Chapter 4

This strange zebra-pony split of a doctor and I stared at one another for what felt like ages. She seemed upset, but mostly radiated confusion and curiosity if my emotion-sensing abilities were anything to go by. In the continuously lengthening moment of awkwardness, I got to look over the doctor’s face further.

I wasn’t able to get much else from her bizarre appearance save for -like the skin and fur on either side of her head and face- she had mismatched eyes as well, the zebra side a pretty green with the pony side a vibrant blue.

Opting to try and end the silence and the awkwardness permeating it, I decided to ask another question that had been rattling around in the back of my head.

“So, does you being half zebra mean that half of what you say is in rhyme?” She blinked, taken aback by the odd question before regaining her composure.

“What? No! I can’t think of anyone that’s ever done such a stupid thing!”

‘Huh, how about that,’ I mused. ‘I guess that tradition died out in the war, too... Aww, now I’m gonna be disappointed whenever one speaks to me without rhyming...’ If I ever meet another one, that is.

“Why would you ask such a thing? Is that something else changelings do?”

Her question caught me from staring into space again. I shook my head to clear it of the curiosities of zebra linguistics, and refocused on the conversation.

“Er...no, changelings do not speak rhymes in every sentence. It used to be a thing Zebras did before the war… At least supposedly…”

“Before the war? So, are you really well educated, or are you like a really good looking ghoul or something? Minus the holes in your legs, of course.” A ghoul? What in the world was a ghoul? I turned to the newly named Carapace, the drone catching on to my confusion almost immediately and throwing a ‘brief’ explanation through the hivemind.

‘Ghoul. Infiltrator teams ran into them on numerous occasions. They are ponies, -and zebras in very rare cases- who’ve taken excessive amounts of magical radiation yet have not died. Many of them pre-war, these ghoul-ponies have lived for a very long time at the cost of their bodies looking decrepit and rotten. When the radiation rots the pony’s brain away to a sufficient degree, they turn ‘feral’ and are little more than vicious, snarling monsters.’

If there was one word I could use to describe him when he got like this, it’d be ‘boring’...

‘Thank you, Carapace.’

‘Hee…’

Well, he clearly liked that name.

Returning my attention to the mare, I figured I should probably stop giving her the impression that I go blank whenever I stop to process something. Lying and dancing around the subject after giving away so much information was going to be too much of a hassle. Especially with all these holes in my gut.

“Er, no, I’m not one of these ‘ghouls’ you speak of. Honestly haven’t heard much about them before.” She didn’t buy it.

“Not heard about ghouls? What, have you been living under a rock?” More like a few thousand tonnes of sand, but she didn’t really need to know that. With an annoyed sigh, the doctor left the room, returning moments later with my dress in her hands. She tossed it into my lap, placed a small glass filled with a foggy liquid on the bench, and then walked back out with a half-hearted “I’ll wait for you in the next room. Get dressed and take that second dose of painkiller there, and you can answer those questions I asked on the way.”

On the way? To what? It didn’t really matter, I suppose. I looked my dress over for a moment; the middle had been patched, albeit somewhat poorly, with an only vaguely similar bit of cloth. It’d have to do, so I asked Carapace to hand me the glass.

Gulping down the painkiller and slipping my dress back on -with a bit of difficulty given that I was still sitting on the bed-, I only just now realised I couldn’t see my Eyes Forward Sparkle. Bringing the PipBuck up to my face, I realised the interface wasn’t lit up. Groaning in annoyance, I felt around it with my hand until I found the power button. With a whir, it sputtered to life and text appeared in my vision again, the first two lines being ‘ERROR: POWER FAILURE DETECTED’, and ‘RELOADING LAST AUTOSAVE’.

I was greeted with my EFS popping into place again. The alicorn indicator faded in, its torso segment listed as ‘INJURED’. My wings, however, were still listed with question marks, the icon flashing the same way the torso had when I was shot; I could only assume it meant the pip-buck believed they were crippled.

The numbing sensation that had started fading returned when I drank the glass’ contents, so feeling it flow back into me gave me a few moments of bliss as I simply laid back and enjoyed it. Even so, I still felt a few lingering jabs around my innards as I twisted my body to get my legs over the side of the bed; leftover bullet fragments, no doubt. I had to get Carapace to put the egg back into its case, so as to be ready to help me should I lose my balance. As soon as I placed my hooves on the floor and lifted myself from the bed, I found my body suddenly wracked with a dozen different tiny pains. I stumbled, almost falling over in my numbed state, but I managed it.

I figured I may as well look upon the eggs myself before following the doctor outside, so I walked to the containers still settled in the corner. Crouching down, I opted to inspect the largest of the three, pulling the large orb from its protective case and holding it in front of my face after faintly tapping my horn against it. As when Carapace had done it, the orb shone as the grub inside began to glow. It's little nubby limbs fidgeted as its body twisted and wriggled within the confines of its egg, occasionally pushing against the sides of the shell with it’s short horn.

It was going to hatch very soon indeed.

‘Carapace, this one is close to hatching!’

‘I can see that, my queen, there hasn’t been anything else here to grab my attention.’

‘Stow the attitude or I shall revoke that name.’

‘Understood, my queen.’

‘Good. Dispose of the case for this one, we shan’t need it.’

Carapace, with a nod, went about checking on the other two eggs before dismantling the now-empty case. Sinking his fangs into the case’s surface, his horn flashed as he began siphoning the excess love energy out of it. As he went about that, I focused more on the egg, the glow fading from my previous spell. The grub inside fidgeted a little more, but eventually went still as I held the sphere to my chest. It seemed to press against the side of the shell closest to my body.

Carapace eventually brought my attention back from staring at the unhatched changeling, the other two cases strung over his back. With a noticeable clatter from his armor, we exited into the next room where the doctor was waiting; I couldn’t help but smirk as I got a faint hint of surprise as she gaped at my height. My little moment of reverie was cut short by a jerking sensation as my horn caught against the top of the doorframe, yanking my head back as I passed under it.

My widened eyes could only see the top of the doorframe and a small section of the ceiling beyond it. My ears, on the other hand, were greeted by the sound of stifled chuckles and snickering. I pulled my horn free and stood up with a grumble, glaring daggers at the doctor who currently seemed more focused on attempting to stop laughing at my blunder. She caught my withering stare and seemed to shut up... until her eyes moved an inch further upwards, and her face was immediately again full of laughter, this time without any show of hiding it. I snarled at her in an attempt to silence her, but I spotted a chuckling Carapace covering his mouth and pointing above my head. I reached up and felt around my horn, and my face flushed with further embarrassment as I realised pulling my horn free of the door had pulled some of the frame with it.

A good minute of laughter at my expense followed as we left the building, though I was somewhat thankful the others in the town staring at us were doing it more for our appearance rather than knowing the joke. The town... or settlement, I wasn’t quite sure... seemed to have an overall circular shape, walls mostly consisting of the same tree trunk walls I had seen from the badlands. Where there wasn’t wood, the walls were made from things like scrapped wagons and sheet metal. An enormous double-doored gate was visible in one of the walls; an old road sign nailed to one of the doors read ‘You are now leaving…’ with the rest of it had been scribbled out and ‘BARRICADE’ splattered on in dark red paint. At least, I hoped it was paint…

The doctor led us to one of the smaller buildings along the walls, a general store, if the poorly spelt sign was any indication; although given what the ponies did to themselves, I’d be surprised if any of them could actually read. The interior of the ‘Jenerul Stor’, as the sign had labeled it, was sparse, containing a single pony sleeping behind a desk with a wall of miscellaneous junk behind him.

“Hey Scrap Metal, you’ve got customers,” the doctor suddenly spoke out, jarring the stallion from his nap. Unsurprisingly, his face scrunched up in confusion and disgust when he saw Carapace. His eyes widened and pupils shrank when he spotted me, though his emotions changed from fear to wonder quite suddenly.

“So this is the Alicorn you were talking about, doc?” He eyed me with distaste. “From what I’d heard about, I hadn’t expected something a bit less nasty-looking.” Nasty!? “Does it talk?” It was more instinct than anything else, but that little bruise to my pride had me hissing in retaliation.

“Yes Scrap, she can talk. And no, she’s not an Alicorn as we thought. This is Deciduous; apparently she’s a changeling, and not just any. She’s the Queen..” A Queen, I mentally corrected him.

“A changeling?”

“Yes.”

“The mythical shapeshifters said to be able to change their appearance to look and sound like anypony and feed on their love?”

“That’s right.”

“Her?”

“Mhm.”

“...Get out of my store.”

“I’m serious!”

“I’m serious too, Syra. Get out of my store.” Okay, this was getting stupid. I shoved the ‘zony’ aside and planted my hands firmly on the desk, shoving my muzzle into the store owner’s.

“Look here ‘short, dark and skeptical’. Changeling or not, I’m here to do business. So you can either shut up and sell me things, or keep bickering like an old married couple and miss out on what I have to sell. Sound fair?” I didn’t give him any time to retort. ”Good! Carapace!” The changeling squeaked at the sudden mentioning of his name and hurried over. “The bag of valuables, please.” I felt him place it in my hand, not turning to look at him.

Holding it out to the stallion, he stuck his arm in and pulled out the first thing he could grab onto: a golden goblet, a treasure from a conquered hive long ago… and scarcely used since as little more than a paperweight.

I grinned as his jaw dropped. Almost immediately, he shut it and reached behind the desk, pulling out a small bag that rattled with the sound of small metal bits clashing against each other.

“One hundred caps, hands down.” Now then, let’s see if I can maximise my trade.

“Three hundred,” I countered.

“One-fifty.”

“Two-seventy-five.”

“Two hundred.”

“Two-fifty,” he stuttered, clearly unsure about whether to meet my offer any further. I could tell that he really wanted this thing, though.

“Two-ten. That’s all I’ve got. I’ll throw in this old ten-mil’ and a couple holsters too, if you’re still interested in selling.”

Hmm... Fair enough. Got to take what I can get…

I spent a good five minutes staring at the blocky chunk of metal that was apparently the 10mm pistol I had traded for, as well as the bag of what I found to be bottlecaps. I had to ask the doctor- Syra I believe- multiple times to confirm I hadn’t just been ripped off. But they were indeed both a firearm and a commonly-used type of currency.

Bottlecaps as currency, oh what a world I live in.

Carapace lifted the pistol from my hand to look at it, pulling the slide back and dropping the magazine out of the grip, inspecting it... How did he know how to do that?

My question would remain unanswered as he handed it back to me, picked up the magazine and started loading bullets into it... when did he get those?

Clearly, my insistence on figuring things out as I go was not helping. My senses had surely been dulled by two centuries of sitting on my throne and seeing if I could beat the wall in a staring contest. My assumption of this was further bolstered that the zony had disappeared a few minutes ago and I hadn’t noticed. My complaint-riddled train of thought was halted for the umpteenth time today as she tapped me on the shoulder, startling me.

“So listen, I just spoke with the ‘weaponsmith’ as he calls himself, and he wants to take a look at that pistol of yours.” I handed the bulky thing to her, but she just shook her head. “Not that one, the one you brought with you.” My eyes widened; how did she even know about that?

She seemed to catch on to my confusion as she responded to my question immediately.
“Carapace told me in exchange for not telling what those things were.” She pointed at the egg I had my other arm curled around, drawing my eyes to it. “Must be pretty important if something so conspicuous should be kept secret… not that that Pip-buck of yours isn’t special in and of itself.”

I spied the light of the afternoon sun passing through the egg shell, highlighting the silhouette of the wriggling grub inside;maybe it knew someone was talking about it. With a little smile, I returned my gaze to the Syra, nodding and standing up.
“Very well, I’ve nothing else to do. Show me the way.” The zony turned, gesturing with her head for me to follow.

I looked through more of the town as we were lead through it. Watchtowers occasionally stuck up from the wall marking the town’s perimeter, a pony with a long rifle in his hands standing at the top of each one. A small group of ponies was tending to a farm near the base of one of the towers, the long strands of dark green plant matter seeming quite out-of-place compared to the rare grassy weeds growing through the rough terrain beneath my hooves.

What really caught my attention was the animals one of the ponies was tending to. It looked to be a cow, but at the neck it split off into two different heads, the rest of its lumpy, hairless body a fleshy pink. It was quite unsettling to look at, to say the least.

The weaponsmith’s shop seemed to have few differences with the general store, the only major ones being the sign -which was, surprisingly, spelled correctly- and the metal bars over the windows. The interior was another story; weapons hung on the walls from pegs, the entire place reeked of gunpowder, and metal.

The owner stood behind the bench at the back of the store, the cyan-furred mare resting her elbows on the metal top as she polished the pistol in her hands with a damp rag. Looking up as we approached, she raised a single solitary eyebrow at my appearance. I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with her calm demeanor or a little offended at my visage not being as intimidating as usual.

“Good, you’ve brought her with you.” She stepped around the desk and stuck a dirty hand out, which I reluctantly shook. Bringing my palm to my face after made me scrunch up my nose at the smell of grease and brass. Brilliant, that smell is going to stick with me for ages now.

“Name’s Tinker,” The gunsmith uttered in her oddly calm attitude, she stuck her other hand out, still holding the rag. “May I see the weapon in question?” I was silent for a moment, a sudden elbow in my side from Syra urging me to do something. With a begrudging sigh, I reached into the pack and pulled out Yearling, handing it to her.

She eyed the revolver in her hands, bringing it back to her little bench and pulling a massive tome out from beneath the desk and setting it next to the weapon in question.

She flipped through the pages, eventually stopping and pointing to a picture on the paper, looking between it and Yearling. Eventually her eyes widened and she gestured me over. Had she looked up from the book at any point, she might’ve noticed me walk up beside her and start peering over her shoulder. The pistol pictured in the book resembled mine quite clearly, but without the fancy etchings and engravings.

“Huh, how about that… but where did you get this book? I was lead to believe a lot of pre-war books were destroyed or used for fire or food or whatever you ponies do with books.” The glare I received in response certainly dissuaded those ideas… especially the annoyed sigh I heard from Carapace. I made a mental note to file that under ‘maybe’.

“This is a modified version of this revolver in the book,” Tinker began. “The ‘Ironshod Dragoon’ was made during the earlier days of firearms in Equestria, back when the place was called ‘Ironshod & Son’s’. They made a few thousand of these before better revolvers and semi-automatic firearms replaced them. High calibre, but good luck finding any ammo for it.” I put the handful of bullets and spent casings I brought with me on the table.

“Let’s see; eight rounds, four empty casings, casing condition seems-” She suddenly gasped, gently placing the ammunition down on the table and backing against the wall. “Are you mad, you crazy bug-alicorn thing?! The blasting cap on most of these has been hit by a firing pin already!”

“Yeah, so? What of it?”

“‘What of it’? Do you not realise how unstable something like that is? It could’ve gone off in my face!”

After yelling at me for a few more minutes, Tinker eventually unloaded all the ammunition with primed blasting caps from the revolver. She handed me a crude leather holster to put it in so I didn’t accidentally shoot myself and then shooed out of the store before I gave her something else that could blow up in her face. Well, that wasn’t very polite of her...

Further being lead around by Syra brought me to the centre of the town, where a rather nondescript pedestal not far from the gate was surrounded by grooves in the sand. Wagon tracks or something perhaps? Did ponies even still use those?

“Yeah, some do from time to time” Syra said when I asked. “Mostly traders and the more large-scale caravans. Some either have slaves pulling them, or have old gem-powered engines or talismans running. Some just like to pull their homes around with them.” Huh… neat, I guess.

“Either way, as I explained before, I need to get to Baltimare if I’m to find more of my changelings.” Syra turned to me, looking thoughtful, before speaking again.

“Well, I have one idea, but before I voice it, I’d like you to answer a question of mine: you’re a Queen, correct? Your drones more or less come from you, don’t they? What’s stopping you from just starting your hive again?” That… was a good question, but at least I had an answer to it.

“Because, my dear zony, I do not have the love reserves to support rebuilding my hive from its current location, it takes around a day of travel through the badlands to get to it by flying, and the drones would not grow quickly enough to be able to replenish them through outside work. Additionally, the hive itself would need my presence to keep the new hivemind stable.

“In short; no matter how you look at it, the hive would starve itself from that location. So I’ll either need a new hive, or I need to bring together enough changelings to make returning to the old one viable.”

Syra returned to her thoughtful look, digesting my response. “I see… Well that answers my question, so I suppose I can tell you my idea.”

Syra’s suggestion had ended up being a matter of waiting for the next trader caravan to come through and sticking with them until I got to the next nearest settlement, a place called Rail’s End that made use of a stretch of railway line to get through some of the fiercer parts of the Equestrian wasteland that ponies rarely trod. As we waited and the shadows grew longer, I had time to work on a disguise I could use for future pony interaction. I settled on a black-furred unicorn mare, opting to keep my mane’s natural colour. My dress changed to match my disguise’s shorter height, though the patch around my stomach retained its presence, much to my annoyance. Uninspired, but functional enough.

I was just starting to work out a name with begrudging assistance from Syra when the gate opened. In rolled an old covered wagon, the pony driver sporting a wide and friendly smile on his muzzle, bouncing his head from side to side and moving to a beat only he seemed to hear. A small group of ponies were settled on the roof with him, looking around and waving to those who would wave back.

His cart, a mixture of wood and metal, clanked along calmly, despite the fairly loud and exposed bit of machinery at the front that I could only assume was an engine of some sort.
The wagon slowed to a halt as the gate closed behind it, the ponies hopping off of the roof and opening the doors along the sides and rear of the vehicle to reach inside. They began pulling out crates that they hefted up with both arms and began carrying them towards the general store.

The lead pony, the one who had been bobbing his head to an unheard song, approached me with his confident smile and a faint emotional aroma wafting around him. It was subtle enough that I couldn’t quite place what it was supposed to be. With a huff, he put down the crate he was carrying, placed a hoof on it and leant on his knee, still grinning like an idiot at me.

“Hey there pretty thing, haven’t seen you before on my usual runs to this town, what brings you here?” The amount of smarm in that grin of his was enough to make me groan, though I had to drown it out with a nervous smile. I was not used to behaving differently in a disguise, and it was very tempting to tell him to jump off a bridge, but I needed him if we were to get anywhere any time soon… and I doubt there were very many bridges of suitable height left, let alone anywhere around here.

The stallion continued to hold his gaze with my eyes, smirk dripping with a lustful infatuation. The loose vest on his torso was unbuttoned to show off the surprisingly immaculate tattoo on his chest of a red-furred mare with a suggestive smile on her lips. His patched brown pants seemed fairly uninteresting, despite the myriad of different fabrics holding them together… probably because most of them were other shades of brown.

“I’m… Autumn Breeze…” I mentally groaned at my continuously awful improvisation abilities and my odd jaw movements trying to account for my shortened pony teeth compared to the sharper, more carnivorous changeling jaw. “And I’m... seeking transport on your caravan to get to the next town.” My delivery was awkward, trying my best to keep the sneer from my face. Carapace, having donned his own dark green earth pony disguise, had remained quiet, but I could just imagine him wanting to scoff at my poor delivery.

The caravan pony either seemed to not notice my odd manner of speaking or didn’t care, as he continued to beam and offered me a hand to help me into the wagon. I returned the smiled and nervously accepted his assistance.

“Well, my lovely mare, I do believe I can help you with that. The Morning Glory caravan service is at your disposal… for about 50 caps per pony, of course.” I mentally rolled my eyes at the name while he felt me up with his eyes. Disgusting. “Though for you, sweet thing; I’ll give you a discount if you give me a little smooch on the cheek...” Not the most ideal of trades in my favour… but it wouldget me out of here, so...

Having to make do with what I got, I begrudgingly agreed to very lightly peck him on that grinning cheek of his, and instead of 100 bottle caps, had to only pay 80… a whole 20 caps cheaper, don’t I feel special? I couldn’t afford to go giving away what trinkets I still had from the hive left and right, but still.

I begrudgingly climbed aboard the cart and waited as the pony in question went about his business. I was bored within five minutes, deciding to use the time to fiddle with my new Pip-Buck some more, despite how absolutely awkward the thing still felt on my wrist. At least I could just remove it if I so desired; I could just unhook the latch and be rid of it, no special tools required. On the other hand, its injury detection systems could be quite useful, and the S.A.T.S. spell listed in the wall of text that flooded my vision every reboot could prove handy in combat; provided it didn’t shut down on me like it did when I was shot.

A good hour later and the pony in question, still smirking, finally left the last building he had attended to, having exhausted the crate of goods he had carried with him.. Hauling himself back onto the cart, he waited a bit longer for his entourage, Carapace, and Syra to join us, and we set off.

As we rolled out of Barricade and into the open wasteland, the town gates shutting behind us, I felt the need to speak and break a bit more of the metaphorical ice.

“So,” I began, pausing as I struggled to think of something to say. “What’s your name? I can’t imagine something as… distinct… as Morning Glory is your name… is it?” The stallion immediately burst into laughter, shaking his head.

“No, no. Not at all, but I can understand how you’d come to that conclusion, given how I introduced it, but Morning Glory is the name of my little caravan company… even if it’s just me and these four, it keeps up in caps and good people in supply of stuff they need. Myself included.” He gestured to the two stallions and three mares riding with us, throwing a smirk at me.

I looked his compatriots over, then glanced back at him, still curious.

“So who might you be, then?” I asked, and then immediately regretted it as I saw one of his partners pull up an old radio and press the worn-out ‘play’ button.

A somewhat jazzy tune began playing as the ponies began nodding their heads to the beat, then lightly slapping their hands against their thighs or nearby objects as my ever-so-gracious host stood up and cleared his throat, beginning to sing. Oh maker, what have I done?

“Oooooooh-well I’m the type of guy who will never settle down,
Where pretty mares are, well you know that I’m around,
I kiss ‘em and I love ‘em, cus’ to me they’re all the same,
I hug ‘em an’ I squeeze ‘em, they don’t even know my name”

He struck a pose, throwing his arms out to the air as his entourage began to sing along, humming and oohing in tune along with him. One of the stallions brought his hands up to his mouth in the motions replicating playing the saxophone that began blaring with his chorus.

“They call me The Wanderer,
Yeah, The Wanderer,
I roam around, around, around, around, around…”

He didn’t even hesitate to start his next verse as his little backing entourage continued their tune, gesturing to the three mares accompanying him, and then the tattoo on his chest as he sang.

“Well there’s Flow on my left, and there’s Daisy on my right,
And Lily is the girl that I’ll be with tonight.
But when she asks me which one I love the best,
I tear open my shirt and I go ‘Oh Rosie on my chest’
‘Cause I’m The Wanderer, yeah The Wanderer,
I roam around, around, around, around,”

I made a mental note to at some point ask how exactly a tattoo on a chest consisting of fur was supposed to work.

“Oh well I roam from town to town,
I go through life… without a care!
And I’m as happy as a clown,
I with my two fists of iron but I’m goin’ nowhere, no”

Brandishing a pair of pistols seemingly from nowhere, he spun them on his fingers, tossing them into the air and catching them again as he began the next verse.

“Yeah I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around,
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town,
And when I find myself, falling for some girl,
Yeah, I hop right onto this cart of mine and drive around the world.

Yeah I’m The Wanderer,
Yeah, a Wanderer,
I roam around, around, around, around

Let’s go we’re lettin’ go~”

He then let his little backup troupe do their own little humming bit as a sort of mid-point to the song, the faux-saxaphone player going into a solo, and I took the time to look around. Noticing that Carapace had begun swaying from side to side with the beat, I admit it wasn’t long before I started doing the same; this song was catchy. “The Wanderer,” as he seemed to fancy himself, soon picked up with his opening verse again as a finisher.

“Oh yeah, I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around,
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town~
And when I find myself-a fallin’ for some girl,
Yeah, I hop right into this cart of mine and-a drive around the world
Yeah I’m The Wanderer,
yeah, The Wanderer,
I roam around, around, around, around…”

He continued as I turned to watch Barricade slowly fade into the distance behind us; this thing moved faster than expected. Oh well, I guess we’re starting off on our adventure… I could only hope it got better from here on out.

...Why did I get the sinking feeling that wasn’t going to be the case?

Author's Note

Here it is! I FINALLY finished it! And I'm really.... not that proud of it, honestly ;w;

But I've been on-and-off with this chapter for over a year, I am done with it. I just want to get the next one underway. I apologise for any inconsistancies, feel free to point them out and I'll get to them. I'm just really fed up with looking this chapter over in Google Docs.

But hey, on the plus side, the story's got a new picture. And it's a fair bit longer than the last ones c:

Enjoy... I hope c: