The hunt that changed my life
My name is Erised, and I slay the wicked, the deceitful, the cruel and malicious; for this is what I am, and this is what I do.
The sun hung low on the horizon, casting its orange light over houses of wood and stone as I stalked through the forests near the outskirts of a town and into its dark alleys. At the moment, the name of this place escapes me, as do a great many other things. My mind always becomes somewhat tunnel-visioned when I’m on a hunt, and insignificant details are pushed from the forefront of my mind to make way for pure focus; all that matters is killing my prey.
Speaking of which, I’ve just spotted the little monster. I duck behind a stack of barrels and slink my way slowly upwards to get a better view. I see him walking past the inhabitants of this peaceful place; ponies. He waves to them as they prepare to shut their doors for the night, they smile to him, and he smiles back under his wretched mask of lies.
On what has become instinct for me, my black eyes contract and shift, a blue glow emitting from them as the illusion around the light brown stallion is pealed back, revealing his true form. Though only I see it, his fur becomes pitch-black scale, his messy yellow hair turns to grey fins and membranes, and a pair of fangs and hollow, bug-like eyes replace the features on his face.
“There you are, you changeling scum.” I think to myself as he rounds the corner near where I hide, suddenly stopping and nervously looking around. I back into the shadows as he looks right where I was, he doesn’t see me, but he knows something stalks him. But unlike me, he cannot hide; I see him.
A couple of minutes pass by as I trail my target. With every second that passes, another inch the sunlight retreats across the ground to be replaced by the glorious, cool, concealing darkness. It’s so easy to slip through the shadows unnoticed; I don’t know what I’d do without it.
“Now where are you going?” I silently ask while he opens a wooded door and steps inside. I read the sign hanging above: Turnpike’s Tavern: guardponies drink for free. Hoping for the best, I pull my hood and mask on tighter and head in shortly after he does.
I can’t seem to find a proper word for the atmosphere in this place. Rustic? Homey? Dingy seems the most appropriate. I decide it doesn’t matter as I slink off to a far table. No one cared to notice my presence, which I’m more than okay with. The changeling I hunt is sitting among a few ponies at the bar counter, they seem to be having quite a good time cracking jokes and slamming down their drinks while hitting on the barmaids.
This is NOT what I need right now. I cannot have anyone interfere, and he’ll definitely try to use them as shields if I go after him now. I can barely hold back a scowl as I imagine all the life he’s sucking out of those oblivious ponies while they have their collective guard down. I need a way to get him alone and finish him off before he can do any further harm.
“Hello there.” a chipper voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn to see a young mare with a bright blue mane standing across the table from me; likely a waitress. “Can I get you anything?”
Then I get an idea, a long-shot, but it might just work.
“Actually I need to talk to the stallion sitting at the bar over there.” I tell her, pointing to the changeling in disguise “He’s an old friend of mine and I’m not really sure how to get his attention.”
“Well I can help you with that.” she gives me a bright smile and starts waving her hooves in the air to get the other’s attention “Hey! Hey Stacker! Stacker, over here! Hey, Listen!”
“No!” I yell as I clamber over the table and clamp her big mouth shut, trying my hardest to keep the rasp out of my voice. Luckily my target and the others were too caught up in a toast to listen.
“Mrph mumph hurf a furf a murf?” she mumbles out underneath my kung-fu death-grip.
“Sorry, I just…” I try to think of an excuse “It’s, umm… been a really long time and, umm… I’d just like to talk to him one on one. For old times sakes, ya know? It’s kind of personal.”
The mare raises an eyebrow but nods her head regardless.
“Great, so if you could just tell him to meet me outside, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t mess this up.”
“Okay then.” she says happily “Oh, unless you want me to stay over here for a while.”
I realize I’m still holding onto her and quickly let her go. Only she doesn’t give me the same courtesy. I look up at her and find myself getting a close-up of her purple eyes and a flirty smile.
“You know, my shift’s almost over. After you talk with your friend, you could stick around and… talk to me for a while?” she giggles.
Jeez, I can feel the love radiating off her in waves. It feels so… so warm… so good. Maybe just a little taste wouldn’t-
“NO!” I mentally scream at myself “No, that’s not what I do, that’s what changelings would do.”
“Uh- umm… n- no thank you.” I mindlessly sputter out, seeing the mare looking hurt and offended by this “I mean you’re really nice… and cute. But I’m afraid I can’t stick around long, other business to attend to.”
“Oh, okay.” Though her expression softens up a bit, she still looks quite disappointed, and she walks off to pass my message to “Stacker”, her head slightly slouched the whole way.
Still, the hurt feelings of one young mare are a small price to pay for taking down another of those horrid monsters. I hate changelings, for what they are, and especially for what they do. Murderers and soul-eating beasts, how such creatures ever came into existence is beyond me. I’ve been hunting them for nearly all my life. Dozens have fallen to me, and thousands more will follow before I’m done.
But it seems my plan has actually worked, and “Stacker” is getting up and heading for the door. But wait, he’s doing something else, what’s-
“Oh you make me sick.” I seethe to myself as he pulls the waitress mare in for a kiss, her cheeks burning a bright red while the ponies at the bar cheer him on. “You’re NOT one of them! Stop pretending, you slimy freak!”
I fight the urge to vomit as I walk outside, turning around for a second to beckon him onwards.
“Hey, wait up.” the changeling calls after me as I walk down the darkened streets lit sparingly with oil-lamps.
It is night now, when I may move freely, and my magic is at its strongest. I turn around to look at the brown figure trotting to keep up. I lead him around a corner; he hesitates for a second, but follows anyway… big mistake.
“H- hey, so… you wanted to talk?” he says as we come to a stop in the middle of an alley.
“I wish to do more than that. But fist, why don’t you take off that stupid thing?” I say as I turn to face him.
He looks confused and then motions to the orange scarf around his neck. “This? But my buddy Patchwork made it for me, said it complimented my colors.”
“Not that… THIS!” I quickly step forward and put my hooves around his throat, digging into his form with my magic and giving the string an unraveling pull. And with that, his disguise is ripped away as he groans through his teeth in discomfort, gasping for breath once it's done.
“What did you-
He stops mid-sentence when he hears his raspy voice, and with his eyes wide, he looks at his body. His head whips back up, terror etched onto his face.
“W- wait, th- this isn’t what it looks like!” he stutters as he takes a few steps backwards.
"Why do they always say that?" I wondered before I cast another spell, channeling my magic into the darkness around us, and everything within his line of sight.
He started to run, but didn't get more than a few steps before I had him in my grasp. Through his perspective, tendrils shot forth from the shadows and ensnared him to prevent his escape, covering his mouth and muffling his scream. But from my point of view, he simply lay flailing on the ground as I jammed a hoof in his mouth. My magic prowess may be weak, and limited to mere illusions and cheap tricks, but if used correctly, that’s all I’ll ever need.
As I pinned him, I pulled out a long knife from beneath my saddlebags; it was really nothing more than a sharpened bar of metal, but its hard point worked well when piercing through a changeling’s hide.
“Now die.” I whispered before driving the point of my blade forward. But rather than hitting a hard shell with a gooey center, it simply struck cobblestone.
A flash of light behind me told me that the changeling had teleported out of harm’s way. In another second, a blast of green fire nearly hit me, the explosion knocking me to the ground. “This one’s more skilled than I thought.”
I quickly get up to spot him trying to make an escape. Straining myself, I levitate a few nearby bottles and chuck them as hard as I can. Four miss and shatter on the ground, but one hits its mark and causes the changeling to stumble.
Highlighting on this, I rushed forward and tackle him to the ground. Shoving my horn against his face I flooded his mind with images of blades and encroaching shadowy tendrils as I ready my shank again.
He struggles through my illusions and his hoof grazes the side of my head, pulling off my mask and breaking my control over my magic.
The terrified look on his face now has shock and confusion mixed in as he looks at me. “What the- Why are you doing this?! You’re one of us!”
That sentence stops me cold as I begin boiling with anger inside as I stare at him, my changeling eyes meeting his.
“I know.” I say coldly as I jam the shank into his torso, holding his mouth shut as I stab through the lungs and ichor-filled sacks beneath his shell “But changelings are monsters, so they have to die. All of them, even I will die one day, and the world will be better for it.” I tell him through my clenched fangs as I leave him on the ground to bleed out, my shank lodged in his shell beyond retrieval.
I start to walk away, but as I reach the entrance to the alleyway, I hear his voice bloodily cough out behind me “Wait! Please.” I’m about to pay no attention to his pleas for me to save him, but his next words make me stop. “Take this. Take it with you.”
My curiosity gets the better of me and I walk back to his as he lies in a pool of his own green fluids. He shoves a small book, no more than the size of a notepad towards me, desperation in his eyes.
“What is this?” I ask him as I idly flip through the pages, apathetic to his suffering.
“It’s the part of me… you can never kill. Go there… learn.” he wheezes “Kill the bad ones… but know… the difference. Please, promise me… promise…” and with that he went limp and died, the life fading from his eyes.
“What do you mean ‘know the difference’?” I ask his corpse before slowly walking off into the night.
I kick up a bit of dust under my hooves as I walk down the road. The notebook turned out to hold only a few sketches of random ponies, and a map, crudely drawn in the very back.
Normally after a kill I would simply wander aimlessly for a few days, recover my strength for the next changeling I come across. But this time I had a destination in mind. I had to know…
“The part of me you can never kill… learn… know the difference. What does it mean?” I mumbled to myself while in my mind I cursed that changeling for not dying more slowly, if only so he could have told me what he meant.
After a few minutes of walking I finally find the grove of trees like the one depicted on the map. As I approach, I find a mound of rocks that were clearly placed there on purpose. With a decent amount of effort I manage to pull the top ones off, revealing a large metal trunk, rusted from the elements.
“Well, I’ve come this far.” I think to myself as I pry open the lid.
Inside are more of those drawings of ponies, bound together with string like coverless books. Only these ones are different from the ones in the book he gave to me; these ones have writing on them.
“What are these?” I ask myself as I pick up one at random “His victims?”
I could never have been more wrong. I realized this as I read the text on first few pictures.
[Glowmoss] – This stallion was an interesting blend of strange and misunderstood genius. He never socialized much, but his healing tonics worked wonders I’d have to have seen to believe. I hope that my influence has gained him some more clients, and maybe some friends.
[Bittershine] – Contrary to her name, this old mare was quite a caring soul. Though the guilt of losing her nephew made her fear attachment to others, I helped her to see that life without others was worse than a fear of loss. I wish her the best.
[Wax] – An energetic young colt. Enjoyed playing games with him while visiting his father’s candle shop. I have no doubts he’ll grow up to be successful at whatever he chooses to pursue, be it wax-working like his parents, or something else entirely.
[Dawning “Dawn” Everheart] - ~~Dawning was a mare from~~... ~~Dawn was the most amazing~~... ~~The mare that went by the name of~~... I can't write this like the rest. I wish more than anything, that I could feel love like ponies do. I know that if I could I’d feel it for you, Dawn. Of all the ponies I’ve ever helped, you were the first to discover me for what i really was, and not reject me. One day I’ll find a way to love like ponies can, and I'll return to be with you. But until then, just know that I’m sorry.
I couldn’t keep reading after that.
I simply set the pages back into the chest and collapsed onto the grass behind me.
“What have I done?” I asked myself as actual tears rolled down my face for the first time in decades “It can’t be true, he was a changeling, changelings are evil; he had to be evil.”
“This can’t be.” I thought to myself more in desperation than truth as I wiped my eyes and dug through the chest again “This can’t possibly be right, there has to be something in here that proves he was lying.”
All I found were more pictures bound into books, there must have been hundreds of ponies cataloged in there. Until finally, at the very bottom, I uncovered a set of weathered, mismatched books. They were clothbound, and ranging from relatively new, to very old. Immediately I opened the oldest looking one and began to read.
Hours must have passed by while I sat there. I don’t remember much of what was in them, I only remember how I couldn’t stop until I had read every last one, and how much I wailed in despair once I had.
“What have I done!?” I yelled up at the clouds as the sun peaked up above the fields, and the tears continued to spill onto the ground “What have I done?”
I don’t remember how many times I repeated that question, all I remember is that it didn’t matter, because I knew the answer. I had just brutally murdered a changeling that all his life did nothing but good for everyone he had ever met. Stacker had even felt guilty about how he couldn’t live without hurting others, and so he did all he could to make up for it. He was just doing what was right, and I just went and killed him!
I felt absolutely terrible, and it only got worse when I began to question all the other lives I’d taken; how many of them were innocent as well? I felt sick; changelings weren’t monsters, just me… just me.
As I lay on there on the grass, Stacker’s last words came floating into my mind, tormenting me at first, but then realization slowly dawned on me.
“The part of me you can never kill.” I repeated as I looked to the metal box of pictures, each one hoof-drawn, a piece of a person Stacker had helped.
“The part of us you can’t kill… is the part that lives on through our actions. We live on through those lives we touch with our own.”
I looked at my blood-covered hooves as they perched on the edge of the metal chest.
“Know the difference… the difference between good and evil.”
"Learn... learn that everyone has the capacity for good, no matter who or what you are."
“Hunt down the bad ones, the ones that would choose to hurt other rather than help them. But know which ones deserve to keep the life they’ve been given.”
“Promise me…”
“Stacker…” I sighed as I turned around and looked back towards the town in the distance.
It took a lot of work to get into town and out again, but I managed. By now it was late morning, I was exhausted and covered in dirt. But it was the very least I could do.
“You were one of the good ones, Stacker. I’m not.” I said to the mound of dirt before me “I want to say I’m sorry. I want to, but that’s not nearly good enough. After all you did, you deserved so much better than what happened, and the least I can do is keep my promise to you, and keep hunting down the bad ones. All my life I’ve been the worst monster of them all, but now thanks to you, I know that there are good changelings out there, and I’ll know to spare them.”
I turn away from the grave, speaking instead towards the sunrise. “That’s what you wanted to tell me, right? That not all changelings are evil? I wish I’d known that before I met you. I wish I’d know a long time ago.”
I take in deep breath as a ray of sunlight hits the spot where I stand. I take a moment to tie Stacker’s orange scarf around my neck before pulling my hood up again. Giving a silent nod to the grave of the changeling I always should have been, I make my way down to the dirt road, following it to wherever it may take me.
My name is Erised, and I slay the wicked, the deceitful, the cruel and malicious. This is what I am, and this is what I do.
But now I know there’s more than just evil out there. There are changelings out there with hearts as pure as the ponies they’re forced to feed off of. Stacker was one such changeling; even in death, the world will be a better place because of him. I will make sure of that, after all… I made him a promise. I made myself a promise.
