Wine Press

Sweetie Drops didn’t stop at the sound of the explosion. She kept running at a full gallop through the Everfree Forest. She knew she wasn’t going the most direct route but she hoped to reach one of the paths that led between Zecora’s house and Ponyville.

Rumble was on her back trying to hang on, eyes shut tightly trying to suppress tears. He gasped and looked up to see a rustling by one of the bushes ahead. Sweetie Drops didn’t know if she should stop or try and get past it. She narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth with determination, but it was revealed to be Swift Blade. He looked bloodied and bruised, stumbling out with a cough.

“Swift!” Sweetie Drops ran past him and paused a moment. “Are you alright?”

Swift Blade pointed a hoof forward. “The Changelings have the road secured. You won’t make it back that way.”

“If you don’t make it, Swift,” Sweetie Drops said looking back at him, “I need the golden pendent I gave you.”

Swift struggled for words and lowered his head. “I lost it during the fight. I…”

She bucked him hard in the head, knocking him against a tree. She starting running again. “Wrong answer,” she mumbled, “The pendent was white.” Sweetie Drops had to assume that the Changeling was lying about the road. But he could have also been partly right. But either way she had to decide to either hope it was all clear to run through, or slow down to sneak out.

Rumble on her back was slowing her down. She could leave him at Zecora’s, but she felt that he was needed if she were to tell her story to anypony back in town. She could send him to town instead, but in his condition there was less chance he would make it all the way back.

Sweetie Drops considered the sheer size of the forest and realized she might could use Zecora’s house as a speed bump for the Changelings to fruitlessly search through. She diverted from her approach and made her way along some hills till she stumbled by a burrow that was too small for her. She shook Rumble gently to the side and nuzzled him into it.

“Stay here. You should be safe and hard to find. I’ll go to Ponyville and get more help.”

The last thing Rumble wanted was to stay alone, in the dark, in the Everfree Forest while dozens of Changelings were searching for him. But he swallowed bravely and understood. He hunkered down and Sweetie Drops dragged some branches to partly cover the burrow. She saluted him and took off running through the night, running as fast as she dared. Her fur and bodysuit was snagging against burs and thorns, the lone moon and shimming stars her glittering hope of light.

Sweetie Drops realized, with the mockingbird Changelings, anypony in Ponyville could be a Changeling. But all she had to do was get to the house, make sure Lyra was safe, and dream her way to Luna, who could then secretly warn Twilight and her friends. Perfect, her secret identity would be safe, Ponyville would be saved. Equestria would be saved.

She was going to make it.

Berry Punch was trotting with her entourage of mockingbird Changelings in their normal form, looking for the agent, the foal, and her sister Piña Colada.

One of captains flew in front of her with a wide, devilish grin. He snarled a hiss and the mockingbirds looked up at her. Berry glared back and sneered. “What do you want?”

“The Queen is going to be most displeased when she has to hear your pathetic excuse about how you lost the battle ponies, the agent, and the foal.”

Ruby Pinch stepped up beside her mom, closed her eyes, and stuck her tongue out at the captain. Berry took a step forward for a scolding when a taller Changeling appeared in the shadows behind the captain. Ruby Pinch opened her eyes and became filled with fright, whimpering back behind her mother as Berry retracted her steps and shrunk down low. “Q—Q-Queen Chrysalis! How nice,” Berry gulped, “how nice to see you!”

Queen Chrysalis’ spiritless face gave way to a slight eyebrow raise and the grinning captain stepped to the side. “The feeling is not mutual, I assure you,” her voice slithered with echo.

Berry forced a slight grin and tilted her head, raising an apologetic hoof. “I was just fixing to tell your captain that if the agent were found, the damage to the losses could be reversed. Finding her would be…”

The Queen backhooved Berry hard into a tree, leaving Ruby Pinch completely exposed. The filly shivered as she hugged the leaves on the ground. Chrysalis didn’t even bother facing Berry, looking to the side at her mockingbirds. “You don’t even know who the agent is.” Her long, wickedly jagged horn glowed green. The Queen brought a filly about from behind her and set her down gently between herself and Berry.

Piña Colada. And her face was pinched into rage, tears dripping down her cheeks.

The Queen continued. “I found this trying to kill herself over the ledge. I thought it unusual from the distance and—well—saved her. After a chat, I come to find out she knows Ponyville quite well. Unlike you and your pathetic daughter.”

Ruby Pinch was still shaking like a rattle in the dirt as Berry up-righted herself. “W-w-what do you mean?”

“While you and…” Queen Chrysalis could barely remember the name, “Ruby Bitch lived your miserable lives in your house, Piña Colada here was all over Ponyville. She knows who the agent is. And we have a plan for her to make up for your—failure.”

Berry grinned. “Y-y-yes! Yes! Piña, I’m proud of you!” She knelt down to rub Piña on the head but the lavender filly sharply turned, showing the throbbing wound Berry left behind on her little sister.

Queen Chrysalis grinned. “I feed off of love itself, but that doesn’t mean I find breaking hearts amusing.” She caught Berry Punch in her magic, slowly lifting her in the air. “You are going to die, Berry Punch. What little love you have left in you is going to be drained to feed me.”

“You—can’t—do—this!” Berry struggled to speak under the strain. “You need me!”

Berry Punch was dropped to the ground as Queen Chrysalis raised her front hooves and unleashed a sickly laugh bouncing on the trees. “Need you? Pathetic, insignificant, worthless pony! I need you?” She bent low and put her face against Berry’s, staring lustfully into her eyes; Berry’s pupils shrank to beads as her eyes swelled with size, mouth agape, trembling in awe and terror.

“You had been a useful tool but I don’t need you. And it seems this tool needs replacing.”

“P—please! Please, my Queen, you need the potions from Zecora! Your Changelings can’t get them! They can’t make them!”

The Queen frowned and slowly pulled back, flicking her plastic-like tattered blue mane as she turned to the fillies. “Just testing you. Can they?”

Berry curled her bottom lip and buried her face in her hooves on the ground, sobbing. “Yes! Yes! Please—please spare them! And spare me for their sake!” Berry’s eyes were filling with tears as she was rubbing her head into Chrysalis’ right leg.

Piña Colada stepped forward. “I can’t stand it! I won’t put up with this anymore!” She glared at the Queen who, with surprise in her eyes, stepped away. Piña turned to her older sister and looked at her straight in the eyes. “What was it you said to me? That’s right.” Piña turned around and bucked her sister’s nose to breaking, kicked her in the face, and kicked her in the eyes. “Fuck you, Berry Punch! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck—YOU!”

She continued kicking her sister whose eyes swelled black, crying twisting into moans, as Piña raged in a yell with each cracking strike. “Do you—know how—hard it is—not to do—this to you!”

Piña stopped and walked away. Her sister’s alcohol-stained teeth were scattered on the ground, blood pooling from her right eye, and limp, useless jaw twisted in a crumpled heap as blood flowed in rivers around it.

Ruby Pinch didn’t know if she should be scared or angry when Piña walked over to her. “And by the way, Miss Chrysalis—Bitchy doesn’t know how to mix the anti-dream drink, or the concoction.”

Queen Chrysalis licked her lips. “Is that so? Looks like one of my tools hasn’t been properly calibrated. I suppose it can be—recycled.”

“I think she’d make a good mockingbird Changeling,” Piña said with a wink.

Berry looked up and sobbed one last time. “Yoah—woaldn’t—dawr…”

The purple mare was encased in a sickly green glow, same as that as Queen Chrysalis’ horn. “You lied to me, Berry. You failed your test.” A barrel of freshly squeezed wine was pulled up with the same magic, the cork on the end coming off. The Queen grinned. “I hear you have quite the alcoholism, Berry. So here, drink all you want as a reward for being my faithful servant.”

Berry felt the last of her love, for those dead and the two fillies around her, leave her body and with it, any strength she had, weakening as Queen Chrysalis drained it into her own essence. Then, she saw the barrel cover her vision, the contents of several gallons of wine being forced into her broken mouth. Some of it trickled down along her body, staining her fur and dripping off her front and hind hooves, loudly gulping as she did what she could to escape.

Under hot tears, Piña mocked. “How does it feel, Berry, to get a taste of my own remedy? Be a good sister and drink your alcohol!”

Berry felt her stomach fill past capacity, but her sinuses burned, the alcohol dripping and running into everything. She tried holding her breath, tried to just make it all foam out of her. Maybe if she just survived this, she could be spared? But exhausted as she was, she had to breathe it. Made to pump her lungs full of the burning, red liquid, causing a seizing pain in her chest that overcame the pain of the alcohol washing over her wounds on her face and sizzling, burning mouth. And she knew, as the last tears fell out of her remaining, partially good eye, mixing the salty water with the wine around her cheek, she would die of alcohol overdose even if she did not die from drowning.

Berry Punch made no more sounds, struggling became weaker, fainter, softer, until she was hovering in the air, unmoving as the last of the barrel’s contents was forcefully pumped into her body. The Queen turned aside, thrashing the barrel against a tree and dropping Berry’s body to the ground.

“Mockingbird Changelings,” Queen Chrysalis said. “Our new partner here came up with a good idea. All of you, change into the bloodhound we tested on the first time and sniff out the forest. Also good thing we have a backup in case that agent gets away.”

She walked up to Ruby Pinch who hid her face from seeing the death of her own mother. “Now then. Let’s get this one back to the machine. We have a harvest to finish.”