Shadows in the North - A Sundering of Equestria Tale

Chapter Eight

Tears blinding her vision, the changeling who had been calling herself Butterscotch fled as fast as she could from the people she’d dared to consider her friends. Insect instincts taking over, she sought out dark, small places; she found a cave in the mountainside, and dived into it. Blindly she flew deeper and deeper, the air around her getting darker and darker, the echo of her buzzing wings increasing in volume as the stone walls closed in on her.

Eventually her tearstained eyes spotted a small crevice in the rock and – like a woodlouse fleeing the daylight – she scuttled into it backwards, folded her wings and curled up. She closed her eyes.

Her name was Exuvia. She had been cursed from birth – a defect, in an otherwise flawless changeling body, moulded and grown to be the perfect mirror-image of the Changeling Queen – with something no changeling was supposed to have.

A heart.

Changelings did not have hearts. No other changeling did and, from what she knew, ever had. From the lowliest drone to the great Queen Chrysalis herself, no changeling possessed the complex organ that, in mammals, pumped blood around their bodies. Changelings were simple creatures, with fluids that oxygenated easily and did not need pumping around their bodies.

Perhaps Exuvia could have continued in her previous life, had not that heart come bundled with a mass of chest-twisting, always-painful, worldview-altering emotions. She hadn’t been able to look at the ponies the Changelings had taken over without feeling empathy – a disabling sympathy, combined with sadness and regret, which formed an emotion so strong she could have sworn that her unaccustomed body was going to tear itself apart over it.

Exuvia was an anomaly. Had her fellow Swarm Commanders – a caste created with the sole purpose of leading the lesser changelings in war – discovered that she was different, they would have torn her apart. She knew this; when it came to behaviour, all changelings knew how they were supposed to act. It was swarm instinct. Feeling mercy, helping non-changelings, wanting to find a way of living that didn’t hurt anyone – pony or changeling – was not how she was supposed to be.

So she had fled. Exuvia had flown from the Changeling-ruled city of Vanhoover under the cover of night, disguising herself as a pony she’d once known as soon as she’d reached the nearest Republic settlement. Even with her inherent changeling skill at infiltration, it quickly became clear to her that she couldn’t remain there, living alongside a species that was not her own.

She might have hated her brethren for how they treated other species, but she was still a changeling. Try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself otherwise.

From there she’d made her way north, where the towns and villages were sparser. Exuvia had realised that she didn’t belong with either the changelings or the ponies; so she struck out on her own.

Her stomach growled. Exuvia curled up tighter.

Food had been a problem. Changelings did not eat food in the same way that ponies and other creatures did; they fed on emotions. Stronger, purer ones, like love and companionship, filled a changeling moreso than fear or hate, but any emotion, felt strongly enough, was a source of food.

Exuvia had avoided eating. Eating meant feeding on pony’s emotions – something she was not willing to do. She was afraid of losing control. A changeling could feed on a pony over time, draining their emotions bit by bit until the unfortunate prey eventually became a dried-out husk, but Exuvia was so hungry that she was afraid that, if she tried to feed, she’d drain her prey’s emotions all in one go, hurting them or even killing them.

Not that she wanted to be a parasite anyway. Exuvia believed that there must be a better way of living than how Queen Chrysalis was ordering them to. Not that she could think of one…

Her stomach growled again, this time much more painfully. She hadn’t fed in so long. She was…. hungry. So very, very hungry.

Suddenly Exuvia heard a shuffling, scraping noise, coming from deeper into the cave. It came closer and closer; Exuvia tried to pull herself deeper into the crevice, afraid of being discovered. She stared out fearfully into the cave.

The shuffling became footsteps, and all of sudden Exuvia was staring up into the glowing eyes of a hulking, four-limbed creature. It had an enormous torso, gorilla-like forelegs, and a spiked collar around its neck. What finer detail there might have been remained unseen, in the darkness of the cave. Though she had never seen one face-to-face, Exuvia had heard of such a creature.

Diamond Dogs.

The dog leered down over her, lips parting to form a smile, revealing a jaw full of teeth strong enough to crunch through rock. Several more Diamond Dogs appeared from behind it, also looking down at the frightened Exuvia.

“Well, well, look what we have here,” the closest Diamond Dog muttered, in the strange accent of their kind.

“What is it!?” another asked, peering around the larger dog’s shoulder, “A po-nay?”

“No, a bug-thing,” another said.

“Can pull a cart, good enough,” the closest one snapped, “Drag it out!”

As a mass of sharply-clawed paws closed in around her, Exuvia, in her terror, became fully aware of just how hungry she was. She had been suppressing her hunger for so long now. She was so very, very hungry…

When the first paw touched her glossy black carapace, her fear pushed her instincts into overdrive.

She was a changeling. She needed to feed.

*

“What in the Twelve Kingdoms is wrong with you all?!” Léa was shouting, “Star-Strike, she was your friend! You don’t point guns at your friends! And Staid, that goes for you too – are you even listening to me? Stop staring at nothing! And Centurion – you know what, I’m not even surprised you tried to kill her. Why were you attacking the Discordian, anyway?”

“He tried to eat my sword!” Defiant Arc protested. The aforementioned Discordian was sitting next to him, patting his forehead lightly with a forehoof, a cross-eyed expression on his face. The Centurion eyed him suspiciously and curled a hoof protectively around his sheathed sword. “So are we killing him or what?”

“No-one’s killing anyone,” Léa told him firmly. She had been the one to pull the two wrestling stallions apart, just as Defiant Arc had got his sword back was about to run it through the Discordian’s grinning face. “As ridiculous as it sounds, that mad-pony’s probably the most sensible one here. Speaking of sensible; Staid – come on Staid, get a grip.”

The Colonel was sitting down in that strange, dog-like way of his, staring at nothing. “It’s not the same…” he was muttering, “Is it? Nothing wrong with being a changeling, I know that, I know that. Discordians aren’t… I’m not… It’s not the same….”

The griffon shook her head and turned away. The final member of her group was sitting a way away from the others, holding her head in her hooves. Léa swooped over to her.

“Star-Strike,” she said gently, “I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You were just surprised.”

“No, you’re right,” Star-Strike said quietly. She was almost fully curled up on the cold ground, her Starbeam rifle discarded on a patch of snow nearby. “I was her friend. I shouldn’t have…” She sighed in despair and frustration. “Why didn’t she tell me? You knew, that’s why you weren’t surprised! If only she’d told me before, I wouldn’t have reacted like that! Why didn’t she tell me earlier? Didn’t she trust me?”

“Maybe she was just scared as to how you’d react,” the Major suggested. Star-Strike looked back down at the ground. “And I only knew because I’d noticed something was up and confronted her. She must have trusted you far more.”

“She was alone when I found her,” the pegasus said quietly, more to herself than the griffon, “She looked like she needed help – needed somepony to protect her against the shadow-ponies. I thought… heh, I thought I was being a big hero, swooping in with my rifle and boasting about being a Nightstrider. I must’ve looked like such an idiot.”

“I think she did need help,” Léa said, “She doesn’t seem like a normal changeling. I think she needed friends. And then we let her down. All of us.”

Defiant Arc trotted over to them, leaving the Discordian where he was. “I don’t really care about all this friendship stuff,” he said, obviously having overheard their talk, “But what do you mean, she’s not a normal changeling? She looked just like all the other bugs I’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t call her that,” Star-Strike said quietly; too quietly.

“What was that, rebel?”

“I said – don’t call her a BUG!” Star-Strike leapt up and slapped the Centurion across the face with her hoof. Outraged, the Old Equestrian straightaway went to draw his sword – and was immediately tackled to the ground by the Discordian.

“Ecneliov si tuo fo noihsaf!” the surprisingly strong unicorn exclaimed, while Defiant Arc struggled to get out from under his hooves, “M’I gnivas uoy morf laicos tnemssarabme! Msificap si os ni thgir won!”

“Thanks, um, whatever your name is,” Star-Strike said, emotionally exhausted.

The Discordian smiled, whilst Defiant Arc tried to pull his hoof off of his face. “Llac em Idlaviv!” he told her.

Star-Strike frowned. “Viv… ladi, aldi… Vivaldi?” she asked, a smile spreading across her face when she realised that her theory had been correct. “Is that your name, Vivaldi?”

The Discordian – Vivaldi – nodded joyously. “S’that ym eman!” he exclaimed, “T’nod raew ti tuo!”

“Sorry, I didn’t get any of that. Could you say it again?”

“For Celestia’s sake, mad-pony, get your hoof off of my face! I promise I won’t spill her traitor guts on the ground, alright!?”

Leaving the other three be for now, Léa made her way over to Colonel Staid. He was now standing up, but continued to stare somewhat worryingly into the middle-distance. Léa wondered what it was about previous events that had shocked him so badly.

“You alright, Staid?” she asked, “Having an OAG moment? Or should that be OAP? Old age something.”

“I’m not that old,” the Colonel replied, shaking his head to clear it, “Sorry Major, it was a bit of a shock to me to see that transformation. But you… you already knew, didn’t you?”

“While you were coming up with your theories about what was going on, I noticed something was off and asked her about it,” Léa told him bluntly, “She didn’t tell me outright she was a changeling, but, well, in retrospect, it kinda makes sense. Ha, look, there’s one for each of the factions fighting now – a griffon, an Imperial, a loyalist, a rebel, a Discordian and a changeling. Isn’t that neat?”

“Yes…” Staid said suspiciously, “A coincidence, do you think?”

Léa brushed off the idea. “No getting off track,” she said, “The transformation wasn’t the only thing that surprised you, was it?”

“No,” Staid admitted, “It was… what she said. ‘What’s wrong with being a Discordian?’ Discordians are a problem, they are a threat to civilisation, I know that; that’s an immutable fact! But… what’s this one done to us? Nothing. Miss Butterscotch – or whatever her real name is – was right. This Discordian has saved our lives, not once acted violently towards us, and yet we were discussing killing him, just because of what he is – or what he has become.”

“Deep,” Léa commented, “So, are you saying you’re okay with Discordians now?”

Staid shook his head. “Discordian, come over here!” he called, “Actually, could all of you, please? I have something I’d like to say.

“We think he’s called Vivaldi,” Léa told him, as the Discordian came bounding over, followed shortly by Defiant Arc and Star-Strike.

“Very well. Vivaldi, if that is your name,” Staid said to Vivaldi, as the others gathered around, “I will begin by saying that I remain opposed to Discordianism, in thought and action. However. I have… been convinced that I should not perform what I believe to be my duty and shoot you. So, Vivaldi the Discordian, here is my proposal. You will not attempt to harm either myself or any in our group. You will remain at a minimum distance of six feet away from me at all times, unless it becomes necessary for either your safety or my own. You will not leave my sight unless a plan of action calls for it. In return, I will not attempt to harm you and will keep anti-Discordian comments to a minimum. We may even be able to co-operate on some things, if you maintain this agreement faithfully. Do you accept this proposal?”

“I, ni thgil dnim dna detnecs ydob, od eerga ot lla esoht sgniht uoy tsuj dias, Retsim Dlo Yug!” Vivaldi said happily, and held out a hoof.

With a certain amount of reluctance, Staid held out his own hoof. The two shook.

Star-Strike and Léa LeFeather gave a few enthusiastic claps at this momentous occasion. Defiant Arc rolled his eyes.

“Not quite what I’d hoped for, but it’s something,” the griffon said, “Star-Strike, you’re alright with this I hope?”

The revolutionary nodded. “Of course. It’s what Bu-, my friend, what she wanted. She’ll be proven right about Vivaldi, I’m sure of it.”

“What about my opinion?” Defiant Arc said gruffly, “I don’t want a Celestia-damned mad-pony following me around.”

“Centurion, you don’t want any of us around,” Staid said laconically, “Your opinion is therefore most regrettably null and void in these matters.” This elicited a chuckle from Vivaldi. “Discordian, you may stop shaking my hoof now.”

“Ho, yrros.”

“Now we’ve got that sorted,” Star-Strike said suddenly, with a degree of force in her voice that surprised them all, “We’ve got to find Butterscotch, or whatever she’s really called. I drove her off, and I’m not letting her stay out here by herself. Even if she doesn’t want to be around me anymore, at the very least I can say I’m sorry. But I can’t find her by myself. Will you… will you help me?”

“Of course!” said Léa, putting a friendly arm around the smaller pony’s shoulders, “Girls stick together, right?”

“Eht Rorepmegnops si syawla pu rof gnipleh sih slap!” Vivaldi said encouragingly, and wrapped a foreleg around Star-Strike’s shoulders from the other side.

“It may not be part of the original plan, but it was my actions that prompted this series of events,” Staid said solemnly, “Of course I will assist you.”

“Well, I guess since my opinion is ‘null and void’…” Defiant Arc muttered.

“Thanks, everpo-, I mean, everyone,” Star-Strike said with a grateful smile, looking around and the three kind faces and one grumpy frown that surrounded her. “I think… she flew off that way around the mountain. I don’t know if there’s a path so, Léa, do you think you can get your Cart to fly again?”

“Maybe,” Léa said modestly, “I built the thing. But, having said that; Vivaldi, come with me. Let’s get moving, every¬pony!”

*

The wind had picked up again. The sun, never far above the horizon this far north, had been completely blocked off by the granite-faced mountain range. The five quadrupeds making their way up the gently-rising, rock-strewn mountain slope thus faced increasing difficulty, battling against the ice-laden wind and the rising cold.

Captain Star-Strike was in the lead, rifle slung over her back, head raised in defiance of the weather as she traipsed forwards, wind beginning to batter at her furled wings. Her eyes were fixed dead ahead, occasionally glancing up to scan the skies for any signs of pony-sized, aerial invertebrates. She would have been shouting out her missing friend’s name if she knew it, or if there had been any chance of her hearing it over the terrible wind.

Behind her, scowling at the ice and snow swirling around him, was Defiant Arc. A significant distance between these two demonstrated that the Centurion was second more out of being the only one capable of matching the pegasus’ determined pace than any desire to walk with her.

Following the two of them at as fast a pace as he could was Colonel Staid, who was wrapping his fur coat as tightly around himself as he could. Most of his saddlebags were once again draped over him, as well as two lighted lanterns. He had tried repeatedly to get the two comparative youngsters to slow down, but either they couldn’t hear him or they had chosen to ignore him.

The sounds of mechanical growling and the creaking of wood overhead, heard now and again, served to remind the three on the ground where the other two were.

“This is pointless!” Defiant Arc growled, loudly enough for Star-Strike to hear, “Even if your changeling friend is around here, there’s no way we’ll be able to spot her!”

“She went this way!” Star-Strike countered, shouting back at him, “She’ll be here somewhere, I know it!”

“She just flew off!” the Centurion shouted, “She could be miles away by now! What makes you think there’s even the tiniest possibility you’ll ever find her again?!”

“I have to try!” Star-Strike retorted angrily, “I drove her off, but I want to see her again. I know you might not give a flying feather about her, but some of us have hearts, Centurion! Some of us!”

Defiant Arc growled in annoyance, but held his tongue. Vaguely he could hear Staid behind him, shouting at them to slow down, but continued to ignore him. Suddenly, Star-Strike gave a squeal of excitement.

“There she is!” she shouted joyously, rushing forwards towards a dark shape that had appeared out of the sleet-storm, “Butterscotch! It’s me, I found y-!” She skidded to a halt by the shape. “Oh, it’s just a rock.”

Defiant Arc stopped alongside her. Star-Strike expected him to laugh, or say something hateful, but instead he was staring, almost speechlessly, at the rock.

She looked up at him, confused. The Centurion continued to stare at the rock – or rather, pile of rocks. The Captain wasn’t sure, but she believed it was called a cairn. It was a kind of marker, wasn’t it?

“What is it?” she asked. No explanation was forthcoming, however.

“Shut up,” Defiant Arc said, not even glancing in her direction. He began examining the cairn closely, as though looking for something.

A moment later, Staid finally caught up with them. “Have you found something?” he asked, not at all breathlessly.

“The Centurion’s met the rock of his dreams,” Star-Strike said, “Or rocks.”

“Centurion? Care to explain?” Staid asked, watching impassively as the Guardspony continued to examine the pile of rocks from every side.

“It’s called a cairn,” Defiant Arc began.

“I knew that,” Star-Strike commented.

“Whatever. See this hole here?” He pointed with a hoof. “There should be a stick or a metal rod or something here. It must have fallen off, or got blown away.”

“But what is it?” Star-Strike pressed, “Why make a pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s a marker, you idiot,” Defiant Arc said, glaring at her, “The stick or whatever points in the direction of where you want to go. Making these things is basic Royal Guard training, when you’re sent to remote locations like this.” He traced the line of the hole with his hoof, and followed its direction. “It’s pointing to that cliff.”

Star-Strike and Colonel Staid followed his line of sight. There was indeed a cliff, just visible through the ice-laden wind, jutting out from a point where the otherwise gently-sloping mountain they’d been steadily climbing became astonishingly steep.

“I found one of these cairns earlier,” Defiant Arc continued, “When the griffon was building that machine of hers. That one had a stick in it, but before I could get its direction I was attacked. THAT, fillies, right over there, is the waypoint.” He sounded extremely pleased with himself. “Or leads to it, anyway.”

“Excellent!” Staid said, “At last, fresh supplies and a warm place to sleep. But let’s not celebrate just yet; we don’t know-”

“Hold on!” Star-Strike said, moving between the two stallions and the distant cliff, “We can’t go there yet! We still haven’t found Butterscotch! Or, you know – our friend! That’s who we’re looking for, remember?”

Defiant Arc opened his mouth to speak, or possibly yell, but Staid held out a foreleg and stopped him.

“Before we start arguing over this,” he said calmly, “Let’s see if our allies have had any success in their endeavours.” He unhooked one of the lanterns he was carrying with a hoof, and began waving it over his head in a repeating pattern.

A few moments later, there came a great rumbling, creaking noise, and from out of the storm-shrouded sky came Léa LeFeather’s Cart, swooping down on them with its great wooden wings. Its engine continued to chug and roar as the machine landed somewhat ungracefully, bouncing a few times on its immense spoked wheels before it came to a skidding stop some distance away.

The Cart folded up its wings and gave out a gurgling noise – it may have been just the engine slowing down, but it sounded to the three ponies listening like an animalistic chuckle – before the engine stopped altogether. Major LeFeather and Vivaldi jumped off of its back and hurried over to them; the griffon gliding on her robust wings, Vivaldi hopping after her in a strange pronging motion.

“Oh cool you found some rocks,” Léa commented, as she noticed what the three ponies were standing around.

“Did you discover anything of use?” Staid asked them, “Any caves, paths, lights?”

“Nothing,” Léa said, shaking her head, “Nothing that looked like a place our friend might have buzzed off to. We went all the way around the mountain, and some of the next one.”

“I saw gninialpxe tahw ew erew gniod ot eht sduolc,” Vivaldi chimed in, “Yeht t’nevah nees gnihtyna gnitseretni, tub yeht t’nod evah seye os s’ti ton gnisirprus yllaer.”

“You were… something about clouds?” Star-Strike guessed, trying to replay what words she had picked out backwards in her head.

“What about you three?” Léa asked, “Find anything? Other than this fascinating pile of stones, of course.”

“It’s a cairn,” Defiant Arc growled, “Pointing the way to the waypoint. Remember, the waypoint? The thing we’re heading towards? Before we all die out here?”

“Apparently there is a hole indicating the direction of the waypoint,” Staid elucidated, “That cliff, behind you, either contains said waypoint or leads to it.”

“But we can’t go over there yet!” Star-Strike protested, her tri-coloured mane flapping about wildly in the wind, “We haven’t found Buttersc- the changeling, our friend! She’s still lost out here!”

“I have a theory!” Staid said loudly, trying to speak over the rapidly-rising wind.

“What?!”

“I said-”

Staid was cut off by a sudden roar of wind that slammed into them all like a physical force. Flakes of ice and snow were blasted against them like sand in a sandstorm. Vivaldi grabbed hold of what was apparently thin air just above his head and clung on, like a pony trying to hold onto their hat in a storm.

“If she’s sensible,” Staid shouted, in a sudden lull in the wind, “She’ll have taken cover in a cave! Now since-”

He was cut off by another fierce blast that almost knocked him over. Star-Strike, being a much lighter-boned pegasus, was actually lifted up into the air for a brief second. Léa had to stab her talons into the ice below her to maintain her balance. Vivaldi dropped straight to the ground, apparently extremely protective of the small empty space above his head.  Defiant Arc seemed to just shrug it off.

“We get it, to the waypoint!” Léa shouted, “We can shout more there!”

“Enoemos teg em emos gnirts ot eit ym stah no htiw!”