An Apple By Another Name

by Sky McFly

Flesh

“How’d ya like yer first Apple family cobbler?” the orange pony asked. The other three looked up expectantly at me.

“Mmmm,” I mumbled, my mouth too full of the warm, juicy filling to form words. All four ponies exchanged knowing smiles.

“Whaddya say we get out some o’ those board games?” the orange pony asked, turning to the other three.

“It’s as good a game night as any,” the big red pony said.

“I’ll get Mane-opoly!” the little yellow-green filly squeaked and ran out of the room.

The elderly green pony got up and moved slowly into the living room while the orange mare and the red stallion went to the sink to wash dishes.

At the sound of barking outside, the red pony glanced up from washing dishes and looked out the window.

“Uh, Applejack,” he said slowly, “ya may wanna take a look at this…”

“What’s up, Big Macintosh?” Applejack asked.

“Appears our farmhouse is surrounded by about a hundred critters… They look kinda like our guest here,” Big Macintosh replied.

The bite of cobbler I was chewing no longer tasted as good as it had before. I suddenly felt sick.

The barking continued, and then suddenly ceased.

“Winona!” Applejack gasped in horror. It was clearly a struggle for her to resist the urge to run outside to the dog. Instead she turned to me. “What in the hay is goin’ on here?” she asked.

“They’re after me because I left the Swarm,” I whispered.

Without hesitating, Applejack said, “Then we’ll hide ya in the cellar. I’m sure they’ll leave when they realize yer not here.” She turned to the living room and called, “Granny Smith! We gotta open the cellar!”

“I’m afraid it’s too late!” Granny Smith’s voice called back. She reentered the kitchen, but now she seemed to be standing up straighter and was grinning with a very un-Granny-like grin. There was a flash of green light, and in Granny Smith’s place, the changeling I feared most towered above me.

“Your time is up,” Queen Chrysalis hissed at me.

“Where’s Granny?” Applejack demanded.

“Oh, that little old pony?” Queen Chrysalis cackled. “She’s in the cellar.”

Suddenly the kitchen windows shattered and dozens of changelings swarmed in. Applejack and Big Macintosh struggled, but the sheer numbers of the changelings were enough to overcome them.

The filly returned to the kitchen and screamed, dropping the box she was carrying at the sight of the changelings that now filled the room. “Would you like us to kill them, Queen?” the changeling that was restraining me asked.

“Not yet,” the Queen answered. “I have a different punishment in mind for the deserter…”

In a way, I had lost my mind.

Any memories I may have once had of being a changeling now only remained as scattered dreams and nightmares, which had admittedly become clearer since I heard the truth, but could still never replace a lifetime of memories.

I could’ve sworn I was an Apple to the core. I felt not only at home as a pony, but at home at Sweet Apple Acres. I could remember my fillyhood, learning the ropes of apple-bucking, moving to Manehattan and earning my cutie mark, and meeting the five best friends a pony could have. But if what the changeling said was true, then all of these memories, all of the values I had grown up with, all of the love for my family and friends belonged to somepony else. If Queen Chrysalis had replaced my memories with the life of another pony, then how much of my personality was truly mine? And if I had somepony else’s mind, then who was actually thinking these thoughts?

The barn door creaked as I pushed it open.

Outside, the sky was the brightest of blues and sunshine streamed down from above. I wished the weather would have the decency to be cloudy for once. I just couldn’t understand how the sun could keep shining and the birds could keep singing after my entire world had come to an end. But I guess it was the job of the pegasi to bring the clouds, and they were all dead. Everypony in Equestria was dead, and it was all my fault.

The inside of the barn was cool and full of shadows. I swept the scattered hay out of the way and bent down to pull on the handle in the floor. The trapdoor opened, sending motes of dust dancing through the beams of sunlight. I lowered myself down into the stone cellar, which was stacked with crates. I opened a crate full of cider that had been distilled during the previous winter, and began to pack my saddlebags with the cold bottles.

Then I left the barn and went for a walk through the meadows surrounding the farm. I stopped when I reached a small pond in the shade of a weeping willow and sat down in the soft grass. I opened a bottle of cider and drank half of it in one gulp. I didn’t want to think anymore. It was all too much for me to take.

I downed the rest of the bottle and tossed it aside. Maybe I would just leave it there. There was nopony left to care about littering.

I lay down on my stomach with my chin resting on my front legs and stared at my reflection in the pond.

I was proud of a lot of things, but I had never considered being a pony something to be particularly proud of. But I was proud to be a pony. Or at least I had been, back when I was a pony. I was proud to be unique. I was proud of my cutie mark, which showed my devotion to my family and my hardworking, down-to-earth nature. I was proud of the expressiveness of my apple-green eyes, how they could appear sassy, sultry, or sincere. I was proud of my smooth, unblemished legs and the little freckles that dotted my cheeks. I took pride in my long, flowing, straw-colored mane. Though most of the time, I tied it back for convenience and allowed it to get unruly in general, on special occasions I enjoyed doing it up, or giving in and letting Rarity have fun with it.

But all of this was just an illusion.

Was any part of me real? Was anything mine? I was living in a stolen body, with thoughts and memories that were not my own. I was exiled from my real race, which apparently felt so little like a home to me that I risked my life to escape it, while the ponies who had been family and friends to me were all dead.

There was nothing left for me.

I opened another bottle.

Comments

[FluffyDoom]

Now that I give it a little thought... dude if all those ponies are dead, you got a BIG plot hole
Seriously, changeling feed off of love, and ponies are the most loving race, and if you killed all the ponies. Well guess what you did? You had the changelings kill off a major food source.
Plot aside, so far so good.

[Sky McFly]

4930037 Thanks for your comment! I thought someone might bring this up. I had thought about trying to justify this in the story and came up with the following ideas:
1. If Chrysalis has the power to transfer memories from one pony/changeling to another, then it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect her to be able to siphon the love out of every pony and store it away before destroying them.
2. The “alternate universe” tag may imply that this is a universe in which changelings are driven by hatred for ponies rather than a hunger for love, or just that they don’t need to feed off of love.
3. Maybe Chrysalis has such severe anger issues that she didn’t realize what a huge mistake she was making because she was so intent on punishing a single traitorous changeling.
But I wasn’t quite satisfied with any of these explanations and thought it would be kind of hard to work them into the story anyway. So I decided that instead of going to the trouble to try to explain away the plothole, I would just ignore it and hope nobody notices. I apologize if that’s a lazy way to write. I hope it doesn’t ruin the story for anyone.

[FluffyDoom]

4944443 Read your messages :D I got the answer there!

[PaulAsaran]

The changelings have always terrified me...

If Chrysalis has the power to transfer memories from one pony/changeling to another, then it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect her to be able to siphon the love out of every pony and store it away before destroying them.

...but this only scares me even more.

Wiping out all of ponydom still doesn't make sense though, especially as an act of revenge against a single rebellious changeling. I cannot under any circumstances imagine the Changeling Hive going along with such a suicidal decision. Even if Chrysalis can store the love, it's going to run out eventually, and then what are the changelings going to do? Wipe out another, less love-filled race like the griffons?