Change.
Humanity fears change, it always has. Change always means new problems and new things to think about. It often leads to misunderstandings, and can make the youngest of us feel old and deranged, unable to keep up with the times. Change means something new, something unexplored, and while we may always strive to explore all lands, we will always have that irrational fear of the dark, and the unknown.
They were different from us. Because of that fact alone, their very existence brought with it a sense of change, a shade of doubt on the laws and customs of the world we knew, and a fear for what the future might hold. And they felt the same way, in fact, even more so. For while we were simply having the two of them presented to us, the Shapeshifter and the Mage were having our entire world presented to them.
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It had been three weeks since I arrived in this world. Heavy rain splattered across the sidewalk, washing away the dirt that caked it's cracks. Every drop that fell upon my grey hoodie made a silent thunk, one that was felt rather than heard. To prevent my hoodie from being completely soaked, I walked into the shelter of a nearby 7/11. The tingle of a bell accented my entrance into an already dramatic scene. A teenage girl sat against a wall in the corner, holding her arms out in front of her blood-drained face. The cashier, a short, stubby man, had one hand on the nearby telephone, but another on the cash register, hesitant to do anything with either. And in front of him stood a rather scrawny man, holding a knife for all to see. And the noise of the door opening caused him to turn and look at me.
"Y-You," he stammered at me, "away from the door, on the ground, hands up. N-n-n-NOW!" He yelled the "Now" at the top of his lungs, perhaps to make up for the stammer. I walked up to him, and leaned onto a nearby shelf, loaded with candy bars and instant noodles. The girl looked He seemed nice enough. "I-I said-"
His sentence was cut short when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cash register pick up the phone. His reaction was spontaneous. "GET AWAY FROM THE PHONE!" He turned, threatening the cashier with the knife.
When he turned back around I was inches away from him.
"Hello," I said.
He yelped, backing away from me and the cashier, allowing me to calmly step between him and the cashier. I was at an angle now where only he could see my face, and that was exactly what I had wanted. He watched as sickly green, heatless fire enveloped my face, burning away my skin. The fire flowed across my features, turning my skin charcoal black. My teeth turned black as well, though the fire seemed to fuse with them, soaking them with green venom. And as quickly as it appeared, the fire receded, flowing into my eyes, making my irises burn around my slitted pupils. The clang of a knife dropping echoed through the store as the man backed away from me. I made a sickly smirk. Flame once more shone through my eyes, and burned away my charcoal skin to reveal a more human face. Only it wasn't mine. It was his. His footsteps fell hard as he ran out of the store, the jingle of the bell accenting his departure. I changed back to my original face, and went to comfort the teenager on the floor. She was crying.
"Thank you," she sobbed. "Thank you so much. I - I wish that there was a way I could tell you how grateful I am."
But she had no need to tell me. I knew exactly how thankful she was. I could feel it. It was in the air, resonating through the store, sending waves of emotion with every sob. I reached my hand up to her face and stroked her cheek with my finger, keeping her face between my hand and the cashier. Green flame flickered from my fingers as her tears dried. Her eyes slightly glazed over. I gave her a light hug, and she shook her head, bringing her eyes back to normal. I helped her stand up. The cashier looked at me with a great amount of disbelief. "Thank you." She said it again. It was becoming all that she could say.
"You're welcome," I said. It was all I could think to say. I made my way to the door.
"Hey," she said, "what's your name?"
"My name," I said, "is Nova." I am Inner Nova. I was a changeling, a creature whose entire species was at war with the ponies of equestria. This is the story of how I, and one other from my world, came to live on earth.
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I awoke in a forest, finding my body re-arranged in a very odd fashion, I was bipedal, and having imitated diamond dogs and minotaurs before, that in itself was not strange, but I felt no magic coursing through my veins, no sign that I was in disguise. I sat up, rubbing my head, and looked at the peculiar occurrence to my right. A strange creature, female, of a species that was completely unknown to me. It was bipedal, leading me to believe it was connected to my new physical form, but it had little fur of any kind. It reminded me of a minotaur, only thinner and more primate-like. It then stirred, and when it saw me, it's brow furrowed into a cold stare.
"You."
I was taken back by her voice, not because it was unlike anything I have ever heard, but for the opposite reason: that I had heard it before, only belonging to not this creature, but a unicorn mare, one whom I had been feeding off of in my most recent memories.
It was here that I realized I could not remember how I ended up here, and I suspected that neither could she.
She also punched me in the face.
