The Truth in Forgery

The head unicorn did not seem like his threat was an idle one, though the mix of feelings in his words had left the changeling with an odd cloying taste on his tongue. Really, it wasn't a threat much at all anyways; dungeons were like the hive, small rooms in cool stone cave systems. The only major and present danger was an extended interrogation. If this colt was really late, answering poor answers now off the top of his head could be much simpler than answering good practiced answers later, when there was time to examine the veracity of the statements. 'I'm in a mess already, what's the worst that can happen?' The changeling-pony cleared his throat with a bit of a dry cough. He spoke nervously, but tried his best to toss some feeling of guilt in it as well. He was surprised to find his voice quite low, a pretty deep baritone, if not quite bass. Must have been an effect of the change on the vocal chords.

"Sorry! Sorry! Oh, I screwed up royally." The changeling opens his gambit. Every sense was wide open, tasting the emotions that came from his five-pony audience. In this regard, more ponies were better, it helped him tune his show. Unfortunately, he had the very distracting feeling there was another audience member, looking and listening from inside his head. "I fell and... Oh, I guess you want my name first, where did my manners go?"

They were all paying attention. Suspicion was high, he couldn't afford to pick a name that had even the slightest chance of him misinterpreting it for somepony else's. Responsiveness would be key, and besides, once he was clear, he had five new models to take the form of, and pick a better name. "I'm Forgery..." 'Idiot!' "Sorry, I'm speaking a bit too fast, I'm still nervous. That's Forge Aerie, that's me. From out west." Forgery noticed one unicorn began to calm, giving off no real emotional flavours, and she had begun scribing, taking his statement with proper disinterested professionalism. That's one for five. 'If they're clinical, they're not critical. Griffin emulation 101. Hope its similar with ponies...' His brief pause had the remaining soldiers look towards that blue-maned unicorn again. His own gaze fell elsewhere, eyes tracing the outline of the overdecorated castle just in sight at the far end of the garden; together, these facts and places, with how emotional he knew ponies could get, at least from the drones' stories, inspiration struck, and he took a shot in the dark.

"I really admired the royal guard ever since I was a foal, you guys protect the princess... es." He caught his habitual use of singular for royalty fairly quickly. "Both of them. and I always looked up to the guards, especially the captain. Leader of the great defenders, a paragon of honesty and loyalty." He tasted a twinge of embarrassment from that white stallion. Perfect. His hunch was correct, or at least close enough. The changeling took a moment for the words to sink in, and reflected on these species. How did they ever manage to spy on each other without empathic receptors?

He may have waited a bit too long, because one of the pegasi, a fairly young (and likely new to the job, Forgery noted her nervousness underneath other emotions, unbecoming a seasoned guard or soldier) mare with ruby-red coat and a purple-blue lock and crest, tilted her head in confusion and asked the obvious question he hoped might have been glanced over. She had a nice voice, a bit squeaky but rough, it reminded him of home. "Where out west? That's a lot of land to cover." Her head nodded hard in the direction of the last attentive subordinate unicorn, who might as well have been her twin were it not for the pegasus-unicorn thing. The deep red unicorn nodded and her horn began to glow.

The white stallion actually lost composure and face-hoofed! He turned away from his intruder, to the two red ponies. "I didn't order a truth spell. You're in the Royal Guards now, you have to take the lead of your commanding officer, discipline is what separates us from regular guards. Expect a full lecture later on it, you earned it." The emotional mix of the five were now blended, mish-mashes of feelings. He turned to Forgery. "But it is a good question."

'A truth spell. Well horsefeathers. At least white-coat here did something about that.' The changeling's pony face grins sheepishly, scowling on the inside, and he continues his gambit regardless. "Commanding officer? You're the captain, aren't you?! Oh, this is awesome! Where I'm from? Well, it's a long story, in a way, but you could say I'm from--" His voice catches. The words get caught in his throat and he can't seem to get them out. 'Oh, right.' It simply wasn't his day. There, just behind and out of sight of this captain, the red unicorn's horn kept glowing the same violet aura.

Forgery coughed to take some time and cover the catch, though he knew from the eyes, and the emotional current, that the irritating unicorn caught it, at the very least. Well, nothing else to do. It wasn't like there was any knowledge of changelings or their lands in the hooves of the pony folk, as best he could remember. Besides, lying and not telling the truth were very different things. "Very far west, a place in the badlands where my family moved after we had trouble everywhere else. Born and raised there, not much of a city name so much as a big family estate. My mum pretty recently just wouldn't stop talking about how beautiful Canterlot was, and how she'd love to be treated like a queen here, how great everypony was to be around, how much love and truth and integrity were in the Guards and the people... I couldn't help it after listening for a while, and one thing led to another, went here myself. I came across the wall and felt stupid for walking up the wrong way, and so I, umm, kind of... jumped it. Umm... Sorry about that, seems like it wasn't the most reasonable thing to do." He smiled gamely and shrugged.

There was laughter in his head, it seemed whatever he was doing here was more important than making that "perfect day", since the Queen didn't appear to have anything better to do than spectate. Forgery put forth all his spare mental faculties to project saccharine happiness back along the link, fake, oversweet; piling strained smiles on the channel to block her out, if only to spite her for putting him in this mess, she hopefully wouldn't see the conclusion.

Unlike his prior Queen, the guardponies seemed to be more agreeable. And why wouldn't they be? There had not been a war in Canterlot for a pony's lifetime, if not more: Forgery wasn't certain on their history, but knew that much at least. There were no real threats. Oh, he knew all about Nightmare Moon, threats did exist, but no outside threats. And not from regular ponies. Their naivety about life and how it worked was one of the reasons Equestria was so enticing. Every emotional taste led the changeling to believe they were inclined, at least, to accept his words. The last pegasus removed his spear, and no weapons being pointed at him made the lilac imposter all the much more relaxed.

Their leader looked up at the sun. Clearly having an appointment was no lie, the tang of worry radiated off him, but was subsumed by his sense of duty. Forgery found the internal conflict fascinating, all the more so because the other four guards seemed to have no clue that it was happening. They seemed so disorganized, so unaware. Fairly quickly, as if merely choosing to ignore other thoughts, duty overpowered worry and the latter's smell faded completely. The captain gave Forgery his full attention.

"That covers name and presence, I'm not entirely convinced so I will be having somepony cross-check your story. You still need to explain... That." The captain's head gestures along Forgery's entire body, however the request was fairly obvious. And the changeling ignored the rest of the words, the suspicion being voiced wasn't there. It was a script, he was certain, voiced either for the benefit of the others (in which case he was right, and they were new recruits), or to try to trip him up (which might work if he were as blind as these poor ponies). Either way, it could be ignored. The failure of a transformation, however, couldn't. And a silent curse was breathed as he noted the red menace's horn still glowed, the truth-spell still active. This would be tricky. 'Thanks be that it is such a brute-force spell, though. Any sophistication at all and I'd be ruined.'

"Ponies don't have wings and a horn, right? That's alicorn territory." His voice kept its shakey waver, but he added a slightly darker, sadder tone to it. "I know I look like a freak, everypony who looks at me in regular circumstances might think it. When I was given this body, and understood what it meant, I knew I'd have problems. The wings are somewhat vestigial at this point--"

"Vestigial?" The red pegasus mare asked in a whisper.

"They don't work. Just for show." The similarly coloured unicorn replied in an annoyed tone.

"--But I can't honestly say I would prefer to not have wings. Pegasi and unicorns can intermarry..." Forge gave what he hoped was an appropriately knowing look to the colour-matched red guards. "And the kids could be one or the other, I suppose. Biology similar to mine could be a throwback, unicorn horns are recessive traits after all, but I'm not an expert in pony genealogy. I like having wings, they're sensitive, and they're warm to hold against me, unicorns get cold so easily. I kind of envy earth ponies having that warmer bulk."

He paused for a moment in his tale, to assess the undercurrents and see how things were going. The red sisters believed him, for the most part. Would be stupid not to, they were controlling his speech after all through their spellcasting. The scribe wasn't paying attention beyond enough to do her job. That was fine. Of the other two "competent" guards, the pegasus was mildly interested, the captain was still all-duty. And he showed it too.

"So let me get this straight, for our record. You are a unicorn with inoperable wings, not some mutant or odd different species that just looks similar." The captain seemed about ready to wrap things up. That was good.

'And by the sun and moon, thank you for adding all those qualifier words. Ugh, pegasus wings are so weird. They have joints and bones in them and just kind of flutter their feathers without control over the entire form. How in Chrysalis' name do they fly with these?' Forgery tosses the thought from his mind, finishing up the last verbal lap. "What you see is what you get. I can flap the wings, they aren't totally inoperable, though flying is pretty much out of the question. Other than that, your description sounds great to me. I don't want to keep you here longer than you have to, I know you're in a hurry, and I can't have the most awesome ponies I've met be late for something as important as love."

The captain blushes at the thought. He holds out a hoof. "I'm Guard Captain Shining Armor. Try not to say such embarrassing things, it makes the newbies get giggle fits." Sure enough, the duo behind him were holding back happiness. "I do need to go so I'll let them escort you out of the garden. We aren't as amazing as you set us up to be, we're just regular ponies called from within to help serve the country and the princess. But if you're that enamored, you might just have the spark even if you're a bit young."

Shining Armor smiles, almost to himself, thinking on his own past and his path to where he was. "I'll fill out some papers later, come to the barracks, and I invite you to try out being a guard for a day. If you somehow still like it after that, we can talk about proper training. Until then, you are a bit young to wander Canterlot alone, I'll assign the gemstones as protection duty, I'm sure that's ONE order they can do appropriately." The unicorn glares at the two mares behind him. It appears he was quite aware of their meddling despite not seeing it. "They clearly have too much energy to be guarding the princess as they would have been."

'Gemstones? I suppose I'll figure that out soon enough. But a job offer? If I intend to actually win freedom from the Queen, I shall need to blend in. Could sticking out like a sore thumb actually be stealthier than all the techniques we were taught?' Stay in this flawed form, that the Queen inflicted upon him in a moment of weakness as some impractical joke, or escape as soon as possible, and use one of these guards as a template and just follow the road to a new city? That would mean the queen won. She sent this image expecting him to fail, he was certain, punishment for abandoning his post and her. An insult, too; that a courtier of all ranks couldn't control his thoughts and manners well enough to thrive directly under the nose of the land's rulers. It was a direct challenge...

"Ohmygoshohmygosh! Thank you! You're the nicest pony I've ever met! I'll be there tomorrow! First thing in the morning! You're my idol Captain Armor."

...and Forgery never backed away when a gauntlet was thrown.