From Mars With Love
4 Discovery
Previous ChapterNext Chapter4 Discovery
They took me far from the hive. Very far, at least 5 cycles of travel passed as we traveled. More could have gone by which I slept through. I became quite bored in the cage. It made me feel sorry for Sandy. With no orders to perform and nothing interesting to occupy one’s mind with time simply blurred into one single chunk.
Sandy talked to me for the first three days, but at that point the freed ponies were taken by some of the soldiers to their homes or hospitals. Sandy had to leave with them. I still remember her last thought to me,
Amusingly enough her next hoof step pushed her past my mental range making a reply impossible. That was all right, I would see her again soon. But the rest of the days were far more lonely and I especially missed the patient way Sandy explained many pony concepts to me. She told me she was an assistant school teacher and was used to helping ponies learn. I hope this wasn’t her way of saying I was a child or stupid. I cleared recalled my age as 58 and I was perfectly intelligent… It’s just that pony concepts and the nuanced way of speaking they used clashed with Changeling efficiency.
I remember how the pony settlement Canterlot looked as we left the forest. The idea of building a hive not only above ground but on the side of a mountain was simply baffling. It would have taken much less work to cut the needed space out of the mountain. I remembered a hive to the south had attacked this settlement many years ago. A hive inside the mountain would have also made make the attack far more difficult.
Even though it was strange and exposed the pony settlement seemed quite lovely. Buildings were made from white stones, tended to tower high into the sky where they were topped with purple clay tiles, and gold decorations embellished nearly every building. The city was densely packed, and the streets aside from a few main roads were quite narrow. If I didn’t look up I could pretend I was in a very well lit network of tunnels. It was comforting.
The ponies on the other hand were definitely not comforting. Many of them lines the streets, jearing at us as we passed… No not us. Me. Even the larva seemed to have something mean to shout at me. It made me angry for a while but I showed them. I morphed my ears away until my cage was wheeled into a very large structure at the center of the city which the ponies who were not traveling with me seemed to be unable to enter.
Within seconds of restoring my hearing I heard a guard order, “So this is the weird one huh? Take it to the dungeons, cell five has been prepared for interrogation.”
I wondered exactly what the cell had to be repaired with for a moment but a massive tapestry on a nearby wall took my full attention. It was a gorgeously woven piece of abstract art sure, but it’s loose cotton weave looked very warm and soft. If no one had been looking I might have had to take it down and make a nest of it. One of the guards pushing my cage noticed me appreciating the tapestry and asked the other “I-is it appreciating art?” He looked confused.
His unit-mate shrugged, “Maybe. You should have seen this one… I mean I didn’t personally but I heard first hand. Apparently it talks.”
I informed, eager for conversation.
“Ummm...ok.” The guard who had just spoken muttered in reply.
The other guard seemed more friendly, “Probably very soft. It’s made from Breezy woven threads. I almost bought a blanket made from the stuff but I am not paid my yearly salary in a month.”
“Silver! Don’t talk to the prisoner.” the other chastised.
“What? It’s a Changeling sure, but it talked. It’s not just some killbot drone. I was on duty back when these guys attacked our city. You couldn’t reason with those ones, they were just monsters. This one talks. It has to be well, a person. I think it understands we won't hurt it if it doesn't try anything funny, so it’s no different from any other prisoner.”
The less talkative guard decided to ignore me and just push my cage. His unit-mate however replied in a tone I now realized was an interested one, “Realy? You have a funny way of naming things. Does the hive’s name mean anything?”
“So the name of one of your hives tells you where it is?”
“Neat. Do you name everything like that? Do you have a name?”
“I realy wish you would just stop talking to it Silver…” The other guard sighed.
He nodded interested in what I was saying but stopped walking as we came to a large wooden door at the end of the hallway. He moved forwards, took a key from his belt and unlocked the door, relocking it behind our group as we entered. This space was filled with small pens made from stone bricks with one iron barred wall facing the hallway in which doors were set. Most of the cells were empty but I could smell plenty of ponies within the area.
The guards wheeled me a short ways down the hallway stopping in front of one empty pen. “Right, we put it in this one.” unfriendly guard informed moving to open my cage’s door. “Get ready to make sure it doesn't run away.”
I stood up and density shifted, moving forwards through the bars of the cage, hopping to the floor, and moving into the pen, phasing through it’s door to enter. Both of the guards jumped, exclaiming or cursing in shock. I understood now that phasing through objects was not common to ponies, perhaps not even to Changelings. It was however fun to scare people with it.
“Sooo…” Silver said in a shaky tone, “You are pretty much only here because you agreed to be? Could you please not just walk through the castle? I don’t even want to think about what princess Luna would do if… just please stay put ok?”
“Yes.” unfriendly guard grunted.
The two guards walked away pushing the cage with them, “When did you tell it your name?”
“I didn’t you only mentioned my first name… How the hell did it know my name?”
Unfortunately they were quickly out of the door and I lost their conversation. I was alone again. There were the voices of a few other ponies in the… dungeon I believe this chamber had been called. But their voices were quite, hard to hear and probably not meant for me anyways. I lay down on my belly, crossing my forelegs in front of me to rest my chin on and waited. I waited for a long time, at least a quarter cycle before a unicorn mare entered the dungeon and trotted up to my pen.
She was mostly gray, but her coat faded to black down her legs. She had an interesting black fading to white tipps main and tail color, and kept her hair bound in a sort of puff behind her head. I couldn’t quite tell what her eye color was, her eyes were a bit… wrong. After a few moments of thought I realized there was a UV blocking substance covering each of her eyes. I wondered if she knew this made her eyes look like empty black voids and made her rather creepy.
She tapped one hoof on my cell door, “Hello, One of Four? Are you awake?”
“Could you reply again please?” She asked, closing her eyes and lighting her horn with a magic aura.
The gray and black mare flinched, “Oops! I’m sorry! I haven’t tracerout and connected to a Changeling before. I’m slowing my connection speed… Is this better?”
The pain slowly faded until I could nod,
“Because very few ponies ever develop telepathy or any such ability. Also as far as I know I am the only one with wi-fi… I’m always surprised that if something pings me I can connect to it using IPv4 protocols.” she giggled.
“Because my firewall is preventing unauthorized data transfer. No, I am not Princess Celestia. I am Jaesa. Celestia asked me to make sure it is safe for her to interrogate you herself and to get anything I an out of you. After all I can tell if you are lying, also I don’t have any bias towards your species. Basically Celestia wants to make sure you are not a shape changed Queen lying in wait for her to come in range of a revenge attack.”
Jaesa frowned, “That’s weird… You don’t look like a drone, but you are not lying. Are there any significantly different families of Changelings?”
“Well,” Jaesa’s creepy blank eyes seemed to scan over me for a moment, “Your wings are shaped more like a dragonfly’s and lack holes in them, your hooves have fewer than the normal number of holes, you have the crimson x shape pattern on your exoskeleton, you are slightly taller than a drone, the shell which covers your wings is a glossy black instead of a deep blue, and according to the report you have the distinctly non-drone powers of speech and the ability to walk through solid objects.”
I thought about this for a while.
“Sure.”
“Do you see ultraviolet light? The outer layer of my eyes is a material which blocks… Did you sjut say deep space?”
“How do you know about space?” Jaesa asked her face contorting into a shocked expression.
“Do you know what space is?” Her face expressed even more confusion.
“Yes, there is… Let’s forget about space for now. Do you intend to harm anypony?”
“I will see if anypony is willing to let you have some love.” Jaesa assured, “Just let me ask a few more questions. Do you know why you can do things other Changelings can not?”
Jaesa nodded, kicking the floor with one hoof thoughtfully. “I wonder if germline mutations are a thing here. I’ll need to ask Twilight for books on biology... You could be a mutant.” Her face stretched into a curious grin, “I heard you're species are shape changers, would you mind showing me? You know for science?”
I nodded, it wouldn’t be much of a problem to transform for her. But what to change into? I decided to shift into a copy of her, if only so she could see how freaky her eyes looked. I concentrated, the holes in my hooves slowly filled. My chitin split into fur, I developed an endoskeleton, my horn reshaped, my wings melted onto my back vanishing, my tail filled out as my mane grew in.
Jaesa’s grin widened a bit as she watched me morph, “That’s amazing! But why did you keep your red stripes? I don’t have those.”
I looked down at my chest, sure enough the crimson bands crossed over my barrel and shoulders, “Huh… Interesting.” I said out loud, mimicking Jaesa’s voice.
She reached through the bars and curiously touched my shoulder directly on the red patch, “This feels like… Rubbery skin…” She gave it a curious tug, the patch lifting off of my shoulder, stretching somewhat. “This is clothing… Do you remember putting this on?”
I shook my head,
“Ok, well I think I have enough information for Celestia now. I will see someone brings you food before she arrives later this evening… Also my eyes are pink. Did you not change your senses when you copied my appearance?”
I shivered slightly and looked away from her voidlike eyes. I could see them normally now but the memory was more then enough to creep me out.
She shook her head, chuckled and trotted away, opening the door and leaving without another word.
Next Chapter