The Siren

by McPoodle

Chapter 4

Further down the road, Applejack was just entering the grounds of Sweet Apple Acres when she was suddenly joined by her third cousin. Applejack gave the newcomer a glance, noting that she was no longer wearing the outfit or makeup she had on when she arrived in Ponyville.

“Cousin,” Lemon Peel said.

“Cousin,” Applejack answered.

They were approaching the farmhouse.

“Ah, how should I address the Matriarch?” Mrs. Peel asked.

“Same as everypony else,” Applejack said as she crossed into the living room of her house. “We don’t hold much stock in titles, Agent.”

Peel rolled her eyes. “Understood.” She turned her head to see Granny Apple sitting in a rocking chair right before her. Big Mac was standing sternly at her side and as Peel watched, Applejack took her place on the opposite side with a matching expression of doom.

“Granny Smith,” Peel said with a deep bow. “It is an honor.”

Granny chuckled. “We don’t hold much stock in empty gestures, neither. You owe no fealty to me, Cousin.”

Peel nervously cleared her throat. “Ahem. That was in small part to make up for a lack of communication for the past—”

“—Thousand moons?” Granny Smith asked pointedly.

Applejack put on a rather satisfied smile at seeing Lemon Peel’s discomfort at this statement.

“Shall I drop my…” She gestured at herself with a hoof.

“Since when has that become a custom of the Lemon Clan?” Granny asked.

“Err…well…I wasn’t sure what sort of customs the Apple Clan might have imposed in the interim.”

“I can name on my four hooves the number of times in the past hundred moons that I’ve needed to look any different from the way you see me right now,” Granny Smith said with some pride. “The Apple Clan works the same as the Lemon Clan. Better, even, since so few know our secret. We live off of the honest love of those we honestly protect.”

Lemon responded to this last statement with a raised eyebrow. “Really.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked in a low voice.

“Aren’t the Apples responsible for the very monster attacks you’re protecting ponies from?” Lemon asked lightly.

Big Mac had to hold Applejack back from lunging at Lemon in response to that question.

“Is that the way Lemons run things back in the Isles?” Applejack accused.

“We can’t control the monsters. Nopony can,” Big Mac stated calmly.

“We have more reason to stop those monsters than anypony,” Applejack said.

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“They killed our parents.”

That shut up the smug Lemon. “I’m…I’m sorry. That was very presumptuous of me.”

Granny sighed deeply. “You’re forgiven. Now please get on with the reason why you’re here.”

“Erm…yes,” Lemon finally said. “So, if you’re willing to overlook both of those grievous faux pas, we of the Lemon Clan would like an update on your current state of infiltration with the ponies of Ponyville. How have you managed to keep your secret from so many ponies for so long, here in the very heart of Equestria?”

Applejack shrugged. “There are some who know. And those few can be trusted without question. As for the rest, why should anypony suspect us? We are the perfect Equestrians. We provide a vital service for Ponyville and other towns, and the apples from our orchards are loved by ponies rich and poor. Having so many orchards then explains why we Apples live scattered across Equestria—we’re taking the long view.”

“That’s right,” affirmed Granny Smith.

“I appreciate that,” Peel said. “Speaking for the Lemon Clan, we appreciate that. And now we need to know the rest. How, with so much exposure, are you keeping your…our secret? The Lemons desperately need to know.”

Granny, Applejack and the silent Big Mac shared a confused look. “What changed in the Griffish Isles?” Applejack finally asked.

“You don’t know?” Peel asked in disbelief. “Has Princess Celestia really kept the activities of Night Lancer and the OEDC a secret from even you?” She pronounced the acronym as “ode sea”.

“I thought the Outer Equestria Development Corporation was your problem, not ours,” Big Mac said.

Peel looked with surprise at Big Mac, as if unaware that he was capable of speech. “Not anymore. After decades of successfully stone walling them, they were finally driven out after a government investigation into Lancer’s exploitation of the Griffish Isles. They left for good a few months ago.”

Granny nodded thoughtfully. "I remember hearing stories as a filly of all of the awful things that the Lancers did to everypony on the Isles because they thought they could get away with it. What happened to Night Lancer?”

“He didn’t go to jail, if that is what you were hoping,” Peel said bitterly. “But his company was nearly driven to ruin. I hear they are off on the opposite end of Equestria, chasing after an orichalcum mine in the middle of nowhere that probably doesn’t exist.” She put on an evil grin to add, “I like to imagine that slimy toad Lancer being forced to wield a pick like the common ponies he despised, out in the hot desert sun.”

“So, it appears that congratulations are in order,” Granny said. “But that doesn’t explain what you need us for.”

“When OEDC were forced out, the Equestrian government took over their debts,” Peel said, “and Princess Celestia assumed direct control of the settlement of those debts.”

Applejack and Granny groaned in unison. “I think I know where this story is heading,” Applejack said.

“After settling the debts, the Princess determined that the best way to continue improving the standard of living in the Isles was if they were annexed to Equestria.”

“Yup,” Big Mac said with a sad shake of his head.

“She eventually manipulated affairs to the point that we had to agree to be annexed. Any other action would have been too suspicious.

“That was a week ago. Now we need to get our affairs in order as soon as possible, before the influx of ponies exposes our existence to the world. You’ve pulled it off for decades. Now the fate of us all depends on keeping our true identity a secret from the ponies.”

Granny nodded grimly, a flash of green fire washing briefly over her eyes. “Nopony must ever learn of the existence of Changelings in their midst,” she declared.

---

A few minutes later, after Lemon Peel had been situated in the guest room on the second floor of the Apple farmhouse, Applejack went down to the ground floor of the barn. Seeing the pet dog Winona resting in a corner she gave her a belly rub. Then she walked over to a corner of the barn not visible from outside, opened a secret door, and stuck her head down into the underground passage. “Have you finished your studies, Bloom?” she asked.

The yellow head of a filly with a red mane popped out of the hole. Its pink bow was easily bigger than the head. In her mouth was an open book showing a pony bucking an apple tree. She put the book down and looked up. “Sure, thing, Sis!” she exclaimed with a lighter version of Applejack’s accent. “What do you think of the bow?” She clambered up out into the barn and into the late-afternoon sunlight which was providing illumination through the open barn door.

Applejack backed up a few steps. “I think it looks fine, Bloom. Mighty fine. Now show me Winona.”

In the time it took to blink, Apple Bloom had been replaced by a copy of Winona, with barely a flash of green light.

Applejack shifted into another dog, a greyhound. She walked carefully around Apple Bloom’s Winona impersonation, taking sniffs in a few locations. Bloom’s eyes watched the proceedings with rapt attention as she remained perfectly still.

There was another flash, and Applejack was a pony again, with Apple Bloom following suit. “Very good!” Applejack exclaimed, which caused her sister to hop excitedly from one hoof to another. “High marks on that assignment.”

“That was fun!” Bloom exclaimed. “Although…not so fun for Winona when I was studying her.”

The dog whined a bit when the sisters looked at her and laughed.

Applejack looked back at Apple Bloom. “You forgot the bow, though,” she observed.

“No, I didn’t,” Bloom replied, turning to pick up the bow lying on the ground. “You said that it’s safer not to include clothing items in the transformations.”

Applejack nodded, smiling with pride. “That’s right—I did tell you about that. Musta slipped my mind. You’ll be passing yourself off among ponies any day now.”

“Any day” couldn’t come fast enough as far as Apple Bloom was concerned.

Seeing how much Bloom was working herself up, Applejack said, “Mrs. Peel has moved in.”

“Yeah, I felt her coming in,” Bloom said. She was referring to the sense possessed by all changelings that allow them to detect the locations of other beings based on the emotions they were radiating. Changeling emotions were distinctly different from pony emotions. “She felt…different from us Apples. Are all Lemons like that?”

“Lemons are not all the same,” Applejack replied, “but Mrs. Peel’s family will feel like her.”

“When is her son coming?”

“In a couple of weeks,” Applejack said. “Pipsqueak only just underwent his maturation transformation.”

“So, he has to learn how to be a pony just like I am?” Bloom asked.

“That’s right,” said Applejack.

“I can’t wait to talk to other ponies!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“Patience,” Applejack cautioned. “You’re nearly ready. Patience. Now let’s go outside and try putting your bucking theory to practice.”