Reconnection

Applejack

It was Applebuck season. The one after Twilight had arrived. And this time things were different in more ways than one.

Most importantly, Applejack remembered that Big Mac had hurt himself shortly before this year's Applebuck season. Applejack had made sure to tell him what to watch out for, and he had avoided the injury this time. Applejack couldn't remember if it was this year when she was supposed to win that Prized Pony of Ponyville award or not. If it was, then that was different too, as she had not been informed of winning anything recently.

Applejack did remember that before, she had done a lot of helping out other ponies. But this time, the only ones that had asked her for help were Pinkie Pie, as a pretext for more planning, and Fluttershy for that silly bunny census. It had been a long time, but Applejack was sure she had tried to help more ponies than that before.

Either way, with Big Mac uninjured, Applejack was able to help harvest all the apples in time and help Fluttershy with her bunny census without causing any problems due to her stubbornness.

But those two things weren't that important. What was important was the time spent alone with Pinkie Pie at Sugarcube Corner. It was the first time in over two weeks that Pinkie and Applejack had a chance to talk without anypony overhearing.
"Don't worry Mrs. Cake!" said Pinkie Pie as the cakes made their way out. "Me and Applejack will make everything great!"

Mrs. Cake smiled. "Alright then, see you later girls!"

As soon as the door shut behind them Pinkie's face went from happy to serious. She didn't say anything as she opened up some recipe book and leafed through it. Applejack followed her lead and began to work.

"It's difficult, Applejack," said Pinkie suddenly, after she poured some flower into a bowl. She paused for a moment to look at Applejack. Her eyes had a certain look to them. Applejack knew that look. She saw it in herself whenever she looked in a mirror. Pinkie didn't have that look before.

"What is?" said Applejack, keen with interest. They continued to work through the conversation.

"Going back to...normal."

Applejack sighed. "I know. You looked to be having an easier time of it than me though. I see looks can be misleading."
Pinkie shook her head.

"It just took a while to catch up to me, that's all." She put some muffins in the oven and closed the lid before turning back to Applejack. "When I first figured out what was going on, it was all rush rush rush! You know? Got to save everypony, got to plan, got to find out if anyone else came back too. Then I had to help Rainbow Dash throw a party for Spike. But after that." She paused again, looking sadder than Applejack had ever seen her. "It's just been hard."

Applejack nodded and put a hoof reassuringly on Pinkie's shoulder.

"For me, it sometimes helps to know that there are ponies out there who understand. Big Mac's been an awful big help with the emotional support once he stopped thinking I was crazy." She smiled to herself. He kept saying he never thought she was crazy. It had almost become a sort of joke between them. "And there was you. You know if you ever need to talk, I'm here for you."

Pinkie nodded. They worked in silence for a few minutes.

Applejack decided there wouldn't be a "good" time to bring up another potential problem, but it needed to be brought up anyway.

"Pinkie, I found out something...strange, about a week or so back."

"What's that?"

"I ran into Peanut Rush."

Pinkie's eyes widened. "Oh, that must have been awkward! But hey, you got another chance with him don't you?"

Applejack shook her head. "I don't think I do Pinkie. It was Peanut Rush all right. But it wasn't the same Peanut Rush. He was different. I just don't know what to think of it. What could it mean?"

"Not everything has been happening the same," said Pinkie. "There was no stampede. You remember? You saved the town and got that award."

"So that was supposed to happen this year!" Applejack didn't know if she should think anything of it or not before. Now it looked like it was something to think about.

"There are a lot of things that are happening different this time around." Pinkie looked unusually thoughtful for a moment.

"Did you notice, we never got tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala? In fact, I don't even know if Twilight got tickets to them. And so Rarity never went crazy trying to design all those dresses for us."

"It's hard to remember that far back," Applejack admitted. "It's been a while, hard to remember exactly when things happened."

Pinkie looked sad. "I know we're all a lot less closer now than before. I haven't seen or heard from anypony but you since Spike's party. It's just been hard, I haven't gone out to see any of them. But they haven't come to see me either." She sighed.

Applejack took the opportunity to give her friend a friendly nuzzle.

"Don't worry Pinkie, they'll be plenty of time for friendship once Twilight is taken care of."

"Well duh," said Pinkie, her happiness returning. "But still, it's odd. Especially about Peanut. I guess us doing different things might change things around a bit, but I can't imagine us doing anything that would make Peanut Rush different. But I can't think of anything that we did different that could make Spike go away either."

Applejack shook her head.

"It's all really confusing."

Rainbow Dash

But really, don't worry about it Spike , I'm sure Jewel Flowers will warm up to you eventually!

Rainbow Dash looked up from her letter, thinking about if there was anything else she could write about. It'd been hard coming up with things to talk about when you didn't want people to know what you did all day. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.

Hey Spike, one last thing. Do you know anything about making magic lightning-repelling horseshoes? I used to have a pair but, silly me, looks like I lost them! I could really use another pair. I'd ask Twilight but -

Rainbow Dash tried to think of an excuse. Shrugging to herself, she continued to write.

- but she's been really busy lately and I don't want to bother her. Hey, maybe this will be something that you and Jewel Flowers can work on!

She signed her name, satisfied that she'd said enough to be interesting, before putting the letter in an envelope and readying it for delivery.

After she finished dropping it off at the post office she was ready for another boring, confusing day of spying.

Actually, things hadn't been so boring lately. About a week back, Rarity had shown up at Twilight's in the middle of the night. She had run up to the door, and looked like she was going to kick it down before suddenly stopping. After standing still for a few minutes, Rainbow Dash saw Rarity make a very scary looking smile before running off again. It was so shocking Rainbow Dash lost her balance for a moment and almost fell out of the tree. But Rarity seemed to have not suspected anything.

That single incident put Rarity on the list of people Rainbow Dash would be looking at as often as possible.

Rarity too was working on something. And like Twilight, Rainbow Dash didn't have a clue what it was. But that was because Rarity wasn't writing anything down. Instead, over the past week she had been receiving a bunch of packages through the mail. That by itself wasn't too interesting. Rarity probably got the most mail of anypony in Ponyville. What was strange was that with these packages, she never removed whatever was in them from their boxes. Instead she just opened them, looked inside, and stuffed them into a closet.

That alone wouldn't have clued Dash in on anything, but Rarity was also mumbling to herself a lot. Again, not too strange, but she was mumbling to herself even when she wasn't obviously working on anything. It was clear to Dash that she was working on something in her head, and that they probably had something to do with those packages. One day she'd break into the house and see what Rarity was hiding. Just like she still planned to break into Pinkie Pie's house.

It was just kind of scary. Breaking and entering into your friend's house was a bit much, even for Rainbow Dash. But it had to be done. Rainbow Dash was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to do it without there being the slightest chance of being caught. Such an opportunity had just not shown up yet.

Rainbow Dash sighed at the thought. Still, things weren't as boring as watching Pinkie cry and write all day.

Twilight Sparkle

Twilight Sparkle lifted her head from her notebook. Weeks of work had finally paid off. She was finished. At least finished with coming up with something to try. If her plan didn't work she'd have to do a lot more thinking.

Twilight's first conclusion was that a proper severing of the elements would be impossible. Turns out, Elements choose their hosts, and it was just an unfathomably difficult task to make them all choose Twilight herself.

But Twilight wasn't going to be denied, and once she had concluded that leading the elements towards her by being virtuous was out, she set to work on a new plan.

Binding spells were difficult, advanced magic that had limited applications. Rarely would somepony need to bind a soul to anything of any sort, at least outside of punishment or some half-thought-out attempt at immortality. Nevertheless Twilight had come to the conclusion that this mostly useless sort of magic could be part of the answer she was looking for.

First, she would need the pony holding an element to act against their element. Not a little thing, but a big enough thing that the element's attachment to that pony would be momentarily weakened. With the connection weakened, Twilight would rip the element away and bind it to herself. If she was fast enough, and the spell tuned properly, the element would be forced to stay inside her even without her having to exhibit the element's nature. And nopony knew enough magic to break the binding spell, besides Princess Celestia of course. Twilight smiled to herself, proud to have come up with such a clever solution.

Fluttershy would be the first. If Twilight could successfully sever the Element of Kindness from the girl, then that was wonderful. If not and something went wrong, well, Twilight wasn't about to be sympathetic towards Fluttershy of all ponies. And besides, Twilight was still angry at Fluttershy for winning their little battle. All in all, Fluttershy was a good choice for a first test.

Now Twilight just needed to craft a situation in which Fluttershy could show some cruelty. It didn't have to be too much, just enough for her element to wobble a bit. Twilight tossed her notebook aside, and began to think. No sense in writing down this plan.

Rarity

Rarity woke up screaming. Again. It was her screams that work her. Screaming in your sleep made sleeping difficult. She stopped as soon as she realised where she was. Her old boutique.

It was this place, she was sure of it. As the weeks had passed she had grown to hate her boutique. At first she thought it nice to be back, doing very easy commission work again, a whole other career ahead of her once Twilight was taken care of, her friends free to have full lives ahead of them...and the old boutique being furnished and stocked as it was made her nostalgic for better days. She was an idiot.

There was no happiness here. She could just see it happening again, that old storeroom catching fire, herself catching fire...the pain that went with it, the trip to the hospital, the looks of disgust as the nurse ponies came in to try and help her, and Twilight coming by to do nothing but gloat.

She was probably having nightmares about it. She couldn't actually remember her dreams anymore. It was probably a good thing.

Rarity sighed, and got out of bed. She didn't know what time it was, nor did she really care. There was no way she was going to get back to sleep, so she might as well get an early start on her work.

She hoped she wouldn't have to deal with this much longer. Her plan to get rid of Twilight had been finished for a while. There were only a few more things she was waiting for in the mail. Then she could get to work.

And once Twilight was gone, she'd sell this old place and build a new boutique, one completely different in design so she wouldn't be reminded of her death all the time. The only thing left to do was to decide if she should stay in Ponyville or not.

Pinkie Pie

Pinkie Pie was on her day off. So, naturally, she went to "help" Applejack on the farm. It had turned into a regular occurrence ever since Applebuck season had ended. Whenever Pinkie had a day off, she'd head on over to Sweet Apple Acres so her, Applejack and Big Mac could talk. That's all it still was though. Talk. The day was halfway over and for the first time Pinkie was beginning to feel genuinely frustrated.

"Maybe...." said Big Mac slowly, eyes looking up in thought. Talking about how Peanut was different had become Applejack's favourite topic. Pinkie didn't want to be insensitive, but didn't they have more important things to talk about?

"Maybe this isn't exactly the same place from your past?" said Big Mac. "Maybe it's not you making changes, but this world is just not exactly the same?"

"Maybe," said Applejack, reluctantly.

"Oh, that's it!" Pinkie said, unable to contain it any longer. She had had enough. "It's been months and we still haven't done anything." She stamped her hoof down for emphasis. "Shouldn't we be talking about a plan to get rid of Twilight or something? That evil pony could be plotting this very second!"

Pinkie Pie was breathing heavily. The other two ponies just stared.

Finally, Big Mac spoke. "Do you have any suggestions Pinkie Pie?"

Pinkie deflated. She didn't have any ideas, but that was the point of talking about it.

"Trust me sugarcube," said Applejack. "If there was opportunity brewin' I'd be the first to call you and we'd consider any possibility of getting rid of...her. There just hasn't been any obvious openings is all. We still have a long time before...Rainbow Dash, you know."

"But Applejack," said Pinkie. "Look at all the stuff that's been happening differently! For all we know Twilight will start earlier than she did before!"

Applejack's eyes widened. Big Mac looked concerned.

"I never thought of that," said Applejack. She looked to her brother, who stared back at her. Then she looked back at Pinkie Pie. "We'll talk about this later." She looked back at Big Mac. "Can I have a word with you in private Big Mac?"

Big Mac looked confused, but nodded and Pinkie watched as they walked away some distance before talking. Pinkie Pie couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could still see them clearly. What looked like normal conversation soon turned to what looked like arguing. Pinkie Pie watched them as the arguing got more and more heated. Finally Applejack walked away towards the house and Pinkie was left watching Big Mac walk back over.

Finally, he reached her. "I think you better go for the day," he said. Pinkie's ears fell. She had no idea what was going on anymore, but she felt it was all her fault.

"Oh," said Pinkie. "Okay then. Tell Applejack I'm sorry if I said anything to upset her."

"It's not your fault Pinkie Pie," He said. He tried to smile, but Pinkie knew it was forced.