Captive of a Changeling Bride

I wake up to the familiar sound screams from other food bags and try to move my hooves to walk when I hear the snapping of my joints and I realize I’ve been suspended off the ground like a fucking marionette… they’ve kept me in this narrow cell were the only window I have shows a black tower through the engulfing sandstorms while the screams of captured feed bags echo from the spire as its neon green glow pierces through the sand, the first week they sawed off my right wing and cauterized the nerves, the second week the sliced my throat, for six months they starved me while breaking every bone in my body only to use their magic to reset them, now they’ve ripped my left wing out of its socket and left me to bleed stabbing more meat hooks into my hooves keeping suspending me off the ground like a butchered pig. They never speak… after a while I stopped counting days and focus on them continuously beating the shit out of me until the queen sees fit that I’ve had enough then they use the salve to heal most of the damage but she would only watch, now she holds a curved skinning knife in her magic aura; trying her best to hide her blush.

“You poor thing-“The queen chuckles as the knife peels off another patch of skin “-six months you’ve been here… do you even know when you were born?” she grabs a pair of pliers and pulls out one of my back teeth.

“Yesterday, April 14th” I gag.

“How do you know what day it was?” The queen asks raising her eyebrow.

“It was around this time the orphan master would beat me into a coma. I think it’s pretty funny I found out in only two weeks after I escaped his prison.”

“And when did you find out?” she asks scraping the knife against my chin.

“When I tracked down the fucking zealots that burned my mother aGLAAAK-“she slams the pommel of the knife into my throat tearing at the stitches.

“Watch your tongue little one-“She whispers “-otherwise I’ll have to rip it out again”

“Bottom line is-“I retch “-I found the village I was born in, I broke into the town hall and found my mother’s death warrant ‘a heretical whore’ it said ‘cleansed by fire for not turning over the demon spawn nor seeking penance for mating outside the bloodline’ do you know what I did?”

“Cried and forgave them?” she laughs putting the knife on an iron slab and levitates a spiked club.

“I burned that cesspit to the fucking ground-“I plant my lower hooves into the wall and lurch forward “-Every single stallion, mare and foal reduced to nothing but ash while they prayed to their old gods. Any fool that tried to stop me, I would kill them a lot more painfully than any fire could so if you’re going to kill me then GET IT OVER WITH!!!”

“Why?” She asks as she swings the club across my left leg… the cell fills with a reverberating CRACK!! I look down to see a bone protruding from it.

“BECAUSE IF YOU KILL ME… YOU KILL AN ELEMENT OF HARMONY”

She arches her eyebrow again and looks out the window towards the spire.

“What do you mean?” She asks turning back to the table.

“You didn’t feel it?” I laugh “The presence in sun ass’s dungeon? The owner of that aura placed a spell on me so that if I die so does the element I’m bound to.”

“And why would you tell me this if you have nothing to gain?” she levitates the whip.

“If I die, then he dies too. Celestia promised me my freedom but the only thing stopping me is having to find the alter egos of The Elements of Harmony”

The queen puts the whip back on the slab takes the vial away from one of the guards and pours some of the elixir on the bone setting it back in place.

“The Elements of Dissonance?” She scoffs.

Blindsided again… I go limp, fall back against wall, once heat returns to my joints I look at the queen and she looks back at me, she doesn’t take any of the other tools off the table.

“Leave us” she says, the guards look to each other and leave the room, the queen walks closer but not to take hooks out of my hooves or dig them deeper.

“Your friend in the dungeon came to me once saying he would help the changelings become the dominant race in all the lands and all he asked for was a position on the front lines in the armies… when I asked him why he would do this he said ‘Because I feel sorry for you’ naturally I was offended, refused his offer and seeing how skinny he was I ordered my drones to kill him-“

“I take it that didn’t end well” I scoff.

“Changelings are connected by a single consciousness when one of us dies we all feel it. You may have only killed 15 of us, but try to imagine dying 300 times to the point of begging for a quick death” She walks forward, I can hear the sincerity in her voice… a part of me is saying it’s another con before she yanks on the chains make me dance, while the other tells me I’m already dead, just say the right words so she can rip these fucking stitches out and end this bullshit.

“I’ve been begging for death since I was five, if you think that Equestrians would treat Changelings worse because of the way they look try digging into my head and see what they do to a child of their own kind that could fit in, if he only needed to rip his own eyes out! Newsflash your highness NOBODY is going to care if I die and since you attempted to sack the capital of Equestria we now have something in common. When they find me, your cities will burn to the ground and if they find you alive… your pretty head will roll by the end of the day.”

“And why are you so worried about my pretty head?” she tilts her head; her sultry grin throws shivers down my spine.

“If you recall to what I said back in Canterlot about all the love running out? I’m hoping you’ll start to see things from my perspective. I may be a killer but what makes me truly dangerous is that I can see different opportunities to a situation that can benefit all sides and some don’t even have me getting involved”

“Then why don’t you join us? I could even give you your own armor, a battalion, just imagine your cutie mark adorned on a red banner as it flies across the battlefield, and imagine a castle where all those who made your life hell would brought to your hooves, their fates for you to decide as you sit from your throne.” She skulks forward her green snake tongue swirls around her lips.

“Don’t you think me being tortured for the past six months will affect my decision” I chuckle.

“It was this or have you dipped in an acid bath, after all since a killer of our kind was expelled from Canterlot with us, some of my subjects are under the delusion that you could be one of us.”

She stands on her hind legs and plants her hooves onto my chest her lips inches away from mine.

“So the Elements of Dissonance are bullshit.” I growl.

“I’m afraid so darling” she whispers.

Before her forked tongue can slide its way past my teeth… a slow maniacal cackle fills the room.

“Do you really think I actually cared about helping you?” I laugh “I only suggested bringing peace to the changelings because I was in the city! I don’t give a shit about what happens to any of you I could’ve just swam through the fucking sewers and lived the rest of my days on some bug infested island”

Bullseye motherfucker. She steps away from me, almost knocking the table over and her mood turns from rejected to royally pissed off in half a second. She snaps away from me and slams on the door.

“Guard! Have this thing made an example of… it’s just another pony.”

At long last the hooks are ripped out of my hooves and I crash face first into a bucket of my own shit. Smooth, oily black hooves wrap around my legs then drag me out the cell across a blood stained hallway filled with other cells, the gates opens and I’m greeted with sand floored arena echoing with the cheers of angry Changelings, the guards who dragged me throw me into a pit and fill it with sand, then two bulk changelings throw a bucket of water on me to wash off the shit, then slather honey over every inch of my face, even my eyes. I look past the gold haze to see the queen standing in a field of tall ant colonies with a lit torch in her magical aura… she points the torch at me and the crowd goes silent.

“Before us-“She shouts “-is a Pegasus who had the audacity to defend a nation we had claimed for ourselves and kill our family, he then told us of a way to be live in peace among his kind but the promise of peace was just hallow words meant to force us into exile! So I ask of you my loyal subjects; what do we say about his treachery?”

She holds the torch under my chin and the tip of the flame dances around the honey making most of it melt off my eyes while the crowd roars and stomps from the seats like battle drums hissing “death!” the queen walks back to the ants and holds the torch over the chute the tallest colony I can almost see one of the red bastards when someone shouts “LIFE!” silence fills the arena again as all eyes turn to a changeling however instead of the same dull blue eyes this one has yellow eyes.

“And why should we let it live?” the queen asks.

“Because he is right-“the changeling answers flying onto the sand “-if we are meant to survive without fear of exile, we should renegotiate with the princesses”

“And if we do what do you think their terms will be if not for my execution?” The crowd roars in agreement with their queen but the Changeling doesn’t move “But the more important question is… who are you?” the queen’s muscles clench but the torch doesn’t leave its place.

“My queen?” the changeling cautiously steps back.

“Why can’t I hear your voice?” the queen’s voice quivers as some of the other Changelings begin to stand and three more jump behind the golden eyed changeling.

“Ah yes… where my manners-“the changeling laughs and bows his head “-we are the unclean ones and we are here for your prisoner” the changelings are engulfed in bright red fire and their scales change from black to white, pink, yellow, and blue.

The queen screams, drops the torch down the chute and fires at the four brightly colored Changelings… within seconds the sand turns red as millions of fire ants rush out of the burning colony, any movement I make pulls me deeper into the sand so I start twisting, choking to death on sand is nothing compared to being eaten alive by these fuckers. I unhinge my jaw and start filling my mouth with sand when part of the ceiling implodes and sends fire raining onto the remaining ant towers… fire bursts out of the holes and a body falls between me and the red swarm engulfs it and stops moving. I reset my jaw, spit out the sand; the smoke obscures any sign of the queen or the four shapeshifters. I try to pull myself up again when something else lands next to me.

“Damn Frosty! You smell like shit!” A familiar voice shouts over the screams.

“It’s a new Prench perfume Dashie! Maybe you should try some when I’m not on the verge of BEING EATEN ALIVE BY ANTS?!” I yell twisting deeper into the ground forcing more sand to stick to the honey.

“Eesh always thinking about yourself… maybe I should move this body over and see whether they’d choose size over sweetness”

“Enough Rainbow! This concealment spell won’t last if you two keep bickering!” Twilight hisses lifting me out of the sand.

After a bright pink flash surrounds us, I find myself on a gurney in a nurse’s tent surrounded by other wounded soldiers.

“This him?” a nurse asks wiping the honey off my face and placing gauze over my chest, neck and wing stubs.

“And here I thought pinkeye was the least of your worries” Rainbow shrugs then turns to leave the tent

“Where are you going?” Twilight snaps.

“To tell the princesses we have Frostbite so we can get the fuck out of here” Rainbow growls.

“Why Rainbow-“I gag as the nurse puts a wet washcloth over my eyes “-I think my survival instinct is rubbing off on you”

“Hey if it weren’t for the fact that Fluttershy was dying I’d be on the front lines myself! Plus if it weren’t for her we wouldn’t have known where you were or if you were even alive!”

This bit catches my attention as I remove the cloth from my eyes, sit up and look through the tent flaps when a wheelchair is rammed into the gurney.

“Want to see?” Rainbow smirks.

I place a hoof onto the wheelchair when Twilight lifts me onto it and opens rolls me back into the desert. We round a cliff wall and a soldier is rushed passed us, her screams bounce of the rocks as blood slides out of her left eye and the stubs of her legs. I look to the sound of thunder and swords to see rows of trebuchets, ballista, cannons, and Gatling guns all aimed at the spire.

“What’s he doing here?!” the voice of Princess Celestia makes whoever’s holding the chair spin almost launching me into the rocks when I meet the eyes of Celestia wearing gold armor, her mane a familiar dull pink tied in a bun and a massive war hammer grasped in her magic aura.

“He wanted-“Twilight starts to answer when Celestia shoots her a menacing glare then looks at the spire.

“RUNNER!!” she shouts.

Within a ten seconds, a scrawny stallion rushes up to the princess’

“Tell the officers to sound the retreat… the cookies have left the oven” she mumbles the last half but the stallion salutes her and speeds off.

“I take it that was Pinkie’s idea?” I shout over the cannon fire.

“Shut up!” Celestia shouts and glares at Rainbow “Take him back to the tent and make sure he doesn’t leave your sight until we’re back in Canterlot!”

Without a second glace she turns around and teleports to a trebuchet and launches a rainbow colored ballistic at the spire… the ball makes contact with the spire and the green orb pulses turning the entire tower and everything up to the battlements into glass, when the soldiers start to cheer I feel a sharp prick on the back of my neck and everything fades… some welcome this turned out to be.