It was Nightmare Night, and whilst Sweetie Bloom and Scootaloo were out trick or treating Apple Bloom was alone with old Granny Smith, who had promised to tell her a scary ghost story. Granny began.
"Once, Apple Bloom, far back in the mists of time when even our blessed rulers the Princesses Celestia and Luna were young, the world was ruled by Discord. Life under him was dangerous, it was not all cotton candy clouds and chocolate rain. Things were unstable, so a flat plain one day might be a mountain the next. Building towns would be impossible, wild and dangerous beasts roamed free, but there were compensations. One was that anypony with enough talent and skill and patience could learn magic, and there was one pony, a common earth pony by the name of Shining Mirror, who learned it well and earned a wand as a cutie mark. Her magic went far above the telekinesis that every unicorn pony has from birth, she discovered spells like the geas that would prevent a pony doing something, and then a way to switch bodies, and with these spells she planned to use her magic to be immortal like the alicorns, by switching bodies when the one she was in was old and weak, and using the magic of the geas to stop the pony she switched with from saying who she was or acting against her. But this nearly came to an end when Discord was turned to stone."
"What happened then?" Apple Bloom asked.
"After bringing stability to Equestria, the Princesses set a class system in stone. One of their first decrees was that from now on only unicorns could wield any sort of magic, only pegasus ponies could fly, and supporting them by their work on the land would be the earth ponies, who from now on would have only their hooves and mouth to move things with and would be more or less banished from any sort of power. Most of them would be tied to the land and to the low ranking jobs for the rest of their lives. There were protests of course but after a couple of the protest leaders were turned into stone the protests died down. Shining Mirror was horrified but rather then accept her lot she robbed the grave of a unicorn, sawed off the horn and discovered there was latent magic in there that she could use."
"That's horrible, she robbed a grave!", Apple Bloom said in disgust.
"It's not as if she took it from a living unicorn. Then a war broke out with the griffins and she was drafted. Equestria was not always peaceful, you know. She became a sergeant and many a night was spent on sentry duty upon a battlefield where many a unicorn had been killed in battle. And she used her weapon to cut off the horns, collecting hundreds of them in secret and making bracelets and necklaces of them. And many years later she used them to steal her first new body, that of a pegasus, trapping the pegasus in her wizened old earth pony body. Since then she has lived for a thousand years, mostly in the bodies of unicorn and pegasus ponies,both mares and stallions, but occasionally in the body of an earth pony." Granny Smith opened a draw with her hooves, reached in and put on a necklace and bracelets of unicorn horn. When she wanted to steal someone's body, she would wait until the pony and her were alone, put on her magical horn jewellery and say something like this.
"Apple Bloom, I take your new fresh body and place you in mine, and bind you never to tell anybody by word or deed who you truly are. De Dha Mo Charm, Agus Er Magus Ec, De Dho Mo Dohoile." As her old withered voice spoke the words, the bones began to glow, and Apple Bloom realised to her horror that she was in the presence of magic;magic that no non-unicorn should be able to cast, and that Granny Smith when she had been telling the story had been telling a story about herself. "Now, Apple Bloom, tell me who you are."
Apple Bloom opened her mouth to say who she was but instead said "I'm Granny Smith."
"Excellent." As Apple Bloom turned to run, Granny Smith managed to touch her with her hooves and there was a brief flash of magical power. Apple Bloom found herself in the old body of Granny Smith, her bones aching with age, her teeth mainly gone, her eyes weak and cataracted, whilst Granny Smith was now in her strong young body with a whole new life ahead of her. The new Apple Bloom snatched the bones from Granny Smith and stuffed them in a saddlebag. "I'm going to enjoy your fresh new life and because of my geas, you won't be able to say who you are to anyone in any way, any more then you could smash the skull of a newborn foal. Even if you do manage to break the geas somehow, they'll most likely think you are insane rather then believe your story that Granny Smith stole your body Don't get too angry, your old body won't be able to support it. Goodbye,Granny, I'm a Cutie Mark Crusader now.Oh and look on the bright side,at least you got your cutie mark at last." Apple Bloom watched hopelessly as her young fresh body trotted out of the door, leaving her trapped in this aged husk of a body. She tried to scream her name, her real name aloud, but the spell kept her silent, and when she found a pen and paper and wrote with her mouth, she found she wasn't able to write what happened either. Her heart beat faster, far too fast for a pony near the end of her life, and stopped.
Applejack came in an hour laterand found her lying dead on the floor, a piece of paper with "I'm Granny Smith" written on it over and over again. Apple Bloom comforted Applejack later that evening and pointed out that at Granny Smith's age, she was both confused and near death anyway.The funeral and burial were attended by all the Mane Six and a large number of other ponies, for Granny Smith had been well known in her younger days.
