What Do Changelings Look Like?
No, really. What do they look like?
Discord sat in the Restricted Wing of the Royal Canterlot Library, talon and paw above his head. Quick, sharp breaths escaped his muzzle as his brain fumigated itself for the impossible task he had agreed to perform in the service of Princess Celestia. And what deed would be impossible for peerless Discord?
“Discord,” Celestia asked after she took a sip of tea, “I’d like you to develop a Changeling Defense Plan for Equestria.” She smiled warmly at Discord as she cradled the cup and saucer in her golden glow.
A chuckle escaped his winning smile as he, seated across from Celestia, took small nibbles out of a tea cozy. “That sounds like a tall order. Your Royal Guard not up to it?”
“Well, ideally, it’d be a stratagem that we could adapt against any sort of threat.” Celestia sipped on her tea. “I just chose Changelings because they’re still around. I mean, Nightmare Moon and Sombra are no more, Tirek’s in Tartarus, and—”
“I’m sitting pretty talking to you,” Discord said as he finished off his tea cozy and summoned a book, which he munched on with vigor.
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I’m not really sure that’s the proper way to digest literature.”
“You’re right,” Discord said between bites, “could’ve used a red sauce.”
“Whatever you say.” Celestia smirked, finished off her tea, and set the cup and saucer down on the table. “Now, back to the Plan: What exactly do you know about Changelings?”
Discord wolfed down the book. “I know everything you know.”
“Including what they look like? Your field of vision was hampered during the Invasion.”
Discord rolled his eyes. “Of course I know what they look like!”
That was a lie. He had no idea what they looked like. He just knew they were… equine-y. Discord raised his head and took a deep breath. Good thing he was inside of the largest knowledge repository in Equestria. This should be easy, he thought to himself as he leaned back and summoned himself a nice, frothy mug of—
“Shh!” The librarian admonished. “And no food or drink in the library! This is a restricted area! Do you know how much it would cost to restore any of these artifacts of Equestrian civilization if they took liquid damage?”
Discord gave a cockeyed stare at the librarian and snapped his adult beverage away. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”
The librarian snorted as he jotted down something on a piece of paper. “Someone who obviously doesn’t know how to use a library. Show proper decorum. And no snapping! It’ll distract the other browsers.”
Discord looked to his left and right, noticing that the only two being in the library were him and the librarian. “But there’s—”
“Shhh!”
Discord clenched his jaw. “But there’s nopony else in the library to disturb,” he whispered.
“Well, you’re disturbing me. I’m currently going through the list of checked-out books.”
Discord tapped his talons—
“Shhh!”
Discord grunted as he stopped tapping his talons. “Who checks out books from the Restricted Section of the Royal Canterlot Library? It’s not like it’s a public library where you just walk in and say, ‘oh, look, an art book, I’m going to take this home and forget about it for three years’.”
“Very. Important. Ponies.” The sound of scribbling pierced the air as it congealed between the two beings.
Discord pinched the bridge of his muzzle. “Well, maybe you could direct me towards any information of what Changelings look like.”
“You’ll want photographs from the Invasion, aisle I3B.”
Discord grinned at the progress he had just made. “Thank you. Now where is aisle I3B?”
The librarian buried his face in his hoof, then waved his pencil towards the shelves. “Just read the shelves, I don’t have time to lead you around like a foal.”
Discord glared at the very rude librarian as he stood up and read the inscription at the top of the bookshelf.
A1A.
He then looked at the inscription at the top of the bookshelf next to it.
A2A.
Discord screamed internally as he methodically searched through the library for the correct bookshelf.
After literal hours of searching after he discovered the live teleportation ward cast upon the library, he had found it: Aisle I3B - Photographs of Concern. Discord scanned the shelves that were lined with plastic sleeves, pulling out random photographs and putting them back until he found one that looked… equine-y.
Discord gasped at the horridness of the creature depicted. It had a stub horn, insectine wings, and holes in its legs. Literal, actual holes in its legs! It was the most vile, horrific thing he had laid eyes upon—and he had seen Tirek up close.
He had to see more.
He quickly pulled out photographs and cringed harder and harder at each Changeling he laid eyes upon, feeding some deep desire to disgust himself until he chanced upon an image that had a sheet of paper slotted in front of the photograph labeled Changeling Queen.
Discord thought on this for a good bit. He then pulled back the paper.
Celestia took shallows breaths, her gaze fixed on Discord. “What happened that you knocked down every shelf in the Restricted Section of the Royal Canterlot Library?”
Discord grinned nervously, visible beads of sweat rolling off of his face. “It’s not my fault they put such a horrid picture where the shelves were stacked like dominos,” he said as he flashed the picture in front of Celestia.
Celestia shielded her face with her forearm. “Put that away immediately!” she said. “She’s disgusting!”
“She, you say?”
“Don’t get any ideas, Discord,” Celestia spat out.
Discord chortled. “No, I mean, how could you tell that is a she?”
Celestia buried her face in her hooves. “It was the register of her voice. Now, get that thing out of here and go ask Twilight for help, seeing as how I can’t trust you by yourself in a library.”
“Alright, then. As you wish.” Discord snapped his fingers and appeared in a closet at Twilight’s Castle. He gazed some more at the hypnotic vileness of the photograph of the Changeling Queen which had caused him to violently recoil, cringing internally yet again at the sight of it—her.
So hideous.
The librarian back at the Royal Canterlot Library, finished with his work for the day, sighed deeply and took off his glasses. He admired his reflection as his irises flashed green. He then put his glasses back on, collected his things, and left the library.
I suppose he couldn’t handle the majesty of our Queen.
