Author's Note
The following story is a completely, 100% authentically original one what come from my own brainbits.
Any resemblance to other works of fiction, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Also, many thanks to GaPJaxie for something else I asked him about some time ago that's unrelated. So mind your own damn business.
Thank you for reading.
Sheord it?
“What?” Twilight asked, staring across the room. Her mouth hung slightly open, and a small thread of saliva started falling like spider silk from her bottom lip.
Fluttershy stared back without answering.
Twilight’s brow crinkled like old plastic wrap in the hooves of a very dumb child.
“I’m a changeling,” Fluttershy repeated, placing a book down on the floor, where it belonged. “No, wait.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow.
“Oh… I’m so sorry,” Fluttershy muttered sadly, her head lowering to the ground. “I messed up. Can I try again, please? I have a point. I promise.”
“Uh…” Twilight frowned. “Is this the best time? I mean, we just finished, you know, fighting a war, and if this is a joke, it’s in really bad taste.”
“N-no, Twilight, it’s not,” Fluttershy responded meekly. “I mean, you know me. I don’t really know how to do the funnies.”
“Yeah. I can’t argue with that.” Twilight shook her head. “Look, what is it, then? What do you want to say?”
“Let’s say that… um… let’s say that I were a changeling…”
“Wait, are you?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.
“Um…”
“Are you?”
“No!”
“Then what are you trying to say? Whether you’re saying it directly or not, you’re trying to suggest something, aren’t you?” Twilight raised her hooves with impatience.
“T-twilight, I’m sorry!” Fluttershy squeaked, holding a book up like a shield. “I-I just wanted to en-engage in philosophical debate! I had an opening line and prepared a whole bunch of re-retorts and everything, but… but I messed up!”
“Look, I have no time for all this faffing nonsense! I have a library to clean, and a Spike to help regain consciousness, ponies to help, and a thousand and one other things to do. Do I look like I have the time for a philosophical debate?” Twilight stamped her hoof down. “Philosophy is for ponies with time, Fluttershy. Time. And conscious assistants.”
Twilight flung her hoof in the direction of her couch. Somehow, Spike had, at some time, blacked out under mysterious circumstances. They found him face-down in a puddle when all was said and done and dragged him home.
Fluttershy gave the dragon a soft, but guilty gaze. “Um… I think he’s just sleeping…”
“Oh, how would you know?” Twilight snapped.
Fluttershy winced. “I… I can tell. Angel pretends to be unconscious all the time. I don’t know why, but I believe he’s trying to become an ambush predator.”
“Are you suggesting that Spike is like one of your weird forest animals?” Twilight glared.
“Um…”
“Yeah. Well. Whatever.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “He’s had a long day. Anyway, you’re here, aren’t you? What are you here for if you’re not helping?”
“I’m helping! I’m helping!” Fluttershy put another book on the floor, pulling a carpet over it. “B-but I also wanted to ask a question!”
“This whole Changeling thing?”
“Y-yes.”
Twilight stopped in the middle of rearranging her Foreign Policies shelf, her hoof hovering over a book about shawarma and their various uses. She lowered her leg to the ground, turning slowly and cranking her neck, which gave out a couple of very loud and clear pops as her tired bones and muscles stretched.
“Okay. Fine. What’s the question?” Twilight asked. There was a strain to her voice, a little warble of stress, like a titmouse being strangled by a stork.
“What if I were a Changeling?” Fluttershy asked.
“Then I’d shoot you in the face with a giant slingshot loaded with Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said. “And you would die horribly in a very colourful mess.”
“O-oh! How terrible!” Fluttershy squeaked. “You would really do that?”
“Yes!”
Fluttershy held her wings closer to her body, huddling up against them like a security blanket. They kept her warm. They chased away the naughty no-good wubbly-bubblies.
“T-twilight?” Fluttershy called out meekly, her eyes watering.
“What,” Twilight stated through clenched teeth. It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.
“Are you angry about the Changelings?”
“Am I–” Twilight repeated, exasperation setting in. “Yes, Fluttershy. I am upset. Very upset. Are we even on the same planet here? Did you not see what happened?”
“No, I meant… are you angry about all the Changelings?”
“Yes, I’m quite angry about all the Changelings, Fluttershy. I’m not sure what you’re trying to insinuate!”
“You shouldn’t be, I don’t think.” Fluttershy rubbed her neck.
“What?”
“I think it’s… not fair.”
“I don’t see how I could possibly understand what you’re telling me.”
“Well… let me put it this way. Let’s say that there was a unicorn who called Applejack the m-word. There’s a difference between saying that some unicorns called Applejack the m-word, and–”
“Wait, what?” Twilight said, rolling her hoof in a circle. “Excuse me?”
“– and all the unicorns calling Applejack the m-word.” Fluttershy finished.
“No. No. Wait.” Twilight continued to wave her hoof around. “Did some unicorns call Applejack a mong?”
“N-no!” Fluttershy burst out in a stutter. “That’s awful. I meant mud, Twilight.”
“Oh,” Twilight said, still frowning. “Oh. That’s marginally better. But who the heck is going around calling Applejack a mong? She doesn’t have learning difficulties.”
“No one, Twilight!” Fluttershy twittered in frustration. “No one. No. I’m sorry. I messed up again. I just meant… I meant that there’s a difference between casting blame on an entire race because of what one of them did, and just blaming the individual.”
“Oh…” Twilight nodded, a look of intense scrutiny passing her eyes.
“So you see? What I’m getting at is that we should really take–”
“They really shouldn’t call Applejack a mong.” Twilight shook her head.
“No one called her a mong!” Fluttershy squeaked. “Twilight!”
“What? But you said!” Twilight glowered.
“I… I… I’m sorry.” Fluttershy sighed. It was the easiest thing to do at this point. “Okay? I’m sorry. Just… just forget it. Can we get back to my original point?”
“Which is what?”
“O-okay. There are… bad spells, right?”
“Bad? Yeah. Obviously. One was used to put Princess Celestia into a giant gross diaper of snot and bug remains. Point?”
“A-and there are good spells, right?”
Twilight simply stared.
“R-right,” Fluttershy said. “But just because one spell is bad, you can’t call all of magic bad. Just like if there’s one good spell, not all of magic is good.”
“So, what you’re saying is…”
“Yes, Twilight.” Fluttershy nodded.
“You’re saying that Changelings aren’t inherently good or bad. It just matters how you use them!”
“Uh… I guess so, yes.”
“They don’t get to choose how they were made?”
“Um… no. That’s…”
“Changelings don’t kill ponies, I kill ponies?”
“No!” Fluttershy squeak-squealed. “Oh, Twilight! I thought you were the smart one!”
“I am!” Twilight yelled back. “Look, I’m… I’m tired, okay? We’ve had a long couple of days and there’s a lot on my mind! Why don’t you just give it to me straight? Enough with the metaphors! I know that an extended metaphor helps to drill in a point, but I just don’t have the time and patience for all of it! So just give it to me!”
Twilight started dragging an imaginary box toward her chest, curling her front legs inward in a yanking motion.
“I… well… I was… you know. I did, at one point, I think. But you were distracted by the mongs...”
“Oh. Oh. Oh.” Twilight backed up, knocking into her books. “You’re saying it’s my fault now?”
“Th… that’s not what I’m saying…”
“Well it sounded like that’s what you were saying!” Twilight stamped the floor with her hoof.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy gasped.
“I’m not going to stand idly by and let you slander me! Now, apologize, you unhygenic mustelid!” Twilight raged.
“W-why are you so mad?”
“Mad? Why am I? So mad?” Twilight seethed and sputtered. “Me? Why? Mad? Mad? Why am me? So mad?”
“Whoa,” Fluttershy said.
“Let me tell you something. Let me tell you why I’m so mad, Fluttershy.” Twilight rushed forward and bipped her friend on the forehead. “Who are the elements of harmony?”
“Uh… is that a rh–”
“Who, Fluttershy?”
“W-we are?”
“And what is our job?”
“T-to promote pea–”
“That’s right, to kick ass and look good doing it!”
“I’m sure that’s not…”
“And I was prepared. So prepared for this. I psyched myself up and everything. Made plenty of calculations for the final showdown.”
“Yes?”
“And then at the end, I gave Cadance my words of encouragement…”
“Yes.”
“And told her to use their spell, just as I planned…”
“Uh huh?”
“And they succeeded!” Twilight shuddered.
“Y...yes, they did?”
“They weren’t supposed to have succeeded!” Twilight yelled to the skies. “My stupid brother was never supposed to have that much energy! I thought Chrysalis drained the heck out of him! Sucked him dry!”
“O-oh, how vulgar!” Fluttershy shuddered.
“And then, when they failed, I would st– We would step in and save the day!”
“But… I thought you wanted her to…”
“I wasn’t about to be upstaged by my foalsitter, Fluttershy!” Twilight seethed.
“But…”
“And seriously? With the power of love?” Twilight said mockingly. “What is this, some stupid cartoon for dumb little girls? No! You have to use punchmagic. That’s how it’s done.”
“I-I…”
“Look at my tiara! Look at it!” Twilight pointed to her head.
“You aren’t wearing your–”
“This is a symbol of my super magic friendship magic! Do you even understand what that means? That means Princess Celestia entrusted me with kicking the ass of everyone in Equestria.”
“I… don’t think that’s what it means… I…”
“Urgh!” Twilight finally let out a groan, gasping and breathing and huffing and wheezing. When it was all done, she finally let her shoulders drop and her eyelids drop shut.
Fluttershy tilted her head.
Twilight opened her eyes again and gave her head a little shake. “Ugh. Fine. Fine. I’m better. Sorry. I just had to let it out. Fine! I just… get really irritated when my plans don’t happen exactly as I lay them out.”
The little yellow pegasus nodded, quivering.
Twilight twirled around, looking back at her wreck of a library. “Fine, I’ll let her have this one. But next one’s mine, you hear me?”
“A-alright, Twilight. Promise. We’ll get the bad guy next time.”
“Right. Great.”
“G-great.”
“Yeah.”
The two ponies stood there for a moment, letting the silence take hold.
A semblance of tense peace returned.
“What were we talking about?” Twilight asked, as she knelt down to sort through another stack of waylaid literature.
“I’m not a changeling.” Fluttershy said.
“I never said you were.” Twilight replied.
“I… just in case. I don’t want you blasting me with a Rainbow Dash.”
“I wouldn’t. Probably.”
“Th-that’s a relief.” Fluttershy managed a soft smile.
In the corner, Spike snorked as a bit of a snore escaped his nose.
“Where did you get this idea from, anyway?” Twilight spoke, her back still to Fluttershy as she sorted through her books.
Fluttershy trudged slowly to another pile to work as well. “I just… I don’t know. I thought… When we were fighting them, that they were just like… some of them looked really sad.”
“Sad?”
“Yeah. Sometimes animals get sad, too, you know.”
“They’re not animals. Not everything is an animal, Fluttershy.”
“O-oh. Sorry. I… I guess I kinda think of things in terms of animals too much.”
Twilight placed a book up on a shelf, leaving her hoof on it as she chased a fleeting thought. “Why do you think they looked sad?”
“I… I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want to fight.”
“Didn’t they, though?”
“I was thinking of it. Some of them looked like the citizens of Canterlot did. It’s in the eyes, you see.”
“The eyes, huh?”
“Y-yeah,” Fluttershy said with a wistful sigh. “And then I thought about it more. And… and you see, when a fox raids a henhouse…”
“More animals,” Twilight stated, her ears flicking.
“Yes. But I have a point. I promise.”
“Okay.”
“When a fox raids a henhouse, no matter how hungry it is, they never kill all the chickens. They never eat all the chickens. They only take one. Maybe two. Mister Cluckson down at my hut has already lost three wives that way.”
“Uh huh.”
“And the reason why is because if they kill them all, they know that’s the end of it. They know they’ll be eating their last meal.”
“Fluttershy, how is it you’re so timid about everything else but you talk about chicken death like nothing?”
“Because nature is wonderful, Twilight.”
Another ear flicked.
“Oh.”
“Yes… So, it got me wondering… what do Changelings eat, Twilight?”
“Love.”
“So why would the Changelings want to enslave an entire land? That would make everyone sad. And why would they want to starve themselves?”
There was no answer, merely the shuffling of binded stacks of paper as books were moved around from shelf to shelf.
And then it stopped.
“So what are you suggesting?” Twilight asked.
“Maybe… maybe there’s just one bad spell. Maybe it’s just a really naughty Queen trying to control things for… different reasons. Maybe the Changelings don’t have much choice.”
“You think so? Why don’t they fight back, then?”
“I think those are politics, and I’m not good with politics,” Fluttershy admitted. “I think there could be a thousand reasons why, but I think what’s important is that there’s something wrong, and maybe we should be more sympathetic to the Changelings.”
Twilight finally turned around.
She stared her friend in the face, walking closer.
Her friend stared back, defiantly albeit a bit wobbly in the knees. But the passion and love was there.
“Fluttershy, I want to ask you a very serious question,” Twilight said, “and I would appreciate the truth.”
“Y-yes?”
“Are you a Changeling?”
Fluttershy shook her head. “No.”
Another moment passed as Twilight kept her gaze.
“Alright then.” She nodded finally. “I believe you. And I think you might be right about the Changelings. Some parts, at least. Maybe they’re not… all good, but maybe they’re not all bad. I think this is worth looking into, at least.”
“Thank you, Twilight.”
“Spread it around, okay? Tell everyone your idea, and see what everyone thinks. I’ll talk to Princess Celestia about it and we’ll see what we can do. Maybe we can find out what our true enemy is.”
“Yes, Twilight!” Fluttershy grinned.
“And I can kick her ass.”
“Y-yes, Twilight.” The grin disappeared.
“Good. Good.” Twilight nodded.
She quirked an eyebrow.
“You sure you’re not a Changeling?” Twilight asked.
“No!”
“Because you sure like to hang around animals a lot. Really happy ones, too.”
“B-but I just love…”
“And you really hate fighting and you like peace and flowers and junk like that.”
“They’re… nice! That’s all–”
“And there was that one time that I saw you with Big Mac and you guys were–”
“Noooooooooo!” Fluttershy yelped, holding her hooves up to her face as she fell to the floor, her large eyes filling up with water. “We didn’t! I promise! I wasn’t doing anything to him! There was just something on his rear and I was helping him wipe it off!”
“... You guys were sharing a pizza.” Twilight finished.
“O-oh. Uh… Um…” Fluttershy sputtered, turning whatever colour yellow and red mixes into. “I… I have to go!”
Twilight watched as her friend suddenly rushed out the door without a second’s wait nor an utterance of ‘goodbye’.
With a sigh, Twilight looked around the library, and the glorious amounts of books still left to sort.
Well, Spike was going to have to work extra-hard.
Picking up the pace, Twilight moved slowly and then walked to her door, peering out to find that Fluttershy had long gone.
She stepped out, letting the sun hit her in the face. It was glaring and stung her eyes, but she had to take it. She couldn’t stay indoors all the time, even though she’d much rather prefer it.
“Oh, hey, Twiglet!” A voice called from her left. Turning, Twilight found her other friend Pinkie Pie approaching from the side.
“‘Twilight’, Pinkie. It’s ‘Twilight’. You’re going to have to remember one day.” Twilight sighed. “Anyway, how’s it going?”
“All super-duperiffic! And how about you, Twi-twi?”
“I just had the weirdest conversation.”
“Really? I love weird! What was it?”
“Fluttershy asked me what would happen if she turned out to be a Changeling.”
Suddenly Pinkie stopped bouncing. Her expression turned from happy to mild seriousness in a sort of general normalcy that wasn’t quite regular for her.
“Oh, really?” Pinkie asked.
“Yeah. She’s not, though. I mean, of course I can tell.”
“Then what did she want?”
“Turns out in the end she just wanted to throw this insane idea out that not all Changelings were bad.”
“What? Really?” Pinkie smirked. “That’s ridiculous!”
“I know, right?” Twilight rolled her eyes. “It was based on this notion that Changelings only eat love and some of them looked sad or whatever. So I just let her go on and just sort of stuck in character and eventually let her believe that she might be right.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s infuriating dealing with her, you know? In any case, I told her to spread her ideas around a bit more. Hopefully the idea will spread and a little bit of heat will be taken off the Changelings.”
“That’s a great idea, Twi!”
“Especially in the wake of this big act, it’ll give the real ponies something to think about. Maybe even confuse a few.” Twilight nodded. “In the end, if they end up arguing with themselves, it’s just all the better.”
“I can’t believe the main plan worked, though,” Pinkie said. “It was pretty genius of the Queen.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. But I think these idiots really believe that they beat Chrysalis. They’re going to focus their attention on her and her return, and they'll never think to look right under their noses.”
“Speaking of which, how does it feel like playing for the other team?” Pinkie grinned.
“I dunno. How does it feel like being that idiot?” Twilight pointed to Pinkie. “Anyway, we’d better not talk business out here. You never know who might be listening.”
“Oh, right. But where’s Spike?”
“Inside.” Twilight shrugged. “I knocked him out with a rock earlier. Always wanted to do that, you know. Annoying bugger. Always riding me like I’m some sort of donkey. I wonder how the real one ever tolerated that.”
“Okay. Let’s talk later. But I was just about to go get lunch. You wanna join me?”
“Sure. I could eat.”
“Oh, wait. Let me get back into character…”
Pinkie suddenly wobbled a bit, jumping up and down in place as if making practice hops. She shuddered as she did, forcing her smile upward into odd angles.
“Whee! Hehehe!” she giggled. “Yay!”
“Ugh,” Twilight muttered.
“Okie dokie! I’m all good, good, good!” Pinkie yelled.
“So, who do you wanna eat today?”
“Donut Joe?” Pinkie shrugged.
“Donut Joe,” Twilight said, as they walked off.
