Maple snapped back to reality, Mom was pulling the net off her... MapleJack and the two colts didn't look happy about it.
"mom...I don't understand what.."
"SHE'S NOT YOUR MOM, STOP PRETENDING TO BE ME ALREADY!" Maplejack was just vibrating with rage while the dark brown colt tried to put Maple's locket around her neck for her.
Maple could feel the warmth on her cheeks as the tears started rushing down her face... this was the worst nightmare ever "I'm ready to wake up now Princess Luna you can stop torturing me now!" Maple's wings covered her face and her body convulsed with fear and hopelessness.
Then she felt familiar arms around her, the same ones that held back the dark in every nightmare.
"Hush Maplejack, I've told you and your brothers, that I owe her my life. Don't make this harder for her than it already has been." Maple's mom rocked her slowly back and forth.
"She is being honest little one, I'm so sorry but I'm not your mother...in this moment I wish I was so I could save you from this pain." A Hoof came up and stroked down Maple's mane as she continued to sob.
"MapleJack, remember that day and tell her... she's been confused for so long."
At her mother's words Maplejack, scratched her hoof in the dirt and looked genuinely sorry for the state she'd put Maple in. "The entire family for as long as anyone remembers have been lumberers, we take from the forest only what will be needed for the year and we always give back new saplings... in return, the magic of the woods gives us it's blessing in the form of our cutiemarks... Logan and Stan got theirs early that year and mine had taken forever. Traditionally when a foal gets their tree the entire family trek out into the northern forest and find the first tree of that type and fell it together.
My brother's trees ... well let's just say the entire southern ridge of the forest is oak and cider."
Maplejack paused and moved closer to Maple... "The night before I got my Cutiemark Princess Luna visited the dreams of the entire town, warning us not to go into the forest until we heard from her again. It was not long after she returned, and unfortunately, I didn't heed her warning... when I awoke and saw my leaf, I was in the woods and lost before I knew it."
Maplejack sighed and nudged her mom with a hoof, in turn she slowly unwrapped herself from the still sniffling Maple. "Jack is short for Jacqueline btw." Maple felt the familiar weight of the locket slip back into place around her neck. "it doesn't really fit me anymore anyway, besides, you've kept it safe all this time and all I ever did was lose it."
Maplejack's Brother Logan spoke up. "And that's why the two of you went back into the woods later that afternoon, Maple had found her tree very deep into the northern edge... and came back to get us... but discovered she'd lost her necklace."
"So we went in to find it, the sun was going down when we saw the two Princesses fly overhead." Maplejack continued...
Maple's ears perked at that, and she drew herself up, her face echoing a smaller version of the Anger Maplejack had shown her earlier.
"And that's when they Hurt mom!" Maple's eyes narrowed as the memory of the magic energy wave knocking her out of the sky flashed in her mind. But then as if noticing again for the first time...
Maple looked at her wings and then at the four earth ponies...
"how?, why?"
"Oh sweety, I'd hoped you'd have remembered on your own...I didn't want to be the one to." Maplejack's mother stood up from where she had been sitting and for the first time, Maple saw the long Jagged Scars along her side.
"When we saw the Princesses, Maplejack and I tried to alert them that we were there, but they were much too high in the sky to hear us, or see us through the canopy, Maplejack knew of a large pile of rocks further north that put us above the treetops."
"I should have listened to you mom, we should have just gotten as far away as we could.. not gotten closer." Maplejack moaned, the guilt welling up just from reliving these moments clear in her voice.
"Perhaps this was all meant to happen, dear. sad as some parts of it are." Maplejack's mother turned from her and then back to maple.
"What do you remember Maple?" She asked the tiny Pegasus
"I see parts of that day nearly every night in my nightmares, but it never makes any sense... I don't know any of the stuff you've just told me, all I remember from the dreams, is being hungry..looking for food in the woods, seeing the Princesses use their magic on..." maple paused giving her head a shake and trying to squint her eyes hard enough to remember something.... "I knew they'd hurt my mom and then the wave hit me and I fell and hurt my head on the ground. Then I ...put my locket on and heard me yelling for help that my mom was hurt and I followed my voice back to..."
"Where you found me pinned under those rocks just after Maplejack ran back to town for help." Maplejack's mom said. "when I saw you come out of the woods from the other side of the clearing I thought you had gotten lost, I was hurt very badly and my eyes had gotten very blurry from the pain and blood loss... it wasn't until I held you that I felt your wings."
"So that's why you started calling me Maple." ... Maple again looked at her wings.. stretching them out again.
"Maple, I need you to focus...I think you've been close to the truth and just didn't know it." Maplejack's mom shooshed Maple with a warm smile.
"You said you saw the Princesses use their magic and thought that hurt your mom somehow, and then you said you fell and hurt your head... and that was before you found me...Those don't really line up right do they."
"Shouldn't we just tell her?" Logan asked, the colt had a hoof up to his mouth, nervously nibbling on his horseshoe.
"Many of the friends I've met while trying to find you all these years told me I had amnesia and that I needed to remember on my own." Maple said frowning "Nothing seems to work, though, in my dreams, it feels like sometimes I get close..but then stop myself from remembering."
"What did the Princesses fire their magic spell at Maple?" Maplejack's mom asked while she was distracted by giving her explanation.
"Mom's Colony" the words came out of Maple's mouth as if it was the simplest thing...
Spoiler
Maple's eyes refocused, she remembered everything... the first Memory she had as Maple. ...the one that made her run away when the sun came up that morning ...voices coming up over the ridge calling out.
"Sycamoreen!" Maple's Eye's closed tightly and tears rolled out again like she hadn't cried herself dry only moments before. in a flash of a sickly green magic, Maple the tiny pegasus, Member of Stomp and friend to many ponies across Equestria was gone.
"I nearly ate you to death... I abused the love you thought you were giving to your daughter...stole it -was going to keep it all for myself because I was hungry... and you were dying while I did it... I'm so sorry. It means less than nothing to say it... I'm a monster, I...
Sycamoreen and Maplejack both pull Maple into a tight hug... she didn't feel anything.
"Silly girl, you gave it all back and then some." Sycamoreen said, her own voice cracking slightly as tears began to run down both pony's faces. "we didn't believe her when we found her saying a changeling saved her." Maplejack whispered.
"when I awoke the next morning, surprised to be alive, I saw you sitting nearby holding your head between your hooves confused ...cursing yourself, for what you'd done - or thought you had done... when the rescue party's calls were loud enough to startle you out of your thoughts you ran off into the woods." ... "Princess Luna and Princess Celestia saved Mom with magic." Stan said, wiping his own tears away with the back of his foreleg.
"Luna was extremely upset over what had happened, she blamed herself, not only for the accident that hurt Mom, but also for..." Maplejack paused, searching for a delicate way to say it.
"When she returned as Nightmare moon and was uncorrupted by the elements of harmony... there was a massive outpouring of love for her and as humblingly unexpected it was for her... she felt it may have been what roused a number of hibernating changeling colonies like yours."
"So, then what is going to happen now, will you let them know they missed one... I might have been confused about you being my mother, but not that they had hurt her. I saw it."
"She told us they'd used a very old spell that Starswirl the bearded created to seal the colony in a time locked hibernation...it wasn't painful or permanent, but it was the best option they had at the time."
"Yes, to keep you safe from monsters like me." Maple flapped her wings again... at least that mystery was solved, and while she was ecstatic to hear her family wasn't all killed by Alicorn magic... the guilt and worry she felt sat inside her like a rock in a stream... it just pushed everything else to either side.
however, as she looked at her wings more closely confusion again washed over her mind... "why are they sparkly?"
Maple looked around, eyes finally settling on the two ponies that came with her on this trip. Both of them looking at a face they'd never seen before.
