To Fix those Who are Broken
Let me introduce myself, I am a changeling named Carbon Copy. I am a survivor of the battle where our Queen met her defeat, and I am aware of the anathema currently in place against our kind. Months after the fact, I am here to say that there is hope. For the first time in changeling history, we can choose our own paths.
We are finally free. No longer is there a hive mind directive, taking precedence over our actions. Death to the collectivist ideal! We can now act as individuals and be defined by our own merits, instead of the agenda of our Queen.
No longer will a doctrine of hate be imposed upon us. No more forced conformity. A world of opportunity and peril now awaits us. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard of me and know a little bit about my story.
I have written this as a rallying call to the changeling species. We are not the monsters we have been made out to be….
Love-starved… Not in the way a lonely bachelor would describe himself, but literally starved. We changelings need love to survive. Not to sound like some sappy hippy, but we feed off of it. Love actually has nutritional value to us. It has four calories per milligram absorbed, the equivalent of a dietary carbohydrate for a pony.
You would think that we changelings would have the art of love down pat, but we sure as hell didn’t. There was little room for love in the travails of the Swarm. The system was cold and unfeeling, rearing changelings like machines being produced in a factory. Our roles were determined by our status at birth: soldier, scientist, or a drone.
Most of us didn’t even have names, since we were snatched away from our mothers the moment we were born. As you can see, it was impossible to find love in the hive. There was no concept of it in our culture or language. It was considered a mark of weakness, and this is why we attacked the pony kingdom. We fancied ourselves above the idea of loving each other, so we had to steal it from others. This was the fatally flawed ideology that Queen Chrysalis instilled in us, and upon her dethronement, I took it upon myself to find an alternative.
Now that I have, I wish to share it.
Let me tell you the tale of how Carbon Copy found solace and love.
.....
I was lost, injured, and starving. It was a few days after the great battle, and the memories of my fellow changelings being killed were fresh on my mind.
All those changelings did not deserve the fate that befell them. Queen Chrysalis was the only one to blame. We may have been the aggressors, the ponies acting in self-defense, but we were only following orders. It was all we knew.
“There is no individual,” Queen Chrysalis’ voice echoed in his head. “There is only the cause.”
Our cause was destroyed, having been flawed in the first place. And now thinking for myself for the first time, I wandered through the forest looking for nourishment. I was half-dead, and tears filled my eyes. I was so scared.
If only somepony could give me a chance… I could show them that I was worthy of their love, instead of trying to coerce it from them.
All I needed was a little affection. Anypony would do.
I sighed, talking to myself. “Carbon Copy is just a shadow of a pony, doomed to wander for eternity, belonging nowhere.”
As soon as my words faded on the wind, I heard a pony moaning in pain.
Feeling weak from starvation, I felt compelled to investigate.
Crawling through the underbrush, I saw a young stallion lying against the trunk of a tree. He was a mud-brown earth pony with a black mane. He was moaning in agony, bottles of an unknown liquid surrounding him.
He needed help, and in my heart, I felt hope for a good meal. Noticing that he was asleep, I drew nearer. The stallion was drenched in sweat, pale as a sheet, and was trembling fiercely. “Are you sick?” I asked the stallion, and he only moaned in response.
I was close enough to the stallion when I realized what he was doing here. The bottles contained morphine or heroin in liquid form. He had a rope tied around the upper part of his fore-leg, constricting the blood flow. In his hoof, there was a needle which was still half-full of the drug he had injected himself with.
Looking around, I realized that there was enough heroin here to knock out a dragon. How long had this stallion intended to stay here, strung out on the narcotic?
Initially, I wanted to help the stallion and allow him to love me. He was suffering from withdrawal, and was in pain. He had failed to give himself the full intended dose, and was still unconscious when the drug wore off. And now, his damaged brain craved for more, unable to feel at ease without it.
It was then I saw the letter lying on the ground beside the stallion.
Perhaps it would provide a clue to who this stallion was and where he lived.
Opening up the plain letter, he began to read. On the top, it detailed his identity, residence address, and the name of his wife and filly daughter.
Reading a little further, I realized that this stallion had never intended to return home. This was a suicide letter, and he had tried to overdose on the heroin. At first, I felt sympathy for this troubled stallion who was about to take his own life. My mind filled with idea on how I could return him to his family, help him overcome his addiction and suicidal feelings… but then I read further.
The letter wasn’t meant to be apologetic or sorrowful, it was full of hate and anger. He was lashing out against all those who had loved him. He cursed his wife and four year old daughter, saying that he would rather be dead than to live with them. He detailed how he had spent the family’s remaining savings on drugs and booze, and wanted to take back all that he had given them.
I felt a moment of empathy, wondering how I would feel if I were the mare who this letter was intended for. The stallion who I loved with all my being had killed himself, and had blamed his death on me. I would be devastated. My heart would be so broken that I couldn’t possibly hope to ever love again. The poor filly who was his daughter would be traumatized for the rest of her life. They would now live in poverty, forever reminded of what he had done.
What kind of stallion would do this to his own family?
I threw the letter on the ground, unable to understand. This degree of selfishness was foreign and abhorrent to me, having never encountered it in the Hive. It filled me with anger.
Instead of even attempting to fix things in his life, he was taking the cowardly way out. He was abandoning the daughter who needed him, and the wife who loved him despite his addiction. And if that letter were to ever reach them, it would damage them beyond repair.
This stallion did not deserve to have two ponies who loved him so much. He did not deserve the role of a father and husband that he had been given. The letter had even suggested that he had physically harmed them.
“You don’t deserve to live,” he whispered to the stallion.
I positioned myself over him, and wrapped my black, indented hooves around his neck. I squeezed with all the force I had in my body and the stallion awoke. He struggled as I choked him, desperately trying to breathe. “I am merely finishing what you intended to do to yourself!”
He struck me across the face, but I held firm. “Your family would be better off without you!” I screamed. “All you’ve caused them is pain and suffering!”
He hissed defiantly. “My family is nothing without me. They’ll lose everything…” I strengthened my grip, and pressed even harder.
The stallion flailed for a bit, but soon his movements became slower and less dramatic. In a minute, he had grown completely still.
I released my grip, and his corpse slumped down onto the bottles of drugs.
I collapsed beside him, exhausted. I looked into his brown eyes, which were still glazed open with defiance. He was right though. His family needed him, and now he was dead. How would they survive? Even though he was terrible, they loved him and depended on him to be there.
An idea popped up in my head.
I began to transform. It felt like my skin was stretching, enlarging itself. My glossy, black skin grew brown fur on it. My smooth, horned head changed to resemble the skeletal structure of the stallion that lay before me. Black hair sprouted from my head, and my eyes went from blue to brown.
When I found the strength to stand again, I was a replica of the stallion lying dead before me. Now equipped with powerful earth pony hooves, I began to dig. An hour later, a six foot hole had been excavated.
Covered in dirt, and cringing from hunger pangs, I dragged the stallion’s corpse into the hole. I threw all his drugs, and the wretched letter in with him. I turned around and began to kick the mound of dirt into the hole. Soon, there was no trace of the stallion ever being there. All was left was a plot of dirt with the grass torn up over it.
Having memorized the stallion’s name and place of residence, I began to trot there. This new body would take some getting used to, but I felt the raw, masculine hormones rushing through my veins. The hot blood, the beat of my strong heart, and the thump of my hooves against the ground was immensely satisfying. In another’s pony’s body, I felt truly alive.
Surveying my new body, I found that this stallion was very well endowed. For some reason, that made me feel a rush of pride. Perhaps it was the knowledge that I was more than capable of making a mare melt with ecstasy that made me feel this way.
Soon, my mind began to fill with other ordinary stallion thoughts. All changelings are genderless, but I was always drawn to the bold personas and physical builds of stallions. It felt good to be a stallion, and to know that you were needed. For the first time in my life, I felt significant.
I drew out of the forest and wandered into the quaint town called “Ponyville.” It was very early in the morning, but there were some guards patrolling the outskirts. I knew they would have killed me if I were still in my changeling form. I was safe, but I still felt nervous around them.
Trotting through the cobblestone street, the smell of pastries being cooked in the local bakery wafted in the air. My stomach rumbled. I’ve always wondered how pony food tastes like.
Arriving at a wooden cabin still at the outskirts of town, he stood in the front yard. It was modest, but it was the stallion’s home. My home now.
I trotted up to the door and gave it a firm knock.
The wood rattled on impact, and I waited patiently. The sound of movement could be heard from inside, and I could tell that it was a mare’s cautious step. She knew it was her husband, and she was frightened.
The door opened up, and I beheld the mare who was my wife. She had a straw blonde mane, a beige, earthy colored pelt, and had timid green eyes. “You’ve been gone for two days…” she whispered. She looked her husband over, realizing the difference in his presence. It was then I saw the large bruise mark on her cheekbone, as if somepony had struck her. Swallowing my unease, I smiled at her, a pure and genuine grin. The way a husband should after he sees his wife after a long day. She gasped. “You look so different… and you’re not drunk.”
I smiled again and leaned forward, kissing her in the doorway. She had flinched but quickly relented, melting as I held her lovingly. “I have been a bad father and husband,” I whispered in her ear. She became very still, listening. “But I promise you, that I will be better from now on.”
I drew away from her, and saw an expression of pure happiness on her face. She looked down shyly, blushing. “You haven’t held me like that for years.” She smiled again, tears in her eyes. I could feel my belly filling with sweet, nourishing love. I beamed with happiness, and she continued. “I have been questioning myself for years, wondering where our marriage went wrong. I blamed myself….”
“Shhh….” I whispered, nuzzling her with my snoot. “The fault was mine, and I will make things right again.”
The mare’s tears had now become a steady flow, sobbing with joy. She leapt into my hooves, wrapping me in a warm embrace. “I love you,” she whispered.
I had never received so much love in such a short time in my entire changeling life. I held her tightly. “I love you more.” Pure happiness coursed through me, not only from having a full stomach, but having finally found a place where I was loved and appreciated. I have finally found the place where I belong….
Looking over my wife’s shoulder, I saw a little filly standing in the hallway. She was rubbing sleep out of her eyes, her stuffed giraffe doll in her hoof. So that is my new daughter, I thought. She looks just like me.
My heart swelling with fatherly pride, I beckoned the little filly. She reluctantly drew closer, but she noticed something. “Who are you?” she asked.
Fear pierced my happiness, but I remained steady. I smiled at the filly. “I am your father, of course.”
She looked at the stallion before her, analyzing him. Foals could sense things adults couldn’t. Somewhere deep down, she knew that this wasn’t her real father. But she smiled regardless, and rushed over to me.
She clung to my leg, looking up at me with her bright brown eyes. “Daddy!” she cried joyously. “I made a drawing. Do you want to see it?”
I nodded, relieved and gladdened by her acceptance. I trotted inside, following her. My new wife closed the door behind her, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll make some pancakes for all of you,” she said cheerily, going into the kitchen.
I was too busy playing with my beautiful daughter to hear her. I’m going to grow fat with love here, and I will return the favor tenfold. Looking over her drawing, I beamed. It was a crudely drawn picture of a cabin, with three ponies standing outside, smiling and hugging. It was of them standing outside their house.
I leaned down and whispered to her. “You finally have the father you deserve, and your mother is finally happy again.”
My daughter looked up at me, grinning. “I love you, daddy.”
I grinned, kissing her forehead. “I love you too.”
His wife brought out a giant platter of pancakes, smothered in butter and syrup. They all sat down together, and began to eat. It turns out that this body needs nourishment to be maintained as well. I now possessed this stallion’s DNA as well as his own versatile changeling genetics.
Looking all around, I couldn’t help but notice how happy everypony was. And it was all because of me. It remained that way for many months, up to the current moment I am writing this letter. I saw my daughter go to school for the first time, I impregnated my wife, I found a job and my family has money once again. I have found my place, and I urge other changelings to do as I have done.
There are ponies out there who have been given lives that they do not deserve. Do not hesitate to take it from them. If you see a pony suffering at the hooves of another, don’t be afraid to step in and assimilate. This is the new changeling way. Eliminate bad ponies and substitute yourself in their place. Give their families and friends the pony they so rightly deserve.
This is Carbon Copy, signing off for the last time.
Author's Note
This is my first one-chapter story. Feedback and Discussion is gladly appreciated :)
As the description said, this is the first in a series. Same concept, different scenarios.
Thanks for reading!
