giggle at the ghosties.View OnlineAnother day...giggle at the ghosties.Hiding. It's all I have. It's all I want to have. It's all I will ever have. And that's ok. I poke my head round the Manehattan street corner, trying to deduce weather it's safe to come out. A few ponies are still dotted around the streets but, at this time, they're probably drunkards. Well, not all of them are drunkards. See, when you have done what I do for as long as you have - just to survive in this brutal, brutal world for another day you start to feel things. You start to be able to guess when royal guard patrols are scheduled, when ponies are distracted... When you have an opportunity to get something - anything - that can help you. And right now, every feeling in my body - from my messed-up horn to my hole-ridden hooves was telling me that there was a royal guard dressed as a civilian on the street. I can't see him, I can't hear him I can just... sense him. It's hard to explain really, but it's helped me out of a few scrapes in the past so overtime i've learnt to trust it. Soon, just as expected, a pony walks past at a casual trot. It's obvious immediately that he's a royal guard: His build; his posture... and the fact that he isn't stumbling forwards in a drug-ridden stupor. Sometimes I consider trying to get a guard's attention - I dream about them listening, understanding... helping me. I almost did on one occasion, but luckily I withdrew at the last minute. The guards don't like creatures like me. The idea that me, and anything like me, isn't one hive-minded, relentless monster who focuses on nothing but the good of the hive isn't something ponies like to think about, especially so soon after the Canterlot wedding invasion. According to the media, to their princesses and to their education we are nothing more than merciless killing machines who will decimate ponies' lives for fun. This... Idea of what I am, this forced label, is why the guards don't want me. They don't protect Equestria, They don't protect it's citizens, they protect it's ideals. I start to crouch down and ready my paper-thin wings. My fangs shimmer in the moonlight as I prepare to strike. I try to focus any magic I have left in me. I prepare to be a monster once again. Without a second thought, I swoop out of the alleyway and slam into the guard, using my magic to help me push him down. He tries to kick, bite and even stab me at one point but years of experience with this sort of thing has made me an expert in avoiding these attacks. One swift bite later, and the guard is left as nothing more than a hollow, twitching shell drained of all it's emotion and soul. See, that's the problem with changelings. On the surface, our food source sounds ideal to utilize as a way of getting free food in turn for being good citizens and helping other civilizations progress, but... only on the surface. Most changelings don't require the skill with magic necessary to extract only one emotion so we have to go to the horrific alternative - drain all emotion from a pony, along with its soul, and in the process damn the creature to a painful death after multiple hours on the ground. My ears twitch in the wind, which makes a slight whistling noise through one of the many holes on said ears. I glance around quickly, ensuring that the only ponies to see what I did to the guard were either too stoned to notice what happened or too drunk to be believed then slip back into a back alley and hope for another meal to tide me over for a few more hours. It's almost routine now, honestly. A routine of hiding, crying and killing. A routine created by desperation, which in turn is caused by an inability to do what changelings should be able to do. A routine based around the fact that I can't change form, so I was useless to the hive. It was all so sudden, really. One day a bunch of guards told me that as I wasn't skilled in magic and couldn't change form I was useless to the hive. Then I was beaten and left to fend for myself. Alone and cold, I tried going towards civilizations, tried to become a member of civilized society despite the my natural shortcomings. Despite the ingrained fear of me. I tried to practice magic, to get good enough. I snuck into schools, libraries and castles trying to find emotion separation spells. In the end though... It was all for nothing because, really, no pony would accept a changeling as a friend even if they didn't know how changelings feed because ponies need monsters. In order to have heroes who came come in and save you, you need something to fight. You need something to hate. You need to be able to ignore the horrors of this world because, in the end, monsters like me are doing far worse. They need monsters, they need something to be afraid of so their heroes can triumph once again. And I will give them everything. I will become the monster they need me to be whether I want to or not. and that's ok... It's always been ok... I'll keep on living, keep on feeding and keep on crying until I die to old age or until I pick a fight with the wrong guard. Until then though, I guess I can just keep on living. Keep on hiding. Keep on feeding. Keep on hoping. Hoping... For another day as the outcast, For another day as the monster, For another day as the survivor, And for another day to hide.
learn to face your fears.View OnlineAnother day...learn to face your fears.One of my favorite parts of the day is when you just wake up. That feeling of blurry-headed disorientation... It helps me. For a few precious seconds i'm not a murderer, i'm not an outcast and i'm definitely not sleeping in a Manehattan dumpster. Then life kicks back in and I remember where I am, what happened yesterday and that i'm still trash. It's like being offered some candy then being kicked in the face while eating it. I groggily peel myself out of the dumpster and start to rub myself down, taking off any larger pieces of trash. The holes in my legs have gathered a small layer of slime that no matter what I try won't come off. Eventually I just leave it and hope nobody notices. Not like anybody would care if they did notice anyway. If it was any other day, I probably wouldn't have cared either but... Today is special. I need to look like more than homeless trash, I need to look more presentable. See, sometimes a pony will offer me some work, in turn for a hopelessly small amount of bits. Prostitution, store robberies, drug smuggling... That sort of stuff. They say i'm perfect for this sort of work as i'm not registered on any of the pony's systems, can fly and use weak magic. Not that being told this makes me feel any better though... Today I have a new job. A bigger job, and i'm being paid a good amount to do it. Enough bits that I want to not show up as a scruffy, homeless trash-bag. I stretch my wings a few times to take out any wrinkles from sleeping on them and try picking up a few objects with my horn. My magic glowed around a few tin cans which I then throw into the Dumpster. Then, with great effort, I pick up a trash-bag for a few seconds before dropping it back into the dumpster because of the weight. My magic is better than expected today, which I guess is good. I watch the street from the alleyway, and find myself astonished at how much is going on. Ponies, carriages, street performers... It's huge and bustling and surprisingly calming to watch. Back in the hive I had a telescope. I would watch nearby towns for hours, just wondering about what the ponies were doing and with who. Why they were going into the shops. What was on their minds... It always fascinated me, ponies. The way their society works so flawlessly... how they are so different yet so similar. It helped me, and still does help me, forget about myself by just studying the ponies. Sometimes mom would tell me stories - stories of how our great queen was going to take Canterlot, how she had a plan and an army and was going to ensure our starving hive could eat more than the scraps of emotion from the local wildlife. How everything was going to get better. While in the hive, I had a small group of friends. It wasn't the biggest group, I wasn't the most popular kid ever and we occasionally had fall-outs but... We still stuck together. Names have faded into the dusts of time, and faces have blurred into non-existence but memories still remain. Memories of the time I forgot to open my wings during flight training, when my friend got bit on the nose by a baby changeling during a field-trip to the birth chamber, memories of going to love shops and staring longingly at the little jars for ages so that when dad got back and I could guilt him into getting me one... The love-shop owner, my friends, my dad... All went into the invasion. There were... So many good, noble, well-meaning changelings in that invasion. I never went to Canterlot personally, as I was kicked out, which is something that upset me greatly at the time. I wanted to be fighting with my friends and family. Now all I want is too see them again. See what the loss did to them. Sometimes the newspapers will put a story on it, with headlines like "mare finds dead changeling in bathroom!" or "Changeling remnants found in bakery!". A snot-green stallion walks into the alleyway, something that instantly wakes me from my inner-thoughts. "You the changeling ruby hired?" I nod my head and see a smile creep across the stallion's face. A small bag of bits is thrown towards me. "25% up-front, like you said. rest'll be given after the job. If it's not done by tonight, don't expect to wake up tomorrow." "So... we going to do a briefing or..." "I thought you'd never ask."
odd jobs.View OnlineAnother day...odd jobs.The briefing room - like most things in Manehattan - is plain, concrete and built solely for functionality. In the middle is a wooden table with a complex blueprint on it. Various symbols and arrows have been drawn all over it in chalk. "This, changeling, is where your assistance is required. We need you to change form and set off the alarm so we get a clear way through the back." I put on my best shit-eating face and nod. Of all the things that they can ask me to do they choose changing form. Way to rub salt in the wound there guys. Not that I dare say anything. I know a bit about the plan now... Not enough to compromise them completely but enough to be a threat. If I refuse they'll most likely kill me. If I do it i'll probably be killed as well. What an excellent choice. Slowly, carefully, I push myself off the chair and begin to walk out of the room. I need some time to think over my part of the plan and how i'll achieve it without a disguise. "Oi, changeling, we're not done yet." I feel my entire body freeze up as his words echo round the room. "See, you know things now. Things we don't want anypony else to know. I want some... Insurance on this deal, to ensure your not gonna go straight to a royal guard." "I um... I mean... There isn't much I can offer really it's kinda well, I don't really have-" Pain. Pure, unrelenting pain erupts through my horn. The pain starts to spread around my body, first to my face then down my neck. I try to cry out as the pain wraps round my torso but nothing comes out of my mouth. Then, just as soon as the pain arrived, it vanished again. "Tell me changeling, what do you know about magic?" "I... I was never any good at magic sir..." "Think of it like this: There are two types of spell, ones that only exist through continued conjuration - like levitation and ones that exist as a one-time cast that then passively works over time - like magically enhanced bandages. The spell I cast is of the second type, and while you don't need to know what it does you do need to know that I am one of very few ponies that knows the counter-spell. As it turns out, I can't perform the counter spell if i'm dead or in prison so think twice before trying anything." I slink down and make my way towards the door, hoping not to be called back again. The door sticks for a second and I end up spending a bit too much time pushing it open. The alleyway I walked out into wasn't exactly the best introduction back into the sunlight I've ever seen but just the slight warmth and light of that ever glowing orb in the sky managed to calm me, just a bit. I just needed to approach the problem logically: how do I ensure that enough of the guards are elsewhere that I can get into the building and set off the alarm. I started to mentally kick myself for saying that I didn't need a map of the place. At the time it seemed like a clever way to pretend I was competent and as a way to make myself less of a nuisance to the ponies and thus lessen the likelihood of being killed. Then again, at the time I was hoping the ponies were planning a small-scale heist on a jewelry shop and just needed me to pretend to be a cashier for an hour. How wrong I was... I shook my head quickly in an effort to clear my thoughts. The action however was in vain as I found head even more clouded than before. Thinking was never my strong point. Fondly, I remembered back to the hive. How me and my friends used to use the paper to make little airports out of sight then throw paper planes to each others airports. How the teachers would confiscate the airports and how we would always try steal them back letter - an action that frequently landed us in detention. Slowly, carefully, I poured through everything I was told in the meeting. Guard counts, alarm locations, magic fields... Cameras? Where there cameras as well or was it a spell that showed locations of ponies in the building? I started to despair as I realized just how little I had remembered from the meeting. Maybe it would be best to tell a guard, and hopefully get a handsome reward for- A sharp pain in my chest quickly discouraged that train of thought. No, I needed a plan and I needed it soon if I wanted to survive the spell the pony put on me. If I wanted to get past all the guards... If I wanted to live another day. Author's Note writers block stinks.
lending a hoof.View OnlineAnother day...lending a hoof.Slowly, wearily, I pulled myself out of the trash and started to magically pull chunks of rotting food out of my mane and tail. I knew I should've spent the night thinking up a plan but sleep was just so much more inviting. Not that death would be a bad thing at this point. I try to think through what happened yesterday and come up with something but my mind feels full and blocked. A slight headache didn't help the situation either. Peeking through the end of the alleyway, I quickly search the streets for ponies. Not many were up and about early in the morning were only a few foals playing hoof-ball populating the street. My stomach rumbling reminded me that I hadn't eaten in about a day, and the foals laughing and playing free looked like an easy meal. I felt torn about whether or not to grab a foal when one bucked the ball too hard. Foals were easy to take down and at such a young age were full to bursting with love so i'd only have needed to take down one but... It was a child. Barely even in this world and even if I had no problems with killing the child (which was not the case) the parents would definitely notice and get some ponies searching for the lost foal. One of the foals managed to buck the ball hard enough to land at the entrance of the alleyway, and soon I heard the clip-clop of tiny hoof-steps come over towards the ball. If I was going to take the child down, I was going to have to prepare now. I start praying to Chrysalis for forgiveness as I straighten my wings, pre-charge my telekinesis and tense all my muscles. No. I'm not a monster. Not yet. I quickly scurry back into the dumpster and wait for the sound of little hooves clip-clopping away. I'll find food somewhere else... Hopefully. My grumbling stomach disagrees with my previous notion but I try to ignore it. I find myself snuggling back into the dumpster as I think through last night. The building was probably one of the most secure places in the entire city and I was about to waltz in as one of the most universally hated creatures and help pull off a huge heist. Not that I had a problem with optimism but... It wasn't exactly favorable odds. Ignoring the stench coming from the now warming trash I thought through my options. Taking out a guard on their way to work could work but... If multiple were taken out, the building would be put on high-alert. Getting caught would land me in prison and ultimately end up with me dead in a week. I started to think back to the hive. What would chrysalis do? She'd have an army storm the place. An army of competent changelings who could actually change form and... And weren't useless like me. I try muster up the motivation to get out of the trash but it's just not there. It's the most comfortable I can get, after all. I started toying with a can on the top of the pile, my hooves leaving slight dents in the metal whenever i'm more rough with it. What I needed was a way of getting into the building without being noticed. Reading the can's label reveals it's previous contents. "poison joke spray - hours of laughs*" I quickly search for where the asterisk refers too and find it within a minute. "actual effectual period may vary. If results last longer than an hour, consult your local hospital. Actually... Maybe getting noticed didn't matter. In-fact, maybe getting noticed was the perfect way to be completely ignored... Suddenly I had an idea. An idea that was crazy. An idea that was dangerous. An idea that just might work... Slowly, I started to muster the motivation to move away from the trash and start gathering supplies. I tried to get up, the now irritating pain in my chest still flickered like a match that refuses to go out. My rumbling stomach reminded me of what I must do soon if I am to survive and I quickly slumped back into the trash, motivation lost once again. In the hive I never had to worry about planning out my survival or unicorns casting spells on me. If I was struggling, the queen and her council would help me out until I was back to the expected standard. Well, in theory. In practice, they gave you a small fraction of what you needed then kicked you out the hive if you continued to under-perform but... It was the principle, dammit. Realising, slowly, that I would never be going back to the hive I started to break down. I wasn't going to be able to pull off what the unicorn asked and I was going to die in pain because of it. I was going to die in pain, away from anyone who knew (or cared) about my existence. I wasn't going to live another day, was I?