I trotted along an overgrown deer trail, my eyes fixed on the ground between my black, hole riddled, front hooves. The muscles in my legs and feet were aching from my seemingly endless trek through this cursed forest. The Everfree Forest. All my life I had been told stories about foolish changelings who had tried to cross the forest to reach the feast of love that lived on the other side in the fabled land of Equestria. According to the stories entering or attempting to fly over the forest was certain death.
Why did I have to believe Chrysalis when she said that we needed to move, to find a new home where we could live without the constant pain of hunger? Why didn't I listen to my egg-hatcher when he told me that to join Chrysalis was to become a mindless member of the swarm? I asked myself, to be fair I was not the only one to be fooled by Chrysalis' lies, and it was quite possible that her plan to overthrow Celestia had worked. Of course I would probably never know for sure seeing as I had crashed smack dab in the heart of the Everfree Forest managing to almost completely destroy my translucent gossamer wings when we were taking our position on Mt. Canterlot to prepare for the invasion. That had been three days ago, ever since then I had been walking towards, well I didn't know what I was walking towards, hopefully towards home but with my luck probably towards some changeling eating monster.
A blood chilling low pitched growl came from the trees to my right. I turned slowly flattening my ears and baring my teeth in fear, the noise was coming from a huge shaggy gray wolf with long yellow fangs that were dripping putrid smelling saliva. The wolf took a good look at me through its beady hate filled eyes while I braced myself for the attack knowing I could never out run a wolf without the help of my wings. My wings gave a frail little buzz trying fruitlessly to lift me off of the ground and out of danger, the wolf turned tail and ran from me squealing like I had just been bitten off its tail. I had forgotten, here, I was the monster.
*
I had been yet another long week of walking, it felt like my stomach was going to rip itself apart from hunger. I slowly pulled myself out of the damp, grimy hole in the ground I had spent the night in. I didn't even bother trying to clean the smears of dirt off of my once shiny black exoskeleton, I would need every ounce of my energy to get through another day of walking. I continued my death march at a painfully slow pace. I knew that if I didn't feed soon I would die, but I preferred not to think about that, so I stopped thinking to conserve energy and stared blankly into the trees ahead of me as I walked.
*
My feet were numb. I didn't know how long they had been numb, and I didn't really care but I kept tripping over things or getting my legs stuck in holes and that annoyed me because it made me waste some of the precious little energy I had left.
*
The numbness had spread up from my feet into my legs. I looked at the trees, they seemed thinner than they had before. I felt like I should be glad about this for some reason, but I was too hungry to remember why and I didn't sense any love nearby so I just kept walking.
*
I could barely feel anything below my neck. The trees were definitely much thinner. Sometimes there were even clearings where I could see the sky, of course I couldn't care less about being able to see the sky. My wings wouldn't work for at least another few weeks, and besides I was much too hungry to care about any thing other than finding food anyway.
All of a sudden my legs gave out and I collapsed my head slamming hard against the ground. I tried to pull myself up and keep walking but each time I did I just fell back down into the dirt feeling even weaker than before. Maybe dying won't be so bad? At least I won't be hungry any more... I thought foggily as I lay there the last of my energy being used up by the faint beating of my heart. I closed my eyes and felt my mind slowly begin to drift away as the numbness crept up my spine towards my brain.
Just before I slipped into eternal slumber I heard a sweet voice singing as beautifully as the birdsong choir that accompanied it. Along with the voice I could sense a certain feeling that I couldn't quite place, a certain feeling that seemed to pull my mind back out of the void it had been floating into and fill up a little bit of the huge agonizing cavern of hunger that was inside of me. The source of the voice and the feeling seemed to be getting closer and closer until finally when it seemed to be only a few feet away both the voice and the feeling cut off with a terrified squeak. Still too weak to move I lay in the dirt as I heard slow hesitant hoofsteps approach me.
"Ummm... hello?" said the voice quietly, sounding much more timid than before. I felt that I should give some kind of response so I summoned a small amount of energy I didn't even know I had and buzzed one of my torn wings. All nervousness forgotten the owner of the voice came over and rolled me on to its back "oh you poor dear..." it said as it started walking. I bounced slightly uncomfortably with each step and I had no idea where I was going, but for some reason I didn't mind, I felt strangely safe under this creatures care.
I woke up, I didn't remember falling asleep but I must have at some point to be waking up now. Surprisingly the fact that I didn't know where I was or how I had gotten here didn't bother me, because something truly amazing had happened, something I hadn't thought would ever happen again. I had stopped being hungry. The painful emptiness inside of me had been replaced by a feeling of warm contentment. I slowly opened my eyes as the fog of sleep dissipated from my mind and found myself staring at the vine covered rafters of a cottage I suppose this means that what ever brought me here is sentient. I thought to myself.
I stretched my legs their swiss cheese like holes catching on the uncomfortably heavy pink butterfly patterned duvet that was covering me. After a few minutes of tossing and turning I gave up and just pushed the duvet off of the comfortably squishy bed I was lying on and rolled over to try and get back to sleep.
The room was sweltering so I tried to buzz my wings in an attempt to cool myself off, but to my dismay my wings were immobile. I sat up and twisted around, the spines along the back of my neck rising in fear, my wings were bound to my sides by a soft gauze-like material. I started to frantically tear the material off with my teeth, the fabric caught in my fangs and filled my mouth with the repulsive taste of antiseptic ointment.
I heard a terrified squeak from the other side of the room and looked over to see a pale yellow pegasus cowering in the door way. I stared blankly at the pegasus a long shred of fabric hanging from my mouth The creature that brought me here was a pony... a pony has seen my true form... I thought. The first thing a changeling was taught, before even being taught how to walk, was to never ever be seen by a pony. While I was a part of the swarm my commander had tried to rationalize the fear out of me by teaching me a lot of things about the way ponies are similar to changelings, the lessons had helped but some fears don't just go away because reality tells them too. In my fear I forgot that my wings were still partially bandaged and put too much force into flaring them, ripping my wings even more badly than I had when I crashed. I fell forward off of the bed with a loud "SSCCCCRRREEEEE!" of agony, I lay on the floor my hooves hiding my face and tears pouring from my eyes.
I heard a quiet "Oh my..." from the pegasus followed by the soft clopping of hooves as it- or I suppose she- walked over to me. The closer the pegasus got the stronger a warm tingling sensation grew along the tears in my wings, by the time the pegasus had reached me the pain had almost been drowned out by the rather pleasant tingling. After a short hesitation the pegasus helped me to my hooves "Ummm... are.. are your wings okay?" she asked cautiously, she was lightly built with a cutie mark of three pink butterflies on her flank and she seemed to be trying to hide behind her long pink mane.
Gaining courage from the way this pegasus seemed to be more scared of me than I was of her I swallowed, pushed myself up into a sitting position, took a few deep breaths, and responded by saying "No, but they'll heal." as calmly as I could manage.
"Well that's good." she said quietly. The pegasus and I stood in an awkward silence, I was pretty sure we were both doing our best to not run away from each other as fast as possible. "Is... is it okay if I rebandage them, only if that's okay with you of course..."
"Oh, um, y- yes, er, please." I said awkwardly, the pegasus floated over to a cabinet and pulled out a roll of the gauze-like stuff and a small container of some kind of salve, she flew back over and sat down behind me quickly yet gently removing what was left of the old bandages, spreading the salve along the tears in my wings with her soft hooves, and then rewrapping my wings with the gauze.
Deciding that I should probably have something to call the pegasus other than 'the pegasus' I worked up my courage and said "S-so whats your n-name?" swarm damn that stutter, it only ever happened when I was nervous but I had lost track of how many times it had almost blown my cover.
"My name is... umm... my name is flurshmny..." the peagsus said her voice fading into silence half way through her name.
"Huh?" I said raising an eyebrow
"My... my name," the pegasus took a deep breath and forcefully said "My name is Fluttershy, what's yours?"
A little bit surprised at Fluttershy's sudden change of tone my stutter came back at full force "M- m- my n- n- n- n- n- *ahem* m- m- m- my n- n- AAHHHHUUGGH!" I snarled, furious at my inability to complete even a simple sentence, terrified by my sudden outburst Fluttershy had launched herself into the air with a loud,
"EEEEPP!" and was now hanging off one of the rafters.
"I'm sorry," I said "I- I just got angry with my st- stutter and... and..." I hung my head in shame, Changelings were supposed to be flawless parts of the well oiled machine that was the hive, not stuttering, anger prone idiots, and for some reason I felt horrible about scaring the timid pegasus. Fluttershy detached herself from the rafter and floated back down to the floor slowly flapping her wings,
"Oh, it's okay, it's not your fault, I'm just easily frightened is all, " she said cheerily "so what is your name?"
"Oh, m- my name is..." I struggled to remember, in a society where the goal was for every individual to be the same names were not commonly used, My name is Shifting M something, Shifting Ma, Shifting Mo, Shifting Mu, Shifting Mi, Shifting Mir... "Shifting Mirage!" I said triumphantly, just then there was a loud knock on the door downstairs.
Fluttershy gave a sharp "Eep!" of surprise "Mirage, hide somewhere, I'll go see who it is!" she said in a hushed voice before cantering out of the room. I looked around, there weren't any good hiding spots I could fit in other than under the bed and that was kind of exposed with out the duvet, I heard the creak of a door opening, it would have to do. I pulled the duvet closer to the bed so it would stop anyone from seeing me from the doorway. Once I had climbed under the bed I lay still and listened to what was going on downstairs.
"Hi Fluttershy!" said the newcomer,
"Hello Twilight," Fluttershy responded softly, Okay so the new pony's name is Twilight... I think, saving this information in my brain just in case I need it later. "Ummm... Twilight, I hope you don't mind my asking but why are you here?"
"You checked out the book 'Supernaturals' a few weeks ago and it's about to be overdue."
"Oh, thank you for reminding me Twilight, I think I left it up in my room."
I heard hoofsteps walking towards the stairs, "Okay, I'll just go and get it-"
"Oh, no nonononono! I'll get it!"
"Ummm, oookaay...? Are you okay Fluttershy?" Twilight said sounding quite confused.
"Okay, of course I'm okay Twilight, I'm absolutely brilliant, never been better!" Fluttershy said loudly. I face hoofed, could she possibly be more obvious?
"Suuurrrree?" Twilight said sounding extremely suspicious.
I heard Fluttershy's soft hoofsteps coming up the stairs, as she trotted around looking for the book she spotted me in my rather obvious hiding spot and after finding the book under an empty birdhouse she pulled the duvet onto the bed and spread it out so that I was hidden from all sides before trotting towards the doorway.
Suddenly when Fluttershy was halfway across the room there was a flash of bright purple light behind her that quickly faded away leaving a purple unicorn in its place. I tensed my muscles preparing to leap out from under the bed an tackle the unicorn, who I correctly assumed was Twilight, but probably luckily before I could jump Twilight's horn glowed as she cast some kind of spell on Fluttershy. I felt waves of freezing cold so powerful I found myself paralyzed radiate from the unicorn's horn, I could only imagine how cold Fluttershy felt being right next to Twilight. As quickly as she had started the cruel unicorn stopped radiating cold.
"I'm so sorry for that Fluttershy, I thought you had been impersonated by a changeling spy..." Twilight said guiltily, Fluttershy had dropped Supernaturals and was cowering on the ground shivering with terror. Fluttershy quietly pulled herself to her hooves before saying,
"Oh, it's okay Twilight, I suppose I was acting a bit suspicious..." Fluttershy traced something on the floor with the edge of her hoof managing to look at least as guilty as Twilight, it annoyed me to no end that Fluttershy was apologizing even though she hadn't done anything. During the long awkward silence that followed I began to regain feeling in my frozen limbs, about the same time I got the ability to flex my ankles I heard the rustling of paper as Fluttershy picked 'Supernaturals'
"So, uh, here's the book..." she said tentatively
"Th-thanks Fluttershy, I'm really, really sorry about that..." Twilight's sorrowful voice trailed off, At least she feels bad about it, as she should!
"Oh, no, it's okay," Fluttershy paused "so, umm, you'll be going now, right?"
"Well, yes, unless there's something you want to talk about,"
"No, there's nothing I want to talk about" Fluttershy said a little too quickly.
"Are you sure?" Twilight sounded concerned
"Yes, yes I'm sure."
"Well okay then... Oh yes and before I go, be sure tell me if you see anypony acting suspicious. We may have defeated them in Canterlot but I'm sure those despicable changelings are going to try something, and when they do I'm going to make them pay for what they did to Shiny and Cadence." I heard Twilight angrily stomp a hoof before trotting down the stairs and out of the cottage.
'We may have defeated them in Canterlot', does that mean Chrysalis and the swarm were defeated, and what did we do to 'Shiny and Cadence' that makes this pony so angry? I wondered as I crawled out from under the bed, as I stretched my legs Fluttershy came back up the stairs, I head a far off screaming start from outside the round window somewhere in the sky. Fluttershy galloped over to the window,
"Oh Celestia not again..." Fluttershy said sounding worried and ever so slightly annoyed,
"What?" I asked looking out the window, there appeared to be a screaming streak of rainbow flying out of the sky towards the cottage, as it got closer I saw that the streak of rainbow was actually a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail hurtling through the sky.
"Ummm, Mirage you should probably make yourself look like a pony before she gets here..." Fluttershy suggested
"That's probably a good idea." I said, unfortunately taking the form of a pony, or shifting as it was commonly called by changelings, isn't as easy as it looks. Right now the pony I could impersonate most easily was Fluttershy because I could see her, but it would be pretty suspicious if there were two Fluttershys so my only option would be to visualize a pony, I closed my eyes, stepped away from the window, and tried to focus. Okay, so, mare, deep navy blue coat, short spiky black and white mane and tail, a pegasus, like Flutttershy, it's odd how much I trust her already, well I suppose she did save my life and she is- I slapped myself mentally Focus changeling! So where was I, oh yes eye color... unable to think of a color I opened my eyes and saw Fluttershy glancing back and forth between the screaming rainbow pegasus and myself, I looked at Fluttershy's coat it was such a nice shade of yellow Pale yellow eyes aaannnnnnddd a few cuts on the wings to explain why I can't fly... Done!
I focused all of my brain power on visualizing. I had decided on my general look but I still had to make the slight details that made a pegasus unique like eyelash length, wing size and power, feather design, fur length, ear shape, scars and a massive list of other tiny little vital details that made a pony look like a pony. Slowly my disguise started to take shape, but unfortunately just before I shifted Fluttershy gave a squeak of fear distracting me and making me open my eyes.
I stepped back over to the window and looked out, the rainbow pegasus was dangerously close now, close enough to see me looking out the window at her. I saw surprise, anger, and the tiniest bit of fear flash in the pegasi's eyes before she closed them and folded in her wings to increase the her speed. I leapt away from the window just before the pegasus flew through it with a crash and smashed in to the wall opposite the window creating a large cloud of dust.
Unsure of what to do I shifted into the pony I had visualized earlier, navy blue fur spread like wildfire across my exoskeleton from the base of my already shrinking horn to the bottoms of my now solid hooves, my teeth became blunt and shrunk as the spikes on the back of my neck sunk into my spine, my vision focused as pupils and pale yellow irises formed in my eyes, a short black mane sprouted into existence on top of my head a single lock of white hair hanging down over my left eye, my tail became bushier and soft, and finally under my bandages I felt my gossamer insect wings thicken and strengthen into the feather covered wings of a pegasus. I took a few steps back away from the dust cloud wondering if I should hide somewhere No, if I hide this pegasus will assume that Fluttershy is a changeling, and she doesn't deserve for anything else bad to happen to her.
As the dust began to clear I could see the pegasus pulling herself up off the ground and shaking small chips of wall out of her mane. The pegasus saw me looking at her and locked eyes with me, her gaze was practically dripping with fury, she snorted, puffs of dust coming from each nostril. She tensed her muscles, about to tackle me, Well this wont end well...