Apples & Eyeballsby forbloodysummerChaptersAriaApplejackAria AgainAriaLush, verdant grass strewn across the land in front of her. A soft breeze brushing the tips of her ears. A cloudless sky, eager to provide all the sunlight she could ever want to bathe in. A sparking pool of water soothing her scales. A thousand or more eyes of many colours staring at her from the bottom of a lake of brine and formaldehyde. Life was good for Aria Blaze. Until, that is, a rugged brown hat popped up from behind a ridge, riding atop a freckled orange earth pony and bringing Aria’s lazy reverie to an end. Aria hissed softly and moved to haul herself back into her pool, hopefully in time to submerge and duck an awkward conversation Naturally, no such luck. “Howdy there, neighbour!” Applejack exclaimed, waving her hoof. “Twi wanted me to stop by, see how…” The frown was almost audible. “Um…” Applejack stopped at the edge of the lake. “Are those…” Aria stuck her head up just high enough to be seen. “Eyeballs. Yes.” “Ah… Ah see.” No sense trying to avoid it anymore. Aria grumbled, anchoring her pointed hooves on the shore and hoisting herself up until a good portion of her brobdingnagian bulk rested on dry land. She peered down at the bite-sized pony before her. “It’s a farm. I’m growing them.” “Now what in tarnation is that supposed to mean?” Aria covered her brow with her hoof. “Okay, keep on thinking of growing apples for a second.” “Okay. Now what?” “It’s kind of like that. Except they’re eyeballs, not apples.” “You lost me.” Aria rolled her eyes, sighing. “So, on the other side of this mirror, some really clever people came up with this thing called ‘cloning.’ Turns out, if you take one of their machines and zap it with some magic, it can grow eyeballs.” She craned her neck and gestured to a large shed not too far off, where a line of ponies slowly marched inside and a steady stream of ponies holding eyeballs in jars came out another door. “And then I sell them.” Looking back to Applejack, Aria cocked her head. “Talking of which, maybe you can help me out. At the rate these saps are buying my stuff, this plot I’ve got isn’t gonna cut it. Do you think you can—” “Woah, hold on for a second there. Why in the blazes are ponies buying disembodied eyeballs?” “You really want to know?” Without waiting for an answer, Aria bowed her head and grumbled. “So, in this other world I used to live in, there was this place called Mexico...” That was where it all began. The great ‘get away from it all’ vacation of 1994 had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, barring the part where the main two things (or ‘people,’ as they insisted on being called) in her life that she would’ve liked to get away from for a while were the two who went with her. And so the only true form of escapism available to Aria on the trip was at the bottom of a pile of bottles. That wasn’t so bad, though: the tequila had been cheap and plentiful, sunburn was hardly an issue when you healed at five times the human speed and were already kind of pinkish in colour, and bar fights just felt so much more cinematic when the majority of the locals had moustaches. But that last bit caused problems anytime she got the horn, as happened quite a bit when she was three sheets to the wind. Mainly that when she was looking for people to fuck, the sight of all those hairy upper lips made her want to poke her eyes out with a cactus. All good things, though, and other tired clichés, and after a few months the constant deluge of drinking and fighting had taken its toll on the Mexican economy, so they’d dragged their aching-in-a-good-way bodies home again, and each of them had taken something back with them from the trip. Thanks to how friendly Adagio had been with an entire family who owned some historic sombrero-making business, she finally had a custom-made hat that could actually fit on her head without squashing her ridiculous hair. Which was great, unless she also planned on going through any doorways. And Sonata, fuck, half the internet knew what Sonata picked up from south of the border, since she still goes on about it incessantly to this day. But Aria? She’d found that when she was bored, drunk and wanting to shag something, then yeah, she did kind of get off on impaling cacti through her eyes. What? There are weirder fetishes out there. Adagio might have called it ‘sexy headbutting spiky plants,’ but Jesus, at least Aria had never fucked a whole family just for a hat, grannies and all. Not that Aria wasn’t a tiny bit impressed by that – for centuries she’d been known as the one to beat when getting drunk and stupid, and sure enough, Adagio had come along and shown her how it was done. There’s nothing like massive retinal haemorrhaging to wipe the smirk off a smug bitch’s face. At least, Aria thought not; truthfully it wasn’t like she’d been able to see anything at the time, no eyes and all. She’d reclaimed her crown, though, as top plastered idiot. And come like a fucking waterfall in the process. Of course, gaping wounds were still likely to get infected, even with siren healing abilities, but necking tequila from a bottle in each eye socket to disinfect them had been satisfyingly brutal, to the point that everyone else had just cleared out of the bar after that, and left her to it for the night. Eventually there’d been no avoiding it, though: she needed a pair of new eyes. And naturally, getting hold of that was pretty tough when you couldn’t bloody see. ‘With your tail between your legs’ wasn’t really something that suited siren physiology in Equestria, since their bottom halves were all tail, with no back legs to speak of. But she’d experienced it fully when having to grovel to Adagio to find her some new eyes. Aria had been too trolleyed to be afraid, waiting there in the bar helplessly with only Sonata left to guard her, but she’d absolutely felt the shame of it. Still rubbed herself raw while waiting just remembering the sensation, but who would have thought that raising your heart rate with your fingers and thinning your blood with alcohol would make eye wounds fountain like that? Poor, traumatised Sonata... Anyway, what Mexico lacked in first-world healthcare, it had more than made up for in people who wouldn’t be missed, and a couple of hours later Adagio had returned with a selection of half a dozen sets of eyes, in case the blood types didn’t line up or something. Happily, siren healing made surgery to replace body parts straightforward, with the new eye fitting in and connecting up like a USB stick. The only problem was, Aria soon found out, that the optic nerve would still take a few days to regrow and connect to the new eyes. And only then did she learn the other problem. They were yellow. Her new eyes were yellow. Which meant that once they’d got back home, she’d had to throw out her whole fucking wardrobe and start again from scratch to suit the entirely new colouring, since none of her old stuff looked right with them. Even yellow eyes in a pinkish-skinned face had been weird to see. That had definitely taken some getting used to. The first time she’d woken up still-drunk and caught a glimpse of her own reflection she’d tried flirting with the hot girl with weird golden eyes who was in her bedroom and kept copying Aria’s movements, and it had taken longer than she’d normally care to admit for her to realise where she’d gone wrong. And then, a few months later, she’d been fucking hammered one night. She couldn’t now remember if she’d had a shit day and got drunk or had a brilliant day and got drunk; ultimately it didn’t really matter. Either way, she’d ended up singing a phrase or two, and soon enough she was bent over the bar being seen to by the barmaid’s boyfriend, while the barmaid herself fed Aria the next round of shots. A stray glance in a fleeting moment of drunken clarity had revealed the errant, wispy whiskers on the barmaid’s top lip, and, together with the tequila slammers Aria was powering through, it was all brought back in a loin-aching wave of need. Shortly afterwards, she and her thralls for the evening had broken into a garden centre. The next day Aria had needed another new set of eyes. Much harder to get hold of back home, it had turned out. Adagio had had to visit three different orphanages. And, amazingly, hadn’t elected to leave Sonata behind in any of them. That time around, they’d been a pale blue, bringing to mind those of a snow leopard. Again a new wardrobe had followed, and she’d bleached and dyed her hair, too, settling on a strawberry blonde colour. And, God damn, she’d looked fucking stunning! Over the centuries, she and Sonata had just accepted that Adagio would always be the sexy one, whatever either of them tried. Suddenly, that had all changed. Not that it really mattered to anyone else – with their songs, they could have walked through the Playboy Mansion in unwashed tracksuits and still left no one there sparing a glance for its usual occupants. And yet the three of them always looked on top form, so, figure it out: it mattered to them. It might even have been tied into how Adagio ended up as their de facto leader; there was something to be said for the most seductive siren being the one best qualified to lead. But with the blue eyes of a cold spring morning, and hair just a shade closer to ash blonde than Adagio’s own, Aria had suddenly got it. Sonata had started looking to her first when Aria and Adagio walked into a room together. And the way Adagio herself had looked at her... They hadn’t even been that drunk when they’d slept together. Certainly not enough that they’d had trouble remembering the details the next day. Though, even if they had, the injuries sustained might have made it pretty obvious what had gone down. Or, you know, who. And, on the one hand, holy cunting pissbuckets, no sex before or after had ever compared. On the other, though: injuries. She and Adagio knew no restraint in the throes of pleasure. They were both immortal creatures of pure desire, each with thousands of years’ experience. Nothing had ever been sacred, but, Jesus, boundaries were transcended that night. Agony and ecstasy became identical. The cacti didn’t just go in her eyes. The week after had not been fun. Even with siren biology, walking became something that other people did; not Aria. Seeing, too, of course, but for once that had been a lesser priority. She had a sneaking suspicion that Adagio even felt guilty, which would unquestionably have been a first. New eyes were brought to her the very next morning, along with breakfast in bed, which Adagio hand-fed her, because getting bacon, eggs, sausages and beans onto a fork and then into your mouth when you’re not used to being unable to see is fucking hard. They both knew that their first time together had been their last. The eyes Adagio had brought her were orange, which somehow went with her skin tone a lot better than she’d expected. Once they were all connected in, and she had yet another dozen new sets of clothes, she’d admired herself both with and through her new irises, and told Adagio she had a good eye for choosing them. ‘That’s because mine are original,’ Adagio had replied, though without the scathing tone she might have used any other week. A few months later, the irises in Aria’s mirror were sea green. After that, cyan. Then a sapphire blue, followed by a dull brown (which lasted only three weeks), and then a deep ruby red which made her look a bit possessed. It wasn’t like they couldn’t get anything they wanted with minimal effort, so after a while Aria had taken out a self storage unit or two and taken to storing all her favourite clothes from previous colourings, just in case she ever ended up having similar eyes another time. She did hate having to completely rethink her look every time she got an itch she couldn’t scratch any other way, but there weren’t many other options available (no, not a literal behind-the-eyeball itch, it didn’t really work like that. It was more like a yearning she couldn’t otherwise sate that would simply grow stronger until she indulged it). Hunting down specific eye colours would have made obtaining them surreptitiously far more problematic, and left her blind and vulnerable for much longer periods. Ideally she’d keep a box of spares in her underwear drawer – she figured the nosy blue twit was less likely to get her hands on them if she had to dig through a pile of panties to get there – or something, but they had a habit of spoiling if they weren’t acquired fresh from the source, and she never had managed to get the stains out of the carpet. She could keep a stash of whole humans secreted away somewhere, kept unconscious but alive until their bodies were needed, like the larder of some gargantuan eye-eating crab, but that would have brought with it a host of other problems, like increased risk of discovery, space and power requirements, and far too much effort. Sooner or later, she needed to find a more organised long-term solution. “... So somewhere down the line I got the idea of farming them. Somewhere between ‘brilliant’ and ‘pretty fucking brilliant’, if I do say so myself.” “Wow. Ah… really don’t think Ah needed ta know all that. Ta be honest, Ah was really just wonderin’ why ponies would be buying the darn things.” “Oh, didn’t you hear? It’s a lovely option for all those mares who need to go an extra mile in colour coordination, and there’s a new optician in town. Old buddy of mine.” Aria stuck out her hoof to the side. “Pound it.” A second later, a lion-like paw appeared in a flash of light, obligingly bumped the offered hoof and then vanished. “Crazy S.O.B., but damn he’s good at his job.” Applejack started to turn and walk away, only to cock her head to the side and raise her hoof. “Question for ya.” “Shoot.” “If you need to farm eyeballs so that you can, um…” “Indulge my perverted hedonistic ways by sexually headbutting cactaceae?” “Uh… that. Yeah. Anyway, if y’all keep poking your eyes out, why in the blazes are you growing pony eyes?” Aria muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes. She opened her mouth, began with a low, predatory roar, and then let loose a delicate, ethereal melody. The music took form as it left her mouth, encircling her in lacy, gently wafting curtains of magic. They dissipated a moment later, and Aria stood with all four compact, disappointingly blunt hooves firmly on dry land. “You ever tried finding a cactus big enough for that kind of eye? It’d be like trying to get your rocks off with a thimble.” Applejack rubbed her neck. “So you’re telling me that you can magic yourself into a pony whenever you’re… how did you put it?” “Itching for a good skullfuck, yes.” “An’ you can’t just magic y’urself new eyes when ya change form lahke that? That seems kahnda hard ta believe.” “You wouldn’t think it” – mostly because you’re a literally motherfucking mud pony – “but magic here is kinda batshit crazy. What, you think I would’ve dug myself a bloody lake if I could just bang out some new eyes every time someone bangs mine?” Aria snorted. “On the bright side, at least one good thing came of it.” Aria turned to face the shed and called out, “Hey, Starlight! Could ya come here for a sec?” Applejack covered her brow with her hoof. “Oh, horseapples…” A moment later, Starlight Glimmer came prancing out of the side of the shed. “Hey Applejack,” she said, beaming as she came up next to Aria and draped a hoof over her. “How’s it going?” With a heavy groan, Applejack regarded the two mares quizzically. “Do Ah want to know what your part in all this is?” “I needed a smart magic babe to help me get the cloning machine sorted out,” Aria explained, making a sideways glance at Starlight. “And seriously, it’s like we were meant for each other: See, I like stars–” She gestured to her star-shaped hairclips for emphasis. “Where did those even come from? You didn’t have them when you were a… y’know.” “Batshit crazy, remember? Anyway, I like stars, she is a star, I brainwashed ponies, she brainwashed ponies – ” “That’s, um… that’s enough, I think.” Starlight nudged Aria with her front knee, smiling sheepishly. “Ugh, fine,” Aria groaned. Then, with a broad leer, she crept up to Applejack. “But you wanna know what the best part is?” Without waiting for a response, she leaned in and whispered in Applejack’s ear. Applejack’s cheeks flushed bright red and she backed away hurriedly, stammering, “W-well, Ah better be, uh… getting back to the farm, now! Got some apples to buck or something or other. See ya!” Aria waited until Applejack went out of sight before breaking into cackles. “Did you–” “Oh yes.” Starlight groaned. “You are such a creep. Let’s get back to selling some eyeballs.” ApplejackA few moons later, Applejack sat at her kitchen table, head propped up on one hoof, staring blankly at nothing on the wall in front of her. It just didn’t make no gosh darned sense! Ponies had been buying apples from Sweet Apple Acres for generations without complaint, but all of a sudden they were clamouring for an update. “Ah jus’ don’t get it,” she said, not taking her eyes off their spot on the empty wall, but knowing Big Mac and Apple Bloom were listening, sitting at either end of the table. “Ev’ry tahme Ah mention that Aria don’t even grow the same stuff we do, ponies jus’ start goin’ on about how great she is at farmin.’” As if the Apples didn’t know everything there was to know about it after doing it the same way for so many years. “An’ how can ahballs be sellin’ more than apples?” she asked more passionately, now looking to her family for answers, waving her hooves around something fierce. “Ah mean, ponies have ta eat, rah’t?” Eyeballs might be the latest fashion thing, but Rarity had been selling fancy dresses in Ponyville for years, and that had never given the Apples business troubles. “And they can eat apples, but they sure can’t eat ahba–” She’d been so wrapped up in worrying about the farm and pondering why apples weren’t selling that she’d missed the other thing unusual, but suddenly she saw it. “CONSARN IT, BIG MCINTOSH, DIDN’T YOU HAVE GREEN AHYES THIS MORNIN’?” Big McIntosh hung his head, closing his eyes whatever colour they now were, and shied away from her shouting. “Eeemaybe?” Applejack stared at him in disbelief. Her own brother, selling them out like that? She looked across at Apple Bloom to share a confounded head shake with her, but the expression greeting her was sad, rather than angry or confused. “Ya think Aria really meant it when she offered to buy us out, sis?” Apple Bloom’s shoulders slumped, and it hurt something awful for Applejack to see her precious little sister so resigned to the way things were going. Maybe it was time to think about Aria’s offer, if even Big McIntosh, the least fashion-caring pony in Equestria, and an Apple to the core, had gone out and bought some new eyes. “Ah don’t rah’tly know,” Applejack replied, thinking back to her encounter. “She weren’t exactly welcomin’ when Ah dropped by her farm, but then she is an evil sahren, so maybe that’s the closest she gets ta bein’ friendly? Ah mean, unless y’ure Starlahght Glimmer wearin’ socks an’ all rubbed up with poison joke so y’ur horn turns into a cact–” Applejack realised who she was talking to and cut herself off sharply, blushing as red as her no-good brother’s coat. She’d never even come close to letting something slip like that in front of Apple Bloom before; the whole situation must have been screwing with her head. “Ah don’t think her offer was meant to be mean-spirited or nothin,’ try’n’a kick us when we’re down,” she continued, trying not to get so worked up again, “an’ we do have a lot a’ good farmland that mah’t be just what she needs.” Guess it was to be expected Applejack would be taking it hard, with how she’d worked her whole life on the farm, to have to sell it to somepony else. Not even somepony, in fact. But she had to give Aria her dues: it might be the competition that was driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business, but also perhaps the only lifeline they had. “Maybe we should hear what she has ta say. See if we can still keep some a’ the ol’ Apple spirit about the place even under new ownership. An’ Ah’m sure if she’s gettin’ more land, she’ll need more help runnin’ the place, and ev’rypony knows there ain’t no one in Equestria knows more ‘bout farmin’ than we do.” Aria AgainAria hung in the sky in much the same way that a brick might have done had it been lucky enough to be born a siren. Magical projections of her face, like vast video screens, adorned the sides of a dozen airships in the surrounding skies, including the two sideways-on zeppelins flanking her. The banners hanging beneath their hulls stretched almost to the ground, each bearing the stylised emblem of an eyeball and the letter A. The same design was found on the hundred or so purple flags encircling the field before her, marking the boundaries of a seating space no stadium or amphitheatre could contain. Organisers had questioned the need for seating, as building the required chairs had meant felling acres of the Everfree Forest for materials, but Aria hadn’t wanted to feel that she was addressing some mere music festival crowd, and seating could be arranged to give the appearance of formations. How could a siren call herself a purveyor of better vision if her own product launch wasn’t good to look at? 700,000 ponies sat in legions on that plain, most hailing from far across Equestria but all awaiting her every word. It was almost enough to make her feel like Adagio. Giving no outward sign, she took a calming breath and began. “Good afternoon, fillies and gentlecolts, and thank you all for coming.” She didn’t need pony magic to amplify her voice at all, since her siren gem took care of all that. Each word she spoke made it glow, like breathing on dying embers. “We are here today, five months after finalising arrangements with Sweet Apple Acres, to launch our first new product together.” And it could have been three months sooner if the wretched Apples hadn’t dragged their inbred, misshapen hooves at every opportunity, wittering on and on about tradition and the way things had always been done. As if the very idea of innovation were personally offensive to them. Can’t plough a field with ideas? Tell that to the pony who first had the idea of inventing the plough. “It’s clear from so many of you being here today, in many cases having travelled in from far and wide, that the quality of our products speaks for itself.” Good luck finding cheaper, knockoff eyeballs anywhere. “Our brand has become quite the phenomenon all across Equestria, and we have you ponies to thank for spreading the word of mouth.” Like that’s actually what they’d been trying to do when talking about her farm, not just showing off their trendy new gimmick to their halfwit friends. Yeah, the customers deserved fuckloads of credit and gratitude for that. “But there are of course a few individuals I’d like to thank in particular.” She always loved those bits in speeches. No one in the audience cared; not a single one of them. They’d all made an effort to be there, and, knowing that, the speaker chose to use his or her time in the spotlight to waste that of the audience, blathering on about the petty contributions of people the crowd could not give a fuck about. Self-importance at its very finest. She took a moment to compose herself before her features had the chance to show any visible smugness. The lack of siren sweat glands gave her a natural advantage for hiding her nerves, but centuries of associating with Adagio had led to smirks leaping onto her face uninvited at the slightest provocation. For that to happen mid-speech would undo all her hard work practising her open and enthusiastic fake-as-fuck professional demeanour. Reassured by the sincerity on her face as displayed in real-time on a nearby blimp, she carried on with her prepared words. “Firstly, I’d like to thank the Apple family for making this transition as smooth as possible” – Aria gesticulated towards them on the podium below with a welcoming hoof, wondering if the Element of Honesty and her family would pick up on how thoroughly she’d just lied through her teeth – “and for their ceaseless toil and dedication.” Dedication to doing everything they could to shaft her while she broke her metaphorical back struggling to drag them into the present, let alone the future. How could four ponies put up so much fight when a siren offered to turn things around for them and make their piss-stained business profitable again? “Ponyville saw some local complaint when I moved to buy Sweet Apple Acres,” all whipped up by the Apple family themselves, of course, “and rightly so.” It just wasn’t worth the PR fallout from being seen as swooping in to take over a long-established business when down on its luck, even if luck didn’t really have anything to do with it and their failure was entirely due to their own bloody-mindlessness. That’s what she’d told herself again and again, at least, and Adagio had backed her up on her thinking. All the same, though, playing nice with those that should have been left to starve made her want to bite something. “The generations of Apples that have poured their labour into Sweet Apple Acres over the decades to make it one of the most respected institutions in Equestria; their effort shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste,” as if the familial bodily fluids they’d also poured into the sodden place left any alternative but to burn it to the ground, “not when careful guiding can instead focus it in a new direction.” Aria swept her eyes over the crowd as she spoke, noting their nods of approval, and again she was thankful she’d had the strength to stick with her decision to integrate Sweet Apple Acres rather than bulldozing it and starting afresh. Although she did want to try bulldozing something, because she’d heard that the Equestrian method used real bulls, and that sounded too amusing to miss. “So our relationship has been less of a takeover, more of a merging of mutual understanding and expertise.” And once their understanding of the situation had encompassed her being in charge, she’d been able to bring her expertise of human organ cloning and pinpoint ocular replacement surgery, and they’d brought their expertise of kicking trees. Her vile sycophancy towards Apple tradition and family values over, Aria turned her attention to her own family, or at least the closest thing she had instead. Thankfully, she, Adagio and Sonata were about as far from ‘family values’ as a group could get, and her every interaction with the Apples had left her wanting them all to go on a joint family trip together. She’d thought the Apples might learn something from the experience, but more recently had become convinced they were allergic to learning. “Just as the Apples have been a family driven by a single purpose for all these years,” because anything more varied than that would be too complicated for such one-track minds to handle, “I really need to mention Adagio Dazzle.” Aria smiled, knowing it would be interpreted as fondness for her fellow siren, and wouldn’t be guessed to be secret delight at publicly comparing her to Applejack. But that was the kind of double-edged comparison she really liked, because fucking no one involved would take it as a compliment or leave happier than before. “Looks, body, charm, voice, magic... most assume Adagio coasts through life on at least one of these, and that rarely sits well with honest pony folk.” Such were the drawbacks of how good she was at making everything seem effortless, far less worthy of the lazy reputation than Aria herself, whose mantra had always been ‘effort means eff-it.’ “You think you’ve seen hard work, seen ponies throwing themselves against a problem day in, day out, shaping their whole lives around getting a job done; but you’ve never seen her.” On the podium, she saw Applejack’s brows draw down even lower, as she, the most hardworking pony around, had her reputation upstaged. Definitely not deliberately. No. Not at all. “It’s nothing to do with her species, it’s no slight against ponies; that’s just who she is when something needs doing.” Very occasionally, Aria allowed herself a moment of genuine sincerity towards something other than different levels of anger and disappointment. She had a feeling that her next few sentences would fill her sincerity quotas for decades to come. Without outwardly showing it, she ground her teeth together, hating more than anything else that it was both true and deserved. “I’m only here in Equestria now because she spent centuries training in mountaintop monasteries across several continents, honing her focus until she could meditate and feel a world’s underlying magic field clearly enough to pick up a distortion around one particular city.” Most of the crowd looked lost after the first sentence. Like, knowing they should be impressed, but not really sure why. All those blank, confused expressions. So many Sonatas. “Then we moved there, and she devoted every waking moment to scouring that city with a sustained campaign of siren song echolocation.” Even if the ponies had grasped the concepts, which it looked like at least a few had, they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the difficulties of picking up the almost-imperceptible difference in audible reflections from a wall containing a secret portal to one without, nor the constant concentration required to do so. Sonata had lasted a day. Aria had helped out one day every other week, in exchange for the new eyeballs thing. But Adagio had left the house each morning, spent all day playing urban dolphin, and only returned after nightfall, with one day off every month or so. “Until finally, one euphoric day, she found a single wall of a statue containing that world’s only portal leading back here.” The cruellest irony, naturally, was the statue being of a pony, which both rubbed their noses in their predicament, and meant that it should have been obvious where the portal was from when they first looked around Canterlot in that world. The universe had thrown banishment at them, and Adagio had thrown herself back at it. “She brought us home.” Aria’s voice didn’t crack. She knew it didn’t, because she was a siren and had total mastery over her vocal cords, and if the hundreds of thousands of ponies arrayed before her heard it crack, waver or fluctuate with emotion in any way, they’d been mistaken. Aria concentrated on taking a few steady breaths through her nose, though not too deep, as that would be obvious to those watching. It certainly wouldn’t hurt sales – she knew that the more heartfelt she appeared, the better everything would sell, but bollocks it still rankled. Why couldn’t ponies have found some better virtues to base their culture on? Why did they insist on having Elements of Kindness and Generosity and not things that might actually make interacting with others less of an arseache, like an Element of Indifference, or Not My Problem, or Using Humour to Avoid Discussing Feelings? Hell, maybe the Element of Laughter covered that last one, that’d be something at least. But ponies were the chosen market, and changing their natures smelled too much like hard work, so Aria focused on the enormous piles of money she’d make from her enterprise, knowing that even if she did have to play to pony rules, she’d twist them to her advantage. Right then. Eyes on the prize. ...And why hadn’t they remembered that expression a month previously, when they’d been trying to think of a marketing slogan for the new product? She hoped her internal facehoof didn’t show. “I’d like to thank our very first customer, who was instrumental in spreading the word about what we were trying to do. A glowing review, and a testimonial to our ambition if ever there were one.” Even if she’d been hard to deal with at times because she was just so damn happy. Christ, Aria had thought living with Sonata for so long had prepared her for those with a needlessly-upbeat outlook on life, but, wow, had she been wrong... And when it came to spreading word-of-mouth amongst ponies, those bottomless wells of good humour were the best thing Aria could have wished for. “I’m sure you’ll have seen her here and there around town acting as an informal ambassador for us; she’s a lovely grey pegasus with beautiful new golden eyes that both point in the same direction.” And her position as a mailmare had made her ideally suited to spreading the word, since she chatted with half of Ponyville each morning, and for two weeks solidly the only thing she’d talked about was how wonderful her new eyes were. Then she’d moved onto how much better she could fly with them. Shame she hadn’t otherwise really liked her postal job, only taking it as the best out of poor options at the time; she could have made a killing in direct marketing. “And while I know we’ll all miss her around Ponyville, I wish her the greatest of success when she leaves next month for the Wonderbolt Academy.” And of course, if a Wonderbolt happened to mention Aria’s farm to the press, business would go stratospheric; they’d never had a celebrity endorsement before. They might have had, because Starlight did have one very useful connection that she’d happily exploited to help Aria, but no, it seemed obvious looking back that Princess Twilight was always going to end up on the Apples’ side of the takeover disagreement. And her pony highness had been keeping fairly quiet ever since, probably seeing how things worked out before saying anything publicly. But then there was also, uh, did he count as a celebrity? He did used to rule Equestria, even if no living pony remembered it. But then he couldn’t really make public statements about the business either, since he was too close to it officially. “A big shout-out to Discord, everypony’s favourite lord of chaos and now optician, who runs Specslavers on Ponyville high street.” Insisting on that name had apparently been the ex-king Sombra’s one contribution as silent partner. Yeah, all the old villains were into running business startups now. Queen Chrysalis P.I. had really taken off, once she got some film noir tips from Rarity, though her otherwise-excellent undercover disguises were kind of offset by the musicians hired to follow her around playing smooth jazz. ‘Tirek’s Therapy for Warring Siblings,’ not so much. The whole thing had started, or so the story went, when Discord had shown Princess Cadence his résumé as a suitable babysitter for Flurry Heart, and she’d responded that she couldn’t believe her eyes. Bizarrely, the references had been genuine, so Discord had set up an optician to prove it was her eyesight at fault. Sombra at that point had crawled out of the woodwork and declared himself all-too-willing to help. ...Cadence had sent them packing, of course, knowing that Discord never stuck with a gimmick for more than a few minutes, so he’d done exactly that just to spite her, and set up shop in Ponyville, where Fluttershy had persuaded the resident princess to be more embracing of the idea. “His confidence in recommending us helped ponies know that our brand was reputable, and our products could be trusted.” Sure, at first he might have been prescribing new eyeballs just to be a dick to ponies, knowing they’d never be able to get hold of any, but the spirit of chaos was all about the random and the unexpected, and so probably quite appreciated others being able to surprise him from time to time. And the first pony to happily chirp, ‘sure, I’ll swing by Aria’s farm on the way home’ in response to his diagnosis must have done exactly that, so after a couple of shocked seconds he’d presumably got over his disappointment and gone along with the idea. On the subject of former villains, she grinned to herself. “And finally, I would be remiss not to mention my number one assistant.” At that, she lost it for a moment, snickering to herself behind a hoof, glancing down to see Starlight glaring up at her from her Very Important Pony seat on the podium, to which Aria blushed in response. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she waved it off to the audience, explaining, “she hates being called that.” She delicately cleared her throat, flashing a guilty smile before starting again. “I would, of course, be remiss not to mention my wonderful marefriend, whose unique gifts have not only proven crucial to getting the business up and running in the first place, they’ve also helped me feel a lot more at home here.” Aria let some of her affection show on her face as she gazed down at Starlight again, hoping the feelings-heavy crap would keep herself from thinking about the other stuff they – no, don’t think about that! Not here, not with everypony watching! Shit, quick, just say something nice or something! “Starlight, you rock, girl!” Thankfully Aria was saved by Starlight’s happy peal of laughter, and the ridiculous, mushy thought it prompted: I’m so glad I met you. They held each others’ gaze for a couple more tender seconds, before Aria looked up at the crowd again, finding most of them swooning over her and Starlight. She genuinely blushed quite a bit at that. Stupid ponies. Right, before she lost anymore of her self-respect: she had a product to launch, damn it! “And now,” she leapt into the first cliché, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for...” She allowed her voice to take on slightly more of a booming quality, reverberating across the field to the distant flags fluttering in the gentle breeze. “A broken hoof can be fixed,” she declared, raising one foreleg in proclamation. “Cracked ribs, healed,” swapping it for the other. “Dislocated wings, reset.” A collective shudder ran through the pegasi in the crowd, and Aria wondered how many in that instant envied her siren ability to fly by magic while armoured in scales, rather than relying on sensitive wings with spindly hollow bones. “But eyes,” she said in a more hushed tone, “they’re much harder to mend.” She swept her gaze across the crowd, as if imploring with them. “We rely on them for so much; not just for our primary sense, but also for self-expression. You look someone in the eyes when you’re being honest with them,” or staring them down, or even hypnotising them – so the point stood, but looked less wholesome than it had done, “as my new friends at Sweet Apple Acres know so well.” She gave a slight shake of her head, “And we trust all that to two little orbs in our face, so easily damaged. Shouldn’t we carry spares of something that important?” Aria shifted her stance and altered her voice to sound more jaded. “‘Would if we could,’ we always said.” Then she steered her voice more towards concern. “But eyeballs quickly spoil when they’re not kept fresh, which needs expensive equipment, lots of space and continuous energy.” With a little more weariness, she added, “And we all know you can’t teleport with them either.” Everyone had tried that once, thinking they’d found a clever solution, and then quickly learned their lesson. “So storing eyes is impractical,” she summarised, “and growing and transporting them takes time.” She paused just a tiny amount longer than necessary, drinking in the moment she’d been waiting for, and then spread her forelegs wide and raised her voice. “Well, not anymore, everypony!” She rubbed her hooves together in excitement, letting it carry over into her smile and her voice. “Over the last few months we’ve been working together to refine the magic jars once used to store zap apple jam and adapt them for the modern age.” Granny Smith had explained the preservative methods behind the enchantment on each jar, Starlight had found a way to make it simpler, and therefore easier and more cost-effective to mass produce, and they’d even managed to source some toughened glass from the minotaur kingdom to make the jars considerably less fragile. “Now, you can carry backup eyes with you wherever you go!” The volcanic dragon sand added to the glass mix had also given the jars a satin black finish, which style consultant Rarity had assured them was very chic. More importantly, it blocked sunlight from spoiling the eyeballs stored within. “Seal in the freshness so you can buy them now and fit them later. At last, you can keep as many spare pairs of eyes as you like in a place convenient for you, whether it’s in a bathroom cabinet or on a bedside table.” Taking on an air of conversation, she added, “I keep mine in my underwear drawer.” And that’s all she’d wanted, all those years ago, when she’d been looking for a way to keep pre-prepared eyes of colours she’d chosen around for when she needed them. Mission accomplished. Job done. Practical limitations would never stand between her and the cacti of her dreams again. She and Starlight would be grabbing the first one off the production line and then taking a long holiday together, as soon as she’d finished the final two sentences of her speech. She put on her product launch voice for a final time that day. “And it’s all thanks to our new product, launching today, developed right here in-house at Sweet Apple Acres, based on generations of Apple family tradition. Fillies and gentlecolts, I give you: the Apple eyePod!” Author's Note I wanted to write a story around a pun so bad you'd regret reading the whole thing. Writing this was a lot of fun. If you enjoyed it, check out the parent story, especially if you'd like more Sonata. And if you'd like to know more about the history of how this story came to be, you can see it for yourself in the comments there. This is less of a sequel, more of a spin off from a couple of lines of dialogue. Extra special bonus points (consisting entirely of pony emoticons) for those who can correctly guess which of us wrote which bits.
AriaLush, verdant grass strewn across the land in front of her. A soft breeze brushing the tips of her ears. A cloudless sky, eager to provide all the sunlight she could ever want to bathe in. A sparking pool of water soothing her scales. A thousand or more eyes of many colours staring at her from the bottom of a lake of brine and formaldehyde. Life was good for Aria Blaze. Until, that is, a rugged brown hat popped up from behind a ridge, riding atop a freckled orange earth pony and bringing Aria’s lazy reverie to an end. Aria hissed softly and moved to haul herself back into her pool, hopefully in time to submerge and duck an awkward conversation Naturally, no such luck. “Howdy there, neighbour!” Applejack exclaimed, waving her hoof. “Twi wanted me to stop by, see how…” The frown was almost audible. “Um…” Applejack stopped at the edge of the lake. “Are those…” Aria stuck her head up just high enough to be seen. “Eyeballs. Yes.” “Ah… Ah see.” No sense trying to avoid it anymore. Aria grumbled, anchoring her pointed hooves on the shore and hoisting herself up until a good portion of her brobdingnagian bulk rested on dry land. She peered down at the bite-sized pony before her. “It’s a farm. I’m growing them.” “Now what in tarnation is that supposed to mean?” Aria covered her brow with her hoof. “Okay, keep on thinking of growing apples for a second.” “Okay. Now what?” “It’s kind of like that. Except they’re eyeballs, not apples.” “You lost me.” Aria rolled her eyes, sighing. “So, on the other side of this mirror, some really clever people came up with this thing called ‘cloning.’ Turns out, if you take one of their machines and zap it with some magic, it can grow eyeballs.” She craned her neck and gestured to a large shed not too far off, where a line of ponies slowly marched inside and a steady stream of ponies holding eyeballs in jars came out another door. “And then I sell them.” Looking back to Applejack, Aria cocked her head. “Talking of which, maybe you can help me out. At the rate these saps are buying my stuff, this plot I’ve got isn’t gonna cut it. Do you think you can—” “Woah, hold on for a second there. Why in the blazes are ponies buying disembodied eyeballs?” “You really want to know?” Without waiting for an answer, Aria bowed her head and grumbled. “So, in this other world I used to live in, there was this place called Mexico...” That was where it all began. The great ‘get away from it all’ vacation of 1994 had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, barring the part where the main two things (or ‘people,’ as they insisted on being called) in her life that she would’ve liked to get away from for a while were the two who went with her. And so the only true form of escapism available to Aria on the trip was at the bottom of a pile of bottles. That wasn’t so bad, though: the tequila had been cheap and plentiful, sunburn was hardly an issue when you healed at five times the human speed and were already kind of pinkish in colour, and bar fights just felt so much more cinematic when the majority of the locals had moustaches. But that last bit caused problems anytime she got the horn, as happened quite a bit when she was three sheets to the wind. Mainly that when she was looking for people to fuck, the sight of all those hairy upper lips made her want to poke her eyes out with a cactus. All good things, though, and other tired clichés, and after a few months the constant deluge of drinking and fighting had taken its toll on the Mexican economy, so they’d dragged their aching-in-a-good-way bodies home again, and each of them had taken something back with them from the trip. Thanks to how friendly Adagio had been with an entire family who owned some historic sombrero-making business, she finally had a custom-made hat that could actually fit on her head without squashing her ridiculous hair. Which was great, unless she also planned on going through any doorways. And Sonata, fuck, half the internet knew what Sonata picked up from south of the border, since she still goes on about it incessantly to this day. But Aria? She’d found that when she was bored, drunk and wanting to shag something, then yeah, she did kind of get off on impaling cacti through her eyes. What? There are weirder fetishes out there. Adagio might have called it ‘sexy headbutting spiky plants,’ but Jesus, at least Aria had never fucked a whole family just for a hat, grannies and all. Not that Aria wasn’t a tiny bit impressed by that – for centuries she’d been known as the one to beat when getting drunk and stupid, and sure enough, Adagio had come along and shown her how it was done. There’s nothing like massive retinal haemorrhaging to wipe the smirk off a smug bitch’s face. At least, Aria thought not; truthfully it wasn’t like she’d been able to see anything at the time, no eyes and all. She’d reclaimed her crown, though, as top plastered idiot. And come like a fucking waterfall in the process. Of course, gaping wounds were still likely to get infected, even with siren healing abilities, but necking tequila from a bottle in each eye socket to disinfect them had been satisfyingly brutal, to the point that everyone else had just cleared out of the bar after that, and left her to it for the night. Eventually there’d been no avoiding it, though: she needed a pair of new eyes. And naturally, getting hold of that was pretty tough when you couldn’t bloody see. ‘With your tail between your legs’ wasn’t really something that suited siren physiology in Equestria, since their bottom halves were all tail, with no back legs to speak of. But she’d experienced it fully when having to grovel to Adagio to find her some new eyes. Aria had been too trolleyed to be afraid, waiting there in the bar helplessly with only Sonata left to guard her, but she’d absolutely felt the shame of it. Still rubbed herself raw while waiting just remembering the sensation, but who would have thought that raising your heart rate with your fingers and thinning your blood with alcohol would make eye wounds fountain like that? Poor, traumatised Sonata... Anyway, what Mexico lacked in first-world healthcare, it had more than made up for in people who wouldn’t be missed, and a couple of hours later Adagio had returned with a selection of half a dozen sets of eyes, in case the blood types didn’t line up or something. Happily, siren healing made surgery to replace body parts straightforward, with the new eye fitting in and connecting up like a USB stick. The only problem was, Aria soon found out, that the optic nerve would still take a few days to regrow and connect to the new eyes. And only then did she learn the other problem. They were yellow. Her new eyes were yellow. Which meant that once they’d got back home, she’d had to throw out her whole fucking wardrobe and start again from scratch to suit the entirely new colouring, since none of her old stuff looked right with them. Even yellow eyes in a pinkish-skinned face had been weird to see. That had definitely taken some getting used to. The first time she’d woken up still-drunk and caught a glimpse of her own reflection she’d tried flirting with the hot girl with weird golden eyes who was in her bedroom and kept copying Aria’s movements, and it had taken longer than she’d normally care to admit for her to realise where she’d gone wrong. And then, a few months later, she’d been fucking hammered one night. She couldn’t now remember if she’d had a shit day and got drunk or had a brilliant day and got drunk; ultimately it didn’t really matter. Either way, she’d ended up singing a phrase or two, and soon enough she was bent over the bar being seen to by the barmaid’s boyfriend, while the barmaid herself fed Aria the next round of shots. A stray glance in a fleeting moment of drunken clarity had revealed the errant, wispy whiskers on the barmaid’s top lip, and, together with the tequila slammers Aria was powering through, it was all brought back in a loin-aching wave of need. Shortly afterwards, she and her thralls for the evening had broken into a garden centre. The next day Aria had needed another new set of eyes. Much harder to get hold of back home, it had turned out. Adagio had had to visit three different orphanages. And, amazingly, hadn’t elected to leave Sonata behind in any of them. That time around, they’d been a pale blue, bringing to mind those of a snow leopard. Again a new wardrobe had followed, and she’d bleached and dyed her hair, too, settling on a strawberry blonde colour. And, God damn, she’d looked fucking stunning! Over the centuries, she and Sonata had just accepted that Adagio would always be the sexy one, whatever either of them tried. Suddenly, that had all changed. Not that it really mattered to anyone else – with their songs, they could have walked through the Playboy Mansion in unwashed tracksuits and still left no one there sparing a glance for its usual occupants. And yet the three of them always looked on top form, so, figure it out: it mattered to them. It might even have been tied into how Adagio ended up as their de facto leader; there was something to be said for the most seductive siren being the one best qualified to lead. But with the blue eyes of a cold spring morning, and hair just a shade closer to ash blonde than Adagio’s own, Aria had suddenly got it. Sonata had started looking to her first when Aria and Adagio walked into a room together. And the way Adagio herself had looked at her... They hadn’t even been that drunk when they’d slept together. Certainly not enough that they’d had trouble remembering the details the next day. Though, even if they had, the injuries sustained might have made it pretty obvious what had gone down. Or, you know, who. And, on the one hand, holy cunting pissbuckets, no sex before or after had ever compared. On the other, though: injuries. She and Adagio knew no restraint in the throes of pleasure. They were both immortal creatures of pure desire, each with thousands of years’ experience. Nothing had ever been sacred, but, Jesus, boundaries were transcended that night. Agony and ecstasy became identical. The cacti didn’t just go in her eyes. The week after had not been fun. Even with siren biology, walking became something that other people did; not Aria. Seeing, too, of course, but for once that had been a lesser priority. She had a sneaking suspicion that Adagio even felt guilty, which would unquestionably have been a first. New eyes were brought to her the very next morning, along with breakfast in bed, which Adagio hand-fed her, because getting bacon, eggs, sausages and beans onto a fork and then into your mouth when you’re not used to being unable to see is fucking hard. They both knew that their first time together had been their last. The eyes Adagio had brought her were orange, which somehow went with her skin tone a lot better than she’d expected. Once they were all connected in, and she had yet another dozen new sets of clothes, she’d admired herself both with and through her new irises, and told Adagio she had a good eye for choosing them. ‘That’s because mine are original,’ Adagio had replied, though without the scathing tone she might have used any other week. A few months later, the irises in Aria’s mirror were sea green. After that, cyan. Then a sapphire blue, followed by a dull brown (which lasted only three weeks), and then a deep ruby red which made her look a bit possessed. It wasn’t like they couldn’t get anything they wanted with minimal effort, so after a while Aria had taken out a self storage unit or two and taken to storing all her favourite clothes from previous colourings, just in case she ever ended up having similar eyes another time. She did hate having to completely rethink her look every time she got an itch she couldn’t scratch any other way, but there weren’t many other options available (no, not a literal behind-the-eyeball itch, it didn’t really work like that. It was more like a yearning she couldn’t otherwise sate that would simply grow stronger until she indulged it). Hunting down specific eye colours would have made obtaining them surreptitiously far more problematic, and left her blind and vulnerable for much longer periods. Ideally she’d keep a box of spares in her underwear drawer – she figured the nosy blue twit was less likely to get her hands on them if she had to dig through a pile of panties to get there – or something, but they had a habit of spoiling if they weren’t acquired fresh from the source, and she never had managed to get the stains out of the carpet. She could keep a stash of whole humans secreted away somewhere, kept unconscious but alive until their bodies were needed, like the larder of some gargantuan eye-eating crab, but that would have brought with it a host of other problems, like increased risk of discovery, space and power requirements, and far too much effort. Sooner or later, she needed to find a more organised long-term solution. “... So somewhere down the line I got the idea of farming them. Somewhere between ‘brilliant’ and ‘pretty fucking brilliant’, if I do say so myself.” “Wow. Ah… really don’t think Ah needed ta know all that. Ta be honest, Ah was really just wonderin’ why ponies would be buying the darn things.” “Oh, didn’t you hear? It’s a lovely option for all those mares who need to go an extra mile in colour coordination, and there’s a new optician in town. Old buddy of mine.” Aria stuck out her hoof to the side. “Pound it.” A second later, a lion-like paw appeared in a flash of light, obligingly bumped the offered hoof and then vanished. “Crazy S.O.B., but damn he’s good at his job.” Applejack started to turn and walk away, only to cock her head to the side and raise her hoof. “Question for ya.” “Shoot.” “If you need to farm eyeballs so that you can, um…” “Indulge my perverted hedonistic ways by sexually headbutting cactaceae?” “Uh… that. Yeah. Anyway, if y’all keep poking your eyes out, why in the blazes are you growing pony eyes?” Aria muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes. She opened her mouth, began with a low, predatory roar, and then let loose a delicate, ethereal melody. The music took form as it left her mouth, encircling her in lacy, gently wafting curtains of magic. They dissipated a moment later, and Aria stood with all four compact, disappointingly blunt hooves firmly on dry land. “You ever tried finding a cactus big enough for that kind of eye? It’d be like trying to get your rocks off with a thimble.” Applejack rubbed her neck. “So you’re telling me that you can magic yourself into a pony whenever you’re… how did you put it?” “Itching for a good skullfuck, yes.” “An’ you can’t just magic y’urself new eyes when ya change form lahke that? That seems kahnda hard ta believe.” “You wouldn’t think it” – mostly because you’re a literally motherfucking mud pony – “but magic here is kinda batshit crazy. What, you think I would’ve dug myself a bloody lake if I could just bang out some new eyes every time someone bangs mine?” Aria snorted. “On the bright side, at least one good thing came of it.” Aria turned to face the shed and called out, “Hey, Starlight! Could ya come here for a sec?” Applejack covered her brow with her hoof. “Oh, horseapples…” A moment later, Starlight Glimmer came prancing out of the side of the shed. “Hey Applejack,” she said, beaming as she came up next to Aria and draped a hoof over her. “How’s it going?” With a heavy groan, Applejack regarded the two mares quizzically. “Do Ah want to know what your part in all this is?” “I needed a smart magic babe to help me get the cloning machine sorted out,” Aria explained, making a sideways glance at Starlight. “And seriously, it’s like we were meant for each other: See, I like stars–” She gestured to her star-shaped hairclips for emphasis. “Where did those even come from? You didn’t have them when you were a… y’know.” “Batshit crazy, remember? Anyway, I like stars, she is a star, I brainwashed ponies, she brainwashed ponies – ” “That’s, um… that’s enough, I think.” Starlight nudged Aria with her front knee, smiling sheepishly. “Ugh, fine,” Aria groaned. Then, with a broad leer, she crept up to Applejack. “But you wanna know what the best part is?” Without waiting for a response, she leaned in and whispered in Applejack’s ear. Applejack’s cheeks flushed bright red and she backed away hurriedly, stammering, “W-well, Ah better be, uh… getting back to the farm, now! Got some apples to buck or something or other. See ya!” Aria waited until Applejack went out of sight before breaking into cackles. “Did you–” “Oh yes.” Starlight groaned. “You are such a creep. Let’s get back to selling some eyeballs.”
ApplejackA few moons later, Applejack sat at her kitchen table, head propped up on one hoof, staring blankly at nothing on the wall in front of her. It just didn’t make no gosh darned sense! Ponies had been buying apples from Sweet Apple Acres for generations without complaint, but all of a sudden they were clamouring for an update. “Ah jus’ don’t get it,” she said, not taking her eyes off their spot on the empty wall, but knowing Big Mac and Apple Bloom were listening, sitting at either end of the table. “Ev’ry tahme Ah mention that Aria don’t even grow the same stuff we do, ponies jus’ start goin’ on about how great she is at farmin.’” As if the Apples didn’t know everything there was to know about it after doing it the same way for so many years. “An’ how can ahballs be sellin’ more than apples?” she asked more passionately, now looking to her family for answers, waving her hooves around something fierce. “Ah mean, ponies have ta eat, rah’t?” Eyeballs might be the latest fashion thing, but Rarity had been selling fancy dresses in Ponyville for years, and that had never given the Apples business troubles. “And they can eat apples, but they sure can’t eat ahba–” She’d been so wrapped up in worrying about the farm and pondering why apples weren’t selling that she’d missed the other thing unusual, but suddenly she saw it. “CONSARN IT, BIG MCINTOSH, DIDN’T YOU HAVE GREEN AHYES THIS MORNIN’?” Big McIntosh hung his head, closing his eyes whatever colour they now were, and shied away from her shouting. “Eeemaybe?” Applejack stared at him in disbelief. Her own brother, selling them out like that? She looked across at Apple Bloom to share a confounded head shake with her, but the expression greeting her was sad, rather than angry or confused. “Ya think Aria really meant it when she offered to buy us out, sis?” Apple Bloom’s shoulders slumped, and it hurt something awful for Applejack to see her precious little sister so resigned to the way things were going. Maybe it was time to think about Aria’s offer, if even Big McIntosh, the least fashion-caring pony in Equestria, and an Apple to the core, had gone out and bought some new eyes. “Ah don’t rah’tly know,” Applejack replied, thinking back to her encounter. “She weren’t exactly welcomin’ when Ah dropped by her farm, but then she is an evil sahren, so maybe that’s the closest she gets ta bein’ friendly? Ah mean, unless y’ure Starlahght Glimmer wearin’ socks an’ all rubbed up with poison joke so y’ur horn turns into a cact–” Applejack realised who she was talking to and cut herself off sharply, blushing as red as her no-good brother’s coat. She’d never even come close to letting something slip like that in front of Apple Bloom before; the whole situation must have been screwing with her head. “Ah don’t think her offer was meant to be mean-spirited or nothin,’ try’n’a kick us when we’re down,” she continued, trying not to get so worked up again, “an’ we do have a lot a’ good farmland that mah’t be just what she needs.” Guess it was to be expected Applejack would be taking it hard, with how she’d worked her whole life on the farm, to have to sell it to somepony else. Not even somepony, in fact. But she had to give Aria her dues: it might be the competition that was driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business, but also perhaps the only lifeline they had. “Maybe we should hear what she has ta say. See if we can still keep some a’ the ol’ Apple spirit about the place even under new ownership. An’ Ah’m sure if she’s gettin’ more land, she’ll need more help runnin’ the place, and ev’rypony knows there ain’t no one in Equestria knows more ‘bout farmin’ than we do.”
Aria AgainAria hung in the sky in much the same way that a brick might have done had it been lucky enough to be born a siren. Magical projections of her face, like vast video screens, adorned the sides of a dozen airships in the surrounding skies, including the two sideways-on zeppelins flanking her. The banners hanging beneath their hulls stretched almost to the ground, each bearing the stylised emblem of an eyeball and the letter A. The same design was found on the hundred or so purple flags encircling the field before her, marking the boundaries of a seating space no stadium or amphitheatre could contain. Organisers had questioned the need for seating, as building the required chairs had meant felling acres of the Everfree Forest for materials, but Aria hadn’t wanted to feel that she was addressing some mere music festival crowd, and seating could be arranged to give the appearance of formations. How could a siren call herself a purveyor of better vision if her own product launch wasn’t good to look at? 700,000 ponies sat in legions on that plain, most hailing from far across Equestria but all awaiting her every word. It was almost enough to make her feel like Adagio. Giving no outward sign, she took a calming breath and began. “Good afternoon, fillies and gentlecolts, and thank you all for coming.” She didn’t need pony magic to amplify her voice at all, since her siren gem took care of all that. Each word she spoke made it glow, like breathing on dying embers. “We are here today, five months after finalising arrangements with Sweet Apple Acres, to launch our first new product together.” And it could have been three months sooner if the wretched Apples hadn’t dragged their inbred, misshapen hooves at every opportunity, wittering on and on about tradition and the way things had always been done. As if the very idea of innovation were personally offensive to them. Can’t plough a field with ideas? Tell that to the pony who first had the idea of inventing the plough. “It’s clear from so many of you being here today, in many cases having travelled in from far and wide, that the quality of our products speaks for itself.” Good luck finding cheaper, knockoff eyeballs anywhere. “Our brand has become quite the phenomenon all across Equestria, and we have you ponies to thank for spreading the word of mouth.” Like that’s actually what they’d been trying to do when talking about her farm, not just showing off their trendy new gimmick to their halfwit friends. Yeah, the customers deserved fuckloads of credit and gratitude for that. “But there are of course a few individuals I’d like to thank in particular.” She always loved those bits in speeches. No one in the audience cared; not a single one of them. They’d all made an effort to be there, and, knowing that, the speaker chose to use his or her time in the spotlight to waste that of the audience, blathering on about the petty contributions of people the crowd could not give a fuck about. Self-importance at its very finest. She took a moment to compose herself before her features had the chance to show any visible smugness. The lack of siren sweat glands gave her a natural advantage for hiding her nerves, but centuries of associating with Adagio had led to smirks leaping onto her face uninvited at the slightest provocation. For that to happen mid-speech would undo all her hard work practising her open and enthusiastic fake-as-fuck professional demeanour. Reassured by the sincerity on her face as displayed in real-time on a nearby blimp, she carried on with her prepared words. “Firstly, I’d like to thank the Apple family for making this transition as smooth as possible” – Aria gesticulated towards them on the podium below with a welcoming hoof, wondering if the Element of Honesty and her family would pick up on how thoroughly she’d just lied through her teeth – “and for their ceaseless toil and dedication.” Dedication to doing everything they could to shaft her while she broke her metaphorical back struggling to drag them into the present, let alone the future. How could four ponies put up so much fight when a siren offered to turn things around for them and make their piss-stained business profitable again? “Ponyville saw some local complaint when I moved to buy Sweet Apple Acres,” all whipped up by the Apple family themselves, of course, “and rightly so.” It just wasn’t worth the PR fallout from being seen as swooping in to take over a long-established business when down on its luck, even if luck didn’t really have anything to do with it and their failure was entirely due to their own bloody-mindlessness. That’s what she’d told herself again and again, at least, and Adagio had backed her up on her thinking. All the same, though, playing nice with those that should have been left to starve made her want to bite something. “The generations of Apples that have poured their labour into Sweet Apple Acres over the decades to make it one of the most respected institutions in Equestria; their effort shouldn’t be allowed to go to waste,” as if the familial bodily fluids they’d also poured into the sodden place left any alternative but to burn it to the ground, “not when careful guiding can instead focus it in a new direction.” Aria swept her eyes over the crowd as she spoke, noting their nods of approval, and again she was thankful she’d had the strength to stick with her decision to integrate Sweet Apple Acres rather than bulldozing it and starting afresh. Although she did want to try bulldozing something, because she’d heard that the Equestrian method used real bulls, and that sounded too amusing to miss. “So our relationship has been less of a takeover, more of a merging of mutual understanding and expertise.” And once their understanding of the situation had encompassed her being in charge, she’d been able to bring her expertise of human organ cloning and pinpoint ocular replacement surgery, and they’d brought their expertise of kicking trees. Her vile sycophancy towards Apple tradition and family values over, Aria turned her attention to her own family, or at least the closest thing she had instead. Thankfully, she, Adagio and Sonata were about as far from ‘family values’ as a group could get, and her every interaction with the Apples had left her wanting them all to go on a joint family trip together. She’d thought the Apples might learn something from the experience, but more recently had become convinced they were allergic to learning. “Just as the Apples have been a family driven by a single purpose for all these years,” because anything more varied than that would be too complicated for such one-track minds to handle, “I really need to mention Adagio Dazzle.” Aria smiled, knowing it would be interpreted as fondness for her fellow siren, and wouldn’t be guessed to be secret delight at publicly comparing her to Applejack. But that was the kind of double-edged comparison she really liked, because fucking no one involved would take it as a compliment or leave happier than before. “Looks, body, charm, voice, magic... most assume Adagio coasts through life on at least one of these, and that rarely sits well with honest pony folk.” Such were the drawbacks of how good she was at making everything seem effortless, far less worthy of the lazy reputation than Aria herself, whose mantra had always been ‘effort means eff-it.’ “You think you’ve seen hard work, seen ponies throwing themselves against a problem day in, day out, shaping their whole lives around getting a job done; but you’ve never seen her.” On the podium, she saw Applejack’s brows draw down even lower, as she, the most hardworking pony around, had her reputation upstaged. Definitely not deliberately. No. Not at all. “It’s nothing to do with her species, it’s no slight against ponies; that’s just who she is when something needs doing.” Very occasionally, Aria allowed herself a moment of genuine sincerity towards something other than different levels of anger and disappointment. She had a feeling that her next few sentences would fill her sincerity quotas for decades to come. Without outwardly showing it, she ground her teeth together, hating more than anything else that it was both true and deserved. “I’m only here in Equestria now because she spent centuries training in mountaintop monasteries across several continents, honing her focus until she could meditate and feel a world’s underlying magic field clearly enough to pick up a distortion around one particular city.” Most of the crowd looked lost after the first sentence. Like, knowing they should be impressed, but not really sure why. All those blank, confused expressions. So many Sonatas. “Then we moved there, and she devoted every waking moment to scouring that city with a sustained campaign of siren song echolocation.” Even if the ponies had grasped the concepts, which it looked like at least a few had, they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the difficulties of picking up the almost-imperceptible difference in audible reflections from a wall containing a secret portal to one without, nor the constant concentration required to do so. Sonata had lasted a day. Aria had helped out one day every other week, in exchange for the new eyeballs thing. But Adagio had left the house each morning, spent all day playing urban dolphin, and only returned after nightfall, with one day off every month or so. “Until finally, one euphoric day, she found a single wall of a statue containing that world’s only portal leading back here.” The cruellest irony, naturally, was the statue being of a pony, which both rubbed their noses in their predicament, and meant that it should have been obvious where the portal was from when they first looked around Canterlot in that world. The universe had thrown banishment at them, and Adagio had thrown herself back at it. “She brought us home.” Aria’s voice didn’t crack. She knew it didn’t, because she was a siren and had total mastery over her vocal cords, and if the hundreds of thousands of ponies arrayed before her heard it crack, waver or fluctuate with emotion in any way, they’d been mistaken. Aria concentrated on taking a few steady breaths through her nose, though not too deep, as that would be obvious to those watching. It certainly wouldn’t hurt sales – she knew that the more heartfelt she appeared, the better everything would sell, but bollocks it still rankled. Why couldn’t ponies have found some better virtues to base their culture on? Why did they insist on having Elements of Kindness and Generosity and not things that might actually make interacting with others less of an arseache, like an Element of Indifference, or Not My Problem, or Using Humour to Avoid Discussing Feelings? Hell, maybe the Element of Laughter covered that last one, that’d be something at least. But ponies were the chosen market, and changing their natures smelled too much like hard work, so Aria focused on the enormous piles of money she’d make from her enterprise, knowing that even if she did have to play to pony rules, she’d twist them to her advantage. Right then. Eyes on the prize. ...And why hadn’t they remembered that expression a month previously, when they’d been trying to think of a marketing slogan for the new product? She hoped her internal facehoof didn’t show. “I’d like to thank our very first customer, who was instrumental in spreading the word about what we were trying to do. A glowing review, and a testimonial to our ambition if ever there were one.” Even if she’d been hard to deal with at times because she was just so damn happy. Christ, Aria had thought living with Sonata for so long had prepared her for those with a needlessly-upbeat outlook on life, but, wow, had she been wrong... And when it came to spreading word-of-mouth amongst ponies, those bottomless wells of good humour were the best thing Aria could have wished for. “I’m sure you’ll have seen her here and there around town acting as an informal ambassador for us; she’s a lovely grey pegasus with beautiful new golden eyes that both point in the same direction.” And her position as a mailmare had made her ideally suited to spreading the word, since she chatted with half of Ponyville each morning, and for two weeks solidly the only thing she’d talked about was how wonderful her new eyes were. Then she’d moved onto how much better she could fly with them. Shame she hadn’t otherwise really liked her postal job, only taking it as the best out of poor options at the time; she could have made a killing in direct marketing. “And while I know we’ll all miss her around Ponyville, I wish her the greatest of success when she leaves next month for the Wonderbolt Academy.” And of course, if a Wonderbolt happened to mention Aria’s farm to the press, business would go stratospheric; they’d never had a celebrity endorsement before. They might have had, because Starlight did have one very useful connection that she’d happily exploited to help Aria, but no, it seemed obvious looking back that Princess Twilight was always going to end up on the Apples’ side of the takeover disagreement. And her pony highness had been keeping fairly quiet ever since, probably seeing how things worked out before saying anything publicly. But then there was also, uh, did he count as a celebrity? He did used to rule Equestria, even if no living pony remembered it. But then he couldn’t really make public statements about the business either, since he was too close to it officially. “A big shout-out to Discord, everypony’s favourite lord of chaos and now optician, who runs Specslavers on Ponyville high street.” Insisting on that name had apparently been the ex-king Sombra’s one contribution as silent partner. Yeah, all the old villains were into running business startups now. Queen Chrysalis P.I. had really taken off, once she got some film noir tips from Rarity, though her otherwise-excellent undercover disguises were kind of offset by the musicians hired to follow her around playing smooth jazz. ‘Tirek’s Therapy for Warring Siblings,’ not so much. The whole thing had started, or so the story went, when Discord had shown Princess Cadence his résumé as a suitable babysitter for Flurry Heart, and she’d responded that she couldn’t believe her eyes. Bizarrely, the references had been genuine, so Discord had set up an optician to prove it was her eyesight at fault. Sombra at that point had crawled out of the woodwork and declared himself all-too-willing to help. ...Cadence had sent them packing, of course, knowing that Discord never stuck with a gimmick for more than a few minutes, so he’d done exactly that just to spite her, and set up shop in Ponyville, where Fluttershy had persuaded the resident princess to be more embracing of the idea. “His confidence in recommending us helped ponies know that our brand was reputable, and our products could be trusted.” Sure, at first he might have been prescribing new eyeballs just to be a dick to ponies, knowing they’d never be able to get hold of any, but the spirit of chaos was all about the random and the unexpected, and so probably quite appreciated others being able to surprise him from time to time. And the first pony to happily chirp, ‘sure, I’ll swing by Aria’s farm on the way home’ in response to his diagnosis must have done exactly that, so after a couple of shocked seconds he’d presumably got over his disappointment and gone along with the idea. On the subject of former villains, she grinned to herself. “And finally, I would be remiss not to mention my number one assistant.” At that, she lost it for a moment, snickering to herself behind a hoof, glancing down to see Starlight glaring up at her from her Very Important Pony seat on the podium, to which Aria blushed in response. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she waved it off to the audience, explaining, “she hates being called that.” She delicately cleared her throat, flashing a guilty smile before starting again. “I would, of course, be remiss not to mention my wonderful marefriend, whose unique gifts have not only proven crucial to getting the business up and running in the first place, they’ve also helped me feel a lot more at home here.” Aria let some of her affection show on her face as she gazed down at Starlight again, hoping the feelings-heavy crap would keep herself from thinking about the other stuff they – no, don’t think about that! Not here, not with everypony watching! Shit, quick, just say something nice or something! “Starlight, you rock, girl!” Thankfully Aria was saved by Starlight’s happy peal of laughter, and the ridiculous, mushy thought it prompted: I’m so glad I met you. They held each others’ gaze for a couple more tender seconds, before Aria looked up at the crowd again, finding most of them swooning over her and Starlight. She genuinely blushed quite a bit at that. Stupid ponies. Right, before she lost anymore of her self-respect: she had a product to launch, damn it! “And now,” she leapt into the first cliché, “the moment you’ve all been waiting for...” She allowed her voice to take on slightly more of a booming quality, reverberating across the field to the distant flags fluttering in the gentle breeze. “A broken hoof can be fixed,” she declared, raising one foreleg in proclamation. “Cracked ribs, healed,” swapping it for the other. “Dislocated wings, reset.” A collective shudder ran through the pegasi in the crowd, and Aria wondered how many in that instant envied her siren ability to fly by magic while armoured in scales, rather than relying on sensitive wings with spindly hollow bones. “But eyes,” she said in a more hushed tone, “they’re much harder to mend.” She swept her gaze across the crowd, as if imploring with them. “We rely on them for so much; not just for our primary sense, but also for self-expression. You look someone in the eyes when you’re being honest with them,” or staring them down, or even hypnotising them – so the point stood, but looked less wholesome than it had done, “as my new friends at Sweet Apple Acres know so well.” She gave a slight shake of her head, “And we trust all that to two little orbs in our face, so easily damaged. Shouldn’t we carry spares of something that important?” Aria shifted her stance and altered her voice to sound more jaded. “‘Would if we could,’ we always said.” Then she steered her voice more towards concern. “But eyeballs quickly spoil when they’re not kept fresh, which needs expensive equipment, lots of space and continuous energy.” With a little more weariness, she added, “And we all know you can’t teleport with them either.” Everyone had tried that once, thinking they’d found a clever solution, and then quickly learned their lesson. “So storing eyes is impractical,” she summarised, “and growing and transporting them takes time.” She paused just a tiny amount longer than necessary, drinking in the moment she’d been waiting for, and then spread her forelegs wide and raised her voice. “Well, not anymore, everypony!” She rubbed her hooves together in excitement, letting it carry over into her smile and her voice. “Over the last few months we’ve been working together to refine the magic jars once used to store zap apple jam and adapt them for the modern age.” Granny Smith had explained the preservative methods behind the enchantment on each jar, Starlight had found a way to make it simpler, and therefore easier and more cost-effective to mass produce, and they’d even managed to source some toughened glass from the minotaur kingdom to make the jars considerably less fragile. “Now, you can carry backup eyes with you wherever you go!” The volcanic dragon sand added to the glass mix had also given the jars a satin black finish, which style consultant Rarity had assured them was very chic. More importantly, it blocked sunlight from spoiling the eyeballs stored within. “Seal in the freshness so you can buy them now and fit them later. At last, you can keep as many spare pairs of eyes as you like in a place convenient for you, whether it’s in a bathroom cabinet or on a bedside table.” Taking on an air of conversation, she added, “I keep mine in my underwear drawer.” And that’s all she’d wanted, all those years ago, when she’d been looking for a way to keep pre-prepared eyes of colours she’d chosen around for when she needed them. Mission accomplished. Job done. Practical limitations would never stand between her and the cacti of her dreams again. She and Starlight would be grabbing the first one off the production line and then taking a long holiday together, as soon as she’d finished the final two sentences of her speech. She put on her product launch voice for a final time that day. “And it’s all thanks to our new product, launching today, developed right here in-house at Sweet Apple Acres, based on generations of Apple family tradition. Fillies and gentlecolts, I give you: the Apple eyePod!” Author's Note I wanted to write a story around a pun so bad you'd regret reading the whole thing. Writing this was a lot of fun. If you enjoyed it, check out the parent story, especially if you'd like more Sonata. And if you'd like to know more about the history of how this story came to be, you can see it for yourself in the comments there. This is less of a sequel, more of a spin off from a couple of lines of dialogue. Extra special bonus points (consisting entirely of pony emoticons) for those who can correctly guess which of us wrote which bits.
