A Pony's Heart

Chapters

Cabbage Makes a New Friend
Cabbage Patch in the Club
Cabbage versus Apple Trees
Cabbage on the Spot
Cabbage in Canterlot
Cabbage Patch and Royalty
Cabbages and Turnips
Cabbage on the Road
Cabbage and the Extra Inch
Turnip and Harlequin
Cabbage in Manehatten
Do Cabbages Dream of Changeling Sheep?
Cabbage versus Destiny
Cabbage Makes a Choice
Epilogue
Cabbage and the Crusaders
Cabbage's Waking Nightmare

Cabbage Makes a New Friend

The day after Tremolo tore up Ponyville’s Town Square and several miles of road outside of Hoofington, Cabbage Patch nearly threw out close to two years of training in self-confidence and stage presence out of fear that somepony would recognize her as something besides the smallest and least-seen member of The Great Trixie’s Royal Thespians troupe. She’d had little choice the previous day but to drop the sea-green earth pony shape she often thought of as her true form and temporarily be an undisguised Changeling in order to race ahead of the troupe’s wagon and warn Twilight Sparkle about the oncoming danger. The closely-guarded secret of her true nature, known only to the troupe and Princess Luna, had thus been revealed to not only Equestria’s newest Princess, who had a perfectly valid reason to distrust Changelings, but to an ash-grey unicorn stallion of some importance, although Cabbage couldn’t recall his name, and any other Ponyvillager who happened to be paying attention when Cabbage’s joy at seeing Barnacle Salt, Trixie, Maggie Pie, and Harlequin arrive safely caused her to transform back to “normal” out in plain view. The subsequent emergence of and dramatic battle with the giant stone demon Tremolo had created and controlled with a magical emerald could well have driven the diminutive Changeling from the community’s memory, but Cabbage was not easily inclined toward optimism.

Cabbage stuck close to Barnacle for the entire morning after the attack, hardly daring to speak except for a comment to Rainbow Dash that helped her revive Trixie’s spirit of showmareship. The reception to the stories Trixie told at Rainbow’s urging gave Cabbage some renewed hope, and a taste of sweet joy that spilled out from the showmare. It was enough to help her work up the nerve to walk a step or two apart from Barnacle Salt as the two of them and Harlequin left Sugar Cube Corner to fetch the materials they needed to fulfill the audience’s demand for a full and proper show.

“So, what exactly are we going to do?” Harlequin asked. “I mean, I’ve got a couple routines I can do at the drop of a hat, but are we just doing random acts or cobbling together a semi-coherent plotline?”

“I’d wager on separate acts,” Barnacle said, “but we’ll have to wait and see what way Trixie’s leanin’.”

“Just please don’t ask me to do anything too ambitious,” Cabbage said quietly. “Actually, I don’t feel up to anything except my Seapony role.”

“What?” Harlequin said. “Geez, I thought we finally had that stage fright of yours beat.”

“It was,” Cabbage started to say, but then froze up in fright, because the trio had just entered the repaired Town Square, and up ahead was the ash-grey unicorn stallion who had argued strongly against trusting her the previous day, along with four other ponies, including another grey unicorn nearly identical to the first and two matching brown earth ponies. Cabbage was able to tell the matching ponies apart by the emotional energy hovering around them, mostly irritation and anger. Cabbage’s legs locked up in fear, and so Barnacle and Harlequin stood between her and the group, patiently waiting for her nerves to calm.

They were close enough to hear the argument going on between the two grey ponies, but had difficulty following it beyond the assumption that it had something to do with the emerald Tremolo had used the day before. Three of the ponies eventually left, completely ignoring Cabbage, Barnacle, and Harlequin, leaving one of the earth ponies and the unicorn that Cabbage finally remembered was named Ashen Blaze. He and his companion discussed the strange metal vehicle next to them for a bit, and then Ash noticed the performers and asked in a cold tone, “Enjoy the show?”

“Just passing by,” Barnacle answered, taking a defensive stance as Cabbage cowered behind him.

“Good day then,” Ash said, turning his head dismissively. With the dreaded confrontation over, Cabbage’s legs started responding properly again and she and her two guardians made their way quickly through the square, watching the grey pony out of the corner of their eyes.

Once they were out of the square, Cabbage found her voice and said, “He’s why I can’t go on stage today. He knows my secret and he doesn’t like it. I’m scared he or somepony like him will expose me if I stand out too much.”

Harlequin scoffed at her with a good-natured laugh. “Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid about it, Cabbage?” he asked.

“Paranoid?!” Cabbage exclaimed, atypically loud. “That’s been my entire life, Harlequin. I’m terrible at being a Changeling; I always get found out. You found out.”

“Yeah, but that was years ago,” Harlequin said flippantly. “Look, seriously, why not just drop the act altogether? If you just come out as a Changeling it’ll save you a lot of stress. I’ve still got a lot of ideas for Changeling acts, and only one or two require a cage.”

“That’s enough, Quin,” Barnacle said, hugging Cabbage to his side with a wing. “We all promised to respect her wishes about keeping her secret. I don’t want to be risking inciting a mob anyway.”

“For a former sea captain who frolicked with Seaponies, you have no sense of adventure, Salt,” Harlequin grumbled.

“Successful sailors don’t play chicken with reefs or wild storms.” Harlequin snorted and let the matter drop, accepting his defeat.

Cabbage tried to relax as they continued toward the inn, but dwelling on the thoughts of being detected, exposed, and run out of town only made them and her anxiety stronger. She fought off her body’s physical reactions as best she could, but she couldn’t stop the tense quivering of the spot where her wings belonged, and since she was still pressing against Barnacle’s side the grizzled sailor felt it. He started to drape his wing over her again, but then the group passed a brown earth pony stallion and a blue unicorn mare with matching hourglass cutie marks talking by the side of the road and they clearly heard the stallion say in an angry voice, “Changeling.” Cabbage panicked and bolted away, taking the first corner she came too quickly and losing herself among Ponyville’s buildings. Barnacle took off after her, while Harelquin shot a look at the brown and blue ponies. They looked completely engrossed in their conversation, which consisted mostly of the stallion complaining that the unicorn hadn’t noticed he’d been replaced by a Changeling and the unicorn noting in her defense that she’d only just got back from a vacation. Neither seemed aware of the scare they’d given Cabbage, and so Harlequin blew his frustration out in a long, quiet breath and then decided to butt in with some questions. If there were other Changelings besides Cabbage in Ponyville, that was something the runty bug-pony probably needed to know.

Cabbage’s mad dash finally came to an end inside some bushes in the park. Even as she panted to catch her breath, she beat a hoof against her head while berating herself. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she grumbled. “Way to not attract undue attention Cabbage Patch.” Sighing, she settled down as comfortably as she could. The bushes were a decent hiding place in case anypony came looking for her with ill intent, and they were the sort of place Barnacle knew to look for her in if the coast was clear. She gently pushed a branch aside so she could see the path that ran nearest to the bushes, just so she wouldn’t be taken by surprise.

Nothing happened for several minutes, but then an orange pegasus filly with a short purple mane and a distinct lack of cutie mark came walking down the path, bearing saddlebags from which protruded the end of a ruler. Cabbage surmised that the filly was on her way to school and was about to put her out of mind when two other fillies, earth ponies, one pink with a purple mane with a broad white stripe running through it and wearing a tiara that matched her cutie mark perfectly and the other grey with a lighter-grey mane, thick-rimmed blue glasses, and a silver spoon for a cutie mark, came trotting up and flanked the pegasus. Cabbage could practically smell the cruel intentions coming off the earth pony pair.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Scootaloo the flightless wonder,” the pink one said tauntingly.

“Buzz off, Diamond Tiara,” Scootaloo retorted, speeding up slightly to get away.

“Hey, don’t be mad,” Diamond Tiara said. “It’s not like it’s our fault your friends are, like, leaving you behind.”

“Yeah,” the grey pony added, “they must be getting tired of you dragging them down.”

“Shut up!” Scootaloo snapped, whirling angrily on the pair, who looked smugly pleased at the reaction. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, either of you! The Cutie Mark Crusaders are friends for life.”

“Sure,” Diamond Tiara said, rolling her eyes with dramatic sarcasm. “Even though you’re the only one who still hasn’t found out her one special talent? Face it, Scoota-lose, you’re still a boring, useless pegasus who can’t fly-”

“I can fly!” Scootaloo insisted. “Kinda…” Diamond Tiara and her companion started to laugh scornfully, and Scootaloo wilted under the shame.

Hidden in the bushes, Cabbage winced in sympathy for the orange filly. She had never been troubled by bullies, but she did know what persecution felt like, and how it felt to face it alone. Her heart told her to step out and help Scootaloo, but her fear wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t all that much bigger than the three fillies were, and if she flubbed up she didn’t doubt the bullies would turn on her. Should the worst happen and they discovered she was a Changeling, they were undoubtedly the type to go running to shout it all over town. No, Cabbage simply couldn’t leave her bush.

At the same time, however, she couldn’t stand to see Scootaloo be tormented further. She wracked her brain for a solution that would satisfy both her soft heart and paranoid mind. Something that would make the bullies leave without revealing that Cabbage Patch was responsible. It dawned on her suddenly to use the one skill she’d never had trouble with, no matter the circumstances: voice mimicry. She had always had problems making herself look like other ponies, but she could copy any voice she’d ever heard. Pondering quickly, she decided that Rainbow Dash’s loud, confident tone would go well with the rebuke she had in mind, so she rubbed her throat gently while uttering low, quiet tones to test her vocal chords as they shifted to a new configuration. Once they were ready, and before she could lose her nerve, Cabbage shouted, “Hey you two brats! Leave her alone!”

All three fillies jumped in surprise and looked around for the source of the voice. “Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo asked hopefully.

“Yeah, it’s me” Cabbage said, hoping she was doing a passable impression of Dash’s manner of speech.

“Let’s get out of here, DT,” the grey filly, nudging her friend nervously.

“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara said slowly, glancing around. “Uh, sorry, Scootaloo,” she said insincerely, and then ran off with her friend close on her tail. Cabbage let out a sigh of relief, but her breath hitched in her throat again when she saw that Scootaloo was still out on the path, looking around for Rainbow Dash, and getting dangerously close to the bushes.

“Where are you, Rainbow?” the filly asked. “Thanks for the save and all, but why are you hiding?” Cabbage went still as a statue, silently willing Scootaloo to walk away, but to no avail. “Rainbow? I think I heard you over this way…” She put a hoof into the bush, brushed up against Cabbage’s, and then peered in as Cabbage hastened to return her voice to normal.

Scootaloo gave the scared-looking green pony a strange look, and asked, “What are you doing in there?”

“Uh, d-don’t mind me,” Cabbage replied, and then clapped a hoof over her mouth, for her voice still sounded a little like Rainbow Dash’s, a fact that did not escape Scootaloo’s notice.

“Whoa, you sound just like Rainbow Dash! Was that you that told off Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?” Cabbage just nodded meekly. “Well thanks,” Scootaloo said, “but… why did you say you were Rainbow Dash?”

Cabbage crawled out of the bush, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to get away without satisfying the filly’s curiosity. Besides, she could sense a lot of gratitude being held in reserve, and she was sorely tempted to receive it legitimately. Coughing a couple times to cover putting her voice back to normal, she answered, “I said it because I was pretending to be her.”

Scootaloo’s eyes went wide upon hearing Cabbage’s quieter voice. “Wow,” she said, “that was a really good impression, then. No, the best impression ever.” Gratitude flowed from her to Cabbage, and along with it came admiration, an emotion so close to love that Cabbage couldn’t help but lap it up, figuratively. “I’m Scootaloo,” the orange filly said, extending a hoof.

Emboldened by the admiration and gratitude, Cabbage barely hesitated as she touched her hoof to Scootaloo’s and replied, “I’m Cabbage Patch. Nice to meet you.”

“Cabbage Patch. Cool,” Scootaloo said. “So, are you new in town or what?”

“Um, I… I’m just visiting, kinda,” Cabbage said. “I’m… part of The Great Trixie’s Royal Thespians.”

“Oh,” Scootaloo said with awkward sympathy. “Yesterday must have been pretty rough on you then, being attacked by that rock monster and all. I almost lost my own house.”

You have no idea, Cabbage thought, but didn’t say so as to avoid prying questions.

“So what’s your special…” Scootaloo’s eager question died on her lips as she craned her had to look at Cabbage’s rear legs. “Hey, you don’t have your cutie mark yet!” Cabbage froze up in bug-eyed panic. Out of all her failings in basic Changeling skills, her complete inability to emulate a cutie mark was among the worst. Whenever she’d tried to copy a pony’s mark in the past, it came out misshapen and disappeared on its own within a second or two. To compensate, she maintained a small spell of misdirection to make others ignore or forget to wonder about her blank flank. That spell had only failed her once before, when Maggie Pie had somehow seen right through it two years back, and that had quickly led to the entire troupe learning Cabbage’s secret identity. She struggled to come up with an explanation, but all she drew was a mental blank.

Scootaloo, misinterpreting the reason for Cabbage’s panic, stepped back and turned her body slightly to display her own blank flank. “I haven’t got mine either yet,” she said. “My friends and I started a club years ago that’s all about helping each other discover our special talents. You can be an honorary member if you want to. We can swap ideas, try new things, and when you go back out on the road you could start new branches of the CMC. Apple Bloom’s cousin Babs runs one in Manehatten, so-”

“No!” Cabbage exclaimed, and then hastily tried to take it back when Scootaloo stepped back in surprise. “I-I-I mean, thank you, Scootaloo, b-but I couldn’t. You… Y-you don’t want me in your club anyway. I… would… wouldn’t belong anyway.”

“Why not?” Scootaloo asked, confused.

“I’m older than I look,” Cabbage said quickly. “I’m too old to be in a filly’s club.” Scootaloo looked at her strangely, and then laughed. “It’s not funny,” Cabbage said, feeling insulted.

“Yeah it is,” Scootaloo said, still laughing. “You really expect me to believe a pony that’s barely bigger than me and a blank-flank is that much older than me? That would mean…” She went sober and looked Cabbage with traces of fear in her eyes. “Wouldn’t that mean a pony could actually grow up and never get their cutie mark?”

Oh no, Cabbage thought, starting to sweat, I’ve done it again. I’m caught. A proper Changeling would have had no difficulty answering Scootaloo’s question in the affirmative, or simply walking away and letting the little pegasus hang on her own self-doubt, assuming she wasn’t being fed upon. Cabbage’s conscience wouldn’t allow that, but she also had a distaste for lying more than was strictly necessary to avoid suspicion. Still, when she thought about it she realized that her small size and shy behavior caused most ponies to treat her like a child anyway. It wasn’t really a stretch at all to claim that she was as young as she looked, especially if it would prevent Scootaloo from flipping out. Lowering her head sheepishly, she said in her usually quiet manner, “You’re right, that is pretty silly. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Scootaloo said, visibly relaxing as she reassured the sea-green earth pony. “Although, I still don’t get why’d you say that.”

Cabbage let herself blush slightly and kept her eyes on the ground as she answered, “I’m just really, really shy, and your invitation caught me so off-guard that I panicked.”

Scootaloo nodded in comprehension, and then went wide-eyed in a mild panic of her own as a bell rang in the distance. “Oh feathers, I’m late for school!” She galloped away, shouting over her shoulder, “Think about it, ok? The Cutie Mark Crusaders are always there for each other! Catch you later!”

Cabbage waved good-bye to the retreating pegasus, and then set to work trying to sort out her feelings about the entire encounter. Barnacle Salt found her still sitting there by the bushes several minutes later, and once he got her attention he asked what was on her mind. “I think,” Cabbage said after a moment, “I’ve made a new friend.”

Cabbage Patch in the Club

Later that same day, when Trixie’s troupe reunited to officially plan the show, the first item of discussion was Changelings. Despite the encouraging emotions derived from her conversation with Scootaloo, Cabbage still felt uneasy about going on stage when another Changeling had apparently been unmasked in Ponyville after Tremolo’s attack. Harlequin, who had learned the story from the clock-maker who had been temporarily captured and impersonated by that Changeling, did his best to allay Cabbage’s fears. “I talked to the mayor about it as well,” he said. “I did what any worried visitor would have and expressed my concerns that Changelings could have infiltrated the town and replaced any number of ponies for nefarious ends. She assured me that an investigation had already been completed, by Twilight Sparkle herself, and that that Changeling was the only one in Ponyville and that is was long gone. That’s the official story going around the entire town, so I doubt there’s going to be much paranoia.”

“I hope so,” Cabbage said.

“Let’s not dwell on it further,” Trixie said imperiously. “We are performers, not problem solvers, and it won’t be doing Cabbage any favors to worry about it either.” Everypony nodded, including Cabbage. “Good,” Trixie said. “Now, the ponies at Sugarcube Corner seemed very interested in Trixie and Cabbage’s ‘transformation’ routine from Hoofington, so-”

“Sorry, but I’m not doing that,” Cabbage said quietly but firmly.

“Oh Cabbage,” Trixie sighed, “you’ll never be a star if you don’t face your fears. Nopony suspected a thing in Hoofington, even with Tremolo trying his hardest to find the secret to the trick. I know you can do your part.”

Cabbage shook her head. “It’s too soon,” she said. “I’m going to be thinking about that other Changeling, and I’ll be all nervous and mess something up and-“

“And Trixie will cover for you if that happens,” the azure unicorn said. “I can always use my old reputation in this town to my advantage in some way. You just have to trust me.”

“Aye,” Barnacle Salt said, “We sink or sail together, little lass, just like always.”

“And don’t forget who pays our bills,” Maggie Pie pointed out. “If all else fails, we ask Princess Luna to bail us out of trouble.”

Doubt and fear still flickered in Cabbage’s mind, but she forced it away and nodded reluctantly. “I’ll try my best,” she promised.

When Cabbage and Barnacle had first partnered up with Trixie, the little Changeling was so paralyzed by stage fright that the only thing she could contribute to the shows was dressing up as a seapony to serve as an eye-catch and backdrop to Barnacle’s wild tales of the sea. Once she’d become comfortable enough around Trixie and Harlequin to speak in their presence, Trixie had begun teaching her to handle the some of the technical backstage aspects of putting on a show while Barnacle and later Harlequin coached her on overcoming her stage fright. To her surprise, after the entire troupe had learned that she was a Changeling her progress in that area accelerated and within a few months she was on stage not only as Mar the Seapony but as Trixie’s assistant in a few tricks. Her crowning achievement had come only a few days prior, when she transformed under the veil of smokescreens provided by Trixie to dupe Tremolo into relinquishing the Alicorn Amulet.

It had felt like an achievement at the time at least. All eyes had been focused on Trixie in Hoofington, and everypony’s thoughts had been on whether she could outwit Tremolo and save the town. Here in Ponyville, however, the stakes weren’t nearly so high and despite Harlequin assurances Cabbage knew some ponies would still be wondering about the Changeling who had masquerading as the local clock maker for who-knows how long. An act based around magically changing a pony would remind those ponies about that Changeling and possibly make them question if the official report about it being the only one was correct. Cabbage did her best to relate these concerns to Trixie without backing out, and although the azure showmare was eager to repeat the full act the two of them compromised with simply changing Cabbage’s coat and mane colors a few times and finishing with zebra stripes.

With their stage-wagon destroyed in Tremolo’s last hurrah, the troupe needed a temporary venue to perform at. Maggie Pie had, with some help from her sister Pinkie, arranged for such a temporary stage to be set up on a hill in the park. It was really just a bunch of curtains set up to create a “backstage” area, but since it was able to hold all the necessary props when they weren’t in use it suited the troupe’s needs adequately. The only bad news that caused Cabbage any concern was the discovery that the glass tank she usually floated in for her seapony role had several leaky cracks in it, and there was little time to find an adequate substitute. Harlequin suggested finding a large wooden basket or tub, but Barnacle argued that Cabbage’s seapony tail wouldn’t be visible to the audience, and furthermore real seaponies couldn’t breathe air as long as his act lasted.

“Barnacle, nopony in this town has ever seen a real seapony,” Trixie said in counterargument. “They’re not going to know the difference if you don’t tell them, and if you tell your tall tales as well as you usually do, the seapony is just going to be a backdrop anyway.”

“That would be fine by me,” Cabbage said. Barnacle gave her a comically hurt look. “If it’s going to cause a problem, maybe I just won’t be the seapony,” the little pony suggested. “I’m going to be onstage helping Trixie anyway, so…”

“Ah, yer all right,” Barnacle said with a sigh. “It’s not a detail worth fighting over. Let’s go find ye a tub, Cabbage.”

“Try Sweet Apple Acres,” Maggie suggested. “They should have a lot of baskets to spare in about the right size.”

When Cabbage and Barnacle came to Sweet Apple Acres, they saw right away that there were plenty of bushel baskets that the little sea-green pony could fit in as a seapony on the property, but all of them were already being put to use catching falling apples. After wandering around for a bit, they found Applejack bucking the apples out of a tree and Barnacle wasted no time in requesting a temporary loan of a single basket and explaining why it was needed.

“Shoot, I’d love ta help ya, Cap’n,” AJ said without breaking her bucking rhythm, “but it’s Applebuck Season, our big harvestin’ time, and I just can’t spare any of the big bushels.”

“Not even for an hour or so?” Barnacle asked, raising an eyebrow.

Applejack was about to answer when Apple Bloom came trotting up, calling for her. “Applejack! I got Ms. Cheerilee ta… Oh, howdy there!” she cut herself off acknowledge Barnacle and Cabbage, her eyes lingering uncomfortably long on the little sea-green pony.

“Apple Bloom,” Applejack prompted with clear warning in her voice, “school don’t get out fer another couple of hours.”

“It’s ok AJ,” Bloom said, smiling broadly at her sister, “Ms. Cheerilee let me, Scoots, and Sweetie Bell out early to do some, uh, experimentin’.”

“Experimentin’,” Applejack said, giving the filly a flat look.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said. “We’re gonna test whether unicorns or pegasus ponies are better at apple-bucking without much, uh… what was that word Sweetie used? Conditionin’ for it.” AJ considered her sister’s story for a moment, and then nodded and waved a hoof for Apple Bloom to run along. Instead, and before AJ and Barnacle could pick up their basket discussion again, Bloom stepped a little closer to Cabbage Patch and said, “Hey, I’d bet anything you’re the pony Scootaloo met on the way ta school this mornin’. She said you’re name’s Cabbage Patch, right?”

“Y-yeah,” Cabbage said, nervous. She stiffened as Apple Bloom sidled up close and threw a leg around her shoulders.

“Nice ta met ya,” the yellow filly said. “The name’s Apple Bloom. Scoots said she already asked ya to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders, so if yer still interested I’ll show you the clubhouse and we’ll get you inducted all right and proper.”

“I… uh,” Cabbage said, looking to Barnacle for help.

The old sailor had other ideas though. With permissive smile, he said, “Go ahead lass. Miss Applejack and I still have some dealing to do. I’ll come find you when we’ve got that basket.”

“Now wait just a minute,” AJ said, drowning out Cabbage’s own protest as Apple Bloom started dragging her off. “I already told you we ain’t got any baskets to spare,” Applejack continued. “There ain’t nothing you can say ta change that.”

“I accept your challenge, matey,” Barnacle said with a glint in his eye. Cabbage felt the stubborn energy spilling from both him and the elder Apple sister, and so she gave in to Apple Bloom in the hopes of finding a less emotionally hostile environment to wait out the argument in.

Cabbage wasn’t sure what to expect from the clubhouse, but it certainly hadn’t been to see it was practically a tiny house built around the main trunk of an apple tree, with a smaller tower room perfectly balanced at the very top of the tree. A ramp led up to the balcony-like veranda around the clubhouse, and as Apple Bloom led the way up to the front door Cabbage couldn’t help but admire how sturdy and well-fitted everything was. The wood barely creaked under her hooves, and the walls and roof of the house itself looked perfectly weatherproof. “Um, nice place,” she said.

“Nice?” Apple Bloom said, pausing at the door to glance back indignantly. “That all you can say about it?” Cabbage retreated several steps backward down the ramp, stammering in a panicked attempt to apologize, and Apple Bloom’s face softened instantly. “I was only kiddin’ around,” she said contritely. “Ah mean, I did put a lot of work into fixing the place up and adding onto it after AJ passed it on to me, but I ain’t so proud as to expect ponies to sing its praises.”

“Oh,” Cabbage said, fighting down her nerves. “I’m sor- I mean, I accept your apology.” Apple Bloom smiled and opened the clubhouse door, gesturing for Cabbage to enter first. Cabbage did so, and took several moments to take in the clubhouse interior. A few low tables and chests were pushed up against the walls, holding some basic art supplies, well-used notebooks stuffed with extra bits of loose paper, and random objects that Cabbage charitably assumed to be mementos of some sort. Posters of the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash shared wall space with some crude maps drawn in crayon. Cabbage also noted that there were two windows as well as the door, giving her three potential escape routes. Scootaloo and a white unicorn filly with a curled pastel purple and pink mane were hanging out near the middle of the room.

While Cabbage was surveying the room, Apple Bloom went straight over to Scootaloo and crossly said, “Scootaloo, why didn’t ya tell me Cabbage Patch here was as timid as Fluttershy? I almost scared her off with a joke.”

“I told you I practically had to drag her out of a bush,” the orange pegasus said, equally cross. “Wasn’t that clear enough?”

“No,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes.

“Girls, stop fighting,” the white unicorn said. “We have a guest here, after all.” She walked up to Cabbage and shook her hoof. “My name’s Sweetie Bell,” she said.

“Cabbage Patch,” Cabbage said, relaxing under Sweetie’s exuberance.

“Oh, so you’re who those two are making a fuss about,” Sweetie said.

“Right,” Apple Bloom said, “now that she’s met us all, let’s git the stuff together fer the induction ceremony. Er,” she added after a second, looking at Cabbage, “That is, if you do want to be a Cutie Mark Crusader.”

Cabbage shifted uncomfortably, glancing back at her blank flank and around at the three friendly fillies as she thought. “I… I’m not sure I really understand the purpose,” she said at last. She pointed at the symbol of a hammer crossing a wooden apple on Apple Bloom’s flank, and then at the paired heart-shaped eighth-notes shaped adorning Sweetie’s and continued, “I mean, you two already have your cutie marks, so…”

“That’s true,” Sweetie said, “but the three of us formed the Cutie Mark Crusaders to help each other find their special talent, and since then we’ve added Apple Bloom’s cousin Babs and she’s running a branch of the club out in Manehatten. Our new mission is to help everypony who is struggling to find their cutie mark.”

“If you join,” Scootaloo said, “you’ll have to promise to help me find my special talent, and we’ll all help you for as long as you’re in town. But just as importantly, we’ll be friends forever and have as much fun as possible when Crusading. Sound good?”

Cabbage was conflicted. The offer of friendship from all three fillies felt genuine, and it was certainly enticing to more than just Cabbage’s emotional hunger. However, if she were to accept the offer of membership into the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she’d be implying a genuine desire for what she knew to be impossible. Cabagge wasn’t really a pony, able to spontaneously acquire a cutie mark, and she wasn’t a good enough Changeling to make a passable false one and have it stay put on her haunches. Still, it was tempting to say yes anyway, and the fillies were already aware that she was only going to be in Ponyville temporarily, likely only a couple days more. They’d certainly understand if she “failed” to find her cutie mark by then. Cabbage’s paranoia scratched fiercely at the reasons for saying yes, but she ignored it as best she could. It was a risky proposition for physically and magically stunted Changeling, but everything she did on a regular basis as a member of Trixie’s Royal Thespians carried similar risks.

Taking a deep, calming breath and squashing her dark thoughts into an isolated corner, she put on a smile and said, “Sounds good. Thank you.”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo crowed, leaping up and hovering briefly.

“Don’t thank us quite yet,” Apple Bloom said as Sweetie Bell rushed over to a chest and started digging through it. “We still hafta make it official.” Her smile gave Cabbage an involuntary shiver.

She quickly realized that her worries were unfounded, as the Crusaders simply sat her down in front of a podium while Scootaloo free-styled on a small timpani drum and Sweetie Bell dug a thick scroll out of the chest. She unrolled it as she mounted the stool behind the podium, and after reading through it quickly she tore a few small sections out of it and threw the rest off to the side. She then cleared her throat loudly, giving Scootaloo a meaningful look and the pegasus got in a few final beats before stopping her drumming. Trying her best to look dignified, Sweetie began reading off the scraps of paper she’d retained. “We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect B- Cabbage Patch to be our sister, friend…” She paused to switch to another scrap and find her place. “…And fellow Cutie Mark Crusader,” she resumed. “You are hereby solemnly sworn in, here this day, in witness of your fellow sisters, friends, confidants, etcetera, etcetera… For as long as you seek to discover your own cutie mark and assist others in the same search. Give her the cape.” Apple Bloom moved quickly from her spot and Cabbage suddenly found herself wearing a red cape with a blue shield with a rearing yellow silhouette of a foal on it embroidered in the middle.

“Sisters?” Cabbage asked hesitantly.

“Scootaloo wrote it,” Sweetie said dismissively. “Speaking of which, we need to revise that speech before we start any membership drives.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, on to the next order of business: getting my cutie mark for apple harvesting.”

“Uh huh,” Apple Bloom said blandly. “We’ll just see if ya really have what it takes. Oh! Cabbage, ya ever worked on a farm before?”

“No,” Cabbage said, a little confused.

“Perfect,” Apple Bloom said. “Our harvestin’ experiment would look better if we could compare all types of ponies, but since I do applebuckin’ on a regular basis I have a unfair advantage over these two,” she hugged Sweetie and Scootaloo close to her sides. “If’n you’ve never done any farm work before, then you’d be a better fit. Whaddaya say?”

“It sounds fun,” Cabbage said, “but Barnacle Salt and I need to get back to the rest of the troupe soon. We have a show to put on.”

“Is that why y’all need to borrow a basket from AJ?” Apple Bloom asked. Cabbage nodded, and Apple Bloom sidled over to mutter conspiratorially, “Tell ya what: the experiment’s prob’ly only gonna take a couple minutes, and once we’re done I’ll loan you a basket fer your show.”

“Won’t your sister get mad at you though?” Cabbage asked. “She really didn’t want to let Barnacle have one.”

“Don’t you worry ‘bout AJ,” Bloom said confidently. “Leave that to me.”

“I dunno,” Cabbage mumbled, still uneasy.

“Ah c’mon Cabbage,” Scootaloo said, “you’re part of the Cutie Mark Crusaders now. Risking getting in a little bit of trouble to help each other out is what we do.”

“Yeah, we get in trouble all the time,” Sweetie added helpfully. Cabbage looked dubiously at her sincere smile, but then saw Scootaloo and Apple Bloom both face-hoof.

“Alright, I’ll play along,” she said. “But only for a few minutes!” she half-shouted over the cheers of the three fillies as they ran out the door.

“Cutie Mark Crusader apple-buckers! Yay!”

Cabbage versus Apple Trees

Cabbage had to run to catch up the Cutie Mark Crusaders, because Scootaloo was already charging full-tilt into the orchard and the other two were not far behind. “I hope you’re ready to get completely served Sweetie Bell,” Scootaloo was shouting. “I harvested almost as many apples as AB this morning.”

“Maybe ya did,” the earth pony filly said, “but y’all were up in the canopy shaking the branches directly. This time everypony’s going to do it properly.” Apple Bloom pulled ahead of Scootaloo and led the group to a nearby group of trees still heavy with apples, and there was one large bucket sitting next to a tree. “Ok everypony,” Apple Bloom said, “Ah think the best way to do this is for each of you to take turns ta buck a tree four or five times. Whoever has the most apples per kick wins. Strength is important, but the real trick is ta hit the tree in just the right spot, like so.” She went over to the tree with the bucket, looked it up and down, and then backed up to get a running start. She spun around at the last second, losing a fair bit of momentum, and struck the tree with both hind legs at once. The entire tree shook from the impact and eleven or twelve apples fell out and mostly landed in the basket. “Y’all understand?” she asked. Scootaloo and Sweetie nodded seriously, but Cabbage was too busy being impressed to respond. She snapped out of it when Apple Bloom asked, “So who’s first?”

“Oh! Me!” Sweetie Bell shouted, beating Scootaloo by a split-second. The pegasus stomped and snorted in frustration, but let Sweetie walk up to one of the trees without further protest. Apple Bloom emptied the basket, stacking the apples carefully next to the tree they’d come from, and skillfully tossed the basket to land at the base of the tree Sweetie had chosen. Sweetie narrowed her eyes to the verge of full closure as she tried to imitate AB’s sizing up of her target, and after several seconds trotted away, and then charged. She mistimed the last-second spin, lost her balance, and crashed sideways into the trunk. Two apples fell out of the tree and landed in the basket. “Ow…” the unicorn moaned, rubbing her side. Looking into the basket, she asked, “Does that count as one of my bucks? I’m not sure if I want that to count.”

“You knocked apples out of the tree,” Scootaloo said. “It counts.”

“Just stand still and kick the tree next time,” Apple Bloom suggested. “And that goes for all y’all.”

“I could do the running thing,” Scootaloo protested with a pout.

Sweetie Bell stopped rubbing her aching side, glared at the tree, and bucked it as hard as she could, scoring five apples from the limbs. “Better,” she said, kicking out again, but this time only two apples came down into the basket. “Hey,” she whined, “dumb tree! Heeyah!” Her final blow to the tree trunk landed in a sweet spot, and seven apples fell out of the branches and only one missed the basket.

“That’s sixteen,” Apple Bloom said, scooping the single outlier into the basket with her tail, “unless you’re up for one last kick, Sweetie.”

“Nah, my hooves are getting sore,” the unicorn said, walking away and favoring her left rear leg slightly.

“Are you ok?” Cabbage asked, noticing the limp with some concern.

“Just a little sore,” Sweetie repeated, sitting down.

“My turn,” Scootaloo said, walking up to a tree. “Prepare to be amazed.”

“Gimme a second to prepare the basket first,” Apple Bloom said, stacking Sweetie’s harvest in its own pile. She set the basket under Scootaloo’s chosen target, and then nodded for the pegasus to proceed. Scootaloo scrutinized the tree for a minute, and then tapped her hoof against a particular spot of the trunk. She backed away and then ran at the tree, executing a perfect spin on her front hooves at the last second and bucked. She missed her target by a few inches, but three apples plunked into the basket nonetheless. Looking smug, Scootaloo made another run at the tree and knocked an additional six out of the branches.

“Ah yeah,” she said, trotting out for her third go, “I’m on fire. Cutie mark, here I come.” She charged, spun, and kicked out, but her hooves landed too low and only a pair of apples dropped, both hitting the ground. “What the hay,” she grumbled flatly.

“Ya still got one buck left,” Apple Bloom pointed out, trying not to look too amused.

Scootaloo snorted at the tree, backed up, and came at it with a battle cry. Her hooves impacted right on the tree’s sweet spot and it yielded up seven of its ripe red fruits. Scootaloo hastily counted up the apples and declared with triumph, “Eighteen!” She then looked at her flank expectantly and immediately lost all her enthusiasm because no cutie mark had manifested.

“You did better than I did, at least,” Sweetie Bell said.

“Hm, true,” Scootaloo said, brightening up a little.

“Alright Cabbage,” Apple Bloom said, emptying the basket, “you’re up. Pick your tree.” She leaned in close and murmured, “Ah’m countin’ on you ta put on a good show of what we earth ponies are made of.”

“Ok,” Cabbage said neutrally. The only problem is I’m not really an earth pony, she thought sardonically. She couldn’t quite remember why she’d originally chosen to hide as an earth pony after being exiled, but the form was second nature to her now. Unfortunately for the current situation, the disguise was only superficial and didn’t give Cabbage any of the inherent skills or magic of a real earth pony. She wasn’t a total weakling of course, but she’d never tried something like kicking fruit out of a tree and she wasn’t sure if her runt-Changeling strength could even match Sweetie Bell’s performance, let alone outdo her and Scootaloo.

Backing out would only raise uncomfortable questions though, while finding an excuse for under-performing would be relatively easier. Cabbage looked at the fruit-laden trees all around the group, trying to figure out which one would be the easiest to knock apples out of. Finding one with particularly low-hanging apples, she pointed it out for Apple Bloom to place the basket underneath, and then simply picked a spot on the trunk at random to aim her kicks at. Not feeling confident enough for a running start, she just planted her front hooves and kicked out. The tree barely shivered, and no apples fell out. “Oh no,” Cabbage said in a near whisper, pulling in on herself.

“How about we just call that a practice run?” Apple Bloom suggested a bit awkwardly.

“Fine by me,” Scootaloo said.

“Go on, Cabbage,” Sweetie said encouragingly, “try again.”

Cabbage relaxed and tried to smile. The fillies weren’t suspicious yet, just empathizing with her embarrassment. Focusing on that, she repositioned herself slightly closer to the tree and bucked again, landing a firmer hit on what she thought was the sweet spot. There was a tense moment as the branches shook fruitlessly, the rustling leaves seeming to mock the sea-green pony, and then a single apple fell out and hit Cabbage right in the head. “Ow,” she exclaimed, rubbing the spot and feeling a rare moment of gratitude for her disguised chitin that had made the collision hurt less it might have for a normal pony. Scootaloo chuckled in a somewhat mean-spirited manner, while AB and Sweetie were both full of concern for her. “I’m ok,” Cabbage assured them, “but I think this tree just doesn’t like me.”

“You wanna pick another one then?” Apple Bloom asked.

Cabbage considered the question for a moment. It was a gamble between switching to a tree that would actually drop its apples when kicked or failing against it as well and appearing weaker than an earth pony ought to be. Besides that, Cabbage honestly did think this tree was mocking her and she did not want a plant to be responsible for putting her secret in jeopardy. “No,” she said aloud, “I’m not going to let it beat me.”

“Well, that’s the spirit,” Apple Bloom said.

Cabbage scrutinized the tree again, pondering how she was going to live up to her boast. Eventually she picked a spot to aim her legs at, kicked it lightly a couple times to make sure she could hit it squarely, and then willed herself to turn every ounce of feeling she had into strength as she bucked for real. The tree visibly shook as her hooves landed squarely, the branches convulsed, and a veritable rain of apples buried Cabbage patch under a pile. As they pounded against her head and back, Cabbage felt her disguise start to waver and nearly panicked. She forced herself to keep breathing calmly, letting the increasingly heavy scent of apples distract her until her magic settled. She heard the Crusaders running over to dig her out, but she managed to stay calm and regained her full earth pony disguise before enough apples fell away to reveal her. She stood up, shook the apples off her back, and stepped carefully out of the pile and into the forelegs of Sweetie Bell.

“Oh thank Celestia you’re ok!” the unicorn filly exclaimed, hugging Cabbage tightly.

“That was crazy,” Scootaloo exclaimed. “Crazy awesome.”

Apple Bloom looked a bit bemused. “I reckon nopony’s gonna argue with you winning this contest,” she said, gesturing at the apple pile.

“No kidding,” Scootaloo said, clapping Cabbage on the back. “If that doesn’t earn you your cutie mark-”

“It didn’t,” Cabbage said, gently extracting herself from Sweetie’s embrace. “No offense to Apple Bloom, but I don’t want to be a farmer.”

“None taken,” the yellow filly said. “But shoot, ya sure got the legs fer it.”

“Please, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Cabbage said. “I already have quite enough of ponies paying attention to me on the stage as it is.”

“If you insist,” Apple Bloom said. “And that reminds me, Ah owe you a big basket. Just how big are we talkin’ anyway?”

“Big enough for me to fit in comfortably,” Cabbage answered. “I’m going to recline in it while dressed as a sea pony during Barancle Salt’s act. The tank we usually use is broken.”

“All right,” AB said, “I think I know right where one is that ain’t being used yet. Scootaloo, go git yer scooter and the wagon and meet us back at the clubhouse. Everypony else, Ah’m gonna need your help carrying the tub.”

“I’ll be there in a flash,” Scootaloo said, and then galloped off.

Apple Bloom started to head off in a different direction, deeper into the orchards, but Cabbage brought her up short with a question. “Are we just going to leave all these apples on the ground?”

“Uh,” Apple Bloom said, looking between the large pile of apples and the inadequately sized basket next to them. “Let’s get as many into the basket as we can and just pile the rest neatly.”

The CMC regrouped as planned after only a few short minutes, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Bell balanced the wooden tub on their red wagon while Scootaloo towed on her scooter and Cabbage walked alongside, following the trail from the clubhouse to the edge of Sweet Apple Acres property. “Hey Cabbage,” Scootaloo said, “I don’t mean to pry, but you don’t really seem eager to get your cutie mark.”

Cabbage felt her innards start to tense up, but maintained an outward calm as she responded, “I just don’t like to cause a scene over things I can’t help.”

“Alright, I can understand that,” the pegasus said. “Still, you are trying to discover it. You have any ideas?”

Not wanting to send her friend on some wild goose chase, Cabbage tried to dodge the question with a partial truth. “If I had any good ideas, I’d have a cutie mark already,” she said. Glancing pointedly over her shoulder at AB and Sweetie, she continued, “Those two already have their cutie marks, so why not try what they did?”

Scootaloo sighed and rolled her eyes. “As they love to point out, I can’t carry a tune to save my life, so I can’t get a cutie mark for singing like Sweetie Bell, and I’m not as good at fixing and building stuff as Apple Bloom. Trust me, I’ve tried them both a lot.”

“I don’t think she meant it that specifically,” Apple Bloom said.

“You mean we realized what we love to do the most and how we could shape our futures around it, right Cabbage?” Sweetie asked.

“Right,” Cabbage answered.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty much what everypony says,” Scootaloo said wearily. “But I’m pretty good at a lot of things; how am I supposed to know which one’s my special talent? You understand me, right Cabbage? Do you have any kind of idea what your cutie mark could be for?”

A cutie mark for a Changeling, Cabbage thought, bemused, what would that be like? Ponynapping, impersonation, stealing emotions, how could you capture those in a little picture? Well, impersonation is pretty much acting, and I know there ponies with those talents, but the rest… And what about me? What are my special skills? Running, hiding behind crippling shyness and other ponies, mimicking voices, having an eye for pretty ribbons if that even counts. “I couldn’t say,” she answered Scootaloo at last. “I don’t really like being in the spotlight for anything for very long. Attention makes me nervous.”

“You’re definitely a mini-Fluttershy then,” Apple Bloom said good-naturedly. Looking ahead, she saw Applejack and Barnacle Salt coming towards the group along the path. “Here comes AJ,” she said. “Leave the talking to me.”

“Girls,” AJ said with suspicious rebuke, “where are y’all taking that apple basket?”

“We’re lendin’ it to Cabbage Patch fer a little while,” Apple Bloom answered. Before Applejack could protest, she pointed to the cape Cabbage was wearing and added, “She’s part of the club, now, so it’s official Crusader business.”

“That’s nice and all,” AJ said, “but we got a tightly scheduled system fer Applebuckin’ planned out, and there ain’t any space fer loanin’ out our baskets.”

“Cabbage emptied an entire tree in one buck,” Sweetie Bell said.

“Oh really?” AJ said, unbelieving.

“She really did, sis” Apple Bloom said. “Could we lie to you?” She met her sister’s eyes and put on her best pleading face.

Applejack looked at each of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in turn, then glanced at Barnacle, who was looking smug, and sighed. “Fine,” she said, “I reckon harvestin’ that many apples’ll balance borrowin’ the basket fer a while. But yer gonna show me these apples right now Bloom, and if they ain’t there I’m coming to get my property back, understood?”

“Ok AJ,” Apple Bloom said, stepping away from the tub. “Good luck with your show Cabbage, Mr. Barnacle. I’ll come see it if I can.”

“That… would be nice,” Cabbage said, smiling. Apple Bloom returned the smile and then trotted back down the path with Applejack in tow.

Barnacle Salt looked at the tub with an appraising eye, and then smirked. “Seems you found some real good friends here, lass,” he said to Cabbage. “We’d best put some fresh wind under our wings,” he then said to Scootaloo. “Trixie will have herself a conniption if we’re late to the show.”

Applejack stood slightly slack-jawed as she tried in vain to mentally count the apples piled up before her. Apple Bloom rubbed a hoof on her chest nonchalantly and said, “Told ya.”

“Yep, ya sure did,” Applejack said. “One filly did all that in one kick though?”

“Well, a few of them are Sweetie, Scoots, and my work,” Apple Bloom said, “but yeah. It was amazing. Her first two kicks didn’t hardly do anything, but she musta tapped into some kinda hidden earth pony power for the third one. The apples literally buried her.”

“Amazing,” Applejack said. She walked up to the pile and started sorting through it, looking for bruises or other signs of bad apples. They all seemed to be in order, until she found one that appeared to have been pierced by a horn. “Ah see Sweetie Bell had a bit of bad luck with fallin’ apples too,” she said, showing the apple to AB.

“Sweetie didn’t get hit with any apples,” the yellow filly said, confused. “Only Cabbage did.”

“Well that’s strange,” AJ said. “Where’d this hole come from then?”

Cabbage on the Spot

By the time Cabbage Patch, Barnacle Salt, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle arrived at the improvised stage a large crowd of ponies had already gathered, and a few more were walking up to join the crowd. Trixie had no comments about their timing, merely levitating the wooden tub off the Crusader wagon and shooing Scootaloo and Sweetie off to join the audience. “Harlequin’s going to be the opening act,” Trixie said, setting the tub down behind the curtained backstage area, “but you two are next, so you better get this filled up quickly.”

“Aye aye,” Barnacle said. “Cabbage, go tell Maggie we’re about to owe the weather patrol for the use of a rain cloud.” Cabbage nodded and ducked into the backstage area as Barnacle took to the sky. She found the grey earth pony who was responsible for the troupe’s finances, a task that was equal parts covering the troupe’s basic needs and defending their disposable income against Harlequin’s spendthrift ways. When Cabbage passed Barnacle’s message on to her, she just waved a hoof idly and said, “Already paid and accounted for. The tank water was about ready to be replaced anyway, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess it was getting a bit cloudy,” Cabbage said, thinking back.

“Thanks for telling me anyway, Cabbage,” Maggie said. “It’s nice to be reminded I’m not the only pony around here who thinks ahead before they spend bits.” She cast a withering glance at the figure of Harlequin stepping through the curtains to begin his act. A small smile flickered on Cabbage’s face, fading before Maggie looked back at her with a scrutinizing expression. “You know, I’d swear you’re a little taller than you were this morning, Cabbage. Have you been adjusting your disguise?”

“Uh,” Cabbage said, looking herself over self-consciously. As difficult as shape-shifting was for her, the sea-green fur, blue mane, and earth pony form was second-nature, practically instinctual for her to put back on after the rare moments when she dropped or altered it. She compared herself to Maggie and some of the set pieces next to her, and didn’t notice any differences in her perspective. “Are you sure?” she asked. “My size is one of the things I can’t do anything about.”

“Whatever it is I’m sensing, it’s small,” Maggie said, “but something about you feels different, in a better way.”

“Oh,” Cabbage said. “Thanks for noticing, I guess.” A smattering of applause-stomps came from outside the curtains, which the little Changeling took as a cue to find her sea pony costume. Harlequin’s acrobatics act was obviously starting to build up to a climax, and Cabbage needed to be ready to hop into the tub once Barnacle was finished filling it.

The sea pony role didn’t seem to be much more than being a living backdrop as Barnacle Salt spun wild tales of his sailing days, but for Cabbage it was a constant reminder of the time when her life finally started taking a turn for the best. Barnacle had found her in an alley and unwittingly saved her from emotional starvation by altruistically giving her physical food, and in a desperate attempt not to lose such a lifeline Cabbage had come up with the idea of dressing up as a sea pony to lend the old sailor’s stories more credence. What was once just an act of charity on Barnacle’s part was now an essential partnership between the two, because many of Barnacle’s stories now revolved around “Mar the Sea Pony,” explaining her presence on the stage. Cabbage still wasn’t required to do anything except float in the water and look exotic, and so as Trixie magically pushed her and the tub out into view while Barnacle trotted out and started his introduction, Cabbage focused on observing the audience. She wasn’t surprised to see that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had planted themselves in the front of the crowd for an unobstructed view, but she was concerned that their presence seemed to be making her feel both happier and more anxious. About halfway through Barnacle’s act, Apple Bloom showed up and sat by her two friends, and Cabbage’s feelings only grew more conflicted. Looking over the rest of the audience, she could make out a few faces that she recognized, although she didn’t have any names to put to them, and to her relief there was no sign of the ash-grey stallion who knew her secret and seemed to be holding on to it with an unspoken threat. Barnacle held them all in his spell of story-craft, although the Cutie Mark Crusaders spent more time looking at her than at him.

Barnacle’s act eventually came to an end, and as he withdrew from the stage area Trixie hauled Cabbage and the tub back behind the curtains. “Dry off quickly,” the azure unicorn instructed as Cabbage climbed out of the water and started removing her sea pony tail. “I’m starting out with solo tricks, but I need you onstage ASAP.”

“Ok,” Cabbage said half-heartedly. The moment she’d been dreading was almost upon her, when she would need to go out and pretend that Trixie was casting complex transformation illusions on her at high speeds. It had been hard enough to psyche herself up to the task earlier, but now her three new friends were out in the audience and their eyes were going to be only on her and if she messed up her timing or faltered mid-transformation she’d have something worse than just a panicking audience of strangers on her hooves. Cabbage was about to have a panic attack when she felt a towel drape across her back and looked up to see Maggie giving her an encouraging smile.

“You’ll be great out there,” Maggie said. “Just relax.”

“Yeah,” Cabbage said, swallowing her nervousness. She started to towel off, pausing after a momentary thought to take her Changeling form before finishing the job, since Changeling chitin dried faster and easier than pony fur. Once she was dry, she changed into a couple of the color patterns she and Trixie had agreed upon before reassuming her normal earth pony look and went to wait for her cue. It’ll be fine, she told herself, Trixie’s going to keep everypony thinking it’s her magic, not me. She peeked through a purpose-made gap in the curtains in time to see Trixie conducting the final moment of a clash between two conjured images of an Ursa Minor and a dragon, which both appeared to explode into cloth flower petals when they collided.

Once the petals had settled and the applause died down, Trixie said, in her iconic grandiose fashion, “Now, before the Great and Powerful Trixie’s next display of jaw-dropping magic, chosen by popular demand, Trixie must make sure that it will not lead to a repeat of what happened to this troupe yesterday.” There was an air of flippancy in Trixie’s deliver that garnered a few chuckles, and Cabbage felt a wave of increased sympathy flowing from the majority of the audience, but there was an undercurrent of real worry sparked by Trixie’s words as well. Cabbage sampled a bit of the positive emotions to try and steel her nerves a little more as Trixie continued in a serious manner that was almost comically overdone. “If anypony in the audience objects to the sudden changes that are about to take place, they will step forward now so we may settle our differences.”

“Oh just get on with it, would you?” a stallion shouted. Trixie just rolled her eyes, earning more quiet laughter. Nopony moved from their place, so Trixie wasted little time getting back into the act.

“Now, as I was saying,” she said, lighting up her horn, “due to popular demand, the Great and Powerful Trixie will demonstrate her ability to transform a pony several times within a span of only a couple short minutes, a feat that will require Trixie to do in seconds what a lesser unicorn would require minutes of careful concentration and attention to detail to perform safely just once. Of course, for this feat Trixie will need a volunteer. Please welcome back to the stage, Mar the Sea Pony.” She released a bolt of magic that exploded into a smokescreen. Cabbage took the cue, slipping through the curtains with barely a ripple and glanced around with wide-eyed disorientation as the smokescreen faded away, acting surprised that she had hind legs and a normal pony tail. “Although, I suppose former Sea Pony is a more apt description now,” Trixie added lightly. “This is only the beginning though,” she continued, making the aura around her horn grow in size as if channeling more power. Cabbage narrowed her eyes to mere slits, concentrating on the details of her first transformation as she let the anxious anticipation show on her face. “Behold!” Trixie cried, releasing another spark of magic that surrounded the little sea-green pony in concealing smoke. Cabbage shifted as quickly as she could, and found that she actually had a second to spare to check herself over before the smoke cleared enough to reveal her new orange coat and apple-green mane. The audience ooh-ed and ahh-ed appreciatively, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders stared in wide-eyed fascination. The successful transformation and its reception boosted Cabbage’s confidence, which kept her relaxed as Trixie threw up another smokescreen to cue the second change.

The plan Cabbage and Trixie had agreed upon earlier only called for the Changeling to alter her coloration and hairstyles, but as the act continued Cabbage felt a growing urge to be a little more daring. Trixie was casting her “transformation spells” in relative silence, giving Cabbage a virtually limitless margin of error in her shapeshifting. After four rounds with no noticeable faults to her guises, Cabbage decided to take a risk and added a unicorn horn to her fifth form. Trixie was surprised by the improvisation, but she hid it so well that only Cabbage noticed it, and the act continued uninterrupted. In the next change, Cabbage swapped the horn out for a pair of wings that, she noted ruefully, looked fine but felt structurally incapable of proper movement. It’s all just for show anyway, she reminded herself as she resumed a simple earth pony frame under the next smokescreen. She cycled through unicorn and pegasus pony a few more times, and then Trixie cloaked her in a smokescreen of a notably different hue, the indicator that the next transformation was going to be the last before Cabbage could put her normal appearance back on. The smoke lingered longer, because the grand finale was for her to become a Zebra, and she wasn’t nearly as used to creating stripes as she was with typically un-patterned pony fur. She also needed to alter the shape of her eyes, which was one of her lesser weak points in shapeshifting. By the time the smoke cleared, she’d manifested the stripes and managed to at least insure that her eyes both looked the same even they didn’t quite have the exotic shape of a real Zebra’s. The audience didn’t care about the flaws anyway, judging by the thunderous stomping, applause, and whistles as Trixie “changed” Cabbage back to normal and they both took a bow. Cabbage then retreated back behind the curtains as Trixie proceeded to wrap up the show with her typical open invitation for volunteers from the audience to challenge her in a contest of talents.

Inside the curtains, Harlequin ambushed Cabbage with a light noogie and a broad smile. “Ha ha. See, didn’t I tell you there was nothing to worry about?” he asked.

“You did,” Cabbage admitted, smiling. Unfortunately, the good feelings she’d built up all vanished when she heard a familiar voice answering Trixie’s challenge.

“Can I nominate somepony to test you?” Scootaloo asked.

“That depends on what you have in mind,” Trixie answered, “and if this other pony is available and willing to come on stage right now.”

“Ok,” Scootaloo said, “I just so happen to know that your ‘sea-pony’ is really good at imitating other ponies’s voices, or at least can do Rainbow Dash so well even I can’t tell the difference. Think you can do better than that?”

Trixie was silent for a moment, and then turned and poked her head through the curtains. Cabbage slipped out of Harlequin’s grip and vanished inside one of Trixie’s trick boxes, quietly but firmly saying, “No no no no,” the whole time.

“Hey, c’mon shrimp,” Harlequin said, knocking lightly on the box, “they’re literally asking for it.”

“Nope,” Cabbage said. “No voices. I’m too good. They’ll get suspicious.”

Trixie sighed, shot Harlequin a look, and withdrew back onto the stage. “Unfortunately,” she said, “poor Mar doesn’t feel up to putting another appearance on stage. Does anypony else wish to challenge the skills of the Great and Powerful Trixie?” Other than a disappointed whine from the CMC, the audience was silent. “Very well then,” Trixie said, doffing her hat and rearing up, “then I declare this performance of The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Royal Thespians officially over. Thank for your patronage.”

Cabbage stayed in the box as the sounds of ponies walking away rose up and then faded away, and shortly there was another knock on the box. “Cabbage Patch, your new friends aren’t going away,” Trixie said. “Deal with them.”

And I dared to think the day was going well, Cabbage thought ruefully. She climbed out of the box and looked at Trixie, who indicated the direction to go with a pointed look, and walked slowly out of the improvised backstage. Barnacle Salt and Maggie Pie were nearby, to Cabbage’s mild relief, but the three Cutie Mark Crusaders were even closer. Cabbage inhaled deeply, her mind spinning as she tried to decide how to handle this confrontation, because at least one of the fillies – Scootaloo most likely – was undoubtedly going to press her for a reason for not showcasing her mimicry skills.

Scootaloo spoke before Cabbage could make up her mind, but the expected question didn’t come. Instead, the little pegasus just said, “That was a good show, Cabbage. You were great.”

“T-thank you,” Cabbage stammered shyly, “but, I didn’t really do all that much… You know.”

“Say what?” Scootaloo scoffed, her tiny wings flaring dramatically. “Girl, you showed a lot of guts just standing there letting Trixie casting spell after spell on you, especially considering how timid you are.” Cabbage’s ears perked up and slightly forward at the unexpectedly insightful compliment.

“I really liked your sea-pony costume,” Sweetie Bell contributed. “I almost thought it was real for a minute.”

Cabbage’s ears titled back again as she brought a blush to her cheeks to complement her pleased but shy smile. “Thank you,” she said. “I… I’m not used to getting compliments from ponies outside of the troupe. I appreciate it.” She kicked at the ground a bit, biting her lip, before making herself continue, “I was afraid you were going to be upset that I didn’t do any, uh, impressions.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sweetie Bell said. “We don’t get mad at our friends unless we think there’s a good reason to.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said, a little dryly. “Still, Ah’m mighty curious if you’re really as good as Scootaloo says. Not that I wanna doubt ya Scoots, but Ah’ve only got yer word ta go on.”

“Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were there too,” Scootaloo said.

“Oh please,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes, “those two’d never agree with any of us ‘bout anything, especially if it means admitting they got caught bullyin’ you.”

“Good point,” Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes as well. “Well, Cabbage can just prove it.”

“I was countin’ on that,” Apple Bloom drawled, and the glanced at Cabbage, who was backing away nervously. “Hey, what’s wrong, Cabbage?” Apple Bloom asked. “Ya don’t have to be nervous; it’s just us, your friends.”

“But… it’s so weird,” Cabbage said. “Being able to talk like somepony else, it’s not something just any pony can do.”

“So?” Scootaloo said, “If everypony could do it, it wouldn’t be special. Besides, you’re part of a performing troupe. I can’t think of anyplace better suited for a talent for mimicry. Trust me Cabbage, if you can do other ponies as well as you did Rainbow Dash this morning, you’re not weird, you’re awesome!”

“Aye, so I’ve been telling her for years now,” Barnacle Salt said, coming over and patting Cabbage on the back. “Come on lass,” he said as the sea-green filly’s head drooped, “I still haven’t heard a single bad word about that skill of yours except from your own mouth. Ye’ve done harder things than this before. Go on and give yer friends a little show.”

Cabbage heard the words of her dearest friend and guardian and knew that they made logical sense, but the thought of acting on it called up unwanted memories from the time before she met Barnacle Salt, memories of how her ability to perfectly imitate the voice of others had brought her only trouble. The first pony to take her in after her exile had flown into a rage when she spoke in the voice of his lost, Changeling-replaced lover. On a few other occasions, her mimicry had played a part in a pony discovering that she was a Changeling and forming a mob to chase her away. During Cabbage’s first visit to Ponyville years ago, Trixie had somehow talked her into imitating Princess Celestia to dupe Twilight Sparkle. That particular incident hadn’t ended badly, but Cabbage could still clearly picture the lavender unicorn’s initial annoyance. The memories flooded her mind and filled her with such fear that she nearly broke and ran. Instead, she just shook, her legs locked up, and her eyes became riveted to the ground between her front hooves. “Can’t,” she grunted through her teeth, barely audible to the ponies gathered worriedly around her, “Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t…”

“Oh blow me down,” Barnacle swore, “now we’ve done it.”

“Cabbage?” Apple Bloom asked, “You ok?”

“Stand back lasses,” Barnacle said, gently pushing the Crusaders away, “she needs space and time more than anythin’ else now. Maggie, tell Trixie and Quin I’m taking Cabbage back to the hotel. Yer gonna have to strike the stage without us.”

“Of course,” Maggie said, running into the curtained area as Barnacle scooped the shivering Cabbage Patch onto his back and took off at a fast canter toward the troupe’s temporary housing. The Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged worried looks, and then ran off to the clubhouse, tossing around ideas to help fix their new friend’s problems.

Cabbage in Canterlot

Two days passed before the new stage-wagon was completed and painted to Trixie’s satisfaction, and those days went by without much upset for little Cabbage Patch. She had been anxious about the public reaction to the return of the Element Bearers from Canterlot, but the ponies of Ponyville took Twilight Sparkle at her word when she declared that the Changelings were no longer a threat to Equestria, and so whisperings and rumors of ponies acting strangely died out. Trixie’s Thespians put on a couple more shows, but held Trixie and Cabbage’s joint act back until the big performance to commemorate and test out the new wagon. That performance inevitably blended into a farewell party courtesy of Pinkie Pie, which was thankfully short-lived. The Cutie Mark Crusaders gave Cabbage a couple extra official Crusader capes, along with the assurance that she wasn’t under any obligation to hoof them out, but they would be there if she did find some colt or filly who needed a friend.

Eventually, however, it was time for farewells, and the troupe set out for Canterlot early the next morning. Cabbage rode in the wagon, watching Ponyville disappear into the distance with a mixture of relieved tension and wistfulness. Maggie Pie came back and sat next to her, smiling warmly at the little sea-green pony. “Missing your new friends already, Cabbage?” she asked.

“I guess,” Cabbage answered. “A little bit at least. I’m happy we’re on the road again, away from any mistakes I might have made in that town. Away from anypony who might’ve exposed me as a Changeling.”

“You’re still worried about that?” Maggie asked, “Even after meeting those three fillies? Honestly, I’d think you’d be more worried that we’re going straight to Canterlot.”

Cabbage shook her head. “If the stories of Queen Chrysalis’s defeat are true, everyone in Canterlot will be so convinced the Changelings are gone nopony will be looking for one. And even if there are, Princess Luna is there with her promise to protect me. Apple Bloom and the others were nice even after finding me out, but in my experience ponies like them and you are still the exception. I’m not willing to push my luck any farther. I may never be.”

“Don’t be so down on yourself,” Maggie said, placing a comforting hoof on Cabbage’s back, “you’ve got a good thing going with the troupe here. The way I see it, you’re doing a lot more than merely surviving off our affection for you; you’ve got genuine friendship and a life a lot of ponies dream of. Just focus on that and don’t let anypony pressure you into doing anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

“Thanks Maggie,” Cabbage said, letting the last of her tension go.

A knock at the door broke Princess Luna from her meditation, and she made the interrupter wait in silence for a few moments before saying, “Yes?” with clear irritation. The door to her rooms opened slowly and the helmeted head of one of her Night Guard poked in.

“My apologies, Your Highness,” he said with sincerity, “but you asked to be informed as soon as Trixie was seen in Canterlot. They’ve been spotted looking for somewhere to set up in the lower district.”

“This is sooner than expected,” Luna said, troubled. “See to it that they find the performance space they need and don’t trouble them further until I send for them.”

“It will be done, Your Highness,” the guard said, and then pulled the door quietly shut. Luna tried to resume the meditation she’d been doing, but the guard’s report kept intruding on her thoughts and leading her to thinking about how her current plot depended on a real long shot of a theory. She gave up on meditating and went over to the door. She stepped out into the hall just long enough to tell the remaining guard on duty that she was not to be disturbed under any circumstances and then went back inside and removed her royal regalia. I should go observe Cabbage for myself, she thought as she wrapped herself in illusion magic. Her mane changed from a star-filled magical stream to ordinary black hair, her coat changed to a dark violet color, her wings vanished from sight, and her cutie mark changed into a gibbous moon. She then went out onto her balcony and teleported down to a gate leading from the castle gardens out onto the streets of Canterlot. So much will depend on her, I must be sure she’s capable of handling it.

A few minutes after the Princess’s departure, the guard cautiously peeked inside and noticed the discarded crown, shoes, and torc on the carpet. Closing the door and turning to his partner who had just returned from passing Luna’s orders along, he said, “It looks like ‘Stella Moon’ is out and about again.”

Barnacle Salt and Harlequin hauled the stage-wagon through the streets of Canterlot while Trixie sat up on the riding board on the lookout for a place open enough for the stage and an audience to gather and that wasn’t closed off for repairs. Most of the rubble from the Changeling’s destructive invasion had been cleared from the streets, but there were more buildings with gaping holes in the sides or in complete ruins than there were repaired or untouched. Ponies who weren’t busy restoring the city were an even rarer sight. “I’m starting to think that it would’ve been a better idea to wait a few more days before coming here,” Harlequin said.

“I may reluctantly have to agree,” Trixie said. “These ponies could stand to take notes on city repair from Ponyville. Then again, I don’t think even Tremolo caused this much damage…” She spotted a Royal Guard pegasus coming around a corner up ahead and pointed him out to the stallions. Barnacle and Harlequin slowed to a stop when they caught up to the guard, and Trixie addressed him. “Soldier, you wouldn’t happen to know if there is a location appropriate for The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Royal Thespians to put on a show today?”

The guard looked around thoughtfully for a minute before answering. “I know of a corner closer to the castle that’s mostly free of reconstruction work where you won’t obstruct traffic too badly. I’ll take you there if you wish.”

“That’d be most appreciated, mate,” Barnacle said.

“One moment,” Trixie said, searching along the edge of the wagon’s roof with a hoof. She located and pressed the hidden button she’d had installed and wire signs shaped like Trixie’s cutie mark, a sea pony, a bear, and bursting fireworks sprang out of disguised hatches in the roof, each one enchanted to wave about and glow in various colors. Little lights also started running around the edge of the signs bearing the troupe’s name on either side of the wagon. “Proceed,” Trixie said to the guard, who nodded and turned to lead the wagon down the street. Once they were underway, Trixie cleared her throat and cast a spell to amplify her voice. “Attention Canterlot,” she shouted grandly to the diligent work-ponies and random passersby, “if you desire a break from these broken and dismal streets, then follow us to a showcase by the one and only Great and Powerful Trixie and her royal Troupe of Thespians! We guarantee a performance that will lift your spirits and refresh your will! Come and see astounding acrobatics, listen to sensational stories of the sea and tantalizing tall tales, witness mind-blowing feats of magic, and of course Trixie will prove that she is the Greatest and Most Powerful unicorn in any challenge you may put her to.” She repeated the call every few blocks, slowing attracting an admirably sized crowd of ponies eager for some entertainment before they returned to work.

Luna found Trixie and company just as the show was about to start, and she managed to claim a large section of collapsed wall as a seat so she could see clearly over the heads of the audience. A platoon of Royal Guards was present to keep the still-growing crowd from blocking the roads, but their attention was clearly divided between that and watching the show. The opening act was the Great and Powerful Trixie attempting to deliver an introductory monologue while Harlequin repeatedly sneaked through the curtain behind her to do a pantomime mockery of Trixie, make funny faces, and silent clowning around only to hide when the audience’s giggles became too distracting for Trixie and she glared around to find the disturbance. This occurred several times until Trixie could barely get another word out before Harlequin’s entrances prompted fresh laughter. Seeming to finally catch on, Trixie spun around and charged through the curtains shouting Harlequin’s name, and the stallion himself somersaulted over her as she exited. Harlequin bowed to the audience’s applause and laughter and then performed an impressive tumbling and acrobatics routine.

When Harlequin finished and left the stage to make room for Barnacle Salt, Luna sat a little straighter and paid closer attention. Her gaze did not go to the grizzled former sailor, but rather to the sea-green, blue maned sea pony in the big glass tank of water that the curtains parted to reveal during Barnacle’s introduction. In the last performance Luna had been able to attend, Cabbage Patch had been extremely passive in her role as Mar, little more than a living piece of backdrop floating in the water with eyes wide and nervous. The sea pony in the tank now was a completely different creature. While Barnacle spun his riveting tales yarns, Cabbage moved about within her tank and reacted in small ways to Barnacle’s stories. Luna was too far away to make out much of Cabbage’s expression, but the little pony gave the appearance of being comfortable on the stage.

She’s smiling, Luna thought. A real smile.

When Barnacle was finished and the curtains closed on the sea pony tank, Trixie took the stage again with her trademark blend of illusions, grandiose tales of her alleged exploits, and exaggerated retellings of contemporary Equestrian legends. She began with a story about defeating an angry dragon by herself, which included an impressive feat of self-levitation at the climax in time with the illusory dragon moving to lift her off the ground. Trixie then went in to a classic variation of the ubiquitous Ursa Minor of Ponyville tale, one that went into slightly more detail and ended with a humbling for Trixie. As soon as the Ursa was removed from the illusory town standing in for Ponyville, Trixie banished every light construct and left the stage bare as she looked out at the audience.

“Trixie’s final tale needs no illusions,” she said, “for what I am about to tell you actually occurred, nearly one week ago. The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Royal Thespians had stopped over in Hoofington for a brief but necessary break from their travels. Instead of peace, they found a pony waiting for them; a unicorn with an irrational hatred of Trixie. He had confronted the Great and Powerful Trixie many times before, only to be sent off in humiliation. This time was different, for he had somehow obtained an ancient artifact of great, evil power: the Alicorn Amulet!” Trixie paused for effect, but nopony in the audience except Luna seemed to comprehend the weight of Trixie’s words. “This amulet,” Trixie continued unperturbed, “grants enormous magical power to any unicorn who wears it, but it also corrupts the mind and exacerbates the worst traits of the wearer’s personality. Now, Trixie had not even heard of such an amulet before, and so she was unprepared when the enemy unicorn challenged her to another contest of power. It was Trixie who was made to run off with her tail between her legs this time, but she did not give up hope. She sought out the history of the Alicorn Amulet and learned of its weakness, and then returned to Hoofington to challenge her foe not with raw power, but with cunning and misdirection. With the help of her friends, Trixie created a feat of stage magic so fantastic that none could ever discern its secret and wagered it against the Alicorn Amulet.” Trixie looked out at the audience and saw that she had their attention and curiosity wrapped around her hoof. “Words may not be sufficient to convey the greatness of Trixie,” she said at last, “so shall I demonstrate?” Cheers rose up from the crowd and Trixie nodded, taking a couple steps back toward the curtain. “This trick is not for the faint of heart,” she cautioned, “those who are troubled by resemblances to Changelings may wish to look away.”

Luna’s eyebrows rose slightly, and a few murmurs were heard in the audience, but nopony looked away or raised a voice. “Very well then,” Trixie said, “for this trick, Trixie requires an assistant. Cabbage Patch! Would you mind?”

Luna’s eyebrows went up a little higher and small smile graced her lips as the little sea-green earth pony, her mane still slightly damp from her sea pony act, walked out onto the stage and stood next to Trixie. The azure unicorn cast a quick spell to dry and style Cabbage’s mane into shorter version of Trixie’s own. “Now,” Trixie said, sliding back into her storytelling mode, “Trixie’s foe prided himself on being able to discern the secrets of Trixie’s magic and thought he had seen the full extent of Trixie’s abilities. The challenge proposed was this: Trixie would make a pony appear to change colors and species several times in one minute. Transformation to such a degree is something only the highest level unicorn can accomplish, and with nowhere near the speed that Trixie will attempt. Behold!” She proceeded to cast spells as fast she could, only pausing between them long enough for the audience to see how Cabbage’s coat and mane had changed color. After a few rounds, wings and horns started to appear and disappear from the little pony’s body along with the color changes, and the display ended with a grand flourish of magic from Trixie and Cabbage emerged from the smoke screen with zebra stripes, a horn, and widespread wings.

The crowd went wild as Trixie changed Cabbage back to normal and the two bowed deeply. Even Luna, who had a strong suspicion about the real magic behind the trick, was impressed. Cabbage Patch didn’t look at all nervous as she went backstage again and Trixie finished her story of how that very feat of magic had stupefied the crazed unicorn and convinced him to surrender the Alicorn Amulet. “And that will conclude out show, fillies and gentlecolts,” Trixie said after the applause died down again. “No need to pay,” she added when she saw ponies start to go for their coin pouches, “today’s shows are a public service.” Despite her words, coins began flying up onto the stage.

Luna climbed down off her improvised seat and left the crowd, taking a roundabout way back to the castle. She’d seen what she needed to see.

Cabbage Patch and Royalty

The next evening, Trixie and the troupe arrived at the doors of Canterlot Castle to answer a royal summons that Barnacle Salt had found stuck to the stage wagon’s door with dark blue wax early that morning. The summons had simply requested that the troupe present themselves to Princess Luna after sunset and provided no clues about why. Maggie Pie theorized that Princess Luna wanted a report on the troupe’s finances to ensure the royal sponsorship wasn’t being spent frivolously, while Trixie suspected the Princess wanted a little show to brighten up the Night Court. After some discussion, it was decided to prepare for both eventualities, just to play it safe. So, while Maggie had spent the day going over the books, the rest of the troupe planned out acts that could be performed in the throne room.

Leaving the stage-wagon near the doors, the troupe followed the familiar path through the halls to the throne room, where they were admitted almost immediately. Aside from the obligatory pair of guards by the doors, Princess Luna was the only pony present when Trixie and company entered. “Thank you all for coming,” Luna said while the troupe was still approaching the throne dais, and she walked down to meet them partway. “Walk with me please,” she said, heading past the bemused troupe toward the doors, “We head for the infirmary and I have something important to speak with Cabbage Patch about on the way.”

“Cabbage?” Trixie and Harlequin exclaimed.

“Me?” Cabbage asked, bewildered. “What have I done?”

“Do not worry,” Luna said gently. She stopped at the doors and looked back expectantly until Cabbage started following her, Barnacle and the others close behind. The guards at the doors fell into step behind the group as Luna led them out into the hallway. “You’ve seen the damage the Changelings caused to our city,” Luna said, “but what have you heard about the Changelings themselves?”

Cabbage tried to answer, but her tongue refused to work from the intimidation of being in the center of Luna’s attention.

“Several different tales,” Trixie said, coming to Cabbage’s rescue. “In Ponyville almost everyone believes the Changelings were exterminated completely, but here I’ve heard whispers that some survived, while those that didn’t evaporated like shadows under strong light when the Elements of Harmony were used.”

“And they brought thick unnatural darkness to the city,” Maggie Pie added.

“Yes,” Trixie said, “which makes me wonder if there’s a connection between them and our own experience with Tremolo and his gem of Earth Magic.”

Luna looked mildly confused for a moment, but then realization dawned on her. “Ah, yes,” she said, “while your nemesis came into possession of the Earth Emerald, Queen Chrysalis had its Dark Elemental partner. The rumors in Canterlot are true: only a few dozen Changelings survived the invasion because only they endured the extensive changes the Dark Gem forced upon their bodies at Chrysalis’s command. We have them all in the royal infirmary, too weak and starved for emotional energy to be a threat. Chrysalis is among them.”

Cabbage stopped cold in her tracks with a sharp gasp. “Wh… Wh-why are we going to them?” she asked fearfully.

“We are going to make them an offer,” Luna said, “a chance to change the course of their lives and survive. To follow your example.”

Example? Cabbage protested silently as she forced herself to start walking again. I’m hiding my true self from most ponies and constantly worried about being discovered, just like any other Changeling. As the group drew near to the infirmary, Cabbage started to sense the weak mental buzz of the other Changelings. She recoiled from the sensation and found the will to speak up to Luna. “I don’t think I can do this.” Barnacle Salt draped a wing over her back and the rest of the troupe drew a little closer to her.

“Worry not,” Luna said. “As I said, they are not a danger any more. I will do all the talking if you desire. I just require you to be in the room with me.” She stopped at the infirmary door and lifted a hoof to the handle, and then looked back at Cabbage expectantly.

Cabbage shuffled from hoof to hoof, looking to each of her friends in turn and receiving only the feeling of conflict between wanting to support her in any decision and fear of disobeying Princess Luna. Cabbage wanted to run away more fervently than any other time she could recall, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Barnacle, Trixie, and the others incurring Luna’s displeasure alongside her either. In the end, selflessness won out and Cabbage walked up to the infirmary doors and said, “All right.”

Cabbage tried to maintain a confident appearance as Luna opened the doors, but as she followed the Princess inside, saw dozens of flat blue eyes turn her way, and felt the collective voice of the Hive grow stronger in her head, that confidence went out like a dying candle.

Who is this? several mental voices asked in a round. One of us, some concluded with heightened confusion.

A more powerful voice, one that demanded immediate obedience from all, answered the chorus, I know her. Cabbage could not mistake that voice, despite not having “heard” it for uncounted years. Her eyes were drawn involuntarily to the largest bed, where Queen Chrysalis lay on her back with three of her legs and both wings strapped down tight. The Queen’s green eyes with slit pupils met Cabbage’s pony-like yellow eyes, and the little Changeling’s knees nearly gave out.

“Good evening, Chrysalis,” Princess Luna addressed the Queen as if it were a casual visit.

Chrysalis turned her gaze to Luna and coughed once, dryly. Luna returned the look in regal silence until Chrysalis took a drink of water out of a glass wedged into her free leg and then spoke. “Spare me your smug niceties, Princess,” she buzzed, “and just get down to business. Who are these ponies?”

“These are the friends and guardians of the special Changeling I mentioned before,” Luna answered. “You recall I mentioned she has been living in Equestria for years without stealing love, yes?”

“And just where is this special Changeling of yours then?” Chrysalis asked.

You already know where, Cabbage thought sourly, and then quailed as she felt Chrysalis’s attention on her again and the voice of the Hive laughed bitterly.

Luna appeared unaware of the mental exchanges taking place as she nudged Cabbage forward to a more prominent position and said, “This is her. Allow me to introduce Cabbage Patch.”

Out of a combination of failing nerves and instinct, Cabbage dropped to her front knees in a bow before Chrysalis. After a moment of expectant silence, she dismissed her pony disguise as well, a gesture that was entirely for Princess Luna’s benefit. The Changelings had already gotten all the proof of her identity they needed when she’d entered the room.

“Cabbage Patch,” Chrysalis mused, “a typically blunt pony name. How did you come upon it?”

“I… Um…” Cabbage stuttered.

“Never mind,” Chrysalis said with a dismissive wave of her leg. The glass popped out of its hole, spilling its remaining water across the floor. Trixie’s magic caught the glass before it could hit the floor near Cabbage, and the azure unicorn gave the Changeling Queen a hard glare. Ignoring her little accident, Chrysalis looked Luna square in the eye and said, “I already know everything there is worth knowing about this pathetic little outcast. She is not the last hope for my species as you wish to think. She is barely a Changeling at all.”

“How can you say that?” Maggie Pie asked.

“Because that hard black shell she wears hides the bleeding heart of a pony,” Chrysalis said. “Were you aware that she’s a half-breed? It shouldn’t have been possible for a pony and a Changeling to conceive a foal, but here she is, as small and worthless as ever. We did try to put her to good use, but she just couldn’t do anything right. Her disguises are still incomplete, she could never tell a convincing lie, and worst of all she felt bad about feeding on a pony’s love. She was nothing but a drain on the Hive’s already strained resources; exiling her to brave the world alone was a mercy.” She finally looked back at Cabbage and addressed her directly with a final snide comment: “I’m truly amazed you’re still alive; it can’t have been easy going so many years as a pony and still no ‘cutie mark’ to show for it.”

Something inside Cabbage’s mind suddenly snapped. Her nervousness and fear vanished and she leapt to her feet, wings spread wide and buzzing faintly in anger as she stared back at the Queen. “No, it wasn’t easy!” she shouted. Her voice cracked and the undertonal buzz she always tried to suppress grew louder, but she pressed on anyway. “And dropping me on the doorstep of the pony you claimed was my father didn’t help at all! He tried to love me, but he hadn’t recovered from being fed on and I was a constant reminder of the ‘mare’ he’d lost. Then I had the awful idea of mimicking his love’s voice, which some Changeling had so kindly demonstrated for me, and he nearly killed me! I was on the run for years, always on the edge of starvation because I kept trying to behave like a proper Changeling to get my food, and failing.”

Cabbage calmed slightly, bringing her wings back down onto her side, and gestured back at the troupe with a hoof. “Then I had the luck to meet these ponies. First was Captain Barnacle Salt, who has never had second thoughts about taking pity on the starving filly he found behind a seaside tavern. Even after discovering what I am he’s continued to care and protect me from storms of every kind. Then there’s the Great and Powerful Trixie, who’s always finding ways to keep me included in our little band’s shows. Maggie looks after all of us the same, making sure we have enough food and money to last in between stops on the road. Even Harlequin has genuine affection for me, even if he shows it by teasing and pressuring me to do more than I’m comfortable with onstage. They’re not the only ones either; there are three young mares down in Ponyville who think I’m the coolest thing ever. And Twilight Sparkle… she’s willing to give me a chance at least.

“You may think I’m pathetic and weak, Queen Chrysalis. I’m an abomination in your eyes, but here’s the thing: right now I’m the only Changeling in the world who’s strong and well-fed and I haven’t had to go against what feels right in my heart to get that way. You, all of you,” she looked at all the other Changelings tied to their beds, “are starving worse than ever before. Why?” She punctuated her final question with a perfect imitation of the smug challenging stare Trixie used in her acts. She only waited half a second for an answer before speaking again. “Everyone says Changelings are adaptable, but you’re refusing to consider changing from the old ways of ponynapping and stealing love. Do you really think it’s impossible to live my way? Prove it.”

Cabbage fully expected whatever had possessed her to unleash the longest, loudest, and angriest string of words of her entire life to withdraw as quickly as it had come now that she was finished. As the stunned silence following her tirade stretched out, however, her legs stayed sturdy and she felt no discomfort holding Queen Chrysalis’s gaze with unblinking eyes. Shock and awe emanated from her friends, approval flowed to her from Princess Luna, and, most surprisingly of all, the voice of the Hive was almost dead silent.

Finally, a Changeling to Cabbage’s right stirred and sat up as much as his bindings would allow. “Prove it?” he said, “Fine. I’ll answer your challenge, freak.”

Cabbages and Turnips

The inexplicable sensation of fearless purpose stayed with little Cabbage Patch as she left the infirmary in the company of Trixie’s Thespians, down the castle halls in Princess Luna’s wake, and into the guest suite the Princess had optimistically had prepared for the troupe earlier. Once the doors were closed, the energy disappeared and Cabbage promptly fainted.

It took a minute for Barnacle Salt to rouse Cabbage. Everypony was hovering around her with concerned looks as her eyes blinked open. All except Harlequin, who quipped, “Who are you and what have you down with Cabbage Patch?” Barnacle slugged him in the shoulder and he retreated to a corner, not looking all that apologetic.

“What he means,” Trixie said, giving Harlequin a pointed look, “that was quite the show you put on, Cabbage. What in Equestria brought that on?”

“I… I have no idea,” Cabbage said, slowing getting to her hooves. “I mean, Queen Chrysalis didn’t say anything I haven’t heard before but… I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, little one,” Princess Luna, a very pleased light twinkling in her eyes and mane, “for you accomplished precisely what I hoped would happen, and with a much more impassioned argument that I could have made myself.” She reached a hoof out to raise Cabbage’s chin up. “By the way,” she added, “your chitin is showing.”

The irises of Cabbage’s eyes shrank to pinpricks as she looked down at her hooves and saw that, indeed, her pony disguise was absent. “Aiiiii!” she shrieked as she hastily summoned the sea-green earth pony shape, and then redid it more carefully when her tail came out red. “Oh no, I’ve completely blown it now! I walked through Canterlot Castle… Why didn’t anypony tell me?!”

“I, uh, didn’t even notice,” Barnacle said, trading shamefaced looks with Maggie and Trixie.

“Do not worry,” Luna said lightly, “Everypony on the castle staff has at least heard that I’m keeping Changelings in the infirmary by now, and Cabbage was walking in my company with such superb confidence that no one looked at her twice. And besides, the secret has to come out sooner or later if the Changelings are to be saved from themselves.”

“Sure,” Cabbage mumbled.

“Speaking of the Changelings,” Trixie said, “now that we’ve apparently got a… volunteer, what should we do with him, Princess Luna?”

Luna nodded at Cabbage Patch. “I will leave that up to you,” she said, “so long as you report on his progress, or lack thereof, in a timely manner. Good night, my little ponies, and best of luck.” She left the suite, and awkward silence hung over the troupe.

“Well,” Trixie said at last, “I guess this is your show Cabbage. What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know,” Cabbage sighed, “this is all happening so fast. I need time to think.” She dragged her hooves into one of the bedrooms and started stripping one of the beds. Barnacle watched her from the doorway until she’d made a little nest out of the bedclothes and buried herself inside.

“She’ll not be running off,” Barnacle said when he went back to the group. “She’s nested down, so she’s probably actually thinkin’ about this. Or just tryin’ to hide from it all.”

“I can’t say I’d blame her,” Trixie said.

The troupe began to settle in for the night, and the question of what do about the new Changeling weighed heavy on all their minds. Several minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Maggie went to open it, and then backed away quickly when a pair of Night Guards walked the Changeling inside. It was unbound except for an inhibitor ring around its horn and a metal collar with a lead, which the leading Night Guard passed to Trixie before the two ponies took their leave. Not a single word was exchanged the entire time.

In the awkward silence the continued past the Guard’s departure, the Changeling looked around the room with a sneer that put his fangs on full display. “Where’s the half-breed then?” he asked at last.

“She’s in the other room,” Trixie said. “Cabbage! Come out; our new… guest is here.” There was no immediate response from the bedroom. Barnacle walked over to check on the little Changeling, but just before he reached the door she stepped out. She was still in her pony form and had her usual nervous expression. She then caught sight of the Changeling and gasped in horror.

“Oh no, we can’t have this!” she declared. “Get those binding off him right now.” Everyone, new Changeling included, looked at her with wordless confusion. “If we’re going to teach him anything,” Cabbage explained with almost no hesitation, “we can’t treat him like a prisoner. He has to be as much a part of the troupe as I am.” The others continued to hesitate, so Cabbage walked over to the Changeling and started to undo the catch on the collar. “Of course,” she said, pausing in the act to look him square in the eye, “that also depends on you not trying to escape.”

“I’m not a half-wit,” the Changeling retorted. “I barely have the strength for a disguise right now and I know I won’t get out of here on my own.” Nodding, Cabbage removed the collar and had Trixie remove the inhibitor ring.

“That’s better,” Cabbage said, throwing the collar away with a satisfied expression. “Now, for introductions: you can call me-”

“Cabbage Patch,” the Changeling interrupted snidely. He then pointed to each of the other troupe members in turn and named them. “She’s Maggie, that’s Barnacle Salt, that’s Harlequin, and she’s the Great and Powerful Trixie. I remember from your lecture earlier, and Trixie’s name is one I’ve heard more than once.”

“You have a good memory for names then,” Trixie said appreciatively. “And what should we call you?”

The Changeling glowered in silent thought. “I suppose an appropriately ‘pony’ name is necessary,” he said at last, “so you can call me… Turnip.”

“Nice to meet you, Turnip,” Cabbage said with a smile. That smile quickly faded into disappointed look when the ambient mood of the suite didn’t rise to match her attitude. Every pony in the room was filled with doubt and distrust toward the new Changeling, which soured the usual concern and affection directed at her. Turnip didn’t help matters with the proud predator thoughts he wasn’t bothering to keep out of the Voice of the Hive.

“Save the platitudes, freak,” Turnip spat. “Just tell me what you expect me to do.”

“Ye can start by speakin’ to her a mite more respectfully,” Barnacle replied, anger flaring.

“It’s late,” Cabbage cut in, pointing a hoof toward the stallions’ side of the suite. “Turnip, go make yourself up a bed and get some sleep. We’ll start tomorrow.” Turnip obliged with only a slight sneer. Cabbage turned to face the troupe, a mild rebuke on the tip of her tongue, but then the confidence she’d been running on faded suddenly and the words failed her. All she could muster was a quiet, “Um.”

Trixie claimed the room’s attention with a deep sigh. “Well, I can tell this is going to go well,” she said sarcastically. “No offense to the Princess,” she continued, “or to you, Cabbage, but I think taking that Changeling in now was too hasty.”

“You’re not trying,” Cabbage mumbled.

“Come again?” Trixie asked.

Cabbage bit her lip, wishing desperately for the inexplicable surge of confidence to return. Her anxiety persisted, but what she had to say was of vital importance, so she took a deep breath and forced her tongue to obey. “I know this is asking for a lot from you,” she said quickly, “but if I’m going to convince Turnip that he can get by in Equestria without stealing love, all of you need to try and have good feelings about him. Try to be his friend. He could easily get more emotional food from a single successful show than he’s probably had since after Princess Cadance’s wedding, but that’s not different enough from draining a duped target. I could explain the advantages of my feeding style until the stars burn out, but if Turnip doesn’t have a constant, freely given supply of friendship and affection to absorb like you all give me he’ll never believe.” She caught her breath, lowered her head, and continued more slowly, “You don’t have to like him right away, but try to make it soon. I’m depending on you.” She then returned to her little nest in the bedroom, leaving the rest of the troupe to consider her speech. Cabbage could sense embarrassment radiating off all of them, and felt a little surprised that that gave her a satisfied feeling.

In the dead of night, the Changeling crept out into the main room of the suite on quiet hooves. The outcast’s earnestness and naivety amused him, but years of conditioning for stealth kept him from letting out even a whispered chuckle. Cabbage Patch had clearly grown so accustomed to pony life that she honestly trusted that he would go along with her attempt to justify her deviance. She underestimated the endurance of the Changelings, just as the Moon Princess did. He was free of his chains now, so nothing could stop him from sneaking out and finding some dreaming pony to feed on. A few well-chosen words would draw his chosen victim into a half-waking and highly suggestable state, an easy source of love for even the most energy-starved of Changelings. As tempting as it would be to drain the pony completely, Turnip would only take enough to allow him to safely shapeshift again and sneak out of the castle. From there, he’d have more freedom and time to form a plan to free his Queen and fellow Changelings.

There were no lights on in the room and no windows to let in direct moonlight, but Changeling eyes were built for low light, and so he crossed the room and reached the hallway door without incident. He lifted a hoof toward the latch, and suddenly a heavy weight dropped onto his back and wrestled him to the floor. He was flipped onto his back with a hoof pressing on his throat before he managed to make out his assailant’s identity. It was the mustard-yellow earth pony acrobat.

“You wouldn’t be trying to sneak away, would you?” he asked with false cheer. “I can’t allow that.”

“Wh- what do you care if I leave?” Turnip gasped out. “You hate being around me. I can tell. Let me go; we’ll both be happier.”

Harlequin removed his hoof from the Changeling’s throat but remained straddling him. “You’re right that I don’t like you,” he said, “but this ain’t about me, it’s about Cabbage Patch. I’m her least favorite pony in the troupe, but I don’t really blame her. I love to tease ponies smaller than me and I don’t always say the smartest things, but I’ve been trusted with her true nature and I take that very seriously. Now, for some reason this challenge to reform you horrible Changelings seems to have brought out a confidence and self-esteem that she’s never had before, so if you do anything to deliberately ruin that for her, I will separate you from your exoskeleton, understand?”

He meant it. Turnip was familiar with the “taste” of almost every possible emotion, positive and negative, and even though he believed ponies to be soft-hearted, there was no mistaking the sharp, yet restrained, fury that underscored Harlequin’s last words. Here was a pony who would go to any length to make good on his threats and believed he had the means to do so. Despite that, Turnip refused to give him the dignity of a response and simply remained still.

Harlequin evidently took the silence as a sign of submission, because his anger vanished in a blink, replaced by a kind of smug camaraderie. “Well now that we’ve cleared the air,” he said, pulling the Changeling to his feet, “let’s get some shut-eye, shall we?” Turnip grunted noncommittally as Harlequin herded him back to the bedroom.

When Cabbage Patch entered the main room of the suite the next morning, she saw that she was the last to have woken up that morning, and that there was already a Cabbage Patch hanging around the breakfast sideboard with the rest of the troupe. Nopony had spotted her yet and none of them seemed to notice anything unusual, so Cabbage decided to hide behind her bedroom door and watch. Turnip was obviously testing the ponies’ gullibility, something that Cabbage only now realized the importance of now.

Trixie, Maggie, and Barnacle were chatting among themselves, thinking nothing of the silent, seemingly withdrawn little earth pony near them. Harlequin sat a little ways off, focused wholly on his oatmeal. The fake Cabbage made no move toward the sideboard; instead it simply followed Trixie as she carried her food to the table. The doppelganger looked increasingly irritated, and as Cabbage opened her senses to the emotional energy in the room she smirked in understanding. Trixie was suspicious and, professional actor that she was, was doing an adequate job of keeping her feelings in check at a bland, almost neutral level. A Changeling could glean some energy from it, but hardly more than a “taste” and certainly not enough to latch onto and drain. Maggie was actually radiating annoyance, but no outward sign showed on her face. Barnacle Salt was his usual loving self, which made Turnip’s fixation on Trixie seem particularly odd to Cabbage. Misunderstanding the normal group dynamic and Cabbage’s own habits was one thing, but a half-starved Changeling not gravitating toward the best emotions made no sense.

Finally, Trixie lost patience with ignoring the fake Cabbage. “Not hungry this morning?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow at the sea-green earth pony.

“Oh, I am,” the fake Cabbage replied, “I just don’t see anything I like, yet.”

“Oh?” Maggie asked. “You’ve always enjoyed oatmeal with honey before. Or should I say, Cabbage always did, Turnip.”

“Honey and butter,” Cabbage corrected as she entered the room. She gave Turnip a disapproving glare as she approached the sideboard and starting filling two bowls with oatmeal.

“But, I am Cabbage Patch,” Turnip insisted, crocodile tears forming in his altered eyes. Everypony looked from him to the real Cabbage, who paused in her breakfast preparation and turned around to face her double, and then dropped her pony guise. She stared Turnip down until he gave up and dropped his own disguise.

“Please don’t try that again,” Cabbage said, transforming back and turning to dollop butter on both oatmeal bowls. “I hate having to revert to my old shape, even if it is necessary.” She picked one bowl up, set it down in front of Turnip, and then went back for the other while the Changeling sniffed the oatmeal suspiciously.

“You expect me to eat this?” Turnip asked. “You should know pony food won’t nourish the two of us.”

Cabbage carried her oatmeal to the table and mixed the butter in before answering. “I’ve found that sugar and grains are pretty good at keeping the body alive when love is scarce,” she said. “You can’t deny that it helps keep up appearances, either,” she added after a couple thoughtful bites.

“You’re not lacking for love,” Turnip pointed out. “Why not share some with poor starving me?”

“Eat your breakfast, and then we’ll talk,” Cabbage said. “Please.”

Turnip resisted complying for a solid minute, but as Cabbage and the others continued to ignore him and enjoy their breakfast around him, he finally gave in and ate a bite of oatmeal. The flavor was surprisingly good, and he felt some of the precious energy he’d burned disguising himself as Cabbage return. He wolfed down the rest of the oatmeal and then stared expectantly at Cabbage.

“Thank you,” the smaller Changeling said. “Look, Turnip, I don’t think this is going to be any more difficult than you make it. You’re a part of the Great and Powerful Trixie’s Traveling Thespians, where success depends on your acting ability. Be nice, play the roles we give to you, and most importantly do not forcibly feed on anypony, and you should find you get more than enough adoration and admiration to live on.”

“What sort of roles do you have in mind?” Turnip asked, looking genuinely interested at last.

Harlequin cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention. “I think I have a couple of ideas,” he said with a wry smile.

Cabbage on the Road

When asked to explain himself, Harlequin had just instructed the troupe to wait by the stage-wagon and then ran off to buy something. Turnip smirked at everypony’s annoyed reaction, and Cabbage worried that the Changeling was plotting something. When they left the suite, however, Turnip followed and, without anypony needing to suggest it, crafted a light purple, green-maned unicorn disguise for the walk to the semi-private carriage house where the stage-wagon was parked. It took Cabbage most of the walk to realize that the disguise was intended to reflect the name the Changeling had selected to go by.

Cabbage doubted that his name actually was Turnip. He had probably decided to follow Cabbage’s lead in taking the name of a vegetable. Cabbage’s own name was the one good relic of her first contact with ponies, and it was the only one she knew of. Only very important Changelings like the Queen had persistent names within the Hive. Everyling else was just identified by their presence in the voice of the Hive, or rather the effort they put in to stand out from the mental background noise of the voice of the Hive. With the Changelings so depleted in numbers, that buzzing faded quickly outside the castle infirmary, so Cabbage could only sense Turnip’s mind, and only if he directed a thought at her. A wave of embarrassed anxiety swept through Cabbage as she considered how open and undisciplined her own thoughts must seem in comparison. She cast a glance at Turnip as the thought filled her mind, but he was keeping his eyes forward, giving no indication he sensed what she was thinking.

Turnip wasn’t much for vocal conversation either, ignoring any attempt by the troupe to wring personal details out of him. So, while they waited by the stage-wagon for Harlequin to return, the conversation turned to routes and stops. Maggie found their travel itinerary and read off it. “Tremolo has already thrown us off track,” she said. “We were supposed to hit a couple small towns before coming here to Canterlot to check in. If we pick up from this point, the plan was to head south to the frontier towns and then loop back up toward Manehatten.”

“I don’t like the idea of taking our new friend down to the frontier yet,” Trixie said. “The earth ponies that settle out there are a tricky breed to read.”

“Not to mention the buffalo,” Barnacle Salt said. “They be gentle folk most of the time, but one wrong word and they’ll threaten to stampede ye right out of town.”

“Ok,” Maggie said, “if that’s out, should we just go straight to Manehatten?”

“We can go south a little ways first,” Trixie said.

“I think we shouldn’t get too far from Canterlot,” Cabbage cut in. Everyone looked at her in surprise and her voice faltered for a second. “Uh, I… Just in case something goes wrong, you know?”

Turnip snorted and gave Cabbage a condescending look. “I thought you trusted me,” he said in mock pain.

“I want to trust you,” Cabbage said, “but so far you only have the benefit of the doubt.”

Maggie went into the stage-wagon and came out with a map that she spread out on the step. “There are plenty of towns and some performer-friendly travel stops in view of the Canterlot mountains,” she said, tracing a rough circle with her hoof, “so we could do a complete show circuit in a couple of months.”

“I still think we should hit Manehatten or another large city at some point,” Trixie said, “just to expose Turnip to a broader scope of culture.”

The troupe continued to discuss their travel plans for the next half hour until Harlequin finally arrived. He was pulling a rented cart containing a metal cage big enough to hold a large pony. He pulled right up in front of the bemused troupe, unhitched himself, and hopped up on the edge of the cart to present the cage with a dramatic pose and a “Ta-da!”

Trixie was the first to react. “Quin, what is that?”

“This,” Harlequin said, “is a Presti EZ-setup, lightweight Performance Cage. Now that we’ve got a Changeling in the troupe that doesn’t suffer from stage fright, I think it’s time to put on that captive Changeling idea of mine.”

“I am not going to let myself be caged,” Turnip said.

“I agree,” Cabbage said. “We are not treating Turnip like a dangerous monster, remember?”

“Calm down you two,” Harlequin said, rolling his eyes. “This cage couldn’t actually hold anyone. Observe.” He produced a padlock and put it through the latch, snapping it closed. He then lifted the latch handle, which turned out to be attached to both of the holes the padlock went through, and opened the cage door easily. Harlequin then stepped into the cage, closed the door behind him, and after a momentary pause to make sure everypony was still paying attention, he slipped a hoof between the bars of the cage with ease and opened the latch again. “As you can see,” he said as he stepped out and hopped off the cart, “it’s all just for show. The cage breaks down real easy too; just pop out a few pins and it comes apart into five flat pieces for storage.”

“That doesn’t change the fact of making Turnip into just something to gawk at,” Cabbage protested.

“And how is that different from ‘Mar the Seapony’?” Harlequin countered. Cabbage struggled to come up with an argument, and Harlequin continued making his case. “Here’s the thing: Changelings are a thing of campfire tales and horror stories, bogeypones. You tell the average pony you’re going to show them a Changeling and they’ll expect to see a monster. If that monster’s loose, ponies will panic and run, but if it’s in a cage they’ll stick around and take a closer look at it. Given enough time, exposure, and entertaining interaction with the crowd, maybe ponies will stop being quite so scared of this Changeling, so it can appear without a cage and do some real acting.”

Trixie and Barnacle were nodding along by the end of Harlequin’s explanation, and Cabbage sensed their budding approval of the idea. Maggie was still doubtful. “It’s a nice idea,” she said, “but I feel I should point out that until we reach the point where the audience feels safe with a Changeling walking around free Turnip would be stuck hiding backstage between acts.”

Turnip and Cabbage shared a sideways glance, silently daring each other to point out the obvious. Turnip looked at Maggie and switched his current disguise for an exact copy of Maggie, while Cabbage pointed at him and gave the earth pony a flat look.

“Right,” Maggie said sheepishly.

“For the record,” Turnip said, reverting to the pale purple stallion disguise, “I’m opposed to the idea of being put on display on principle.”

“Tough luck,” Trixie said. “There are no freeloaders in the Great and Powerful Trixie’s troupe. Unless you’ve got a different act to propose or you have some backstage skill that Maggie or Cabbage can’t fill, you’re going in the cage. And speaking of which, the act’s going to need a barker to engage the audience. Barnacle, are you willing to do that, or should I?”

Harlequin coughed. “Actually, I was thinking I should take that role.”

Trixie gave him a quizzical look. “Why?” she asked. “You’re neither a storyteller nor a professional braggadocio. In fact, I recall you being rather bad at telling tales of any size.”

“It’s my idea, for one,” Harlequin said. “Besides, the cap’n already has his seapony and you’ve got your light-show Ursa and dragons. I deserve an eye-catcher of my own. I’ve even got a couple routines worked out already.” He grinned hopefully at Trixie, and after a long moment she sighed.

“Fine,” she said, “once we’re outside the city and in a secluded place we’ll give your spiels a test run.” Waving a hoof with authority, she headed to the wagon door and said, “Pack it up ponies. Let’s get on the road.”

Turnip tired to protest as the troupe prepared to leave, but everyone either ignored him or reminded him of Trixie’s ultimatum. After Trixie and Maggie were inside the wagon and the stallions were busy breaking down Harlequin’s cage, the Changeling started to consider his chances of slipping away. When he turned around, however, he found himself staring down at Cabbage Patch, who was simply staring at him with a raised eyebrow. The look stirred something inside the Changeling and with grumpy muttering he jumped up into the stage-wagon and tucked himself into a corner behind a box of fireworks. Cabbage smiled as she watched Turnip go, but in her gut she felt anxious. Happiness that things were going her way was warring with her usual fear and some confusion as to why keeping another Changeling in its place wasn’t as difficult as it should be.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts, those of you with delicate constitutions may wish to look away. On our last visit to Canterlot, this very troupe was beset by the invading Changelings. We fought the beasts, thinking only of our survival at first, but after the Elements of Harmony defeated the Changeling Queen and the foul swarm was destroyed we discovered this. May I present to you, the last living Changeling!” A chorus of gasps and one high-pitched whinny accompanied the sound of Harlequin pulling the drape off Turnip’s cage.

Harlequin’s monologues had gone over well enough in Canterlot to convince Trixie to give the act an extended test on the road, and now they were trying to determine the best time to bring Turnip out during shows. The current rendition was about halfway through the show, after Trixie’s introduction and Harlequin’s tumbling act had warmed the crowd up, and it appeared to be garnering only slightly more of a reaction than it had when placed last in the line-up.

Cabbage sat behind the stage curtains, eyes closed as she concentrated on the emotions the crowd was giving off as the act continued. While Trixie, Barnacle, and Maggie would all be judging the act’s success based on physical reactions like applause and hecklers, only Cabbage could comment on the most important thing: how much usable emotional energy Harlequin and Turnip could draw out of the audience. Judging the nutritive value of a large group of ponies was not easy, since group emotions were a mélange of individual reactions to a given stimuli, but Cabbage had a lot of practice. The Traveling Thespians routinely created highly positive reactions, but there was almost always a hint of hostility from ponies who came to the show to have a rematch with Trixie’s clever magic. The reactions to the “captured changeling” act were proving to be more mixed, and not just because of the expected apprehensions about Changelings. Harlequin’s tall tales of how the dangerous Changeling came into the troupe’s possession were being received positively by the audience, but he wasn’t as experienced as Barnacle Salt and couldn’t keep the audience hooked on a story for very long.

Counting the Canterlot audition, this was the fourth performance of the “captured Changeling” act, and as with the previous runs Cabbage sensed the audience’s interest in Turnip fade rapidly after the initial shock wore off. Opening her eyes, Cabbage went to the end of the curtain and twitched it aside just enough to peer out with one eye at Turnip. The Changeling ate as much food as anypony else in the troupe, but Cabbage thought she could see signs of early starvation – wing tips growing dry and brittle, dullness in his blue eyes, and weight loss – indicating that he wasn’t taking in enough emotional energy. I hope he isn’t starving himself on purpose, Cabbage thought. Even after a week on the road, Turnip refused to open up to anypony enough for Cabbage to guess his real motives. She sighed and wrote the performance off as another failure, but just before she moved away from the curtain Turnip’s head perked up in reaction to Harlequin’s monologue.

“Don’t be fooled by its docile appearance,” Harlequin was saying, for the third time in as many minutes, when Turnip made a loud gagging sound.

“Enough!” the Changeling snapped. “That wasn’t funny the first time.”

“Ah-ha,” Harlequin said, not missing a beat, “looks like I finally roused the beast.” He stepped closer to the cage, and Cabbage felt the audience’s interest rise. “What’s the matter, Changeling?” Harlequin asked mockingly, “Not enjoying my story?”

Turnip’s reply was flat and dry. “A funeral would be more filling than one of your jokes.” A few ponies in the audience chuckled, and Cabbage was surprised to sense hints of camaraderie and approval start to flow toward Turnip. Somepony out there liked the heckling Changeling.

“Oh, sorry to bug you,” Harlequin said. Turnip hissed at him, opening his mouth to put his fangs on full display. The acrobat pony side-stepped away from the cage, his own mouth set in a cheesy grin, and the chuckling increased. “But seriously,” Harlequin said, “wouldn’t you rather be here, living another day, than dead on the streets like the rest of your kind?”

“Maybe if I was deaf,” Turnip retorted. “Have you ever heard yourself? It’s like this.” Green flames washed over Turnip as he exchanged his chitin for a copy of Harlequin’s appearance, except for the addition of buck teeth and a dopey expression. “I couldn’t bee¬-lieve it when a Changeling dropped out of the sky in front of me,” he said, his voice perfectly matched to Harlequin’s, and then broke out in obnoxious mule laughter for a few seconds before stopping abruptly and glaring out at the audience. To his surprise, this got a portion of the audience to laugh outright. The mirth spread as ponies noticed Harlequin being visibly torn between anger and amusement.

Backstage, Cabbage turned away from the curtain to see Trixie standing behind her. “Sounds like our new recruit is finally getting into the spirit of things,” the showmare said.

“He’s getting the positive returns I was hoping for,” Cabbage said, “but I doubt he meant for the audience to like him insulting Quin.”

Trixie smirked. “Intentional or not, if he keeps that up he’ll fit right in. I might even consider sneaking him into the audience to help goad some fresh faces into challenging the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

As The Great Trixie’s Royal Thespians moved from stop to stop in the general direction of Manehatten, news of “The last living Changeling” began to precede them. In less than a week after Turnip started trying to out-snark Harlequin, just the sight of the stage-wagon rolling down the street attracted crowds of ponies clamoring to see the Changeling. Some ponies were skeptical, others wanted a chance to mock or abuse Turnip for his race’s failures, and yet others were simply attracted to the novelty. On Cabbage’s advice, Harlequin tailored his remarks to cast Turnip in a more sympathetic light as the weary victim of relentless teasing and bad jokes, which so far had successfully produced a bouquet of positive emotions for the Changeling to feed on. Turnip’s health visibly improved after every show, but the better he ate the more sullen and irritable he became.

At a rest stop linking road, rail, and river traffic, Turnip suddenly decided to stop playing along. When Harlequin pulled the drape off his cage, the Changeling just turned his back on the audience, lied down, and did a passible imitation of a shiny black rock, ignoring everything. Caught off guard by his uncooperative partner, Harlequin stumbled over his monologues until the audience booed him off the stage. Trixie rushed out to try and salvage the show with her magic act, while Barnacle Salt and Maggie hauled the cage backstage. As soon as the cage was behind the curtains, Turnip burst out, assumed a random pegasus pony disguise, and stormed away.

“What’s tangled his sails up?” Barnacle wondered.

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Maybe’s he’s feeling ill from too much adoration after starving for so long?”

Cabbage rolled her eyes. “Feeding on emotion doesn’t work like normal food,” she said. “I know what the problem is: his attitude. I need to have a talk with him.”

“I’ll come with you,” Harlequin said, but Cabbage shook her head.

“I… I can do this alone,” she said.

Harlequin watched Cabbage run off after Turnip, a mixture of surprise and pride on his face. “Wow,” he said to Maggie, “she’s like a whole ‘nother pony when that Changeling’s involved.”

“I agree,” Maggie said. “Somehow, he’s bringing out something Cabbage has kept buried deep inside her whole life.”

Fearing that Turnip was attempting to vanish into the crowd, Cabbage opened herself wide to the emotions flowing around the rest stop so she could sense the other Changeling’s mind no matter what form he took. When she found him, however, he was just sulking in a tree wearing the same pegasus disguise he’d run off in. He grimaced when he spotted her, but didn’t move. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Come down. We need to talk,” she said, adding Changeling to Changeling across the mental link. She was barely surprised to feel her anxiety fading as she spoke; by now it felt like a natural effect of choosing to interact with Turnip.

“Why don’t you come up here?” Turnip challenged.

“I’m not very good at climbing trees,” Cabbage responded with a pointed glance at her wingless earth pony sides. “And I’m scared of making a fool of myself in front of other ponies.”

Turnip grumbled and fluttered out of the tree. He walked right up to Cabbage, looked down at her and asked in low tones, “Alright, what do you have to say?”

Cabbage met his stare. “I have a question, actually: why do you want to fail?”

“What?”

Cabbage poked Turnip’s chest. “Admit it, you already know that I’m right. We Changelings can foster the best emotions in ponies without impersonating their loved ones, and more than enough to live on. I’ve sampled the emotions given off by ponies who watch your and Harlequin’s act, so I know what’s available for you to take in. Are you really so devoted to the old, broken system that you’d starve yourself to death rather than accept an alternative?”

“Your ‘system’ barely works,” Turnip said. “I can’t deny I could feed well during a show, but in between all I have to live on is what I’ve stored up in those shows. Our traveling companions have no good feelings to give me.”

Cabbage fought down an urge to scream in exasperation. “Seriously?” she hissed. “I was cast out of the hive with barely any training and even I know you have to work to get love!”

Turnip stepped back to a respectful distance, but his expression remained hard. “Well, when you’ve already got a lock on the affections of all four of the ponies-”

“It doesn’t work like that!” Cabbage exclaimed. “I don’t ‘own’ anypony, and I don’t draw any love out of them by force. I don’t need to when they send so much at me of their own will. Ponies can have affection for more than one other at a time, Turnip. That’s why I know what I have can work for the entire hive. Just… Start with Harlequin. Talk to him between shows.”

“But,” Turnip said, confused, “I insult him all the time. Why would he want to get close to me?”

Cabbage rolled her eyes. “Have you seriously not paid any attention to anything but your pride? Quin likes you, a lot. Ask him, and I’ll bet he’ll say you’re the best thing to happen to him since he joined Trixie’s Thespians. You’re helping him live a dream he’s had for years, and if you work with him to make that dream bigger, he’ll become your best, most reliable source of friendship and affection.”

Turnip turned away, deep in thought. “Fine,” he said at last, “I’ll play your game, runt, but you have to do something first.” He whirled on Cabbage and declared, “You have to stop being a living prop for these ponies all the time. Put on an act where you’re the center of attention, then I’ll try making friends with Harlequin.”

Cabbage stammered, her confidence cracking and letting some of her usual anxiety creep in. “B-but… I… I already help Trixie with part of her magic act.”

“You’re just a prop,” Turnip retorted. “Trixie just uses you and your stunted shapeshifting to make ponies think she’s better at magic than she is. No, Cabbage, I want to see you on that stage as the star of an act, or else I stop cooperating with ponies.”

Cabbage and the Extra Inch

The show was over when Cabbage and Turnip returned to the stage, which the troupe was breaking down. “Welcome back,” Trixie said, making no attempt to mask the annoyance she felt toward Turnip. The Changeling returned her withering look with one of his own and slipped into the wagon. Trixie sighed and turned her attention to Cabbage, her expression softening slightly as annoyance gave way to concern. “So,” Trixie asked, “what happened?”

“Turnip’s… not happy that I’m winning our challenge so far,” Cabbage said. “And he’s upset about my place in the troupe, for some reason.” Trixie quirked an eyebrow up and glanced at the stage-wagon. “He said I’m just a living prop to you and Barnacle,” Cabbage pressed on, and a sarcastic smirk teased the corners of her mouth. “He’s not exactly wrong.”

“Cabbage!” Trixie protested, “I assure you-”

“You don’t need to reassure me, Trixie,” Cabbage said. “The only thing keeping me in that position is myself; it’s my comfort zone.” She sighed and gave the stage-wagon a hooded look. “Turnip just declared his compliance with my challenge is conditional: I need an act of my own or he bolts, and I’m pretty sure he’s got enough strength now to give us the slip if he wants.”

Barnacle Salt growled loudly from his perch on the roof, where he’d been putting the glowing wire signs back into their hidden compartments, catching both Trixie and Cabbage’s attention. “And if he does, so what?” Barnacle said. “If ye’ve already proven your point lass, then every pony in this troupe’ll back ye when ye tell the Queen Bug so. So what’s the point of keeping him and his bad attitude around any longer?”

“I highly doubt Chrysalis is going to trust the testimony of anyone except Turnip,” Trixie retorted dryly.

Cabbage nodded. “And if we go back to Canterlot with one less Changeling than we left with, the Queen will just take that as a victory.”

“Ah… I see yer point,” Barnacle admitted, though he still looked sour.

“So, Cabbage Patch needs a solo act,” Trixie said, looking thoughtful. “After so many years of trying to talk you into it, I suddenly find myself drawing a blank as to what you could do. Any ideas, Quin?” she asked as the acrobat pony walked by.

“My only idea for a Changeling act has already been taken,” Harlequin responded, but then gave Trixie and Cabbage a charming, sparkly-eyed smile. “However, I do seem to recall how a few years ago a certain magician tried to talk a painfully shy little filly into doing celebrity impressions.”

Cabbage felt embarrassment and the echoes of old fear rise through her body as Harlequin’s words called up memories of that Summer Sun Celebration two years ago. Trixie has gone to Twilight Sparkle for advice, and upon finding the library closed and locked for the day had somehow talked Cabbage into imitating Princess Celestia’s voice in order to trick Twilight into opening the door. Twilight’s annoyance at the trick was not something Cabbage liked to recall, although it had been one of the mildest reactions Cabbage had ever received. In fact, Cabbage recalled, Twilight had actually complimented her skill in the end. Just as Scootaloo and the Cutie Mark Crusaders had a couple weeks ago, Cabbage’s fellow performers did frequently and - Cabbage had to admit to herself - as did almost everypony who was forewarned of her ability. The precision in tone and timbre her shapeshifting ability allowed her was uncanny from a pony perspective, but not in a bad way.

Cabbage had known all of this logically for a long time, but accepting it emotionally was a whole other problem, even now. Her first attempt to integrate into pony society after being cast out of the hive still stuck in her memory like a fresh wound. The Changelings has dropped her on the doorstep of a stallion they claimed was her father after, in a suspicious show of generosity, providing her with enough information about the stallion’s “missing” wife to create a believable story, including a demonstration of the mare’s appearance and voice. The pony had taken Cabbage Patch in and tried to treat her right, at first. To this day, Cabbage still wasn’t sure if she’d overplayed some part of the story, been too overzealous in feeding on his emotions, or if it was just her mere presence in his home that had driven the poor stallion into dark grief over his lost love. In a desperate attempt to snap her father out of his funk, Cabbage had sneaked up on him one day and spoke to him in the voice the Changelings had shown her. The stallion went into a rage on hearing that voice, revealing to a terror-stricken Cabbage Patch that he was well aware what Changelings were and that they’d replaced his wife. He’d chased Cabbage out of the house and through the small village, proclaiming her nature to all witnesses and throwing whatever came to hoof until she finally dropped her disguise and took to the air to escape.

Cabbage had then wandered the world, searching for new homes only to lose those she found due to her own inexperience in passing as a pony. Eventually she’d wound up in an alley behind a tavern in the seaside town of Clydesport, starving but too scared to try to charm anypony into loving her or even to try and feed surreptitiously on the emotions surrounding her, until Barnacle Salt came along and gave her unconditional compassion. Roughly five years under the former sailor’s care, and the last two of those with Trixie and Harlequin and eventually Maggie Pie, had done a lot to mend Cabbage’s emotional wounds, but the thought of speaking in other voices in front of other ponies still scared her stiff.

In fact, Cabbage felt a panic attack coming on right at that moment. Her knees locked up, her whole frame started to quiver, and Barnacle Salt was by her side in a flash, wrapping her in a comforting embrace and doing his best to radiate calmness into her. “There, there,” the pegasus murmured, “deep breathes, lass. Ye don’t have to force yourself into anything if ye don’t want to, so just take your mind off it.”

Cabbage took a deep breath and leaned into Barnacle’s chest, and the panic began to fade away. He’s right, she thought, I don’t want to. Why am I even trying so hard to save the Changelings from themselves anyway? I don’t owe them anything. A sour feeling rose in her gut as that thought crossed her mind. I don’t owe them anything! she repeated to herself, but… I care anyway. Unbidden, she recalled the Changelings in the Canterlot Castle infirmary, all trying to match their Queen’s defiant attitude despite being so sickly and drained of love, happiness, hope. Chrysalis, the guiding voice of the hive-mind, had been angry, but beneath that Cabbage had sensed mostly despair from the Changelings, and she realized now that that had pricked her heart more than anything else in her life. Oh, this pony’s heart of mine, she thought with a mental sigh, too soft to let me ignore anyone’s plight. So be it.

Cabbage slowly stepped away from Barnacle and looked at the other members of the troupe. Her heart was still beating fast, but she forced herself to speak and hoped desperately for one of those still-mysterious bursts of confidence. “I-I’m going to try,” she said. “I’m tired of being scared all the time, so I’m going to face my biggest… no, second-biggest fear. I’m not revealing myself to strangers any time soon.” Harlequin chuckled and Maggie smiled. Cabbage smiled back in gratitude for their support, but then grew thoughtful. “But I can’t just go out on stage without a plan,” she said. “I… Oh dear, I don’t know if I even know the voices of enough famous ponies to fill a whole act. I can do the Princesses, maybe Sapphire Shores, but that’s it.”

Trixie came up and wrapped a foreleg around Cabbage’s shoulders. “That can be fixed, if you’re willing to go out to Manehatten,” she said. “We’ll take in some of the biggest shows there, maybe I can arrange for us to meet some of the best performers, and you can build your act around Bridleway satire. In the meantime,” she cast a sidelong glance at the stage wagon, “if our guest tries to insist on you starting right away, I have a couple of ideas on how to integrate your voice tricks into our present framework.”

Turnip was lying down, undisguised, on the dismantled prop cage when Cabbage climbed inside the wagon. The two Changelings stared into each other’s eyes for a moment before Cabbage broke away with a shake of her head and turned her attention to her personal corner. Still can’t believe you can actually sleep on that, Cabbage thought at Turnip.

“Sorry, I’m still not as soft as you,” Turnip sneered. Cabbage ignored him and dug into her nest of fabric, searching for the box with the costume the CMC had made for her. “What are you doing?” Turnip asked, letting curiosity get the better of him.

Cabbage pulled out the box, opened it, and then laid the costume and mask out on the floor before answering. “You wanted me to create my own independent act, right? Well, here’s how it’s going to work: I have a strong talent for voice alteration which I can pass off as impressions. We’re going to head to Manehatten so I can study the sounds and personalities of famous performers, then I’ll make an act from that.” She shot Turnip another, hard look. “I know that’s a long time to wait for me to make good on my side of the deal, so while we’re en route I’ll do some of the emceeing for the show, mimicking Princess Luna or Trixie to draw in crowds. Is that satisfactory?”

Turnip looked at Cabbage with an appraising eye for a long moment. “So you do have a backbone,” he said at last. He stood up, stretched, and said, “Fine then, I’ll try and play nice with the annoying acrobat, after the next show.” He walked over and looked down at the costume, and his lip curled. “Don’t tell me you plan to wear this ugly thing.”

Cabbage nodded firmly. “It’s gaudy, bold, and has no regard for proper color theory,” she said, meeting Turnip’s eyes without any hesitancy, “and three good friends of mine made it to help me feel more comfortable on stage. I’m going to use it, and I don’t need your approval.”

The ghost of a smile flickered across Turnip’s mouth, and Cabbage sensed guarded positivity in the tiny Hive Mind the pair shared. Cabbage couldn’t make sense of the emotion because Turnip was trying to keep it to himself. Rather than pry and risk ruining the other Changeling’s slightly improved attitude, Cabbage just added a horn to her pony guise so she could use telekinesis to put her costume on. She levitated the costume up, keeping the skirt spread wide, and then put one foreleg through at a time into tops of the sleeves before slipping her head into the outfit. As she pulled the costume on, however, she felt the fabric start to strain across her shoulders and the sleeves ended farther up her legs than she remembered them doing at the fitting.

“What the hay?” she said as she finished pulling the costume on and saw that the skirt was riding a little too far up her back. “This fit perfectly a couple weeks ago, and I haven’t washed it so it can’t have shrunk.”

“I’d say you’ve grown a little, then,” Turnip said.

Cabbage scoffed. “No way; I haven’t grown an inch since I was exiled, and I was well past my fourth year by then. No, there has to be some other explanation.” She wriggled out of the costume and went over to the troupe’s sewing box. She pulled out a small notebook and then started digging around for the measuring tape when she heard the wagon door open and close. Cabbage and Turnip both turned to see Maggie making her way toward them.

“I just wanted to check on you,” the earth pony said. She looked at the costume Cabbage had left on the floor and asked, “Is something wrong with your costume?”

“Maybe, I dunno,” Cabbage said. She went back to the sewing box, pulled the measuring tape out, and tossed it to Maggie. “It doesn’t it quite right, and Turnip here thinks it’s because I’ve gotten bigger. Could you please check my measurements?”

“Sure,” Maggie said. She glanced at Cabbage’s forehead and smirked. “With or without the horn?” she asked. Cabbage blushed and dispelled the unicorn horn from her pony guise, and then assumed a proper, stiff pose for being measured. Maggie worked quickly, measuring the little pony’s shoulder height, shoulder width, her girth, length, and even rear legs and head size just to be thorough. She found a pencil and jotted down numbers in the notebook as she worked, and when she was finished she rolled the measuring tape up and announced, “Congratulations Cabbage Patch, you’re a full inch taller than your last measurement and bit longer and wider as well. You’ve grown.”

Cabbage shook her head in disbelief. “Impossible,” she said, “it only takes three or four years for a Changeling to reach their full growth; I’m too old to get bigger!”

“My numbers don’t lie, Cabbage,” Maggie said. She showed Cabbage the notebook, and as the little Changeling’s eyes traced down the page her ears drooped. “Hey, stop worrying,” Maggie said. “This is a good thing.”

“Yeah,” Cabbage said dully, “but… now my costume doesn’t fit. I’ll have to figure out how to make it a little bigger or-”

“Or you could just shrink yourself a bit,” Turnip cut in with an exasperated tone.

Cabbage gave him a sideways look. “I’ve never been able to change my size,” she said.

Turnip rolled his eyes. “That’s wing rot,” he said. “You do it all the time without thinking. That rainbow-colored zebra form you use in Trixie’s act is a hair taller than what you’re using now. Let me guess, you’ve tried looking like a full-sized pony in the past?” Cabbage nodded, and Turnip continued, “Well let me tell you, even the best shapeshifters in the hive have difficulty appearing significantly larger than they actually are. Being significantly smaller is a different matter – the Queen’s a lot taller than Princess Cadance, but she had no trouble maintaining that pink pony’s appearance for days on end. But an inch one way or the other is the easiest thing in the world. Even an underdeveloped runt like you could do that if you really wanted to.”

Cabbage looked dubiously at the other Changeling, and then down at the costume. It would make things easier if he was right, she thought. Can’t hurt to try at least. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself shrinking, but her mind refused to settle on a coherent image. Come on body, she thought, gritting her teeth, work with me. Just drop the extra inch. I need to be the size of… Her eyes flew open as she hit upon the memory of the day she’d received the costume. Sweetie Bell had said the CMC has used Apple Bloom’s measurements for the costume, and it had fit Cabbage just fine. Maybe if I become Apple Bloom first, then just change my coat and mane to my own colors… A burst of green fire raced across her body twice as she applied her will to the idea, first altering her body slightly and then restoring her preferred coloring. Once the transformation was complete, Cabbage put the costume back on and grinned when it fit perfectly. “It worked.”

“Of course it did,” Turnip said, failing to hide a tiny smile. “You’ll want to practice doing that without an intermediate step, of course.”

“Of course,” Cabbage echoed, returning the smile.

Turnip and Harlequin

Cabbage Patch stood stiffly just behind the closed stage curtain, fighting down a lump in her throat. This was the second night of attempting to open the show, and she’d failed to emit more than a faint squeak on the first night. Trixie had come to her rescue, with the audience unaware that the troupe had had something other than Trixie’s usual introduction planned, and the azure showmare was standing next to Cabbage again tonight. Cabbage doubted she could adequately explain how much that lifeline’s mere existence helped her confidence, nor how relieved she’d been that Turnip hadn’t criticized or mocked her failure of the previous night. The Changeling was still acting cold toward the rest of the troupe, but at least he hadn’t been overtly hostile since he and Cabbage had made their deal.

Cabbage felt a sudden urge to peek through the curtains, but held herself back. She knew that not only was it a bad idea to give a definite size and faces to the audience whose attention was causing most of her anxiety, but it was highly unprofessional to break the curtain line before the show began. Instead, she fidgeted with her costume and then slid the gaudy mask over her face. As soon as the mask was in place, to her surprise, Cabbage felt a lot of her anxiety fade, enough to allow her to relax her muscles and take a deep breath. She looked to Trixie and gave her a nervous smile and a nod. Trixie smiled and stepped back, gesturing for Cabbage to proceed.

Cabbage inhaled as she adjusted her voice, and then bellowed in perfect imitation of Princess Luna, “Fillies and Gentlecolts! We are proud to welcome you to this performance by The Great Trixie’s Royal Thespians!” A wave of surprise flowed through the curtains from the audience and Cabbage paused for a second to study it. She sensed a powerful undercurrent of amazement and delight, and so she continued her spiel with more enthusiasm. “Prepare yourselves for a most exciting hour of acrobatics, swashbuckling tales of the high sea and heroics, jaw-dropping magic, and – as a special treat – a showcasing of the last surviving Changeling in Equestria!” She felt Turnip send a mental sigh in her direction, but she let the audience’s reactions drown the thought out and wrapped up the introductions. “To open the show, please welcome to the stage Harlequin, tumbler and acrobat extraordinare!”

Polite applause greeted Harlequin as he rolled out from behind the parting curtain. Trixie and Cabbage quickly withdrew to the wings before the curtain could reveal them, and once safely out of sight Cabbage lifted her mask and beamed. “I did it!” she whispered.

“I knew you could,” Trixie replied. “Now go get changed; I’ll take things from here.” Cabbage nodded and went to exchange the dress for her sea pony suit.

Turnip and his cage were right next to the costume rack, and as Cabbage swapped clothes the Changeling gave her an approving nod. “So you do keep your word,” he said, “even if it does take a false start or two.”

Cabbage turned her nose up slightly at Turnip. “A little over a month ago the mere thought of doing that intro would’ve made me freeze up for hours,” she said, “so I am not going to let your criticisms get me down.” She did up the last of the hidden fasteners on her sea pony tail and crawled toward the water tank with as much dignity as possible.

Harlequin’s opening act ended and Barnacle Salt’s came up next as usual. Cabbage tried to relax into her sea pony role, but her thoughts kept drifting ahead to Harlequin and Turnip’s act. The previous night, when she’d tried and failed to do the opening spiel, Turnip had at least engaged with Harlequin’s taunts, but it had only been a half-hearted effort that still left the acrobat floundering after a few minutes. Cabbage hoped that the Changeling would be more cooperative in this show.

When the curtain closed in front of her tank and Barnacle retired from the front of the stage, Cabbage risked a glance over to where Turnip’s cage stood ready to swap places with her tank. Turnip met her gaze with a smile and a brief mental touch that assured her the expression was genuine. Cabbage heaved a relieved sigh after hauling herself out of the tank, and then rolled out of the way of Trixie and Maggie Pie as they moved the set pieces around. Harlequin took the stage again as Maggie threw the sheet over the cage and pushed it through the curtain, and Cabbage hopped over to the costume area as the act began.

By the time she’d dried off and hung the sea pony costume up, the emotions flowing from the audience were making her slightly giddy. Harlequin was still not a perfect storyteller and his jokes were uninspired, but Turnip was making the best of it and earning an unprecedented amount of sympathy and positive opinion from the audience. The act ended on a high note, and the rest of the show passed in a happy blur for little Cabbage.

After the show, Cabbage went to remind Turnip about his half of their promise, but the Changeling just walked by her without a word and approached Harlequin. “Harlequin,” Turnip said, “I want to apologize for the way I’ve been treating you.”

Harlequin gave the Changeling a confused look. “You mean all the insults and cold shoulder treatments?” he asked, then waved a hoof in dismissal. “No harm done.”

“No,” Turnip said, “I mean for not opening up to your feelings.”

“Eh?” Harlequin said, now completely confused.

“How do I put this?” Turnip mused. “I’ve been aware of how you really feel about our insult-trading bits, but I resented what that meant and shut you out. Not only was that petty of me regarding what Cabbage Patch is trying to accomplish, but among the Changelings it’s absolutely rude to reuse to share emotions. I apologize for that and…” He put on a shy smile. “Can we start over? Be friends?”

Harlequin regarded the Changeling for a long moment, keeping his face impassive, but then he broke out into a huge cheesy grin and grabbed the Changeling in a hug before Turnip could dodge out of the way. “Aw,” Harlequin said, putting enough sap into his voice to fill a syrup bottle, “I thought you’d never ask.” He made as if to kiss Turnip, but the Changeling shoved a hoof into his face.

“Let’s keep it at friendship for now,” Turnip said. “I don’t like you that much yet.”

The scene was too much for the rest of the troupe, and everypony broke down into laughter as Harlequin released Turnip and clapped him on the back. Turnip took in the amusement of the ponies around him, and after a deep sigh he returned the laughter with a smile. He turned to Cabbage and, once the little Changeling got her giggles under control, he said, “You haven’t won yet, you know. Let’s see how long these ponies can keep this attitude up.”

Cabbage started to reply, but Trixie beat her to it, saying with a smug glint in her eyes, “Challenge accepted.”

The following week, as the troupe continued toward Manehatten, showed a dramatic change in Turnip’s attitude and, by extension, the morale of the ponies and Cabbage Patch. After the wagon was packed up and the Royal Thespians were on the road, Turnip would walk beside Harlequin in his purple pony disguise – even taking the occasional turn helping to pull the wagon – and give the acrobat notes on improving his Changeling mockery. Turnip shared insults and epithets he’d heard over the years that didn’t center on insect puns, as well as stories of legendary failures in pony kidnappings and impersonations.

“I think my favorite comes from roughly five hundred years ago,” he related one day. “The target was a mare in a small city: nopony particularly important but with a comfortable life and lots of love to take. The Changeling targeting her spent weeks observing her to learn who her important ponies were, her daily routine, personality and mannerisms, all the important stuff. What they failed to learn in all that time, however, was that she had an identical twin who lived in a different part of the city.”

“Oh, let me guess,” Harlequin cut in, “The sister came for a visit right after the Changeling stepped into the role, and she outed it?”

“Not quite,” Turnip said. “When the Changeling went to kidnap the target, they accidently grabbed the twin instead, and then went to the target’s home to find both her and her husband sitting down to lunch. Rather than try to improvise their way out, the Changeling just panicked and fled, and only later managed to piece together just how they’d screwed up.”

Harlequin laughed, and then went into deep thought on the material he could extract from the tale. Cabbage had come up to Turnip then and said, “That sounded like the sort of cautionary tales they’d tell nymphs in the hive, but I can’t recall ever hearing that one before.”

“There’s a lot of Changeling lore you missed out on, being exiled when you were,” Turnip replied.

“I never got the feeling we cared much for lore in the first place, come to think of it” Cabbage said.

“Well,” Turnip said, “when everyling is on the brink of starvation…” Cabbage sensed evasiveness in the other Changeling’s thoughts, but his excuse didn’t give her an opening to pry comfortably, so she let the topic drop. On top of acting more friendly to everypony in the troupe, Turnip had become more open with his thoughts and feelings in the mini Hive Mind the two Changelings shared, and what Cabbage sensed was good-natured enough that she was willing to let Turnip keep some secrets.

At a stop two days out from Manehatten, the troupe pulled everything out of the wagon for a good cleaning and comprehensive inventory check. Generally, each performer was responsible for their own props and set pieces, while Cabbage and Maggie shared responsibility for maintaining the costumes (except Trixie’s, which the unicorn guarded jealously) and cleaning the wagon itself. Turnip took charge of the performance cage, wiping it down and checking the joints from inside where he didn’t have to be disguised.

“Hey, Quin,” Turnip said as the acrobat happened to walk by, “how much longer do you think we’re going to need this cage? I’ve started getting ideas of what we could do if I weren’t ‘locked up’ on the stage.”

“You’re the emotion detector,” Harlequin responded. “You tell me. You think the public is ready for an unfettered predator in front of them?”

Turnip pondered for a moment, but before he could reach a conclusion he heard Barnacle Salt announce the approach of some ponies. All work stopped as the troupe turned to look at the group of five ponies walking up with purpose. Two of them were holding signs that read “Free the Changeling” and “Down with animal cruelty!”

“This ought to be good,” Turnip muttered, sensing the animosity coming from the group.

The entire troupe, Cabbage included, gathered protectively between the cage and the protestors, with Trixie standing slightly in front of the rest in her position as troupe leader. “Can Trixie help you?” she asked testily.

“We’re here to protest your treatment of that Changeling,” one of the protesters snapped.

“You don’t say,” Trixie deadpanned.

“It’s a rare, endangered species,” the protester continued, “and it deserves better than to be kept in a tiny cage and displayed like a cheap carnival sideshow attraction.”

Trixie opened her mouth to retort, but Turnip spoke over her. “You know what?” he said languidly. “You’re right. I don’t belong in here.” He lifted the latch, opened the door carefully to not smack Barnacle Salt with it, and stepped out. The protesters all took a step back and one of their signs dropped to the ground. “That better?” Turnip asked, giving his best, fang-filled smile. The protesters screamed and stampeded away as a unit. “Thought so,” Turnip grumbled.

“Guess that answers our question,” Harlequin said, laying a comforting hoof on Turnip’s back. “Sorry, buddy.”

“Ah, forget them,” Turnip said. “And buck their sensibilities; I am more than a scary face in a cage, and I’m going to prove it. Come on Harlequin, we’ve got a new act to plan.” He dragged the yellow earth pony over to the wagon.

“Uh,” Cabbage said, giving Trixie a worried look, “are you going to…”

“I’m going to at least see what Turnip’s thought up before I say yes or no,” the azure showmare said, “but if it means we can ditch this dumb cage, I think I’ll be inclined to allow it.”

“Good day, fillies and gentlecolts,” Harlequin said, emerging from the stage-left side of the curtain, “today I will be-”

“Hey!” shouted a second Harlequin from stage-right, “who do you think you are?”

“I’m Harlequin,” the first pony said, glaring at his double.

“No, I’m Harlequin,” the second insisted with a matching glare. “You must be a Changeling!”

The first Harlequin flinched as if struck, and in a flare of green fire revealed himself to actually be Turnip. “Oh woe, I’ve been discovered,” he said in total deadpan before putting his Harlequin disguise back in place. “As if it would make any difference. I bet can match your moves so perfectly that those ponies out there,” he waved at the audience, “won’t know who is who by the end.”

“What’s this?” Harlequin exclaimed, “A challenge? Well, I accept.” The pair of mustard-yellow earth ponies then launched into a tumbling routine that sent them twisting and rolling over, under, and around one another as well as behind the curtain several times. It would have been an impressive display of acrobatics and confusion, except that Turnip’s inexperience with acrobatic tumbling gave him away at every turn, so that Cabbage didn’t even need to probe the pair’s minds to pick the Changeling out.

Trixie was predictably underwhelmed, but she gave Harlequin and Turnip a charitable nod. “I can see the potential in such an act,” she said, “and the conceit of challenging the audience to pick out the Changeling is a fitting parallel to my own participation shtick. However, it’s going to need a lot of work before you do it in front of a real audience.”

“No argument here,” Turnip said. “All that tumbling is harder than it looks.”

“Yes,” Trixie said, “but you’re not the only one who has kinks to work out. Quin, that dialogue between you and Turnip is too corny and quick. Try to make it sound more… natural.”

“Cut me some slack,” Harlequin grumbled, “I barely had any time to write it.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time once we’re packed up and on our way to Manehatten,” Trixie said.

Cabbage in Manehatten

“I’m sorry Trixie, but I cannot allow that thing on my stage.”

“Mr. Arch,” Trixie said, “I give you my word that Turnip is no danger to anypony.”

Proscenium Arch, the mahogany-coated unicorn owner and manager of the Silver Halter Theater, leveled an angry glare at Trixie. “Trixie, that cheap Presti-brand performance cage your creature is sitting in didn’t fool me for a second, and you know the kind of savvy ponies the Silver Halter caters to; they’ll realize it’s not secure, and nopony wants to be in the same room as a Changeling, no matter how well trained you claim it to be.”

Turnip bared his fangs and tensed his wings, and Cabbage sent him a sharp mental command, Steady! Don’t prove him right. Turnip let out an irritated buzz, but stayed put and just glowered.

“Mr. Arch, that is hardly fair!” Trixie said. “He’s not a mindless animal, just-”

“I don’t allow manticores, timber wolves, or even bears on my stage,” Proscenium cut in. “Say what you want about your Changeling’s intelligence, but it’s potentially more dangerous than all those put together. It’s only out of respect for you that I’m not calling in the Guard to lock the thing up properly.”

Trixie stomped a hoof in irritation. “Fine then,” she said, “never mind that the Great and Magnanimous Trixie only thought to share the hottest new act with the pony who saved her life and career! Pack it up, Royal Thespians! We’ll just go elsewhere.” She stormed off, leaving the rest of the troupe to quickly shove Turnip’s cage to the back of the stage and close the wagon up.

“Best of luck,” Proscenium Arch responded, insincere.

Trixie hadn’t wandered too far off from the Silver Halter, so catching up to her was hardly any effort, but she was already fully prepared with a complaint litany by the time the troupe managed to pull the wagon into earshot. “You know what kind of savvy ponies this theater attracts!” she opened in a mockery of Proscenium Arch’s voice, then scoffed. “Of course I know! The Great and Powerful Trixie is the one who drew them in the first place. And the kinds of ponies I bring in, they’re certainly savvy enough to trust that no matter how dangerous things may appear on the stage, they’re always under careful control. How many panicked riots has our Changeling caused on the road? None!”

“So those protesters don’t count?” Harlequin cut in.

“They brought that on themselves,” Turnip said through the window behind the driving bench. “It’s not my fault they weren’t actually prepared to see their demands met. And five scared ponies don’t make for much of a riot.”

“Thank you, Turnip,” Trixie said.

“I have a question,” the Changeling said, “You have Princess Luna’s patronage, and I’m here because of an assignment from her, so why not call that pony’s bluff to get the Royal Guard involved? They’d take our side, wouldn’t they?”

“First of all,” Trixie said, “I am above throwing my weight around like that to just get my way. Second, there’s no guarantee that Guard ponies stationed this far from Canterlot would be aware that Luna is running a plot to revive and redeem the Changeling species. I think the odds are better that you, at the least, would end up in a jail and we’d have to ask Princess Luna to bail us out.”

“Yes,” Cabbage contributed, “I would rather not actually use that particular safety net. It would be embarrassing.”

“So,” Barnacle Salt said, looking at Trixie, “what do we do now?”

“If I may,” Maggie Pie cut in. Trixie nodded, and Maggie continued, “I’d like to remind everypony that we didn’t come here just to keep putting on shows. Cabbage needs to see performances by the biggest names on Bridleway to get material for her solo act. We’ve had a very successful run up to this point, financially speaking, so we can afford to take some time off.”

“It would be nice to stow the oars for a while,” Barnacle said.

“Hm,” Trixie said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see if there are any new trends in stage magic…” She nodded firmly. “So be it. As soon as we find a place to park the wagon long-term, we’ll start taking it easy.”

The next morning, Maggie gathered the troupe in one of the hotel rooms they’d rented out and started giving out pouches of bits to everyone except Trixie. “Trixie and I are going to Bridleway and work out a schedule for show viewing. For the rest of you, I’ve portioned out some money so you can be tourists for the day.” She gave Harlequin a sharp look as he reached for his pouch. “And this is all you’re going to get for the day,” Maggie added, “so don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harlequin grumbled, snatching the pouch. “Not like I’ve had any real opportunities to overspend since you talked yourself into the troupe.” He weighed the pouch on his hoof for a moment before setting it down with sigh and turning to Turnip. “So, buddy, shall I show you the sights of the big city?”

Turnip smirked and snorted. “I probably know this city better than you,” he said. “Manehatten was my main hunting ground before the invasion. The first one, that is.” Harlequin’s mouth formed a silent “oh.” “Thank you for the offer anyway,” Turnip continued, “but I was hoping I could pair up with Cabbage today.”

Barnacle Salt chuckled and draped a wing protectively around Cabbage. “Hate to break it to ye, matey,” he said, “but if ye haven’t noticed, little Cabbage Patch is bit leery of-”

“It’s fine by me,” Cabbage interrupted, stepping out from beneath the pegasus’s wing.

“B-but lass,” Barnacle exclaimed, “we’ve only known him for a few weeks. What if he’s planning to…” He left the thought unfinished when Cabbage gave him a disappointed look.

“Remember when we started on this trip?” the little Changeling asked. “I asked everypony to try and develop good feelings toward Turnip. I thought I could count on you to do the best job at that, Captain. After all, you’ve taken a Changeling under your wing once before without having second thoughts.” Barnacle averted his eyes in shame. “I, at least,” Cabbage pressed on, “trust that Turnip isn’t planning anything bad.” You aren’t planning anything bad, right? she asked Turnip over their mental link.

I wouldn’t dream of it, Turnip returned with amusement. Cabbage nodded ever-so-faintly, but as she turned her attention away from Turnip, she caught a lingering thought: The cost would be unbearable. Cabbage tried to pursue the thought, but Turnip shut himself off from her completely when she prodded.

Rather than worry about the other Changeling’s reticence, Cabbage allowed her heightened curiosity drive her to action. Grabbing her saddlebags to carry her coin pouch in, she said, “Guise up, Turnip, and let’s get going.” Turnip nodded, assumed his usual pony disguise, and followed Cabbage out the door.

The rest of the troupe sat in stunned silence until Barnacle Salt finally found his voice again. “Where the blazes did all that come from? That’s not like her at all!”

“No,” Trixie said, “but I like it. Cabbage Patch has finally become more than just a timid bundle of anxiety. She’s her own pony now.”

“Changeling,” Harlequin corrected.

“Whatever,” Trixie said, crossly.

“Well, I’m not entirely surprised,” Maggie Pie said. The others gave her strange looks. “What?” the grey earth pony said, “You all didn’t notice how quickly Cabbage has overcome her neuroses since Turnip joined us? Actually, now that I think about it, I think it actually started when she stood up to Queen Chrysalis.”

Trixie and Harlequin thought back over the years they’d known Cabbage, and then nodded in agreement.

Barnacle Salt thought things over as well, and then huffed and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” Trixie asked.

“I’m not comfortable leaving Cabbage alone with that Changeling,” the old sailor replied.

Maggie quickly planted herself between Barnacle and the door. “You’re not going to go spy on them, are you?” she asked. “Do you think you can actually sneak up on two Changelings – one who’s known you for years and the other fully trained and experienced? They’d sense you coming from a mile away, and I don’t think Cabbage would appreciate it.” She laid a gentle hoof on Barnacle’s shoulder. “I know you’re worried about her, Captain, but she chose to step out on her own. It’s time to let the fledgling leave the nest.”

Barnacle’s wings opened and twitched, but after meeting Maggie’s eyes for a moment, the pegasus sighed in defeat. “Before I met the little bug, I never thought I’d be a parent,” he said. “And look at me now: just like a father whose daughter has found her first coltfriend.” He let out a single, sardonic laugh. “Dear Celestia, I hope that’s not actually the case…”

Turnip and Cabbage had walked several blocks from the hotel in silence before Cabbage got fed up. “Are we looking for something?” she asked, basing the question on what little she could pick up from Turnip’s thoughts.

“I need to get my bearings first,” Turnip replied, “but yes. One of my old bolt holes, hopefully one that hasn’t picked up squatters in the last couple years.”

“Bolt hole?” Cabbage asked. “For what? Whenever you got caught?”

Turnip snorted. “I never once drew any suspicion,” he bragged, “let alone got exposed. No, we use… used them during observation periods before making a switch. They’re spots where one can swap disguises on the fly without being spotted. Ah, and there should be one down this alley.” He turned suddenly and trotted into the space between two apartment buildings. Cabbage hesitated at the alley entrance until Turnip looked back with an assuring smile. “No funny business, I promise,” he said. Cabbage cast one long look around, starting to question her choice to leave Barnacle Salt and the rest behind, only to quash the anxiety by force of will and follow Turnip into the shadows.

Turnip led Cabbage around the back of one of the apartments and over to a stack of cracked cinderblocks with a sheet of wood leaning against one side. Turnip knocked on the wood several times, listened for a moment, and then moved the wood aside to reveal that the stack was hollow with enough space inside for two. “Huh,” Turnip said, “I’m surprised nopony’s claimed this; it’s a good shelter.” He waved Cabbage inside and joined her, leaving the doorway open.

“What is this about, anyway?” Cabbage asked.

“Drop your pony guise,” Turnip said, dropping his own in a flash of green fire.

“Why?” Cabbage gave him a suspicious look.

“I want to have this conversation to your real face,” Turnip replied.

This is my real face, Cabbage thought to herself. However, she did as Turnip asked and let the green fire of Changeling magic consume her sea-green earth pony form. She promptly found herself almost at eye level with Turnip and feeling very unsteady on legs that were suddenly too long. “Wha-” she gasped.

“Like I thought,” Turnip said with a satisfied nod. “You’ve internalized your pony form’s size so much that, since I’ve taught you to control your size, you never realized you’ve been making up for lost time.”

“I don’t understand,” Cabbage said, sitting down and looking at one of her hole-studded legs in shock. “I’m a runt; how could I possibly get so big?”

“You’re not a typical Changeling,” Turnip said. “I’d guess that, somehow, your natural size has more to do with your emotional maturity than your age.”

“You’d guess?”

Turnip shrugged. “A half-breed like you has never been seen before among the Changelings,” he said. “Changelings and ponies just aren’t compatible that way, and yet here you are: a Changeling in outward appearance and abilities, but with a pony-like nature… and eyes.”

That’s right, Cabbage thought, looking in Turnip’s flat blue eyes. My eyes are yellow with visible pupils. I forgot how strange that is.

“You’re unprecedented,” Turnip continued, “and it’s been interesting to study you.”

Cabbage blinked. “Study me? Is that…” She gasped and called her pony guise back into place, although she remained at her current size, before pointing an accusing hoof at Turnip. “That’s why you’ve been acting the way you have all these weeks,” she declared. “I wondered why it was so easy to boss you around despite your bad attitude those first few days. You were just seeing how I’d react!”

“Of course,” Turnip said shamelessly. “You dared us to try seeking emotional nourishment your way, but I wasn’t going to follow a spineless pushover’s lead. You stood up to the Queen, yes, but could you keep standing up for yourself? The answer, as it turned out, was yes. So, congratulations.”

Cabbage’s eyes went wide. “Congr- You mean…”

“I’m convinced,” Turnip said. “I’m still going to hold you to your promise to develop your own act, but once we make our way back to Canterlot I will tell Chrysalis and the other Changelings that the way you live will work just as well for full-blood Changelings.”

Oh my gosh, Cabbage thought as joy filled her whole being. I actually did it. She felt like she was floating. I knew he was coming around, but hearing him admit it! I… I can definitely do this again.

I can help the Changelings save themselves.

A bright glow drew Cabbage’s attention to her rear end. When the light faded, it left behind a mark resembling a black, hole-studded heart framed by a Changeling-green flame on her flanks. Cabbage’s jaw dropped and she leaped up in surprise only to bonk her head on the cinderblock ceiling and topple over in a tangle of too-long limbs. Turnip managed to keep a straight face at the display, merely noting with a wry tone, “Well, that’s certainly proof that you’re half pony.”

“I have a cutie mark,” Cabbage said in dazed wonder. “I have a cutie mark. I have a cutie mark for helping Changelings!” She started giggling, quietly at first but quickly graduating to chuckles and then full laughter. Turnip watched her with concern even though he could feel her joy. “Oh,” Cabbage said once her laughter faded, “I must be dreaming. I’ve grown to just shy of adult-size, and I got a cutie mark. This is too fantastic to be real.”

“Oh, it is real,” Turnip said. “Now get up; I suppose we should let the others know about… all this.” He helped Cabbage stand up, and then put his pony guise back on and stepped outside. Cabbage followed him a few seconds later, after shrinking her form down to her previous size. Turnip looked confused that she’d done so.

“I’ve never been that big in my life,” Cabbage explained. “I’ll be tripping over my own legs the whole way back if I’m not this small. I’m going to ease my way up to… I guess my new proper size over the next few weeks so I can get used to it. Of course, that means I’m going to need new costumes,” she finished in a dark mutter.

In the dark hours of the pre-dawn morning, Turnip staggered out of the hotel on shaking legs. His stomach felt like a lump of lead from the overabundance of food he’d been obliged to eat at the celebration the troupe had thrown over Cabbage and her new cutie mark, and his head swam with the love and good will that had accompanied the food. How can they sleep after eating so much? he wondered, Especially the half-breed! She must have a pony’s stomach as well as a pony’s heart! Lucky nymph…

It wasn’t that Changelings couldn’t metabolize physical food and drink, but since they subsisted primarily on love and similar emotions the act of eating was mostly to maintain a cover and the digestive system wasn’t as efficient as a pony’s. Turnip made a mental note to warn his fellow Changelings against any social pressure to take part in large meals with ponies once the species integrated.

Turnip leaned against the hotel until he felt like his legs weren’t going to give out him, and then made his way around to the back of the building where the stage-wagon was parked. He was not surprised to find that the wagon was locked, so after checking that nopony was around, he dropped his pony guise and focused his love-bolstered magic into the lock of the rear door. The lock clicked open without much fuss and Turnip slipped inside quickly, re-locking the door behind him. Now, where’s a good place to start? he thought, weaving his way through the cozy confines of the wagon. As he searched, he coughed, gargled, and worked his jaw trying to awaken a gland in the back of his throat that had not been put to work for years.

Do Cabbages Dream of Changeling Sheep?

Approaching the doors to the castle infirmary, Cabbage felt the weight of destiny press down on her back and impel her down the hall. The walk seemed to be taking forever, and then she was on the other side of the doors before she knew it. The subject of two dozen Changeling stares, her confidence flagged momentarily. She had a speech prepared, the words fresh and clear in her mind, but her tongue felt like it was made of stone, her throat like mushy oatmeal. Queen Chrysalis sat in the center of her audience, wearing an expectant but impatient frown the longer the silence dragged on.

“Speak,” the Changeling Queen said at last.

“I…” Cabbage forced her unyielding throat to utter. That lone sound shattered the spell on her voice box, and more words spilled out. “I did it. I proved I’m right. I win.”

“You proved… what?” Chrysalis asked.

“I proved that Changelings don’t have to steal love,” Cabbage answered. “Turnip can-” she turned to point to her let, but saw nopony there. She looked to the right: no one. “Where’d he go?” Cabbage babbled, “He’s supposed to be here! Turnip! You… you promised to back me up. We were going to…”

Chrysalis laughed, sounding surprisingly strong for someone so love-starved as she should have been. “Foolish,” she said. “Did you think we’d really listen to a pony’s opinion?”

“I’m not a pony!” Cabbage exclaimed, letting a flare of green fire wash over her body.

“That mark on your flank says otherwise,” Chrysalis said. Cabbage turned her head and gasped. Although she was without pony guise, the cutie mark she’d acquired was still visible, the green flames making the black hole-studded heart stand out from her chitin. “Changelings don’t have cutie marks,” Chrysalis said, mocking, “so if you do, then you are no true Changeling. What would you know about us, if you’re just a pony through and through?” Cabbage’s cutie marks flashed, and from them her chitin began to melt and morph into skin covered in a sea-green coat.

“No!” Cabbage screamed, “I can’t… I’m not just a pony. I am a Changeling!” She turned her eyes to Chrysalis, pleading. “I was going to save you.”

“Only one way the prey can save the predator,” Chrysalis said. Suddenly, the Changelings erupted from their places, charging at Cabbage en masse. Without thinking, Cabbage turned and ran out of the infirmary, neither noticing that Princess Luna was holding the door open nor that the hall she emerged into twisted and stretched as she ran. The angry buzz of Changeling wings drew closer and louder as Cabbage ran and ran. Just when it seemed that the swarm was going to snatch her up-

Cabbage burst through another, shining doorway and into the waiting hooves of Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Bell. The three fillies combined managed to bring Cabbage’s headlong charge to a quick stop. Cabbage looked over her shoulder in fear only to see Princess Luna slam a solid door on the nightmare with a firm hoof, silencing the Changeling swarm in an instant.

“Well,” Luna said with a small smile, “it seems Changelings are not immune to common nightmares after all.”

Free of the nightmare’s hold, Cabbage took a moment to take in her surroundings. She and the others were standing on a pathway made of light that stretched beyond view in both directions and was lined with doors on both sides. All around, both above and below, was a sea of stars. Cabbage checked herself over and felt, to her relief, that she still had control over her Changeling magic, including disguise transformation. She quickly took advantage of that power, regaining the comfort of sea-green fur and blue mane. “What… where are we?” she asked at last.

“Oh, you’re dreaming,” Sweetie Bell answered promptly.

“Kinda between dreams at the moment though,” Scootaloo added.

“Huh?” Cabbage titled her head.

“’Tis true,” Luna said. “This is the dreamscape, which connects the sleeping minds of every citizen in Equestria. Here, I watch over the dreams of my subjects and step in to alieve potent nightmares and provide guidance when needed, especially for the younger ponies.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders all nodded.

Cabbage regarded the trio. “So, what are these three doing here?” she asked Luna. “Are they just figments of my imagination or-”

“Nope,” Apple Bloom said, “we’re the real deal. Princess Luna pulled us out of our own dreams ‘cuz she said you might need a little help.”

“But how-” Cabbage started to ask.

“I have worked in the dreams of each of these three fillies in the past,” Luna answered, “and five nights ago I noticed Scootaloo was having a dream that involved you, and so I asked her about it and learned of your mutual friendship. Judging by the content of your nightmare, I thought they’d be the best qualified to help.”

“How so?” Cabbage asked. In response, Luna simply picked Cabbage up in her magic and turned her so the CMC could see her flank.

A trio of jaws dropped. “Oh my goodness!” Sweetie Bell squealed, “Cabbage Patch has her cutie mark!”

“Whoa,” Scootaloo said, “is it real?”

“It’s gotta be real,” Apple Bloom said. “She can’t fake cutie marks, remember?”

“But, she’s a Changeling,” Scootaloo retorted.

“It’s real,” Cabbage said. “Real enough, I mean. It should only…” She flared out of her pony guise, but when she checked her flank the black heart and flames were still there. “Oh,” she said, “I guess… that part was true after all.” She sighed dejectedly and hung her head.

“What part?” Apple Bloom asked.

“This!” Cabbage said, pointing to her flank. “Bug-pony with a cutie mark on her exoskeleton. Try and tell me that’s not weird.”

The Cutie-mark Crusaders exchanged a look. “Yeah, it’s weird” Scootaloo said, “but so what? It’s yours. Here, check this out.” She turned slightly and thrust her flank out, showing off the scooter deck emblazoned with a yellow star that now sat there.

“Oh,” Cabbage said, her own concerns briefly banished by joy for her friend. “Congratulations Scootaloo.”

“Cool, isn’t it?” Scootaloo preened. “Wanna know how I finally got it? I realized that, no matter what my talents may be, it’s what I do with them that makes my destiny. I’m really well-coordinated for a pegasus that can barely fly; I could have been a dancer, a gymnast, or even an acrobat like that one pony in your troupe. Ponies have been trying to nudge me one way or another, but once I decided for myself that I love doing tricks on my scooter more than anything and promised to focus on that, BOOM! Cutie mark.” She pointed at Cabbage’s mark and asked, “What’s yours for?”

“Uh,” Cabbage hesitated, glancing at Princess Luna. The alicorn simply nodded, so Cabbage looked back at Scootaloo and the others and said, “It’s supposed to be for… helping Changelings learn not to be nasty, kidnapping, love-stealers.”

“Whooooa,” Apple Bloom said, wide-eyed.

“That is,” Scootaloo paused for effect. “So cool.”

“I guess,” Cabbage mumbled, her eyes drifting to the door she’d emerged from, “but, what if other Changelings don’t… take me seriously because I have a cutie mark?”

Luna reached out a hoof and gently turned Cabbage’s face away from the door. “Do not let worries hold you back from your purpose, little one,” Luna said gently.

Scootaloo walked up and put both forehooves on Cabbage’s shoulders. “Yeah, you know what your destiny is Cabbage,” she said. “Now you gotta own it, and if there is a Changeling that won’t listen to you, or a pony that tries to stop you, just forget them and keep on going until you prove them wrong.”

Changelings don’t have tear ducts, so Cabbage wasn’t sure if it was due to her pony nature or the dreamscape making emotions real, but her undisguised eyes definitely started to tear up. Faced with such optimism from friends who liked – no, loved – her without guile, she couldn’t help but be encouraged. She had brought Turnip around, after all. That was one victory no one, not even the Changeling Queen herself, could completely take away.

Cabbage partially lifted one hoof of the ground, hesitated, and then re-summoned her pony guise before wrapping Scootaloo in a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “I really needed to hear that.”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Bell dove into join the hug. Once they separated, Apple Bloom said, “I ya happen to need help teachin’ any Changelin’s a friendship lesson, consider droppin’ in ta Ponyville. Between the three of us and Twilight Sparkle, we can probably set anyone straight.”

Cabbage chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

“I am loathe to break up this moment,” Luna said, “but the morning draws near. You should all return to your own dreams now.”

“All right, Princess,” Apple Bloom said for the CMC. “Thanks for bringing us to see Cabbage.”

“Bye Cabbage,” Sweetie said as the trio trotted away. “Come see us for real sometime.” She, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom ran down the glowing path for a long ways and then disappeared through three separate doors.

Cabbage Patch turned to face her own door with apprehension. Luna laid a reassuring hoof on her back and said, “Do not worry; the nightmare faded away the moment you left it. The only things that await you in there now are pleasant dreams. I will make sure of it.” Cabbage nodded in trusting relief, but when she started toward the door Luna held her back. “One last thing, little Changeling,” the Princess said, “Whatever your plans were for the near future, I must ask you to put them on hold. We need you and your Changeling charge in Canterlot, posthaste.” Cabbage tried to ask, to demand more information, but Luna just herded her back through the door and into a dream.

By the time Cabbage woke up, Luna’s last words had faded into obscure imagery in her memory, and the waking world thrust a new problem on her so quickly that she had no time to dwell on dreams.

“Has anypony seen Turnip?!” Harlequin was shouting from the doorway of the mare’s hotel room.

“Noooo,” Trixie grumbled, giving Harlequin a grumpy, groggy glare from her bed. “Why would he be in here?”

“I don’t know,” Harlequin said, “but he’s not in our room either.”

In a panic, her nightmare still fairly fresh in her mind, Cabbage leaped out of her nest of bedclothes, landed weird on too-long legs – ugh, did I shapeshift in my sleep? – shrank herself back to a manageable size, and ran to the door. “How long has he been missing?” she asked.

“Heck if I know,” Harlequin said. “His bed’s been slept in. I vaguely recall hearing him get up at one point, muttering about a stomachache, but that’s about it.”

“Ok,” Cabbage said, trying to force herself to be calm, “He… he wouldn’t just run off. Not after yesterday. He’s got to be somewhere.” Without another word, she pushed past Harlequin and ran down the hallway, ignoring the shouts that followed her.

Cabbage moved through the hotel floor by floor, mind wide open and silently calling for Turnip. The rest of the troupe finally caught up to her in the lobby and, having no success inside, Cabbage led them out to the lot where the stage-wagon was parked. Cabbage probed the wagon and sighed in relief when she felt a sleepy reply within. “I knew he wouldn’t abandon us,” she said. “He probably just took a walk to settle his stomach and fell asleep in…” She trailed off as Trixie unlocked the door and opened it to reveal Turnip blinking sleepily at the troupe with clumps of large slimy-looking, faintly glowing green sacs hanging from the walls on either side of him.

“What,” Trixie said, eyes twitching, “In Tartarus. Is all this?!”

“Surplus,” Turnip answered.

“Surplus what?”

Turnip yawned and stretched before clarifying. “Surplus love. After the party last night, I realized it would be a good idea to have some physical proof that earning positive emotions works better than stealing it. The Changeling Hive hasn’t seen a real love surplus in-”

“I don’t care about the details!” Trixie snapped, causing Turnip to flinch. “You’ve filled my wagon with goo! I cannot perform on a stage covered in goo!”

“It’s not goo,” Turnip said, weakly. He looked to Cabbage or help, but the little Changeling just shook her head at him. “I… Cabbage and I need this,” Turnip said. “I can actually stockpile excess emotions like this, and the more we have to show to-”

Trixie stomped up into the wagon and shoved her face into Turnip’s. “Not. In. My. Wagon,” she growled.

Cabbage bit her lip, worried about the rising tension and anger from Trixie, but unsure how to defuse the situation. Fortunately, Maggie Pie did have an idea. “Turnip, we can buy you a cart to haul that stuff in if you really need it.”

“Oh, like I won’t look suspicious pulling a cart full of solidified love around,” Turnip retorted.

“So put a tarp over it!” Trixie exclaimed, throwing up her hooves for emphasis. “I don’t care what you do with it; just get it out of my wagon!” She stalked out, pointed at Cabbage and Harlequin with the order, “You two watch him,” and continued stalking away out onto the street. Passerby ponies gave the seething blue unicorn a wide berth, but one white stallion dressed in Canterlot Castle livery dared to approach.

“Uh, Trixie Lulamoon, the Great and Powerful?” he asked tentatively.

Trixie gave him a withering glare. “The title comes first,” she said, “and never at the same time as my surname. What do you want?”

Unflinching, the pony held out a scroll sealed with Princess Luna’s signature dark blue wax and mark. “Urgent summons from Princess Luna,” he said. “An express train has been reserved for you and yours, and equipped to carry your caravan.”

“Just what I needed,” Trixie deadpanned, taking the scroll in her magic. She turned away, opened the scroll, started to read, and her irritation vanished in a blink. “Oh dear,” she said. She galloped back into the lot, shouting over the troupe’s debate of what size of cart to get. “Guys! Drop everything and pack up! We need to go to Canterlot, now!” She paused to catch her breath and levitated the scroll toward Cabbage. “Some of the Changelings are succumbing to starvation and slipping into comas.”

“What?” Turnip exclaimed, bursting out of the wagon to read over Cabbage’s shoulder. “Hang it, I thought we’d have a lot more time. Cabbage, do you know how to make surplus love sacs?”

“No,” Cabbage said slowly.

“Well, time to learn then.” Turnip picked Cabbage up and carried her into the wagon. “You’re more flush with love than I am right now, and we’re going to need a lot more reserves than this.”

“Now hold on,” Trixie started to protest.

Turnip reappeared in the wagon doorway. “We can get a cart to carry it all when we get to Canterlot,” he said. “There’s no time to waste, trust me.”

“Ugh, fine,” Trixie groaned. “But if that gunk stains anything in there, I’m taking it out of your pay!”

Turnip started to nod, but then did a double-take and grinned cheekily. “Does that mean I’m actually getting paid for my time, with bits?”

Trixie only hesitated for a second before answering, “Yes.” She turned to the troupe’s accountant and muttered, “Mags, figure out what part of our earnings from this tour goes to Turnip.”

“Yes ma’am,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes in amusement.

Cabbage versus Destiny

Author's Note

Alternative Title: Cabbage versus Massive Exposition.

Cabbage versus Destiny

Cabbage Patch sat alone on one of the seats in the train, staring out the window at the rapidly moving landscape and feeling very much like a raisin. The rearmost car of the train was a massive boxcar mostly taken up by the Royal Thespian’s stage-wagon, and it seemed like half the remaining space was now occupied by the gelatinous sacs of preserved love energy that Turnip had somehow managed to coax out of her. Cabbage had a hard time believing her body was capable of holding that much inside of her, even given her recent growth spurt. She was grateful that the train was empty save for the troupe and two Royal Guards who had been read in to Luna’s project, because after spitting up so much goo Cabbage did not have the willpower to keep herself at her preferable size. Her thoughts wandered aimlessly as she watched Equestria speed by outside the window.

She snapped out of her reverie when Turnip sat down on the seat across from her and offered her a cup of juice. “Barnacle unearthed a cache of snacks and drinks in the front car,” he said. “This might not completely get rid of the feeling of being dried out, but it should help a little.”

“Thanks,” Cabbage said. She took the cup and drained it in one gulp. She still felt like a raisin afterward, but it wasn’t as distracting a sensation anymore. With her mind slightly clearer, she picked up anxiousness from Turnip. “What’s bothering you?” she asked.

“We should have had more time before the starvation became a real crisis,” Turnip answered. “I know I could have easily lasted the entire trip to Manehatten even without receiving praise and empathy from our audiences, and everyling back in Canterlot should at least have been getting a little sympathy from the ponies attending them. Even a tiny bit of caring along with that nutrient solution they were pumping into us would be enough to keep a Changeling off the edge of death for a couple of months.”

“So, what do you think happened?” Cabbage asked.

“Queen Chrysalis,” Turnip said with a tone of distaste that caught Cabbage off-guard. “I wouldn’t put it past her to order what’s left of the hive not to feed, just to spite the pony Princesses.”

“Whaaaat?” Cabbage said. “Where’d that come from? Geez, I cannot figure you out, Turnip. First I thought you were deliberately trying to starve yourself just to prove me wrong, and that I’d backed you into a corner with our side-deal. Then you tell me that was all an act to test me, and I figure that you’ve always put the hive’s survival ahead of your own opinions. Now, you’re accusing your own Queen of threatening the hive’s safety!”

“You think that last contradicts my having the hive’s best interests at heart?” Turnip asked.

“It makes no sense,” Cabbage said. “I’ll admit I don’t remember much of my Changeling training, but I do know that the Queen’s primary duty is to care for the hive and direct them in obtaining enough love to feed everyling.”

“Exactly,” Turnip said, pointing a hoof at Cabbage, “and Chrysalis has been failing at that for years, no, at least a decade by now. She must be replaced.”

Cabbage’s mouth hung open in bewilderment. I don’t know what’s crazier, she thought, that I’m suddenly dealing with a radical revolutionary Changeling, or that I am defending Chrysalis in this conversation!

Turnip chuckled. Oh, I’m not so radical, he thought back. Cabbage blushed at her lapse in guarding her thoughts. “Listen, little one,” Turnip said. “You were kicked out of the hive when things were just starting to go bad; you have no idea how bad, how desperate our situation has become.

“Ever since our species’ existence was revealed to Equestria after the royal wedding fiasco, I keep hearing ponies say things like ‘Changelings are adaptable.’ You’ve even said it yourself. Ponies seem to think that because we’re shapeshifters and actors that we can adjust to any change in our environment or our prey with ease. Let me set you straight: as a species, Changelings are very set in our ways. When you’ve got an entire race that shares a mental link, old tried-and-true ideas get repeated and passed from mind to mind so much that new ideas get drowned out. The average Changeling isn’t all that creative, really; we just do what we’re told and trained to do.

“That’s why we need a Queen. The Queen has the mental strength to override the hive mind and its worn ruts of thought to guide the Changelings to new paths, new strategies for finding and gathering love. In exchange for that direction and guidance, the hive’s devotion keeps the Queen healthy and alive far longer than the average Changeling. Chrysalis has been our Queen for over five hundred years, and that puts her on the shorter end of the range.”

“Ok,” Cabbage said, “but who decides when a Queen needs to be replaced? You? Are you three hundred years old too, Turnip?”

The Changeling laughed. “Hardly,” he said.

“So how do you know all this then?” Cabbage asked. “Or is this just the part of the education I missed out on?”

“No,” Turnip said with a smile, “This isn’t information the average Changeling needs to know, at least not directly.”

“So, you’re not an average Changeling,” Cabbage drawled. “Can we please get to the point?”

“Not yet,” Turnip said sternly. “You don’t have the whole foundation yet. You’re right, I’m not an average Changeling. I am a Lorekeeper. Actually,” he amended with sadness, “I’m the only Lorekeeper to survive Chrysalis’s folly. Lorekeepers safeguard the collective memory of the Changelings, preserving our history, important skills like how to store love and expand the hive, and strategies that Queens have employed and whether they worked or not. Also, we’re the agents of the hive’s will to balance the Queen’s control.

“The hive mind may be slow to change its ways without a Queen, but it acts fast when a Queen proves herself no longer capable of guiding the Changelings to survival. Even a Queen has limits to her creativity, after all. When the hive mind determines that the current Queen’s directions have become detrimental to our survival – when we begin to starve for too long and our numbers dwindle – a potential new Queen is born and it falls to the Lorekeepers to test her to see if she has the new ideas that will bring the hive out of crisis, and prepare her to take over if she does.”

Cabbage felt a sudden, sour sensation deep in her gut. I do not like where this is going, she thought, carefully shielding her mind from Turnip’s. The sour feeling grew, expanding into anxiety. Cabbage tried to speak, to tell Turnip to stop, or to jump from her seat and run, but for the first time in weeks she lost the battle with her fear and she remained mute and rooted in place.

“Chrysalis came into power over five hundred years ago,” Turnip continued, “and introduced the idea of replacing ponies who were already in relationships, when before Changelings were inventing pony identities and forging relationships from scratch until there was love to suck out. Chrysalis’s approach took less time, and a Changeling could stay in one town for years stealing love from couple after couple. After a couple centuries, however, it became evident that we were poisoning our own wells, so to speak. Ponies were becoming more cynical and guarded their emotions carefully, even if they didn’t know why they needed to. Love was harder to entice, and Chrysalis started to encourage the use of hypnotic magics and harsher extraction, but that was only a short-term solution.”

“So why didn’t ye consider mutiny until now?” Cabbage and Turnip both gave a start and looked to the other side of the train car, where Barnacle Salt was reclining on a seat with a smug smile on his face. “Ha,” he said, “Maggie was wrong; ye can sneak up on a Changeling after all.”

“How long have you been there?” Cabbage asked.

“Just walked in when ye were starting your story of the Queen Bug,” the pegasus answered.

“Well, to answer your question,” Turnip said, “we couldn’t get rid of Chrysalis until we found a replacement Queen, and the only possible candidate,” he gave Cabbage a meaningful look, “was a half-breed, soft-hearted runt who could barely change her shape and was exiled for being a drain on resources.” Cabbage gulped. “The plot to replace Princess Cadenza at her wedding and invade Canterlot was a disaster, as you well know, and afterwards Chrysalis became more concerned with retribution than with guiding the hive. The Lorekeepers that survived were convinced that a new Queen would appear soon to handle the fallout, but three years have gone by and no candidates have been born.” He smiled at Cabbage. “It seems to me now that that is because the new Queen was already there, out in the world eking out a life among ponies.”

Cabbage finally managed to get control of her voice. It came out sounding like a younger version of Trixie, but Cabbage was too worked up to care. “You’re crazy,” she exclaimed. “I get that the Changelings are in a desperate position, and I want to help them, but you’re just grasping at straws if you think I’m a Changeling Queen!”

Turnip sighed. “There’s the other reason I’m upset we didn’t have more time: I wanted to break this to you slowly, give you time to come to grips with your destiny.”

Cabbage face-hoofed. “And here I thought me having a cutie mark was going to be my biggest obstacle,” she groaned. “Nopony’s going to take me seriously if I go in there claiming to be royalty.” She looked over at Barnacle. “I mean, can you see me in Chrysalis’s place, Captain?” she asked.

“Well,” Barnacle Salt answered, “you’d probably do a much better job of it than she has.”

“Barnacle…” Cabbage whined.

“O’ course,” Barnacle continued, “I’d think that’d be true for anyone. Bit difficult to do worse than nearly wiping out yer whole species.”

Cabbage grumbled at Barnacle, and then turned her attention back to Turnip. “Fine,” she said, getting her voice back to normal, “I’ll ask: what makes you so sure I’m your new Queen?”

“Your eyes are the first indicator.”

Cabbage snorted. “My eyes are the way they are because I’m half pony,” she said. “Unless you were making up that bit about pony-Changelings hybrids being impossible, and Chrysalis is secretly a half-pony herself!”

“The reason for the appearance of your eyes doesn’t change the fact that they’re a telltale sign of possible Queenhood,” Turnip rebutted with a wave of his hoof. “More importantly, you’ve demonstrated the qualities a Queen needs: a fresh perspective on obtaining love, a desire to guide the Changelings on that new path, and a strong, confident will.”

“If you think I’m confident,” Cabbage grumbled, “then you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Really?” Turnip asked pointedly, “Because you’ve never been anything but confident when dealing directly with me. I’ll grant you have stage fright in front of strange ponies and tend to be submissive with Trixie and Barnacle Salt, here, but around Changelings you’re instinctively regal.”

“I’m afraid he’s got a point there, lass,” Barnacle put in.

Cabbage whined again at the lack of support from her longtime guardian, and gave in to the urge to be petulant. “Well, I don’t want to be a Changeling Queen!” she cried. “I just want this all to be over with. I’m going to go back and face Chrysalis, show her the love reserves, teach the Changelings how to cultivate real friendships, and then I am going back on the road with Trixie and Harlequin and Maggie and Barnacle Salt, finish creating my impersonation act, and live the rest of my life being as pony-like as I can be!” She crossed her front legs and leaned against the back of her seat with an air of finality.

Turnip let the silence linger for a long while, his solid blue eyes locked with Cabbage’s pony-like yellow in a battle of wills. “So you’d rather embrace your pony half?” he asked at last. “Look at your flank, Cabbage Patch. You may be half pony, but even that part of you knows what your destiny is. That is not the cutie mark of a pony that belongs on a stage, providing fleeting entertainment for crowds. You are the salvation of the Changelings, and like it or not, the only way to save the Changelings is to lead them.”

Cabbage squirmed in her seat, and then suddenly slid of it onto her hooves and ran out of the car. Turnip and Barnacle Salt exchanged a long look, and the Changeling started to squirm as well under the pegasus’s gaze. “Don’t worry,” Barnacle said gently, “she just needs time.”

“I wish she could have had it,” Turnip said. He notice Barnacle’s feelings and gave him a curious look. “You don’t disapprove of what I’m trying to achieve?” Turnip asked. “You’re always so protective of her feelings, I thought that you’d be upset that I’ve upset her.”

“Cabbage is like a daughter to me,” Barnacle replied, “and a parent has the right to over-worry about their foals and wish to protect them from everything. But Cabbage isn’t the helpless, starving little urchin I fished out of a trash bin in Clydesport anymore. She’s stronger now, stronger than she’s willing to admit yet.” He laughed sardonically. “Besides,” he said, “if your stratagem actually works, she’s going to outlive me by a large margin and change the world in a big way. I can’t hate a critter who has something like that in mind for my filly.”

Turnip nodded in thankfulness, but inwardly he gagged a little. Ugh, please don’t talk like I’m trying to woo her, Salt!

Cabbage Makes a Choice

The Canterlot train station had been cleared of civilians by royal command in preparation for the arrival of the express train from Manehatten. The only ponies on the platform were six unicorn Guard ponies, two pegasus Guards, and one tall white alicorn. Celestia’s usually serene face was marred by a mild frown as she watched the train pull into the station and screech to a stop. She tried to school her expression as she caught sight of several sets of eyes staring at her from the second-to-last car, but the frown kept sneaking back. The door of that car opened, and as Celestia and her guards moved toward it another pair of Royal Guards exited and flanked the door, followed shortly by Trixie, Barnacle Salt, Harlequin, and Maggie Pie. Cabbage Patch and Turnip came out next and stood behind the rest of the troupe, and everypony bowed to the Princess.

“I’m glad you all made it safely,” Celestia said. “You were probably expecting Princess Luna to meet you, but she’s a little busy at the moment lending her magic to the fight to keep the comatose Changelings alive. We must make haste.”

“A moment, please, Princess,” Trixie said. “On the way here, Turnip made some… stuff that should help. We’ll need a cart or two to transport it all, though.”

“Ah,” Celestia said, looking slightly more relaxed, “very well.” She motioned to a couple of the Guards and they trotted off.

“We should make sure they’re ready to load up,” Cabbage said to Turnip, and then went back into the train.

“Of course, my Queen,” Turnip replied, following her.

“Stop calling me that!” Cabbage snapped.

Celestia’s frown returned and she cast a questioning look at the remaining ponies.

“Eh heh,” Trixie said, rubbing her leg and smiling nervously, “Turnip there has gotten it into his head that Cabbage should be the Queen of the Changelings now.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. Trixie shrugged. Celestia lowered the eyebrow and smirked.

Nothing I have lined up in Court today is going to top this, the Princess thought.

The raised eyebrow and the frown made a coordinated comeback once the Guards returned with a commandeered cart and the cargo car at the end of the train was thrown open to allow Cabbage and Turnip to start loading sacs of green, faintly glowing jelly. She was reminded uncomfortably of being encased in a cocoon of similar green stuff during the first Changeling invasion. “Go assist them so we can be on our way sooner,” Celestia ordered the unicorn Guards. “And tell the Changeling I want a word with him.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the sergeant of the unicorns said as the six saluted. They walked over to Cabbage and Turnip, and after an exchange of words the Guards started levitating sacs into the cart while Turnip approached Celestia.

“What can I do for you, Princess?” he asked.

“Tell me what those are, exactly,” Celestia commanded, pointing at the cart

“That is surplus love,” Turnip answered. “Well, mostly love with some jubilance and strong friendship mixed in. It’s a lot like fruit preserves – concentrated and much longer-lasting than the original product. Queen Cabbage and I are going to use both to revive the comatose Changelings and to convince the lot of them to accept Cabbage as the new Queen. Oh, and don’t worry, Your Highness; it was all obtained through Cabbage-approved means.”

Celestia wanted to continue interrogating the Changeling, but stopped herself. This is Luna’s project, she told herself, so let her have the first go at sweating the details. Instead, she turned toward the cart and asked, “How soon can we depart?”

“This is the last load, Your Highness,” the sergeant responded as two of his stallions settled their loads of sacs onto the cart. One of the Guards started to back into the harness, but Turnip scurried over and waved him away, taking charge of pulling the cart himself.

“Then let’s go,” Celestia commanded.

Nothing ever stays a secret for long when ordinary citizens are involved in a project. The entire royal medical staff had obviously been aware of the two dozen Changelings and their queen being kept under medical arrest in the infirmary from the start, and ponies talk. Families and friends of the staff began learning about the Changelings and Luna’s plan for them within days, and Turnip’s debut in Trixie’s show had caused no small stir among the general populace. The rumor mill went to work on those seeds over the proceeding weeks, and now almost nopony in Canterlot was entirely surprised to see a Changeling hauling a cart through the streets, under guard and accompanied by Princess Celestia herself.

Ponies stopped whatever they were doing to watch the procession, of course, and there were some pockets of palpable fear in the air, but no one outright panicked or caused a scene. Canterlot trusted its Princess.

Cabbage hardly noticed the crowds or their moods. Her attention was taken up entirely but what awaited her in the immediate future, up in the infirmary of Canterlot Castle itself. She felt anxious about facing Queen Chrysalis, but it was a different sort of anxiety from the last time she’d undertaken this long walk. It wasn’t stage fright that threatened to turn her hooves to lead, but an unpleasant surety about what was going to happen at the end.

And a lack of surety that she could stop it.

At the palace entrance, the preserved love was transferred from the large cart to several serving carts, and Princess Celestia left the group under the guidance of a Royal Doctor, who took them the rest of the way to the infirmary. As she walked, Cabbage tried desperately to come up with some reason to delay entering the room for any appreciable length of time. Her fretting proved to be academic, since Princess Luna was waiting for them just outside the dreaded door.

“Welcome back,” Luna said warmly, “and especially to you, Changeling.”

“Please, Princess,” Turnip said, bowing, “you can call me Turnip.”

Luna’s smile grew much warmer. “I am most pleased to see such a dramatic change in your attitude, Turnip,” she said, and then cast her eyes over the line of carts behind the group, “and what I’m told is physical proof of Cabbage Patch’s success. Come, let’s not put this off any longer.”

Yes, let’s not ask if the pony/changeling this whole thing revolves around is ready, Cabbage thought bitterly.

Don’t worry, my Queen, Turnip said over the hive mind, I’ll do most of the talking if necessary. It is my testimony that the others will give the most weight to.

I am not your Queen! Cabbage insisted.

The time for argument ended right then, as Luna led Cabbage and Turnip, with the troupe and cart-pushing servants following in their wake.

Cabbage realized suddenly that she’d never heard the exact number of Changelings who had slipped into comas, but judging by the number of flat blue eyes that turned her way, only three of two dozen were unresponsive. She had thought Turnip had looked bad during his obstinate period, but that was nothing compared to the appearance of Changelings with virtually no emotional energy left in their bodies. Their eyes were so dull they seemed not to reflect any light whatsoever, and several seemed to starting to shift toward red at the edges. Their chitin had lost its gloss and developed painful-looking cracks around the joints; cracks that should have been oozing or at least scabbed over were bone dry. Mouths hung wide open as the Changelings struggled to breathe, exposing fangs that were threatening to fall out of shriveled gums. Worst of all, to Cabbage’s eye, their wings looked so dry and brittle that they’d disintegrate with the slightest muscle twitch.

The collective gaze of the hive lingered on Cabbage only for a second before being drawn magnetically to the piles of preserved love being wheeled in. One didn’t need an empathic sense or a link to the hive mind to sense the raw, desperate hunger in those eyes. Only one set of conscious eyes remained on Cabbage and Turnip: green eyes with visible, ovoid pupils. Chrysalis was in no better physical state than her subjects, but she clearly still had enough hate in her to resist the lure of food.

Turnip wasted no time in getting to work. He picked up three sacs of love in telekinetic magic and walked to the first of the comatose Changelings. He pricked each sac on the Changeling’s horn and set it on the bed near their mouth. A greenish vapor leaked out of the penetrated sacs and flowed directly into the Changeling, permeating the general area of their nose and mouth. With that accomplished, Turnip returned to the carts to pick up three more sacs, giving Cabbage a meaningful look as he did so.

Cabbage sighed and dropped her disguise, ignoring Luna’s gasp of surprise at her increased height. I can do this much at least, she thought as she wrapped three sacs in her own telekinesis and went to attend to the last unconscious Changeling. She staggered a little on her uncomfortably long legs, and she wasn’t as telekinetically adept as Turnip, but she managed to prepare and place her load properly and without mishap.

The first of the three comatose Changelings started to wake up as Cabbage was finishing up, and weak voices started to stand out from the weak hive mind buzz.

Love.

Love!

Food…

Turnip looked to Cabbage. Cabbage gave him a warning look in response and motioned or him to get on with it. Turnip smiled. Cabbage sighed.

Yes, yes, Cabbage broadcast to the hive, there’s enough for everyling. She picked up a sac and floated it to the nearest Changeling. Turnip followed her lead, and then Trixie and Luna joined in, and finally Maggie, Barnacle Salt, and Harlequin lent their hooves to passing out preserved love.

Before the Changelings could start to feed, however, Chrysalis shouted over the hive mind, Stop! Do not feed on that stuff! We won’t give in to these ponies.

“Oh, shut up and face defeat with some dignity, for once,” Turnip snapped, throwing a sac at Chrysalis’s face. The sac popped, and the Changeling Queen instinctively inhaled about half of it before getting a grip on herself and magically thrusting the rest away to dissipate into the air. Silence fell, hard. The only movement in the infirmary for a solid minute was Cabbage Patch wearily raising a hole-pocked hoof to her forehead and rubbing it.

“How dare you speak to your Queen that way?” Chrysalis growled.

“You are not my Queen anymore, Chrysalis,” Turnip said, practically spitting her name. “You’ve placed your own petty desires for power and revenge above the well-being of the hive. Look where that has brought us.” He swept his leg around in a motion that took in the whole room. “The entire Changeling population of the world fits into a single room, when we used to number in the thousands. Starvation threatens, and not because of a lack of love,” he gestured pointedly at the carts of preserved love, “but because you don’t approve of the source. Worst of all, we’ve suffered irreparable losses to our own history and culture!”

“A Lorekeeper,” Chrysalis said, narrowing her eyes. “I should have guessed you were one, the way you put yourself forward despite my will.” She sneered. “You talk of lost culture, and yet you’d throw what’s left away to put my Changelings under the hoof of, what, that abomination?” She pointed dismissively at Cabbage Patch. “Look at her! She’s so taken with pony ways that she’s branded herself with an imitation of their cutie marks now!”

Cabbage, who had been trying desperately to block out the conversation and focus only on distributing preserved love, froze in the act of picking one up. “Seriously?” she whispered. She slowly turned to face Chrysalis and, after meeting the Queen’s eyes, started to laugh. She was surprised at the reaction as everyone else, but after a moment’s introspection, she realized why she found Chrysalis’s remark funny. “You know,” she said, “on the train ride here, one of my biggest worries was that you’d actually bring that up. I convinced myself that it wouldn’t be an issue, that there would much more important things to focus on, but you’ve done it anyway.”

The humor left Cabbage’s eyes and she stalked over to Chrysalis’s bed. “This cutie mark isn’t fake,” she said. “One of the reasons you exiled me is because I cannot fake cutie marks. You know why I can’t? Because I’m half-pony, and a pony cannot force their cutie mark to appear before they’ve earned it. I earned this just yesterday, fair and square. Know what it stands for? It stands for saving you from your own idiocy, whether you like it or not!” She shoved the sac she was carrying at Chrysalis and walked to the center of the room.

“Look at this,” she said to the whole room, “the only thing that’s really changed since I was last in here a month ago is now there are two healthy, well-fed Changelings in Equestria instead of just one. Turnip and I have brought you the leftovers of the freely given, gently received love we collected last night alone, and I’m pretty sure that’s more than enough to get you all back on your hooves for a week.” She glanced at Turnip, who nodded in confirmation. “So what’s it going to be, Changelings?” she asked, “Follow my path and live, or die to satisfy your Queen’s pride?” She focused on Chrysalis again. “Why is that even a question?” she asked, exasperated.

“Following your lead would just make the Changelings into another tool for the pony Princesses to use,” Chrysalis answered quietly, although her statement echoed across the hive mind.

The Changelings responded.

The half-breed brought love.

She brings life.

But a life of service… to prey.

Would ponies give us love for service?

Ponies give friendship in exchange for kindness and honesty, Cabbage answered, and that is good enough to live on. Friendship can become love, sometimes, when shared back and forth.

The Changelings pondered. One by one, they picked up the sacs of preserved love, pricked them on their horns, and absorbed the contents.

Oh yes, this is the real stuff, some Changeling said. She has a plan, and it works. “Hail to our new guide and leader. Live long, Queen Cabbage Patch.”

“Live long, Queen Cabbage Patch,” the other Changelings, Turnip included, echoed.

“Ah, nuts,” Cabbage muttered. She cast a glance at Chrysalis and saw her own horror reflected in the repudiated Queen’s eyes. I’m sorry, Cabbage thought at her just before being overwhelmed by the devotion flowing from two dozen Changelings into her body.

For a brief second, Cabbage considered trying to resist, but the pressure was too great to hold at bay. She whimpered slightly as she felt her body rapidly grow in reaction to the devotion, but that very energy seemed to block the pain of bones and sinews being stretched and chitin alternately splitting and healing as it raced to accommodate an ever-larger volume of Changeling. The fin on the back of her head shrank away and was replaced by a full mane of hair nearly the exact hue of blue she used for her pony guise’s mane, matching hair grew from her tail, and her horn doubled in length and gained a jagged appearance.

An eternity later, the pressure of Changeling devotion faded and Cabbage was able to sense the world outside her body again. A quick look around at the awestruck ponies in the room told her that she now stood slightly taller than Princess Luna. A bigger surprise occurred when Cabbage looked at Chrysalis. The former Queen had shrunk in size as much as Cabbage had grown, to the point that she’d slipped out of the restraints on her limbs by virtue of becoming too small for them to all reach her. Chrysalis still had hair, but it was reduced to short tufts in a line down the back of her head. She met Cabbage’s eyes for a moment, and then dropped her gaze with a resigned sigh.

Well, Chrysalis grumbled mentally, at least I won’t be around to witness you all finish rolling over for your new pony masters.

Pardon? Cabbage asked.

There can only be one Queen, Turnip replied.

Huh? Cabbage cast a confused glance at the Lorekeeper, but then the implication dawned on her and she hissed in shock. “Oh no,” she said aloud, “I don’t think so!” She levitated several sacs of preserved love off the carts and dropped them next to Chrysalis. “I’m here to save every Changeling,” she said. “No exceptions.”

“My Queen,” Turnip started to say.

Cabbage rounded on him with extreme irritation. “Stop calling me that!”

Turnip visibly struggled to regain control of his voice under Cabbage’s glare. “C-c-cabbage,” he finally forced out, “th-that really isn’t a wise course of action.”

Cabbage tilted her head ever-so-slightly to the side. “Thank you for your opinion,” she said dryly. “Now keep it to yourself for a while.” She turned back to Chrysalis, picked up the love preserves the former queen had shoved off the bed while Cabbage’s back was turned, and put them back on the bed. “Now listen up, all of you,” she said. “I appreciate that you feel obligated to me, but I have no desire to act as your Queen. Instead, I’m going to be your teacher and you, Chrysalis, are going to be my star pupil.”

“What,” Chrysalis said. Turnip, Trixie, Harlequin, and Luna echoed the sentiment in their own ways.

Cabbage gave the former queen a beneficent smile. “I’m going to work with you until you’ve mastered the art of making friends and earning affection on your own merits and regained the trust and confidence of your Changelings, so they’ll let you be Queen again and leave me free to live my life the way I want to.”

Chrysalis sat slightly slack-jawed for a moment, but then smiled, picked up a love sac in one hoof, and leaned over until she could see around Cabbage and look Turnip in the eye, lifting the sac in toast. “I’ve changed my mind, Lorekeeper,” Chrysalis said. “You’ve found us a great Queen! I’m sorry,” she added with a wink to Cabbage, “I meant ‘teacher.’ Ha!” She tore open the sac and inhaled.

Cabbage nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Now that that’s settled…” She called up her transformation magic, putting back on her sea-green earth pony guise and shrinking herself down. When the green flames faded, however she found she was still a head taller than Barnacle Salt. “Oh,” she said in disappointment, “is this my limit now?” She shuffled over to her troupe. “Trixie,” she said, “it looks like I’m not going to be able to stay with the troupe. At least, not for a while. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Trixie said. She put an awkward hoof up on Cabbage’s shoulder. “We can work something out.”

Epilogue

“Sister, can you spare a moment?”

Celestia lowered the book she was reading and saw Luna standing in her doorway. “Of course, Luna,” she said. “Is something bothering you?”

“No,” Luna said, entering the room. “I just want to talk.” Celestia nodded and waited patiently as Luna obtained a cushion and took a few moments to arrange herself on it. At length, Luna asked, “What do you think of what I’ve just accomplished? With the Changelings.”

“I think you handled it quite well, Luna,” Celestia replied.

“And how does it compare to your recent accomplishments?” Luna asked.

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“I’m referring to the events you’ve orchestrated in the last few years that have changed the state of Equestria,” Luna explained patiently.

“Ah,” Celestia said, setting her book down completely, “like putting Twilight in place to reawaken the Elements of Harmony and save you from the Nightmare?”

Luna rolled her eyes. “No,” she said, “because in the larger scheme of things, that was just restoring the status quo.”

“Reforming Discord, then?” Celestia asked.

“That’s had trivial repercussions, to be honest,” Luna retorted.

Celestia rested her chin on a hoof, thinking. “I give up, Lulu,” she said at last, “what are you-”

Luna slammed a hoof on the floor in frustration. “New alicorns, Tia,” she said. “That’s what I’m talking about. You set things in motion that resulted in Twilight Sparkle becoming an alicorn. And before that, you encouraged Cadance to be get married, and to Twilight’s brother at that! The stars only know what the fruits of that union are going to be like. We could have an alicorn for every major city in the kingdom in a couple generations, for all we know. Even if we don’t, our subjects’ perception of what being an alicorn princess means is being revised.” Luna paused and took a calming breath. “I don’t intend to sound critical,” she said. “I’m just wondering how you think that compares to how I just orchestrated the rise of a new Changeling Queen and changed the relationship of Changelings to ponies.”

“Hm,” Celestia said with a slight smile, “from what I hear, your ‘new Changeling Queen’ isn’t too keen on actually filling that role.”

“Oh, and Twilight was fully prepared to take on royal duties when you gave her wings?” Luna retorted. “Cabbage will adjust to her place in time. She’s actively working with her Changelings and her fellow performers to build a full theater group here in Canterlot. I’m taking that as a good sign.”

“Yes, I heard about that too,” Celestia said. “I think it’s a great idea to help Changelings and ponies learn to work together, but I’m not so thrilled at the rumors that Cabbage has given Chrysalis a position of authority in the group.”

“It’s true,” Luna said, “and neither am I, but Cabbage is adamant on the point. The one consolation is that Turnip holds a position of equal authority, to balance Chrysalis until –hypothetically – her attitude improves.” Luna sighed, and then fixed her sister with a hard look. “You’re still dodging around my question, Tia.”

“I don’t have an answer, Luna,” Celestia said. “We’ve both done things that will likely have profound impacts on the future, but it’s far too early to tell whether my new alicorns or your reformed Changelings will have a larger effect. Perhaps, in the end, they’ll both prove to be as trivial as you think reforming Discord has been.”

Luna pouted. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

Celestia chuckled at her little sister’s expression and slid over to hug her. “No matter what the importance of your actions proves to be for the future,” she said, “I still think you did a great thing for the ponies – and Changelings – of the present. I’m proud of you.”

Cabbage and the Crusaders

I look ridiculous.

One of the little pony-like quirks Cabbage had but rarely thought much about was an interest in fashion and cloth. She wasn’t an expert in the field by any means, but she knew enough about sewing to keep her sea-pony costume and Barnacle’s old sailor jacket in good repair, and occasionally did the same for Harlequin’s costumes. Trixie insisted on maintaining her cape and hat herself. Cabbage also loved to collect ribbons and cloth scraps, from which she had built herself a kind of security nest to hide in when her nerves got the best of her. Most of that collection had been lost along with the stage-wagon during Tremolo’s attack, yet Cabbage was surprised to find that she didn’t miss it as badly as she would have only a couple months ago. She also had a fairly good notion of what colors and styles of clothing worked well on her, and the costume the Cutie Mark Crusaders had made for her as an apology missed the mark in more than a few ways.

“Costume” was really the only word that fit the thing the Crusaders had unveiled and convinced Cabbage to try on once the four of them had returned to the Carousel Boutique. First there was the form-fitting long-sleeved purple shirt which, although it moved and stretched without clinging to her fur, looked like part of a horribly mis-colored Wonderbolts flight suit. Next was the skirt – overloaded with thick ruffles and not all suitable to pair with the shirt. Cabbage suspected the skirt only existed to hide her blank flank from sight. The worst part of the ensemble, however, was the mask. It was a wide feather eye mask that would only be considered remotely normal in a fashion contest or an outlandish opera production. The feathers were of every color of the rainbow, but arranged with no discernable pattern. It was big, loud, and confusing, and turned the whole costume from merely “in bad taste” to something no pony could help but stare at. In short, it was in no possible way “her”.

Although Cabbage believed that honesty was the best policy, the hopeful looks on her three friends’ faces were too pure to let down thoughtlessly. “It’s…” she began hesitantly.

“Go on,” Sweetie Bell urged. She looked the most invested in Cabbage’s opinion out of the trio.

“Well, I appreciate the thought,” Cabbage said at last, “but I don’t… quite get it. What is this?”

“It’s a stage costume,” Sweetie said proudly. Cabbage’s eyes widened slightly as she took a fresh look at herself in the mirror. The costume still seemed outlandish and excessive. “See,” Sweetie continued, “after your breakdown yesterday, we came up with the idea that you were scared to do your voice trick out in the open where ponies could see and recognize you.”

“That’s… pretty much it,” Cabbage said.

“With that in mind,” Sweetie Bell said, “we decided to make the costume for you to wear as a sort of… uh…”

“A disguise?” Cabbage guessed, dryly.

“That wasn’t exactly what I was going to say,” Sweetie said, glancing aside awkwardly.

“No, it’s ok,” Cabbage said, “I get it. You were hoping this would help me feel comfortable on stage.” She took another, long look at herself in the mirror, and then shook her head and removed the mask. “I’m sorry if this disappoints you girls, but this just wouldn’t be enough to let me dare imitate voices for an audience. Even if I… we… Trixie or somepony came up with a stage name and persona to go with this costume, it wouldn’t take long for ponies to realize it’s Cabbage Patch underneath it all. It’s happened with Mar the Sea-pony already. The shirt material’s really nice though.”

“It’s made with a fabric Rarity designed herself,” Sweetie said. “Actually, she helped out a little with the whole ensemble. She’ll be happy to know it fits so well. We had to guess your measurements and use Apple Bloom for the fitting.”

“You know,” Scootaloo said, “if you really don’t want to be known for voice mimicking, you could always just change your look entirely, being a Changeling and-”

“That would be even worse,” Cabbage interjected, whirling on the pegasus, her eyes wide with shrunken irises. “A performer who is never seen except on the stage? One more pony listed as part of Trixie’s Royal Thespians than actually exist? Do you know what kind of questions that would raise? The kind of mud-digging gossip-mongers it’d attract?”

“Whoa,” Scootaloo said, recoiling from the onslaught of hysterics, “sorry, just trying to help.”

“I get enough of that sort of help from Harlequin, thank you,” Cabbage said bitterly. Seeing and sensing the hurt feelings she was causing in Scootaloo, she dropped her gaze contritely. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You mean well, and I do appreciate everything you three have done for me already. It’s just… Look, I’ll take the costume with me, and maybe, someday, I might actually be brave enough to use it.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders all beamed, and then proceeded to help Cabbage out of the costume and pack it up.

“Hold on a second,” Sweetie Bell said suddenly when the packing was nearly finished, “I just realized something. Cabbage, how have you lived so long without stealing love from anypony?”

“Because I haven’t had to steal any for years,” Cabbage answered.

“But don’t Changelings feed on stolen love?” Sweetie asked.

“Not quite,” Cabbage answered. “I mean, yes, most Changelings do kidnap and replace ponies to harvest the love intended for them, but that’s just a means to an end. Changelings can draw energy from any pony that is directing positive emotions toward them. Sympathy, kindness, friendship, happiness, love, anything like that opens you up a Changeling to various degrees. Most Changelings would suck you dry, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to that. I’ve only ever been able to stomach what is freely given to me.”

“Wait, so yer feeding on us right now?” Apple Bloom asked, feeling slightly betrayed.

Cabbage struggled to keep calm as she felt the mood in the room turning sour. Before she could say more than a few words of assurance, “Yes, but never-,” she was suddenly staggered by something that felt like a mental blow to her head, followed by a complete silence of the Changeling hive-mind buzz. Any new concerns the Crusaders had been feeling about Cabbage were washed away as they moved to keep her from falling to the ground, bombarding her with questions and emotions. “Thanks,” she said distractedly, regaining her balance.

“We weren’t hurting you with our feelings, were we?” Sweetie asked, prompting an odd look from Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

“What? No,” Cabbage said, distractedly. Gently pushing Scootaloo out of her way, she started to walk toward the door of the boutique. She hesitated when she felt the buzz quietly start up again, but a moment later it stopped again for good. “Girls,” she said slowly, “I think… The Changeling invasion has been stopped.”

“Huh?” The Crusaders ran outside and looked in the direction of Canterlot. “Yeah, looks like that creepy shadow over Canterlot’s gone,” Scootaloo said. She and the other two looked at Cabbage with expressions she found difficult to decipher as she followed them out of the boutique. As best she could sense, they were feeling concern on her behalf, possibly worried she was going to take the news badly.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I was exiled from the hive a long time ago, so I’m not going to waste any grief on them.”

“Ok,” Sweetie Bell said, “but, how did you even know what just happened all the way up in Canterlot?”

“I’m only guessing, really” Cabbage said, and then fell silent as she thought about how best to word the explanation the fillies were expecting. “It’s… it’s a Changeling thing,” she said at last, lamely, “can…can we just leave it at that, please?”

“Sure, let’s go do something else,” Apple Bloom said, going back over to Cabbage’s bundled costume and tossing it toward her. “Y’are still ok with hanging out with us, right?”

Cabbage smiled at her. “So long as we don’t talk about Changelings anymore or get into any trouble, I can keep up with you all day.” She balanced the costume on her back and added, “but let’s drop this off at the hotel before we do anything else.”

“Alright Cabbage, all ya hafta do is bounce the ball off your head twice, kick it with a back hoof, rebound off the tree, and then arc it over the branch.”

Cabbage looked down at the ball resting between her hooves and then up at Apple Bloom. “Can I just take a letter?” she asked.

“Nope,” Apple Bloom said, “ya gotta at least try. Ya never know, you might actually be able to do it.” Cabbage remained unconvinced, so Apple Bloom pressed on. “Look, I just did it, so you know it ain’t impossible, and you’ve got a knack for surprising everyone with what ya can do. Like when ya knocked a whole tree’s worth of apples down with one kick yesterday.”

“Or mimicking Rainbow Dash’s voice perfectly,” Scootaloo added, smiling encouragingly.

“That’s nothing surprising, for a Changeling” Cabbage muttered.

“Well, I didn’t know that at the time,” Scootaloo said, “and it was cool nonetheless.” She scooped the ball up off the ground and held it out to Cabbage. “Just give it a try, ok? It’s just a game, after all.”

“A… All right,” Cabbage acquiesced. She took the ball from Scootaloo and tossed it up into the air. “Off my head twice…” she muttered as the ball came down, and she executed the move smoothly, bouncing it slightly backward on the second hit. “Then kick at the tree…” She shifted her position slightly and raised a back hoof, watching the ball carefully. She kicked it and it flew toward the tree with a slight backspin, and then it ricocheted off the trunk and spun wildly off-course over some bushes. A second later, Cabbage and the Crusaders all winced at the sound of the ball hitting something accompanied by a shriek of surprise. Cabbage led the run toward the sound, but her quickly-readied apology died on her lips as she rounded the bush and saw Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Diamond’s trademark tiara was lying in the dirt and Spoon was holding the Crusader’s ball hostage under one hoof. The Crusaders crashed into Cabbage as they came around the bush, sending the four of them sprawling into the dirt at Diamond Tiara’s hooves.

“Hmph,” the conceited pink filly said with malicious satisfaction, “at least you plebes are in your proper place now.”

“Give it a rest, DT,” Apple Bloom muttered crossly as she and her friends picked themselves up. Diamond ignored her, having realized she didn’t recognize the Crusader’s new sea-green companion. Her eyes went quickly to Cabbage’s blank flank and then to Cabbage’s nervous eyes, and she smiled coldly.

Cabbage knew that smile meant bad news, and she spoke quickly to try and head it off. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you, I just lost control of the ball,” she babbled. She scooped the tiara off the ground, brushed the dirt off of it and held it out as a peace offering. “May we have our ball back, please?”

Diamond Tiara snatched her trademark accessory from Cabbage’s hoof and scrutinize it closely, and then glowered at the sea-green pony. “Your ‘accident’ scratched my special tiara,” she said, “so I don’t think that’s quite enough of an apology. Maybe if you begged for it, I might reconsider.”

“Don’t do it Cabbage,” Apple Bloom said as she went to get right up in Tiara’s face. “You sure got a lot of nerve, Diamond Tiara,” she said, “trying to bully Cabbage Patch when Ah’m standing right here. And that little crown of yours ain’t worth fussing over anyhow; I bet yer Daddy can buy you a replacement real easy.”

“My tiara was custom-made just for me!” Diamond Tiara shot back.

Cabbage backed away from the confrontation and took shelter between Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell. “Hey,” Scootaloo said, tapping Cabbage on the back with her wing, “don’t back down now. We’ve stood up to DT once before, remember?”

“I was hiding in a bush then,” Cabbage whispered back.

“Uuuugh,” Sweetie Bell sighed, looking the scene over with frustration. “Fine, I’ll handle this. Hey, Silver Spoon!” She advanced on the grey earth pony, who quickly looked to her friend and then gulped nervously when she saw that Diamond Tiara was too caught up in her argument with Apple Bloom to pay mind to anything else. Sweetie’s horn started to glow with magic, and a small magic cloud of matching hue formed around the ball under Spoon’s hoof. “Cabbage apologized,” Sweetie said, “so give us the ball back or I’ll tell everypony where you’re the most ticklish.” The magic cloud started creeping up Silver Spoon’s leg, and she broke before it got past her hoof.

“Fine, take your stupid ball then!” Silver Spoon said crossly, kicking it away over the Crusaders’ heads. Scootaloo ran after it and Cabbage followed, eager to get away from the bad feelings that were crashing like waves over everything. Sweetie rejoined the pair after they’d corralled the ball and suggested they all head for the Clubhouse.

“What about Apple Bloom?” Cabbage asked.

“She’ll catch up,” Scootaloo said, nonchalant. “She and Diamond Tiara are going to keep at it until one of them gives up on having the last word. They’ve been doing that a lot lately… So, Sweetie Bell, how d’ya know where Silver Spoon is ticklish?”

“I found out a couple years ago,” Sweetie answered, “the last time we let those two goad us into a hoof-fight.”

“Ah,” Scootaloo said. “So, where-”

“If I tell you,” Sweetie interrupted, “I can’t use it against her anymore.”

“Well, you… you could,” Cabbage said, “just, uh, not quite the same way.”

“Hm,” Sweetie said in a mostly non-committal way.

The trio arrived at the clubhouse, and several minutes later Apple Bloom came storming through the door, full of pent-up frustration. She dropped to the floor and rolled onto her back before letting the frustration out with an epic groan. “I cannot stand that Diamond Tiara!” she declared.

“Did she manage to out-insult you this time?” Scootaloo asked.

“No,” AB said, rolling her eyes, “it’s just… y’know. The usual.”

“Um, I don’t know,” Cabbage said.

“Bloom and Diamond’s families have a long history,” Sweetie Bell said.

“Oh,” Cabbage said. “I’m… sorry?”

“It’s not a bad history,” Apple Bloom explained. “Least it wasn’t. The Apples were the first ponies to settle in the Ponyville area and the town pretty much got started because we have the only tame Zap Apple crop in all of Equestria.”

“What’s a Zap Apple?” Cabbage asked. She flinched back when the CMC all stared at her in shock.

“You’ve never had Zap Apple jam?” Scootaloo asked. Cabbage shook her head. “Oh, you’re missing out,” Scootaloo said. “There’s nothing in all of Equestria like Zap Apple Jam. When’s the next season, Apple Bloom?”

“I dunno,” Bloom said, rolling onto her stomach. “It’s usually late summer or early fall, but we can’t even start to prepare for it until the timber wolves start coming out of the woods and howling. Anyway, Cabbage, Diamond Tiara’s family, the Riches, own a chain of stores that was built on selling Zap Apple jam and other Apple Family produce outside of Ponyville. Her dad’s as good a pony as his ancestors were, but Diamond’s a bad seed and Ah just know that one day the two of us’ll have to be doing business together, and she hasn’t changed a wit since she got her cutie mark.” She rolled back onto her back and moaned in frustration.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Cabbage muttered, drooping in shame.

“No, it’s ok Cabbage,” Apple Bloom exclaimed, rolling back onto her hooves and going over to lift Cabbage’s head up. “Honestly, talking about it helps me a lot. I feel better now, believe me.”

“I know,” Cabbage said, who could clearly feel that the earth pony’s frustration was much weaker than it had been just a minute before.

“Oh right,” Apple Bloom said, slightly embarrassed now, “you’re a Changeling; y’all can sense that sort of thing.”

“Yeah,” Cabbage said lamely. She looked out the window at the angle of the sun and then said, “I should probably get going soon; I need to find out what Trixie has planned for the next few days.”

“You’re not leaving already, are you?” Sweetie Bell asked.

“Probably not,” Cabbage said, “but the new stage wagon will probably be finished in the next day or two, and we’ll be putting one more shows in the meantime.”

“Well, meet us here after school tomorrow and tell us what’s goin’ on,” Apple Bloom said. “It wouldn’t be right if we couldn’t give ya a proper send-off when ya do leave.”

Cabbage's Waking Nightmare

The following morning, Cabbage woke from a fitful sleep with a strange buzzing in her head. It was low and quiet, persistent and mildly distracting, and uncannily familiar. Talking with the troupe over breakfast confirmed that she was the only one hearing the buzz, and it was quickly decided that she should just stay in the hotel and rest even if another show was put on that day. Cabbage had no objections to spending the day inside, away from unfamiliar ponies, and finish coming to grips with the emotional crash she’d had the previous day. She figured the buzzing was just the after effects of the previous day, her Changeling metabolism complaining about experiencing a panic attack while bathed in the positive emotions and sympathy of Barnacle Salt and the Cutie Mark Crusaders, tainting what should have been refreshing energy with fear. Cabbage planned to just lay in bed and meditate until she could balance her emotions again, and maybe overcome some old demons in the process.

As she grew still, however, the buzzing only grew louder, interfering with her concentration. It soon became so intense that she started to think she was hearing words underneath the buzz. Intercept… separated… stop… get her! Cabbage couldn’t make sense of these vague words intruding on her own thoughts, and the more she tried to force the buzz into silence the louder it seemed to get. Finally, she leaped out of her bed with a cry of frustration and stomped irritably toward the door of the hotel suite. “I’m going on a walk,” she said. “Maybe I need activity to clear my head.”

“Will ye be needing company?” Barnacle asked.

Cabbage almost answered “yes” on reflex, but stopped herself and actually thought about the question. “No, thank you,” she said, “I need to try and be braver to make up for yesterday.”

“Best of luck to you then, lass,” Barnacle said with evident pride.

“We’ll be going to check on how our replacement wagon is coming along in a little while, Cabbage,” Trixie said. “I’ll try to remember to leave the room unlocked, but if you run into trouble and nopony’s here, you’ll know where to find us, right?”

“The Lumber and Carpentry Yard,” Cabbage answered, nodding. She opened the door, took two steps out, and then hesitated and glanced back inside. “Um… see you later then,” she said awkwardly. She took a deep breath, finished crossing the threshold, and closed the door before trotting down the hall, already feeling the irritating buzz start to quiet down. As she left the hotel, she opened herself up to the emotions of the ponies passing by in the street, trying to read the general mood of the town. She noticed only safe, mild emotions in the air, generally positive with only a hint of the stress and worry typical of ponies with jobs to do. Cabbage smiled and relaxed a little more as she started her walk. With no particular destination in mind, she wandered wherever her hooves wanted to take her and observed the ponies going about their morning routines unsuspecting of the Changeling in their midst. Focusing on something besides herself seemed to help quiet the buzzing in Cabbage’s head, but it stubbornly refused to go away entirely. On a better note, each pony Cabbage passed without incident was another small victory over her far more familiar problem of social anxiety.

There’s nothing to worry about, she said to herself. Over half of these ponies don’t recognize me, and all those that do were in the audience yesterday. No one’s thinking about Changelings; Ponies here like to assume the best about ponies they’ve just met. To those who know my appearance, I’m the little sea-pony and Trixie’s hapless “assistant.” They like me and… Mmmm, their compliments do fill me up nicely. Oh, is that thinking too much like a proper Changeling though? I’m not taking an emotion meant for somepony else, but… Oh, why am I even worrying about this? I’ve not taken so much that anypony notices a difference, and it’s a shame to waste such good food.

“Cabbage Patch! Hey, over here!” Cabbage blinked as the excited shout pulled her out of her thoughts and saw all three Cutie Mark Crusaders down the road to her right, waving at her.

So much for peace, Cabbage thought, but found there was a smile growing on her face. Well, maybe they’ll be a better distraction from my head. And their feelings of friendship toward me aren’t any weaker. She trotted over to the trio and said, “Good morning girls.”

“Morning,” Apple Bloom said, “ya feeling better?”

“My head feels a little b- fuzzy,” Cabbage said, rubbing her head lightly, “but otherwise, I’m fine. Uh, sorry about flipping out yesterday. I… I just… get like that if I try to… to do impersonations…” She started to quiver, and yelped in fright when Sweetie Bell suddenly grabbed her in a hug.

“It’s ok,” the unicorn filly said soothingly, “we get it. It’s not your fault you have stage fright. We’re the ones who should apologize.”

“It’s… you didn’t know,” Cabbage said, closing her eyes and forcing the panic away. “I don’t blame you, so let’s just forget about it.”

“Not yet,” Scootaloo said, “we have something to give you, to make it up to you.”

“Scootaloo,” Cabbage said, touched but reluctant, “you don’t need to give me anything; there’s nothing to make up.”

“Nonsense,” Scootaloo said. “We worked hard on it all day after your breakdown, and you’re going to accept it. Now come on.” Cabbage tried to protest further, but when the three fillies ganged up behind her and started shoving she gave in and went where they directed. She thought they were going to take her to the clubhouse again, but it was soon evident they had a different destination in mind. When she saw the Carousel Boutique up ahead, she began to suspect what the mystery gift was going to be. Sweetie Bell pushed the boutique’s door open and pranced inside like she owned the place, excitement making her very light on her hooves. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were acting similarly giddy, the orange pegasus almost hovering off the ground, but Cabbage entered with some trepidation. She’d been inside Carousel Boutique once before, three years ago, and recalled that the owner, a beautiful and stylish white unicorn with an elegantly curled purple mane, had been very prompt to respond to the sound of the bell attached to the door, but as Cabbage followed her three eager friends across the shop’s front room toward a curtained-off niche there was no sign of the fashionista.

“Um,” Cabbage ventured, “shouldn’t there be somepony here?”

“We’re here,” Sweetie said, giving Cabbage a confused look.

“I think she means yer sister, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom drawled.

“Ohhhh!” Sweetie said as Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Well, Rarity’s in Canterlot right now, saving the day with her friends. Again.”

Cabbage gaped, nonplussed at the little unicorn’s casual delivery of such a big claim. Curiosity got the best of her, and she asked, slowly, “Saving the day from… what?”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” Sweetie said, thinking. “Did AJ happen to say anything about it, Apple Bloom?”

“‘Twas something they needed the Elements of Harmony for,” Apple Bloom said. “I wasn’t too close to the door when Twilight came by to get her, but I think I heard them mention the Changelings.” She and the other two Crusaders shuddered, remembering their experiences at the royal wedding. “Anyway,” Apple Bloom said, recovering her happy mood, “let’s get on with…” She trailed off as saw the expression of pure fear that had come over Cabbage Patch’s face.

The outside world had seemed to vanish when Cabbage heard the word “Changeling,” as she quickly began piecing together facts and chilling conclusions. Changelings, in Canterlot? Another invasion? It has to be, otherwise why would the Elements of Harmony be rushing to the city? So many Changelings all in one place… and so close, I’d probably be picking up – That’s what the buzzing is! I’m hearing the voice of the hive. It’s been so many years, I forgot what it felt like. Oh no, oh no, this is bad! There’s going to be panic and hysteria and I’m going to be found out for sure because I’m too close to it this time!

All that the Cutie Mark Crusaders could discern was that Cabbage was utterly petrified. “Don’t tell me we broke her again,” Scootaloo groaned.

“We’re terrible ponies,” Sweetie said dramatically.

“Alright, nopony panic,” Apple Bloom said, sounding on the edge of panic herself. “We can fix this. We just… uh… we need ta… We hafta snap her out of it and prove she doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

“How?” Scootaloo asked.

“Maybe we should just take her back home,” Sweetie suggested. “We can carry her. I think.”

“No way,” Scootaloo said. “If that old captain Salt finds out we made Cabbage have another attack, he’ll never let us hang out with her ever again.”

“Well do you have a better plan?” Sweetie retorted.

“I got one,” Apple Bloom said. “The second part at least. Sweetie, d’ya think you can cast that detection spell?”

“Uh, maybe?” the unicorn said. “Rarity made sure that both of us learned it shortly after the wedding, but I haven’t tried it since.” Cabbage’s ears twitched as the trio’s conversation started to bleed through into her panicked mind, and she broke into a cold sweat. “Hang on a sec,” Sweetie Bell said as she closed her eyes tightly in concentration. Cabbage slowly turned her eyes to watch as Sweetie’s horn started to glow.

Please, don’t remember, Cabbage mentally begged. Don’t do this to me.

There was a tense moment when the light around Sweetie’s horn started to sputter, but then it flared right back up and she smiled. “I think I have it,” she said.

That does it, Cabbage thought, I’m out. The fear that had paralyzed her now lent her metaphoric wings as she reared up, spun around, and bolted out of the Carousel Boutique before Sweetie could cast her spell. She gained approximately three seconds of lead time before the Cutie Mark Crusaders overcame their surprise and went off in pursuit, calling Cabbage’s name in confusion and concern. Cabbage tried to increase her speed when she heard them coming, but it made little difference since she had already been pushing herself to the limit out of the gate. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stayed hot on her heels, although they were only gaining on her by inches at a time. The chase wound through Ponyville’s streets as Cabbage simultaneously tried to shake the trio and remember the way back to the hotel, where she could take refuge behind Barnacle Salt and the others.

Eventually, and with the Crusaders still in view behind her, Cabbage found the hotel and galloped inside, through the lobby, up the stairs, down the hall, and into the troupe’s suite. After slamming the door and locking the deadbolt, Cabbage sank to her haunches and looked for the expected looks of concern on everypony’s faces. The room was empty. “Where is every- oh, right,” she face-hoofed, “they’re inspecting the new wagon. Stupid!”

“We’re not all gone.” Cabbage’s head snapped up and around to see Harlequin emerging from the suite’s kitchen with a plate of carrot sticks in his mouth. He quickly set the plate down when he saw Cabbage’s wild eyes and heavy panting. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, kneeling down.

“I almost got-” A knock on the door interrupted her, and she ran to hide under the nearest bed. “Don’t let them in!” she exclaimed.

“This about your secret?” Harlequin asked, peering under the bed. Cabbage nodded and Harlequin straightened up and headed for the door. “I’ll send ‘em off then,” he said to allay the little Changeling’s fears. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack, bracing it against the efforts of Apple Bloom to gain entry. “What do you kids want?” he asked in an annoyed tone. “We didn’t order any room service, and you’re too young to be the maids.”

“Dang. So much for that approach,” Scootaloo muttered under her breath.

“We’re looking for Cabbage Patch,” Apple Bloom said.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, kid,” Harlequin lied.

“Yes you do,” Apple Bloom countered. “Yer part of Trixie’s company with her. We saw both y’all in the show yesterday, and we also saw her run in here just now.” Harlequin tried to close the door on her, but Sweetie and Scootaloo added their weight to Apple Bloom’s as the yellow filly shouted for the whole suite to hear, “Cabbage, Ah know you’re in there, and Ah know exactly why you’re so afraid right now.”

Oh Luna, did she really figure it out? Cabbage thought, and then mentally kicked herself for the thought. Of course she did. Running for my life like that at that exact moment wasn’t very subtle after all. Cornered again, for real this time. Sighing, she decided to face the inevitable and crawled out from under the bed. “You can let them in, Quin,” she said dejectedly. Harlequin quirked an eyebrow but stood back, letting the door fly open and the Cutie Mark Crusaders to tumble through in a heap. The fillies sorted themselves out quickly and went over to Cabbage, who was brushing dust bunnies off her coat as an excuse to avoid looking at them for a moment more. Harlequin quietly closed the door and sat down in front of it, observing the scene with silent satisfaction. “Ok,” Cabbage said, “let’s get this over with.”

“Don’t look so down Cabbage,” Apple Bloom said compassionately. “It’s ok to be scared, you know. You must have had a really bad experience with Changelings in the past, right?”

Born a weak, soft-hearted freak and exiled from the hive, Cabbage thought ruefully. That probably counts, yeah.

When the sea-green pony didn’t freeze up again, Apple Bloom pressed on, putting a comforting leg around Cabbage’s shoulders. “Ya know, Sweetie Bell, Scootaloo, and I were in Canterlot the last time the Changelings invaded,” she said. “In fact, we were right there when their awful queen revealed herself and beat Princess Celestia. It all worked out in the end though, and you obviously survived whatever happened to you.”

Cabbage gave Apple Bloom an odd look. Does she not… get it? She just thinks I’m scared of Changelings? Maybe I can still get out of this.

“I bet all our talk about what’s going on in Canterlot’s got you worried that somepony you know has been replaced,” Apple Bloom continued, nodding at her unicorn compatriot, “but Sweetie Bell here knows how to cast a spell that’ll put those fears to rest right now.”

…Or not. “No,” Cabbage said, shrugging Apple Bloom’s embrace away, “you don’t… you don’t have to…” She sighed gustily and dragged both fore-hooves down her face as she gathered her nerves. “Quin, watch the door please,” she said.

“Already on it,” Harlequin said, turning the deadbolt for good measure.

“Thanks,” Cabbage said. She looked at each of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in turn, all of them looking worried and a little scared. “I’m sorry about this,” she said, and then discarded her earth pony guise in a flash of green fire. There was the expected screaming, running about, and looking for hiding places from the Crusaders at the sudden appearance of a Changeling, but to Cabbage’s relief it didn’t progress to one of them trying to attack her, or Harlequin. Harlequin remained sitting immovably by the only exit from the suite, watching the debacle unfold with a smirk that Cabbage found particularly annoying. Cabbage remained still until the fillies realized that she was just sitting there and calmed down, gathering around her gain. Once they were all settled, noticeably farther away from her and closer to one another, Cabbage spoke again, keeping the inherent buzzing undertone of natural Changeling voices out of her own as best she could, “Again, I’m sorry, but you were about to discover this for yourselves and I couldn’t stop you.”

“You’re a Changeling?!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Very astute,” Harlequin said dryly.

Scootaloo turned on the larger pony and pointed accusingly at him. “Are you a Changeling too?”

“Honestly, I’d like to say yes,” Harlequin answered, “but I don’t think any of you would find it amusing.”

“Quin, please take this seriously,” Cabbage said.

“Wait, wait,” Sweetie said, “I’m confused. Cabbage Patch was replaced by a Changeling, and you, mister, are ok with it?”

“She’s been a Changeling the entire time I’ve known her,” Harlequin said. “Didn’t realize it at first, but… Well, I’ve had time to get used to the idea.”

“I’ve never stolen a pony’s identity in my life,” Cabbage said. “I’m just not good enough to pull it off.”

“Oh yeah?” Scootaloo said, “prove it.”

“You three caught me without even suspecting I wasn’t what I appeared to be,” Cabbage said. “Isn’t that proof enough that I’m a bad Changeling?”

“Gotta admit, that’s not a bad point,” Apple Bloom said.

“Well I’m still not convinced,” Scootaloo said.

Cabbage frowned, briefly at a loss, until she remembered the key flaw in her abilities that had originally cemented Scootaloo’s interest in her and essentially started this whole mess. “Sweetie Bell,” she said, “stand up and hold still a moment please.”

“Uh, ok,” the unicorn said hesitantly as Cabbage slowly walked around her, memorizing her shape, colors, and manestyle. After completing a circuit, Cabbage stood in front of the three fillies and focused. Pushing past her mental blocks by sheer determination to regain her friends’ trust, she changed into a copy of Sweetie Bell that was nearly perfect except for one key detail.

“You’ll notice I didn’t copy your cutie mark, Sweetie,” she said in a perfect imitation of the unicorn’s voice, presenting her flank. “Now watch. This is why I can’t possibly replace a real pony.” Closing her eyes in order to more clearly visualize the paired musical notes of Sweetie’s mark, she willed it appear on her flanks. She felt the tingling heat of her transformation magic responding and opened her eyes to see the results. As she expected, the mark had come out incorrectly: the notes had normal black circles instead of the pink hearts on Sweetie Bell’s flank, and the staff of the right-side note was squiggly. In less than a second it faded away on its own, and Cabbage looked at the Crusaders expectantly.

“And that happens every time?” Apple Bloom asked, looking unusually intrigued.

“Every time,” Cabbage confirmed, and then remembered that she was still transformed and dropped the Sweetie Bell look. “Sorry. I can’t change my size either,” she continued, “and I should have been as big as a full-grown pony years ago.”

“You sure get voices down good though,” Scootaloo said. “What’d I tell you?” she added, nudging Apple Bloom and Sweetie in the sides. Cabbage risked a smile, and Scootaloo returned it easily. “Alright, you’ve convinced me,” she said. “Besides, I really can’t see a… Changeling as timid as you kidnapping anypony anyway. Uh, that isn’t just part of the act, is it?”

“Oh believe me,” Harlequin cut in, rolling his eyes, “she’s a genuine shrinking violet. It’s a small miracle that we can get her to do anything on the stage in front of ponies.” The suite door shook slightly as somepony outside tried the latch, followed by a firm, irritated knocking. Cabbage tensed up as Harlequin turned to look through the peephole, and then relaxed as he undid the locks and jumped back to avoid Trixie opening the door into his face. Barnacle and Maggie Pie entered in the wake of the troupe’s headliner, and all three stopped and stared when they saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders and an undisguised Cabbage Patch looking back at them. After a moment, Maggie turned around and closed the door.

“Looks to me like the secret’s out,” Barnacle said.

“It’s just these three,” Cabbage explained, changing into her normal earth pony disguise and looking meek.

“Well that’s all well and good,” Trixie said, “but what happens now?” She advanced on the Crusaders, looking down her nose at them. “What are these young mares going to do with what they’ve discovered? Trixie would be extremely upset if her troupe had to disappear from Ponyville before their new stage-wagon is complete.”

“Aye,” Barnacle said, “Cabbage’s true nature is not something to be shared lightly. Ye’ve joined the crew of the rare few who know about it. The question is, can we trust ye with the secret, to keep it a secret?”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders shared a long look, and then withdrew to another part of the suite to talk in hushed tones. The little conference was over nearly as quickly as it began, and then Scootaloo came over to act as spokespony. “We’ve decided to agree to keep the secret, on two conditions. First, Cabbage Patch will remain, for now and always, a member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, even when she leaves Ponyville.”

“W-what?” Cabbage stammered, incredulous. “Why? You know that I literally cannot have a cutie mark, real or fake. Why keep me in the club?”

“Because it’s not just about the cutie marks,” Scootaloo said in a longsuffering tone, “it’s about being friends forever. If we keep your secret, then you have to keep being our friend, got it?”

Cabbage couldn’t help but feel amused at the pegasus’s serious demeanor, partially because she could feel it coming from nearly everypony else in the room. “All right,” she said, “I can do that. What’s the second condition?”

“You need to at least see that gift we still owe you,” Scootaloo answered.