It was probably a bit of a requirement to live in the undercity and not go insane from the perpetual darkness. But if they actually brought back Celestia and the day she’d make it a point to spend a lot more time under the sun. She supposed that was a bit unfair to the night since it was Nightmare Moon who had made the sun disappear. But for pony’s sake she wanted to feel the sun on her fur again.

Wait, what was that close to the farmhouse? Was that somepony walking around? Twilight had plenty of faith that the Apple family and the ponies of Ponyville would do their best to keep Nightmare Moon from sending any ponies to attack them, but she had a bit less faith about how good their best would prove to be. There was definitely somepony moving around the farmhouse. The figure was moving slowly to avoid notice, but they hadn’t counted that somepony like Twilight might spot them from farther out.

Twilight started sneaking back towards the farmhouse. She had to move slowly and quietly to not draw attention to herself, but the figure she was stalking didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss. She hoped it was a Nightmare Child out there. A royal guard wouldn’t be able to answer any questions under Nightmare Moon’s mind control.

The full moon made it easy to see the silvery gray mane of the pony walking around the farmhouse. Twilight smiled, it wasn’t a royal guard. The pony was even humming as it confidently walked around. Oh this was going to be so easy. She’d capture the Nightmare Child and with only a little luck they could find out everything they needed.

“Howdy there Twilight. Out for a late night stroll?”

Twilight almost tripped over her hooves at the voice. “Granny Smith?”

“In the flesh. At my age ah’m up when ah’m up and ah sleep when ah sleep.”

Twilight didn’t have an argument against that.

“Still,” Granny Smith sighed wistfully, “it’s mighty good to have ponies visiting. Farm can feel a mite empty with just the three of us.”

“How do you keep this farm running with just three ponies?” Twilight asked. Even with only moonlight to see by she could tell that the acres part of Sweet Apple Acres was not just in the name for kicks and giggles.

“Ha, I wasn’t always older n’ dirt you know. Besides, Applejack comes back to help her family when she can. And we usually have enough left over to hire on a few hooves every harvest to help buck all the apple trees. Oh we had a few hard years when she left. Apple Bloom was still just a foal, Big Macintosh wasn’t big yet, and the spring was going out of my step even then. But family looks out for family and we made it through.”

“Applejack’s lucky to have such a wonderful family,” Twilight smiled. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to her parents? I’ve never heard her talk much about them.”

“They died,” Granny Smith answered bluntly. “But her aunt and uncle took her in like she was their own, and we’ve always been pleased as pie at everything she’s done. Even if they’d lived though I think Applejack would’ve left the farm sooner or later. She was always digging for the truth, and a small farm wasn’t the best place for that.”

“I wish I knew what I was supposed to be so good at.” Twilight looked sadly back at her blank flank. “It’s my crazy idea we’re counting on to beat Nightmare Moon and this sort of thing isn’t my talent at all. My friends, and everypony, are counting on me to save the world, and I don’t think I can do it. I’ve screwed up everything I’ve ever done before, and I mean everything. I just know that something is going to go wrong before the end and it’s going to be my fault.”

Laughter was not the reaction Twilight Sparkle was expecting.

“I’m sorry. But when you live as long as I’ve lived you see lots of things, and you aren’t the first pony I’ve seen thrown in way over her mane wondering if she’s up to the job. Back when I was a mare about your age Ponyville wasn’t much of a town. In fact it was just a few houses of ponies who’d come out to trade with the farm and decided to stay. Y’all are gonna head into the Everfree Forest in a few days, and if you think it’s dangerous now you have no idea how bad it was when Ponyville was new.”

“I don’t know,” Twilight couldn’t help herself, “I’m kind of expecting everything in there to try and kill us.”

Granny Smith fixed her with a withering look. “Back when I first came here things didn’t stay in the forest to kill you. This was all their land before we came and took it and you’re plenty dumber than you look if you think they just let us have that land. There were more of them back then too. You think one hydra is bad? Try seven at the same time! And then there were the griffons. Canterlot used to be the end of Equestria and the griffons didn’t claim the Everfree Forest but they used it plenty. When we started moving into the Everfree Forest they didn’t take it sitting down either. Lots of good ponies went into that blasted forest and never came back.”

Twilight had read about this part of Equestrian history before but hearing about it from somepony who lived it was quite different.

“But a lot more ponies found out they were a lot stronger than they thought they were. They went into the Everfree Forest and made homes for themselves, and more than that they stayed there. I won’t say any of it was pretty. And that the ponies going into the Everfree Forest didn’t do lots of things they probably weren’t too proud of later. But even if they could have handled things better at least they didn’t roll over and give up. What I’m saying is I don’t expect y’all to do everything spit shiny clean and perfect, but don’t y’all go giving up on fighting Nightmare Moon just because it gets a little tough.”

“Thanks Granny Smith. I think I get what you meant. I think I can get some sleep now. Unless you’d rather I stay up with you.”

“Off to bed with you. I’ll sleep plenty during the day, but you’ll probably be hopping like a cricket till you go to sleep again.”

“Good night,” Twilight said as she left the elderly pony and walked into the farmhouse.

It was easy to find her way around the farmhouse with the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Of course if there weren’t any moonlight Twilight could have always used her horn to light her way. Applejack’s rapid healing may have been a fantastic example of earth pony magic, but Twilight wasn’t going to give up her horn for anything.

A yawn escaped her as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom. She’d be fine after some sleep but it had been a long and tiring day. She paused as she walked past Fluttershy’s bedroom. Was there noise coming from the room? She didn’t think Fluttershy was prone to insomnia, but if she was Twilight could help her get to sleep before going to her own bed.

Moving slowly to keep the floorboards from creaking and waking somepony else Twilight made her way to Fluttershy’s door. Just as she was about to softly knock on the wood Twilight heard soft laughter from within and the door opened to reveal Pinkie Pie.

“Hi Twilight!” Pinkie Pie broke into a huge smile. “Are you here for a party? Because I was totally thinking we should have a we’re so excited to be here that we can’t sleep party! And now there’s three of us here so we can go get the others! So do you wanna get this party started?”

“Ah, no.” Twilight didn’t think she’d get used to Pinkie Pie’s energy if she lived to be twice as old as Granny Smith. “I mean I can’t sleep, but it’s not because I’m excited, and I don’t really want to celebrate not being able to sleep.”

“Oh,” Pinkie Pie seemed to deflate before her eyes, “okay.”

“What were you doing in Fluttershy’s room?” Twilight quickly said in an effort to take Pinkie Pie’s mind off being sad.

Twilight was glad to see Pinkie Pie perk back up. As far as she knew the only thing scarier than happy Pinkie Pie was sad Pinkie Pie. “Well, I was thirsty so I went downstairs to get some water, and let me tell you this farm has some great water. So once I got a drink I was ready to go back to sleep. Because I love to party, and partying takes lots of energy, and sleeping is a great way to have energy! Anyways, I came back up the stairs and I heard Fluttershy crying. Now if there’s one thing that really sets me off it’s ponies being sad. So I decided to do something about it. Because what kind of friend would I be if I saw one of my friends being sad and didn’t do anything about it? I came in and saw Fluttershy having what must have been a really bad dream. I woke her up and before you know it I had her smiling, and laughing, and back to being the Fluttershy we all know and love!”

Even if it were somepony other than Fluttershy, Twilight would have been unsurprised at her not speaking a word. Once Pinkie Pie got on a roll it was just this side of impossible to get so much as a word in edge-wise.

“Are you going to be okay Fluttershy?” Twilight glanced at the yellow pegasus barely peeking out from under her covers.
“I think so,” came the muffled reply. “I’ve been having nightmares for several weeks about all the animals freezing to death or starving because there’s no sun. I didn’t want to bother anypony about it because we have so much to worry about. Pinkie Pie finally made me talk about it, and made me realize how silly my nightmares were because we’re so much bigger than all the creatures I’ve been dreaming about so if anything was going to die first it would be us and we’ve been fine out in the wild.”

“Pinkie Pie does do that,” Twilight said. “I think she’s probably helped almost all of us through one kind of nightmare or another and made us laugh the fear away.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Hehe, it’s just like my Granny Pie used to say. Giggle at the ghostie and all those silly fears will go away.”

“I wish it was always that easy,” Twilight sighed, thinking of everything they were up against. “Anyways get some sleep girls. We’ll be busy tomorrow getting ready for when Applejack is better, and once she is better I don’t think we’re going to have much of a chance to rest until this is all over one way or another.”

Comments

[Evilpresident]

Granny Smith is best apple!
I loved the scene with her and Twilight.