Peaceful. That was how one would describe Ponyville if they didn't know any better. Anyone who arrived by train and spent a day in this quaint town would have figured it to be incredibly calm, tranquil, almost boring. For the most part, the town seemed quite quiet.
But, when it gets loud it gets really loud.
"CHANGELINGS IN PONYVILLE! EVERYPONY PROTECT YOUR FAMILIES!" a tiny voice yelled. Spike ran as quickly as his short stubby legs would let him. "RUN HOME AND BAR YOUR DOORS! THEY ARE ALREADY AMONG US!" he shouted as loudly as he possibly could. To him, today seemed like it was going to be a total nightmare.
Had it been any other inhabitant his age, any colt or filly, none of the ponies in town would have taken the claim seriously. However, this was Spike, assistant to the princess and hero of the crystal empire. So, naturally, it was panic in the streets.
Spike continued to sprint through his beloved town, doing his best to warn as many as he could before it was too late. Eventually, he basically leaped into a nearby shop and slammed the door behind him. It wasn't until he actually looked out the door's window that he realized was in the store Quills and Sofas.
A clerk spotted him from behind a counter, smiling. "Hi there, junior! How can I help-"
"DO YOU HAVE QUILLS?!" yelled Spike with panic. It was fortunate they were the only two in the store, otherwise Spike might have gotten some odd looks.
The clerk hesitantly shook his head. "Well, no. Amazingly, that's our most popular item."
"I NEED-"
"Now, Sir, would you kindly relax!" said the clerk.
"HOW AM-"
"Sir!"
"BUT WE-"
"Sir!"
"I-"
"SIR! PLEASE CALM YOURSELF! YOU ARE NOT CONTRIBUTING TO A RELAXING ENVIRONMENT IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT!"
Spike looked at him, failing to find the right words. He finally took a deep breath, and managed to at least stop panting. "Fine. Listen, this is very important! We have changelings in Ponyville! I need to send a letter to Princess Celestia right away and warn her! Maybe Canterlot can send us help! I have paper, but nothing to write with!"
"Whoa, whoa, hang on, changelings? Are- are you sure?" asked the clerk.
"Yes!" said Spike, suddenly looking very nervous. "You could actually be one!" he said and pointed into the clerk's face. "I could be one for all we know! Can changelings even do that? Can they turn into dragons?! I wish this had been previously established!"
"Hey, junior, we're alone in a shop, the door is closed and the way you're leaning against it, nopony's coming in here. If I was a changeling, I probably would have done you in by now."
"Y- yeah, you're right. Do you have anything we can write something with?"
The clerk shook his head. "Nothing in this building but sofas."
"You must have something to write with! I need to send a letter to Canterlot right away!"
"Sorry. Sofas."
"Am I supposed to write this letter with a sofa?!" exclaimed Spike in frustration.
The clerk stared at him for a moment. "I would pay to see you do that."
Spike just groaned.
"Well, I just had some whole-wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce," said the clerk. "Maybe you can write with the leftovers?"
"There is no way I'm going to write a letter with-"
***
dear Princess Celestia please send hellp immediately Changelings
PS sory about the mesy ltter
P.P.S. I can't believe I found a pencil under the sofas NOW. Unbelievable! Anyway, to explain what's happening more in detail
PPPS nevermind the pencil broke
***
"Okay, hopefully she will get that," said Spike, as the essence of his green magical flame floated out through a small open window. It had to have been that window, as every other opening had been barricaded with a wide variety of sofas. It would have been at least two hours before they would get help from Canterlot, and at least three hours until Spike would realize he could have saved himself a lot of work if he had only written the letter by just using the sauce instead of the spaghetti.
The clerk looked down at him. "When you say 'get', do you mean that it will get to her, or that she will understand it?"
Spike shrugged, visibly concerned. "Hopefully both. I don't know if my magical fire can handle food, and I could barely read the spaghetti."
"I bet you nopony has ever said that before."
"Right now I don't know what more I can do... I'm worried about what they did to Twilight," said Spike.
"They got the Princess?" asked the clerk, shocked.
"Yeah," said Spike.
"Do you know where she is?" asked the clerk.
"No. She and the rest of my friends went over to Rarity's place. They said she had planned something big for them. In hindsight, it seems Rarity was the changelings' first victim." Spike looked up towards the ceiling. "Oh, Rarity, with all my heart I wish you to be safe and sound."
"What about the others?" asked the clerk.
"Them too, obviously!" said Spike.
"Alright, but how did you figure it all out?" asked the clerk. "Changelings are great at that sort of thing."
"These ones weren't. They had gotten really sloppy! At first, I thought it was Twilight who had gotten back home, but it was actually a changeling! The idiot had forgotten Twilight's wings! Not only that, her voice was wrong too! It was Rarity's voice! Do you have any idea how creepy it was? I was just there, saying hi, and right where my brain is telling me something is uncanny, just off, she starts talking with Rarity's voice!"
"Sure would make me turn around and run, that's for sure," said the clerk.
"But, you know, it had happened earlier today too. I was out for a walk after I had cleaned my room, and I met Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Not only did Pinkie Pie have wings, but Fluttershy didn't have any at all, and she was really loud! I knew something was up then, but I just figured Twilight had done some weird spell. I thought it would be rude to mention it... On top of it all, I realized that their voices were exactly the same!"
"Spooky."
"Yes! It was! Then, I saw Rainbow Dash and Applejack! Basically the same thing there! At that point, it was really creeping me out! Once I met the fake Twilight at home, I finally put two and two together."
"Right you are, junior. Also, I have no idea who any of those ponies are."
"My friends!" said Spike.
The clerk walked over to the windows and tried to look past the sofas. "Well, in any case, good thing you warned everypony. Seems almost all of them are hiding in their homes."
"Yeah. I can imagine. There's probably not a single pony outside."
That's when someone knocked on the door.
"Spike? Is that you?" asked a voice. It was Rarity's.
Immediately Spike felt torn between getting the door open, and staying inside forever.
"Rarity, is that really you?" asked Spike. He had never been that cautious.
"Yes, Spike," said Rarity.
"We're all here," said another voice. It was Twilight's. "Now, what in the world are-"
"Prove it! Say something only my friends would know!" said Spike.
"You gave Rarity a ruby once, before you turned into a giant dragon on a rampage," said Applejack.
"Everyone could have found out about that! Also, thanks for reminding me!" said Spike.
"You once got us all sucked into a magical comic book!" said Pinkie Pie's voice.
Spike and the clerk exchanged a look. "Well, okay- but someone might have heard about-"
"You once got jealous because of an owl," said Twilight.
"You almost got killed by timberwolves despite being able to breathe fire," said Applejack.
"You're a very good singer," said Pinkie Pie.
"You wet your bed until you were-"
"Okay!" said Spike. "Okay! It's you!"
"Spike, what is going on here?" asked Twilight. Spike dreaded her strict voice. "Come out of here this instant, you are in a lot of trouble unless you have a good explanation," she said. "Everyone we've talked to told us that you told them that there are changelings in town. Why would you do that?"
"Because there were! I saw them! They looked like off versions of you! It was scary!" said Spike as he and the clerk started to move sofas out of the way. "Like, I was sure that they had gotten you. I thought this was another crisis! I was so afraid they had hurt you!" said Spike as they moved the last couch.
"Spike, we checked. There are no changelings in town. Not that we know of anyway," said Twilight.
Spike opened the door. "Well, good, because AH! CHANGELINGS!" The moment he saw the ponies outside he slammed it in their faces. "DID YOU SEE?! I TOLD YOU! DIDN'T THAT JUST LOOK WRONG?!"
"Spike, what in the world!?" said Twilight.
"You're not fooling me! You've got them all wrong! I don't know how you found out about that info, but if you've hurt them I swear I will-"
"Spike! We've just switched colors and mane styles!" said Rarity.
There was a moment of silence.
"Um... what?" asked Spike finally.
"That was my big plan!" said Rarity. "I wanted to experiment a bit with color, see how different colors complemented different aspects of us! We used a bit of magic, but it's honestly mostly paint! Spike, dear, couldn't you recognize us?" asked Rarity.
Spike hesitated, but eventually unlocked the door and peeked out. They all stood out there, seeming more concerned than anything else. Their colors were all wrong, but their story could have been true.
"But, if you changed all that, how was I supposed to see the difference?" asked Spike. "I mean, without that, how am I supposed to see any difference at all?"
"Wait... what?" asked Twilight. "Spike, it almost sounds like you've-"
***
"Yep," said the doctor. "It's official, he's got prosopagnosia. He's face-blind." They were all in in the hospital, in a doctor's office. It had been a few hours, but they had finally managed to calm down the town, tell ponies about what had really happened, scheduled a meeting with an expert and organized the sofas.
"So, our Spike can't actually recognize facial features?" asked Rarity.
"Yes, that's right, Miss Rarity," said the doctor.
"Wait, is that a real thing?" asked Pinkie Pie.
"Yes it is," said Twilight. "I've read about it, but I never realized Spike... I don't know if that's a trait with dragons, or if he's just born with it."
"Well, at least stuff is back to normal," said Rainbow Dash.
"Thank goodness," said Twilight. "Spike, I know this wasn't your fault. You thought there was a crisis and you acted as anyone else would have, should have. At least we know about this, so we can warn you next time."
"I'm sorry, I was just really worried. I'm glad that-" but Spike suddenly started to gag. With a belch, a roll of parchment appeared out of thin air. Spike took the document and read it out loud.
"'I forgot to write back and thank you for the lunch.' Okay, so at least I know why we didn't get any guards," said Spike, tossing the parchment in a waste basket.
"Come on, Spike, let's go home," said Twilight. "Thank you, Doctor."
"You're welcome, Princess. Have a good day, now."
They left the room, walking down the hall towards the exit.
Once outside, Spike couldn't stop staring at the ground as he walked. "This is really weird. Like, nothing's changed, but still everything is different."
"That's today in a nutshell, really," said Rainbow Dash.
"I didn't even know. Almost everypony I've ever met look exactly the same other than color changes and manes. I guess I just figured that was how it was." He thought to himself, wondered if it really even mattered. In the end, it didn't. He still cared about those around him. Appearance didn't matter, never had. He glanced at Rarity, realizing that she was still beautiful to him in a way he could no longer explain with words. Perhaps this just meant there was something special about her.
Anyway, to him the day was thankfully over. Considering that he had feared the worst, today could have been a total nightmare. He was very glad.
***
Hours had gone by since the dragon and his friends had left Quills and Sofas, and the clerk yawned as the sun set. Realizing nopony was in the mood for buying a sofa at this hour, he decided to close early.
Tired, and a bit hungry, he locked the door, put up a closed sign in the window, turned off the lights and headed upstairs to his bedroom. What a day! Another example of how Ponyville was anything but boring. A little inconvenient, but he was glad to call the town his home.
Closing the shades, he then jumped into his bed, that looked oddly like a sofa, slipped under the covers and turned off the lights. The room became completely dark, suiting him just fine.
Then the entire bedroom was suddenly bathed in bright light from a green flame. In the bed a strange creature rested comfortably, looking more like an insect than a pony.
He muttered sleepily to himself in a slightly raspy, clicking voice. "Honestly, though, today could have been a total nightmare."
THE END
