A Hollow Mask - The Perfect Disguise?

A run through town... usually, she would be reading some books in the library or refining her levitation control in her room - well, the former was very informative, given that Twilight was perfectly fine with explaining any and all doubts to great detail... but, besides the fact that more love meant more energy, getting closer to the other mares could only help in the long run - they were willing to help her have a 'normal' life to make up for her harsh reality, after all, so she might as well let them.

"Sure! A good run will clear my head." Of course, she'd have to hold back quite a bit, but reading magazines gave her a good idea of what was considered 'athletic' - and she liked it.

Ponies, despite being so small, could get to run pretty darn fast. And the blue changeling had scored pretty good marks in the entire 'travel through difficult terrain' area.

The male was good with disguises both magical and mundane, so she wasn't limited in her pony outfits (curiously enough he had studied dresses more than he had suits - then again, those could be much more complex). It was like her viral disguise, really, just a clever way of handling shapechanging abilities; Forest took to it like a fish to water.

Once that thought ran through her head, she gave it a little more consideration. Forest then decided she wanted something bolder, so instead of the white outfit, she made an azure one with a long, pointed blue hood similar to a windsock, with a small cyan symbol on the chest area.

"Huh?"

"A little reminder of what I left behind, don't think too hard about it." Good God, eating geeks had it's side-effects.

"Even if yah got mad at her, it musta've been hard ta leave home..." Applejack adjusted her hat, a little nervous habit brought forth by the somber mood.

"I was without a home long before I left, Applejack." Forest had to hide her discomfort; things were getting much too personal, and she didn't want to dig up old memories. "Let's just leave it at... well, there is a reason She could take me in so easily; the same that made it so I could decide to just leave and travel the world."

It was an easy not-really-a-lie; Forest just replaced 'he' with 'she'.

It slowly dawned on them.

"Your parents..." Twilight whispered, and Forest flinched with the ghost of the pain; her apathy and emptiness returned quickly, though, and she just sighed. It was the exact road she was trying to avoid.

"Gone..."

The others bit their lips, their thoughts curiously reflecting Twilight's own. 'Gee Twilight, why don't you ask how they died while you're at it?'

"It was a while ago, just let it be. I need to clear my head."

She was about to open the map Dash had used to trace the course, when she remembered a little something.

Her door.

She unlocked the door and manipulated the latch at the same time... like she would have done with her hands. Instead of just enveloping the whole parchment with magic, she sent tendrils of magic in not too different a way as she would tendrils of boimass.

Inhaling deeply, scroll in 'hand', she had little trouble in making another one. It was like trying to grow an additional arm, which she had done before to... mixed results. Unrolling the map, she smiled, genuinely smiled, at the discovery.

She might not yet be able to fully handle multiple objects as Twilight did, but the magic tendril hands should boost her fine manipulation immensely.

"I'm no expert on magic, but... is it supposed to do that?" Dash pointed at the uneven glow surrounding just part of the map.

"I... may not be the most dexterous 'unicorn'." She confessed, and the others caught the implied meaning all to well. "I can barely levitate two objects... so, instead of trying to hold the entire scroll and take in all of its details, I drew inspiration from hands and claws which touch only part of it."

An all too familiar sensation began to build up in an all too curious lavender pony; despite being glad at the change of topic, Forest decided to take a page from Spike.

"Back to the matter at hoof." The fake unicorn shook the map as she would a newspaper, the noise and words making Twilight's train of thought make a stop so sudden it was flung from the rails.

"I can see that you are using checkpoints instead of a hard-set route, letting the town provide the tracks." She smiled, poking the map with a hoof. "In a normal race, I would have to follow the streets here, here and here to get just these three quickly enough, but I plan on crossing them like this."

"But the road ain't gonna letcha."

"Roads?" Forest gave her a sideways glance, and a mock-confused, confident, smirk. "The way I'm running, I don't need roads."

'God, I am such a geek.'

"'The way you are running'? What's that supposed to mean? You use your hooves to run, no?" Dash tilted her head, and Twilight's curiosity was reborn from its ashes.

"You'll just have to see for yourself." She replied with a smirk. She then put one of her nights of practice to use; she shifted a little, letting her pegasus wings appear but keeping them under her clothes; shifting her magic, she sent her horn on what she called 'sleep mode' so that she could use all of her magic in the same way a pegasus did.

Her body was made lighter as she turned her pegasus feathers into those of the roc she consumed, and pushing and pulsing additional power to her hooves and bones made her lighter still. A small, discreet shift in biomass similar to that of her glide ability and she was more or less the weight of the changeling she pretended to be. It should at least last the race, magic-wise. It sacrificed toughness, of course, but she was not going to fight anything, and any trouble that tried to find her would have to do so without being picked up by her changeling senses warning her about ill-will... yeah, even in town, it was pretty safe to be in that state.

'Even in town?' The Everfree was supposed to be the dangerous place... whatever!

"You'd better take to the skies, Dash." She had to wonder though... would the William Tell Overture Finale be a good soundtrack choice for the run? Or was that too stereotypical for a galloping horse?

The first and last checkpoint in the track was the library, which wasn't very far from Forest's house, but then the idea had been that she'd run around to get to Carousel Boutique... avoiding the busy streets, which would be full of obstacles. Sure, since the whole circuit was intended to steer clear of the crowds, her shortcuts would be mostly away from them as well... but there were a couple of places where the shortest path cut through it.

She hadn't spent the nights in the Everfree merely cavorting around; she had moved, jumped, shifted into other ponies -larger, smaller, of different breeds- and trying to find out just what an equine could do. The magic/magnetic hooves thing was weird, and not very consistent, but enough to do two of the basic movements - hang and pull. That was all she needed them for, anyways, given that pushing and jumping didn't need her to grip or support anything in any fancy way. Well, changelings could stick to walls and such, but it was obvious she could not do that around town! Barring emergencies, she would have to let that be an Everfree-exclusive ability.

Of course, running into a fully-grown, elephant-lifting roc and other assorted monsters was certainly not part of the plan (yet), but hey, if opportunity comes knocking, you invite her for tea, bash her in the head, steal her purse, consume her, and drain her bank account for every single bit she had.

Dollar. She meant dollar.

Rainbow, though confused, could recognize quite clearly the confidence that the challenged mare had in her abilities.

*****

Thunderlane thought back to the party of the previous day.

That mare... ouch, it was like walking into a wall! He could see that those workout clothes were not just for show! She certainly knew how to keep her body strong! He never expected that from a unicorn, lest of all one that talked clothes, image and poise almost as much as Rarity. Certainly odd, but refreshing, in a sense.

The sound of a pony running full gallop got his attention; from the alley next to him, he could see a hooded pony running straight for the cart that belonged to the 'Flower Trio', currently tended to by Rose. It took him a moment, but he figured that, due to similarities in outfit, the blue-clad pony was possibly the unicorn he had crashed into the day before.

The galloping pony was faster than he thought, given that the runner had closed the distance in half while he was just drawing breath to shout a warning to the florist (who was looking in his direction rather than the runner's). Then the pony took a stance he was all too familiar with.

Ready for takeoff.

The pony hurtled through the air, right under the awning but over the flowers with a spin like... like... like a javelin. Yes, a deadly javelin flung with precision and grace, landing and continuing without breaking stride. Roseluck gave a startled yelp, like a filly caught with her hooves in the cookie jar.

With a feminine grunt of effort, the hooded pony vaulted over him as well, this time with a somersault so beautiful to his eyes, he could not help but drop his jaw to the floor. His appreciation for athletic ability had gotten him to ask Raibow Dash out in the past, though she had turned him down...

The way he traced her trajectory through the air, being sideways and refusing to take his eyes away from her, turned his head in a way that made him lean too much to his side, sending him to the dirt - which also snapped him out of his reverie and served to return time to its normal speed.

He sprang upright as fast as he could, only to see the mare - 'She is indeed a mare!' - already at the other end of the alley opposite to the one she came from. She did not seem to mind the dead end as she jumped, touched the wall with all four hooves, turned slightly, kicked off the wall, held on (somehow) to the wooden frame peeking from one of the homes that made the alley, and lifted herself up to jump again and finally clear the wall.

Realizing he had a sudden desire to see just where was she going, he shot into the air-

"Watch it!" Barely missing Rainbow Dash by half a feather. She just rolled and made some space in the time it took him to process her warning - she was that good.

"Where- there she is!" The prismatic mare pointed excitedly, then flew off in pursuit.

Thunderlane could hear in her voice that she wanted to see just as much as him, and had followed her pointing hoof to the hooded mare that was just then jumping over a surprised Big Macintosh, before repeating her earlier feat of wall-jumping and hopping on the rooftops in direction of the library.

For all he wanted to keep watching, the spectacle drew to a close as the mare skid to a stop in front of the library, prompting him to land not too far away. Rainbow Dash's cheering was lost to him as he saw Forest toss her hood back with a motion of her head, his eyes widening to take in the sight; beads of sweat had collected on her forehead and were tossed away, glistening in the sun, while her hair danced through the air before perfectly settling the same... wait, it seemed the back of her hair was longer? Maybe he was just remembering wrong... but she was gorgeous nonetheless...

He sighed, so enthralled that he didn't even notice Twilight teleporting next to Dash. He could vaguely catch the word 'awesome' coming from Dash, and he nodded and parroted the word. Forest then turned to him, and winked - it might as well have been a buck to the head, having sent his mind reeling and spinning.

Pinkie Pie bounced from out of nowhere, chatting excitedly with the other mares and making 'whoosh' and 'zoom' noises, before shoving a cupcake in Forest's mouth and clapping.

He snapped out of it and decided to try to talk to her. Or not. No, he should... maybe later, she looked busy... He retreated, intent on getting to know her better some other time. His dopey, goofy smile was not going away anytime soon, however.

It wasn't really his fault; Forest, as both a Blacklight being and a changeling, had control over her body odor (mostly so that changeling disguises could work on animals and other changelings)... it was just that disguised changelings produced more pheromones than a normal pony, and the sweat matting her coat was loaded as a result. If the poor colt found something about her appealing, then she would be extra-desirable in his eyes. She had to project the feeling of being busy with something else to get him to give her space. She would have to address the issue... the problem being that she didn't know how. Interest in her was a rather delicious feeling, one which she had no prior experience with even without empathy making her want it! On top of that, she had never been much for relationships even as a non-viral human.

Empathy kept messing with her head.

Still, Forest found that the cupcake was surprisingly tasty, hence her decision to not say anything to scold Pinkie. It was soft and fluffy, and the strawberry slices that decorated the frosting were sweet and juicy and she loved them. That, and having Pinkie so close meant that her reserves, already nearly depleted yet again, would recover. Maybe she should take it slow and allow herself to grow by overflow...

Five minutes later, Dash and Pinkie had managed to slow down enough to let Forest get a word in, if only to answer her questions.

"That was Free running." She began. "A combination of Parkour - that is, traversing any terrain in the most efficient way possible- and gymnastics to make a show of it. It was training for dexterity and ease of movement - quite fun and exciting, I say."

Spike was, at Twilight's request, searching for something in the kitchen. It was just to get him away for a second, as Forest just changed twice in quick succession to get rid of the sweat (it would have been weird to run around town without so much as being winded, so she had to fake it) and blamed it on magic. Granted, ice-cold orange juice not from concentrate was simply delicious! It had something to do with earth ponies and their magic... yet another topic to study, she guessed.

"Well, it's awesome!" Dash exclaimed the word for the umpteenth time that day. "You are officially cool." She added in a more restrained tone.

"Thank you." She politely accepted the compliment, then turned to another cupcake and sighed. "As delicious as these are, I would love to get some... variety in my diet here in Ponyville without looking bad..."

Twilight understood quickly. "Oh! Well, there is fish..."

Forest whipped her head aroun, eyes wide. "You eat fish?!"

"Uh... well, mostly pegasus ponies; fishing from clouds is quite easy, and many see it as an easy source of protein and stuff." Dash added; she figured that she would be happy, too, if she had thought that she didn't have to hide a portion of her diet to avoid looking like a freak. "You could try the market, see if there's some shrimp or so."

"I also tried it back in Canterlot, when the princess had dinner with diplomants." Twilight said with a shrug. "I didn't develop a taste for it."

"Well then." Forest smiled. "Maybe if we tried different dishes."

There was a recipe for coconut shrimp that she dearly wanted to try again... or maybe... or... whoa. The possibilities were endless.

The one bad thing to come that day would be that an orange pegasus filly saw the mare jumping around with fluidity and grace, as if she was flying. Having Rainbow Dash for a role model was not exactly healthy, as she decided to act first and ask later, which caused Macintosh to end up underneath an enormous barrel full of pickles.

And just the day before Applebuck season started, too.