Applejack merrily whistled a tune as she closed the door to her house and walked inside. "Apple Bloom, I'm home!" she announced, going to set her bags on the floor. Big Mac and Granny Smith were out of town for a few days, which left only her sister in the house.
She'd expected for the filly to come greet her, or at least to acknowledge her presence, instead there was only silence. Curious, and a little worried, Applejack looked around in the living room. "Apple Bloom?" she called again, then moved to the kitchen.
There she found her. The filly was sitting on a chair, head not held particularly high, silent. At her right, on the side of the table opposite to the entrance and therefore to Applejack, was Princess Twilight Sparkle. On the table was a light brown folder, with some sheets of paper sticking out, Ponyville's hospital's logo just barely visible.
"Good evening, Applejack. We need to talk," Twilight said, and the orange pony understood.
She almost rushed to the table. "Look, Apple Bloom, I'm sorry for not telling you sooner, I would have-"
She was stopped by a hoof of the filly, held up in front of her. The young pony seemed to be in a state of deep shock.
"You'll get your chance to talk later, Applejack. I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation just yet. Apple Bloom?" Twilight looked at the small filly.
Apple Bloom raised her head.
"Do you think you can tell your part of the story?"
"I... Yeah, I think I can. Sit down sis, please." She pushed the chair in front of Applejack out from under the table.
Applejack took a seat.
Apple Bloom took a deep breath. "So. It all started a while ago, actually. I realised I had no memories of my parents. I looked around the house and never found pictures of them with me. And then I started to notice, whenever you had a flashback to before I was born our parents were nowhere to be seen, not even making cameos in the background. So I..." Apple Bloom looked to the side. "I got suspicious, okay? I started to think that maybe I was adopted, or something, and I wanted to ask but then I was afraid and then I..." She looked at the ground, shaking a bit.
Applejack lifted a hoof to stroke the filly's mane. "It's alright."
Apple Bloom took a deep breath to calm down, then continued. "Not too long ago, I noticed some of your mane had gotten caught in your hat after you'd taken it off, so I took a strand and brought it to the hospital together with one of mine to get it analysed. Today, we..." She chocked a little and pointed at the folder. "Those are the results."
Applejack kept stroking her mane. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. When that accident happened just outside of town, with the train and that meteor, well... Ponyville didn't have an orphanage, and Granny thought... it was the right thing to do. I-"
Twilight cleared her throat and gave a few faux coughs, drawing the attention to herself.
Applejack looked up. "Twi, would you please? I'm trying to have an emotional moment."
"I'm sorry, Applejack, but the story isn't over." Twilight adjusted herself in her seat. "Now it's my turn. So, when Apple Bloom asked the hospital to do the analysis, I was called in to help. Initially I wanted to tell you about it, but-"
"Wait a moment."
Everypony turned to Apple Bloom.
"Why hasn't the flashback started yet? Why are we still hearing you talk instead of seeing what happened?" the filly asked to Twilight.
"I'm not sure," the alicorn replied, "let's just go with it. So, I wanted to tell you, but I spoke to Apple Bloom first and she convinced me not to. At that point I just went through with the testing and... Well, I just couldn't believe the results. I repeated the tests over and over and it was always the same. I'm honestly shocked about it. I just..." Twilight put a hoof to her temple. "I can't believe it, it's just-"
"Twilight, come on!" Applejack turned to Apple Bloom. "Look, I'm sorry I never told you you were adopted, I really am. But don't you think you're blowing this out of proportion?" she finished, addressing Twilight.
"I... Sorry, I haven't told the whole story yet." Twilight picked up the folder.
"What do you mean?" Applejack looked quizzically at Apple Bloom. "Wait, she hasn't got something bad, does she? Have I got something wrong? Is there a cure for whatever one of us might have?" she asked, suddenly very worried about the filly's safety and her own.
"It's nothing like that," Apple Bloom chimed in, still looking at the table.
Twilight tried to swallow. "I think it's best if I just give it to you. The tests, well... They showed a... They..."
Applejack leaned closer. "What is it?"
"They, uh, they..." Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them anew. "They undeniably showed a mother-daughter relationship between the two subjects," she blurted out.
Applejack started for a moment. "What?" She suddenly jerked backwards, knocking her chair over. "Wait wait wait, what? Twilight, are you crazy? Are you saying... I... You know me, Twilight! Do you really think I... And think about the age! Twilight, there must be something wrong with the tests, I can't believe you wouldn't ask me and-"
"It's not- I haven’t gotten to the point yet." Twilight was shaking a little. "The tests undeniably show that the two subjects are mother and daughter. You're the daughter."
Applejack remained in the position in which she'd been interrupted, mouth open to talk and a hoof slightly raised. "What the what."
Apple Bloom turned towards her. "I'm your mother."
Applejack remained still. For several seconds, unblinking and silent. "Okay," she finally said, only her mouth moving, "let's roll with this madness. Who's the father?"
"Twilight, you still haven't told me, why are we here exactly?" Night Light asked, wandering inside the kitchen.
Applejack turned around to look at the unicorn, pivoting on the floor as her hoof remained raised.
"Dad?" Twilight said from the other side of the room, "This is your other daughter."
Night Light studied Applejack. "Oh. Cool."
Applejack pivoted back to face Twilight. "You didn't go to a tea party with Discord, right?"
"Applejack, I know it all sounds so strange, but you have to trust me! Look here!" Twilight held up the documents she'd taken out of the folder. "As you can clearly see, these tests clearly and irrefutably prove that you are Apple Bloom and Night Light's daughter. I even had tests done with me and Shining to confirm you're our sister."
Applejack stared at the pages. "Twilight, I can't make out a single thing of what all these numbers and scientific jargon are supposed to mean."
"Well I can, and I'm telling you it means that!" Twilight brought the papers back to herself, pouting.
Applejack's hoof finally came back down. "Okay, I know this sounded like a good idea in your head, but this isn't funny. Not as much as you think it is, at least. Certainly not for me. I was about to have touching moment where I finally revealed to my sister that she'd actually been adopted, and you interrupted me with this nonsense. And you-" she turned to Apple Bloom "-you're in on this? Apple Bloom? Do you think this is funny? Or do you actually believe her?"
"Well I..." Apple Bloom looked between the other three ponies. "I have to. Think about it. Would Twilight ever say something like this if it wasn't true?"
Applejack stared at her sister, then at Twilight, then also gave a brief glance at Twilight's father who appeared intent on studying the cupboards. "You're... You're right. But this just doesn't make any sense!"
Twilight cleared her throat once more. "Well, there is something more I haven't told you yet."
"Seriously?" Applejack's tone was flat and monotone.
"Yeah." Twilight awkwardly smiled. "I did some more testing on your samples. I found traces of time-manipulation magic. I still have no idea of how any of this happened, but at least that explains the age gap."
"So wait, I'll be her future daughter?" Applejack looked at the filly. Then at Night Light. "How old will he be? How does it even work? This makes-"
A loud crash was heard coming from the roof, and everypony in the room turned to look in that direction. The sound was then followed by a series of other, less intense ones, of something repeatedly hitting the roof while moving on it, like a pony who had tripped and was now falling off of it.
As he listened to the sounds, Night Light considered that the pony had to be a rather large one, probably an alicorn. This was something he deducted simply from the sounds, it had nothing to do with the large pink winged-and-horned figure that fell from the roof and in front of the kitchen's window, with the scream she gave as she fell, or with the numerous sounds of manifest physical pain that had become audible as she'd been falling off of the roof.
The whole room looked out of the window at Cadence, as she got up, her mane and wings a little messy, and opened the window before walking inside through it. "Oh, hi everyone!" she said, looking around. "It seems you already had your discussion. Well at least you have already gone through the shock." She awkwardly smiled.
"What exactly are you doing here?" Applejack asked.
"Well, Shining told me about the tests, and, well... Oops?"
Twilight jerked up from her chair. "Wait, you're behind this?"
Cadence began to coil a strand of her mane around her hoof, absent-mindedly playing with it. "Uh... Sort of?"
Applejack snapped out of her state and approached the pink alicorn. "You explain to us what's going on this instant! You got that?"
Twilight dragged Applejack away with her magic. "Applejack, calm down, please. Cadence is still a princess after all." She turned towards the other alicorn and walked up to her, then cleared her throat.
Cadence looked at Applejack apologetically. "Twilight, now, she does-"
"You explain to us what's going on this instant! You got that?" the purple alicorn loudly said.
"Hey!" Applejack called from behind her.
"What? I'm a princess too."
"Oh hi Cadence!" Night Light said.
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.
Cadence sat down on the floor. "Okay, you're right. I have to explain this whole thing. I swear I'll never trust Celestia with choosing the house again. So-"
"What was that?" Applejack asked.
"Nothing!" Cadence replied. "So. As you've already found out, and I'm sorry that you had to find out like this-" she paused "-or that you found out at all," she added, mumbling behind closed teeth, "Applejack is actually the future daughter of Night Light and Apple Bloom. Sort of." She swallowed. "I am, in fact, part of the reason why this all happened. Now I will explain what happened. Night Light, could you plea-Oh for the love of me what is he doing now?" She threw her hooves up in the air.
Applejack walked up to the stallion and removed the glass jar he'd gotten stuck over his head, then led him in front of Cadence.
The pink alicorn gave a cough to catch his attention. "As I was saying. It all started about twelve years from now, give or take half a dozen years. Don't look at me like that, Twilight, I wasn't the one in charge of the time travel spell."
Twilight turned her nose up and looked to the side, crossing her hooves.
Cadence rolled her eyes. "That's when we found you, Apple Bloom. Future you. Then we brought you back to the past, had you get together with Night Light before he got together with his now wife, I did my thing, then we did some more time manipulation, wiped your memories and dropped the baby off at a random house in our present. Night Light should still remember. I wasn't expecting to get the house you'd end up growing up in." Cadence looked around the room. "Well, that's all. See you." She headed for the window.
Twilight's magic caught her and brought her back inside. "Explain."
Cadence attempted to look confused. "What?"
Twilight sternly looked at her. "Why, who and how."
Cadence gave a defeated sigh. "Fine. So I was in that period of my life. You know the one, I'm sure Shining told you. One time we got together with a bunch of friends and, well, we started to throw things around as jokes and... We did it because it sounded like a good idea. A lot of stupid things sound like a good idea when you're that high." She looked up. "But I blame it on Celestia! She brought the stuff we smoked that time. Though it was funny."
"Wait, what?" Twilight leaned closer. "Celestia? I mean, I get you, you were in that age, I've heard stories from Shining, but... Celestia?"
"She was going through her midlife crisis," Cadence dismissively replied.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "How does she know when she's at that point in life?"
"Yeah, like, that's the thing about it, she doesn't. Every once in a while she's like what if this is the half-point of my existence? and then she has this period where she tries to be hip with the kids and feel young again. It's like, once every sixty or so years from what I've heard."
Twilight closed and opened her eyes a couple of times. "I hope I don't become like that. So, how?"
"Advanced time travelling and timeline-preserving spells. There's stuff she keeps hidden in her own personal library, amongst the porn. Thousands of hundreds of words of porn. And some really dangerous spells. But mostly porn."
"What kind of porn?" Twilight slapped herself. "Never mind. Is this all?"
"She's into mind control and BDSM." Cadence headed for the window again.
She was stopped by Applejack this time. "That didn't help!" the earth pony complained. She pointed around the room. "I just found out I'm my younger sister's daughter, she's going to be kidnapped and forced together with that guy, who I just found out is my father, then her memory will be erased, and-You don't care, right?"
Cadence guiltily smiled. "Well, it's not the only time we did something of the sort."
Applejack smacked her own face. "Are you not going to fix any of this?"
Night Light looked at Apple Bloom. "You remind me of someone I spent some time with before meeting my wife, you know?"
Apple Bloom let her head fall forward and hit the table.
Twilight did the same with the floor.
"I can wipe all of your memories away."
Applejack growled. "Can't you at least tell us who Apple Bloom’s real parents were?"
"Oh, sure!" Cadence got up and walked to the filly, then scanned her with her magic. "Oh..."
"I remembered another one!"
Celestia opened her eyes, annoyed. "What is it, Luna?"
"I remembered another one of the things I created as Nightmare Moon and sent here to defeat you!" the alicorn explained.
Celestia rolled around in her bed. "Another one? So the living apples weren't the last one?"
Luna shook her head. "This one was a small filly with a red mane. She should have crash-landed somewhere near the old castle."
Celestia rolled back. "Let me sleep."
